The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times Ways there are some things which are pleasant
though wrong, and among them must be reckoned that of
listening to Mr. Disraeli. We are all conscious of this.
/Some very straitlaced persons, mostly those who have
tever heard him, are severe in condemning the low tone
of morality which can receive any pleasure from Mr.
Toisraelre speeches ; but who is there that has ever come
within the circle of his influence and has felt no tenderness
for this child of fortune ? Mr. Disraeli was never in
better " form" than he was at the Guildhall. He
was—the truth must be told—the hero of the hour.
A virtuous few cried " Gladstone " when he was
thought to arrogate to himself the credit of the Reform
Act of 1867, but it was noticed that they were below the
salt, and even there they were in a woeful minority. The
citizens of London, as represented by the guests at the
Lord Mayor's banquet, were willing to receive the First
Minister of the Crown as the successful soldier who had
overcome all accidents of birth and position, and Mr.
Disraeli would not have been the personage we account
him to be if he had not risen to the good opinion of the
citizens. His assumption that he would reply to the same
toast twelve months hence was a miracle of assurance.
We are thankful for this. In the very serious and high-
principled age upon which we are entering it is gratifying
to be assured that there will be one man left to us to
represent the satirical element of life. Mr. Disraeli's
career as Prime Minister approaches its term. He is
near his wit's end. He has nothing new to tell us. There
fs the old story of foreign affairs conducted in a way to
put to shame all previous Foreign Secretaries. There
are essential principles at stake in the coming con-
test. Unfortunately, we have heard all this before, and
the world, not without deliberation, has decided that it is
worth nothing. The conclusion is that Mr. Disraeli has
no new card to play. He must succumb for a season to
adverse fortune, and trust to the strength of custom
among mankind for a reaction in his favour when the act
which is now imminent shall have been accomplished. His
speech, with all its audacity and art, reveals the fact that
the speaker is driven to his last stake, and knows that he
must lose.

The Post remarks that, speaking as Prime Minister, and
on the eve of the dissolution, it was thought that Mr.
Disraeli would seize the opportunity of appealing to the
judgment of the country in the language of which he is a
master. For our part, it would be mere affectation to
express any sense of disappointment. As we anticipated,
Mr. Disraeli entered a protest against the " endless
agitation" sketched out by Mr. Bright ; and, for
the rest, what he said may amount to this—that
if his Ministry is not the best possible Ministry,
it is the best possible at the present moment,
and consequently that the country should make
the best of what is unavoidable. We cannot follow him
or anyone to such a concltusion. A statesman may not be
bound to first principles; he must, we know, observe
times, seasons, and conditions ; but that a Government
which has, by its own chewing, just "reframed the Con•
stitution," should claim public confidence on the ground
that its policy is simply the maintenance of the Constitu-
tion, is quite another thing. The Government have a right
to shape their own course, and Mr. Disraeli is, perhaps,
the only member of the Government who has made up his
mind as to the course which, as a Government, they
should take. The misfortune is that their political
opinions appear to have been formed fortuitously, or to be,
as Mr. Disraeli might say, "accidents of history ;" and
people who have an aptitude for .divesting unpleasant
truths of the mitigating considerations by which they
might be qualified will see nothing, or nothing good, inthe
speech of a Minister who apparently was predestined to
lead the Tory party to a " leap in the dark," and who has
raised himself up to fulfil the obligation which destiny, or
ambition, or circumstances imposed. As Mr. Disraeli
says, " the battle is commencing," and a we are not very
greatly in error, the end may already be foreseen.
The Daily News hold that the guests at the Guildhall
banquet went away mentally fasting. Mr. Disraeli's only
policy is the defence of the Constitution. It seems to be Mr.
Disraeli's part in politics to be always defending the Con-
stitution. That portion of it which he for the time being
takes under his protection is sure to be the first that is
surrendered and destroyed. Nothing could be more cor.
dial and genial than the welcome given to him personally;'
nothing could be happier than his response. But of
political significance his speech had done. So poverty-
stricken was, it that he was obliged to go back
for matter to Mr. Bright's last address at
Edinburgh, and to find in that something at least to con-
tradict. The land laws, Mr. Bright says, are to be revised.
Great estates are to be broken up. Great estates are good
things. Are good things to be broken up by revolutionary
violence ? The City Corporations have great estates.
Let them look to their own interests thus threatened by
the men who are for plunging the country into the whirl
of ceaseless agitation, and for levelling our constitution ,
and institutions. About the Irish Church Mr. Disraeli
did not say a word. The Daily News infers that Mr.
Disraeli's policy consists of three things : (1) the mainte-
nance of the Constitution ; (2) Lord Stanley ; and (3) a
Bankruptcy Bill.

According to the Telegraph, frank and courageous
Ministerial statements of policy are only to be looked for
at the City banquet when it is convenient to make them;
and Mr. Disraeli's vague allusion to bankruptcy reforms
and other measures of great practical importance which
her Majesty's Ministers hope to propose at a future period,
was obviously intended to cover the fact that the Govern-
ment has no policy to propose. Those, therefore, who
looked for remarkable addresses from her Majesty's
Ministers, will alone be disappointed on perusing
the conventional phrases about constitutional prin-
ciples which were uttered by the Premier and his
colleagues. The Conservative leader is too practised a
player to let anybody know that he has not a trick in his
hand. He loves the game of life, and he holds his cards
as carefully as if they were all leading trumps. Who
knows but that at the last moment there may be a revoke
—at the last moment an elaborate finesse may accomplish
something. Nothing is lost until it is won ; and Mr.
Disraeli talks as if he did not perceive, as wel:
as the world in general, that in the new House
of Commons he will be confronted by an adversf
majority, which, like Mercutio's wound, will be " enough.'
Mr. Disraeli's departure from office will nevertheless
evoke a sense of regret even among opponents who have
keenly criticised his somewhat dramatic career. In
England, we are proud to claim that we also afford la
carrtere ouverte aux talents. The Premier of England has
exemplified, on the field of politics, the familiar and
cheering adage which places a marshal's biton in every
French conscript's knapsack. "By my right hand I have
done this "—such may be his fitting farewell to power ;
and Englishmen, who always heartily sympathise with
success, will bid a not unfriendly goodbye to the public
man whose social life has been genial and unstained—
who has never turned a deaf ear or uncourteous front
to those who sought his good offices in the time of exalta-
tion.

The Standard thinks the Times has let the secret out at
last. A week ago it prophesied falsely : to use a commor
expression, it was bouncing. Nothing less than a majority
of 120 would satisfy it ; and it positively undertook to
prove this by one of those rule of three sums which are
rarely to be found outside its own columns. The other
day it spoke more oracularly. It promised that by next
Wednesday the Opposition would have "an assured
majority which one may now cautiously describe as ap-
proaching a hundred." This is what A. K. H. B. would
call " coming down " with a vengeance. What are we to
understand by " approaching a hundred ?" Eighty is
approaching a hundred ; so is fifty, so is twenty-five, so is
ten. Why, even a minority of five might be claimed as a
verification of the prognostication of the Times as
" approaching " a majority of a hundred. We can recall
nothing equal to the marvellous foresight of our contem-
porary but the ingenious answer of Pat when he was asked
by his friend to guess the sex of his newly-born child. "A
boy ?" said Pat. " Guess again," said his friend. " A
girl " was the reply. "Shure, somebody's been of then
telling ye."

The Herald commends the promise given by the
Governor-General of India to snbstitute action for writing
in the matter of irrigation. We have had too much letter-
writing upon the subject. There are folios upon folios of
documents. But the question is one upon which every.
body is, in theory, and relatively to known facts, agreed.
We know what the Madras Irrigation and Canal
Company have done, and we know what has been
done by the East India Irrigation Company, whose;
works extend from Cuttack to Calcutta. The result 4
exhibit at once beneficence and profit. British India i$
rather less than half cultivated. Indeed, to indicate halt
of its cultivable area as under agriculture is largely to
exaggerate. Meanwhile, however, the population grows,
while the taxation does not decrease and the necessities of
Government do not diminish. It will consequentlygladden
all the friends of the Indian people, and inspire confidence
in all who are associated with Indian interests, to learn
that th., new Viceroy Will go out pledged to a policy of
"action," as he says, rather than to a routine of "con
respondence."

THE RICHEST LIVING IN ENGLAND.'-11
correspondent of a contemporary, alluding to the death of
the Rev. Algernon Peyton, the rector of the richest living
in England, says : " Lest any of your readers should be
led to covet and desire the presentation to it, I beg to say
that the parish is one of the unhealthiest in England, and
that the rector was long non-resident, putting in a curate
to do the duties at a moderate stipend. It was my melan.
choly duty, some few years sg ~ to 'bury within one week
a7l the curate's children, aree in number, and his sister.
in-law, victims to the unhealthiness of the locality.

THE SOUTH WALES 11AILW AY ACCIDENT.

The ins:rued on the bodies of the men killed in the Enllo
Pill:railway accident was held on Monday at Newnham.
The inquest had been formally opened on Saturday for
the identification of the bodies previous to interment, and
was adjourned to Monday for evidence. The jury,
having been sworn, were accompanied by the
coroner and officials to the spot where the acci-
dent happened, and also to Bullo Pill, to inspect
the bodies. For this purpose a special train had
been provided by the company. The spot at which the
collision occurred is 'at the north end of a curve with a
radius of fifty-five chains, and on an incline of 1 in 300.
It was shewn by experiments on the spot that the tail-
lights of a train could not be seen at a greater distance
than 200 yards. The line was now perfectly clear, all the
broken carriages having been removed, and the greater
part carried away. The evidence given corroborated the
statement of facts already given, and the jury returned
verdicts in each case that the death was accidental,
but they recommended that communication should be
established between drivers and guards in all trains,
and that certain local precautions should be adopted. The
coroner, in summing up, entirely acquitted all parties of
blame. It clearly appeared in the evidence that at
Lydney, the last station which was passed by the two
trains, the cattle train was twenty-two minutes in advance
of the mail. They intended to shunt at Bullo Pill, about
seven miles, but fog and the slipperiness of the rail re-
tarded their progress.