and in Ireland for this, were undeserved. He had abandoned a lucrative and growing practice at the bar to serve the cause of those who were, for the most part, too poor to individually reward him, and he was therefore entitled to take from their collective subscriptions an amount sufficient to maintain himself, and those dependent on him, in a position analogous to that in which his exertions would have enabled him and them to live, had he continued the practice of his profession. Moreover, he was not by any means the "beggarman" which the English Press delighted to represent him. His private means were considerable, and, although, as in the keeping of accounts he was extremely careless, it is impossible to say what proportion of the "Tribute " he applied to his own uses, and what to public work; there can be no doubt that the latter absorbed the enormously larger proportion of the money subscribed.

Repeal Associations Formed and Suppressed: O'Connell in Parliament. The Catholic Association had been suppressed by Government at the time of the granting of Emancipation. O'Connell now founded "A Society of the Friends of Ireland," and then an "AntiUnion Association," and an "Association of Irish Volunteers for the Repeal of the Union." Each was, after a very short existence, proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant; as were the "Repeal Breakfasts," at which many of the chief Repealers met once a week or oftener for discussion.

Still, O'Connell was not daunted. In the House of Commons he was recognised as a power, so that a certain fear mingled with the very hearty detestation felt for him by many. It was well known that his assertion that it was his influence alone that, on more than one occasion, prevented a widespread insurrection in Ireland, was no empty boast. The slight wave of gratification which followed the winning of Emancipation soon passed, and the Irish returned to the consideration of the many grievances which still remained unredressed. Moreover, no effort at conciliation was made, and the Catholics remained, contrary to the spirit of the Emancipation Act, almost as completely excluded in fact from all offices in the gift of the Government as they had previously been by law.

When the Reform Bill struggle was agitating England, O'Connell relaxed his efforts for Repeal, and devoted his energies to furthering the passing of the measure, so that his relations with the Government of Lord Grey were, for a time, intimate and friendly. His support was of extreme value, for the new Irish Members, who owed their seats to his influence, were completely obedient to him and gave their votes as he directed. With the Irish Reform Bill (1832) he was deeply disappointed. It gave only five additional seats to Ireland, instead of the seventy-two

to which he considered that her greatly increased population now entitled her.

The next year brought him even greater cause for indignation. Disturbances, due chiefly to opposition to the tithe system, were on the increase in Ireland. As usually happened where Irish questions of this sort were debated in Parliament, no attempt was made by the majority of the speakers to set forth or explain the nature of the social disease of which the evils complained of were merely the symptoms. All the efforts of O'Connell were powerless to prevent the passing of an extremely severe Coercion Bill by a large majority. His conviction that neither sympathy nor understanding of Irish affairs was to be hoped for from the Westminster assembly was strengthened, and he returned with renewed ardour to the struggle for Repeal.

His motion in Parliament to consider the means by which the Act of Union had been passed, and the effect of the measure on Ireland, was defeated by an immense majority, and no further direct action was taken for some years.

When (1835) the second Melbourne Ministry came into power, O'Connell's influence with the Government became very great, and he was generally, it appears, consulted with regard to appointments to offices in Ireland. He seems more than once to have contemplated taking office himself, but no post of very great importance was offered him, and had it been, it is not improbable that he would have finally decided to refuse it. It can scarcely be doubted that the acceptance of any Government position would have considerably hampered his activities, and must ultimately have diminished his popularity.

The new Melbourne Ministry, during its years of office, dealt with three Irish questions of capital importance-Tithes, Municipal Reform, and the Poor Law, and while the settlements arrived at in the case of the two first were far from being ideal, yet, on the whole, the effects were beneficial as much cannot be said in regard to the third. These three matters must now be separately considered, and an account must also be given of the new system of Primary Education established in Ireland; although this last was the work, not of the Melbourne Ministry, but of the earlier Government of Lord Grey

CHAPTER IX

THE TITHE QUESTION AND ITS SETTLEMENT

The Tithe Grievance: Tithe Proctors.-Although in theory the tithes paid in earlier ages to the Catholic clergy had been assigned at the time of the Reformation to the Ministers of the State Church, yet it was not till after the Revolution that these were regularly and systematically levied from the masses of the Irish population. They must always have been regarded as a grievance by the Catholics, since it was obviously unjust that they should be required to pay to clergy of an alien creed, whose ministrations they refused, what was established as a salary for the discharge of spiritual duties in their regard.

The tithes were not uniform over Ireland; various customs in regard to them prevailing in different districts. In some cases they were extremely heavy. As a rule the duty of valuing and levying the tithes was entrusted by the clergy to an official who paid his costs and salary by a percentage on the money collected. Probably no class of persons in Ireland was so cordially detested as the tithe proctors. It was always possible for them, if offended or merely spiteful, to revenge themselves on an individual tenant by such methods as neglecting to come to inspect and value the growing crop till the favourable time for harvest operations was passed, or valuing unfairly, so as to increase the amount to be paid.

As the position of the Catholics improved, they grew to resent more keenly the injustice of the tithe system. In 1827, an Act was passed by which tithes could be, at the request of either the clergy or the tithepayers, commuted for a fixed annual payment.

This, though it possessed certain advantages, did little good to the poorer tenants, and an encounter between the people and police at Graiguena-Managh, Co. Kilkenny, in which the help of the military was obliged finally to be invoked, began what is usually styled "the Tithe War" (1830). Conflicts took place in various parts of the country, and the payment of tithes was generally refused. The clergy of the Established Church, most of whom were far from rich, found themselves deprived of their chief source of income and were in great distress.

Attempts at Settlement: Thomas Drummond.-A Committee,

consisting wholly of Protestants, was appointed by Government to investigate the whole matter. They recommended in their report that a money payment in commutation of tithes should be made compulsory, and that £60,000 should be advanced to the clergy, to meet their immediate needs, by Government, which should itself undertake the collection of

arrears.

These proposals were embodied in what is known as Stanley's Act" (1832). The failure of the concluding portion of the measure was absolute and complete. Within a few months there were 12,000 attachments for tithes pending, and £12,000 of arrears had been collected at an expense to the public of £27,000. Besides this, there was widespread irritation and many disturbances. In 1834 at Rathcormack, Co. Cork, an attempt to collect tithes from a widow named Ryan ended in a regular battle, in which about fifty persons were killed or severely injured. This year a Bill for commuting tithes to a land charge of 80 per cent. of their value was passed by the Commons, but rejected by the Lords.

A debate in Parliament on tithes gave O'Connell an opportunity of. speaking of the various injustices under which the Catholics still suffered. Catholic lawyers, or even Protestants who had signed addresses in favour of Emancipation, were, he pointed out, never promoted. Catholic names were noted on jury-lists and their bearers challenged by the Crown ; proposed meetings of Catholics were prohibited for the most trivial reasons. The Church system, by which a miserably poor country was obliged to support a rich, and, to a great extent, useless Church, was in itself scandalous.

Peel, during his short Ministry (1835), made another attempt to settle the Irish tithe question on the basis of a rent charge, but a clause added to the Bill by Lord John Russell, by which the Irish Church surplus was to be devoted to secular purposes, caused the defeat of the entire measure.

In April, 1835, the second Melbourne Ministry came into power, and, with Lord Mulgrave as Lord Lieutenant and Lord Morpeth as Chief Secretary, Thomas Drummond was sent to Ireland as Under Secretary. This last proved a very important appointment.

Drummond soon decided that tithes collected by the aid of military and police were not worth the disorder and bloodshed to which their collection often gave rise. He, therefore, frequently refused to allow these forces to be employed, with the result that, in many instances, the tithes were not collected at all. On the other hand, he insisted that faction fights at fairs and conflicts between Orangemen and Catholics should be sternly repressed. The magistrates and the gentry generally regarded the new methods with utter disapproval. Hitherto, it had been

usual to employ the police freely in cases of tithe disturbances or of evictions, but, as a rule, to suffer rival factions to settle their differences undisturbed. When, in answer to a demand on the part of some Tipperary landlords for coercion measures against the tenantry, Drummond ventured to remind them that "property has its duties as well as its rights," the remark was considered "a direct incentive to outrage."

In 1835, and in 1836, the Melbourne Government introduced Tithe Bills, but again an "Appropriation Clause" wrecked one after the other.

Tithe Bill Passed.-The Bill introduced by Lord John Russell was different. It wiped out arrears of tithes and transformed the advance assigned to the clergy in 1833 into a gift. The tithes were to be lowered by a quarter, and the remaining 75 per cent. made a rent charge, to be paid by the landlord directly to the clergy. This Bill was finally passed (1838), and on the whole gave satisfaction. The clergy received their money more regularly, and, being no longer brought into disagreeable relations with their Catholic neighbours, they became much more popular. Many landlords paid a portion, or even the whole of the charge, without raising their tenants' rent; while others exacted from the latter the full amount. Owing to this, the general opinion of the Tithe Act varied considerably in different districts.