The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT 01' THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times, in a leader on the late Protestant meeting in
the Rotundo, Dublin, notices one class that was almost
unrepresented. There were present peers, members of
Parliament, chiets of families, magistrates, in fact, all the
higher classes, but the people of Ireland were absent. On
this occasion the governing class had its say as to the de-
mands of the governed. As this strange political dialogue
has been going on now for several centuries, and circum-
stances themselves bring some novelty to the topics dis-
cussed, we might hope for some novelty in the arguments
or the tone. But we may safely say that nothing said or
read at this demonstration would have been in advance of
the age any year of this century or the century before.
To maintain everything just as it is, leaving the
people to do what they may, must, or will do under
the circumstances, was the loudly and easily expressed
decision of this aristocratic and privileged crowd.
Speeches were made not wanting in ability, and papers
were read which shew Irish eloquence to be irrespective of
party; but it was evident that one thing was to be said,
one only, and that was—" No surrender." All right of
private judgment, the free exercise of reason, and the
inspirations of genius itself had been dried down to the
one cuckoo cry, which nothing but parliamentary pro-
priety expanded into the form of speeches and the sem-
blance of argumentation. In this one point all agreed.
There could be no division. The appropriation of the
religious endowment to the exclusive benefit of the small
but rich minority was to be maintained not only for its own
sake, and as the homage due to truth, but as the only
means of preerving the British connection and averting
spoliation from the landowner. The Church and the land
would stand or fall together. The Protestants alone loved
the British rule, and held Ireland for the empire ; and
they did it in fair return for their acknowledged and
stipulated ascendancy. The compact broken and the re-
cognition withdrawn, it was not easy, or rather it was only
too easy, to say what would follow. The Protestant Esta-
blishment gone, the land would Mow ; the land gone,
Ireland, too, would go. This was not a question of love,
of common feeling, or any of the ideas usually supposed to
assimßate races and form them into a national whole It
was wages and work : ' payment and consideration for it ;
for holding Ireland, and keeping its natives in good order
the Protestants must have all the Church property, and
all their present position, whatever it is, in the possession
of the soil and the government of the people.
The Herald looks upon the demonstration in quite a
different light. The Protestants of Ireland have at length
accepted the challenge flung at them with much provoca-
tive insolence by the English Radicals and the Irish Ultra-
montanists. The demonstration in the Rotundo at Dublin
is aimed at both sections of their assailants—at the
Limerick clergy and the London Reform League, at Dr.
Cullen and Mr. John Bright. We apprehend that
neither are very well pleased with the spirit they have
evoked. A few waspish speeches from Radical agitators,
a sinister "pastoral" from a prelate more Roman
than Irish, and the carpings of a few discontented
priests, are manifestations which are dwarfed into
insignificance when contrasted with such a display
of strength and resolution as that exhibited on
Wednesday. The Protestants of the North have endured,
with credible forbearance, the provocations and the
menaces which of late have been so liberally directed
against them. They discerned, no doubt, that until re-
cently the agitation which threatened at once the exist-
ence of the Irish Establishment and the ownership of the
soil was chiefly kept up by a small though active politico-
religious organisation in England, aid so long as this was
the case they were content to look on in contemptuous
silence. Bat as soon as the cause was taken up by the
Radical party and the Ultramontanists it became the duty
of the Protestants to accept the challenge. And our con-
temporary thinks that they acted wisely and well.
The legal appointments just made by the present Go-
vernment have, in the opinion of the Daily News,
weakened the appellate jurisdiction of the Court of
Chancery, without at all strengthening the law advisers ag
the Crown. They have also the demerit of disregarding
the rule by which the different branches of the law con-
tribute equally to the offices of Attorney and Solicitor'
General ; and most unnecessarily, because Mr. Baggallay—
quite as eminent a practitioner in the equity courts as
Mr. Brett is in the common law courts—is in the House
of Commons, and has been just as determined a supporter
of the Government as Mr. Brett, though he has not

clamoured for every legal post, from the Court of Passage
at Liverpool when it became vacant to puisne judgeship
that were not created. Through the elevation of Sir Charles
Selwyn to the high office of Lord Justice, the appellate
jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery must fail to inspire
confidence. The warmest friends of Lord Chelmsford will
not compare him as Lord Chancellor, either in learning,
capacy, or industry, with the late Lord Campbell, Lord
Westbury, or Lord Cranworth ; he is, in point of fact, a
weakjudge, who skilfully avoids the difficulties which his
predecessors would have dealt with to the satisfaction of
the bar. Lord Cairns is brilliant ; some think mor(
brilliant than solid ; and though no one would have
objected to hav3 seen Sir Charles Selwyn made Vice-
Chancellor, when any errors he might commit could be
swiftly and inexpensively corrected on appeal, the idea of
his at once, without judicial experience, with very mode-
rate learning, and no high capacity of any kind, being
foisted into an appellate position, where his mistakes
admit only of tedious and costly correction, is an outrage
on the administration of justice in the Court of Chancery.

The Post, dealing with Abyssinia, points out that on a
small scale, and with much less excuse, we are apparently
repeating the terrible blunders which cost us so dearly
thirteen years ago in the Crimea. A great deal has been
said, and with truth, of the immense sums expended by
the Government in preparations for the present expedi-
tion. That the bill prosented to the nation will be a large
one, no one need entertain the slightest doubt. Parsimony
is not often a failing of the English Government when
important enterprises are organised ;but prodigality in ex-
penditure is not, as the Crimean campaign amply testified
synonymous with the exhibition of prudence and foresight,
or the perfection of the most ordinary preparations fo:
the most obvious wants. How those who had the manage
ment of the Commissariat Department in the Crimea lef
the troops without the ordinary necessaries of existence,
and the horses without forage, seemed utterly inexplicable
at the time ; but now we are asked to solve the still mor
marvellous problem, namely, how those to whom thr
direction of the Abyssinian Expedition has bees
assigned have transported thousands of baggage animals
to a country where they must have known they would find
no water to drink, and under circumstances which rendered
it hopeless to expect that they could be adequately cared
for.

To the Saturday Review it appears extremely doubtful
whether Mr. Bright's plan for dealing with landed
property in Ireland would effect his principal ob-
ject. But it is admitted that it is in no respect unjust or
revolutionary. It is a reproduction in substance of the
project which the orator first announced at Dublin. For
the purpose of converting the occupiers of the land into
freeholders, he proposes to advance money for the purchase
of small holdings which the existing proprietors may be
willing to sell ; and he calculates that, by a payment of
five or six per cent. on the price for principal and interest,
the purchasers might clear off the incumbrance in five-
and-thirty years, having during the interval enjoyed secu-
rity of tenure on condition of meeting the annual charge.
As Parliament, representing 'the tax-paying community,
would lose little or nothing by the operation, the volun-
tary transfer of property would neither be objectionable
in principle nor burdensome to the country; yet the ques-
tion arises whether the process which appears to Mr.
Bright so easy would be either simple or successful. Lord
Stanley not unseasonably protested against a resort
to quacks merely because no complete or certain cure was
known for a social disease. The retort that when a dis-
ease has defied the efforts of regular practitioners, it may
be expedient to try a quack, is ingenious, but in common
with much effective rhetoric, it is fallacious. The appeal
from a regular doctor, who has failed to understand the
case, to an empirical charlatan who may hit by accident
on a remedy, is not analogous to a preference of an arbi-
trary device to sound economical doctrine. It was against
quackery rather than against quacks that Lord Stanley
warned his audience and the country. The special plan
recommended by Mr. Bright was probably.
not within Lord purview when he denounced chimericalt . schemes
which practically involved confiscation
;Like is extremely
h
doubtful whether it would be j udicious to
of land by advances of public money. The disintegration chases
landed estates is already in progress through the aid of the
Encumbered Estates Courts, and it is evidently better
t(
deal in the first instance with the lands of embarrassei
proprietors than to buy up, as Mr. Bright wishes, the
flourishing estates of wealthy absentee noblemen. Expe.
perience shows that the Irish middle classes, including the
farmers, have large hoards of money, and of late years the
officers of the Estates Courts have found that the highest
amount of purchase-money is realised by the division of
estates into lots of moderate dimensions. Within twenty
years one-ninth part of the soil of Ireland has been sold
under the direction of the court, and for some time past
no large properties have been alienated in bulk. When
small purchasers are able and willing to pay the highest
prices, it seems at least unnecessary to reinforce their
private resources by the funds of the State ; but it is true
that the buyers of encumbered lands are not generally the
persons whom Mr. Bright wishes to favour. The lots are
sold to small tradesmen and village money-lenders, rather
than to the occupiers of the farms ; and consequently a
class of petty landlords, resembling the middlemen of a
former generation, is gradually coming into existence. The
Irishman whom theorists desire, on plausible groands, to
elevate into a peasant proprietor, himself greatly prefers
the case and dignity of landowner subsisting on his rent ;
and if the South and West of Ireland were at this moincAt

;:arved out into freehold holdings of fifty acres, the tad-
pations would in a few years be multiplied fivefold, while
the number of owners might probably remain the same.
In conclusion, the Saturday says : There can be no differ-
ence of opinion as to the importance of the question which
Mr. Bright has discussed with unusual temperance of
language. Ireland is, under the present circumstances of
America, the weakipoint of the British Empire, and the
removal of existing grievances is the first duty of states-
men. The proportion of evil which lies beyond the reach
of legislation is probably larger than it appears to Mr.
Bright. .

It is impossible to conjecture what line of argument any
speaker will take on any given subject. For instance,
judging from his antecedents, the John Bull would have
expected to find Mr. Bright advocating the American sys-
tem of education ; yet we find him this week at Birming-
ham speaking so moderately on the subject that the Times
in its leading columns congratulates him on his Conser-
vatism—a sentiment in which it entirely concurs. It
is most refreshing to find a man of Mr. Bright's stamp
speaking out his own views in opposition to those of the
party to which he is attached. What can have come
over him so soon after his most objectionable speech of the
previous evening ? Is he bidding for a place in the
Cabinet? Anyhow he feels the responsibility of his utter-
ance. He has weighed the consequences, and he delibe-
rately expresses his dissent from those with whom he is
in the habit of agreeing. He .vas addressing the workmen
of Birmingham, who were reiet together to talk over the
Paris Exhibition. The general opinion seemed to be that
England was far behind almost all other countries in
arts and manufactures. Instead of concurring in these
sentiments, :and belauding everything foreign at the ex-
pense of everything English, and suggesting that the
Government should take upon itself to superintend
the technical education of the people, he entirely repu-
diates the idea of 'Government aid, and maintains that if
the first principles of reading, writing, and arithmetic are
well grounded, technical knowledge must and will be
sought by the children as they grow up. This, as we all
know, is precisely the principle on which our public
schools are Conducted. The theory of the present
day would lead to a smattering of many subjects. We are
delighted to find Mr. Bright at one with ourselves on
the desirableness of laying a solid foundation on which

each one may build for himself in after years. Of the

American system ke says nothing, save that it does not
interfere with to finical education. He is decidedly
opposed to a system of compulsory education, and would
have the Government do nothing, either by rates or grants,
or a combination of both, except for those " whose con-
dition is one of (I will say), to a large extent, deplorable
ignorance, and exhibits great neglect on the part of the
Government in past times." He appears to be in favour
of the denominational system. The John Bull thinks
it a great gain that Mr. Bright should thus, to use

his own phrase, have become " slow and Conserva-
tive." He is a man who looks at things from a
practical point of view, sometimes, perhaps, a
trifle too practical, and reasons this out by what
he considers the rules of common sense, and herein he
differs from many of those who would tinker our educa-
tional system, and the result is that he arrives at an
entirely opposite conclusion to the " well-meaning people
at Manchester." Theory is all very well, but a grain of
practical common sense is worth a ton of it. Earl Russell,
Earl Granville, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Lowe, et id genus omne,
have put down what looks very well upon paper ; the only
misfortune is that it won't work. Mr. Bright sees this,
and before the whole world proclaims his own views, even
though he must know that they will be most unpalatable,
not only to his hearers, but also to the great bulk of his
political friends and supporters.

The Spectator, writing on the Speke mystery, dismisses
:he theory of voluntary disappearance as possible, but
purely conjectural. After discussing several other con-
ceptions, and finding them mere improbabilities, our
weekly contemporary comes to the conclusion, though
with great pain, that the only hypothesis admissible, the
only theory, that is, which meets the facts, moral
and physical, which have to be taken into the ac-
count, is murder, murder of a cool, deliberate kind,
murder planned on system, carried out relentlessly, and
dictated solely by the expectation of plunder. We shall
be accused of sensationalism, but the single theory which
seems in our jtiagment to fit the facts is of necessity a
sensational one. Suppose Mr. Speke to have been decoyed
into a cab, in Birdcage•walk, it may be, as suggested, by
wine story of a sick person awaiting him ; it may be, by
an arrest by sham detectives ; it may be, by appeal for aid
to a dying person in the cab, and then put under chloro-
form, all would be explained. His hat fell off in the
momentary useless struggle after he had discovered that
he was deceived, and the body was driven away either
to a house previously prepared, or to a bridge whence
it could be thrown into the water, or fairly beyond
town to some solitary place, altogether beyond the
range of police inquiry. The extraordinary story related
on Wednesday by the incumbent of Savoy Chapel,
who was invited in Trafalgar-square by a sham detective
to enter a cab and be driven to Bow-street, where hiE
pv,sence was not required, suggests that a form of crime
has been invented in which some confederate drives a cab.
It is a wild theory, doubtless, but not a bit wilder than
the fact testified by Mr. White ; and we will venture,
at the risk of being thought silly, to add a supposition
even wilder still, namely, that if any such form of crime
is in operation— and it is difficult, after reading Mr.
White's letter, to doubt it—the perpetrators are foreigners.
It is too cool, too artistic, too complete, for the concep-
tion of the English criminal class, which, moreover, bad
as it is, has for some thirty years appeared, at all events,
to avoid habitual murder for money. The foreign charac-
ter of the gang would also explain the failure of the great
temptation offered to accomplices in the Queen's free
pardon, and the curiously complete absence of any inc-
dental evidence offered to the public.

MR. GOSCHEN, M.P., OA' COMIERCI,II.

AFFAIRS.

At the annual meeting of the Liverpool Chamber of
uommerce, Mr. Goschen, M.P., said that there had seldom
been a time in the history of commerce when there was
more pressing need for commercial legislation. He was
sure the country was greatly mistaken if it thought the
merchants of every class were not as keenly alive to every
sentiment of honour as any other class of the community.
People said a great deal about the greed of gold. He
believed that, if it existed, it existed in every class, for
everyone was anxious for success. It was not always a
simple desire to get rich. To succeed in business was as
great an ambition of the commercial man as the
lawyer or the physician. But it could not be denied that
the events of the last few years had put the, commercial
classes upon their defence. Everyone was looking for the
causes which had brought about both commercial depression
and that which he feared he must call commercial dis-
repute. Probably no single cause had brought it about.
The greater portion of commercial delinquency was due,
not from the desire to get rich, as from the fear of getting
poor. It was when a fortune accumulated was melting
away that its owner was put on its trial. The great mis-
fortune was that during the last ten years there had been
very little of steady business. People now seemed to fancy,
and with some justice, perhaps, that legislation, if it had
not much to do with the causing of the existing state
of things, might at all events have much mitigated the
late frauds and scandals. The systems of laws which had
principally been taken to task were the legislation with
regard to limited liability, and that with respect to bank-
ruptcy. He strongly cautioned them against calling
for remedies too strong, which might defeat their object.
He regarded the doctrine of publicity as a sine qua non in
limited liability, and he thought that it should be still
further extended ; but they could not have Government
interference. They could not have a Government certifi-
cate to tell them that all was going on right, though they
would be very glad to have it. One of the suggestions made to
the committee of last year was that limited companies
should not be allowed to trade until a certain amount of
capital was paid up, or until all was
i paid up. Such a pro-
vision, he thought, could not work n all cases. The re-
medies, he thought, were these : That the shareholders
should only elect directors whom they could trust, and
should not take shares when they .did not know the direc-
tors ; and there should be the utmost publicity._ As re-
garded railways, it had been asked, should they have a
Government auditor of accounts . As affected the
shareholders he said No ; affected the general
public, who were greatly interested in the proper
maintenance and the safe working of railways,
he thought, possibly, Yes. The Bankruptcy Bill now
being prepared embodied the new principle of .
the
future acquired property of the debtor being appropriated
for the payment of his debts. If that principle were once
adopted, they must then reconsider their whole ideas of
bankruptcy, because the change was so great that every-
thing else would have to be remodelled. At present it was
punishment to the bankrupt to refuse an order of dis-
charge ; then it would be a punishment to the creditors,
because it would keep the bankrupt from acquiring more
Property. He did not know of any more radical or strin-
gent change than that of appropriation of the debtor's
tuture prlierty, and it demanded their gravest considera-
teioo)inwo.oprertHseopevoatnsiiileavlinfli:ra rtehsaistteseh(twthe
oifdetailabtutthheeyhadhadnonNov
chancen of doing away with the disgraceful system which
einvertthleieless, futurehe
It‘hiothughsotntlhe they
some hope. It had been asked in committee latitude
tit mustude
whether com-
binetherindividually, or to the whole body under lebtor was to be liable in the future to each
.c7ditor
yon
formed
the jurisdiction
of the court, and he and Mr. A
opini out-
numbered
eaddestnt since
Tivninority
of two in favour of the latter condition.
then, he was glad to find that
changed, and that the principle of making
liable to the body of creditors only had been adopted in
the present bill. He would also advocate only a p lart'll
appropriation at a time, so as to encourage him to go on
and clear hims&f. It was important that commercial men
should now make up their minds what they wanted, and
be ready to define the direction in which they desired
legislation. They must bear in mind, however, that
no legislation could prevent panics. In conclusion, he
hoped that the year 180 would inanimate a better state
of things, --- •