3 OCTOBER 1874, Page 1

How to explain the absurd expression of Irish wrath against

Mr. Gladstone for asserting that ever since " the bloody reign of Mary" it has never been possible to Romanise the English people, and that it is more impossible than ever since the Vatican decree, we are altogether at sea. Would any Roman Catholic statesman hesitate for a moment to say that never since the bloody reign of Cromwell has it been possible to Protestantise the Irish people? or to add, that "if it had been possible in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries," it would still have been impossible in the nineteenth, when Protestantism had substituted for the proud boast of holding the faith of the Primitive Church, a violent disorganisation and even decomposition into a wild dis- traction of sceptical opinions, such that no one could become a Protestant without adopting principles pretty certain to lead him on into all the extravagances of modern thought and negative criticism ? That would have been the precise analogue of what Mr. Glads'one did say of Catholicism, and yet no English Protes- tant would have resented it for a moment in the mouth of a Roman Catholic statesman, Our Irish friends seem to us only the more sensitive and unreasonable in proportion to the fairness of those English statesmen who happen to disagree with them.

fl They were eager to welcome Mr. Disraeli with warmth as a stranger ; they are ready to tear Mr. Gladstone in pieces as a friend.