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Leader (1850-1860), 25th March 1854, Edition 1 of 1, Page 280, Untitled Article

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      Usability constitutes a . serious grievance , rhe bill proposes to remove it , and to do Clothing more . It confers no powers on the clergy to enforce their decisions or regulabionfl id any matters : it is no interference vnjbh / tiie colonists ; it only places the clergy and tbte laity of the Church of England on the Baicne footing as Roman Catholics , IVesleyans , and other sects . v ^ SEov ia this reasonable proposition met ? What persons , above all others ^ pirt them-B ^ Lves forward to oppose it ? Who but the Nonconformists ? Mr . Hadfield tliinks it

      ¦ will disturb the religious peace of the colonies . 3 D »^ hd proceedings of the "Wesleyans disturb ifchltfc peace ? Mr . Miall can see a political ^ e ^ be ^ een the - Colonial Church and the Home Church which bars the liberty of the colonial clergy . What is the political tie ? Sjcurel ^' identiiy of belief ia not a " political " l&nd- ! In the coloniea the clergy are virtually a voluntary sect of Christians , professinig the tenets of the Established Church of England . It is painful to see those who < j ] aim liberty at home , who do not admit that Ti Jew should b © excluded from Parliament

      the appeal to the sanctity of the law ; and the one hundred and thirty-eight voted for an ecclesiastical sin , in Order that creditors might not lose their security ! The office of the Church , they will confess , is sacred , but more sacred human , law ;• infinitely more sacred gentlemen ' s property . The hundred and thirty-eight , we fear , might call us pharisaical if we were to remind them of another

      security , not a temporal one , which their respect for Mammon may place in peril . We have always said , and every day events prove the truth of our assertion , that tie religo of the Church of England is property . Here is a half-proposition to abolish simony , and it is defeated because it will destroy lay patronage , annihilate the security of t"he creditor , and violate the rights of property . Couldthere be a more full confession ? Either simony is not an ecclesiastical crime , or here are one hundred and thirty-eight participators in its guilt .

      because 'he is accidentally shut oat by a statute , taking advantage of a similar accitlent and an obsolete statute , to fetter the members of a Church with whose doctrines ^ they do nbfc ' agree . Surely this is not acting Tip to that broad principle of religious liberty which would give unto others the full measure of freedom ; which it arrogates to itself . ^' -iTbo ' next opponents of the measure are Ijovv Churchmeii , like Mr . Thomas Chambers

      ¦ Wnd Mr . Arthur Eonnaird . Their bugbear is ^ i ^ tetett ^ They fear that the example of a free Colonial Church may lead i *> a firee iHome Church . And so it may . But is it . an ^ reason for not freeing the Colonial ^ fpp ^ Ji ^ hat the Home Church might not he . 5 - » ble to resist > good example ? Surely thej ^ oo 3 iblks lit the colonies are not to suffer ¦ because the good people of England may be -weak enough to profit by their successes ! It ; would be well if all sides of the House

      looked less to consequences and ^ more to principles ; especially in this matter of religious freedom . If principles are light , con--adquences will take care of themselves . ¦ ' ¦ The other bill has been thrown out by a sttirdy majority , who set the interests of pro > - / peftjr above those of religion . As the diacussion on the Colonial Clergy Disabilities Bfll shows that the Nonconformist mind is

      • not ripe for full freedom , so the debate whicli ended in the rejection of the . Simony Law J Amendment Bill proves that respectable -Englishmen can see no evil in a profitable f scandal . ! For our parts , we confess Mr . Phillimore ' s bill doea not go far enough —it ought to extend to advowsons as ! well as next' presentations . A man does ' not buy an advowson without intending to present somebody to the benefice ; and it is as much the purchase of the presentation as of the advowson . Into that

      question , however , we need not go . One hundred and thirty-eight English gentlemen have declared by their votes that they do not think it wrong to sell for gold the cure of souls . They stand upon that princi p le ; their religion stands upon another . But in these matters not the apostle , one of the founders of their religion , but Simon Magus is the authority they follow . Mr . Butt actually grounded his opposition to the bill on the violation of the rights of property it would perpetrate . " Next presentations , " he said , " are subjects of mortgage and settlement !"

      If you make the sale of the euro of souls unlawful , " creditors will lose their security —a . security that has the sanction of law . Think of that ! Sweep out the Temple , fkjnd th < 3 money-changers will lose their right in an established nuisance ! The House cheered

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      RAILWAYS INT INDIA . The Government , says an old American eotton-planter residing on a farm in India , is said to be one of check , and it certainly does check every energy in the individual or advancement in the enterprise , only omitting to check dishonesty in office . That duty is reposed in everybody and therefore in

      nobody . The system checks everything unofficial and nothing official . It has been a Government to check agricultural improvement , irrigation , railways , and even cotton cultivation ; though it has on \ y recently begun to check malversation of the postoffice on behalf of the Guicowar of Baroda . The Governor-General in Council sends to ab

      Now there are two immediate obstructions to that extension . In the first place , there must be an immense amount of writing upon the subject ; contractors must stand by while the officials rival Gibbon in the volume of their composition , but not in closeness or pregnancy . The second and still more fatal obstruction is the bit-by-bit character of the

      progress . The last gentleman , who haa returned—Mr . Jackson—was superintending the construction of a viaduct and two tunnels on four miles of railway beyond Tannah—detained in a paltry work , while he might have been superintending large tracts at the same time ; the pitiful waste of machinery on a small scrap , therefore , being the worst economy to the State and a gross injustice to the

      contractor . It is not that Indian railways are likely to be unsuccessful . Everybody says they will succeed ; even the Court of Directors declare it ; and experience confirms the statement . " The little plaything near Bombay , " as our contemporary the Bombay Gazette calls it , has furnished some very instructive statistics . Before this line from Bombay to Tannah was established , it was generally considered , in

      spite of English experience to the contrary , that passenger traffic would not pay the working expenses . In point of fact , however , the line , which has not yet conveyed any goods , has returned a dividend of nearly 8 per cent , per annum . Although tlie fine begins in one of the Indian capitals , it goes to a place of no particular mark—has a terminus , as it were , at St . Albans : nevertheless the statistics are satisfactory . In the eight and a half months , during which it had

      been open , the number of passengers had undergone a very curious change : beginning at 22 , 000 in the half of April , it receded to 28 , 500 for the whole month of August , and then rose to 40 , 000 for October , and 61 , 000 for December ; the receipts , of course , corre * sponding . The most remarkable increase , perhaps , is that in the third-class passengers . - ¦ "l • • * d ^ A . _ A "T t 14

      .. ^ ^ Beginning a , 000 , and progressively rising to 54 , 000 , it shows that the humbler class of the population were quite able to acquire the habit of railway travelling ; and thus it refutes the presumption of Indian economists , that the native Hindu would always be willing to spend time rather than money , and would slick to the indigenous and . cheap modes of transit .

      Now , in England we know that after passenger traffic has been developed , goods traffic can become not less important j and there is every reason to suppose that in India , for long distances , the goods traffic would be the most important branch . To establish lines of railways would at once impart value

      to long strips of land ; would , in fact , virtually call up India from its present condition of an imperfect occupancy of land by a working population , with few incentives to industry , to a genuine settlement of the land by its own population , with a better distribution for purposes of transit and commerce . In New Brunswick it has been found that to make a

      road into the wild land causes settlement of the land—calls into existence thriving settlements , and draws back produce with increased wealth to the community and the State The same principle applies to India ; for if the settlers are there already , they are there without the- capital or the road ; and thus they labour under a want of that which creates

      wealth in ] N cw Brunswick . The railway would carry the capital to them , and would bring back profit both to commerce aud to the State ; and this process is to be performed in a country peopled by 150 , 000 , 000 souls . Wa will venture to say that there ia no investment in the world capable of such eihaustless application of capital , with such an immense crop of profit , aa an Indian railway

      England ! " a ^ ry le , lucid , and comprehensive minute , * ' on the subject of railways and their development in India , recommending specifically certain , works ; the directors in Leadenliall-street apply to the minute the terms which we have just given , and then sanction some local and fragmentary linessanctioning in Bombay , for example , " a line to Poonah , and probably to some further point in the Bombay territories , when the best route

      over the Ghaut to that town has been correctly ascertained . " This is" quite in the style of the Indian Government . It has been large in conception , it lias been paltry in execution . It has comprehensive railways on paper ; and petty fragments of * lines on the ground , llussell Ellice , J . Oliphant , and other co-signatories of the Court ol Directors in London , urge , in reply to " our Governor-General in Council , " that " no time be lost " in giving to India the advantages of a ready

      and speedy intercommunication , aud then they sanction a bit-by-bit railway construction , which is the very way to consume time . The same paper which contains these despatches and notifications from the Calcutta Government Gazette , brings us the information that the last English railway contractor has left India . The gentleman had come away , it is believed , as others had done before , with few inducements to return ; and what is it that drives them off their work ? " What

      but the preposterous conduct of the officials , who actually bury their contemplated railways in heaps of red tape and foolscap , scrawled over with "lucid" reports and directorial sanctions on the subject ? There is now , we believe , no English contractor engaged on public works in any part of India : a fact that speaka volumes . No doubt capital could be found in India , and science could be procured from England ; but the practical experience of the contractor is required to give the railway system its buainess-liko extension .

      Untitled Article

      ijfo THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 25, 1854, page 280, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2031/page/16/