16 MARCH 1907, Page 2

A largely attended and representative meeting to defend the interests

of Trinity College, Dublin, as a place of learning and research was held at University College, Oxford, on Saturday last. Dr. Macan, the Master of University, who presided, explained that the meeting had been summoned by a number of those who were convinced that the proposals of Mr. Bryce were not only fraught with disaster to the interests of the highest education in Ireland, but, if carried out, would react disadvantageously on other seats of learning and on the interests of learning generally. The prime condition essential to the success of a federal University such as it was proposed to create was that the federated units should be homogeneous, and this was impossible of realisation under the proposed scheme. They were not hostile to the reform, but to the destruction of Trinity College, Dublin. A resolution embodying these objections, proposed by Dr. Merry, Sir Edward Carson, and the Dean of St. Patrick's, was adopted unanimously. A notable feature of the meeting was the fact that all the speakers supported, in preference to the Government scheme, the establishment of a University for Roman Catbolies, the Dean of St. Patrick's, who took this view, declaring his con- viction that nothing short of this solution would provide a complete settlement, or would satisfy the Roman Catholic Bishops, who were masters of the situation. As at the recent meeting of protest at Cambridge, the non-political character

of the gathering and the distinction of those who attended it testified strikingly to the opposition excited by the Government proposals.