The Express.
London, England, 1868-04-18 00:00:00

MC. -

sugar at a profit to be reaped at the expease of
the home consumer. To this, Bari Os= was
sternly opposed. He had embraced without
reservation the whole doctrine of free trade.
The battle between protectionists and free traders
I was fought over again on this question, and many
who had voted for untaxed bread were disposed to
make an exception in the special case of the sugar
planters. Earl GREY did not flinch from his
position, and the Government succeeded in passing
the bill which, if it did not ruin the planters, ex-
cited their enmity towards the Colonial Secretary,
whom they regarded as the author of all their
calamities. Other colonists became exasperated in
turn. In Canada there was disaffection. The
rising colonies of Australia clamoured to obtain
entire self-government, and to be freed from the
incubus of an imported convict population. At
the Cape, a bloody and costly war was raging
between the Kaffir. and the imperial forces.
Great delicacy of manipulation was required on
• the part of him who had to deal with these diverse
and complicated problems. Perfect tact was
essential, in order to enforce sound principles.
On the whole, Earl Grey was in the right. That
he blundered in one case is certain, and it is
creditable to him that he has acknowledged this.
But public opinion condemned him, and he was
unversed in the art of conciliating hostile critics.
It was with a feeling of relief that the public
heard of his refusal to become a member of the
composite administration of Lord ABERDRIN.
Yet it is possible that had he, and not the Duke
of Nswcsirria, been Secretary at War, some of
the disasters of the Crimean campaign might have
been prevented. His distinguishing characteristic
is firmness, awl it was the absence of this quality
in high quarters to which many of the " horrible
" and heartrending'. incidents of that campaign
were attributable. In opposing the war with
Russia, Earl GREY increased his character for
eccentricity at the time ; but there are many who
have since coincided with him, and have been in-
duced to think that the maintenance of the
Ottoman empire is not the first duty of English
statesmen.

His position in the political hemisphere is that
of an erratic comet rather than a fixed star.
.He
refuses to follow any leader, and he cannot per-
suade others to f ,1:ow him. The desire which
has dominated him of late years has been to
reform the representation of the people without
unduly adding to their power. Democracy he
dreads as much as Mr. ADDISLIT. A strong exe-
cutive he loves as heartily as a disciple of Comm
In his work on Reform many ingenious devices are
advanced with a view to give effect to his theories.
But they are liable to the objection to which the
paper schemes of the projector of a machine for
perpetual motion are fatally exposed. He for-
gets to make proper allowance for friction. He
also fails to perceive that it is unwise to consider
how to replace certain arrangements which have
become obsolete, because, although these may
appear easeitial to the smooth working of
the Constitution, and may have proved indis-
peusabb in former times, they are yet no longer
required, nor could they be restored without a
dangerous shack to the existing order of things.
Nomination boroughs were useful ; happily, we
have outlived them. The direct control of the
House of Commons over the Execqtive may be
injurious, but that remains to be seen. The
strong Governments of Lord NORTH and Mr.
Prrr are more enviable when regarded retrospec-
tively than they would be if they existed in
reality. We may groan under the Premiership of
Mr. Disaarti, but even that is a minor infliction
compared with the strong rule which Sir Rower
WAtrotz owed to corruption, which Gamma
Gaswvats, that incarnation of political imbe-
cility, owed to the favour of Gaoaos the THIRD
when he was young and ambitious of using his
royal influence for the furtherance of his private
designs. Earl GREY'S recent letter on the Irish
Church is the crowning testimony to his
unfitness for the duties of practical states-
manship. He is still enamoured of the old Whig
proposals to promote religious equality by a uni-
f-rni endowment of the diffetent sects. His mind
is out of gear with the times. His sympathies are
on the side of his order. He regards the people
as a monster which strong men should bridle.
It is his misfortune not to have mingled among
his countrymen. Had he been less of a student and
had his lines been cast in rougher places, he might
have learned how to govern his fellows by pro-
viding for their real wants. He is a clever and
well-meaning speculator, but an untrustworthy
statesman.

soireely too ro
of iii. *Aiwa
lima, it Mr.

desire to poison the pubn,
food, their influence althoug..
extended, would be confined within a limited
sphere. Instead of affecting the English race all
the world over, it would touch only the two or
three thousand people present at the performance.
The hurt might be more sensible in the one case
than in the other, but it would not be more real,
and it would be restrained, as we have said, within
far narrower bounds. •

The fact is that public opinion, by the punish-
ment that can be inflicted by the law, is the main
safeguard against any open violation of morality.
It is difficult to define in theory the point at
which the liberty of free speech degenerates
into license, but practically there is no
difficulty whatever, and the author who is
willing to debase his calling must resort to
the secret dens of Holywell-street. An actor, on
the contrary, at any respectable theatre, cannot do
harm by stealth. What he does must inevit-
ably be done above board before the eyes of
enemies as well as friends, and there can be no
question that the manager's profits and good name
would suffer upon any gross coarseness of expres-
sion or of representation. We say " respectable
" theatre," because, as all the world knows, there

are places which are neither respectable nor legal,
where words are uttered and scenes enacted before
ignorant and vicious people, which are a disgrace
to any Christian country. But no argument in
favour of an " examiner" can be adduced on this
account. He pommies no power over performances
such as these. They are not sanctioned by the
community, and can be put down at any time, if
discovered, by the strong arm of the magistrate.
Penny gaffs, like Holywell street pictare-books,
can last only so long u they are bidden from the
public. Let in the light of day upon them and
they will cease to exist. Indeed, one of the
greatest securities against a violation of morality
is publicity. Even vicious people object to
sinning in the daylight. There was a time,
and not so very long ago neither, when it was the
fashion to issue Royal proclamations against vice
and profaneness. There was a time, too, when if a
man wrote or said the thing he would, he was
liable to be placed in the stocks or in the pillory.
All this was done with the best intentions in the
world, and for tie interests of morality. We have
given up these foolish bulletins, and have no longer
any hope of being made better by a royal message.
We have given up these foolish punishments, and
do not find that religion or good order have
suffered in consequence. The press is free, the
pulpit is free, the power of free speech is un-
limited, and yet we continue to place the stage
under a Load Chamberlain, and to intrust our
drama to the mercies of an examiner. It is time
to give up this childish restriction.
We assert, then, that if a manager's conscience
cannot always be relied upon, we may generally
rely upon his pocket that if he be willing to pro-
duce an immoral play he will be restrained from
doing so both from regard to his own interest and
the interest of his company ; that if notwithstand-
ing he brings out an immoral drama, the law can
be brought to bear against him as well as against
the publisher of an immoral book, and that it is a
disgrace to a respectable body of gentlemen to
place them, however slightly, under the thumb of •
licenser. If this irritating badge of servitude were
removed, it is possible that • play might occa-
sionally appear upon the boards which is open to
objection, but this does happen occasionally now,
notwithstanding the imprimatur of an examiner,
and we may safely aver that it would happen less
frequently if the entire responsibility rested upon
the manager.

THERE seems little hope of making even the
ablest and most enlightened among the supporters
of the Irish Church Establishment understand the
light in which the question of its abolition presents
itself to liberal politicians. The article on the
subject which appears in the number of the Quar-
terly Review, published to-day, finds great fault
with Mr. GLADSTONE because he " proposes to take
" money now devoted to one object, and to give
" it to another, without stating what this other
" object is, or whether it is a better one than
" that on which the money is now spent."
" Silence on this point," says the reviewer,
"can only be justified on the supposition
" that the object on which the money
" is now spent is so bad, that anything would be
" better." And then he asserts that, although
this doctrine may be maintained by the extreme
voluntaries, or by the Roman Catholic clergy, it
is certainly not the opinion of the majority of the
House of Commons, who think the work to
which the money is now devoted a good
one, and only complain " that the benefits
"of it are limited to so few." By what pro-
oess the Quarterly reviewer has ascertained
the opinion of the majority of the House of Com-
mons we do not know ; but for ourselves we do
maintain unreservedly that any object to which
we can conceive the revenues of the Irish State
Church being diverted would be preferable to the
present one. The ends to which these funds are
now turned are principally three : the promotion
of disaffection towards the imperial rule,
grounded on an entire disbelief in the
justice or the good will of Parliament; the
maintenance in the minds of the Protestant popula-
tion of those traditions of superiority and ascen-
dancy which are incompatible with the good
government of Ireland ; sad the embittering of
every social relation between Irishmen of different
creeds. The property of the establishment may
hereafter be wasted on foolish or even mushroom
objects, but at the very worst we are sure that
it will never do one-tenth part of the harm
which it does now. Consequently, without being
either extreme voluntaries or Roman Catholic
clergymen, we assert that the first thing to be done
is to take away the money from its present uses.
The determination of the uses to which it shall be
applied hereafter is a subsequent, and, by com-
parison, a secondary question.

" Has MAJ LIM will remain at Osborne for
" about three weeks, and then return to Windsor
" previous to leaving for Scotland." Accordin'
to this reckoning the QUEEN will be in Scotland
towards the end of May ; and from this it may,
perhaps, be deduced that her Herrn,/ expects a
Ministerial crisis about that time. A truce suffi-
cient at least to allow passions to cool and hasty
threats of resignation to be tacitly withdrawn
may often be of great value in political
warfare, and the Qunew's habit of passing
the most important period of the session
in the Highlands obviously tends to secure
this benefit to her subjects. This year the practice
may even give the Conservatives an extra week of
office ; and no one who considers the heroic
self-sacrifice—if a man's principles can be called
his " self "—by which the party has hitherto kept