with the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down that it was extremely inconvenient, and even inappropriate, to discuss a great question of public policy on so narrow a basis as a private Bill; and he thought that by sending such a measure to a Committee upstairs, they would be forestalling the decision of Parliament upon a vital question, which the House was unable to settle for itself. If difference of opinion prevailed in that House relative to the effect of the measures proposed to be brought into operation by the present Bill, it was to be remembered, also, that much the same differences of opinion prevailed in Manchester, where the Bill was intended to

objection in this case, and the question | was, how could they introduce such a measure for Manchester without establishing a precedent which might not hereafter be extended to the other towns of the Kingdom. He could not, however, entirely assent to the Amendment of the right hon. hon. Gentleman (Mr. M. Gibson), for that Amendment would amount to this, that, under no circumstances could education be supported from public rates. He was not prepared to support a proposition so large as that; for he would not assert that in no case whatever should such a proposition be made. That would be prejudging the general question, whether they should have a general system of education main-apply; and he would avail himself of that tained by rates or not. Then, as to the opportunity, with the permission of the Motion for the second reading of the Bill. House, to put it into the possession of the His own impression was, that the object of opinion of those who entertained what were the Bill would not be defeated by post-called "voluntary principles." Much had poning it for a short time, but, in point of fact, that it might be furthered by such a postponement. He should regret if, supposing the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester should be rejected, any hon. Gentleman should move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. That would be putting the gentlemen of Manchester in a position in which, after the great exertions they had made, they ought not to be put. It would defeat their intention, without a chance of renewing them. In the midst of these difficulties he would, therefore, recommend that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman should be withdrawn; and then that, on the Motion for the second reading of the Bill, the House should simply refuse to agree to its being read a second time now. This course would not preclude the promoters of the Bill from going on with it at a future time, if the Government, or any Member of the House, were not prepared to submit that this or any other system of education should be made applicable to the great towns of the Kingdom. By taking such a course he believed that we should obviate most of the difficulties which embarrassed us at present, while we preserved to the House -what he hoped it would always preserve to itself the right and the power of say-improvement could be made. ing, that when a great public measure was proposed involving a great public principle, it ought to be brought forward as a Public Bill, in order that they might have the fullest information and the fullest discussion of which the subject would allow.

MR. MIALL said, he perfectly concurred

been said about education, and it had been divided into three classes-first, charitable education; secondly, education by means of public rates; and thirdly, no education at all. But no real statement had been made of the true principles to be enforced on this subject. He had read, a few days since, the report of the Committee for the Improvement of the Dwellings of the Labouring Poor, and he thought that if a statistical return of such were made, it would be of great advantage, and would go far to prove that proper provision had not been made for the poor; but he should never think, on that account, of coming to the conclusion that Parliament ought to provide suitable habitations for the poor. But it was said, why put the one burden on the shoulders of Government if you did not put the other? and why put such a charge upon Government at all, since the primary duty of education devolved, no doubt, upon the people themselves, who should, and in the majority of cases could, provide such for their children? The fact was, that the fault generally might be traced to the parents of the children, who in many cases made gain of them by getting them employed in factories and workshops at an early age; and until the disposition of parents in this respect was reformed, little

Most pa

rents among the lower orders could, by giving up a portion of their beer a day, find the means of giving their children some education, and it was, in fact, the want of will in the parents to send their children to school, which was the great drawback to all measures of improvement

of this kind. If they valued education as glad when he heard the right hon. Gentlethey ought, there was already plenty of man the Member for Manchester (Mr. M. educational machinery at command. There Gibson) state that there was a strong was an abundance of ignorance in the desire in that city on the part of those country, verging on crime, and occasion- who had hitherto been opposed to approxially exhibiting itself in the deepest crime. mate, and he (Mr. Brotherton) had reason Would their free schools touch that? to believe, that if there was a short delay Would those schools be valued by the allowed there would be a closer approximaclass which was steeped in such gross tion than there had hitherto been, as there ignorance? Wherever the State stood in was a general wish, both in Manchester loco parentis to a child, let the State fulfil and the borough of Salford, that they the duty of a parent, and provide educa- should have a system of education. He tion for the people; but do not let the considered Manchester, of all places in State undermine their self-reliance. They the Kingdom, the best wherein to solve talked of enlarging the basis of the re- the question as to whether the different presentation; but let them beware, lest, classes could be educated together; and when they had a fuller representation of he proposed that, if the Bill passed, it the working men, those men applied the should be limited to a period of three lessons now being taught them by the pro-years. Then, if the experiment succeeded, moters of this Bill, and, instead of using the measure could be extended; and if their own individual energies for their own personal good, relied on legislative machinery; and came to Parliament, not for education only, but for clothing, and decent habitations. Let the House once admit that principle, and act upon it, and he did not understand how they could do anything short of carrying it out to its fullest extent. He entreated the House not to decide a question of such momentous bearings on the narrow basis of a private Bill.

not, then the people would not be required long to pay for a Bill from which no good resulted. He should be under the necessity of voting against the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Manchester, as it involved a principle which he should regret to have established; and, if the Amendment was negatived, he should propose that the second reading should be postponed for a month, as he was confident that arrangements could be made to frame a Bil that would be generally acceptable to all parties.

MR. BROTHERTON said, that he be lieved it would be impossible for the Bill to be carried into beneficial operation without the consent of the inhabitants of Manchester and Salford; and, therefore, to pass it in opposition to their wishes would be unwise as well as useless. The inhabitants of Manchester had petitioned against the Bill being taken as a private Bill, and the town council of Salford had expressed no opinion, and these he thought sufficient reasons why the Bill should not now be read a second time. The great objection of the inhabitants of Manchester to this Bill, he believed, was the expense. Another objection was the making those schools common to all classes of the inhabitants. Every one admitted that the poorer classes should have some provision made for the education of their children; and he would suggest that those persons who were excluded from the franchise should have the benefit of those free schools. If such schools were limited to the children of persons occupying houses under the value of 101. or 6l., there would be a class provided with an education to which he believed the other inhabitants would be willing to contribute. He was

If a

MR. MUNTZ said, he wished briefly to state to the House why he, although most anxious for the education of the people, should vote against the present Bill. similar Bill were to be introduced for Birmingham, and the town council and the inhabitants petitioned against it, he should find himself in an extraordinary predicament if he voted for the present Bill. If the town council of Manchester would come to Parliament with a Bill proposed by one of their own Members, and accompanying it with a petition in favour of it from their own body, he would be ready to give his support to such a measure, but not otherwise. It was not as a private Bill that he objected to the measure before the House; but he did so because it was introduced and opposed in a manner of which he could not approve. He was as anxious as ever that education should be both secular and religious, but he retained the conviction that we should never have a general and ample system of national education worthy the name, except it was conducted on the purely secular principle, and he would rather have the people

imperfectly educated than not educated | tion containing the draught of a new constitution for the University of Oxford as proposed by the authorities of the University. He wished, in consequence, to ask the noble Lord the Member for London whether that proposed scheme had been submitted to Her Majesty's Government, and whether the Government intended to sanction it?

RUSSIA AND THE PORTE-QUESTION.

On the bringing up the Report of the Committee of Supply,

the place of their destination, Mr. Smith | aloof from the quarrels of the Latin and O'Brien himself, whatever might have been Greek Churches. That was, he considered, his faults and guilt, has acted like a gen- very wise and proper. They had evinced, tleman, and has not taken advantage of as far as he could judge, an earnest desire opportunities for escape of which, if he to bring to a satisfactory conclusion the had been a less honourable man, he might dispute between Russia and Turkey withhave availed himself. It is, therefore, the out having recourse to war. So far was intention of Her Majesty's Government to he, therefore, from thinking the attacks advise the Crown to extend to Mr. Smith directed against the Government to be well O'Brien the means of placing himself in founded, that he gave them his honest the same situation, by an act of clemency thanks for having acted as they had acted. on the part of the Crown, in which those At the same time he believed that they other persons have placed themselves by a had been very much deceived in placing violation of the pledges which they had given. confidence-and he could not blame them for it-in a Government which had for many years been acting in cordial alliance with England. He could not blame them for placing confidence in the statements, MR. HUME said, that he had not ad- both oral and written, of the Ambassadors dressed the House during the late dis- as well as of the Emperor of Russia. He cussion, as he was unwilling to interrupt had no hesitation in saying that they had the proceedings, but he could not allow been deceived, but the shame was not on these estimates to be disposed of with-them, but on the deceiver. Under these out stating that this was the first time circumstances he gave them his hearty since he had been in Parliament that he thanks, although he regretted to find that had not taken part in the question of we were once more about to land troops on voting the number of men for the Army the continent of Europe. He was preor Navy. He had felt strongly the situa- pared, however, to support, by our Navy, tion in which the country was placed, and to the fullest extent, what he considered to the difficulties which had been imposed be the honour of the country, and not only upon Her Majesty's Government, and it to support the honour of the countryappeared to him, after the unfair manner that he held to be an empty word-but to in which charges had been brought against resist those aggressions which Russia had the members of the Administration, that gradually been making on the neighbourthose who, like himself, belonged to no ing countries, and to prevent her from factious party, were called on to state their accomplishing objects which he feared candid and honest opinion upon the sub- would be dangerous to the general liberject. He thought that the Government, ties of Europe. It was on that ground so far from being open to censure for hav- he thought that Her Majesty's Government ing exhausted every means of maintaining had been compelled to take the course they peace, deserved the thanks of their country, had taken. Although we were placed at and of every one who was shocked and the extreme western verge of Europe, alarmed at the horrors of war, for their still, as our commerce pervaded the whole endeavours to avoid it. Even if there had world, and as the liberties of mankind debeen any apparent neglect in their con- pended in a very great degree on the mainduct, he should have been disposed to over- tenance of the liberties of England, he look such a circumstance, when he saw could not think we were to be blamed for that they had been animated by a sincere the part we had taken in that question. desire to promote the public good. He With regard to the estimates, he consiwas one of those who were of opinion dered the increase of 13,000 men to our that, in reference to what had passed in naval forces a very moderate increase as relation to this question, the conduct compared with that which had been exof the Government ought not to be too pected, and he felt bound to add that, consiclosely criticised, and, upon carefully going dering the increase in the number of men for through all the documents of which the the Army and Navy, the addition to the House was now in possession on this sub-national expenditure was much less than ject, he was bound to say that Her Ma- might have been anticipated, and it would jesty's Government, as well as the Govern- no doubt have been greater if it had not ment by which they had been preceded, been for the anxious endeavours of the had done everything in their power to keep Government to practise a rigid economy

the country. He never thought to have seen the day when, in a question of this kind, where outlay was necessary and great expense was to be incurred, he could come forward and so entirely express his opinion, in conjunction, he believed, with the opinion of the country, almost as one man, to vindicate the conduct of the Government in their measures for supporting the oppressed Turks, whose very name had formerly been a term of reproach. The people of England had manifested at various public meetings their sense of the attempt made by a powerful State to coerce and overwhelm a weaker one, and had come forward with that generous determination which he hoped Englishmen would ever entertain to assist the injured and oppressed, and to resist a violent and unprovoked aggression.

while they added to our forces. He, there- | our Navy, and he was perfectly satisfied, fore, thought that the measures taken by from proofs which had already been given, the Government were fit and proper; that it would meet with the approbation of and the arrangements on the part of this country for opposing the encroachments of a barbarous power appeared to him to be conducted in the best and most economical manner. He had heard with regret an attack made the other evening against the Prime Minister by the hen. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond). He could not think it was consistent with fair play, or with the dignity of that House, or with the maintenance of the due authority of that Government to whom the confidence of the House was given, to take the means which the hon. Gentleman had taken to throw doubts on the character of the Prime Minister. It appeared to him that the attack on Lord Aberdeen was most injurious and uncalled for; and he regretted to find that, while the hon. Member for West Surrey and other Gentlemen were prepared to give their confidence to the Ministers, they were taking every means in their power to degrade them and to lower them in the public estimation. He did not think that that was a wise or a becoming course; and he, as an individual unconnected with any party, was anxious to express his approval of the policy of Her Majesty's Government. In his opinion there was only one matter in which they were to blame, and that was the secrecy with which they had conducted their negotiations. He was satisfied that, if they had from time to time published the papers which they had lately laid before the Ilouse, many of the charges which had been made against them-charges of connivance as stated by some, and of credulity as stated by others would never have been advanced. He hoped that for the future they would show that they had more confidence in the good feeling and the good sense of the country at large, by communicating more frankly their measures or their intentions, so that the public might be enabled to know what their Ministers were doing, without having recourse to papers published by the Governments of France and of other countries. He did not think that that was the open spirit in which the people of England ought to be treated. He believed that in times of difficulty and danger they would be ready to rally round the Administration, and that they ought to be treated with a generous confidence. He fully approved of the vote for the increase of the number of men in

MR. MONCKTON MILNES said, he hoped the well-timed and patriotic observations of his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) would not fall unheeded on the House and the country. He felt grateful to his hon. Friend for coming forward in the way he had done, and he (Mr. M. Milnes) joined him heartily in what he believed to be the confirmed opinion of the people of this country. With reference to the remark of his hon. Friend as to the absence of information, until lately, upon this question, he thought the Government had paid a severe penalty for the mistrust they had shown of the people on this occasion. He believed if the first volume of the blue book had been laid on the table at the end of last Session, which it might have been with all prudence, not only would much of the ill-feeling, but also the debate on this subject, which had recently ensued, have been considerably curtailed, and the House would have come forward in support of the Government with even more energy and spirit than it had done. As to the question of the advisability of making a more prompt and unequivocal demonstration at the time that Russia crossed the Pruth, if the correspondence which had then taken place had been published towards the end of the last Session, that question would then have been brought regularly under the notice of the House, and decided in a manner befitting the occasion and the emergency. The verdict of the House on that occasion would, he believed, have been favourable to the Go