Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 397, November 1848

With such financiers as Goulburn and Herries in the Commons, – with such eminent statesmen as Lords Stanley, Lyndhurst, and Aberdeen in the House of Peers, – there can be no doubt of the strength and the success of the Conservative party if once more thoroughly united. We have always regarded the unfortunate division as one of the most serious disasters that ever befell the country, not only because it destroyed the cohesion and severed the councils of a body which, under any circumstances, would have been strong enough to keep both the Whigs and the Radicals in check, but also because it engendered much apathy and some disgust amongst men who were the most valuable supporters of Conservative principles, and who, in consequence, ceased for a time to take any active interest in public affairs. The unseemly election contests which repeatedly took place in England, between parties mutually designating themselves Protectionists and Peelites, – sometimes terminating in the defeat of both, or in the triumph, through their idle rivalry, of a liberal candidate, who otherwise never could have succeeded – did a great deal to widen the breach, and to lessen the mass of the opposition; and we revert with considerable pride and satisfaction to the fact, that in Scotland no such unnatural dissension was exhibited, but that men belonging to every shade of Conservatism were eager to act in concert, whenever a candidate appeared. We can make allowance for some exasperation on both sides, under such very peculiar and novel circumstances; but we hope that we have seen the last of these discreditable and weakening contests.

Let, then, the short period which is left between the present time and the reassembling of Parliament be employed by all the friends of the old Conservative cause for the promotion of union, and the establishment of a thoroughly good understanding amongst ourselves. Let all former causes of offence be cordially forgiven: let us consider what we are to do, and whom we are to follow; and, these dispositions made, let them be adhered to with integrity and honour. The Whig faction is utterly effete and incapable of maintaining its ground. The free-traders stand before the nation as detected charlatans and impostors. There is no enemy to fear, if we only go on boldly and do our duty. But if we hesitate and hang back at the present crisis, and decline to assume a position which might soon enable us to apply an effectual remedy to the most pressing disorders of the country, can we be surprised if the masses, irritated and provoked, seeing no one great party in the state ready to come to their assistance, should begin to clamour for organic changes; or if the colonies, weary of their suffering, and despairing of sympathy, should question the worth of the bonds which bind them to the mother country?

Thus far we have thought it our duty to speak in all sincerity and plainness. We know well that these sentiments are far from being confined to ourselves. We feel assured that many of the wisest and best men who ever adorned her Majesty's councils, or those of her royal predecessors, are deeply desirous that the present anomalous state of party should be corrected, and unwholesome separation be superseded by cordial union. This, we firmly believe, could be effected without any sacrifice of principle, and the sooner it is accomplished the better.

There is but one topic more to which we would fain allude before concluding the present article. The late rebellious outbreaks in Ireland seem, in certain quarters, to have revived the notion of the expediency of a state endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood. We place very little faith in the sincerity of an announcement which some time ago was put forth, on hierarchical authority, in the public prints, to the effect that, even were such an endowment to be offered, it would be peremptorily and indignantly refused. But, sincere or not, that statement may serve as an answer to the writer in the last Number of the Quarterly Review, who supports the endowment scheme with an unction which we were certainly not prepared to expect. His argument, from first to last, implies the same unhappy yielding to agitation and terrorism, which, when applied to civil matters, has ended in open rebellion, and which, if applied to ecclesiastical affairs, would infallibly result in the total overthrow and annihilation of the Protestant Church in Ireland. Does he really believe that – to assume no argument of a graver nature – the people of Great Britain will be ready, in the present desperate state of their finances, to submit to additional taxation for the purpose of establishing, in permanent comfort, the true instigators of the disturbances which have caused us so much anxiety and pain? Why, if such endowment can be vindicated upon any intelligible principle, is it to be confined to the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland alone, and not extended to the dissenting denominations throughout the width and breadth of the land? On what plea could the Free and Episcopal churches in Scotland, or the Wesleyan Methodists of England, be excluded, if such a proposition were for a moment to be seriously maintained? The reviewer professes to reject, in toto, any idea of the confiscation of existing church property, and therefore he must fall back, as his sole resource, upon government endowment, which means simply a new tax on the people of Great Britain, for the benefit of Ireland – a country which is already exempted from her share of our heaviest burdens, and annually receiving eleemosynary aid to an amount which has grievously contributed to increase our late monetary pressure. It may be that some such project is in contemplation, for we never have been able to comprehend, without some such motive as this, the extraordinary anxiety exhibited by the present Whig government in carrying through their bill for the establishment of Diplomatic relations with Rome, at the very moment when the last fragment of temporal power was passing from the hands of the Pope. But whether this be so or not – whether this is a mere private crotchet, or a prepared scheme, to come forth in due season – we are perfectly satisfied that it will be met throughout the country with a righteous storm of indignation. The Protestantism of Britain has been its strength and its glory; and it was only when called upon to choose between that sacred principle and the hardly less revered one of loyalty, that our forefathers thought themselves justified in summoning an alien to the British throne. What cost us then both tears and blood is an operating principle now; and if, through the grace of God, we have seen order maintained and rebellion crushed at home, at a period when half of Europe is plunged in the horrors of anarchy, we do not fear the charge of bigotry, if we attribute our preservation as much to the religious establishments of the land, as to the free institutions which Protestantism has enabled us to maintain. Loyalty is not a thing to be bought: it is a spontaneous feeling, unpurchaseable at any price; and if the Irish Catholic clergy have it not now, the most liberal endowment will work no change in their political feelings.

One of the arguments most commonly urged by those who advocate this system of endowment, is, we think, both erroneous in its assumption and weak in its application. They maintain that the Catholic clergy, if in the pay of the state, would have less power over the peasantry of Ireland than at present. Is that altogether a state of matters which it would be desirable to bring about? Would it be well to sap the influence of this moral police? There is not a Roman Catholic priest in Ireland at this moment who does not know, that were he to give open countenance to rebellion, he would not only be amenable to the laws of his country, but, under a firm executive government, would be selected as the earliest example. The situation of Ireland is such, that we can never calculate upon the loyalty of a large portion of its population. Centuries have rolled by, and still the Celtic race persist in being aliens from our own. We cannot tame them, cannot cultivate them, cannot win their hearts by any imaginable sacrifice. They persist in their cry of Ireland for the Irish, and will not see that the thing is as impossible as the re-establishment of the Saxon heptarchy, and, were it possible, would be tantamount to delivering them over to the horrors of a barbarian war. It is no use disguising the fact – we must deal with men as they are; and who can doubt that there does exist a great amount of rooted disaffection among the peasantry of Ireland? And now it is seriously proposed to cure that disaffection, by taking means calculated to weaken the influence of the priesthood over the peasantry! In other words, to give up the only hostages we hold, and leave the most turbulent and uneducated population of Europe, freed even from religious control, to be worked up to frenzy by the first lay demagogue who has the art to make them believe that treason is a synonymous term with patriotism. Even worldly wisdom would repudiate such a surrender, and the argument is so weak, that it bears with it its own refutation.

We have gained nothing whatever by tampering with Roman Catholicism in Ireland. Neither the moral nor the social condition of the people has been improved thereby; on the contrary, each successive step towards conciliation has been met by augmented turbulence. We cannot afford to push the experiment farther; and surely it would be a strange thing, if, while the Romish clergy themselves distinctly repudiate such an arrangement, and refuse to become the stipendiaries of the British government, any body of men who may be called to the responsible situation of her Majesty's advisers, should persist in tendering the obnoxious and repugnant boon: least of all do we expect that any such proposal can emanate from the Conservatives. We know that upon this point various opinions have been expressed, and that Lord George Bentinck was at one time supposed to be not unfavourable to such a scheme. No man, we firmly believe, ever had the good of Ireland more thoroughly at heart; and, had his plan for ameliorating the Irish distress been adopted last year, and the money which was uselessly squandered, been applied to the construction of permanent works eminently calculated to open up and develop the resources of the country, we might ere this time have seen the foundation laid of a new era of social and industrial prosperity. But the Whig Cabinet, perverse to the last, could not bring themselves to acknowledge that the political sagacity of an opponent was greater than their own; and, therefore the money which we gave with so lavish a hand, has disappeared without leaving the smallest trace of its employment. But, in ecclesiastical matters, Lord George Bentinck professed a latitudinarianism which was not responded to by the great bulk of his party. They were not disposed to unchristianise the high assembly of Britain by the introduction of men who openly avowed their denial of the faith of the Saviour; nor would they consent to put forth their hands against the ark of the national churches. And therefore it was that, upon more than one occasion, the Protestant party, while cheerfully acknowledging the great public services of the late departed nobleman, did not attempt to conceal that, upon points so serious as these, there could be no sympathy of opinion between him and them.

The single arrow may be easily splintered, but, to use the memorable words of Genghis-Khan, "So long as the sheaf is bound together in three places – in love, honesty, and good accord – no man can have power to grieve us; but, if we be divided from these three places, that one of us help not the other, we shall be destroyed and brought to nothing." We recommend the moral contained in the apologue of the old Asiatic chief to the serious consideration of all men belonging to the Conservative party; for this they may rely upon, that, not only is prolonged discord an act of egregious folly, but that any one who refuses, in the present troublous times, to lend a hand to the reknitting of the severed tie, cannot, in the estimation of good men, be considered a friend to his country. And if this be so, what faith can we repose in him who cut the cords asunder?

1

England under the House of Hanover; its History and Condition during the reigns of the three Georges, illustrated from the Caricatures and Satires of the day. By Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A.F.S.A. &c. With numerous illustrations, executed by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. In two volumes. London: 1848.

2

The word fandango, in New Mexico, is not applied to the peculiar dance known in Spain by that name, but designates a ball or dancing meeting.

3

Nickname for the idle fellows hanging about a Mexican town, translated into "Greasers" by the Americans.

4

Cask-shaped gourds.

5

The knives used by the hunters and trappers are manufactured at the "Green River" works, and have that name stamped upon the blade. Hence the mountain term for doing any thing effectually is "up to Green River."

6

Always alluding to Mexicans, who are invariably called Spaniards by the Western Americans.

7

In accordance with this suggestion, the name was changed to Brand. The mountaineers, it seems, are more sensitive to type than to tomahawks; and poor Ruxton, who always contemplated another expedition among them, would sometimes jestingly speculate upon his reception, should they learn that he had shown them up in print.

8

Sketches of the Last Naval War; from the French of Captain Gravière. By the Hon. Captain Plunket. 2 vols. Longman.

9

Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, (second Marquis of Londonderry.) Edited by his brother, Charles Vane, Marquis of Londonderry. 2 vols. London: Colburn.