The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-18 00:00:00

'MIT OF TICE PUBLIO JOMINALS.

ry aia accounts, says the Tintes, have been
ICrreceived from KnowsleyKnowsleyconcerning the health of Lotd
derby
His friends and the public may hope that his lie
be prolonged, but we fear there can be no doubt th4t
his long and distinguished political career has now closed.
it would at present be premature to speculate on the
changes which Lord Derby's removal from political
life must produce. We prefer, at such a time, to
remizul the public of the merits of the able and brilliant
statesl whose services they are about to lose, and to
pay a fitting tribute to his past life. Lord Derby may
have been the subject of exaggerated enthusiasm from
the party he led in his later years, and the injudicious
parade of his name on all occasions by his supporters
has in some cases subjected him to acrimonious attacks.
But if there has seemed to be a lack of vigour in his
policy—if in his statesmanship he has displayed some-
thing of the amateur, this has by no means lessened the
favour with which he has been regarded, for such a bear-
ing in pubic matters finds a ready sympathy with a large
part of the educated class, who are far from being keen
politicians, and who have a strong dislike for the zeal
somewhat tinctured with bitterness which distinguishes
more earnest statesmen. With hosts of friends and with
the most enviable sociable qualities, assured by his station
and wealth of personal respect, and the head of a party
which, however often it be out-argued or outvoted,
must always, from the nature of things, comprise the
great body of these who fill the highest social position,
Lord Derby possessed all that is most agreeable in poli-
tical life. If his name has not been linked to many great
legislative measures, he has been, at any rate, a great party
leader and a successful administrator. To inspire a large
section of the political world with unbounded confidence,
to choose from among its cleverest men competent col-
leagues, and perform with distinction the multifarious
&sties of government require no inconsiderable ability,
aitt.l this work Lord Derby perfermed with a suc-
cess and an apparent ease which are given to few
public men. He was aided, undoubtedly, by rank and for-
tune, but it must be remembered that these, if they give
men opportunities, often stifle their energies. A wealthy
peer has all the apparatus for achieving greatness, yet how
often is he crushed under it into sloth and mediocrity !
Lord Derby has, indeed, been all through life an energetic
man. He was one who could never have lived an idle life.
If he had been horn a poor man, he would either have dis-
tinguished himself in some profession or made a fortune
by bold commercial ventures. His destiny made him the
eldest son of a wealthy peer, and he entered into political
life with a feeling of real enjoyment. It is, however, not
as a statesman principally that Lord Derby received the
admiration of his contemporaries. He was a vigorous,
incisive, and ready orator, and in his best days was re-
markable for a choice of words and a refinement
of expression which are seldom found in this age
of careless conversational speechmaking. He could over-
whelm or demolish an opponent in a manner which com-
pletely combined the two essentials of pain to the victim
and pleasure to the listeners. It is as a brilliant speaker,
as " the Rupert of debate," ready to cross swords with the
most redoubtable antagonists, and seldom coming worsted
out of the fray, that he will be chiefly remembered. This
power may not make a man a great statesman, but it
makes him a great parliamentary leader, and to it Lord
Derby owed that he early gained a high political position,
that he was three times Prime Minister, that he was
obeyed by a party more implicitly than any Minister of
our time, and that he relinquished power only when his
health had completely failed.
It is impossible, says the Post, to blink the fact that
these frequent applications to Parliament for a suspension
of the constitution in Ireland reflect infinite discredit on
the Imperial Government. And our contemporary makes
this observation without any reference in particular to the
Liberal or Conservative parties. Those who are now in
power are neither more nor less to blame than those who
are now in opposition—or they may not be ; which for the
purpose of the present question comes to the same thing.
It is sixty-eight years since the legislative union between
Great Britain and Ireland was effected, and since then we
have had some two or three insurrections in the latter
country ; we have had no small account of trouble during
a considerable portion of that period in preserving even
the semblance of domestic tranquillity; we have found it
necessary to maintain there what is in truth an army of
occupation, and we have been compelled, we know not how
many times, to confer absolute power on the Irish
Executive in dealing with the liberties of the Irish people.
These arc facts which are recorded in the later pages of
British history, and which not even Parliament in its
omnipotence can efface. What might have been the
history of Ireland since the commencement of the present
century if Pitt had not bought the necessary majorities in
the Irish Houses of Parliament to carry out his scheme of
legislative union, no one can say.
The Irish Radical members, who profess to see the
redemption of their country in the abolition of the Esta-
blished Church and the adoption of a large measure of
tenant-right, have had what the Standard calls the good
sense to resist the temptation to obstruct the passage of
the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill by the advocacy of
these nostrums. They know very well that the prolonga-
tion of the suspension is absolutely necessary, not to
suppress rebellion, for of that there is little fear, but to
prevent the perpetration of isolated outrages, which,
although they do not shake British power as their authors
seem to fancy, cause great disquietude and alarm in Ire-
land, and sadly interfere with the growth of its prosperity.
They know, too, that they will have a very early opportu-
nity of bringing what they believe to be the wrongs of their
country before Parliament, and suggesting the remedies ;
and they have discreetly, therefore, postponed to that
fitting season the claims or the protests they may have to
make. The bill was read a second time last night,
after a discussion lasting less than an hour, although Sir
H. W. Barron contributed to it a vehement and amusing
impeachment of England's maladministration, and Mr.
Darby Griffith an elaborate rejoinder, to which the House
listened with some impatience, thinking, probably, that
the reply to the honourable baronet should have come
from some patriotic Irishman. For Sir Henry's develop-
ment of the wrongs of his country, and his diatribes
against English misgovernment in the past and the pre-
sent, were really, although unintentionally, about the
severest things that have been said against Ireland of late
years, and had they been uttered by an Englishman,
would have drawn down upon him a howl of execration
from the Radical newspapers across the Channel.
The Government propose to add seven members to the
representation of Scotland and to the House of Commons.
The wisdom of increasing the numbers of the Commons is
open, in the opinion of the Daily News, to serious question.
The opinion very generally prevails that the House is too
large already for purposes of deliberation. It is certainly
greatly in excess, as Colonel Sykes pointed out, of the
leading Parliaments of Europe and America.' It is
between two and three times as numerous as the House of
Representatives in the United States and the Parliament
of the German Confederation, and twice
as numerous as
the Corps Ldgislatif of France—all of which Chambers
indirectly represent greater populations, and vastly
re
greater constituencies. Seven members m or less may
be, as Mr. Disraeli urged, not worthdiesput Ina ‘about.
But the policy of increasing numbers which ought, if an
change is made, rather to be diminished, of moving
direction when we ought to be moving in the in
oppositeone
any
direction, is by no means a matter of indifference. rhe
proposal of the Government to call seven neNv
members
out of non-existence--to create them, not out of the
materials supplied by the existing representative system,
but out of pure nothingness—is important also as in-
directly protecting a very gross abuse, which demands
thorough remedy. The village and small pocket boroughs
of England find shelter under this device. They receive
a kind of guarantee of impunity.
From first to last (says the Herald) in almost every
criticism uttered, it was evident that party considerations
alone were predominant in the minds of the Scotch
Liberals. This was so manifest as to provoke from Mr.
Disraeli a well-merited rebuke. Of course, if factious
vexation and resistance is to be the policy of the Opposi-
tion, the present session must be a barren one. The
Power of dissolution, which is the ordinary constitutional
restraint on such an Opposition, is wanting to the Govern-
-la-lent, and lie. Gladstone's power of hinderance is there-
fore almost unlimited. But we are greatly mistaken if the
House be not sincerely anxious to perfect its work, and
little dispose
the passage to tolerate a course which would endanger
of the measures necessary to the completion
of the Reform
of 1867, and bequeath a confused and un-
settled electoral
sr
be inclined to look leniently on those
en?. to the new Parliament. The
public, too, will no
who would, for a
i).fffeliylPurPeses'
entail on the country grave
constitutional
difficulty give its full moral t
support
practical inconvenience, and
endeavour to finish—.,,upport to the Government in their
coercion, if they can, forcibly if
they must"—by
the great work which they cannot by compromise,
ago ; and the Opposition warllommenced twelve months
on the question of the Scotch
as ill-advised in repeating
employed in the battle over the representation the tactics
in attempting to carry out thecround householder as
uttered already—of reop ;
bb he r(eat—pore than once
full and careful deliberation,y questions settled, after
the English Reform Bill
of Last year.

tit which
a
The Scotch Reform measure has nothing about
could lead the Star to believe that it was
by the
innovator who took the Grassmarket dinner party
confidence as to the best mode of educating.T into his
,
does it bear many marks of the Lord-Advocate's
sense and keen appreciation of the ridiculous. Their
is
,Inething about it which reminds us of the old wire-pullers
',"110 Lelong to the politics of a bygone age ; of the men who
hic. upLai the device of faggot-votes, and were especially
at ,getting comfortabl offices for themselves and ail
1,7 r:1 anT,levoted adherents. Take the question of the
frIllc,!1:- boroughs as an example. ITnder the
I s.v the reviAng barristers in Scotland have held
that tie I,:tyrrent by aln of such a sum per annum
a-; would. equal for unCUrnished rooms entitles
to be regar:led as a tenant in the sense of the old
Th.-f,,riti Act. But the new English Act makes rating, and
rot the value of the premises, the test; and not merely
the rating, but the payment of the rate. Now, a lodger
never can be rated for the poor ; he does not appear in the
rate-book, and he is neither expected to pay rates nor is
there any machinery by which he could tender them, even
if he wished to pay for the purpose of voting. The Govern-
ment have left the lodger clauses out of the Scotch bill,
while professing their willingness to insert them if called
upon to do so. But why leave them out, when the differ-
ence between the new qualification and the old would so
manifestly shut out the lodgers from a vote were it not
that the chance of excluding themaltogether in the sewn' -
page was tl fight w9rtti..B trial