The plan proposed by Professor Sadler and Mr. Harvey has
the immense advantage of being automatic. Under it we should avoid perpetual wrangles over the exact amount of the grant in shillings and pence, and also the disputes which would be sure to take place over the rise in the cost of educa- tion. Those who provide one-sixth of the cost plus the buildings and the administration could not fairly be charged with not making a contribution substantial enough to entitle them to the management of the schools. If the Government could yield in this matter, or, rather, give this interpretation to their own principle—for it is not really a matter of yielding, but only of interpretation of a principle—we do not doubt that the question of the terms of transfer for the schools that will not contract out ought to prove capable of settlement with a little give-and-take. The Church here ought not to ask for her full pound of flesh ; but, on the other band, the Government cannot possibly expect trustees to make terms which would seem to them like a betrayal of their trust. If the Government are too stiff here they will, we are sure, find themselves face to face, not merely with clerical obstruction, but with something much more formidable,—the non possumus of the laity on what they will regard as a matter of fair dealing in business.
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