The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS, I

The Times Cannot End that the rising is yet national.
It is a rebellion of old Court favourites, statesmen, and
generals. The Queen has abandoned the principles which
placed her on the throne, and taken into her counsels the
reactionary party. It would have been easy for her, as a
constitutional sovereign, to have made herself popular ;
but instead of that she is accounted an apostate. As to
the attitude of England, the Times remarks that
nothing has at present transpired to make this country
feel a personal and selfish interest in this Spanish move.
meat. But our English attitude of non-intervention,
even to the extent, so far as practicable, of withholding
the intimation of a mere sympathy, would be unchanged
were its ends and aims as manifest as they are now
obscure. So far as the interests of this country are con-
cerned, the result most to be deprecated would be the
establishment of a weak Government one inviting
domestic intrigues and plots for its overthrow, or the
seizure of power under it—a Government which might
seek desperately to divert the attacks of the various
parties in the country from itself to some external object.
But we desire a strong Government, of whatever form, for
Spain in the interests of Spain herself. Her Administrations
have not given her a fair chance of development for the
last century and a half ; but at the rare intervals when her
rulers have strewn a public spirit the prosperity of the
country has ever risen as if by magic. There have even
been periods under the present reign—at the time
preceding, for instance, the Morocco war—when the
kingdom seemed ready to emerge and resume its natural
rank among European Powers. Its unused wealth of
material resources is abundantly ascertained. But a race
with a history like its, of sturdy resistance at home to
foreign oppression and of stubbornly grasped predomi-
nance, at one epoch, abroad, must have, too, a solid
national spirit lying somewhere hidden. We believe that
this would appear if duly summoned, and when evoked
would produce in Europe a different opinion of Spain from
any which it has been able to form from the Court of
Queen Isabella. If the pending revolution only throw
this spirit to the surface, there will be little cause to
regret the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty.

The Herald concludes that the days of the present
dynasty are numbered. The hapless Queen. who has so
sadly disappinted the hopes, so grievously trifled with the
destinies of a proud and sensitive people, will have herself
only to blame if the world looks on coldly while she is
driven forth from her kingdom, if no tears are shed for
her degradation, if scarcely any pitying eye follows her
into exile, if that sympathy which in other lands is eo
widely and loyally felt for the Throne makes an excep-
tion of hers. That they never learned and never forgot
has been said of the Bourbons before, but her subjects
aver that they have other causes of discontent with
Isabella IL, Queen of Spain. If the present move-
ment succeeds, and the Queen is forced to abdicate, we
' cannot believe for a moment that the generals or the
Cortes will pay any attention to the choice which ske may
make of her successor. She is not likely to choose her
sister, of whom she is jealous, nor does it seem that any
• influential party in Spain is in favour of the Infanta Louisa
as Queen of Spain, with the Due de Montpensier, son of
Louis Philippe, as King Consort. As far as we can see,
the design which was attributed to the Citizen King, at the
time of the Spanish marriages, of placing his descendants
on the Throne of Spain in default of the direct
line of Louis XIV., is likely to be frustrated.
Nor is there said to be much chance of the eldest son of
the Queen, the Prince of the Asturias, who is now eleven
years old, being allowed to succeed her ; nor of her
' daughter, the Countess Girgenti, being chosen by the
Cortes. There is a report that the Queen, if driven to
abdicate, has some thought of putting forward her cousin,
Don Carlos, the representative of the direct male line ;
but though this Prince has made public profession of his
Liberal principles, we no reason to suppose that
be would prove acceptable to the leaders, who seem deter-
mined to set their faces against the whole Bourbon family.
Mention has been made of the king of the border country

• ,of Portugal", but though such a choice would seem to com-
mend itself on many grounds, we are not sure that the
Iberian party is strong enough in Spain to justify any
attempt just now at the union of the whole of the Penin-
sula under one sceptre. The Herald cannot believe that
any dream so wild as the establishment of a republic has
entered the heads of the leaders of the party.

The Standard remarks that Mr. Fortescue's colleagues
have very recently arrived at the conclusion that the Irish
Church " cry " is not altogether a success, and, following
the key-note of Mr. Gladstone, they have turned their
attention to finance. Delenda est has given place to e
exaltation of Liberal economy as contrasted with Tory
extravagance. There appeared to be something
tangible, something that would strike home to the heart
Of the British taxpayer, in the fiction which represented
him as burdened with an extra three millions a year
solely because the Tories were in and the Liberals
out. It by no means detracts from the praise fairly due
to the energy and courage with which Mr. Gladstone's
" rising young men " sought to propagate this new
romance that it should have ended in a refutation as
disastrous as it was complete. The replies of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer and General
Peel were simply annihilating, and the eulogists of
Mr. Gladstone's finance and the denouncers of
Mr. Disraeli's profligacy found themselves hoist with
their own petards. The tables were turned upon them-
selves. Facts and figures were quoted to prove that
Liberalism meant increased expenditure, and thus the
ingredients of their poisoned chalice were commended to
their own lips. It is a mark, therefore, at once of defeat
and of acquiescence in defeat, that Mr. Fortescue should
manifest such eagerness to shift the quarrel to the old
battle-ground of the Irish Church. The most significant,
and indeed the only novel point in Mr. Fortescue's speech
is that in which he addresses himself to the argument that
the English Establishment is compromised by the policy
directed against the Irish Church. Like Mr. Gladstone,
the right honourable gentleman holds that the English
Church is secure, because it is " throned in the hearts
of millions ;" but when he is reminded that the
two Establishments are part and parcel of the same
"United Church of England,and Ireland as by law esta-
blished," he assumes a very different tone. " If," he says,
" we are to reckon the Establishment of Ireland and the
Establishment of England as one single Church "—and in
law and fact they undoubtedly are so—" then the mem-
bers of the Church in the two countries, reckoning on the
millions of the Irish Roman Catholics, are reduced to a
minority," and in that case the precedent of the Irish
Church must inevitably be applied to her English sister.
We have always said so ; but this is the first time we have
found a responsible Liberal statesman admitting as much.
The Times says that even in private life the expression
of friendly sentiments is of much importance to the main-
tenance of friendship ;sois it with nations. If a man be
fighting for his life, his best friend meets with sorry treat-
ment if he interfere ; and the Americans must forgive us
for saying that they would not have been the great people
they are if they had been capable at such a time of taking
a calm and reasonable view of matters which were
affected by this struggle. Englishmen took sides in
the civil war, not because they were hostile to
the Americans, but because they were one with
them, and shared, in a remarkable degree, the
differences which prevailed in the United States them-
selves. If the Americans were themselves engaged in a
civil war, can they be surprised that there were differences
of opinion, and even warm differences, on the same sub-
ects among Englishmen? And while the excitement
lasted we could neither of us do justice to any other consi-
derations. But it has subsided, and the time has fully
come for restoring the balance of sentiment and re-
awakening the feelings which lie permanently at the
heart of both nations. The Times alludes to the friendly
correspondence between Generals Lee and Rosecranz.
If General Rosecranz and General Lee are resolved to

forget all past differences, can there be any difficulty in
removing all subjects of disagreement between England
and America? Mr. Johnson's reception proves the
friendly state of feeling on our side, and he responds with
suitable warmth. In a word, the sum of his speech is, in the
first place, to remind us that our differences
ought to be settled, and, in the next place, to
assure us, on the authority of one who is thoroughly
acquainted with them, that there is no difficulty in obtain-
ing such a settlement. These receptions render it
evident- that we both have the will, and it will now be
easy to find the way. We have only to give one another
credit for good intentions, and to e prepared to make
allowances for the infirmities of human nature on an occa-
sion of extraordinary excitement. If we are ready to
recognise the possibility of errors on both sides, it will be
easy on recognised grounds of equitable compensation
to adjust the balance of mutual but unintentional injuries.
"The United States, which acts always as our pioneer
on the political highway "—from whom can this phrase
have proceeded ? From Mr. Bright, addressing a mass
meeting of Birmingham artisans ; from Mr. Goldw'n
Smith, informing the youthful Radicalism of Oxford;
from Mr. Mill,meditating in apoca7yptic vision
lrat Avignon
the future triumphs of democracy ; from I . B •eai es at
Adel hi-terrace ; or from Mr. Ernest Jones at Men-
cheater ? The words are none of theirs. Truth is stranger
than fiction. The speaker, says the Daily News, was
Lord Robert Montagu, of old the henchman of Lord
Cranborne in the house of Commons, and now a member
of Mr. Disraeli's Government, and Vice-President
of the Committee of Council on Education. His
transition from the old Toryism of the handful of middle-
aged young gentlemen who used to cluster about Lord
Uranborne on the front bench below the gangway to the
new Tory-Radicalism of Mr. Disraeli was violent ; but
L,eel Robert Montagu has gone yet further, and rushed
apparently into Radicalism without the Tory prefix and
tiu,Llilicatir,n, Ile. has waded so far in revolutionary
Pinnies that to return would he more laborious than
to go on. What particular past of our institutions,
We should like to ask Lord Robert Montagu, are we first
to reconstruct on the American model? Is the Tory
suind to be educated into the adoption of vote by
ballot, equal electoral districts, the voluntary
system in religion, and an elective Upper Chain.
ter? The particular point on which Lord Robert
Montagu, speaking to the farmers of Huntingdon, held up
the United States as an example for English imitatun
was in respect of their precautions against the c ittle
plague. But his general principle went far beyond this
application of it. The abandonment of old prejudices is
laudable; but there is such a thing as rushing with too
much eagerness from one extreme to another, end Lord
Robert Montagu, when he Americanises, aflorde an
example of t4i4 precipitate enthusiasm,