The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-28 00:00:00

SFiRiT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

_~_.__.

The Times, in discussing Mr. Fawcett's resolution of
Friday night, observes that, compared with the upper and
middle classes of English society in our own days, agricul-
tural labourers are ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-housed, but it
does not follow that they are worse fed, clothed, or
housed than mere labourers in towns, and it is
certain that they are better fed, clothed, and housed
than their ancestors in the last century or than peasants
in many parts of Europe. It is demonstrable that farm
wages are now about twice as high as they were at the
beginning of George lll.'s reign ; it is also demonstrable
that the price of wheat has not by any means risen in
the same-proportion. Those who know anything of the
country are aware that in old times no meat except bacon
was usually seen in cottages from year's end to year's end,
whereas now the father of the family gets it most days in
the week. As for cottages, bad as they still are in many
parishes, the difference between the old and the new is
perfectly astonishing, and it is sometimes difficult to
believe that hovels now standing deserted were ever
tenanted by poor men's families. The comparison of
English with French labourers is scarcely less favourable.
Perhaps we have something to learn from Switzerland
and Northern Germany, but, on the whole, it may
safely be said that Great Britain is, at all
events, not behind other European nations in
the status of her agricultural population. When
Mr. Fawcett and Lord F. Cavendish declare that
it would be hardly possible for a Dorsetshire labourer to
be in a worse position, they forget both the position of
that very labourer's grans father and the position of
millions on the Continent at this hour. The Mmes, how-
ever, agrees with Mr. Fawcett and all those who followed
him, that a great work of civilisation remains to be done
in our rural districts ; that Parliament has the power to
aid it, though not to supersede the duty of individuals ;
and that education is the most powerful of all the instru-
ments which Parliament can bring to bear,
The Post is of opinion that the right to pensions and
retiring allowances especially ought to be put on a footing
either so broad or so definitely narrowed that imputations
with regard to them, such as formed the staple of Mr.
Fawcett's speeches upon the Civil Offices Pension Bill,
could not possibly be made. It will be a very bad time for
the country if ever men who devote themselves to political
life or to an Administration shailbe subjected to judgment
created by the bitter spirit of suspicion and deprecia-
tion which animates the member forßrighton, and which he
presents, possibly in good faith, as the result of true and
genuine patriotism. There are no pecuniary rewards offered
to public men to do their duty. The considerations arising
out of remuneration are put forward to make it worth the
while of men of high acquirements and character to
embrace the carer of a public servant instead of other
pursuits, and it is taken for granted that when a man of
talent and honour once puts his band to the public plough
he will not turn back, but work out his day's work with
honest zeal and honourable assiduity. It is notorious that
no Cabinet Minister can make anything out of his salary.
His expenses—the expenses incident to his position—are
constant andlarge, and there need be nohesitation in assert-
ing that, barring private resources, a Prime Minister has less
to spend or to put aside than the manager of a railway
company. And it is to snake this up—to use a vulgar
expression—to the politician that an after income under
the name of a pension is tendered. On the mere and hare
commercial grounds, therefore, a public man, who by
that position is barred from the gains that can be realised
by commerce and speculation, has claims to such compen-
sation as the moderate and limited pensions accorded can
afford him.

The Standard says that the Conservative amendments
stand in the names of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Archbishop of York, the Marquis of Salisbury, and Lord
Calms. It has been asserted that they are the same as
those moved in the House of Commons by Mr. Disraeli
and Dr. Ball, but this is not strictly accurate. They relate,
undoubtedly, to the same matters, and aim at similar
results ; but important variations have been introduced.
Would that we could defeat the whole bill, adds the
Standard. But, if difficulties impede this, then how
can we avoid looking at every offer to deal with us for a
liberal and enlarged provision? To take the practical
illustration of the subject to which we have just adverted—
Can we get glebes for the Protestant Episcopal clergy
without assistance from other parties? If we can,
why has it not been done? If we cannot, then would it
not be better to see what arrangement in this matter can
be made with moderate men of every party. We own
that when we see at what a late hour schemes with the
widest results are put forward, the short time that now
remains for deliberation, the period of the year and of the
session, and the enormous and permanent results which
must flow from the policy now adopted, we are inclined to
hope that either no bill will be passed this year, or at least
that the distribution of the surplus will be expunged from
the bill, and reserved for the decision of some wiser Par-
liament than the present.

The Star thinks that religious ►egislaticn has passe'
definitively out of the hands of those who regard it either
as a means of repressing zeal or as an engine of politica.
government. The English people are divided roughly
into three groups. There are the religions, there are the
non-religious, who yet believe religion would be good for
them, and there are the irreligious, mho from either
mental or moral peculiarities reject spiritual sane
tions and influences. None of these classes than-
the love of establishments, as such, which still
lingers in the heights of society. The Church of
England is protected in general opinion by its intimate
association with much of the respectability and much of
the beneficence of the country, not by those ideas of
religious and political quietism which in the past have
made Church-and-King Tories of men like Hobbes and
Bolingbroke, who utterly rejected the religion which as
politicians they stoutly upheld. The case with which a
bishop may be discredited by the nickname Erastian is
enough to chew that we have passed into times when
religion, if valued at all, is valued for its own sake. It
is expected to do its best for mankind by the
aggression which is a natural instinct of its pro•
fessors, not by a jejune infusion of sacredness into
the vulgar machinery of State government. The indepen-
dence of religious and the development of popular lif
have advanced together. A. great voluntary element ha'
crept into the Church of England with those district
churches without whiCh the ancient parochial system
would be a farce, and the voluntary system has entirely
swallowed up the system of State aid and connection
those colonies in which the superfluity of our populous
strength continually flows into the newest moulds of poll.
tical formation..

The Telegraph declares that the trial of 0 verend and Gurney
involves considerations of far more than individual inte-
rests, and its prosecution should be independent of all
merely personal accidents. The whole problem is of
national importance ; for it is not too much to say that on
the result of the attempt-to stamp the character of crimi-
nality on the conduct of the Gurneys will largely depend
the immediate future of joint-stock enterprise in this
country. If the case were to break down, many points of
prime importance would be left undecided. It would, there-
fore, be a grave evil to both parties in the suit if the
administration of justice were to be impeded. No doubt
the Home Secretary is in a really delicate position. There is,
however, one consideration which Mr. Bruce cannot afford to
forget. The interests at stake in the present case are less
personal than national. It is important to know whether
the persons accused are guilty or not ; but it is still more
important to ascertain, by means .of a long trial, the
summing-up of a judge and the verdict of a jury, what
are the exact responsibilities of men who control great
commercial undertakings like that of Overend, Gurney,
and Co. Since it is of vital interest to the whole com-
munity that the question should receive an authoritative
answer, we trust that the right hon. gentleman will, even
yet, reconsider his determination, and take steps to pre-
vent the trial from being abruptly quashed at the outset.
True, the course that we advocate may be unprecedented ;
but Mr: Bruce would be perfectly justified in creating a
useful precedent for our future guidance.
The Daily News remarks that after an interval of nearly
sixteen years the Government finds itself engaged in a
against the evil of .betting. We .say the
Government, because the police prosecutons of which we
read almost daily are not only too numerous, but extend
over too wide an area to be referred to the discretion of
one or two chiefs of police. It is not necessary to dwell
on the social mischief which attends a praCtice so utterly
subversive as betting of those habits which are indispen-
sable to a regular and well-ordered life. Moralists have
described, and the legislators of every civilised country
have felt it necessary to consider how they mi re-
ght best
strain them. Even the spectacle which is now forced upon us
of widespread and signal ruin, the result of betting, is not
necessary to impress the same lesson. The feelings with
which a father would learn that his son, or a merchant
that his clerk, was addicted to this practice, Lear sufficient
witness to its pernicious and anti-social tendency. A
deep sense of the extent of the evil should not, however,
make us indifferent to the fitness or unfitness of the
methods proposed for its, repression. We have here to do
with a principle very deeply rooted in human nature, and
as some practised observers think, more deeply in English
nature than in any other. We cannot profess that this
reason for exempting Tattersall's from the operations of
the, laws against betting is at all satisfactory. Mr.
Poland, the prosecuting c tinsel in these cases,
appears, however, to have taken his stand upon it,
for at Bow-street, on Saturday, when referring to a
complaint of unfair discriioination made by one of
the defendants, lie said, " 'Tatty rsall's is a private club."
\Veil, but this private club is the indispensable centre of
the tettmg transactions of the kingdom. It has been
truly described as the Stock Exchange of such. transac-
tions, where prices are ruled and from which quotations
are issued. If Tattersall's is not a public establishment,
it certainly performs the most important functions of one.
It is this fact that makes us reluctantly doubt the
ultimate success of these prosecutions. What convictions
may be obtained, and upon what exposition of the law, we
do not ask, but no one who knows anything of the English
character can suppose for one moment that there can
be among us one law for the rich and another for the
poor.