Metternich. Besides, and here I ask the attention of my Catholic readers, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, of what has been objected against the government of July (in France) in regard to religion. The prime minister did not conceal his religious convictions, and twice under his administration was the Holy See saved from revolution by Austrian arms. Solicitude for religious interests was carried so far, that the Emperor Francis had formed the plan of placing an ecclesiastic in all the departments of government, in all the courts, and even in his council of state. Nevertheless, this great government, in which authority was everything, and liberty nothing, that ancient and illustrious edifice fell in the twinkling of an eye, under the efforts of some Jews and some students; all that political system which neither the press nor the tribune had undermined, fell like a house built of cards, and but for the heroic sword of Prince Windischgrätz and Marshal Radetzky, who knows if Austria would now hold a place in the rank of nations.'-pp. 122-124. Yes, and at that time, when Catholic despots were flying for their lives, with the pope and the Emperor of Austria at their head, William of Prussia, and Victoria of England, the two chief Protestant princes of Europe, retained their thrones, the latter in the utmost security and in undisturbed tranquillity. Surely kings as well as people will in time open their eyes to these broad and unquestionable facts. We have thus passed this rhetorical argument in review, and found it, like most rhetoric, hollow and of small avail. The author thereof appears to have been actuated by his wishes rather than his convictions. Certainly his statements are inexact and incorrect. Carefully has he omitted to notice not only qualifications but offsets. The small amount of superficial influence exerted by Romanism lately, is likely to be of short duration, for, even on the author's own showing, it is endangered by the servility of the Romanists, the ambition of kings, and the possible turbulence of the people. And even should any degree of consistency be acquired, Romanists owe the advantage rather to the justice and liberality of their opponents, than the essential merits of their cause,-a cause which, mixed up with political tyranny, and identified with religious thraldom, cannot permanently flourish in the present state of civilization. But let the facts be never so true, and let them be reported in the exactest manner, they are utterly unable to sustain the author's conclusion. Thoroughly vicious is that logic which infers truth from prosperity, especially when that prosperity is in itself very recent, of uncertain duration, in imminent peril, and chequered by adversities numerous, signal, and disastrous. And now, in conclusion, we would simply indicate the real THE ALLEGED SUCCESSES OF ROMANISM. 187 cause of the slight growth of Romanism at this hour. Independently of what has ensued from the increase of population, that growth is owing to the prevalence, within the course of the last fifty years, of a system of gross and low Rationalism, which has ever bordered on pantheism and atheism. From that system Romanism has suffered even more than Protestantism. To that system Protestantism and not Romanism has given unanswerable confutation, and on that system, which, if not called forth by the extravagancies of Romanism, Romanism has, however undesignedly, fostered and promoted, Protestantism has dealt the death-blow. Yes, Count Montalembert is premature in his rejoicing that the formative principle of the Reformation, 'justification by faith, is no longer anywhere professed.' (p. 14.) Even in Germany, where Rationalism, as a system, had its birth, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the Cross, has gone far to recover its due ascendancy, and we make no vaunt when we declare, that amidst all our diversities, the Protestant churches of Great Britain and North America, united in one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all' (Ephes. iv. 5, 6), venerate and love with the intensest affection their Scriptural religion, and their Christian liberty, and are fully resolved and determined, not only that no man shall take the jewel from them, but that they will manfully withstand and oppose until they have overcome every assailant, nor cease to labour, nor even pause for rest, until they have made their own advantages common as the air-diffused as the light. ART. VII. (1.) The Strikes: their Extent, Evil, and Remedy, being a A FEW years ago the universal philanthropy of England was painfully engaged in trying to discover some mode in which the 'surplus population' of the United Kingdom might be provided for, without inflicting an intolerable burden upon that portion of the community to whom the tax-gatherer pays an unwelcome visit twice a year. Numberless schemes were taken up, one after another, and then thrown aside, there being always some defect or other discovered in each of them. Emigration, home colonies, small farms, spade husbandry, self-supporting villages, co-operative associations, and a whole host of other projects, were proposed, discussed, and abandoned, as either impracticable or not calculated to meet the great social grievance. The proposal to send our supernumerary hands to Canada or Australia, was the scheme which seemed to be received with greatest favour. Many an attempt was made to induce Government to organize an extensive system of emigration for that purpose, and, no doubt, Government would very willingly have complied with the demand, had it not been for the enormous cost of such an undertaking. Leaving Great Britain entirely out of sight, with its hundreds of thousands of unemployed, starving labourers, handloom weavers, and wretched needle women striving to maintain a miserable existence on 6d. a day; its half-employed factory operatives and artisans, and its regular increase of 200,000 pair of hands to the labour-market every year; the transportation of the surplus population of Ireland alone, in the cheapest way which an emigration board could contrive, would not have cost much less than 20,000,000Z., and that sum, even though borrowed on the most favourable terms, would have added about 600,000Z. a-year-twice the amount of what is raised by the Newspaper Stamp Duty-to our annual expenditure. No wonder that a cautious Chancellor of the Exchequer lent a deaf ear to all proposals for getting rid of the Irish difficulty by so costly an experiment. And then, too, there was some doubt as to the efficacy of the plan proposed. Some of our political economists contended that the social disease of Ireland was not produced by a real excess of population, that it was even questionable whether the country contained a sufficient quantity of labour to develop its magnificent resources. It was undeniable that one half of the peasantry were nearly without work, and the other half not more than half fed; but that had always been the case in Ireland, even when it did not contain one-fourth part of its present population. Other opponents of the emigration scheme endeavoured to show that sending the people to Canada or Australia would not reduce the number left at home. It would only give an impulse to population by increasing the number of marriages, and that result, although profitable enough to the priest, whose income from marriage and christening fees would be increased thereby, was not calculated to benefit the rest of the community. In proof of this, they pointed to the fact that the population of Mayo, Galway, and Clare, from which an extensive emigration to America took place between the years 1821 and 1831, had increased 25 per cent. during those ten years; while that of Down and Wexford had increased only 7 or 8 per cent. within the same period, although hardly any emigration had taken place from those two counties. The obvious inference was, that for NEW RELATIONS OF EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYED. 189 Government to spend large sums of money, and thereby burden the industrious people of England and Scotland with more debt, in order to send a million or two of the Irish peasantry to full employment, good wages, and cheap farms in any of our colonies, was not advisable, seeing that it was not likely to lessen the number of paupers at home. What the Government of Great Britain could not or would not do, has been accomplished by a higher power. Instead of universal grumbling at the rapid increase of the people, and the constant glut of the labour-market, the great subject of alarm with political economists now is, that we shall soon not be able to find a sufficient number of hands to perform all the work which is lying ready for them to do. The ravages of famine and pestilence in Ireland, in 1846-9, followed by the most marvelfous emigration movement ever witnessed since the world began, have already reduced the population of that island to little more than three-fourths of what it was twelve years ago; and should the flight of the peasantry proceed at the same rate as at present, for a few years longer, the supply of labour must soon fall as far short of the demand in that quarter as it is likely to do in England and Scotland. In 1841, the population of Ireland amounted to 8,175,124; in 1851, it had fallen to 6,515,794; and as emigration has been quite as brisk during the last two years as it was up to the time of taking the census, we may safely estimate the present population of the island at little more than 6,000,000, or about 2,500,000 less than it would have been had the same rate of increase been kept up as in the previous decennial returns from the beginning of the century till 1841. So far as Ireland is concerned, therefore, the surplus population has been reduced, chiefly within the last seven years, to as large an extent as the most enthusiastic advocate of emigration could desire. And now let us see what effect such a wholesale system of depopulation, coupled with an increased demand for labour, arising from an unparalleled extension of our home and foreign trade, is likely to have upon the welfare of Great Britain. The leading journal of Europe,' in one of those powerful articles of a startling character, with which it not unfrequently disturbs the healthy digestion of comfortable stockbrokers and prosperous millionaires, drew attention, a short time ago, to some of the results which may be anticipated from a large decrease of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom: "The depopulation of these isles,' says the Times, 'supposing the Celtic exodus to run out its course, and a British exodus to follow, constitute about as serious a political event as can be conceived; for a change of dynasty, or any other political revolution, is nothing com pared with a change in the people themselves. All the departments of industry,-the army, the navy, the cultivation of the fields, the rent of landed property, the profit of trades, the payment of rates and taxes, depend on the people, and without the people there must ensue a general collapse of all our institutions.' This is certainly very alarming, to any one who can fully realize the melancholy picture which it gives, of Great Britain deserted by the hard-toiling, wealth-producing millions who have raised it to so great a height of wealth and power by their untiring industry, and admirable organization. The total destruction of rents and profits, and, above all, the complete abolition of rates and taxes, by the wholesale flight of the ratepayers of the United Kingdom, hastened, doubtless, by the comfortable reflection that they were leaving the National Debt, and all other financial encumbrances behind them, might well produce such a general collapse of all our institutions,' including Downing-street and Somerset-house, as would throw the Great Rebellion,' the Glorious Revolution of 1688,' or any other mere political change, completely into the shade. But we need not trouble ourselves with any such extravagant suppositions. In spite of the Irish exodus to the United States, and the Australian gold-fever by which it has been followed, we see no grounds for serious alarm on account of anything which has yet occurred in the labour-market of Great Britain. For some months past a movement for an advance of wages has been going forward from one end of the island to the other, which has had no parallel during the present century, and of which it is difficult to foretel what may be the end. Fifty years ago a very great advance took place in the rate of remuneration for skilled labour, and even the agricultural labourers, who were at that time miserably ill-paid, obtained a slight advance. But the condition of the working classes was not so good, even with the increased rate of wages, as it had been many years previously, owing to the excessive dearness of food and other necessaries of life. Mr. Porter states, that at that time there was a super'abundant supply of labourers constantly competing for employment at the large government establishments, where the weekly wages did not exceed 15s., while the price of the quartern loaf 'was 1s. 10d., and the other necessary outgoings of a labourer's family were nearly as high in proportion. In some instances, where an advance of wages is demanded at present, the rise in the price of provisions is assigned as a reason for the demand; but the real cause is the brisk demand for labour. The chief articles of consumption are much cheaper at present than they have been for any long period since the end of last century, nor |