The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-17 00:00:00

THE SUN, -LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 17, 1868,

THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION,

Friday was the last day of the Congregational Dissoa
autumnal meeting, which has been held at Leeds. The
concluding meeting was a public breakfast to the Educar
tional Board of4he Union. Some 250 ministers and others
were present. Mr. Samuel Morley occupied the chair.
The question discussed was education. The chairman, in
opening the proceedings, adverted to the change of opinion
which had taken place concerning the Government grant.
He declared he was not for at all relinquishing his at-
tachment to the great principle that religious supervision
must always have to do with a system of education for the
people ; and yet in accepting the position that the great
want of the people was a good sound secular education,
he wished not to be misunderstood. So far as their de-
nominational schools were concerned, they must be
religious. They did not want any dogmatic teaching.
He should be very thankful to see every man an lade-
pendent, but he would leave people to decide for them•
selves. In none of the Congregational schools did they seek
to strengthen their position by education merely. There
were friends of education in some parts of the country
who were exposed to such competition that some
aid from the State must really be looked to by them.
The Government bad done as much as it could, and hence-
forth State pay would be given to secular teaching. The
Government said, " Prove that you are giving good teach-
ing in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and then deal
with your children religiously as you think fit."
That would be a great advance in the position of
Dissenters ; but he was prepared to recommend
some supplement, for in London something im-
mense was required, and there were destitute districts in
all parts of the country ; and let there be, in addition,
secular schools. He had net great faith in corporations
in superintending this matter, for he did not think that
members of town councils generally were the persons to
whom he would commit the education of the people. He
was a thorough believer in local government, but all the
mischief resulting from it must lay at the door of those
who chose the representatives. The leaders of these
matters in the House of Commons, he believed, were
honestly desirous to meet the fair r equirements of all classes.
The Privy Council, the Duke of Marlborough, and Lord
R. Montagu had shown every disposition to meet the Inde-
pendents, by placing all on an equality ; the leaders on the
other side were equally clear in that way; and though
they could hardly wish to see any large body of Congrega-
tionalists taking precisely the same ground, he hoped all
might be able to see in those proposals an equal degree a
progress, which would be regarded as the ground
that all might take in common.—Mr. Baines, M.P., in
moving the first resolution, expressing confidence in the
Board of Education, said the Government had pronounced
in favour of a system of absolute impartiality—a system
not exclusively bound up with religious instruction—but
would impartially give aid to those friends of education
who could produce the results of a good secular instruc-
tion. Therefore, he (Mr. Baines) thought they might
say now with perfect truth that so far—not, indeed, as
legislation had gone— but so far as the wishes and
public declarations of the great parties in the State
were concerned, they were favourable to a system of
which this Board of Education could approve, and
therefore they now accepted the aid which the State
granted to education, and in so doing it was assumed
there would be no interference with conscience or with any
religious instruction they might think it their duty to give.
They were placed in the position that the State equally
gave aid and countenance to those friends who still main-
tained the purely voluntary system, and to those who con-
sented to the acceptance of State aid. Referring to their
denominational college at Homerton, he claimed support
for it, for they did not seek mere party success there. But
he declared his solemn conviction that it would be wrong
as well as ruin for them to seek to discharge the religious
element from the education of the people. They ought
not to insist upon religious education, but a system of per-

fect impartiality should be adopted, and if the united
efforts of the various religious bodies should fail to
meet the wants of the community, the power should be
given to boroughs and parishes to supplement what at
present it was meant to do.

UR, M, GIBSON ON THE ,EXPENDITURE,

Mr. Milner Gibson has been speaking in Somerset on
that wearisome topic, the expenditure. It was his opinion
that they would never do much by small economies. They
might7reduce the charge for building a ship ; they might
disband a few men here and a few men there ; they mi,_,ht
prove that some guns or a particular man-of-war had cost
a great deal more than was right, but they might rely on
it, the question of expense lay in the magnitude of their
great military and naval establishments. Could they be
reduced ? It was a question a man must not talk in a
loose way about. The more they looked at the question
the more they would find it to be an European question.
All European nations seemed to be trying to rival each
other in the amount of their armaments. It was, to use
the words of Mr. Disraeli, a question of bloated arma-
ments throughout Europe, and the difficulty which bad
to be met was, who was to begin to disarm. No man
could do a more patriotic thing than he who, like the
members of the Peace Society, employed himself in
spreading sound opinions upon this question, to &hew the
different nations the folly of maintaining larger military
and naval establishments than were necessary for their
defence, or for legitimate purposes. Our present expendi-
ture was L 70,000,000 a year, of which £55,000,000 was upon
the military and naval establishments, and the interest on
debts incurred for war expenditure. He believed he
was correct in saying that out of every shilling paid in
taxes, ninepence went towards military and naval establish-
ments, and the interest on the debt. He contended that
these great bloated armaments in time of peace were not
the best preparations for exertion should war overtake us,
but that we should be in a better condition, if our
resources were husbanded and our taxation were not so
heavy in time of peace, to make the necessary effort to
defend ourselves in time of war.

OAPTAIN SHERARD OSBORN ON THE
EXPENDITURE.

Captain Sherard Osborn spoke at Salford, on 'Thursday,
on the subject of the expenditure of the country. He fully
recognised that this was not merely a question of saving
so much money by reducing our armies and fleets.
At that moment 20 millions sterling were lying idle in
the Bank of England, and an equal amount in the Bank
of France, all of which should be circulating and impart-
ing life and bread to them all. The entire revenue
of this country might be put down at 691 millions, and of
this, 261 millions were spent upon soldiering and sailoring,
and that did not embrace the whole of what we were
spending, There was, far away from this country, a
hundred millions of British subjects in India, who produced
a revenue of about thirty-nine millions, halt of which went
In soldiering and sailoring, in addition to the first-named
amount. There were 60,000 British troops in India.
It was not necessary, in his opinion, to have so many. It
was impossible to shut one's eyes to the great waste of life
which taok place there. Within the last year, in the
healthiest part of Upper India, out of 34 regiments they
buried two of them. He wished them to bear in mind that
we spent 26i millions upon the services in a time of pro-
found peace. In his younger days, when he was engaged
in active service, England was just as much respected as
she is now, and yet he found that from 1836 to 1854 our
expenditure upon the army and navy ranged from 11i
millions to 16 millions. The heritage of the educated
classes, as Mr. Vernon Harcourt said, was a debt of 800
millions, for the glory of keeping the Bourbons on the
throne of France, the last of whom was chased from the
throne about a month ago, the supremacy of the seas, and
a few captured colonies. Our vaunted supremacy on the
seas was fast disappearing, and there was no doubt that we
must give up that idea altogether. He had found it very
difficult to bring his mind to the conclusion that the
high seas were not altogether made for Englishmen.
The notion of exclusiveness was disappearing, and in com-
pany with it the impression that England ought to keep
up squadrons in all the seas of the world, and maintain
the police of those seas for the rest of the world at
her own expense. Various strong positions in different parts
of the world, such as Gibraltar, had been seized, and the
English people were told that those places were "keys"
which must be fortified. The fact was, that in these days
of ironclad steamers such keys were practically useless.
Twenty Gibraltars could not prevent those steamers
from going into or coming out of the Meditteranean Sea.
Malta, he admitted, was a position which he believed it
would be difficult to part with at present, unless it could
be guaranteed by the European Powers as a good central
neutral point. But Malta cost this country a million
per annum for soldiers alone. Canada had 13,000 of
our soldiers, at a cost to this country of £1,600,000 a year
—a force which, in the event of a war with the United
States, against whom alone it was kept there, would be
utterly useless. He strongly urged the desirableness of
cultivating amicable relations with the United States, and
as one result of which the Canadians might dispense v.ith
our army. We had also 30,000 troops in Ireland, which
certainly would not be necessary did we pursue a policy of
justice and conciliation in that country. He was in Ireland
on duty in 1848, in connection with the Smith O'Biien
affair; and, returning to the country a few years after, he
met an old Irish tailor or shoemaker, who asked him
when he was coming back. He replied that he did not
know ; when the man exelaimed, " Oh, bedad, we must
get up another rebellion. There has been no contract in
the country since the last." To sum up, if we had thirteen
battalions (a thousand men each) in Canada, eight at
Malta, six at Gibraltar, and about twenty.five in Ireland,
that would account for a very large proportion of the 140
battalions we had ; and he said it was easy for the states-
man who was really bent on measures of military retrench.
ment to find out amongst these 140 battalions some of
them, not to be paid off and the men turned into the
streets without a sixpence in their pockets, but to be put
down in some of our colonies where there was plenty of
land for them, such as Australia and New Zealand. The
next point in military retrenchment was that of fortifica-
tions. The gallant captain spoke at some length on this
subject, shewing how absolutely useless in case of invasion
were our stupendous fortifications at Portsmouth and
Plymouth. He pointed out how Lord Palmerston had
been beguiled into this expenditure in the first instance,
and how every succeeding Government
had gone on
blundering and scrambling from bad to worse. The
original estimate was for 12 millions, but he was convinced
that 25 millions would be• spent upon them before all the
spending was over. They were now beginning to protect
each of the four thousand guns used in the forts with
a shield, at a cost of about a thousand pounds a piece,
and even when all was done the forts would be very
little use. The greatest blunder of all was their immensity;
it would require an army of 140,000 men to man them.
Coming to the navy, Captain Osborn said the dockyards
were the department which required to be most looked
after. He contended that the whole system of our naval
administration was radically defective. If, instead of a
numerous fleet such as we had at present, we were to
construct a few powerful vessels of the monitor class, we
might effect an enormous saving, and at the same time
increase rather than diminish our warlike efficiency. He
suggested that a military railway round the coast—if it
were necessary to resort to defensive works at all—would
be the most effective that we could have in case of actual

.vasion.

The Rev. T. Fowle, of Hoxton, a well-known
writer on educational matters, has been appointed by the
rector of St. Mary's, Bryansione-square, to the incumbency
of St. Luke's, Nutford-place, Paddington, vacant by the pre-
ferment of Mr. Rowley to Frant.
WIFE MURDER. —A man named Francis Howarit
Clare has been taken into custody at Norwich on a charge
of having murdered his wife by cutting her throat. Clare
works as a shoemaker, and was formerly in the army. An
inquest was held ou Saturday _ _ _

" CTohoel
aesooalnceuscsutonfbeCr" is
frequently surpassed in rem
the farce
e s Mathews in
life ; and we are now privileged to record one instance of
this which would put that clever comedian to the blush.
Two men narrowly escaped drowning a day or two past at
Havre. They were intoxicated, and in this state fell into
the harbour. The Custom-house officers succeeded in
rescuing both from their perilous position, when one of
them actually urged his deliverers to dive again and yet
him his hat.

CARLYLE AND THE TALKER.—An anecdote is
going the rounds which is not bad. Carlyle, the man of
great thought and of a big head, full of Schwarinery, was
one day at a very nice dinner party, and doing his duty as
a practical philosopher should. Opposite him sat a
very rich, pompous, large man, with five yards of
shirt-front, and another big head at the top of it,
full, as its pompous owner conceived, of noble
thoughts and experience ripened into grand views
and maxims of life. Ire succeeded in getting that awful
thing at a dinner party, a dead silence, and for a quarter
of an hour then gave forth the magnitude of his views on
subjects political, philosophical, and social, to Carlyle
and no one else, who all the while but opened the
mouth of his massive tete and conveyed thereinto solid
and fluid. The pompous man came to the end ; dead
silence reigned. He looked round at the whole of -the
company up and clown the table to see the favour-
able effect he was sure he must have produced,
and then addressed himself to Carlyle thus : " And now,
what do you really think of my views, Mr. Carlyle, on
these matters I have touched upon, but briefly, sir, but
briefly ?" No response followed. The question was
opea.ted, when the big head was raised. Carlyle regarded
his opposite neighbour vacantly for a moment, and then
in his fine Scotch musical pibroch accent quietly remarked,
" You're a poor critter, sir—a poor critter," and so
resumed his occupation with the fluids and solids, amidst
the glorious mirth of those wilco, enloye4 the well-merited
gacomfe4-9/ anothe,.

PROGRAMME OF NEWMARKET HOUGHTON
MEETING.—MoNDAY, Oct. 19.

A Plate of 200 sovs (Handicap) for two and three year
olds; Bretby Stakes Course.
Plate of 50 scvs (Handicap), for three year olds and up-
wards; Cambridgeshire Course.
Maiden Plato of 50 soya, for two year olds ; colts Est 101 b,
ffllies and geldings Bst 71b ; the winner to be sold for
300 soya ; if for 200 sovs allowed 71b. Criterion
Course.
One Hundred Pounds ; three year olds 7st 1111), four Bst
101 b, five, six, and aged Bst 131 b ; maiden four year olds
allowed 71b, five and upwards 141 b. R.M.
Selling Handicap of 10 sovs each, for three year olds
and upwards ; the winner to be sold for 100 sow; if de-
manded, &c. T.Y.C.
Sweepstakes of 10 sovs each; three year olds Bst, four
Bst 101 b, five and upwards 9st llb ; the winner to bo
sold for 300 soya if demanded, &o. Bretby Stakes
Course.
The Criterion Stakes of 30 soya each, 20 It, for two year
olds ; colts Bst 81b, fillies Bst Glb ; winners of a 500 sovs
sweepstakes, including the winner's own stake, with ten
subscribers 41b, of two such stakes 71b, of any other
sweepstakes value 200 Boys, including the winner's own
stake, a,d not having less than ten subscribers 21b
extra. Criterion Course. 63 subs.
A Plate of 50 sovs for two year olds ; colts Bst 101 b, fillies
Bst 71b ; winners of 500 sovs 71b extra ; if entered to
be sold for 100 sovs allowed 71b. •
TUZSDAY.
A. Free Handicap of 25 sove each, 10ft ; winners of a
handicap after Thursday, Oct. 15 (at ten a.m ), 71b, of
any other race 31b extra. T.Y.C.
A Plato of 100 soya (Handicap), for three year olds and
upwards. A.F.
A Selling Handicap of 15 sovs each, 10 ft, for three year
olds and upwards ; the winner to be sold for 200 sovs if
demanded, &c. R.M.
The Optional Selling Stakes of 5 soya each, with 25 added,
for two year olds ; colts Bst 121 b, fillies Bst 81b ; the
winner to be sold for 250 SOTS; if entered for 200 sovs
allowed 51b, 150 101 b, 100 161 b, 60 211 b. T.Y.C.
A Sweepstakes of 10 sovs each; three year old Bst 21b,
four Bst 101 b, five and upwards 9st; fillies allowed 31b ;
the winner to be sold for 80 soya if demanded, &c.
T.Y.C.
The Cambridgeshire Stakes (Handicap) of 25 sovs each,
10 ft, and only 5 if declared, with 100 added by the
Jockey Club.
1 sweepstakes of 200 save each, h ft, for two year old
colts ; Bst 101 b each ; last seven furlongs of R.M. ; 5
subs.