The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The result of the debate on the Irish Church is, the
Times declares, by this time well ascertained. We all
know that the amendment in Lord Stanley's name, if put
to the vote, must be rejected by a decisive majority, and
it is as plain that Mr. Gladstone's first resolution must be
accepted by a majority which, if not so numerous, must
also be decisive. But the Irish debate has not therefore
ceased to be valuable. It is an occasion of trial. It
affords an opportunity, always useful, and never more
useful than in thase terms of transition, for testing the
men who are prominent in parliamentary discussions, and
determining what each is worth. It is in days of diffi-
culty that intelligence and energy come
.by their own.
Many a man of fair intentions, of candour, and even
of shrewdness, who may be able to take a decent
position in prosperous seasons, is shewn to be wanting
in depth, in courage, in statesmanship, when the times
are adverse and crises of agitation and perplexity arise.
Again, the Times calls attention to what Mr. Lowe called
the " zig-zag " nature of the Ministerial resources. One
Cabinet Minister answers another, and no supporter of
the Government can pluck up courage to deny the charge
challenged to the utterance. These tactics of the
Ministry have now received fresh illustration. After Mr.
Lefroy had told the House that the Emperor of the
French would be distressed at the disestablishment of the
Irish Church, and Mr. Osboine, reminding the Commons
how often he had led a forlorn hope to the attack, had
indicated a way of saving some wreck of endowment for
Irish incumbents, Sir Stafford Northcote rose to represent
the Ministry. His ambition appeared to be to supply the
missing link in the Cabinet, but he threw his weight,
on the whole, towards the right in support of
Lord Stanley. The present Parliament, he urged, had
not been elected with this question before them,
and could not dispose of it, which is doubtless
true ; but, then, no one proposes that the present Parlia-
ment shall dispose of it. Mr. Gladstone's resolutions were
rash and immature, and Lord Stanley's amendment met
them upon this ground. If, however, the House should
reject the amendment, discussion must then arise on the
resolutions themselves, and this discussion, which would
turn mainly upon such arguments as Mr. Hardy had
used, mist trench upon the Easter holidays. There
were a thousand points to explain and debate, and they
must not be "huddled up" in an abstract resolution.
We venture to think that, if the previous tactics
of the Ministry have found little favour with
the House or the country, this suggestion of Sir
Stafford Northcote's of an adjourned battle on a new
field will not improve their position. There are details,
and intricate details, to be considered and provided for
when Parliament legislates for the disendowment of the
Irish Church. The bill to be introduced into the new
House of Commons on the subject will neither be short
nor easy of comprehension. But the question before the
present House is simple and clear. Shall the Irish Esta-
blishment in principle be maintained or abolished? This
is the issue, and upon that issue there can be but one
result—an unhesitating and overwhelming reply that the
Establishment shall cease to exist.

The task of the Opposition is, the Post remarks, so
easy that the result is a one-sided debate. Mr. T.owe's
statistics and arguments would have told better if there
had been even a distant chance of their ref, Cation. The
absurdity of the Irish Church Establishment is so gross
that no credit can be gained by any one in demonstrating
it. The objection taken to the action of the Opposition
as premature, pending the result of a commission issued
at the instance of Earl Russell, was, as Mr. Bernal
Osborne justly observed, without foundation. The com-
mission moved for by Earl Russell was very different
from that to which the House of Peers assented.
Ito proposed that the commissioners should report
on the best mode of dealing with the Church in the in-
terests of the Irish people ; whereas, at the instance of the
Conservative party, these functions were confined to re-
commendltions for the better administration of the Church
itself. It is therefore incorrect to say that the commission
was issued in compliance with the wishes of the Liberal
party, or that their hands are tied until its labours are
concluded. The question of disestablishment and dis-
endowment is not before the commissioners, but this is the
question which is now definitively and solemnly submitted
for the consideration of the House of Commons.
The suicidal inconsistency of the Government in pro-
posing with one hand to maintain Protestant ascendency,
and with the other, by the foundation of a Roman
Catholic University, to put the education of the youth of
Ireland into the hands of the Roman Catholic bishops,
pledged to hostility to that Establishment, has been, the
Daily News exclaims, mercilessly exposed. The wit of
Mr. Osborne, which was never more felicitously exercised,
reinforced the logic of Mr. Lowe. The washy platitudes
with which Sir Stafford Northcote wound up the debate
shewed that the Government is not only without a case,
but was for the evening without an advocate. Sir Staf-
ford considers that the future application of the
revenues of the Irish Church must be decided before
disendowment is effected. He might as well say that a
man ought to decline a legacy until he has made up his
mind how he will spend it. When the debate had dwindled
into fallacies of this order, it has evidently worn itself out.
'l'he discussion, which must conclude to-night, might fitly
have ended yesterday, if only effective combatants had
been put forward.

Dealing with Mr. Lowe's speech, the Herald observes
that, if he cannot understand Mr. Disraeli's letter to Lord
Dartmouth or Lord Stanley's amendment, and refuses to
interpret them by the confessedly explicit statements of
Mr. Hardy, we do not suppose that any explanations of
ours will assure or enlighten him. Nor do we care to
reconcile contradictions which, when reduced to their sub-
stance, amount to nothing more than the use by Lord
Stanley of the word status where Mr. Hardy would have
used " condit'on" us " organisation "—a slender founda-
tion indeed on which to build the charge that
the first is pledged to overthrow what the latter, in
solemn and explicit language, bound himself to main-
tain. Taunts of this kind may impose on outsiders who
have no conception of the nature of Ministerial relations,
or may gratify the temper or indulge the humour of
unscrupulous opponents. But they cannot do more than
this. Every man in the House of Commons knows that
the definite, positive, unmistakeable assertions of the
Home Secretary, not the accidental form of words
employed by his colleague', expresses the purpose of the
Government ; and no one who has been long enough in
that assembly to know the character of its leaders can be
at a loss to understand why the language of Lord Stanley
should be snore reserved than that of Mr. Gathorne
Hardy ; or why the line of Ministerial defence should be
more distinct and vigorous and decided when once the
Cabinet has had time to apprehend and to meet the exact
character of the assault with which it has to deal.

The Standard is in ecstacies with the speeches of Mr.
tlenley and General Peel. The member for Oxfordshire
tore away, with his resolute good sense, the flimsy pre-
texts by which the leader of the Opposition advocated his
resolutions. He shewed that the abolition of the Irish
Church would not content the disaffected in Ireland,
whilst it would do a great wrong to the loyal ,• and he in-
sisted that the question raised is not merely one of the
Irish Church, but of all Establishments. Mr. Bright, said
the right honourable gentleman, tells us that the day is
remote when the English Church will be attacked, but
Mr. Gladstone three years ago declared the day of danger
to the Irish Church was remote. Of what value, there-
fore, are these assurances ? And Mr. Henley well summed
up the merits of the discussion. We should be playing,
lie said, by adopting these resolutions, into the hands of
those who wish not only to dissolve the union between
Church and State, but between England and Ireland. " I
*should feel myself," said the right honourable gentleman,
"if I were to vote for these resolutions, a traitor to my
country, my sovereign, and my God."

There is, the Telegraph observes, no need for mum
rurther talk to secure the final judgment ; the case is
clear. Justice and real religious interests are on one
side ; fear, pride, and Episcopal Christianity on the other.
Europe watches to see whether the Legislative Assembly
which boasts to be the freest and most enlightened in the
.world has love of freedom enough to abolish a monument
of tyranny, and confidence enough in right to abolish a
palpable wrong. Somebody has brought into the
House a petition against this necessary measure, and
proudly described it as being " 225 feet long." The
grievance is as many years old and more, and leagues
of timid names could not save it now from happy
extirpation. "As an Establishment it must cease to
exist" : the mover of the amendment owned as much by
the speech in which he chilled his party with cold truth
and common sense. The abandonment will not entail the
slightest loss to the power of England or to the true in-
terests of religion. Nothing has been more distinctly
brought out in this debate than the fact, that, in spite of
party intrigue or the dissent of a sectarian minority,
Ireland will be more than conciliated—will be overborne
with gratitude by an act of pure justice which has been
deferred for centuries ; and in the nobler influences thus
newly established among the fervid and sensitive race,
religion itself must share the conquest newly achieved for
the Crown of England in the name of Christian right.
Once for all, exclaims the Star, Mr. Gladstone is not,
and never was, a Whig. Once for all, Mr. Gladstone
never nodded in office, and is the last man any one would
expect to do so. His fault—if it is a fault—is precisely
in the opposite direction. He was turned out of office by
rebels in his own party because he would not nod ; and a
sou of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland affectingly images
the shade of Lord Palmerston looking down in sorrow and
in anger at his successor, because be is too restless and will
le
not let things sep. Every one with the smallest acqnaint-
pnce with public life or the smallest discrimination of
character, knew's that an inactive Gladstone Ministry
is a contradiction of terms, and an utterly incon-
ceivable contingency. During Lord Pa!merstou's
life Mr. Gladstone was engroesiegly occupied in herculean
labours, which male him almostthe darling of the House
of Commons, and which withheld him almost absolutely
from general politics. It is really ehil«lish to hold him
Answerabte•for silence in those years on subjects which he
took the earliest opportunities of independent leadership
to force npou the attentiondbf Parliament. But it is not
Wouderfu that Mr. Gladstone should be misrepresented
to his detriment when so clear-sighted a man as Mr.
Osborne can say, with the Dartmouth letter in full view.
that Mr. Disraeli has " never uttered an illiberal sentin
ent,
or committed' himself to the big of any party." The
truth is, there is no bigotry to Which Mr. Disraeli would
not cling for power ; and there is no evil which Mr. Glad-
stone would denounce in opposition that he would not
work night and day in office to destroy.