The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-26 00:00:00

Oar Zibtrpool Altanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 26, 1842

That the proceedings of the millocrat party in the
House of Commons during the past week have been
disgraceful, and indeed infamous, we need not say is
our own opinion, for it is that of every well principled
man, of whatever shade of politics, throughout the
kingdom. Bold and bad men, ready to become the
mercenary tools of a faction, however base, there will
always be found in any representative assembly; and
we are therefore little surprised that Gibsons and Cob-
dens should be found in a British Parliament to ob-
struct the constitutionally declared will of its majority—
to arrest the public business of the state, and even to
do all that in them lies to withhold the returning tide
of prosperity from a suffering people. But do we
grieve that these insolent and factious proceedings are
just now resorted to ? No ! We hail every step of
this " blatant" band with pleasure, because in every
step we see, and the people of England will see, more
.and more, their hollowness, their reckless dishonesty,
their utter want of principle and truth !
For what is it that these men just now seek to hurry
on the Government to inquiries into distress—to
pledges as to future policy and future measures ?
Have they any indisputable truth—any panacea of un-
challenged efficacy—to offer for the relief of that dis-
tress ? No. They seek for inquiry—they agitate and
brawl—at this moment to unsettle, the public mind, to
cripple the working of measures already passed, to
prolong the existence of the very distress they com-
Plain of until they may be able to achieve out of it a
Popular convulsion. The Tariff of Sir Robert Peel
has just come into operation ; the new sources of com-
mercial health—the new fields for the exercise of com-
mercial enterprise which it opens out are just beginning
to develope themselves; and they dare not give it a
fair trial lest their fraudulent prophecies of its ineffi-
cacy should he falsified before they have succeeded in
the objects for which those prophecies were put forth.
The new Corn-law, which was to do nothing for the
suffering masses, is just now pouring a copious supply
of food into the markets of Great Britain ; and they
dare not wait to appeal to the calm judgment of the
Public, with respect to the necessity of further changes,
until the beneficial operation of the present measure is
before the world! A bountiful Providence is shower-
ing down smiles and sunshine upon the exertions of
the native corn grower ; and they dare not wait until
he has gathered in his harvest ! The dark cloud which
obscured the prospects of our commerce in foreign
markets is breaking up ; they dare not wait until the
sky is clear ! Confidence is returning to every breast ;
the energy of the merchant, the manufacturer, and the
tradesman is being put forth ; the hope, at least, of re-
turningi comfort, is visiting the poor man's hearth;
these ribald brawlers dare not wait upon the issue !
1114 GOOD SHIP IS RIGHTING, by the aid only of
Heaven and her, own gallant crew ; and those who
Would have usurped her helm and laid down her
course, only to dash her upon the rocks, are now frenzied,
,and cry out that " breakers are ahead,' because they
'low that in a few hours more she will float proudly
deep Water, and their howling rage will be drowned in
tae tumultuous cheers which waft her from the land !
a state of calm and steady prosperity, such as we
believe ourselves to be at the present moment, slowly,
perhaps
but surely, approaching, agitation is power-
less, In such a state of things the scum of faction,
i
filch the bubbling of the caldron brings up to float
'fr? n the surface, is thrown down again into the dregs
and
m Which it rose. Busy hornets, which have buzzed
6tong their little hour, are trampled without com-
punction into
rave to d the mire. Stilted speechifiers rant and
deaf ears ; and men, who but yesterday were
permitted to catch Of atupid you by the button, and, with looks.
tien, unPort, to dole out their nauseous prescnp-
n,ocure of
.Or the
aside at all the evils of the state, are elbowed
time hav° With disgust and scorn when their vic-
thi e more Profitable demands upon their sympa-
es and their leisure. The extinction of this race of
nuisances
is felt to
the be at hand. Agitation feels that
ground is
the slippingfrom beneath its feet ; and hence
these furious exhibitions of dying spite and envious rage
n the part of A BAFFLED, A TRAMPLED, AND DES-
PISED FACTION.

i.~~-~_

We were grieved, and even amazed, in common with
the great mass of churchmen tbrou
at the sentiments which
recentl ghout the country,
y. fell from the lips of
Lord Wharncliffe upon the subt of the annual grant
of money for educational purpojses
" He, for one," remarked his lordship, " should be
ashamed to hold the situation he filled ifh ; did not think
that every man in this country. whether
of
Churchman or Dis-
senter, was equally entitled to the support
tent, and to share in the distribution of a govern-
grant tfho e
pur-
poses of education. He found the church makinge first
rm the
the
!taint upon the property of the country: but h
that attached as he was to the church, he thought theucsht:7l;
itaelf was greatly obliged to the Dissenters for the
mt.
they had set her. Of course the committee was
anxexioau—sr„et.;
act With the church."

Was this, we asked ourselves, the language of a con-
servative minister? 'Was Lord Wharncliffe empow-
ered by his conservative colleagues—by those men who
in Past time have so strenuously maintained the duty
of the state to educate the people in the established re-
ligion of the Church of England, and denounced by
the latitudinarian system of the Board of Education—
to put forth such language as containing their delibe-
rate opinions as a The
doctrine that the Church government ?
of E Even so !
ngland has no right to
"make the first
clairn" upon the state for the noble
purpose of educating the main-
Peel! The fulso people is the doctrine twined by the Conservative government of Sir Robert
me adulation of dissent, the prostra-
tiou of the church before the porch of the conventicle,

gionple vAid it Ito at hoe, lo MO
dulatian of an united Conoervatles adinluistration
Oh, that men, and especially statesmen, would but
do all and dare all for PRINCIPLE ! For ten years
past that powerful party which now occupies the mi-
nisterial benches of the houses of parliament has main-
tained itself in the affections of the people of England,
by the promise of a sound, religious education for their
children. Whilst liberalism has paraded its halls of
science, its mechanics' institutes, and its schools, with-
out so much of religion as would startle the prejudices
of Jew, Turk, Infidel or Heathen, Conservatism has
pointed to a system of education for the people, based
upon the revealed word and the whole truth of God,
and superintended by the faithful pastors of their na-
tional church. More than upon any other question,
the hearts of a Protestant people—above all, of a Pro-
testant democracy—were set upon the realization of
this blessing; and yet, after ten years of hope and even
trust, we awake from our delusion to find realized
only the taunting prophecies of our opponents, and
learn that, to promote the spread of religious and mo-
ral training amongst England's rising generation no-
thing is to be done !
Nothing, did we say ? Then we are in error. We
are not, it is true, to witness the concession, by go-
vernment, of an extensive measure of national educa-
tion, superintended by our national church, and
founded upon our Protestant Bible; but we are, in all
probability, to be presented with something almost as
good—a system of education for the people BASED
UPON MR. HULLAH'S PLAN OF TEACHING SING-
ING ! Yes ; Socialism has discovered long ago that
the infidel knowledge with which she crams her vota-
ries is widely disseminated by the instrumentality of
concerts and fancy balls ; Socinianism and Atheism
approach the understanding of their blind dupes by
means of lectures and exhibitions; and a Conservative
government—(oh shame !)—professes its hope of "see-
ing THE MORALS (!) of the lower classes improved,"
by adding the teaching of writing, arithmetic, and li-
near drawing (.9 to the knowledge of crotchets and
quavers, bars and rests, conveyed by Mr. Wilhem's
system to the pupils of Mr. Hullah ! Surely the blind-
ness of a government which can thus palter with our

1, Mad OAF t,

hopes, thus bow the knee to the Dagon of liberalism,
thus supply a cold and lifeless modicum of secular
knowledge to immortal beings who faint for the pure
waters of life, is a thing for Christians to grieve over,
and to cause devils to hold jubilee !
Well, we are deceived—might we not almost say
betrayed ? Our hopes of a system of national educa-
tion for the people of England, based upon the truths
of religion, are knocked to the ground. The Irish
school system, too, is to be maintained; the hotbed of
popish agitation and priestly obscenity—MAYNOOTll
S still to he supported by a Protestant government.
What, then, we ask, becomes the duty of a Protestant
Agitation? No. Protestants must