OCR Text |
Show WHAT WILL ENGLAND DO? And nmv the question is what will England d for Ireland.? The visit of tho Queen is over. The Irish people expeft, as a. result of it, that some beneficial ben-eficial legislation will follow. What will it.be? . It is. safe to assume that nothing short of system of Home Rule will suffice. Already the civilized world is look- : ing to England to do something in this respect. The New York Sun, in a very comprehensive com-prehensive article, thus sums up the situation : "In view of the enthusiasm with which Queen Victoria has been welcomed wel-comed in Dublin and of the devotion j with which thousands of Irishmen have" faced death in South Africa, it may be that English statesmen will give tho Irish people mine more adequate proof I of appreciation than the announce-I announce-I ment that Irish soldiers, will be hence-I hence-I forth permitted to wear a sprig of shamrock on St. Patrick's day. We. j are encouraged to draw the augury j from the recent debate in Parliament j on the proposed Catholic university for , Ireland and from, the comments made I thereon by Anglican and Liberal-i Liberal-i Unionist newspapers, j "It is true that the debate upon the ! subject tinded in a hostile vote of 177 j to 91, but the discussion sfaowed that ! many of those who felt constrained to ; oppose the particular measure before i toe House of Commons would favor j the project in another form. Of the solidity of the grounds upon which the demand for a Catholic university is based, there seems to be no doubt. It fa true that Trinity college, Dublin, is. by law, open to Roman .Catholics, but fe.w -f them go there because the atmosphere at-mosphere of the- institution is alien to Catholisism, all the professors and tutors, tu-tors, as well as most of the undergrad- j uates, being Protestants. I "That the objection is reasonable is not denied by the Guardian, which is I a broad-minded representative of the 1 Church of England. That newspaper points out that the result of the objec-( objec-( tion, whether reasonable or not, is j that the great majority of Irishmen suffer from the want of a liberal education, edu-cation, and it doe;i not hesitate to advocate ad-vocate the establishment of a Catholic university, either frankly denominational denomina-tional in form, or, as Mr. Balfour would suggest, unsectarian in name, but possessing. pos-sessing. In fact a Roman Catholic governing gov-erning body arid a Roman Catholic atmosphere. at-mosphere. Among the- new- converts to the plan were Sir William Anson, a Sturdy Conservative, and one of the Members for Oxford university, and, I 1S ev?n more noteworthy. Mr. yiUiam Jones., a Member for a Welsh I '"strict, and a Nonconformist, who has i "en hitherto an uncompromising up-j up-j nol"r of undenominational education, out now admits that in Ireland a Catholic Cath-olic university is essential to the cultivation cul-tivation and content of the preponderant preponder-ant eleimcnt of the people. I "The most striking plea, however, on ; behalf of a Catholic university for Ire-I Ire-I land was made by Mr. A. J. Balfour. ! the Unionist member of the House, j He did not attempt to disarm Noncon- formist opposition to the scheme by ! ProfeHsing to believe that university i education would prove an instrument j for the conversion of Roman Catholics h to Protestantism, but he did insist that, ' whatever e ilsi may be supposed to result re-sult from the growth of Roman Catholicism Cath-olicism in some of its; forms, would be diminished rather than aggravated by any decided advance in the way of higher education. By way of proof he pointed to Germany. Nobody would assert that the numerical proiortion between tho Roman Catholics' and the Protestants in Germany has been materially ma-terially altered in, the las two or three generations. On the other hand, no one would deny that the tier man Roman. Ro-man. Catholics, who have universities of their own, are the mostf. enlightened and most learned of their co-relision-j ! ists. Another parallel was? presented I in Scotland, wherein, more than in any : other country, university education i has penetrated to every section of the j population. Suppose, said Mr. Balfour, Bal-four, that thj universities of Glasgow. Aberdeen, Edinburgh and St. Andrews i had. ever since the Reformation. S manned their teaching staffs from ton j to bottom with Roman Catholics, and that, consequently, the main bulk of the srtudc-r.ts in, those univernities had I been Roman Catholic, does any human being believe that those four universities: universi-ties: would have been used by the Scotch, the vast majority of whom are Protestants, to fuch remarkable t advantage, ad-vantage, a.'j they have been used for four hundred years? The answer, oi course, must be in the negative. Why. j I then, inquired Mr. Balfour, should i Irish Roman Cathohesi be told that they willfully throw- away opportuni-! opportuni-! ties for the higher' education in not i going to Trinity College. Dublin, the I door of which are nominally open to ! them, but the atmosphere of which is intensely Protesitant? "To tho arguments drawn by Mr. i Balfour from Germany and from Seot-! Seot-! land, the London Spectator, which is an authentic mouthpiece of Liberal-Unionistt Liberal-Unionistt opinion, would add that Rhenish Rhen-ish Prussia, which is at once Catholic and educated, is unshakably loyal to a distinctively Protestant dynasty. What is it, asks the Spectator, that Protectants! seek to gain by forcing Irish Catholics to frequent Protestant universities'? Is it the inculcation or truth or of loyalty? If it ne irum. how can the mental power of receiving truth be diffused more, directly than by aiding the alleged misbeliever to obtain ob-tain a thorough education? As fot loyaltv Protestant opponents or a Catholic university are counseled to ponder the great facts of the day. namelv, that Irish Catholics are dying in heaps for Queen Victoria in South Africa, and that the Duke of Norfolk, the recognized leader of English Catn-olics Catn-olics is on his way to Cape Town to fight at the head of a corpsi which he himself has. raised. If all Irish Catholics Cath-olics shared "the sentiments and the education ed-ucation of the Duke of Norfolk, the ! average Protestant voter would not be apt to think of Ireland as. a danger to the realm. This appeal to self-interest is, no doubt. less elevated than wouid be an anneal to the sense of justice, but it if. perhaps, no less potent in the eyes, of the average English elector. "That the establishment of a. Catholic Catho-lic university for Ireland may be postponed post-poned until after the next general election elec-tion is. orobable enough, but that such an institution will be created and sud-ported sud-ported by the State at no distant period pe-riod sterns almost certain, ir view of the change that i taking place in British public opinion on the subject. |