The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-10 00:00:00

acliiresg.

"For at this time one question, or group of questions,
overshadows all the rest. The state of Ireland, and the
actual temper of no small portion of its people towards the
Throne and Government of the United Kingdom, impera-
tively demand the care of all public men, and of all good
citizens who would seek, not merely to live by expedients
from day to day, but, looking onwards into the future, to
make provision, as far as human means avail, for the
strength, concord, and stability of the empire.
"The object of a truly liberal policy is by equitable but
decided measures to make the name of law in Ireland
respected as it is in Great Britain ; to make it respected
by making it loved ; and to create this attachment by
creating in the national mind the conviction that law is a
friend and not an enemy ; the friend of every class, but
especially of those classes which have the greatest need of
its protection.

" The present House of Commons has four times been
called upon to suspend the Act for securing personal
liberty in Ireland, but it has not forgotten the work of
improvement in that country.

" In 1866 the Government of Earl Russell addressea
itself to one absolutely vital portion of this work by intro-
ducing a Land Bill, for securing to tenants the value of
their improvements, which the obstruction of the
Ministers now in power prevented from passing into
law.

" But this year, those Ministers, rightly judging that
the necessity of coercion did not impair the obligations of
justice, very deliberately proposed a policy for Ireland;
did not shrink from the questions of education and reli-
gion ; asked to establish at the charge of the exchequer a
Roman Catholic University; and declared their readiness
to recognise the principle of religious equality in Ireland
by a great change in the status of the unendowed clergy
of that country, provided always that the Established
Church should be maintained in its integrity. In this state.
ment, for the sake of accuracy, I have adhered, as nearly
as may be,. to the language which they used.
" We thought that Ministers had mistaken alike the
interests and the convictions of the country. We refused
to open a new source of discord through the establishment
by the State of any denominational university. We
repudiated the policy of universal endowment. But,
agreeing with the Government that the subject was
ripe, we proposed a counter plan of disestablishment
of the existing Church, with strict regard to the rights of
property and to vested interests, but without establishing
any other Church, and with a general cessation of State
endowments for religion in Ireland.

" The Church of Ireland is the Church of a minority,
insignificant in numbers. True, while insignificant in
numbers, that minority is great in property, in education,
and in power. All this does not amend, but aggravates
the case. For if a national Church be not the Church of
the nation, it should at least be the Church of the poor.
Every argument which can now be used in favour of civil
establishments of religion is a satire on the existence of the
Church in Ireland.

" But while that Establishment is thus negative for
good, it misapplies the funds meant for the advantage of
the nation at large. It remains as the memorial of every
past mischief and oppression. It embitters religious con-
troversy by infusing into it the sense or the spirit of
political injustice ; and it carries the polemical temper
into the sphere of social life and public affairs. Nor need
we feel surprise when we find that, since the penal laws
began to be repealed, the relative number of Protestants
in Ireland appears to have declined.

"In the removal of this Establishment I see the dis-
charge of a debt of civil justice,the disappearance of a
national, almost a world-wide reproach, a condition indis-
pensable to the success of every effort to secure the peace
and contentment of that country; finally, relief to a
devoted clergy from a false position, cramped and beset by
hopeless prejudice, and the opening of a freer career to
their sacred ministry.

" This is a great change, and it can only be effectea
with the aid of much energetic and much considerate
support.

" In the manner of proceeding we ought, I think, to he
governed by three considerations : a regard for Irish inte-
rests and feelings, an enlarged equity towards those who
would lose in point of civil privilege, and a careful heed
to the spirit of equal dealing throughout the detailed
arrangements.

"After all that these rules can warrant has been done,
there may remain a considerable property at the disposal
of the State. The mode of its application can only, in
my judgment, be suggested to Parliament by those who,
as a Government, may have means and authority to
examine fully the provisions now made by law for the
v,arious public and social wants of Ireland, and to compare

n each case both the urgency of the demand and the
'acility of meeting it with general satisfaction. It would,
iowever, ill consist with the principle of the measure for
which we are now contending if the State, having dis-
established the Church, were to apply its funds to the
teaching of religion in any other form.
" To sum up this great subject—
" Rest as we are, by common consent, we cannot.
Endowment of all, after the events of the last session, is
gut of the question. Retrenchment or mutilation of
the existing Church, by reduction of its spiritual offices,
has been proposed by a royal commission ; but I do lag
learn, from the latest and most authentic declarations of the
Ministry, that they adopt that, or indeed any other
method of proceeding. We of the Opposition, gentlemen,
have done our part. The matter now rests with you. One
path, at least, lies before you, broad, open, and well
lefined. One policy has advocates who do not shrink
from its avowal. It is the policy of bringing absolutely to
an end the civil establishment of the Church of Ireland.
It has received the solemn sanction of the representatives
whom the nation chose in 1865. For this line of action,
the only one just, and the only one available, I confidently
ask your approval.—l have the honour to be, gentlemen,
your grateful and faithful servant,

" Hawarden, October 9, 1868."

" W. E. GLADSTONE.

Only two Liberal papers comment on Mr. Gladstone's
address. The Conservative journals and the Times are
silent. The Daily News and the Stay' also are unable to do
more than insert the address.

The Post, which devotes an article to summarising the
salient definitions of policy, observes that, as compared
with Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone is under some dis-
advantage in issuing the address which is to stand as the
manifesto of the party of which he is the leader, for upon
all the questions which are now agitating the public mind
he has a definite and known policy ; upon none of them
can he be expected to have any sensational surprises in
store, and he can scarcely say upon any of them any-
thing that he has not said before. This much, at least,
may be said as to the courses advocated respectively by
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, that as to the former
there can be no mistake, while of the latter there can be
formed no opinion. Mr. Gladstone proposes something,
Mr. Disraeli nothing ; and the addresses of the two
statesmen shew in every line at once the enormous advan-
tage of having a clear policy to state, and of being able to
state it without trick, equivocation, or subterfuge, and the
grave disadvantage of being unable to do so.
The Telegraph, on the other hand, gives Mr. Disraeli the
credit of directly opposing his antagonist. The two writers
are themselves as powerfully contrasted as their composi-
tions ; and Mr. Disraeli foresaw, when he put forth his
own elaborate, audacious, yet cautious essay, the compari-
son which it would provoke. So soon as it appeared we
accorded to it the one merit which challenged acknow-
ledgment—that it raised a distinct issue for the judg-
ment of the people ; but, by a strange perversity of fate,
the author knew that his own words would not be
really intelligible without a direct reference to the
intention of his great antagonist He proclaimed an
emphatic " No" to the measure which the member
for South-West Lancashire contemplated, and thus
he spared the country any mistake as to his own
merely negative purpose. Mr. Gladstone as distinctly
announces that he will persevere with that noble reform
which has too long awaited the growth of public opinion
to let it pass from the state of theory-into that of law. The
Prime Minister has clearly made us understand that he
intends to meet with an unqualified negative what the
head of the Opposition proposes ; Mr. Gladstone is far
more explicit in developing what it is that he is preparing
to execute. He set forth his own views before his
countrymen when he spoke some months since at St.
Helens ; his address to-day submits the same idea more
formally for the acceptance of the country.