The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-25 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

His Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Com-
manding-in-Chief will hold a lev6e at 1 o'clock on
Tuesday, May 1.
Rear-Admiral the Hon. James R. Drummond,
C. 8., was yesterday appointed Admiral-Superin-
tendent of Devonport dockyard, vice Rear-Admiral
T. M. C. Symonds, C. 8., promoted to Vice-Admiral.
It was currently reported at Portsmouth that Capt.
W. C. Chamberlain, at present commanding the iron-
cased screw frigate Resistance on the Mediterranean
station, has been offered by the Admiralty the com-
mand of her Majesty's ship Asia and the Steam Re-
serve at Portsmouth, vice Capt. H. Caldwell, C. 8.,
Aide-de-Camp to the Queen, appointed to the
senior naval command at the Cape of Good Hope.
The iron armoured screw frigate Bellerophon,
Capt. E. Tatham, is preparing for her cruise with
the competitive broadside gun carriages and their
121 ton guns. Sir W. Armstrong's iron carriage has
been received on board and placed in position in the
ship's battery. Capt. Scott's and the Woolwich
Arsenal iron carriages have yet to be received, as
also the Admiralty pattern wooden carriage. The
guns for all four carriages are lying ready for ship-
ment on the jetty alongside the ship.
The Rinaldo, 7, unarmoured screw sloop, 951
tons, 200 horse power, has had her bows and top-
sides entirely reconstructed, and other extensive re-
pairs in the remaining portions of her hull effected
in dock at Portsmouth-yard. She will shortly.be
undocked, stored, rigged, and otherwise brought
forward for commission.

The Cruiser, 5, screw unarmoured sloop, 750 tons,
60 horse power, having undergone a thorough re-
pair to her hull and machinery at Portsmouth-yard,
has since been completed in rig, armament, and
stores, and is now ready to make her preliminary
trial of machinery in readiness for commission.
The 1' earl, 21, screw unarmoured corvette, 1,469
tons, 200 horse power, having been completed in rig,
stores, and armament at Portsmouth, and also hav-
ing made a very satisfactory trial of her machinery
over the measured mile in Stokes Bay, has been
placed at moorings on the upper waters of the har-
bour in readiness to hoist the pennant.
The Mersey, 40, screw unarmoured frigate, 3,733

tons, 1,000 horse power, has been completed in her
outfit for immediate commission at Portsmouth, and
is now lying in the steam basin of the dockyard wait-
ing orders for the trial of her machinery over the
measured mile, preparatory to being officially re-
ported ready for commission.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

____

TIMES.—It is encouraging to find that even in
the House of Lords zeal for the Church begins to
be tempered by discretion, and that years of argu-
ment have produced their effect like the dropping
of water on the stone. An act of justice and good
feeling was accomplished last week when the House
accepted the Parliamentary Oaths Bill. We have
now to record a minor, but still not an unimportant,
concession. We are almost ashamed to reckon such
things among reforms to be taken notice of and
rejoiced at, but when we consider the labour of the
fight it gives a higher notion of the victory. The
House of Lords, through Lord Derby, has assented
to the third reading of the Qualification for Offices
Bill. We shall no longer 'have to pass the yearly
Indemnity Act, by which officials of all ranks are
mercifully relieved from punishment for not pro-
mising to maintain the Church of England. Very
few people would ever have heard of this Indem-
nity Act, though it has been a yearly piece of legis-
lation, had it not been for the efforts of one or two
reformers in each house, whose common sense re-
volted at such solemn mockery. It is pretty well
known, however, that when the Test and Corpora-
tion Acts were repealed, a Declaration was ap-
pointed to be mane by persons holding civil or
municipal offices to the effect that they would not
exercise any power, authority, or influence they
might possess by virtue of their offices to weaken
the Protestant Church as by law established. This
Declaration ought to be made by thousands of per-
sons throughout the country, from the highest down
to the humblest. It is needless to say that it is not
made. Men are put into offices high and low, and
may hold them for years, without knowing that
they are daily committing a statutable offence, sub-
jecting them to penalties, and that they are only re-
lieved by the annual interference of the Legislature.
To such an end have come the notable precautions
in favour of the National Church. What a satire it
is upon statesmanship that less than forty years ago
grave legislators, and lawyers, and divines solemnly
consulted, and agreed that the connexion of Church
and State required all this incessant declaring, and
promising, and abjuring ! No sooner was the law
passed than it was disregarded. In fact, it appears
that no effort has ever been made to put it in force.
It was an absurdity from the beginning, and though
it was, no doubt, quite justifiable in those who re-
pealed the Test and Corporation Acts to give any
sop that might be necessary to their opponents, we
can have no high opinion of the judgment or the
charity of the latter. And yet this state of the law
has been maintained ever since, and bills for the
modification of it which were sent up from the
Commons have been thrown out by the Lords. As
the Conservatives, led by Lord Derby, have at last
yielded to reason, we have no desire to taunt them
with their former obstinacy. But the force of habit
and party spirit has certainlynever been more clearly
evinced. The practical effect of the law was ad-
mitted to be nothing at all. Political oaths when
really taken have but little effect ; what, then, can
be the effect of not extorting the Oath or Declara-
tion at all, but merely stating solemnly in an Act
of Parliament that it ought to have been extorted ?
The infinitesimal gain which the Church received
by its existence being, as Sir Hugh Cairns would
say, " taken notice of" once a year was thought
worth obtaining, even though Parliament was made
ridiculous for its sake. We suspect the Conserva-
tive chiefs desired an opportunity of abandoning
the position they had rashly taken up in bygone
years. The passing of the Parliamentary Oaths
Bill enables them to retire with grace. It cannot
be requisite that aldermen and town clerks should
make declarations or give securities which are not
demanded from those who frame our laws. Now,
the Parliamentary Oaths Act will admit not only
men of the various forms of Christianity, but
also non-Christians of every religion and race.
These will be in no way pledged to maintain the
Protestant Church or to respect the possessions
of bishops and clergymen. They will simply
declare their allegiance to the Crown and their
acquiescence in the; present Parliamentary settle-
ment of it. If, then, members of the two houses
are not to be bound to the Church, why should
officials whose work is for the most part merely
ministerial be so bound? The case for the aboli-
tion of the present forms is based on an irresistible
a fortiori. • Lord Derby accordingly strikes his
colours and surrenders, having fought his ship as
long as she would swim. The " animus hostile to
the Church" cannot be of much importance among
Civil Service Clerks when members of Parliament
may now legitimately indulge it. Lord Derby. con-
fesses that we cannot continue to requir. e from
municipal authorities and officers declarations from
which we have relieved members of Parliament. In
short, the measure which has been so often.pressed
on the attention of the house is now at last favour-
ply received, and we may expect a suitable change
in the law. The end of this controversy reminds us
of the strange perverseness which has hitherto led
the Conservatives to resist year after year reasonable
demands, and to make great party questions out of
petty and unimportant matters, It seems to have

arisen from what have been called " favourite aver-

signs." A certain class of men, though sensible
enough in ordinary matters, are apt to have anti-
pathies as unaccountable as those on which Shy-
lock remarks. They cannot abide their Papist, or
Dissenter, or Jew, and are willing to keep up a
little bit of legislative tyranny, not because they
really think it will be of use, but as a kind of stand-
ing protest against such very objectionable persons.
But it is precisely in these matters that the public
opinion of the country is most advanced. Abso-
lute religious equality and the abrogation of all
that either injures or offends any order of men
are demanded by thinking people of every class,
and it is strange that the leaders of the Con-
servative party have not long since seen that it
is their interest not to withstand this 'widespread
desire. They have undoubtedly weakened their
position in the State by these tactics ; they
have created a feeling that they are bigoted and
impracticable, with minds that cannot rise above
those sectarian differences which time and know-
ledge tend more and more to obliterate. By re-
sistance on unworthy subjects, when they have
not had the moral support of the country, they
have wasted their real Conservative power, and to
this cause we must attribute their want of success
as a party in spite of their numbers and organiza-
tion and the social position of their members. We
hope we may accept the recent speeches of Lord
Derby 7as signs that a more liberal spirit, and con-
sequently that a more prudent policy, will prevail.
If it be so, the party will have no cause to regret
it. There is now a good opportunity of placing the
whole system of political Oaths and Declarations
on a more equitable basis. It would, perhaps, do
little harm if in many cases they were swept away
altogether ; but if this be considered revolutionary,
let them be at any rate assimilated to the Parlia-
mentary oath, and confined to a mere profession of
allegiance. Lord Houghton proposes a declaration
in the terms of the Parliamentary oath, and Lord
Derby thinks this a proper settlement. But it
would perhaps be better that Government should
bring in a bill applicable to all persons and offices.
Lord Romilly reminded the House that Protestants
still take one oath when admitted as solicitors, and
Catholics another, and Lord Granville added that
it was the same with magistrates. There evidently
is room for a comprehensive measure on the basis
of the Parliamentary Oaths Bill, which has now so
happily passed both Houses.
HERALD. With the exception of Mr. Gladstone,
who will stand at bay against a host of powerful
orators, we cannot imagine in whom the Govern-
ment reform bill has a champion left. The whole
tide of parliamentary logic is overflowing it. On
Monday night the last arrow was discharged and
fell blunt upon the floor. By universal agreement
Mr. Bright never made so elaborate an effort with
so little success. His own friends and admirers were
disappointed. But he was under the difficulty which
so many others on his side of the house have felt,
that he proposed to answer Lord Stanley, and found
himself incompetent to the task. This is the re-
markable element in the debate. One Ministerial
speaker after another has risen, declaring himself
ready to dispute Lord Stanley's ground, but has left
the question almost immediately, and diverted him-
self to easy and safe generalities. They resemble
horsemen riding hopelessly round an impregnable
infantry square. Mr. Bright was no exception to
the rule. Indeed, he shrank from taking even the
terms of Lord Grosvenor's amendment firmly in
hand ; he would not discuss the words ; he picked
to pieces a meaning which he thought he found
wrapped up in them. He chose to infer and sus-
pect, and then putting Lord Stanley's argument on
one side, he rose into his usual flight, threatening
the aristocracy, the Administration, the Constitu-
tion at large ; impeaching the Government statis-
tics because they did not suit his purpose, arbitrarily
substituting a new set of his own, and reasoning for
the entire country upon a few and unauthenticated
figures from Burslem and Wakefield, and winding
up, as is his wont, with a strong northern breeze of
menace about overthrown embankments, and "that
terrible abyss" into which he is eternally looking for
the future destinies Of England. And he prophesies a
majority for the bill in a house which he declares hates
it; and what more was wanted to justify Mr. White-
side's rebuke that he would first render the character of
the house odious and next make its action cowardly ?
But all the time he was forgetting Lord Gros-
venor's amendment and Lord Stanley's speech ; he
was forgetting the bill itself. Nevertheless, those
members who think, and who at the same time re-
spect their independence, cannot be expected to
vote with him until they have had their judgments
relieved from the embarrrassment which has been
forced upon them by a scheme dealing with one-
third of a formidable political question, essentially
and vitally connected with the two other thirds
which are kept absolutely in the dark. They will
not sign blank political cheques, and hence the
exasperation of the Treasury Bench. The point
has not been put, since Lord Stanley's speech, more
clearly, calmly, and effectually, than it was put on
Monday night by Mr. Walpole, whose speech,
almost erasing as it did that of Mr. Bright from the
memory of the house, brought back the subject
within its proper limits. Parliament, he said, had
been presented with the fragment of a legislative
proposal, upon which other legislation, immediately
consequent, must depend, and had been required to
accept the part, in complete ignorance of the results
to which it would lead. And for what reasons ?
That Parliament is pledged. If there has been a
fallacy in the debate from first to last it is this. Mr.
Whiteside had shattered that pretence by a series
of evidence ; but Mr. Walpole disposed of it in a
breath. The pledge was given by Lord Russell
in 1860 ; it was distinctly withdrawn and repu-
diated by Sir George Grey, on the part of Lord
Russell, in 1865 ; and, if not, was it less valid
in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865, than in
1866 ? We really hope that we have heard
the last of this unworthy quibble ; or else
that politicians who make use of it will have
the honesty and candour to admit that it pro-
Imised a measure of statesmanship to settle a large
public question, and not a mere tinkering with a
single detail of it. Ministers, holding that pledge
between their teeth, have suited their own conve-
nience about fulfilling it, and now ask the House of
Commons to fulfil it for them, in order, as Mr.
Bright frankly avows, that Lord Russell may be
retained in office. The second supposed necessity
for change to which Mr. Walpole referred was_ the
advantage to be derived from including a larger
number of the working classes within the pale of the
franchise. Here the cue was given by Mr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Bright, long before Lord Elcho ex-
tracted from local registers, through official machi-
nery, the statistics upon which the Government bill
is based. The figures having been amassed and
collated, Ministers proceeded to legislate upon
them ; but the House of Commons then learned for
the first time that the working class grievance so
long alleged and harped upon was an empty fiction.
Instead of being unrepresented, that one class
commanded more than a fourth of the borough
constituencies throughout the realm. Mr. Glad-
stone took the facts as he could not help finding
them, and framed his measure boldly so as to in-
crease one-fourth to upwards of one-half. But Mr.
Bright takes a different course ; he will not have
facts if they are against him ; he is like the
traveller who would not be guided because he
objected to the name of the person who published
his map. So he spins a calculation of his own,
and appeals upon the strength of that to the
justiet of the House of Commons. Admitting for
an instant that the matter was relevant, which it
is not, because nothing can be relevant to this
debate until Lord Grosvenor's amendment has
been impugned on principle, and Lord Stanley's
argument answered, could Mr. Bright expect
the house would act upon his two paltry
scraps of statistical guesswork from two small
localities in Yorkshire, when Government have
introduced a bill upon the strength and credit of
returns furnished by themselves. Assume,
hemay he
right
how-
ever, as Mr. Walpole argued, that
and Mr. Gladstone wrong. Then we are more
hopelessly in the dark and more perilously adrift at
sea than ever, and no more overpowering reason
could be given against hasty legislation. We had
before us the author of the bill and the instigator
of the bill, and they contrdaict one another as em-
phatically upon the grounds which are said to jus-
tify the bill as though they were the most inveterate
political opponents. Was ever a case made out
more substantially for reflection and delay ? We
are not assuming that the Ministerial statistics are
accurate, although it would be ridiculous to weigh
the arithmetical odds and ends of Birmingham
against them ; but viewing the question in the
fairest light, if we are so bewildered by the infor-
mation we have, we ought to verify it, or obtain
better before we hurry into legislation, the effects
of which may be felt through all times. We are
glad, however, that Mr. Walpole kept the question
mainly within the channel marked by the amend-
ment and the confessedly unanswered speech of
Lord Stanley ; for it is through this that the wisdom
awl the conscience of the House of Commons
must be reached. The bill is avowedly partial ; its
structure has been regulated by no principle of the
Constitution ; it unsettles everything and settles
nothing ; and yet the Opposition is assailed,. as re-
fusing to consider the subject when its emphatic
declaration is that it desires to consider the subject,
not piecemeal, but as a whole. And Mr. Walpole
drew attention to another evil tendency of the
measure, which not only convicts it as an attempt
to infringe our constitutional law, but also scatters
to the winds a great and misused shibboleth of the
Liberal party. In its headlong downward action it
commits the cardinal sin and disconnectsrepresenta-
titan irom taxation it entirely destroys the oonno4„