The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-13 00:00:00

SPIRI U OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

HERALD.—Lord Amberley is a politician to whose
utterances, perhaps, it is hardly charitable to attach
too large a meaning. Yet Lord Amberley is one of
the jeunesse doree of Whiggism. He is regarded by
his party, we believe, as one of the chief sources of
the country's strength in future. He is the porous
Zulus of the great house which has ever been accus-
tomed to regard Parliamentary Reform as much a
portion of its property as Covent-garden Market.
In the language of the turf, he is one of the most
promising colts of that stable. It is upon his
shoulders that the destinies of England are some
day to rest; and out of his mouth is to come that
wisdom which is to direct her steps. We quite
agree with Mr. Murchison that this poor country,
which has so large a reversionary interest in Lord
Amberley has a right to expect that there should be
no ambiguity about his lordship's statements. A
statesman of such an important name is under a
peculiar obligation to the public to speak clearly and
consistently. He is no trafficker in men's suffrages.
He can have no interest in setting► up class against
class. He is not bound to please his audiences, as
some of our orators are, by telling them only that
which they are inclined to hear. When Lord Amber-
ley goes down to Stroud to address a Meeting of work-
ing men, we might fairly presume, therefore, that his
lordship would rise above the level of a Beales
or a Dickson in candour or moderation. Mr.
Murchison was one of those sanguine enough to
indulge in this expectation ; and Mr. Murchison has
taken the trouble to make known to the public his
disappointment in Lord Amberley. The corre-
spondence between these two gentlemen, we are
bound to say, is not advantageous to the reputation
of the young Whig lord, and we quite agree with
Mr. Murchison that it furnishes a capital instance
of -the "reckless manner in which the Liberals mis-

represent their opponents." The two points on which
Mr. Murchison challenged the speech of Lord Am-
berley at Stroud, are, first, the statement that the
present Government came into power expressly upon
the ground of " denying any reform and any change
in the representative system ;" and secondly, the
charge against the Government of preventing the
meeting in Hyde-park, "in pursuance of a policy
which appeared as ungenerous as it was unwise."
The words we have quoted are taken from Lord
Amberley's reported speech, and their correctness is
not denied. As to the first point, being asked to
produce some proof of his assertion, Lord Amberley
declares that it was made in a qualified sense. The
Government may not necessarily be opposed to all
Reform, but " the course taken by them last ses-
sion was of unqualified resistance to all extension
of the franchise." The explanation cannot be con-
sidered very creditable either to Lord Amberley's
candour or his ingenuity. The original declaratioi
that the Tory Government came into office upon
the:ground of " denying any Reform and any change
in the representative system," does not admit of
any qualified sense. Lord Amberley may very na-
turally believe that there is no Reform except what
comes from the House of Russell, but what did he
intend the working men of Stroud to understand by
his speech ? Is there .really no Reform except what
was included in the bill of Lord Russell ? Why
this has been contradicted a hundred times by the
Reformers themselves, who have told us that it was
a " sham" bill, and that they exulted when it was
thrown out. The very meeting which Lord Am-
berley addressed was one called to advocate a kind
of Reform which was not included in his father's
scheme, which the greater part of Whigs have no
intention whatever of advocating. How, then, can
a charge lie against Lord Derby's Government of
opposing any Reform when it opposed only the im-
perfect scheme of Reform which Lord Russell in-
troduced ? That it was Lord Amberley's intention
to make the people of Stroud believe that the Tories
are necessarily opposed to any change in the repre-
sentation it cannot be doubted. His words have no
other meaning but this. They would not have been
cheered by the men of Stroud if they had suspected
any "qualified sense." Whatever Lord Amberley
may have meant, the conclusion is clear, even after
his explanation,that he said something which he knew
not to be strictly correct, but which he believed his
audience wished him to say and liked to hear. On
the second point which is referred to in this corres-
pondence Lord Amberley, we are sorry to say, is
not exhibited in any better light. The conduct of
the Government in excluding the Reform League
from Hyde-park, he said, at Stroud, appeared to
him "as ungenerous as it was unwise." But when
he is asked whether this exclusion was not as much
the act of his own party asof the Tories' and whether
Sir G. Grey did not approve of what Mr. Walpole
did, Lord Amberley makes the very singular reply,
that he was " not considering what the late Govern-
ment might or would have done, but what the ex-
isting Government actually did. had the late
Ministers," he adds, "remained in office, it can
hardly be supposed that the melancholy scene in the
park would have ever occurred." The working men
of Stroud will, we trust, be duly impressed with this
exquisite specimen of high Liberal casuistry. Ac-
cording to the new morality preached by Lord
Ainbericy, the burden of a crime falls exclusively on
the actual doer. The accessories before the fact are
cleared of all offence by reason of their not having
been able to take part in the overt act. They may
have even conceived the wicked and ungenerous
thing, but if they did not actually do it they are
separated from the doers by all that gulf which di-
vides the innocent from the sinful. It is true this
fine distinction is only given to us in his correspon-
dence, and that the working men of Stroud had no
opportunity of admiring Lord Amberley's logic, but
how should this affect Lord Amberley's own charac-
ter for generous candour to his opponents ? It was
clearly none of his business to explain to his audi-
ence that, though Lord Derby's Government shut
the :people out cf Hyde-park, it was an act
which Lord Russell's Government was also
prepared to do, and which in fact any

Government must' have done which was then iii
office. Lord Atnberley had come to Stroud to

talk to the working men of their capacity for the
franchise, and he was bound to adminiser to that
capacity. The working men of Stroud believed
already that it was Lord Derby who excluded the
people from the park, because they liked to believe
it, and it was necessary, or was supposed to be ne-
cessary, to their cause that they should believe it.
And any one who knows what the exigencies of a
popular orator are, before a manhood-suffrage
audience, can understand how Lord Amberley
should say precisely so much as would please the
people of Stroud, and reserve to himself all finer
qualifications. The opinion volunteered by Lord
Amberley that " had the late Ministers remained
in office it can hardly be supposed that the melan-
choly scenes outside and in Hyde Park would have
occurred," is curiously impertinent to the issue.
We might retort upon him in his own words that
we are not considering what melancholy scenes
" might or would" have occurred in a certain con-
tingency. As the occurrence took place just at
the very time when the Government was being
changed, and as the project for the meeting had
actually been formed, and the resistance to it
anticipated, when Lord Russell's Ministry was in
office, it is extremely probable that, even, if Sir
George Grey had been in power instead of Mr.
Walpole, the same scenes would have occurred
that did occur ; and that the mob would
have pulled down the rails of a Reform Govern-
ment with precisely the same energy as it did
those of a Tory Government. The flower-beds, we
presume, were not trampled upon the more, by
reason of their being supposed to be Tory flower-
beds, and not the true Reform parterres. But
whatever the mob might or would have done can-
not affect the question of what it was the duty of
the Government to do. The occurrence of the

"melancholy scenes" that did take place cannot
be a special charge laid at the door of Lord
Derby's Government if the Government which it
displaced was prepared to do precisely as Lord
Derby did. Either it was right or it was wrong
to prevent a public meeting in Hyde Park. If it
was wrong, then it was a wrong in which the
Whigs had as much share as their opponents. if
it was right, then Lord Amberley is not very
generous or very wise, when he includes this
among the other complaints he has to make
against Lord Derby's Government before the men
of Stroud,
.for the purpose of advertising his own
superior liberality, and recommending his own
claims in that quarter.
TIMES.—Our old friend the Cattle Plague is once
more, we deeply regret to say, assuming an unwel-
come prominence in our columns. The experience
of all other countries warranted the Commission in

their expectation that a return of the disease, more
or' less serious, might be expected in the winter
months. The minute particles by which contagion
is conimunicated, when placed in sheltered situations
and protected from sun and rain, retain their dele-
terious qualities for a time incredibly long. When
the cattle come to be placed close together in sheds,
the disease must be expected to appear in its original
malignity, and requires just as much care and
anxious attention as when it first appeared among
us. The cattle plague has reappeared in Lancashire,
Yorkshire, and Cheshire, and we must not be sur-
prised if we find it has raged and been apparently
extinguished. The same intelligence reaches us from
Eastern Europe. In the countries adjacent to Russia,
which are now within four or five days by railway
of our shores, a considerable increase of the disease
is announced. In face of these menacing indications
we observe with some regret that the power of
licensing the holding of fairs and markets has been
most liberally used by the Privy Council, and that
in a very large number of inland towns cattle are to
be collected together, and then dispersed, to carry

any infection that may exist in any one of them into
the adjacent country. Considering how little the
inconvenience of having dead meat markets instead $
of collections of living cattle was felt, we are dis-
posed to regret that the country is put to so heavy
a risk to obviate so slight a mischief. The pro-
hibition of fairs and markets and of carrying
cattle by railway trains was the principal cause that
led to the suppression of the disease, the rest being .
done by slaughtbring in the places where it had
actually declared itself. We trust it may not turn
out that these salutary precautions have not been
relaxed too soon, and that the penny wisdom of
removing every obstacle to the trade in live cattle
may not be rebuked by the pound-foolishness of
introducing anew this terrible disorder among our
herds. The situation of those who are called upon
to regulate the trade in cattle with a view to the
safety of the stock of the country is one of great
difficulty, and calls for every allowance and consi-
deration. Beset on the one hand by endless iniPor"
tunities to relax restric ions which, if not necessary,
must be felt as exceedingly vexatious, and held re-
sponsible, on the other, for the possible return of a
dreadful calamity, one can hardly imagine a posi"
Lion in which it is more difficult to give satisfaction.
But in the present case we are all able to judge of
the amount of risk incurred and the amount of re-
lief afforded, and we do not hesitate to say that, in
our opinion, the latter exceeds the former in a de-
gree which makes the two quantities absolutely
incommensurable. We are not surprised to find •
the present state and prospects of the Cattle Disease
attracting a very large share ofithe attention of the
Smithfield Agricultural Club. The Club resolved
at its annual meeting that the president and secre-
tary be requested to wait on the Privy Council to
present three recommendations—that no fair or
market for stock should be opened before the Ist of
April; that the greatest care should be taken that
the requisitions as to quarantine be strictly carried
out ; and that permanent lairs should be established
at the ports of disembarkation. The Council of the
Royal Agricultural Society have distributed among
the members of the Smithfield Club a paper in which
they state that they believe that the present re-
strictions as to the importation of foreign cattle are
sufficient, but that, as they are onlytemporary, they
do not hold out sufficient inducement to erect lairs
to carry out existing regulations. They anticipate
with great justice that the disease will be frequently
re-imported unless very stringent regulations are
adopted. They think that nothing short of perma-
nent regulations for the slaughtering of fat cattle
near the ports of disembarkation, the .establishment
of a permanent quarantine, and of permanent build-
ings by which it may be enforced, will protect us
from its presence. They think considerable danger
will be incurred by re-opening fairs and markets
without requiring immediate slaughter, and they
point out the propriety of arming the Government
with additional parliamentary powers so as to enable
it to act with the utmost promptitude and effici-
ency. These recommendations appear to us to
be characterised by practical good sense an
knowledge of the subject. The disease is by 11°
means extinct in this country. It resembles
fire in this respect, that the mischief that it !,1_
do is by no means to be measured by the small"
`
ness of the amount of contagious matter. A single
spark may burn down a whole city, and a single
particle of contagious matter may be the cause of 3
fearful calamity, such as Cheshire has lately under-
gone. Just as the spark is harmless or mischievous
according to the precautions used to prevent fire,
so is the contagious particle innocent or destructive
according to the care and remissness of those whose
duty it is to watch and counteract it. There is 13"
means of limiting the danger nor of estimating
or circumscribing its amount. But even were the
disease happily extinct within the limits of these,
islands, we know that in the Steppes of Russia it is
periodically renewed, and that that vast emPir.e.,,,
perpetually infecting and re-infecting all its nelti'_
bouring States. Nothing can be more shortsigil'','
nothing more unreasonable, than to adopt teroporv"
measures against a permanent calamity, or to sup'
pose that because we have rid ourselves of it one
we have in the slightest degree diminished the pro-
bability of its return. A similar fault, though net:
so glaringly absurd and unreasonable, is that whice's
keeps in a temporary and provisional state measures
intended to bg, permanent. •This is of no importance
if the measures are able, so to speak, to execute
11w
themselves without external assistance, but when
the action of the Government requires to give
efficiency the investment of fixed capital, the temPo
rary nature of the regulation is an absolute bar. to
its efficiency. Thus in the case of quarantine, wne'':
it is once certain that a particular place will be :A'
port for the purposes of quarantine for cattle, all;
that the policy of enforcing such quarantine for sto',
stock, and immediate slaughter for fat stock,
_7,
firmly adopted, there will be no occasion to do more
by the direct action of the State. Private capital wit
be ready to put up the requisite buildings, to erect
slaughter-houses, and to comply in every resPec
with' the wishes of the Government.