The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-28 00:00:00

they can tax Dissenters, but if Dissenters are the
majority they cannot tax the Churchmen. In the
county of Pembroke, for instance, the Churchmen
are in round numbers but 10,000 ; the Dissenters
more than double that number, yet Dissenters can-
not lay a rate on the Churchmen to repair their more
numerous and important chapels. Mr. DISRAELI
must have felt himself hard pressed for arguments
when he not only made use of the one just men-
tioned, but spoke of the Establishment as not
only a depository of doctrines but " a part of Eng-
land's liberties." We have, certainly, not generally
been accustomed to regard the Church of England
as a very liberal body. It would be hard to say
what liberal movements she has ever promoted.
Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Bill, the
Emancipation of West India Slaves, the Repeal of
the Corn Laws, and the like—in regard to all these
liberties of England, Dissenters took a prominent
part, while the Church of England was often hostile,
at best asleep. The Nonconformists of early days, as
all history is witness, were the conservators of our
liberties, while their own were denied them by the
Church of England—and their successors of the
present day, it is but just to acknowledge, retain
much of the politically free spirit of their
ancestors.

One feature in the debate it is worth while for
High Churchmen to notice. The thing was done
in as kindly a way as it could well be done, but
it will be seen by Mr. BRIGIIT'S speech that if
Church Rates last much longer, the question will
be pressed on Parliament in a rather unpleasant
and inconvenient form. What are the merits of
the Church, whose supremacy Dissenters are
required to bow to ? Church abuses are, Heaven
knows, a fruitful topic enough, and it is plain that
if harassed any further Dissenters will expose them
most unmercifully, adding the question—ls it fair
that we should be compelled to pay tribute to the
supremacy of such a Church ? Dissenters object,
and who of us can help sympathising with them—to
paying tribute to Ecclesiastical Supremacy at all
—but if we compel them to expose all the corrup-
tions, scandals, and divisions of the Church as a part
of their cause, we can only thank ourselves.
We cannot close without reminding our readers,
that though we regard the victory as a great and
real one, yet it was not what it ought to have been ;
it was great, because though almost unprecedented
exertions were made by the clergymen of every
parish—for to each circulars was sent—and by the
Tory Whips, who plied their task with the most
creditable enthusiasm, yet the majority was deci-
sive, though not large, in a house so equally
balanced. But does any one, Whig or Tory, believe,
that a majority of 15, in a house of 551 members,
represents the real majority of the country on this
subject ? Without enlarging the constituency, the
ballot alone would give an additional vote or two
against Church-rates, in almost every county in Eng-
land and Wales, and in many of the boroughs also.
If, parallel with that, the suffrage were also but
reasonably extended, none can doubt that the House
of Commons would send the Bill to the Lords by a
majority of two to one. Indeed, we cannot give
the Lords credit for wisdom enough to abolish
Church-rates till they see them becoming a provoca-
tive to Reform agitation. This will soon be the case.
Church-rates are not a matter affecting but a few
like Jews Bill or the Marriage Bill, and a few years
of resistance will raise the old cry—Reform your
House of Commons, and your House of Lords, too

Yesterday, the penultimate day of February, the
Great Liberal Party may certainly be described as
having been in feather. As no inopportune
sequel to the magnificent victory obtained in the
House of Commons at a little before half-past five
o'clock upon the great Church Rates Abolition Bill
of, Sir JOHN TRELAWNY, came that superb banquet
to Sir WILLIAM HAYTER, through the medium of
which the triumphant Party of the Ins attested, in
the most signal manner, their grateful sense of the
past services of their far-famed whipper-in ! Since
the memorable banquet given to the late Admiral
Sir CHARLES NAPIER, at the Reform Club, imme-
diately before his departure, during the early days
of the Russian War, to take the command of her
NIAJESTY'S fleet in the Baltic, there has been no
such convivial gathering of the leaders of the
great liberal section of the community. It is
noticeable, moreover, that upon both of these occa-
sions the chair has been filled by Viscount PALMER-
STON. Last evening the noble premier must, na-
turally enough, have been in the gayest spirits
imaginable, when sitting down to preside over that
important political demonstration, with the guest
of the evening at his right hand, and before him
and around him, grouped in the happiest
good humour with themselves and each
other, the participators with himself in
the notable party victory but just then
achieved down at Westminster. It is only neces-
sary to run the eye down the catalogue of names,
which will be found elsewhere, at the commence-
ment of the report of the proceedings last night at
the HAYTER Banquet, and immediately afterwards
to remark how many of those names appear also
in another column, alphabetically arranged, among
the Ayes on the Division List—it is only neces-
sary to compare those two catalogues of names
and to appreciate fully their identity as lists con-
stituting, so to speak, the bede-roll of the Great
Liberal Party—to understand how thoroughly the
dinner of last night must have been enjoyed, and
how unalloyed must have been the general sense of
satisfaction thereat.

The remembrance yesterday will go far to-
wards obliterating the recollection of the little
irritating defeat suffered by the Government
upon Mr. HUBBARD'S motion when Ministers were
placed in a minority of " four," instead of find-
ing the Great Party, of which they are the most
conspicuous champions, placed in a majority of
"fifteen," as they were yesterday. A majority,
it is true, attained in connection with no
Government measure, but upon the second reading
of the bill of a private member upon the Govern-
ment side, yet a bill with the principles involved in
which the sympathisers of the Government were
1
jknown to be intimately and directly identified.
Not only will yesterday, by means of the division
and of the banquet which followed immediately
afterwards, do far more than compensate the
Administration of Lord PALMERSTON for that
vexatious rebuff brought to it at the opening
of the session by reason of the perverseness and
obduracy of the Right Hon. Gentleman the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer in resisting that very
reasonable motion of the ex-Governor of the Bank
of England for a committee of inquiry, with a view
to the more equitable adjustment of the Income
Tax in regard to the manner of its assessment !
It will mitigate the more poignant regrets
excited by the late far more vexatious election
triumphs won by the Conservatives in Leicester, in
South Wilts, in Aberdeenshire, and now last (but
not by any means least) in Cork County, the largest
county in all Ireland, a county that has never once
until now, ever since the Reform Act of 1832, sent
other than stanch Liberals to Parliament as its
representatives. These election triumphs of
Toryism must remain yet its whole and sole conso-
lation. Especially this last triumph at Cork, we
doubt not, will be turned to by the discomfited