NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE prospects of the Irish University Bill are not for the moment very cheering, at least if Parliament is not prepared to force on Ireland a remedy which Irish Protestants and Catholics alike unite to reject. The Senate of the University of Dublin have 'peen expressing their chagrin and disgust at the measure half the week, and the Irish Catholic Bishops have since been 'dis- cussing the measure, and as we fear, in no very favourable spirit, though the result of their deliberations is not yet known. The net result of the various censures seems to be this,—that the Protestants won't be satisfied with any Uni- versity in which there is the slightest concession to what they regard as Catholic obscurantism, and that wherever there is a considerable number of Catholics they will suspect Catholic obscurantism ; —while the Roman Catholics will not be satisfied with any University- which does not encourage Roman Catholic students to take all their teaching in Roman Catholic Colleges, nor without a large endowment for at least some one Roman Catholic College. As neither the former condition nor the latter can be complied with by the present Bill, nor, indeed, by the present Government, there seems to be a real chance that the measure will fail. It is not easy to force upon Ireland a popular remedy which all parties in Ireland declare to be as bad as the disease.
