The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-31 00:00:00

- 722 having been in earnest—a credit that few can claim in the present day. A man deeply pene trated with some great truth, and compelled by I his own deep convictions to obey it, cannot listen to every one who may be indifferent to it, and purchase peace with the world at the price of hie conscience. There is a higher voice to which he always owes submission, which he serves with the most fervent devotion, which he worships with supreme adoratkon. Men of ispercilions and superficial minds may call him "bigot " or "intolerant;" but, ueverthelees, he is a man, because he is true to his convictions. And if "to be what we are be," as it has been said, " the "first step to becoming better than we are," then not to be what we are must be the first step to becoming worse than we are. Any one who has looked with an observant eye upon 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 solution which betokens some approaching state of transformation. What is to be evolved out of the whole, it is impossible for any one to say. It may be that Millennium of Liberalism of which some so fondly dream, when all ranks, sects, and pftties will be reduced to a level, to be followed by, Waven alone knows what—most certainly not the triumph of truth. Or it may be some fresh con vulsion of the whole mass of society, dividing it self into parts according to their true nature — when every man will be obliged to choose his party and to avow his principles. Whichever it may be, it will only be the beginning of the end. THE WHIGS AND THE REVIVAL OF THE "ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION." AT the close of our first article last week, we stated that "During the ensuing recess prepara " Lions, on both sides, of the most critical cha " raster, will be made to meet Parliament." The circumstances of the times, and the instincts of English political life, unite in calling for the re organization of parties, for the enunciation of clear views, and for a stricter regard to principle than has recently characterized the working of politics. It will be our duty in the course of the autumn to direct attention to some aspects of public affairs fraught with the gravest impor tance ; and none of them is of more lasting interest than the revival of the Papal question, which many persons thought was virtually ex tinguished by the concession of 1829. That the Whigs have, already, began to take counsel together as to the best means of repairing their broken strength, is no longer a political secret. Nor is any veil thrown over the fact that great diversity prevails in their camp as to what should be done about Roman Catholics. It seems, however, to be a fait accompli that the Pope has permanently fixed himself upon the party which arrogantly aspires to the manipula tion of " progress" in England. O'CONNELL extinguished the Whigs in Ireland. The proud race of the Geraldines now returns a solitary representative (the Marquis of KILDARE). The famous Irish families of the Boyles and Ponsonbies no longer number any scions amongst the Irish members, and, speaking gene rally, the Whig aristocracy of Ireland is politi cally defunct. The seats thrmerly filled by emi nent members of the Whig families are now monopolized by political attorneys, or by zealous adherents to the Church of Rome. There can be no ignoring the fact that an untiring organi zation for the further ance an d support of the Roman Catholic interest exists at the present time in Ireland, and, although one hears little now of "agitation," there is Ear more of in fluence and orgaaizatiou brought to bear on the Roman Catholics than people commonly sup- We shall advert to so me o f t h e symptoms pose. which mark the extraordinary energy shown in all directions by the Roman Catholics. In former years the game of the Roman Ca tholic party was to raise a cry against the C "arch. They joined the chorus of English "Voluntaries " against the Establishment, and tl,c Whigs, under Lord l'ULnouluie, were sup- THE PRESS, JULY 31, 158. ported by Scotch Presbyterians, Irish Romaniste, English Dissenters, and by the Socialists, with ROBERT °WILE at their head. The Conserva tives defeated the Liberals on the question of the Church, and the victory of 1841 was a triumph. The aggression of Cardinal Wisrmax frightened even the Liberals and political free thinkers, but since then the rulers of the Romish Church have entirely changed their tactics. They have bent all their attention to the grasping of the education of the Irish people. They have got Maynooth with 30,0001. a year for their clergy, and not le2B than 200,0001. per annum is voted for the " National Education System," which is virtually in the howls of the Roman Catholic priests. In nearly every town throughout Lein ster, Connaught, and Munster, the tourist is astonished with the sight of some large eccle siastical building, which he is told is " the Con vent," and if he visits the adjacent schools, he will see by a printed notice that the school is under " The National Board," and when enter ing it he will be surprised to find Nuns presiding over the various classes. And this in a country where scriptural schools receive no assistance from the State ! A few years ago there existed several convents in Ireland, whose inmates ministered to the edu cation of the children of the gentry and the middle classes, but the highest ecclesiastical influences in the Church of Rome have now declined to patronize convents " without poor schools." The consequence is that no convent now-a-days is without its poor school, in a great number of instance aided by the funds of the " National Board," which was founded by Im perial money for the extension of " Non-Sec tarian " education in Ireland ! The influence produced by this development of conventual progress, and its consequent absorption of popular education, is of prodigious importance. In short, the plain result of the Whig and Liberal mode of governing Ireland since 1829 is to create a vast Roman Catholic political interest, to intensify its action, to enlarge its resources, and to fortify its tradi tional power over the peasantry. And, by a strange retribution, the Whigs have lost about forty seats in Ireland, which have been grasped by the Roman Catholics; so that in the year 1858 the Whigs have really no staunch Parlia mentary balances beyond their immediate friends returned by their family boroughs and by some constituencies where Whig estates prevail. The great mass of the " Independent Liberals " recal citrate against the families, and in the long run the Whigs have found that their active championship and zealous patronage of the Roman Catholics has contributed to sink them in English estimation. It is not wonderful that under such circumstances the Whigs should begin to meditate deeply as to whether they should plunge deeper into "the Serbonian bog," where their Irish friends invite them to follow. But whatever the Whigs may resolve upon the question, it is plain that the Roman Catholics have determined to push forward their interest more vigorously than ever. Mr. JOHN D. FITZ GERALD (the ex-Attorney-General for Ireland) has given notice for bringing in early next session a " Roman Catholic Relief Bill," and the same learned gentleman is also to move for " a uniform Parliamentary oath." an oblique mode of repealing one of the Protestant securities of 1829. Mr. FITZGERALD is a Roman Catholic bar rister, who has filled the offices of Attorney and Solicitor General in Ireland, and he seems very de sirous of effacing from the minds of his co-religion ists the memory of the speech made by him in pro secution of Father CONWAY, in which he alluded to " the superstition" of the Mayo peasantry. Mr. FITZGERALD was one of the leading counsel also in the prosecution of the Redemptionist Father, for burning the Bible at Kingstown. That prosecution also failed, but it will be for the Protestants of England to take care that Mr. FITZGERALD does not succeed in removing one of the Protestant securities from the existing Statute book. The " Catholic Oath " is now of nearly thirty years existence. It has been taken during that time by the leading notabilities of the Roman Catholic persuasion, by the " Agitator" himself, and his sons, by Mr. SHELL, and by several legal personages, like the late Master of the Rolls in Ireland (Sir Michael O'LounLAN), by the late Chief Baron WOOLEN., by the present Chief Justice MONAHAN, and others, along with the Roman Catholic Peers of England. It is very suspicious, after such eminent persons, m any of them with the highest char ac t er f or privafe honour, taking that oath again and again, that an attempt should now be deliberately m a d e b y a candidate for the Judicial Bench to repeal this security. But the object is transparent. Let the Catholic Oath " be taken away, and one of the principal securities against ascendancy will be removed. In the last speech made in Parliament by the celebrated GRATTAN for " Emancipation,' the orator said—" Our opponents argue that if the " Relief Bill were passed it would be Protes " tant England, Presbyterian Scotland, and " Roman Catholic Ireland," and what the Roman Catholics arc now aiming at is to effect that latter purpose. Hence they urge on their leading M.P.'s to get the "Catholic Oath" altered; hence they would have the Dublin police exclu. sively " Catholic," and hence they rejoice in the Jesuits undertaking the spiritual direction of the police (including the detectives); and hence there are such extraordinary efforts to keep the education of the peasantry under the special care of the priesthood. M. GUIZOT, in his " Memoirs of Sir R. Peel," has given his opinion that the designs of PITT in carrying the Irish Union, along with the policy of WELLiso•rox and PEEL in 1829, have failed ; and Lord MACAULAY, also, has, in the last volume of his brilliant history, lamented the failure of " Catholic Emancipation." But there are still persons who would wish to make it a success by going further and further in the same downward direction, and the ques tion is now whether the Whigs will continue to espouse the claims of the Pope, and to abet his further efforts to extend his dominion. Circum- stances will compel a plain and emphatic answer to that question. The Roman Catholics loudly boast that their losses, incurred ten years since by famine and emigration, have since been re dressed by superior organization, and by closer connection with the " centre of unity at Rome." It is at such an interesting period that the ex• Attorney-General of the Whigs has given no tices for further " Relief Bills, and it is at such a critical time that it is anstainced that "ha " Eminence Cardinal Wises* will visit &Ansi " in the autumn" ! woo-v.l4n 1 HAIL ! BRITISH COLUMBIA I BY a series of circumstances we cannot look oa as fortuitous, England is called upon to consider the noble and heroic work of plantation. Until recently colonies have been regarded as mere im• posthumes upon the State, the consequence, it was alleged, of an evil or overfull habit of body. Mr. COBDEN hnd other reducing operators have, from time to time, strenuously recommended the excision of these unprofitable appendages, assur ing the friends of the Constitution that an opera tion was absolutely necessary----that it might be rendered painless if not agreeable by a mode of insensibility peculiar only to themselves,--and, moreover, that the relief would be like getting rid of any debt, national or otherwise, but which at present they did not press, quite surprising. Somehow or other, in spite of this pleasant moral doctrine, England did not detach her colonies. She found them a convenient outlet for a good many hot and rebellious humours. Legislation was chiefly interested, and rather perplexed, about the easiest and best mode of getting rid of her waste population, and was grateful, meanwhile, to any portions of that population who got rid, in any way they thought most convenient, of her or of themselves. Annually from our impoverished lands and seeth ing towns is discharged across the Altantle a turbid human current., with as little national care or foresight as we turn every day into the Thames some thousands of tons of sewage. The one may come back to us in the form of cholera, and the other revisit us in the form of war, but we did not make ourselves uneasy with any such contingency ; our anxiety was not for the future, but for the present. A large and steady demand for the skins of beaver and fox and opossum setting in through out Europe, it was thought necessary to confer exclusive power and privileges en a CompaaY , in order to keep a largo tract of country In a II