Sitting of 5 July 1839

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a second time:—Inland Warehousing.—Read a third time:—Bankrupt Liability; Prisons (Scotland); Paper Duties; Brick Duties.
Petitions presented. By Sir W. Molesworth, and Mr. D. W. Harvey, from Lancaster, and Southwark, for a Uniform Penny Postage.—By Lord Stanley, from Lancashire, against the Government plan for National Education.

METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS.
Sir R. Inglis, seeing the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his place, begged to ask, in reference to the report of the Committee on Metropolitan Improvements, whether it was the intention of her Majesty's Government to introduce any bill this session founded on the recommendations of that report?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to the question of the right hon. Baronet, had to state that communications had been entered into by the Treasury, with the view of ascertaining whether, with reference to the public interests, they could act on the report and recommendations of the Committee. In consequence of the favourable nature of the answers received a bill had been prepared on the subject; but in the meantime he had discovered that a private bill had passed through the House, empowering the city of London to borrow money on the security of certain of the city

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funds for the improvements of the approaches to the new London-bridge. Such being the case, and that bill having gone almost to the stage of a third reading in the House of Lords, he had felt it to be his duty to take the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, whether that bill might not interfere with the intentions of the Government, and deprive the Treasury of their power to act as they had proposed. While perfectly ready to undertake what the Committee had recommended, he could not do so unless that could be effected without imposing additional cost upon the public. Therefore until he was assured that the city funds were perfectly adequate to the purposes for which they were sought to be applied under the provisions of that bill, without the imposition of new burdens, he should not proceed with the bill which he had prepared.

DISTRESS IN MAYO.
Colonel Perceval, not seeing the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland in his place, begged to ask the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question on a subject of considerable importance. It had reference to the distress at present existing in the county Mayo. He wished to know whether Government had it in contemplation to do anything, or had done anything to put an end to the existing distress in the county Mayo, described in a letter, which he held in his hand, from a highly respectable Catholic clergyman of Newport in that county?
The Chancellor of the Exchequerwished that the hon. and gallant Member had put the Government in possession of the letter he referred to beforehand, in order that his noble Friend might have been prepared to answer his question. He could not help observing to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that the less there was of discussion about such cases in such a manner in that House the better for all parties. He doubted whether the course taken by the hon. and gallant Member might not have a tendency rather to increase than to diminish the distress he alluded to.
Colonel Percevalwould be quite ready to take any course pointed out to him as likely to put an end to the dreadful distress he referred to. At the same time he scarcely thought he was open to the lecture he had received from the right hon. Gentleman. In a case of such crying distress he could not let a day pass without endeavouring to ascertain the intentions of Government. It was actually stated that in
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the town and neighbourhood of Newport, to which the letter he had read particularly referred, hundreds of persons were endeavouring to live on one meal a-day, composed of "lumpers," the worst kind of potatoes, aided by wild spinach. Surely such a state of things as was confessedly existing in this county called for the immediate intervention of Government.
Mr. O'Connellprotested against the assumption by the right hon. Gentleman that any discussion either in or out of that House could increase the misery now existing on the western coast of Ireland, particularly in the County Kerry and County Mayo. The second crop of potatoes had failed, and it was of the utmost importance that something should be immediately done to alleviate the misery produced by this and other causes.
Mr. Sergeant Jackoncould also speak to the misery existing on the south-western coast of Ireland, in Cork and Kerry particularly. He had received four letters from the neighbourhood of Bandon, which stated that in a district, where the population was 7,000, there were 3,000 persons bordering on starvation, and 1,000 in a state of destitution. A very small extent of relief on the part of the Government would save these unfortunate people from perishing.

THE BUDGET—POSTAGE DUTIES.
The House in Committee on the Post-office Acts.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerthen rose and said—Sir, I cannot commence the observations which it is my duty to address to the House on the present occasion without very earnestly expressing a hope that the House will not omit to pay to the statement of the financial affairs of the country for the present year that attention which its high importance calls for; and I express that hope with the more confidence, because on many occasions during the present Session I have met from both sides of the House many very generous allowances and a great deal of indulgence. Sir, I wish to explain to the House my reasons for the course which I now propose to take. The resolution with which I am about to conclude is one undoubtedly of the utmost importance, as I shall endeavour to show, to some of the highest and best interests of the country. But it is also of much importance in a financial point of view; and for that reason I think it but just and right that the House should be made aware of

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the actual financial condition of the country, before it is called upon to decide upon another proposition involving very important financial considerations. My observations, therefore, on the present occasion, will naturally divide themselves into two branches;—first, an exposition of the existing state of the finances of the country; and secondly, an explanation of the proposition which I am about to make—a recital of the authorities in this House for and against that proposition—and a recommendation on the part of the Government, that the House should at least enter upon the consideration of that proposition, accompanied, however, with one condition to which I hold it to be inseparably united. Adhering to this course I proceed at once to the first portion of the duty which I have assigned to myself, namely, the explanation of the present state of the finances of this country. I cannot approach that subject, without first calling the attention of the House to the new position in which, to a certain extent, the House and the Government of late, and more especially during the present year, have been placed. Upon former and ordinary occasions, undoubtedly, whether on going into Committee of supply or in stating the income and expenditure of the country, it was the object, and indeed it was felt to be the duty, of the individual to whom it fell to give explanations on the subject, to prove to the House that all possible efforts had been used to push the principle of retrenchment to the utmost possible extent consistent with the public service; he was held bound to prove, that every estimate had been confined to the least possible wants of the service for which it was intended, it was his business to be prepared to meet objections founded on views of economy. Such being the arguments the most likely to be urged by the representatives of the people. But I must remind the House that of late—and more especially in the course of the present Session—the relative positions of the two parties have been different—the government have not gone into one Committee of Supply without being threatened with amendments, not of the old character, and with a view to the reduction of the estimates, but, on the contrary, for the purpose of increasing them. If we proposed to go into the navy estimates, we were told, in contradiction to the assertions of the authorities presiding over the Admiralty, that the navy is unfit to
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represent the honour and to maintain the rights of England; and that the Government will forget their duty if they do not largely add to the estimates and greatly increase the navy. In like manner, when discussing the estimates for the marines, the ordnance, or the half-pay establishment—no matter, in fact, in what branch of the service—we are met at every turn, and under every circumstance, with complaints that we do not carry the expenditure of the country far enough, and invitations are given, nay, more, a little compulsion is often resorted to on the part of the House, to compel the Government to carry the expenditure for the different branches of the public service much beyond the scale and limits of the estimates. So, also, in like manner, as to the Miscellaneous votes. There can scarcely appear in the public prints, or there can scarcely be urged on the part of private individuals, any personal claim or any claim affecting a class, without our finding that such claim at once creates able, efficient, and I regret to add, sometimes successful advocates in this House, and thus the Government are at times compelled to propose votes which they never contemplated or considered to be necessary. I am not alluding to these things as matters of reproach, I mention them as matters of history. Again, Sir, alterations are made in our laws, pregnant, no doubt, with very great improvement; but, at the same time, attended with considerable expense. The system of responsible central control adopted — and I think wisely and effectually adopted—with a view to the improvement of many of our most valuable institutions, whilst it has effected an improvement and saving to the local public—if I may so designate the separate parts of the community—has cast upon the general public, as represented in this House, a new and increased expense; for instance, I am not disposed in the slightest degree to undervalue the amendment of the Poor-laws, on the contrary, I look back to my connexion with the Government which carried the measure for amending the Poor-laws as one of the proudest circumstances of my life; but the Poor-law, whilst it has saved to the counties and the agriculturists many millions, has at the same time entailed upon the general public, as I see by the estimates, an expense of no less than 73,000 l. for the present year. In like manner this House was besieged with petitions, to give to the community at

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large, and more especially to the dissenting portion of the community, a good system of registration of births, marriages, and deaths. Well, a system has been devised which has obtained the assent of both Houses of Parliament. I presume, and believe, that the system is a good one; but, again, while the benefit has been conferred upon the public, that benefit has to be paid for, and it appears on the estimates in the shape of a sum of 20,000 l.In like manner the tithe commission costs the country 32,000 l. a-year; the factory inspectors 8,000 l. a-year; the inspectors of prisons 5,600 l. and there are many other charges of a similar nature which have only been introduced in later years. Thus while the country has had the benefit of a more extended and complete administration, of important and salutary laws, the burthen on the public has been much increased, and to meet that burthen, the House, in considering the ways and means, is bound to supply the funds required by previous votes in supply. In like manner there are many other matters of a pressing character which the Government has of late been called on to undertake. There is the great system of steam communication throughout the world—the steam communication with India, which costs the country 100,000 l. a-year, to which the public contribute 50,000 l. There have been, also, many measures of benevolence and charity undertaken of late years—there is the annual interest of 750,000 l. upon the West Indian Loan for the emancipation of the negroes—the grant for the education of the negroes in the West Indies, which the Government has taken up; the vote of 30,000 l. for the education of the people of this country, which the Government has most properly undertaken to assist and encourage. You have voted large sums for these purposes of benevolence and improvement; but while your improvements confer great benefits on the public, they also entail a large expense on the State. I may state as an instance, the communication which is the subject of my intended resolution, the transmission of letters. You have now a railroad communication open throughout a great part of the country, and of course the corresponding public have a right to the full benefit of such communication. The Government is bound to give it, and the public will not be satisfied without it; but it costs you a very large sum. On one single line of communication, one branch of the service, I
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had an opportunity lately of comparing the present expense to that incurred before the introduction of railroads, and I find the former cost of 7,000 l. for the expense of the Post-Office, increased by a farther sum of 30,000 l., required in order to give the public the benefit of railroad communication. I am not complaining of all this; I am only showing the various causes which have compelled the Government, in modern times, to increase the public expenditure. Sir, the consequences of many of these causes—and I may add more especially the sense of duty on the part of the Government itself—have led in the present year to a great increase in the estimates; and to that, in the first instance, I wish to call the attention of the House. The estimates for the army, for instance, in the year 1838, were 6,322,000 l., while the estimates in the present year are 6,563,000 l. The estimates for the navy in the former year were 4,811,000 l., and for the present year, 5,197,000 l. The estimates for the ordnance in the former year was 1,546,000 l., and in the present year 1,732,000 l. In short, Sir, on the three great branches of the public service there is an increase of 812,000 l. on the estimates of the year, without taking into account any extraordinary expenditure for Canada. The increased charge for the year is, on the whole, 962,220 l. What is my object in stating these things? I wish to bring practically before the House, when they view the general state of the finances of the country, that which they are very apt to forget—that when in Committee of supply, they are sometimes too prompt in incurring debts without considering their means of payment; and I wish the House to consider, at least, in future, that if they feel disposed, when in Committee of supply, to sanction any very lavish expenditure of the public money, they must not afterwards quarrel with the individual whose duty it becomes to call on them to make provision for such additional expenditure.
Sir, I shall now proceed to compare my statements in the budget of last year, with the actual results of the income and expenditure of this year; and then I shall proceed to make my statement of the probable income and expenditure of the year now to be provided for. This I shall do, abstracting for the present all consideration of the extra charges on account of Canada, to which I shall now allude only in passing, reserving more full particulars to a subsequent part of my address. Last year I

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calculated the income from the Customs at 20,795,000 l.; the revenue from the Customs, however, up to the 5th April last, was 21,210,000 l.; thus showing an improvement on that branch of the public revenue, and thus proving that the calculation I made was not excessive. The revenue from the Excise I calculated last year at 13,902,000 l. It has, however, fallen short of that estimate, the actual amount of revenue from that branch having been, up to the 5th of April last, only 13,729,000 l. The cause of this miscalculation was, that I apprehended I should have been right in taking the average of the two preceding years. I should have been 2,000 l. over the mark, had I taken the average of the three preceding years. My calculation of last year, as to the stamp duties, has been exceeded. I assumed that the stamp duties would produce 7,001,000 l., but they have produced 7,043,000 l. The taxes I calculated at 3,654,000 l.; they have produced 3,700,000 l. The Post-Office I calculated at 1,638,000 l.; it has produced 1,674,000 l. The Miscellaneous I calculated at 279,000 l., they have produced 474,000 l. This latter sum, however, is not so much an excess, as a temporary accession arising out of a payment received from the Canadian Treasury, under the provisions of the Canada Act. The total amount of my estimate was 47,271,803 l., the amount actually received has been 47,833,118 l. Here, then, is an excess of 561,315 l., and I think the House will see, that, calculating on so large an expenditure as 47,000,000 l., it would be scarcely possible to expect a nearer approximation, especially when it is borne in mind that this excess of 561,000 l. is an excess of receipt, and not a saving of expenditure. [Sir Robert Peel inquired what sum was obtained by the corn duties?] I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has asked a question in reference to the state of the duties on corn, because a most singular misapprehension has prevailed, and has been circulated by the public press on that subject. Writers who argued with reference to the last year's revenue, had stated that it must be materially affected by the enhancement of the corn duties, they little thought, that high prices accompanied by low duties, although they cause a large importation of foreign corn, produce a very small amount of revenue. I know, that the right hon. Gentleman does not labour under the prevalent misapprehension on the subject, and I am therefore dealing only
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with the misapprehensions of others. I am able, in reply to his question, to state the difference between the corn receipts of the two years I have compared, which is the object he no doubt has in view. Those years are 1837 and 1838. The duties upon foreign corn, received in 1837, amounted to 306,860 l. In the course of the last year they amounted to 146,000 l.; so that if it had not been for the circumstance to which Gentlemen have attributed a large increase of the public revenue, there would have been a much greater revenue, which is just the reverse of what Gentlemen have suggested; but I shall advert to this subject again. To return to my general statement: I have shown the excess of the receipt to have been 561,315 l. above the estimate of last year; but I wish I could, on that account, state, that on the whole the result was satisfactory. I regret to state, that the result is not so satisfactory as I could have wished, because, whilst the income of the country has exceeded my previous anticipation, the expenditure of the country has exceeded my estimate in a much larger proportion. That expenditure has exceeded my expectations very mainly by reason of the events in British North America; but there are other circumstances connected with the state of the country which have also added to it. I shall proceed now to compare my estimate of the expenditure with the actual expenditure, as I have compared my estimate of receipts with the actual receipts. The estimated interest of the public debt, funded and unfunded, was 29,350,000 l.; the expenditure was 29,427,000 l.; the other charges upon the consolidated Fund were estimated at 2,400,000 l. They amounted to 2,383,000 l. The estimate of the army is that upon which the main increase has taken place. For reasons which I shall afterwards explain it is put down to the army, but it embraces a considerable branch of expenditure to other purposes. The army vote was 6,322,000 l. That was my estimate of last year. The expenditure has amounted to the sum of 7,201,000 l. the cause of which I will explain as I pass on—I am merely dealing with the figures for the present. The navy estimates amounted to 4,811,000 l., and the expenditure to 4,690,000 l. The estimate of the ordnance was 1,546,000 l., and the expenditure 1,381,000 l. Therefore the total expense of these three branches of the service, the great services, will stand thus—estimate 12,679,000 l., expenditure

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13,272,000 l. The miscellaneous estimate was 2,545,000 l., and the expenditure upwards of 2,678,000 l., exclusive of 500,000 l. for Canada. The total estimated expenditure of the year was 47,477,808 l., and the actual expenditure has been 48,263,444 l., showing an excess of expenditure of 785,636 l. Now, Sir, any Gentleman who does me the honour of recollecting a statement which I made last year will bear in mind that I showed an apprehended deficiency of 206,000 l. The actual deficiency produced by the excess of expenditure on the 5th of April, in place of being the estimated sum of 206,000 l. amounted to 430,000 l. That is a difference of 224,000 l. Such is according to the balance sheet of April. The balance sheet of April, according to my last year's anticipation, should have exhibited a balance of 206,000 l. That anticipation was formed without taking into account the extraordinary circumstances that have arisen in the course of the last year in Canada, to which I shall call the attention of the House hereafter, and I think the House will see, that it is not a very unpardonable fault that in the statement of the income, as well as the expenditure, there is a difference (not however greater than 206,000 l..) between the anticipation made twelve months back, and the result as now shown. I certainly had feared the discrepancy might have been much more, and I am gratified at finding it is so little. Sir, before I go into the causes of this increased expenditure, I may be allowed to say a very few words on the subject of the income side of the account. I shall not trouble the House with details of the lesser branches of the revenue, but hon. Members will expect from me some account of the great branches of the revenue during the last year, in order to guide them in their calculations and anticipations for the next year. I hold in my hand a return from the Customs, giving an account of the increase of the last year as compared with the preceding; and I find that as regards the greater articles of importation, there has been, in many of the most important of them, an increase which, although not very great, has yet been steady and progressive. In the articles of sheep's wool, cotton wool, timber, wine (except some classes of foreign wine, in which there has been a small falling off), tobacco, tea, sugar, oil, and in many branches of spices, the increase has been, in some cases, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 per cent; and in others, the increase has been very much larger. In the article of sheep's
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wool, for instance, the increase has been 32 per cent., and in cotton wool 22 per cent. The various ratios of increase are fully stated in the return; but I will not at the present time trouble the House with the details. On the other hand, in some articles the Customs' duties have decreased; but with one exception, those are articles of no very great importance, nor is the decrease considerable. One of the articles is indeed of importance, raw and thrown silk; but the decrease is only three per cent., and the only article where the decrease has exceeded a small per centage is tallow, on which there is a diminution of nine per cent. But on the whole the Customs' revenue for the last year has been, on the gross return, most satisfactory, and evidences a most satisfactory state of trade. To pass to the Excise. On many of the most essential articles, there has been a considerable increase; on others there has been a diminution, but that diminution is to be partly attributed to the circumstances attendant on the last harvest. For instance there is a diminution in hops. There is also a diminution of five per cent, on malt. On bricks, also, there has been to a certain extent a decrease of duty. On those branches of the glass trade in which there has been no reduction of duty, there has been a small diminution in the amount received upon the year, but upon that branch of the trade as to which some years ago I had the honour of proposing a reduction of duty—I allude to flint glass—there has been a considerable increase. On plate glass, there has been a steady progressive increase, while there has been a falling-off on crown glass. But this must be taken with reference to the increased use of plate glass; for no person can pass along the streets without observing, that the use of plate glass has become one of the luxuries of the time. As compared with the three preceding years there is an increase of 15 per cent, on plate glass, and on flint glass of 6 per cent. On licences also there is an increase, and on the paper duties, on which I had the honour of proposing a reduction of the duty, there has been an increased revenue of 10 per cent. There is also an increase on both kinds of soap, and also on spirits. In short, I think there is nothing in the state of the Excise revenue, although the total amount is less than that at which I estimated it, that can for a moment create the slightest possible doubt or mistrust of the resources of the country. Where there

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has been a diminution in the revenue it has been connected more with the seasons than with any other cause. With regard to the stamps and taxes, I do not see that any observation is called for from me. My estimate has been exceeded in the return by a few thousands. Circumstances, however, will occur, on which it is impossible to calculate. The amount of legacy duty, for instance, may vary in particular quarters, without exercising any permanent effect on the revenues of the country. I will now proceed to the Post-office revenue and explain the reason why there is a falling-off in the receipts from that branch of the revenue. The gross amount of the Post-office revenue is as much as I had anticipated; but the reason why there is not such a large net amount of revenue from this department is, that the heads of that department have been exerting themselves in every possible way to promote and increase the accommodation of the public—for instance, the more frequent and general despatch of mail by railroad. This, as I have before stated, has led to an increase of expenditure, and to a consequent diminution in the net receipts of the Post-office. At the same time, however, there has been a gradual increase in the gross amount of the Post-office revenue, which is made obvious by a paper from that department which I have before me. This return takes a certain amount of revenue from each division of the Post-office, and shows the increase that has taken place in each class. On an amount of 120,000 l. received within a certain period of last year on unpaid letters outward there has been an increase, within the same period of this year, of 9,000 l.; on 114,000 l. received during the same period for unpaid letters inland there has been an increase of 12,000 l.; on 169,000 l. received for letters by bye and cross roads there has been an increase of 7,600 l.; on 53,000 l. of the gross receipt for Scotland, there has been an increase of 4,700 l. on 62,000 l. of the gross Post-office revenue of Ireland there has been an increase of 2,400 l.; on 32,000 l. for the two penny post delivery there has been an increase of 2,800 l. on 18,000 l. for the receipts from the West Indies and British North America there has been an increase of 1,400 l.; and on 19,000 l. which was paid for foreign letters, there has been an increase of 2,100 l. Taking the same period also in the whole of the miscellaneous receipts, there has been an increase of 916 l. Therefore, upon a
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total amount of 588,000 l. of the Post-office revenue, there has been an increase within a comparatively short period, of 42,382 l., being an increase of nine per cent, on the April quarter of this year. A great many calculations have been made to prove the decay and falling-off in Post-office revenue; but the result, in this case, proves, that where there is a falling-off in the net revenue of the Post-office, it often happens, in consequence of greater expense incurred by that department, with the view of giving increased accommodation to the public. There is also an increase in the expenditure under the head of army extra ordinaries. It is only just to my noble Friend, the Secretary at War, and the War-office, to state, that the greater part, or almost the whole of this increase arose in consequence of the extraordinary expense which it was necessary to incur in Canada, as I shall presently proceed to show. To those Gentlemen who are at all conversant with the nature of the expenditure from the military chest and in the colonies abroad, it is quite unnecessary to enter upon any explanations; but to others who have not had opportunities of becoming acquainted with matters of the kind, some explanation may be necessary. Suppose, for instance, that the Governor of Canada considers it necessary to order a steam-boat to be equipped; when the Governor directs this equipment to take place, he directs an issue for the purpose to be made from the military chest in order to defray the expenses. A bill is then drawn by the officer of the commissariat to raise the means of meeting this bill of the draft on the military chest. This bill is then sent home, paid and charged to military expenditure, ultimately, on the adjustment of accounts, it is determined to which branch of the service the charge belongs, and it is transferred accordingly; but it roust be charged under this head at first, in consequence of the commissariat department having to make the advance. It is only in the settlement of the commissariat accounts that the final adjustment is made, when, after proper examination, the charges are apportioned and settled between one department and another. The expense incurred in Canada I shall now bring under the attention of the House, keeping back nothing, concealing nothing, distorting nothing, but putting the House as fairly and as fully as I can in possession of what I believe will turn out to be the maximum of charge under this head, the utmost

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to which according to probable circumstances, this country will be subject up to the end of 1840. I have not yet got the complete accounts to a later date than the 31st of March, 1838—that is, the complete and final accounts are not made up to a later period than that date; but I have the means of fixing what I believe will be found to be a correct estimate up to a much later period. I have received some accounts within the last three days, which furnish me with materials for this estimate. In consequence of not having got the accounts on this subject, my annual finance statement has been delayed, as it was essential that I should give as clear and full an account of the extraordinary expenditure for Canada as was possible. I repeat, the cash accounts have only been obtained within the last three days. I will first allude to the extraordinary expenses incurred in Canada, since the period when the circumstances occurred in that country to require this expenditure. The extraordinary expenses incurred in Canada in 1837–38, amounted to 245,620 l.; the extraordinary expenses in the following year was 701,400 l., making a total of 947,000 l. of extraordinary expenditure for the years 1837–38 and 1838–9, that is, to the month of April, 1839. This included every article of extraordinary expenditure incurred in Canada, according to the best information I possess. A part of this amount has been provided for by a vote which has been taken on account of 500,000 l. Deducting this sum from 947,000 l., there would remain a balance of 447,000 l. to be provided for. This disposes of the expenditure of the two previous years. I now come to the possible expenditure of the present year for Canada. I shall assume the total expenditure which bears on the subject at 1,101,300 l., that is, for the year ending April 1840. I have already stated the maximum total expenditure for the last year, but there may be some charges which may not be placed to the proper account. I have taken the last cash accounts which I have received within the last three days and these are the only accounts which I have to deal with at present. Of this sum we have already provided for 594,700 l., which has been voted on the ordinary estimate. In the army, navy, and ordnance estimates, the ordinary charges are provided for. This I do not mean to deal with at the present, but there are certain other charges for ordnance extraordinaries, which may yet be required. Reserving this amount we have the sum of 594,700 l. provided for
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by ordinary estimate. Deducting this from the gross charge of 1,101,300 l., there will remain a balance to be provided for of 506,600 l. If this sum is added to the surplus of 447,000 l. already stated as arising in the two previous years, it will appear that the total extraordinary expense incurred in Canada for the three years, and not yet provided for is 1,053,000 l.
The Account stands thus:—

Estimate for 1839–40

1,101,300

Provided by Departments

594,700

Balance

506,000

Additional Estimates for works in Canada

100,000

Total Estimate for 1839–40

606,600

Balance of last year

447,000

£1,053,000

N.B.—The sum on the Estimate for this year is taken at £1,000,000.
The amount, then, which the House has to deal with above the 500,000 l. taken last year, is 1,053,000 l., which is undoubtedly a very large sum, and it is very much to be regretted, that such an expenditure was called for. It is not my purpose to, enter upon a discussion of the Canada question but I believe, that I shall have the concurrence of every Gentleman present, when I state, that in the situation in which Canada was placed, both in her external relations and as regards her internal tranquillity, the Government would have been guilty of the basest neglect of duty if they suffered any branch of the service to be in a less efficient state than appeared to Sir John Colborne and the other authorities in Canada to be requisite, or if they had refused to send out such additional force as was called for by them. The House knows perfectly well both the extent and the nature of the boundary which the military force in, Canada has to defend; the general commanding there has had to provide in every way for the defence of the territory, and therefore a large, military force is absolutely necessary. We had better, on every account, at once determine to give up the colony, if we ar not prepared to defend the inhabitants of the colony from attacks, from either foreign or internal enemies; and if we are determined to do so, it is our duty to do it effectively. I now proceed to state the nature of the force in Canada. The Horse Guards' return which I hold in my hand does not state the ordnance force in, that country, as that

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is given in a separate return. I deal therefore with the other branch of the service only. In 1835, the military force in British North America was 4,611. So it continued in 1836 and 1837. For those three years this was the amount of the ordinary average force in those colonies. In January, 1838, the number was 5,089; in April, 1838, it was increased to 7,449. On the 1st of January, 1839, the number was 13,215 effective rank and file. I have excluded from this computation the artillery, because I have not got the return before me. In addition to this regular force, there is at present a very large irregular force in Canada. The number of the incorporated militia is 21,054, the number of volunteers actually enrolled is 3,775, and the number of local and stationary militia is 8,238; so that, in addition to the regular military force in Canada, there is this armed body of 33,067 men. I hope my hon. Friends will not think that I am anxious to lead them by this statement into a political debate; my wish and intention is to confine myself to the discussion of the finance question. The House will see that the increase of the regular force has been very great in Canada but the increase of the irregular force there has been still more so, which necessarily must be attended with a great outlay. This, I think, will account for the additional expense of upwards of a million above the average expenditure for this colony. This great increase in the number of regular soldiers in Canada has been made without adding to the army, as we have been enabled to make a great diminution in the amount of the forces in Ireland. I need not add that this has been attended with a great diminution of expenditure there; and it is a state of things very different from what was the case formerly there, and mnst afford the greatest satisfaction to all persons. [Mr. Goulburn. Has the right hon. Gentleman stated the amount of the expense of the irregular force in Canada?] The exact amount of the expense incurred by that description of force is not before me, but I shall be most ready to furnish my right hon. Friend with any information in my power. The House must be aware that it is much more difficult to procure accurate returns respecting the charge for this description of irregular force, than for the regular army there. It would be much easier to furnish a return of the expenses of the whole of the British army in its quarters, than to give the details of the
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expenses of this irregular force in Canada. I was about to draw a distinction between the increased military establishment in Canada, and the diminished force which it is found necessary to keep in Ireland. In the year 1797, when the disturbances began in Ireland, the army then amounted to 79,000 men, and the expenditure was 2,600,000 l.; in 1798, the number of troops in Ireland was 91,000, and the expense was 3,900,000 l.; in 1799, the military force on foot there was 114,000, and the expense amounted to 4,100,000 l.; in 1800, the military force there was 53,000; in 1810, it amounted to 35,000 effective men; in 1820, it was 20,900; on the 1st of January 1835, it was 16,347; and on the 15th of June, which was the last return, and the nearest approach to the present time for which a return could be made up, in the place of 35,000 men, which were maintained in 1810, there was required for the maintenance of the tranquillity of that country no more than 12,600 men. This was a smaller force than it had been thought expedient to keep in Ireland at any previous period since the time of the Union. It was thus owing to the tranquillity of Ireland that the Government had been enabled to make considerable exertions, and to dispatch a strong force to Canada, without much increasing the public burthens. If the state of Ireland at the present period had made it requisite to maintain an army of 35,000 men there, as was the case in 1810, we could not now have increased the military force in Canada to 13,000, without adding greatly to the number of men, and thereby incurring a great additional expenditure.
I have endeavoured to compare the estimate of income and expenditure for the last year with the actual accounts. I now proceed to state what I anticipate will be the income and expenditure for the next year. I have already shown to the House, that the amount of the estimates has been largely increased; I find that this increase amounts to 919,000 l. The estimates of the Custom duties, as furnished to me by the heads of that department, and which I have the most perfect reason to trust to as accurate returns tested, as they have been by past experience, I take at 21,500,000 l. The estimate of the Excise duties, taken on an average of the last three years, and being within a few pounds of the receipts of the last year, I take at 13,845,000 l. The estimate of

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stamps I take at 7,054,000 l.; of taxes at 3,694,000 l.; of the Post-office at 1,585,000 l.; and of Miscellaneous at 250,000 l.; to which may be added revenue from the Crown Lands, amounting to 200,000 l.; making together a total of revenue, according to the estimate, of 48,128,000 l. Before I proceed further, I wish to say a word or two respecting the revenue derived this year from Crown lands, about which many mistakes, and great misapprehension seem to prevail. It has been asserted, that the Government did not obtain the amount which was carried to the public credit in the finance returns, under the head of Crown Lands, as revenue, but that it was obtained from the sale of Crown Lands. This is an entirely erroneous view of the subject; if we had done so, without explaining it to the House, we should have been guilty of a gross breach of trust and public duty. It is, however, no such thing; the whole amount that has been stated, as brought to account, was the produce of the income of Crown Lands. It has been asked, how is it that no revenue of the kind has been received or accounted for in former years? My answer is, that nothing of the kind has previously appeared, because this revenue had hitherto been absorbed in paying off a very considerable debt incurred and charged on Crown revenues for public improvements, and now that that debt has been paid off, this revenue is brought to account. If any Gentleman is not satisfied with this statement, I hope that he will renew the subject, and call for further explanation, which I shall be most ready to give. I do not anticipate that this will be requisite, though after the explanation given by me on a former occasion on this subject, it has been stated out of doors, that the public accounts had been mystified on this subject, with the purpose of misleading. I challenge any investigation on this point, and I trust, that if this explanation is not conclusive, some hon. Member will call for further explanations. I will now proceed to explain the probable expenditure of the ensuing year. I should estimate this at the ordinary expense of the year, without taking the extraordinary expenditure for Canada last year, which was 1,000,000 l. I take the charge for the interest of the debt and Exchequer Bills at 29,443,000 l.; the charge on the consolidated fund the same as last year, at 2,400,000 l.; the array 6,563,000 l.; the navy 5,197,000 l.; the ordnance 1,732,000 l.; miscellaneous 2,652,000 l.; making a total expenditure of
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47,988,000 l. This would exhibit a surplus of income over expenditure — certainly of very small amount, but still an excess of income over expenditure—of 140,000 l. I have made allowance for increased estimates to the amount of 900,000 l., but I have not hitherto made any provision for the extraordinary expenditure of 1,000,000 l. for Canada, above the account contained in the ordinary estimates. This is not a state of things that can be regarded as satisfactory, and if I thought that the extra expenditure for Canada was likely to become a permanent charge, I should feel it to be my duty to come down to the House to propose, that provision should be made accordingly, and I should feel it to be my duty to propose a tax to meet this charge. But this amount of a million for Canada does not apply solely to the service of the present year, but it includes also an arrear of charge for services for two years anterior, and the whole of this extraordinary expenditure is not one which I should regret to contemplate as a permanent annual charge on the country. God forbid that Canada should continue to call for such an expenditure, and that we should not hope to see the time when this charge might be greatly or entirely reduced. If this expenditure arises from circumstances of a temporary nature, I do not think it would be prudent, or that I could with justice ask the House to impose a permanent tax to meet this charge. On some future occasion, when I have laid the papers on the Table of the House, I shall propose to provide for the deficiency that arises by a vote of Exchequer bills, in the nature of a vote of credit. I will not now go into the question, I merely suggest the course that I intend to take. I cannot however, leave this part of the subject without saying that while there are some matters which I have recited which are not satisfactory, it will be well to turn our attention to other branches of our finance which are in a more satisfactory state than they were last year. At this time twelve months there appeared on the balance sheet of the year to be a deficiency of 1,648,000 l. In the year ending 5th of October, this deficiency amounted to 755,000 l. and on the 5th of April it was reduced to 430,326 l. Unquestionably there is every reason to apprehend, if there is no violent disturbance of the tranquillity of the country, that the finances will go on improving, And I may be permitted to remark, that if it was not for the state

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of excitement and disturbance that has prevailed, the financial situation of the country would have been free from all cause of alarm. I should not have had anything to explain of more than an ordinary nature, but the extraordinary circumstances which have occurred render this statement necessary. There are many circumstances connected with the great interests of this country at the present time, which it behoves the House well to consider as connected with the finances of the country, and which it will be necessary to deal with with great prudence. Is there any Gentleman in the House who has considered the circumstances in which we should be placed if we should unfortunately have a similar harvest to that of last year, and thus be exposed to the consequences of the failure of two successive harvests. Is it possible to look without dismay to what would be the probable results of another failure in the crops. It is satisfactory to find on the other hand, however, that the value of our exports has been increasing gradually and progressively and that the exports from this country last year were greater than any previous year except 1836, when the amount of exports were particularly large in consequence of the particular circumstances of the year. The amount of the exports of articles of manufacture of England and Ireland during the year ending April, 1837, was 42,000,000 l., while the exports for the year ending April, 1838, was upwards of 50,000,000 l. The returns for the five months of this year show the same ratio of increase as there was last year. If, however, circumstances occur so as to cause the value of money to increase, and prices are affected, an important change will take place. If the prices of goods be decreased from such a cause, employment will be diminished and the revenue will be very soon considerably lessened; and I would ask under these circumstances whether it would not be alarming that a demand for food from abroad should occur in conjunction with such results. I am sure that I need not point out to hon. Gentlemen the difficulties that would arise from such a state of things. I hold in my hand a return which I perhaps should have referred to when I was asked by the right hon. Baronet a question on the subject of the corn-duties, when I stated in reply what a small amount of revenue was received from the duties on foreign corn last year, notwith-
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standing the large quantity imported into this country. The House has a right to know the quantity of foreign corn that was imported into this country, and the circumstances under which this supply was obtained. The quantity of wheat and flour imported into this country between the month of August, 1838, and the month of May 1839, was not less than 2,591,000 quarters. Taking the estimated value of this as nearly as it can be approached, I believe that it will be at least 7,126,000 l. There is a most important consequence from this coincidence, which must be obvious to hon. Gentlemen who feel any apprehension for the great interests of the country, they should consider that this large quantity of imported corn is not the result of a steady trade and the consequence of a regular demand, but that it arises from a sudden deficiency in the produce of our own harvest, and which made it necessary that these imports should be paid for in money. It cannot escape consideration that this large importation of wheat has led to the diminution of the amount of bullion in the Bank of England. If it be regarded only as a coincidence it will still be found to suggest to the minds of hon. Gentlemen many important and alarming considerations. I refer to this as bearing upon the question of the diminution of bullion in the coffers of the Bank. If this pressure be continued on the Bank, and if there is a continued diminution of the stock of bullion, attended with a consequent effect on prices, and if the value of com imported is proportionate to the drain on the Bank for gold, you will trace a coincidence not only deeply affecting the Bank and the portion of the trade I have just mentioned, but which must bring into, jeopardy the best interests of the mercantile classes and of the public. [Sir R. Peel asked from what period the right hon. Gentleman took the returns of the imports of foreign corn.] I thought that I had already stated the account to be made out from August 1838 to May 1839. The average duty paid on this large amount of foreign corn was 1s. 7d. the quarter, while the previous year the duty was 1l. 5s. the quarter.
I have been accustomed on occasions of this kind to refer to the returns respecting the savings banks. Nothing can show the practical good sense of the people of England more clearly than the conduct of the depositors in the savings banks, and their disregard during the late, period of excitement of

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the exertions made by ill-advised persons to produce a run on the savings banks. I cannot say whether this was done by Chartists or other persons. I know that some of the leaders of that class assert, that they would not lend themselves to such a proceeding; but others have done so, and have exerted themselves to the utmost to excite a run on the savings banks. In some places such a result has been produced for a short time. I relied, however, on the general good sense of the depositors and I felt confident that they were intelligent enough to know, that those who withdrew their deposits would be themselves the sufferers. This is the case now, because under the existing law it is much easier to withdraw money from the savings banks than to replace the amount. The mass of persons who are depositors in savings banks knew too well their interests and duty, to allow themselves to be led away by such excitements as I have described. I have before me the returns of the savings banks between the years 1834 and 1838. I will only take the two last years, and I find that in 1837 the amount of money received in the savings banks was 988,000 l. while during the same period the amount paid out, exclusive of interest, was 810,000 l. In the year 1838 the amount received was 1,495,000 l.; while during the same year the amount drawn out, exclusive of interest, was 468,000 l. This return proves how very slight has been the effect produced by the Chartist excitement. I also hold in my hand a return of the number of depositors, and the amount of their deposits, at the 20th of November, 1837, and the 20th of November, 1838, during which period there was much political excitement, and I find that the increase in the number of depositors during that period was 67,696, and the increase in the amount of money paid in wag 1,793,439 l. After this I think the House may place perfect reliance on the assertion that the depositors in savings banks will not be easily led away by any outcry or political excitement that may prevail. I have thus given a statement, as accurately as I can, or the probable state of the financial year, and I shall proceed to the second branch of my subject; the postage duties. I thank the House for the patient attention it has paid to the preceding part of my statement, and I shall now apply myself to the resolution which is before the House, and which I am about to move. I may be allowed, in the first
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instance, to anticipate an objection, and to answer it, as far as I can, by anticipation. Sir, it may be said to me—"By your own showing, and on your own statement, you have a surplus on the ordinary income compared with the expenditure not exceeding 140,000 l., while on the other hand, you have shown an absolute necessity of making good from the credit of the country a sum of no less than one million; how, then, are you justified in making a proposition that may affect so large a branch of the public revenue as that of the Post-office?" Sir, if my proposition were one to reduce the postage on letters to one uniform rate of a penny, without making good the deficiency of revenue which might ensue, I should expose myself not only to the censure of the House and of the public, but to the ridicule and scorn of men of common sense; but, Sir, this is not the proposition I am about to make, or which I should think myself justified in making. In all the communications which I have had with Gentlemen who feel interested in the subject, on both sides of the House, I have invariably maintained the same language to them; I have always asserted that I do not think it would become me to propose, and still less would it become the House to agree to a proposition, to make this great change effecting so large an amount of public revenue without, at the same time, and by the self same vote, pledging itself absolutely to make good the loss which may be sustained thereby, and I must say in justice to the various Gentlemen to whom I have stated this proposition, that I have not met one among them who is not prepared to sanction this view of the subject. Sir, I should never think of advocating any proposition like the present, unless coupled with this condition, and my resolution and my bill will include it—I repeat, Sir, and I state fairly to the House that I shall not think myself warranted in supporting the measure I now recommend to the House, unless it be accompanied by a distinct pledge that Parliament will undertake to make good the full amount of deficiency that may be occasioned by the alteration. The mode of proceeding which I shall propose is this: I shall propose a resolution, and if this is agreed to by the House, a bill shall be founded on it, and carried through both Houses of Parliament affirming the principle of making good the deficiency. By this course of proceeding, whatever the abstract merit of the proposition may be, I

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hope to satisfy the financial alarms and scruples of Gentlemen on both sides of the House. Had I proposed to effect the object merely by resolution, I might have satisfied some hon. Members, but on the other hand I have been met by hon. Gentlemen opposite with this objection, which I have already heard:—"Why proceed by resolution when, taking so serious a step? Do not let us be committed to the whole question by a single vote, but give us in a bill the opportunity of testing the measure in its various stages;" and I should be further required not to exclude from the deliberations on this very important measure, the other branch of the Legislature. I trust, Sir, that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House will think that in proposing a bill I have thus acted in the most advisable as well as in the most fair and open manner. What then, Sir, is the purport of the resolution, and what will be the purport of the bill? The purport of the resolution is this: that it is expedient to reduce the postage on letters to one uniform rate of one penny, chargeable on every letter of a weight to be hereafter fixed by law, the parliamentary privilege of franking being abolished, and the official franking being placed under strict regulations: this House pledging itself, at the same time, to make good any deficiency of revenue which may be occasioned by such alteration in the rate of postage. I propose, if this resolution is assented to, to introduce it into the preamble of the bill which I shall afterwards present to Parliament. If the committee will not pledge itself to make good the deficiency, I shall abandon the bill altogether. And should any hon. Gentleman on either side of the House undertake the management of the question under such circumstances, he will find me as steadfastly opposed to the measure, without this pledge, as the House will find me a steadfast, earnest, and eager friend of the measure, if I am given the means of carrying it into effect in the only way in which it can be honestly carried out. Before I enter further into the details of the plan, the Committee will allow me to say, that if there were at the present moment a surplus income of three or four millions, I might be very much disposed to say, that this was an experiment which, without any pledge at all, it behoved the House to make; but with an expenditure and income in the condition which I have explained to the committee, it would be clearly impossible for
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any person who reasons justly, or who properly considers his political duties, to say that we are entitled to place at risk a million and a half of the revenue of the country without at the same time binding ourselves to make good any deficiency which may arise. I wish in a few words to call the attention of the Committee to the manner in which this proposition comes recommended to their adoption. In the course of last year a committee was moved for, and acquiesced in by me on the part of the Government, to consider the subject of postage. Of that committee I may observe, that there are points in which I differ from their report, and on which, indeed, let me add, they differ from themselves—but yet I must admit, that a committee which took more pains to inform itself, whose collection of evidence is more valuable, as giving the opinions of many of the most intelligent persons of all classes in the country, I never remember in my parliamentary experience. They sat for many days, they examined a great variety of persons, and though the proposition I have to make differs from that which they have suggested, I fully believe they would have sanctioned it. They made a recommendation to the House, not for the adoption of a uniform penny postage, but for a general twopenny postage to be collected under certain regulations, and they considered that this twopence postage could be introduced without any loss to the revenue. Now, Sir, from the best consideration which I have been able to give to the subject, comparing one proposition with the other, and, above all, considering the evidence taken before the committee, I find the whole of the evidence, the whole of the authorities conclusively bearing in favour of a penny postage in preference to a twopenny postage. And, Sir, I am quite sure that in making an experiment of this nature, it behoves this House to set to work, not only fairly, and frankly, but largely, in order to come to a satisfactory result; further, I conscientiously believe that the public run less risk of loss in adopting the proposition for a penny postage than it would if we introduced a twopenny postage. But there is evidence beyond that of the Committee, The report, the evidence, and the whole subject have been for some time under the consideration of another tribunal—the public at large. An infinite number of petitions have been presented on this

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subject from all parts of the country and from all classes, and I readily admit the weight and authority of petitions. If I add, at the same time, an opinion that many of these petitions would appear to bear the marks of being manufactured petitions, I do not say this for the purpose of varying the conclusion to which I have come, but for the purpose of putting that conclusion on other grounds than the mere number of petitions or the number of signatures. While, however, I state, that many of these petitions bear this suspicious impress, I find that the mass of them present the most extraordinary combination I ever saw of representations to one purpose from all classes, unswayed by any political motives whatever; from persons of all shades of opinion, political and religious, from clergymen of the Established Church, from all classes of Protestant Dissenters, from the clergymen of Scotland, from the commercial and trading communities in all parts of the kingdom. It must, however, be remembered, that while the object of all these petitions is simply a reduction of taxation, an object for which all classes are ready to apply, the proposition now before the Committee is the reduction of the postage charges to a low uniform rate, but upon the express condition that any deficiency occasioned by this change shall be made up by the imposition of some other tax. The petitioners have therefore to consider, that it is not merely to carry their petitions into effect that I move this resolution, but to do it coupled with the condition of an additional tax, sufficient to make good the future deficiency. This, therefore, is the way in which this subject presents itself to the Committee. I must state to the Committee, and more especially after the petition which has been just presented by the noble Lord opposite, from the paper manufacturers of Lancashire, that I shall not ask the Committee at present to commit itself to any matters of detail. I ask hon. Members to commit themselves to the question of an uniform rate of postage of one penny at and under a weight hereafter to be fixed. I do not ask them to commit themselves to the question of stamped covers, or prepayments. I have my own opinion on these points, but they are matters which it is impossible to expect hon. Gentlemen to understand in the present state of the proceeding on which it would be premature to express an opinion or still less to commit individuals or Parliament. I will take, as an instance, the petition from the paper
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manufacturers to which I have alluded. If it were to go forth to the public to-morrow morning that Government had proposed and the Committee had adopted the plan of Mr. Rowland Hill, the necessary result would be to spread a conviction abroad, that as a stamped cover was absolutely to be used in all cases, which stamped covers were to be made by one single manufacturer, alarm would be felt lest a monopoly would be thereby created, to the serious detriment of the other members of a most useful and important trade. The sense of injustice excited by this would necessarily be extreme. I therefore do not call upon the Committee either to affirm or to negative any such proposition at the present. I ask them simply to affirm the adoption of an uniform penny postage and taxation of that postage by weight. Neither do I ask you to pledge yourself to the pre-payment of letters, for I am of opinion, that at all events there should be an option of putting letters into the post without a stamp. It may be asked why the Government comes to the House for any resolution at all or for any bill at all on the subject, and it will possibly be suggested from the other side of the House that the object in making a legislative proceeding of it is to gain increased popularity by that mode of proceeding, being aware as we are that the change proposed is a very popular one. But this suggestion would be ill-founded. We might have effected many of the objects we have in view without a resolution of the House, on any legislative proceeding whatever; but we have come to the House on very different grounds. In the first place, if the resolution be affirmed, and the bill has to be prepared, it will here after require very great care and complicated arrangements to carry the plan into practical effect. It may involve considerable expense and considerable responsibility on the part of Government; it may disturb existing trades, such as the paper trade, and the existing arrangements, such as the conveyance of mails, the organization of many post-offices, &c. I, therefore, cannot think that Government would have been warranted in taking this step of its own authority, without the knowledge and the approval of Parliament. The step, indeed, is so important a one that even if we had a surplus revenue, we should not feel warranted in proceeding without the sanction of Parliament, though it might be competent in us to do so by law. It would have been indecorous, it would have been

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improper in the highest degree, it would have been indefensible, had the Government proceeded without coming for authority to Parliament. Even if we had a surplus revenue of five millions, we ought to have appealed to Parliament, but under the existing circumstances, it would have been altogether unjustifiable on our parts to have acted merely upon our own authority. Such, Sir, are the reasons which induce us to introduce the present measure. I will now proceed to state what are the powers which we ask for by the bill. We shall want in addition to the power the Treasury already possesses, a power, not only of reducing but a power of increasing the rate of postage, a power absolutely necessary to carry out the plan. At the present time there are Penny-post-offices established in various parts of the country, the regulations of which are analogous to those of the twopenny post in London, consequently, packets of four ounces in weight are conveyed at the rate of a penny within those districts. Now, we cannot obviously have a uniform rate of po tage charged by weight without a power of increasing the rate of postage in these particular cases. To have a uniform rate we must reduce the weight to be carried in these districts to the scale which may generally be fixed under the proposed plan. I may remark here that there appears to exist in many quarters an erroneous idea that in the case of these penny postages the proposed penny postage will be continued in addition to the new rates; this is a misconception. The new postage will be distinctly and simply a penny postage by weight. I also require for the Treasury, a power of taking the postage by anticipation, and a power of allowing such postage to be taken by means of stamped covers; and I also require the authority of rating the postage according to weight, in place of rating it according to the single or double sheet. Such are the powers which we want under this bill; but inasmuch as they are very large discretionary powers, though we have many of them at our disposal already by law, I shall propose a clause in the bill rendering it necessary that these powers shall be exercised by Treasury warrants only, that copies of these warrants shall be laid on the Table of the House, and moreover, that these warrants shall only stand good till the end of next Session, so as to render legislation necessary in the course of that Session if this reduction should be continued. We
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only ask the power of making these changes on our own authority during the recess. Such, Sir, is the object of the bill which I mean to introduce. If the proposed revenue is to be collected through the medium of stamps, we must also take the power of issuing these stamps, of paying for these stamps, and of making the stamp revenue available for post-office purposes. The Committee may expect me to state what amount of loss may be likely to arise from this change. I shall not go into much detail on this point, because it must be at the best mere matter of conjecture, and not at all open to demonstration. Gentlemen may assume that this or that amount of correspondence will be created, but I believe that the ingenuity of no man can predicate with any degree of closeness what the future increase of letters will be. I am bound to say that my own anticipation is, that at the outset the loss will be very considerable indeed. I am of course, anxious that this resolution should be carried, but I cannot disguise from the House or the public the fact that in my belief the loss at the outset will be very great. I am the more bound to declare this opinion, because, if I did not now avow it, and if hereafter the loss does turn out to be considerable, and the House and the public should, therefore, be called upon to pay an equivalent to supply this deficiency the House might say, that I had given them no warning, that I had deluded them into a vote, and had paltered with the truth. But be the loss greater or smaller by the proposition before the Committee, this House will if it agrees to my resolution become bound to make it good. It has been suggested to me that on a future occasion it may be difficult to prevail on the House to fulfil its obligations. It is said, that the House will forget its resolution passed this Session, if hereafter called upon to make good a large deficiency; but this is a suggestion which I do not for a moment give ear to. I fully believe that those who support the present motion will act honestly, and will redeem the pledge which they are now called upon to give. If any Gentleman is not disposed to do so, let him now propose to expunge the latter part of the resolution, and simply vote for the repeal of the present postage charges. If they vote for the whole resolution, they will desert their duty to the House, to the public, and their own honour as gentlemen, if they do not hereafter sanction

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a new tax should it be rendered necessary by a deficiency. There is another point on which I have to say a few words, as to the abolition of the franking privilege. Undoubtedly we may lose the opportunity now and then, of obliging a friend, but on any other grounds, I believe, there is no Member of the House who will not be ready to abandon his privilege. As to any notion that hon. Gentlemen should retain their privilege under a penny postage, they must have a more intense appreciation of the value of money and a greater disregard for the value of time, than I can conceive, if they insist on it. As to official franking, my idea is, that with some few exceptions, which maybe considered hereafter, the business of the various departments ought to be conducted on the principle that each shall pay its own postage. I am aware that it may be said this will practically amount to taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another, but I think that it will tend greatly to diminish the amount of postage paid in these offices, if each is called upon to include that postage in its own contingencies. I have, in conclusion, only to add my thanks for the attention which the Committee has given to my statement on these important subjects, and to assure the Committee that it is the fixed determination of Government if the bill is sanctioned, to give it the fullest effect, and to take care in applying its provisions that the steps taken shall be carefully considered and matured. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the following resolution:—
"That it is expedient to reduce the postage on letters to one uniform rate of a penny postage, according to a certain amount of weight to be determined—that the Parliamentary privilege of franking should be abolished—and that official franking be strictly limited — the House pledging itself to make good any deficiency that may occur in the revenue from such reduction of the postage."
Mr. Goulburnrose under circumstances of no inconsiderable difficulty, from the course which his right hon. Friend had thought it proper to pursue, in bringing forward upon a resolution which involved a great change in one branch of the finances of the country, the general financial statement of the year. If he were to address himself entirely to the resolution, he should certainly inform himself better as to what was the usual practice of the House, and, what, under ordinary circum-
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stances, was more convenient for the purposes of discussion. The question which it involved was one of sufficient importance, in his opinion, to justify its having been made the subject of a separate discussion altogether, instead of its being made the medium through which to present to Parliament and the country the whole financial statement of the year—a financial statement which, if taken by itself, afforded most ample grounds for discussion, and required, more than the resolution which had been submitted to them, the earnest consideration of the House. He felt great difficulty, therefore, without any particular knowledge of the details, in entering into a discussion of this important subject. With one part of it especially he felt he had a very irksome duty to discharge; in doing which he feared he should test the patience of the House, inasmuch as he should be called upon to repeat principles and opinions which he had year after year inculcated upon the Government, hitherto without any effect, but, by the continued repetition of which, he trusted they would be induced so far to concur with him as to take a bold view of the finances of the country, in order that they might see what was the general effect of the system upon which they were acting; not to consider the question of finance as a mere insulated question applied to the circumstances of the moment, but to see what would be the necessary consequence of the course they were pursuing if persisted in, and at least express their opinion, that that course ought to be abandoned. In the few observations he had to address to the House, he should follow as nearly as possible the order in which his right hon. Friend introduced the subject to their notice. He would begin, therefore, with that part of it which applied to the financial situation of the country at the present moment, which pointed out to them what was the expenditure and what the receipt, what that expenditure and receipt were to be in the year to come, and by what means it was proposed to equalize them. Before he did so, he could not but again refer to the inconvenience which he felt to result from having to enter at all into a statement upon a resolution which had really no reference whatever to the subject. He should have been much better pleased if he had to deal with a vote in a committee of ways and means for the Exchequer

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Bills with which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to make up his deficiency. That would have been in his mind the proper vote to have taken upon a question of this nature, as affording an opportunity of entering into an ample discussion upon the policy of the right hon. Gentleman, which the present resolution barely afforded them. His right hon. Friend began his speech by saying, that whereas in former years it had been the custom of the House of Commons to be very vigilant of the expenditure of the public money, to call upon the Officers of the Crown for strict accounts of the reductions which had been effected in every branch of the public service; and whereas that state of things was entirely changed, the House of Commons being foremost in urging upon the Government the necessity of increased establishments, and the abandonment of economy, it now became the duty of the Government, not as formerly to resist economy, but to resist an undue extravagance upon the part of Parliament. He confessed he had seen no such tendency to extravagance on the part of Parliament. If it even did exist, was it not the duty of the Government, in taking great and comprehensive views of public affairs, to oppose itself to such a system, just as it would be their duty to oppose if urged upon them, an undue system of parsimony. But if the House had shown a disposition to increase our naval and military establishments, had there been no just reason why they should have entertained the desire? Did they not find, in the speech of his right hon. Friend, good grounds for supposing that if the establishments of the country had been kept in a state of greater vigour and efficiency, we might have been saved a great portion of that accumulated expenditure referred to by the right hon. Gentleman? They were now called upon to provide for the expenditure which had been caused by the state of Canada. He would not call it enormous, because he regarded the expenditure as a subordinate question when the honour of the country required our dominions to be adequately maintained; but he would say, that when the right hon. Gentleman complained of the desire of the House to increase our establishments, he should have recollected, that if there had been, in the case of Canada, an early application of our military resources—if when they had been told, that in the
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ensuing winter there would be a rebellion in that country, they had sent out a force sufficient to control that rebellion, that House would not now be called upon to vote so large a sum of money to meet the expenses which had been incurred in the year 1838. The expenditure attending such a course would not have been more than one-fourth of the present amount, and would have saved the country about 1,500,000 l., to which it was now subjected for the maintenance of troops and that irregular force which, under the name of militia and volunteers, it had been necessary to call into action in Canada. It was stated by Lord Durham, in his report, that irregular soldiers cost three times as much as regular soldiers. Bearing all these things in mind, he must say, that it was very extraordinary and unwise on the part of the Government, who declared, that they were under the obligation of sending forces to these provinces, to complain of suggestions upon which they subsequently acted, and ought to have acted originally. The right hon. Gentleman went next through the several items of expenditure and receipt as estimated by himself in former years, and compared them with the actual expenditure and receipt of the present year. Upon that part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, it was not necessary that he should make much observation. He did not pretend to say that there was anything in his right hon. Friend's calculations which could justly subject him to blame or censure. The views of those who furnished him with the details of the different branches of finance appeared, as nearly as possible, to have been adequately realised. He had only to regret that the result of the expenditure and receipt was the deficiency which had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman to the House. There was one observation of his right hon. Friend to which he must beg leave to call the attention of the House, as it bore forcibly upon another part of the question. Alluding to the increased expenditure arising under the army and navy, and other regular services of the year, his right hon. Friend complained that there was a disposition on the part of the House and the country generally, to incur debt without reflection as to the means by which it was afterwards to be paid. He knew very well that such a disposition did exist. It was one which was not only common to popular bodies,

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but to individuals whom those bodies represented; but he must say, that in proportion as such a feeling prevailed, in proportion as they conceived it to be dangerous to the interests of the country, in proportion was it the duty of the Government and of the Treasury to set themselves against such a feeling, and to take care, when entering into debt on behalf of the country, that means would be forthcoming to pay off that debt. It was with considerable surprise he had heard the right hon. Gentleman say, that in the ensuing year they would have a surplus of 130,000 l. of receipt as compared with the expenditure, which surplus when set against the Canadian expenditure, left a deficit of the calculated revenue of the year into which they were entering of not less than 860,000 l. or 870,000 l. His right hon. Friend then said, that this was a state of things which he was far from considering satisfactory, in which he felt assured every Member of the House of Commons would agree with the right hon. Gentleman. His right hon. Friend added that if this were a permanent diminution of the resources, if he had any reason to apprehend that this deficiency was likely to continue, or that he should again have to present a deficiency to the House in the year 1840, he should then boldly say to Parliament, you must devise means of defraying this expenditure, and not again borrow money for the purpose of making up the difference. But he did not see what right his right hon. Friend had to assume that it was not a permanent diminution of expenditure. What said his right hon. Friend in his speech of the 18th of May last year? He said, that the deficiency was simply of the amount of 200,000 l. odd; whereas by the accounts laid upon the Table it turned out to be 441,000 l. What was his right hon. Friend's statement:—
"I trust," said he, "that the Committee will see that there is no improper risk in adopting the course which Mr. Canning pursued in 1827, but that on the contrary they will think I should heading improperly towards the House if, in order to meet a temporary evil, I were to ask either the House or the country to submit to the permanent imposition of any new tax."
The deficiency of 1836 was stated to be temporary, but being only small, the right hon. Gentleman did not feel himself justified in proposing a diminution tax. The same argument had been made use of in
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1837, when the deficiency instead of being 441,000 l. was 726,000 l. The same argument had been used for adding to the debt instead of raising money to pay the debt in 1838. It was repeated in 1839. Still were they told that they had no right to anticipate any permanent deficiency—that they should go on for another year without any effort to equalize the expenditure and receipt—that, in fact, they should proceed upon the spendthrift principle. The right hon. Gentleman said, they were to have a surplus of 200,000 l. upon the year to come, assuming that Canada would not require the same degree of expenditure. What reasonable ground was there for anticipating that that 200,000 l. would not be dealt with like the same sum in 1836 according to the popular but destructive doctrine of raising; the amount by the issue of Exchequer bills, rather than by a tax. He must, therefore, repeat what he had said before, and call upon the House to consider in good earnest the real financial state of the country. He knew the question to be an irksome one, but in the present state of political opinion he regarded it as a question of peculiar power, strength, and influence, and one with which the happiness of the country was intimately connected. If they went back to the year 1831, without going into large calculations, but taking a view of those things which were most obvious, they would find that in that year the charge of our public unfunded debt amounted to nearly 28,400,000 l., while in 1839 it amounted to 1,000,000 l. more, and that after a ten years' continued peace. So that there had been an increase of a million of annual charge from 1831 to 1839. To be sure, there had been an addition of 700,000 l. on account of slavery; but had there been no sets-off? Had there been no falling-in of the debt? Had there not been a considerable portion of funded debt from the bank's diminution of charge amounting to 100,000 l. Had the Government not applied, or attempted or professed to apply, a surplus revenue of about 9,000,000 l.? Yet notwithstanding this falling-in to the revenue of the country, and notwithstanding this surplus, there was from year to year an augmenta-of 1,000,000 l. of interest on the funded and unfunded debt of the country as compared with 1831. He admitted that the surplus revenue had had some effect upon the reduction of debt; and why? Be-

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cause it appeared from accounts before the House that, instead of applying it bonâ fide to the reduction of the debt, as occasions offered, it was applied to buying up the deficiency bills, coming in aid of the Consolidated Fund, in diminution of the real surplus, to the extent necessary to supply the deficiency. Was it not natural, when he saw this annual increase of the charge of debt in a period of peace and prosperity, that he should again call upon the House to look the question in the face, and not be discouraged by their silent acquiescence in the system under which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had for three years administered the revenue of the country? But the right hon. Gentleman said, he meant to supply the deficiency by an augmented issue of Exchequer Bills. The right hon. Gentleman had no doubt of the propriety of thus supplying the deficiency of revenue. It was true, indeed, he had of late, after repeated admonitions and suggestions, in the course of the last years, made a considerable reduction of the unfunded debt, by means partly of the surplus which had occurred in one year, and partly by the application of the money of the savings' banks. On the question of the application of the money from the savings' banks to the purchase of Exchequer bills, he, on this occasion, should say nothing, because the discussion of minor points was calculated to divert attention from the essential points—namely, the consequences of the present perilous state of things. If the House could have the courage lo maintain a constant surplus revenue, there would then be a hope, however small, of making some impression upon the public debt of the country. The right hon. Gentleman had said,—
"If I had a surplus, I could deal with the Post-Office experiment, and could attempt other improvements, which I am afraid to hazard, lest I should increase the annual expenditure."
If we had but maintained a surplus, however small, and it had uniformly continued, our expenditure would have stood more on a par with our receipts, or instead of an increased charge, compared with antecedent years, going on in regular progression, we should have been able to deal with different branches of our finance, which required regulation and improvement. But the effect of this continual
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application would be to accelerate the period at which we ought to be able to effect a great reduction of our annual charge by a further reduction on the debt. In the year to come, a period would arrive when we should be at liberty to deal with no less than 160,000,000 of debt, and effect an annual saving of 700,000 l. The great object was, to maintain a surplus revenue, and apply that surplus to the reduction of the debt. But if we went on annually increasing the debt, checking the prosperity of the country, and losing the advantages which peace afforded, it not only involved an augmentation of debt, but deprived us of that source of public relief which resulted from a reduction of the interest on the debt already incurred. Next year a great portion of the public debt would be open to be dealt with by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but if he went on encumbering himself with additional Exchequer-bills—if, in the conduct of this great operation, which was always hazardous and dangerous, he encumbered himself with a mass of unfunded debt, from year to year, he would take the most effectual means of debarring the country from that legitimate advantage which would result from the reduction of the charges under which it laboured. And such reduction of charge would not be of a fluctuating nature, varying from year to year, but would be of a permanent benefit to the country, and would afford it the means, at a future time of danger and difficulty, of extricating itself from financial pressure. The course which the right hon. Gentleman was now pursuing tended to deprive the country of those great advantages which he thought it might enjoy. He had thus briefly stated his views of the finances of the country, and his objections to the course pursuing by the right hon. Gentleman. It might be fit, when, at a future day, the right hon. Gentleman submitted to the House, the mode in which he proposed to carry into effect his plan for supplying the deficiency, that the subject should be more fully entered into. It embraced a large extent, and ought to be discussed in many points of view, and the House and the country must discuss it fully, unless they were prepared to subscribe at once to the principle which had been laid down this night, and which had been acted upon for three years. He would now make a few observations upon that resolution which was the more

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immediate subject of this night's discussion—the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman to deal with the Post-Office, and, by a change in the whole mode of carrying on that department, to effect a considerable improvement in the transmission of letters, and to give great facility and relief to every class of persons. He admitted, with the right hon. Gentleman, that under the circumstances, the placing in hazard a revenue of 1,500,000 l. was no trifling consideration. Though it was connected with the prospect of ultimately increasing the wealth and prosperity of the country, yet this was a certain revenue, free from doubt and fluctuation, and yielded an annual sum of 1,500,000 l. If the right hon. Gentleman had had the surplus revenue which he had recommended, he should have concurred in the propriety of an immediate change in this department, and after reading the report which the committee had made to the House, he should be disposed to say, if the experiment be made at all, it would be wise to make it to the extent which the right hon. Gentleman proposed, and not to adopt the suggestion of the committee. After reading the evidence, he admitted that it was with no little surprise he found the committee proposing a postage of twopence, instead of one penny; for the whole tendency of the evidence went to show, that a postage of two-pence would fail, but a penny might succeed. He would not say, after all that had been stated in the evidence, that the public would be disappointed in its expectations; but he felt assured that there was a better chance of success by the one-penny postage, than by adopting the suggestion of the committee. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman, that if the experiment be adopted at all, it must be general, that you cannot deal with such an experiment partially, applying one system to one district, and one to another. So far as regarded the measure of the right hon. Gentleman, he was prepared to give his concurrence. But there was another very different and most important consideration. If he understood the course which the right hon. Gentleman meant to pursue, it was to pledge the House by the resolution that a penny postage should be introduced, and that Parliament would make good any deficiency which the adoption of the measure might cause in the revenue; and the right hon.
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Gentleman had thought it necessary to apologise to the House for proceeding by bill. No such excuse, however, appeared to him to be necessary. On the contrary, he should have been surprised if the right hon. Gentleman had pursued any other course. That the Chancellor of the Exchequer, being about to risk 1,500,000 l. of revenue, should think it necessary to apologise for proceeding by bill, appeared one of the most unnecessary as well as extraordinary apologies ever offered to Parliament. The proceeding of the right hon. Gentleman appeared to be this:—To pledge the House by the resolution to provide for any loss that might arise from the reduction of the postage, and in the bill he was to state broadly and distinctly, in the preamble, the nature of the pledge; and that there was to be an enactment, putting it in the power of the Treasury to give effect to the plan in the manner they thought proper. If there was any course of proceeding more than another open to objection, it was this. He would tell the right hon. Gentleman what would be the result. At the end of the Session he would put his machinery in motion; letters would pay the penny postage, and at the end of the year there would be a deficiency of from 500,000 l. to 1,000,000 l., which Parliament would be called upon to supply. The right hon. Gentleman would come down and say, that there had been a deficiency of 1,000,000 l. of revenue through the adoption of his plan, and would call upon the House with all his energy and eloquence to give him a tax to supply that deficiency. The answer would be this—"The people are oppressed with taxation; try a little longer before you impose a new tax;" and the right hon. Gentleman would find his own argument on the present occasion turned against him. The hon. Member for Kilkenny would get up and say, "Unless I could be assured that there would be a permanent deficiency of revenue, I should not be justified in voting in favour of a new tax; but, as I consider the deficiency to be only temporary, I call upon you to supply the deficiency of revenue, occasioned by the reduction of postage, by an issue of Exchequer Bills." This argument might be brought with tenfold force against the application of the right hon. Gentleman, that he had kept up the revenue of three consecutive years by the same means. The right hon. Gentleman

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proposed in his bill, to give the Treasury power to carry the plan into effect; but the House ought to see the plan well digested in the bill, and the powers it proposed to give. The right hon. Gentleman relied on the pledge of the House of Commons; but pledges of this nature were broken by expediency, and how could he bind their successors in the House? When the right hon. Gentleman talked of laying the Members of the House under an honourable obligation, he would see a different set of faces when the matter was brought under discussion. He spoke of appealing to the honour of Gentlemen; but the new Member for Kilkenny might say, "It may be very well for my predecessor to bind himself, but he connot bind me;" and a resolution passed by one House of Commons might not be considered binding on another. Although he did not oppose the resolution, he reserved to himself the liberty of resisting any part of the proceeding, if, on further examination, he should see reason to think it was objectionable, and that it did not provide a mode by which a provision was made against a deficiency of the revenue occasioned by this change in the Post-office. He entreated and implored the House to weigh the situation in which it would place the country, if, instead of providing for the expenditure of the country out of the annual revenue, it continued for another year to have recourse to the practice of issuing Exchequer Bills instead of endeavouring to relieve taxation, and carrying into effect the prudent councils of the greatest nation in the world.
Mr. Humehad listened with very great attention to the observations which had just been made, and as he considered that the subject which they were discussing was of very great importance, he should address a few words to the House. He meant to speak first to the question which had been the last submitted to them, that which related to the Post-office, and which he thought ought to be regarded as separated from the question of revenue. It was, indeed, a very bold, he might say a very venturous act, to propose a change so important as that by which one million and a half of revenue was put at risk; but then the question was one of paramount importance. It was of the greatest importance to all classes in the country, and particularly to the poorer and the middle classes, much more, in his opinion, than to the
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rich; and thinking this, he said, he was sure that, after all, the risk to be encountered would not be found to exceed one half or one third that which the right hon. Gentleman had mentioned. He was warranted in saying this when they considered that the effect of decreasing charges was to increase the revenue; and he was confirmed in it by hearing what had taken place in France from a similar reduction. There was no instance in which postage had been reduced, in which there had not been an increase of postage. When, too, he saw that from 15,000 to 20,000 letters were sent every day by Members of both Houses of Parliament, he was sure that such letters being charged in future, must help much to make up the deficiency which was expected to take place. He calculated there would be a deficiency the first year; he believed there would be a deficiency the second year; but when the system came fairly into operation towards the end of the second year, he did not believe that the deficiency would be greater than what Mr. Hill had estimated it at. He thought the experiment a most important one; and he thought, also, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was fairly warranted in making that experiment, and in thus doing what he had been called upon to do by the general desire of the country. He had no hesitation in saying, that the deficiency, whatever it might be, would be made good by the House of Commons. He agreed, however, with the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that taking a pledge from that House was altogether unnecessary. He had seen Acts of Parliament, which pledged the application of sums in a particular manner, and yet afterwards he had known of specious pretences being found for applying a surplus otherwise than it was originally intended. He doubted then very much if the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer did any good by asking the House to pledge itself, particularly when he could point out Acts of Parliament much more solemn than mere resolutions, which could not, and did not bind future Parliaments. He had the greatest confidence in the good sense of the House—he was sure it would sustain the loss willingly, if, after the experiment had been fairly made, and fully worked out, it should still prove deficient in producing a revenue. It was a bold experiment, and there was a much better chance of its succeeding, because it was a bold

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one. He confessed, that he himself was very sanguine as to the results, if the experiment were fairly tried. He tendered to the Chancellor of the Exchequer his cordial and his best assistance in supplying the means, whenever he found that there was a deficiency, and he was sure that the House would aid in such a proposition. The measure could not but be productive of the most important results, and, whatever might be the loss, the Government, he was sure, would find the country quite willing to supply the deficiency. He must candidly, however, tell the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he did not think that the fitting course which he ought to pursue should be, to impose taxes to make up the expected deficiency. Let them compare, for instance, the expenses of the army and navy in 1835 and last year. Last year he thought the expenses of army and navy were 16,250,000 l., and by the finance report it appeared, that the expenses of the army and navy, in 1835, were 13,800,000 l. Might they not then hope, that the state of circumstances would be such as to enable them to make a reduction more than equal to the expected deficiency in the amount of the Post-office revenue? Had they not a right to expect that the 16,000,000 l. for army and navy, would be brought down to 13,000,000 l.? He hoped the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer would look with confidence and steadiness at the situation in which they were placed. He said this much with regard to the Post-office, and he now had to turn to another and very important subject. Upon that subject he confessed that he agreed with what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman who had last spoken. He did not think that the slate of their finances was at all satisfactory. He was not willing, at that moment, to enter very fully into this subject. He saw the situation in which they were placed, and yet it was a ground upon which he had felt the deepest anxiety for a considerable time. He had been anxious to know, from the early part of the Session, at what time the budget would be brought forward, and it might be satisfactory to the House to know on what grounds his anxiety rested. He found, from a paper that he held in his hand, that on no occasion but one, since 1825, had the budget been brought forward so late as the month of July. In 1825, it was brought forward on the 25th March, in
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1826, on the 13th March, in 1827 on the 1st June; and the right hon. Gentleman, opposite afforded the only example, in 1828, of bringing it forward six days later than the present. In 1829, it was brought forward on the 8th May; in 1831, on the 11th of February; in 1832, on the 27th February; in 1835, on the 5th of April; in 1836 on the 6th of May, and the last budget was brought forward on the 18th of June. He could see no reason for the present being brought forward at so late a period. It was but fair in him to confess that the charge in the financial year to which he had been a party, had not produced those results which he had anticipated from it. He had anticipated, that the financial statement would always be made before the estimates were voted; and it was now, with the greatest regret, that he saw they had succeeded so ill in this respect. He was of opinion that they ought to retrace their steps, and not allow the financial statement to pass beyond April at the latest. Nothing could be of more importance, and yet, at that period of the year, it was not possible to have attention directed to it; for instance, let them look at the present occasion, when there was scarcely a sufficient number present to form a House; and yet there was no question so important as the financial statement. He confessed he looked with great anxiety to the present financial condition of the Government, since the Chancellor of the Exchequer had increased the amount of the Exchequer Bills afloat by 1,000,000 l. in the last year. He had not brought forward this question last Session, because he was in hopes that, early in the present Session, they might have had a private inquiry upstairs, and then have come down to the House with facts and details, collected and arranged. But the Government had proposed nothing of the sort, and he blamed himself now for the deference which he had shewn to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, thinking, as he had clone, that a motion of this nature had better originate with, than be forced upon the Government; and more especially did he blame himself, when he found that measures had been taken not to make a House on Tuesday last. When Thursdays were given up to the Government, he thought he had a just right to complain, when he found that no member or officer of the Government was present on Tuesday last, to assist in making

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a House for the discussion of his motion on the Bank of England. He must then take that opportunity of saying, that he looked with the greatest alarm to the condition in which the country was placed, and especially as the right hon. Gentleman was adding to the amount of the Exchequer bills, and thus endangering the credit of the country. They saw that there was a deficiency, and yet he asked the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what authority had he for saying that the estimates would be diminished next year? What grounds had he for giving in that diminution, when he said that the estimates of last year were increased, and not diminished? What right had he to prepare for this diminution when the Government had settled nothing in Canada? If the Government had given Canada a representative government, he was confident that in two months the expense of their military establishments there might be saved. When, however, he saw the determination of the Government to leave Canada in its present state till 1842, there could be no hope of any reduction in our military establishment, in order to meet the expected deficiency in the Post-office branch of the revenue. What had they seen a few days ago? Were not exchequer bills at a discount? [No, no.] Well, he had been told so. Had they not, at-this very moment, the whole pressure of the banking interest resting on the Bank of England? And what was the situation of the Bank? By the last average returns of three months, which he was obliged to take as the right hon. Gentleman would not give him the weekly returns, the balance of bullion in the Bank amounted in round numbers to but 4,500,000. He would ask the House whether, with such a pressure of paper as existed at this moment, it was safe to leave matters in their present situation. No country banker kept any stock of bullion; all the bankers said it was no business of theirs, as the notes of the Bank were a legal tender. He would tell the House, that the exchanges were still against us ever since August last, except at the end of November, and the consequence was, that the 9,000,000 l. of gold in the Bank coffers had diminished, as he really believed, to 3,000,000 l. [No, no] Why, had they not the account from day to day, in order that they might fully understand their exact situation? He pro-
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tested against the condition in which the country was left, and which it was proposed to permit it to remain by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer—depending so much upon the Bank of England. Let him, however, state a single fact, and with that he should close his observations on this point. He had a paper in his hand, which might be found useful in advising them of the situation in which they were placed. Gentlemen, perhaps, were not aware, that to pay the dividends which became payable to-morrow, Government had not one farthing. That might excite a little surprise; but for twelve years past they had never been able to pay them. It followed as a matter of course, that the Bank made advances on the days on which the dividends were to be paid. He had returns in his hand on this point from 1797, and these papers showed that there ought not to be this meddling with the Bank of England. No Government ought to depend upon advances from a private establishment. By the system established in France, not a shilling was advanced to the Government. In the Bank of France, there remained 10,000,000 l. of bullion surplus belonging to the Government. There were 169,000,000 of francs so placed. They took no advances from the Bank, and they paid every thing connected with the debt. If that Bank failed as regarded its own resources, the public resources would be untouched. On the 5th of July, the issue of Exchequer Bills to meet the demands was, 5,172,000 l. To-morrow the Bank must make a loan, and it should do this with only three or four millions in gold. What a prospect there was then before them, with the exchanges against them ! It was not to the credit of the English Government that they should be dependent upon any private body whatever. If the Government were not able to pay its dividends on the 6th, it was in the situation of being refused aid by the Bank; and then let them look to what might be the consequences if such an event took place. Was it safe for them to allow such a plan to proceed? If it were the proper time for doing so, he could show such strong reasons, and enter into such striking details, as must convince the House that the credit and the honour of the country ought not any longer to be allowed to rest on a rotten reed.—[An hon. Member: "Sir John Rae Reid."] Let them look to the

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evidence of Mr. Baring, as to what took place in 1825. Let them reflect, too, on what had been said by Mr. Huskisson, and which he himself had heard—namely, that they were within twenty-four hours of being within a state of barter. This was a pretty state for England ! They did not want money—capital was overflowing amongst them, and men were seeking for channels in which it might be employed. With such capabilities, the condition of the country ought not to be risked. Under these circumstances, he protested against the plan which the right hon. Gentleman proposed. He thought, that it was fraught with danger, and, in a full discussion on the matter, he would be able to prove that half the present misery of the industrious and working classes, was produced by the conduct of the Government. The misconduct and mismanagement of the finances by the Government and by the Bank, were fraught with the very greatest mischief. He did, then, entreat the Government, and he entreated especially the right hon. Gentleman, to let the finances of the country be placed in a proper situation, and no longer to trust them in the hands of those who, however competent to manage their own affairs and take care of their own interests, were certainly incompetent to conduct the affairs of the country. It was placing the property of every man in a most dangerous and critical situation, and leading them to ruin, from which in too many cases, they could never recover. The right hon. Gentleman had shown, that our exports had increased in a degree beyond anything that could have been imagined; but that increase only showed the effects of speculation, and he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to look back to 1836, and then say, whether he could expect in this year the same amount of revenue from this source. It would be vain to expect that the increase would continue. It was an increase astonishing in its amount, being no less, as he understood, than 30 per cent.; but it only showed what might be expected when speculation was great, and when it was encouraged by the Government. But the right hon. Gentleman would not be doing himself justice, if he trusted to a continuance of that increase. Let him look at Manchester, Preston, and other great manufacturing towns, where the mills were only working four days in the week, and he would then acknowledge, that the increase
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was one which could not be depended upon for the current year. He objected also to the system adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, of adding to the funded debt of the country without the knowledge or sanction of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman had, within the three last years, added 3,000,000 l. to the three per cents., without the consent of Parliament. Was it fit that the Government of this country should thus traffic in the money-market—that they should be buying Exchequer bills one day and selling them the next; and all this, too, without the knowledge of the House? It was true, that the hon. Gentleman had reduced the amount of Exchequer bills, and he willingly allowed that they were well out of the market; but what was the process adopted to effect this object? The money was taken out of the savings' banks, and the amount added to the funded debt of the country, without either the knowledge of the country or of Parliament. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether within the last month, a considerable amount of three per cents., had not been sold out to buy Exchequer bills in order to carry on public works which had been ordered by that House? This trafficking in the money market was unworthy of the Government, and he hoped would be discontinued. He had, he trusted, stated enough to show the House, that they could not go on as they had been going; and he could not but deprecate any proceeding which would injure the credit of the country. The credit of this country stood so high in the eyes of Europe, and deservedly so, that he trusted nothing would be done to lower it in the estimation of the world; and he should consider the right hon. Gentleman extremely culpable, if he should run the same risks as he had done in 1837, when he had allowed Exchequer bills to come almost to a discount. He would not then enter on the question relative to the Bank, but at the proper time he should be able to prove, that it was impossible to allow matters to go on as they had been doing. A remedy must be found. He had now stated his satisfaction with one part of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and his dissatisfaction with another part, and he should have conceived that he had been wanting in his duty, if he had not protested against that part of the right hon. Gentleman's propositions which he had last alluded to.
Mr. Wallacedid not mean to follow his hon. Friend in the opinions he had expressed. He wished to say a few words to them, as Chairman of the Committee on postage. In the first place, he begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for having brought forward this question with perfect fairness towards all parties. It was quite true, that the report of the Committee was in favour of the twopenny rate, and he hoped that he might be excused when he briefly stated, why the Committee came to that resolution, although most sensible that the greater portion of the evidence was given in favour of the penny rate. They were restrained by the orders they had received, and they were obliged to keep within the view most strictly for which they had been appointed. The Members of the Committee voted in favour of an uniform rate. As Chairman of that Committee he had never been called upon to give but one vote, and the majority of the Committee were of opinion, that a twopenny rate of postage would be the best they could hope to attain. As to the pledge which the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked them to give, he had not experience enough in that House to decide whether that would be satisfactory or not; but looking at the class of petitioners who came before the House to require the grant of this boon of an universal penny post, he was sure that so numerous and respectable a class would never send representatives to that House who would not be ready to vindicate the pledge or understanding entered into upon this most important subject. The number of petitions had been adverted to, and he was free to admit, that there was on this as well as upon other subjects a considerable degree of agitation and anxiety on the part of those who promoted this plan, to stir up the feelings of those who accorded with them in opinion, to solicit this boon at the hands of Parliament. When a great commercial capital like London came forward, as it had done by constituting a postage committee, to endeavour to stir up the feelings of their countrymen in the remotest parts of the kingdom, it was no wonder that the sympathies of the whole nation were brought out to ask for this boon. With regard to the loss of revenue he was free to admit, and, indeed, he thought, that in the first year certainly there would be a great loss of revenue; but, from all the attention he had given
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to the subject, and he had devoted to it his entire time, and had endeavoured to understand the question with a perfectly honest desire of concealing nothing and declaring all, his conviction was, that although there might be a defalcation to the amount of 500,000 l. or 600,000 l. in the first year, including the expense that would be incurred in setting the machinery going, still he believed, that from the increase in the number of letters, and the universal use of the Post-office instead of its abuse, the revenue in the course of another year would be equal to its present amount. It was his confident anticipation and hope, that in three years the defalcation of the first year would be made up. He ventured to state this because he entertained a sincere and honest conviction, that such would be the result. With regard to the resolution, that had been brought before the House, it seemed to be admitted on all hands, that it was really necessary to give effect to this plan, if it should be the opinion of the House of Commons and of Parliament, that it ought to be conceded to the wishes of the people. It was quite true, that at present the Treasury and the Postmaster-general combined had the power of reducing the rates of postage to any given amount. It was also true, and he believed very few were aware of it, that in the last Session a clause was added to a bill by which the Treasury and the Postmaster-general, when they agreed, could insist upon postage being paid in advance. He was in possession of the bill, and could assure the Committee this was a fact. He thought it, nevertheless, of the utmost importance, that the Committee should sanction the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so as to enable him to put in operation this great machinery, and give this country an opportunity of taking the lead in bestowing one of the greatest boons that could be conferred on the human race before any other country. The distinguished individual who had invented this magnificent plan, ought not to see it adopted by any other country, before it was adopted by his own. He believed it was very well known, and if not he begged leave to state, that the Postmaster-general of France, and the government generally of that country, were anxious at the earliest possible time, to adopt a plan similar to, if not the same plan as that recommended by Mr. Hill.

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He believed, that a noble Lord not then in his place had been in communication with the government of France on this subject, and that the executive of that country was most anxious to be informed of all the particulars of the plan, for the purpose of its being immediately adopted in France. The government of the United States of America was also in active correspondence with this country for the same purpose; and he believed, that Prussia and other continental nations had a similar object in view. He submitted, that as England had the honour of this invention, which had undoubtedly been first brought before the public by Mr. Hill, that it would be exceedingly blame-worthy in this country, for the risk of a loss of 500,000 l., which would be paid back in two or three years, if they were to lose the honour of being the first to execute a plan which was essentially necessary lo the comforts of the human race. He would not go into details respecting the plan, but he must observe, that he differed so far from the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the apparent adoption of only one part of that plan. He believed, that the use of stamped papers, not meaning covers only, but stamped papers of all kinds, might be permitted without granting a monopoly to any party. He believed, that the adoption of stamps, something like French wafers, might be brought into very general and convenient use. Several of these specimens had been presented to the Treasury and the public offices, and to himself, and as far as he could judge from the evidence adduced by Mr. Wood, the Chairman of the Stamp-office, and the Commissioners, he had no hesitation in saying, that the adoption of this plan would secure the revenue against loss from forgery. There was one other subject which had not been adverted to, but to which he wished particularly to allude. On referring to the evidence given by Lord Ashburton and several others respecting the effect which this plan would have in London, Liverpool, and other large towns, he found the following question was put to them:—"What effect do you suppose will flow to the other branches of the revenue if the system of cheap postage be adopted?" The replies given by all were to the effect, that they believed, that the other streams of revenue would, be filled, and would
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flow largely into the Exchequer. They might therefore look to a large addition from other sources of revenue, independent of the Post-office, and they might also look to a large addition to the revenue from the duty upon paper, in consequence of the large additional consumption that must take place. The question came to this, what number of letters would be transmitted by post? So far as it was in his power to reduce the evidence to a practical view, his real belief was, that Mr. Hill, in estimating the increase at sixfold was within the mark. He meant to say, that those letters that did not pass through the Post-office, he conscientiously believed, amounted to twice as many as passed through it. This was his own opinion, gathered from the evidence—namely, that if eighteen millions of letters passed through the Post-office, thirty-six millions did not pass through it. This was a strong assertion, but he conscientiously believed he was not overstating the fact. There was another subject necessarily connected with this subject. He had adverted to the probability of the adoption of this plan by France, the United States, Prussia, and the other continental States, but he thought, that it was of no small importance, that the plan should be adopted as regarded our colonies and possessions abroad, for in no part of the world was postage more expensive and at the same time letter-writing so inconsiderable. Putting out of view the moral effect which the plan would have, he thought it would greatly tend to improve the social relations of those communities with the mother country, and we should be spared those heart-burnings and complaints that now existed, if there was an opportunity of having matters explained through other channels. He thought that the increase of communication with the mother country would produce an increase of good feeling. This was, however, a matter of opinion. He could not help adverting to the progress of this question since it had been brought before the public. It was not till the commencement of the last year, that Mr. Hill's plan became known to the country. From the very first he saw that it was a proposal that deserved the utmost consideration, and he was convinced that inquiry would prove its worth. What was the effect produced? In 1838, three hundred and twenty petitions were presented in favour

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of the measure, many of them from large towns and from chambers of commerce. In the present Session not less than 1,800 petitions had been presented, showing an increase of more than five-fold. This was one proof of the interest taken by the public in the matter, but there was another proof. The first report of the select committee was published about Easter, and in less than two months that report was out of print, and no copies were now to be had to supply the wants of those foreign countries who were desirous of availing themselves of its contents. This showed the anxiety of the public on the subject. With regard to the measure itself, it had been so generally discussed, and had been brought before the public by the newspaper press in every part of the country so often, that it would be a waste of the time of the House if he entered into it. He believed that the measure would be fraught with benefit to the very highest class of the community, but he did not believe, that it would be of such benefit to the higher classes us to that very large class who were at present completely debarred from all communication with distant friends. He believed, also, that it would open a wide field to emigration by enabling those who had left the country to send to their friends at home a just and true account of their situation. He also thought it would be extremely beneficial in enabling persons residing within workhouses to communicate with their friends and relations outside. With these remarks he would only beg permission to express his warm approbation of the plan of Mr. Hill, and to state that Mr. Hill was a man of a most honest and generous mind; that his sole object was to investigate the truth, and that for his indefatigable labours in bringing the intrinsic merits of his plan before the public, he was entitled to the lasting and grateful thanks of his country.
Sir Robert Peelsaid, that he should have thought it sufficient, if Government had maturely considered the details of this measure, had calculated the probable loss to the revenue, and had come forward to propose, in this acknowledged deficiency of the public revenue, some substitute to compensate the public. He should have thought that sufficient. So convinced was he of the moral and social advantages that would result from the removal of all restrictions on the free communication by
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letter, that he should have willingly assented to the proposition. But that was not the proposition made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That proposition was, that they should now, on the 5th of July, pledge themselves to supply what might be an eventual loss of 1,000,000 l. or 1,500,000 l.; and that the House of Commons should enter into a vague pledge that they should hereafter make good any deficiency in the revenue. He thought it highly probable, whatever might be his opinion of the advantages of this plan, — and he wished to say nothing in disapproval of it—that it was highly improbable that in the present period of the session, and in the present state of the public revenue, that that House should be ready to consent to run this risk. This he must say, that if they were prepared to run this risk, he would infinitely rather do so without a pledge, than with a pledge. This he had no hesitation in saying. The right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told them that their private honour was to be a guarantee for their hereafter redeeming this pledge. When he heard his right hon. Friend, the Member for Pembroke (Sir J. Graham) speaking of some obligations on the subject of the Reform Bill, he recollected that he was met by the noble Lord, the Secretary at War (Lord Howick), who protested against the doctrine of any obligations of private honour interfering with the execution of public duties. They were told by that noble Lord, that it was utterly impossible that a public man could consider himself fettered in the discharge of his public duties, and that no promises or engagements that he might enter into could be binding upon his private honour. How, then, was it possible for the right hon. Gentleman, the colleague of the noble Lord, to uphold the doctrine that they might be bound by promises which they might make in their individual capacity to take a certain course upon a particular occasion? But if their private honour was to be appealed to, and that obligation was to be binding, it did become of the greatest importance that they should understand distinctly what was the engagement they were entering into. Of this there could be no doubt. They were asked to consent to a pledge that they would make good any deficiency in the revenue that might be occasioned by the alteration in the rates of the existing

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duties. Did he understand that pledge to involve this engagement—that, supposing there to be a loss of 800,000 l. in the Post-Office revenue in consequence of this alteration of the duties, he should be compelled to assent to a new tax for the purpose of supplying the deficiency? Was that the meaning of this resolution? He understood that it was the distinct meaning of this resolution, that he should be pledged to make good any deficiency of the revenue occasioned by an alteration of the rates of the existing duties; that this was the engagement into which they were to enter, and which they were to be called upon by the obligations of public honour and private duty to fulfil. Suppose the anticipations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be realised, and that there was an immense reduction made in the civil and military establishments—suppose the other branches of revenue became productive, and suppose they found themselves at the end of two years with a deficiency in the Post-office revenue to the amount of 800,000 l., but with an actual surplus of a million, was be bound by this resolution to make good by new taxation the deficiency occasioned by the alteration in the rates of postage. He had asked this question, and he received an answer, as he understood, that he was so bound. [" No, no."] Then he was not bound by any such engagement? Why, that was an additional reason for not entering into a pledge that was perfectly indefinite, and which must be left to the sense of every individual whether it were binding or not. What time would they be called upon to redeem this pledge? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the loss to the revenue would be great at first. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenock (Mr. Wallace) limited the loss of revenue probably to the first or second year; but suppose the contingency which the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer regarded as probable did really occur, and that there was not a great surplus to dispose of; but supposing at the end of the first year that there was an actual deficiency of 500,000 l. in the Post-office revenue, would he be called upon to redeem this pledge? Suppose two years to elapse, and that at the end of the first they found a deficiency of 800,000 l., and at the end of the second only 600,000 l., was he then to redeem this pledge, or would Members be at li-
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berty to argue that as there was a progressive reduction in the Post-office revenue of 800,000 l. the first year, and only 600,000 l. the next year, they might wait quietly for three or four years, and the deficiency would be amply supplied by the increased vigour of the Post-office itself. Let them, that Gentleman would say, not run the risk, and incur the inconvenience of laying on partial taxation, and of making permanent laws to supply a temporary deficiency, and that it would be wiser, seeing the revenue was recovering itself, to postpone any new taxation for five or six years. If all these considerations were open to the discretion of each Member, where was the use of saying that they had given a pledge that was binding upon their private honour? He could understand a pledge given by Parliament to the Crown, that if the Crown advanced a certain sum of money, Parliament must make good the same, but he could not understand a pledge that hereafter they were to make good a certain deficiency of revenue, when he believed, according to the second explanation he had received that it was left to the discretion of the House of Commons and of each individual Member whether the general circumstances of the country called for the fulfilment of that pledge. He must say that he possessed such hope and confidence in the good sense and wisdom of Parliament, that he believed the apprehensions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would never be realised. But what was the period at which this measure was proposed? This resolution was moved on the 5th of July, for the purpose of involving Parliament in this vague and indefinite pledge, which was left to be redeemed on the private honour of each individual; and he must say, that he would never believe that the right hon. Gentleman would get the consent of Parliament to such a pledge, and yet they were told that the bill depended on involving Parliament in that pledge, and that it must be abandoned altogether unless Parliament promised to supply any deficiency that might arise. He did not like pledges of this sort. Could any thing be more dangerous, as an example, than that a public man to relieve himself from a difficulty in supporting the public credit, and to escape supplying a deficiency by an immediate proposal of taxation, could anything be more dangerous or discreditable than to enter into

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pledges of this sort, unless it was known how they were to be redeemed; and could anything be more dangerous to the public credit and more embarrassing to the public than to be told that Government expected a probable deficiency of 1,500,000 l., but that they could not tell what was the article upon which the new tax to meet this deficiency was to be laid. They had had a deficiency of revenue now for three years. In the years 1837, 1838, and 1839, the balance sheet had presented a deficiency as compared with the expenses. ["No, no."] There was a deficiency for 1837 and 1838, and the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted that at the end of April, 1840, that was for the year 1839, he expected that there would be a deficiency of nearly a million. But the right hon. Gentleman hoped that the expenses of Canada would not continue. Why had they made any advance towards a settlement? The House had to consider the complicated relations of this country in all parts of the world, and foreseeing that it was possible that although the expenses in Canada might not be permanently continued, yet looking at the state of our West-India possessions, looking at the affairs of the East, looking at the preparations made by France to meet them, and looking at the state of affairs on the frontiers of India, could any man confidently anticipate that the deficiency which was expected in 1839 upon the postage revenue, might not occur upon other grounds, considering the present state of the world and our immense possessions. Under these circumstances th Chancellor of the Exchequer, referring to the evidence of Lord Ashburton, and expecting a possible defalcation, invited Parliament to take a course that would incur the risk of a deficiency of two millions, and invited them to give a pledge to supply this deficiency. He was not prepared to run this risk, but if he were, he would infinitely rather run the risk without giving any pledge. If this country expected new taxation to meet the deficiency of 1,500,000 l. or 2,000,000 l., was it not natural that every person would be considering on what branch of the productive industry of the country was the new tax to be laid. Again, he asked when the pledge was to be redeemed? Was it at the end of the first year or the second year, or was it to be after an unlimited and indefinite time?
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If it was at the end of a limited period, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was entitled to call upon them to redeem this pledge after an experience of one year of the new experiment, was he, at the end of that year, to call upon them to supply the deficiency by permanent taxation? Observe, there was not the slightest reason why they should not also be called upon to supply the deficiency arising from other sources. There was as much ground for now proposing to supply the deficiency that had arisen for the last three years as there could be for supplying the deficiency that might arise from a defalcation in the Post-office revenues. They stood on the same ground, and he saw not the least distinction between them. They were about to deal with an acknowledged deficiency for the present year of 1,000,000 l. of revenue, and they were about to incur the hazard of losing 1,500,000 l., and in the present state of the public credit he would not himself give a pledge that was perfectly indefinite both as to the amount of the taxes to be raised, and the period at which they would be called upon to raise them. A precedent more dangerous or more fatal to public men and ministers he had never heard proposed to Parliament. He would never believe that it could be carried until he heard the royal assent given to the bill that proposed it. What was the statement of the right hon. Gentleman? He stated that the revenue for the present year was 47,833,000 l. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilkenny, anticipated a considerable reduction in our military establishments. Had he compared the amount for 1838 with that of 1837, and did he not find an increase of about 800,000 l.? On what ground, then, did the hon. Gentleman's expectation rest, that they would be able to supply the deficiency by a great reduction of our military establishments? Again they would be told by the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. Wallace) at the end of the first year, that they had made an incomplete experiment; that they could not judge of the plan by the first year; that in so short a time the people had not got into habits of corresponding, and that he must oppose any new taxation founded upon an imperfect and incomplete experiment. Further, the hon. Member for Kilkenny would tell them that the true way to remedy the deficiency in the amount of the revenue would be not to increase taxation, but to,

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reduce our establishments? Could any man contemplate the raising of taxes to the amount of one million or one million and a half, to supply a deficiency, and yet that no indication should be given of the article upon which the new taxation was to fall? If in the month of April the Chancellor of the Exchequer had proposed to run this risk, and if he had shown that, by encouraging commercial speculation, it was likely that the revenue would not be injured—if he had taken that course, it would have been creditable to the Government, and he might have been induced to concur in such a course; but, with the opinion expressed of the public credit, he could not consent to hazard such an amount of revenue as 1,500,000 l. The right hon. Gentleman said, that the highest authorities in the country were in favour of this plan. Why, a more decided condemnation of the plan he had never heard than that which had been given by the secretary of the Post-office. Whether that opinion was well or ill founded he could not say; but this was the evidence of Colonel Maberly, the Secretary to the Post-office:—
"He considered the whole scheme of Mr. Hill as utterly fallacious; he thought so from the first moment he read the pamphlet of Mr. Hill; and his opinion of the plan was formed long before the evidence was given before the Committee. The plan appeared to him a most preposterous one, utterly unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumption. Every experiment in the way of reduction which had been made by the Post-office had shown its fallacy; for every reduction whatever led to a loss of revenue in the first instance. If the reduction be small, the revenue recovers itself; but if the rates were to be reduced to 1d., the revenue would not recover itself for forty ox fifty years."
The forty or fifty years alluded to in this portion of Colonel Maberly's evidence was, perhaps, the period over which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended that their pledge should extend. The opinion of Lord Lich field, the Postmaster-general, was to the same effect, and equally conclusive as to the impolicy of adopting the plan of Mr. Rowland Hill. But he begged it should be distinctly understood that he did not wish to say one word in disparagement of the plan of Mr. Hill. [The Chancellor of th Exchequer, hear.] He understood wha that cheer meant from the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman meant
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to infer that he was deterred from expressing an opinion against the plan by a fear of forfeiting popularity. The reason which actuated him, however, in abstaining from pronouncing an opinion was totally different. The reason was, that he did not feel himself called upon to enter upon details. It might be said he had presented petitions in favour of the plan from his constituents. No doubt he had. But if he had wished to gain popularity by the course which he should adopt on this question, surely it would have been more likely that he would have at once expressed his acquiescence in, and approval of, the measure. What was it that the House was asked to do? To risk a revenue of 1,500,000 l., and to incur also the responsibility of a pledge to make good any deficiency at an indefinite, vague, and undetermined period. If he wanted popularity, he would at once give way to the feeling in favour of the moral and social advantages which had been already alluded to, the great stimulus it would afford to the industry and commercial enterprise of the nation, and the boon it was described as presenting to the poorer classes; but if he thought that by the course he intended to adopt that night he was committing himself on the merits of the question as sought for by the right hon. Gentleman, he declared at once that if he stood alone he should not hesitate to refuse his assent. And it was only because he considered the resolution now before the House as the foundation for a bill to be afterwards brought in, and on which he should be free to act as he might then find expedient, that he now declared that he gave a reluctant assent to it. He did not see that by agreeing, under those circumstances, to the resolution, he bound himself to the bill. He did not intend to enter upon the question of the Corn-laws, but as the right hon. Gentleman had drawn their attention in a particular manner to the large importations of corn, and the large exports of bullion, which, he said, would form matter for grave consideration, he would refer to other statements and returns equally well worthy of consideration. He wished to allude to the savings' banks, and to state that notwithstanding the high price of corn and necessity of importation, so far as the savings' banks were concerned, the social state of the working classes was proved to be exceedingly satisfactory. The right

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hon. Gentleman had quoted papers showing the amount of deposits and withdrawals for a successive period of years. He should also refer to the same source of information, and he found that in the year 1834, the deposits were 944,000 l., withdrawals 542,000 l.; in 1835, deposits 1,850,000 l., withdrawals 540,000 l. In 1836, deposits 1,289,000 l., withdrawals 543,000 l., In 1837 the deposits were 988,000 l., the withdrawals 800,000 l. And last year, notwithstanding the great depression in the state of trade, the deposits were 1,475,000 l., and the withdrawals 463,000 l. So that, in the course of last year, the deposits were the largest since 1834, and the withdrawals at the same time the smallest during any year of that period. He mentioned these facts, not with the view of founding any observations on the subject of the Corn-laws, but merely to state the fact, that so far as the condition of the people was to be gathered from the amount of deposits and operations in the savings' banks, a large importation and high price of corn had not been attended with those effects which many anticipated and believed. So much had been already said on the general finances of the country, that he would not detain the House by again travelling over the same ground. But in regard to the question of the Post-office revenue, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would give a proper notice of the day on which the conclusive opinion of the House was again to be taken on the subject, so that he might consider what course he should then pursue. At present he should content himself by observing that, reserving to himself the right then to meet the question with a negative, on either of the two branches into which it resolved itself:—First—whether the state of the public finances was such as to justify the House in incurring the hazard of the loss of more than one million of the public revenue.—Second, if so, whether the House was prepared to take the consequences of such a step, and to incur the responsibility of giving the unexampled precedent of fettering Parliament by a pledge to make up an uncertain deficiency ranging over an indefinite period of time.
Mr. Warburtonrejoiced that by the course adopted by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer this question had at length been submit-
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ted to the deliberate consideration of Parliament, so that by the discussions in that House and throughout the country it might be ascertained whether it was proper to adopt the plan proposed or not. If Parliament should determine that it was not proper to do so, then it would be for the country to approve of or dissent from that opinion. He begged the House to consider what was the real position of the question. They had then—from official, indisputable returns, laid on the table of the House—from a body of evidence given before a Select Committee of their number—by men from all parts of the country, impartial, intelligent, and practically conversant with the subject, undeniable proofs that whether they looked to the state of the Post-office revenue in England, Scotland, or Ireland, that revenue had been stationary for the last twenty years, and occasionally even retrograding. What was the cause of that unsatisfactory state of that particular branch of the revenue? The other departments of public taxation had, generally speaking, made advances proportionable, at least in some degree, to the increased population and facility of intercourse throughout the kingdom. There must be some special reason for that solitary position of the Post-office revenue. Where then could they find the cause? He would refer them to the Appendix to the third Report of the Select Committee on Postage, and they would there perceive that the rate of postage charged for the transmission of each letter, compared with its actual cost, was at the rate of 1,000 to 1,400 per cent. He considered such a system not as one merely of taxation, but as extortion. It was a system to which he could find no parallel. It was totally unrivalled by anything in the financial annals of the country, unless, perhaps, he might single out the impost on tobacco. Let the House consider the evidence laid before them by the Select Committee as to the suppression of correspondence occasioned by the present heavy rates—the illicit intercourse which those high rates created—the devices for conveying letters by private hands which were resorted to—and he was confident they could not hesitate as to the advantages which would result from adopting the plan of Mr. Rowland Hill. When they found that such things resulted from the present scale of postage duties—when they saw that the Post-

1397
office authorities themselves admitted that the present state of things could not be maintained—were they still to hesitate in giving their conclusive assent to the adoption of a better system, because it was expected that there would be a deficiency rather than a surplus in the general revenue of the country? If they were to wait till a surplus in the general revenue should justify the change, he did not know when the public could expect to reap the benefit. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would tell them that in the present temper of Parliament it was not likely there would be a speedy surplus. Let them take the army, the navy, the colonies, or whatever department they chose, they would find a disposition prevailing on every hand to run into extravagance. Were they then he would ask, to defer proper and judicious measures until that extravagance should cease? Were they to defer the establishment of an acknowledged benefit, till such a vague and indefinite reason should arrive. And were they to defer it for the shallow reason, that because of the prevailing disposition to extravagance there was no surplus to justify the Government in adopting any great change in the financial policy, however just and expedient in itself. If they were to act on that principle he feared they should have to wait at least to the expiration of the forty or fifty years which, according to the evidence of Colonel Maberly, read by the right hon. Baronet, was expected to elapse before the Post-office revenue would recover itself from the effects of the change. As the right hon. Baronet had been pleased to read extracts from the evidence attached to the report of the Select Committee he would also refer to the abstract attached to that report the responsibility of preparing which had mainly devolved upon himself, and he would with the permission of the House, also read a portion of the evidence of the secretary to the Post-office, Colonel Maberly, which, on the subject of the reduction of rates, was as follows:
"He certainly did think, and always said, that the present rates of postage are a great deal too high, and so he believed had every Postmaster-General for many years considered them; too high for the interests of the public, and too high for the interests of the revenue."
He merely quoted that evidence to show that in the opinion of a great Post-office authority the present rates were
1398
considered a great deal too high; and when they were told that these rates were too high both for the interest of the public and those of the revenue, the time was surely come for making the proposed Reform in the ground-work of this decayed branch of the public establishments, and for applying the remedy by which, instead of waiting for a surplus, they would, in all probability, do much to produce one. The next question, then, was, what sort of remedy they should adopt? He had already shown that the tax on the transmission of each letter was as high as 1,000 to 1,400 per cent. The actual cost of a letter was about ¾d., and the postage charged on an average was 7¾d. on single letters. At a moderate computation, then, that amounted to 1,000 per cent. Let them glance a little to the system of postage in the neighbouring country of France. The cost of conveying a single letter in that country was about ¾d., and the Post-office charged in that country, only at a five-fold rate of profit, instead of a ten-fold rate, as in this country. The right hon. Baronet had read the evidence of Post-office officials, and he had also followed his example. He should now read the opinion of a merchant—a gentleman extensively engaged in mercantile pursuits—who had given to the public, works of great importance and utility, and which had received just attention and admiration. He alluded to the evidence given before the Select Committee by Mr. Cobden of Manchester, whose opinion deserved every consideration. The House would find the opinion of that Gentleman to be thus expressed in answer to the question—What he thought of the manner in which the Post-office was conducted:—
"I think the general feeling throughout the commercial community has not been so adverse to the mode of managing the Post-office, as to the legislation to which it is subjected; the rate of duties, which of course are laid by Act of Parliament, is not in the hands of the executive functionaries of the Post-office. That it is a total failure as a great commercial establishment—if I might so term it—is proved unquestionably to the whole community, by the fact of its being stationary in the amount of its profits and returns; we consider that the mode of conducting it has proved it to be a total failure — commercially speaking, the greatest failure in the country."
He might take up the whole night in quoting corroborative testimony, He might

1399
also quote the evidence of Mr. Jones Loyd, on whom none would speak on such subjects without fully acknowledging the importance and great weight of his opinion. That opinion was to the same purport. Was that disputed? Was it disputed that Mr. Jones Loyd considered the present rates of postage too high? Why, Mr. Jones Loyd, went further than Mr. Cobden, for he not only said that he considered the present rates too high, but he said, that looking at the matter in an abstract sense, and judging of its social and moral effects, he viewed the postage of letters, as altogether an unfit subject for taxation. In the course of his speech the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that in one particular quarter of the year the Post-office revenue had shown an improvement of 9 per cent., but when it was considered that on a comparison of twenty years the increase was only as 1½ to 1,000 he could not expect that the House could form any favourable opinion from hearing of that temporary improvement in one solitary quarter, as regarded the present system of Post-office taxation. He thought it was creditable at the same time to the right hon. Gentleman that he had come forward on the present occasion to propose the adoption of Mr. Hill's plan—certainly more creditable to him as the organ of the Government than if he had waited for a more favourable year, when the state of the revenue would have rendered it a measure of more easy attainment. Then as to the nature of the remedy. All the witnesses who had been examined by the Committee, with the exception of Colonel Maberly, had said that unless they made a large and sweeping reduction, the benefit of the change would be entirely lost—that it would be totally useless to make any moderate diminution of the rates, and that they need not attempt, an alteration at all unless it were carried to such an extent as should give rise to large and new classes of correspondence. He was glad that the Chancellor of the Exchequer concurred in that opinion. He should now say a few words in justification of the course adopted by the Select Committee. It was true they had reported in favour of a uniform rate of twopence; but it was proper to state that they had done so only on the principle that a uniform rate of twopence was better than no uniform rate at all. At first he had proposed to the committee
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to recommend an uniform rate of one penny. He was unsuccessful in carrying that proposal, and he then recommended an uniform rate of l½d. Again, unsuccessful, he proposed the twopenny rate; and more fortunate in that case than in the former, his motion was carried by the casting vote of the Chairman. To that vote of the committee he willingly acceded, because every argument which could be applied in favour of a twopenny rate was applicable with equal force to a uniform penny rate, and vice versa. By these means the Committee were enabled to embody in their report an account of the great extent to which correspondence by post was suppressed. They were enabled to bring forward every general conclusion in favour of Mr. Hill's plan—all facts and arguments in favour of a low uniform rate. He, therefore, did not adhere to the twopenny rate. The minority on the vote for a rate of one penny had acquiesced in the report, upon the ground which he had explained, that the facts and arguments would be equally, and indeed more applicable to a lower rate; and he, therefore, still adhered to the general plan of an uniform rate of one penny—a course which had been so ably advocated in the pamphlet of Mr. Hill—so fully explained and supported in the report of the Select Committee—and now, he was rejoiced to think, crowned with triumphant success. The changes which would be obviously necessary in consequence, were of two kinds: first, a reduction in the rates;—secondly, the adoption of measures necessary to facilitate the increased demand for Post-office communication. On the first of these, enough had been said already. Then, as to the second point, the measures to facilitate Post-office communication, the first of these was unquestionably payment in advance. The right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, that although he wished generally to introduce the system of payment in advance, if he should judge proper, yet he wished to have a reserved power on that subject, and that it should be optional to pay in advance or not, as parties might prefer, at least for a limited period. Now, he was confident, that the measure would not succeed, unless pre-payment was enforced as a rule at once from its introduction. At present it was admitted by high authority, that it was impossible, under the present system, to ascertain how far collusion and pecula-

1401
tion might go on among the deputy postmasters. He did not attribute dishonesty to those functionaries, but in the report of the commissioners on post-office inquiry, it was stated, that there was no mode of ascertaining how far peculation might extend among these officials throughout the country. Neither did that opinion depend on the report of one commission. It was repeated by several. The opportunities of defrauding the public in the manner referred to by those commissioners could be effectually suppressed by adopting the principle of pre-payment, by means of stamped covers; and when the risk of fraud was so great under the present rates, how much would it be increased under the reduced rate, when country correspondence would be so much increased ! Then, as to the economy of collection in the revenue. Mr. Hill had laid before the committee calculations on that subject not contained in their report, showing that under the system of stamped covers and pre-payment, the expense would be one-sixth less than at present. The greater expedition that would be accomplished in the delivery of letters, by the pre-payment, would be productive of considerable saving. He would refer to the 18th Report of the Commissioners of Revenue Inquiry on that point, where it was said, that the time of delivering a paid letter would be only three seconds, that of unpaid letters would be eighty seconds per letter. He must say, that he viewed, with considerable alarm, the doubt which had been expressed of adopting Mr. Hill's plan of pre-payment and collection by stamped covers. He trusted, that the principle of pre-payment was not to be excluded, if experience should show that principle to be expedient. An objection had been made by a gentleman of high authority as a writer on political economy, Mr. M'Culloch, on the ground, that the public would not have security for the due delivery of their letters, if the principle of pre-payment were adopted. Now, it was his opinion, and in that view he was supported by M. Piron, the secretary of the Post-office department in France, that the system of registration proposed by Mr. Hill would be found to operate as a security against any risk of the abstraction of letters. Mr. Hill proposed, that a charge of one halfpenny should be made for the registration of a letter, for which the post-office should grant a receipt to the party paying that sum, containing a copy of the
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direction of the letter. In this way the circumstance could only be known to the person who posted the letter, and the party who gave the receipt; and it really did appear to him, and he might say to every impartial mind, that by adopting the system of registration, the security would be greater to the public under the plan of pre-payment and collection by stamped covers than under the present plan of management, and enabled him to set at nought the opinion so confidently expressed by Mr. M'Culloch. He should here observe, that a premature alarm had been alluded to as existing on the part of the paper-makers, who were apprehensive that a monopoly would be given for the supply of the paper necessary for the stamped envelopes. He considered it quite premature to enter at present into details, but he thought the Government ought to let it be generally known, that they wished to obtain the best plan to prevent forgery. Let them make that known on a principle of free competition, and delegate the decision to proper judges; and let them then give a pecuniary reward to the person who brought forward the best practicable plan, and no ground of complaint could remain. With regard to the question of the pledge to be given by Parliament to make good any deficiency in the revenue occasioned by the failure of this plan, he was quite ready individually to give such a pledge, upon certain conditions. But he must first know at what time the Government proposed to call on the House lo redeem the pledge—whether a fair trial was to be given to the plan? He would have no objection whatever to vote for a new tax, to cover any deficiency caused by the failure of the plan, provided the state of the revenue required it; but he should by no means be prepared to do this, at the end of twelve months, because he was quite satisfied that twelve months would not be a sufficient time to afford a fair trial of the plan. The right hon. Gentleman called on the House to pledge itself to make good any deficiency in the Post-office revenue that might arise from the failure of this plan; but did he mean to say that, whatever might be the state of the finances of the country—whether there were a deficiency in the general revenue of the country or not—he would still call on the House to redeem its pledge? If the right hon. Gentleman meant this by his resolution, he could not enter into any

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such engagement. He maintained that twelve months would not be a fair trial of his plan. Look at the case of the advertisement duty. It was reduced from 3s. 6d. to 1s. 6d., having been retrograding for four years previously; yet the revenue arising from the advertisement duty was now 75 per cent. of what it was before the reduction, and it was advancing at the rate of eight per cent. per annum; so that in three years from the time of making the reduction, the revenue from the advertisement duty would amount to as much as it was before the reduction. Yet no one would now come down to that House to call for the imposition of a new tax, to cover the 25 per cent. now deficient in the advertisement duty. He maintained, that there ought to be a full and fair trial of the plan, and he did not think that less than three years would be sufficient to form an opinion of its effects. At the expiration of that period, he would be ready to make good any deficiency of revenue, should it arise. But he was of opinion, that no such deficiency would be found to exist, and that therefore the House would not be called upon to fulfil the pledge, even if it were given. The Government were entitled to the thanks of the country, for having adopted the plan in the manner they had done, and particularly when the present state of the revenue of the country was borne in mind.
Mr. Wolverley Attwoodsaid, if the right hon. Gentleman meant, by his resolution, to pledge the House to adopt any tax which he might think fit to propose, for the purpose of making good a deficiency caused by the failure of this plan, he apprehended that the House would not be disposed to give any such pledge. If, on the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman did not mean to push his resolution to that extent, then he apprehended that the resolution would be unavailing; because, although as individuals they might be ready to assent to the tax the right hon. Gentleman might propose, yet each one would raise objections to the particular tax proposed, and endeavour to bring forward some proposition of his own. With reference to the right hon. Gentleman's financial statement, he could not refrain from censuring it, as well as his declaration of his intention to allow the financial affairs of the country to remain in their present state. The right hon. Gentleman
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calculated, that the deficiency in the revenue would be 900,000 l.; but what ground was there for depending on his calculations? For his own part, he maintained there was a much greater probability of finding the revenue below that of the previous year, than that there would be an excess. On the 18th of May, last year, the right hon. Gentleman expressed his belief, that notwithstanding the deficiency of the previous year, there was no fear for the future, when the then state of commercial affairs of the country was looked at, and the 10,000,000 l. of bullion in the coffers of the Bank of England were considered. What sentiments did the right hon. Gentleman entertain now? Were not the commercial affairs of the country in a state of great danger? Was not the amount of Bullion in the Bank very much reduced? If, upon the current year, there was a deficiency, would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to meet the consequences on the trade and commerce of the country? Under such circumstances, in how much worse a position would the right hon. Gentleman be, if he came down to propose new taxes, or to add to the unfunded debt, than if he were, at once, to take that step at the present time?
The Chancellor of the Exchequerhoped the right hon. Gentleman would at once state at what stage of the bill he proposed to offer his opposition to it; whether on the report of the resolution, or on the second reading of the bill.
Sir R. Peelhad no desire for a double discussion on the question. He never was disposed to carry on a mere vexatious opposition, after a question had been fairly decided upon, and he would therefore be prepared to take the discussion on the report, provided an early day was fixed for the purpose, and provided the bill was strictly in accordance with the resolution.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerwould fix Friday next for the report, with the understanding that the discussion was then to be taken upon it. He was quite at a loss to understand the line of argument adopted by the right hon. Baronet. The effect of it, as far as he could see, was, to say, that until this country was in the situation of possessing a surplus revenue of 1,500,000 l., with which to try the experiment, this plan ought not to be adopted. Hon. Members seemed disposed to treat too lightly the

1405
proposition for the House to give a pledge on the subject. He, for one, could not deal lightly with it. He looked upon such a pledge, not as one made to the government of the day, or to the constituency, but as a pledge to the public creditor, that if the means of defraying the debt due to the public creditor became diminished, then those who had called for the measure that had caused the danger, would be prepared to meet the consequences. Such a pledge as this was very different from a mere pledge on a political question. The hon. Member for Bridport had asked whether the redemption of the pledge would be demanded, even if the state of the public revenue did not require it. He had no intention, under such circumstances, to demand the redemption. One great argument in favour of the present plan was, that with the increase of the means of communication, there would be a great increase of commerce. If then there appeared a loss of 500,000 l. on the Post-office revenue, at the same time that the other branches of the revenue yielded a surplus of 1,000,000 l., it was no part of his proposition, that in that case the pledge should be redeemed. He was, however, quite satisfied that the House of Commons would not refuse to make up the deficiency, if necessary. He could not sit down without protesting against what had fallen from the hon. Member for Kilkenny, on the subject of the Bank. The mode of discussing the question adopted by the hon. Member, might do a great deal of harm, but could not possibly do any good. Nothing was more to be deplored than this incautious and inopportune manner of discussing matters connected with the Bank.
Mr. Gillonobjected to the financial statement being brought forward at this late period of the Session, when hon. Members were pairing off, and there was not the means of obtaining the sense of the House upon the question of what taxes should be continued and what abolished. To bring forward the Budget at this advanced period of the Session was, in fact, a mere farce. He was glad that the hon. Member had now, for the first time, adopted the principle of shifting taxation. At the same time, however, he could have wished that the right hon. Gentleman had taken up the subject on a broader basis, and had done something to relieve the industrious classes from some
1406
taxes which press hardly and unequally upon them. He regretted, too, that the right hon. Gentleman had not announced any intention of attempting to ameliorate the system of taxation on the internal communication of the country, and he regretted this the more on account of the pledge given by the right hon. Gentleman on this subject on a former occasion. The right hon. Gentleman then pledged himself to bring in a bill to remedy the unequal system of taxation, by the operation of which the most meritorious and industrious classes of the community were rapidly sinking from a state of affluence to ruin. Great complaints had been made by the postmasters in Scotland at this neglect in reducing the post-horse duties, and he could not help considering there had been a breach of faith after the promises held out on the subject by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He should not be satisfied until this duty was taken off, and he should bring the subject under the consideration of the House on an early day in going into a Committee of supply, and he trusted that the House would support him in getting rid of this unjust and unequal system of taxation.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerstated that at the time the motion of the hon. Gentleman was brought before the House on the subject of internal communication, the question of the postage duty had not been mooted or brought under consideration. This question was quite large enough for the attention of Parliament, without mixing it up with extrinsic matters with which it had no connection whatever. He had told the deputation of postmasters that waited on him that it was thought desirable that the question of the postage on letters should be taken up by the Government, and that their case could not be taken up at that time. The parties expressed their regret, but apparently acquiesed in his opinion, and that the postage question was much more pressing than their case.
Mr. Alderman Thompsonthought that nothing would be more prejudicial to the public interest than that a tax should be taken off one article and imposed on another, in the manner that had been suggested to-night. With respect to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he must say, that he could not help questioning the policy of increasing the amount of the unfunded debt, as it was

1407
quite large enough at present. Looking to unquiet times which might arise, it would have been better if he had proposed to fund a considerable quantity of Exchequer Bills. It should be recollected that these bills were payable on demand at certain dates, and that at the present time the Exchequer Bills amounted to 22,000,000 l., and their charges must be met, and these circumstances should be considered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in framing his financial scheme for the present year. He regretted also the departure from the usual practice of Chancellors of the Exchequer as regarded the keeping the expenditure within the income of the current year. This was the third year in which this bad policy of departing from this course had been pursued. Depend upon it the old practice was more in conformity with sound policy, and it was better to have a surplus income than leaving matters thus to chance. He entirely concurred in what fell from the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the conduct of the Bank of England. If the hon. Member for Kilkenny was determined to persist in bringing charges against the Bank, he at any rate ought to be prepared with facts to support his assertions, instead of relying upon sources of information which, to say the least of them, were very questionable. The whole statement of the hon. Member was a gross exaggeration of the facts, and the hon. Member had indirectly been imposed on by the parties communcating with him. The hon. Member said, that some time ago the Bank had nine millions and a half of bullion in its coffers, and asked how was it that this amount had been reduced to the present small quantity now in its possession. The right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer had very satisfactorily explained this, when he stated that 2,500,000 quarters of foreign wheat and flour had been imported in consequence of the bad harvest last year, and that for this it was necessary to pay upwards of seven millions sterling. In consequence then of the bad harvest, upwards of seven millions more had been exported than in the previous year; and how was this to be done in markets where there was no demand for our manufactures, unless by the payment of bullion, and therefore that amount had been taken from the coffers of the Bank. The hon. Member said, that the amount of bullion in the Bank had been reduced to
1408
three millions, and that to-morrow there would be a demand of six millions for the payment of the interest of the national debt. The hon. Member should be cautious in indulging in such imputations without knowing the ground he rested on. The only information he could obtain on the subject was the quarterly return of bullion published in the Gazette, which in the last return gave a return of 4,440,000 l. He hoped that for the future the hon. Member would not indulge in such wild and visionary assertions respecting the Bank, but would abstain from observations of the kind until he knew that he could rely on the authority given him.
Mr. O'Connellwould not enter at all into what had just fallen from the hon. Member, as he wished to confine his attention to the question on which they were to vote. He heartily supported the resolution in both its branches. That part of it which altered the postage to a penny on each letter he thought would be one, of the most valuable legislative reliefs that had ever been given to the people of this country since he had had a seat in Parliament. It was impossible to exaggerate its importance. It would be of immense importance to his own countrymen. All parties in Ireland were agreed upon the propriety and necessity of it, and they would be surprised to find that it was to be made a party question of—that they were to be threatened into a division upon it, and that this day week was the day on which they were to have the struggle. The House ought not to shrink from it. It was impossible to deny that that was intended, and that all the petitions of the people were to be frittered away into a question of how many-Members could be whipped up on each side of the House. It would have been different if there had been a proposition made to separate the resolution by dividing it into two—into that part which reduced the postage, and that which gave the pledge. That would have been the better way for hon. Members to have proceeded who had any objection to this resolution at all, because then it would have been seen that both sides had been in favour of the reduction. That had not been done but the whole was to be opposed. Let hon. Members look at the advantage that this was calculated to afford. Could any man consider the question and not agree with him that all the Government should have required was to

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be indemnified against the expense of the Post-office. Nay, if the postage on letters was not sufficient for that, Government ought to make a sacrifice for the purpose of facilitating communication. It ought not to be burthened with a single farthing more than defraying its expenses. It had, however, been made a source of revenue, and how? By almost laying a prohibition on communication between the poor: a tax light upon the rich, but heavy upon the poor—and that was the system on which party politics was now to be called forth, for the purpose of keeping up in this country a system which burthened the poor, interfered with all the social feelings of life prevented parents from hearing from their children, and husbands from their wives. He thought it was bad enough to make Canada a party question—bad enough to make Jamaica a party question; the Poor-law had been made a party question, and many Members, he believed, had come into that House by raising a cry against the Poor-law; but this, which was such a burthen to the poorer classes, ought surely to be exempt from party feeling. Now, there were a great many of his countrymen in London who might wish to write to their friends in Ireland. One thing was well known of them, and that was their universal desire to save a little money to send over to their poor friends in Ireland, and, for his own part, he wished he had forty franks a day, because he was sure he could dispose of them, in assisting his poor fellow countrymen in that manner, to the best possible advantage. If, for this purpose, the poor man paid the postage of his letter, he paid more than two days wages in London. If he did not pay the postage of it, it cost a week's wages to the party who received it in Ireland in postage; that was one-fiftieth of the income of the party who received it. If the higher classes in this country—if the Gentlemen he was now addressing, were so taxed, as that they could not receive a letter from their sons without paying a fiftieth of their annual income for it, he did not know what the extent of indignation would be that would not be expressed by them. It was inquired what the deficiency was to be raised from. Was it to be put upon salt, malt, or corn? That was part of the tactics of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. They wished the Ministers to fix upon some tax that peradventure there might
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be some objection to it. And all this was thrown out before it was certain there would be any loss at all. He wished hon. Members to look at the effect of railroads. Upon the only railroad in Ireland a reduction of 1d. upon 9d. had increased the numbers of passengers going by the carriages 27 per cent. in four months, and in that way of looking at it in all probability in a very short time any immediate decrease would be fully made up. Who could estimate the immense increased quantity of letters that would be written in consequence of this reduction. He thought the probability was, that instead of the revenue being diminished, it would be considerably increased, and were they to have a party trial under such circumstances. Were they disposed to confirm the vote for reducing the rate of postage? If they were, why then should they refuse to pledge the House that the deficiency should be made up? Why they must make it up—and were they to oppose the most useful of all measures because it was encumbered with a superfluous pledge? Were they to oppose it because the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as an honest man, had thought he was bound to require this security, that the public should not sustain any loss by it? He thought the House would pause before it agreed to a suggestion so absurd. He never supported a motion with greater pleasure than he did the present.
Mr. Hodgson Hinderegretted, that the right hon. Gentleman opposite had not brought forward a proposition to reduce the duty on post horses. He did not in this accuse the right hon. Gentleman of a breach of faith, but he thought the post-horse masters would consider it very unsatisfactory to be told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he refused to reduce that duty, but that he would give them a reduction in the Post-office. In reference to the Post-office, he was of opinion that the House and the country ought to have time to consider the nature of the pledge that was now submitted to them.
Mr. Darbycomplained of the hon. and learned Member for Dublin having accused Gentlemen on his side of the House of attempting to bring forward a party spirit to the consideration of this question, simply because they wished to have time to consider the effect of the proposition made to them by the right hon. Gentle-

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man opposite. If a tax were to be placed on steam boats to raise the anticipated deficiency, he was sure the hon. Member for Greenock would complain of that. If it were to be placed on malt, he himself would complain of it; and if it were to be placed on salt all the public would complain of it. It was unfair also in the hon. Member for Dublin to complain that those on the opposite side of the House had not separated the resolutions. Why did he not address that to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had pledged himself either to carry the whole resolution or to withdraw it.
Sir J. R. Reidwas much astonished and surprised to hear that his hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny had charged the directors of the Bank of England with a breach of faith, and he would tell his hon. Friend that if he knew them as well as he did, he would not say what he did of them. With regard to the course which they had pursued, he could only say, that if the same thing were to happen to-morrow, they would follow the system which they had adopted, in which they were fully justified. He sincerely regretted that he was not in the House when the hon. Member for Kilkenny made his observations, in order that he might have taken him up a little sharper than he could now do. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but it was no laughing matter. The hon. Member for Kilkenny had been endeavouring for some time past to talk the Bank of England down; and his example had been followed, and he said it with regret, by several newspapers. The Bank, however, was perfectly justified in doing what they had done, and feeling conscious that they were in the right, they would not care what hon. Gentlemen or other parties might say. He had been told that the hon. Member had even been witty upon the Bank—nay, more, had made use of his (Sir J. R. Reid's) name. He could only say that the hon. Member was more humorous than he expected from him.
Mr. Humewas perfectly innocent of intending any attack on his hon. Friend. At one of the observations that he had made on the subject, the House had laughed; and it was not immediately that he perceived what it laughed at. He was perfectly innocent, in the first instance, of having introduced the name of his hon. Friend; but he had merely stated, that
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the Government, when it placed reliance on the Banks of England and Ireland, trusted to a broken reed. He did not then think, for a single moment, of the name of his hon. Friend, and it was not till he saw the great effect that he had produced that he was aware of what he had said. The Member for Sunderland said, he had made a most unfounded attack on the Bank. Now, what were the facts of the case? The Bank had put forth a notice on the 20th of May, that they were prepared to make advances on Exchequer Bills to the 23d of July, and parties having Exchequer Bills went, therefore, before the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to renew them, but on the 20th of June an order came from the Bank parlour, stating that no such advances would be made for the future. He, on this ground, distinctly charged the Bank with a breach of faith. He thought it was a most unfair and unjustifiable proceeding. He only regretted, that he had had no opportunity of bringing the subject of the Bank forward at an earlier period.
Mr. Alderman Thompsonwished to put the hon. Member for Kilkenny right, by telling him that the notice of the 20th of June had no reference to Exchequer Bills, and that the Bank for years had not been in the habit of advancing money on them.
Mr. Humesaid, the worthy Alderman knew nothing about it. He had a copy of the order, and the hon. Member was altogether wrong. The first notice on the 28th November, was to make advances on Bills of Exchange, Exchequer Bills, India-Bonds, and others, at 3½ per cent On the 28th February, the same notice was again given, and repeated on the 30th May, varying the rate of interest. The notice of the 20th June, which raised the interest to 5½ per cent., excluded Exchequer Bills. This was an instance of the way in which their affairs were managed.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, that Exchequer Bills were, he believed, stated in the first order, but not in the others. But it was stated that the Bank had a discretion which it might exercise to the exclusion of these securities. Now, by the bill which he had the honour of passing through Parliament on the usury laws, the Bank was at liberty, such being the existing law, to continue advances on Bills of Exchange. What had been done was the result of the law,

1413
and did not depend on any arbitrement of the Bank. With respect to the raising of the rate of interest, he would not now discuss that point, except so far as to say, that it followed as a necessary consequence of the bad state of the law, and was a reflection on their own imperfect legislation. He would take that opportunity of saying, that it had been surmised that injustice had been committed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in allowing exchange to take place, and these securities to be taken at a time when they were rendered less available to their holders. Such a charge, if true, would be a grave one; but he could assure the House, that he knew nothing of the alterations adopted by the Bank of England until the day on which they had taken place.
Sir J. R. Reidconcurred in every word which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman, and said, that the Bank had had no communication with him whatever upon the subject. With respect to what fell from the hon. Member for Kilkenny, he must tell him that the particular securities he alluded to, were excluded in the notice of the Bank, inasmuch as it was out of the power of the Bank legally to make advances on them. He trusted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Bills of Exchange Bill would pass into a law, and he would take that opportunity of saying, that he was sure it would be received with favour by the commercial world.
Mr. Scholefieldsaid, that one hon. Member had remarked, that no tax could be proposed but some objection would be made to it. There was one tax which he trusted would meet with no opposition, and that was a property-tax. The way to relieve the poor was, for the rich to take the burden on their own shoulders.
Resolution agreed to.
The House resumed.

BILLS OF EXCHANGE (SECOND BILL).
The Chancellor of the Exchequermoved the Order of the Day for bringing up the Report of the Bills of Exchange Bill, No. 2.
Report brought up. On the question that it be read,
Sir R. Inglissaid, that it involved a proposition which he feared the House was not aware it contained. He took blame to himself for not having taken the sense of the House upon it on a former occasion, and he should now, if the House
1414
would support him, move the omission from it of the words "no contract or forbearance of any sums above 10 l. sterling." The hon. Baronet concluded by moving the omission of the words "nor any contract for the loan or forbearance of money above 10 l."
The Chancellor of the Exchequeradmitted the importance of the point to which the hon. Baronet had adverted, but he thought, that as the usury laws had been relaxed as far as bills of exchange at three months were concerned, it would be absurd now to leave out words which would render contracts sanctioned by the bill illegal. This was the effect which the proposition of the hon. Baronet would have. His opinion was, that the repeal of the usury laws would be an advantage; but it was expedient, at the same time, to preserve the exception contained in the bill for preventing imposition on the poor. He hoped the hon. Baronet would not persevere in his amendment, and that the House would agree to the report.
Mr. Darbysupported the amendment, and said, that when they were legislating for the commercial world, they should not forget all other interests.
The House divided on the original motion:—Ayes 92; Noes 11:—Majority 81.

List of the AYES.

Adam, Admiral

Hector, C. J.

Aglionby, H. A.

Hinde, J. H.

Archbold, R.

Hobhouse, T. B.

Attwood, T.

Hodgson, R.

Bailey, J.

Hope, H. T.

Beamish, F. B.

Hope, G. W.

Bernal, R.

Hughes, W. B.

Blair, J.

Hume, J.

Bolling, W.

Hurt, F.

Bramston, T. W.

Hutt, W.

Brocklehurst, J.

Jervis, J.

Brotherton, J.

Lascelles, hon. W. S.

Bruges, W. H. L.

Lushington, C.

Burroughes, H. N.

Macleod, R.

Busfeild, W.

M'Taggart, J.

Callaghan, D.

Martin, J.

Currie, R.

Miles, P. W. S.

Dunbar, G. Morpeth,

Lord Visct.

Eliot, Lord

Morris, D.

Elliot, hon. J. E.

Muskett, G. A.

Ellis, W.

O'Brien, W. S.

Evans, W.

O'Connell, J.

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

O'Connell, M. J.

Finch, F.

O'Ferrall, R. M.

Gordon, B.

Parker, R. T.

Gore, O. J. R.

Pease, J.

Gore, O. W.

Pechell, Captain

Grey, right hon. Sir C.

Philips, M.

Hastie, A.

Pigot, D. R.

Heathcoat, J.

Pryse, P.

1415

Redington, T. N.

Strutt, E.

Reid, Sir J. R.

Style, Sir C.

Rice, right hon. T. S.

Talfourd, Mr. Sergt.

Roche, E. B.

Thomson, rt. hn. C. P.

Roche, W.

Thompson, Alderman

Russell, Lord J.

Thornely, T.

Rutherfurd, rt. hon. A.

Vigors, N. A.

Salwey, Colonel

Vivian, J. H.

Scholefield, J.

Wallace, R.

Seymour, Lord

Warburton, H.

Sheil, R. L.

Ward, H. G.

Sheppard, T.

Wood, Sir M.

Smith, R. V.

Wood, G. W.

Stanley, hon. E. J.

Yates, J. A.

Steuart, R.

Young, J.

Stewart, J.

TELLERS.

Stuart, W. V.

Baring, F. T.

Stock, Dr.

Parker, J.

List of the NOES.

Bradshaw, J.

Lincoln, Earl of

Broadley, H.

Rushbrooke, Colonel

Burrell, Sir C.

Sibthorp, Colonel

Cole, Lord Viscount

Thomas, Colonel H.

Douglas, Sir C. E.

TELLERS.

Henniker, Lord

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Knightley, Sir C.

Darby, G.

Report agreed to.

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a first time:—Joint Tenants Voting (Ireland); Prisons (Scotland); Brick Duties; Paper Duties—Read a second time:—Watch Rates.
Petitions presented. By Lord Portman, from Shepton Mallet, in favour of the Copyhold Enfranchisement Bill. —By the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Bangor, and the Earl of Devon, from several places, against the Government plan for National Education.—By the Duke of Rutland, from Walton, against allowing any but Church of England Chaplains to Gaols.

GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA—SECOND MEASURE.
The Marquess of Normanbyon moving the third reading of the Jamaica Bill, said, that he could not help reiterating the expression of his regret that this House had deprived the bill of those enactments which he considered were essentially necessary in the present state of society in Jamaica; which would have given satisfaction to the negro, and which, at the same time, would have benefited the community in that colony. He begged to remark, that the same provisions had been in operation elsewhere, and had acted beneficially; and he trusted that as the bill, in the event of its passing in its present state, must have the unanimous approbation and assent of both Houses of Parliament, the House of Assembly, would resume their duties, so as to render its enactments unnecessary. He could assure the House, that every disposition existed on the part of the Government, by the instructions which they should give to the
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new Governor who was going out, to secure this most desirable result. The bill read a third time.

EDUCATION.
The Archbishop of Canterburysaid, that he had had the honour of presenting several petitions to their Lordships' House this evening, all of which had been directed against the plan proposed by the Government in relation to the scheme of education, and against the appointment of a committee of the Privy Council to carry out that measure; and praying the House to avert the evil by which the Church was threatened by the adoption of such a course. In the general sentiments expressed in those petitions he entirely concurred, although he entertained a full sense that that concurrence of opinion placed him in a situation extremely distressing to himself—he meant that of being in opposition to her Majesty's Government. He had never found himself in such a position, without the greatest pain and concern, and he could assure their Lordships, that nothing but the paramount importance of his duty could have determined him to place himself in that position, which was in many respects unbecoming; but, at the same time, he felt that standing in the situation in which he stood, invested as he was, to a great degree, with the important charge of the Church, the guardianship of which, as well as of the moral and religious interests of the country, in a great measure, devolved upon him, he could not, consistently with the obligations under which he was placed, decline coming forward upon this occasion. If, however, so far as his own personal feelings were concerned, he was disposed to decline the duty, he could not have resisted the call which was made on him by the voice, he would not say of the clergy, but of all the friends of the Church, and not only of all the friends of the Church, but also by a very numerous body of dissenters. The clergy, who were always the objects of attack upon these occasions, might possibly be reputed to be acting from interested motives, but could that charge, by any possibility, be supported, when it was seen that a body, dissenting from the Church, a body most highly respectable in itself, most anxious for religious freedom, and entirely devoid of political bias, had come forward on this occasion, and could it be supposed that the Church had no regard for the interests

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of religion, and would sacrifice the real interests of the people to political considerations? With respect to those who were friends of the Church, it would be seen that this was a matter which affected the true foundation, not only of the Church, but of religion itself. It was a question as to the manner in which the people should be educated—whether they should receive their education on the sound principles of the Church, or whether the door should be thrown open to the instillation of principles of every sect, however wild or extravagant. Much had been said against the clergy upon this occasion, and he presumed that they were attacked as distinguished from the Church, because they were supposed to be the most vulnerable. It was said, that the clergy wished to keep the people in ignorance, that they were actuated by bigotry, and that they put forward pretensions to the exclusive education of the people. There was, however, no foundation for any such objections. If they were guilty of any crime, it was not that they were adverse to the diffusion of knowledge, but that they wished to extend it further than it seemed proper that the people should have it, and that to knowledge of affairs relating to the world—to mere secular knowledge, they would add the sanction of religion. With regard to the accusation of bigotry, he presumed that that meant nothing more than a decided attachment to that religion which they considered the best, and to that charge certainly they were inclined to plead guilty, and he thought that there was no man in his senses but would give them credit for feelings of that kind. As to their arrogating to themselves the education of the people, all that they desired was, that the education of the children of the parents among their flocks who were attached to the Church might not be taken out of their hands, that there might be no interference with them in the performance of their duty with the young as well as the old, so that the children of their flocks might be educated in the same principles, and in the same faith and doctrines of religion, which they would afterwards hear preached in Church. In considering this charge more particularly, their Lordships would perhaps allow him to say a few words in reference to the history of the education of the poor of this country. It certainly might appear surprising to those who were pot acquainted with the state of things in
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those ages, that very little was done at the time of the Reformation for the education of the poor. The ignorance which up to that time had pervaded the country, and the evils which had resulted from it, had made the greatest impression upon the minds of all men, and the ignorance which was then most particularly desired to be removed was that of the higher classes, and many schools were therefore established immediately after the Reformation, which were, however, in the nature of grammar schools, and were meant for the instruction of the higher classes in languages, in order that they might be recovered from the ignorance which existed among them. It was not, however, until the end of the seventeenth century, in 1685, that the first charity school was erected in this great town for the education of the poor. That school was established by the friends of the Church. Subsequently, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the want of education among the poor began to press on the minds of the friends of the Church, and at that time societies, composed exclusively of the clergy, were formed, and they in the course of a few years extended the scheme, which subsequently continued to flourish to the great advantage of this town. The schools had since increased in number, but that was the work of the Church; it was the work of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and while at first the number of persons instructed amounted to only 400 or 500, and had subsequently increased to 700, it was now so much extended that a selection of them only could obtain room in St. Paul's Cathedral at the annual celebration. Under the authority of this Society, about 1,500 schools had been established in England and Wales, and they were instituted on the principles of the Established Church, and not on the principle of dissent. What was done then was very inadequate, and when the population increased, the want of education in this country was found to be so great, as to make the friends of religion despair. It seemed impossible to devise remedies for the defects in the existing system, for nothing material had been done by the friends of the Church; and at that time throughout the country there was such a want of education, and there was such a mass of uneducated people, that the most sanguine persons would have been disheartened, About that time, however, a

1237
new system was established. He meant that which was first instituted by Dr. Bell, which was formed on the model of a school which he had seen in the East Indies, and which was afterwards adopted by Mr. Lancaster, and was now indiscriminately used, so far as the mechanism was concerned, as the Madras or Lancasterian system, for they were both the same, and gave an opportunity to the Society to extend their labours for the education of the poor. The House was aware, what was the state of the country at that time, and in seeing the change which had taken place in the course of thirty years since those schools had been first established, would be able to judge of the great obligations under which the country rested to this Society, and how much they were entitled to it for its labours. The Society at first proceeded to the accomplishment of their object by promoting the erection of new schools "throughout the country, and establishing a central school in London. In their report, they said, that they found themselves in connection with almost every diocese in England and Wales, and that by means of their funds, amounting to 120,000 l., they had aided in procuring the establishment of new schools in 1,553 places. The number of schools formerly established, was 6,778, and the scholars amounted to upwards of 597,000; while in 1837, the number of schools was 17,341, while the scholars were a million and eighty-seven. Now, when the House heard these facts stated, the accuracy of which there was no reason to doubt, he thought that they might admit that the charge against the clergy, that they desired to keep the people without education, was totally without foundation. But then they were charged also with bigotry. Was it, however, to be expected—could the country with any show of reason expect—that they could act in opposition to their own principles and to the principles of that Church of which they were members? When they professed that their religion was pure in its doctrines, true in its constitution, sound in its morals, and was calculated in every respect to supply the spiritual wants of the poorer classes, could they endeavour to promote the education of children on principles of religion opposite to those which they themselves professed? He must say, that although they might be exclusive in their principles, and although they might confine the education
1238
and the instruction which they delivered to that which was according to the doctrines and precepts of their own Church, they were otherwise by no means exclusive, for they admitted children of every description into their schools—no one was excluded; but at the same time he must admit that they insisted that they should all be instructed in the principles of the Established Church. He conceived, that they were right in adopting this course, and that it could not be said that they were wrong; the boon had been most thankfully accepted by many Dissenters, and in reality might be accepted by all Dissenters, who were usually called orthodox. So far as the catechism and the commandments were concerned, there was nothing in them which was offensive to any Dissenter, and he could see no reason why the most conscientious Dissenter who held these doctrines should not allow his children to go to the schools; for, in truth, the only exception which could be urged was in some words used in the catechism. With regard to attending public worship, they were not compelled to follow the tenets of the Established Church, provided their parents took them to any other place. He knew that this was the regulation which existed, for at this moment there was a school established in Westminster at which there were upwards of forty Roman Catholic children, but in reference to them he saw no difficulty; because if ever there had been any expressions in the liturgy opposed to the Roman Catholic faith, they had been expunged by the good sense of those who reviewed it in after times. He trusted that he had sufficiently explained the opinion of the clergy. Their schools were open to the children of Dissenters, and they went as far as could be possibly considered proper. He trusted, therefore, that by what he had said he had absolved the Church and the friends of the Church in this country from the charge of having any desire to keep the people in ignorance, of having any aversion to the diffusion of knowledge, of being actuated by bigotry to their QWU principles; firm attachment they had, but bigotry they had none; and of having acted with any unfairness towards the Dissenters. It appeared with respect to what the Church had done—it appeared from public returns made in the year 1833—that the exertion of the Church and of the friends of the Church,

1239
in the promotion of education exceeded those of the dissenters in a degree which he was almost afraid to mention. If he took the lowest calculation that he had seen, made by an eminent person, it would seem, that the state of education furnished by the Church was twenty to one when compared with the education afforded by dissenters. But, in making that statement, he must observe, that the dissenters were not so much without education, because many of their children were educated in the schools of the Established Church; and so far they swelled the number of the scholars in those schools. Still there had been a very great deficiency in the amount of education, and even now there was a great deficiency in the education of the people. He had seen different statements and calculations upon this point, but the results were so uncertain that he would not trouble their Lordships with them. Whatever was said, however, these calculations showed, that there was a great deficiency in the amount of education in this country. No one more deplored this deficiency than the friends of the Church, and than the persons who conducted the society of which he had been speaking, and which might be considered the great organ of education in the hands of the Church, although there were many schools in the hands of the Church which were not connected with that society. They had been labouring to supply that want, and to introduce schools more extensively. In the course of the year 1838, and during the present year, they had been making great exertions—exertions which, he trusted, had been attended with a considerable degree of success; there was every prospect of it; and the friends of the Church had come forward in a manner that did the highest credit to their zeal and their expectations; although liable to all the imperfections which belonged to everything human, they would, he hoped, be realized in a high degree. It was proposed to establish a diocesan society; it was proposed, that teachers should be trained, for the want of proper schoolmasters had been extensively felt; it was proposed to establish a training school in every diocese, and he trusted that the best effects would follow. It was proposed, also, under the superintendence of the bishop and chapter of each diocese, to establish schools in every parish, or in
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every district where they could be conveniently founded. These schools were to be under the charge of the minister of the parish, and they would give to the whole agricultural population the benefits of religious and moral instruction. It was proposed likewise to establish a system of superintendence to secure the efficiency of the schools, and the uniformity of their proceedings. And, in a short time, he hoped, that the schools would be so far founded, that every clergyman—every good clergyman did it now—but he hoped soon that every clergyman would consider it as much his duty to promote a school in his parish as he did now to perform his duty in his Church. At the present time, if a clergyman neglected the duty of his church—if he absented himself from his parish, or failed in the performance of his duty—he was a marked character among his friends; and he (the Archbishop of Canterbury) trusted, that the time was not far distant when the same would be said of any neglect of the clergyman's school duty, and that every one of the clergy would deem it proper to promote the establishment of a school where there was none, and to superintend it if there was one. Now, considering the relation in which the Church stood to the State—considering the number of its members—considering the purity of its doctrines—considering the excellence of the moral and religious feelings which it tended to promote, and considering its obedience to the laws of the Government and of the State—he did not think that it was asking too much if it looked up to the Government of this country to assist it in promoting education. He thought that the claim could hardly be resisted. And at the same time the Government ought to have so much confidence in the Church as to intrust it with the management of the education of its own children, under the conditions he had before stated; or, at least, that the Government would abstain from all interference with religious teaching. He thought, that if the Government granted relief or assistance, it had a right to ensure the efficiency of its grant, and that wherever there was a grant of public money, the public had a right to see how it was applied. He was certain, however, that if the Government received an assurance that the schools were conducted properly with respect to secular learning, they might leave the religious instruction

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to the care of the members of the Church. In claiming thus much, was there any assumption—was there any arrogance—was there any desire to take into the hands of the Church all the education of the country? The Church had never advanced any pretension of that kind. He did not say, that injudicious language might not have been occasionally used upon this subject; but he appealed in confirmation of his statement to the conduct of the clergy in general. A grant of 20,00 l. had been lately most laudably and most liberally made by the Government to schools connected with the National Society and with the Lancasterian Society. Had the clergy complained of the share of the Lancasterian Society? The National Society had taken their share, not only without complaint, but thankfully; they had never inquired what proportion was given to the other body, and they had been satisfied with the plan as a temporary expedient. Such it was stated to be. When Lord Althorp introduced it, he said that he brought it forward as an experiment. It had succeeded—it had been usefully applied, and he had never heard that the conductors of the Lancasterian schools were dissatisfied with the share they had received. It was considered by all as an experiment, as a temporary expedient; it was thought that a permanent system would be established in conformity with the expectations held out, and that the whole system of national education would be definitely settled. It was conceived also by the clergy that this system would be referred to the whole Parliament, and both societies had the greatest confidence that the wisdom of Parliament would distribute the fund faithfully, and with a due care for the claims of the various parties that might be entitled to consideration. He was satisfied, then, that it was hardly surprising, if they viewed the present state of things with suspicion and jealousy, and to that he attributed the great sensation in the country respecting the minutes of the Privy Council. It was considered that these minutes laid the foundation for a permanent system, without any application to Parliament. The country saw that these minutes established a board composed exclusively of her Majesty's Ministers, that the board was invested with large discretionary powers, and that it was disposed to introduce many innovations, not effected by any act of legislation, but by a mode of
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proceeding entirely excluding one branch of the Legislature excluding their Lordships' House from interfering, or from expressing any opinion on a matter of such great importance to the interests of the people. These apprehensions were greatly increased, because it was impossible not to look at the wild and extravagant schemes of education entertained in various quarters. They had seen a system of education proposed, from which religious instruction was entirely excluded. They had also seen a system of general education proposed, from which all creeds and catechisms were banished, and which would prevent the friends of the Church of England from educating their children according to their own views and their own persuasion of what was right. They had seen also, that it had been proposed to carry a scheme into execution for establishing what was falsely called a liberal system of education, without the intervention of Parliament. Let it not be conceived, however, from what he had said, or from the extract which he would read, that he was implicating the Committee, or that he was ascribing to them any participation in the design; but he meant only to show, that it was the plan of some persons. It was contained in the publication of a large society connected with education. The purport of the extract was, that
"All hope of amending the present system of education was to be abandoned in the nicely balanced state of parties; it would be some years before such a measure as the people had a right to demand would be passed by the House of Lords, but a bill was not a sine qua non. Ministers had the power in their own hands, by a simple vote of the House of Commons, of extending the schools, and of commencing a reform of those already established. It only required the establishment of a board of education, with the same powers of granting educational assistance as was given to the Lords of the Treasury. 20,000 l. had been voted for erecting school-houses, but they served only to deceive the public into the belief that education was advancing, when it was really making but little progress. Let there be model and normal schools for the training of qualified teachers; let the central board not only determine the building of the schools, but superintend the training, and the ground would be laid for further improvement. The power of withholding pecuniary assistance would induce the schools which were mismanaged to be placed under the board. The plan was simple and feasible. An individual might waste a whole life in arguing with schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and in

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reasoning with governors, without changing the system in above half-a-dozen schools; but a central board would, in a short time, produce a change which would appear to be the effect of magic."
He hoped that he was not so far misunderstood as to charge the Committee of the Privy Council with any design of this nature. He had read the extract to show what power, in the estimation of some persons who wished to introduce a system of education which would entirely overthrow the National Church, would be in the hands of the Committee. If the persons who had written this had framed the Minute in Council, he could not see how it could have been framed more in accordance with their wishes; although, assuredly, if they had selected persons to execute the plan, they would not have selected the President of the Council and his colleagues to carry the scheme into execution. Such was the power which was lodged in the Committee, and which would officially pass to their successors, and if the plan were placed under other agencies. He would now take up the papers laid before their Lordships, with the view of showing that he had not in the slightest degree exaggerated the power thus conveyed to the Committee of the Privy Council, and which it was not possible to conceal might be used if the power were lodged in unsafe hands. In doing this he felt it necessary to go into the history of the education grants which had proceeded from the Government. He found from the papers laid before the House what was stated by Lord Althorp, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he moved that 20,000 l. should be granted for the purpose of education. The terms of the resolution were exactly as he found them in the Treasury minute, from which he would read. He found that after the Lords of the Treasury had read the Act of the last Session, by which a sum of 20,000 l. is granted to his Majesty to be issued in aid of private subscriptions for the erection of schools for the education of the children of the poorer classes in Great Britain, it was stated,
"The Chancellor of the Exchequer feeling it absolutely necessary that certain fixed rules should be laid down by the Treasury for their guidance in this matter, so as to render this sum most generally useful for the purposes contemplated by the grant, submitted the arrangements for the consideration of the board."
That arrangement with which he need
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not trouble their Lordships in detail, provided, amongst other things—
"That no portion of this sum be applied to any purpose whatever except for the erection of new school-houses; and that in the definition of a school-house the residence for masters or attendants be not included; that no application be entertained unless a sum be raised by private contribution equal at the least to one-half of the total estimated expenditure; and that no application be complied with unless upon the consideration of such a report, either from the National School Society, or the British and Foreign School Society, as shall satisfy this board that the case is one deserving of attention, and there is a reasonable expectation that the school may be permanently supported."
Now, they saw what were the resolutions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day, and which were liberally complied with by the Lords of the Treasury in the application of the grants. The Lords of the Treasury were by this minute absolved from all necessity; they were directed to apply the money between the two societies, who were in communication with all parties in the country, and who were able to say what schools were entitled to the grant, and there could be no misapplication whilst the board acted upon that principle. The next year the Lords of the Treasury resumed the consideration of the subject, and reported the number of schools which had been built during the first year—there were sixty-two schools erected, having 12,191 scholars, at a total expense of 19,380 l., the amount of 8,000 l. and upwards having been appropriated towards that sum by the Lords of the Treasury. So far it appeared that the grants were of great advantage, even if they went no further than establishing sixty-two schools. And on their minute the Lords of the Treasury entered this:—
"My Lords have the satisfaction of perceiving that there exists throughout Great Britain the utmost anxiety that the funds provided by Parliament for the purposes of education should be made generally useful, and that private charity and liberality so far from being checked, have been greatly stimulated and encouraged by reason of the public assistance afforded on the principles laid down in their minute of the 30th August, 1833."
It was truly said that these grants had greatly stimulated the exertions of private benefaction. But at this time the number of applications for schools had increased to that degree that the Lords of the Treasury were obliged to lay down a restriction, and

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to confine the grants to schools that should accommodate 400 scholars and upwards, and accordingly they applied the grants to the schools in connection with the National Society, and with the British and Foreign School Society, upon that principle, for upon that principle alone would they be enabled to make the sum meet the demands. The number of scholars to be accommodated in the schools then applying for assistance in connection with the National Society was 10,674, and in connection with the British and Foreign School Society 7,500: and the Lords of the Treasury were so much satisfied with the distribution thus made, that they recommended a further grant of 20,000 l. These grants were made in succeeding years, and were applied on the same principle; and on the 5th July, 1838, the Chancellor of the Exchequer submitted to the board
"The expediency of procuring and laying before Parliament more specific and detailed information than had been as yet obtained with respect to the schools, towards the erection of which grants had been made by the public. For this purpose it appeared to him that the National, and British and Foreign School Society, should be invited to direct an inspection to be made of the several schools which they had recommended to this board, and for the erection of which grants had been appropriated out of the parliamentary votes."
Another suggestion at the same time which the Chancellor of the Exchequer recommended was the erection of a "model school," to which, as considered by itself, there could be no objection, but would meet with general approbation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested
"That in considering the number of new schools which had been assisted by the parliamentary grant, as well as the schools which were previously in existence, it appeared to him that the erection of model schools for the instruction of teachers by both societies would greatly tend to add to the efficiency of their several establishments; and that it was therefore expedient that the respective committees should be called upon, if they concurred in this opinion, to take steps for such purpose. Towards this object public aid might advantageously be directed; provided a suitable plan for carrying these intentions into effect were submitted to the Treasury, and approved of;"
but then it was
"provided that the principle of private contribution, already laid down and carried into
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effect by previous minutes of this board, should be stricily adhered to."
And the Chancellor of the Exchequer proceeded to recommend, that
"these two important and pressing questions should without delay be brought under the notice of the National and British and Foreign School Societies, in order that their opinion might be expressed, and if those opinions were favourable to these proposals, that they should be carried into early and practical effect."
He knew that there was no occasion to proceed further with this than to point out to their Lordships that, on the 5th July, 1838, it was the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the principle of private contributions should be adhered to, and that reference should be made to the National Society and to the British and Foreign School Society, with respect to the erection of a model school. He now came to another era. He would not delay the House by referring to the papers relating to the letter addressed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to the Lords of the Treasury, or of their answer thereto, because he understood that the plan suggested had been superseded by the subsequent proceedings. The order appointing the Committee of Privy Council, however, superseded the Board of Treasury. He did not know that the Committee of Privy Council would not answer as well as the Lords of the Treasury, who had so much on their hands. But he must say that the Committee of Privy Council was empowered to do a little more than the Lords of the Treasury. The Board of the Treasury could only receive applications from two societies, and determine upon them, and three or four of the members of the Board had sufficient occupation to prevent their having time to examine the different claims made to the two societies. The Lords of the Treasury had been superseded, and an appointment had been made of a Committee of the Privy Council, consisting exclusively of her Majesty's Ministers. That selection had been made without any regard to the fitness of the Members; he did not say that they were unfit; the selection was made without any regard to their fitness, but merely on account of the official situation which they held; and if the noble Lords retired tomorrow, their successors coming to the same places would take upon themselves

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this duty. When he considered that this was the foundation of a permanent scheme, it was singular that neither of the two Archbishops nor the one Bishop belonging to the Church, who were members of the Privy Council, should have been appointed. It might have been expected that the Government would have consulted such of the Bishops as were members of the Privy Council, and the only reason he knew why they were not consulted was, that their consent to the scheme never would have been obtained. But that was not a reason to satisfy the country, and it never would be. When these eminent persons were appointed, they drew up certain minutes. On the 13th of April, 1839, a scheme for the future guidance of the Committee was read. In the first place they proposed to found a school, in which candidates for the office of teacher in schools for the poorer classes might acquire the knowledge necessary to the exercise of their future profession, and might be practised in the most approved methods of religious and moral training and instruction. This school was to include a model school, in which children of all ages from three to fourteen might be taught and trained in sufficient numbers to form an infant school, as well as schools for children above seven. If a model school meant anything, it of course meant a model for all the schools throughout the country. Then came a most remarkable article. It related to religious instruction which was brought very prominently forward; and certainly the country would hear of nothing respecting national education in which religious instruction was not provided for. The subject, therefore, was in itself very properly brought forward; but as to the mode in which religious instruction was to be given, he could not say so much. Religious instruction, it seemed, was to be considered as general and special. He really did not know how to explain this. There was, he recollected, a passage in one of the reports on prisons complaining that convicts in gaols were not instructed in the truths of natural and revealed religion. Now, he supposed that general instruction referred to natural religion, and that revealed religion was what was meant by special. [A noble Lord "No."] The noble Lord said "no." He would not say it was; but that was the most natural interpretation he could put upon the language. He
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wished the noble Lord would state what was meant by general instruction in the truths of revealed religion? What was it but the teaching of the peculiar truths of religion. In fact the whole of Christianity consisted of peculiar truths—truths, many of which were certainly contested by various denominations of Christians, but which must be acknowledged by those who would be esteemed as orthodox in the faith taught in the primitive ages of Christianity. He would not, however, go into an examination of what those truths were; bat this he would say, that there was no such thing as instruction in Christianity without instruction in those peculiar truths. But to revert again to the minute of the Committee:—Periods were to be set apart for such peculiar doctrinal instruction as might be required for the religious training of the children. He had read, not many months ago, a report that in some parts of Germany, the attempt at combining religious instruction of different creeds with secular instruction, in the same school, had been abandoned, it being found impossible to conduct such a plan with satisfaction to any party. Different schools had been since established for the different persuasions of Catholics and Protestants, and the reason assigned for this appeared to be a very sound one; namely, that it was wrong to teach one set of children certain doctrines as true in one part of the schoolroom, and another set of children in another corner of the room that those doctrines were false. In a German publication, which he believed had not yet been translated into the English language, he had read a report of a person who had been sent to inspect the style and system of education adopted in different parts of Germany and France. The writer stated, that in some of the German states they had schools which comprehended children of all denominations, and even Jews; but that the persons intrusted with the care of those schools had protested strongly against such a measure, and that the inconvenience arising from it had been such, that alterations had been made in many instances. Their Lordships must at once feel how great would be the confusion introduced into the schools proposed to be established here if religious teachers of various denominations were to be admitted. The chaplain, who according to the scheme was to be appointed to

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conduct the religious instruction of children whose parents or guardians belonged to the Established Church would find it very difficult to maintain his authority if the parent or natural guardian of any other child were to be permitted to secure the attendance of the licensed minister of his own persuasion, at the period appointed for special religious instruction, in order to give such instruction apart. What confusion, too, would such a system produce in the minds of the children themselves! It was essential to the teaching of religion, that it should be taught with authority. Teachers did not appeal to the reason of the child, but taught him on authority. They said, such and such is the truth; such and such is the law of God; such and such is the rule of morality; and the child received it, as children receive all instruction, implicitly. If he were, at the same time told, that there are six or eight different opinions upon those truths, laws, and rules, to what can it possibly lead but to scepticism; to a rejection of all religion, or to an indifference to any? It must end in a rejection of the spiritual doctrines of religion from a conviction, that they are not true, and in a rejection of its moral precepts when it suits the convenience of the learner to suppose they are without any sanction. It was very true, that this scheme was not adopted. These resolutions of the Committee of Council were superseded by the report of the 1st of June, which was presented to and approved by her Majesty in Council. He had, however, felt it right to make these observations upon the original scheme preparatory to any remarks he should feel it his duty to make on the Order in Council, dated the 3rd of June, approving of the report of the Education Committtee, dated the 1st of June. He did not think the opinions of the Members of the committee, as expressed in the scheme they first laid down, were at all superseded by the subsequent report and Order in Council. The Order in Council set forth the report of the committee in these terms:—
"The Lords of the Committee recommend, that the sum of ten thousand pounds, granted by Parliament in 1835, towards the erection of normal or model schools, be given n equal proportions to the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society. That the remainder of the subsequent grants of the years 1837 and 1838, yet unappro-
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priated, and any grant that may be voted in the present year, be chiefly applied in aid of, subscriptions for building, and, in particular cases, for the support of schools connected with those societies; but that the rule hitherto adopted, of making a grant to those places where the largest proportion is subscribed, be not invariably adhered to, should application be made from very poor and populous districts, where subscriptions to a sufficient amount cannot be obtained."
It might be very proper to make grants without adhering to the rule about the proportion of the contribution; but this point was stated so loosely, that there was no guarantee whatever for the propriety of those grants in particular cases. For
"The Committee do not feel themselves precluded from making grants in particular cases which shall appear to them to call for the aid of Government, although the applications may not come from either of the two mentioned societies."
By this the restriction which originally accompanied the grant was entirely removed; and certainly relieved the Lords of the Treasury from any responsibility in making these grants, giving the committee a discretionary power. The committee then repeated their opinion:
"The Committee are of opinion, that the most useful application of any sums voted by Parliament would consist in the employment of those moneys in the establishment of a normal school, under the direction of the State, and not placed under the management of a voluntary society."
(Thus these two societies were completely lost sight of.) But the Committee state
"That they have experienced so much difficulty in reconciling conflicting views respecting the provisions which they are desirous to make in furtherance of your Majesty's wish, that the children and teachers instructed in this school should be duly trained in the principles of the Christian religion, while the rights of conscience should be respected, that it is not in the power of the Committee to mature a plan for the accomplishment of this design without further consideration, and they therefore postpone taking any steps for this purpose until greater concurrence of opinion is found to prevail."
He would appeal to their Lordships, whether a very large and undefined discretion was not thus left to the committee, which he did not say would be abused, but which might be very grossly abused. He could not, when considering the extent of this discretionary power, wonder that

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the established clergy, the great portion of the Protestant Dissenters, and indeed ill who had the interest of religion at heart, should feel alarmed at this enormous power being given to the committee, more especially when they connected it with what followed; for
"The Committee recommend that no further grant be made now or hereafter for the establishment or support of normal schools, or of any other schools, unless the right of inspection be retained, in order to secure a conformity to the regulations and discipline established in the several schools, with such improvements as may from lime to time be suggested by the committee."
A great portion of the people of this country were of opinion (and he must say he agreed with them), that a power was thus conferred upon the committee which ought not to be entrusted in the hands of any number of men, and certainly not to men who were exclusively members of her Majesty's Government. What security had they that, in process of time, these grants would not be made from political motives, or in favour of prejudices and predilections? They knew not how many circumstances might arise to affect the minds of the successors of the present committee. He concurred in these apprehensions and fears, which became stronger when he considered the whole of the scheme—when he recollected with what deliberate intention their Lordships had been excluded from having the slightest concern in the regulation of a matter so immediately bearing upon the best interests of the people, upon their religious education, and their moral training. Was not a subject of this kind proper for Parliamentary discussion? Was it fit that it should be disposed of by only one branch of the Legislature? Were their Lordships, many of whom had particularly directed their attention to the subject, and all of whom were qualified to judge of it, were they to be shut out from all participation in regulations of this description? Was it consistent with the respect which was due to this branch of the Legislature? Was it consistent with the respect due to the Lords spiritual and temporal, that the only assembly in which the Church had a voice should not be heard at all upon such an important subject? He did not mean to say, that the influence of the Church was not great elsewhere; but at the same time their
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Lordships' House was the only place in which the Church was represented at all by her ministers. He was sure that their Lordships, whatever might be their political sentiments, would agree with him in this; that the moral and religious instruction of the great mass of the people of this country was a subject peculiarly belonging to the clergy of the Established Church; that the Sovereign was the head of the Church, and bound by the most sacred obligations to the maintenance of its authority; that all the advisers of the Sovereign were under the same obligation not to advise her Majesty to anything that could be prejudicial to the Church, and that, if they did so, they would be acting in violation of a most sacred duty, and most unconstitutionally; and he would further add, considering the connection of the Church with the State, they would also be acting with the greatest impolicy with respect to the true interests of the people, whom they would hardly venture to say, could be better instructed than by the ministers of the Established Church. If (said the most rev. Prelate) the Church does not teach the true doctrines of our holy religion—if it does not inculcate the purest morals—if it does not insist upon obedience to the laws and the authorities of the country—upon loyalty to the Sovereign and the performance of every Christian duty—I say, my Lords, it is utterly unworthy of your support. Look to some other source of moral and religious instruction, and cast away a Church which is so grossly deficient in its duty, or fails in attaining that object, for the attainment of which all religious establishments are formed. Again, I say, if such be the case, let us look elsewhere: But since that cannot be said, it is, I assert, the duty of the Crown—it is the duty of the Government, to advise no measures which shall be to the prejudice of the Church. I do not mean prejudicially interfering with its temporalities, but which shall diminish its salutary influence over the people; and that, in the distribution of the public money for the encouragement of religion, their first object ought to be to maintain and extend the religion of the State; that religion, which, by the instruction it imparts, combines the great majority of the people of this country with the vast establishment which is responsible to the State for the proper performance of its duties. When public money was granted

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for religious purposes, that, I say, ought to be the primary object of the Government. He did not mean lo say that all assistance should be withheld from the dissenters. But whatever was done with respect to religious instruction, ought to be free from all party or political considerations; and those sums which were given, not to the just claims of the Dissenters, but in such a shape as to promote dissent, were not given consistently with the support which the State was bound to give to the Established Church of this country. He conceived that making such grants had a tendency to promote religious dissent, which was in itself a great evil, and cherished much misunderstanding among the people, and who must understand one another better before they could agree in their religious tenets. At the same time, he did not wish to be understood to say, that a certain degree of consideration was not due to the Dissenters. He had a great respect for those who religiously dissented. For political dissent, he must say, he had no respect whatever. Its objects were not religious. But, while he said that due consideration ought to be paid to the claims of the dissenters, he still maintained, that the distribution of those funds, and the management of all other matters connected with the very important subject of the religious instruction of the people ought to be decided by the united voice of Parliament, that no measure ought to be resorted to that excluded their Lordships from a share in the deliberations; and that he was convinced the people of this country would look with more confidence at any measure having the support of their Lordships, than to that which was only supported by one branch of the Legislature, a branch of which he was not inclined to speak with disrepect, and which was, perhaps, in its character, the most popular branch of the Legislature. The most reverend Prelate then concluded by moving the first of the following resolutions, stating, that after the first was carried, he should move the others seriatim,
"That this House has had under its consideration the various documents which have been presented by her Majesty's commands respecting public education, including those which refer to the application of public money in former years in aid of the building of school-houses in connection with the National Society and the British and Foreign School
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Society; and also the letters of the Secretary of State and the President of the Council the 4th, 6th, and 9th of February respectively; the Order in Council of the 10th of April, appointing a Committee of Council; the minutes of proceedings of that Committee of the 13th of April; and the report of the same Committee of the 3rd of June.
"2. That it appears, from the documents last mentioned, that a Committee of Council has been appointed, consisting exclusively of Members of her Majesty's Government, for the purpose of considering all matters affecting the education of the people, and of superintending the application of any sums which may be voted by Parliament for that purpose.
"That on the 13th of April last it was proposed by such Committee to establish a model school, which might serve as an example for other schools, and a normal school, in which a body of schoolmasters might be formed competent to assume the management of similar institutions in all parts of the country.
"3. It appears, by the report of the Committee, approved by her Majesty in Council on the 3rd of June, that the Committee is empowered to retain the right of inspection, in order to secure a conformity with such regulations as they may approve of for the management and discipline of all schools to which aid may be granted; and to make grants of public money to any schools which may appear to them to require such aid, irrespectively to the religious doctrines which may be inculcated in such schools.
"4. That it appears to this House, that the powers thus intrusted to the Committee of Council are so important in their bearing upon the moral and religious education of the people of this country, and upon the proper duties and functions of the Established Church, and at the same time so capable of progressive and indefinite extension, that they ought not to be committed to any public authority without the consent of Parliament.
"5. That it appears to this House, that the particular scheme of education set forth in the Minutes of the Committee of Council of the 13th April is open to grave objection with reference to the arrangements made for the religious instruction of children, to the use within the school of any other than the authorised version of the Scriptures, and to many other important details; and although it is stated in the report of the Committee of Council of the 3rd of June, that it is not in the power of the Committee to mature a plan for the formation of a normal school without further consideration, and that they therefore postpone taking any steps for the purpose until greater concurrence of opinion is found to prevail, yet the report gives no assurance that the scheme approved by the Committee on the 13th of April may not be hereafter carried into execution at the discretion of the Committee.
"6. That, under these circumstances, this

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House considers itself bound by the obligations of public duty to present an humble address to her Majesty, conveying to her Majesty the resolutions into which it has entered, and humbly praying, that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to give directions that no steps shall be taken with respect to the establishment or foundation of any plan for the general education of the people of this country without giving to this House, as one branch of the Legislature, an opportunity of fully considering a measure of such deep importance to the highest interests of the community."
The Marquess of Lansdowne: in the situation which I have the honour to hold, as one of that Committee recently appointed by her Majesty, which was the subject of the speech of the most rev. Prelate, and having been appointed upon that Committee, as the most rev. Prelate has said, (and that not in a manner in the least degree uncourteous), in reference probably, not so much to any peculiar fitness for the task, as to my political character as President of the Council, the rules of which made it almost indispensable that I should be a Member of all its Committees—your Lordships will not think it unnatural that I should, in that early stage, offer myself to your Lordships' attention. When the most rev. Prelate gave notice of the motion which he was about to submit to your Lordships, I listened to it with great anxiety—an anxiety combined in some respect with concern, inasmuch as it appeared to imply that the most rev. Prelate disapproved of the proceedings instituted by her Majesty's Council, but an anxiety also in some degree mingled with satisfaction, inasmuch as it insured my hearing, and what is far more important, the House and the public hearing, from the most rev. Prelate a distinct statement of the objections entertained to those proceedings, freed from all that gross exaggeration of language, and that unexampled licence of misrepresentation which have distinguished the proceedings held out of doors, and which have undoubtedly produced a great and widely-spread deception on the minds of a great part of the people. I have not been disappointed in my expectations, for although there remains much misapprehension leading, unintentionally no doubt, to some misrepresentation, as I hope to show in what the most rev. Prelate has stated as the foundation of his objections to this plan, yet they have been stated in a manner of which neither I nor any man has any reason to complain. I will add, too, that in many parts of the most rev. Pre-
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late's speech, sentiments are expressed, which it gave me great satisfaction to hear, and great pleasure to have recorded on this subject. The most rev. Prelate has adverted to opinions which have been expressed out of doors—opinions in which the most rev. Prelate in a great degree concurs—with respect to the connection which ought to exist between the Church of England, and the general education of the people in this country. From the manner in which those opinions have been stated out of doors, I had been led to differ greatly from them; but as stated by the most rev. Prelate in this House tonight, I in part agree with them. No person can feel in a greater degree than I do, that it is the duty of the Established Church of this country to take charge of the religious education of all those who belong to that Church. I hope to see the care of the Church, constantly, vigorously, and successfully extended to all that portion of the people. But when I see it stated at public meetings and elsewhere, that the clergy of the Church of England are charged, and ought to be charged with the exclusive religious education of the public at large, I must respectfully seek an explanation from the most rev. Prelate (I have obtained it in some degree from his speech, which I hope I have correctly understood), but I have a right to ask distinctly, whether he holds that the Church of England in this country has a right to educate, and ought to exercise the right of educating, the public at large, to the exclusion of all other teachers (for such was the ambiguous phrase employed in one of the resolutions of a large public meeting), including that portion of the public—no inconsiderable portion unfortunately, but amounting, I am afraid, to millions in this country, who are not the members of that Church. There are some preliminary points such as this upon which it is indispensable before recording an opinion as to the propriety of making any grant, or taking any step upon this subject, that we should form a distinct opinion. One point is, whether the claim of the Church to give religious instruction extends beyond the pale of the Church itself. I understand the most rev. Prelate to say distinctly not, and that the Church does not claim a right to instruct the whole people, but only that portion of them which belongs to the Church. There is another point also upon which it is most essential that our views should be distinctly stated before we proceed to the

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consideration of these important questions. It is this—whether it be conceived by any of the right rev. Prelates, or by any Member of their Lordships' House, that the claim of the Church of England extends not only to the right of controlling the religious instructions of the people of this country, but to the right of controlling their secular instruction. Because, before your Lordships know how to proceed, or what direction to give to the grants which have been made, or what assistance you are inclined to afford to the great object of educating the people of this country, it becomes necessary for us to know whether we are not bound to go beyond what the Church has done, or can do, in the way of secular instruction, combining it always with religious instruction, taking care that the last shall be carefully and constantly administered, but also taking care on behalf of the State, that the secular instruction shall be of the best possible quality that can be found; ever uniting with it every new practical discovery that can be brought into operation, for the improvement and cultivation of the minds of the people of this country. It is indispensable to come to an understanding upon these points. It is also indispensable to come to an understanding, if the Church does not take the religious instruction of those large masses of the population under its superintendence, which do not belong to the Church—it is indispensable, I say, to come to an understanding, whether, under such circumstances, it may not be becoming and useful in the State—nay, whether it be not the duty of the State—rather to lend than to withhold its countenance and aid from the education and consequent well-being of these particular classes of the community, whose numbers and whose position in society are such, as constantly to act upon the safety and condition of the whole community. I have heard upon another occasion, a right rev. Prelate of great eminence state that he would give no opinion upon this subject; but I am disposed to understand, from what has fallen from the most rev. Prelate this evening, that the most rev. Prelate entertains an opinion, and I have the satisfaction of believing a favourable opinion, as to the propriety of making, under certain circumstances, grants of public money for the purpose of giving a secular education to those who do not belong to the Church, Individual Prelates,
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and Members of the House may think proper to withhold an opinion on this subject, but Parliament must virtually pronounce an opinion, because it must act on that opinion. It is necessary that the sense of Parliament should be distinctly declared, as to whether it agrees or does not agree with the proposition which I understand to have received the concurrence of the most rev. Prelate—namely, that grants, under special circumstances, should be made for the purposes alluded to. If that opinion were once specifically declared, Parliament would know how to proceed; but if, on the contrary, Parliament is prepared now to lay down the maxim (maintaining what I have heard in some places called a slate conscience on the subject) that, having once chosen and selected from the unceasing conflicts of different religious opinions one particular and strict rule of faith, therefore it thinks it irreconcileable with its duty—having pronounced that particular rule of faith to be the best—to grant any aid or to afford any assistance, under any circumstances, to those portions of its fellow subjects who entertain what it may conceive to be more or less grave errors upon the subject of religion, but who, nevertheless, are members of the one great Christian Church—if Parliament were prepared to adopt that opinion, and to withdraw from the dissenting bodies throughout the kingdom all countenance and support, I must undoubtedly admit, not only that Parliament cannot proceed with the very limited amount of possible assistance that may be granted to that class of persons under the proceeding which has met with the sanction of the Privy Council; but that there is not one year that has passed in the course of the last twenty, in which their Lordships would not have Acts of Parliament to recall, and systems of policy to remodel—Acts passed under the responsibility of different Administrations, carried with the sanction and approbation of various and different Parliaments, which, upon other bases than those now advanced, have thought it the duty of the State to provide for the education—first, of the members of its own establishment, but not to overlook the interests (interests in which the welfare of the public is bound up) of those particular classes who may be good subjects of the State, although not fortunately brought within the particular pale which has the sanction of the law, and, if their Lordships think proper, so to express it, the sanction of their Lordships' conscience.

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Before I sit down, I will point out case after case, in which every Government, including almost every individual who has ever been a Member of any of the recent Ministries, and having now a seat in that House, has acted upon the principle I have stated. If, indeed, their Lordships are disposed to act upon the opposite principle, there is an end at once to all discussion upon the subject; and then their Lordships and the other House of Parliament will only have to place in the hands of the prelates of the Church of England—if, indeed, the other House could be induced to vote any money under such circumstances—so much money as they may think proper to allot for the improvement of education, carefully limiting, and entailing that education upon the members of the Established Church; and having done that, to relieve themselves of all further care upon the subject. But I have a right to assume until I see all those votes recalled—votes which have proceeded upon the principle I have alluded to—votes which have not rejected the claims of any numerous and well-conducted portion of the subjects of the State, even in its remotest dependencies, be their form of Christianity what it may—until those votes are recalled, I have a right to assume that such is the principle upon which Parliament is disposed to act, and that the degree to which the assistance is to be given is the only fair question now open for the consideration of the Legislature. I have heard statements from the most rev. Prelate with regard to the present state of education in this country, which as far as they go, tend to show that in his opinion it is in a more favourable and more satisfactory condition than I think many are disposed to admit; but the most rev. Prelate did not venture to state, that the state of education in this country is in as satisfactory condition—in as advanced condition—as it is in other countries of Europe. On the contrary, the most rev. Prelate admitted that there exists a deficiency in the education of the people of this country which calls for the attention of every good man—of every religious man—and especially of the Government and State. I believe, that that which is the opinion of every intelligent and enquiring person in the country will derive very great confirmation from a comparison with the progressive state of education in other parts of the world, and more especially in those parts with which we should most naturally compare ourselves,
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namely, the central nations of Europe. I believe, that during the twenty or thirty years that have elapsed since the general peace, there is no enlightened government in Europe that has not made the improvement of the education of the people one of the objects of its most earnest solicitude. It has been done by all governments—monarchical, constitutional, and republican—which have shown any enlightened regard to the interests of their subjects; and it has been going on from year to year with increased activity and increased success. It is quite true, as the most rev. Prelate has stated, that there is, in this country, a very great difficulty in procuring accurate returns of the actual state of education in all the different parts of the kingdom; but, as far as any approach to truth can be made upon the subject, I believe, that England at this moment, in point of general education, is far behind Germany, far behind Switzerland, I am almost inclined to believe (but of that I am less certain) it is behind France; but especially and certainly it is far, very far, behind Holland. I believe, that if a scale of education were constructed, it would be found, that popular education has in one or two of the central states of Europe reached its actual maximum, and that the number of children (or those who required to be educated) who are there educated, is one in every five or six children throughout the country. This is particularly the case in the kingdom of Wurtemberg, and in one of the cantons of Switzerland j and extensive education prevails in other parts of Germany. In short, excluding Spain and Russia, and taking only the central states of Europe, England would come last in the scale, both as to the quantity and the quality of its secular education. While the educated in Wurtemberg are one in every five or six, the proportion in England is one to every eleven or twelve of the entire population. I believe, too, that greater care is exerted abroad to train the schoolmasters in normal schools, and I am happy to have the testimony of the most rev. Prelate, on this point, when he states that normal or training schools form one of the most important and valuable parts of any system of education that can be attempted to be carried into effect among a people. If this be the case, by the bye, the Government were not so far wrong in proposing to direct their first effort to the establishment of a normal school, and I am glad to hear this opinion of the most rev. Prelate, although the most

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rev. Prelate might consider the arrangements for that purpose open to objection. To shew the extent to which this part of the subject is attended to in other countries, I may mention that in Prussia, there are thirty- or forty schools for training masters, several in Holland, and in Saxony nine—seven or eight in Bavaria, while England has not one. I will not specify more examples. I will only say, that from all I can learn, the character of the education given to the people is lower here than in any part of central Europe. There are no means, as I have already stated, afforded by any machinery at the command of Government of collecting perfectly accurate data in this country j but whenever, by the chance of events, the means are afforded of ascertaining the state and quality of education in any particular district, whenever we have been able to heave the lead, and sound the depths of society most remote from ordinary observation,—there is brought up suddenly to view an amount of ignorance—an absence of every thing that can be called general education, dangerous to the whole fabric of the State, and disgraceful to the character of a great country. With respect to the agricultural districts, it is only accidentally that their particular state has been opened up, and the extent of ignorance, and of bad habits engendered by ignorance among the rural population laid bare. Scarce a year has elapsed since, in a part of the country near London, where schools were supposed to exist, or were described as existing in the returns, within reach of those influences which might be expected to be most salutary—I mean the county of Kent—there has been an exhibition of folly, of credulity, of absence of all instruction, of ignorance of all true religion, of the total want of all knowledge that enables men to judge of right and wrong, to determine between the probable and the improbable, which has exposed the simple and untaught population to become the ready dupes of one of the most absurd and ignorant fanatics that ever ventured to practise upon the credulity of the multitude. I need scarcely remind your Lordships, that in a part of the country where a certain portion of the inhabitants were receiving an imperfect education, this person, whom you will all recollect by the name of Thorn, succeeded in the course of a short time in inducing the people to receive him first in the character of one of the Messrs. Rothschild next in that of the king of Jerusa-
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lem, then in that of Earl of Devon; and finally, I am sorry to say, in that of the sacred character of Saviour of Mankind; and in all these successive characters, but more especially in the last, he was implicitly believed and blindly followed by the greater proportion of the whole population of three or four parishes. So little did the imperfect system of education which existed in that district contribute to check the influence and authority of this individual, that of the few day schools which existed there, one had been kept by a person who was enrolled among his most devoted followers, and afterwards by the wife of a person who was also his follower, and another was kept by the wife of a person who was also one of his most devoted followers. It is vain to-indulge in the opinion that such a state of things is peculiar, and that there are not many of the agricultural districts in which the inhabitants are quite as ignorant, and liable to be deluded. Kent is not singular in its ignorance. A recent inquiry into the state of parts of a very-populous district of Warwickshire, has afforded results, no less striking, and there are parts of the West of England within reach of my own observation, where I must say, it would only require the appearance of another Thorn to give rise to a similar exhibition of fanaticism. This is my own belief, and it must also be that of all your Lordships who have informed yourselves on, the subject. Efforts I know have been made to supply the existing deficiency on the part of the Church by many enlightened, and benevolent individuals, but efforts as far as they have gone hitherto, wholly unequal to dispel this extraordinary amount of ignorance. But if such be the state of the agricultural districts, with how much more of alarm—with how much more of concern—ought the attention of the Legislature to be directed to those great manufacturing classes whom it is the nature of our social system to accumulate, but for whom, unhappily, it has not hitherto been a part of our social system to provide the means of education! Upon this point also, the statistical details are exceedingly imperfect; but owing to the pains taken by particular individuals in Manchester, Leeds, York, and other great towns, particularly in the North of England, there has been revealed an amount of ignorance most disgraceful to a civilized nation. It is shewn, that in four of the great manufacturing towns there are 80,000 children growing up without the shadow of educa-

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tion, and that of the grown up population of Manchester, and the surrounding places, there is only something like the proportion of one-fourth that can either read or write, the remainder being in that condition of hopeless ignorance, which prepares the way for those ebullitions of passion which are the result of ignorance, and which threaten the peace and security of society. The experience of the last year or two conveys some fearful lessons as to the effects of ignorance on the passions of uneducated men. Your Lordships have seen what these pent up feelings of ignorance are capable of doing when any portentous occurrence, loosening and setting them free from their obscure abode, sends forth these elements of mischief from the dark caverns in which they dwelt, to scare the face of day, shaking the foundations of society, and shocking the world with their mis-shapen and hideous forms. There is no supernatural being on whom your Lordships can rely to stay the progress of this evil, to allay the coming dangers—dangers already blackening the horizon.—You can rely upon no other commanding and beneficent spirit, but the diffusion of sound, moral, and religious instruction.
"Celsà sedet Æolus arce,
Sceptra tenens: mollitque animos et temperat iras.
Ni faciat, maria ac terras cœlumque profundum
Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras."
In the 80,000 uninstructed children now growing out of infancy, as it appeared in three or four only of the great towns of the north without any creed, if it were not a farce to talk of creeds in connexion with persons so ignorant, your Lordships may see the rising Chartists of the next age. I declare to this House and to the public of this country, that if they neglect to supply that instruction which is so loudly called for, and to supply it in a proportion increasing with the increase of population, they may repress the excesses of untaught violence by penal laws, but they will have no right to acquit themselves of the guilt of having neglected to lead those misguided men into the way in which they should go, and make them useful, respectable, and orderly members of society. It is evident from all the information we can obtain upon the subject, that the state of education throughout the country is such as to call for the interference of Parliament. Then arises the question of how the interference of Parliament is to be made. Thus the question is reduced to a com-
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paratively small compass, and all that is left to Parliament to determine, is the channel through which the influence of Government should be exerted in aid of the moral reformation and improvement of the people. So far as I have hitherto gone in the consideration of the various topics pertaining to this subject, I am happy to think, that I have had what appears to be the assent of your Lordships, and the assent, too of the most rev. Prelate, and the right rev. Prelates beside him. I have obtained, I think, their assent to my positions, that the Church has imposed on it, the duty of attending to the religious education of its own members, and has no right to claim to superintend the religious education of those who were not comprehended within its pale; that there are in this country thousands or millions of men who are not members of the Church of England, but who contribute their quota to the general taxation, and are represented in the other House of Parliament; and who, therefore, have a just claim to share in the benefit of any grant which might be made from the general fund for the purposes of general education. Thus I am led to the conclusion, first that it is the duty of Parliament and of the Government to interfere for the purpose of extending and improving the general system of education; and, secondly, that it is the duty of Parliament to interfere in such a way as, leaving to the Church an uninterrupted sway over the religious education of its own members, shall still respect the rights and consciences of those other sections of the community who are not in communion with the Church, and should extend to them in common with the members of (he Establishment, the advantage of an improved system of education. I think that the most rev. Prelate has admitted something like this—I think that the most rev. Prelate has made some admission in favour of the Protestant dissenter, and most gracefully the admission fell from his lips. I could have wished, however, that the most rev. Prelate had not drawn a distinction between one class of Dissenters and another, who both rest their dissent on the dictates of conscience—[A noble Lord—The most rev. Prelate spoke of Dissenters—] Exactly. The most rev. Prelate's allusion to the Dissenters has been doubtless inspired by a liberal feeling, but yet the most rev. Prelate hag drawn a dis-

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tinction of a somewhat invidious character, between political and religious Dissenters. What is it, I must ask, that establishes any such distinction? What right has the most rev. Prelate to tell any man that his religious opinions are determined by considerations of politics, and not of conscience? Has the Dissenter a right to come into this House and look round its benches, not excepting the right rev. bench itself, and say, "So many here are political Churchmen, so many are religious?" On behalf of every one of the Queen's subjects, I claim the right of forming his own opinion, of expressing that opinion, and adhering to his own religious faith, without being subject to the censure of any other man of another religion for the motives which have actuated him. It would be most inconvenient to draw such distinctions, and I think, that on consideration, the most rev. Prelate will retract the expression, perhaps inadvertently used and but for which the opinion he has expressed respecting Dissenters would do honour to his high character and to the station which he holds. I come now to consider the manner in which the authority of the State should be exerted in furtherance of education, and this brings me to the particular consideration of the motion of the most rev. Prelate, in reference to the Order of Council which has been laid on the Table, and which has excited so much animadversion. I feel, in adverting to the objections which have been made to that document, with great respect to the most rev Prelate, that I must borrow the aid of the most rev. Prelate's I magnifying glass to be able to handle them, and to discern with any plainness the grounds on which they rest. In the first place, I must say, that the most rev. Prelate's motion, though professing to be drawn from the document on the Table, and to be a recital of facts, is unintentionally, no doubt, on the most rev. Prelate's part, an incorrect statement of the facts. In the second resolution their Lordships are invited to declare:—
"That it appears, from the documents last mentioned, that a committee of council has been appointed, consisting exclusively of members of her Majesty's Government, for the purpose of considering all matters affecting the education of the people, and of superintending the application of any sums which may be voted by Parliament for that purpose."
Now where. I ask, does the most rev. Prelate find this information? It is not
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in the order of council. I will tell the most rev. Prelate where he has found the latter part of his resolution, or rather where it has been found for him, for I am sure that the candour which always marks the most rev. Prelate's conduct would not have allowed him to insert the words if he had found them himself. They were contained in a letter of Lord John Russell's, and have been transferred from, that letter to the order of council, which the most rev. Prelate affirmed to be the order appointing the committee. The words are not to be found in the order of council, but in a letter written long before the order was made, and in the interim, when the propriety of appointing the committee of her Majesty's Ministers came to be considered, it struck me, that the words were of too vague a character, liable to be misinterpreted, and involving the committee in a scope of action too wide for such a body. The advice I had the honour of giving to her Majesty on this occasion was, to confine the functions of the committee to superintending the distribution of the grants made by Parliament. Those words, therefore, "all matters affecting the education of the people," were purposely omitted in the order. Is it then fair, is it just, for the sake of raising an argument against the order in council, to ascribe to it a proposition, which not only does not form a part of it, but which has carefully and scrupulously been excluded from it. Confining the order in council to that which it really contains, I would ask the most rev. Prelate candidly to declare to me what difference there is between the appointment of three or four of her Majesty's responsible servants, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to superintend the distribution of the money voted by the other House, and the leaving the distribution of that money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone. I am ready to admit, that if a board had been established by Act of Parliament to take into consideration the whole subject of education, one of the first things would have been to place one or more of the right reverend bench upon that board. But, at the same time, it cannot escape your Lordships' attention, and the attention of the right reverend bench, that the moment that was done, the money that was voted for the purpose of education being the money of the whole nation being the money of the three millions, or four millions of persons who are separated from the church, as

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well as the money of the members of the establishment—the moment that that was done—the moment that one of the right rev. bench was placed upon the board, a claim would immediately arise to place some dissenter upon it also. Does the most rev. Prelate think that this would have advanced the cause of education, does he think that it would not have given rise to many differences and to great difficulties? The Crown pursued a different course. Instead of leaving the duty to one Minister assisted by a secretary and one or two clerks, it is now intrusted to two or more responsible Ministers of the Crown. These Ministers I need not say are annually accountable to Parliament, and if in any one instance the public money is proved to have been misapplied, it will be easy for Parliament to rescind the resolution of the committee of Council. Anything like a permanent settlement of every thing connected with a question like the present I have not yet seen attempted either in this or in the other House of Parliament. When I state that it would be an attempt made in a case, delicate in the extreme, surrounded by difficulties on every side, imposed upon the Government and the public with a full sense of all the obstacles which political and religious feeling would oppose to their progress, I think that I have said enough to show that a permanent settlement is at present quite out of the question; and if there be anything more than another to recommend the present arrangement, it is this, that it is of a temporary nature, that it can be modified at pleasure, that it can be revised at any moment, and that it can be enlarged on any future occasion if it shall be found to work well for the benefit and improvement of the people. So much for the objection against this plan, founded on the fact that a temporary committee of the Privy Council is to distribute the funds granted by Parliament. But then comes another objection, that a certain change has been made in the usual Parliamentary grant, of which no notice has been given. But in what does the different constitution of the grant consist? Why, the persons undertaking the distribution of these funds promise that the two establishments already in existence for providing education being considered in a peculiarly favourable light, they will not refuse to investigate other claims, founded on special circumstances, and particularly with reference to the poverty of particular districts, every such
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case being reported to Parliament, and the discretion of the committee being liable to be called in question if improperly exercised; an extension of the former rule so necessary that it was unanimously recommended by a committee of the House of Commons. The third objection made to the scheme is, that the grant is made in such a peculiar manner, as not to afford the House of Lords even an opportunity of voting upon it. Now, if there be anything established in the practice of Parliament, more particularly of late years, it is that grants of this kind should be made in the House of Commons; that they should be carried, by address, to the foot of the Throne; and that they should be administered on the responsibility of Ministers. It has been said, that the first grant of 20,000 l., for the purposes of education was a new principle. Indeed! Then how did it happen that the right rev. Prelate did not object to its being made? Have any of your Lordships ventured to dispute the right of the House of Commons to come originally to such a grant? No, not one. Year after year has this grant of 20,000 l. been voted—year after year it has been voted without any objection having been taken to it; and yet your Lordships are now to be told that the present grant is a novel proceeding, by which the House of Commons seeks to put aside the constitutional privileges of this House. The right rev. Prelate may perhaps say, that there are particular circumstances connected with this grant which distinguish it from all other cases. Now, I contended that there is not in the grant even the appearance of anything like a proposition to withdraw anything from the Church. There is, therefore, no special case which renders it necessary for the House of Commons to proceed by bill instead of resolution, and to send up that bill for the approbation of your Lordships. I might remind you that there are numerous precedents of high authority to justify the course now pursued. In the year 1829 the House of Commons came to a vote, by which all the grants previously made to the bishops of Ireland for the administration of Charter schools in that country in connexion with the Church were placed at the disposal of the Lord-lieutenant for the time being, and were to be applied generally, without distinction of sects, for the purposes of education. Was that so, or was it not? If it were so, and it would be difficult to deny it, they were

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guilty of an attempt to delude and to deceive your Lordships, who said, that it was a novel mode of proceeding, and without precedent, to act upon a grant upon which your Lordships had no means of pronouncing an opinion. There are, however cases of grants which go far beyond the grant to which I have just referred. There was a special authority for making such grants in the last charter of the East India Company, not objected to at the time. There were grants for our colonies in America, for our West Indian islands, and for our settlements in New Holland—all made upon the express understanding, that a portion of the funds so created should be allotted to the dissenters, and that a system of joint education should be adopted for churchmen and dissenters indifferently. Your Lordships will find on your table a very able despatch from Sir J. Franklin, the Governor of Van Dieman's Land, detailing the difficulties which he has met with, and which he has overcome, in carrying a joint system of education for churchmen and dissenters into effect in that colony, and stating the very beneficial results which he has every hope of deriving from it. I am sure, that it will not be said by any of your Lordships, that this has taken place in a distant colony, inhabited by convicts, or the families and companions of convicts, for whom any mode of instruction is indifferent. But where and how had this convict population arisen. Would to God that those persons had been instructed as they ought to have been in this country, and then, in all probability, they would not have become forced residents in that penal colony! Who will venture to say, that if schools for general, moral, and religious instruction had been established in Manchester, in Liverpool, in Bury, in Sal-ford, in Birmingham, and in our other large commercial and manufacturing towns, the great feeders of our penal colonies; and that if the population of those districts had been trained in those schools in good moral and religious principles, no matter whether those principles were those of the Church of England, or of some sect dissenting from it—who, I ask, will venture to say that many of the convicts now in New Holland, and several from the parent land might not have escaped from their present cruel fate? Again, in the East India Company's charter, there has been a particular provision inserted for the purpose of enabling a joint education to be given to
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the children of various Christian churches. Let me not, then, be told that it is an unalterable principle of Parliament to exclude all sects of dissenters from instruction, either general or special, and that its grants are solely devoted to the education of children in the principles and doctrines of the Established Church. I have now touched on every objection which has been taken in the House of Commons to the minute now laid on your Lordships' table. The only change made, by which the present plan is distinguished from those former schemes is this—that instead of the funds being intrusted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone, they are to be intrusted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the Lord President of the Council, to the Lord Privy Seal, and to the Secretary of State for the Home Department—that those officers, though they may give a preference to the schools of the National Society and to those of the British and Foreign Society, were to have power to make exceptions from that rule, and to found schools distinct from them where the poverty and population of the district required it—and further that they should have the right of sending inspectors to all the schools under their charge for the purpose of seeing that the public money was properly disposed of and carefully adminstered. Of this plan no part was, in my opinion, more unexceptionable than this wise provision of inspectors. I appeal to the experience of those noble Lords who sat upon the committee of inquiry into the state of education in Ireland, of which committee I had the honour of being chairman—I appeal to the experience of those noble Lords whether they were not met at every step of their inquiry by evidence showing that some inspection of those schools on behalf of the public was absolutely indispensable to their success as a means of promoting education? I have the authority of the secretary of the National Society, and also of the secretary of the British and Foreign Society, both men of great sagacity and experience in education, both of whom stated, that the inspection of the schools is at the root of all good. I could carry your Lordships through a long detail of the present state of the schools in different parts of the country, and could show in what a wretched condition many of them are owing to the want of this inspection, I have by me the notes of a member of the Church of

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England, a gentleman filling too an important and responsible public situation, who, from motives of benevolence, has visited many of the national schools not distant from London. His notes prove, that in some of those schools, the state of education, though perfect in form, is so deficient in substance, that though all the children can repeat the catechism by rote, not one of them knows or can give any meaning whatever to the words contained in it, including those most significant of the religious tenets and distinctions to which so much importance is attached. I must also state that, it has come to my knowledge that, in some instances, the Treasury grant has been misapplied, and has been directed to very different objects from those which were originally intended. But the most reverend Prelate seems to apprehend that there is lurking, under this proposition of inspectors to see the regulations properly enforced, an intention to interfere with the ecclesiastical instruction of the children. Will the most reverend Prelate believe him when I assure him that it has never entered into the mind of any one Member of her Majesty's Government that the inspection should be used for the purpose of interfering directly or indirectly with religious instruction. But what it is proposed, and what it is most important to effect, is, that the inspection shall be applied to the introduction of those improvements which even in secular education may be effected, and those admirable arrangements which your Lordships may witness at the school in Norwood, established by the Poor-law Commissioners, arrangements not bearing upon the question of religion, but bearing upon that which is of equal importance—the training the children in habits of order cleanliness, discipline, and industry, which might form a part of a general system of education without interfering with these high truths, which it is the duty and the privilege of the Church to inculcate. I have now touched upon most of the points respecting the plan which is before Parliament, and have noticed the principal objections which have been made to the scheme in this House, by the most rev, Prelate and elsewhere. The most rev. Prelate has thought it necessary to advert to a former minute of the Council, which has been withdrawn, not so much on account of the opposition made to it out of doors, as on account of the difficulty which has been experienced, before, and defeated other plans in
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coming to a distinct understanding between conflicting opinions, as to the way in which a normal school, intended for the benefit of all, should be established. Now I do not depart from the principle, that the establishment of a normal school would, under the sanction of Government, be most important and beneficial. But there is no intention on the part of the Government to take such a course without bringing it under the view of Parliament and publicly stating the grounds upon which it is proposed. The amount of the vote itself indeed is sufficient proof that no such intention exists. The most rev. Prelate has spoken a great deal of the distinction between general and particular religion—which he thought implied in that first minute, and having assumed that by "general" religion, "natural" religion was to be understood—he has argued upon that supposition; an erroneous supposition, for the words "natural religion," did not occur in the minute. If the right rev. Prelate wished to know where the distinction between general and special religion was first taken, he would inform him. It was in a speech of Sir R. Peel's. In proposing a grant many years ago for the maintenance of schools in Ireland, Sir R. Peel stated that he saw no reason why a distinction should not be drawn between general and special religion, and why there should not be different persons to teach both in the same school. For myself, I disclaim any other distinction on the subject than that which naturally arises between truths which are common to several religions, and those which are peculiar to each. The Government intends not to propose anything but what it considered will conduce to the grand object of promoting secular improvement, reserving to the Church, free from all possibility of interference from inspection, or any other cause, the right of religious teaching—a right which I do most solemnly declare I most sincerely desire that the Church should retain, and which I believe it is the duty of the Church to exercise. But because I wish the Church to preserve that right, I am not prepared to exclude from the benefit of improved education any class of her Majesty's subjects, and as a Member of Parliament I am bound to see that a grant voted by the representatives of all, at the expense of all, shall be distributed for the benefit of all. That is the sole claim which the Government puts forward upon this occasion;

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and in the manner I have described, I would distinctly state that it is the intention of her Majesty's Government, or the Committee of the Privy Council, to administer the system they have proposed; nor will I abandon the hope that this plan, limited as it is, and relieved from those objections to which the too curious apprehensions of some persons, and the deep-rooted prejudices of others have exposed it, will become the means of leading the country to the adoption of some practical system with respect to education, equally conducive to the interests of the Established Church and to the general welfare of the country. With these feelings I shall now move the previous question to the motion of the most rev. Prelate, adding, that even if the most rev. Prelate's motion be carried, I shall not regret that an important attempt has been made on the part of the Government, to carry into effect that which I believe is the only mode of providing for any advance of that improvement in the general condition of society which at the present time, more than at any former, is imperatively called for. If the first resolution
[The following is one of the documents referred to. The resolutions moved by the Archbishop of Canterbury may be found at the end of his speech, 1253]
Extract from the Minute of Council of the 3rd of June, 1839;—printed by order of ths House of Commons.
"The Lords of the Committee recommend, by their Report, that the sum of ten thousand pounds, granted by Parliament in 1835 towards the erection of Normal or Model Schools, be given in equal proportions lo the National Society, and the British and Foreign School Society. That the remainder of the subsequent grants of the years 1837 and 1838, yet unappropriated, and any grant that may be voted in the present year, be chiefly applied in aid of subscriptions for building, and, in particular cases, for the support of schools connected with those societies; but that the rule hitherto adopted of making a grant to those places where the largest proportion is subscribed be not invariably adhered to, should application be made from very poor and populous districts, where subscriptions to a sufficient amount cannot be obtained.
"The Committee do not feel themselves precluded from making grants in particular cases, which shall appear to them to call for the aid of Government, although the applications may not come from either of the two mentioned societies.
"The Committee are of opinion, that the most useful applications of any sums voted by
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be however carried, I shall move the omission of that part of the second, which contains the affirmation of words existing in the minute of Privy Council, which are not to be found there.*
The Bishop of Exetersaid, that in presuming to follow the noble Marquess of the eloquent speech which he had just delivered, and which was by far the best defence of that system of education, if system it could be called, which had been adopted by the Government, he should first address himself to the various questions which he had put to rev. Bench, of which he had the honour to be a member. In attempting to answer those questions, he was anxious to have it understood that he was not speaking the sentiments of the rev. Bench, much less those of the Church at large. He trusted, however, that he might be forgiven if he ventured to express his own individual opinions on the questions which the noble Marquess had put to the rev. Bench. The first question which the noble Marquess had
* These words were upon Lord Lansdowne's motion afterwards struck out without a division.
Parliament, would consist in the employment of those monies in the establishment of a Normal School under the direction of the State, and not placed under the management of a voluntary society. The Committee, however, experience so much difficulty in reconciling conflicting views respecting the provisions which they are desirous to make in furtherance of your Majesty's wish, that the children and teachers instructed in this school should be duly trained in the principles of the Christian religion, while the rights of conscience should be respected, that it is not in the power of the Committee to mature a plan for the accomplishment of this design without further consideration; and they therefore postpone taking any steps for this purpose until greater concurrence of opinion is found to prevail.
"The Committee recommend that no further grant be made, now or hereafter, for the establishment or support of Normal Schools, or of any other schools, unless the right of inspection be retained, in order to secure a conformity to the regulations and discipline established in the several schools, with such improvements as may from time to time be suggested by the Committee.
"A part of any grant voted in the present year may be usefully applied to the purposes of inspection, and to the means of acquiring a complete knowledge of the present state of education in England and Wales."
"Her Majesty, having taken the said Report into consideration, was pleased by and with the advice of her Privy Council, to approve thereof."

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put to them was this—"Had the Church a right to claim the education of the people at large, including that portion of them, amounting to many millions in number, who do not belong to the Church?" In proposing that question, the noble Marquess had proposed a question which at first appeared perfectly clear and simple; but the terms in which it was couched raised matter of considerable doubt in his mind. He would, therefore, in answering the question, ask for some information as to the terms of the question itself. When he was asked whether the Church had a right to claim the education of the people at large, he answered, that he was not of opinion that the Church had a right to claim the enforcement of any system of education on the people at large, least of all on that part of the people which did not belong to it. But the Church had a right to demand of the State—and if the Church and State were prepared to do their duty, that demand would be answered—the Church, he said, had a right to demand of the State the means of offering education to them all, no matter whether they belonged to the Church or not. God forbid that the Church should compel them to take its system of education! But the Church had a right to demand that the Church, which the State acknowledged to profess the true religion, and whose duty it was to extend instruction to all within its pale, should have the necessary means supplied to it. Then he asked the noble Lord to propose such a grant as would enable the the Church to educate all within its pale. Was the noble Marquess prepared to do his duty in that respect? He would answer for the most rev. Prelate, for his other right rev. Brethren, and for himself, that neither they, nor the clergy of their respective dioceses, would neglect their duty if the State did its duty, as had been, hastily and hypothetically it was true, but still in some manner indicated by the noble Marquess himself. The next question which the noble Marquess had proposed to the rev. Bench was, whether the chain of the Church of England extended, not only to the religious, but also to the secular education of the people? His answer to that was, not that the Church presumed to demand that it should direct the secular education of the country in secular matters, but it had a right to demand and receive from the State the means of sanctifying secular instruction, particularly of those classes who must be assisted with the means of giving education to their children.
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Speaking as they now were, mainly of the education of the poorer classes of her Majesty's subjects, he must say that he saw very little need of secular education that ought not to be combined with religion. He did not ask, (God forbid that he should) that the poor man should not be permitted to make all the acquirements in science which it should please God to enable him him to make; but, looking to the poor as a class, they could not expect that those who were consigned by Providence to the laborious occupations of life, should be able largely to cultivate their intellect. If they could concentrate their views upon one great subject—above all, if they could make the Bible the corner-stone of all their learning—if they could learn history, in order to illustrate the Bible—if they could learn the various sciences to the extent to which acquaintauce with them is ordinarily carried by persons of that class, in order to illustrate the Bible—he believed a larger portion of secular education would be acquired by them, than if they were cast upon the sciences, without anything scriptural and sacred whereupon to found their studies; that, in short, by making the Bible the foundation of all, and applying secular science to illustrate it, they would learn a larger amount of science, than if trained in those schools where nothing but science was taught. A third question, an answer to which, he frankly owned, seemed to involve more difficulty than either of those that preceded it, was this—whether it were lawful for the State to give its aid to those who did not belong to the Church? The difficulty of answering that question was somewhat increased by what appeared to him a little difficulty, in distinctly understanding the precise meaning of the noble Marquess. Did the noble Marquess mean to ask, whether it were lawful for the State to give its aid generally to persons who did not belong to the Church, which the State recognized as teaching the truth; or whether the State was entitled to give instruction to others for the purpose of teaching them erroneous doctrines in religion? He could not answer the question, unless he knew in what way the noble Marquess meant it to apply.
The Marquess of Lansdownesaid, his question was, whether it were fit for the State, under particular circumstances, to provide, in the most effectual manner, for the better and improved education of the people not belonging to the Church.
The Bishop of Exetersaid, if he was then asked whether the State were gene-

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Tally to assist in the education of persons who did not belong to the Church recognized by the State, he would answer most readily, he thought it right that the State should give such assistance. But, if asked whether the State should give it specially in the way of teaching doctrines which the State believed to be false in religion, then he said, with equal candour, the State would depart from its first duty, if it dared to do so.
The Marquess of Lansdowne.—I said, the State should provide for the education; I did not say for the spiritual and religious instruction, but for the secular education of the people.
The Bishop of Exeterwas glad the noble Marquess had given that explanation. He assented to the principle. [The Marquess of Lansdowne—In England]—Well, in England be it; although if the principle were just in England, it would not become unjust by crossing the water. That would be a more extraordinary mode of doing justice to Ireland than he believed had yet been suggested. He was glad, however, to find, that on inquiry, the opinions of the noble Marquess so far approximated to his own, and that as far as England at least was concerned, they were perfectly agreed. The noble Marquess had asked whether the education in England was in a satisfactory state! God knew he thought in a most unsatisfactory state. He thought with the noble Marquess that there were myriads of their fellow-subjects, of their fellow-Christians, of their fellow heirs of immortality, left in a condition so eloquently depicted by the noble Marquess. The noble Marquess called upon them to recollect the 80,000 poor children in Manchester and the neighbourhood immersed in the very abyss of ignorance and vice; and he said, if they left them there, they might punish their crimes indeed, but the guilt of those crimes would rest on other heads. There again he rejoiced entirely to agree with the noble Marquess; but then he must carry his principle a little further back. He should say, if it were the duty of the State, as he most cordially and entirely agreed with the noble Marquess it was, to rescue those unhappy persons from that tremendous position in which they had been left, whose, he must ask, was the fault of their being so left? Was it to be attributed to the neglect of the Church? Had the Church been the cause of that tremendous extent of misery which had accompanied the exten-
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sion of our manufactories? Had the State been ready to assist the Church, in giving the blessed truths of the gospel to those which the state was most anxious to breed up and encourage in those very occupations which, if left to themselves, could only terminate in ignorance and vice of the most fearful character? No, never had there been such virtue in the State of England since the Reformation. He grieved to say, that illustrious and blessed era had not been without the most grievous stains, and the greatest of all was, the niggard manner in which the State of England since that period had dealt out the means of spiritual instruction. Had the Slate then stood forward, and rescued from the grasp of a tyrant that ecclesiastical wealth which he applied to pamper his minions, and at the same time to feed his own vices, there would have been means by which spiritual instructors would have been provided for the instruction of a large proportion of those whose distressed situation was so well described by the noble Marquess. Not only then; at no period since, with one great exception, had the State stood forward us she ought to hav done upon this question. The exception to which he alluded was afforded by the conduct of one of the best and purest of. men—whether the ablest of statesmen he did not affect to decide—he meant Mr. Perceval. That excellent man—that truly Christian statesman—even at a time when our finances were most dilapidated, and when there were the largest demands upon our pecuniary resources, proposed a vote of 100,000 l. for extending the means of spiritual instruction to the people, through the increase of small livings. That vote was continued for eleven years. Why had it been discontinued? Because Parliament, after having, by God's blessing, been permitted to carry the country through the greatest dangers with which any country was ever yet visited, thought fit to cast off all recollection of its Almighty patron, and rather than continue this boon for that blessed purpose, discontinued the 100,000 l. to its own lasting disgrace, even in the midst of peace. There were persons now present not altogether guiltless of that error; there were some who were ready to complain of the tremendous destitution of religious knowledge in the manufacturing districts who had some share in preventing Parliament doing its duty in that respect: he hoped when such recollected this, they would be willing to make the only reparation in their power—a reparation which, by

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God's blessing, they might yet be able to make—by giving additional means of Church extension in this country. Without that, it would be in vain to look for any benefit to be derived from those schemes of education which were devised from time to time; without that, he would not say it was insincerity he would not say it was hypocrisy, but he would say it was gross inconsistency, for the noble Marquess, and those who thought and spoke with him, to get up in that House and speak of the tremendous destitution in the manufacturing districts, and even hint that it had in any degree been occasioned by the want of exertion on the part of the Church. He was glad to hear the noble Marquess did not even intend to hint that it was owing to neglect on the part of the Church. He did not wish his observations to be taken as exclusively applicable to any Government—they applied to noble Lords opposite, highly as he honoured them, in a greater degree than noble Lords on the Ministerial side of the House. The commenced that deplorable desertion of the highest duty of the State; and if they wished to retrieve themselves, they must retrace their steps and take care that there was a clergyman in every part of the country ready to give instruction, and then there would be neither the same extent of religious dissent nor of crime which unhappily now prevailed. The noble Marquess had mentioned something about Sir William Courteney. Other schemes might give a better result; but undoubtedly the plan of the noble Marquess was liable to this observation—if there had been one of his model schools in Kent, those misguided individuals who believed Thom to be inspired would have chosen him as their teacher, if their numbers had been sufficient to come within the rule laid down by the committee of Privy Council, they might have received assistance from the State in propogating their doctrines. He did not think the noble Marquess gained much by his reference to Sir William Courteney. After the very able and lucid statement of the most rev. Prelate, he should not detain their Lordships with many observations. The noble Marquess had complained of the introduction of words from Lord J. Russell's letter, as descriptive of the present system, but as that letter was enumerated with the other documents mentioned in the resolutions, he could not help thinking that the objection, which had been taken in the shape of a verbal criticism he supposed, was a little
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beneath the noble Marquess. It was important further to consider what was the precise state of things at present. No fewer than three plans of education had been in existence under the authority of her Majesty's Government since the 1st of January 1839: first the plan under the Treasury minute of August 3, 1832; that was superseded by the measure of April 13,1839; and that had finally been not superseded by being placed side by side with the Order in Council of June 3. He said not superseded—and why? It was quite plain, from the whole tenour of these documents, that all the matters explained in the order of April 3, were not only contemplated as possible, but cherished as most desirable to be carried into effect whenever opportunity offered. The model school was stated as the very first thing the committee had to carry into effect. The noble Marquess assented to that condition, and the Queen's sanction was given upon that understanding. True, there might be inconvenience in carrying it into effect—difficulties had arisen, but the House had not been told whether those difficulties arose in relation to schools, or whether they proceeded from quarters much more important, which made it much more difficult to get rid of the objections. Under the appearance of withdrawing it, the scheme was hidden under a mass of words, and thus the design had been covered from the eyes of the unknowing. If the difficulty arose from Parliament, it was quite clear that when Parliament ceased to sit, the difficulty would at the same time cease also. This, which the committee were so anxious to carry into effect, must depend upon a certain concurrence of opinion, of which they were to be the sole judges. Now, their Lordships would recollect, that her Majesty had been advised to express her decided approbation of the course pursued by the noble Marquess, from which they must be aware that the committee would carry into effect the purpose avowed, so soon as they perceived the concurrence of opinion assumed to be necessary for that purpose. He should not then take upon himself to reply at any length to all the observations of the noble Marquess; but there was one made by him, in answer to the most rev. Prelate, upon which, perhaps, he might be permitted to make a remark—it related to the special and general religious instruction of the pupils with whose education it was intended to interfere. They had been told that a religious principle was to enter into

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the whole scheme of instruction; that it was to direct and govern the whole, but that special religious instruction was to be reserved for stated periods. The noble Marquess told them, that the general religious instruction was to embrace the general mass of opinions upon which all Christians were agreed. It might, perhaps, have been better to describe it as including those truths only which were admitted by all who professed any religion whatever; but even that would be grossly inconsistent with the principles previously professed by the noble Marquess himself, for Mahometans, Hindoos, and other inhabitants of India, were in respect of their education to become objects of care and attention to the Government of this country. He would take the nature of the general religious instruction to be imparted on the noble Marquesses own showing; and he would take the liberty of asking what were the truths in common amongst all classes of Christians? Short as were many of the documents laid on the Table of their Lordships' House upon this subject, he would take upon himself to say, that the shortest amongst them would not be found so short as the catalogue of those truths, were it correctly made out. There was hardly a dogma left unquestioned by one class of Christians or another; the commission itself, short as it was, would be much longer than any such catalogue. He, of course, deeply regretted that all the truths of religion were not received; but there was only one fair way of dealing by all men in this matter. If there were one plan more partial and unequal in its operation than another—if he were called on to devise one which should have partiality for its basis, he declared that he did not think he could devise any which could exceed the present in its injustice. The fact was, it brought the State to pay for those who had the least religion, by striking off every disputed doctrine. Then it provided that the moral instruction of the children should proceed without reference to their religious instruction. He desired to know if the noble Marquess, as a Christian, was willing that his child should learn his duty to his neighbour—should be instructed in his moral duties as a man, without being informed of the state in which he was in as a man—as a fallen man, incapable of the performance of his duties, unless assisted by divine grace? Did the House for a moment suppose that there could be any moral training, any moral regulation or sanctity, unless in
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conjunction with the higher doctrines of Christianity? Having so long trespassed upon their Lordships' attention, he should forbear from touching many subjects which he felt ought to be noticed; and he was the more strengthened in his resolution to avoid them when he recollected how much more powerfully they would be handled by others.
The Bishop of Durhamwas understood to say, that when on former occasions he had felt it his duty to state his views on the subject of education, he had professed himself to be favourable to normal schools, and he continued of that opinion. In reference to the subject then more immediately under their Lordships' consideration, he felt bound to call their attention to the fact, that the national schools, the British and Foreign Schools, and the schools established at Glasgow, had partaken of the Government grants. He had endeavoured to make himself as fully acquainted as he possibly could with the real condition of the people in reference to education, and he therefore sought his information from those who were, as he had reason to think, best informed upon the subject. An imputation had been cast upon the Government, as if they rashly jumped to a conclusion the very reverse of that which they had adopted in 1838. This, he thought, an unjust imputation, though he did not profess to know what considerations had more immediately induced the Government to adopt the course which they appeared resolved to pursue, but he was aware of many circumstances which might have had that effect. In the course of the last year, both Houses of Parliament had received various petitions from different parts of the country, praying the adoption of an extended and general scheme of education. There was hardly any subject by which public feeling had been so much agitated; but it was one which ought to be decided by facts, and not by mere speculation; he had therefore endeavoured to procure as full information as he could possibly obtain respecting the state of crime and the relation subsisting between it and education, or rather the want of education. In the acquisition of such information as he had obtained on the subject, he had been much assisted by the Poor law Commissioners, and had received a considerable portion of that information through the kindness of Mr. Chadwick. From all the

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documents and information which he could ' collect, it appeared that there existed a very general desire, and, indeed, a great necessity for the adoption of a more popular system of education—more applicable to the instruction of the lower classes throughout the country. Considering the improvement that had taken place on the Continent, and the very great comparative ignorance existing in England, he felt that the Government were warranted in enlarging their grant, and in giving such latitude to its dispensation by the new orders in Council as would probably give rise to a progressive and indefinite extension of the benefits derivable from a sound system o f national education.
Earl Fitzwilliamhad heard, with great pleasure, the speeches of the most rev. Prelate who opened the debate, and of the right rev. Prelate who had just sat down; but it was a pleasure arising from very dissimilar causes, on account of the different materials of these two speeches. Towards the conclusion of his speech, the most rev. Prelate said, that if the Church ceased to teach pure morals and a right faith in Christianity, religion and the State should cast off the Church. He trusted that no individual in that House thought that the Church should be cast off on either of these grounds, or on any grounds; but it did not appear to him that this was a ground upon which could be built the conclusions to which the most rev. Prelate, and the right rev. Prelate who followed him, had arrived. He would take the liberty of complaining, that neither of these reverend Prelates had grappled with the true question before their Lordships. If, indeed, this was a new system, now projected for the first time by her Majesty's Ministers, then the most rev. Prelate might be justified in omitting to allude to this most important feature in the present debate which he now shrunk from grappling with. But the fact was, that a grant of money for similar purposes to the present, had been made in five successive Sessions by the House of Commons. He should have expected, therefore, that any person endued with reasoning faculties, in objecting to this proceeding at the present time, would have endeavoured to point out some glaring inconsistency between the present proposal and that which had been sanctioned by so many successive votes of the House of Commons. From that task, however, the most rev. Prelate, and the
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right rev. Prelate who followed him in debate, had shrunk. Distinctions had been attempted to be drawn, but of real and substantial differences not one had been advanced. Now, with respect to the first ground of objection, it could surely not be looked upon as a substantial difference, whether the grant was to be applied through the hands of the Lord President, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary for the Home Department, or those of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and three or four of the junior Lords of the Treasury. Another ground of objection was, as to this scheme being in connection with certain societies now existing; but he thought that the committee to be appointed were not bound to follow the rule now acted upon, and that it was not advisable that they should follow it. The other difference was, that previous subscriptions by individuals were not demanded on behalf of those schools to which the grants were made. The effect of enforcing the existing rule in reference to this subject was this, that education was denied to those localities which, from their poverty, stood in the greatest need of it. Therefore, although he admitted that, as a general rule, it was desirable that this plan should exist where there were local funds, and where there were persons whose means enabled them to subscribe, yet he thought that under other circumstances the system ought not to be strictly carried out. He took the liberty of saying, that among those who admired the speech of the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Exeter), there were many who admired it for a variety of qualities. In the course of his address, the right rev. Prelate had taken occasion to pass no very measured censure upon all those who had sat in Parliament before him, whether in this or the other House of Parliament. During a period of three centuries, according to his views, the conduct of the State had deserved the severest animadversion; but he thought that, during a period of ten or eleven years, the State had done its duty to the people of this country. But what was done during those few years—that exception to which the right rev. Prelate alluded? There was a grant made of 100,00 l. a-year. But what was the object of that grant? Was it for the good of the people—was it for the purpose of affording them instruction—was it for the purpose of rescuing them

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from the dangers in which they were involved by the non-teaching of them in the truths of Christianity? No, no such thing; but the only object was that of increasing the value of small livings. He did not disapprove of that object; he thought it was a worthy and proper one; but he begged leave to say, that that money was given to the ministers of the Church, and did not in any way necessarily increase the religious instruction of the people.—[A noble Lord: "It increased residence."] No, it did not even increase residence; the building of glebe-houses would have promoted that object, but this sum was not given for that purpose, and the noble Lord who had interrupted him must show that the clergyman, in consequence of the increased value of his living, was a better pastor than he was when he had only his 70 1. or 80 l. a-year, in order to make out his proposition. He repeated, that he did not object to the grant, but he contended that it was not given for the benefit of the flocks; and besides that, it had no reference at all to the population of the parishes in which the minister lived; but that it was solely given in reference to the poverty of the living, and, therefore, solely and entirely for the minister of the Church, and the complaint which the people had a right to make was, that the Government had an eye to the ministers of the Church; and omitted all care of the flocks which they superintended. Now he would advert to a part of the speech of the right rev. Prelate to which he must confess he had listened with great surprise. His observation referred to the words he had used, that there was not a dogma of Christianity that had not been denied. There was no doubt that the subtleness of a mind like that of the right rev. Prelate might find the means of suggesting a denial to every dogma; but would the right rev. Prelate get up in his place, and say, that there were not many dogmas of Christianity which were acceded to by every religious sect in the empire? He had heard the expression of opinion on the part of the right rev. Prelate with the greatest pain, and with the strongest impression of the danger which such an opinion might produce out of doors. It appeared to him that persons disposed to take the same views with regard to the education and instruction of the people as the right rev. Prelate, were inclined to look upon them,
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as not being calculated to make the people more Christian, but, on the contrary produce a directly opposite tendency. Now if that were the truth, that the more know, ledge a man might acquire, and the more accomplished he might be, and the more competent to appreciate intellectual pleasures, the less fitted he was to receive the doctrines of Christianity. [No, no.] That was the argument; but he conceived that the truth was directly the contrary, and that the more educated the man might be the more disposed he would be to receive the truths of Christianity with greater spirit. He believed that between the two plans there was no such difference as to justify the House taking a course different from that which had been before adopted, and he should give his vote in favour of the previous question; but at the same time he must be candid and fair to his noble Friends on the ministerial benches. The noble Marquess had endeavoured to show, and he thought that Iris endeavour had been attended with considerable success, that there were reasons for not forming on this occasion that sort of board which should be formed if it were to assume a permanent character; but at the same time he had little doubt that the formation of a committee had led to a great deal of misunderstanding and misrepresentation out of doors; and therefore, although, as he had before said, the noble Marquess had well defended the system, he did not conceive, viewing the question as a matter of expediency, that her Majesty's Ministers had been well advised in the course which they had taken—he meant well-advised in its limited sense, so far as their interests were concerned. That there was anything to complain of in the constitution of the committee he was far from believing; for he thought that a committee of the Privy Council was no worse than that which had before been in existence. He would now refer to a branch of the subject from which the noble Marquess had, most unfortunately, been compelled to recede—he meant the establishment of normal schools. Few of their Lordships, he trusted, had not in some portion of their lives been concerned in establishing schools; he would therefore appeal to every noble Lord whether the greatest difficulty which they had felt in taking such a course had not been in finding good schoolmasters? Such difficulties met them at the very out-

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set, and great, indeed, were the qualifications required for conducting schools well. He most sincerely lamented, therefore that his noble Friends had been under the necessity of abandoning that part of their scheme; but while he did so, he augured well for the attempt which they made, and if it should not be successful in their hands, he took leave to say that it would drive many others up to the collar, and so secure the general object of education. The money in this instance had been voted, and he trusted that her Majesty's Ministers would be advised by men who would have sufficient firmness to give a proper answer to the address which he did not doubt would be presented. All that he had to say was, that if her Majesty's advisers should yield to the address, and those who framed it, they would betray the best interests of the country; and if, under the dictation of lay Lords, or of spiritual Lords, they neglected their duty, they would lose sight of the great interests of the people, whom they would deprive of the 30,000 l. granted by Parliament, and all the benefits which the proceedings taken by the two Houses of Parliament during the last five years had conferred upon them. The House could not get out of that. They had acquiesced in these votes for five years, and they knew very well why they had done so. It was because they knew and felt the great interests of the people of England, and they knew their duty too well to make any objection to them. He believed that to whatever vote they might come that evening, there were few among them who would think it right that his noble Friend should give that advice to her Majesty which he had suggested; but he cautioned them that if by their act the people of England were disappointed and discontented and evil were produced, the responsibility which the Ministers would in the first instance incur would recoil back upon their Lordships' heads with redoubled force.
The Bishop of Norwichrose with great diffidence at that hour of the night, because he knew that noble Lords opposite seeing him sitting where he did, might be somewhat surprised at hearing that his opinion was not in accordance with their own; but at the same time he did not hesitate to express that opinion in opposition even to his right reverend Friends, because, although be was aware that he was opposed to them, he felt that they were all engaged
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in the attainment of the one great object. They might be going in different paths, but he hoped and trusted that their end, and aim, and object were the same; and he hoped that the right reverend Prelates would aid the Government by every means in their power to do that which would promote the welfare of the people, and the establishment of a good system of education. He rejoiced that he had heard the right reverend Prelate near him (the Bishop of London) declare the other evening that the clergy of the Church of England claimed to have the education of the flocks committed to their charge. He said that he rejoiced to hear this, because it was a refutation of the charge which had been made against the clergy, and of the calumnies heaped upon them, that they were in a state of apathy; and when that refutation was given he was convinced that the people of England would at no future time hear that calumny repeated. No, the clergy would be ready to educate the people, and he hoped that their energy and their zeal would be always displayed in that great and important purpose. In this view of his opinion he went beyond the right rev. Prelate, and he thought that if the clergy of England were what they were and would be, they would proceed not only to the education of their own flocks, but to that of the masses of the people. Considering that clergymen now were in the habit of humbling themselves to go among the middling, and even the very lowest classes, and of acting as their friend and consoler in the day of trial and tribulation, surely such men as these, to whom the latch of every cottage door was open, and who were welcome every where, were worthy to be trusted with the education of the people, and he pitied the dissenter who would not hold out the hand of fellowship to a clergyman who thus performed the duties of his mission. When he saw the great change which had taken place in our Church—when he remembered that at one time it required that some moral courage should be exerted to mention the word education and to support the enlargement of the mind, at a time when we were fettered in having a most insignificant degree of education doled out to us, might be not anticipate the future great changes which would be made? He recollected the times when infant schools were even looked upon as dangerous to the Church;

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for he remembered when he was taunted, and that by a clergyman, upon that subject, because, forsooth! it was considered that they were engines of Socinianism, and were looked upon as engines to undermine the Church. Socinianism from infants in the cradle? Danger to the Church from puerile delinquents, and from delinquents in the nursery! Such facts showed that great changes had taken place, and he looked forward to the time when the Church of England would practise toleration as well as profess it. There were differences in this question of such a nature that he thought it ought to have been discussed dispassionately, but would appeal to their Lordships and the world whether it had been calmly and dispassionately considered? How had it been received? By exaggerated falsehood—by every degree of obloquy—and by every degree of vituperation that could be heaped upon the Government. Surely this was not the way to receive it. How would the Church have looked if every defect in the system had been pointed out with the microscopic eye of observation? The fact was, that every one had a plan of his own, hammered out upon his own anvil, to which he sedulously attached himself. To say that the Government scheme was perfect would be untrue. There might be many defects, and many points which required explanation; but the country had condemned the plan without inquiry or explanation. Was this fair? [laughter.] This might be jocular; but he did not think that noble Lords were treating the subject with that seriousness which was required. In the first place, he admitted that there was a great defect as regarded the Church and Clergy. They might be anxious and willing to educate the people, but they were not sufficiently numerous, energetic, and anxious as they might be to educate the great number of persons to whom they would obtain access. He appealed to the right rev. Prelate below him (the Bishop of London), and he would tell the House that there were fourteen or fifteen parishes in which there was only one clergyman to 15,000 persons. How, then, could the clergy carry education to such masses? Again, there was a difficulty in educating churchmen and dissenters together. That was a very serious question, and it required great tact and judgment to manage it. He was not a novice in education, for the greater
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part of his life had been spent among the humble classes of the people. He knew what they could do; their feelings and passions; and he gave it as his deliberate conviction that they might be educated together, though of different persuasions. He now came to a very delicate question—that which had been so much touched upon during the evening—he meant the system of education in which religious instruction was divided into general and special. This subject had been before alluded to, and harsh language had been used towards the Ministers for making this subdivision. He would read the words which had been used. They were—"Where was the distinction founded between general and special religion? What authority had they for it? Where did they find it? Did they find it in the primitive fathers, in the founders of the Reformed Church, or in the Bible itself? Such a distinction was reserved for the crude and presumptuous analysis of the Committee of Privy Council." Now he could give an answer to this. The Members of the Privy Council had either the merit of starting a most valuable discovery, or they had committed a plagiarism upon a man whose character was without reproach. If it were a plagiarism it was one of which they ought not to be ashamed, for the man from whom, they copied was neither more nor less than a right rev. Prelate, whose name when he mentioned it would command universal esteem—he meant Daniel Wilson, bishop of Calcutta. Now, he would tell the House what had been done. There was an establishment in India called the Martiniere Institution, which was instituted by a person, named Martin, who went abroad as a private soldier, but who amassed a large fortune, and dying a major-general, left his money for the support of the establishment for the education of the people, upon the principles of general education without reference to their creed. In that establishment the religious instruction of the children was divided into two parts, the one general and the one other particular. Then, what was the general sytem? It embraced the fundamental truths of Christianity as they were held in common by the five existing great divisions of Christendom; while the other related to discipline, Church-government, the sacraments and other matters on which differences more or less existed.

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The Committee which had been appointed to frame the plan in their Report, considered that the first part should be taught daily and publicly to all the children by the head master of the school, while the second should be taught privately and on particular days by the ministers and teachers whom the parents might, with the approbation of the governors, select. The report then proceeded to point out the general doctrines which were taught. When they saw such a system, therefore, carried on with such admirable effect, he thought it was too much to complain of a system so strongly resembling that of the Martiniere, without some explanation being required and afforded upon the subject. Another part of the same plan was now under consideration. It would be asked how the Bishop of Calcutta acted with respect to the difficult case of the Scriptures. He spoke of two versions—
"As it respects the versions of the Holy Scriptures, your Committee are not aware that the Greek and Armenian churches have any English version of their own. The English and Scotch Churches use the authorized English version. It remains only that the Church of Rome be considered, which has long possessed a version of its own—that of Douay and Rheims."
One great point made against the present plan in England was that the Douay version was to be used by the Catholics. Now, what was the Douay or Rheimish version? It was a translation from the Vulgate. With respect to that book, what had the University of Oxford done? In 1679 the University of Oxford had published an edition of the Vulgate, and pronounced the text of that translation of the Scriptures to be superior to every other that existed. This was about sixty years after the publication of our own version? But then they might say that the Rheimish translation of the Testament was a corruption of the Vulgate. What did the University of Oxford do with respect to that? When the French emigrants were driven, during the excesses of the Revolution, to seek in crowds an asylum in this country, it was singular that the University of Oxford published a large edition of the Rheimish version, and disseminated it among that people, who received it as a boon worthy of the University of Oxford to bestow. He was willing to admit that a gloom now hung over them—he readily
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admitted the difficulties they had to encounter; but it would not be long before the mist would be cleared away, or before the light would penetrate that gloom. He saw amongst them much that tended to promote prejudices and angry passions; but the time would come when those prejudices and those angry passions would sink like dross to the bottom, and when there would rise to the top the buoyant principles full of hope and success, and when they would gather the fruit, the seeds of which the Government had spread most abundantly abroad—when, instead of being controversialists, fighting each other face to face, they would go hand in hand, and often instead of entering into these controversies, they would unite to combat their common, their more powerful enemy, ignorance and vice, and profligacy. It was their duty to join hand to hand, and heart to heart, the churchman and the dissenter, to conquer that common enemy of their common country; and although her Majesty's present Ministers might not live to see the fruits, they had sown the seeds which no power could crush; they would germinate, they would shoot up; they would spread and all should look forward with joy to the time—all should cherish—all cling to the hope that the consequence of what her Majesty's Ministers had done would be that the people of England will be educated.
The Bishop of Londonspoke as follows:*At this late hour of the night, and in an atmosphere resembling that of the diocese (Calcutta) to which my right rev. Friend (the Bishop of Norwich) seems to wish me translated, it is very unwillingly that I trespass upon your Lordships' notice; but the subject in debate is one of such urgent and paramount importance, one in which I am so deeply interested as Bishop of the most populous and influential diocese in England, that I feel it to be inconsistent with the duty which I owe to the Church and to the country, not to offer a few observations to your Lordships before the discussion is brought to a close. The right rev. Prelate who has just sat down, and to whom I give full credit for sincerity in the wish which he expresses, that all men may be brought to a community of religious sentiment, although I am less sanguine
*From a corrected report published by Fellowes,

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than he is as to its fulfilment, has also expressed a hope, that the Church of England may in time be as tolerant in practice as she is in theory. My Lords, I will not enter upon a discussion of this point any further than to observe, that if there be a church in the whole world, which deserves the character of toleration in practice, as well as in theory, it is the Church of England. Nay, my Lords, I am by no means sure, that she is not more tolerant in practice than in theory: I am not sure, that toleration has not been extended, in fact, further than is consistent with the Church's constitution. Not that I complain of this. I would not, if I could, retrace a single Step which has been taken in that direction. I only allude to the fact, as a proof, that the Church's practice deserves at least as much praise as her theory, in respect of toleration. Now as to the subject, more immediately before us, it is with unfeigned reluctance, my Lords, that I declare my purpose for voting for resolutions, which are in effect condemnatory of a highly important measure, which has received the deliberate and determined sanction of her Majesty's Government; so determined indeed, that they persevere in it, notwithstanding the loudly expressed disapprobation of the country at large, upon the strength of an insignificant majority of two in another assembly, against an over- whelming majority of the people, testified by about 3,000 petitions against the measure, to 100 in favour of it; a proportion of thirty to one. It is the more painful to me to pursue the course, which I feel it to be my duty to take, because this measure has assumed a shape, which gives it the semblance of having received the personal approbation and sanction of the Sovereign herself, the temporal head of our Church. I know, however, that this is not necessarily the case. I know that I am to deal with this measure as a measure determined upon, not by her Majesty, but by her Ministers; but still, the form, in which it comes before us, makes it the more painful to me to stand up for the purpose of opposing it. In applying, as I feel myself compelled to apply, the language of censure to the measure which has been adopted by her Majesty's Government with reference to the important question of public education, I hope I shall not be considered as imputing unworthy motives to any of the individuals who compose that Government. I shall without hesitation charge them j with erroneous principles, leading to inju-
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rious results; but I do not ascribe to them any deliberate intention of producing those results, by setting at work a machinery, which, if it be suffered to move on unimpeded through all the stages of that process, to which its functions are adapted, will undermine and weaken, if it does not ultimately subvert and overthrow, the Established Church of this country. Least of all am I disposed to impute any such design to the noble Marquess, the President of the Council, and of this Education Committee, who has assured us to-night, as he has often done before, of his attachment to the Established Church. He knows too well how inseparably the best interests of the country are bound up with the well-being and efficiency of that Church, to give his approval or assistance to any measure which he should perceive, or even suspect, to be, in its tendencies, likely to impair its strength or to lessen its usefulness. But, my Lords, while I give full credit to her Majesty's Ministers for the rectitude of their motives, I must deal freely and unreservedly with their measures; and I frankly confess, that the measure before us is of such a nature, that it requires no trifling exercise of that charity which thinketh no evil, not to be suspicious of their motives. But I again declare, that I acquit them of any deliberate intention of bringing about the results which are to be apprehended from this scheme. I believe them to be acting under the advice, and from the impulse of others, whose intentions are less friendly to us than their own. I think they are in the hands of a party hostile to the Church, and bent upon its destruction, who entertain the hope of securing their assistance, as instruments for carrying their own pernicious designs into effect. That there is such a party in the country, a party bent upon destroying its dearest and best institutions, is a fact which cannot have escaped the observation of your Lordships; a party not perhaps very numerous, certainly not very respectable: but active, sagacious, persevering in their endeavours; constantly at work about the very foundations of the Monarchy and the Church, and knowing perfectly well, that through the medium of the Church the Monarchy may be most successfully assailed; for if the Church falls, my Lords, all the other glorious and happy institutions of the country will follow; if ever the Church should be cast down, it will involve the Throne in its ruin. I speak advisedly, when I say, that there is a party in the

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country entertaining these designs; seeking, without much attempt at concealment, to accomplish them; and intending to employ popular education, as a most effective instrument for that purpose. Some, no doubt, are associated with them, in their plans for extending education, who are little aware of their ulterior objects. It is now nearly two years since I warned your Lordships, and the country at large, against the machinations of this party. I took occasion, upon presenting an important petition from the inhabitants of Cheltenham on the subject of National Education, to caution you against the schemes, which were put forth and recommended by a society, comprising in the list of its members some persons, eminent for station, for uprightness of conduct, and for benevolence, whose names, I must think, have been given to that society in ignorance of the designs which its chief promoters have in view, and of the results to which they tend; I mean the Central Society of Education. Their avowed object is, to induce, if possible, the Government of this country to interpose its authority for the purpose of separating religious and secular education; to withdraw the superintendance of it from the Church; to subvert our national system; and to substitute for it one exclusively secular. It is openly declared by one of the chief advocates of their plans, that the absolute and entire exclusion of the Bible from the secular school, is a sine qua non to the establishment of any National system of Education. I think I have a right to urge her Majesty's Government not to adopt or sanction any such plans as these; but I think I am also justified in expressing some apprehension of their doing so. I trust that I am not dealing with them uncandidly or unfairly, when I say that the Society in question appears to me to have been, directly or indirectly, the adviser of the Government in the present instance; seeing that the plan, first put forth by the Committee of Privy Council, agrees perfectly in substance, almost in words, with that referred to by the most reverend Prelate who moved the resolutions, as being contained in one of the society's publications.
But the Central Society of Education, my Lords, is not the only body which is labouring with mischievous activity to accomplish the same objects, and to prevail upon the Government to establish some such system of education as this, in lieu of that which is connected with the Church
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of England. There is another Society, formed of the professed enemies of the Church, calling itself "The Society for promoting Religious Equality," which has lately passed certain resolutions, and this is one of them:
"That to compel any one to contribute to the support of religious rites of which he disapproves, or to the ministers of a church from which he conscientiously dissents, is manifestly unjust, and at variance with the spirit and principles of Christianity: that State establishments, by which any particular Church, or sect, is selected as the object of political favour and patronage, and its clergy are invested with exclusive rights and secular preeminence, involve a violation of equity towards other denominations, and are the occasion of inevitable social discord."
All this is very well; it is a plain declaration of hostility to the Church, which is no more than was to be expected from persons who are at enmity with all religious establishments. Indeed, it is no more than was declared, I believe, by a deputation of Dissenters who waited upon Earl Grey, when Premier, and who said that nothing would satisfy them, short of the entire subversion of the Church Establishment. But how do they expect to accomplish their object? How is the end to be attained? Their address discloses the secret. They say,—
"On every hand, in some shape or other, the Church and State question meets the politician. It is the Tithe question in Ireland; the Church-extension question in Scotland; the Church-rate question, and the Education question, and the University question in England."
And this reminds me of cautioning your Lordships how you admit the principles which the Government seems prepared to adopt; for if they are brought into full operation in the education of the poorer classes, you may expect them to be forced upon our Universities. The resolution continues:—
"In no measure of legislation are the social and religious interests of all denominations more deeply involved, than in those relating to national education, in reference to which a false step on the part of the Legislature will be with difficulty retrieved,"
These persons, my Lords, may be considered as representing the party to whom I have alluded, and the first step towards the accomplishment of their objects, seems to me to have been taken, and the general outline of their plans to have been sketched, in the scheme put forth by the Committee

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of Privy Council. With respect to the part which the clergy have taken in this great question, they have frequently, but not in express terms in this night's debate, been charged with being opposed to the general diffusion of knowledge. My Lords, no persons are more sensible than the clergy are, of the evils which flow from ignorance, and of the duty incumbent upon them, as upon every enlightened Christian, to do all in their power towards removing the cause of those evils: nor can it be truly said of them, that they have been negligent or remiss in the performance of that duty. The most rev. Primate has already stated in detail, the exertions which have been made by our Reformed Church in the cause of education; but I think he has not mentioned the precise increase of the means of education which has been effected during the last twenty years by those exertions. By the returns made to Parliament in 1833, the total number of children in the kingdom receiving daily education, was 1,276,947; of whom, the dissenting schools contained 51,822, or one twenty-fourth of the whole: and the increase, since the year 1818, was 671,248, from which, if one twenty-fourth be deducted, there will remain 643,280 additional scholars, the fruits of the church's efforts during the abovenamed period. The Dissenters, therefore, being somewhat less than one-sixth of the population, (if the Wesleyans be deducted, they are less than one-seventh, are educating one twenty-fourth of the whole number of children receiving daily education. In Sunday schools, which by the way had their origin in the Church, the disproportion of numbers is not so great. Compare, then, my Lords, the million of children who are now receiving education in schools connected with the Church, with the total number educated in any schools, before the time when that great impulse was given to the public mind, which led to the formation of the British and Foreign School Society and the National School Society, and you will not be disposed to charge the Church With supineness in the work of education; certainly not the clergy, who have been at all times the most liberal contributors to schools, in many cases supporting them entirely at their own expense, and almost universally devoting their time and talents to the superintendence and management of their Parochial and Sunday Schools. A just tribute was paid to the disinterested and useful labours of that excellent body of men in a speech delivered nineteen years ago,
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in another place, by a noble and learned Lord, who has devoted so much of his time and great abilities to the subject of education; a tribute, of which I am sure he will not now be disposed to retract a single word. But I know it will be said, in answer to these statements, "It is all very true; we admit the correctness of your numbers; we acknowledge that you have a great many schools, and a respectable roll-call of scholars; but what is the education which you give them? It is a worthless and bad education." Now, when we proceed to inquire a little more particularly into the grounds of this charge, we find, that the badness of our education consists principally in this, that we devote too much time, as they think, to religious instruction, to the study and explanation of the Bible, and too little to the objects of instructing the children of the poor in those branches of secular knowledge, and those mechanical arts, which may be useful to them in after-life. My Lords, we are content to bear this imputation. We acknowledge that we hold the great object of education to be, the training up of immortal beings, admitted by baptism into a special relation to their Maker, to a meetness for fulfilling the duties of that relation. We hold it to be more beneficial to them, and more incumbent upon us, to give them a knowledge of God and of themselves, of their duties and their destiny; to form their habits of thought and action by the rules of truth, and holiness, and charity, than to imbue them very deeply (and yet we would imbue them as deeply as a due attention to the more important object may permit) with that secular knowledge which they will be sure to acquire for themselves, if they find it to be serviceable in promoting their advancement in life, and securing to them the world's advantages; a knowledge which, if not sanctified and guided, in its use and application, by the restraints and motives of Christianity, may be, nay, rather, my Lords, will be a curse to them rather than a blessing. Yes, my Lords, I use the words deliberately and advisedly, a curse rather than a blessing. For let me not be told, that the acquisition of knowledge, of whatever kind, cannot under any circumstances be otherwise than beneficial to man as a reasonable being. If, my Lords, we bear in mind that man is not only a reasonable being, but that he is therefore a moral and accountable agent, we shall see, that a broad ground is laid for restricting and qualifying that position. That

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the acquisition of knowledge, commonly so called; that knowledge, which sharpens the wit of man, exercises his faculties, and stores his memory, while it leaves untouched the conscience and the heart, that this does not of necessity benefit the person who acquires it, we learn by the testimony of fact. That education, unsanctified by religion, is evil in its tendencies, and injurious in its results, is the conclusion of sound reason, confirmed by experience. What, my Lords, is the state of the case in France at the present moment? What are the fruits of that system, which takes present utility, and not religious duty, for its mainspring and regulating principle? Do we see anything there, which should encourage us to give that prominence and value to mere secular education, which are given it by the supporters of the Central Society? Many of your Lordships are probably acquainted with the Educational Statistics of M. Guerry, and with the extraordinary results of his very careful and minute inquiries; results which may well shake, if they do not overthrow, the confidence of those who look upon education, as they understand the term, as the grand panacea, of all the evils, moral and political, by which the country is afflicted. His word's are these:—
"While crimes against the person are most frequent in Corsica, the provinces of the South-East, and Alsace, where the people are well instructed, there are the fewest of those crimes in Berri, Limousin, and Brittany, where the people are the most ignorant. And as for crimes against property, it is almost invariably those departments that are best informed which are the most criminal—a fact, which, if the tables be not altogether wrong, must show this to be certain, that if instruction do not increase crime, which may be a matter of dispute, there is no reason to believe that it diminishes it."
It is strange, that the writer, who is an acute and sagacious person, should wholly overlook the cause of this surprising anomaly. It is at least strange that any Christian should overlook it. The cause is neither more nor less than this, that the education, of which he speaks, is a purely secular education, wholly untinctured with religion. I know, my Lords, that the government of France desire it to be otherwise; and I believe, that they are making efforts to supply this fatal defect in their system of education; but it has not yet been supplied. To prove this, I need only quote from a Report made to M. Guizot by one of his agents, who gays of the schools in France,
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"As to moral and religious instruction, there is none at all." The same result is deduced from the educational statistics of America by De Beaumont and De Tocque-ville; and the same cause exists, or nearly the same—namely, that religious instruction, at least that religious instruction which deserves the name, forms no essential part of the established system of education. I state, upon authority which cannot be called in question, that of their own reports, that in America, which is held up to us as a model in this respect to be imitated, and where the governments in different states interfere to make education in some measure compulsory, moral improvement has by no means kept pace with intellectual training. The second report of the Massachussets Board of Education, at the head of which is a person of distinguished ability and learning, Mr. Everett, speaking of the constitutional rule, that no books shall be used in the schools which favour the tenets of any particular sect of Christians, and of the existing scarcity of such books, announces the publication of a series of religious works intended to form a school library. "One series for children, another for maturer readers."
"Each book in the series is to be submitted to the inspection of every Member of the Board; and no work can be recommended but upon their unanimous approval. Such a recommendation, it was believed, would form a sufficient assurance to the public, that a sacred adherence would be had to the principle which is embodied in the legislation of the commonwealth, on the subject of school-books, and which provides, that school-committees shall never direct to be purchased, or used, in any of the town schools, any books which are calculated to favour the tenets of any particular sect of Christians."
And therefore a series of constitutional books are in preparation, which are to teach religion in the general; and if they are to teach any religion worthy of the name, and yet to be free from all peculiar doctrines, I shall be curious to see them. Appended to this document is another report from the Secretary of the committee, Mr. Horace Mann, who discloses, without intending it, the results which have followed from a secular education.
"In my report of last year," he says, "I exposed the alarming deficiency of moral and religious instruction then found to exist in our schools. That deficiency, in regard to religious instruction, could only be explained by supposing that school-committees, whose duty it

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is to prescribe school-books, had not found any books at once expository of the doctrines of revealed religion, and also free from such advocacy of the tenets of particular sects of Christians, as brought them within the scope of the legal prohibition."
Indeed, my Lords, I should have wondered if they had.
"And hence they felt obliged to exclude books, which, but for their denominational views, they would have been glad to introduce. No candid mind could, even for a moment, accept this as an evidence of an indifference to moral and religious instruction in the schools, but only as a proof that proper manuals had not been found, by which the great object of moral and religious instruction could be secured, without any infringement of the statuary regulation. A knowledge of the deficiency, then for the first lime exposed to the public, has turned the attention of some of the friends of education to the subject, and efforts are now making to supply the desideratum. Of course I shall not be here understood as referring to the Scriptures, as it is well known, that they are read in almost all the schools, either as a devotional, or reading book."
And therefore books are to be prepared, which are to answer all the purposes of religious instruction, without inculcating any religious doctrine to which any sect of Christians objects: an undertaking, which if the literati of America shall accomplish, I shall admit, that they have achieved, what till then I must believe to be an impossibility. My Lords, I pursue this line of argument, not for the purpose of disparaging the value of intellectual education, but of shewing that it is even worse than valueless when wholly dissociated from religion; and especially with respect to those classes which form the bulk of the community. Intellectual refinement may perhaps give additional strength to those principles or feelings, such for instance as the principle of honour, which in the higher ranks of society may preserve men from the commission of crime, may fill up those vacant hours which would otherwise be given to gross and debasing recreations, and may serve, as far as this life is concerned, as a substitute, however imperfect, for religious principle. But it is not so with the poor. If they have not religious principle, they have no principle at all. I have exposed the system which in America, in some at least of the United States, effectually excludes religion from the schools. Mr. Mann speaks of the exclusion as "alarming." Let us now see the results. In the State of New York,
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500,000, out of a population of 2,000,000, are at school; one-fourth of the whole. Yet crime is rapidly increasing. In Connecticut, education is still more extended, and nearly one-third of the population is at school; and yet crimes multiply to a frightful extent. The truth is, that the effect of merely intellectual education is, not to diminish the numerical amount of crimes, but to alter their character and complexion; to diminish violence, but to encourage fraud. In Russia, where there is no such thing as popular education, out of 5,800 crimes committed in a certain period, 3,500 were accompanied with violence; while in Pennsylvania, where education is general, out of 7,400 crimes, only 640 were with violence; one-twelfth, instead of three-fifths as in Russia. The records of our own criminal courts exhibit proofs of the same results as flowing from mere intellectual education. The intelligent and pious chaplain of the New Prison at Clerkenwell, says, in. his report of last year;—
"Your chaplain finds daily, that those whose intellects have been most cultivated, are generally the most depraved. Three of the best so educated, now in prison, have been committed, one eight times, another seven or eight, a third twice."
The same clergyman, in his report for the present year, repeats his statement; and he assures me, that the experience of each succeeding year serves to confirm him in the truth of it. But, after all, my Lords, I would not be understood to speak disparagingly of the intellectual part of education; nor to assert that the system, which now prevails in our schools, is by any means perfect. On the contrary, I have on more than one occasion told the clergy of my own diocese, that the education usually given in our National Schools is susceptible of great improvement, and I have exhorted them to labour at improving it. I see no reason why instruction in many branches of human knowledge may not be advantageously given in our schools, provided always that it be so given, as not to subtract from the time and attention which ought to be devoted to the grand and primary object of all. I do not see why, for instance, geography, and history, and the elements of natural philosophy-should not form subjects of teaching; and especially if they are connected, as to a great degree they may be, with the study of the Bible itself. Far from weakening the taste of the learners

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for that sacred book, they will, when judiciously interspersed in the course of religious instruction, give a fresh zest to their scriptural lessons, and make them recur with pleasure to the most important study of all. But, my Lords, this work of improvement has begun, and is steadily, if not rapidly proceeding; and therefore, there is no reason why the Government should interfere with our system. And when we speak of the imperfections which still lessen its efficiency, we ought to remember the difficulties with which we have had to contend in setting forward this great work; the state of things five and twenty years ago, the experimental nature of our plans, the inadequate means we have possessed for carrying them into effect, the ill-qualified hands with which we have been obliged to work our machinery. But still, much has been done; more is now doing; and much more will be done by the Church, if the State fulfils its duty, and provides her with the requisite means. And this brings me, my Lords, to another most important branch of the subject; upon which I almost fear to enter, after having already trespassed so long upon your Lordships' patience; but as it may perhaps spare you the infliction of another speech upon the bill of the noble and learned Lord, to which a great part of my remarks will be applicable, I shall venture to offer some further observations. I am by no means disposed to deny or call in question the right, or the duty, of the State, to interfere in the important concern of education. Whatever of necessity affects the moral condition, the usefulness, the well-being of the people at large, and, in its results, the very existence of social order, must fall within the scope of the State's directing and controlling power. Looking at it only as it concerns the duty, incumbent upon every Government, to prevent, and thereby to obviate the necessity of punishing crime, Education must needs be a State question. A good education, my Lords, that is, a religious education, administered by the teachers of religion, is by far the cheapest, as well as the most effective measure of police which any Government can adopt. My right rev. Friend on my left has, with great feeling and eloquence, depicted the evils which have resulted in the more populous districts of the kingdom from the neglect of Government in not supplying this want. My Lords, if one-tenth part of the vast sums of money which have
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been expended within the last few years upon the erection of gaols, and houses of correction, and penitentiaries, and asylums, had been laid out fifty years ago in building churches and schools, it would, I verily believe, have saved the outlay of a great part of the remaining nine-tenths. But the right of the State to interfere being thus admitted, then arise the questions, how, and how far, and in what direction, and by what means, is that interference to be exercised? And these are questions, my Lords, which cannot at once be determined in the general, by a formulary which shall be equally applicable to all countries, at all times, and under all circumstances: but the solution of the problem must very much depend upon the peculiar features of each separate case. For instance, the same kind and degree of interference which is practised in Prussia, where a despotic government can drive a whole community of Protestant dissidents beyond the limits of its dominions, or, on the other hand, arrest and imprison two archbishops of one of its established churches, may not be suited to the institutions and habits of a free country. Yet the example of Prussia is that which the Central Society of Education holds out for our imitation; urging the adoption of measures which are calculated to pave the way (and I am not sure that the first stone of the road has not already been laid) for the establishment of a system, which the people-, it is admitted, are not yet prepared to submit to; a system, which invests the Government with the whole control and direction of national education, arms it with powers to compel the people to send their children to be educated, and educated upon its own plan; makes, in short, the Government the universal pedagogue, the sole trustee of all charitable funds for education, and the whipper-in of all loiterers in the chase after useful knowledge. But, my Lords, the question of the State's interference in the business of education, as far as our own country is concerned, is in a great degree settled and determined. The State has already interfered, legitimately as J think, and effectually, by establishing a National Church, a great instrument of education, which ought to conduct the whole process, as far as religion is concerned: for let us not forget that education is not the mere training of childhood and youth, but the continued teaching of an immortal being; and therefore it is not to be confined to the walls of a school, but is

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carried on in the Church. The clergyman is to continue what the schoolmaster has begun. The Church then, in this country, is the only recognised medium of communicating religious knowledge to the people at large; and where there is an Established Church, the Legislature ought to embrace every fit opportunity of maintaining and extending the just influence of the clergy, as ministers of religion, due regard being had to complete toleration. I am using not my own words, but the words of an enlightened and philosophical friend of education, Mr. Leonard Homer, who fully admits this principle, although in the mode of working it out he may not entirely agree with me. At least, my Lords, it is the duty of the Government, and I am sure it is its interest, not to do anything which may lessen and impair, much less destroy the Church's efficiency. But this I am persuaded it will do, if it does that to which its advisers are urging it; namely, take the whole business of popular education out of the Church's hands into its own; appoint inspectors, choose schoolmasters, select school-books; in short, do every thing but chastise the boys in person. My Lords, these are functions, which the Government, as such, is not competent to undertake, in this country at least. It is not competent either practically or constitutionally. It is not practically competent; for how is it possible, that four or five political personages, holding office at the pleasure of the Crown, or, more properly speaking, of the House of Commons, whose time and thoughts are of necessity occupied with far different matters; whose habits of life are not likely to have been such, as to qualify them for so delicate and difficult an office, should exercise their functions, as superintendents of general education, with all the knowledge and all the discretion requisite for such a task? and what security have we for any thing like permanency of principle, or consistency of operation, in such a body? Will they not, of necessity, be acted upon, and moved as puppets, by a few artful and designing persons behind the scenes, who will pull the strings from time to time, and make the Privy Councillors gesticulate, and excite the mirth or the sorrow of the bystanders; and will themselves do all the mischief, without incurring any of the responsibility? If this be not the case, if they are not mere tools in the hands of a party, active but unseen, there is yet an alternative. The functions, which they
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cannot perform themselves, they will delegate to their secretary, who will thus become the sole arbiter and director of popular education. And what security have we, that their secretary shall be a member of the Established Church; that he will not be a Socinian, or a Roman Catholic; nay, what security have we for his being a Christian? My Lords, I would not speak disrespectfully of any of her Majesty's Privy Councillors, and 1 hope I may not have given offence by the comparison which I have made; but it is forced upon me by the symptoms, which I think I have already discovered, of this fantoccini process, in the recent movements of the Committee of Privy Council. I must again say, that such a body can never advantageously discharge the duties which they seem disposed to take upon themselves, but must be in the hands of others, who will act without responsibility, and will probably misuse their power, to the injury of the Church. 1 repeat it, then, the State, having delegated its functions to the Church, as far as the religious education of the people is concerned, is not competent to resume them, nor to intrust them to any other body, except by a deliberate and solemn act of the Legislature in all its three estates. In asserting this, I do not claim for the Church the right of educating any other children than those of her own communion. I do maintain that she is, by the constitution of the country, the established and recognised organ of religious education; and she ought to have sufficient means for the discharge of her functions. If there be any, and many, no doubt, there are, who refuse to accept the education we offer them, let them seek instruction according to their own views and methods. Let them even be assisted by the State, if the necessity should arise; but let it be done in the way of charity to the dissidents from our Church, not as a matter of right: at all events, let it not be so done as to make it appear to the people, that the Government withholds its confidence from the Church, and is desirous of withdrawing from its parental care and teaching, those who might under that care be brought up as its intelligent and attached members, but under a different system will become its prejudiced and dangerous foes. It is chiefly, though not entirely, because the Government plan is calculated to disparage and weaken the Church, that I so strongly disapprove of it. Why not continue, at least for some time to come, the

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system of encouragement pursued for the last six years, by giving pecuniary assistance towards the erection of schools, through the two great Educational Societies? I do not mean to say, that the principle involved in that system is free from objection; or that it is altogether consistent with those which I have laid down. But almost all theories, when reduced to practice, must in some cases give way to unforeseen necessity, so long as no vital nor essential principle is compromised. At all events, we have not been disposed, nor are we now disposed, to question the propriety of those pecuniary advances to the two Societies alluded to, for the same objects, and under the same restrictions. For here, my Lords, lies the difference between those grants as administered by the Lords of the Treasury and the proposal of the Committee of Privy Council for the distribution of future grants. They were made to two established Societies, whose principles and regulations were well known; and they were made upon certain fixed conditions, to meet local subscriptions in certain proportions. In the first instance, Parliament voted a sum of 20,000 l., experimentally, for the promotion of education. Schemes for education were not then so rife as they are now. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, very properly insisted at the time, that certain fixed rules should be laid down for the distribution of the money. Those rules were accordingly made, were uniformly acted upon, were made known, together with the operations resulting from them, to Parliament, who thereupon saw fit to renew the grant; and so on from year to year; the Church making no remonstrance; but obtaining, by means of its larger contributions, by far the greater portion of the money. We knew then what we had to expect; we knew how the money would be distributed, and we acquiesced in the fairness of the rule. But under the new scheme we have not the least notion what we are to look for. I have no doubt, but that the noble President of the Council is sincere, when he says, that they mean to act upon the same general principles as the Lords of the Treasury acted upon. But they give us no security for their doing so. On the contrary, they reserve to themselves the liberty of departing from those principles, by certain regulations which will serve as loop-holes for them to creep out of their general rules, and to destroy their effect. I allude particularly to their departure from the principles of regulating
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the amount of aid by that of local subscriptions, and of making the two Societies the channels of that aid. By breaking through these restrictions, they make the plan of their proceedings quite indefinite, and therefore to be regarded with suspicion. My Lords, I am not prepared to say, that a plan may not be devised, by which the general object of promoting popular education might be entrusted to some public body, reserving to the Church the exclusive direction and control of religious education in her own schools; but this must be done by an act of the legislature, after accurate inquiry and mature deliberations; and for this the time is not yet come; for the information hitherto obtained by Parliament, on the subject of education, is far from being complete or correct. Independently of my objections to the Government scheme now under discussion, as derogatory to the Church, and justly liable to suspicion, I cannot but think that the time for attempting this innovation has been exceedingly ill-chosen. The system of administering the Parliamentary grants was working well; true, it was in some sense only a temporary system; but if it had worked well for a time, and on a limited scale, why not try it for a longer period, and on a more extended scale? It is a singular reason to give, for adopting a new system, that the old one had done its duty satisfactorily. My Lords, that new system, I feel it my duty to declare, is one, which opens the door to a continually increasing latitudinarianism. Its beginnings may be but small; but the principle of evil is there. It may be only the seed which is now sown: but it will fall upon a congenial soil, well prepared for its reception; it will be carefully tended and well watered; and before many years are elapsed, will bring forth a plenteous harvest of bitter fruit. But I shall be told, that according to the principles upon which I insist, it will never be possible to educate the children of Churchmen and Dissenters together. My Lords, I fear, if these discussions are forced upon us, looking to the feelings which they are likely to excite, that such may indeed come to be the case. And if it should, it would be a more desirable result, than could follow from bringing them up together, upon the express or implied condition of their not being taught the distinguishing doctrines of their respective communions; that is to say, of suppressing what they respectively believe to be religious truth. Such a system could only engender a disregard for all truth.

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But, ray Lords, it is not impossible, even with an adherence to these principles, to educate in the same schools the children of Churchmen and Dissenters. I have had some experience in the management of schools, as well as my right rev. Friend, both in the country and the metropolis, and my experience has taught me, that such a joint and common education in Church schools is by no means impracticable, under discreet and judicious management. I have myself had the principle direction of a large national school, in which children of every denomination, Jews not excluded, were receiving education. I know that it requires judgment and kindness to maintain that state of things; but it is possible to avoid giving offence to reasonable Dissenters, without compromising any important principle of the Church; and in the case to which I allude, the Dissenters were content to leave their children in our hands, satisfied, in general, that the essential truths of their own creeds would be taught in every school which was in connexion with the Church of England. If anything be calculated to put an end to this state of things, and to render it impossible to give a common education to the children of parents who belong to the Church, and of those who differ from it, I think it is the conduct of those who are perpetually charging the Church with bigotry and intolerance, or with the inculcation of false doctrine, and who may thus impose upon us the necessity of asserting more strongly our own principles and rights, and of drawing more tight those bands of discipline, which we have to a certain degree relaxed in some instances, for the sake of bringing the children of all denominations within the Church's beneficial influence. If such be the result, we must come at last to a separate education; nor do I believe that children are the more likely in after-life to regard their brethren with less of the spirit of Christian charity and kindness, because they were educated apart from one another, without any misunderstanding or collision upon religious subjects: whereas the inevitable result of their being educated together, upon the plans now recommended to the public, would be to teach them to regard the fundamental principles of Christianity as unimportant, because they are to be carefully kept out of sight, and made to appear to them as matters of less moment and interest than those branches of merely secular knowledge, which are to be sedulously taught to all, for the purpose of
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qualifying them for their occupations in this world, without any reference to their prospects in the next. The most rev. Prelate who moved the resolutions alluded to a report on the subject of normal schools, made by a very eminent man, Professor Thiersch, justly celebrated for his classical learning, especially for his knowledge of the Greek language. Speaking of the seminary for teachers at Kaiserlautern, he says—
"Many arguments recommended the division of the seminary for teachers; according to the confessions of faith. I know and respect the motives which dictated, that in the circle of the Rhine both confessions (Protestant and Romanist) should be united in a single seminary, in the advantages of which even future rabbies should partake. But it is conceivable, and the experience of other countries shows that it is found to be so, that when seminaries are separate, toleration may be secured both among teachers and communities; indeed that this is more effectually attained, the more each confession is secured in its real wants. Amongst these wants, it would seem that the education and instruction of the persons, to whom elementary schools are to be intrusted, must be specially included; and as such an education cannot be conceived, unless its basis be firmly laid in the knowledge of some Christian confession, then the division of seminaries, according to the modes of faith, as happens in Nassau, in Prussia, and, perhaps we may say in every other country, is necessarily required."
The Minister of Education in France, in a circular addressed to the Prefects in 1833, said—
"It is in general desirable that children, whose parents do not profess the same religious opinions, should early contract, by frequenting the same schools, those habits of mutual good will and toleration, which, at a more mature age, will grow into justice and union. It may, however, be sometimes necessary, even with a view to the public peace, that separate schools should be opened in each commune for each faith."
If, therefore, we should be driven to this system in England, I do not apprehend any serious detriment to the cause of charity or of the Christian church. My Lords, I have only one other observation with which to trouble you before I sit down; and it relates to the inexpediency, to use no harsher term, of any attempt to withdraw the superintendence of popular education from the clergy of the Established Church. It is always important, my Lords, upon subjects, respecting which the opinions of men are much divided, to learn the sentiments of persons of enlarged and

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philosophic minds, remote from the scene of contention, and at a distance from that turmoil of political conflict which is so likely to obscure the judgment, and to prejudice the minds of those who are engaged in it. It is for this reason that I am desirous of quoting to your Lordships the opinion of a very eminent person, M. Cousin, who has laboured much in the cause of education, and whose valuable reports to the Minister of Education in France, are no doubt well known to you. But before I adduce his testimony, it occurs to me that I may very properly introduce another witness, and request your Lordships to hear the sentiments of a body of men nearer home—not less enlightened or less philosophical—who have expressed and left on record their sense of the importance not to say the duty, of entrusting the education of the country to the clergy, and of not separating in any case the instruction of the people from the ministry of the Established Church. The report of a Committee of the House of, Commons on the subject of education, made in 1818, said:—
"Your Committee have the greatest satisfaction in observing, that, in many schools where the National System is adopted, an increasing degree of liberality prevails, and that the Church Catechism is only taught, and attendance at the established place of public worship is only required of those whose parents belong to the Establishment."
After recommending the adoption, under certain material modifications of the parochial school system of Scotland, the report says—
"Your Committee forbear to inquire minutely in what manner this system ought to be connected with the Church "Establishment. That such a connexion ought to be formed, appears manifest; it is dictated by a regard to the prosperity and stability of both systems; and in Scotland the two are mutually connected together." "To place the choice of the schoolmaster in the parish vestry, subject to the approbation of the parson, and the visitation of the diocesan, but to provide that the children of sectarians shall not be compelled to learn any catechism, or attend any church, other than those of their parents, appears to your Committee the safest path by which the Legislature can hope to obtain the desirable object of security to the Establishment on the one hand, and justice to the dissenters on the other."
The report of M. Cousin said—
"The fundamental principle of the government of the Schools of Primary Instruction in Prussia, is, that the ancient and beneficial
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union of popular instruction with Christianity and the Church, shall be maintained in a suitable proportion, under the supreme direction of the State, and of the Ministry of public instruction and worship. In every case the clergy form leading members of the committee.' "I ask," he said, "whether we desire to respect the religion of the people, or to destroy it? If we undertake to destroy Christianity, then I admit we must take care not to have it taught in the schools of the people. But if we aim at quite the opposite result, we must teach the children the religion which civilized their fathers; and we must let the clergy fulfil their first duty, that of watching over the teaching of religion." "Religion is, in my opinion, the best, perhaps the only basis, of popular instruction." "The more I consider the subject, the more I converse with the directors of the Normal Schools, and with the advisers of the Ministry, the more I am persuaded that we must at any price come to an understanding with the clergy respecting the instruction of the people, and make religious teaching a special and carefully conducted branch of instruction in our Primary and Normal Schools."
He goes on to say—
"I am well aware that these counsels will be displeasing to more persons than one, and that at Paris I shall be thought a Methodist; and yet I write, not from Rome, but from Berlin. He who thus addresses you is also a philosopher, once the object of suspicion, and even of persecution, to the priesthood; but that philosopher has a heart superior to personal insults, and is too well acquainted with human nature and with history not to regard religion as an indestructible power—Christianity, properly taught, as a means of civilizing a people, and a support necessary for individuals, upon whom society imposes painful and humble duties, without any future of worldly prosperity and consolation of self-love."
With these words, more eloquent than any that I could use, I might well take my leave of the subject. I may, however, add a similar expression of opinion from the report of the Commission of Peers made in 1833, which says,—
"The Ecclesiastical authority ought to be represented in the education of the youthful population, as well as the civil. 1 "The people's school is a sanctuary, and religion has the same claim to be there, as in the church or the chapel."
I hope, my Lords, that I have already guarded myself against the objection that may be made against me, as claiming for the church the superintendence of the secular as well as the religious parts of education; and against the argument, that the two may very well be separated, and the

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latter alone left in the hands of the Church. I hope I have already shown that the attempt to separate religious education from secular, is a fatal mistake. It is the union of the two, in all the sanctity of the one, and all the present usefulness of the other, which must constitute a complete and consistent education—such an education as I readily admit the Church is bound to attempt to give to the people—which the Government is bound to provide the Church with the means of giving; which means if the Church possessed, that she would use them faithfully and effectively, is proved by her present strenuous and unparalleled exertions to multiply schools, to enlarge the circle of instruction in those schools, and to increase the efficiency of those to whom their administration is intrusted. I have now to thank your Lordships for the patience with which you have listened to me; and I have to assure her Majesty's Ministers, that, in the line which I have felt myself called upon to take on this occasion, I have been influenced by no feelings of hostility towards them—no desire to embarrass them. I am well aware that it is my duty, as I am sure it is my inclination, to support, as far as I can, any measures which have received the approbation of the temporal head of our Church. But there is a higher duty than this—a duty which I owe to the Sovereign herself in that character, and which binds me, stedfastly, and without flinching, to resist any measures, from whatever quarter proposed, which in my conscience I believe are calculated to undermine the Church, or to impair its efficiency and usefulness. My Lords, I cordially support the motion of the most rev. Prelate.
Lord Brougham: If the rev. Prelate who some time ago rose to address your Lordships, had occasion to regret the late hour of the evening, and state as a reason for doubting whether he would be favoured with the attention of your Lordships, how much more reason have I to be afraid who rise at this still later period of the night. I must first say, a more able, a more convincing, and a more concise speech it has never been my fortune to hear on so diffuse a subject than that of the right rev. Prelate; a more temperate and a more candid speech I have never heard upon a question, above all others, calculated to excite the feelings, connected as it is both with politics and religion. But I can use no discretion in the matter. I am obliged to take part in the discussion after what I have heard from the rev. Pre-
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lates (the Bishops of London and Exeter), and to a certain extent, but only a small extent, after what fell from the most rev. Prelate, If any person had entered this House after the greater part of the speech of the rev. Prelate (Exeter), if that person had not heard the speech of my noble Friend, the President of the Council, or had never read the papers upon the subject of education which are on your Lordships' Table, could he ever have conceived, for one moment, that the right rev. Prelate's speech was at all bordering upon, or in the slightest degree, had any reference to the discussion now before your Lordships? Could any man, for one moment, dream, considering that he only heard the very able and very elaborate speech from the rev. Prelate, separated from the general text, that above all things religious instruction is favourable to the morals of the country, and is beneficial in forming the character of the people, is provided for in the Ministerial plan? Could any man, for one moment, hear the right rev. Prelate charge the noble Lords, my Friends in the Government, that they are ready and willing tools, only waiting the to be taken up by the Central Society for Education—that they were ready made tools, anxiously waiting to be put to use by the Society for the Promotion of Religious Equality—a society of which I have heard for the first time to-night. I put it to the candour of your Lordships, whether any person entering the House, without having heard the speech of my noble Friend, or having read those papers which are now lying before me, could he, by possibility, my Lords, believe, after hearing the eloquent and elaborate declamation of the rev. Prelate, against an irreligious education being highly demoralizing to the country—I put it to you, my Lords, is it possible that he could have conceived that speech was used as an argument against a plan of education, on which it is fairly and fully set out in the paper the motion is founded, and which was staring the rev. Prelate in the face during the whole of his speech, that the fundamental quality of the plan is, that there shall be a general and especial religious education; that it is to be combined with, and is to imbue the whole manner of instruction; that a chaplain is to be employed to conduct the religious education of the children belonging to the Establishment in every school, and that the parent or natural guardian of every child was to have free liberty to instruct him in the principles of his own religion? My Lords, could any man

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fancy, that that speech was directed against a plan of which these were the fundamental principles? Surely the Central Society must repudiate this principle. One would think we were discussing a general scheme for the education of the people:—all the apprehensions and alarms were pointed at this—all the mischief apprehended, or affected to be apprehended, is to be derived from a general system of education—compulsory in its nature—in the hands of the Government—irreligious—based on a design to pull down the Established Church. "Anti-Christian" was the term applied to it in one petition,—"Popish," by another,—and one petition, culling both the flowers, applied them both—probably thinking that "Popish," was "Anti-Christian." But what is the plan? No general system whatever. A mere Minute of Council, recognizing the doings of a certain function by four Members of the Privy Council, which heretofore had been done by one: namely, the superintending the distribution of the annual Parliamentary grant, and establishing one normal school, this last having been abandoned. I am sorry for it. I wish there had been any ground for the change respecting this; I complain of the system as not going far enough. I regret that the Government, in deference to the senseless apprehensions of some—the miserable affectations of others—and the foolish prejudices of the rest—have pared down what ought to have been a general measure for the education of the people, into a mere plan for founding a single school in London, and appointing a Committee of their own body, to superintend the grant of 20,000 l. or 30,000 l. I am mortified that Parliament is not ready to do its duty to the people, that after twenty-five years spent in deploring the want of public instruction in this country, after it has been by all parties confessed, that the people of England are lens educated than those of Central Europe, and only better educated than the people of Spain or Italy; I am ashamed of our inglorious singularity in this respect, of our shameful exception to the character of the age in which we live, that after all that has been confessed, even by the right rev. Prelate, of the utter inadequacy of our present means of education, that all we have been able to "screw our courage" to, has been the asking Parliament for a paltry 30,000 l., and appointing a committee of noblemen to distribute it. But it is still more mortifying to find; that there exists millions is this country who have been so far child-
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ish, thoughtless, and unreflecting, as to be led away by the cry, the clamour, the vulgar exploded outcry of danger to the Established Church! while 20,000 l. a-year has been annually distributed by Government at their discretion, without any such cry being raised. How much must I fear then for Friday, when I bring forward my plan, which is to furnish every parish with the means of affording to all classes, without distinction of sects, the benefits of education. However, my Lords, I must do my best to defend the plan of the Government, which, as far as it goes, is in the right direction, and which is only to be attacked by ignorance and misrepresentation. My Lords, one great error which pervades the whole argument of the right rev. Prelates, I wish to clear up at the outset, because, till the terms on which we are contending are rendered intelligible, we are but fighting in the dark. If there is one proposition more dwelt upon than another by the opponents of the Government plan, when they condescend to argue, which is but seldom, it is this,—that to the Church the State has committed the religious instruction of the people, and that therefore the Clergy should have the secular education of the people. First, they claim a right exclusively to educate the children of their own persuasion. How is it possible that there can be any plan of education based upon the exclusive right of the clergy to teach the children of the Church? Are no Churchmen to be suffered to send their children to be educated by the Dissenters? Take care, however, that you do not give some preference to Churchmen over Dissenters. Remember that funds raised by the representatives of all, should be applied to the benefit of all. But, then, it is said that the Church should be provided by the State with ample means for giving secular instruction to all classes, Churchmen and Dissenters. How is that to work? The members of the Established Church are to teach not only secular, but religious instruction? Of course they can teach none but their own religion, to the Dissenter's child as well as the Churchman's. That is impossible; unless, indeed, the Dissenter consents. But how is his consent to be obtained? And if you cannot get it, are we to allow you the exclusive appropriation of money voted for general instruction? For, after all, though you may think this a vulgar point, it is a necessary one—it is that on which the whole dispute really arises. If the clergyman is to teach his

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religion to all classes, the Dissenter will not send his child to be, as he thinks, "perverted," or as the Church thinks, "converted," and thus he will lose the benefit of a grant, towards which, nevertheless, he contributed; for it is not as with the two Bishops in the reign of James 1st, who asked one whether the King might not take his money? to which the answer was, "Assuredly;"—and on asking the other Prelate, he answered, "Please your Majesty, you may take my brother's money, for he gives it you." But the Legislature compelled the Dissenter to pay, and then it is proposed that he should not participate in the benefit of the grant. Well, is the clergyman only to give secular instruction? If so, for that the Dissenting teacher is, ex concessis, equally qualified. If he is to give religious instruction, therefore, the Dissenter is excluded. If secular instruction, the Dissenter is as well qualified. What is meant by leaving all instruction in the hands of the clergy? The right rev. Prelate said, that no men could be more unfitted to act as schoolmasters than her Majesty's Ministers—that they were incapacitated by other duties, and so on—and it was wittily suggested whether they were to whip the boys. Nobody ever dreamt of such a thing. The words of the Minute are, that the Committee of the Privy Council are to "consider all matters affecting the education of the people;" was it ever imagined that this meant they should see to the details of the education—to the books and slates used—to the declensions and inflections of grammar? Certainly, they might as well look to the operation to which I have just alluded, and on which I abstain from further remark.
The Bishop of London: I was not speaking of the Government plan at all, but of the plan which the Government were urging us to adopt, and of which, I understand, the present plan to be preliminary.
Lord Brougham: Really, my Lords, this is too hard, to have to defend not only the plan which is adopted and published, but a plan which I know nothing of—which nobody knows anything about—which may at some uncertain period, by some unknown person, be proposed; which has no existence, save in the fancies of imaginative individuals. But the argument is, that the Government are unfitted, by other duties, for the business of education. I wonder, my Lords, that the acuteness of the right rev. Prelate did not lead him to discover that other men besides her Majesty's Minis-
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ters had their time fully occupied. I have not heard for the first time to-night, that the clergy are a hard-worked and ill-paid class of men. No man knows this better or has had greater opportunities of knowing it, than I have. They are hard-worked; ill-paid, inadequately lodged—so lodged, in many instances, that residence is made disagreeable to them, and thus great temptations are held out to them to violate a high and imperative duty, a duty, the observance' of which is binding on their own consciences, and essential to the welfare of their flocks. I readily admit, that no class of men labour harder in their vocation than; the working clergy of this country. I have; often had occasion to pay them a humble; a grateful, and a sincere tribute for the services they have in many respects rendered to the cause of social improvement,' and in particular to the cause of education. These have been rendered at spare times and by hours snatched from the more peculiar avocations of their sacred calling. But the attention of the clergy ought not to be diverted from the main object of their lives, the explanation of the, doctrines of religion to the people. That is enough to occupy them, particularly when the visitation of their flocks, without which they, never could adequately discharge their duties, is rigidly attended to. To say that, to the duty of expounding and defending; the truths of Christianity could be added, that of superintending secular education, is, a proposition so utterly monstrous, so destitute of all likelihood and possibility, that I must surely have mistaken those who, urged your Lordships to intrust the education of the people to the clergy. Those are words without meaning, sounds without sense; words devised to get up a cry in favour of this plan, and excite a clamour against the Church. I deny, that the clergy can become the general instructors of the" people, or have a right to teach anything' more than religion, or can have any preeminence in the great and important business of education. They are, no doubt, teachers in the highest sense of the word—religious teachers; they are to teach religion, others were to teach learning. How far is this confidence in the Church to be' carried? Is natural philosophy not to be' taught by laymen? Is chemistry not to; be left in the hands of surgeons and men of science, but confined to the ministers of the altar? How can they be made the teachers; of secular instruction to the poor any more: than to the rich? I cannot understand

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those who argue that intellectual learning is all very well for men of high station, because it might come to them in the aid of the lessons of honour, but that religious knowledge is adequate of itself to all the wishes and moral wants of the poor man. I believe, that in some cases the right rev. Prelate would be disposed to regard learning as a curse. My Lords, I do not understand this. I do not think the upper classes can dispense with the sanctions of religion any more than the poor. I do not agree in that code of moral laws laid down by the right rev. Prelate; if he will allow me to say so, I think he has laid down a very unsound doctrine. The distinction made by the right rev. Prelate is, that you might dispense more safely with religion in one class than in the other—the sanction of honour, he supposes is sufficient with men in a high station of life. [The Bishop of Exeter—might be]. The right rev. Prelate said, that men in the lower station of life were Dot influenced by that sanction of honour which produced good effects in men of higher ranks. Now the sort of sanction honour gives is of a doubtful kind in the upper classes—to pay damages in certain actions rather than tradesmen's bills, to prefer paying debts of honour incurred in gambling, contrary to the law of the land, in preference to just and lawful debts; to take offence at a word, and go out and kill a man; to give up all intercourse with a neighbour, and friend, and relation who has refused to go out and kill a man. That is the code of honour of the right rev. Prelate. It is an odd, whimsical and grotesque code. I dont say anything against it? it is the moral dispensation under which we live, and which I should hope when the schoolmaster is abroad, some twenty years' hence will be entirely annihilated. I know of no such distinctions between different classes of society. I call vice, "vice"—crime, "crime"—unlawful conduct, "unlawful conduct," whether committed by a peer or a peasant; and whether honour induces the one to do what religion condemns, what law denounces, what morality adjures, what the feelings of the natural man abhor and despise, I call that wrong, I call it crime, 1 call it sin, whether it be committed in a high station or a low; and here the moral law, the secular doctrine of the schoolmaster, coincides entirely with the spiritual teaching of the priest. I know it
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is very often said, and indeed has been said to night, that the poor have too much to do in the way of gaining their daily bread, to cultivate learning. Those who say that are ignornant of their habits—are ignorant of their tastes—are profoundly ignorant of their capacities—and more ignorant of the salutary effects which that kind of tuition is calculated to produce. Why, there has existed for the last half century in the eastern part of this metropolis, a society composed of the humblest journeyman labourers, whose reading has been the mathematical sciences—confined to the most abstruse of those sciences. Five men out of those whom I now address, "who sow not, neither do they spin, who toil not any more than the lillies of the field," who have money, and funds, and teachers, as well as time at your command, not five of you, I would venture to say could read those books, which are complained of by this Society of journeymen artisans, as not profound enough in the mathematical sciences. Now, that is a fact, for 1 am connected in the publishing of those very works that are said not to be deep enough. Some of the works published by the Society to which I allude are most scientific, and they have had the greatest circulation among the working-classes. Indeed, men who have aprons round their haunches and paper caps on their heads, have come when their day's work was over, with their contributions to those scientific publications. It betokens great ignorance of their manners and customs—of their tastes and capacities, (and there is a habit of underrating and of crully depreciating their capacities and tastes) to draw the invidious line which I have often heard drawn between the upper and lower classes by saying that the delicacies of science are to be reserved for the upper classes. My Lords, I would ask why is it that the clergy are more than the laity peculiarly adapted to teach those primary objects of instruction? But I am told you must combine religious with secular instruction. Who thought of separating them? Not certainly the authors of this plan. Religion is to be combined with the whole matter of instruction, and not to be separated at all from it. The rule adopted by the British and Foreign School Society is this, that secular instruction is taught by secular teachers, and religious instruction by religious instructors. The most rev, Prelate

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said, that there was so trifling a distance for the Dissenters to come over to the Church, that it might be easily got over. Now this was the very creed of persecution—this was the very language of the inquisitor. "The difference between you and me." says the inquisitor, "is slight, and of such a nature, that I may compel, force, burn you into compliance. Mine is the true faith—mine is the faith endowed by the State—the State patronises me the State conscience is with me—it reposes in confidence upon me. Come you then over to me. What right have you to complain of the gentle force I use towards you? If I asked you to turn Mahometan, or to preach atheism, and threatened you with the rack or with the fagot, you might indeed call me a persecutor; but I am doing no such thing; I am only asking you to do the most gentle and the most reasonable thing in the world. I ask you to get over a trifle, for which the Greek and Latin Churches in the ages of folly were mad enough to persecute each other. There is only an iota of difference between us. You are a Homoousion, I am a Homoiousion. Come then to us. Rest on our bosom—it is for the good of your souls, and I will make it for the interest of your body also." Expanded into the language of the inquisition, this was the argument used by the right rev. Bench. This was—
The Archbishop of Canterburyrose to order. The noble and learned Lord was doing him great injustice in fastening so invidious an argument upon him. He had said nothing that could justify such a misrepresentation. He had said that the Church was accused of intolerance, and in refutation of that charge he had said that the clergy had shown the greatest willingness to educate the children of Dissenters, and that the Dissenters had not objected to let their children receive that education, because they fell that the difference between them and the Church was trifling, and might perhaps be got over.
Lord Brougham. Nothing could be further from my intention. I quite agree with the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of London) that the Established Church is much more tolerant in practice than in theory. But in what does the tolerance consist? Is it in permitting Dissenting children to be instructed in those schools in which the Church doctrines alone are taught? If you throw open the doors to Dissenters in those
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schools in which the Church doctrines, and the Thirty-nine Articles alone are taught, and the Dissenters are induced to go there, that does not prove that the Church of England is more tolerant, but that the Dissenters are either indifferent or insincere. You cannot view it in any other light. If the Dissenters are induced to attend at schools where the Thirty-nine Articles, which some of them term idolatrous, and others blasphemous (I am speaking the language of the Dissenters, not my own), this does not prove that the Churchmen are more tolerant, but that the Dissenters are either indifferent or insincere. It is one species of persecution to say "Come over to me," and it is another species to say, "There is little or no difference between us." My Lords, no difference conscientiously entertained upon religious matters can be slight. If any man says that he thinks the difference important, and that he honestly, and sincerely, and conscientiously, sets a value upon that difference, no man breathing has a right to say the difference between us is slight—we are to be listened to, and you are not—come over to us—endow us more, enrich us further, amplify our powers, enlarge our sphere of action, encourage us, discourage others. My Lords, from the earliest times, and among other persons, this has always been the forerunner of persecution. The most rev. Prelate is too humble-minded, too elevated in piety, too philanthropic and charitable to have any such ideas; and I will tell him, his own reading must have taught him, that these are the doctrines by which persecutors have worked in all ages, and wherever they have been allowed to act upon them, they have never failed in the end to arm themselves with the scourge, the faggot, the pincers, and the torch. Men who value religious liberty do not, in these days, dread anything that can be called persecution, but they do dread privileges and oppressive exclusions, preferences to one sect over another; and upon another thing they are absolutely determined, which is absolutely irreversible—they are resolved never to pay to man any tax to support education, if the fruit of the tax does not go to maintain education to which all shall have an equal access. My Lords, it never entered into my head to propose any general system of education, which would not be combined with religious instruction. It is a common thing to talk of the Revolution in France, as having undermined religion, and destroyed education but I believe, even

1323
the warmest friend of the ancient regime will not assert that there was a very large amount of religion in France, just previous to the Revolution. The plan now before your Lordships is liable to none of the objections that have been urged against it, but the crime of not having been brought before Parliament. Who ever thought of introducing any general system of education without consulting the wisdom of Parliament' The law stands thus—the Ministry can give away a million of money to any person they please, without ever asking your Lordships whether you will or not—without asking your Lordships' consent. All they have to do is, to have a vote of the other House. The resolutions, therefore, merely ask the Crown to ask its Ministers to do so and so. More uncalled-for resolutions—anything more uncalled-for I have never seen. If there were any document to show that there was the slightest intention even to attack the Established Church—were there even the scrap of the letter of a Secretary of State, to show that there was any intention to make even the slightest attack on the Established Church, or the established religion of the country, as it has been called this night, I might understand holy men buckling on the armour of the faith. I could understand men meeting in vestries, and sending up 3,000 petitions, praying your Lordships to take decided steps against the antichrist, and for the preservation of our holy religion. But, my Lords, there is not a word, not one whisper against the Establishment; so far from that, there is a clear recognition of the Establishment, by the appointment of chaplains of the Church to every school. That, my Lords, is an integral part of the plan—that, my Lords, is the corner-stone of the plan. I have lived long enough, my Lords—too long—for I am ashamed to say, I have lived long enough to hear the cry of "No Popery"—" No Catholics"—"The Church in danger." Not one of those cries have I ever known to have arisen from any but the most insignificant of causes that the wit of man could possibly devise. In 1807 the whole country was convulsed—the Government was changed—England, Scotland, and Ireland were agitated by a general election—the cry was "No Popery," "Rally round the altar and the Throne," for one never could be shaken without the other falling. Such was the language of the rev. Prelate tonight. Is there now one word said against the Church? Is there now a single whisper against the Establishment any more than
1324
there was in 1807? No one word or single whisper is heard of such a character. On the contrary, professions of attachment to the Church are numerous. In 1807 the cause of the cry of "No Popery" arose from a bill being brought in, to allow an Irish Catholic, who was a colonel in his own country, to hold the same rank upon coming to England. That was the real origin of the cry of "No Popery." Just as trifling is the cause of the cry now made. A single school is to be formed for the purpose of teaching teachers. In that school, the Established Church is to have a chaplain of that single school, who is to ruin the whole Established Church, and sap the very foundations of religion. My Lords, there is another ground of similarity; the bill in 1807 was only shown and withdrawn, still the cry continued; the proposed school is no longer even in existence as a proposition; it was only shewn, and at once covered up, and still the cry continues. When the atmosphere had cleared away, when the storm was dispelled, when the clouds no longer hung around, I won't say the Establishment, for that reared its pinnacles above, and no clouds even hung round its base—but when the clouds dispelled which had been obfuscating men's understandings, it was found that five years afterwards, the bill had passed in silence and neglect, and the first that we heard of it was a year afterwards, when it was found in the statute-book. This is not only matter of amusement, but it is pregnant with instruction. The men who now feel, and others who affect to feel so much apprehension about this harmless and trivial measure, will in a very short time forget it. Much more than this will pass, I believe will pass without exciting a single murmur, or whisper of discontent, or feeling of alarm. Now I venture to form a cheerful hope, which amounts to a sanguine expectation, that the same course will be taken now which was taken then, and men will begin to open their understanding to reason, will cease to make religious matter the ground and object only of feeling, but will make it matter of sound, moral, intelligent, reason also; and then I have not any fear of the work of education being checked by any clamour of danger to the Church, or of danger to the clergy, or of danger to religion; but I shall live to see the Parliament of England perform, at length, its too long-delayed and most sacred duty, of giving instruction to all classes, of all descriptions, all ranks, and all sects of

1325
people, upon the broad, universal, and eternal principles of religious as well as of civil liberty.
The Duke of Wellingtonconfessed he was astonished at the admiration which had been expressed by the noble and learned Lord of the speeches which had been made by the most rev. and right rev. Prelates, the greater part of his own speech being directed at the same time to do away their effect, by the exercise of those powers of ridicule with which he was so liberally endowed. Indeed, it was not till within the few last moments of his speech that the noble and learned Lord had at all referred to the particular matter under discussion. The first of the resolutions which the most rev. prelate had moved was a mere statement of a matter of fact, which no one had disputed, and the last contained a conclusion to which the noble and learned Lord had little objected, except that there was no occasion, as he said, to ask the Crown not to introduce the system of education except by an Act of Parliament, because he could not think such a system could be introduced without an Act of Parliament. He, on the other hand, contended, that those Acts and Orders in Council did the very thing which their Lordships had a right to require should be done by an Act of Parliament, instead of by Orders in Council. It had been said by the noble and learned Lord who last spoke, and by the right rev. Bishop (of Norwich), that these Orders in Council did no more than had been done for years by Minutes of the Treasury Board. The fact was very much otherwise. Under the Treasury Minutes there was nothing further than a grant of money very much in the way of charity to those who in certain circumstances had subscribed a fixed amount, and who were to have the management of the funds; but certain conditions were required by the Board of the Privy Council, and it was essentially necessary that that House should entreat the Crown not to carry these measures into execution without knowing precisely what they were, and having the sanction of Parliament to them. He should vote for this address to her Majesty, in order that Parliament and the country might clearly know what those measures were which the Government intended to propose for the education of the people. The noble Marquess opposite had thought proper to put certain questions to the most rev. Prelate, which were afterwards answered by the right rev. Prelate, who succeeded the
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noble Marquess in debate. But, begging the noble Marquess's pardon, he thought it was the duty of her Majesty's Government to state clearly what their intentions were, and what share they intended the Church to have in their education of the people: and not to require from the most reverend Prelate, and the right rev. Prelates generally, what the intentions of the Church were on this subject. The noble and learned Lord stated, that the regulations proposed by Order in Council were really nothing at all, that there was something brought forwards and afterwards withdrawn. But it appeared to him that there was something put forward which was very important, something not at all un like what was put forward of late yean ill the Irish system of education. Now, he always understood that this principle was intended to be restricted entirely to Ireland, and he was quite sure it would not answer in this country. It appeared to him that these resolutions would authorise the use of the Douay version of the Scriptures, and the versions of the scriptures of the Unitarians, the Anabaptists, and others, including even the followers of Courtenay, who had been more than once alluded to m the course of this debate. Now, what he desired to know was this, whether the people of this country, having founded the Established Church on the principles of the Reformation 200 or 300 years ago, they should now be called upon to raise taxes in order to educate the people in the tenets of Popery, or the systems of the Unitarians or the Anabaptists. This he thought the people of England were entitled to know; and to demand that the projects, if entertained, should be regularly brought before Parliament and the country in the usual way. This was not the way in which the plan ought to be introduced into the country. If no such thing existed, ought not they to be so informed? But if there was such an intention, ought they not also to be informed of what really was intended I He begged the noble aria learned Lord's pardon; but that Order in Council was not so quiet or so innocent as he had endeavoured to make it out to be. Even in the noble and learned Lord's own view, it was not so harmless with respect to the Established Church. He had read some of the noble Lord's speeches on this subject, and he saw in his speeches, and in his publications on this subject, that he more than once stated the great advantage arising to education from private benevo-

1327
lence. Let them then see what was likely to be the consequence of this system upon private benevolence. The order in Council stated positively this—"that if any school accepted any money from the public"—mind, that the Board of Treasury having required that half the sum should be subscribed by private benevolence; but then if they accepted money from the public, "it should immediately come under the direction of the Board, and be liable to inspection." Did this say that there was to be inspection by the clergy? Did it say that the clergyman of the parish was to have superintendence over that school? There was no question here of rich and "poor, so that none of the arguments of the noble and learned Lord, which he had displayed with so much ability, could be found to apply—they fell to the ground. But if the money was granted, the clergyman was excluded, and the school came under the inspection of the Board. He begged their Lordships to look at this resolution of the Committee of Council, and then ask themselves the question, which of them would make themselves liable to the inspection of this officer, appointed by the Committee of Council? What were the questions which this officer of inspection would ask from them? "Have you the Douay version of the Bible?" "Have you the Bible of the Unitarians?" "Have you that of the Anabaptists?" He wished to know which of them would make themselves liable to questions of that description regarding schools which their benevolence thought proper to establish in their neighbourhood, or in places under their influence throughout the country. The consequence then would be to deprive the clergy of their superintendence. The schools would lose not only the value of the superintendence of the clergy; but this system, small as it was said to be by the noble and learned Lord, must go greatly to impede the tide of benevolence. Then they had a right to call Upon her Majesty's Ministers to stir themselves on this subject; but they had also to entreat of her Majesty not to allow such a system to be carried into execution in the country without allowing Parliament the opportunity of fully discussing it, and thus doing their duty to the public. Nay, it would be necessary for them to do this, even for the purpose of doing their duty to the system of education, and particularly to the system of education by private benevolence, by having this system fully investigated, or explained before they allowed it to
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go one step farther. Even at that late hour, he had felt it to be his duty to call their attention to what was, in his opinion, the real question for the House to determine. He hoped that he detained them but a very few minutes in doing so, and he thought that the noble and learned Lord would admit, that not only would the clergy have good reason to complain of it, but those who founded schools of private benevolence would have reason to complain also.
Viscount Melbourneshould be very well content to leave this subject to be determined by the speeches which had been made by his noble Friend, the President of the Council, and the noble and learned Lord who had just addressed them; but considering the great importance of this question, and considering the nature of the motion that had been made, it might perhaps be expected that he should address a few words to their Lordships before the debate terminated, and he promised they should be few at that late hour. After the long discussion in which they had been all engaged, it appeared that they were all agreed in the point they had in view. They were all agreed as to the extending of the education of the people—they were all agreed as to the benefits of education, and they were all agreed that the benefits of education should be diffused; but yet it was very strange that, in a matter so plain, so just, and so true, that something should occur to prevent them carrying into effect intentions in which all were agreed, because they were unable to come to an agreement as to the manner of carrying them into effect. It would be still more remarkable, if they admitted that they all participated in the one object, and if they all admitted the advantages of the great object which they proposed to support, and yet that there should be some incomprehensible obstruction to their carrying the object of all their efforts into effect. This was a matter which, if it did take place, might cause some to laugh and some to weep, and he was afraid it would afford to those satirists who disparaged human nature, the means to find some food for satire, and some matter upon which to plume themselves. He trusted, that their Lordships would not, on the present occasion, adopt the resolutions proposed by the most rev. Prelate, which would throw a great obstruction in the way of that object, which they all had equally in view. The right rev. Prelate who presided over the metropolitan districts, in the course of a very

1329
able speech, had stated his objection to the present measure, and the apprehensions he entertained respecting it. He did not deny all the facts stated by the right rev. Prelate. There might possibly exist a party hostile to the ecclesiastical establishments of this country, and who were hostile to the monarchical institutions of the country. There might be that party. They knew that there were very violent opinions upon all manner of subjects, and very possibly the designs of persons holding such opinions were such as they had been described to be by the right rev. Prelate, but he only denied one part of the right rev. Prelate's statement, where he was pleased to assert, that her Majesty's Government was in the hands of that party. The right rev. Prelate was pleased to say, that her Majesty's Government were in the hands of that party—that they were guided and directed by them like so many puppets, and made use for their purposes—that all their power and all their influence were directed to carry into effect the ends of these persons. Now, he denied that there was any foundation for any motion of that sort. He knew not what the rev. Prelate meant, or what he designed, but of this he was perfectly certain, that there was no foundation whatever for the apprehensions the rev. Prelate entertained. The rev. Prelate had also pronounced a high eulogium upon the clergy of the Established Church, and stated the exertions and efforts they had made in the cause of education. He had not the slightest doubt this eulogium was fully deserved, but the rev. Prelate had introduced it by a statement, "that it had not been stated in express terms in this debate, that the clergy were hostile to the diffusion of knowledge." Stated in express terms! Why it had not been hinted at. It had not been insinuated by any person. Nobody said anything of the kind, and he only wished to take notice of it, for whatever reason introduced, in order that it might not be supposed, that any person in that House had uttered any imputation or insinuation whatever against any part of the clergy of the Established Church, against their conduct, zeal, industry, or any part of their merits. Unquestionably, he had listened with great satisfaction to the speech of the most rev. Prelate who had introduced this motion. It was a very temperate and able speech, but in it there was much that had no immediate reference to the question before the House, and he had sought for and lacked any sufficient grounds for the
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motion with which the most rev. Prelate had concluded. In fact, the objections which the most rev. Prelate took to the present measure appeared hardly to lay grounds for so strong a censure, especially when he considered the previous arrangement for the distribution of the grant by the Treasury, and which had the unqualified approbation of the most rev. Prelate. Many of the objections which the most rev. Prelate took to the Committee of the Privy Council applied with equal, if not greater force to the jurisdiction which unquestionably for four years had been acquiesced in of the distribution of this grant by the Lords of the Treasury. The most rev. Prelate said, that the Committee of the Privy Council were party men, and that, therefore, these grants would be given for political purposes, and with a political object. Was this charge never brought against the Treasury? Was it supposed that nothing of this sort ever took place there? He knew it to be so: but that was not the general opinion on this subject, and he should have thought, that with common feelings and ordinary notions, perhaps a Committee of the Privy Council might be supposed as little objectionable as the Lords of the Treasury. The rev. Prelate (the Bishop of London) felt, that he put himself out of Court by any approbation of the distribution of the grant by the Treasury, that it was evident that any objection that lay against a Committee of the Privy Council would also lie against the Lords of the Treasury, but that there was this difference, that had been overlooked, a difference pointed out by the noble Duke, namely, that the Treasury pointed out the grounds on which they went, they told the principles on which they proceeded, whereas the Committee of the Privy Council worked in the dark. The Committee of the Privy Council certainly meant to depart from the rules laid down by the Lords of the Treasury in one or two instances. They meant not always to ask for a proportional subscription from those to whom they gave money. The most rev. Prelate said, that in some instances this rule was evidently right. It was clear, that if they only gave money to those who subscribed, it was evident that they would be giving it to the most wealthy, and in the greatest proportion to those who were most wealthy, and, therefore, unquestionably it was right to depart, in some instances, from that principle laid down by the Lords of the Treasury. If their Lordships did not place confidence in the Committee of the

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Privy Council, if they would not give them the distribution of this grant, if they had not so much confidence in them as to allow them to decide in what cases they should dissent from the principles, unquestionably they would be right to deny that confidence; but it was in the highest degree unreasonable to suppose, that with respect to proceedings done quite openly, that steps taken in the face of all mankind, which were known to all, and which were laid before Parliament, and which related to a sum of money to be voted annually by Parliament, that there should be a degree of suspicion and diffidence, surprised him, and it appeared to him in the highest degree absurd to deny that confidence, unless they were prepared to deny all confidence whatever, and to say, that they entirely distrusted the authority of the Committee of the Privy Council. The noble Duke opposite said, that if parties accepted grants of money under these terms, they would subject their schools to the inspection and direction of the Privy Council. The most rev. Prelate admitted, that nothing could be more fair, if they gave public money to schools, than that Government should be enabled to ascertain whether the money was rightly bestowed and applied, and whether the schools were managed according to the rule proposed. That was all they had to submit to; they did not ask them to submit to any direction whatever, or to control or command; they only asked them to submit to what was reasonable on the part of Government; to ask from those who received aid from the public purse—namely, that Government should be allowed to ascertain by inspection how that money was applied. It appeared to him, that there were Parliamentary and constitutional objections to the last resolution moved by the most rev. Prelate. That resolution was for an address to the Crown, praying the Crown not to take any step to establish this measure finally, without giving their Lordships an opportunity of giving their opinion upon it. The resolution did not say, that the Crown had exceeded its power or prerogative, or that it had done anything that it had not a right to do with respect to the exercise of that prerogative; but if the Crown thought proper of its own right and prerogative to do what it had a right to do, an Act of Parliament was not necessary for that purpose. There was no reason for resorting to Parliament for what could be done simply by the prerogative of the Crown. He thought it
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would be wise and prudent in their Lordships to pause before they adopted the address which was intended to be moved. They never well knew what was likely to create alarm, and to raise a cry, but he must say, that this was one of the most idle and unfounded cries that was ever raised, and he was extremely sorry, that it had been taken up as it had been by the right rev. Prelates, and he would only add, that their Lordships would neither consult the course of proceedings which they ought to take, nor their own dignity, nor the interests of the country, if they adopted those resolutions.
Viscount Melvillerose to protest against this measure being introduced into Scotland. He could assure her Majesty's Ministers, that it would meet with a very cold reception north of the Tweed.
Lord Broughamsaid, that was the first time he ever heard of the people of Scotland refusing to participate in a grant of the public money.
The Marquess of Lansdownesaid, that it certainly was intended to extend this measure to Scotland. He begged to say, that he would take the sense of the House upon the previous question, and if that were not carried he should move the omission of certain words in the second resolution, so as to reduce it to a mere annunciation of a matter of fact.
The House divided on the previous question: Contents Present 171, Proxies 58–229— Not-Contents Present 80, Proxies 38–118: Majority for the first Resolution 111.

List of the CONTENTS.

Duke of Cambridge.

Thomond

ARCHBISHOPS.

Ely

Canterbury

Exeter

York

Camden

Armagh.

Cholmondeley

DUKES.

Londonderry

Beaufort

Ailesbury

Rutland

Westmeath

Montrose

Ormonde.

Dorset

EARLS.

Newcastle

Devon

Northumberland

Denbigh

Wellington

Sandwich

Buckingham.

Cardigan

MARQUESSES.

Shaftesbury

Huntly

Abingdon

Tweeddale

Plymouth

Salisbury

Jersey

Abercorn

Morton

Hertford

Eglinton

Bute

Moray

Downshire

Haddington

1333

Kinnoull

Canterbury.

Airlie

BISHOPS.

Selkirk

London

Aberdeen

Lincoln

Dunmore

Bangor

Dartmouth

St. David's

Tankerville

Carlisle

Aylesford

Rochester

Harrington

Oxford

Warwick

Gloucester

Hardwicke

Exeter

De Lawarr

Ely

Bathust

Ripon

Talbot

Dromore.

Digby

LORDS.

Beverley

De Ros

Mansfield

Clinton

Liverpool

Willoughby de Broke

Cadogan

Saltoun

Roden

Sinclair

Clanwilliam

Colville

Mountcashel

Reay

Mayo

Sondes

Wicklow

Hawke

Clare

Boston

Bandon

Dynevor

Rosslyn

Bagot

Onslow

Rodney

Romney

Berwick

Chichester

Montagu

Wilton

Kenyon

Limerick

Braybrooke

Clancarty

Douglas

Powis

Lyttleton

Charleville

Calthorpe

Manvers

Rolle

Lonsdale

Bayning

Harrowby

Bolton

Harewood

Northwick

Verulam

Dunsany

Beauchamp

Clonbrock

Glengall

Redesdale

Sheffield

Ellenborough

De Grey

Sandys

Eldon

Prudhoe

Falmouth

Colchester

Howe

Glenlyon

Stradbroke

Maryborough

Cawdor

Ravensworth

Munster

Delamere

Ripon.

Forester

Brecknock.

Rayleigh

VISCOUNTS.

Downes

Hereford

Bexley

Maynard

Wharncliffe

Sydney

Feversham

Hood

Fitzgerald

Strangford

Lyndhurst

Middleton

Tenterden

De Vesci

Cowley

Hawarden

Stuart de Rothesay

St. Vincent

Heytesbury

Melville

Wynford

Gort

De Saumarez

Beresford

Abinger

Combermere

De L'Isle

Canning

Ashburton

1334

Proxies.

Duke of Buccleuch.

VISCOUNTS.

MARQUESSES.

Arbuthnott

Winchester

Strathallan

Lothian

Ferrard

Waterford

Sidmouth.

Hastings

BISHOPS.

Bristol

Winchester

Ailsa.

Bath and Wells

EARLS.

St. Asaph

Pembroke

Worcester

Westmorland

Llandaff

Stamford

Chester

Winchilsea

Limerick

Poulett

Elphin

Home

LORDS.

Galloway

Willoughby d'Eresby

Elgin

St. John

Balcarras

Porbes

Hopetoun

Walsingham

Macclesfield

Southampton

Guilford

Carteret

Mount Edgcumbe

Thurlow

Malmesbury

Wodehouse

Longford

Carbery

Belmore

Arden

O'Neill

Alvanley

Donoughmore

Rivers

Orford

Churchill

Brownlow

Harris

St. Germans

Gifford

Somers.

De Tabley

Skelmersdale

Paired off.

FOR.

AGAIEST.

Earl of Essex

Earl of Morley

Earl of Dalhousie

Lord De Mauley

Earl of Leven

Lord Kinnaird

Earl of Orkney

Lord Segrave

Earl of Carnarvon

Earl of Shrewsbury

Earl of Courtown

Lord Carew

Earl of Bradford

Lord Sherborne

Viscount Doneraile

Earl of Kintore

Viscount Exmouth

Lord Strafford

Lord Manners

Duke of Sutherland

Lord Wallace.

Lord Lovat.

List of the NOT-CONTENTS.

DUKES.

Effingham

Somerset

Fingall

Roxburghe

Sefton

Hamilton

Bruce

Argyll

Thanet

Sussex.

Cork

MARQUESSES.

Albemarle

Lansdowne

Radnor

Normanby

Lovelace

Breadalbane

Rosebery

Tavistock

Burlington

Westminster

Zetland

Headfort

Scarborough

EARLS.

Ilchester

Fitzwilliam

Errol

Clarendon

Camperdown

1335

Lichfield

Portman

Yarborough

Dacre

Ducie

Berners

Cowper

De Freyne

Craven

Hatherton

Charlemout

Seaford

Uxbridge

Stuart de Decies

Gosford

Vernon

VISCOUNTS.

Dinorben

Melbourne

Colborne

Duncannon

Crewe

Bolingbroke

Denman

smore

Carrington

Falkland

Foley

Torrington

Belhaven

LORDS.

Saye and Sele

Lilford

Stanley of Alderly

Holland

Methuen

Cottenham

Poltimore

Barham

Vaux of Harrowden

Lurgan

Montfort

Cloncurry

Gardner

Leigh

Langdale

Brougham

BISHOPS.

Wrottesley

Durham

Moslyn

Norwich

Byron

Chichester

Proxies.

Dunalley

Suffield

Audley

Derby

Erskine

Shannon

Sudeley

Plunkett

Marlborough

Lyndoch

Clanricarde

Arundell

Rossmore

Western

Carlisle

Leitrim

Leicester

Spencer

Bedford

Cleveland

Grafton

Granville

Clifford

Wenlock

Oxford and Mortimer

Dorchester

Bateman

Anglesey

Leeds

Meath

Devonshire

Godolphin

Sligo

Suffolk

Howden

Norfolk

Fortescue (Ebrington)

Howard de Walden

Paired off.

FOR.

AGAINST,

Carnarvon

Shrewsbury

Doneraile

Kintore

Exmouth

Strafford

Sherborne

Bradford

Leven

Kinnaird

Wallace

Lovat

Manners

Sutherland

Orkney

Segrave

Courtown

Carew

Essex

Morley

Dalhousie

De Manley

The Marquess of Lansdownethen moved, that the words to which he had previously referred be omitted; amendment adopted and the amended resolution with the remainder of the resolutions were agreed to
1336
and were ordered to be presented to her Majesty by the whole House.
Lord Cloncurry entered the following protest against agreeing to the Address to her Majesty on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Resolutions on Education.
Dissentient,

1. Because the Church of England, as by law established, has been for three centuries in possession of great wealth, and, being entrusted with the education of the people, have not performed their duty in that respect, as has been proved by the gross ignorance of the peasantry, more particularly in the vicinity of Canterbury.

2. Because the Church of England established in Ireland, infinitely more wealthy than the Church of England, had, for seventy years and upwards, the disposal of enormous parliamentary grants, and of other vast funds, for the support of charter and other schools, into which a catechism was introduced, teaching the Roman Catholic children, that their parents were wicked and damnable heretics, thereby destroying the most endearing duties of social life; and the charter schools were ultimately and of necessity closed in consequence of their proved immorality, and the pollution in some instances of the infant scholars by the masters.

July 5.
CLONCURRY.