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London, England, 1868-06-09 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 9.

THE lEI[ll (111°17(11 DEPUTATIo.V.

PLAYING with Deputations is a part of the
'ate man's game, of which our present PREMIER
is studied all the tricks, and which, in a remark-

:le passage of one of Lis political novels, he has de-

ribed with the indiscretion of a satirist. By
Ault he would call " a singular destiny," and what
others might call a singular retribution, it has
fallen to his lot to present on the stage of public
affairs the very character his contemptuous fancy
had covered with ridicule when he, by anticipa-
tion, drew a literary picture of the some at
his official residence yesterday. It was a
greet and solemn occasion. A deputation of
noblemen and gentlemen, representing the Ulster
Protestant Association, and the Central Pro-
testant Defence Association in Dublin, and all
their branches in various parts of Ireland, came
to submit to the head of her MAJEBTY'S
Government a series of resolutions against
the disestablishment or disendowment of the
Establiabed Church in Ireland, against any
attempt to endow the Roman Catholic Church or
the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland, either
directly or indirectly, and in favour of the increase
of the Regime Donum. According to the Chair-
man of the Central Association, what the Protest-
ants, represented by this deputation, desire is
to maintain inviolate " the glorious principles of
" the Reformation and of the glorious revolution
" of l 685." And as though this doubly " glorious "
amettion of principles wero insufficient, the Earl
of Rasmus insists with more precision, that
" the laity feel deeply upon the subject, for they
" have vested interests." The Rev. H. HENDY.RBON,
a Presbyterian minister, following on the same
side and in the saute strain, and claiming to
rak for the great majority of his communion,
gards the establishment in Ireland as " tho great
bulwark of Protestantism in that country."
Ithough he did not profess in so many words to
Nord it also from the more limited " vested
• interest '• point of view, we shall probably do

THE

the rev. gentle nun no injustice in supplying
that omission, sine. in the next sentence
he declared that "he was there ales to
•• ask the Government to give their continued
•• supp.rt to the ilegie,a Power. It had bocn
" enjoyed for two hundred years, and he
•' thought that the character of their Minist. rt
" and of their Chureli ought to protectthem age nit
" the rubbery• which was now contemplated."
Apparently the question of " Proteatiintism " in
the eyes of the Established Church, like the ques-
tion of the rights of the Catholic Church in the eyes
of the Court of Rome. resolves itself into a visited
interest and a temporal power But we rejoice to
find that it is not on the subject of vested interests
only that the noblemen and gentlemen of yester-
day's deputation feel deeply. " Above all,' said
the Presbyterian Minister, whom we have already
quoted, " lie had, in the name of the Protestants
"of Ireland, to call upon the Government to give
" no:eountenanee whatever to any project for the
;endowment of the Roman Catholic Church in
"'lreland. They had the best and kindliest feel-
",nee towards their Roman Catholic fellow-court-
" !ryinen, but they were in the full enjoyment of
•• civil and r•lig-ious liberty. The Protestants
" of Ireland were reselved to resist to the uttermost
any proposition, no matter by whom made',
• • for tile et ri low to arty exten t or in any manner
• • of the Rumen Catlii ieCla rind' or priesthood. There
•• was nothing they would not:cheerfully surrender
" rather than submit to such a measure. It we;
" impote-ible to convoy any idea of the strong and
" decided feeling which existed upon the subject."
The Rev. D. M•A Fee, a Methodist minister, "hoped
" that the day would never come when the govern-
•. merit of Protestant England would think of endow-
". ing the Roman Catholic Chnrch." The resolutions
rend by the Marquis of DOWESIIIRE, "strenuously
•• eppuse any attempt to endow the Roman
" Catholic Church or the Roman Catholic priest-
" hoed in Ireland, whether out of the so-called
•• revenues of the Established Church, or other-
" wise." If the Patatign, as he listened to the ie
burning words, could have imagined himself for a
moment sitting once more calmly in his library•
at home, as a political humourist, unattached to
any party, and penning a chapter on Deputations,
he might have richly enjoyed the pleasantry andthe
irony of the occasion. He would have sketched
in a few felicitous touches a Tory PREMIER
who only the other day was engaged in educating
his Cabinet up to the point of endowing the
Church of the majority in Ireland on the principle
of •` creating" religious equality, and who had
actually got so far as to commit the Clues, Sums-
TART of the LORD-LIECTEMANT to some vague
and shadowy suggestions of such a policy, re-
ceiving an excited deputation of Irish Protestants
in Downing-street. who came to protest unani-
mously and energetically against the very
policy Le had projected, if not proposed. Con-
ceive a man of tender, sensitive, and scru-
pulous conscience a Mr. WALPOLE, for
example—in Mr. DISRAELI'S position yes-
terday. Mr. WALPOLE no doubt considers his
retirement from the Cabinet opportune, and Mr.
DISRAELI may congratulate himself on having
been endowed by nature with a temperament less
emotional and a finer dramatic instinct. That
strengthening and bracing contempt for mankind
which, combined with native genius, has placed
him where he is, and triumphed over the
" peculiar circumstances" of his career, serves
him well in these supreme moments. His lively
sense of the incongruities of human nature must
have Leen agreeably tickled by the tenacious
temper of the deputation when their own vested
interests were concerned, compared with their
best and kindliest feelings towards their Roman
Catholic brethren, whom they are delighted to see
in the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.
For themselves, the great principle they contend
for is endowment; for their Roman Catholic
brethren it is no endowment at all. What can any
Church want more than " perfect civil and religi-
" ous liberty"?
If there were any undertone of reproof or dis-
trust in the emphasis of the speeches, the
PREMIER'S ear wax too polite to perceive it. In
his reply, abounding in the sense of the deputa-
tion, he carefully omits a single syllable about the
endowment or non-endowment of the Roman
Catholic Church in Ireland. He does not so much
rut pronounce " endowment," or " disendowment."
Ile shrinks from the mere sound of such a
word. Yet be raises his voice to hustings pitch,
and sounds the cry for " Protestant Churches
" and our Protestant Institutions." With one eye
upon the Irish deputation, he keeps
the other upon the Establishment in England, and
sounds an alarm to the great "vested interest " on
this side of St. George's Channel. He disdains to take
a limited view of the situation. He cries " Fire"
to the Ucalegons of the Establishment in Eng-
land, and rouses them to all the fury of a
panic. Trust him not to descend to details
For Lim it is no longer even a question of Church
Establishments. It is for " the institutions of
" Great Britain " that the coming appeal to the
People is to be made. Having twenty years ago
summed up the Irish question—including " the
" alien church "-- as the ono which could
only be solved by a series of measures
amounting to a pacific revolution—he now de-
nounces " the machinations of a party of poli-
" ticians who have seized a favourable op-
" portunity of carrying their revolutionary
" designs into effect." In like manner, only two
years ago, he was denouncing the revolutionary de-
signs of the Ministry who had introduced a Re-
form Bill. Two years hence, according to that
precedent, Mr. DISRAELI should be foundpropos-
ing the Repeal of the Union. " Do you wish for a
revolution?" That is to be the appeal of
her MAJESTY'S Government to the country
at the present election. Mr. Doluau's
estimate of the intelligence of the electors
is not a high one. He wishes them to
understand that the present Government have
rescued " the institutions of the country" from
immediate destruction by the dissolution of
a Parliament already self -condemned, and by the
appeal to constituencies which the legislation of
the present Government had created.

The question for the electors, we must confess,
appears to us more simple and loss alarming.
Are they the dupes Mr. DIMAILI supposes! We
venture, as at present advised, to think they are
not. And, unless we are mistaken in this conjec-
ture, the result of yesterday's deputation and
of the PREMIKR'S stirring appeals will not be
unsatisfactory. It will help to clear the ground
for Mr. Or.annowE'n moderate legislation next
year. For if we distinguish between tho
noential prineiples, properly so called, affirmed
yesterday Ly the Irish deputation, and the " vested
interests," which are but an socident of their
en e, :we find that they are really in faro=
of dhtentior.mput. and .are perfectly saddled with
civil and religious liberty. We cannot but con-
gratulate them on the opportunity that now pre-
Fritts itaeif to such devoted Bible Christians of
mplibing the greet ptenept--" Do unto others
" as you would they should do unto you."