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THE TABLET TABLE OF CONTENTS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. RELIGION AND POLITICS Notes of the S e s s i o n ........................ Denunciation from the A lta r.. Jewish Disabilities •• •• ** Ancient and Modern Aspects o f the Sanitary Q u e s t i o n ........................ The Hampden Controversy .. Schools of the Christian Brothers .. The Irish Priesthood. By Charles Water ton, Esq. ........................ Notices to Correspondents REVIEWS ^ „ _ Strictures on the Discourse Delivered by his Grace Archbishop Whately— Some Account of the Reasons o f my Conversion to the Catholic Church —Churches of London —Protestantism not Puseyism — Marriage with s Deceased W ife ’ s Sister— A Jar o f Honey from Mount Hybla. By Leigh Hunt.. Pai e 817 817 818 818 818 818 819 824 CATHOLIC INTELLIGENCE:— Rome—A Suggestion . . A Sacrilegious Impostor Alleged Apostacy The “ Times” —Libel •• The P a r s o n s ...................... . The Denunciations English Subscriptions for the Relief o f Irish D is t r e s s ................................... London:— Virginia-street : Communication from the Rev. Mr. Moore—Kensington .............................................. P r o v i n c i a l :— Manchester: Presentation Convent —Northampton ........................ Scotland:— Dundee: Presentation o f an Address to the Rev. Mr. M'Pherson by the Catholics o f Dundee •• Ireland :— Waterford—Limerick 820 820 820 820 820 820 FOREIGN & COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE: Italy—Rome—Naples — Sicily—Malta — Soain—France-----SwitzerlandPresent State of the Sonderbund— Levant— Antioch—Sy r i a - Tr ipoll— Constantinople—Greece—Athens— Poland—Egypt—India—Australia— Swan River : The Sisters o f Charity-C ape o f Good Hope—United States, &c. •• ........................ NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS : IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT:— House o f Lords—House of Commons- Public Business—Royal Asseut Criminal Code—Bribery at Elections—Adjournment of the House —Mew Members—Election Petitions—Private Business PROTESTANTISM :— Dr. Hampden and the See o f Here­ ford—Dr. Hampden’ s Letter to Lord J. Russell, l ie ........................... Page 822 824 825 826 DOMESTIC NEWS:— Court and F ashionable Life :— Page Court N e w s ......................... 826 PERSONAL :— Death o f Vice-Admiral Charles C a r t e r ................................... 826 POLITICAL:— South Lancashire Election—Sunder­ land Election .. •• •• •• 82G MISCELLANEOUS — LAW AND POLICE — ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES, & c . :— 827 IR ELAND-POLITICAL:— Loyal National Repeal Association- State o f the Country—Miscellaneous News, &c. •• 829 NAVAL AND MILITARY NEWS:— 829 GAZETTES ............................................. 830 RAILW AY INTELLIGENCE 830 MONEY MARKET AND CITY NEWS 831 MARKETS 831 A D V E R T IS EM E N T S ............. 832 Vol. VIII. No. 399. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1847. P r i c e 6 d. NOTES ON THE SESSION. The first division o f the Session has ended. The Members of Parliament , called together out ot the usual course, have been dismissed to their homes and neighbourhoods for yet a little while. The newly chosen representatives of the people, having made a brief trial o f their virtue and caDacity, are allowed a further breathing time before thev engage in yet more •momentous labours. They met in a time of crisis, almost of per. . In England commerce was shaken and paralysed. In Ireland were the most direful threatening!!i and fearful movements o f insubordination. Abroad the peace o f Europe was partially disturbed, and the issue was still doubtful. Some of these dangers have passed away without need for legislative interference. The complication o f Foreign affairs nrowin"- out o f the monstrous, and, alas! successful, aggression o f the Swiss Radicals, has m part unravelled itself through the good fortune and dexterity o f our Foreign Office. On these meters not the wisdom but the indolence o f Parliament has been consulted, and all immediate pressure having disappeared the awakening interest ot tne British public and of their representatives has subsided into the accustomed torpor of indifference. Lord Palmerston’s tranquillity, assailed in the * press and threatened with an almost supernatural invasion within the walls o f Parliament, hitherto and to all outward appearance has been left unbroken. A black cloud, a menacing meteor hangs on the declivities o f the mountains and blackens all his horizon. For the present, however, it has not burst around his head, but holds over to another month and another year the terrors with which it is fraught. In like manner the English panic has subsided without the aid o f legislative interference Ih e crash o f a hundred firms seemed to threaten the stability of a currency law which, framed to carry out impossible objects, has now the good fortune to be found much wiser than its inventors; impracti­ cable and untenable for their purposes, but, m the main, sound and wholesome in a manner they dreamed not of. It has not checked speculation. It has not regulated the circulation by the foreign exchanges. It has not redressed the evils o f an excessive import by stimulating an extraordinary and counterbalancing export. These things it has not done and could not do, because they are beyond the reach o f any conceivable currency laws. But it has proved that these things are wholly impracticable ; it has cleared currency speculations o f a great deal o f useless and hope ess iaraon; it has accomplished the simpler and less ambitious objects o f keeping in existence the exact quantity o f paper money required by the exigencies o f commerce, making sure its instant convertibility into gold, and thus maintaining for every purpose its full exchangeable value. Exposed to the most extraordinary strain under the most adverse circumstances, beset on all sides by impatient clamours and the clash o f hostile interests and hostile theories, it has really stood its ground most successlully and escaped the destruction that at one time seemed inevitable. The Parliamentary residuum o f the crisis is a debate, a committee, and a statuté. The debate-creditable to most of those who took apart in i t - o f course added little to what was before known on the subject. 1 he Committee, possibly, will be less barren. Many speeches and pamphlets will be developed by it under the form o f a Blue Book Catechism; and it seems not improbable that it may even lead to some cautious and well considered changes o f the law. Whatever these may be,jone may almost venture to predict that they will not affect the Currency portion o f Sir Robert Peel’s measure. A more complete separation between the issue and the banking departments o f the Bank—that is, between the Crown as the only Issuer oí com, and the great Banking Corporation—seems not improbable. Nor would it much surprise us ii the ultimate result o f what is being now done were to curtail the privileges of the Bank, and reduce it to the more moderate level o f a mere private establishment. The new Statute which the crisis has brought us is a law giving further time for the completion o f certain railways. The necessity of such a law is too obvious to require comment, and accordingly it has passed through both Houses almost without discussion. ___ ......... .. . _ „ ... . r, f every¡conriit on of an equitable contract everywhere DENUNCIATIONS FROM THE A LTAR, throughout this kingdom, if we except some portions of - - r. the nmth of Ireland, viqlated by them ? Have they not The third great subject o f interest is—IrelandI f enacting laws be a proof ot solicitude, Ireland enioys twice as much legislatorial care as her more wealthy sister. O f three statutes that received the royal assent on Monday two concerned Ireland; a law o f coercion, and a law to facilitate the completion o f certain incomplete public works. I or the coming winter and the coming spring this is the only provision made by Parliament. Not that Parliament is otherwise uninterested un Irish affairs— certainly not. We have had debates about poor Ireland in quite sufficient abundance. Debates on the Repeal o f the Union; debates on the prospects o f famine ; debates on the respective characters o f Bishops and Priests; debates on Irish landlords; debates on the Coercion B i l l ; debates varied and various enough—but of practical result not much, and that little not very cheering. Onethird of the land is in a state o f destitution, and large districts of it in a condition of famine at the approach o f winter; yet all the hope Government holds out to us lies in the present stores of food possessed by Government, and univei sally reported to be insufficient; a Poor-la w.wmch cannot be worked where it is most needed ; the completion o f certain unfinished works—many o f them iu the least suffering localities; and a reliance on the future exertions o f Ministerial promptitude and sagacity when the evil shall have reached such a height that it will be impossible to remove it or adequately to minister to it. Measures of a more durable kind are spoken of, not promised- Tenant rfoht, or somekind o f improved landlord and tenant law, looms hazily in the distance, but offers no definite shape or outline. The subject presents great difficulties ; affects powerful persons and powerful classes; requires official persons to step out of the mill-track o f official routine. How can we expect these inestimable individuals to do such things ? When they passed a poor law for Ireland they were thought to have displayed great courage and wonderful magnanimity. But whatever the ultimate uses o f that measure, it wandered not a hair’s breadth beyond the accustomed walk of red-tape politicians. It was a move in the ordinary style o f current English statesmanship. Such a remedy has been found good in England, make it apply in Ireland. What is good for us is good for our neighbours, and the applicability of a measure to our social state is a sure proof o f its applicability to all social states that ever were, that are, or that can be. I f it is sufficient for our necessities it must also be sufficient for theirs. We are not decrying the poor law in Ireland, which we hold to be a just, wise, and necessary, hut insufficient measure. W e only wish to point out that whatever its merits, and however great its stringency upon the landlords, it affords no proof whatever that the Ministers are really prepared to probe to the bottom “ the monster grieva n c e o f Ireland.” To enact the poor law was not to legislate even in apparent hostility to the class o f landlords, but merely to subject the Irish landlords to a legal obligation which for centuries had been tied round the necks of their English brethren. To do this was to ensure the support of these same English brethren. But to go deeper into the subject; to get out o f routine; to pass beyond the file o f English precedents ; to impose obligations o f a new k in d ; to deal with the Irish landlords as a peccant class which requires extraordinary inodes o f treatment; to venture ofl the highway, out o f sight o f recognised sign and finger-posts into the hitherto untrodden jungle— this is an achievement which we may well pronounce to transcend expectation altogether ; nor will anything but the positive demonstration of fact convince us that in this session any adequate or effective legislation for Ireland will be so much as attempted. A still continuing subject of discussion—in Parliament so long as it was sitting— out o f Parliament during the recess, is the supposed denunciations o f landlords by Catholic Clergy men. In another column will he found an important and interesting correspondence in which Archbishop M ‘Hale and Lord Arundel bear their respective parts. Upon these documents, and the comments to which they have given rise, it was our intention to say a few words; but at the last,moment we have received, through the Freeman's Journal, another Episcopal letter on the same subject, for only part o f which can we find room in this place. The letter is addressed to Lord Stanley, and takes for its text certain phrases in one o f his lordship’s recent speeches:— Passing over, my lord, the complimentary portion of your address, with all the thauks which your intention) while awarding it to us, merits, permit me to take up> one by one, your vituperations, and make a few cursory» and I hope uot inappropriate, remarks upon them. “ Tlie Roman Catholic Priesthood do not lend the m selves to the support o f the law.” I could have wished, my lord, that you had been a little more explicit. W e have so many laws, good and bad, that we cannot easily fix your meaning. W e have a tithing law— ordaining that a Church, not ours, should be supported by us. Surely, you did not mean to insinuate that we infringed on our Christian duties by not commending that monstrous law. W e have, again, game laws, ad infinitum, by which the liberty o f rational beings—of the lords o f the creation— are being valued less than the woodcock, the partridge, or the pheasant. Surely, my lord, you did not expect us to become the encomiasts o f such laws. We have, my lord, many other unreasonable laws, restricting the franchise to the few, at the expense o f the many—laws with quarter-acre tests—laws consigning our poor to the guardianship o f those that made them poor. Surely, my lord, you could not have meant that we violated our sacred duties b~ not lending our coun­ tenance to these laws—laws which, o f course, we do patiently endure, but which, in reason and conscience we can never approve. You should, I repeat, have told us the laws which we did not support. I f you meant the laws made to preserve the peace o f the community, I at once deny the truth o f the allegation. Her gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, has not, under the wide sway o f her sceptre, subjects more faithful in the discharge o f their duty than the Irish Priesthood have ever been. 1 fearlessly assert that the humblest Catholic Curate in this diocese has been a more efficient peace-preserver in the locality in which he serves than the most active paid officer tinder the Crown. I f you mean the laws that bind the subjects to their Sovereign, again I deny the allegation ; but this cannot, o f course, be your mean ing. Our loyalty stands unimpeached before the world. If we err at all, it is in the excess o f that virtue. 1 fondly hope that the best o f English Queens may never have reason to test it. But i f she have, she will find it as it has ever been, through good report and through evil report, aB true as the needle to the pole, against her every enemy foreign and domestic, Is it in a word, my lord, the laws o f commutative justice that we discountenance ? I f these be the laws you accuse us o f violating, your lordship, to say the least, made an egregious mistake. We considei it a conscientious duly to refuse sacraments to every person taking or retaining a shilling or a shilling’ s worth not his own, being able to make restitution. Our canon o f justice is that o f the great S '. Austin—1“ Non demittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum.” It would not, my lord, be well for your pet “ Establishment” if it were gauged on this Catholic rule o f equity. Perhaps, my lord, I have at length reached your meaning: that the laws to which we do not lend our support are the laws regulating the contracts between landlords and tenants. I f this be your charge against us, i , for ray own part, partly admit, and partly deny, its application. As far as they are founded on the principles o f immutable justice, I emphatically deny the truth o f the charge. As far as they enforce the rule of equity, binding the tenant to a fair rent for the land, we would defend the landlords’ claims by every weapon in the armoury o f the Church o f God and no^ Irish Priest could countenance or abet a violation o f ttU9 rule without becoming himself liable to restitution. If, however, these laws should go to enforce contracts not based on equity—if they should be made the instruments o f oppression—if, against reason and humanity, Heaven knows that in this matter o f legislation English Ministers and Parliaments get small help from Irish representatives— from their wisdom, their union, their active or their passive powers. In this respect the past month has been singularly fertile in misfortunes. Never was Ireland— in the persons o f her members—more weak or less respectable. The capacity o f these gentlemen for discord seems to be infinitely large—their capacity for legislative business (with a few exceptions) infinitely small. Poor Ireland ! Placed in her utmost need between English Ministers and such Irish representatives! they were being made, and were intended to be made, destructive ot the well-being o f society, and were practically found to be working the ruin o f a whole kingdom and subversion o f every right, human and divine, 1 partly admit, my lord, the truth o f your charge, that to such laws we did not lend our countenance. We bore with them, o f course—we counselled our people to bear with them—D o t for the sake o f their justice, but for the sake o f God—who tolerated for a time, and half a time, these iniquities, and who, in his own good time, would have them redressed. But, my lord, to lend enactments which we felt to be so mischievous a cordial support, or to sanction them with our approval, would, my lord, be expecting too much even from us. \Vhat, my lord, could induce us to respect such laws ? Is not the noith oi ireiana, viqiatea Dy tnem i Dave they not been proven to beaDracouian ccde,writen in characters o f blood ? Have they not made our beautiful island a vast workhouse o f pauperism ? Have they not reduced the great majority o f the people o f Ireland to a state o f ■erfship unparalleled in the annals o f the world? What, my lord ! would you have us act the eulogists aud the abettors o f a code that planted almost in every village a tyrant more inhuman and barbarous than the fabled Ogress oi our fairy tales—a code that made the meanest in Irish society a man qualified for his situation by the worst kind o f ruffianism —che landlord’s bailiff a more important personage than the amiable Sovereign o f these realms ? Yes, indeed, duty demands o f us the approbation o f such laws! We must, in mercy to the system, divest ourselves o f every Christian feeling, and call falsehood truth, wrong right, and the most monstrous iniquity the strictest equity ! This, my lord, I say again, would be too much for you to ask even from us. Permit me, my lord, to suppose a case. It is hardly a possible case, to be sure, for your native country would not endure it, for one day ; still, my lord, let me suppose that the landlords in England were, with s few honourable exceptions, selfish, grasping, cruel, tyrannical— that they bad made for themselves a code o f laws to regulate their properties—a code that made them irresponsible, in their own minds, to God and man—a code which enforced what they called their rights, but never hinted at their duties— that by these laws, so craftily devisad to carry out their intentional mischief, they made England desolate; scattered the English people, and made them wanderers over the earth—left one-third o f your Ocean Isle uncultivated, the other two-thirds comparatively unproductive— let me suppose again that by these laws they made the English nation a beggar in rags at every gate in Christendom—that with them they were enabled with impunity to exterminate hundreds, thousands o f the English people from the homesteads o f their fathers— levelling their cabins to the earth, and casting them out on a merciless world to die in ditches, to make room for the ox, the ass, the goat, or the sheep, thereby*preferring the most, stupid of the brute creation to him whom the God o f heaven “ made little less than angels.” Let me suppose again, that these laws having full sway for centuries in England, made more widows and orphans, produced more hardships, heartburnings, agonies o f soul and writhings o f body—caused more lears to be shed and more premature deaths— a greater destruction, in fine, of human life than the eleven persecutions decreed by the Pagan Emperors o f Rome. I ask you, my lord, in what terms would you speak o f those laws ? Would not the in dignant soul o f a Stanley revolt at their very contentplation ? Would the parsons o f England be Christian parsons i f they gave their cordial support to a code which worked such ruin ? Would they not be worse than the apostate priests o f the cruel Jezabel, i f folding their arms in silence, they looked with cold indifference on their hearers, crushed to powder beneath the wheel* o f this Moloch ? But what would they be, my lord— they, the ministers o f the God o f Mercy, what name would be too bad for them, if, instead o f riding with their suffering people, they raised their voices to applaud the causes and cheer on the authors o f this universal ruin? No matter, my lord, how you or they would feel, we know how those who love their people do feel and have ever felt. W e know how, under similar circumstances, a Moses fell— how a Jeremiah felt, though he merely saw with the eye o f a prophet the bondage and oppression o f his people—we know how a David felt, though he only viewed the misery o f his nation in the distance, when this cry o f wounded nature escaped him • . “ Remember, O Lord, the children o f Edom, in the day o f Jerusalem.” Who say : raze it, raze it even to the foundation thereof. “ O Daughter o f Babylon, miserable ! blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us. . . , , W e know how a Matthias felt, when his own beloved Judea was beneath the hoof o f the truculent and relentless Antiochus. We know what the Redeemer felt when he looked on the crowd hungering in the wilderness, when he said, with all the sweetness o f a Saviour who loved man even more than his own life, “ Misereor super turbam.” and we also, my lord, know the cry that comes from under the altar o f God, even in the region o f light and love and peace— the cry o f the murdered Innocents— “ How lo n g ; O Lord, how l o n g ? ” All this, my lord, and more we know, and i f the Irish Priesthood have anything to answer foa to God, it is the tameness, and the silence, and the patient submission with which most o f them looked upon the wrongs, the ruin o f their country, or for the gentle whispers they used, when their voices should have been as loud as the roar o f the deep, or the crash o f the thunder-storm arousing, awakening the world to humanity, outraged in the persons of their flockp, and thereby shaming their persecutors into mercy. Such, my lord, being our convictions, you cannot expect from us a cordial support o f any system whose evil effects impressed u* with such feelings.

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THE TABLET TABLE OF CONTENTS.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

RELIGION AND POLITICS

Notes of the S e s s i o n ........................ Denunciation from the A lta r.. Jewish Disabilities •• •• ** Ancient and Modern Aspects o f the

Sanitary Q u e s t i o n ........................ The Hampden Controversy .. Schools of the Christian Brothers .. The Irish Priesthood. By Charles

Water ton, Esq. ........................ Notices to Correspondents REVIEWS ^ „ _

Strictures on the Discourse Delivered by his Grace Archbishop Whately— Some Account of the Reasons o f my Conversion to the Catholic Church —Churches of London —Protestantism not Puseyism — Marriage with s Deceased W ife ’ s Sister— A Jar o f Honey from Mount Hybla. By Leigh Hunt..

Pai e

817 817 818 818 818 818 819 824

CATHOLIC INTELLIGENCE:—

Rome—A Suggestion . . A Sacrilegious Impostor Alleged Apostacy The “ Times” —Libel •• The P a r s o n s ...................... . The Denunciations English Subscriptions for the Relief o f

Irish D is t r e s s ................................... London:—

Virginia-street : Communication from the Rev. Mr. Moore—Kensington .............................................. P r o v i n c i a l :—

Manchester: Presentation Convent —Northampton ........................ Scotland:—

Dundee: Presentation o f an Address to the Rev. Mr. M'Pherson by the Catholics o f Dundee •• Ireland :—

Waterford—Limerick

820 820 820 820 820 820

FOREIGN & COLONIAL INTELLIGENCE:

Italy—Rome—Naples — Sicily—Malta

— Soain—France-----SwitzerlandPresent State of the Sonderbund— Levant— Antioch—Sy r i a - Tr ipoll— Constantinople—Greece—Athens— Poland—Egypt—India—Australia— Swan River : The Sisters o f Charity-C ape o f Good Hope—United States, &c. •• ........................ NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS : IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT:—

House o f Lords—House of Commons-

Public Business—Royal Asseut Criminal Code—Bribery at Elections—Adjournment of the House —Mew Members—Election Petitions—Private Business PROTESTANTISM :—

Dr. Hampden and the See o f Here­

ford—Dr. Hampden’ s Letter to Lord J. Russell, l ie ...........................

Page

822 824

825

826

DOMESTIC NEWS:—

Court and F ashionable Life :—

Page

Court N e w s ......................... 826 PERSONAL :—

Death o f Vice-Admiral Charles

C a r t e r ................................... 826 POLITICAL:—

South Lancashire Election—Sunder­

land Election .. •• •• •• 82G MISCELLANEOUS — LAW AND

POLICE — ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES, & c . :— 827 IR ELAND-POLITICAL:—

Loyal National Repeal Association-

State o f the Country—Miscellaneous News, &c. •• 829 NAVAL AND MILITARY NEWS:— 829 GAZETTES ............................................. 830 RAILW AY INTELLIGENCE 830 MONEY MARKET AND CITY NEWS 831 MARKETS 831 A D V E R T IS EM E N T S ............. 832

Vol. VIII. No. 399.

SATURDAY,

DECEMBER 25, 1847.

P r i c e 6 d.

NOTES ON THE SESSION. The first division o f the Session has ended. The Members of Parliament , called together out ot the usual course, have been dismissed to their homes and neighbourhoods for yet a little while. The newly chosen representatives of the people, having made a brief trial o f their virtue and caDacity, are allowed a further breathing time before thev engage in yet more •momentous labours. They met in a time of crisis, almost of per. . In England commerce was shaken and paralysed. In Ireland were the most direful threatening!!i and fearful movements o f insubordination. Abroad the peace o f Europe was partially disturbed, and the issue was still doubtful. Some of these dangers have passed away without need for legislative interference. The complication o f Foreign affairs nrowin"- out o f the monstrous, and, alas! successful, aggression o f the Swiss Radicals, has m part unravelled itself through the good fortune and dexterity o f our Foreign Office. On these meters not the wisdom but the indolence o f Parliament has been consulted, and all immediate pressure having disappeared the awakening interest ot tne British public and of their representatives has subsided into the accustomed torpor of indifference. Lord Palmerston’s tranquillity, assailed in the * press and threatened with an almost supernatural invasion within the walls o f Parliament, hitherto and to all outward appearance has been left unbroken. A black cloud, a menacing meteor hangs on the declivities o f the mountains and blackens all his horizon. For the present, however, it has not burst around his head, but holds over to another month and another year the terrors with which it is fraught.

In like manner the English panic has subsided without the aid o f legislative interference Ih e crash o f a hundred firms seemed to threaten the stability of a currency law which, framed to carry out impossible objects, has now the good fortune to be found much wiser than its inventors; impracti­ cable and untenable for their purposes, but, m the main, sound and wholesome in a manner they dreamed not of. It has not checked speculation. It has not regulated the circulation by the foreign exchanges. It has not redressed the evils o f an excessive import by stimulating an extraordinary and counterbalancing export. These things it has not done and could not do, because they are beyond the reach o f any conceivable currency laws. But it has proved that these things are wholly impracticable ; it has cleared currency speculations o f a great deal o f useless and hope ess iaraon; it has accomplished the simpler and less ambitious objects o f keeping in existence the exact quantity o f paper money required by the exigencies o f commerce, making sure its instant convertibility into gold, and thus maintaining for every purpose its full exchangeable value. Exposed to the most extraordinary strain under the most adverse circumstances, beset on all sides by impatient clamours and the clash o f hostile interests and hostile theories, it has really stood its ground most successlully and escaped the destruction that at one time seemed inevitable. The Parliamentary residuum o f the crisis is a debate, a committee, and a statuté. The debate-creditable to most of those who took apart in i t - o f course added little to what was before known on the subject. 1 he Committee, possibly, will be less barren. Many speeches and pamphlets will be developed by it under the form o f a Blue Book Catechism; and it seems not improbable that it may even lead to some cautious and well considered changes o f the law. Whatever these may be,jone may almost venture to predict that they will not affect the Currency portion o f Sir Robert Peel’s measure. A more complete separation between the issue and the banking departments o f the Bank—that is, between the Crown as the only Issuer oí com, and the great Banking Corporation—seems not improbable. Nor would it much surprise us ii the ultimate result o f what is being now done were to curtail the privileges of the Bank, and reduce it to the more moderate level o f a mere private establishment. The new Statute which the crisis has brought us is a law giving further time for the completion o f certain railways. The necessity of such a law is too obvious to require comment, and accordingly it has passed through both Houses almost without discussion. ___

......... .. .

_

„ ... . r, f every¡conriit on of an equitable contract everywhere

DENUNCIATIONS FROM THE A LTAR, throughout this kingdom, if we except some portions of

- - r. the nmth of Ireland, viqlated by them ? Have they not

The third great subject o f interest is—IrelandI f enacting laws be a proof ot solicitude, Ireland enioys twice as much legislatorial care as her more wealthy sister. O f three statutes that received the royal assent on Monday two concerned Ireland; a law o f coercion, and a law to facilitate the completion o f certain incomplete public works. I or the coming winter and the coming spring this is the only provision made by Parliament. Not that Parliament is otherwise uninterested un Irish affairs— certainly not. We have had debates about poor Ireland in quite sufficient abundance. Debates on the Repeal o f the Union; debates on the prospects o f famine ; debates on the respective characters o f Bishops and Priests; debates on Irish landlords; debates on the Coercion B i l l ; debates varied and various enough—but of practical result not much, and that little not very cheering. Onethird of the land is in a state o f destitution, and large districts of it in a condition of famine at the approach o f winter; yet all the hope Government holds out to us lies in the present stores of food possessed by Government, and univei sally reported to be insufficient; a Poor-la w.wmch cannot be worked where it is most needed ; the completion o f certain unfinished works—many o f them iu the least suffering localities; and a reliance on the future exertions o f Ministerial promptitude and sagacity when the evil shall have reached such a height that it will be impossible to remove it or adequately to minister to it. Measures of a more durable kind are spoken of, not promised- Tenant rfoht, or somekind o f improved landlord and tenant law, looms hazily in the distance, but offers no definite shape or outline. The subject presents great difficulties ; affects powerful persons and powerful classes; requires official persons to step out of the mill-track o f official routine. How can we expect these inestimable individuals to do such things ? When they passed a poor law for Ireland they were thought to have displayed great courage and wonderful magnanimity. But whatever the ultimate uses o f that measure, it wandered not a hair’s breadth beyond the accustomed walk of red-tape politicians. It was a move in the ordinary style o f current English statesmanship. Such a remedy has been found good in England, make it apply in Ireland. What is good for us is good for our neighbours, and the applicability of a measure to our social state is a sure proof o f its applicability to all social states that ever were, that are, or that can be. I f it is sufficient for our necessities it must also be sufficient for theirs.

We are not decrying the poor law in Ireland, which we hold to be a just, wise, and necessary, hut insufficient measure. W e only wish to point out that whatever its merits, and however great its stringency upon the landlords, it affords no proof whatever that the Ministers are really prepared to probe to the bottom “ the monster grieva n c e o f Ireland.” To enact the poor law was not to legislate even in apparent hostility to the class o f landlords, but merely to subject the Irish landlords to a legal obligation which for centuries had been tied round the necks of their English brethren. To do this was to ensure the support of these same English brethren. But to go deeper into the subject; to get out o f routine; to pass beyond the file o f English precedents ; to impose obligations o f a new k in d ; to deal with the Irish landlords as a peccant class which requires extraordinary inodes o f treatment; to venture ofl the highway, out o f sight o f recognised sign and finger-posts into the hitherto untrodden jungle— this is an achievement which we may well pronounce to transcend expectation altogether ; nor will anything but the positive demonstration of fact convince us that in this session any adequate or effective legislation for Ireland will be so much as attempted.

A still continuing subject of discussion—in Parliament so long as it was sitting— out o f Parliament during the recess, is the supposed denunciations o f landlords by Catholic Clergy men. In another column will he found an important and interesting correspondence in which Archbishop M ‘Hale and Lord Arundel bear their respective parts. Upon these documents, and the comments to which they have given rise, it was our intention to say a few words; but at the last,moment we have received, through the Freeman's Journal, another Episcopal letter on the same subject, for only part o f which can we find room in this place. The letter is addressed to Lord Stanley, and takes for its text certain phrases in one o f his lordship’s recent speeches:—

Passing over, my lord, the complimentary portion of your address, with all the thauks which your intention) while awarding it to us, merits, permit me to take up> one by one, your vituperations, and make a few cursory» and I hope uot inappropriate, remarks upon them.

“ Tlie Roman Catholic Priesthood do not lend the m selves to the support o f the law.” I could have wished, my lord, that you had been a little more explicit. W e have so many laws, good and bad, that we cannot easily fix your meaning. W e have a tithing law— ordaining that a Church, not ours, should be supported by us. Surely, you did not mean to insinuate that we infringed on our Christian duties by not commending that monstrous law. W e have, again, game laws, ad infinitum, by which the liberty o f rational beings—of the lords o f the creation— are being valued less than the woodcock, the partridge, or the pheasant. Surely, my lord, you did not expect us to become the encomiasts o f such laws. We have, my lord, many other unreasonable laws, restricting the franchise to the few, at the expense o f the many—laws with quarter-acre tests—laws consigning our poor to the guardianship o f those that made them poor. Surely, my lord, you could not have meant that we violated our sacred duties b~ not lending our coun­

tenance to these laws—laws which, o f course, we do patiently endure, but which, in reason and conscience we can never approve. You should, I repeat, have told us the laws which we did not support. I f you meant the laws made to preserve the peace o f the community, I at once deny the truth o f the allegation. Her gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, has not, under the wide sway o f her sceptre, subjects more faithful in the discharge o f their duty than the Irish Priesthood have ever been. 1 fearlessly assert that the humblest Catholic Curate in this diocese has been a more efficient peace-preserver in the locality in which he serves than the most active paid officer tinder the Crown. I f you mean the laws that bind the subjects to their Sovereign, again I deny the allegation ; but this cannot, o f course, be your mean ing. Our loyalty stands unimpeached before the world. If we err at all, it is in the excess o f that virtue. 1 fondly hope that the best o f English Queens may never have reason to test it. But i f she have, she will find it as it has ever been, through good report and through evil report, aB true as the needle to the pole, against her every enemy foreign and domestic, Is it in a word, my lord, the laws o f commutative justice that we discountenance ? I f these be the laws you accuse us o f violating, your lordship, to say the least, made an egregious mistake. We considei it a conscientious duly to refuse sacraments to every person taking or retaining a shilling or a shilling’ s worth not his own, being able to make restitution. Our canon o f justice is that o f the great S '. Austin—1“ Non demittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum.” It would not, my lord, be well for your pet “ Establishment” if it were gauged on this Catholic rule o f equity.

Perhaps, my lord, I have at length reached your meaning: that the laws to which we do not lend our support are the laws regulating the contracts between landlords and tenants. I f this be your charge against us, i , for ray own part, partly admit, and partly deny, its application. As far as they are founded on the principles o f immutable justice, I emphatically deny the truth o f the charge. As far as they enforce the rule of equity, binding the tenant to a fair rent for the land, we would defend the landlords’ claims by every weapon in the armoury o f the Church o f God and no^ Irish Priest could countenance or abet a violation o f ttU9 rule without becoming himself liable to restitution. If, however, these laws should go to enforce contracts not based on equity—if they should be made the instruments o f oppression—if, against reason and humanity,

Heaven knows that in this matter o f legislation English Ministers and Parliaments get small help from Irish representatives— from their wisdom, their union, their active or their passive powers. In this respect the past month has been singularly fertile in misfortunes. Never was Ireland— in the persons o f her members—more weak or less respectable. The capacity o f these gentlemen for discord seems to be infinitely large—their capacity for legislative business (with a few exceptions) infinitely small. Poor Ireland ! Placed in her utmost need between English Ministers and such Irish representatives!

they were being made, and were intended to be made, destructive ot the well-being o f society, and were practically found to be working the ruin o f a whole kingdom and subversion o f every right, human and divine, 1 partly admit, my lord, the truth o f your charge, that to such laws we did not lend our countenance. We bore with them, o f course—we counselled our people to bear with them—D o t for the sake o f their justice, but for the sake o f God—who tolerated for a time, and half a time, these iniquities, and who, in his own good time, would have them redressed. But, my lord, to lend enactments which we felt to be so mischievous a cordial support, or to sanction them with our approval, would, my lord, be expecting too much even from us. \Vhat, my lord, could induce us to respect such laws ? Is not the noith oi ireiana, viqiatea Dy tnem i Dave they not been proven to beaDracouian ccde,writen in characters o f blood ? Have they not made our beautiful island a vast workhouse o f pauperism ? Have they not reduced the great majority o f the people o f Ireland to a state o f ■erfship unparalleled in the annals o f the world? What, my lord ! would you have us act the eulogists aud the abettors o f a code that planted almost in every village a tyrant more inhuman and barbarous than the fabled Ogress oi our fairy tales—a code that made the meanest in Irish society a man qualified for his situation by the worst kind o f ruffianism —che landlord’s bailiff a more important personage than the amiable Sovereign o f these realms ? Yes, indeed, duty demands o f us the approbation o f such laws! We must, in mercy to the system, divest ourselves o f every Christian feeling, and call falsehood truth, wrong right, and the most monstrous iniquity the strictest equity ! This, my lord, I say again, would be too much for you to ask even from us. Permit me, my lord, to suppose a case. It is hardly a possible case, to be sure, for your native country would not endure it, for one day ; still, my lord, let me suppose that the landlords in England were, with s few honourable exceptions, selfish, grasping, cruel, tyrannical— that they bad made for themselves a code o f laws to regulate their properties—a code that made them irresponsible, in their own minds, to God and man—a code which enforced what they called their rights, but never hinted at their duties— that by these laws, so craftily devisad to carry out their intentional mischief,

they made England desolate; scattered the English people, and made them wanderers over the earth—left one-third o f your Ocean Isle uncultivated, the other two-thirds comparatively unproductive— let me suppose again that by these laws they made the English nation a beggar in rags at every gate in Christendom—that with them they were enabled with impunity to exterminate hundreds, thousands o f the English people from the homesteads o f their fathers— levelling their cabins to the earth, and casting them out on a merciless world to die in ditches, to make room for the ox, the ass, the goat, or the sheep, thereby*preferring the most, stupid of the brute creation to him whom the God o f heaven “ made little less than angels.” Let me suppose again,

that these laws having full sway for centuries in England, made more widows and orphans, produced more hardships, heartburnings, agonies o f soul and writhings o f body—caused more lears to be shed and more premature deaths— a greater destruction, in fine, of human life than the eleven persecutions decreed by the Pagan Emperors o f Rome. I ask you, my lord, in what terms would you speak o f those laws ? Would not the in dignant soul o f a Stanley revolt at their very contentplation ? Would the parsons o f England be Christian parsons i f they gave their cordial support to a code which worked such ruin ? Would they not be worse than the apostate priests o f the cruel Jezabel, i f folding their arms in silence, they looked with cold indifference on their hearers, crushed to powder beneath the wheel* o f this Moloch ? But what would they be, my lord— they, the ministers o f the God o f Mercy, what name would be too bad for them, if, instead o f riding with their suffering people, they raised their voices to applaud the causes and cheer on the authors o f this universal ruin? No matter, my lord, how you or they would feel, we know how those who love their people do feel and have ever felt. W e know how, under similar circumstances, a Moses fell— how a Jeremiah felt, though he merely saw with the eye o f a prophet the bondage and oppression o f his people—we know how a David felt, though he only viewed the misery o f his nation in the distance, when this cry o f wounded nature escaped him • .

“ Remember, O Lord, the children o f Edom, in the day o f Jerusalem.”

Who say : raze it, raze it even to the foundation thereof.

“ O Daughter o f Babylon, miserable ! blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us. . . , ,

W e know how a Matthias felt, when his own beloved Judea was beneath the hoof o f the truculent and relentless Antiochus. We know what the Redeemer felt when he looked on the crowd hungering in the wilderness, when he said, with all the sweetness o f a Saviour who loved man even more than his own life,

“ Misereor super turbam.” and we also, my lord, know the cry that comes from under the altar o f God, even in the region o f light and love and peace— the cry o f the murdered Innocents— “ How lo n g ; O Lord, how l o n g ? ” All this, my lord, and more we know, and i f the Irish Priesthood have anything to answer foa to God, it is the tameness, and the silence, and the patient submission with which most o f them looked upon the wrongs, the ruin o f their country, or for the gentle whispers they used, when their voices should have been as loud as the roar o f the deep, or the crash o f the thunder-storm arousing, awakening the world to humanity, outraged in the persons of their flockp, and thereby shaming their persecutors into mercy. Such, my lord, being our convictions, you cannot expect from us a cordial support o f any system whose evil effects impressed u* with such feelings.

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