The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-22 00:00:00

Zile Orprefso.

• TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 22.

Turas is more ingenuity than ingenuousness in
the allegation just put forth in defence of the extreme
position occupied by the committee of the National
kociety, viz., that all that is complained of is,
that the Committee of Privy Council force the
management claims on church schools as a condition
of public aid. For, what the Committee of Privy
Council do, is to refuse grants towards the erection
of schools, the promoters of which decline to incor-
porate one or other of the seta of clauses in
their trust deeds, and, by the refusal, deny to
the lay subscribers any real share in their con-
duct. 'But, they do not, because of that re-
jection, refrain from making grants towards
the supp•rt of schools, when erected by parties
declining to provide for lay participation in their
management. Any church school, if favourably re-
ported by the church inspector appointed under the
Coneordat of August IMO, is admissible to the benefits
of the Minutes of Is-16, even though its trust deeds
ntav not have been constitute el on the models pre-
scribed by the lords of Privy Council, and though it
is not subject to lay interference. And therein we
think, their lordships err.
But, granted that the Committee of Privy Council
do force the management clauses on the of
church schools, all a condition of state aid, what
injustice is there in that ? Parliament, representing
the nation in its lay capacity, provides the money ;
and parliament has a right to annex whatever con-
ditions it pleases to the reception of its grants. And
therein it dove no more than the National Society it-
self; which has its " terms of union" just as the Privy
Council has its "management clauses;" with, how-
ever. this great difference, that, whilst the former are
restrictisc, the latter arc comprehensive in their ten-
dencies.
But parliament has not, it is said, sanctioned this
condition and these clauses. Indeed! Is not every
document and paper [teed minute and letter or the
Committee of Privy Council laid before parliament?
Ilave not all the correspondence and controversy be-
tween the Privy Council and the Society on this
very question been presented, by the !toyed command,
to the legislature? Ilas not the annual vote been re-
peated and been increased since all their differences
were thus officially brought under the knowledge of
parliament ? Is not the Committee of Privy Council
part of the political administration of the day, and, as
such. directly and immediately responsiblC to par-
liainent ? And are there not four-and-twenty bishops
in the 'louse of Lords to call ministers to account for
any encroachment by the State on the rights
of the rhumb? And, if with all this information
and knowledge of what the Privy Council has done.
and with this opportunity of reversing the policy of
the. Privy Council, if it aecm it wrong, parliament
have not sanetioned that policy by its yearly grants ;
those grants being annually incorporated in a statute
—what, we shall be glad to be instructed, can con-
stitute. sanction?

It is not for ministers, or fur those who accept
this vote us, and who proclaim it to hen sanction by
parliament of the Privy Couneirs great principle, that
in schools aided by the state the spiritual power shall
not he supreme and ahaolute, it is not for them, we
say, to bring the quest ion in a formal and direct shape
before the legislature. It is for those who con-
trovert that principle. who, with Mr. G. A. 14241stis,
claim for the clergy the exclusive duty of
educating the poor ; it is for such men to ask parlia-
ment to deride authoritatively between the preten-
sifills of satvrdotalimm and the rights of the laity.
Why don't thee? Is there no in the How of
Commons to wag his tongue there, as valiantly as he
does his pen elsewhere ? Where is the courage in par-
liament of the party. who out of parliament arc no au-
(lacings? The Church 01 England is far more fully
represented in the legislature than any other reli-
gious body in the country. Why, if it he so deeply
inured and s° severely wounded by this application
of a parliamentary grant—why don't its friends there
make at least one effort to remedy its wrongs?
What, silent even in the Lords!

The truth is, that these people have no parliamen-
tary ease. and, though blatant enough out of doors,
they know it ; they know that in the Commons
they could not muster fifty votes in favour of any
motion adverse to the right of lay management ; and
that• in the Lords, two-thirds of the very bishops
would shrink from supporting their views. And
herein consists the very best proof we could desire
that it is not the church, much less the nation,whieh
disapproves of the management clauses, and the
prineiple they involve: it is merelv a few noisy. rest-
less tractarians, who have bullied, and worried. and
teased the foolish persons who manage the National
Sotiety into their present false position.
It suits the present purpose of these men, in order
to throw dust into the subscribers eyes at the ap-
proaching annual meeting on the Ith of June, to
confine their objection to rompiesory conditions of
any sort a hatever. They, of all men in the world,
are for complete freedom ! But test their profes-
sions by their antecedents ; look hack to their
speeches last year ; read their letters every week in
their own journal remember how they have de-
nied, rejected. and repudiated the royal supremacy;
think of their schemes for convocations, synods,
church courts, church laws do nut forget what their
pretensions as a priesthood involve : and, estimating
them as a whole, then decide whether there is not
something suspicious, dangerous, treacherous, be-
hind this their new-horn zeal fur liberty; whether it
is not, iu point of fact, a (veer and &cloak for spiritual
tj-ramiv, never more pernicious than when it gets
hold of popular sympathies and prejudices.
Conditions, in order to be effective, must be com-
pulsory. Whoever heard of even a voluntary society,
the rules of which were not compulsory? Na-
tional Society's " terms of union " arc compulsory,
just as the .• live points" arc in the chartist clubs.
It requires subscription to and compliance with those
terms before it gives its money. The state does no!
more in making its grants. The National Society
says. " Take our money subject to our conditions, or
decline our money, and have nothing to do with us."
So does the Privy Council. The difference is that,
while the National Society will not abate an inch of
its terms, and will not condescend to argue with
those who disapprove of them; the Privy Council,
with a higher and holier sense of its great mission, has
conciliated the Society by every concession it was
possible to make but one; and had it yielded that,
it would have placed the porliainentaly grant unre-
servedly at the mercy of the Society,—or rather. per-
haps, of the few tractarians who are in possession of
its citadel.

The object of this claim of freedom from all state
conditions to the acceptance of state grants, is to
place the whole power of parochial education in the
hands of the parochial clergy. For, though, appa-
rently. the discussion turns on the question, whether
the bishop of the diocese shall not be the sole arbi-
trator in all cases of dispute as to secular, as he now
is of religious and moral, management : the point at
blue really is, whether the clergy shall not hare
that power. For, who are they that propose this aug-
mentation of episcopal duty? The very men who
are never tired of telling us that the bishops hays
already more to do than. they arc capable of perform-
ing. Think of all the parochial schools of the diocese
of London being placed under the autocracy of
CIIMILEs JA111:8 What would that be but to assign
them altogether to the control of the parochial
clergy ? And so elsewhere ; as. indeed. the Arch
bishop of CtXTEILBriT, with that candour so rare
in Churchmen, frankly admitted in a speech at the
diocesan society of his Metropolitical City.
That is what is aimed at. The management
clauses same to the laity a share, by legal
in the secular management of the schools. Now is nothing so hampering to_yriesteraft es
the salutary restraint of the laity. Hence priestly

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