192 



ARTHUR GALTON, M.A.^ ON 



kinsmen in France itself. Between Americanism and Vaticanism 

 there can be no lasting agreement. They can never coalesce. 

 There have already been collisions between them, and their 

 divergencies must grow. One principle must yield to the other ; 

 and it is not likely that the younger and more vigorous 

 element will succumb. The more fit of the two- will assuredly 

 survive. 



To the shame and the danger of English romanism, England 

 has practically no modernists ; for there is no country in which 

 the clergy are more abjectly in the power of their bishops, or 

 v^here the bishops are more impeded by the religious orders. 

 Both these conditions are favourable to that esjnonage which is 

 recommended by Pius X., and which is comparatively easy in 

 a small and exclusive sect, given over to the narrowest parochi- 

 alism, with all its attendant and x^etty gossip. Tiiere can be no 

 deliverance for the anglo-roman clergy until there is an educated 

 lay opinion, capable of supporting them against papal and epis- 

 copal usurpations. And the education of the laity will be very slow, 

 as long as they are deluded by a muzzled press, which is wholly 

 under ecclesiastical control. 



But Ireland alone among the nations is the hopeless and 

 helpless victim of a dominating clergy, which terrorises the 

 peasantry, devours wealth, and diminishes the population. It 

 is enabled to do all this chiefly by the connivance" and the 

 fatuous encouragement of the English administration. Eor this- 

 lamentable state of things, both our parties are equally 

 responsible and culpable. The nationalistic members, even the 

 Eedmondites, have sunk into being tools and allies of the clergy. 

 Whatever else Home Eule miglit do, it would probably end 

 Eome Eule ; for it would certidnly produce an active and a 

 militant anti-clericalism, of which all the elements are now in 

 solution, and are only waiting to be precipitated. Short of this, 

 the only way of salvation for Ireland is through a reformed and 

 rigorous primary education, freed entirely from ecclesiastical 

 influences. Thirty years of this, working steadily, influencing 

 three- generations, would lay the foundation of a regenerated, 

 a prosperous, and a contented Ireland. No other remedies will 

 have much effect until this remedy has been applied ; though 

 every other reform would accompany and follow education. 

 Primary education is the key of the Irish problem, as it has 

 always been of the whole papal question ; and if Irish education 

 were dealt with properly, the other so-called problems would 

 either vanish, or solve themselves as they do among all civilised 

 people. But the way not to solve Irish problems is to leave 



