276 Notes for the Month. [Serr 
people,” we are told, * are organized ; the weakness of England is their 
sure ally ; and nothing short of full equal rights and powers with Pro- 
testants, a change of the Irish Church establishment, a repeal of the 
Act of Union, and a separate Legislature, shall content them!’ Now, 
passing over the question—and our own answer to it, we avow, would 
be in the negative—Whether these are concessions which England ought 
to make? it is perfectly certain that there is no one of them, which, 
without a physical struggle, she ever will make. And the point then 
arises, which the opponents of Catholic claims generally (we are com~ 
pelled to do them this justice) have constantly desired to stand upon :—- 
“If we must have a contest in the end, is it not idiocy to be giving 
additional powers to the party that we shall have to contend with?” 
Now there may be doubts as to the conclusiveness of this proposition, 
but there can be none as to its very considerable truth and force ; and, 
unfortunately, almost every fresh act done by the Catholics is a matter 
of triumph to the party by which it is maintained. The language of the 
Catholics now, is precisely that which their antagonists have uniformly 
declared it would be: that which we have done for them is held up—and 
vauntingly and insolently held up—as a cause why we should be com- 
pelled to do still more. We are told, and in words of menace and con- 
tempt, by the very people who now pay a voluntary tax to forward the 
objects of riot and sedition, and who not five years since were asking for 
charity to preserve them from starvation at our door, that “ we sland com- 
mitted by what we have yielded already, and have lost the power now 
of refusing whatever they may demand.” That we should have kept the 
Catholics of Ireland poor and degraded when we had them so : that our 
error has been in allowing them to acquire wealth and reputation: that 
we ought to have upheld the penal statutes, which kept them in exile, and 
moral and physical prostration: in short, that, unless we meant to make 
them our equals (or our masters), we should have kept them in the 
position of our slaves. 
The policy then properly applicable to every question, must change 
with any change of aspect which that question may assume ; and there 
ean be little doubt that the events of the last six months have weakened 
the hopes of the supporters of Catholic conciliation very considerably. . 
The demand of “ equality,’ as a matter of necessary right, in any 
case, istrash: the servant might assert it against his master ; the very dog 
against the hand that feeds him: a little more brawl and babble about 
* equality,” and the Catholic cause, for the next quarter of a century, is 
irrecoverably gone. As the cause stands, it has suffered mischief, and 
material mischief. The Irish members in the House of Commons may 
still vote for it; some from love—the greater part, from fear. The 
ultra Whigs may give it their support, because they fancy their political 
characters pledged to it; and they will judge no great mischief can 
ensue from the vote, if it is not likely to be carried. But the inde- 
pendent members, whose opinions were favourable to catholic concilia- 
tion, because they believed that Ireland would be satisfied with those 
concessions which England could afford to grant; these friends need 
but a little more to fall from the cause rapidly ; and out of Parliament, 
they are already, we are much afraid, falling off in all directions. Under 
such circumstances, the duty of a government must necessarily be diffi- 
cult ; but the intentions of the present ministry—as far as it is possible 
to form an opinion of them—seem to be pretty nearly these :—-They will 
