The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-21 00:00:00

THE DEATH-BED REPENTANCE OF THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

We sincerely congratulate the Government, says the
Spectator on its tardy conversion to the belief which for
so many years we have expressed, through little but evil
report from all our Liberal contemporaries, that the nation
is proud in its heart of hearts of its colonial Empire, and
will not, so soon as it clearly understands the issuer allow
it to be broken up for the want of just and considerate
treatment from home. For this, and we are most
anxious that it should be so understood in
the colonies—is the only reasonable interpretation
of what we may call the death-bed repentance
of the Colonial Office in relation to New Zealand, and we
are very confident that that it is the true ore. When it
came to the point, and it was well understood that the
niggardly offer of the Government, of which we gave the
detail last week, would not be recommended by the New
Zealand Commissions, and had little or no chance of being
accepted in the colony—when, further, it was clearly
understood that a widespread conviction had long been
growing up in the colony that the connection with Eng-
land was becoming, not only a pure incumbrance and dis-
advantage, but even a special source of estrangement and
bitterness between England and New Zealand —the
Government had to consider carefully both the political
wisdom, and the expediency in a merely Ministerial point
of view, of allowing this great quarrel to pass into a
rupture. There can be no manner of doubt that the ob-
vious interpretation of their decision is the true one.
What the colony wants to know is that the old country is
not really indifferent to the connection, that a feeling of
genuine grief and dismay would be evoked at home by
any rupture, The blunders and sins of the Colonial
Office, however grave they may have been, Rill weigh but
littleif it be once known that they were the blunders and
sins only of the Colonial Office, and not of the people of
England. Lord Granville, indeed, is not only a brand
plucked from the burning, but the very heart of the disas-
trous conflagration. Could anything have turned him
aside from the broad and easy downward way which, with
so laughing an imperturbability of resolution, he has now
steadily pursued ever since his entrance upon office,
except a sudden flash of conviction that it was a way lead-
ing within u very. few months to Ministerial destruction ?
If New Zealand is to accept the offer in the only spirit in
which it can be usefully accepted, the spirit of cordial
desire for reconciliation-and hearty unity in time to come,
it is of the first importance that it should clearly under-
stand that the British Government has really been con-
verted at the critical moment and that it has been con-
verted by the most impressive of all arguments—the
argument that the people of England, and especially the
Liberals of England, are thoroughly hostile to a policy of
colonial disintegration.

THURSDAY NIGHT IN THE LORDS.
The John Bull says the Upper House was on Thursday
night once more its old brilliant self, except that the
Peeresses did not in any numbers put in an appearance.
Since the fierce struggle on the Irish Church Bill of ten
months ago it had not until two evenings back presented
so full an attendance, so animated a spectacle. Minis-
terial, Opposition, cross benches were all fairly filled; but
the chief sight was the phalanx of lawn sleeves, nearly a
score strong, who sat on the Lord Chancellor's right. We
need scarcely say that the subject which had brought
down so many peers—spiritual as well as temporal—was
one affecting morals rather than politics. It was nothing
less than a bill to overturn the whole law of affinity.
This Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill has
been called jocosely a measure for the abolition of
aunts ;it is that, and far more. It is a denial
of the statement made in man's first innocence, and
confirmed by -the founder of Christianity, our Divine
Master Himself, that a man and his wife shall be one
flesh. It is a fatal blow at the root idea of marriage—the
identity of the wife's and the husband's interests. This
being so, we must express our regret that the majority by
which the bill was rejected was so small. The debate
was not unworthy of the subject, though it would have
been better had the arrangement of speakers been con-
sidered before hand. For able as was the Bishop of Ely's
speech, we incline to the belief that many who did not
come back from dinner would ha.,e been induced to do
so, had less theological argument been used earlier in the
debate. The subject is scarcely one perhaps offering
room for much eloquence, and certainly there was none
of that brilliant oratory which astonished and de-
lighted the whole kingdom last year. There was
also t Do much of what we may call black-letter argument.
The cry of anguish to which Lord Houghton referred, and
which he said was being raised by the women who had
married their brothers-in law, is a matter for which we
may be sorry, but which we cannot help. There was no
necestity to contract these marriages, and if women have'
deliberately chosen to enter upon them, they must bear
both the blame and the punishment. On the other hand,
a far louder and more universal cry would be raised, if
this bill were passed. It would amount to banishment
for all those devoted women who have been hitherto doing
their best to supply the place of one, whose loss has
involved them and the household they are consoling and
aiding, in a common sorrow. It would, all the Lord
Chancellor said, banish the sister-in-law from ninety-nine
families in order to give a step-mother to the hundredth.
We say that this would be as cruel to man as it would be
displeasing to God.

COMMERCIAL MEN IN THE INDIAN COUNCIL.
The Economist doubts the appropriateness of Mr.
Graves's remedy for the difficulties of ruling India. He
would like to admit a considerable number of merchants
(say six) into the Council, and hints that they ought to be
retired members of Indian firms. Unfortunately, that
device has been tried, and has failed. English merchants
might be useful, but to appoint them by election, as Mr.
Graves seems inclined to do, would be to revive Mr.
raeli's exploded idea of ruling India by Chambers of Com-
merce, while the difficulties in the way of selection are
very great. The department has not an unreasonable
jealousy of allowing a member of the Council to continue
in business, and no merchant worth consulting will quit
his business for £1,200 a year, obtained by a permanent
disability to sit in Parliament, to appear before the pub-
lic, or to obtain honours from the Crown. We believe we
aro correct in saying that no member of the Council has
ever received in any form any recognition o services per-
formed within its walls. Competent men will not
convent to work under such conditions, and incom-
petent men would only hamper the existing
Finance Committee, which wants nothing but a little
more vigour and freshness of spirit to be a very effective
body. No Chancellor of the Exchequer, for example,
could have raised the credit of his country much higher.
For a dependency like India to be able to raise money at
four per cent., while France pays over four and America
six, is a very great and verycreditable commercial success,
-which ought not to be forgotten when Parliament con-
siders the merits or demerits of the Indian Council. What
is required is a financial Under-Secretary, a man who
could bring to the work a knowledge of business, a fresh
and statesmanlike mind and the authority.whieh comes
from parliamentary position. He would be an invaluable aid
to the secretary of State, while he could supply_the miss-
ing link between the daily work of the India House and
the commercial progress of Great Britain. It is, more-
over, _no slight argument in favour of this suggestion
that it could be carried out without revolutionising the
existing system, or raising the extremely difficult and corn-
. plicated question of the proper composition of the Indian
Council.

A SIMPSON 111.EmonieL,-7-We are glad to hear
that there is a proposition on foot for placing a bust or
other monument of Sir J. Y. Simpson in v estminster
Abbey.—Medical Times and Gazette.
Editors appear to fare well in Turkey. The
Sultan was so much pleased with a leading article on hi*
speech from the throne which appeared in the Teraki,
that he has conferred upon the editor, Ali Bey, the grade
of cahnacam. (lieut.-colonel), and given him a baksheesh
of £5OO.
RISK ALLAH BEY.--This person, whose trial in
Belgium caused so much interest some time since, is
about to appear again before a law court in the character
of a plaintiff. It appears that Risk Allah took passage ou
board the steamer Teverino for Beyrout, but the vessel
was wrecked and his baggage was lost. He has made a
claim to a large amount upon the Messageries Imp4riales,
and this being repudiated by the company, he has com-
menced a suit in the First Chamber of the Civil Tribunal
pi Paris.