The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times knows not by whom a second edition of the
Quarterly has been called for, but cannot think it was by
those for whom the article on the Past and Future of Con-
servative Policy is written. They who propose to follow
the writer to the shrine of his regrets should deck them-
selves not only in the symbols of mourning, but also in the
quaint emblems worn by hermits and other recluses, by
pilgrims and such as had abandoned all the hopes that seek
their fulfilment in this vale of tears. What he writes is
simply a very geed and very eloquent theme on the incon-
veniences, the evils, the failures, and the disgraces of bidding
for power and support ; a practice universal, immemorial,
and unavoidable, if a man happens to wantpower and
support. At the death of Lord Palmerston the political
current had been pent up for some years by a truce
convenient to all parties. There was a good deal to
be done, and there were plenty of men to do it. Why are
the Conservatives not to bid, if only to have the most
temporary command of the position, to give their fol-
lowers some official education, and, to reap such harvest of
patronage as fortune might fling to them ? The writer of
the article makes no mention of the immense legal patron-
age secured by a sudden gleam of sunshine. Is it not
something to shew the other side that Conservatives can
attain that power, can even form a tolerable Ministry, and
are even possible administrators ? Above all, is there any
reason to be sure that, had the Conservatives steed wholly
aside, the Whigs would have dealt more wisely and more
tenderly with Parliamentary Reform and the Irish Church
,than the Conservatives did with the former, and
themselves with the latter under circumstances created by
Conservative strategy? The writer is simply blind to the
fact that, whether in or out of Parliament, there are
.many who will not listen to such advice for a moment, and
who see no reason in either public policy or private
Interests why they should not fight for power, for their
opinions, and for the origination of future politics, just as
much as Mr. Gladstone or any other statesman. The par-
liamentary and public arena is open to them, as it has
been to their ancestors. They will not pay much heed to
the tender dissuasives of the Quarterly Review. They have
no objection whatever to the institutions of rank and pro-
perty, but they want their share of them.

The _Daily News observes that the fact that all over Ire-
land the tenants, as a rule, make the permanent improve-
ments, which in England are executed by the landlord,
shews that security of tenure is the unwritten, though
frequently violated, law of the country. The practice
could never have originated unless the understanding had
prevailed, and it proves clearly that the original relations
of landlord and tenant were, in a certain degree, those of
joint ownership. It is idle, if this be so, to talk of
the price paid for the good-will of the land as
black-mail levied upon the incomer. He purchases a
valuable right, which as a mere tenant-at-will he would
not have—the alternative of secure occupancy, or
of• compensation in case of retirement or disturbance.
In other words, he buys the conditions which alone can
make him an energetic and prosperous farmer. It is
absurd to contend that the alleged rarity of evictions
proves that the tenant has no cause to feel alarm.
Assassinations are even rarer than evictions ; for
almost every attempt at assassination implies a previous
eviction, while every eviction does not entail an attempt
at assassination. This reasoning has, however, very
little effect upon landlords ; and a weaker argu-
meat from probabilities is even less likely to
encourage tenants. There is as little force, either,
in the argument that the incoming occupier
sacrifices in the purchase of the good-will of the farm
the capital which he needs for its cultivation. It would
be just as reasonable to say that the man who buys a house
sacrifices the money which he spends in furnishing it. In
Ireland, where the farms are small, security for the results
of labour will soon create capital. One fact is patent, and
that is, that Irish agriculture prospers in those districts,
in Ulster and out of it, where good landlords act upon the
understanding of, which tenant right is the expression.
The remedy which is needed against bad landlords, or the
chances of bad landlords, is to give to this understanding
the form of law.

The Standard thinks that the disaffected party in Ireland
have reached, somewhat earlier than we could fairly have
expected, the stage at which all Irish agitations seem
destined to arrive, if they only last long enough, and at
which they are pretty sure to break down—we mean the
stage of intestine. quarrel, not less fierce than the feud
which both sections wage with government and social
order, law, and property. Smith O'Brien and his
physical-force friends thus destroyed whatever chance
O'Connell's Repeal agitation might have had of be-
coming seriously dangerous, by diverting the strength
of the more
,timid, if not more rational, advocates of
moral coercion from an attack on the Government
to struggle with their fellow malcontents. A similar catas-
trophe now appears to threaten the tenant-right agitators.
isto doubt the Fenians are wise in their generation, as
well as consistent with themselves. It would not suit
them that the attention of the Irish peasant should be
diverted from the grand hope of an Irish Republic, and
the glorious, if somewhat remote,-prospect of a general and
avowed confiscation, to the selfish and practical purpose of
appropriating, through the agency of a Liberal Land Bill, a
portion of his landlord's estate. The only incident
in the quarrel which is not altogether satisfac-
tory is the tame submission of Mr. Synan and the pro-
moters of the Limerick meeting : a submission not exactly
in accordance with the usual temper of Irishmen
or of moral-force sedition-mongers. On another opportunity
they will, no doubt, be ready for the assailants. If so, we
can only hope that the police will not depart from that
principle of non-interference which has been so straitly
enjoined upon them by the present Government ; that
they will display the same respect for liberty of thought
and action that they have shewn in the case of Hyde Park
meetings and Dublin processions ; and that the Irish will
not be furnished with another, and that a most offensive,
sentimental grievance, by the wanton interference of the
minions of Saxon tyranny with the national ceremony of a
free fight.

The Post calls attention to the fact that the working
men of Birmingham have discovered a way of spending their
Saturday evenings upon which they and their families are
to be congratulated. Instead of resorting to the public-
house to discuss strong drinks and dissipate their earnings,
they are devoting themselves to the discussion of the
policy of Free Trade, as to which, it appears, they hold
conflicting opinions. In all the discussions which have
been held upon this question foreigners seem to have been
regarded as our only customers. It has been quite over-
looked that we sometimes buy from ourselves, and
that one cause of the distress complained of may
be that we are not such good customers to ourselves as we
used to be. This is easily explained by the fact that we
are not so well off as we were. Our poverty, however, has
been exhibited more in the• deterioration of our wearing
apparel than in our abstinence from intoxicating liquors.
One of the working men who spoke at la3t Saturday's
meeting pointed out that, while on an average every
man, woman, and child in the country spend 4s. 7d. per
head on cotton goods, they spend £3 Bs. 7d. on drink.
This alone goes a good way towards explaining the exist-
ing distress ; but he suggested another reason for it, and
candidly told his fellow-working men that it was in
a great measure their own doing. He warned them
that every strike for wages sot foreigners at work with
greater diligence and perseverance; that Lord Stanleysaid
the other day that working men shared the vice of living
beyond their means with every class in the community.
That is true. But in no class is it developed in so ruinous
a way as amongst working men. Others spend it in costly
surroundings, and in sumptuous entertainments. The
working man spends it almost universally on drink ; and
then, when distress comes, he has nothing to fall back
upon but to abuse the Constitution or Fre Trade., or what
not, and to lay the blame of his miseries on any one but
himself, to whom they are principally due.

The Herald observes that the concourse of Prince 3 and
crowned heads at Conatantinople, on the very eve of that
great event for the East, the opening of the Suez Canal,
which promises to all Europe an easier approach to farther
Asia, Ia of great political significance, as showing that
fourteen years after that Crimean war, in which the very
existence of the Turkish power was at stake, the Padishah,
the ruler of Mohammedans, is universally respected and
recognised as a power in the world. Tha Empress of the
French was the first to partake of his hcspitality, to sit at
his table, to talk with his Sultanas in the harem, to mixwith
the pleasure-seeking crowd in the Vale of Sweet Waters.
The Prince of Prussia is there now; the Duke of Aosta,
son of the King of Italy, is flitting with his following of
steamers through the Golden Horn ; and the Emperor of
Austria, too, is coining in person. This meeting at the
Court of the Grand Turk of the illustrious antagonists of
18G6 is in itself a circumstance of more than ordinary
interest. The prc.,rniscd meeting of sovereigns and princes
on the Isthmus cf Sucz has a significance quite apart from
all consideratiens of this canal as a commercial enterprise.
It is a general approximation, a universal shaking of
ham's, a pledge of amity givep. and received by all the
nations of the earth. It is a sort of congress
superior in its way to former congresses, at Vienna and
Paris, which gave their law to Europe. We are glad to
hear it stated, on what we trust is good authority, that the
Emperor of Austria intends to use his personal influence in
prevailing upon the Sultan to 1 re-id.) in persol at the
inauguration of tho Suez Canal. When the Padishah
shakes hands with the Khedive in the presence of the
European Areopagua met in friendship on the Isthmus we
shall look forward to a long and happy period of peace in
,the East, and for the ever-growing riche esg a,nci prosperity
\LOth of Turkey. pi cgiggyrt.

The following letter, which adds a little to what is
already known of the great explorer, has been received at
the New York Herald bureau, in London :

"Zanzibar, Sept. 9.

"Dear Sir—Mr. Henry 31. Stanley addressed a letter,
dated London, March 8, 1869, to my cousin, who is United
States Consul at this place, asking him to send you any
news he might obtain regarding Dr. Divingstone ; but he
informs me that under the consular regulations he is not
allowed to correspond with anyone on matters of impor-
tance, except through the Department of State. Now,
therefore, I, instead of him, have the pleasure to inform
you that yesterday letters were received here by the
British Consul from Dr. Livingstone, dated August
8, 1868 ; and, though I have not seen them, I
learn from one who has that at the time of writing
the Doctor was in good health; that for a year
previous he had been exploring a section of country
to the south of the Tanganyaka Lake, which con-
tained many small lakes, which he claims to be
the true sources of the Nile ; that he had heard-that two
sets of supplies had reached Ujiji from Zanzibar for his
use, but that he had not yet been there for them ; that
.he would ask that a furthcr supply might be sent there
—and among the articles he wished were included
Nautical Almanacks for the years 1869 and 1870—which
looks as though he purposed remaining in the country yet
a long time. He gave no hint as to his intentions for the
future, or when he might be expected to come out; and
his letters, written en scraps of paper begged from the
Arabs who brought them to the coast, are said to be very
meagre in regard to news.—Trusting this may prove of
interest, I am, dear sir, &c., " JOHN F. WEBB."

THE .ABYSSINIA OF THE AMERICAN

CONTINENT.

The New York papers give an account of the researches
made by Professor Powell in his exploration of the mys-
terious regions of the Western Colorado. The district
through which the Colorado runs is compared to the lofty
plateau of Abyssinia, with its deep gorges and torrents.
But while the table lands of Abyssinia are comparatively
fruitful, the Colorado country is wild and sterile, and Pro-
fessor Powell has been unable to discover any valuable
mineral deposits. He found nothing but successive
layers of lime and sandstone, of various colours,
with occasional granite. He passed along the
course of the river for nine hundred miles,
and through all the distance its channel was
a narrow chasm cut down into the table land
some two or three thousand feet, the chasm, with precipi-
tous walls on both sides, deepening in the descent of
the torrent to its outlet in the lower plains of Arizona,
where it becomes navigable to the Gulf for small
steamers. All the tributaries of this strange river, and
their branches on both sides, have cut for themselves,
in the abrasions of thousands of years, similar
chasms to that of the main stream, so that the whole
country thus drained is cut up. into a labyrinth of
abysses, impassable, except in occasional slopes or depres-
sions, to the traveller or the trapper. The Colorado passes
through ten degrees of latitude in its passage from the
Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California. The scenery
is described as wild and wonderful. Hitherto the district
traversed by the Professor has been avoided by explorers
on account of its impracticability. The inhabited and
mining districts lie far to the east, but it is thought pro-
bable that hereafter the now desolate Colorado and its
tributary torrents may be turned to good acoount for
manufacturing purposes, though for many years they are
only likely to attract the adventurous tourist or the
scientific explorer.