The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-03-20 00:00:00

THE IRISH PROBLEM.

The following important memorandum and resoln
.ion have been adopted by the joint diocesan council
of Dublin, Glendalough, and Kildare:
"In response to the letter of the Prime Minister in-
viting the various classes of the Irish people to a free
communication of views in this important juncture of
the history of England, the councils of the United
dioceses of Dublin, Glendalough, and Kildare offer
for Mr. Gladstone's reflection the following considera-
tions: (1) The councils regard any organic change
which would weaken the bond of legislative union as
fraught with the gravest dangers to the British
Empire, and to all of what are known as Imperial
interests in Ireland, and the proposal of such a change
they hold to be the proper subject of profound alarm.
(2) The councils regard the establishment of a sepa-
rate Irish Legislature as likely to entail consequences
which would prove fatal to the liberties of the Church
of Ireland, and even to its continued existence as an
organieed branch of the Christian Church. (3) They
conceive that this danger should be matter of
especial concern to Mr. Gladstone, as chief author of
the Disestablishing Act of 1869 and of the settlement
thereby made with the guarantees then substituted
for the Imperial connection thereby dissolved. (4)
From the dissolution of 1869, by long and painful
effort, the Church has successfully emerged. The
material bases of her reconstruction are the life in-
terests and composition for private endowments
secured by the Church Act, and the annual sustenta-
tion contributed by Church members under our finan-
cial schemes. These are equally essential to our
existing system; they are equally dependent on the
existing public law. (5) The councils hold there is
little reason to believe and absolutely no possible
guarantee that rights secured by the existing Consti-
tution would be, or could be, respected in an Irish
Legislature. (6) Of these, even now when modera-
tion is politic, many are openly menaced by potent,
leaders of the present agitation, whilst elementary
principles of liberty are openly set at naught by
multitudes, on whose votes the composition of an
Irish Legislature would depend. If it be thus under
the reign of Imperial law, how if Legislature and
Executive alike were insular, subject to a majority of
the proportion and composition of the present
Irish members? (7) Even if willing, there are
no leaders competent to contract for guarantees.
Their agency extends to extorting instal-
ments, not giving terms, and is sure to,
be repudiated as ultra vzres whenever the pledgee
prove inconvenient to those able to abolish pledges,
their authors, and the Ministry that would enforce.
them; for the majority behind is always free. (8)
This seems to be the heart of the question.' Where
is the majority as of right? If Ireland have a right
in saying To the west of the Channel only,' then all
checks upon its aristocracy are sure to be held usurpa-
tions, then the Irish majority is single-classed, unre-
presentative of the commercial, professional, official,
cultured, and propertied classes, whom it might sub,.
ject to its omnipotent exclusiveness more completely
than some of its present leaders think or, perhaps,
even wish. (9) But if Ireland be parcel of the.
United Kingdom, tier right is to her share in the
liberties and greatness, of the whole, and the majority
must he of the United Kingdom, representative, as
now, of all the varied interests of which the Empire
is composed. (10) Such a change would involve a
revolution, which in Great Britain can scarcely be
realised. In the metropolitan diocese alone there are
upwards of 100,000 members of the Church. These,
a minority in numbers, are in all that represents
modern civilisation a great majority. (l 1 They pre--
ponderate in, and, with the loyal Roman Catholics
and the other Protestant communities almost ex-
clusively compose, the chief organisations in the Irish
capital, which represent its own social life, and in
considerable degree that of the country at large, its
commercial, shipping, monetary, and industrial in..-
terests ; its banks, railways, and manufactures; its
educated professions; its science and learning, litera-
ture and art. (12) Very many are descerdants of
those who, in past periods, have settled in Ireland on
the streng:l and under the safeguards of the British
connection; and to abandon them now to what, there
is too much reason to fear, would be a hostile dominion
—social and political—would be, on the part of Great
Britain, as impolitic as dishonouring.
" Resolutions :

" 1. That these councils have heard with sincere
satisfaction the announcement that his Grace the
Archbishop of Dublin has convened a special meeting
of the General Synod for the 23rd inst., to deliberate
on the present grave crisis of public affairs, and, in
the meantime, transmit for the consideration of the
Prime Minister the statement this day approved bj"
these councils.'

That the statement referred to in the last
resolution be printed, and that copies be transmitted
to the Marquis of Salisbury, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, the
Marquis of Hartington, and other public personages,'
and be also transmitted to the public press.'"

ARCHBISHOP WALSH ON IRISH PRO-
SPECTS.

Replying on Sunday, in an open-air meeting et
Inchicore Chapel, near Dublin, to congratulatory'
addresses from some 3000 artisans, the Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Dublin said he hoped melt--
sures would be taken to alleviate the great 4;P •
prevailing in the country, but denied that it wt.,
caused, as the Loyalists alleged, by the present nits'
tion for home government. There was great danger
that Mr. Gladstone, in dealing with Ireland, would be
misled by statements coming from gentlemea
hitherto regarded as of the highest honour and hitsgrity, but who were now stooping to the meanest and
grossest misrepresentations. Referring to a letter
which appeared in a London newspaper last month,
headed" Listing Coercion in Ireland," his lordship'
said there were in it 13 paragraphs all so vague that
it was impossible to locate the case anywhere. The
last referred to himself. He knew nothing that could
found tho charge that he had boycotted an English
lady's school, and directed the parents to send the :
pupils to a nunnery. He denied that he had spokew
of Trinity College, for which he had some regard,
as a "nest of Protestants." In conclusion, hie
lordship said he believed that better days were le`
store for the people of Ireland, and that Mr. Glad'
stone would be able to restore peace and prosperitt
to the country.