Perhaps the most novel contribution to the disputation is the
reply of the Times to the Earl of St. Germans. The Leading Journal volunteers to lift the Ministry off the horns of the dilemma in which it had been placed. Lord St. Germans had asked how you could enforce in England an Anti-Catholic policy, unless you. were to enforce it in Ireland too, equally in defence of "the United Church of England and Ireland ' ; but how could you enforce in Ireland a policy which would undo the work of the last twenty years ? The Times poohpooha this deference to Ireland—" the spoilt child of the empire." The journalist cannot understand how you are to slight the "feeling of sixteen million of Eng- lish Protestants, for fear the feelings of one half the number of Irish Catholics might be hurt " ; or how you are to waive defend- ing the Established Church in England and the English Protest- ants, lest you should weaken "the ecclesiastical position of as small number of Irish Episcopalians," and "render in the least degree more precarious the tottering position of the unpeopled Establish- ment of the Protestant Church in Ireland," which is notoriously "not the church of the Irish people." We will not pause to scrutinize the confusion of the Established Church with "the Protestants of England," as if they were convertible terms. The argument of the Times amounts to this—that you must obey the feeling of the majority, even though you abandon "the unpeopled Church" in Ireland, heedless of destroying the unity. Very good ; but in that case, if you protect and freshly establish the Church of the majority" in England, by a parity of reasoning you are bound to protect and establish the Church of the majority in Ireland. That would indeed be equality: if you sacrifice "the small num- ber of Episcopalians in Ireland," perhaps you earn the right to sacrifice a small number of Romanists in England ; but if you are bound to maintain and establish the Church of the majority in England, you are equally bound to maintain and establish the Church of the majority in Ireland. Such is the new horn upon which the Times sticks its proteges the Ministers.
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