The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-24 00:00:00

S
MR.WRDWELL ON
.PUBL I
__ • 1
A meeting of the Liberal party of Oxf
?lace on Thursday, was attended by Mr. CardMll, ADP, S
and Mr. Vernon Harcourt (the Liberal candidate for the
horough at the coming election.)
Mr. CARDWELL, who was received with much cheering,
(lanced at the Ministerial declarations early in the session
m the subject of the Irish Church. He expressed his con-
viction that the time bad gone by for the maintenance of
that Church in the ascendancy and dignity of the last 300
years. I hope (continued the right hon. gentleman) it
will not much longer be a burden upon the energies of this
empire. I am ready to admit that the detestable system
, of persecution may be and has been effective. It has
extinguished Protestantism in Spain and in the valleys of
Italy, but semi-persecution never can be otherwise than a
melancholy failure. You are not prepared, and nobody
is prepared for a civil war with Ireland. Nobody is pre-
pared to reverse that system of beneficent legislation upon
which, in many respects, we have entered. Then, I say,
the only conclusion is, that you must pursue a generous
and liberal policy to its natural and logical result.
You cannot trust people with power and then refuse
them the rightful liberties which belong to them. If
you expect the Roman Catholic judge and the Roman
Catholic juryman, the Roman Catholic elector and the
Roman Catholic member, the Roman Catholic proprietor
and the Roman Catholic peer to discharge their duties in
an equal and civilised state of society, you must extend
that equality throughout, and must have no grievance
against which they not only can legitimately contend, but
against which we cannot legitimately offer opposition. I
lay, then, that the true Liberal policy is the policy which
111 r. Gladstone has propounded in the House of Com-
mons. I say that it was not suddenly, and ivas not inop-
portunely brought forward ; and with regard to the charges
of party motives, all I will say of them here, as I would
say of them elsewhere, is that they are easily made, and
by me, at least, they are equally easily treated with con.
tempt. But I leave them to the consideration of those
who think that in 1860 we adhered to our places to the
compromise of -our principles, and who think that in 1867
our opponents adhered to their principles to the sacrifice
of their places. Having occupied you so long upon
what is the real and critical question of the day, I will
pass with comparative brevity over other topics. I
alluded a little while ago to the question of an exclusive
university for Ireland. Now, if I thought that an exclu-
sive university was a good thing for England, I don't
know that I could conscientiously hesitate about giving
it to Ireland ; but my opinion is, that exclusive universities
are not good, either for England or Ireland. lam one
of those who greatly desire to see the ancient studies of
this place maintained in all their honour, and I am one
of those who especially desire to see learning at all times
tale handmaid of religion, ministering to the service of the
divine truth. But when lam told that I may not there.
fore be the friend of the removal of restrictions, I ask
myself what is the exact effect of these restrictions at
the present time. The first thing I find is that the
individual who gives the orthodox defenders of the present
system the greatest amount of uneasiness and anxiety
was not long ago a tutor of Cambridge, and is at this
particular moment a bishop. The other day I dare say
many of you heard a remarkable speech made in the
Iheatre of this city by the First Lord of the Treasury, It
Was a speech made about angels and apes. It was gene-
rally understood to be a severe sarcasm upon some friends
mine, very distinguished and very valuable members of
this university. The inference I draw from these things
is this, that if tutors of Cambridge and tutors of
Oxford, under the present system, give the cham.
'lions of orthodoxy so great an amount of uneasi-
aims, the system cannot be worth all the anxiety
Manifested in its defence; and for ray own part I
firmly believe there is only one defence for truth, and that
la sincere and earnest investigation and honest argument.
That I believe at all times would be an effectual palla-
dium ; but of this I am sure, that it cannot be wise for
the general cause of religious truth to do what we do now
z.-which is to exclude from the benefits of our great uni-
tbrsities all the Nonconformist teachers of religion
throughout the country ; and when I heard a gentleman
-sty in the House of Commons the other day that a num-
ter of young gentlemen assembled in a room were the
haheritors of many millions of money, but could not avail
themselves of academical distinction upon account of
restrictions in their way when they approached Oxford
or Cambridge, I felt that it was a serious injury to the
country that so much of our future governing power
should be excluded from those great benefits which these
honoured institutions are so well calculated to afford,

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