Lord Robert Grosvenor and his nephew Earl Grosvenor have quietly
slipped into their seats for Middlesex and Chester, no party opposing. This is not merely because their tenure of the posts is to be short, but also because there is a perfect stagnation of party movement : the relations of faction remain unchanged, and Mr. Prime is equally unchallenged in West Sussex.
The flatness of an unopposed election was a little relieved in Middlesex by the correspondence between Mr. Hoare and the candidate, about recognition of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. The worthy elector made a false move in challenging Lord Robert's liberal views : the challenge evoked the manful declaration of unchanged opinion which we cited last week ; and that declaration was repeated on the hustings, with more marks of concurrence than dissent. Henceforth, therefore, equity, to our Roman Catholic fellow subjects is a recognized and admitted principle at the Middlesex election.
Lord Robert had been called "the Pope's candidate" : he con- fessed, with a deep and serious meaning in his humour, that he would rather present himself to the electors as the nominee of the
enlightened Pius, than of the gentleman who signed such letters as Mr. Hoare's. And the proposition is sound. The views of the Pope are more in• accordance with the sentiments of a con- stituency prepared to advance with the age than Mr. Hoarets obsolete bigotry is. Not a week passes—this week is no excep- tion—without the announcement of some new social reform at Rome ; some unexpected measure preparing and strengthening the people for their own political development, but managed with a discretion and gentleness as admirable as the boldness and vigour—fostering opinion without shocking cruder sentiments. This moral magnetism between the people of the Eternal City and of the Western Isles is a Striking plisenomenon. Why did Lord Robert Grosvenor find his course in that matter so smooth ? Because the Roman Pontiff has belied the obsolete dogmas of his domains, and has shown that Catholicism is not incompatible With social advancement. Thus the progress of opinion in one country gives an impulse in another, and attests the universal interest of the human race in the conduct of its several families.
