TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE OFFER TO THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.
THERE has hardly been such a case yet of replying to a request for political bread with the frank offer of a stone, as the Government's proposal in relation to the Catholic University. The country clown who proposed to " 'Eave 'alf a brick " at a stranger simply because he was a stranger, was pardonable, compared with the Government, who propose to " 'eave 'alf a brick" at the Irish Catholics, by way, appar- ently, of discouraging them from insisting any longer on simple justice. For really this Bill is a fragment of brick pitched at the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and nothing else. We do not say that this is the explanation of the motive. Possibly enough what was intended was an offer which many Irish Catholics at least might have been very happy to accept, only that all which was likely to be acceptable had been withdrawn at the last moment, leaving the measure nothing but an insult. But on the unlikely supposition that the Government, when they pledged themselves to introduce a measure, had this measure of Lord Cairns's, and no other, in their contemplation, we do say they must have intro- duced it not to cure the grievances of Irish Catholics, but to give a political pledge to English Protestants that no conces- sion to the Irish Catholics is even thought of. When a great body like the Irish Catholics press for legislative justice, and are answered with great parade that legislative justice certainly they shall have, whereupon a Bill is drafted which provides the complainants with a new and worse way of doing what they can do already in a better way, and gives them nothing else at all, they may, we think, allege with some justice that in- sult has been added to injury. And this is precisely what the Government have done in relation to the University Edu- cation of the Irish Catholics. There is nothing now to pre- vent Irish Catholics from studying in private or at a denomi- national College, say, at Maynooth, going up to certain periodical examinations during their undergraduate career at Trinity College, Dublin, and finally taking the very honourable degrees of the University of Dublin. This is admitted on all hands. What the Catholics complain of is that if they do this, they have no chance at all of competing on equal terms with the ordinary students of Trinity College, who have well- paid tutors and lecturers to help them in their studies, while the Catholics have no adequate endowments for their teachers at all. Hereupon the Government reply, ' Well, we admit a grievance ; you ought not to be compelled to go to Dublin University for your degree, on such terms. We will tell you what we will do for you. We will admit you to a brand- new University, to be constituted out of the debris of the Queen's University, on the same terms. Instead of getting up the Trinity College course with inadequate tutorial and professorial help, you may, if you like, get up the course of the transformed Queen's University with the same inadequate help ; and then you may take the new and as yet unhonoured degree, instead of the old and honoured degree. That would give you probably less dangerous and able competi- tors, though, of course, it would be in a competition for a much less distinguished and useful diploma. However, we solemnly empower you to compete for the worse article on possibly some- what easier terms. But the terms will not be easier terms as compared with the terms on which the students of the Queen's Colleges will compete with you. For the students of the Queen's Colleges will still bo taught by endowed teachers. You must be taught by your own unendowed teachers, if you object to attending the "Godless Colleges." But we offer you the great boon of securing a poorer commodity at a slightly cheaper rate ; and as for your being handicapped as against students from the Queen's Colleges, that is true, but inevit- able, if you will insist on denominational education. How can you ask a Protestant Legislature to put national funds within the reach of avowed Roman Catholics ?'
We observe, indeed, that a once Liberal contemporary, which is now often regarded as a semi-official organ of the Conservative Government, encourages the Irish Catholics to hope that if they accept the stone offered them in a proper spirit, some dole of bread may be forthcoming in future years, by way of reward for their humility. But if the Irish Catho- lics are to live on " great expectations," why not live on them frankly, and decline the worthless token,—the blank paper,— which is pressed upon them by way of earnest ? As a rule, experience shows that nothing pays so badly in politics as
humility. Indeed, for the Irish Catholics to take tamely what is now offered, would not be humility, it would be humilia- tion. They have pressed again and again on the Government a very definite grievance. They have pointed out that those who hold that all University education ought to be religious in charac- ter, are at a great disadvantage in regard to University degrees, as compared with those who think that all University education should be strictly undenomina.tional ; since the latter can obtain endowed teachers and tutors of the first rank to help them in their studies, while the former cannot. The Government, pro- fessing to acknowledge the grievance, propose a remedy; and the remedy is to place Catholic students in exactly the same false position, as regards the students of the Queen's Colleges, as that in which they already stand as regards the students of Trinity College, Dublin. The Irish Catholics complain that Trinity College is of no tutorial use to those of them who object to residence in an undenominational college, and that if they are to find their own tutors, and compete with those who do not• find their own tutors, they are heavily handicapped. The Govern- ment replies that this is, no doubt, the case, and by way of com- pensation offers, by a very elaborate method, to open to them precisely the same handicapped position in relation to the Queen's Colleges. But if any College class had complained that they were compelled, without any regular teaching, to compete for a gold medal against another class who had been carefully trained in the subject of examination, and the College authorities. admitting the grievance, had replied by offering to them, though without any opportunity of teaching, a new competition for a. silver medal with an inferior class regularly trained in the subject of examination, we do not suppose that such an offer would be gratefully received. The complainants would say, " We asked for equality of terms in competing for something we covet much, and you reply by offering us the very same inequality as before, in competing for something else that we covet little."
Whether the Government have done this thing deliberately,. or have stumbled into it in consequence of unanticipated differ- ences in the Cabinet or in the Tory party, we do not know. But they will certainly suffer by the maladroitness of their. strategy. The bigoted Protestants will not thank them half at much as if they had simply opposed The O'Conor Don's Bill, laying great stress on the iniquity of endowing Roman Catholic. teaching at all, whether only as judged by its fruits in im- parting secular learning, or otherwise. If the Government's object had been to obtain glory with the Orangemen, Irish or English, they would have obtained more of it in this way,. while the odium of their proceedings in the eyes of Roman, Catholics would have been far less. This is so obvious, that we find it nearly impossible to believe that Lord Cairns's Bill is. what Mr. Cross on Wednesday week expected it to be. In all probability, something was then to be offered which it was thought would be acceptable to the Irish Catholics; but when it came to the point, either Tory supporters turned restive, or Tory colleagues offered their resignations, and so the measure had its head cut off, and the headless. trunk was presented to the Legislature, instead of the living body. But whether this be the explanation, or whether the Bill is all that had been intended, the result will be the same. The Government, after shilly-shallying all the Session,. have mocked the Roman Catholics with an offer of an abso- lutely worthless kind,—while it will still go forth to the Con-. stituencies that instead of plainly resisting the Roman Catholic- demands, they proposed something insufficient in satisfaction of those demands. Of course, the Roman Catholics will be in- dignant, and the flaming Protestants will be suspicious, while- reasonable and moderate men of all kinds will laugh at a Government which, after coquetting with a question for six months, and changing their mind continually about it, have at last proposed, with an air of sudden inspiration, a measure which is entirely irrelevant to the grievance complained of, and if proposed at all, might just as well have been proposed by a Government which had never heard of that grievance.
Lord Cairns's Irish University Bill is the laughing-stock of the Session. The time of the House of Lords,--though it is difficult to account that a very valuable commodity,—was grossly wasted, in asking the Lords to listen to proposals which nobody ever demanded, and nobody will ever profit by.
Previous page
