The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1908. THE IRISH UNIVERSITY BILL

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 80, 2 April 1908, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1908. THE IRISH UNIVERSITY BILL

For the cause that lacks assistance. For the torong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good tlMt we can do.

If Mr. Birrell had not been so conspicuously unfortunate with his Education Bill and his Home Rule .Bill, we would be inclined to hope more from the measure that he has just introduced to establish two new universities in Irehind. A glance at our cable columns shows that the financial provision for the support of these universities is to be made on a decidedly generous scale. But the most important feature of the scheme is that these institutions are to be entirely undenominational, and fliat absolutely no religious tests are to be enforced for either professors or students. Apparently, these proposals command an unusual amount of | support from all parties in the House; in fact,, we cannot remember any measure dealing with Irish affairs that has, at first sight, secured so unanimous an expression of approval. Leading representatives of the Conservatives, Liberals, and Nationalists, including Mr Balfour and Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Wyndharn, and Mr. Dillon, have spoken strongly in commendation of the bill, and at present it looks very much as if the Government may score an unexpected , success by carrying through a measure that will propitiate the Roman Catholics of Ireland without seriously annoying the Protestants or rousing the apprehensions of the Unionists. This Irish University question has held a prominent place among Nationalist grievances for many years past. The Roman Catholics have always complained that as they cannot conscientiously attend the existing universities, they are practically excluded from the benefits of higher education. They have asked for an independent university in Dublin, endowed like Trinity College, and connected with the existing colleges in Cork and Galway. In these particulars our readers will observe, Mr. Birrell has conceded all the Roman Catholic requirements. They have offered to hand over the Queen's College at Belfast to the Ulster Protestants, and to leave Trinity College, Dublin, undisturbed, if only they can get a separate university for themselves. These proposals have usually met with strong opposition from the Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives, who argue that to establish a Roman Catholic University would be to hand over the control of Irish' education to the hierarchy. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that Mr. Balfour lias consistently supported the demand for a university which Roman Catholics could conscientiously attend. Xine years ago he pointed out to the House of Commons that Parliament already provides large sums of money for denominational schools and colleges in Ireland without rousing any protest from Anglicans and Non-conformists, and that it was absurd to refuse to the Roman Catholics a University that would not of necessity be more denominational than Trinity College, Dublin, itself. The old plea that the Roman Catholic students could go freely to Trinity College and the Royal University of Ireland if they wanted the benefits of academic education has never found favour in Mr. Balfours eyes, and we can well understand his appreciation of the more generous and equitable view of the question now put forward by Mr. Birrell. Everything even remotely connected with the Home Rule controversy, is so involved in prejudices and misapprehensions, that it is difficult even to state , the situation clearly. But it must not . be forgotten that as the Irish University Royal Commission pointed out in 1003, such a scheme as Mr. Birrell now proposes would not be an innovation upon the existing system of educational endowment. For quite a quarter of a century the Jesuit University College, Dublin, has been subsidised by Parliament to the extent of £0,000 a year, and the Commission could see no good reason for refusing to extend this principle, further. In tlieir final report, the Commission recommended the establishment of a "federal teaching university" with four constituent colleges—the three Queen's Colleges, and a new Roman Catholic College, in which special provision should be made for the protection of the Roman Catholic faith. ' Our readers will note that Mr. Birrell has been careful to omit from his bill any aggrea- ' sive attempt to treat the new Dublin University as distinctively Roman Catholic. He asserts that it will be in theory undenominational; but it is obvious that such an institution will take its tone from its social and religious surroundings whether it is situate* ; in Dublin or Belfast. On the whole p it seems to us that Mr. Birrell has made r* ■pfSo-c ri>-y»i;i in eliminate

the denominational difficulty, from his educational scheme; and this we may take as a hopeful sign that the sectarian bitterness which for over a century has aggravated the political friction between England and Ireland will gradually tend to disappear. Since the days of the Maynooth grant, sixty years ago, it has been a tradition of Liberalism to deal leniently with the religious susceptibilities of the Irish Roman Catholics, but Mr. Birrell's bill seems to be the most reasonable and practicable step yet actively taken in the way of doing justice to the Roman Catholic claims without sacrificing any public interest, whether Protestant or Imperial.