The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WNDNESD AY MORNING, J (SLY 20, 1870.

FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS' ACT.

The select committee appointed to inquire into the bill
for the further regulation of workshops and factories,
principally with respect toihe employment of women and
children, assembled yesterday, and proceeded to examine
the provisions of the bill relating to the print works.
Some of the provisions of the bill were opposed at con-
siderable length by gentlemen from the manufacturing
districts, who sent in memorials stating the injury which
would be done to the trade if such restrictions were per-
mitted to exist. The committee declined to hear any
evidence on the subject, and Mr. Ayrton, the chairman_
stated that they had determined to confine themselves to
the examination of the clauses and to taking such
advice upon them as they deemed necessary. The com-
mittee-room was accordingly cleared, and the proceedings
of the committee were conducted in private. At the close
of the day the parties in attendance were informed that
the committee had determined to report against all the pro-
posed modifications, and to recommend to the House that a
general provision should be enacted to the effect that
all children under 16 should come in under the Factory
Acts, and that boys between the ages of 16 and 18 should
be permitted to work between the hours of six in the
morning and nine in the evening, for seventy-two days in
the year, instead of ninety-six as proposed by the bill.
The committee then proceeded with the consideration
of that part of the Act which relates to Turkey
red-dyeing in respect to which it is proposed
that women and children shall only be employed by
permission of the Secretary of State, that the work shall
be fixed in the order, and that the Factory Acts shall
apply to such hours. The Committee decided to
apply the same provisions as regards the employment of
women and children to the case of the dye works as to the
print works.

THE IRRIGATION COMPANY OF FRANCE.
THE VICE-CHANCELLOR'S JUDGMENT.

Vice-Chancellor Sir Richard Malins delivered judgment
yesterday in the matter of the petition presented by
Mr. Fox, of Newport, Monmouthshire, for the compulsory
winding-up of the above company, and the removal of Mr.
T. Cave, M.P. for Barnstaple, and Mr. A. Young as
liquidators.
His Honour, having explained the nature of the
petition, remarked that the object of the company
was the acquisition of a concession granted by the
Imperial Government of France for the con-
struction and working of certain canals for
irrigation within the empire, for which purpose a capital
of £BOO,OOO was to be raised in forty thousand shares of
£2O each. Among other things the article of assignment
gave the directors power to constitute the company a
French organisation, if they thought fit so to do. The
petition alleged that the company was brought out of the
Credit Foncier and Mobilier of England ; and complained
that £90,000 was improperly paid for the concession for
the construction of one of the irrigation canals ;
that very large sums of money and securities
were secretly, improperly, and in fraud on the shareholders,
retained amongst the directors of the Credit Foncier ; and
that a large portion of the eight thousand shares stated to
have been subscribed by the company were merely colour-
able payments, and were eventually recouped. It was
clear that neither the present directors of the Irrigation
Company nor the liquidators under the voluntary winding
up were implicated in the transaction ; and, therefore, he
had no power of affording the petitioner any redress. It
must, however, be observed that the petitioner was him-
self one of two auditors appointed in 1866, and that in
that year, as well as 1867 and 1868, he audited the
accounts, and had, therefore, ample opportunity of de-
tecting the discrepancies of which he now complained. If
the company had proceeded strictly, the property would have
been sold, but if that had been done, he (th &Vice-Chancellor)
was assured that a great advantage would have been given
to the French shareholders, whilst the petitioner and his
fellow English shareholders would not have had a
farthing. In all mercantile concerns the interests of the
great majority must be attended to, and the court should
be slow to sanction such proceedings as were contem-
plated by the petition at the instigation of an insignifi-
cant majority. He was satisfied that nothing more
injurious could be done than complying with
the three first prayers in the petition. If the
petitioner's case had been good in other respects, a
fatal blot would have been delay ; but he (the Vice-
Chancellor) thought the petitioner was entitled to have an
inquiry instituted, either in Chambers or by arbitration,
as to the value of his 300 shares, and to be paid the amount
out of the fund in court. The hostility with which the
proceedings had been conducted, and the fact that the
charges of fraud had been wholly unsustained, would
have fully justified him in dismissing the petition
with costs; yet considering that it had been
induced by the erroneous course pursued by the
directors in refusing to pay the petitioner the value of his
interest, he thought tne justness of the case would be met
by dismissing the petition without costs as to the first
three prayers. Although no language could be sufficiently
expressive of the conduct of the old directors, it was only
fair to Mr. Moore, of the Credit Fonder, to say that
the charges against him were entirely unfounded.
Mr. Cave had also been unfairly treated as to
the manner in which he had been interrogated by
counsel. That was an additional proof of the hostile
feeling actuating the petitioner, and it was only right to
say that he was convinced that Mr. Cave, who had at-
tained the high social position of a member of Parliament,
returned to this country to answer the inquiries which
were made of him at the earliest possible moment.
It is stated as being probable that the judgment of the
Vice-Chancellor will be appealed from.

THE PRIVY COUNCIL ON EDUCATION.
The Lords of the Committee of her Majesty's Privy
Council on Education have issued the report of their
efforts during the past year for promoting education
among the " labouring classes of her Majesty's subjects."
At the opening of the volume the committee state that
some more powerful impulse must be given to the working
of the system they have attempted to carry out
if efficient elementary education is to be brought
within the reach of every home. This im-
pulse must plainly, moreover, be sought outside
of, and beyond the benevolent energy of the small body of
voluntary subscribers, upon whose co-operation the com-
mittee have hitherto relied. The help given by voluntary
aid will be best judged of when it is stated that in 1869
the sum of £448,946 Bs. was contribnted to the annual
support of aided schools -by 14,014 subscribers
of £5 and upwards ; £83,270, of £1 to £5 ; and
£109,888 of less than £l. Mr. Forster says that "In
1869, the inspectors visited, in England and Wales,
11,404 day schools, or departments of day schools receiv-
ing annual aid, and under the charge of separate teachers.
Of these schools or departments 2,383 are for boys only,
1,721 for girls only; in 5,430 boys and girls
are instructed together, and 1,870 are mainly
attended by infants. These schools would hold
1;765,944 scholars, and 1,062,999 (601,344 males
and 461,655 females) were in daily average attendance
throughout the year. In their instruction were employed
6,108 schoolmasters and 5,644 schoolmistresses either
already certificated or passing the probationary period of
two years, between the date at which they successfully
passed their examination and the issue of their
certificates. Of the scholars below six years of age for
whom grants may be paid (Article 40, b. 2) without in-
dividual examination, 245,300 had attended the number
of times (200) qualifying them to bring grants to their
schools, and of these 219,970 were present on the day of
inspection; of the scholars above six years of age, 843,142
were qualified, but only 696,440 were tendered for exami-
nation." The committee assume that it has been suffi-
ciently shewn as the result of the numerous inquiries
held in late years by commissions and committees
official, parliamentary, and independent, that the best
education, at present available for the children of the
labouring classes, is that offered by the schools under
inspection and in receipt of annual aid. They do
not, of course, deny that there may be cases,
perhaps many cases, in which schools not under
inspection are doing a good amount of faithful work, but
these, even at the highest estimate of their numbers, must
be regarded as comparatively rare, in dealing with the
question of a national school system. The committee
think it expedient to mention that in the estimated popu-
lation of England and Wales there are 183 children out of
every 1,000 who are between the ages of 5 and 12, and that
the number of children of the poorer classes who might
have been affected in 1869 by the provision of the educa-
tion bill for compulsory attendance at schools was
3,430,335. The reports of the inspectors over
the various schools for last year cannot, the
committee say, be looked upon as satisfactory as
they shew that out of every 1,000 children in the schools
for the poorer classes, qualified .by age and attendance,
only 98 were presented in the tw o higher standards of
examination afforded, instead of 319, who ought
have been prepared to pass in them at
the close of what must be to most of them the brief period
of their school life. The committee add that the reports
with respect to the practice either of keeping back from
examination children who are duly qualified by age and
attendance, or of presenting them in standards
too low for their age, have conclusively proved
the necessity of making a careful organisation
of infant schools the basis of an efficient system,
With reference to the difierent classes of school teachers,
the committee say the gradual rise in the salaries of the
masters and mistresses of elementary schools, and the
growing importance which attaches to the occupation of
a teacher, are all tending to draw to the profession a
larger proportion of candidates of a class who, in the
daily increasing pressure upon the means of employment
in this country will not easily find a more honourable or
more remunerative career. The English Normal or
Training Schools, which furnish accommodation for about
2,soostudents, it is stated could turn out every year 1,250
teachers who had gone through a two years' course of
training. This supply, if the school life of a teacher,
under a thoroughly organised system of public instruc-
tion is estimated at twenty years, would keep up a staff
when once established, of 25,000 trained teachers,
for the elementary schools without taking into account
the number that enter the profession through other chan-
nels. The Report of the Council concludes with the following
expression : We regret that the failure of the attempt
made in 1869 to effect by legislation some improvement in
the school system of Scotland has made it necessary for us
to continue the provisional arrangements under which the
parliamentary grant has been administered since 1863 in
that part of the United Kingdom.

THE 44TH REGIMENT.—The. Dublin Daily Express
states that the 44th Regiment will shortly proceed from.
Ireland to the Cape of Good Hope, and regards this as a
proof of a change of colonial policy on the the part of the
Government.