again brought forward in the next session of Parliament. Let it be so. Let the country be agitated by the question until the next election, and then ano- ther House of Commons will give the Catholics leisure for reforming their conduct, and abolishing the detesta- ble penal code of their Church. In the meantime, let every Protestant, no matter what his denomination may be, stand upon his arms in readiness to defend his religion. This ground will support him. If it be necessary for the Church of England to be un- der the regulation of the general go- vernment, it is alike necessary for the Catholic Church of Ireland to be so. If it be necessary that the established clergy should be restricted from form- ing pernicious laws, from tyrannising over the people, from intermeddling with politics, and from engrossing the political influence of the country, it is equally necessary that the Catholic Clergy of Ireland should be thus re- stricted. If it be necessary that the Protestant layman should have liberty to read the Scriptures, and to enter any place of worship that he think fit, it is alike necessary that the Ca- tholic layman should have the same liberty. Let us be firm. The cry of Down with the heretics ! has already been heard among us ; let us take care that it be not repeated. Temperate and determined resistance will accom- plish all that we desire. It may riot diminish the numbers of the Catho- lics, but it may reform Catholicism. It may root up the tyranny of the Catholic Church, which is alike a dis- grace and a curse to the nation. It may destroy the tremendous authority and influence that the Catholic priests possess over the people in temporal matters, which are perfectly inconsis- tent with our whole system, and which could not be, possessed by any body of men whatever without placing in peril the British constitution, British liberty, and the weal of the British empire.
THE REPEAL OF THE COMBINATION LAWS.
We do not know of anything that has been more calculated to excite uneasiness and apprehension, than the tampering which has been for some time carried on with the working classes of this nation. Upon the industry, subordination, and general good conduct of these classes, the peace, prosperity, and even existence of the empire, mainly depend. This will admit of no difference of opinion, and surely it must be alike indisputable, that nothing could be more deserving of universal reprobation, than measures tending to injure them.
It is, in our eyes, one of the great recommendations of our laws and institutions, that, generally speaking, they did not emanate from the reveries of speculation—that they were not formed to supply wants which were not felt, or to correct theoretic faults which were not proved by experience to be injurious. They only received being when the necessity was distinctly apparent, and when the evil called aloud for remedy. Their origin thus legitimate, and their fruits upon the whole have been of the most beneficial character. The Laws against Combinations thus originated. They were formed to remedy evils which existed, and which demanded remedy,
We are not called upon to say that these Laws were faultless, or that they did not, like all other laws, occasionally mingle injury with benefit. They were repealed on the ground, that the principle on which they stood was a false and pernicious one. Time had not rendered them a dead letter, or reversed their nature and operation. They were, when they were repealed, precisely what they were when they were framed, relatively, as well as otherwise. Their fruits, after abundant trial, had been thought exceedingly beneficial. The primary authors of their repeal were a knot of men who were strangers to business, to the working orders, and to human nature. They avowedly acted upon abstract reasoning, and not upon actual fact. By these men—people whom the Combination Laws had never touched—the petitions were chiefly got up; and the Laws were repealed, not to remove a proved evil, but to carry the excellent to perfection. The repeal was sanctioned both by the Ministry and the Opposition.
It was, we remember, loudly trumpetted forth at the time, that an article in the Edinburgh Review had great influence in promoting the repeal. It seems to be the fate of that unhappy Work, that experience is ever upon the watch to knock its reasonings to pieces as soon as it may utter them. The argumentation of the article in
