The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TnlES.—About the beginning of the reign of
Queen Victoria the Oxford Hebdomadal Board was
horrified at the prospect of a railway terminus in
the University city. The Great Western was
coming, and would bring London within an hour
of Christ Church. The place would be demoralised,
for supervision and discipline wouid become impos-
sible together. In fact, the University carried the
day against the company, and the line was not
allowed to come nearer than Didcot. A few years
afterwards these fears werelaughed at, and a branch
line was constructed from Didcot to Oxford, for the
express purpose of undoing what the cautious po-
licy of the authorities had done. Yet there was real
danger at the bottom of the scheme, if anybody had
known where to look for it. At this moment, un-
less public opinion should overrule private conve-
nience, Oxford will lose one of its most useful cha-
racteristics, and England one of her greatest orna-
ments. Those who know Oxford and its needs will
hardly believe us when we say that it is actually in
contemplation to create and establish a large manu-
facturing suburb on the skirts of the ancient city.
The Great Western, like all other companies, must
have its factories at certain points of its line, and it
has been proposed to select Oxford as the site of one
of these establishments. Let no reader imagine that
this means only the introduction of a few workmen
with convenient shops and a little nest of cottages.
It means a whole new town, with a population large
enough for a Parliamentary borough. The first
colony or 'plantation will consist of 5,000 people,
and it will swell and spread as such settlements
always do. Think of the effect upon Oxford—of the
factory buildings upon its architecture and atmo-
sphere, 'of the factory population upon its inmates
and character. Of course the University has taken
the alarm, and this time the alarmists are cer-
tainly neither old-world bigots nor antiquated
dons. The opposition is led by Professor Goldwin
Smith—no great Conservative, or Protectionist, or
aristocrat, as most people know. But he sees, as
everybody else must see, that Oxford has an indus-
try and a staple of its own utterly incompatible with
that industry which is the staple of a manufacturing
town ; and that the introduction of the new business
threatens fatal injury to the old. Both things are
good in their way, and England may have its Man-
chester as well as its Oxford, and be proud of both,
but the two cannot be brought together. It would
be a mistake to build a public school in the centre
of Camden station,.and it is a mistake to establish
large railway factories in the suburb of a city of
colleges. The fears of the colleges have been loudly
expressed, and very reasonably conceived. No per-
son acquainted with the subject would deny the
danger impending over the academical city from this
new, populous, and most uncongenial suburb. Ox-
ford would become a university in a manufacturing
city—the last place in which a university should be
established ; its students would be lost in the crowd
of a large and motley population. These are not
slight evils, and they naturally loom largely and
ominously in the eyes of the university authorities.
But there is another aspect of the case, in which
all England is very directly interested. Oxford is
one of the most beautiful and impressive cities, not
only in this country, but in the world. To plant
these factories on its ground would be equivalent to
planting a brick kiln in the middle of Hyde-park.
The external effect of the university would be lost,
and the country cannot afford to lose it. " The
beauty," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, " of our old aca-
demic and historic cities is a national possession,
and one which grows more precious in proportion as
the noise and smoke of manufacturing and commer-
cial industry spread over the other cities of the land.
It contributes, with our other historic monuments,
to that part of the greatness of the national charac-
ter which springs from the influences of the past.
It is a part even of the talisman of our most en-
during Empire; for its image continues with the
great works of English intellect and the glories of
English history to preserve the hold of England,
as the sacred centre of the Anglo-Saxon race, on the
hearts of Anglo-Saxon communities dispersed over
the world. We can scarcely cast the reproach of
dollar-grinding on any other people if we spoil, for
the sake of a very small and doubtful gain, the cas-
ket ivhich holds not unworthily the national memo-
ries of a thousand years." These eloquent words
express, the Professor thinks, a consideration some-
what less solid than others which have been indi-
cated. We beg his pardon. In our opinion they
express the consideration which will carry over-
powering weight with the public at large. Oxford
is, indeed, a national possession, and it happens
most fortunately that in this commercial age we are
becoming more and more alive to the value of such
property. We are putting a new value both upon
the beauties of nature and the monuments of the
past. We are beginning to reverence our forests,
our mountains, and, if it be not too late, our
streams. We fight for the preservation of our open
spaces and commons, and are more than half in-
clined to think that the Enclosure Commissioners
would best discharge their duty by seeing that no
such places were enclosed. We stickle for every
stone in the Norman church, subscribe for the resto-
ration of every picturesque ruin, and make a rail-
way turn aside from a Druidical circle or a Danish
barrow. No charge is more fatal nowadays than a
charge of Vandalism. Even " restorations" are
scrutinized with extreme jealousy lest any feature of
real antiquity should be effaced. This is not an age
in which the grandest group of edifices in the king-
dom can be ruined with impunity, and the certain
disfigurement of historic Oxford is as public a
menace as its probable demoralization. We prefer,
however, to think that the menace will be found
empty, and that the scheme will be promptly
dropped. It must have been entertained, we think,
without sufficient consideration on the part of
the Railway Company. What aggravates the
case is the obviously gratuitous nature of the pro-
ceeding. It cannot be imagined that a few miles
in one direction or another could make any diffe-
rence in the site of the proposed factories. It ap-
pears to be understood that the whole scheme
has been concocted at the instance of some inhabi-
tants of Oxford,who have been short-sighted enough
to speculate on the commercial gains which 5,000
new corners might bring, without also calculating
the rates which a low class of mechanics might en-
tail on the city. The Corporation, it is said, can
make an advantageous sale of city land ; and the
tradespeople, or some of them, anticipate an increase
of custom. They must have been undeceived, we
think, by the discussions which the plan has already
provoked in Oxford itself. No manufacturing suburb
could ever be to Oxford what the University is, and
it would be the height of folly to jeopardise an in-
valuable advantage for the sake of a doubtful one.
But for the colleges, Oxford would be of about as
much account as Abingdon. We think we cannot be
wrong in supposing that the railway authorities,
many of whom are gentlemen of taste and feeling, on
learning the views not only of the University but of
the public, will reconsider the proposal to which they
have been imprudently invited. They cannot have
any interests of their own at stake, for they can set
,up their factories at one point as easily as another. It
is not to be doubted that, if any danger of this kind
could have been anticipated, Parliament, which
stopped the line at Didcot, would have provided pre-
cautions against something far more formidable than
a railway terminus. But there can be no wish on the
part of the Great Western Company to fly gratuit-
ously in the teeth of public opinion, and we antici-
pate with confidence that the scheme will be grace-
fully dropped.
POST.—In presence of the events which have re-
cently taken place in America no course was open to
her Majesty's Government but that which has now
been taken by the Foreign Secretary. The ex-Pre-
sident of the Southern Confederacy a prisoner at
the mercy of the Federal Government ; the Ad-
ministration of which he was the chief finally dis-
solved; the armies on which the infant Republic
relied for its establishment and protection routed
and dispersed ; the population of at least all that
region east of the Mississippi prepared to yield a
passive obedience to the established' authorities—
the Foreign Secretary may with justice say that
" her Majesty's Government cannot but consider
the civil war in North America as at an end ;" and,
acting "in conformity with this opinion, her Ma-
jesty's Government recognise that peace has been
restored within the whole territory of which the
United States of North America before the com-
mencement of the civil war were in undisputed