harbours would be neutral ports, where enemy's ships would be admitted to coal and refit, and whence they could issue to prey upon our commerce. At present, the tendency of the Australian colonies seems to be rather towards divergence from one another than towards any real confederation. Jealousies and differences, apparent already, would assuredly be aggravated by the removal of the common sovereignty which unites them. Intellectually, morally, and socially, anything which checks the circulation from the heart to the extremities of civilisation is a calamity. The nomination of officials from among the colonists, instead of from England, was a right and necessary change. But, along with other causes, it has had the effect of confining emigration to a comparatively uneducated class more completely than was formerly the case. Universities and colleges, founded and liberally endowed, are scarcely made use of as they deserve to be by the young colonists. Really eminent scholars there is at least one, at Sydney, of European reputation-sometimes can scarcely get pupils to teach, for commercial interests absorb all others. It is difficult for a man in England, who may have friends enough at hand to have one for each particular chord of his nature that may be vibrating, to imagine how bitter in the life of an old settler, as the power and need for constant exertion diminishes, may be the sense of isolation which comes over him. In material comforts he may have little left to desire. But a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses. Politically, intellectually, socially, he is conscious of being in a closer atmosphere than he was born in. Colonial politics seem to him petty and wearisome. Facts and ideas which are learnt in old countries unconsciously, as though part of the air we breathe, his children have to learn, if at all, imperfectly, laboriously, by strong effort of the imagination. He does not return to England, because he has found, perhaps, that old friends, whom he has for twenty years been longing to see again, will just look up from a newspaper and greet him as if he had been away a week. And so he cherishes in his solitude the old memories, the old associations, as things very precious to him. In these things we do not speak at random or on the report of others. Again and again we have seen proofs of the value set upon a chance link with England. A member of a family who is in the Navy will be an oracle, an Admirable Crichton, among his family. He stimulates their eagerness to welcome all that comes from 'home,' and he does not yield a whit in the pride he takes in his colony. The colony is to him what his county is to a Yorkshireman. Are impulses and ininstincts such as these to be ignored or quenched? We We do not underestimate the immense difficulty of the readjustment of our colonial relations at this eleventh hour. As Lord Grey has pointed out, there must be some reciprocity in them. The colonists, if they wish to retain the privileges, must bear their share of the burdens, of British citizenship. Our belief and hope is that the party in the Australian colonies which prefers isolation, protection, or 'parochialism,' to immigration, free-trade, and such relations as can alone permanently secure union under a common sovereignty, will prove to be a noisy rather than an influential one. The Home Government have still power for good, if they will only use it. Mr. Cardwell's firmness in the matter of Sir Charles Darling's recall, in the teeth of the clamour raised by the party then in the majority in Victoria, produced the best effects, and was entirely approved in Australia generally. It was proposed by some of the colonies to send home Commissioners to discuss the expediency of placing our relations with them on a better footing. We learn with great regret that the English Government has discouraged their coming. Some machinery by which the voice of each colony could be heard by the Imperial Government seems to us to be most desirable. The objections to giving them representatives in the English House of Commons appear to be insuperable. They would be too few in number to carry any weight on a division. Their distance from their constituents would make their election or re-election at periods of uncertain length exceedingly inconvenient. A more practicable scheme which has been suggested is the institution of a Colonial Board, to assist and inform the Colonial Secretary, and to bear to him a relation more or less analogous to that which the present Council for India bears to the Minister for India. The Board might be composed partly of nominees of the Home Government, who would probably be ex-Governors of colonies, but principally of Commissioners from colonies or groups of colonies, appointed for a period of years at least sufficient to give them an insight into their duties. To keep the number of the Board within working limits, several colonies would have to be grouped, but they would gain by increased collective weight what they would lose individually. The responsibility would of course rest, as before, on the Colonial Minister; but at least there would be additional security for his being provided with proper information. We confess we have no patience with those who adduce the mistakes of the Colonial Office as a reason for throwing away the colonies. * By a despatch dated 8th Sept., 1869, published in the Times' of 17th Dec. But But we are far from wishing to propound any one particular scheme, any 'Morison's Pill' as a panacea. In what we have written we have striven merely to contribute our mite of labour towards cleansing the Augean stable of ignorance, indifference, and misrepresentation, which is choking the approaches to this weighty question. Without dogmatism, the importance may be insisted upon of always having at the head of the Colonial Office a Minister with special knowledge of his department, and opportunity to devote himself exclusively to it. We must protest, too, against the principle of appointing to the most important Governorships political partisans wholly destitute of the requisite experience, to the exclusion of men of tried qualifications. The empire is in danger of crumbling to fragments from sheer neglect and indifference. Surely some effort will be made to save it before it is too late. Two at least among leading statesmen-Lord Grey and Lord Carnarvon-have given indications that they appreciate the gravity of the occasion. In contrast with the partial and one-sided views taken on the two opposite sides of the New Zealand question, it is refreshing to note the accuracy and breadth of Lord Carnarvon's treatment of it in his letter of 5th of November. Avoiding unavailing criticism of measures which cannot be rescinded, he has addressed himself simply to what is still practicable. We know of no summary of the present aspect of the New Zealand question which in our opinion is so succinct, so true, and so judicially impartial as this. Lord Grey and Lord Carnarvon in some measure represent sections of political parties nearly allied in opinion, whose concerted action would be most natural, and whose pressure upon the present Government would be a valuable counterpoise to that of the more destructive section of ministerial adherents. In their hands the question could not be degraded into a handle to be used for factious purposes. Indeed it could scarcely be made such, for, from Mr. Adderley's pamphlet, it would appear that the late Government's colonial policy was as destructive as that of their opponents. From more than one quarter are arising complaints, remonstrances, and pleadings. They are, indeed, confused, incoherent, and discordant; but there is a solid substratum of real meaning in them. The time is past for answering: Gentlemen, till you are agreed among yourselves as to what you want, we, the Government, will do nothing. We are here to float on the wave of public opinion, not to move save whither it carries us. We can destroy, if that is what you want, there is but one way of doing that; but to sustain, to build up-that is a hard business, and there are many ways.' Against any such shrinking from Vol. 128.-No. 255. responsibility, M responsibility, any such degrading conception of the functions of Government, we strenuously and earnestly protest. To lead, and not to be driven; to give form and expression to right and genuine impulses, not to ignore them or to drift amongst them; to discern and seize the latent elements of union, not of disunion ; is the true ambition of a statesman. ART. VII.-1. The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. By 2. The Reunion of Christendom. 1866. 3. The Centenary of St. Peter and the General Council. By the same. London, 1867. 4. The Authority of Doctrinal Decisions which are not Definitions of Faith. By W. G. Ward, D.Ph. London, 1866. 5. When does the Church speak Infallibly? By T. F. Knox, of the Oratory. London, 1867. 6. Idealism in Theology. London, 1867. By H. I. Ryder, of the Oratory. 7. Peace through the Truth. By Rev. T. Harper, S.J. London, 1866. 8. The Pope and the Church. By Rev. P. Bottalla, S.J. London. 1868. 9. Pope Honorius. By the same. 1868. 10. The Apostolical and Infallible Authority of the Pope. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., Missionary of the Society of Jesus. New York, 1868. 11. De Unitate Romanâ Commentarius. By Clement Schrader, S.J. 2 Vols. Vienna, 1866. 12. Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi. Auctore P. Murray in Coll. S. Patric. ap. Maynooth Professore, &c. 3 Vols., each in two parts. Dublin, 1866. 13. The Pope and the Council. By Janus (translated from the German). London, 1869. 14. The Ecumenical Council. By Archbishop Manning. London, 1869. 15. Is the Western Church under Anathema? By Edmund S. Ffoulkes, B.D. London, 1869. WHAT THAT is the Infallibility of the Pope? Who are the advocates of the dogma? Why has the present time been chosen for defining it by a formal act of the Church-in other words, for declaring it an article of faith to be professed by all all Christians, under pain of damnation? These are questions which for many reasons require a definite answer. The writers, who have been foremost in advocating the Infallibility of the Pope, and whose works are placed at the head of the present article, are all, with one exception, Jesuits or neoCatholics, and some both. The episcopate is represented by a neo-Catholic: the laity by a neo-Catholic: the religious orders that are not Jesuits by two neo-Catholics of the Oratory (we class them together in spite of their gentle disclaimers, as not really discordant): the Jesuits themselves are particoloured, their order having been largely recruited from the neo-Catholic section. Dr. Murray, finally, who prides himself on having adhered to the method of the schools-in which every argument is mercilessly squeezed into syllogistic form, and met with an eternal distinguo majorem,' or 'nego minorem,' whenever it hits hard, may be described as having been specially retained to moderate between old and new Catholicism, and to put new wine into old bottles in a way to preserve both. These nine therefore-four Jesuits and five not: five neoCatholics and four not: eight learners, and one teacher, by his own confession a teacher of heresy not many years since-claim to anticipate the mind of the Church, the Catholic Church of all ages and land sin their estimate, and to influence and precipitate its decision on a point which neither Pope nor Council ever has been impressed with the wisdom of propounding dogmatically till now but which according to them Christ in reality revealed as of faith to His disciples in founding His Church. Of course these writers will not allow that they stand alone. We do not assert it. They have their surroundings: and they have their organs; but when both are analysed, it is not more certain that oxygen and hydrogen blended together in their respective proportions form water, than that neo-Catholics and Jesuits are the joint constituents of the Ultramontane school represented by these writers. The wire-pullers of the Dublin Review' and Tablet' as now published in England, of the 'Univers' in France, of the Laacher Stimmen' in Austria, the 'Katholik' at Mayence, and the 'Civilta Cattolica' in Rome, rather court notoriety than preserve their incognito; and the earliest of them started into existence within memory. No catechism, no theological manual of the last generation, avows their opinions. Their opinions have been growing into shape separately for years; but it was not till recently that they found expression in a collective form. There were 2500 Jesuits in 1838; they have more than trebled since then: multitudes of those now constituting the ecclesia docens' have been trained in their schools; |