The Express.
London, England, 1858-12-18 00:00:00

ElOll WATII AT LONDOIII_IIIIIDOII.

R is,

.111mods.-1116- Mk.
.1/tWaras. o.lla.

LONDON SATTIEDAT, DEC 13.

RZLIABLZ infeematien that has lately reached
es hem difilirent quintets compels as reluctantly
to express an appeehmteioa that some attempt
will be made nut Semite to ve-open the great
question ot Neutral Munition in Ireland.
It alight be supposed that Ave and twenty
years' a:perigees of the well working of a system
aught to be eallkient to secure it against wanton and
deliberate overthrow. Among all the projects of
popular improvement to which the sanction of Clo-
verameot bee bean lent in our time, it is not too
much to say that the scheme of Primary Instruction
established in the Sister Country has been practically
productive of the greatest amount of good.
Begun under circumstances of peculiar difficulty,
. .

it his saceseded beyond all expectation. In a land
tern by religious dissension, it has brought men of
opposite sentiments to work together harmoniously
he the Ant and best of all national objects ; and
In a sommunity where the followers of hostile
Canis were sot oily trained apart, bat from infancy
saran in diligent ideas, it has created the univer-
sal habit of inger and mixed education for the
'knits° of all parsomions. The bigotry and pride
of clerical pensusien wee indeed arrayed against it
hem the outset The Lord Bieber of CASHEL and
♦reibiehop lisoHtti have never esseed to inveigh
aping h. Hat the laity of all denomination have
sem *Mr Interest ties dimly In the matter to be
doped sr Edda ; and until very recently then was
reason to hops that this greatest blessing ever
ezahreed upon a country was permanently
amain. It happened unfeetunately, however, some
three years ago, that Mr. WALPOLE wee beguiled by
certain Bishops and Clergy of the Established Church
into bringing forward a project of special endow-
ment for Church Schools. Every on who under-
stood the question hit that this was to lay the axe
at the root of the ten: but the PALNIESTON Govern-
ment gave itself little trouble about resisting the
motion, and, to the amazement and disgust of every
sincere Liberal and every moderate Conservative, it
was actually mrried. Aroused from their apathy, the
Whigs endeavoured to put a curb on the mischief
bY getting the Hoow, a few days afterwards, to
append certain qualifying conditions, and Mr. WAL-
POLE, afraid to risk a second division, affected to

SO the matter rusted till the middle of last session,
when, to the sorpries and regret of hie friends. Mr.
Clause BIIITOII promoted himself se the
Puiia-
mntsgehempim of the Established Church Schools,
sad resonamilid that funds eileald be supplied by
the Tremor, See their separate support. The sub-
/solve priori* which had boss weekly taken up
and hastily dropped toylike high Tory Member for
Cambridge lielmesity was laid hold of by the Whig
member fk. Newpart i and—regardlem of Liberal

resesstresese, mad amid the ominous cheers of the
NZWDIOATICB and ADDIALETS. the NAPIEREI and
the Warfnuce—Mr. BUXTON prooeeded to insist

upon the claims of the Irish Protestant Clergy to
additional endowment from the State. For thiv is
what it really comes to. The people are contented
enough with the admirable system of mixed and
neutral Education ; bat the rival priesthood. want
to ham more power over the minds of their flocks ;
and wish, therefore, that the schools should
be placed under their respective oontroL The Pro-
testant clergy, who for three centuries have mono-
polised the whale of the vast Church property of
Ireland, without converting its people to their faith,
coolly demand more mosey to be expended under
their exclusive direetion, in order to secure that
opecilla iodised= in the tenets of Anglicanism
which they ham been paid all this time tbr giving,
and which they ham tailed to give. Taken on the
lowest mud. that of the application of public
sorry, a maw job it wouldbeimpoesible to conceive,
Bat this is the least of the objections to the fatal
awes. It would be to asuildiste at a blow the
life-giving principle of religions neutrality in the
system of primary instruction Waste existing in
Ireland, and it would be the substitution Instead, of
sectarian and separate schools.

The Presbyteries', who are naturally jealous of
any novel or special privilege being conferred by the
I State co their already toe highly favoured livable
weald at cues issiet that all National schools attended
by their &Urea should be declared and treated a*
Presbyteries ; sad the Roma& Catholics would with
equally irresistible logic insist upon the like meow
Sion in their favour. The lay control and lay teal&
log to which they both now submit would them be
regarded es a humiliation and ea injustice. Ultreises-
tanks, ewe reedy to seise es every new pretext der
=Ming Swaim Authority in the fee% and for swap-
ping the brittle ties Mat mud public instruction
with any aparria• or matrol save that of li
the Chu,* would be only too eager to drive
in the wedge were it mos inserted. And
what should we then have to deal with
every year whoa the *Minutes for the Civil
Servile ease to be discussed in Parliament ? If the
undivided great now gives every year. without
a sisrmar, for the mated instruction of the youth
of all weeds, were !woken ap into fractious proper-
timed to the arithmetleal wants of the different
communion, it wield be nseassary to vete some
300,0001. or 400,0004 le sessise kw Roman Catholic
schools. There would be as diffealty in proving
that in these sesiauke the disffnettre doettlase at
Rome were nambetleelly Meght: it would, indeed,
be incredible if they wen net. Aid then we should
have • Parliaineatary Mem, in eseepachea lOW