pressions* sufficiently indicative as to the tendency of things in the great Latin Communion, yet I had for very many years felt it to be the first and paramount duty of the British Legislature, whatever Rome might say or do, to give to Ireland all that justice could demand, in regard to matters of conscience and of civil equality, and thus to set herself right in the opinion of the civilised world. So far from seeing, what some believed they saw, a spirit of unworthy compliance in such a course, it appeared to me the only one which suited either the dignity or the duty of my country. While this debt remained unpaid, both before and after 1870, I did not think it my province to open formally a line of argument on a question of prospective rather than immediate moment, which might have prejudiced the matter of duty lying nearest our hand, and morally injured Great Britain not less than Ireland, Churchmen and Nonconformists not less than adherents of the Papal Communion, by slackening the disposition to pay the debt of justice. When Parliament had passed the Church Act of 1869 and the Land Act of 1870, there remained only, under the great head of Imperial equity, one serious question to be dealt with-that of the higher Education. I consider that the Liberal

* [For example, on May 14, 1872, in a speech at King's College: "I must own that, admitting the incapacity of my understanding to grasp fully what has occurred, the aspect of the recent Decrees at Rome appears to me too much to resemble the proclamation of a perpetual war against the progress and the movement of the human mind." Cited in the Charge of Bishop Thirlwall (of St. David's) for 1872. I might add various other references, to the same effect.]

majority in the House of Commons, and the Government to which I had the honour and satisfaction to belong, formally tendered payment in full of this portion of the debt by the Irish University Bill of February 1873. Some indeed think, that it was overpaid: a question into which this is manifestly not the place to enter. But the Roman Catholic prelacy of Ireland thought fit to procure the rejection of that measure, by the direct influence which they exercised over a certain number of Irish Members of Parliament, and by the temptation which they thus offered -the bid, in effect, which (to use a homely phrase) they made, to attract the support of the Tory Opposition. Their efforts were crowned with a complete success. From that time forward I have felt that the situation was changed, and that important matters would have to be cleared by suitable explanations. The debt to Ireland had been paid: a debt to the country at large had still to be disposed of, and this has come to be the duty of the hour. So long, indeed, as I continued to be Prime Minister, I should not have considered a broad political discussion on a general question suitable to proceed from me; while neither I nor (I am certain) my colleagues would have been disposed to run the risk of stirring popular passions by a vulgar and unexplained appeal. But every difficulty, arising from the necessary limitations of an official position, has now been removed.

VII. ON THE HOME POLICY OF THE FUTURE.

I could not, however, conclude these observations without anticipating and answering an inquiry they

suggest. "Are they, then," it will be asked, "a recantation and a regret; and what are they meant to recommend as the policy of the future?" My reply shall be succinct and plain. Of what the Liberal party has accomplished, by word or deed, in establishing the full civil equality of Roman Catholics, I regret nothing, and I recant nothing.

It is certainly a political misfortune that, during the last thirty years, a Church so tainted in its views of civil obedience, and so unduly capable of changing its front and language after Emancipation from what it had been before, like an actor who has to perform several characters in one piece, should have acquired an extension of its hold upon the highest classes of this country. The conquests have been chiefly, as might have been expected, among women; * but the number of male converts, or captives (as I might prefer to call them), has not been inconsiderable. There is no doubt, that every one of these secessions is in the nature of a considerable moral and social severance. The breadth of this gap varies, according to varieties of individual character. But it is too commonly a wide one. Too commonly, the spirit of the neophyte is expressed by the words which have become notorious: "a Catholic first, an Englishman afterwards." Words which properly convey no more than a truism; for every Christian must seek to place his religion even before his country in his inner heart.

* [It was not intended in this passage, to point to the fact that, with less of the critical, and moreover of the judicial faculty, women have quicker religious susceptibilities; but to their greater disposition, as compared with men, to lean and depend. In this indication, there is, I hope, nothing like disrespect.]

But very far from a truism in the sense in which we have been led to construe them. We take them to mean that the "convert" intends, in case of any conflict between the Queen and the Pope, to follow the Pope, and let the Queen shift for herself; which, happily, she can well do.

Usually, in this country, a movement in the highest class would raise a presumption of a similar movement in the mass. It is not so here. Rumours have gone about that the proportion of members of the Papal Church to the population has increased, especially in England. But these rumours would seem to be confuted by authentic figures. The Roman Catholic Marriages, which supply a competent test, and which were 4.89 per cent. of the whole in 1854, and 4.62 per cent. in 1859, were 4'09 per cent. in 1869, and 4.02 per cent. in 1871.*

There is something at the least abnormal in such a partial growth, taking effect as it does among the wealthy and noble, while the people cannot be charmed, by any incantation, into the Roman camp. The original Gospel was supposed to be meant especially for the poor; but the gospel of the nineteenth century from Rome courts another and less modest destination. If the Pope does not control more souls among us, he certainly controls more acres.

The severance, however, of a certain number of lords of the soil from those who till it, can be borne. And so I trust will in like manner be endured the new and very real "aggression" of the principles pro

* [As far as I can gather from the Report of the RegistrarGeneral, more recently published, they were in 1872 a little over 4 OI per cent. (pp. 1x., x.). ]

mulgated by Papal authority, whether they are or are not loyally disclaimed. In this matter, each man is his own judge and his own guide: I can speak for myself. I am no longer able to say, as I would have said before 1870, "There is nothing in the necessary belief of the Roman Catholic which can appear to impeach his full civil title; for, whatsoever be the follies of ecclesiastical power in his Church, his Church itself has not required of him, with binding authority, to assent to any principles inconsistent with his civil duty." That ground is now, for the present at least, cut from under my feet. What then is to be our course of policy hereafter? First let me say that, as regards the great Imperial settlement, achieved by slow degrees, which has admitted men of all creeds subsisting among us to Parliament, that I conceive to be so determined beyond all doubt or question, as to have become one of the deep foundation-stones of the existing Constitution. But inasmuch as, short of this great charter of public liberty, and independently of all that has been done, there are pending matters of comparatively minor moment which have been, or may be, subjects of discussion, not without interest attaching to them, I can suppose a question to arise in the minds of some. My own views and intentions in the future are of the smallest significance. But, if the arguments I have here offered make it my duty to declare them, I say at once the future will be exactly as the past: in the little that depends on me, I shall be guided hereafter, as heretofore, by the rule of maintaining equal civil rights irrespectively of religious differences; and shall resist all attempts to exclude the members of the