The Bishop of Carlisle, in a letter to Wednesday's Times,
promises that, " in the event of any one of my clergy tendering to employers advice which appears to me as mischievous as that which has been tendered to the employed, I will write a letter on the subject as full of grief and indignation as that which has already been extracted from me." But we must say that in giving this promise, Dr. Godwin well knows that it is not one of which the performance is at all likely to be exacted. The reason why bad advice has been given to the labourers, is that advice of some kind is urgently wanted. It is certain that thousands, probably scores of thousands, of labourers will find themselves exposed to very serious temptation either to tell a lie, or to vote for their employer's candidate against their con- sciences in order to keep a promise which they had not dared to withhold. It is a practical question and a very urgent one (1) how to save the labourer from the moral danger of this tempta- tion; (2), how to counsel him to meet it, if he cannot be saved from it. But it is not in the least likely that any clergyman will go about advising employers of labour to put on the screw. We maintain that the Bishop who would protect the consciences of the poorer and weaker inhabitants of his diocese, should use his influence, and use it strongly and in good time, with the employers of labour, to warn them of the great sin of leading other men into sin. That would be a very much more effective use of episcopal influence than homilies on the wicked- ness of the advice given by men like Mr. Kennedy.
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