The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-11 00:00:00

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

THE CHURCH NM

The Daily News questions the policy of such
elaborate arguments as those just put forward in a ser-
mon by the Bishop of Gloucester in favour of the union
of Church and State. The writer or speaker who volun-
teers to maintain what is not attacked, not unfrequently
finds that he has only suggested difficulties which might
never have suggested themselves; while at the best the
absence of avowed assailants reduces his champion-
ship to a superfluity. If there were nothing more
to say than is put forward by the bishop, those who are
anxious to dissolve the connexion will find when the
time for action comes that they have an easier teak than
they looked for. His lordship specially warns his hearers
against those who argue that the state ought to control
and guide the religious expression which it supports;
but the doctrine that the legislature has this right
is now propagated with singular ability. Its influ-
ence may be seen everywhere in the sort of paralysis which
has overtaken the natural defenders of the principle of an
establishment. They find that principle pushed to •
length, and asserted to involve consequenoes, of which
they bad previously no conception ; and the natural result
is that they hesitate to take any active steps towards the
support of a connection which for the first time in their
lives they have learned to suspect. The full result of this
inaction on their part it is not yet possible to predict ; but
it is • anions instanoe of the unconscious irony at events
that a secession from the defenders of the union of Church
and State, Which may prove so formidable, should have
been provoked by a new and ardent development of the
Emden principle.

The Times attributes, in a great measure, the deplorable
condition of public affairs in Victoria to the act of the
Duke of Buckingham, authorising the colonial governor
to recommend to the legislature the grant to lady
Darling. His grace has wince done what he could to
retrieve his error, in telling Sir Henry Sutton not to
recommend the grant the second time unless on the es-
press understanding that it shall be introduced
in a separate bill ; but the new Assembly insists
on placing the grant among the estimates. The governor
makes a fresh mistake in retaining a ministry which his
Assembly has condemned, and the prospect is so un-
promising that it would almost seem necessary that some
divinity should interpose from at home to restore to the
constitution the order it has lost.

The Daily Xeres says the temente of the constitutional
crisis would be interesting to read if we did not know that
the cause of all the strife had vanished into thin air, by the
withdrawal by Sir C. Darling of his resignation from the
colonial service, and his renunciation of the proposed
grant. What effect the announcement that the Colonial-
office has achieved a practical triumph may have upon
the colonial majority it is impossible to say. In the ordi-
nary course of things, the cause of quarrel having dis-
appeared, the ordinary relations of the Executive and the
Assembly should be restored ; but the latter body has seen
its power so challenged, first by the Legislatiie Council,
and then by the Colonial-office, that it may be disposed
to find some new field in which to try its strength, and
should it be so minded, no one acquainted with Victoria
politics can doubt that it would find one.

When the relinquishment of the grant by Sir Charles
Darling becomes known in Victoria, it is difficult to be-
here says the Star, that the majority of the Legislative
Assembly will persist in including it among the supplies to
be voted.