The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT 'OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times, attnough entirely opposed to ale reaffirm of
Convocation in Ireland, thinks it most desirable that Irish
Churchmen should assemble and express their views on
the situation of the Irish Church. Let the Irish bishops
take counsel together, in the first place, with such lay
assistance as may be immediately available, and consult
as to the constitution of the committee they would con-
voke to represent the opinions of all members of the
Church ; and when in this committee let them consider
what arrangement they will accept from the Government.
If, for instance, they should really devise a committee fairly
and impartially representative, and capable of efficient
action, they would secure the sanction of Parliament to
the adoption of such a committee as the Administrative
Council of the Disendowed and Disestablished Church. If,
again, accepting as a necessity the abolition of the Esta-
blishment, they drew up a scheme for the conversion of
reserved life interests into the nucleus of a permanent
endowment, if they constructed an organisation
for the receipt and application of such funds as might
hereafter accrue from the voluntary gifts of the
members and friends of the Disendowed Church,
such a scheme and such an organisation would
receive the attentive consideration, and in all probability
the willing approval, of the Ministry. It would be a
minor but a most useful feature of such a representative
committee as we have imagined to bring together evidence
of all cases where Churchmen like the late Sir Benjamin
Guinness have contributed from their private wealth to
the re•edification of churches or the better endowment
of clergymen. It is, in fact, plain that if the Irish
Churchmen are disposed to meet the Ministry frankly, the
Ministry will be glad to meet them. They must not, of
couree;answer with a Non passuntus. They must accept a
inevitable the abolition of the Establishment, and make the
best of that necessity. Will they do so? To speak honestly,
we have no confidence that they will. If they will not,
it must follow that the action of the Government will be
simpler, if more rough and more severe than if they assisted
to guide. No Administration can pursue the task of dis-
establishment and disendowment into the endless ramifi-
cations which might each be cared for by a consultive com-
mittee of Irish Churchmen. The Churchmen of Ireland
have at this moment an excellent opportunity ; let them
seize it, and put to shame our prognostications by aban-
doning all hope from such a broken reed as Convocation,
and by constructing in an impartial and courageous manner
a new temporal organisation for the communion of which
they are members.
The Pest refers to the appointment of Colonel Henderson
as the Chief Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis,
and declares that the Home Secretary decided the point
regarding the selection of Sir Richard Mayne's successor
by selecting, a soldier, and yet not simply a soldier.
Colonel Henderson belongs to the Royal Engineers ; his
-services, however, have mainly been of a civil character,
like those of many of his brother officers ; and they have
-been of a nature eminently suited t 3 qualify him for the
-trying post for which he has been chosen from among so
-many. Nearly twenty years ago Colonel Henderson sailed
for Western Australia with a ship-load of convicts and a
company of Sappers, to make the arrangements for their
establishment there. At the end of several years, spent
in successfully carrying out this scheme, he was appointed
to a civil office under the Australian Government, which
he held for a considerable time. Soon after his arrival
at home, on giving up his colonial appointment, Colonel
Henderson was selected to fill the office of Surveyor.
General of islilitary and Convict Prisons, and he has
held this important post up to the present
time. Thus it will be seen that Colonel Henderson
has lad just the right kind of experience to justify the
selection of the Home Secretary. A scientific soldier, and
still not moulded into stiffness by many years of unmiti-
gated pipeclay ; a practised administrator under novel
and trying circumstances ; an officer thoroughly
acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of criminal character,
and one who has thoroughly merited the several important
offices he bee filled, the new Chief Commissioner of Police
appears to be the right man in the right place.
The horning Star says the Ultra Ritual Lits have done
their best to elect their five candidates for membership
on the standing committee of the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, and have signally failed, and that it
is impossible to regard the issue of the contest as other
than an additional rebuke offered by public opinion to the
extreme Ritualist party. The truth is that Englishmen
do not and cannot live in the mediaeval world into
which the new school of ecclesiastics would lead
them. The dogmas to which they are wedded
may once have flourished on English soil ; but
we are not a people who are likely to return to these
ancient ways simply because they have been trodden by
our forefathers several centuries ago, or because they were
devised orliad the sanction of certain persons who began
to flourish two or three centuries after Christianity was
launched by its Divine Founder, and who had no warrant
whatever for the additions they made to the teachings of
tho New Testament. This, be it remembered, is no guess
tion of the external beauty of public worship. People may
admire an ornate ritual or the cultivation of an sthetio
taste in the outward and visible forms of divine

worship, without feeling the slightest sympathy with the
Ritualists who teach the dogma of the Real Presence, ia-
vest colour and light with a degree of sanctity, and pro•
ceed much further in adoring the Virgin Mary and the
Saints than is generally supposed. Indeed, if the Ritualista
had their way, the Church of En;latol would become a
mere travesty of both the Roman Catholic and the Greek
Churches—a mongrel institution which neither Church
would recognise, and which would yet have as little
affinity as either with the Protestantism of the country.
The Telegraph refers to its announcement of the refusal
of Government to sanction a revival of Convocation in
Ireland, and considers that the best justification of the
refusal is the language of the rejected application just pub,
lished. There is a large and daily-increasing party among
the clergy and laity in favour of negotiation with the
Government, but, on the other hand, the bishops who signed
the petition are at present vehemently opposed to every-
thing like concession or accommodation. It is certainly
not the policy of the present Government to discourage
overtures of capitulation or fire on a flag of
truce. On the contrary, Ministers most earnestly desire
to carry out the great reform in a conciliatory spirit,
and to confer with every or any fairly-constituted institu-
tion which represents the parties interested. There are
many reasons why such communications should be invited
and hailed with the utmost pleasure. In the first place,
the questions of proprietary right which the Legislature
has to consider are extremely intricate, and it is especially
desirable that the various claims should be well inves-
tigated, and, if possible, settled by amicable arrange-
ment. By a rough computation, the annual eccle-
siastical income of the Irish Establishment is six
hundred thousand pounds, of which about one-third
is derived from land, and the residue, for the
most part, comes from the tithe rentcharge. With all
this property Parliament must deal in the ensuing session ;
and, in order to estimate the justice or expediency of any
plan for appropriation, we ought to have a clear concep-
tion of the existing titles and tenures. For the purposes of
hustings declamation, of harangues addressed to Orange
lodges, it is sufficient to say that the property has been
solemnly and irrevocably given to the Church ; and it
follows, as a sufficiently logical consequence, that Mr.
Gladstone and his colleagues are spoliators and robbers.
The Daily .News asks whether railway shareholders have
any fair right to throw on the public the burden of their
own mistakes and extravagance by compelling them to pay
double and treble the price on the lines they do want
which they would have paid if the company had not
wasted their money on lines which are not wanted. Share-
holders assume as a matter of course that they have such a
right, and they will not stop to consider the other side of
the case. When one of their number, saner than the rest,
attempts, as on Tuesday at the meeting of the Brighton
shareholders, to remind them of the public expectations,
and of the experience gathered elsewhere as to what is
really remunerative, they put him down for trying to
" depreciate their property." This is all very foolish, be-
cause the case of the public sooner or later, and sooner
rather than later, must be fully beard. Shareholders
would do well to pause before they push their rights, or
fancied rights, to an extreme. We dispute, then, alto-
gether, the absolute right of railway companies to a five
per cent. or even a one per cent. dividend on the
enormous capitals which they have heaped up. What
they are strictly entitled to is a fair return on the
capital actually expended in constructing and
working lines, the various branches of their amal-
gamated undertakings being in this account kept
separate. They have no sort of moral or equitable claim
to make the stream of traffic on the main line, or the
suburban lines near London, bear the interest on capital
for totally disconnected agricultural lines which they
have chosen to take upon themselves. The two things
are entirely distinct, and although they insist on kee •
ing them together, the public will not agree with them when ,
the penalty is too severe. That this is now the case we
need not insist. One can only wonder at the in-
fatuation of Mr. Laing in talking b 0 glibly as he does
of the expediency and justice of raising fares and rates in
order that above all things a certain ideal return may be
obtained. lie did not care, he said, according to onre-
port, "whether the fares per passenger were id. a mile or
:id. a mile," provided the gross receipts were so and so.
But this is exactly what the public do care about, and in
their present mood it was not wise to indicate so roughly
and epigrammatically the disposition of railway dim-
tore to neglect them.

712 Derby Mercury ritates that there will be no
petition against tho roturie of Colo4ll Wilmot t9' §otttli
Dreg

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

hf

-We in England are bothering the brains of the
Home Secretary bycalling emphatically for a stronger
police. In'Jersey, however, which seems to be quite
a modem Arcadia, there is an attempt being made to
put down the police altogether. The force at present
at St. Helier's (population 30,000) consists of ten
constables, without a superintendent. That office is
filled by honorary constables on alternate days. A
bill is now before the States of Jersey for the
abolition of this force, and the revival of the watch-
men of " Old Charles." It has been referred to a
select committee—a proof that the opponents of the
bill were not strong enough to negative the measure.
Jersey offers a good field for an enterprising gentle-
man engaged in " professional" pursuits.