The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TEE PUBIIO ReITENALS,

The Times says that-the -majority of the Lords have
once more proved their sagacity and their patriotism. In
spite of the resentment naturally excited by Mr. Bright's
letter, they have considered the Irish Church Bill only
with a view to its own merits and the national will. The
bill has passed the second reading by a large majority,
and a peaceable termination of the session is assured. It
is a great triumph, not so much for the Ministers of the
Crown as for the power of public opinion and the
machinery of the Constitution. When we look back upon
the history of this great question, it is impossible not to
be impressed by the fact that the English nation is above
all things a self-governed people. The scandal we are
now about to remove from our legislation owed its origin
to a mistaken policy upheld by the whole people; it has
endured so long because of the languor of public opinion
on the subject. But the mind and conscience of the
people were at length aroused, and the fabric instantly

The Daily News declares that the House of Lords Las
justified the Lational confidence. At an early hour
this morning it divided on the second reading of the
Irish Church Bill. Amid breathless silence the decisive
numbers were declared. For the second reading of the
hill 179 peers recorded their votes ; against it 146. There
is, therefore, in the Upper House a majority of 33 votes
in favour of the policy of the Government. We record
this result with great equanimity. It occasions us neither
surprise nor exultation. The ultimate fate of the Irish
Church Bill never was, and is now less than ever, a matter
of uncertainty. The only question at issue in the division
was at what particular time and under what immediate
inducements the House of Lords would assent to the
measure. The policy of maintaining or subverting the
Protestant Establishment in Ireland ceased to be a question
dividing Liberals from Conservatives at the moment when
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe declared him self in favour of read-
ing the measure a second time. It ceased to be a question
dividing those who call themselves in an especial sense
the friends of the Church from those who are called its
enemies when the Archbishop of Canterbury recommended
the same course. The opinions expressed in -immediate
sequence by Lord Grey and Lord Carnarvon, who seced-
ing, the former from the Liberal, the latter from the
Conservative ranks, now occupy ground intermediate
between the two parties, made doubly sure the assurance
of ultimate victory. Though often wrong upon the
abstract merits of great questions, the Peers have almost
always had a keen and quick discernment of the opinions,
feelings, and determination of the people. This instinct,
which is a large element in habitual wisdom, has not in
the present instance deserted them. The wise and states.
manlike doctrines enforced by Lord Carnarvon, Lord
Grey, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Russell—men no longer
closely connected with party—have signally triumphed
over the reckless counsels of impulse and faction.
The Post believes that the result will be hailed with un-
feigned satisfaction throughout the entire country, and in
time even those who are the most disappointed will
admit that the course taken by the Upper House was
just and politic. The question at issue was exhaustively
debated on both sides, and the decision arrived at had, at
all events, the merit of being the result of calm delibera-
tion. The debate, extending over four long nights, will do
much to increase the estimation in which the House of
Peers is held as a branch of the Legislature, whilst the
judgment pronounced will furnish the most conclusive
proof of the substantial utility of an Upper House of Parlia-
ment. The bill has been read a second time, but solely as a
preliminary to moulding it into a form which will better
satisfy the nation at large. Those who entertained a
prejudice against the hereditary branch of the Legislature,
merely because it is hereditary, will find in the reports of
the debate which has now ended much to lead them to
modify their opinion. Never, perhaps, in its long history
did the House of Peers shed more lustre on itself, or more
conclusively vindicate its right to the position which it
occupies by virtue of the Constitution.
The Herald remarks that the House of Lords has read
the bill for the disendowment and disestablishment of the
Irish Church a second time by a majority so large that it
has surprised even those who reckoned most confidently
that the division would result in favour of the measure.
But the Peers have come to this decision after a debate
which should dispel the fears of all those who contemplate
a disendowment or disestablishment of the Irish Church
upon a scale and in the manner proposed by Mr.
Gladstone. The majority of thirty-three in favour
of the second reading signifies nothing more than
a resolution on the part of the Peers to regard the
general election of last December as a declara-
tion of the nation in favour of disestablishment.
Hardly a speaker, save those bound by their official posi-
tion to vindicate the measure in all its details, has recom-
mended that the bill should be read a second time, except
upon the distinct understanding that it should receive in
committee very material amendments. The majority,
therefore, in favour of the second reading, composed as it
is in large part of peers who profess Conservative opinions,
signifies in substance this, and this only, that the Peers
will endeavour, as the Archbishop of Canterbury put it,
to make a good bill out of a had one, and if the Govern-
ment will not let them do this, still take another oppor-
tunity of rejecting it.

The Saturday Review observes that it would he a curious,
though barren, inquiry whether Mr. Bright's occasional
violations of propriety are unconscious or wilful. It is
difficult to believe that a man of genius, practised in affairs
and accustomed to associate with statesmen, should be
unable to appreciate either the duty of official reticence
or the utility of good manners. Perhaps Mr. Bright may
have persuaded himself that a certain bluntness of
language is acceptable to a mass of his followers ;
or he may desire to assert, by indifference to
the feelings of his colleagues, and by calculated rudeness
to his adversaries, the independence of his present posi-
tion. The late insult to the House of Lords is not perhaps
in worse taste than his jeers against the bishops at Fish-
mongers' Hal], nor is it as dangerous as his speech on the
ownership of land in Ireland ; but, if it had produced any
effect, it would have tended to prevent the adoption by the
House of Lords of the principle of the Irish Church Bill.
It has been suggested on plausible grounds that Mr.
Bright wished to secure the rejection of the bill, for the
purpose of creating an agitation against the House of
Lords ; but it is equally probable that he may have de•
sired to deprive the Peers of the credit of a prudent con-
formity-, by attributing their possible acquiescence to fear.
The vanity and narrowness which are oddly combined
with Mr. Bright's great intellectual power prevent him
from appreciating the motives or the capacity of his .oppo-
nents. It is possible that he may mistake the dispas-
sionate wisdom of the Bishop of St. David's, or the vigor-
ous sagacity of Lord Salisbury, for hypocritical cowardice.
Mr. Bright deals with political controversies at home in
the same spirit which inspires the Sumners and the Butlers
of America in their treatment of international relations ;
yet experience spews that good manners are in the lone
run conducive to practical success.
The Spectator says that the bishops have unquestionably
entered a good appearance during this Irish Church dis-
cussion, not only as orators, but as political debaters. If
they would only think it their duty to care as much for
the religious side of politics as they evidently do for the
political side of religion, they might make some of the
most powerful and acceptable members of the Upper
House. The Bishops of ripon (Dr. Bickerstetb) and
of Tuam (Dr. Bernard) did not, indeed, obtain any close

attention. The former is a grating, dogmatic, narrow-
minded speaker of the disrnallest class. The latter is
mild, but without power. Yet four at least of the episco-
pal speakers have displayed a vigour and eloquence not
even approached by any of their party in the House of
Commons, except Sir Roundell Palmer, and, in his own

, .
peculiar way, Mr. Disraeli. The Archbishop of Canter-
bury is a perfect model of the temperateness, dignity, and
lucidity of a life peer. The Bishop of Derry is a fine
specimen of the somewhat florid taste, but rich humour
and wide reading, of the Irish Protestant dignitary. The
Bishop of St. David's is a scholar of the highest type,
with a pure love of truth, and even purer love of know-
ledge, and that slightly ironic edge of his genius, which
enables him, by the merest turn of his weapon, as it were,
to wound without lacerating his opponents in debate.
The Archbishop of Dublin is a little too querulous and
plaintive for success as a debater, and he cannot speak—but
even his speech has a certain classical refinement about it
when you come to read it in quiet, without the feminine
associations of lawn sleeves and aprons. And the Bishop
of Peterborough, though he can speak with far too much
of the special pleader's subtlety when he has, as he Lad on

Tuesday, a poor case, and is so intent on proving that all
the world habitually mistakes the grossest injustice fur the

Purest justice that he rather weakens our confidence in

his sounder arguments, has displayed so keen a sagacity

at least in rejecting worthless arguments, so considerable

a ta/A in adapting what seems to us argiunents not much
better for the audience lie was a.ildressin;2-, and so consmn-

mate an oratorical genius in the form and manner of his

eloquence, that he might well take the most commanding

position open to an ecclesiastic in the House of Lords.

On the khole, though, the bishops have made a grey t dis-
play in the debate, but one of them has struck a really
religious tone. They have appeared as brilliant laymen,
one of them a little more prudent, another a little more
humorous, a third a little more pinusible, a fourth a little
more pitiful, a fifth a good deal more sparkling, than the
greater lay peers; but only one of them decidedly more
Christian, and perhaps even he not striking so high a
note as Lord Granville.

The John, Bull censures the Bishop of St. David's
sophisticaltdefence of a policy which is at once impolitic,
unjust, anldangerous. " I si.all, not without regret, it is
true, but wahout the sightest misgiving as to the pro-
priety of the \course I am. taking, record my vote for the
second:re4ding of the.bill i" These are- the words of a