THE PAPACY AND IRELAND.
THE English people are rarely wise—we had almost written never wise—in their dealings with the Church of Rome. They delayed Catholic Emancipation in Ireland until the memory of the old injustice has rankled for a generation longer than it need have done. They refused to endow the priesthood, so that the working clergy of the Catholic counties of Ireland are mostly peasants in sacerdotal uniform, and are dependent upon their flocks in a degree almost unprecedented in any Catholic country of Europe. And finally, they persisted in believing that the Roman Catholic faith was the source of Irish disaffection, until at last it became evident that of all the disaffected, those who had shaken off that faith were the most bitter and the most dangerous. What would average Englishmen now give-to replace the Protestant leader, C. S. Parnell, and his mostly sceptical following, by the Catholic D. O'Connell and his usually fanatical " Brigade ?" Of all English blunders in this connection, however, none has been more injurious than their refusal to permit the Governmentto accredit a Minister to the Vatican. As we have repeatedly pointed out, there is absolutely no sense in this decision, while it produces every day, and almost everywhere, intolerable inconvenience. There is no reason in the world why a Protestant or a secular Government should not send a Mission to a powerful Christian Bishop if he desires it, and if it is on secular grounds expedient that one should be sent. We send an Ambassador to Constantinople, though the Sultan is always pleading his religions position as a reason for not complying with some political demand ; we receive a Minister from the Mikado, although that potentate is the spiritual as well as the secular head of a creed ; and we should to-morrow• send a Minister to the Dalai Lama if that secluded personage, who claims to be a good deal more than a Pope, could • and would give India Free-trade across her Eastern border. We have negotiated with the Mandi, whose power has an exclusively religious base ; and if he secured the tranquil obedience of the Soudan, we should send an accredited representative of some kind to El Obeid or Khartoum. The only kind of spiritual sovereign whom we will not recognise is the Pope, apparently because he is a Christian, and has power to help or hurt us in every quarter of the world. We are helped or impeded by Catholic Bishops in Ireland, in Canada, in Australia, in the Mauritius, and in India, where, upon one occasion, a Vicar-General, Dr. 011iffe, did an almost incalculable service to the Indian Government ; yet, although fully aware that they all are guided in the last resort by the Vatican, the Englishpeople will not permit their Government even to explain facts to the Papal Court through an authorised and responsible intermediary, or to receive a Papal agent who could report-to his employers authoritatively the currents of English feeling and opinion.
All this is an old story, but the prejudice is just now im peding the action of the Government in a new and unusually mischievous way. The Parnellites, though their leader is a Protestant.; anct they themselves for the most part non-religions, are anxiously desirous to win over the Catholic hierarchy to their cause, and they have oflate in some partial measure succeeded. The lower clergy havealways sympathised with Parnellite action aie far as the peasant tenures were concerned ; and although the Bishops were more doubtful, and the ablest and best of them looked askance on a movement assisted by Secret Societies, and linked with the Cosmopolitan Revolution, they are not willing either to offend the masses of Catholic laity, or to lose the great assistance which Mr. Parnell could give them on the matter of Catholic education. They have, therefore, of late rather favoured the Nationalist cause, and have recommended to the Pope for the Archbishopric of Dublin an ecclesiastic, Dr. Walsh, who is at all events believed to sympathise warmly with the Nationalist aspirations. It is impossible for any outsider to penetrate the inner counsels of the Vatican, where not only are all secrets jealously guarded, but where hurry is regarded almost as a crime ; but it is, at all events, rumoured, and believed in Ireland that Leo XIII., who has to consider the whole world as well as Ireland, is decidedly opposed to. this appointment. It is contrary to the whole practice of Rome to favour sedition in countries where the Government does not persecute Catholicism ; it is contrary to its firstaxioms to tolerate Secret Societies or those who tolerate them; and it is contrary to all its modern principles of discipline to allow the Episcopate in any country to dictate to the Holy Chair. That there has been such attempted dictation in this case, we do not pretend to affirm. Dr. McNulty, the Bishop. of Meath, whose language was certainly menacing, is only a single Bishop ; and we suspect the. Times' correspondent, in his letter of Wednesday, rather exaggerates the situation. Catholic Bishops in Ireland, in Belgium, in Prussia, and, we are told, but do not for ourselves know, in one Spanish-American State, have pressed views upon the Vatican with something of debaters' strenuousness, and have pointed out what they thought possible and untoward results from expected decisions ; but they can hardly use threats of secession, however veiled. In the first place, the majority of them believe their own system, and are not prepared to make rents in the " Universal Church ;" and in the second place, they know that Rome is the source of their own authority, and that a Catholic diocese not in full communion with Rome would soon be rent by smaller schisms. The Bishop has authority to keep up as well as the Pope. Still it is possible that Leo XIII. may think the authority of his Chair involved in the dispute, and with it his ultimate right of selecting prelates throughout the world, and may for that reason, among others, reject Dr. Walsh. At all events, that is the rumour in Ireland, and, of course, the Nationalists turn that rumour against the British Government. Because that Government has no regular representative whose instructions could be produced, it is accused of " intriguing with Rome," and Member after Member rises from the Parnellite benches to inquire what Mr. Errington, an Irish Catholic gentleman without official function of any kind, is doing in Rome. That inquiry in the mouth of a man like Mr. Newdegate, who believes it sinful to have any intercourse with the Papacy, even for good ends, is natural enough ; but it is now made once or twice a week by Catholics who ought to hail any disposition in the British Foreign Office to inform or to consult the Papacy, but who ask their questions solely to create the impression in Ireland that the British Government is trying to appoint the Irish Catholic Bishops. We do not believe the British Government is trying to do anything of the kind, though we see no reason why it should not try, by truthful information or honest persuasion, to make its opinion upon such appointments• felt ; but, of course, as matters stand, any imputation is safe, because no imputation is refutable. If the United It ishmatt accuses Lord Granville of employing Mr. Errington to procure. an eleventh commandment from the Pope, what is the BritishGovernment to say except that it has no responsible agent in Rome, and cannot be answerable for any request any Catholic gentleman may choose to make ?-• If it had a representative, indeed, it could state, defend, or explain his instructions and his action, but in the existing anarchy it can do nothing except say that the Pope, in making inaportantappointments, doubtless seeks all the information he can obtain, and that Mr. Errington is a person exceptionally well informed. That answer, though perfectly true, is not believed in Ireland to be the whole truth ; and the people are left to imagine that they have one more grievance, which, in the absence of knowledge, can be exaggerated until it assumes the most irrational proportions. At a matter of fact, Pope Leo, or any other Pope, thinks mach more of the interests of his Church than of those of any State, whatever, and English "persuasion '" would weigh with him, no more than Prussian persuasion does ; but the. Irish are so. embittered that they believe that the British Governmenttempts even. the head of their Church by promises which, we need not say, it has as little inclination to make as freedom to fulfil. What can Lord Granville give, except information, which would tempt Leo. XIII. to deflect one hair's-breadth from his course ? The answer is always an allusion to the Patriarchate of Goa ; but Lord Kimberley could no more interfere with that Patriarchate and its rights or wrongs, than with the decisions of the Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland or of the Methodist Legal Hundred.
LEAKAGE IN THE NAVY, AND HOW TO STOP IT.
THE continuous outcry for more money, which emanates in the first instance from members of the services, which is taken up by officials out of office, and is enforced by editors anxious for a sensation or eager to discredit a political party, has resulted in a costly programme for naval expenditure and the construction of ships. To certain parts of the increased expenditure, in view of the threatening state of the political sky, the most rigid economist and the most soberminded politician will not object. No one, for instance, can look on a large increase in the torpedo fleet, or the ordering of half a dozen swift cruisers, as money thrown away. The expenditure on these objects, and especially on the former, is relatively inconsiderable. A very small amount of capital is locked up in a torpedo-boat which has become obsolete. Even half-a-dozen belted cruisers only represent about a million. In view of imminent war a large increase in the number of seamen may be regarded as inevitable, and even in the present depressed state of the shipping trade as not without its economical advantages. But the clamour for a permanent increase of the Naval Estimates is a very different matter. Anything less logical than the argument that because other nations are spending more on their Navy, therefore we are to spend more, and that because our Merchant Fleet is more valuable than it used to be, therefore the Navy must have twice as much money spent upon it as we have been used to spend on it, can hardly be conceived. It is much the same as to argue that because our next-door neighbour spends more on his yacht we are bound to do so, or because our income has increased we are bound to live up to it ; and if we cannot spend our money otherwise, are to chuck it into the sea. It may be that enough money has not been spent on the Navy ; but to say that because France spends eight millions on the Navy we are to spend sixteen millions, is about as rational an argument as to say that because we spend sixteen millions to keep up an army of 200,000 men, Germany must necessarily spend forty millions to keep up an army of half a million men.
The thing to be looked at is what we want to get, and what we do get, for the money. It is no use voting additional millions, and increasing our naval expenditure by 50 per cent., unless we are certain it is going to be expended on the proper objects, and that the work will be forthcoming for the money. While the battle still rages so fiercely over the merits of ironclads, and the virtues or vices of unarmoured ends, we can only think that it is just as well to abstain from locking up too much capital in vessels which, even when new, experts are found to declare worse than useless, and which in ten years are certain to be of the value of old tea-kettles. Into these vexed questions of policy we do not propose to enter. But whatever we do decide to pay for, we ought to be sure that we shall get. This is just what we are not sure of at present. Somewhere or other, the leakage of the Naval Estimates is enormous. That it exists is certain. A significant return which brings this out in the strongest light, was issued in 1880, when Mr. Trevelyan was at the Admiralty. That Return gives the amount of tons of vessels built both in the dockyards and by contract in the ten years 1870-80. From this it appears that out of 220,000 tons proposed to be completed, and for which money was voted, only 206,000 were completed—a deficiency of nearly 14,000 tons. But this is not all. "It cannot be too strongly brought out," says the Accountant-General, " that the above figures represent a calculated, not an actual quantity of work, and must necessarily be taken with great reserve. The ton as a standard of measurement of proposed constructive work, is used to arrive at a certain estimate of the cost of an assumed quantity of work. When a ship is designed, the number of tons' weight is estimated, and the total labour required in her construction is also estimated. The money value of the labour, divided by the number of tons, gives the cost per ton in labour What is called a ton is not, strictly speaking, a ton at all, but merely a convenient expression for money spent or to be spent." How far this " convenient expression" is from representing the facts generally may be inferred from the next table given, which shows the difference between the "calculated " amount of tons built in the ten years and the actual amount built in armoured ships alone. The " calculated " amount was in round figures 84,000, the " actual " amount was 74,000. If the same rate of difference was preserved on the total expenditure, the discrepancy between " calculated " tonnage built and " actual " tonnage built would be between 23,000 and 24,000 tons. In other words, money was spent which ought to have produced more than two Inflexibles ' or seven belted cruisers of the 'Mersey ' type, and it did produce nothing. For a million and a half of money there is nothing tangible to show. Nor is this the whole discrepancy, because between the money voted and the tonnage calculated to be built there was, according to the first table, a discrepancy of 14,000 tons more. We have no means of knowing what proportion of this discrepancy represents the expenditure on armoured ships. But still, the net result remains that money is voted for over 37,000 tons, for which there is not a single actual ton to be shown. It is to be noted that the discrepancy is almost entirely in the dockyards, the difference between vote and completion under contract being infinitesimal. It is, therefore, the Admiralty that is at fault. Nor can any one who goes into a dockyard wonder at it. The contrast between the leisurely, free-and-easy way the work proceeds compared with the bustle and eagerness of a private yard must strike every one. It is whispered that men supposed to be engaged at work on a ship's side may be seen contentedly reading books or engaged in the strenuous occupation of a game of dominoes. In other words, part of the discrepancy at least between promise and performance is due to downright fraud. Money is paid in wages which are not earned. But these whispers may be exaggerated. There is inevitably less stir and struggle in a Government than in a private business. But we ought, at least, to know where the money does go both in the dockyards and elsewhere. Even in 1883-4 the same leakage went on ; 10,513 tons were promised, only 9,216 of " calculated" tons were built. The " tons," too, have risen in value. In 1884-5, the ton was estimated to cost £34 8s. 9d. in wages. In 1885-6, it is £35 5s. 9d. It is reasonable to suppose that what happens in shipbuilding happens in the construction of new works and machinery, on which this year's estimates showed an expenditure of half a million, in the vote for naval stores of more than a million, and in the Victualling Yards and the expenditure on victuals and clothing. It may not happen, but we have no security that it does not. The First Lord, when he is at the Admiralty, cannot see how the money goes. It is his business only to determine what is wanted, and how it should go. The senior Naval Lord is only Naval Commander-in-Chief. The second Naval Lord is Patronage Secretary. The junior Naval Lord is responsible for victualling the Fleet. The Parliamentary Civil Lord is chief clerk of the office at Whitehall. The Controller's and Civil Lord's business is with rgadriel and armament of the Fleet. The Parliamentary Secretary is merely the Parliamentary mouthpiece of the Department. He is never long enough in his post, and when there, is too much occupied in answering questions to exercise any effective control. The AccountantGeneral's business is to check vouchers and cast-up accounts ; he is not accountable for the money representing what it professes to represent. What is needed is a thoroughly experienced business man, versed in finance and the shipbuilding trade, as a permanent Civil Lord. The Admiralty need to import a man like Mr. Sutherland or Sir Donald Carrie. Let him have nothing to do with policy, or promotion, or politics. His business would be to see to the general management of the establishment as a business. If there are too many clerks at the Admiralty, it should be his business to see that they are cut down. If there are too many inspectors standing about in the Dockyards, he should have some of them removed. If the cost of coal or victuals rises, it should be his business to account for the rise satisfactorily. Above all, it should be his duty to see that a ton of wages meant a ton of shipping. Mere examination of vouchers and the papers dealing with accounts would be left to the Accountant-General, who should be his lieutenant. But the managing partner should be responsible for a real and effective audit, with power to surcharge. He should bring the responsibility for a deficiency in production home to the respective heads of the producing departments. Lord Northbrook is just the man to see the value of such a reform, and to choose the reformer. When we have a manager whom we can hang or cashier if things are mismanaged, we may vote our millions
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