[TO THE EDITOR Or TER " SPECTATOR."I
Snt,—As Professor Dowden seems so anxious to get up a
scare in England on the strength of certain words used by me at a meeting of the clergy here last June, and as you are good enough to offer me space in your columns to reply to him and others, I accept your friendly offer, and will endeavour to keep within the limits you prescribe. Professor Dowden suggests all through his letter (Spectator, November 5th) that I recommended the policy of exclusive dealing. I leave your readers to judge, and I confess that I have still some confidence in the British sense of justice in such matters.
Here are my words :—
"Whatever may be said as to the policy of exclusive dealing in certain cases, such as strikes, trades unions, international prefer- enee tariffs, and things of the kind, where it is, in a mild way, and surrounded by all sorts of limitations and restrictions, ad- mitted as lawful by the Church, when it is used as a weapon in social or religious warfare, it brings so many evils in its train that it becomes an evil in itself, and as such should be repudiated and condemned. I should say, moreover, that in all their quarrels with Protestants it has never been adopted by Irish Catholics.
There is in it something absolutely repugnant to the feelings and instincts of Irishmen and Catholics. There is some- thing about it so petty and contemptible that its adoption could only injure the people who adopted it. The same I may say of the policy of insult, which is degrading and useless."
Now, Sir, in face of these words, I ask you is it fair that a distinguished Professor of Trinity College should come forward and suggest that I advocated the policy of exclusive dealing ? He then suggests (he asserts nothing) that I wish to revive the so-called "Catholic Association." I have stated in your columns that I wish to do nothing of the kind. If I were to take any part, however humble, in the formation of an association for the defence of Catholic interests,. which, I fear, will ultimately be necessary, it would certainly be some- thing very different from what Professor Dowden calls the "Catholic Association," or else it would not have me very
long as a member.
I do not know that I am called upon to take any particular notice of the chivalrous gentlemen who have sought the shelter of your columns in order to fire at me from behind their anony- mous hedge. There is one of them, however, who condescends to come down to facts. He asks me, do I expect Sir Horace Plunkett to dismiss from their posts the three efficient heads of the National Library, and replace them by Catholics ? Your• correspondent knows perfectly well that I never made such a ridiculous proposal. When the National Library was placed under Sir Horace Plunkett and his Agricultural Department, he found every man in it who received a salary above the wages of a common labourer a Protestant. Since it came under his juris- diction a third assistant-librarian has been appointed, and he, too, if I am correctly informed, belongs to the Church of the minority. Now, is it not a nice state of affairs in a country the vast majority of whose people are Catholics that a national insti- The same gentleman refers to what he calls the bigotry of Catholics on the County Councils. There is, of course, a great temptation to Catholics to retaliate in the County Councils for the injustice practised against them almost everywhere else. But I think it is a temptation that ought to be resisted, and I have never hesitated to say in public and private that where power has passed into the hands of Catholics in these local bodies, they ought to act with liberality and generosity towards the Protestant minority. And to prove my sincerity in that, when the first elections to the County Councils were held I voted in my neighbourhood for a Protestant Conservative gentleman who was returned at the head of the poll, and has since, I am happy to say, been returned unopposed. It is a curious fact that the District Councillor for the spot from which I write is also a Protestant returned without a word of opposition from any clergyman in the neighbourhood.
But, on the other hand, whilst I shall always plead for tolera- tion and generosity towards Protestants where they are the minority, I shall do my humble best, in the way I consider best, to secure for our poor lay Catholics toleration, if not generosity, in the public Boards and Departments that are under the absolute sway of Protestant officials. Irish Catholics are good enough to pay taxes like all other citizens ; they are good enough to labour in the stokeholds of your battleships, and to be slaughtered on the banks of the Tugela ; but when it comes to a matter of common right and justice they are not to be considered at all.
Some years ago Mr. Balfour and Mr. Wyndham went through the farce of appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into the condition-of -University education in Ireland. The Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Cadogan, went through the farce of announcing that the Report of that Commission would be followed by legis- lation. Some of us spent weary months, during which we might have been better employed, studying and preparing the case, which we felt to be righteous and just, in such a way as to convince the most hostile and prejudiced judges. We made our case, and the decision was practically given in our favour ; but then Mr. Balfour and Mr. Wyndham tell us almost in mockery that nothing can be done. It is a position which Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone would have been ashamed to occupy. And yet we are expected to sit down quietly and submit without a protest to the shelving of a question which is, I admit, the root and origin of all the other injustices from which we suffer.
—I am, Sir, &c., J. F. HOGAN, D.D.
St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.
[We cannot, after doing our best to take an impartial view of the facts, admit that the grievance is as great as Dr. Hogan represents, or that the Protestant is as unfairly preferred to the Roman Catholic as he alleges. As regards the question of a Roman Catholic University, however, we are in full agreement with Dr. Hogan. We think Mr. Balfour's action on this question showed the most deplorable weakness. He subordinated what he knew to be the wise and right coarse to Cabinet exigencies. We think it very likely that a University with a Roman Catholic atmosphere would not be a very efficient seat of learning, but this is not the point. The Roman Catholics of Ireland have a right to the University they want, and not merely to a University which comes up to an abstract ideal. This correspondence must now cease.—En. Spectator.]
POETRY.
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