BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

123
the most jealous religious community in the world the
Primrose League has done nothing to forfeit that
character—cathol ic in the highest sense—which it has
maintained from the beginning. (Cheers.) I earnestly
trust that we shall be careful to maintain that
character, to remember that we are for the defense of
religion, and that to all supporters of religion, to
all Christian men, we hold, out the hand of fellowship,
if they will join us in resisting that threatening
flood of unbelief by which not England alone but the
civilized world is menaced. (Cheers.) There are
characteristics which we carefully preserve. They do
not cast any doubt or slur upon our more special
attachments--our belief in the Conservative party or
the attachment of most of us to the Church of England.
But we recognize that in these days there are more
universal dangers before us and that larger interests
are threatened; and therefore a greater freedom, a
greater catholicity, in the union of all well-meaning
men is necessary if the peculiar menace and peril of
our present time is to be conquered.74
It was one of Salisbury's classic speeches.
It combined a note
of triumph with the voice of despair, simultaneously praising,
cautioning, and influencing the course of future Primrose League
efforts.
Despite the favorable verdict in the Nottingham controversy,
the relationship of Catholics to the Primrose League continued to be an
uneasy one, marked by recurring tensions.
In April, 1886 the Grand
Council
issued a Precept to Habitations forbidding exclusion of
individuals on religious grounds.
The following month just prior to
the Grand Habitation, the Chancellor of the Primrose League, Cusack-
Smith, and the President of the LGC, the Duchess of Marlborough, were
forced to respond to complaints made by Cardinal Manning concerning the
exclusion of Catholics from some Habitations.
In 1887 the League was
74
The Morning Post, 20 May 1886, p. 2.