Lord Salisbury made a good rattling speech at the Memorial
Hall, Farringdon Street, on Thursday, to the Non- conformist Unionist Association, in which he deprecated strongly the abandonment of Uganda by the Government, a policy which he thought would be fatal to our hopes of extinguishing the Slave-trade, and then went on to en- large on priestly domination in Ireland as a final objec- tion to conceding Home-rule to Ireland, if we wish the- Nonconformists or the Anglicans there to retain their- full share of religious freedom. There can be no doubt of the power of the Irish priests to dictate in many cases to the Irish people, since by their own initiative they entirely overthrew Mr. Parnell's great influence in Ireland ; but pro. bably Lord Salisbury exaggerates the danger of actual reli- gious persecution. It is true that the priests lead when they themselves walk in the track of popular desire, but in our opinion the minority are mach more likely to suffer socially and pecuniarily from the wish of the priests to make life easy to the peasantry, than they are to stiffer denominationally or religiously.
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