SAFEGUARDS IN THE GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
[To Tax EDITOR 01 THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—Irish loyalists, convinced that Executive tyranny would be harder to bear and more difficult to guard against than legis- lative oppression, have scarcely given enough attention to the necessity of pointing out the uselessness of the so-called safe- guards of the Government of Ireland Bill. Seeing that so much stress is laid on these by Radical politicians it is surely desirable to show the worthlessness of those most commonly quoted. Clause 3 prohibits the direct or indirect establishment or endowment of any religion. This clause is much exploited by Radicals, and yet they must know that it is absolutely worthless. But little shrewdness is required to get round a provision of this kind, and precedents may be found without going outside the Empire. When Quebec was ceded in 1763 the Crown took over the possessions of the Jesuit Order in that province, making suitable provision for the support of the dispossessed members of the Order. In 1888 Mercier, a pupil of the Society, filled with the desire of showing his devotion to its interests, visited Rome and submitted a proposal for com- pensation to the General of the Society and, with his approval, to the Pope, who ratified it. To this end he introduced a Bill in the Quebec Legislature authorizing the payment from public funds of £92,000 and the gift of certain State lands to the Order on account of the appropriation of their property 125 years before. In supporting this proposal he threatened Roman Catholic representatives with spiritual penalties if they opposed it and warned the few Protestants there that if they resisted it they would have no chance of re- election. The Bill was passed. An appeal was made to Ottawa. Galt had believed that the Dominion Parliament would be a sufficient check on any one-sided legislation attempted in the provinces. The appeal was rejected by 188 ✓ otes to 13. The £92,000 was duly paid and the lands trans- ferred. So much for the guarantee afforded by a superior Parliament. There is nothing in the proposed Government of Ireland Bill to prevent similar compensations being paid in respect of the possessions Of almost 500 religious houses at one time or another suppressed here. Grants of the kind to Augustinians, Franciscans, Carmelites, or Cistercians could not be barred as being the endowment of a religion.
Again, who would deny an Irish department the privileges enjoyed by one similar in Qubec ? In the education accounts of that province not only do we find large sums granted from public sources to purely Roman Catholic institutions, but even payments for Masses for the souls of officials. Thus in 1909 one of the items appearing in the public accounts is, "Mass for late M. Broet $150." What a prospect is opened Tip here. This is no endowment of a religion—merely payment for services rendered. And we can quite imagine that pay- ments of this kind will become in Ireland a very popular method of showing respect for deceased officials. But after all the methods of unfair discrimination could be multiplied at will. Places can be created with salaries attached—as school managers, local inspectors of education, public regis- tzars of marriage, and so forth—to which all appointments may be made from Dublin. A knowledge of Irish, or a degree from the National University, or similar vexatious conditions may be made indispensable for the holders of these offices, and they can be so distributed as to direct public money to whatever quarter the Executive wishes it to go.
The portion of this same clause which relates to marriage is of no greater value. The Irish Parliament is not to be allowed to make any religions belief or any religious ceremony a condition of the validity of any marriage. Why is not marriage entirely withdrawn from its powers of interference? At present, indeed, the laws are habitually broken, the authorities are notified and decline to interfere. Persons are married outside tie prescribed hours, minors are married without consent of their parents ; the notices prescribed by law are not given ; marriages are not duly registered. The
interference of an Irish Parliament will make confusion worse confounded. Nothing will be simpler than to make Roman Catholic clergy official—perhaps the sole official licensers in each district. They may be made marriage registrars, and a proviso added that every marriage must be duly registered by the contracting parties in the presence of the registrar and two witnesses, thus practically putting in force so much- of the Canon Law. Nothing in the Bill would prevent oppres. sire legislation on the subject of change of religious denomination or as regards the offspring VI mixed marriages. There is nothing in it to prevent national education from being placed entirely in the bands of the Roman Catholic Church, which is the ease in Quebec. At present it is not easy to prevent disloyalty and objectionable teaching on history and religion being insinuated into our children through manuals pressed upon teachers by officials of the National Board. And in spite of repeated protests to the Board and in the House of Commons, the rules of the Commissioners are openly violated in certain schools, where images and religion.: emblems are exhibited during instruction. Few attempt to realize what a lever an Irish Government would have when able to force children to school and there to provide a course of instruction tending certainly and exclusively, if gradually, towards the particular political and religions goals of its choice.
Space only prevents consideration of other directions in which injustice is not merely possible but almost inevitable. There is not a safeguard in the Bill against oppression, whether religions, political, or financial, that is worth the paper it is written on. Our safeguards to-day, so far as earth is concerned, are the loyal and true Imperialists in all quarters of the Empire who will not desert us and our own serious and unalterable resolve that under no circumstances will we allow this Bill to become operative.'—.I am, Sir, &c.,
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