The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The appointment of Baron von Beust to
the office of Minister for Foreign Affairs ushers in
the first day of a new life for the Austrian Empire.
From the, disaster of Sadowa to the present 'date,
there has been, properly speaking, no Government
at Vienna. The men who had stood at the helm
during that terrific storm of the Bohemian war
shrank from the responsibility of any further steer-
ing. Bewilderment, consternation, blank despair
sat at Francis Joseph's Councils, and beyond his
own family the Emperor scarcely found one man to
share the burden of cares which adversity had ren-
dered so overwhelming. In the midst of this dis-
tress and hopelessness it must have seemed to the
unhappy Monarch as if his good star had brought
him the Saxon ex-Premier. Baron von Beust is a
man of brilliant qualities, and does not hide his
light under a bushel. A strong prepossession in
his favour, it appears, sprang up in the Emperor's
mind from an early interview, and the arrangement
which was only formally announced a few days
ago is said to have been in contemplation for the
last three months. The Emperor Francis Joseph
can hardly at this moment be numbered among
Constitutional Sovereigns. He has no Parliament
to call him to alcount for the choice of his servants,
and had even objections been raised on the part of
public opinion against the promotion of this stranger
to the highest office in the State, the great plea of
necessity could always be urged in justification.
The Emperor could nowhere find another Minister.
The nomination of Baron von Beust has, never-
theless, . created a very great commotion at home
and abroad; and the impression must, even in the
judgment of the favoured statesman,-have seemed
so unfavourable as to suggest the expediency of
issuing a circular that sounds very much like an
explanation and apology. Baron von Beust, we
are told in this important document, takes office as
a new man. The will of his new Imperial master
has made him an Austrian, and as such he thinks it
a duty incumbent on his office to " separate him-
self from his political precedents.', Nothing oaxon
abides in him, except feelings of regard and
gratitude to the Prince whom he has served with
so much zeal and fidelity. The great champion
of the old Bund, the mouthpiece of the minor
States, the head of the Gros-Deutsch or Great-
German party, the herald of the Schleswig-Holstein
war, now turns over a new leaf, and enters upon
his present duties free "from all partiality or pre-
judice." The pledge he takes for himself is equally
binding on the Government under his guidance.
Europe, we are assured by the semi-official Vienna
Gazette, has no occasion to look upon the new
appointment with apprehension. No passion or
rancour will characterise the policy hereafter to be
pursued by Austria. Her immediate necessity is
peace. Domestic interests press so heavily on the
Emperor's councils as to leave, for the present, no
leisure for interference with other people's concerns,
or for attempts to regain a leading position in Euro-
pean affairs.
HERALD.--Mr. Bright's visit to Ireland has come
to an abrupt and, we might almost say, an igno-
minious termination. After a brief stay in the
capital, during which he delivered two or three
harangues, received with remarkable coolness and
indifference—the more, perhaps, that they were less
violent, intemperate, and abusive than usual—the
great agitator hurried away as he is wont to hurry
out of the House of Commons when his reckless
menaces of mob law, or his diatribes against the
class to which four-fifths of his hearers belong by
blood or sympathy, have called up Lord Cranborne,
or some other opponent noted for the powers of sar-
casm which could not be more fitly or righteously
employed in indignant reply. And if we look at
the record of the meeting from which he fled we
have little difficulty in assigning the reason of his
retreat. The speech of the great orator himself was
heard indeed, as anything that so eloquent and
powerful a voice may utter will always be heard,
but with interruptions of a kind to which the speaker
is little accustomed. And the Chairman, who pre-
ceded and introduced him, was greeted with cries
which showed how little effect any address in favour
of Parliamentary Reform would find with such an
audience. Cheers for Stephens, Fenianistn, and
Lord Edward Fitzgerald—of whom the cheerers
probably knew nothing more than that he was a
inaudible.
Mr. Mr. Naughton almost
Mr. Bright's proposal for the purchase. of the
estates of -English landlords was hailed with a
significant question, " Could we not get them for
nothing ?" And after he had departed more violent
orators addressed the meeting. One of these coun-
selled civil war, and boasted that he had suffered
two years' imprisonment as a traitor ; yet,
.notwith-
standing these undoubted claims to the admiration
of the assembly, he was hooted, not for the insolent
wickedness of his language, but because his name
and accent betrayed his English birth. Mr. Bright
must be aware by this time that Ireland will lend
him no effectual help in his agitation for Reform.
The class to which in England he addresses his im-
passioned appeals is not to be found in Ireland ; the
only class which might support him—analogous to
that which in England furnishes recruits to the
ragged army of Mr. Beales—cares nothing for any
Reform which does not prom* a revolution, sepa-
ration from the empire, and a general confiscation
of property. Mr. Bright knows better than to
alienate the working men of England by allying
himself with the Fenian treason ; and Ireland offers
him no other support. He has done wisely to retreat
in time ; and we wish we could hope that the lesson
he has learnt might remain imprinted on his mind.
THE " LAW TIMES" ON MR. BRIGHT AND THE
LAND LAWS.—I had an opportunity on Monday of ascer-
taining in the course of a long conversation with Mr. J.
Bright, M.P. (who is now visiting Dublin), the changes
which he proposes to make in the landed system of these
countries. The presence of several members of the legal
profession led to a fuller exposition of Mr. Bright's views
on the land question than usually is afforded before a large
and miscellaneous audience ; and it may interest many of
your readers to know what alterations in our laws
of property are suggested by this great leader of the
advanced Liberal party. Mr. Bright disclaimed any
change which is not consonant with sound political eco-
nomy,and which:disregards the rights of property, bearing
in mind, however, that all rights in landed property are
subjected to the limitations which the welfare of the
community will render necessary. He laid particular
stress on the acknowledged fact that in England
the number of landowners is year by year decreas-
ing. The tendency exists in Ireland also, but has
been counteracted for some years by the sales of
land in the Incumbered Estates Court. The tendency of
large landed estates to increase he attributed not so much
to the difficulties of making title—to the obstacles in the
way of land transfer—as to the fact that the very large
proprietors (some of whom he named) have many of them
a surplus of income which they are generally desirous to
invest in land, so as to swell their possessions and increase
their political influence. As they are willing to give
higher prices than other persons, of course they cannot be
prevented from accumulating laud. But while (as Mr.
Bright expresses it) the accumulating forces steadily in-
crease with the wealth of the country, the forces which
should assist subdivision and dispersion are all checked by
the laws. [The arguments against the law of primogeni-
ture are well known and need not be repeated.] When a
death or change of fortune occurs, the law should give
every aid to a dispersion of property, and should bo so
framed as to work well in the absence of contracts or other
dispositions. The landed interest will always be the most
powerful politically—even in America. In these countries
the more landowners there are the better. In Ireland the
largest estates are those of a dozen peers, who rarely or
never visit the country. This is so great an evil that it
should be checked by law. There will be no layalty among
the Irish peasantry unless they can by industry acquire
some property in the soil ; and hence the necessity (as the
country is purely agricultural) of a law similar to that
proposed by the late Government, giving to a tenant com-
pensation for all unexhausted improvements effected by
him on his farm. Mr. Bright further proposed the abo-
lition of the "laws of entail," but 'could hardly be expected
to demonstrate any wayin which testators and settlers can
be prevented from limiting life-interests only to their
children, and in fact did not exhibit a larger knowledge of
this branch of the subject than other men who havereceived
no legal training.

The Coupons on the Certificates of Debenture of
the Atlantic and Great Western Railway, due on
the 15th inst., are announced for payment at the
Consolidated Bank.