THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE PAPACY.
THEIR political skill, which has often been considerable; appears just now to be deserting both the English and Irish Catholics. Nothing—apart altogether from the merits of the case—could be more imprudent than the manner in which they are trying to force the British Government into an interference on behalf of the Temporal Power. They are making this interference their test of candidates' fidelity in Ireland, and so are helping the Nationalists to seat their men, the Protestants and the gentry declining to exert themselves for a candidate who, like Mr. Plunket, accepts under coercion so extreme a pledge ; and in England they are writing in a style
which will, if they are not more careful, evoke the old Protestant rancour against their political pretensions. Englishmen are as jealous of the Pope as a " foreign power " as they are of him as Pontiff, and for Catholics, barely a fifth of the whole population, to talk, as the Tablet does, of imposing their "will" on the Premier, that " will " being an armed intervention to secure restoration which four-fifths of the community would pay income-tax to prevent, is, to say the least of it, unwise. Such expressions reveal that curious ignorance of comparative poli- tical forces which has for some years past distinguished the governing men of Rome, which made them believe that Austria could defeat France and France defeat Prussia, and which every now and then tempts them in some access of passion to risk the loss of half the advantages they would otherwise obtain from the increasing fairness of English theological opinion. They do not seem to see that even if the Govern- ment were inclined to interfere for the Pope, it would be utterly powerless to execute its will ; that the first hint of any such plan would break the strongest Ministry in pieces ; that, to be brief, in a free State the strong opinion of four- fifths of the electors must and will overcome the strong opinion of the remaining one-fifth. Even as it is, Mr. Gladstone's letter to Mr. Dease, in which he expressed an idea—once universal among statesmen—that the spiritual in- dependence of the Pope was of importance to the British as to every other Government with Catholic subjects, has irri- tated all English Evangelicals, and is producing most annoying political results in Scotland, and a step farther in that direc- tion would cost the Premier half his power. Catholics appear unable to see that in States of many creeds the Government, if it desires perfect religious toleration, is always compelled to purchase it by rigidly abstaining from an appearance of
favouring the minority ; that an effective use of Catholic votes to secure a purely Catholic end would be met by a shout from
the majority that Catholics should not have votes at all, that by their unwise blaster they are making a most complex and difficult position absolutely untenable.
The position is complicated to the last degree. It is not only the policy, but the duty of British statesmen to keep their foreign action fairly in accord with the sentiment of the
majority of the population. They have not the power, even if they had the will, to act as Count Bismarck under similar cir- cumstances might act, and say " This is the wiser line of action, and I shall pursue it, whether the people like it or not." They must keep in harmony with their supporters, and of those sup- porters in the Commons, 300 out of 350 are opposed to inter- ference on behalf of the Temporal Power, most of them strongly opposed, quite as strongly opposed as the Catholics are favour- able,—many ideas bad and good, religious hatreds, liberal con- victions, dislike of wars, horror of priestly government, the deep and almost enthusiastic regard for Italy converging to strengthen their approval of the annexation of Rome. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that one-fifth of their supporters, the Catholic Irish Members, and perhaps one-third of the people throughout the United Kingdom who elect Liberals, are desirous to abrogate that annexation, so desirous that they would post- pone every other end to gain that one. We say there is reason to believe, for, as the Tablet should remember, the unity of Catholics on the point is by no means clear, the election for Meath, for example, clearly showing that in that county the masses care more for a certain secular end than for a semi- spiritual one. But granting the Catholics their own case, which opinion among their followers is an elective Government to accept, that which will cost them one-third of their votes, or that which will cost them two-thirds, and cost them without conciliating the one-third ? For it should be remembered that alliance between the Tories and the Catholics on this point is impossible, that no conceivable concession from the Ministry could have the least effect, that the seceding Liberals would on this point be supported not merely by their party, but by the whole of the opponents who habitually resist them. Even if it is true, which is not proved, that all Ireland sympathzes with the Tablet, Ireland is but one of the Three Kingdoms, and is, in any calculation of political forces, hopelessly outweighed. The Tablet will say that the Catholics in England are numerous and might hold the balance of electoral power, but the asser- tion is unfounded. The faintest notion that any such power was being exerted in such a way would make a pledge to resist interference the sine qud non of an English election, and it would be taken by both sides.
We have argued this question as Mr. Glyn might argue it, on party grounds alone, for we deplore the political incapacity of Ultramontanism as a misfortune to the Empire, which will never arrive at religious justice while one sect persists in irritating all other sects into unjust repression. There ought to be a Catholic in the Cabinet, but how is it possible to put one there while four-fifths of the electors are taught by Catholics to suspect that he will use his influ- ence therein to promote purposes which those four- fifths not only disapprove, but think actually treacherous ? But upon the higher ground of national well-being, which we have hitherto avoided, we regard the latest Catholic cry as entirely baseless. Every nation must obey the law of its existence, and the law of ours is that a people has a right to choose its own form of government. The Romans, according to Catholic opinion, are a people ; and if they are, they have a right to make a successful revolt, and call in allies too to help them. Nothing can over-ride that right except that will of Heaven in which fervent Catholics at heart believe, but which neither is nor can be a controlling reason with a Protestant or even a semi-Protestant power. It would be well for Catholicism, well, it may be, for the world, that the Pope should be sovereign ; but then his sovereignty must be over some place which accepts him, for even the world has no complete right to force him upon the Romans.
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