The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PITBLIO JOURNALS'

The Times alludes to the strenuous efforts being made
to obtain the Royal authority for the consecration of 'Mr.
Macrorie. Our contemporary refuses to believe that such
a scheme can be consummated by a Minister of the Crown.
Even if the Duke of Buckingham be so insensible to his
duty as to attempt it, there must be others who would
restrain him, We are ignorant what may be the precise
points referred to the law officers, but they cannot be of
the least practical importance. There arc plain considera-
tions on the face of the question which should prevent any
such exercise of the Royal authority being so much as thought
of. The object is that Mr. Macrorie should be consecrated
to exercise episcopal authority within the diocese of Natal.

He is not, indeed, to be called "Bishop of Natal," le6t he
should interfere with Dr. Colenso's legal title ; lint he is
avowedly consecrated for Natal, and is to assume an
authority of which Dr. Colenso is sukposecl to have been
deprived. Now, Dr. Colenso holds at this moment the
Crown's patent as Bishqja of and for Natal. The law

courts in this country have decided that he has a right to

his salary in that capacity, and the law courts of the
colony have decided that the Church property of the
dioaeie is legally vested in him. In plain words,

the Crown has appointed him to be Bishop in Natal, and
the Crown, by its law courts, is now upholding his rights
to that office and dignity. How is it possible, then, for the
Crown at the t&me time to entertain a proposal for appoint-

ing another bishop to exercise equivalent functions ? It is
just as if, whfle the Duke of Buckingham holds the seals of

the Colonial Office, the Crown should privately authorise

some one else to transact the business of the department.

It has not yet, indeed, been shewn that the Crown is des-
titute of authority to call Dr. Colenso to account. He
demands to be tried, and if he can be tried the whole
scandal might be legal dealt with. But it is, at all events,
certain that the Crown and Church of England would
exercise no authority over Mr. Macrorie. The Bishop of
Capetown proclaims that he himself and the Church over
which he presides are wholly independent of the English
Crown, that the supremacy does not apply to them, and
even that they are under no legal obligation to observe
theifArticles and formularies of the English Church.
He desires, indeed, to place himself under a " Pan-
Anglican Synod " of some kind, but he utterly repu-
diates all other control. And this is the prelate

at whose service it is now proposed to place the Crown's
authority, and whose schemes are to be promoted in
defiance of the express decisions of English courts.
A Royal mandate was refused to the Canadian Church not
long ago. The Bishop of Capetown claims that his
synodical judgments and his sentences of excommunication
shall be exempt from the revision of the Crown. By all

means let them be so ; but, then, let him not claim the
assistance of the Crown in carrying them into effect. 'We
have not the least doubt that the Colonial Churches will
find more than one inconvenience attached to the pleasures
of independence. But they boast of their freedom, and
they must take the consequences. It would be intolerable
that the authority of the Crown and Church of England
should be placed at the disposal of South African Synods.
The Standard asks whether Mr. Gladstone has arrived
at the further conclusion that he must now adopt the cry
of the ballot in order to melee sure of promoting himself
to the Premiership. Has he, or has he not ? That is
the question. The voices in reply to the inquiry are
eminently, though characteristically, ambiguous ; but it
is evident that the process, which in the jargon of the day
is known as the process of being educated, is going on
with reference to this delicate matter in what we suppose
we must call the right honourable gentleman's mind.
The Standard thinks we shall be kept in suspense till
Mr. Gladstone becomes acquainted with the result of the
November elections and he can have felt the full force of
the argument shewn in the returns from the various
polling-booths. We shrewdly suspect this will he our
fate, and we base our belief upon the unusual reticence
which the right honourable gentleman is practising in
other matters loudly calling for some elucidation. Mr.
Gladstone is compared to the Emperor of the French. The
latter says "I will say no more, for the newspapers might
misinterpret me, and pretend that I had threatened
war." Mr. Gladstone's words are almost iden-
tical —" I will not enter into explanations, for
it might lead to a misunderstanding." Mr. Gladstone
need not be afraid. Nobody misunderstands him
now. The thing would be impossible. He Las
deceived people in his time ; but he may make his mind
Jiuite easy about his ever doing so again. That he will end
by adopting the cause of the ballot, un'ess his own fol
lowers abandon it, is certain. That they will now
abandon it is highly improbable. " They are swallow-
ing it in heaps," we are told by themselves. Lord
Amberley has just declared it " indispensably neces-
sary," though he rejected it at Leeds and at Notting-
ham. A straw is enough to shew which way the wind
is blowing, and a nearer approach to a straw than
Lord Amberley it would be difficult to conceive. Mr.
Gladstone, no doubt, is something mere. Indeed, he
resembles the floating dock which was launched the other
day at Millwall. He is very inert at first, and offers some-
thing like a stubborn resistance. 'When, however, he has
once been got to leave the stays he has a most beautiful
knack of sliding into smooth water. Mr. Isaac Holden
will prove a true pr .phet. " Mr. Gladstone and the
ballot" will yet form the watchword of the great historic
rabble.

The Poet says that a revolution in Spain is regarded a.
one of the regular Sunday amusements, but the in esent
insurrection promises to be more formidable than any of
its predecessors, and even the most sceptical are now in-
clined to look for some tangible results from a movement
which two or three facts alone shew to be more comp'eiely
organised, more widespread, and more simultaneous than
any of the late infructuous attempts. There is as yet no direct
information to make us believe that the civil population
has actiyely or heartily taken up the movement, and
it will depend upon the course taken by the people at large
whether the insurrection really becomes a national move-
ment capable of regenerating the country, or whether it
dwindles down to another mere personal struggle for place
and the control of the public purse ; but if the announce-
ment that the programme consists of three main points—
the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, the establish-
ment of a Provisional Government, and the convoca-
tion of a Constituent Assembly which shall decide
upon the future destinies of the country—be true,
the people will join the movement almost to a man, and
in fighting for such a result the sympathies of half Europe
will be with them. The Spanish people have now their
destinies in their own hands, and all Europe is looking on
to see whether for the first time in their history they will
know how to work them out for their own benefit and
credit.

The Daily News notices that so far as it has hitherto
gone, the rising has taken much the same course as that
which Spanish insurrections usually follow. It is done
for the people rather than by them. It is the revolt of
armies and generals rather than the rising of the popula-
tion. The l inhabitants of Barcelona and Madrid may
respond to the high-sounding appeals of the generals, but
the country populations seem to be unmoved by them.
Garrisons pronounce ; fortresses go over to the insurrec-
tion, or stand firm to the Government ; but no such thing
as a levy en masse, on either side, seems to be dreamed of.
It is this apathy of the people which casts doubt upon the
future of the insurrection. It can hardly be called a
national movement, when the nation rather stands idly b:
than enters heartily into it.
According to the Star, the revolution does not seem
disposed to parley with the Queen, but to open up negotia-
tions with others who may rule with less shedding of blood,
less squalid superstition, and more in consonance with the
material and moral requirements of the noble country
which her rule has cursed. The revolution has not
only the power to cut off her capital, but evidently
the will to cut her off from the throne. If anyone would
judge of its prospects of success, let him take a map of
Spain, and mark with ua the wonderful position which it
has already acquired. The march of William 111. upon
London was not more rapid and conclusive than this move-
ment promises to become.
The Herald was not far wrong in anticipating mischief
for Mr. Campbell Foster, in consequence of his abundant
boldness when dealing with the female franchise,
erring only in deferring the day of wrath till that possibly
remote period when lovely legislators shall sit at St.
Stephen's, and matrons of the strong-minded sort shall
fill the front places on the Treasury benches. The
condemnation of the ruthless revisor has come
upon him much more swiftly than we bad pre-
dicted. If he has escaped official destruction, there
are those whose wrath at his inability to agree with
Mr. Mill has induced them already to demand his dis-
missal. Not so very long ago the ultra Radicals were
virtuously indignant at the refusal of the Lord Chief
Justice to reappoint " the noble Beales." Now, from
the selfsame quarters we have equally emphatic denun-
ciations of Mr. Foster, because he has ventured to think
and act for himself when a purely legal question cams
before him. Exercising his proper functions, the learned
gentleman disallowed the vote of a Leeds lady, and
ordered her to pay the costs she had occasioned
by making a frivolous and absurd claim. Forthwith,
such of our contemporaries as favour the female
franchise and believe in Mr. Mill are irate
beyond bounds. Forgetting all they ever knew about
the importance of judicial independence, they sink their
attachment to that constitutional fundamental in their
wrath at its exercise on an occasion when it comes into
collision with their particular crotchet. Mr. Foster..
sitting as judge, and lawfully exercising judicial autho-
rity, is an offender to be summarily dismissed, because on
one occasion he happens to decide against the whims and
wishes of his own political allies. Doubtless he will feel
that in some things at least it is better to stand on the
old ways and keep to the old traditions, and will depre-
cate the speedy advent of any Administration pledged to
the enfranchisement of "persons," and possessing peculiar
notions on the responsibilities of revising barristers.