that the reason why Fenianism takes its origin in America, is because a large proportion of the population of Ireland has in its wrath and bitterness taken refuge there from the Irish landlords, and from the Government which permitted the Irish landlords first to stimulate the over-population, and then to undertake the depopulation of the country-and that the reason why Fenianism spreads, and is unfortunately too likely to continue to spread, in Ireland, is because Ireland is occupied by a people who have got a ruling passion for land, and who, indeed, have no other way of living in their own country; but to whom, nevertheless, the institutions of the empire deny the power to acquire a permanent habitation and a stake in the soil. In the last number of this REVIEW, we pointed out the absolute concurrence of testimony, taken from witnesses of all classes, to the fact that all agricultural improvements in Ireland, are, and have been from immemorial time, made by the tenantry; and that it is idle to hope that such improvements will for the future be made by the landlords. Is it not a political absurdity, not to say a barbarous injustice, that in a country so circumstanced, the maxim of law, that "whatever is attached to the soil belongs to the soil," should enable the proprietors to live in a state of chronic fraud against the farmer's industry? Are the consequences to be wondered at? As the Spectator lately most justly observed in an article on the trial of one of the most remarkable of the Fenian prisoners We ask any decent Englishman who has carefully read Mr. Luby's speech, whether that is the sort of character which could not live under constitutional laws; whether that same man, born and bred in England, would not have been a valuable citizen; whether in the United States he might not have been as loyal as Sheridan, or in Canada as D'Arcy M'Gee? Then why not in Ireland? Simply because the English Liberals, who day by day harmonize English legislation to the wants of English life, who have so ruled Scotland that for a hundred and twenty years not a cry has been raised, not a shot fired, not a speech made against the Union, refuse, or rather neglect, to bring Irish legislation into accord with Irish wants. Ireland, say thinking Englishmen, everywhere wants the French system of law. Grant it, and why should she not have it as well as Scotland the Roman? Whatever the want of Scotland, she turns to the Imperial Parliament for its gratification: whatever the need of Ireland, she looks towards agitation. Is that altogether Ireland's fault? position of the agriBut even according behind the letter of This of course especially applies to the cultural classes under the French code. to the English theory of society, which the law may be taken to rest on those accepted doctrines of political economy to which all modern legislation is gradually conforming, the position of the Irish landlord is indefensible. As Mr. Mill says, "Wherever in any country the proprietor, generally speaking, ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defence of landed property as there established * * * * and the time has come for making some new arrangement of the matter." Now, unfortunately, the case never was otherwise in Ireland. We are glad to believe that Mr. Mill will give the weight of his eminent authority to the advocacy of this cause in Paliament; and that he will not be alone in so doing. Another political economist of growing reputation, also a Member of Parliament, Mr. Fawcett, the Professor of Political Economy to the University of Cambridge, has, within the last few months, published a volume on "The Economic Position of the British Labourer," in the course of which he speaks with such strong sympathy of the injustice under which tenant-farmers suffer through the existing law, of the equitable character of the demand for tenant-right in Ireland, and of the danger of that country becoming completely depopulated under the present system, that we may be confident he will feel it his duty to aid in the carriage of any adequate measure of relief to this oppressed interest. So many circumstances, indeed, at present combine to insure a favourable reception for its large and generous treatment, that we particularly regret the undertaking of the members assembled in Dublin to introduce a Bill which we fear will be framed merely in the form of amendment on Mr. Cardwell's utterly useless, and, in so far, worse than mischievous Act. The Irish members are bound by every consideration of policy and of public spirit to treat that Act as, what it has proved, an utter nullity; and to insist, on the immediate test of confidence or opposition put without a day's delay, that the Government shall proceed to legislate upon the whole question in a manner really calculated to satisfy the interests involved, and to establish some harmony between the 200 Acts of Parliament passed to strengthen the landlord's legal status and the correct doctrines of political economy as to his position in relation to the State. In this matter we fear the Irish members will receive little aid from the extreme Liberal party-if by that name they mean Mr. Bright and his immediate followers. So long ago as the year 1849 Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, at a special meeting held in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, volunteered magnificent promises to the people of Ireland, and great hopes were entertained for a time of what might be done through an alliance with the Manchester party; but gradually their high humanity melted down into a series of prelections on the evils of primogeniture. One whose foresight is far ahead, and in whose words is wisdom, lately said of our relation with the two great parties, "It does not matter which; they are equally doomed to do us justice. But this depends also on our integral independence of both. When Lord Derby said, "the Catholics are the natural allies of the Conservatives," he uttered a great political truth in a rather fragmentary form. It would be absurd by antithesis for Lord Russell to say "the Catholics are the natural allies of the Liberals." Modern liberalism, it would be instantly answered, lies under the ban of an Encyclical, and the great Liberal party is not merely a British party, but claims a solidarité as wide as the Church itself, and always in hostility to the ruling spirit of the Church-always, in fact, proclaiming, "The Pope is, by an over-ruling providential dispensation, invariably infallibly wrong." It is not possible for good Catholics to be the natural allies of the Liberal party, for its principles are the utter negation of our principles; nor, however great the conformity of our leading political principles with those of the Conservative party, can any alliance between them and Catholics be other than one of strict covenant. Our hope, though it be faint,—our road, though it be narrow, still lies in the formation of a party absolutely independent of both. 188 ART. VIII.-DR. PUSEY'S APOLOGY FOR ANGLI CANISM. The Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England. A Letter to The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost; or, Reason and Revelation. By MANY ANY of our readers are probably acquainted with Washington Irving's curious American story of "Rip Van Winkle," who slept for twenty years, and woke believing himself to have had but one good night's rest. Over night (as it were) he had left his fellow-townsmen loyal subjects to King George, and hearty lovers of the mother country; in the morning he found them burning with zeal for General Washington, and hating England with a bitter hatred. We are left, in great degree, to imagine their amazement and amusement, at Rip's old-fashioned associations and old-world ideas. We hope Dr. Pusey will not think us unkind or disrespectful, if we say frankly how much his volume has reminded us of * We should say at starting, that the whole of this article was in type, before the appearance of Dr. Pusey's remarkable letters to the Weekly Register of Nov. 25 and Dec. 9. We have thought better, however, to leave it just as it originally stood, so that it may represent the impression which the volume itself made on our mind. Those letters undoubtedly show a far more kindly feeling towards Catholics, than is exhibited in the so-called "Irenicon," and the former of them, we think, is in more than one way honourable to the writer. Still, however, Dr. Pusey displays as profound an unconsciousness as ever, on the fundamental and violent opposition between his own ecclesiastical principles and those of Rome. Still he remains a victim to the strange delusion that with his present opinions he can accept the formal decrees of the Roman Church. Still he fancies that Rome can possibly admit to her communion one who regards any portion of her practical teaching as opposed to Apostolic Doctrine, even though he were able to accept her formal decrees in some sense of his own. In our present article we have directly replied to him only on two points, viz., the Rule of Faith and the Church's indivisible unity. But we consider ourselves to have established premisses from which we shall be able, in April, to argue against him very conclusively on both those other particulars. In that future article we will give Dr. Pusey's various letters the attention which they deserve. Rip Van Winkle. Take one instance of what we mean. He speaks throughout of F. Newman with a warmth and tenderness of feeling, which is honourable in the highest degree to both. He can be no ordinary man, who has inspired so deep an affection; nor can he be an ordinary man, who has retained it amidst so many differences and so complete a separation. Moreover, curiously enough, it is as nearly as possible this very period of twenty years which has elapsed, between F. Newman's conversion and the publication of this book. However little Dr. Pusey may have cared to inquire about the other converts, at least one would suppose that he must have watched the career of his dear and old friend with the steadiest and most unflagging interest. That that friend's arguments in favour of Rome have not convinced him, is evident, of course, from his remaining an Anglican; but every one would at least have expected that he must have studied them carefully, and must now show a complete familiarity with their scope and bearing. Yet we cannot discover the slightest trace of their even having entered his mind,-of his having so much as faintly apprehended them. If, like Rip Van Winkle, he had gone to sleep before the "Essay on Development" appeared, and had only just waked up again to write this volume, there could not have been a more complete unconsciousness of what Roman Catholics* have to say in their own behalf. In more than one, indeed, of his earlier works (we mean those written before the twenty years' sleep) we find much more cordial appreciation of the sanctity produced by the Roman Catholic system than he has here displayed. On the other hand, in none of them has he evinced more conspicuously that simple contentment and satisfaction with the temper of his own communion, which, taken in connection with his patristic studies and sympathies, is surely among the most astounding and bewildering phenomena ever presented to the world. All we can say in a different direction is, that the bitter declamation against "Popish corruptions," which disfigured so many of his earlier works, finds no place, or at least no prominent place, in this. In every other respect he is almost stationary. Theological phenomena have changed during the last twenty years, in a degree which makes retrospect quite startling. Dr. Pusey himself has been brought into active and successful controversy with Throughout our present article we will use this phrase, and not merely "Catholics," that we may not seem, in arguing against Dr. Pusey, to beg the question at issue by our very terms. |