The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

1074 order of things ; but with those who do not feel that they arc endowed with the gift of leading the multitude, their influence and power in the social scale would be infallibly extingui-hed. 'We appeal, then, with confidence to the great majority of Mr. BRIGHT'S auditory on Friday—we mean, to those who paid for their dinner on that festive evening—whether they are prepared to back their representative in destroying their own political consequence ? We trust they will consider this in time ; and one great benefit which we expect will arise out of Mr. BST's recant display at Birmingham, is, that the different classes in this country will be taught to estimate the real ques tion at issue: which is, not, will you transfer the whole political power of the State to the most numerous—viz., the working—class (that would, if it were possible, be a far less dangerous experi ment than the one of which Mr. BRIGHT advo cates the adoption), but, will you transfer the whole political power of the State to demagogues, who will mass together the units by specious pro mises and plausible assertions (such as those with which Mr. BRIGHT practised on his audiences at Birmingham), and who will wield them to secure their own selfish ends, at the expense of the rest of the community ? That this must be the inevit able result can be clearly proved. It is an axiom, which cannot be set aside, that all cannot rule, and that there must exist some persons to rule, before any can be rulers. Mr. BRIGHT'S plan is not to give power to the many; it is to give power to those who can best cajole the many. Mr. BRIGHT appeals to history. Can he find in the pages of history any single instance of a man who has risen to power by flattering the passions of the people, who when he has attained to power has fulfilled the promises which he made in order to attain it ? %% e know of no such hero ; nor do we fancy that he exists in the person of Mr. BRIGHT. Mr. BRIGHT'S objects are now clearly ascer tained. By giving us no answer to our question, whether has object was to reform the House of Commons, so as to "improve" it for the pur poses of legislation and of managing the compli cated affairs of this vast empire, we have a right to assume that that is not the end at which he aims. No patriotic Englishman, therefore, can have anything in common with Mr. BRIGHT on this subject of Reform. In every alteration which wz would recommend, our object would be to get together a body of men who will best administer the national affairs. Not so Mr. BRIGHT. We therefore call upon every man in this country to choose between two objects. We hold that with Mr. BRIGHT'S views there should not be a shadow of a shade of compromise. We are certain that, if they are carried out, they will prove as fatal to the interests and well-being of the working classes themselves as they will be to every other class. He sustains them by as sertions unsupported by facts, and by reasoning little better than that which the late Mr. Tito st.ks ArrwooD used, when he thus addressed the "men of Birmingham" in the palmy days of bis popularity :—" I have been told," said that gentleman to some 1 4,000 of his admirers,— " I have been told that I am accused of not " being a religious man. Gentlemen, I am " a religious man. I may certainly, now and " then, say damn me, but I hope, when 1 die, I " shall be buried in one of the churchyards of " your town, where lie buried many handsome " men and many beautiful women." This was Mr. AT [WOOD'S mode of con vincing " the men of Birmingham" that he was unjustly accused of not being a religious man. He said (we can vouch for the ac curacy of the report) neither more nor less upon the subject. Why should he? The deafening plaudits with which this, his defence, was re ceived, in that same Town-hall which has just echoed with the plaudits excited by Mr. Baleares eloquence, proved beyond a doubt that it had answered to its end. His audience were con vinced that he had been accused unjustly. Poor fellow! he is now gone from us. He was a vain and a foolish man, with many amiable qualities. Those who knew him in private life described him as kind-hearted and generous, and they always had a friendly feeling towards him. He was for years the idol of the Birmingham po pulace ; but, alas! for popularity he lived to be hissed and hunted through its streets! Whether or no such a fate awaits Mr. BRIGHT, e will not presume confidently to predict ; but, •iceforth, he can only be regarded as a cla- THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858. mourer for peace with foreign nations, at the sa crifice of national influence and honour. He would have war, war to the knife, amongst all classes in these islands; and he seems to desire external peace mainly that his countrymen at home may be untnolested in carrying on an in testine strife. Assuredly he is the bitter enemy of every established institution in this country, and of every clam in it, not excepting the lowest, for to that class, should his theories prevail, he will prove a false friend; and mayhap, if he live long enough, he may yet share the final fate of poor Air. THomAs itrrwooo! ENGLAND'S CHURCH 'AND ENGLAND'S PEOPLE. " IN England only one-third of the people have " any connection whatever with the Established 1 ° Church." This statement Mr. Biticurr palmed off upon his Birmingham audience, as an ascer tained fact which he considered was not as gene rally known as it deserved to be. Well might the Honourable Gentleman observe that " pro " bably many persons in that meeting were not " aware of this fact." Very few persons, any where, we imagine, are " aware " of it. We take the liberty of doubting whether the Honourable Member tbr Birmingham is " aware" of it him self. He does not, indeed, put it forth on his own authority. He takes shelter under an offi cial statement ; " the statistics of the Registrar- General '' are the warrant he alleges for an assertion so little in accordance with what is generally believed to be the fact. It is rather unfortunate for Mr. BRIGHT'S ar gument that even the very questionable authority of the Registrar-General's statistics does not bear out his statement. The estimate of the compa rative strength of the various religious denomi nations, in the Report on Religious Worship founded on the Census of 1851, proceeds, partly on the amount of accommodation provided in their respective places of worship, and partly on the numbers returned as having been in atten dance on their respective services, on one parti cular Sunday in one particular year, the " Census Sunday." Under the former head the Report states that, out of every 100 sittings, the Church of England provides in counties 51.9, or rather more than one-half, in large towns 47.8, or rather less than one-half--the remainder being made up by the numberless " other churches," Popish and Protestant, Christian and Jewish, all put together. The report of attendance on the Census Sunday gives, out of a population of 16,738,695 for Eng land—exclusive of Wales, to which Mr. BRIGHT'S statement does not apply-5,732,719 worshippers of all denominations, of whom 2,838,318, or nearly one-half, are set down as attendants on the services of the Church of England. Now, allowing for argument's sake that the data of the Registrar-General's Report on Reli gious Worship are to be relied on for ascertaining the relative proportions of Churchmen and Dis senters of every kind, it is clear that Mr. BRIGHT'S statement is not in accordance even with those data. The very authority on which he professes to found his statement convicts him of the grossest exaggeration. As represented by " the statistics of the Registrar-General," the ground occupied by the Church of England, as compared with every denomination of noncon formity, is not one-third, but one-half. But a man who assumes, as Mr. BRIGHT did in his Bir mingham speech, to sketch out the true policy of the British empire, ought not to have been igno rant of; or, if he was cognizant of it, he ought not to have suppressed, the fact that the correctness of the returns of the Census of 1851, on matters connected with religious worship, as well as of the calculations founded upon them, was at the time publicly impugned, both in and out of Par liament, and that no satisfactory answer has ever been given to the objections raised against those so-called statistics; on the contrary, their un reliable character was as good as admitted by the very Government under whose auspices that famous piece of statistical legerdemain was per petrated. We will not weary the patience of our readers by a recapitulation of the arguments by which Mr. lIORACE MANN'S estimate of the relative strength of the Church and the Nonconformist bodies was proved to be fallacious. Fortunately, we have other data of a less doubtful character by which that estimate, and Mr. BRIGHT' asser. tion, may easily be corrected. From the official return of marriages contracted in England and Wales, it appears that not less than eighty-four per cent. of the whole number are solemnized by the clergy of the Church of England, eleven per cent. by Popish, Protestant, and Jewish ministers of religion, and five per cent. by the newly in. vented machinery for legalising concubinage on the secular principle, the Registrar's office. Con sidering the facilities afforded by recent legisla tion for the repudiation of all religion whatever, in connection with the marriage tie,—considering, moreover, the exertions made by Dissentin g Ministers to keep the marri ages o f their flocks within the range of their own ministrations, and the pride which strict Dissenters take in repu diating the offices of the Church,—the above fact alone speaks volumes as to the hold which, in spite of all the efforts made of late years to depose her from her national position, the Church of England still has upon the minds and hearts of the great body of the people. To declare of a Church to whose ministrations eighty-four per cent. of the population have recourse on what is to every man and woman the most important event of' their lives, that " only one-third of the " people have any connection whatever with her," is a stretch of assurance not very usual with those who wish their words to have any weight with the public. The proportion of marriages solemnized by the Church of England is not, however, the only test which we possess for ascertaining the extent of her influence over the population. Another and a not less reliable teat is furnished by our educa tional statistics. In the last Charge delivered to his Diocese by the late Bishop of LONDON, that Prelate, commenting upon the unfairness of the Report on Religious Worship founded on the Census of 1851, quoted—from a Report recently presented to Parliament by the same Mr. MANN, of whose authority Mr. BRIGHT has, as we have seen, made such unwarrantable use—the state ment that out of a total number of 10,595 schools for the labouring classes in England and Wales, 8,571 were connected with the Established Church, and only 2,024 with other religious bodies ; and that out of a total number of 1,048,851 scholars only 247,344 belonged to the latter class of schools, while 801,507 were re ceiving their education in Church schools, towards the support of which upwards of a million sterling per annum was contributed by Churchmen. It thus appears that for the educa tion of the masses the Church provides 81 per cent. of the schools, and trains 76 per cent. of the scholars; a proportion which Mr. MANN himself is of opinion would be yet more favour able to the Church, if mixed endowment and subscription schools, as well as private schools . were included, the proportion in the whole of the schools being estimated by him at 83 per cent. of the schools, and 78 per cent. of the scholars connected with the Church. Results of a precisely similar character are ob tained on referring to the Return made by th e Committee of Privy Council of schools built or enlarged with aid from the Parliamentary grant during the last nineteen years,—that is, from 1839 to 1857, both inclusive. During that period the Committee of Council made grants for the erec tion or enlargement of 2,930 schoolhouses, afford ing accommodation to 536,710 additional scholars, to the amount of 718,555/. Of the schools in question 2,676, or 91 per cent., are Church schools ; 254, or 9 per cent., schools belonging to other religious communities; of the additional accommodation, that for Church scholars amounts to 468,395, or 87 per cent., that for scholars of other denominations to 68,315, or 13 per cent. Towards the erection of these schools the promoters contributed 1,705,1431., of which 1,533,303/., or 90 per cent., was contributed for Church schools, and 171,8401., or 10 per cent., for Nonconformist schools. Whether, then, We looK to tne lower classes, for whose benefit, or to the upper and middle classes, by whose voluntary contributions, these schools were provided, evi !t en find the Church ahead of all the other religious bodies put together, in a proportion varymg from 87 to 91 per cent. ; and that notwithstanding the fostering care bestowed upon Nonconformist efforts by the Committee of Council , whose anti church leanings are significantly evidenced. by the fact that upon the 1,533,303/. subsc . nbed for the promotion of Church education the