Roman Catholics in high places have not been altogether happy
in their utterances of late. Nothing could be more profoundly unhappy than the statement attributed to Dr. Downey, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, who on Saturday welcomed the " pretty equal " division of the country into two parties, " because the longer it goes on the stronger will be our influence as a Catholic body, and I think we may get the privilege of holding the balance of power." I wonder what Mr. Christopher Hollis on one side of the House of Commons, and Mr. Richard Stokes on the other, think of this. And I wonder what the Archbishop really means. Does he really contemplate the systematic organisation of Catholics in this country as a political body ? Are they to run their own Roman Catholic candidates, or throw their weight, pre- sumably on instructions, on the side of one existing party or the other ? Whatever precisely the Archbishop does mean, his words, on any ordinary interpretation, indicate a desire to organise the three million Roman Catholics, or whatever the number may be in this country, as a political force. The objec- tions to that, in the case of any religious body, are too obvious to need discussion, and it is to be hoped that the Archbishop will be able to explain that he meant something different.
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