The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-26 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1863.

The advantages accruing from the mere discus-
sion of a grievance, were recognisable last evening
in the House of Commons while sitting in Corn
mittee of Supply. This, moreover, although
merely about eighteen members were present dur-
ing the discussion. The occasion for it was fur-
nished by the committee resuming the consideration
of the vote of £236,016 for educational purposes in
Ireland. Whereupon, to a superficial observer, it
might have appeared nothing less than an incom-
prehensible anomaly to find the young member for
King's County actually rising in his place to ex-
plain his reasons for withdrawing a motion of
which he had previously given notice, for
the reduction of that same vote by £lOO,OOO.
That an Irish representative—this uninstructed
observer, whom we are imagining to have been
looking down amazed during the discussion of this
vote last evening in the House of Commons' Com-
mittee of Supply, might have thought to himself in
utter bewilderment—That an Irish representative,
among all the members of the House of COmmons,
should dream for one instant of lopping off a clear
£lOO,OOO from the -vote proposed to be accorded to
Ireland during the current year for the purposes
of National Education ! That his hands should be
extended to snatch off and fling away the crude
" plum" before it could ripen upon the veritably
" plum"-bearing Upas Tree of Taxation—before it
could drop mellow into the mouths of the poor
little children of his own fatherland ! Such, at a
superficial glance, might have been the first
momentary marvelling of this merely casual ob-
server. But—the wonder could only have been
momentary. The discussion of the vote speedily
enough accounted for this apparent, and merely ap-
parent, anomaly. In the seeming madness of the
member for King's County, there was a method,
and a method, too, that, when looked at, must, by
each and all of us, whatever our religions views or
theological predilections, certainly be recognised as
instantly comprehensible.
Mr.
liPaismssv spoke and argued throughout,
simply because of the one obvious meaning attached
by himself and by 80 many of his compatriots
—and it must be allowed not quite unnaturally or
unreasonably—to certain extraordinary discre-
upon a comparison of the educe-
pan cies observable
tional grants and the educational attendance here
in England and there in Ireland. These discre-
pancies, it must frankly be
allowed
bear about
them a very flagrant significance. There is out one
deduction that can be drawn from them. The dis-
crepancies referred to, however, being inthe first
instance, it should be stated explicitly, these.
Whereas in Ireland, during the last few years, the
annual educational grant has increased reueh
faster than the number of children receiving
instruction under it —in England during these
same few years, last past, the grant has declined,
while the number of children receiving education
As
has been all the while considerably increasing.
Mr. HENNESSY reminded the committee, twenty
years ago the sum voted to this end in Ireland
amounted to £ss,ooo—while this year there is the
proposal for a vote in all of £305,000. Simultane-
ously the decrease in the grants here in England
was only last year atone a decease by £38,000, at
the very same time when there was shown to be an
increaseby2B,ooopurilßin the aggregate attendance.
There being dutlng that same twelvemonth in Ire-
increase of 320 in the number of pupils at-
tending for instruction, and an increase in the grant
as well, to the tune of an additional £16,000. The