The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Whatever troubles may threaten Europe, the Times
thinks there is at least one reassuring sign—that every-
where the mass of the people are beginning to take an
interest in political events, and, consequently, to influence
them. The commonalty will henceforth in every country
make its own history. There are more and there are less
advanced races, but west of the Russian frontier there is
no country where the people do not hear the language,
even though it be sometimes the cant, of Liberalism, and
where their opinions do not more or less affect the acts of
their Governments. This is a hopeful sign amid the
darkest prospects of the future. Whatever may be the
events of the next few years, there is ground for a confi-
dent hope that a happier time will follow. The
present uneasiness of Europe arises in a great measure
from the unstable construction of several of its States.
The seeds of liberty have been too widely sown to be any-
where completely destroyed, and if each nation or race
knows what it wants and takes the opportunity of demand-
ing it, we may hope for such a contentment of the Euro-
pean populations as will be an effectual obstacle to
military ambition. Encouraged by such prospects of the
future, we look with less regret and alarm on the agita-
tions which prevail in Europe. Spain, for instance, may
possibly have to pass through a period of confusion, but,
whatever happens, no ruler will dare to govern the
people so badly as did the last two Bourbons. But
the horizon of Western Europe is clear in com-
parison with that of the East. What may be called
the Danubian region of Europe presents the greatest
difficulties to statesmen, and gives the prospect of
prolonged agitation. The Turkish questions or the
Austrian questions can hardly be settled by a short and
sharp war, such as might decide the claim to the Rhine.
The greatest present problem of the European Common-
wealth has to be solved by them. It is how a number of
feeble provinces, each too weak to form a State in the
present age of the world, but each differing too much
from its neighbour to coalesce entirely with it, may be
best governed. Autonomy, Provincial Constitutions,
Federalism, Protectorate, Suzerainty, are names represent-
ing various devices which have been tried or are demanded ;
and by means of some or all of them we may hope that
the Austrian and the Turkish questions may some day
settle themselves. But at present the agitation in that
part of the world shews no sign of abatement.
Coming at the time it does, Dr. Magee's promotion to
fill the vacant see of Peterborough will, the Standard says,
have a certain peculiar significance, and, if we mistake
not, a very considerable and salutary influence. In the
first place, the Dean of Cork is, we believe, the first Irish
clergyman who has been raised to the ecclesiastical bench
of England since the Union. Dr. Magee's elevation is
simply due to the indefatigability with which he has
worked, and the very marked power of Church organisation
and administration which he has displayed. From the first
the Dean of Cork has been a steady Liberal, but he has never
been a partisan. His opinions have invariably been charac-
terised by courage, and to those opinions he has invariably
been true. Nor is it only because the Bishop of Peter-
borough elect has steadfastly displayed precisely those
harmonising powers which at present are so desirable in a
prelate that his promotion is matter of congratulation.
As his nature is just that which is calculated to enable to
rally round him the loyalty of the Irish clergy to our Na-
tional Church, so, too, the fact of his elevation
cannot fail to inspire them with new energy and fresh
spirit. It seems singularly appropriate that a scholar
like the late Dean Milman should be succeeded in his
post by a scholar such as Mr. Mansel. But Mr. Mansel
is far more than a scholar. He is one of the subtlest and
deepest thinkers of the day—a profound philosophical
writer, whose lucidity of expression is equalled only by the
compact coherence of. his ideas, a remorselessly active
enemy of fallacy and error, and an unwearying searcher
after truth. The extraordinary ability which the
new Dean of St. Paul's has displayed in repel-
ling the attacks of neology upon the doctrines of
the Church is the best guarantee of his consummate fit-
ness to fill the post which has been vacated by the death of
Dr. Milman. London, it is true, will be the richer, and
England will be benefited by the elevation of such a man ;
but in Oxford a gap will be left not easily to be filled up.
The chief recommendations to clerical promotion at the
present time are moral weight, intellectual power, an un-
deviating affection to, and belief in, the nation's Church.
We are merely speaking the simple truth when we say
that in the two appointments which her Majesty has been
graciously pleased to approve each of these requirements
are fulfilled.

The Herald observes that both of Mr. Disraeli's
nominees are men of the very highest eminence in their
profession. Mr. Mansel, some time Waynflete Professor
of Philosophy and Bampton Lecturer, and now Regius
Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford, is one of
the profoundest thinkers, most erudite scholars, and
acutest metaphysicians of the age, and the mere list of
the works in which he has illustrated his splendid attain.
ments would occupy a serious amount of space in
our columns. Mr. Mansel, we believe, has never
served any cure of souls, and is, therefore, not the man
for a bishopric, but if intellectual attainments and deeply.
valued services to his university fue any claim to such a
distinction, he has fairly won the right to fill the place of
the late Dean 'Ullman. Dr. Magee's scholastic attain-
ments are hardly inferior to those of Mr. Mansel, while as
a theologian he far outstrips him. On the other hand, the
bishop-designate has served his apprenticeship in minis-
terial work at Bath and in London. More than all, he is
one of the most consummate pulpit orators of the age.

The Daily .Areirs says it seems like an instance of the
glorious uncertainty of law that for the great calamity at
Abergele it should be so difficult to bring home a criminal
responsibility to any of the officials, while for the minor
accident at Holy-well the signalman should have received
two months' imprisonment. But the result of the Abergele
inquiry hitherto has certainly been to render it doubtful
whether any criminal negligence could fairly be charged on
any of the officials yet examined, while the result of
the Holywell investigation was clearly to convict the sig-
nalman of negligence. The Holywell accident was not a
serious one. Nobody was killed, and but few were hurt.
But it was quite clear that, though a luggage train was
still partly blocking the station, the signalman, on
hearing the whistle of the approaching express, lowered
the signals which stood at " Danger " to "All right."
The driver was in the habit of stopping outside the station
to supply his engine with water, and the signalman
assumed that he had done so on the occasion in question.
Had this assumption been true, the permission to come on
would have led to no accident. The goods train would
have just cleared the rails when the express came up, and
there would have been merely one of those "close shaves"
which leave nobody the wiser. But the signalman's
assumption was not true. The whistle came not
from an engine which was just beginning to move,
but from a train rushing on at its usual rate, and
when the danger signal was lowered it came into
the station too quickly to allow the goads train to
be out of the way, and the accident occurred. The sig-
nalman's plea of error of judgment was therefore quite a
fair one if the case had been one in which any exercise of
judgment on his part was permissible at all. But here his
plea broke down. The case is a hard one for the indi-
vidual, but it is entirely satisfactory for the public.
Railway servants will now learn that it is their wisdom to
c.bey their rules, and work the system entrusted to them
as a system, and not to exercise their judgment in breaking
through the system or dispensing with the rules.
The Post thinks the conviction is decidedly satisfactory.
The defence set up was " error of judgment " and a quibble
about the word " wilful." But neither of these pleas were
entertained. It would never do for a signalman or any
other railway servant to exercise judgment upon points
admitting of verification or absolute proof, and whatever
partial excuse there was to advance on behalf of the accused
could only be legitimately applied in mitigation of punish-
ment, and not in discharge of the liability to conviction.
The Post, however, observes that the habit of trains some-
times stopping and sometimes not at certain stations along
lines of railway must always be productive of irregularity,
may possibly lead to accident, is wholly unnecessary, and
should therefore be prohibited. The proper stations for
taking in water for a train running day by day the same
distance at the same rate can be accurately detailed ; and
if properly done, and a sufficient quantity of water taken
in at the right places, there ought to be no excuse for
irregular stoppages.

Cuba, according to the Claulois, has taken up the cry of
" Down with the Bourbons ! Long live the sovereignty of
the people !"—of the people which has overturned the
throne of Queen Isabella. But Cuba has gone a step fur-
ther in its application of the revolutionary cries than the
revolutionary chiefs may be pleased to see : it has
not merely thrown off the sway of the Bourbons, but
" declared its independence." Whether the leaders
who have so energetically asserted the sovereignty
of the people on this side of the Atlantic, will acquiesce
in the decision of the sovereign people in Cuba, re-
mains to be seen. In the meantime, supposing the
reports true, the Telegraph thinks Cuba has shaken off
her connection with Spain only to incur another risk—
that of being forced to form a new connection with the
United States. There was a curious significance in the
fortuitous coupling of the news that the new Government
in Spain had beenrecognised at Washington, with the state-
ment that the agitatic;n for annexing Cuba to the States had
been revived. The newborn independence of the island can
scarcely last long ; the temptations towards annexation
are too great for the States to resist, and Cuba has no
adequate power of defence. Should the United States
seize the opportunity to secure
this glorious foothold in the
West Indies, the enterprise will not be undertaken, as in
former years, to strengthen the power of the Southern and
slaveholding States, but to enforce abolitionism in the
island.

The Star is glad to think that Cuba is much better
prepared for the emancipation of slavery than were any
of our own colonies. The project of abolition has been
frequently mooted in Spain since the constitutional regime
was established, Cuba has had governors notoriously in
favour of abolition, and the failure of the Southern States
in their gigantic crusade against freedom was felt by all
intelligent slaveholders to be the. knell of the system
everywhere on the American continent and islands

SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS,

BIRMINGHAM, WEDNESDAY.

The week's work of the Social Science Congress is over,
having been brought to a close with what might not
inaptly be termed a general thanksgiving meeting.
Taken altogether, the visit of the Association to this town
has been a pleasant one, despite the wet and cold that
have prevailed. There has been much to see and learn—l
mean outside the sections.; and wherever they have gone the
members and associates have been received with unvarying
courtesy, and made the recipients of substantial hospi-
tality. The sectional business itself, whether regard be
had to the number and character of the papers or the subjects
they have discussed, have been quite up to the average.
One source of disappointment has, however, arisen. The
dinner, which was to have taken place last night, has
been postponed sine die. To tell the truth, the Council
were unable to dispose of a sufficient number of tickets to
justify them in carrying into execution their original inten-
tion. Probably they will discover from this fact that a
guinea (half that sum for ladies) is too high a price to
charge to those who must in every instance be put to a
considerable expense in attending the Congress.
The conference summoned by Dr. Martin, to consider in
what way the licensing system might be amended, was
duly held, under the presidency of the mayor, Mr. Avery,
and the following resolution passed :—" That this confe-
rence believes that the time has fully come for establishing
an association for promoting such an amendment of the
license laws as shall secure a thorough reform of the
beerhouse system ; of the regulations which apply to the
sale of wines by grocers and confectioners ; stricter enact-
ments against the opening of gin-palaces and singing
saloons, and a larger amount of popular control over the
granting of licenses and the regulation of existing houses
as to their hours of opening, &c." To carry out the object
of the resolution an influential committee was appointed.
It is at once a pleasure and an act of justice in this,
my final notice of the present meeting, to mention that
throughout the sitting of the Congress the utmost courtesy
has been manifested, and every facility been given to the
members of the press, in the discharge of duties that are
by no means light, by the assistant general secretary, Mr.
Robinson.

Whither theAssociationwill bend its steps next year is a
matter still in abeyance. Invitations have already been
received from several towns, but the question of a tem-
porary home for 1869 is not yet ripe for decision.

The members and associates met to bid each other adieu
at one o'clock, in the Town Hall. The Earl of Carnarvon,
the president, was at his post in the chair, and the secretaries
of the various departments presented an account of their
doings during the week.