The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times observes that a settlement of the Irish
Church Bill has been effected which in form will probably
be satisfactory to no one, but in fact will he satisfactory
to all. The differences which on Tuesday night appeared
o irreconcileable that Lord Granville summarily arrested
the further progress of the discussion on the Lords'
amendments, proved on examination, as we insisted
they would, to admit of easy solution. We take
no credit for a prescience of which every one was
capable who could free himself for a moment from the
heat—we may almost be allowed to say the brutalising
heat—of party spirit, but we do most unfeignedly congra-
tulate the nation upon having escaped a grave disaster.
The temper of the two houses was rapidly becoming dan
gerous. The majorities in each were degenerating into
mobs. It was, however, reserved for a member of the
House of Commons to bring this exhibition of temper to
a climax. Every schoolboy knows how the Spartans
taught their children the virtues of temperance i parading
before them frightful examples of excess. In the middle
of the day, shortly after noon on Wedncs•iay, a re-
presentative of the people unconsciously perf
this useful function. When members of the Commons
take to asking the Speaker questions such as was pro-
pounded on Wednesday, it is time for the friends of order
to interfere. The incident undoubtedly stimulated the
desire on both sides for an arrangement, and Lord
Granville and Lord Cairns, at a private meeting much in
the fashion we had suggested, arrived at terms of a com-
promise which, accepted by the Ministry, and, with
some slight hesitation, by the House of Lords, will put to
rest this most difficult question.
The Standard says that the Irish Church question was Or.
Thursday night finally settled. The terms were the result of
a negotiation conducted by Lord Granville on the one hand
and Lord Cairns on the other. To understand and appre-
ciate the result of the arrangement entered into it is
requisite to recall the position at which the question had
arrived. A series of amendments had been moved and
passed in the House of Lords, which had two objects—
one to expurgate from the bill the declaration against the
maintenance of religious worship from public sources—a
declaration objectionable even more upon religious than
political grounds, and as a consequence to reserve for
future Parliaments the application of the surplus ; the
other to preserve for the Irish Church a moderate portion
of its endowments. These amendments were all rejected
by, not the House of Commons, but the master of the
House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone. The bill
without them was sent back to the House of Lords, and
when the first of the disagreements came to be discussed,
namely, that which restored into the bill the words pro-
hibiting the property being employed in aid of any reli-
gious ministration, the leader for the Government in the
House of Lords requested the adjournment of the
House to enable the Cabinet to consider their position.
On the result of this consideration the country may be
congratulated. The wisdom and prudence of his colleagues
outvoted and overcame the rashness and self-will of the
Prime Minister ; and not only was the immediate cause
of disagreement yielded, but a series of concessions were
made, which gives the Church a sum much less than its
rightful claims, but still of an amount to enable the new
Church, with the aid of the voluntary contributions which
the zeal of her sons will furnish, to start on her new
career under circumstances not altogether unfavourable.
The Lords have done their duty ; and have prevented
what would have been a national calamity, and they have
reserved for a more statesmanlike Minister and a less
subservient Parliament the ultimate distribution of the
surplus.

The Daily 2VcwB congratulates Mr. Gladstone and his
colleagues on the completion of their great work. Help
has come to them from a strange quarter. Lord Cairns
has been the author of something like a coup d'Ctat. He
has constituted himself for the moment the dictator
of his party, and by his bold and his decisive con•
duct has saved them and the order to which they belong
from discredit and peril. On Wednesday, as we infer from
the explanations offered on Thursday night in the House of
Lords, he proposed to Lord Granville that they should
meet, with a view of arranging the subject in dispute.
Lord Granville is a diplomatist ; Lord Cairns is a
lawyer; and both are versed in Chamber conferences.
The terms of a compromise were arrived at. Lord
Cairns on Thursday night stated them to the House of
Lords, which gave its assent with effusive unanimity.
The Government has, we believe, done wisely in accepting
the compromise offered to it. Lord Cairns has acted with
consummate prudence in making the proposal, and in per-
suading his party to adopt it. Between Old Rapid and
Young Rapid—between Lord Derby and Lord Salisbury
—the danger was imminent of a collision between the two
ampief in re-cnene FaVatireliiikry"'etVerilelick
Lord Salisbury managed on Tuesday night to lash himself
and the House will help to sober the over-sanguine esti-
mates which have been formed of his statesmanship and
capacity as a parliamentary leader. Lord Cairns did well
and wisely in snatching the reins from the political
phaeton. He has rendered a service to his party which
will justly confirm his title to its leadership, and will
snore than counterbalance some early errors and some
unavoidable defects.

" The atrocious crime of being a young man" is the sin
that the Telegraph imputes to Lord Salisbury. He is too
young for the House of Lords—young not in years alone,
but in experience ; and this week we have seen the results
of his unsobered impetuosity, his untempered bitterness,
in an assembly entirely unsuited to the freaks of hot
youth, and apt to be over-excited by unusual personalities.
It was Lord Salisbury's ill-fortune—perhaps also his
fault—that even Iris House of Commons career was wild
and free. He never took office until he joined Lord
Derby's third Cabinet, and his promptitude in dissenting
from the Reform Bill of his colleagues soon rele-
gated him to that independent position which, for a
man of his intellect and temperament, was especially
dangerous. For a few months, below the gangway
in the Lower House, he was gradually learning the
practical side of politics ; his mind was developing itself,
by open contact with all classes, when fate sent him to
the House of Lords. Our first impression was that in
that region of slumber he would catch the soft infection of
the place, and sink into senatorial repose ; but, like a new
and mischievous boy in a dormitory, instead of joining
his seniors in the soft chorus of the night he keeps
them all awake. He has insisted that the Lords shall
be up and doing. He has infused new vigour into our
Senate. He has roused the old gentlemen to a terrible
pitch of activity and vigour. A short bill, rendering
peers of the realm eligible as members of the
House of Commons, might be very revolutionary,
and heaven knows what would happen if it
were passed. But it would bring one great
good : it would enable Lord Salisbury to retire
from the Upper House, to be returned for some large
constituency, and to resume his place in the House of
Commons. There, in fresh contact with the mind of the
country, his intellect would be developed. In that school,
he would acquire new feelings ; for his temper would be
subdued by the genuine discipline of the place, with the
soothing effects of real, not sham, work ; and he might
one day become a Liberal member with popularity and
power. While such a provision is absent from the Con-
stitution, one of two things will happen—either the House
of Lords must bring Lord Salisbury under control, or
Lord Salisbury will become the perpetual enfant terrible of
the House of Lords.
The Post thinks there are few things in which we have
made more marked progress within the last twenty or
five-and-twenty years than in agriculture, whether in
the growth of cereals and other food stuffs, or in the
breeding and rearing of stock. The show-yards at Man-
chester are full of implements and machinery for enabling
the farmer to modify defects and peculiarities, and to
defend his operations and their results from the changes
and uncertainties of our climate. In short, in agriculture,
as in the manufactures of the towns, steam, as an
agent, is taking daily more and more the place of
rude and unskilled labour, and there is scarcely
an operation on the farm in which, directly or indirectly,
it does not take part, from the breaking up of the ground
for crops to the preparation of food for the horses, the
cows, and the pigs. Then comes the question, What is
the moral of these great exhibitions, and of what future
for fanning is the habitual application of these costly
machines to the cultivation of the soil significant? They
indicate most surely this—that the days of small farms
and farmers with small capital are passing away, and will
become as much a matter of history as the stage coach-
man and the postboy in the traditional blue jacket. The
occupation as well as the ownership of land must pass
into the hands of capitalists, for to them alone can
it he profitable, and by them alone can competition with
foreign producers he successfully maintained. How can a
small farmer possibly afford to buy for use the machinery
displayed at Manchester, or how could it answer any
landowner to put up for small occupations the yards, the
homesteads, and the buildings necessary to carry on the
manufacture of food under the present and coming sys-
tems ? The only small farmer who could live, and he
would live but poorly, would be the yeoman who
cultivates his own land, and is with his family his own
market.

The Star observes that the present weather, for three
days of last week really more than tropical in its heat,
makes the streets of the metropolis a terror to all who'
have not robust health and unexcitable brains. There are
some thoroughfares where the "cool, shady side," as in
Pall Mall, to wit, enables the pedestrian to move along
without any imminent risk of a coup de :Weil. But the
streets perhaps the most frequented leaves the wayfarer,
e when the sun is at a perpendicular height, no alternative
but the use of an umbrella, and even that scarcely shields
us from the scorching god of day. Now, would not our
best device for keeping ourselves cool be an alteration in
our outdoor apparel ? If the 'English summers are be-
coming tropical, we must adopt tropical costume.
.A
white hat is this season somewhat of a rara arts;
but a straw hat, especially among the upper and
middle classes,, is ono of the very rarest phenomena
of London civilisation. Why is this? Why do we,
a sombre and serious people, make ourselves more
gloomy than we need? We add, if possible, a shade tc
blackness by our funereal style of dress. The fact of the
matter is, that we are very slow to learn from travel, or
even to sec by the reflected light of the customs of other
l';rile the advantages of light, coil clothing. There is,
eve!' in eeeie! matters and fashions, an essentially conser-
vative eletnetit. The ladies certainly are to be congratu-
lated upon the lightness of their attire. But the other
sex are still covered with- the Lideone black hat, the in-
e vitehle black or dark blue coat, and it is only in waist-
-coats and trousers that the slightest liveliness is orthodox.
If you wear a straw hat or a ‘vb:te cent, say linen, or any
such material, it is not improbable that yon will be stared
at, if not mobbed. Eccentricity is unpopular in this
steady and most conventional land. We are a great
people, but we have a vast deal to learn in a hundred
ways. Some modifications and reforms in the integu-
ments of our outer man are demanded ; and sensible men,
not terrified by the fear of being pointed at, should take
upon themselves to save their heads and bodies from the
Present I4dian beat by an Indian style of apparel,