Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/73

 We may suppose the first objection to be on the part of Conservatives in both Houses of Parliament, who would say 'There is already a Commission appointed on your own motion. Wait till they have made their inquiries, and suggested in their Report the remedial measures which they consider appropriate to the case. This is surely a reasonable request.' I should admit the request to be reasonable if the whole case of the churches existing in Ireland had been submitted for inquiry to commissioners fit for the task, and they had been left at liberty to consider what was best for the welfare of the Irish people.

But this last question is expressly excluded from the inquiries and report of the Commission. Fearing that this might be the case, I added to my motion for an inquiry 'into the amount and nature of the property and resources of the Established Church in Ireland, and as to the means of rendering that property more productive,' the words 'and to their more equitable application for the benefit of the Irish people.'

But the very idea of the benefit of the Irish people being left as an open question to be considered by the Commissioners, alarmed the Government and the Irish Bishops. They struck out 'the benefit of the Irish people' altogether, and confined the inquiry to the questions of rendering the property more productive, and, if I rightly interpret the terms of the Commission, into the propriety of a better distribution of the funds of the Established Church. Now, in my view, an inquiry into the means of rendering the property