The inner life of the House of Commons Author:William White, Justin McCarthy Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. MR. EDWARD MIALL AND HIS MOTION FOR AN INQUIRY INTO THE REVENUES OF THE STATE CHURCH IN IRELAND AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. We have had no attract... more »ive debate in the June 7,1858. House of late, unless we except the discussion on Mr. Miall's motion for overhauling the revenues of the Irish Church, and that only kept together for a length of time about 150 members. There were more at first, but many went away, and did not come back until the time drew on for the division, when the number rose up to 260, viz., 95 for the resolution, and 165 against. It was expected by some that there would be no House, or if a House should be made, that it would certainly be counted out at dinner time. But Mr. Miall's supporters had managed matters better than was supposed, for at four o'clock the House was unusually full for Tuesday. And even during the dangerous dinner time there were always present over a hundred members. The fact was, that it became known that the supporters of the motion had been very active with the " whip," and so the opponents were obliged to " whip " too, and thus, between the two, all danger of a count-out disappeared. MIALL OF "THE NONCONFORMIST." 19 Mr. Edward Miall, the Hon. Member for Eochdale, is well known throughout a large circle as an earnest and zealous advocate of anti-State Church principles. He was formerly a dissenting minister of Leicester, but in 1841 gave up his charge to establish the Nonconformist newspaper, for the express purpose of promoting more extensively his cherished opinions. This was considered at the time, by some of the " stricter sects," a very questionable step, and, moreover, the Dissenters, at least the dissenting ministers, were not prepared for Mr. Miall's advanced views, and so for a long time he had not only to...« less