Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/36

32 of the Irish Tithe question. By this scheme it was proposed that tithes should in future be recoverable only from the landlords; that the tithe-owners should receive only three-quarters of the total amount to which they had been previously entitled; that the tithe should be redeemable by the landlord at twenty years' purchase, calculated upon this diminished rate; that the proceeds thus arising should be invested in land or otherwise for the benefit of the tithe-owners; that the arrears of 1834 should be paid out of the residue of the million advanced from the Consolidated Fund for the benefit of the clergy; and that the advances already made under the 'Million Act' should be remitted. Lord John Russell contended that the bill was identical with that brought in by Mr. Littleton in the preceding session, which had been thrown out by the House of Lords, while Mr. O'Connell condemned the bill in toto. But the Ministerial proposal was carried by 213 votes to 198, and a settlement of the question was subsequently effected on these principles.

The following extract from notes of a speech delivered by Sir H. Hardinge in the same year on the Municipal Corporations Act is not without application at the present time: — 'Do not let the House be led away by what the hon. and learned member for Dublin [O'Connell] calls justice for Ireland. At one moment he pretends that identity of municipal institutions is justice to Ireland; at another time be makes a crusade through England, inviting the