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the matter. The Bill had been framed solely to redress an Irish grievance, and to carry to its furthest limits the principle of civil equality in Ireland. The Government was so much in earnest that it staked its own existence on the measure, though it must be confessed that this Bill had no bearing at all on the general interests of the Empire, or on the character of the Ministry, except in as far as it gratified and satisfied the Irish people. But if that was not the caseif, on the contrary, the measure was received with every mark of contumely and irritation in Ireland—it would have been an act of absurd and intolerable oppression to force a measure, which was meant to be an act of liberality and conciliation, down the throats of a reluctant and indignant people. We do not know whether it is in the power of a British Minister to give the Irish exactly what they desire: but it is certainly in his power to abstain from forcing upon them a measure they reject.

Indeed, as experience has already shown in this matter of Irish University Education, no liberality on the part of England can be of any avail or practical benefit, unless the educational establishments it is proposed to found and endow with public money are so constituted as to attract the youth of Ireland. You may build colleges, and pay professors, but you cannot get students, unless (as has sometimes been done) you propose to pay them too. Of colleges without students there are already in Ireland by far too many; and the want of that country consists rather in high schools, like the public schools of England and Scotland, to supply a larger number of young men capable of entering with advantage upon a genuine course of academic study. It is in evidence, for instance, that Greek is so imperfectly taught in some of the Irish grammar schools, that it has been sometimes necessary to teach the Greek alphabet in the Colleges. In the higher branches of education the supply does not always create or stimulate the demand. A sound and strong preparatory education is required before scholars can enter upon the true study of classical learning or the application of the higher mathematics. Two things are, therefore, indispensable: there must be some hundreds of young men sufficiently trained to enter upon the curriculum of a University, on equal terms with those who are matriculated at Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh and St. Andrews; and of these young men the greater number at least must be willing to enter the colleges you propose to establish. At present, we are afraid, neither of these conditions is fulfilled in Ireland; and, if that be so, the with

drawal of the Bill at some stage or other of its progress became inevitable.

Yet it does not appear to us to have been made out that the condition of Ireland in this matter of University Education is as pitiable as people would have us suppose. Nec sum adeo 'informis' was Mr. Gladstone's own expression. Judging alike by well-known facts and by results, we entirely disbelieve that any young man in Ireland, with competent means, is debarred from obtaining a good education; and he may obtain it on far cheaper terms than if he is sent to any of the great public schools or Universities in the southern part of this island. Trinity College, Dublin, has for nearly a century opened its gates to Roman Catholic students, to whom all the endowments of the College are open, with the exception of the seven Senior fellowships, which have hitherto formed the governing body; and we are confident that we express the opinion of the great majority of the Liberal party, and possibly even of many Irish Roman Catholics, when we express the strong regret with which we should witness any change tending to weaken or destroy that great and honourable institution. We wish it only to be rendered more powerful, more comprehensive, and more national. There is no institution of which the people of Ireland have greater reason to be proud, or which has rendered them greater service; and it is to the honour of the governing body that immediately after the disestablishment of the Irish Church they expressed their readiness to consent to the total abolition of clerical and sectarian tests, for the emoluments or honours of the University, and to accept a considerable reform in throwing open the governing body. These were the two propositions embodied in Mr. Fawcett's Bill, and backed by one of the members of the University itself; and had this measure commended itself to the Government, it might have been passed with ease, almost without discussion, two years ago, as a natural corollary of the Irish Church Bill. On the former of these two points there can now be no difference of opinion at all, and we rejoice to find that the Government has agreed to adopt it. Great credit is due to Mr. Fawcett for the good temper and forbearance he has shown in circumstances sometimes delicate and difficult. When degrees are conferred by the University of Dublin, absolutely without any religious test or distinction, upon all candidates who aspire to take an academical degree from the hands of the civil power, we cannot perceive that any injustice is done. The future constitution of the governing power will naturally fall into the hands of the graduates of

the University, and will eventually be modified in accordance with their wishes.

The radical difference between the Roman Catholic prelates and ourselves lies in the fact that they conceive the entire foundation and administration of a University to rest upon ecclesiastical authority. The right of conferring degrees, and the very act which constitutes a University was, in the Middle Ages, and still is in their eyes, an emanation from the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff. When the present Roman Catholic University (if that be its name) was established in Dublin, it was sanctioned by a Papal brief; its visitors are the four Roman Catholic archbishops, whose authority over it is supreme, and extends to absolute control over all the professors, members, and students of the body. Such a University is of course a purely ecclesiastical corporation. It has no civil existence. Its students and degrees are ecclesiastical, even when the students are laymen destined for secular professions. The State has no more concern with it than with a Jesuits' seminary. To such institutions the laws of this country and of Ireland extend absolute liberty. We have no doubt that, in their way, Stoneyhurst, Oscott, Maynooth, and similar learned bodies, are useful, and we can speak, of our own knowledge, with the greatest respect of the attainments of many of those who teach in them. But are they not placed by their own acts entirely beyond the orbit of the civil power? They repudiate civil degrees. They claim for the bishops of the Church of Rome an absolute and undivided control over the studies of such schools and over the honours conferred in them. To attempt to come to terms with such institutions, and to convert them into the recipients of public endowments or grants regulated by public authority, seems to us as impossible as it would be to found a Jesuits' College at the expense of the State, and give the management of it to Mr. William Forster. If Parliament is ever induced to endow a Catholic seminary for priests or for laymen, let it at least relinquish the vain hope of governing such an institution. The authority over it must be unequivocally ecclesiastical. The civil power would be effectually cast out of it as an unclean thing. For this reason the State can have nothing to do with it.

This brings us to a matter which seems to us of far greater importance than the fate of the Irish University Bill; and the untoward fate of that measure compels us to say distinctly what we think upon it. But first we will quote from Mr. Gladstone's speech the passage in which he defined his own

principle of action towards our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. It deserves the most careful consideration.

'In approaching, Sir, the consideration of this question, it is impossible altogether to put out of view the flow of criticism with respect to the subject itself, and with respect to the intentions and conduct of the Government, which have for some time been almost incessantly brought under the public eye. We have heard much, Sir, of Ultramontane influence (hear, hear), and it may be well, therefore-that cheer is an additional reason why I should notice the point-to refer to it for a moment. I cannot wonder that apprehensions with respect to Ultramontane influence should enter into the minds of the British public whenever legislation affecting the position of the Roman Catholics in Ireland is projected; and we cannot, I think, be surprised that the influences which appear so forcibly to prevail within the Roman communion should be regarded by a very great portion of the people of this country with aversion, and by some portion of them even with unnecessary dread. It appears to us, however, that we have one course, and one course only to take, one decision, and one only to arrive at, with respect to our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. Do we intend, or do we not intend, to extend to them the full benefit of civil equality on a footing exactly the same as that on which it is granted to members of other religious persuasions? (Hear, hear.) If we do not, the conclusion is a most grave one; but if the House be of opinion, as the Government are of opinion, that it is neither generous nor politic, whatever we may think of this ecclesiastical influence within the Roman Church, to draw distinctions in matters purely civil adverse to our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen-if we hold that opinion, let us hold it frankly and boldly; and, having determined to grant measures of equality as far as it may be in our power to do so, do not let us attempt to stint our action in that sense when we come to the execution of that which we have announced to be our design. (Hear, hear.)

The answer to this question, put by Mr. Gladstone in the most clear and accurate language, will be given by every member of the Liberal party, unhesitatingly, in the affirmative. Yes we do mean and desire to extend to our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen the full benefit of civil equality; and we agree that it is neither generous nor politic to draw distinctions in matters purely civil adverse to the Roman Catholics. To say the truth, we had thought this was done already; but if there be still any latent civil disability, the remnant of former intolerance, let us hasten to redress it.

But, unfortunately, public education is not one of the subjects we are allowed to treat, at least in Ireland, as one of the benefits of civil equality. We have been trying for forty years or more to make it so in the National Schools of Ireland; and for twenty years or more to establish it in the

Queen's Colleges. The attempt has not altogether failed, and these institutions have done more good than their enemies care to acknowledge. But our contention that in this purely civil matter no distinctions should be drawn or tolerated between adverse sects, is the very principle which draws down upon us Liberals all the fury of the Ultramontane rulers of Ireland. The more cordially we agree with Mr. Gladstone's principle of civil equality between persons of different religious persuasions, the less can we submit to the Roman doctrine of ecclesiastical supremacy. We are content to lay aside the prepossessions of a Protestant community and a Protestant Parliament against the dogmas and pretensions of the Roman Church-no small concession on the part of the people of this country. We rejoice to hold out the hand of perfect civil equality to our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. But no English Minister, certainly no Minister who takes his stand on the broad principles of civil and religious liberty, can make the denial of that liberty in Ireland, or elsewhere, a fundamental principle of his government.

We cannot forget, and least of all can England forget, that the opposition of civil liberty to clericalism is in all parts of Europe the great principle of the age. In Belgium, where the entire population is Catholic, and a highly Catholic Ministry is now in power, the degrees of the students in the Catholic University of Louvain are conferred by a secular body, named by the State, and uniting in its examinations the priestly education of Louvain with the secular education of Brussels. In the Swiss Cantons, half of which are Catholic, the Federal Government stands its ground against the pretensions of the Romish clergy, and quite recently the Bishop of Basle has been obliged to take refuge from his own flock in the house of the Papal Nuncio. Even in Italy, the authority of the Pope is circumscribed within the gardens of the Vatican. In Germany, the first great act of the united empire has been to oppose a strenuous resistance to the Ultramontane priesthood, and to protect the civil independence of all schools and all creeds even by measures which we should deem arbitrary and intolerant: such as the expulsion of the religious teaching Orders from the soil of their native land. The Catholic clergy of Ireland, enjoying a degree of freedom and a license of speech which we do not grudge them, but which they certainly do not possess in any other country, claim to exercise an amount of sovereign power hardly to be called their own, but directly and avowedly attributed to the injunctions of the Pope and his agents. In other words, they claim for ecclesiastical power a supreme

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