The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE roßLfc JOURNALS,

The first notice of motion on the re-assembling of the
House of Commors is the Bribery Bill. If any legislation
whichwill effectually diminish bribery be possible, it ought
to be adopted ; but the Times frankly confesses that it has
no great confidence in the methods hitherto proposed. In-
crease of punishment defeats itself ; and the ballot is a
specific recommended neither by reason nor by experience.
'When a judge is particeps criminis, it is not easy to convict
the person accused. The more severe the penalty, the
more lax will be the procedure of the investigating tri-
'Final. On the other hand, besides the conclusive objec-
tions on moral grounds to secret voting, experience has

:proved that it fails to prevent bribery wherever it is
-optional—that is to say, wherever it has been or is likely
to bs adopted. No vainer expedient for obtaining purity

as ever been made the object of fond idolatry.
'The especial merit of the Parliamentary Elections
Rill, as it came back from a select committee last

session, and in the form it may be expected to bear

ou being brought in again by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, is that it appears to be an honest attempt
to amend the laws for the detection of bribery. Its
governing idea is to withdraw election petitions from the

consideration of committees of the House, andto remit the
consideration of them to a common law judge, holding a
local court to investigate their allegations. If this principle
be adopted a great advance will be made. Our apprehen-
sion is lest the change be almost too great to be accepted
by the House of Commons. Everyone knows how an
election petition is tried now. It is not as bad as when
the whole House sat in committee upon every petition,
and decided each by a:strictly party vote. No Minister
would now resign because he was defeated upon the tines-

tion whether a member for Chippenham was or was not
duly returned. nut still it often happens that the five
members constituting a eourt come to conclusions which
outsiders cannot understand. The student of the Con-
stitution who seeks to know how elections are tried
has to push into a committee-room, through a
corridor thronged with persons he would shun else-
where, and pervaded by a odour of sherry and worse
liquors, insufficiently explained by the refreshment counter
he passes on his way. The proceedings within strike him
with admiration. That the whole business is regarded as
a joke is nothing. The most wonderful part of the per-
formance is the vigorous way in which things are not seen,
consequences are disregarded, and indications of matters
fit for inquiry are neglected. The observer is reminded of
nothing so much as of an " aside " on the stage, which
every one hears in the remotest corner of the gallery, but
is sapposed to be inaudible to an actor two yards from the
speaker. A bewildering circumstance is, that now and
then when a tide of investigation sets in strongly, and it
may seem that everything is coming out, the proceedings
are suddenly arrested, as if by paralysis, through an un-
expected discovery on the part of the petitioner that his
case breaks down in the middle. A common-law judge,
wielding the powers of the amended bill, would make short
work of these singular phenomena.

The Daily News concludes a leader on the resumption of Par-
-liamentary business as follows :—Although party motions
and divisions are not likely to give animation to the contests
of the present session, it is probable that the leader of the
Opposition will find occasion, after the proper interchange
of counsel,' to define for himself and his coadjutors the
policy which they are prepared to advocate on the great
question of the future—those especially of Ireland and of
national education. A vote of the dying Parliament
would pledge no one and decide nothing. Such a vote is
not likely to be challenged. But it is due to the country
that the battle of the general election should not be fought
in the dark. The trumpet must not give an uncertain
sound. Mr. Disraeli may possibly educate his party up
to the Liberal standard. If he can do so, so much the
Letter. But, to guide him in the delicate process, he
must know what the Liberal requirements are. At any
rate, it is essential that the new constituencies should be
aware what they are voting for or against in giving or
refusing their support to one or other of the two great

parties. The business of the present session will be to
sweep away the remnants of old and virtually settled
:ontroversies ; and on the ground thus cleared to define
the position and attitude of the contending forces of pro-
gress and conservatism in regard to the problems of the
future.

It is always, of course, says the Morning Herald,

a hazardous venture to calculate on a quiet ses-
sion. Political storms often come on almost without
notice, and the barometer may be at set fair when the
tempest is already breaking in the distance. The_present
Government is in a minority in the House of Commons.
The leaders of the Opposition are anxious for office, and
opportunities are always occurring for an assault upon the
Treasury benches. If the measures of the Government
did not supply them they could easily be made, and Mr.
Gladstone, if he deemed that there was a chance of suc-
cess, could easily draft a resolution intended as a vote of
no-confidence. But still we do not expect that the House
of Commons will find itself involved this session in any
great party struggle. The leaders of the Opposition may
desire it, but they know that the feeling of the Il ouse and
of the country is against any such efforts. What the
country, what the majority of the House desires, in this
session, is the completion of the Reform Act ; the despatch
of ordinary and necessary business ; and, further, the
adoption of t'.ose administrative and legal reforms in
favour of which there is a general concurrence of opinion.
The other great questions which the Liberal leaders have
now inserted in their programme are not, it is felt, for a
Parliament which has declared its own unfitness to speak
for the nation to legislate upon in a hurry.
Although the Irish question is so large that it threatens

to occupy the whole session, it does not, observes the
Telegraph, stand alone. A host of other questions remain ;
and, like that problem, the rest have, even within the last

few months, grown in importance, urgency, and difficulty.
Subjects which only a year or two ago our public men were
content to discuss in a fashion which seemed to imply that
the day for legislative action might be indefinitely post-
poned, now press for immediate settlement. With regard
to education, for example, the time has passed for plati-
tudes about the want of a national system, and what we
now demand is a measure. We are pledged to pass a
Reform Bill for Scotland, and another for Ireland ; and
we have to accomplish the still more difficult task of
giving completeness to the English Reform Act of last
year. The boundary question is to settle ;we have to
reckon with the old compound householder, who sternly
objects to Mr. Hodgkinson's plan of putting him to death;
and we have yet to face certain ugly questions respecting
the relative number of members that shall be returned by
England and Scotland. Altogether our hands are full of
urgent and even troublous work. And to complicate the
situation we have in office a Conservative Government
bound to a policy of reform in all directions. Its wil-
lingness to go forward is the price which it pays for
existence, and when it ceases to advance it ceases to
live.

A real Educational Conference, at which all parties
should be fully represented, and at which the different
views taken of the principles that ought to govern the
course of the State in regard to the primary education of
the people, should be stated by the leading advocates of
each school of opinion, would he, in the opinion of the
Standard, an invaluable assistance to Parliament and to
the Administration in the difficult and momentous twit
which lies before them. But such a conference we have
not had, and can hardly hope to have. The conference at
Manchester deliberately excluded all real discussion, by
laying down beforehand, as the basis of its debates, a pro-
gramme embodying the doctrines of the extreme Radi-
cals, and leaving nothing open to controversy ex-
cept the details of the method by which those
principles might be carried into execution. The con-
ference which has just met at Willis's Rooms was
much more candid and liberal in its purpose. No preli-
minary basis of discussion was laid down, no programme of
doctrine was assumed, and it was open to all to dispute
the resolutions proposed from any point of view they might
think proper to take up. But the meeting was attended
only by a very few dissentients, none of them recognised
as among the responsible and influential representatives
of their party Nevertheless, Nmeeveetrinth:lessb much service has
admits
that by both
that the Manchester plan'iss.conemporary d
more in accordance with the simpler,perhaps cheaper, and,
more popular notions of the age.'
But Archdeacon Denoisfonthei
Englishrl more consistent with
the religious feelings
plan the Standard supports, u people. The latter
direct, definite, working plan to we must have some
oppose to the scheme of
the secular party, which has, at least, merit: of
.bFing
possible, and it is to provide such a. plan
is thone
of
ethreeliaghtloeusst
party—of which Archdeacon Denison
their
and most devoted representatives—should
all •
attention and all their efforts, if they wish tr:
battle of Christian education against heathen fight the
rning
with a fair prospect of ultimate success. Ana to this end
there is no time to be I,,st.

The manifesto of commercial policy contained in the
Austrian Red-hook is to this country, remarks the Post,
full of interest, and, especially when we consider froni,
what quarter it comes, eminently satisfactory. It art.
nomices, in fact, little less than a 'evolution. Austria
halm to, with great natural resources and with every
qualiflcation for the constitution of a first-class customer
to a nation in the manufacturing and trading position of
England has been comparatively a closed market.
TariflsliCre.,anised on a system which carried the principle
okprotection to its extranest development, have exercised
such a despotic influence upon the population of the
empire that they have prevented her people from even
imagining wants, and have reduced the standard of living
to the smallest possible dimensions. The consequence has
been that they have neither been producers within their
own boundaries nor consumers of subjects of production
beyond them. The opening of the groat Eastern do.
minions of Austria at such a lunctnro as the present (con-
tinues the Post) will be to Brit;sh enterprise a most abso-
lute and timely boon, and we therefore receive with the
greatest satisfaction the intelligence that the impedimenta
which have hitherto delayed the conclusion of our Rod.
procity Treaty with Austria have, even to the very last,
boon removed, and that the conventions, already in an
advanced state, arc expected to be brought almost Immo,
diately to a satisfactory concluaion.