The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 8, 1E69

fore, must, here and there, 1 e modified, and we may
take it, as a matter of course, will be modified ac-
cordingly. If by no other means than by the
postponement of the settlement of the delicate
and undoubtedly most difficult problem yet
requiring to be worked out, namely, that as to the
distribution of the Surplus Funds resulting from the
proposed realization of the property of the Irish
Church Establishment—the most formidable of all
obstacles to Legislation upon the matter at all this
session may at once be removed. It is no doubt very
undesirable, indeed, as Lord TAUNTON intimated on
Tuesday evening, that a prize of several millions ster-
ling should be kept dangling for any lengthened
period before rival claimants for its acquisition in
Ireland. Granted that that is in truth in every way
most undesirable. Nevertheless it would be
yet more undesirable that all hope of Legis-
lation of any kind upon the subject of the
Irish Church should be abandoned for another
twelvemonth, and that the Lords and Commons,
the Cabinet and the Country should waken, now, to
the realisation of the fact that, solely through a
dogged determination, here on the part of the Minis-
try, here on the part of their antagonists in the Upper
House of Parliament, in no way to surrender to one
another upon any one particular—the whole of this
laborious session should proved to have been wasted,
and the fair prospects opened up to Ireland baulked
at the very moment of their anticipated realisation.
Immeasurably preferrable to that would be postpone-
ment, not indefinitely, but until next session, until the
spring of 1870, of the deliberate consideration of the
whole question as to how the surplus funds of the Irish
Church might be the most happily applied. Arrange
for the dissestablishment of the Protestant Church
in Ireland—arrange for its disendowment—but leave
for separate consideration, some eight months hence,
the chief matter now in dispute between the two
great rival parties within the walls of the Legisla-
ture, between the Conservative Party still all-
powerful in the Lords, and the Liberal Party now
supreme in the Commons under the Leadership of
Mr. GLADSTONE. Upon the satisfactory settlement
of that still remaining difficulty, very much indeed
will depend. But, while that is undoubtedly
the case, the settlement of it is not so urgent
that it need be precipitated. It is a matter that admits
very readily of postponement. It is precisely one of
those points that may easily be held over for further
consideration. There has been a good deal of ghastly
joking as to the application of a considerable portion
of the Surplus Funds of the Irish Church, as originally
proposed by the Government scheme, for the benefit
of lunatics in Ireland. With grim humour enough,
Earl RUSSELL exclaimed upon that point that for any
adequate benefit to accrue to Ireland in this parties-
lar—a whole province ought to go mad ! While, in
a similar mood, Lord SALISBURY more recently
inquire 1 whether lunacy was to be regarded
as a luxury of the Irish peasantry ! Upon
the other hand Ministers themselves have in a cer-
tain sense been nailing their colours to the mast, so to
speak, as antagonists of the whole scheme, involved
iu what is called" concurrent endowment"—that new
phrase for what was termedlast year "levelling up." It
is peculiarly desirable will() such is the animus dis-
played, now on this side now on that, by the chief
disputants in this controversy as to the appropriation
of the surplus arising from the realization of the pro-
perty of the Irish Church Establishment—it is pecu-
liarly and especially desirable, as it seems to us, that
seine reasonable interval should be allowed to elapse
before a matter so very stingingly and angrily, or
at any rate we will say, so very ironically and
bitingly in dispute, should be forced on to some de-
finitive, and, as it seems to us, under the circum-
stances, really precipitate settlement. That point,
at least, meaning the appropriation of the surplus,
may not unreasonably be postponed—at any rate,
until the next session of Pariament.

THOSE persons who rejoiced at the wisdom which
was shewn by the Upper House in its vote
of June 18th will regret that this wisdom
has been of such short duration. The Irish Church
Bill sent back to the Commons will be no more
the same measure as that which the Commons sent to
the Lords than the Reform Bills passed in 1867-8
were the same measure as that which Mr. DISRAELI
introduced two and a quarter years ago. But whereas
the nation approved of the changes which the earlier
measure underwent, it will, we have little doubt,
strongly disapprove of those to which the bill now
under consideration has been subjected. We believe
that the Times, usually so skilful in ascertaining and
following public feeling, has wholly deceived itself in
the present instance. We believe that it has mistaken
the wishes of a few influential noblemen, and perhaps
of some aristocraticallyconnected members of the House
of Commons, for the voice of the people, and that this
mistake will very shortly become apparent. Mr.
GLADSTONE is clearly of that opinion. He has lost
no opportunity of assuring the country that he will
observe the pledge which he made on the hustings
in November, and that he will not appropriate any
portion of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church
to ecclesiastical purposes. He said this at the
Mansion House; he has just said the same thing to
a memorial of Walsall Nonconformists ; and he has
through his colleagues made a similar announcement
to the House of Lords. Thus doubly pledged he
cannot retreat from his position unless the nation
orders him to do so. That any such order will be
given we believe is in the highest degree impossible.
Consequently we shall shortly be in the middle of a
grave constitutional crisis, the end of which it is
impossible to foresee.

We confess that we have no longer much hope that
the Lords will shew the wisdom which they manifested
at the outset. Lord SALISBURY has been told by the
Times that he is the master of the situation, and the
same journal has assured him that the nation has
come round to the principle of concurrent endow-
ment. He for one thoroughly believes it. He is
not accustomed to take his ideas of popular politics
at first hand, and able man though he is, there are
few men who so little understand his fellow-
countrymen as he. This being so, the
Lords will probably insist upon the amend-
ments which they have carried, and the Govern-
ment will then throw up the measure, probably
summon Parliament for an autumn session, when
the original bill will be again passed through the
Commons, and presented to the Lords endorsed with
the popular approval manifested at monster meetings
all over the kingdom. The Peers say privately they are
prepared for an autumn session ; they even add that
they will yield this point of concurrent endowment
if it is clearly shewn that the nation does not desire
it. It is unfortunate that they are not convinced of
I this already. The very fact upon which the
Times lays so much stress as an argument in
favour of that scheme namely, that a large
number of M.P.'s would support it if they
were not afraid of their constituents—is a powerful
argument against the possibility of its being ulti-
mately accepted. If the constituencies are opposed
to it, and if the House of Commons, faithfully repre-
senting the constituencies, opposes it, even without
. ;sfy them ? There is a further
what stronger evidence can the Peers
possibly require to sat
disapproving it,
GLADSTONE, at all events,be eislolwvh
objection to the Lorcls'
to Ocho over-
r.
i will e
notn
look. The deferring of the appropriation of the
amendments
m
surplus funds would be to fall into the same error as
proved fatal to the Liberal party thirty years ago.
Many of our readers will remember the yearly battles
that were fought over the Appropriation Clause, and
how, at last, the Liberal party was disorganised and
disgraced, until they reached that lowest depth of
degradation which they attained under the fainéant
Lord MELBOURNE. Mr. GLADSTONE would be false
to the nation if he consented to the appropriation of

six.

the funds to the purpose of concurrent endowment
without an express declaration from the nation in

favour of it. He would bring ruin on his party if he
exposed them to the same danger which proved
their destruction a generation back.

THE long-promised exposure of the doings of
Welsh landlords at the last election was made in the
House of Commons on Tuesday. Everybody knew
that the appeal to the country on the Irish
Church question had been vitiated, more than
any preceding contest, by intimidation, but few
persons except landowners and agents could have
been prepared for the story told by Mr. RICHARD.
Wales, like Scotland, is a country of political una-
nimity. The people are all Dissenters, ergo they are
all Liberals, and on the Irish Church question their
feeling is strongly in favour of Mr. GLAD STONE'S policy.
Mr. RICHARD says—and we are happy to be able to
confirm him—that education and political intelli-
gence have made great progress in the Principality
in the last few years. If there ever was a time when
the consciences of the people were confided to the
keeping of their superiors in the social scale, when
the humbler orders were content to have their
political duty done by deputy, that time has for ever
passed. In no part of Her MAJESTY'S dominions is
the extension of political rights likely to have a
better result than in Wales. But the owners of
the land in many parts of the province have not
been able to appreciate this progress. They
still cling to the idea that the votes of electors are a
species of real property, and they refuse to believe
that freedom of political judgment is, in principle at
least, as much the right of the British people as
freedom of worship. It is an indisputable fact
that all over Walee Liberal tenants were commanded
by their landlords last November to vote for Con-
servative candidates, and were turned out of their
holdings in great numbers on their refusal. The
whole country was afflicted with this vice of intimi-

dation. In Cardiganshire, all the tenants on several

estates were ordered to vote for the candidate who,
happily, was not returned. In Carmarthenshire, a
landlord sent a notice containing his " instructions "
to one tenant with a polite intimation that he was to
pass it on to the rest. This was a Mr. LONG CROFT'S
reply to a respectful memorial from the
poor fellows entreating to be allowed to vote

in accordance with their own consciences. In
Merionethshire, one Conservative landlord has for
several elections commanded the votes of 150

tenants, another of IGo—almost all Liberals. It is
Leedless to multiply details. -Suffice it to say that
Mr. RICHARD represented this plague to be general,
and no member of the House of Commons felt him-
self in a position to contradict him.
So far as the result was concerned, this terrorism
did not prevent the Welsh from pronouncing
against the Irish Church ; but that it was produc-
tive of widespread moral degradation there can be
no doubt. It is not given to every man to resist the
threat of being turned out of the home in which he

is settled, and to expose his family to the mischances
of another start in life. Accordingly very many gave
way—the member for Merthyr Tydvil says " hun-
dreds." Those who maintained their right of
free voting were mercilessly dealt with ; and,
in fact, the remembrance of previous years
prepared them for the consequences. But on former
occasions an example or two was made out of a
number of refractory tenants ; this time the business
of eviction seems to have been carried on wholesale.
In Cardiganshire forty-three tenants received
notices to quit ; in Carmarthenshire twenty-
These figures, however, do not represent

the entire number. Many of these tenants had held
their farms for many years, some of their families had
tilled the soil for centuries ; but these considerations
availed nothing. One case is given of a man, with
ten children, whose eviction so weighed upon him
that he died. His widow prayed that the notice to
quit might be repealed in her favour, but her
request was not noticed. Intimidation is, unfortunately,
no new feature in connection with English elections;
but never before have we met with aught like this.
The defence to these charges was very meagre, and
the need for comment is therefore small. One or
two members, who were apparently rendered uncom-
fortable by Mr. IticHARD'S speech, attempted
to tone down some of these facts ; but it is
quite clear that intimidation was generally prac-
tised in Wales least. November, and that great
distress was brought upon many electors who chose
to vote according to their own judgment. Equally
clear is the inference to be drawn from these facts.
These proceedings are a disgrace to those who are
guilty of them. Intimidation, like bribery, is apt to
be lightly thought of in the Legislature, many of
whose members largely profit by both vices; but
the nation generally cannot rest satisfied with this
state of things. Although territorial M.P.'s may
find amusement in stories of electors being dragged
off to the poll "with tears in their eyes; " the
influence of this bondage on the national character
cannot be too gravely considered. If ;the story of
voters weeping because they were obliged to vote
against their convictions be true, it is creditable to
those who wept; and it is only to be feared that
such a sense of shame will speedily evaporate if pro-
tection be not offered. The case in favour of

secret voting has received new and powerful support.
The Ballot has been called un-English, and as it is
decidedly foreign to the interests of landowners, the
objection seems well founded. But it will probably
prevent a repetition of the tale told in the House of
Commons on Tuesday. Further delay in accord-

ing to what has come to be regarded as a boon will
be inexcusable.

The Octavia, screw unarmoured wooden frigate,
35 guns, 3,161 tons, 500 horse power, Capt. John
H. J. Alexander, C. 8., arrived at Spithead yester-
day from the East Indies, and has received orders
to proceed into Portsmouth harbour to be dis-
mantled and paid out of commission. She has
brought home a number of naval officers, seamen,
and marines, including 40 of the two latter classes
from Ascension, and has experienced very fine
weather during the whole voyage, with light
winds and calms alternating. Bombay har-
bour was left on the 12th of March last, and
the Mauritius reached on the 9th of April,
wbere the frigate was coaled to 100 tons. Mau-
ritius was left on the 11th of March, and
Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, reached on
the 30th of April, where 270 tons of coal were taken
on board, the ship refitted and provisioned, and
short leave ashore given to the crew. On the Bth
of May the Octavia resumed her voyage towards
England, arriving at St. Helena on the 20th of May,
receiving on board there a quantity of naval stores,
and sailing again on the following day, calling in
at Ascension on the 25th, and receiving on board
a number of men waiting there a passage to Eng-
land. Sierra Leone was reached on the 3d of June,
and Kroomen discharged there, the frigate sailing
again on the 4th, and making St. Vincent's on the
12th, where coals to 156 tons were taken on board.
St. Michael's was looked in at on the 25th for fresh
provisions, and left again on the 27th.
The sailing Indianian Sun Mendel, Commander
J. T. Murdoch, 1,033 tons, belonging to Means.
Coupland Brothers, of Liverpool, arrived at Spit-
head on Tuesday evening from Bombay with
the following military officers and troops on
board :—Captain H. F. Hutton, 23d Infantry, in
command ; Lieut. Lloyd, 23,1 Infantry ; Lieutenant
Stourton, Bth ditto; Lieut. Hughes, Ist battalioni
Ist Royals; AsAst.-Surgeon Howard, R.A., in
medical charge ; 100 time-expired and invalided
soldiers, 11 soldiers' wives, and 19 children. Eight
soldiers, one woman, and two children. died on the
voyage. The Sam Mendel sailed from Bombay on
the 25th March last, and called in at St. Helena on
the 19th of May. Both the Sam Mendel and the
Alumbagh disem I arked their troops yesterday after-
noon at Spithead into Government steamers, and
afterwards sailed for London.
DuNviLLE and Co., Belfast, are the largest
holders of Whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whisky is re
commended by the medical profession in preference to French
Brandy. Supplied in casks and cases for home use or exporta-
tion' Quotations on application to Messrs. Dunville and Co.,
Belfast; or 4, Beaufort-buildings, Strand, London, [Ad
YClasc.nent

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times says that the Irish Church Bill must become
• law this session. The Irish Church Bill must destroy
Protestant supremacy and establish religious equality in
Ireland. Further, it must not attempt to set up a multi-
plicity of establishments instead of cne establishment to
link the nation in chains of compact with many creeds in
the attempt to disencumber Church and State of their
existing alliance. The task before Parliament is to observe
these conditions of action, and subject to them, and to
them alone, to devise what is best for the whole nation.
The shape the bill will finally assume will be determined
by considerations of public policy, and by nothing else.
Judged by this criterion, there can he no doubt that
the best solution of the differences between the
two Houses of Parliament is to be found in the
suggestion of the Duke of Cleveland, that the first trust
of the surplus funds of the Establishment shall be to pro-
vide residences for the clergy of the Roman Catholic and
Presbyterian Churches. Are we, as Englishmen, entitled
to object to the destination of Irish property according to
Irish views? Shall we do whole-right or merely half-
right ? Shall we flatter ourselves that the wrongs of three
hundred years are redressed by a recantation which stops
short at partial justice? Such a conclusion would be a
mere delusion. We may attempt to beguile our reason by
such a fancied settlement, but it cannot and will not last.
If we would place the ecclesiastical property of Ireland on
a permanent footing, we must make up our minds to
recognise facts, to apply so much of the surplus as may be
necessary for the purpose to supplying homesteads for the
ministers of religion of the whole people.
The Standard says there cannot be a doubt that the
country has altered its opinion a good deal lately as to the
Irish Church Bill, and it is impossible to deny that it is
the House of Lords who have given shape and consistency
to that vague idea of " concurrent endowments " which
was in many men's minds. But if the Lords have been
able to do so much, it is not only a remarkable proof of
the influence which they exercise over public opinion—
au influence which those who now praise the Upper
House were but the other day ready to deny--hut it is
surely a strong argument against the whole basis of Mr.
Gladstone's policy. If the majority of the Lords required
any justification for their course in postponing the
appropriation of the surplus, they would find it in this
sudden growth of opinion in favour of concurrent
endowments. It is clear that the framers of the
Irish Church Bill are not in accord with public
sentiment as to some of the radical principles of their
policy. It is manifest that, in one important point, they
have mistaken or overlooked the bent of public opinion.
It is admitted that we are still in process of learning what
should be done with the property of religious establish.
ments ; that our progress is rapid, and some of our results
very different from those which had been calculated. All
these are reasons against any legislation at all upon the
Irish Church question. They are at least special reasons
why we should not snake a final disposition of the surplus
property of the Church until public opinion has com-
pleted its education on that point. We have made such
startling and unexpected progress in liberality in the
matter of " concurrent endowments " that it is not very
unreasonable to suggest that with more light, a calmer
temper, and a freer discussion, we may advance in other
directions not thought of by the authors of the Irish
Church Bill, and be able to find a remedy at last for Irish
discontent, without disturbing the rights of property or
interfering with the Protestant religion in Ireland.
The Post thinks that the arrangement between the
Government and the Telegraphs is on the point of being
braught to a satisfactory conclusion. Clauses are to be
inserted in the new bill giving the Government a mono-
poly of the telegraphic business. The policy of this course
has been questioned, and public opinion does not seem to
have pronounced itself decidedly upon it. But, in fact,
monopoly is the essence of the scheme. Without it the
proposed arrangement could not be carried out. The
monopoly, if granted to the Government, will leave
science and art free as air to apply electricity to anything
whatever save the transmission of messages. Furthermore,
it is said that as the Post Office has been converted
into a great tax-collecting piece of machinery, so may the

new telegraphic system, if protected, be a monopoly. It
might be supposed from the way in which the matter is
spoken of that the Post Office is guilty of a heinous
offence in assisting to lighten the public burdens by paying
in some millions a year into the Exchequer. Surely if the
public receive every reasonable facility in the matter of
letter-carrying, and at the same time are relieved from
taxation in some shape or form equal to a fourpenny
income tax, they have little cause to grumble or to sigh

after luxurious improvements. Why, too, for the matter

of that, should not a revenue be derived from the
Telegraphs ? If the Government can, by a jucrcious
concentration of forces now frittered away, give the
public greatly increased and reasonable facilities in the
transmission of messages at reduced rates, and if at the

same time, by good management, it can relieve the tax-
payer, why, in the name of common sense and practical
statesmanship, should it not be done? Where is the harm ?
What danger lurks in the system ? Are not the tran,ac-
tions directed by the Government, and for the sole and
Lest benefit of the public ? If the department should be
inordinately rapacious, at the worst, it is not for itself, but
for the public advantage ; and the public have the remedy
in their own hands. If no better arguments adverse to

Government monopoly in the case of the telegraphs can
be adduced, its advocates need have little fear of carrying
their point in Parliament.
The Daily Nova declares that the country gentlemen of
Wales are desirous of creating a Welsh Church question,
and of completing the analogy with the state of things
over the water by associating with the Church question a
land question. The statement which Mr. Henry Richard
made on Tuesday night in the House of Commons as to
the political oppression exercised by Welsh landlords
during the late general election, brought down upon
him some censure, which, in the absence of contradic-
tion, was real eulogy. Mr. Richard will, in truth, he

the best friend the Welsh landlords ever had, if his
warning leads them to hesitate in the course on which
they have entered. The member for Merthyr Tydvil
enumerated sixty-nine cases in the two counties of
Carmarthen and Carnarvon alone of Nonconformist

tenants ejected from their farms on account of
their votes aCtlie general election by landlords who were
members of the Established Church. The member for
Cardiganshire—for there are two Richards in the field—
referred to similar instances. But South and Mid-Wales
do not stand alone in this matter. In Carnarvonshire that
exemplary nobleman Lord Willoughby d'Eresby, Grand
Chamberlain, brought all the weight of his property, not
to speak of his character, to bear upon the issue at stake,
by a circular, in which he warned his tenants not to vote
against the wishes of their landlord. An end must be
put to these things. A tenant-farmer ejected from his
holding .is in a very different position from that of an
artisan dismissed from work. The land, naturally limited
in quantity, is by special laws converted artificially into a
yet more strict monopoly. The Welsh landlords appear
to think that their tenants hold their lands on the condi-
tion, not of military, but of political service. They owe
not relief or escuage, but their votes. The practical
answer to this doctrine is the Ballot. If it fail, landlord.
wrong may need to be met by tenant-right.

The Star thinks that the second reading of the Trades
Unions Bill is, at all events, a sufficient admission that the
violent and indiscriminate antipathy to workmen's combi-
nations, which broke out in the press and elsewhere a
couple of years ago, is now spent. It is almost incredible
that within so short a time public opinion should have
gone right round, and that writers and politicians, who,
before the royal commission, were for breaking up the
trade societies, are now forced to admit the impossibility
of rejecting pointblank what many of them unac-
countably consider an extreme measure. For some

reasons, it is, perhaps, a pity that a division
did not test the exact amount of the good-will to
the bill, and disclose the quarters where hostility
to its very moderate and equitable principles will

have to be overcome. But, of course, a division was out

of the question, after Mr. Forster's declaration that the

Government would support the bill if there were any oppo-

sition to the second reading. And the spirit in which the
Home Secretary spoke is proof enough of the conscious-
ness of the Government that the matter presses urgently
for a solution. Mr. Henley was sagacious in his percep-
tion of the danger which attends such a question being

,eft unsettled, and there was something still more honour-

able than sagacity in his remarks upon the cruelty and
injustice of the law hanging like a millstone round the
necks of the workmen, so long as they can be robbed with
impunity. We may wish, with Mr. Henley, that no time
had been lost, not even the interval between now and next

;ession. But the tone of the debate was on the whole

promising ; and the workmen's case is so strong, and,
moreover, they have already made such way in public
.Spinion, that they may well afford to wait a few months

The Times?, in referring to the case. of Mr. Grenville
\lurrav, attaches little weight to his disavowal of the
authorship of certain articles produced in court and
alleged to be in his handwriting. }le admitted that he
might possibly be mistaken in asserting that be had not
written this or that particular article. Coupling this
confession with the hesitating way in which, on
one occaion at least, Mr. Murray gave his
evidence, we have little doubt ourselves that this
" possibility of mistake" was actually realised, and such
was, we believe, the impression produced on all disinte-
rested persons in court. Very few could have left it with-
out feeling that, setting aside for a moment the question
whether Lord Carington acted lawfully or wisely, he
had at least received such provocation as might have
driven a much older man to still stronger measures.
.ord Carington seems to us to have bad fair grounds for

believing that Mr. Murray wrote the article complained
of, or at least was intimately connected with, and,
to a certain extent, responsible for, the journal in which
it appeared. It, indeed, transpired in the course of the
evidence—in addition to the other suspicions we have
already mentioned—that Mr. Murray had recently been
living in the same chambers with the registeredproprietor
of the journal, who is his own son. We do not
for a moment wish to imply that all these facts
justify Lord Carington's conduct, but they cer-
tainly leave little room for surprise at it when we
consider his age, inexperience of the world, and the
difficulty of obtaining reparation for a grossly indecent
outrage on his father's memory in any legal way. It is
not, therefore, from any sort of sympathy with the prose-
cutor that we condemn the treatment to which he was sub-
jected on Wednesday in court. On the contrary, it is
rather because we have so little sympathy with his share
in this scandal that we object to see him placed somewhat
in the position of a martyr, just as we have before oh.
jected to the notoriety given to the journal with which he
is alleged to be connected through Lord Carington's igno•
ranee of the world.