Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/68

 than they now prefer Cardinal Cullen to Archbishop Trench, or Maynooth to Oxford. But they thought the Church of the people of Scotland ought to be the Church of the State in Scotland.

Having thus shown that, in two leading examples, the clergy were deprived of their property, although they fully complied with the conditions on which they had received it, I affirm, without hesitation, that the Protestant Established Church of Ireland is the main grievance of which the people have to complain; that the Roman Catholic clergy and their flocks are alike dissatisfied; that the present state of Church Endowment would not be borne in any country of Europe; and I proceed to consider the remedies which can be applied to this diseased state of the body politic.

And here, in the first place, I discard my own remedy of 1835. I believe the Appropriation Clause would, if adopted at the time, have given satisfaction to the Irish people, and have afforded a breathing time for the consideration of later and larger measures.

But that proposal was rejected by Parliament, and I am the first to say that what would have been healing in 1835 would be futile in 1868.

Instead, therefore, of resorting to the partial remedy of 1835, I will consider the proposal of the Liberation Society, who, according to Lord Cairns, are at the bottom of all the agitation about the Irish Church.

It must be admitted that the Liberation Society have a large principle upon which they found their proposals.