11:11, DOUBLE DIFFICULTY OF ULSTER.
T7opposition to the Irish Training Colleges Bill is a significant example of the kind of difficulty which occasionally besets Englishmen in the work of governing Ireland. The Bill itself calls for no remark. Three denominational Training Colleges in Ireland—two belong- ing to the Roman Catholic, and one to the Disestablished Church—have spent money on the purchase of their sites and the erection of their buildings, and the Bill enables the Irish Land Commission, on the recommendation of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, to make advances to the managers out of the Irish Church Temporalities Fund, for the purpose of reimbursing the Colleges, where the money has been paid out of capital, or discharging the liabilities incurred by them, where the money has been borrowed. These advances are to be repaid to the Land Commission by an annuity for thirty-five years at 5 per cent. The instalments are to come out of the Parliamentary grant to Training Colleges in Ireland, and are to be a first eharge on the money so received by the managers. It will be seen that the Bill makes no change whatever in the relation of the State to these institutions. The prin- ciple of State aid to Training Colleges is conceded by the annual grant. All that it is now proposed to do is to enable the managers to anticipate the grant in order to discharge certain pressing debts. The Bill provides no endowment ; it simply gives the annual grant in a form which is more convenient to the receiver, and no more costly to the giver.
The change introduced is so trifling, that no one who did not know Ireland could have dreamed that the Bill would be opposed. To those who do know Ireland, however, die only wonder is that it should have been read a second time without comment. The list of the Training Colleges it proposes to benefit was certain, sooner or later, to come under Colonel Saunderson's notice ; and the moment his eye fell on the second name," Our Lady of Mercy Training College," he would see that a, part of the money to be advanced would, come into the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. Owing to some exceptional neglect, he only awoke to the real meaning of the measure in the small hours of Tuesday morning, and Mr. T. W. Russell was thus enabled to oust him for this one time from the place of Protestant champion. It is not often that Colonel Saunderson is caught napping where the interests of Protestantism are concerned, and Mr. Russell was in so great a hurry to profit by the unexpected chance, that apparently he hardly read the Bill. At least, his description of its provisions seems to us very inaccurate. "The Bill," he said, "proposed to hand over a practically unlimited sum of money to Archbishop Walsh and the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of endowing denominational Training Colleges." As a matter of fact, the sum of money handed over is not" unlimited," for the aggregate of the loans to any College must not "exceed the amount which the Treasury, upon the report of the Land Commission, consider to be the value" of the site and buildings. It is not handed over to Archbishop Walsh, for out of the three Colleges, one belongs to the Church of Ireland. It is not an endowment of denominational Training Colleges, for every penny of it will be repaid, with interest, within a generation from the time when it is lent. Mr. T. W. Russell is almost always an accurate contro- versialist, but in this case he does not seem to have studied his brief very carefully. In this respect, Colonel Saunderson had the advantage of him. He, it may be, had not read the Bill, but he was careful to state his objection in a general as well as in a particular form. He said, indeed, with Mr. Russell, that the Bill will endow the Training Colleges of the Church of Rome,—which it will not do ; but he said also, that it was a Bill "in the direction of denominational education in Ireland,"—which it is. For Colonel Saunder- son, this latter ground of objection is quite enough. To anything in the direction of denominational educa- tion in Ireland, Colonel Saunderson and his friends "are bitterly opposed." And that the Bill does point in this direction cannot be denied. It is no sop to Colonel Saunderson that the Church of Ireland will benefit by the Bill in full proportion to her numbers. His hate is stronger than his love. The Church of Ireland wants money badly. Her Sustentation Fund is declining ; the land is gradually passing out of the hands of her members ; she has everywhere to meet the old needs without the old resources. Whatever benefit the Bill will confer on the Roman Catholic Church, it will confer as much or more upon her rival. But with Colonel Saunderson all this goes for nothing. He will not accept a service done to a friend as any compensation for similar service done to an enemy. Denominational education in Ireland is abominable Whim, because the largest Irish denomination is the Roman Catholic. This attitude of mind is the more remarkable because this same principle prevails in England, and there its special upholders are Colonel Saunderson's friends. Indeed, though we have not looked at the division-lists, we have little doubt that in the recent debates on the Education Bill, Colonel Saunderson has constantly upheld the very principle which in Ireland he cannot tolerate. Yet in England there is not a single educational advantage enjoyed by the Church of England which is not equally enjoyed by the Church of Rome. Why, then, is not Colonel Saunderson as bitterly opposed to denominational education in England as he proclaims himself to be in Ireland ? The answer, we imagine, is that where England is concerned, he can be reasonable. It is only where he has to do with Ireland that he is carried off his legs by religious passion, and finds himself in the same lobby with such sworn anti-denominationalists as Mr. Wallace.
We shall not stop to inquire into the causes of this curious inconsistency, By some process we cannot follow, Colonel Saunderson has persuaded himself that what is right in England is wrong in Ireland, and that favours shown to the Roman Catholic minority in England must be scupulously denied to the Roman Catholic majority in Ireland. We only wish to point out how typical is the dilemma in which Mr. Balfour found himself on Tuesday. He has to govern Ireland, and as a Unionist, his natural allies in the task are the Unionists of 'Ulster. But to govern Ireland without meeting to some extent the wants and wishes of the Roman Catholic population, is impos- sible. Ireland is a Roman Catholic country in precisely the same sense as that in which England and Scotland are Protestant countries, and she naturally requires from her rulers some recognition of this fact. But -Ulster, or rather, one-half of Ulster, chooses to assume that Irish Roman Catholics are outside the pale of citizenship. Their destiny, the part assigned them by an all-wise Creator, is to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to their Protestant fellow-subjects. Any assumption of equality is regarded as the refusal of a lower boy to fag would be regarded by a sixth-form boy at a public school. It is an attempt to go contrary to a law of Nature. The English Government is consequently placed in a very great difficulty. It cannot throw Ulster over, and govern Ireland by the aid of the Nationalists, because the Nationalists, though they are quite ready to vote with the Government on the particular issues involved in such a measure as the Training Colleges Bill, are pledged on all questions of general administration to make the government of Ireland by England as difficult as they can. It cannot throw the Nationalists over, and govern Ireland by the help of the Ulstermen, because to do this would be wrong in prin- ciple and ruinous in practice. It would set the pestilent Protestant ascendency on its legs again ; it would ignore all the lessons of 1798 and 1829; it would provoke a civil war. All, therefore, that is left us to do is to go on with- out flinching on the lines Mr. Balfour has laid down. The Ulstermen must not be regarded as enemies because at times they seek to do us mischief. The Nationalists must not be mistaken for friends because we have at times to defend their interests against Protestant intolerance. It is a thankless policy to keep the ship of the State on an even keel between these rival influences, but it is the only policy which either justice or expediency permits us to follow.
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