The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-17 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

The Saturday _Review thinks that the object of Mr.
Disraeli's amendments is to put the Conservative partyiil
the best possible position for fighting Mr. Gladstone's bill
in detail, These amendments do not in fact lead the way
to a compromise. They are so drafted that the Govern-
ment must oppose them totally and directly. Now, if the
real object of Mr. Disraeli was to get slightly better terms
for the Irish Church from the Commons, he would have
taken a course little likely to be successful. But evi-
dently this is not his object. He wants, in the first place,
to stand well with his party, to give them confidence
in him, to make even furious Irishmen feel that they are
not being betrayed, and that even when he goes into com-
mittee and accepts under protest disestablishmcnt and
disendowment, he knows how to work these odious propo-
sals so as to benefit the Church. His amendments appear
to be very well adapted to this end, 'and will rather tend
to cheer and encourage and confirm the Conserva-
tives in their opposition than to divide and dishearten
them. In the next place, Mr. Disraeli may reasonably
calculate that the real battle will be fought in the Lords.
In all probability the Lords will pass the second reading.
and then the Conservatives will propose and carry their
amendments. The use of proposing ineffectual amend-
ments in the Commons is to ascertain what amendments
may be effectually proposed in the Lords. For this pur-
pose, it may not have been imprudent to put forward in
the Commons amendments of an extreme character, sure
to provoke discussion and to catch the attention of the
country. If Mr. Disraeli had only proposed such amend-
ments as he had some hope of carrying in the Commons,
he would have been precluded from asking for more from
the Lords. But by starting with outrageous and auda-
cious demands in the Commons which he knows cannot
be conceded, he may enable the Conservative peers to
seem comparatively moderate when they come to make
their amendments. As the leader of his party he has made
a party move in devising the amendments he now submits
to the House of Commons, and it is unreasonable to judge
of a party move by any other test than whether it is likely
to benefit his party, and him as the leader of that party ;
and if they are judged by this test, it is as yet much too
soon to say that these amendments are impolitic or ill-
devised.

The Spectator, in considering the progress of the Iris':
Church measure, declares the great critics of our national
drama tell us that there is always a "retarding element"
introduced into the plot, generally towards the middle of
the third act, the object of which is to arrest and interfere
with the general current of the play's action, and to pro-
mote a certain suspense and impatience in the mind of the
reader or the audience, which adds to the vividness of
interest in the final denouement. Such a "retarding ele-
ment" was the function of Thursday night's debate, with
its interpolation of that little whirlpool of Conservative
excitement round the Pontifical Throne which Mr. New-
(legate, unappeased by Mr. Disraeli's theatrical affectation
of fear on the same head, thought it due to his own great
career as a renowned hunter of English foxes and Italian
Jesuits to interpose, before he allowed the House to
buckle to the great business of discussing how much
money the martyred Protestant Church of Ireland is to
be permitted to carry away with it into a wilderness
where it professes to expect so much suffering and danger.
We do not wonder that the House should be impatient
at such deplorable waste of time, nor do we take very
much comfort from Mr. Gladstone's remark that the
meditative Conservative soliloquies of Thursday night at
least served to chew the profound differences of opinion
which divide them. We knew all that before. Still, we
suppose all great questions have a private closet with a
peculiar skeleton of their own in it. And the Pope;
though, as flaunted by Mr. Newdegatc and his friends,
he does a little too much resemble the tawdry Guy
Fawk-eses of the sth of November, is still, perhaps, more
endurable, being, at all event, a little more showy, than
the compound householder who haunted our last great
controversy. It is, however, to our minds a real matter
of astonishment that men as competent as Lord Sandon
and Alr. Itaikes should not be able to see that this spectre
of the Protestant imagination derives his political power
whol'y in England, and mostly in Ireland, from the
we give his adherents for asserting- that they

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the I'ltrawontanes wish t) see this measure carried,
therefore it rnu6t be for the Papal interest. As Mr.
Gladstone pointed out, it must also follow, if that be true,
that because the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Calvinists
of Wales, and the Dissenters of England eagerly wish to
sae it carried, it must be for the interest of the warmest
anti-Catholic religions. Of course, what really follows
from the wish alike of Dr. Manning and Dr. Binney to
:.:cc the measure carried is this—that each of them in all
prubability believes it will be favouralile Co his own creed
Mid WI it. WeikciaVOUrablO to both, it rLl4iilii to deter,

Sifts bl fd6f6 general considerations which of the two is
tight.

The Examiner and London Review says that in the
annals of party important changes of policy have fre-
quently been designated by the name of the mansion at
which the new plan of campaign was resolved upon. A
good deal, in its time, turned upon the " Cabal of Wal-
lingford House ;" thirty years ago the fate of Ins and
Outs was said to depend on the durability of the Lichfield
House compact; and now we have a-new point of Tory
departure in what is called the Lonsdale House Compro-
mise. Why the epicurean dwelling of the Lowthers hap-
pened to have been chosen as the new holy place where
the Irish Church was to be born again, and sent into the
world, "not half made up," like the crooked king, but
" With rings on its fingers, and rings on its toes,
And the promise of money wherever it goes,"

we, who pretend not to inspiration, cannot say. Perhaps
it was thought of good augury that, as this latest fruit of
apostolic succession will have to make its way in the world
without parliamentary privilege, its start in life should be
made with the blessing of a very rich godfather. Certain
it is that the guardians of Anglicanism in Ireland mean
to set it up in business on its own account, with an un-
commonly handsome capital, if they can manage to get
hold of it. The injunction to go forth without scrip or
staff is clearly considered obsolete by Primate Bcresford
and his parliamentary friends. Perhaps they may plead
that Consols were not meant by the Greek word rendered
Scrip, and sooner than argue about trifles like £6,000,000
sterling, we shall waive the criticism. 'What we should
like to understand, however, is, what the Conservative
noblemen and gentlemen who met at Carlton-terrace last
Monday have really made up their minds to go for, not
only as regards their own, but as regards other Churches
in Ireland. We ask, whither does this policy tend? is it
not plainly and palpably towards re-endowment of the
Church of England in Ireland, and the further endow-
ment of the Church of Scotland and the Church of Rome
in that country ? In words, we admit, there is no mention
made of the latter ; but can anyone seriously affect to be
ignorant of what is in contemplation? Already the Pres-
byterians are beginning to complain that the fourteen
years' purchase offered them by the Government bill is no
sectarian equivalent for the pecuniary concessions made
thereby to their Anglican rivals. Lord Derby, when in
office, encouraged them to hope that their position would
be materially improved; and we now hear it said that, to
secure better terms for their own Church, the bishops
would not object to England and Scotland being taxed
for double the amount of Regium Donum. That done, the
cry for Catholic endowment would become irrepressible,
and its logic irresistible. Is this, then, the meaning of
the Lonedale House Compromise?

The John Bull considers that the Conference of the
whole Irish Church, held this week in Dublin, has proved
itself worthy of the occasion and purpose for which it was
summoned. Never before in the history of the Reformed
Church in Ireland had such an assembly been convened.
Extraordinary circumstances call forth extraordinary
efforts, and when the Archbishops of the Irish branch of
the United Church found that their eighth application to
Government for the revival of the Irish Convocation was
again most unjustly refused, thny determined 'forthwith
to assemble a body, such as, though unknown in the his-
tory of the Church, should yet effectually represent all
classes of clergy and laity within her pale. One result
stands out prominent from the many which will flow from
the Conference. The Irish Church has proved beyond all
power of contradiction that whether or not her
connection with the State continues to exist, she
possesses within herself elements of self-government and
powers of self-control which promise well for her future
welfare and extension. Never in modern times has a
Church been more sorely tried, and never before has a
majority of the English nation refused to stand forth in
defence of the weak and oppressed. True it is the modern
history of Ireland has been mainly a record of rebellion
and confiscation. "But this," said the eloquent Dean of
Clonfert, " was the first time in her annals that rebellion
had been followed by the confiscation of the property of the
loyal." Certain it is that the destruction of the Irish
Church Establishment will leave the main grievance of
Ireland untouched. It will alienate the Protestants, it
will conciliate no single hostile Roman Catholic, and it
will inaugurate an era of fresh religious and political agi-
tation in Ireland of which neither we nor our children will
in all probability see the end.