dministration. And so far were the opponents of
the Reform Bill from objecting to this infraction of the Treaty of Union
that they were disposed to go still farther. I well remember the night
on which we debated the question, whether Members should be given to
Finsbury, Marylebone, Lambeth, and the Tower Hamlets. On that occasion,
the Tories attempted to seduce the Irish Reformers from us by promising
that Ireland should have a share of the plunder of the metropolitan
districts. After this, Sir, I must think it childish in gentlemen
opposite to appeal to the Fifth Article of the Union. With still greater
surprise, did I hear the right honourable gentleman the Secretary for
Ireland say that, if we adopt this amendment, we shall make all landed
and funded property insecure. I am really ashamed to answer such an
argument. Nobody proposes to touch any vested interest; and surely
it cannot be necessary for me to point out to the right honourable
gentleman the distinction between property in which some person has a
vested interest, and property in which no person has a vested interest.
That distinction is part of the very rudiments of political science.
Then the right honourable gentleman quarrels with the form of the
amendment. Why, Sir, perhaps a more convenient form might have been
adopted. But is it by cavils like these that a great institution should
be defended? And who ever heard the Established Church of Ireland
defended except by cavils like these? Who ever heard any of her
advocates speak a manly and statesmanlike language? Who ever heard any
of her advocates say, "I defend this institution because it is a good
institution: the ends for which an Established Church exists are such
and such: and I will show you that this Church attains those ends?"
Nobody says this. Nobody has the hardihood to say it. What divine,
what political speculator who has written in defence of ecclesiastical
establishments, ever defended such establishments on grounds which will
support the Church of Ireland? What panegyric has ever been pronounced
on the Churches of England and Scotland, which is not a satire on the
Church of Ireland? What traveller comes among us who is not moved to
wonder and derision by the Church of Ireland? What foreign writer on
British affairs, whether European or American, whether Protestant or
Catholic, whether Conservative or Liberal, whether partial to England or
prejudiced against England, ever mentions the Church