THE REASONS AGAINST DELAY IN ABOLISHING THE IRISH CHURCH.
SOME days of the Parliamentary Session of 1868 have passed by, and from the tone of discussion in the House of Commons we have reason to anticipate a year of languid legislation and futile debates about trivial questions. Irish politics, indeed, embracing problems of statecraft the most urgent and vital, occupy a prominent place in the public view.
The aged leader of the Whigs has issued his manifesto, and Mr. Gladstone, with more of that subtle ambiguity of expres-
sion which is a part of his character, has announced, what all men feel, that the state of Ireland is dangerous to the secu- rity of the Empire, and calls for drastic remedial measures.. Mr. Mill, Mr. Bright, and a host of lesser notabilities have• spoken in a like sense. There is even some indication of a design to draw the House of Commons into an abstract discus- sion on the condition of the Irish people. Mr. Maguire threatens a debate of this vague and comprehensive sort next week. But of practical legislation, or of any inclination to legislate practically, there is yet no sign. No doubt a part, and a most important part, of the Irish question presents difficulties which we may hope to see diminished in a Reformed Parliament, but which we cannot ignore or make light of. The land laws, it is admitted, require alteration, but how far the alteration is to go Liberals have not yet made up their minds. It is quite different, and this is what we wish specially to urge, with the Church Establishment. There is nothing to be gained by delay on this point. All the evidence that proves the Irish Church to be a scandal to England and an outrage to Ireland is perfect, is- before the English people and the English Parliament now, as it was thirty years ago, is not likely to present itself to the new House of Commons in a more forcible shape than to the existing House. Yet some writers have the courage to counsel procrastination, inquiry, windy debates, and sophistical projects. Counsel such as this at this crisis we regard as utterly mis- chievous and despicable. All that could be said and written to exhibit the absurdities and evil results of the State Church in Ireland was said and written a whole generation ago, by the ablest men of the time. In the parliamentary debates and reviews of the time when Lord Melbourne and Sir Robert Peel led their respective parties to battle on this very ground we- find every argument that can now be used for or against the- Irish Church put forward in varied forms and with consummate skill. It is preposterous, after thirty years of acrimonious discussion, to plead to-day for a respite on the ground that we have not inquired enough and debated enough about the posi- tion of the Irish Establishment. We have, indeed, a reason to-day which the statesmen of a quarter of a century ago had not, for dealing promptly and boldly with this old abuse ; we- are pressed into a corner by a revolutionary movement with which for the moment we can barely cope, which may soon grow too strong for us. Is this a time to invite ingenious- sophistry to weave new excuses for the maintenance of an iniquitous and anomalous institution ?
Twenty-four years ago, almost to a day, Lord John Russell moved for a Committee of the whole House to take into con- sideration the state of Ireland. The situation was critical, for- a powerful organization, led by one of the greatest and most- mischievous of modern demagogues, threatened the Union. But grave as the crisis was, with civil war seeming not distant, it was scarcely charged with such perilous elements as the air is heavy with now. The United States were not in 1844 a great military nation, and the Irish-Americans then, and long after, were insignificant in numbers and political influence. Above all, Irish disaffection had not avowed projects of dis- ruption and rebellion ; it still clung to the doctrine of " moral force," and looked for the redress of grievances to peaceful legislation. Now, on the other hand, we have to deal with open enemies, with a wide-spread and unscrupulous conspiracy- at home, and an implacable band of foes at the other side of the Atlantic. In 1844 the Liberal statesmen of the day- denounced the Irish Church as boldly as any contemporary politicians ; and, to do them justice, they did not stop at words. They did their best to bring about some practical change, but Sir Robert Peel was then followed by a victorious Tory majority, and Lord John Russell, and Mr. Macaulay, and the rest of the Whig party were outnumbered in one division after another. To-day the conditions are almost reversed ; the Tories are in power, but they have shown themselves so pliant in other respects that we can scarcely suppose them to be obstinately attached to their principles. In the Liberal party there is little or no avowed difference of opinion in regard to the impossibility of maintaining the Irish Church, though there is much controversy about the uses to which the Church revenues, after disendowment, ought to be applied. We cannot see why men who differ on the latter question should not act together on the former. Lord Russell in his able and vigorous argument, just published, pleads for a Catholic establishment ; but his argument against the existing Church, and against delay in abolishing it, is far more vigorous than his argamopt for his
own solution. The first point is surely the only one in which a principle is involved ; the second is a highly important practical detail, which nobody pretends to settle on an ideal basis. The policy of Liberals would seem to be clear under the circumstances, —to combine for the purpose of procuring abolition at once, and in dealing with redistribution schemes to attain unity of action by mutual concessions, and, in the last resort, by the minority of the party yielding to the wishes of the majority. With a far stronger external urgency and far more favourable internal conditions, the Liberal party might be looked to for a renewal of the efforts which were defeated in 1844. But to achieve anything worth fighting for, it is essential that the leaders shall really take the lead. At present, the initiative is left to such men as Mr. Maguire and Lord Arthur Clinton, persons of very diverse views, but alike in this, that neither one nor other can command the allegiance of the wavering, or rouse the timid into showing fight. Thus it seems that the only public question in the first rank of importance with which the expiring House of Commons is competent to deal is shifted quietly out of sight, and the House sets to its customary futile squabbles about Church-Rates and other such parliamentary fossils.
We had hoped otherwise, and even now we do not abandon all hope. We cannot conceive the Liberal leaders to be so blind at once to the interest of the nation and the honour of the party, as to permit or encourage at this juncture the apathy to which the House of Commons too evidently inclines. A year or half a year is equal just now in political conse- quence to an ordinary decade, and if English statesmen are in earnest when they profess their anxiety to stem the tide of Irish animosity, they have no time to lose. It may be neces- sary to bequeath the land question unsettled to a new Parlia- ment, but to put off for twelve-months any, even the smallest, attempt to conciliate Ireland is a wicked and decrepit policy. The House of Commons has made no difficulty about running the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act through in half-a-dozen days, and we may be sure that Irishmen draw not too favour- able comparisons between the readiness with which we go to work at the legislation of coercion, and the indolence with which we evade the legislation of conciliation. England has an opportunity to-day of giving the Irish people a practical, tangible, indisputable pledge of the honesty of her intentions and the liberality of her future policy.. We do not overrate the influence of the Church Establishment as a proximate cause of Irish disaffection ; we are willing to accept the theory of its supporters that its maintenance in Ireland is merely a "sentimental grievance ;" we should be far from attributing to it the same importance as attaches to the question of land tenure. But admitting all this, we feel, as the Irish people cannot help feeling, that as long as an institution is upheld which has been unanimously con- demned by two generations of English Liberal statesmen as an injustice, an anomaly, and an outrage to the sister kingdom, BO long there can be no guarantee that the Imperial Parlia- ment has a mind to address itself in good faith to the task of reconciling Ireland to the English connection. The immedi- ate effect, no doubt, of any measure dealing with the Irish Church would be insignificant ; it would not, possibly, disarm a single sworn Fenian either in Munster or in Michigan ; but it would work a great moral change in the great mass of Irish- men, who, between hope and doubt, look from the outside wistfully at Fenianism, who do not join only because they have no faith in the adequacy of its means, but who, sym- pathizing with the ends of the Fenian movement, would strike no blow for our power when the struggle might come. The opportunity may too quickly pass from us. A foreign war, a more successful or better organized insurrection than has yet been seen in Ireland, may engage all our military strength, and forbid us to yield in a moment of national peril what we might have safely, and gracefully, and honourably conceded in time of peace, and to the demands of constitu- tional reformers. For this reason, if for no other, it seems emphatically the duty of the Liberal party to insist upon the settlement of the Church question during the present session ; we hardly think that the Ministers, or the more intelligent among them, Mr. Disraeli, for instance, and Lord Stanley, would care to relegate this stumbling-block in their path to a householder Parliament.
Englishmen weary very quickly of political excitement, and the Reform battles appear to have exhausted for a time the innovating energies of Liberals. There is a general desire to shift all difficulties and obscurities on to the broad shoulders of the Reformed House of Commons. And in many cases, we suppose, no reasonable objection can be made to this course.
Education, pauperism, reform of the Departments will be best dealt with by the representatives of the class newly called to power, and as each of these questions must be treated with careful inquiry and discussion, and as, moreover, any reforms in these directions must work slowly, a year's delay is not worth disputing about. But it is quite different with the Irish question, and, above all, with the Irish Church. There is no need for further investigations or debates. Everybody has made up his mind, except some " doubting Thomases and careless Gallios" among the Whigs. And delay is pernicious and dangerous. By striking at once at the abuse of the Church we give the Irish peasantry the best assurance that we are ready to take all their grievances in hand, and to grant, so far as is consistent with the integrity and security of the Empire, such remedial measures as they demand. But without doing something, even this easy piece of justice, to assure Irishmen of the sincerity of our professions, how can we hope to obtain even a patient hearing in Ireland England's policy in regard to the Established Church is the test by which her rule has long been judged and condemned by foreign nations. If tested to-day by the same method, we still show apathy and insincerity, how can we hope for sym- pathy in our struggles with Irish hostility, or how can we anticipate success ?
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