it is a remarkable fact that Archbishop M.Hale in the
course of his examination on this Galway trial, gave a very hearty support to the principle of the Ballot for Ireland. "I have not the least doubt," he said, "but that the clergy would hail it on two grounds,—first, because it would secure the coin plete freedom of the tenant classes from landlord coercion ; secondly, because it would screen the clergy themselves from what is sometimes to them a very peculiar and unpleasant position, being obliged to come forward to defend the freedom and the rights of the tenantry at the expense of the friendship of landlords whom they esteem much, and with whom they would rather not be brought into collision." It has often been supposed that the Roman Catholic clergy are bitterly opposed to the Ballot, as endangering the political influ- ence of the Church; and Judge Keogh, in his charge, declared that a priest (Father Cohen) had declared that his order would use the Confessional, if necessary under the Ballot, to retain
their influence. And that is, no doubt, a very real danger ;- religious authority of the Roman Catholic kind penetrating deeper than any protective political institution. But at all events it would be something to protect the Irish peasantry from all other than priestly influence in polities; and we suspect the priestly in- fluence itself would wane rapidly when it was no longer the open.. rival of landlord influence.
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