The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is the firm conviction of the Times that the Educa-
tional Conference at Manchester will be gratifying to the
most advanced school of educationd reformers. It is
probable that so large a variety of experience in popular
education was never brought together on any similar occa-
sion, and certainly no discussion of points involving so
much practical difficulty ever elicited so little difference of
opinion. It is true that of those present a large propor-
tion were already pledged to a complete system of national
education at any price, but it should be added that their
preponderance was not due to any partiality in the
organisation of the conference. On the contrary, we have
reason to believe that every member of Parliament re •
ceived an invitation, and that efforts were made to secure
the attendance of those Conservative statesmen who
laboured earnestly for the cause before the days of its
popularity. Whether their absence betokened a fear of
being dragged too far by their Manchester friends, or, as
we believe, a knowledge that a comprehensive measure
is being prepared by the Government, we do not pre-
tend to say ; but it inevitably weakens the effects of
the counsels which ultimately prevailed. The names
of those present, however, shew that all parts of
England and all denominations were represented,
and that Messrs. Bruce and Forster will hence-
forth speak in the name of a powerful constituency.
As to the question whether the attendance at school
should be rendered compulsory, our contemporary says :
This is not the time or place to enter upon a question
which is quite as large as that of Parliamentary Reform
itself. But we cannot hesitate to express our conviction
that a serious error was committed by the conference in
making, not only compulsory school-attendance, but
universal compulsory school-attendance, an essential
element of their policy. Let it be granted that no insu-
perable objection of principle Dan be urged against it.
Let it be granted, again, that as one speaker observed,
what has been done by the Saxons can be done by the
Anglo-Saxons, notwithstanding the existence in England
of most formidable obstacles unknown in Saxony. Let it
even be granted that, if the law were heartily sanctioned
by public opinion, habit would do much to reconcile Eng_
fish parents to State interference with their rights and
duties. Still, it is self-el ide it that without the hearty
sanction of public opinion Parliament will never approve
so violent a c'iange, and that even if Parliament should
approve it, it must remain a dead letter. Believing
that it will be decisively rejected upon the first ap-
peal to public opinion, we cannot but regret that pro-
posals otherwise deserving at least of consideration
should be clogged with the dead weight of a visionary
scheme.

The Sultan of Turkey has actually gone out bo dinner
with a subject—a mark of honour and condescension un-
precedented in the annals of Oriental history. On this
the Post observes that there is no doubt that the priesthood,
who are still very powerful, will exert their utmost efforts
to oppose any change in the ancient legendary usages,
which include a religious antipathy to knives and forks,
and to a man's dining out who can afford to dine at home.
The Moslem faith has a very remarkable vitality still left
it. Travellers who prate about its decay are entirely in
error. The Turks of the capital and commercial seaports
are not fair average specimens of their countrymen; and
they sometimes display a childish vanity in pretending
to treat their religion with levity. It is not in great
towns, however, that the best specimens of a people are
often found, and the true Asiatic Osmanli of the interior
is a very different personage indeed to his civic brother.
He has a very real feeling of belief in his religion, and
would willingly die for it. When he learns that the
Sultan has departed in any respect from the old tradi-
tional observances he will be more apt to think the Sultan
wrong than the tradition, so that the new reforms may
occasion grave troubles in those parts of the empire where
its real strength lies, and where Russian intrigues and
diplomatic counsel are alike despised.
In the opinion of the Standard, the discussion between
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. George Potter upon the principles
of trades unions promises to be highly interesting to the
general public. It is fortunate, indeed, for the interests
of truth that the battle is to be fought out between two
such utterly unexceptionable champions. Mr. George
Potter must be presumed to be perfectly well acquainted
with the whole case in favour of trades unions. Mr.
Gladstone, as the leader of the Liberal party, as well as
the foremost representative of the practical school of
political economy, is clearly the best man to encounter
Mr. Potter. It is impossible, if both the advocates are in
earnest, that we should fail to arrive at some useful result
out of the discussion, even if it be only a clear and distinct
notion of what the working men themselves mean by
trade unionism. Hitherto there has been much shyness
on the part of the unionists on one side, and the more
enlightened Liberals on the other, in joining issue. Each
has been too much necessary to the other to come to open
conflict, and the political exigencies of both have prevented
us from hearing what the Liberals have to say about " the
great question of the future," and what the unionists
think of their political leaders. It is very much to Mr.
Gladstone's credit that he has come forward boldly to take
up Mr. Potter's challenge, and to maintain the truth, as
it is in commercial science, regardless of political con-
siderations. This is that kind of courage of intellect which
places Mr. Gladstone so immeasurably above Mr. Bright,
who, with ail his character for boldness and for honesty,
Las never yet dared to utter any public opinions upon the
pretensions of the trade unionists.

The Saturday Review, in discussing the questions arising
out of the Alabama correspondence, asks us to consider
how an American jurist would argue his case. His general
reasoning would probably be something of this sort. The
recognition of rebels as belligerents is confessedly, and
always must be, an act adverse and unfriendly to the
Power against which the rebellion is taking place ; and all
nations have shewn this hitherto by the hesitation they
have displayed in granting this recognition, or by the dis-
tinctly hostile attitude they have assumed when granting
it. It was a very long time before France recognised the
revolted colonies of England, and when she did so she at
the same time appeared as their ally in arms. The revo-
lution in the American colonies of Spain had been going
on for years before Canning recognised them in any way,
and when he did so he avowedly wished to annoy and
baffle the Government of Spain and the other reactionary
Governments by which it was supported. These were
cases in which the recognition was a recognition of rebel
Powers, as not only belligerent, but established. But the
mere recognition of rebels as belligerents is an encourage-
ment which friendly Powers are very slow to give. Hun-
gary not only revolted from Austria, but revolted so suc-
cessfully that Austria only overcame the rebellion by the
aid of a foreign Power, and yet England never recognised
Hungary as a belligerent. It may be said that this was
because Austria and Hungary were so placed geographi-
cally that England had nothing to do with them, and that
there was no intercourse between England and Hungary
the character of which, after the rebellion had broken
out, it was necessary to fix, whereas trade and communi-
cation between England and the ports of the Southern
States had been constant. But this argument may be
turned exactly the other way, and it may be said that
it was precisely because the South had so many intricate
relations with England, and because it was so easy and
natural for Englishmen, in conjunction with the many
Southerners resident in England, to fit out vessels like the
Alabama, that the prompt recognition of the belligerent
character of the South acted so perniciously, in the South
and in England, as regards the, interests of the United
States Government. It may be true that the enforcement
of a blockade against English vessels imposed on England
the necessity of taking the position of a neutral. But the
recognition of the South had, in point of fact, nothing to
do with the blockade. When Lord Russell announced
that the Southerners would be treated as belligerents, he
did not know that the blockade was to be instituted, and
it is the case of the Americans, not that this recognition
was in itself unjustifiable, but that it was made so very
promptly, and with such an appearance of anxiety to give
the South every possible chance. After it had become
known that a blockade had been instituted, England, if
she had been a really friendly Power, might ye pointed
out that a persistence in the blockade must force foreign
Governments to declare themselves neutral, and then, if
the North had chosen to continue the blockade, it would
have had nothing to complan ot. And this hasty recog-
nition of the South was practically connected with the
fitting out of the Alabama. It instilled the belief into
shipbuilders that the English Government would proceed
very calmly in interrupting their operations on behalf of
the South. Nine-tenths of the Conservative party and a
large section of the adherents of the Ministry were zealous
partisans of ther Confederates, and the escape of the Ala-
bama may be in a great measure attributed to the fact
that the majority of Englishmen then saw nothing very
much to regret in her escaping.

The Spectator, writing on the Irish press prosecutions,
says it is impossible to condemn them in the abstract.
The expediency of such trials is of course a very different
thing from their morality, depending absolutely upon the
imminence and the extent of the danger to be faced. As
a rule, and a rule with very rare exceptions, it is safer for
a State to allow a disaffected minority to talk its talk out,
to trust to discussion and time to uproot or modify even
the most dangerous ideas. It can very rarely be wise, for
instance, for a civilised Government, when unprepared to
interfere with the post, to drive its enemies to substitute
secret for open correspondence, a change which occurred,
for example, hi India during the mutiny, to the extreme
embarrassment of the Executive. Such rare cases, how-
ever, do occur, more especially when the publications
Involved strengthen the hands of enemies outside the
country as no letters could possibly do. 'When Mr.
Seward, for example, suppressed the papers in the North
which upheld the Southern cause, he was really putting
down forces in strict alliance with men openly hostile to

the very existence of the Union, suppressing enemies more
dangerous than invading squadrons. The case of the
Government Ireland is, we imagine, apart from tech-
nical incidents, substantially the same as Mr. Seward's—
that papers like the Irishman intend to encourage the
people to aid a party which proclaims itself hostile to the
State, and to keep up in the minds of the discontented a
strong belief that foreign aid will ultimately give them the
victory over the State. Do the conductors of the Irishman
really mean to deny that this is their intention? and if
not, upon what ground, either of principle or practice, or
precedent, ca.n they deny the right of a representative
Government to frustrate it? They publish as extracts,
but with the intention to be deduced from their known
and expressed proclivities, proposals for invading Ireland
from America and raising civil war. We will put a case to the
conductor of the Nation, who complains so bitterl y of the pro-
secution, which he will thoroughly understand. Let him sup-
pose himself Secretary of an Irish Republic, one and indivi-
sible, and the Orange writers, as Irish as he is, to set up a
journal which day after day impelled Orangemen to rise,
which sympathised with every Orange " movement"
against the Republic, and which, above all, incessantly
promised, under one form or another, armed help from the
Calvinists of Scotland. Would he or would he not prose-
cute that journal ? We can only say he would not long
remain Secretary if he did not, and if we understand at
all the political ideas underlying his very eloquent diatribes
against England,—diatribes which it is sometimes difficult
even for Englishmen to read without a feeling of admira-
tion for their literary skill,--it is a very brief trial that
Orange journal would obtain. It would be suppressed in
a minute as irreconcileably hostile to a principle very much
more sacred in Irish eyes than liberty of political opinion.
But the Nation will probably reply, " We should only be
preventing an imminent civil war, saving the minority
from incitements to dangerous or impossible insurrections.'
Precisely, and that is the plea of the Irish Government to
which, by the public law of Europe and the practice of all
free States, the American Union included, there can be no
reply. The State, if freely organised, has a right to put
down forces dangerous to its own existence, and the alle-
gation of the Irish Government—which is to be fairly tried
before an Irish jury—is that certain journals are so
opposed. The expediency of the proceeding may be ques-
tionable, though the balance of evidence is in its favour,
but its political morality seems to us almost beyond dis-
cussion.