The great debate on the Irish Church began on Monday
with a singularly sober and statesmanlike speech from Mr. Gladstone, not without eloquence and not without playfulness, but mainly distinguished by its lucid, practical exposition of his propositions, and its prudent tenderness towards all the vested interests. The gist of his resolutions was, he said, reserving all existing interests, to put an absolute end in Ireland to a salaried or stipendiary clergy paid by the State. He would extend the same principles of equit- able indulgence to all bodies like the Catholics of Maynooth, or the Presbyterians who receive Regium Don urn, that he proposes to extend to the Established clergy. He did not propose in any ease to rob the Irish Church of its fabrics,—or of its vicarages and parsonages,—supposing that any guarantee could be given that they should be kept in repair and applied to similar religious pur- poses. The private proprietors of all advowsons would, of course, be compensated. Also all private endowments recently bestowed upon the Anglican Church would be held sacred, and Mr. Glad- stone would not even absolutely negative the right of young clergymen who had taken orders, in expectation of Irish livings, to some compensation. Mr. Gladstone estimated that, taking all these compensations and deductions into account, from three-fifths to two-thirds of the whole value of the National Church property, as calculated at any one moment, would remain in the hands of the Anglican Communion in Ireland. Of course, in considering this estimate, it must be remembered that the immediate life-interest is so large a proportion of the value of every perpetual annuity, that Mr. Gladstone's estimate does not mean that thirty or forty years hence the property left in the hands of the State would not be indefinitely more than this. It was only of the present value at any one moment that he was speaking. And this three-fifths or two-thirds would not only be "possessed," but "enjoyed," by the Anglican Communion — not "held amidst an estranged and alienated population, but enjoyed with the perfect and cordial goodwill of all sects, parties, and persuasions, both here and in Ireland." Mr. Gladstone intended to ask for power to prevent new appointments, the vesting of new interests, by his second and third resolutions, not in order to bind the new Parliament, but to keep out of its way difficulties which the creation of new livings (Mr. Gladstone named two recently created for parishes in each of which there were but four Anglicans), and the vesting of new ecclesiastical interests, is constantly multiplying. His resolutions, he said, and not Lord Stanley's amendment, showed true con- sideration for the new Parliament.
