The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-04 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1869.

Mr. GLADSTONE'S avowed hope was,:a fortnight
since, that the Irish Church Bill would have passed
through Committee in the House of Commons before
Whitsuntide. That confident expectation of the Prime
M Lister's appears in a fair way of being realized. Last
night, or rather this morniog—for the c!ock was, at the
mcment, just past midnight—clause thirty-eight was
disl osed of immediately prior to the Committee's ad-
journment. Nine clauses—from 30 to 38, each in-
chsive—wcrc dealt with during yesterday's sitting.
Tie tug of war, however, so far as any serious con-
tention went, was upon clause 32, to wit, that relat-
ing to the singularly problematical Tithe Commuta-
tion Lt-charge—a matter called by Mr. G LADSTONE
himself a financial puzzle, l y Mr. GATHORSE HARDY a
financial hocus-pocus, by Sir MICHAEL BEACH a
blending of bribery and sacrilege, and upon all side 3
looked upon with more or lea bewilderment. As
originally expressed, this thiel. second clause of the
bill empowers the landowner to plirchae the re:lt-

c:large, by an immediate transul ion, at 22i years' pur-
clase, or by an annual instalment for 45 year; of 4i
per cent. of the purchase money. On Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S motion, however, the tune was lengthened to
5 Sears, and the inatahnent.fixed at £4 9s per cent.,.
with a deduction for poor ra' es. Now, many regard
the proposed 222 years' purchase as an over valua-

THE SUN, ti

lion. Eighteen years, they maintain, would be amply
sufficient. Some objectors go the length of asserting
that the result of the whole transaction must be
a loss to the State and a gain to tha Lindlords. The
aggregate amount of the rent-charge, at pre-
sent, is estimated at as many thousand pounds a
year as there are days in the twelveanionth —otherwise,
and the exact total can hardly now be forgotten, at
£365,000 per annum. Mr. FAWCETT'S amendment,
upon which the Committee divided last night, was
based upon the notion that the whole of this com-
plicated financial transaction amounted to this—that
it aimed at the conversion of an obligation to
pay for ever, or, as Mr. Sergeant DOWSE might say,
in stecula sxculorum, into an obligation to pay
for 45 years—no, for 52 years—the State, at the
end of that time, making a present to the Irish
landlords, out of a reserve sum or sinking
fund, of £8,500,000. Lobby gossip spoke of
all this as nothing more than just " greasing the
wheels" to enable the bill to run glibly through Com-
Mr. Mortuisom, who seconded the amend-
ment of the member for Brighton, insisted strongly
upon it that the surplus, instead of being applied in
the manner proposed, ought to have Wen set apart
for the purposes, not of Godless, but of Un-sectarian
education. Mr. WALTER, who spoke on the same
side, while pronouncing the whole transaction from
first to last indefensible and unaccountable, put
a poser to the Government financiers—placed before
them a tolerably hard nut to crack—in the
form of his inquiry as to how it was that the National
Debt could not be commuted on precisely the same
principles? Others, however, including among-their
number the Irish Attorney-General, not only ex-
pressed their concurrence in the advisability or expe-
diency of thus extinguishing the tithe rent-charge,
but went so far as to vindicate the equity of the
means provided. Eventually, the Prime Minister did
very much indeed towards the removal of objec-
tions to the disputed clause by realizing to
the Committee the undeniable fact that, under that
clause, each of the three parties who were affec-
ted by it, meaning the State, the Commissioners,
and the Landlord, were directly benefited by it, and
that not one of the three could be shown in any way
to suffer from the transaction. Fur example, the
Exchequer lent money at 3f per cent., the Commis-
sioners got 22f years' purchase instead of 17 (the
present market value), while the landlord would pay
for fifty-two years only, instead of doing so
in perpetuity. No doubt, as the Premier ad-
mitted, there might be an apparent mystery
in the extinction of a perpetual charge in fifty-two
years, but, as he went on to show, this was done by
converting the 1 one per cent. difference between the
rate at which the landowner borrowed and paid into
a sinking fund. The upshot of the whole of this
entangled discussion was, that after the clause hid
been slightly modified with the assent of the
Leader of the Government, it was carried upon a
division by the very largest majority that has yet been
obtained. Clause 32 could only challenge into oppo-
sition to it 33 supporters of Mr. FAwcures amend-
ment ! As many as 181 being told off in support of
the clause, the Government were only two short of
a clear majority of 150. The result was na-
turally welcomed by mingled cheers and
laughter. It is idle to talk, as some do,
of party subservience. The meaning of it all is clear.
The nation announces its opinion at the General
Election. The representatives of the natio❑ are true
to the principles expressed by them to their respec-
tive constituencies. The Itish Church Bill is made to
pass, and will pass, whatever the arguments of the
Opposition, or whatever the number of divisions that
may be taken.

mitt(e.

WHATEVER may be thought of the comparative
merits of the two great House of Commons rivals
as Parliamentary speakers, there can be no doubt as
to who is the better speaker on festal occasions.
Mr. GLADSTONE is too serious to jest even when a
jest is most becoming. He cannot assume the
light, airy eloquence of Mr. DISRAELI at the
dinner table. This difference between the two men
was very apparent at the Royal Academy dinner
on Saturday. The PREMIER, with his head full of
permanent curates and glebe lands and curtilages,
may be pardoned, perhaps, for not being particularly
lively. At all events, he was not lively; and Mr.
DISRAELI, fully recovered from his one day's gout,
was. The dinner was eaten under circumstances of
special interest. This year is the commencement of
the second century of the Academy's existence.
This year sees the Academy for the first time in a house
of its own, after having lived for a hundred years in
lodgings. Mr. DISRAELI drew a parallel between
the Academy and the House of Commons, a com-
parison in some respects happy, but not so appro-
priate as could be desired. It is quite true that both
M.P.'s and Academicians have a new house; but the
word is not used in the same sense in both instances.
The House of Commons is reformed as regards its
inmates ; the Royal Academy only as regards
its dwelling. The first wants what the second
has just obtained ; the second no less wants
what the first has undergone. In truth,
the complaints against the Forty were never
so numerous or loud as they are to-day. The
opening of the new and larger premises, which was
anticipated by artists as a millennium, has turned out
for them a day of rebuke and lamentation. Nearly
1,100 pictures have been rejected. That is bad
enough ; it is still worse that some of these are as
good as, if not better than, many of those which
have been accepted. It is a source of bitter com-
plaint that while so many of the younger men
who have their reputations to make should be
altogether excluded, any of the R.A.'s should have
exercised his right of exhibiting eight pictures.
There is the President himself, who is the worst
offender. Everyone knows the square yards of wall
that one of his portraits covers, and he has sent
eight of them, excluding probably six pictures of a
moderate size, for every one that he exhibits.
Mr. KNIGHT, the Secretary, and Mr. RICUMOND,
both portrait painters, have been equally vora-
cious of wall room. Mr. ELMORE has sent
seven pictures, and. Mr. ANSD-ELL and others
have sent six. One cannot but contrast this
conduct with that of the leading French artists,
who, so far from exhibiting a selfishness un-
worthy of the profession, leave to the younger men
the yearly exhibition answering to that of our Royal
Academy, knowing that their own reputation is well
established. We are not surprised to learn
that the wholesale exclusion of works from
this year's Academy has already led to
the starting of a rival institution. This,
however, cannot be established in the present
havewhich
hic hs uwffaesr emd
arejection
awl oylet ladr
sr
aepgeoa,tanthdeapexp
year. It would be well, therefore, if the artists who
the Hanging Committ( eto the experiment
lrimfroennti
public by an exhibi-
tion of " The Rejected Pictures."

THE Governments of France and Belgium have at
last come to terms respecting the railway difficulty.
We have not, indeed, quite heard the last of this
dispute; but the settlement which has been agreed
upon takes it out of the arena of politics, and the
details which remain to be arranged ought to give
rise to no serious difficulty. The dispute is a novel,
and not uninstructive, episode in European diplo-
macy. Some time ago the company owning the
Great Luxemburg Railway in Belgium agreed to
lease their line to the East of France Company, with
which it is connected. The terms were settled,
the treaty signed, and the bargain was about to
be concluded, when an unforeseen incident
occurred. - The Belgian- Ministry, taking alarm
at this transfer, presented to the Brussels Legislature
a bill for the purpose of forbidding the lease of any