The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 18, 1858.

are under inspection, and it is pretended that
there is complete impartiality between the two
religions. Englishmen may, however, rest as-
sured that this is all pretence. They are hotbeds
of Popery ; and, moreover, they have been set up
as rivals to Protestant schools, the Board doing
all in its power to oppose and destroy the Bible
schools of the Established Church.
But although this is the real truth about the
National system in Ireland, we are constrained to
confess that we see at present no hope of its
amendment. What, therefore, we ask for, and
what we rejoice to think the most influential
members of the present Government are pledged
to, is this—to withdraw the ban from the Bible
schools, and not to refuse to those schools a share
of the public grant for no other earthly reason
than because the Bible is read to all the scholars
who frequent them.
If the Protestants of England really under-
stood this question—if they knew that really
200,0001. a year of the public money is spent in
educating Irish youth in Popery the most unmi-
tigated, and that not one single farthing of that
large sum is devoted to aid a Bible school—we feel
well assured that years ago this folly and in-
justice would have been rectified. But the pre-
sent system has been bolstered up by the grossest
misrepresentations, and by an artful appeal
to rules which " kept the word of promise
"to the ear and broke it to the hope."
We ourselves well remember, in one of the
debates in the House of Commons, a member
(who was then a Cabinet Minister) getting up
and making a series of assertions utterly false,
and which it was a disgrace to him that he did
not know them to be false.
We trust, however, we are now on the eve of
better days. We want to see Ireland continue
happy and contented ; and we are quite sure that
in a country with a Protestant sovereign, in
which a Popish priesthood is treated by its rulers
as a power to be feared, and, therefore, to be un-
duly conciliated and allowed to defy the laws,
happiness and contentment will not and cannot
be of any permanent duration.

that doubtless it would be treated with open
ridicule by those who in their hearts would feel
most strongly its significancy. It is this. Let
all letters addressed to the Romanist prelates,
giving to them their illegal territorial titles, be
sent either to the dead letter-office or the Pro-
testant prelate of the see, whose legal title is
usurped. This step, we know, would be repre-
sented as miserable and contemptible petty spite.
It would be nothing of the kind : it would simply
have the effect of letting the people of Ireland
know that the constituted authorities would no
longer be parties to a breach of the law. It
seems a very small matter, but it is a very large
one ; for it would have a powerful effect in
counteracting the mischievous notion that eccle-
siastical is superior to the civil power. It would
be felt through the length and breadth of the
land ; and if the mind of the poor Papist be
capable of being influenced by the display of a
cardinal's pomp, it is not incapable of being in-
fluenced by the priest's suggestion that the Go-
vernment dare not refuse to acknowledge the
illegal titles. "Try," says the priest, "if there
be not such a person as the Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Dublin. Direct a letter to him,
and see if it does not reach him." The experi-
ment is accordingly tried, and, of course, being
successful, it is accepted as a proof that the pre-
late is stronger than the law.
There is another matter in the government of
Ireland which we trust will occupy the serious
attention of the Lord Lieutenant and his ad-
visers. We want to see the dissolution of the
Orange societies ; but still more we want to see
the Government in a position to ask them to
dissolve. But the Government can only place
itself in that position by being able to say to the
Orangemen—" We have effectually suppressed
Ribbonism. The inadequate protection afforded
you by the Government against those murderers
and disloyal conspirators called you into existence.
They exist no longer. We ask you to disband."
Whenever the Irish Government can address

this language to the Orangemen, their request,
we are sure, will be complied with. Until they
ran, they have no right to make it; for, be it ever
remembered, the Orange Society is a legal corn- CONSERVATISM, AND THOSE WHO
binatiou against the most violent outrages of MISREPRESENT IT.
illegal conspirators.
Now there cannot be the smallest doubt but THOSE who, like the Whigs of the last gene-
that the Romish priesthood are friendly to ration, see in the matter of the government of
Itibbonism, and that they might have extin- the country no higher object for aim than the
guished it years and years ago, had they been so
minded ; but it has been a useful engine to keep ascendancy of a Parliamentary Party or of a
up priestly power. Let, then, the present Ad- Family Confederation, or who, with the more
ministration suppress it root and branch. That violent Radicals, look upon questions of policy
it can be done, need not be doubted. Is it to be only as so much capital, by aid of which they
believed that the nation which was able to crush
may float through a brief and turbulent exist-
Thuggee in India, is really unequal to the
infinitely lesser task of crushing Ribbonism in ence, are evidently puzzled at the opinions
Ireland ? British subjects in India amount to which the members and adherents of Lord
upwards of a hundred millions; its superficial DERBY'S Administration have expressed with
area is 1,250,000 square miles ; the distance from regard to changes in the organization of the
England 4,000 miles. On the other hand, instrumentality by which the Government of
British subjects in Ireland are about 6,000,000; the country is carried on, and thoroughly
the superficial area is only 32,000 square miles, alarmed at the position which they have as-
and the distance from Great Britain only sixty sumed, and at the support which the country
miles. What the British Government has accom- is manifestly disposed to give them in it. How
plished so successfully in the midst of such an can a Conservative be a Reformer ? The two
enormous population, scattered over so vast a expressions are antagonistic, and so must the
territory, at such an enormous distance, assuredly men be to the end of time. How can Mr.
can be accomplished in Ireland, close at hand, HENLEY be a party to the amendment of the
even at our doors, amidst a comparatively small Reform Bill of Lord Joiirr RussEi.r, which he
population, occupying so small a territorial area. opposed ? or how can he continue to designate
This then is a task to which we have no doubt the himself or his friends by the title of Conserva-
present Government will vigorously apply itself. tives, when the word Conservative no longer
Let Lord EGLINTOUN be able proudly to boast represents the same things or the same ideas
that, in his administration, Ribbonism was rooted that it did when it was originally introduced as
out, and that Orange Societies thereupon dis- a distinctive name for a political party ?
solved themselves ! These are the grave objections which are
One thing more is necessary for the welfare of gravely, and, as those who proposed them appear
Ireland—but to that the members of the present to think, justly and forcibly, advanced against the
Government are pledged—and that is, that the Government of Lord DERBY in their second year
Protestant schools in Ireland shall be no longer of office, putting the country in actual possession
discouraged by the Government. For ourselves of what the Whigs have been exhibitin* through-
we have no hesitation in saying that we believe out the existence of successive Cabmets in a
that for the real and permanent welfare of Ire- peep-show at the end of a long-drawn perspec-
land there ought to be a complete change in the tive. It is hard upon this effete Federation of
present sy stem of the National Board. We say Families, we admit, to have the so long easily
so because we know that it is a system resting on earned bread of their political lives taken out of
a_ falsehood—that it is not what it pretends to be. their mouths with such unexpected decision; and
We care not what are its rules—we only know bitter it must be to see their own familiar friends,
what are their results. We know that practically like Mr. LANGSTON, not only standing by, but
the great majority of the National schools are expressing openly satisfaction at the process.
under the complete direction of Popish priests; The answer to the objections is simple and in-
they are established for the culture and preser- controvertible. There is no antagonism between
vation of Popery in Ireland. It is true that they Conservatism and Reformation, nor need there

891

be perforce any incompatibility of co-operation
between those who are marked by the one desig-
nation or the other. The Constitution of a

country may be preserved from generation to
generation fundamentally intact, but the organi-
zation of the machinery by which it is put into
active operation must of necessity be subject to
perpetual changes. Some are stealthily introduced
by agencies imperceptible to the ordinary ob-
server; others are created by special alterations in
the laws, sometimes steadily and thoughtfully
made, but oftener devised impulsively and
carried violently. Both are often anomalous ;
both are often in a wrong direction ; and those
which are effected by imperceptible progression
not infrequently tend to the introduction of
abuses and of negligent, if not corrupt, ad-
ministration. That it should be so is not the

consequence of defects in the principles upon
which the Constitution is founded, but the result

of the corrupt nature of man, and of the social
system which man has constructed.
It is the special duty of a Government to
watch these changes, to make themselves ac-
quainted precisely with their character and
tendency, and to apply from time to time re-
medial measures which shall reform the organi-
zation of the State, by encouraging the pro-
gress of those changes which are in the right
direction, and by pruning and repressing those
which appear to tend to mischief or to the
retardation of the country and of its people.
This is to be a Reformer. It is the honest
and energetic performance of those functions
which constitute the progressive Statesman. It
is the mere agitating by the instrumentality of
the phrase that degrades a man into the posi-
tion of a political Trader.
There is nothing that we can see in the
former political life or even political language
of Mr. HENLEY, and those who act with him in
the Cabinet of the Queen's Council, or in the
Parliament of the country, to prevent them from
discharging with perfect consistency, perfect
faith, and perfect efficiency, the functions of true
Reformers. Neither is there any reason why men
like Mr. LANGSTON, sincere reformers and mode-
rate though earnest politicians, should not unite
heartily with them, in order, to use Mr.
LANGsTos's own words, "to give to the country
" a better Reform Bill than that which was
" passed under the auspices of the Whigs, and to
" carry by the united efforts of all parties a really
" good and generally beneficial measure."
The greater part of those men who have been
long accustomed to gather crowds round them
by a cry, and to obtain political command by lead-
ing Class against Class, have evidently been blind
to one great and material change which has
been in course of gradual but steady and unceas-
ing accomplishment for many years, and by
which the strong line of demarcation that had
by various circumstances been drawn between
town and country, between commerce and agri-
culture, is being rapidly obliterated. Mr.
NEWDEGATE, at Tamworth, in the able speech
with which he prefaced his proposal of the toast
of " the house of Lords," pointed out this phase
in our political and social progress in clear and
well-timed language to the manufacturing popu-
lation among whom the farmers of Warwickshire
had come to hold their anniversary meeting, to
tender the hand of friendship to their neighbours
of the town, and to give their best wishes for the
cordial co-operation of agriculture with com-
merce.
Mr. NEWDEGATE is perfectly right in his per-
ceptions. This obliteration and the daily-
increasing amalgamation of the moneyed
capitalists and of the territorial proprietors is one
of the most real and the most influential reforms
in the social and political system of the country
which has ever been effected. More than any
other circumstance, it has deprived the clamourer
for great organic changes of the resting-point for
his lever, and it has totally changed both the
relative positions of the different classes who
attach value to political power and the views of
all men as to the character and extent of the
reforms which the present contrition of the
country renders desirable. Above ,all things, it
brings reform of our constitutional organization,
the pruning of excrescences, and the encourage-
ment of new and healthy growths, eminently
within the reach of the Conservative Statesman,
and renders him in truth the most proper and
most safe man to whom the country can intrust
the task.