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determined to defer these remarks till our February or March number: we think it more respectful to the conference to avoid anything which might have the appearance of a desire to dictate to it, or forestall its deliberations. We shall therefore, with one exception, confine ourselves, in the remainder of this article, to a few considerations which affect not so much the arrangements which are proposed, as some which now exist. The exception, we intend, relates to point 10, recited in the last paragraph, and we make the exception because we think that that proposal involves a fallacy. It suggests the desirableness of a central committee of correspondence among the various colleges on matters of concernment common to them all, and then specifics as one of these matters, 'openings for the settlement of students in the pastoral office.' Now we should have thought it as plain as that two and two make four, that the settlement of students in the pastoral office cannot by any possibility be a matter of common concernment to the colleges. Strictly speaking it is no college concern at all. Colleges do not even educate but on the recommendation, conveyed in some form or other, of churches; and the churches which sanction a youth's desire to devote himself to the ministry, and especially when they do not merely sanction, but excite that desire, are, of all parties, those on whom it most properly devolves to introduce their candidate to active service. Tutors and committees having indeed, from circumstances, a more extensive knowledge than others of the state of congregations in their vicinity, and being usually thrown into closer connection with destitute congregations, often have it in their power to recommend a student to occupy a vacant charge, and are very frequently requested to do so. But in every such case their influence arises principally from the conviction which the churches have of their knowledge of the individuals they recommend; and in the absence of such knowledge, or its supposed absence, they would have no more weight than any other persons. It is therefore impossible that the colleges should make this a matter of common interest. Their interest in those they recommend is and must be personal, and the influence they have with the churches arises mainly from the conviction that it is so, and that it is, at the same time, both an honest interest, and the interest of those who have had familiar opportunities of knowing the persons in whose favour they exert themselves.

Among the suggestions in the preceding documents, to which no exception, we imagine, can reasonably be taken, there are two which we shall notice here, because they have been anticipated either in the working or the theory of some of our colleges. The first is the proposal that 'the last two years of the

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collegiate course should be reserved, in all instances, principally for theological and cognate studies; and that efforts for literary honours shall not be prolonged into those two years.' It speaks for itself, that it has been impossible, hitherto, to act upon this regulation. It is only four years, or a little more, since any of our colleges were connected with the University of London by the Queen's warrant. The students who have since taken their B.A. or M.A. had, therefore, most of them either already entered upon their more immediately theological studies, or entered upon them soon after. It was impossible in their case to forbid their reading for their degrees simultaneously with their prosecution of their theological studies, unless they were denied altogether the privilege of taking degrees: all the colleges, therefore, whose students have graduated, have permitted this, in itself, undesirable consociation of studies. That it, however, was a concession to necessity, and not a precedent for all times, at least in some of our colleges, we can show from the printed regulations of one now lying before us. These regulations (we quote from a report printed nearly two years and a half ago) having prescribed that candidates applying for admission to the theological course only, [there being in this college a previous general course,] shall be examined in the Hebrew of Genesis, or the Psalms, and all the books and subjects included in the B.A. pass-examination of the University of London, excepting chemistry, physiology, botany, and modern languages, the following note is appended to the regulations: 'as the rule of

college is, that no student shall be permitted to go up for his B.A. degree later than the first B.A. examination, which occurs after his admission to the theological course, [this brings it within six weeks of his admission to the course,] the eighth regulation is necessary to equalize the conditions of admission to that course, in the case of candidates who have pursued their general studies elsewhere, with those required of the students of this college graduating in the university.' Under this regulation students who have matriculated in the university since their admission into the college have, though their attainments are superior, been kept three years in the general course that they might take their B.A. degree in the first term of their theological course, and one whose wish to enter the college was known for a twelvemonth, perhaps, before, was not encouraged to apply for admission till his B.A. degree had been taken. The object of these arrangements was of course to secure the chief attention of students to their theological studies after they have entered their theological course; and this object is still further secured by the committee having since given the sanction of a law to a suggestion before thrown out by the

tutors, that every student who takes his B.A. degree shall be expected to go up the following year for the certificate of theological proficiency, unless there is any sufficient reason preventing it; and that no student shall, under any circumstances, be allowed to go up for the M.A. degree, (which must in any case be taken nearly two years before he leaves the college,) unless he have obtained that certificate.

The second suggestion we referred to is, the one recommending that, in certain cases, 'a further term of residence and study in college should be allowed after the completion of the usual curriculum.' This, also, is thus anticipated in a document published six years and a half ago by one of our colleges. 'For the encouragement of biblical and theological learning, and, especially, to preserve their students during the last and most valuable year of their theological course from unnecessary distraction of mind, or undue anxiety with regard to their future settlement, it is in the contemplation of the committee to grant to such of them as may, at the close of the usual term of study, be either conscientiously desirous of further improvement, or from circumstances involving no discredit to their character or talents, may have no immediate prospect of a ministerial engagement, permission to reside in the college for one, or even two additional sessions without charge, for the purpose of continuing their studies with the advantage of the tutors' advice and of the college library. To guard this privilege from abuse, it will, however, in no instance be granted, unless the student have preserved an unblemished character for piety and the consecrated use of his talents, have obtained first class testimonials at the two preceding examinations, and his application to the committee be sanctioned by the concurrent recommendation of his tutors.' The reasons of this provision are, it is true, somewhat different from those which suggested the proposal in the paper of the Union, but the coincidence in other respects is rather remarkable. It must be admitted, also, that the privilege has never actually been conferred: but it is also a fact that it has not been wanted. No student has yet completed his course who has not been appointed to a charge, either before he left the college, or within a few months of his so doing.

So far our remarks, with one exception, have involved no dissatisfaction with any statement or suggestion in these papers. We must now make one small complaint. It was stated by several ministers at the Norwich meeting that the representation given in the paper then read, respecting the neglect of our church principles in our colleges, was not correct, so far as the colleges they were connected with were concerned, and that the alleged indifference of the tutors to those principles was not a

fact. Yet the assertion, a mild one certainly, is repeated without mitigation or exception. Our friend Mr. Blackburn's honesty in the matter is undoubtedly sheltered by his having reported in their place the explanations given at Norwich. But then up comes the charge again in number eight of the other paper! We fear that the effect of this will be to authenticate the previous complaint, which, as a universal one, was, to our own knowledge, made in ignorance of the facts.

And here we shall for the present pause, wishing the expected conference that wisdom which is profitable to direct. We hope to resume the topic when the result of their deliberations shall have been made public. Meanwhile, as we have left almost untouched several very instructive foreign publications named at the head of this article, we propose to give a bibliographical account of them and of their contents in our February number, in preparation for our subsequent prosecution of the subjects opened in this article.

Art. VII. The League, Nos. 58 to 62.

THE advocates of Free Trade have not unfrequently been branded with opprobrious epithets, and classed among the most selfish worshippers of mammon. Cotton Lords and the Millocracy, who trade in the thews and sinews of the operative classes, and inflict on white victims a slavery more odious than negro bondage, are terms and representations in common use with the partisans of monopoly? Contemptuous sneers about utilitarian philosophy and the iron-heartedness of political economy, malthusian theories, and rural emigrations; for a while served instead of arguments or refutation. Queen's letter collections, charity balls and subscriptions, were played off against manufacturers and commerce; agricultural prizes and dinners, farming premiums and lectures on the improvements of husbandry, breeding cattle and land allotments, were placed in contrast with the machinery, and labour of cotton mills.

The county meetings held by free traders, the investigation of the condition of the rural peasantry, the descriptions given by eye-witnesses, and from the lips of yeomen farmers, in the League,' and at the crowded assemblies of Covent Garden; the details proved and proclaimed of the wages of farm labourers, their pauperised and famished families, served for other purposes than retaliation-they prepared the country

to understand the origin of incendiary conflagrations in the rural districts, whilst they increased discontent among the misguided and victimised agriculturists. They have placed in contrast the wages of the labourer, who toils on the land, and of the operative who works out the purposes of the manufacturer; shewing that the ordinary weekly income of the farming workman, whether in the East or West, in Suffolk or in Wilts, does not exceed eight shillings, with but few additions of juvenile or female industry: while the average wages of the younger factory workers equals the farming man, and that of the skilled artisan excel the gains of the tenant farmer. The sympathy and zeal of the Anti-Corn Law leaguers for the reduced and starving mechanic in 1812 was imputed to selfishness and avarice; and ungenerous attempts were made to identify the capitalist manufacturer with the desperate and fitful struggles of the maddened victims of misgovernment and monopoly. Calmly, however, and with deliberation did the confederate free-traders urge their principles, and plead the cause of commerce and the sacred claims of the people. They demanded not eleemosynary contributions, nor the niggard dole of an ostentatious charity, but the administration of justice, the rights of industry, and the equal privileges of the constitution for all classes.

More recently they have established their title to the distinction of farmers' friends and the peasants' benefactors. Though they deemed it incumbent to prove that a diminution, to the number of 40,000, occurred in farming occupiers and labourers between 1831 and 1841, not because agriculture was without adequate protection; and have appealed to the facts, that foreign corn only came in when provision was at famine prices; and that low prices were occasioned only by fruitful seasons at home; they have demonstrated that the farmer's distress is caused by exorbitant rents, fixed according to a scale of prices much higher than he actually obtains for his produce; while his system of cultivation is adapted only to high prices-hence the deterioration of the labourers' condition. They have accurately stated the question thus:-'The owners of land passed a law intended to procure a fixed price for the produce of that laud, and they let their fields to their tenants on an estimate of the average produce sold in the market, at the supposed fixed price. Rent, however, was the only thing fixed; since price is a matter beyond legislative controul, and finds its average in the market from the proportion of demand and supply. This position they have established from the statements made in the Occupations Report,' which clearly proves that the corn law system affords protection neither to labourer nor farmer-since it shews that hundreds of the agri

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