The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-16 00:00:00

in Parliament, to contrast this conduct with the
somewhat sullen discontent of their Protestant
rivals. Superficial lookers-on might be deceived ;
but to those who knew the traditionary policy of
Rome, and distrusted the reality of Priestly exer-
tion for popular enlightenment, the drift of their
design became early apparent. It was deeply
planned, well matured, and is now all but suc-
cessfully carried out. The first object was to
widen and perpetuate the breach already existing
between Protestantism and the National Board.
That object was to be gained by a simulated en-
thusiasm in favour of the latter, and by every-
where describing its institution as a concession to
Roman Catholic claims. This accomplished, and
the intended fusion of sects in the National
Scnools having thus failed of success, the
next step was to represent the restric-
tions imposed on Roman Catholic teaching as
needlessly vexatious, and no longer suited to the
altered state of things. "It was very well," they
argued, " while Protestant children attended
these schools, to take securities against our doc-
trines being taught there. But what need of
such restrictions now, when confessedly the same
school is never attended by children of both per-
suasions ? Why not do in name that which you
have done in fact, and hand over the education
of Roman Catholics to their legitimate instruc-
tors ?" Some even go farther. Mr. LUCAS, the
ablest representative of ultramontane Catholicism,
intimated, in a recent debate, his willingness to
accede to a separate grant for Protestant schools,
provided the regulations of the National Board
were modified. Nothing more specious than such
offers—nothing more certainly fatal than their
result. Let the priest once get the school
and the schoolmaster into his hands, and
he has taken security for the spiritual de-
pendence of the next generation. Secular teach-
ing will be discouraged. Science will be prohi-
bited. Legends will replace history : miracles
will be substituted for experiments : the work of
twenty years will be undone : and the youth of
Ireland, on whom depends the future fate of their
country, instead of rising to an English, will sink
to a Neapolitan level.

This is not merely an Irish quedtion. It is
not even an Imperial question. It is a part of
the world-wide contest between ecclesiastical
domination and individual freedom of thought,
which affects the policy of every European Power,
and which, for good or for evil, must be decided
within the next half-century. There is more,
much more, involved in it than a mere quarrel
of sects. It is not, as many think, a
struggle between the paid Protestant Establish-
ment and the unpaid, and therefore discontented,
Catholic priesthood. It is a problem of which the
solution becomes every year more necessary ; for
every year tends to popularise our institutions,
and popular institutions without public spirit—a
democracy following with blind obedience the dic-
tates of a hierarchy—is, under whatever specious
name we may choose to veil it, only a pretext for
the most grinding and irresponsible tyranny that
the world has yet witnessed.

Our readers may probably have seen a family
of fat pigs reclining in swinish comfort amidst
the heaped straw of their stye. With what
grunts and groans and sullen recusancy they yield
to their keeper's foot if he seeks to make room
for one or two more hogs. Their high displea-
sure, however, abates when they discover that
the new corners add to the warmth, without
rendering the straw too scanty ; the grunts and
squeaks then subside to a dreamy undergrowl of
satisfaction. So it is with Sir C. WOOD and the
East India Directors. His bill is the swineherd's
foot, the Directors are the pigs, the largest and
most comfortably ensconced Hogg being, of course
at first, the most obstreperous at the disturbance,
though now all seem to be sinking into dozing
indifference. This comes from the conviction that
however roughly Sir CHARLES may have thrust in
his foot as a commencement, he is a careful and
considerate swinekeeper at bottom, and means no
harm. Nevertheless, there are loud squeaks
heard about the yard, because behind the keeper
come certain scavengers who, without care for
the hogs, look only to cleaning out the stye in
which he has lodged his bristly charge. The
approach of those maleficent ruffiers of hoggish
felicity has produced all manner of swinish
disapprobation from the deep grunt of Parlia-
mentary orations to the treble squeaks of small
pamphlets and dinner sarcasms, the last espe-
cially promulgated by ladies who tremble for
the despotic power of the Directors, hitherto
so beneficially exercised for "poor John, and
Dick, and Harry." The Directors have, in fact,
thousands of partisans busy at work in
secret and in public, striving to prop up
their reputation as good governors--when, in fact,
this very partisanship proves that they are only
good jobbers. Yet the eulogiums ate so strong
and so loud that those ignorant of the subject are
dumbfounded, and those who are well-informed
astounded, by the impudence of the declaimers !
Let us take one illustrative example.
Mr. CUMMING BRUCE, unless belied by the re-
porters, asserted, in the face of the House of Com-
mons, that one irrefragable proof of the Direc-
tors' good government was " that no insurrection
had ever taken place against the rule of the Com-
pany ;" and another, that " in Scinde the sway of
the Company had been received 'with a willing
spirit, if not with gratitude." Examine these
assertions.
When Lord ELLENBOROUGH reached India as
Governor-General, nearly the whole country south
of the Nerbudda was in a state of insurrec-
tion, and a two years' war was necessary to put
down that of the Circar or Southern Maliratta
country, for it would be ridiculous quibbling, to
say that war was not virtually one against the
Company's Government. And does Mr. BRUCE
mean to assert that the second Punjaub war was
not also virtually an insurrection against the
Company's authority ? This last might, in-
deed, appear a straining of the argument
against him, if 4e had not quoted as proof
of the Company's popularity in India the state of
the newly-acquired dependencies, instancing espe-
cially Scinde ! Is the true state of India, then,
so utterly a mystery in the House of Commons
that a Member can dare attempt so gross a decep-
tion as this ! Scinde receive with gratitude the Go-
vernment of the East India Company! No ! Scinde
received with gratitude the Government of
Sir CHARLES NAPIER, and the Directors and other
subordinates made every possible effort to thwart
him, to. disgust the people, and to urge them to
throw off the rule of England. For nearly five
years after the conquest that province was distinct
and separate from the Government of the Direc-
tors ; they had nothing to do with it officially ; it ;
was governed by a Crown officer, and furnishes, in
t r tit, the twist irrefragable argument, against the
rule of the Company, and in favour of that of the
Crown. Sir CHARLES NAPIER, a Crown officer,
conquered and conciliated the people of Scinde,
not' only without regard to the system of the
Directors, but directly and expressly in opposition
to their system, which he held to be pernicious,
unjust, and silly—to use his own words, " a legal-
ised system of robbery ;" and yet we have Mr.
CUMMING BRUCE proclaiming the gratitude of the
People as a proof of the goodness and popularity
of that system !
Gratitude to the Court of Directors for their
might t
without
discovering
of Scinde ! Mr. CUMMING BRUCE
traversetslicoelength and breadth of the
lmani
a single Belooch that
knew or ever heard of the Court of Directors!
rirp t
Yet they are not unacquainted with " gratitude."
NAPIER is ever in their memory. Years after he
had ceased to govern thein they saw their old
warrior Governor once again ; but how chancred
was his position ! Insulted by a jealous Govebrn-
went, he passed through 'Scinde from his command
in India under the cloud of their displeasure, de_
spite of which, and unlike Asiatics, they cumbered

the path of the fallen man with affectionate ;e:

verence ; and when he had left their shores for