The prospects of the Government have greatly brightened since the
reassembling of the House after the Easter recess. Not only is the Irish Land Bill proceeding with respectable speed, but Mr. Newdegate's silly proposal to excite the Roman Catholics beyond bearing by raking up afresh the whole monastic question has received its coup de grace, and his temporary success been turned into a defeat. On Monday night, Mr. Winterbotham, speaking for the Dissenters, and in a tone of what we may almost call rampant anti-sacerdotalism, opposed Mr. Newdegate on the sensible ground that there is no evidence whatever of physical coercion, and that "you cannot free people's consciences by Act of Parliament," - calling upon the Dissenters, in Sydney Smith's words, not to favour "a greedy, growling, grumbling, guzzling monopoly of toleration" by Dissenters, but to claim for Roman Catholics what they desire for themselves. Mr. Gladstone thereupon proposed to amend the motion for the Committee by leaving out the words empowering it to inquire into the character of the monastic institutions, and leaving only those which direct it to inquire into the state of the law in relation to the property held by them,--which was carried by 'a majority of 110r-a270 against 160. We congratulate the House on this symptom of returning sanity, and Mr. Winterbotham on his not inconsiderable share in producing it. Mr. Winterbotham is a Dissenter indeed, in whom there is no guile. Apparently he thinks the World a good deal stronger than any other foe of Dissent, and as only the Establish- ment, not the ,Boman Church, has that on its .side, he can afford to be generous to the latter, though not to the former.
Previous page
