The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC. JOURNALS.

TIMES.—Lord Derby laboured on Monday under
the great disadvantage of having his majority in his
pocket. It led him to trifle with his subject, and to
entertain sympathetic listeners with historical re-
miniscences instead of practical reasons. His for-
tune was made for him, and he had only to amuse
himself. He had little to say to existing difficulties,
to the living generation, with its conscience still
quick and still perplexed, but a great deal to say to
prelates and politicians, and associations and decla-
rations, and controversies and debates from the
reign of James I. to the year 1829. It was all
very interesting, but not much to the purpose. The
real questions now are the fair interpretation of the
Roman Catholic Oath and its actual operation in
the present day. There might have been very
good reasons five hundred years ago why every
Irishman should be compelled to cut his hair short,
why Jews should be obliged to wear yellow gabar-
dines and confine themselves to one small quarter,
why a tradesman's wife should be forbidden the
dress of a lady, and why a Roman Catholic gentle-
man should not be permitted to keep a horse ; but
if these rules were still statutory, the question
we should have to ask and to meet would
be their present justice and usefulness. Lord
Derby, indeed, was not wholly silent upon the
interpretation and the operation of the Oath. In
the first place, he is ready to admit that in these days
a Roman Catholic gentleman may reasonably ask to
be excused a declaration that he is not an equivi-
cator, a rebel, or a murderer. But for a point of
etiquette and respect to the Lower House he would
have proposed himself to strike these things out of
the oath. What he and four-score peers will not give
up is the repudiation of designs upon the Established
Church andthegeneral settlement of property. They
think it desirable that a Roman Catholic gentleman,
upon taking his seat in the Legislature, should
solemnly swear that he will defend the existing
settlement of property, that he does not intend
to subvert the Church Establishment, and that he
will not use any privilege he may possess against the
Protestant religion or Protestant Government.
What we miss in Lord Derby's speech is some
account of the probable operation of this part of
the oath and the positive reasons for retaining it.
To indicate what we want we will suppose that an
ancient but greatly improved mansion was injured,
as some thought, by the immediate vicinity of a
pond, or a moat, or a dozen pollard oaks, relics of
the mighty past. They might have been very use-
ful, very necessary indeed, and very ornamental in
their day, before the pond had been superseded by
a deep well, the moat and drawbridge by the rural
police, and the pollards by a beautiful shubbery ;
but the present question is what good they do
now, and how they look now. If they are not
only superfluous, but nuisances also, a sensible man
will not retain them from purely ancestral conside-
rations, most probably not of a cheerful character.
As to the settlement of property, • Lord Derby
does not pretend that a single Roman Catholic
member, not the most lackland young Irishman, is
more ready for a destruction of new tide-deeds and
a hunt for old parchments and endless genealogies
than any other member. We cannot remember to
have heard from the mouth of any Irishman one
single lax expression as to the right of the existing
settlement. The declaration, in its actual and posi-
tive import, is so much surplusage. But Lord Derby
says that, if we ceased to require it, the Irish pea-
santry would hear of it, and would immediately con-
clude it to be no longer unlawful to seek to wrest
estates from their present owners in favour of men
supposed to represent the dispossessed owners, and
generally not to recognise the rights of the existing
owners. But it certainly is hard that a gentleman
should be compelled to repudiate an error because a
peasant may possibly entertain it. The encourage-
ment to these foolish traditions, if any, would only
be momentary, for in a few years it would be for-
gotten that members had ever had to make the re-
pudiation. As to the other point which Lord Derby
wishes to retain, the repudiation of designs upon the
establishment and the promise do no harm to the
Protestant religion and the Government, his own
interpretation, indeed his own life, rises in judg-
ment against him. He does not think that the oath
should prevent Roman Catholic members from
voting upon questions affecting the Church esta-
blishment and the Protestant religion and Govern-
ment. But, if there be no hindrance, it becomes a
duty, and a duty which a man must discharge upon
his own responsibility, not as we may choose to pre-
scribe for him. Lord Derby has himself invited the
assistance of Roman Catholic members to aid him in

reducing the number of Irish bishoprics, and h: ac-
cepts with thanks their assistance in measures re-
ducing the nominal property of the Irish Church,
and reducing its apparent status, though increasing
its security and usefulness. But, after all, the gene-
ral good must be the only rule of legislation, for no
partial good can be real and permanent. This is a
calculation which each man must make for himself.
Then, as to the actual effect of this part of the oath,
Lord Derby does not say that it does the Church or
Protestantism any good. It may have vexed a few
scrupulous men, but it has certainly not affected one
vote, one speech, one division, or the fate of a single
measure. Of course, its spares Dissenters, who on
principle object to an Establishment, which Roman
Catholics do not, and has even tended to an affiance
between Roman Catholics and Dissenters. The only
real operation of the oath is its insulting, irritating,
perplexing effect on the mind of the Roman Catholic
member. It represents the policy which taught us
to ask the public registration of the monastic orders
under the idea that every priest was a Jesuit in dis-
guise. Professing to be armed against treason and
conspiracy, it suggested crimes. Such a debate,
such a line of opposition, and such a result belong
to the bygone days, when Parliament met not as
a deliberate body and the general Council of the
whole nation, but as a Council of War against an
open enemy. The tone of Lord Derby's speech
would have been admirable if Ireland had
seceded from the Union, and we were con-
sidering what terms we could offer it with
safety and consistently with historical precedent.
But instead of an armed secession, we have
the fact of some six or seven millions living among
us in the interchange of good services. In fact, they
are of us, and only happen to be not quite so many,
or so rich, or perhaps so prudent, as the rest of us.
All our deliberations are as much in their interest as
in our own, and, if it is not necessary to our own
safety to lay them or their representatives under
offensive oaths, it becomes our plain duty to relieve
them of the infliction. But, says Lord Derby, the
bill before the house would have gone too far.
While professing only to relieve Roman Catholics,
it would have given them an advantage as compared
with members of the Church of England by sparing
the recognition of Royal supremacy in spiritual
causes. What does his lordship expect of Govern-
ment or the Legislature ? Was the bill to be a
serious affair or a very bad joke ? It would have
been a very bad joke indeed to propose to relieve
Roman Catholics by requiring them to recognise the
Sovereign as Head of the Church. Grant that the
terms and the jurisdiction implied are older than
the Reformation, and that there was a time when
English Roman Catholics admitted the Royal supre-
macy. This was, however, when the King himself
was Roman Catholic, and when matters were on
that footing between the King and the Pope that
the subjects of the former could suppose that they
had the consent of the latter for what they did.
As things now are in this country, the Royal and
Papal supremacies are irreconcilable, and Lord
Derby was only proposing to clog the gift with an
impossible condition. But we appeal from a state
of war to a state of peace and union. The Roman
Catholics are our fellow-subjects, and really as good
subjects as the Dissenters and ourselves. We have
no right to place them under our axes and harrows
except for self-preservation. But there is no such
danger. The danger is in jealousy and suspicion,
for they irritate, estrange, and prevent cordial co-
operation. It is a law of nature that we make
people what we choose to think them and as we
choose to trust them. It is thus that we can drive
the quietest and most loyal into faction and rebel-
lion. By a contrary course—that is, by smoothing
away old differences and effacing the landmarks of
faction—we can make them one with us. Lord
Derby was once forward to lead in this good work.
Why not end as he began ?
POST. —ln calling the attention of the House of
Commons to the report published on Saturday last
by the Select Committee appointed to inquire into
the circumstances of Mr. Wilde's resignation of the
Registrarship of Bankruptcy at Leeds, and the sub-
sequent appointment of Mr. Welch, r. Longfield
justly laid himself open to the charge of being too
hasty. That report is in the hands of the public, but
the evidence on which it is founded will not be in
their hands before Thursday or Friday next. Whe-
ther the Lord Chancellor has laid himself open to
those charges of corruption brought against him by
Mr. Longfield is no doubt a legitimate matter for
discussion in the House of Commons, but the Attor-
ney-General had certainly common sense and common
justice on his side when he protested against any
decision being pronounced before the complete
evidence on which the committee based their report
is in the hands of those who act as the Lord Chan-
cellor's judges. Adopting this view, we will for
the present postpone any analysis of the scanty
evidence set forth in the report, evidence which the
Attorney-General states furnishes a faint, and pos-
sibly erroneous, idea of the testimony on which the
committee acted. If the report, with such facts as
it sets forth, be accepted as the basis for arriving at
a conclusion, it is apparent that no choice is left
but to accept the decision of the committee. To
act otherwise, as Mr. Longfield did last night, is to
adapt the premises according to our own bias and

to ignore the conclusion at which the committee
arrived. The guilt or innocence of the highest per-
sonage in the land, as of the lowest, ought to be
determined on the most ample evidence which can
possibly be obtained. There are two different modes
in which the report of the Select Committee may be
treated, namely, the verdict pronounced may be ac-
cepted as final, irrespective of the evidence ott
which it is based, or it may be discarded, and the
evidence alone employed as furnishing the means
to each individual of arriving at his own con-
clusion. Now, although it is open to the House
of Commons to accept or to reject the report
as it may think proper,_ still it must be
ap-
parent that those who had the opportunity of
examining the witnesses, judging of their de-
meanour, and estimating at its proper value the
evidence which they gave, are the best qualfied to
arrive at an accurate decision. The select committee
have exonerated the Lord Chancellor, but on the
evidence before them it is suggested that they should
have passed on him somewhat more than that mild
censure with which they have thought proper to visit
him ; or, in other words, the Chancellor having been
acquitted by the tribunal before which he was cited,
the public would be justified in reversing the verdict,
and declaring him to be guilty. Now, such a course
of proceeding would appear to be as unfair as
it
would be unsatisfactory. Both in connection with
the appointment of Mr. Welch to the Registrarship
of Bankruptcy at Leeds, and the supposed arrange-
ment by which Mr. Welch was to have made room
for Mr. R. Bethel, by being transferred to London,
the committee declared that, the Lord Chancellor
was absolutely guiltless. There may have been 4
corrupt agreement between Mr. Welch, Mr. Bethel,
and Mr. Harding, but there was certainly no evi-
dence to fix the Lord Chancellor with a knowledge of
it, and if if one were to judge of the case by its pro-
babilities, we should say that nothing was more un-,
likely than that the patron should have known of the
terms on which his patronage was purchased. Mr'
Welch had, long previous to his appointment, ap-
plied to the Lord Chancellor for office, and had ac-
companied his application with testimonials the cor-
rectness and value of which have not been questioned.
It would therefore have been impossible for the
committee, without obvious injustice, to have cen-
sured Lord Westbury for the appointment of Mr.
Welch, simply because the latter purchased the influ-
ence of the Chancellor's son. As regarded the sug-
gested replacement of Mr. Welch by Mr. Bethel",
the evidence showed conclusive that within two days
after Lord Westbury, yielding to repeated solicita-
tions, had thrown out a hint that in the event of hie
son's obtaining a release from his creditors he would
obtain a country appointment, he altered his inten-
tion, and declared positively that he would give him
no office. The evidence of Mr. Skirrow is clear on
this point, and Mr. Miller, the chief registrar, him-
self admitted that the orders of appointment which
;were made out by him were never shown to Lori
Westbury, nor did their existence come to his know-
ledge until the recent inquiry before the select cow-
mittee had been ordered by the House of Commene*
On this issue also the committee had no alternative
but to declare the Chancellor blameless. The CU
cumstances attendant on the resignation of Mr'
Wilde, and the grant to that gentleman of a retir-
ing pension, are those which undoubtedly Pres°
heaviest against the Lord Chancellor. The CO'
mittee have acquitted bin* of improper motives, be'
on his own admission it is impossible to say that he
was not guilty of an amount of negligence whiell
may well seem inconsistant with that good fain''
towards the public for which the select committee
have given him credit in their report. Mr. Wilde
had committed indiscretions so serious as to Piaui
the Lord Chancellor in calling on him to show call
in open court why he should not be dismissee,
and yet within the very same week he was per-
mitted to retire on a pension of £666 a year, or
only one-third less than his working salary. Lori.
Westbury, one might have imagined, would have
been somewhat surprised that a gentleman wheill
he threatened with dismissal for misconduct shoal
by return of post petition to be allowed to retire as
b
an invalid, and curiosity to discover the, ailreer
which had so opportunely incapacitated Mr. Wilde
from discharging his functions as a public officer
one would have supposed might have prompted hie
to examine the medical certificate on which
petition for a retiring pension was based. But Lord
Westbury told the committee that he never look
at the certificate and, further, that if he had done
so he would not have acceded to Mr. Wilde s
plication. Of this point the Lord Chancellor
is
contradicted by Mr. Miller, who states that he calledthe attention of his lordship to the unsatisfacteri
nature of the certificate, but Mr. Miller's evidence
is so replete with contradictions that it cannot with
safety be relied upon. Admitting, however, the
Chancellor's version to be accurate, it must be con-
ceded that he discharged a trust confided to him by
the public with a carelessness which justly exposes
him to severe censure. The committee express the
opinion that the chief object of all the parties con-
cerned appeared to be rather to procure a vacancy'
than to advance the public interests, and the ap-
pointment of Mr. Welch to the vacant post does
certainly not tend to negative this presumption.
When, however, the entire evidence adduced before
the committee is published, a better opportunity
will be offered to all parties of deciding on tb
justice of the general verdict pronounced by the
select committee..