inging itself
before the notice of Parliament every week through the official reports
of the disturbances which were taking place in various parts of Ireland.

The House of Lords had appointed a committee to inquire into the whole
subject. The committee reported that a complete extinction of the
tithe system was demanded, not only in the interests of Ireland but in
the interests of the State Church itself, and suggested, as a means of
getting out of the difficulty, that the tithes might be commuted for a
charge upon land or by an exchange for an investment in land. This
meant, in other words, that the collection of tithes should be devolved
upon the landlord, leaving him to repay himself by a corresponding
addition to the rent which he asked from his tenants. The House of
Commons also appointed a committee to inquire into the subject, and the
recommendation of that committee was in substance very much the same as
the recommendation made by the committee appointed by the House of
Lords.

The Government then took up the question, and in 1832 Lord Althorp
announced that it was the intention of ministers to submit to the House
of Commons a scheme of their own as a temporary settlement of the Irish
tithe question, and out of which was to be developed, in time, a
measure for the complete removal of the difficulty. A very brief
description will serve to explain the nature of {212} this measure.
The Government proposed to advance a certain sum of money for the
relief of the tithe-owners who had not been able to recover what the
law held to be their due, and in the meantime to apply themselves to
the preparation of some scheme which might transfer the tithe burden
from the occupiers to the owners of the land. The Government thus
admitted that at the moment they did not see their way altogether out
of the tithe difficulty, but promised to apply their minds to the
discovery of some final and satisfactory settlement, and undertook
until then to pay to incumbents the arrears of tithes, and to collect
the money as well as they could from the indebted occupiers. In point
of fact, Lord Althorp and his colleagues proposed to become the
tithe-collectors themselves and to let any loss that might be incurred
fall, for the time, upon the State and the national taxpayers. The
plan was tried for a while, and we need hardly say that it proved
altogether unsatisfactory. The Government had no better means of
compelling the farmers to p