The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE ,PUBLIO JOURNALS.

The Times, after calling attention to the overwhelming
majority which Mr. Gladstone has obtained, declares that
>lr. Disraeli will not die easy. Nobody (it continues) can
be surprised at this, since nobody expected he would
suffer himself to be snuffed out by a single adverse divi-
sion. Early last night he warned the House of Commons
of the course he intended to pursue, and his speech at the
close of the debate breathed the frankest spirit of defiance.
The House has resolved upon going into committee. So
much has been accomplished ; but a Minister is at liberty
to assert that the next step will be in his favour, and that
in the last resort the constituencies will be found on his
side. Mr. Disraeli will not let his privileges expire through
want of use. He still challenges the Commons to agree
with Mr. Gladstone in his declaration that the Irish
Establishment must, as an Establishment, " cease to
exist." He knows as well as any of us that the House
will assent to this declaration, but some days or weeks
must expire after the Easter recess before a decision
can be taken upon it. When it has been done ho
will challenge Parliament to meet the country next Feb-
ruary upon this issue, although again conscious that the
nation will with augmented force repeat the declaration,
of the present Parliament. Are there not many con-
stituencies in the kingdom, and has not each its proper
variety of candidate? There will be an election next
February, and the Irish Church will be the question on
the hustings. One man, seeking to win the suffrages of
a Protestant constituency, will appeal with pious fervour
to the declarations of the Home Secretary. A second,
who woos a commercial city, will swear by the good sense
of Lord Stanley, and asltwhether the Church in Ireland
is more than a phrase. A third, addressing rural voters,
not very well conscious of what they desire, will find
/immense relief in the repetition of the Indian Secretary's
parliamentary sentences. Mr. Disraeli, as the " medicine-
tnan " supreme over all, may be invoked, when all others
Sail, as the tutelary deity of his party.
The opinion of the Post is that the result of the division
on the main question thati the House of Commons should
resolve itself into a committee to consider Mr. Gladstone's
resolutions on the Irish Church will take no one by sur-
prise. The victory is significant in more senses than one.
It proves that the majority of the representatives of the
British nation:are prepared, irrespective of sectarian preju-
dices, to do a great act of justice and wipe out a blot
which has for centuries disfigured the imperial escutcheon.
It pFON.Cti that the Imperial Parliament is ready, not as
some contended, to violate the Act of Legislative Union
between Great Britain and Ireland, but to give that
enactment effect by adopting those measures which are
indispensable to place the Irish people on the same footing
as their English fallow-subjects. It proves that there are
not only men, but that they are a powerful majority, in
the councils of the nation who are ready to pursue a just
and wise and humane policy towards millions of their
fellow-citizens who until now have been constantly re.
minded, in the most offensive of all ways, of their civil
and religious inferiority. Finally, it proves that a Govern.
went ,which habitually lets " I dare not wait upon I
would" is not a fitting one to direct the destinies of this
great nation.

The Daily News . observes that notwithstanding his
decisive defeat, LorlpStanley's rejected amendment has
probably effected all that its real author expected it to
accomplish. Its discussion has occupied a week, and made
impossible the practical discussion of Mr. Gladstone's
resolutions before the Easter holidays. Mr. Disraeli will
now have the recess in which to devise new tactics
suitable to his singular position. The strength of the
current of public opinion, and the certainty that members
will soon be brought into cl.;se contact with their con-
stituents, diminishes the importance of merely Parlia-
mentary manoeuvres. The great fact which is before the
Tory party is that the disestablishment of the Irish
Church is now inevitable, and as soon as this is acknow-
ledged it must be plain that no easier terms can be
proposed than those which have been proposed by Mr.
Gladstone. More generous consideration was never
extended to the adherents of a condemned institution than
the Liberal leader has shewn for the clergy of the Irish
Establishment in the very moment of declaring that that
institution must cease to exist. They mays.) further and
fare worse ; under the conditions of the case they cannot
fare better.

The Herald says a majority of the House of Common!
has pronounced in favour of considering the question of
the Irish Church with a view to its disestablishment. But
there is a long way from the resolution to take this ques-
tion into consideration with such a purpose to the desired
destruction. The battle will be renewed when the first
resolution is proposed on the 27th April, and it will be re-
newed under other conditions. The country will have had
time to acquaint its representatives with its opinions. It
will have the opportunity to tell the honourable gentlemen
who have voted for the destruction of the Irish Church—
that is, for the promotion of the Papal supremacy in
Ireland—that they have utterly mistaken the spirit of
their constituents, and we shall find the majorities of GC
and 5G will dwindle, when this intimation reaches their
members, and the hopelessness of the merely personal and
factious object of the attack upon the Church is clear, into
powerless minorities.

The ,Stancicn•d comments on the enormity of the task
which lie before-Mr. Gladstone. The gain of the remaining
five months of the session is not worth counting so far as
the completion of so gigantic a task is concerned, but it is
of immense importance in regard to the Scotch and Irish
Reform Bills and other measures now before Parliament.
The simple effect of Mr. Gladstone's pertinacity will be,
if successful, to fritter away the session and render the
Ministerial programme of legislation abortive, without
advancing by a single day the consummation of the pros-
pect which represents the conviction of his life, and which
never saw the light of day until some three weeks back.
It is needless to criticise his motives for taking this mis•
chievous course when his own followers make them the
text for public irony in the House of Commons.

The Telegraph remarks that until the outrageous eccle•
siastical outpost was seriously attacked its own garrison
did not know how defenceless it was. In the same way
the Government has gradually discovered the intensity of
Parliamentary and public feeling, and the amendment
would never have been made if the Ministers had known
that the whole country was so sick of " modifications."
Justice, frank equalisation of rights, generous resolve to
.satisfy and conciliate, sisterly goodwill—these, and not
"modifications," are the things which must govern all we

do if we want to preserve Ireland, let alone churches and
endowments. What Mr. Cardwell described, to the shame
of us all, is a conquered, not a kindred land ; and kindred
we must make it, or lose it. Mr. Disraeli could not pre.
tend to face such facts, nor did it need the renewed elo.
quence and fidelity of Mr. Gladstone to recapitulate
them ; and, long before the debate was finished, ite
inevitable issue was seen.

There is, the Star lays down, no gainsaying the meaning
of the triumph which has placed the cause of justice to
Ireland out of danger ; there is no reason to doubt that

soon after Easter a decision will be arrived at on the mai;
question ; and there is no room for disputing that we owe
the auspicious result which will assure Irishmen all over
the world that a happier day has dawned for their country,
chiefly to the fact that in the official ranks, long doomed
to sterile hesitation and enfeebling compromise, has arisen
a man, not only capable of action, but incapable of ab-
staining from it when the hour has arrived. The real
leadership of Mr. Gladstone will date from this division,
and the new hopes of Ireland will render its inauguration
doubly memorable in the history of the country.
The Imperial Review observes : The duty that devolves
upon the Tory party is such as easily admits of definition.
The course they will pursue is one with regard to which no
doubt or hesitation can be possible. Mr. Gladstone and his
I adical followers have formally identified themselves with
the cause of spoliation, and they must he resisted by every
constitutional means. The contest will not improbablyhave
to be carried from St. Stephen's into every parish in the
kingdom. The Tories may be defeated in the present House
of Commons, but their appeal will necessarily be to a higher
authority, that of the nation. At a general election the
decision will be given, not with reference to the trifling
and transitory aims of party, but rather to the great
principles that are hound up with the question which
Mr. Gladstone has forced into notice. Mr. Bright
doubtless believes that the Tories will be driven from the
Treasury benches. It is necessary to assure him that not
even this success will prove destructive to the Irish Church.
Whether in office or in opposition the Tory party will
neither relax in its exertions on behalf of the- cause of
the Church, nor doubt as to ultimate success. Mr.
Osborne thinks that what he terms " this business"
" will last our lifetinie." He is too sanguine. Unless,
indeed, the Liberal leaders, true to their traditions, deter-
mine to withdraw from the course that they have entered
on, when their immediate object is gained, or when they
find that they have sacrificed honour only to forfeit pot es
laxity. But if the boast that, Navin;; put the hand to the
plough they will not witlelraw it, i.s true, and if the
decision of the constituencies is not so distinctly adverse
to their p liey as to render their party powerless for all
purposes of offence, it is clear that a long and snstained
national alel parliamentary contest is inevitable.

Her Majesty, attended ty Lady Churchill and
the Equerries in Waiting, visited the Earl awl Countess
of Derby on Friday afternoon at their residence in St.
James's-square. The Earl of Derby was able to take car-
riage airing the day before, and on Friday afternoon was
so much improved as to take a drive as far as Richmond
Park. The noble earl is daily regaining his strength,
Ind in all probability will be found in the House of
Lords with recruited health soon after the Easter recess.—
Pot.