The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-10 00:00:00

rBE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 10 1344.

PRIVY COUNCIL.—(THIS DAY.)
(Continued from our Afternoon Edition.)
THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF GUERNSEY.
Mr. Burge having concluded his address,
Mr. S. WORTLEY followed on the same sid,, but not
having finished shortly after four o'clock, whoa their
Lordships rose, the further consideration of the case was
postponed till Thursday morning at ten o'clock.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

FROX THE EVENING PAPERS OP TRU DAY.
GLOBE.—The Agitation attempted to be got up
in the agricultural districts for the repeal of the malt-
tax is likely to prove abortive. The tenant-farmers—
aware of the motives which actuate the landlords in
prompting them to meet and petition for the removal
of the tax—decline to move. The Essex Herald—a
journal which devotes its advocacy to the landed inte-
rests—complains in its leading article of to-day, that
" the movement for the repeal of the malt-tax does
not proceed with that unanimity by which alone success
can be secured." . . . "It is difficult," adds this
organ of the Essex squirearchy, " to understand why
this should be so; for, even admitting, as some con-
tend, that the repeal of the tax would do little benefit. to
the farmers, it would, at all events, inflict no injnry
upon them." The conclusion is not quite so obvious as
the Essex Herald seems to imagine. The malt-tax pro
duces an amount of annual revenue exceeding any sur-
plus which will be at the disposal of the Govern-
ment. To remove that tax would be to remove a
single tax, in which one class of the community—and
that a very small class—is immediately interested, at
the expense of the great mass of the nation, from
whom that surplus has been wrung by means of an
impost at once odious and oppressive. It would do
worse than this : it would perpetuate that impost.
The amount of the malt duty subtracted from
the revenue must be supplied. A substitute must be
provided. Sir Robert Peel has already shown that
his financial policy does not allow of giving up a pre-
sent source of revenue, however inequitable, to de-
pend on a contingent supply. He will have his
quid pro quo in whatever scheme of finance he
may submit to the House of Commons. The farmer
and his labourers would partake of the relief which
a diminution of the high duties on articles of ge-
neral consumption will afford to the nation at large.
The removal of. the income-tax would be also a
direct saving to the farmer. He would be also indi-
rectly benefited by the relief which the rest of the
community would obtain by the removal of the im-
post ; seeing those who now contribute the respective
quotas to the income-tax, would, on its removal, have
the more to lay out in agricultural produce, and prices
would be raised in proportion to the increased demand.
These considerations have evidently been taken into
the account by the farmers. The result is, that, as
a class, they have declined moving in the matter of
malt-tax repeal. Norfolk is more extensively inte-
rested than any other county in this question—seeing
a greater breadth of barley is sown in Norfolk than
in any other agricultural district. The Norfolk far-
mers met on Friday last to consider and determine
the course they should, as a body, adopt on this
question. The following letter, addressed to the
meeting from the Central Agricultural Protection
Society, and signed by the Secretary, was read : its
reasoning and advice were concurred in by the Nor-
folk farmers. The meeting adjourned without taking
any steps in the matter.
" I will at once state to you that, with reference to
the repeal of the malt-tax, the Committee having had
their attention called to it some time ago, came to the
determination of not raising that question on their own
part, and of not recommending the agitation of it by any
of the local protection societies.
" They felt that. to begin to agitate for the repeal of
the malt duties so soon after the formation of the society,
on the virtual understanding that its object was the
maintenance of the present scale of protection to agri-
culture, under its existing burdens, would involve an
aggressive policy for which they were not prepared.
" The prospects, too, of the property-tax being soon
deducted from the items of the revenue of the country,
did not seem to justify the remission of so large a
source of income as the malt duties, unless some substi-
tute were proposed, of the nature of which, however, no
unanimity appeared to exist either in the committee or
the country."
This pretext for perpetuating the odious income-
tax is, we presume' at an end. After this decisive
opinion from those best qualified to know what is best
for their own interests, he will be a bold man vtlio
will rise in Parliament, and propose the repeal of the
malt-tax, as called for by the tenant farmers, at the
price of retaining every other item of taxation, in-
cluding the property and income-tax, on their pre-
sent scale.
STANDARD.—It is no exaggeration to say that
we are actually overwhelmed with letters on the sub-
ject of the distressing differences in the Church If
we may judge from the nature and the enormous in-
crease of our correspondence, the nation thinks of
nothing else but the attempt to enforce by authority
what are practically innovations in public worship,
and thinks upon the subject with an intensity of inte-
rest of which we have no recollection. Often when
occupied in the painful task of perusing our volu-
minous supply of letters, and trying to make a selec-
tion of the most temperate among them for publication
—often when occupied in this truly afflicting task—
which lasts daily for many hours—do we wish that
we could delegate the duty to some member of
the Right Rev. Bench. There, a Bishop might see
--what it is to be feared their Lordships are not
likely to see, until it shall be too late—what is
the real feeling of the country, and the degree
of vehemence with which the country repro-
bates the late proposition to enforce innovation by
authority. The innovations were an object of dislike
to many, but of indifference or mere contempt to the
majority, until authority was spoken of. The hint that
they will be enforced, has, as every one who knows the
character of English Protestants ought to have anti-
cipated, now raised the question to a question of the
first order, a question of religious liberty, and has
thus kindled a flame, in which the temporal este •
blishinent of the Church will be consumed, if some-
thing be not done, and that promptly, to extinguish it.
It is one of the most alarming symptoms of the pre-
sent agitation, that as it invades the people in wider
and still wider circles, it raises new topics of discon-
tent ; this is what always happens in such a case ;
what has happened before in the history of our Church,
and what will happen again, if the agitation be
not composed by a timely arrangement. Four-
fifths of the letters relating to the Church
differences that we have' received, do not apply
to the surplice question, though that unhappy ques-
tion it is that has provoked them. We will not, how-
ever, as long as
_it is in our power to abstain, be
parties to the re-opening more of those wounds under
which the Church sunk before, than that one which
we find already open. This explanation, we hope, will
satisfy more than a hundred correspondents who have
addressed us upon other matters—all, however.
connected with supposed intentions to innovate
authoritatively in Church affairs. 'We confine our-
selves for the present to the one topic. It is asserted
by one, whose opinion we value highly, that the
sermon is part of the Communion Service. We re-
spectfully dissent from this opinion ; and we could
wish the right reverend person who has avowed
it to apply his powerful mind to the question,
and we are confident that he would see his
error. In placing any intellectual exercises in
the relation of whole and part, the first consi-
deration is the homogeneousness of the exercises
in question, a consideration greatly more im-
portant than the consideration of order or even of
time. The Communion Service is distinctly described
in the Prayer-book, as "the order for the adminis-
tration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Commu-
nion." Now what, let us ask it with reverence,
has a sermon necessarily to do with this solemn
rite ? A sermon was no doubt originally an expo-
sition of the Gospel or Epistle appointed to be
read in what was formerly called "the second
service (a name 'certainly better suited to that
portion of the Liturgy when no actual communion is
celebrated), but the Gospel and Epistle frequently
have no relation to the Eucharist. This is decisive
with us that the sermon is not properly a part of the
Communion Service, though it occurs in the time of
the second service, or rather at the termination of that
portion of the second service, which only is retained
in use when the Eucharist is not in fact celebrated.
That this has been the opinion of nearly the whole
Church-clergy, as well as laity, is proved by the
practice which it is proposed to change by autho-
rity, at the end of nearly two centuries' use.
But there are many other arguments all leading to
the same conclusion ; first, this, which may be
called a crucial argument, the Church gives war-
rant for sermons, without any communion
or second service, as at evening worship.
The Church also gives warrant for the
celebration id the Holy Communion without a
sermon. Again deacons (and in the Universities
even laymen) are admitted to preach,- but deacons or
laymen may not minister in the Communion. We,
for ourselves, though thoroughly convinced that the
sermon is properly no part of the Communion Service,
do not, however, attach any importance to the
decision of that question. 'We see no im-
portance in the colour of the gown which the
clergyman shall wear, either at communion or
in the pulpit—provided that the garment be decent,
sober, and such as shall not by novelty or
association distract or disturb the minds of worship-
pers. Let the clergyman wear his white robe in the
reading desk and behind the chancel rail, because it is
the custom ; and let him wear his black University
gown in the pulpit, because that too is the custom ;
but were the custom to reverse the colours, or to use
uniformly the white or black, as the case might be,
no human being could object to either upon
any rational ground. As to law upon the point,
surely the law is binding upon the clergy in their
private lives as in the church ; yet no clergyman,
froth
dreamtlia eo:l:2thoitsihnoigpn .of Canterbury downward, ever
the 74th canon to the minute directions of
Why, then, bind upon the backs of