The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-14 00:00:00

tirIBITkOF TU PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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The Times thinks it may occur to tome persons that
there is another set of persons interested in Dr. Cumming's
proposal, who have as yet received but scanty considera-
tion. Dr. Cumming proposes to appear before the
(Ecumenical Council as the representative of Protest-
autism. Supposing the Council to be willing to hear him,
may not Protestantism have something to say on the
subject ? It is not altogether customary for representa-
tives to elect themselves. If Dr. Cumming were as
Infallible as the Pope, we should, of course, be
extremely grateful to him for proposing to appear at
the Council in defence of our cause. But since he is
at least as fallible as the Archbishop of Canterbury,
we would suggest to him whether it be not rather
too great a responsibility to represent the whole Pro-
testant world at the bar of a Roman Catholic Council.
In a word, it is no disrespect to Dr. Cumming if we say
frankly that neither he nor any other individual is com-
petent to represent the Protestant side in the great con-
troversy we have inherited from the sixteenth century.
To look only at our own times, there must be something
besides folly, falsehood, and superstition in the system
which attracts or retains the allegiance of such men as

Dr. Newman, Dr. Manning,, Lacordaire, Montalembert,
and Dr. Dollinger. In fact. the greatness of this

system affords not „the least significant measure
of the greatness of Protestantism. We greatly
fear that the division' between the two commu-
nions is too deep and essential to admit of reunion
under any circumstances that can at present be conceived.
But with this view of the gravekantagonism between the
two systems, we cannot but desireNthat if Protestantism
is to be represented at all before?. the representative
Assembly of the Roman Catholic world, it should appear
in some completeness, and with the credentials which are
equally due to the dignity of its opponent and to its own
character. When Dr. Cumming offers, on his own
responsibility, to " yet more firmly occupy, before the
Council, the position asserted by the Reformers of the
sixteenth century," he displays a questionable respect
for that Assembly, and, perhaps, an equally doubtful
regard for the great bodies he would be supposed to
represent.

The prolonged and exhausting struggle which has been
going on in the North between the masters and men of
the Yorkshire colleries gives, says the Standard, an interest
to any event which seems to promise some improvement
in the character of their relations. For this reason the
settlement of the " Denaby Main " lock-out is an occur-
rence on which a very large and important class may fairly

be congratulated. The news is satisfactory, not only for
its own sake, not only because the readmission of the men
who have been so long idle may restore some sort of
comfort to an immense number of humble homes, which
have been supported on meagre union subsidies
for the last six months, but also because a good
example has been set by the Denaby Main Company.
The arrangement has been effected at a meeting of repre-
sentatives from both sides, and the pits have been re-

opened to the excluded colliers on terms which ought to
have a favourable effect on others now on strike. The
masters have given way, but the men have not achieved a
victory. The lock-out has proved a gigantic sacrifice of
money, and nothing more. Of course we have no means
of estimating its coat to the employers, but it is quite cer-
tain that the work of a pit cannot be stopped, and only
resumed in time and by degrees, without a loss to the capi-
talist. Both sides have suffered heavily, and both must
equally feel that the final settlement is one which reasonable
men ought to have reached at the very outset It
would seem that the lesson is appreciated by the persons
concerned in the lock-out, for at the conclusion of the
conference just held the representatives of masters and
men united in declaring themselves favourable to the
establishment of a board of arbitration and conciliation.
It is reasonable to hope that the disputes still unsettled
may be adjusted in this way. It has been stated that the
men on strike are favourable to arbitration, but the
masters are obstinately bent on fighting. If this be the case,
the example of the Denaby Main Company ought to
shame the colliery owners into some concessions, while the
moral victory won by the company which has proved
itself strong enough to be merciful ought to teach mode-
ration to the men on strike.

The Post reckons the waste of money occasioned by the
crisis of 1866 at fifty millions sterling, leaving altogether
out of consideration the army of managers, secretaries,
clerks, &c. (with their families) whom it threw out of em-
ployment. Every disaster will one day wear itself out,
and it may be that we are approaching the time when we
can sum up the mischief of the last crisis, and strike the
balance between what has been lost and the very little
that has been saved. But this is not so important a result
as at first sight it may appear. We have done with
IRgas or nearly so, and we are looking forward
to the future for relief against the evils that have
oppressed us during the last three or four years, and which
encumber us still. But have we taken the means requisite
to ensure such a result ? We have not. Extraordinary
as it may appear, we have done nothing whatever to make
it improbable that the experiences of 1866 will not br
renewed in 1876. Possibly we have been so much en-
grossed by the windings-up of the last three years that we
have not had time to give a thought to the future. But
it is certain that all the conditions of law which permitted
that silent preparation for bankruptcy of which the world
knew nothing till the hour when the long-accumulating
misery burst upon it, are in full vigour still. In order
to realise a few years hence a repetition of the ruin
which has proved destructive to upwards of ten thousand
families, all that is needed is a fresh crop of innocents.
Fortunately those who have hoarded money seem to be
alive to this fact; but when we consider how many mil-
lions are at this day inactive, which under happier circum-
stances would be utilising labour and circulating the
life-blood of industry, it is sad to think that they are
spell-bound through the fact that the Legislature has
done nothing whatever to assure investors that it has
learnt anything from the lessons that have so deeply
affected them.
The Daily News declares that Free Trade has yet one
victory more to win, and the forces of Liberalism are
gathering to the assault, It is a very significant circum-
stance that a Protectionist movement is attempted just at
a time when a Society for Land Tenure Reform has
sprung into vigorous and powerful existence. The two
movements are strictly correlative to each other—the one
is the assault, the other is the defence; the one is the
advance of the assailing army, the other is the flank
movement of the enemy to cut it from its base. Of
course we shall hear no more of Land Tenure Reform if
an agitation can be got up for Customs reaction.
The country will soon forget long entails if it can be got
to set its affections on long tariffs. A movement to re-
store a host of old monoplies would be an effectual check-
mate to the movement to abolish the monopoly which
still remains. No wonder, then, that a vigorous effort
should be made to revive the old controversy, and push
the battle of progress back upon ground it has already
won, But the effort is fore-ordained to failure by
the very conditions under which it is attempted. When
a. Free Trade agitation is gaining ground in
America, and the burden of Protection is becoming
too heavy for that young and vigorous Commonwealth
to bear much longer ; when France is seeing the
advantages Free Trade offers, and even the Spanish
people have incorporated it among the maxims their
revolution has established, it is too late to ask the people
who have been first in its adoption and have most profited
by it to reconsider their decision and retrace their steps.
Nulls vestigia retrorsum," has always been the motto
of our laborious English progress. It will be all the more
its motto in this matter of Free Trade, because the Con-
servative party have given us the incalculable advantage
of demonstrating that we must either go forward or go
backward, must either complete Free Trade or re-enact
Monopoly ; must choose between Free Trade in land or
Free Trade in nothing.

A south-west wind, says the Telegraph, has been raging
ever since Saturday night, and it is that wind which
always proves the most destructive to ships and sailors in
this part of the world. When it blows with savage gusts
and driving clouds of rain, rattling the casements and tor-
turing the trees, all landsmen know what sort of news
will fill the papers for days to come. Nor is the first in-
telligence after such a tempestuous time ever the worst ;
the mournful tidings come " single spies" for twelve
hours, and then they arrive "in battalions." With
a painful misgiving, therefore, that cases of harder
loss and suffering await our ears than any yet
notified, we observe that these equinoctial winds
have had their annual victims already in various
spots along the coast. A West Indian trader had been
driven upn the Shivering Sand ; two yachts, one the
well-known Volante, have been cast away ; three vessels
have struck in Padstow-bar ; two at Bideford, with the
loss of four lives ; while nothing but the lucky presence of
a strong steam tug has saved the crew of the Italian ship
Serena, which had drifted upon the Tongue Saud. Truro
reports rumours of losses all along the Cornwall coast ;
and from Portland Bay a tragical episode of the tempest
is announced. The counsel suggested by the leading
points of the " Wrecks Blue-book" is plain enough.
Collier hands ought not to be shipped without
ample warning in craft so old and rotten that
nothing but the rust of their bolts holds them
together. The age of a vessel and her condi-
tion should be known and notified before the
lives of men are thus imperilled. It is time, too, that a
better model of fishing-boat were popularised around our
coasts. Furthermore, let not the benevolence of this sea-
girt country be content till every seven miles of its coast
possesses a lifeboat. When all is done that skill and care
can accomplish at sea, or forethought, precaution, and
benevolence on shore, there will, of course, still be an
annual tribute of life and shipping paid to " the stern God
of the Sea," but at least let that tribute be kept down to
as low a level as possible ; for such a tempest us the pre-
sent proclaims that men are drowned and ships cast &woo,
less by the fault of Nature thau by our QWII.