to the Vatican. Why does Great Britain, Protestant power though she be, decline to treat openly with Rome, and why does she refuse to send a duly authorised envoy to the Papal Court?

It may be confidently asserted that the principal leaders of political parties in England, whether Conservative or Liberal, whether it be a Beaconsfield or a Gladstone who rules the destinies of the empire, entertain for themselves no objection against establishing regular diplomatic relations with a Court with which they have been, from time to time if not continuously, compelled to treat indirectly. Years ago the Papal Nuncio at Paris or Brussels was the occasional intermediary between Rome and St. James's. Sometimes a Protestant prelate, such as the notorious Earl of Bristol, conveyed or was presumed to convey the wishes of the British Cabinet to the Propaganda. Hundreds of letters of Sir J. Coxe Hippesley, an officious but unofficial envoy of the British Crown, lie in Roman archives. Cardinal Erskine was also employed in an underhand manner at the Vatican; among the more or less official and officious agents at Rome were one Jenkins, an antiquary, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Petre, the Earl of Minto, who threatened the Pope with the British fleet, Lord Lyons, Mr. Odo Russell, and Mr. Clarke Jervoise; and, in short, there never was a period when the British Government omitted to seek the aid of the Pope through irregular channels, whenever that aid seemed to be desirable. Even in more recent times no Papal appointments to important episcopal sees in Ireland were made without attempts, more or less indirect, on the part of English agents or quasi-agents to influence them. The mission of Mr. George Errington, so long denied, was at last acknowledged. No doubt can now be entertained that he ably discharged, without remuneration, and notwithstanding occasional repudiations, some of the most important duties of an envoy. Those British statesmen, therefore, who say that a British envoy at the Papal Court is unnecessary, while they themselves employ one, are guilty of hypocrisy. And they might as well at once assert that it is befitting to the dignity of the British empire first to use and afterwards to repudiate the services of casual visitors and irresponsible amateurs in delicate affairs of diplomacy. Most persons, however, are of opinion that if diplomatic intercourse of some kind with Rome be necessary, such intercourse should be open and above-board. The Conservative Premiers are only deterred by fear of the Orangemen, and the Liberal Premiers by fear of the extreme Radicals, from taking the honourable course of openly establishing those diplomatic relations with Rome which they know by experience to be absolutely indispensable.

The chief uses of a British envoy to Rome are, moreover, in a great measure lost by the employment of irregular and temporary agents. The Popes, and none more so than the present occupant of

the Vatican, are sincerely anxious to learn the wishes of the British Government, that they may in all just requirements obey them. Leo XIII., from his youth upwards, was a diligent student of Irish history. He knows all that Irish Catholics suffered in former generations, and he knows also that the present rulers of Ireland are fully sensible of the errors, nay, crimes, of the Governments that have passed away, and that they desire nothing so much as to retrieve and undo the mistakes and delinquencies of their predecessors. For the knowledge of what is now going on in Ireland or in Great Britain and the colonies the Pope is mainly dependent upon the reports which are made not to himself but to the Propaganda by British, Irish, and other ecclesiastics, and upon statements made to himself by these prelates and dignitaries in audiences. These reports and statements are to some extent confined to ecclesiastical affairs, and when they refer to political or semi-political questions must be in a measure defective and one-sided. The other side of such questions and all questions have another side-may be, but is not always, represented to the Pope by private and irresponsible persons, whose statements of necessity lack authority and are open to suspicion. The statements presented to him by unofficial, volunteer, and temporary agents of Great Britain cannot always be received with that amount of confidence which is desirable. They are subject to the objection that they may be proffered for an immediate party purpose at the desire of the British Minister of the day, and are liable to be disowned or repudiated by succeeding Ministers. The representations made to the Pope by an agent whose credentials are personal rather than official, and whose mission, if mission it can be called, is merely temporary, may be based upon false or imperfect information, or perhaps prompted by purely personal and interested motives.

The British envoy to the Vatican, to be truly efficient and useful to his country, should be a permanent official, not removable on change of Cabinets. It would be desirable that this envoy should be a Roman Catholic layman of rank, or at least of independent position, and he should certainly be more of an ambassador than a mere Foreign Office clerk. He should possess the confidence of Roman Catholic bishops as well as of the Crown. He ought to be enabled to entertain the Roman Catholic bishops and the chief ecclesiastics, regular as well as secular, who from time to time visit Rome, and who possess much valuable information concerning their respective spheres of duty in Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies, which none others can so well impart. The envoy's position should be fully recognised, so that the reports he may make either to the British Government or to the Pope may be authoritative, and capable of being put on record for the benefit of the parties affected or interested.

Part of the envoy's business should be the protection of the temporal interests of British and Irish Catholic ecclesiastics and laymen

who are resident in Italy. In 1870, when Victor Emmanuel took possession of Rome, the interests of the Catholic subjects of Her Majesty who were then resident in that city were placed, without any remonstrance from the Queen's representative, completely at the caprice of the Italian Government. Mr. Clarke Jervoise, the successor of Mr. Odo Russell (now Lord Ampthill), was rudely superseded in his functions by Sir Augustus Paget, who took no pains to conceal his satisfaction at the capture of Rome and the downfall of the temporal power of the Pope. Sir Augustus made little exertion to protect the interests of the Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen whose properties were endangered by the change of government. The British and Irish Zouaves, as was duly recorded in the Foreign Office reports, were contemptuously "handed over to Monsignor Stonor," to be by him sent to their respective homes. The lands of the British and Irish ecclesiastical colleges were partially confiscated, although a word from the English ambassador to the King would at one time have been sufficient to save them. The case of the Irish College, or, as Sir Augustus Paget contemptuously termed it, "the so-called Irish College," was extraordinary. The lands of this college were held in trust by the four Irish Archbishops in their capacity of British subjects, and were not held by them as an Italian corporate body. Those lands were, therefore, altogether exempt from the law of conversion, which was applicable only to the properties of ecclesiastical corporations. Yet those lands were among the very first which were announced for sale by auction under the Act for Suppression of the Religious Orders. They were illegally set up for auction, and although withdrawn from sale under the Act, were eventually purchased in a compulsory fashion by Victor Emmanuel, who threw them at once into his private demesne outside the Porta Salara. The lands on the Esquiline purchased by Father Douglas, who expended on them and in erecting a church and convent thereon the sum of £40,000, were seized, and Father Douglas himself was prosecuted and convicted in the Italian Courts for having fraudulently attempted to secure a portion of his own property! The injustice of these proceedings was subsequently acknowledged, but too late for any adequate restitution or compensation. Yet the Italian Government in 1870 was disposed to exclude from the Suppression Act the property of all foreign ecclesiastics, and undoubtedly would have been glad to assent to any demand made by Great Britain for the exemption of British and Irish properties from confiscation or conversion. But no such demand was made; and it was felt by some with bitterness, and assuredly not without cause, that the interests of the Catholics were neglected simply because of their Catholicism.

It is sometimes asserted as a bar to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the Vatican, that the

Pope is no longer ruler of the States of the Church and is not a temporal sovereign. If the language of any existing Act of Parliament warrants this technical objection, the language of that Act should be altered by another. It is doubtful, however, whether any such change be required. Before 1870, the temporal dominions of the Pontiff were so small and were so situated, that diplomatic relations with Rome, so far as commercial and mere temporal interests were concerned, were almost unnecessary. As a mere temporal prince and as compared with the great sovereigns of Europe the Pope was then scarcely more important than the Prince of Monaco or the President of the Republic of San Marino. And after 1870, the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, although his de facto empire be limited to his palace and its precincts, is just as available as before for all purposes of diplomacy, for the Pope is still by confession of the Italian Government an independent sovereign within the Vatican, and the Papal ambassadors by virtue of Italian laws possess within the city of Rome all the immunities and privileges claimed by ambassadors to the King. Moreover, the Pope has never assented to his own spoliation, nor was any formal assent to that spoliation given at any time by any of the European powers. His Holiness may still claim to be de jure the master of the former pontifical territories, but that claim does not prevent the sovereigns of Europe from continuing to send their envoys to the Vatican, nor does it cause the King of Italy to consider the maintenance of diplomatic relations with the Pope as an unfriendly act on the part of those sovereigns. On the contrary, the withdrawal of all ambassadors to the Pope on the ground that the seizure of Rome by the King rendered such withdrawal imperatively necessary, would have been considered by the Italian Government as a most unfriendly, dangerous, and hostile step, and equivalent to an attack upon the unity of the kingdom. It is the spiritual sovereignty of the Pope which for centuries has made his Court one of the most important if not the most influential in the world. And no severer blow could be struck at the independence and unity of Italy than the declaration that the complete overthrow of the temporal power necessitated the cessation of diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican and the consequent suspension or interruption of the exercise of the Pope's spiritual authority.

A magnificent future lies before the vast empire of Great Britain and Ireland, and there ought to be nothing to prevent Irishmen and Catholics from contributing to, and sharing in, the brilliancy of that future. The destiny of that empire must be affected by the Catholic and Irish elements which enter largely into its composition. Irish Catholics have been for years past diminishing in number in their native land, but they have been increasing in wealth and in political

power. Under the influence of the Land Acts their material prosperity will be largely advanced, and their political strength must increase in a corresponding proportion. If Irishmen are numerically diminishing in Ireland, they are multiplying in Great Britain, the colonies, and America. The British Government has already experienced to its cost the effects of the hostility of the Irish party in Parliament, and has to face the possibility that the Irish votes may soon be numerous enough to decide the fate of Cabinets and to interfere mischievously with the policy of the Empire. It is not difficult to suppose that the Irish and Catholic dwellers in the colonies may yet become so numerous and influential as to acquire a power capable of being exercised with effect either to the advantage or to the prejudice of British interests. Sad proof was recently given that the Irish in America entertain sentiments of deepest hatred to Great Britain. Occasions may yet arise when the enmity of the Irish race at home and abroad against the English will be of much more serious moment than at present, and may cause great trouble if not danger to the empire.

Unfortunately the policy of the British Government, and that even within the last fifty years, has aimed at the diminution of the legitimate influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The abolition of the Protestant Church Establishment diminished indeed the revenues of Protestant clergymen, but gave permanency and security to those diminished funds in such a way as to make the disestablishment a virtual re-endowment. The Catholic Church received no pecuniary benefit from that measure, and while Protestant prelates remain on the Privy Council, the Roman Catholic prelates are excluded from a position which would enable them to give advice in the government of their country. The national education system was absolutely framed so as to make the teachers in the schools, and the scholars through the teachers, feel that the Protestant State, not the Catholic Church, was their chief master. The late Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately, was for years the presiding genius at the Education Board, and exerted himself, as his writings published after his death proved beyond a doubt, to make the national system a means for spreading Protestantism. The godless colleges were instituted in order to tempt Catholics to accept higher education from professors of any or of no religion. A Catholic university was long denied to Irish Catholics, and at last was reluctantly granted upon niggardly terms. It cannot be doubted that these educational measures, which were intended to make loyal citizens at the expense of Catholicism, succeeded only in making bad Catholics and disloyal citizens, and in alienating from the Government, to a deplorable extent, the feelings of the Catholic bishops and priests, whose legitimate influence it was sought to undermine.