The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-13 00:00:00

E SUN, LON D

ceedings of 1867. A cordial vote of thanks
was given to the noble duke who had so ably
discharged the duties of President, and to the
authorities of the good town of Dundee, for
their admirable arrangements and genial hos-
pitality. Of course no affair of the kind
in any part of the United Kingdom could terminate
without a substantial feast, and accordingly a grand
banquet was given by the town authorities on
Wednesday evening. Among many other appro-
priate toasts, " The Cause of Education" was given,
coupled with the name of Mr. MONCREIFF, ➢I.P.,
who replied in an eloquent and forcible speech.
Not without reason, said he, was the cause of edu-
cation made a toast at the eud of their sittings, for
they had just had an exhibition of education in its
highest form, of men reading the handwriting of
nature in its most obscure characters, and tracing
her footsteps along her most ancient and hidden
paths. The cause of education was, said Mr.
MONCREIFF, in a more hopeful condition than he
had ever seen it, and he trusted the reformed
Parliament would reform the country. This could
not, however, be done without a strong popular
effort, an expression of public sentiment, and a
sense of public duty strong enough to sweep down
before it all the barriers of political jealousy,
denominational rivalry, and sordid parsimony.
"In the cultivated intellect of the people,"
said the speaker in conclusion, " good Govern-
ment would find its strongest bulwark,
religion her best hand-maiden, and the
economy of the country its truest, best, and
wisest resource." Such assemblies as that which has
just concluded its labours at Dundee, exercise an
imperceptible, but not the less real, influence. They
familiarise the minds of the general public with the
higher branches of education, and insensibly enlarge
their views and extend their mental horizon. We
must get the middle classes to appreciate and value
education more highly than they do before they will
be willing to make the necessary efforts on behalf of
those below them.

The name of Manchester has, during the last
twenty years, been held synonymous with free-trade
principles. The " Manchester school," despite its
follies and shortcomings in other respects, has
always advocated free competition, free exports
and imports—free trade, in short, in every way.
But, strange to say, Manchester itself is the scene
of an unmitigated monopoly, which, among other
strange things, has been brought to light by the
Trades' Unions Commission. Manchester will not
allow the bricksetters to set Ashton bricks. Man-
chester claims a circle of four miles round for
ten districts, or 121 square miles, and Manchester,
says the witness, is too powerful for Ashton, and
the weak always fell to the wall. It used to be said
that the object of these combinations was to pro •
tect the weak against the strong ; but it seems that
matters are changed. A carter, carting bricks out
of the Ashton district into the Manchester district,
was soundly thrashed, and on one occasion was
made to take the bricks back again and put them
in the yard. But the monopoly does not end here.
The city, which is full of machinery, has men
who would stop the employment of ma-
chinery if they could. Some clay was being
ground by a machine, when the men employed
came and said they must not use it. Of course the
means to enforce all such prohibitions is ready at
hand, and bricks are destroyed by the thousand.
But Lancashire union men do not stop at bricks.
They are capable of acts of unmitigated brutality.
What are we to think of breaking into a stable,
tying up a horse by the head, putting shavings
under it, and setting them on fire ? One would
think that the secretaries and managers, and
other gentlemen with fine sounding names,
had been busy ransacking the iVesegate Calendar
to stimulate their imaginations. If King THEODORE
wants a Minister or two, it is clear he had better
send to Lancashire for them. A boy of 11 was
thrown into a pit of water by two men, as he was
taking a letter to the post for his master, a maker
of bricks by machinery. He was saved by a
mechanic, who happened to come by, and who,
we may suppose, did not belong to the Union?
Such revelations are losing their novelty, but
their number increases their startling character.