Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/79

 Our only resource is to maintain the supremacy of Parliament as the great lay tribunal. 'L'État est Laïc,' as M. Guizot once said of France. The Queen's title must be upheld, her Courts of Justice must not be subject to appeal to Scotch Presbyteries, or Pan-Anglican Synods, or Roman tribunals.

But there is in all this nothing to prevent the settlement of Church property in Ireland now held by the Protestant clergy in an equitable manner. The Irish Catholic bishops may resist; but the Irish Catholic farmer, and the Irish Catholic cottier, aye, and the Roman Catholic parish priest, will rejoice in such a settlement. The half- voluntary half-compulsory payments will be diminished, and Parliament will have consulted, what the House of Lords erased from my proposed resolution, 'the benefit of the Irish people.'

Yet, while applying certain revenues to the purposes of the Roman Catholic Church, we must beware of falling into an error which has already cost us dear. Mr. Pitt, it is evident, had it in contemplation to clip that independence of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland which forms the security of that Church against interference by the State. Lord Grenville and even Mr. Grattan kept this object in view. In 1825, when a grant from the public funds for the support of the Roman Catholic clergy was in contemplation, Lord Liverpool, in discussion with his friends, objected to the words, 'that provision should be made by law.' He had evidently the same notion in his head which Mr. Pitt had clearly avowed.