The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. Coleridge's bill has passed its second reading by a
majority of 198 to 140, and yet the Times cannot but
rezard it as dead so far as the present session is concerned.
The first open day Mr. Coleridge could discover for the
next stage was three weeks hence, and it may be antici-
pated that the powers of speech which have stopped the
bill hitherto will be employed again to hinder the House
from going into committee upon it. This difficulty sur-
mounted, the discussions in committee cannot, perhaps,
by any ingenuity be prolonged, but another interval must
elapse before the third reading can be taken, and before
that stage becomes due where will be the House of Com-
mons ? It is reasonably certain that Mr. Colericlge's bill
will not reach the House of Lords this year, and the tac-
tics of its opponents have been so far stanessful. But
what a success ! The single object of the opposition is to
save the Lords from the odium of rejecting the bill this
y..,ar as they rejected it last session, and for this purpose
they have abused, and are ready to abuse, the forms of par-
liamentary procedure to the utmost. The course they pur-
sue is dangerous, and the end they seek to attain is trifling.
It is perfectly well known that the House of Lords would
reject the bill again if it came before them, and the bill is
now accepted as among those measures with which the
house of Lords must be bombarded until it yields. The
present House of Commons has pledged itself again and
again in favour of the measure, and there is nothing but
the House of Lords stopping the way. The majorit,y of
fifty-eight represents the excess of power a united Oppo-
sition possesses over the Government supporters, and
this majority will he increased at the general election,
partly, perhaps, by the conduct of those who now
form the minority. Mr. Cavendish Bentinck argued
against the bill as a boon to Dissenters, and added :
"Dissenters" generally belong to the lowest class of
society." This is the sort of statement with which a
" Constitutionalist" goes before constituencies recruited
by large additions from the lower classes. What
temper can Mr. Bentinck hope to provoke among the
voters of " the lowest class," newly admitted to the
franchise? He may find an answer in the speech of
Mr. Mel'y, who followed him. The history of the
sessions of 1867 and 1363 will present many puzzles to the
historian of the future, but one of the greatest difficulties
he will be called upon to explain will be the conduct of
those who, after giving up the possession of power to a
class before excluded from it, continued to speak and to
act as if the privileges they had previously defended
could remain intact after they had voluntarily abdicated
then'.

Shall or shall not, the Telegraph asks, those of our
fellow-subjects who cannot conscientiously subscribe the
Thirty-nine Articles be treated as Englishmen ? Shall or
shall not Dissenters receive the full benefit of the national
universities? That was the question discussed in the
House of Commons yesterday afternoon, and, as we
might have expected from an assembly which decreed
by an overwliAming majority that the Irish Establish-
ment should cease to exist, the House gave a decisive
answer in the affirmative. Mr. Coleridge's bill for the
abolition of tests in the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge has thus been read a second time, and,
practically, it needs only the sanction of the peers to
become law. That their lordships will shed on the measure
the light of their countenance is more than we expect,
after the division in favour of the Irish Church Establish-
ment ; and for another year at least, therefore, the uni-
versities must be national only in name. Still, even the
stoutest opponents of the movement for throwing open
the doors of Oxford and Cambridge to the entire people,
see that, sooner or later, the day of surrender must come,
and already they speak in the tones of men who feel
that the cause for which they are fighting is irretrievably
lost.

. The Post remarks that Mr. Monk's bill for the removal
of the electoral disabilities of revenue officers having been
carried into committee by a majority of thirty-two, having
passed through committee without so much as a verbal
amendment, and having been reported to the House, may
now be considered pretty safe as far as the House of Com-
mons is concerned ; and as the House of Lords is apt to
consider questions exclusively upon their merits, and
without standing in awe of purely official arguments, it
may be expected that it will shortly pass into law. A
reference to the debate of Tuesday evening, and to the
former discussions which have marked the progress of
the measure, will shew that it has succeeded thus far
in spite of the most extraordinary disadvantages,
and in the face of a sufficiently extraordinary opposition.
The fact that in spite of all these disadvantages, and in
spite of the opposition of the principal members both of
the Government' and the Opposition, it was carried
through by what was a very large proportionate majority,
chews the hold which the arguments in its favour have
obtained upon the minds of those who have thought about
it, and who were not deterred from voting in favour of
their opinions by party considerations. Indeed, the debate
brought out very clearly the fact that the arguments were
all on one side, and that those who had to seek for reasons
against the bill could neither be consistent with themselves
nor with common sense.

In a leader on the United States the Lrcrutd observes
that the choice of a President is now a purely personal
question. As to which party in the State, Democratic or
Republican, carries the day, the Herald does not care
much, for it does not signify a jot. If General Grant, the
chosen of the Republicans, be elected by the nation, he
will maintain the law of negro suffrage and carry out the
legislation of the present Congress as well as he can. If
Mr. Justice Chase be nominated by the Democrats and
elected, he too is pledged to support impartial suffrage,
the Civil Rights Bill, and the rest. General Sherman,
some say, may be chosen, or Mr. Pendleton. General
Sherman is probably a man of much greater
ability —he is certainly possessed of a higher
degree of military talent—than General Grant. As
far as the South is concerned, it has nothing 'to gain or
to lose by the substitution of Mr. Chase for General
Grant, or of Mr. Pendleton or General Sherman for
either. Any one of these gentlemen will prove as fero-
cious in his attitude to a conquered people as the dema-
gogues who have ',lately led the ruling party in Congress.
We do not imagine that a Congress of the same imperious
temper is likely to be elected again by the American
people, but if it should be, the chief of the State, warned
by the example and the narrow escape of his predecessor,
will do wisely to refrain from any attempt to nullify its
action, and subside contentedly into that bland constitu-
tional nonentity which is the ideal of a President in the
opinion of modern America.

The Daily News declares that speculations as to what
the Lords will do have given place to the old inquiry,
" What shall be done with the Lords ? " It is without
either heat or vehemence that the position of the Upper
House is now considered. This is due to the conviction
that its powers of obstruction are neither great nor lasting;
that while the peers may repeatedly throw out a bill, they
must ultimately assent to any measure which the Commons
have resolved shall pass into law. It is incumbent on the
Lords to change with the changing times. There is a
general feeling that the Upper House should become even
more of a deliberative than a voting assembly, and that
its votes should be based on reasons which command
respect. While the members of the Upper House are per-
sonally influential, they are collectively powerless for good.
Men whose merits are incontestable cannot ovezcome the
dead weight of colleagues whose sole qualifications are the
accidents of birth, and who are thought competent to
make laws because their ancestors won victories in the
field, or in some other way obtained the favour of the
reigning monarch. What thJ House of Lords requires is
prestige. Whether it pass or reject bills, the country will
pay little heed to its doings, until the motives by which it
is influenced are justifiable on rational grounds. At pre-
sent it is among our institations what a break is to a loco-
motive. Its members take pride in saying that hasty
legislation is hindered by its action. They ought to think
it nobler to delight in being pioneers than stop-gaps. The
Marquis of Salisbury and the Earl of Derby are willing to
stand firm in support of what they think right till the
country has expressed disapproval of it, and then they will
act in opposition to their own convictions. If this be
politic, it is not dignified.

PRIVATE EXECUTIONS.-it is understood, that
the place selected for carrying out capital punishments
under the new Act is the chapel yard, where the drop
will be erected on a level with the ground, a sort of well
being constructed underneath for the fall.

THE HoLroRN VALLEY Woßics.--allese works
are making rapid progress towards completion. The first
portion of the permanent works has just been thrown open
to the public—namely, the Western Approach-street, so
called, which leads from Holborn at the southern end of
Iratton-garden to Fa rringdon-road. This street is in-
(led to accommodate the carriage traffic between the
low level of Parringdon-road and the high level of Hol-
Lorn, and foot paseerigers will levee the option of using
this new thoroughfare, one of the four large
ktaircaziee now in course of construction at the angles
of the Earringdon-street viaduct. The street is sixty
feet wide between the frontages of .the houses, the car-
riage way alone being thirty-six feet. The works which
have been completed within the last few weeks have
tronght into view the new arrangements of the public way
at the western end of the Holborn Valley Viaduct, whero
there is a circus 170 feet in diameter, or equal in size to
Regent-circus, Oxford-street. There six lines of thorough-
fare will diverge, the chief of them being the line of
Holborn, running east and west, and the Western Ap-
pr.oacli-street, now completed, a new street leading from
Farriazdonload, At the focst 114),4n-hill Paul lial.t(
gviirxt • -

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE HOURS OF
POLLING.

Last week the secretary of the London Working Men's
Association addressed a letter to the Prime Minister,
calling his attention to the fact tbat, owing to the limited
hours now allowed for taking the poll at parliamentary
elections, viz., from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m., fully one-half of the
working men now on the electoral register in the metro-
politan boroughs were deprived of their franchise, and
that this evil would be greatly augmented under the new
Reform Act. The letter pointed out that a large
proportion, if not the majority, of working men followed
their occupation at long distances from their place of resi-
dence, and were obliged to leave home in the morning at
five, six, and seven o'clock, not returning home until seven
or eight o'clock in the evening. This large body of men
were thus unable to use their vote without losing at
least half a day's wages, and in many cases risk-
ing the loss of their situations by absence. The
letter concluded by suggesting the insertion of a clause
in the Registration Bill extending the hours of polling
from four • p.m. until eight p.m., and asking the Prime
Minister, as this was not a party question, to receive a
deputation from the association on the subject. To this
letter the following reply has just been received :—" 10,
Downing-street, June 29, 1868.—Sir, I am directed by
Mr. Disraeli to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of
the 25th inst., requesting him to receive a deputation from
the committee of the Working Men's Association as to the
hours of polling at parliamentary elections, and to express
his regret that the great pressure of his parliamentary and
official duties renders it impossible for him to fix a time
for receiving the deputation. lam at the same time to
say that as the question of the extension of the hours of
polling has been discussed and decided in Parliament, Mr.
Disraeli is quite unable to hold out to the members of the
association the hope that any change can be made before
the general election.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,
" C. W. FREMANTLE.
"The Secretary of the London Working
Men's Association."

CONVOCATION OF THE PROVINCE OF
CANXERBURY.

Both Houses continued their sittings on Wednesday.
The adjourned debate on the report about the Bishop of
Natal, which was brought forward on the previous day,
was resumed by the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and
continued by the Bishops of Bangor, London, Lincoln,
Lichfield, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Arch-
bishop expressed his sincere thanks to the members of the
committee for the trouble which they had taken in the
matter. He had never shrunk from saying that he con-
sidered Bishop Colenso to have been spiritually deposed.
That had been objected to, but here in this report
they had a statement of very much the same character,
namely, that the Church of England as a spiritual
body might accept his deposition. He had considered
that the Church in South Africa bad been placed under
circumstances of remarkable difficulty, if not of isolation,
rendering the position of the bishops most embarrassing.
He could not understand how any branch of the Catholic
Church could be said to be deprived of the power of depos-
ing an evil minister. The Articles of the Church of
England were explicit on this point. The 2Gth Article
said : " Nevertheless it appertaineth to the discipline of
the Church that inquiry be made of evil members" (not
only those of the Established Church), " and that they be
accused by those that have knowledge of their offences,
and finally, being found guilty by just judgment, be
deposed." His Grace put the resolution to the meeting,
and it was agreed that the report be sent to the Lower
House, with the remarks of the Bishop of London
upon it.

The Lower House voted concurrence in the congratula•
tory address to her Majesty agreed to by the bishops, on
the preservation of the Duke of Edinburgh from the
attempted assassination by O'Farrell in Australia. The
motion against the disendowment of the Irish
branch of the Established Church was postponed in
consequence of other business intervening of no
general importance, and of a communication from the
Upper House of the resolution passed by their lordships on
the subject, in which the concurrence of the Lower House
was requested, and the consideration of which message,
together with Dr. Jebb's resolution if brought forward,
will then be taken. The report of the committee of the
bishops in reference to the Bishops of Capetown and Natal
was also communicated. The rest of the sitting was
occupied in making alterations in the standing orders, with
the view of facilitating business in future -convocations.