The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-24 00:00:00

-SPIRIT OF

.0 JOURNALS.

The Times cannot wonder at the further measures of
public safety which have been recently suggested to the
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland by the magistrates of the
county of Westmeath, called together after the murder of
Mr. Anketell, the station-master at Mullingar, and says :
We are not, indeed, of those who believe in the existence of a

general conspiracy even in the disaffected districts, if by
conspiracy is meant an active plotting against the law by
large combinations of men. But it should be remembered
that the State has a right to require from each of its mem-
bers, not only that he shall abstain from crime, but
that he shall discountenance it in others, and, if
necessary, co-operate in its suppression. Judged
by this standard, how many of the inhabitants in
some parts of Westmeath or Tipperary can be said to be
quite innocent of these agrarian outrages? We fear very
many must be pronounced more or less guilty. We do
not speak of the numerous accomplices before the fact, of
the still more numerous accessaries after the fact, nor even
of the multitudes who know the murderer, his name,
appearance, or hiding place, and yet screen him from jus-
tice. But over and above these there are Fenians who
openly rejoice over the destruction of a Saxon; tenants
who congratulate themselves that their own position has
been fortifiel by such an example having been made of
an offending landlord; priests who, however much they
ahominate the offence, are not prevented by their religion I
from secretly absolving the offender ; and the population
at large, which stands by looking on, or half sympathetic,
at all events unashamed and unresenting. The truth is
these crimes are not so much of individuals as of
society. But for society, which prompts and condones
them, and conceals the doers of them, they would be
rarely designed, still more rarely attempted, and, we may
say, could never pass undetected. We are quite conscious
how inadequate and even invidious are merely repressive
operations when unaccompanied by remedies which go to
the root of the evil, and we should deem it criminal neglect
on the part of the Government to postpone any longer
their endeavours to effect by legislation a complete and
equitable settlement of the land difficulties ; but we agree
with Archbishop Leahy, that nothing is more calculated
to hinder such a settlement than these frequent assassina-
tions. At all events, with respect to these the general
policy of the State is clear. The immediate and
paramount duty of the Government is the maintenance of
public order.

The Standard says that the deans have received a hint
to set their houses in order. They are informed, through
the friendly medium of the Primate, that the Government
are not prepared to take " any immediate action" in regard
to Cathedral Reform, but that "attention will be given to
any suggestions which the deans, from their practical
experience, may be enabled to offer." It is glad to
perceive, from the tone of the recent meeting at Lambeth
Palace, that the deans, as a body, seem disposed to respond
to this invitation. The cathedral system, in fact, is the
weak point of the Church of England, and we think
it a matter of congratulation that its spiritual heads
have drawn attention to the fact, and that the deans them-
selves have been so prompt in recognising the necessity
of considering in what direction it may be most
desirable to institute reforms. It agrees with Mr.
Beresford Hope, that cathedrals have never occupied that
place in the Church's system to which they are theoreti-
cally entitled. They should be the centre of the Church's
life and activity in each diocese, the rallying point of its
warfare, and the nucleus of its organisation. Their ser-
vices should be models to all surrounding churches both
as to their frequency, their heartiness, and their decent
and seemly ordering. It might be a question whether the
cathedral should be " parochialised," but if such a sys-
tem as Mr. Hope has sketched out should be adopted, all
the clerical staff should be resident and available either
for parochial work or for preaching wherever their aid
might be required. If, however, the aim in view is simply
to save money, and keep the system on its present footing,
there is very little to be said against the proposition of
the archbishops. It is the severest condemnation of that
system to say that if all the other dignitaries were swept
away a dean and two resident canons for each cathedral
would be quite sufficient to keep it going.
The Star observes that as it is evident Mr. Sumner did
not wish for war when he made his speech, it is difficult to
imagine at what he aimed. But the result has been, not,

indeed, to endanger the peace of the world, but to destroy

what was hardly less precious—the good understanding
- between the United States and tha masses of the English
people, headed by those advanced Liberals whose opinions
they usually share ? Mr. Sumner was the last who should
have turned round upon us with injurious reproaches. He
should have remembered, what he probably well knows,
that there was a time when the friends of the North in

this country were more Northern than the Northerners,
more anxious for the suppression of Southern slavery
than the Northern Unionists appeared ; that the
alleged lukewarmness of the North as to slavery was,
even with those who felt least deeply on the subject in
England, an occasion of hostility towards the Union ; and
that even among those who seemed to care for little else
than the dismemberment of the United States a change of
feeling favourable to the North took place when Mr.
Lincoln ceased his blank declarations in favour of
Union, and proclaimed emancipation as essential to peace
and the restoration of the Republic. The Americans
might learn a lesson of modesty and moderation if they
were to reflect that even those who were unfriendly to the
North mitigated their hostility as soon as the North
shewed by their emancipation policy that they had
really risen to the height of the great occasion
that was upon them. The neutrality established by the
proclamation was not broken by anything that could be
construed into a national act except the escape of the
Alabama, and that, while we have offered to bear its con-
sequences, we have a right to contend was the result of
misadventure, or, at worst, of local intrigue, in no way
countenanced by the Government. It is a curious fact
that, though society was almost entirely opposed to the
North, and though the feeling of Parliament was supposed
to be the same as that of society, no overt advantage was
ever gained in England for the South, even though the
Emperor of the French—who is strangely shielded from
Mr. Sumner's wrath—threw his influence into the adverse
scale.

The Telegraph is sanguine as to the results of the
inquiry into our military law. The commission has dill.
gently prosecuted its task for about a year, with the
necessary interval of the time occupied by the general
election; and it has every reasan to expect that the
results soon to be announced will be found most satisfac-
tory to the country and beneficial to the army. Such a
hope appears the better founded when it looks at the corn-
position of the body. As originally constituted, it was
obviously too full of the official element to be
thoroughly honest in its researches or effective in
its results. It was quite intelligible—but it was also
intolerable—that the wishes of the departments should
be so glaringly consulted in the choice of members ;
and great credit is due to Captain Vivian, the
present War Lord of the Treasury, for chal-
lenging, in the House of Commons, the exclu-
sive and inefficient composition of the commission.
Thanks to the independent element in the membership—
and also, it may fairly presume, to the encouragement
and support of the Minister who has presided over the
War Office during the last six months—theCourts-Martial
Commission will be further entitled to the high praise of
successfully withstanding powerful social pressure, brought
to bear in the interests of those who desired that no sub.
stantial reforms should be recommended. The difficulties
and the fruitlessness of previous inquiries into army affairs_
had passed into a proverb ; and the coming report may
mark the first instance in which a body of men has been
found too courageous and too conscientious to he baffled by
influences that had rendered the labour of many pre-
decessors little better than a mockery.
The Herald thinks that Mr. Forster's speech on the
Endowed Schools Bill was in every respect an admirable
one, and shewed a more than ordinary grasp of a difficult
question. With many of his recommendations, and with
the general tone of his remarks, it cordially agrees. It is
impossible not to perceive the importance of what Mr.
Forster points out as the two ideas of the bill—the raising
of our grammar schools to the highest possible level of
efficiency, by reforms to be recommended by a commis-
sion of inquiry, and by the institution of an
educational board to exert a constant supervision over
them. With just as much of the bill as tends to
the secularisation of school teaching it cannot, of
course, sympathise. It may be very desirable that these
schools should be "great national institutions to which all
parties and all creeds have access." But when it was
clearly the intention of the founder that the boys should
be reared in the faith of the Church of England that inten-
tion should be respected. When the formularies ar.:t
creed of that Church have for centuries formed a f.‘inda.
mental part of the teaching of a school, they
are
e.,tablished in that position by prescriptiv,e right. Mr.
Forster achnits that he does not hold secular teaching
on fl par with l'elik)lll,,, but. argr that '' tile greater
f:kenity you' can give a boy the better he will be for
the elerglyman to deal with‘" It is not quite sure
of this ; but let that pass. Suppose that the clergy-
man never deals with Lint at all, or, having ten thousand
parishioners, never comes near him. What then ? The
secular system is simply a relapse into heathenism. It is I
essential, it thinks, that religions instruction be combined
with secular teaching in all schools for the young. It
is glad to know that this is admitted in nearly all
grammar schools, and, putting personal predilection aside,
it thinks it a cause of general congratulation that the
form of Christianity mostly followed is that of the Church
of England, as that is of all the most moderate and most

tolerant of creeds, the best calculated to disarm opposi-
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