30 MARCH 1872, Page 3

Mr. Fawcett's Trinity College and University of Dublin Bill was

taken up again on Tuesday night, and its second reading carried by a majority of 73 (94 to 21). There was no attempt to justify the measure as a settlement of the Irish University ques- tion, and the minority consisted solely of Irish Members, who regarded the Bill with dislike—first, because it might be made an excuse for delaying the measure they wished for ; and secondly, because it appeared to them to strike at the religious education of Protestants, which they thought better than no religious education at all. The O'Donoghue made the best speech of the evening, asserting that the representatives of Trinity College offered the Catholics a questionable liberty in the matter of education, pro- vided the latter were prepared to surrender their conscientious preference for a complete system of Catholic education. He pointed to the many points on which the Irish laity really do take sides different from that of their priests as a conclusive answer to the utterly baseless assertion that on this question the laity are dictated to by the priests, and nobody attempted to make any sub- stantial reply to his statements. Mr. Brace, however, reiterated on behalf of the Government their intention to deal with the question of University Education in Ireland, and not to accept this measure, if carried, as a settlement of it. Mr. Maguire added that 70 out of the 105 Irish Members are pledged to the principle of denominational education.