The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-23 00:00:00

Navy, if he began at nine or even ten o'clock ;
adding, that as the First Lord had had rather
more than three weeks to prepare it, he
might make that evening, and allow the
statement of the Home Secretary, respecting
Church-rates, to stand over until Friday
night. No one knew better than the [veteran
Viscount that such a course would be perfectly
impracticable. The estimates could not be brought
forward without notice, when many who might
feel disposed to take part in the discussion were

absent. Nor was it likely that Sir JOHN PAKING

TON could have been provided with the necessary
documents, the " facts and figures " recorded in
black and white, which should be submitted to the
House. What would he have said to such a sug-
gestion if made while he was holding a prominent
position in the Ministry ? We fancy that he would
not have had much hesitation in designating it as a
specious, unworthy, and factious pretext to endea-
vour to damage a Ministry by one of the most egre-
gious fallacies that could be promulgated.
But, to " make assurance doubly sure," the noble
lord has given notice of motion, on his own
account, that he intends to take the opportunity " of
making some observations, and drawing the
attention of the House to the state of affairs on the
continent of Europe, and of expressing a hope that
the Government may be enabled to make some com-
munications-which will tend to encourage expecta-
tions that the general peace of Europe may not be
disturbed." He also added, probably remembering
the period when he was " First Lord of the Jokery,"
that "he did not apprehend anything he might
have to say would interfere materially with the in-
tention of bringing on the Navy Estimates the same
evening."

Was this the result of the noble lord's 53 years'
experience of Parliamentary life ? Could he by
any possibility suppose that such a subject could be
ventilated without producing a score of eager ora-
tors who would occupy the entire evening and
probably require a further adjournment? It was
therefore a perfect farce to speak of it as not
interfering materially with the Naval Estimates.
Had the matter been so very pressing, Lord PALMER-
STON would not have encouraged the hon. gentlemen
who had been so urgently appealed to by Sir J.
PAKINGTON to persevere in the motions of which
they had respectively given notice.
" Inveterate, indeed, must be that love of place
which would seek, for any other purpose than the
discharge of the most imperative public duty, to
obtain office at the present moment !" This is the
opinion of the Times ; and for once we fully concur
with our contemporary. But we can neither "hope
nor believe that no party motive is mixed up
with the present demonstration." The Viscount
in the Opposition is out of his element.
He has served with so many different parties that
he cannot sit easily on the Opposition benches, and
therefore he makes the most convulsive struggles
to resume the more pleasing position.
The nation will not, however, be hoodwinked.
The people will clearly comprehend the causes of
this new-fledged zeal, and we believe that, accord-
ing to legal phraseology, the noble lord will " take
little or nothing by his motion."

Mr. WALPOLE'S Church-rate Bill was treated
on Monday by the House with the courtesy and
good-will to which his personal character and his
obvious motives entitle any measure proffered by
him. If he has not succeeded, the fault is in the
subject rather than in the man. He is driven by
circumstances, probably by conviction too, into a
position in which he must attempt that most unsa-
tisfactory of all tasks, a compromise—a compromise
too with conquerors on the field of battle itself. In
front of him stood the now triumphant Church-rate
Abolition party, who had often had it all their own
way in the veryhouse in which he offers them terms.
Behind him were the Newdegates and Russells, the
Beresford Hopes and Palmerstons, the Spooners
and Cornewall Lewises, who think that Church-
rates aro the linch-pin of Church and State, and that
to withdraw them would be to upset the old coach
of the Constitution. Good Mr. WALPOLE under-
takes the thankless office of mediator, and that be-
tween two parties who have almost made up their
minds that no compromise is possible. One side
says no man ought to be compelled to pay a penny
for worship he does not attend, the other, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL being leader, insists that every man
is benefited by the Established Church, although
he repudiates its creed and liturgy, and should be
made to support it. Of this, more presently.
Mr. WALPOLE has certainly made himself master
of the history of the struggle of the last quarter of
a century. He stated its variations fairly ; and
he used it to show what the House could not be
expected to sanction. It was impossible now to
shift the burden to property which had yet paid
nothing—impossible to throw it on the general
taxation of the country—impossible, he thought, to
substitute pew rents—and, very much against the
grain, he thought to yield to " the results of a sue- A
cessful agitation." But two more bases of action
seemed to be left—that indicated by Sir G.
GREY, of repealing, so far as this matter
is concerned, the mortmain laws, and inviting
the co-operation of voluntary aid, and that of giving
relief to Dissenters by direct exemption.
On these two principles Mr. WALPOLE founds
his proposals. The first six are all directed to en-
abling landholders and other holders of real pro-
perty, as we understand him, to charge their
property with a rent charge in perpetuity, towards
the objects for which church-rates are now legal;
the incumbent and churchwardens to form a cor-
poration for holding all such property as may in
this, and in other specified modes, be contributed in
lieu of church-rates. At the same time, those who

object to pay may be relieved from doing so by
signing a paper, which all collectors are to carry
in their books, by which they will declare that they
have "conscientious" objections to paying.
But how are Church-rates to be finally abolished
by this plan ? Mr. WALPOLE proposes to leave
the old church-rate liability and law precisely as
it is. lie distinctly stated that he wanted to leave
Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, and other recu-
sant towns and villages, an opportunity to return
"to obedience to the law." Places where rates
have been practically abolished for years are not to
be released from their liability. In all of them
pugnacious churchwarden or clergyman, how-
any
a opeless of success, might re-open
who glory in what they con-
are gentry in
this profession
church-
rateever
contest;h and we all know there
kind of social martyrdom for the
con-
sider a
can set a whole town together
Church. They
by the ears, and look on meekly, as if the

human fighting cocks were very wicked, and those

who spurred them and set them on were harmless

as doves. The Archbishop of CANTERBURY, in his

bill, very wisely, did recognise the mischief of
leaving not " place for repentance," as Mr. WAL-

POLE strangely fancies, but "place for quarrel and

strife" in such towns. Five years' refusal of a rate,
the Archbishop thought, should abolish the rate.

Mr. WALPOLE has another plan, one by which,
we may safely predict,hardly ten parishes in the ten
thousand will be freed from rates. When his cor-
poration, composed ofthe parson and churchwardens,
have received, as they think, property of one kind