The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-15 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1869.

An alarming probability is now looming up before
us—namely, that, for some weeks to come, the
columns of the public journals throughout the coun-
try will be flooded with what has been affectedly
called Extra-Parliamentary Utterances. The stump
will, in all likelihood, during another dreadful in-
terval, come to be regarded, for a while, as among
the number of our recognized political institutions.
The alternative to be discussed will, as a matter of
course, be—the Iriih:Church Bill, as it was originally
introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. GLAD-
STONE, and as it was passed through that House by
overwhelming majorities of the Liberal Party—and
that same Irish Church Bill, as it has been sent
down from the Upper House to the Lower,
altered out of all shape and recognition
by the Lords' Amendments. That theme
will be argued now for weeks to come, in the English
sense of the words, on the Platform. That theme
will, in the American sense of the word, be the Plat-
form. Already, it would be hardly extravagant
to assert, that the matter—about which we
are going to hear so much more—has, during
these last two years, off and on, been discussed
usque ad nauseam. Th.ro scattered
far and wide among our population who have long
since coma to be sick to death of the whole of the
hackneyed technicalities or phraseology of the sub-
ject still under legislative consideration. Scarcely a
new thing is left to be said in regard to disestablish-
ment or in regard to disendowment. All the casual
variations there have been sparsely noticeable, here
and there, in the continued agitation of the matter
still in dispute, have, in nearly every instance where
they have been in any way now carefully scrutinised,
proved to be mere variations in language—some new
phrase, implying and involving a very old and a very
familiar notion. Thus, what was spoken of last year
by Lord MAYO, as " levelling up," has come to be
called this year, Lord SALISBURY half thinks
ungrammatically, "concurrent endowment." The old
changes will be rung all over again outside the walls
of Parliament. Those members of the Lords and
Commons especially who missed their opportunity of
taking part in the discussion on the Irish Church Bill,
when the measure was actually under the considera-
tion of the Legislature. will—many of them at
least—seize the opportunity afforded by means of
the public meetings now immediately about to be
holden, of pouring forth their carefully-prepared,
but as yet undelivered, opinions upon the prominent
question of the hour. Foremost among these popular
demonstrations—the first of a series of similar public
meetingsorganizedunder the authority of the National
Reform Ution—was the immense and enthusiastic
gathering which took place last evening at St. James's
Hall, with Mr. SAMUEL MORLEY, the hon. member
for Bristol, in the chair. On Tuesday evening there
were precisely similar meetings held at Leeds,
at Bradford, at Stockton-on-Tees, at Dewsbury, at
Manchester, and at Huddersfield. The same argu-
ments were employed by the different speakers. The
same, or very nearly the same, resolutions were pro-
posed, and seconded, and as a matter of course carried
afterwards nemine coptradicente. The meaning of all
this is, that what is wanted by the people out of doors
is—the Bill of the House of Commons, not the
Bill of the House of Lords—the Bill of the Govern-
ment, not the Bill of the Opposition. The dictum
first uttered iu reference to the earliest Reform Bill,
and uttered, moreover, then, in the first instance, by
the late Mr. HUME, is again the phrase of a
great popular movement—to wit, " The Bill,
the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill."
However or whenever that Bill will come
to be law, come to be law it will for a certainty. Not
by a compromise. The Bill, as it emanated from
the Government, as it was sent up to the Lords from
the House of Commons, will—sooner or later, this
year or next, this session or, it may be, in an
extraordinary and, in a manner, supplemen-
tary, session, to be held during the early
autumn—be passed in its integrity. It is
purely a question of time. It is simply a matter of
arrangement. The so-called Reaction is, as every
one knows, the merest phantasy, the veriest moon-
shine—in the minds of the more exalted Conserva-
tives a simple craze or hallucination. It is nowhere
visible. It is nowhere audible. All eyes are looking
in one direction. All hands are pointing in one di-
rection. And then some amazing organ of the
cause of Conservative Reaction will coolly assert that
the direction, seen or pointed at, is one diametrically
opposite. To all intents and purposes the Irish
Church is utterly gone already as among our na-
tional institutions, is even now virtually disesta-
blished and disendowed. As to that problematical
matter yet left for consideration, namely, as
to what is to be done with the surplus—whether that
surplus shall be applied, as the Government and as
the House of Commons propose, to the relief of the
County Cess, in the matter of the Lunatic
Asylums, and so forth, or, whether it shall be de-
voted, as the Lords' conceive preferable, to the pur-
poses of what Lord MAYO called " levelling up," and
what Lord SALISBURY does not like to call " concur-
rent endowment"—it has been pleasantly suggested
that it might be held over until next session when
it (this surplus) may be applied rather conveniently
in the general settlement of the still greater
problem yet remaining to be solved, namely,
the Irish Land Question. Tho notion thus
thrown out is, as it seems to us, about the only accep-
table notion which would be suggested in the way,
at one and the same time, of a compromise and of a
postponement. But it seems so acceptable at the
first blush that it is certainly worthy of being taken
by the Government into very serious consideration.

THE value of the " Bishops' Resignation Bill,"
introduced by the Archbishop of CANTERBURY on
Tuesday night, may be gathered from the fact that
it need not affect one of the bishops whose notorious
incapacity has for so long been the cause of grievous
scandal to the Church. If this bill were to become
law to-morrow, the whole South of England might
continue in its present bishopless state until
the sees became vacant in the ordinary way.
The bill provides only that mentally im-
becile bishops shall be compelled to retire;
physically impotent bishops may continue to superin-
tend their dioceses from their bedrooms, if they
choose to do so. That they would choose to do so is
not a very improbable supposition. The Bishop of
EXETER, for instance, has special reasons for resign-
ing, but does not resign. No other invalid bishop
is a nonagenarian, no other has a bishopric of such
small value, no other has a lucrative canonry in
addition to his bishopric, and which would leave him
with a handsome income even if he resigned
all claim to his episcopal revenues. Yet Dr.
PHILLPOTTS does not resign. What reason, then, is
there to suppose that the juveniles of 80
without canonries would avail themselves of the
powers; which this hill confers upon them ? The