DR. HORTON AND HIS PROTESTANT BRETHREN.
WE have dealt in our first leading article with the subject of Ulster and Home Rule, but we must say a word hero in regard to an amazing letter sent by Dr. Horton, the well-known Nonconformist clergyman, to last Saturday's Times. Dr. Horton begins by weeping over the sad condition of his Protestant brethren in Ireland. The sympathy of English Nonconformists with them is, he tells us, " only kept under because we are in a dilemma, and we do not know how to speak at once truthfully and consolingly." The Nonconformists here thoroughly " understand their dread of a Parliament in Dublin, which must be essentially Catholic." The history of a thousand years " has taught us that when the. Roman Church can control a Government it employs the Government to repress or to crush heretics, and Protestants are the worst of heretics." Therefore Nonconformists hero feel " that if we were there we should feel and speak as they do. Certainly, if there were the prospect of a, Catholic Parliament in England, we should be overwhelmed with the same appre- hensions that afflict them." We now come to the dilemma. It is this. " While we feel intensely and passionately with our co-religionists in Ireland, and fully apprehend the reason of their alarm and protest, we are convinced that political justice demands the change in the Constitu- tion which they dread. We may be right or wrong, but we are of opinion that no country can be governed without the assent and goodwill of tho people. . . . We must grant to the Irish the mode of government which they can loyally and heartily accept." Then follows a curiously significant statement : " The presence of ninety or oven of sixty members of Parliament at Westminster hostile to our country, in tacit revolt against its best interests, is a perilous and intolerable weakness." This, we presume, is a hint that Dr. Horton's ideal, if it were attainable, would not only be the setting up of an unjust Roman Catholic Parliament in Ireland in the name of political justice, but also the freeing of the Parliament under which he is called upon to live from a large contingent of Roman Catholics. After another sanctimonious whine about political justice compelling him to adopt a course he dislikes, he adds :- " We cannot feel confident or sanguine. Our attitude is rather, Fiat justitia, ruat caelum. We must dare the fall of the heavens because we think justice is the primary consideration, the root principle of political action. If wo surrendered this principle because our hearts melt towards our brethren, wo should feel that we were unworthy of our past, and should not render them a last- ing or valuable service. We should be yielding to a weak partiality. Wo should be in the position of a magistrate who, in leniency to his own son, violated the law. It has always been our principle to set the national welfare above our own particular interests; and we feel ourselves so closely identified with our Protestant brethren in Ireland that we act on one acknowledged principle; we set the national interest above their (which is our) particular interest. We suffer with them in granting, or in sup- porting, a measure of political justice."
Was there ever a plea so intellectually dishonest pre- ferred by a good man ?—for such, of course, Dr. Horton is. According to him the Nonconformists of England do not propose to sacrifice themselves in the very least degree;. nor, apparently, would they sacrifice those whom he so unctuously calls their brethren. in Ireland if those brethren were not so specially dear. Being so dear, however, the luxury of this cheap sacrifice is irresistible. Well might the Noncon- formists of Ireland pray to be free from such brotherhood if the Nonconformists of England were really what Dr. Horton paints them. Till, however, we have better evidence than his letter we refuse to believe that he has any right o speak in their name. Dr. Horton ends with what at first seems almost a ghastly joke, namely, that if Ireland: should under Homo Rule become intolerable to his brethren be hopes that they will trek over from Ireland and replace the large Irish populations of our great towns who will, he also hopes, drift back to Ireland to enjoy the blessings of a Catholic government which they miss here. Of course this fatuous piece of oleaginous rectitude means that Dr. Horton is troubled by the presence of a large Roman Catholic vote in many English constituencies. It prevents Liberal candidates being sound on the educational " goose," and he would dearly like to get rid of them, especially if there could be substituted for them Irish Nonconformists, who, as he naively states, would be " always welcome and are greatly wanted." We confess that it is difficult to read such stuff without a sense of positive nausea, but in spite of our natural desire to leave Dr. Horton and his letter alone, we must ask him one plain question : Will he have the honesty to apply his views on political justice to the North of Ireland and to those counties in which there is an overwhelming Protestant majority ? Those counties have a fixed antipathy to Home Rule. Is he going to apply to them his remark that "we must grant to the Irish the mode of government which they can loyally and heartily accept " ? If he does apply it, how can he force Home Rule upon them ? If he holds that his principle is not applicable to the North of Ire- land, we should like to know why. Can he really argue that what he calls political justice is a principle which does not apply to Protestants, or at any rate to Protestants in the North of Ireland ? In an immortal passage in the Biglow Papers we are told that "liberty's the sort of thing that don't agree with niggers." Is Dr. Horton of opinion that political justice is the sort of thing "that don't agree" with Protestant Ulstermen ?
We have found it exceedingly unpleasant to speak thus plainly to Dr. Horton, for we believe he means well. But, to use his own words, " we are in a dilemma, and we do not know how to speak at once truthfully and con- solingly."
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