The Dissenters of Barnstaple have imagined a foolish thing in
their hearts. They are trying to put the screw on Sir Thomas. Acland, M.P. for North Devon, and either to compel him to abjure his votes on the Education question and go over to League principles, or to drive him from his seat,—which they can only do by seating two Conservatives. In a correspondence published yesterday, Mr. Quick, as the representative of the Nonconformist electors,. tells Sir Thomas that an association has been formed to. organise the Nonconformists of North Devon so as to bring- their influence to bear in favour of a system of National Unsectarian Education, and that they cannot support Sir Thomas Acland again unless he mends his ways, especially as to the- Endowed Schools' Act. Sir Thomas Acland replies, in a very temperate and able letter, that had he been able to be in London, he should have voted for the Burials' Bill ; that he is anxious for as much religious equality as can be secured without destroying great and beneficent institutions ; that he is as. much alive as they can wish him to be to the aggravated. and aggravating folly of the bigoted Ritualists ; that he is, and always has been, in favour of national unsectarian education,. but that he cannot press on the Government either to seal every' public schoolmaster's lips on the most sacred of all subjects, or- to supplant suddenly and forcibly the educational agencies. already existing by a costly cut-and-dried system. What do the Dissenters of North Devon hope by securing the return of a Tory in the place of so steady, so hearty, and so influential a. Liberal as Sir Thomas Acland? Is the expression of mere chagrin so delightful P
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