The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-02 00:00:00

'~'~~ fi~'D'BLIC ~OU'RNA~~,

The Times remarks that the note of Air. Bright's address
to the electors of Birmingham is that feeling of rare satis-
faction which marks the close of a day of real hard work,
He comes before those who have trusted him with the con-
fidence of one who has faithfully laboured to discharge
their trust, and can claim as of right that it skill be

renewed. He speaks as ono who feels that his warfare
is accomplished. The passion, the fury, the an-
tagonism of earlier years have died away. The
great objects upon which he set his mind
have been attained. The main thought of Mr.
Bright's address is of labours past and ends ob-
tained. The prime object of his agitation, the
reform of Parliament, has been secured. There have been
blemishes on the perfection of the work, but they will
prove transitory. The end of the next great labour of
his life, the redress of injustice in the government of Ire-
land, is at hand. The actual course of legislation with
reference to the Irish Establishment is as good as
settled. So Mr. Bright sees as an actual fact the
enfranchisement of all the householders of parliamentary
boroughs, and with the certain eye of prophecy he sees
the destructon of the Irish Establishment, and is antis.
fled. He has a word to say about the " poor dear
ballot, and it is but decent of him to see it. The ballot
was the great question of his youth. It was a venerable,
almost a sacred symbol. But the tenacity of Mr. Bright's
attachment to this ancient article of faith is only one of
the many evidences which prove his separation from the
spirit of the younger generation arising in the midst of us.
Mr. Bright, in fact, looks to the setting sun, and its light
is in his countenance. Other men have arisen with
new objects and new desires, who look towards the
east and another day. The deep diversity, we may
almost say the alienation, between Mr. Bright and
those we have styled the newer men becomes most
evident when we consider the objects for which
they press most eagerly. Mr. Bright is silent on all of
them. They are very enthusiastic about national educe-
tion. They long for a time when primary education shall
be universally diffused. They have theories for the appro-
priation of endowments devoted to secondary education,
so as to make them helps to raise the most promising
youth of the nation from grade to grade until the
selected best of them are landed in the universities.
The universities themselves they would make co.
ordinate in extension with the people. Mr. Bright has
nothing to say on all this. Then, again, the younger
men are busy about the relations between employer
and employed. They would protect the custody of
the funds of trades' unions with the sanction of the law.
They banker after a development of co-operation, so as to
bring the mass of industrial enterprises within its influ-
ence. They are interested in the improvement of the
dwellings of the labouring poor. It would appear to be
not too much to say that Dr. Evans, Mr. Bright's
Tory-Radical opponent at Birmingham, is more
stirred by sympathy with these views than Mr.
Bright himself. We wonder what he thinks of
the education and enfranchisement of women. No
man ,could be more conscious than the apostle who
boasted he had " fought a good fight" how much he had
left to be done ; but he was content to rest and be hopeful
of the future. It is so, it must be so, with all of us. Mr.
Bright has tasted this experience. His hours of labour
and passionate effort, his fits of storm and invective have
passed. He feels something of the serenity of evening.
lie knows the sweetness of rest, and when he wrote to the
electors of Birmingham his sentences were irradiated with
the after-glow of repose.
The Daily iVers observes that Mr. Bright's address to
the electors of Birmingham is evidently not intended to be
in any sense a political programme. Although Mr.
Bright may be regarded as the leader of the popular
section of the Liberal party, lie has always kept his per-
sonal claims strictly in the background, and has never
sought personal influence or a personal following. lie
has been content to be the pioneer of his party.
But this part of Mr. Bright's work appears to
be done. He stands now abreast of his party,
not because he has himself fallen back, but
because the party had almost come up to him. Unlike
Mr. Horsman, Mr. Bright does not cast prophetic glances
into the future. He writes his address to his own consti-
tuents only, and evidently does not intend to make any
bid for leadership. He writes as simply one of the rank-
and-file of the Liberal army. Everybody knows, of course,
that no flame Liberal Administration will be complete
without him; but there is nothing of the future Minister
in his matter, though some may see it in his manner. But
Mr. Bright's quieter tone is not caused by expectation
of office ;it arises rather from his altered position. Ho
was once a voice crying iu the wilderness, he is now a
counsellor at home.

The Herald takes up the criticisms. of the Liberal press
on Mr. Ward Hunt's letter. The ground of its antagonists
is, "the expenditure may have been necessary, but
then the Government ought to have provided for? it by
_11..--. C+__ ...1 XTr. (lad A=
e
—whose assumption of office they all date from 1862--did.

He provided for new calls by reducing the outlay in other
directions." They allow that an increased expenditure for
certain purposes may become necessary, even if a Conserva-
tive Government is in power ; but they say it can be met,
and Mr. G In,d,tone would meet it, by an equivalent reduction
in some other branch of expenditure. What does this
assertion amount to? It means—if it is worth anything--
that a Minister, say Mr. Gladstone, always recommends
to Parliament a large expenditure which is absolutely
unnecessary, which, if the money should be required for
any other purpose, he can cut off without injury to the
public service. Mr. Gladstone's financial administration,
wasteful and niggardly, wantonly extravagant and old-
maidishly caving, could hardly be better characterised
than it is thus unintentionally done by his supporters.
the virtues and the aevantages of extravagance could
hardly be put in a stronger light than they are in Mr.
Gladstone's financial career. He raised the expenditure
of the country in two budgets to a height far surpassing
any ever reached in time of peace. Thus he obtained a
capital to expend in the form of economy.

The Post returns to its attack on Mr. Disraeli for send-
ing Lord Mayo out to India. The Post has no wish to say
anything against Lord Mayo. He may—for all things are
possible—prove to be the very best man that could have
been selected to rule such an insignificant portion of the
empire as two hundred millions:of Indians. So might any
other man in or out of Parliament who has never yet
shewn any proof of his capacity. But when so large a
possession as our Indian empire is at stake it is not
enough to rely upon unsupported possibilities ; and, if a
Government has any duties to perform at all, it is one
of the most important it can fulfil, to be careful, in making
such an appointment, to select a man who has by his
training and performances raised a strong presumption
that he is the most fitting person for the post. No one
can pretend that Lord Mayo has done this or anything
like it. The first act of the new Parliament will be to
call the Ministry to a strict account in the matter, while
the first act of a new Ministry will be to rescind an
appointment which should never have been made.
The Times by no means sees so much in the reforms Al
the University of Oxford as some of its contemporaries.'
Oxford now says to a lad who knows a little Latin and
Greek, " Come to us, and you shall live for £4O a year ;"
but Oxford and Cambridge both said long ag'43 to lads who
knew something more, Come to us, and you shall live
for nothing." A young man may obtain, even before com-
mencing his residence, an exhibition or scholarship suffi-
cient for his maintenance, and an open career is then
before him. In fact, viewed in this aspect, the two old
universities are the real democratic institutions of this
land. Through them and their endowments the poorest
lad in a village may rise to take rank after the
Princes of the Blood. The only drawback to the un-
bounded liberality of the system is that not every poor lad
has his proper chance to begin with, and this brings the
Times to a conclusion that university extension, to be
really effectual, should begin in village schools. If every
lad, however humble his extraction, had the same oppor-
tunities of early education as are enjoyed by those who
now win university honours, then the universities would
draw students of the best promise from every class of the
nation, and become truly national institutions. The Times'
ideal is a graduated and rising system of education, by
which all the young ability of the country from every class
of society may ascend from school to school, till at last it
meets in a final trial of strength at the universities.
The Daily News, admitting the puerile nature of the
complaints which are constantly being made by Fenian
prisoners, lays down, however, that we must not on
that account . refuse to listen to all. A complaint
appears in the Irishman respecting " the dauntless
O'Donovan," who is a.prisoner at Chatham, which, our
contemporary hopes, is without foundation. It is said
that a fortnight ago his eldest son wrote to him, and a few
days since received a replyfrom the Governor of Chatham
Gaol stating that, in consequence of some " breach of
prison regulation" committed by his father, the son',
letter had been sequestrated, and would not be given to
him for whom it was intended, and that during
the next six months O'Donovan would not
be allowed to write a letter to his wife or
children, or to receive any letter from them. The Daily
News trusts that this statement, which has doubtless been
published to blacken the Government, is not true. If
O'Donovan has broken the prison regulations he must be
made to smart for it, but it is not wise to select his social
affections for attack, and to destroy, as far as may be, the
better part of his nature. There must be means of
maintaining prison discipline without forbidding the
exchange of letters between a prisoner and his children.
It is to be regretted (says the andard) that the jury.
men in the Rachel case should have allowed themselves to
depart from the common usage which restrains other
juries from revealing to the public all the secrets of their
consultations together. The respect of the public for ordi-
nary juries is not likely to be increased by such a corre-
spondence as that whkh has lately made its appearance. i
The foreman s evidently very proud of the decision to which
he and the majority arrived, although it was a decision
entirely opposed to common sense. He has stated that
one of the jury, named Blinks, made up the majority of
eleven, and when Mr. Blinks writes to deny this assertion,
the foreman adopts the expedient of causing his letter tq
be published,with all its faults of construction and punctua.
tion. Mr. Blinks may not be able to spell properly
but he has quite as much reason to congratulate himself
upon his view of the Rachel case as the foreman had. It
scarcely requires a man of high culture to arrive at a sen•
Bible conclusion with reference to Mrs. I3or4oclailc'p
story.