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been increasing pretty uniformly since the first establishment. At present it is fifty-one. The balance in hand is 1280l. 16s. 10d. A pretty large proportion of the applicants are domestic servants, the rest mostly labourers in husbandry. In some instances persons at the distance of ten miles have sent small sums to be placed in the bank.

The expense of stamps is paid by the person who makes a deposit. It would perhaps be an improvement if it were paid on drawing out the money, agreeably to an excellent principle laid down in the article in the last number, that every possible encouragement should be given to making deposits, while it should be rendered rather more difficult to draw out.

The rate of interest allowed is five per cent.; and notwithstanding the arguments contained in the paper alluded to, I am inclined to think this will, on the whole, be found preferable to a higher rate, for the following reasons:

1st. The calculation of interest at five per cent., or a penny per pound per month, is so exceedingly simple, that the poor themselves can readily ascertain whether or not they receive their just due. I acknowledge, however, that ten or fifteen per cent. would present exactly the same advantage.

2nd. To give more than the legal rate of interest would in some measure change the nature of the benefit it afforded. As long as the poor man receives no more than five per cent., though he may very properly feel grateful for the time and attention which are devoted to his accommodation, yet he is under no pecuniary obligation,-his independence is not infringed;-a point to which we ought scrupulously to attend in our plans for the benefit of the frugal and industrious poor.

3rd. The expense of any considerable enlargement of the rate of interest would be enormous, if the plan should succeed as may be expected and desired. In a few years a bank established in a country town may be very reasonably supposed to accumulate a sum of five or six thousand pounds in hand. If ten per cent. interest were allowed, it would be requisite to collect by subscription from 250l. to 300l. per annum to replace the deficit, without calculating any thing for expenses of management. Such a sum, it is apprehended, would not be easily raised.

Lastly. It does not appear that an increased rate of interest would operate very powerfully as an inducement to saving. In speaking of this subject, the poor dwell more on the point of security, and the advantage of having their money placed out of the temptation of spending, than on the advantage of accumulation. The country bankers receive money at the rate of three per cent.,

with a stipulation of receiving six months notice previously to its being withdrawn. This last circumstance appears to weigh more with the poor than the loss of two per cent.

Let us now consider of the advantages or disadvantages of a legislative establishment for these banks.

The first obvious disadvantage would be the loss of cheapness and simplicity. Secondly, the business would not be so well performed. As long as it is undertaken by individuals, there is good reason to believe none but fit persons (at any rate persons interested in the success of the plan) will have the superintendence of it. On the contrary, were an office established by Government in every town, with a fixed salary, the most necessitous rather than the best qualified person would often be selected to fill the situation, from a mistaken principle of charity, if not for worse reasons. Were it left in the hands of churchwardens and overseers, we must bid adieu to all hopes of benefiting the poor. It would soon become a system, on the first application for relief, to seize on the little property which the poor man had been accumulating for years at the expense of many a severe privation; or at least to make this a plea for refusing him that assistance to which he would otherwise be entitled. So far from an institution of this kind being under the control of the parish officers, the manager ought to conceal from them all knowledge of the persons who have placed money in his hands.

I am aware it may be said, that if a man can be induced to save, he will not stand in need of parochial relief. Unfortunately, however, so completely is the parochial system matured, that an agricultural labourer cannot live on his wages, however frugal and industrious he may be. In fact, what he receives from his employer is only a part of his wages, the rest he receives from the parish officers.

In most country parishes I am acquainted with, every labourer who applies for relief receives 18d. per head per week for every child above two. If he has five or six children, it is physically impossible for him to support them on 12s. per week, the common price of labour. And if he were to be debarred all relief till the little store in the bank were exhausted, it would not only be a case of great cruelty, but effectually prevent all saving for the future, either on his own part or that of his neighbours.

How far it may be possible to convince the class of master agriculturists of the impolicy of enslaving their labourers, and of the benefits that would result to themselves from an endeavour to raise the political condition of the poor, is a different question; a very interesting one undoubtedly, as it seems to point out the

only practical means of abolishing the present degrading system. But, until they are so convinced, to place the savings of the poor in the hands of the parish officers would be in the first place very cruel, and secondly would give a death blow to the success of the plan.

After these banks were established pretty generally through the country, it might perhaps be of advantage were the Legislature to enact a few simple regulations for the purpose of giving them a sanction and permanency, as well as to relieve them from the burden of taxation, as in some degree has been done already with respect to Friendly Societies,-leaving the whole of the detail and arrangement to the discretion of private individuals.

Chichester, Feb. 16, 1814.

CIVIS.

Substance of the Speeches of William Wilberforce, Esq., on the Clause in the East India Bill for promoting the religious Instruction and moral Improvement of the Natives of the British Dominions in India, on the 22d of June and the 1st and 12th of July 1813.

It is with the greatest pleasure, and the greatest warmth, that we recommend to the attention of the British public this admirable speech, which has in it almost every thing to content both the Christian and the philosopher.

It is well known with what pertinacity, and with what strange propositions in the shape of arguments, a great proportion of the English gentlemen who have been in India have endeavoured to prevent the preaching of Christianity in that country.

The only branch of their allegations which had any foundation in reality, respected a ground which Mr.Wilberforce, in the speech before us, completely renounces. It was at one time proposed, that an established church, an offset from the church of England, with bishops and other dignitaries, should be planted in India. This the opponents in question represented as a measure which would identify the cause of Christianity with the cause of Government, and would incurably establish, in the minds of the people of India, the idea, and the dread of compulsion against the religion of their fathers. To this measure we should have objected, not so much for being hostile to our dominion over the natives, (though we are of opinion that it would have been that also,) as for being hostile to the diffusion of Christianity, which a church establishment would have gone far to arrest.

The opinions of those who are favourable to church establishments we wish to treat with that respect which dissidents that are honest and sincere owe to the opinions of one another. We are even willing to treat with indulgence something of that intemperance toward opposite opinions, which the thought of being the strongest party naturally throws into the behaviour of the church, and which individual churchmen, who happen to have little moderation in their natures, practise without reserve. But it would be very wrong to forbear, when the occasion requires, to point out the respects in which an establishment is ill adapted to accomplish the ends which it is supposed to have in view.

We need not repeat, what experience has established as a truth in the minds of all, that an establishment is not favourable to the apostolical activity and zeal of its ministers; and that the more opulent it is, and the greater the worldly prizes which it holds out to its ministers, the less of that activity and zeal it is likely to possess. These effects flow so necessarily from obvious causes, that all illustration of them is rendered superfluous. It is also true, and will not be denied, that to convert a country in which Christianity is unknown, and in which its introduction is opposed by obstructions so powerful as exist in India, extraordinary activity and zeal are required. A church establishment, then, and the conversion of the Indians, are circumstances not well adapted to one another.

We shall stop to mention only one other circumstance; that as the members of a church establishment themselves would cer tainly not make the exertions necessary for the conversion of the Indians, so they would have sufficient motives to hate, and sufficient power to oppose, the exertions of other people. This is a consideration which deserves profound attention. And hitherto it has met with very little. Whatever proselytes are made by missionaries, namely ministers not of the establishment, are proselytes made not for the establishment, but against the establishment; in the full sense, at least, in which dissent is against the establishment, that is, according to clerical interpretation, a sense in which it merits their disapprobation and constant resistance. The more completely an establishment embraces the population, and the more implicit their assent to its tenets, the more complete is the influence of the priests, and the more certain they are of all those gratifications and advantages which a power over the human mind involves. Every dissenter is a defalcation to such an extent from that power and all its delightful effects: to take away, therefore, proselytes from the church; to engage the natives of India to become Baptists and Presbyte

rians, and thus to prevent their becoming churchmen, would naturally be odious to the ministers of an established church, and could not but be expected to insure more or less of their opposition. We should thus, by means of an establishment, erect a fresh obstacle to the progress of Christianity in India, by erecting a powerful body of men who would have an interest in opposing its propagators, the only sort of men from whom efficient efforts for its propagation can rationally be expected.

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With these convictions, it gave us the highest satisfaction to find the author of the present address taking the broad and libe ral, that is, the high and every way unexceptionable ground, which is marked out in the following expressions: "I am persuaded we shall all concur in thinking, that it ought to be left to the spontaneous benevolence and zeal of individual Christians, controlled of course by the discretion of Government, to engage in the work of preaching the gospel to the natives in our Indian territories; and that the missionaries should be clearly understood to be armed with no authority, furnished with no commis→ sion from the governing power of the country." "In the work of conversion I abjure all ideas of compulsion; I disclaim all use of the authority, nay even of the influence, of Government. I would trust altogether to the effects of reason and truth, relying much on the manifest tendency of the principles and precepts of Christianity to make men good and happy." This is an important passage. These are the sentiments of an enlarged and enlightened mind. What is true, and what is useful, for that is useful which makes men "good and happy," may, according to Mr. Wilberforce, be left to their own impression upon the minds of men. No "authority," no "influence of Government" are required. Leave to publish them is of itself sufficient. It is sufficient, according to the opinion of Mr. Wilberforce, even when the difficulties are the greatest, when a religion entirely new is to be introduced, in opposition to the most deep-rooted and extensive system of prejudices that ever were found among men. If it be sufficient even then, much more must it be sufficient in all cases where the difficulties are less. In these doctrines Mr. Wilberforce speaks like a truly enlightened man and a good Christian: but we must not dissemble; in our opinion he does not speak like a good churchman. If truth and utility be thus sufficient, not merely for their own support, but for their own propagation, in the most adverse circumstances, what possible use can there be for an establishment to uphold them when circumstances are highly favourable ? Those churchmen are far behind Mr. Wilberforce in philosophy, who maintain that truth

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