The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-12 00:00:00

MR. LOWE ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

In a letter to Mr. Julian Goldsmid, m.r., and 250
graduates of the University of London who had presented
him with a requisition, Mr. Lowe accepts the position of
a candidate for the honour of representing the University
of London in Parliament. Mr. Lowe holds that as the
university was founded on liberal principles by liberal
men, and is the truest and fullest expression yet attained
of all that is free, progressive, and unsectarian in educa-
tion, the person who aspires to represent it ought to hold
thoroughly liberal opinions, and be a member of the party
to vc hlch the university owes its existence. He refers
to his votes and speeches during the fifteen years which
comprise his parliamentary life, and to his labours on
many royal commissions and on select committees, and
then proceeds to speak of the present and future. After a
reference to the course he took upon the Reform Bill, he
says that the question is decided ; he hopes events may
prove him to be wrong, and has no wish to revive the con-
troversy:—" Our duty is, without loss of time, to adapt
ourselves to the great change that has taken place. We
must expect a much greater demand fur equality than
heretofore, and ought to pass our institutions in review,
modifying such things as seem likely to wound this feel-
ing, and founding ourselves upon principles which will
bear the test of discussion in a democratic assembly. The
redistribution of seats is forced upon us by the change
in the franchise, since what has- been already done
is quite inadequate to bring these two parts of the measure
into harmony with each other. I voted last year for a
larger disfranchisement of small boroughs, and shall be
prepared to do so again. I dissent from the destructive
conservatism which would keep the House of Lords just
as it is, and would gladly see that House enabled better
to resist pressure, by being placed more on the footing of
a senate where distinguished merit might find a place
beside rank and wealth. It is not safe to stake every-
thing on the vote of a single chamber. I view the
revenues of the so-called Church of Ireland as the property
of the State, the appropriation of which may properly
be changed with a due respect for vested interests ;
and the Church itself as an unjust institution,
irritating to Ireland, and discreditable to us in the eyes
of foreign nations. I wish to preserve mixed education in
Ireland intact, and for all other students than those in the
Queen's Colleges to found a university in Ireland similar
to our own. Several parliamentary investigations of the
state of Ireland in which I have been engaged, while they
have thoroughly impressed upon me the vast imrerial
importance of appeasing her discontent and promoting her
prosperity, have also taught me that the evils of Ireland
are mainly social, theological, and economical. They
cannot be remedied, and may easily be aggravated by
legislative interference wick contracts between private
parties acting with full knowledge. The Univcreities of
Oxford and ,Cambridge ought, I think, to be governed by
such graduates as are concerned with their teaching and
discipline. The universities and all collegiate endowments
Abould he open to all persons without religious test, and
without requiring them to be members of any college or
ball. The colleges should enjoy full powers of legis!ation
and self-government, and should contribute frum their
revenues whatever may be required to give the universi-
ties more teaching power, and a more complete and effi-
cient staff of professors. The time has come when, if we
wish to be well governed at home or respected abroad, we
must make education accessible to all. This can be done
without any immediate destruction of the existing system,
by establishing secular schools, supported by rates wher-
ever voluntary exertion fails." He believes that it is

both possible and expedient to reduce the law of
England to a code, that the distinction between law
and equity ought to be abolished, and that the law of real
property ought, allowance being made for the difference in
the subject-matter, to be assimilated to the Law of personal
property. As a part of this position he supported the bill
for the division of the estates of intestate owners iu fee
simple according to the statute of distributions, not as
wishing to make this measure a stepping-stone to a com-
pulsory division of land, or to any restriction of the free-
dom of the owner to sell or settle it, but because the law
when it makes a will for a man should make a just will,-
and it is not just to give all to one child, and leave the
others, especially the female children, to starve. He
is sincerely anxious for peace, and therefore opposed to
a meddling diplomacy, and to the delusive idea
that the real strength of England can be increased
by the forcible acquisition of territories imposing 11, avy
burdens on her people, without giving men to her armies
or taxes to her exchequer. Economy is little regarded in
these days, but he believes extravagance to be doubly an
evil, as a needless waste of the money of the people, and
as the sure sign of inefficiency. The true way to save is
not the cutting down of single items, but a more complete
organisation of our departments, and the determination
that for whatever the country spends it shall have full
value in labour, talent, or materials. The Revised Code has
saved us half a million a year, but it has been by making
the department of education more efficient. Mr. Lowe
hopes that these opinions will appear on the whole not
unsuited to one who aspires to the high honour of repre-
senting the University of London in Parliament.

The first number of a new journal, entitled the
Chamber of Agriculture, has just been issued.

The Secretary of State for the Home Depart-
ment has been pleased to order a free and unc,mditional
pardun to Mr. James 111`Masttr, who was convicted at the
last Manchester Assizes, along with two others, for an
alleged conspiracy.

- -
THE • IRISH CHURCH.--We (BeVa3t Newsletter)
are informed on the best authority that there is no founda-
tion in fact for the statement of the Weekly Register as to
Mr. Gladstone's motion respecting the Irish Church.
MR. THEODORE MARTIN.—It is stated that Mr.
Theodore Martin is sufficiently recovered from the acci-
dent which he lately -sustained to leave Osborne. The
Queen presented Mrs. Martin (Helen Faacit) with a mag-
nificent ruby diamond bracelet, as a souvenir of their visit
to her marine residence.

EXTRAORDINARY VARIATIONS OF TEMPERATURE
IN AUSTRALIA.—The Me/bourne Argus of December 27
says : "Tbe weather during the
Pas month has been
remarkable for the extreme its t
ehanges. The
wind and rain,
12th instant was a day of cold and violentdnthe
19tha
strong
h a day oft
with every characteristic of winter, n
bright sunshine and intense heat, with
blowing, and the thermometer at the Observatory standingowind
at 104 deg. in the shade, and 137 deg. in the sun. The
severity of the storm and the rain on the 12th NC aS Such
as
to recall to mind the weather of the middle of December
1863, which occasioned the memorable and destructive
floods in the Yarra, and the gloomy and threatening
appearance of the atmosphere gave rise to serious
apprehensions of a similar inundation. However, the
rain relaxed during the night and ceased on the following
morning, and the weather gradually brightened and im-
proved till a week afterwards. On the 19th the thermo-
meter reached the height above mentioned. Such extreme
heat at this early period of the 5233011 indicates the proba-
bility of a very hot summer, and if such ensues, the grass
in almost all parts of the country being very long from
the long-continued rains of spring, some serious and wide-
spread bush fires may be apprehended. An instance of
the extreme variability of temperature characteristic of
our climate is afforded by the fact that at Grant, on the
Crooked River, on the 10th inst., the heat was very great,
the glass standing at 88 deg. in the shade—an altitude un-
common in that alpine locality. On the 12th—only two
days afterwards—the temperature was at freezing point,
and snow was lying six inches deep on the plains,"