Mr. Radcliffe Cooke, M.P., the author of an amusing pamphlet
on " Four Years with Hard Labour" in the House of Commons, writes to the Times of Tuesday a letter in which he expresses, first, his perfect belief in the loyalty of Roman Catholics, and next, his sympathy with those who desire to retain the existing Roman Catholic disabilities as "interesting" and, he will add, "instructive signals flying at the very apex of the State," to remind us of what the citizens of the British State did "to free themselves from priestly rule and foreign supremacy," and what they would do again for a like purpose. That is a very curious peep into the democratic Conservatism of the present day. It is admitted that the guarantees on which we now rely to prevent priestly rule and foreign supremacy are quite different in their character, and quite effectual ; but for all that, we are to keep irritating signals flying to remind us of what we did in the past, when we had no such guarantees for popular government, and when we had in their place religious disabilities which were both full of bitter and wounding memories, and ineffectual as well. If Mr. Radcliffe Cooke had lived in the days when the heads of traitors adorned Temple Bar, would he not have deprecated taking down those very conspicuous signals, " flying at the very apex of the State," of the way in which the British Government treated its foes?
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