The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-06 00:00:00

EPIBIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

'.wow the Spanish insurrection is over and the revolution
begun, says the Times, if it is asked what is to be done,
the question, we must own, admits of no immediate
answer. We only know that the directors of the move-
ment proclaimed their design of overthrowing the Govern-
ment and then remitting the matter entire to the will of
the nation in Congress assembled. No political experi-
ment, we must needs say, could well be more uncertain
than this. The appeal which, we are told, is to be made
through universal suffrage may possibly result in a voice
of the people by no means in accord with that of
the leaders of the movement. The promoters
of the insurrection, the active and thinking part
of the nation, are in a minority ; the indif-
ferent, apathetic, or ignorant will be in a majority.
It has been declared that not only the Queen, but all the
Queen's family, must be expelled from power, and the
dynasty is proscribed as well as the sovereign. But even
this resolution may be, in one sense, premature, for it is
inconsistent with that sovereignty of the people to which
appeal upon the whole question is to be made. Neither
Prim nor any other general can pretend to put
limits to the will of the Spanish nation. We
have read what appear to us reasonable demands
in the manifestoes issued by some of the local
Governments, but the great towns and] the sea-
ports are far in advance of the rest of the country, and
some of the stipulations comprised in these documents
would introduce absolute novelties into the institutions of
Spain. We cordially wish the constituent legislators good
speed in their work, but the hardest part of that work is
undoubtedly still before them. It will be all the harder
from certain peculiarities of the case. There are reasons
why the expedient of a Regency, otherwise so obvious,
should be rejected at once, and, indeed, looking
back to the various events of the last genera-
tion, we can well understand why the insurgent
generals should have pronounced comprehensively
against the whole House of Bourbon. But if an Assembly
is elected by universal suffrage, under such circumstances
as the present, and in a country like Spain, it will be a
body on whose decisions it will be impossible to calculate.
The hope of the nation now rests on the wisest and
wariest of those leaders by whom this revolution has been
accomplished. If their plans are well devised, judiciously
proposed, and patriotically supported, the insurrection
may open a new era of greatness for Spain ; in the oppo-
site event, the last state of that noble country may be even
worse than the first.

To suppose that the various parties will' continue in
agreement, or rather to believe that the generals will
forget their personal rivalries and their jealousies and
mutual grudges of the past, requires a greater faith
in Spanish patriotism than the Standard can command.
Generals Serrano and Prim, who appear to be the two
prominent leaders in the revolution up to the present
time, have been in perpetual antagonism. They repre-
sent two opposite schools of opinion and of feeling in
the Spanish people. It is scarcely possible to believe
that they can remain in union after the work of
revolution has been fully accomplished. The new
Constituent Assembly will be composed of men for the
most part unused to the practice of parliamentary freedom,
and divided among themselves by a thousand contending
sentiments. Their decision on the first question submitted
to them will be looked for with much interest and
curiosity. They will have to provide a successor to Queen
Isabella—to lay down the basis of a new constitution -to
create, as it were, a new Spain out of the debris left
behind by the Bourbons. It rests with the Spaniards
themselves to take care that they give no excuse,
in the name of European peace and civilisation, for any
outside interference. At present they are their own mas-
ters. In their novitiate of liberty they are assisted by
every natural and accidental advantage. They can hardly
make a choice worse than their last, even although the
field of selection is somewhat circumscribed. The tradi-
tions of the late monarchy will serve to moderate any
extravagant estimate, on the part of the Spaniards, of
the character of their new sovereign. Almost anything
will be an improvement on the Bourbons, whose unlucky
destiny it seems to be to make revolutions respectable.

There is not much in Marshal Serrano's history, says
the Daily News, to throw much light on the probabilities
of his administration. He is an old soldier of the War
of Independence, and is not far from his 70th year.
Twenty years ago he was so much a favourite of the
Queen that some public scandals were created by his sup-
posed influence over the young monarch's mind. He has
played some part in most of the partial revolutions which
have taken place during the present reign, like most
Spanish politicians, changing sides more than once
during his long career. Of late years, however,
Serrano has been consistently liberal, and in the pre-
sent insurrection has shewn distinctly popular tendencies.
His success at Cordova marked him out as the general to
be entrusted with the temporary administration of the
Government, and in accepting the charge he has distinctly
done so as a temporary necessity pending the expression
of the national will. He will select his Ministers from the
generals of the revolution, and he calls on the army to
fraternise with the people. Marshal Serrano is now, in
fact, Protector of Spain. Is he equal to the task? Spaiu
needs an Espartero with the will of Narvaez and the energy
of an O'Donnell. Has it found such a one in Francisco
Serrano ?

The Hcraid considers it a subject for congratulation
that the Congress at Dublin has brought out the real
character of Church work in Ireland. Even in the most
Roman Catholic districts the piety of the members of the
Church has restored the old cathedrals—St. Patrick's,
Dublin ; St. Mary's, Limerick ; St. Canice's, Kilkenny;
and St. Finbar's (which are only a few of those important
works) ; and another speaker pointed out that more than
672 churches have been built or restored in Ireland within
the last sixty years at a cost of half a million of money
in private contributions. Nor was the augmented
energy of the Church confined to the erection of
buildings. In the supply and maintenance of
additional clergy, in the better order and greater
number of the church services, in church music, the zeal
of the members of the Irish Church was evidenced. And
these observations only dealt with matters more imme-
diately connected with the celebration of divine service.
In school societies, in the maintenance of numorpus
orphan societies and asylums, the charity of Churchmen
was conspicuous. The alleged failure of the Church
in the missionary field was ably dealt with by Professor
Tillett. Our English experience of the Roman Catholio
populations settled amongst ourselves sheaved clearly that
the work of conversion from Roman Catholicism
was not to be done by wholesale. Much had been
actually clone in the number of converts to the
Established Church in Ireland, and much was still being
done. But the real missionary work of the Church was
the salutary, indefinable influence which her presence
exercised on all the sects around her, whether Protestant
or Roman Catholic. That this influence was not as great
at one time as it ought to have been, was ascribed to the
great prevalence of Puritanism in Irish theology—a defect
the result of peculiar historical circumstances. The frank-
ness and mutual forbearance with which all these ques-
tions were discussed at this meeting are, in themselves,
proof of the earnest sense of responsibility which the Irish
clergy entertain at the present moment, and their calm
statement of their own achievements and deficiencies will
not be lost upon their English guests.
The Post thinks it is pretty evident that we are coming
to the appropriation of railways by the State. The experi-
ment on the Irish railways, which will probably be tried
next year, will no doubt throw much light upon the
subject ; but it must be remembered that the conditions
affecting the problem in the two countries are very
different indeed. In Ireland, great districts are very
thinly inhabited, and the traffic arising from trade, com-
merce, and manufactures is not comparable at all with
that in England. Even, therefore, if the experiment were
to result in a partial failure, it would not prove
that the system was inapplicable to England. But if
it should prove a success in Ireland, it may then be
thought a pity that so much time had been lost in adopt-
ing it. Indeed, it would almost appear to be more reason-
able that the experiment should be first tried in England,
where it is hardly conceivable that it should fail, and then,
by the light and experience gained, to decide to what
extent and in what way the system should be introduced
into Ireland. It looks, in fact, very much as if we were,
in this matter, about to put the cart before the horse,
although, even with that peculiar mode of yoking, the com-
bination will probably move along in a more satisfactory
manner than is commonly attributed to arrangements of
the kind.

The Swedish and German expeditions to the North Pole
have failed for the present year. Both nations, says the
Telegraph, have made a gallant effort; and it is infinitely
better to fail in such a cause than to fold one's hands and
indulge in cynical derision. The Germania has come back
—defeated, baffled, but nut in the very least disgraced.
When she put into Bergen, her captain hail the satisfac
tion of knowing that he hail gone to the North as far as
any one except Sir Edward Parry. That great sailor, great
Christian, and great gentleman reached, in his
boat-expedition of E-',27, the high latitude of 82
deg. 45 min. N., and only desisted when the solid
ice over which he struggled to force his way
northwards was itself visibly carried to the south by an
irresistible current. More way than he could make by
pushing ahead was lost through this terrible drift ; and
all he could do was to get back to the fine old Heela,
.w hick was waiting at anchor for him, and return home.
A few weeks ago it seemed tolerably certain that the Ger,
mania would cap Parry's achievement The scanty
accounts, however, that have yet reached us state that the
farthest northern point which she reached was 81 deg.
5 min.; so that our poor little English flag, the last time
that Admiralties consented to let it be hoisted in those
regions, came nearer to the Pole than the German bannem
has yet been carried. Nevertheless, the Germania's wort
has been neatly and swiftly done; and a defeat of this
kind is only the prophecy of a victory OA the uezi
i4tegctlat.