The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

DUBLIN CASTLE POLITICS.

THERE are few posts under the Crown go
anomalous as that of the Chief Secretary of
Ireland. It is an important office, and yet it
is not of the first Ministerial rank. The power
and patronage of the Irish system are by law
and routine concentrated in the hands of the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and it is under
the Viceroy that the Chief Secretary acts. It
is the custom for the "L L." (as they say at
Dublin) to reside in the Irish metropolis all
the year round. In summer "his Excellency"
goes to the " Phcenix " (reclaimed from a
morass by Lord CHESTERFIELD, and advertised
beyond provincial fame by LEVER'S novels),
and in winter this stately personage (as ho
always is ex ofiiJio) goes into the bad air and
brilliant company in the famous but unwhole-
some walls of Dublin Castle.

The Chief Secretary, on the other hand,
leafs a different kind of life. He autumns
and winters in Ireland, but he enjoys his
spring and summer in London, and can " take
the dust" of Hyde-park until August. He is a
Parliamentary personage. He has to manage
the Irish Members, to hear their oral petitions,
pretend to read their written memorials, give
a sigh to every grievance, and a shake of the
hand to many a patriotic placehunter, who
seeks office purely pro bono public°. Although
a party man, the Chief Secretary must recol-
lect that he represents the Crown. He has to
court the Opposition, or at least his Chiefship
must not lend himself to acts that are
flagrantly onesided. He sees a country offi-
cially before him—" with two Irelands shut
"up into one island," as Lord LIVERPOOL
&scribed it. He should be a man of busi-
ness, and he ought also to bo a Parliamentary
speaker, capable of parrying an attack, or
" punishing" an adversary. Along with the
talents of a politician, our Irish Chief Secre-
tary should exhibit the nature of a c..urtier ;
he should be supple, genial, and adroit. The
post is certainly a capital school fur an ap-
prentice statesman.

Recollecting these things, we ore not sur-
prised that a clever man like Mr. HORSMAN, with
his obtrusive pretensions, his Radical asser-
tion of " first principles," and his undisguised
assumption of first rate importance, should
have failed. Lord CARLISLE is a rhetorician,
and a sentimentalist. He is not a man of
affairs, hut words ; an orator at once faltering
in his articulation, and florid in his language ;
a statesman with pointless generalities in his
head, and the wellsugared cant of Liberalism
on his tongue. He wants a congenial, smooth,
painstaking Chief Secretary who will act well
in the farce of Carlisle Statemanthip, or the
Howards at Dublin Castle. Lord CARLISLE
must have " popularity." Whether it be spon-
taneous, or organised, is of no consequence.
Mr. HORSMAN, therefore, cannot " do" at
Dublin. People say that he is—no matter.
They want him " out "—a point on which
Green and Orange are agreed. The Irish
poet said that the tears in Erin's eyes
would never cease until the various tints in
her sons' polities should, like the colours of
the rainbow, melt into one arch of peace. For
the benefit of Mr. HOUSMAN, at the risk of
excruciating the ears of Viceiegal poetasters,

MAY 9, 1857

we have macadamised into plain prose the
poet's glowing sentiment. Mr. HORSMAN has
made Irishmen " unite " for once with such
effect that they will not he too particular who
comes after him. " Anti-Horsmanism" is the
password of the " United Irish" of to-day.

And what a crowd seek for his place—Lord
Moscx, Lord FERMOY, Mr. RALPH OSBORNE,
Mr. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, and—but we can-
not go on with the list until it reaches the
ex-Chief Justice of a West Indian island.
Every man who could, would, or ought
to have a place in the Ministry is
put forward by his friends and a bevy of
hungry placehunters for the office. Cliques
are canvassed, and all kinds of influence, pri-
vate and public, are placed in requisition. If
the Conservative party were in power we
should be glad to see a really independent
Irishman, a resident landlord, popular at
home and respected in England, chosen for
the place As matters are now, unless a better
selection can be made than from ono of the
above names, we fear that any of Lord PAL.•
MERSTON'S nominees must command our oppo-
sition.
Of the two Noble Lords whose names are
put forward by their personal friends, it must
be recollected that they will have to find seats
in the House of Commons. Lord MoNcx has
attracted political attention to himself princi-
pally by his giaring antagonism to the line of
politics taken by his family in recent times.
Elected to the House of Commons in 1852,
Lord MONCK sat long enough in Parliament to
show that his abilities were scarcely up to the
average of what is expected from a subordinate.
Lord FERMOY can appeal to a longer political
cai eer ; but the active participation in the
events of the Repeal year of 1843, and the in-
fluential countenance given by " Burke Roche"
to agitation, are not effaced even by the stu-
diously-marked moderation of his later years.
It is certainly to Lord FERMOY'S advantage
that he has always held a high name for
straightforward conduct, and a brilliant pen,
in a distinguished work, has recorded " the
" independent part taken for mary years in
" Irish politics" by Lord FERMOY ; but, on the
other hand, his subsequent vote and speech
in favour of Lord CLARENDON, on Lord NAAS'S
motion about Mr BIRCH, recur to the memory.
Would Lord F ERMOY act as a check on the
partisanship with which patronage is admi-
nistered at Dublin? We fear not.
The practical energy of Lord FERMOY as a
leader in the flax movement in the south of
Ireland, and as a developer of the country's
resources, does him high honour, and the
friendly respect of the Conservatives of his
locality reflects credit on him ; but Lord FER-
MI)? owes a peerage and the Lord-Lieutenancy
of the County of Cork to " the party," and his
nomination to the office would only be an
additional proof that the present system of
Whig cliquery would be continued.

The claims of Mr. OSBORNE we need not
discuss. The mere mention of his name
caused active opposition from all sides, and
his tenure of the Chief Secretaryship (if he
was rashly placed in it) would be a prolonged
" row," which would be both unpleasant and
unreasonable, since even the humours of
Donnybrook Fair have been put down with a
high hand. Mr. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE is an
Anglo-Irish dandy and London diner-out of
considerable success. His almost sole Parlia
mentary distinction consists in his having
been chosen to move a Ministerial counter-
proposition in the last Parliament against Mr.
\VALPOLE'S motion for extending national
education, so as to include Irish Protestants.

The claims of the other aspirants to the
office are alluded to elsewhere.

THE LONDON UNIVERSITY.

THE lapse of thirty years has materially
altered the position and prospects of the
University of London. The original purpose
of that institution was to remove all inequali-
ties of education between different religious,
parties, and to provide the children of Dis-
senters with the same high class of instruction
which our older Universities had hitherto re-