The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-01 00:00:00

01' THE 1;1713LIC JOURNALS,

The Times advises those who have lamented that the
Opposition was composed of leaders who would not lead
and followers who would not follow, to take heart. If the
Opposition has been disorganised, the Ministry certainly
cannot boast that they form a body at unity with itself.
On Monday night Lord Stanley moved hie amendment to
Mr. Gladstone's resolutions. Nothing could be plainer,
though nothing was more guarded than his attitude. He
acknowledged the necessity of dealing with the tempora-
lities of the Irish Church, and that with no timorous hand.
He was perplexed, and we were led to infer that the
Ministers of the Crown were perplexed, as to the ulti-
mate disposition of the endowments of the Irish Esta-
blishment, but the necessity of withdrawing them
from their present Uses was plain and unequi-
vocal. The Home Secretary has now given the
House of Commons another view of the intentions
of the Government. In a speech rarely equalled within
the Palace of Westminster, and never for effect excelled,
for it expressed, if ever words expressed, the clear and
determined conviction of the speaker, Mr. Hardy eio-
qucntly repudiated all that Lord Stanley had said on the
previous evening, and insisted upon the inviolability of all
the possessions of the Irish Church. He declared that he
did not assent to the abstraction of any part of its endow-
ments, or if ever, by dire mischance, he should be forced
to acquiesce in an act of spoliation which he abhorred, he
would yield only under compulsion, and protest in the
shades of opposition. " A house divided against itself
cannot stand," and the divisions of the Ministry are by
this time too plainly apparent. The Government, as Mr.
Bright remarked yesterday, speaks with a different voice
from night to night, and as Mr. Hardy on Tuesday
answered Lord Stanley on Monday, Mr. Disraeli
may not improbably be expected to reply on Thurs-
day or Friday to Mr. Hardy, or any other Minister
who may sacrifice himself in the interval. What Mr. Dis-
raeli wilt do is now the question of the moment. Will he
revert to his Dartmouth Letter and proclaim himself the
uncompromising champion of all that is venerable, sacred,
and hallowed by the conspiracies and rebellions of three
hundred years ? This would be a noble, but a fatal
mission. A small but united party, strong in the respect
of their opponents, but weak in the House of Commons,
might, under such circumstances, follow under his banner.
Will he, admitting to the utmost the necessity of modifi-
cations in the distribution of the revenues of the Irish
Establishment, profess his readiness to defer in any fashion
that may appear necessary to the opinion of the nation as
manifested by the result of the election next spring? It
would be impossible that the Lord Chancellor or the Home
Secretary could consent to such a declaration, if any
reliance is to be placed on parliamentary speeches or pro-
fessions of principle. We may be tolerably confident that
the First Minister will avoid either extreme. He will
repudiate with becoming scorn the notion of being unfaith-
ful to the principle of Church and State, while he will
recognise the necessity of conforming institutions to
popular wants and national aspirations. He will be
mysterious, epigrammatic, reticent. He will prove the
identity of the Dartmouth Letter with the speech of " heed-
less rhetoric " pronounced below the gangway ; he will
reconcile all possible propositions with the elastic terms of
Lord Stanley's amendment ; and, confident in his in-
genuity, will insist upon the propriety of deferring to a
:Reformed House elected by Reformed constituencies the
essential questions involved in Mr. Gladstone's resolu-
tions.

The entire tenour of the second night's debate tended,
the Post points out, even more fully than that of the pre-
ceding evening to shcw how fatal has been the error com-
mitted by the Prime Minister in adopting the vacillating
policy implied in Lord Stanley's amendment. The sup-
porters of the Ministry did not attempt to justify it ; the
warning uttered by Lord Cranborne having exposed the
snare which was intended to entrap both friends and foes.
It is true, Mr. Disraeli is not bound by Mr. Hardy's
straightforward declaration, but surely it. was not worth
while to provoke the Home Secretary into an expression
of a distinct policy which, ere this debate closes, the Pre-
mier must either adopt or disavow. It is now apparent to
every one that the Government must be beaten on the
question immediately before the House, and as in that
event it is, as Mr. Hardy states, their intention to oppose
the resolutions in committee, they will then be compelled
to say aye or no whether they will assent to disestablish-
xnent.

Mr. Gathorne Hardy, who was put up to answer Lord
Cranborne's speech, succeeded, says the Daily News, only
in illustrating it. It is clear now that Mr. Disraeli is
.engaged in the profitable pastime of cross-fishing. He
has lines on both sides of the stream. With Mr. Hardy
he angles for Irish Orangemen and English Tories ; with
Lord Stanley he fishes for incautious Radicals eager to
gorge the bait, and timid Liberals ready to nibble at it.
The Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary are the
two thimbles with which the great conjurer amuses the
gaping crowd, and the pea may after all be under neither
of them, but under the thimble of unconditional dis-
establishment and disendowrnent. If Mr. Gathorne
Hardy's speech had been delivered before Lord Oran-
borne's, the circumstance would have been an unfortunate
one for the Ministry. But the imprudence is incon-
ceivable which led to its being spoken after that damaging
criticism. Its sole effect has been to supply proof of the
charges of double-dealing made by the member for Stam-
ford, and to convert suspicion into certainty.

With the Home Secretary, the Herald asks, when
was public opinion ever before so suddenly or so sur-
prisingly ripened in less than a fortnight ? When
was an attempt made to overturn the entire policy
of an empire in a space short of fifteen days?
We may not cling to the sublime theory of a con-
stitution, mentioned last evening, whose laws are as
high as heaven, because they surmount all else ; as wide
as creation, because they embrace everything ; and as
lasting as eternity, because its covenants are for ever
binding ; but when a Minister of State, defending the
simpleAt institutions of the realm, is met by an assertion
that he is not protecting a policy, and is only exemplifying
the ill-will of the British Government towards a subject
nation, really it is time that the discussion took a turn.
If any truth be evident from the declarations of the Govern.
inent during the present debate, it is that they have in
hand a legislation and an administration sufficing to satisfy
the just expectations of the Irish people. But although
it may be thought in some quarters that Lord Cran-
borne's taunts rankled evidently in Mr. Hardy's speech,
the practical questions suggested by that speech are those
to which the common sense of Parliament must address
itself. There is no surrender of principle on the part of
the Ministry. There is no denial of reform. There is no
ignoring of the prerogative which the late Reform Billhas
conferred upon new constituencies and a new Parlia-
tnrnt ; only, as Mr. Gathorne Hardy chewed last night,
the evil of the present crisis is, as it was many years ag
when Mr. Gladstone complained of the truth in terms of
exasperation and bitterness, " The Irish Church Esta-
blishment is denounced for the sake of serving a arty
purpose." The purpose will fail ; the party will not
profit ; and the Establishment will be reformed by its
friends, instead of being despoiled and overthrown by the
foes 5i every Church whatever.

It is with surprise and pain that the Standard finds
Lord Cranborne corning forward to strengthen the hands
of his natural enemies against his natural allies. The
troble lord advocates what we fear is the impossible policy
tl preserving the Irish Church on its present footing. Yet
lie lends the weight of his influence and his eloquence to
those who are labouring for the annihilation of -the system
be upholds, and against those who, by judicious improve-
ments, would render its position sound and tenable. May
not those who count themselves the most earnest defen-
ders of the Irish Church discern a salutary warning in the
-coincidence which links them with the party of abolition?
Is it not an ominous portent, when the upholder of the
Establishment, as it now stands, finds himself ranged
• against those who, more or less, sympathise with him, and
in temporary alliance with the advocates of immediate
disestablishment and dieendowment ? Lord Cranborne
can do justice to the "perfect candour and openness" of
Mr. Gladstone. Was it altogether fair, was it in good
taste, to class a statesman like Lord Stanley among those
who "shelter themselves behind ambiguous motions and
dilatory pleas ?'' Are we to conclude, too, that in the
estimate of it, noble lord the interests of the Irish Church
will be better served by " the perfect candour and open-
ness" of a proposition fur immediate disestablishment and
(BS-endowment, than by a counter proposition in favour
of careful consideration and deliberate procedure ?
Lord Cranborne, continues the Standard, can afford to
fight fora theory, but a Government cannot shut their
eyes to facts. There are anomalies in the Irish Establish-
ment which cannot be defended, and he is surely its wisest
and most faithful champion who would fit it for the rough
encounter which lies before it, by strengthening its weak
points, and making it as far as possible invulnerable. All
abuses are a cause of weakness; all deficiencies and
anomalies are invitations to attack. The Government is
fi'hticg the same battle as Lord Cranborne, but we venture
to think that the position it has assumed is more tenable
and defensible than that to which the member for Stamford
adheres With such pertinacious courage. It is the principle
of the union between Church and State which is at stake,
and Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues are fully alive to. the
fact, but they are wisely unwilling to embarrass their
line of defence by the contention that the Irish Church is
incapable of improvcment, and that is the policy to which
they would be ec.zumittrd if the:, adopted "the straight-
forward negative " favoured by fiord Cranborne.

. Mr. Hardy, says tho Star,• is a valuable member of the
ov:'rumont, for he has the ear of the House of Commons ;
(:'ranborne and those who cheer him cannot be
exp•.•cte.i t) believe that he is of more consequence to Mr.
Disraeli than the three honest and able dissidents of the
"Reform year were to Lord Derby. Thus the suspicion
remains, and is (Leponed in the minds of the Tories. made

sitspic,i :iy recent C-,onco.;;lons, th t in spi to of Ir. Hardy's
vaporous pr,t,itati,ns, it may still be an "original plan"
of the Prime Minister to al unilon the Irish Establishment.
Fortunately-, it is hardiy possible that another manoeuvre
can be discovered in time to confuse the issue on which the
House of Commons will have to decide. The Ministry
cannot depend long on the rode expedient of putting up
members of the Administration to answer each other, and
they have probably no other to resort to. Already it is
said that Lord Stanley's amendment will be withdrawn in
sheer shame and 'mortification, and the vote on the more
bold and worthy issue which will then remain must be
more decisive than that by which, if pressed, the amend-
ment would be ,:kfatc,l