The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-25 00:00:00

sPinrg, OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Satarday Bea= has a leader on the policy of the
Opposition driring; the now fast dosing session, and specu-
lates on its leader becoming the ruler of the new House.
Passing an the circumstances into review, our contempo-
rary thinks that the history of the session proves that
Mr. Gladstone can on a very momentous question so lead
his party as to satisfy the Liberal constituencies. Whether
he has satisfied his own followers in the present Hotise of
Commons is another matter, and so it is whether he has
satisfied impartial and critical judges. But it is a simple
matter of fact that he has satisfied the Liberal constituencies.
They long above all things to return men who will imitate
and obey him. If the present Parliament has been truly
described as above all things a Palmerston Parliament, so
the next Parliament promises, so far as the Liberals are
concerned, to be above all things a Gladstone Parliament ;
and certainly no one would have supposed that this would
he so before the question on the Irish Church was raised,
in an evil hour for his fortunes, by Mr. Disraeli. The
country is sick also of the miserable purposeless goings-on
of the present House of Commons. It realises how very
much discredit is brought on free institutions when a
Government tries to govern by a minority, and the leader
of the majority cannot get the majority to go with him.
A longing has sprung up to have a strong Government, a
Government that can command respect and give effect to
its own views. Something to save the House of Commons
from being a perpetual bear-garden is the first wish of
many hearts ; and obviously the easiest mode of getting
this wish gratified is to strive for the return of members
who will not split into endless little factions, but will
inspire their leader with a consciousness of strength, and
therefore with a desire to be conciliatory and courteous.
The three monuments inaugurated at Romsey in honour
of Lord Palmerston gives the Spectator the opportunity of
reviewing a part of the deceased statesman's career. The
three monuments together, two of them for what they give,
one of them for what it suggests by way of contrast, con-
stitute probably as true a memorial as we could have to
the great but rather showy Foreign Minister--the strong,
nervous, lucid, practical, but rather short-sighted Home
Minister whom we lost three years ago. The statue chews
his outward bearing ; Lord Granville depicts the greatest
and noblest traits of his individual, social, and political
character; the memorial window suggests what he wholly
wanted. There was something external, not to say
slightly gaudy, gout Lord Palmerston's patriotism, which
was to some extent, indeed, restrained by the great fidelity
and industry of his administrative work, but which
was at the root of most of his deficiencies. His
" Civis Romanus sum" vein of statesmanship gave
a superficial and unscrupulous air to much of his
foreign policy, encouraging him to intimidate the weak,
and now and then, if but rarely, to cower before the strong.
A more profoundly scrupulous, more austerely self-
judging, in a word, a more'religious nature, could scarcely
have clung to such a foreign policy. But it was even
more in his home policy—his frigid Liberalism, his want
of perception for the selfishness of the middle class, his
want of eager and intense sympathy with the miseries of
the lowest class, his couleur-de-rose view of Irish difficul.
ties, his half jocular feeling towards political corruption ;
in one word, his thoroughly worldly political wisdom and his
complete charity towards all the foibles of the political
coteries he knew so well, that we miss the ennobling and
also the widening influence of a religious substratum of
character. The forces of the future—those which are
strong, but latent in the present—are necessarily per-
ceived rather by faith than by sight, by that part of the
mind which has not yet found its embodiment among the
powers of this world. Lord Palmerston had nothing of
this. He lived in the present, and had no political
second-sight. It took a deeper nature to have such poli-
tical second-sight ; it took, indeed, precisely those quell-
ties of mind which the memorial window attributes to
the true statesman, and of which Lord Palmerston shewed
no trace.

In the opinion of the Imperial Review, the coming gene.
ral election will be, less than any recent event of the kind,
under the influence of any temporary cry, or any one over
shaeo ring name. It will be decided by great questions of
future policy, and they are likely to be discussed with
more calmn,ss than might be anticipated after so great a
change in the electoral system. Unlike the course of
things in 1832, the present occasion will allow the country
to give its verdict without any violent excitement,
and our contemporary sees no reason to expect that its
decisionwill be hostile to the Conservative policy as it now
is. A short time since some uncertainty was felt as to the
influence on the position of parties that the large extension
of the franchise would exert. But it is now abundantly
evident that the anticipation of the Tory party, that the
tendencies of the new electors would be on the whole dis-
tinctly Conservative, will be realised.
The London Review considers that the Electric Tele-
graphs Bill is one of the few measures which will relieve
the present session from the reproach of legislative barren.
ness. In the hands of the Government, the telegraphs
will not be regarded merely as a source of profit. The
primary object will be to bring this mode of communica-
tion within the reach of as many of the public as possible
and although no doubt that object must be pursued with a
due regard to cost, it will make a material difference in
the practical administration of the system, that the
greatest possible accommodation, and not the largest
attainable dividend, will be the first thought in the minds
of those who direct it. Moreover, it cannot be denied
that the Government can do the work much more economi.
tally than the telegraph companies. Instead of three
staffs, there will in future be only one ; while in the small
towns and villages the duties of telegraph clerks will be
discharged by the post-office employes at a small addition
to their present salaries. There will be unity, simplicity,
and concentration of management, instead of the waste of
power which is now incurred by committing to three
independent, although allied bodies, the work which could ,
be better done by one. A telegraphic message is nothing
but a letter sent by wire instead of by railway train ; and
there is no reason why a department which can conduct
the correspondence ref the country through one mode of
conveyance should fail in conducting it through another.
The transfer of the telegraphs to the Government does not
invest them with a new function. It merely makes the
discharge of an existing function coextensive with the
demands and with the opportunities of the present time.
The end of the Whigs has been foretold many times.
Doubtless, says the John Bull, the prophecy will soon be
fulfilled, and thereupon our Church contemporary offers them
a little kindly counsel. Let them accept an issue which is
inevitable : gather their robes about them, and fall as
decently as they may. The political stage was all very
well for them in by-gone days. But in days of real con-
flict and first principles, all things that are only betwixt and
between come to an end in the course of nature. Having
gracefully demitted themselves, and being of course not
content to have no place in the company, let them consider
that, unless they give up their ancient bantling now that
it has grown up big and holds its fist in their face, what ,
must come is the smash of all our institutions. They have
not three courses, but one course only, open to them. Let
them help to save Church and Crown. The Whig of 1863
ii in the face of all men what he has always been in secret,
a mock Radical. The veil is torn down, never to
be. replaced. Now he has nothing to gain by consent-
ing to play second fiddle to his old instruments. He has
everything to lose. He has three months to make up his
mind, in whether to perish ingloriously, or to perish de-
cently and with dignity, and to revive, if not as of old, a
distinct power in the State, yet honourably and usefully to
the State. Lct the Whig of 1868 make his choice.

Twenty thousand dollars have, it is said, been
offered to Mdlle. Schneider, and the same sum to Duprez,
the original Fritz, to go to America and appear in the
" Grande Duchesse."—The Orchestra.

A report has reached us that a petition, in-
fluentially signed, is being prepared, asking the Queen to
veto the Church Rates Abolition Bill. The circular
soliciting support is said to be signed by the Bishop of
Lincoln.— Telegraph. •

SUPPOSED EXPLOSION OF A PETROLEUM STEAMER.
—The steamer Coniston left Liverpool for Lancaster on
Sunday evening last, with a quantity of petroleum on
board, and has not since been heard of. About one o'clock
on Monday morning, however, those on board the North.
West lightship observed what appeared to be an explosion,
followed by a fire, about ten miles to the N.E. In
addition to this, a cask of petroleum has been washed
ashore at Southport, which has been identified as part of
the cargo of the Coniston. The steamer had a crew of
eight hands.

ANOTHER MOUNTAIN ON FIRE.—A portion of
the range of hills running through Mid-Shropshire, and
known as the Longmynds, has been the scene of an exten-
sive fire, which possessed a special feature of danger, as
it broke out within a short distance of the powder maga-
zines belonging to the county volunteer artillery brigade.
The fire, which appeared to break out in several places
at once, was observed from Church Stretton, about nine
o'clock in the evening, and, the alarm spreading, a large
number of the inhabitants of the town started for the
hills to aid in extinguishing it: The flames, however,
fed by the dry gorse, spread with fearful rapidity, and
the peat in the neighbourhood of the powder magazines
beginning to burn, a telegram was despatched to the autho-
rities at Shrewsbury, and as soon as they could be mus-
tered a strong body of artillerymen arrived by special
train. These, aided by a gang of labourers and volunteers,
remained at work all night, and by eight o'clock in the
morning the fire was got under. It is supposed that the
fire originated in a light incautiously dropped by some of
the numerous excursionists who frecoent the hills,
and a reward has been effe.e I for the dize7cry of tho
olondm