The Express.
London, England, 1868-09-08 00:00:00

LIGHTS ON THE CHURCH.

IT may seem hardly worth while, in the thick of
a great controver-y, to turn aside to consider the
views of individual politicians who find themselves
unable, from one cause or another, to go heartily,
or to go the whole way, with the leaders on either
side. At this moment Tories and Liberals have
set the battle in array, and the question of the
Irish Church is to be fought out on the hustings
next November. If Mr. DISRAELI wins, the Irish
Church will r.•main; if Mr. GLADSTONB wins, it
win be abolished. Nothing can be simpler
than this alternative ; and why, it may
be asked, should we trouble ourselves about
this man's scruples or that man's ulterior views ?
A year ago, when opinions were forming, every
straw bad its importance as an indication of the
form the issue would eventually take. Now, when
the creed of the respective parties has crystallised
into a sharply defined formula, who cares for the
few atoms that have got displaced in the process,
and are now striving to maintain an impossible
independence between the larger masses by one
or other of which they must in the end be inevi-
tably attracted ? There would be more plausibi-
lity about this view of the matter ii it allowed
something for the reaction which is sure
to follow upon a great victory. Let it be
granted that next November will practically trans-
fer the government of the country into Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S hands, and leave him in possession of a
majority so decided as to make resistance for the
moment impossible. This state of things will not
last long in its integrity. As soon as the Distvtab-
lishment Bill is once introduced, a score of cross
currents will appear in the parliamentary ocean.
The principle of diasstablishrnent upon which so
delightful a unanimity seemed to prevail will turn
out to Lave meant one thing to one man and
another thing to another. Decided dissatis-
faction will be manifested in this quarter, hints
of secession will be darkly whispered in that, and
in the long fight about details"' watchful opposition
may find many opportunities of tempting Liberal
malcontents by some fair-seeming proposal of
compromise. Ile who would be on his guard
against this system of tactics will do well to master
the exceptional views which are from time to time
put forward. As long as the issue lies broadly be-
tween the maintenance or the abolition of the
Church Establishment in Ireland, these views
Lave :no influence, But when onoe that
issue has been decided in favour of abolition,
those who wish to minimise the revolution they
have fined to avert will look about them for the
most presentable bait with which to detach de-
serters from the Liberal phalanx. Where can they
so easily find what they are in search of as in the
suggestions that have been already thrown out by
men whose names are a sure passport to the re-
spect, if not always to the support, of Liberals ? It
is this which gives importance to what may be
called the side lights in which the question of the
Irish Church is presented from time to time.
If we take the trouble to form a definite judgment
on these now, we may find hereafter that the

trouble has not been thrown away. Again and
again in the history of Parliamentary oontesta a
principle which seemed set at rest by the division
on the second reading has been unsettlod by an
amendment in committee, and the views of mon
who do not go thoroughly with either party are
just the stuff out of which amendmente in com-
mit 140 um matte.

_ .
Ihe are eelles of the two most eminent lawyers
in the Liberal side have lately furnished us
with slmosite illustrations of this cant on. We may
I fifty e'er the reservations which have prevented
Sir 1:011CI,E1.1. PAI.IIISIt from voting for Mr. Oisti-
t•soisr.'s Resolutions, or the apprehensions which
ltd Mr. Cot.seinon to declare that when it comes
to the appropriation of the oomponsation money
he may be compelled to divide against his loader,
but in doing so we shall only be neglecting an
opportunity of oonaidoring beforehand proposals
which are more than likely to present themselves
hereafter in a highly practical shape. For
this reason we went out of our way, ea
it may have seemed to some, to mark the
point of divergence between us and Mr. Come-
neon ; and for this reason we recommend our
readers not to think lightly of Bir Itotrirem
PaLiesa's speech at Richmond, because it seems to
have no immediate bearing on the coming oleo-
tiona. In one respect we think So-• Roosentr.
Pstatita has been hardly judged by most of his
critics. He proposes in Went to disestablish the
Irish Church without disendowing It ; and it is
commonly answered that to do this would be to
concede the form and withhold the substance of a
settlement. Now, we agree with Sir ROUNDILL
PALMER in thinking that in its own nature dis-
eetablishment is by far the more important ele-
ment of the two. He defined an establishment
as consist.ng " in the incorporation of the ecole-
" elastics' law of the Church into the public law
" of the land—giving legal and coercive juris-
" diction to the officers of that Church to compel
by process of law the exaction of their own
" laws; and in various secular dignities, privi-
" leges, and other incidents not recognised by
" law as belonging to the officers or institutions
"of any voluntary Church." In Ireland, Sir
Roes-PELL Bauman admits that " the enjoy-
" went of such political distinctions by the
•• Church of a very small minority may rea-
" sonably be thought a remnant of the odious
" political ascendancy of former times ;" and
he is consequently prepared to withdraw
them. We have no doubt that it was the fact of
its being established that gave the Irish Church
its sting in the first instance. The Anglican in-
cumbents might have been so many Crcestutes,
supposing them to have had no exceptional con-
nection with the State, without exciting in the
Roman Catholic population a tenth part of the
sense of wrong and injustice caused by their form-
ing one of the governing institutions of Ireland.
Sir Romenzia. Paniza's mistake seems to us to
be this—he forgets that, when two characteristics
have co-existed in the same corporation for
centuries, it may be impossible to dissociate the
two ideas in the minds of the people,
and consequently that as long as the people
see one remaining they will believe that
the other is there too. This is just the
state of the case in Ireland. Disestablish the
Church without disondowing it, and, though an
educated Roman Catholic would know that the
ecclesiastical situation had undergone a radical
change, the Roman Catholic peasant would see no
alteration whatever. It must never be forgotten,
in legislating for the Irish people, that we have
to conquer a profound disbelief in our intention of
doing them justice. That disbelief is the natural
fruit of our own policy, ar_d we must be content to
spend much patient effort in uprooting it. But to
this end we must be willing to think a great deal
of the appearance as well as of the substance of
our dealings with them. We cannot afford to take
for granted that what we do will be favourably in-
terpreted, or that such external anomalies as we may
h ace untouched will be estimated at no more than
their real importance. The chances are that the
exact reverse of this will hold good ; and, if this
is so. to abolish the Irish Establishment without
withdrawing those endowments which, in the eyes
of a majority of Irishmen, are its visible symbol,
would be to destroy the whole effect of a great act
of national justice, and to leave the Irish Church
in the enjoyment of its old distinction as one of
the deepest and most subtle causes of Irish dis-
content.