LORD, NAPIER AND ETTRICK ON SOCIAL MATTERS IN ENGLAND.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 111, 21 January 1873, Page 2

LORD, NAPIER AND ETTRICK ON SOCIAL MATTERS IN ENGLAND.

At the recent meeting of the Social Science Association in England, Lord' Napier and Ettrick officiated as president, and, in the qoursc of his opening address, spoke thoughtfully on various matters of great social interest. We quota a few passages : — "The Scotch Education Act comprises three capital features — a general 83 stem of local management, a general rate, and universal obligatory attendance. It us complete and absolute where the Act for England is partial and spccultative. These provisions are, however, raised upon an old basis, and could not have been established -without it; the School Board is a transformation of the heritors' meeting, the rate is au expansion of tne former charge upon the laud, and the rule of compulsion has been adopted in deference to the demand of public opinion, trained by religion and prudence to recognise tlie obligation of the parent to provide for the education of 1113 child. If I had to indicate a defect m the Act, 1 would say that it is not flexible enough to meet exceptional w ants ; that it dees not provide facilities, which correspond entirely to the obligations which it imposes. A law which prescribes attendance on the part of all should supply teaching accessible to all ; but I fail to discover any machinery by which the scattered inhabitants of an inclement and neglected region could be appropriately reached. There are districts m Scotland where the schoolmaster should be a missionary ; where the teacher should rather be deputed to the learners, than the learners convoked to the teacher. I should like to see some organized agency of pupil teachers acting under the authority of School Boards, empowered to undertake tours of instruction in the winter months, giving lessons alternately at several stations, to which small groups ot children of very tender age in the milder districts must act unfavourably on the regularity of attendance and the faculty of learning. It may even have a deteriorating influence on physical health. But whatever may be the partial shortcomings of the Scotch Act, it certainly stands alone m this country as an embodiment of educational provisions for the lower orders. ..... As to the particular question lately agitated, whether theeducation of a child in a denominational school may becharged to the rate, I do not hesitate to declare my conviction that it is infinitely preferable that a child, whose parents are incapacitated by disease, or poverty, or moral degradation from performing a sacred duty, should be carried to the minister of religion or the Sister of Mercy, of whatever creed that it should be, than left upon the cool and neutral plulantrophy of an official Board. In every form of Christian zeal the secular powcrs'jhave an inestimable ally, and wo should not be fearful of engaging the co-operation of ardent religionists, however strango and conflicting their tenets may appear. In great necessities there is a superior religion, before which theology is dumb — the religion of doing good. In this, at least, I can speak with some authority. The accidents of life have brought me into connection with the servants of God and humanity of etei^y colour from the agent of the London Mission to the Jesuit father, and from the Zenana teacher to the cloistered votery of ' St Mary the Bo pairor.' I have found them all serving the same cause essentially with the same fervour, and not always as unlike each other as they imagine. What w e need is to preserve enthusiasm and to increase charity. . . . Under these circumstances, in my humble judgment, the question which beyond all others deserves our sustained and dispassionate consideration and action is the question of real property viewed in its political and social aspects. The dis>ti Ibution of property is the future in our laws and customs w'lich presents the greatest apparent hardship, which arouses the keenest sense of injustice, which affords the readiest mateiiab for misrepresentation, and which discovers the most dangerous inconsistency between our political institutions and our social condition. With reference to real prop3rfcy, let it, then, never be forgotten for one moment that Great Britain stands apart and alone in the civilised world. Tn other respects our institutions, compared with those of f jreign countries, exhibit that sort of divergence which may be likened to various elements of colour in a diversified but not inharmonious pattern. In regard to property, there is a contrast which arrests and offends the eye. Permit me to present once more in a few rapid strokes the familiar features of the case. In G-reat Britain real proderty is transferred and transmitted under laws, customs, and influences which all combine with irresistible increasing power to produce consolidation. Primogeniture, entail, traditional predilections, the accumulation of capital are working incessantly together to promote great aggregations of lands in the hands of a few. The statistics of landed property have not yot been verified with any lecuracy, but it would be hazardous to estimate the number of estates above tho dimensions of a garden or a paddock at more than 100 000, in a country which numbers moro than 26,000,000 inhabitants, and there are but few counteracting ngcncies at work to mitigate the perilous progression towards monopoly. It may be broadly asserted that in no country does bo large a proportion of the population live in lodgings as m Great Britain or in separate habitations as tenants at will ; in no country do so many live on the land of others without a lease or a terminable tenure ; in no country are the perogatives and delights of property vested in such a restricted number. The proportion of those who possess to those who possess nothing is probably smaller in some parts of England at this time than it ever was in any settled community, except in some of the republics of antiquity, where the business of mechanical industry was delegated to slaves. France, Germany Italy, Russia, Switzerland, the United States, the British Colonies, all the countries which count for something in the world, which propegato idea*, or offer examples, or present points for comparison, which fascinate by their past or which possesses the promise of an expansive future — all have committed acts or adopted principles and measures which conduct thorn on a path directly opposed to that on which the destinies of England are still impelled. . .^ Twelve years have now elapsed since I had the good fortune tn be a witness at St Petcrsburgh of the promulgation of the Act of Emancipation and Endowment, and, notwithstanding the disencbantments which are ever ready to follow 111 the track of philantropy, the scene still remains the greatest recollection of my life, an impression that can never bo repeated and can never be forgotten. There was for once no formal ceremonial of court or camp. In the Cathedral of St Isaac, from the sacred lips of the Metropolitan, to a rude and humble multitude hushed in breathless expectation, tho Imperial message came which carried liberty to all and land to all who would work to earn it. Enslaved and disinherited the crowd went in, a few simple words were uttered by an aged priest, tho people melted quietly away into 'the wintry air, transformed, it seemed, as far as laws could alter men, no one shouted no one spoke, but they lingered in tho shadow of the church as if unwilling to depart from a spot where so bright a promise had descended. That moment gave a legal and lasting interest in the land of Russia to 50,000,000 of its inhabitants 1 directly to some, indirectly and inferent.ially to others. That the gift lias been deeply marred by the conditions there is little doubt. The Act of Emancipation is not exempt from the infirmities which belong in other countries to the best efforts of legislation. It reflects the errors of itsauthors, the necessities of Government, the prepossessions of the nation and the time. ... It would be easy, but it would be idle to multiply oxamples from the legislation or the usages of foreign or dependent nations to prove with what strength and unanimity the disposition runs to impart tho benefits of real property to the greatest number. I would, ask you, then, whether it is possible that the policy of England can long follow a different or contrary direction s Is it possible that England, which has taken so large a part in the formation of the political and econimical institutions and doctrines of other States, can exclude from her own social system the reaction and reciprocal influence exerted by those States in a matter of such engrossing interest 5 No reflecting mind surely can admit tha,t suoh partial isolation can onduro in the midst of general communion. The contagton of foreign example alone would, be unavoidable and irresistible. . . . The terms, oa which money can bo borrowed on entailed pstate^ might bo rendered more cas\, and the purposes for which it can be enlarged ; but I cannot regard proposals of this sort in any other light than as :- feeble struggle for tho prolongation of a system which u» deemed to early and }iieviluble tiuuppuiutineiit.