Page:Karl Marx - The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston - ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling (1899).pdf/19

 Rh of church accommodation. … It would be preposterous to say that the poor ought to subscribe for churches out of their small earnings."—(House of Commons, March 11, 1825.)

It would be, of course, more preposterous yet to say, that the rich members of the established church ought to subscribe for the church out of their large earnings.

Let us now look at his exertions for Catholic Emancipation, one of his great "claims" on the gratitude of the Irish people. I shall not dwell upon the circumstances, that, having declared himself for Catholic Emancipation when a member of the Canning Ministry, he entered, nevertheless, the Wellington Ministry, avowedly hostile to that emancipation. Did Lord Palmerston consider religious liberty as one of the rights of man, not to be intermeddled with by legislature? He may answer for himself:

And why is he opposed to their demanding their right?

There you have the most cynical confession ever made, that the mass of the people have no rights at all, but that they may be allowed that amount of immunities the legislature—or, in other words, the ruling class—may deem fit to grant them. Accordingly, Lord Palmerston declared, in plain words, "Catholic Emancipation to be a measure of grace and favour."—(House of Commons, February 10, 1829.)

It was then entirely upon the ground of expediency that he condescended to discontinue the Catholic disabilities. And what was lurking behind this expediency?

Being himself one of the great Irish landed proprietors, he wanted to entertain the delusion that "other remedies