1878. The Irish CHAPTER IX THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION MR. GLADSTONE had come into office at the end of the year 1868 with a solemn conviction that it was his highest duty to pacify Ireland. Besides the release of political prisoners, accomplished before the close of 1870, against which might be set by Irishmen the Westmeath Act and the Peace Preservation Act, his methods of accomplishing this end were three. Two had been tried. That great symbol of Protestant ascendency, the Irish Church, was, as an Establishment, no more. The partnership of the Irish tenant in the soil had been, however imperfectly, recognised by Act of Parliament. It remained to deal with the problem of higher education, which Lord Derby and his colleagues had vainly endeavoured to solve in 1866. That wealthy and splendid institution, Trinity College, which was really identical with the University of Dublin, had opened its doors to Catholic students since 1794. But though they might come, and though some of them did come, professorships, fellowships, scholarships, and all places of honour or emolument were confined to members of the Church disestablished in 1869. Since that date Trinity College, a body more liberal than its constitution, had been willing to remove every religious test, except for theological chairs, and Mr. Fawcett's Bill for that purpose was supported by one of the members for the Univer- 1878. sity, Mr. Plunket, who enabled his contemporaries to understand why the eloquence of his grandfather had become a Parliamentary tradition. The Government, most unwisely, opposed and even obstructed this measure, because it would, as the Prime Minister thought, have acknowledged and perpetuated the predominance of Trinity. Mr. Gladstone was determined to deal with the matter himself, and on the 13th of February, a week after Parliament met, he introduced his Bill. He spoke for three hours; and the glamour of his eloquence was such that it threw the House of Commons into a "mesmeric trance," besides reconciling those diametrically opposite critics, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and the editor of the Times.? But when the provisions of this strange measure came to be coolly examined in print, there was a general feeling of amazement that men calling themselves Liberals should have given their consent to such a scheme. The only Liberal part of it was that it removed disqualifications and opened endowments. Beyond that point there was nothing which would bear the light of calm scrutiny and impartial judgment in the mind of any real academic reformer. The University of Dublin was to be incorporated, which it did not want to be; the Roman Catholic University, an acknowledged failure, with the Queen's Colleges of Cork and Belfast, which were unsectarian, would be included in it, and put on a level with Trinity; the Theological Faculty would be separated from it, and handed over to the representative body of the disestablished Church. This new mosaic of a 1 Afterwards Lord Rathmore. 2 Archbishop Manning and Mr. Delane. Morley's Life of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 439. 1878. University was subject to a Council of twentyeight members, appointed at first by Parliament, and afterwards by a composite system which might have been so manipulated as to bring the highest education of Ireland under priestly control. But that was not all, or nearly all, that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Lowe expected the House of Commons to swallow. A University which was the latest fruit of Liberal thought in the high places of Downing Street was to have no chairs of moral philosophy or modern history; and a Professor was made liable to punishment if he wilfully offended the conscientious scruples of his pupils, as, for instance, by telling them that the world was not all made in six days, but developed through countless ages. These "gagging clauses," as Professor Fawcett aptly styled them in debate, were enough to destroy the Bill and seriously to discredit the Liberal Ministers who proposed it. But it was, in fact, the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland who dealt the blow. If they had been wise in their generation, they would have been guided by Archbishop Manning into accepting, with some politic show of reluctance, a Bill which was sure in time to give them all that they wanted. They were wise in nothing except their own conceit, and they followed Cardinal Cullen, a short-sighted, narrowminded bigot, who would only take a University sectarian in form as well as substance. During the debate on the second reading Ministers received very little independent support, and Mr. Fawcett delivered against the Bill the ablest speech he ever The debate made in his life. With him was Mr. Patrick on the second reading. Smyth, then the most eloquent of Irish Home Rulers, and a young English Liberal, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who held that, where education was crippled no country could be free. So badly had the Government blundered, so fatally had they mismanaged their case, that the root of 1878. the difficulty, the unwillingness of Irish Catholics to take advantage of the best education unless it were dogmatic, was altogether ignored. Mr. Gladstone, who rather expected an unfavourable issue, wound up the debate in a speech admirable for the beauty of its language, and still more so for the generosity of its temper. Replying to Mr. Disraeli's charge of arrogance announcing that the Bill was essential to the honour and vital to the existence of the Government, he explained that they had made themselves responsible for the settlement of the question by their resistance to Mr. Fawcett's Bill. Mr. Disraeli's speech, extremely clever and adroit, had been an attack rather on the Government than on in the measure; a successful attempt to bring into the same lobby those who thought that the Minister had gone too far and those who thought that he had not gone far enough to satisfy the claims of the Irish priesthood. "Having put our hand to the plough," retorted Mr. Gladstone, "let us not turn back. Let not what we think the fault or the perverseness of those whom we are attempting to assist have the slightest effect in turning us from the path on which we have entered. As we have begun, so let us go through, and with firm and resolute hand let us erase from the law and practice of this country the last — I believe it is the last of the religious and social grievances of Ireland." With this too sanguine prediction, a proof at least of his own earnest sincerity, he sat down, and the second reading of the Bill was rejected by 287 votes against 284. The hero of the occasion was Mr. Fawcett, whose Bill, so far as it abolished tests, became law before the close of the session. The victims were the British Liberals and the Irish Catholics, who had Rejection of the Bill. March 11. 1878. Resignation of the Government. March 18. Mr. Disraeli's refusal of office. been respectively deluded by their Government and their Bishops. The man who ultimately profited by it was Mr. Disraeli. To the Cabinet Mr. Gladstone recommended resignation, adding that his own retirement from the Leadership of the Liberal party would probably follow. The Cabinet agreed to resign, and Mr. Gladstone waited upon the Queen for that purpose the same afternoon. But the astute and sagacious chief of the Opposition perceived that his opportunity was not yet fully ripe. When Her Majesty sent for him, he told her that while he felt himself quite able to form a Government, he was not prepared either to take office with the existing House of Commons, or to advise the dissolution of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone strenuously contested the moral competence of his rival to evade the results of a crisis he had deliberately brought about. In an elaborate letter to the Queen, which was really addressed to Mr. Disraeli, he proved by chapter and verse that no Leader of the Opposition since the Reform Act of 1832 had declined attempting to construct a Ministry of his own after defeating the Ministry in power. Mr. Disraeli's reply, also in the form of a letter to the Queen, was wholly ingenious and partly sound. The House of Commons, he argued with great force, would not endure to be told that they must either displace a Minister or do as he bade them. Whatever may have been the private opinion of those who voted for the Bill, those who voted against it honestly believed it to be bad. Even the leader of a party cannot be expected to support a bad Bill merely because he does not wish to take office at the moment. On the other hand, Mr. Disraeli's elaborate excuses for not dissolving Parliament, which included the want of a clear issue on which 1 Morley's Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 451, and pp. 652-53. |