The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times, in discussing the Ministerial speeches at the
Lord Mayor's dinner, calls to mind the different spectacle
afforded last November. Then the general election was
immediately at hand, and though Mr. -Disraeli was still
Prime Minister, he knew, as all the world knew, that the
days were numbered within which he must resign the pos-
session of power. But he was resolved to die at least with
his face to the foe. While Mr. Disraeli last winter was so
slenderly endowed with those good qualities in which his
rivals are rich, and, above all, was not merely deficient
in parliamentary support, but knew that what he had
was about to depart from him, ho was still gay, coura-
geous, undaunted, and faced the dismal future with
a smiling countenance. Mr. Gladstone on Tuesday, with
the consciousness of rectitude thick upon him, and
parliamentary majority of more than a hundred at his back,
was lugubrious almost to wailing. The vision of a good
man struggling with difficulties is a sight, as has often
been declared, pleasing to the Gods, and the spectacle of a
Cabinet of All the Virtues wrestling with the terrors of
the Itish Land Question ought to move all men to a lively
lympathy. Unfortunately, an exaggerated sense of danger
on the part of the Ministry, a distrust of their own ability
to vanquish the monster in their path, a craving for inter-
,.essory aid, if not for more active succour, before their
labour is actually begun may go far to dry up the sympathy
which would otherwise be spontaneously offered. The Irish
Land Question is undoubtedly a matter of great difficulty;
but if the present Ministry be unable to cope with it, what
must be said of their courage and statesmanship ? They
are strong beyond all the experience of the present genera-
tion in parliamentary power. The national feeling is,
perhaps, even more advanced than the temper of Parlia-
ment in the resolution to stand by the Ministry in support
of any thorough, searching, and workmanlike attempt to
cure the long-standing evil of Irish discontent. The
Government have the power, if only their courage be equal
to their power. Now, if failure he, as haply it may be, the
result of their first attempt, it is better to fail having
attempted to do something than to fail after doing nothing
beyond timorously propitiating opposition, and imploring
the sympathy of supporters already ready to give mor
active assistance.

The Daily _Yews remarks that on Tuesday, addressing a
nore reasonable and statesmanlike assembly than that
which earlier in the year badgered Lord Granville for
information which he could not possibly give, Mr.
Gladstone practised the same judicious reticence. It is
notorious that the Cabinet is in the very crisis of the con-
ferences which aro destined to give to the draft of a
Land Bill proposed by the Irish Government the shape in
which it will be submitted to Parliament. To anticipate
the final issue of these consultations would be a grave
error on the part of the Prime Minister. But within the
limits which discretion and common sense imposed upon
bim, he spoke words of weighty import. We believe that
'6lr. Gladstone, who has achieved many great things, has
braced up his mind and will to the task of bringing
the discontent and alienation of Ireland to a close by
removing their still subsisting causes. He recognises with
the political opportunity a religious obligation, and he
will feel himself straitened until the work which has been
;iven him is accomplished. In the meantime, while many
things aid him, he finds his most conspicuous hindrance,
we will not say from the Irish people, but at any rate from
some people in Ireland. The warning which he gave last
night to the promoters of agrarian outrages in Ireland,
that they are themselves the greatest enemies of their
country, will not fall, we hope, upon utterly heedless
minds and reckless hearts. Ireland will wait long, and
will wait in vain, for redress, if she slights the opportuni-
ties she has had of receiving it from Mr. Gladstone and his
olleagues.
The Standard remarks that now the Isthmus of Suez
'las been cut, a great work has been accomplished, but a
great deal still remains to be done before the full fruition
of M. de Lesseps' grand enterprise can be enjoyed by the
world. For the present it is natural enough that people in
general should dwell upon the wonderful achievement
which is now on the eve of its inauguration ; and indeed
no matter how complete our confidence in the ability
of the engineers concerned may be, there is, of course,
so much to be done still, so many anxious problems
of practice to be solved, that the canal itself still
tbsorbs attention to the exclusion almost of other
collateral schemes, though some of these may be
only second in importance to the construction of the won-
derful watercourse itself. Attention, however, may not
have been bestowed sufficiently on the fact that, after the
Suez Canal is passed, the Red Sea has to be encountered.
The danger of sticking in the sand while going across the
desert is nothing to a great merchant ship compared to
the risk of striking on a coral reef while going down that
long and treacherous gulf which leads to the Indian
lcean. At present, however, there are scarcely any
lights in the Red Sea at all, and though in speaking of its
langers people generally enumerate its coral reefs and
urrents, it would bo almost as correct to speak of
them as arising from the absence of beacons and light ships.
It has been pointed out that France, has cut the isthmus,
sad now that if England were to light the sea the great
work of shortening the voyage to India would be one in
which we should after all have taken an honourable share
--one indeed scarcely less important if less magnificent
than that which destiny and the courage of -M. de Lesseps
has allotted to the French people. How it is to be done,
however, is comparatively an unimportant point. Whether
,one nation or many together should accomplish the task
would matter but little ; but most assuredly until this
supplementary enterprise has been carried out somehow,
the canal will somewhat resemble a railway into the wil
derness with no road leading on from the station.

The Telegraph thinks that Miss Burdett Coutts, whose
philanthropy is always of a practical kind, has done some-
thing to solve the difficulty of transporting cattle a long
listance by rail without starving or torturing them. She
:las employed cattle-trucks of an improved construction,
recently patented by an Edinburgh inventor, and the first
experiment has proved a complete success. Five heifers
bought in the Edinburgh market wore placed in a truck
m the afternoon of Saturday, departed in the train for
London the same evening, arrived in the metropolis
on Monday morning early, and four hours afterwards
were driven to Islington Market, where they were
promptly sold. During this interval of thirty-
four hours the animals had consumed, by means
-if the appliances for food and drink arranged
:n the truck, sixty-one gallons of water, nearly ten stones
if hay, and three stones of oatmeal. As the result, it is
hserved, " the fine appearance of the beasts was the sub-
ject of general comment in the market,i and they aroused
s spirited competition among the buyers. We may infer
from this experiment what cattle generally suffer. On
such a journey as that now described, they, as a rule, get
no food, and perhaps only a hurried drink of water; yet,
when afforded the chance of satisfying their natural
Ippetite, each heifer drank twelve gallons of water and
tte two stones and a half of food. Here, then, is
something gained towards Miss Coutts' benevo-
lent object; and we have a tangible illustration of the
need of relief, and we have ocular evidence how
relief can be easily provided. But this is not
enough to make humane treatment general ; for
improved cattle trucks with food and water mean addi-
tional outlay; and it is absurd to suppose that salesmen
will incur extra cost merely from a desire that their cattle
may become " the subject of general comment" in the
market. Happily, the new regulations imposed on railway
companies will cure much of the evil, and it may be hoped
that self-interest will do the rest. If cattle are constantly
brought from long distances to Islington in these im-
proved trucks, and if the invariable result is that their
" fine appearance" makes them fetch better prices, the
battle will soon be won. Humanity will be appreciated
even by cattle drovers, when it is seen to pay.
The Herald considers that the evidence of Colonel Rich,
in a great measure, clears up the matter of the Welwyn
accident. Everything short of wilful or intentional mis-
:onduct was supposed to have been provided against, and
yet, after the event, it is manifest that a very fruitful
ource of peril had been left open. When the signals are
at danger the points are perfectly free, but they are
immoveable when the signals stand at caution
ft is possible for the open points to 1 e closed
by the vibration of passing trains, but the colonel
lees not believe that anything of the kind
had happened at Welwyn, or more damage would
have been clone to the permanent way. The flaws in the
springs would not account for the accident; and Colonel

Rich was reluctantly compelled to believe that the sig-
Taman must have moved the points ; because if he believed
its statement that he had not touched them he must dis-
believe his own eyes. We have no doubt the mat
honestly entertained this belief, but another por-
tion of his evidence slims in what way he may
have fallen into error. He acknowledged that ho was
in the habit of putting up the danger signal as soon as the

engine and tender had passed his signal box. He
said this would have nothing to do with the points ; but,
as we have already mentioned Colonel Rich stated, as the
result of his inspection, that when the danger signal is
exhibited the points are left open, in which condition it is
possible for them to become closed by the vibration
caused by passing trains, which would, of course, be all
the greater when the train was on the very line whose
points were thus standing open. We incline to think that
in this way the casualty may have been occasioned.

Tho Irishman announces that the Australian Com-
mittee have made arrangements for aiding the return to
Ireland of the liberated Fenian prisoners in that country
and that their arrival in this country may be shortly ex-
P99t04.