The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF 711 E PUBLIC JOURSAIS.

The Times has always thought it a er of regret that
should be made to unsettle the law respecting
marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and is still of the
same opinion, though it was inevitable the prokosal should
be renewed in a reformed Parliament. We cannot but
think that those who promote all this uncertainty on so
grave a subject incur a heavy responsibility. Like all
questions which touch the foundations of social life, this
is one which it is very hard to argue. Once refuse to recog-
nise the existing law, and there is no common ground to go
upon. Every man approaches it from his own point of
view, and would reconstruct society upon his own theory.
We cannot, however, but observe one point in which
nearly all the speakers displayed a concurrence of feeling
the more remarkable because it was frequently unconscious
and unwilling. It is felt on all sides that the House of
Commons is not the place to argue the theological bearing
of the question, while at the same time everyone betrays
an uneasy feeling that a great difficulty is involved in it.
Such feeling exist, and exist in the most powerful religious j
communities of-the country, and it is necessary to take
them into account. 'We do not live under that law of nature
to which several speakers appealed, and there is nothing
unreasonable in asking a small number of persons to
forego the rights they would enjoy in such a state in order j
to avoid, as far as possible, bringing the law of the land
into direct conflict with the law of great religious com-
munities. It .hould also be remembered that to repeal an
existing prohibition is an act of considerable significance.
Mr. Bright said that the bill did not encourage such
marriages, but only permitted them. But to pass the bill
is to encourage them. It is to give distinct information
to the whole community that in the opinion of the Legis-
lature
such marriages are not undesirable. Whatever
the ultimate result, the immediate effect would be a
general and painful disturbance of existing relations. We
cannot see that any case has been made out to justify a
change of such doubtful policy. In England we see no
hardship in requiring men to find second wives elsewhere
than in their first wife's family, and we anticipate great
inconvenience from removing the restriction.

The Standard thinks the course of the discussion in
committee upon the Irish Church Bill affords a striking
proof of the temper of the majority and of the spirit of
Liberal statesmanship. Such peremptory haste on the
part of the Minister, such insolent impatience of debate
on the part of his followers, have not for generations dis-
credited constitutional government, and likened the Par-
liament of England to the Congress of America. Mode-
ration cannot be expected from one party alone. If Mr.
Gladstone chooses to press on his bill by every means
which the command of a servile majority affords, he must
be prepared to find the minority resolved to use
their power of resistance and obstruction. If he will
concede nothing to justice or to reason, he must be
prepared to find force encountered with force. It is only
by compromise that he can carry a measure which offends
the moral sense of one-half „he nation, and of one branch
of the Legislature ; and if he insists on carrying out his
own will on every point, he can only expect that his
adversaries, when their turn of power comes—and come it
must--- will enforce every one of the amendments he has
rejected, and leave him to choose between the humiliation
of an unwilling submission and the inconvenience and
peril of a renewed appeal to the country. Never before
has an English Minister pushed matters to such an
extremity; and perhaps no living man, except Mr. Glad-
stone, would be foolish and reckless enough so to push
them now.

The Telegraph says that although Mr. Disraeli has
styled the Irish Church Bill of the present Government a
" vast and violent change," it seems not nearly big enough
to suit the digestion of certain people. Lord Cairns and
Lord Salisbury in the Upper Chamber, with the dubious
companionship of Lord Westbury and Lord Clanricarde,
want Mr. Gladstone to give them forthwith an Irish
Land Tenure Dill as well. Meanwhile, Lord Clanri-
carde has before the House of Lords a little scheme of
his own invention, which is good so far as it
goes, though it goes but a very short way. On Tues-
day night the noble Marquis presented this legislative
bantling for a second reading ; but he used it rather too
much like the Russian mother, who threw the smallest of
her babies out to the wolves, in the hope so to save the
sledge and with it the rest of the family. Lord Clanricarde
did not affect to care half so much about getting his own
bill made law, as he did about finding out by means of it
what the Ministry proposes to do in regard to the land
question. Lord Granville, with the gentlest possible
rebuke of such impertinence, gracefully declined to be
thus made to " stand and deliver." To such free-and-
easy interpellations the Government will necessarily turn
an unheeding ear. So far as they are merely inquisi-
tive they are impertinent and obtrusive. So far
as they express a genuine apprehension, that the state of
Ireland may be affected by uncertainty in regard to the
Government policy, a sufficient answer exists in the
reports of Parliament. Mr. Forteseue's measure of IS6G
will stand as evidence at once of the aim and spirit which
will animate any measure to be proposed by the present
Government. But the very effort will demand time and
deliberation, with a survey of existing conditions; and to
touch any task so vast, so complicated, and demanding so
exact a treatment, while both the Government and the
Legislature are actually engaged in the momentous work
of reorganising the Anglican Church in Ireland, would be
to frustrate the labour of the present session, and defeat
the hope of the next.