tions, "the legitimate drama," and principally from the propriety of giving a full opening, as well to the higher as to the more humble orders of dramatic talent, that the proprietors and managers of the said theatres should be allowed to exhibit, at their option, the legitimate drama, and all such plays as have received or shall receive the sanction of the censor.

3. Your committee believe that the number of theatres thus licensed (although they might be more conveniently distributed) would suffice for the accommodation of the public, in the present state of feeling towards theatrical performances, and also for the general advantages of competition; at the same time, as theatres are intended for the amusement of the public, so your committee are of opinion that the public should have a voice in the number of theatres to be allowed. And your committee would, therefore respectfully submit to the house, that if a requisition, signed by a majority of the resident householders in any large and populous parish or district, be presented to the chamberlain, praying for his licence to a new theatre in the said parish or district, the chamberlain should be bound to comply with the public wish. Your committee are of opinion, that all abuse in the exercise of the licence thus granted, would be effectually prevented by leaving to the chamberlain the power of applying to the Home Department, for the summary suppression of any theatre which may notoriously have outraged the conditions of its licence, or the rules of public decorum.

4. Your committee would also recommend, that the chamberlain should possess the same power for

the summary suppression of any theatre, exhibiting any sort of dramatic representation without the sanction of his licence; considering, that as the public can procure the licence if it approve the theatre, so any theatre not licensed would probably not be less opposed to the desire of the public than to the provisions of the law.

5. With respect to the licensing of plays, your committee would advise, in order to give full weight to the responsibility of the situation, that it should be clearly understood that the office of the censor is held at the discretion of the lord chamberlain, whose duty it would be to remove him, should there be any just ground for dissatisfaction as to the exercise of his functions. Your committee would recommend some revision in the present system of fees to the censor, so (for instance) that the licence of a song and the licence of a play may not be indiscriminately subjected to the same charge; and this revision is yet more desirable, in order to ascertain whether, in consequence of the greater number of plays which, by the alterations proposed by your committee, would be brought under the control of the censor, some abatement in the fees charged for each might not be reasonably made, without lessening the present income of the licenser.

6. In respect to the exclusive privileges claimed by the two metropolitan theatres of Drury-lane and Covent-garden, it appears manifest that such privileges have neither preserved the dignity of the drama, nor, by the present administration of the laws, been of much advantage to the proprietors of the theatres themselves. And your committee, while bound to acknowledge that a very large

sum has been invested in these theatres, on a belief of the continuation of their legal monopoly of exhibiting the legitimate drama, which sum, but for that belief, would probably not have been hazarded, are nevertheless of opinion, that the alterations they propose are not likely to place the proprietors of the said theatres in a worse pecuniary condition than the condition confessed under the existing system.

7. In regard to dramatic literature, it appears manifest that an author at present is subjected to indefensible hardship and injustice; and the disparity of protection afforded to the labours of the dramatic writer, when compared even with that granted to authors in any other branch of letters, seems alone sufficient to divert the ambition of eminent and successful writers from that department of intellectual exertion. Your committee, therefore, earnestly recommend that the author of a play should possess the same legal rights, and enjoy the same legal protection, as the author of any other legal production; and that his performance should not be legally exhibited at any theatre, metropolitan or provincial, without his express and formal consent.

8. By the regulations and

amendments thus proposed in the existing system, your committee are of opinion that the drama will be freed from many present disadvantages, and left to the fair experiment of public support. In regard to actors, it is allowed, even by those performers whose evidence favours the existing monopoly, that the more general exhibition of the regular drama would afford new schools and opportunities for their

art.

In regard to authors, it is probable that a greater variety of theatres at which to present, or for which to adapt, their plays, and a greater security in the profits derived from their success, will give new encouragement to their ambition, and, perhaps (if a play is never acted without producing some emolument to its writer), may direct their attention to the more durable, as being also the more lucrative, classes of dramatic literature; while, as regards the public, equally benefited by these advantages, it is probable that the ordinary consequences of competition, freed from the possibility of licentiousness by the confirmed control and authority of the chamberlain, will afford convenience in the number and situation of theatres, and cheap and good entertainment in the performances usually exhibited.

That the committee have, since they last reported to the House, proceeded to inquire farther into the circumstances attending the payment and collection of tithes in

Ireland, and anxiously to consider whether a mode might not be de vised for remedying the defects in the present system, both as affecting the interests of the church

The amount claimed and received has necessarily fluctuated with the private circumstances and characters of individuals; and even where the demand has been less than what was due, it has become a source of complaint when compared with the demand of a comparatively smaller amount in an adjoining parish. Unfavourable associations are at the same time created in the minds of the occupiers upon whom the payment of tithes falls in the first instance, especially where a large majority, as is the case in the greatest part of Ireland, are not members of the established church. The clergy are thus, in too many instances, unhappily deprived of that just and beneficial influence which their general conduct and habits so well qualify them to exercise, even over persons of a different religious per

suasion.

Many of these evils have been doubtless removed or mitigated by the acts of the 4th and 5th of Geo. 4th, commonly called the composition acts, by which the clergy and their parishioners were enabled, under certain regulations, to agree upon a composition for the amount of tithe for twenty-one years. Of the beneficial effect of these enactments, as far as they have gone, the committee entertain no doubt; but, as it has before been stated, a proportion amounting to more than one-third of the parishes in Ireland have not yet adopted the provisions of these acts; and as in those that have, the actual occupiers of the soil still remain immediately liable to the payment, or subject to advance the amount of their respective compositions, which must in many instances be collected in minute sums from a great number

of persons, the same unfortunate contact between the occupier and the clergyman continues to exist, and the tenant is led to forget that, if discharged from the payment of tithe, he would be called upon for an additional rent from his landlord, and to consider that payment not as a charge upon the land but as a burthen upon himself.

The general result has been, that from the defective operation of the system, the tithe-payer has conceived himself to be subject to a degree of pressure far greater than the actual amount of the sum paid by him would create; while the clergy, who are entitled to the tithe, have reaped a profit considerably less than the sum payable by the occupier of the land, and attended with circumstances no less unsatisfactory and painful to their own feelings than detrimental to the public peace and happiness.

III. For the purpose of removing these difficulties, and as a necessary step towards effecting any great and lasting improvement, it appears to the committee that it would be necessary, in the first instance, to pass an act for making the composition general and permanent, and for the sake of mak ing it general, compulsory, by enabling the lord lieutenant, in all cases where no vestry shall have assembled, or having assembled shall not have taken the necessary measures for a final arrangement before a certain day, to appoint a commissioner in the same manner as directed by the act of 4th George 4th c. 99, and 5th of George 4th c. 63, with full powers to effect an adjustment according to the value of the tithe founded on the average amount payable for the seven years next preceding No

vember, 1830; and, as the whole composition is now proposed to be made permanent, a revision of existing compositions should not be excluded; both compositions, the old as well as the new, to be calculated hereafter according to the variation in the price of corn.

This object once effected, the committee desire to suggest, for your farther consideration, whether it may not be expedient

1. That laws should be passed for carrying into effect, with as little delay as may be found practicable, an arrangement for charging the landlord with the payment, in the first instance, of the composition for tithes, power being given to him to collect the same as a part of his rent; and a reason able deduction per cent being made in consideration of the trouble and risk from which the incumbent or tithe owner would be relieved.

2. That, during the period of any delay which may occur in carrying into complete effect the preceding arrangement, commissioners should be appointed on behalf of the church to collect and distribute, with the assistance of government, the amount of the composition in each diocess.

3. That as an additional advan

tage to the landlord, he should be permitted to redeem such annual charge upon the whole or any portion of his estate, by fixed money payments on advantageous terms, or by conveying, in exoneration of the composition, in whole or in part, lands equivalent in value; and that he should be assisted in so doing by the legislature enabling tenants for life, trustees, &c. to sell, exchange, convey or mortgage for this purpose estates under settlement or belonging to infants, such mortgages to take the precedence of every other incumbrance.

4. That for the purpose of giving greater facility to effect such investments in land for the benefit of the church, or exchanges of land for tithe by individual landholders, it would be desirable that the duty on all stamps necessary for that purpose should be remitted; and it might be advisable, for the sake of giving encouragement to the redemption of tithe in money, that government should be enabled to make advances at a favourable rate of interest, to landlords for that purpose, upon mortgage of their lands; all deeds relating to such mortgages being also exempted from the stamp duty.

of Great Britain and Russia should examine the stipulations of their Convention of the 19th of May, 1815, as well as of the additional article annexed thereto; considering that such examination has led the two high contracting parties to the conclusion, that complete agree.