Commons Sitting of 19 June 1839

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a first time:—Lower Canada Government; Highway Rates.
Petitions presented. By Messrs. T. Egerton, Bewes, W. Patten, Christopher, R. Hill, Clive, Gladstone, Codrington, Burroughs, Blackstone, Bagge, Round, W. Duncombe, Godson, Sirs J. Graham, R. Peel, G. Sinclair, R. Inglis, J. Y. Buller, W. Follet, C. Knightly, T. Freemantle, C. B. Vere, R. Bateson, Lords Elliot, Worsley, Sandon, Ingestrie, C. Manners, Stanley, Dungannon, and Ashley, and Colonel Sibthorpe, from a great number of places, against, and by Messrs. Crawley, Hawes, T. Duncombe, F. H. Berkeley, Lords Melgund, and A. Conningham, and Captain Pechell, from a number of places, in favour of the Government plan for National Education.—By Mr. M. Parker, from the county Palatine of Lancaster, against the County Courts Bill.—By Mr. T. Duncombe, from Finsbury, and Mr. R. Currie, from Northampton, for a Uniform Penny Postage.—By Lord Dungannon, from Chepstow, against any further Grant to Maynooth College.—By Mr. Macauley, from Edinburgh, for Church Extension in Scotland.

GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA—SECOND MEASURE.
On the motion that the order of the day for the third reading of the Jamaica Bill be read,
Mr. Humebegged to be informed whether the request of the House of Assembly,

509
praying her Majesty's Government to tell them whether they would be allowed to legislate for the colony, had received any answer from the Government?
Lord J. Russellthought that the hon. Member had entirely misunderstood the effect of the demand made by the House of Assembly, which amounted to a request that the Ministers of the Crown would give up the right of Parliamentary legislation. It was quite impossible that the Crown should give up that power, and, therefore, no answer has been given to the request of the House of Assembly.
Mr. Humeprotested against such an interpretation of the language used by the House of Assembly. He contended, that there had been no refusal on their part, so far as public documents went, to legislate for the colony, and no man of common sense would say that they had refused. The House of Commons had already interfered with the internal concerns of the island; and this being the case, the Assembly waited to see whether Parliament intended to interfere further, being resolved not to take the useless trouble of legislating, if there was to be any more interference by Parliament with internal legislation. He thought that the House of Assembly had great ground for complaint, considering the manner in which their resolution was drawn up. It was as follows:—
"Resolved, that in the opinion of this House they will best consult their own honour, the rights of their constituents, and the peace and well-being of the colony, by abstaining from the exercise of any legislative function, excepting such as may be necessary to preserve inviolate the faith of the island with the public creditor, until her most gracious Majesty's pleasure shall be made known whether her subjects of Jamaica, now happily all in a state of freedom, are henceforth to be treated as subjects, with the power of making laws, as hitherto, for their own government, or whether they are to be treated as a conquered colony, and governed by Parliamentary legislation, Orders in Council, or, as in the case of the late amended Abolition Act, by investing the Governor of the island with the arbitrary power of issuing proclamations, having the force of law over the lives and properties of the people."
Now, he contended, that the fair and honest meaning of those words was, that as Parliament had interfered, they wished to ask the Government to tell them plainly and simply, whether they would be allowed to legislate? No answer had been sent to that very reasonable request, and that was
510
the ground on which he had objected to the proceedings taken by the Government.
Mr. Laboucheremust say, that the spirit of the demands made by the Assembly could not be mistaken. The demand made by the House of Assembly was this,—that the Ministers of the Crown would, on the part of the Government and on the part of the Parliament of England, assure the House of Assembly, that they would deal with them in a different manner from heretofore. He begged to remind the House of the resolution to which it came by a large majority, in which, if he was not mistaken, the hon. Member for Kilkenny himself voted. After the Abolition Act Amendment Bill was passed, the House came to a solemn resolution, which he would read to the House, and he would observe, that the House then deliberately determined that they would continue to watch over the negro, and, if necessity arose, that they would interfere for his protection. The resolution was agreed to on the 29th of May, 1838, and was to this effect:—
"That this House, at the same time, declares its opinion, that no means should be omitted which can tend to secure to the negro population of her Majesty's colonies the privileges to which they are entitled under the Act for the Abolition of Slavery, and under the Act for the amendment of the Slavery Abolition Act; and further, that the anxious attention of this House will be directed to the state and condition of the negro population, when the expiration of the term of apprenticeship shall have entitled them to the full enjoyment of entire freedom."
Now, he put it to the House, who knew what were the resolutions passed by the House of Assembly, and who knew what complaints had been made by them, to couple them with the demand made by the Assembly, that the Government would deal with them in a different manner to that in which they had acted; and he would ask the House, whether the Government would not have been guilty of an act of the grossest delusion, if they had used any language to Jamaica which would have induced the Assembly to imagine that Parliament was in any way disposed to relax their vigilance on behalf of the negro. He felt that no justification was wanting on the part of the Government for proceeding with this bill, for if there was any fault to be found with the Government, it was for having pushed forbearance to the very limits of weakness, and for being too slow

511
to act. He approved of the Abolition Act, and approving of it, he thought that the Government ought not to have used any language which might countenance any delusion on the part of the Assembly of Jamaica, when they were determined, if the Assembly did not do their duty, that they would do it for them.
Order of the day read.
Mr. Labouchere, in moving that the Jamaica Bill be read a third time, would take that opportunity of stating that he had considered the objection made by the right hon. Member for Ripon, relative to the time at which the Governor in Council should legislate if the Assembly had not previously legislated. In proposing this bill he had said, that it was far from his intention to fix a period which would not give the Assembly ample time to legislate, and instead of the 1st day of October next, he would move that the blank be filled up with the words "the 15th day of November."
Bill read a third time.
On the motion that the bill do pass,
Mr. Goulburnrose and said, that as this was a subject which, on a former occasion, had been amply discussed, and there was a question which stood for this evening possessing universal interest, he thought that he should best consult his duty by compressing within a very narrow compass, indeed, the observations with which he should preface the motion which he was about to make. The first point to which he should refer was one of form. He had intended to move to omit all the words in the first clause, but if he did that, he should preclude the right hon. Gentleman from making that alteration in the date which he wished to effect. He should, therefore, propose to leave out all the words of the clause up to the date, and if he succeeded in that motion, he should then move to omit the remaining portion of the clause. If he correctly understood what had already taken place in the House, and the assurance which had been given by the Government, he must believe, that the Government bonâa fide, wished to give the Assembly the power and the opportunity of continuing to legislate for Jamaica, and that they were sincerely desirous, that the popular branch of the Legislature should not be placed in abeyance. Giving them, therefore, credit for their sincerity, he could not see how they could oppose the motion which he was about to make, if the first clause in the bill must necessarily tend to
512
produce feelings in the Assembly which would make it impossible for any man to sit and legislate as a member of that body. It was not likely that men who had been sent back to their constituents, and had received their sanction and approbation, would now retrace their steps. These were the difficulties of the case; but he thought these difficulties might be surmounted. He had seen letters from members of the House of Assembly stating that the Assembly was not indisposed to conciliatory proceedings. It should be recollected, that the resolutions of the Assembly were carried by a minority of the whole body, by twenty-one out of forty-five members. He thought it fair, therefore, to infer, that the House of Assembly did not entertain, as a body, the strong opinions which some Members of the House had expressed, and that if an opportunity were given to them, they would act in accordance with the wishes of the Government. It was for this reason that he did not wish to retain the objectionable clause. He would not say one word upon the topics which had been touched upon before. He would not say one word about the conduct of the Government, and he would say nothing which could have any tendency to excite angry feeling. He would merely state, that the laws which it was proposed to enact, rendered it extremely difficult to carry into effect the object which the Government professed to have in view. He did not know whether the hon. Gentlemen opposite had read those laws, the passing of which was made a condition of non-interference by the Governor in Council; but in the multitude of papers which were laid upon the table of the House, he was afraid, and the smile of the right hon. Gentleman confirmed his apprehensions, that they had not given to those laws the perusal to which they were entitled. The clause directed, that the House of Assembly should pass in principle the same laws as those which were mentioned in the Orders in Council; and it was professed, that those laws should be limited to contract, vagrancy, and squatting. He would show, that it was impossible for the House of Assembly, if their object was only the public good, to assent to that proposition. He would take the contract laws as an example. The contract laws which were proposed to the House of Assembly went to repeal all existing contract laws, and whether they were to be retrospective or not was not quite clear. In the next

513
place, it was provided, that no contract between master and servant should be made beyond the limits of the colony, and that all such contracts should endure for one year only. Now, what was the effect of that provision? It was his lot, as it was the lot of almost every West India proprietor, to engage persons in this country under contracts for the term of three, four, five, or even seven years, to be employed on their estates in Jamaica as coopers, carpenters, and ploughmen. It was one great object of the planters, and of the Assembly also, to introduce agricultural improvements into the colony, and the attainment of that object could not fail to diminish the labour of the negroes. It was, therefore, no less desirable to the planters than to the negroes and to the friends of humanity, that every facility should be afforded for the purpose of introducing an improved system of cultivation; but if the contract laws which were proposed were adopted by the Assembly, that improvement would be greatly retarded. Was it likely that any person would consent to leave this country and to go out to Jamaica without a certainty of employment for some years? Would any persons be so rash as to enter into an engagement in this country with the knowledge that the engagement into which they might enter was invalid, and with the certainty that when they arrived in the colony with a contract for seven years, that that contract was of no force? Was it possible that the House of Assembly, if they wished to promote the agricultural prosperity of Jamaica, could assent to a proposition which would entirely preclude the sending out of servants from this country—servants who were most valuable to their masters, and who were of little less value to the negroes themselves, because they communicated to them a knowledge of the most improved modes of cultivating the land? Then, again, look at the inequality of the law. The law between master and servant was, that if the servant injured the property of his master, a pecuniary fine was imposed. That was fair, and so far he agreed with the provisions of the law; but then there was no power of levying the fine upon the servant by direct means. If the servant set fire to his master's property, the fine to be imposed for that offence could not be levied by distress; but if the master neglected to furnish the servant with any thing specified in the contract, the servant could recover damages by distress. The master
514
was obliged to have recourse to an action of debt to recover from the servant, whereas the servant might recover from the master immediately by distress. Then, again, the servant for an offence against the master might be imprisoned for the term of fourteen days, but if the master injured the servant by violating any of the articles of the contract, the master might be imprisoned for a month. There was one more objection. The act to which he had been alluding, affected the whole judicial system of the colony, and could not fail seriously to injure the interests of justice. What were the provisions of this law? It provided for the holding of petty sessions, and how were those sessions to be held? It was provided, that there should in every court of petty sessions be not less than two stipendiary magistrates, and they were to have the option of not admitting more than one of the local magistrates. Now he would ask, whether any thing could be more unjust than such a provision, whether any thing could have been devised more likely to destroy that confidence which it was of so much importance should exist between the negroes and the proprietors of the colony? Besides, the appointment of magistrates was vested in the Crown, and what necessity was there, therefore, for asking the House of Assembly to legislate at all upon the subject? Could it be called a conciliatory proceeding to go to the House of Assembly, the members of which were themselves magistrates, and ask them to pass a measure which would reduce them to a position similar to that of the wild animal in the story when placed between two tame elephants? By such a step they would degrade justice, and create a feeling of hostility in the minds of the local magistracy, which could not fail to prove injurious to the best interests of the colony. Even the admission of such a man as Lord Seaford into a court of petty sessions was to be made dependent upon the will of two stipendiary magistrates, and he would ask any Member of that House what his feelings would be if he was told he should only sit in a court of petty sessions by permission of two paid London magistrates? He should not trouble the House further, as he thought he had said enough to show the impolicy of the first clause of this bill, and he should, therefore, move that the words of the clause which he had specified be left out.
Mr. Hume, who spoke amidst interruption, was understood to say, that he objected

515
to this bill on principle, although he admitted that, when compared with the last bill, it was much less offensive. This measure was less unconstitutional than the last, for it did not suspend the constitution of the colony, or impose any tax, but still it authorised an interference with the powers of the Assembly which he felt himself obliged to protest against. Where was the necessity for this measure? He denied that a case of necessity had been made out, and there was not one document upon the table of the House by which it could be shown that this measure was required in order to secure the peace or prosperity of the colony. It was, therefore, upon principle that he objected to this bill. Did they interpose to protect the negroes, or to secure the tranquillity of the colony? No such thing. The country was in a state of the most profound tranquillity, and all the interests of the colony were prosperous. He held in his hand a letter from Mr. J. M. Phillipps to Mr. Sturge, who had taken so much interest in the condition of the negroes, in which that gentleman said:—
"I am exceedingly concerned to find, that the planters have succeeded in creating the panic to which you allude. They have made a desperate effort to do this, and they have succeeded. It is currently reported here, that the London journalists, who have lately manifested so much sympathy with our late slave-masters, have been bought for that purpose, and they have certainly shown themselves, especially the professedly anti-aristrocatical part of them, by no means insensible to bribes. Should the Government at all listen to the misrepresentations of the pro-slavery party, it will be a most lamentable circumstance, as it would but revive the differences of which they complain, and which are now almost universally set at rest. The most profound tranquillity universally prevails. Our courts of justice seldom now behold a criminal, and the absence of ordinary offences from the calendar is often the subject of gratulation by the judge. The business of the estates and pens is almost, in every instance, being proceeded with; innumerable spots are being recovered by small setlers from the wastes; new villages are rapidly rising up in every direction; land is nearly double the value it was a few months ago; estates and small farms are seldom in the market, and when they are, although greatly augmented in value, there is no want of purchasers."
That was the state of the colony on the 5th of May in the present year. Mr. Phillips went on to say:—
"The advantages resulting from the new state of things in the towns are too palpable
516
to admit of a single question. New houses are being erected, or old ones are undergoing repairs in almost every street. The markets are abundantly supplied with provisions—the comforts and wants of civilised life are increasingly desired and possessed; merchants and traders have more employment than formerly, and intimations of the decrease of commerce, of the decline of agriculture, and of the ruin of the country, are no where to be seen. So far are we from being likely to realise the dismal scenes predicted by the enemies of freedom, that the very reverse may be confidently expected. Not only is this fact proclaimed by the avidity with which properties are purchased when exposed for sale by the increased price of land, together with the host of other evidence, but also by the efforts that are being made for the improvement of agriculture; by the designs in contemplation, both for the manufacture and transport of produce in the more general introduction of machinery; and in the construction of railroads—by the various public institutions, which are beginning to rise into being, and by the conversions that are daily taking place, to the advantages of the new state of things among proprietors, and attornies themselves. The strongest evidence is offered by every thing we see and hear around us, that we enjoy the dawn of a brighter day in every respect than Jamaica has ever yet beheld."
Now, if all this was true, where, he would ask, was the necessity for interference with local legislation? There was another letter, dated the 2nd of May, from Mr. Clerk, who he knew was a person on whose authority they might depend. That Gentleman said—
"The people are going on admirably. On almost every sugar estate in this part of the parish, there is as much sugar making, I believe, as during the apprenticeship. I can mention Orange-Valley (nearly all the people on which are connected with my church), Cape-Valley, Borough-Bridge, and Greenock, where the people are employed by the job, or at 1s. 8d. per day, with houses and grounds; they are working well. At Dumbarton, Antrim, Culloden, Ballantry, although the people were not paid more than at other places, they are charged from 3s. 4d. to 6s. 8d. per week rent, yet there is no real cause of complaint. They are also working well, although for less than their neighbours; but this I do not expect to continue. These estates must either pay the market price for labour, or lose their people, if land can be bought in the neighbourhood. There is one interesting fact which I cannot forbear mentioning—that from the time of Rawlinson's (the late special justice) removal, to the end of the apprenticeship, but two persons connected as members or esquires with my station were punished, and those improperly or unjustly. From the 1st of August to this date, not one has been imprisoned for

517
any crime, although nearly 30,000 in number; indeed, in the whole district with which, as a minister, I have to do, in which there is a negro population of 9,000 or 10,000, full half of which attend my ministry, but one black person has been committed to prison, and that for an assault, which I think was compromised. We have no police, and we need none. Were it not for the disputes respecting wages and rents, the stipendiary magistrates would have a sinecure situation. I was very sanguine respecting the working of freedom. My expectations are more than realized. Give God the glory."
Now, when such was the state of the colony, where, he would ask, would be found the necessity for this interference by the Imperial Parliament? Let the noble Lord look at the report of Captain Pringle, and he would find that the grossest delusion prevailed with respect to this bill. What was the opinion of Lord Brougham upon this measure—of him who had done so much for the emancipation of the negroes. This bill was said to be for the protection of the negroes but Lord Brougham had said, that there never was a grosser delusion than that which prevailed with respect to this bill—that was with respect to the old bill. There was no necessity for such a measure, and this interference with the Legislature of the Colony, could only be productive of injury. Captain Pringle had shown, that in the course of a few years, the negroes would be the electors, and that they would have the power of returning the Members of the House of Assembly. But this bill would prevent the negroes from obtaining that which alone could distinguish them from slaves. Emancipation had given them all the privileges which had formerly been enjoyed by the whites, and when the act of emancipation was complete, the number of persons exercising the elective franchise would be doubled. It was, therefore, because the first clause of this bill interfered, without even a show of necessity, with the legislative rights of the people of the Colony, that he should give it every opposition in his power.
Lord J. Russellsaid, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had divided his argument into two parts; one was that in which he argued against the bill which had been formerly before the House, and the other part was directed against the third reading of the bill, which was carried about twenty minutes ago, To the ques-
518
tion now before the House, the hon. Gentleman had not addressed one single argument; for the question before the House was, the adoption or rejection of this clause. He could understand very well the line of argument taken by those who objected to their legislating for the House of Assembly of Jamaica, and who were for allowing the Legislature of Jamaica to take their own course. But when that question was put, there was but one Gentleman who said "no," and even that hon. Member, though the House was so full, repented of his opposition, and allowed the bill to be read a third time. Therefore there was no question in the House as to an interference with the Legislature of Jamaica. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goulburn) had alluded to the probability of many Members of that House not having read the Orders of Council, to which it might be replied, as a set off", that there were many Members who did not hear the arguments of the learned counsel at the bar, who had appeared there as the agent of the House of Assembly of Jamaica. It might be a matter of surprise to some, that the speech of that learned counsel should have made so little impression. Though it was a very able speech, and went much into the case, it was entirely founded, not on this clause of the bill, but upon the second clause. The learned counsel, as representative of the House of Assembly of Jamaica, did not argue, that the Orders in Council were oppressive and inapplicable; he did not attempt to show, that their provisions were not adapted to the state of Jamaica; he did not in the least impugn the statement made, that they had been six months in operation in other colonies, and that no practical fault had been found with them; but he confined his whole argument to the second clause, and, taking part with the constitutional rights of Jamaica, he thought the learned counsel had argued very properly, with respect to the second class, and not the first, because it was the second, and not the first, which enabled the Governorand Council to continuecertain taxes which would otherwise expire, and he argued according to the act of 1778, and according to constitutional notions that the power given to the governor of enforcing taxes, and thus far to interfere with the constitution of Jamaica, was an experiment on that constitution which ought not to be tried, and a power which.

519
that House ought not to grant. He would not repeat, nor even attempt to give a sketch of, his argument, but it went very fairly against the House giving that power to the Governor and Council. The House was not convinced by it, and he owned he was a little surprised when the right hon. and learned Member for Ripon, who he thought had listened with great attention to the speech of the learned counsel, got up at the end of the speech, and said, that when the House in the following week should come to the consideration of the subject, he would move the rejection of the first clause from the bill. So little was he convinced by the arguments of the learned representative of Jamaica, that he let go by entirely the clause to which he objected, and directed his opposition to the clause which the learned counsel would have allowed to remain. That was the clause to which objection was now made; but, if they left that clause out of the bill, they would prevent certain laws from being made for the protection of the negroes, for the prevention of vagrancy, and for guarding against the unlawful occupation of lands, while at the same time they would not maintain the rights of the House of Assembly. The hon. Member for Kilkenny, would in effect consent to an interference with the constitutional rights of the House of Assembly, over which this clause, which it was proposed to omit, would have no effect whatever. He could only say, that the orders in council had been in operation a considerable time, and there had been scarcely any objection urged against them. If any objections were to be made, he thought they would be more rationally made against the second clause of the bill; at all events the constitutional question entirely depended on that clause.
Sir Robert Peelwould willingly give way to the impatience of the House if he thought that by so yielding he should at all assist the House in doing that which was creditable to itself; but as this was a question which affected one of our most important colonies, he felt bound to intrude on their patience, not for any gratification of his own feelings, but because he felt that the House of Commons would place itself, if they adopted this bill, in a discreditable position. The noble Lord had found it convenient to compliment the speech of the learned counsel, who appeared at the bar on behalf of the
520
House of Assembly, and he had always observed the readiness of the noble Lord to compliment every speech which did him the least damage. The noble Lord said the speech of the learned counsel was a most constitutional speech, because it was directed against the second clause of the bill, and not against the first, and what did the speech of the agent of Jamaica prove? "It proves (said the right hon. Baronet) that we are not partisans of the island of-Jamaica. It proves that we are not acting in concert with the agent of the House of Assembly. We take that course which is the just course. We will provide against those emergencies which the right hon. Gentleman told us might occur if the House of Assembly refused to exercise its functions, and against the anarchy which he depicted. We yield to his opinion, and say we are willing to provide against those contingencies and to supply the defects in the legislature. But you go further, and provide for the permanent legislation of Jamaica, while at the same time you declare your intention and wish that the House of Assembly should resume its functions. How do you hope that the House of Assembly will resume its functions and be an useful instrument of legislation if you pass this bill? You say to the House of Assembly—" Unless you pass three separate and most important laws relating to the domestic legislation of the colony; in that case you shall be suspended, and the Governor and Council shall execute your functions." You give, then, six weeks to pass these laws, and I ask you, do you feel it to be decorous? Have you made such progress in legislation? When you look at your own course with respect to church-rates, with respect to Irish tithes, with respect to joint-stock banks, and with respect to legislation for Canada, and remember that you have postponed every practical measure till 1842, do you think it decorous to tell the colonial legislature of Jamaica, that unless in six weeks they pass three most important measures, you give them notice that you will suspend their constitutional functions? What I deprecate is this, that you are going to give that House of Assembly a great advantage over you: it is in the wrong now, and you are going to reverse the position, and place yourselves in that situation. He never felt (the right hon. Baronet continued), more strongly on any ques-

521
tion. If the House of Assembly neglected its duty to this country—if it neglected the welfare of the inhabitants and of the negro population—if he was convinced of the intentional and continued neglect, he would give the Government his support in arrogating to the British Imperial Parliament the power and right to legislate for the welfare of the people of Jamaica. But he felt that they were embarrassing the question by the course which they were now adopting. They were not reserving to Parliament the power of deciding when the emergency should arise; but they were referring to the Governor and Council the right to determine what should be done. A threat was held out to the Assembly, that if they did not perform certain things by a given day in October, that power was to be exercised by a new governor, whom they were going to send out; a man without experience in the affairs of Jamaica was to have the power of deciding the fate of the Assembly. By making it possible to hold over them a coercive threat they made it impossible for them to execute their functions effectively. If they wished the legislature of Jamaica to be continued, surely they also desired that it should be useful. Suppose it yielded to their menace, what authority would it have in the island? Would it not be said, both by whites and blacks—" True, you have saved yourselves from sudden extinction; but why? For the welfare of the negro population, or for the good of the people at large? No; but you did it under a coercive menace, and you have saved the rights of the people by yielding to fear. After that, how could they hope that the House of Assembly could be useful to their constituents? They were, in fact, placing the island in a worse condition than before. The Legislature would be preserved, it was true, but it would be discredited, in consequence of yielding to a menace. What were the proposed conditions? They were not clearly intelligible to all; they were conditions sub modo; there were certain laws which the House of Assembly were to pass within six weeks or two months, but they were not to pass them absolutely; a discretion was to be reserved to the House of Assembly to determine this important fact, whether or no the circumstances of the island of Jamaica would render the application of the Orders in Council expedient. What a wide dis-
522
tinction was here? Suppose they entertained a doubt, a bonâ fide doubt, and suppose the Governor and Council differed from them upon a matter of detail, in respect to which the House of Assembly entertained a bona fide doubt—for, let it be observed, they were at liberty to consider whether the Orders in Council were suitable to the local circumstances of the island or not. Suppose a difference of opinion arose, it would then be a grave question for the Imperial Parliament to determine whether the decision of the House of Assembly was justified by the circumstances. But, by this bill, it would be left to the Governor and Council to determine this grave point; they would have the power not only to pass the ordinance, but they would place the Government in this embarrasing position—the House of Assembly having a bona fide doubt as to the practicable and expedient application of any of the Orders in Council to the local circumstances of the island, the Governor and Council may decide that the Assembly shall be extinguished. Would they support the Governor and Council in that decision? Now, he would ask, was it fit that great doubts which might arise should be resolved by the Imperial Parliament in February next, or by the local authority appointed by the Crown on the 15th of October? No, not on the 15th of October, for they were to have fourteen days more to pass these laws? That was the option given them, with an express injunction to consider the adaptation of these laws to the local circumstances of the island. If they were found refractory, if they refused to meet, if they refused to resume their functions at all, and if clear evidence were furnished that they would not perform their duties, that would be an occasion grave enough for calling the Imperial Parliament together to determine what course should be pursued. By the course now pursued they were not legislating wisely for Jamaica. This piece of paper (holding up the Jamaica Bill), continued the right hon. Baronet, is a plaster for the wounded honour of the Government, and it covers the wound very ineffectually. You have our assurance; we have convinced you that we are not acting in concert with the agent of Jamaica, that we are not acting in the spirit of partisanship, certainly not in a spirit of Jamaica partisanship, that must be apparent to the noble Lord him-

523
self. We have assured you of our readiness to consider this grave question, whether, if circumstances of difficulty arise, it will be fitting to determine to suspend the functions of the House of Assembly of Jamaica. But, from the most positive conviction of the truth and force of what I am saying, I entreat you not to give this advantage to the local Legislature. I entreat that you will not, after the instances and examples you have yourselves given of the difficulty of deciding great questions in six years, impose on another Legislature, which have not had their attention drawn to these things, the necessity of passing, in six weeks, important measures, by holding out to them this condition, that unless they obey, their functions shall cease.
Mr. Laboucherecould not, consistently with his sense of duty, suffer this question to be put from the chair without saying a few words upon it. He believed that, after all, it was a very simple question. They were agreed that it was desirable that the House of Assembly should again be called together, and have an ample opportunity of retracing the steps they had taken, and of proceeding to discharge their duty towards the colony of Jamaica. But, then, they were also agreed, that the House of Commons should maintain the ground it had always asserted, especially, as in the last Assembly of Parliament, it had been resolved, that measures should be taken, in case the House of Assembly should persist in the course it had commenced, that the interests of the colony of Jamaica should suffer as little as possible from their conduct. The House had, therefore, almost unanimously agreed on that which was the most unconstitutional part of the bill, and which provided for those annual laws in Jamaica, among which were those called money bills. He agreed with his noble Friend, and with the agent of Jamaica, who had addressed the House from the Bar, that that was by far the strongest part of the bill before the the House. He must say, in reference to the slighting manner in which the right hon. Gentleman opposite had spoken of Mr. Burge, who had represented the interests of the House of Assembly, that he was much more inclined to bow to the opinion of their representative, than he was to the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Kilkenny had declared, that Jamaica was in a state
524
of tranquillity; and he was happy to be able to add to his testimony, that from all the accounts received by the Government, that tranquillity still continued. He was glad to have that opportunity of stating his conscientious belief, that the peaceable and orderly state of the island, which was almost unexampled, was a phenomenon, to be attributed to the services of a body of men who had unfortunately been very much calumniated—the ministers of religion in Jamaica, who had obtained a great influence over the minds of the people there, and had exercised it in a very proper and salutary manner. But were they to rely upon that extraordinary kind of means for maintaining the peace of the island? Was it not necessary that measures should be taken to secure the three objects proposed in the bill before the House? They had a distinct admission of the House of Assembly that the laws for the regulation of contracts for hired service in agriculture or manufactures, the prevention of vagrancy, and the prevention of the illegal occupation of lands, were urgent and necessary. By the present bill the Assembly would be enabled to pass those laws themselves, if they chose to embrace the opportunity. There was nothing unusual in the course which had been pursued by the House. They had reason to believe, that the orders in Council sent out contained the principles of good laws, and he must say, that he should regret the rejection of this clause. Looking at the conduct of Parliament last session, and remembering the resolution which was come to, to continue their vigilant watch over the Assembly, he should consider that the House had abandoned their position if they did not pass this bill.
The House divided on the original motion; Ayes, 267; Noes, 257: Majority in favour of the bill, 10.

List of the AYES.

Abercromby, G.

Bannerman, A.

Adam, Admiral

Baring, F. T.

Aglionby, H. A.

Barnard, E. G.

Aglionby, Major

Barron, H. W.

Ainsworth, P.

Barry, G. S.

Alcock, T.

Beamish, F. B.

Alston, R.

Bellew, R. M.

Andover, Lord

Bennett, J.

Anson, hon. Col.

Berkeley, hon. H.

Anson, Sir G.

Berkeley, hon. G.

Archbold, R.

Berkeley, hon. C.

Attwood, T.

Bernal, R.

Baines, E.

Bewes, T.

525

Blackett, C.

Ferguson, R.

Blake, M. J.

Finch, F.

Blake, W. J.

Fitzpatrick, J. W.

Blewitt, R. J.

Fitzroy, Lord C.

Blunt, Sir C.

Fleetwood, Sir P.

Bodkin, J. J.

French, F.

Bowes, J.

Gibson, T. M.

Bridgman, H.

Gillon, W. D.

Briscoe, J. I.

Gordon, R.

Brodie, W. B.

Grattan, J.

Brotherton, J.

Grattan, H.

Bryan, G.

Greenaway, C.

Buller, C.

Grey, Sir G.

Buller, E.

Grosvenor, Lord

Bulwer, Sir L.

Guest, Sir J.

Butler, hon. Col.

Hall, Sir B.

Byng, G.

Hallyburton, Lord

Byng, rt. hon. G. S.

Handley, H.

Callaghan, D.

Harland, W. C.

Campbell, Sir J.

Harvey, D. W.

Cave, R. O.

Hastie, A.

Cavendish, hon. C.

Hawkins, J. H.

Cavendish, hon. G.

Heathcoat, J.

Cayley, E. S.

Heathcote, G. J.

Chalmers, P.

Hector, C. J.

Chapman, Sir M.

Heneage, E.

Chester, H.

Heron, Sir R.

Chetwynd, Major

Hindley, C.

Childers, J. W.

Hobhouse, Sir J.

Clay, W.

Hobhouse, T. B.

Clayton, Sir W.

Hodges, T. L.

Clements, Lord

Hollond, R.

Codrington, Admiral

Horsman, E.

Collier, J.

Hoskins, K.

Collins, W.

Howard, F. J.

Conyngham, Lord

Howard, P. H.

Cowper, hon. W. F.

Howick, Lord

Craig, W. G.

Humphery, J.

Crawford, W.

Hutton, R.

Crompton, Sir S.

Ingham, R.

Currie, R.

James, W.

Curry, Sergeant

Jervis, J.

Dalmeny, Lord

Kinnaird, A. F.

Davies, Colonel

Labouchere, H.

Dennistoun, J.

Lambton, H.

D'Eyncourt, C. T.

Langdale, C.

Divett, E.

Lemon, Sir C.

Donkin, Sir R. S.

Leveson, Lord

Duff, J.

Loch, J.

Duncombe, T.

Lushington, S.

Dundas, C. W. D.

Macaulay, T. B.

Dundas, F.

Macleod, R.

Dundas, hon. J. C.

Macnamara, W.

Elliott, hon. J. E.

M'Taggart, J.

Ellice, Captain A.

Marshall, W.

Ellice, right hon. E.

Maule, hon. F.

Ellice, E.

Melgund, Lord

Ellice, W.

Milton, Lord

Erle, W.

Moreton, A. H.

Euston, Earl of

Morpeth, Lord

Evans, Sir De L.

Morris, D.

Evans, G.

Murray, A.

Evans, W.

Muskett, G. A.

Ewart, W.

Nagle, Sir R.

Fazakerly, J. N.

Norreys, Sir D. J.

Ferguson, Sir R.

O'Brien, W. S.

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

O'Callaghan, C.

526

O'Connell, D.

Speirs, A.

O'Connell, J.

Spencer, hon. F.

O'Connell, M. J.

Standish, C.

O'Connell, Morgan

Stanley, hon. M.

O'Connell, Maurice

Stanley, W. O.

O'Connor, Don

Stansfield, W. R.

O'Ferrall, R. M.

Staunton, Sir G.

Ord, W.

Stuart, Lord J.

Paget, F.

Stuart, W. V.

Palmer, C. F.

Stock, Dr.

Palmerston, Lord

Strickland, Sir G.

Parker, J.

Strutt, E.

Parnell, Sir H.

Style, Sir C.

Parrott, J.

Surrey, Earl

Pattison, J.

Talbot, C. R. M.

Pechell, Captain

Talfourd, Sergeant

Pendarves, E. W.

Tancred, H. W.

Phillipps, Sir R.

Thomson, C. P.

Philips, M.

Thornely, T.

Philips, G. R.

Tollemache, F. J.

Phillpotts, J.

Townley, R. G.

Pigot, D. R.

Troubridge, Sir E. T.

Pinney, W.

Turner, W.

Ponsonby, hon. J.

Verney, Sir H.

Power, J.

Vigors, N. A.

Price, Sir R.

Villiers, hon. C.

Pryme, G.

Vivian, Major C.

Pryse, P.

Vivian, J. H.

Ramsbottom, J.

Vivian, Sir R. H.

Redington, T. N.

Walker, R.

Rice, E. R.

Wall, C. B.

Rice, right hon. T. S.

Wallace, R.

Rich, H.

Warburton, H.

Roche, W.

Ward, H. G.

Roche, Sir D.

Westenra, hon. H.

Rumbold, C. E.

White, A.

Russell, Lord J.

White, H.

Russell, Lord

White, S.

Russell, Lord C.

Wilbraham, G.

Rutherford, A.

Williams, W.

Salwey, Colonel

Williams, W. A.

Sanford, E. A.

Wilmot, Sir J. E.

Scholefield, J.

Wilshere, W.

Scrope, G. P.

Winnington, T.

Seale, Sir J. H.

Winnington, H.

Seymour, Lord

Wood, C.

Sharp, Gen.

Wood, Sir M.

Sheil, R. L.

Wood, G. W.

Shelborne, Lord

Worsley, Lord

Smith, J. A.

Wrightson, W.

Smith, B.

Wyse, T.

Smith, G. R.

Yates, J. A.

Smith, R. V.

TELLERS.

Somers, J. P.

Stanley, E. J.

Somerville, Sir W. M.

Steuart, R.

List of the NOES.

Acland, Sir T. D.

Attwood, M.

Acland, T. D.

Bagge, W.

A'Court, Captain

Bailey, J.

Adare, Lord

Bailey, J. jun.

Alford, Lord

Baillie, Colonel

Alsager, Captain

Baker, E.

Arbuthnott, H.

Baring, hon. F.

Archdall, M.

Baring, hon. W. B.

Ashley, Lord

Barnaby, J.

Ashley, hon. H.

Barrington, Lord

527

Bateson, Sir R.

Feilden, W.

Bell, M.

Fector, J. N.

Bentinck, Lord G.

Fellowes, E.

Bethell, R.

Filmer, Sir E.

Blackstone, W. S.

Fitzroy, hon. H.

Blair, J.

Fleming, J.

Blakemore, R.

Foley, E. T.

Blandford, Marquess

Forester, hon. G.

Blennerhassett, A.

Fox, G. L.

Boldero, H. G.

Freshfield, J. W.

Boiling, W.

Gladstone, W. E.

Bradshaw, J.

Goddard, A.

Bramston, T. W.

Godson, R.

Broadley, H.

Gordon, Captain

Brownrigg, S.

Gore, O. J. R.

Bruce, Lord E.

Gore, O. W.

Bruges, W. H. L.

Goulburn, H.

Buck, L. W.

Graham, Sir J.

Buller, Sir J. Y.

Grant, F. W.

Burdett, Sir F.

Grimsditch, T.

Burrell, Sir C.

Grimston, Lord

Burroughes, H.

Grimston, hon. E.

Calcraft, J. H.

Hale, R. B.

Canning, Sir S.

Halford, H.

Cantilupe, Lord

Harcourt, G. G.

Cartwright, W.

Harcourt, G. S.

Chapman, A.

Hardinge, Sir H.

Christopher, R.

Hawkes, T.

Chute, W. L. W.

Hayes, Sir E.

Clerk, Sir G.

Heathcote, Sir W.

Clive, hon. R. H.

Heneage, G. W.

Codrington, W.

Henniker, Lord

Cole, hon. A. H.

Hepburn, Sir T.

Cole, Lord

Herbert, hon. S.

Colquhoun, J. C.

Herries, J. C.

Compton, H. C.

Hill, Sir R.

Conolly, E.

Hillsborough, Lord

Cooper, E. J.

Hinde, J. H.

Coote, Sir C. H.

Hodgson, F.

Corry, hon. H.

Hodgson, R.

Courtenay, P.

Hogg, J. W.

Cresswell, C.

Holmes, W. A'C.

Dalrymple, Sir A.

Holmes, W.

Damer, hon. D.

Hope, hon. C.

Darby, G.

Hope, H. T.

Darlington, Earl

Hope, G. W.

De Horsey, S. H.

Hotham, Lord

Dick, Q.

Houldsworth, T.

D'Israeli, B.

Houstoun, G.

Douglas, Sir C. E.

Hughes, W. B.

Dowdeswell, W.

Hume, J.

Duffield, T.

Hurt, F.

Dugdale, W. S.

Ingestrie, Lord

Dunbar, G.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Duncombe, W.

Irton, S.

Duncombe, A.

Jackson, Sergeant

Dungannon, Lord

James, Sir W. C.

Du Pre, G.

Jenkins, Sir R.

East, J. B.

Jermyn, Earl

Eaton, R. J.

Johnstone, H.

Egerton, W. T.

Jones, Captain

Egerton, Sir P.

Kelly, F.

Egerton, Lord F.

Kelburne, Lord

Ellis, J.

Knatchbull, Sir E.

Estcourt, T.

Knightly, Sir C.

Farnham, E. B.

Knox, hon. T.

Farrand, R.

Law, hon. C. E.

528

Lefroy, right hon. T.

Richards, R.

Lincoln, Earl of

Rickford, W.

Litton, E.

Rolleston, L.

Lockhart, A. M.

Round, C. G.

Long, W.

Round, J.

Lowther, Colonel

Rushbrooke, Col.

Lowther, Lord

Rushout, G.

Lowther, J. H.

Sandon, Lord

Lygon, hon. Gen.

Scarlett, hon. J. Y.

Mackenzie, T.

Shaw, right hon. F.

Mackenzie, W.

Sheppard, T.

Mackinnon, W.

Shirley, E. J.

Maclean, D.

Sibthorp, Col.

Mahon, Lord

Sinclair, Sir G.

Maidstone, Lord

Smith, A.

Manners, Lord C.

Smyth, Sir G. H.

Marsland, T.

Somerset, Lord

Marton, G.

Spry, Sir S. T.

Master, T. W. C.

Stanley, E.

Mathew, G. B.

Stanley, Lord

Maunsell, T. P.

Stewart, J.

Miles, W.

Stormont, Lord

Miles, P. W. S.

Sturt, H. C.

Miller, W. H.

Sugden, Sir E.

Monypenny, T.

Teignmouth, Lord

Mordaunt, Sir J.

Tennent, J. E.

Morgan, C. M. R.

Thomas, Colonel H.

Neeld, J.

Thompson, Alderman

Neeld, John

Thornhill, G.

Nicholl, J.

Trench, Sir F.

Norreys, Lord

Tyrrell, Sir J. T.

Owen, Sir J.

Vere, Sir C. B.

Packe, C.W.

Verner, Colonel

Pakington, J. S.

Vernon, G. H.

Palmer, R.

Villiers, Lord

Parker, M.

Vivian, J. E.

Parker, R. T.

Waddington, H.

Parker, T. A. W.

Walsh, Sir. J.

Patten, J. W.

Welby, G. E.

Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.

Witmore, T. C.

Peel, J.

Williams, R.

Pemberton, T.

Williams, T. P.

Perceval, hon. G. J.

Wodehouse, E.

Pigot, R.

Wood, T.

Planta, right hon. J.

Wyndham, W.

Plumptre, J. P.

Wynn, C. W.

Polhill, F.

Wynn, Sir W. W.

Pollen, Sir J. W.

Yorke, hon. E. T.

Powerscourt, Lord

Young, J.

Praed, W. T.

Young, Sir W.

Pringle, A.

TELLERS.

Pusey, P.

Freemantle, Sir T.

Rae, right hon. Sir W.

Baring, E.

Paired off.

Brabazon, Lord

Wilbraham, R. B.

Campbell, W.

Campbell, Sir H.

Colquhoun, Sir J.

Trevor, Rice

Crawley, S.

Broadwood H.

Dashwood

Liddell, H.

Denison, W.

Reid, Sir J. R.

Duncan, Lord

Douro, Lord

Dundas, Sir R.

Knight, Gally

Etwall, R.

Cripps, J.

Edwards, Sir J.

Meynell, Captain

Easthope, J.

Price, R.

Fitzalan, Lord

Praed, W. M.

529

Fitzsimon, N.

O'Neill, General

Fort, J.

Davenport

Hill, Lord M.

Perceval, Colonel

Hawes, B.

Saunderson

Hurst

Estcourt

Hutt

Gaskell, J. M.

Lister, E. C.

Rushbrooke

Lushington, C.

Kemble, H.

Lynch, A.

Follett, Sir W.

Maher, J.

Granby, Lord

Martin, J.

Burr, D.

Mildmay, P.

Green

O'Brien, C.

Kerrison, Sir E.

Paget, Lord A.

Bagot, W.

Power, J.

Kirk, P.

Pendarves, E. W.

Praed

Slaney, R. A.

Jones, J.

Strangways, J.

Castlereagh, Lord

Talbot, J. H.

Maxwell, S.

Walker, C. A.

Crewe, Sir G.

Westenra, J.

Rose, Sir G.

White, Luke

Jones, Wilson

EDUCATION—ADJOURNED DEBATE.
Mr. Wyse, in resuming the debate which had now occupied so large a portion of the time of the House, begged leave first to thank the two noble Lords opposite who had taken so large a share in the debate, for it would be difficult to select from the speeches made avowedly in support of the measure, any two that were more calculated to advance it than the two speeches made by those noble Lords in opposition to it. He was willing to give every credit to the noble Lord who preceded the last speaker in the debate, for the exertions he had made on behalf of the factory children; exertions which had secured for him the approbation and the warmest sympathies of all men. He was also ready to give the noble Lord credit for the utmost benevolence; but he must be allowed to say, that the honesty of opinion to which he laid claim seemed to him to be of the kind which arose from a careful exclusion of all arguments on the other side—to spring from conclusions come to by a careful avoidance of all examination (at least in appearance) of what might have been urged against his own peculiar views. Through the whole of his hydra and chimera speech, the noble Lord seemed to have raised up to himself a phantasmagoria of evils, which had no foundation whatever in reality. If the noble Lord had examined the subject, he would have seen that the horrors and desolations of which he seemed to be so much in fear from equality of education to all sects and parties, had heretofore arisen from the want of general education.
530
Education it was that had always been considered the only agency by which those horrors and desolations might be neutralised and prevented. If the noble Lord had extended his view from his narrow world of this country, and had inquired into the condition of the rest of the civilised world, he would have found that religion, and not sectarianism, had been the source of all happiness to man. The noble Lord apprehended much evil from the monsters which his fancy had conjured up; but he should recollect that there were other moral monsters much more dreadful in their influence on society. There was the monster of brute force, unaccompanied by intelligence—there was the Polyphemus of physical strength, uncontrolled by moral feeling—
"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
But he would now direct his attention to another adversary, more dangerous to the cause of education than the noble Lord could assume to be—an adversary whose powers of debate had been so strongly characterised by the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland. He (Mr. Wyse) could be under no apprehensions from the "gladiatorial talents" of that noble Lord—from the skill in research for which he was distinguished—because he had to bring into the field against him a still stronger combatant than himself. If the noble Lord of 1839 entertained the opinions he had stated in the course of this debate, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland of 1831 was more than a match for him. If the noble Lord now denounced this measure as unconstitutional—as one that would be scouted by all society of a religious nature in the country—what must be thought of the parallel measure introduced for Ireland in 1831? The objections to the present measure were surely quite as applicable to that. The measure was described as pernicious on two grounds; first, the mode in which the Board of Management was constituted; and, secondly, the evil effects which he apprehended from it on the education of the children. In many of those objections which applied to the constitution of the Board, he concurred, particularly as regarded the fluctuations in political and religious opinions to which, it was liable from its connection with the Government. But if, as the noble Lord

531
argued, it was wrong for the Lords of the Privy Council to have by this plan the power of applying, in a manner distinctly laid down, the funds to be granted by that House; how much the more objectionable must be the power of the Board in Ireland, according to the noble Lord's own plan of 1831, which not only gave that species of control, but also an entire control over the religious books to be used in the schools. The noble Lord now objected to the power given to the Lords of the Privy Council to erect schools, to confer gratuities on teachers, and to establish and contribute to the support of model Schools. But the Board in Ireland had full powers to make such regulations as to matters of detail, which, while not being inconsistent with the instructions given to them, they might in accordance with the intentions of Government. The strongest ground of objection taken by the noble Lord, however, was the effect which this plan would have on the religious education of the people, arising out of the education of persons of different religious persuasions in the same schools. The noble Lord expressed his belief
"That this was a system of education which would instil into the minds of the younger population a general belief that the Legislature attached equal authority to all versions of the Scripture—that it was a matter of indifference what creed was taught to the people; and by putting before the mind of the young conflicting doctrines as of equal weight and authority, the foundations of all faith were gradually sunk, and thus the strongest ground of opposition to the scheme substantiated; for through gradual doubt it would lead to general scepticism, and from general scepticism the step was short to national infidelity."
Now, if the mere circumstance of persons of different creeds receiving their religious education in separate parts of the same building in which they received their literary education would produce all these lamentable results, what could be said of the Irish measure, the object of which was declared to be, not only to include Christians of all denominations—to unite in one general object children of different creeds, but the active co-operation of the clergy of all denominations was especially hoped for by its promoters. If it was wrong to encourage the Catholic faith in one instance, was it not equally wrong to do so in another? If it was pernicious to bring the Protestants of this country in contact with the Roman
532
Catholics, why did not the same rule apply equally to Ireland? If the adoption of a system of mixed education was right in Ireland, it was equally right and proper in England, and he could not understand why it had been rejected or repudiated by the noble Lord. He believed that the difference in conduct that had been pursued by the noble Lord could only be accounted for by regarding the noble Lord as he is, and the noble Lord as he was. The plan of education which the noble Lord had introduced into Ireland was one step certainly in advance to obtain the end, which he so anxiously desired. What-however, had been the noble Lord's proceeding in introducing this plan? In 1831, he (Mr. Wyse) proposed a plan of education for Ireland, and on his doing so, the noble Lord opposed the proposition; but, during the vacation, he prepared a plan, and with the consent of the Government, he appointed a Board to superintend the system, and in September of that year, he submitted his plan to Parliament, The noble Lord complained of the proposed plan not being sufficiently definite; but that which he then brought forward for Ireland was much looser and more vague in its description than that recently set forth in the minute of the Privy Council. He did not blame the noble Lord for having brought forward or carried his plan into effect; on the contray, he thought, that by doing so, he had conferred one of the greatest boons on that country, that had ever been conceded to it by a Government. He did not mean to say, that in adopting a system of education they must consider the peculiar circumstances of the case and make allowances accordingly, hut the observations which the noble Lord had urged against the adoption of the proposed plan appeared to him to apply more to the accessaries of the grant than to the principle of the system, that was proposed to be acted on. With respect to this great question itself, it should be regarded as a national matter whether they were not to have a peculiar system of national education. It had been a common thing to boast, that this was the first country in Europe in point of civilization, but it was a matter of astonishment to see how little had been done for the diffusion of general education. The defective state of education in England had been productive of the greatest evils, and it was felt not only in our moral and

533
social relations, but also in our physical condition. Instead of standing the highest in rank in point of civilisation, this country might be regarded as being almost the lowest in comparison with other European nations in the general diffusion of knowledge amongst the people. The evils were constantly being experienced of want of education in the elements of science, in matters of every day life, and in the pursuits of industry. It was scarcely possible to enter upon any investigation in agriculture without finding it connected, more or less, with the doctrines and elucidations derived from chemistry. For instance, we find it stated in the most able agricultural reports, that by injudicious use of lime many thousand acres in every part of the kingdom have been reduced to a state of almost total infertility. Again, with respect to manure, Mr. Malcolm complains, that he has not in any one instance been able to find any thing like system in the mechanical arrangement of the components of farmyard mixings, which he generally found put together as they were according to circumstances, and without any regard to rule. A great ignorance of the principles of mechanics was also being constantly manifested in harnessing horses, and in other simple processes of a similar character. With respect, also, to the ignorance that prevailed with regard to planting, Mr. Falkner says:—
"Thousands of acres of woods and plantations were utterly ruined from a want of knowledge of the process of vegetation—gross neglect was the rule, and tolerable attention was the exception."
What, as a body, do we know of the chemical properties of the various soils we cultivate, or even of the different manures roost generally used and approved of by farmers to assist production? Positively nothing. They were compelled to admit, that as a science agriculture was even now but in its infancy. Mr. Lowe, chairman of the Sevenoaks Union, says,
"That the farmers for the most part keep indifferent accounts, and many of them none at all, which was a state of things utterly incompatible with any systematic improvement. He has nothing to look to which will indicate with precision the calculations which he has made. Again, in geology, 'that fashionable road: which leads to damnation,' immense errors were constantly being committed. Lavoisier, even without a minute knowledge of farming, by following an enlightened system is said, in good, years to have doubled the produce in
534
grain of his lands and to have quintupled his flocks."
Farmers were generally found at present to be jealous of their labourers, but if education was more generally diffused amongst them, confidence would, in a great measure, be restored, and they would be most anxious to promote and encourage education amongst the labourers and their children. They would feel convinced, that the stupid and brutalised hind was not to be depended on from one moment to another; that as soon as the eye of the master is off him, he relaxes in his exertions, and that he only differed from the slave in this, that the slave started into activity upon the apprehension of the whip, while the labourer did so at the impending loss of his wages. The master would feel that he could not be everywhere, and that he constantly sustained losses in consequence, and that it was impracticable to introduce many improvements which he otherwise would adopt. If he were better informed, he would be convinced, that the only means of remedying these evils and inconveniences to which he was daily exposed, was by diffusing knowledge, and improving the condition of his labourers, both socially and mentally. The evils of this want of education were constantly being manifested and experienced in towns, in the ignorance of proper ventilation, and in discoveries that might be made generally applicable for the improvement of the condition of the people not being made available. The deficiency of knowledge that prevailed in the application of the elements of art to manufactures was strikingly obvious, when the productions in several branches of industry were contrasted with those of the schools of Lyons and Berlin. This was particularly obvious in the printing of cottons, and the late Sir Robert Peel attributed many of our great manufacturing losses to the inferiority of our workmens taste to those of the contitent. The inferiority of our population was not less striking as regarded the social condition of the lower classes. This was peculiarly obvious in the places of residence of the lower classes in the district of Manchester and its neighbourhood. He found, from a report laid before the British Association of Science, that the proportion of of the population of Manchester that lived in the cellars was 11¾ percent.; of Salford, 8 per cent; of Bury,3¾ per cent.; of Ashton, 1¼percent.; of Stayley bridge, 1½ pet cent.;

535
of Dukenfield, 1¾ per cent., and of Liverpool, 15 per cent. Taking the whole of the working population of that large town, 20 per cent, lived in cellars, or in round numbers, 31,000 persons so resided, out of a population of 230,000. The report he had just referred to, stated,
"That the great proportion of the inhabited cellars were dark, damp, confined, ill-ventilated, and dirty. The numbers residing in each cellar varied from four to seventeen. As in many (perhaps in the majority of cases), there are only two beds to a family of five or six persons, of both sexes, the inconveniences and evils which must arise from this deficiency of accomodation are too obvious to require further remark."
This was a striking illustration of the condition of the working classes in the manufacturing districts, and there was much additional evidence to show a similar state of things in other places. For instance, in the report of the Central Society of Education, it was stated, that out of sixty-six families in Norfolk, in twenty-four instances, the whole of the children occupied the same bed-rooms as their parents, and in thirty-six, boys were not separated from girls. It also appeared, that in Dukenfield, Staleybridge, and Ashton, there were 2,057 families, in which more than three, and less than four persons slept in one bed; 632 families, in which more than four, and less than, five persons were similarly situated; 180 families, in which more than five, and less than six, and 330 families, in which more than six persons slept in one bed. The children in most of these families were employed in the coal mines in the vicinity of these places. From the same report, he found that the number of beer shops, public houses, &c, in Bury, was in the proportion of one to every 122 persons, in Ashton one to every 113 persons, in Staleybridge one to every 200, and in Dukenfield one to every 254 persons. In the evidence taken before the commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of the hand-loom weavers, the following striking facts were stated by one of the witnesses:—
"I have seen human degradation in some of its worst phases, both in England and abroad, but I can advisedly say, that I did not believe, until I visited the wynds of Glasgow, that so large an amount of filth, crime, misery, and disease congregated in one spot in any civilised country."
Again, the want of education of the
536
working classes was strikingly manifest in the strikes that took place, which generally arose from a gross ignorance of the laws which regulated the rate of wages, and the interests of the labourers. It often happened, that 50 men in a manufactory compelled 1,500 to stop work. The best paid workmen were often the movers and instigators to these strikes, but the inevitable effect was to abate all motive to pre-eminent skill. They were often directed against the employment of machinery, but machinery generally led to an increased demand for the manufactured article, and thus an increased number of workmen were employed, and the amount of wages was increased. By strikes, however, the consumption of goods was diminished, and wages were ultimately reduced. On this subject, the following striking evidence as to the effects of one of these strikes was given before a Committee of the House. It related to a strike in the man ufacoies at Preston, which lasted from October, 1836, to February, 1837:—
"While the turn-out lasted, the operatives generally wandered about the streets without any definite object. Seventy-five persons were brought before the magistrates and convicted of drunkenness and disorderly conduct; twelve were imprisoned and held to bail for assaults; and about twenty young females became prostitutes, of whom more than one-half are still so, and also two of them have since been transported for theft. Three persons are also believed to have died of starvation; not less than five thousand must have suffered from hunger and cold; and in almost every family the greater part of the wearing apparel and household furniture was pawned. In nine houses out of ten considerable arrears of rent were due, and out of the sum of 1,600 l. deposited in the savings bank, by about sixty spinners oroverlookers, 900 l. was withdrawn in the course of three months, and most of those who could get credit got into debt with the shopkeepers. The trade of the town suffered severely—many of the small shopkeepers were nearly ruined, and some completely so."
Again, the evils of the want of education were manifest when the moral and religious condition of the people was regarded. On this point, he would refer to the evidence that had been given as to the classes who were generally the inmates of prisons and houses of correction. It was stated at a late meeting of the British and Foreign School Society at Cheltenham, by Mr. St. Clair a deputy-lieutenant of the county of Gloucester:—
"That two-thirds of the youth in Gloucester

537
gaol were the most ignorant of society. There was at present on the treadmill of that place 120 men who had been convicted of small felonies; five out of six were under twenty years of age—nine out of every ten could not read a single word."
It appeared from returns on the Table, that in 1837 not less than 20,000 persons had been tried for offences in England and Wales, and that 15,000 were convicted, while the number of criminal commitments to gaol were 100,000 annually. The report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the rural constabulary, give many instances of the barbarous habits of the people of this country on the coasts where wrecks occur, and more especially in Cheshire, Wales, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, and Kent, in which counties the deficiency of education was most obvious. It was also stated in the evidence of Messrs. Burt and Elliot, that England in respect of the state of the roads, followed next after Italy and Spain; cunning, however, generally superseded the place of violence. The latter, however, often predominated in the country districts. It was also stated in the same report, that there were 6,000 thieves at large in the metropolis, and within the metropolitan police districts there were 10,666 depredators. In page 79 of this report it is stated, that the—
"Majority of crimes which were attended by violence, are now committed in the rural districts, although the population and property in towns have increased in a far greater proportion."
Again, in page 50 it was said:—
"Dupin graduates the increase of crime in a direct ratio, according to the condensations of populations in towns."
The following return was also given, on the same authority, of the proportion of bad characters to the population:—In the metropolitan police district it was one to eighty-nine, in Liverpool one to forty-five, in Kingston-upon-Hull one to sixty-four, in Bath one to thirty-seven, in the county and city of Bristol one to thirty-one, and in Newcastle one to twenty-seven. It was also stated, that prostitution was as great in London as in Paris. The report of the committee on the central society of education states—
"Your committee are fully persuaded, that to the want of education is to be chiefly attributed the great increase of criminals, and consequently of cost to this country, namely, in twelve years from one to ten; and while the
538
population increased only thirty-two per cent., the committals had increased fourfold."
He felt satisfied, that the religious education, as given in this country, was not sufficient. As an instance of this he would refer to the state of those parishes in which the ignorant imposter Thorn had obtained so many followers, namely, Herne Hill, Dunkirk, and Boughton. The inhabitants of those villages were induced to believe, that Thorn was Jesus Christ, and to imagine, that disobedience of his mandates would entail on them eternal damnation. It appeared, that he gave them the sacrament, anointed himself and them with oil, and told them that no bullet could touch them. He showed them the marks of the nails, and assured them if they doubted that, he should call them to judgment. He threatened also to rain fire and brimstone on them if they left him, and at the same time blessed the little children that were brought to him. This was in the midst of a beautiful country in which there was no hostility to the Poor-laws, where the peasantry had good wages, and where the poor-rates were comparatively low. The state of education in these districts, he believed, was as follows:—
"At Herne-hill there were fifty-one families, in which there were forty-five above the age of fourteen, and of them eleven could read and write, and twenty-one could do so very imperfectly, and the remainder not at all. There were 117 children under that age, and of these forty-two were at school; most of them made little or no progress, and they were generally taken away at an early period by their parents. Many of the children, who had been two years at school, were frequently found unable to read. The reading of the children in these schools was confined to the New Testament. Many of those who had been educated stated, that they could read the Testament once, but that they could not do so now. It was found, that the Sunday schools were insufficient, as the children could never be brought to connect what they learned in schools with their practice in life, and remained as idle, mischevous, and vicious as before. In Dunkirk there were 113 children; ten of them could read and write, thirteen could do so a little, and the remainder could not do so at all. In Boughton there were 119 children under the age of fourteen, and thirty-two attended school. Only seven attended school where writing was taught; the remainder only went to a Sunday school. These facts prove, that merely religious instruction of the kind obtained by these villagers was not of itself sufficient to fit men to discharge their duties to society."
It was shown by the foregoing statements, that majority had been at Sun-

539
day schools, and were in the habit of attending church, and most of them who could read, read and possessed only religious books, so that not only the instruction they received, hut the only kind they had any opportunity of gaining, was wholly of a religious cast. There was a similar general defect of education throughout the country. For instance, in Manchester, in 1834 and 1835 there were 932 schools, and 56,189 scholars, being twenty-two per cent, of the population, and of these were 29,529 who only received Sunday tuition. In Liverpool, in the same years, there were 766 schools, in which there were 33,183 scholars, being fourteen 43–100 per cent, of the population, and of these 3,719 received only Sunday tuition. In Salford there were 211 schools, and 12,838 scholars, being twenty-three 43–100 per cent, of the population, and of these 6,344 received only Sunday-school tuition. In York there were 150 schools and 5,591 scholars, making nineteen 97–100 per cent, of the population, and of these 842 received Sunday-school instruction only. In Bury there were 79 schools and 5,727 scholars, making twenty-eight 63–100 per cent, of the population, and of these 3,102 attended Sunday-schools only. In Newcastle forty-nine out of every 100 of the youthful population between the ages of five and fifteen, did not receive any instruction whatever. At Gateshead 12¾ of the juvenile population attended schools. In seventeen of the chief towns in this country, the average of those who received daily instruction was only one in twelve; while in Manchester the proportion was only one in 35, while, according to the conclusion he had arrived at, it ought to be one in eight. The result was, that there were 3,000,000 of children in England to be supplied with instruction, half of whom were left in a state of complete ignorance. The population of children under fifteen was about 4,000,000, deducting those under two years about 500,000; there were 3,500,000 to attend school, and from this number 500,000 should be deducted as receiving private instruction. Taking the returns in other countries, it appeared, that in the United States in eleven States the education was one out of five; in seven other States one out of six; in three others one out of seven; in two one out of eight, and in two others, one out of ten; while in England and Scotland the proportion was as one in eleven; in Lombardy it was one in twelve; in France one in thirteen. The evils that resulted from
540
this defect in the general education of the people were obvious in the extent to which numerous depredations, petty thefts, and misdemeanours were carried and these were often carried to such an extent as to put a stop to cultivation and trading in many places. In 1836, 700,000 l. were lost in Liverpool by depredations. The causes of this state of things did not arise from want. One of the chief causes was the want of steadiness in early occupations, for the want of this was one of the most powerful temptations to a career of crime, instead of a career of industry. The effects of prisons on early delinquents was most striking. Mr. Chesterton, the governor of Cold-bath-fields prison stated, that nearly in almost all cases of juvenile offences there was an ignorance of religion which amounted to almost perfect heathenism. The effects of this ignorance on society were, that there were large masses of the population either actually in the commission of crime, or preparing for it. There was also an envy and desire of enjoyment, which led to enormous abuses in the various relations of society; that the inattention of the upper classes led to the dissociation of the lower classes from them, and they were often induced to adopt Chartism and infidelity. In other countries, the state of things was very different, for robberies were scarcely ever heard of, and Prussia was marked as a country, almost a fine country in this respect, for a traveller to pass through. In a recent volume of Travels in Germany, published by Mr. Chambers entitled, "The Tour of an English Traveller in 1837," it was stated, "I have not seen three individuals drunk in Germany in three months." Again, it was stated in the same work,
"The Catholic churches, in both the towns and villages, are crowded by worshippers by five o'clock in the morning, not only on Sundays, but on week days, and the priests are in attendance to perform their duties at that hour."
In Switzerland, also, there was a similar abstinence from wine. In that country there was a perfect freedom in trade, and a constant attendance on the offices of religion, and a morality superior, perhaps, to that of any other community; and such a feeling of equality prevailed between the rich and the poor as recognised, on both sides, the common humanity in which consisted the true dignity of man. It was the bounden duty of Parliament to put an

541
end to the existing state of ignorance among the lower classes in the country, which was productive of so frightful an amount of crime. Nine-tenths of the inmates of prisons throughout the country were unable to read. The very fact, that they enacted laws and inflicted punishments on those who violated them, proved that their first care should be, to provide adequately for the knowledge, the health, and the morals of the people. They had heard much of the voluntary system; but he would ask, had that system been successful? What were its fruits, and what was the harvest which had been reaped from it? It was well known, that no advantage whatever had sprung from the schools founded on the voluntary principle, and yet it was said it would be dangerous to meddle with it: but they should check that charity which was the natural impulse of the heart. But if the voluntary system had been good, why had it been abandoned in the case of the Poor Laws, the police, and innumerable other instances which he might mention? It was, because the voluntary system of education did not work well, that he wished to see an organised system substituted for it. He was anxious to see schools established where every one would be entitled to instruction as a right conferred by law, and this too, without reference to religion. In the present schools, it was evident that Roman Catholics could not be educated, but then it was not because they did not read the Bible. It was a fact not to be contradicted, that editions of both the Old and New Testament, sanctioned by the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, had been diffused throughout Ireland. The noble Lord (Stanley) had asserted, that universal education had always been conducted under the superintendence of the Church, and for this he quoted the authority of the law in the time of Henry 4th, and the opinion of Lord Holt in 1701. It was true, that in Catholic times, the education of the people in this, and the other countries of Europe, was in the hands of the Church, but for his purpose the noble Lord might have adduced stronger authority than he had advanced. The Council of Latern would furnish much more conclusive evidence in his favour, and the doctrine of the Council of Latern was subsequently confirmed by the Council of Trent. This doctrine had been embodied in the law of both Ireland and
542
Scotland; and in Ireland it was carried out in a remarkable way in the diocesan and parochial schools. But was there any one so blind as not to see, that such a state of things was peculiar to the then state of society, and could have no reference to the present times? It was to be expected that in the feudal times education should be in the hands of the Church, for in those days there were none capable of affording instruction but the members of the Church. It was not fair, however, to infer, that because formerly the Church had the management of education, it should also have the exclusive management of it at the present period, when learned professions, and learning generally, had a distinct and separate existence. God forbid that he should oppose the proper interference of the Church in the religious education of those who belonged to her flock; but he could not go the length of confiding to her management and direction the secular as well as the religious education of the country. He would ask those who wished the clergy to have the sole direction of education in this country, did it follow, that because a clergyman was competent to instruct in religious matters, he was equally competent to afford instruction in mathematics, or in other collateral branches of learning? But if the Church of England laid down the position, that it ought to be the sole manager of the education of the country, it laid claim to a power which it could not maintain, and which, under existing circumstances, it would be impossible it could possess. If it made such a claim on the ground of its being the national Church, they should first understand what the word "national" meant. The claim might be tenable if the Church was the Church of the entire nation, but unless that could be shown, he apprehended that any such claim should fall to the ground. The Church had no right, and could claim no right, over those who had no sort of communion with her. He had already expressed his opinion of the two societies so often alluded to in the debate. He objected to their system, because under it the distribution of the funds was calculated to serve the richer districts in a most unjust ratio, as compared with the poorer districts. He likewise objected to it, because it failed to establish a plan for securing efficient teachers. It was not sufficient to say that a certain sum of money was to be given to certain schools.

543
The very essence, the very mind of the school was in the teacher; and any system proposed for the country generally, would be exceedingly deficient if it did not adopt some means for securing that most essential advantage. He also thought it most necessary to establish inspectors. Those upon whom the responsibility would rest, for the moment the House granted a sum of money that responsibility would arise, would never be able to account for the proper application of that money without the aid of inspectors. What appeared to him best for this country, as for every other, was to unite the two great powers—the central power and the local power; the first for transmitting and taking care of the funds; the latter for seeing that they were justly applied. Such was the system acted on, he might say, over the civilized globe. It had been adopted in Greece immediately after the revolution; it had existed in Naples since the year 1806; it had been established in Rome under Leo 12th; in Tuscany at a still earlier period; in the confederated republics of Switzerland—all had boards, ministers of instruction, councils, and local committees. France, by the law of 1834, had adopted it; it was in use in every one of the states of Germany, from 1802 to 1834; in Russia it had advanced, stage after stage, to its present excellence and efficiency; Sweden had her local boards and committees; Denmark her councils, inspectors, and secretaries: in Holland, as the House was aware, and even in the states of America, had such a system been adopted with success. In a report on the state of education in the state of Kentucky, the reporter stated—
"In the first place, the experience of those states, whose systems I have examined, recommends very clearly, that popular education be taken under legislative patronage and control. It cannot be denied, that in some cases legislative effort has not been crowned with all the success desired; yet it is also true, that the general diffusion of education has never been effected in any age or country, except by governmental aid and direction."
And again, in more detail—
"If every parent in the State could and would educate his children, and educate them well, nothing more could be desired. But as it is essential to the well-being of society, that all its intellectual capital should be employed, if any member of the common family cannot educate his children, he should be assisted;
544
if any could, but will not, they should be impelled to it, by authority or inducement:"—
That was from America, not Prussia—
"If all or any are disposed to do it, but to do it imperfectly, they should be overseen. The great object of legislative superintendence therefore, is, to see that all the children in society are educated, and educated well. That these ends cannot be attained without the direction of Government, is demonstrable from the experience of New York, shown in 1816, when the Legislature assumed the control of public schools, the number of children were reported at 140,000; whereas, at the present time, it cannot fall short of half a million."
His great object was to have, if possible, an united system of education; but, no matter what happened, to have education. The Government plan had been objected to, because, as it was said, it would unite the different sects in the same schools. He had seen no proof whatever of any such intention. The Government only required that the children should be united to receive secular instruction, but that religious instruction should be given apart. He could not see, therefore, what difficulty there was in the way of religious instruction, or how it would be in the slightest degree changed or interfered with, under the scheme which had been proposed. It had frequently been acknowledged—nay, it was now received as a matter universally admitted, that the Protestant version of the Holy Scriptures contained numerous faults and imperfections; would it not then be much better, that the Catholic child should be allowed at school to read some version of the Scriptures, or even extracts from a version of the Bible, rather than that he should receive no religious instruction whatever? Gentlemen who took a different view of this great and important subject from that which he entertained were much in the habit of anticipating most alarming evils from the practical application of those principles of popular education, of which he had ever been the humble but earnest advocate. Now, if these evils were so likely to occur in England, he desired to know why it happened that nothing of the sort was to be found in Prussia, in Holland, or in the United States of America. The state of public morals in those parts of the world was such as the people of this country mightwell desire to see established in their own, and he did not hesitate to impute that superior condition to a superior system of popular

545
education. Amongst the objections urged against the system of which he was a supporter, there was this, that it tended towards the establishment of the religious ascendancy of the Catholic Church: he disbelieved utterly that it had any such tendency. He appealed to the statements of facts already before Parliament, and within the reach of every Member of that House, to bear him out in the assertion, that the system had not the least tendency towards any such result. If for a moment he thought that it would be followed by such consequences, he sincerely declared that it should receive no support from him. He was not opposed to Protestant ascendancy further than he was opposed to the ascendancy of any particular class of religionists. He was opposed to any species of ascendancy. He was as little favourable to Catholic as he was to Protestant ascendancy. There was no effort which he could make—there was hardly a sacrifice which he should consider too great, for the purpose of preventing anything so much to be deprecated as the ascendancy, in a religious point of view, of either the one party or the other; but it was in the confident belief, that the great ends of education could be fully and completely attained, without in the least promoting the ascendancy of any class in the community that he ventured earnestly to press upon the House of Commons the necessity of giving to the children of the people whom they represented a sound, a practical, and religious education; and at the same time that it was religious, protected from the dictation in matters of faith, of any section of the community. It was impossible to look abroad without being sensible of the fact, that there was, in every quarter of the country, a deplorable want of education—he might say, of almost every species of useful instruction; but he ventured to hope that the time was at hand, when this stain and reproach would be wiped away. If they refused their assent to the present scheme, it would be soon impossible to resist, with civilisation making such rapid strides throughout the great European family. The cause should advance; it was a righteous and a just cause; and, feeling confident in its future success, he would strike the earth like Galileo, and say it still went on.
Mr. Colquhounobserved, that the question was not, whether they would take any particular step for the purpose of promoting
546
the ascendancy of the Established Church, but whether they would abandon a system which had worked well for the purpose of introducing a new system, which was alien to the constitution of the country, and to the feelings of the people. If, as was alleged, the Board possessed the power of introducing those extensive changes, they might do so at any time, and it was perfectly natural, so long as the Board possessed the enormous discretionary power of making such Changes, that the people of England should regard them with a salutary jealousy. These vie s of his were supported by the authority of one who was a Dissenter, a voluntary and a liberal; he alluded to Mr. Dunn, the Secretary to the British and Foreign Bible Society, who said,
"Why should we betake ourselves to measures so foreign to the habits and feelings of the nation—so liable to abuse, tending so directly to the worst of all tyrannies? The enslaving of public sentiment is a question I confess myself utterly unable to answer. I can discover no imaginable reason why we should thus toss at the feet of any Government an amount of moral influence, the possession of which, under some circumstances, might lead to the destruction of our liberties."
Why should they, who sat on that side of the House, not follow the course which to their judgments seemed best, when so far from being condemned, it was supported by one who was a liberal, a voluntary, and Dissenter. The central society proceeded upon the avowed object of establishing a system not sectarian; nevertheless he admitted that it was no easy matter to be quite certain as to what were the views and wishes of the Central society, since, in imitation of very high authority, they agreed to leave many of their questions open questions. It would seem, that each member of that association acted, in many cases, quite independently of his fellow-members, or at least claimed the right to do so; hence it was not unaptly called Liberty-hall; but he concluded he should be justified in assuming, that the secretary of that body, and the editor of the publication which they patronised, might be held to speak pretty nearly the sentiments of the whole body. Mr. Duppa declared in the most distinct terms, that it was necessary to separate secular from religious instruction. He said, "to effect this object it is only necessary, that instruction of a purely scientific character should be separated from that which is

547
religious." Mr. Simpson informed them that children were educated at the National Schools from the ages of two years to fourteen. "The Bible," he said, "should not be taught from two to fourteen. Masters should be dismissed for meddling with the subject of revealed religion, I would prohibit the teacher from any reference in his lessons to Christian doctrines or Christian history. The Bible had better not be placed in the secular school at all. Without this we shall never carry into effect a system of national education." These were the sentiments plainly avowed by Mr. Simpson. He would ask the House was it not too much to require that he and those who thought with him should abandon the opinions which they held last year, merely because others had given up theirs—that they should join in denouncing now those principles in conducting the education of the country which they had formerly given their consent to when supported by the noble Lord opposite? who had strongly departed from the wise course in which last year he had earnestly engaged. There had been a great change in his conduct. [Lord John Russell "None whatever."] He repeated, that the noble Lord and the hon. Gentleman opposite did by no means hold the same sentiments in the present year, that they had done in the last. On that account, as well as for other reasons, he should take the liberty of calling the attention of the House to a short extract from a speech of the hon. Gentleman who spoke last. It was in these words:—
"The great defect of English education is the total want of a national organization. There is not, as in all continental countries, a Minister and Council of Instruction—wandering voluntary system of instruction. If the State is to touch our public schools at all, she must do it through a proper department—no more grants, or a Minister and Council through which they are to come. Difficulties there may be but none which good sense and strong will may not beat down, There is no possible reason why Government in the case of England should not act as in the case of Ireland. Is a Home Secretary here of shorter arms and poorer courage than a Chief Secretary there? A letter of instruction may fairly anticipate an net of Parliament. What we want is the organization—a board of education for England."
These were the sentiments of the hon. Gentleman: what did the noble Lord do? In February out came his letter of instruc-
548
tions; in April, the National Board was constituted, following step by step most marvellously the instructions of the society. The next step was the erection of a normal seminary. This, also, was insinuated by the noble Lord into one of his schemes. And what was the end which the Central Society had in view? The hon. Gentleman had to-night pretty strongly intimated that the object was to give the board full inspection and control over all the schools in the country, and thereby oblige them to alter their system according as they should think proper to suggest. He had stated, that this board did not give satisfaction to the Church of England, the Wesleyan Methodists or the great body of Dissenters; but did it give permanent satisfaction to the Gentlemen of the Central Board itself? No such thing. It was merely to be preparatory. They represented the Board of Privy Council as overloaded with business, not permanent in their constitution, and little versed in systems of instruction, and utterly unfit to superintend the national education. But the Central Society did not wish the noble Lord all at once to grasp at entire domination over national education; but by and by a proposal would be made for appointing three paid commissioners, as a noble and learned Lord suggested in another place, with powers more absolute even than those of the Poor Law Commissioners—powers to visit every school in England, to establish what was called a national school in every parish, and compel every child, from two to fourteen years of age, to attend them. It was perfectly obvious, then, that we were now entering upon the first step of the plan, as developed both in the publications of the Central Society, and in the elaborate evidence given before that committee, of which the hon. Gentleman was Chairman, and the House must be prepared for the results. The noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, and the hon. Member for Lambeth, tried the other night to persuade them that their fears as to the results of this system were chimerical for that, in fact, it was only a recurrence to the old system, which had been in operation for the last six years. But, if it were indeed so, if there was no difference between the present plan and the Treasury scheme of Lord Althorp, why did not the noble Lord at once relieve the excited apprehensions of the country by acceding to,

549
the motion of his noble Friend, the Member for North Lancashire, for this Board of Privy Council, so long as it existed, would possess great powers and great discretion, which it might abuse! All he asked was, that they should revert to the rules laid down by the Treasury. But were the rules laid down by the Board of Privy Council really the same as those of the Treasury? They were as different as possible. The rules of the Treasury secured to the country the guarantee of two established societies, both for the character and permanence of the schools to which money was voted; but, under the Board of Privy Council, any school, however recommended, whether they had ascertained its character or not, whatever that character might be, whether it taught the most absurd or the most offensive doctrines, however ephemeral its existence might be, springing up to-day, and disappearing to-morrow, every such school might receive a portion of the public-money. The Treasury scheme possessed another very great advantage; it called forth from the different localities in which a school might be established a large amount of private subscriptions. The Privy Council Board presented no such guarantee for the judicious and proper application of the public money. It was true, no doubt, as the hon. Member for Lambeth had remarked, that there were districts in the country so poor that they could not afford to raise any local subscription; that fact was deserving of the utmost consideration. But let them, at least, supply those cases whose destitution the Treasury had examined, and which had not yet been relieved, before they were called upon to reverse the system on a mere theoretical objection. Besides, there were a great number of new district churches building throughout the country, and if the Treasury grants were continued, a school would be established in connexion with every one of them. Within the last six years, 120,000 l. of public money had been expended for educational purposes; it had called forth no less a sum than 230,000 l. in the shape of local subscriptions, and secured education to 230,000 children, and covered a population of two millions and a quarter. Thus had schools been erected with a perfect guarantee for both character and permanence; and it was hardly reasonable to call upon them to retrace their
550
steps, and reverse their system, because it had not effected all that some hon. Gentlemen might desire. If enough had not been voted, why did they not increase the Treasury grant? They had, through the National Society, applications from no less than 168 places, giving education to 32,000 scholars, drawing out of local contributions 55,000 l., and receiving only 16,000 l. from the Treasury. Here was a practical case—a tangible and substantial good to be accomplished. The Privy Council Board allowed the greatest possible latitude as to who should apply for a grant, and who should receive it; but they were very stringent in one rule; they insisted on a pledge to conform to the discipline and the rules laid down by the Privy Council. [Lord J. Russell.—No: their own rules.] He begged the noble Lord's pardon. He regretted, however, they had not yet heard the comments of any one of those four Members of the Board of Privy Council in explanation of this very obscure and very important document. They had been told a fortnight ago that papers should be laid forthwith on the Table, which would remove the gross misrepresentations which had been circulated respecting the noble Lord's scheme; but up to the present moment no explanatory document had been presented—nothing to correct misapprehension, nothing to obviate perversion, nothing to clear away the mist which enveloped this important Minute. When they came to the discussion, however, they were told by the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, that there should be a conformity to the regulations and discipline established in the several schools, with such improvements as from time to time might be suggested by the Board. He would venture to say, that no member of the Church of England, no Wesleyan Methodist, no evangelical Dissenter, would put himself in connection with this Board under a system so constituted as to require from them a conformity quite inconsistent with their principles and conscientious opinions. The plan, therefore, of the noble Lord would exclude from any participation in the Parliamentary grant all who were attached to the Church of England, and those large classes of Dissenters who never would consent to the condition so unjustly imposed of opening their schools to the visitation, control, and capricious improvements, of a Board whose

551
plan was not yet matured, which was yet only in the womb of time, and which, so far as it had been developed, never would give satisfaction to the great bulk of the people. But it seemed, after all, that the most obnoxious feature of the former scheme, the erection of a normal seminary, had not been abandoned; it was only postponed; what mode of instruction, then, did the noble Lord propose to introduce in the normal school? Was it to be connected with the Church of England, on the system recommended by the British and Foreign School Society, which the noble Lord had admitted to be the best? The noble Lord's scheme was to lay aside all the special points of religion in which each sect differed, and reserve those general points in which they all agreed. The Central Society represented the British and Foreign School system as essentially sectarian; conscientious Unitarians and Catholics were opposed to it. The Bible must be taught regularly and systematically; its doctrines must be ingrafted on the minds of the children before any good moral result could be expected. On this subject he begged to quote the testimony of a distinguished philosopher and statesman. M. Guizot said,—
"It had been sometimes thought, that to succeed in securing to families of different creeds the reality and the freedom of religious instruction, it was sufficient to substitute for the special lessons and practices of the several religious denominations, some lessons and practices susceptible in appearance of being applied to all religions; this would not answer the wish either of families or the law; they would tend to banish all positive and effective religious instruction from the schools, in order to substitute one that is merely vague and abstract."
The noble Lord's panacea of special and general religious instruction must, therefore, be a complete failure. He hoped the noble Lord, referring to the document which had lately been placed on the Table, and which enumerated no fewer than twenty-five different sects, would place on record those doctrines in which they agreed, and those on which they differed; the result would probably satisfy most hon. Members that a system of instruction projected on such a basis must fail of its intended effect. Then, there must be a master; abstract rules, mere idle regulations, could effect nothing. The master must form the habits and minds of the scholars. Now what religion
552
was the master to be of? If he were a member of the Church of England, all the other twenty-five sects would clamour against his appointment; and if he belonged to one of the twenty-five sects, the other twenty-four would clamour as loudly against him. If he were a man duly impressed with a sense of the religious principles of the sect to which he belonged, he would, of necessity, impress upon his pupils those religious principles which he himself conscientiously believed; and if he were a man of no religion, would the moral and religious people of England submit to have their children exposed to his tuition? What, then, were they to do with their model school, and with their rector, who was to initiate all the other masters who were to be appointed to regulate all the other schools in England? M. Cousin had observed, that children judged of the value of the instruction which they received in schools from the time and attention devoted to it. If, then, religion were to be excluded as a subject of instruction from these schools, what would children think of religion? They would regard it with indifference; and therefore this system was setting up a series of schools which would train up tutors and children in indifference to all those great and eternal truths which were essential to the maintenance of peace and order in society. He, therefore, protested against this system, from which practical religion was absolutely excluded—a system fraught with blunders, as the noble Lord had himself admitted, when he abandoned his first scheme. [Cheers from the Opposition, and cries of "No, no," from the Ministerial benches.] What was he to understand from those cries? That the first scheme was not even postponed? They had heard a good deal last night about open questions—was this to be another open question? The noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, had said, on the former night of this debate, that that scheme was abandoned. "But no," says the noble Lord opposite, "the scheme is not even postponed." [Lord John Russell, I said nothing of the sort.] He begged the noble Lord's pardon then, but some one said "No," and he conceived that the cry came from the noble Lord, and the noble Lord would forgive him, if he attributed more of meaning to the hon. Gentleman who sat behind him, than to the noble Lord himself. Remembering

553
how often the noble Lord had brought forward and abandoned schemes which he had described as well considered and deliberately arranged, and remembering, too, that it was only last year that the noble Lord had abandoned his education scheme in deference to the opinions of those who usually sat behind him, he must say, that if the negative which he had just heard came not from the noble Lord, but from some of the hon. Members behind him, it afforded him great room at least for comment. Would the noble Lord then allow him to consider the last edition of his education scheme as the type of his meaning? Why, it was only last year that the noble Lord had declared in his place in Parliament, that he could not discover any mode of reconciling religious differences on the subject of education, and that those differences were so wide and irreconcilable, that he despaired of being able to present to the House any united scheme of education. The noble Lord, resting upon the petition from Manchester, signed by 22,000 persons, in support of the Government plan, and upon the petition presented by the hon. Member for Staffordshire, which was not against it, would perhaps argue, that there was now a greater concurrence in its favour than he had been led to anticipate, and would therefore be for introducing his proposed plan. He was therefore bound to come to the same conclusion to which his noble Friend had arrived on a former night; and as long as this Board was to be constituted, with unlimited discretion, and was to have power to deal as it pleased with the moral and religious education of the people; and, therefore, to tamper with those important elements of national prosperity, so long must he join with him in praying that this Board should cease.
Mr. C. Bulleradmitted, that he was one of those Members whose cry of" No," had called forth so much eloquent indignation from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock. He was sorry to have done any thing to force the hon. Member out of the usual placidity of his demeanour; but he could not but contradict the assertion that the first plan proposed by Ministers had been abandoned by them on account of its blunders, when its abandonment had been justified by them on the single and adequate ground of their inability to carry it in despite of the opposition with which it had been encountered. There was
554
one thing in these debates, which was very valuable to the cause of national education—it was this, that whatever might be the line of argument adopted by any speaker on the opposite side, or whatever feeling might be assumed by him, the arguments and the reasoning of all resolved themselves into nothing more nor less than this—determined and unconquerable hostility to the general education of all classes and sects of the people of England. He was not then going to defend the particular defects which might be pointed out in the plans of the Government, and which had given room to the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire (Lord Stanley) to treat some of his former colleagues to a sample of those courtesies by which he loved to revive the tender recollections of his bygone friendships, and to expatiate upon a subject of which no person had greater experience—the most convenient mode of abandoning a course on which a man had once entered. He (Mr. C. Buller) admitted that both plans had this fault, that while they were liberal enough to excite the hostility of the thoroughgoing advocates of the exclusive pretensions of the Established Church, they were not on such a scale of practical utility as to excite the sympathies of the masses. There was, however, this of promise in both plans, around which the friends of civil and religious liberty ought manfully to rally; there was in both plans a recognition of the principle already recognized by every other enlightened Government in the world, and which this had been the last to acknowledge, namely, that the business of the education of the people ought not to be left to the voluntary principle, to the whims and caprices, or to the unaided and ill-directed efforts of individuals, but that it should be conducted as a matter of vital interest to all classes of the community. Around this principle, and the Government which adopts it, it is the duty of every friend of education and freedom to unite. But he must tell the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire, that he and his worthy coadjutor, the noble Member for Dorsetshire, had given them a fresh and far stronger motive of union than they had before. It is not on either of the Government plans, but on his own amendment, that the noble Lord compelled them to vote to-night. That amendment positively and specifically annulled the only,

555
the slight, but only provision for general education ever attempted by the Government of this country. He proposed no other scheme. He called upon them to annul the superintendence of education which the Government now proposes, to intrust to the Committee of the Privy Council. He did this on the ground that that Committee is not a clerical body. He called on them to affirm, that whatever the Government of Great Britain does for education, must be done by the agency of the Established Church; and that if it cannot do anything through that agency, it must do nothing at all for education. That was a proposition which he would ever resist. He was sure that it would be successfully resisted, unless he mistook—greatly mistook, the spirit of his countrymen. He was not then going to trouble the House with examining the different points which had been urged in debate. He did not mean to deprive of a particle of its value all the antiquarian lore which the noble Lord opposite had been able to pick up upon this subject. He left to the noble Lord all the advantage which he could get from the Chief Justice of Henry the 4th, for he should not even attempt to contest the point, whether the education of Protestant Great Britain, in the nineteenth century, should be regulated by the maxims of a bigotted old barbarian—[Ironical cheers from the Opposition]—yes, of a bigotted old barbarian, whose chief employment was the burning of Lollards. He would leave the noble Lord all the advantage he could get from an example drawn from these pure wells of bigotry undefiled;—from the worst age of their Popish ancestors—an age that was the most disgraced by Popish persecutions. [Lord Stanley said, he had not said anything like that.] He was not pretending to repeat the exact terms of the noble Lord. He knew that the noble Lord and others opposite were too canning to commit themselves to the precise formulas of bigotry which were adopted by their supporters out of the House. But he appealed to any man who had listened to the speech of the noble Lord, whether he did not in substance advance these doctrines, from which he now sought to withdraw?—the doctrine that no education should be given by the state, except under the superintendence, and by the means of the Established Church. That was the doctrine, which he
556
now felt himself called on to combat; and his objections to it were twofold. In the first place, the consigning the business of education to the Established Church was only an uncandid way of throwing aside education altogether, for the Established Church had not the machinery for dispensing education; so that, when they talked of leaving education in the hands of the Established Church, they only meant to leave it to the voluntary associations of its members. What part of the funds of the Church were allocated to education?—what portion of the hierarchy particularly devoted themselves to it?—what portion of its patronage was given by the Church to those who devoted themselves to education? Why even those funds and dignities which had been set apart for the education of the people at the time of the Reformation, had been perverted from their original purpose, and turned into mere sinecures. These were statements in which he should not be contradicted by those who were interested in diocesan schools and who had been the first to complain of this abuse. But this system of leaving education in the hands of the Established Church had had a long trial, and what had been its effects? Let them look to the state of education in this country. Were they to judge of them by that perverted system of education which is to be witnessed in our Sunday and charity schools, or were they to look for them in those wide and populous districts which are left destitute of any education whatever? What were they to think of the merits of that instruction in morality and religion which had afflicted our country with more thieves and prostitutes than any other in the world? He should be ready to intrust the education of the people to the clergy of the Established Church when he saw, that clergy giving some earnest of its zeal in the cause by restoring to their original destination the funds which had been originally devoted to education, and when he saw any portion of its honours conferred upon those who humbly devoted themselves to the task of instructing the people. The second objection which he had to make to the plan of education by the Church was a stronger one. In this country liberty of conscience had been more folly vindicated than in any other country, and it wag, consequently, more divided into sects. If any offer of education was

557
made through the agency of the Established Church, and through its agency alone, the Dissenters would refuse to accept it. This might be said to be bigotry on their part; but such was the feeling of the country, and Ministers were not to Overlook it in establishing a system of education. What would be the effect? Why not that you would have got any way in giving religious instruction, but that you would have debarred from education of every kind all those who would not accept it on condition of being connected with the Established Church. But amongst these were some of those to whom they ought above all others to take care to give education—not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of all classes of the community. My great object, said the hon. Gentleman, in rising to night, is to call the attention of the House to this particular view of the question. You will not appreciate this question aright while you consider education as the mere privilege of the individual—as a boon which you confer by way of charity, and which you may deal out with a bountiful or a niggard hand, as a premium on conformity to the Established Church. Education is indeed the highest of a freeman's blessings, and the most valuable of a freeman's rights. But it is still more to be regarded as the first precaution of a wise government—a precaution which it is above all things the interest of the possessors of property to take with respect to the mass of the people, and a precaution which is so necessary in no other country of the world as in this, in which the singularly artificial structure of society, and the great inequality of social conditions expose us to such constant perils from the ignorance and discontent of the uninstructed poor. This is an aspect of this and other questions, which I never can behold without emotions of alarm. Whenever I contemplate the condition of the working classes, the deep and dark gulf that separates them from the knowledge and the sympathies of their superiors in fortune, the utter ignorance in which we are of their feelings and wants, the little influence which we have over their conduct, and the little hold which we appear to have on their affections, I shrink with terror from the wild passions and dense ignorance that appear to be fermenting in that mass of physical force. We see vast portions of them utterly neglected, utterly
558
uninstructed, and plunged in debauchery during the intervals of toil. Among another and yet wider class we may observe the spread of thought yet more pernicious, and the intercommunication of sympathies yet more menacing. Sometimes the murmur of their discontent and ignorance assumes an articulate form, and speaks in the accents of the disciples of Thom, the followers of Stephens, and the millions whose creed is Chartism; for such are the instructors to whom you leave the minds of the people. Some learn their religion from a lunatic, in whose resurrection they believe; others are taught that every man has a right to what wages he thinks reasonable, and that he may enforce his right by the dagger and the torch. Others learn that rents and profits are a deduction from wages, and consequently believe that the owners of land and capital are the plunderers and oppressors of the workman. These doctrines advance unencountered by the morality or the simple political reasoning which would dispel their influence. This bad instruction is allowed to be the only instruction of the poor, while you, the enlightened rulers of this country, whose property and lives will be the first victims of these terrible delusions of the masses, spend in a squabble about creeds, the precious time which is rapidly bearing us on to the dark catastrophe of our culpable folly and neglect. And when the Government—the last of civilized Governments to awake from its torpid neglect of the minds of the people, proposes at length to send the schoolmaster among these dangerous yet teachable masses, the noble Lord, and the Church, and the aristocracy, and the great conservative party, bar his passage with the thirty-nine articles. Take, for instance, the population of Manchester. A large proportion of them are Irish Roman Catholics. They are poor, they are ignorant, they are drunken, and, in addition to this, they have introduced into England, their country's vice of illicit distillation, and its attendant mischiefs. They are entirely under the influence of their priests, and ill supplied even with their aid; not at alt with any other instruction. Whose interest is it that these people should be educated? That of every peaceable resident—"every man of property in Manchester and the whole country. Why is it, that they are not to be educated? Because

559
their priests will not let them read the Bible in any version but the Douay one which in some score of passages differs from ours; and because the noble Lord says, that he never will aid them to learn to read, if they are to read any version but our own. What does he gain by this? Does he get them to read the true version? Does he dispel their religious errors? Not a whit. He only places them more at the mercy of their priests—only rivets them by utter ignorance more to their religious errors—only adds entire, to partial ignorance. The consequence is, that the poor man reads neither the Douay nor the English version, nor any book whatever. Now do you mean to say, that no instruction is of any use to a Catholic—that all Catholics are alike? No one can say this who knows anything of different Catholic nations—who knows the difference between the educated Catholic of Lucerne and Baden, or the uneducated Catholic of Spain and Portugal. This is the choice presented to you; and the noble Lord thinks it better to leave the Catholics of Manchester in the state of the Spanish than in that of the Swiss Catholic." Quam parvâ sapientia regitur mundus."! He had heard, the hon. Member continued, the argument of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock, the object of which seemed to be to prove, that there could be no common instruction for people of different religious creeds, because education should not be given separate from religion. The whole argument rested on a confusion between education and instruction. Using the word education to denote the whole bringing up of a child, he would admit, that it would be a mere abuse of terms to say, that in a Christian country there could be any complete education which did not include religious instruction; but it seemed to him an equal abuse of terms to say that there could be no instruction in particular branches of knowledge without its being combined with the teaching of religion. There was not one of them who did not, in private life, constantly receive particular instruction wholly unconnected with religion. They did not look for instruction in the law through the medium of religion. When he himself sought from a conveyancer and a special pleader instruction in the law, he never inquired what was the religion of either, and he could, very safely say, that
560
it was not customary with students in the legal profession to make any such inquiry. Staunch Protestants, as were hon. Gentlemen opposite, even they required not that those who taught their children music or French should be Protestants also. Some men, indeed, he knew, were so conscientious, that they insisted upon their daughters learning bad Swiss French, because they would have none but a Protestant governess; he hoped, however, that it might never be his misfortune to hear the young ladies, who had learnt music or French, from Protestants, exhibit their accomplishments. It might, however, be considered that these were mere accomplishments, and minor parts of education. But if they applied the rule to the teaching of French and of music, why not also extend it to geography, or arithmetic, or history, or all other useful branches of instruction? And for arguments, such as these, you give up all the great advantages of a common system of education. You give up the valuable influence that it would have in softening the animosities of sects, and strengthening the common feelings of charity. Was it not bad enough that the people of this country should be kept asunder in after life by the divisions and separations of the various sects? And was it not most desirable that, in early youth, associations might be formed, which might soften the asperities of after life, by the recollection of the common studies and sports of childhood. And what religious denomination would be the gainer by a community of education? If the friends of the Church of England were wise (and he said this without a fear of infusing suspicion into the minds of the Dissenters), they would see that community of education must tend to the advantage of the Church of the majority. How did it tell, in fact, among the upper class, the immense majority of which belong to the Established Church? Was it not daily seen that the sons of Dissenters, who had made their fortunes, on becoming students at Oxford and Cambridge, were found to turn to the religion of the majority, and became members of the Established Church? He, therefore, had no doubt that the effects of a common education would be to swell the numbers of the Established Church. But it was in vain, he feared, to expect wisdom from clergy of the Established Church. He wished to speak with every respect of

561
the Clergy of the Established Church. [Cheers from Members on the Opposition benches.] He could tell hon. Gentlemen who cheered rather sarcastically, that though he did not make many professions on the subject, he had always upon political grounds, been desirous of maintaining the Established Church, and that he never had advocated the voluntary system in England. Feeling, then, the strongest desire that the clergy should be entitled to the respect of the people of England, he must say, that it was with regret, that he felt himself compelled to say, that since the times of Dr. Sacheverell, and of church mobs, never had the conduct of the clergy been so injudicious and offensive in politics; and never since the days of Laud had the doctrines put forth by the Church of England been so alarming to the friends of civil and religious liberty. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were in the habit of identifying Members on his side of the House with every extravagant opinion of every individual, who happened to entertain any of the same political sentiments, such as the excesses of the Chartists. He did not mean to imitate this injustice; but, he did not think it was unfair in him when he said he could not entirely dissociate hon. Gentlemen opposite from a party, which had an important influence out of that House, and which had representatives in that House of great ability, great activity, and of great influence. He must couple the Gentlemen opposite with the efforts that were being made, and with the doctrines promulgated by the University of Oxford. When he saw the opinions that had there been put forward; when he knew that they had found followers among a vast proportion of the parochial clergy, when he knew that their influence had invaded the chairs of the professors, and got into their hands a great share of the education of that University, and when he saw many able Representatives in that House of these doctrines, he could not but look with suspicion on the designs of these Gentlemen. He should not enter into the doctrinal points in dispute, nor the wonderful affinity which was shown in the theology of these gentlemen to that of the Church that they most reviled. He left the clergy of the Church to settle these points with their new allies, the Wesleyan methodists. He only begged of the great mass of the members of that de-
562
nomination to take well to task those who brought them in contact with Gentlemen who contended for absolution and penance, and as if that were not enough descended to the puerilities of Catholicism, and cried up the virtues of the sign of the cross. But he wished to direct the attention of the House to the political tenets which had been put forward by his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Gladstone); and all must admit his candour in taking for the object of his attack, a work which might be considered as the ablest exposition which could be given of these doctrines by a gentlemen, of whom he would not speak without congratulating him on having been one of the few men in the present age, who ventured not only to put forward unpopular tenets, but followed them to their legitimate consequences with a logical intrepidity as rare, and almost as admirable as his moral courage. He would ask the House to recollect his hon. Friend's arguments for what was a system of religious favouritism, if not of religious intolerance; and, whether there was more than one logical step between these doctrines and religious persecution? His hon. Friend's humanity had shrunkrom that one step; but could we rely on similar moderation from all his followers? His hon. Friend's arguments went to the root of the great bulwark of Protestantism, the right of free inquiry and of private judgment—and he wished to know, whether, upon the exquisite reasoning, of his hon. Friend, they would allow the right of private judgment to dwindle into the right of simply agreeing with the Church of England in everything she proposed? He asked them, the guardians of the liberties as well as of the religion of the people of England, to look well to those doctrines so fatal to freedom and to Protestantism which were making rapid and dangerous progress. And if the arguments which he had previously used were not sufficient to induce them to refrain from placing education under the superintendence of the Established Church, at least before they did so, let the considerations which he had last adduced, induce them to require a guarantee that their placing the education of the country in those hands, would not favour the propagation of doctrines than which the Papacy in its worst days never advanced anything more degrading to the human mind, and more inconsistent with human liberty.
Mr. Aclandsaid, he was deeply impressed with the opinion that the House of Commons was a most unfit place to be the arena of polemic disputation on points of faith or on matters of religious difference, and he assured hon. Members he should not be tempted by the precedent offered to-night to follow the example of the hon. and learned Member for Liskeard. The hon. and learned Member had thrown out Some taunting expressions with respect to the hew alliance between the friends of the establishment and the Wesleyan. He would ask the hon. and learned Member, whether he thought that, in Cornwall, where, as he well knew, the labouring classes had all the intelligence of a manufacturing population, and where many of them were Wesleyans, they would be satisfied with any education which was not based on religion? But the hon. and learned Member little knew the character of Englishmen, groaning beneath the grinding effects of the transition system (as it was termed) with respect to the employment of capital and labour in our manufactures, if he thought that their causes of complaint would be remoted or their inconveniencies and sufferings assuaged by such propositions on the subject Of national education as they had been favoured with on this occasion. Men who are suffering the misfortunes of this life, need to rest on the realities of another world; and there was no doubt that they felt severely the state of destitution of religious instruction in many parts of the kingdom, and the consequent deprivation of spiritual consolation in their families. He believed that no description of education dissevered from religion would be acceptable to the working men of England; and he did not think they would be grateful to those Who, like the hon. and learned Member, proposed to extricate them from the Squabbles of conflicting creeds, by involving them in the squabbles of political economy. The hon. and learned Member had borrowed assistance from a doctrine certainly not Very novel, and by which it was always easy to ensure a laugh, namely, that the teaching of mathematics, dancing, and French, was not connected with religion, and thence would have inferred there was a similar want of connection between a system of national education and religion. There was no parallel between the cases.? What might be true
564
with reference to instruction in the better-informed classes of society, might, as in the parallel attempted to be drawn, be quite erroneous, as respected the more ignorant and prejudiced portion of the population. The question before the House was whether the functions of the Established Church should be made over to a board of public' instruction; and whether, in some ten or twenty years hence, England should have a minister of public instruction or an Established Church. He would show, before he sat down, what the Church had done in this country, for circumstances had called upon him to investigate the subject. Certainly, care of the public education had, in most cases, been confided, and most beneficially, to the superintendence of the Church. In the universities and down to foundation and grammar Schools, the charge was almost exclusively confided to the clergy. It had been erroneously supposed that the law in this respect had been altered of late years; but he believed no lawyer would deny, that, notwithstanding the extension of religious liberty, the Church is entrusted with some general superintendence over education, however limited, in special cases. The Acts of 1779, by which Protestant Dissenters were first enabled to keep school, contained a special limitation, forbidding the appointment of Dissenting schoolmasters to foundation or endowed schools, unless they were endowed by and for Dissenters; and the Act of 1791, giving the same permission to Roman Catholics, contains the like limitation. The decision of the Court of King's Bench, on the Archbishop of York's case, was subsequent to these Acts, in 1795, and rests on the principle that "keeping" of schools is, by the old law of England, of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and neither the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act, nor the Catholic Relief Bill made any difference in this respect. In the Roman Catholic Relief Act he found this clause:—
"Provided also, and be it enacted, that nothing in this act contained shall be construed to enable any person, otherwise than as they are now by law enabled, to hold, enjoy, or exercise, any place or office whatever, and by whatsoever name it may be called, of, in, or belonging to any of the colleges or halls of the universities, or the colleges of Eton, Westminster, of Winchester, or any college or school, within this realm."
Then he came to the question whether

565
there were any grounds for supplanting the Church in this general superintendence of education, whatever that might be, to which she was entitled, and delivering it over to a body unknown to the Constitution of England. On this point he would not go into particulars antecedent to this century. But as hon. Members opposite were in the habit of speaking as if the initiatory step in the business of education had been taken the other day, he would just observe that those charity schools which called forth the admiration of every foreigner who visited this country, dated as far back as the year 1698, Archbishop Tennison having founded one of the first of them. Then, again, not to mention the schools established by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, containing, in the year 1714, a large number of children, they had the Sunday schools, which were first established by members of the Church of England, about 1780; and yet arguments were constantly thrown in the faces of hon. Gentlemen on his (the Opposition) side of the House, which seemed to proceed upon the assumption that the Church had never stirred in the education of the people before the year 1837, at least such was his understanding of the argument of the noble Secretary for the Home Department, who dated the activity of the Church from his address to his constituents in that yean He did not mean to insist that the Church had educated all who were worthy of education at her hands, but he would say, that the hon. Member for Waterford was strangely mistaken in the statements he was in the habit of making of the deficiency of education in this country. Last year, according to the hon. Member, the proportion was one-fifteenth part of the population; this year it seems that things had somewhat mended, and the hon. Member made it one-thirteenth. Now what was the real state of facts? The population was about 15,500,000. 1,000,000 poor children were educated under the Church. About 50,000 children were wholly educated in the weekly schools of Dissenters. It was stated, that there were 750,000 children in Dissenting Sunday schools; but here a large deduction must be made for doable entries. There were 600,000 other children under education, in schools conducted by members of the Church, for children of parents above the class of poor.
566
What, then, has been the progress of education in this country? At the beginning of the century, the proportion of children; at school to the whole population, was one to twenty-three; in 1820 the proportion was one to sixteen. Now, he thought he might safely defy any one to bring it below one to eleven; and he believed it was considerably higher. As to the share which the Church had in this, let it be observed that since 1826 the population had increased 25 per cent.; that in 1826 the Church educated 500,000 children, and that she educated now above 1,000,000; so that the number of children educated by the Church had doubled since 1826, while the population had only increased twenty-five percent, during the same period. In the schools of the National Society, the number of scholars had increased, since 1820, in the proportion of 200 per cent., while the population had only increased 35 percent. And by whom were all these schools supported? The hon. Member for Kilkenny had charged the clergy with being paid for the education of the people, and doing nothing for their hire, alleging that the state of public education was a disgrace to the body of the clergy. To repel so unfounded and calumnious a charge against the clergy, it would be found, on referring to the Inspection returns of last year, that, in 376 of the schools which were more particularly assisted by the parliamentary grant oft the recommendation of the National School Society, there was paid no less a sum, for salaries to efficient teachers, than 9,381 l. In 420 cases, including infant schools, less than 10,591 l. a year was paid for a similar purpose, for the payment of which the clergy were mainly responsible. He might give one instance of the extent to which members of the Church were accustomed to support the cause of education. At a meeting of the clergy of the diocese of Norwich, which took place some little time ago, who were addressed by the right rev. Bishop of the diocese, and in the course of some remarks on this subject he mentioned that more than two-thirds of the children of the diocese Were educated by the clergy, and that in the county he found, that no fewer than 900 schools were maintained, supported, and attended solely by the rev. gentlemen around him; and the rev. Prelate declared

567
his happiness in recording the fact. With respect to the question of training masters, he was quite ready to admit, that there was room for improvement in that respect; and that the Church was most anxious to effect such an improvement; at any rate after the speech of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley), it was clear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not borne out in the assertion which he made last year, that "the reason why no part of the 10,000 l. voted for model schools were applied were, that neither of the two societies had come forward to accept the offer." But he was also quite sure, that any attempt, such as that which the Government had made, to establish a system of training for them would prove abortive. He wished to throw out one suggestion to the Government. The practical difficulty was to furnish the masters with any prospects of promotion in active life, and remuneration for their services after retirement. If the Government would take some plan into consideration for giving retiring pensions to those who had spent their life as teachers, they would confer a great benefit on society. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had granted for the purpose of inspecting the schools aided by Parliament, 500 l. to each of the two societies—the National, and British and Foreign,—the first of which had 425 schools, the other 117; he (Mr. Acland) said, therefore, that if 500 l. was a proper grant for that society which had 117 schools, then in the same proportion 1,820 l. ought to have been given to the other, which had 425. Application had been made to the right hon. Gentleman on the part of the National Society to have the grant enlarged, but the request was refused; but notwithstanding this refusal, the Church entered on the inspection while the British and Foreign Society refused to do so. The hon. and learned Member for Liskeard had said, that the Church had no machinery for education, and that all she did in education was by means of voluntary bodies. Now, that the National Society was a voluntary body was strictly true; but still it contained in it by charter the whole Bench of Bishops. He (Mr. A.) had wished to abstain from alluding to what the Church had done during the last year, but he must be allowed to state, that by this machinery, diocesan boards of education had been established in sixteen dioceses, and in
568
eighty subordinate districts, by its exertions in a single year, and he was happy to say, that among the supporters of those plans, were to be found many of the most intelligent members of the middle classes in this country, and he thought, that there would be found in the Church a machinery for the purposes of education superior to any which the Government could call into operation. He certainly was not without hopes that the people would find in their future happiness, as he was sure they did at least in their earthly comforts, that the Church had a machinery suitable for education, which she was doing her best to put in operation. The hon. Member for Lambeth had accused the Church of exclusiveness. As an answer to that charge, he would refer him to a parish in his own immediate neighbourhood, in order to show him how unjust were his taunts. He accused the Church of turning away the Dissenters from the benefit of her schools, but what was the fact. He need not go to any distance for proofs, he had only to cross the water from Lambeth to Westminster, and he would find in one parish, Sunday Schools containing twenty-two Roman Catholics and forty Dissenters, weekly and Infant Schools, containing forty-five Roman Catholics, and fifty Protestant Dissenters. He would repeat, that the Church was, by the Constitution, intrusted with the general superintendence of the education of the people, and he would affirm that it had not, either by neglect, or exclusiveness forfeited that trust. What then were the arguments in favour of the expediency of the principle of a State education? They might, perhaps, be told, that by taking the education of the people from the clergy of the Church, and placing it in a central board, security would be given for the permanency of education. He thought, that this was fallacious. Supposing the economists of the day should say, as Mr. Cobbett said, when Lord Althorp first proposed a grant for education, that they did not see the use of education, and refuse a vote of money on its behalf, they would at once take away all its support, and its permanency would be at an end. Much had been said of the advantage of uniformity, he believed that compulsory uniformity was a disadvantage, and that far more good would result from the emulation of voluntary exertion if properly encouraged. It was then urged, that

569
a system of State education had succeeded in Prussia and in Holland. In Prussia there was no such thing as an united system of education of various sects—the Church was always intimately connected with the schools. The hon. Member quoted the assertion of some German professor to the fact, that the different religious bodies in Prussia have different schools. It was quite true, that in the Batavian republic, under French influence, all systems of religion were put on the same footing, and a system of education was devised in which all religious sects participated. But in Holland no one could teach a school without a licence, and that licence was extremely difficult to obtain; in England any one might teach. In Holland also there was no vent for religious animosities, which was not the case in this country. All these circumstances might tend to make such a system appear to succeed for Holland, though it might be very unfit for this country. But he knew, that this system had not given satisfaction in Holland. A sect called the "Separatists" had sprung up, who grounded their dissatisfaction on objections to the united system of education; because it taught no specific religion to the pupils; and he had been informed, that a member of the Government had resigned his situation in consequence of similar objections. He would quote the authority of Mr. Brougham in 1820, to prove the utility of placing education under the clergy. That now noble and learned Lord had then proposed a system of general education for the whole country; and he proposed that the Bishops should visit the schools by themselves, their archdeacons, or chancellors, and that appeals should be made to the metropolitan, and not to an educational board. This was the system recommended by Mr. Brougham, as calculated to promote a sound and useful education. The Church had never objected to the system introduced by the Government of Lord Grey, of granting aid to voluntary societies; but it could not acquiesce in the creation of a new body unknown to the Constitution, and with powers undefined. He would not enter into the specific plan proposed by the Committee of Council, because no clear conception could be formed at present of the measures which the Government intended ultimately to adopt. What he
570
wished was, that the subject should be practically dealt with. If any class of her Majesty's subjects were excluded from the full benefits of education, let a plan be specifically brought forward to remedy that evil. Let it be clearly defined, and the discretion of the Government strictly limited as to the means of execution. In the meantime he contended, that the national Church was the only constitutional, authoritative educator of the people—that it trenched not on the liberties of any other class—and that substantially all restrictions upon education were removed. And he could not consent to any plan which would involve the establishment of schools, with the sanction of the State, under the direct superintendence of ministers of religious bodies, avowedly hostile to the Established Church, whether Roman Catholic, Unitarian, or Baptist, nor would he agree on any consideration to the permanent separation of secular from religious instruction, as the basis of a plan of national education.
Sir S. Lushingtonsaid, that the question under discussion in the form and manner in which it had been treated could no longer be regarded as of a fugitive character, or of a temporary interest. It had been discussed on great and important principles; and on these it should now alone be decided. He rejoiced that this discussion had taken place; and, for one, he thanked the noble Lord, the Member for North Lancashire for having brought forward his motion. He cordially thanked the noble Lord for having given the House an opportunity of discussing the question in all its bearings, and for affording the country the means of knowing whether it were to have a national education or no; and, if it were, in what form or shape was it to be offered? He also thanked the noble Lord for another and not less important result of his motion—he thanked him, because it gave the noble Lord, the Member for Dorsetshire, the opportunity of promulgating an opinion in which he cordially concurred, "that the education of the people was a point of the last importance, because it not only led to the suppression of crime, but was also most conducive to their happiness here and hereafter." He held that opinion in common with the noble Lord; but he remembered the day well, when the education of the people was laughed to scorn in that House—the day when it was seriously

571
argued that innumerable mischiefs would accrue from it—when their intellectual education, in short, as contrasted with their physical, was scouted; but that day was gone by, and a new era had come, even on the showing of the noble Lord himself. If the noble Lord's opinions were well-founded, then it was the duty of the State to undertake the education of the people. If it was the duty of the State so to do, and the right of the people to claim education, as it clearly was, on the noble Lord's own showing, then on what principle of justice or expediency could the line of demarcation be drawn between one sect and between another? Who had conceded to hon. Gentlemen opposite the power to draw such a line? Who gave them a right to abandon that duty so clearly prescribed by themselves? But how stood the question? He only sought truth. He was deeply interested in the education of his large constituency as well as in that of the colonies. The noble Lord opposite had told the House, that the Church of England was against the plan of the Government, and that the Wesleyans were the same; in short, that they were supported by no one important sect in the country. But for that he did not care; if he stood alone he would assert what he conscientiously believed to be the truth. The noble Lord had stated that; but he believed it not to be a true representation of the case. A great diversity of opinion existed on the subject, and the apparent unanimity which prevailed for it was, in fact, only apparent—was in a great measure obtained by the vilest misrepresentations ever palmed upon the people of this country. When he saw paraded through the streets placards combining Popery and infidelity together, he felt fully entitled to call them most miserable clap-traps, and to assert, that the people of England were grossly imposed on. The two noble Lords differed in some essential particulars, but they agreed in one paramount point. The highest encomiums and greatest praise had been passed on one great and respectable body of religionists—the Wesleyan Methodists; and it was stated, that they were only slightly separated from the Church of England even by one of her right rev. Prelates; but those encomiums had been conveyed in stronger terms of praise on the present occasion, and with more of adulation, than he had ever heard
572
them before adverted to in that House. He held that great body in the highest respect; but when he found them put forward as their own, sentiments inconsistent with reason and justice, he also held, that it was his duty to express his decided disapprobation of them. The paper which he held in his hand had been already quoted by the noble Lord opposite. This was their leading objection:—
"Such a restriction appears to this meeting to be due to the yet unrepealed principles of our Protestant constitution, and necessary for the prevention of that direct violation of the rights of conscience which would be perpetrated, if Parliament were to sanction the taxation of the Protestants of England, for the establishment and support of Romish schools, in which the corrupt versions, and mischievous notes of the Romish Church would be made by authority, to a considerable extent, the basis of State instruction."
What was the meaning of that passage? It meant this or nothing: that the Protestants might take the money of the Roman Catholics, and apply it to the maintenance of the Protestant Church; but that, not withstanding, the Catholic was to be denied the slightest participation in its advantages. Nay, what was ten thousand times worse, it stated that it was a direct violation of the conscience of Protestants to contribute to the support of these schools; and yet what allowance was made for the consciences of Roman Catholics? Had not the Roman Catholic the same feelings as the Protestant? Was there a shadow of right on the broad principle of toleration, to treat him in that manner? Nay, what was worse still, education was admitted to be essential to the happiness of the people of this country, here and hereafter, and yet the Roman Catholic and the Dissenter were excluded from its benefits by those who made that admission; and condemned the Catholics and Dissenters to the domination of perpetual ignorance, that fruitful parent of crime. But the deduction went further. If the principle were good for anything, it went the whole way with the argument. It made no exception to any one species of religion more than another. He sheltered himself under no ambiguity. He was right in his deduction, or he was wrong; but he held that in matters of religion no man should set himself up as a judge of others. A noble Lord had asked, and asked truly, "Can a Protestant of the Church of England ask what is truth?" He never

573
could. He who belonged to the Church of England must be supposed to be convinced of the truth of its doctrine. But what right had he (Sir S. Lushington) to say that that which appeared to him to be true must necessarily appear to others to be true. If he were in a minority upon the present occasion, he should not despair of one day seeing his principles adopted and carried into execution. He had fought more hopeless battles in that House, and had lived to triumph. He would never despair in a good cause. It was impossible that he should speak with disrespect of the Established Church: he did not disavow its recent exertions in the cause of education. He thought that the Church had awakened from its long sleep, and was now really zealous in the cause of education; but he could not agree in the doctrine laid down by the hon. Gentleman opposite, that the Established Church in this country had a right to a control over the education of the people. Subsequent to the Reformation no traces could be found for centuries of any liberal enactment in favour of education. In James the First's reign it was necessary to have a licence to teach from the Bishop, and it was not till the time of George the 3rd, that the Dissenters were permitted to keep a school by the Act of Toleration. Mark the absurdity that existed meanwhile. The sovereign was giving the Regium Donum to Dissenting clergymen; the law ("the most blessed portion of the law," as the informed Lord Holt had termed it) stood in such an atrocious state that a Catholic priest was forbidden to teach a Catholic child under the penalty of perpetual imprisonment. Grammar schools were always retained under the special superintendence of the Church, because by their foundations they were specially so set apart, and were exempted as such from the effects of all statutes. He would never attempt to argue that the people of the Church of England should be withdrawn from the care of the Church of England. It would be committing the same sin of oppression that he condemned in others. As to the former plan of national education, it seemed that there was something in it so utterly irreconcilable to the feelings and principles of the people of England, that it was given up as totally untenable, but if he were in a situation to carry it into operation he would have no hesitation to uphold it with all
574
his power. It was not merely insinuated, but stated in speeches and newspapers, and repeated all over the country, that the Government were intent on converting (under the guise of this system of combined education) the children of the Church of England into Papists and Socinians. Now, it had not been intended to interfere with any existing schools, whatever the press or individuals might assert. The original plan proposed a normal school and model school; and he asked any man acquainted with the existing system of instruction, whether such establishments were not much wanted, and whether the present system was not defective in the most essential parts? He thought the plan presented some most praiseworthy features; one was, that chaplains of the Church of England should attend to the education of the children, however small their numbers might be; yet it had been said that the education was promiscuous. That was not the case. The education was general and special. He put it to the noble Lord, to the House, and to the country, whether it was just to denounce the Government plan as leading to the introduction of popery and spread of infidelity, merely because it gave to the children of each religious class, to Churchmen, Catholics, and Dissenters, separate and adequate religious instruction, each at a separate time and totally apart from interference? The Government scheme had been exposed to the grossest misrepresentations upon this part of the question. It had been said that the Catholic version of the Bible was to be read by Protestant children, and that their infant minds would be corrupted by coming into early collision with papistical and other unsound religious opinions. Nothing could be more unjust or less in conformity with the principle and basis of the scheme. Other parts of the plan had been denounced by hon. Members as despotism and tyranny. Let them consider whether there were any grounds for such aspersions. One distinct feature of the plan was that of inspection. And the noble Lord the Member for North Lancashire had agreed that when the money of the State was to be given for education, the principle of inspection was not objectionable; and he believed that the noble Lord the Member for Dorsetshire, seemed to entertain an union of sentiment in that respect. Then,

575
what objection to the appointment of inspectors by the Government? Was it meant to be said that the inspectors would interfere with the duties of the clergy of the Church of England? Nothing could be more unwarranted. He wished to make a single remark upon another point. It had been argued that the Church had shown great liberality by consenting to allow a portion of the public money to be given to the British and Foreign School Society. The Church had conceded so far. She had given way to that extent, although it was a departure from her principles. Why, he asked, did the Church give way a single step? But as the Church had yielded so far, where, he would ask, could it be shown in the constitutional history of the country that the British and Foreign School Society was to be the impenetrable line of demarcation? There were thousands of schools conducted on the mixed principles of the National School Society and the British and Foreign School Society, and would they exclude those other schools which were more favourable to the Church than the latter? He thought the executive might be safely left with discretionary power in that respect, and he had every confidence that the Government, whoever they might be, would administer the grant fairly and impartially for the public good. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock had talked of loose representations having been advanced as to the state of education in parts of the metropolis. He should like to know where he acquired his information? What gave him any pretence for such an assertion? The statements on that subject were the results of inquiry made by the central society for education under the directions of Mr. Fowell Buxton, and had been sifted for accuracy in three different ways. In the district of Spitalfields and in a circle of two miles there were 10,000 children destitute of every kind of education, and there were no means available by which their ignorance could be removed. He pressed this lamentable state of things upon the attention of the House, because destitution and ignorance here went together, and the evils of penury were aggravated by the entire want of education. The greater that such penury existed the more it was the duty of the House to apply the funds of the country to supply the deficiency: and one of the best fea-
576
tures in the plan of the Government was, that it provided means of doing so, by giving the proposed board of education a discretionary power to appropriate part of the public grant in quarters where aid was most required from the poverty of the inhabitants. He was not afraid of defeat, but of this they might rest assured, that if the House should declare to the country that they have resolved to act upon a principle of exclusion—that they are determined to refuse essential aid to the education of the people in proportion to their contributions to the establishment, and to their wants and numbers, it would be taken as a declaration of hostility against the great body of the community, and could only be viewed as a determination to condemn them to a continuance in that deplorable state of ignorance which it was their bounden duty to remove. Debate again adjourned.