It is one of the points on which
he does not seem to have much modified his opinions, in spite of the
advance of time, and all that has taken place in the long stretch of
years between now and the day when an unbelieving and pagan minister
like Lord Palmerston enabled men and women to get rid of adulterous
spouses. But Mr. Gladstone declined to be drawn.
[Sidenote: Disestablishment.]
On June 18th, Mr. Bartley proposed an amendment to a restriction in the
Bill with regard to the establishment and endowment of any church. By
the Bill--as is pretty well known--the Irish Parliament are forbidden to
confer on any church the privilege of State establishment and State
endowment. To this restriction no Irish member has ever raised the least
objection. It was reserved for Mr. Bartley--one of the most vehement
opponents of Irish nationality and an Irish Parliament--to declare that
such a restriction would make the Parliament unworthy of the acceptance
of a nation of freemen, and to propose that accordingly it should be
removed. The position, then, in which the Irish opponents of the Bill
were placed, was this--that while denouncing the supremacy and
encroachments of the Catholic Church as one of the main objections
against the Bill, they proposed that the Irish Parliament should have
the right to establish and endow that very Church.
Pages:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314