The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT 01IiHE PiTELIO JOURNAL&

The Times otsetVes that the discussion on the &taps of
the Bribery Bill is distinctly approaching its end. 'rester- '
day afternoon about thirty clauses were settled, and of the
seven or eight that remain not more than a couple can be
decently made the pretext of debate. There is, indeed, a
crowd of new clauses [in the ;notice-book, but by far the
greater number have been already disposed of, and some
of the rest can be regarded as nothing more than sug-
gestions for legislation which may hereafter become
possible. It would even seem that the Govern-
ment hope to pass the bill through committee in
the short afternoon sitting to-morrow. Mr. Disraeli
has allotted from twelve to four for the further considera-
tion of the measure, and has intimated his intention of
taking the Cattle Market Bill in the evening, as if by that
time the Bribery'Bill would be " virtually settled." The
House, wearied by reiterated controversy on the same
issues, will be eager to assist the Minister, and the an-
nouncement that the Government propose to limit the
operation of the bill to three years will do much to
repress further vexatious delay ; but the Times believes
it will be found impossible to make such rapid pro-
gress as would appear to be hoped for. Some holi-
day would be doubtless agreeable before the tedious
work of canvassing and speech-making is undertaken,
but it is useless to sigh for impossibilities. The Bribery
Bill will probably require one more sitting after to-morr)ow
afternoon. Curtail the discussion as much as the com-
mittee may, many clauses will remain, and if the members
who father them be not conciliated by adequate discussion
the passion of the House for despatch will only produce
further delay. The first supplementary clause to be con-
sidered, when the end of the bill has been reached, is that
of Mr. Disraeli, providing for the remuneration and
appointment of additional judges. Mr. Serjeant Gaselee
proposes to enact that each of the puisne judges of the
common law courts shall receive an addition of £5OO a year
to his salary, but Mr. Dodson will probably rule that an
amendment which has no relevancy to the bill is out of order.
The additional £5OO a year to each judge on the rota can
excite little question, but the Times will look with curiosity
for the reasons which can be alleged in favour of Mr.
Disraeli's proposition that " no vacancy in the place of the
sixth judge" (will not every vacancy be a vacancy in the
place of the sixth judge ?) "in any of the courts shall be
filled up without the consent of Parliament." The pro-
posal appears to our contemporary to have nothing to
recommend it. The committee may be left to decide
whether Mr. Bonham-Carter's declaration against bribery
to be made at the time of nomination is free from the
objections to a similar declaration at the time a member
is sworn in. The more practical clauses are those in the
name of Sir Francis Goldsmid and Mr. Fawcett. Sir
Francis Goldsmid, borrowing a proposal first made by the
Government, would turn the tables on anyone guilty of

bribery by declaring votes given to him thrown away.
Mr. Fawcett would relieve parliamentary candidates, as
municipal and other local candidates are relieved, of the
cost of providing the machinery of election, while exacting
the deposit of caution money as a security against vexatious
contests. The weight of principle and of expediency
appears to be strongly in favour of both clauses, and in the
present temper of the House it rests with Mr. Disraeli
whether they shall become law.

The Standard admits the bond fides of Mr. Mill, but Can
see in Mr. Ayrton's amendments nothing but the work of
a decidedly clever man. The hon. gentleman even came
out as a purist, and acted as a teller for Mr. Mill's inju-
dicious amendment to substitute " corrupt practices"' for
" bribery " as the offence which is to exclude any candi-
date from Parliament for seven years. Mr. Ayrton was
hardly inconsistent. In the course of these discussions
he has urged several times, and not without some
j'istice, that by enacting too severe penalties against
bribers and bribed, the danger will he incurred of
furnishing an inducement to all parties to hush
up the scandals of a bought election. Nothing
would have contributed more to this result than an
enactment excluding from Parliament for seven years a
man of whom a judge sitting alone, with ao aid or control,
should report that, with his knowledge and consent, a pint
of beer had been given to a free and independent elector.
Mr. Ayrton is a smart man, and if he proposes to himself
to render inoperative, by making its clauses Draconic, a
bill which he was unable to directly defeat, he adopts just
the clever tactics which might be expected of him. In
legislating against bribery and treating, we must take into
account the view in which those offences are regarded by
the public. It may be very much to be regretted, but it
ought not the less to have considerable weight upon
our deliberations, that a vast number of people look
upon these offences as comparatively venial ones. To
stamp them as crimes and misdemeanours will not in itself
change public opinion with regard to them, and the real
object should therefore be rather to aim at an increase of
facilities for the discovery of corruption than to heap up
pains and penalties which the moral sense of the nation
regards as excessive. The bill now before the House of
Commons is, on the whole, excellently framed. It imposes
penalties upon both briber and bribed severer than the
present law enacts, but its chief object is to make the
detection of the crime easier and the punishment more
certain. Mr. Mill's amendments would have, indeed,
established heavier penalties, but then they would have
made the law an empty menace.

The Post hopes that Mr. Gladstone's Church-rates Aboli-
tion Bill (which has just been read a third time in the
House of Lords) will work well. It is more than a com-
promise, and far more than was contemplated by the
measure which, three years ago, Mr. Disraeli regretted
had not been accepted. Not, however, to recur to the
Wednesdays which, session after session, were dedicated
to the postponement of a settlement of the question, we
cannot, in congratulating Parliament on the issue of the
protracted struggle, forget what is due to those who have
borne the burden and heat of a long day. They should
wear the medal for this victory. It belongs to the rank
and file of the Liberal party, and; bearing in mind the
reproaches that have been heaped upon them, we are bound
to say that the prejudices which yielded to political educa-
tion were bent to the hand of the constitutional trainer by
their indomitable perseverance. For the rest, if Ministers
who have in Opposition set their faces against changes
which they are now anxious to have credit for can think,
as Lord Palmerston once said, " I feel that my alteration
of opinion has arisen from no other cause than from my
having grown wiser as I grew older," the country, exer-
cising its own discernment and discretion, may permit them
to depart in peace.

The Herald, commenting on the letter from Archbishop
Leahy and Bishop Derry to the Earl of Mayo, says that
as an illustration of the arrogant temper of the heirarchy,
as evidence of the distinctly partisan bias with which the
proposition of the Government was manipulated and
utilised, it deserves to be carefully weighed and analysed
by all who desire to understand the spirit in which the
Papacy will act during the coming elections. Not a week
ago we expressed a belief, somewhat guardedly, that the
Irish prelates entered upon the negotiations with a view
not so much to gain their ostensible end, the foundation of
a Roman Catholic University, as to strengthen the hands
of their political friends by compromising the Government.
With the letter of Saturday last before us, we do not
hesitate to repeat this charge without the smallest reser-
vation whatever. Frankly and honestly we do not believe
that these bishops were half so deeply concerned to
obtain the charter as to damage her Majesty's
Ministers. No doubt they calculated that, after having
stated their preposterous conditions, by which the
university would have been completely under the control
of an Ultramontane episcopate, the Government would be
willing to offer a compromise, pledging them, in part, to
the acceptance of terms which would have been deeply
affronting to the entire Protestant community. The
bishops would then have stood out for the original condi-
tions as their minimum, and, upon the Government
retreating from the negotiations, they would not merely
have thrown the onus of breaking them off upon the
Cabinet, but would have contended that it was already
compromised with Ultramontanism ; that it had dallied
with it for party purposes, and had thereby sacrificed all
claim to Protestant support.

The Daily News speaks of M. Gonzalez Bravo as the
type of a statesman who, in the interests of European
order and tranquillity, it is to be hoped is disappearing
from civilised States. His one and only idea of govern-
ment is terrorism, and to the service of that idea he brings
a fluent tongue, a ready pen, a dexterous wit, a supple
cynical temper, and a variety of small talents, which
might have gained him notoriety, and possibly power, in
a free country. But he has the defects without the
qualities of his race ; the arrogance without the dignity
the violence without the generosity, the bigotry without
the belief. Narvaez, notwithstanding all his sanguinary
acts of repression, was, compared with Gonzalez Bravo,
a moderate and almost constitutional statesman. There
was in his administration, compared with that of his
successor, a certain measure of decency : he never
refused to pay law and the Constitution the homage
of an adjourned respect. But his comic civilian
imitator is purely and simply one of those cruel farceurs
of wham so many figured in the worst days of the
first French Revolution, and afterwards in Vie confidential
service of the Empire. lie is a Committee of Public Safety
in himself ; a coup cl'elat in permanence. Had he been a
Frenchman his characteristics and capabilities would
hwe shone to advantage in the events of December '5l;
but France after all is France, and even under Imperialism
neither all things nor all men are possible. It is difficult
to conceive a Gonzalez Bravo in the councils of the Second
Empire. Why should such a statesman be possible in
Spain?

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