27 DECEMBER 1828, Page 7

STATE OF THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

DUBLIN EVENING POET—It must be admitted that the present is a very nervous, perhaps we might say a very awful period in the history of our country. On one side, we have united the -Catholics to a man. -There are shades of difference amongst them on minor, or perhaps, we should rather say, on collateral points—there are some who would be willing, perhaps, to entertain the question of securities—there are more who will not listen to terms. There are some who would receive a part of what they justly consider their just rights, while the great majority insist upon a payment in full. There are many, particularly of late, who think that a reform in the temporalities of the Established Church should be preliminary to, or concomitant with, Catholic Emancipation ; while there are other Catholics, who, though no friends of the Establishment, would be quite satisfied with the concession of their own claims—leaving the Church to sink or swim upon its own merits, or,touching that sacred edifice,' not as Catholics, but as Irishmen. What- ever the differences on those and other points may be, there are none at all upon the primary one. The Catholics of Ireland, we repeat it, are united as one man in one pursuit—and though it may be safe for the present, it is un- questionably dangerous policy, to set at defiance, or to treat with contempt, the voice of millions. On the other hand, the Church, and all therewith connected—Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, Priests, Deacons, Rectors, Curates, Parish Clerks, Sextons, Beadles, and their wives and daughters respectively; builders, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, locksmiths, cess-collectors, tithe- proctors, officers in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and all their connexions to the tenth degree, and all the numerous expectants—are to a man opposed to con- cession ; in a word, they are opposed to the peace and prosperity of Ireland, as well as their own interest. While the Catholics act as they are resolved to do, with prudence, discretion, and forbearance, there may be no collition be- tween the parties ; but it is impossible that such a state of things should continue for any length of time, without eventuating ' in the most disastrous results. It is therefore—we will not say the duty, because that is obvious enough—but it is the interest of the Government to devise immediate means with a view to tranquillize the country, and to divest the faction of the capa- city which it now possesses, and which it is anxious to employ, of violating the peace, and of involving the empire in all the horrors of a civil 'Ivan 'Phis may, in a great measure, be accomplished by simple justice—by a simple repeal of the penal laws, which still aggrieve the Catholics of Ireland.

MORNING Cxttotitctx—Ministers cannot but know that the question of concession to the Catholics is now mixed up with various other questions not necessarily connected with it, and which, were concession grauted, would no longer be mixed up with it. It is only as Catholics that the Irish are united ; but that union, while it lasts, has an important bearing on several questions. The question of the Church Establishment is the real cause of nearly all the hostility to the Catholics. It may be reasonably doubted whether the security of the Church would not be greatly increased by Emancipation.

4t * When Emancipation shall be disposed of, the question wilt reduce itself to this—whether such a share of the taxes of the country as the Irish tithes amount to should be set apart for an establishment for so very small a fraction of the people of Ireland, the justification of an establishment being usually sought in the circumstance of its being serviceable to the majority of the people at least. But no man who reflects for a moment on the distribution of political power in this country will believe that the Aristocracy, who are interested in dividing among themselves the Church revenues, will consent to abandon this source of provision for their families, merely because the Esta- blishment is not required for the religious wants of the people. The Establish- ment is not kept up for the religious wants of the people, but for their own temporal wants. Where is the force in the country that can compel them to relinquish this source of revenue ? To suppose that a reform in the Church Establishment can take place, is to suppose a previous transference of power from the hands that now wield it. But of this we see no prospect at present. No position is better established than that power in every country will be exercised for the benefit of those who possess it. The Government of England is the Government of the Aristocracy; and to suppose that that Aristocracy would renounce voluntarily a source of advantage to itself, is to suppose an absurdity. The Government of England is so far popular, that each party must always derive a material advantage from deferring to public opinion; and therefore the Ministerial division of the Aristocracy, in order not to allow the Opposition division to obtain any advantage over it, will always in indifferent matters yield to the public voice. But this deference can never extend to matters in which the Aristocracy, as an order, are deeply interested. Hence we hold the Protestant Establishment Gf Ireland to be secure, were there only fifty thousand Protestants in Ireland, so long as power is vested in the Aristo- cracy of the Empire. The Catholics, as we have already observed, are only united on the single point of Emancipation. That point carried, their voice would be divided as to the question of the Establishment, which would then he between the Aristocracy and the People of the empire at large. We wonder the Church do not see this themselves.

STANDARD—The abstract affection of the Aristocracy of Ireland for the National Church has not, it must be owned, been acknowledged very grate- fully by the Churchmen who have had occasion to allude to the matter, from Dr. Swift to Dr. Phelan : the great writers upon Irish affairs have been any thing but grateful for this abstract affection, and perhaps the case of the agistment tithe abolition may be thought to afford them some justification. It is not the method of the newest philosophy any more than it was the method of that which Bacon displaced by his inductive scheme, to reason from experience ; and accordingly the Morning Chronicle feels its arguments sufficiently supported by the following gratuitous proposition :—" No position is better established, than that power in every country will be exercised for the benefit of those who possess it." Against this infallible position, we poor Baconian logicians have nothing to other but universal experience—the experience of states, the experience of individuals; the experience of des- potisms, from Nimrod's to Napoleon's ; the experience oligarchy, from that of Sparta to Venice ; the experience of democracies, from that of Athens to that of the United States, whose irritating, debasing, and demo- ralizing system was so justly censured by our contemporary a few days ago. If the Morning Chronicle indeed had said that men generally exercise power " for what they deem their benefit," the proposition, though as a very general truth doubtful (for men frequently, perhaps most frequently, prefer enjoyment to benefit), would still have some colour ; but then it would not have sup- ported the argument ; for a state of things might be supposed which would make it seemingly more beneficial to the Aristocracy to divide among them the possessions of a sinecure church, than to leave those possessions as a lottery fund, to provide for unborn sons, nephews, and cousins.

MORNING 'CotiostetE7If the Aristocracy of the empire could agree oil any feasible means of dividing among themselves the lands of the Church Establishments of the two countries, it might be their interest to do so rather