The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-07 00:00:00

JULY 7, 1855. petitors for the Crown, which, like our own wars of the Roses, were such fertile sources of bloodshed under native dynasties. On the other hand, however, there is to balance this the consideration of vast estab lishments cashiered—great feudatory noble men deprived of all means of existence— estates confiscated bankers and money lenders ruined—cities and villages once rich now sunk into beggary—and the sources on which the great body of the people in all countries depend more or less for their living cut off and destroyed. To add to this, there is the being harassed by new revenue systems, which are for ever changing, and which in nearly all their phases are totally unsuited to the condition, and hateful to the feelings, of the people whom they are forced upon; there is the equally compulsory introduction of laws which they neither appreciate nor under stand ; the judgment-seats are filled with foreigners, who for the most part have no sympathy with them, and who openly express their impatience at being troubled with their disputes ; while, over all, they have a Govern ment, the only idea of which appears to be what it calls " the maintenance of authority" by an unhesitating support of every act, whe ther right or wrong, of those who hold office under rt. In the last resort, they have a Pre sident of the India Board to look to, who, in Sir CHARLES WOOD'S case, plainly told those who appealed to him that he had not read their papers, it being clear that if he did jus tice to any one there would be an endless rush of petitioners for redress to England. It surely requires very little reflection to see how far these gross defects in our system must necessarily overbalance any advantages which in other respects it may possess over native Governments, and that we shall never satisfy the fair demands of our native subjects for equal justice and proper government until we shall have extended to the whole of India the shield of competent and independent judges, which has proved so salutary a safeguard of the rights and properties of the inhabitants of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. CHURCH RATES. Wz readily respond to the courteous criti cisms on our former article upon this subject which appeared lately in the Morning Herald, and resume the consideration of the question with the conviction that when our scheme is fully developed, it is one in which not only the great body of Conservatives will find them selves agreed, but one also in which reasonable men of all parties may concur without sacrifice of principle. That the fabrics of our,c . hurche s,as our national inheritance, should be nationally maintained, is conceded on all hands. We have selected a county rate for the purpose (and our contem porary agrees with us), not because it is in theory so correct as a diocesan rate would be, but because it is practically more feasible, as the machinery for its collection is ready made and simple. On the other hand, we select it in preference to a parish rate, among other reasons, because the size and importance of the church is very frequently disproportioned to the present condition of the parish ; and to leave our noble country churches to the care of (in many cases) poor and reduced parishes is either consigning them to ruin, or laying an unequal burden upon parishes which are al ready overburdened. A county affords area enough for equalising and rendering almost imperceptible a charge which would often otherwise be an unfair infliction. It is next, and as generally, allowed that the expenses of Divine worship (as separate from those of the maintenance of the fabrics)—i.e., the congregational, as distinct from the na tional, charge—should be borne by the con gregations themselves. In reality, it is out of these that the obloquy that has fallen upon church rates almost wholly arises. To the keeping of our churches in repair very few Dis senters object, or possibly can do so, while they use the church so much as they do at present. The vestry-meeting itself is housed in a portion of the building ; the church tower contains the public clock; Dissenters are THE PRESS. constantly being baptised, married, buried by her ministers ; and we all know the outcry that is raised if a clergyman (however impera tively the law may forbid him) refuses to bury any parishioner, of whatever form of dissent. But when we come to the charges for Divine worship, the matter is somewhat different. The church and churchyard may be, and often are, used by them ; the clerk and organist are not. They maintain their own worship, and do not like to be called upon for both. As we have said before, we think the whole sum contributed by Dissenters so unimportant to the Church, compared with the ill.feeling engendered by the annual contest and the compulsory rate, that we would willingly free Dissenters from any payment to the Church or its services at all. Any congregation that grudges the very trifling expenses incidental to its worship must have formed a very low estimate of the value of its devotions—though probably a very correct one. The question, however, on which our con temporary joins issue with us is, whether Dissenters shall be allowed to free themselves from all payment to the Church (i. e., to the fabric ; we agree in exempting them from charge for the services) on certifying their dissent? One of the details of our scheme, had we gone into them, would, we think, have obviated the objection of our contempo rary. We see no possible reason why a man's conscience should be allowed to economise his cash, or a premium should be offered for dissent. Let the Dissenter by all means cease to contribute to the Church; but it doer not follow that he should cease to contribute ; let his share of the impost go to the general county rate ; or let it be paid to his own chapel ; if he dissents from every sort of reli gion, let it go to provide for the increased prison accommodation that will infallibly be needed as soon as his unhappy opinions become general ; in short, there are a hundred ways of arranging the details of the scheme, if people will but set to work with kindness and forbearance. Moreover, while wo are ready to make any and every concession in the matter that is compatible with our main principles (which are, the fabrics to be main tained nationally, allowing Dissenters to sub stitute a contribution to a different object where they desire it ; the services to be main tained by the congregations; and persons who have ceased to pay for the Church to have no further voice in the management of her con cerns), we feel strongly, as we observed before, that the plea of " conscience " has been sadly shattered by the war taxes. We quite agree that if " conscience " is to excuse the paymek of taxes, of whatever sort, an almost boundless supply of the article may be calculated on at once, to the serious damage of the Queen's revenue. A premium will be offered upon it which far less question able virtues fail to command, and the Heralds capital story of the lazy undergraduate turn ing Dissenter and "cutting chapel" for con science sake will soon have a breadth of application to imposts of all sorts that will end in a very grim sort of pleasantry for the country. We should imagine, also, that Dissenters themselves, whose objection is, almost ostentatiously, stated to rest not on the amount of the payment (it is always a trivial one), but on the principle involved in it, will be glad of an alternative which obviates the suspicion that necessarily attaches to the motives of a person whose conscience and in terest happen, however accidentally, to go in the same direction. Our own feeling, however, is much more for the support and extension of the Church and of religion than for the scruples of convenient consciences. And no one can have witnessed a church-rate contest, on however small a scale, without feeling that it is a scandal and a hindrance immeasurably disproportioned to the pence at stake. It will be very great gain to the Church, on this ground alone, to have the matter fairly and speedily settled. A still greater gain will be her freedom thenceforth from the meddling and interference in her affairs of persons whose sympathies are in opposition to her interests ; and (as we hope at some future time to show) the greatest gain of all to her will naturally and speedily arise out of the new state of things, in the 631 increased interest which her lay members will be led to take in the administration of her parochial system. THE POSTMASTER-GENERALSHIP. WHITHER it be a wise system to link the administration of the Post office with a seat in the Cabinet, is a question on which great diversity of opinion exists. Several persons think that the Postmaster.Genemlship should be the prize of able services in that particular department, and that it should not be given alternately amongst the various statesmen of the country. Without meaning to disparage them as individuals, they ask what peculiar aptitude for the Post-office was possessed by the Earl of ST. GERMANS, the Marquis of CLAN - RICARDE, or Viscount CANNING, that the pre sidency over that department should have been given to them ? We are then reminded that the postal branch of the public service is essentially one of minute detail, and that, unlike the Admiralty and other offices, its affairs are in no degree of a political character. To this it is replied, on the other hand, that the Cabinet must be formed somehow, and that whether the number of Ministers be eleven, or thirteen, or fifteen, they must be at the head of some departments, and that a certain amount of patronage must rest in their hands. We are then reminded that it. is not desirable to form a complete bureaucracy, and leave the public interests in the hands of mere clerks of office. The Post•otfice is compared with the Presidentship of the Council and other offices in the Ministry, which are placed on similar grounds. In discussing such a question, it is very easy to use generalities on either side. But for our part we think it plain that there is far less special connection between a seat in the Cabinet and the headship of the Post•oflice than there is between the Excise, the Customs, the Trinity-house, and other of the important offices of the country. It is obviously quite natural that in our empire the First Lord of the Admiralty should be the possessor of a seat in the Cabinet. The seat in the Ministry is not only due to so important an official, but the Cabinet should have one of themselves to give direct and secret information about the actual state of the navy. Again, on the important subjects of public schools, education, religious sects, &c., it is highly desirable that the Ministers should have in their body some one statesman specially charged with such functions as the President of the Council has been expected to discharge of late years. But such considerations, it is obvious, do not apply to a Postmaster-Generalship. What special public knowledge of an important character has such an official to communicate to the Cabinet? Besides, we are assured that, as a matter of fact, the Postmaster-General has invariably left the office to be worked by the Secretary at St. Martin's-le-Grand. For a great number of years Colonel MABERLEY was the real Post master-General, and some of the Noble Lords who filled the office transacted its duties by private secretaries and clerks bringing them the papers for signature to their West end re sidences. We do not mean to assert that their office so held was a sinecure, for, as in the case of the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, important political work was as signed to them. But we confess that we should prefer seeing the seats in the Ministry with more distinct responsible duties. We cannot help thinking that the Post office would be better managed if its chief was not so often changed ; its connection with the Cabinet is of too anomalous a character to justify the present system of a merely nominal " head." THE EFFECT OF THE REPULSE. ALTHOUGH the repulse of the 18th has in no way dishea►tened the allies, yet the position of our army in the Crimea is highly critical, and demands watch fulness on the part of the nation. We are surrounded by dangers, and cannot be certain that we have dis covered the way to success. A few weeks ago the