The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-04 00:00:00

now 1,500 defenders; but that force is wholly in-
competent to attempt anything like the capture of
the navy yard opposite. Fort Pickens mounts 215
guns, and is situated on the long narrow island
of Santa Rosa, which commands the entrance of
the Bay of Pensacola, the Gulf port of Florida.
Altogether, we must say that the North seems
as yet far from organised for immediate ac-
tion. It has got a respectable force to the front ;
but its reserves are far from ready, and it appears
almost as much disposed for defence as for attack.
The South, now, thinks of nothing but defence.

Not until Monday, the 10th of June, will the
Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill, after all, reappear
in the House of Lords,, for consideration there in
Committee. It was so announced from the wool-
sack on Thursday evening by the Lord Chancellor.
Not without expressions of very comprehensible re-
gret falling from the lips of that Noble and Learned
Lord at the extraordinary variety:and character of
the changes introduced into the measure by the Se-
lect Committee—the Committee appointed by the
Upper House to examine more carefully and mi-
nutely into this comprehensive outline of an en-
actment for the re-arranging and more perfect con-
solidation of the Laws relating to Bankruptcy
and Insolvency. Lord CAMPBELL, in expressing
these regrets of his, while avowing his determination
" to remain silent for the present," in order that he
might not thereby give occasion for any premature
discussion in reference to the amendments suggested
by the Select Committee—neverthless could not
refrain from protesting, almost in the same breath,
that he deemed some of the changes so radical in
their character that they were rather to be re-
garded as alterations than amendments ! "Amend-
ments," in fact, the ;Lord Chancellor appeared to
look upon as a ludicrous misnomer in reference to
changes, he, for one, could not estimate in any
light as amendments. He considered some of
them of such peculiar importance, that he pre-
mised, while addressing their lordships on Thursday,
that those at least would require their most
serious consideration. With a view to facilitate
which after-scrutiny of the measure as now re-
arranged, the Bill as amended (P) is in the interim
to be reprinted, so that the Lords will be enabled
the more readily to perceiie in what particulars it
differs in its present shape from the original draft
as sent up to them from the Commons. According to
all that can yet be learnt in respect to the modifi-
cations and in point of fact the absolute trans-
formation adventured upon by the Select Committee
there appears to be little likelihood that the First
Law Officer of the Crown would be able to
recognise his own offspring, so changed is it since
it passed from his paternal and protective care to
the Upper House of Parliament. In reality the
changes introduced are understood to be so many
and so great—[the chief of them may be found
enumerated, by the way, in another of our impres-
sion of this evening, in a very suggestive passage
culled from the Times City Correspondence]—
and the session itself is already so far advanced,
that we begin to fear that the Bankruptcy Bill
may not be passed after all in any shape that the
Attorney-General would consider satisfactory.

We have just seen a purely party victory, we
shall soon see whether a victory for party, and
principle too, will be as decided. The battle was,
indeed, to have been fought to-morrow, but Mr. S.
ESCOURT has persuaded Sir JOHN TRELAWNY to
give him and his friends a fortnight to com-
plete a Compromise Bill, by which they hope
to please all parties—a perfectly vain hope ! It is
not to be denied that the divisions on the Budget
have been quite equal to what the balanced state of
parties in the House could entitle any Govern-
ment to expect. But it is as little to be denied
that they were party divisions merely. No Liberal
principle has been at stake in the question which
tax should be repealed or lightened by the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer to get rid of the estimated
surplus. The fight has been one for the occu-
pancy of the Treasury benches, and had the Tories
triumphed instead of the Liberals the victory would
not have been directly, adverse to any Liberal
principle.
It will not be so on Church-rates. One of the
most distinctively Liberal Questions will then be
the subject of a severe struggle, and Toryism will
make an unusually strenuous effort on behalf of
Religious Monopoly, Religious Domination, and,
if we may put the two words together, Religious
Coercion. We do not use these words vitupera-
tively. The opponents of Church-rate Abolition,
we may say, accept them. They do not deny that
they resist Sir JOHN TRELAWNY'S Bill not so much
on account of the importance of the amount raised
by Church-rates, as because their abolition would
be so far a dimi,nution of the privileges, enjoyed by
the Episcopal Church at the cost of all the rest of
the nation ; that it would be the surrender of one
badge of its supremacy. And, if the Church must
part with the right to tax Dissenters, a large
section of Churchmen still ask for power to
coerce their brother Churchmen to pay the
rate. Liberals of all , grades, indeed, includ-
ing a few of the more liberal Tories, have
confessed by their speeches and their votes
that Church-rate Abolition is the flag under which
the principle of Religious Liberty has been fight-
ing for many years, its parliamentary and its paro-
chial battle. Liberalism struggles to advance
its objects under two great divisions, Civil Liberty
and Religious Liberty ; and wisely so, for never
has it been yet known that one was long secure
without the other. Perhaps, indeed, the conception
of the sacred rights of conscience, is that which
most distinguishes the struggle for liberty in
modern civilisation, as compared with similar
struggles in ancient times. In this struggle along
its entire history, and markedly so at the present
time, every trustworthy Liberal in politics is a
firm supporter of all measures of Religious Liberty ;
while it is equally notorious that the most zealous
advocates of Religious Liberty, are also the most
zealous in their demands for extended civil liber-

ties.

We desire, however, from special as well as from
general considerations, to remind Liberal members
that the battle of Church-rate Abolition is one in
which they must confirm their late party victory for
the sake of their party itself. For one Liberal
elector who took an interest in Paper Duty repeal,
for its own sake, there are at least a hundred who are
deeply interested in Church-rate Abolition. Paper
duties were hardly known of beyond the paper mill
—Church-rates are not only known, but are a sub-
ject of contention in almost every parish in the
kingdom ; perhaps there is hardly a parish in which
some one does not feel aggrieved by them. When i
scanning the lists of votes on the paper duties, the
remark would be, this member or that stood by
Lord PALMERSTON, or " ratted ;" when looking
through the lists of votes on Sir JOHN TRELAW-
NEY'S bill, the observation would be, Mr. So-and-
So stuck to Religious Liberty and the Liberal
cause—or Mr. So-and-So was recreant to Liberalism.
We cannot doubt that the presence of members
will be looked for with much deeper personal inte-
rest by hundreds of thousands at the Church-rate
battle than it was at the Budget battle. Men who
t'have been fighting an up-hill battle of thirty years,
-I and who b.aye for several years been victors ; who