The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PRESS-THIS MORNING.

DROUGHT NEVER BRED DEARTH IN ENGLAND.'

Six years ago, says the Times, we had an alarming
drought. The waters of the Upper Thames shrank in
places to the dimensions of a brook. The pastures had
utterly failed in July, and cattle were kept upon dry
fodder. Nevertheless, the wheat harvest of the year was
good, and corn was considerably cheaper than it is at this
moment. A more famous drought occurred thirty-eight
years earlier. In 1826 the summer was one of the hottest
and driest ever known. Then, we are told, springs and
reservoirs actually failed in England as they sometimes do
in the East. Little pitchers of water were sent from
neighbour to neighbour as acceptable presents, and the
richest meadow lands in the country were scorched and
parched as -if by a passing fire. Yet in that case again,
though the alarm was so great that Ministers suspended
the laws regulating the imports of grain, the wheat crop
proved to be a good average yield, and the potato crop
was excellent and ample. Drought, though of the
severest kind, bred no dearth on either of those occasions.
Meanwhile, the "fine weather" has been really most
enjoyable. Long sunshiny days, with everything looking
bright, have followed each other in unbroken succes-
sion, often with a canopy of cloud to vary the sky
scenery, and seldom with heat so great as to be oppres-
sive. That is probably because we are in June instead of
August, and so have had the drought tempered by
some of the incidents of spring. But it would be really
alarming if a summer drought supervened on a sring
drought—if a rainless July should follow a rainless June.
The calamity, however, need not be gratuitously antici-
pated. As we write the weather has changed, and
" there is a sound of abundance of rain." It is, therefore,
far too early yet to set down 1870 as a year of drought,
though we have certainly had a very dry spring. Saint
Swithin is still a month off, and we may have floods be-
fore as well as after that critical day. We have un-
doubtedly lost our early hay crop, but we may get
another, and if rain should fall copiously within the next
fortnight there may be no great reason, after all, to re-
pine at the harvests of the present year.
The Telegraph thinks the education plan of the Govern-
ment will succeed. The more it is examined the better
will it be liked, both by those above and those below the
gangway. In the debate on the second reading Mr.
Gladstone distinctly and pointedly stated that one way
to meet the religious difficulty was to banish all
distinctively sectarian catechisms and formularies from
the rate-aided schools. That is a plan which we
have constantly held before the public as at
least feasible, and as worthy of the most earnest
consideration in committee. Manifestly, also, it
was the only concession which the Government could
make to the League, if it stopped short of absolute sur-
render; and absolute surrender had been placed out of the
question by the repeated declarations of Mr. Forster.
Mr. Gladstone justly laid great stress on the fact that if
the school boards were forbidden to define what religious
instruction should be given, their meetings would
be free from the risk of interminable and angry
disputes. On the other hand, by retaining the
Bible as a class book, the Government meets the
views held by the great majority of Dissenters. On
the religious ground, the only difference between the
Ministers and Mr. Winterbotham is, that, although
the member for Stroud would have the Scrip-
tures read, he would not have them taught.
But the reading, without the teaching, of the New Testa-
ment, is a mere mockery, as the great body of Dissenters
heartily admit. When the amendments have been
studied, the arrangements will satisfy the country and the
House; for, if not ideally perfect, it is at least practicable,
and thus it imposes the heaviest responsibility on those
who should impede the progress of the measure to final
enactment.