The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-03 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

" I 0 B" complains of the impertinence of the clerks at the
Post-office. He states that a respectable young man was
sent at the beginning of the week to the box-office for the
letters of his employer, and, neglecting to observe whether
the box was empty or not, was subjected to an exceedingly
severe and humiliating rebuke, in the presence of several
gentlemen who were standing around. Our correspondent
states that the annoyance is frequently experienced ; but
we hope this public notice of their conduct will put a stop
to it in future.

We have no- situation for " T," but, if he still wishes for an
interview, we have no objection to give him a hearing.
The subject alluded to by " A B" is noticed elsewhere, but
we have not room for Mr. Golightly's letter.

EIR Zibrrpool 'tanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 3, 1841

In the Liverpool Journal of Saturday there are some
further observations on the School Question which
seem to require that we should not dismiss the subject
so soon as we intended. We know not that we shall
have much that is novel to advance; nor do we per-
ceive that our contemporary puts forth anything that is
not, in strictness and in substance, met by some one
or other of the positions to which we have already ad-
verted : however, if an old friend thinks proper to
meet us with a new face, we esteem it as a sort of duty
that we should let him know we are not ignorant of
his devices.

" The Catholics ", says our contemporary, " do not say
' supersede the Bible so far as our children are concerned.'
But they ask that what they believe to be the Bible shall not
be superseded by what they believe not to be the Bible ; that
municipal ' instruction shall not be framed so as to agree
with any man's peculiar ' tenets ; that religion which they
believe to be false shall not be taught to their children ; and
all the ' favour ' they ask is, that their principles' shall be
free from molestation in the schools of the municipality of
which they are a part. Abundant are the revenues afforded
by the church of England to teach its religion and to favour
its principles. Little is the need to lay the hand of thievish
rapacity on afund to which no sect has either legally or
morally a better title than any other."
In all but the last sentence of this passage, our con-
temporary only repeats what we had put forward be-
fore in a more formal shape—namely, the ground of
Roman Catholic objection to the use of the authorised
Scriptures, and on this head we are willing to abide by
what we have already said in reply. As Protestants
we cannot recognise the validity of the objection; we
cannot suffer it to go abroad that there is any founda-
tion in truth for the allegation concerning our autho-
rised version, or give any countenance, directly or in-
directly, to so serious and, as we are well convinced, so
unwarrantable an imputation. We repeat that the
Roman Catholic only makes his case worse by calling
our special attention to points which we have already
well considered, and to which we cannot afford the
most distant sanction without abandoning fundamental
articles of our creed as Protestants. And what is the
answer to this ? Why that herein consists our " bi-
gotry" and our " intolerance." But, in truth, bigotry
and intolerance have no part in the originating motive
of our procedure, or in the act itself. It is not bigot-
ry, it is not intolerance, to act in simple consistency
with acknowledged fundamentals of that which consti-
tutes a man's profession. Did the Council of Liverpool
consist entirely, or in the greater part, of Roman Ca-
tholics, we should esteem it neither bigotry nor into-
lerance on their part to establish schools which should
harmonise in their teaching, in all essential articles,
with Roman Catholic belief. They could scarcely do
less without laying themselves open to
an imputation
of latitudinarianism or inconsistency. But, under ex-
isting circumstances, our contemporary contends that
Roman Catholics have a " right” to something more
than mere toleration. He says,—

" We humbly submit that they have a right to something
more ; that they have a right to share in secular education
at the expense 4f the municipalitp, with other children of
the municipality, and that to frame religious tests to exclude
them is a violation of the rights of conscience, inasmuch as
it makes the exercise of those rights penal to the extent of

a temporal loss."
With all deference to our contemporary, we deny i"
Coto the "right" which he claims, and are ready to
take issue with him on this point. Our Council is
constituted upon the principle of representation, and

it is, as all the world knows, of Whig and Liberal, and

not of Tory construction. Our contemporary and his

party have had the making of it, and if it does not

work to their satisfaction, the blame must rest not upon
the managers, but-the makers. But being so fashioned,
upon what pretence, according toall constitutional law,

cg: t 3 ini/h)rity Is.

utterly sul.;verAirq

Thus then the scriptural question generally is set at
rest. It only remains to say, shall any sect or class be
exempt from the rule ? Our contemporary, pleading
this exemption for the Roman Catholics, says,—

" You are merely asked to recognise the actual fact, that
others receive Christianity in different modifications from
you ; you are not asked to cast a stigma on your own Bible,
but are asked not to rob them of theirs ; you are not asked
to dispense with scriptural instruction, but you are asked to
allow others to be instructed in what they believe to be
scriptural truth, in like manner as you yourselves are in-
structed in what you believe to be such. To admit this will
not stultify you ; but you will be stultified irretrievably if
you make what you please to call Christianity incompatible
with charity and common honesty."

In addition to what we have already said on this
point, we have only to observe, that if Roman Catho-
lics will not avail themselves of our schools, there are
plenty of others who will, and that there will be no
lack of pupils. We do not look upon it that merely
temporal education would be of much use to Roman-
ists, any more than to any other class of persons, of
the contemplated rank in society; and if they will not
have our moral and religious instruction, they have no
right to take up the room of those who will gladly
abide by all our rules, and receive both.

Since the few remarks were written, which appeared
in our last, upon this important subject, the proceed-
ings of the Dock Committee, held on Monday to inves-
tigate the merits of the plans of Mr. Gage, have been
laid before the public, accompanied with the opinions
respecting them, expressed at that meeting by deputa-
tions from the shipowners and other associations, and
with the report of Mr. Hartley, the present dock sur-
veyor, upon their practicability. Still, however, we
are afraid that our fellow townsmen at large, and even
the mercantile portion of them, are scarcely sufficiently
acquainted with the exact features of the question in
dispute; and, before venturing upon any decided opi-
nion of our own upon it, we shall endeavour to render
it intelligible in its details to such of our readers as
have not had an opportunity of inspecting the various
plans, without which no accurate judgment can be
formed.

The plan of Mr. Hartley and the Dock Committee,
upon which is founded the act obtained last session—
a modification, it will be remembered, of the original
dock warehouse scheme of Mr. Alderman Evans and
others—is one for the construction of a new dock upon
the site of the ship-building yards and buildings west
of, and communicating with, the Salthouse Dock and
extending to the river wall. It embraces also the erec-
tion of warehouses round such new dock, and such an
alteration of the present Salthouse Dock as, without
decreasing its water space, will increase the width Gf
the quay room at its south-eastern corner, by giving
up a portion of that corner, where it approaches too
near to the houses on the east side of the dock, and
taking from the quay in return a portion of the land
at the north-eastern corner, which is at present com-
paratively useless. In addition it is proposed also to
rebuild and enlarge Nos. 2 and 3 Graving Docks, upon
their present site between the small dock leased to the
Manchester River Company and the Canning Dock
basin ; and to widen a street called Gower-street, which
runs down by the south end of Salthouse Dock to the
river wall. In form, the new dock, as laid down in
Mr. Hartley's plan, approaches to a square, and is en-
tered from the river by an entrance basin with two
gates, formed by enlarging the present Canning Dock
basin, with which it communicates at the north-western
corner. It has also a communication on its eastern
side with the Salthouse Dock. In extent these pro-
posed works are estimated to consist of about 3000
yards of lineal quay space, and 23 acres of water space.
The warehouses to he erected consist of two piles—
one running from the entrance gut at the north-western
corner to the communication with the Salthouse Dock
in the middle of the east side of the proposed new
dock; and the other occupying the frontage of the
western, southern, and the remaining portion of the
eastern side. The whole is surrounded by a street of
ample width for cartage, from the back of the ware-
houses or from such vessels as discharge into the sheds
below; and space is left on the west side for the for-
mation of a marine parade in front of the river, and for
the construction, if necessary, of landing steps for the
accommodation of the steam-boats crossing or going
up the river.

The plan, or rather plans—for there are five or six
different ones—submitted to the Dock Committee by
Mr. Gage, and the principle of which appears to have
received the approbation of a considerable portion of
the mercantile interest in the town, we need not de-
scribe at length, after the attention which has been
drawn to them by Mr. Gage himself in his pamphlet,
and the more recent description of them in the report
of the dock surveyor, which we published in our last.
The principle upon which they are designed is nothing
new to the public; and, in fact, differs only in the ex-
tent of its application from that upon which the present
Victoria and Trafalgar Docks are constructed. To in-
crease the lineal quay space afforded, Mr. Gage pro.
poses to substitute for one square dock a number of
canals of various widths, by running tongues of land
into the proposed dock from east to west, by the side
of which a greater number of vessels may load and
discharge than is practicable in a dock covering the
same area, if constructed in the ordinary square or
nearly square form. In one plan he proposes to ex-
tend docks of this formation over the whole of the
space between the Baths on George's pier, and the
extreme south of the site already fixed upon, removing
entirely the Graving Docks and the Manchester Dock ;
and in another, which appears to be the favourite plan
with many of his admirers, he arrives at his increase of
lineal quay space by projecting from each side of the
western face of a square dock, a pier curving inter-
nally, covered with warehouses fronting to the river,
and provided with entrance gates in the centre.
From all the attention which we have devoted to the
subject, and having entered upon it in a perfectly un-
biassed spirit, we must candidly acknowledge that we
are rot satisfied with wiy of the various plans pro-

b

p.inciplo of represeatation—,
utterly subversive of the established principle that thy
minority must be in all cases ruled by the majority ?
If the Roman Catholics have any such rights as our
contemporary speaks of, it is plain that they cannot en:.
force them without an infringement of the constitution
under which they consent to live, so long as a majority
of the Council is opposed to them. But in fact 0
have no rights hut such as they derive legitimately from
the acts of their representatives; the reasonableness of
their claims is the immediate point under discussion.
To the Municipal Council is entrusted the manage-
ment of the funds of our body politic, and from their
decree there is no appeal but to their constituents at
the appointed periods of election. To them it belongs
to make such an allocation of their income, or the in-

come of the town, (which is the same thing,) to educa-

~..
tional purposes as they may think proper ; and their
business it is, also, to determine what system or plan
of education may he most conducive to the greatest
happiness of the greatest number of the inhabitants.

They determine, we will assume, that it shall be scrip-
tural, and scriptural without any exception ; and in so
determining, we affirm, that they do not deprive any
sect of a right, nor dispose of the funds of the town
with partiality, or, to use the language of our Radical
contemporary, " lay the hand of thievish rapacity on a
fund to which no sect has either legally or morally a
better title than any other ;" they consult, on the con-
trary, for the best interests of the community at large.
" How," exclaims our contemporary, "by excluding
the Catholics ?" By making Christianity the basis of
their system, we answer. Let them, as they actually
did in the palmy days of Radicalism, adopt the latitu-
dinarian principle, and throw open their schools to all
corners by leaving out the only certain and authorita-
tive source of sound moral and religious instruction—
by making their educational instruction purely secular;
let them do this, and content the Roman Catholics;
but let them expect at the, same time to be told, that
they are grossly mis-spending the public income; that
it is no business of theirs to provide ordinary secular
instruction for any class of the community ; that it is
not learned clerks but plain honest citizens that are
wanting; and that from such useless and absurd ex-
penditure—such " thievish rapacity " and extrava-
gance—they must by all means desist ; that all that
we are here putting in the way of hypothesis and con-
jecture is matter of absolute history, and has in reality
taken place. The town has been polled on the question
of scriptural education, and has declared in favour of
it with a voice not to be mistaken ; our present Con-
servative Council is its reply.