Punch: Punch (57.1869)

July 10, 1869.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

MONDAY, June 28. Now, we bad better understand one another,
or rather, tbe Pensive had better understand Punch. Regarding
this Irish Church Bill. If any person thinks that Mr. Punch is going
to follow the Lords through all their debates on all their Amendments,
that person is deceived by his own fatuity. Artemus Ward says that
his artist came to him, after one of his pictures had been exhibited for
six months, and said, pointing to a figure in it, " It is no use attempting
to deceive you any longer ; that is a horse." It is of no use Mr. Punch
attempting to deceive the Pensive; this is an Analysis. What's an
analysis ? Ask any schoolboy, and he will not be able to tell you. Ask
his sister, and she will reply with a sweet, half timid smile, "a separa-
tion of any compound body into the parts of which it is formed : the
solution of anything, whether corporeal or mental, into its first ele-
ments." Now you know all about it.

'Pears to Mr. Punch that what chiefly concerns his affectionate
public divides itself, like the Irishman's sermon, into three halves.
First, what the Lords mean to do. Secondly, what the Government
mean to stand. Third, what special feature in a debate was worth
notice. Mr. Punch's sermon shall be preached on those heads.

The Lords began the Amendments discussion on Tuesday, and took
it up again on Thursday and Friday. Lord Denbigh, who is a Roman,
begged, leave to prelude with a declaration that the Catholics were not
at all indifferent to the measure, as the House should see it they did
not pass it. But they were surprised and pleased at beholding an
attempt to do them justice. He was good enough also to intimate that
they had no scruple on the subject of Church property, because that
was secularised when taken from themselves. This meant that Pro-
testantism was no religion at all. The speech may be held balanced by
that of the Archbishop or York, who proclaimed that Irish Pro-
testants held the Roman religion in detestation.

Earl Grey wished to get rid of that part of the Preamble of the
I. C. B., which declares that the surplus shall not go to churches or
clergy. He thinks that much of it ought. He abominates the Volun-
tary System, which leaves a minister dependent on pleasing his con-
gregation, and ke would give Manses and Glebes to Presbyterians
and Catholics.

With the Earl think Archbishop Tait, the Bishop of Oxford,

Earl Russell, Lord Westbury, the Bishop of St. David's, Lord
Salisbury (who " prefers priests to lunatics "), and many others.

Against him think Mr. Gladstone and his Majority, and so did the
Premier declare, with much earnestness, at the Lord Mayor's ban-
quet on the night after the debate. All Amendments, he said, should
receive the most respectful consideration ; but he had given pledges to
the nation when he was in the exile of Opposition, and these he must
redeem when in the seat of Power. There must be no departure from
the principle of the Bill.

Now, on the first Amendment night, there was merely a long dis-
cussion, and Earl Grey, on the advice of his friends, let the Preamble
be postponed, as usual. The first ten clauses of the Bill were got
through, but

The Archbishop carried, by 130 to 74, an Amendment of Reprieve.
The date of Disestablishment was to be 1872, not 1871. On the next
night Government agreed to this, but as the Church's supporters dis-
agree about the advantage of delay, the matter is to be reconsidered.

On Thursday, Government gave way on the question whether the
Irish Prelates who now sit in the House of Lords should preserve
their seats during their lives. It was agreed that they should not be
turned out. There are but four, you know—the Archbishop of
Dublin and three Bishops.

But then came a real fight on a point, not very large in itself, but in
which Mr. Gladstone's Principle is involved. We really do not feel
inclined to explain it, because the form the onslaught took is unim-
portant. Suffice it to say that the proposal, by the Bishop of Peter-
borough, went beyond the rule that nothing except compensation icr
life interests was to be given.

Here the Duke of Argyll thought it good to blaze out, in a
warning manner, against the series of Amendments. He asserted that
the nation had given a distinct verdict against indiscriminate endow-
ment,'and he said that the Lords, in adopting this proposal, would adopt
a principle fatal to the Bill. Lord Cairns complimented his Grace on
rising to a pitch of enthusiasm that could not have been thought pos-
sible had it not been witnessed. Lord Bath would by no power on
earth have been induced to vote for the Second Reading had he pre-
viously heard the Duke, and would stand by the Amendments even if

Vol. 57.