The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-19 00:00:00

second son to whom he could transmit the crown, or if the
Spaniards cannot brook the idea of being ruled by a
Portuguese, there is no reason why King Ferdinand, who
is in the prime of life, should not give them a new
dynasty of their own by a second marriage. There
remains the question, will King Ferdinand accept the
crown if the Spaniards offer it to him? We believe that
he will; not from any desire for a position of so much diffi-
culty, but because he feels that by accepting it he can
serve the interests of the Peninsula, whose fortunes he has

made his own ; and we trust that Spain, once assured
that she will not have to suffer the idignity of seeing the
crown she offers refused, will call him to rule over her,
and thus give her well-wishers fresh cause to believe in a
brilliant future.

The Daily News notes that the Quarterly Review has
made it up with Mr. Disraeli, and is enrolled in that
literary lifeguard of Tory-Radicalism which includes
Blackwood and Judy, the Standard and the John Bull, the
Globe and the St. James's Chronicle. The old oracle of

Conservatism has wilfully shut his eyes to that which it
plainly saw last year. If we recollect rightly, it then.
asked why Mr. Disraeli should not play with the ChurcL
the game which he had played with the State. It could
find no reassuring answer then, and it is unable
to suggest one now. But it is resolved to have
faith. No doubt when, to outbid his rivals, Mr. Disraeli
proposes that the Established Church in Ireland should be
deprived, not only of the wealth which it owes to the-
State, but of that which it has derived from private
benefactors, without regard in either case to vested
interests, and that the funds thence accruing shall be
handed over in mass to the Roman Catholic Church ; or.
perhaps, that the words England and Scotland be inserted
before the word Ireland in Mr. Gladstone's disestablishing
bill, the Quarterly Review will once more feel itself
betrayed, and will again appeal to the high moralities,
and hysterically denounce the profanation of them.
But Mr. Disraeli will have his excuse. It is
necessary, he will say, that the question should be
settled once for all on a permanent basis. The unworthy
scepticism of those timid spirits who are afraid of trusting
a people with the guardianship of their own religion, if
disestablishment throughout the United Kingdom is the
Conservative policy ; or who are so ungenerous as to
refuse to connedt the Irish State with the faith of the
Irish nation, if the establishment of Roman Catholicism
is deemed the surest security against being ousted, will
be deprecated or denounced with indignant or melanchol
scorn.

The Post says the Democrats have been the first to
admit the significance of the defeat they have sustained
at the elections in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, by the
precipitation with which they propose to substitute Chief
Justice Chase for Mr. Seymour as candidate for the
Presidentship. Such a course is, we believe, without a
precedent, and cannot result otherwise than in failure.
Whether the selection of the Chief Justice in the first
instance would have made any sensible difference in the
results of the recent elections may be open to dis-
cussion, but there can be no doubt that his nomi-
nation at the eleventh hour, when several States
have already voted on• the assumption that a
different candidate commanded the confidence of the
Democratic party, must end in the discomfiture of that
faction. In the necessity of things, some choice must be

made in the first instance of the individual most likely to
receive the suffrages of either party in the State, and that
choice once made should be considered final. It is, how-
ever, this finality which the Democratic chiefs now seek to
destroy by the strange expedient which they suggest, and
by so doing, whilst, so far as we can see, adding nothing
to their chances of success in the pending contest, they
will render the decisions of all future conventions unsafe,
and leave their own partisans on future occasions int
a state of the most hopeless uncertainty respecting
the particular individual for whom their support is
solicited.

The Herald remarks that the Irish Catholic priesthood
seem bent upon the extension of their political power, and
the ensuing election is to be taken as a test of their success.
and so far as matters have as yet gone their triumph would
appear to be complete. Those candidates who have not
accepted their conditions are contumeliously set aside, or
at least deprived of their sanction and support. It only
remains to be seen whether or not the electors will ratify
their decisions when the day of trial arrives. That those con-
ditions are of the most stringent nature is evidenced
by the recent proceedings in Cork, Queen's County,
and Galway. On former occasions persons seeking
a seat in the House of Commons at their hands were
rarely, if ever, asked to pledge themselves to one particular
line of conduct in Parliament, and unswervingly to pursue
the undefined policy of any particular statesman, no matter
where or to what conclusions it might lead them.
"Measures, not men," was heretofore the motto generally
inscribed on the banners of the Irish representatives of the
Liberal party, and being only bound to introduce or
support certain specific questions, which they perfectly
well knew were unattainable, they enjoyed on all other
occasions a sort of liberty of action, of which those
amongst them possessing the most moderate talents
availed themselves to profit their own personal interests.
The Herald thinks the Irish members are likely to bi
simply delegates of the Catholic bishops. Their number
may not be large, but a compact body of some thirty
votes, always in readiness to obey commands, cannot fail
to make its influence felt in a division, and thus i'
may very well happen that our national policy on some
momentous occasion will be determined indirectly by the
unconstitutional power exercised by the Roman Catholic,

hierarchy.
The Star commends the plan of Mr. Gladstone's cam,
paign in South-West Lancashire. Referring especially to .
the right hon. gentleman's speech on the Irish Church
Commission, the Star says Mr. Gladstone put into a clear
and compendious form some of the obvious and radical
objections to the plan of the commission. Believing the
bishops of the Irish Church to be men of honour, soli.
citous for the dignity no less than for the mate-
rial prosperity of their Church, we feel that Mr.
Gladstone only does towards ustice in creditino• them with a
feeling of repulsion the half-hearte'd cutting and
carving of the commission. The introduction of one
of the " points of the Charter," the payment of mem•
bers, by the allocation of £5OO a year to the travelling
bishop sent away from the duties of his office tc
lounge in the House of Peers, cannot be grateful
,enleel thoughcwith
complacency
to the feelings of Conservative Churchmen. Nor
theca
dominant
Irishmen,
casetev
map
yy onb a
belong to
position for the transfer of the tithe property of the
poorest and most Catholic parishes • m Munster and Con.
naught to the wealthy districts of the metropolitan county,
or " the Black North." And certainly, after the admirably
reasoned and exhaustive reply of Mr. Gladstone to those
who charge him with favouring Popery, we do not see
how Irish Churchmen can fail any longer to discern tht
fact that the real danger to Protestantism lies in the
policy of the Tories, and not in that of Mr. Gladstone.