The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOITENALS,

According to the Herald the functions which Oxford at
present performs it is impossible to dispute. Socially,
politically, and ecclesiastically, she is essentially Conser-
vative. '., This has been her traditional character. She has
done nothing to forfeit that reputation. Nor is Oxford
merely a convenient school for the acquisition of polished
manners, of highly-developed culture, and of social
exclusiveness. She is vitally connected with a far loftier
and holier branch of our modern polity. The English
Church is the fountain at which English religion is fed,
and the English Church looks to Oxford as one of the
main sources for its supply. This is the traditional charac-
ter which Oxford has for years borne. To Oxford England
has looked, and rightly, as towards the citadel of her
national faith— the theological arsenal from which, at an
emergency, the cause of our English Church might always
confidently expect efficient and immediate relief.
In canvassing the respective claims of the two candidates,
the herald remarks that Sir Roundel' Palmer, hazarding
the consistency of his principles, has repeatedly assured
his hearers, both in and out of Parliament, that though
adverse to the disendowment, he was in favour of the dis-
establishment of the Irish Church. Equally unfortu-
nately it happens to be a logical fact that these two terms
are absolutely indissoluble. It is a merely vain and idle
hope to believe that because Sir Roundell Palmer could
not make up his mind last session to go into the lobby
with Mr. Gladstone, he will therefore refrain from lifting
up his hand against the fabric of Anglicanism. Even
allowing that he honestly intends to stand by what he said
a few months ago, and that he does not now mean to pass
from the championship of disestablishment to disendow-
ment, is he entirely the master of his own movements ?
Sir Roundell Palmer must act with his party, or he will
not act at all.

The Times says, if our leading men will persist in the now
very favourite practice of publishing their private corre-
spondence, they really ought to write with some view to
possible publicity. The consequent sense of restraint
might, perhaps, injure their epistolary style, but it would
be a very desirable safeguard to their reputation. Indeed,
we should be disposed to doubt whether Mr. Mill would
have indulged in such strangely extravagant eulogy of his
friend and follower, Mr. Chadwick, if he had known that
his letters to Mr. Bouverie were to be given to the world.
At least we infer as much from the fact, that in the
letter to Mr. Chadwick, specially intended for public
use, and also in the other, he dwells upon Mr. Bouverie's
shortcomings rather than upon Mr. Chadwick's merits.
But a far more awful example is furnished by Lord West-
bury. The sort of fussiness of which he has been guilty is
intelligible, and perhaps pardonable, in an old maid or a
country squire. One can almost sympathise with the
agonies of the parson's lady at being led into dinner after
the doctor's. But that an ex-Chancellor and a lawyer of
Lord Westbury's genius and attainments should not only
harbour this feeling, but allow it to prevent his doing the
country useful work, is strange indeed.
The Daily .News thinks it is a pity Mr. Roebuck cannot
he present at the Liverpool banquet. In the unavoidable
absence of Captain Semmes, Mr. Laird could have no
more suitablo mate. 'We all know so well how ardently
he sought by every possible means to bring about the dis-
solution of the Great Republic and the establishment of
the Slave Empire, that it was unnecessary for him to
remind us of his exertions ; nor can we imagine why
now, when that strife is over, and just as Lord
Stanley has settled one important dispute be-
tween the two countries, and hopes to settle
others, Mr. Roebuck should again proclaim on the house-
tops his wish that somehow or other the power of the
United States could be destroyed. The world would
readily have given him credit for such a desire without
these extravagant manifestations. But if he chose to
insist unseasonably on his own opinion, he might have had
some regard for the memory of Lord Palmerston. It was
unnecessary to relate at Sheffield the anecdote about the late
statesman if it were merely to shew Lord Palmerston's per-
sonal leanings. Those leanings were at all times known to
Lord Palmerston's colleagues, to the House of Commons,
and to the American Government. In fact, it was impos-
sible to live in England and not be aware of them.
But Lord Palmerston was a statesman, not such an egotist
as to imagine that in a high position his first notions were
to determine his action, but accustomed to take a broad
survey of facts, and rise to the height of his public respon-
sibilities. It is easy to perceive why Mr. Roebuck cannot
understand the conduct which Lord Palmerston pursued
during the American war, and that he should insinuate
that that statesman was guilty of political immorality
when in fact he was displaying the highest morality by
substituting his public and official judgment for his private
personal predilections. Mr. Roebuck never did so in his
life; he could not do so. He has tio conception of the
process.

In order to bolster up his own position Mr. Roebuck
described an interview he had with Lord Palmerston
immediately after delivering a pro-Southern speech at
Sheffield, in which that statesman is asserted to have
declared that those were his own opinions, but that he
dared not officially say so. In the absence of corro-
borative evidence the Star declines to accept the story
as true. It will be recollected how completely Mr.
Roebuck misunderstood and misstated the result
of his interview with the Emperor Napoleon,
when he went to beg him for a message to the British Par-
liament. And perhaps it may be as well to remind Mr.
Roebuck that it was Lord Palmerston's painful duty
to give him a severe rebuke for lowering the character of
the Parliament of England, and for taking upon himself
functions which belonged by the Constitution to her Majesty
the Queen. It is quite possible that Lord Palmerston may
have shared the opinions of a large class of England as to
the probable result of the American war. It is impossible
to believe, however, that he would ostentatiously boast of
these opinions, although at variance with the actions of
his own Cabinet, before the most indiscreet member of the
House of Commons. If Lord Palmerston's opinions were
us Mr. Roebuck represents them, he had the wisdom and
experience to keep them to himself, land not to attempt to
force his country into a dangerous position to gratify his
own likes and dislikes. Mr. Roebuck, on the contrary,
having clutched his firebrand, threw it about as the foolish
never fail to do, whose want of political perception renders
them blind to all consequences.

The Standard says Mr. Gladstone's remarks upon the
Irish Church question demand very brief notice at its

hands. The right honourable gentleman has Persistently
refused to address himself to the argnments with which be

has been confronted from the very first.

Ile has never

attempted to answer any one of the points in the masterly
• - - _ _

address of the Premier. If prudential considerations

induce him to retreat from the field of argument, and to
take refuge in empty generalities and dogmas which cannot
be sustained ,by any process of ratiocination, his opponents
may well afford to decline an inglorious contest in which
empty assertions must take the place of logic and reaeon
ing. No one, fur instance, will expect us to refute the
contention that because a quarterly contemporary, the
upholder of the plan of concurrent endowment, which was
last year the assailant of the Government, is now pleased
to stand up in their defence, it is therefore established that
her Majesty's Ministers have become converts to the plan
of concurrent endowment. Yet Mr. Gladstone evident]:
regards this as a fact established beyond dispute.

The new church of St. Mary Magdalene, Pad•
dington, was openod by license on Wednesday, only a portiox
of the beautiful design by Mr. street being completed.

The iililC3 remarks that a university election has not
generally been regarded as a mere political struggle betwen
the party in and the party out of office, though of late
years it has more and more tended to become so. But
ever, as such it would be a contest of peculiar significance ;
at all times, and especially at a period like the present, of
general movement, the public would watch with interest a
trial of strength between the Liberal and Conservative
forces in a constituency which contains within itself, as it
were, the primary elements of the two antagonistic
policies—a constituency, on the one hand, by its connec-
tion with Church and State and all its cherished tradi-
tions, committed to the ancient order of things ; and on the
other, by virtue of being a central seat of the highest form of
public education, naturally aspiring to be a chief organ of
national progress. But deeper than the political conside-
rations of the day lie the permanent objects of the members
who compose this peculiar constituency. In other consti-
tuencies the clergy are but a few units in the midst of a
multitude, and ordinarily they deem it their duty to
abstain from political polemics ; in the university they are
gathered together, they make up the bulk of the electors,
and are capable of uttering the opinions of their order in
a collective voice audible to the entire nation. The
potency of this utterance is limited only by the amount
of discordance between the various sections of the
Church, and the extent to which the clerical influence
is modified by the contrary tendencies of the
lay members of Convocation. The Oxford election is
also a battle-ground for the control of the education of
the university. This struggle is of public importance,
though it originates in the first instance among the resi-
dents. On the one side are placed the majority of those
who are actively engaged in the work of education—men
bent upon rendering the university of the utmost possible '
service to the State, and therefore, if for no other reason, ,
Liberals committed to such reforms as are necessary for
this main object—for instance, the relaxation of tests, the
extension of the university, and the development of new
schools. On the other side are ranged those who stand on
the ancient ways, and would maintain the university as a
stronghold of social rank, ecclesiastical privilege, and a
jealous system of classical lore. Each side can command
great resources from without ; the one can summon laymen
from the metropolis, the other the clergy from their coun-
try parsonages.