ANNALS OF BRITISH LEGISLATION: BEING A DIGEST OF THE PARLIAMENTARY BLUE BOOKS. EDITED BY DR. LEONE LEVI, F.S.A., F.S.S., OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW; PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF COMMERCE NEW SERIES.-VOL. IV. с LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 1868. PREFACE. WHILST the disease in our cattle was raging, it was natural that public attention should be directed to the trade in foreign cattle and sheep, and the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the subject shows the difficulties to be overcome in order to supply this great Metropolis with the needed supply of meat. Further reports on the cattle disease, both in this country and in Belgium, and the Statistics of the number of cattle affected by it, give valuable data in relation to this dire calamity. And in connection with this subject our readers will see with interest the report on the methods employed in the River Plate for curing meat for European markets. Another report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the employment of children and young persons in trades and manufactures, not already regulated by Law, gives interesting information connected with the occupations of Printers, Bookbinders, Wholesale Stationers, Paper-makers, Brick-makers, and Warehousemen; and the Commissioners in their recapitulation of former reports showed that as many as 1,400,000 children, young persons, and women were included in their recommendations. With these subjects we may also class the comparative abstract of the principal Statistics for each of the principal countries. In looking over that table it will be seen that the United States have the heaviest taxation, the revenue per head amounting to 117. 188. 9d. against 21. 6s. 2d. for the United Kingdom, Hamburg, Bremen, and Holland being more taxed than this country. The public debt is still heaviest in the United Kingdom, it being at the rate of 271. 168. per head, the debt of Holland being at the rate of 231. 1s. 4d., that of Hamburg, 18l. 19s. 2d., and of the United States, 177. 158. 5d. per head. Hamburg and Bremen have the largest population per English square mile, Belgium and Saxony being next. Among financial papers we have the tenth Report of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, containing, among other important matters, an interesting review of the operation of the mileage duty upon state carriages. A return relating to the Post Office is also inserted, illustrative of the great advantage and recovering power of the penny postage, besides various returns of the National Debt; and connected with monetary matters there is a valuable report on the currency in Japan. Under subjects connected with Diplomacy and War we have the Treaty of Commerce between this country and Austria, the account relating to the war still raging in the River Plate between Brazil, Uruguay and the Argentine Republic on the one hand, and the small republic of Paraguay on the other. The treaty concluded between the Allied Powers against that Republic, shows that the objects of the war are more than the overthrow of the Paraguayan Government, the provision in the Treaty for new boundaries, providing, in fact, for the absorption of great part of the territory of that republic. We have the usual papers on the slave trade, an important report of the health of the navy, and papers on China and Japan. The only papers of an ecclesiastical character in the volume are one on the number and salaries of parish ministers in Scotland, showing the stipends paid, which are made up partly in money derived from seat rents and other grants, and partly in so many chalders of victual. Here we have a paper containing the declaration against transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass to be taken by Protestants, and the oath to be taken by Roman Catholics declaring the belief that the Pope of Rome hath not or ought not to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction within this realm. Upon the great question of education there are some very important documents. The Report of the Committee of the House of Commons into the constitution of the Committee of Council on education gives a very deliberate opinion that the agency of the Committee of Council is itself anomalous and unnecessary, that the present system is partial, incomplete, and too highly centralized; that the Education Department, as at present constituted, is not well adapted for the administration of a system so reformed as to reach every part of the country. It recommends the substitution of a minister of Education, a modification in the plan of certificates for teachers, more local organization, and a power to levy a rate for the promotion of education in certain cases. The report of the Committee of Council on Education shows the extent of the present agency for educating the masses, the educational staff in Great Britain comprising 51,000 certificated teachers and 1,172,000 children present at examinations. The account given of the straw plaiting schools is particularly interesting. In Ireland there are 6,260 schools, with an average of 575,000 children on the rolls belonging to the National Schools, and of these 81 per cent. are Roman Catholics, 11 per cent. Presbyterians, 7 belonging to the Established Church, and one per cent. to other |