The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-21 00:00:00

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THE S UN•
LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1862.

" A duel in the form of a debate," though so
" dreaded and hated" by one of our poets, is
generally relished in the House of Commons, and
by those who read its discussions. Now-a•days
no harm ever comes of it. No blood is drawn.
And, having in our social habits outlived bull-
baiting and cock-fighting, and " the ring" enjoy-
ing but doubtful and exceptional toleration, it

would be hard indeed if we should lose the plea

sure of a boxing match with the weapons of unpar-
liamentary language in the House of Commons. To
be sure business is not advanced by such " sets-to."
But the house and the country are entitled to their

amusements as well as their work, and this is not a

session overdone with business. It is of no use,
therefore, to shake our heads at such a word-duel
RS that between Mr. MAGuIRE and Mr. LAYARD
last night. Whatever we may say for propriety's
sake, inwardly we all like it far better than an
able debate on the Navy Estimates, and incom-
parably better than the ablest debate on India.

It will not be denied that Mr. MAGUIRE did go
far and needlessly out of his way to assail Mr.
LAYARD personally. He marred, indeed, hie plead-
ings for his client by diverting attention to the
motives he attributed to Mr. LAYARD. It is im-

possible to deny that Mr. MAGUIRE must have
wished to produce the impression that in matters
not at all directly connected with the case of the
Greek newspaper, Mr. LAYARD had, from interested
motives, endeavoured to give a false complexion
to the state of Turkish finance. Mr. MA-
GUIRE, however, did not make- use of any
unparliamentary language, but if the insinuations
were not unparliamentary, we must own that they
were such as would be very likely if made in any
other company to hazard an effusion of blood from
a prominent feature of the offender's face. " Don't
pump on him," is an order well understood by ex-
cited urchins, or an excited mob. We must cer-
tainly think Mr. MAGUIRE was equally ;ntelligible
when he first intimated that he should, but for his
opinion of their honour, have charged the gentle•
men on the Treasury bench with " rigging the
market for the Turkish Loan'--and repeating
that he would not say it ; and afterwards
specifying Mr. LAYARD individually as connected
with the bank which had taken the loan.
We cannot wcnder that Mr. LAYARD was hardly
so guarded in his reply, or that he should retort to
all this that he " could not be expected to answer
such a charge, coming from such a man." Now, it
seems, on the high authority of Mr. DISRAELI,
assented to by others, that the deviation from Par-
liamentary etiquette is confined to the word man.
Quarter, Mr. MAGUIRE, and the proceeding would
be quite Parliamentary. Mr. LAYARD should have
said, "coming from such a quarter," in favour of
which Parliamentary word Mr. LAYARD consented
after an explanation from Mr. MAGUIRE, to with-
draw the word man. We rather wonder that Mr.
MAGUIRE did not protest against being un-manned,
or reduced to the fourth of a man. Such, however, is
Parliamentary taste; and we must leave honourable
members to choose their own style and title.
Mr. MAGUIRE revelled in denunciations of Turks,
in which Mr. BRIGHT, who takes the Greeks under
his patronage, seemed inclined to join him. As in
his own country, Mr. BRIGHT takes the side of the
many against the few—that of eleven millions of
Greeks against (in Europe) two millions and a
quarter of Turks: Enough fOr Mr. BRIGHT, per-
haps, that Lord PALMERSTON very decidedly pets
the Turks. Mr. MAGUIRE and Mr. BRIGHT, would
for that reason alone, be ready to pelt them with
every stone their administration of such a
splendid empire affords; and, unhappily, it
affords too many. Mr. LAYARD could not avoid
the temptation of pelting the POPE and the
Roman Government in return, which of course
afforded sufficient missiles of the kind needed by
the Foreign Under-Secretary. The House seemed
well pleased enough with this reciprocal pelting of
the pets of the respective members ; and it was
some time time before the real subject in hand came
fairly before it. It is remarkable that the
utterance of unparliamentary language seemed con-
tagious last night. In a discussion which followed
on packing Irish juries, Mr. M'MAHON, by com-
paring Orangemen to Ribbonmen, provoked Cap-
tain ARCHDALE into saying that the words of the
former were "totally false, and without any founda-
tion in truth." Again the Speaker had to inter-
-1 fere on cries of order. He decided that the word
"false" was unparliamentary. Captain AP CHDALE
withdrew it, but took his revenge, by saying that
the "statement of the honourable member was
entirely contrary to the fact." It was indeed
"saying the thing which is not."
But like.the House, we are almost in danger of
overlooking the real business, in the excitement of
the duel. We think the Foreign-office to blame.
M. XENOS, a Greek gentleman, of high standing,
naturalized in this country, publishes at consider-
able expense to himself, an eacellently illustrated
newspaper, named tho British ktar. It is printed
in London, in the modern Greek language, and is
designed for the enlightenment of the Greeks 6f
the East. It is an exceedingly well got up paper;
.we have looked at it occasionally, and can testify
' to its
Merits. The enterprise is h'ghly creditable,
every seal, to _
a. XENOS. The paper has, how-
ever, no was of reaching the East, but through the
IPost-office, i'lliell, the Porte allows the Bri-
tish Legation to
earry on at Constantinople.
~
Now itthat appears
°me of the political part
which is but a small portion of the paper, contained
ic
partly original,
Partly borrowed from the
ere
Earntgllsiesh
press, to which the Turkish G
objected. Follo wing, therefore, the
enlightenedovn
mnt
example of France, Austria, and _4B
"' t nations of
Western Europe, it requested our Geeer
uuaent not
to use the postal privileges conceded to it in
Turkey for circulating the paper. So far our Go.
vernmcnt had, perhaps, hardly any option. The
privilege is a great one, and it could only offer to
refuse circulation to the paper, cr to give up the
privilege of a British Post-office
for the East in our
Legation at Constantinople.
Where our Government cannot Excuse themselves
is in what followed. M. XENOS, oared to
exclude from the papers sent to Turkey,
all the
political articles, He had been at great

expense to get up the literary part: espe-
cially illustrations and descriptions of the Great
,Exhibition, which he thought would be especially