The Sun. — 1867-09-18 (London, England)

SPOHR.  Education furnished a topic for consideration, and in reverting to that interesting theme, Mr. FORSTER said that the present system had few supporters. "It was unfair, capricious, and uncertain." We concur with the hon. member in his opinion against compulsory education, but it would be a questionable mode of arriving at the desired end to follow his suggestion that the State should give no religious education. Respecting Trades Unions Mr. FORSTER made some very sensible remarks, and did not approve of the mode used in Sheffield of making terms with the men who were murderers. No doubt this is a knotty point to decide upon, but it is well for all speakers whose views are known to be rather extreme to take every opportunity of denouncing the outrages that have been committed by these combinations. On the whole, we may say that these speeches are much to the credit of those who delivered them, very fair specimens of the utterances of Englishmen to their constituencies, and each in its peculiar style exhibits an absence of party spirit, and a sense of the importance of public interests,which cannot fail to commanthrespect and win confidence from all classes.  The story told by Mr. Joni; ASHWORTH, of Salford, before the Trades Union Commission, yesterday, afforded a very powerful illustration of the working of the system. Mr. ASHWORTH is a brickmaker in Salford, and the story of his struggles with the Union, and their result, is not without its moral. In 1864 he had 60,000 bricks destroyed and the handles sawn off his wheelbarrows. The reason !given for this outrage is not a little singular. Mr. ASHWORTH attributed it to the fact of his own son, who was not a union man, working in his yard. Two men afterwards came and drew away the unionists in his employ. But this was not enough. The bricks were destroyed, and the men enticed away from their work, but the justice of unionism was not satisfied. Two Union men came to Mr. ASHWORTH, and told him that he must pay £5O for having given a man into custody for the first outrage, or he would not be allowed to make any more bricks. Mr. ASHWORTH thereupon replied, as most men would be inclined to do, that he would not pay fifty pence. lle made a bold effort to escape from the grinding tyranny of the trade, and got two men to work with his two sons. Finding it impossible to get enough hands, he started a machine. At first he sold a great many bricks, but the Union interfered and prevented the bricklayers from setting those bricks. The Union extends its ramifications from one trade to another, from one branch of the trade to anther, until they bring every one more or less within their control. Naturally the consequence of this interference with the machine-made bricks was that the sale of them was stopped to a great extent, for where was the use of men buying thousands of bricks that the bricklayers were not allowed to set? Nevertheless Mr. AsHWOP.TII continued making his bricks by machine, and some time later he received a letter, signed " A 'Well-wisher." It stated that at a meeting of the operative brickmakers, held at their own hall the day before, a committee was appointed to consider the best means of shooting Mr. ASHWORTH, and otherwise putting an end to his business. The writer added what was no doubt true, that in writing that letter he put himself in quite as much danger as Mr. ASHWORTH himself, if it should beconi,:,, known. It was not long before there was a me