The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-28 00:00:00

SEMIT OP THE PUBLIO JOURNALS,

The Saturday Review declares that unless there is a
large secession from the ranks of the Opposition, the reso:
lutions of Mr. Gladstone on the Irish Church must neces-
sarily be carried. The Cave which sheltered the malcon-
tents of two former sessions will at least not be reoccupied
by all of its former tenants. Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman
will no doubt support Mr. Gladstone in his attack on the
Irish Church ; nor is it yet known with certainty that any
influential politicians will take their place as leaders of
any new body of dissidents. It would not be difficult to
devise special reasons for opposing the resolutions, on the
ground that they are unseasonable, that they are factious,
or that the issue ought to be reserved to the future Par.
Lament ; but, when it comes to a division, it will not be
forgotten that there must be one appeal to the country
within the year, and that there may be two appeals. The
gcuat body of the Liberal party in the old constituen-
cies, including nearly all the Nonconformists, will support
the abolition of the Irish Establishment with little
r-iard to the consistency of Mr. Gladstone, or to Mr.
Disraeli's claims for a fair trial. After the registration,
the enfranchised householders may be expected to approve
still more strenuously of Mr. Gladstone's proposal, and
candidates for their favour will be unwilling to incur
unpopularity by opposing in the present session a measure
which must in any case be settled by a future Parliament.
If members were irresponsible to their constituents, and
more especially if they could vote in secret, a large majo-
rity would almost certainly prefer that the contest should
be adjourned ; but the pressure of party allegiance will
prevail over the private judgment of many candid or luke.
warm Liberals. The leader of an Opposition, as of a
Government, is liable to errors of judgment, but it is a
necessary condition of efficient party action that his
followers should accept his decision on political tactics.
A minority, or even a narrow majority, would seriously
injure Mr. Gladstone's reputation for prudence, and it
might be assumed, in the case of any other leader, that he
had taken measures to ascertain the feelings of his party
before he committed himself and his adherents to a decisive
policy. If the resolutions are carried by a considerable
majority, Mr. Disraeli will have, like his predecessors on
many occasions, three courses open to his choice. He may
resign, or he may dissolve, or he may neither dissolve nor
resign. The first of the three alternatives may be rejected
as improbable, and there are obvious formidable objec-
tions to an immediate dissolution. If Mr. Gladstone's
majority is small, Mr. Disraeli will be fully justified
in declining to accept the verdict of the House of Com-
mons as decisive ; and it is doubtful whether, in any cir-
cumstances, his adversary could drive him from office
against his will. The Liberal party has repeatedly shewn
that it is not in a hurry to instal Mr. Gladstone as
Minister ; and there is a general feeling that Mr. Disraeli
has, without adequate necessity, been in some respects
harshly treated. If the resolutions are lost, the Govern-
ment is safe; and if they are carrie I, Mr. Disraeli will
probably contrive to remain in office. The Irish resolu
tions will scarcely affect Mr. Disraeli's infinitesimal
chances of acceptance by the future House of Commons.
In the impending debate the opponents of the motion will
contend that it is unseasonable, because Mr. Gladstone
has not the opportunity of following up the vote of the
House by introducing a measure from the Ministerial
bench. The majority in the new Parliament will draw
the logical inference that its first business is to remove the
existing Government.

Apart from personal considerations and fears of a disso-
lution, there are, the Spectator points out, three or four
ideas, not exactly current, but latent among some minds
otherwise honestly Liberal, which will make their posses-
sors vote, if they vote at all, with little heartiness, as men
accepting the inevitable, and not as men determined to
fulfil a clear and an imperative obligation. Of these ideas
the strongest may be shortly defined as the shewbread
idea, the property idea, and the Protestant idea. The
shewbread idea, little as some of our more extreme friends
may believe it, is one which weighs very heavily with
minds deserving of the highest respect, minds accus-
tomed to decide their course on considerations other than
those of pure expediency. They do not like the
idea of secularising great properties now devoted
to religious use, feel as if they were guilty of
something approaching sacrilege, as if they were
called on to vote for a retrograde step in civilisation.
Then there is the property idea, the notion that the seizure
of corporate property without compensation endangers
the security of individual property. This idea, which
defeated the Appropriation Clause thirty years ago, seems
of late years to have become weaker ; but it still exists,
and has an especial influence among a class of men
who have a secret doubt whether their own pos.
sessions are not too vast for the public weal. And finally,
as to the Protestant idea. Somewhat, we confess.
to our surprise, we find that this idea, hitherto po.verful
to persecution, is going to prove weak ; that the Scotch
constituencies, for example, which for centuries have
nover elected a Catholic, are heartily opposed to the Con-
tinuance of the Irish Establishment. Still, this ides:,
weighs with many very sensible people, who say the Irish
Church is at once a bulwark against Rome, and an educa-
tional machinery for the propagation of a comparatively
Pure creed. With regard to the first, or—as we have
named ia shewbread objection, the resolutions do not
involve a pledge that the funds will go to other than reli-
gious objects. At present it becomes ahnost disgraceful
fog a man to change his creed. A Catholic becoming a
Protestant is almost suspected of wishing to belong to the
high caste. It is not the shewbread about to be abolished,
but the use of shewbread as a bribe to the hungry. With
regard to the second objection, there is in reality no con-
fiscation, for nobody loses anything ; all that happens is
that a corporation of trustees is not renewed by the
owners who placed the property in trust. The argument
about the bulwark may be pretty summarily dismissed.
If Protestantism in Ireland without endowments clnnot
hold its ground against Catholicism without endowments,
we should say the quicker it disappears the better, no
kingdom of God having ever yet been established by
bribes ; but there is no necessity for so extreme an

argument.

It is probable, remarks the Imperial Review, that the
Liberal leaders already begin to recognise the truth that
in venturing upon a crusade against the Church, and
endeavouring to commit the Liberal party to a course that
logically involves a complete revolution of the Constitu-
tional relations between Church and State, not in Ireland
alone,but in England and Scotland they have been guilty
of a grave political blunder. Mr. Gladstone is ordinarily
considered to be abnormally susceptible to the influence of
public (pinion. In that case he must already experience
the inevitable regret that is felt by one who sacrifices con-
science and conviction only to incur obloquy and invite
defeat. For the evidences are already abundant enough,
and striking enough, that the nation in no way sympa-
thises with the policy of revolution that the Liberal leader
has announced. Little consideration is required to spew
that the principles- which Mr. Gladstone has now avowed,
if followed out to their logical conclusions, are fatal to the
interests of the Established Church, not in Ireland only,
but in England and Scotland, and are inconsistent with
the fundamental rights of property. The abasement of
Protestantism, and the confiscation of religious endowments,
do not constitute a popular cause. The knowledge that the
disendowmentof the Irish Church is not sought by the Irish
people, but is merely ad vocated by the representatives of the
Ultramontane party, is alone sufficient to make ordinary
Englishmen regard such a step with disfavour. The in-
dications are already abundant enough, that the Pro-
testant feeling of the country is energetically enlisted on
behalf of the Irish Protestant Church. The inevitable
result of the course that Mr. Gladstone has adopted will
be to re-kindle religious animosities in Ireland and to stir
up the fierce hatred between rival religions that it should
be the aim of statesmanship to remove. In England its
tendency is to distract attention from Ireland itself, and
from the consideration of measures for the relief of Irish
evils, by impressing a belief that, in Mr. Disraeli's words,
" the crhis of England is rather at hand." It is self-
evident that the destruction of the Irish Church would
lead to and invit, an agitation for the disendowment of
the Church in England. The conviction that this will
be the case, and the knowledge that the opponents of the
Church do not de my it, will, in itself, sufficiently account
for the enthusiasCc opposition that Mr. Gladstone is
evoking.

Under this heading the London _Review notices certain
proceedings of Murphy, -Mackay, Harper, and others,
backed up by Mr. Whalley and Colonel _Brockman. It
concludes its remarks as follows: We should be parti-
cularly cautious just at this time not to allow the spirit of
bigotry to ;grow to influential dimensions amongst us. The
great questions of the day happen to be those which lie
close upon the confines of religious thonght and feeling
and it is of all things desirable that we should deal with
them calmly, impartially, and kindly. There not be
wanting those who will try to rouse up the dangerous pre-
judices of the mobs on the subject of the Irish Church, for
example, though we do not think that its more respectable
and sincere upholders will go into the streets for support
h-; bigots, however, must be seen to. They are certain
to do as much mischief as they can, and to raise the old
cries of the "Church in danger" and "No Popery." It
will not, of course, be necessary to put any extraordinary
measures in force for their suppression, but they might
be eff c;tually discouraged both by rid:cute and contempt.
It is doubtful, however, whether these meetings, "for men
only," mill help out the policy of their promoters. We are
inclined terthink t'iat those assemhlies will entail so much
of public disgust on their patrons that they will rather aid
the cause of fib than otherwise. Mr. Harper, Mr.
Mael:nv' Mr. Murphy, and Colonel Brockman are poor
apostles. after all—poor in the sense of brains and discre-
tion. We may, then, leave them to their own devices,
until those devices interfere with the peace and secerity of
their fellow.subjLcts. We only trust that their complaint
is not contagious. We are, indeed, behind France and
Germany in some respects. Bigots do not thrive on the
Continent. The atmosphere—the intellectual atm osph ere—
is too clear and too refined for them. The peel& have no
room for them, and even the camparatively innocuous
street preacher is an institution unknown in Paris. 'We
do not think the French are much the worse for not hearken-
ing to the turgid twaddle and silliness of bigots. We
have suffered enough from them historically to be thoroughly
tired of them. The bigot has no longer a real part to play
a nongst us. His obstructiveness represents nothing but
sheer brute obstinacy. if we thought the society which
encourages Messrs. Murphy and his companions were
capable of understanding a reason, we might easily shew
them the futility of their proceedings ; but that which is
void of decency has ever been held to be void of sense, and
the Protestant Electoral Union has purveyed for the dens
of Holywell-street in its mode of winning converts to the
Church.