The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-11-04 00:00:00

FRIDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 4, 1842

The result of the elections just concluded, and espe-
cially of the contests in Great George and West
Derby Wards, ought surely to satisfy the mind of
every Conservative with respect to the opinions of the

constituency upon one great question—that of scrip-
tural education in the schools of the Corporation.

Can any thing, we ask, be more decisively proved,
than the fact that, upon this question, the burgesses of
Liverpool will tolerate no surrender of the principle,

in all its integrity,

which they have made their watch-
word in past struggles ? Nothing ! The funds which

we devote to the education of the children of our poor,
they will not have perverted to the diffusion of mere

knowledge. They will not, either, concede that edu-
cation. in religion, other than that of the received
Protestant version of the Bible, can be permitted with

the sanction and at the cost of a Protestant corn-

They hold, in fact, and will continue to
hold, faithfully and stedfastly, the conviction, which
some men have taunted them with having avowed

munity

only as a stalking-horse, and which some amongst
themselves would now willingly lay aside, or act upon
imperfectly, that no education is good—no teaching is
worthy of the name of education—which does not,
whilst instilling into the mind of youth their duty to
their neighbour and to themselves, impress it also with
their duty to God—which is not a teaching based
upon and regulated by the whole Word of God—THE
BIBLE.

Let us endeavour to direct attention to the peculiar
nature of the contest in these two wards, and to the
result. The retiring members in both were reputed
Conservatives. Upon this very question of scriptural
education they were Conservatives, if the conviction
that such is the most valuable education be sufficient
to entitle them to rank amongst that party. Upon
general politics their views were unexceptionable ;
their private characters we have never heard an
objection against; they stood well with their consti-
tuents, and had—this education question apart—not
the shadow of a reason to doubt their re-election to
the Council, if the power of the party which first
placed them there could effect it. But a notion,
unfortunately, had crept into their heads, that " libe-
ralism" could be grafted upon Conservatism, pro-
ducing a character which rejoices in the appellation of

" a liberal Conservative"—a character which, if we
had to analyse it, we should say contained, as its two
principal ingredients, a little mind and a love of the
applause of the many. Unfortunately, too, our two
" liberal Conservatives" selected, for the application to

it of their new views, the question of education in our
Corporation schools. They would be liberally con-
servative, or conservatively " liberal"—the distinction
is imperceptible—with respect to the system in these
They would be conservative by halves, and
" liberal" by halves. They would give Protestants
their Bible ; but they would give, as well, its missals,
its breviaries, and its Douay version, to Popery. They
would, in short, in the liberalism of their Conserva-
tism—strange amalgamation !—plant a miniature May-
nooth, reared out of the funds of a Protestant town,
by the side of our scriptural schools !

school

But the education question was precisely that to

which such an emasculation of sound Conservative
opinion could not be permitted to apply itself. The
great principle which it involved could not be split in
halves, or warped to suit the objects of lovers of
expediency and hunters of universal popularity ; and
the strong feeling, which the attempt so to apply it
created amidst the ranks of the Conservatives, soon
made itself both heard and felt. One gentleman,
much to his honour, retired before the storm which he
saw it was vain to attempt to override. Another, how-
ever, fell back upon an outcry against " dictation ;"
proclaimed his reliance upon the " fairness " and
" liberality" of the public, and openly boasted, and in
that boast was supported by the united voice of the
Radical press, that by the sympathy of that party, and
the votes of the " liberal Conservatives" of the ward
which he sought to represent, he would be placed in a
triumphant majority upon the poll. The result of the
contest—a majority of 72 against the " Conservative
Liberals"—is now before the world; and we shall
endeavour, by an analysis of the minority, to shew to
this gentleman and to others, what is the real strength
which " Conservative Liberalism" can bring into the
field, when opposed to SOUND CONSERVATISM upon
such a question as that of scriptural education for the

of the poor

The total number of electors qualified to vote in the
ward of West Derby was 497. Of these, the numbers

polled were, for

Plumpton

Smith

Majority ..

The total electors polled is, therefore, 294 ; thus
leaving 203 voters unaccounted for, a great number of
whom, however, are double voters, and will probably
have voted in other wards, the remainder being parties
who have altogether abstained from voting. Of the
number who voted for Mr. Smith—viz., 111—
the number of professing Conservatives was 37, at