The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-24 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, APRIL 21, 1847.

National Education Board, bat which were rendered
sectarian and exclusive chiefly through the exertions
of Lord STANLEY, though himself the originator and
founder of that board. But we doubt whether the
Liverpool transaction would be repeated in the pre-
sent day; it was the sequence of some unexampled
scenes of bigotry and fanaticism, when a block of
wood, bound like a Bible, was paraded through the
streets,—rather wittily said to be an apt emblem of
the party which had adopted it as a cognisance, since
it presented hypocrisy outside and stupidity within;
it was the time when all means and devices were tried
to raise a religious outcry against the whigs, it was
the time when every conservative had adopted for his
motto :

Si arm proem soma! Aeherenta mambo.
Or according to Prrta PINDAR'S version:
!woos the home, beg, threaten, nay, compel for it,
We must get money, or we'll shale all hell for R.
In short, it was a time when a game was played
which in this world can never be played twice with
success. Now, to the original plan of the Liverpool
corporation schools, to the plan honourably and ad-
vantageously pursued by the Rev. PRINCE. LEE, to
the plan which has stood the test of no very gentle
experience in Ireland, any ministry which may exist
in this country is certain to be brought by the irre-
sistible force of circumstances. The articles on
education which appeared in the Daily News and Er-
press previous to the unpleasant discussion forced upon
a reluctant public by the controversy on the list of
56 objections, have induced several town councils to
contemplate the establishment of corporation schools,
on the plan originally followed in Liverpool, and
which many of those who wrought the change now
regret that they ever abandoned ; and these unsec-
tarian schools will, beyond all doubt, surpass in
efficiency any connected with voluntary societies.
They will court inspection, but they will not have
the inspection of sects or societies, they will submit
only to the inspection of the state. This, then, is an
element of progress which, once set in motion, is
certain to extend and increase. • _

But the working men themselves, in many locali-
ties, not satisfied with dependence on the capricious
exertions and capricious regulations of the superior
class, contemplate the establishment of schools for
themselves in direct connexion with the state,

without the intervention of any National Society,
any British or Foreign Society, or any Baines'
Committee ; this movement, once begun, is cer-
tain to attain a triumphant issue, and to re-
move, in its progress, every deficiency in the
minutes of council which afforded the friends of educa-
tion in the late discussion an excuse for voting in the
minority. The country placed the government in its
educational efforts under the bondage of the two great
educational asaociationa, and the emancipation of the
government must be the work of the country.
Ministers have done their duty, parliament has done
its duty—they have gone as far as the existing
evidences of the state of public opinion showed to be
safe and practicable. The duty of carrying improve-
ment further devolves neither on cabinet nor par-
liament, but on the people themselves. Now is the
time for Dr. VAUGHAN to proclaim his principle*, and
Mr. ROEBUCK to test the practicability of his theory ;
now is the time for the friends of free education to try
whether schools cannot be established and maintained
independent of party and sectarian influence. The
minutes of council are adapted to existing schools;
let us have better schools and we shall have better
minutes.

WE look forward to great public benefit from the
labours of the select committee on settlement and
poor removal which was appointed early in the
preser.t session. Including in its body some of the
ablest and acatest members of the house, such as Mr.
C. BULLER, Sir J. GRAHAM, Mr. VILLIERS, and Mr.
T. BUNCOMBE, the committee appears, from the
reports which it has hitherto presented, to have
shown impartiality and sound judgment, both in the
selection of witnesses and in the conduct of the exa-
minations. A great number of parishes and unions,
indeed, will have been disappointed by the determi-
nation not to recommend any attempt, even to the
extent of a deelarvory act, to alter or explain the
notorious Removal Act of 1846. The evidence, how-
ever, which has been taken before them, goes far to
show that their inaction was probably prudent. Wit-
nesses experienced in the administration of the poor
laws entertain views so contrary to one another, on the
expediency of the law as it now stands, that it was
perhaps as well to acquiesce for the present in the
accidental result of an ungrammatical attempt at
law-making, as to re-open the question of non-re-
movability before parliament was prepared to deter-
mine the wider difficulties of the law of settlement.
. .

It would be inconsistent with the confidence which
we have expressed in the committee to anticipate the
recommendations which they will lay before the
house, by expressing at present a dogmatic opinion
on the conclusions which they ought to adopt. It
may be useful, however, to those of our readers who
are interested in the subject, though they may not
have studied its details, or who have been led to at-
tend exclusively to any one of its many bearings, to
remind them of the different systems which may be
adopted fortheapportianment of rating, and the distri-
bution of relief, and of the recommendations or objec-
tions which respectively affect them.
If the expenditure required for the relief of the
poor was a fixed charge, such as the interest of the
sational debt, or if, like the cost of the army and
Navy, its iunonnt was determined by causes in-
dependent of local control, there can be no doubt
that it would be most fairly and economically met by
national taxation, either in the foim of a special rate
for the purpose, or of an annual parliamentary grant.
From the adoption of this method, which has even
now many advocates, the abolition of all settlement
would follow of course. As the poor would every-
where be maintained out of the same fund, it would
be quite immaterial to inquire in what place they
became chargeable. It has, however, hitherto
been assumed through the whole course of poor-law
legislation, that the amount of pauperism is so clo-ely
connected with the managementand prudence of those
in whose neighbourhood it occurs, that it is properly
a local burden ; and that those who by negligence or
misfortune occasion the growth of a
.pauper popula-
tion, should be compelled to support it as an induce-
ment to discountenance it for the future. It evidently
follows from this principle that only those paupers
who properly belong to any district should have a
claim upon its funds; and that intruders should be I
sent back as soon as they become chargeable to use
places to which they properly belong.
In deciding, however, between the two principles
of treating the relief of the poor as a national or a
local burden, we should have advanced but a very
short distance towards the solution of the difficulties
on which parliament will soon hare to decide. Sir
ROBERT Peet, himself would find his proverbial
formula of three courses insufficient to express
the complicated ramifications of the inquiry.
There are, at least, three views of the object
to be aimed at, and many more than three methods
proposed for attaining whichever object shall
eventually be thought most desirable. The number
of courses open for adoption which would result from
the combinations of these various means with the dif-
ferent ends would require an algebraic calculation,
into which we cannot here conveniently enter ; but
some of the principal plans which have been suggested
may be stated in a limited compass.
The first course is to let things remain as they are,
taking the parish as the area of relief and of rating,
but vesting in the board of guardians of the union the
power of deciding on all grants of relief. In practice
it often happens, as is stated to the committee by one
of the witnesses, that each parish, through its own
guardian, determines all questions relating to its own
paupers. An understanding among the different
members of the board will of course be sufficient to
secure in this way the independence of parishes
against the federal government of the union.
Tnat the existing state of the law has no
advocates among the witnesses is a circumstance
that need excite no surprise. Witnesses before
committees always recommend something sew. We
never read a blue-book in favour of things as they
are. The old law, however, bas possession and the
cis inertia in its favour, and will probably find many
supporters as soon as measures for changing it are
brought forward in parliament. As the actual paro-
chial system furnishes the most minute subdivision of
control and liability which has hitherto been sag-
gWed, it seems that the influence of prudence and
foresight in checking pauperism is kept at the highest
point under the existing law. On the other hand, the
hardship to the poor of being removed, the trouble
and litigation involved in removing them, and the In-
conveniences arising from precautions against pauper-
ism as far as they affect the free circulation of labour,
will increase in the exact proportion in which