has been even more distinctly stated in private than in public life. It is to the more extreme section that he must appeal; to those whose support must first be purchased, or must eventually be paid for, by Disestablishment. The leaders of the party may repudiate that issue; but this candidature will inevitably force them into it. And the history of Scotch politics in Church and State should teach us what Disestablishment will mean.

There are other questions, of which we hear much at each new election in Scotland, but which, compared with the ecclesiastical feuds, are of very minor weight. The first of these is the question of the Game Laws. In a few counties it creates considerable bitterness between landlord and tenant, and it has long been a safe subsidiary cry for the Liberal party. But it was too useful for the hustings, to be rashly shelved by a reform; and Liberals denounced it so vigorously in theory, and adhered to it so tenaciously in practice, that it is a by-word at many a farmer's meeting that 'Liberal hares eat no turnips.' It was left for the Conservative party to attempt a remedy in a recent session. It may prove efficacious or not, but it is at least better than the indifference of successive Liberal administrations. There is the old question of entail and primogeniture, both mitigated in their operation, and against which no large party are prepared to act in Scotland; whose evil consequences not even the extremest Radicals are prepared to prove by statistics. There is the historic and esoteric question of hypothec, whose obsequies might have been performed this session under the auspices of a Conservative Government, had it not been for the latest outbreaks of the obstructive faction. Finally there is the question of county administration; and of this it may be enough to say, that the last vestige of a grievance was done away with by an Act, which provided for the administration of the highways by boards, in which the popular element is strongly represented.

With these the short list of purely local questions in Scotland is closed. None of them is of sufficient importance to turn the balance either way, nor is the redress of any one of them the exclusive possession of either party. They are all overshadowed by the larger issue which turns upon ecclesiastical bias. Our hopes for Scotland rest upon the triumph of that principle, which aims at moderation in ecclesiasticism and its entire separation from secular politics, as opposed to the perfervid zeal which would subject all thought, all interests, all sentiments to the blind fury of contending sects-which now does what it can to make the pulpit a political platform and politics an arena for fanaticism.

ART.

ART. IX.-1. The Irish University Bill introduced in the House of Commons by the O'Conor Don, 1879.

2. The Irish University Bill introduced in the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, 1879.

3. Mixed Essays. By Matthew Arnold. London, 1879.

HE Government have brought in a Bill for the foundation

of a new University in Ireland, and it is the duty of all of us, Irishmen as well as Englishmen, laying aside as far as possible our local and religious preferences, to consider how far the proposed measure is a statesmanlike attempt to overcome a difficulty which has so long been a stumbling-block to English

statesmen.

Ireland is the country of extremes, and the history of its government might unfortunately, without much exaggeration, be summed up in two words, Repression and Concession. With the mode of government by repression history has made us only too familiar. It is impossible for the keenest partisan to clear English rapacity and Protestant ascendency of all the guilt which the melancholy annals of Ireland lay at their door. We do not seek to enter on their defence. But Irishmen themselves must, as a race, be prepared to bear a large portion of the responsibility for the misfortunes of their country. Intestine divisions in the nation have been the main secret of English ascendency, from the days of Dermot to the days of the Whiteboys. Nor can it be said that the policy of stern repression has been unproductive of benefit to Ireland. Henry II. freed Church property from the exactions of the chiefs; Strafford maintained order, distributed justice, restored finance, and founded the linen trade; Cromwell, in spite of his cruelties and confiscations, largely increased the internal prosperity of the island; in our own days many improvements have been effected under the sinister influence of coercion Bills. If there has been despotism in the governors, there has been first anarchy among the governed; the frequent appearances of absolutism have not been unaccompanied by benevolence.

As much cannot be said for the policy of government by Concession. The old-fashioned rule of force was a method adopted for simple reasons of expediency. Government by concession has a nobler and more heroic appearance. It springs from the conscience of the people. It is a penance performed by the children for sins in which they had themselves no part, but which they hold themselves bound to expiate on behalf of their fathers. It has therefore a generous origin, but it leads to bad consequences. For however elevated may be the moral motives Vol. 148.-No. 295.

U

of

of the statesmen who resort to it, it is seldom adopted except under the immediate compulsion of physical force. Those who extort the concession are encouraged afterwards to ask for what it is impossible to grant, and consequently they conclude that they have been deceived. Government by concession is the natural product of party government. It is true that Catholic Emancipation was a measure of political necessity, which neither Whigs nor Tories could have postponed. But it was passed under pressure from the Catholic Association, and it broke up the compact ranks of the Tory party. The Whigs, succeeding to the Tory inheritance, were unable to maintain their ground without the aid of O'Connell, and acted under his dictation. O'Connell, led on to move for Repeal, was soon made aware of his miscalculations, while the Whigs, after suffering yearly defeats on the Appropriation Clause, which they had brought forward at the instance of their despotic ally, were obliged to be ultimately content with a measure which they had derided when introduced by their traditional opponents. The experience of our own generation is even more instructive. The Land Act of the late Liberal Government was, to a certain extent, a concession to the Fenian agitators; it has been followed by the demand for reduction of rent and fixity of tenure. The Disestablishment of the Irish Church was a sacrifice to the 'principles' of the philosophical Radicals, combined with the requirements of the Roman Catholic priesthood. And the reward which Mr. Gladstone received for his concessions was the defeat of his Irish University Bill.

We do not think that Ireland should be governed by repression or concession, but by justice. By justice, however, we do not mean what is just in the abstract, but what is just under the circumstances. Justice for Ireland' was the principle which gave an heroic colour to a policy which we must continue to think essentially unjust both to the interests which it destroyed and to those which it was intended to promote. The justice which we advocate is not founded on sentiment. We do not expect-to use James the First's phrase-'the kingdom of Ireland to be like the Kingdom of Heaven.' It was won by force, retained by force, and, like every other human institution, requires a certain amount of force to govern it. However much England may deplore the disaffection to her rule which centuries of misgovernment have produced in the mind of the Irish people, she is not so weak as to think of restoring Ireland to the Irish by way of reparation. She knows that a separate Irish monarchy is out of the question. She understands that the establishment of an Irish Republic would be a standing menace to her own

security,

security, and she still remembers the attempted invasion of Hoche. To withdraw her controlling influence, and to leave Ireland as an independent federation with a separate Legislature, would, in the judgment of all statesmen, be the signal for a bloody civil war. These things cannot be. Nor can there be any State interference with individual rights under pretext of redressing national wrongs. It cannot be just to interfere with any property, however acquired, which is secured to its owner by full prescriptive right, or to lay hands on any endowment, whencesoever it be derived, which is being employed honestly and intelligently for any portion of the population.

But with these reserves we recognize the duty imposed upon England by the Act of Union to develop in the most generous spirit all the moral, intellectual, and social resources of the country; to conciliate, if possible, the affections of a race so powerful in its fascination, and to endeavour to transform Ireland into a happy and loyal member of the British Empire. We believe this to be the prevailing disposition of the English people. The Government have shown that they are not behindhand in their desire to improve the state of Irish affairs. Though their attention has been fully occupied with difficulties abroad, they found time last year to pass the Intermediate Education Act for Ireland, a measure which has been received with unqualified satisfaction in that country. The Lord Chancellor informed the House of Lords that the Government had intended to postpone legislation on the University Question until they had seen the working of this Act; but the introduction of the Bill of the O'Conor Don, the provisions of which they found themselves unable to accept, forced them to precipitate their action. With the merits of their Bill we shall deal presently. Meantime we must be allowed to claim for this 'Review' the merit of constancy to those principles which we believe the authors of the Union intended to promote. In 1845, the year of the foundation of the Queen's Colleges and the augmentation of the grant to Maynooth, the payment of the Catholic priesthood was earnestly advocated in the "Quarterly Review. In 1868, while the Irish Church, the Regium Donum, and Maynooth, were still standing, while the balance was yet trembling between Disestablishment and Concurrent Endowment, we entered a protest on behalf of those principles of Pitt and Castlereagh which were afterwards applied by Peel. In 1868 Concurrent Endowment, if parties could only have acted together, might have been practicable: it was certainly expedient. But in 1869 a Liberal Parliament resolved on Disestablishment and Disendowment. And now,

in 1879, we hear from various Liberal quarters proposals for the endowment of a Catholic University. We have the Bill of the O'Conor Don. We have the views of practical Liberalism on the O'Conor Don's proposals in the shape of a speech from Mr. Forster. And we have also the views of ideal Liberalism on the general question in the volume of Mixed Essays' recently published by Mr. Matthew Arnold. Let us see then how Liberals regard this matter in its relation of justice to Ireland.

We will begin with Mr. Arnold. We never fail to find instruction in Mr. Arnold's writings. The composure and serenity of his style is a lesson in itself. He himself believes that his mission is to instruct the public. He always writes as if he had been an eyewitness of Creation, and had been fortunately spared to report to a late and very ill-informed generation the original designs of Providence. We cannot help thinking that this is a delusion much of the same kind as that which led George IV. to suppose that he was present at the battle of Waterloo. But it is in Mr. Arnold's mind a conviction which time only serves to strengthen, as any one may see who compares the style of his essay on 'Democracy,' written twenty years ago, with that of his paper on British Liberalism and Irish Catholicism,' on which we now propose to offer a few remarks. We ask our readers to observe the point of intellectual assurance at which Mr. Arnold has arrived :

'If,' says he, addressing advanced Liberals, it should seem out of place to cite the example of a set of antiquated Jewish religionists, let me quote the words of a blameless Liberal, Condorcet, who assures us that "the natural order of things tends to bring general opinion more and more into conformity with truth." "L'ordre naturel tend à rendre l'opinion générale de plus en plus conforme à la vérité." And the politician who would be of real service must manage, Condorcet says, to get at this vérité, this truth. "Connaître la vérité pour y conformer l'ordre de la société, telle est l'unique source du bonheur public."'

It is surely highly important that we should learn from one who has perceived the absolute truth of things what policy we ought to pursue in unravelling the tangled web of Irish discontent.

Mr. Arnold's view of the situation is almost sublimely simple. The majority of the Irish people, says he, desire facilities for obtaining a University education. They will not go to Trinity College, Dublin, for this education, because, though Trinity is now an unsectarian institution, it has an atmosphere of the Protestant religion. They will not enter the Queen's Colleges, for

these