The Sun.
London, England, 1850-07-19 00:00:00

his own room, and be had even intimated—certainly as
respectfully as he could—that he did not require any as-
sistance from either university. To that he objected.
The universities were learned: and dignified bodies of
men, endowed with privileges under charter, and amongst
these were stringent obligations under oath not to reveal
any of the internal proceedings of their establishments.
Now, that being so, were her Majesty's Ministers justified
in putting a Commissioner of the Crown in the undignified
position of having his questions met with a direct refusal?
If they expected to get answers from some who were
disposed to construe these obligations liberally, and
whom on that account they would receive with open
arms, then they would bo holding out a premium for
laxity in the binding obligation of an oath. Inde-
pendently of these considerations, he believed that it
was quite illegal to appoint a Commission having for its
object a direct interference with the rights of private
property—and cases bad been tried in courts of justice
in which proceedings so taken were not admitted as good
pleadings in answer to charges of illegal ado. Modern
precedents had been cited in justification of this attempt,
and the Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home
Department had endeavoured to add to the number.
Whether those precedents were right or wrong with re-
ference to the question before the House, he would not
undertake to say; but he did say that they did not come
near to a justification of this resolution. The Right lion.
Baronet had stated that there was an inquiry into tho
management of the Scotch universities. And so there
was—a royal Commission. too—but what of that? It
was an inquiry in respect of a visitatorial power, and, as-
suming its legality, what was its composition? It was
composed, first. of the heads of the respective universi-
ties, showing that the universities themselves were con-
senting parties. Then the judges of Scotland were
members of this Commission, showing that they recog-
nised its legal existence. But this Commission had no
resemblance whatever to that recommended by the Noble
Lord. It was not a fishing Commission, a roving Com-
mission, but one of the largest nature, having power to
administer oaths to the witnesses, and to require the
production of documents. It was a Legislative Commis-
sion, and recited in the warrant itself that it proceeded
from the prerogative of his Majesty. Now, he contended
that here they were doing no such thing. and that, in-
stead of proceeding to bring the power of the State into
contempt, they ought to proceed by Act of Parliament,
when an opportunity of fair discussion would be afforded
to all the numerous interests whom this inquiry would
concern. The Ecclesiastical Commission or 1835 had
been referred to also, but that was of a totally different
nature, and depended upon the potency of Parliament
to magnify the salaries of the bishops, and to create
central funds for local purposes. And so far from its
being intended as a mark of disrespect towards the
Church, the Church itself was a consenting party. If
the universities consented he would not oppose the mea-
sure, but they did not; on the contrary, they were op-
posing parties. There were but two other cases that could
be cited as precedents—the inquiry into char ities in Ire-
land in 1824—but that was in the case of charities
which received in the whole, or in part, public
money, and therefore it was impossible to object
to interference; then the other was that of the
municipal corporations. In the case, however,
of these bodies, they were orginally represented bodies
—a principle which had been violated in their regard,
and therefore formed a ground for interference. But he
denied that either of these were analogous cases of pre-
cedent. The doctrine now was, that the exercise of the
prerogative in this case was legal, because the Commis-
sion would not have coercive powers. It was said that
the Crown had a visitatorial power, but this was not of
that character. It was irregular, because it rested upon an
undefined and unconstitutional exercise of the preroga-
tive.—(Hear, hear.) For two centuries, the sixteenth
and seventeenth, the Crown could do what it pleased,
but at the close of that period these powers were defined.
Now, be would ask would the principle of this inter-
ference extend to St. Augustin's College at Canterbury,
and to the London University? It was urged that the
universities had exclusive privileges, but the University
of London had the same privileges to a great extent.
Well, then, he would ask whether all other colleges
came within the scope of this investigation? Was this
Commission, he would ask, founded on Royal authority?
If it was they ought to let them know what that authority
was.—(Hear.) He thought it would be better to wait
for the lights of experience, and to see whether
the colleges would do their duty, before they issued
this Commission. He thought that even a defective
management of the finances of the colleges, under a
system of self-management, would be preferable to a
large increase of revenue under a better system estab-
lished by Act of Parliament. In the reign of Mary
Tudor interference with the colleges was frequent; in'
consequeuce learning was never at a lower ebb than at
that time, because it prevented that tranquillity and
freedom absolutely necessary to the prosecution of
learning. Would they interfere because they were elee-
mosynary institutions? Would it be politic, when there
was such a development of material wealth in progress,
to discourage the application of some portion of that
wealth to other than material objects? If they interfered
with these institutions in the universities, they would de-
prive them of much of the democratic character which
now belonged to them. It was said that Eton was a
little world, the same could be said of the universities.
They were schools of morals, manners, and human ac-
tion.—(Hear, hear.) The House of Commons was the
last place which should complain of the universities.—
(Hear, hear.) If France left Cambridge behind in the
higher branches of mathematics, and if Oxford took
many of her manuals in Greek and Latin frcm the Ger-
mans, that House was indebted to the universities for
training the gre atstatesmen which had distinguished them.
selves in the service of the country. The universities
had no reason to blush in the face of the House of Com-
mons. If they looked to either side of the House, they
would see the application of the observation. On that
side of the House, the great statesman who had so lately
departed, who bad been styled the man of the British
House of Commons—Oxford had reason to be proud
that she had trained him for the British Parliament, and
he could not but regret that be did not survive to throw
the shield of his protection over these institutions. He
did not, however, attribute an intention to the Noble
Lord of aiming a blow at the colleges. He thought the
friends'of the universities would have had a greater ad-
vantage if the proposal had been made at an earlier
period of the session, when a lai ger number of Mem-
bers would have been in attendance. He still hoped that
the Noble Lord would reconsider the question, and not
proceed further until he gave greater consideration to
the constitutional principles involved in it. He did not
deny the power of Parliament, when sufficiens reason
had been shown, but he protested against this applica-
tion of an undefined and unconstitutional exercise
of the prerogative, as injurious to the honour of the
Crown, in interfering with the privileges of the univer-
sities which were essential to their health and well-being.
Lord J. RUSSELL said he felt very considerable
difficulty in arguing the question that a Commission
ought to issue on the part of the Crown to inquire into
these universities, for if they admitted any of the defects
of the universities, and confined themselves to the state-
ment that there were improvements yet to be made, and
that those improvements might be facilited by inquiry,
and that even legislative aid might be necessary fur the
purpose, they were then met by the Right Honourable
Gentleman who had just sat down with the statement
that there was hardly a case for a Commission, and that
none but the gravest reasons should induce the Crown
to issue such a Commission. And if they pointed out in
the present instance defects that existed, and in which
improvements might be mad, then they were met by the
latter part of the Right Hon. Gentleman's speech, in
wlach he denounced the Ministers of the Crown as if
they were not going to assist or improve, but utterly to
subvert these institutions, and to deprive them of their
very existence. The Right Hon. Gentleman in the latter
part of his speech went into an excess of protestations
against the intentions of the Government, which was
hardly required from anything he had heard from any
Minister. They might publicly admit that these uni-
versities had been most usefel—that large endow-
ments for such purposes were most proper—that the
education of statesmen had been promoted, and
the general learning of the country had been
advanced by these institutions; but when they had made
all these admissions, they were not a bit nearer the
Right Honourable Gentleman's conclusion, that there
ought to be no further inquiry on the subject.—(Hear.)
The Right Hon. Gentleman, going far beyond the tem-
perate speech made by the Hon. and Learned Gentleman
who opened the debate, would have them think there
ought to be on the part of the Crown no inquiry here-
after except into cases of very gross abuse, that made
inquiry absolutely necessary and unavoidable. To admit
such a conclusion would be to admit that from 1815 to
the present time they had been going entirely in a wrong
course—that the various Ministers of the Crown had
abused its prerogative. The Right Hon. Gentleman, in
the early part of his speech, told them that at Oxford,
where the opinions of Wickliffe were gaining ground,
the fellows of same of the colleges inserted in their sta-
tutes more strict rules against interference, from which
the Right Honourable Gentleman proved the moral that
they ought carefully to guard against ill considered
schemes of reform. He (Lord John Russell) was hardly
prepared to admit that the opinions of Wickliffe and the
beginning of the Reformation were ill-considered
schemes of reform.—(Hear, hear.) Ho was not
prepared to admit that the Reformation of the time of
Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth were merely ill-considered
schemes of reform by the innovators of that time.—
(Hear, hear.) But he did see in those strict and
severe statutes another lesson, namely, that in those
times those who made. those severe statutes made
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because by the very strictness by which they at-
tempted to prevent all change tbey did but make that
change the more violent, more entire, and more sub-
versive than it would otherwise have been.—(Hear,
hear.) Among those foundations which the Right Hon.
Gentleman said ought not to have been interfered with,
were many which were endowed by Catholic noblemen
and divines, in which they made provision for the due
maintenance of Catholic worship, and if they had pre-
served unimpaired and unaltered the institutions of those
days, it was the NOMA Catholics, and not the Protes-
tants, who had a right to complain of interference.
There was, however, a course of precedents with which
the Right Honourable Gentleman, with great in-
genuity, though as ho (Lord John Russell) thought in
vain, had endeavoured to cope. The Right Hon.
Gentleman could not deny that they bad bad an in-
quiry into the Irish places of education—into the Uni-
versities of Scotland—into the state of the Irish Church
under the Duke of Wellington's Government—into the
Ecclesiastical revenues in 1832—into the municipal cot.-
; porations in 1834 and 1835—and into the state of the
several bishoprics in England and Wales, and that that
was likewise an inquiry into the state of the cathedral
i chapters. The Right Hon. Gentleman could not pre-
tend that none of those precedents were applicable—he
could only pretend it by saying that what the Govern-
) meat proposed was, in fact, not a Commission to inquire,
but a Commission in the nature of an inquiry and re-
L medy, which was not only to ascertain facts, but to deal