The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times says: When Dr. Pusey appeals for sympathy
and help to the Wesleyan Conference his case must be
in extremis. We may think, indeed, that the sincerity
and earnestness which are apparent in Dr. Pusey's letter
encountered rather a harsh rebuff from the Conference;
yet it is impossible to be surprised at such a recep-
tion. It is the first fruits, in fact, of that change in
the attitude of the Wesleyans towards the Church
of England on which we have lately commented. But
even the strange spectacle of Dr. Pusey appealing
to Wesleyans is not so expressive of extremity as the sub-
stance of his letter. He despairs of maintaining the
existing state of things, and proposes " to substitute for
subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles an acknowledg-
ment of the faith according to the Nicene Creed." This,
he adds, would admit to all the privileges and fellow-
ships of the University "any members of Dissenting
bodies who hold the common creed of Christendom,
such as you hold, and such as, at least, the Particular
Baptists and the Independents hold ; all Dissenters,
in fact, who have not lapsed into Socinianism."
Ad what is one of the great dangers which this proposal
is to avert ? It is "to prevent our future clergy seeking
their education elsewhere, as in France ;" and the example
of the Roman Catholic bishops, who have withdrawn
their candidates for orders from the University of Paris,
is held up as a warning in point. Are we to understand,
then, that Dr. Pusey would have comparatively little
objection to seeing the clergy brought up under Wesleyan,
Independent, Baptist, or Presbyterian influences ?
Dr. Pusey, in short, has done his best to bring the matter
to this issue—that, as a matter of fact, all religions and all
irreligions must be allowed a place within the University,
and the only question is whether they shall all be invested
with the authority and support of the State, or left to find
their own level. We are not now pronouncing a judgment
on this alternative, nor arguing for or against Mr. Cole-
ridge's bill. But, if this be the last card in Dr. Pusey's
hand, it is difficult not to conclude that the game is " played
out."

The Post comments on the relations between the War
Office and the Commander-in• Chief. With the rapid
march of democratic ideas, and the sanction and support
they have received from the last Reform Bill, it is more
than probable that before long a feeling will make itself
felt that the national army should be placed even more
completely than it is at present under the absolute control
of the national rulers chosen by the Legislature, and that
the Commander-in-Chief should be declared distinctly to
be no more than a lieutenant of the Secretary at War as com-
pletely as the commander-in•chief of the police is a lieu-
tenant of the Home Secretary. The Post alludes to the dis-
pute between Lord Palmerston and Sir David Dundas on the
question of authority in the matter of finance, and con-
sidera that the question remains in an unsatisfactory condi-
tion.

The Daily News believes the well-known line of Juvenal
will recur to the memory of many Englishmen to-day
when they hear of the great Conservative demonstration
which is to take place in the people's palace at Sydenham.
But Juvenal only imagined the Gracchi complaining of
sedition, while we have actually before us a political
party, which has denounced "demonstrations" as
unconstitutional, resorting to a demonstration in pre-
tended defence of the Constitution itself. The noblemen,
gentlemen, and reverend divines who are trying to
gather a mob to-day are probably inspired with
the belief that there is, after all, a certain value in
that parade of force and numbers which they have
hitherto affected to despise. There has probably been
some little misgiving among them as to their success in
this I articular direction ; for the " pulpit drum eccle-
siastic" has been beaten in a thousand parishes ; the fiery
cross has been sent over the length and breadth of the
land, the quiet of ducal residences has been disturbed,
the slumber of country parsonages has been broken, the
repose of academic shades has been invaded, that all the
lovers of the Church, the Throne, and the Constitution
may be rallied to a new Thermopyhe beneath the crystal
roof at Sydcnham. This attempt to make political
capital for a faction out of English loyalty is
impudent enough, but the attempt to turn English
Protestant feeling to party account is the last
impertinence of passion or despair. The supporters of a

Government which would have endowed Popery raising
the "No Popery" cry ; the pretended friends of Protes-
tantism keeping the heavy load of Irish injustice bound

upon its back ; the noisy defenders of Throne, Church,
and Constitution agitating to keep half the kingdom in a
state of chronic discontent and subdued insurrection ; the
thing would seem to be impossible bad not Mr. Disraeli's
appearance as the defender of the faith rendered all things
likely.
According to the Herald, the cry of " Measures, no
men," will hardly be heard in the coming election. The
Radicals, who have so much need to use it, have
already renounced its employment under pain of repudia-
tion and excommunication by Mr. Glyn. Every Radical
candidate must protest, in the first place, his unqualified,
unquestioning submission to Mr. Gladstone. Acceptance
of Mr. Gladstone's leadership, of course, assumes a readi-
ness—nay, a burning desire to disestablish and disendow
the Irish Church ; but a candidate who would carefully
avoid any allusion to the Irish Church in his address
would be cordially accepted by the local party leaders,
who take their cue from Mr. Glyn, and by the party
organs if he only protested with sufficient vehemence
his rehnira.tion of the member for South Lancashire,
whilst no thoroughness and emphasis of declaration upon
the subject of the Irish Church, or upon other questions
in which the party is supposed to take a lively interest,
would compensate for the confession of doubts as to Mr.
Gladstone's fitness to lead the party. The Herald is
prepared to fight the battle on personal merit, and drop-
ping the question of the Irish Church, investigates the
claims of Mr. Gladstone's party. As a Chancellor of the
Exchequer, for his exploits in which capacity Mr. Glad-
stone's admirers principally reverence him, he is notorious
for most outrageous bungling, which has cost the
country large sums of money ; and it may be
asserted of him, without hesitation, that he never
made a plain, straightforward, and workable proposal.
There will be the old and used-up nonentities, Lord
Clarendon and Mr. Villiers, Mr. Cardwell and the Duke
of Argyll, Mr. Milner Gibson and Lord Stanley of Alder-
ley. Perhaps, Lord Halifax. Lord Russell will meddle
and muddle again as Foreign Secretary or as a Minister
without portfolio, and the only change will be that the
rising " young men " of the party, of whom, without any
disrespect it may be said that the barrenness of the
party is their opportunity, Mr. Forster and Mr. Stans-
feld, may get places in the Cabinet.
The Times thinks the revelations recently made respect-
ing the disastrous condition of the Credit Foncier may
possibly have taken some of the innocent outside public by
surprise, but there could not have been a business man in
the City who had not long ago discovered that, weighed
in the proper commercial balances, the company would be
found lamentably wanting. Indeed, it requires no special
knowledge of commercial matters or genius for finance to see
that the undertaking was radically unsound. A very ordi-
nary acquaintance with the principles of human nature
might have shewn that it contained at least one vital flaw, in
itself sufficient to sap the whole concern. The company
was constantly engaged in speculation which was on the
face of it peculiarly precarious. It was its special
business to mix itself up in the concerns of just those very
companies which any ordinary capitalist would
studiously avoid—companies usually in a dangerous,
sometimes in a desperate, condition—sinking them-
selves, and ready to clutch at any straw, or drag
down with them under water the first hand held out
to support them. He must indeed be a clever
man of, business who - can tell what a company in
this drowning condition is really worth—how much
life there is left in it to speculate upon, or what may be
the exact marketable value of any fragment of the miscel-
laneous mass of shares, bills, loans, debentures which it is
ready to barter for immediate relief. One thing, at any
rate, would seem perfectly clear. Whoever goes to the
rescue should have, as far as possible, an unbiassed judg-
ment and a cool head ; or whatever bias he has should be
on the side of caution. He should feel that he has far
more to lose than to gain by being over-adventurous.
It is amusing to see with what curious completeness the
shareholders of the Crtldit Foncier contrived to reverse
these very obvious tactics. Could even Socrates dispas-
sionately weigh the value of " stuff " if he got several
thousands in hard money for merely looking at it from
another point of view—a many-sided, versatile intellect
can always do this—and regarding it as " profits?" Yet
the shareholders of the Credit Foncier did this in sober
earnest; they staked, in some instances, their own bread
and that of their wives and children, while the managing
director, whose virtue they thus tempted, was not
Aristides, or Socrates, but Mr. Albert Grant.

- ,
The Daily News criticises the action for libel in the caso
of the National Bank of Dublin and London, and the
evidence brought up. No institution that lives by credit can
afford to take a specii:L:ive position, and nothing can
be mare fatal to the name and prosperity of any banking
e.Aablishment than the belief that its funds are used
for market jobbing, or that those who preside over it
cectipy the double position of banker and promoter. The
mingling of a bank holding the deposits of the public with
the disreputable " financing " of the last few years is utterly
indefensible. Imagine such houses as (loutts's or Glyn's
unitinr, with " the Credit Foncier and Mobilier of Lug-
land" to float bubble companies. More difficult is it to
imagine that such an establishment as the National Bank
should be allied even in name to such doubtful schemes as
the Imperial Land Company of Marseilles, the Lundy
Granite Company and the Peruvian Railways Company,
&c. By some mysterious ledgerdernain, these schemes
were made for a very brief period to appear successful I
but where are they now? The answer is very easy; they
never had any real existence ; the market was " rigged "
by somebody, and from these facts, whoever or whatever
the cause, follows the depreciated value of the National
Bank as a property, and this unfortunate suit at law.