The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-05 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 5, 1854.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY.)
The house met at five o'clock.
EDUCATION IN INDIA..

Lord MONTEAGLE moved for a copy of a despatch
to the Government of India, on the subject of general
education in India. In a bill which their lordships
passed last year they made considerable steps towards
the employing of native Indians, and what was proved
before the committee on Indian affairs recommended
the education and employment of the natives, and to
forward that object was the reason why he moved for
the despatch in question.
Earl GRANVILLE said he had not the least objec-
tion to the production of the important paper to which
the noble lord's motion referred.
The motion was accordingly agreed to.
TICKETS OF LEAVE TO CONVICTS.

Lord ST. LEONARDS called attention to the system
of tickets of leave to convicts. He said it was hoped
when the ticket-of-leave system was adopted, convicts
would, on obtaining a ticket of leave, and being with-
drawn from the scenes of their offences and from their
old associates, be enabled, owing to the demand for
labour being in excess of the supply, to get good situa-
tions at remunerative wages, and thus be placed in a
position to redeem their characters and have a fair chance
of getting a new start in life to obtain an honest liveli-
hood. But it appeared such hopes had not been
realised, for the state of society in England was
such, that there was scarcely a man who would em-
ploy a person known to be a ticket-of-leave man.
The difficulty was, since the abolition of transporta-
tion, what to do with this class of persons. Dis-
charging them would be of no use unless they were pro-
vided with some means of earning their livelihood, and
the public must be protected as well as these con-
victs, and, therefore, turning them loose upon
society without any means of honestly supporting them-
selves would be dangerous to society. He (Lord St.
Leonards) had asked of the Government what was the
number of persons who had got tickets of leave, and had
afterwards committed offences, and the answer was, the
Home-office had no means of answering the question. He
wanted to know who should have the means of answer-
ing such a question if the Home-office had not, whose
peculiar duty it was to keep a record of the state of
crime and number of criminals throughout the country.
Unless some better plan were devised he should move
for a select committee next session to consider the
matter.

The Duke of NEWCASTLE defended the course
pursued by the Government, which, instead of turning
convicts out into the world by a species of gaol delivery,
as described by Lord St. Leonard's, used every means
in its power to place liberated criminals in a way of
becoming useful members of society.
Lord CAMPBELL, while he fully believed that every
exertion would be made by the Government to carry out
this experiment with success, yet despaired of ever see-
ing it successful. Thousands of these persons would be
turned out of prison every year, and it was impossible
that any exertions could continue to be equal to that in-
crease of their numbers ; and he believed that we should
find, as was the case in every country where transporta-
tion did not exist, that convicts would multiply among
the population, and there would be hardly a case in
which they were reformed. He knew from experience
that persons enlarged under tickets of leave were unable
to obtain employment in this country. He could, there-
fore, only earnestly implore the noble duke to turn his
attention to some means by which transportation might
be restored. When a sentence of transporation was
passed it produced a strong impression not only on the
convict but the listeners, but a sentence of penal servi-
tude was only treated as a sentence of confinement for
some time, which in all probability would be subse-
quently abridged. He hoped, therefore, that some ex-
ertion would be made to find a colony to which convicts
might be sent. Of course, barren rocks like the Falk-
land Islands were out of the question, as the place to
which the convict was sent must afford field for his in-
dustry and means of obtaining its rewards ; but that
some proper place was desirable might be inferred from
the fact that there were at this moment in our Australian
colonies 40,000 peaceable and industrious settlers who
had originally been convicts.
The Marquis of SALISBURY agreed with every
word that had fallen from the noble and learned lord,
but felt that the question was surrounded with numerous
difficulties. The great evil of the ticket-of-leave system
was that when the convicts were enlarged they not only
returned to their old habits, but surrounded themselves
with young people, whom they speedily corrupted.
Lord ST. LEONARDS replied, expressing himself
satisfied with the Statement of the noble duke.
REAL ESTATES CHARGES BILL.
On the motion of Earl FORTESCUE, the report on the
amendments to this bill was, with a proviso, agreed to.

NATIONAL EDUCATION.
Lord BROUGHAM, in resuming the adjourned de-
bate on this subject, said that he would spare their lord-
ships the trouble of listening to any of his resolutions,
except the 17th, which, along with the provision founded
on it, was of so much importance that he should be
obliged to claim for it a few minutes of their lordships'
attention. That resolution related to the great difficulty
that beset this question, namely, that arising from the
religious differences of this country. He had always
been of opinion, from which he had only been driven by
compulsion, that the true means of educating the people
was to keep secular apart from religious instruction. It
had always appeared to him that in a country like this,
where religious differences were so many, and religious
zeal happily so great, Children could not be educated to-
gether except on an exclusively secular system, leaving
religious instruction to the parents and to the pastors of
the respective sects, taking security, at the same time,
that the children should attend some place of religious
worship and receive some religious instruction. In that
opinion he had concurred with the late Duke of Bedford,
with Mr. Wilberforce, the late Mr. Macaulay, and Mr.
Win. Smith, the last-named, although differing from the.
others on many points, still concurring as to the im-
portance of secular education. That opinion had been
modified, not changed in him, by the great difficulty
there existed in taking securities for religious instruc-
tion to be given out of the school. For that reason
he had brought in a bid in 1837, and subsequently in
1838 and 1839, which received the support of Lord
Melbourne's Government, and in that bill a provision
was inserted meeting the difficulty, and was repeated in
the present. This provision, which applied to corporate
towns, enacted that the schools should be open to the
children of all classes of religionists, that no catechism
should be taught, nor any attendance at church required,
might
then
but that due security should be taken for religious in-
struction elsewhere. The question would lose all its
difficulty if the Church stood only on one side, and dis-
sent, as a similar body, on theother,
as
ther
fo
e
then be one school for the church, a3u.,
danother
sects. But the number of sects was 0-
26 British and
foreign.
• 5, and so on with all the other denomina-
tions. Baptists into
n many
It was sometimes said that betwdee
discipline
9 The Methodists were divided into 9, and the
of the sects the differences of doctrine an
y
ap-
proached in doctrine and political structure the greater
repugnance
was their dissidence in feeling, and the_
were scarcely perceptible. Alas, the nearer they
which one felt towards the other. The odium theolo-
of gravitation, for whereas, according to the latter, the
gleam, rested on exactly contrary principles
attraction was in inverse ratio to• the square of the dis-
tance, in religious differences the less the distance the
to the laws
greater the repugnance and antagonism. As a general
rule there was little reluctance to send the children of
sectarians to church, provided there was no attempt at
doctrinal teaching. Taking the last census as a basis of
calculation, and making due allowance for those who
were returned as not belonging to any particular de-
nomination, he found the children of persons of tree
thirty-five sects to amount to 700,000. But there were
only 240,000 attending the national schools, so that
there were 460,000 for whom education was yet to be pro-
vided. They were willing to go to the schools, and that
willingness was entirely to be attributed to the avoidance
of any teaching of catechism, or requiring attendance at
church. That principle should be preserved as the car-
dinal point of our educational system, and he regretted
to find that it had been infringed on by some of our so-
cieties. He regretted to say that the British and Foreign
School Society had, by the rules which they had adopted,
any Among
ni a
nt,h
feltes e wt
hear
te tthhee nni
ittaarri
iaannsa.
wNe
roewv
eet,nas
excluded some classes of dissenters from their schools.
blindoughtU
ms
ht
mb
toe tt ehremf
fact
de t at
hraetl i gtihoeuys
had error,n ub
mu th
etrheadtmtadonui ddchny whatoaestt
did number ameng their body many excellent inen ; men
of great piety andinstance
he high intelligence. As an
nstance
he might mention Sir I. Newton, who was proved by
the evidence discovered by Sir D. Brewster to have been
a Unitarian. Now error could never be put down in the
rsbr.
beo
er
f, lieedae
err
feared.
neodeer.
tv
ede rpg, fneae anfisi
and would
bteoirynor
ni osdur
gffidatevis
rseei
al
nfpi
gt.;
way supposed by this society, it would only be made
pear.si na
on oodre rrfi fatal
ar, lwtabatpyesersruisniectdeh
enwemt odz ued
tal
odeu
the vitality which it lacked of itself. He trusted, there-
fore, that the course of which he had felt bound thus to
complain would not much longer exist, and that a better
system would be introduced in its stead. He would
conclude these observations by expressing an earnest
' hope that a bill, founded on the resolutions which he
had submitted to their lordships, would become law at
an early period of next session.
Lord CAMPBELL entirely concurred in the remarks
which had fallen from his noble and learned friend (Lord
Brougham) on this subject. He had always himself be-
lieved that Sir I. Newton was an Arian, not a Socinian,
but however that might be, none could doubt but that
the latter sect contained many wise, earnest, and pious
men. An alteration which had been made in the law
within the last few years had riddled the Unitarians of
their civil disabilities, and he trusted that the observa-
tions of his noble and learned friend would go far to put
an end to whatever relic of those disabilities yet existed.
Earl GRANVILLE said that with regard to the
policy of not compelling the children of parents of one
religious belief to attend the religious teaching of another
belief, none could hold a more decided opinion than him-
self. (Hear, hear.) A great practical difficulty had
very often arisen in such places where there was already
one school, but in which the church catechism was sys-
tematically enforced. Government had been applied to

' in many cases of this kind, and it was difficult to deter.
mine how to act. On the one hand, to give money for
erecting another school for the children of dissenters was
to a certain extent a waste of means, for the school was
amply sufficient as far as numbers went ; but, on the
other hand, if a grant were denied, then where were the
dissenters' children to go to school ? There was another
topic which he thought might well be thrown out for
their lordships' considerations, and that was the dearness
of school books. There was no doubt but that they
were not so cheap nor so good as they ought to be.
(Hear.) In fact, the best books of this class were those
introduced by the Irish Board of Education—(hear)--
but there were many and grave reasons why government
should not, if possible, enter into competition with pri-
vate individuals in trading matters. He would suggest
to his noble and learned friend whether a reform in this
matter might not be made through the medium of the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge ?
Lord BROUGHAM admitted the existence of the
evil of which the noble earl had complained, and quite
concurred with him in the difficulty of Government ac-
tively interfering in matters belonging to trade. With ,
regard to the idea of the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge being made an instrument to put an
end to the evil, he was afraid that course was not open.
The society, some four years ago, having published about
120 works, exclusive of periodicals, felt that it had as
far as possible completed its duty, and although, it did
not altogether dissolve, it suspended all active opera-
tions. Hence it was not in a position to enter on the
business 'suggested by the noble earl. But he (Lord
Brougham) thought that a society might be very well
formed to carry out the idea of the noble earl, and he
would suggest that one of the rules of the Society for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge should be a rule of
any such society. The rule to which he alluded was this
—that no profit should be received by any of ,its mem-
bers. This regulation would prevent any improper in-
terference with private trade,
.a aud. at the same time
enable the society out of the profits of suecessful work
to pay the cost of an unsuccessful one.
The subject then dropped.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY BILL.
On the motion of Viscount CANNING the Lords'
amendments in this bill, which were disagreed to in the
Commons, were waived.

BRIBERY BILL.
On the motion for going into committee on this bill,
The Duke of NEWCASTLE said that he had under-
stood that no amendments were to be moved in this bill
by any noble lord, with the exception of one by the
Marquis of Clanricarde. The noble marquis intended
to move an amendment in the clause relating to tra-
velling expenses, but being unable to do so on that
evening, his lordship had signified his intention of doing
so on the bringing up of the report. Under these cir-
cumstances—if there were no objection to it—he pro-
posed that the bill should pass through the committee
at once.

The Marquis of SALISBURY saw no objection to
the course proposed by the noble duke.

The house then went into committee, and the bill,
after some few observations, passed through committee;
and it was stated that the amendments would be consi-
dered on Monday.
STAMP DUTIES BILL.
This bill also passed through committee.
DUCHY OF CORNWALL OFFICE BILL.

The Duke of NEWCASTLE moved the suspension of
the standing order as to bills not being received after the
25th July ; and the bill was then read a second time.
MEDICAL GRADUATES (UNIVERSITY OF
LONDON) BILL.

This bill was read a third time and passed.
The house adjourned at 20 minutes past 8.

HOUSE OF COMMONS-(YESTERDAY.)

The SPEAKER took the chair at half-past twelve o'clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.

The Lords' amendments to the Great Western, Shrews-
bury, and Birmingham, and Shrewsbury and Chester
Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill were considered
and agreed to.
The following estate bills were read a third time and
passed :—Bourne's (Mowbrick Partition) Estate ; Brad-
ford Glebe Lands and Vicarage Trust Estate; Lord
Petre's Estate.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL (CANADA) BILL.
On the order of the day for the second reading of this
bill,

kr. F. PEEL explained its object to be to enable the
Canadian Legislature to change the constitution of the
Legislative Council or Upper House, and to repeal cer-
tain portions of the Canadian Act of Union of 1840.
No less than four-fifths of the General Assembly of
Canada had carried an address in favour of this change;
but the Legislative Council itself had protested against
that address. The bill proposed to enable the
Legislature of Canada to alter the fundamental basis if

they so thought fit ; it did not specify what the change
should be, but it simply gave the Legislature of the
colony power to alter the constitution of the Legislative
Council by making it elective or otherwise if they should
so think fit. Lord Elgiti, the Governor of the colony,
had given an opinion decidedly favourable, and seeing
that the Imperial Parliament had already conferred a
similar power upon the Cape of Good Hope and other
colonies, the house ought to have no difficulty in adopt-
ing this measure. In fact, Canada was the only British
colony of any importance which had not the power of
reforming its own constitution. But it might be said that
Parliament having, by the act of 1840, conferred a dis-
tinct constitution upon the colony, •it would be acting
against precedent to give the Legislature of the colony
power to change that constitution. But really that
could not be so, because in the case of the Australian
colonies, Parliament gave them a specific constitution,
consisting of an Assembly and a Legiedative Council,
partly elective and partly nominated by the governor
while in the same act which conferred that constitution it
enabled the legislature of the colony, if it so thought fit,'
to change or amend its constitution. It was not impro-
bable that the immediate effect of this bill would be the
conversion of the Legislative Council from a mixed into
a purely elective body, and it might be argued that such
a change would weaken the authority of the Crown ;
but he entertained no such apprehensions because if the
constitution of the council was so changed as to secure
thatforo
i it thew confidenceel
would
becvveernebseeeecre
supplieso;
ant
ofwmltb u.
Assembly
hetresbeneHiseite,pchcimi
aetteini
huosbindepesl
conservative
eeeti t
vlthwai
ad
oi
etdt
wont
Li
hnovobeaauenbgedtl
eoieidusnnd occasion
tooai arcietlaetcsi
its
remove
secfoivfbtowvocae
character
rl ouei
ahhttwcnnhoatreeeupaer
re-
fused edttl i
p
tsletobel aC+l present.
Itftwvuoheai
satnnei nebidt dtei
otbte thofeow:
become
hLaoaeste
retgmheai
which was nominated by the governor would not consent
sir weakeningj.pAKthieNaGutThoorNityebojfeetthede
distincth av e to originateggrounds.
o und s i n the
tgheen general assembly. l
tloowtheerhboiullseu,pseinncetwalol
money measures connected with the country would still
because in his opinion it was
on the part of the Imperial
an extremely democratic characterandapbialc;le, h osbejeeeced.ly,
he
• ted to it
which sanctioned,.
Legislature, institutions of
bill had been brought under the consideration
pGovernment.ropesed
absolutely It professed t
o oconfer
nf e to ou
objected to it on account of the mereiedrebrielnitiewnhbliecfh the
in point of fact it was nothing the kind, because it
on an
the Canadianeena rig
11, t-
lature authority to adopt a mostp democratic
go-
vernment, which it had already areedform of.
tc), and which it
was ready to put in force directly this bill became law.
it 'was by far too important
made w tableit. ever
i‘i since,
t ceer, without
were anyreat pro-
gress Under
ndeearsutrheostecircumstances, s
to
bepreceededwith at this period of the
g
session, when there was scarcely " a house" present.
Five weeks ago it came down from the Lords, and it
had
to
blame for permitting this delay. But, in addition to the
advanced period of the session, there was another reason
why they should put off this bill till a future
year, when
there might be a better opportunity of considering its
remained
being
provisions in a full house, and that was the intelligence
which had reached this country as
to the course the
legislature of Canada proposed to take with regard to
the Clergy Reserves. He would, for the take of form,
move as an amendment, that the second reading be taken
this day three months, though he should not press it to
a division; because in the present state of the house,
when there were scarcely forty members in attendance, it
would be a farce to suppose its decision would represent
the opinion of the House of Commons.
Mr. ADDERLEYtentirely dissented from the views
taken by the right hen. baronet, and insisted that the
measure was as much necessary for securing the loyalty
as the freedom and prosperity of Canada. It was no
. new measure, because it had frequently been discussed
both at home and in the colony, and as there could be
no doubt that it was hazed upon sound principles he
gave it his most cordial support.
Mr. HUME expressed his great satisfaction that the
time had arrived when Canada was to be entrusted with
the management of her own affairs.
Sir G. GREY said the real question for the house to
consider was, whether there was any valid reason why
Canada, which had advanced in intelligence, wealth, and ,
aptness for self-government should be entrusted with the
same power of regulating their constitution, which was
enjoyed by almost every other
colony. He believed
this measure instead of weakening the attachment
of the people of Canada to the British Crown would
have the effect of cementing the connection between the
colony and the mother country, and he therefore did
not share in the gloomy apprehensions which the right
hon. baronet seemed to entertain.
Mr. V. SMITH warmly supported the bill, and con-
tended that for the sake of the colony itself the right
hon. baronet should have abstained from opposing the
second reading if he had not sufficient influence over his
own party to induce them to attend and throw it out if
they disapproved of it.
Lord J. RUSSELL having been the Minister who
introduced the bill of 1840, thought it incumbent upon
him to state that he gave his hearty support to this bill.
Whether the Canadas would make a wise use of it re-
mained to be seen, but he had no hesitation in declaring,
that they, like the other colonies, ought to have the op-
portunity of trying the experiment of improving their
own constitution. They were the best judg& of what
would be for their own benefit, and he was quite willing
to give them the power of exercising that judgment
since they had earnestly asked for it.
Mr. HENLEY was surprised to hear that the only

reason the noble lord could urge for supporting the bill
was, that the colony wished for it, while his implying a
doubt as to whether the colony would make good use of
the measure was not calculated to give this country a
prospect that the bill would prove successful. Both the
house and the colony had great reason to complain that
a measure of that magnitude and importance should be
brought forward on the 4th. of August, in an empty
house.

Mr. SCOTT moved that the debate be adjourned.
After a brief conversation the motion was agreed to,
and the debate was adjourned until the evening sitting.
SUPPLY.
The report, of the committee of supply was brought up,
and agreed to.
PUBLIC REVENUE (No. 2) BILL.
The Public Revenue and Consolidated Fund Charges
(No. 2) Bill was read a third time and passed.