The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—The presence of 900 guests at a grand
banquet given in the " finest dining-hall in tke
world," among half a million people, with the pro-
mise of a speech by one of the best orators of the
day, is a fact that requires nothing to account for it.
We should not say that it proves an intense interest
in Reform on the part either of the lower, the
middle, or the upper classes, forall were represented,
it seems, in the room. One does not hear too much
eloquence, or even too much good English, in these
times, and Reform is at least one of the topics of the
day, as it has been now for twelve years. A number
of other speakers bad been announced, but nearly
all these had withdrawn, not choosing to perform
the very minor part of ushering in the great lion of
the occasion. Mr. Bright, meanwhile, having seen
his name low down in a list of well-known names,
relieved himself of all painful responsibility, and,
upon being called on sooner than he expected, merely
delivered himself of his thoughts as they presented
themselves. He could not have done better. The
overflowings of the heart are always worth more
than the excogitations and inventions of the study.
He was at home in the place and in the subject, for
it may be doubted whether Lord Russell and Mr.
Gladstone themselves know so much about the late
Reform Bill and all the questions connected with it
as Mr. Bright. Being thus quite at his ease, master
of his theme, yet bound by no special call, Mr. Bright
went at once to the topic most at heart, which was
abuse of the late Reform Bill. A previous speaker
had somewhat prepared the way by observing that
the country was indebted to the obstructions offered
to the first bill for the more comprehensive measure
which, as we think, Parliament most properly de-
manded, and which can only be considered a ques-
tion of time. But Mr. Bright denounced the whole
bill, firstand second part, root and branch altogether.
It was a sham. It was a patch that would soon make
the rent worse. It was a vain attempt to tinker up
that which is utterly corrupt, and cannot hold to-
gether long. It was good for nothing, unless it led
to more. It would not have given the working
classes, or even the middle classes, their share of the
representation, for it would not have added more
than a hundred thousand voters to the register. The
only thing in its favour was that it was an honest
measure so far as respects the late Government.
They thought it a good measure, and therefore were
honest. Mr. Bright did not think it a good measure,
but he does not draw the inference. Indeed, to do
him common justice, it must be admitted that he
never said more for the bill than that it was a lever,
which he would like to have in his hand,with a good
fulcrum to work upon, and the British Constitution
at the other end. But, not to be hampered any more
by mere tricks of statecraft or misled by illusions,
Mr. Bright has taken his stand upon a principle.
Principles are scarce upon this subject, and if Mr.
Bright can charge Lord Derby and his party with
being " fashioned hollow" by a merciful Providence,
in order that they may swallow their principles, they
may safely retort that Mr. Bright and his party have
no principles to swallow. But here is a principle,
and in taking his stand on it Mr. Bright proclaims
that he has the sanction of antiquity, and is in the
path of the Constitution. He is for a rating—that
is, for a household—suffrage. He assumes that rates
are paid by somebody or other, in some form or
other, for every habitation ; that is, therefore, the
principle of a rating suffrage carries a household
suffrage. There were many such constituencies of
old. A good many were abolished by the Reform
Bill. Mr. Bright quotes with pleasure the testimony
of Sir Roundell Palmer in favour of the principle.
It is charming to find the arch-Reformer reverential
and Conservative. Antiques and other curiosities
have often little to show, except their age, and the
stories they tell, and the odd ways they were come
at. Duly shrined and cased, the rudest cinerary urn
or the most uncouth bit of armour becomes the or-
nament of a drawing-room. A potwalloping borough,
except in its moral aspects, need not be much uglier
than au aerolite. But we beg to submit that a prin-
ciple is nothing, a name and nothing more, unless we
are to know its application. The application of the
principle was so bad in the olden time that the Re-
formers were most strenuously against it, and the
Tories as strenuously forit, and to the best of our recol-
lection, the boroughs which had household suffrage
were though quite as corrupt and scandalous as those
which had freemen, or as the worst " rotten
boroughs." Let us know how the principle is to be
applied,--and it cannot be applied except together
with other principles,—then we shall know what to
say to it. Meanwhile we cannot sec the dishonesty
imputed by Mr. Bright to the politicians who were
prepared to give votes to working men if they might
only have something to say to the other arrange-
ments. It is waste of time and folly to abuse
rational people because they will not shut their eyes
and take a leap oa his simple assurance that there
is a soft bottom a little way down. That is a matter
on which we would rather judge for ourselves. Mr.
Bright has the classes off at his fingers' ends.
They are always coming up like the very select
dramatis personce in a puppet- show. Here are the
upper, the middle, and the working classes. The
first does all the crime of the country, all the wicked
waste, all the gross mismanagement, and all the
social tyranny. The upper class wheedles and
cajoles the middle class out of its due share of the
representation, and bullies and terrifies the lower
class out of nearly all its share. The upper class in
this picture possesses all the cunning and all the
strength of a conquering race, preying like wolves
and foxes on the weakness of the simplicity of the
subject and conquered. But what reasonable being
can admit that this is a truthful picture of the British
population ? Were it a true picture, we are not sure
that the poor simpletons and the silly sheep described
by Mr. Bright had not better consult ease and com-
fort by sitting down like Issachar between the two
burdens. But nothing can be less true than the pic-
ture. Where are the virtues of the working classes,
where are the vices and weaknesses common to all
three classes ? But are there those three classes, just
those three, and thus sharply described ? Nothing
can be further from the fact. There are many men
whom Mr. Bright would now place in the upper
class, but whom he would hardly have placed so
high as the middle class, and who certainly had
not votes, five and twenty years ago, when ke was
beginning his career of agitation. The truth is Eng-
land does not stand upon classes, and her whole
system is adverse to lines of social demarcation.
Life is here a social competition. We all go in for
one prize or another, and have not the slightest wish
that the things we really value should be brought
down to a lower level in order to suit our indolence.
They who rise not fall in our community. There
is much to be said for and much against this order
of things, but whatever is said can only have a
sentimental value, for this is the actual order o
things, and we must live up to it, whether we like i
or not.

HERALD.—The success of the Atlantis Cable has
: given a new interest to the history of electrical
, science, and it is not surprising to find that a con-
troversy as to the first invention of the Electric
Telegraph is now attracting public attention. It
is remarked that while honours have been freely dis-
' tributed upon the success which has attended the
laying of the Atlantic Cable which carries the
telegraph, none have been conferred on those who
first invented the electric telegraph itself, or who
by various improvements have brought it to a state
of such perfection that it has been long in general
use all over the world. In short, that those who
have conferred on the world one of the greatest
benefits of modern times have been passed by wholly
unnoticed in the recent distribution of public
honours. The enthusiasm which attended the suc-
cess of the great Atlantic experiment appears to
have obscured for a time the merits of those whose
previous labours had already produced such vast re-
sults, and but for whose discoveries the Atlantic
experiment itself could never have been so much as
tried. Yet among others the name of Mr. Wheat-
stone is wellknown, and a leading journal has loudly
demanded for him the merit of the first inventio❑
of the electric telegraph, and the honour to which
such a claim, if well founded, would justly entitle
him. This claim, however, is not unchallenged.
It appears from a letter which we lately in-
serted from a correspondent that fifty years ago
Mr. Francis Ronalds, a gentleman devoted to
scientific pursuits, and still living, invented and
offered to the then Government an " electric tele-
graph" which he had constructed and put iu
operation. The reply which he received from the
Department of the Admiralty is a curious instance
of the official tone. Sir John Barrow, the Secre-
tary, informed Mr. Ronalds that " telegraphs of any
kind were then wholly unnecessary, and that none
other than the one then in use would be adopted."
Well might Mr. Barrow perform a filial duty in
writing as he has lately done, to the editor of the
Pall Mall Gazette, in which an account of this affair
had appeared, that his father, in sending this reply
to Mr. Ronalds, acted as " the organ of the Board,
and not on his own responsibility." Mr. Ronalds,
however, not being satisfied with the opinion of the
Admiralty, published in 1823 a pamphlet entitled
" Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph, and of
some other Electrical Apparatus," describing what
he had done, and illustrating his invention by draw-
ings. He there predicts with a remarkable foresight
some of the purposes to which the invention might
be applied; for he says, " Why should not our
Kings hold councils at Brighton with their Ministers

in London ? Why should not our Government go-
vern at Portsmouth almost as promptly as in Down'
ing-street ? Why should our defaulters escape b
" Let default of our foggy climate ?" . • • •
us have electric conversazione offices, communicatiq
with each other all over the kingdom, if we can'
A more striking instance of scientific foresight can-
not well be imagined. Mr. Ronalds, being pro-
bably more of a philosopher than a man of business,
took out no patent ; and it was not till 1837 ttl3
the first patent was taken out by Messrs. Cooke
and Wheatstone. 'We cannot see therefore, bowa
priority of invention over Mr 'Ronalds can ise
claimed for either Mr. Wheatstone or Mr. Coo'L;
But however this may be, and whatever maY
the relative merits of these gentlemen, it would b
a strange thing, considering the unspeakable bene-
fits, to the world of the electric telegraph, if the men
who first discovered, or developed and brought
to perfection, the most wonderful and use-
ful.v
invention of modern times should
deemed unworthy of the slightest Putr
i 0
notice on an occasion when the subject is under
consideration, and when so striking an instance as"
occurred of the successful application of theila
labours. One would have thought no pains sou
have been spared to seek out, if they still live"'
those to whom the world was so deeply indebtec•
No one grudges the honours bestowed on the !pea
who have, with infinite skill and perseverance,
ceeded in laying the Atlantic cable ; but many svi'A'
ask, Where are they by whose previous labours an
discoveries it became possible that there should be. a_
cable at all ? Do you ennoble those who laid ti_l3!
electric wire across the sea, and forget the men who
have enabled you to control to useful purposes the„
magic power which it contains ? It would seem
impossible ; but such is the danger which nit
always exist when the power of conferring or wit
holding public honours rests solely with the Govern'
ment, whose means of information are necessarls
casual and imperfect, and who must be often at
loss themselves to discriminate merit that does not
force itself upon their notice. If future phil°s?iii
phers should desire to know how their labours
be appreciated, let them consider the history of u
Ronalds. It is just fifty years since, in 1816, ,R 0
offered his discovery to the Government, who
scornfully rejected it. Thirty-six years latertje
1852, the Government of that day placed his pam".„
on the civil list for a pension of £75 a year, in °it-
sideration of what they called his " important al
coveries in electricity and meteorology," one ad
which was the electric telegraph. It seems he 11
subsequently made other discoveries in these sir.
jects. And this pension from the Crown ~
Ronalds, at an advanced age, still lives to earq
scarcely, perhaps, a full recognition for services.hvb
such importance. Finally, he has to witness, wt
that equanimity which only philosophers can 0,121-
mand, the receipt by others of high public laonctm"
in which he has no share, conferred upon them ,_e
a particular application of his invention, and 0n,,,tm.,
recommendation of the same authority of the urved
vernment of the country which had already assil
him that the invention itself was " wholly unneee't,
sary." But whether Mr. Ronalds, or Mr. Wb
i•
n
stone, or any one else, be entitled to stand first at
order of merit, it would be a national reproach, if
possible in any other country than Englankot
claims of such a nature were met with nothing ;;_o,
the indifference and contempt of which the u
vernment of a former day furnished so signal as
example.