The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TIIE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

bethought of the conduct
of
question of the Hyde Park
e inr maythe
meeting, it is, at least, satisfactory that the 6th of
May has passed over without the smallest riot or dis-
turbance. Yesterday evening the Park was given up
T thell ES
Government.--- IITh ate v
absolutely to Mr. Beales and his followers, and the
League held its meeting amid as little excitement
i
as if they had been n Trafalgar-square or on Prim-
rose-hill. After the commotion of the last few
days it might have been expected that, even though
the opposition of the Government had been with-
drawn, political feeling, curiosity, or a suspicion
that after all something unusual might occur
would have brought the great mass of the London
population to the scene,
and that when there their
sentiments would be manifested with more than
ordinary force. rhi a
'— —.., however as far as we were
able to judge, was not the case.' The meetings re-
sembled in every way those which may have been
witnessed elsewhere durinc, the last ten months.
The crowd was not excesslve, the enthusiasm was
notintense; there was universal good humour, nor
did there seem
_l;,e any overweening exultation at
the victory that .fiad been won over the Govern-
ment. The quite of the proceedings was, perhaps,
in a great degreendue to the comparatively early
hour at which the meeting was held. Although
half-past six may be a tiin: of leisure to the labour-
ing class s of London, yet it is not sufficiently long
after tee end of the working day to enable a multi-
tude to assemble from the more distant parts of
London. Had there been any prospect of a collision
with the police, no doubt work or play, or anything
else, would have been forsaken for the chant of
seeuig the fray ; but as it was, the Park, at the
time appointed for the meeting,, was not half as
well tilled as it had been Oh 7 -oprev ion.; after-
noon. Mr. Beales and his frie'n&: weye punctual,
and they were not very prolix ; the proceedings,
consequently, were far
advanced before the people
came in any large numbers. They did, however,
come at last, and at about the time when the
habitual visitors of the park retire it was take,n. pos-
session of by a fairly large concourse. I hes-,
however, had nothinc, to do but to stroll about
in the cool of a delicious evening, and one may
suppose that the influence of the first balmy Mon-
day of the year made itself felt, for there was
as little of excitement or indignation, or evenT of
curiosity, among them as can be conceived. IN o one
would have supposed that they were taking. part in
a political demonstration. The large majority of
the assemblage, of cnirse, belonged to the working
people, but the class called ti rough" was not very

conspicuous, the lovers of mischief probably not
having thougbtthe entertainment worthy the trouble
of a walk. The meetings, as will be seen from the
reports we publish, were of the usual character, but
the speeches were fair and moderate. The League,
content with its triumph over the Government,
exulted less than might be expected, and even de-
nounced less than usual. It, even by the mouth of
the O'Donoghue, accepted as a compromise the bill
now before Parliament, demanding only that it be
made a fair and honest measure. As the twilight
deepened into dusk the people began to depart, and
long before night settled on the Park it had been
deserted by the great mass of its unusual visitors.
So has ended the great. Demonstration of the pre-
sent session ! The issue has been fortunate,
though the affair has inflicted a humiliation on the
Government such as has been seldom suffered by
men in office. It is, indeed, difficult to exaggerate
the folly, the recklessness, and the perversity which
have brought the Cabinet of which Mr. Walpole is
a member to its present position. Their confusion
is so complete that it is almost needless to recapitu-
late their mistakes and to dwell on the undignified
result. They may be left to the ridicule of their
adversaries, the reproaches of their own indignant
party, and the murmurs of all who have a regard
for the honour of the Crown and the Executive.
If it were not that important interests are still in-
volved we should be inclined to leave them alone,
conscious that they will have enough to do to re-
move the obloquy that has fallen on them. But we
cannot forget that Mr. Walpole has before the house
a bill for the regulation of the parks, and that any
attempt which may be made to place the holding of
political meetings in the parks at the will of a Mini-
ster will be declared tobe an invasion of the rights the
people have conquered.- We cannot, therefore, pass
over in silence the history of this transaction, which
has so important a bearing on future legislation.
Our readers know that in November, 1856, the law
advisers of the Crown, Sir Alex. Cockburn, Sir
Richard Bethell, and Mr. Willes, three of the most
eminent lawyers of our time, signed an opinion on
the right to exclude the public from the Parks. We
need not enter into technical details. It is enough to
say that the tenour of theopinion was that the Crown
had the right to close the gates and exclude the pub-
lic, or to exclude persons without closing the gates;
but that persons who had once entered could not be
turned out without notice that the license was with-
drawn. This opinion having been submitted to Sir
11. Cairns and Sir W. Bovill at the time of the riots
last year, they were requested to say whether there
I was any legal authority to disperse by force a meet-
ing for political purposes. Their answer was that
no such power as could he practically used exists,
for that persons who have once entered can only be
ejected after notice served upon each person in-
dividually. The Government was advised that it
had nothing to rely upon but the common law of
trespass ; that each man must be turned out with
no more force than is necessary, and that he must
be let go as soon as he has passed the precincts.
The military cannot be legally employed, except in
case of riot; the Riot Act cannot be read, except
when people have been " unlawfully, riotously, and
tumultuously assembled to the disturbance of the
peace." Even then the military must wait an hour,
unless the public proceed to actual " insurrection
or felonious mischief." These are the principal
points of an opinion which ought at once to have
convinced the Government thatit had no practical
power under the existing law to prevent public
meetings in the parks ; for though it may legally
turn out any person, or any number of persons, this
power cannot be used against a great multitude. Its
only course—that of refusing permission to well-
known leaders to enter, or gently expelling them
when t hey have once entered would, perhaps,
avail to prevent Mr. Beales from haranguing, but
would not hinder speeches from any of his fol-
lowers. The employment of soldiers, too, under
such conditions is of such doubtful legality, and a
matter so dangerous if proved to be illegal, that
under the present law, as expounded by its law ad-
visers, the Government should never have planned
a general clearing of the Park by such a force.
Now, this opinion was given at the very beginning
of the controversy, in the summer of lastyear. It was
therefore clearly the duty of the Ministry eit er to
announce that the law as it stands does not fort id,
or, at any rat:. cannot prevent, political meetings,
and that therefore resistance to them would cease ;
or they should have come to Parliament for fresh
powers, so as to give the Crown that right of re-
gulating the use of the Parks which it had been
supposed to possess. If it was too late to legislate
last sesssion, the bill might have been brought in
this year. The L-ague has never allowed the ques-
t tion to sleep, and for some time past it has been
known that they were pledged to some trial of
strength such as that of yesterday. If Mr. \Val-
; pole had frankly laid these opinions before the House
of Commons, and asked for an actdefining more pre-
cisely the rights of the Crown, it would, no doubt,
have received a dispassionate consideration. Instead
of this, he keeps the opinion of his lawyers in his
pocket, affects to believe that the law is all that
can be desired, and publishes his proclama-
tion in the hope of deterring his antagonists,
though lie knows that if they are not frightened lie
has no means of doing what he threatens. They,
having possibly some inkling of the real state of the
case, have persevered, and at the last moment Mr.
Walpole has been compelled to succumb. It was
in the interval between his last bravado and his
final submission that he brought forward the mea-
sure which is now before Parliament. It will have
every disadvantage to contend with, and a measure
which might have been fairly discussed will now be
the object of invective and derision. We trust that
Mr. Walpole will either desist from any attempt to
legislate, or intrust it, after a decent interval, to
other hands.

THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE" ON CATHOLIC
POLITICS.—After speaking in a frank and cour-
tholes manner, though, indeed, in terms far too
flattering, of the WESTMINSTER GAzErrE, and after
congratulating us on having already attained " a
respectable circulation,"—which, apropos of Mr.
Formby's kind remark as to our serving as a chan-
nel of communicating Catholic ideas to the general
public we may add, is not inconsiderable among
non-Catholic readers—the Weekly Register observes
that, although "in foreign news, and in discussions
upon general topics, both concerning home and
abroad, it is hardly to be surpassed, the WESTMIN-
STER does not take any very marked line in Eng-
lish politics." Upon this obiervation it is neces-
sary to make a few remarks. It is our intention, as
we announced in our first number, to take up a very
marked and distinctive line on the matter of Eng-
glish politics. .1 Politics, however, may be treated
either as a matter of principle or as a matter of
principles em bodied in a
party, or, again, as
party and carried out by its agency ; but this
latter form, in which speculative principles are put
in action, presupposes and requires complete iden-
tification between the thinker and the active agent,
between principles and political parties. Now, the
question at once arises, or, at any rate, arises
on the least reflection, is such an identification
possible of Catholic principles with either of the
great parties in the State? If not, then, any such
attempt can only lead to disappointment, to
wrangling and recrimination, and to years of
wasted energies, and to that final enervation—the
too natural consequence of an obstinate persistence
in an erroneous course—full of acrimonious com-
plaints over resultless labours and over forgotten
services. But it is no true service to the Catholic
cause to identify, it with political parties at the
expense of those principles which are dearer to
Catholicism than any seeming or immediate advan-
tages which it may draw from an alliance with
either of the great parties. For no such complete
identification as is required for proper and effec-
tive Parliamentary action is, we maintain, possible
in a Catholic party without a waiving or a sacrifice,
greater or less, of Catholic principles. In Catholic
politics there are certain broad principles unfortu-
nately repudiated by both of our political parties,
such as that politics are apart of morals, and as such
come under the cognizance of religion ; that it is
the duty of the State to aim at the spiritual as well
as the temporal welfare of the nation, and to rank
even the spiritual above the temporal power, and
this not for personal or passing gains to the spiri-
tual power, but for the highest permanent inte-
rests of the State ; that in matters of a mixed cha-
racter, such, for instance, as marriage, the spiri-
tual rights and interests are supreme ; hence the
civil order must in nowise violate or infringe in the
least on the ecclesiastical law ; that the child be-
longs to the parent and not to the State ; and
that it is a matter of conscience that education in
all classes should be based on religious teaching,
and that the range of subjects affected by these
principles are of infinitely higher importance than
the question of finance or of Reform which now
divides parties; and that, finally, on these political
questions, involving spiritual interests the Catholic
episcopate has a voice, the Pope an infallible
authority. For a Catholic party holding such
political principles to, identify themselves with
either the 'Whig or Tory party is a mere fallacy;
they can only really do so by subordinating
Catholic to party principles, and content them-
selves at such a sacrifice to snatch a temporary
gain or a passing triumph for the Catholic cause.
But, by such a subordination, how small is the
gain, how great the loss. The gain too often is
but partial, whilst the loss sometimes is a sacrifice
of the highest principles of Catholic conduct. To
illustrate our meaning by a recent familiar inci-
dent : The terms of the Catholic Parliainentary
oath repealed last session were, as is well known,
most offensive and mischievous ; but its repeal or
modification would have been dearly bought at the
sacrifice of the principle that no such oath can be

framed, or proposed, or accepted by Catholic lay-
men, without the concurrence and sanction of the
ecclesiastical authorities. Again, university educa-
tion is a pressing need for the. Catholics of this
empire, but so to vote or so act as to promote in the
remotest manner the mixed or godless system to the
detriment of the principle of religious education, is
to inflict a heavier evil than the absence of the
highest intellectual training could ever entail on
the Catholic body in England. Catholic political
principles find no real place in either of the great
parties ; Catholics form their political judgment
from a stand-point quite other than that of
Wrhigs or Tories. The result is not an acci-
dental, but an essential difference ; not in remote
or minor matters, but in the nearest and in the
highest interests. Since between a Catholic poli-
tical party and Whigs or Tories there can be no
identity of principle, or permanent or. uninter-
rupted community of action, the only safe course
for Catholics to pursue is to avoid absorption into
either of the great parties, so as to be able to act
freely and steadfastly on their own well-defined
political principles. But such a course by no
means implies isolation or forbids Catholics from
giving to, or accepting at the hands of, either of
the great parties support or assistance, or from
acknowledging a greater affinity with one rather
than another of the great political sections. Far
less would such a consistent obedience to their
political principles make Catholics remiss in pro-
moting the highest interests of their country.
Catholic politics, as we have endeavoured to ex-
plain the subject, have no such selfish aim as the
Saturday Review in the commencement of our
career imputed to us, of seeking temporary advan-
tages, of stealing petty triumphs from the dis-
organized state of parties, to the detriment of
the good of our common country. On the con-
trary, the aim of the Catholic politician, true to
his principles, is to avert., as far as in his power
lies, the evils of unsound or un-Christian legisla-
tion, to keep before the public eye a higher stan-
dard of judgment, and to support the great politi-
cal, social, and religious truths which Christianity
introduced for the civilization of the world, and
which modern society in its pride and ignorance
threatens to overthrow. Such, then, is the well-
marked and definite line in English politics which
we proposed from the commencement as the aim
of our humble labours. Such a line of policy is
not truly described as one of selfish isolation or
of vigilant hostility ; it is the very reverse ; the
first effort of such a political party, as we have de-
scribed, would be to make use of the political know-
ledge learned in the light of Catholic principles for
the material and moral benefit of the nation at
large. The wisdom of Parliament would be enlarged
by the experience drawn from such a source, and
its action benefited by the presence of such a party.
Such a course of policy, at least, has the advantage
of offering to English and Irish Catholics a common
ground of united action, far removed from the
petty wranglings of mere party strife, in which
the higher interests are too often altogether lost
sight of for the sake of the lower, and in which,
not infrequently, Catholic principles are sacrificed
at the shrine of a narrow and heated partizanship.