The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

eretics. To check the native curiosity and
love of research in the human mind, very
strong counter-stimulants are required. And
no sagacious and temperate-minded man who
had the interests of religion at heart would be
unwilling to surrender the principle of uni-
versal religious equality to escape from the
bitter sectarianism which the voluntary
system engenders. The University of Louvain
is supported by voluntary contributions, the
Universities of Brussels and Ghent by grants
from the State ; but the latter, whatever their
errors, do not seek to intimidate their
scholars into a passive acceptance of them.
Men are not obliged to be Arians or Pelagians
unless they like. The case, therefore, stands
thus—that the State Universities represent
error simply, the voluntary one error united
with bigotry.

THE "FOREIGN POLICY " OF ENGLAND.
(From a Correspondent.)
Jr is all nonsense to talk of the foreign policy of
England at the present moment: England has in
truth no foreign policy whatever. It is much better
at once to avow that ours is but the echo of the
foreign policy of France, for then we get at least a
borrowed credit of sometimes going right, whereas
at present we have an individual credit of always
going wrong. Let our Foreign Minister affect a line
of his own, and ere long we are involved in a laby-
rinth of troubles from which our only exit lies in
adopting at last and with a bad grace the opposite
policy of France. Such are the satisfactory results
of having Lord Palmerston for Premier and Lord
Clarendon for Foreign Secretary. We remember,
not many years back, when the former noble lord
made it his boast in the House of Commons that
" he was not the Minister of Austria, of Russia, or of
France, but of England." Now, we emphatically say
that, whatever the noble lord may have been then,
he is at the present moment the Minister of all three
rather than of England. At Paris Lord Cla-
rendon is at this moment spoken of much as
Lord John Russell was at Vienna, and with equal
justice. At St. Petersburg it is scarce considered
worthy of boast the manner in which both the Eng-
lish diplomates were outwitted. Everything in which
England might be supposed to have an especial in-
terest was either studiously neglected or left so
imperfect as to give endless ground for future quarrel.
Such was the question of the Island of Serpents, a
matter causing the most angry recriminations
between the public journals of England and Russia
at the very moment when our ambassador was kneel.
ing at the throne of the Czar. Such too is the
vexed question of the Principalities—apparently as
far as ever from being settled, Sir H. Buiwer being
reported as on his return home, after fruitless efforts.
Such, and above all, is the Italian question, on which
the British Ministry has alternately blown hot and
cold for the last four months. Either the sub-
ject should not have been publicly broached at all, or
something effective should be done; else in what an
inglorious position is that party placed which, after
vapouring loudly of what it will do, eventually suc-
cumbs to the powerful influence of its laissez aller
neighbours, and does nothing !

Now, this is precisely the position in which the
ingenuity of Lord Palmerston and the chicanery of
Lord Clarendon have contrived to place us in regard
to Naples and France. We have bullied and threatened
the one ; we are restrained from all active measures
by the other. England growls and shows her teeth,
nay is on the point of biting, when France steps in
and closes her mouth tight by refusing to join in the
nibble. So inglorious a position never before was it
our fate to occupy in the face of Europe, and for
this position we have to thank Lords Palmerston
and Clarendon ; and such is the opinion commonly
expressed of our national locus standi in the saloons
of Paris and Vienna at the present moment

We have no affection for the King of Naples :
but we know too what are the republicans
of Italy ; we saw what they were in 1848 ; we have
not forgotten the thirty crucified men dragged by
them through the streets of Leghorn (a most hor-
rible fact). Of one thing we are clear—and
to this we desire most especially to draw
public attention—that it is not by vapouring and
boasting at home, and fanning the Italian flame
abroad, that any good will be effected ; least of all is
it by playing the part of vassal to France in every-
thing. Time was we bad a policy of our own; time
was we acted, though with our allies, for ourselves—
when, from peculiar circumstances inseparable from
a continental Government, but not belonging to that
of free England, our ally was unable to take that
prominent part in the promotion of liberty which
befitted us. Such times are past, and the wise
policy of Lord Castlereagh, as quoted in the Frank-

98'

fort Journal a few days since, is now exchanged for
the restless, meddling, and worrying interference--
ineffectual for good, but powerful for evil—of Lords
Palmerston and Clarendon.

ROMAN CATHOLIC ASCENDANCY.
TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."
Sir,—ln lately enumerating in THE PRESS the
several Roman Catholics appointed to Government
offices, you forgot the Dublin police magistracy.
They are the following :
COMMISSIONERS.—John Lewes O'Ferrall, Roman
Catholic ; Lientenant-Colonel Brown, Protestant.
HEAD OFFICE.—TheOph. Frank Porter, Roman
Catholic ; George Wise, Roman Catholic ; William
Magee, Protestant.
COLLEGE-STREET OFFICE.—Mr. Strong, Protestant ;
Mr. McDermot,• Roman Catholic ; Hugh O'Calla-
ghan, Roman Catholic ; Mr. O'Donnel,* Roman
Catholic.

Yours, obediently,
Dublin, Oct. 4, 1856.
• Appointed by Lord Carlisle.

J. W.