The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-05 00:00:00

the majority of the Irish population—separating therd
thereby as a community from England and Scotland—l and
apt to ask myself whether those well-intentioned persons
really mean or not what they are saying. Because if they
do not they may find themselves unpleasantly surprised by
being requested to vote in favour of the repeal of the
Union. Well, the inference I draw from that is that we
ought to take great care lest, without fully satisfying the
Catholics, we succeed in alienating the Protestants.
I defer, as every man must defer, to what is
virtually a national decision, for it is idle to con-
ceal from ourselves that the real decision upon the prin-
ciple involved in this matter was taken, not in the vote
of the other night, but on the hustings in November last.
But I would earnestly entreat of those who, whether they
agree with me upon the general question or not, do not
think that the danger I have indicated is purely imaginary.
The matter is rather a rerp'execl one, even at the best, and
I am afraid it will be still more perplexed before we see
the end. Well, but then it is said, Oh, never mind the
minority, you can do without them, you have conciliated
and satisfied the Catholic masses.' Well, I wish I could
think that that was altogether the case. Ido not see how,
on a very large class of questions—of which the question
of education will serve as a single type—you are to get a
house of Commons which is mainly Liberal and Protestant
o work in very cordial harmony with a Catholic bier-
archy influencing and guiding with immense power an
enthusiastic nation, and c!rtainly not disposed to be
always moderate in its pretensions or its claims. There
is upon matters of that kin I an inevitable antagonism,
and though statesmanship may do something to smooth
it, it is a difficulty which, whether you like it or not, you
have to face. But that is not all. You have got in
Ireland what is called the land question. The Celtic
national party, by some process of reasoning which, I con-
fess, I cannot exactly follow, have made the discovery that
if one man occupies and works upon another man's land
he acquires by the fact of such occupation, and without any
contract or engagement, a moral right to the possession of
the land itself, subject only to some fixed and perpetual
payment to the owner. Now that seems to me very much
as if you were to say that a lodger in a house in Glasgow,
or anywhere else, if he had occupied the same lodgings for a
certain number of years, thereby acquired a right for
himself and his children to he irremovable, and never
to pay more than his former rent. Or, in other words,
it is as if a working man, who had been employed
in any business for a certain number of years,
acquired, by the fact of such continued employment,
a legal right not to be dismissed without his own con-
sent. Or, if you want a third analogy, which is, per-
haps, still closer, it is as if a capitalist who should have
lent out his money in small sums were to be told one
day by the Legislature that as long as he received, punctu-
ally paid, the interest upon his loans, he had got what
any reasonable man ought to be content with, and ought
to give up all claim to recover the capital itself, if be
wanted it. Now, a claim of that kind is one
which I apprehend no British Parliament will ever
be found ready to admit. It is really one for which
there is no shadow of legal or moral justification. It
is a claim that must be resisted, and I do the Liberal
Government and the majority of the Liberal party this
justice, that I believe they will resist it. The sight of all
these rocks ahead—nationality, land, education, and I
might name others—forces the conviction on my mind that
the work of conciliation, so far from being successfully
carried out to any effectual purpcse, is at present only
beginning. All these things, I say, would induce me to

urge upon anyone whom my voice could reach the inexpe-
diency of alienating from you those upon whom, whatever
their failings may have been, England has always been
able to rely, and who, if you are to turn them into oppo'
nents, will carry into their opposition that spirit of per•

severance and of determination which they have shewn
in all the active pursuits of life, and to which, in wi
belief, they owe a good deal to their Scotch descent.°

Lord Stanley went on to to give credit to Mr. Gladstone for

acting conscientiously, but condemned most strenuously
the release of the Fenian prisoners. "Itis a fatal and a

suicidal policy for any State to treat armed resistance to

its authority as a light offence. lam not thinking of anY
danger that can arise from the individuals. Half-a-dozen

rowdies added to the disorderly classes are not a national

danger ; they are hardly in any appreciable degree a public
nuisance. But the effect, I fear, w.111:1 t)is, that when sue%

risings, or attempts at risings, occur again—and one cannot
say that they will not—the fear inspired by the law will not
be what it has been. Conspirators will encourage one another,
and as far as the late precedent goes, they will do so iustlY,
by pointing out that at the worst, if they are taken, they

- -
have only to fear a few months' imprisonment, with unli•

mited popularity and mob applause at the end. Nov, I

say again I do not accuse those in authority of popularity
hunting, but I fear there has been a little clerical pressure,
_ _ _ _

and I only hope there has not been any foreign influence.
The most satisfactory part of the transaction probably is
that those very released persons have told us so plainly
and so frankly how much gratitude and how much peni'
tence we have to expect from them, that they have
furnished a more effectual warning than anyone elsd
could do against a repetition of such ill-considered pro'
ceedings."

IRISH cffulicirDEFENCE IN 11 AN-

CILES:PER.

----s -

The Conservative papers record with great stress the
Irish Church meeting which took place at Manchester oo
Friday evening. There were present Mr. Birley, ALP•
for the town, Lord Claud and Lord George Hamilton,
and the Hon. Mr. Egerton—M.P.'s all. There were
the now common appeals to the Act of Union and
the Coronation Oath, the usual epithets of " sacri.
lege, spoliation, confiscation, and robbery," and tile
fashionable abuse of Mr. Gladstone. The Yea.
Archdeacon Pollok said the proposed course of legie'
lation would lead to the proclamation of an Irish re•
public, and, in the end, England would be obliged to
reconquer Ireland. But the point of which most
was made by the speakers was Maynooth. The Dissenters,
said Lord George Hamilton, amidst the cheers of the
meeting, had supported the Government during the late
elections because they had received a pledge from the
Liberal candidates that none of the property of the Esta•
blished Church in Ireland, should go to any other religious
denomination, but the pledge had not been kept. The
Pope, said Lord Claud Hamilton, was the real head of
Maynooth, and we were going to hand over money to
without a pledge of what he would do with it.

THE CITY .ROMANCE.