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

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1869.

Transformed though the Irish Church Bill has

been in its passage through the Lords' Committee, we

still recognize even in the contradictory and sweeping

character of the various amendments which have been

.ntroduced, the dawning of the reasonable prospect

of a satisfactory co►upromise being eventually arrived

at between the Peers and the Commons, between the

Opposition and the Government. There seems no

cause, now, that the rival Houses should come to
loggerheads. A collision is no longer, what, until
very recently, it was deemed to be, inevitable. That
is—if only the powerful Ministry at the head of the
great dominant party in the House of Commons and
throughout the country, will show a readiness to con-
cede—somewhat. Supposing Ministers are still reso-
lute in their fixed determination to yield upon no
single point whatever, of course there is no alterna-

tive. In that case the Lords' Amendments
must be regarded and treated by them
as having affected a fatal transformation. In which
contingency the course pursued must be the arro-
gant and autocratic course some two or three weeks
ago distinctly enough foreshadowed—meaning the
hurried close of the session, the temporary proroga-
tion of Parliament, the calling of the Houses together
again very shortly afterwards, the introduction in
the autumn of 1869 of the Irish Church Bill in its
original form in the House of Commons, its silent
and rapid passage through its various stages towards
its development by that House into an enactment, and
its ominous reintroduction into the House of Lords
simultaneously with (in a double sense) a very libe-
ral addition to the aggregate number of our heredi-
tary legislators. Nothing of this kind, however,
do we now in any way seriously anticipate. The
Bill has been passed through the Lords' Committee.
It has been transformed by the adoption of many of
the most important amendments proposed by one or
another of the now Liberal, now Conservative, op-
ponents of the scheme as it was originally planned by
the Government. It will be duly reported on Friday
evening. Something of the force of those amendments
may then be modified or mitigated. But to all in-
tents and purposes the amended Bill, when it has
been read a third time in the House of Lords and
passed, will be pretty much what it has been rendered
at this moment by its manipulation during its recent
passage through Committee. And yet—for all
that—we believe in the possibility, nay, more than
that, we believe in the probability of a compro-
mise—and of a compromise, too, of a satisfactory
character. That some compromise was practically
brought within reach of the Legislature, became ob-
vious, indeed, so soon as the Lords had determined,
by their memorable division upon the Second Read-
ing, that the Bill should be allowed to go into Com-
mittee. It, then, only remained to be seen how far the
Bill itself would be changed or distorted in Com- ,
mittee by the amendments, and consequent upon
the rejection or acceptance of those amendments, how
far the dominant party would be reconciled to or
alienated from the notion of anything at all like
concession. Concession upon one point, Ministers
have from first to last set their faces against re-
solutely—that is, against what is called, as
the Marquis of SALISBURY thinks ungrammatically,
concurrent endowment. Evading that rock ahead,
postponing that difficulty, Lord CAIRNS' amendment
of last evening—an amendment carried by 160 as
opposed to 90, or, in other words, by a clear majo-
rity of 70 in a House of 250—sets aside for the time
being the appropriating of the funds of the Estab-
lishment, leaving the solution of the problem as to
its ultimate destination for the future, the calmer,
the more deliberate consideration of the Imperial Par-
liament. The argument against the appropriation
clause of the Bill, as it originally stood, as it was
introduced by the Government, and as it was accepted
by the House of Commons, has been all along very for-
midably this—that, by reason of that particular clause
simply reducing the county cess, the main advantage
of the projected appropriation would appertain even-
tually to the Irish landlords—the landlords, by means
of the reversionary donation of the tithe rent charge,
having otherwise been largely benefited by the work-
ing out of the Government scheme of disendowment.
Lord TAUNTON—the Right Hon. HENRY LAB 0U-
C HERE of ten years ago—very forcibly argued
on the other band, however, that the notion was
seriously to be deprecated, of throwing loose upon the
country this great and vitally important question as
to the proper distribution of the surplus obtained
through the realisation of the Irish Church property
by means of the projected plan of disendowment.
'Thrown loose, however, it will not be, according to our
conviction. It is precisely upon that point, as we con-
ceive, that will arise the possibility and the practica-
bility of au honourable and satisfactory compromise
on the part of Her MAJESTY'S Government, and
on the part of Her MAJESTY'S Opposition—the Op-
position all powerful in the Lords, the Govern-
ment all powerful in the Commons. Rather
than indefinitely delay the appropriation of the sur-
plus—it must sooner or laer, we believe, become ap-
parent that mutual concessions will be in every way
desirable. How these concessions may be best arrived
at, we conceive to be very clearly indicated through
the wise and conciliatory remarks addressed last even-
ing to the House of Peers by Lord TAUNTON.

solllurl:Stte be
tempers
s thunder i n
are.
The thse u
a v air.e Mlrf.
THERETisnaminisF.Lis
not
'
turning
wigging of Mr. LOWE on Saturday was sharp enough;
but the mellifluous Sir JOHN COLERIDGE'S snubbing
of Mr. FAWCETT on Monday was absolutely fierce.
Now, neither the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
nor the member for Brighton is a fool or a
bore. The most angelic-tempered men—and
Mr. DISRAELI, as we all know, is akin to
the angels—may be pardoned if occasionally
they " sit upon" a CHARLEY or a JENKINSON, a
GRIFFITHS or a KNox. But when men of the
calibre of the two who have just been subjected to that
process are concerned, it is scarcely seemly for states-
men, however exalted, however angelic, to indulge
inlanguage such as that with which the silver-tongued
SOLICITOR-GENERAL astonished the House of Com-
mons. It is quite true that Mr. FAWCETT has been
rather troublesome this session. It is quite true that
he has not yet forgiven Ministers for their
not very creditable desertion of him, when his bill
for throwing the expenses of elections on the rates
came on for a second reading. It is quite true that
he made some remarks, more frank than discreet,
about the bribe which he said they were offering the
Irish landlords to pass the Irish Church Bill. It is
quite true that
he,
and he alone, of all the Liberal
party this session has ventured to raise the standard
of revolt, and to divide the House against the Govern-
ment. But surely his rebellion is not without
extenuation. If anything could provoke a saint it
would have been the shabby manner in which
Ministers, -without a word of warning, threw him
overboard at the very moment when he thought
himself secure of victory, and about to open the
gates of Parliament to his own peculiar constituents,
the working men. Moreover, are Ministers resolved
that not a word shall be said against any of their
proceedings by any of their usual supporters ? Are
they so little satisfied with their overwhelming
majorities that they must have absolute unanimity ?
Do the riches and honours and power of HAMAN