Year: 1868

The Anti-Popery Riots in England.


The recent anti -Popery riot at Ashton-under-
Lyme, in England. in which several persons
lost their lives, the news of which we received
by telegraph yesterday, may be regarded as
the first index of the revolution towards which
the British empire is advancing. All reyolu
tions, like all great battles, commence with
skirmish fire, and this anti-Popery riot is the
first opening of the skirmish line. How far the
responsibility of this bloodshed can be attributed
to Mr.. Disraeli's late speech in Parliament,
when he declared that he knew of conspiracy
existing between his opponents of the Glad
stone party and a confederacy in Rome to
supersede the royal head of the Established
Church, the British people will decide for
themselves. The fact is that the two leading
men in England to-day-Disraeli and Glad
stone-are playing with revolution for mere
party ascendancy, and John Bright is pro-
badly the man who in the end will sweep
them both away with the grand army Of the
masses at his back. But revolution is dan
gerous weapon to play with; it is double
edged and cuts both ways. The weapon
which Gladstone is forging in this question
of the Irish Church may be transferred to the
hands of his antagonist, and the recent anti
Popery stand which Disracli has taken shows
that he is quite ready to use it. The tactics pur-
sued in England by the political leaders to-day
differ only in form from those that preceded the
revolution which substituted the commonwealth
of Cromwell for the monarchy of Charles
Stuart The cavaliers and roundheads Of that
time are not inaptly represented 10y the High
Jew Premier at their head, and the anti-Church
establishment party, under the lead Of Glad
stone and Bright, with its army Of dissenters
and discontents. The struggle in both cases
may be set down for party ascendancy; but in
our more degenerate days mere love Of power
takes the place Of the religious ferv0r which
inspired the armies of the Parliament, and
Gladstone and Bright are mere fencers COM
pared with such sturdy warriors as Old Noll
and Ireton and Fairfax.


The whole of this conflict between the Minis
try and the opposition is a bid for power but
it may terminate in complete disruption of
the existing order of things and a revolution
fatal to the hopes of both leaders, each Of
whom is equally ambitious and bold. Glad
stones bid for power is the disestablishment of
the Irish Church, which must inevitably lead
to the separation of Church and State through
out the empire and of this phase of the quar-
rel John Bright will take care. The vigorous
old Quaker is not going to lose 80 good an
opportunity of allying the dissenting portion of
the population with himself in his schemes for
larger popularity and place in the Cabinet.
Disraeli has accepted the challenge Of Glad
stone by an appeal to the most dangerous ele-
ment of popular passion-religious bigotry;
and the issue Of that appeal has been blood.
1t happens, too, somewhat significantly, that
the first fruits of this indammatory antiPopery
declaration of the Premier should be devel-
oped in one of the manufacturing districts,
where the strength Of the Gladstone and
Bright party is chiefly concentrated. We note
the matter as coincidence, and, as we have
said, it remains with the English people to
decide how far Mr.. Disraeli is responsible for
the first outcropping of q strife which may
lead to more serious results. That the Minis
terial crisis has led England to the verge of
revolution is but too plain; but it will be most
unfortunate if it should have assumed the
aspect Of q religious war, which takes us back
full century on the retrogressive path Of civil
lization. No one would desire to see the Lord
George Gordon riots reproduced in England.
This would certainly be q most lamentable
channel through which to reach the political
revolution the signs Of which are already
written on the wall