§ MR. J. G. PHILLIMOREsaid, he rose to ask leave to introduce a Bill "to take away from all Archbishops, Bishops, and Ecclesiastical Persons in England and Wales, all power of appointing Judges and Chancellors, and vesting such powers in the Lord Chancellor." The abuse which the Bill was intended to remedy had been repeatedly admitted as leading to the mal-administration of justice. Indeed, many instances of persons being completely ruined through the ignorance of those before whom they had to plead in the Ecclesiastical Courts had occurred. At present, if anything were to happen to one of the Ecclesiastical Judges, the person upon whom the appointment of his successor would devolve was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, however estimable for his attainments, could scarcely be held a fit judge of purely secular qualifications. Had he thought there was a chance of a comprehensive measure of ecclesiastical reform being carried, he never would have brought forward a Bill dealing only with a small detail of the question; but as the Session was likely to pass away, owing to the collision of interests, without the Government being able to carry such a measure, he felt bound not to let the opportunity pass without attempting to overthrow an abuse so universally recognised.
§ MR. HADFIELD, in seconding the Motion said, there were several Bills relating to the Ecclesiastical Courts now before Parliament, and he could wish to be informed in what position they stood. They appeared to be all at a deadlock. He should like to know the cause which obstructed their progress. There was at present an absolute failure of justice in the Ecclesiastical Courts. He trusted the noble Lord at the head of the Government would give some explanation on the subject.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, that with respect to the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend, he did not believe it was the intention of the Government, any more than it was, he apprehended, the wish of the House, to offer any opposition to it. To himself it was a matter of deep regret, that a crying evil which existed in this particular department of justice had remained as yet ineffectually remedied; as, indeed, it would have been, if the Bill introduced into the House of Lords had not met with an opposition that proved fatal to it there. He thought that the evidence collected upon the subject had 453 proved in the most the appointments hitherto made of Chancellors and other judicial persons, and nominated by the Archbishops and Bishops had been in many instances most unsatisfactory. The Government had, therefore, hoped that a measure framed in accordance with the opinions of a great number of gentlemen on both sides of the House would have been successful and passed into a law. However, for the moment that measure had been delayed. The Government, therefore, would be the last persons to oppose the introduction of a measure which went at all events to settle a branch of the question; and the more particularly as it would come under consideration simultaneously with the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill and the Divorce Bill. Besides, it was really absolutely necessary that something should be done to regulate such appointments for the future; because, by the passing of those measures, the source of revenue of those judicial officers would be altogether taken away. He should, therefore, not recommend any opposition being given to the introduction of the Bill of his hon. and learned Friend. With respect to the subject alluded to by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield), he certainly thought that if the hon. Member would turn over the record of their proceedings, he would find abundant reasons why the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill had not been proceeded with. He could undoubtedly testify that his noble Friend at the head of the Government had been always most anxious to facilitate the discussion of that measure. But the House would recollect how it had been occupied—let him hope it was in a manner unexampled—for the last two Sessions. It was, indeed, to be desired, that the House would now at length apply itself to useful legislation, instead of spending so much of its time in what he would venture to designate, unprofitable talk and discussion. It therefore lay with the House itself to determine whether, at the close of this Session, it would present to the country the same wretched catalogue of measures, only introduced to be abandoned, or whether it would address itself seriously to the work of legislation. At the same time he could assure his hon. Friend (Mr. Hadfield) that their time had not altogether been unemployed, for he was happy to say his hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly), who had charge of another Bill—he could not call it a rival Bill, as it only differed from his own in 454 one or particulars—had held repeated discussions with him, which resulted in to an their coming to an understanding with regard to, a measure, and that with a perfect unanimity of opinion, save in one or two particulars, as to which the House would have to determine. He believed, therefore, that the moment had come when they were about to consolidate those institutions, and remove the great abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts—a measure that had been desired for now upwards of thirty years. He hoped to carry a Bill to that effect during the course of the present Session.
MR. GLADSTONESir, I must confess that I have listened with some regret and some surprise to the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General. My hon. and learned Friend has lectured the House upon its habit of permitting its time to be wasted in idle talk upon matters of no general public interest, and gravamen of the offence of the House is, that it has not received with sufficient favour the Bills introduced by my hon. and learned Friend, or, what is really more to the purpose, that my hon. and learned Friend's conduct of those measures has not been received with sufficient favour to give an opportunity of bringing them under discussion. If this House will waste its time in idle talk and neglect the public business, I certainly do not know what right any one Member has to take upon himself to be the corrector of its faults and follies. In that respect it rather becomes us to recognise ourselves as joint sharers in the offence, and by no means to assume a position of such marked superiority, such exemption from common failings, and such distinction from the ordinary feelings of mankind, as is implied in the speech which has just been delivered by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He has laid the blame upon the House because the House has not passed his Bills with reference to Ecclesiastical Courts and Testamentary Jurisdiction, but I venture to put it to my hon. and learned Friend that the duty of the Government to this House and the country is not discharged by the simple introduction of Bills into this House, and that there is nothing by which a Government does more damage to the public service than when it consents to the introduction of Bills without any rational chance of their passing. Now, Sir, if there really be any one subject more than another upon which this observation is applicable it is the subject of these Ecclesiastical Courts, for the proceedings in one 455 year after another have taken a form so nearly identical that one can almost stereotype the speeches delivered there. Some hon. Gentleman gets up in the early part of the Session and declares that the Ecclesiastical Courts are no better than an Augean stable, and, in answer to him, either the leader of the House or one of the Law Officers of the Crown rises and, amid the most enthusiastic cheers, says they are no better than an Augean stable, and that it is time the Augean stable was swept. And certainly if any stable, Augean or otherwise, could be effectually swept by means of a torrent of abuse the Ecclesiastical Courts would have been swept long ago. But when the Bills come to be discussed, the Gentlemen who are so fond of introducing them immediately fall foul of one another. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General says the jurisdiction ought to become a Chancery jurisdiction. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL: No!] Well, the hon. and learned Gentleman is understood to say so. The hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Collier) says it ought to become a Common Law jurisdiction. Others say it ought to become a County Court jurisdiction. Others want a separate Court of Probate; in point of fact, quot homines tot sententiœ, there are about as many remedies as there are legal Members in the House, and that number in, it must be admitted, not a small one. What I really would point out is, that the case of the Ecclesiastical Courts for legislation is a very strong one. It is a case urgently calling for the attention of this House, but no good whatever can result from the annual introduction of Bills, some by private Members and some by the Government, until some Administration shall have applied its mind seriously to the subject, and, having determined that the question is a question to be dealt with seriously, and as a matter of urgency, shall endeavour to use the power it possesses in this House to carry some measure into effect. I do not think the present Administration—I am bound to say I am not aware the last Administration, or the Administration before the last, or the Administration before that, or any Administration before those, within my recollection—has ever seriously set its shoulder to the wheel in this matter; and really it is passing off delusion upon the country when you allow these speeches to be made, and make these speeches, and talk of an "Augean stable," and the determination to sweep it, when in point of fact there is no 456 such determination, and the whole view of the Law Officers of the Crown, or at any rate of those who direct the business of this House, is to earn some popularity by throwing Bills upon the table, to be pitilessly hustled and jostled amid the crowd and cram which we know our votes present as soon as the Session is at all advanced, without any rational hope of their being passed. Sir, I do sincerely hope that a serious resolution will be taken upon the subject of these Bills—that either the Government, if it cannot press them to an issue, will say so, or else take up the questions, present them in a form which contains the result of their mature deliberation, and obtain the judgment of the House. I certainly cannot avoid saying that my hon. and learned Friend has shown courage, though unfortunate courage, in referring to a Bill which I hoped had passed to its last repose—I mean a Bill which was introduced into another place for the purpose of amending Church Discipline. I do not think my hon. and learned Friend has acted with his usual judgment in passing a eulogium upon that Bill. At any rate the primâ facie appearance of the facts is not favourable to the measure. Now, how stand the facts? It was introduced and recommended by the authority of the Government. Upon the other hand, it was not made the subject of any party opposition. The opposition to that Bill was conducted in part by the Bishops, who form a very insignificant fraction of the House of Lords, and as to all the rest of that opposition it represented the opinions of Independent Members. The Bill received the organised support of the Government, but, notwithstanding the strength of the support and the weakness of the means of resistance, it was summarily rejected upon the second reading. I think it was a courageous act, therefore, for the Solicitor General, under those circumstances, voluntarily and gratuitously to pass a eulogy upon that Bill. I am afraid he would not accept my congratulations, or otherwise I should offer them to the hon. and learned Gentleman upon his having fortunately escaped, through that early destruction of the Bill, from the task which might have fallen to him of defending it if ever the fates should have decreed it to come down for discussion in this House. I must say, if I can at all estimate the state of opinion as to the views which would be taken in this House with regard to the creation of four Chancellors, each to dispose of a 457 cause and a half, at a moderate annual salary of £3,000, with a train of registrars, clerks, secretaries, and other officials, to aid in the discharge of that onerous business, the hon. and learned Gentleman has reason to thank his stars, because it is ordained that he shall not have an opportunity of proposing such a measure to the British House of Commons. One word upon this measure. The hon. and learned Member for Leominster has told us that there are three Bills already before us, none of which have got to a second reading, and that seems with him the main reason for introducing a fourth. I do not like making predictions, but as the three Bills already introduced have not got to their second readings, in all probability the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. J. G. Phillimore) will never get to its second reading. If it is the view of Her Majesty's Government that the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman should be introduced, I do not feel it my duty to resist the introduction of it. At the same time I am bound to say it is a Bill to the principle of which I hope this House will object entirely to give its concurrence. The hon. and learned Gentleman founds his Bill upon the fact—that temporal causes and matters are adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts, and adjudicated by persons appointed by bishops. Surely, the natural remedy is to take temporal matters out of ecclesiastical courts. In that way you pass from confusion to order. But the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes no such thing. He proposes, by way of mending matters, to thrust temporal judges into ecclesiastical courts, and thereby make confusion worse confounded. I believe the practice of this House is to give leave for the introduction of Bills, and the hon. and learned Member for Leamington delights in their multiplicity, as each supplies him with a separate grievance. I should be very sorry to stand between my hon. and learned Friend and his enjoyment. Therefore, by all means, let the Bill be introduced. But though I have been a long time coming to the point, the main reason for my rising was, that I did not gather from my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General—although I studied hard all that fell from him—what view Her Majesty's Government take of the principle of the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Leominster. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General said he should be very sorry to offer any opposition to the introduction 458 of the measure. Now, I want to know whether he assents to the introduction, from that courtesy which is often extended to professional men of allowing them to present their thoughts to the House in the form of a Bill, or whether he thinks the principle really sound and proper, that the cure for the evils of the ecclesiastical courts is to put temporal judges into them. [Mr. J. G. PHILLIMORE: They are in them already.] I do not want to raise a technical question with the hon. and learned Gentleman. The question we have to consider is, whether we will put in as judges persons appointed by spiritual authorities, or by the Lord Chancellor, the chief political law adviser of the Crown. I hope we are not to infer that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to adopt this left-handed manner of initiating ecclesiastical reforms. If we are able to get a serious issue taken, and a serious judgment upon these Bills, by all means let us proceed; but, if we cannot take that issue, let us be content to wait until we have the opportunity of doing so. At all events, I hope something will be done to prevent this incessant introduction of Bills without any adequate sense of their importance, which, whatever may be our intentions, has the effect of deluding the country, and, with regard to the ecclesiastical courts, raising hopes which are doomed to be disappointed.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONI do not think my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General has deserved the animadversions of my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford. My hon. and learned Friend did not rise in his place to lecture and admonish the House upon its proceedings, but to defend himself against the accusation brought against himself by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield), who desired an explanation why my hon. and learned Friend, having brought in certain Bills, had not made further progress with them. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield seemed to intimate some doubt of the earnestness of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General and of the Government in the cause of legal reform. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) has however, put words in the mouth of my hon. and learned Friend which he did not use. Now in the first place my hon. and learned Friend did not say that the House passed a great deal of time in idle talk. But he did say that the House passed much time in unprofitable talk, in which 459 opinion I certainly beg leave to concur. If any one will recollect the number of hours passed in conversation which leads to no result, there is, I think, nothing offensive to the House or unduly severe with regard to its proceedings in the statement of my hon. and learned Friend that a great deal of time is passed unprofitably in the discussions of this House. It is not the fault of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General that these measures have not passed, and one observation made by my right hon. Friend accounted entirely for the want of success with regard to the measures that have been produced. My right hon. Friend says that when hon. Members got up and complained of the abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and while those Courts are spoken of on all hands as "Augean stables" which ought to be purified, yet, that when measures are brought in, there is such diversity of opinion in the remedy to be applied that no progress is made in the correction of universally admitted evils. Why, Sir, that is precisely the state of the case, and that diversity of opinion is a sufficient reason why the measures to correct these evils have not been carried to a successful result. Now, I can assure my right hon. Friend that it is the earnest wish of Her Majesty's Government that these evils should be corrected. My right hon. Friend says, with great candour, that not only the present Government, but the Government to which he belonged and former Governments laboured under the same difficulty of finding measures of correction which should meet with the concurrence of all parties, and that was the cause why no practical amendment of the law has been carried. But it must also be recollected that the time of this House is occupied with a diversity of subjects, and that it is difficult for the Government, however anxious they may be to put forward a particular class of measures, to find an opportunity of urging on those measures. With regard to the measure of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. J. G. Phillimore) I am prepared to concur in voting for the introduction of the Bill, but in so doing I reserve the free discretion of the Government to judge of the provisions of the measure at a future stage. We do not pledge ourselves to anything further. But, with regard to the objection of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) that this Bill tends to reverse the evil, and not to correct it, and that, while you have at present the appointment of Judges with 460 temporal functions, but with ecclesiastical authority, the measure of my hon. and learned friend provides for the appointment of Judges of ecclesiastical functions with temporal authority, it must be borne in mind that the Judges of these Courts at present are not ecclesiastics, but are persons selected from the profession of the law. It is not unfair, therefore, to state as a primâ facie conclusion that the selection of persons to be taken from the legal profession should be vested in those who are conversant with the legal profession, rather than with those who cannot be supposed to be acquainted with the talents of the Members of that profession. There is nothing in that proposition which at the first blush seems unreasonable, and therefore I acquisced in the introduction of the Bill of my hon and learned Friend.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he should be very sorry to misrepresent the hon. and learned Solicitor General, but he thought he had used his exact words. He had, perhaps, said too much. He had no doubt his hon. and learned friend had exerted himself with great zeal, but the subject seemed to have been played with for a considerable series of years.
§ MR. MALINSsaid, he was very glad to hear the observations which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, and would have heard them with the more pleasure if he had followed them up by objecting altogether to the introduction of the Bill. Now, his hon. and learned friend the Solicitor General had complained most gravely that the several measures which he had introduced for the reform of our ecclesiastical jurisdiction had not met with the attention which they merited at the hands of the House; and that, although he had introduced a Bill in 1854, and another in 1855, and now a totally different one in 1856, he had never got to a second reading with any one of them.
§ MR. MALINSHis hon. and learned Friend said he had never, until the present Session, introduced such a measure. He, however, spoke of him as a Member of the Government, and he did not care whether it was to the hands of his hon. and learned Friend that the Bills he had alluded to had been actully entrusted. Could he deny, then, that the Government of which he was a member in 461 1854, introduced a measure of reform, in reference to which he (Mr. Malins) gave notice that upon its second reading being brought on, he should move as an Amendment, that the Bill "be read a second time that day six months." That Bill, however, was never put to the test of a second reading. He thought, too, that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not deny that in 1855 a Bill was introduced of a totally different character, and upon that occasion also he (Mr. Malins) gave notice of a similar Amendment, and that Bill likewise never came to a second reading, The plan of 1855 was to engraft everything upon the Court of Chancery. But what did the hon. and learned Gentleman propose this year? Not to engraft the jurisdiction upon the existing Court of Chancery, but to create a minor Court of Chancery for the transaction of the business of the Ecclesiastical Courts. Well, he rose now for the purpose of pointing out the gross inconsistency of his hon. and learned Friend in giving even the semblance of his sanction to the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Leominster. The Government had now before the House a Bill which it was proposed to read a second time to-morrow. That Bill proposed to abolish all the Ecclesiastical Courts of a testamentary nature. In addition to that there were two other measures now before Parliament, altering the law as at present administered by the Ecelesaistical Courts, the main object of all being wholly to abolish those Courts. A Bill had been introduced into the other House upon Church Discipline, and another Bill was to be brought in to-night in the other House, relative to matrimonial causes. If the Government had confidence in their own measures, what did they mean by giving their sanction to the introduction of a Bill which took away from the Archbishops and Bishops the power of appointing Judges and Chancellors in their own courts, and vesting it in the Lord Chancellor? Had his hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General) no confidence in being able to pass his own Bills? He believed that the difficulties which had always attended this question arose from the fact that, although measures had been introduced by a Member of the Government, they were not Government measures. The noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) had spoken as if the Bill before the House was a Government measure, and he should be glad to hear from him an assurance to that effect. 462 He believed that this important subject had never been properly deliberated upon by the Government, but that it had been left to the Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers of the Crown to deal with, and each had taken different views of it. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General had, with very little candour, endeavoured to trip, him up by impugning the accuracy of his statement that the hon. and learned Gentleman had brought in the Bill of 1854. He admitted that that statement was not quite correct, but the hon. and learned Gentleman might have remembered that that Bill was introduced by the Lord Chancellor of the Government to which he himself belonged. The fact he believed was, that the hon. and learned Gentleman disapproved the Bill of the Lord Chancellor in 1854, while the Lord Chancellor disapproved the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman in 1855, and, for all he knew to the contrary, it was possible that both the Lord Chancellor and the hon. and learned Gentleman disapproved the present measure. No satisfactory adjustment of this important question could be arrived at until it was taken into the deliberate consideration of a Cabinet, and that it had not been thus treated at present was shown by the course, adopted by the hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. and learned Gentleman, although he sanctioned the introduction of the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Leominster, could not be very confident of its success, for it was most inconsistent to give to any one the power of appointing Judges to Courts which were about to be abolished.
§ LORD JOHN RUSSELLI wish, Sir, to remind the House of the very great difficulty in which we are placed with regard to Bills of this nature. It is all very well for the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General to complain of unprofitable talk, for we are told that he did not say idle talk, but there are various subjects introduced into this House which must take up more less time, and, according to the feeling of hon. Gentlemen, one Member will regard the discussion of a subject as interesting while another may consider it to be idle. In the first place we have the Estimates for the year. It is the duty of the Government to bring forward those Estimates, and they naturally take up a great deal of time, and this year the Civil Service Estimates especially occupied many nights 463 discussion. Then, again, it is the natural and constitutional part of the Opposition to consider whether the Government have shown themselves in any way unworthy of confidence, and if they see any ground for so doing it is their constitutional duty to bring forward some Motion inculpating the conduct of the Executive. These undoubted functions of this House must and will be performed, and they naturally take up a great portion of our time, so that at the end of May or the beginning of June we come to the consideration of questions of great importance, of questions involving vast changes, and when we attempt to deal with all the details of those measures we find, in the House of Lords, as we naturally expect to find, some diversity of opinion existing with regard to details, and the result is that we come to the end of the summer and find that the only solution of the difficulty is, either to pass an incomplete measure which will have to be amended, or perhaps repealed at the commencement of the next Session, or else to give up the measure altogether. Now, Sir, I must say that this is a very unsatisfactory state of business. I do not mean to say that the time of the House is uselessly taken up by discussing matters like the present, but I think some alteration might be made in our mode of transacting business. The only serious proposition of that nature which I remember was made by Lord Derby, who, a few years ago, proposed a measure by which a Bill when it had arrived at a certain stage in this House, at the expiration of the Session should be permitted to advance from that stage in the following Session. That plan was opposed by Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Goulburn, and was generally unpopular, I was almost the I am quite sure, however, that there are other plans which we might adopt to avoid the difficulty of taking up important measures at the end of the Session, and endeavouring to settle intricate details between this and the other House of Parliament, at a time, too, when we are deprived of the assistance on legal questions of hon. and learned Gentlemen of the long robe, who are absent on circuit, and when the general attendance of Members is thin. As I have before said, we were at present driven to pass an important measure in an imperfect form, or throw it over altogether. I do not make these observations with a view of deprecating discussion upon the subject now before the House, but because I am convinced 464 that we must come to some other mode of conducting business. I do not see any objection to the introduction of this Bill, but I do not think that it will afford a complete remedy, for when Judges are appointed, the question will arise what functions are they to perform, nor do I think that it will make much progress. I trust that my noble Friend at the head of the Government will seriously consider the difficulties under which we discharge our legislative functions, with the view of preventing the introduction of measures of importance at a time when it is almost useless to attempt to consider them.
§ MR. WATSONsaid, he concurred with the noble Lord as to the disadvantage of introducing important measures late in the Session when so many of the Members of that House were engaged on circuit. He regretted to hear the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, and of the hon. and learned Member for Wallingford (Mr. Malins) upon a question of such importance as the Bill now under consideration. They ought to know that the combination of all reformers was required to do away with what was truly described to be the "Augean stable" of the Ecclesiastical Courts. They were not Courts of justice but Courts of injustice. The hon. and learned Member for Wallingford had, however, the obstructive power of stopping the progress of a good measure, as he had done last Session. Now he (Mr. Watson) believed the Government to be sincere in wishing to reform those Courts. All the lawyers in that House, with the exception perhaps of the hon. and learned Member for Wallingford, were of opinion that those Courts were the greatest nuisance in the country, and should be abolished. They were a portion of a wretched worn-out system which ought to be swept away. He would cordially support the Bill, and join heart and hand in devising an efficient remedy for the existing evil.
§ MR. MALINSsaid, he must deny that he had ever been an advocate of the Ecclesiastical Courts. On the contrary, he said let them be abolished by a Government Bill, founded upon the report of the Chancery Commission.
§ MR. WIGRAMsaid, he was sure that but one wish existed on all sides with reference to this subject; and the reason why such delay had arisen in the correction of the evil was, that the Government of 465 the day had, as it seemed to him, most unwisely and unnecessarily thrown over the excellent Report made by the Commission which had been appointed to inquire into the matter. In the members of that Commission the profession reposed the greatest confidence, and if their Report had been accepted the improvement of the Ecclesiastical Courts would not have met with opposition from any branch of the profession, and he believed that by the present time a measure on the subject would have passed. Next Session he hoped that a Bill founded on their Report would be brought in, and, if so, he believed it would be carried without any serious opposition.
§ MR. J. G. PHILLIMORE, in reply, said that in the absence of any larger and more comprehensive measure, the Bill he wished to introduce would remove the great anomaly now existing by which spiritual persons could appoint temporal Judges. He did not mean to say that this was all he wished to effect, but the removal of such a gross and flagrant anomaly would be a great step in advance. The nepotism of the Bishops was at the root of most of the evils complained of. To that system of nepotism he did not believe the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) was hostile; and he believed the right hon. Gentleman, with all the sophistry of which he was master, was endeavouring to deceive and mislead the House on the subject.
§ Leave given.
§ Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. JOHN GEORGE PHILLIMORE, Mr. WATSON, and Colonel FREESTUN.