LTO THE,EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.' ] SIR, - Will you permit me to
observe upon the last point in your criticism of Lord Salisbury's speech at the United Club, whizh appeared in the Spectator of July 18th? You say it was a great error on his part to denounce the priests as guilty of a "clerical conspiracy," because a conspiracy "implies a bad purpose, an evil or tyrannical aim," and all they have done on this occasion is to demolish Mr. Parnell's political ascendency. Now, I respectfully submit that Lord Salisbury- is right, and that the action of the priests is the result of a "clerical conspiracy," the bad purpose being to deprive the Roman Catholic voter of freedom in the exercise of his fran- chise, which I maintain is "an evil and tyrannical aim ; " and this is the meaning I put (and I think reasonably) on Lord Salisbury's words. They were spoken in connection with the "One man, one vote" cry, and quite irrespective of the- squabble by which the Irish Nationalists are at present divided. We, the minority, have been suffering from thin
same "clerical conspiracy" in Ireland for many a long day, and I honour Lord Salisbury for speaking so bravely about
[If our correspondent refers to any organised design of depriving the illiterate voter of his freedom by the intimida- tion of his priest's presence at the poll, we should not disagree with him, at least if there be adequate evidence of a coherent design for that purpose. But if he only refers to the use of fair moral influence by the priests to get their flocks to reject Mr. Parnell as their leader, we differ from him in ioto.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
