MR. GLADSTONE AND IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 96, 27 February 1875, Page 7

MR. GLADSTONE AND IRELAND.

t 1 The attack of Mr. Gladstone in his Expostulation haa been directed against Ireland rather than England or Scotland, Ireland being a Catholic kingdom, more than three-fourths of the people of the old faith, and the political power of the country being still in their hands. Ireland greatly contributed to elevate Mr. Gladstone to the Premiership in 1868 ; and the same Catholic Ireland defeated him on the University Bill of 1873. All his peevishness and petulance have their origin in this sotirce. The applause which the Irish Church Act and the Irish Land Act brought to him, imperfect though these measures are, dazzled his mind, and led him to suppose that he could deal with the subject of education in the same spirit of compromise. We have no doubt that he received ill advice, and probably from some Catholics who were not in a position to speak on behalf of their fellows. It is no longer questionable that Mr. Gladstone's defeat on that measure led to his resignation, to the disintegration and decadence of his Ministry and party, to the dissolution of Parliament, the return of the Conservatives to power, and the publication of the Expostulation against the Vatican Decrees. So that the Irish Catholics havingdefeated him, Mr. Gladstone avenges himself on the Catholics of the three Kingdoms, but concentrates his attack on those in England, proceeding on the analogous maxim in physics that no chain is stronger than its weakest link. The greater number of converts are in England, many of them of high rank ; hence his charge that it is acres rather than souls that the Pope is gaining in this country. Mr. Gladstone accuses the Catholic Church of sterility in her mission, as regards the poor, while admitting her success, as regards the rich. In doing so, he forgets, however, that the mass of Catholics in England and Scotland are humble Irish, whose fervid devotion to their faith has led many a man of intellect to consider whether a religion that exercises such influence over human life and conduct must not be Divine. The appeal of Mr. Gladstone regarding the civil allegiance of Catholics is, however, meant only for the consideration of Englishmen. His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster has frequently stated that the English people never willingly abandoned the faith, but that it was wrested froni them. The Irish nation, however, never recognized the Tudor heresy, and rose again and again in just rebellion against it. We say just, because the enforcement of an alien and detested scheme of the sorb was a violation of natural law and of the rights of conscience. Resistance was not merely a right ; it was solemn duty. Land and life were freely spent by the Irish in opposition to the attempt to exterminate the Catholic faith. Hatred to England was thus traditionally imbibed; hence one of chief sources of Irish disloyalty — a disloyalty sanctified by the highest duties. Mr. Gladstone took caro not to appeal to the Irish Catholics, from whom he was assured of the answer he would receive. From no man of position in Ireland could he receive the answers given by Lords Acton and Camoys. The Irish Catholics, while justly proud of the eminent men that England, even in modern times, has given to the Church, cannot fail, in times of trial like this, to recall the veto assented to by the Actons and Cainoys of a former time. The firmness of the Irish Bishops and of the people, led by O'Connell, saved the Catholics of these kingdoms from the infliction. Some able Catholic writers, as Mgr. Capel, lower the strength of their claim by accepting the statement of our numbers given by our enemies. He says Catholics are a sixth of the population of the three kingdoms. The population of the three kingdoms, in 1871, was 31,628,338, while the Catholics of Ireland alone were 4,141,933; and assuming, as we have data for doing, the Catholics in Scotland as 300,000, if there are only 1,408,067 Catholics in England and Wales, there are clearly six millions of Catholics in the three kingdoms, a number below their true strength. But if Monsignor Capel' s estimate hold good, which it does not, then indeed the Catholics in Great Britain would number only 1,129,290, an estimate which he would be last to defend. Catholics may, therefore, be fairly set down as one-fifth of the population of these countries. The acceptation of the calculations of Protestants in relation to creed statistics is radically erroneous. Their intention is to deny that Ireland is a Catholic country and that it should be legislated for as such. Ireland is Catholic, Scotland Presbyterian, Wales, to a great extent, Methodist, and England largely Anglican ; but it is the interest of the majority to declare that, in the aggregate, Catholics are a miserable minority, and that Protestants prevail in the ratio of six to one. Presbyterians in Scotland, Episcopalians in England, and Wesley ans in Wales, enjoy no such numerical superiority as Catholics do in Ireland. But when Catholics are taken thus as an element of the general population of the three kingdoms, and when their relative weight, in point of numbers, is seen to be only 19 or 20 per cent., persons appear to forget that if all the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain be considered, it must be admitted that an overwhelming majority of her Majesty's subjects are of sable color, and are Hindus or Pagans as regards creed. Mr. Gladstone has so far i\p to this not levelled any of his shafts at Ireland, although his sole aim is obviously to humble the Irish Bishops in revenge for his defeat. It has been a fight chiefly in England, and where Catholic political and religious strength is weakest, in order to damage Catholicism, or, as it is alleged, Ultramorttanism, the more effectually. Ireland, while watching with deep interest the progress of the anti-Catholic, and especially antiIrish movement, has not, though comparatively silent, been inatf tentive. No one can doubt that Ireland will speak, and promptly, j and energetically, upon the question of the Expostulation, and the support that it has elicited. — 'Tablet.'

Australia intends to send a rifle teaiatQ.competeatWimbledo". next year.