TORY SCHISMATICS.
THERE is, no doubt, something like a split in the Tory ranks ; but let us not be deceived—it will not stand in the way of their either taking or retaining office. One section of the party professes to be really desirous of re- storing Mother Church to her pristine ascendancy. From their talk one would suppose that they would risk a civil war in Ire- land. and drive the English Nonconformists to combine against the Government, rather than abate of a jot of what they faceti- ously call their Protestant principles. Of this section Lord WIN- CHILSEA is the leader ; and, for the time being, Fraser's Maga- zine seems the principal organ. In the current number of that periodical, of which we have seen an extract, it is assumed that even Sir ROBERT PEEL must take high Protestant ground at Glasgow, because he was elected to the Rectorate of the Univer- sity by the Church party. But Sir ROBERT PEEL is too wily to take very high ground of any kind, and especially of this sort. He knows the precise Parliamentary value of the support and opposition of the bigots. He has ascertained by experience that the Cerberus of Protestantism will accept a sop. These violent Zealots who roar about "the unmutilated Word of God," were as quiet as sucking lambs in the session of 1835, when the PEEL Cabinet sanctioned the double grant to the Irish Education Board. And so it would be again. Dr. PHILPOTTS would grow calm in anticipation of a heavier mitre ; Colonel PERCEVAL and Lord RODEN would gulp down their " Protestantism" in the silent hope of place and pelf; and though some of the discontented, because unbribed. might growl a little, be assured that when it came to a vote affecting the stability of the Tory Ministry, there would be harmony and union on the Tory benches. All this Sir ROBERT PEEL knows well. He can refer to the consequences of the last split—the accession of Earl GREY. the uprooting of rotten boroughs, and the abhorred entrance of Whigs into places long looked upon as a sacred and exclusively Tory inheritance. "But for your obstinate Protestantism," Sir ROBERT will say, "we Tories might still have been Lords in the ascendant —your noble relations installed in Durham and Ely, and mine in the Treasury : will you risk another seven years' exile from office and deprivation of authority (supposing that we are in again) for the sake of your principles?" There will be an almost unanimous reply of " No, we will not : give us once more comfortable quarters at the public cost, and our principles shall slumber, while Pro- testantism must take care of itself." " Now," say PEEL and WHARNCLIFFE, " you speak like men of sense; and as we see that there is no very great objection to the project, we intend to restore peace to Ireland by establishing Popery : there will still be an ' establishment,' you perceive, with rectories and bishoprics; and Protestantism must take care of itself—our anxiety is for the Church of the Aristocracy."
Some such arrangement as this will soon reconcile the two sections cf the Tory party. In fact, were Popery once established in Ireland with the old Church endowments, many of those who keep up the greatest pother about "Protestantism" would be- come Papists to-morrow. We have not the slightest respect for
the bigoted faction. It is a farce to call them honest. Their conduct under the PEEL Administration proves that their prin- ciples can at any time be made to give way to party policy ; while
for the same policy they can feign unbounded devotion to religion, and cant about " the unmutilated 1Vord of God," in a manner which, whatever fervour of pious Protestantism it may simulate, now deceives but few.
Previous page
