The Press. — London, England, 1856-02-23 00:00:00

174 museums, and works of art; also, that the British Museum should be opni five days in the week. Mr. BAXTER seconded this amendment, and argued that the adoption of the original resolution would be a prelude to the opening of the theatres, as well as places of amusement in the provinces, on Sundays. Mr. Munnouou supported the original motion. It was impossible, he contended, for the working classes to spend their Sunday in a worse manner than at present. The opening of museums and such estab lishments would, he believed, do much to promote the intelligence and morality of the people. Mr. CROSSLEY opposed the original motion. He regarded it as the first step in violation of the sacred character of the day. If Sunday ceased to be a day of rest it would become a day of work, as in France. It' galleries and museums were opened, the theatres and other places of amusement could not be kept shut. Even the attempt to supply means of enjoy ment to one-half of the community would involve the continuous labour of the other half. Lord STANLEY, after suggesting that large deduc tions should be made from the weight otherwise due to the vast number of petitions presented to the House against the object of the motion—on the ground that they were the result of an organised movement, conducted by an influential body—ob served that the question was not, as had been alleged, whether the resolution would offend conscientious feelings, but whether the offence was reasonable. The resolution proposed was not compulsory, but permissive : He apprehended the object of the resolution before the House was not to ask for liberty to stay away from the British Museum or the National Gallery on Sunday; that they had already. (Hear, hear.) The opponents of the resolution asked not to be allowed to keep the seventh day in their own way, but to have power placed in their hands to compel all others to do the same. In doing that, he believed they mistook not only the theory of govern ment, but the nature of a religious duty. In dealing be tween man and man, as individuals, every individual citizen was of necessity held responsible for the acts of the community of which he was a member For instance, England being at war with Russia, every Englishman was a sharer in that war, whether he approved it or not. Such arrank,ements were inevitably incidental to the imperfec• tion of human justice, but they could not extend t 3 the relations subsisting between the individual man and a higher power. Those relations were, by the very nature of the case, personal and not social. In Toro conscientie each man must answer for himself. Any attempt to force our own views upon others was in reality not to strengthen, but to destroy their consciences. He dwelt on this, be cause half the social injustice committed, half the misery endured on earth, arose out of the manner in which a large proportion of mankind, in all ages and countries, had reasoned on this subject. They argued thus:—" I think this or that act wrong; therefore my neighbour ought to think it wrong. 1 cannot control his thoughts, but I can and will control his acts, and I will make him act as though he agreed with me." What were the fruits of that principle ? Oppression on the part of the strong, Iwo crisy in the-timid, persecution undergone by the bold and honest, discredit brought on the name of religion itself. He denied the right of that house, or any earthly tribunal or legislature, to prescribe the relations which should exist between man and the Supreme Being. Law existed for the purpose of enforcing duties between man and man —all other duties were cognisable by conscience alone. (Hear, hear.) If it were a religious duty—which he could not admit it. to be—not to enter museums on a Sun• day, even then he denied the right of the law to enforce it. But was it a duty to abstain from so doing ? Some a gued that the fourth commandment was still binding ttem us; but, if that were so, it should be accepted strictly, aid in its literal interpretation. In that case they were bound to observe as sacred, not one day in seven, but the seventh day as originally enjoined. He dissented from the argument that to relax the o iservance of the Sabbath would necessarily convert it into a working day : There was a wide difference between opening places of national amusement and allowing trade. Upon social grounds a national hilyday was desirable. The experience of all nations and ages proved that; and on social grounds he thought the State had a right to enforce the day of rest. He felt that so strongly that lie had supported, and would again support, a bill for the suppression of needless Sun day traffic. The details of that bill of last year might have been faulty, but he held its principles to be sound. As for this resolution, he took it as it stood on the votes, and could not find in it anything which either directly or in directly gave the slightest sanction to Sunday trading. If the hon. member who had made the motion had so worded it as to make it apply to any private institution or estab lishment whatever, he would no doubt have opened the door for the admission of a most complicated and difficult question; but he had carefully abstained from doing so. (Hear.) The resolution in—the form in which it was sub mitted to the house dealt with Government institutions only, with institutions which, supported by the national Exchequer, were freely open to all. The question of trade, therefore, was nu element in the consideration of this case; and, admitting its difficulty, he was glad that it had been excluded. Was it true that the labouring classes were so entirely dependent on their employers that their only security for labour on a Sunday lay in legislative restrictions?— Had not some events occurred in the manufacturing districts, within the last two years, which might show him THE PRESS. that the operatives were not absolutely at the mercy of their employers? But let them look at Loudon. No man who knew anything of the state of London could fail to perceive the progress that had been made by the early closing movement. ( Hear, hear.) 1/id the success that had attended that movement show that there was either the power or the will in the employers to invade the liberty or encroach on the enjoyment of the persons in their employment ? There was no obligation of law, nu custom of social life, no observance of religion which compelled men to close their shops at a stated hour; yet it had been done in deference to the feelings and wishes of the em ployed, and by means of the good sense and humanity of the employer. In conclusion, the noble lord asserted that the question now pending did not relate merely to the concession of new privileges, but to the retention of those that already existed. If the present proposi tion were negatived, there would be no consistent grounds for continuing to allow railway trains, steam boats, or public vehicles to run, or the public parks to be opened, on the Sabbath. By persisting in the system of restrictive legislation, religion would be disparaged, education thwarted, and sincere satisfaction given to none but the distiller and the publican. Mr. NAI'IER warned the house that if the step recommended in the resolution were once taken it never could be retraced, and Parliament might put in peril one of our most venerable and most valued institutions. This was only a small beginning, but by slow degrees the poison would be infused; and, however plausible the resolution might appear, taken by itself, it must be considered with relation to its circumstances and consequences. The Sunday was said to be a day of rest; but the rest was to be means to an end—namely, the spiritual and religious welfare of man : Substitutes had been tried, the only effect of which had been to prove that any weakening of its religious basis must encourage and facilitate its desecration. (Hear.) What, then, was the reason why they were now asked to put such sacred interests in peril? It was answered, " the requirements of the population." The advocates of this motion drew their arguments from our neglect of the week-day condition of the labouring classes. (Hear.) Those classes were overworked. Who, looking at the waste of human life in tender childhood, as well as in its vigour and prime, continually going on in our manufac turing districts, could believe that those classes enjoyed all the advantages to which modern improvements in ma chinery and in our social arrangements entitled them ? Who did not know that, instead of the spirit of social amelioration interposing benignly to relieve them from the grinding burden of their incessant toil, they and their children had no room left them for recreation and self improvement, and hence this plausible demand for a por tion of the Lord's Day, to which if they imprudently yielded the whole of that greatest blessing ever granted to man would be gradually undermined and swept away. Let the Legislature, then, endeavour to promote the sanitary improvement, the Christian education, and the rational week-day relaxation of the people, providing, as far as possible, for each family the decencies and the comforts of Christian, civilised life, and then, with the Divine bless ing, they might expect to have a happy and a devout population, forming a nation's true strength. This would afford a legitimate sphere for the energetic activity and the laudable ambition of a Christian senate, instead of their seeking to encroach, by measures like the present, upon the sanctity of the blessed Sabbath. (Hear, hear.) Mr. HEYWOOD considered that Sunday should be kept as a day of rejoicing. Mr. CAIRNS thought that if the principle of opening public places of amusement was once recognised it must be extended to private places of amusement, and from that to places of trade. He wished to see the seventh day preserved as an interval of rest, and not converted, under the pretext of pleasure, into a day of toil and weariness. Lord EBRINGTON pointed out the necessity of legislating for men, not as they ought to be, but as they are. When two millions of individuals dwelt within the pestilential atmosphere of an overgrown city their condition became exceptional, and must be treated in an exceptional manner. in the abstract it might not be the best mode of spending Sunday to devote it to country excursions, or galleries of art, but practically speaking such enjoyments wero far better than the customary occupations wherein the hours of that day were wasted by the great mass of the metropolitan population. Mr. R. l'Aixen maintained that no sacrifice would be too great which enabled us to preserve in all its sanctity the institution of the Sabbath. The bene fits, moral, physical, and economical, that could be traced on this institution were, he argued, beyond all price. He would avoid anything that tended to secularise the day, and on that ground he rested his objection to the opening of public galleries and museums of art. Mr. BALL looked upon the observance of the seventh day as a matter of obligation on every Christian. It was enjoined by a commandment which should be obeyed as stnctly as any other number of the decalogue. Mr. WiwiAid regretted to notice the prolonged silence which the Government had preserved while so important a subject was under discussion. SATURDAY, Lord PALMERSTON expressed his intention to oppose the motion, but feared that his reason would as little satisfy one party as his vote would please the other. He did not believe that to open a few museums and galleries would constitute a desecration of the Sab. bath, nor that by keeping them closed any consider. able addition would be made to the numbers who attended church. Still, he considered the proposed step so insignificant in itself, and promising at the best so minute a degree of benefit—limited solely to the inhabitants of the metropolis—that he could net consent to run counter to the avowed feeling of the country at large. It was also, he believed, highly inexpedient to create an impression that the religious feeling of Parliament was less earnest than that of the general public. Observing that the amendment which had been proposed tended to limit the discre tion of the trustees of the British Museum, the noble lord suggested that it should be withdrawn, and a simple negative to the original resolution sub. stituted. Mr. MUNTZ opposed the resolution, because he feared that otherwise the masters would steal the day of rest from their workmen. The amendment having been withdrawn, after a reply front Sir J. WAIDISLEY, the huuse divided upon the original motion, which was negatived by 376 to 4S. NATIONAL EDUCATION. Lord J. RUSSELL, on Thursday, gave notice that on that day fortnight he would move a resolution on the subject of national education in England and Wales, (Hear, hear.) Mr. HEYWOOD announced that, on the 6th of March, he would move an address to the Crown, praying that her Majesty woul'l withhold Ler appro bation from certain regulations and ordinances lately sanctioned by the Oxford Commissioners for the amendment of the statutes of Exeter, Lincoln, and Corpus Christi Colleges, such regulations and ordi nances being inconsistent with the spirit of the act of 1854 for the good government of the University of Oxford. DISPUTES BETWEEN MASTERS AND OPERATIVES• Mr. MACKINNON, on Tuesday, moved for a select committee to inquire into the expediency of establish ing equitable tribunals for the amicable adjustment of diderences between masters and workmen. The hon. member observed that his object was to establish tribunals analogous to the Conseils des Prud'hommes in France, which had been found to answer admirably. Those councils consisted of an equal number of masters and operatives, and their aim was, not to fix a maximum or minimum ot wages, but to effect an amicable settlement of the disputes which arose from time to time between masters and workmen. As the law stood, in case of dispute, an amicable adjustment by lair and mutual concessions was scarcely attainable. The inquiry, he thought, could do no harm, and a committee composed ot master manufacturers and gentlemen who bad turned their attention to the matter might decide whether or not such a tribunal was likely to be bene flcial to the country. Sir GEORGE GREY had no objection to such an in quiry, provided it was undertaken with a lull know ledge cl the functions of the Conseils des Prnu'lioni mes. He thought it desirable that such tribunals should be established, but it was an error to suppose that they could ever regulate what was a mere matter of agreement—the rate of wages. The motion was agreed to. COMMITTEE OF PRIVILEGES. The Lords met on Monday as a Committee of Privileges. The LORD CHANCELLOR read a letter from Lord Wensleydale, stating that be declined to attend by counsel before the committee. The search for cases through the Rolls and Records not having been completed, Lord Liainnuawr ques tioned the officers of her Majesty's Records in attend• ance upon the precedents found having reference to the question. Atter some discussion, the Loan CHANCELLOR declined to state whether he was satis fied with the cases already seam._ ed out. The Earl of DERBY thought that if there were delays, they were not to be attributed to Lord Lynd hurst, but rather to those who had expressed so great an anxiety to expedite the inquiry. After some further discussion, the Earl of DEBBY proposed that the committee should adjourn till Friday next, when the examination of the documents would be completed. Lord LYNDHURST gave notice that on Friday lie . should move a resolution, stating as the opinion of the committee that neither the patent to Sir J. Parke, nor the writ of summons issued in pursuance of it, could entitle him to sit and vote in Parliament. Lord GRANYII LE, in riply to the Earl of Derby, promised that if any amendment were moved, due notice should be given. REVISION OF THE STATUTES. Mr. LOCKE KING, on Tuesday, moved that there be prepared, under the direction of the Clerk of Fax-