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terest to be paid will be positively less , whatever the capital may be called . The value of money is continuing to fall ; and unless Australia and California be suddenly closed up , it is most probable that in 1894 the Chancellor of the Exchequer will find the public creditor no very intractable animal . In the meanwhile , the public will be familiarized to the name of a " two-and-ahalf per cent . " stock ; no inconsiderable matter with a public which , except with a bait , dislikes new names , though it will accept new things , or even new ideas , if it does not know the novelty . Any prospective loss to the public by conversion into the new Two-and-a-half per cents , at 110 L , would be more than counterbalanced by the conversions into the new Three-and-a-half
per cents ., at 821 . 10 s . The whole of the bone and sinew of the measure , however , lies in the new security—the Exchequer bonds ; which are an innovation . They bear , like stock , a guaranteed interest , yet , like Exchequer Bills , they are payable to bearer . Unlike stock they will not require the trouble and expense of transfer , nor the inconvenience of selling out at a loss . Unlike Exchequer bills they will bear a certainty of interest . They have been called , by no friendly critic a species of " bank
note bearing interest . " They are an experiment of an interesting kind , and the advantages that may be expected from them are important . They will place the floating debt more under the control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer . Should they be successfully received , they may point out the means , as it were , of rendering the National Debt moveable : which is in itself a most
important incident in two ways : first , it will facilitate any process for dealing with that odious old burden ; secondly , it brings into the commercial market so much capital , which has been comparatively dead and dormant , and will now be alive and active . At a time of great commercial movement , when labour is dear , a mode of helping to ease the capitalist , without diminishing the reward of the labourer , must be most welcome .
It is true that the new security does not go strictly upon the principle of " terminable annuities" —unquestionably the soundest plan of conversion . Within the next ten years we shall feel the merits of that principle . About seventy millions of the Debt consist of terminable annuities , a portion of which will expire in 1860 ,
relieving us annually of l , 294 , 000 Z . ; another portion in 1867 , with a relief of nearly 586 , 000 ? . ; and soon afterwards the remainder , amounting to more than 2 , 000 , 000 / . But the new bond , \ re say , offers the means of mobilizing the debt ; and , with a present relief , brealfs bulk for any subsequent improvement on fit opportunity . It is for that reason that wo call it Gladstone ' s pickaxe .
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LORD JOHN'S EDUCATION SCHEME . Education is the one thing which tho greatest number of the people at present desire ; education is the vital influence upon which tho most moderate politicians count as the means of aiding the people to elevate itself ; education is the main hope of practical ( economists , whether of tke old or tho new school ; education is the special mission assigned by public opinion to Lord John Jiussell , and he promised it . On Monday night he explained how ho meant to koep his promise . Not at all . It seems a harsh construction of Lord . John ' s
much preluded speech to say ho ; but an examination of his pl ; ui will prove what we say . Whatever his exact words , his promise implied something to promote the education of tho people : ¦\ v \ uit he jjTopoHcs fo do in , U > permit town councils , if a majority of two-thirds can agree , to raise a borough raid for the purpose of being fjjiven to sectarian schools , established by indewhich will
pendent imvmis ! This is « measure weeiiro nothing to the people at large ; nor will it ; be likely to work well even where it does become operative . It might have passed ten years ago ; but now the people has advanced beyond it . it is fu > t likely that tho town councils will ever I > n brought into the agreement necessary for rendering the HK'jiHure a- reality . Mr . Milner ( Y \ h Hon declaren llmt Manchester will not : and Jet
. Lord John imagine a , measure intended to be modoruto and practical , in which Manchester would not ; cooperate ! We believe that Mr . Milner ( Jibson iw right . In most ( own councils Micro in ho much diversity of opinion , that the only < : haneo of obtaining a majority of two-thirds on
any question , save one of local , tangible advantage , is in the opposition of many sections to the proposal of one . In others , where a majority is feasible , there will be found some dominant sect , and that may be favoured , if it can be favoured almost exclusively . But the plan is likely to be more fertile in squabbling than in tuition . Lord John makes his start from a fallacy . Because the people of England cannot agree upon a plan of secular instruction separated from religious instruction , he holds that they could not fall in with a plan if it were in working
operation . The experience of Ireland niight suffice to refute him , since there the opposition beforehand has been followed by an operation very generally successful . But in England the chances , save for one reason , Were still greater . If schools had been established for instruction in reading , writing , history , geography , and arithmetic , it would soon have been found that the scholars provided for the religious teachers of the different denominations would have been better prepared , and also , we believe , that the teachers would have been more on the alert . The truths
of arithmetic are not made more true by an infusion of other truth , however high . The rule of three has no essential connexion with the doctrine of the Trinity—perhaps the two are better appreciated apart . Perkin " War-beck ' s adventures and fate are intelligible , without either the Catholic or the Protestant version of the real presence . Pothooks and hangers are not likely to be rendered more beautiful by the grace either of orthodox or dissenting convictions ; both great and little A can be formed more perfectly on ruled copy-book pages than on a religious basis . And what is more , the truth of the matter is
well known . The fact is , that the English people may be divided into three classes , whose opinion stated outright would confirm our position . The bulk of the people , the masses , have a great desire to be educated in reading , &c , but are comparatively indifferent about religious dogma , and they would hail a secular education . They want to know how to read with facility information practically useful to themselves ; how to correspond with their friends at home and abroad ; how to know
where Australia lies , and where America ; how to work their accounts of wages and expenditure ; and they know well enough that they might learn all those things without waiting to solve the mysterious preliminaries of prevenient or subvenient grace . To them the convenient grace would be the grace of a good plain instruction , given without affectation or delay . That immense multitude is for secular education ; it is a standing claim at all their meetings , through all varieties of political opinion .
The next class consists of sectarians , who knowing the desire for instruction , would fain wrap tip with it each his own pet dogma , and afraid that many of their plans for making little papacies of their own niight fail if the people were educated independently , and then left to choose their own " persuasion , " they would rather keep tho people ignorant . This class professes to desire education , but only does so not to contradict what it believes to be a cant of the day .
The third class agrees with the first , but , moro " respectable , " it dares not speak out . Religion is a hyeword to numbers who profess to conform in public . A man usually adheres to tho " perword that is !—in which
suasion "—what a strange lie has been brought up , unless lie becomes very well off , and then he adopts a carriage , tho Church of England , and other usages of polite society . A . real gentleman would as soon eat fish with a knife as enter an Unitarian chapel . If ever men have done so it is as rude to speak of it before them as it would be to talk of tho whop to a retired tradesman . . Society has generally enough tacked its idea of honour and estimation , not to the belief in the doctrines of the Church nf England , but to the " profession" of such belief , however transparently false . No
man in presentable whose name in not " M . or N ., " and however conscious the conforming sceptic may be in his own person of moral uprightiichh , lie pretends to believe that it cannot exist unless his godfathers and godmothers have bestowed it upon him . It is this class which comprises the real traitors against public education , as they are tho real traitors against religion . They keep ' the people ignorant , and among the educated maintain hypocrisy in lieu of conviction .
The class to which poor Lord John belongs is one not so numerous as some others ,, not so forcible as any ; but residing in the midst of the eddy , is influential only from its neutrality . Too servile in mind to have the power of real conviction—too weak in sympathies to have the faculty of understanding a people—too self-sufficient to mistrust itself where higher minds choose to fail , it does not scruple to accept as a selfevident truth the stipulation of Protestant Jesuitism against separating the tuition in pothooks and numeration from ultimate speculations of
religious truth ; it does not hesitate to set itself above the people as better and wiser , and able to teach it the wisdom of minimising its knowledge ; and it hastens to " settle" questions which it cannot even grasp in their reality . Thus Lord John thinks Christianity cannot sustain itself unless it be filched into the mind of the young amid the accidence of learning , as bad halfpence are passed off between good ones ; and proposing that boroughs should give a rate to sectarian schools , if they can agree to do so , he vaunts himself as bestowing a measure of public education ! We almost doubt whether this is the real
measure of which he ^ poke originally . We doubt whether there ha 3 not been a mediation of saints to intercept that which the English people really awaits , and to reprieve for a little while longer that compulsory " persuasion" which mocks the English people with the pretence of conviction , denies them , in the name of religion , the means of developing spiritual life , and drives multitudes into sheer scorn and hatred of a faith which is thus officially confounded with cant , superstition , and spiritual dictation . The
Protestant popes of all sects try by indirect means to circumvent , drive , and bait the people into Christianity ; and they provoke them into disbelief . To make them religious they keep them ignorant ; and seeing through the trick , as a mockery , a delusion , and a snare , the people add to disbelief in the dogma , political disaffection towards the classes above them . An honest simple measure would have extorted their ready and hearty thanks . Lord John ' s borough tribute to sectarian , schools will only excite their scorn .
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THE CONDITION OP ENGLAND QUESTION : ITS NEW ASPECT . How will the capitalists of England manage to pay all the wages that the working people are asking P Very readily , if trade continue to extend as it has done ; but it will be necessary , we believe , for the capitalists to do something more than merely to pay wages ; and we also believe that the present go-ahead prosperity of the country involves risks of its own which are not unlikely to prove serious dangers , because those who are responsible for the guidance of the country show no present consciousness of their increased responsibility . The condition of England question , and tho condition of Ireland question too , present themselves in a totally new phase . How will the capitalists pay all tho wages P The question is really a startling one . Masons who were glad a few months ago to get 3 * . a day or less , are now asking 4 * . or 5 * ., or 5 * . 6 a . From Truro to Bradford it is so . Carpenters are getting from 22 . ? . to 25 s ., where formerly it was 18 s . to 21 s . The working shipwrights of Sunderland are asking 6 * . a day , with a prospect of success . The people in many of tho manufacturing districts are getting an advance without difficulty , and it is remarkable that it should be so in Yorkshire , where the manufacturers havo to
contend with an advance in tho price of tho raw material . Even in Oxfordshire the agricultural labourer is getting 9 * . a week ; down in Cornwall tho rate which we have seen quoted is 2 * . Nay , in Ireland itself this is most remarkable : in Tuam , men who would not long since havo been glad of Hd . or lOd . a day , now obtain l « v . and l . v . . 'Jt / ., and some obtain l . s \ (> , where CuL a day was taken before the famine ! Upon tho whole , we niight be safe in saying , that tho effective rate of wages has not advanced Jess than 20 per cent , even with an increased price lor wool , iron , and coal .
But it will not stop there . We have already tthown that for all present calculations the gold diggings of Australia must be regarded as without limit—they would yield returns to a fur larger host of diggers than enn possibly get there . Tho assistance nvnt home from America continues , and tho " mania" to emigrate from Ireland revives with opening spring . Tuam sooe daily
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348 THE LEADE R . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 9, 1853, page 348, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1981/page/12/
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