The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP-PIELIC lOTTRNALS.

The advice of Mr. Wainer, M.P., to the Midland direc-
tors, to postpone what .can be postponed, and to abandon
what can be abandoned, is, as the Times thinks, probably
*the best that could he given:l The view taken of the future
is, perhaprst; not too sanguine ; and the actual culpability of
the directors on the ?core of the present difficulty must be
measured by more exact' estimates of the several under-
takings than are yet before us. But we cannot omit
to notice one or two points in our correspondent's
letter which have a most pertinent bearing upon the
questions at the bottom of all railway finance.
Mr. Baines tells us that he has for years been
engaged indirectly in the audit of the com-
pany's accounts, and that he invariably inquired as
strictly as possible, first, whether the accounts were
accurate : and next, whether the charges of the year were
duly apportioned between capital and revenue. Our
readers know by this time what that division really means.
Charging to revenue means paying expenses out of re-
ceipts ; charging to capital means paying them out of
borrowed money. Now, it is quite evident that Mr.
Baines, in common, we fancy, with all railway officials—
indeed, with the whole railway world—thinks that some
expenses ought properly and fairly to be met, not
by payment out of pocket, but by running into debt,
and we should like to know how he would define lor
limit the outgoings to be taus conveniently defrayed.
We venture to state once more that there is only one
fund out of which any railway expenses can possibly
be paid, and that is the revenue of the line. What-
ever is not carried to revenue is simply carried to the
revenue of after years, just as this very £5,000,000,
if it were really raised, would, though it is termed
" capital " at the minute, be constituted by £500,000 taken
yearly out of future revenue for ever. What kind of ex-
penditure is it which it is justifiable to defray in such a
manner? Is it expenditure on what Mr. Baines calls
" defence of territory?" But defence of territory only
means defence of traffic ; defence of traffic only means pro-
tection of revenue ; and what is the use of protecting
revenue at the cost of a mortgage on revenue itself, only
too likely to exceed the saving effected ? To ensure the
prosperity of a line, revenue ought to be kept up and
capital to be kept down, whereas no railway board or rail-
way proprietary ever seems to have given a thought to
anything but revenue. All their cares, hopes, and anxie-
ties were concentrated on that end of the acccount, and
for this one-sided and purblind policy they are now suf-
fering.

The Post argues that in keeping up a great standing
army the Emperor of the French cannot help himself,
with a saturnine Bismarck scowling at him from the other
side of a frontier which a lame man could hop over.
Prussia, which has been for the last hundred years one of
the most powerful military States in the world, has lately
waxed so great as to inspire well-founded alarm among her
neighbours. She has eaten up and swallowed most of
them. She is looking at the rest with hungry eyes, and a
constant smacking of the lips which must make them ex-
tremely uncomfortable ; and she is governed by a Prince
and a Premier who have shewn that they can make war at
pleasure, and wholly irrespective of the state of public
opinion in Europe. Prussia has just annihilated Austrian
power so completely that she might have occupied Vienna
as she did Frankfort, and have put an end to the rule of
the Hapsburgs altogether had she been so minded. In
the case of Denmark, Prussia acted in utter contempt of
all the press and opinion of the civilised world. Morece-er,
when Prussia was a far lesser Power than she now is, she
defied successfully the allied forces of France, Russia,
Austria, and Sweden all together. She has proved in
. twenty great pitched battles, at least, the extraordinary
discipline and stubborn courage of those immense armies
which she collects from every class of her population,
and holds in constant readiness to hurl against an enemy.

According to the Daily News, the subscription for the
sufferers by the Clerkenwell explosion is not proceeling
exactly as could be desired. The public is not only ready
but eager to come forward and bear its share of their
burden, but something has hindered it. There has been
from the first a certain misconception about the extent of
the aid which was being given and as to the amount that
was still required, and perhaps the too local coast tion
of the committee has somewhat contributed to this uncer-
tainty. One thing should be distinctly understood : the
Government remits the duty of providing for the Clerken-
well sufferers to the public. The wise and prompt action
of Mr. Disraeli on the morrow of the disaster has evi-
dently misled some persons to believe that the Govern-
ment has assumed a further obligation ; but this is not the
case. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has held out no
pros.pest whatever of further assistance from the Govern-
ment, its intervention in the first instance having been
intended to meet those urgent wants which could not wait
to 1 c until the public could come to their aid.
Mr. Disraeli advised that the Relief Committee should
prepare a statement of all the legitimate claims on their
consideration, and then appeal to the national sympathy.
He also recomnsended that a public meeting should be
held out of Clerkenwell, and expressed his belief that if
these m: • eres n-ere adopted they would elicit a warm and
instant response. A meeting should be called at once,
either in the City or at the West-end, if not in both, and
everything should be done to impress a national character
on the movement. The public perfectly understand that,
as the Rev. R. Maguire somewhat theologically expressed
it, this is a case of vicarious suffering, and that the blow
which struck the poor of Corporation-row was aimed at
England herself.

The Saturday Review takes it for granted that no Libe-
ral Ministry in the future will be complete without Mr.
Bright on the Treasury Bench. The hon. member will
then discover how very difficult a thing it is to deal with
Ireland. With very much of what he says about Ireland
(continues our contemporary) we agree, but then so does
every one agree except the wildest Orangeman. We are
quite sick of these retrospects of the past conceived from
the point of view of a.violent partisan, or we might pause
to take objection to what Mr. Bright calls the persistent
misgovernment of Ireland by the Tories. Considering
that the Whigs have had something approaching to thirty
years of office since the Reform Bill, why on earth are the
Tories to be exclusively blamed for the sad state of the
country ? But Ireland is so serious a subject that all these
bandyings of party reproaches ought to be laid entirely
aside now when we try to deal with it. But, then, what
is to be done with Ireland? Mr. Bright, following Mr.
Gladstone, says that we ought not to delay doing justice
to Ireland because of the - Fenian conspiracy ; we ought
not to let pique and indignation prevent us from doing
what is right. Let us admit this. Mr. Bright further
says that the consequences of Irish disaffection are most
grave, and that the present state. of Ireland is full of dan-
ger to England,. greater than any she has passed through
for many years. Let us admit this also. Lastly, Mr.
Bright says that, to meet a great danger, we must use
great and bold remedies, and that a statesman who hopes
to deal with Ireland properly must be prepared to make
startling and sweeping changes. Let us, for argument's
sake, admits this also. We are prepared to come to the
examination of Irish affairs, ready for anything in the
whole world as long as it can be shewn to be just, prac-
ticable, and permanently advantageous. But, in the first
place, we have to remark that there is a danger in the very
language which men like Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright
use about Ireland. It is dangerous that the Irish should
be almost justified in their disaffection, made to think
their case quite exceptional, and be told that they can
never be made happy and prosperous, and never have
simple justice done them, unless something new, startling,
and unheard-of is devised for their benefit. This language
can only be justified on one hypothesis, that those who use
it have really got definite practical measures which they
are prepared to propose. If they have—and it ought to
be the aim of a statesman to have such measures
at the present crisis—they are quite right to prepare
the way for them ; but, if not, they are only
using big words at a time when big words are
likely to do more than their usual amount of harm. In
the next place, it may be said that there is nothing to be
more dreaded for Ireland than that every politician should
think there is some great secret for managing it, which
if he can but guess before anybody else, he will deserve to
he crowned with laurels, and have a gold statue erected to
him. One of the crazes about Ireland that is most noxious
is, that there is in the abyss of things some great Carlyle an.
Cromwell:an remedy for all its evils, which any one person
who gets up a little Irish hi Cory or makes a month's tour
in Connaught is as likely to find out as another. This is
a sort of nonsense which is all very well in its place, but
in real politic.) we want men to take up the question of
Ireland who proceed in a totally different way : and the
time may now be said to he come when it is the duty of
men like the two leaders of the Liberal party in the House
of Commons to separate theniselves from mere seers of
visions and dreamers of dreams, and to state in plain len-
guage what England, with all the best will in the world,
can really do for Ireland.

The Spectator deals rather severely with the reports of
the committees of the recent Episcopal Confercnco at
Lambeth. Anyone can see at a glance who looks over
these documents that they form an organic whole, and
would, before many years are passed, if practically acted
on, create as formidable a schism in our own Church at
home as they directly advise in the Church of the colonies.
One report recommends the general reorganisation of the
diocesan synods, and of the provincial synods over them.
Over these provincial
synods, again—of which the Convo-
cations of the Provinces of York and Canterbury, but
reconstituted so as to admit lay representatives, are the
only existing examples—would be a " Congress " oz
" Council " of the whole Anglican Communion, of which
the recent Lambeth Conference—reconstituted so as to
admit lay and clerical representatives "as consultees and
advisers," but not apparently with votes—would be the

best example,. This " Congress" or " thrytigh
not credited with authority to lay down CUM@ of dOettine
of universal obligation, would yet► as. we hay° down,
be empowered to give definitions of doctrine whit& ♦Elie
Colonial court of doctrinal appeal would be gencraiiy ballad
to respect and abide by. Now, as the ArohlAshop tf
Canterbury would be president of this Congress or Connell,
and also president of the Colonial Court of Appeal, and
as in both cases he would act in conjunction with brother
bishops of his own Church, it is simply impossible that the
doctrines to be laid down by this highest Council or Con-
gress of the Anglican Communion, and to be binding (in
most cases) on tlie doctrinal tribunal of appeal, should not
gain a great prestige in the national Church itself, and
become very soon practical tests of orthodoxy, the rejec-
tion of which would render any English clergyman
suspected by his brethren, and lay him open to all sorts of
disagreeable social disabilities and penalties. Indeed, to
gain this social prestige at home for the doctrinal
decisions of the proposed Court of Appeal, and of the
proposed General Council of the Anglican Communion,
is obviously the chief object and intention of the whole
conspiracy. That it would be successful to the extent
of introducing a great schism into our Church in the
colonies, and a new source of bitter division and strife
into our Church at home, we do not doubt at all. Once
make it a slur on a clergyman's character that he claims
the liberty conceded him by our Ecclesiastical Courts,
and sets at naught the decisions of the new spiritual bodies
proposed in these ambitious sketches, and you will have
such a series of conflicts in the Church, such a mass of
heartburnings, such tests proposed by rectors to curates,
and by the proprietors of advowsons to the incumbents of
their choice, as it will be utterly impossible for our Church
to bear. At present it is a Church of liberty within fixed
legal limits. But it is quite possible, we admit, for cle-
rical parties to make combinations stronger than the law ;
and the proposed scheme will render it simply inevitable
that such parties should be formed. A powerful schis-
matic Church in the colonies will stimulate the High
Church and Evangelical parties at home to compete with
it in boastful independence of the secular tribunals.
And this is indeed exactly the end for which the leaders
of the recent Congress at Lambeth are scheming. We
think it very likely that they will succeed. We aro
sure that their success means schism on a most formidable
scale. We believe that it means also the pulverisation
of the Church of England—at present catholic, liberal,
and great into small, sectarian, and narrow-minded
bodies, which will wield little influence, and deserve less.