The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-08 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

The Saturday Reriew asks what is to be done with tha
Irish land question? And, in order to answer this, we
must first ask, whether we are to legislate in a panic or
not ? Many speakers, especially in the Lords, during the
debate of last week, seemed to have been possessed by the
idea that there was some one definite course which was
startling and strong and unusual, but which, if the
Government could but resolve to take it, would put down
all these murders at once. This was, we believe, a mere
dream. None of those who advocated recourse to a
gigantic remedy gave the slightest clue to what they
meant, and the obvious conclusion is that they meant
nothing. There is this difference between dealing with
the Irish Church and the Irish land. If it is right or
wise to touch the Irish Church at all, it must be wise and
right to deal with it in a sweeping and severe measure
which goes to the root of the matter at once.
But with regard to the Irish land everything
is a question of degree. There are no grand
principles which explain everything, Experience,
and not logic, alone must spew what compensations ace to
be given, and whether anything and what can be done to
increase in a legitimate manner the number of Irish pro-
prietors. A supporter of Mr. Gladstone closed the dis-
cussion last week by saying that a Government which had
dealt so widely and comprehensively with the Church
might be trusted to do the same with the land. But the
hopes thus raised may be falsified ; not that the Govern-
ment will not have done as much as could be fair'y
expected, but because there may be nothing possible to
do with regard to the Irish land, except to introduce ten-
tative, imperfect, and unheroic measures. The Govern-
ment can but do its best, but it may turn out that this best
will be pronounced by eager Ministerialists to be rather
disappointing.

The Spectator says that the root of all this trouble in
Cork is the root of all other trouble in Ireland, the per-
verse habit of applying English ideas of government and
administration to a people of different tendencies, who,
under widely different circumstances, are seeking very
different ends. 'To a country_ distracted with historical,
religious, and agrarian feuds, which, more than any
country in the world, requires scientific administration—
administration from above, by men intent only on justice
—we apply a system under which every magistrate is
either a partisan, or, what is nearly as bad, is suspected
of partisanship, under which he must be either a member
or a distrusted class, or one elected by a populace so
divided amongst themselves by impassable chasms of feel-
in; and opinion that the passport to their favour is party
violence. In the rural districts, where the grand contest
is between peasant and landlord, we confine the bench to
landlords ; and in the cities, where the populace live on the
verge of civil war, we confide the magistracy to their nomi-
nees. The passport to civic office is, in an Irish city, to be
Orange or Fenian, and then we wonder because the suc-
cessful candidates display Orange or Fenian proclivities ; do
not, in a single year of office, manifest qualities rare even
in the best judges, and, above all, freedom from the parti-
sanship through which alone the coveted positions can be
made secure. We abuse the Americans for their folly in
making the judiciary elective, and then leave a population
like that of Cork to elect an officer who is, in their own
eyes, at all events, and for the cases they care about, a
judge, and improve the position by seating by his side men
who, if they were all Hales or Somers, would be con-
sidered by a populace which detests their class unjust
judges. It is the French, or at all events the Indian,
system which Ireland requires, in Ulster as well as in
Cork, and we give it the one which of all others is furthest
in principles and action from that ideal. Even when
ascendancy has been abandoned and the tenure reformed,
this great blunder will still remain to be corrected before
we shall have in Ireland a people contented with and con-
fident in the law.

The Examine). and London Review says that a curious
variety of answers would seem to have been given in reply
to the Duke of Somerset's question, whether any arrange-
ment has been made to replace the three right rev. prelates
in the southern counties, who for some time have been
incapacitated from active service in the field against the
Arch-enemy. The Primate, warned by the fate that has
-pome upon the easy-going Church in Ireland, promises a
bill to make provision for compelling the crutch to give
place to the crozier. Fired with the zeal of competition,
Lord Lyttelton offers his Grace the use of any of the
clauses in the bill which he found it impracticable to
carry. Ire would give anything to see some of his addled
eggs hatched into chickens, or, let us say, doves—for that
is the most appropriate fowl. He thinks they might yet
come out if only put carefully under the episcopal wing.
Our Most Reverend Lord of Canterbury does not seem as
grateful as he might be for the offer ; but he reads a
letter from his brother of Winchester to prove that,
dividing the Apostolate into three parts—taking care only
to keep the real thing one and undivided—you may do all
the duties of a bishop by deputy, and keep all the stipend
to yourself. The Winchester faith is this. There is an
archdeacon for the confirmations, a colonial bishop for the
consecrations, and a chaplain for the correspondence ;
but there are not three archdeacons, or three chaplains,
o: three p)or cousins of a bishop without pay, but
one fine old bishop who receives all the money, and
by the affluence and effluence of whose indefeasible right
all goes well for the souls of the faithful. With a cruel
candour, the Archbishop adds that he cannot say he thinks
this version of episcopal responsibility and duty quite
satisfactory. We 6110Uhl think not. The Duke of Cleve-
land, with his characteristic good sense, warned the
Government that the public would not be satisfied with
any bill which facilitated or encouraged the delegation of
episcopal duties to subordinate dignitaries. If the Augurs
expect to be believed in, they must look and act as if they
were, or, at least, as if they thought they were, indis-
pensable to the safety of the State. Commissions
in the army are no longer given by anticipation to
young hopefuls in the nursery ; and commanders in the
Church can no longer be suffered to toddle about at
watering-places or to doze in easy chairs. The Church is
on its trial. Though not drA en out of Paradise, the fences
of its Elysian field of sunny torpor are broken down.
Nonconformity, Popery, and incredulity are pressing
rpuncl, on_every side ; and if Om wlics claim prelatical

- -
pretensions would maintain their order, they must give of
the notion of appropriating the profits and privileges '
their office while they do their duty by deputy.
The John, Bull remarks : When we last week dreg
attention to the land question in Ireland as looming in the
distance, we did not calculate on its actual presence
amongst us. At the moment, however, when our 133 Pd
was passing through the press, the second and hardlY
second member of her Majesty's Government announced
to an astonished House of Commons that he had alrencl
bill prepared for the settlement of the land questiontc3,
that next session it would be pressed by all the power ei•
the majority of those who command the votes of the.
Lower House of Parliament. lie has never been reticent
on this point, and his bill will no doubt be more or less 3/1
embodiment of that idea. He would compel the non.reei:
dent landowners of Ireland—that is, almost all Englisi,
men who have Irish property—to sell their estates, an
by some machinery not yet declared, he would vest Wes
i
estates, broken up into small p ,rt:ons, in the present
tenantry. Whether he contemplates a like measure w'''b
reference to England, and would con pel Irish landownets
to part with their Thigh h estates, we hay yet to learn'
Nor does he inform us whether :-_icottisli landlords who 1114‘t.
English property, or English landowners who posseseSe3,,
tish estates, are to be dealt with the same as Irishlandlott
What does concern us is the fact that a law cannot
made which will be confined in its operations to ire 1311,4
The principle when adopted by the House of Parlialneme
will be applied to other cases than that for which it 'lilt
been invented. Such a bill, for instance, as Mr. 13/i5,1:
has shadowed forth strikes at the root of all prePet';
Already the bare suspicion of the possibility of such
proposal has introduced distrust into all the relations
~„,
between man and man. The John Bull further attribute,
the series of catastrophes in Ireland to the recent measure
Parliament, and says that it is not always that even„
connected by sequence can be fairly linked in relationelllr
one to the other, but in the present instance it is il:(1A,P1
Bible for any thoughtful man to disbelieve that the Ike
Church Disendowment Bill is the parent of the murders
which disgrace Ireland, and have carried sorrow into the
bosom of peaceful and confiding families. What more
may expect to result from this fatal source we dare
indicate.

THE PRINCE AND 'THE PRINCESS of

WALES.

.‘^ i
A correspondent writes from Athens to the Times gi of
nf
an account of the visit of the Prince and the Princess "
Wales to Greece.

THE ATHENS OF TO-DAY.
Athens has certainly improved very much since toe
period of the "occupation" during the war with Eussis:
What the increase in the population may be I cannot
but in streets and in houses Athens is enlarged at
beautified. Nevertheless, it is a city which is it:
a mistletoe on a ruined oak—it clings to, and greiei
from, decay. Take away the Acropolis and the Teal ',l-0
of Jupiter and Theseus, and what have you but gleritr°-it
bites and memories that ha ant them? I cannot but
was a mistake to build up the new city round the grand, tceo
monuments of a civilisation which is not dead, hut/(i
every day of our lives. The present new buildings hilljej.
the reconstruction of the old, and forbid or impede e%,11,..a
rations. Still, there they are, " with gas and water
on." The Palace of the King stands in a fine Positi°ll:l
a slope of Mount LycabeCu3, and rears a br( fle%°o
marble, quarried from Pentelicus, towards the city', 't
which it is separated by a broad stretch of shrubbery
lawn open to the public, prettily laid out and P1311`,,,
The eastern side of the palace abuts on a chara'frer,
and extensive garden, also open to the people, and Oce
frequented in the afternoon. All the walls of the Pa'l3,o
and the internal courts are of fine marble, and the ts:cl
magnificent state rooms, worthy of Imperial banquets %,1
balls, are supported on rich columns of the same mater;il
with gilded capitals. The views from the windows on
sides are extremely beautiful and interesting. The r°,loB
of the palace are large, lofty,- and well furnished ; tP-ia
of the King and Queen are elegant, rich, and cornfortab'''
All the appointments are very good, and there is
excellent library, where a learned and cosmopolitan Pr
Dr. Koppen, familiar with many lands and wall lade
guages, works away in old-world volumes, and shr°-
himself in the dust of the Middle Ages.
VISIT TO THE ACROFOLIS.
,1 141/
OH the 19th of April, when the royal party arrive''',e t
was damp and gloomy, but on the 20th, the Weltr
being finer, they visited the Acropolis. The royal car
riages, preceded by an outrider in light blue and silvertol
a white horse, passed from the portico with the .651,01
honours of a guard, with presented arms and a flourls"ho
trumpets, and so through streets lined with peoPle (%;jege
bowed and took of their hats very generally as the Of'
went by), till they emerged on the open ground got
ascended to the arch before the Propyhea, where they
bo
out and walked over into the interior and stood befell,
the Parthenon. Dr.Koppen, charged with multitude °0
information, and ready to let it off iu any language' sloe
ready to illustrate every stone with a story fro'', 0
earliest period to the present time ; and, wandering 't°eli
the Parthenon to the Erectheum, the tourists satillteli:
at their will on the Pelaegic rocks, looked down °l3t a
spot where Demosthenes thundered against Philil),
where St. Paul preached of "the Unknown God, s-01
admired all that the rage of heathen Turk and Chrtiete
has left of statuary and temples. In the evening t'oo
was a State banquet in the Palace, to which all ;
diplomatic body were invited, and at which the °ILI
Ministers and the Patriarch and the most distinguisid
men in Athens were present. All the guests were i 110.4
uniform, and the effect of the scene in the noble 1.00 0
very striking, for nowhere could the eye rest iel
gredter variety of colour, set off by the picturesque h
and
of the attendants, and by a mixture of Oriental
European finery.

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