stay the progress of such an abuse. I have, in the preceding pages, shewn the exercise of that right over every species of church property, and it should not be withheld in this the most trying crisis of the empire.

"The state, however, must not be guilty of injustice towards those who have vested estates for life in such dignities, and this brings me to my next position.

"Second-Let the present archbishops, bishops, deans, &c. be paid . henceforth out of the treasury, and have no further connexion with it, or control over, the see or chapter lands.

"It must not, however, be supposed, that the tenderness for vested interests could require, that their full yearly revenues should be so guaranteed. After demonstrating the trusts to which their property has been subjected, and the dereliction thereof only since the Reformation, a deduction of 25 per cent. cannot appear unreasonable; particularly when it is further considered, with what peculiar ease and certainty they are to receive the other three-fourths; free from the charges of law-agents, stewards, bailiffs, &c. and with the additional indulgence of their demesne and glebe lands, of which according to my plan, they should have the uncontrolled enjoyment during their respective lives. The incomes to be allowed to such prelates as have made returns to parliament, should of course be calculated according to their own admissions. But in order to ascertain what would be fair and reasonable in other cases,

"Third-Let the commissioners be empowered and instructed to ascertain the actual value of all such ecclesiastical dignitaries, as have made no returns thereof to parliament, with a view to their proportionate remuneration.

"I think that on the same grounds, similar deductions should likewise be made in the treasury salaries appointed for these.

"Fourth-Let said commissioners be enabled and directed, to examine into and report what leases, charges, and incumbrances affect said see and chapter lands, with a view to their adjustment also.

"These are interests of apparently greater delicacy to adjust, as they must, with more propriety, be considered private property. Private property, however, subtracted from the legitimate uses of the church estates, and in the honestest view that the present crisis will permit, only claiming consideration commensurate with the interests of the present lessees, and of such incumbrances as could attach upon their determinable tenures. The bishops have at present the power of determining these tenures by declining to renew, and thus making them wholly see property: nor are instances wanting of such assertion of right. The two last Bishops of Derry, and the present Bishops of Kilmore and Kildare, have, I understand, acted upon it, and thus shaken off many of the charges and incumbrances affecting their church lands. I would, however, propose, that the lessees of bishops' leases, having proved their interests before the said commissioners, should be allowed a full renewal of twenty-one years on the terms of the rents and fines to which they prove themselves at present subject. Or an option might be given to each lessee, to take out a lease for his own life, if he preferred it to a twenty-one years' demise, or for a

term of forty-one years in cases of city bishops' leases. In all instances, however, a scale of tax or cess should be laid upon their interest, so much per pound or so much per acre, in the inverse ratio of their rent, greater in the proportion than that was smaller. If it were necessary to be so minute as to define the amount of this cess, I would state 2s. 6d. per acre as the maximum, and tenpence or a shilling per acre as the minimum; while on the other hand, certain discounts should be allowed upon payment into the board or bank within fixed times, and penalties affixed for non-payment on such days. Those who have purchased the interests of such lessees, could not, I think, complain of this arrangement, as they have bought subject to such contingencies. The latter class, I believe it will be found, scarcely pay more than ten years' purchase, and will be well repaid their outlay in the terms so secured to them. Neither could the under tenants of such lessees or purchasers be injured, they would remain undisturbed, and be, I doubt not, better off and more liberally dealt with, under a board of commissioners, than under any individual. There certainly, I submit, should also be a species of tenantright indulgence to bishops' lessees, not I think to purchase the lands in their possession, but to take demises on longer or even permanent interests, on a scale of reasonably increased rents.

"With all these considerations can it be deemed a hardship, that those interests should be thus determined in the years 1853 or 1873, as the case may be, after a twenty-one or a forty-one years' notice, and where every previous act of renewal has reminded the proprietor of the determinableness of his holding; and is it known that there are many families in Ireland, who bear without reproval or appeal, the sudden, the almost instantaneous privation of the estates, which their ancestors for generations back had treated as their own, and which, in ignorance of reversions, hastily declared in the crown on the forfeitures of nearly two centuries since, have been charged with debts of duty or bequests of affection?

"I need not say I allude to the assertions of the crown titles, as recently enforced under the management of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. I have myself suffered under it with very peculiar severity, having lost an estate in Connaught, which, in the hands of one of the last heirs male, was supposed to be charged with incumbrances, to liquidate which, as well as to enhance the estate by planting and improvement, the profits of a property, which I have in Leinster, were lent and advanced during a long minority, and of course in total ignorance of the crown's reversion. The Connaught property was willed to me as in kindred, and I might say in justice it should, but a discoverer manœuvred, by circumstances I will not detail, to get into possession of the estate and title deeds, and informing the crown of its alleged reversion, deprived me of the means which open in such cases to the person in possession, of sifting, and perhaps defeating this harsh exercise of the royal prerogative. That discoverer now

See Letter on Church Property, Dub. Er. Post, 6th Dec. 1831. VOL. I. NO. III. 2 E

enjoys the property under a fresh patent, and when I memorialled even for the moneys that had been so lent during my infancy, I was answered, that I was not the discoverer, (I am proud to think I was not!) and that I could fix no claim on the estate, as the crown's reversionary right was indefeasible by a subject!' That answer is most pertinent to many points in this treatise."

"Fifth-Let said commissioners ascertain generally what proxies, refections, synodals, &c. are payable by the Protestant clergy to their prelates, and more particularly what pensions, annuities, &c. are payable to bishops or other dignitaries off the lands of laymen. "The former account should be taken, I would respectfully submit, with a view to the abolition of such incumbrances on the working clergy; and the latter with the object of their being henceforth made payable to the crown, or purchased by those whose lands are affected therewith such purchase money, where accruing, to be applied in clearing off the lay impropriate tithes.

"Sixth-Let said commissioners institute effective inquiries as to the whole church lands, whether see, dean and chapter, glebe or demesne lands, their acreable contents, situation, boundaries, quality of soil, local circumstances, and annual value, for the purpose of their being better leased, managed, and cultivated in future.

"What a quantity of waste lands would be thus offered for cultivation, improvement, and employment of the poor! Whilst all those impediments, so frequent and insuperable in Irish titles, and which have hitherto paralysed the exercise of the most laudable designs for public works, are here utterly unknown; the title in all these lands being what is commonly termed a maiden title, or only subject to the lessees' equities, herein designed to be provided for.

"The waste lands of fourteen sees alone are calculated at 144,775

"A great proportion of the lands of Raphoe diocese are moor and mountain, and I believe still more of those in the united sees of Cork and Ross. Indeed when it is understood that the church lands have, in most instances, never been surveyed, and that the returns have been taken entirely on the information of the tenants, the quantity and quality of these unexplored districts are incalculable!

"I am aware that some of these waste lands are included in the demises to the bishops' lessees, but surely there can be little objection to taking these into better management, equally with those in the bishops' own tenure; provided sufficient be left for the purposes of

* I cannot but remark that those circumstances are of a date previous to the accession of his present Majesty.

fuel, or the ordinary indulgence of the cultivated portion of the premises contained in their respective demises.

"Seventh-Let all clerical tithes, or tithes that by grant or purchase are now church property, be totally abolished; with all due consideration for the becoming maintenance of the present incumbents.

"Let a Protestant clergy remove themselves from the reproach of grasping the substance and labour of a Catholic population, without equivalent or requital, and the people will begin to respect them, as they then should, when they would find them residing amongst them, without any of those irreverent conflicts which every summer's sun corrupts into existence.

"It is urged, however, that tithes are properly an assessment on nobody; that they are neither paid by the landlord nor by the tenant; that the former never had them, and the latter has no right to them! I totally deny the premises. Such characteristics, had they ever appertained to tithes, have ceased since the Reformation. Catholic tithes were paid by the people to their own pastors, as trustees for the clergy, the church, and the poor; and the above assertion might with some propriety be applied to these tithes; but the whole force of the objection ceases, when it is answered that these tithes continue, though in another form, to be offered by Catholics to their pastors; while what is now called tithes is, as regards the Catholic population, a supperadded charge of the tenths of the produce, &c., laid on like any other parliamentary cess, as e. g. the land tax in England, the window tax in Ireland, &c. &c. Nay, worse than this, all other taxes are for some common national objects, but tithes are for uphold. ing an establishment with which the Catholic has no concern, and which, without the persecution of proselytism, it must be the wish of his most pious moments to see lessened by the honest extension of his own faith. I admit that the equity of this defence exclusively applies to Catholic tithe-payers; but they are, of course, the immense majority, and the utterly aggrieved of Irishmen.

66

Again, it is said, the landowner purchased, and the farmer took his lease, each being allowed a proportionate abatement in his purchase and his rent on account of tithes, and that, therefore, this charge should not now be abolished. Surely, there is no weight in this deduction either. The instances of the land-tax and window-tax equally apply to it, and yet more the precedent afforded by the abolition of the agistment tithe.

"I say it without fear of contradiction, the assessment of tithes from a Catholic population for the support of a Protestant church, is a TAX, and a tax of the most oppressive description; a tax on all that the labour, time, and money of the cultivator bestowed on the land, can produce. In justice and equity, therefore, that tax should be repealed.

"But yet more: I trust I have shewn that, even if the exactions now claimed from Catholics for Protestant clergymen, could be considered properly tithes,' even the duties which were their essential incidents and charges are wholly neglected; or what is yet more unjust, their performance is tenaciously required at the superadded expense of

the people. I have already alluded to the heavy grants made by parliament for building churches, and the immense sums annually, voted in vestries for repairs, and strictly Protestant uses. Will it be believed in England, that here, even the elements of the Protestant sacrament are assessed upon the Catholic population. Need I add, that although the clergy should have kept schools, and were sworn to do so, the people were again taxed for this also, and yet obliged, when the schools, for which they were so assessed were established, to found other additional places of instruction, from the intolerance of those for which they had twice paid their fullest means. Oh! what an accumulation of misrule-oppression and extortion !-Let tithes be promply abolished!

"I have never associated myself with the party-spirit of Ireland, while it could for a moment be considered sectarian. I may, therefore, take some credit for an honest and impartial opinion, and I again say-let tithes be forthwith abolished!

"The present incumbents are, however, to be provided for, and if my proposition is received with an indulgence equal to my wish to promote the general good, I think I could suggest how that too might be accomplished. In the first place, I would respectfully recommend that a deduction of one-fourth, or 25 per cent. should be made on all livings of a value above £600 per annum, and a deduction of oneeighth from all livings that rate yearly from £200 to £600, but no deduction on any under £200. Where the tithe composition has been agreed to, it should be the rule of estimate; where not, the valuation may be made by the commissioners, as in the case of uncertified dignities. This will relieve the Protestant clergy from the heart-burnings and privations that they now suffer, and still leave them, independent of the enjoyment of their glebes, and their usual dues for christenings, funerals, marriages, &c., ample funds for the honest and respectable support of their families. It will not reduce them to a dinner of herbs; yet I am sure there are many of them who, opening their hearts to their countrymen, would cry out in the inspired language of charity, Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith !-Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith !"*

"Supposing then, that the incomes of the parochial clergy are thus to be adjusted, the tithes from whence their former revenues were derived being abolished, it becomes necessary that they too, like the bishops, should be supported with stipends paid by the state, free of all uncertainty-all costs of appraising or collecting-all summer campaigns of hostility. A sum of at most £500,000 for the first year, and less after, would be thus required to satisfy the present incumbents. Towards this, I calculate that the bishops' lands and pensions would, by the tax chargeable on them and their lessees, return at least £85,000 per annum, over and above the bishops', &c. salaries, while that on the deans and other dignitaries, and their lessees, would bring in yearly about £65,000. Only £350,000 therefore, remains to be

* Proverbs xv, 16, 17.