thority in taking notice of his suspen- | jesty can be held devoid of civil rights sion. Further than that, they could not as an individual. That is a fact, and effectually inquire into it, without as- the fault which the National Board of suming the right to revise what certain Education in Ireland has committed in ecclesiastical authorities had done in a this instance is, that it has hastily acmatter peculiarly within their own pro- cepted the dictum of an authority which, vince. It was to be borne in mind, more- according to the hon. and learned Memover, that there was no tribunal before ber, denies the civil rights of the Roman which the legality of the Rev. Mr. Catholic priests as individuals, and denies O'Keeffe's suspension could be tested, the individual right of this priest to do for although an action might be brought anything connected with the parish in in a Court of Law for libel, no Court in which he has served, even though it be this realm could deal with questions re- with property which he himself has been lating to the internal organization of the the means of procuring. Well, Sir, there Roman Catholic Church. It had been is nothing new in this. I hold in my said that the Rev. Mr. O'Keeffe should hand a rather thick volume. It contains have been heard before the Board of the evidence which was taken before a Education; but those tribunals only were Select Committee of this House in the bound to hear that had jurisdiction to year 1853, on the law of mortmain, and try the question. The Rev. Mr. O'Keeffe before that Committee there appeared was not like a lay patron-he derived his at the instance of Mr. Chisholm Anstey, right to be a patron from his having a very learned Roman Catholic lawyer, been appointed parish priest of Callan; the Rev. Mr. Trappes, a Roman Cathohe was so appointed by the authority of lic priest, and other Roman Catholics, the Roman Pontiff, and the tribunal which who declared that, by the Brief of 1850, appointed him was the same tribunal by and by the action taken upon it by the which he was suspended, and upon due late Cardinal Wiseman, they had been, notice from that tribunal he was removed or would be, deprived of property as by the Board, as in the original instance individuals; that the canon law under it was upon the authority of that tribunal which their right in such charitable prohe was appointed to his office. To im- perty-chapels and the like-had been pose on the Board of Education the duty changed, and that the manner of their of investigating the canonical status of trial for ecclesiastical offences had been every parish priest in Ireland who sought altered; for that, whereas, up to the to be a patron by virtue of his office, was issue of that Brief they had a right, for imposing on them a duty which they all ecclesiastical offences, to be tried bewere entirely inadequate to perform, and fore 12 ecclesiastics of their own district which it was not necessary for them to by regular process, after the issue of discharge. that Brief, and by virtue of that Brief; it was to rest with the Bishops in Synod whether they were to have any regular trials at all, or whether they were to be condemned unheard by whoever might be their ecclesiastical superior. The evidence also goes to show that, at that time, this new system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction had not been introduced into Ireland. It now appears that, simultaneously with the introduction of a Cardinal Legate, the arbitrary system of which the priest here complains, and which the priests of a whole Roman Catholic deanery in the North of England in 1850 deprecated the introduction by the late Cardinal Wiseman into England, has now been introduced throughout Ireland. It is of this that Mr. O'Keeffe complains. He complains that an ancient canon law of Ireland, which would have ensured to him a fair trial

MR. NEWDEGATE: The argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Serjeant Sherlock) proceeds on the assumption that no Roman Catholic priest has personal rights, as an individual. [Mr. Serjeant SHERLOCK: No, not at all.] Such, nevertheless, I understood to be the basis of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. At all events, he approves of the deprivation of this priest on the sole dictum of his ecclesiastical superior. Now, I do not think that that is the understanding upon which this House voted the money for public education in the elementary schools of Ireland, nor is it the sense in which this House has voted money for the purchase of glebes, the erection of glebe houses, and so forth. In this country, we do not act upon the assumption that any subject of Her Ma

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DowSE) said, the question before the House was whether the Board of National Education had acted illegally with reference to Mr. O'Keeffe, and with respect to this he differed entirely from the last speaker. He could not agree that this was a question of law at all. He believed that it would have been better for the Board to have heard Mr. O'Keeffe; but their not having done so was, in his opinion, no ground for passing a vote of censure upon the Board, which might possibly lead to its being broken up. The Board were bond fide of opinion that the course adopted by them could not be influenced in any way by what Mr. O'Keeffe would say. The House might think that Mr. O'Keeffe should have been heard, but that was no reason why this Vote should be rejected. If Mr. O'Keeffe succeeded in his litigation, then would come an opportunity for the Board to reconsider its decision. In the meantime, things must remain as they were, which would be in accordance with the precedents followed by the Board in dealing with this case.

hardly ever have established National | right, and that without any censure being Education in Ireland. When the system passed upon them. was founded, it was extremely difficult to give to it anything like solidity or permanence. It was met by determined and angry hostility from various quarters, and much of character, much of ability, much of prudence and policy were required in order to obtain for that system anything like fair play. For that purpose, the best and wisest men that could be found in Ireland were selected by successive Governments; they had undertaken this most important, difficult, and invidious labour, and by that labour, which seemed almost hopelessly exerted for a long series of years, they brought the system to such a state that, instead of a condition of things in which the supporters of the National Board were continually threatened by their opponents-and it was hard to say which way the balance would incline; now, on the contrary, there was a competition between all parties of politicians in this country, each declaring that they were the most zealous advocates of the National system. This, too, was an unpaid Board that was a point which ought to be mentioned; but the main point to which he wished to direct attention was the arduous nature of its labours, the difficulties it had had to encounter, and the success which had attended its patriotic efforts. He would, therefore, ask his right hon. Friend whether he would call upon the House to pass a Vote of Censure on such a body. Should his right hon. Friend succeed in getting the House to reflect this stigma on the Board after its 40 years' services, the only effect of such a decision would be to plunge into deeper confusion that difficult question of Irish education which was at all times in a condition sufficiently critical, but in respect of which, and especially its greatest branch-the popular part-if they made a good use of their opportunities he would say that he believed they would save it from danger, and secure to it still greater efficiency than it at the present time possessed.

MR. WATKIN WILLIAMS, as a lawyer, felt bound to say that the Board had acted in a manner wholly illegal and altogether contrary to the principles of English law, and he thought that it was high time that the House laid down a rule for the future conduct of the Board, so that they might be set

Question put.

49: Majority 8.
The House divided:-Ayes 57; Noes

Main Question put, and agreed to.
Resolution agreed to.

Eight subsequent Resolutions agreed to.
Resolution 19—

"That a

sum, not exceeding £183,826, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1873, for the Expenses of Her Majesty's Embassies and Missions Abroad," read a second time.

MR. NEWDEGATE, in rising to move, according to Notice, the reduction of the Vote by £200, the amount of the allowance to Mr. Clarke Jervoise, for house rent at Rome, said: Sir, the Committee divided on the question which I am about to renew only on Saturday last, but it happened that on that day the House met at 12 o'clock, and a great number of Members believed that it would rise either at 4 or at 6 o'clock. On my arrival here, however, I found

that there was no Standing Order to | to be conferred by the Bill were to be prevent the House sitting until Church limited solely to the temporal interests time on Sunday morning. A great num- of the two countries, the smaller State, ber of hon. Members were surprised at that of the Roman States and the great this. Several to my knowledge had Empire of England. By a division in given up the idea of coming down, being the House of Lords, it was decided that, under the impression that the House by way of further marking the intention would have risen before they reached of Parliament, Her Majesty's Prerogait. The debate that took place on Satur- tive should be thus far further limited day evening was signalized by a most-that it should be incompetent in Her surprising announcement from the hon. Majesty to receive in this country any and learned Attorney General. The ecclesiastical Nuncio, Envoy, or AmbasDiplomatic Relations Act, which we be- sador from the Court of Rome. Therelieve to have been violated by Her Ma- fore, the prohibition against that, which jesty's Government maintaining at Rome the opponents of this Vote hold to be a diplomatic agent in the person of Mr. the state of things now, attempted by Clarke Jervoise, prescribes distinctly that Her Majesty's Government was doubly it shall be lawful for Her Majesty to enacted in 1848. One question I desire accredit a diplomatic agent to the Sove- to ask, and I ask it of the noble Lord rign of the Roman States. By the Bill the Under Secretary for the Foreign which afterwards became the Diplomatic Department. It is this-whether Mr. Relations Act, and which was introduced Clarke Jervoise is in any way accredited into the House of Lords by the late Lord to the Court of Rome? And when the Lansdowne, it was proposed that Her noble Lord rises, this is the direct quesMajesty should accredit a diplomatic tion, which I hope he will answer. There Envoy to the Sovereign Pontiff; but in is nothing apparent to show that Mr. the Committee of the House of Lords Clarke Jervoise may not be accredited the description of His Holiness as the in the fact that His Holiness the Pope Sovereign Pontiff was struck out of the has not sent an Envoy here; for Lord Bill, because it was held in the House Palmerston, in the Committee of this of Lords, before the Bill reached this House on the Diplomatic Relations Bill, House, that the title Sovereign Pontiff when this Act was passed in 1848, deascribed to the Pope his ecclesiastical clared that the same condition against character, his spiritual authority, and the reception at their respective Courts function. Well, it is almost needless of an ecclesiastical Envoy from Rome for me to assert that His Holiness the was enforced both by the Empire of Pope is no longer Sovereign of any por- Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia. tion of the Roman States. That is well Therefore, it is perfectly possible and known. The natural presumption, there- consistent with these precedents that fore, is that the faculty which the Diplo- Mr. Clarke Jervoise may be accredited matic Relations Act of 1848 conferred to the Court of His Holiness the Pope; upon Her Majesty was limited, and it and I humbly hold, that if Mr. Clarke was so argued in the debate, and that Jervoise be so accredited he is so in by the limitation of this particular faculty direct contravention of the whole purport it was the intention of Parliament to of the Act, for in the course of the delimit the Prerogative of the Crown. It bate upon the Diplomatic Relations Bill was maintained at the time that the Act in 1848, Mr. Chisholm Anstey, whose passed that by that Act the Prerogative knowledge of these matters was extenof Her Majesty was limited to this to sive, condemned the Bill for these reasons sending a diplomatic Envoy to the So--that it was not only a declaratory Bill, vereign of the Roman States, and not, as appears in debates, to the Sovereign Pontiff. Parliament rejected the proposal that Her Majesty should enter into diplomatic relations with the Pope in any other character than as the temporal Sovereign of the Roman States; and Lord Palmerston, in moving the second reading of the Bill in this House, emphatically declared that the powers

declaring the law which had been supposed for 180 years to have prohibited diplomatic relations with the Pope; but because it would, if passed, become an enacting statute, whereby the Prerogative of Her Majesty would be limited to diplomatic relations, not with the Pope in his ecclesiastical character, for Parliament had decided against that, but only with the Sovereign of the Roman