The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—In a House of 560 members the Church-
rates Abolition Bill yesterday received its annual
quietus by a majority of 10. Compared with the
casting vote of the Speaker last year, this was a
very great triumph to those who conceive the exist-
ence of the Church to be staked on the question.
Unless Mr. Newdegate should succeed in carrying
his specific for its settlement, it will survive to next
year, and most probably many a year after. How
little this pertinacity is for the interest of the
Church we have often expressed our opinion. We
wish to see the controversy settled, by compromise
if possible, by abolition if it must be, but, if not, by
any other method. Were it in our power by a mo-
derate amount of violence and injustice to stop the
discussion of Church-rates by fixing them on the
country for the next fif.y years, we should be sorely
tempted to do so. Our readers would be spared, at
least, one annual wrangle, in which all that can be
said has been said a hundred times. But, unfortu-
nately, in these days there are no meansof shutting
up Sir John Trelawny and a dozen of his colleagues
in the Lollards' Tower, and it has become next to
impossible to extract a Church-rate from a reluc-
tant ratepayer with money or friends. There is
not a hope of the qua stiou being thus set at rest.
Other questions come and go, shake Governments
for a season, and then are buried in old alma-
necks. The magicians who could once raise a tem
peat on Parliamentary Reform have sunk their
wands a thousand fathoms deep, and in the same
abyss lie controversies the names of which will not
even recur to the memory. But the Church rate
question is cursed with a longevity which bids fair
to carry it on beyond our time. So the question
must remain open, and as long as it remains open
the Church of England is placed in a thoroughly
false position, and suffers undeserved odium, and,
what is even worse, gratuitous injury.
Post —The House of Commons yesterday re-
jected Sir J. Trela ?my's bill for the abolition of
church rates, by a majority of ten. The House
was unusually full—no less than five hundred
and sixty members voting on the question. The
number who attended sowed how important
the question was held to be on both sides of
the House. Indeed, ever since the Dissenters
openly avowed that their object in seeking the
repeal of church rates was not the removal of an
obnoxious impost, but the insertion of a wedge
which, when driven home, would split up the
Church, a great change has come over the mind of
Parliament, It is only four years since the majo-
rity against church rates numbered seventy-three.
The ground of that majority was a belief in the
mind of many persons that the bill for abolition
would bring about a settlement which would get rid
of a vexatious annual motion in the House of Com-
mons. Many members who sincerely wished the
prosperity of the Established Church supported the
abolition of church rates merely to obtain a substi-
tute which should do well what had been badly done
before. But when they came to see that abolition
meant not the removal of a Dissenter's grievance—
not the substitution of a goad measure for a bad
one—but the establishment of a principle which
in its development was contrary to the very notion
of an Established Church, and was meant to over-
throw it, they had no choice but to conclude that,
whatever modification the present state of the law
might admit of, abolition was certainly not the
principle which ought to be supported. Looking
at it altogether, in its history and antecedents, we
accept this important majority against the aboli-
tionists as an incontrovertible token that the
Church is gaining ground in popular estimation.
We believe that, as long as it pursues its presZnt
active, useful course, it will strengthen its hold
upon the people; and we can scarcely doubt that
ere long even the most rigid Dissenters will feel
that it is their own interest, as well as that of the
whole community, to let the church alone.
HERALD —A majority of 10 in a house of 560
members has ratified the sentence passed last year
by the bare majority of one against Sir J. Tre-
lawny's bill. The felling off is, we are happy to
say, on the part of our opponents mainly. Last
year they mustered 286 supporters, whilst only 275
were assembled on yesterday's division. Sir J. Tre
lawny himself pointed out another fact of some sig.
nificance. Previous to this session, some alterint.

tive, some compromise or other, was always kept in
view, as a sort of makeweight to the AboLition Bill.
Need we add that every compromise was iu turn
scornfully rejected ? Under these circumstances,
and with the confidence of past success, Mr. Hardy
met his antagonists with more than their own in-
flexibility. He moved the strongest amendment
known to the forms of the House of Commons, and
he carried it by a majority of 10,
in a house of 560
members, exclusive of tellers. Such a blow has not
been dealt at the Liberation Society since the day
it came into existence, some 20 years ago. It will
reverberate through its whole frame, and the stag-
gering effects will be remembered if it survive twice
the time it has already lived.
ADVERTISER.-it will be seen from our Parlia-
mentary report, that the second reading of Sir John
Trelawny's bill for the abolition of Church-rates
was yesterday lost by a majority of 10, the numbers
being, for the motion 275, against it 285. The an-
nouncement was received with uproarious applause
by the Opposition. Nor need we wonder at this,
because they had a double triumph in the rejection
of the bill—the first victory being one over the
Dissenters, and the second over the Ministry, they
having voted in the minority. Every succeeding
session thus sees the Church-rate Abolition party in
the House of Commons " becoming small by degrees
and beautifully less." The fact is easily accounted
for. The extreme violence and vituperation of the
Liberation Society and its weekly organ could not
fail to do damage to any cause. And if this ultra
virulence be persisted in much longer, the result
will be to destroy Dissent altogether. If, indeed,
the Liberation Society and its weekly mouthpiece
were specially retained and liberally paid by the
friends of the Church, for the purpose of upholding
the Church and overthrowing the cause of Dissent,
tltheyd e e could
ano t moreinss Dissent
efficiently
pray do their work. Well,
to be saved from its
friends—at least from such friends as the Libera-
tion Society and their hebdomadal organ.