When Mr. Miall led the attack on the Irish Establishment, in 1856, it was stated that the task of replying to him was assigned to Mr. Whiteside, but that the vehement representative of Dublin University was quite unprepared to deal with a case so dispassionately put as it was by Mr. Miall; while it is certain that he found his physical force oratory--as Mr. Bright once described it--much more available in a subsequent session, in denouncing the anticipated betrayal of the Church by Mr. Gladstone. Sir Roundell Palmer, however, did not shrink from fulfilling the intention which had been ascribed to him previous to the debate, and, perhaps, no fitter representative man could have been chosen for the purpose. Certainly no one could have succeeded more fully in keeping the discussion up to the high level to which its originator had sought to raise it. No one could be more candid in his recognition of the ability, and the admirable spirit, with which Mr. Miall had placed the subject before the House.[40] No one could be more discriminating in choosing the grounds on which his resistance was offered to the motion; and no one could put the case of the Church more suavely, or more willingly. But, notwithstanding all these high recommendations, the speech was a singularly weak one, in regard to both its reasoning and its facts. The latter, indeed, constituted the weakest part of his case--though, in some quarters, they are relied upon with a confidence which seems to us to be attributable either to imperfect knowledge, or to mistaken views of their bearing on the question in dispute.
The two main facts urged by Sir Roundell Palmer were these--first, that the existence of an Established Church no longer involves injustice to Nonconformists; second, that 'this great institution does a work of inestimable value over the whole land, and in every part of society,' and, more especially, that, to the poor, and in the rural parishes, it is of 'priceless value.'
If the first of these propositions can be sustained, the most effective weapon at their command will be taken out of the hands of the assailants of the Establishment. Mr. Miall, of course, insisted on the converse of that proposition with the utmost emphasis--denouncing, as he did, 'the essential and inseparable injustice involved in lifting one Church from among many into political ascendancy, and endowing it with property belonging to the people in their corporate capacity;' and affirming that 'the inmost principle of a Church Establishment is necessarily unjust in its operation,' and that 'man suffers injustice at the hands of the State when the State places him in a position of exceptional disadvantage on account of his religious faith, or his ecclesiastical associations.' Sir Roundell Palmer has two replies to this, viz., that what Dissenters 'call ascendancy' is 'no longer an ascendancy involving any civil rights, privileges, or advantage whatever,' and that those who do not participate in the benefit derived from the property in the hands of the Establishment 'fail to do so from simple choice.' He further asserts that the idea 'that no State institution intended for the public good can be just which everybody does not equally participate in,' would 'lead us into communism, or some other system of the kind.'