TUE TABLET A Weekly Newspaper and Review,
W I T H S U P P L E M E N T .
Vol. 35. No. 1565. L ondon, A pr il 9, 1870.
P r ic e sd. S tam p ed 6d.
[R eg iste red for T ransmission A broad.
"Chronicle of th e W eek : The
Meeting at the Stafford Club— Catholic University Education— Mr. Disraeli’s Amendment— Supplementary Amendment —Revision of Sentences— Payment of Legislators — The Council— The “ Schema de Fide ”— La Concorde —Affair of the English Ladies— The French Constitution— Prince Pierre Bonaparte— Spain — The Austrian Ministry— The Boat Race — Murphy at Woolwich— Persecution in Japan—&c., &c. . . 445 ^Leaders :
Prospects of the Budget . . 449 Legislation for Ireland . . . 449 The Result of Enquiry into Con
vents ............................................ 450
C O N T
L eaders (continued) :
Dr. Newman’s Letter , . . 451 T he A nglican M ovement . . 452 R eview s :
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of
Assent . . . .453 The Doctrine of Development in the Bible and in the Church . 453 Red as a Rose is She . . . . 455 S hort N otices : Sermons on Sub
jects of the Day—Mrs. Loudon’s First Book of Botany—The American and Continental Monthly— The Mystery of Edwin Drood— The Food Journal— Blackwood .. 455 C orrespondence:
Dr. Newman’s Aid to a Grammar of Assent........................................ 455
E N T S . C orrespondence (continued) :
Dr. Newman and the recent Sur
reptitious Publication of his Private Letter to Dr. Ullathorne . 456 The Peace Preservation B i l l . . 456 Memorial to Mother Margaret
Hallahan ..... 456 Colonial Office Misstatements . 457 Petitions to the Commons . . 457 P a r l ia m en t a r y S ummary . . 457 L e t t e r s from R ome ; “ Lsetare ”
Sunday— Exhibition— The Council —Military— The Revolution— Domestic ...............................................460 D iocesan N ews : Westm inster......................................462
S o u t h w a r k ..................................... 462 Beverley. ..... 463 P l y m o u t h ..................................... 463
D iocesan N ews (continued) •
Salford ...... 463 I r e l a n d .................................................463 F oreign N ews :
Russia : Russ v. the Polish
Language— Siberian Telegraphs — The Cholera .... 464 I ta ly : The Florentine Government and the Roman Question— Principles and Antecedents o f Visconti-Venosta ....464 M em oranda :
Religious Educational . Literary . Scientific Weather and Health Statistics M iscellaneous
• 46s . 466 . 466 • 467 • 467 • 467 • 467
CH R O N IC L E O F THE W EEK .
THE subject of paramount interest to En
glish and Irish Catholics at the present f o r d c l u b . moment is Mr. Newdegates motion to inspect and enquire into our convents. Two resolutions were come to by the two last great Freemasons’ Congresses on the Continent, and an attempt is being made to carry these out in England. The one was to destroy the religious orders, and the other to enforce compulsory secular •education. A full and detailed account of the Catholic meeting to be held at the Stafford Club, a few hours after our going to press, will be at once issued in a special supplement, which may be had at T h e T a b l e t office, in accorddance with a notice given in another page of this journal.
The events of every week, coupled with the c a t h o l i c declarations of all shades of opinion, combine e d u c a t io n . t0 prove to us with a force of conviction which increases every day, that we Catholics must speedily be provided with Universities of our own in Ireland ■ and England, and that those Universities must have the power to confer degrees recognized by the State. In another part of our columns we publish, a declaration of the Catholic Laity of Ireland which rightly urges our constitutional rights in this respect and shows, in brief but striking words, how vain it is to hold out to us an empty shape of religious equality while we are practically reduced to deprive our young men of the higher educational advantages afforded by the State, unless we consent to place them amongst a crowd of non-Catholic companions under the guidance of Protestant and free-thinking professors. Mr. Fawcett’s*motion to commit the House of Commons to the Trinity College Memorial from Dublin, was happily defeated last week ; but the motion itself, and the speeches made upon it, displayed the true nature of our danger. We are asked to consent— for this is the plain English of the scheme— to sacrifice our religious convictions for the sake of certain pecuniary and social advantages. They do not tell us, as they once did, to turn Protestants for the sake of an income or a degree ; they do not require us, as their Penal laws required us of old, to attend their communion-service in order to preserve our property; but they do in fact offer us a higher social standing, and a better chance of emolument for our children, on condition that we entrust those children, when just rising into manhood, to companionship which we cannot conscientiously approve, and to teaching which we both dread and detest. One of their own prophets told us only last Saturday that “ the English mind has no objection to Roman Catholics if they would not so perversely carry out their religion into practice.” And the same writer, in discussing Mr. Newdegate’s insulting proposal respecting our convents, tersely gave us the key to the educational affair also— “ it means,” he said, “ something little distinguishable from persecution, only it is not so honest.” The only way to escape from this persecution and to remove the dangers of our position is to have Catholic Universities of our own, with power from the State to confer degrees, and with a share of Government grants in proportion to our numbers. What that proportion will be in Ireland was pointed out by Mr. Gladstone in his reply to Mr. Plunket last week ; but it must he applied to the establishment of a separate University, and not to any corrupting mixture of creed and no-creed within the walls of Trinity College, Dublin.
Several newspapers, in Scotland and else- e d u c a t io n w]iere have lately published various statements COMMISSION. ’ . . . , 1 . . r .1 respecting the supposed contents of the report of the Royal Commission on Primary Education in Ireland. It has even been alleged that Ministers, for some reason or other, are unduly withholding this report from Parliament and the public. Our contemporaries have, in this matter, been led astray by incorrect information. We happen to know, on the most unquestionable authority, that the report of this Commission is not yet completed ; still less, therefore, revised and signed ; still less, presented to the government, and least of all, kept back improperly. Portions of the proposed document have, of course, been under consideration, b : no one outside of the Commission could have becom acquainted with them, save by breach of confidence ; ar the fact is that the statements which have appeared on the subject are inexact.
On the House going into Committee on Dis r a e l i ’ s Clause 3, Mr. Disraeli moved his amendment . a m e n d m e n t , limiting compensation to unexhausted improve
ments made by the tenant or his predecessor in title, and to the interruption of any course of husbandry suited to his holding. He argued that the tension in the relations between landlord and tenant would thus become much worse than before. Both would stand upon their rights ; the lessee would demand the return of seven years’ rent if his lease were not renewed, and the landlord would take advantage of the first non-payment of rent to evict without compensation. In his second speech at the close of the debate, Mr. Disraeli quoted Judge Longfield to the effect that the landlord might be called upon to pay seven years’ purchase for taking back a possession which he had delivered to the tenant without receiving anything, and, secondly, that on eviction after seven years’ occupancy the landlord might have to refund all the rent he has received, and the tenant would have thus enjoyed his farm rent free for seven years. The fixing of the damages for eviction so high as at seven years’ rent was one of the points objected to by Sir Roundell Palmer. The argument that, as land in Ireland is only worth twenty-one years’ purchase, the tenant would acquire a contingent right to one-third of its value, was answered by Mr. Gladstone, who observed that the only reason why land in Ireland was not worth 30 or 33 years’ purchase was that very insecurity of property which Government desires now to remedy. And he made a strong
N e w S e r i e s . N o . 74.