ARBITRARY USES OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE.
Satia communications as the two letters which we publish today, calling in question our remarks on the " Voluntary principle " in the financial arrangements for religious communities,* are wel- come testimonials of the character for plainness and frankness which we endeavour to earn. Their own ingenuous earnestness, the sincerity and ability with which the writers put-forth their :views, we regard as the best help towards true discussion ; and it would be an incalculable benefit to public writers if they had no .more disheartening difficulties to encounter in the pursuit of truth than differences of opinion with readers of such a temper. For it is to be borne in mind, that besides overt discussion, the writers of a journal can only perform half its work : the other half lies with its readers.
We are told that the endowment of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland would "violate freedom of conscience," for that " religious belief is a matter wholly between man and his Maker, with which no Government has any moral right to inter- -fere." Our readers will bear witness that we have recommended ..no interference with "religious belief," or with belief of any kind : ,what we have discussed related to no interference with belief of _any kind, but was simply a matter of payments. We do notcall upon any one to believe, but merely topay. We .do not even advise any one to pay over to an alien faith . but, presuming that every citizen pays his quota according. to his means, without any reference whatever to his belief, we have discussed a question of state policy in regard to one branch of state outlay. We have not gone into the theological question. We decline to go into it. We do not think it necessary. We entirely agree with our correspondents, that it is purely a matter of individual convic- tion and conscience ; and we think that all purposes of, polity, in that regard, will be answered when the complete and true Voluntary principle is universally recognized ; which certainly is aot the ease at present, even among those who most commonly -izse the term.
We repeat, we do not discuss what the individual ought to believe ; we do not discuss the particular purposes to . -which the individual may appropriate his own money ; neither __ of those questions is on the carpet. That which we are discus- ; -sing is simply a money question, and one concerning the appro- , ,priation not of individual money but state money. The indi- vidual cannot arrogate to himself aright to adjudge on its merits every state payment. Were such a right recognized, there could
• ." Ream for Irehmin—flpeoiator, February 6.
in fact be no combination, no government. There is not a single branch of state outlay, and therefore of state action, which would not be vetoed by some one : an army, a monarchy, a house of lords, a popular representation, customs, excise, national edu- cation, municipalities, colonies—every item in the list of the ele- ments of our state has its objectors, and might be forbidden by this peculiar right of private judgment—the right of private and separate judgment to prohibit public agreement and aggregate action. Such a right is counter to civilization; it is incompatible with social government. The question whether the state shall or shall not* a thiagranuit of necessity be determined by the majority of votes, or by the pre- ponderant influence in the state, which must also be directly or indirectly supported by the majority: There is no appeal from that major power except to its own conscience. Its clear duties are, to consult, according to its own convictions, the good of all ; to enforce nothing. on the minority that is not necessary for the safety of the majority ; to prevent nothing wished by the minority but what is contra bonos mores, or inimical to state convenience,. to attempt nothing which in its nature cannot be enforced. The degree in which the majority understands its duties will be deter- mined by the degree of intellectual cultivation in the people com- posing that majority. It is reminded of its duties by free discus- sion. But the majority, partaking of the character prevalent among the individuals composing it, is apt to be most arbitrary on subjects which it feels to be important, but of which it has the least knowledge or least distinct conclusions ; and it is precisely on such subjects that it is apt to forbid discussion. In despotic countries, where a consentaneous inquiry into political institutions is most needed, it is most prohibited ; in countries most oppressed by voluntarily endured oppression of ecclesiastical institutions, sub- jects of ecclesiastical polity. are tabooed; and where moral or re- ligious questions press with the greatest gravity on unsettled opinion, there society unites to suppress discussion on those points. There are such questions in England; and people who desire true "freedom of conscience" will seek to impart absolute freedom to discussion—the sole engine by which the minority or the individual can act upon the majority. We assert the fullest freedom of all belief—therefore worship must be free. In fact, it always is so, except in so far as it is fettered by the weaknesses and shortcomings of individual cha- racter. Belief is conceived and shaped and brought into exist- ence before the state can interfere. The attempt at interference violates the canon which we have laid down above, that the ma- jority should never attempt impossibility ; a truism, so often, so perpetually violated, that it is no longer a mere truism. There is no state in existence that is not continually striving to enforce things in their nature spontaneous—belief among the number, Compelled joining in worship, religious tests and disqualifications, are all of that nature.
But when a belief or conviction is once formed and enunciated —when any number of people have expressed concurrence in that belief—when they set themselves to provide a staff of public ser- vants for ministering to that belief—then it becomes a question of state policy whether those servants shall be paid in a particular manner, through the state or by private contributions. There may be reasons against state payments. The section of the people whose ministry is in question may not be sufficiently im- portant or numerous to invoke the recognition of the state or its interference in making the arrangements. If the section is a majority, and that majority is universally agreed .upon the pro- posed arrangement;it almost follows that the state—which is the organized instrument for fulfilling the behests of its creator the majority—must interfere on qfficzo. It must interfere, not to create the belief or conviction, but as the servant of the majority to carry out the arrangement of ministration. Inaauch a state of matters, it will be impossible to prevent the majority from doing all this, except, as we said before, by calling m the aid of an alien and conquering power. What is there of a " volunta7" nature in such compulsion? On the other hand, the intervention is not only a tyranny—a gross violation of freedom of conscience —but it is a gross violation of state wisdom ; since ,a people can only be governed, consistently with freedom, through the aspira- tions and wishes of its majority. There maybe individuals and minorities who object to the specific ecclesiastical purposes for which such payments are destined ; but they have neither the right nor the power to resist. A waiving of individual action—not of individual belief—is necessary to the existence of government : each contributes to the state according to his means : what is done with the funds thus collected is determined by the state ; and thepayment of. he proceeds to any purpose whatever acts as no coercion on any in- dividual conscience. It has nothing to do with it.
To take an illustration or two. A is a member of the Church of England : he contributes to the Imperial taxes : he lives in an empire so vast that the Metropolitan Church is a very small minority of the whole : the Imperial State finds it politic, wise, and just, to lend its machinery and funds for the use of divers other sections of the- empire not belonging to the Church of England : but that use of the State funds in no respect coerces A's conscience, or interferes with his faith according to his conviction and the formula of the church to which he ad- heres. It is not to be presumed that Lord Grey's being instru mental in allowing a grant to the Roman Catholic Church in Canada shakes A's Anglican faith ; or that, his pocket and his conscience being the same thing, the taxgatherer has equal access
to both and robs both equally. Again, B is an Unitarian in a kingdom where the majority are Trinitarians according to the Church of England : the State pays for Trinitarian fanes, and B
pays taxes : it does not follow that B is to be regarded as paying or Trinitarian fanes ; he pays to support a government—the Trinitarian leaning is the inevitable result of the Trinitarian pre- ponderancy in the state. In fact, if ministers of religion are to be paid at all, it is a mat- ter of choice whether the payment shall pass through the hands of public officers or not. All sects might very fairly claim such a convenience, if the practice were universal.
Those who object to particular doctrines have a very clear course of action. They must attack belief on its own ground— individual conviction. " If," asks one of our correspondents, " I consent to establish a Church and State in Ireland, how can I demand separation of Church and State in England?" You do not consent ; you only insist on equal rights all round. You object to state payments: you can always argue against them on abstract grounds ; and you will succeed in discontinuing them when you have convinced the majority of the people that they are bad.
Such are the abstract arguments. Statesmen may be guided by abstract principles, and their conduct should in the main har- monize with them ; but they must apply them with more or less nicety according to the actual circumstances. Practical states- men must act upon and through the social elements that exist.
Now we are talking of Ireland. The Irish nation, excluding a minority, is a Roman Catholic people. To a Roman Catholic faith, an established, impersonated, visible, and authorized church, is an essential requirement. The Roman Catholic nation of Ire- land desires such a church—wishes it—" sic milt"; and unless the term " voluntary " be quite twisted from its meaning, the ex- istence of such a church in Ireland is not only compatible with the Voluntary principle, but imperatively demanded by it. Ire- land in fact has maintained such a church—a church imperson- ated, visible, authorized by the obedience of its subjects. Pro- testant England first despoiled this Church, taking away all its property, and then tried to suppress it, by the most tyrannical and oppressive enactments—making the Catholic a slave, and a proscribed outlaw debarred from the free use of property, from the free teaching of his children, from the free ex- ercise of his faith. Ireland has by turns groaned under the oppression, and struggled—entreated, and rebelled—bled, and inflicted bloodshed : since Cromwell introduced his armed " saints," since William earned his "immortal and pious me- mory," Ireland has been a region of perpetual turbulence, con- spiracy, incendiarism, and murder. Through it all, the dhurch of Ireland survives, impersonated, visible, authorized, as the people will that it should be. The secular State refuses to recog- mze the Church : the department of state which exists by the voluntary decree of the people, the Church, is repudiated by the de facto Government: authority is divided and weakened. By such conduct the civil power keeps a part of the State authority, great part of the reverence due to the State, the great influence
over the people, on that side which is opp_oseg jp_ogdar, •
--- Rol/rare Cilar cfi oY Freffintf has-no inherent sympathy
with turbulence, ' with lawlessness, or with a bad social system ; but the English Government insists that the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland shall continue to dwell among the lawless, to depend upon them for existence, and to own an identity of worldly interest with them. It is not by the Voluntary principle, but by compulsion, that the Roman Catholic people of Ireland are grow- ing reconciled to an unendowed church ; it is not by any volun- tary principle, but by compulsion, that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is a revolutionary body—for in the view of the British Government Repeal of the Union is revolution. Is this a spectacle that English Voluntaries would perpetuate ? is it conducive to real "liberty of conscience," or the progress of rational freedom ?
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