The Press. — London, England, 1854-07-22 00:00:00

w 674 f N ■ navian Powers might have been our friends. Even the kingdoms and empires of Germany, had there been any show of firmness and sin cerity on the part of England at the right season, might, to a certain extent, have been acting with us for a common object. The op portunity is lost for ever. The Chevalier BUNSEN, one of the victims of our perfidious vacillation, wrote recently, in a letter to a friend, and in the bitterness of his heart,lhat, " though the Russians were hated in Germany, " no living man would trust England." After having, solely for the sake of retaining place, involved his country in a war which in his heart he entirely disapproved, and after having carried it on, for less than two years, in a manner which excited the distrust of the nation, Sir ROBERT WALPOLE was driven from power amid the execration of the community ! THE CONSERVATIVES AND TILE OXFORD UNIVERSITY BILL. Tax alterations made by the House of Lords in the Oxford University Bill are appointed to come before the house of Commons on Monday. Re leetion on the subject has increased the strength of our previous convictions, that the dis paragement of Convocation, in the undue in fluence given to Congregation by the bill as it now stands, is a very great error, which we trust will yet receive correction in the Lower House. If it be right that the representative principle should be introduced into the University, why place so much power in the narrow limits of Congregation, while there is a body so highly educated, so essentially po pular, and practically conversant with affairs as Convocation? We can quite understand how reactionists against Protestantism, aspiring to introduce a theocratic element into our National Church, should desire to have the affairs of the Univer sity managed by a small body. But such a course is at variance with our constitu tional customs, and is antagonistic to the progressive spirit of the last quarter of a century. It is a great error to suppose that academical spirit expires with non-residence, as if in every parish in England Alma Mater had not many worthy sons aspiring to do honour to her teaching. Convocation connects the University with the country, and, under pro per regulation, would supply Oxford with the ele ments of more really national opinion than can be secured in the system as suggested by Mr. GLADSTONE and his subtle allies. The sec tional plan, as proposed by Ministers, is the more sacerdotal, while that recommended by Lord DERBY, Oxford's chosen Chancellor, is at once more constitutional, Protestant, and English. To conclude on this head, Congre gation would have Oxford under the power of resident coteries, while Convocation would connect it with the clergy and Scholars of the nation at large. But the alterations introduced, relative to the great public schools of England, are also worthy the special attention of the Lower House, as it was by its own votes that the improvements (rejected by the Lords) were engrafted in the bill. How stands the case with respect to the schools ? Simply thus. Certain individuals endowed the great schools of Westminster, Merchants Taylor, and Win chester for specific ends As long as these ends are attainable, and neither contrary to public policy or morality, what right has the Legislature to interfere, annul the doctrine of prescription, and apply a principle savouring strongly of confiscation? To throw open to all England the endowments of these schools, with their reserved rights of presentations to the University, would be just the same thing as giving the dignities of the Irish Church to English Dissenters of the three denomina . Lions. The cases stand in the same relation, for, if prescription be plausibly violated in one case, how can it be consistently asserted in the other? On abstract rightthe alterations . of the Lords are contrary to the first principles • of justice, and there is not even the argument of expediency in their favour. Forsooth, we are told that young men admitted to endowments THE PRESS lose the incentives to emulation ! Cases proving the reverse might be quoted in scores ; but, even supposing that such were the case, the schools themselves have suggested the right remedy, viz., requiring a certain amount of University honours as a sine qud non for ad mission to a full fellowship. We have every feeling of sincere respect for the House of Lords, but we think that its alterations are infelicitous. Unpopular their character, they are almost certain to prove unpalatable to the Protestants of England, and are certainly opposed to sound Conservative principles. We hope that the House of Commons will be consistent, and maintain the clauses which it sanctioned after long de bate and calm consideration. 1852 AND 1854. As the close of the session drew near we thought it our duty to call attention to the extraordinary manner in which, under a Government of unrivalled personal preten- along, and in a Parliament singularly free from factious agencies, public business has been, we cannot say conducted, but suffered to stand still. No farther comments of ours could add force to the facts which we laid in their naked simplicity before the public. We have reason to believe that the exposure has not been unfelt ; and in order to make it complete by contrast we subjoin a parallel table of results, obtained, not from the records of the Peel Government of '4l, or even from those of its successors in '46—'sl, but from the history of the shoitlived Administration of Lord DERBY, whose alleged incapacity to carry on affairs supplied the Coalition with an excuse for its anomalous existence. We take the measures passed during the spring of '52 as we find them classed, under various heads. Five acts affecting religion and the Church : (1) Division of the Canadian bishoprics. (2) Facility granted for creating a new bishopric in New Zealand. (3) An act affecting the powers of the Indian episcopate. (4) Eccle siastical Jurisdiction Continuance Aut. (5) Act to relieve Nonconformists from the neces sity of registering their places of worship with the bishop or archdeacon. One act relative to education :—Facilitating the conveyance of land for school purposes. Five acts facilitating the collection of the public revenue :—One regulating the inland revenue ; one assimilating the various duties on stamps ; one simplifying the machinery of the Woods and Forests department; one amending the excise laws ; and a fifth con tinuing the tax on property and professions for a year. Four acts relative to finance. These, how ever, are matter of routine, and can scarcely be reckoned among the real work of the session. Five acts relating to the public health, one of which gave London a water supply, while another enabled a stop to be put to the practice of intramural interments. The other three are of minor though still not inconsi derable importance. Seven acts relating to public works, all involving grave questions of local interest, though to the nation at large comparatively unimportant. Notice also given of the inten tion to build a new National Gallery—a pro ject uniformly opposed by Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S Government, but now popular with all parties. Eight acts concerning county expenditure, of which the Irish Valuation Bill, and one to simplify the collection of county rates, are the most material. Four acts having reference to parliamentary representation, of which two are trivial, and the other two—those for the prevention of corrupt practices at elections, and for the dis franchisement of St. Alban's—were originally brought in by Lord JOHN RUSSELL. In this case Lord DERBY'S Government had only the credit of taking up zealously, and carrying through with success, the projects of their rivals and predecessors. Seven acts dealing with poor laws and the administration of charities :—Three of these are mere continuance acts ; the other four SATURDAY, were destined to remedy certain errors of detail existing in the then law. Six acts touching trade and manufactures : One abolishing differential duties on foreign ships, on condition of reciprocity ; one to legalise the formation of industrial and pro vident partnerships among working men; * a third reducing the charge on patents from about 2501. to 25/. ; the rest .of minor conse- quence. Two colonial acts, of which one, framed by Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, gave a constitution to New Zealand; while another transferred from the imperial to the colonial treasury the gold revenues of Australia. Fourteen acts embodying law reforms ; for the passing of which, according to the testi• mony of a hostile ex-Chancellor, " the present " session (of '52) would be memorable, not " only in the annals of the reign, but of the " century." By several of these acts the Court of Chancery has been reformed; by others the common-law procedure was remodelled, the jurisdiction of the county courts extended, a measure for the enfranchisement of copy holds passed, the law of wills simplified, the property of intestates protected, and a variety of sinecure and expensive offices abolished. When these reforms were first introduced, the utmost incredulity was affected as to their passing, and the attempt to deal with such subjects treated as a mere trick to catch votes at the impending elections. They passed, however, in their integrity, and without an amendment. Of miscellaneous acts, not falling within any of the above descriptions, twenty-one were carried, of which the most important was that relating to the militia, whereby the odious ballotting system was got rid of, and which passed the second reading by a majority not only decisive but overwhelming. We have thus in all eighty-eight public acts passed in the short session of '52, without a single defeat or difficulty being experienced, although in the face of an acknowledged ma jority, and by Ministers new to office. But this is not all. The proofs of parliamentary success are twofold—positive and negative — the carrying of measures, and the avoidance of defeats. During the months from February to June inclusive— that is, from the formation of Lord DERBY'S Government to the dissolution of Parliament—no single bill or resolution was carried against the will of Ministers; although the few months immediately pre ceding a general election are, from a cause sufficiently obvious, generally those in which the influence of Downing•street is least strongly felt in the House of Commons. It is idle to ascribe this state of things to a poli tical truce, or compact with opposition. Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Mr. GLADSTONE are not men to be restrained by sentimental reasons from exercising their constitutional privilege of displacing, or even of annoying, a weak oppo nent. No; the solution of the problem con sists only in these simple facts, that Lord DERBY'S Ministry were agreed among them selves, that they had both a party and a policy, that none among them sought to forward his individual interest by intrigues against a colleague or with an enemy, that they held out no exaggerated or delusive promises to the public, and that, trusting one another and Parliament, they in turn were trusted by the nation. THE' LATE PUBLIC MEETING AT MADRAS. BET a single .week had elapsed since the Government denunciations of the ignorance prevailing among the people of Madras, and Mr. LOWE'S declaration on the subject of the mysterious despotism to which they must necessarily be continued subject, when the news arrived from India of a great public meeting held in Madras, the resolutions adopted at which at once justify our belief in the good sense of the people, and show their fitness for more constitutional treat ment than the Secretary to the India Board would accord them. Their first resolution was one of total want of confidence in the * This bill was Yr. Slaney's, but taken up anti carried througu by Government