The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-11 00:00:00

THE REWARD OF PUBLIC SERVANTS.

"Sexaginta " lifts up his voice in favour of better
payment for certain of our public servants. Alluding
to the Boxer controversy, he thinks it not improbable
that some fine day the Russian Government may
engage the Colonel, at a salary of £5,000, to prepare
an extra dose for the benefit of the sick man. Let
us be wise in time, suggests " Sexaginta," and pay
our good men according to their merits. " It
appears to me that it is much easier to find a
lawyer having the requisite ability for a judgeship,
at a salary of £5,000 a year, than it is to find
suitable persons to whom to intritst the construe-.
tion of a national navy, or its armament, or the
devising of an ammunition adapted to the changing
and increaeinir roquironnata-91- naQdidti evirarfoxe,
If one great railway nut's it wise t conoluy to
pay its locomotive superintendent £5,000 a year,
what should fairly be Ike calla Qur Oda N_aT yal

MD. LOWE AND THE TENANT FARMEDS,
" A Hard-working Farmer " informs the Globe that
Mr. Lowe's famous tax-gathering measure affects
him in a peculiarly disagreeable manner. He is a
tenant farmer, and is in the habit of paying in Decem-
ber and June the half-yearly rent due at the preced-
ing Michaelmas and Lady-day. Now, this is the,
way he suffers by the budget scheme :

My landlord has hitherto allowed at each re•.t audit the
deduction for landlord's property tax paid by mu in the
preceding October and April; but at the last audit, in
December, I was refused any deduction for property tax,
as I had paid none for the current year. I was, therefore,
obliged to pay my half-yearly rent in full. Within a few
days of doing so, I must now pay under the new system
my landlord's property tax for the whole year 1870,
although I shall not get it back again from him until June
next.
The landlord, knowing full well that if his tenant
paid no tax for the October quarters, he would have
to pay them in January, might have made the
allowance as usual. But even as it is, the farmer's
cass is no worse than that of the general community.
The principle of the budget scheme is that the pay-
ment of taxes should be antedated: --to-senne-extent,
and this principle affects all taxpayers alike.
MR. lIOLYOARE ON EDUCATION.
In a recent letter to the Daily News, Mr. Holyoake
the well known Secularist, explained the principles
upon which he would settle the education difficulty.
He was not. altogether happy in the use of his
terms; and we are not at all sure that we
properly interpreted him, A second letter of his
however, addressed to the editor of the Birmingham
Gazette, puts his opinion more clearly before the
public. He does not believe in " unsectarianism ; "
he would not enforce secularism upon the schools ;
and he quite admits the right of parents to obtain for
their children religious education. But he holds that
the State has nothing to do with religion "for it has
no means of judging which is the true one."
Education, however, is a necessity. In whatever
way English ignorance may be mitigated, he would
have it taken rather than that things should remain
as they are. The State, therefore, should provide the
means of education, but trust to the zeal of the sects
to supplant the mere knowledge by religious teaching.
Mr. Holyoake thinks Christians and moralists are
fervent enough for this work, and he would not have
any difficulty put in their way. His proposal is not
sectarianism with a Conscience Clause, but mere
secular teaching, to be supplemented from the out-
side, to such -children as care to attend it, by
ministers and their friends.