The Express.
London, England, 1847-12-28 00:00:00

10 CORILISPONDINTL
Advernamsols lawa " ribe Iziorr." Leedom •••slas paper. mut
at Ow ea*, Derwri.anee.l7 Toe Waist at Ur at pabilatios.

WON WATTS AT LONDON IZIDOR.
Tan Dre—Denia. mls. Ant . ANAANAA MN IL
TA-111. yew —IILANO.O ff WA ma . APAITOM If NM. pot 7.

LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 28.
wg cannot agree with Lord ELLESMERE, that a
man of acute mind and great experience, like Mr.
COBDEN, after having spent a twelvemonth in visit-
ing all the countries of Europe, and conversing with
all the eminent men of those countries, does not know
more of the disposition of foreign nations to attack us,
than his loidship may know of a new mordant for
calicoes. Instead of thus setting down Mr. COBDEN'S
testimony as utterly worthless and irrelevant, we
should, on the contrary, lay very great weight
upon it; and his telling us that permanently
peaceful and mutually lucrative relations can be ex-
tended between ns and our supposed foes ; nay, that
they are extending, certainly does go a great way in
allaying what appears to be a most unfounded panic.
Lord ELLESMERE considers Mr. Ploou a greater
authority than Mr. CosnaN there is no accounting
for tastes.
Instead of laying stress on Mr. COBDEN, Lord
ELLESMERE appears to pay much attention
to those foretgu vapourers, who, like similar
personages amongst ourselves, merely, talk for
the talking' sake. Listen to many Englishmen
in society, and even in the columns of our respectable
journals, when holding forth on the subject of Ame-
rica and Brother JONATHAN; and an inexperienced
listener could not fail to suppose that JOHN BULL'S
first propensity and intention was to go to war with
the Yankees, and eat them, or at least, sweep them as
pestilent and noxious animals from the face of the
earth. Yet JOHN BULL has no such design ; and the
Americans that would take fright and offence
at these bursts of individual and ignorant spleen
on the part of Englishmen, would be as
green as Lord ELLESMERE, when frightened
at the threat of the French emigrant, who
could not possibly think of being friends with the
English, until he had beaten them in a grande
bettailk. _ . .

Neither France nor England are governed by these
rhodomontaders and street politicians ; the dominant
and intelligent classes and persons in both countries
have an equal horror of war—the English statesmen
for financial reasons—the French statesmen, not
merely for financial ones, bat for others infinitely
more powerful and more incalculable. As
the polities of Europe scare at present mar-
shalled, we see France united with the weakest
and most despotic power in it, viz., Austria,
and for the avowed purpose of crushing the
civil and religious liberties of Europe. Against this
holy alliance England raises her protest and her
pacific standard. All Germany is aiding with Eng-
land, whilst Russia is far from joining cordially with
the new ultra-catholic crusaders. With even absolute
courts thus wavering, England in her present
policy has the liberals of all European coun-
tries with her—these of Italy, of Spam, and,
we should say, of even France itself. Should
the French government, therefore, persist in following
up hostility to England on the present basis of the
Guizor policy, the military and naval force of France
should be accounted as nothing. It is so wrongly,
so feebly, so anomalously placed, that its reviving
hostility would be calculated to excite pity and con-
tempt, not fear. Mr. COBDEN is so far right, that if
we avoid awakening any really discordant interest
or passion between the English and French nations,
we may defy the government or courts of either
country to set us at variance.
There never, therefore, appeared to tie a time when
fears of French invasion were more groundless and
more uncalled for. Still, we are far from denying
that it would be most desirable to leave England in
such a state and provided with sue,h capabilities of
defence, as to deter foreign countries in mad moments
from taking rash resolutions. We do not however
see any proposition made fur attaining this end, which
wears the garb of feasibility or common sense.
The plan of Sir JOHN BURGOYNE, developed by
him in that jiamphlet, privately circulated, which
contained the Duke of WELLINGTON'S letter, insisted
on having three fortified ports, Plymouth, Ports-
mouth, ani Dover, with at least 10,000 men in each,
so as with railroad communication to bring 30,000 men

together to oppose an invading force. Ai the present
state of our army does not admit the muster of even
6,000 men for any such purpose, of course there must
thus be 25,000 or 30,000 men added to the army.
Now, we begin by saying that this is absolutely
impossible. The people of this country are taxed to
the very limit of what they will bear in peaceful
times—nay, beyond the limit. And uto raising
taxes to pay 30,000 more men to meet such ima-
ginary danger as Lord ELLESMERE conjures up, we
can only say that the hopes of parliament voting
anv such sum are quite as vain as the fears of the
French. They are mere moonshine, the one and the
other.

As to the fortification of our great naval depots, no
one will grudge the sums requisite, although it
appears to us absurd to erect fortifications, such as
those around Portsmouth, which would require 60,000
men to man. As to Plymouth, we believe the money
spent on it has been utterly thrown away, from the
total want of either skill or common attention in the
outlay. The money bad better have been in JOHN
Boot's pocket, than been lavished on military
jobs. Some increase in the scientific corps we believe
requisite ; but as to an increase of the regular army,
or a calling forth of the militia, or any expenditure
in obedience to a senselem panic, we do think it a
most egregious folly—a crying out of wolf when no
wolf is near, and wasting the energies and vigilance
of the country, for better reserved in their freshness
for the crisis when it may come.
The only plan for increasing the defensive capa-
bilities of our time must be one that does not entail
expenditure, and which calls on the population to
practice and prepare their own arms for their own
protection. This most be done in the colonies, as
well as at home. One necessary concomitant of such
military dependence on the population is, certainly,
the caring for that population, governing it on
liberal and popular principles, looking to its material!
welfare and content, as well as to its national educa-
tion, since we must look how the heads are
stored, and the feelings affected, of those into
whose hands we put arms. But we are
brought perforce to this, being no longer able to pay
for an army more mechanical and blind. There are a
great many speeches, letters, and pamphlets on na-
tional defences. They all, however, set out with the
mistaken supposition that England is what it was
fifty years atro ; and that all it wants is a Priv, to
get up a military excitement, with military loans and
taxes. Bat that won't do. That game is played out
Without quite another system, other ideas, other prin-
ciples, other means, politicians may as well hold their
tongues about " national defence."

MR. EDWARD BAINES is the most self-contented
of controversialists. His trust is in figures. Nothing
can be simpler than his method of determining the
educational condition of a people or a district. Give
him a sum total of inhabitants; a ditto of schools,
with the numbers on their books, and he turns you
out a fractional result, which represents, according to
him, the state of education.
If one county, A, have one in nine of its children at
school, and another county, B, one in ten, Mr. BAINES is
inexorable in the conclusion that A is better educated
than B. He will not stand any refinements. It is
idle to tall him that the children of B understand

reasons as well as rules, those of A rules only ; that
young Holm of B "is taught meanings ; " while
young arras of A rests content with words. Away
with 'soh quibbling. One-ninth of A's population
' ' only one-tenth of B's. Ergo, Ais a
'.county than B.

Fallacious as figures always are, their fallacy is
no where more mischievous than in questions of
education. I.uckily, there is no subject in connexion
with which it is half so transparent It is, there-
fore, disheartening to finds, controversialist as intelli-
gent as Mr. E. Eames, contentedly leaning on this
rotten stick—dealing the most desperate thwacks
with this leaden sword, and violently disoontented with
his adversaries, because they refuse to tumble down
under blows which Mr. E. BAINES assures them are
fatal. There are a certain set of painatakiag persons
who keep up a continual correspondence with Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, not through the usual channels of the
penny or general post, but the columns of the morn-
ing newspapers. These epistles are characterised by
the great length they run to and the little effect they
produoe. The Lion of Judah is peculiarly constant
in these serious epistolary attention.. Mr. POULETT
BCROPE and Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE kept np a very
animated fire of such one-sided communication with
Lord JOHN on Irish poor-laws and Irish relief. That
mysterious correspondent " P." sends his lordship the
contents of at least one mare's nest a week, through
the same newspaper delivery. And lastly, Mr. E.
BAINES has during the hat year taken to besieging
the ear of the Premier with heavy batteries
of educational newspaper artillery, charged to
'the muzzle with figures, which, in the hands
of Mr. BAINES, are quite as " stubborn thins„
as facts can possibly be. There is ne escaping
Mr. BAINES' statistics. They rain on you like the
sugar-plums of an Italian carnival. You turn your
head to escape the battery on the right, and receive
the point-blank discharge of the battery on the left.
So, after peppering us with the whole statistical
small-shot of English educational blue-books, Mr. E.
BAINES has mercilessly opened a heavy fire out of the
reports of the Welsh commissioners, already noticed
more than once in this journal. Mr. E. BAINES, as
usual, scorns any other arm but figures. He proves,
or declares that he proves, by these figures, the fol-
lowing conclusions :
That since 1803, the number of day scholars in Wales has
I increased from 21, 369, to 110,034 in 1846-7 that is from 1
in 26 of the population to 1 in 9.
That mince 1818, the number of Sunday scholars has in-
creased from 24, 408, to 238, 740: that is from 1 in 28 of the
population to 1 in 4.
That the whole, or very nearly the whole of this astonish-
ing and perhaps unprecedented work of educational im-
provement, has been effected by the voluntary efforts of the
people themselves.
That one of the most striking features of the educational
movement has been, the teal of the people for religious edu-
cation, and their determination that it shall be free from all
dictation cn the part of the church or the aristocracy.
That the Sunday schools are conducted with remarkable
skill and effect, especially chow of the dissenters.
That though nearly ode-half of the day-schools are main-
tained by churchmen, six-sevenths of the Sunday-schools are
maintained by the diesenters; while probably nine-tenths of
the people of Wales belong to the dissenting class.
From these facta the following conclusions seem to
Mr. E. BAINES irresistibly to flow; viz. :
1. That the Welsh are able to provide for their own
education. _ . .

2. That they are doing it with the utmost rapidity.
3. That this education is far more valuable in all its moral
and social effects, being thus provided by the people them-
selves, than if it had been provided by the government.
4. That, though no man who goes about with an open
parse, begging men to accept his money, can fail to find re-
ceivers, yet there is every probability that government inter-
ference with education rn Wales would be rejected by the
bulk of the people, who are decided nonconformists.
6. That if, under these circumstances, government aid to
schools should be pressed on the Welsh, it will be justly be-
lieved that the real motive is a wish to counteract and un-
dermine dissenting principles, and to extend the dominion of
the established church.
. . .

6. That if government money should be given to church
schools in Wales, while the majority of the people conscien-
iously reject it, that majority cannot fail to regard the act
as a grow injustice.
We have quoted Mr. E. BAINES'S summary of lead-
ing points, with the conclusions which seem to that
gentleman to " flow irresistibly from them," in order
that our readers may do for themselves what we
cannot help them to do, namely, find out any logical
connexion whatever between premise and inference.
So far from making out any " irresistible" flow of
the one from the other, we cannot at all discover the
channel for causation to flow in. We do not see that
the figures of Mr. Bsirixs' statistical summary supply
any more proof of his practical conclusions than the
number of subecribers to the Leeds Mercury of the
abeolate wisdom of its editor.

No mere statement of either the number or increase
of their schools can possibly prove that the Welsh
are able to provide for their own education. This
goes to even Mr. E. BMNES'S statement of the in-
crease, which is proved by the reports of this year,
as compared with the Kerry committee report of
1833. Bat the reports of 1833 are notoriously in-
complete, and not to be depended on as far even as
they go. It is never an easy matter to get at trust-
worthy Welsh statistics. The race is prone to ex-
aggeratien, on any side which suits their easily heated
prejudices. The reports of 1833 were compiled from
returns furnished by overseen • and many smaller
schools, especially private adventure schools, were not
included in them at all. On the other hand, the re-
turns of Messrs. SYMONS, LINGEN, and JOHNSON
are the most complete that the strictest scrutiny
could furnish. Nothing approaching to them
in this particular has yet appeared in the depart-
ment of educationalinquiry. The means employed
by Mr. SYMONS, and explained by that gentleman,
in a letter in answer to Mr. E BAINES, published in
another part of our paper, were such as to bring to
light all schools, however insignificant, that could
be found within his district. The other commissioners

were equally minute and searching in their inquiries.
Their returns give the numbers on the school-books,
which may be stated as representing, on the average,
one-third more than the real attendance, at the time
of inspection. So that Mr. BAINES takes the returns
of 1833, which give lees than the actual number of
scholars on one side, and those of 1847, which give
more than the actual number, on the other, and tri-
umphantly helps himself alone to his conclusion with
these two erroneous premises.
Bat, we repeat for the fiftieth time, statistics: are
next to worthless in this inquiry. It is not on the
number, but the nature, of schools that the education
of a people depends. The question we want answered
is not " hovri many Welsh schools are there," but
" how many Welsh schools are there, and what is
taught in them ?" Until quality is taken into account
with quantity, we are not one step nearer to a know-
ledge of the state of education in Wales, though
every dame's school have been scheduled, and not one
broken-down day-labourer crams a dozen little Celts
with unmeaning phrases from the English Bible, un-
chronicled in the official returns.

We defy any unprejudiced person to read the re-
ports of MEWS. SYMONS, LINDEN, and JOEINSON (so
undeservedly attacked by Mr. BAINES, as "unduly
critical," and " wanting in justice, generosity, and
considerateness"), without coming to condusione dia-
metrically opposed to the above quoted ones of Mr. R
BAINES. We offer this defiance with the utmost con- I
fidence. Bad as the education of English elementary
schools may be, that of the Welsh day-schools is a
caricature of it. The primary teaching of Merio-
neth or Montgomery is a reduetio ad absurdum of
that of Doreetahire or Essex. In the English day-
schools English children are taught to gabble over
verses of the English Bible, and phrases of the
Church Catechism, of which they understand as little
as they can possibly understand. of any thing written
in English. In the Welsh day-school, Welsh children
are taught to gabble over verses of the English Bible,
and phreace of the Church Catechism, of which they
understand nothing whatever. The difference, per-
haps, is not very great. The glimmering of GILES
SCROOOLNS is of very little more service to him, for
purposes of life, than the utter darkness of Owert AP-
HEYS.

What of intellectual life there is in Wales, is lighted
and kept alive by her Sunday schools. In these the
pupils are adults, and the language is Welsh. Their
teaching fosters a mental activity among the Welsh
waontry, of which no spark enlivens the Egyptian
darkness of the Wiltshire or Dorset mind. It is
true that this activity is kept up on food not par-
ticularly wholesome, on windy subtleties of Calvinistic
dogmatic disputation, or exalted and morbid fana-
ticism, or Puritanic formality, to the exclusion of
all training which has reference to life and its duties.
But with all these drawbacks, the Sunday-school
education of Wales is the only education in that
country. We mean that it. is the only attempt to
awaken the population to mental effort by the aid of
teaching ; and this education, each as it is, is carried
on in Welsh. Welsh education in English. is the
most melancholy of the many mockeries which pa-
rade themselves very imposingly under the fallacious
garb of Mr. E. BAINES'S beloved figures.

WE by no means wish to anticipate the 4ndgment
of the Court of Common Pleas on the liability of the
Penineular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company

as common carriers. If the company does not fall
within that legal description, or if it shall be held
that common carriers may refuse to convey passengers
although they arc bound to accept goods consigned to
them, the plaintiff in the action tried the other day at
Guildhall will 1-se the fruits of the verdict; but no
important public interest will be affected by the deci-
sion. We cannot doubt, however, that the more
important doenine affirmed by the ruling of the Chief
Justice, in " Bennett r. the Peninsular and Oriental
Company," will, if questioned, be found as sound
in law as it is consistent with true policy. It
appears that in the course of last spring, at the time
when the combined Mignelite and liberal forces
were holding Oporto against the Queen's government,
Mr. or Captain BENNETT, • known partisan of
Don Moen, applied for a passage to Gibraltar
by one of the company's ships then about to sail for
the peninsular and Mediterranean ports. The company
suspecting, whether justly or not does not appear,
that Mr. Beserrr's real object was to undertake
some Mignelite commission in Portugal;sent an agent
expressly to Southampton to prevent him from em-
barking in their vessel. For this alleged breach of ,
their duty as common carriers, the action was brought.
The issues raised by the pleadings were for the
most part wholly irrelevant to the merits of the case.
The special pleader, with that fertility of fancy which
distinguishes his craft, set up a series of defences to
the effect that the plaintiff had not applied for a pas-
sage, that he was not willing to pay for it, that the
defendants did not refuse to convey him, and that
there was no room in the vessel at the time. As all
these allegations were proved, or admitted, at the trial
to be utterly unfounded, we need not notice them far-
ther ; nor do we wish to discuss the more substantial
plea which denied the common-law liability of the
defendants as carriers.
The real ground for the refusal to accept the plaintiff
as a passenger was stated by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL,
as counsel for this company, at the trial. Although
in his address to the jury Sir J. JERVIS alleged that
there were political reasons to justify the conduct of
his clients, he would scarcely have attempted to rely
on an argument so entirely unknown to the law, if
there had not been a certain connexion between the
company and the government, arising from the duty
of carrying the mails, which is imposed upon it by
its charter of incorporation. If the owners of the
peninsular steam-packets are not common carriers,
they may no doubt exercise an absolute discretion as
to the passengers whom they convey or refuse. They
may exclude tall men, or red-haired men, Spaniards,
or Portuguese, and subject the Jew to a new dis-
ability, which would, we suppose, " christianise "
their undertaking. If they have not such a
discretion in all cases, they most take a Miguelite or
a Spanish contrabandist on the same terms as if he
was Mr. COBDEN, or the Bishop ofJERUSALEM. Nor
can any contract with the government alter the duties
of the company. It is not pretended that their officers
hold the Queen's commission, or that the pendant
flies at the mast-head of their ships. Their vessels
are like mail-coaches on roads, or mail-trains on rail-
ways. They execute a special contract with the
government, while they perform a general duty to
the public. It is too much for a private association to
claim the right of thrusting its fingers into the mess
of foreign diplomacy on behalf of the English nation.
If the Admiralty agent who takes charge of the mails
on board the packets was to carry messages to
persons obnoxious to a friendly government, there
would be just ground of complaint ; but we really
cannot undertake to close our public conveyances to
all suspected emissariesof foreign rebels or pretenders.
If it should appear that the company, not coming
within the definition of common carriers, is at liberty
to exercise a discretion as to the passengers whom it
accepts or refuses, we still should think it right to
complain, on behalf of the public, of its attempting to
enforce any distinction on political grounds. We
know of no right which the shareholders or directors
possess to take cognisance of the respective merits of
the different conflicting parties in Portugal, or any
other foreign country. A moderado or an exalted°,
a Cabralist or a Miguelite, has the same rights and
constitutional standing in England. Helplessly as
we are given up to the control of Downing-street in
all matters of external poicy,we are not yet prepared
to allow the packet-office at Southampton to represent
English policy in the face of Europe. Foreigners can
never understand the entire independence of govern-
ment which is possessed by our pablic bodies and
commercial associations; and if they find that a well-
known and powerful company practically ..;den-
titles itself with a Portuguese party, they
cannot be blamed if they attribute its con-
duct to the dictation of the English cabinet. The
connexion of the Peninsular Company with the admi-
nistration of the Poet-office, would naturally strengthen
the suspicion ; nor are we by any means satisfied that
in the case of Captain Bensterr it would have been
without foundation.

We should be glad to know who suggested the spe-
cial interference of the packet agent with the supposed
MIGUELITE. We can hardly 'oppose that the
directors of the company are, more than the capitalists
whom they represent, for the succession of the line of
DON PEDRO, or for the maintenance of the charter.
Their conduct, if not unaccountably officious, must
have been suggested either by the Foreign office, or
by the Portuguese Minister. In one case there might
be some excuse for their readiness to support the go-
vernment policy ; but we know of no possible claim
which: the minister of a foreign power can have to
interfere with the free transit of an English subject,
or of any passenger embarking at an English port.
If the company acted in obedience to instructions
from Dawning-street, we cannot but think that the
interference with their ordinary course of business
was a serious indiscretion. With a happy exemption
from the detestable grievance of the passport system
at home, we cannot reasonably be called upon to
strengthen its efficacy, to supply its deficiencies in the
countries where it prevails. It seems that the Por-
tuguese Consul-General had, by the instruction of his
minister, refused Mr. BENNETT a passport. The Por-
tuguese government was therefore secured, as far as
its own regulations could avail, against the intrusion
of an unwelcome visitor. If Mr. Beexrrr could
have landed in Portugal without a passport, the
English government in interfering to stop his pas age
was acting as a moet efficient police in the service of
its ally. If, on the other hand, the passport was practi-
cally indispensable,there was no necessity forany addi-
tional precaution to exclude the supposed partisan of
Doe Mmust. Every attempt to introduce a control
over the free transit of passengers on the part of
government ought to be as strenuously resisted when
it is made in aid of a foreign power, as if there was
an attempt to introduce it into our system of domestic
policy.
It is not the least evil of the attempt, whether
made by a private company or at the dictation of the
Foreign-office, to interfere with the political character
of travellers, that a responsibility is incurred in all
cases where the obnoxious function is neglected, as
well as where it is exercised. If a political refugee
or a suspected emissary is stopped in one case, any
friendly power has a right to complain when a con-
spirator or an enemy is allowed to leave an English
port without opposition. If we allow a Miguelite to
be stopped to-day, we may be called upon to-morrow
to detain a chartist or a progresista. Every act in
aid of the government police of the continent will be
an offence to a political party, and every refusal to
interfere a breach of duty to an allied power.
It is not a very dignified position for those who
affect to interfere in the disputes of a foreign nation
to find themselves unable to defend their conduct on
any legal grounds. Not one of the pleas to the action
of " Bennett v. the Peninsular Company" raised the
defence of public policy on which the ATTORNEY.
GENERAL professed to rely. If the attempt to enforce
the passport-practice of Portugal was consistent with
constitutional principle, it seems strange that it
should not have been embodied in some allegation
which would bear legal scrutiny. The right of re-
fusing a passenger on grounds of public policy is
admitted on the face of the record to be non-existent
as regards common carriers, unless a distinction can
be established between the case of enger e and that
of goods. Special pleaders are familiar with many
subtle-distinctions, but even they cannot recognise the
legal superiority of a Cabalist to a Miguelite. For
the purpose of carrying oat the policy of the Quad-
ruple Treaty, or of the Foreign-office, they are com-
pelled to resort to pleas which raise questions on the
law of bailment, or in defiance of the truth, to traverse
the plain statements in the declaration of the pro-
eeedings as they occurred.
We do not wish to complicate the question by con-
sidering the particular state of Portugal, and espe-
cially of Oporto, at the time in question. The ob-
jection to officious interference with foreign partisans
would have been as strong if the Queen's party had

Libr alassted,