The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-30 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

SATURDAY,

regard to the creed or the country of the candidate. Mr. Baron MARTIN,
Mr. Justice IVILLES, Commissioners PHILLIPS and MURPHY, and the new
Solicitor-General are all Mr. HERBERT'S countrymen. The certificates
of priests and adhesion to the creeu of Rome are not demanded as
credentials for preferment in English legal appointments. It ig
to be hoped that the new Solicitor-General will prove more fortunate
than the last. Mr. KEATING is a respectable practitioner, favourably
known on the Oxford Circuit. His friends, of whom the Honourable
and Learned Gentleman seems to have many, speak of his personal
character in highly favourable terms. In the House of Commons,
however, the new Solicitor-General has been not much above a
mediocrity. He could not be put on a level with Mr. CAIRNS
or Mr. MALINS. He appears to be deficient either in
vigour of will or in political knowledge. In one or two
instances (which we could cite) the new Solicitor positively
failed in the House of Commons, and we confess that we do not expect
much from him as a legislator; but we are perfectly ready to judge by
the results. Mr. KEATING is an Irishman who has received the reward
of his talents and industry in England. When shall we hear of gen.
tlemen like Mr. FRANCIS FITZGERALD, Mr. NAPIER, Mr. BREWSTER, Mr.
WIIITESIDE, and other distinguished Irish Protestant barristers, obtain-
ing fair play from the clique of jobbers who misemploy the Queen's
patronage at Dublin Castle ?

The Temperance men, fortifiel by the presence of a Maine
Liquor Law champion, the Hon. NEAL Dow, have determined to push
their principles down our throats during the hot months. We are
to have lectures, and addresses, and public meetings, and preachings,
and we are all to be convinced and converted, willy fully, that sherry
and champagne, claret, hock, Burgundy, or beer, are not to be com-
pared to pure pump-water. We fear that the hot weather will be
much against the whining and whimpering of these well-meaning
enthusiasts, and we venture to warn the honourable gentleman from
the other side of the Atlantic, that he will fail to carry a Maine Liquor
Law in this country. We don't want it, and we won't have it. English
society is every day becoming more temperate in the use of strong
drinks, and as the influence of education and instruction extends,
drunkenness among the lower orders will decrease. The principle of
the Maine Law is a mistake. Putting a prohibition upon any article
of consump►ion is the very mode to stimulate the demand. It is
moral influence alone which will effect the desired result. Besides,
the old error of confounding use with abuse is now so fully
understood, that it is rather a ►natter of surprise any body of respect-
able men, even with pump water on the brain, can venture boldly to
reproduce it to the British public. The fact is, the Temperance cry is
one of the canting cries of the age. Why are we not to drink a glass
of sherry or pale ale, because if we drink too many we shall get drunk?
Where is the principle to end? Carried to its full length, with quite
as little logic and as much folly, we might be forbade mutton and beef,
all the fish, flesh, and fowl of creation, and be limited to pump-water
and potatoes under special sumptuary laws. In drinking and in
eating, the point of sufficiency is left to our discretion, but it would
be a piece of monstrous injustice, on the possibility existing that we
might gorge ourselves with the entrées or the piece de resistance, or
fill our skin to bursting with good wine, that we should be called upon
never to touch either, in order to avoid the evils of both. It is a
piece of sheer cant, and although many of the Temperance people
are no doubt well-meaning persons, their arguments are quite as
weak, and not half so palatable, as their pump-water.

The proposed Educational Conference to take place on the 22nd of
next month may, perhaps, become an era in the improvement of the
working classes—not less memorable than the establishment of
Sunday-schools. It may, on the other hand, be destined only to swell
the already large number of educational failures. It rests with the
committee of noblemen and gentlemen who have consented to act as
managers to determine which of these shall be the result. Previous
movements have failed from their promoters not sufficiently recognising
the fact that the parents of poor children are men and women
with strong predilections and antipathies—a strong love of inde-
pendence, and an obstinate dislike to being " driven " in any
direction whatever. Add to these causes the value of the labour sub-
tracted from the common stock by the child's attendance at school,
and we can at once form some idea of the formidable nature of the
obstacles to be encountered by the coming Reformers. Industrial
education seems to be the only plan calculated to meet these difficul-
ties. We are quite cermin that some obvious and immediate advan-
tage must be set before the eyes of the parents before they will consent
to part with their children's services. But even when that is done,
and the co-operation of the parents secured, we have still another
class to deal with. These are the employers. Boy-labour is
exceedingly profitable, and more is got out of a boy than out of
a man in proportion to his wages. It is impossible
to dictate to the employers. Their opposition is an evil which it must
be left to time end the spread of higher notions to cure. And here
we are led to observe, that if there is one thing more than another
which will render worthless all the disinterested benevolence shown
by the originators of the Conference, it will be the slightest appear•
anee of a dictatorial tone, or the slightest indication of a wish to
enforce a uniform and centralised system. Be it for good or be it for
evil, this is what. the English people has invariably refused to submit
to, and the bare mention of which makes them set up their backs
against any scheme with true Saxon doggedness. A 3 Sir Jot"
PAKINGTON has given notice that he will bring the whole subject of
Education before the House on the 11th of next month, we propose to
renew the subject on that occasion.