The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIO JOITRNALS.

Who, asks the Times, can hope ever to get to the
bottom of a genuine Irish row? When once it is fairly
roused and the combatants are in the heat of the fray, it
matters not whether words or shillelaghs be the weapons
of attack, there is no finding out the cause of the quarrel
or even of discriminating between the two sides engaged
in the conflict. A confused burly-burly is all that can be
seen. If the war be one of arms, you may see the
glancing of !cudgels and hear a crack or two amid the
hullabaloo, but the fight is a free fight, and men hit
right and left, without respect of persons, from the
mere love of fighting. If the contest be verbal, the
same disorder is closely observed. The arguments tumble
over one another. All discrimination of fact disappears.
Speaker answers speaker as he sees opportunity, without
even inquiring whether he is friend or foe, and not unfre-
quently without waiting for the advantage of silence.
There is the wildest extravagance of assertion and ap-
parently of belief, and when it is all over the deadly
enemies 'of five minutes before astonish bystanders by be-
coming the best of friends. Looking at the general
question involved in the debate, the leading journal
observes : It is perfectly clear from Lord Mayo's
comparison of the number of polling-places and
of electors in Irish and English counties that
the number of polling-places in Ireland is too
small in many counties, and it was not denied that
voters have in some parts to travel 23 miles to give a vote.
It was silently admitted also that complaints had been
made and difficulties had been found to exist in the way
of increasing the number of polling-places. What, then,
was the objection to the bill? Sir George Bowyer, who
as an Englishman, though sitting for an Irish borough, may
be pardoned the weakness of giving a reason, urged that the
magistrates would have too much power under it ; but this
reason will scarcely hold. According to the theory of
the present law, the magistrates appoint additional pol-
ling-places, subject to the approval of the Lord-Lieutenant
in Council ; according to the bill they were to assemble
and select additional places when authorised to do so by
the Lord-Lieutenant ; and it would have been very easy,
if this difference in procedure had been the sole objection,
to have added a proviso that no selection should
be valid until submitted to and approved by the
Lord-Lieutenant. The true secret appears to be that
the Irish Liberal members object to the increase
of polling-places at all. It seems to have been considered
that if the polling-places be brought too near the voter,
the voter can be more carefully " nursed" by his landlord
or his landlord's agent, and the usual incident of a
concerted rescue would not be so easily managed.
But if this were the true reason and we can
only guess at it why shouid it not have been
avowed ? Was it that the I r:sh members who opposed the
bill thought that to magnify the dependent condition of
the Irish voters now would be inconsistent with their pro-
posal to reduce the county franchise a month since ? By
the light of last night, to say nothing of previous expe-
rience, we cannot believe that any Irishman is afraid of
using inconsistent arguments, and the omission to give any
valid reason against the clauses so strenuously opposed
must be attributed to that strange perversity which says
everything that need not be said, and leaves unsaid what
would be really to the purpose.
The Standard declares that there is nothing which the
Irish Radical or Catholic members apprehend more than
any increase of facilities for recording votes at county elec-
tions. Their great chance, we may say their only hope,
of winning a contested county election rests upon the
intimidation they can bring to bear, by the agency of the
priests, upon the voters. Experience has proved that it
is not sufficient to curse all electors who may vote for
Conservative candidates from the altar on the previous
Sunday, bnt that the most effective and the safest way of
defeating a Conservative and loyal candidate is to
put the freeholders and occupiers who think of voting for
him in danger of their lives. This is easily effected by
instigating a large mob to assemble around the few polling-
places, or to lie in wait upon the principal roads for any
parties of electors who may be expected to come up with
the intention of voting for the Conservative candidate.
The fewer the number of polling-places, and the longer the
distances voters have to travel to reach them, the more
conveniently can these Radical arguments from the
bludgeon and the stone be applied, and it is quite in-
telligible, therefore, that the Irish Radical members
should regard with the greatest alarm the application
to Ireland of a principle admitted without any ques-
tion in England. Under the law as it at present
stands the Radicals have it pretty well their own way.
With a view to remedy the evil, Lord Mayo introduced
into the Registration Bill clauses which provided an effec-
tive means of establishing additional polling places
wherever the magistrates of the county assembled in special
s ssion might consider it advisable and the Privy Council
should be of opinion that sufficient grounds existed for
their establishment. When the Irish Radicals found Their
nearest interests threatened by this proposal to enable the
electors to give a free and unbiassed vote they hurried
back to London from their country seats in a very great
rage.

The Daily New 3 admits that the present machinery for
the alteration of polling-places in Ireland certainly is very
difficult to work.; the Opposition, it says, frankly admitted
that an amendment of the law is necessary. Ent why
could not the law of Ireland be placei precisely on the
same footing with that of England, leaving to the Courts
of Quarter Sessions the settlement of the changes in
polling places, or additions to their number, with an
ultimate veto vested in the Lord-Lieutenant in
Council ? Lord Mayo has proposed a plan of
legislation wholly exceptional, and liable to excite suspi-
cion in the minds of the people. The bill proposes to
enact that the changes in question shall be determined,
not in quarter sessions, but at a special sessions, convened
at ten days' notice, for the discussion of this subject only.
It is obvious that this scheme is pregnant with conse-
quences most dangerous to the freedom and purity of
elections in Ireland. It would place in the hands of the
Irish magistracy—that is to say, the Irish landlords—the
power of putting the screw on their tenantry more effec-
tually than they have ever hitherto been able to do. It
is an altogether inexcusable attempt to mete out to Ire-
land a different measure of justice from that which is
accorded to England.

The Post enlarges upon the service rendered by the select
committee appointed to consider the Electric Telegraphs
Bill. The principal service rendered by the committee
has not been so much that it has established the merits
of the bill, as that it has disposed entirely of all the
objections which have been brought against it. It is to
be observed that none of these objections struck at
the broad principle upon which the measure is founded,
but that they were aimed solely and exclusively at
the practical details of the scheme by which it was
proposed to be carried into effect. In the face of
the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it
would indeed have been useless to deny that the
assumption of the telegraph service by the State must
result here, as it has elsewhere, in great advantages to the
public, and thus the opponents of the plan have had to fall
back upon details. All the arguments which had ever
been urged against the bill itself were finally and satisfac-
torily disposed of, and it was established as being beyond
contradiction, a measure at the same time most desirable
in principle and perfectly unobjectionable in detail. But
there remained the question of the terms on which the
Government was to obtain possession of the telegraphs ; and
as in a matter of bargain there is always room for differ-
ence of opinion, it is upon this that the opponents of the
measure have made their laststand after being overthrown
upon every other point they have urged. A little atten-
tion, however, to the course which this part of the discus-
sion has taken will show that the objections based upon it
have as little foundation as all the rest. Twenty years'
purchase cannot be considered a bad bargain for the State,
especially when it is remembered that the Government
can raise the money for the purchase at three and a half
per cent., and that it will get at least five per cent. return
upon its investment in this manner. Thus the last objec-
tion to the measure is disposed of, and it is to be hoped
that it will be passed into law, so as to enable us to reap
the benefits of it with as little delay as possible.
The Telegraph, while vindicating the right of public
meeting, is rather indignant with the" demonstrators" of
Sunday. When (says our contemporary) we have to con-
template an unmistakable fiasco like that perpetrated by
Messrs. Finlen, Wade, Thomas, and their colleagues, it
is time to declare that the right of public meeting must be
respected by the humbler classes as well as by the higher.
We frankly confess that the first of the three whom we
have mentioned is scarcely a person to make the cause of
justice to Ireland purer or more dignified by his pre-
sidency. lie may be a misunderstood man; but the
associations coupled with his name in the public memory
are not exactly those which should attach to the
spokesman of London artisans when they are about to
exercise their new privilege of citizenship. Thus unfor-
tunate in their leadership, the promoters of those demon-
strations are further guilty of having demonstrated
nothing. It is as absurd to call the handful of spectators
in Hyde Park on Sunday a gathering of " the people," as
it is to doubt that the people are heart and soul with Mr.
Gladstone, and thoroughly bent upon disestablishrneut
and disenclowinent. Of this last fact we are so perfectly
well satisfied that we scorn t > hide our condemna-
tion of such half-baked batches of political effort.
Certainly there was nothing to be concluded from
such a " one-horse" show of heads as that of
Sunday last; but where our opponents are believed, we
also claim the right to be satisfied, as true Liberals. We
should have been sorry to see success achieved under the
guidance of individuals who— in a very strict sense—have
no moral right to take the guidance of honest working
men. Far better fail absurdly, with such a burlesque of
representation, and such lamentable and un-English ideas
of political warfare, than achieve the object. The break-
down of such an ill-considered business 'as Sunday's,
cannot possibly injure .the Liberal campaign hut a
" triumphant success " would hay 2 lii* A 9141114
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