The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-01 00:00:00

B?I3XT OP TEA, JOMINALS.

The Times thinks the problem hardly admits or a pail&
101ution. Progressists, Democrats, and Republicans look
upon the 'Unionists as their common enemy. The good
Understanding between Prim and Serrano has been, in the
~gyes of all Liberals, a monstrous thing from the beginning
combination, it is now universally felt, must come to
an end, ancl this insoluble knot of the King's election
affords the best opportunity. The dissolution of partnership,
11 is also very evident, can hardly be cffeoted without a disas-
trous oebreak. The Unionists clearly perceive that they
have no chance ^f puccess. After weeks of vain debate
the Ministers belonging rr: that party have tendered their
to follow.
.
resignation. Serrano, the Regen:, bouncl
Prim remains master of the situation ; but that is precisely
what suits him least. He wishes for the substance of
power, but under some one else who should be invested
with its semblance. For the last twelvemonth this con-
venient cloak to his ambition has been Serrano ; but what
if Serrano withdraws and the Duke of Genoa is not to bo
brought in ? Then Prim stands forth exposed to the envy
of the great and the rancour of the small—alone between
friends who do not trust him and enemies who, when the
time comes, will not spare him.
-• • •

Tho Daily News, though fully recognising the abilities
and the eminence of Lord Salisbury, his wealth, his mar-
quisate, and the name of Cecil, doubts whether he is
the most appropriate person to fill the high office of Chan-
cellor of Oxford. High academic distinction, proficiency
in the special studies- of the place, eminence in literature
and science, great national services, a position and reputa-
tion before which the differences of party disappear—some
at least of these titles should be associated with party
merits as a qualification for the headship of one of the
great English Universities. The late Lord Derby
was something more than the Conservative leader.
He was a fine scholar, whese tastes and elo-
quence bore the impress of the humane letters
of which Oxford is the centre ; he had reaped at
the University such honours as he cared to gather; he was
one of the first orators not only of his time but of. our
parliamentary history ; and he had borne a distinguished
part, for good and for evil, in the most momentous tran-
sactions of his time. The Duke of Wellington, his imme-
diate predecessor, was not a man of the gown. To his
election might be applied—Cedit toga armis. But though
he belonged to the Conservative party, he belonged yet
more closely to all England and the Empire. In politica,
Lord Salisbury, save during the few months he
passed at the India Office, has been little more than
an able, but fierce and narrow partisan ; in lite-
rature, he has shewn himself a bitter and clever
pamphleteer, who has used the journals, quarterly and
weekly, as the vehicles of an incessant warfare against the
late Conservative Prime Minister. He was undistinguished
at the University, a fourth class in mathematics lacing, we
believe, his highest academic honour. His Churchmanship
is ecclesiastical partisanship, as was evinced by his cele-
brated declaration, worthy of Lord Eldon himself, that
none but a good Tory could be a good Churchman. It
may be doubted whether, in the view of coming changes
Lord Salisbury, with his doctrines of resistance pure and
simple, is the man best fitted to mediate between Parlia-
ment and the universities•.

The Herald considers that the lofty intellect, the gar-
nered store of knowledge, the wide sympathy with each
phase and description of learning, the contempt for shallow
pretence, the high principles of disinterested statesman-
ship, the :experience of successful labour, the inviolable
integrity of public faith, the frequently-attested vigour of
consummate administrative power—these are what Oxford
asks in her Chancellor, and these are what Lord Salisbury
will assuredly bring to his high office. It is not that he
alone possesses them, but that he possesses them in the
largest combination and in highest development. For
these reasons, satisfied and more than satisfied as we
might, under other• circumstances and at another time,
have been with Lord Carnarvon, Lord Flarrowby, or Lord
Stanhope, we shall not be satisfied unless Oxford does
full justice to herself by electing Lord Salisbury, the
statesman, the scholar, and the champion of all those
principles by which Oxford must henceforward stand
or fall.

The Standard asked its Liberal contemporaries the other
day either to deny that the E. M. Fenwick and H. W.
Schneider, who a fortnight ago took the oaths and qualified
as magistrates for Lancashire, are the same persons :Is the
late members for the town of Lancaster whom the Royal
Commission declared guilty of debauching and degrading
that constituency, or if compelled to admit their identity
to explain and vindicate their appointment. No answer
has been given to our appeal. The apologists of the
Government probably fancy that if they only keep quiet
the scandal will die out. They are hugely mistaken. The
scandal is much too great to be disposed of in that way.
We do not mean to let the matter drop until the public
thoroughly understands what is the real position of
our purity-professing Administration towards bribery and
corruption, and if we should do so, the question will cer-
tainly be raised when Parliament meets, and the Govern-
ment will be asked whether it has, in impudent disregard
of an address from the House of Commons to the Crown,
and in flagrant violation of the pledges of its leading
members, included two notorious bribers in the commis-
sion of the peace. The affair is one which the Morals,
in their own interest, instead of attempting to hush over,
should " liquidate " at once. Until it is so disposed of,
they will rest under a stigma which, strong as they are,
they cannot afford to bear. Again we ask, are the Messrs.
Fenwick and Schneider, recently appointed magistrates
for Lancashire, the persons pronounced guilty by a
royal commission of degrading and debauching the
constituency of Lancaster ? If they are not, let
some one of the many organs of the Government
say that they are not, and explain the curious coincidence
of names. We shall be only too glad to be satisfied on the
point, and be able to believe that to whatever other and
hardly defensible expedients the Government may resort
to reward its old supporters and win new ones, it will not
deliberately degrade the magistracy and defy a vote of the
House of Commons. On the other hand, if the bribers,
who so narrowly escaped standing before the judgment
seat, have been raised to it, we ask from the Government
a full explanation of, and apology for, this astounding act,
as well as a satisfaction to public opinion, and a recogni-
tion of the authority of the House of Commons in the
removal, of Messrs. Fenwick and Schneider's names from
the commission of the peace for the county of Lancaster.

The Telegraph says that some of the Duke of Newcastle's
creditors have been trying to make him bankrupt, but,
their petition has been dismissed by Mr. Commissioner
Winslow, on the ground that an insolvent peer of the
realm is exempted from that ordinary process of law
which requires other indebted persons to make a cession
of their goods. The decision has a historical as well as a
political interest. It recalls the period when nobles
were invested with extraordinary immunities and
powers which rendered them despotic lords and
masters of the people around them ; and it also
raises the whole question respecting the expedi
'envy of class privileges. The general tendency of
modern legislation is to abrogate those peculiar rights,
except where they are requisite for the due performance
of special duties. The petition of the Duke of Newcastle's
creditors has thus been rejected, but his Grace has had a
very narrow escape. From and after the Ist of January
next all the commercial distinctions between dukes and
common folk will be utterly swept away. An Act was
passed towards the close of last session which places all
the Queen's subjects on an equal footing so far as the
jurisdiction of Basinghall-street is concerned. After
that date insolvent peers will have no favour shewn
them on account of their peerage. Why should they?
It cannot be said that they need special protection to
enable, them to fulfil the duty of attendance in Parliament;
for-the imprisonment of debtors is now nearly abolished.
The Court may order them to be arrested in a few special
vases—as when they are about to abscond, and when they
mean to conceal, remove, or destroy their property or
books. These are necessary safeguards against fraud or
evasion ; but, in ordinary circumstances, where the debtor
is candid and honest, his personal liberty is secured. Hence
r
there can be no reasonable ground for perpetuating the old
parliamentary exemption.

The Post observes that some additional light has been
thrown on the Alabama negotiations by the recent publi-
cation of despatches. It was always a matter of surprise
that a treaty, apparently entered into by a plenipotentiary
with the full concurrence of the Government by which he
was accredited, should be summarily rejected when
in accordance with the Constitution of the United
States submitted to the Senate for ratification ; and.
irrespective of the merits of the basis of settlement which
was then proposed, it was felt in this country that the
course pursued by the American Government was scarcely
dignified or consistent. In drawing this conclusion we, of
course, assumed that Mr. Johnson was properly authorised
to make those proposals for the adjustment of the matters
in difference between the two countries which ulti-
mately were acceded to by her Majesty's Government.
It -v.-euld seem, however, front the written instructions
L'i-icn by Mr. Seward to the American Minister that in
tile month of July, 1863, no authority was then given to
him to effect a settlement of the alleged claims on any
basis whatever. that his attention was at that time more
particularly addressed to the vexed questions of naturalisa-
tion and the adjustment of the North-West boundary;
and that he was only desired to sound Lord Stanley as to
the probability of the English Government acceding to a
settlement of tho Alabama controversy on a basis such as
that ultimately embodied in the Treaty to which Mr. John-
son appended his signature. Me. Johnson, in whose
Mind unquestionably the "Alabama question" took
precedence of all others from the very first, certainly ex-
ceeded his instructions at a later period, as he undoubtedly
did in the commencement, by endeavouring at all hazards
to obtain the credit of effecting a solution of this difficult
problem; but all events, whatever may have been the ori-
ginal instructions of the American Government, it is unde-
niable that the Senate were mainly influenced in their
rejection of the treaty by its failing to refer to arbitration
the conduct of this country in recopiaing a belhgezents
the SoutlierA Confederacy,