The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-01-13 00:00:00

OPENING OF THE FRENCH CHAMBERS

The following is a copy of the speech of Louis Phillippe,
on opening the Chamber of Deputies, on Monday last :

" GENTLEMEN PEERS AND DEPUTIES.-
..

---
" The affection and the sympathy of the French nation
have sustained my, courage. My heart, ever suffering from
grief, but full of confidence in your devotedness in calling you
myself together to resume the course of your labours, 1 wish
to conclude-to-day what my grief had compelled me to leave
incomplete at the opening of your session. You have already
achieved much for the security and future prosperity of
France ; I thank you in her name. Whatever may be our
trials, I and my family will devote to her service whatever
strength and life the Almighty shall grant us.
" Thanks to the maintenance of public order :and peace,
the national prosperity, attested by the rapid increase in the
public revenue, manifests itself beyond our most sanguine
hopes. The solid empire of the laws is the best security for
the wellbeing of all, as it is for the power of the state; and
the conviction evervwbere established that the laws will be
religiously executed, renders less frequent the enforcement
of their penalties. I congratulate myself on our having ob-
tained those happy results.
" I feel confident that our prosperity will pursue its course
without either interruption or obstacle. My relations with
foreign Powers continue to be pacific am.. amicable.
" The good harmony prevailing amongst the Powers has
strengthened the repose of the East, and procured in Syria
for the Christian population the establishment of an dmi-
nistration conformable to their religious faith and tlleir
wishes.
" I deplore the disturbances which have recently agitated
Spain. In my relations with the Spanish monarchy, my sole
object has been to protect our legitimate interests, to pre-
serve for Queen Isabella 11. a faithful amity, and to testity
for the rights of humanity that respect and protection which
honour the name of France.
" By the occupation of the Marquesa Islands, I have se-
cured to our navigators in those distant seas a protection and
refuge of which the necessity had been long felt.
" Thanks to the persevering efforts of our brave army, our
dominion in Algeria becomes everywhere stable and re-
spected. The vigilance and regularity of the administration
will complete the work so gloriously prosecuted by the
courage of our soldiers.
" I have opened with several states negotiations which
will have the effect of imparting to our agriculture, our com-
merce, and manufactures, more active development, and to
procure for our national interests additional facilities.
" Laws of finance and various bills intended to introduce
into our legistration and administration important improve-
ments, shall be immediately presented to you.
" Gentlemen, the world is at peace Fyance is free,
happy!
breath, to y
object
secure
try. It is with your constant and loyal cooperation that I
have succeeded. You will aid me in maintaining and in con-
summating the work which we have commenced in common.
This will be for all the most worthy recompense, and for me
the only consolation that I can hereafter hope for."

A great snow storm is predicted by the weather-wise gentry
for the last day of this month.

MURDER AND PARRICIDE.—We have just received from
a correspondent in Mull an account of a most unnatural and
arocions murder—the murder of a poor old woman by her
who, strange to say, is
itted the foul crime by
been characterised for
want
deafwn saoonfnda !
ffde
ucl
tmt
oabnp,
and
swt
phhaaort
ehntahtd,e
Ca
osh
vomnamys,
i
hi
giving her such a dreadful beating, cutting and maiming her,
the preceding Monday, that she lingered in great agony
and died last Saturday. The name of the place where the
unfortunate woman lived is Kilean, and it is some small sa-
tisfaction to know that the culprit, a destroyer of the most
sacred relation of social life, has been apprehended, and is
safely lodged within the walls of a prison.—Scotch Refor-
mers Gazette of Saturday.

ARLINGTON.—A DEEP TRICK.—A trick of rather a novel
character has just been played in this plaCe. It appears, that
a young woman some months since had the mishap to have a
youngster. The young man who is supposed to be the father
happened to meet the damsel and her babe, on Wednesday
evening last, when she requested him to take the child in
his arms during her absence, to which request he good
naturedlyman nursed the infant for
some
!'he g
endeavouring to trace some of his own
features to ste: perhapscatchcoedseedo t'hle child ; •but having waited until his
patience was exhausted, found to his sorrow that the mother
did not return. Under these suspicious circumstances, he
sought to obtain an asylum for the young bantling ; and he
at length succeeded in placing it under the care of a neigh-
bour, of course with a pledge to remunerate her for her pains.
The delinquent mother has not since been heard of.—Willa
Standard.

BANKRUPTCY : FRAUDULENT REMOVAL OF GOODS.--At
the sitting of the Exeter district Court of Bankruptcy on
the 7th instant, a bankrupt, of the name of Goodenough, was
brought before the commissioner. The case affords an illus-
tration of the practical advantages to creditors derived from
the fifth section of the late statute (5 and 6 Victoria, c. 122).
Before its enactment under no circumstances could the bank-
rupt be arrested, or his goods, &c., be seized by any process
in bankruptcy except by the messenger after adjudication,
but by the above section of the statute it is enacted, " that
whenever a fiat has issued against any person, and it shall be
proved to the satisfaction of the court that there is probable
cause for believing that such a person is about to quit Eng-
land or to remove or conceal any of his goods or chattels with
intent to defraud his creditors, unless he be forthwith appre-
hended, it shall be lawful for the court to issue its warrant
to arrest such person, and to seize his books, papers, goods
and chattels, &c., wheresoever he pr they may be found,
&c." In the present case, Goodenough, who was a linen-
draper in large business at Newton Abbots, in Devonshire,
had formed the design of conveying a large quantity of his
goods with himself on board a ship at Plymouth, and sailing
with them to New South Wales. A fiat against him came
down to the District Court early on Friday morning, and was
immediately opened, but by the late statute (section 23) five
days' notice of the adjudication are required to be given to
the bankrupt, and that time must be allowed to him to dis-
pute the adjudication. In the course of that day application
was made to the commissioner and most satisfactory proof
laid before him that the bank;upt had absconded and re-
moved a large portion of his stock and goods on board the
vessel in question. The warrant was immediately granted:
The messenger went express to Plymouth with two of the
crditors, and found the vessel on the point of weighing
anchor. The bankrupt was forthwith arrested, and the pro-
perty on board (to the value of several hundred pound) un-
loaded and brought on shore, and will, no doubt, be available
to the creditors.

Elm Ltbcrpoot -,ttanbarD.

FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY 13, 1843

We have been somewhat struck—we might almost
say startled—with the tone of an article in the London
Times of Tuesday last, commenting upon the beautiful
and convincing inaugural address, delivered by Mr.
W. E. Gladstone at the opening of our Collegiate
Institution. It is not often that the Times lays itself
open to the suspicion of ignorance, upon any question
with respect to which public opinion has been strongly
moved ; and Mr. Gladstone is not the man, to depre-
ciate whose efforts in behalf of any good cause, that
journal would be likely to step out of its way to affect
such ignorance. But the tone of the article in ques-
tion is so singularly inconsistent with the opinions
avowedly held by our contemporary, upon the im-
portant subject of education, that we are compelled to
fix its authorship upon some recluse, whose mind has
never pierced beyond the walls of his study, or the
cloisters of his college; or to suspect, unwillingly, that
its writer had a concealed purpose in view, which most
sincere churchmen would be inclined to regard with
fear and jealousy.

Referring to the distinctness, with which Mr. Glad-
stone had laid it down, as a " great indestructible
principle," that " Education," if it is to be effectual, if
it is to be valuabie, jf it is to be deserving of the name,
must be a RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ; and that, in order
to deserve the name of a religious education, it must be
founded not upon those vague generalities which are
supposed to be common to all men, or at least to all men
who assume the name of Christians—but upon the de-
finite Revelation which it has pleased God to give, and
whereby each man amongst us must stand or fall," the
Times remarks—

" We suppose Mr. Gladstone is too well acquainted with
the people of Liverpool to utter redundant truisms in their
presence. Still, we confess that we should hardly have
thought it necessary in a speech addressed to the middle
classes of the second city in the empire—a body of people
possessing a more than average amount of wealth, intelli-
gence and attainments—addressed to them, too, by one who
made it his boast that he was sprung from their order—we
should hardly have thought it necessary to put it forth, as a
new startling truth, that education to be effectual, must
be based upon religion—that this religion must he the reli-
gion of Revelation. Whatever may be the doubts and dark-
ness of the lower classes upon this subject, surely the middle
classes did not need this information" (!)

Now the Times is not ignorant of the fact that the
principle laid down by Mr. Gladstone is by no means
regarded as a " redundant truism" by many parties,
far removed in intelligence and station from the lower
classes. In his publication of the following day—
Wednesday—he recognises the fact, and deprecates its
existence—that a religious education based upon Re-
velation is not the education given in the Irish schools
supported by government. He knows, moreover, that
it is not the system of the mechanics' institutions and
other similar educating bodies in this country; and he
might have known that it is not the system most in
favour with a portion of the middle class philosophers—.
the exclusively wise—of the town of Liverpool. Mr.
Gladstone may therefore have uttered a " truism"—
for there is little in this world which is true, and at the

same time very " new" and " startling"—but we can-
not conceive that it was a truism, at all " redundant"
in the utterance, in the place where uttered, or which,
coming from the lips of a statesman, so eminent in
character, and talent, and position in Sir Robert Peel's
government, was likely to be received with less than
the most unqualified delight and gratitude. We, for
our part, should not complain of the redundancy, if
we were to hear the same sentiments from the lips of
every member of the cabinet.

There is a peevishness in the paragraph which we
have quoted, which it is difficult to reconcile with the
writer's understood opinions upon the subject of edu-
cation, unless we are to suppose the existence of some
secret bias hitherto undeveloped. Let us endeavour
to trace this from the context. In a subsequent pas-
sage of the article in question we find it seriously
doubted that Liverpool is " in want of any Collegiate
Institution like this ;" or, at least, denied that " the
want has been proved :" and again we have the writer's
lament " that Mr. Gladstone has given the support of
his name" to a scheme which is " unnecessary and
uncalled for by the exigencies of the times." Really,
the man who can deliberately give utterance to such
an absurdity may almost be suspected of being no
very strenuous believer in the necessity of education at
all ! For only glance for a moment at the outrageously-
absurd or blindly-bigotted reason alleged' for the
opinion in question'.

" We have at the present moment"—proceeds the Times
—" some fifty colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, amply en-
dowed, well provided with every encouragement to study
and learning, and, the majority of them at least, not confined
to any distinct or peculiar class of men. We have, besides,
innumerable public schools, each of which has a foundation
endowment sufficient to defray the expenses of a couple of
German principalities. What need, then, of these new
Collegiate Institutions ?' We heretofore asserted, and we
still maintain, that the endowments of these old colleges and
schools were especially intended for the middle classes ; and
until Eton, Winchester, Westminster, and the Charter..
house, as well as both universities, are thronged to reple.
Lion (I) we see no reason for lavishing money on modern
fine buildings under pretence of furthering the cause of edu-

cation."

It is perhaps unnecessary to combat such sheer
nonsense as is contained in the above paragraph. The
notion that Oxford or Cambridge, or the other foun-
dations mentioned, could ever supply to Liverpool the
place of such an educational instrument as her " Col-
legiate Institution" is too ridiculous to deserve grave
treatment. But, may we ask, is there nothing signi-
ficant beneath the surface of the discontent manifested
by the Times ? We fear there is. The sincere friend
of sound scriptural education for the children of the
middle classes would gladly welcome the acquisition of
additional facilities, by which such an education is
afforded them at their very doors. The Times, how-
ever, and the party in the church of which that journal
is the organ, would perhaps prefer that that education
was provided and directed by the irresponsible heads of
our universities—that it embraced the reading of the
fathers, and inculcated a belief in tradition,—rather
than that it was directed by the bishop of the diocese,
the local clergy, and the life-governors of such an
educational establishment as the " Collegiate Institu-
tion" of Liverpool, and the religious teaching afforded

was'-a teaching in the pure doctrines of the Word of
God, unadulterated by tradition, with not a word added

or a word taken. therefrom.

We admit all that is alleged by the Times, with re-
gard to the extent of the existing educational facilities
of our country. Thanks to the munificent liberality of
our fathers, England is more richly provided with such
facilities, or rather with the means whereby they ought
to be afforded, than any other country ! We cannot

wait, however, and throw our rising generation upon
the mechanics' institutes and other providers of a
baneful or a deficient education, until our foundation
schools and colleges choose to wake from thcir lethargy
and provide that pure and wholesome commodity for
which they were endowed. Rather let us, as we can
now proudly boast that we have done, imitate the
bountiful disposition of past generations; and strive
to plant, at our own doors, a tree whose branches will
shower down blessed fruit upon generations yet to come

We are not certain that we are warranted in taking,
as a manifesto of the views of Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet,
even with respect to the immediate question of educa-
tion, the beautiful sentiments uttered by the Right
Hon. the Vice-President of the Board of Trade,
on Friday last, to which we have briefly referred in
another article. \Ve much fear we are not so war-
ranted. Mr. Gladstone, it is true, has declared his
conviction that "there is, no class of men who ought
to entertain a livelier interest in the prospects of all
schemes connected with public education than that
class which is connected with political office;" but,
surely, this opinion is scarcely reconcileable with the
course pursued by her Majesty's Government, or by
the Central Board of Education, towards the schools
belonging to the Established Church in Ireland. He
has said, too, that "without the intelligent assent and
attachment of the people,' the institutions of the
country"—which he particularises as "the Monarchy,
the Church, and the Aristocracy"—cannot be sup-
ported ; but neither is this truth reconcileable with the
policy of Government, with respect to the same schools •
He has said, too, with regard to an education, different
to that "education based upon the pure revealed word
of God," and of which "religion must be the per-
vading principle—the principle to which all others must
be subordinated ;" "is it not paltering with the subject
—is it not giving stones to those who ask for bread, if
we give that, as education to man, which has no re-
ference to his higher faculties and estate, but is ex-
clusively conversant with objects which must perish in
the use ?" And, we ask, can this question be replied
satisfactorily by a Government which holds out its
helping hand to a system, in which the revealed word
of God is emasculated, to appease the professors of a
faith, hostile to one at least of •the established institu-
tions of the land—its Catholic Church—whilst that
helping hand is denied to a system, the supporters of
which are firm supporters—supporters to the Death—
of all those Institutions ?

These questions are staggering. The feeling which
they leave behind is humiliating, and sadly detrimental
to our previously-conceived opinions of Conservative
faithfulness. How strongly impelled are we to ex-
claim, as we sink back from the contrast between what
should be and what is, " Are these the watchers over
our Zion ? Are these the men to whom a Christian
people have committed the weal of the generation
which is to follow them in their career from this world
of temptation to the world beyond the grave—that
career' of which `the main business' is, as so beau-
tifully described by Mr. Gladstone, reunion with
GOD '—the regaining of that `which was the state of
our first parents before the fall'—` the renovation of
the nature of God in a race that is fallen away' ? "
We cannot adopt a conclusion which would presup-
pose blindness and want of principle so great, on the
part of a Government of which Mr. Gladstone remains
a member. There must be some grateful surprise, as
to the future measures of that Government, in store
for their Conservative supporters.

We are the more encouraged to hold out this
pleasing hope to our readers, from a remembrance of
the sentiments expressed by a member of that govern-
ment—Mr. Sidney Herbert—on a recent occasion ;
sentiments in which we are assured one other member
of the same government would cordially Erecond, and
which are, indeed, seconded in every paragraph of his
beautiful address now under notice. Mr. Herbert,
alluding to the unexampled depression under which
the labouring classes of the country are unfortunately
suffering, expressed, in language which we have not at
hand to copy, and which we shall not attempt to para-
phrase, his conviction that the duty of the rich man—
and how much more so of a government ?—was to
take forethought for the alleviation of such distress,
and the restoration of the sufferers to comfort, if not
to happiness. Such a sentiment is surely not recon-
cileable with the maintenance, in the conducting of the
government of the country, of those Malthusian prin-
ciples which dictated a New Poor-law Bill, and refused
protection to infant labour by a stringent Factory Bill;
and we cannot, viewing the opinions expressed by the
gentlemen to whom we have referred, lay aside the
hope that a better day for England, and for the cause
of truth and humanity, is approaching.

Mr. Peter Ainsworth, M.P. for the borough of
Bolton, has, it seems, committed an unpardonable
offence against their high mightinesses of the Anti-
Corn-law League. In reply to an invitation to attend
an anti-corn-law tea party in the enlightened borough in
question, Mr. Ainsworth declined, upon the grounds
that " having given his assent, in the last sessio❑ of
Parliament, to the new tariff, sanctioning the principle
of protection to the manufacturing, the mining and
the agricultural interests of this country, he feels--
as every honest man must feel—." that he cannot, with
any degree of justice, exclude the growers of corn from
a participation in the advantages of similar protection."
Mr. Ainsworth then proceeds to enumerate a few of
the duties established by the tariff in question, as fol-
lows—viz :" On cotton goods, 10 per cent ; linen
ditto, 15 to 20 per cent; woollen ditto, 15 to 20 per
cent ; silk ditto, 25 to 30 per cent ; china and porce-
lain, 15 to 20 per cent; manufactures of iron, steel,
tin, lead, pewter, brass, and copper, 15 per cent;
ladies' boots and shoes, 12s. per dozen ; men's ditto,
28s. per dozen;" &c. &c.

And what, does the reader imagine, was the reply to
this very reasonable plea of the honourable member ?
How did the assembled leaguers of Bolton justify the
withdrawal of all protection from the corn-grower,
whilst it is retained by other branches of the national
industry ? Precisely as, in a recent article upon this
very subject, we anticipated they would do. They
said, by the mouth of that very conceited Quaker, Mr.
John Bright, "we, the cotton trade, want no protec-
tion. Do we not now sell our goods cheaper than any
one else ? Protection, to us, is a mere shadow—a
delusion." All very true. Mr. Bright and his fellow-
agitators belonging to the cotton trade want no pro-
tection ; but what say the gentlemen engaged in the
linen trade ? Mr. John Brooks, we rather imagine,
gave a somewhat different account, in his celebrated
colloquy with Lord Stanley at Lancaster, of the power
of that trade to dispense with protection. What say
the silk manufacturers ? The fact announced at a
recent weekly meeting of the League, that the people
of the silk manufacturing town of Coventry had only
been induced to subscribe, in favour of the principle
of free trade, and in aid of the League tribute, the sum
of SEVEN SHILLINGS ! is a sufficient answer. And
what say the other trades enumerated, many of whom
are to be found in our own town ? Let their repre-
sentatives—many of them anti-monopoly men of the
first water—supply the world with their views upon
this important subject. Our working fellow-townsmen
will watch their reply with some interest.

We do not certainly attribute to the member for
Bolton the possession of any inordinate share of the
wisdom which is to be found in the House of Com-
mons. We do, however, venture to predict, that the
just and honourable course which he has marked out
for himself, upon the subject of the corn-law, will be
that of a very great majority of the friends of free trade
in that house, whenever, during the ensuing session,
the ultra views of the League are brought distinctly
under consideration. Let the question once be dis-
cussed, in parliament or out of it, as between a fixed
protective duty and no duty at all ; and the country
will be not a little amazed at the contemptible strength,
in station, character, and numbers, of the faction,
which now swaggers so outrageously, and menaces so
insolently with its vengeance all those who prefer the
straightforward path of honest independence to a
slavish submission to its tyrannical behests