The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT Ok' THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times thinks Mr. Childers proves his charge in his
able speech of Thursday. The force is undeniable of Mr.
Childers' suggestion, that the increased outlay which gives
the army more veteran soldiers, a better class of recruits,
and weapons of precision, renders it possible to balance the
expenditure by reducing the number of men, without les.
Bening the military strength of the empire. But Mr.
Childers' principle itself, that each new charge should have
its new economy, is stronger that any particular instance.
It is the rule of a well-ordered household, and applies
equally to a State. The failure in an Administration to
'recognise its authority would be unpardonable at any
time, but it is especially offensive in a Government which
has forced itself so persistently upon the country as a
model of administrative capacity. The favourite
excuse of all Governments for extravagance is that
parliament drives them towards it. That is so. Every
private member or section of members has in
charge some costly crotchet of his or their constituents,
and will advocate it as one of the novelties which are
necessary. But it is the primary duty of Government,
and only secondarily that of private members, to criticise
inexorably both old and new claimants for a share in the
expenditure. A weak Government, however, has not the
courage to make enemies by lopping off unfruitful branches
of expenditure, and an inexperienced Government is
inclined to be the worst offender itself. The present
Government may plead that the Liberal Government
could not, any more than itself, have saved in the last two
years. But a nation has a rough way of inferring the
future from the past in the matter of choosing a statesman,
and is apt to fancy that in finance good fortune and
sagacity are never far apart.

With scarcely an exception, observes the Morning
Herald, the revising barristers have shown themselves
.laudibly anxious to favour enfranchisement, whenever
none but technical objections can be urged against it.
The most important of these have been cases in which
overseers had failed to describe fully the qualification of
each claimant, contenting themselves with inserting a
description at the head of a column, and putting
" ditto, ditto," or a row of dots, against every other
name. Now, as neither a " ditto " nor a dot is a qualifica-
tion, every voter so described ought, in strictness, to
have been struck out, but as no one insisted upon it,
the revisors stretched a point, and allowed the names
to stand. In the same direction went the decision of
Mr. Bathurst at Hackney, that a lodger who occupies
a bed-room, with the use of a sitting-room, is entitled
to vote in respect of the former only, provided the
same be of sufficient value. Mr. Bacon, at Chelsea, took
the opposite view, and disallowed the claims of lodgers
who had bedrooms of their own for which they paid more
than a qualifying rent because they took their meals with
the family in another part of the premises. But it seems
rather hard to say that no lodger shall have a vote unless
he chooses to take his breakfast in bed and his dinner on
his dressing-table.

Whilst the Telegraph regards the recommendations of
the commissioners as superseded by recent events, it still
recognises much that is valuable in the report itself. Its
information as to the property of the Churchis particularly
welcome at the present stage of the discussion. The
details render it evident that there can be no insuperable
difficulty in dealing with the various sources of revenue. !
The commissioners remark that " the property of the
Church has been derived from various sources before and
since the Reformation ;" and they insert in an appendix
all the particulars which they have been able to
obtain respecting the amounts obtained from royal
or parliamentary grants, or from gift by private
individuals. Now, surely there cannot be any real diffi-
culty in separating the donations of private persons from
the grants made by Parliament ; or in distinguishing
between the product of free-will offerings by individuals—
the purpose of which can be established from the interpre-
tation that any legal tribunal puts upon the terms of the
deed of gift—and those revenues which represent endow-
ments made by the nation, or imposts levied through
legislative sanction. Again, as regards the tithe rent-
charge—which is generally assumed to be a distinct though
indirect burden on the agriculturalist occupiers--it is pos-
sible that the seventeenth recommendation of the com-
missioners, to the effect that owners of land subject
to rentcharge should be empowered to redeem their
liability, may suggest a mode of meeting one of the diffi-
culties raised by disestablishment. When the question of
disendowment comes to assume body and shape, it may be
found that the gradual redemption and cepitalisirg of the
rentc'aarge may provide a ready means of dealing with
vested interests, and at the same time cf conferring mate
rial benefit on Ireland. These results, however, are as yet
in the future. Alth,ugh the suggestions in the report
come too late to furnish the practical solution of the
problem, the document will indirectly furnish great assis-
tance both during the debate on the Irish Church and the
shaping of the final legislative measure.
The Daily News says the report is a monument of con-
scientious, but wasted labour. The House of Commons
has taken the matter into its own hands ; and the country
will presently deal with it on princip:es and aims very
different from those which, iu accordance with their
in6tructions, the commissioners were bound to regard.
These gentlemen were practically asked to devise
means for making Protestant ascendancy snore
secure in Ireland, and fur giving perpetuity
to the exclusive privileges of a small minority
of the population. The Ifouse of Commons,
reflecting, we believe, the deliberate purpose of the people
of the United Kingdom, has resolved that the ecclesiastical
privileges of the minority shall cease, and that religious
equality shall be substituted for Protestant ascendancy.
If this be the national temper and purpose, the recom-
mendations of the report are a simple irrelevance.
Whether the recommendations of the commis.
sioners will be adopted by the Government, the
Government itself probably does not yet know.
No .one can conceive—not even the bishops and deans
whose sees and deaneries are spared—that the plan would
close controversy even for a moment. It would renew and
embitter strife, and keep open a question any settlement
of which they must feel to be better for them than pro-
tracted uncertainty. But, whatever may be thought of
the scheme in Irish ecclesiastical circles, it is scarcely
within the field of serious political discussion. It is as
obsolete as Lord Russell lately found Mr. Pitt's plan of
paying the priests to be.

The Post concludes from the speech of the King of
Prussia that the line of the Maine represents the limitation
of a principle which cannot in the nature of things be cir-
cumscribed. The Maine, passed as it has been by military
conventions and commercial contracts, is a mere paper
boundary. German unity exists in an indisputable
shape, and the fact is better than the name.
The Germans have bound themselves together,
and a bond which consists with their interests can
be maintained by their forces. Menaced with aggression
from without, or with intervention in their internal affairs,
their patriotism would rise as a wave and sweep over all
that remains of an illusory time-bargain. When the
German powers were permitted to compass the dismember-
ment of Denmark this result should have been foreseen ;
but, now that the principle involved in the annexation of
the Elbe Duchies to Germany has been conceded, it would
be illogical and more than a political fault to attempt to
impede its development.

On the subject of machinery the Congress passed a reso-
lution to the effect that " the development of machinery
creates the material conditions necessary for the supersed-
ing of the wages system by a truly sccial system of pro-
duction." The Standard wishes the Congress had spoken
more definitely on this point. It did not, it is true, 1
directly propose to confiscate capital and bestow it upon
the workman, nor did it air any of those pretty theories
about the possession of property of any kind being theft,
with which the world has long been familiar. Still,
it did not say straightforwardly and bluntly that the
capital required to carry out the resolution we have quoted
waslo come from the savings of the working man, and from
those savings only. Hence (in a former article) we felt it in-
cumbent on us to insist all the more strongly upon a point
of pkimary importance. The discussions which have since
been held on the subject of private property iu land more
than justify our caution and our protests. It is the veriest
sophistry in the world to draw any distinction between
the right of absolute ownership in land and the right of
absolute ownership in any other species of property. Con-
sidering the period in the world's life and that of human
civilisation at which we have now arrived, and the number
of times that all land, in Europe at least, has changed
hanks, it can honestly be regarded in no other light than
that in which we are bound to look at any other accumu-
lation of the results of man's industry. This being the
case, if capital can fairly be taken away from its possessor,
either in a lump sum or in the form of taxation, in order
to bestow it upon a body of artisans, land no doubt can
be fairly taken away for the same purpose. But if such
a proceeding would be downright robbery. the first case,
it would equally be downright robbery in the second.
That is why we should so much like to have had an un-
mistakeable opinion from the Congress as to the right or
wrong of ridding the capitalist of his accumulated savings.
Another quarter of the year, says the Daily News, is
drawing to a close without that revival in trade which has
been so long and so anxiously locked for. For many years
the autumn has been regarded as the time when commer-
cialuctivity is most likely to recommence. especially after
a protracted period of distrust and stagnation. Equally in
1868 as in 1867 these hopes present little chance of fufil-
meet. At certain intervals a few signs have appeared
which promised a gradual awakening from the present
lethargy. Thus far they have, on the other hand, been
productive of nothing but disappointment. The repn.ts
from the manufacturing districts afford conclinive
proof that the business of our great industrial centres is yet
far from recovering its former healthy tone. 'The position
of the London money market again shows how little capital
is needed. Money is coming in from all quarters, and
there is no outlet for its satisfactory employment. Merchants
and manufacturers refrain from borrowing money, since
they cannot profitaLly use it. A formidable anti appa-
rently irremovable drawback to the revival of confidence
rests in the continued tension of political affairs. Scarcely
a day elapses without some peaceful reassurance, sufh-
ciently alarming in itself, and safe to be followed by a ,1
warlike article or speech on the morrow. These tactics
only serve to prolong the uncertainty of suspense ; and
uncertainty, as we all know. is fatal to the prosperity of
commerce.

LORD DERBY ON THE IRISH CHURCH,

The following correspondence appears in the Standard :
" Knowsley, Sept. 15, 1868.

"Dear Sir James,—l have just read a speech delivered
by you as chairman of a public meeting in support of Mr.
Gladstone's contemplated disestablishment and disendow-
meat of the Protestant Church in Ireland, in which I
find the following passage :--1 They had, even in Lord
Derby's time, in 1834, ten bishoprics suppressed by him,
and twenty-five per cent. of the tithes given to the
landlords in Ireland. That was done by the will of
the Legislature, and with the sanction of the late Tory
Premier, by an act exactly corresponding in its character
and objects to that which was at present contemplated in
regard to the Irish Church.' Assuming this to be a correct
report, and being sure that you are incapable of intentional
misrepresentation, I may be allowed to refresh your
memory by a reference to facts, which will, I think, con-
vince you that in the above statement you have been led
into more than one material error. It is quite true that
in 1833 (not 1834) I carried an Act by which ten Irish
bishopri were prospectively suppressed ; but it is also
true that every shilling of the income of those sees was
vested in commissioners to be applied exclusively to
ecclesiastical purposes, and mainly to the erection
of new churches and the improvement of the condition of
the parochial clergy. What possible similarity can there
be between the 'character and objects' of such a measure,
and of one which confiscates, and applies to secular pur-
poses, the entire property of the Establishment? Let me
add that in the following year I quitted the Government
of Lord Grey rather than be a party to a measure which
recognised the principle of the alienation of Church pro-
perty, which Mr. Gladstone is seeking to carry out to the
utmost extent.

"It may be admitted that the other Act to which you
refer, by which 25 per cent. was paid to the landlords, was
*an exorbitant sum to demand in consideration of the
transfer of liability for tithe rentcharge from their tenants
to themselves ; but even that measure affords no justifica-
tion for Mr. Gladstone's. It was of the nature of an
insurance, extravagant no doubt in amount, by which the
clergyman obtained a better security for the receipt of a
smaller income. But be that as it may, lamin no way
responsible for it ; I neither passed it, nor sanctioned it.
It was carried by the Whig Government of Lord J.
Russell, not only after I had ceased to be a member of
the Government, but after the defeat of the short-lived
Administration of Sir Robert Peel in 1835. The mea-
sure which I had carried on this subject was of a
very different character ; it transferred the liability pro-
spectively, as each lease or tenancy fell in from the tenant
to the landlord, without any deduction whatever, but it
allowed a drawback of eleven per cent. to every landlord
who should anticipate his legal liability by assuming it at
once ; an allowance not more than equivalent to the cost of
'collection and the risk, which in those days was not incon-
siderable.

" I have not been in the habit of noticing any misrepre-
sentations of my public conduct, and if in this instance I
have departed from my usual course, I have done so from
an unwillingness that you should remain under your
present misapprehension, and from a conviction that, after
reading the above, you will be satisfied that, whatever
else may be said in favour of Mr. Gladstone's contemplated
measure, its character and objects' do not only not
exactly correspond with,' but are directly at variance
with those of any Act which has ever received my
' sanction.'

" The matter is of little importance as affecting the
merits of the question ; but, personally, I hope I am not
presuming too much upon your candour in expecting from
you an acknowledgment that my authority, whatever may
be its importance, cannot fairly be adduced hi support
a measure to which I entertain, on principle, the stronger'
possible objections.

"As your speech was made at a public meeting, you
will not, I hope, think it unreasonable that, unless you
render it unnecessary, I should reserve the right of making
equally public this letter and any answer which you may
send me.—l am, dear Sir James, yours truly,
" Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, Bart."

"DEBBY.

" Barton, Kirkby Lonsdale, Sept. 17, 1868.

"Dear Lord Derby,—Your letter, dated the 15th
instant, and addressed to Gawthorpe, reached me this
morning.

"I hope to reply in harmony with the courtesy which
gives me credit for being incapable of intentional mis-
representation. The object of my speech was to shew
how great and various have been the changes in the
appropriation of ecclesiastical property in every part of
the United Kingdom, and that those changes have—
where they have expressed the will of the Legislature
—in no degree whatever shaken the security of private
property, whether the revenues were redistributed within
the churches affected, or transferred to other religious
bodies, or secularised.

" I adduced from memory, among other examples, the
measures by which the Irish bishoprics were suppressed,
and 25 per cent. of the Irish tithes were given to the land-
lords. I made your lordship responsible for both those
Acts.

For my immediate objects, the suppression of the Irish
bishoprics, and the appropriation of their revenues to
other ecclesiastical purposes, is a sufficient illustration of
the exercise of the will of the Legislature for a just pur-
pose, without disturbance to the security of private
property.

" But I was in error, if, in speaking of this appropria-'
tion, I said that it exactly corresponded in its character
and objects with the proposal of ➢Tr. Gladstone, for it
was confined to a redistribution of the revenues within
the Irish Church. My justification is, that my argument
was founded on a much broader basis than the distinc-
tions between ecclesiastical and private property ; and this
led me, in the brief and incidental allusion which I made
to your lordship's measure, to overlook a difference between
them and Mr. Gladstone's proposals which was
immaterial to my argument.

"As respects the amount of the drawback allowed the
landlord who should anticipate his legal liability by as-
suming it at once, I confess that in the hurry of speaking
I confounded the measure which your lordship carried
with that which received the assent of the Legislature at a
later date. Both Acts were based on the assumption hat
the State might give to the landlord a sum equivalent to
the cost of collection.

" I shall rejoice that your lordship should make public
this correspondence, as nothing could he further from my
intentions than to misrepresent you.—l am, dear Lord
Derby, yours truly,

" JAMES P. KAY SiItiTTLEWORTM
:` The Earl of Derby, K.G."