The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-04 00:00:00

98 chauli of familiar facts, not always very ac• curately stated, and irresistibly impressing on the hearer's mind au idea that by Sir CHARLES, though by no one else, these commonplaces were regarded in the light of notable disco veries. No American stump orator ever ranged over a wider field, or brought in a greater mass of irrelevant and trivial matter. First came a disquisition on the necessity of instant legisla tion, the whole purport of which might have been summed up in the old copy-bouk text, " Delays are dangerous?' Why they should be dangerous in this instance Sir CHARLES declined to state ; but he quoted—as disinterested wit nesses of course—first the Directors, and next the editor of a Government newspaper in India. Fancy Lord ABERDEEN appealing to the Morn ing Chronicle to prove that public opinion was with him! This introductory preface occupied half an hour ; and then came the real ques tion, " Has India progressed or stood still ? " The Minister proposed this query, but he wisely forbore to solve it All the tenor of his argument went to vindicate the Company from every charge brought against its ad ministration ; yet he wisely shrank from drawing the conclusion at which he hinted. Not a little ingenuity was displayed in making the best of a bad case. " Law in India was " costly, tedious, full of technicality ; but, " then, look at our own Court of Chancery. " Roads were not as good as they might be ; " but the Government of Madras had once " voted money to mend them, though that " money, it was true, had been otherwise " expended. As to employing natives, why, it " was a notorious fact that whenever• a native " was appointed to any office his countrymen " were displeased. The land tenures"—we will carry our abstract nu farther; for those who want to see what Sir• C. WOOD thinks of land tenures will find the same thoughts much better expressed by Mr. KATE. After three hours thus wasted, the Minister came to his plan. Of this the outline is sim ple, and, as it seems to us on a first glance, wholly unsatisfactory. The double govern ment is maintained in its integrity. The Di reetors are reduced to eighteen : twelve to be appointed by the Company, and six by the Crown. The latter must qualify for their ap pointments by ten years of civil or military services in India. Their pay is augmented. but still inadequate. All the military patron age—a vast proportion of the whole—is re tained in their hands, thus perpetuating, per haps, the worst abuse of the actual system ; while the civil patronage, more wisely, is given to be competed for by public examina tion. Time is wanting to examine this scheme in all it►s bearings ; but, if we may judge by the first impression produced both on the House and on ourselves, we predict empathically that IT WILL NOT DO. MINISTERIAL FINANCE. Tut Lone CHANCELLOR has announced in the House of Lords, that, having been misled by his colleague the CHANCELLOR of the Ex- CHEQUER to consent to the conversion of the funds of the suitors of the Court of Chancery into the new stocks, and having since dis covered that the proceeding would be one very unjust and injurious to his clients in the present state of the money market. it was his intention to revoke the order for conversion that he had given. Such a public censure on the schemes of a financial minister is not on previous record; and it is supposed that the two Chancellors will not continue to sit in the same Cabinet. The Treasury will be called upon to take up immediately three millions sterling in Exchequer bills, and in due time to provide for about seven millions sterling. to complete the conversion of the South Sea Stock. It is supposed in the City that a loan of upwards of ten millions will have to be raised, at a high rate of interest. One of the reasons urged by the Government in tlivour of the financial scheme was, that it would reduce the various descriptions of small stocks, which had been found very inconvenient in the ma nnement of our finances. The CHANCELLOR l^ • THE PRESS. of the EXCHEQUER has played his cards so well, that he has contrived to increase the number of these stocks by no less than three new descriptions, of which his successors cannot get rid for forty years ! People are very anxious to discover who was the adviser of Mr. GLADSTONE. IL is known that the re duction of the rate of interest on Exchequer bills was opposed by every one—the Governor of the Bank. the Commissioners for the Re duction of the National Debt, and by all the authorities in the Treasury ; but that insane step was accounted for by the monomania of Mr. 0 LADSTONE, which is always to . out-herod Mr. DISRAELI in everything. His predecessor had made a cautious and well-considered re duction of the interest on Exchequer bills, when they were floating at a very high pre mium. Mr. GIADSTONE resolved to make a further reduction, when that premium was much diminished. Mr. GLADSTONE'S scheme for paying off the national debt, and which will end by a new loan, is, however, we are in formed, all his own. THE IRISH DIFFICULTY. To say that Mr. MOORE'S motion of Tuesday last was ill-timed is only to affirm that the zeal of that politician outran his prudence. Misled by precedent, and either unwatchful of public opinion, or willing to defy it, he invited the House to proceed to a superfluous inquiry for an impossible object. We say a super fluous inquiry, for the statistics of the Irish Church may be in the hands of any one who will take the trouble to disinter them from the blue-books where they lie buried. We say an impossible object, for no man in his senses can assert that the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy—confessedly the end and design of Mr. Mooax's proposal—is likely to be assented to by that electoral body which sends to Parliament one-third of its represen tatives pledged against Maynooth, and which, in 1651, the Durham letter, and the manifesto of Cardinal WISEMAN, combined to stir almost into madness. And if Mr. Moonr did not mean this, what did he mean ? " The disen " dowment of the Protestant Church," some may answer. Possibly ; but Lord Jolts RUSSELL was quite right in saying that the Irish Church could nut be disendowed without establishing a precedent which must be fol lowed in England. For such an ecclesiastical resolution none, of course, could vote except the supporters of the pure " voluntary prin " ciple," who, iu the present House of Com mons, scarcely number a hundred, and do not exist at all among the Lords. The motion, therefore, was simply an abstract one ; and nothing except sonic lurking doubts as to the course which Government would take could have brought down three hundred and fifty members to vote upon it. In point of time, moreover, Mr. MOORE'S attack was singularly ill-judged. We do not put the Celtic exodus too high when we rate the number of Irish Catholics who, within five years, have crossed the Atlantic, at nearly three millions. The movement still continues, and with rapidity little, if at all, diminished. It is not likely that it should cease ; for in emigration the law of science holds good—the greater the bulk or the attracting mass, the greater, proportionally. is the attractive power. Including earlier colonists, not less than four millions of Irish men, settled in America, now call upon their countrymen to follow. One helps over another : families separate at Liverpool or Cork to reunite in New York; priests are fain to follow their flocks. And in Southern Ire land. once swarming with paupers, and split up into three and two acre holdings, travellers now see reproduced in miniature the tenant less prairies of Illinois or Ohio. English capital, English farmers—even English la bourers —begin to replace those who are gone. In a few years it seems not only probable, but certain, that the Protestant population will outnumber the Catholic ; and this without taking into account the conversions of which we hear so much, but concerning which the statistics as yet attainable do not enable us to speak with assurance. But, when this change SATURDAY, now iri progress shall be complete, what be comes of the alleged grievance—what of the contrasts between the " Church of the many " and the " Church of the few " ? Parliament, whose constituent units, for the most part, act more wisely than they talk, felt this ; and the result was—a thin House, little excitement, an instinctive conviction on all sides that the display was unreal, and the performers not in earnest, and, finally, a majority of nearly three to one. Thus the question is suspended—we will not say for ever, but at least until Ireland shall have passed from a transitional to a normal state. _ _ . .. Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S attitude in this debate was not unworthy of notice. For the second time within one week, he, the Whig leader, came forward with Conservative professions, while the ex-Conservative portion of the Cabi net sat in very significant silence, unpledged and waiting their opportunity. And on both these occasions Lord JOHN'S newly-adopted opinions were in direct contradiction of those announced by him at an earlier period to his career. In 1837 he voted for the abolition of church rates—in —53 for their continuance. The author of the appropriation clause of —35 is now (except Sir R. INGLIS) almost the only member of any note or mark who voluntarily comes forward in defence of Irish ecclesiasti cal establishments. All honour to the states man who frankly avows an honest change of opinion, perhaps at the cost of some popular favour, certainly not as the price of popular support. But more honour to the foresight which renders change unnecessary, and which predicts, even further than it guides, the cur rent of public opinion. Nothing in —34 33 could have saved the Irish Church except the resolute stand made by Lord DERBY and his followers. Lord JoHN RUSSELL, a determined but baffled opponent, desisted from his attack with some loss of credit, and much loss of that prestige which attends success. Eighteen years pass over—new parties arise—new com binations are formed—new topics of contro versy supersede the old—and at the end of that interval Lord JOHN volunteers a confession of error, acknowledges that the greatest political act of his life was a dangerous mistake, and accepts the policy of that very rival whom he has recently aided in ejecting from office. But Lord JOHN is not sole Minister. He is not even First Minister. Some persons believe that there exists within the Cabinet an inner council, from which he is ex luded. Are his sentiments the sentiments of the Government? That issue will soon be tried. That the writer of the Durham letter could lie down with the teachers of " religious equality"—iii the Irish sense—was from the first improbable. Now one or the other must go. Report says that Messrs. KEOGH, SADLEIR, and MONSELL have already vacated their offices. Throughout. Catholic Ireland their secession will be deeply felt. Will so effort be made to retain them ? Will Lord Joures declaration be uneondition ally adhered to ? We await the result in doubt, and not without anxiety. But, be the de, sion what it may, a fresh proof will be given of that political axiom which we have repeatedly laid down—that the durability o f a Coalition Minis try is in an inverse ratio to the honesty of the individuals who compose it. THE OXFORD COMMEMORATION DEGREES. AN outcry, discreditable to its originators, has been raised against the Earl of DERBY on account of the selections he has made of welt of distinction whom he recommends for the honorary degree of D.C.L. at the a p t commemoration. the commemoration. It has been represented that Lord DERBY was about to flood the University with his own partisans, and that in number his nominees were too many, while their claims to the intended honours were not Commensurate. It is better, in eases where custom rules, to refer to precedent. What was the course pursued by the illustrious man who preceded the Earl of DERBY as Chancellor of the University of Oxford We find that the Duke of WELLINGTON recommended no fewer than seventy-six persons for the honorary 1