• ARCHBISHOP WHATELEY ON THE UNION. •
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR•1
SIR,—It is interesting to compare the opinions now expressed by those who claim to speak for the Liberal Party, with what was said by the best exponents of Liberalism in days before Mr. Gladstone's sudden conversion to a policy of disintegra- tion. I have lately come across a passage, in a lecture of Archbishop Whateley's at Cork in 1852, which seems to me to give in advance an emphatic rebuke to the policy of Home- rule for Ireland, and a fortiori for Scotland and Wales :— "It has always appeared to me that the narrow policy of separating England from Ireland, and setting forth their interests as inimical and antagonistic, and exciting the feelings of the people against each other, savours of barbarism, and is in effect bringing them back to the days of the Heptarchy. I would never join in the cry of Ireland for the Irish,' nor would I join in the cry of England for the English,' which is only the second part of the same tune. If you adopted such a plan, they would then have a cry of Cork for Cork- men' and 'Dublin for Dubliners,' and then you would be narrowing yourselves into cities and towns and clans, until all would relapse into a state of semi-barbarism such as is to be found in New Zealand and Africa. I am confident that the prosperity of Ireland will always be reflected on England, and_ that the prosperity and wealth and tranquillity of the latter will reach to the former. I have always considered the two countries as two brothers—the best and most useful friends when united, but the bitterest and worst enemies when disunited. These are not sentiments taken up for the present occasion, but sentiments which I have always felt and expressed openly from the period I was first able to form and express an opinion." (Whateley's Miscellaneous Lectwres and Reviews, p. 199.)
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