The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-08 00:00:00

bFLIIIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS•

The Times remarks that her Majesty's Message to Par-
liament must needs concentrate our attention upon home
affairs, to at least the partial exclusion of those which
more immediately concern foreign nations Those of our
readers who recollect what the English Press was before
the middle of the present century must be struck with the
importance that Continental news has gradually attained
among us. It is the immense change in the position of
Europe that allows us at this moment to concentrate our
attention upon our own affairs, and to look with less con-
cern upon the prospects of the Continent. For these last
two or °three years the apprehension of a meditated
"revenge for Sadowa " on the part of France interfered
with the world's security; but since last summer the
ambition of the Great Nation has set in a new
direction. France aspires to take the lead
in the path of Liberal progress, and as aon
her satisfaction depends the world's tranquillity," other
people begin to lay aside their worst apprehensions,
and, safe from outward disturbance, are at leisure to direct
all their efforts to internal improvement. There is no
such thing as an open question in Europe ; all differences,
even in the East, having received at least a temporary
settlement. In the Pope alone, with his Ecumenical
Council, Europe has at the present moment the would-be
disturber of the public peace. But, happily,
confusion grows daily worse confounded in that
Vatican Babel. It is from Rome, and from Rome
alone, that threats of '4 terrific revolutions" are held out.
It is to be hoped that such threats will fall as utterly un-
heeded as all other Papal curses and anathemas, The ago
of revolutions and of wars is over, we hope, at least for
a considerable period ; and it is because in times of peace
and order the progress nations make is noiseless that in-
telligence from abroad is more scarce and less stirring. It
is, in other words, because " No news is good news."
The Telegraph observes that Lord Eldon was so pious
and so good a Churchman that even a bishop may think it
safe to follow in his footsteps. The great Tory Chancel-
lor, it is well known, made a runaway match, and, after
participating in the solemnities of Gretna-green, be fer-
vently begged the father and the mother of his young wife
to pardon him for stealing their daughter. Pardon was
granted; but many years afterwards the Chancellor's own
daughter married without his leave, and the Chancellor
piously refused to forgive her. Apparently, the late
Dr. Prince Lee, Bishop of Manchester, had taken a loaf
from the ethical code of the Tory lawyer who never gave
% vote without a profession of piety, and who never failed
to vote for the wrong side. Dr. Lee did not, indeed, make
a runaway match—but his eldest daughter did ; and in-
stead of treating her with Christian forgiveness, he
mentioned her in his will only to proclaim that she was
beyond the reach of his forgiveness. The Bishop decreed
that she should get nothing, and be deprived of all interest
in his property. " This I do, not in anger," he addedi "but
because I hold it a duty not to let such conduct as hers
and the person she married proved successful." That
sentence is worthy of Lord Eldon himself. Nay, it is
almost as keen a satire as some of the sentences which
Lander put into the mouth of the Tory Chancellor, in the
imaginary conversation with his son. Day after day, week
after week, year after year, had Dr. Lee, as a bishop of
the Church, and in the name of his flock, been offering up
the most solemn of all petitions for pardon, and uttering
the words, " Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors;" yet, when his own power of forgiveness was put
to the test—when he had to signify his pardon of a
daughter who had disobeyed him by marrying the man of
her choice—he proclaims that she had long placed herself
beyond the pale of his bounty. He made that proeiani-
mation in a document which, as he well know, would ono
day be submitted to the public eye. Virtually, therefore,
he, a Bishop of the English Church, gave a practical com-
mentary, in the face of the English people, on the most
vital petition in the most solemn of prayers. Dr. Lee, Nro
do not doubt, was a well-meaning man, and fancied that
he was doing a most Christian act; but such a view only
invests the incident with a more trade interest.
The Standard declares that one of the acts of the late
Conservative Government which was most sev,rely criti-
cised, as we may all remember, was the appointment of
Lord Mayo to the Governor Generalship of India. Scarcely
any piece of Ministerial patronage has been assailed in
our clays with greater rancour. Never did the Whigs,
always suspicious of jobbery, show themselves more sen-
sitive than on that occasion. Nothing was too bad to be
said of Mr. Disraeli and his nominee. India had
been sacrificed to a party service. Lord Mayo was
the worst of administrators. He had neither character
nor ter) it to rule a great empire. He was a mere Tory
official, who knew nothing of India, who was unable to learn
anything. His appointment was a disgrace to the Govern-
ment, an injury to the empire, and t n insult to the people
of India. We are warranted in looking back now with some
little feeling of triumph at these ill-omened raticinations,
and in contrasting them with what the critics of Lord Mayo
themselves now tell us of the results of his administration.
While at home the chorus of depreciation has altogether
died away, it is instructive to note that in India itself
some of the bitterest of Lord Mayo's early critics have
come' forward spontaneously to bear testimony to the ex-
cellence of his rule. Every impartial man must admit
that Lord Mayo has come out of the trial most honourably
and that he has more than justified the choice of his
late colleagues. The chorus of praise in his
favour throughout India is now as unanimous as
was the verdict against him, before trial, on the
part of the Liberal journalists at home. He is
acknowledged to_be emphatically the "right man in the
right place." He has sustained his high office with a dig-
nity and a splendour which are perhaps not less useful to
England, as they certainly are not less estimable in the
eyes of our Indian subjects, than if he had been gifted
with the rarest genius. His first year of administration
has been in every way one of the most fortunate in Indian
annals; and he has already contributed the best and most
practical refutation of the adverse criticisms with which
his appointment was assailed.

Mr. Somerset Beaumont has given notice, says the
azily News, that during the ensuing session he will ask
leave to introduce a bill to relieve the bishops from atten-
dance in Parliament. The subject is one which is sup-
posed to belong peculiarly to Mr. Hadfield, and Arch-
deacon Denison has already declared his intention of
joining Mr. Hadfield in support of Mr. Beaumont's pro-
posal. Before the Irish Church debates, Mr. Hadfield
published and circulated a report of the debate in the
House of Commons in 1837 on Mr. Lushington's motion
for relieving the Episcopate of legislative cares.
Mr. Hadfield has, however, found in the Irish Church
debates of 1868 and 1869 new illustrations of the expe-
diency of relieving the bishops from attendance in Parlia-
ment, and has set them forth in a pamphlet, with an intro-
ductory review by a Manchester Reformer. The illustrations
consist of quotations from the speeches and analyses of the
votes of the right reverend prelates. The one justification
of their presence in Parliament has been the advice
they could give and the influence they could exert
in ecclesiastical discussions. Yet it is precisely on
those very questions that Mr. Hadfield's Manchester
Reformer is able to say, "the misfortune has happened to
their spiritual lordships to satisfy no body of men by their
line of action, and to come off from the field of conflict
without either the laurels of victory or the sympathy
yielded to honourable defeat." "They stooped," says the
Manchester Reformer, "to the mortifications of humility,
but came short both of the grace and the reward." The
revival of the proposal to exclude them from Parliament
is tho inevitable and foreseen result of this course of
action.

The Pall 2Wall Gazette thinks that one of the first duties
which the House of Commons has to face on its re-
assembling is as disagreeable as happily it is unprecedented.
A felon, at the present moment undergoing the sentence
of the law in prison, has been returned as a member of the
House by an Irish constituency. The election, it will be
remembered, presented the remarkable feature of a total
abstention from the poll on the part of the majority of
those who were inscribed upon the electoral register.
O'Donovan Rossa was undoubtedly elected under the action
of intimidating influences which, if, as was at one time
expected, a petition had been presented, would probably
have been enough of themselves to void the election. The
Government, to whose chief is especially committed, as
leader of the House of Commons, the charge of its dignity
and honour, has naturally felt itself called upon to consi-
der the proper course to be adopted under the circum-
stances. That course must consist simply in putting
the House formally in possession of the fact that
O'Donovan Rossa had previously to his election been
convicted of felony; and in then calling upon it to
declara that he was therefore not duly elected a
member. It would, in fact, simply be necessary to move
for the record of his conviction, and the rest must follow
as a matter of coarse. The Tipperary Fenians will thus
at length be made aware that they have gained nothing
by their foolish proceedings. The election being, as it
must be, declared void, the Speaker will, of course, issue a
new writ, and the whole matter will simply be put back
where it was before the name of O'Donovan Rossa
had been thought of. It remains to be seen whether
the more respectable portion of the Tipperary electors
will again allow themselves to be frightened away from
the polling-booths as upon the last occasion; and also
whether the Government will not this time take effectual
measures to protect t7iern in the exercise of the frandlise.
The employment of troops is at all times a deplorable
feature at a popular election, and it is only in Ireland that
it is necessary. But if to be justified under any circum-
stances, it is surely more justifiable in the case of Tippe-
rary than in any other.