back the hand of munificence in which there is held £499,782, nor is it inclined to send away, with scorn for the meanness of the offering, the little children who bring in their hands to pay in part for their schooling, £430,279; nor is it willing to allow the £91,121 of endowments and bequests, which are available for education, to be transferred to other uses. The League proposes to be economical in throwing away all this money, which, if once cast aside, would be like water spilled upon the ground, that cannot be gathered up again.

I do not myself see any good reason for the League's demand for "the establishment of a system," when, as the Union more sensibly proposes, the judicious supplementing of the present system would be more easy, more economical, and speedily accomplished. Why should we waste the energies of teachers and the liberality of school patrons, or the endowments of our ancestors, and, ignoring these, set up a bran new and untried system of scholastic establishments, at the expense of the tax-payers? To begin a national system of education by an act of national extravagance and profusion does not seem to be highly judicious or greatly wise. When we look at the proposal, however, a little more narrowly, we see the prudence and worldly wisdom of the project. Existing schools are mostly under the management of men earnest in their belief that man is more than a tool-using animal, and that technical secular education is not all that is good for man and profitable to the State. They believe in religion and duty, and that while the body is more than meat and the life more than raiment, the soul of man requires to be taught not only to labour for the meat which perisheth, but for the bread of heaven. The Union would have the soul and the life consecrated to God, while the members of the League would immolate the life and the soul at the altar of Mammon.

Denominational education has been much and undeservedly traduced in comparison with secular education. National education may be quite as thoroughly given under the denominational system as under the secular method; while denominationalism has special advantages of its own. It at least recognises something spiritual in man's nature, and professes to know and to teach the duties of life, but the secular system ignores all culture for life except such as may fit for this world and the needs of trade. Denominationalism is in earnest for higher things than the world can satisfy, while secularism has proved itself to be only in earnest from the lowest motives-the sense of the risk of pecuniary loss, or the prospect of pecuniary gain. This is made evident by the fact that the extension of education has formed no regular part of the programme of the Leaguers; they have made few or no steps towards helping on the noble cause at their own expense. They are willing to be liberal with other people's money to secure a better class of machinery for themselves. They will use the improved article when others have provided it, and when they have worn out the nerves

and muscles of this superior article they will cast it off their hands to be taken up by the local boards again as a pauper. It will be brought up in pauperism, and it will be permitted to go to the Union when the League has got its ends served.

The League denies the necessity of teaching religion, and would extrude from the school all reference to God's law and all popular teaching in regard to the laws of moral conduct revealed in his Word. How the character of the pupils is to be educed, and how the teacher is to regulate the morals of his scholars without teaching which may be called religious, and which may therefore be fruitful in discussions and heart-burnings, in secular school committees, I am quite unable to comprehend. Denominationalists propose a conscience-clause, but the secularists do not so much as recognise a conscience. They propose to kill the conscience by inanition, while the advocates of religious teaching wish to protect its just rights and to provide for the recognition of the supremacy of conscience. How can a boy be told that lying is wrong, that it is an evil thing to steal, unless reference is made to the law of God, and the teaching is based on that? How can a child be told that help is ready in his efforts after goodness, through prayer and by the Holy Spirit, if God is not to be named and dogmas are not to be permitted in our national secular schools? To do so would be denominationalism, and the State is asked by the League to affirm solemnly before heaven and earth that education should be confined to the things of this world, to the mere secular concerns of humanity : and hence I cannot believe that the League is superior to the Union.

It was pertinently remarked at Newcastle by the Rev. A. R. Ashwell, M.A., Principal of the Durham Training College-" The religious bodies have worked hard and spent freely; they have thousands of schools waiting to profit by Government assistance. What schools have the secularists founded? What schools have they waiting for assistance, and only awaiting a relaxation of Government rules to get that aid? Oh no! with them the State must do all, but they put their shoulder to the wheel, and did not spend their time and energy in vain invocations to Jupiter.' Those who teach on the principles of the Union have provision made for 2,500,000 children; 350,000 are said to be without the means of education. The League says, Begin anew, make a clean sweep of all the existing schools, or ignore them; "let the dead past bury its dead," and let us have from Government sources, i. e., grants and local assessments; i. e., taxes, £8,000,000 a year, to provide a worldly education for worldly purposes, to suit the aims of worldly men, who are worldly wise enough to ask others to pay to provide them with men-machines for mines, factories, potteries, mills, and workshops, whom they will consign, when they are worn ot, to the poor-rates, as the proper source whence useless members of the State, worn out in making profits for them, should find an easy passage smoothed towards the grave.

What have a world of worldlings, a society of trained and skilled men and women, who know nothing of life and its duties but what may fit them to be better producers of worldly wealth! Oh, surely a league of devils could wish no more thorough a transformation of earth than to find this greed of gain triumphant over all godly endeavour. If we want to have educated men, we must have an education for them which will give a chance to their higher nature. To weave round the soul a network of worldliness, from the cradle to the grave, will not be tolerated now. We must have a recognition of the spiritual element in man.

I have only now to remark that the Union, by accepting of and supplementing to the full extent that is necessary all existing efficient schools, is making a much more rational and moderate proposal than the League. The religious bodies of the country have been striving might and main to bring up the education to the level of the country's needs, but they have only been aided by Government in proportion to their generosity, not the national requirements. It is Government therefore, and not the denominationalists, who deserve blame. But most of all it is the secularists of the League, who have withheld the means which would have brought out the requisite Government aid to have educated the whole people.

The League advocates compulsory education, enforced by fine and imprisonment-they intend to constitute that very ignorance which they, in their worldliness, have initiated and perpetuated a crime. They say make your child fit to serve as an instrument for getting money, or you shall be regarded as a fit person for the persecuting energies of the commercial rulers of England. But the Union is willing to use suasion and persuasion, and is content to propose that only those who resolutely withhold education from their children, due opportunity being provided, shall suffer, and that by declaring that his own fault shall be his punishment, as he shall only profit by the labour of educated children.

Once more, I note that the local rating system advocated by the League would only perpetuate and extend the evils already suffered by the pocr-law, and on the present system of education, for the poorer districts would be overburdened and the richer would be scarcely touched. That is, the country districts, whence trade drafts her recruits, would require to pay for the training of those from whose labours the wealthy towns engaged in manufactures would reap the profits-so enriching the rich by the impoverishment of the poor. I go in for the Union method of settlement, not for that of the League.

M. T.

History.

HAS THE FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY BEEN ON THE WHOLE JUST AND WISE?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

"There were times of old when sovereigns made progress through the land, and when, at the proclamation of their heralds, they caused to be scattered heaps of coin among the people. That may have been a goodly spectacle, but it is also a goodly spectacle, in the altered spirit and circumstances of our times, when a sovereign is enabled, through the wisdom of her Great Council assembled in Parliament, again to scatter blessings among the people in the shape of wise and prudent laws, which do not sap in any respect the foundations of duty, but which strike away the shackles from the arm of industry, which give new incentive and new reward to toil, and which win more and more for the throne, and for the institutions of the country, the gratitude, the confidence, and the love of an united people." -From the Speech of Mr. Gladstone on introducing the French Treaty.

I TAKE it that the distinctive financial policy of the present century is that popularly known as Free Trade, and it is a subject of great satisfaction to know that it is so simple a matter to prove to demonstration that this great policy is a sound one, and therefore just, wise, and beneficial, both to our own people and to the peoples of other nations.

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Indeed, the very term itself seems to contain within it the proof of its own justice, and it is extraordinary that we should be here discussing a matter which was proved and finally settled some thirty years ago. The question therefore occurs, Why are we doing so?" and to this the answer is a very simple, and is entirely a party-political one. The Tories last year tried the cry of "No Popery," and on that they were tremendously beaten. Taking advantage of the existing distress and depression of trade, they have again taken up, as a last resource, the already exhausted cry of "Protection," pretending with their usual plausibility that they are doing so out of consideration for the people. They know that the French Treaty will expire this year, and that the question of its renewal will come on for discussion in Parliament, and they possess a faint hope that they may by that time so successfully have imbued the people with their wilful misrepresentations, that they may have the bare possibility of defeating the Government on this question. That the good sense of the nation will prevent the realization of these projects there is not the slightest doubt.

That there is a great deal of distress, and a great depression of trade, is unfortunately true, but that neither results from Free Trade will be hereafter abundantly proved. That one or two trades have been injured by this policy may very well be, and that consequently each trade asks for and would like protection for itself, is perhaps natural enough, but this cannot be taken into account against the policy which benefits the nation as a whole. This individual desire is nothing more nor less than an extension of the wish which may probably be entertained by several persons who may carry on the same trade in the same street, and each of whom would like the others to be extinguished, so that his individual business might be thereby benefited.

The present inquiry is confined to this century, but I may just remind the reader that the policy of Free Trade was originated, although not carried into effect, in the last century by the Commercial Treaty with France then negotiated by William Pitt.

I propose in the first instance to show that this Free Trade policy is sound in principle and theory, and then to prove from experience that it is sound in practice.

The old policy was, either to prohibit the introduction of any article of foreign manufacture or produce, or to levy such enormous duties upon them as effectually to prevent their introduction.

Speaking of the past policy, Adam Smith, in his celebrated work on the " Wealth of Nations," says:

"The two principles being established, however, that wealth consisted in gold and silver, and that those metals could be brought into a country which had no mines, only by the balance of trade, or by exporting to a greater value than it imported, it necessarily became the great object of political economy to diminish as much as possible the importation of foreign goods for home consumption, and to increase as much as possible the exportation of the produce of domestic industry. Its two great engines for enriching the country, therefore, were restraints upon importation, and encouragement to exportation.

"The restraints upon importation were of two kinds :

"1st. Restraints upon the importation of such foreign goods for home consumption as could be produced at home, from whatever country they were imported.

"2nd. Restraints upon the importation of goods of almost all kinds from those particular countries with which the balance of trade was supposed to be disadvantageous. Those different restraints consisted sometimes in high duties, and sometimes in absolute prohibitions.

"Exportation was encouraged, sometimes by drawbacks, sometimes by bounties, sometimes by advantageous treaties of commerce with foreign states, and sometimes by the establishment of colonies in distant countries."

I much regret that in this branch of the subject this article will consist almost entirely of quotations, but to prove a principle, I conceive I am compelled to show the authorities on which my