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 LIBRA R.Y 
 
 OF THL 
 
 U N I VERS ITY 
 
 or 1 LLI NOIS
 
 /2 
 
 THE SUNDAY QUESTION. 
 
 A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1856, 
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO 
 
 SIR JOSHUA WALMSLEY'S MOTION 
 
 FOR OPENING THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE NATIONAL 
 GALLERY ON SUNDAYS. 
 
 EOUNDELL PALMER, 
 
 M.P. TOR PLYMOUTH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN HENRY and JAMES PARKER, 
 
 377, STRAND.
 
 ' A SPEECH, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I can assure the House that, in stating the reasons which 
 induce me to differ from the views of ray noble friend a , it 
 shall be my endeavour to avoid any observations calculated 
 to give offence to the supporters of this motion. I fully 
 share the satisfaction which has been expressed by my noble 
 friend, at the general tone of this debate; which, considering 
 the importance of the subject, and the great interest felt in. 
 it out of doors, has certainly been conducted in a most dis- 
 passionate manner. There is one point in which I am sure 
 that the satisfaction which we feel will be shared by our con- 
 stituents ; namely, that no speaker in favour of the resolution, 
 from the mover to the noble lord who has just sat down, 
 (with the single exception of the hon. member for North 
 Lancashire 1 ',) has hesitated to acknowledge, in terms as strong 
 as any which its opponents could use, the incalculable value 
 and importance to society of the great institution, the out- 
 works of which this motion invites us to displace and destroy. 
 We cannot fix our eyes too steadily upon the enormous in- 
 terests which society has in maintaining that inestimable 
 institution ; and, whether we look to its physical, political, 
 and. economical, or to its moral advantages, we shall find, 
 them So great, that, for the sake of either class of benefits, 
 almost any sacrifice of minor objects may well be made. 
 What are the physical and economical advantages? Tliey 
 are, that each seventh day is withdrawn from that arduous 
 
 * Lord Ebrington, the previous speaker; who supported Sir J. Waluisley's 
 motion. 
 
 b Mr. Heywood.
 
 labour of body and of brain which would otherwise wear out 
 the physical and mental powers; that man is rescued from 
 his toil for the purpose of refreshing and husbanding his 
 powers, so that every week he may recommence his work 
 with renewed and invigorated energy. This is the physical 
 benefit ; and no man can venture to say how much of the 
 successful industry, how much of the wealth, how much 
 even of the greatness of this country, is due to the con- 
 tinual supply of strength which is chiefly maintained by this 
 important institution. But the moral benefit is infinitely 
 greater. The consecration of this day to God withdraws man 
 once a-week from the contemplation of secular and earthly 
 things, and invites him, with a call which every man must 
 hear, though all may not regard, to remember his eternal 
 interests, — to recollect that he is a spiritual being, with an 
 immortal soul, and that this world, its pleasures, its labours, 
 its objects, and its gains, are not the only things for the sake 
 of which he has been born into the universe. That is the 
 greatest of all the benefits which this institution confers upon 
 man ; and its observance has received the sanction of national 
 law in such a manner as to become the main sign, and sym- 
 bol, and pledge, of public national religion, — the solemn testi- 
 mony in favour of Christianity which the associated body 
 called our country and our nation bears to the world. Who 
 can calculate the influence exercised upon all who come 
 within its sphere, of such a testimony, borne by the public 
 legislation of the country, in favour of higher objects than 
 those to which the mere appetites of man invite him ? 
 
 But on what foundation does the regard paid to this insti- 
 tution ultimately rest? Undoubtedly not on our legislation, 
 however important (as I will presently shew) that may be; 
 but on the conviction entertained by all Christian people, that 
 there is a higher law than ours which has consecrated this 
 day, and that there is a necessity laid upon all who know 
 that law to obey it. But for that conviction on the part of 
 the religious body of the people, no human law, for setting 
 apart so huge a portion of time from ordinary employments, 
 could be maintained for an instant. I discard entirely, as 
 irrelevant to the practical question which we have now to 
 
 ? U!UC
 
 determine, all that has been said about variances of opinion 
 between this and that eminent individual in present or 
 former times, or between this and that Christian body at 
 home or abroad, as to the precise grounds, the exact theory, 
 the ecclesiastical or theological history of this institution. 
 Granted that there are such differences, they all result in the 
 same general testimony to the fact — state it as you will, 
 derive it from what historical source you please — that this 
 obligation, resting upon religious sanction, is imposed as a 
 religious duty ; and all ministers of the Christian religion 
 throughout the world, whether Roman Catholics, — who place 
 the obligation on ecclesiastical grounds, — or members of the 
 Church of England, or of any of the Protestant communities, 
 — who regard it as Scriptural and Divine, — all agree that it 
 is a moral obligation, resting upon higher grounds than any 
 which can be derived from mere temporal sanction. To 
 whom, then, ought we to appeal in forming a practical judg- 
 ment on this particular question, — whether the change now 
 proposed has or has not a tendency to undermine the insti- 
 tution, to take away its force, to invite men to disregard and 
 neglect it? Surely the appeal lies to the deliberate judgment 
 of those on whose conscientious belief the institution itself 
 rests ; to those members of the community who represent 
 the religion of the country. I do not say all, but to the 
 general body : and who can deny that there is a general tes- 
 timony of all the religious bodies of the country, of the great 
 majority of the religious men of the country, to the belief 
 that if we introduce the innovation now proposed, Ave shall 
 be removing really valuable outworks from that institution? 
 Let the House take the testimony, rely upon the judgment, 
 of those on whose convictions ultimately the institution itself 
 rests, and not think that this is a mere outcry got up by in- 
 terested classes, or by ministers of religion on professional 
 grounds. No doubt ministers of religion have been zealous 
 and active in obtaining petitions to this House ; but will any 
 one seriously pretend to say, that upon such a question as this 
 the religious instructors of the people ought to remain passive 
 and silent; that this is a question with which they have no 
 legitimate concern ? If they are more active than others, the
 
 6 
 
 reason no doubt is, that they know better than others what 
 the interests of religion really are, and how far those interests 
 would be practically affected by the success of the present 
 motion. 
 
 Sir, I have said that this institution rests essentially and 
 fundamentally upon the religious principles and convictions 
 of the people. All, however, admit that civil legislation is 
 necessary to secure to the people the benefits which they 
 derive from it; and the reasons why civil legislation is neces- 
 sary are important to be borne in mind, that some of the 
 fallacies which have been advanced in support of this motion 
 may be exposed. Legislation is necessary because, if the 
 law of the land did not interfere, the pressure of competition, 
 the pressure of want, and the pressure of power between man 
 and man, would be so great that, although many might and 
 would resist, others would not, and could not, maintain in 
 their own favour that exemption from the necessity of toil 
 which they are able to do with the assistance of a general 
 law. Persons of minds not absolutely well settled in religion 
 would say, " My neighbour trades, — I must therefore trade, 
 or I shall be left behind in the race." Then the power of 
 the employer over the poor would come into play. If em- 
 ployers had a right to require labour, how few of the poor 
 could resist, without its being prejudicial to their temporal 
 interests ! We could not expect a majority of the employed 
 to withstand that pressure, and the strong arm of the law 
 therefore comes in for their protection. The noble lord, the 
 member for King's Lynn c , admits this protection to be right 
 in principle ; he acknowledges it to be a fit subject for legis- 
 lation ; but he thinks there is no danger of any encroach- 
 ment in this direction : and he appeals to the success of the 
 early-closing movement, and of the movement for a half- 
 holiday on Saturdays, as proofs that masters have no wish to 
 extort undue labour from those whom they employ. But the 
 fallacy is in speaking of masters as a body. Doubtless many 
 masters would abstain from doing so ; and many of the 
 employed would submit to real hardships rather than forego 
 their duty and their day of rest; but we cannot say that of 
 
 B Lord Stanley.
 
 all. Most men are the safer for being protected against 
 their superiors, their fellows, and themselves. If we enable 
 the pressure to be laid on by those who are willing and dis- 
 posed to use it, no one can say that, because under the 
 present system there is a generous and liberal feeling on the 
 part of a majority of masters, we shall not have too many 
 masters taking advantage of any relaxation to pursue it 
 further, and too many labourers whose necessities will com- 
 pel them to comply. But on this point I have a concession 
 from the noble lord. Talking of the labour of persons em- 
 ployed in the British Museum, with that consideration and 
 liberality which were to be expected from him, the noble 
 lord said he would not compel any to lose their situa- 
 tions if their consciences led them to refuse to work on a 
 Sunday; but the noble lord added, there would be very few 
 of them, and if they chose to go away, it would be easy to 
 supply their places. What does that prove ? Why, that in 
 the opinion of the noble lord, at all events, the temptations 
 to Sunday labour, if they were permitted to be held out, 
 would be too strong for the majority of mankind ; that if the 
 outworks which now fence them in were removed, the re- 
 sistance of the labouring population would not, in his view, 
 be so very powerful, so self-supporting, as to be of itself a 
 sufficient safeguard against the irruption of a flood which 
 might sweep away all existing securities for the day of 
 rest. And when we consider the situation of that class who 
 have been more especially the subject of observation in this 
 debate, — how poor many of them are, what families they have 
 to maintain, with what difficulty they eat the bread of care 
 and labour, — I can imagine that much more affecting and 
 more moving arguments might be constructed in favour of 
 the right to be allowed to labour for additional bread on 
 Sunday, than any now offered in favour of recreation and 
 amusement. The moment we displace one inch of ground 
 which labour has gained from Sunday, see what resistance 
 we have to encounter ! Only last year, the noble lord, the 
 member for Middlesex 11 , at the instance of no inconsiderable 
 body of persons engaged in the trade of this metropolis, 
 
 d Lord Robert Giosvenor.
 
 8 
 
 introduced a bill which had for its object the restraint of 
 Sunday trading within narrower limits than at present. The 
 noble member for King's Lynn, and also the noble lord who 
 spoke last, both thought it right to support that measure : 
 but labour having once got that inch of ground, the attempt 
 to reclaim it led to disturbances j and the bill was abandoned, 
 under circumstances not creditable to the Legislature. Does 
 not that prove, that if once we remove the landmarks, it 
 will be difficult, if not impossible, to stop the progress of 
 encroachment ? 
 
 The example of foreign countries has been referred to in 
 the course of this debate ; and, though it may not in all re- 
 spects be in point, something may undoubtedly be learnt 
 from them. I have no wish to make invidious remarks upon 
 the morals of other nations, or to indulge in boastful com- 
 parisons between them and ourselves ; I would rather, as far 
 as possible, look at what is good in them, and at what is 
 amiss (for the sake of correcting it) in ourselves; but cer- 
 tainly, in the investigation of this particular question, whether 
 relaxations of the kind now proposed would have a tendency 
 to deprive the people of their day of rest, we may reasonably 
 consider how the principle of relaxation works abroad. In 
 France, what do we see on Sunday? Not only are more than 
 half the shops opened, but elections and reviews take place 
 on Sunday; in fact, there is no protection at all for the 
 labourer, no such thing as a day of rest ; and that is felt so 
 strongly, that a decided reaction is now taking place, pro- 
 moted by the Roman Catholic clergy. I recollect that when, 
 some years ago, I visited Rome, I remarked that the manuer 
 in which the Sunday was observed at Rome was very much 
 like the way it is observed in England, except, perhaps, that 
 the observance was even more strict. They did not open the 
 Vatican Museum on Sunday; they did not open the picture- 
 galleries ; and, though I will not venture to speak positively, 
 I believe that when I was at Florence, at Milan, and at 
 Venice, it was not possible to enter any of the public picture- 
 galleries or museums on Sunday. Wherever the influence of 
 the Christian religion is felt, — I care not in what form, — in 
 proportion to the influence it exerts, there is a tendency to
 
 establish a rule like that we are now asked to dispense with ; 
 and wherever it is broken in upon, there is a tendency to 
 take from the people the day of rest, and encroach upon 
 their exemption from labour on that day. 
 
 Another argument of the noble lord e , and a very fallacious 
 one, is the favourite argument of consistency. The noble 
 lord says, — " See what you allow now. How can you justify 
 that without going on and allowing this?" The noble lord 
 is far too able a man not to know that in all these questions 
 there must always be a debateable ground. We must have 
 a line drawn somewhere. It cannot be drawn with perfect 
 theoretical accuracy ; but there is no great practical harm as 
 long as it is so drawn as neither to offend nor corrupt the 
 public conscience. I am not going to justify the theoretical 
 consistency of everything allowed now, nor to say that, ab- 
 stractedly, I can define the line between things indifferent 
 and things evil; it is naturally different in different countries, 
 according to the habits and the feelings of the people; but, 
 although I do not feel called upon to vindicate the perfect 
 consistency of all that is done, if I can prove that some 
 general principles guide our legislation, I shall be satisfied. 
 The State does not interfere with the sphere of private 
 actions ; it leaves men to themselves. They may compel 
 their servants to do ordinary household work ; they may 
 take out their carriages if they please; no man judges them 
 for that. The State also declines to interfere where it is 
 impossible, without an inconvenient inquisition, to distin- 
 guish between unnecessary labour and works of necessity or 
 charity. For instance, if all travelling were stopped by rail- 
 ways or other conveyances, no man could tell what works of 
 charity and necessity might be prevented. Not long since 
 much public feeling was excited because a lady of eminent 
 rank was unable, on an affecting occasion, to travel in Scot- 
 land to visit her parent, and the law, taking notice that such 
 things must occur, has left that matter to private rather than 
 public regulation. Whether this is right or not, whether it 
 is carried too far or not, I do not say ; I only want to point 
 out that a reason which is intelligible can be assigned for 
 
 • Lord Stanley.
 
 10 
 
 this state of the law : but that is no reason why we should 
 open public institutions, which do not belong to the spheie 
 of mere private action, and as to which no occasion of neces- 
 sity or charity can intervene. So as to parks and gardens, — 
 the walking in public or private gardens is not only perfectly 
 innocent, but has a direct and manifest beneficial tendency, 
 without any tendency towards desecration. But when we 
 are asked to go further, and by public authority to open 
 national institutions, and invite people, upon purely secular 
 grounds, to resort to them as places where they may obtain 
 a high intellectual enjoyment, we are asked to take a distinct 
 step towards the secularization of the day, — to make an en- 
 croachment upon the principle of the institution, not only 
 objectionable as an encroachment, but also because it is 
 manifestly incapable of being limited to the particular in- 
 stances proposed for the first experiment. The hon. gentle- 
 man who made the motion does not mean so to limit it ; he 
 would be prepared to vote next year, if this resolution were 
 carried, for the opening of the Crystal Palace. The hon. 
 gentleman near me (Sir J. Shelley) distinctly expressed the 
 same intention. The noble lord opposite (Lord Stanley) 
 also said that this was a very small matter, and avowed that 
 the object was to obtain a larger field. 
 
 Before I conclude, I should wish to glance (I will do so but 
 shortly) at two other arguments which have been used in the 
 course of the debate. The first is among the most popular of 
 the noble lord's arguments ; and it has much plausibility. 
 It is, that positive benefit is to be expected from the resort of 
 the people in general, especially of the working classes, to 
 places of intellectual enjoyment. Now I value as highly as 
 the noble lord docs, the utility of mental cultivation of every 
 kind ; but I think the noble lord cannot have meant to 
 assert that the cultivation to be derived from going to 
 museums or picture-galleries is so very important as to be 
 worth any sacrifice of principle. 1 admit the innocence, the 
 excellence, of that and of every other kind of intellectual im- 
 provement ; but what is it that constitutes its excellence? 
 Why, its due and proper subordination to moral improve- 
 ment. The devil has been defined as Intellect without prin-
 
 11 
 
 ciple. Anything that tends to impede moral for the sake of 
 intellectual improvement is as mischievous as the due culti- 
 vation of the intellect is good. The noble lord also said that 
 the Museum would come into competition only with grosser 
 excitements, and not with religion or with the Church. That 
 is the other argument which I wish to notice. I fear there 
 is a sense in which that proposition is not correct. I will not 
 stop to enquire to what extent it is probable that the attrac- 
 tion of such objects as these would draw away from churches 
 and chapels persons who might otherwise go there ; nor, on 
 the other hand, how far it is really likely that the most de- 
 graded and vicious portion of society would feel the attraction 
 of such objects at all. Bat — it is useless for the noble lord 
 to deny it — if we, by public authority, assert in the face of 
 the people, that it is a fit thing to invite the working classes 
 to a place of secular amusement, however refined, or of secu- 
 lar instruction, however excellent, upon a day hitherto con- 
 secrated to religion, we shall be putting intellect into com- 
 petition with religion, and in that way putting the Museum 
 into competition with the Church. It has been said that 
 these pursuits are means of education ; so they are : the 
 noble lord on a former occasion said they might even be a 
 part of religion; so they may, in their places: we know that 
 there are men who can 
 
 " Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything ;" 
 
 but the men who see good in everything are men penetrated 
 with religion. That refers us back again to the religious 
 part of the community. If, then, the religious part of the 
 community are asked whether the changes at which the sup- 
 porters of this motion aim are calculated to promote the 
 interests of religion, and whether they desire that those 
 changes shall be accomplished, will not the general, almost 
 the universal reply, from all classes, from the cottage to the 
 throne, be, " No, no ? " The religious part of the people have 
 other views as to this day, and mere intellectual cultivation 
 has not for them the charm on this which it possesses on 
 other clays. There is a higher mode of educating the minds
 
 12 
 
 and the consciences of men, of elevating the moral sense of 
 the nation, than the multiplication of any means of intel- 
 lectual improvement. That mode is to hold up to them 
 and to keep before them, firmly and consistently, by public 
 authority, a standard of sound moral principle by which they 
 ought to abide. All who have had any experience as to the 
 source and origin of crime throughout this country will tell 
 you, that, on the scaffold and in the gaol, hundreds and 
 thousands have attributed their lapse into crime to the 
 original fault of what is popularly called Sabbath-breaking; 
 and all these will readily concur in bearing testimony to the 
 fact, that the law which upholds the institution of the Chris- 
 tian Sabbath does more to educate and maintain a sound 
 moral sense in a Christian people, than all the museums and 
 picture-galleries in the world.