The Sun.
London, England, 1869-10-30 00:00:00

Mita OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Although, says the Sato; lay Review, it would have been
Unreasonable to wish for the prolongation of a painful and
hopeless illness, few Englishmen have heard of Lord
Derby's death without a feeling of regret. The influence
which he so long exercised over his social equals in the
House of Lords proved that he possessed in an unusual
degree the power of commanding personal attachment and
respect. A much larger section of the community was
proud of the brilliant qualities which adorned a great posi-
tion. By a singular felicity the chief of one of the most
powerful families in England was born an orator, trained
into an accomplished scholar, and raised by circumstances
to the rank of a party leader and Prime Minister. His
death, soon after his voluntary retirement from political
life, cannot be regarded as unseasonable. The political
period which his faculties were calculated to adorn termi-
nated, not without his own co-operation, simultaneously
with his active career. His probable successor in the lead of
his party is also the head of an ancient and powerful house,
and with greater industry, and perhaps with more originality
of thought, he possesses much of Lord Derby's vigour and
pugnacity; but the character and tactics of the party itself
must be remodelled if it is hereafter to share in the govern-
ment of the country. Lord Derby will perhaps be remem-
bered as the last representative of a ruling aristocracy, if
not of a school of statesmen.

The Spectator observes that after a political career of
forty-five years, during which he has been three times
Prime Minister, the Earl of Derby has at last vanished
from the scene. He has not been a great statesman. He
has hardly matured a single historical measure; for any
credit which the Household Suffrage Reform Act may
have reflected upon his Government belonged rather to
Mr. Disraeli than to himself. But there has scarcely ever
been a party leader whose name had so great a spell in it
for the imaginations of his supporters, or whose pungent
scarcasm in debate was so keen a terror to his opponents
as the Earl of Derby. In the Upper House especially his
speeches have broken the torpor of the heavy atmosphere,
and lent a sonorous animation to discussions that would
otherwise have been too often languid and sluggish.
Wherever Lord Derby moved in politics, the air
became eager at his presence, and that alone has
been no small benefit to the dignified dullness of
the Peers. If he was wrong, as he was apt to be, he was
wrong with an imperious confidence of manner which pro-
voked even titled tranquillity into dissent and disputation.
Yet, whether he were in opposition or in power, his first
thought was for the splendour and prosperity of the Em-
pire, and no man could ever honestly charge him with
making the embarrassments of his country the occasion
for personal or party aggrandisement. We have lost in
him a brilliant and even splendid Conservative general of
division, though only a third-rate commander-in-chief.
But whatever political qualities he missed, he had at least
the undeniable gift of even making blunders with " dis-
tinction ;" and in a political atmosphere so liable to become
thick and turbid and full of vulgar dust as ours, it is some-
thing of no little moment for leaders to lead, as Lord
Derby did everything, in " the grand stylf."
The John Bull says that Lord Derby has passed away
from amongst us amidst a larger amount of general re-
gret than has been exhibited in the case of any statesman
ante the death of Sir Robert Peel, and with a far larger
amount of personal regret than was shewn even in that
instance. The position which he held in the political
world secured to him the notice of his countrymen ; but his
awn strongly marked characteristics enlisted their sym-
pathy and their admiration. Both the Chamber of Com-
merce in Liverpool and the Common Council of
the City of London have honoured themselves
by their spontaneous testimony to his single-
mindedness and patriotism. It is much in
these days of change, and of a lessening standard of
public morality, to have the example of a man of lofty
station, of vast political influence, of large property, who
has lived a life unchequered with one act of meanness, and
has died without one taint or suspicion of dishonesty. It
is a life of which we all have reason to be proud. It is
well to remember that living, as Lord Derby did, in the
Byes of the world from the moment when he passed out
)f the walls of Christ Church, until his dust has mingled
with his ancestral dust at Knowsley, his life should have
been thus blameless, and that he should have passed away,
like the Knight of yore, sans peur et sans reproche. It is
much that his countrymen should feel and acknowledge
that in every pursuit in which he entered, whether of the
more serious or of the lighter kind, he infused into it a
purifying and elevating influence.

The Economist believes that Lord Derby was a fitting
Conservative leader, and on the whole, though a rash and
2nsuccessful one, he was not incompetent. He kept the
Upper House very firmly together ; he fought hopeless
battles like Protection very resolutely; he preserved the
Irish Church for twenty years after it ought to have
perished ; he organised a " country party ;" and he always
:voided ruinous collisions with the majority of the people.
He had, too, one statesmanlike quality, very often indeed
wanting to men who are conscious that their attitude is
)ne of resistance—he could take a decision when it
involved immense responsibility. He quitted a Cabinet to
save the Irish Church; he risked a quarrel with the
Crown to prevent the creation of life peers; he accepted
Household suffrage, awl he adhered to it when some of his
shiest lieutenants shrank; and in the Trent affair he made
up his mind to a great war so decisively that he is credibly
ieclared to have conveyed an assurance of support to Lord
Palmerston. In nine cases out of ten he was wrong in his
political forecast, his political wishes, and his political
action ; but he was never—except, perhaps, once—more
wrong than his followers, and as he was more eloquent,
more decisive, and more influential with his order than
they, we cannot affect to wonder at his ascendancy in their
z.ouncils.

The Spectator considers that Dr. Temple has proved
anew his special capacity for the duties which Mr. Glad-
stone has devolved upon him by sheaving a noble jealousy
for the liberty of the clergy of our Church, which they,
apparently, do not feel in any emphatic way for them-
selves. Unless a fair proportion of the rulers of our
Church are at least as jealous for the liberty of thought of
the clergy as are Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Temple, it must
very soon cease to be a living Protestant Church at all.
We want men, and not religious diplomatists, for our
bishops, if we are to gain over the alienated working-class
to the Church—men who will not fear being heterodox
half as much as they will fear not speaking boldly what
is in their hearts. It is because Dr. Temple has
shown that he is not to be either intimidated
1r persuaded into ceding a single liberty that legally
belongs to the Anglican clergy, that we can even rejoice
Dver the preliminary disquietudes which have attended
his nomination. It is of infinitely more importance that
an English Bishop should defend his right to publish his
aonvictions precisely as freely as any English layman, than
that he should be cleared from possible complicity in this
Dr that heresy. We may find the very essence of Chris-
tian faith in conjunction with this or that heresy. But
we cannot have the spiritual liberty without which all
Protestant faith is a phantom and a sham, unless men in
authority, openly shew their contempt for the petty
shackles which Puseyites and Evangelicals are so anxious
to.combine in forging for the consciences of our modern
llibrgymen.

The Saturday Review thinks the United Kingdom
Alliance have some cause for boasting, and, to do them jus-
tice, thershew no disposition to let the opportunity slip.
When tb ey number • amongst their defenders men of Dr.
Templo,'s stamp, they may fairly boast that their principles,
if not, generally accepted, are at least considered worthy of
dis%nassion by cultivated and intelligent men. The fact is
the less surprising when we consider it in connection with
a more general change of sentiment. We hear on every
side, as some of the speakers remarked, cries for compul-
sory .Yearning, compulsory leisure; and compulsory
cleanliness ; why should we not also have a
movement for compulsory temperance? A great
and acknowledged. evil, such as the prevalence of
excessive-drinking, is 'pointed out, and it is at once assumed
that it, would be eradicated by the simple process of passing
a law• fthat people shall not drink. The true principle is
of course very different. It is simply that the effect of
any given. law is often a very complicated problem, and
may turn out to be precisely opposite to the intention of
the legislator. It is as absurd to suppose that laws can do
everything as that they can do nothing, and the result must,
in any given case, bo determined by experiment and care-
ful preliminary investigation. 'Thus, in regard to the ques-
tion of temperance, we have no difficulty whatever in
going some way with the agitators. It would be difficult
even for them to exaggerate the evil consequences of
excess in drink. If, by the waving of a wand, or
the passing of an Act of Parliament, we could convert all
thr, drunkards of England into sober men, we should con-
frr a benefit upon society equal to all the benefits that
have been conferred by the legislation of centuries. But
smuggling has-a very bad effect on any population where
it is customary ; and the effect of this system is to make
smuggling for immoral purposes common amongst a large
ration of the population. Even if we should admit, then,
that a restrictive system might do good in country vil-
lages, there are great dilliculties about applying it to
London or the la:-;;e towns in which the vice is most pre-
valer t and deadly. If the law were not put in force in
towns, there would always be lar,e reserves of drunkards,
InAkiug its application difficult in any place with which
'they communicate. If it were applied in such places as
Loudon spasmodically or regularly, the evils would be
twofold. There would be the demoralization which always
takes place when the law is sy,tematically evaded, its
it would of course be to an enormous extent. Further
there would still be the greater evils which would result
whole it could be really enforced. The moral, then, upon
which most sensible men are more or less agreed is prett.
obvious. It is not that all restrictive measures are useless,
but simply that they require caution and foresight. The
Alliance will do their duty best if they desist, as much as
a body of such a nature can desist, from vague declamation
against an admitted evil, and attempt to show within what
limits repression is possible, and what authority can be
'cost satisfactorily entrusted with the task.