The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-13 00:00:00

,TuNt 13, 1857. standing, it should approach the undertaking in a large and comprehensive spirit, satisfying itself with no partial remedies, and no tem porary expedients. It has to remember that it is dealing with the material interests of a large, important, and most useful body, and that a n►ggardly economy in matters of State concern is a spurious and vicious policy. We have made these remarks, because we have observed with some apprehension that the Commissioners seem to have become timid and bewildered when they neared the subject of retiring allowances. The scale they reco►umend is so crudely conceived, so defi cient in breadth, and so anomalous, that we cannot believe it will be endorsed by Par iament. There is one blunder they have committed, and it is a serious one, which stands on the ve►y threshold of the structure. They appear to have imagined that the public require some set off against the remission of the super annuation tax; that if the civil Servants be eased of an unjust burden—a burden which ought never to have been imposed upon them, and which is a disgrace to those who devised it—the shoe must be made to pinch in another direction, and a new mode of torture adopted. And so they propose to neutralise the benefit conferred by reducing the amount of the pensions. We cannot for the life of us comprehend the reasonableness of this proposal. If the impost in question be a fair and a necessary one, it ought, of course, to bo undisturbed. But if it be neither the one nor the other, it should bo removed unconditionally and en tirely ; nor should the effect of its abolition be modified by any coincident deduction from its value. This is one of the cases where such a course would be monstrous, for the national exche quer owes a very large debt to the Civil ser vants, and it has no intention of paying it ! The scale of retiring allowances suggested by the Commissioners is unsatisfactory. It is the same as that which was proposed by the Committee of the House last year. It gives ten-sixtieths after ten years' service, advances one-sixtieth each year, and arrives at the maximum of forty-sixtieths after forty years' service. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER'S plan was considerably more liberal and equit able, and, so far as its own merits, taken alone, were concerned, would have made some approximation towards an equitable adjust ment. But it had its unfortunate satellite in the shape of a scheme for reducing the super annuation tax by one half only, and it accord ingly suffered the penalty of execution. There are, of course, an infinite variety of details to be considered in the settlement of this subject, and it would be hopeless to attempt to grapple with them in the cursory form of an article. But there are ono or two points which may be noticed, and which deserve a significant prominance. The House of Commons has the great ad vantage in this discussion of being unpledged to any particular theories. No shades of de parted orations can be invoked to terrify members into consistency. The subject, more over, stands apart from the passions of politics and the strife of parties. It may therefore be treated with philosophic calmness and deli beration. Let the Legislature, therefore, accord its regard, in the first place, to the following consideration, for it is an initial one. Ifjustice is to be done to the Civil servants, the retiring pension must be adequate, and the period when it can be enjoyed must be so affixed as to make its posse , sion a fair pro spect, and' not a remote contingency. We are of opinion that after forty years' faithful ser vice a man is entitled to a full pay retirement. His official career will have embraced the best portion of his life. The State will have had the advantage of the energies of his youth and the experience of his manhood tor a very small annual cost, and the least it can do for him is to surround his old age with comfort and ease. We refer more particularly to the working portion of the Civil servants. The Government offices are hives full of bees, but not by any means free from drones. The functionary who owes his appointment to political influence, and receives a fat salary for signing his name a few times a day, °or- THE PRESS. recting errors he does not perceive, and com municating information ho does not under stand, at present looks forward to retiring after a brief and impotent career, and can calculate upon a substantial annuity. For this class of men, whose ignorance is hidden behind the knowledge of their subordinates, who receive all the credit and share little of the labour•, we have no sympathy; and we think that a great relative distinction should be made between them and the working part of the Government employes. It is clear also that home and foreign service should not be placed exactly on the same footing. A difference might fairly be made in favour of the latter as regards the period of official employment and the scale of retiring allow ance. Ten years spent in a tropical climate or in a rude country, apart from the society of friends, and removed from the comforts of home, are by no means to be classed in the same scale as that for ten years dedicated to the public in Downing•street or Pall-mall. This subject, at the same time, is one which needs to be judiciously and comprehensively handled. We fear it is above the ken of the present associates of Lord PALMERSTON. Sir G. LEWIS has twice essayed to legislate upon the question, and twice he has egregiously failed. Learning wisdom from the past, how ever, he may yet redeem its blunders if he has any pretensions to statesmanship or any capa city for administration. MIDDLE-CLASS EDUCATION. THE relative positions of the Universities of London and Oxford are a curious subject of contemplation. The one seems to be putting on the cast-off clothes of the other. Oxford is becoming liberal, and London is becoming ex• elusive. We have not far to search for the origin of this curious metamorphose. The elder University, relying on her prestige and the deeply-rooted attachment of a most influ ential class in the community, has resolved to venture on an experiment which her younger sister, as yet jealous of her position and tena cious of her privileges, is afraid to attempt. The one is so used to her dignity that she has no fear• of losing it. To the other• it is so new that she cannot lose a chance of parading it. Our readers will perceive that we are allud ing to the different spirit in which the dues • Lion of " Middle-class Education" has been taken up by the two Universities. The Uni versity of Oxford proposes to establish an order of " associates," composed of men who shall be willing to undergo a certain examination, but who cannot afford the expense of collegiate residence ; the University of London refuses to acknowledge this system, by rejecting the proposal of conferring a degree on a candidate without evidence of an academic course. Now, though we must in fairness acknow ledge that in the contrast thus presented the advantage is in favour of the University of Oxford, yet we are unhappily perverse enough to feel that we are not satisfied with the con duct of either University. Hitherto the University of Oxford has represented a defi nite species of education—narrow it might be, unpractical it might be, but it was, of its kind, complete. It made gentlemen and it made scholars. Pedants and original philosophers it did not seek to make. But it was a sound centre of refinement and learning and poetry to this huge whirling society of commerce and politics, from which radiated in all directions rills of sentiment and culture, purifying the mass of society, and making the name of an English gentleman a proverb for what is culti vated, honourable, and manly. Was not the University in reality conferring a greater benefit on the people by main taining this system intact—a system, be it remembered. which only an institution like the University of Oxford, with its noble tra• ditions and (poetical atmosphere, -Ares able to sustain—than by impairing this exclusiveness and lessening the value of this influence, for . the ay.ke of instruction, which any other insti• 571 tution in the kingdom was equally competen t to impart ? On the other hand, we cannot help thinking that the University of London has been as untrue to her own mission by the rejection of this idea, as Oxford has been to hers by its adoption. Exactly in proportion to the extent to which the former University endeavours to compete with the latter upon her own ground will be her failure in public utility. The Uni versity of London has no traditions, no esprit du corps—no body of resident students, animated by a common religion and a common an, from the existence of which springs two thirds of the influence of Oxford and Cam bridge. The benefits of the collegiate, as opposed to the University system, she can never hope to carry out. Her chance of use fulness and success lies in her adopting tho latter principle to its fullest extent, and in taking up the encouragement of " general and " diffusive reading " as her special mission. We think, therefore, that each University has its special and appropriate province, to confound which is to impair their respective efficacy, and to waste their peculiar powers. London should represent dissemination, Ox ford concentration. The latter should seek to maintain a high standard, accessible to only a few ; the former to place the masses in a position to profit by the existence of such a standard. From the one would permeate a refining and elevating influence ; from the other might be derived the tone of mind pre disposed to the reception of such influence. These are their respective works. and we are truly sorry that they should be misunderstood by those on whom rests the responsibility of their promotion. MILITARY EDVCATION.-Sir De Lacy Evens will move the following resolutions on Military Education in the House of Comm ons on the 30th inst.:— That as the numerical strength of the British army available for European war is far less than that of any other great power, and as our Government have for many years neglected the education of the commissioned ranks of the service, while other Go►ernments have been devoting to this object large annual sums and very great attention, it is the opinion of this house that a higher standard of professional instruction than of late deemed requisite ought to be established for our officers generally, but espe cially for those of the staff. That this cannot be effectively accomplished in this country, where powerful influences obstruct the best intentions of those invested with patron- age, without having recourse to the principle of competi. tive examination, in conformity with the recommendation of her Majesty's Commissioners on Civil and Military Appointments and Education, recorded in their reports re cently presented to Parliament. That the candidates nominated by the Commander•in-Chief for commissions in the line be therefore subject to the condition of competi- tive examination previously to their being appointed to commissions ; and that officers of a sufficient term of regimental service, desirous of qualifying themselves for the staff in the senior department of instruction or staff school, should receive theiradmissions and final certificates of qualification on the same principle. That commission. era, consisting of an equal number of military officers and civilians, should be nominated by the Secretary of State for the purpose of superintending these examinations, and that the educational establishments for the line and staff be under the direction of the Secretary of State, who is responsible to Parliament for the administration of the army, and who is already charged with the control of the existing schools and examinations for the artillery, engineers, and the non commissioned officers and privates of the army. THE CHINESE IN SARAWAK. A letter in the Penang Gazette says : About 1,000 to 1,500 CThinanien have had their heads taken off by the Dyaks, who ere in arms in all directions. The Chinese had held possession of the town for about two days, before the steamer Sir James Brooke arrived, and were in the forts and about the town. The first shot front the steamer's long 18-pounder cleared the fort, and in a short time they were all swarming out of the town, the steamer all the time hard at work with guns and rifles, which did considerable execu tion. Every day boatloads of heads were arriving in Sarawak, the I►yaks were flocking in in thousands and cutting the Chinese off in all directions. They are all cleared out of the Sarawak territory, only 150 or so out of some 2000, to 3,000 havingliescaped. All the Chinese women went over safe, about 700 ; and of all the booty they got in Sarawak, they possess very little now. One of their ruses of trying to get quit of the Dyaks was to throw money among them. The Chinese were marching in a body of about 2POO, including 700 women and children, and the l►yaks hovering about them, occasionally making a dash at a corner, detaching forty or fifty from the main body, and whipping off their heads with great zeal. The Chinese have had a terrible lesson in Sarawak. Their manner of going about it was to take hold of a Chinaman. by his tail, and whip off his head with great dexterity; one blow suff►ced. I hardly expect the slaughter will stop here ; the Dyaks, having their blood up and expectit g the Chinese to have a deal of booty, will pursue them till • ; notia man is left.