THE CONFLICT IN THE SCOTCH CHURCHES.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Mr. Thomas Hodgkin's letter in your last issue might surely have received gentle correction at the bands of "Ed. Spectator." One can appreciate fully the painful position in which the United Free Church is placed by the judgment of the House of Lords without seeking to import national preju- dice into the question. What does Mr. Hodgkin mean by talking in this connection of an "English Parliament" and of " English justice" ? There is no such thing to-day as an "English Parliament," nor, even apart from the fact that one of the Judges, Lord Robertson, who recorded his judgment in the same sense as the majority, was himself a Scotsman, does the highest Appellate Court of the United Kingdom dispense "English justice." Mr. Hodgkin must be aware that there are Scottish Peers, including Law Lords, sitting in the Upper House of the British Parliament, and that Scotland has her own representatives in the Lower House. Both Houses sat for a whole fortnight after the judgment had been delivered. How comes it, therefore, that if a short Suspensory Act was such an obviously necessary measure in the interests of justice as Mr. Hodgkin contends, no serious attempt was made by the Scottish Members of either House to intro- duce, or even to urge the introduction of, a Suspensory Act ? Had the attempt been made and defeated by the opposition of the English Members, Mr. Hodgkin might have had some excuse for inveighing against "English action" or "inaction." In the absence of such an attempt the responsibility for the consequences which rob Mr. Hodgkin of his sleep must at least be shared by those who might properly have been expected to take the initiative of averting them, but did not. I am afraid, therefore, there are many who will fail to see " much of the spirit of Christianity " in Mr. Hodgkin's unjustifiable endeavour to add the fuel of national resentment to the fire of sectarian strife.—I am, Sir, &c., AN ENGLISHMAN.
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