The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-07 00:00:00

of Archbishop finattrna, or Pwitrorrn—they pre-
fer : for it will no longer do to have a state
church differing in character, in teaching, in prin-
eples, aid in objects in different &cents. It
will not do to have a protestant church in
Canterbury, a tractarian church in Oxford, a Ronk&
church in Devonshire, and a church oscillating be-
tween all throe in London. We mud chows between
Dr. Somas and Dr. PHILPOTTII, between Dr. Mus-
GRAVE and Dr. WILBEBSOICZ, between Dr. HAMP-
DEN and Dr. BLowirteiri. Toleration and charity
and comprehension in a church have their limits;
and in the church of England those limits have long
—long been passed.
Are we to go on, under one guico or other, to
popery and to priestcreft? or are we to return to
protestantiim and to the Reformation? This is a
great and serious question. It is not, moreover, one
to be answered and decided by the resolutions of
public meetings, by addresses to the crown, by votes
of thanks to the Prime Minister, or by declarations
of the clergy—usettil as they are in their way. Ite true
solution can only be by ects and deeds. An er.ormous
proportion of the clergy a-e unsound in doctrine,
unfaithful in teaching ' whilst nine-tenths of the
laity are resolute and honest in their protestantism.
It is, then, for the laity to demand security for their
faith against the clergy. In bishops they can no
longer repose implicit confidence ; in themselves only
can they find reliance. But how obtain security—
how call into life and activity their own self-reliance?
There is but one way; that, however, is a sure and
certsin one. It is to give the educated communicants
of the church of England that power of VETO over the
appointment of their ministers, which the people of
every other proteetao t country in Europe enjoy.
With that, everything is gained; without it, nothing
, L secure.

Tue election for the county of limerick is ap-
pointed to take place on the 10th instant. The
conflict will be a strange and not uninteresiing one.
Three candidates are in the field, each of tbem
representing one of the powerful sections into which
society at the present moment in Ireland is divided.
Protectionism finds its champion in Capt. DICKSON,
a gentleman of good fortune, end whom nine-tenths
of the landlords support, because, as they say, he is
" a straightforward man of the real old sort, with no
nonsense about him :" the meaning of which ie, that
the gallant nephew of the late county member is a plain-
spoken tory, who is ready to go with his party through
thick and thin, for high pricy e, high rents, and, in short,
high notions of ascendancy in general in church and
state. Peelism seeks to win another seat in the per-
eon of Mr. WYNDHAM DOOLD, the rear relation of
the Puseyite Lord I)UNSAVEN, and himself supposed
to entertain opinio• s, in ecclesiastical affairs, not very
dissimilar. Family int. rest, liberal tendencies, the
poseission of a considerable estate, and the favour of
certain conservative parish priests, constitute his main
elements of success. Finally the tenant farmers,
weary of the tyranny and trickery of which they have
so long been the pitiless sport, have resolved upon
putting forward one of their own claw as candidate for

the county.
The two former gentlemen belong, u we have
said, to the landed gentry and to the established
creed. Mr. GouLD is the son of the late Muter
in Chancery, once a distinguished member of the
whig party at the Irish bar. But whiggery
in Ireland may be said to have practically ceased
to exist. There is no room for such a section in
a country so circumstanced. There is ro neutral
gruur.d on which the admirers of a temporising,
compromi-ing, theorising, doctrine can take their
stand. The mono( the nation looks one way—towards
change of et 3, kind, social end political. The heredi-
tary garrison look in the opposite direction—backward
to the ancient system of oligarchic rule which was
shaken but not destroyed by O'CONNELL. Among
the latter there are, ns there are in many order of
men, the crafty and the rash, the subtle and the bull-
headed, the plausible and the impertinent. Some
still wear the old Orange facings, assert their essen-
tial right by superiority of blood at.d creed to lord it
over the helot populace, and exult over each new
triumph of the legalised system of extermination.
The fewer the suspected and detested peasantry, the
caner it will be, as they suppose, to hold them
down in mute submission. These are protection-
ists to • man, and ready to back any reac-
tionary propreition in foreign or domes. ic po-
licy. Weide them stand, or rather bend, a
numerically lege, but intellectually superior section
with motley livery indicative of their patchwork
principles, tall of conservative professions amongst
their own class, end loud in cheep sympathy for toe
past misfortunes and wrongs of their country at pub-
lic meetings. These aro they who give what they
cal an independent support to every administration
which has not the courage to govern Ireland
for the benefit of the Irish people, but which
fancies itself adroit and astute in sacrificing the
confidence of millions for the equivocal support of
some few score of aristocratic pretenders to Political
influence. These men were followers of Bir It. Pan
and are now liege-men of Mr. GLADSTONE. They
I would fain persuade the priesthood that they cberlei
schemes of esthetic endowment—a blank being left
for the date when the project is to be propounded.
They me eloquent on the advantages 'of wholesale
emigration, to be paid for out of the imperial treasury
, —s proposal just as delusive ae the other, or which
would be so if the Celts, either lay or clerical, were
fool, enough to be bambouzled by such flame.
Between the Irish Pee litre and protectionists the
liveliest animosity subsists. Like sectaries who
split about subordinate distinctions, their fend is fierce
in proportion as their differences turn on personal
jealousies, not questions of principle. Wherever
the Whigs as • party appear to be in jeopardy, they
are sure to unite ; whi on minor questions they
indulge their mutual spleen by taking opposite sides
la parliament. In local politics they are still more
apt to quarrel, except where the popular force threa-
tens to overpower each, and then their readiness to
combine is speedily perceived. Even with the
in serable scant constituency which still prevails in
the county of Limerick (not exceeding, we believe,
130 under the old regi,try), we should not be sur-
prised to see an aceommoda ion come to on the eve
of the election, if it shall appear likely that the
tenant right candidate has any chance of coming in
by their division. In the eyes of the oligarchy any
Amide of broadcloth is preferable to !thee.
It is said, and we believe truly, that had Mr.
MOLD at the outset of his canvass given anything
approaching to a reasonable pledge on the land quell.
too, he would have received the cheerful support of
the great majority of the occupiers of the soil. The
faith of the people in themselves is too infirm, their
hops in their own resources too faint to make them
anxious to set at defiance the combined power of their
hereditary adversaries. We may gather hence the
inveteracy of those prejudices which are connected
with the pcssessiun of landed property when not even
for electioneering purposes is the semblance of justice
put on, or a desire for any st.bstantial measure of re-
dress affected. The landlords of Ireland have long
seemed to be a doomed close. Bat their in-
fatuation at • moment like the present when the
old constituencies are about to expire and a
real county franchise is about to come into
play appears like something fabulous. They are
stolidly bent on waiting until the new arms of
the people are firmly in their bands before they will
agree to terms. Last year had they had the common
prudence (to say nothing of common honesty) to con-
cur in a fair re-adjustment of the relation of landlord
and tenant the agitation that has since arisen would
have never been heard of. And now that men's minds
have become exasperated, and that north and south,
presbyterian and catholic, have become welded to-
gether in one formidable mess of social disaffection—
now, at the eleventh hour, had they the grace to
yidd frankly and in good faith, the anger generated
by long delay might in come degree be turned aside,
and their desperate position might, perhaps, be in
some sort retrieved. But they prefer to dose on in
their dream of feudal irresponsibility to the las' ; and
they will never wake until the tide of popular fury
has encompassed them and swept away every
crumbling defence of oppression which they °beta-
nasely refuse to surrender.
Of Mr. RYAN we know nothing. But assuming
him to be a fair type of his class we see no reason
why all who are sincere in their professed desire to
see • full and fair representation of the whole people
in parliament, should object to his being sent as the
delegate of the tenant farmers of the Golden Vale.
And as a lesson and • warning his return would pro-
bably be highly serviceable. Oar own guess at the
issue, we confess, is that at the poll one or other of
the rival landlords will give way, in order to insure
for the last time the domination of oasts.