The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PI7BLIO :OURNALS,

An address to the Archbishop of Canterbury is now in
process of signature at Oxford, imploring his Grace to use
his influence against the bill now before the Legislature
abolishing university tests. The Times, speaking of this,
asks : What is the value of an utterance which challenges
no reply, which evades discussion, and which shuns the
political arena ? Could these matters be arranged between
Oxford and Lambeth, we all know how it would be— even
as it was in the days of Laud, not to go back to Chichele.
But neither Oxford nor Lambeth, nor any other power in
this realm can take these matters out of the hands of the
Legislature. The utmost that can be hoped is that the
House of Commons to be returned by the next general elec-
tion will be a fair representation of the national character;
and this national character we are forced to collect and
conceive from some variety of material. England, Scotland,
and Ireland, two Established Churches, five million Roman
Catholics, a still greater number of Nonconformists, be-
sides various other elements alluded to even in the short
document before us, have all to find their common repre
sntation in Parliament. Of necessity there must be
something in the nature of a compromise, and no reason-
able person can expect that any one communion or
creed will have all its own way. In such a state of
things they who have something to defend, inasmuch as
they overtop and shut out others, will have a harder
task than they who only ask for equality or mere
toleration. The question is not what the Church of
England would do for itself, or what the clergy and
gentry would do, but what the thirty millions of
various races and creeds in these isles will do
through a Parliament carefully devised to represent
them. In. that Legislature even the popular distinction
between England and Ireland has no rightful or practical
existence. While all claims are represented and advo-
cated, the result is that which is best and fairest for the
whole. In this spirit our old universities have been, and
will continue to be, legislated for. The Oxford graduates
entreat that their university and colleges may remain, as
much as they are, institutions of the National Church.
The very term they employ suggests while it slurs over
the real difficulty of their case. The United Kingdom has
not a " National Church," and it is the United Kingdom
those have to deal with who deprecate the apprehended
action of the Legislature. Can (the Times concludes) the
the gentlemen at Oxford under existing circumstances,
under the state of things they so fervently desire to main-
tain, prevent their own men, their own tutors, their own
chiefs of opinion, from streaming off on the one side
towards Rome, on the other to Dissent and still more
popular Latitudinarianism? Can they prevent any-
Oxford man, even with an M.A. attached to his name and
material inducements to orthodoxy, from forming his own
opinions? If they cannot do this now, and if Oxford, in
consequence, is that free arena of religious controversy
which they earnestly pray it may not be, how can Parlia-
ment save or help them ?
The Star marvels at the appointment to the Chancellor.
ship of the Exchequer, an office which is only second in
importance to that of the First Lord of the Treasury, of
a gentleman utterly unknown to the nation at large, and
only known by name to the members of the House of
Commons from his having recently held a subordinate
place. Mr. Ward Hunt has never shewn that he had any
peculiar mastery over the science of finance, unless, in-
deed, it were by his boisterous efforts to compensate land-
owners and farmers for the effects of the cattle plague
out of the public purse. What he has done, therefore,
only increases the suspicions of his utter incompe-
tency for the office to which he has been suddenly
elevated. He has been, it seems, a devoted political
adherent of Mr. Disraeli, sitting at the feet of the political
teacher with perfect docility—willing to extend the fran-
chise or withhold it, to abolish anything or to conserve
everything, precisely as Mr. Disraeli may determine.
Such a Chancellor of the Exchequer may be a valuable
addition to the Cabinet, of which it is said some of the
members are already disposed to be fractious ; but the
nation may reasonably doubt whether England was made
for Mr. Disraeli, and whether the most important interests
of the English people are to be entrusted to every suc-
cessful political adventurer who by suppleness and
docility has ingratiated himself into the friendship of a
political leader.
By the Treason-felony Act, English subjects can be
made amenable in Great Britain for offences against that
statute, though committed in foreign States. Foreigners
can, however, alone be made amenable for similar offences
if committed within the British dominions, though acts
done by them elsewhere can be given in evidence against
them, not on account of any inherent turpitude they may
possess, but as tending to explain the nature, whether
innocent or otherwise, of the specific acts alleged against
them. In order, therefore, rays the Post, to bring
Nagle, who is an American citizen by birth, within the
operation of the statute, it is incumbent on the counsel
for the Crown to shew that he has committed some
act of treason-felony within her Majesty's dominions,
although they are at liberty to prove acts done in America
if they are of opinion that by force of connection they will
tend to establish the criminality of the act or acts alleged
in the indictment. If Nagle effected a landing in Ireland
with the object of subverting the established Government,
then the proof of such an act would be sufficient to render
him amenable to British jurisdiction, but as no such act is
relied upon by the prosecution, it becomes. material to
determine whether acts which would amount to treason-
felony if committed on British ground constitute the same
offence if committed on board an American private ship
when sailing or anchored in British waters. This is the
sole point of any importance which is raised on the present
trial, and it certainly is not one which is so utterly im-
material as some persons are inclined to imagine.
The riots of 1866 in favour of Reform seem to the Daily
Trews likely to be followed by outbreaks this year against the
Reform Act. The destruction of the railings of Hyde Park
hi assertion of the supposed constitutional right to meet in
that enclosure, and with no stronger motive of personal feel-
ing than the attraction of Mr. Beales's eloquence and of
Reform League oratory in general, was but a slight affair
in comparison with the trouble which seems brewing in
Bethnal Green, Hackney, Shoreditch, and other
parts of East London. Since the Excise Act of
Walpole no measure so unpopular has been passed
as the clause of the Reform Act of 1867 which
abolishes the practice of compounding in parlia-
mentary boroughs. Already threatening demonstrations
against it have been made at Norwich, at Salisbury, and
in other parts of the country. The excitement has now
spread to London. The number in the several borough
and parishes of London who took advantage of the Small
Tenements Act may be counted by tens of thousands and
twenty thousands. The abolition of the practice of com-
pounding has had its inevitable consecence. Instead of
the reduced rate the full rate has been levied. The tax
has been increased ; and this change has taken place at a
time of wide-spread distress. The affair has become
serious. Mr. Disraeli will do well to yield gracefully, to
be beforehand with agitation and violence, and to con-
cede, as if voluntarily, what he cannot withhold and has
not even a pretext for refusing.

According to the Standard the brciad issue, in the
case of Langton v. Waite, recently before Vice-Chancellor
Malins, was, whether a person who takes stock in pledge
is allowed by the rules or customs of the Stock Exchange
to deal with it as he likes, without regard to the interests
of the pledgor. In common life, and between ordinary
people, we know that this contention could ,not be sup-
ported for an instant. Were it otherwise, no one could
mortgage a house or pawn a watch with Out incurring the
risk of losing it altogether, though the advance he obtained
was far below its value, and the purpose for which he
pledged it • was -to meet a merely temporary difficulty
which he had been able to tide over. But the defendant
set up a Stock Exchange rule and a Stock Exchange cus-
tom, in virtue of which he claimed to do what he liked
with what was only apparently and not actually his own.
his attempt, however, was unsuccessful. The rule relied
upon seems rather to condemn than to support the prac-
tice, and the evidence of custom, though conflicting, was
deemed by the Vice-Chancellor to preponderate in favour
of the plaintiff.

At the Dorsetshire markets last week the price
of beef ruled high, while the price of mutton was lower.
The weather was stated to be unfavourable to the turnip
crop. In that part of the country nitrate of soda was be-
coming a favourite manure. The use of nitrate of soda
was increased 30 per cent. last year.

NORTH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE ELECTION. - The
address of Mr. G. Ward Hunt to the electors of North
Northamptonshire, on his presenting himself for re-election,
"
is the briefest possible. Mr. Hunt says Her Majesty
having been graciously pleased to Confer upon me the office
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, my seat in Parliament is
now vacant, and I once more seek re-election at your
hands. I trust that I retain, as a Miniiter of the Crown,
the confidence which you have reposed in me as an inde-
pendent representative." There is at present no opposition
to Mr. Hunt's return.

L01:D CHANCELLORS' PENSIONS. —There seems to
b 2 it general belief that not more than four ex-Chancellors
can at the same time be in receipt of £5,000 a year. The
Act of the 2nd and :-hxl of William IV., cap. 111, enacts
iw limitation to the number of these pensions. It simply
provides that, in consideration of the abolition of certain
offices, " the patronage and gift of which belonged of right
to the Lord High Chancellor," it should be lawful for her
Majesty to grant to any person holding the office of Lord
High' Chancellor, or Keeper of the Great Seal, on his
retirement from the same, a pension for the term of his
natural life, not exceeding £5,000 per annum, Therefore,
by the appointment of Lord Cairns, no difference will be
made in respect of the pensions of the other ex-Chancellors,
namely, Lords Brougham, St. Leonards, eranwortb:
Westbury, and Chelmsford.