The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-28 00:00:00

SMUT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS-.

The Times remarks that there are men in the world who
appear to have been specially endowed, by the irony of
fate, with an unwavering belief in the completeness
of their own range of thought and experience. What
they feel everybody must feel. What they think every-
body must think. What they believe everybody
must believe. They know themselves to be, like Hamlet,
"indifferent honest ;" they have no fear that they are
in any way incapable of sounding the depths of universal
consciousness ; and, as a consequence, they are persuaded
that any one who does not coincide in all their conclusions
is in a perilous condition. We have not for some time met
with a more admirable sample of the truly provincial
mind than is to be found in the address of Lord John
Manners to the electors of North Leicestershire. It
is a perfect study, and the effect is heightened by the
unconsciousness of the author that he is in any way
amusing. We need scarcely say, indeed, that Lord John
Manners has no more intention of being droll than Don
Quixote. Virtuous, noble, and patriotic sentiments flow
from his pen with the sweetest naturalness. The Times
points out that most of the good works with which Lord
John credits the Ministry were commenced by others.
He complains of the interruption of the proper course of
business by a crude scheme for the disestablishment and
disendowment of the Church in Ireland, and intends
to offer such scheme every opposition in his power. If we
are to understand that "every opposition in my power"
means "opposition as long as Mr. Disraeli will permit,"
the assurance is robbed of much of its value. And yet we
fear Lord John Manners himself must have some suspicion
that this is his real meaning. Beautifully as he
writes now about the Irish Church as "hallow-
ing Government with the sanctions of reli-
gion, and offering the truths and consolations of
Christianity to the poorest of the people," he may be
" educated" to recognise that the truth is just the reverse
of his description ; that the Irish Establishment has
throughout its history made the English Government
odious in Ireland, that the poorest of the people reject the
truths and consolations it offers, and that both on the
grounds of justice and piety it were better to abolish rn
establishment which offends the one and hinders the
spread of the other.

The Post notices that Lord Mayo is to leave England,
it is said, in October or November—before the new Par-
meat meets—in order that he may be in Calcutta at the
moment when Sir John Lawrence's Viceroyalty expires,
ready to receive the vicarious sceptre from his
hands. This unusual act of caution on the part
of our present rulers too clearly betrays the motive,
The general omv--*.lun to Lord Mayo's appoint-
ment has been roused involves no personal
animosity to an esteemed and popular nobleman, nor even
any disparagement of his very respectable public character,
and considerable if not brilliant abilities. If there were
nothing exceptional and objectionable in the manner and
time of the appointment, the selection would probably
not have been seriously questioned. There is no reason
why Lord Mayo, with his high rank, unblemished charac-
ter, and long parliamentary and official experience, should
not prove himself as good a Governor-General as many of his
predecessors, whether of Whig or Tory political connec-
tion. The appoinment in question is the highest and
most responsible in the gift of a Ministry, and is the very
last which should have been chosen for an experiment on
public intolerance, and for evasion by artifice of the con-
stitutional rights of an incoming Ministry. The present
Ministry may or may not fall in the December session of
the new Parliament. if it do not, Mr. Disraeli will be
free to send Lord Mayo to India if he chooses. It is the
uncertainty—to put it no stronger—which makes him
despatch Lord Mayo in hot haste, that he may have him
across the seas and at Calcutta before a new Ministry can
be installed. But this will not prevent, and cannot pre-
vent, a new Ministry from bringing Lord Mayo back
again, rather than sanction a precedent which, designed
iu short-sightedness for the benefit of one party in the
State, violates the constitutional rules and customs of our
system of party government. If party government is
good and to be upheld, statesmen of all parties must
combine to save it from the degradation of trickery and
chicane.

The Herald answers Mr. Childers and the Times. The
Government which spends the larger sum of money may
really be the most economical one. When Mr. Gladstone
came into office last the national expenditure was about
sixty-four millions and a half. He raised it at once to
sixty-nine millions and a half. In the next year he
increased it again by three millions and a quarter, and even
in the last year of his administration it was still two mil-
lions and a quarter more than at the time he assumed
the control of the national finances. The leader of
the Opposition of course pretends that there was a justifi-
cation for this increase of expenditure. His clerk, Mr.
Childers, and his organ, the Times, deny it. Both insist
that there can be no justification for any increase of
expenditure. If there is a call for money for a particular
purpose you must provide it, they say, by saving in another
direction. Begin by being grossly extravagant, raise the
national expenditure eight or nine millions, reduce
it by degrees five or six millions, and although
the real result is that the expenditure remains
much higher than it was when you assumed
the control of it, and that altogether during your
tenure of office thirty millions or more have been squan-
dered—assuming the expenditure at the time you came
into office to have been sufficient—Mr. Childers's and the
Times argument—you will get the credit of being an
economical Minister. Put taxes on, they will not be liked
at the time, but the public is stupid enough to forget
who imposed them, and if you will take them off after
two or three years your supporters will magnify
you as a Minister who has reduced the national burdens.
The Herald acknowledges that the expenditure has been
increased for the present year. Mr. Childers, whose
feelings as a partisan and a would-be Minister have not
entirely suppressed his sense of fairness and honour, allows
that a large portion of the excess is apparent and not real.
The Times, which, professing to thoroughly understand the
question, is compelled, from sheer ignorance, to servilely use
Mr. Childers's figures, with all their blunders—whether
due to Mr. Childers or his reporters we cannot of
course say—treats the whole excess as a real one.
What are the facts? Mr. Childers allows more than
eight hundred thousand pounds for the change in the mode
of keeping accounts. Whether his estimate be right or
wrong does not now matter. Then half a million more of
the increase is caused by the plan for the reduction of the
National Debt, which Parliament almost unanimously
adopted. So there is left, at the outside, a sum of two
millions and a quarter to be accounted for. The increase
in the expenditure is caused by the lamentable condition
in which the army and navy were left by the Russell-
Gladstone Administration.
The Daily Hews says that the speech of Lord Farnham
at the opening of the inquest on Wednesday was one of
those wild indiscretions which no grief can justify and no
sympathy can enable us to overlook. His threatened
representations at the Home Office might probably gain
some more respectful attention than like representations
from humbler persons ; but if his lordship is weak
enough to make them, he will not find the Govern-
ment weak enough to listen to them. The whole inter-
ference is an outbreak of bad manners and bad
taste. Concerning the accident, the Daily News asks how
came the driver of the luggage train to give the three
trucks such an impetus as to force back the other two and
the break, when he must have known that immediately
behind them was the incline up which he had just come,
and up which the mail itself would be coming in a
moment ? Did he reckon on an obstruction from the
break ? Was the break screwed down or not, and did the
waggons go down the incline with the break moderating
their pace, though it had failed to stop them, or without
any hindrance from the break at all? If the latter, they
must have moved so swiftly that the accident had hap-
pened within three minutes of the time when the waggons
were sent back which began the movement. The blame
then shifts a little higher up, and we must ask how it
came that a luggage train was being shunted at the top of
an incline within four or five miles at most of a train
which was approaching at the timed velocity of forty miles
an hour. Indeed, the luggage train was not being shunted
merely, but was probably being sorted. If it were merely
shunted, why should any waggons be left on the line,
and especially why should any waggons be sent back
to Join them 7 It has been stated that the luggage
train passed Abergele half an hour before the mail.
Had this half-holler been employed in sorting and dividing
the train at Llandulas station? If so, are not the railway
arrangements seriously at fault? If not, what did the
loose waggons do upon the rail, and why were others sent
back upon them when the mail was already nearing them?
The blame of the accident commences here. The desire of
the jury to witness a shunting at Llandulas similar to that
which took place on the fatal day was a very just one, and
the objection of Colonel Rich that it would be dangerous
to the traffic irresistibly suggests the regret that the fact
of its danger was not discovered before.
The Standard considers that of the two brothers of the
house of Bright, Jacob is John without his tact. Mr.
John Bright will roar so as it shall do any man's heart
good to hear him, but, as we saw last session, he can also
roar as gently as any sucking dove. Lik,exise Mr. Jacob
Bright prefers to double his part, and thus at one
moment we find him in the ro!e ambitioned by the weaver
Bottom, and at another is that forced upon Lim
by Oberon and Puck. His speech is a marvel
of audacity and stupidity. Is the fact of
the absolute impotence of the Radicals during the
Whig regime from 1859, and of the accession of the Tories
to power from 1865 to the present moment, the key-note
for such a chorus of jubilation as that in which Mr. Jacob
Bright celebrates the triumphs of his party ? Can it be
said that the Radicals have dominated the Governments
of Lord Palmerston Lord Russell, Lord Derby. and Mr.
Disraeli? Mr. Jacob Bright answers in the affirmative ;
but his querulous demands for measures of revolutiop
equally repudiated by those statesmen ConcluAvgly neve
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