The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-11 00:00:00

etion to the home grower and steady prices to the
consumer—will be fully attained.

There is one particular feature in the scheme which
is well worthy of observation. The right honourable
baronet, it will be noticed, has not, like Mr. Christo-
pher and others, fixed a minimum of duty for the pur-
poses of revenue. At the same time, however, the
" rest" in the scale, which occurs when the average
price of wheat reaches 665., will, in practice, ensure the
revenue a 6s. duty upon the great bulk of foreign
wheat imported. From this point until the average is
695., no change of duty occurs ; and holders will, it is
confidently anticipated, by those of our corn merchants
best conversant with the subject, prefer entering their
importations for consumption at the 6s. duty to the
hazardous speculation of holding, in anticipation of an
advance of nearly 4s. per quarter, when the advantage
offered by such an advance is only the remission of Is.
of the duty. Beyond thiS point—viz., between:66s. and
695., it is probable that the average price of British
wheat will very rarely, if ever, rise ; and indeed, the
certainty that upon the average reaching 665. a large
quantity of foreign wheat will always be forced upon
the market, may be expected in ordinary cases to in-
duce many holders to enter their stocks for consump-
tion before it arrives at that point, and consequently to
pay into the revenue a higher rate of duty.
With respect to the mode of taking the averages Sir
Robert Peel has not attempted to make any material
alteration upon the present system, with the exception
of providing that the returns shall be made to the
Board of Excise, and that a number of additional
towns shall be added to the 150 from which returns
are sent at present. One motive of the Right Hon.
Baronet for this course has been the fact that the
Tithe Commutations Act has been based upon the pre-
sent system, and that, therefore, the machinery by
which it is worked would have to be continued for the
purpOSel-of that act. The most material pOint, how-
ever, Which has weighed with him in continuing the
system at present in operation, with the slight modifi-
cations above noticed, has been the conviction that,
with the present graduated scale, the temptations to
commit frauds by tampering with the averages would
be so far reduced us to render the introduction of any
new system unnecessary.

We shall not attempt at present to enter into any
arguments, or to express more than a passing approval
of the merits of this scheme. 'We have no doubt that
it will meet with the hearty condemnation of the anti-
corn-law party throughout the country; and it may
also be received with some slight demur by a portion
of the agricultural interest. We have no doubt, how-
ever, that when its real working is better understood
than it can be as yet, it will receive the hearty support
of moderate men of all parties ; and that even those
who, upon principle, prefer a fixed duty to a sliding
scale of any description, will, upon a mature examina-
tion of its probable operation, be induced to concur in
its adaptation to the great object for which it is de-
signed,—the encouragement of the native agriculture
of the country, whilst ensuring to the British consumer
the chief necessary of life—his bread—at a moderate

and steady price.
So far as we can judge of the measure, in its present
state, its operation at this moment holds out to the
Community a reduction of the duty upon foreign wheat
to the extent of 14s. Sd. per quarter. The average of
wheat by the last returns is 625. 3d.; the duty under
the existing scale would be 245. Bd., whilst under that
brought forward by government it would only be 10s.
per quarter. And when it is borne in mind that every
lOs. in the price of wheat raises or lowers the price of
bread Id. in the 41b. loaf, the benefit to the consumer
from a reduction of 14s. Sd. in the duty upon wheat
imported, or 11d. in the 41b loaf, will readily be ac-
knowledged.

As a matter of course the philosophers of the Anti-
Corn-Law League and their organs throughout the
country are in a state of bitter dissatisfaction with this
proposition. In particular, the ordinary serenity of
the Morning Chronicle is lamentably disturbed; and
his passion accordingly broke forth yesterday in a per-
fect storm. The able and statesmanlike address with
which the measure was introduced by Sir Robert Peel
is by this sagacious journal denounced as " a tissue of
inconsistencies"—such inconsistencies as will, ire
imagine, rather puzzle the Chronicle to reply to, by
any thing more solid than this sheer and desperate
raving; and, indeed, we more than half suspect that
the most serious objection felt to the speech and to the
measure, as well, of the Right Hon. Baronet, is excited
by the fact that the former blows all the fallacies of the
league-men "to very tatters," whilst the latter, by
winning the approbation of all moderate thinking men,
threatens to render Anti-Corn-Law agitation a losing
and almost hopeless game.

We are really not at all surprised that the splenetic
fury which was manifested at the Council meeting of
Friday, by the " liberal " members of that body, against
the straightforward proceedings of the education com-
mittee, should be especially excited by the placard
which they have issued in explanation of the system of
education in future to be acted upon in the Corporation
schools. The public had been sedulously taught to
believe, by the Whig-Radical and Popish press, and
the Roinish priesthood themselves had not scrupled to
declare, in placards posted upon every wall throughout
the borough, that that system was one of exclusion
and intolerance—that it was one which had been spe-
cially devised to be grating to the feelings and preju-
dices of Roman Catholic parents, and which must, of
necessity, insult and banish from the schools every Ro-
man Catholic child. And yet what are the real facts ?
Where is the exclusiveness, the intolerance, the insult-
ing nature of the system ? These questions the ex-
planatory document issued by the committee has solved
to the satisfaction of nine-tenths of the community;
and hence the exceeding ire which is directed against
it by the Liberal philosophers of our Council.
The rules of the education committee " require every
child to be taught to know the Bible—the great char-
ter of the Christian privileges—and to be brought up
in the daily practice of the solemn duty of prayer to
God,"

" But care will he taken that there be nothing in the
prayer which can wound the conscience of any Chris-
tian of any denomination, and no children are required
to learn any catechism or to go to church, if their pa-
rents object."

Surely there is nothing here of exclusiveness or in-
tolerance--no evidence of any design to proselytize the
poor children. of any Christian persuasion ! " Oh,
but," we are told, " you require the children of Roman
Catholic parents to read the Bible, and that their reli-
gion does not permit them to do, unaccompanied with
the Romish comments." Yes, we do place in the
hands of these poor children the word of God, un-
mixed with the perversions of man. We do place in
their hands the whole truth of our revealed religion.
We do " suffer little children to come" to the unadul-
terated fount of life and healing ; and you who deny
them access to this privilege—the Roman Catholic
priesthood who denounce this system—proclaim openly
to the world (what you have maintained in years and
ages past to be a libel upon the faith of Rome) that
you dare not allow your flocks to read God's Word!
The objection is not to doctrinal teaching in the
principles of the Established Church. It is not to any
effort to be made, or to the direct tendency of the sys-
tem, to draw away the faith of Roman Catholic chil-
dren from the creed of their parents. It is not that
any exclusive prayer is in use within the schools—that
any exclusive catechism is to be taught, or that they
are to be compelled to attend the services of a church
in whose faith they do not believe; but it is, emphati-
cally and solely, because they are required to read, and
know, the authorised version of the Bible—unadulter-
ated, unperverted by Popish comment. We ask then
of every liberal Protestant—of every Christian Dissen-
ter ; we ask of those who have the most ardently prayed
for the adoption of a system of education in these
schools, which should permit the Roman Catholic chil-
dren to enjoy its benefits,—could the committee have
conscientiously done more—conceded more—than they
have done to promote this benevolent object ? They
could not, and we say, unhesitatingly, they ought not.
We are, indeed, twitted with the fact, that the Ro-
man Catholic children have left the schools. Be it so.
We acknowledge and regret it. But ultimately, and
when the existing pressure is removed from them, we
believe with the education committee that there are not
many, even of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Li-
verpool, who will " object to their children reading the
Bible and praying together with the children of their