ministry were not prepared to go to the length which the radicals and the Irish members demanded,—­the complete suppression of the tithe system; in other words, “the disestablishment of the Irish Church.”  They were willing to sacrifice a portion of the tithes, to reduce the number of bishops, and to apply some of the ecclesiastical property to secular purposes.  But even this concession called out a fierce outcry from the conservatives, in and out of Parliament.  A most formidable opposition came from the House of Lords, headed by Lord Eldon; but the ministers were at last permitted to carry out their measure.

Nothing satisfactory, however, was accomplished in reference to the collection of tithes, in spite of the concession of the ministers.  The old difficulty remained.  Tithes could not be collected except at the point of the bayonet, which of course was followed by crimes and disturbances that government could not prevent.  In 1833 the arrears of tithes amounted to over a million of pounds, and the Protestant clergy were seriously distressed.  The cost of collecting tithes was enormous, from the large coercive force which the government was obliged to maintain.  When the pay of soldiers and policemen is considered, it took L25,000 to collect L12,000.  The collection of tithes became an impossibility without a war of extermination.  Every expedient failed.  Even the cabinet was divided on all the schemes proposed; for every member of it was determined to uphold the Established Church, in some form or other.

At last Mr. Ward, member for St. Albans, in 1834 brought forward in the Commons a measure which had both reason and justice to commend it.  After showing that the collection of tithes was the real cause of Irish discontents, that only a fourteenth of the population of Ireland were in communion with the English Church, that nearly half of the clergy were non-residents, and that there was a glaring inequality in the salaries of clergymen,—­so that some rectors received from L500 to L1,000 in parishes where there were only ten or twelve Protestants, while some of the resident clergy did duty for less than L20 per annum,—­he moved the following:  “Resolved, that as the Protestant Episcopal Establishment of Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population, it is the opinion of the House that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland ought to be reduced.”  The motion was seconded by Mr. Grote, the celebrated historian; but Lord Althorp rose and requested the House to adjourn, in consequence of circumstances he was not prepared to mention.  All understood that there was trouble in the cabinet itself; and when the House reassembled, it was found that the Duke of Richmond, Earl Ripon, Lord Stanley (colonial secretary), and Sir James Graham, being opposed to the appropriation of the funds of the Irish Church to other than ecclesiastical purposes, had resigned.  The king himself was strongly opposed to the motion, to say nothing of the peers; and the conservative part of the nation, from the long-inherited jealousy of the Catholic Church, stood upon the same ground.