The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-22 00:00:00

Mlt. GLADSTONE AND TRADES UNIONS.

The adjourned meeting of the London trades delegates
teas been held at the Bell Inn, Old Bailey, for the purpose
of receiving the report from the deputation who waited
upon Mr. Gladstone on Tuesday last. Mr. George Potter
occupied the chair. The chairman reported, on behalf
of the deputation. They considered the interview
with Mr. Gladstone had been attended with the most
satisfactory results. The hon gentleman bad met them
in the most frank manner, and had acknowledged that
many impressions existing in his mind about the actions
of trades unions had been greatly minified. He
had strongly urged the principle of co-operation on the
deputation, and his suggestions were well worthy of consi
deration. The deputation also confesAed, for once at least.
that the London daily press had done justice to the trades.
by the full report they had given of the proceedings.
(Cheers.) The delegates had no doubt seen in the paper,
of that day a letter from Mr. Moult, the secretary of the
master builders. He would suggest that the delegates
should send a challenge to the employers to appoint twelve
of their number to meet an equal number of trades dele-
gates to discuss the whole question of capital and labour,
with the object of arriving at some agreement by which
the existing antagonism might be diminished, if not alto
gether removed. (Cheers.) He thought this was a qws•
tion well worthy of consideration at a future meeting. An
interesting discussion then ensued, and a resolution was
adopted, receiving the report, and thanking the depnta
tion for their services.—Mr. Cohn then moved, "
the thanks of the delegates are given to Mr. Gladstone for
the frank and courteous way in which he treated the
deputation. That the thanks of the delegates arc also due
to the London daily journals for the full report they
gave of the proceedings."—Mr. Bolton snonded thi
resolution, which was carried by acclamation.—Mr. Dyer
(delegate from the Masons' Society) then moved, " That
this meeting of London trades delegates desire to expres-
their disapprobation of the conduct of the body callin •
itself the Conference of Amalgamated Trades, in sending
letter to Mr. Gladstone, signed W. Allen and' R. Apple
garth,' with the evident object of castin,f discredit upon
the representative character of the deputation who repre
sented this delegate meeting before that honourable gen
tlem an."—Mr. Clifford (delegate from the General
Association of Painters) seconded the resolution, whieli
was supported by several delegates, and carried unani-
mously.

The winter general meeting of the Nation Rifle
Association will be held at Willis's Rooms, at 2.30 p.m.,
Wednesday, the 4th of ; the Duke of Cambri4(
president, in the chair.

DR. LIVINGSTONE. —The Natal Mercury of f..e
11th of January copies the• following from the Transom!
Aryas, received in December :—" Mr. Martinus Swarts,
the elephant hunter, who has just returned from one of
his annual shooting excursions iu the interior near th,
Zambesi, informs us that in June of last year he spoke tt
some natives who had accompanied the great traveller.
whem they call Minarie,' signifying ' Good,'—the name
by which Dr. Livingstone is known to the natives. These
men Mr. Swarts met three days' journey north of the
Victoria Falls, who informed him that in the beginning
of April last `Mina,rie' (the doctor) stated to them tint!
he was Low going away, and dismissed them.
giving them various presents, and also sending pre-
sents by them to Itetanga. This took place at a certain
spot twenty days' journey on foot from where Mr.
Swarts met them, and close to some very large river whirl.
runs in easterly direction. Pet:tun is chief of th,
and Cepopo is his chief captain. This very large
-er has its sources at some distance from the Debebe.
rt.hnd 13 diNCTlargered 1:y the natives as considerably larger
s f usrttal
- thater ray
natives a thed
s
theynot be very far i'.istant
ea shells i~:
their lasses ion, sheep
s the
big water, meaning the sea. Alr.w S:r3 got
t.
,4 it void,
be impossible for the doctor to transmit 'a:3o, Mee
native could be induced to carry them beyond 'his" n°
own
tribe, for, venturing beyond, certain death to the
mes-
senger would be the consequence. So far as we know,
this very large river is not laid down on any map, and
being hitherto unknown, it is very probable that the
doctor, after dismissing three native servants, had
proceeded to explore it, intending to reach the coast at
a point where tl4;° ever discharges itself .into the Indian
ocean."

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

The Government has announced its intention
of introducing during this session an Educa-
tion Bill, but we are stil left in ignorance of its
character. The readiness on the part of the
promoters and friends of secular education to
accept a compromise forebodes no good. Any
attempt to attenuate the religious character of
the education imparted in schools receiving
Government aid, ought to be strenuously re-
sisted in the first instance, as our danger lies
rather in such a compromise with Secularism
than in the scheme advocated by Mr., Lowe.
The country, fortunately, is not yet so far com-
mitted to the irreligious principle as to en-
trust popular education to the tender mercies
of Mr. Lowe's plan of secular schools, supported
by rates, by the side of voluntary denomina-
tional schools, or of denominational schools
placed under the operation of the conscience
clause, as a condition of receiving Govern-
ment grants. We fully concur with Arch-
deacon Denison that the conscience clause
imposed by the State would either be wholly
inoperative or lead to secularism. It would
in no long time effect a complete revolution
in the education of the country.
The scheme proposed by Archdeacon Deni-
son at his education meeting, held last week
in Willis's Rooms, offers a third solution of
the difficulty. The vital points in this plan
are the right of unconditional freedom in re-
spect of religion to be conferred on every
school, the proportionment of Government
grants solely to the secular results attained,
and the right of purely secular schools to the
same assistance from the Government as de-
nominational schools are now entitled to.
Archdeacon Denison's plan recognizes the
necessity the civil power in England is under
in dealing with the education of the country,
of practically acknowledging the religious divi-
sions which exist, and of giving equal rights to
the various denominations. Against the ob-
jection that his plan would involve the sur-
render on the part of the Church of England
of its place as national instructor, he 'argues
that " the old formal identity between Church
and State is gone," and that under the new
order of things the State is not in a position to
touch the religious portion of education in the
Church of England schools any more than
in those of Catholics and Nonconformists.
The only result, indeed, of an attempt upon
the part of the State to give a national and
religious education would be to call forth a
religion such as Mr. Lowe described "as a
kind of Biblical Deism, created for the use of
schools." The unconditional freedom of educa-
tion in schools of every and of no religious
opinion, which Archdeacon Denison contends
for, involves the withdrawal of certificated
teachers, for he proposes that the Govern-
ment grant should depend solely upon the re-
sults, no matter how attained, or under what
system of management a school may be. The
managers would thus be made responsible for
the working of their schools, but a danger of
great practical importance in this scheme, it
seems to us, arises from the fact that the results
of religious knowledge go for nothing towards
obtaining the Government grant and, conse-
quently, managers or schoolmasters are under
the perpetual temptation of sacrificing the re-
ligious teaching to that which alone is judged
of pecuniary value. The natural desire, not
only of partaking largely of the grant, but
of standing well in the esteem of the Govern-
ment inspector, will at least tend to lessen the
zeal and abridge the valuable time devoted to
religious instruction. This is a point of great
practical importance, on which we should like
to hear the deliberate opinion of those who
are familiar with the working of schools under
the present system of inspection.
The weak point in our present system is that
where help towards educating the people is
most needed, as in the poorest localities, or
in a scattered population, there the Govern-
ment grants do not reach. The grant is only
intended to help those who can, to a certain
extent, help themselves. But in localities
where people are too poor to contribute towards
their own education, they remain in the grossest
ignorance, such as is unknown in any country
of Europe. To remedy this undeniable evil
which serves Mr. Lowe as a lever to introduce
his compulsory school rate and secular system,
Archdeacon Denison suggests that Govern-
ment should build and partially support, but
not by means of a local rate, schools in such
places as were totally destitute of the necess-
ary means of education, and hand them over
to the management and control of the deno-
mination which predominated in point of
numbers in the locality. Of course the minority
would remain without a school of its own
denomination ; but this evil is by far a lesser
one than depriving the majority of the religi-
ous teaching, without which education fails
in its highest and most necessary purpose.
The difficulty which England now experiences
in instituting a national system of education
is a striking illustration of the evils of numer-
ous religions. The country is paying the
severe penalty of its fall into heresy and
schism, and should the Protestant principle
of private judgment unhappily force the coun-
try into the adoption of a secular system of
national education, it will have effected its last
evil on our country.—Westminster Gazette.