278 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1834- to the continued existence of the Government, and that, perhaps, was one reason why his alliance was not sought. He was broken in health and spirits, but he was well enough, and vigorous enough, for ministers to use him for help in the most serious and vital business in which the country was concerned in the settlement of the Canadian trouble and they used and then deserted him. The history of the session is the record of a series of these two kinds of events : defeat of Government measures by the Tory peers, and rejection of Radical proposals by ministers leading Tory majorities in the Commons. There were two Irish questions before the country. On one of them, the rearrangement of tithes, the Government had pledged itself in former years to stand or fall by, but their measures fell and they still tried to stand. On the other question, the establishment of representative municipal institutions, they were just going through the same process. In 1836 they had brought in a bill which the Lords so mutilated that it was dropped. This year the subject formed again one of the principal items in the King's speech, and the bill was introduced on the 2Oth of February and read a third time, and passed on the nth of April by a majority of 302 to 247. It was read a second time in the House of Lords, but on the 5th of May Welling- ton proposed and carried a motion to postpone the committee to the Qth of June. This was resented by the Radicals in the other House, and on the same night Hume proposed to postpone the supplies to the Qth of June also, but ministers objected, and the motion was withdrawn. When the gth of June came, Lyndhurst proposed another postponement, which was carried, and nothing more was done before the death of the King put an end to the session. The only other important Government measure, that which proposed to deal with the vexed question of church rates in England, met with a fate just as disastrous. The scheme, which was introduced on the 3rd of March by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to take possession of the church lands which formed the source of the incomes of bishops,
