The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-15 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1854.

THE secret negotiations which we announced
on the 27th of May last as in active operation,
and the object and very existence of which
have been denied by so many of our contem.
poraries, have unceasingly proceeded since
that period, and have already accomplished
considerable results.

The Court of Berlin has signified its opinion
that the reply of the Court of St. Petersburg
to the'Prussian note 'is satisfactory, and indi-
cates the basis on which the peace of Europe
and the Political equilibrium may be success-
fully and permanently secured.
The Court' of Vienna has declared that if
the occupation of the principalities by the
Austrian armies take place, that occupation is
to be considered in the light of " an act of
" armed mediation."
It is probabl' that the altered aspect of cir-
cumstances will lead, in due time, to consi-
derable changes in the personnel employed at
this moment in the transaction of affairs. It
is convenient at a period of probable transi-
tion from that of active, or provisional, hosti-
lities to one of friendly negotiation and peace,
that those who have taken a pronounced part
in the prosecution or recommendation of hos-
tilities should withdraw, if only for a period,
from the scene. The retirement of M. Psa-
MONY has been commented on in the public
journals. The appointment of M. DRouN DR
L'Hurs to a post of high responsibility may be
expected.
The moment the armistice is agreed to, we
understand that Lord STRATFORD DE RED-
CLIFF& will retire from her Majesty's Embassy
at Constantinople. We have reason to believe
that Sir HENRY BULWER will be his Lordship's
successor. The post will require not only
previous experience of' the scene and prin-
cipal actors, which Sir HENRY BULWER
possesses, having already been Secretary of
Embassy at Constantinople, but those quali-
ties of conciliation without which the amplest
knowledge of affairs is often insufficient.
We believe that we may announce that the
successor of Sir HENRY BULWER At the Court
of the Grand Duke of TUSCANY will be the
Moat Noble the Marquis of NORMANDY, K.G.

Tux conduct of the House of Lords with
respect to the University Bill appears to have
equally alarmed and surprised the Conserva-
tive party throughout the country. To those,
however, who are in the habit of scanning the
action of political assemblies with more

nicety than can fall to the lot of the multitude
this behaviour will occasion no astonishment,
and much less apprehension.
The dislocation of political parties which
has of late years rendered the working of our
parliamentary government so feeble and so
vacillating has told with equally powerful
effect upon the House of Lords as upon the
House of Commons. While the effect has
been equally powerful, it has, from the pecu-
liar constitution of the Upper Chamber, ne-
cessarily been more permanent.
When Sir ROBERT PEEL, intoxicated with
that power which he owed entirely to party,
first meditated the design of governing with-
out party connections, two influences arose
which in the course of events were to be sub-
stituted for that ancient system of Church and
State which a free *aristocracy was peculiarly
adapted to uphold. •These were Bureaucracy
and Tractarianism. The first would have
secured centralised patronage, and the second
aspired to govern the multitude by a theocratic
revival. Both, if successful and united, might
have formed a strong Government, though at
the •ultimate expense of public liberty and
national character.
The Newman defection had already opened
the eyes of sound Churchmen, however high
their views, to the abyss they were approach.
ing, when the Papal aggression roused the
entire nation ; and that Protestant revival
commenced which, if wisely guided, may yet
save and secure the liberties and greatness of
this country. On the other hand, the fall of
Sir ROBERT PEEL was "a heavy blow and
" great discouragement" to the developing
bureaucracy, although his Whig successors
have at times, rather from instinct than de-
sign, feebly attempted to pursue his plausible
projects. Notwithstanding, therefore, the
break-up of parties, and the inconsistent and
incoherent conduct inseparable in a popular
assembly from the absence of traditionary
opinions, the tendency of the House of Com-
mons of late years has been Conservative in
the best and widest sense of the epithet.
Public opinion has operated upon the popular
branch, and, in a great degree, neutralised the
evilworking of the exotic influences introduced
by Sir ROBERT PEEL and his disciples, and
which, if consummated, would have settled
England under a constitution combining the
peculiarities of the German Chancery with
those of the Roman Synod. Thus, amid the
parliamentary chaos, a powerful Conservative
party in the House of Commons has gradually
formed itself, and is each day receiving fresh
accessions of strength. Being the only poli-
tical discipline extant, the session has wit-
nessed, although in opposition, its accruing
power and its frequent triumphs. Though
Conservative, it is popular in its sympathies.
Faithful to Church and State, it would uphold
the Church on a broad and extended Protes-
tant basis ; and it would maintain the other
institutions of the country by party connection
formed on traditionary influences and local
authority. It is opposed, therefore, to Cen-
tralisation and Tractarianism ; and in its ob-
jects, as well as in the sources of its power, it
is national.
But in the House of Lords affairs are far
otherwise. There external opinion has very
little, if at all, modified the condition pro-
duced by the dislocation of parties and the
I Peel system. In the House of Lords the

forces of the Whig and Tory parties are about
equal, while the party which seceded from the
Conservative ranks, under the influence of the
late Sir ROBERT Past, amounts in number to
between thirty and forty, and consequently
commands the decision of the assembly. The
original features of this connection appear in
the House of Lords, not only in their original
unpopular form, but perhaps even aggravated,
and with less disguise. Here we find Minis-
ters of State with no following in the country,
while ambitious prelates combine to substi-
tute for the power which political party has
hitherto alone supplied in England, the influ-
ence of the great corporation of which they are
the chiefs, and which influence they are seek-
ing to extend and enforce by means alike
audacious and empirical. The statesman,
resting on Bureaucracy, will ultimately estab-
lish centralisation ; while the Bishop, assuming
that the whole population of the country is in
his fold, prepares for that synodical action
which is never for a moment absent from the
thoughts of this anti-national confederacy.
The Duke of NEWCASTLE may be looked upon
in the House of Lords as the model type of
the Bureaucratic Minister, while the Bishop
of OXFORD is the prelate who is to render the
Church in England both catholic and popular.
Both individuals act under the jesuitical in-
spiration of Mr. GLADSTONE, who is prepared
at the same time to reform the civil service on
Chinese principles, and give the Church of
England a Parliament of its own.
To establish in England centralised autho-
rity and priestly domination is not an easy
task, and requires no ordinary powers, yet it
is one on which the House of Lords, uncon-
ciously no doubt to many of its members, is
now actively intent. So far as regards the
constitution of this country, it is a destructive
process, a system essentially revolutionary.
The relative positions, therefore, of the House
of Lords and the House of Commons are now
changed. The Conservative spirit, the spirit
that would maintain our local government
and our free religion, the spirit, in short, that
would uphold the institutions of England, has
taken refuge in the House of Commons,
where it is supported, not by great peers and
proud prelates, but by the gentry of England
and the middle class. It is necessary to im-
press upon our readers this remarkable
change in the character of the House of
Lords, which has for some years been ope-
rating. Local government and the Protestant
cause, the civil and religious liberty of which
we have heard so much, the Church and State
of the Revolution, must be defended in the
House of Commons, if we wish to preserve
for our posterity these long-treasured bles-
sings.
The bill for the pretended reform of the
University of Oxford will illustrate the views
here suggested. The main object of this bill
is to place the government of the University
in the hands of the Tractarian party, and thus
eventually mould the minds and conduct of
the clergy of the Established Church to their
purpose. With this view, the first object was
to get rid of the power of Convocation, the
elements of which are miscellaneous and
popular. For this general assembly the bill
substitutes a confederacy called Congregation,
restricted to residents in the University, of
which they alone are to choose the governing
authorities.
The Conservative amendment carried in
, the Commons by Mr. WALPOLE, and rejected

650

in the House of Lords by the Bureaucratic-
Tractarians, by securing sectional election, in-
stead of general election by the Congregation,
would, so far as two of the three elements of
the governing body, o'f the UEversity are
concerned—the heads of houses and the pro-
fessors—have introduced elements favourable
to civil and religious liberty. .frhe versatile
intrigue of the Bishop of OXFORD has mainly
occasioned in the Upper House the rejection
of this admirable amendment ; and it ie said
that his Lordship hopes, by not disturbing the
arrangement made in the House of Commons
favourable to the Dissenters, that he will neu-
tralise their future resistance to the Tractarian
constitution of the University. Like JAMES IL,
the' Bishop of OXFORD and his confe4erates,
civil and spiritual, are very willing to find
allies in the Dissenters. The plots of this
aehool are not for the moment : they look far
ahead, and can embrace a Nonconformist for
the nonce, if they have a High Commission
Court in the perspective.

TRIUMPH OF THE PAPAL CLIQUE.
Tsx conduct of Ministers on the most
important and pressing subject of the Irish
lind question is a fitting termination to the
session's catalogue of failures. They pro-
mised to settle it, and, when it is inquired
what they did, it can be with truth answered
that they have left it where it was ten years
ago 1 No wise statesman could be insensible
to the importance of the subject, the history
of which deserves to be briefly put on record.
More than ten years ago the Devon Com-
mission was appointed to obtain accurate
information preparatory to legislation on this
subject. The commission consisted, besides
Lord DEVON, of Sir ROBERT FERGUSON, Mr. G.
A. HAMILTON, Mr. REDINGTON, and Mr. WYNNE,
gentlemen of different politics, and all ac-
quainted practically with Ireland and the
peculiarities of Irish tenure. They devoted
t'vo years to the inquiry, and presented a very
able report, recommending among other mat-
ters the mode and principles on which this
question might be settled. After various
attempts by different Governments the settle-
ment of the question was brought to a point.
In 1851 Mr. NAPIER, on the suggestion of Sir
SOHN Yenisei, undertook to apply his great
abilities and legal knowledge to the solution
of the difficulties. When he became Attorney-
General under Lord DERBY'S Government,
instead of shrinking from or avoiding the
difficulty, he applied himself to it promptly
and energetically ; and his first act in the
session of November, 1852, was to introduce
his bills with the sanction of the Cabinet.
Die fall of Lord DERBY'S Government did not
make , him relax in his patriotic efforts. He
offered his valuable services to the new Go-
vernthent, and worked for them in this matter
as if he had been their Attorney-General. It
was so late in the session of 1853, when the
Government bills reached the Lords, that it
became impossible to pass them. Lord ABER-
DEEN, however, promised that they should be
reintroduced early this session, and submitted
to a select committee of the Lords with a view
to their becoming law.
So far he fulfilled his promise. They were
reintroduced, and submitted to a select com-
mittee, of which the Lord Privy Seal (the
Duke of ARGYLL) was chairman ; and, after
much and careful consideration, aided again
by Mr. NAPiER, two bills comprising what was
considered a liberal adjustment of the long-
disputed question were approved of by the
committee, and they passed their third read-
- the Lords. lrted, as Government
Ad ARGYLL.
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