The Press. — London, England, 1856-04-12 00:00:00

APRIL 12, 1856. HOUSE OF LORDS-FRIDAY. Their lordships sat only for half an hour, and were occupied solely with a conversation respecting cer tain details of the Church Discipline Bill, com menced by the Bishop of Bangor. HOUSE OF COMMONS—FRIDAY. ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTS IN PRISON. On the motion for adjourning to Monday next, Mr. BoWYER complained of the difficulties thrown in the way of Roman Catholic priests in obtaining a Tess to prisoners of their own faith in Pentonville and of er p s ei a detention. Sir G. (TREY explained that every facility was ac corded to the Roman Catholic ministers, in common with those of every other dissenting denomination, which was found consistent with the provisions of the Prison Act. MILITARY CHAPLAINS. Sir DE LACY EVANS called attention to the service rendered during the late war by the chaplains at tached to the army in the Crimea, and inquired whether any special recognition of those services would be accorded by the Government. Lord PALMERSTON recognised the services and devotion of the ministers of every denomination present with the army during the past campaign, and gave an assurance that the subject would not be overlooked by her Majesty's Ministers. Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT suggested that the eccle siastical patronage lodged in the hands of the Lord Chancellor might be appropriately devoted to reward the services of the military chaplains belonging to the Established Church. EDUCATION. The house having resolved itself into committee, the adjourned debate on education was resumed by Lord Joint RUSSELL, who reverted to the speech delivered by Sir J. Graham on the previous evening. He expressed his surprise at finding the right hon. baronet assuming the character of a champion of voluntaryism, and proceeded to examine and rebut the charges brought against his own series of educa tional resolutions, on account of their alleged com pulsory and tyrannical nature. Lord John after wards refereed to his past efforts in the cause of education, and explained the motives by which he bad been prompted and the principles on which he had acted, in bringing forward successive propositions of the subject during the past twenty years. To those propositions, so far as they had been adopted, his present scheme was a fitting supplement, being chiefly designed to give further symmetry and de velopment to the agencies already set in motion under the supervision of the Committee of Council. The noble lord then described the details of the machinery which he proposed to establish by his different resolutions, for the purpose of providing a regular system of inspection, to raise the necessary funds, and to utilise the produce of charitable be quests held in trust for the promotion of education. On this latter point lie dilated at much length, in sisting upon the advantages that would be secured, in the great majority of instances, by establishing some better administration for the trusts in question than had heretofore existed. Lord John Russell afterwards alluded to the provisions of compulsory character which he proposed to introduce ; and, after describing them in detail, submitted that the element of compulsion was employed for objects so important, and presented under so many mitigations, that it could not prove oppressive or injurious in the pro cess of working. Respecting the question of religious teaching, he defended the mode in which it VMS dealt with in his resolutions, observing that he had not interfered with the lessons inculcated in the Church or Denominational schools now existing or hereafter to be established; while in every other school supported by rates or grants of public money it was provided that the Scriptures should be regu larly read in them, although the dissemination of particular religious opinions might be prohi'oited. Denying that his scheme would interfere with the conditions of juvenile employment, or left a dan gerous amount of patronage in the hands of the Treasury, the noble lord concluded by proposing to withdraw, at all events for the present, the latter half of his series of resolutions, which contained the propositions that appeared to be most seriously controverted. .This intimation that all the characteristic elements in his scheme were surrendered by Lord John Russell and seemed to take the houso enunciated the principle that the " England ought neither to be model of merely secular America, nor the compulsory the inculcation of the State the despotic Governments of proceeded to notice the several by Lord John Russell, oh was rendered much lighter by principal provision they con his perfect accordance with the • forth the expediency of rek caused some sensation, by surprise. Sir G. GREY ►enuncii educational system of constructed upon the teaching adopted in .1 instruction including i religion practised by Eope• He then pro resolutions • presented serving that his task w the surrender of the p tuned• Expressing hi/ int resolution-, setting THE. PRESS. vising and extending the minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, the Home Secretary de clared that the subsequent resolutions were practi cally inadmissible. On abstract principles, much might be said for them. But the resolutions in themselves were inoperative, and if it were attempted to embody them in some definite statutes, very serious difficulties would be encountered, leading, in his belief, to most intractable animosities. This dis tinction between a theoretical approval and a legisla tive condemnation Sir George went on to apply to the successive propositions comprised in the series, especially as regarded the proposed machinery for inspection, the interference with charitable trusts, and the compromise suggested between the secular and the religious systems of instruction. To the com pulsory rate for educational purposes he also objected, but. stated that the Government were preparing a bill to sanction the levy of a voluntary rate in every district where a certain majority of ratepayers might pass a vote with that object. _ _ Mr. HENLEY, under the changed aspect of tha scheme, consented to withdraw his amendment, that the chairman should leave the chair, extending his approval, however, only to the first resolution. Mr. GLADSTONE, however, objected to this abrupt termination to a debate which had already occupied the house for two nights. Mr. BALL defended the existing voluntary system of education, and wished to leave it undisturbed to its natural development. Sir S. NORTHCOTE, notwithstanding the abandon ment of the scheme by its author, proceeded to corn• ment upon many of the features it had presented, and expressed his opinion of its inadequacy and impolicy. He noticed many particulars in which no provision either existed or was proposed for sup plying the educational wants of the country. Mr. DRUMMOND drew a broad distinction between instruction and education. The utmost efforts of the Legislature could but find means for instructing children to a certain degree, while no amount of instruction could make an hone't man. After a few words from Mr. W. MILEs, ➢lr. GLADSTONE noticed the technical inconve nience attending the mode of dealing with an im portant question by means of preliminary resolutions, and complained of the conduct of Lord John Russell in retreating from his position in the midst of a formal debate. By this stratagem the defeat of the resolutions had been forestalled. With some exemp tions he was convinced that the sentiment of the house was adverse to those resolutions, and, for his own part, the right hon. member declared he found nothing in them to approve except the intention of their author. Loud calls for a division followed the close of Mr. Gladstone's address, and the question was put from the chair, when Mr. DISRAELI hoped that hon. members would be saved the perplexing task of dividing upon an issue which was now presented in so entangled a shape. He recapitulated the turns and changes which the question had undergone during the two nights' debate. He commented in sarcastic terms upon the rapid manoeuvre executed by Lord John Russell in withdrawing half his resolutions from impending discomfiture, and recommended him to abandon also the remainder, rather than divide the house prac tically upon nothing. Lord J. RUSSELL briefly replied, declining to with draw the selected moiety of his resolutions. Lord PALMERSTON appealed to Mr. Henley to with draw his amendment and allow the division to be taken the first resolution. The feeling of the house was, however, against this arrangement, and the committee divided on the question that the chairman should leave the chair. The numbers were Ayes Noes Majority against the resolutions 102 On resuming, the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Bill was passed through committee. The houso rose at half-past one o'clock. A TREATY made by the Hospodar Stirhey with Maximilian von Haber, for the construction of a railway from Orsova, through Krasova and Bucharest, to Braila, has been laid before the Wallachian Divan for its sanction. The cenvention, it appears, was signed at Dresden on the 2nd of February last. The Divan has sanctioned the scheme ; but letters from Bucharest. state that competent persons deny the validity of the concession, or the power of the tem porary governor of Wallachia to make any such compact. THE ADVANTAGES OF AUSTRIAN OCCUPATION IN ITALY is shown in some late published orison returns. The number of inmates in the prisons of Romagna in 1850, 10,436 ; 1851, 12479 ; 1852, 11,787; 1853, 12,035; 1854, 13,006. In Bologna one, during the winter and spring of 1855, there v•ere"no less than 800 robberies, and 80 robberies with' violence, be sides 20 invasions of the banditti' Corrtsponttittt. "THE PRESS " AND ITS CONTEMPORARIES TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—Peace is declared, and I consider we owe it, under God, to the line taken by your journal last autumn immediately after the fall of Sebastopol. I know not by whom your leading art Hes on that event were written, nor do I care to know. All 1 know is that they were the subject of conversation in all political society, and were quoted and commented on by every local jour nal in the kingdom. While the Times and other powerful papers were clamouring for more war and bloodshed, for the humiliation and dismemberment of Russia, your journal surveyed the question in a calm and statesmanlike manner, and showed how the real and legitimate objects of the war were attained, or at any rate were now attainable, by honest straight forward negotiation. Encouragement from such an influential quarter, and the assurance that any reasonable concessions would be well received by a powerful and united party in England, soon induced our enemy to make proposals of negotiation. At this stage THE PRESS surpassed its contemporaries in early information as remarkably as it had done before in statesmanlike views. For weeks and weeks the assertion of THE PRESS that negotiations had commenced, was ignored or roundly contradicted by many of its powerful rivals, and its early and exclu sive information called " guess-work," and " canards " Now, however, the tables are completely turned, and the more the past numbers of THE PRESS are• ex amined by the light of current events, the higher its character will stand. ➢ly chief object, then, in the present communica • Lion, is to beg that you will at once publish in a connected form the leading articles on the war which have appeared in THE PRESS since the fall of Sebastopol, with the dates on which they appeared, and a brit running commentary upon the manner in which they were received by your chief opponents. I would suggest that they be published in the form of a supplement equal in size to your ordinary edition. This double number of THE PRESS would, I think, meet with a sale unparalleled in the history of journalism.—Your obedient servant, March 31. A CAMBRIDGE M.A. MR. ALBERT SMITH AND HIS " FLIMSY." TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—ln your paper of last week I was surprised to see a paragraph respecting my late appearance at Windsor Castle, purporting to be sent by some ad vertising agents, at my desire, with a request for its gratuitous insertion. The reader could receive but one impression—that I had been writing puffs about myself and then circulating them. I never desired anybody to do anything of the kind. I do not even know the agents you mentioned, and I read the paragraph for the first time in your columns —I have the honour to remain, your obe dient servant, ALBERT SMITH. 12, Percy-street, Bedford-square, April 7th. 1856. [The circular referred to was given room in THE PRESS of last week at the request of Messrs. Abbott and Barton, on behalf of Mr. Albert Smith. The publication appears to have caused some annoy ance to Mr. Smith. Really we are not to blame. Those most respectable advertisement agents, Messrs. Abbott and Barton, forwarded the paragraph on flimsy to us for gratuitous insertion ; a request complied with, It was a capital specimen of the " puff direct," and we hope it produced all the benefit anticipated.-Ed. PRESS.] THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF ALEXANDRIA was kept by the Highland Society, on Wednesday evening, at the Freemasons' Tavern, with the usual ceremonious festivity. His Grace the Duke of Argyll occupied the post of president, and was ushered to his seat with much pomp, preceded by stewards and pipers, and surrounded by members of the society. After the usual routine of toasts, that of her Majesty being received with tremendous cheers and High land honours, the whole company standing with one foot on the table, the chairman gave the toast of the evening, "The Battle of Alexandria, and the memory of the Highlanders who had fallen there." He said that in that toast he would include the memories o Alma and Inkermann and the other events of the war which was now happily concluded. He ex pressed a hope that the firm alliance now subsisting between England and Franco would prevent the necessity of commemorating the deaths of any more victims of such another struggle as that of Alexan dria. The " Army and Navy," " Foreign Ministers," "Chiefs and Clans," followed, and were duly responded to. The meeting was exceedingly brilliant, several offictrs of the anity and navy, and many gentlemen in Highland costume, being present, A