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

SPIRIT Or THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Saturday Review calls attention to a statemen
which has been made within the last few clays, of a kin
that may he considered almost official, that Mr. Disraft
intends to make Lord Mayo the new Governor-General c
India. This statement has been made so positively, an
,has remained so absolutely without contradiction, that w
are obliged to receive it as expressing, at any rate, the pre
sent intentions of the Prime Minister. It was lon
thought that Sir Staffeird Northcote was to be the man
He shad allowed it to be repeatedly and pnblic:y said tha
he was ambitious of the honour of filling the post. He ha
made a very fair Indian Secretary, quite as good a Secre
tarn as, on the average of Ministries, we can hope to get
Suddenly he is superseded by Lord Mayo, who, whateve
other qUalifications he may possess, certainly does no
possesi the special qualifications which distinguish Si
Stafford Northcote. To Lord Mayo India is a blank
and be starts with all the advantages and al
the disadvantages attending on an administration
which begins with puro ignorance of the systen
to be administered and of the people affected by it
Lord Mayo may be a most remarkable man, who has th
art of concealing all his gifts from the public, and reveal:m
the'm only to his intimate acquaintances. We do not is
the least believe that Mr. Disraeli will make this appoint
merit out of pure caprice. If Lord Mayo has cut out Sin
Stafford Northcote, it must have been by the possession o
some elements of superiority. Either he has establishei
claims against Mr. Disraeli which the Prime Ministe
finds himself unable to resist, or he has inspired Mr
Disraeli with a genuine belief that he is really one of th
most remarkable people in the country, and would make s
first-rate Governor-General. It is certain that he has dons
much for the Prime Minister. He has done work for him
and even dirty work, and he has so done it that men have
forgiven and pitied rather than despised him. He mad.
himself the exponent of that ill-considered policy of th.
preSent Government towards Ireland which has been th.
source of so many evils and so much bitterness. He sho
up the firework of the endowed Catholic University, ant
when it was found not to fizz properly he had the courage
and self-denial to say that the firework was not his fire
work, and that on his honour he had only meant to light
the absurdly little squib of a reform in the position of gao
chaplains. The appointment of Lord Mayo may raise I
very serious question. If he is appointed, as is probable,
few days before the present Ministry is driven out, will i
be incumbent on the Liberal leaders to keep him in office
Generally speaking, appointments made by one Govern
ment ought to be rigidly upheld by another, or men it
a respectable position would not accept posts a
so" precarious a nature. Nothing could be worse that
to introduce into. England the American systen
under which, when there is change of President
a clean sweep is made of all officials, and every one starti
afresh. But is it allowable for an outgoing Ministry tc
appoint for five years a person holding such a position ar
that of Governor-General of India ? Clearly it is not
allowable, if we are to suppose that the outgoing Ministry
appoints a Governor-General of whom the incoming
Ministry would disapprove. Fortunately, Lord Mayo it
personally rather popular, even on the Opposition side o'
the House, and there may therefore be no willingness or
desire to supersede him ; but if such a desire did exist, it
is impossible to say that, under the circumstances, it would
be unreasonable or absurd, or that it ought not within
reasonable limits to be satisfied.
• The Spectator says that it has become possible, no'
to say probable or advisable, but it has become possibb
for Great Britain to have a middle-class Ministry, I
Cabinet in which the majority of members holding sub
stantive office shall be men with no claim but their owe
ability and the confidence of the nation. That is perhapr
the greatest, though it has been one of the least noticed
of the changes introduced or completed by the legislatior
of the last two years, supplemented as they have been by
the extraordinary decrease in the prestige of the House of
Peers. So immense, indeed, has been the alteration it
public sentiment, that many of our readers will wonder
why we think the change so remarkable ; but they have
only to carry their memories back eight years, over the
chasm in our history created by the events of 1867, and
they .will.appreciate its extent. So late as 1860 the idea of
a Radical Cabinet, a Cabinet of men distinguished only
for services or capacity, would have seemed to regular
politicians ludicrous, to the electors disagreeable, and tc
the body of the nation a mere dream. Outside the Whit
circle the strongest Liberals, with the possible or partia
exception of Mr. Cobden, were held to be excluded frorr
high office by the revolutionary violence of ,their opinions
about the suffrage, by want of parliamentary standing, anc
by an ill-defined but immensely powerful political etiquette
But now it believes that a Ministry in which Mr. Glad
stone should be Premier, Mr. Childers Home Secretary
Mr. Cardwell Secretary at War, Mr. Lowe Secretary fin
•the Colonies, Mr. Goschen Chancellor of the Exchequer
Mr. Stansfeld head of the Admiralty, Mr. Austin Bruce
=Minister of Education, Mr. Forster Secretary for India
and Mr. Bright, whose health scarcely admits of the
,idepental work the position to which he is entitled
would involve, Secretary for Ireland, is a Ministry whicl-
outside the clubs would be received by the Liberals o'
Great Britain with no sense of shock, with litt'e surprise
with no idea that the destinies of the nation had beer
entrusted to unusual, or incompetent, or untrustworthy
hands ; and that none of the changes which have occurred
not household suffrage itself, is so fraught with meaning

and consequences as this. These are all, without ar
exception, men who owe nothing to aristocratic influence
who, with many minor divergencies, belong properly tc
the new class of statesman-Radicals ; who are preparre
within the limits of the Constitution to remodel our insti
tations with a view to their efficiency alone. That, sincf
the suffrage dispute ended, is becoming the first test of z
Ra ical—does he respect an institution for what it accom
plishes, or merely because it is? We desire to guard our
selves against any possibility of mistake. We are not
trying to hint at a possible Cabinet, which as yet woulc
be a folly, still less to suggest an advisable one, whirl
would be an impertinence, and we believe that the nex'
Liberal Government will differ very widely from the on
we have outlined. What we desire to point out is MI(
Immense change which has passed over the public mint
with respect to the personnel of its governing class-1
Change which seems to us to be real, to be, in all proba
bility, 'permanent, and to involve consequences of mon
importance to the future career of Great Britain than even
Mr. Disraeli's revolutionary bill. For one consequeuc
Alone, the ability of some twenty thousand families is nor
At the service of the State, instead of the ability of tw(
thousand ; in other words, the chance of securing eflicien
rulers for the empire has in three years been increase(
tenfold.

In a leader upon Mr. Gladstone's address at St. Helen
the Imperial _Review complains of its unfairness. All tha
the author of the celebrated resolutions said on the sub
led of the Irish Church was, in fact, but a repetition o
what had been said over and over again in the course o'
the debates. We do not deny that it was in some respect.
better put than in those dreary and spiritless haranguer
In which the same orator i.Aro lined the Irish question ti
the attention of Parliament. But Mr. Gladstone is stT
as unable as he was at the cad ;et to appreciate either tin
magnitude or the difficulty of the task which he has un ler
taken. It is his nature to warm to his work, and t
acquire vigour from resistance. But it is, unfortn
nately, beyond his capacity to gather wisdom iron
experience, or to do justice to the views which ar
entertained by his opp. nents. Some clay or o'her i
is not improbable that, by o.ie of his remarkable flash e.
of intuition, he will recognise the impracticability as h.
once recognised the iniquity of demolishing the Irisl
Chun'a Establishment. But until some such fit of in
spitat:oa comes to him he will persist in believing th
-opposition now encountered by him to Le the fruit, ,ithe
of personal malevolence or invincible stupidity. We d
not deny that it is the usual course of apolitical entl.usils
to dwell only on his own side of the case, and to ignore al
the arguments of his adversaries. But a politician of Mr
Gladstone's rank, who aspires to the fiat place in the
touncils'of his sovereign, has a different function, could h
but understand it, from that of a mere party agitator
Justice to Ireland is unquestionably an object well worth
to be sought by all statesmen. And the suspension of th
Habeas Corpus Act for nearly three years is certainly, i
not quite the grievance which Mr. Gladstone app. a t
thank it is, at the same time a painfully unmistakab!e i• d
cation of a state of things whiel must be remedied. Tit
sneer directed against Mr. Disraeli's satisfaction when abl
'to Say that the exceptional powers exercised by the Iris)
Executive in suppressing the Fenian conspiracy had vir
tually effected their object, was certainly stupid, and may
by many, be considered ungenerous.
The London Review, in alluding to the close of the session
mmarks : What a tinge of melancholy must have pervade.
the proeeedinc-s of the last debate ! The knowledge tha
cater this session of tria.:s and labour, of debates prolonige•
into the small hours of the morning, of the sacrifice o
opinions and self-respect on the altar of duty to party, n.
shooting on the moors or, yi!chting in the Mediterranean i
in store, but rather a period of greater excitement, an.
infinitely more disagreeable work to be done, is enough t
depress the heart of the most serene. How manyi a mar
with the vision of a contested election before eyes, air
whose return was a matter of grave uncertainty, must,
he left that House and recallea his politicalctairieeerm, hay
one
much doubted whether, after all, it !these entered
and the anxiety expended on its acqopinston
it may be, determined to obtain political lion
social siticchesi
—imbued with a commendable desire to regencrae
country, redress all wrol,gs, awl make for himself a narn
that should resound thr,ugliont the land. In all this, ho'
much, probably, has lie been disaipoint !,I ! He has foun
the 14 ..us.. of Commons a place r anarkAle for making
man find his own level, and redo. in g him to the woral c
common sense. Vain are the ais of that nia.
rntr!ring the House without ta:cat a! d w:thout industi
and whose only reconifileridaOur is his balance at hr
banker's ; and well would it be fur the prestige of Par
liament were he cogril=ant of the fact, and refrain fror
entering a sphere for which Nature never intended him.
John Bull recommends the use of the ; II d!signatio
of Tory. Cot servatives proper, if there be such a class
Liberal Connervativ.:s, and Conservative-Liberals
themselves nowhere.Tmr.loli are ext:nct species ; hybridfin
which disappear.
o armiesthe are in face—the Chum
and King army, the army Revolution in religio
and property. All outpost work and skirmishing is over
dud the real battle—that which always has been the res
battle in the country, tho Ugh itlebeen, ir4laye4 par
. .
142.3:1.1A-71#.1Wr. 0.4117 begun. •