The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-13 00:00:00

,§un.

LONDON:
THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 1842.

If we were not thoroughly convinced that
truth and common sense must in the end pre-
vail over priesteraft, we should begin to despair.
for the latter is just now in the ascendant. See-
ing decrepitude and decay advancing upon it,
priestcratt, we are told by one of its admirers, has
" called up fresh wants, fresh feelings, a fresh tone
of mind, fresh aims and desires, spreading where
they are least looked tbr, moving forward in the
minds or works of separate individuals, with a
strange mixture of union and independence—
gradually fastening upon one person after another,
orke class after another, one subject after another
—theology, philosophy, history, politics—and this
with a rapidity almost equally observed on by
those who regard it \vitt' admiration, distrust, or
aversion." In the hands .o
the priesthood, as
a class set apart to educate the community and
devote itself to the acquisition of knowkdrre. is
.
co icon trated touch of th.t 'ear-
um; o society
while it is also master of a that lay kncwiedge
which it does not exclusively possess. "fence,
now that a necessity has arisen for exertion, to
maintain its power it has seized hold of one
science alter another ; it has grasped at all the
means of influencing the public mind—disdain-
ing not to use newspapers and penny tracts as
aids to the pulpit—which modern art has dis-
covered, and it uses them all to preserve and
extend its dominion. Nor has it been unsuccess-
ful : it has placed its votaries and slaves in the
Cabinet; at least, men have been obliged to pro-
fess reverence, whether they felt it or not, to
obtain political power; and it has secured a
firmer hold of all the pecuniary means of educa-

Catholic children of Liverpool from the benefit
of the Corporation Schools. The immediate re-
, 'mils of the decision we must tell in the words of
the Liverpool Times :
Of the hundreds of children who, for the last six
years, have been receiving a sound and useful education
in the schools, a very large proportion (we believe more
Lhan one-half) have already left them, or rather have
refused to enter them again. In the North Corporation
School there was an average attendance, during the
month of December, of 325 boys, and of 259 girls, and
we are informed that the attendance yesterday was 173
boys, and only 90 girls, exhibiting a decline of 156 boys
And 169 girls ! In the South School we are likewise in-
formed that the number of boys has decreased from 212
to 115, being a decline of 97. We have no returns as
to the state of the North Girl's School, or the Infant
Schools, but we understand that the falling off in them
is also very great, and they, and all the schools so re-
cently full of life, happiness, and knowledge, now pre-
;ent little better than " a beggarly, account of empty
benches." Of the teachers, two in the North School and
hree in the South, having refused to take any part in
-he attempt to force the consciences of the Roman Ca-
holic children (supposing that any of them should re-
.nain in the schools) have been dismissed. This, it must
be allowed, is tolerably well for a beginning.
Thus, to gratify our Mammon-worshipping
,)riesthood, 4a.) children are at once deprived of
he advantages of education, and probably the
.vhole 936 will soon be obliged to leave
the schools. We regret to see the middle
._!lasses of Liverpool have inflicted this grie-
vous injury on their poor Roman Catholic

neighbours, out of deference to the
!)riesthood. The decree proceeds from the
rniddle classes, and affects only the lower. It
will exclude no gentleman's son or daughter from
die advantages of education. It will be regarded
ls another class injury inflicted under the in-
fluence of a priesthood which ought to promote
7eace and good-will on earth ; and it will add to
the many sources of alienation already existing
)etwixt the middle and lower classes, the bitter
ingredient of religious persecution.

It is very sad to see even this momentary
triumph of bigotry, for we are persuaded that it
an be only mometary. It is, however, one of
the painful results of the renewed activity of the
driesthood which now pervades the whole body,
.vh ether they profess HigltChurch or Low Church
tenets, and which is now especially directed to
obtain a complete control over the education and
'nind of society.

The plan of the Trinidad Immigration and Agri-
cultural Society fbr putting an end to the slave
trade in the Brazils and Cuba, to which we -al-
.uded on Tuesday, is as follows. It is asserted "that
4uch is the fertility of Trinidad that it can pro-
luce sugar at a cheaper rate than Cuba or Bra-
zil ; that a cultivation of only one-seventh part
,f the lands held by the Crown would produce
more than sufficient for the consumption of
Great Britain, and that nothing more is required
for the accomplishment of this object, by which
the differential duty on sugar would become a
dead letter, and the slave trade be extinguished,
than the permission of the Government to pro-
cure labour wherever it can be most advan-
tageously obtained." These opinions were una-
nimously adopted at one of the largest
meetings ever held in the colony, and express,
therefore, the general opinion of the planters,
is well as the opinion of the Immigration Corn-
mittee.

After examining the several places where la-
bour is redundant, and deciding that "no
European race will snit as labourers in the co-
lony—that the Asiatics would answer," they con-
clude that the natives of Africa are to be pre-
erred. The Committee, therefore, suggest that
t sufficient number of suitable free labourers may
be engaged in Africa, and, should that sufficient
lumber not be f mnd willing to emigrate, the Com-
mittee proposes that " some of the unhappy
persons held there in bondage should be pur-
Thased and manumitted, to be imported into
the colony as free labourers.
Though the Committee say that the parties
,nanumitted for the purpose of being conveyed
to our colonies, would only be removed by their
own free will and consent, it is impossible to be-
lieve that the generous planters of Trinidad
Tould purchase slaves and set them free on the
chance of their immediately consenting to leave
Africa for the unknown land of the white men,
to which they are probably aware that their
brethren are dragged in chains. Should a per-
mission to import manumitted slaves be con-
ceded, it would not be possible to watch the
whole coast of Africa, or every slave depot, and not
possible for the Governuent which gave the per-
mission to prevent a multitude of scenes of vio-

fence and fraud by which the manumitted would
be compelled or seduced on board the planter's
,hip, never again to visit the land of their birtl:
Arrived in the colony, the victim of fraud o

olence would be perfectly helpless, subject to
a rigid contract law, which the Committee call
for, and compelled to submit to the salutary
yoke of our civilisation, which means that,
whereas the free labourers of Trinidad now re-
ceive for their labour sixpence per hour, they
shall only receive, as in Ireland and Tortola, six-
pence per day. Very generous and kind are the
Trinidad planters to the labourers already exist-
.

ing in the colony, and to the new race of manu-
mitted slaves they are anxious to import !
An objection already made to this new plan of
a modified slave trade is that it would give a sti-
mulus to the internal slave trade of Africa; but
the Committee contend that their plan will'dimi-
nish, and ultimately annihilate, the profits on
which the slave trade depends. They say that
the production of more sugar in our colonies will
keep down the price of sugar, and so diminish
the profit of the cultivation of sugar by slaves.
They say also that if a hundred labourers be
conveyed as freemen from Africa to Trinidad,
the same number will generally be found at the
end of the year in health and strength; while
the same number imported into Brazils ani.
Cuba more than one-half will be lost in the first
year. Au African lauded at Trinidad would cost
only sixty dollars, while a slave costs at least
3,30. The Committee conclude, therefore, that
the planters of Trinidad could not only make
double the quantity of sugar with the same num-
ber of imported labourers, but at a greatly re-
duced ce st. They would furnish sugar abun-
dantly and cheaply!, so as to lower the profit of

the slave owner, and diminish the stimulus to the
internal slave trade
Visions of mountains of free labour sugar
thereupon crowd into the minds of the Tri-
nidad planters. The planters of Cuba and

tion. Its latest triumph has been achieved at
Liverpool; its next, probably,,will be on the 3d
of February, when its vassals will doubtless say,
in the Speech which the QUEEN will read, that
an extension of priestcraft is necessary to im-
prove the morals and the happiness of the people.
When the Town Council of Liverpool was
composed of Liberals, it reformed the Corpora-
tion Schools, on the principles which Lord
STANLEY adopted when he was a 'Whig—for
giving a common education to the Protestants
and Catholics of Ireland ; and by allowing the
use of extracts from the Bible, in which both
Catholics and Protestants agree, instead of in-
sisting on the whole Bible being read, it opened
the Corporation schools to the children of Catho-
lics. This wise and liberal plan was justified lay
its results. The number of children attendifig
the schools was 1,570, and of these nearly two
thirds, 936, were children of Roman Catholics.
The late- municipal elections, by the influence
of the priesthood, gave the Tory party a majo-
rity in the Tam Council, which immediately set
about giving effect to the wishes of the priests.
One of its first acts, accordingly, was to re-
commend, through an Education Committee,
that " none but the authorised version of the
Bible shall be used in schools, and that the same
shall be used without restriction and limit." Yes-
terday week the Report of this Committee was
taken into consideration by the Town-Council,
and after two amendments had been rejected,its re-
commendations were adopted by a very consider-
able majority. Thus theTown-Council of Liverpool,
under the influence of that revived and strength-
ened priesteraft which is the delight of some of
our Contemporaries, who in their more vigorous
days would have been ashamed of lending them-
selves to its machinations against the liberties
of mankind, has virtually excluded all the Roman