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 A SPEECH 
 
 ADDRESSED 
 
 TO HIS CONSTITUENTS, 
 
 hi the Corn Ed-cJunu/e, at 0,vf(>rd, on Demnhcr 21, 187^^ 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WILLIAM VEENON HARCOURT, Q.C., 
 
 MEMBER rOR THE CITY OP OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 r. S. KING, PAllLIAMENTARY UOOKSELLEK, 
 
 KING STKEET, AN'ESTMINSTER. 
 
 1875.
 
 As the Reports which have been published of this Speech 
 
 have been, many of them incorrect^ and all of them 
 
 incomplete, I have thought it better to print it as it was 
 
 delivered. 
 
 W. V. H. 
 
 January 4, 1875.
 
 Since I was last in this place, to use a plirase which has 
 become classical, " a good many things have happened." It is 
 just about a year ago since I stood here to submit myself to 
 your judgment in the unfamiliar situation of a newly-fledged 
 official; and now that I have perished in my infancy, men 
 may safely pronounce me happy. Well, gentlemen, the storm 
 came down upon us. It was one of those circular hurricanes 
 which sometimes ravage the political tropics, and blow from 
 all quarters in turn. Those who watched the barometer of 
 the public mind had for some time observed that, as the 
 weatlier reports say, " pressure was everywhere falling," and 
 warning voices had been heard — from this platform amongst 
 others — against carrying too much top-hamper. However, it 
 caught us all standing ; we were taken aback and dismasted 
 in a twinkling. No doubt it has been a great catastrophe. A 
 large part of the crew have been washed overboard. Some ot 
 them escaped, as the patient Job remarks, "by the skin of 
 their teeth." A few were cast up on the desert island of the 
 House of Lords ; and my old colleague, whom we all remember 
 and reoTct, is livino; a sort of Robinson Crusoe life there. But 
 the Oxford lifeboat picked me out of the wreck, and liere I am 
 to hang up my dripping garments and return thanks in tlie 
 temple of the Corn Exchange ; no longer, it is true, Solicitor- 
 General, but what I care about a good deal more, by your 
 indulgence still member for the City of Oxford. 
 
 If I were to say that the revolution of last winter took me by 
 surprise, I should state that which I know, and which you 
 know, not to be the fact. It is said that every one is con- 
 vinced that he can poke the fire better than any one else, and
 
 so each man fancies himself the wisest political prophet in the 
 world. You will, therefore, forgive me if I am not superior to 
 this vulgar weakness, and remhid you that when I spoke to 
 you here before, I told you several things were about 
 to happen — first, that a general election was not far oiF; next, 
 that when it came we sliould all be turned out ; and lastly, 
 that I, for one, should not make 'myself miserable over that 
 event. Now, gentlemen, I will take the liberty to affirm that 
 the last of these predictions is just as accurate as the two first 
 have proved themselves to be. I don't make myself unhappy, 
 first, because I have always observed that those who are most 
 sorry for themselves are least apt to inspire compassion in 
 others ; but principally, for the reason I then mentioned to 
 you, that practically the affairs of the country have been 
 carried on, as I was sure they would be, upon the same 
 principles as those upon vv^hich they were previously conducted. 
 I told you then that " they miglit get rid of the Government, 
 but they would not get rid of our principles." They have got 
 rid of the Government, but our principles remain. The coach 
 is really travelling on the same road, you have only changed 
 the coachman and the horses. One whip may be better, and 
 one team may be smarter and sounder than another. Opinions 
 will differ on that matter ; I have my own, but there is no 
 particular use in expressing them just now. When this team 
 is blown another will not be wanting. It is quite enough for 
 me to know that the chariot of the State is not standing still, 
 and that, if it does not bowl along quite as fast as some of us 
 could wish it, it is not going backwards. That is not the 
 merit of the last Government nor of this Government. It is 
 due to the fact that all Governments act, and must act, under 
 the controlling force of public opinion. And, in my judgment, 
 he k the best politician who occupies himself most about the 
 
 ^ UIUC .
 
 Bound state of the opinion of the nation and Icact about the 
 accidental fortunes of administrations. The eccentricities of 
 party are controlled by that great central force of moderate 
 and moderating opinion which defines their orbits and which 
 gives them even a calctdable period. And so our political 
 system rolls on in its large ellipse^ neither flying off into space 
 at a tano^ent nor turnblino' into the centre for lack of motion. 
 For this reason it is that England has, amidst all the vicissi- 
 tudes of party, remained a well-governed, because a self- 
 governing, people. We have had a Conservative reaction, but 
 we have not had a political revolution. I always thouglit wo 
 should have the first, but I never for a moment feared that we 
 should encounter the second. AVhen the present Government 
 came into power they found a fine surplus ready made to their 
 hands; and they dealt with it very much as their predecessors 
 would have done, except that they made half a bite instead of 
 a whole one at the Income Tax. In opposition, the country 
 gentlemen talk about repealing the Malt Tax, but when they 
 get into office they never think of doing anything halt so 
 foolish — not even when they have a surplus of £6,000,000. 
 And thus the change of Government helps you to put an end 
 to the cry about the Malt Tax. We used to hear a great deal 
 about the dreadful state of the Army, and the disgraceful 
 condition of the Navy. We shall hear no more of all that ; 
 it has answered its purpose ; it turned out a Government. But 
 now we are all quite satisfied both with our Army and our 
 Navy, though they are just as before, and the estimates will 
 remain what they were. The humiliating foreign policy of the 
 late Administration was loudly condemned. Now, if the 
 foreign policy of England had really been about to be changed 
 it would have been a very serious matter. But when we are 
 told at the Mansion House that the '^ moral influence of
 
 6 
 
 England consists in not giving advice when it is not asked," 
 that is a conception cf the authority of Great Britain amongst 
 nations wIili vrhicli I am sure the President of the Peace 
 Society will not quarrel, unless he should consider it somewhat 
 tame. And Prince Bismarck, whatever he may think of the 
 Pope, has certainly no cause to complain of want of affability 
 in a Tory minister. In the case of the Endowed Schools 
 Bill, no doubt, the horses bolted and the coach was nearly 
 upset in the ditch ; but the leaders' heads were pulled straight 
 just in time, and by a severe application of the double 
 thong, the wheelers were forced to tug the vehicle out of 
 the mire, and no great harm happened. 
 
 Some of my friends think tliis all very dreadful, and allow 
 themselves to be greatly provoked at it. They say, ^^ AVhat 
 a shame it is that these men who have got our places should be 
 doing just the very same thing as we should have done ! " 
 Well, I don't agree in that. You can't scold a nation into 
 giving you a majority any more than you can tease a lady 
 into accepting your hand. It may be very bad taste on her 
 part, but if she prefers a rival, why, you cannot help it. There 
 is no use going about protesting you are the best-looking 
 fellow of the two, though you feel all the time she has made a 
 very bad choice. To speak seriously, so far from its being a 
 bad thing, it is a very good thing that one Government should 
 adopt and confirm the policy of another. It adds the sanction 
 of both parties to the same course. It gives a solidity to the 
 political system of the country ; it seals the past, and it makes 
 the future more secure. So far then from making myself un- 
 happy about all this, I should have been much more unhappy 
 if it had been otherwise. I cannot complain if these Con- 
 servative gentlemen pay to the Liberal party the greatest com- 
 pliment one man can offer to another — that of imitation.
 
 Indeed they have carried this species of flattery almost to 
 excess. They caricature even our faults, as the Chinese 
 potter copied the crack in the pattern plate— for they have 
 done what I thought impossible, they have made the Licensing 
 Act even more vexatious than it was before. The Liberal creed 
 is not an exclusive faith ; we are not a '^ peculiar people " nor 
 a ^^ chosen race/' but, like good Christians, we rejoice in the 
 multitude of our converts. I see Lord Selborne expressed a 
 hope the other day that the Liberals would not become Tories. 
 I don't see much fear of that ; it appears to me much more 
 likely that all the Tories will become Liberals by-and-by — 
 and the sooner the better. It is the old story — 
 
 '* Grecia capta feriim victorem cepit, et artes 
 Intulit agresti Latio." 
 
 The Liberal party vanquished at the hustings have led captive 
 the fierce Conservative reaction, and inspired Liberal senti- 
 ments even in the breasts of the country gentlemen. 
 
 But there is another set of friends of mine who hold a 
 different language, and one in which I still less agree. They 
 say, *' Look at these fellows, they are borrowing all our 
 principles : we must manufacture new ones by way of dis- 
 tinction, or we shall never get back again." This is not at all 
 my view of political life, nor does it seem to me by any means 
 consistent with public honour. Opinions do not become any 
 the worse because other people adopt them ; and I have 
 always thought that office is desirable in order to carry out the 
 opinions you already entertain, and that you should not invent 
 opinions in order to get office. And therefore I reject 
 altogether those " cries " which we are recommended to take 
 up in order to secure power. Power comes soon enough to
 
 those to whom it comes on honourable terms. I do not think 
 it is a very dignified attitude to go about the country, or up 
 and down periodicals^ speculating when and how we may get 
 back to pLiCG. Just as if wo were so many frozen-out fox- 
 hunters swearing for a thaw, and watching with impatience for 
 the first drops that trickle from the eaves. There is plenty of 
 ^^bone in the ground " just at present, but I have a pleasant 
 confidence in the vicissitudes of the political atmosphere. I 
 don't believe in perpetual congelation ; we shall have plenty 
 of open weather yet. Only for heaven's sake don't let us sit 
 and sulk in a corner, or pout like a naughty spoiled child, who, 
 because he can't get his own way in everything, cries out, " I 
 won't play any longer ! " 
 
 But whilst it is a good thing not to be dashed by disaster, 
 it is not a bad use of adversity to endeavour to understand its 
 causes ; and so we may become not sadder, but wiser men. I 
 observe that some gentlemen think that the misfortunes which 
 have overtaken the Liberal party are due to the fact that they 
 were too virtuous. That is a very consolatory theory if we 
 could only get people to believe it ; for there is no error which 
 is more easily amended. But though it is a very pleasant 
 delusion to persuade oneself that all the catastrophes which 
 occur are due to one's excellences, my experience of life leads 
 me to believe that they are much more often attributable to 
 one's faults. In this particular case I am rather disposed to 
 think that the disorder from which -sve are suffering is not an 
 uncommon one — that of too many doctors and too much 
 physic. Each of our many political apothecaries declares that 
 the prostration of the patient is due to his not having 
 swallowed suflftcient of some favourite specific. Everybody 
 advertises himself as the only really "earnest" practitioner, 
 and prescribes pills, and potions, and blisters, and if they do
 
 not answer the purpose, wliy then more pills, and potions, and 
 blisters ; and then, when the party is at the point of death, 
 they say it is all because he has not had pills, and potions, and 
 blisters enough. Now this hygienic practice cannot be said 
 to have been found singularly successful, and, therefore, like 
 the rest, I will volunteer a different diagnosis, which, I fear, 
 will not be very acceptable to the college of poHtical quackery. 
 In my opinion we are suffering from over-dosing ; the body 
 politic is congested by a treatment which, in the cant language 
 of the day, I believe is" called the ^' earnest system," which 
 consists in cramming down the throats of mankind all sorts of 
 stuff, without the least consideration of the capacity of the 
 people to assimilate or digest it. That is neither good medi- 
 cine nor is it good statesmanship. I read the other day a very 
 wise saying of Mr. Fox, borrowed from an old Glreek physician — 
 *^ The second best remedy is preferable to the best, if the 
 patient likes it better." You cannot govern a people without 
 some regard to their sentiments, to tlieir convictions, or even 
 to their prejudices. In leading a party, as in riding a race, the 
 first essential is to be a good judge of pace. I should 
 recommend a return to a rational regimen. You will not 
 restore the healthy tone of an over- excited system by blazing 
 rhetoric and sensational pamphleteering. The fresh air and 
 exercise of the opposition benches is bracing and invigorating, 
 and with a little rest will soon prove restorative. If any 
 medicament is wanting, I would prescribe a few grains of the 
 salt of common sense, as a gentle alterative, to be taken night 
 and morning, and we shall soon be about again. 
 
 It would be unfair and unjust to lay the fault of the defeat 
 of the Liberal party wholly at the door of the late Adminis- 
 tration, though of course, like the generals of a beaten 
 army, they must take tlieir share of the blame. But they
 
 10 
 
 were, I think, at least as much the victims as the authors of 
 the disaster. They were harassed by the demands of dis- 
 cordant sections, each peremptorily insisting upon measures 
 upon which their party was not agreed, and to which the 
 nation would not consent. The chiefs were called upon to 
 storm positions which they knew to be impregnable, and to 
 conduct a jjlan of operations in which there v/as no harmony. 
 In such a situation discomfiture was inevitable. The whole 
 force was clubbed, thrown into inextricable confusion, and 
 routed horse and foot. If you will believe me, the Liberal 
 party has suffered not for the good things which it has done 
 — which were many ; but for the nonsense it has talked — - 
 which was too much ; or rather which has been talked for 
 it by those who have assumed, with mighty little authority, 
 to speak in its name. The Liberal Administration was not 
 dismissed because the country disapproved its policy. The 
 best proof of that is that the Government which has suc- 
 ceeded it has confirmed and adopted that policy. No, gentle- 
 men, the late Government fell not for anything that it had 
 done, nor for anything which it had proposed to do. The dis- 
 trust under which it succumbed was due to an uneasiness as 
 to what it might or might not be forced at any moment to do. 
 This country does not love a Government which is capable of 
 nothing ; but there is one thing which it fears still more, and 
 that is a Government which is capable of everything. It has a 
 wholesome dread of parties of sensation and of the politics of 
 surprise. It is necessary that a nation should know what its 
 Government intend, but it is still more essential that they 
 should feel an assurance as to what it does not intend. In 
 public, as in. private life, the first title to confidence depends 
 upon the conviction that the course which will be steered is 
 determined by fixed charts and is not at the mercy of variable
 
 11 
 
 currents and fitful blasts; that as there are fixed resolves 
 which direct a firm advance, so there are paths into which a 
 Government will not drift and into which it cannot be driven. 
 The lesson to be learnt from this great disaster is, that Parties 
 who wish to be trusted must have the courage to "put their 
 foot down." To extend a covert toleration to rash specula- 
 tions and impracticable schemes in order to secure a precarious 
 support is not the way to recover confidence, but further to 
 destroy it. 
 
 We have going on amongst us a doctrine of development 
 promulgated by most multifarious infallibilities. There is our 
 old friend Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the Pontiff of Total Abstinence 
 — a gentleman whom, however much we may differ from him, 
 it is impossible not to respect for his sincerity and to admire 
 for his humourj for, in spite of his principles,, he is always 
 brimful of spirits. He excommunicates all us poor heretics 
 who do not embrace his immaculate dogma. For my part, I 
 endure his anathemas with resignation. He is particularly 
 wrath with me, and calls me a "Protestant." Well, so I am, 
 and therefore I stick to the principle of private judgment even 
 in the matter of beer. Then there is another gentleman who 
 fulminates his dogmas from the cathedra of the Fortnightly 
 Review, and pronounces — without the consent, so far as I 
 know, of any general council — on the future state of the 
 Liberal party. He has his syllabus, too, and he formulates a 
 creed quite Athanasian in its obscurity, and not less damna- 
 tory in its clauses. And then these gentlemen lament the 
 catastrophe of the Liberal party and deplore the want of 
 nnity in its action ! You cannot get unity on the terms of 
 insisting that every one else shall agree in your own opinions. 
 I cannot help thinking that it is very hard upon the Liberal 
 party to be held responsible before the country for all this
 
 12 
 
 farrago of crotcliets. You cannot Jumble up a mass of crude 
 nostrums, huddle them before a reasonable nation, and call 
 them a policy, without revolting its common sense and creating 
 inevitable reaction. 
 
 And yet, agreeing in nothing else, I find that these peremp- 
 tory instructors of ours are set upon one thing — and that 
 is, to denounce tlie Whigs. Who are the persons designated 
 by a title, which I suppose is intended to be opprobrious, I do 
 not exactly know ; but, as far as I can ascertain, they mean 
 all those persons who hold moderate Liberal opinions— those 
 opinions which in my belief constitute the staple political 
 sentiments of the EngUsh nation. Now, if those who pro- 
 scribe Whig opinions had ever contributed one half as much 
 to the reputation of the Liberal cause, or to the practical 
 business of political reform, as the Party which they depre- 
 ciate, they might command more respect for their denuncia- 
 tions than they are at present likely to receive. I have, 
 myself, no objection to persons who compliment themselves on 
 what they are pleased to call ^^ advanced opinions ; " nor do I 
 dispute the superiority they claim aboA^e the majority of the 
 human race. But then they should reflect that the advantage 
 on which they pride themselves depends on the fact that there 
 is an inferior order of beings wdio are not quite abreast of 
 themselves. If we were all as wise as they are, they would 
 not be such superior persons as we all admit them to be ; and 
 if there was no one behind these gentlemen of '^ advanced 
 opinions " they would not have so much to boast of, for they 
 would be no more ^' advanced " than their neighbours. These 
 political Uhlans are admirable skirmishers, but they don't win 
 pitched battles ; and I should recommend them not to despise 
 or insult the mass of the army on whom they are inevitably 
 driven in as soon as they meet the enemy, or to discard those
 
 reserves and supports upon whom, in the long run, depends 
 the fortune of a campaign. No people and no party is wise 
 winch seeks to break altogether with its past. That is the 
 error which the French committed at the end of the last century, 
 and they have never recovered it. The Whig tradition is the 
 inheritance of the Liberal party, and tlie Liberal cause will 
 gain nothing by discarding it. In it are enshrined those prin- 
 ciples of religious toleration and personal freedom which have 
 regenerated the political system of this country. They are as 
 necessary — perhaps more necessary — against the new despot- 
 isms which menace us to-day than they were against the old 
 tyrannies which tliey have already vanquished. They may 
 require to be enlarged as time goes on, but they are not to be 
 rejected. The Whig party have never been the party of 
 destruction. They could not be so, because they liave always 
 been the party of reform ; and reform is the antidote to de- 
 struction. If tliose who demand subversion repudiate and 
 ostracise those who adhere to reform, they will neither unite a 
 party nor will they reassure a nation. No party ever yet 
 flourished which proceeded on the principle of expelling from 
 its ranks its moderate members. They are generally the 
 wisest, and therefore the most influential, of its constituents. 
 I have been, I confess, shocked to see the language addressed 
 to those who are unwilling to be precipitated into extreme 
 courses. It is assvuned that the hopes of power will induce 
 them to consent to anything or everything of which they dis- 
 approve. The people who hold this tone know very little of 
 the spirit and character of the party against whom they vent 
 their taunts. They will find that men of moderate opinions 
 have something far more at heart than the acquisition of oflSce, 
 and that is to prevent the Government of this great empire 
 from falling into the hands of politicians who, rejecting the
 
 14 
 
 established traditions of the Liberal party, run after every 
 new-fangled doctrine and every raw speculation. 
 
 You will ask, *^ Is there then nothing to be done ? " Yes, 
 gentlemen, there is plenty to be done. I will mention only 
 two out of many things not at all destructive, but quite the 
 reverse, which are awaiting a solution. First, there is the 
 reform of the laws relating to labour. I have spoken to you 
 before on that subject, and I have nothing to change or to add. 
 You know that a Koyal Commission has been appointed to 
 consider the subject. It was said that the Commission 
 would report in time for legislation last session. I felt sure 
 that pledge could not be redeemed, and I therefore declined a 
 seat upon the Commission which was offered to me, because I 
 considered it would lead to an unnecessary delay in a matter 
 upon which we had already abundant information. The sub- 
 ject, I thinkj cannot fail to be taken in hand next session, and 
 I trust that the good sense of Parliament will settle it upon the 
 sound basis of the absolute freedom of labour and the repeal of 
 restrictive legislation. There is another great 'question, per- 
 haps not yet equally ripe, but which is fast maturing — I mean 
 the amendment of the laws relating to land. Those who are 
 interested in agriculture are becoming every day more alive to 
 the mischief of the shackles by which the free dealing with the 
 soil is restrained, and the necessity of affording more security 
 to those who embark their capital in farming. It is only from 
 the fund of larger and safer profits that the miserably in- 
 adequate wages of the agricultural labourers can be permanently 
 augmented. I spoke to you at length on this matter last year, 
 and I shall not enter into it now except to express the satis- 
 faction I feel in observing tlie awakened and the growing 
 interest which this important subject commands. It is impos- 
 sible that we can continue to pay to foreign nations some
 
 15 
 
 seventy millions of money every year for produce which, under 
 a better system, might, at least in great part, be raised at 
 home. With this matter the question of the Game Laws is 
 intimately connected. My views on that subject are too well 
 known to you to make it necessary that I should repeat them 
 now. I think that these are matters which may much more 
 profitably occupy our attention than schemes for dismembering 
 the Empire or destroying the Church. 
 
 After what I have said you will not expect to hear from me 
 any petulant or captious criticisms on the transactions of last 
 session. It is a subject which was never important, but which 
 is now worn threadbare. There is, however, one class of ques- 
 tions which I cannot altogether pass by. I wish I could ; but 
 they have of late so engrossed the public mind that it is im- 
 possible to be altogether silent upon them. In England, as 
 well as abroad, the ecclesiastical topic, like Aaron's rod, seems 
 to have swallowed up all the profane snakes. It is positively 
 dangerous to walk about the streets, for folios of canonists and 
 casuists come tumbling about your ears like chimney-pots in a 
 gale of wind. Now, of all matters with which politicians have 
 to deal, theological affairs are the most dangerous to handle. 
 They arc a sort of dynamite, which blows up when you least 
 expect it ; and when you once kindle the blaze no man can tell 
 when it will be quenched. No pubhc man who has a due sense 
 of responsibility will set flames to such a material unless under 
 the pressure of some absolute necessity, and if compelled to 
 deal with it, he will restrict himself within the exact limits of 
 political action. There is nothing more dangerous or more 
 mischievous than to confound the province of practical states- 
 manship with that of theological controversy. If you are called 
 upon to act, whatever may be the difficulty of these questions, 
 you may be compelled to deal with them. But the error which
 
 16 
 
 IS most strenuously to be avoided is that of denouncing men 
 whom you cannot and do not intend to control, and of need- 
 lessly arousing the bitterest of all sentiments, that of theolo- 
 gical hatred, in the breasts of the different sections of a people 
 which embraces various creeds. No true Liberal will have any 
 difficulty in steering his course on such questions. The prin- 
 ciples of the Liberal party on these matters have long been 
 fixed and are clearly marked out. After generations of 
 controversy there are two great maxims firmly established. 
 The first — that with respect to all creeds which ask and receive 
 nothing of the State, no man should be better or worse treated, 
 regarded, or spoken of, on account of his religious opinions. 
 Secondly, that in the case of a religious establishment which 
 receives and enjoys privileges and endowments under the 
 guarantee of the State, those who accept the benefit should be 
 compelled to observe the conditions and obey the law by which 
 they are prescribed. You may call these Whig principles if 
 you like, but in my opinion they are true principles, and my 
 conduct has been and v/ill be regulated by them. 
 
 Now, adhering as I do to the first of these principles, } ou 
 must not expect me to join in an onslaught on my Catholic 
 fellow subjects. You will not suspect when I say this that I 
 entertain any sympathy with their opinions or their system ; 
 but, as a politician, it is no part of my business to undertake 
 the office of a controversial theologian. I see no necessity— 
 certainly none that has newly arisen — for attacking the 
 Catholics, and if there is no necessity there is great mischief 
 in it. When we reflect that the Catholic subjects of the 
 Queen form a fifth of her English-speaking people — and 
 especially if we regard their distribution in Ireland and 
 Canada — we shall not forget the wise saying of Burke, that 
 *' he did not know how to draw an indictment against a
 
 t7 
 
 Avliole people." But the Catholics of the United Kingdom are 
 far more numerous than those of whom Burke thus spoke. I 
 may disapprove — as I do — of their religious system, but I 
 cannot impeach a community which forms so great a fraction 
 of this empire — which fills with distinguished men its civil 
 service — which fights its battles and which mans its fleets — 
 men who, according to my observation, are not less worthy in 
 tlieir conduct as members of society and as subjects of the 
 state than we who differ from them — I cannot, I say, impeach 
 live or six millions of Englishmen as a suspected class. What 
 is the necessity for such a course ? — and if there is no necessity, 
 what is its justification ? I am told that something happened 
 in 1870 which has changed the whole situation. If that was 
 so, why is it only now discovered — why was it not before 
 announced ? But the truth is there is nothing changed. The 
 pretensions of Rome have always been thes ame.'^ Lord Acton, 
 who knows more about the matter than most people, has told 
 us so. It is just the old story which we have heard before, and 
 which those at least who are Liberals have contended against 
 for three generations. If this view of the aims of the Catholics 
 is w^ell founded, the whole legislation of a century has been a 
 fatal mistake, and the traditional policy of the Liberal party 
 must be stigmatized as an egregious blunder. It is said that 
 it is difficult to reconcile the demands of Rome with civil 
 loyalty. It may be so, but there is a logical dilemma still 
 more puzzling, and that is to reconcile professions of toleration 
 with the assumption of Catholic disloyalty. The penal 
 laws and the civil disabilities were based upon this very 
 theory of inherent bad citizenship. And if these assumptions 
 are true, that policy, cruel as it was, must be admitted to have 
 
 * See note at the end.
 
 18 
 
 been necessary, and therefore wise. But it was against these 
 very reasonings, and the assumptions on which they were founded, 
 that Burke, and Fox, and Grenville, and Grey maintained a 
 noble resistance, and on account of that resistance submitted 
 to a long exile from power. As a faithful disciple of their 
 principles, I cannot embrace the doctrines which they abliorred. 
 If you really believe that the Catholics are engaged in an orga- 
 nized conspiracy against the civil government, why then you ought 
 to treat them as you do proclaimed districts where the liberty 
 and the protection of the law is suspended for the security of 
 the State. But if you do not really think this — I mean as a 
 practical belief, and not a mere logical speculation — if you are 
 not prepared to act upon it— what can be more idle, what can 
 be more imprudent, than to denounce millions of men whom 
 you have neither the rlglit nor the intention to coerce ? In 
 politics it not seldom happens that, of all things, the most 
 delusive are logical demonstrations and rhetorical invectives. 
 There is nothing leas wise than to try to drive men into a 
 corner j to prove to them conclusively that they ought to do 
 the very thing which you desire them not to do, and which, 
 if you will only leave them alone, they have not the least 
 intention to do. What is the use of trying to convince men 
 that they ought to be disloyal either to their Church or their 
 country, when they are very ready to be loyal to both, even 
 at the cost of a syllogism ? The experience of life teaches us 
 that If few men are as good as their moral professions, happily 
 still fewer are as unreasonable as their theological creeds. 
 Nothing is more practically futile than to hold men responsible 
 for the logical consequences of their principles. Those who 
 employ such a test are probably the men who could least endure 
 its application to themselves. I think ingenuity and eloquence 
 cannot be worse employed than in persuading men, who are
 
 19 
 
 as good citizens as ourselves, that their religion calls upon 
 them to be bad subjects. It may be all very good logic, and 
 unanswerable casuistry, but it is very bad politics. I do not 
 mean politics in a party sense, but in its higher meaning — the 
 polity which aims at compacting the interests and uniting the 
 sections of an entire empire. I do not profess to be deeply 
 versed in the Canon Law of the Mahommedan faith, but I 
 have an impression that it is not very favourable to the 
 authority of infidels. The last thing, liowcver, I should think 
 of doing would be to demonstrate to the Mahommedan subjects 
 of our Indian Empire that they are bound either to abjure the 
 Prophet or to mutiny against the Queen. I have little 
 expectation that they will embrace the first alternative, and 
 I have no wish to drive them to the last. Neither will I take 
 that course with regard to my Catholic fellow-subjects. You 
 might easily found a theory equally injurious to the Calvlnlsts 
 by deductions drawn from the doctrine of predestination* 
 And the conclusions would not be more absurd or untrue than 
 those with which it is souo;ht to fix the Catholics. I look at 
 the actions of men and not at their creed, and if I find that 
 they conduct themselves as good citizens, I am not curious to 
 speculate upon their dogmas nor astute to impugn their 
 loyalty. I have lived all my life in contact with Catholics. 
 I have found them in public and in private as worthy citizens, 
 and as good members of society as other people. I have, I 
 hope, friends amongst them in this city, perhaps on this plat- 
 form. They are in a small minority, but, to my mind, that is 
 anything but a reason for treating any class of men with 
 injustice ; and, therefore, I can be no party to a speculative 
 attempt to fix upon them the odious charge of bad citizenship. 
 When the Ultramontane doctrine assumes the shape of practical 
 pretension, I have always and shall always resist it; and 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 therefore, when it was proposed to place the teaching of 
 history and philosophy in a national university on a different 
 footing from other subjects as pertaining to faith and morals, 
 and as such belonging to the exclusive cognizance of the 
 priesthood, I resisted that proposal. That would have been 
 to accept the doctrine of the Vatican, and to engraft the 
 SyHabus on the English statute book. We have acted with 
 the Catholics in public life. I cannot turn round on them 
 now and tell them I knew all along they were not to be 
 trusted. We engaged with them in a policy which had for 
 its object the conciliation of Ireland. I, for one, am not 
 ashamed of that policy. But how can you pacify Ireland if 
 you proclaim that the religion to which her people are pas- 
 sionately attached is essentially imcompatlble with civil 
 loyalty ? It would be like trying to wash a blackamoor white. 
 I was a colleague of many Catholics, who held most respon- 
 sible situations in the Government of the Queen, from the 
 late Lord Chancellor of Ireland downwards. Do you think 
 that I would have been their colleague for a moment if I had 
 believed that on receipt of a telegram from Rome they were 
 ready at any instant to betray their country ? I believed 
 nothing of the sort. The principles of the party to which I 
 belong do not allow me to interfere with them on account of 
 their creed, and as I may not interfere with them I see no 
 good in abusing them. 
 
 If you will allow me to give you a bit of practical political 
 advice — do not permit yourselves to be embroiled in a contro- 
 versy which can have no practical result. Do not dispute 
 where you cannot act ; and, above all, do not be diverted from 
 mischiefs which you can remedy, by endless discussions about 
 those which you cannot cure. There are things with which 
 you may deal, and with which, in my opinion, you ought to
 
 21 
 
 deal. We Iiave miscliiefs far nearer home than the Pope, and 
 priests quite as mischievous as those of Rome. In my opinion, 
 if there could be a more serious error than that of interfering 
 with the Catholics outside, it would be that of palliating and 
 encouraging the conduct of the Romanizers within the 
 Established Church. That would be to imitate the fussy folly 
 of tliose who meddle ia the households of their neighbours, 
 whilst they are blind to the disorders of their own. In the 
 Establishment all the elements which are wanting in the case 
 of an independent religious creed are present. You have the 
 right to act, you have the power to act, and if there is a 
 necessity (as there is) for doing so, you ought to act. And it 
 is for all those reasons that I gave my cordial support to the 
 Public \Yor6hip Bill last session. There is all the distinction 
 in the world between the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill — a measure 
 directed against those with whose internal' discipline you had 
 no right to interfere — and the Bill of last session, which 
 regulated matters over which Parliament has legitimate control. 
 How any one professing the slightest knowledge of politics 
 could confound two things so exactly the opposite of one 
 another, passes my comprehension. The right of the State to 
 control the conduct of the clergy of the National Church is a 
 thing which will not be disputed by any one who understands 
 the constitution of this country. The Legislature prescribes 
 the terms on which the National Church shall exist exactly in 
 the same manner and by the same right as it defines the con- 
 ditions on w^hich the Throne shall be filled. Since the 
 Reformation the clergy have never been allowed to settle the 
 national religion, and they never will. I am amazed to hear 
 the term " an Act of Parliament Church " scouted as if it 
 were something strange and horrible. I should like to know 
 how a National Church in England can be anything else but
 
 22 
 
 an Act of Parliament Church. A National Church is, I 
 suppose, a Church established by the National will, and that 
 will Cii:i Lc aloiie expressed by Parliament — I use the word, 
 of course, in its true sense — the Queen, the Lords, and the 
 Commons. The oppoolte pretension is, that the National 
 Church is to be settled, not by the Nation, but by the Clergy, 
 not by Parliament, but by Convocation. That is a position to 
 which for three centuries the English people have constantly 
 refused their assent. No one, of course, pretends that Parlia- 
 ment is an absolute judge of religious truth — no more are the 
 clergy. Though when these matters have to be handled, I 
 think that the dignity and decency of their discussion in the 
 House of Commons will lose nothing by comparison with the 
 debates of a Church Congress. The idea of a Church without 
 any particular doctrine, practice, or discipline, is a simple 
 absurdity. This autocracy of individual sacerdotalism where 
 each parson is his own sect, is a thing which no denomination 
 has ever tolerated. The Nonconformists would be first to 
 repudiate such an idea. It is not the clergy who are to dictate 
 to the nation which is the religion they shall establish ; it is 
 the nation which prescribes to the clergy what is the religion 
 they shall administer. That is the fundamental principle of 
 the reformed religion and of the Protestant settlement of this 
 country. And if one set of priests refuse to conform, we shall 
 find others, as we have found before, who will obey the 
 national wilL The will of the nation in respect of these matters 
 is laid down in the law of the land which affects the National 
 Church, and those who choose to disobey that law must be 
 treated like those who transgress any other law. I am shocked 
 to hear the abuse of the sacred name of liberty in connection 
 with such a subject ; there is no word more often profaned, 
 but this is perhaps the most signal instance of its perversion.
 
 23 
 
 When men accept a trust under a sacred obligation to fulfil its 
 conditions, what is the proper name to apply to those who 
 deliberately violate the terms upon which they enjoy their 
 privileges and emoluments ? I will tell you what the law and 
 what the conscience of mankind calls them — it calls them 
 fraudulent trustees. And that is what an English clergyman 
 is to be called who deliberately violates the law under which 
 he holds his preferment. Let us hear no more of the cant of 
 liberty then on a subject which is a case of honesty and honour 
 — such casuistry as this confounds the principles of morals and 
 brings truth itself into contempt. One of the great merits of 
 a State Church consists in the fact that the patronage of its 
 chief dignities is placed in the hands of those who enjoy the 
 confidence of the nation. This is a means of bringing the 
 sentiments of the clergy in some degree into harmony with the 
 convictions of the people, and tends to heal that Unhappy breach 
 between clerical and lay opinion which is the source of so much 
 mischief. I wish that of late years the object for which this 
 patronage was vested in the Crown had been a little better un- 
 derstood, and then we should not hear language uttered, from 
 Christ Church to Paul's Cross, the object of which appears to be 
 to exasperate the public mind against the Establishment. 
 
 I know there are many who think that a National Establish- 
 ment is a mistake altogether — that is quite a different question. 
 But there can be no defence for those who maintain an Estab- 
 lishment and enjoy its emoluments, whilst at the same time 
 they refuse to fulfil its terms. On the subject of the Estab- 
 lishment I have always frankly told you my opinion, and I 
 have not changed it. These are matters on which men who 
 have undci taken a public responsibihty do not lightly alter 
 their views, and I know you would not respect me if I did so. 
 I have been quite surprised, I might say disgusted, at the liber-
 
 24 
 
 ties which some recent speakers have thought fit to take with the 
 name of the most eminent member of the Liberal party on this 
 matter. The opinions which Mr. Gladstone has expressed on 
 this subject are well-known, yet I have seen gentlemen 
 venture to speculate on ihe possibihty of his being ready, at a 
 moment's notice, now that he is out of office, to take an 
 exactly opposite course. Gentlemen, I know nothing in the 
 illustrious career of that eminent statesman which should ex- 
 pose him to so unworthy an imputation. On the part of a 
 political opponent such language would be unpardonable, but 
 what are we to say of it when it proceeds from those who 
 profess to be his most devoted followers and friends ? I 
 have never been willing to take part in the destruction of the 
 National Church, because by the constitution of this country 
 it is essentially a Protestant Establishment. I believe that 
 there resides in the State which has declared and guaranteed 
 its Protestant character the power, as there is the right, to 
 maintain, or, if need be, to restore it to that standard. And, 
 if that be so, I am of opinion that a Protestant Establishment 
 is the only power that can effectually cope with the organized 
 forces of Rome. This is a weapon of defence which, con- 
 sistently with the most complete toleration, we have the right 
 to employ, and which we should be most unwise to abandon. 
 Compared with its powers of resistance, I believe that the 
 eiForts of voluntary bodies are feeble. They are like irregular 
 forces contending against a disciplined army. I understand 
 that in Holland, the old head-quarters of Protestantism, since 
 the disestablishment of its Church, the forces of Kome have 
 carried everything before them. And he must be a purblind 
 politician who does not understand that the residuary legatee 
 of disestablishment would infallibly be the Church of Rome. 
 You will tell me, perhaps, that the garrison of the Establish-
 
 25 
 
 merit is not to be trusted. If so, it is a very good reason for 
 changing your garrison, not for blowing up the fort. I am 
 for reforming the Church of England ; but till I am satisfied 
 it cannot be reformed I am not for destroying it. When 
 I am convinced that the National Church can no longer 
 be maintained as a bulwark of the Protestant religion, then 
 the object for which it was established will have wholly 
 failed, and the Establishment will cease to exist, because 
 the National Church will no longer represent the sentiments 
 of the nation. 
 
 I have said this is a matter with which we have the 
 power to deal, but that is not enough ; before we meddle 
 with these questions we must be satisfied that there is 
 an urgent necessity for dealing with them. I am satis- 
 fied there is such a necessity. What is the present 
 state of the Church, and what is the conduct of a sec- 
 tion — 1 fear a large section — of the clergy ? It is one 
 of which the Church and the nation have had experience 
 before. I will describe it to you in the words of Bishop 
 Burnet. They were written 160 years ago, but if they were 
 an ecclesiastical photograph taken to-day they could not more 
 exactly represent the existing condition of things. 
 
 "There are many," he says, "who profess great zeal for the cause of 
 Establishment, yet seem to be set on forming a new scheme both of 
 religion and Government, and are taking the very same methods, only a 
 little diversified, that have been pursued in Popery to bring the world into 
 a blind dependence on the clergy, and to draw the wealth and strength 
 of the nation into their hands. The opinion of the sacraments being an 
 expiatory sacrifice, and the necessity of secret confession and absolution, 
 and of the Church's authority acting in independence of the Civil Power, 
 were the foundations of Popery and the seminal principles out of which 
 that mass of corruption grew. They are directly contrary to all the prin- 
 ciples on which the lleformation was carried on, and to every step that
 
 26 
 
 was made in it. And yet these of late have been notions much favoured 
 and written for with much zeal, not to say indecency ; besides a vast num- 
 ber of little, superstitious practices that in some places have grown to a 
 great height, so that we are insensibly going off from the Reformation, 
 and forming anew model of a Church totally different from all our former 
 principles, as well as from our present Establishment. What can be said 
 of those who are already going into some of its worst forms of Popery*? 
 It is well known that the practice and necessity of auricular confession, 
 and the priestly absolution, with the conceit of the sacrifice of the mass, 
 are the most gainful parts of Popery, and are, indeed, those which most 
 effectually subdue the world and it. The independence of the Church on 
 the State is also contended for, as if it were a design to disgrace our Re- 
 formation. The devotions of Rome are openly recommended, and a union 
 with the Galilean Church has been impudently proposed. [The Galilean 
 was a sort of Old Catholic Church.] The Reformers are by many daily 
 vilified, and that doctrine which has been universally maintained by 
 our best writers — the supremacy of the Crown — is on many occasions 
 arraigned." — Preface to third part of " History of the Reformation." 
 
 That state of things was cured by an effectual remedy. The 
 Crown closed the door of Convocation. And the unwisdom 
 of the counsels under which, twenty years ago^ its mischievous 
 action was allowed to revive has been ah-eady sufficiently 
 demonstrated. In my opinion the present condition of things 
 in the Church is simply intolerable. And Parliament, which 
 passed the Public Worship Bill by overwhelming majorities, 
 has pronounced it to be so. It is trifling with a serious matter 
 to pretend that this Ritualism is a mere matter of assthetics ; 
 that it is like a taste for crockery or a fancy for millinery. If 
 that were all, we might treat it with the contempt that belongs 
 to the coxcombry of a dressy clergy and the gewgaws of a 
 sensuous religion. But every man of common sense knows 
 very well that the importance of these things consists in that 
 which they are intended to symbolize, and the system of which 
 they are only the trappings. You might just as well represent
 
 27 
 
 that when a vessel hoists the red flag it is only an affair of a 
 few yards of bunting. We know the flag well, we per- 
 fectly appreciate what it means and what is intended to follow 
 from it. It is the flag of the enemies of the Reformation 
 hoisted by those who are sworn to defend its cause upon the 
 steeples of the National Church. I know the way in which 
 even the name of the Protestant religion is repudiated by men 
 who pretend to be ministers of the English Church. That is a 
 new audacity. Even in the bad days of the Restoration that 
 pitch of licentiousness had not been reached ; for we find that 
 the bishops in their discussion with the Presbyterian divines 
 defend the Prayer Book on the ground that ^' some of the 
 compilers thereof have sealed the Protestant religion with their 
 blood." Yes, gentlemen, they did so in this very city, and 
 they lit a candle which this nation will not allow to be put out 
 by their most unworthy successors. 
 
 We hear a good deal now-a-days about a new sect who 
 call themselves Old Catholics. That is a crusade in which 
 I feel no inclination to embark. It is a domestic difference 
 of the Church of Rome, and it is a very pretty quarrel 
 as it stands. If the fleas were unanimous they would pull 
 us out of bed. But it is an affair with which we have 
 nothing to do. We are not Old Catholics, we are Old 
 Protestants. It was against the doctrine of the Old Catholics, 
 and not against the Papal authority alone, that the Refor- 
 mation was directed. They only delude you who would have 
 you believe that you can embrace the dogma of Rome and 
 yet reject its ecclesiastical system. The dogma is the scaffold- 
 ing of the edifice. If you once admit the sacramental claims of 
 the priesthood all the rest follows as an inevitable deduction. 
 Once give them this platform whereon they may stand, and 
 they will shake, as they have shaken, the world. These doc-
 
 28 
 
 trines were invented for no other purpose than that of aggran- 
 dizing the sacerdotal authority, and of subjugating the human 
 will ; it is because they tend to exalt the priesthood that the 
 clergy are always scheming liow they may get back to them, 
 and they will get back to them unless the laity keep a tight 
 hand upon their practices. It was this cardinal truth that the 
 authors of the English Reformation, Cranmer, and Latimer, and 
 Ridley, profoundly understood, and they laid down their lives 
 to protest against these sacramental superstitions, which they 
 well knew were the key of the Papal fabric. Therefore, we who 
 hold to the faith of our forefathers have nothing to do w^ith vari- 
 ous shades of a system which is fundamentally opposed to that 
 confession, whether they choose to call themselves Catholics, 
 or Old Catholics, or Anglo-Catholics. No, gentlemen, if the 
 Church needs support from without let us not look to the Old 
 Catholics; let us rather turn to a natural alliance with the 
 Protestant Dissenters, whom an unwise policy has too much 
 alienated from her. I have long been for opening her church- 
 yards to their dead, but I am much more eager to throw wide 
 her gates to their living. It is difficult to speak with patience 
 of such learned simpletons as a Bishop of whom we have lately 
 read, who thinks he is doing service to the Church by flouting 
 and insulting, even in the tomb, men whom he ought to have 
 respected as the ministers of a common faith. Do not let us act 
 like star-gazers who are so intent on the skies that they tumble 
 into the pit at their feet. Do not trouble yourselves about the 
 Pope ; he is an old man, he is a long way off, and he can do us 
 very little harm. The pretensions of those who call themselves 
 Anglo-Catholic Priests are far more formidable. They are at 
 our doors, and they are doing a great deal of mischief. 
 
 It was to cope with these internal foes that the Public Worship 
 Bill was passed. That measure was the work of no party, it
 
 was the sentence of the nation expressed by an overwhelming 
 majority of Parliament. The opposition to it, though con- 
 ducted by considerable persons, crumbled away like a sand 
 castle before the sweep of the advancing tide. I hope the Act 
 may do the work ^Yhich was expected of it — that it will compel 
 the lawless to conform to the law. I do not sympathize with 
 those delicate consciences who scruple to observe the con- 
 ditions on which they hold their preferment, but who have no 
 scruple whatever in hanging on to their emoluments. The 
 Bill was, I believe, sound in its principles, and it was moderate 
 in its extent. It did not pretend to alter the law nor even to 
 define it. It provided an efficient means of enforcing the law. I 
 think it will be wise, before we embark in any extended legisla- 
 tion, to try the effect of the Act we have passed. I have seen 
 confident predictions that this measure will destroy the Church. 
 It is significant that this assertion proceeds from the persons 
 who were at once the chief opponents of the Bill and the lead- 
 ins: enemies of the Church. It is a little strange that if it 
 were about to accomplish their purpose, they should view it with 
 so much dissatisfaction. But the truth is that it is because it will 
 have exactly the opposite effect that they regard it with such 
 hostility. They naturally — and I cannot blame them for it — 
 desire to encourage the clergy in practices which make the 
 Church odious to the nation. It is said we shall have a 
 secession. The menace does not alarm me. We have had 
 secessions before. Indeed, it was not possible to establish the 
 Keformation without many secessions, some voluntary, some 
 involuntary. Queen Elizabeth had to do without the whole 
 Bench of Bishops for six months, and got on very well. The 
 non-jurors were many of them excellent and learned men, but 
 England dispensed with the non-jurors. The remedy may 
 prove severe, but the disease is critical. I believe a capital
 
 m 
 
 operation is necessary to extirpate the cancer, for without it 
 the patient will surely die. 
 
 I have detained you too long ; I would gladly have avoided 
 topics on which 1 know the minds of men are greatly divided. 
 But it is for that very reason that I think it is the duty of 
 those who pretend to take a part in public affairs to form a 
 judgment upon them to the best of their ability, and to declare 
 itj without reserve, to those whose confidence they seek. I 
 have never myself been an admirer of what is called a " non- 
 committal " policy. It is neither courageous nor honest, and 
 without honesty and courage public life would be intole- 
 rable. 
 
 No doubt we live in troubled times — in days when the minds 
 of men are agitated and perplexed. The causes of this dis- 
 traction are not far to seek. Society is tossed to and fro 
 between Scylla and Charybdis — the Priests and the Philo- 
 sophers. These two have kept natures of the shuttlecock 
 Older in f.n everlasting see- saw between superstition and 
 unbelief. Shocked by the dreary vacuity of the one, weak 
 minds seek refuge in the degrading stimulants of the other. 
 It has been the fortune of our race that they have nourished a 
 traditional distrust of Priests, and an instinctive aversion to 
 Philosophers. Long may they continue to do so ! They will 
 still preserve a national character at which speculation may 
 sneer, but which history, that records the experience of States, 
 will respect ; a native vigour which is proof against an 
 effeminate casuistry, and upon which sophism expends its 
 subtleties in vain; the simple and mascuHne temper of a 
 stable-minded and a God-fearing people, who have known how 
 in their pohty to maintain a sober freedom, and in their 
 religion a reasonable faith.
 
 51' 
 
 NOTE TO PAGE 17. 
 
 lu the Topu's Bull of 1520, condemning tlie errors of Luther, which 
 was published in England by Wolsey, the 29th " pestiferous error'' is as 
 follows : — 
 
 "If the Pope, with a great part of the Chiuvh, should think so and so, and 
 should not err, yet it is not sin or heresy to think the contrary, especially in a 
 thing not necessary to salvation, until it be by a general council the one rejected, 
 the other approved." — Strjpe, Ecc. Mem. vol. i. cap. 2. 
 
 The Bull of 15o8, excommunicating Henry VII f., ran thus: — 
 
 " Tlie Pope absolved all the king's subjects from their oitTis of allegiance and 
 obeJience ; conmuxnded the nobility, gentry, and others of his realm to expel and 
 depose him from his dominior s ; declared all leagues with other princes to be 
 null, and they enjoined to renounce all amity with him, or else to lie under 
 interdiction ; exhorted and commanded all princes to invade, ^poil, and fight 
 against him ; gave them a right and property to his ships, goods, and whatsoever 
 pei-taineth to him ; Avilled all ecclesiastics publicly to declare him and all his 
 adherents excommunicants by will, book, and candle." — Ibid. cap. xliii. 
 
 I am not aware that Bins IX. has sought to carry the matter further 
 than this ; or that his denunciations are a bit more operative than those of 
 his predecessor. Strype tells us "the sober sort of Bapists liked it not" 
 in the sixteenth century any more than they do in the nineteenth. But 
 Bopes have alw;iys had a bad habit of saying what they please, to which 
 Englishmen have opposed the effectual retort of paying no attention to 
 them.
 
 LONUON: 
 rRlJJTED BY W. ^VILFRED IIKAD, PLOUGH COUIIT, TETTER LANE, E.O. 
 
 >.^'*-c*?.^^':>i^.- J I