Mr. MONCKTON MILNES'S constituents have been taking him to task
for the Liberalism of his views respecting the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland ; and he has answered in an excellent letter, showing what is the actual state of facts with which any intelli- gent politician, of whatever party, has to deal,—that Catholicism has been recognized by the British Government in other parts of the empire; and that the repudiation of it in Ireland forces the priesthood into alliance with disorder rather than with con- stituted authority, and must lead to disunion or civil war. People may choose to brave the consequences, but such consequences are inevitable and formidable. Intelligent politicians, of whatever party, know AS much, and will act on their knowledge, as far as they may ; but meanwhile there are such clogs to proper action as these Pontefract electors. Whigs may slight them, be- cause the constituency pertains just now to the other party ; Radicals may defy them ; Conservatives must sooth them : but, however treated, there they stand, an unimpressible ob- stacle to true statesmanship. There is a large mass of opinion in the country far behind the opinion of the " Tory " leaders ; and that mass will be best and least slowly moved by a kin- dred party, having some sympathy with it, rather than by the mere antagonism of the Liberals. At the best, it must be a gigantic, tedious, and irksome task. Do those who undertake it, and so bravely as Mr. MILNas, deserve encouragement ? There is another mass of opinion—each is a " bigotry " after its kind, that is arrogating to itself a monopoly of sense and virtue; which desires the prompt destruction of all re- ligious [establishments, just as Mr. MILNES'S Pontefract friends desire nothing but establishments. That opinion has for organ a Whig journal, which contrives to reconcile enough Church-of- Englandism to satisfy Whiggery with Dissenterism suited to the meridian of Leicester or Norwich ; and because Mr. MILNES is a Liberal Conservative, working for the advance of opinion in his sphere, and is not a Leicester or Norwich Voluntary, the Liberal journalist sees fit to taunt and injure him. The Liberal election- agents like to see Mr. MILNES uneasy in Pontefract ; Whigs like to see any Conservative worried ; there are Dissenters who rejoice in the mortification of any but their own. Meanwhile, if one means to the general advance of opinion is spoiled, what partisan cares a straw for the general advance of opinion ?
Previous page
