1867.

At this date 'the general sense of the Irish people' was, to Mr.
Gladstone's mind, the policy formulated by the Irish Episcopacy, the
scheme which at a later stage of the campaign in the following year he
described as the lopping off the three branches of the Upas tree of
Protestant ascendancy. He failed in Lancashire, but his success in other
parts of the kingdom was complete; and then ensued the abolition of the
Irish Establishment and an adjustment of the land question which carried
the recognition of local customs farther than Englishmen had
anticipated.

The Liberal party had been charged to consult Irish opinion. As long as
Cardinal Cullen and Mr. Gladstone were agreed all went merrily, even if
some rude coercion like the Westmeath Act was required to deal with
Irish ideas which did not find expression in the Cardinal. But whilst
the English Minister and the Irish Primate declared, that Ribbonism was
an impudent pretender to any representative character and must be rooted
out, a third organ of opinion claimed the benefit of the Southport
principle in the form of the Home Rule Association, and Mr. Gladstone at
Aberdeen replied with angry scorn:

'Can any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that,
at this time of day, in this condition of the world, we are
going to disintegrate the capital institutions of this
country for the purpose of making ourselves ridiculous in
the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess
for bestowing benefits, through legislation, on the country
to which we belong?'--26th Sept. 1871.

The ideas expressed by the Roman hierarchy, attracted by the
Disestablishment, substantially interested in the better position of the
farmer, and confidently anticipating for themselves the acquisition of a
power over public education such as their order enjoyed nowhere else in
the world, these were ideas which Mr. Gladstone recognized as national.
On the subject of education, however, he was not able to go as far as
the Ultramontane party required. They directed the Irish members to vote
against him. The coalition between Dissent and the Roman Hierarchy was
dissolved. The Minister, who had brought it about, suddenly awoke to a
sense of the evil teaching of his late allies in the government of
Ireland, and '_Vaticanism_' held them up to the reprobation of
Protestant England.

The new Liberal discovery, the principle of Irish ideas, had broke