The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-10 00:00:00

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_.~~

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1845.

The House of Commons met shortly before Four.
Mr. FORBES MACKENZIE took the oaths and his seat
For Peebles-shire.

_
Mr. CrisnonxE moved, " That in all cases in which
the Members of a Committee on a railway Bill, or group
of Bill;, should be reduced to four, the proceedings on
such Bill or group of Bills shall be suspended until the
Committee of Selection shall have discharged one of the
said four Ilembars from further attendance on the said
Committee." _ -

The motion was opposed by Lord G. SOMERSET,
Mr. LABoucHERE, and several other Members.
Sir G. GREY moved the following amendment :

" That upon all questions before Railway Committees,
on which there was a difference of opinion, those ques.
tions should be decided by the majority of voices ; but
where the Members on the Committee were even, that
the Chairman should have two voices, or a casting voice.'
After a short discussion the motion was withdrawn,
and the amendment was agreed to.

Sir R. PEEL, moved that the House at its rising do
adjourn to Thursday next, which was agreed to.
The second reading of the Parochial Settlement Bill
was postponed until the 9th of June.
Sir J. GRAHAM then moved for leave to bring in a
Bill on the subject of Academical Education in Ireland,
and in so doing, admitted that religious differences con-
stituted the great difficulty in the way of
establishing a general system in both countries,
and that in Ireland this great anomaly existed
viz., that for centuries the religion of the great majority
of the people had been treated as a hostile religion. The
only way in which this difficulty could be met was by
adopting the pri,.ciples set forth in the report of the
Commission appointed in 1806 to consider this subject,
which proposed to institute a national system of educa-
tion which should be open to all classes of the people,
while it kept clear of all differences with respect to the
particular religious tenets of any. On that principle be
intended to found his measure. The Right Hon. Gen-
tleman then went at great length into the history of na-
tional education in Ireland up to the present time. He
should have no hesitation in recommending in Ireland the
establishment of universities on the same plan as the
University of London, where no test was required of
either teacher or student He proposed to establish
one such University in the south of Ireland—most pro-
bably at Cork—another in the West, either at Limerick
or Galway, and another in the north, either at Lon-
donderry or Belfast, but most probably at Belfast.
About 30,0001. each would be the sum required for
building and fitting up those Universities, and about
6,0001. a-year each for the annual endownsent.
Each college would have ten or twelve professors, who
would be allowed 3001. a year each; and both at Cork
and Belfast there would be medical schools, and among
these twelve professors would be included the professors
in anatomy, surgery, and chemistry. Considering that

the endowment was to be made by the Crown, he pro-
posed that the professors in all the three colleges
should be nominated by the Crown, and that
the Crown should have not only the power of nomi-
nating, but the power of removing, lon cause shown.
The principals would reside in the college, but not either
the professors or the students. The course of instruc-
tion would be given by lectures and daily examinations.
Thee would be in none of these colleges endow •
ments for professors of theology by the Crown,
but if private individuals chose to endow such professor-
ships, every facility would be given them for so doing,
but the attendance upon such lectures would
not be compulsory. The fundamental principle
of the measure was the avoidance of all
interference, positive or negative, with the re-
ligious scruples of the people. It was the
intention of the Government to continue to the four
divinity professors of the academical institution in Be!:
fast, the endowment which they had enjoyed for the
last twenty years, and if the Bill should pass, he
thought the institution would transfer their premises
and library to the Government on easy terms, for the
purposes of the new Belfast university. The Crown
would not feel bound in such a case to re-appoint the
existing professors, but to those not re-appointed, it
would award ample compensation. He had not
finally determined, but he thought it would be better
that these colleges should be united into a central uni-
versity for the granting degrees, rather than that each
should possess the power, and the central university
should be in Dublin; but he did not at all intend to
interfere with Trinity College as it at present existed.
After paying a tribute to the high-minded and honour-
able course which had been pursued by Mr. WYSE, the
Member for Waterford, in reference to this question—
of academical education in Ireland—the Right Hon.
Baronet concluded by moving for leave to bring in
the Bill.
The House was subsequently addressed by Mr.
‘l7 YSE, Sir R. H. INGLIS, Mr. SHEIL, Sir R. PEEL, Mr.
SHAW, and several other Hon. Members, when leave
was given to bring in the Bill.
The House then went into Committee of Supply,
when 50,000/. were voted on account of the public ser-
vice, and, the other orders of the day having been
disposed of, the House adjourned at Half-past Twelve.

The Irish Academies' Bill, introduced by Sir JamEs
GRAHAM last evening, appeared to meet with the general
approbation of the House, and looking at the difficulty
of establishing a system of education for young men of
different religious persuasions, which shall not give offence
to one party or another, we can see no objection Whatever
to the scheme. Schools, and academies, and universities
are but iil adapted for teaching theology, and unless a
Confession of Faith is laid down which every pupil must
subscribe, the great object of such institutions would be
defeated, and constant wrangles be carried on about
particular dogmas in religion. If such a rule of faith is
established, then only one sect can be beeefited, and
all the rest must trust, not only to their own means fur
education, but also pay for the teaching of the favoured
class. This is the case at Oxford and Cambridge ; and
for that reason nearly one half of the community are op-
posed to these venerable institutions. Trinity College,
Dublin, is founded on a much more liberal plan ; it partakes
more of the progress of the age and less of the wisdom,
or, more properly speaking, of the bigotry of our an-
cestors, and admits Human Catholics to certain honours
and preferments, and scholars professing the Catholic
faith are eligible for a considerable number of the pro-
fessorships. It is wise, therefore, to leave that seat of
learning as it is, at least fora time, and till the experiment
proposed by the Government shall have had a fair trial.
Nothing, however, can prevent its success but bigotry.
'rhe system has been long in existence in one of the most
religious countries in the civilised werld, and it has
been found to work well. In the University of
Edinburgh, for instance, no religion whatever is
taught. Catholics and Protestants, and Maho-
['sedans and Ilindoos may assemble in the same
class, enjoy alike the blessings of education, and
aspire also to the highest degrees. Such an inter-
course tends to humanise the mind—it wears off the
asperities of different sects encourages good-
will among pupils who had unfortunately been
taught to hate and detest every religion but
their own, and it often leads to friendships which last
fur life, and contribute largely to mutual happiness. 'I he
man who can obstruct, from. selfish motives, such a
s
we
nhe
Christian
ievset
inaon
presentativecfl
aaiitmh s
atbooo
ftv he
Oxford
asel l coatrhdet
liarnnnsa.di ly vedsir
ersi tnirutoyeu:
nw s,ROßEßTehtodi
oc
itdh
sriyaNisGsteeLsmi
st,he
e
oppositiono
ft ogtohdel e
r aaslmaos,t, arraentiine
Basineducation." He, of
course, would have relicon taught, but only the reli-
gion contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, and would
thereby exclude from its operation all Catholics, all
Jews, and all Dissenters,—the very men who by some
strange infatuation have leagued themselves with their
bitterest enemy. The measure, we trust, will have no
such opponent in Ireland, but be welcomed as another
proof that the Government and the Imperial Parliament
are resolved to persevere in the right course, and pave
the way for full justice to that distracted country. When
measures of such importance are under discussion, it is
to be regretted that Mr. O'CoNnu and his colleague

are still determined to absent themselves and take no
part whatever in the debates. The fact is thus stated
in one of the Dublin papers of Thursday :

" We are in a position to state," says the Freeman," that should
a call of the House be ordered, it will be disobeyed, and that
O'Connell, O'Brien, John O'Connell, Dillon Browne, Grattan,
and the other representatives of tl.e people, who labour in the na-
tional cause, will treat the threat of Mr. Hume and the call of
the Speaker with equal indifference. When these men came to
the resolve of serving Ireland in Ireland, they counted the
cost and accepted all the difficulties of their choice. At pre-
sent the interests of Ireland demand their presence here, and
here they have determined to remain till duty shall call them
elsewhere. If duty should call them to Westminster either to
resist oppressive, or to improve ameliorating measures, they are
as prepared to labour there as they now are to labour
here. But they, and not the British Parliament, are the
judges of the time and the circumstances under which
their presence in the English House of Commons may become a
duty ; and should the Parliament attempt to coerce them to attend
its sittings at any time, other than they themselves may select,

they are resolved to give the Sergeant-at-Arms an opportunity of
making an arrest, and afterwards to test by due process the legality
of that arrest, arid thus try the right of the British Parliament to
enforce the attendance of an Irish representative. This resolution
was unanimously come to yesterday by an influential Committee,
and we lose not an hour in giving the assembled senators thebenefit
to be derived from an early knowledge of the fact."

From the concurring testimony of the City or money
articles of our own paper and our contemporaries, we
are induced to believe that the period of re-action in the
Share-market, to which we have so often felt it our duty
to advert, is not very far distant. The Times thus
pointedly alludes to the matter,in its yesterday's impres-
sion :—" The Railway Share-market continues heavy,
and the increase of sales depresses prices. In fact, all
the markets are in a declining condition ; and some few
fancy that the period of re-Ection has at length arrived."
It must have struek the most casual observer of
such operations for some time past, that prices
in the Share-market have either maintained
a buoyancy difficult to be accounted for on all
ordinary principles of scrip speculation, or have
even exhibited a tendency to rise in a degree to be looked
for, under ordinary circumstances, only in the shares
of first-rate and long-established concerns which have
attained a species of maturity in the continued confi-
dence of the public. One can perfectly well understand,
when the interest on Government securities is so low as
that which they at present pay, that shares in the capital
of such magnificent and undoubted Companies, or Asso-
ciations, as the Bank of England, the East India Com-
pany, the New River Company, and some others
which rarely find their way, at all even, into
the market, should be eagerly sought after as
the safest and most eligible channels in which
individuals can make investments. It is easy to imagine
that, with a view to the security of their principal,
parties may be disposed to buy into such concerns as
these, at as high a premium (should the shares be
carrying such, in the market) as to leave them but an
inconsiderably higher return of interest than they would
receive from investments in the Government stocks.
They are justified, however, in thus determining, by
the guarantees of long experience, reiterated tests, and
not merely the unabated but increasing favour in which
these A.sociations stand with the monied public of all
the civilised world. But when we find—out of two new
railway undertakings—some, not yet in actual working,
others but very recently commenced—that 99 are above
par, and perhaps 70 or 80 at a premium in
the share market, and again that the range of this pre-.
mium from 1 per cent. on the shares of some railway
companies to 10 per cent. on those of others, is clearly
not referable to the varying degree of relative advan-
tages which they are likely to secure to their respective
proprietaries, but by some not apparent and not inhe-
rent causes ; we are justified in surmising that a spirit
of gambling, either fraudulent or capricious, must be the
principle which strikes these differences of nominal
value, where there are, as yet, no practical results cf
fact and of experimental working to decide the real
value of such shares. Now, whether the price that
is thus set, be created by the caprice or the fraud of
gambling speculation, that is to say, whether it be a
fancy or a factitious price, it is equally worthless as an
index of value. If these premises be admitted, let us
apply them to the eighty or ninety millions of capital
vock of railway undertakings, which the heat of that
excitement we speak of has, for months past, kept fer-
menting and raising to an artificial temperature. The
time is coming at which, if we may be allowed to pursue
the figure, a vast proportion of this aerated mass is to be
drawn off. What will be the per centage:of immediate
less occasioned by that process ? When the moment
has come at which the operation of settling and
realising shall be extensively resorted to —when it
will no longer be a question with speculators how high
by a little management they can send up shares on this
or that project over a certain day (all dealings in them,
in the meanwhile, being in the nature of time bargains
only, and for " differences"), but how low beyond their
original cost price they can prevent them from tumbling
down, when the disorganization of the general share