The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TISIES.—We have been taught to recognise in the
judgment of foreigners a forecast of the judgment
of posterity, andif the doctrine be true the opinions
of the French press on the elections of the United
Kingdom ought to be worthy of attention. We
must find in them what the next generation will
think of the process which we dignify by the de-
scription of an appeal to the sense of the country.
Unfortunately, however, contemporary judgments
are so far like what we may be sure the opinion of
posterity will be that they are divided against one
another. One critic sees in the tumult and discord
about a polling booth nothing but the frantic ges-
ticulations of a drunken and senseless mob ; another
regrets the excitement as the natural expression of a
free
.peopleinterested in the conduct of public affairs;
one is shocked at rough and boisterous demonstra-
tions so unlike the quietness of a well-disciplined
herd dropping their bulletins into a ballot-box under
the guidance of a corps of gendarmes ; another re-
joices at the spectacle of municipalities assembling
at so many local centres under the presidency of
magistrates elected from themselves, without Go-
vernment interference or Government control, and
choosing with an energy warranted by the occasion
representatives who shall speak for them in the great
Council of the nation. The truth pr,)bably lies be-
tween these extreme judgments. The machinery of
an English election is very imperfect and its c mduct
is very tumultuous ; but amid all the excitement of
hustings and polling booths some regard is paid to
the issues at stake. Could we confine our attention
to great Britain alone, we should claim the most
favourable opinion of foreign critics as the nearest
to the truth. But when we turn to Ireland we are
obliged to confess that there Is much to warrant the
severest condemnation that can be launched upon
our institutions. The history of the Belfast elec-
tion is a scar.dal to the Empire. Magistrates appear
to have forgotten the justice they were sworn to
administer, candidates forgot the courtesy due to
opponents, the mob seemed never to have heard
that those who differed from them had rights
which were entitled to respect. Bludgeons were
used for arguments, and intimidation for persuasion.
The candidates were the sitting members—Sir Hugh
Cairns and Mr. Getty on the Conservative, and
Lord John Hay (a son of the Marquis of Tweeddale)
on the Liberal side. To the great ability of Sir
Hugh Cairns we bear willing testimony, though we
have to regret that it is so often allied with the
severest spirit of Protestant partisanship. But men
who exhibit some moderation at Westminster fail
to retain it at Belfast. The minds of the populace
were already inflamed by passionate appeals to
their prejudices when the Mayor of Belfast made
such arrangements for the coming election that no
one could be surprised if vehement excitement broke
out into open violence. The Mayor fixed upon the
12th July as the day of nomination. Last year the
Mayor achieved an unenviable distinction by quitting
the town for Harrogate just as the riots had broken
out, but it would seem that this year he determined
to show that he was not afraid of civil war. To
bring two hostile Irish factions face to face on a
great orange anniversary is very like asking them
to fight it out for the benefit of the spectators. It
must, however, be confessed that, owing to the
excellent management of the police, or of some
zealous Orange coadjutors, it was provided that the
Protestant party should have it their own way. The
police of Belfast are notorious for their Protestant
sympathies, their partisanship has been twice con-
demned by Royal Commissioners, and an act was
passed in the last session providing that they shall
be superseded by the constabulary. The act is not
yet in operation, and the Protestant guardians of
order signalized their last year of office by a very suc-
cessful manoeuvre. The nomination of candidates took
place at the Belfast Courthouse, and hours before the
commencement of business its doors were besieged
by the lowest class of both factions. The mob were
apparently drawn up in hostile array, and when the
orders were given to open the doors and clear the
passage the Orange mob rushed in and filled the
hall, while the Liberals found themselves " left
out in the cold." It is, of course, denied that this
was prearranged, but the movement was so suc-
cessful that when a show of hands was demanded
there was not a Liberal in the body of the hall to
hold up his hand. The Orangemen who did get in
had no sooner entered than they flourished " skull-
crackers," which had been concealed under their
clothes when they were outside the building. They
rushed on with a noise described as resembling the
roaring of a torrent at the opening of a flood-gate.
Under the direction of leaders stationed on the
platform the door was guarded, and a mass of yell-
ing ruffians, brandishing bludgeons, beating the
Kentish fire, hooting and menacing the Liberal can-
didate and his friends on the platform, remained in
possessiOn of the hall. This was the audience before
which Sir Hugh Cairns managed to make one of his
most effective speeches. He and his friends were
greeted with deafening cheers and the waving of
Orange handkerchiefs; and when the tumult of
delight with which Sir Hugh was received had sub-
sided he denounced with uncommon force and
ability, to ears groody of hate, the wrongdoings of
the Administration. It is needless to say that Lord
John Hay met with a very different reception. His
mover and seconder could not be heard even by the
reporters, and when Lord John himself arose he
was met with groans, hisses, whistling, hooting,
stamping, and yelling, which lasted uninterruptedly
for half an hour. At the end of that time the mob
had become so fatigued that the reporters could
catch a few words, but there was still enough energy
left them to prevent any others of the audience
from hearing a syllable. Sir Hugh Cairns himself
attempted to get a hearing for his antagonist; but
by this time the mob were beyond his control, and
treated his interference as if they disbelieved in the
sincerity of his efforts to obtain quietness. The crowd
were, in fact, frantic, and it was the belief of by-
standers that had an unhappy Liberal, Presbyterian
or Catholic, fallen into their hands he would have
been torn to pieces by them. In the area of the
Court-house they were beyond the reach of authority.
The presence of a large number of constabulary
and an effective military force in the town happily
prevented the renewal next day of the war which
raged in Belfast last year, and saved lives from
being sacrificed at the hustings, as ruthlessly as in
the autumn of 1864. If the spectacle of the infu-
riated mobs of Belfast makes us confess the justice
of some of the strictures of foreign critics upon our
electoral machinery, it may also serve to mitigate
the condemnation so often passed upon English mis-
government as the cause of Irish misery. What
injustice of English rule is it that makes Irishmen
hate Irishmen with a hatred rarely seen among men
alien in speech and race from each other ? Can it
be laid to our door that the inhabitants of the most
thriving town of Ireland cannot assemble together
to elect representatives of themselves in the United
Parliament without breaking out into war and
tumult ? Is the Imperial Government .to be blamed
because the sentiment of
.justice is forgotten by those
who should administer justice ? Is it our sin that
magistrates should cease to be a terror to evildoers ?
We may appeal to the candid judgment of every
impartial thinker for an answer to these questions.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is animated
with a sincere desire to do justice to all classes of
citizens, but its efforts are thwarted by the miscon-
duct of Irishmen themselves. Those who are deputed
to keep order cannot be trusted to discharge their
functions. Nothing is left to us but the hope that
we may at last excite a desire of justice and order
even among Irishmen. But may we appeal to Orange
and Catholic leaders to assist in the attempt ? Does
Sir Hugh Cairns feel no shame when he reflects on
the violence and lawlessness of his supporters ? He
has energy and vigour ; can- he address no remon-
strance to those nearest him, which shall descend to
those next below them, and thus operate upon the
whole community so as to prevent a repetition of the
scenes of Wednesday and Thursday ? If he would
do so, he would earn a higher reputation than can
be acquired by the most vehement denunciation
of political opponents, and attain a position which
nothing but his own consent to walk with the
Orangemen of Belfast prevents his occupying.
POST.—The speech delivered by Mr. Disraeli on
the hustings at Aylesbury betrays a perfect con-
sciousness of the up-hill nature of the task which
that right hon. gentleman, as the leader of the
Opposition in the House of Commons, was com-
pelled to undertake. There is nothing so success-
ful as success, and against an admitted and unques-
tioned success on the part of his political opponents
Mr. Disraeli was forced to contend. Without the
slightest approach to a party cry, without the least
pretence for calling on the country to withhold its
support from the present Administration, the Oppo-
sition chief was nevertheless ex officio obliged to
cavil at the policy of the Government, and to draw
on his imagination for those wondrously beneficial
measures which would have been adopted had he
and his friends occupied the Treasury benches. The
English are, however, a practical people, and in-
finitely prefer dealing with substantial, facts to
,
endeavouring to discern either visions looming in
the future," or unreal phantoms of what under pecu-
liar circumstances might have existed in the past.
We know what a Liberal Government have done
for us during the past six years, but it is impossible
to say what we should have received at the hands
of a Conservative Administration. It would be
most unfair and unreasonable to contend that had
Lord Derby been Prime Minister the country would
have been plunged in war, or that taxation would
have increased or remained stationary ; or that
trade would have been stagnant, and the tide of
prosperity which, thanks to Providence, has over-
spread the country, would have been arrested. No
one could venture to make such assertions, because
it is evidently impossible to argue from the un-