[ Hugh Cairns, 1st Earl Cairns, and the Church of Ireland, 1868. ] The Speech of the Lord Chancellor delivered in the House of Lords, June 29th, 1868, on the Motion for the Second Reading of a Bill, [...]

The full title reads: 'The Speech of the Lord Chancellor delivered in the House of Lords, June 29th, 1868, on the Motion for the Second Reading of a Bill, intituled An Act to prevent, for a limited Time, new Appointments in the Church of Ireland, and to restrain, for the same Period, in certain respects, the Proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for Ireland.' 47 + [1]pp., 8vo. Stitched and unbound. In good condition, lightly aged and worn, with central vertical fold. The final page carries a list of 'Publications issued by the National Protestant Union'. On reverse of title: 'The National Protestant Union having applied to the Lord Chancellor for permission to publish the following speech, his Lordship has kindly given his consent, and has also been so good as to revise the copy. | Whitehall Gardens, London.' Now scarce. According to his entry in the ODNB, Cairns 'played a part in the tory response to the evolving Liberal policy on the Irish church and land questions between 1868 and 1870, […] As an Ulster protestant he had little sympathy with Irish Catholic nationalism. More than any other of Disraeli's colleagues, he shaped the insufficiently flexible alternative to Gladstone's call for Anglican disestablishment in Ireland. While he was right in believing that the concession would not reconcile even moderate nationalists to British rule, he made it difficult for the tories to avoid being viewed as obscurantist by Liberal opinion in Britain when he refused to contemplate any but minor changes to the Irish establishment's position. After the 1868 election had been fought and lost mainly on the issue, he came badly out of the Lords' rearguard action against the Liberal bill to disestablish and partly disendow the church in Ireland.'