Lord Broughammoved that the Order of the Day for the adjourned debate on his Resolutions relating to Education should be read.—It was read accordingly.
§ Viscount Melbournesaid, that it had been stated by his noble and learned Friend, that some of their Lordships had observations to offer on this subject, and he should have wished to hear those observations from their Lordships, before he had uttered any of his own. He had listened with the greatest satisfaction to the speech of his noble and learned Friend on the former occasion; and he believed that 72 he concurred in most of the arguments then employed. He had since then had an opportunity of reading the speech of his noble and learned Friend in the more authentic shape in which it had been given to the public, and the result had been, if possible, a still more high opinion of the principles it contained, and the manner in which they had been developed. He agreed with most of the arguments stated in that speech, and with the principles laid down in it; and he felt full confidence and reliance that they would produce the consequences anticipated, so far at least as it was possible to feel such a reliance in speculations and arguments which could not be brought to the test of experience. When his noble and learned Friend ascribed the increase of crime to the want of Education, he seemed to forget that there were other circumstances than Education which influenced the results, and which thwarted and deranged the deduction of the best-grounded speculative reasoning. As far, however, as it was possible to rely on speculations, arguments, and deductions, he did feel confidence in those adduced by his noble and learned Friend. He agreed in the practicability and advantage of early education; and if such education were well managed, if it did not lead to too close confinement, destructive of the animal frame and of the mind of a child of tender years, if the child was not overlaboured with what his strength was not able to bear, and if his instruction was not allowed to interfere with that natural education which a child obtained from his own experience, he believed that early education was most advantageous in every point of view. He thought, too, that it was feasible, practicable, and useful, and he entirely agreed with all those reasons which his noble and learned Friend had urged as deserving of the attention and encouragement of Parliament. He agreed, also, in the other arguments urged on the benefits which might probably be derived to the moral state of the country, from a more general system of education than now existed, and on the better application of the funds which were now devoted to that purpose, but which from their present mode of application were either useless from the progress of time, or were actually productive of mischievous effects. He agreed, in short, in all the general principles upon which his noble and learned Friend had founded his Resolu- 73 tions. He now came to take a short view of the Resolutions themselves. Agreeing in all their principles, he should yet wish to suggest, whether the mode of proceeding, by way of Resolution, was the most prudent, the most wise, or the most expedient and advantageous manner of carrying his principles into effect, and of furthering and advancing the object which he wished to see accomplished. In the speech in which his noble and learned Friend had proposed these Resolutions, he did justice to himself, and to the Government, and to their Lordships, and to the other House of Parliament; but he did not do the same justice to them in the Resolutions; for, if they read those Resolutions, it would appear that nothing had been done before; that the whole matter was res Integra et intacta. Their Lordships, however, knew that in the years 1833 and 1834, under the auspices, and at the suggestion of his noble and learned Friend himself, a sum of 20,000l. had been voted in each year for the general purpose of promoting education in the country; and when the present Government came into office, there were found among the estimates of the present year, papers which showed that it was the intention of the late Government to propose a sum of 20,000l. to be voted for this year for a similar purpose, an intention which the present Government should certainly follow up. Not only had these sums been granted, but the disposal of them had been regulated on the principles which his noble and learned Friend had laid down. The Treasury minute, in declaring how these sums should be disposed of, had ordered that they should, in the first place, be given in aid only of the fund for building schools, a principle which his noble and learned Friend had himself inculcated. The next direction was, that one-half, at least, should be raised by private contributions. That, also, was a principle on which his noble and learned Friend had rested, thinking that private benevolence should first be stimulated, and no crushed by public aid, a principle which he had advocated with all his usual strength of argument and felicity of illustration. Then, again, it was directed that all applications to the fund should b made through the National School Society, or through the British and Foreign School Society. That was a mode of proceeding which had been found in the 74 highest degree advantageous, satisfactory it once to those who were connected with the Established Church, and to the great body of the Dissenters, who were thus enabled to become sharers in the benefits of he grant. He called their attention to this mode of proceeding, as by it they would avoid those questions which were unhappily connected with the religious differences in the country, a subject painful to become the matter of public discussion, and he was sure that they would think it a point gained if they could avoid such a discussion, and grant the public aid with satisfaction to all parties. It was an object, too, to see how far the demand for education could be supplied from charitable funds. Under all these circumstances, he asked his noble and learned Friend whether it was not unnecessary to press these Resolutions further at present. He assured his noble and learned friend, on the part of himself and the rest of the Government, that it was their wish to promote the system of education by all the means in their power, and upon the principles which he thought most prudent and safe, so that the question was upon the whole, whether it was expedient to press for the entry of these Resolutions upon their Lordships' Journals. He did not question the truth of the principles stated in the Resolutions, though he thought that some of them were too generally expressed. In his opinion the third and fifth Resolutions pressed too much on the influence of the infant schools. He admitted the propriety, the utility, and the wisdom of such institutions, but they were already provided for, as the grant made under the authority of the Treasury directed that some of the money should be applied to the establishment of infant schools; and considering the anxiety in the country on the subject, and the manner in which they had been supported, he doubted whether it would be wise and prudent distinctly and by name to point the attention of the public to the means of supporting them by funds voted out of the public money. He knew a little of these infant schools. There was one in his part of the country, and the contributions for it not being found sufficient, application was made to him, and he told the contributors that he should be willing to make up the difference. He did not know that he should have done this quite so readily if these Resolutions had before been passed, so 75 distinctly pointing out the public fund as the one out of which the deficiency might be supplied. Such a Resolution would go far to chill the benevolence of men who before they resorted to their own funds would be very apt to see whether there were not others which might be made applicable. Perhaps he himself might have said "Try the Government first;" and as he thought that he did not differ much from other men in this respect, he thought it possible that other people might have a little of the same feeling. With respect to the model schools proposed by his noble and learned Friend, he wished to say that that subject was under the consideration of the Treasury, and that a model school would be established as speedily as possible, but that though money had been voted for this purpose, he trusted that expectations would not be excited which it might be difficult to fulfil. With respect to the last Resolution, which went to establish a Board of Commissioners who should have the control of all the charity funds of the kingdom, and a general management of the funds bequeathed for the purposes of education, and power to apply them according to the circumstances of the time, and in such a way as to render them more useful than at present, he wished to observe that the proposition was not entirely new, but that the principle had already been adopted in Ireland, where a Board of Commissioners had been established by Act of Parliament possessing a superintending power over the disposal of charitable funds, and he believed that the result was very beneficial. But considering the great extent of power to be intrusted to such a Board, and the delicacy of the matter—considering, too, how much the propriety of the Resolutions must depend on matter of detail, and on the manner of carrying them into effect, he put it to his noble and learned Friend, whether he ought to call on that House to establish, by a single Resolution, a principle of such extent, magnitude, and importance. On this single ground he recommended his noble and learned Friend not to press these Resolutions on the House, but to bring in a substantive measure, and to give their Lordships the full opportunity of considering it. He repeated, that he and the rest of the Government had the subject as much at heart as his noble and learned Friend,—more it was impossible 76 to have it; and he once more put it to his noble and learned Friend, whether it would not be much better, under the circumstances, and in accordance with the general feeling which prevailed, to withdraw the Resolutions.
Lord Broughamsaid, that after the address of his noble Friend, who had concluded with so strong a recommendation, he might fairly take it for granted that none of their Lordships wished further to enter into the discussion, and he might, therefore, proceed to state what occurred to him on the subject. Their disinclination to enter on the discussion proceeded, he was convinced, from no reluctance to give their best consideration to the subject itself; but he ascribed it wholly to the view now taken by his noble Friend of the question, on the ground that the mode of proceeding by these Resolutions was not the best that could be devised. That being the case, he should not detain them with many observations in reply; but it would be unfair on his part, and it would be an ill return for the candour and courtesy of his noble Friend, if he were not to make some remarks on the matter. He must say, then, that he was subdued, but not convinced; wherever personal or official influence had any weight, he was quite unable to meet his noble Friend in that House; but still he was not convinced that the course he was pursuing was not the right one. As to the inexpediency of introducing Resolutions on such a subject, he should only say that he had good precedents for it. On the 24th June, 1806, their Lordships dealt with the Question of the Slave Trade in the mode of a Resolution, which declared "That this House conceived the Slave Trade to be contrary to justice, humanity, and sound policy, and will, with all practical speed, proceed to take effectual measures for the abolition of the Slave Trade, in such a manner and by such means as may be deemed most advisable." That Resolution was certainly indefinite enough; yet it was adopted by both Houses of Parliament. His plan was not so indefinite. He wished to pledge the House, but to pledge it to what was before its eyes. Then, again, his noble Friend and he had been parties to a certain Resolution passed on the 5th of July, 1833, to this effect, "That it is expedient that all his Majesty's subjects should have liberty to repair to the ports of the Empire of China, and to 77 trade there in tea, subject to such regulations as Parliament shall hereafter enact." That was the course upon the great question of the China Trade, and in a few days, before or after, there were Resolutions passed on the subject of Colonial slavery. These were the precedents on which he felt that he was justified in his present mode of proceeding. But even without precedents there were circumstances which of themselves would justify new modes of proceeding, and would form precedents of themselves. He thought that this was one of them. Then, said his noble Friend, these Resolutions do not give the Government or the Parliament credit for what has been already done. He was one of those who thought that so little had been done that he had not stepped out of his way to compliment the Government of which he had formed a part (that would hardly be decorous), or to compliment the present Government, which his noble Friend said was favourable to his view of the subject. As to the Treasury minute he had not before heard of it, unless it was the minute of 1833. [Viscount Melbourne: It was so.] He was one of those who prepared that minute. He approved of it highly. It was founded on the recommendation of the Committee of 1817, upon which, also the grant of the 20,000l. had been made. He was not aware before that a grant of 10,000l. had been made for the establishment of normal or model schools. He had recommended such a grant to his noble Friend, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he was not aware that such a vote had been passed. Nothing, certainly, could be more proper than such a vote, and all he objected to was the smallness of the sum. He hoped that the next vote would be for a larger sum, for those schools were calculated to do infinite service. He must say, that he thought his noble Friend's argument as to the stopping of private benevolence was a bad argument, for it stood thus—if he who was a liberal man (his noble Friend had not said this, but those who knew him would think that he ought to have said it)—if he who was a liberal man was likely to be influenced by the knowledge that public money was voted, and so to be kept from giving his own, how much more would other men be influenced by the same consideration. He did not deny the possible influence of such a circumstance, but this case did not come within 78 the principle, for here the difficulty was to get a beginning since if men thought a subscription was not likely in the end to succeed, they would be slow in beginning it. The assurance that, if they did all in their power, the Government would afterwards aid them, would stimulate, not deaden their exertions. As to infant schools generally, he begged to observe, that the two societies through whose recommendation the money was to be distributed, did not direct their particular attention to infant schools, but rather to adult schools. There was a great deficiency of infant schools in the country; out of the whole population of 14,000,000, there were only about 50,000 or 60,000 in infant schools. The deficiency in adult schools was only one-fifth of the deficiency in the infant schools, and of these latter there ought to be five or six times more than there were now. He should be sorry if great exertions were not made for this purpose. There was no mode of criminal legislation, there was no kind of penal law, there was no description of punishment which the civil magistrate could use towards the people committed to his care, which had the one-hundredth, nay, the one-thousandth part of the power of eradicating crimes from society which the universal establishment of infant schools would effect. For that purpose, as he had often told them, they must look to prevention rather than to punishment. Punishment lingered behind—it moved with a slow and uncertain step—it advanced, but at a halting pace, in its pursuit after the criminal, while all the advantages which it promised, without being able to be realized, might be secured by prevention, by preventing the access of the evil principle into minds as yet untainted with its baleful influence. By the infusion of good principles, and by that alone, could they hope to eradicate those crimes with which society was at present harassed. He should feel that every day was lost not devoted to the purpose by the lawgiver and the Government of this close-peopled, wealthy, and manufacturing country, in which the variety—he had almost said the variegation—of the moral aspect of the people was so great, arising from the variety of their habits, and from the circumstances incidental to an unequal distribution of wealth, by which the greatest riches and the most squalid poverty were often found almost side by side. It was necessary that the Govern- 79 ment of such a country should lose not one hour in taking the preventive means which alone could be efficaciously employed in the repression of crime, and that the great towns of London, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, and others, should be as speedily as possible amply supplied with these means. Every day not employed by the ruler and the Government in such a pursuit might be deemed thrown away and wasted. There ought to be no difficulties in the distribution. He agreed that religious education should form a part of general education, and he hoped that means would be adopted to render it possible to attain that end without incurring the danger of exciting religious disputes. This brought him to the subject of the 6th Resolution. That related to the Administration, by a board of Commissioners, of charitable funds already existing. He did pot propose to take the management of the funds out of the hands of the present trustees. He proposed to go hand in hand with them, taking care only that the funds they possessed should be properly managed. By the proposed measure of Municipal Reform they were going to establish a new body of constituents, who were more likely to interfere actively in the management of Corporations than the old. They were about to take the management of charitable funds from the old corrupt Corporations and give it to the new bodies. It might be said "You are never going to take the trust from those to whom it was given by the donor and to transfer it to other parties." He was far from saying that they ought not to do so; in his opinion they ought. The cheers of the noble Earl (the Earl of Falmouth), so seldom met his ears that he might be supposed to feel a solace from them; he must not purchase it, however, by false pretences—therefore, he begged to say, that if the noble Earl supposed he agreed with him in deprecating that change he was mistaken; he was merely stating the fact that the Bill would have that effect. He did not complain of it; on the contrary he thought it a useful reform, provided it was accomplished with proper checks. He would say, then, that because they were now going to pass this strong Act, and he would add this necessary and salutary Act, making that transfer from the old to the new body, and perhaps to a body to whom the donor never would have given the trust, if at the 80 time when he made the bequest it had been in existence, and he had been acquainted with its nature, he was giving the noble Earl the full benefit of the argument—he was fairly and candidly stating the case, and let the noble Earl make the worst and the most of it, because they were going to transfer from those Corporations which were now the sinks of corruption to a new and a better governing body. The noble Earl intimated dissent; he knew there were many that were pure; some were exceedingly pure; he knew one that was perfectly pure, and so did the noble Earl. He was about to say because they were going to pass the Corporation measure, now was the time, when they were turning over a new leaf, when they were making a new distribution of trust power, when they were taking the management of property out of the hands of one body and giving it to another—now was the time for them to see whether they could not establish an effectual control against the abuse of trusts. Under the old system such an alteration was not called for in individual cases, because the system had endured for two or three hundred years; but when they were about to form a different constitution and a new body, he felt it to be their imperative duty to see that the strongest precaution was taken to prevent the possibility of this new arrangement leaving the funds, as before, subject to be mismanaged. The plan he had to recommend would, he thought, be the most convenient and fit mode of giving that security. There would exist a body of respectable persons, consisting of Ministers of State and working men, who would exercise a constant supervision and control, instead of leaving that duty to the most inefficient, or to the, in every respect, inconvenient operation of filing an information. The course open at present was for some individual to become a relator, at whose instance an attorney filed an information, for the costs of which the relator was liable. It was true any one might become a relator who chose, but very few liked to involve themselves in all the perils of a Chancery suit. The mode of proceeding by petition was in some respects better, but that was attended with considerable expense. He apprehended that the appointment of a Board would be the best course. They would exercise a control which would be the more likely to 81 be exercised with impartiality and strict propriety, as they would be wholly independent of the Corporation. With respect to this question they were now in a situation in which they had not stood for the last twenty years. The control of the Commissioners of Charities had ceased. The Commission expired last July—and; indeed for the last eight or nine months they had not sat for any effectual purposes. The consequence was, that the whole of the trusts all over the country, thinking the Commission was at end, and having little reason to fear that they would be called to account by any one adopting proceedings against them in the Court of Chancery, felt themselves quite secure. In order that their Lordships might see what would be the usefulness of a Board he would refer to one case in which the Commissioners called the trustees before them. They discovered that forty or fifty children were benefitted by the trust, but that the funds were sufficient for the children of half a dozen parishes, containing a population of 5,000 or 6,000 people. In another case the trustees consisted of a committee, and it having been decided that it was illegal that the committee should employ any of its own members, so determined were they to evade the decision, that under an arrangement by which the committee was changed every year, they employed their predecessors, the effect being that their profits were reduced one half, for in the succeeding year it became the turn of those who had given employment to receive it. Where there were two sets of butchers, bakers, and other tradesmen, their profits were not diminished at all, the only change made being, that instead of the two tradesmen affording the supply for the half year each, they were alternately employed for the whole year. With respect to his Resolutions, his noble Friend having expressed an opinion, he would not stand out against his better judgment. He had no hesitation in stating, that having laid these Resolutions before their Lordships, having had them printed, and their having undergone, both on the last and on this occasion some discussion, substantially the end he had in view had been gained, for the subject was now no longer new to any one. He should under these circumstances, be enabled with the less trouble to give them a measure founded on these Resolutions. What he proposed, then, 82 was, to withdraw them, and substitute for them a Bill, which in a few days he should have the honour of presenting to their Lordships. In conclusion he thanked them for the attention with which they had heard his explanation; he thought it would not have been fair either to the Resolutions or himself, if he had withdrawn them without making a few observations on the subject.
§ The Resolutions withdrawn.