The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-07 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1853.

The great object of a Chancellor of the Exche-
quer's ambition at all times has been to tamper
with the pnblic debt, to negociate changes that
will effect a present saving, it matters not at what
future cost. With Sir CHARLES WOOD it amounted
almost to a mania; for although he never was
enabled to bring forward any distinct proposition,
his anxiety on the subject was thoroughly known.
The Fates, however, proved unpropitious, and he
was deprived of office without accomplishing his
wishes. Mr. GLADSTONE, it appears, is actuated
by a similar spirit. He, too, aspires to the dis-
tinction of effecting new arrangements with the
Fundholder. The nature of these arrangements,
which, it is said, have been very favourably re-
ceived on the Stock Exchange, will be ascertained
from the notice of motion which we give in extenso
in another part of this day's impression. From
this it will appear that the intention is to convert
the South Sea Stock and the Old and New South
Sea Annuities of the 3/. per Cent. Annuities,
created by the Acts of 12 GEO. 1., 1 and 24
GEo. 11., of the Consolidated and Reduced 3 per
Cent. Annuities, to exchange into other forms—
the proprietors being authorised to select any of
three different modes of investment which they
may prefer as substitutes for their present stock.

The new or substituted stock which the Fund-
holder may obtain in place of receiving payment
in money, will be--Ist, a New. Stock of 3-i per
Cent. Annuities, not redeemable until the sth of
January, 1894, or nearly forty-one years from the
present time, of which 82/. 10s. will be given for
1001. of the existing Stock—or, 2dly, 1101. if a
New 2i per Cent. Stock, not redeemable until the
sth of January—or, 3dly, an Exchequer Bond
for 1001., bearing interest at the rate of 2/. 15s.
per cent., payable half-yearly, or some day to be
named in such bond, not later than the Ist Sep-
tember, 1864, and thenceforth 2/. 10s. per annum,
not redeemable until Ist September, 1894. The
fortunate Fundholder may exchange his Stock for any
of the above ; and inasmuch as the bargain will, as
usual, be very much in favour of the creditor,
and against the nation, its favourable reception
on the Stock Exchange may be easily accounted
for. There will, as usual, be a temporary saving
achieved by imposing additional burdens on our
children and grandchildren, with which they will
be saddled for no less than 41 years, a period far
beyond anything that the exigencies of the case
can possibly require.
It is, of course, exceedingly desirable to effect a
reduction in the interest of the debt, which will
not merely lighten the burden to the national
Exchequer, but will also tend to render monetary
accommodation cheaper and more easily attainable,
and direct capital into industrial enterprises.
But such advantages may be purchased at too high
a price. -We may pay far more than it is worth
for such accommodation.

The recent gold discoveries—the unlimited
supply of the precious metals which may be an-
ticipated from Australia and California—more
especially when the different Gold Mining Com-
panies come into operation—afford the strongest
possible belief that money will, ere many years,
become much more plentiful, and, therefore, ob-
tainable at easier rates than at present. The
Fundholders have been quaking under the idea
that there would be an immediate reduction to
2i per cent., and that even that rate could not be
relied on for more than fifteen or twenty years.
Mr. GLADSTONE has, however, infused new life
into the tremblers. He has offered terms far

beyond anything that even the most sanguine
could have anticipated--that will enable the
public creditors to repose on beds of roses for
more than another generation. As it is well
known that money can now be obtained for a
limited time on Government securities at 1i to 2
per cent., we cannot speak highly of the
prudence that contracts to pay nearly double
the amount for forty-one years, thus sur-
rendering for so long a period the benefits that
may, and in all probability will, arise from the
anticipated monetary plethora. In the first branch
of the alteration, the parties are to receive 821.
10s. of a New 3-i per. Cent. Stock, not redeemable
until 1894. The dividend on this account will
be 21. 17s. 9td. in place of 31. as at present. For
the present saving of 2s. 21d. oa every hundred,
we bind ourselves to pay that rate until almost
the close of the present century. There can be but
little doubt that the Fundholders would rejoice
to accept so great and so unexpected a boon, even
if there were not greater benefits to be received
from the second branch of the alterations.

The 1101. New Two-and-a-Half per Cent.
Stock offered will give a present interest of V.
15s. in place of 31. The guarantee of payment
for 41 years would, however, be accepted as more
than a full equivalent for the present reduction ; but
a bonus of 101. on every 1001. is most gratuitously
and unnecessarily given, which our descendants
will have to pay, and the capital amount of the
debt will be considerably augmented. We had
hoped that the system from which the country is
now suffering so deeply, of creating a higher de-
nomination of stock, had been altogether exploded.
Mr. GLADSTONE, however, it appears, is about to
revive the objectionable principle, and that at a
time when there was no cause for any urgency.
The third branch of the proposition—the crea-
tion of Exchequerßonds, bearing interest at 2/.155.
for 11 years, for we may assume that the Ist Sep-
tember, 1864, will be the time specified in each
bond, and then until 1894 at W. 10s., and then
subject to redemption at par at the option of the
holder, or of the Lords of the Treasury, is even
more objectionable than either of the others, in-
asmuch as it will bind the nation not only to pay
the stipulated interest for 41 years, but then
to redeem the capital debt at par, a matter
that may create a great difficulty to the
then Financial Minister. The amount of this
species of security is to be limited to 30,000,0001.,
inasmuch as it is supposed that they will be in
great demand. We do not, howeyer, think that
such improvident arrangements will receive the
Legislative sanction. They are not such as Mr.
DIsxAELI would have proposed, nor would they
have been listened to with common courtesy.
The moneyocracy have had their turn long
enough. It is time that the tax-payers should
look to their own interests, and not permit the
greediness of the tax-eaters to be again satisfied
at their expense.

The views of Government on the subject of
Education are now before the country; the details
of their measure will probably furnish repeatedly
topics for discussion, and we shall certainly defer
consideration of them till another time, but the
chief points demand immediate attention. After
reviewing the progress of Educational efforts for
the last half century, and showing that the results
were so large that it would be most inexpedient to
disturb them, and much more so to adopt a sys-
tem wholly new, Lord JoHN RUSSELL made two
propositions in aid of what is now doing. The
first, to enable Corporations to levy, by a majority
of two-thirds, a rate for Educational purposes ;
the assistance to be given only to such schools as
complied with the Government conditions, and to
be granted in augmentation of the amount raised
by the children's pence. His Lordship suggested,
that for instance the rate might be applied to pay-
ing 2d. per head for the children, provided 4d. or
sd. were raised from other sources. The second,
to make a better use, for Educational purposes,
of the very numerous endowments scattered all
over the country, which are now in so many
instances wholly or partially inefficient as
free schools. As a pendant to these projects
for the million, our great National Univer-
sities were admonished to set their house in order
voluntarily, in accordance with the Report of the
Commissions, or to expect, and very shortly, too,
a decided intervention of the Government. May
they profit by the warning The Nation as well
as the Government is quite determined that its
Universities shall be as national in fact as in name.
We expect, however, that this will never be accom-
plished except by the nation taking the matter
into its own hands.

There will be surely but feeble opposition to his
Lordship's first proposal. It is permissive merely.
It is as free from centralisation as is possible
consistently with some guarantee for the quality of
the instruction. It might seem indeed that the
Town Councils which vote the money should be
made the judges also of the efficiency of the schools
to which they vote it; merely securing the schools
against their religious interference, and we think
it not unlikely that in Committee the powers of the
Corporation will be somewhat enlarged in this
direction. Nothing, however, can be more un-
sectarian, and better adapted to its object, than
the present Government machinery for ascertaining
the deserts of the schools to which the grants are
voted. It would seem as if the pure Voluntaries
of Mr. BAINES' school were the only party which
could oppose the levying of a rate by a Town
Council. Their objection we perfectly compre-
hend. They reject all compulsory support for
teaching religion ; they believe with the vast ma-
jority of Educationists that religion must be more
or less included in the instruction of the young,
and hence logically conclude that any educational
rate is objectionable. Now, without discussing
the merits of these arguments, it surely suffices
for a statesman to reply as Lord JOHN RUSSELL
did, that the party which employs them is in a
very small minority : that it is not one of those
cases of conscience in which no majority whatever
can be justified in demanding the peaceful acquies-
cence .of the minority, that even the minority can
in every town make its voice heard in the Town
Council ; and that the proposition, therefore, of
such a municipal rate in aid, is the one which
bears least hardly of any upon those who are
opposed to it. The secularists can have no rea-
son to complain. They will be quite free to try
their plan, and receive the aid also ; and if they
find the people generally preferring their schools,
from which all religious instruction is excluded,
it will then be for them to seek, by every
fair means, the extension of their system.
The Voluntaries, indeed, will be better off,
if we understand the proposition aright, than they
now are, since at present they cannot hinder any
school from asking and receiving Government
support ; but if they wish to do so they may, by
defeating a rate in the Town Council, prevent any
school in the borough from receiving Government
support at all. We should not be surprised,
however, to find schools in Leeds, Bradford,
Manchester, and other similar places, petitioning
that, in case the Corporation will not levy a rate,
they may continue to receive their accustomed
Government grants.
Respecting rendering the endowed charities of
the country more available to the general good,
and redeeming them from the abuses which almost
neutralise the intentions of the founders, there
can be amongst disinterested parties but one
opinion. Their aggregate income, at least that of
2-8,854/. on which the Commissions have reported,
is 1,209,3951., of which 312,000/. is specifically
appropriated to education by the trusts. A very
large part of the remainder is wasted in the most
trivial and useless manner, " such as giving six
loaves at Christmas, and things of that kind ;"
boons rather to the idle and dissolute, than
really charitable benefactions. In cases of abuse
of trust also the expenses of suits at present
would frequently swallow up the charity itself ;
and it is a fact disgraceful to us as a nation that,
for ten years at least, efforts have been made to
remedy all this, but hitherto in vain. It is now
proposed to constitute a permanent judicial au-
thority to declare whether these trusts have been
abused ; and that the Committee of Privy
Council should have power, with the consent of
the trustees, to vary the application of trusts;
and, when the trustees wil_ 1"; consent to what

is reasonable, to present suitable bills to Parlia-
ment to effect the same object. Suits respecting
all charities below 301. are to be brought before
the County Courts—a truly needful provision,
when it is known that there are 17,972 charities
under 101. a-year, 13,331 of them under 51.
a-year ! Those above 301. per annum are to be
brought before the Master of the Rolls. We
most earnestly hope that no patrons of vested
abuses in either House will hinder the utmost
being done to apply the sums thus fruitlessly dissi-
pated to some more worthy use. A more worthy
or rational one than that of Education is not to be
easily imagined.

Such are the chief features of the Government
plan. It would be easy enough to find fault with
it. Secularists and Voluntaries, Churchmen and
Dissenters, might all like some things different,
and each party can carp as they will. Others,
again, will complain, it may be, because we have
not some great and bold plan swallowing up all
the rest. We must confess, however, that
as much as could be carried i$ now proposed, and
it were useless proposing more than that, to drive
the whole question out of Parliament for years to
come. Indeed, it remains to be seen whether
what is now proposed will be easily carried into
effect. Crabbed trustees, with a Bishop or two at
their head, will not be unlikely to make a deal of
noise in behalf of some mischievous misused cha-
rities ; and the Voluntaries will not be silent
about compulsory rates for teaching religion.
The Government has certainly exercised a sound
discretion in attempting no more. It is quite
sufficient to impress every one with the necessity
of moving cautiously, of neither changing one
system hastily; nor of relaxing voluntary effort by
superfluous aid, to recollect the magnitude of what
is now doing in Education. The number of
scholars in the books in public day schools alone
in 1851, was 1,407,569; and the number of
schools 15,473. The amount provided for their
maintenance was 1,100,0001., and of this nearly
500,0001. was raised by the children's pence.
The number of private schools at the same date
was 29,425, and the number of scholars 700,904.
We shall return ere long to the subject, only
remarking, that the greatest difficulty of all is yet
left untouched—the education of children whose
parents will not send them to a school at all.

With exquisite delicacy and refinement the
Edinburgh for the current quarter " falls foul" of
two of the most notable men of our generation.
The manner in which this is done we conceive to
be so remarkable as to be entitled to particular
observation, and to no fletting remembrance. It
cannot be said, we fear, that by the course pur-
sued in these instances by our contemporary, the
position of the reviewers has been very appreci-
ably elevated, or that the journal itself has very
considerably enhanced its reputation. There is a
certain line of demarcation, we believe, between
the vigour of the boldest criticism and the imper-
tinence of the shallowest personality. It were
well if that boundary were never passed over—
well, we mean, for the honour and respectability
of literature. Political partisanship, however, is
one of the most terrible goads to the perpetration
of this species of ostentatious virulence and erudite
indecorum. Take the two articles here referred to by
way of illustration. Nothing could by possibility,
we venture to assert with the most positive distinct-
ness—nothing could by possibility be more vile in
taste (rather, perhaps, in want of taste) or more
paltry in spirit (rather should we say in spleen)
than the style adopted in both of these cross-
grained and intemperate compositions. They are
evidently intended by the Edinburgh as critical
grenades destined to destroy the influence of two
persons of no feeble or restricted popularity.
Whether these amiable projects will eventually be
realised may be conjectured at a glance with
tolerable accuracy. It would require, we fancy,
rather more detonative capacity than that dis-
played by the spiteful antagonism of our blue-
and-buff contemporary to ruin the intellectual
authority exercised at least upon the pre-
sent age by ARCHIBALD ALISON, the laborious and
gifted historian of Europe, and by BENJAMIN
DIFIR AF.m, the brilliant and versatile ex-Chancellor
of the Exchequer.
Common sense, we take it, is quite enough to
assure any rational observer that nothing can pos-
sibly result from all this contemptible petulance
and ill-conditioned flippancy but the degradation
of the high character hitherto sustained by the
Edinburgh. Judging of these two deplorable arti-
' des with regard to mere consideration of style,
they might, for all we could reasonably suppose to
the contrary, have been written by Dr. SLOP, at
the dictation, say, of the ghost of MARTINI:TS
SCRIBLERUS. What dignity of tone, for example,
there is in that stately allusion to the annalist—
" He seems resolved to hold the place in literature
which Colonel SIBTHORP has so long and chival-
rously filled in political life !" What gentlemanly
feeling there is in that graceful reference to the
administrator—" Dr. JosxsoN has remarked
that there are persons so besotted with the love
of notoriety that they will roll in the gutter
rather than not be looked at or talked about.
Mr DISRAELI is, or was, a striking specimen of
this class : the quod monstrer digito pratereuntium
was his master passion ; and, when he had no
other means of gratifying it, he would
stoop to make people stare by the extra-
vagance of his dress and demeanour, or by
the calculated display of a half-genuine and half-
simulated self-conceit." Dress has here, it will
be perceived, so very much to do with a man's
administrative capacities or political principles.
The colour of a waistcoat is so intimately allied
with skill in Statesmanship or ability in
literature. Why, as far as that goes, it mat-
ters about the value of a straw whether Mr.
DISRAELI wore velvet trousers during the
time when he was sowing his " wild oats,"
or whether he delighted overmuch in the ripening
colour of his meerschaum. Every schoolboy has
heard of the unlucky little whelp belonging to
ALCIBIADES—even those who have never parsed
half a dozen -sentences of PLUTARCH. And
when the reviewer in his comprehensive animosity
dreams of assailing the mental powers of the ob-
ject of his ridicule by sneering at the peculiari-
ties of his costume, he in reality opens up a side-
path to the admirers of that very personage
for the institution of certain exalting or
dignifying comparisons. It would seem, in-
deed, that the writer in the Whig Quarterly
had never borne in mind the account of CESAR in
his youth, while addressing the Senate, toying
with his ringlets like the veriest fop of an empty-
headed patrician. It will be insinuated next, in
spite of every more serious argument, that the
present imperial ruler of France cannot in any
way be presumed capable of conducting the affairs
of a great nation, because some years ago he
smoked cheroots while sauntering over the pave-
ments of Bath, or encased his limbs in the master-
pieces of " HOBY " and " STULTZ," for the occa-
sional gratification of those who lounged about
the shady side of the Quadrant. 0 the profundity
of these critical deductions !

Granted that Mr. DISRAELI was in error—ac-
cording to our judgment, according to our convic-
tion, according to our conscience—in advocating
so long and pertinaciously the now abandoned
principles of Protection. Granted that Sir ARCHI-
BALD ALISON is, to our thinking, very grievously
mistaken in still clinging to the last, blindly and
pertinaciously, to those same habits of thought
which have happily some time since fallen into
desuetude. Nevertheless, while we coincide in these
and other kindred opinions to the full with the
Edinburgh Reviewer, we cannot but conceive that
it derogates miserably from the excellence of our
position to comment upon the course pursued by
two of the most eminent of our political adver-
saries in language of the vilest slip-slop, rising at
times almost to the rant of rhetorical Billings-
gate. Is it not slip-slop--the veriest, vilest slip-
slop—to talk of the History of Europe (p. 269)
as " a cold rechauffee and tedious iteration of
theories a hundred times refuted," and to speak
of its sequel (p. 301) as " a perfect museum
of obsolete opinions—an old curiosity shop '
—a very Refuge for the Destitute and
Abandoned ?' " Is it not slip-slop, the veriest
and the vilest slip-slop, to say of the ex-
Chancellor of the Exchequer (p. 421), " his p or-