It was rumoured in the early part of the week
that Mr. Lowe was going to form another "Cave," but the rumour must have been circulated by some one who does not understand Mr. Lowe. He hates priesthoods as hard as he hates poor voters, and he made a speech against the Establishment which was even for him singu- larly brilliant and effective. After showing that the Church was maintained for a rich 12 per cent, of the population, and oppres- sive to a poor 78 per cent., Mr. Lowe met the Union argument by asking if the way to preserve the Act of Union was to tell Irishmen that under it justice was impossible; and the garrison argu- ment by the retort that, if we were strong enough to do injustice to the majority, we were strong enough to force the minority to do justice ; and the argument from the Coronation Oath by asking whether, if that oath was irremissible by law, revolution was not a necessity ; and the argument from the union between the Eng- lish and Irish Churches by declaring that Government, unlike Mezentius, bound a corpse to a living man in order to keep the living alive. The rest of his speech was a subtly witty analysis of the " zig-zag policy" of Mr. Disraeli, who had reduced our institutions to the condition of Jericho—" the moment the trumpet blows the walls fall down." Mr. Lowe concluded a scath- ing speech upon this point by declaring that the Irish Church was like an exotic scarcely kept alive in an ungenial climate,—" the curse of barrenness is upon it ; it has no leaves ; it bears no blossom ; it yields no fruit. Cut it down. Why cumbereth it the ground?"
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