The Press. — London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

746 fere still further in behalf of the Constitution. The Foreign Enlistment Act was repealed, and the Spanish Legion was embodied This was a measure which caused great dissatisfaction in this country, as directly opposed to the sound principle of ticAl-interventlou. and.thost maxims by which Lord PALMZRIMON hilTlßei, - had always professed to regulate his forei policy. But for tt}e time it appeared to successful. The Qtieetee party Orevailed, tiig in 1839 the war was practically conclUded. During the years immediately succeeding the termination of this struggle insurrections against the established Government were of frequent occurrence ; and had Lord PALMERS TON continued in power it is very probable that this country might have been again em broiled with Spanish affairs. But dunng Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Administration the Spaniards were permitted to manage their own affairs as they chose. No sooner, however, did Lord PALMERSTON return to office than the old sys tem was revived. In 1848 he directed Sir HENRY BULWER to deliver so insolent a mes sage to the Spanish Minister as led to the in terruption of diplomatic intercourse for more than a twelvemonth, and placed this country in a most embarrassing and humiliating position. Exactly two years age Lord PALMERSTON had his revenge. An insurrection headed by the Duke of VICTORY and O'DoNNELL broke out. The Court, after innumerable successes, dis peised through Europe by telegraphic de spatches, gave way, and the allied generals were placed at the head of the Government. O'DONNELL, in his bulletin of the " Constitu tional Army," announced that his great objects in taking up arms were to place the national militia on a solid basis ; to enforce economy and reduction of taxation ; to constitute juntas; and to assemble the Cortes, that the nation might itself work out its liberal re generation. Lord PALMERSTON was triumphant. Now his Lordship is again militant. The Liberal system, for the success of which he has lavished so much English blood, and money, and honour, and violated more than one of the principles by which our foreign policy has previously been governed, has col lapsed, and Spain is at the mercy of an adven turous soldier and a Court carnarilla. The national militia is disarmed, and the Duke of VICTORY is nowhere. If it was right to interfere in the internal politics of Spain at all, why does not Lord PALMERSTON interfere now? Why does he not, in the interest of Liberalism, make war against the victorious O'DONNELL? Unless he was prepared to carry his policy through, he should not have assisted the Liberals at all. A nation which rPquires foreign aid to assert its liber ties, will usually require foreign aid to maintain them. Our interference during the late war is no precedent to the contrary. When Sir ARTHUR WELLESLEY landed in Portugal in 1808 it was not to establish a particular form of government in that country, but to carry on the war of England against France, as ho him self declared, upon a favorable theatre. The actual results of Lord PALMERSTON'S foreign policy speak little for its wisdom. Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Spain, alike testify to its failure. He has deserted the Liberals, after aggravating all the evils of their condition by irritating the minds of their rulers. And he has prejudiced the latter against measures of amelioration by affecting to encourage the rebellious tendencies of their subjects. He has now changed his tactics. On Poland and Hungary he is discreetly silent. After authorising Lord CLARENDON to declare at the Paris Conferences that the case of Naples was so exceptional as to call for foreign intervention, he drops his voice, and with bated breath is content to solicit the good offices of Austria. The taunts he has directed against that Court are forgotten in his hour of need. The hope of continental Liberalism unbosoms himself to the Cabinet of Vienna, and confidingly places the interests of his Italian clients in its hands. As for Spain, it is his comfort that France, whose intervention in the affairs of that country he has heretofore invoked, will now reFrein from interference, remembering how deeplY she has had to de plore interference on former occasions. Grey ____- THE PRESS. hairs have at last brought his Lordship wis dom. After the incessant meddling of a quarter of a century. he has come to the con clusion that the S lards must be left to settle their e i wn a 1:s, and that in the wreck of his Libel* poli his duty is to do 'Midi* but remain °omen with the support he gain frog the Ititbiral party through Eur on the credit of a forged security. il BISHO I INCOMES. IT has been general y understood during the last twenty years that the Bishops of the Eng lish Church were henceforward to enjoy a part only instead of the whole of the large revenues of their sees. Nobody thought it a very impor tant matter that their incomes should be reduced to an exact uniformity, or that five hundred a year, more or less, was a point worth contention. The essential advantage of the original change was, that bishops should no longer be in the possession of incomes extravagantly iisproportioned to the rest of the Church, and while the Church herself was daily making appeals to the public for pecu niary aid in extending her influence. But this once effected, it was manifest to most of us that the real point was gained, and that no one need trouble himself about the exact details by which the change was to operate. To divert a portion of the episcopal revenues to the general wants of the Church was one thing; to alter the tenure of Church lands was altogether another. Whether a bishop should be in the receipt of thirty thousand a year, or of three, is a question which does not affect the essence of his position. But, whether he should be a paid functionary, or a landed proprietor, obviously does affect it most materially. It is, we presume, to the recognition of this difference that we owe the fifth clause of the recent Report from the Select Committee on the Ecclesiastical Commission : That it is desirable that landed estates sufficient to afford a clear statutory income of each bishop should be secured to each see, that the management of such estate should be in the bishop, but that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should provide for a periodical inspection of such landed estates, in order to the maintenance thereof, by and at the expense of the bishop, in proper repair and condition ; that any difference of opinion between any bishop and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as to repairs and the condi tion of such estates, or as to the outlay from time to time required thereon, should be decided by arbitration. There is no doubt that if it could be shown to be desirable that the incomes of the Bishops should be rigidly fixed to the minutest fraction, this clause would be deserving of great con sideration, and possibly even censure. But we cannot see what practical inconvenience can arise from it. If every bishop in England were systematically to receive a thousand a year more than he ought, the surplus would not amount t.) more than has been received by one man under the ancient system. Yet to assume the possibility of so wholesale an evasion of the law, is to assume that Church men as a rule are actuated by a lower tone of morality than other men—a conclusion to which people are not, we think, prepared to subscribe—wbile it implies on the other hand that the Commissioners themselves must be men of less than average intellect to be thus systematically swindled. We cannot see any but the most purely visionary objections to the provisions of this clause. On the other hand, whether we regard the historical ante cedents of the English Church, or the present position of certain branches of the Church on the Continent, it seems equally to be a strictly conservative object that our bishops should continue to occupy their ancient position as landholders. The fact of a bishop being compelled to pay over so much of his income to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners does not interfere with his position as landlord, any more than a gentleman being obliged to hand over certain sums to a mortgagee inter feres with his. He is still the person to whom the tenantry look up—whose place it is to help them in their difficulties, or give them counsel in their troubles. Considering the habits of English society, we do not hesitate SATURDAY, to assert that this position of the Church has exercised a most beneficial influence on her intercnuse with the people. While, on the other hand, it has a tendency to prevent th e Bishop himself frotii beepming sharpened into a mere thurclimaal—it, to speak, takes off the edgf of his Oefes nalism, a n d makes hi* at the same ti*e b ~ a safer guid e to h is clek4y, lid a Moi4 s eable officer of the St There are other considerations which should induce us to view with pleasure the modera tion and caution displa) ed in this particular clause. If the whole of our episcopal estates should Le taken out of the hands of the pre sent possessor, and thrown into a common crucible, thence to emerge in the shape of Go vernment salaries, what is to prevent all the glebe land in the kingdom from being treated in a similar manner? Why should not the Vicar of a parish be a stipendiary as well as the Bishop of a diocese? The step from the one to the other is so easy, and so obvious, that we can scarcely doubt of its adoption, if the example were once set. If our readers would ascertain the evils of a stipendiary priesthood, they have nothing to do but to contemplate the present position of the Church in France. The old Gallican Church is well known to have been the most independent and least bigoted branch of the Romanist communion in Europe. The mo dern French Church is principally remarkable for its profession of the most violent ultra montane principles. While the clergy had a stake in the welfare and stability of the coun try, they acted like priests it is true, but cer tainly like Frenchmen as well. New the Church is their only country, and neither local nor national ties interfere with their complete devotio:t to her. We must not forget, too, that it is a state ment often put forward by the extreme High Church party, that they would gain rather than lose by a separation of Church and State. This sentiment points equally to the same conclusion that we have adopted, that the presentconstitution of the English Church, in giving to the clergy the duties of English citizens, as well as of priests, is the best pre ventative against that unnatural professional spirit which has often proved so incommo• dious to the civil government. We see. therefore, no ground for dissatisfac tion at the clause introduced by the Commis sioners. The device by which it is sought to maintain the efficacy of modern reform with out impairing the ancient character of the Episcopate may or may not be a clumsy one, — may or may not be the best of which circum stances permit. But we are quite certain that no inconveniences it could possibly entail would be equal to the evil of tampering with the ancient independent constitution of the Anglican Church, and the happily blended character of her hierarchy and priesthood. THE WASTE LANDS OF PEGU. WE have frequently pointed out that one of the chief causes of the want of progress in India, or rather of its retrograde condition, is the monopoly by the Company of the land. In seeking to retain universally the profits of landlord throughout its vast dominions, it prevents the investment by others of that capital in improvements which it confesses its own inability to supply. A year-to-year tenancy, or even a short lease, it has no objec tion to grant; but the rates are usually so exorbitant, the restrictions so stringent, and the terms so short, as to offer little or no in ducement to any to avail themselves of the offer, excepting those who fill the lowest of the functions connected with the develop ment of the resources of the soil. The capitalists of India stand studiously aloof, content to lend their money at usurious inte rest to the cultivators, thus rather impeding than aiding progress on every side. Tho result is as might be expected. Vast portions of the country remain wholly uncultivated, and the remainder is productive only to the extent of perhaps a tithe of what might be drawn for it if a sufficiency of ca ital were everywhere applied to it. Ireland, as it stood, with its impoverished and unimproving landlords, and its pauperrack-rented tenantry,