The Roman Catholics are, perhaps not unnaturally, angry at Mr.
Monsell's being again passed over to put Mr. Stansfeld into the Cabinet. The Tablet of yesterday, in a rather bitter article, says that Mr. Monsell was at the head of a great depart- ment five years before Mr. Stansfeld entered Parliament, namely, the Ordnance during the Crimean war. As regards bringing to the Government the strength of popular satisfac- tion, Mr. Monsell's appointment would no doubt have con- ciliated Ireland and all Roman Catholics, while Mr. Stansfeld conciliates the North, Yorkshire and Lancashire, which are not, however, without .other representatives, for in- stance, the Prime Minister himself. We do not deny the wisdom of putting an Irishman and a Roman Catholic into the Cabinet ; but that is no reason why the Tablet should unjustly depreciate Mr. Stansfeld, and decry him as the friend of a man who counselled and suborned political assassination. Signor Mazzini did no doubt in his early youth lay himself open, if not to that charge, to the charge of at least favouring, and not resist- ing it ; but how is it that Roman Catholics, who can always find an apology for the bloody propagandism of the past, fail to re- cognize that such propagandism is often the mistake or sin of really noble natures ? Certainly, as far as we know, nobody who ever knew Mazzini denied him a noble nature, and what is friend- ship worth that is scared away by the friend's commission of a former error or sin? It is hardly generous of our contemporary to run down Mr. Stansfeld, who represents, if any man ever did, sympathy with the highest phases of European republicanism, for this really noble friendship. Mr. Monsell's claims may be great. But assuredly Mr. Stansfeld's are not barred by his unwavering friendship for Mazzini.
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