The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-16 00:00:00

sznuT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAL%

The Times remarks that whatever the appropriateness,
little or much, of the occasion, and unendurable as it
would be for the precedent of Colston's Day to be followed
commonly wherever there is a charitable foundation, it
is not without interest to have occasionally an oppor-
tunity like this of collating the views of different
sections in the same town on the same events. The Liberal
party and the Conservative party, to judge from
their Bristol oratory, both find the retrospect of the last
general election and session a matter on the whole for
congratulation. It is very satisfactory when this is so.
In England Liberals and Conservatives have each useful
functions to fulfil. Nothing can be more advantageous
than that the party which is beaten should discover in its
defeat new reasons for pursuing its special vocation in
politics.

Mr. Stansfeld's speech at Bristol, says the Telegraph,
though he did not intend it, more or less marks the begin-
ning of the new epoch in his own career. His position as
II
Third Lord of the Treasury was transitional ; now, as
Financial Secretary, he takes a post bringing him into close
and confidential relations with the Premier, and making
him more or less an organ of the Cabinet in many impor-
tant House of Commons debates. There are few men in
public life who could bring to the duties of his new pest
more appropriate qualifications. His long and dis-
interested devotion to the Liberal party has not even
yet received anything like its full reward, though
he would be the last to say so himself. Yet there is some-
thing peculiarly honourable in the personal character of a
man of whom nearly every observer remarks, no matter what
situation he gets, that it seems below his deserts. "Friend,
Sit up higher," seems a kind of universal wish when Mr.
Stansfold and his post are in question. That he will soon
sit up higher is always the belief ; meanwhile, he does
what great men before him have always clone. He
works where he is placed with a singleness of purpose
and pure devotion that win him, now as ever,
" honour, love, and troops of friends." His
speech at Bristol was a happy reply to the
absurd criticisms which have been heaped on
Mr. Gladstone's City address. As we had already
remarked, and as Mr. Stansfeld says again, people
who saw in it signs of doubt had " forgotten the serious-
ness and the conscientiousness of the man." Speaking for
the Ministry, Mr. Stansfeld shewed that it approaches the
Irish land question without fear. Of course Mr. Glad-
stone and his colleagues know the difficulties of their task;
but they are accustomed to difficulties. In that work we
are sure that the Prime Minister will find no ally or col-
league more cordial in co-operation, more thoroughly to be
trusted, than Mr. Stansfeld himself.
Mr. Stansfeld, says the Herald, is authorised and enabled
to declare that the Cabinet, of which ho is not a member,
has already made up its mind upon three most important
questions, and expressed that mind in drafts of bills. The
occasion for these revelations of the Government policy
and this announcement of Mr. Stansfeld's influence was
the Colston Liberal dinner at Bristol, at which Mr.
Stansfeld returned thanks for the toast of " Her
Majesty's Ministers " after a Dissenting preacher had,
in returning thanks for the ministers of reli-
gion, abused the clergy of the Established Church
of England for their opposition to the Irish Church
Bill, threatened them with disestablishment and disendow- 1
ment in their turn, and, in perfect keeping, represented
Dr. Temple as a bishop who would serve the Liberal
cause—that is theAnti-State Church cause. The honesty and
the courage of the new Land Bill, if, as Mr. Stansfeld pro-
mises, they will satisfy the Bristol Liberals, will hardly be
appreciated so much in other parts of the kingdom, if we
may take a certain Sir Edward Strachey—a guest
whom the Bristol Liberals delighted to honour—
as an exponent of their opinions. This gentle-
man has, he says, investigated the circumstances of
every Irish outrage committed during the last eighteen
months, and has found that the persons guilty of them—
Sir Edward Strachey must be in the confidence of the
murderers and would-be murderers, for of most of these
crimes the public does not know the authors—had been
driven to desperation by cruel oppression. The statement
is, of course, false. But it supplies as good a gauge of the
mental capacity and the moral standard of the Bristol
Liberals as poor Mr. Morley's assertion that the com-
mercial delinquency of the day is very much the product
of the University Tests.
The Times discusses the designs of the two new men-of-
war to be immediately constructed at Portsmouth and
Pembroke, and says such, in brief, according to present
ideas, is the First-rate of the future. She will carry the
most powerful artillery known, and be able to work her
guns under all conditions. Her sides will, as far as we

can at present presume, be impervious to the shot of an
enemy. She will be able to repair to any station, will be
perfectly seaworthy and habitable, and will possess a
speed of some thirteen miles an hour. Her single defect—
if that can be called a defect which was a deliberate
sacrifice—will be this—that, inasmuch as she depends
upon steam power alone, she will be effe, tive only for a
limited service at a time, and will be exposed to risk in
case of damage to her engines. On the other h;:n.l, her
engines will drive a pair of twin screws, working inde-
pendently of each other, so that both must bo disabled
before the vessel can be crippled. Such ships, it is clear,
could not fulfil the purposes of a flying squadron ; but for
these purposes other ships would be available, while in the
Devastation and the Thunderer we shall obtain men-of-
war at once stronger and more formidable than any now
afloat. Hitherto, for the mere sake of providing all our
vessels with sailing power, we have been com-
pelled to sacrifico some of their most service-
able qualities. We surrendered in turn our
expectations of speed, of strength, of handiness, and of
lightness, in the vain hope of arriving at a perfect vessel
of all work. At last we have recognised a different prin-
ciple. For mere cruising purposes we have actually
returned to the old wooden frigate without armour, on the
presumption that a vessel which was always free to run
might safely decline to fight. For mere fighting purposes
we have now embraced the turret principle, but have
carried it beyond its original design by adaptations and
improvements. Only, it must be understood that we
cannot have cruising and fighting qualities together. The
best vessel for one of these services would certainly not
be the best vessel for the other, and the simplest as well
as the most promising policy will bo to keep the require-
ments apart.
The Standard observes that Dr. Manning's recent
Pastoral on the approaching Council has excited an in-
terest that extends far beyond the limits of his own
communion. It is a subtle, laboured, sophistical, and
scholastic, if not truly learned, vindication of the
doctrine of Papal infallibility. With its arguments
we are not at present concerned; the prospect
'which its appearance indicates is a. matter of
grave importance to the entire Latin Church,
if not to the whole Christian world. There
can be little doubt that Dr. Manning is thoroughly
well, informed as to the intentions of the Roman
Court ; and as little, we fear, that whatever
the intentions of that Court may be they will be servilely
registered by the majority of the Council which is about
to meet under its auspices. We may, therefore, take it
for granted that the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff,
when speaking ex cathedra upon matters of doctrine, is
about to be made a dogma of the Roman Catholic faith,
which every member of the Church will be bound, not
merely to accept in silence on pain of excommunication,
but to believe ex aninto on peril of his soul. However this
may be—whether the Church loses her finest minds or de-
grades them to the level of her lowest—she will in the
promulgation of this new dogma have sealed her fate.
From henceforth she must be at war with know-
ledge and with civilisation, with liberty and with science.
She used to claim for herself an adaptability to all politi-
cal forms, a capacity of assimilating to herself the intelli-
gence and the progress of every age and race. And no
General Council has ever yet committed her to any dogma
irreconcilable with such a policy, or would be likely to do
so. The Papal Court will so commit her—has so com-
mitted itself. When'Pius IX. and his courtiers have made
it impossible for Englishmen, and Germans, and Ameri-
cans to be Catholics without being Ultramontanes, to ac-
cept the authority of Rome apart from her carnalised de-
vo*ion, and to retain the faith of the Fathers without
engrafting on it the superstitions of the Jesuits, they
will have made it impossible for their Church long
to retain any hold whatever on England, Germany, or
America.

The Daily News remarks that in the agricultural world,
as in the great world of cities, one-half 'egivii_sentlK does not
know how the other half lives. Indeed, it a puzzle
to know how the agricultural labourers' in such
Southern
and Western counties live at all, that statementsdabout
rao to be
them are received with discredit. They are to
true. When Canon Girdlestone proposes to improve
condition of Western labourers by helping them tor Jie,,rate
northward and eastward, and describes with terrible fidelity
the state of things in his own locality, the Northern
farmers resent his description as though it was meant to
apply to them. When a Lincolnshire farmer, who pays
his men from 2s. Gd. to 3s. a day, hears it said that a
Dorsetshire labourer is thought well oil on Is. Gd. a-day,
he quotes his own practice as though it were a conclusive
answer to the charge. In great towns there is the same
incredulity as to these statements, and from the same cause.
But recent evidence is conclusive. Even the low wages of the
western labourers are badly disfributed. The men get most
when they want least. rod 'Last when they want most;
and even a man who, in the season, when politicians
are in the country and these things come before them,
may be pointed out as earning 12s. Gd. a week, and keeping
a family of twelve upon it, will probably have to go
through the winter with Os. a week—less than a penny
is
head a day for clothing, schooling, fire, and food. Such
the home of the English labourer as he lingers on his poor
existence on the great estates of Southern England. A
little meat "when anything happens" on the
could not farm to ceatow
or sheep ; a few peas because the p man
barley ; rarely a sip of milk for the children, but broth to
which workhouse " skilly " must be luxury; and yet net
ono word of complaint. Yet through all this one gleam of
hope, and only a gleam, breaks. The shepherd's wife
says, " One of my son's is gone to America, and there's our
Jim, ho say's he'd be away too if it wasn't for his bad leg.
They like to be good scholars, because it helps them to go
away." Perhaps when the studies of these poor people
have been carried a little further, they will understand
that the case is not so bad as they imagine. Dorsetshire
is not England, and there are counties where the agricul-
tural labourer can live in decency and comfort, and avoid
the necessity of going to America.