The concessions of the EditIttienal Committee of the Privy Council
to the National Society have probably caused more ex- citement from the apparently surreptitious way in which they were made, than from their own importance. The Minute of Coun- cil in which they are embodied does, however, appear in one re- spect to concede too much to clerical authority. The uncontrolled power to decide upon the exclusion of books or dismissal of teachers on religions grounds, conceded to the clergy, may perhaps be de- fensible ; but no sufficient reason appears for vesting in the Bishop of the diocese and the Archbishop of the province an equal voice with the President of the Council in nominating the arbitrators who are to decide on questions of management which involve no religious element. This concession is calculated less to exempt Churchmen from the interference of Dissenters in the manage- ment of Church of Rneland schools, than to increase the power of the clergy over the laity of the Established Church in matters purely secular.
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