The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Times, in examining the arguments advanced by the
Protestant declaration to which a thousand deputy
lieutentante, magistrates, and gentlemen of Ireland have
attached their names, pronounces it to be a singular pro•
duction. We need not go through this singular declare•
tion. Its propositions can be supported by no person of
authority in the united Parliament. It strives to cover

the weakness of the original title by which the Protestant
Establishment holds its endowments by acts of subse-
quent recognition, and its authors at last work
themselves up to the astounding assertion that ii
is not within the moral competence of Parliament
to overturn the institution they would defend. They
do not understand that the recognition of a bad title by
the man who sets it up and claims under it is worth
nothing—it must be recognised by the other side to gain
any force—and that the assertion that Parliament is not
morally competent to abolish the Irish Establishment is
simply begging the whole question. There remains
another fallacy, and it is the last we shall notice. The
Protestant laymen declare it is an error to suppose
that the Roman Catholic peasantry contribute, by pay-
ment of rent charge or otherwise, to the main•
tenance of the Establishment, because the rent
charge is mainly paid by Protestant landlords. We might
answer that Mr. Gladstone proposes to give back the tithe
rent charge to the landlords, but we prefer to rest on a
surer ground. The tithe rent charge is paid by no land-
lord. It is a national inheritance, reserved for public uses
from a date far older than the ancestry of any existing
Irish landlord—we believe we may add, as a strictly his-
torical fact, older than the recognition in Ireland of indi-
vidual property in land—and to talk now of the tithe rent
charge as paid by landlords is to repeat a fallacy so often
exploded that we can scarcely understand how it can be
once more advanced. Strong in the sense of the righteous-
ness of the cause, conSrmed by the weakness of the attacks
of its opponents, we bate no jot of our hope that the
Establishment of Ireland, too long the scandal of our
justice and of our political capacity, will, before the close
of this session, be overthrown.

The Morning Post observes that the commissioners
appointed to investigate the subject of trades unionism
have published their report, and we regret to say that it
displays a very serious conflict of opinion in respect to the
best mode of dealing with the matter submitted to them.
There is no doubt very great difficulty in concocting any
scheme which will at the same time afford to the opera.
tires the full enjoyment of their right to impose whatever
conditions they please on giving their services to employers,
and at the same time protect the latter from those
strikes which so frequently paralyse trade. It is
equally difficult to prevent voluntary associations of
men who consent to be bound by certain regulations
as to the conditions on which the members shall
accept employment without striking at the foundations of
that liberty of action which in a free State every indivi-
dual should possess. Now, looking to the recommenda-
tions of the majority of the commissioners, we very much
fear that there is a good deal to which the working classes
would object, and not altogether without a show of reason.
Some middle course must consequently be taken, and it
will be for Parliament to decide what that course should
be. The door of escape, if any there be, is, we believe, in
furnishing facilities for courts of conciliation and arbitra-
tion rather than by coercive legislation ; but we fully
agree with the report of the majority that these courts
should have the most ample powers, and that their deci-
sions should be conclusive, and strenuously enforced.
The Standard considers that one after another the
barriers which- separate the soldier from the rest of the
community are being broken down. And now the first
report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the
present system of punishment for military offences proposes
to remove still more of these marked points of difference
between the military and civil population. They submit
some of their suggestions relative to military punishments
at once, thinking they should be acted upon without loss
of time, especially as the abolition of flogging in the army
renders it all the more necessary to revise carefully the
remaining punishments. And they commence with laying
down a doctrine, which is unquestionably sound, that
no man who has undergone penal servitude should be
retained in her Majesty's service, and so that it should be
only had recourse to where the crime is so serious as to
involve dismissal from the army. Surely this is the dawn

of a new era, when dismissal from the army is to be the
highest punishment that can be awarded. The whole
report of the commissioners is based on sound reasoning,
and is suited to the nature of our army and the times ;
but certainly no portion of it will carry more weight and
meet more universal approval from officers and civilians
than their concluding recommendation that greater facility
should be given for the discharge of soldiers who, from
repeated convictions, afford grounds for believing that
they are beyond the power of reformation ; for that the
continuance of such men in the service tends to demoralise
the young soldier, and is otherwise seriously prejudicial.

The Herald declares that successive Liberal Adminis-
trations have strenuously opposed all attempts to protect
children in print works from the excessive and torturing
labour imposed upon them by their remorseless task-
masters. This scandal and disgrace of the system have
been denied with an audacity which it is not easy to
understand. And this, too, in presence of the admitted
truth that Factory Acts were passed in order to remedy
a state of things which in its cruelty was absolutely
infamous. But if the Legislature be sincere in the sym-
pathy it professes for these over-burdened younglings of
the community, it ought, and it might at once, without
waiting for any further reports this waiting for
reports is the Old Man of the Mountain in
Parliament—to enact that no distinction shall in
future be drawn between print works and ordinary fac-
tories. If there be a difference it is in favour of the latter.
It may be conceded that an occasional demand may cause
a sudden emergency in the print market ; but we legislate
for women and children engaged in other branches of
industry ; we do not permit seamstresses and milliners to
sew and stitch after a definite hour on Saturday afternoons;
we forbid the toiling and spinning of children in cotton
factories, excepting during a specified time of the day, and
let us hope the date is near when those horrid truths told
in the last report on agricultural gangs will no longer be
quoted to our shame by the press of Europe. It was
written centuries ago that civilisation meant mercy, and
notwithstanding some cold technicalities in the discussion
of Tuesday evening we cannot imagine a member of Par-
liament undertaking a more creditable effort than that of
mitigating the severity, the dreariness, the gloom, and
the monotony of children's labour.
The Star says that it would be difficult to analyse the
feelings which from year to year conspire to make the
University Boat Race a metropolitan if not a national
festival. The cynic may ask with a sneer whether the
over-mastering interest in this annual exhibition does not.
encourage habits at variance with the intellectual exertions
to which universities are devoted. He has undoubtedly
large scope for his sharp tongue, both in the practice
itself, and the motley crew who are drawn to give their
promiscuous presence. He has a right to remind us that
it is the mind which makes the man. We admit it all with
due humility, but we would appeal to him, whether the
united testimony of ancient literature and history is not
in favour of the beneficial result of the various innocent
games of the Greeks on even the mental development of
the race. Our old friends the Romans, again, with their
usual thoroughness, when they once fairly became ena-
moured of a pursuit, went to extremes in the matter of
wild beasts. As their voluptuousness and luxury increased,
they gave themselves more and more up to the stimulus to
Ise derived from the amphitheatre. Had they only
encouraged boat-races on the Tiber among the young
patricians, instead of combats of gladiators with tigers
and with one another, the fate of Rome might have been
different. While Spain clings to her bull-fight, England
may fairly take credit for refining her sports, and confining
teem to bloodless exhibitions of the trial of speed of horses
a:id the power of sinew of students. Whether the latter is
destined to endure in such companionship we cannot say,
but we bid the cynic draw his deductions from what he
saw of the bedizened crowd of Wednesday.
The Telegraph regards the Customs and Inland Revenue
officers with wholesome awe. No man who has any pre-
tensions to a place in the middle class escapes the all-
watchful glance of that great band of legalised freebooters,
commissioned by Government to levy blackmail of six-
pence in the pound on every income. "Here comes Mr.
Winter, surveyor of taxes ; I'd advise you to give him
whatever he axes ; for, permit me to tell you,
without any flummery, though his name may be
wintry, his actions are summary." So impro-
vised Theodore Hook, thinking, doubtless, with
mournful humour, of the champagne, the hunters,
the opera-boxes, and the costly late hours which, as he
told the income-tax collector, denoted, not his "income,"
but his "outgo." The surveyor of taxes is a tremendous
personage to tolerate in a free State. He is such a despot
that, had he been created by any consul like Cicero, the
Romans would have torn him limb from limb, and pitched
his remains into the Tiber. Indeed, when describing the
authority which the State had given to the officers of
Inland llevenue and Customs, Mr. Glalstone spoke almost
with bated breath. He hinted that if he were to tell the
House all he knew about those powers, the members
would be horror-struck at the terrible despotism which
Parliament had coupled with salaries of £2OO a year. And,
as he added, we are in such a position that we
cannot. do
without the despotism. The Eoard of Inland Revenue
must be a great vigilaTlC,, committee; its officers
musthave something like absolute power over a large
body of manufacturers ; and under no other conditions
can our revenue be levied. Mr. Atonlr. is quite right
in
saying that it is hard to debar alarge class of men from a
life of political activity. But, though hard, it may be
necessary ; and in this matter the Revenue officers suffer
in good company. In an unanswerable speech, the Prime •
Minister pointed out that other classes of citizens were
subjected to the same disabilities ; that Government con-
tractors like Sir Sydney Waterlow, though perfectly
honourable men, were incompetent to sit in Parliament ,•
and that the members of the police force were debarred
from taking an active part in political proceedings. Mr.
Monk's friends cannot have their cake and eat it too.
They cannot be at once surveyors of taxes and political
agitators ; they may not unite the functions of the tax
collztor and Mr, Bplgil. . ---