The Press. — London, England, 1856-08-23 00:00:00

794 subjects, who are frightened at pimples and pin -scratches, without being alarmed at the danger daily incurred from epidemics. The whole question of N Maynooth" is really fantastically exaggerated. It seems a dom.• right absurdity to raise a cry against a decent education being given to Irish priests, accord. ing to the intentions of GEoaos 111. kind Mr. Prrr, and yet to feel no alarm at the fact of the Emancipation Act of 1829 being the law of the land, at forty Roman Catholics sitting in the Lower House, and at. the Judicial Bench, and the Executive, and the honours of the army being open to the ambition and the zeal of the Roman Catholic gentry of the empire ! For, after all, the real point of the Maynooth discussion turns on the question, whether it is expedient to expend Protestant energy on this one subject, which is, after all, a purely Irish one ? If " Maynooth " were in England, originated by an English (not an Irish) Par liament, and if there were a score of English Roman Catholics, sitting for English places, in the House of Commons, we might feel alarmed. But the present state of things, it is evident, is incidental to an empire consolidated like our own ; and there is only one English Roman Catholic amongst our five hundred re presentatives. For, let Maynooth be abolished, could any rational person suppose that, as the Church of Rome in Ireland has survived every kind of persecution and discouragement since CROM WELL'S time, the supply of priests would cease with the revocation of the grant ? Under another name " Maynooth" would revive with the energy of a Puritanised Popery. fierce, and sternly vindictive, inspired by a virus at once theological and rabidly political. It seems a waste of excellent zeal to direct Protestant enthusiasm against a mere earth work of the Romish Church in Ireland, while breaches in the citadel of our National Estab lishment are left without repair. We say that it would be far more judicious to survey our ECCLESIASTICAL INsTrurnoxs, to renew, repair, atid extend them. Ample, indeed, is the work in that direction for our national piety and hearty Protestant zeal, and we cor dially desire to see them applied in that direction. But though we think that a most mis chievously exaggerated importance has been given to this Irish subject of Maynooth, we have a right to demand that, if discussed, the arguments for and against should be conducts 1 according to the established rules of contrc versy. %Ire are sorry to see that the Morning Herald of Tuesday has misrepresented our views, and it will be our duty to point out several serious mistakes into which our con temporary has fallen. We must refer, in the first instance, to its treatment of ourselves. The Haat garbles our remarks in answer to the cry of Conserva tive disorganisation. In argument. one party may give a summary of the views of his adver sary, but he has no right to quote, as the ipsissima verbs of his opponent, his own con clusions from his antagonist's language. Adroit misrepresentation does not form an adequate answer ; to garble passages is not to grapple with logical positions ; but we content our selves on this point with declining to indorse our contemporary's misreport of the tenor of our remarks. In special reference to the question of Ma) - - nooth, the Herald's admission on Tuesday is remarkable The disease which weakens and threatens to destroy that party (i. e., the Conservative) is no new shiny. It has 13, , en operating to our damage for eight•and•tweut7 years. Then, if the present " disease" be "no new thing," why talk and write about it, exactly as if its existence were attributable to the pre sent Conservative leaders? Is such a course Lsir, or candid? Is it proper conduct to ex hibit towards any political leader or ally? For the word " disease " we shall substitute di(iV esltg, and so far from that difficulty existing only for " eight-and -twenty years" it has been operating since the Union with Ireland, and fk.r man years previous to it. In 1802, Mr. CA37/11110, sad Lord CASTLZILIAOI, THE PRESS. with their immediate followers and poli tical friends, differed on it from the majority of the Tory party. During the Peninsular War the chiefs of the Tories differed on it also from the mass of their followers. The Royal Prinoes of that time were also divided about the diffi culty arising from the Catholic question. Even the Whig party itself did not folk,* unanimously the leadership of Fox upon it. Lord CAMPBELL has recorded in his "Lives of the Chancellors " that the " Catholic question was never a Whig party one," alluding to the hostility of Lord ERSKINE to the Catholics; and Lord HOLLAND has also given us an amusing and authentic account of ERSKINE'S arguments in the Coalition Cabinet against Emancipation. "No new thing," indeed ! The Maynooth dif ficulty is of sixty years date. It was recom mended by Mr. BURKE (after he seceded from the Liberals), it was adopted by Mr. Ptrr, and accepted by King GEORGE 111. The Herald is therefore wrong in attacking the conduct of the Conservative chiefs, as if Maynooth were a " new thing." But our con temporary falls also into mistakes as to fact which have excited our surprise. Its history of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S conduct teems with serious errors; and we think leas 01 its misre presentations of ourselves, when we find it condescending to assail a deceased statesman in a manner perfectly unjustifiable. We are not partial to the fame of Sir ROBERT PEEL, but that eminent man cannot now answer for himself, and he should not in his grave be un fairly attacked. The Herald imputes language to Sir ROBERT PEEL which we feel convinced that he never used, and which he positively denied himself. We shall print the accusation of the Herald, and Sir ROBERT PaaL's denial in parallel columns : MAIMS al TIM " 11[01111TNO DENIAL Or SIR ROBERT REZALD." PEEL. In the year 1838 a depu- I think it probable that I tation from tilasgow waited said 1 feared the approach. upon him, and he talked to ing revival of those times them with great apparent when, instead of being en earnestness on the necessity gaged in political conflicts, for the union of the English we should be engaged iu and Scotch churches to resist such religions disputes as the eticroactirnentsof Popery. agitated Europe three hnn- He added, "I am persuaded direct years ago—. .Of this I that we shall, ere long, see a are earl/Went, that I said so• struggle arise in which we thing to encourage hostility shall have to determine the towards the Roman Catholics. question whether Popery or With respect to the Protestantism is to have the expressims about " Popery," ascendancy." I must say that they were very contrary to the language I had always been in the habit of using. The Morning Herald quotes Hansard (vol. lxxix. p. 1,407) as its authority for the charge, but it omits to inform its readers that the emphatic denial by Sir R. Past of a Doctor BUCHANAN'S assertions about what he said is to be found at p. 1.422 of the same volume ! Lord PANMURE (when Mr. Fox Maims) at tempted to fasten that charge on Sir ROBERT PEEL, but it was such a complete failure, that friend or foe never referred to it again until our contemporary acted as its resurrectionist last Tuesday. Our contemporary's pretended history of the Conservative party also teems with similar errors. Sir ROBERT PEEL, we are told, " set " about reconstructing the Conservative party, " and his sagacity showed him that no other " basis could be found on which a large and " earnest party could be built up but that of " Protestantism." The Herald takes no notice whatever of the memorable stand made in 1834 by Mr. STANLEY (Lord Dunn) the Duke Of RICHMOND, the Earl of RIPON, Sir JAMES GRAHAM, and Lord GEORGE BENTINCE. When PROTESTANT INSTITUTIONS were assailed by the Whig party acting in obedience to the coali tion of Irish Repeaters and English Levellers. Lord DERRY and his friends left the Liberal party, and then the great Conservative party was really founded. The Herald also takes care to omit all no tice of the fact, that these eminent persons, though gallantly defending the Established Church, were not prepard to revoke the grant to Maynooth, and that subsequently they ap proved of the Act of 1845. Azd besides, " Protestantism" (in the sense of the Morning Herald) was not the basis of the great party led by Sir It. Part.. On the important question, whether Municipal Cor porations ought to be given to Ireland, there SATURDAY, was division in the " great Conservative party." In point of fact, they were in a minority of eighty 41n that question, while cn other sub.. jects the Melbourne Whigs could command only a seejority of twenty. Foreign policy, Coloalel and Finaneial Affairs, and Corn Laws, were also main sleasents of the Conservative party of that time. If; thpefore, a fabge discussion about Maysioo* 'honk be **tinned, we must entreat that a more strict attention to facts shall be observed. We are zealous in support of a policy which shall consolidate and enlarge our PROTESTANT INSTITUTIONS, but we are opposed to a line of conduct which must exasperate our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects in Ireland; and, in a strictly Protestant sense, we are firmly convinced that in the present exigencies of the empire the retention of Maynooth is a lesser evil than would be its inconsiderate abolition. In an empire there must be many anomalies It is the part of hot and hasty Radicalism, not of thinking Conservatism, to urge that all measures should be squared to the uniformity of one unvarying principle. The Protestantism of England is safe in its Church Establishment, in the free circulation of the Bible, in our Literature saturated with Protestant spirit, in our free press, our English society, and our House of Com mons, whose Protestantism is to Popery as sixteen is to one. THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND ITS LEADERS. INSTEAD of answering point by point the acute writer in the Morning Chronicle, who endea vours to establish " Conservative Disorganisa tion " as a fact, we are persuaded that he will think we pay him a higher compliment in en deavouring to grasp his main argument, and in replying to that alone. We take this course the more willingly as it enables us to meet the remarks of several other journals which have dwelt on the same theme. The argument of our opponents, if we ap prehend it rightly, is, then, that the Right lion. Member for Bucks cannot command the support of all the members of the Conserva tive party—that hence the Opposition is weakened, and the country by so much in jured. Is this a fair statement of the matter in dispute? Admitting that our opponents are right in their facts, the very serious gaestion would then be raised whether the Leader of the Opposition in the House of •Commons or his recusant followers are in fault? It does not follow in political more than in domestic jars that there must be faults on both sides. If it be admitted as a public calamity that such jars exist in the Conservative party, we should much like our contemporaries, as impartial spectators, to judge the quarrel and endeavour to apportion the blame. They have already disregarded the warning given in Llutlibras to those persons Who in quarrels interpose, and are therefore not likely to mind any scratches they may receive in the performance of what they are pleased to consider a public duty. If it be true that there is a section of the Conservative party which regards the leader ship of the Right Honourable Member for Bucks with suspicion, the fact need excite no surprise. The cases are rare in our Parlia mentary history when an Opposition has been perfectly united, and has reposed implicit confidence in its leaders. The Morning Chronicle points attention to the state of the Opposition when led by Sir ROBERT PEEL. That Opposition was perhaps the most pow erful and compact of which any instance exists, yet it was for several years kept at bay by the feeble Government of Lord MRL- BouliNs ; and our contemporary must re collect, as we do, that the question was frequently raised by ardent Conservatives, — Who shall lead us ? Whoever has studied the history of Oppositions in this country will