The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1853.

We have no wish to quarrel with our Lords
spiritual, but if they will quarrel with us, they
must bear any blame which we are compelled in
self-defence to throw upon them. Now, it does
appear that CHARLES JAMES BLOOMFIELD, Bishop
of London, and EDWARD DENISON, Bishop of
Salisbury, as Parliamentary agent for his metro-
politan brother, have been guilty, as we humble
laymen think, of an unwarrantable attack upon
our franchises—upon one of the oldest of them
taro. And as we really think our lay immunities,
in relation to Church matters, very few, and those
of the Right Reverend Fathers in GOD neither
few nor small, we think they are rather hard
upon us. As it was lately said about the doc-
trine of " a stake in the country," that a poor
man's 5/. in the Savings Bank was as much to
him as the millionaire's 100,0001. in the Funds ;
so think we in ecclesiastical matters. Our few and
small rights are very precious to us, and we will
not surrender them so tamely. One of those
rights is the popular election of one or more
of the Churchwardens of the Parish, and this
is the right which our neighbour of the Pad-
dington Estates wishes to take from us.
We must say that the cunning displayed
in the concoction of the London and Salisbury
Bill is worthy of a college of Jesuits. It does
not directly enact that all the Churchwardens
shall be chosen by the clergyman of the parish,
but it places the election so completely in his
hands, that the Churchwardens would, in the ma-
jority of cases, be merely his nominees. Gene-
rally, if not universally, the parson does nominate
one—by the proposed plan he would virtually
nominate all.

The parishioners of Hornsey and Mr. TOULMIN
SMITH deserve the hearty thanks of the public for
calling its attention to this clerical bill ; and but
for the press of other matters, we should have
noticed it before. We shall now make free use of
Mr. SMITH'S address, delivered on Thursday, the
2d of December, at a parish meeting at Hornsey,
and printed and circulated by order of the meet-
ing. The proposed Bill professes to remedy
" the inconvenience" with which the present mode
of electing Churchwardens is attended. We shall
soon see that the inconvenience is that of free and
popular election, and the remedy is to make the
parson returning officer, poll clerk, scrutineer, revis-
ipg barrister, indeed everything in the election. By
virtue of STURGES BOURNE'S Act, passed in 1818,
the clergyman has deprived the meeting of the
right to elect its own chairman, a most mischie-
vous innovation ; and the rector or vicar has now
the right of being chairman, ex officio, if he
chooses to attend ; according to the proposed plan,
however, there is to be no meeting at all ! The
4i chairman," as the clergyman is still absurdly
gilled, is to do everything. It is first to be enacted
that all elections for Churchwardens are to take
place in Easter week ; next, that "the parson," or
/time deputy appointed by him, is to be chairman
mark how the little liberty remaining by STURGES
BOURNE'S Act is taken away) ; next, that the so-
salled chairman is to issue notice of the election,
and that he is to nominate the minister's warden
where there is one. And now for the people's
election ; every nomination of any Churchwarden
is to be sent to the " parson:" If the nomina-
tions are more in number than is wanted, " the
to send out voting papers to the rate-
parson " is
payers, to collect them again, to cast up the votes,
to " disallow such as he shall find invalid," to
give a casting vote when the numbers are equal,
and to declare the result of this parsonic poll by
notice on the church door ! 1

We do hope that the mere exposure of this
audacious Bill will be sufficient to kill it in ha
birth. It assayed to enter the House of Lords
last year, but public business happily interfered
with its progress, and public attention will now, we
hope, give it its quietus. One circumstance especially
shows the animus of the Bill ; it is to be applicable
to all parishes having a population exceeding two
thousand—that is, to all parishes large enough to
have any independence of priestly control, or
large enough to maintain one congregation or
more of pestilent sectaries. We hardly need ex-
plain how efficient this insidious Bill will be to
its obvious end.. Every one conversant
elections knows what would be the chilling

effect of having no public meeting. What a dif-
ferent thing it would be to send a nomination to
the clergyman, and to nominate in an open meet-
ing. What influence a clergyman could use in
sending round the voting paperS, how opponents
of his projects might be accidentally passed by,
and how especially, in the scrutiny carried on by
himself in his own library, many names might
be dropped as disqualified, though disqualified
only by the prejudices of the scrutineer. How
few comparatively, however, would vote when
they had to exercise the privilege, from first to
last, under such surveillance ; and in how many
cases, where now there is no pretext for attempt-
ing to reverse the decision of the show of hands,
and where it would incur odium to demand a poll,
a poll, under every disadvantage to the Liberal
side, must, according to this Bill, be of necessity
taken. Parishes are by no means, however,
ecclesiastical divisions of the country ; they are
notoriously secular districts. The churchwarden,
too, has no properly spiritual duties ; he needs no
ordination ; he is a teacher for secular purposes
only, and is, according to the highest legal autho-
rity, a merely temporal officer. There are not
wanting places in England and Wales in which
the churchwardens are the only constituted pub-
lic officers, and the vestry the only parish meet-
ing. In numerous cases, " the carrying out of
public objects," as Mr. SMITH remarks, " depends
entirely on the readiness with which the Church-
wardens will summon vestries when desired, and
carry into effect the determinations of the vestry."
The proposed Bill is nothing less than an attempt
to subvert completely the freedom of parish elec-
tion to get rid of all the well-known safe-
guards of free election—and to hand our parishes
over, bound, so far, hand and foot, to the manage-
ment of the priesthood. We have ourselves known
several cases in which the parish, asserting vigor-
ously its right to choose a right-minded Church-
warden, has put an end to priestly interference
with parish matters, and kept the parish in com-
parative peace and quiet. In modifying Church-
rate exactions alone, the people's right to choose
freely their own churchwarden has been of th•
greatest service. Most earnestly de we hope that
this Bill is not a part of the secret treaty by which
the new Ministry has, according to report, suc-
ceeded in numbering among its majority in the
House of Lords the whole Bench of Bishops. We
cannot forget that in the present Cabinet and
Ministry, are many who attribute. to Bishops
supernatural powers, and would assign to them
plenary rights, in which the vast majority of the
ten-pound householders have no faith at all.
The present Ministry must, therefore, be closely
watched in Episcopal and all Church matters.

The Directors of the Bank of England have
presented a pleasing " New-Year's Gift" to the
trading and commercial interests of the United
Kingdom. The phrase is that of our respected
contemporary, the Manchester Examiner, which,
in an article of great ability, comments upon the
strange and almost inexplicable proceedings of the
elderly dowagers who manage the affairs of the
" Old Lady of Threadneedle-street." The Board
has decided on an advance of the minimum rate
of interest from 2/. to 2/. 10s. per cent., an in-
crease of 25 per cent. on the rates previously
charged, and it is more than probable that
a further augmentation is under consideration.
If the concern could be considered of a

private character, and that the welfare and pro-
sperity of the industrious classes were not to be
in any degree affected by its acts, we should
allow the twenty-four Directors to mismanage
their own affairs without any observation on our

part. The gradual diminution of the dividend
would speedily induce the proprietors to call for a
total change in the system of management, and
the evil might be allowed to suggest its own re-
medy. But, unfortunately, the Bank is invested
with peculiar privileges, which constitute it the
Controller of the National Currency. It may,
at the mere will and pleasure of the twenty-
four oligarchs, reduce the circulating medium
to the narrowest limits, and create dismay and
panic throughout the entire country. If matters
were left to themselves, they would go on well
enough ; but the Board deem it essential occa-
sionally to exhibit symptoms of vitality, and now
and then to make a wove, in order to show that
they are an existing body.
The most extraordinary part of their conduct
is, that these movements are generally in the
wrong direction, and that they are made at the
merest hap-hazard, without any directing rule or
principle. When there was but 10,000,000/. of
specie in the vaults, and the notes unemployed
were beneath the 4,000,000/, considered neces-
sary for carrying on the private business of the
establishment, every possible facility was afforded ;
but with more than 20,000,000/. in their coffers,
and 10,000,000/. of idle capital, the " screw" is
again put on—as if they could arrest the pro-
gress of speculation, and send down the shares of
the various companies, by an addition of one-half
per cent. to the rate of discount.

It is not the speculators who suffer in the
first instance. They cannot be reached until an
enormous amount of injury has been inflicted on
the commercial, trading, and working classes. A
trifling change in the terms of the Bank, any
indication of " the screw," will greatly enhance the
charges for monetary accommodation to the small
fry, by those favoured members of the moneyocracy
who have " discount accounts" at head-quarters.
Those parties calculate their profits so nicely—the ex-
traordinary competition renders it necessary that
they should do so—that a comparatively trifling
change in the rate of interest will transfer the
balance to the wrong side of the ledger—will re-
duce a prosperous firm to ruin and bankruptcy,
and throw the numerous employes out of work.
On the other hand, a, person dabbling on the
Stock Exchange, with many open accounts, will
think nothing of paying 20, 30, or even 40 per
cent. for the short time that may be necessary to
carry his undertaking to a successful termination.
He will most probably profit in due time by the
change, by being metamorphosed from a bull to a
bear, and becoming a speculator for a fall in place of
a rise. It is manifest, therefore, that the shaft
flies in the wrong direction—that it wounds those
who should be supported, and assists the very
parties against whom it was aimed.

But should a power so recklessly exercised be
permitted to remain in such hands ? Certainly
not. If the Bank of England is to continue so
closely connected with the State, it should be
placed under the control of Statesmen of acknow-
ledged ability, responsible to Parliament and the
people for their conduct. The approaching ter-
mination of the existing Charter will afford a fitting
opportunity for the change. As a private Bank-
ing Corporation the proprietors will reap
even larger emoluments than heretofore. No-
thing will be pulled down save the inflated vanity
of the " twenty-four." An able and responsible
Minister will not injure the trading community
on trivial or inadequate grounds, nor will the
secrets be suffered to leak out before the proper
time to parties who derive large profits from
SURREPTITIOUSLY OBTAINED INFORMATION ! ! It
is but too notorious that such information
is obtained at present. By what means it is not
necessary to specify. We do not impute any
direct complicity or wilful venality to the Direc-
tors. Although they might directly or indirectly
profit very largely by the priority of information,
we are willing to believe that they do not do so—
that they are rather subjected to the " pumping"
process by men of greater acuteness, who pick up
valuable information when the venerable gentle-
men are "vino ciboque gravatus." It is known
that, as a body, they are not insensible to the
charms of turtle-soup, and that old tawny crusted
port hath charms in the eyes of some, at least, of
the. august confraternity. Some indication of the
mighty cares, the exciting topics urged at " the
parlour" in the morning, will ooze out on the
Thursday afternoon—which will be taken full ad-
vantage of by the acute listeners, andl twenty-
four different companies will profit by the sybilline
vaticinations that fall from their lips in moments
of relaxation, without, perhaps, a notion on their
part of the extent to which they have committed
themselves.

Without then assailing the motives of the Board,
we must be permitted to question the utility of

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