THE SPECTATOR'S CONSISTENCY. —Our brethren of the provincial, press pay us
a great many compliments: some of them we see, others we hear of, and for all we are duly grateful, though it is not often that we can spare time and room for a reciprocation of civilities. The following passage in a lively contemporary—the Brighton Gazette—who takes a flattering interest in the reputation of the Spectator, has been pointed out to us.
" The Spectator lays it down as an axiom that—' If there ever was a question on which large masses of the same kingdom were very nearly divided, it must be a question of no practical importance.' If this proposition be true, the Spectator and all his colleagues must then, in consistency, admit that the Catholic Question was one of no practical importance ;' since we believe that- none of those who contended for the Bill ever went farther than the assertion that public opinion was divided upon it. For ourselves, we maintain, as we always did, that a large majority was against the measure; but the Spectator cannot take advantage of this argument. We will not suffer it to blow hot and cold."
We will not put the sufferance of our Brighton friend to the trial ; we have no need to avail ourselves of the "a ivantage" which his ingenuity suggests we may be driven to. The following extract from the Spectator, 14th March 18W, will show our estimate of public opinion on the Catholic question—. " We are, we conceive, fully justified in saying. that if they were properly sifted, there have not been above five hundred really distinct petitions against the Catholic claims, up to this present moment, laid before Parliament. But granting that there were a thousand such, do these express the opinion of the people of the empire ? do they express the opinion of the people of England ? Unquestionably they do neither. The population of Great Britain and Ireland amounts to about twenty- two millions ; of which, according to the mode of signing adopted by the Anti- Catholics, there are not fewer than seven or eight millions of signing males, to say nothing of the females, whose earnest cry and prayer have so puzzled Lord Eldon. Of these, how many have petitioned? We believe not a tenth, and certainly not a fifth part."
We have no hesitation in stating our opinion, that four-fifths of the Anti- Catholic petitions were got up; and that, had the empire, in its intelligence and volition, been fairly polled, it would have decided for the Relief Bill by twenty to one. It is, we believe, a fact, which may now be stated
without the slightest impropriety, that t m the only newspaper which con- tinued to oppose the Bill after it was passed, could not contrive to keep together above 750 of its subscribers. So much for the general feeling against the great healing measure of the " Peel and Dawson Crew."
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