Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 018.djvu/17

 1825.] votes in Ireland. We conceive that its tendency is to destroy morals, and to place country society in an unnatural and ruinous condition. But then we would have no milk and water measures ; we would either reform the system properly, or we would let it remain until it could be reformed properly. A more important and complicated measure than its alteration could not well be imagined. Nothing can be more evident, than that such a measure to remove, and not to aggravate evil, ought to stand upon its own merits, and to proceed upon the most correct and ample information. Well, without inquiry—without any but the most imperfect information—a bill was introduced into Parliament to change this system. It was distinctly avowed, that the grand object of this bill was, not to remove the evils of the system, but to secure the passing of the relief bill ; and that, if the latter bill should not pass, the former should be withdrawn. Of course, a measure of such immense public importance stood in the House of Commons on precisely this ground,—no one could vote for it on its own merits—no one could vote for it without feeling that he was voting for the relief bill—one of the greatest evils of Ireland was to be touched, only on condition that the Catholics should be admitted to power ! This, at least, is a new method of managing public affairs, and we are by no means sure that it is either a constitutional or a wise one.

We need not say that Mr Lyttleton's bill was miserably defective, and that it was calculated to increase, rather than to diminish the miseries of Ireland. In the monstrous state of things which that unhappy country presents, property is without its natural and proper influence. The landlords must drag their Catholic tenants by chains, they cannot lead them by counsel. A priesthood which is worse qualified to hold political influence than any body of religious teachers in Europe, is irresistible in the field of politics against the landlord, if the latter cannot command his tenants. The bill was calculated to diminish the influence of the landlords, and, of course, to add to that of the priesthood ; while it would have made scarcely any alteration in the circumstances and character of the voter. Had it carried the qualification to a proper height, it might have raised the latter to competence and a fair share of independence of opinion ; he would, if a Catholic, always have voted for a Catholic, in spite of his landlord, but then he would have been able to distinguish between the demagogue and the honest man.

This bill was represented to be a security to the interests of the Protestants, and yet certain of the Catholics confessed their belief that it would operate in favour of Catholic party interests. We believe the same. So much for this security.

The other security was, a bill for taking the Catholic Priesthood into the pay of the State. It was stated, that this would make the priests negligent, destroy their influence over their flocks, and place them under the control of the government. Now, mark the provisions of this bill. The priests were to have incomes assigned them, which, taking all tilings into calculation, would have been greater than the incomes of a vast number of the English clergy, and yet they were to make no distinct abandonment of their present incomes ; they were still to obtain their present fees, if they could. The loss of a follower would still have been a loss of income to the priest, as well as a loss of party power to the priesthood.—A large portion of the aggregate income of the priest would therefore still have depended on his vigilance and industry. It is, we think, a very erroneous mode of calculating, to assume that dependance on his followers for bread is the only motive that can stimulate a religious teacher to exertion. Are the Catholic clergy of France and Spain at this moment indolent, and without influence? The competition for followers and supremacy to which the Irish Catholic priest must be constantly exposed, would have been quite sufficient to preserve from change his conduct and influence.

Again, the priest was not called on to surrender one iota of his authority. He was to retain his power of excommunicating—of imposing penance—of withholding absolution—of inflicting bodily punishment on the people for reading Protestant books, and entering Protestant places of worship.—He was to retain the whole of that tremendous penal code which gives him every conceivable advantage over the