The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Timei p6ints out that Ministers hardly acted con-
stitutionally in shifting the responsibility of choice, as to
resignation or dissolution, from them (the Ministers) to
the sovereign. Mr. Bright and Mr. Lowe supported each
other in denouncing the affection of the Government for
office ; and Mr. Gladstone declined tb bind himself. in
any solemn league and covenant with thim. But the
sense of the House favoured the arrangement proposed.
The course to be pursued is without precedent, but the
emergency, also, is without precedent, and in such a
case that plan deserves adoption which shews the
best possible way out of the difficulty. Mr. Glad-
stone's resolutions will run their course, and if his
Suspensory Act ever reaches the House of Lords, its
further progress will probably be stopped by the
veto of the " waiting " chamber. In the meantime, there
is no reason to apprehend that additional loss of a year
which Mr. Bright dreads, inasmuch as Mr. Gladstone
and his immediate associates can in the comparative
freedom of opposition prepare their final bill, so as to have
it ready when they succeed to office. The truth is,
however, that a rejection of the Government scheme
would effectually cause the loss of the year, a delay which
would, according to Mr. Bright, make Irishmen doubt the
sincerity of Liberal professions. The dissolution hangs
over the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli, as the spokesman
of the Ministry, has declared their solemn conviction that
the country views the resolutions of the House of Com-
m:ire with disfavour, and her Majesty has acceded to the
recommendation that a dissolution be granted. It follows
that if the House refuses to proceed with the measures
preliminary to the dissolution in which an appeal can be
made to the reformed constituencies, an appeal will be
made to the unreformed constituencies. This is the choice
before the House. The issue of an appeal to the =re-
formed constituencies would be the election of a Parlia-
ment whose first duty would be to eject the Ministry from
office, the next to pass the Scotch and Irish Reform Bills,
the third to submit to another dissolution, before the
definite scheme for the disestablishment and disendow-
meat cf the Irish Church could be approved by the repre-
sentatives of the reformed constituencies of the United
Kingdom. These considerations are sufficient to approve
the wisdom of completing the work of reform at once.
There can be no doubt that it can be done so that
an election might be held soon after Michaelmas. A
rpccial registration was an incident of the Reform
Bill of 1832, and though Sir Robert Collier ap-
peared to be anxious about the appeals from the
revising barristers, few will share his anxiety. If the
crisis be weighed, as it must be by the majority of the
House, dispassionately, and apart from the mutual heat
of competitors for office, the advantages of a rapid settle-
ment of Reform, a speedy appeal to the reformed con-
stituencies of the kingdom, and a speedy introduction into
Parliament of a measure definitely and finally abolishing
the Irish Establishment must outweigh the advantage of
ejecting the Ministry after an immediate dissolution, pur-
chased as it must be by a real postponement of the great
object desired.

The Ministry, then, says tile Post, will continue to
oppose the policy of the Liberal majority, and will, if.
necessary for the retention of their offices, dissolve Par•
liament, and appeal to a constituency which their measure
of last session has condemned, and which at best has but
a few months of existence left. This is the wise, the
statesmanlike and patriotic course which Mr. Disraeli
deemed it his duty to recommend to his sovereign at the
audience which she granted to him at Osborne on Friday
last. The only merit which it possesses is that it takes no
one by surprise. Every one was well aware of the tenacity
with which Mr. Disraeli would cling to office, and no
one will be astonished at hearing that he would counsel
a departure from constitutional usage, and inflict great
loss on the members of the House of Commons, and
great inconvenience on the public, simply to retain
his present position for a few months longer.
The Ministry having decided on retaining their places, it
behoves the Opposition to resolve oil the course they will
pursue. ,Mr. Gladstone stated that he should proceed at
an early day with the remaining resolutions, and should
require a provisional Act of Parliament to enable the
Crotvn to give them practical effect. The Prime
Minister, on his part, declared that, although unwilling
to waste time by protracted debates, the Government
must oppose those resolutions. As, therefore, the battle
of last week is to be fought over again, one is tempted
to inquire whether, in the event of another Ministerial
defeat, the Government will consider that such a
difficulty has arisen as will necessitate a dissolution.
If the resolutions stood alone, the Ministry
might afford to disregard them and continue in office,
but as they will be supplemented by a provisional
legislative measure affecting the royal prerogative, the
Government will be compelled to advise her Majesty
either to grant or to refuse her permission to the House of
Commons to read that bill a second time. A state of cir-
cumstances would then arise which would once more bring
things to a dead-lock, and the Government would be
compelled to elect between resignation and dissolution.
It is perfectly clear that Mr. Disraeli hopes to terrify the
I-louse of C,mmons into submission by threatening to in-
flict on its members a heavy pecuniary fine. No one,
however, but the Premier would suppose for one moment
that by such a course he could induce a body of gentlemen
to abandon the policy on which they have determined. If
the Ministry will retain office they must do so on the
sole condition of blindly obeying the behests of the
Opposition.

- -
The Daily News remarks that the old doctrine of Minis-
terial responsibility has been practically abandoned, and
the theory of personal monarchy, as it is now accepted in
France, has been transplanted to England. Mr. Disraeli
is the Minister to whom we owe this attempted revolu-
tion. Defeated in the House of Commons, he seeks
shelter behind the Throne. The cautious and guarded
statement which he made last night partially dis-
closed the mischief which has been going on. Mr.
DiSraeli, pressed by the inquiries of Mr. Lowe, Mr.
Ayrton, Mr. Bouverie, and Mr. Bright, was unable to
keep his secret. In reply to them, he was constrained to
admit that the power of dissolution, which by his advice
her Majesty had entrusted to him, was unconditional.
In plain words, the freedom of parliamentary deliberation
is, during the present session, at an end. Instead
of the Ministry depending on the House of Commons, the
House of Commons depends on the Ministry. A vote,
disagreeable to the Government, given at any time on any
subject, may be punished by dissolution.
The Herald rebukes the impertinences uttered by
Messrs. Lowe, Bouverie, Ayrton, and Bright, against the
sovereign. All these persons—the phrase is Mr. Bright's
—aspire to hold office under the Crown, and might at
least have the decency to profess a respect for their sove-
reign, even if they cannot fees it. Mr. Bright did once
rebuke—in another place—the offensive impertinence of
the attacks made by the member for the Tower Hamlets
upon the Queen. He would have consulted his own repu-
tation if, disregarding the cheers which greeted the allu-
sions almost as impertinent made by that same member
last night,lte had rebuked them with the severity they
deserved, -and instead of complimenting Mr. Bouverie
had denounced his priggish and insolent twaddle
about revolution and changes of dynasties. Talk about
constitutional usage, indeed ! Mr. Bouverie and Mr.
Ayrton, who made so much of these words last night,
offended against them in their speeches in a manner
which we are happy to believe unprecedented. The
simple question for the House of Commons is this--shall
the appeal, which its votes have necessitated, be made to
the new or the Old constituencies? The Government will
take the sense of the country upon the point whether the
Irish Church is to be destroyed, and it will be the fault
of the Opposition if the new and enlarged constituencies
in which it professes so much trust are not invited to give
the answer which is to settle that great controversy, and
to decide the smaller but still important question whether
Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone is to lead the House of
Commons, and guide, so far as the will of one man can,
the fortunes of this empire.

The Standard observes that Mr. Gladstone made a
strange and wholly unintelligible mistake, which vitiated
the greater part of his attack on the Ministry- a mistake
which Mr. Lowe appeared to share. He imagined that
the Prime Minister had advised an immediate dissolution
and an appeal to the "actual constituencies ; that her
Majesty had rejected this advice, and—it would seem,
though such an absurd error is hardly conceivable—that
the proposed postponement had emanated from the Queen
herself. The fact, of course, is, that in the first interview
Mr. Disraeli suggested the alternative between resigna-
tion and permission to dissolve ; that the Queen choose
the latter ; and that then, in the second audience, the
Minister recommended that the dissolution should if pos-
sible be postponed till autumn, no time having been men-
tioned in the first audience, and no time being now abso-
lutely fixed. In brief, Mr. Disraeli has, as we understand
it, her Majesty's promise to dissolve Parliament on his
advice—after the passage of the Reform Bill if he can,
before it if he must. The time, as we said before, rests
with the leader of the Opposition. If he is factious and
unscrupulous he may compel a dissolution to-morrow, and
thus " inflict on the country the cost and trouble of
two general elections within a few months." But if so,
the infliction will come from Mr. Gladstone, not from Mr.
Disraeli. •

The Telegraph notes that accepting the terms dictated
by their adversaries, Ministers will be expected to forward
the measures forced upon them, and to obtain and
announce the royal assent to the introduction of the Sus-
petisory initiation,
and They must abjure every act of
and merely register the wish of the majority, while they
proceed with their Budget and their Reform Bills. The
Budget will be at the mercy of Mr. Gladstone, who de-
nounced the expenditure of the Government last night by
anticipation ; while the Scotch Reform Bill, contain-
ing tle; proposition to increase the number of members
in the House, will have to be amended. We could
extend the list 4 duties which will be imposed upon the
Cabinet by the mode in which the Opposition consents to
abstain, for the present, frrin the last step of all, the
actual expulsion of the Ministers; but enough has already
been sail to indicate the excessive stringency of the terms
conceded. In sober truth, we believe that they must
prove impracticable. The present occupants of office are
to remain on conditions which they cannot possfmy fulfil ;
and the manner in which Mr. Disraeli challenged a direct
vote of " no confidence " seems to imply that he had some
inkling of the truth. Thus, although Mr. Gladstone
waived his resolution to take the order of business away
from the official leader, the discussion leaves both the
Government and the House in a position far more grave
than it appeared to be even on Friday, --

THE LATE MURDER NEAR NEWCASTLE.

At the Tynemouth Petty Sessions, on Monday, Stephen
Cady, 45, Patrick Barrett, 22, Catherine Barrett, 42,
and Bridget Maley, 38, were charged with having, along
with another not yet in custody, caused the death of
James Lavery, at Willington Quay, on Saturday
night. The deceased, who was an Irishman, had
a small kitchen garden, and fowls belonging
to another Irishman, called Edward. Barrett, some-
times got into it and damaged the vegetables that
grew there. This naturally annoyed Lavery, and about
three weeks ago he summoned the owner of the birds
before the county justices •at Tynemoutb. The case, how-
ever, was dismissed, as the magistrates considered that the
proper tribnnal to try a case of alleged damage was the
county court. But Barrett, his relatives, and friends seem
to have felt very much aggrieved at Lavery's con-
.luct. They were also further vexed on account of a prac-
tice he had of occasionally shooting the trespassing hens.
Among those who warmly sympathised with Barrett in
the matter were two Irishmen who lodged with him,
and whose names were James Lynch and Stephen Cady.
Their antipathy to Lavery reached a tragical crisis on
Saturday night. As he was proceeding to his garden and
passed Barrett's door, about five o'clock, they came out
and commenced to give evidence of their unfriendly feel-
ings towards him. They were joined with much hearti-
ness by Mrs. Barrett, her son Patrick, and her mother,
Mrs. Maley. Although Lavery carried a gun, and bad
as a companion a man named Case, he took as little
notice as possible of the hostility that these persons
persisted in shewiug. The women shouted, and Mrs.
Barrett went even the length of holding a stone close to
Lavery's face. Cady challenged Lavery to fight, but the
latter wisely refused to do anything of the tuft. Case and
he went on towards the garden, which is not more than a
score of yards from Kellman's-row, where the Barrette re-
side. They entered the garden. Lynch, Cady, and the others
followed, shouting and threatening as before. Lynch made
forward to Lavery, seized the gun, which was unloaded,
and after a severe struggle managed to wrench it from his
grasp. Holding the weapon by the stock with both hands,
be struck Lavery a fearful blow with the barrel on the
back of the head, felled him to the ground, and inflicted
a wound whence the brains protruded, and which proved
fatal in the course of about twelve hours. The force of
the blow was so great that the barrel was severed from the
stock. Lynch stood for a moment over his victim and
swung the butt of his gun round his head apparently
overjoyed with his brutality. His delight was participated
in by the women, who arc:said to have sent up a shout of
triumph and gladness. Rut theylsoon deemed it advisable
to make off from the scene -6f their cruel wickedness.
Lavary was removed to his home, but, nothing could save
him, and he expired on Sunday morning. The prisoners
were remanded, and meantime the police are actively
' for Lynch.—Northern, Daily Express.