The Express.
London, England, 1868-04-14 00:00:00

POLITICAL PEELERS.

IN an article bearing this title, a writer in the
Pall Mull GaaetP "sets up" what appears to
be a false antithesis between obstructives who
feel, and reformers who think. Neither in
the nature of things nor in the history of
political and social progress does any such anti-
thesis seem to be justified. The writer of the
article says :—" It is perhaps an open ques-
" lion whether the world gets more harm or good
" out of the people who habitually make their
" feelings the guide and standard of all their
" judgments ;" but as people who answer to this
precise description are fools, the question is hardly
an open one. There is a confusion here ; and it
is so commonly made that it is well worth signalis-
ing. A person who is greatly deficient in culture
or acuteness may be nearer the truth, on a question
of political or social progress, than a very
clever and cultivated person ; but, if so, it is not
because he is ignorant and dull, or because he
makes his feelings the standard of his judgments,
tut because he has so quick a sense of what is
just and kind that a very little intelligence—
meaning by intelligence the power of drawing in-
ferences—suffices to lead him straight to the truth.
The eating-house keeper who was vexed with the
hungry man for sniffing the hot savoury food at
the door so long, called in the first passer-by to
determine what the hungry man should pay for
his enjoyment. The first passer-by proved to be
an idiot, but he promptly decided that as the
hungry man had only had the smell of a dinner
the keeper of the slap-bang shop should only have
the jingle of the money that would pay for a meal.
And the story has been repeated, in a million
shapes, from the beginning of time until now. In
other words, political and social progress has often
been hugely indebted to those who were techni-
cally fools.
Our contemporary jumbles together, as engaged
iu the @common cause of obstruction, the adherents
of " tradition " with the lovers of " luminous
1,4 haze " and " the unspeakable enthusiasms."
But this is worse than Monmouth and Macedon.
" Good God, my Lord ! " as STERNE said to the
Bishop, " you might as well confound As.sx-
" ANDRA: the GREAT with ALEXANDER the copper-
' " smith ! " Enthusiasts and lovers of luminous
haze being, ex ri termini, faith-intoxicated
: men, are almost universally found at the
extreme left of every question of program. Who
are the real obstructive@ ? Not the enthusiasts, but
the acquiesoents ; not the lovers of luminous haze,
but the lovers of solid pudding in high places.
" Why," inquires our contemporary, " has the
" Irish Church so long cumbered the ground?"
, We should have thought an answer both obvious
and final lay in some such words as these—Because
the feeling of justice is weak in so many people
! who have a voice in public questions. If it were
I not for that final reason, there would never have
been found a feather's weight in such reasons as
these :—" Because the majority of people cared
" nothing at all for solid argument, but preferred
" to hover in pleasing !nista of feeling about
" missionary churches, bulwarks against triba-
-1 " montaniam, outworks of the tolerant Church at
" home, and so on." These are not reasons of
" luminous haze ;" they are reasons of pure expedi-
ency, alleged not in any spirit of enthusiasm but in
a spirit of pious scepticism against reasons of natural
justice. With admirable artireti our contemporary
proceeds to say that a time is coming when an
"internal feeling for a thing will have hard work
"to stand its ground in the face of a good outside
"reason against the thing." But are the above-
quoted reasons against disestablishing Protes-
tantism in Ireland " internal reasons ? On the
contrary, they are purely " outside reasons," and
matters not .f feeling but of argument. Our con-
temporary then adds :—" The demolition of the
" Irish establishment will give heart and courage
"to the trampled minority who believe that the
" Reason has some respectable right to be consulted
" in politics, as well as tradition and the unspeak-
"ableenthusiaams." Thereisaconaiderable majority
who believe in " tradition " as a guide in political
matters, but " thetrampled minority" of believers
in Reason who are crushed by votariata of " un-
" speakable enthusiasms " we shall compassionate
—when see them. It will be a fine time when
, Reason—with a capital letter —is at the head of
! affairs ; but we should just like to see it go ahead
' without the " luminous haze " people before it,
and the " unspeakable enthusiasm " people behind
it ! RICHARD COBDEN was the most clear-headed
of men, but it was not Reason that repealed the
Donn laws. Nor was it Reason that emancipated
the slave. Much leas was it any u unspeakable
`• " that stood in the way of either of
, those reforms.