THE GOVERNMENT AND THE IRISH.
TM, extraordinary avowal made by the Government, at so late a moment in the debate of Wednesday afternoon, that, after all, they were prepared to produce an Irish Uni- versity measure to compete with The O'Conor Don's, will be generally regarded rather as indicating how, in their case, as in Hamlet's, "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought," than as a prognostic of a happy result ; and that impression will be deepened by the fact that the introduction of the improvised measure, promised for Thursday, has already been postponed till Monday, no doubt to give the improvising Government time for somewhat less immature deliberations. We should be sorry, however, that the prejudice which will certainly be excited by this hurried and flighty change of purpose, should prevent either Irish Members or the Liberal front bench from accepting any measure which really meets the con- ditions of the case. Of those conditions, the chief, as we understand it, is, that somehow or other the Roman Catholic Colleges in which the greater number of the Catholic youth of Ireland are always likely to be trained during the period of their academic studies, should be enabled to obtain a sufficient portion of State aid to put them on a fair equality with the Queen's Colleges and Trinity College, Dublin. We must keep in mind that, after all, the Roman Catholic grievance is not so much the grievance of not having a University belonging chiefly to themselves, as the grievance of not having the proper revenue to enable the teaching bodies, the colleges which Roman Catholics approve, to compete on equal terms with the colleges which Roman Catholics disapprove, though Protestants approve them. It seems to us, we confess, that The O'Conor Don's Bill satisfied this condition, and satisfied it on a principle quite unobjectionable to candid Protest- ants, indeed entirely unobjectionable to such candid Protest- ants as Mr. Osborne Morgan and Mr. Leatham. But if the Government have got hold of some pet principle of their own, on which they could equally satisfy the same condition, we shall have nothing to object. We earnestly hope that the annoyance given by the see-saw irresolution and resolution of the Government will not prevent either Irish Catholics or English Liberals from accepting,—even gratefully, if it should prove to deserve gratitude,—any pro- posal for putting the higher Catholic education on an equal footing with the higher undenominational education, so far as it teaches the same secular subjects with equal success. But, with- out offering aid to the secular teaching of the Catholic Colleges, —we mean as distinct from the arrangements for conferring Degrees,—no proposal will be satisfactory. Let the Govern- ment offer sufficient aid of this kind, under proper guarantees, and we, at least, will abstain from all cavil as to the oddity of the occasion and manner of the gift. But if the Catholic teaching bodies are not to be allowed to earn sufficient endow- ments by their secular classes to put them on something like equal terms with the existing endowed Colleges of Ireland, the offer will be a mockery, and it will be even difficult for Catholics to think that it has not been a conscious mockery,— a tub thrown out to the whale.
In the meantime, it must be admitted that the procedure of the Government in the matter has not been of a kind to earn much respect from the Irish Members. There has been, as far as we can see, nothing in the discus- sion on The O'Conor Don's measure to justify their pre- cipitate change of attitude ; and a precipitate change of attitude without obvious cause is quite certain to stimulate, rather than to appease, the arrogance of the band of Irish Dreconcilables. During the winter, it was known that the Government were considering this subject. It was even said that they had a measure actually prepared,—a measure drawn very much on the lines of The O'Conor Don's Bill. Suddenly it became known that many of the Conservatives looked with great disgust on this concession to the Irish Catholics, while the Irish hierarchy, it was said, were not inclined to accept with any cordiality the terms offered to them ; hence the Bill was dropped, and in the early part of the Session the Government admitted that they intended to make no pro- posal to the House on the subject. Then came The O'Conor Don's Bill, and the effort made by the Govern- ment to get it fairly discussed ; and then the studied appear- ance of coldness with which they declined to secure a second night for the discussion, and dilated on the blots in the Bill. By thus playing their trout—blowing alternately hot and cold—the Government certainly increased the disposition of the Catholics to accept cordially what otherwise they would hardly have accepted grudgingly ; and if the Government had finally adopted the principle of The O'Conor Don's Bill with certain reserves, instead of rejecting it, we should not have thought their strategy unskilful. But now to begin to move with a Bill of their own,—a Bill which has as yet no tacit sanction from the Catholics,—a Bill for which, at the end of June, everything from the very start has to be done, if it is to pass at all, seems to us a perfect marvel of irresolution. They have gone on like the girl who decides what she will do by counting the petals on a rose,—" I "I won't," "I will," "I won't," "I will ;" nor has there been anything to ex- plain these changes of mood, except the ague-fit of irresolution from which they so often appear to suffer. It cannot even be said that they were determined by the support which was given to The O'Conor Don's Bill from the Liberal Front Bench, for, first, Mr. Lowe made his ad- mirable speech on that Bill before the adjournment for the Recess, without producing any effect on the Government ; and next, it is not The ()Tenor Don's Bill which, even now, they profess to take up, but some different Bill, apparently differing from it in essential principles.
The effects of this shilly-shally of the Government on the Home-rulers are discernible, we fancy, in the unpleasant scene of Thursday night,—in which no one but Lord Hartington appears to have been quite in the right. Whatever the sud- den change of purpose indicated, it was certain that the Home- rulers would regard it as indicating fear ; and there is nothing which provokes aggression so much as signs of fear,—especially when signs of fear are combined, as Mr. Lowther's tone in the House has tended to combine them, with rash and flippant provocation. It was a very un- fortunate thing that Mr. Lowther should have answered Mr. O'Connor Power in the irritating tone he assumed. It was still more unfortunate that when Mr. O'Connor Power, though advised by the Speaker that he was somewhat straining his rights, but yet not exceeding his rights, insisted on moving the adjournment of the House, in order to answer Mr. Lowther, Sir Stafford Northcote should have weakly complied with Mr. Newdegate's foolish invitation to put himself clearly out of order, only that he might menace Mr. O'Connor Power for doing what was not distinctly out of order, though it was on the very verge of order. But what is worst of all, is that such a scene, coming after the curious scene of Wednesday, will produce a very deep impression that the Government is so flighty in its vacillations, so disposed to make unintelligible concessions one day, and irregular menaces the next, that whatever they offer, even if they offer a really good measure, on the Irish University question, will provoke an opposition which will be really given not to the measure itself, but to their air of mingled hesitation and irritation. We say this, not to prejudice the measure, which we still hope to be able to support, but, on the contrary, that by becoming con- scious beforehand of the prejudicial circumstances under which it is sure to be presented to the House of Lords, politicians may be on their guard to look only at its substance, and not to be swayed by the vexations of the past. It will take a good deal of self-command not to read Lord Cairns's statement by the light of a certain disgust at the see-saw between threats and concessions of which the Government have been guilty in relation to Irish affairs. But all this may be, we hope, dismissed from public men's minds, if a bond fide attempt to settle this question is really to be made. It is a question so full of party difficulties, that any one who missed an opportunity of settling it well, with the co-operation of both parties in the State, would miss one of the greatest opportunities of patriotic self-renunciation that his public life had ever offered.
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