The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE -111311LIO JOURNALS.

The Times remarks that theeTHouse of Lords was the
centre of attraction on Mondiay evening. Everything
testified to a general feeling that a memorable passage of
history was about to be transacted, though throughout it
all there was a comfortable assurance, which few perhaps
could specifically justify, but onwhich the vast majority
confidently relied, that all danger of serious agitation had
passed away. There is, indeed, ground for confidence that
a successful result of the present) crisis cannot be endan-
gered even by the resentment provoked by Mr. Blight's
individual "infatuation," and that the Irish Church
Bill will be accepted by an adequate majority, and
become law within the ordinary limits of the session.
Lord Granville, at the end of his speech, put a test ques-
tion to those who oppose the bill, which was evaded by
every one who followed him. Whether we are Papist or
Protestant, he said, we acknowledge the authority of the
injunction to "do unto others as we would that others
should do unto us ;" and-how would the people of Eng-
land speak and act if Ireland had three hundred years ago
obtained the upper band here, and diverted the endow-
ments of the English Church to the support of
Roman Catholicism in spite of the resistance and
alienation of the English people? The Tinics be-
lieves that whoever will faithfully consider this
•luestion must end in confessing the justice of the Minis-
terial measure. There is no escape from this conclusion,
except in declaring, with the Duke of Rutland, that the
ruling power in the State has a right to choose between
the truth and falsehood of particular creeds, and to enforce
one of them upon the people under it. The Duke has the
right to say this was the principle professed by Mr.
Gladstone a generation back ; but, as Lord Macaulay
pointed out then, and as Lord Romilly observed on Monday
night, it is the spring of all the religious persecutions that
have ever been undertaken. The modesty of modern
opinion, if not a better respect for the sacred rights of
conscience, has led all statesmen to repudiate the prin-
ciple ; and the Irish Church Bill, with its message of
equality and justice, is a declaration of peace, precisely
because it says that England abandons the pretension
to appropriate the religious endowments of the island
in violation of the wishes of seven-eights of its inhabitants.
The Post declares that the Lords opened the debate on
a footing which ought to satisfy even the most democratic,
and which must gain for them the respect of all. Those
who fancy that an hereditary legislator must, almost of
necessity, be unfit to make laws, or to express a sound
opinion on questions of great political interest, would do
well to read the report of the debate. They will find
there names that are historical ; but they will also find
that the holders of those names can prove them-
selves on a great emergency not unworthy of their
ancestors. A s stanch Protestants, the sympathies of the
Peers may ben ith the members of the Anglican Church
in Ireland ; but, as legislators, their sympathies ought to
be with all their fellow-subjects, irrespective of their
religious tenets. The Earl of Harrowby by implication
urged the rejection of the bill when he reminded the
House of the necessity of imposing a check on democracy.
It is certainly quite true that the veto entrusted to the
President of the United States, and the control granted
to the Senate, are in some respects more effec-
tual than the similar powers conferred by the English
Constitution on the Sovereign and on the House of
Peers. But we have always been of opinion that
the theoretically absolute power which the Peers have of
rejecting any bill sent up to them, when exercised in a
temperate and judicious manner, as it always has been
exercised, furnishes a far more effectual check on hasty
and inconsiderate legislation than the peculiar system
under which vetoes may be pronounced and overridden in
the United States. There is no danger of democracy
sweeping everything before it in this country so long as
the Lords exercise their undoubted privileges in a con-
stitutional manner.

The Standard says that the selection of Lord Hairowby
for the duty of moving that the bill be read a second time
that day three months indicates the spirit in which the
resistance of the Opposition is conducted. The question
is not one of party—that is, it is not one in which the Con-
servatives seek nor see any possibility of advantage to
themselves through the performance of their duty to tho
public,. They resist not as Conservatives, but as
Churchmen ; not as politicians, but as peers of Eng-
land, the natural defenders of proprietary rights and of
the traditional policy of the country ; and in such a
resistance they have appropriately selected as their stan-

dard-bearer one whose devotion to the Church is ardent

while his connection with party is almost null. Their
• action, indeed, will be that of an order, rather than of a
party. They are asserting their privileges as a House of
Parliament ; they are fulfilling their admitted functions
as, by interest, character, and tradition, the protectors of
property against legislative invasion; and in the per-
formance of this duty it is probable that the sym-
pathies though not the votes of Liberal peers go along
with the majority of their brethren. Of this high
tnd honourable spirit Lord Harrowby is a fitting
• -representative, as his speech is a strong and fer-
vent expression of that earnest religious feeling

which in the minds of all Churchmen and most Protes-
tants distinguishes this question from all others, as one on
which much is to be ventured which would elsewhere be
avoided, and much refused which might elsewhere be
conceded. It is this feeling which has brought to bear
upon the Peers so powerful and unusual a pressure ; which
has decided them to take a determined and perhaps a
perilous course ; and which, we trust, will secure them in
that course such an amount of public support as may
overcome the peril and vindicate the policy of their
resolve.

The Herald regards the great Conservative demonstra-
tion at Manchester as astupendous fact. Never, it believes,
in the lifetime of the present generation has there been a
public meeting on such a scale. This meeting in Man-
chester was equal to any hundred of those Hyde Park
demonstrations in London which have been considered so
imposing that some of them have determined the course
of Imperial legislation. Conservatives and Liberals,
true-beazted people of England, apart from any sudden
feeling of prejudice or fanaticism, have found a common
ground of union in the support of that common
Protestantism which is bound up with all the
thoughts and aspirations of a free people, and
which is outraged at the proposal to hand over
a sister country to the government of the priests
of the Roman Church. Divest the question of all
rhetoric—put it in plain language—either the Queen or
the Pope is to be supreme in Ireland. That is the way in
which the common sense of Lancashire views it. That is
the light in which it is regarded by the honest and plain-
dealing people of England. One word more. The Time.. 4
and other organs in the press, which have cast in their lot
with Mr. Gladstone and his reckless policy, have been
throifing out vague hints of late of the possibility of
physical coercion being called into play in behalf of the
supporters of the bill, when other methods of persuasion
shall have proved abortive. What would they say if their
own argument were retorted upon themselves? As far as
the Herald can judge of the present temper of the country
there seems about ten men hostile to the bill to one who
is in favour of it.

The Daily News observes that we have actually at last
some Conservative demonstrations, though it is hard to
say what they demonstrate. It is too late now to make a
show of numbers : we counted heads just seven months
ago, and chewed the bulk of the nation on one side, and
only classes and sections on the other. But having done
all they could at the right time and failed, perhaps the
defenders of the Irish Church think to eucceed by doing
something at the wrong time. Their opportunity
was in November, when they put out all their
strength in a real fight, and were thoroughly
beaten they can hardly take much by making a
chew of strength in a sham fight in June. The whole
machinery of Conservatism was in full blast lost summer.
The " Conservative reaction " was trumpeted from a thou-
sand platforms. " The pulpit, drum ecclesiastic," was
beaten in ten thousand parishes, and the utmost pressure
of landlord influence was urged to press recruits into the
ranks ; there were even some victories in preliminary
skirmishes ; but the great battle ended in a rout. What
can be the use of a parade in presence of the enemy on a
lost field, unless to demonstrate the overwhelming strength
of the victorous force ?
The Telcgrpplt thinks if we "gaze into the future far as •
human eye can see," it is not beyond the range of imagina-
tion to conceive that somewhere deep in the coming
centuries a paradoxical writer may arise who will assert,
and will endeavour to prove, that the Protestant portrait
of Mr. Gladstone is not quite correct, and that the
Premier of 1869 was not as black as he was painted. We
know of course, that there is something absurdly
, .
audacious in such a prophesy just now, with pious vitupera-
tion still ringing in our ears. Mr. Gladstone, we know, is
a traitor. lle is a Judas Iscariot. He is worse than
Judas, for he has not yet committed E tiicide in bleu of
repentance. lie is a Jesuit. lie is the sworn servant
of the Pepe. He is the mere tool of Mr. Bright,
lle
is bent on the ruin Of England. He would posi-
tively force- the (neon into perjury. He has sworn
to destroy Fretestantism. All this, and more, of course
nobody can deny. It was reserved, however, for Lord
Claud Hamilton to bring forth the most tremendous
imputation of all. He said, that on being asked some
question about Trinity College, publin, Mr. Gladstone
delivered his reply " with that grim and horrible counte-
nance of his, and that sinister expression which over-
shadowed his countenance whenever he alluded to any of
the Protestant institutions of the country." This is truly
fearful. As to the closing words of the sentence, they
realise in life a desire of Sydney Smith's. The reverend
wit went, with Moore, to see Lawrence's portrait of the
Irish poet ; and he asked, " Could you not manage to
throw into the face a stronger expression of hostilityto the
Church Establishment?" Mr. Gladstone apparently calls
up in his countenance tkshat which the peuerti of LoareiKe
iik44d 0 Pgtort, • -