The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

What, asks the Times, is to be said of this meeting in
the Guildhall ? Nothing, except that it is a monument of
the folly of its promoters. It is, of course, easy to say that
the meeting was packed. No doubt it was packed. There
was a plentiful supply of persons on both sides in-
capable of understanding the merits of the question at
issue, and consistently disinclined to listen to any argu-
ments from any person who was opposed to the conclusions
they were employed to support. Neither Liberal nor

Tory has the better of tho comparison. The proof is
..

simple. The Lord Mayor was assailed with clamour
directly he appeared,_ and not,a word he spoke
was „heard beyotd the reporters, although all he
endeavoured to say was that, although his own opinions
were well known, he hoped a fair hearing would be given
to every one, and he .especially bespoke it for Sir John
Lubbock, the first speaker. The Liberals in the hall
having thus discredited themselves, the Conservatives

refused to listen to Sir John Lubbock. It is evident that

neither party can afford to throw dirt at the other. Nor
could any other result than that which did happen have
been expected by reasonable persons. To suppose that an
expression of opinion upon a subject on which men are
keenly divided can be elicited from a mixed crowd as a
sequel to a carefully-considered argument on both sides
is absurd. It would be as rational to convene an eourl
number, of Irish Protestants and Irish Roman Catholics
to concoct a common form of worship. Such a pro.
ceeding as this is nowadays wholly out of date. Mr.
Goschen confided to fhe reporters that he would rather
address a somewhat stormy meeting than a flat assem-
bly collected by ticket within closed doors ; but the
right of meeting, of which we are so justly jealous,
is the right of meeting of persons of the same way
of thinking. In the United States, to which we
may appeal on such a point, scarcely any other form
of meeting is known. The comparison of arguments
and the comparison of strength can be only made
judiciously in t►ie assemblies of representative opinion, in
which is vested the ultimate power of directing the policy
of a nation. The only good the Times can hope from the
meeting is, that it may check the attempt to hold any
more of a similar character. Nothing came of it directly.
For the immediate purpose for which it was convened it
was worthless. It did not even appear which side could
outdo the other in clamour, though the comparison would
have been futile if it had been possible. In the House of
Commons the shouts from the Conservative benches are in-
variably more hearty and united than those from the
Liberal side, and yet the Conservatives are constantly out-
voted. At the hustings the balance of tumult is no cri-
terion of the result of the poll. Those who went to the
Guildhall, if there were any so benighted, to discover
which way the constituency would go next November,
must-have come away as wise as they went. Mr. Gosehen
declared that the coming election would chew that the
Liberals were in the majority, and we entirely agree with
him, but our opinion is formed, as his was, independently
of the saturnalia in Guildhall.

Apropos to this meeting the Daily News declares that
all over England the meetings held on this subject are
either limited to supporters of the Establishment, like the
one at the Cannon-street Hotel, or are assailed and dis-
turbed by the noisy ruflianism of the dfitriet, organised to
prevent any expression of opinion. Nowhere do the sup-
porters of the Irish Church dare to ask the free vote of an
open meeting. Nowhere do they dare to submit the ques-
tion to the deliberate judgment of the English people.
They know that the reason and conscience of the people
are against them ; that in no free gathering of English-
men could they holm to get a verdict on the evidence.
They have no case, and they abuse the counsel ; no argu-
ment, and they browbeat the jury ; no plea, ar.d they will
not hear the verdict, and hope to drown the sentence in
clamour. It is a forlorn hope, but we may leave them to
cherish it.

The Post has a smart attack upon the Ministry. Com-
mencing with Mr. Disraeli, it deprecates his love of self-
glorification ; it sets down Lord Abercorn as a mere
courtier, but admits that his policy in Ireland has on the
whole been good ; Mr. Hardy is a respectable man,
who speaks cut his opinions boldly, but acts on the views of
Mr. Disraeli. Of Lord Stanley, however, the Post has
little good to say. By playing the equivocal part of
voting with the highest Tories and coquetting with the
Ultra-Radicals, his lordship has got for the moment a sort
of general position which has induced all parties to exag-
gerate his merits and to overlook his deficiencies. It is
really too much to parade before us as a statesman of vigour
and genius a man who hiLs some qualities of a second-rate
kind, but who is singularly deficient in conception, pre-
cision, and decision. Our Foreign Secretary indeed
is laborious, and can master the details of a
question, but he is like a general who can get
an army together, but does not know when it
is in the field what to do with it. No amount of
information leads him to a conclusion. In the famous
Luxemburg treaty he stood hesitating as to whether he
should sign it, until Europe was on the very brink of war,
and then nullified his signature by declaring that it
pledged him to nothing ; thus renewing the Euro
peen agitation, which still continues, and which the
recognised union of three great Powers against the
ambition of any fourth one would have kept per-
manently at rest. In the case of the Mermaid,
where a British vessel was unaccountably sunk by
the guns of a Spanish fortress, in the case of Abyssinia,
where a British agent was imprisoned and tortured, his
wavering and cynical nature was only roused into action
by the strong expression of pubic opinion. In Eastern
affairs he certainly deserves the praise of having done
nothing where he might have done a great deal of mis-
chief ; but one cannot help feeling that there still remains
in that quarter of the world a brooding spirit of dia.
turbance which a more clear and decided course would
have put down. The two orders of men most
to be dreaded as statesmen are those who are
constantly fussing about nothing, and those who are
indife.frent as to everything. Lord Stanley is in all things
the same. He cannot decide to what party he belongs at
home, nor what policy he should adopt abroad. It is
absurd to attribute to him the merits of a politital man
who has ever done anything. His presiding distinction is
his impotence, a harmless peculiarity of which one need
not be ashamed, but of which it is ridiculous to boast.
The boast, indeed, in the more unwise in this instance,
because it is accompanied by a censure. How was it, if
Lord Clarendon left affairs in the desperate condition
which Mr. Disraeli so graphically paints, that Lord
Derby begged him to continue to administer our
foreign affairs ? This is a question which still waits for
an answer.

The Daily Telegraph, in answer to the question " What
shall be done unto the man whom the nation delighteth to
honour ?" says that the wish of the nation undoubtedly is
that Sir Robert Napier—the soldier who has thus shed
lustre on our arms— should receive the honour of a peer-
age ; there can be no question that the Crown will be
ready to use its prerogative for that purpose ; nor can
we suppose that Sir Robert Napier will decline
a high honour thus cordially offered in the name
of a grateful country. There are, however, certain
difficulties in the way, none of them by any means
insuperable, though perhaps needing somewhat
delicate treatment. Sir Robert is an Indian officer by
service, and his elevation to the peerage would of course
recall for the same honour one or two names of public ser-
vants having already the highest. claims to the esteem of
the people and the favour of the Crown. Then there
must arise the question of the necessary grant to
maintain the dignity of a noble title, becoming as it
does part of the historic records of the land. On
the other hand, the gains are manifest and im-
portant. There is no reason why the elevation
of Sir Robert Napier to the house of Lords should not be
followed by the addition of other illustrious names to the
roll of our peerage, and such an accession of talent,
and noble services would add to the strength of the
hereditary chamber. It is with such new blood that the
hereditary order must be fortified, if it is to resist the
spirit of the times ; and the peers themselves might gladly
hail the principle of thus ttuding a reinforced raison d'arf
tga •

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