Some enterprising young Member of Parliament, who is in want
of a vocation, should ask Lord Enfield, after the Whitsun recess, whether Prince Bismarck's quotation, in a reply to Deputy Windthorst, on the 16th inst., of a passage from a memorandum discussing Irish and English affairs, was taken from any British diplomatist's despatches. The tendency and purport of the me- morandum was to justify, on grounds takenfrom British experience, Prince Bismarck's intolerant legislation against the Catholics of Germany, and especially of Alsace and Lorraine. "The report on Irish relations," said Prince Bismarck, "contains the following :— ' Although the Ultramontanes do not exactly preach insurrection, yet their demeanour is injurious to the welfare of the land. The leaders know very well that an open raising of the standard would lead to no result, except a coniplete defeat of the insurrectionary and Ultramontane party. A reconciliation and pacification of the people suits their plans even less than open insurrection. The organs of the 1J1tramontanes stir the fire, and excite to animosity against the Protestant part of the people,'— this, interposed Prince Bismarck, has been also the ease in Alsace, and still more in the near part of Lorraine,— ' and seek to undermine the respect for the laws and the authority of the magistrates ; and by exhorting to Christian patience, they increase the discontent of the popu- lation, and seek by misrepresentations of the facts to keep the old wounds open. Careless of the welfare of the peopM, they have only the aggrandisement of Rome in their minds, and they seek to make themselves necessary to the Government. They offer help to the Government, which they sell in exchange for favour shown to the Church, and they seek to destroy the people's confidence in law and justice.'" It is well worth while asking whether that is extracted from the despatch of any British diplo- matist. We do not believe it is. But if it is, it would be desir- able to know who is trying to find Prince Bismarck new excuses, drawn from the condition of our Irish affairs, for a disastrous policy which we have long abandoned in Ireland, though some few silly politicians would like to be nibbling at it again. Ac- cording to the Allgenteine Zeitung of the 25th of May, Prince Bis- marck was so excited by the debate in which he thus quoted the -condition of Ireland in defence of his anti-Catholic policy, that his nervous symptoms and sleeplessness had returned upon him with 'some force.
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