TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PARLIAMENT AND THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.
THE Government have obtained a reprieve for the National Board of Education in Ireland, in the shape of a Select Committee to hear the reasons of both the majority and the minority of the Board for their action in the case of Father O'Keeffe, and perhaps, as Lord Hartington intimated, to hear Father O'Keeffe himself ; but they have only secured this concession by the narrow majOlity of 28,— and when names like Mr. Cowper-Temple's appear in the minority, we know pretty well what is coming ; more- over, even that narrow majority was, we believe, only attained by private concessions to some of their supporters, who insisted, at the last moment, on very strict conditions as to the Committee's promptitude of action, and obtained a pro- mise that it should sit de die in diem, in order to give Parlia- ment an opportunity of pronouncing finally on the merits of the case this Session. It cannot be denied that if the Government were inclined to make themselves responsible for the action of the Board, they might, without any excessive disposition to despair, regard their life as pro- bably limited by the number of days' delay now granted ; and, as it is, we greatly fear that a calamity is impend- ing much greater than that of the resignation even of the best and most liberal Government we can remember, —for that is a temporary mischief,—namely, the destruc- tion of the National system of education in Ireland, a result which seems not unlikely to be achieved by the pro- fessed friends of the system, though it will be welcome only to its Ultramontane foes. That Mr. Bouverie should play into the hands of Cardinal Cullen, while professing to attack Cardi- nal Cullen, would be unfortunate ; but nothing in the world is more likely. If the National system be destroyed, the schools of Ireland would become purely clerical schools, unsustained by the wealth, and unmodified by the liberal intelligence of the State. But that such a consequence is exceedingly likely to result from the temper of Parliament at the present moment, it is by no means difficult to show. For what is happening is an attack on a vital principle of action by Ishich the National Board of Education have been guided ever since the time of the first foundation of the Board by the late Lord Derby. And if the Board should be censured for adhering to that principle of action, it is perfectly certain that the whole weight of ecclesiastical influence which has hitherto been not so much favourable, as neutral, in regard to these National schools, will be turned with deadly effect against them, and the work of forty years will be undone. In the joy Mr. Bouverie feels at embartassing the Govern- ment, he calls the majority of the Irish Board of Educa- tion " the ecclesiastical serfs of Cardinal Cullen," though many of them are Protestants, and all of them are the staunch friends of a system which Cardinal Cullen would be delighted to see utterly destroyed. But he probably does not know, and certainly does not care, so long as his shot takes effect, that if he succeeds in ousting these " ecclesiastical serfs " from their position on the Board, and putting open foes of Cardinal Cullen into their place, the effect will be to throw all the schools in Ireland into the hands of men who might be, with something like reason, described as ecclesiasti- cal serfs of Cardinal Cullen, while the Board itself will be paralysed and its occupation gone. Mr. Bouverie is just the class of political instrument to bring about a result of this kind. He plays stumbling-block to the Liberal Government almost by profession, as one might say. But such stumbling-blocks are almost always fatal to the wrong people. They are apt to stick blindly and obstinately in the middle of the way till some one tumbles over them, and then it is as likely as not to be the friend instead of the foe. So we suspect that Mr. Bouverie, in his zeal to trip up the Government and Cardinal Cullen, will trip up instead the National system in Ireland. And Parliament, whose temper Mr. Bouverie has always just sagacity enough to discern, will have been his aider and abettor in this blind and mischievous act. For, a British Parliament,—the English portion of P-, at least,—is easily brought under the influ- ence of sudden religious or irreligious panics, as it was in the time of the Papal aggression,—and in these moods it is sure to do in haste what it repents at leisure.
You are the most gullible people on earth," said an Irish- man the other day to the present writer. And really we are inclined to agree with him. If the Irish or the French are gulled, they are gulled by their too great suspiciousness. But when the English are gulled, they are gulled by their too simple credulity. Tell them that they are ecclesiastical serfs of the Pope if they don't do something, and they will do it at once, however insane. Mr. Bouverie is going to tell them they are ecclesiastical serfs of the Pope if they don't break up the National Board of Education. And they will but too probably break up the National Board of Education, as obedi- ently as the giant ripped up his own stomach on the provoca- tion of Jack. And then for another quarter of a century they will repent what they have done.
Let us look for a moment at the real issue now before the public, as Chief Baron Pigot, in his admirable statement of the case, has put it. The object of the original Board of Education was to get the confidence of the religious popula- tion of Ireland of all sects ; and to get this confidence, it began deliberately, under the late Lord Derby's guidance,, by making a principle of so selecting its patrons as to satisfy the religious feeling of the various sects. Its seventh rule provides,—" The successor of a clerical patron is recog- nised by the Board as the person to succeed to the patronage of the school." And the Chief Baron tells us that " the Board have, in every instance, taken the testimony of the ecclesiastical superior " on the question of the successorship, without inquiring, or thinking of inquiring, into the motives or accuracy of that testimony. And how neces- sary that was, Chief Baron Pigot illustrates for us by some very interesting testimony derived from the his- tory of the Board of Charitable Donations and Bequests. During Sir Robert Peel's Ministry in 1844, the Irish Board of Charitable Donations and Bequests was recon- structed, in order to satisfy the Catholics, who denounced the former Board as exclusive. " By the 6th section of the Act, provision is made that matters concerning the usages or dis- cipline of the Established Church, or of any body of Protestant Nonconformists, should be referred to a committee composed of Protestant members, and any question concerning the usages or discipline of the Roman Catholic Church should be referred to a committee composed of Roman Catholic members of the Board ; and whenever the object of the Donation, Devise, or Bequest shall not be defined with legal certainty, in the deed or will creating the trust, the com- mittee to which the same shall be referred shall certify to the Commissioners, who is, according to the uses and intendment of such church or body, the person, for the time being, intended to take the benefit of such donation, devise, or bequest, or other particular facts concerning the usages or discipline of such church or body necessary to be known for the due administration of the trust, according to the true intent and meaning of the donor ; and the Commissioners shall receive every such certificate as evidence of the facts certified ; and shall give effect to such donation, devise, or bequest accord- ingly, so far as the same may be lawfully executed, according to the provisions of this Act.' The section then saves the jurisdiction of any court of law or equity." But this did not satisfy the Catholics, who maintained through Mr. O'Connell that it was not for Roman Catholic laymen to determine who filled the status of a Roman Catholic clergyman. The difficulty was got over thus : — " Two sagacious men then held high office in Ireland : Lord Heytesbury was Lord-Lieutenant, and Francis Blackburne was Master of the Rolls. Mr. Blackburne had, himself, no small ex- perience of public affairs. As Attorney-General, he had been the adviser, and the trusted guide, of more than one Irish Administration. On January 9, 1845, at the first meeting of the newly-constructed Board, three bye-laws were made by the Board of Charitable Donations and Bequests, Mr. Blackburne ex-officio chairman, each in nearly identical terms. One of them provided that whenever any reference shall be made to the Roman Catholic Commissioners, for the purpose of ascer- taining who is the person entitled to the benefit of any dona- tion or bequest which may be made to, or in trust for, the Roman Catholic priest of any parish or congregation, it is to be under- stood that their duty will be merely ministerial, and that it will be for them to act on the certificate of the Roman Catholic Archbishop, or Bishop, or Vicar acting for the time being instead of the Roman Catholic Archbishop or Bishop of the place, as to the person entitled thereto, and to certify accordingly.' " And similar provisions were made as to the Bishops of the Established Church and the Moderators of the Presbyterian body. " The effect of these bye-laws," says the Chief Baron, "was immediate and complete. All opposition ceased," and one of the most active opponents of the Board told the Chief
Baron that from that moment he not only abandoned all opposition, but became the warm supporter of the Board. Now that was under Sir Robert Peel's Government. And the policy was the same policy which the Board of Education had pursued long before, and has pursued ever since. Dr. Ball wants to make out that because the present suspension was Cardinal Cullen's doing under authority from Rome, the case was not an ordinary one. Would Dr. Ball seriously have had the Board of National Education go into such a question as that The suspension was certified to the Board by the Bishop of the diocese in which Father O'Keeffe lived, and that was all their rules had ever required. If they had refused to remove him, as Dr. Ball thinks they should have done, on the ground that a Bishop's sentence and a Cardinal's sentence were not the same thing,—a distinc- tion into which, as well as into all other pleas of ecclesi- astical law, the Poor Law Board, of which the Marquis of Hartington is himself a member, had, eleven weeks before the National Board of Education, taken the same course, quite rightly declined to go,—they would have violated their rule, and constituted themselves judges of the merits of the case. The simple truth is that the National Board are doing now what they have always done before, but that the temper of Parliament and of the country is different. Prince Bismarck is thought to have done a manly thing in persecut- ing the Catholics of Germany, and Britons feel a little ashamed of not following his example. If they could but follow his example even in some very small and petty matters indeed, they would be better pleased with themselves. And so they pro- pose to make a fight for Father O'Keeffe. We have no objection to sympathy with Father O'Keeffe. As far as we can judge, he seems to have been harshly treated by both Bishop and Cardinal. But we do not want to see the blow discharged at Cardinal Cullen, like the cherry-stone in the Arabian tale, knocking out the eye of Ireland's best genie,—the Genie of Education. That is what we fear. That is what Parliament, in its foolish panic, and Mr. Bouverie, in his disagreeable candour towards a Government he detests, are now contem- plating, and but too likely to carry into effect.
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