The Press. — London, England, 1858-08-07 00:00:00

them more wisely, more mercifully—must we add, more justly ? They are covetous, no doubt ; let us not enlighten them . by an exhibition of rapacity. They are cunning—the weak often ar e ; let us show them that the strong can afford to be honest. They are . arrogant ; let us forbear to trample on the pride of Con-fu-tsee with greater pride. They are idolaters ;—shame and woe to us if we offer them shells and rifle-bullets as our best " evidences of Christianity." THE REFLUX FROM ROME. WHEN the Irish Union was first proposed by WiLLIAm Prrr, there was much curiosity to know what were the feelings of King GEORGE 111. in relation to that measure. In those days Mr. GEORGE BANKES was a favourite and confidential friend of the King; and Mr. WILBERFORCE records in his Diary that he asked Mr. BANKES, " What did the King think of the Union with Ireland?" and he received for an answer, "If the measure will be for the good of the Church, his Majesty is not disinclined to it ; but if it will be for the disadvantage of the Church, the " King will not be favourable to it." The strong Protestant instincts of the King told him that come serious inconveniences, and even possible dangers, might be anticipated from the legisla tive junction of a country where the Roman Catholics were in a majority with a nation in which they were little more than a fraction of a 'ect. Whatever might be the political or corn nercial advantages of the Union with Ireland, it was obvious that such a measure would give the Roman Catholics a formidable locus standi in the .mperial Legislature • and accordingly we have een England agitated profoundly in its domestic • olitics by the constant recurs ence of the per etually-changing " Catholic Question," and the notice -book of the House of Commons shows hat we are as far off as ever from arriving at any ermination of this subject. Whether we like it it not,—whether we are tired of it, or other rise,—the Roman Catholics will not allow us to oe quiescent, and it will be absolutely necessary lot to overlook the peculiar strategy which they ave now adopted. Last week, in our first leading article, we lescanted on the laxity and indefinite belief, and an the " no-principle of the age." We were eferring, of course, to the state of opinion in England considered socially and politically. We ,bserve that our remarks have received extensive :irculation even amongst " Liberal" organs which seldom copy from our columns. All that we there said will appear in stronger relief, on observing how little obnoxious to the charge of Indifferentism " are the adherents of the Church A Rome. Never were its members showing more Weal and personal earnestness than now. Amongst them there is no tendency "to give up," "to merge all distinctions," " to assume ambiguous lesignationa," or to shrink from committing them .elves in an " out-and-out " style. The contrast xtween the intensity and organized zeal of the Roman Catholics and the "open-question" sys km of languid Protestants is painful to contem ,late. We do not desire to indulge in hackneyed cries, ,r to repeat the gloomy vaticinations of former Nriods. We wish to look at facts as they come toefore us, and to illustrate their operation. We said last week, that " Whoever studied carefully the flux and reflux of opinions that has been going on of late years must be convinced that 'all principles are undergoing a process of solu ' tion which betokens some approaching state of `transformation." No sooner have means been nven for squeezing the Jews into Parliament, 'han the Irish ex-Attorney-General of the Whigs ;Ives notice for a new " Catholic Relief Bill," and Proposes to make all oaths uniform. It is note vorthy that the Roman Catholics of England and Ireland had committed the question into the 'lands of Mr. Sergeant DEASY, but it is now to be transferred to Mr. J. D. FITZGERALD, who is aPnvy Councillor, and who has already held the highest Crown office in Ireland. Yet this ques tion of abolishing the Oath of 1829 is only put forward as a means of uniting the English and Irish Ro man C at h o li cs, and giving them a joint Found for political action. Lax and indifferent THE PRESS, AUGUST 7, 1858. as is the spirit of the period, we cannot suppose that the Roman Catholics believe that Parliament will remove the constitutional security devised in 1829. That security is no safeguard in itself against the secret machinations of the Church of Rome, but it is of priceless value as giving (as it were) a clause of interpolation to the Bill of 1829. " Emancipation " was asked for by Bunn; GRATTAN, and their followers, as being likely to be beneficial to Protestantism ; and the Oath in its present form was imposed upon the Roman Catholics with their own full and free consent. Such an oath, of course, should not be tampered with now. But on this special question we shall enlarge at another time. What we desire to fix attention upon now is, the peculiar modus operandi of the Roman Catho lic party. It is a skilful and ingenious plan to raise questions, under plausible pretexts, with a view to ulterior aims. Did any one suppose that O'CONNELL really believed that he could repeal the Union ? No ! The great Agitator inscribed that question on his banner, but his real object VMS to make a great Democratic and Roman Catholic party, to free it from the territorial in fluences of the Devonshires, the Lansdownes, the Donoughmores, and other aristocratic connec tions, which, though " Liberal," had served in some degree to check and counterpoise the violence and extravagant zeal of the Roman Catholic commonalty. O'CONNELL completely succeeded in his real, but not in his nominal, aim. The Union has not been repealed, but, owing , to the policy followed by O'CONNELL and his friends, the composition of the Irish repre sentative body is entirely different from what it would have been but for the agitation of the Repeal cry. Now, again, a similar stroke of policy is de signed. The fact cannot be ignored that the English and Irish Roman Catholic gentry have never assimilated well together. The Howards, Petres, Dormers, Langdales, Stourtons, Con stables, Blundells, of the English Roman Catholics are a proud, sensitive, and most exclusive body. They are something more than a class ; they are almost a caste. They have long pedigrees, and weighty purses. They have splendid parks and grand country mansions, and they live in pomp and style. In their social tone they affect not a little of the habits of the medueval ,rands seigneurs. Shy, fastidious, and high bred, it is not wonderful that this connection should recoil from the tone and language too often exhibited by the upstart declaimers of their co-religionists in Ireland. The English Roman Catholics never joined in the cry for " Repeal," and they often had to endure much vituperation from the demagogues of Ireland ; and this diversity of tastes and dis cordance of views has made the Roman Catholic connection in the empire less formidable than it otherwise would have been. But the heads of the Church of Rome have now resolved to join and amalgamate closely the aristocracy of the English with the democracy of the Irish Roman Catholics. No better subject could be devised than the question of the Oath for bringing about a junction between those bodies, and so that the union between them is obtained, the Roman Catholics can afford to wait for future triumphs. Simultaneously with this object it has been dexterously determined to bring the whole ecclesiastical working of the Roman Church (in this realm) into close obedience to the autho rities at Rome. The English Romanists were formerly adherents to the Gallican views on the l'apacy ; they adopted the tenets of BossuL'r with regard to the rights of National Churches. They had formerly amongst themselves a " Cis alpine Club," into which Irish Catholics found it extremely difficult to obtain membership. They have now established what is called a "Stafford-street Club," which might be named an " Ultramontane Club." Gallicanism, now a-days, is almost extinct amongst the Roman Catholics of this empire. Having united the laity at large in closer con nection with Rome, another object of the Court of Rome is to withdraw the Irish secular clergy from politics, and to render the parish priests subservient to a severer discipline than has here tofore prevailed. There are dioceses now in Ireland in which a Roman Catholic priest is not allowed to indulge in social pleasures (of an en tirely harmless kind) with the same freedom as 1 formerly. The Church remains as political as , . ever, but the priests are desired to give up 747 haranguing on politics, and leave matters of State to their ecclesiastical superiors ; and along with this change the system of domestic nomi nation is practically overturned, and the bishops of some dioceses that have recently been vacated have been named at Rome. Archbishop CULLEN himself was chosen specially at Rome, and his appointment was the precursor of great changes. If one was to judge by newspapers and by the reports of public meetings, the action of the Church of Rome has become much less than in preceding times, but in reality it has become more. " Repeal of the Union "is not now shouted for by priests; seditious speeches are not now heard, or offensive language about " England's difficulty being Ireland's opportu nity." But it would be a most egregious error to suppose, because Agitation and " Young" and "Old Irelandism" have vanished, that therefore' the Church of Rome in this empire has became less zealous, and less fertile in schemes for fur therance of her power. The reverse is exactly the case. We write in no alarm on this subject, and we would wish that language of exaggeration should be avoided. The Pope gained by Cardinal WfsEmAN's aggression. Lord Joux RUSSELL, mismanaged the politics of a mighty crisis, and forty Irish Roman Catholic M.P.'s became the. arbiters between political parties in England. The Papal influence has become a disturbing one in our English political system. Pirr left office in 1802 on this " Catholic question" ; Fox lost his popularity by espousing it; and the overgrown power of the Grenvillites was deposed on account of their patr9nage of the Papal cause. The Liverpool Cabinet was weakened by it from 1812 to 1827, and in 1829 the great Tory party was de stroyed by it. So, also, the Reform party lost its hold on the affections of England by the Lichfield-house compact with the Pope and his friends. Again the old subject is forced upon public attention, and from the course taken by the Parliamentary leaders of the Roman Catho lics, as well as from other causes, a cry of " No. Popery " is likely to burst up suddenly from the mass of the nation. We do not believe in the utility of " cries," unless there be fixed, steady, and permanent adherence to principles. To know the danger, and to see clearly whence it pro ceeds, are good preparatives for future action. The nation was deceived in 1851. What was gained against the Pope in 1851 by the Declara tory Act against illegal episcopal titles, was lost by the Coalition between the Peelites and the Pope's supporters in 1852. And now, when the question has again " come into the Parliamentary running,' the Conserva tives have a right to ask, " What will the Peelites do, and what do they mean ? " Is the phrase to be current of " The Pope and his Peelites ? " or is there to be something better than a mere alliterative connection between Peelites and Protestantism ? We were glad to see that on the Dublin Police Bill some of the leading Peelites supported the Government, and voted against their old "Coalition" allies. On this subject of Pope and Protestantism there cannot be three sides, and there are only two lobbies for divisions in the House of Commons.. The Pope, with his legal and clerical advisers, is for pushing on his influence, more and more, step by step. Into which lobby will the Peelites walk ? LORD EGLINTOT_IN AND THE IRISH PACKET-STATION. MEN of all parties are glad to observe the success which attends the Earl of EowrrouN in Ireland. Wherever his Excellency goes he is received with a cordial welcome, and "party" for once seems hushed in the sister country. Frank and. ingratiating in manners and appearance, averse front all intrigue, and ready to judge men by their acts rather than by their professions, Lord EGLINTOUN possesses many of the chief qualities required for a Viceroy at Dublin. He is pliant and adroit in dealing with individuals, but, at the same time, Lord EGLINTOUN can, as the occa sion requires, display great firmness. He does not run after a claptrap popularity, and yet few of his predecessors ever received so many marks A