CHAPTER VII.

IRISH POLITICS.

Imperial and National Parties —A New Political Pale- Cardinal Cullen's Claims for Popish Nationality—Ruling Ireland by Irish Ideas.

I

RISH politics seem somewhat confused and com

plicated, but can be easily explained, so far as analysis of Irish representatives to Parliament is concerned.

The first obvious division is into members who are, in their principles and sympathies, British or Imperial, and those who are Irish or National. The great body of the landowners, magistrates, and members of grand juries throughout Ireland, whether Catholic or, Protestant, are associated by education, by family connections, by social ties and political sympathies with English interests, and, however patriotic in personal feeling, they work for Ireland as part of the united empire. The majority of voters, taking the whole of Ireland, have the same British and loyal sympathies, and are opposed to agitations for Repeal or Home Rule, or other schemes for separate nation

ality. As in other parts of the kingdom, there is division into Liberal and Conservative, the Liberals prevailing in Catholic constituencies, the Conservatives in Protestant constituencies.*

The Irish or National party is at present much identified with the Roman Catholic power, but is not necessarily subject to it, and will remain so only while each can gain its ends by combination. As long as the Romish Church can hope to obtain concessions from the Government, it will disclaim sympathy with the Home Rule movement, which is the present cheval de bataille of the national party. If the Government refuses to submit to the dictation of the Romish bishops, the influence of the priests, who are under thorough control of the hierarchy, will be more openly given to the National party.

In the last Galway election this influence was used, and the election was gained by an ecclesiastical terrorism, which revealed the probable result of such power in other parts of Ireland. The power of the landlords, even when Catholic, is weak when in opposition to that of the priests. In other elections, how

* Mr. Robert H. Mair, the Editor of "Debrett," informs me that in the returns received this year from the Irish Members, only five have marked themselves in the schedules as "Home Rulers." These are Butt, Martin, Redmond, Ronayne, and Smyth. The other Home Rule or Nationalist members return themselves under the head of Liberal or of Conservative.

ever, independent National candidates have carried the day, in spite of the opposition both of landlords and priests.

It is a mistake in the Government to show so much deference, and almost servile subjection, to the will of the Romish Church, and to give so little attention to the opinions of the National party, many of whom are disinterested and patriotic, however visionary or mischievous we may consider them to be. The wiser policy would be to conciliate the National party, by considering their alleged grievances, and hearing their proposals, instead of driving them into secret conspiracies, and throwing them into combination with that ultramontane faction whose irreconcileable hatred to England is well known.

There is not a country

in Europe where the Catholic Church would be tolerated in the attitude assumed by the heads of the Romish Church in Ireland. Even in the most Catholic countries they are excluded from the control of education and patronage, and from the political influence which is wielded by Cardinal Cullen and his satellites.

In Anglo-Norman and early English times "the Pale" was a geographical as well as political expression. The condition and privileges of those "within the Pale" were widely different from the state of those "beyond the Pale." But when English life

and law and language spread over Ireland, the local meaning of the word was lost. Long before that time, the ancient characteristics of the two divisions of the island had been worn out. In fact, there had been in some things strange reversal of earlier distinctions. The Irish beyond the Pale had long resisted the rule of Rome, and maintained something of the independence of the ancient Irish Church. The Catholics of the Pale were intensely Papal. Afterwards they became Protestant, while the Church of Rome has no more abject adherents than the once independent Irish beyond the Pale. The English who came over, either at the first conquest or in after settlements, always sooner or later became racy of the soil, Hibernis Hiberniores, and but for the religious division perpetuated by the penal laws, the old differences of foreign and native were matters of tradition and history.

I find in Ireland of to-day a duality as marked as in the days of the Pale, only now without any local limits, and wholly social and political. Before the law all are equal, yet this division remains. It is not the division of Protestant and Catholic, or of Celt and Saxon, or of English and Irish speaking. These differences exist, but none of them are coterminous with the division to which I allude. Most of the Irish beyond this modern political pale are Catholic,

but not all, nor necessarily any, although Cardinal Cullen wishes us to think that "Irish nationality" and "the Church of Rome" are the same.

"Can he forget that the nationality of Ireland means simply the Catholic Church?" Thus Cardinal Cullen wrote, in his anger against Judge Keogh, because that Catholic layman resists the subjugation of civil rights to ecclesiastical supremacy. In former times

it was the policy of Rome to ally itself with despotic kings and governments, in order to obtain the help of the civil power to suppress freedom of thought and liberal opinions. In those nations where despotic power still prevails, happily they are few, the alliance of civil and ecclesiastical authority is sought.

If in France, for instance, it was possible to have a Bourbon restoration, the ecclesiastical influence would reappear, and make itself felt in education and in social life, as it did in the time of Charles X. But in countries under constitutional government, and with free institutions, the policy of Rome is to seek alliance with democracy, and to try to appear as in the van of popular opinion. This is what is going on in Ireland. It would not do openly to espouse the cause of Fenianism or Home Rule, because a fair face must be kept towards the British Government, as long as it can be coerced or cajoled into further concessions and boons. But meanwhile