The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-14 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 14, 18C9.

Yesterday at the close of the discussion upon the
consideration of the Irish Church Bill as amended, it
was—amidst some very comprehensible cheering at the
virtual completion of so important a stage in its pro-
gress towards transformation into an enactment—or-
dered to he reprinted. The Premier had previously an-
nounced his intention to take the order for its recom-
mitment for Friday, May the 28th —n3m:ly, the Fri-
day immediately after the Whitsuntide recess or
vacation : t'le third reading still standing fix :d for
the last day of this present month. So far as the
House of Commons is concerned the Irish Church
Bill may bealrezdyregarded, therefore, as passed and,
what is more, passe I b iumphawly. The question now
lies exclusively, we may assert, with the Lords. It is
generally understood, moreover, that, directly after
Whitsuntide,the Conserva• ive members of the House of
Lords, or,inother words, a majority of that house quite
as fot midable in truth and as overwhelming as the
Liberal majority in the other branch of the Legisla-
ture now backing up the policy of Mr. GLADSTONE'S
Government, will meet for the purpose of considering
seriously and without any further delay the course
they ought to pursue, under the extraordinary circum-
stances of the case, in regard to this particular mea-
sure for the simultaneous disestablishment and dis-
endowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland. The
triumphant manner in which the Bill is known to
have been carried through its every stage in the
House of Commons cannot fail of course to be taken,
among other things, un ler their lordships' most seri-
ous consideration. The overwhelming preponderance
of members on the side of the Government, as mani-
fested upon each division that has been taken both iu
and out of Committee—divisions always showing a
clear majority on the side of the Government ex-
pressed in three numerals—will necessarily have
weight with the Peers, in their deliberation as to the
resolve they may arrive at in dealing with the Bill
when brought up for their consideration. Uncom-
promising opposition to a measure so victoriously
passed through the popular branch of the Legislature,
would bring the house of Lords at once into direct
collision with the House of Commons. There is
the consciousness, moreover, all this while that
the vast majority secured to the Liberal
Party in the House of Commons, represents a still
vaster majority of earnest and resolute supporters of
the policy of the present Government in the country
at large, among the mass of the electors portioned
out into the different constituencies. The majority in
the Commons, the majority in the Country, are at
the back of the GLADSTONE Government. That the
Lords know perfectly well. And they know equally
well this, that supposing, for the sake of argument,
thelrish Church Bill, having been triumphantly passel
through the House of Commons, were to be peremp-
torily rejected, nevertheless, notwithstanding, by the
house of Lords, and that the Prime Minister were
then, in the exercise of his Constitutional privilege,
to dissolve the present Parliament, and appeal once
more to the electors of the three kingdoms, his
dready enormous majority would, by the very in-
dignation excited by so direct and perverse an
evidence of antagonism oa the part of the Lords, be,
as a matter of dead certainty, very considerably and
very appreciably enhanced. A General Election,
occurring under more advantageous circumstances,
fur a Ministry already strongly in Power, c Juld not
very readily be imagined. The last one carried
Ministers into office on the shoulders of the people—
even before the new Parliament had a-sembled.
Under the peculiar conjuncture of circumstances we
are just now imagining, simply for the ,sake of argu-
ment, they would be borne back again, to confront
the newly-elected Legislature, not upon the shoulders,
merely, but upon the very heads and uplifted hands of
the enfranchised population. The Lords are wiser, we
may be sure, than to bring about the hazard of any
such (for them) disastrous anti-climax. The House
•of Peers and the House of Commons, we may be
quite certain of thus much, in regard to this particu-
lar matter of the Irish Church Bill, are not about
to be brought into collision. Of that, we are per-