He did not deny that the priests had been guilty of some
excesses during the recent elections, but those who had
been thus guilty were but a small portion of a large
class; and there was some allowance to be made even
for them, when they remembered the peculiar religious
excitement which prevailed at the period. He opposed
the motion, not merely because it went as far as it did,
but because it must go further. It was the beginning
of a retrograde policy, which had been the main cause
of all the miseries of Ireland. He had the highest
authorities on his side, and especially quoted the opinion
of the late Duke of Wellington, who condemned even
the appearance of persecution. It was this wise
principle that he hoped would govern the Protestants of the
country.—Mr. B. STANHOPE supported the motion; and
the debate was then adjourned.

On Wednesday, February 23, Mr. MILNER GIBSON
moved the second reading of the County Rates and
Expenditure Bill. He observed that the subject had
been before Parliament for the last twenty years; that
the title of the ratepayers to a voice in the control of
county expenditure, in conjunction with the magistracy,
had been admitted; and that this bill, while it adopted
the representative principle, reserved considerable power
to the magistrates, and did not trench upon their
judicial authority. He justified the departures from the
bill of 1851, as respected the constitution, powers, and
functions of the Financial Boards; but merely asked
the house now to sanction the principle of the measure.
—Lord PALMERSTON, on the part of the government,
acknowledged the importance of the subject, which
involved matters of national consideration—police,
treatment of prisoners, and care of lunatic asylums—
and was, moreover, connected with the personal feelings
of the unpaid magistracy. The expediency of
introducing the representative principle into the control of
county expenditure, he considered had been conceded,
and acquiescing in the bill so far as that principle was
concerned, he should offer no opposition to the second
reading; but in his opinion the measure should, with
the exception of the mode in which the financial boards
were to be elected, be brought back in the committee
to the bill of 1851. It must not be supposed, he added,
that the acquiescence of the government in the
principle of the bill arose from any distrust in the unpaid
magistracy.—Mr. FRESHFIELD spoke in opposition to the
bill, and Sir B. HALL supported it.—Sir J. PAKINGTON,
agreeing in much of what had fallen from Lord
Palmerston, drew attention to what he deemed the animus
of the bill, namely to strike a blow at the magistracy.
He did not oppose the second reading of the bill,
reserving to himself, however, the power of objecting
to all its most material provisions.—Sir G. GREY
concurred entirely in the course taken by Lord Palmerston.
He thought it desirable that the representative
principle should be applied to the constitution of bodies
charged with the administration of county financial
affairs, but that the amendments made by the select
committee in the bill of 1851, which reserved to the
magistrates not only their judicial but their executive
functions with reference to the constabulary, gaols, and
lunatic asylums, should be reintroduced into this bill.
After some further discussion, the bill was read a second
time, and was ordered to be committed pro formâ on
Friday, in order that it might be adapted to the views
of the government.

The adjourned Debate on Maynooth College was then
resumed by Mr. FAGAN, who opposed the amendment
as well as the original motion, and denied the relevancy
of the charges brought against the Roman Catholic
clergy for their alleged conduct at the late elections in
Ireland, which, if true, had nothing to do with
Maynooth, or with its system of education. These topics
had been introduced, he said, in order to imbue the
minds of members of election committees with certain
extravagant notions. The religious excitement
exhibited at the elections he attributed to the acts of the
late government. The motive for the endowment of
Maynooth was, he insisted, from the first, political; but
the people of Ireland received it as a boon, with gratitude.
He combated the objections to the grant founded
upon its policy, upon the doctrines of the Catholic
religion (which would apply to endowments in Canada
and India), and upon the moral teaching at Maynooth.
Upon the last head, he avowed, as a Roman Catholic,
that he did not hold himself bound by doctrines put
forth by enthusiastic writers, and he repudiated the
opinions cited from Bellarmine and Aquinas. As a
lover of peace, he hoped the motion would fail, since its
success would light up a flame of agitation in Ireland.—
Mr. FORTESCUE considered that the question should
now be settled once for all. He deprecated the present
discussion, and the sentiments of religious intolerance
which it had called forth.—Lord STANLEY, though he
deprecated the agitation of this question, was unwilling
that the debate should close without the expression of
an opinion by a member of the late government upon
the motion, to which he could not give his support.
Briefly tracing the history of the Maynooth grant, he
observed that the intention of Sir R. Peel was that the
settlement of 1845 should be permanent and
unconditional, and that it would be impossible now to replace
the question in the same position as that in which
it stood prior to 1845. He then argued against the
amendment, which, he remarked, opened a question
too wide and important to be discussed as an amendment.
Had the motion been for inquiry, he should
have supported it, for Parliament had a right
to see whether the money had been appropriated
to the purposes for which it was granted.—Mr. LUCAS
was opposed to both the amendment and the
original resolution. The former was as objectionable
to those who shared his religious opinions as the
latter; he considered it, indeed, the same in a different
shape, and dictated by the same feeling of religious
bigotry. Let the question be put fairly upon the
principle of justice; let the amendment include all religious
endowments in Ireland of whatever kind, including
that most flagitious of all endowments—conceived in
fraud and brought forth in robbery—the established
church in Ireland, and he would support it. One of
the objects of Sir R. Peel's policy in this grant had
certainly failed—that of preventing angry discussions
about Maynooth. He declined to refute the offensive
accusations of Mr. Spooner, who had aspersed, he said,
every thing sacred and holy in his (Mr. Lucas')
estimation. The question was not whether Maynooth
was a good college or not, but whether the Roman
Catholic religion was such as not to be entitled to any
endowment whatever.—Mr. DRUMMOND said, his
constituents had desired him to vote against this grant,
but he had refused, offering, however, if a case was
made out and an inquiry was asked, to vote for it.
He exposed the dangerous doctrines of the Jesuits,
which were now, for the first time, he said, authorised
by the Catholic church, observing that he wished to
treat this, not as a religious question, but as a question
of a conspiracy of these men against the rights of
mankind.—Sir R. INGLIS remonstrated strongly against the
expressions used by Mr. Lucas with reference to the
established church of Ireland.—Mr. LUCAS disavowed
any expression offensive to any member or to his
church. He had spoken of the established church of
Ireland, he said, as a political institution, not in its
character of a church.—Mr. Serjeant SHEE declared
that Mr. Lucas did not speak for him on the subject
of the established church in Ireland.—Sir J. SHELLEY
denied that, in voting for the amendment, he was
actuated by religious bigotry.—The house divided, and
Mr. Spooner's motion was negatived by 192 to 162.
The house adjourned without the amendment being put.

PROGRESS OF BUSINESS.

House of Lords.—Feb. 10th.—Bill respecting Law Reform
presented by Lord St. Leonards.—Question of Lord Derby as
to the Policy of Government.

14th.—Law Reform, Lord Cranworth's statement.—
Registration of Deeds, Bill presented.

15th.—Canada Clergy Reserves discussion.

18th.—Irish Valuation Act Amendment Bill read a second
and third time and passed.

22nd.—Law of Evidence (Scotland) Bill read a second time.
—Divorce Bill read a second time.

House of Commons.—Feb. 10.—Lord John Russell's statement
of Intended Measures of Government.

14th.—Coals, Select Committee appointed.—Union of
Benefices Bill brought in.