27 JANUARY 1872, Page 3

Mr. Gladstone has been addressed by some Irish Presbyterian memorialists

anxious to re-extract the often given and very superfluous pledge that he does not mean to establish or endow a Catholic University or College. In reply, Mr. Gurdou briefly expresses for Mr. Gladstone the Premier's regret "that they should have suffered alarm on account of rumours which, as is justly observed" (in the memorialists' own letter) " are opposed to the public declarations of her Majesty's Government, and which, therefore, it is hardly necessary to add, have no foundation in fact." The question was stupid. Every one ought to know by this time that Mr. Gladstone has always steadily resisted the policy of endowing any religious institution in Ireland, and has often asserted that the fair claims of the Catholics demand the free opening of existing educational endowments to them, not any new creation. Some scheme,—much larger than Mr. Fawcett's,— turning the Dublin University into a true National University, without any religious or theological element, but with all the endowments open to young men of all faiths, and tenable by men of all faiths during their education in any voluntary college (religious or otherwise) which they choose to attend, would alone satisfy the conditions repeatedly laid down by Mr. Gladstone.