TOPICS OF THE DAY.

ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS: THE IRISH CHURCH.

ON Monday, the House of Commons will be called upon to de- cide a question, the importance of which, in the actual state of the British empire, is so vast, that all other subjects appear trivial when cotnoared with it. It depends on the vote of the National Representatives whether Catholic Ireland is to be pacified or exasperated; whether she is to be treated as an integral part of the United Kingdom, possessing equal claims with Eng- laud and Scotland to righteous laws and just government, or to continue subject to the savage dominion of the conqueror, as long as such dominion can possibly he maintained. The history of the civilized world presents no example of such an other institution as the Irish Church. We used to hear of the dospotisin of NAPOLEON; and the " Continental Despots'. is a flimiliar phrase; but none of these ever abused. the power of conquest as the English Government has abused it in her treat- ment of Ireland. That this tyranny has been practised under cover of regard for the Christian religion, renders it unspeakably more elbow in itself, and more exasperating to its victims. Every one knows that religious persecution is more intoler- able than any other species of oppression. Yet this is what the Irish Catholics have had to submit to for centuries from England. It is a system of clerical extortion, of religious tyranny, which has been upheld in Ireland by the bayonet, at a frightful cost of Irish blood and of British treasure.

The question to be decided on Monday is, whether this system is to be mitigated, or to be maintained? Some believe that the continuance of the Tory Ministers in office, or their dismissal, is involved in the vote of Monday next; but this is, comparatively, a matter of very trifling interest. The important question is, whether the Reformed Parliament will sanction the principle of compelling the Catholic population of Ireland to pay more than is sufficient for the maintenance of a Protestant Establishment in that country, with the full knowledge, the admitted certainty, that to upheld that principle, it will be necessary to continue the application of the same means that have for centuries rendered Ireland the scene of discord and bloodshed. This subject will be fahly brought before the Reformed Parliament, for the first time, on Monday. There will be no possibility of evading a direct vote for or against the principle, which, in whatever terms it may be expressed, must be laid down in the motion of Lord done Russso.L—the principle, namely, that the income of the Protestant Establishment in Ireland should be reduced to a scale carresponding with the extent of the Protestant population, and the surplus placed at the disposal of Parliament. The right of Parliament to interfere with the property of the Church is denied by some. According to this doctrine, were the Protestant Episcopalians in Ireland diminished in number to five from five hundred thousand, they would still have a good title to the whole of the property now engrossed by their body. The ar- gmnent is capable of this reductio ad absurdum ; and is unworthy of more notice. We do not anticipate that it will be employed on Monday by any but the most ignorant of the bigots; for their own recent support of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Irish Tithe resolutions precludes all, who are not utterly destitute of reasoning powers, from denying the right of the State to interfere with clerical pro- perty. By those resolutions, one-fourth of the income derivable from tithes, now legally due to the Clergy, is given up—and to whom ? Why, for the most part, to Catholic occupiers of laud—to the same who now claim a share in the surplus of the property of the Protestant Church. The House of Commons therefore, under the immediate guidance of Sir ROBERT PEEL, has consented to alienate for purposes not ecclesiastical, one-fourth of the tithe income of the Irish Church.

But it may be said, that this was done from sheer necessity. We believe it. The party now predominant in the King's coun- cils have never yielded an abuse to any thing except necessity. But is this an argument to lay before the Reformed House of Commons ? Is it statesmanlike, or is it just? We must recollect, however, with whom we arc reasoning; and, instead of talking to the High Church party about wisdom or justice, we ask them whether the same power which in 1829 forced the Duke of WEL- LINGTON to yield Catholic Emancipation, and has now com- pelled him to abande:i as hopeless the collection of tithes in Ire- land, cannot, if exercised in the same way by the same hands, compel the appropriation of the surplus of Irish Church property to the wants of the community at large? In order to make good a negative reply to this question, it will be necessary to prove that the term" rent-charge" has a magical influence denied to "corn- position. The Catholic tenants of tithes refused to pay the composition—how can you force them to pay the rent-charge? It is childish to say that the landowner must pay it; for he will not pay the Clergy what he cannot recover from his tenantry; and the danger that in attempting to act as tithe-proctor for the Clergy, be may lose his rent altogether, is what no prudent land- lord will willingly incur. It has been suggested, that the settlement of ecclesiastical matters made at the time of the Union will preclude Parliament from curtailing the revenue of the Church in Ireland. Sir ROBERT PEEL, and all who supported Catholic Emancipation, should be cautious how they advance this doctrine. Indepen- adently of the glaring absurdity involved in it, that the existing

Legislature is bound by statutes of the English and Irish Parlia- ments of 1800, statutes whieh they are repealing and altering

every week,—it should be remembered that this high ground was totally abandoned by the Tory Ministers in 1829, and that the principle of acting as circumstances required was then fully maintained; treaties, Acts of Parliament, and Coronation Oaths to the contrary, notwithstanding. It is assumed that Lord Jon rs RUSSELL'S motion goes only to the curtailment of the superfluous revenue of the Irish Church,

and the right of the Legislature to dispose of the surplus ; and it is understood that even the more ardent Reformers will be content with the carrying out of this principle. We confess that we cannot see the justice or propriety (we say nothing of the ex- pediency) of stopping here. Upon what ground is a church establishment justifiable at all? It is no part of religion, as

PALEY observes, but only the means of inculcating it ; but to maintain an establishment with the property of all to teach doctrines rejected by the mass of the nation, is opposed to every principle on which such an institution ought to rest. WARBURTON, as appositely quoted by our contemporary the Courier, affirmed the necessity of the State's allying itself " with the largest of the

religious societies." When this is done, the Establisment is safe; for it has something like reason as well as power on its side. But when the scale is turned—when the Dissenters become a great majority—then the Establishment ought either to be pulled down, or its property and privileges should be transferred to some other sect.

The Church in Ireland has always been the Church of a very small minority. The original defect in its title has never been got over ; on the contrary, it lets become constantly more glaring, with the constantly increasing majority of those who reject its tenets and deny its authority. Moreover, it was founded in blood, and enriched by rapine. Its possessiens were the fruit of confis- cation and rubbery. There is not a single bright spot in its history. Founded in wrong, maintained by the bayonet, hated by the mass of the people, singularly deficient in wise and virtuous divines,

notorious as a nest of political bigots, and infamous for its inter- nal abuses,—how can the Legislature, the Government or any

country, be justified in maintaining such an establishment as this? Its abolition seems a more righteous measure than merely curtailing the incomes of those who will succeed to the existing incumbents.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S motion will be supported by the whole force of the Liberals, and consistently supported too by every one of them. This is denied by the Times (and the denial will doubt- less be repeated in the debate) as respects those who voted with the GREY Ministry against Mr. WARD'S 1110II011 in the last Parlia-

ment. But it must be remembered, that in that vote no rejection

of the principle of Mr. WARD'S motion was implied. On the contrary, it was avowed by Ministers, and all but their Tory sup-

porters, that they acknowledged the principle. There was no

sound reason, certainly, for delaying to record this acknowledgment, after the Cabinet had been freed from the STANLEY party ; but

at the same time, as it was plausibly argued, there was not perhaps any very urgent necessity for affirming, formally, the abstract propo- sition, as the men in power acknowledged its truth, and promised to act upon it as soon as the Report of the Commission they had issued was prepared. But the Report has not yet been laid before the House; and the Tory Ministers may urge the same argument that prevailed with the majority of the last Parliament to postpone the recogni- tion of the great principle of Appropriation. It by no means fol- lows, hcwever, that Ministers who are avowedly hostile to the right of Parliament to deal with the surplus of the Irish Church property—whose Government is formed upon that principle of hostility, if it has any principle at all—should meet with the same

forbearance as the Cabinet of Earl GREY. The object of the Li- beral majority last session was to fortify Lords Gitev and AL- THORP, 110I to annoy those favourite Ministers, far less to turn

them out. But for what purpose were the majority of the present House elected, if not to thwart and displace the Tories, and re- construct a Liberal Administration ? Apparent (not real) incon- sistency, therefore, would be justifiable under the altered circum- stances of the case.

There is, however, no such disadvantage in the position which the Liberals will take up on Monday next. The decision of this all-important question has been unwarily pressed upon the House by the Tory Premier himself. He declares that it is of the utmost consequence that his Tithe Bill should be passed with the least possible delay, but at the same time admits that the question of appropriation must be previously settled; and he promised not to press his Tithe Bill, on the avowed understanding that Monday was to be the day for the decision of the House upon the subject. There exists, then, according to the opinion of the Minister, an urgent necessity, which did not exist last year, for coming to an early vote on the question of appropriation.

If it is said that it remains uncertain whether there will be any surplus of Irish Church property at all, we reply, that this does not in the least interfere with the affirmation or denial of the distinct and intelligible proposition which will be submitted to the House on Monday. At the same time, it is almost an insult to any one not blinded by bigotry, baseness, or sheer fatuity, to assert that the revenues of the Irish Church are not more than sufficient for the Protestant population, taking as the standard what is required for the religious instruction of any other people in the world.