550 A 'NEW' DISABILITY BOOK IV. LA.D. 1891 ment, chiefly of Roman Catholics, responsible to that Parliament; and then we shall have a Lord-Lieutenant, qualified beforehand by this bill to be a Roman Catholic.' And this is 'the language in which the Right Honourable gentleman speaks,' and has never withdrawn it, 'of those who may be selected for this important Office: "A convert, in case of any conflict betwixt the Queen and the Pope, will follow the Pope, and let the Queen shift for herself."'1 Finally, Mr. Smith held that this bill was 'the setting up of a new scheme of Disability,-declaring at one moment that a Roman Catholic lawyer was to be fully capable of discharging the duties of Lord Chancellor; and the next moment cutting off from him a very large proportion of the most important duties which devolved upon him,'-referring, of course, to the provisoes in the bill for the exercise of Ecclesiastical functions by others, while the Office happened to be in the hands of a Roman Catholic. He moved that the bill be read that day six months.'2 There were naturally, the too familiar 'disavowals of any desire to hinder or weaken Protestant interests,' which the advocates of all Concessions so freely indulge in,-forgetting that it is not their desire or intention that is challenged, but the desires and intentions of those to whom the surrender is made. The historical facts are beyond any dispute-they know how to utilise every concession, whatever motives others may have fondly cherished in promoting the same. Sir Henry James was no doubt genuine and sincere in protesting 'that he would have been found opposing the bill that afternoon, if he thought that it would add one iota of strength to the Roman Church as a political body, or that it would injure the Protestant power of this country in the slightest degree.' But no protesting, however honest, can alter the certainty that every such concession has been so 1 Hansard's P. D. (third series), vol. ccxlix. p. 1758. CHAP. VII. NO STANDING-GROUND 551 manipulated as to add very perceptibly, and sometimes enormously, to the strength of the Roman Church as a political body; and as surely has weakened and perplexed the position and action of this Protestant country. It is an idle dream to go on surrendering, and to expect any other result. Before the vote was taken, Mr. Campbell Bannerman sensibly interjected that whether Sir John D. Coleridge's dictum was good in technical law, yet it was necessary to legislate expressly-' for Parliament did not know that such would be the effect of what it was doing in 1863 and in 1867; and if the disqualification had been thereby abolished, it had been done without the cognisance and intention of Parliament.'1 But the Ayes were 224, and the Noes 256-so the bill was cast out by a majority of 32. It cannot, however, be pretended that there was any assurance for the future in the line of argument adopted,— that the high Constitutional Principles at stake were relied on for the defence, or that any disposition was shown on either side to regard the question as anything else than a mere matter of Political Expediency. The proposal was 'most unfortunate and inopportune.' Nay, further, on the line adopted, whensoever the question of admission of Roman Catholics to these Offices is again reopened, and it may be conceded-for standing-ground there is none among Opportunist Politicians-it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to refuse, for similar reasons, the admission of Roman Catholics to the Throne. There is, nevertheless, an impregnable line of defence. It is found in the Constitutional enactments of the Protestant Revolution. And those who are called upon to take part in that last 'Struggle for Supremacy,' which must inevitably ensue from the accession of Popery to the Throne, will need 1 Hansard's P. D. (third series), vol. ccxlix. p. 1797. 2 Ibid. p. 1759. 552 'HOME RULE' BOOK IV. to leave the shifting Policies that have prevailed since and at 1829, and plant their feet once more on the immovable rocks in the Bill of Rights. SECTION XIV The Great and Final Issues MANY themes still clamour to be considered, and themes of high historical import. They would require volumes to set them forth, and we regret to pass them by. Though not so directly related to our subject, they yet bear upon it at every turn, and would freshly illustrate and enforce all the lessons of this History. The story of MAYNOOTH, till it was finally packed off with a vast Endowment out of National Funds; the story of the NUNNERIES, and the baffling of all Parliamentary efforts to take their inmates from underneath 'Pope's law,' and place them under 'Queen's law'-these indicate only two of the many fields that might be fully explored in the Journals of the Nation. But we must here regard our theme proper as complete, and allow it to tell its own tale, and write its own lessons on the mind and heart of Posterity. Enough that we should now indicate, ere parting from our readers, the GREAT ISSUES that are coming to the front in this last decade of the Century, and how closely this History bears on the solution of these Imperial problems. At a banquet, on 15th July 1891, the Prime Minister, the Marquis of Salisbury, calling attention to the Carlow and other Elections in Ireland, maintained that these revealed to us the real springs of action, the real forces which were guiding the Movement for Home Rule.'1 What, at the beginning of that Parliament,' was an Agrarian Speculation, had now become a Clerical Conspiracy.' But he felt certain of this, ‘that the more the events developed themselves, the CHAP. VII. 391-92] THE GENERAL ELECTION - 553 more the real machinery was brought into light, and the lineaments of our opponents betrayed to us, the more certainly, though slowly, would the feelings of the People of this Island be awakened, and respond to their own traditions and responsibilities which they have always acknowledged.' He argued that those who struggled against Home Rule had in their favour two currents of feeling, which have always worked more powerfully than any others upon the English (ie. British) people; and whatever the vicissitudes of the passing Political battle may be, they may be confident that these currents of feeling will lead them to ultimate victory. They have that fidelity which we owe to our Protestant brethren, whom we induced to assume a position of danger, and risk their lives and fortunes for the benefit and the sustenance of this country: and they have that feeling in favour of the integrity and the Imperial Ascendency and Position of this Empire, which has grown with every decade in the immediate past, and of which the force is by no means spent!' Again, on the eve of the General Election, Parliamentthe Twenty-Fourth of the United Kingdom, which assembled on 6th June 1886, and was 'prorogued and dissolved' on 28th June 1892,―went to the country, with a Manifesto from the Prime Minister ringing in the ears of the Constituencies, -an 'exceptional' appeal on what he regarded as an exceptional crisis in our history. He declared the issue of Home Rule to be that a large portion of the Irish people were threatened in effect with separation from Great Britain,'—that it implied 'the subjection of their Property, their Industry, their Religion, their Lives, to the absolute mastery of their ancient and unchanging enemies;' that it was 'the abandonment of the Loyalists of Ireland, and especially of the Protestants of Ulster, to the unrestrained and absolute power of those with whom they have been in conflict for centuries,— of the men, and the followers of the men, whose crimes have been denounced before the whole world by the judgment of 554 AN APPEAL' FROM IRELAND BOOK IV. LA.D. 1892 impartial judges sitting in the Special Commission ;'—and prayed 'that they might be guided to shrink from this great outrage on liberty, on gratitude, and on good faith.' But, by some, all these things will be discounted as only the play of Politicians! And, as this work shows, there is too much cause for the sneer. The Roman Catholic vote has been bargained for more than once by all the great Political Parties. Therefore, we bring on the scene other witnesses, and listen to them for a moment ere we close our record. The Non-Episcopal Churches in Ireland-Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational, 'representing 6044 ministers, elders, deacons, stewards, and other officers and members'-issued a MANIFESTO to the 'Nonconformists of England, Scotland, and Wales,' entitled an Appeal from their brethren in Ireland.' They declared 'that the whole body of Irish Protestants were practically unanimous in their desire to continue to be governed with their British brethren, by the Imperial Parliament; and dreaded and deprecated the being placed, in any respect, under the power of a separate Irish Parliament.' · They affirmed their belief that no guarantees, moral or material, can be devised, which will guard the Rights of the Protestant minorities, that are scattered throughout Ireland, against the encroachments of a Roman Catholic majority, endowed with Legislative and Executive powers, and directed and governed by their Clergy;' and that history, as well as experience, in this and in other lands, assured them of this.' They felt, accordingly, 'that the proposal to give Ireland Home Rule most seriously threatened their Religious Liberties, which would in numberless ways be imperilled under an Irish National Parliament, the majority in which would be elected on the nomination of the Roman Catholic Priests.' And they implored 'their Nonconformist brethren, as |