The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. Gladstone's election address, says the Saturacc
•Review, is more serious and more interesting than Mr.
israeli's, because it expresses the opinions of a majority.
As far below Mr. Disraeli in literary skill as he surpasses
him in oral eloquence, Mr. Gladstone is nevertheless in no
danger of being misunderstood. His intellect has the
'defect of inability to think of two things at once, and
'consequently his political declarations are sometimes
wanting in calmness, in balance, and in reserve ; but his
impetuous convictions, if they sometimes make his political
allies uneasy, are thoroughly intelligent to the mass of
the people. No statesman has for many years been so
strong in the confidence of that vast majority which looks
upon political leaders only from a distance. If Mr. Glad-
stone hereafter proves himself qualified to command, he
will have an irresistible force at his disposal, for the
majority of the next House of Commons will be pledged to
register his decrees. The address to the electors of South-
west Lancashire is strictly limited to the issues already
joined between the Opposition and the Government.
After a brief history of the Reform struggle from his own
point of view, Mr. Gladstone, while he expresses satisfac-
tion with the wide extension of the franchise, intimates
that Mr. Disraeli's bill is still incomplete, and recurs with
characteristic fondness to his darling compound house-
holders. The most forcible portion of the document contains
a condensed argument for the abolition of the Irish Church.
The Ministers are held responsible for admitting that
religious questions in Ireland were ripe for discussion ;
and, as Mr. Gladstone provokingly states, he adheres, in
recapitulating their proposals, as nearly as possible to the
language which they used. It was hardly worth while
to repudiate by implication all party motives for the
alternative scheme of abolishing the Establishment.
Every line of Mr. Gladstone's expresses his pro-
foimd conviction that the substitution of himself for
Mr. Disraeli, as chief Minister, would confer inesti-
mable advantages on the country. As he is not less
firmly persuaded that it is expedient and just to abolishthe
Irish Church, there is no reason why he should neglect one
urgent duty because it incidentally involves the performance
of another. As long as government by party prevails, poli-
ticians must promote their own interest as often as they
effect a public improvement. If Mr. Gladstone can
amuse himself by fancying that the desire of office had no
connection with his Irish Resolutions, it is quite unneces-
sary to perplex his supporters by an irrelevant apology.
Whatever may have been the simplicity or complication
of his motives, he has rallied round him a temporarily
disorganised party, and he has placed his antagonists in a
difficult position.

In the opinion of the Spectator, Mr. Gladstone's address
to the electors of South Lancashire, together with his very
remarkable speeches at Warrington on Monday, and at
Liverpool on Wednesday, place his claims to the confi-
dence of the nation before Parliament on three distinct
•
and very strong grounds. He claims our confidence for
the past by what he has done to make the administration
of affairs thrifty and efficient; for the present, by what
he has done to secure for the nation at large a wide
and substantial representation in the new Parliament ;
for the future, by what he pledges himself to do to break
down the animosities between Great Britain and Ireland.
As regards the policy of the future, Mr. Gladstone's coun-
sels as to Ireland are distinct and vigorous, and have
already been so far acted on that the last House of Com-
mons endorsed his measure by large majorities. There has
been no hesitation, no temporising, no ambiguous phrases
—convenient either to be appealed to or explained away,
as circumstances might render the more advisable. He
risked a great party danger for a great purpose, and has
given us the first gleam of hope that we may at length
effect a real union between England and Ireland, which
the present generation has entertained. That England
will govern Ireland as nearly as may be as she would wish,
in Ireland's place, to be governed herself, is no longer a
promise that anybody will believe without an earnest of
performance. Mr. Gladstone alone has given such an
earnest. What Mr. Disraeli tried to do was bad—but
then he left off trying it directly he saw it could not
succeed, and now it is the principal feature of his Minis-
terial position that he knows of nothing further—even to
try. He admitted that movement was needful. Then he
made a false step. And now he proposes to justify stand-
ing still by inveighing against the Pope. Who can fail to
see that he has no chance against Mr. Gladstone, who in
this respect, no less than in finance and in reform, has
acted, while Mr. Disraeli has floated hither and thither
according as " the tides change sullenly."

The Imperial Review thinks there will be, at least, tic
excuse in the future for anybody to affirm that he was
deceived by Mr. Gladstone's professions as to the drift of
his movement against the Church in Ireland. lie has set it
down in black and white, in such unmistakable characters,
that he who runs may read. Yet our gratitude to the
right honourable gentleman by no means stops here. Ile
has taken pains to select as the ground fur the great
change which he recommends that on which there can be
no doubt whatever of the opinion of all intelligent men,
whether Liberal or Conservative. The Church in Ireland
is to be destroyed, it appears, in order that the people of
these realms may become united in more than the name.
And this happy result is to be achieved by a. process which,
it is admitted on all hands, will not conciliate the dis-
affected part of the Irish population, and must assuredly
alienate those who are at the present moment the most
loyal subjects of the British Crown !

The London Review says it cannot be doubted that Prim
is, by his letter, making a bid for the support of the
Emperor Napoleon by holding out to him the prospect of
seeing his cousin on the throne of Spain. Prim has
hitherto been regarded as a Republican ; but he, like
others, sees the impracticability of a Spanish Republic,
and it may be added that his choice of Prince Napoleon
does not greatly violate his predilections. The Prince was
a Red Republican in the days of 1848-9, and, although he
has since consented to accept Imperial dignity, and to
stand in succession to a throne in certain eventualities, he
is known still to entertain extreme democratic views.
He would, in some respects, suit the Spaniards
very well. He is a Catholic of southern blood,
and of quick, mobile, pleasurable temperament ; his
wife is also a Catholic and a southerner ; he has reached
a mature period of life without being old ; and he is a man
of ability, conversant with affairs, with Governments, and
with human beings. It is a question, however, how far
Europe would like the extension of the Napoleonic power,
and whether Louis Napoleon himself would favour it. On
the one hand, he might object to see his relative advanced
to a dignity almost equal with his own ; on the other, he
might be glad to remove to a distance a Prince who has
not unfrequently given trouble by his eccentricities of
independence and his vehemence of opinion. The first
word, however, must be that of the Spanish people ; and
if they must necessarily follow the ignominious fashion of
seeking abroad for a king, instead of choosing the best
man from among themselves, they might do worse than
elect the son of Jerome.

The Imperial Review holds that the Government have
proceeded firmly to lay the basis of an Irish policy widely
differing from the vagueness and unscrupulousness of Mr.
Gladstone. On the education question they have neve-
for an instant hesitated about the duty of supporting that;
policy of which Lord Derby and Sir Robert Peel laid the
foundation, and which the circumstances of Ireland im-
peratively demanded—free, unsectarian education. The
attempt to hand over the Queen's University to Cardinal
Cullen had, at one time, a most injurious effect upon the
prospect of the colleges. The Government, without
interfering directly in the quarrel which was to be decided
in the law courts, yet, by allowing Convocation to be
called together, gave a new life to the university
at a most perilous moment. The results are to be
seen in the encouraging statements which the Vice-
Chancellor of the University was able to lay before the
Duke of Abercorn at the annual conferring of degrees or
Wednesday. Nor was the Government content with this
manly defensive attitude. It adopted some of the mos,.
plausible statements of the Ultramontane party as a basis
for Lord Mayo's negotiation in April last. That whole
negotiation affords the strongest proof we have yet
obtained how hollow the Ultramontane cry about educa-
tion is, and it has done more to break down the influence
of the bishops over their lay supporters than anything
which has happened in Ireland for a long time. Similarly,
on the Church question, the Government have collected a
mass of facts of incontrovertible authority, skilfully
arranged and classified, and the party are everywhere pro,
posing, firstly, to vindidate the constitutional principles
involved in the question, and, secondly, to introduce a
reform in the Irish branch of the Church which may render
the squibs of the Sydney Smith school of assailants power•
less for evermore.

Of Sir Bounden Palmer the Jo!,n Bull would speak with
all respect. iris academic reputation i 3 undoubted. His
public services are of no mean order, but we utterly refuse
at such a crisis as the present to discuss points which,
however worthy of consideration at another time, are
utterly beside the mark when the enemy i 3 at the
gate, and the only test can be—Are you fur Gladstone
or Disraeli ? True it i 3 that Sir R. Palmer Las refused
to go the whole way for a moment with Mr. Glad-
stone—moved it is said very much by the Bishop of
Carlisle, to whom he is related by marriage—but
Oxford wants a member who will speak with no uncertain
sound. Mr. Mowbray is already a quasi-university
member. The University of Durham, unjustly deprived
Of a representative, has always been his warmest supporter
in city elections, and to her interests he has ever paid the
closest attention, and she in return has always regarded
him as her member. Mr. Mowbray's connection with the
5.p.(1,, his sound Church opinions, his genial manners,
his shrewd common-sense, and his business-like babas:
WaalifiiifY.)44_t2 cc4pPet • -

ARCHBISHOP MANNING AND AM
GLADSTONE.

correspondence is published in the -Liverpool 2fercury
between a gentleman named Davidson and Arch-
bishop Manning respecting Mr. Gladstone and the Irish
Church. The archbishop's letter is as follows:
" 8, York-place, W., Oct. 12, 1868.

" beg to thank you for calling my attention to the
paragraph in which an attempt is made to calumniate Mr.
Gladstone by the fact that his eldest son is my godson.
This is a mean artifice, which can damage only those who
use it. The fact is so. Mr. Hope Scott and I stood spon-
sors to the eldest son of Mr. Gladstone about the year

1840. Mr. Hope Scott and Mr. Gladstone wore at Eton and
Oxford together, and have been friends during a long life.
My friendship with Mr. Gladstone began when we were
at Oxford about the year 1830. We had the same private
tutor, and were in many ways drawn together. From
that time till the year 1851 our friendship continued close
and intimate. In 1851 the intercourse of our friendship
was suspended by the act demanded of wo by my con-
science in submitting to the Catholic Church. We
ceased to correspond, and for more than twelve
years we never met. In the last years, public
and official duties have renewed our communi-
cations. I have been compelled to communicate
with many public men in successive Governments, and
among others with Mr. Gladstone, with this only dif-
ference—of the others most were either strangers or but
slightly known. Mr. Gladstone was and is the man
whose friendship has been to me ono of the most cherished
and valued of my life. To found on this an insinuation
for raising the 'No Popery' cry, or suspicion of Mr. Glad-
stone's fidelity to his own religious convictions, is as
unmanly, base, and false as the Florence telegram in
which the same political party, for the same political
ends, united Mr. Gladstone's name with mine last
summer. The indignation you express at this new trick
w:11, I am sure, be shared by every honourable man in the
country. I cannot conclude this letter without adding
that a friendship now of eight-and-thirty years, close
and intimate till 1851 in no common degree, enables
me to bear witness that a mind of greater integrity,
or of more transparent truth, less capable of being swayed
by faction and party, and more protected from all such
baseness even by the fault of indignant impatience of in-
sincerity and selfishness in public affairs, than Mr. Glad-
stone's, I have never known. The allegation that the
policy of justice to the Irish people by removing the scandal
of the Established Church has been inspired either by a
mere desire to overthrow the Government, or by friendship
with me, is imposture, and imposture is the mark of a feeble
and a falling cause.—Thanking you for your courtesy, I re-
main, sir, yours faithfully,
" HENRY E. MANNING."

THE SUBHARINE RAILWAY BETWEEN
- ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

A very interesting document has come into our poses-
sion. It is an address presented to the Emperor Napoleon
by about 100 influential noblemen, M.P.'s, and ether
gentlemen, praying his Majesty to support the pro-
jected tunnel bete een England and France. The copy of
the address contains fac-simile signatures of the memo-
rialists.

The address is as follows :
" TO HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON THE THIRD.

" Sire,—'We, the undersigned subjects of her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen of England, are informed
that a committee of French and English gentlemen pro-
pose to ask your Majesty's support for the construction of
a submarine tunnel intended to connect the railways of
England with those of France, an eminently desirable
work which has become necessary to facilitate the social
intercourse which has so rapidly increased of late years
between the inhabitants of the two countries, and for the
development of their trade and commerce.
" The realisation of this noble enterprise by strengthen-
ing the bonds which unite two great peoples will be of im-
mense advantage to both countries and a memorable
example of concord offered to other nations.
" 'We have the most earnest wish for the speedy success
of this fruitful work, and we hope that your Majesty will
deign to grant it your august protection.
"We are, Sire, with the most profound respect, your
Majesty's most obedient humble servants."
The following signatures are appended : —W. Ebor ;
Argyll ; Sutherland ; Denbigh ; Elcho, M.P. for Hadding-
tonshire ; Lord Alfred Spencer Churchill ; Castlerosse,
M.P. for Kerry; Ffrench ; W. Wynn, Bart, M.P. for
Denbighshire ; Daniel Gooch, M.P., chairman of the
Great Western Railway ; Francis Crossley, Bart., M.P.
for West Riding of Yorkshire ; H. Winston Barron, Bart.,
M.P. for the city of Waterford ; Sir Robert Harty,
Bart. ; Elkanah Armitage, Knight ; R. Middleton Bid-
dulph, M.P. for Denbighshire, lord-lieutenant of the
county ; Thomas Barnes, M.P. for Bolton ; Towushend
Mainwaring, M.P. for Derbyshire ; Michael Biddulpb,
M.P. for Herefordshire; Robert Dalglish, M.P. for city
of Glasgow ; Grosvenor Hodgkinson, M.P. for Newark,
chairman of London, Chatham, and Dover Railway ; W.
Samuelson, M.P. for Banbury; George Tomline, M.P.
for Shrewsbury ; Wilbraham Egerton, ALP. for North
Cheshire ; George S. Beecroft, M.P. for Leeds ; W. Gray,
M.P. for Bolton ; C. W. Williams Wynn, M.P. for Mont-
gomeryshire ; J. W. Miles, M.P. for Bristol ; C. R. M.
Talbot, M.P. for Glamorganshire ; W. R. M. Wynne,
M.P. for Merionethshire; John Henderson, M.P. city of
Durham ; Edward Akroyd, M.P. for Halifax ; John A.
Blake, M.P. for Waterford ; William James Clement,
M. P. for Shrewsbury ; Jacob Bright, M.P. for Manchester;
W. Jackson, M.P. for North Derbyshire ; William S.
Allen, M.P. for Newcastle-under-Lyme; Edmond De
la Poer, M.P. for Waterford; J. R. Stebbing, J.P.,
F.R.A.S., Mayor of Southampton, ex-iresident of the
Chamber of Commerce ; Joseph Oakes, Mayor of Chester ;
Francis Adams, Mayor of Bristol ; Peter M'Lagan, M.P.
for Linlithgow ; W. Lindsay, ex-Provost of Leith ; John
G. Morris, ex-Mayor of Liverpool; Robert Barbour, Boles-
worth Castle, ex-High Sheriff of Cheshire; James Watt, the
Provost of Leith ; H. Goodwin, J.P. county of Gloucester ;
Charles Castle, J.P. for Gloucester ; J. N. Mather,
chairman of the Madras Railway ; Philip W. S. Miles,
Deputy Lieutenant, county of Somerset; William Bennett,
chairman of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce ;
Charles Mason, district manager of the North-Western
Railway ; A. Angus Croll, chairman of the United
Kingdom Telegraph Company ; Henry Rawson, chairman
of the Manchester Stock Exchange ; John T. T. Pilking-
ton, C.E., Wrexham ; Sampson Lloyd, Old Park Iron
Works, Wednesbury, Stafford ; J. S. Forbes, general
manager of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway ;
Thomas A. 'Watt, managing director of the Great Indian
Peninsular Railway ; George 'Wilson, chairman of the
Lancaster and Yorkshire Railway; Peter Higson, H.M.
Inspector of Mines; Frederick Gaitskell, Major General
late Royal Artillery ; James L. Dennison ; William
Bell, chairman of the EdUiburgh Stock Exchange ;
H. J. Gillespie, Major-General late Royal Marines ;
Alfred Brett and Co., 150, Leadenhall-street, London ;
Charles Sturge, Birmingham ; Charles M. Palmer, chair-
man of Palmer's Shipbuilding and Iron Company ; Grant
Hodgson, njun., 37, Fenchurch-street, London ; 0. Dun-
combe, M.P. for North Riding of Yorkshire ; Chapman
and Gray, 19, St. Dunstan's-hill, London ; William
Hewitt, Mincing-lane, London ; J. Grierson, General
Manager of, the Great 'Western Railway; J. Russell
Bailey, Bart., M.P. for Herefordshire; A. L. Goddard,
M.P. for Cricklade ; Henry F. Beaumont, M.P. for South-
West Riding of Yorkshire; George Leeman, M.P. for
York ; H. Miller, M.P. for Leith ; Arthur Pelham
Clinton, M.P. for Newark; H. Duncombe, Master of the
Merchants' Company, Edinburgh; Robert Cunliffe,
Bart. ; William Bulkeley, Bart., M.P. for Anglesea ;
Frederick Cavendish, M.P. for North-West Riding of
Yorkshire ; Henry Paull, M.P. for St. Ives ; Peter
Walker, Mayor of Wrexham ; Richard B. Wade, chair-
man of the National Provincial Bank of England ;
William James Maxwell, a director of the National
Provincial Bank of England ; Thomas B. Horsfall, M.P.
for Liverpool ; John Ravenscroft, chairman of the North
and South Wales Bank; Ernest Bruce, M.P. for Marl-
borough ; Ronald Leveson Gower, M.P. for Sutherland-
shire ; Lorne, M.P. for Argyleshire ; Charles Hanbury
Tracy, M.P. for the Montgomery District; James
Lumsden, Lord Provost of Glasgow ; Abinger ; Annaly
Charles White, M.P. for Tipperary County; D. Jones,
M.P. for Carmarthenshire ; William Hawes, chairman of
Council of the Society of Arts ; H. Lowther, M.P. for
West Cumberland.

It is feared that in consequence of the law's delays,
the four bishops awaiting consecration—Peterborough,
Bombay, Grafton, and Maritzburg—will not be able to be
consecrated on All Saints' Day, the I,t of November, as
originally intended. The ceremony will probably not take
place until Monday, the 30th of Novembar, St. Andrew's
Day.

TIIE DUKE OF CAMBRIDCIE AT lIOEDURYNESS.-
The Duke of Cambridge was at Shoeburyness on Friday
to witness the experiments carried on by the Ordnance
Select Committee with Captain Moncrieff's barbette gun-
carriage and Colonel Shaw's muzzle pivotting carriage f r
the 400-pounder gun. His Royal Highness also inspected
Mr. Charles Lancaster's new dend-oval bore-rifled
10-inch gun and its studiess projectiles, and Colonel
Clarke's admirable hydraulic buffer for checking recoil.
The celebrated Millwall shield was next visited, the
duke taking the liveliest interest in its structure and con-
dition. The dilapidated Plymouth casemate was also
closely scrutinised. The model now erecting of detailed
parts for illustrating the working of heavy guns in a double.
tier iron fort was also examined. His Royal Highness
expressed his high satisfaction with the working of the
Moncrieff system, and with the other important novelties
Eilmaitted to him.