The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC .701.1NAL8.

The Daily News says that Lancashire is going through
one of those trying and critical experiences which belong
to the lot of the prosperous and the great. She has been
a long time in the school of trouble, and is beginning to be
anxious for the holidays. She has learned all the sweet
uses of adversity except the last, and the last is almost too
hard a lesson. Philosophers and poets, moralists and
divines, all agree in telling us that the chief use of trial
and difficulty is that it drives us back upon our principles.
Those principles are secure enough when all goes well
with us, but as soon as things go wrong there are
sure to be tempters enough about, who mock our
fidelity and ask us what we think of our principles now.
This is the case with the great, busy, prosperous district
which taught Free Trade to England. But even in this
time of trotble Lancashire seems to be quite firm enough
in its principles to fall back on them. The two Liberal
members for Oldham were speaking on Saturday night in
the very heart of the cotton district, but neither they nor
their hearers had any mistrust of Free Trade. Grant that
the depression of trade is a thing not easy to explain; there
is still no reason to doubt the whole principle on which
their trade has been developed and increased. Neither
Mr. Hibbert nor Mr. Platt made much of the neo-Pro-
tectionist argument, but Mr. Platt at least took the
trouble to refute it by reminding his hearers that the very
same depression which troubles Lancashire troubles all
other countries, and is common to Free Trade and Protec-
tionist principles alike. Lancashire has no reason to be ,

afraid, and the rest of England is not likely to be called
on to witness any reaction in that county towards the
exploded fallacies of Protection. It knows how, in a time
of depression, to fall back upon its principles, for it feels
with Mr. Hibbert that, come objection to those principles
from what quarter it may, there is no doubt of their sound-
ness and of their final victory.

The Post thinks it would be hard upon the Marquis of
Hartington if his accidental and contingent position as a
Cabinet Minister were to be held to neutralise his per-
manent and absolute position as the son and heir of one of
the largest and most powerful territorial proprietors in
Ireland. He has done wisely in deciding not to forego his
natural functions for fear, in the course of their fulfilment,
they should clash with his assumed ones ; and it is only
just to say that the Cabinet Minister has separated his
individualities with a distinctness that must satisfy the
most captious politician. The object of the Government
ought to be—as it may be hoped it will be—to place
the conditions of agriculture in Ireland on such a footing
as to encourage to the full the development of her
resources so as to enable her to maintain her population
on a scale of living not inferior, if possible, to that of
the rest of the empire. Probably the true solution of the
question is not to be found in any one system of farming
by itself, and Lord Carnarvon may be nearly right in 1
inclining to look for it in a mixture of small, moderate, and
large holdings. In England the tendency, ever since free
trade has made its influence fully felt, has been to increase i
and extend the system of large farms cultivated by great I
capital ; and the numerous other channels open to smaller
industry has prevented this circumstance squecz:ng tho
minor men cut of social organisation. In Ireland, unfor-
tunately, there are no such channels, and the effect of
placing the cultivation entirely in the hands of agricul-
turists of the type of Mr. Pollok, although it might pos-
sibly increase the yield of the soil, might leave a country
such as Ireland absolutely without that middle class which
every politician knows is one of the mainstays of society.

The Herald thinks it is not surprising that the death of
Bishop Phillpotts should have suggested itself as a suit-
able period for the revival of a question which has long
been one of no ordinary interest in the two western coun-
ties of England--the propriety of dividing the see of
Exeter. A memorial to Mr. Gladstone, setting forth the
grounds of such a step, has been drawn up, and is at
present in course of signature. The movement gathers
additional significance and interest from the fact that, not
many years ago, in the spirit of self-sacrificing energy for the
Church's weal which characterised uniformly all his public
acts, Dr. Phillpotts himself lent it the powerful assistance
of his advocacy, and offered to surrender half his income
as an endowment for the new prelacy. Those acquainted
with that portion of England cannot be unaware that the
inhabitants of Cornwall, who, by the way, aro especially
sensitive in all matters affecting the prestige of their
county, and ethnologically differ almost as widely from
their Devonshire neighbours as the natives of Monmouth
do from those of Macedon, regard it as one of their stand-
ing grievances that the most important and popular
Cornish district is situated more than one hundred
miles from the cathedral city of Exeter. The memo-
rialists declare that it is not their " wish to
see any increase in the number of bishops in the
House of Lords." We may ask what is the precise
nature of the position which they are anxious that the
Cornwall bishop should occupy, and is his spiritual lord-
ship of the future to stand in the relation of vassal or
coadjutor to the senior prelate of Devon ? The whole
subject is well worth consideration; and we may submit
that a settlement of it would be much facilitated by pub-
licity being given to the ecclesiastical htatistics of Devon-
shire and Cornwall, so that the world in general might
know more than it can be expected to know at presont of
the position, work, and requirements of the Church in the
two counties,

The Star says that poor Major Waterhouse was a good
deal bothered by his examination at Beverley on Satur-
day. The commissioners were to the last degree inquisi-
torial. They were somehow not quite satisfied with the
Major's answers. They were distrustful almost to the
verge of rudeness. And, moreover, they insisted upon
prying with impertinent familiarity into his motives as
well as his acts. Major Waterhouse is a brother-in-law of
Sir Henry Edwards, and as, he sits for a Yorkshire borough,
they formed a little family party of two in the House of Com-
mons. It was therefore only natural that the one gallant officer
should be interested in the political misfortunes of the
other gallant officer, and be prompt to offer his advice. We
dare. say Major Waterhouse is a very good natured per-
son: We do not suppose ho thought he was doing much
harm. He wished to oblige his relative and to serve his
party ; but in reality he was doing neither. A few years
ago and these tactics would probably have proved success-
ful. Mr. Cronhelm would have been spirited away, and
perhaps half a dozen other essential witnesses into
the bargain. But a marvellous change has taken
place in the temper of the country. The people
are disgusted with the corruption which has eaten into the
very heart of their free institutions, and the commissioners
appom • ted to drag the truth to light have caught a
large measure of the popular spirit. This is extremely
unpleasant to gentlemen in the position of Major Water-
house; but the wisest thing they can do is to make a clean
breast of all that they know, to avoid everything
like
fencing with questions, and to keep their memories in a
state of preternatural activity.

The Telegraph declares that all France is talking about
the extra,or,rmary dovelopruenti of that terrible mystery
known as "the Pantin massacre." From the Emperor
himself, who converses with M. Pi6tri regarding it, to the
workman who eagerly spends twenty-five centimes in
buying the very latest news, the utmost anxiety is shown
to ascertain the facts of the l'rthtful story. At Paris peo-
ple actually forget politics, bu: bless, i.lcasure, and take the
trains to the scene of the wl olesale assassination ; while
the newspapers snatch at every item of intelligence
or conjecture bearing upon the ghastly affair, and treat
their treaders to diagrams of the field of blood,
pictures of the scenes, and represent:along, after
the French mode, of the corpses as they lie at the Morgue.
French methods of criminal procedure appear to act upon
the consciences or the calculations of prisoners in a way so
strangely and effectually extractive that any day may
bring us a genuine and complete confession from Traup-
mann, which will make all clear. As our knowledge stands,
the affair is not a murder, but a massacre ; and if it should
turn out that the prisoner Traupmann slew eight victims
with his own hand, his name will stand out with a fearful
pre-eminence upon the annals of murder. In any event,
the Pantin tragedy must still make us tremble at the
atrocious degradation and .ferocity of which human beings
• . •
are capable.

The Times is disposed to think, upon the whole, that tht
chief lesson to be dravin from the cruise of the Admiralty
is the superiority of the Monarch pattern to any other
represented in the squadron: In most ordinary qualities
she was as good as any other ship ; in steadiness she was
far better. It not have been forgotten that on one
occasion she was described as the only effective vessel
in the entire fleet, and that under circumstances by no
means exceptional or improbable. A very mode-
rate swell in fine weather sufficed to set the
broadside vessels rolling so heavily that not one of
them could have fought her guns, while the Monarch
sat steadily on the water, and could, it is said, have
steamed up at her pleasure and sent half the squadron to
the bottom. This enormous superiority, being unqualified,
as far as we are informed, by any material disadvantage,
would appear almost to settle the questions between her
type and that of tho Bellerophon or Agincourt; but then
another question succeeds. Suppose a veuel with a still
lower freeboard—that is to say, still more submerged than
the Monarch—could be made equally seaworthy, might not
she, in a still heavier gale, have just the same advantage
over the Monarch that the Monarch had over the rest of
this Admiralty Fleet ? She owed her superiority entirely.
to the element or principle of the turret introduced into
her construction ; what if that principle could be intro-
duced further, and with as much success ? If the experi-
ment were attempted, what should we obtain ? Should we
get an improved Monarch, fit to knock all our broadsides
to pieces, and even the Monarch herself ; or should we get
another Scorpion, very powerful for offensive purposes, but
unfit to go to sea at all ? That, in a few words, as illus-
trated by actual examples, is the great question now before
the Admiralty and the couniiy; and we have directed
attention to it especially because there is really no other
question in naval matters on which so much depends.