The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW ON THE GARIBALDIMANIA.
London has gone mad during the present
week, We have had a sort of dull carnival, and
Garibaldi has been led about the streets for a liceut
Gras. For quiet folks the infliction has been ter-
rible in the way of dust, noise, and a single subject
of conversation. To the observant mind, that great
abstraction which it is so convenient to idealise—
the spectacle of a whele population, asit were, pos-
sessed and entirely absorbed—is suggestive. What
it suggests is not so easy to say; but at any rate it
lets us into some little knowledge of the way in
which violent popular action originates—or rather,
of the way in which popular feeling grows into
popular action in any other country than England.
In France, for example, it would be utterly incon-
sistent with pabtic safety for such a demonstration,
as it is called, to be allowed to take place as that of
which London was the scene on Monday. Any-
where but in England Buchan outburst would mean
something, and, having a meaning, it would come
to something—something perhaps very terrible, but
anyhow grave and serious. Among ourselves, and
perhaps the fact is not over creditable to us—it all
means little or nothing. We like to hear Peter the
Hermit, but instead of taking the cross instantly
and marching off to the Holy Sepulebre, we resume
our accustomed place in the omnibus and take down
the shop shutters. No doubt there ere a few pro-
phets among us, but they preach to a stony hearted
generation. We go out. into the hot sun to see a
man clothed in a red shirt, and profess great admi-
ration for "his public virtues and more than Spar-
tan and Roman magnanimity." But it is a sad thing
to reflect that most of us care veil' little about these
lofty themes. We leave them to the perfervid gentle-
men who, in the name of Britain's sons and daughters
of toil, bid Garibaldi welcome to this metropolis." Va-
nity of vanitied are we miserable humbugs after all ?
We get our nonsense written and spoken by the
Committee of the Working Men's Association, and
we talk the tallest of talk about " human p; ogress,''
" fighting and bleeding for the oppressed peoples,"
" our dear brother fruitful in good works for all the
down• trodden nationalities ;" but all the time,
in our sleeves and heart of hearts, we are chuckling
over this froth and turgid sentiment. It is the
same estimate which we take of a popular sermon.
Nobody ever thinks of doing what the Rev. Mr.
Stiggins preaches. Stiggins would be the last of
men to allow that his glowing periods were to be
taken seriously. But we prefer our nonsense, like
our port or porter, when it is:full-bodied, luscious,
and strong. What the cheap press calls an ovation
—a term which would suit a victim in the pillory
and a complimentary address in the shape of un-
sound eggs—was performed on the grandest scale
on Monday. All classes gave themselves up to the
conscious hypocrisy. " The love of which Britain's
sons and daughters of toil bear to that beautiful
land of Italy "—about which the only thing they
know is its exportation of unsavoury oegan-grinders
—is at least paralleled by the solemn farce of the
lion and the lamb eating straw together, and Lords
Derby and Palmerston accepting the Duke of
Sutherland's judicious invitation to a sumptuous
banquet in honour of "the soldier whose sword is
never drawn but in a just cause," and who was on
the point of taking service under Mr. Abraham
Lincoln. However, occasionally the farce has been
somewhat too thinly veiled, as when Mr. George
Moore appeared as the representative of the com-
mercial, and Mr. Nicholay of the political world.
The person most to be pitied is poor Garibaldi
himself_ To have your arm dislocated by about
ten thousand hand-shakings, and to sit five hours
and a half in a triumphal chariot in the midst
of the New-cut and the slums of Lambeth, must
have compelled the conviction that to be the
hero of Neapolitan rozzaroni is not the most
terrible event in life. In the way of a public re-
ception, since the days of Brandenburgh House,
nothing has equalled the procession from Niue Elms
to the Park. Queen Caroline, we believe, lived in
the days before Odd Fellows "in their gala cos.
tune," Rechabites with " their regalia," and Fores-
ters all hatted and plumed in their sylvan array,
bega-a to make themselves ridiculous. All that the
working men could do they did on Monday ; and it
was very little, except in the way el noise, strong
odours, and complete disorder. However, they had
it all their own way ; and we trust that Garibaldi
understands that it is a way of their own. That
there was nothing in the shape of tumult will be
generally attributed to the innate English reverence
for law on the one hand, and on the other to the
generous and real enthusiasm which we are told
animated the countless throngs who conducted Gari-
baldi through the streets. We are cynical enough
to doubt the great influence of either motive. An
opportunity always collects a crowd, but when a
crowd does not feel very deeply it makes a noise and
only a noise. No doubt there is hardly a man in
England who does not feel some measure of respect
for Garibaldi's honesty, and great admiration for his
disinterested conduct, as well as sympathy for his
wonderful career. But these qualities hardly stir
the popular mind deeply. Public opinion would
long since have compelled any government to go to
war for Italy, or Poland, or Hungary, or Denmark,
if mere feeling had once got out of the high senti-
mental latitudes. And we are convinced that, as the
thing was to be done, it was much better to let the
public have its own way with the hero of the
hour. Any attempt to thwart an unmeaning
sentiment is sure to turn it into something more
serious. An English crowd is always to be trusted
to take care of itself when it is only noisy and
gesticulating. If we meant more than we do,
we should probably say less; anyhow we should
not make Mr. Richardson and Mr. Robert Hart-
well our mouthoieees. That this last person,
who signed the Working Men's Address presented
to Garibaldi, is iu the hands of the few who mean
mischief, is tolerably plain from the ominous refe
ranee v,,hinh it contains to " the illustriomlVDnini."

In the middle and upper classes an educated esti-
mate of Garibaldi's merits places him in a really
higher rank than he hnlds among temperance socie-
ties and Memphis Lodges, Whatin admiration for the
L berator of Italy did not probab y exceed their de-
sire to show their own banners. And it is quite
right that, all ranks and all parties should agree to
divest the occasion of any special political signifi-
cance.

EXAMINER ON THE TORY MAJORITY.—The party
of resistance to all further progress, however cau-
tious, slow, of limited, claim a majority in the pre-
sent Parliament; and if thb incidents of the past
week are to be taken as a test, there is no denying
their preponderance. On Monday Mr. Gladstone
was fain to elude the mortification of a defeat by
consenting thnthis Annuities Bill should be referred
to a select committee. On Tuesday a vote of cen-
sure upon Mr. Lowe was, after a sharp discussion,
carried by a majority of eight. On Weduesday a
far more important, and, we must frankly own, a
far more damaging defeat was sustained on the
County Franchise Bill. When Government in 1860
abandoned the attempt to carry a general measure
of reform, as beyond their power in a House of Com-
mons elected under the auspices of Lord Derby,
they announced their intention to support such
separate proposals for amending the representation
as had been embodied in the measure they had
withdrawn. Of these, the first and the most obvi-
ous was that of Mr. Locke King, for extending the
county franchise to occupiers holding at a
rent of £lO a year. This moderate and
reasonable concession, originally carried in 1851,
and repeatedly reaffirmed in subsequent years,
had been deliberately embodied by three suc-
cessive Cabinets in the Reform Bill respectively
framed by them. The whole of the Ministerial
party were committed to it ; and even the Con-
servatives would have been willing to yield to it, in
1851, as the price of their being permitted to retain
power. The condition having been refused, Lord
Derby coolly withdrew his bidding for popular con-
fidence on the subject of Reform; and from that
time the Conservatives have steadily opposed this
and every other step in the right direction. Had
this been all, we should have little cause to marvel
or complain. The sally made by the Tories under
the daring guidance of Mr. Disraeli confessedly
placed them in imminent peril of being cut to pieces
by mutineers in their own camp, as well as by
rivals in the open field; and having once regained
their former lines of resistance, they have ever
since been only too glad to occupy themselves in
strengthening their position there. In this they
have, we are sorry to say, been assisted from time
to time by certain false brethren amongst ourselves.
Every division on the question since the period re-
ferred to has betrayed symptoms of irresolution and
desertion, and occasionally of something worse,
which we have heretofore refrained from noticing
but which, on the present occasion, assume a form
too flagrant, and have entailed consequences too
significant, to render silence any longer possib'e.
In the recent division 254 votes, including those of
eight professed Whigs, were given against the £lO
county franchise, while but 227 were recorded in
its favour. After deducting pairs, between thirty
and forty so-called Liberals are still missing. What
does this mean ? Or at whose door must the blame
be laid of such wholesale detection ?
OBSERVER ON THE CONFERENCE.—The Con-
ference on the affairs of Denmark and the Duchies
will meet on Monday. The meeting was post-
poned at the request of Austria and Prussia,
trom the Bth to the 20th inst., on the
ostensible ground of giving time to the German
Diet to decide upon sending a representative to the
Congress, but, as it is too probable, with the real
virw of adding the fortress of Duppel to the con-
quests, which their very superior numbers have
echieved in Schleswig. M. Von Beust has been
appointed to represent the German Confederation
at the approaching Congress. It is, perhaps, right
that Saxony should supply the Plenipotentiary of
the Frankfort Diet, as Austria and Prussia will
appear by their own representatives. The Diet
will be the only power which has not signed the
'freely of 1852—although Saxony herself acceded
subsequently to the European arra2sement, which
she is now so anxious to overthrow. M. Von Beust
is a long-winded and not over-scrupulous mti;2Bter•
But if, as we hear is most likely, Lord Clarendoe:
has succeeded in establishing a complete under-
standing between Great Britain and France, to
which Russia will probably adhere, there will be
little doubt of the long-pending squabble being
settled, even if the two military powers of Ger-
many do not, before that time, see the evils to which
they have already given rise, and the far greater
calamities that may follow. The Conference will
assemble at the official residence of the Prime
Minister in Downing-street, where there ie a large
room disengaged ; an accommodation which the
present temporary Foreign office does not afford.
LONDON REVIEW ON THE MINISRTY AND THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.—it is not very creditable to
the House of Commons that they should have
allowed the upper and less energetic branch of the
Legislature to get the start of them in discussing
the recent foreign policy of her Majesty's Minis-
ters. The debate, wl:ich occupied the House of
Lords during a sitting of unwonted length en Mon-
day last, may not be attended with any more prac-
tical result than that of proving the inability of
the Oppoai:ion to make the conduct of the Govern-
ment towards Denmark the subject of a party
attack. But it cannot be said that Earl Russell suc-
ceeded in dispelling the general impression, that his
policy has been neither dignified nor consistent. It
still remains true that he has eith'-r said too much
or done too little; nor can any amount of explana•
lion obscure the patent facts that by his policy the
character of the country has been lowered, that our
rivals have been indulged with the spectacle of our
discomfiture, and that friends have been made to
smart under a sense cf betrayal. As Earl Derby
truly observed, the diligence with which he pro-
duced despatches was truly marvellous. There is
only one thing more surprising—and that is the
reliance which he retained up to the last moment
in the Effie icy of these paper pellets. Until the in-
vasion of Slesvig actually took place he seems never
to have doubted that Austria and Prussia might be
talked out of their designs ; and when he found
that they would not, he resigned himself to inaction
with as much complacency us he eve: abandoned an
Appropriation clause or threw overboard a Reform
bill, But ties tactics which may suit the exigencies
of Parliamentary parties, and inflict no serious in-
jury upon their reputation, cannot be applied with
impunity to the direction of the foreign policy of a
great ra'ion. In tt o one ess?, the disappointment
of just expectations and the forfeiture of implied
pledges entail nothing worse than some damaging
and annoying quotations from" Hansard." In the
other, they are accompanied by a real loss of power
and influence on the part of a country which has the
misfortune to be represented by a Minister who
writes without caution and acts without courage.
Earl Russell has behaved on the Danish question
as he has done on many others. His strong de-
spatches to the German powers, and his weak
retreat as soon as he found they were in
earnest, are nothing but a repetition of a
very old story. He has once more written
" No Popery" on the wall—and run away. The
Government, in the person of Mr. Lowe, have sus-
tained another defeat upon Lord R. Cecil's motion
in regard to the mutilation of the Education Inspec •
tors' reports. Such divisions cannot take place
without in some degree injuring the position of a
Ministry. If they do nothing else, they act as an
encouragement to its assailants. At the same time,
it must be admitted that the very minimum of
damage is sustained by an adverse vote of which
Mr. Lowe is the victim. For one thing, he is used
to it ; and the public are so thoroughly prepared to
hear that he is beaten whenever he fights, that they
have begun to take it quite as a matter of course.
No Ministry suffers much from its " dirty boy"
getting a few more splashes of mud. Moreover, it
is notorious that the right hon. gentleman owes to
his personal bearing so much of the mortification
which is inflicted upon him, that it is not difficult to
dissociate his failures from the general merits of
the Government. Mr. Gladstone has consented to
refer his Government Annuities Bill to a select
committee; but us this body will not be empowered
to take evidence, its labours are not likely to be of
long duration, nor can its appointment be regarded
as a mode of shelving the measure. Indeed, the
opinion both of the country and of the House of
Commons seems lately to have inclined sensibly in
favour of the hill, and, so far as we can j edge, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has every prospect of
carrying it successfully through Parliament. The
House of Commons has again manifested its con-
firmed disinclination to assist in the work of its own
reform. The rejection of Mr. Locke King's Bill for
extending the county franchise foreshadows the
fate w hien awaits Mr. Barnes's measure for lower-
ing that of the boroughs. This indifference to Par-
liamentary reform may, as advanced Liberals as-
sert, oe very disgraceful to a body which was
elected expressly to further that great cause.
Ali that can be said in their favour is that the
country seems thoroughly to approve the " masterly
mac ion" which has replaced the Radical enthu-
siasm of their hustings speeches.
SPECTATOR ON MR. LOWE.-IL3 never can help
showing his antagonists that he thinks them dis-
honest fools, and very seldom can help saying so in
so many words. Lord Robert Cecil's motion might
be unwarranted, or groundless, or demonstrably
unsound, but it was entirely within the forms of
Parliamentary oiecussion, and to call its assertions
" untrue" and its opinions "absurd," as Mr. Lowe
did twice over, showed want of the temper which
chiefs of great departments ought either to possess
or to affect. He ought to have remembered that
even on the abstn.ct question the positions of the

Inspectors is a little peculiar, for the house has no
means of deciding on the mode in which the
national
national revenue ought to be spent except through
their reports, and is compelled therefore to chooses
between weakening the department a little and
leavlnF, itself in ignorance. It is tree that Lord
Robert Ceeii did not allege specific instances, firstly,
as he said, because he did not wish to bring on hie'
informants the anger of a department with a Veil
long memory,—with Mr. Morelt's case,—and s?'
condly, as he did not say, because he wanted to
snatch a division before Mr. Brand's blunder COuld.
be rectified and the officials recalled from the u`
dinners. But Mr. Walter gave one remarkable in--
stance of unfairness, and Mr. Lowe might have
heard fifty more if he had chosen to attend to the
talk going on outside. Instead of merely etriking
out surplusage, he had availed himself of hie die-
cretion to strike out facts and opinions ho ti
to his own ideas. In other words, be naa
used a legitimate power very unfairly, and
so on to a division the majority of members
voted. His argument that he only sent Or°
reports back for the Inspectors to re-tinker is ou*
the face of it absurd. The Inspectors are most of
them gentlemen, but they like their salaries, and the
chance of promotion, and pleasant words from heal-
quarters j ust as much as other people, end they knell
very well that if refractory they stood an excellent
chance of losing them all. Indeed, they might logs
yet more, for Mr. Lowe had just turned out an In-
spector he did not approve of—whether justly or
not as regarded his working capacity—on a trum-
ped-up charge of want of candour. There are men,
of course, who will defy their department, and low
their salaries, and run the risk of a moral accusa-
tion, rather than suppress a few inconvenient facts;
but Governments must act on the presumption that
they are served by average people, and we do not
wonder that this year " it has not been necessary to
send back a single report." Does Mr. Lowe sin.
cerely believe that this large body of acute contro-
versial thinkers is really unanimous, or is he net
aware that he has produced his" happy family,"o
other showmen do, by cruel pinches, and harsh
words, and deprivation of food ? He will hardly
accuse Mr. Walter of party animosity to himself,
yet Mr. Walter told him distinctly that he had cut
out a fact, viz,, the success of a particular school,
because it told in favour of the system of uncertifi-
cited schoolmasters. Facts are not surplusage if
they be but true, and to cut out such things shows
exactly the animus imputed in Lord Robert Cecil's
resolution. The truth 19 that Mr. Lowe's very con-
siderable powers are in his present office entirely'
lost to the country. The department is one which
more than any other needs tact, and he has no tact,
only intellectual arrogance, which is of all qualities
the one most fatal to tact. The office requires the
hearty assistance of the country clergy, and tie simply
hates the country clergy, and loses no opportunity
of expressing his scorn of them and their prejudices.
A certain degree of intellectual hauteur is essential
in every office, but Mr. Lowe "is like a martinet
colonel, most useful at the Dead of a regiment fallen
into anarchy, but most injurious when the regi-
ment is already in a high state of inefficiency. He
should be put to some post where the subordinates
really require a sharp hand, set to bully dockyard
officials, or directed to snub Irish unpaid magis-
trates, or pieced at the head of an audit office vk ith
instructions to believe nobody and dock every six.
pence that looks doubtful. Placed where is, he its
simply an inconvenience to the Government which
protects him and the party to which he belongs. If
he were the first administrator in England the
Whigs could not afford to keep up an incessant row
in every country village, and he is not a first-rate
administrator by any means. He is inventive and.
clever to a high degree, but men must work with
the tools they have, and he always heats his till he
cannot hold them. This country has to be coaxed
into educating itself, not kicked into it, and Mr.
Lowe, who might make an admirable Minister of
Education a hunered years hence, makes a very bad
one now. We do not kno w if he will resign because
the house has declared him guilty of want of fair-
ness, for he may despise the house too much to
take its opinion upon any except a purely finan-
cial question. But if he is wise he will resign be-
fore his inevitable defeat upon the dismissal of Mr.
Morel], and we earnestly hope his kuowledge, cou-
rage, and faculty of inventiveness will not be lost
to the present Administration.