Mr. John Morley made an elaborate party speech at Stepney
on Wednesday, to prove that the Tories are insincere, the Liberal Unionists guilty of something like treason to the democracy, and the Gladstonians alone immaculate and patriotic. Mr. Morley was candid enough on one point. He admitted that the proposal made by Mr. Mundella and him-
self to allow Roman Catholic schools and Jewish schools to receive grants from the State in lieu of the school-pence, with- out having local representatives forced on their managing committees, as long as the National and other denominational schools are compelled to put locally elected representatives on their managing committees, had been received by the Noncon- formists "with suspicion, with jealousy, and in some quarters with downright aversion." That is quite true, and though Mr. Morley does not draw back, he is evidently well aware that his little manoeuvre to conciliate the Roman Catholic vote has alienated more powerful allies than any whom it has conciliated. The Dissenters fancy that Mr. Morley is willing to concede any- thing to the religious bodies of the spread of whose influence in England he has no fear, while he retains his jealousy of those religious bodies whose hold on the country he still looks upon with some alarm. And is there not some jus- tice in that view ? We should be surprised to hear that Mr. Morley, after a candid examination of his own political conscience, could frankly and cordially deny that considera- tions of this kind were totally absent from his mind when he ran up the signal to Mr. Sexton to come over and help him.
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