The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-02-11
English Nonconformists and Irish
Nationalists.

The progress of events has shown that
the Judgment in The O'Shea divorce case
placed the Irish Nationalists between the
devil and the deep sea. The English Non
conformists at once protested against polit-
ical afiliation with a party, the leader of
which had e c proved guilty of adultery.
Mr.. GLADSTONE felt constrained to heed
the protest Of men who constituted an in
dispensable part of his following in Eng
land. On the other hand, 1t was certain
that the Nonconformists would equally OPP
pose utilization with a party controlled by
the Irish Catholic hierarchy. There was no
Ella media, no way of escape from the al
tentative, for, although Mr.. PARNELL was
a Protestant, nc other Protestant was
known to be capable of governing the Cath
Ollie masses of the Irish party.
Under the circumstances, Mr.. GLADSTONE
n n majority of the Nationalist members
of Parliament adopted the course of parry
ing the immediate danger and risking the
more distant peril which, perhaps, they
hoped to postpone, IL not avert. They may
have imagined that another Protestant
qualified for leadership could be discov-
cred, or they may have believed that they
could continue to carry three-fourths of
Ireland without invoking the open and ac-
tive aid of the Catholic Episcopate and
priesthood. If they cherished such expec-
tations these were speedily dispelled. In
order to cope with Mr.. PARNELL and his
adherents, whose devotion to their chief
survived his death, the ti-Parnellites
were forced to invite the public and
jealous cooperation of the Catholic HER
archy, and thereby put it out of their
own power to accept a second Prot
estant leader. even IL one had been forth.
coming. In the eyes of English Noncon-
formists, the anti Parnellites have now
become undisguisedly a Catholic party, and
the transformation has had the effect,
which might lave been anticipated, on the
descendants of the men who, two hundred
years ago, threw over the Catholic JAMES
H., whose private life in his later years had
become a~ustere, for the Protestant VIII
LIAM Ill, the immortality Of whose rela-
tions to women was notorious. The English
Nonconformists do not hesitate now to say
that they will have nothing more to do with
the anti .Parnellites, and they give their
reasons with the utmost frankness.
One Of the most influential persons In the
Honconformist world, Nj. r.. w. PERKS, n
Radical member for Lincolnshire, made a
speech the other day, in which he declared
that the Liberals would never recover
~ascendancy at Westminster untilthe Homo
Rule plank had been knocked out of their
platform, or, at least, hidden out
OF sight. For the sake of maintain
Ing a show of consistency. he asserted, in
deed, that he still held as strongly AS he
did in 1856, in 1892, and in 1895 that the
only permanent remedy for the political
grievances OF Ireland was to confer on the
Irish nation a measure of home rule or
local self'government. He added, however,
the significant qualification that it must be
such Il measure las Great Britain could
safely grant and as the reasonable rights
OF religious and commercial minoritics IN
Ireland would allow" What he evidently
wished was to postpone the home rule
question to the Greek kalends. Protesting
to be a practical politician, he avowcd that
he did not want TO spend the brs. years oil
his parliamentary life in beating the al,
or whistling to the wind. 1t was unGe,
niab!e. he said, that there was no longer in
England the popular enthusiasm for home
rule which existed when Mr.. PARNELL wa
leader OF the Irish Nationalist party. Irish
speakers were then eagerly sought In the