doubt the right to existence of the Irish State Church itself. The Government went no farther, for the time, than to offer the appointment of a commission to inquire into the incidence and the levying of the tithes, and endeavored to evade the question of appropriation, that is, the question as to the right of Parliament to decide the manner in which the revenues of the Irish State Church ought to be employed. The tithe question itself was finally settled for England before it came to be finally settled for Ireland. But its settlement involved no such consequences to the English State Church as it did to the State Church in Ireland. For our present purposes it is enough to record the fact that the earliest clear indications of the national policy, which in a later generation disestablished the Irish State Church, were given by the first Reform Parliament. Meanwhile the controversy raised as to the position of the Irish Establishment had had the effect of disturbing Lord Grey, who did not like to be driven too rapidly along the path of reform; of greatly angering the sovereign, who grumbled all the more because he could not openly resist; and of dissatisfying men like Ward and Grote and Lord Durham, and even members of the Cabinet like Lord John Russell, who could not regard mere slowness as a virtue when there was an obvious wrong to be redressed. {221} CHAPTER LXXVI. "ONLY A PAUPER." [Sidenote: 1832--The poor-law system] The spirit of reform was impelling Lord Grey's Government in other directions as well as in those which led to the abolition of slavery in the Colonies, the improved conditions of the factory works and the introduction of some better method for the collecting of tithes. The state of the poor laws all over the country had long been attracting the attention of thoughtful, philanthropic, and at the same time practical men. The administration of relief to the poor was still conducted, up to Lord Grey's reforming Administration, on the same general principle as that which had been embodied in the famous statute of Queen Elizabeth. The manner in which that principle had been working during the intervening centuries was only another illustration of Burke's maxim about systems founded on the heroic virtues to which we have lately made reference in this volume. The statute of Elizabeth was based on the principle that the State, or at least the local authorities, ought to find relief for all the deserving poor. The duty of making provision for the deserving poor was left in the hands of those who managed the affairs of the parishes, of whom the local clergy and magistrates were the principal personages. The means had to be furnished by the taxpayers, and the influential men of each parish were left to decide as to the claims and the deserts of the applicants. There was no regular body answerable to public opinion, nor was there indeed any practical way in