The Express.
London, England, 1853-07-30 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURD.II, JULY 30.

Tim labours of the Session are said to have told
this year with unusual force, not only on the eeel„
fort but on the health, also, or litany members of
I'arliament ; and it stems quite natural that our
legislators should sigh fur the happy day which
shall shut up St. Stephen's, and !care them free to
wander off in search of amusement or of health to
I country houses, to the moms, to the continent--to
their yachting engagements, or their shooting
quarters. But, though this release cannot arrive till
'certain needful work has been concluded—suck as
the passing of the Charitable lrusts Bill—the hoar
for " breaking up" may very well be hastened by
the casting overboard of some mischievous lumber
that now clogs the more useful operations of the
legislature. Let us select a striking case in point.
There is now before Parliament a measure,
called the " Colonial Church Regulation
which it is very desirable the at te r.t ton of the Liberal
party in the House of Commons should be directed
to, with a view of arresting its progress; for it is
not only a very bad measure, unsuuod in principle,
and offensive in object ; but it is also a very untimely
one. Under the specious pretence ut giving to the
I Episcopal Communion, which uses the formularies
and adopts the Articles of the Church of England in
the Colonies,—and is therein popularly called the
Churchof England,—the same liberty to makeregula-
lions for its affairs that Dissenters possess and enjoy,
it really and truly aims at giving that Church a
practical dominance and a legal superiority, by making
it the object of imperial legislation, and by clothing
its assemblies and their proceedings with a force of
legality which no other religious body in the colonies
either seeks or would receive from the State. In addi-
tion, this Bill will, if passed, withdraw from colonial
legislation, fur the purpose of elevating it, the
Church of the least importance, numerically consi-
dered, in our colonies, and so create a new topic
of jealousy and ill will between the mother country
and it s dependencies. Nor is even this :,11. By rendering
Colonial Synods and their C mons lawful, the Bill
will promote those claims and pretensions of domes-
tic Synods, which have of lute been repressed with
so much difficulty and no little seaudal. After this
general description of the measure and its conse-
quences, we need hardly add that it is a Bishop's
bill, and has been passed through the Lords with
the whole weight of Episcopal, High Church, and
T r a ct a r an influence.

The measure, we have said, is an untimely one.
Here we are at the close of a session of unexampled
duration, clearing off and working up a mass of legis-
lation for which Ministers ot the Crown arc respon-
sible ; and this mass so presses on Parliament that,
with a view to getting through the most important
parts of it, the Ministerial cargo will soon have to be
lightened. And it is at such a late period, when
Government business is the be-all and tho
end-all of discussion and attention, that tho
Bishops have thought it proper to introduce
and press forward a measure involving some
of the nicest and most irritating ecclesiastical ques-
tions, and setting at nought the soundest principles
of colonial government. Many members of the
Lower House most competent to deliberate on such a
bill, having no notice that it would be introduced,
have left town ; and there is neither time nor taste
left this session in the House of Commons to give
it that full and ample consideration which, when
given, would, we are persuaded, lead to its
rejection. When last year Mr. GLADSTONE, at an
earlier period of the session, introduced a very
similar measure, it met with the most decided
hostility and the most inveterate opposition,—Mr.
HORSMAN and Sir JOHN PAKINUTON tor once
agreeing on a church subject,—aud any attempt now
to force or smuggle the Bishops Bill through that
House must be resisted by those Liberals still in
town. They should upset this clerical attempt to
do with empty benches what there would be little
chance of accomplishing in a full house. 11 e venture,
therefure,to arouse the attention ot th a friends of Reli-
gious Equality and the Nonconforming Members to
this most offensive piece of legislation, that they may
at least insist on its postponement—if they cannot
secure its defeat.

The Bill, we repeat, is foundid on a pretence; and,
under the guise of this pretence, it will give the
Protestant Episcopal Body in the Colonies, or rather
its Bishops and Clergy and their party amongst the
laity, all the impress of a State Church, with all tho
advantages of a voluntary Church. The pretence is,
that the Episcopal Communion in the Colonies is
now restrained by our early legifdation from holding
assemblies to administer its own affairs. This is a mere
delusion, and the expressed doubts are an affectation
to cove: a sinister purpose. The Act of Submission
affects the Church of England, and its clergy where
they have a legal status only—that is, in the Realm.
In the colonies that Church is not a State Church, or
its clergy under any Parliamentary restrictions. It is
there a voluntary communion of Christians, and
they are voluntaries, and as such the Act of Submis-
sion has no force over it or them.

But, let us assume that the legislation of the Re-
formation does inhibit the clergy of Australia
from holding assemblies, and regulating their affairs
in such assemblies. In that case, all that is neces-
sary is a simple repeal of the inhibition, whereby
the church and the clergy in the Colonies will be left
in the same state as the ministers of other denomi-
nations. And if there were sincerity in the doubts
which the bill professes to explain, this would be the
sum total of its enactment. But the measure goes
much further; it not only enacts that no
law of the United Kingdom shall prevent
meetings of the clergy and laity in colonial dioceses;
—a provision wholly unnecessary, inasmuch as
no English law does anything of the sort—bnt,
having removed this stumbling-block of its own
creation to synodal action in the Colonies, it then--
and this is its chief purpose—goes on to elaborately
provide how the assemblies shall be elected, what
powers they shall possess, how the clergy and the
laity shall heseparated,who shall provide—in short, it
elaborates and perfects a complete scheme of colonial
Synods ; and, in doing so, it necessarily assumes for
the Church of England in the Colonies a superiority
over all other religious communities ; thereby offend.
ing one.vital principle of colonial society—viz., reli-
gious equality.
The utmost imperial legislatioa ought to do
is to remove doubts arising out of English law,
When, in addition, it lays clown a scheme for car-
rying out Synodal action in the Colonies, it tres-
passes into the field of colonial legislation, and
in its zeal for the welfare of the Church of England
in the Colones, does it serious injury by associating
it with its State position and relations at home. The
Independents, the Baptists, the Wesleyans, all bold
assemblies of their communions in the Colonies; but
they do not ask for or seek to have Imperial laws re-

'sting the constitution and the power of such as-1
seutuos; and f)erfect religious equality requires that
the Church of England therein at mild have no higher
Authority for its itosemhlies (if it be foolish enough I
to hold say) than other voluntary religious societies;
fur it, we re;aat, in the Co!onies, is only a voluntary
body
I
nest :te of re. lig ion in some of our Colonies is already
onetLing but creditab:e to Christianity. Take the
pre of New Zealand, fur instance. To such a pas
hava contending palenties hrought matters there that
the half-naked savages have been taught all our
domestic controversies and disputes ; our party bit-
terneoses and party watchwords are quite as familiar
there as here. The Church Missionary Society wars
ay
,st the Society for the Propagation of tho
alrearl," says a letter lately give:. in a re-
-I.4ious journal, "a traveller is liable iu some parts
to be retitled a night's lodging if he does not belong
to the religion of the }set at which he stops, be it
Aeg:ic..ti, Raman, or ‘Vcsleyan." Now, the ten-
demy of Church Assemblies and Synods, by rneou-
riging the pride and arrogance of Churchmen, is
eminently calculated to extend religious animosities
ar.d sectarian disputes. Aud it is not only as an un-
necewaary piece of legislation, and as an infraction of
wand principles of Crlonial government, that the
Cu:onial Church Regulations Bill ought to be op-
p,cel, but as a measure tending to promote "envy,
hatrtil, malice, and all uncharitableness" amongst
Christiacs in the Colonies.

Stu VIIN PAKINGION came forward in the
House of Commons on Thursday night in the fancy
dress of a Free-trader, and, supporting the character
with a certain degree of spirit, was rewarded by a
measure of approbation which his partisans are wil-
ling to refer, nut to the mask, but to the man. The
subject of Sir JintN's oration was the Salt Tax in
India, and every oue, who has any acquaintance
with Indian affairs, knows that the said tax does in
reality constitute a very solid grievance. That
has bc.m conceded by almost every writer
on Indian affairs. It has been acknow-
ledgcd over and over again in the course
of debates in Parliament. Sir JOHN PAKINGTON'S
speech may be looked upon as a tolerably good, al-
though one-sided, view of the anomalies and the op-
pression ii,volved in the imposition and collection of
the tax. It is quite true, as he observed, that salt,
—in all countries one of the necessaries of life—is
especially so in India. It is just as true, that the
supply of the article in India is limited and the price
unreasonable. It can be purchased in Worcester-
shire at ten shillings per too, in the interior of India;
after the payment of duty and other charges, it is
sold at prices varying from IS/. to 251. per ton. This
however, he showed, was not the only hard feature
in the case. The salt retailed to the unfortunate
peasants of India at this exorbitant rate is adulte-
rated to the amount of from 23 to 40 per cent. Out
of every hundred parts of the mixture called salt,
which the Hindoo swallows, from 25 to 40 are sand
and ashes. Sir JouN quoted authorities also to
show that the health of the inhabitants of India
was inatcrially affected by the plenty or deficiency
of the article in question. In fact, the whole speech
was an unexceptionable defence of the principles of
Fret Trade in the article Salt, and the only extraor-
dinary circumstance attending its delivery was that
the orator was a Protectionist. Sir Jonx spoke I
precisely as if he had just come from a lecture on
Free Trade, and felt it incumbent upon him to pro-
mulgate. his new impressions. He had got hold of
an admirable subject, and merely repeated the
stock arguments that might have been brought for-
ward by any ono moderately versed in the true
principles of commerce. The only marvel was that
he should have been the speaker. Looking at the
side of the House from which the oration came, the
listeners might well have been tempted to parody
the verses of the satirist; and exclaim,
The speech, we know, was neither rich nor rare,
We wonder how the devil it got there.
Sir JOILN, it is well known, belongs to a party
not very celebrated for • advocating the rights
or comforts or conveniences of the people; and
members of his own party, as well as his opponents,
must have been rather astounded to hear the ex-
Colonial Minister make use of precisely the same
arguments in favour of giving cheap salt to the
Hindoo which he had opposed tooth and nail when
brought forward in favour of giving . cheap
'stead to the British labourer. The very man who
would fain have preserved the privilege of half-
starving his countrymen cannot restrain his virtuous
indignation when the question arises as to the
propriety of diminishing the quantity of salt which
the Indian may eat with his rice. Astonishment at
this apparent contradiction ceases, however,when wo
remember that Sir JOHN PAKINOTOWS Droitwich
constituents constitute a portion of the great Salt
interest. He spoke as the Honourable Member for
Salt, and was inspired by his subject.
The ministers tried, as well is they could, to
answer the various points of Sir JouN's arguments.
Sir CRAZIES WOOD coolly denied the fact of &malt rim-
nopoly, asserting that there were five ciifferent mods* of
supplying rah all competing with each other. He
showed that the comparison of the quantity of salt
consumed per head of the population in India; with
that consumed in other countries was unfair, inas-
much as in the countries alluded to, large quantities
of salt were used for salting meats, a process never
employed in India. He argued also that the tax
amounted to no more than Del. per head of the whole
population. There were many other points in which
Sir CUAILES met the arguments of his Protectionist
opponent with varied degrees of success—for which
the reader, who her not already had quite enough of
Sir C. Woun's speeches, may refer to the debate. The
great question, however, to be really considered was,
not so much the abstract justice of the tax—which is an
execrable one—but whether the English Parliament
is ready to take upon itself the responsibility of sup-
plying any deficit caused by the repeal of the Salt
Tax. If the House of Commons undertakes to
settle questions of Indian finance, it must take
upon itself the responsibility of providing for the
deficiencies of Indian revenue. Now authorities
of all polities are almost uranimous in admitting that
the financial arrangements of India are best entrusted
to the local government. The duty of the Imperial
Parliament is to reform the Indian Government, sad
then to make that Government responsible for its
modes of taxing the people of India. If the House
of Commons lops off a million or two from the re-
venue of India, are they prepared to supply the defi-
ciency ? A Chancellor of the Exchequer in England
who abolishes a tax incurs the responsibility of dis-
covering a substitute, so that the revenue may not be
impaired. Admitting, then, most fully, that the Salt
Tax is oppressive, and ought to be abolished us soon
as possible—admitting that it militates against the
principles, of Free Trade—that the Government In
India should not be a trader in salt—still, there is
room for very grave doubts about the policy of the
decision come to on Thursday night.
If the finances of India were regulated upon proper
principles the Indian Treasury would soon be able to
allow of the repealof a salt tax which'presses so heavily
upon the natives of the country. Bat should not the
saving be made by the establishment of proper go-
vernment before cutting off an importar.t source of
supply ? The British Parliament is undertaking a
large responsibility by meddling with details of
Indian finance; and virtually pledges the Consolidated,
Fund to repair whatever mistakes it may make. Is