The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-08 00:00:00

come purchasers with a view to emigration., As
far as can be judged from the advertisements, the
object of the Company is to colonise with British
settlers a tract of country in the North Island,
which they have acquired at a legitimate price from
the natives, and lotments are to be made, of which
sections are to be sold to emigrants, the Company
at the same time reserving a certain number of sec-
tions for the native Chiefs. We infer from this that
an attempt is to be made to bring the natives within
the pale of civilized society, to teach them, at all
events by example, agriculture, and some of the
useful arts of civilized life, and put an end to the
horrid practices which are very generally imputed to
the inhabitants of that country. Attempts of this sort
have hitherto been unsuccessful in the New World,
chiefly owing, we believe, to the vast extent of un-
occupied territory on which the aborigines could
fall back, but this objection does not apply to New
Zealand. Perhaps no country could be better
adapted for making the experiment, and if the
scheme be properly followed out, and the Legisla-
ture and the Government provide that justice shall
be observed, and the natives protected against un-
lawful encroachments, the aborigines would have
no reason to complain. It is certainly better that
colonization should take place according to
legalised forms than, as it is at present, by hands
of adventurers and pirates, who plunder and op-
press the natives, and cause the greatest obstruction
to civilization, by rendering the name of Europeans
odious to the whole race.

Mr. O'CONNELL has placed on the book of
the House of Commons a notice that he will on
the 11th instant move for leave to " bring in a Bill
to enable Roman Catholics to hold the office of
Lord Chancellor, and certain offices in the Eccle-
siastical Courts in Ireland." Mr. O'CONNELL
means probably to rebuke the extravagant and do-
mineering spirit of the Anglican Priesthood, which
is at present so conspicuous. Of course, he has no
hope of carrying such a motion, but he will take the
opportunity to expose the political arrogance of
those who hate the Catholics. To wish success
to his motion would, we know, be vain ; but if he
only undertake to expose the arrogance of the
Anglican Churchmen, his eloquence will undoubt-
edly not be thrown away.

The Report of the Committee of Council
appointed to superintend the application of the
money voted by Parliament for promoting public
education, dated the 3d inst., has been laid be-
fore the House of Commons. It will be found in
another part of The Sun.

It appears from this document that although the
Government have so far yielded to the senseless
clamour which the well-meaning dupes of the ill-
meaning Clergy of the Endowment and the Metho-
dist Ministers of the metropolis have been instigated,
by the grossest misrepresentation, to raise against
the lately proposed plan of education, as to relin-
quish the establishment of the normal school—the
best part, no doubt, of the plan—the other parts of
the original design will be carried into effect. The ten
thousand pounds, voted by Parliament in 1835 for
the erection of normal and model schools, is to
be divided in equal proportions between the so-
called National Society and the British and Foreign
School Society. What remains unappropriated
of the grants of 1837 and 1838, and the grant,
whatever it may be, of the present year, will be
distributed in aid of subscriptions for building
schoolhouses, and, in certain cases, for the main-
tenance of schools in connection with the above-
mentioned Societies.

The rule which has hitherto been observed in
the application of the Parliamentary grants will, we
are glad to perceive, be no longer adhered to.
Hitherto it has been the custom to favour the
locality in which the largest subscription was raised,
the consequence of which is that the more populous,
which are generally the poorer districts—those dis-
tricts, in fact, where education is most wanted—not
being able to subscribe the amount deemed requisite
to entitle them to a share of the public money, have
been neglected. In future, applications for assist-
ance from places so situated will not be rejected.
It is also of importance to observe that the assist-
ance to be given will not, as heretofore, be confined
exclusively to schools connected with the two Socie-
ties already alluded to, but extended to such other
schools as may appear to the Committee to
require it. The liberal exercise of 'this discre-
tionary power, together with the exclusion from any
participation in the Parliamentary grant of every
school in which the right of Government inspection
is not admitted, with the view of improving and
rendering uniform the regulations, discipline, and
modes of teaching in the various schools, will go
far to disappoint the dishonest selfishness of the
Bishop of LONDON and the rest of the parsons,
who, under the mask of a regard for religion, but
really for the purpose of promoting their own sordid
interests, have contrived to enlist the prejudices of
their blind, unreasoning followers against popular
education.