The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-01 00:00:00

tion, which already amounts to 1,000,0001. per annum, and which is likely, Mr. DISRAELI states, to be, in a few years more, as much as 3,000,000/. per annum. We are not confounding things that differ. Mr. BAINEs, one of the chief opponents of Church-rates, is equally an opponent of grants for education. Both, he constantly and lustly argues, are alike opposod to the Volun tary principle. And this Voluntary principle, h o u nceasingly insists, would both educate the children of the poor, and also supply means of public worship, better than rates or Parliamen tary grants. - - We point out this discrepancy in the tactics of the Liberals, in order that they may rectify, or else justify it, if they can. - NVe say that both the two objects are of the same character. If it is right for the State to take care of the children of the poor, and to provide education for them free of charge, it is equally right for the State to take care that places of public worship are provided, and religious instruction given, for those millions of the working classes who cannot provide thane things for them selves. The Church-rate question is often wholly misrepresented by the opponents of the Church. They look at the respectable pew holders who occupy the best portion of most churches, and they ask why these ladies and gentlemen cannot provide organists and clerks and sextons for themselves ; and why they will insist on putting their hands into their neighbour's pockets, to find means for keeping their churches and chapels in repair. We reply, that if this was really the question, the Church-rate controversy might soon be brought to a close. The persons alluded to—those of the upper and middle classes who attend the parish churches—want no Church-rate made for their benefit. But it is an enormous blunder to treat the question in this way, or to speak of a few hundreds of thousands of householders who actually pay Church -rates, as if they were the whole of the people of this country. Mr. CHARLZS KNIGHT, in his " Companion to the Almanack for 1855," discusses at some length the occupations of the people. He shows that about one-half of the people are " home-members of families." Of the remain ing half, who are occupied in various labours, he estimates that there are— About 1,000,000 domestic servants, „ 1,000,000 employed in preparing mate rials for dress, „ 1,000,000 employed in making dress, „ 1,000,000 ord. agricultural labourers, „ 1,000,000 other persons living by farm and field occupations. These are leading classes, but it must be obvious that there are multitudes of other la- bourers who fall under none of these heads. Now, when the Dissenters ask us—" Why cannot you Churchmen pay for your own ex penses of religious worship?"—we reply by asking them to look over this estimate of the population, and to say how these millions are to pay for their own churches and their own ministers—in fact, whether, if the means of worship are not provided for them, they are likely to have any religion, or means of reli gion, at all? Our present purpose, however, is chiefly to address those members of the " Liberal ma jority" in the House of Commons who are in the habit, year after year, of joining in the hue and cry against Church-rates, and yet, almost in the same breath, of voting without the least difficulty 800,0001. or 1,000,0001. per annum in aid of " National Education." The two objects, Public Worship and Education, are kindred objects. The Finance Minister of France classes them together in his Budget. The principle on which they are justified applies equally to both. Mr. MIALL and Mr. BAINEB object alike to both. The whole Voluntary party is fully as much opposed to one as to the other. Yet we constantly find some two hundred gentlemen in the House of Commons who vote with Sir W. CLAY and Sir J. TRELAWNY to abolish Church-rates, and then vote with Lord JOHN RUSSELL for large grants for education. All these gentlemen • We have shown what is the capital they trade on—how by promises and plausibilities, by appeals to cupidity and ignorance, they gain for some selfish project the eager support of those who will derive from it no Jot of the expected benefit. 411 honest men ought to set their faces. More over, their agitation has been greatly favoured by the conduct of successive Administrations. During the Coalition there was an unseemly scramble for patronage between rival parties in the Cabinet, and even Sir ROBERT PEEL'S most devoted disciples forgot the best lesson be queathed to them by their distinguished leader—that conscientiousness in the bestowal of public appointments of which he was a memorable example. Of course, when Lord Jolts RusseLL gained the ascendant the old Whig leaven prevailed, and office was the appanage of a small privileged clique; while the subsequent Premiership of Lord ParmEas- Tom reached the " lowest deep " in the abuse of patronage, and amused or disgusted the country by appointments alternately ludicrous and indecent. What a aeries of godsends for Administrative Reformers ! Professing to work for so great an object—to stand on so high a principle—aided so opportunely by the jobs and blunders of ill -constructed and feeble Governments, how could they, how did they fail? We answer, from fatal defects in their own views and their own organization, from lack of discernment, from self-interest, from class prejudices, from putting suspicions in the place of certainties, and substituting declama tion for argument. They clamoured for " the "right man in the right place," but did not recognize him when they had gotten him. They believed the slanders against that truly great man, Lord RAGLAN, and were as unjust, if not as libellous, as the Times. Some of their number, again, showed strong symptoms of a wish to make their Administrative Reform agitation a means for forcing themselves into public employment ; in other words, showed that one very common abuse of patronage—the bestowing it to silence a troublesome assailant —would find an exceptional favour in their eyes. Still more obvious was their subjection as a body to class prejudices. Consisting mainly of men of business, they assumed themselves to possess, as such, an intrinsic superiority to men trained to administrative functions in Government offices. Now we might admit that many of the complaints made against red-tapeism were well-founded, that divided responsibility often crippled individual energy, and complicated forms interfered with the rapid action required at a crisis, without being prepared to endorse the large drafts drawn on public ap probation by these self complacent admini strators in posse. They assumed, quite gra tuitously, that a good man of business must be good not only at his own business, but at his neighbour's—must be like the "wise man" of the Stoics, " et, eutor bonus, et rex, Et quicquid volet." And against this assumption the com mon sense of the public ought at once to have rebelled. Official experience, special train ing, must be something—might be much. Dis gust, however, st the blunders committed during the earlier stages of the Russian war awhile gained a favourable hearing for men, who, if they thought too much of themselves. were at least active and shrewd in exposing the shortcomings of others. But matters mended in the Crimea, and the leaders of the Association made mistakes, and published misstatements which were very like slanders; and so their credit waned. Then came the peace, and the revival of speculation ; and a series of disclosures which made the public painfully alive to the fact that " men of busi ness " are neither incorrupt nor impeccable, even in the administration of their own affairs. No doubt the reaction thus produced was most unfavourable to the men who had volunteered to set everyth:ng right by importing mercan tile principles and practice into the various government departments. But the principal cause of the failure which we have been investigating lay deeper even than this reaction. The truth is, that the evils to be encountered are not such as can be fitly dealt with by agitation. They are of ancient growth, widely diffused, and remedi able only gradually and in detail. Not zeal only, but candour, temper, and patience are requisite for their cure ; and these are qualities rarely found in agitators, and cal culated sorely to embarrass their movements. Their forte lies in pulling down rather than in building up ; and in this case, mere demoli- t THE PRESS, MAY 1,1858. would find, if they would trouble themselves to look at all into the subject, that the course they thus take, in steering east on one ques tion and west on the other, is a palpable and almost unaccountable Parliamentary incon sistency. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM. WE have lately had frequent occasion to remark on the questionable means employed by political agitators, and the disappointment which generally follows their apparent success.* It may be scarcely less instructive to contemplate a case where agitation, though directed towards an object not plausible only, but praiseworthy, and though greatly favoured by time and circumstance, has never theless signally faile:l. Where is the Admi nistrative Reform Association? where has it been any time these two years? Is it, gone to Bath, or keeping a prolonged " Saint Monday" at Sheffield ? or is it "absent on duty " in India, helping the " special correspondent " of the Times to make slaughter romantic, and regenerate the British army by picturesque description and shallow criticism? We know not, but it has long ceased to give any signs of life. To the often-quoted Irish appeal, "If ye're dead, spake!" it could render no more satisfactory answer than the familiar Hiber nicism, " I am not dead, but spacheless !" It died away just when Par.mEasTort and jobbery were triumphant—" Like a summer-dried foun tain when our need was the sorest " The how and the why contain a grave lesson for all those poli ticians who hold, and for the more numerous class who profess to hold, that agitation is the best road to useful reforms. For observe, the evil which the Administrative Reformers pro posed to remedy was real, the want which their Association undertook to supply was a grave one. " The right man in the right place " is the great desideratum in our system of government—partially supplied from time to time by the foresight of a wise, or the integ rity of an upright, Minister, but otherwise painfully felt in stirring times and grave emer gencies. They stood, moreover, upon a great principle. Sal us populi supremo lex ; the nation's work must be done, and it is a grave offence against the public safety to lavish patronage on men incapable of doing it. A high legal authority even in the days of ram pant prerogative laid down a proposition which we recommend to the penitent conside ration of Lord PALMERSTON in his occasional serious moments : " The common law," saith Sir E. Coxx, " doth disable some men to take any estate in some particular things ; as, if an office either of the grant of the king or subject, which concernes the administration, proceeding, or execution of justice, or the King's revenue, or the Com monwealth, or the interest, benefit, or safetie of the subject, or the like; if these, or any of them, be granted to a man that is unexpert, and hath no skill or science to execute the same, the grant is merely void, and the partie disabled by law, pro commodo regiset populi ; for only men of skill, knowledge and ability to exercise the same are capable of the same, to serve the king and his people." Oh, that these weighty words were butas true in practice as they are sound in theory that the appointment of a Sadleir or a Clanricarde were indeed ipso facto void ! But the Associa tion at least upheld the truth in saying that they ought to be so ; that the abuse of patronage was a crying evil against which all