The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-09 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

vent the alderman exploding from the effects of the
immensity of his hitherto bottled up secret, and
ourselves from resorting to any extremity in our
state of palpitating curiosity. " There is the press
open for all parties" exclaimi the alderman ; and
perhaps at this moment he may be seated -in his
study, double Perryian in hand, developing to the
world, in one luminous letter, his amazing discoveries
in arithmetic, and his exquisite fitness for the position
which he occupies as a trustee of the docks of
Liverpool. We long for the appearance of the
document. In mercy to the public, and the un-
happy holders of dock bonds, (who must, after the
confident assertion of Mr. Evans, on Thursday, of
his ability to substantiate his position against all
comers, be extremely unhappy,) the promised ex-
position ought to be made at once. Securities of
such a nature are a sensitive kind of property—
readily affected for good or for evil—and an in-
jurious statement respecting those securities and the
property from which they are derived, made, too,
before such a tribunal as a Committee of Parliament,
by a man of the admitted' high character, talent, and
extensive information possessed by the worthy
alderman, ought at once to be substantiated, or the
means afforded for its full refutation. It cannot re-
main where it is. •

We have provided for us annually by Mr. Black-
burn's usual motion, the infliction of a debate on the
Education question; and this having been already
undergone, it was not expected that a subject, so pro-
vocative of acerbity of discussion, would again have
been brought forward to interrupt the harmonious
action of the Council during the present year. It
will be seen, however, from our report of the Coun-
cil proceedings elsewhere, that an expectation so
reasonable has not been allowed to be satisfied; and
that on Wednesday last we were threatened with a
re-opening of the whole question.
The ground for such a course—for the mooting
of the subject at all in the Council—is an alleged
`` meagreness and unsatisfactory character" of the
monthly reports furnished by the Education Com-
mittee. The committee are called upon to " take an
early opportunity of stating the advantages which
the poorer classes are deriving from the schools ;"
and it is stated that "'the Council would not dis-
charge their duty, as the representatives of the peo-
ple, unless they saw that the money expended in the
support of the schools was judiciously and properly
expended, and that the community generally received
an adequate' return ;"—thus assuming, in the ab-
sence of assurances from the Committee, and of
full details of the working of the system, that the
money devoted to educational purposes was not
"judiciously and property expended,"—that the
community were not " generally" J)enefitted.
The motion does not appear to have been well
received. Mr. Blackburn even did not favour the
notion that the reports of the committee could be
materially amended; and, regarding the system of
education itself as " already settled," was evidently
averse to the subject being introduced at all in a
shape to provoke discussion ; whilst, on the part of
the Conservative members of the Education Com-
mittee, the gratifying assurance was given to the
public that the very meagreness and want of detail
complained of arose from the highly satisfactory
working of the system adopted. In particular, the
manly and straightforward assurance of Mr. Geo.
Hall Lawrence that "the schools were doing a great
deal of good," and that so long as everything went
on satisfactorily they conceived no detailed report to
be necessary, together with the confirmatory evi-
dence of Mr. D. Hodgson, Mr. Parker, and others,
effectually disposed of any sting which might have
been conveyed by the introduction of the subject.