MAYNOOTH
929
MAYNOOTH
proved almost insolvable to the English government. Cabinet after cabinet were wrecked upon it, without ar- riving at any result. And tliis is not to be wondered at, for the civil as well as religious relations in Ireland had for a long time been in so abnormal a state that all attempts at reform seemed either inefficient or danger- ous. Every effort to improve the condition of the peas- antry was met bj' the opposition of the landed aristoc- racy, while every assistance rendered to the weak and oppressed, but de facto national Churcli of Ireland, ex- asperated the Protestant element of the population. The passage of any bill concerning Ireland was a most com- plicated piece of politics. But, said an Irish paper, " Prot- estantism is not as powerful as landed property, and re- ligion must give ivay before ground-rents." Without attributing such views — as was often done — to the Brit- ish government, for attempts at conciliation were made from religious motives, it would appear that Sir Kobert Peel inclined to tliis theory when, in 1845, he presented the Maynooth Bill to Parliament. Indeed for the last fifty years Parliament had been voting aii annual ap- propriation of over £8000 for the education of Koman Catholic priests; the preceding year the Charitable Be- quest Bill had been passed almost unanimoush', and the Koman Catholic prelates had assured Peel that the pas- sage of his new bill would be thankfully received by the Ponian Catholics as a pledge of reconciliation. But hardly had the bill been presented to the House of Com- mons when a storm of opposition arose. The Protes- tants of the various denominations united to denounce it, and to petition against a biU wliich would modify the Protestant character of the administration. A large meeting, chiefly of Dissenters, was held at Exeter Hall, March 18, 1845, and a Central Anti-lMaynooth Commit- tee organized to oppose the bill, and to overwhelm the Parliament with petitions. On April 3 Peel presented the bill to the House of Commons. He attempted to prove that there were but three ways of acting : to main- tain things as they were, to suppress the usual appro- priation, or to increase it. The first he declared imprac- ticable, as so insufficient a sum for the purpose could not gain much gratitude for the donors ; the second, he said, was still less advisable, as the withdrawal of assistance to which they had been accustomed for fifty years woidd not fail to exasperate the Irish ; but the third he looked upon as a certain remedy. He therefore proposed to raise the yearly appropriation for Maynooth to £26,000, making it a part of the regidar budget, and thus trans- forming the grant into a dotation; he moreover pro- posed to incorporate the board of trustees, and to vote a special grant of £30,000 for building purposes. Besides, the existing ex officio inspectors were to be replaced by five inspectors appointed by the crown, who, however, would leave the control of the doctrines and discipline to the three Roman Catholic inspectors. The opposi- tion was headed by Sir R. Inglis. He attacked the bill on religious ground, as opposed to Protestant principles. He did not mean to withdraw the usual appropriation, but Avanted Roman Catholics, like Dissenters, to educate their ministers at their own expense. All those op- posed to the Established Church sided with him. The bill received 216 votes against 114 at the first reading. This, however, was but the prelude. At the second reading the struggle commenced in earnest, and lasted through six sittings. They first argued about the new- principle, which converted a. yearly grant into a dota- tion, for this gave to the previouslij irjnored Roman Ciitji- olic Church a leyal existence and offcial recognition. The friends of the bill sought to defend this principle in various ways. Some claimed that it was the duty of the Parliament to care for Maynooth, either because, by uniting with itself the Irish Parliament, it liad assumed its charges, or as a sort of restitution for the former pos- sessions of which the Church of Rome had been de- prived. Yet the assumption of the liabilities of the Irish Parliament did not guarantee the continuance of ■ the grant longer than twenty years more, and, on the
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