The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT 0 THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times remarks that the new Parliament is now
virtually constituted, and the first conclusion to be drawn
from the results may be presented as a startling paradox.
'Nothing would be easier than to argue, or apparently to
prove, from the character of the House elected under the
Reform Bill, that the Reform Bill was entirely unneces•
sary. The new system of household suffrage was ex-
pected to send us new men as representatives of the
people. It was on this presumption that Par-
liamentary Reform was advocated. The " questions "
which a Reformed Parliament might entertain and
resolve were elaborately stated and discussed before-
hand, They were of a nature which legislators of the old
stamp could never, it was held, be induced to recognise,
and which, required, therefore, representatives of a new
temper altogether. Mr. Bright himself, in a speech
which acquired exceptional notoriety from the ambiguity
of its purport, declared that what he wanted to see dcne
with the land, whatever that might have been, could be
done only by such a Parliament as a new class of electors
would send to Westminster. In fact, it was not for the
mere purpose of enfranchising the million that the agita-
tion for Reform was maintained, but in the hope
that a Reformed Parliament would be so com-
posed as to admit of extraordinary immva-
Cons upon the old institutions of the country.
At first sight it is not too much to say that whatever may
be done by the new House might under similar conditions
have been done by the House just dissolved. Of course
the new Parliament will raise a Liberal Ministry to
power and disestablish the Irish Church, but the old Par-
liament, be it remembered, were perfectly prepared to do
the same. Nobody can now pretend or declare that things
would be different if this or that class had its rightful
voice in the affairs of the country. The suffrage has been
carried, we may say, to its utmost possible extent, for
it is hardly conceivable that any further addition to the
electoral bodies could produce any practical effect.
Reformers may still demand the Ballot or a redistribu-
tion of scats, but as far as regards the franchise there is
nothing further to be anticipated ; nor does it, indeed,
appear probable that any changes still to come would
modify the substantial character of the House of Commons.
If Parliament, as now constituted, should refuse to enter-
tain certain questions or to sanction certain social innova-
tions, it will be because such measures are repugnant to
the sense of the country, truly and fairly ascertained.

According to the Post, the change in our representative
system has failed to justify many apprehensions, as well
as to realise some expectations. The members returned
are men with a stake in the country. The distribution of
parties may, after all, depend on the judgment and discre-
tion which are exercised in leading the new House of
Commons. There are currents as well as tides in
political affairs, and all that can be said at present is
that if the Liberal leaders are content to stand on
measures of practical improvement, and to oppose
mere theoretical innovations, those who are not with them
will not be against them. What is more, too, the modera-
tion which binds up a majority may recJrnmend itself to
the great body of the community. The country has, with
good reason, made up its mind that a truly Liberal policy
is a truly Conservative policy. Even Protestants of Pro-
testants cannot but perceive that the Liberal policy with
reference to the Irish Church is the alternative of a policy
Still more distasteful to them.

The Morning Summary holds that the new House will
not be a bad one. The ultra-Radicals are nowhere. The
pressure from without may be great on Liberal members,
but this Parliament will not last long. On the use the
Conservatives make of its short life depends the future
of the country. They have seen that the working
men are with them ; while the shopkeepers in small towns
alone sustain the Liberal cause. Mere party organisation
has miserably failed. Whenever the people have taken
up Conservatism themselves it has succeeded. Let the
registration be well looked after; let Conservatives of all
classes keep up that mutual good will which has been
fostered at election times ; let Conservative tradesmen
and working men be encouraged in preference to Radicals ;
let political clubs be formed ; political reunions be held in
every constituency ; and when next the House of Lords
intervenes to prevent revolution and anarchy, the verdict
from the boroughs will, we are convinced, show that the
people of England are not willing to have their time.
honoured institutions destroyed at the dictation either of
the Liberation Society or the Vatican.
The Standard fears that those who shoul&seek in Mr.
Disraeli's speech for evidences of his penitential state and
contrite spirit are likely to be disappointed. Nothing
more unlike an appeal for mercy ever emanated from a
statesman than this address to the electors of Buckingham.
shire. In the first place, Mr. Disraeli could hardly plead
before the court is formed. In the next place, he was
speaking to the electors of Buckinghamshire as their
representative of twenty years. 11 e could confess no
defeat, as he had sustained none. He could not demur to
a verdict before it had been pronounced. No one knows
better than Mr. Disraeli his weakness and his strength.
No one is less likely to be guilty of any self-deception
in regard to the basis of his power,. He must
have known, at least as well as any of his critics,
what were the grounds of his reliance upon the opinion
of the country. He has learnt nothing since the commence.
ment of these elections to make him despair of his cause—
nothing which should make him plead for mercy. He is
the last man in the world to abandon his cause at the
moment of learning the strength of the enemy. He would
not be where he is now had he been one given to despair
at every reverse. He cannot forget that he became the
leader of the House of Commons just twelve months after
that House had been elected, by a majority which his
enemies claimed to be ninety-three, pledged to support
the Liberal cause. What is there in the present aspect of
affairs more unpromising for Mr. Disraeli than in July
1865 ? As the Times itself reminds us, Mr. Disraeli
is still First Minister of the Crown, still the leader
of a great party. It has yet to be proved that he is
unworthy of the one place ; it can never happen
that, while living, he will lose the other. The general
election is only half over. The battle is not lost till it is
won. Even in spite of some early reverses, and allowing
that the Conservative minority is not to be turned into a
majority, it is still the duty of the leader of his party to
carry himself as though his final victory were possible.
There is nothing whatever in Mr. Disraeli's speech to
warrant the assumption either that he is praying for
mercy or that his political dissolution is near. It is only
a vulgar trick to pretend to the contrary— a trick whose
hollowness and impudence are sufficiently exposed in Mr.
Disraeli's calm, deliberate, and impartial review of the
political situation—a speech which is in most striking
contrast to the impatient, petulant, and passionate
harangues of his chief adversary.

The Daily News says the people of the United Kingdom
nave not merely ratified the principles laid down by Mr.
Gladstone. The elections mean something more than this.
They designate Mr. Gladstone as the future Chief Minister
of the United Kingdoin. They are a vote of confidence in
him personally. An Administration of which he should
merely be a member, in which ho should occupy the place
that he filled in the Governments of Lords Aberdeen,
Palmerston, and Russell, would not correspond with the
demands of the people. They desire an Administration
of which he shall be the head, an Administration
constructed by him and directed by him. Mr.
Gladstone, however, is not content with being member,
for all England unless he be member for South-west
Lancashire too. The strength of local attachment and
the clinging to early associations, which have been
touchingly betrayed in many of the speeches which he has
made during his candidature, were once more forcibly
expressed in his speech at the nomination. The home
feeling which leads a man to desire to close his political
life where his natural life began ought to meet a response
among the people who are the objects of it. Mr. Glad-
stone is one of the glories of Lancashire. He confers
more honour on it than it can give him. It owes more t
him than it can repay.

The Telegraph has a leader upon Mr. Gladstone'i
" Chapter of Biography." One day Peel announced to
his young colleague that he meant to propose the remodel.
ling and increasing of the Maynooth Grant. That inti-
mation gave the first blow to Mr. Gladstone's political
convictions. At last he found the whole country
had drifted hopelessly away from his vosition. Even
the highest and driest of the Tory party did not dare to
subscribe the doctrine that, having a conscience, the State
must teach a religion, and teach but one religion, whether
that one were Romanism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism,
Brahminism, Bhuddisto, or Paganism. Thus left alone,
Mr. Gladstone reviewed his main argument, and at last
he saw how untenable was the doctrine which had
been riddled by Macaulay's shot. On the 4th
February, 1845, Mr. Gladstone uttered the last con-
fession of his old creed. " From that day forward, I
Lave never, to my knowledge, said one word, in public or
in private, which could pledge me on principle to the
maintenance of the Irish Church." With reference to
the letter to Dr. Hannah, when he wrote it he had been in
the House cf Commons for thirty-three years'` with twc
exceptions, there was not a single man in Parliament
Nalco had completed his fortieth year of equally laborious
work ; to the grave Mr. Gladstone had followed the re-
main 3 of " almost all the friends abreast of whom he had
started from the university in the career of public life ;"
and hence he had ro right " to reckon for himself on an
exemption from the lot of greater and better men ;" he
had no right to anticipate that he would live until the
policy of disestablishing the Irish Church should enter the
list of public questions. The English people trust that
Mr. Gladstone will live, not only to settle that question,
but to settle a crowd of other great
.iitestions which stand
rn the threshold of Lefeirm.

MR. REVE.RDY JOHNSCcV AT BRIGHTON.

Mr. onnson, the American Ministei, has again, peen
saying sweet things and pleasant to the people of Brighton.
He was entertained at a banquet on Saturday evening.
He declared that ho had replied to so many compliments
that he had not the words to reply to more. After con-
gratulating Brighton on the position it had taken on
many American subjects, he went on to announce again
the settlement of all disputes between this country and
his own. After speaking of the two other questions, he
took up the Alabama claims:—" Those claims almost made
me wish we never had a State called by that name. There
were two questions involved in the point. The first was
the right of your Government to recognise, at the early
period they did, the Southern Confederation as belligerent.
The second was, if the Confederation were belligerent, did
your Government exercise due and proper vigilance, as
neutrals, to guard against your citizens or others violating
the obligations of your neutrality ? If either is decided
in favour of the United States, I know, and evesy-
thing I have seen and heard since I came to England
assures me, that no people in either country will 1e more
satisfied than the people of England. If it is settled in
favour of your Government, I know the honour of ray
own people so well as to be satisfied that they, too, will
be contented. But, I say this in friendship—l have
hinted it to Lord Stanley, that if I was a British statesman
and had the power exclusively in my own band, I would
pay every dollar of the Alabama clams Pt once ;
because the principle which will be established if there
is no such payment will be a principle which in the
future may operate most injuriously, and, in tegard to com-
merce, most fatally to England. In case of war between
your country and any other, every sea being covered by
your commerce, the wealth almost of the world being
carried under your flag, you would be open to the opera-
tion of any freebooter who might receive a commission
from any neutral nation, and then your loss, I mean the
loss in money—l will not say in character, for your
character you can never lose—the loss in money will
quadruple what you would lose if you paid every dollar
of the claims known as the Alabama claims. You have a
question here about disestablishment, with which, of
course, it is not, my province to deal. But we have dis.
established an establishment which our common ancestry
founded in America, and we have disendowed it, too, of
an endowment granted by the same common ancestors.
We have done away with the establishment of slavery. We
have disendowed it of the only endowment ever granted it,
and for which our common fathers are equally responsible.

We have made the negroes to he as God and nature—if we

are permitted at all to indulge in scrutinising the purposes
of God and nature—intended they should be—Christians.
Your Premier, Mr. Mayor, whom I knew long ago by
reading a portion of what, perhaps, he now wishes he had
never given his pen to—but which, perhaps, will
live longer than statesmanship—in a speech delivered
the other day, admirable in its tone, felicitous in its
language, patriotic in its spirit, ventured to say—he had
indulged, I think, altogether his powers of imagination—
that the Englishman had more liberty than the native of
any country in the world. If my right hon. friend will
honour the United States by paying them a visit, he will
see, the first moment he lands on our shores—and if he
doubts it then, will become more and more assured of it
during every day of his residence—that perhaps there are
no people in the world who have more liberty than the
people of the United States ; and if he can say that the
people of England enjoy more liberty, all I have to say is
this, that the sooner it is taken away from them the better.
Others not only have liberty, but they take all sorts of
liberties with all sorts of people."
The Hon. R. JOHNSON subsequently proposed "The
Ilayor and Corporation of Brighton." He had deemed
the naming of George Peabody in his previous speech
unnecessary ; but as his friend had been named, he would
say that the name of George Peabody was deeply engraven
on every English and American heart, and will be from
age to age engraven on the hearts of all who Lye to follow.
For princely munificence, for the liberal disposition of his
wealth earned by laborious industry and by wise and dis.
creet conduct, he stands almost without a parallel in the
annals of benevolence, and so long as time shall last the
benefit of his munificence will be felt in this country and
in America.