The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times says : The suggestion that the task of disen-
dowing and disestablishing the Irish Church will be one
of some intricacy seems to have surprised many who
desire its fulfilment, and to have delighted as many who
are opposed to it. We are sorry for both classes. It
remains true, however much of a surprise the statement
may be, that abolishing an establishment is a work of
labour and pains, and the more it is thought over the
more this fact will be seen. Disendowment cannot be
absolutely complete while life interests exist. The reserva-
tion of part of the property of the Irish Establishment
for the use of the future Protestant Episcopal Church in
Ireland is defended as an act of grace and an act of justice.
It is an act of grace because it is always a hard thing to
deprive any set of persons of resources they have con-
tinuously enjoyed, and it is on this account that Mr.
Bright has urged the propriety of the reservation. But it
is also an act of justice. The private benefactions
bestowed on the Irish Establishment have not been nume-
rous or large, but they cannot be forgotten ; and it would
be altogether unjust to divert to public uses property
recently dedicated to the service of a limited body. The
Times holds it will be inevitable that the churches intended
to remain dedicated to their present use shall be chosen
with reference to the distances of one from another, the
density of the neighbouring Protestant population, and the
guarantees which may be forthcoming for their maintenance.
The Times assumes that an Ecclesiastical Estates Com-
mission will be appointed, with powers to compensate
existing interests and to re-convey such property as may
be reserved, or to vest in the commission the Irish Church
property subject to life interests, so that it shall not come
into possession until the life interests have ceased. The
Times prefers the second process. The question as to the
purpose to which the surplus property shall be applied is
altogether outside the question. The real difficulty is, not
how to deal with the surplus, but how to deal with
the funds reserved for the Arse of the Disesta-
blished Church. What is to be the nature of
the society, what the status of the clergy, what
the form of government and election of the chief officers
for whose benefit and support churches are to be left and
glebes reserved? Upon what rules of action must the
Legislature proceed in deciding these questions ? Our
contemporary says it will not be the business of Parlia-
ment to devise an ecclesiastical polity, and in determining
the trusts none hut the Irish Protestants must be con-
sidered. When the Times asks who these are, and how
their wishes are to be ascertained it comes to a stop,
acknowledging the subject too wide for one article.
The Post canvasses the probable duration of the Ministry.
Their strength is indisputable, and, if they are prepared
to pull together with a steady stroke, they should win the
race. There is no legitimate object which a Government
constituted and supported as they are may not attain if
the conditions of success can be observed. But any
general agreement that does not admit of con-
sen taneous action under particular circumstances
will practically prove insufficient. Mr. Gladstone
cannot be expected to answer for his Cabinet like
Lord Palmerston or Lord Derby. His Administration
will have to be tried as a whole, and with regard to the
undivided responsibility on which its measures are sub-
mitted to Parliament. The question which has now most
interest for the bystanders is, of what exact complexion
will the necessary common mind be, and to what actual
common action will it tend? What mean will be
struck upon such questions, for instance, as the
national defences, national expenditure, or national
education ? He who could give an answer to this would,
in doing it, sum up the probable span of the Cabinet's
existence. The new Parliament, in spite of its outward
appearance, must be actuated by different views and
desires from those which have hitherto prevailed within
the walls of St. Stephen's, and the question to be solved is
at what point the general feeling will settle down, what
may be and what must be attempted by the Minister who
is to rule by directing it.

The Standard says :—That, the Reform Act being
passed, the first persons to be invited to Mr. Gladstone's
side should be Mr. Lowe and Mr. Bright, is certainly a
political passage without parallel in our history. The
traducer and the traduced cannot be both fit to be members
of one company. If Mr. Bright was right in his opinion
of Mr. Lowe's conduct—an opinion which he has repeated
within the last six weeks—Mr. Lowe can be no proper
associate either of himself or of Mr. Gladstone. If
Mr. Lowe was right in his attitude towards Reform,
an attitude which he has justified quite lately, Mr.
Bright is quite out of his place as an English
Minister. It cannot be said in explanation of this sin-
gular coalition that either has changed his opinions since
1866. Mr. Bright, it is true, told the electors of Bir-
mingham that Mr. Lowe had now " put on sackcloth and
ashes;" but Mr. Lowe emphatically denied his own peni-
tence before his own constituency of the London
University. It is impossible to believe, indeed, that a man
who spoke so vehemently and with such true eloquence in
1866 was uttering opinions which he did not conscientiously
hold, and which he had not carefully considered. It is
equally difficult to believe that Mr. Bright has changed
since he held up the present Chancellor of the Exchequer
to the scorn and opprobrium of the English working man.
The Herald remarks that the position of a Minister of
Foreign Affairs, even in a country at peace with all the
world, as ours is just now, must be anything but a bed of
roses. Lord Clarendon has hardly been in office a week
before he finds himself confronted with half a dozen new
imbroglios. It has been so much the fashion of Liberal
Administrations to retire from office after some years of
complacent inaction, and leave to their opponents the un.
tying of some Gordian knot which they would never attempt
to unravel for themselves—the grappling with some diffi-
culty which they never would look fairly in the face—that
it is quite amusing to find the tables turned on them now.
The Herald draws a dismal picture of. the Eastern diffi-
culty, and says : If the storm should break over us, as it
may do any day, for we have no Lord Stanley now to keep
the Eastern question in abeyance, there will be a terrible
choice proposed to the English Government. Are we to
remain passive while the great battle of the equilibrium
of Europe and the possession of the keys of the East
is fought out before our eyes ? Are we to take part
with our allies of the Crimea against our brethren
in Germany, and be instrumental in advancing the
French frontier to the Rhine? Or shall we stultify all our
policy of the past by refusing to do battle for the
integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and leave France and
Austria to fight with Russia and Prussia for Constanti-
nople? So far from envying her Majesty's present
Ministers their possession of place and power, we cannot
but feel pity for Mr. Gladstone and his Foreign Minister,
now groaning beneath burdens which were too heavy for
Atlautean shoulders. Mr. Gladstone has engaged to
pacify Ireland, and Lord Clarendon, with America
impending over him like a Damocles' sword, will be
called upon to settle the Eastern Question.
The Daily News thinks the Conservative party have,
within the last few days, shewn a wonderful power of
making hay after the sun has ceased to shine. In Scot-
land they have filled up sundry offices with indecent haste.
With regard to one of these the circumstances have been
so remarkable as to create grave doubts of the legality
of the appointment. In Scotland there is a legal dig-
nitary called a sheriff, attached to each county. The
office is very different from that of a sheriff with us,
and is held a very desirable one—as involving very
little to do, and a good deal of money for doing it. All of
a sudden a gentleman holding one of the most desirable of

these desirable offices has resigned, and his successor has
been named frofn among the*Tory members of the bar. It
is generallybelieYed that the resignation was not tendered,
much lea the appointment made, until after Mr. Disraeli
bad resigned office on the 3rd. Doubtless the Pre.
mier's promptitude was an unpleasing surprise to
the more distant members of his party ; but this
cannot excuse such an unseemly display of greed.
The matter itself is but a trifle ; but the principle is impor-
tant. Such ostentatious greed for public money should
not be displayed by public men. It lowers them in the
eyes of the nation, and is injurious to our system of
government. We have no hesitation in saying that if this
appointment can yet be stopped it ought to be so. Men
who do these shameless things deserve a rebuke which, in
the public interest, should be fearlessly given. We are
sorry that the late Lord Advocate, who at one time gave
proi-nise of better things, should have ended his official
career by
the absurdity of his Judicature Commission, and
the discredit of such ajob as this.

The Telegraph observes that the absolute and unquali-
fied exclusion of all members of the Executive from seats
in the Legislature is inconsistent with, our established.
scheme of parliamentary government. W e consider that
the presence of the Queen's advisers in the two Houses is
not only permissible, but absolutely essential: The whole
system of Ministerial responsibility in this country is
founded on the practice of calling upon the Ministers to
explain and defwil their acts before Parliament.
The present practice of vacating seats on accept-
mice of office is based on a curious and arti-
ficial compr unise made in the reign of Anne.
Since tho,4,- days William the Fourth and Queen Victoria
have acted in thorough union with the statesmanship of
the day and vitii the people, showing exemplary reliance
on constitittionel law ; and we might boast that the danger
of kingly' aggression bas passed. But that is 110 reason
why this country should surrender an important check on
the possible mistakes of any future Prince who might be
at once ambitious, clever, and foolish. Such a check
We possess in the law that on accepting certain
Ministerial offices members of I 'arl lament shall
vacate their seats and be disqualified from again
entering the House of Commons unless re-elected,
The practice is not only a useful memento of the means
by which our parliamentary liberties have been developed,
but at every fresh transfer of power to any new set of
statesmen it also serves to mark the warrant which is
derived from the Crown and that which is derived from
the people. On getting high Ministerial authority from the
sovereign a member of the Commons' House must ,go back
to the people and ask leave to use it. The fact that
without the distinct sanction of his constituency he cannot
become a chief servant of the Crown reads one of the
mot important lessons which constitutional statesmanship
has to learn.