The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

,the Times refers to the remarks of the AmericanAmbas-
satior as to the different degrees of liberty, and "proceeds
to apply it to the Hyde-park demonstration. The pro-
posed ..," demonstration" was so notoriously disgraceful
that it was repudiated beforehand by all the organisations
hitherto connected with such exhibitions. It was scouted
by the Reform League. It was denounced in terms of
unequivocal abomination by the "Representative Irish-
men." All those who had been engaged in previous
" demonstrations" discerned at a glance the injury
which'. would occur to the system from such a carica-
ture as this. A branch of the Reform League has
actually held a meeting at which it was acknowledged
that the proceedings on Sunday afternoon were calculated
to destroy the right of public meeting altogether, and to
bring "demonstrations" into utter disrepute. The
Leaguers, in fact, recorded their " detestation " of the
chief mover in the matter, and would, it is evident, have
liked nothing better than to disperse the mob themselves.
Yet, for all this, the proceedings were permitted. 11
th,,usand " demonstrators" or to were allowed to take
possession of Hyde Park, and there, in language of the foulest
kind, to spout treason as long as anybody chose to listen to
them. This is a caricature of English liberty.
No good would be done by prosecuting it promoters.
Nevertheless, there is a point beyond which it
may prove unsafe to go, and it is as well to point
out to these people that one result of a Reformed
Parliament will be a Government hampered with
fewer scruples in preserving public order. A strong
Government is in reality not so much a Government
possessed of strength as a Government bold enough to
exert it. Parliament now represents all classes ; the State
in future will be the people organised, and there will be no
occasion for the working men to hold political demonstra-
tions to influence the representatives of the people.
The Post has a leader upon Cornish politics and
Captain Vivian's speech. It is manifest that those who
retain " professional bowlers " are responsible for their
exploits, and that the degradation of a great party must
be the consequence of its own misconduct, its own miserA
prehension of duty, or of its own infirmity of purpose. Dir.
Disraeli " educated" the Conservatives because they,
in a manner, paid for their schooling ; and if it is
true that he led them to a "leap in the dark," it is
true that they followed him like a flock of sheep.
The exceptions prove the rule. Lords Salisbury and
Carnarvon, and General Peel—all who shook the dust
from their feet and saved their political honour—are
Tories who may still "shed a tear on the grave of
Bolingbroke," and, perchance, yet redeem a mortgaged
and wasted inheritance. But the lesson of the victory of
the Liberal party in Cornwall, and the moral of the defeat
of their political opponents, are contained in the words of
the old song quoted by Captain Vivian—
" Do what is right, whatever people say,
Honesty, in the end, will be sure to have the day."

The Standard thinks autobiographies written in the
lifetime of their subjects must necessarily be more or less
in the nature of apologies. They are, if not precisely acts
of suicide, at least excuses for living. For a public man
to take the world into the secrets of his conscience is
tantamount to an admission that, in the face of it, his
career is not able to explain itself. A politician who baS
lived nearly forty years in the full glare of publicity is the
last of whom autobiographical chapters should be expected.
There should be nothing to explain—nothing at least that
is not plainly explicable—in the acts of one who deliberately
started in life with politics as a profession. The states-
man should be no more required to help us to the motive
of his work than the painter or the musician. The very
necessity of such aid is a proof and a confession of failure.
Statesmanship should tell its own story ; and if it is
unable to do so, then it is but a clumsy and imperfect
statesmanship. Public life would be intolerable if every
one of the actors insisted on being his own chorus—in
letting us behind the scenes of his conduct—in putting his
own gloss upon the transactions in which he was engaged.
The pamphlet is nothing more than an election squib. It
was a paper written simply to turn the votes upon the
polling-clay for South-West Lancashire. It could not
have been intended as an appeal to truth and justice ; for
if so, it would have been issued, not in this clandestine
manner, but fairly and openly, while there was yet time
for a full discussion of the subject-matter before the
election. As it is, this publication is an attempt to
smuggle in some ex-parte evidence on behalf of the
politician whose conduct is on trial, in such a manner as
to give the other side no opportunity of cross-examination.
The Daily News draws a comparison between the cases
of Sir R. Peel and Mr. Gladstone. To some persons it I
may seem that Mr. Gladstone would have done well to
follow Sir Robert's example of silent and Spartan forti-
tude. But there is a difference between the two cases.
Sir Robert Peel's vindication could not have been pub-
lished in his lifetime. Official documents, the records of
Cabinet meetings, private and confidential letters were
essential to it. Mr. Gladstone's pieces justificatires lie in
his published writings, in Parliamentary speeches, in letters
made public by others than himself, in the voluntary testi-
mony'of such men as Sir Roun dell Pnlmerand Mr. Coleridge.

In the book whence have been drawn the chief attacks
upon him, and in a speech delivered two years earlier.
Mr. Gladstone had stated an alternative. The course of
events dosed one branch of it, and left him not only free,
but under obligation to follow the other. This point
established, the personal charges levelled against him
cease to have any application. He has no more share in
them than that which attaches to the great majority of his
countrymen. The reasons which have led Mr. Gladstone
to think that the State establishment of Protestantism
in Ireland is injurious to true religion and fraught
with social evil are stated by him with admirable
force, and the considerations by which he distinguishes
the position of the Church in Ireland from that of the
Church in England are not less cogent and discriminating.
But the nation has expressed its sense of their validity,
and there is no need to dwell upon them now ; nor on the
biographic and literary interest which attaches to the
writer's allusions to Lord Macaulay and Lord Derby, to
Sidney Smith, to Newman, Pusey, and Keble, and to the
Oxford of his youth. They give a charm to this " Chapter
of Autobiography," but have no direct political bearing.
The Morning Summary is disappointed with the
pamphlet, and cannot think its publication will benefit
the writer with his party. In all he says as to the great
revival of Church life in England we cordially agree, but
Mr. Gladstone overlooks in this appeal, evidentlyaddressed
to his High Church supporters, the circumstance that the
manner in which he and his friends divided the High
Church party into hostile political camps mainly con-
duced to bring about the unhappy results which he
laments ; and he likewise abstains from commenting on
the significant fact that he, of all statesmen, the Church-
man—as this pamphlet shows--is now the idol of Non-
conformists, Infidels, and Atheists; and that ultra-High-
Churchmen and Roman Catholics are simply making a
tool of him for their own purposes, and nothing is more
evident than that the logical conclusion of his argu.
ment tells equally against the English as the Irish Esta-
blishment.

The Star remarks that Mr. Gladstone's book on Church
and State contemplated a Church State rather than a
State Church, and proposed a political enthronement of
religion such as might amuse the leisure of Bunsen or
Arnold, but could never enter into the arrangements of
English statesmen, however devoted to the Church
of England. It now appears that as soon as Macaulay's
review appeared, Mr. Gladstone found it necessary
to admit, and even assert, a wide exception to one
of his principal theories, and the theory to which
he clung—namely, that the propagation of religious
truth is one of the principal ends of Government, as
Government—had to be surrendered as impracticable as
soon as Mr. Gladstone deemed it the duty of Government,
as Government, to give a grant to Maynooth College.
Men of a narrow churchwarden type of mind, such as Mr.
Hardy, think it quite consistent to hold the light of the
Reformation in one hand and the dark lantern of Popery
in the other. But Mr. Gladstone was never a man of this
order.

TRE TEA TRADE.—The deliveries in London
'estimated for the week were 1,278,3961 b., which is a
decrease of 103,63.51 b., compared with the previous state-
ment.

Colonel the Hon. F. A. Thesiger, of the 95th
Regiment, late Deputy-Adjutant-General of the Abys-
sinian expedition, is said to have been appointed Adjutant-
!General of the Indian army, in place of Colonel H. E.
Longden, C. 8., who from failing health resigns that post
from March next.
PAROCHIAL INNOVATION IN THE MOUT DIREC-
iioN.—The guardians of St. Pancras have determined to
give coals, as relief in kind, as well as bread and meat, to
the out-door poor, and to make arrangements for this pur-
pose with local coal-dealers, who are to be paid weekly,
and the cost of the coal deducted from the amount of
r..lief now given in money. This arrangement will be
advantageous to the poor people, as it was stated they now
paid £2 a ton for their coals, and the only objection raised
to it was on the part of one of the guardians that it would
interfere with private charts.

THE HOUSE OF STANLEY AND THE REPRESENTA-
TION OF LANCASIIIRE.—The Preston Chronicle says:—
" The Muse of Stanley seems to be indissolubly associated
with the representation of the county of Lancaster. The
present Earl of Derby, his father, grandfather, great-
grandfather, and great-great-grandfather have each repre-
sented the county in Parliament, and on Friday the Hon.
y, A. Stanley, a member of the sixth generation in direct
Succession, was returned one of its members at the head of
the poll. Members of the House of Stanley have sat for
the county, with occasional intermissions, since the time of
ZOWY.D7_I"4

THE LATE SPEAKE.RON PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

Mr. Denison, the late and probable future Speaker of
;he House of Commons, in his speech on the busting; took
t wise course. Instead of entering into a wearisome
review of the past session," he gave out his idea of what
should be done in future sessions. Referring to the
gassing of the Reform Act, he said s " I am a loyal
subject of the Queen, and I wish to maintain the existing
corm of our government and institutions. Now, what
's the best means of reconciling the old and the new
state of things ? In my opinion, the best means
s to take into friendly counsel all those to whom the
'ranchise has been granted ; to ask people what are their
wishes and desires, and to consult with them for their own
and the general good. Now, with regard to the manufac-
;Taring districts, there are the great questions of arranging
the relations between capital and labour, and I trust that
the good sense and the growing intelligence of the
:•ounmunity are proposing to do this by amicable means
and friendly counsels, instead cf by the mere contests
of brute force. There are the questions of local rates—
what is to be the incidence of those rates, and who are to
administer them. I shall be happy to try and arrange
the best plan for the occupying tenant to take his share in
that administration. On another question I have myself a
very strong feeling indeed. I mean the great public injury
to localities, and the almost national misfortune of an
excessive increase and protection of game. I have
not the smallest doubt that all resident gentlemen who
take part in the public duties of the county and
administer their affairs in a friendly manner with their
neighbours, will always have and command a just influence
and power. But as power has now been given generally
to the people they will very properly desire to have a
free exercise of the franchise, and if that free exercise is not
granted, some provision—it may be some which I should
not myself at all approve—will have to be made to secure
for them a fair and just exercise of those privileges. This
is the way in which I should desire to see the old and the
new state of things brought in harmony together ; and I
have no doubt these are the sort of principles which you
desire your representatives should possess."

TAE MARQUIS OF BARTINGTON ON HIS

DEFEAT.

Lord Hartington, the rejected of North Lancashire,
took rather a curious step on the declaration of the poll.
He came forward and addressed the electors. He thanked
the constituency for the confidence they had reposed in him
for eleven years ; and declared that he now cheerfully
gave way. "I am not here to make any complaints or
imputations as to my opponents. I know that in many
quarters very strong denials have been put forth that any
pressure or undue influence has been used. I sincerely
hope they are true, and I am not here, I say, to make any
statements which I am not in a position to prove ; but
in justice to my own friends I must say, that whether it
has been the case or not, there did exist among them
very strong impressions that they would not be permitted,
for fear of the consequences, to record their votes in my
favour ; and if that impression had not existed, I think I
should have polled a larger proportion of the votes than I
have done. Of course, I cannot observe without regret that
for the first time in our history Lancashire has to a certain
extent separated herself from the policy of the party with
which she has usually been associated. I will not
attempt to explain the causes of the separation. I
trust they have only been temporary. I believe
they are in a measure due to the prevalence of a very
strong religious and Protestant feeling in this county.
Although I think that the religious and Protestant feeling
has in this instanoe to a certain extent been misdirected, I
cannot regret the existence of such feeling in a great
country like this ; but I hope and believe that when Lan-
cashire sees, as I think she will shortly see, that the policy
of the Liberal party is not conceived in any spirit of
hostility either to the Protestant religion or to the English
Establishment, she will then return to her old allegiance."