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the continuance of that which they are to take in lieu of tithe. The uses to which the monies invested by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would be applicable are not declared; and the mode of investment will require consideration. The local charges and purposes of education, to which the rent-charges established in lieu of ecclesiastical tithe would be appropriated, will have to be specified and it will be of importance to see whether these local charges are now permanently charged by act of parliament on the consolidated fund, or are annually provided for out of the surplus of that fund. The eighth and ninth resolutions require a clear explanation. Upon the whole, however, this plan is more promising, and is susceptible of being made more intelligible, more simple, and more practicable, than any other which has yet been proposed for the extinction of tithe in Ireland.

The care with which the question of appropriating a surplus is handled, is very remarkable. Three-tenths of the composition are given up to the landlord, but Sir Robert Peel and Lord Stanley cannot call this an appropriation, because they have themselves proposed that a similar concession should be made to the extent in one instance of two-tenths, and in another of twenty-five per cent, and the present plan only advances one-twentieth further. Again: it is promised by these resolutions, that a part of the rent-charges shall be appropriated to public purposes of education; but, in form, this is no appropriation of tithe, because it is not to take place until the rent-charge has been made a part of the general revenue of the united kingdom; and, in substance, there will not be any defalcation of Church revenue, if the price at which the rent-charge is to be purchased of the Church is a fair one; namely, sixteen years' purchase of the composition. The grant for education, whatever it may be, will, in that case, either fall on the general revenue of the united kingdom, or

it will be obtained, in consequence of the present low rate of interest, out of the surplus of the rent-charge beyond what will be required to pay the interest of the money which will have to be raised for the purpose of purchasing the rentcharge. For instance, one hundred pounds a-year of composition is to be converted into seventy pounds a-year of rent-charge, which is then to be bought from the Church by the State for sixteen hundred pounds. This the State could borrow at present for fifty-six pounds per annum interest, and there consequently would be a surplus of fourteen pounds per annum for education, without imposing any new tax at present upon the people. Lastly, the main question, whether, if there be a surplus of Church revenue in Ireland beyond what is required for the spiritual care of the whole of the congregations of the Established Church in Ireland, that surplus shall be appropriated by the State to general purposes of education? is prudently avoided for the present, by the omission of any declaration of the uses to which the purchase-monies which are to be invested by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners shall be applicable after the expiration of the existing interests of individual titheowners. Nor would it answer any good purpose to attempt to declare those uses before a full and clear view has been obtained of the whole possessions, revenues, and condition of the Church in Ireland.

III.

LEGISLATION IN INDIA.

On the 11th of April, it was ordered by the House of Commons, that there should be laid on the table of the house "A copy of all laws and regulations which have "been made by the Governor-General of India in council, "by virtue of the Act of the 3d and 4th W. IV. c. 85.”

By that act, in 1833, the East India Company, so long as they should continue to hold their powers of government, were prohibited from carrying on trade; and both by this relief of private traders from a state of competition with the unbounded capital and overwhelming influence of the Company, and by the general permission then given to resort to India, for which purpose the license of the Company had before been required, and by its being made a right of British persons to purchase and hold lands, which they could not have held before unless by leave of the Company, there were facilities, and an encouragement and invitation, given to the people of the united kingdom, which made it necessary that there should be established in India a general legislative power of some sort, which should be competent to make laws for British persons, as well as for the natives. Such a power was accordingly created, for the first time, in 1833, by the imperial statute of the 3d and 4th W. IV. c. 85, ss. 39 to 55, by which it was enacted :

I. That the whole civil and military government in India was to be under a Governor-General and Counsellors, to be styled, "The Governor-General of India in "Council."

II. That there should be four ordinary members of the Council; three of whom were to be appointed by the Court of Directors of the East India Company, from amongst the servants of the Company, or persons who should have been servants of the Company; and the fourth was to be also appointed by the Directors, but subject to the approbation of the Crown, and from amongst persons who should not be servants of the Company.

III. That the Governor-General in Council should have power to make laws for altering or repealing any laws then being, or thereafter to be, in force, in the territories then in the possession, and under the government of the East India Company, and for all persons, and all courts of justice, and all places and things within the said territories, and for all servants of the Company within the dominions of princes, or states in alliance with the Company, with the following exceptions and restrictions :

1. That there should be no power to repeal, vary, or affect the act of the 3d and 4th W. IV. c. 85, or any of the acts for punishing mutiny and desertion, or any future act whatsoever of the imperial parliament.

2. That there should be no power to affect any prero

gative of the crown, or the authority of parliament, or the constitution or rights of the East India Company, or to vary any part of the unwritten law or constitution whereon may depend the allegiance of any person to the crown of the united kingdom, or to affect in any way the sovereignty or dominion of the crown over the Indian territories.

3. That, unless with the sanction of the court of Di

rectors, none of the courts established by the charters of the crown should be abolished, nor any power be given to any other courts than those established by the charters of the crown, to sentence to death any of the subjects of the crown born in Europe, or the children of such subjects.

4. That the Court of Directors and Board of Commis

sioners for the affairs of India, should have the power of disallowing and annulling any laws made by the Governor-General of India in Council. 5. That a full, complete, and constantly existing right and power, was reserved to parliament to control, supersede, or prevent all acts and proceedings whatsoever of the Governor-General of India in Council, and to repeal and alter, at any time, any law or regulation whatsoever made by the Governor-General in Council, and in all respects to legislate for the Indian territories, and all the inhabitants thereof, in as full and ample a manner as if the act of the 3d and 4th Wm. IV. c. 85, had not been passed.

6. That the better to enable parliament to exercise at all times such right and power, all laws and regulations made by the Governor-General in Council should be transmitted to England, and should be annually laid before both houses of parliament.

It was in the incalculable consequences, for good or for evil, which this new legislative power of 1833 might produce, that the justification was to be found of the first act of Sir John Hobhouse, when, without any previous opportunities of experience, he was appointed to the control of Indian affairs. In such circumstances, he is not to be blamed for having declined to ratify the commission

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