ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY.

MOTION FOR CORRESPONDENCE.

there were few, if any, places in Her | increased, from time to time, until it is Majesty's dominions which had a greater now £2,000 a-year-still a very modeclaim to attention in a naval and military rate sum in comparison with the revepoint of view than the Island of Malta. nues of kindred institutions, but utilized EARL CADOGAN said, Her Majesty's to the utmost and made productive of Government fully recognized the import- most valuable results. From the date ance of arming the fortifications of Malta of the Charter down to the present hour, with guns of the newest and best pattern, the Academy has laboured unceasingly and of sufficient calibre to cope with any and with signal success in carrying out which might be brought against them. the objects which were set before it. It The House would not, he felt sure, ex- has taken a very high place amongst pect him to make a detailed statement on the learned societies of the world, and is such a subject; but he might say that recognized and respected by them all. the work of strengthening the armament Its transactions are regarded with uniof the Island had been, and was being, versal interest and attention: and the gradually carried out. With regard to most distinguished men in Europe look the fortifications of Valetta, he was in- upon admission to its membership as an formed by those most conversant with honour. For Ireland, it fulfils the functhe matter that they were in a satisfactory tions which belong to the Royal Society condition. in England, and is beyond comparison the national institution of which her people have most reason to be proud. In the highest walks of science it has achieved great things, and the names of such men as M'Cullagh and Hamilton and Lloyd and Andrews have, from generation to generation, shed lustre on it for nearly 100 years. It has united the departments of polite literature and antiquities, and in them, also, has done noble service. It has preserved numbers of ancient manuscripts of entirely inestimable value for historical and philological purposes. It has formed a museum, unique and unequalled, containing, as has been declared by a Select Committee of the other House of Parliament, the richest and most important collection of Celtic antiquities in any nation. It has made and is making precious contributions to archæology-Irish and foreign-through the fruitful labours of men like Petrie, and Graves, and O'Curry, and Todd and Ferguson. In all its departments, it is as active and efficient as at any period of its history, and your Lordships will not wonder that, with such antecedents and such results, it commands a fond appreciation and a justifiable pride by the people for whom it has laboured so worthily and so long. They are content with it. They wish no change in it; and they fear any novel experiments which may result in its injury. Two proposals have recently been made with respect to it, though not, I believe, for the first time. It has been suggested, that the Royal Irish Academy should be amalgamated with the Royal Dublin Society, and the official person, Mr.

LORD O'HAGAN, in rising to move for Correspondence connected with the Art Institutions of Dublin, said: My Lords, the Papers for which I move, and which I trust my noble Friend, the Lord President, will not refuse, relate to a question which has produced-and in my judgment has inevitably produced-a good deal of annoyance and irritation in Ireland. Until these Papers are before your Lordships I do not propose to deal with the question at any length: but it is necessary that I should very briefly inform the House of the circumstances in which it has originated. The position of the Royal Irish Academy, as a scientific and literary institution, is known to many of your Lordships. Some of you are members of it, and to others its well established reputation must be familiar. It was founded about the year 1785 by a voluntary association of gentlemen, very eminent for their social rank and intellectual culture, under the presidency of the Earl of Charlemont. In 1786, it obtained a Royal Charter, which, in the recital, after speaking of the ancient renown of Ireland for the pursuit of learning, declared the will of the Sovereign to be that the Academy should be established for the cultivation of "science, polite literature, and antiquarian research," and to this end it was endowed with various privileges and a modest grant of money which has since been

Donnelly, in whose letter that proposal | management to which they are unsuited. was communicated as having the ap- So much for the first proposal; and for proval of Lord Sandon, adds to it an- the second, it is, I believe, quite as disother that the amalgamation should go tasteful to the Academy. Heretofore, further, and connect the Royal Irish the Irish Government has been accountAcademy and the Royal Agricultural able for the sums voted by Parliament, Society of Ireland. This is the first and has discharged its functions with proposal; and the second, which has, I perfect propriety and complete satisfachear, been partially carried into effect, tion at once to the Treasury and to the is this-that the control of the grant to Academy. Why should there be any the Academy should be taken from the change? No one has asked for it. No Irish Government, which has heretofore one desires it. It is justified by no administered it, and committed to the public necessity. It promises no public Department of Science and Art at South advantage. The Academy is not disKensington. To both of these proposi- posed to submit to be subordinated to a tions the Royal Irish Academy has Department at South Kensington which offered a prompt and peremptory, and, is not homogeneous with it, which is not in my opinion, a becoming resistance. animated by its spirit or engaged in its I desire to speak of the Royal Dublin pursuits, which may be and is extremely Society with the truest respect. It is valuable in many ways to England, but an old Irish institution-older in dura- was not established, and is not qualified, tion than the Royal Irish Academy-and to assume the control of Irish instituwithin its proper sphere it has done in- tions. The Academy, at all events, definite service to the country. But its clines to acknowledge its superiority or sphere is wholly different from that of submit to its centralizing control-bethe Academy. It was created and is lieving that the Irish Government, maintained to promote the industries of whilst it acts in Ireland as it ought Ireland, manufacturing and agricultural, to do, under the influence of Irish and it has been true to its trust and has opinion and with a single regard to promoted them faithfully and well. And Irish interests, is far more likely to so has the Royal Agricultural Society. consult carefully and well the wants and It aims to improve the cultivation of the wishes of the Academy, than any body soil and amend the breed of cattle, and of officials resident in England and havI have no doubt it has been greatly ser- ing ample employment in the discharge viceable in these respects. But, surely of their proper duties, without meddling there is a grotesque unfitness for amal- in matters which do not concern them gamation between such a body and the and which they do not understand. My Academy-between those who pursue Lords, on both these points the Academy abstract science, in its loftiest regions, has spoken with no uncertain sound. and polite letters and archæology, with At a meeting of the body on the 29th purposes purely historical and literary, May it was resolvedand those who devote themselves altogether, however meritoriously, to the development of the nation's material wealth and productive industry. They cherish aims wholly distinct, and move in planes wholly different, and I do not think that your Lordships will be surprised to find the members of the Academy repudiating the proposed connection as calculated to compromise their position to destroy the prestige they have won by the toils and triumphs of a century-and, instead of improving either of the amalgamated bodies, to breed confusion and complication from their ill-judged alliance; and diminish the value of both by putting them on lines of action for which they were not designed, and subjecting them to a mixed

Lord O'Hagan

"That the Academy approves of the action taken by the Council in declining to entertain the proposed scheme of amalgamation." That resolution was proposed by my friend Dr. Russell, the President of Maynooth College, who came to the meeting to deny that the Commission of 1868, of which he was a member, had given any countenance to the project of amalgamation. It was seconded by my noble and gallant Friend opposite (Lord Gough), and it could not have been presented under more influential auspices. The resolution of the Academy as to the second proposal was, if possible, more decided and emphatic. The Council had reported that, in their opinion,

"acquiescence in the transfer of the Vote from the Royal Irish Academy to the Science

and Art Department would be attended with consequences fatal to the independence, and

highly detrimental to the usefulness of the

Academy."

And the meeting resolved, on the motion of a very eminent Fellow of Trinity College, which was seconded by Master Pigott

"That the Academy protests against the transfer from the Irish Government of the charge of the Academy's Parliamentary grant, and declares its determination to forego all claim on the bounty of Parliament rather than

apply to the Science and Art Department of the

Committee of Council on Education for issue of its grant."

any

That, my Lords, is a strong resolution, and indicates how earnest is the feeling which has been evoked amongst the intellectual classes of Ireland by the proposed changes. I do most sincerely trust that the adoption of an alteration so serious may not be forced on the Academy:-and I have moved in this matter, merely of my own accord, having a natural interest in it as myself a member of the body, that I might contribute, if possible, to avert what would be, in my judgment, for many reasons, a national calamity. I have asked for the Papers very much with the hope of fixing the attention of the noble Duke upon the subject of them, and with the full assurance from my knowledge of my noble Friend that if he will personally consider it-if he will look at it with his own eyes and decide according to his own judgment-what is at once right and kindly will be done natural and honourable susceptibilities will be respected-the public Bodies to which I have adverted will be kept in their proper courses and made to pursue, with independence, their peculiar ends, and justice will be done to an institution which, in its scientific and literary action, has deserved well of Ireland, the empire and the world.

him an opportunity of endeavouring, if possible, to allay and put an end to any feelings of annoyance and irritation which were said to prevail in Ireland on this subject. Nothing could be further from the wishes or intentions of the Government than to say or do anything that would cause the slightest irritation to any of the learned and scientific bodies in Ireland, and nothing that they had done, he would fain hope, could produce such consequences. The history and position of the Royal Irish Academy were well known; while the marvellous collection of antiquities it lieved, in the world, with, perhaps, the possessed-the most remarkable, he beexception of the collection at Copenhagen

and also the manner in which the articles were kept by that society, would call forth the highest praise from those who took an interest in such matters. He found that Sir W. Wilde, in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, stated that—

article in the Museum, now about 12,000, had "up to the meeting in March last every been catalogued, with the exception of some coins; and that if the Museum were removed to-morrow there would not be 30 articles to number or register."

With regard to the Correspondence now moved for, he might have declined to produce it on the ground that it was not complete, and that the negotiations were still pending; but he was unwilling to do so, because it might possibly suggest that there was something to keep back. At the same time he preferred to give the Correspondence in an amended form, and one which, he thought, would supply all the information desired by his noble and learned. Friend. It would, he thought, show that there had been some misapprehension as to the course the Government had taken in the matter. What had really occurred was this. Representa

Moved, That there be laid before the tions had been made to successive Go

House

Copies of all public official correspondence, commencing 8th February 1876, between the Irish Government, the Treasury, the Science and Art Department, the Royal Dublin Society, and the Royal Irish Academy on the subject of the proposed establishment of a Science and Art Museum in Dublin."-(The Lord O'Hagan.)

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND RICHMOND AND GORDON said, he was grateful to his noble and learned Friend for giving

vernments with a view to concentrate and develop the various scientific institutions which exist in Dublin; and when his right hon. Friend now at the head of the Government previously held a similar position the Government proposed to create a separate Department of Science and Art for Ireland. Accordingly, a Commission, consisting largely of noblemen and gentlemen connected with that country, was ap