CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE TITHE WAR-DEATH OF WILLIAM THE FOURTH.

A

MONGST the subjects that were brought into greater prominence

by the concession of Catholic claims was the remaining grievance of tithes, exacted for the most part from Catholics for the sole support of the alien Protestant Church, which was thus maintained in many districts where there were no Protestants, and where the Church livings were complete sinecures.

Resistance to tithes was so successful that an Act was passed authorizing an issue from the consolidated fund of large sums of money for the relief of those clergymen who could not collect their tithes.

In 1833 an effort was made to qualify the flagrant inconsistencies of a clergy with public emoluments, but without congregations or public duty to perform. This "Church Temporalities Act" endeavoured to mend matters by abolishing ten bishoprics and consolidating their sees with those adjoining them. At that time it was estimated that the revenue of the Irish Church was £730,000 per annum. The suppressed sees were supposed to yield a capital sum of three millions sterling, which sum was vested in an entirely new board of Ecclesiastical Commissions, for the strengthening by artificial means of a Church that was not only useless but mischievous. Concerning these Commissioners, their labours were likely to be so light and indefinite that the duties of their secretary are defined, insomuch that it is gravely enacted that he is "to keep a book."

A great show of liberality was made by the abolition of church-rates and "first-fruits." As usual, this was turned to the advantage of the

landlords, who forthwith made the change an excuse for raising rents to a greater extent than the remissions amounted to.

The Act upon the whole was an extremely elaborate consolidation of Church property for the sole benefit of the clergy, without the slightest regard for the interests or wishes of congregations, where there were any, and regardless also of the bulk of the people upon whom the great burden of tithes continued untouched.

A great parade of this Act having been made, and the popular benefits arising from it proving to be imaginary, especially with reference to tithes, discontent, after a little while, manifested itself by increasing violence, and the civil war went on.

A strikingly illustrative case, amongst hundreds of others, occurred at Rathcormach, a village in Waterford county, on the 18th December, 1834. Seizure had been made upon the stock-yard of a widow to pay the Protestant rector. Her neighbours became strongly excited, and assembled in crowds with the apparent purpose of resisting the abstraction of the property. A narrow lane, or boreen, led up from the highroad to the widow's premises. In this lane the people had overturned a waggon, to block up the way, and seemed resolved to defend their barricade. The officers of the law approached, well supported by armed men, both police and military. There was some parley; stones were thrown; the Riot Act was read; and then orders were given to fire. A destructive volley was poured in upon the unarmed crowd; many of them fell, killed and wounded; and the rector carried off, over the bleeding corpses, his tithe of the widow's sheaves.

The excitement and indignation aroused by this Rathcormach massacre were profound and widespread; the combinations amongst the peasantry to resist tithe-sales, and to prevent all persons from purchasing, became more organized and formidable.

Referring to this and other similar events, Doctor MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam, writing a public letter to the Duke of Wellington, expressed the conviction and determination that "All the united authorities, and the Senate, can never annex the conscientious obliga

LORD MORPETH'S BILL.

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tions of law to enactments that are contrary to right, reason, and justice. And hence the stubborn and unconquerable resistance of the people of Ireland to those odious acts-I will not call them laws— which have forced them to pay tribute to the teachers of an adverse creed. I shall freely declare my own resolve. I have leased a small farm, just sufficient to qualify me for the exercise of the franchise. After paying the landlord his rent, neither to parson, proctor, nor agent shall I consent to pay, in the shape of tithe, or any other tax, a penny which shall go to the support of the greatest nuisance in this or any other country."

No one ever dared attempt to levy tithe upon that archbishop's farm; and the open declaration that the church laws were no laws, and that he himself would deny and defy them, greatly aggravated and encouraged the organized resistance of the people.

In 1835, Lord Morpeth introduced a bill into the Commons for the further regulation of the Irish Protestant Church, in which he proposed to limit the collection of the arrears of tithes for the last two years over-due, meeting the claim by draughts on the exchequer, and remaining satisfied with a composition of about three-fifths of the remainder. The bill also proposed the suppression of all Protestant benefices containing not more than fifty Protestant inhabitants. Sir Robert Peel tried to mutilate the bill, but was signally defeated. The bill passed the Commons by a considerable majority, thus acknowledging the grievances and the success of the people in resisting them. But the House of Lords, while retaining the provisions as to tithes, cut out the suppression of benefices, and, the House of Commons not agreeing to that, the bill was dropped.

In 1836 the Irish tithe question cropped up again. It was reported to Parliament that at the close of the financial year, in April, there was a deficit of £637,000 in the amounts that ought to have been collected. For the making up of this only a sum of £5,000 was voted, thus showing the helplessness of the government to cope with the resistance. On the 25th of April, Lord Morpeth moved a resolution "That it is expedient to commute the composition of tithes in Ireland,

in a rent-charge payable by the owners of estates, and thus make a further provision for the better regulation of ecclesiastical dues and revenues." After considerable debate this resolution was defeated, as being too vague, and so the matter was put off.

Exasperated at this failure, O'Connell hastily organized a National Association, the members of which met in vast numbers at the Dublin Corn Exchange. This agitation resulted in a state of insurrectionary turmoil throughout the country. This continued in 1837, at the commencement of which there was not a county of Ireland where there were not virulent contentions between the people and the tithe-owners. Preparations were commenced by the government for introducing bills for Irish municipal reform, and for the first time applying the English Poor Law system to Ireland; but those measures were prevented for the present by the rather sudden death of William the Fourth, on the 20th of June, 1837.

During the period of what is known as the tithe war-from 1830 to 1837-other subjects of public interest were comparatively insignificant. Emancipation had been laid. Reform had been got through. There were furtive attempts at repeal, and a variety of nostrums. But all other grievances except tithes seemed to be passing through a period of feeble puffs, as O'Connell called them. All the greater was the tornado concentred upon tithes. The period abounds with Coercion Acts in every form, and with the corresponding proportion of outrages, both Acts and outrages being pretty much of the same pattern as so many sufficiently described before and repeated since. It is a legitimate subject for regret that the agitator, in that his already declining day, did not sufficiently appreciate the force of the tornado to turn it to good agitating account sufficient to enforce real redress. As it was, the tornado was only tampered with so as to split it up into incipient tornadoes that have burst out from time to time ever since, invariably blowing from the same quarter.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA-POOR LAW ACT AND CONVERSION OF TITHES.

HE first appearance of Queen Victoria in Parliament was when she prorogued in person on the 17th of July, 1837. In her speech on that occasion, a message of goodwill to Ireland with reference to tithes was supposed to be clothed in the passage which said, "It will be my care to strengthen our institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, by discreet improvement wherever improvement is required, and to do all in my power to compose and allay animosity and discord." A dissolution immediately succeeded, and the new Parliament met for the despatch of business on the 15th of November. On the 20th, the Queen delivered her speech in person, and it included the following passages with reference to Ireland: "The results of the inquiries which have been made into the condition of the poor in Ireland have been already laid before Parliament, and it will be your duty to consult whether it may not be safe and wise to establish by law some wellregulated means of relief for the destitute in that country. municipal government of the cities and towns of Ireland calls for better regulation. The laws which govern the collection of the tithe composition in Ireland require revision and amendment."

The

Parliament could not agree that session upon a Municipal Act for Ireland, but the Poor Law and Tithes were freely dealt with.

The Act of that year "for the more effectual relief of the destitute poor in Ireland" introduced the English Poor Law into Ireland for the first time. Though it passed, it met with considerable opposition from