The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times is puzzled to know where the chief speakers
at the Willis's Rooms meeting got their facts, though it
allows them some method in their logic. Lord Harrowby
declared his strong conviction that the majority of the
people of England was not properly represented by the 1
House of Commons, and that the people were taken by
surprise at the last election. Peers who entertain. these
beliefs are justified in voting against the bill ;
but what can induce a man to believe such con-
elusions, except a foregone resolution to believe them ?
Can the men who opposed the principle of the bill last
year now come forward and say that they neglected to use
their opportunities during the months of summer and
autumn, and the people were taken by surprise? Lord
Ilarrowby's belief is explicable only by reference to the
mysterious power of the will in inducing us to hold con-
clusions of fact in the teeth of all evidence to the contrary.
To the same influence must be attributed the declaration
of Lord John Manners, that the mind and heart of the
nation are with the Opposition in resisting the Irish
Church Bill ; and the statement of the Duke o
Abercorn, that if the House of Lords rejected
the Irish Church Bill their action would meet with
the national approval, as expressing the real and matured
wish of the country. It seems to us—we do not wish to
say anything unnecessarily offensive—that people who
can believe such things can believe anything they have a
desire to believe. But the nation cannot he arrested in
its course by these delusions. If the holders of them are
insufficient in number to obstruct the policy of the
country, they may be allowed to grow out of them in
peace. If, on the contrary, they are numerous enough
to be able to check for a determinate season the operation
of the national will, it will be necessary that the power of
the nation shall be immediately evoked to override, by the
methods indicated by corresponding precedents, the oppo-
sition of an infatuated minority to the consummation of
the national policy,
In spite of the warlike gathering at Willis's Rooms,
the Telegraph still refuses to believe that the majority of
the Conservative partrin the House of Peers can delibe-
rately persist in so mad a course. It cannot suppose the
Tory noblemen of England to be so blind to the interests of
their own order—not to speak of the interest of the Irish
Church. If the Duke of Rutland and the Duke of Abercorn
were as powerful as they are vehement, they would be
the Robespierres of the English Peerage. But there is
no sufficient reason to believe that the suicidal advice
will be followed ; and indeed every day is strengthening
the number of those Tory Peers who say, " Pass the bill,
and then amend it in committee." Moreover, a second
doubt has arisen—the really grave question whether, if the
Opposition majority be narrowed to insignificant dimen-
'ions, it would not be the sounder policy, even for the "No
Surrender " force, to avoid an untoward display of its
diminished ranks. Under these circumstances, the Tele-
graph asks if it is not justified in the expectation which it
has always maintained—that Time will fight on the side
of Reason, that wisdom will finally prevail, and that the
House of Lords, after mature consideration, will allow the
bill to go into committee ?

The Post, in referring to the catastrophe of the Duke of
Newcastle, asks if it is not almost inconceivable that these
things should be done, not once, not twice, but again and
again and again, and that even bitter personal experience
has no deterrent effect, and that no amount of burning,
no repetition of it, imparts any dread of the fire to the
child of the Betting Ring. It is true that dukes and mar-
quises and, earls are not the only men who gamble. The
Stock Exchange does it every clay and all day, so do
many so-called great merchants, so do the boys in the street
who play pitch and toss and worry the police on Sun-
days ; but, barring the last, who are homeless, hopeless
vagabonds, it is the business of the Stock Exchange
men and the merchants, and although they often do
that business recklessly, and even dishonestly, still
it is their business by which they live, and there
are no particular considerations arising from position and
higher duties which make their speculations ordinarily a
a scandal. A plunging duke syho puts himself upon a
level with Mr. Padwick or a professional racing-man in
the Ring must be a scandal some day or other. There is
no reason why a noblethan should not race ; there is no
reason why he should not support the Turf. He may do
both, as many have done— as Lord Derby, Lord Exeter,
Lord Glasgow, Lord Palmerston, Lord George Bentinck,
the Duke of Portland, General Peel have done—with
advantage to the country and with honour to themselves ;
but these men never touched the pitch of the Turf and
they have never been defiled. had the Duke of New-
castle been content to take to heart the lesson that the
Earl of Lincoln, one would have thought, could have
taught him, he might have been in position, character,
and usefulness asthosensblemen and gentlemen have been
and are.