The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—On the eve of the session there is an ever
increasing difference to be observed between the
political public and political personages. The former
are all curiosity and zeal. Nothing will satisfy them
but they must know at once what foes as well as
friends are about to do. They assume that every-
thing has been decided ; yet, somewhat inconsis-
tently, they wish to feel they are strengthening re-
solution and contributing advice, and so entitling
themselves to sitare the triumph at Ira;i3. On the
other hand, the personages have but little to say,
and don't wish to say it. Their great anxiety is to
keep themselves perfectly clear for any course t hat
may be found best. They are aware that their
words are not o.ly heard by their admiring consti-
tuents, but are also put down by truthful reporters,
printed, dispersed over the world, and carefully scru-
tinised by clever antagonists iu search of rash pro-
mises, unsound principles, or foolish admissions.
They are, or ought to be, masters in the' art of
" reticence"—the new name for what was once
called the use of language to conceal meaning. So
nobody of any sense would expect to learn much
from a speech by Mr. Milner Gibson, a letter in-
stead of a speech by Mr. C. Villiers, or an address
by the noble and youthful iII.P. for Nottingham.
We should be really Lorry to think that we pos-
sessed even the outlines of a policy in the ingenious
compositions before us ; and, in fact, they are stu-
diously wide of any mark that might be imagined.
Mr. Milner Gibson favours his constituents with a
neat speech on the restoration of peace in the
United States, on the working of the French treaty,
the Reform debate of last session, and the advan-
tages of popular Government, with nothing nearer
the approaching crisis than replies to one observa-
tion in a Conservative journal, and another by a
Conservative acquaintance. Mr. Villiers reminds
the people of Wolverhampton that he has always
been a Reformer ou all subjects whatever, and
may, therefore, be trusted to do what is best
when the time comes, but that, as he wishes to
give every proposal the fairest consideration, he
would rather not drop a word that might
prejudge the question. Lord Amberley dis-
courses at large about the Constitution, the proper
place and composition of the louse of Commons,
the licence to be accorded to the working classes in
the choice of their own political methods, the can-
dour due from one class to another, and the exag-
gerated estimates apt to be formed of all political
reforms. The people of Nottingham must have
thought him exceedingly clever in concealing some-
thing or other, but whether that were knowledge or
the contrary would not be so clear. It is a very
pretty speech, nevertheless. Mr. Milner Gibson
may be considered the proper representative of ex-
treme opinions in the late Cabinet, and on that ac-
count alone would be worth the sort of eaves-drop-
ping attention now given to many a man of less
consequence. When he tells us, in reply to some
observations he has seen and heard, that any mea-
sure introduced by a Conservative Government will
be either a good one or a bad one, and that iu the
former case it will split the party, iu the latter ex-
pose it to certain defeat, he says only what has
been said before, and is so probable as to occur to
most people without high and authoritative sugges-
tion. Indeed, it is the confessed dilemma of Go-
vernment, which, like every Conservative or Tory
Government there ever was, contains men only held
back by their colleagues. Reform, however, must
come, he says, even in the case of a Conservative
break-up, as in that case there will, he says, be two
" Caves," the one of which might be paired against
the other. We don't quite see how the four parties,
great and small, supposed in this double succession,
are to sort themselves so as to form a convenient ar-
rangement for the passage of a good measure.
Unless a millenium is even nearer than our sages
predict, we can scarcely hope to see five hundred
sensible Whigs and Tories agreeing upon a bill,
condemned by the recondite reasons of a hundred
crotchety bigots or philosophers. • We have no wish
to see honest independence of opinion trampled
under the feet of so overwhelming a majority,
however wise and patriotic. But such specula-
tions only convict themselves, for in the high game
of politics the only thing that comes to pass is the
unexpected, and that which never comes to pass is
the nice little scheme that is to make everything
straight and square. There is more faith to be
placed in the restoration of ex-Monarchs to their
lost thrones than the easy, pleasant, and honourable
accomplishment of great reforms. On this point,
then, we cannot quite go along with Mr. Milner
Gibson. He has more claim to our acquiescence
when he says that all tha reasons alleged for the
postponement of Reform—indefinite as that post-
ponement must inevitably be are, in truth, the
best reasons for its immediate settlement. The
supposed four-fifths now wanting representation

cannot reasonably be desired to wait till our diffi-

culties and arrears have been disposed of by the old
Parliament. If they have a right to more place and
ight in the Legislature, the light is as good for
one set of measures, or one branch of legislation, as
another. Least of all can the existing House claim
to do all that it_lias left undone, and mend all that
it has done ill. A domestic servant is dismissed
because he wont do his work and leaves it in arrears;
and he certainly would not gain a respite by point-
ing to the disorder, the confusion, the accumulation,
and the dirt visible in the whole range of his depart-
ment, and calling for immediate attention. The
principal objection that presents itself to Lord Am -
berley's remarks, where they approach the great
question, is that they were Lord Amberley's. He
is of opinion that there are too many sons and re-
latives of peers in the House of Commons, and that
there is too close an alliance between that house
and the aristocracy, The result is that it does not
represent the people. He would rather a less repre-
sentation of the nobility, and more of the working
class, and he goes so far as to recongnize in the
Trades' Unions a sound and safe embodiment of the
working classes and a means for their representation.
So far as we understand his lordship, he would
like to see a score or two lords and honourables
giving place to the secretaries, delegates, and other
gentlemen we have heard so much of lately. They
would be able to advocate with authority the claims
of labour, and enable it to fight better its old battle
with land and capital. This would, of course, come
under the head of those fancy franchises denounced
by none so much as the great party to which Lord
Amberley belongs, and it certainly implies a very
different system of representation from that in favour
with high Liberal authorities. But why does Lord
Amberley confine his suggestions to the House of
which, he has seen so little, and which, in the course
of nature, he can only be a bird of passage ? Has he
no plan for giving more efficiency to the House of
Lords, and making it fitter for its place in the Legis-
lature? Can he not even suggest how it is to be
assimilated to the more numerous, more powerful,
and more energetic body, with which it must always
work in entire harmony? When the lordlings are

eliminated from the Commons, who is to secure that

they shall run well with the Lords, and leave that
House at least worth a seat in it? It is easy enough
to criticises but not to stop in criticism. Anyhow,
the House of Commons, as it exists, is as good as the
Lords; and if the one is to be reformed,—off the face
of the creation if necessary,—what exemption or
grace can be claimed for the other ?
POST.—Whatever differences of opinion may exist
in respect to the politics of the Earl of Clarendon,
none will deny his title to be considered a fair sample
of an English nobleman. Tories may regret that
he is a Liberal ; but even his great political oppo-
nents would not venture to suggest that he has not
done credit to the aristocracy of which he is a mem-
ber. He lict.s taken a prominent place in the House
of Peers. He has done good service to the State.
He has on several occasions been one of the
principal advisers of his Sovereign. In his private
capacity his worth has been no less unequivocally
recognised. lie is a kind and considerate land-
lord, a polished and educated gentleman. His
demeanour is courteous, and those who, when he
held the seals of Secretary of State, knew him in
the light of an employer,. have always rendered a
willing tribute to the kindliness of his character
and his forbearance,. No one, therefore, could be
better fitted than the Earl of Clarendon to vindicate
the peerage from the imputations which it has be-
come the fashion for a certain class to cast upon it,
and we are glad to see that he availed himself of the
opportunity of doing. so at the annual meeting of
the West gertiordshwe -4ricultural Society a few

days since. Of the merits of societies such as these
it is needless to speak, and the eulogy passed upon
them by the Earl of Clarendon will doubtless be re-
ceived without contradiction. In alluding to the
benefits arising from the meetings of men engaged
in the same kind of business, he pointed out that
community of interest had a tendency to sweq
away class distinctions, and then added that if such
distinctions were created or maintained it was by
those who sought to cause ill will or disunion
amongst the people of this country. " This sin,
continued the Earl of Clarendon, 4, for it would be
a sin if it existed, is generally laid at the door of the
aristffb.r-ey, and every now and then a son pegnat 's
sent forth into the world laden with the sin of the
aristocracy, and is usually personiried by some un-
fortunate peer who is very ignorant, very bloat( d,
and who is an enemy to progress, and who is 0
wealthy and so selfish as to be incapable of sym-
pathising with the wants and aspirations of the
eoor." This is in truth a terse resume, of the
articles of a very curious political creed which is
now taught, although not for the first time, in this
country, and it may not be out of
place at a time
like the present, when a complete recasting of the
national instil utions is demanded,' to inquire hew
far the charges made against the peerage can be
justified. The Earl of Clarendon gave there an
indignant denial, and disapproved the existence of
class distinctions by illustrations of individuals
who, though of the humblest origin, had risen to
the highest place,; in the State. Tc a certain ex-
tent these answers may be considered conclusive.
It is not very easy to explain the grounds on which
the extreme members of the Radical party seek to
cast odium on the House of Lords. It is vei y in-
telligible that any section of a community which is
debarred the exercise of particular privileges should
regard with dislike those who are more favoured
than themselves, and this dislike would naturally be
enhanced if the enjoyment of the coveted privileges
depended upon pure accident. The case made
against the House of Lords is that its members are
entitled to legislate for the nation, not because they
are more intelligent or more industrious, or more
wealthy than their fellow-citizens, but simply be-
cause they happen to be the legal heirs of
indivi-
duals who were entitled to legislate before there.
Thus far the case of the Radical party is easy to be
understood. However excellent a hereditary peer-
age may be, it is incontestable that many nations
flourish without one, and it is certainly a fair ques-
tion for discussion whether an individual should be
entitled to a seat in the Legislature by the mere
accident of birth. But the opponents of the Eng-
lish House of Lords do not stop here. They con-
stantly urge not only that a peer may be an unfit
legislator, but that he must be so ; and they make
it an essential element of their case that he lms
direct interest in oppressing his fellow-subjects, and
moreover, that ke loses no opportunity of doing 0:
Mr. Bright on more than one occasion has said that
a hereditary peerage was an opprobrium to a civi-
lised State ; and he and those who support his views
assume that no political system should acknowledge
any rank, much less its incidental privileges, unless
acquired by the intelligence or worth of the indivi-
dual. The suggestion that a peer individually, or
the whole peerage collectively, must have interests
antagonistic to the interests of the nation, appears
to us not only gratuitous, but is in fact cJntra-
dieted by almost every page of English history'
If the unenfranchised choose to consider themselves
the nation they may point to the opposition
the peers offer to their projects as a proof of 61!
soundness of their theory, but those who regard th
unenfranchised as only a section of the English
people will probably be of opinion that the peers
may well entertain a conscientious view that 1"
opposing certain proposed changes they are acting
in the interests of the entire nation. When the aP,:t
tation for the Reform Bill of 1832 was at its height
the opposition of the House of Peers to that mea-
sure put the House in extreme peril, but few perscrd
can entertain a doubt that the peers were actuate
by a patriotic desire to maintain a political system
which they believed worked well. If they were rills"
taken in this respect they shared the fallibility CO'
mon to mortals. It is, however, their personal eve;
more than their political character that the Pee
have most cause for indignation at finding attacked
by their opponents. The Earl of Clarendon was jus-
tified in protesting against the practice of invariably
o
selecting a peer as the embodiment of all that ti
selfish and unpatriotic. It is scarcely necessary a,
say that no body of men could exist in a free court'
try whose members were such as Mr. Bright andlle,
friends paint the members of the English peeragbe
And the most conclusive proof of the fallacy ef,_l,.;r
assumption on which these gentlemen base ta.u`,,
arguments is supplied by the good esteem in
the members of the House of Lords are, as a rn_i,
held by those who are brought in contact with them.
If Mr. Bright, as the representative of the wanti,
facturing classes, commands the respect of °per'
tives and mechanics, the Earl of Clarendon, as 3 r.
he
presentative of the lauded interest, commands
theo
respect of those who are occupied in cultivating
soil and rearing stock, and is elected by them to,
president of the agricultural society of the eeuvLia
in which some of his estates are situated. Sure 5-
agriculture is as well entitled to be represented ill,O
country as manufacturing labour. Th.!, raista',
which the extreme reformers make consists in takt
a one-sided view of a matter which at all events au
mits of being regarded in two different lights.