Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/193

 1827.] Death of Castlereagh to Canning's Premiership. 179 they receive." For this resolution he obtained more votes than was expected, the numbers being Ayes, 79 ; Noes, 153. Scarcely any Irish members voted in the minority, the Pro- testant and Church interest only being represented in Parlia- ment. Hobhouse was scarcely less energetic than Hume ; he supported the member for Aberdeen, acting as teller with him in the division on the motion for prohibiting corporal punishment in the army,* and himself repeating his proposal to abolish the window tax. By these means many of the objects on which improvement was required were kept before the public, and the reason for seeking for Parliamentary reform was made more and more evident. The most important events of the year 1824 were the forma- tion and proceedings of the Catholic Association in Ireland, the first open meeting of which was held in January. For twenty- four years the Catholics had waited the redemption of the pledges given when the Act of Union was passed, and had waited in vain. It is true that the cause had gained strength in the House of Commons, where a majority had been recorded, and that in the Peers the majority against it had been decreased. If the subject had been a merely speculative one, in which the growth of opinion could be left to make its way, so that with intellectual conviction the thing would be settled, this state of things might have been encouraging. The case, however, was altogether different Whilst English parties were debating, a whole nation was kept in a state of subjection to laws which were of the most unjust and dis- graceful character. The national religion was not only discouraged, but the profession of it was made the cause of entire political disfranchisement, whilst the Church of the alien minority was upheld at the cost of the nation which repudiated it. Vested interests, theological prejudices, firmly rooted traditions, were united in defence of the injustice. The Crown, the Peerage, the Church, were allied with the organized power of the governing class to resist change ; and against such a combination it would require more than a mere
 * On the 1 5th March, when the numbers were 47 for, and 127 against.