Commons Sitting of 30 March 1854

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Piers and Harbours (Scotland).
3° Income Tax.

RIGHTS OF NEUTRAL VESSELS— QUESTION.
MR. HEADLAMsaid, he wished to ask whether upon a Russian vessel being sold to avoid a capture and purchased bonâ fide by a neutral having notice of the cause of the sale, the sale would be recognised by the British fleet, in the event of the vessel continuing to be navigated by a Russian crew, or in the event of the vessel after the sale being navigated by a fresh crew of neutrals?
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I observe, Sir, that notices of several questions to be

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put to me upon this subject stand upon the paper for to-day. I stated, on a former occasion, in reply to a similar question, that a declaration or a proclamation in some form would be issued by the advice of the Ministers of the Crown when a declaration of war was made. That promise has been fulfilled, and such a declaration has been issued. The questions that may be asked on this subject appear to me to be either questions relating to points of law upon which opinions can be given, or questions relating to points of law which are very doubtful. With respect to the former class of these questions, the Attorney General or the Solicitor General, when they are in the House, will be happy to give any information calculated to be useful to the public; but, with regard to the other class of questions, it is obvious that it would be very improper for any Members of the Government to give answers to questions which might afterwards become the subject of controversy in the courts of law, where their opinions might be overruled. If my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General thinks it consistent with his duty to do so, I have no doubt he will answer the questions which have been put by the hon. and learned Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: In answer to the first question, I beg to say, Sir, that the view I take is this—that the sale of a Russian ship to a neutral for the purpose of avoiding capture, if it were a bonâ fide transaction, would undoubtedly be protected by law. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Headlam) asks the question generally, and also with reference to the circumstance, that if a vessel thus sold might continue to be navigated by a Russian crew. If the transaction were really bonâ fide, I think that would not make any difference, although it might raise a suspicion as to the bona fides.
MR. MITCHELLsaid, he could not quite catch the answer of the noble Lord the Member for London to the hon. and learned Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Headlam), but at any rate he felt it his duty to put the questions of which he had given notice, because they were of the utmost importance to the traders of the country, and because it was only fair that they should not be in the dark as to the real condition of matters. It was necessary, however, before putting his questions, that he should make some explanatory remarks—[Cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Order!"]
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It would be otherwise absolutely impossible for him to make his questions understood. A deputation of Russian traders having waited upon the Foreign Secretary ten days ago, in consequence of that interview they received a letter, dated the 25th of March, from the Foreign Office. In that letter it was distinctly intimated that the rights of the service would be claimed with regard to neutral vessels. Now, in the declaration issued on the 28th, that was three days later, the rights of the service with regard to neutrals were waived. He considered, therefore, that it was only right to ask whether the letter from the Foreign Office, or the declaration, was to be acted on by persons in trade. But leaving that point, what he wished, in the first place, to know was, whether an enemy's property on board neutral vessels was liable to seizure, unless it were contraband of war; whether the same privileges were to be extended to Russian produce the property of British subjects; and whether the same privileges of bringing over that produce of the enemy from a neutral port was to be extended to British vessels, or whether they were to be placed in a different position? Secondly, he wished to ask whether it would, on its arrival in this country, be liable to seizure? And thirdly, what articles would come under the head of "contraband of war?" for, he begged to observe, that the greatest doubt prevailed in the public mind as to what articles could be considered such.
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, as his hon. Friend was not content with the answer which he had already given, he would endeavour to give him a better one. He thought that the hon. Gentleman in some degree misapprehended the effect of the recent declaration. It had never been intended to give up altogether the right of search in regard of neutral vessels. It was quite impossible to surrender the right of seizing neutral vessels which might be carrying either the enemy's despatches or articles contraband of war. That was a right conceded by the law of nations to every belligerent power. What the declaration did give up was, the right to seize in neutral vessels enemy's goods, which, by the common law of nations, we had a right to seize. With regard to the question what was contraband of war, that, certainly, was a question he could not take upon himself to answer. It was one of the most difficult and complicated questions that rose under the law of nations. He

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might be allowed, however, to state, for the information of his hon. Friend, that a recent most able treatise on international law, which occupied thirty-four closely-printed pages, substantially classified contraband of war under two heads—first, such things as from their very nature were applicable to the purposes of war, such as arms and ammunition; and, secondly, such things as were capable of being applied to other purposes besides those of war, but which might be intended for the furtherance of war, such as provisions. With regard to the question whether Russian produce was to be considered liable to seizure on board neutral vessels, the answer was this:—It was clear, by the law of nations and the law of the land, that the subjects of a belligerent Power had no right to claim an immunity. If Russian property should be purchased and become bonâ fide the property of British subjects prior to the commencement of war, or if at the commencement of the war it should be purchased bonâ fide from neutrals, it would be protected and not liable to seizure. But if it should be, directly or indirectly, by colourable pretexts, purchased from subjects of the enemy with whom British subjects were prohibited from dealing, it would not be protected, and was liable to be captured.
MR. PRICEsaid, he begged to ask the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) whether Russian produce, being bonâ fide British property, will be exempt from seizure in neutral as foreign property will be in neutral, or neutral property in foreign vessels? And whether any arrangement will be made by which letters of licence will be granted to neutral or British vessels to bring away Russian produce, being now bonâ fide British property, notwithstanding any blockade of the harbours in which such property may be lying?
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I make no doubt, Sir, that British produce on board neutral vessels would not be liable to seizure. As to the latter part of the question, regarding letters of licence to neutral or British vessels to bring away Russian produce, I should say that with regard to British subjects who might be in the Russian territories or ports. arrangements are in contemplation whereby, on those persons coming away in neutral vessels, they will be enabled to pass, notwithstanding any blockade. But as regards Russian produce, no such arrangements are in contemplation.

QUARANTINE REGULATIONS IN GIBRALTAR—QUESTION.
MR. RICARDOsaid, he wished to ask the hon. Under Secretary for the Colonies whether the regulations, by which vessels arriving at Gibraltar from Great Britain are placed in quarantine, are the independent act of the Governor, or in pursuance of instructions from the British Government; and whether he would lay on the table any correspondence which might have taken place on the subject either between the Governor of Gibraltar and the Spanish Government, or between the English and Spanish Governments, or between the British Government and the Governor of Gibraltar?
MR. FREDERICK PEELsaid, that the regulations to which the hon. Gentleman referred were not imposed by either the Governor of Gibraltar or the Government of this country, but by the Board of Health, consisting of several persons in Gibraltar acting under an Order in Council; and the reason was that Spain had placed Gibraltar in quarantine because Gibraltar would not place England in quarantine. This state of things continued for some time, to the great inconvenience of the inhabitants, who suffered severely by the want of provisions, and to afford temporary relief the Board of Health did place this country in quarantine. A person, however, had been appointed to inquire into the circumstances and to report thereon. As to the papers asked for, the hon. Gentleman could have them whenever he liked to move for them.

THE ARMY—SOLDIERS' WIVES.

  THE WIVES AND FAMILIES OF SOLDIERS ORDERED FOR SERVICE IN THE EAST.
  COLONEL HARCOURTsaid, he rose to move for returns of the number of married women belonging to each of the regiments ordered on foreign service. It was his apprehension that the public sympathy might be exercised in a manner prejudicial to the discipline of the service, as it made no distinction between those who had married with leave and those who had married without. It was provided by the regulations that no soldier should be enlisted who was a married man—that no soldier, when enlisted, should marry without the leave of the commanding officer—and that if any soldier should marry without leave, he should not enjoy the same privileges as those who married with leave. The sympathy of the

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  public had been greatly excited on behalf of the wives and children of the soldiers who had just gone on foreign service, and in some cases that sympathy had not been manifested with sufficient discrimination. He would take the case of Hawkins, the wife of a man in the Scotch Fusilier Guards. That man was married a year before he entered the service, but he declared himself to be an unmarried man, and the circumstance was not known until it was recently stated in the newspapers. The wife of this man was placed now in a better position than even the wives of those who married with leave. It had been reported that she had received in charitable subscriptions from 20 l. to 50 l. Now, he asked the House, was this the best mode of distributing charity, or rather, was it not one of the worst that could have been had recourse to? Much sympathy had been shown in this case, but their fair countrywomen had not shown a similar sympathy upon other occasions, when it was quite as much needed. Where was their sympathy for the wives and children of those soldiers who had been sent to quell the rebellion in Canada—or those who had been sent to India to maintain our Indian Empire—or those who were sent to Affghanistan—or those who were sent out to the Kaffir war? Even at this present moment there were two regiments fitting out for India, and he would ask whether public sympathy was not to be shown towards the women and children who would thus be left behind, and who were in just as much distress as the others? The fact was, that the wives and children of our soldiers, who were left in a necessitous condition on such occasions, ought not to be left to individual charity for their support, but should be relieved in some permanent way as a national burden. The hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), who used to be considered by the service as anything but the soldiers' friend, had expressed his opinion, at a recent public meeting, that the wives and children of soldiers should be left as legacies to the country's charge. Such sentiments did the hon. Member great credit, and he hoped the hon. Member would support any measure brought forward by which a permanent provision was established to meet the distress engendered among the dependents of the soldiers by such a state of things as the present. Before he stated the suggestions he wished to make to the
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  House, he would, with permission, read a letter on this subject which he received from an officer commanding in the southwestern district. [The hon. and gallant Member then read the letter, in which it was stated that the charitable contributions towards soldiers' wives would be productive of consequences fraught with evil, unless they were dispensed with care and with discrimination.] Much misconception prevailed on this subject. The writer also alluded to an alleged statement of the hon. and gallant Member for Portarlington (Colonel Dunne), who said that the "fearful increase of married men" in the Army was in a great degree the result of the encouragement of commanding officers. His (Colonel Harcourt's) own experience taught him that, so far from commanding officers encouraging soldiers to get married, it was the occasion of much anxiety and annoyance to them. When the soldier was married, his earnings were often so much devoted towards the support of his family, that he became himself actually debilitated from want of nutritive food, and was obliged to go back to his mess. While upon this point, he could not help calling the attention of the Government to the very great evil which would be entailed upon all places where barracks were situated and upon all points of military embarkation, if the whole of these families of soldiers were, by the new Non-Removal Bill, to be thrown upon the parishes in which they were left. He could not, for instance, conceive a greater evil than would be entailed upon Portsmouth, where, in the course of a few years, perhaps, half the regiments in the service passed through on their way abroad. Another injustice created by the existing army regulations was, that while regiments, upon embarking for any of our Colonies, were allowed to be accompanied by the lawful wives of the men, in the proportion of six to every 100 men, including non commissioned officers—the wives receiving half and the children quarter rations—when a regiment left for active service abroad the embarkation of women was curtailed, and no provision at all was made for the support of those left behind, except that money was given to enable them to proceed to their homes. Now, he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War, that upon the occasion of all regiments going abroad, whether for active foreign service, or for colonial service, some allowance

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  should be granted to the soldiers' wives, supposing no women were allowed to accompany the regiment—and that the six women, with their families, who would have been entitled to go out with their husbands, should receive the same allowance as if they had actually gone out—namely, half and quarter rations. He did not think the wives of those men who had married with leave of their commanding officers, and who had gone out to fight their country's battle, should be sent to the workhouse, and he did not see where there would be any room for imposition if relief were given to them, at the public expense, on a permanent footing, upon the production of a proper certificate from the commanding officer of the regiment. He felt it as a duty to the profession to which it was the pride of his life to have had the honour to belong, to bring this matter forward; and, if by the few observations he had made, any benefit accrued to the service, and the soldiers who had just gone out felt that their families at home were not neglected, it would be to him a matter of the highest satisfaction.
  MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, he had no objection to the production of the returns for which the hon. and gallant Member had moved; but as there might be some difficulty in getting these returns accurately, perhaps the hon. and gallant Member would have no objection to the introduction into his Motion of the words, "so far as can be ascertained." He, to a great extent, agreed with the observations of the hon. and gallant Member. There was no doubt that an indiscriminate charity applied to the families of the soldiers ordered abroad would lead to very mischievous results. He had been in communication with some military men and others, by whose efforts a subscription for their relief had been originated, and he was happy to find that those gentlemen, from their practical experience on the question, were perfectly aware of the difficulties which beset the subject, and were disposed to administer the relief which the subscriptions at their disposal would enable them to afford, under regulations which he trusted would prevent the evils that might otherwise be anticipated. He believed that they had strictly adhered to the rule of recognising a distinction between the wives of those soldiers who had married with leave and those who had married without leave; and, having been put in communication with the depôts, they had
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  been able to procure returns of the number of men married in the various regiments, and what the peculiar circumstances attending each case were, so far as they could be ascertained. It was the intention of these gentlemen, he understood, not to break through the rule of refusing relief to women marrying without leave, except in peculiar cases, where it would be an act of great inhumanity not to administer such relief. He thought the hon. and gallant Officer was under a mistake in his reference to the circular issued from the War Office on the occasion of the departure of the troops, as that circular made no change in the regulations, but was merely a summary of the existing regulations under which the wives are removed at the public expense to the parishes of their husbands. In the case of the soldiers who were quartered at Chobham, rations had been issued to the wives of soldiers left behind in the various localities by the regiments stationed there; but this had been done for the simple reason that it was a much cheaper process and more convenient for the public service, that the wives and families of soldiers should be rationed in the barracks from which the regiments had been marched, than that the quite unnecessary expense of sending them back to their parishes should be incurred. With regard to the proposal for establishing regulations whereby soldiers' wives should receive half rations, they not being allowed to accompany their husbands, he must inform the hon. and gallant Member that it was of importance to the troops that some women should accompany them, seeing that there were many things which could not be so well done without their assistance. He should be afraid, moreover, to establish a rule the effect of which might be taken to be that soldiers' wives should be always supported at the public expense. The rule of sending out six women to every 100 men had, he thought, better be maintained, as they were, as he had just stated, of use to the troops in washing and other matters, and would, no doubt, rather be sent out than be left at home. He might state that he was still engaged in making inquiries upon the subject, and endeavouring to ascertain whether some method analogous to that which was in use in the Navy might not be adopted with regard to the Army, and whether married soldiers could not be enabled to support their wives in their absence from home. There was, however, this difficulty in the case of the

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  Army—that the soldiers' pay was smaller than the pay of the seamen, and his expanses were also greater, so that the surplus left to send home in the two cases was very disproportionate. He must guard himself against undertaking to adopt the system proposed by the hon. and gallant Member, but there was no doubt that anything which would tend to the encouragement among soldiers of marrying without the usual permission would lead to a great multiplication of those evils which were inseparable from any military system.
  COLONEL LINDSAYsaid, that a difference in the regulations on this subject between the Horse Guards and the War Office led soldiers to suppose that the rules existing with regard to those men who married without leave were not carried strictly into effect, and thus soldiers were induced to marry without obtaining the necessary leave. The only difference between soldiers embarking on this expedition and those who embarked upon regular colonial service was, that, in the present instance, two women less to every 100 soldiers were allowed to embark and were rationed, and instead of knowing for months beforehand their destination, they were in the present case hurried off at a very short notice. The number of women generally allowed to every 100 soldiers was six; but in the present case only four were allowed, and he should like to know from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War if rations were to be continued to be allowed to the women left behind. He thought that, as the system of limited enlistment would shortly come into operation, it was worth while to consider the expediency of making some new regulations with regard to the marriage of soldiers. If a soldier under the new system, enlisted when he was eighteen years of age, he would be entitled to his discharge at the age of twenty-eight, and there were very many persons in different situations of life who were not able to marry before they were thirty years of age. He was decidedly of opinion that it would be advantageous to adopt some rules which should have the effect not only of discouraging the soldier from marrying without leave, but also of increasing the respectability and comfort of those who had married by leave of the proper authorities.
  Return ordered,
  "As far as can be ascertained, of the number of Married Women belonging to each of the Regiments ordered on Foreign Service, the numbers
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  who are married with, and the numbers married without leave; and the number of children."

RESIGNATION OF MR. BAINES—

  PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS.
  MR. BAINESsaid: I beg leave to request the attention of the House for a very short time, while I state some circumstances relative to my connection with the office of President of the Poor Law Board, and my present position with regard to that office. I fear it may be necessary that I should enter into some little detail, but I can promise that my statement shall be as short as possible. When I introduced the Settlement and Removal Bill, I had framed it, as regarded the leading principle of the Bill, exactly in accordance with the recommendations of the Select Committee of this House which sat in 1847. It was framed so as to be confined to the abolition in England and Wales of the power of removal on the ground of settlement. When I introduced the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole) inquired whether it referred at all to the removal of Irish paupers from England and Scotland to Ireland. I stated very distinctly in reply, that the measure did not refer to that subject at all, and that it was confined to removals within England and Wales on the specific ground of settlement. A few days afterwards, I made a statement precisely similar, upon a Motion brought forward by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire). When the Settlement and Removal Bill had arrived within a few days of the second reading, it appears that a memorial, numerously signed by Irish Members of this House, was presented to the noble Viscount at the head of the Home Department, in which, after referring to the Bill before the House, the memorialists prayed that this opportunity might be taken of "placing the Irish pauper in England on precisely the same footing as to removal with the English pauper in England." That was the distinct prayer of the memorial. A communication was soon afterwards made to the memorialists, that "in the opinion of the Cabinet, the wish of the Irish Members ought to be complied with." That decision was taken, and was communicated to the memorialists, before I heard of it at all. Undoubtedly, as the head of the Poor Law Board, and also as the person having charge of this Bill, in which I took a deep and most sincere interest, I cannot deny that, when I first heard of this communica-

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  tion, I felt hurt and mortified. A little reflection, however, satisfied me that no personal discourtesy to myself was intended by those from whom I had never received anything but courtesy and kindness, and with whom I have always considered it a high honour to be associated. Even if I had not arrived at that conclusion, I hope I should have known my duty better than to allow myself, at a time like the present, to be driven from an important public office by any feeling of personal annoyance and vexation. But, Sir, I felt that there were some other considerations, not quite so easily to be disposed of. It appeared to me that I was likely to be placed in a situation of the greatest difficulty with regard to the future discharge of the duties of my office, and also with regard to the interests of this Bill, which, rightly or wrongly, I have very earnestly and conscientiously at heart. I had, myself, seen deputations from various boards of guardians, and had been questioned by them distinctly, whether the Bill would affect the removal of Irish paupers from England, and I had stated to those deputations that, so far as I was concerned, the question of those removals should not form any part of the present measure. I thought myself fully entitled to give that assurance after what I had myself stated twice in this House, and especially after what had been stated upon the same point by the noble Earl at the head of the Government in the House of Lords. It became evident, however, in the debate in this house on Monday last, that the Irish Members construed the answer which they had received to their memorial into a pledge on the part of the Government, that this Bill should be so moulded at some subsequent stage as to contain a provision abolishing the removal of Irish paupers; and it became obvious also, that other Members adopted the same construction. Now, with regard to the whole question of the removal of Irish paupers from England and Scotland to Ireland, my opinion was and is, that that question is not yet ripe for legislation. I have no doubt that the present law is in an unsatisfactory state; but I think that information as to the practical working of this law in the three kingdoms is still wanting, and that the public mind is not yet sufficiently informed and matured for legislation upon the subject. The Select Committee of 1847, in the course of their inquiries, touched upon it incidentally, and only incidentally, and they came to no
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  resolution with respect to it. I think that before satisfactory legislation can take place with respect to these removals of the Irish, many facts must be ascertained, as well as the bearing of those facts upon the several systems of Poor Law established in England, Scotland, and Ireland, With these opinions, and under the circumstances which I have described, I could not help thinking that if I retained office, my character and efficiency as a public servant would be greatly endangered, and that the interests of the Settlement and Removal Bill might be irretrievably injured. Acting upon these grounds, and, I beg to assure the House, upon these grounds only, I sent on Tuesday last to the noble Earl at the head of the Government my resignation of the office of President of the Poor Law Board. In the course of the same day, I received from him a most kind letter, one passage of which (with his permission) I will read to the House. The noble Earl wrote to me:—
  "I very sincerely hope you may be induced to reconsider the decision at which you have arrived. At all events, I hope you will agree to suspend the execution of your present intention until it be seen whether anything can be done to remove the difficulties connected with the present state of the measure to which you refer."
  Upon the receipt of this letter, I reconsidered the whole case very anxiously, and, as a man's own feelings under such circumstances are perhaps not a very safe guide, I determined to refer the matter to the judgment of two persons, whom I am proud to call my friends, a noble Lord and a right hon. Gentleman, both of them as distinguished for political and personal honour as any men in this country. The question I put to them was this:—Looking to all the facts, and to the correspondence which has taken place, are you of opinion that I may retain my office without injustice to my own character and efficiency as a public servant, and without disadvantage to the interests of this Bill? That noble Lord and right hon. Gentleman favoured me with their opinions, and on those opinions I have acted. I communicated the result to Lord Aberdeen on the following day, and I will read (again with his permission) a passage from the letter which I wrote to the noble Earl:—
  "As your Lordship is pleased to express an opinion that serious inconvenience to the public service would be occasioned by my retirement at present, and as I find that the friends with whom I have confidentially advised upon this subject

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  consider that I may remain, without injustice to my own character, I beg leave so far to qualify the decision which I had formed yesterday, as to adopt the suggestion kindly made in your Lordship's note, remaining in my office for the present. I feel, however, that I must request permission to renew the tender of my resignation hereafter, in case I find that I am unable to acquiesce in the ultimate decisions of the Government with regard to the Settlement and Removal Bill, and the other questions connected with it."
  Such, then, is the position in which I now stand. I hope I have not gone very wrong in all this; it has been my sincere desire to be quite right. The whole matter, however, is now before the House, and I leave it to their candid consideration.
  MR. FRENCHsaid, that as one of the Irish Members by whom the memorial which had been referred to was signed, he begged to assure the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) that those who had the care of that memorial had not the slightest intention of casting a slight upon him by not sending it direct to his office. They considered it more advisable to send it to the noble Lord at the head of the Home Office, in which it must be remembered that there was an Irish as well as an English department. He did not understand the noble Lord (Lord Palmerston) to promise that any changes should be made in this Bill in order to deal with the Irish part of the question; but only that the Government would bring forward that subject in their own way. As the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) had given it as his opinion that there were not in existence materials on which to deal with this part of the subject, he (Mr. French) might remind him that there might be in the Irish department, which was entirely distinct front his own, materials on which the noble Lord the Secretary for the Home Department might be able to form an opinion. He was glad to hear that the services of the right hon. Gentleman were to be preserved to the Government of the country, and he could assure him that the Irish Members had not meant to cast any slight whatever upon him.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I am sure, Sir, that the House will be of opinion with me, that no man who has any knowledge of the personal character and high feelings of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines), can question that whatever course he, upon full consideration, might think it right to pursue, was other than the course which he and those who might advise hint might think most consistent with his private honour
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  and public character. I am rejoiced that the decision of those by whom he has agreed to be guided has been such as he has just pronounced, for I can assure him that those who have the happiness to be his Colleagues in the Government would have considered it a great misfortune for them and for the country to have lost the benefit of his exertions in the very important department with which he has so beneficially for the country been connected. Sir, I am sure that it is unnecessary for me to say that in the transaction which led to the doubt upon the mind of my right hon. Friend, nothing could have been further front the thoughts of any of those who had anything to do with them—I speak most particularly for myself—than to do anything which could for an instant have impressed upon the mind of my right hon. Friend the idea that there was, on the part of his Colleagues, the slightest want of that regard and respect for him, individually and officially, to which he is so justly entitled. I happened to be at the time confined to the house by indisposition, and my communication with my Colleagues was therefore in writing. The moment I got the decision I communicated with my right hon. Friend as well as with those from whom the application came; but so far from its being the intention of the Cabinet, as I understood, that any change should made in his Bill, I distinctly stated that I requested my noble Friend opposite the Member for Tyrone (Lord C. Hamilton) to communicate with my right hon. Friend as to the best manner in which the object sought could be accomplished. I never for an instant considered that it was essential that the change with regard to the Irish paupers should be made in the Bill which my right hon. Friend had brought in for English paupers. On the contrary, I was always sensible that there were a variety of circumstances which might, on the one hand, render necessary fuller information before any measure could be devised, or which might require that the measure should be one entirely distinct from that already introduced. In conclusion I can assure the House of the satisfaction which the Government has derived from the decision to which my right hon. Friend has come; and I am sure the country will concur with us in thinking that it would be a great misfortune at any time, but more especially at the present moment, to lose the valuable services of my right hon. Friend.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, that it was with surprise and with great regret that lie had that morning read the announcement of the resignation of his right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board. It would be in the recollection of the House that when the present Poor Law Board was framed, in lieu of the old one, they were told that they were to have in that House a Minister to whom they might apply—a great and important person, not to be treated like the Mere subalterns of Government, and kept in ignorance of all its decisions. The House would also recollect the scenes that used to take place with the Home Department, then responsible for the administration of the Poor Law, which seemed to be thoroughly sick of Somerset House, and but too happy to vest the whole power in regard to the relief of the poor in the hands of an officer who was to be one of Her Majesty's Ministers, and to have a seat in that House. Now, he thought that the explanation which had been given by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston) was not satisfactory to the House, even if it were so to the right hon. Gentleman; for the right hon. Gentleman had not been treated with the consideration which he (Mr. Duncombe) maintained was due to him on so important a subject as the non-removal of Irish and Scotch poor in connection with the Bill which he had laid on the table of the House. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he had received various deputations on the subject of his Bill, and he (Mr. Duncombe) was aware that he had received deputations from nearly all the largest parishes in the metropolis—from St. George's-inthe-East to St. George's-in-the-West—and he was also aware of the kindness with which the right hon. Gentleman had always listened to what had been advanced by those deputations, and though the right hon. Gentleman had differed with them upon many of the opinions which they urged against his Bill, yet he had received them with so much kindness and urbanity, and had replied to them with so much frankness and openness, that he had gained the esteem and respect of all such deputations. Upon the honour of the right hon. Gentleman in this matter there was not the slightest imputation. No one supposed that he discussed this question with the deputations upon false premises, when he said that there was no chance of the abolition of the removability of the
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  Irish and Scotch poor being included in the future policy of the Government. He little dreamed, any more than did the deputations, that there were these flirtations going on between Tyrone and Tiverton; that there was this Irish cloud hanging over his head. It was impossible that his Bill, or anything like his Bill, could apply to the case of the Irish and Scotch poor. Now, we were told that there could be no reflection upon him, because it was intended that there should be three Bills upon the subject. Why, what bungling legislation must this be. If we were to have one system of legislation, let us have one law which would apply equally to all the people throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland. Therefore, he thought this was no answer. What he particularly wanted to say, however, was, that he thought the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) had entirely vindicated himself from every charge or imputation of keeping back anything from the deputations which waited upon him. The right hon. Gentleman had been placed in a painful and false position, and so had that House, and so had those deputations which had had interviews with him on this subject, and so also had the public, and it was totally impossible that the House could discuss this question upon the limited view of the case that the Government suggested. Why, they were playing Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted, when they wanted to discuss this question of the removal of the poor on grounds connected with England and Wales only. The framework of the Bill must be entirely altered if they did not mean the poor of Ireland and Scotland to be removed; and if non-removal with regard to the poor of the three countries was intended, the whole question had better be postponed till next Session, that the Government might have time to make up their mind upon it. He (Mr. Duncombe) had great pleasure in learning that the right hon. Gentleman had at all events delayed his resignation; but, come his retirement whenever it might, the Crown would lose in him a most efficient Minister, and the poor a most sincere and considerate friend.
  MR. PACKEsaid that, as the success of a Motion he had made in reference to the Settlement and Removal Bill might have been instrumental in inducing the right hon. Gentleman to take the step he had announced to the House, perhaps he might be permitted to express the satis-

  79
  faction he felt, in common with the rest of the House, at the honourable course pursued by the right hon. Gentleman; and he begged to add his testimony with regard to the ability, industry, assiduity, great courtesy, and kindness with which the right hon. Gentleman had discharged the duties of his office.
  COLONEL DUNNEsaid, the frankness and courtesy invariably displayed by the right hon. Gentleman in his intercourse with Members on both sides of the House induced him to join heartily in the general expression of congratulation at the right hon. Gentleman's return to office. The real question, however, was, not the resignation of the right hon. Gentleman, but whether the Government were not, at the present moment, placed under the necessity of either breaking faith with the Irish Members or of differing from the right hon. Gentleman? They had been told that the claim to place the Irish pauper on the same footing as the English was irresistible, and he felt perfectly confident if the Bill passed for England without any provision in it for the Irish pauper, no Bill would be passed for Ireland. Could any Member of the Government give a guarantee that a Bill for Ireland would be passed? He would appeal to the noble Lord opposite (Viscount Palmerston), who was so popular among Irish Members, whether he had any hope of passing such a Bill? He would not appeal to common sense, because the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) the other night objected to such an appeal being made in reference to any Government measure which the Irish Members felt justified in opposing.
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, as the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) has appealed to the sense of the House in this matter, it may, perhaps, not be considered impertinent on my part if I assure him that, so far as I can collect the feeling of hon. Gentlemen who sit on this side of the House, the right hon. Gentleman has made a statement which, in every respect, has left his honour untarnished. I also congratulate the House and the country on the right hon. Gentleman's resumption of that office which for a moment we believed that he had quitted. The manner in which he has discharged the duties of that office is, I believe, such as to entitle him to public confidence; and I am sure it has won for him the regard and respect of every Member of this House. I believe it may be
  80
  said, moreover, that the right hon. Gentleman has caused the administration of a most unpopular law to be treated with respect by the country. Sir, I may also, perhaps, be allowed, as I am upon my legs, to state, on my own part, that when I heard it this morning, from a quarter which is now recognised as authoritative, though not so much so, perhaps, with regard to those individuals of subordinate rank as with respect to those who have the honour of sitting in the Cabinet, and who occupy a still more exalted position—I must say I did not feel that complete despair which I know was experienced by hon. Gentlemen who sit on both sides of this House with respect to the retirement of the right hon. Gentleman; for it is a very remarkable circumstance that within the space of much less, I believe, than twelve months, no fewer than five Members of the present Administration have felt it to be their duty to resign their offices, and have almost immediately returned to their posts. In the last spring there was a Lord of the Treasury, an officer of the Irish Government, and a Clerk of the Ordnance, who created considerable alarm by suddenly quitting the posts to which they had only just acceded. We had not recovered from the tremors of the spring, when in the autumn again something occurred of a still more appalling nature, although of the same kind, and a statesman retired from office whose retirement not only occasioned great consternation in this country, but throughout all Europe, and whose prolonged absence of three days from office may have, indeed, very unfavourably affected the negotiations which were then pending, and which have terminated in a most just, but, I believe, most unnecessary war. Now, Sir, we have been just threatened with the loss of one of the most respectable Members of the Administration; and certainly, had the country been deprived of his services, it would have been a circumstance which, I think, would have universally been to be deplored. Well, in all these cases, these five Members of the Administration no sooner vacated office than they returned to it. Sir, I have no objection to that; but what I would suggest to Her Majesty's Ministers would be, that some machinery should, in the course of the recess, be devised by which these internal bickerings might be terminated without their being made patent to this House and to the country. If these internal bickerings could not be reconciled, of course it would be-

  81
  come a painful necessity that they should be made known to the world; but when we find, as is invariably the case, that from the preponderance of good feeling which exists among the present Members of the Administration, reconciliation can always be secured, does not the House think it would be more desirable that some machinery should be devised by which these painful expositions might be avoided. A court of arbitration would perhaps be difficult and doubtful; but it might be tried. In the present case, it appears that a noble Lord and a right hon. Gentleman have been successful, much to the satisfaction of the House, in inducing the President of the Poor Law Board to retain his office. I do not know who those persons are, and, perhaps, from their politics, they might not in general form the best elements for a court of arbitration; but the youngest bishop, or some other individual of great authority, might exercise that very beneficial influence which the country must desire to see exerted, in preventing a repetition of these scandalous exhibitions of discord. There is a very celebrated diplomatist, Sir Hamilton Seymour. He is not engaged at present, and it might be desirable that it should be understood that either the youngest bishop or some retired diplomatist of eminence should, in such cases as I have glanced at, be referred to as arbitrators. I make this suggestion in the most friendly spirit, and, if acted on, it might prevent the repetition of scenes which all must deplore, and which the Government must feel at this moment, notwithstanding their strength, to be rather awkward.
  Subject dropped.

  INCOME TAX BILL.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: I rise, Sir, pursuant to notice—
  "To call the attention of the House to the circumstances which have led to the proposed increase of the Income Tax, and to the intentions announced by Her Majesty's Government with respect to defraying the expenses of the war."
  I do not intend to offer any obstruction to the progress of the Bill, or to oppose time imposition of the tax in question, for a longer time than the few moments which I shall feel it necessary to occupy in the observations which I deem it my duty to address to the House on time subject. At this moment, and more especially after the notice given for to-morrow by the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell), I feel that
  82
  our first duty is to give our best support to the Crown. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in making his financial statement, stated that the ordinary revenue of the country would be insufficient to defray the extraordinary expenses of the war, which had already become certain; and he, therefore, proposed that, in order to liquidate this expense, that the income tax should be doubled. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman's proposal only extended to the current six months in time first instance, but, under all the circumstances, I think I am justified, on the ground of simplicity in the argument, in speaking of the income tax as being doubled. The right hon. Gentleman was, however, aware that in seeking to double this tax he was imposing on the country a tax which, on his own authority, and his own showing, was unequal; and which, moreover, was oppressive and inquisitorial in its nature. The House, nevertheless, offered no objection to it. The hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham (Sir H. Willoughby), on a former evening, certainly moved an Amendment, which, under any other circumstances, would have been a fair subject for proposal; but, under existing circumstances, it was deemed unadvisable to press that Amendment to a division, and the House, therefore, acceded to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, I may almost say, without discussion, but unquestionably with the earnest desire to avoid any, the least appearance, of hesitation, in complying with the demands of the Crown to carry on the evidently approaching. war. We are hardly free, therefore, under present circumstances, to consider the effect of the plan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because the attention of foreign nations is at this moment directed to all our proceedings, and I, for one, should be exceedingly sorry that any act of ours should offer the slightest appearance of opposition, or not prove that, whatever may be our party differences, they do not deter us from acting as one man, in granting the supplies to enable the Crown to carry on the war with that vigour and that spirit which are the characteristics of this country. But having fulfilled the duty which we owe the Crown on this occasion, we owe a duty also under the present circumstances to those whom we represent, and that duty must be discharged in the same manner. Looking, then, to the objectionable nature of this tax, and to the whole circumstances at-

  83
  tending the financial arrangements of the right hon. Gentleman, we are called on to inquire and consider, not, perhaps, whether an increased income tax is required for the expenses of the war, but whether the management of the finances of the country by the right hon. Gentleman during the past year has not been such as to lead to the necessity of this increase at this particular time. Many persons will ask if the war is the sole cause of this obnoxious impost? I believe it can be traced further back, and that the real cause of the doubled income tax arises not from the impending war, but from the mismanagement of the finances of the country for the last twelve months by the Government, and that the reason—the real reason—why the country is called on for it, is because we are about to commence a war with an empty Exchequer. And why is the Exchequer empty? It is empty, in the first instance, because of the financial operation by the right hon. Gentleman at the commencement of last year; and, in the second, because of having brought down to the House in April last what I may fairly call a peace Budget, when the Government was in possession of information which—I will not say positively, but in all human probability—proved to them that a war with Russia was at least imminent. With the view of showing this, I request the attention of the House while I enter on a review of the financial circumstances of the last year, and I hope I shall be pardoned for referring to the past for the purpose of pointing out how it affects, and may further affect, the future of this country. The right hon. Gentleman has explained to the House how he proposed, at least for a time, to defray the expenses of the coming war. The right hon. Gentleman has told the House that he proposes to rely upon direct taxation for his chief resource, and only to recur to indirect taxation as a last resource. Looking at the present career of the right hon. Gentleman, and the nature of the tax which is dealt with, I think I ant justified in endeavouring to show the House that the state of public affairs was such when the right hon. Gentleman brought forward his Budget, that he ought at least to have taken a different view of the subject. There was nothing to justify him in anticipating a continuance of peace, and, therefore, he ought then to have guarded most carefully the existing resources of the country. In order to show the House the
  84
  information in the possession of the right hon. Gentleman when he brought forward his financial scheme of last year, it will be necessary for me to refer to the papers which have been laid before the House on the Eastern question. But in so doing I have no intention whatever to raise any debate upon the Eastern question; on the contrary, it is my intention and my wish to avoid such a debate. I wish simply to state to the House the financial circumstances under which this increase of the income tax has been called for, and I shall carefully avoid entering into the general policy of the Government on that question, and avoid entering into the answers of Her Majesty's Government to the several despatches to which I shall have occasion to refer. The first of these despatches is that addressed to the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell) by Sir Hamilton Seymour. It is dated January 7th of last year, and was received on the 19th of the same month. I beg the House to bear in mind the dates:—
  "Orders have been despatched to the 5th corps d'armée to advance to the frontiers of the Danubian Provinces, without waiting for their reserves; and the 4th corps, under the command of General Count Dannenberg, and now stationed in Volhynia, will be ordered to hold itself in readiness to march, if necessary.
  "Each of these corps consists of twenty-four regiments, and, as your Lordship is aware, each Russian regiment is composed of three battalions (each of about 1,000 men), of which one battalion forms the reserve.
  "General Luders' corps d'armée, accordingly, being now 48,000 strong, will receive a reinforcement of 24,000 men soon after its arrival at its destination, and supposing the 4th corps to follow, the whole force will amount, at least according to official returns, to 144,000 men."
  Here is a clear intimation of an order for the despatch of 144,000 men to the frontiers of Turkey, besides a statement of further reinforcements. The next I shall refer to is one of those remarkable papers called the "Secret Papers." It is the first on the list, is dated the 22nd January, and it refers to a conversation which Sir Hamilton Seymour had held on the 14th of the same month with the Russian Emperor, just seven days after the date of the despatch I have just alluded to. The Emperor said:—
  "For my part, I am equally disposed to take the engagement not to establish myself there (at Constantinople)—as proprietor that is to say, for as occupier I do not say. It might happen that circumstances—if no previous provision were made, if everything should be left to chance—might place me in the position of occupying Constantinople."

  85
  Further on, in the same letter, Sir Hamilton Seymour says:—
  "The Emperor assured me that no movement of his forces had yet taken place, and expressed his hope that no advance would be required."
  This statement of the Emperor of Russia, that no movement of his forces had yet taken place, might be consistent with the statement made a week previously by Sir Hamilton Seymour, for, though orders had been given for the advance of 144,000 men to the Danubian Provinces, it might be that the troops had not then moved. Nevertheless there was such a discrepancy between the two despatches as ought to have attracted the attention of the Government. The next despatch in question is that which adverts to the conversation of February 21. It was received in March, and it refers to a conversation which took place at a party at the Hereditary Grand Duchess's, and is as follows. The Emperor said:—
  "I repeat to you that the sick man is dying; and one can never allow such an event to take us by surprise. We must come to some understanding; and this we should do, I am convinced, if I could but hold ten minutes' conversation with your Ministers—with Lord Aberdeen, for instance, who knows me so well, and who has full confidence in me, as I have in him."
  He repeated this in such a manner as led at once to the conclusion that if the sick man did not die of his own accord, it would only be because he was to be killed. Sir Hamilton Seymour in that despatch expresses his own opinion to that effect; and I beg the attention of the House to the warning given by him to Her Majesty's Government in putting the only construction upon this act of the Emperor of Russia which common sense will admit in the matter. Sir Hamilton Seymour, in the same letter, says:—
  "It is hardly necessary that I should observe to your Lordship, that this short conversation, briefly but correctly reported, offers matter for most anxious reflection.
  "It can hardly be otherwise but that the Sovereign who insists with such pertinacity upon the impending fall of a neighbouring State, must have settled in his own mind that the hour, if not of its dissolution, at all events, for its dissolution, must be at hand.
  "Then, as now, I reflected that this assumption would hardly be ventured upon unless some, perhaps general, but at all events intimate, understanding existed between Russia and Austria.
  "Supposing my suspicion to be well founded, the Emperor's object is to engage Her Majesty's Government, in conjunction with his own Cabinet and that of Vienna, in some scheme for the ultimate partition of Turkey, and for the exclusion of France from the arrangement."
  86
  Here is a distinct warning, a clear construction, and an explicit statement fairly communicated to Her Majesty's Government. What followed? On the very same day the Government received this note they also received another despatch dated the day after—namely, the 22nd February, from Sir Hamilton Seymour; and in that despatch they are informed that his anticipations are actually fulfilled, for that in a conversation which he had held with the Emperor of Russia the next day, that Sovereign had thrown out those proposals for a partitioning of the estate of the dying man which he had suggested was in his intention, and that he offered Egypt and Candia as the spoil for England. The next despatch is one to be found in the old series of papers, those just published, and it explains the reasons of Colonel Rose for demanding that the British fleet should be sent from Malta to Vourla. He wrote thus:—
  "Constantinople, March 7, 1853.
  "The Grand Vizier said that the Russian Government evidently intended to win some important right from Turkey which would destroy her independence, and asked me to request the British Admiral to bring up his squadron to Vourla Bay from Malta.
  "Feeling the intimate conviction that if the Sultan were not supported on this occasion, he would call to his councils a Ministry selected under Russian influence, I informed His Highness that I would tell your Lordship that I felt convinced that the safety of Turkey required the presence of the British squadron in those writers. M. Benedetti said the same as regards the French squadron.
  "But these assurances did not tranquillise the Grand Vizier's mind; he thought that Turkey would be lost before an answer could arrive from England and France.
  "The Russian Government had not kept faith with Her Majesty's Government; instead of withdrawing or allowing her troops to be stationary, she had advanced them up to the Turkish territory, ordering provisions for those troops in the Turkish provinces, without having ever declared or stated her cause of complaint against the Porte to the Porte—a thing unheard of amongst and contrary to the rights of civilised nations; she was taking other warlike measures, maritime as well as military, on a very great scale, unmistakeably with the view of overcoming Turkey's independence, or making war on her."
  This was received on the 29th of March by Her Majesty's Government. The next despatch was one from Consul Yeames, received by the Government on the 11th of April:—
  "I beg leave to refer to my letter of the 4th instant, and I have now to inform you that the movements of the 5th corps have of late been hastened, so that the three divisions of infantry are to be assembled in the positions described before the end of

  87
  the present month (O. S.). It is in particular to be observed that the 14th division, as well as the 13th, is prepared for an expedition by sea. The troops, including the officers, are to carry rations for four days, and knapsacks for the officers are now made for that purpose. I hear there is to be no baggage further than can be thus carried, and no horses will be embarked. …. Great exertions continue to be made by the Admiralty at Nicolayeff and Sebastopol to have everything that can swim ready for sea."
  I come now to two despatches received on the 15th of April, the one from Colonel Rose. The writer says:—
  "Prince Menchikoff, as I learnt yesterday (March 30) from the Grand Vizier, has tried to extract a promise from Refaat Pasha before he made known to him the nature of his mission and of his demands, that the Porte shall snake a formal promise that she will not reveal them to the British or French representatives."
  The next and last despatch he would refer to was one from Vice Consul Cunningham, which was received on the same day:—
  "Galatz, March 28, 1853.
  "I have to inform your Lordship that fresh orders have been received in Bessarabia to prepare for the passage of troops, and to get waggons ready for the transport of baggage.
  "It is said, and such appears to be the case from the amount of preparation ordered, that two corps d'armée, upwards of 120,000 men, will pass, and waggons are ordered to be ready for the 10th of May (O. S.).
  "Whenever orders are given to make preparations, the greatest secrecy is enjoined.
  "Hitherto no troops, in addition to the five battalions mentioned in my last, have entered Bessarabia, but it is understood they are marching forward from all directions."
  I shall trouble the House with no more extracts. Those I have given refer to the information in the hands of Her Majesty's Government when the right hon. Gentleman made his financial statement. They commence on the 7th of January and end on the 15th of April. They begin by informing the Government of the advance of 144,000 Russian troops to the Turkish frontier, they go on to the secret proposals of the Emperor, they show the alarm Prince Menchikoff's declaration had caused at Constantinople, they repeat the failure of proposals, and inform them that the whole time the Russian troops are advancing in all directions upon the Turkish provinces. The last extract is dated April 15—the right hon. Gentleman proposed his Budget on the 18th of the same month; and the Government was therefore in possession at that period of all the information which I have now read. The question I would ask is this, could the Government, knowing these facts, shut their eyes to the real state of things, or
  88
  avoid seeing that in all human probability, if this country was not to become a party to the iniquitous partition of Turkey, which had been proposed, we should inevitably be involved in a war with Russia? I think I am justified in putting this alternative. Was that a moment, therefore, for a prudent and patriotic Minister, holding the high office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, to come down to this House with financial proposals, the real tendency of which was to weaken and impair those national resources that, under the circumstances in which the country was placed, it was his first and most imperative duty to guard with unparalleled jealousy? It was, however, at that moment that the right hon. Gentleman undertook a financial operation, which might, perhaps, have been well enough in a period of peace with an unclouded future, but which with war imminent and the future enshrouded in darkness could not fail to act as a serious drain upon the resources of the country. What has been the result of this operation? The balances in the Exchequer, which every prudent Minister retained against the occurrence of adverse contingencies, were altogether exhausted. In an annual paper put forth by the statistical department of the Board of Trade I find the balances of the Exchequer for the last twelve years. I pass over the years 1840, 1841, and 1842, because the country was only just then labouring under the effect of the alterations which had been made in her tariff, and struggling to emerge from the financial difficulties which they had created. What was the policy of Sir Robert Peel, the financial predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman? The balance of 1843 was the lowest in amount of these balances, because the country had only just begun to recover in its finances; but this and the other balances were as follows:—

  1843

  …

  …

  …

  £4,716,000

  1844

  …

  …

  …

  6,254,113

  1845

  …

  …

  …

  8,452,090

  1846

  …

  …

  …

  9,131,282

  1847

  …

  …

  …

  8,457,691

  1848

  …

  …

  …

  8,105,561

  1849

  …

  …

  …

  9,748,539

  1850

  …

  …

  …

  9,245,676

  1851

  …

  …

  …

  8,381,637

  1852

  …

  …

  …

  8,841,822

  The latter was the amount when my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Disraeli) resigned the office of Finance Minister of this country. At the commencement of this present year the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had reduced the balance one-half—the amount

  89
  in 1853 being 4,485,230 l. I feel myself justified, therefore, in saying, as I have done on a former occasion, that this country is entering upon a war with an empty Exchequer, and that that is one of the main causes of the heavy tax which the right hon. Gentleman has imposed on the country. I will not, however, dwell longer on the subject of the financial operations to which I have adverted. This part of the subject was amply dealt with the other evening. It was severely, and, I am sorry to say, justly censured in a former discussion. I now propose to turn to the plan submitted by the right hon. Gentleman in the peace Budget, when he brought it forward under the circumstances to which I have alluded. I have a right to complain, and the country has a right to complain, that the war involves us in an obnoxious impost—that the income tax is to be doubled for the first part of the year—not that the people would object to any amount or kind of impost in the prosecution of a just war—but I am bound, in justice to the country, to maintain that this obnoxious impost ought not to have been reverted to if by any prudent course such a step could be obviated. The right hon. Gentleman had dealt with the finances of the country during the past year under circumstances which were not justifiable, and I am confident that if the House had known, and the country had known, what we know now, and Her Majesty's Government did know then—if we had known the state of the negotiations, and the almost certainty of coming war, we should not have passed the Budget of the right hon. Gentleman, or have allowed him to endanger the resources of the country to the extent he has done. I am always unwilling to embitter discussion by personal altercation, and no one is less disposed than I am to make personal imputations on a Gentleman for whom, whatever my political differences with him may be, I have always had private esteem. But I will appeal to the right hon. Gentleman himself to say whether the proposal made to us in the Budget of 1853 was perfectly fair and ingenuous under the circumstances in which it was made. The right hon. Gentleman came down to the House to ask us to renew the income tax fur seven years. When he made the proposal he frankly avowed that the income tax as he proposed it was an
  unequal tax. He told us frankly there was one particular class in the country which was called upon to pay 9d. in the
  90
  pound on property, while all other classes would only pay 7d. in the pound, but he accompanied this announcement with this proposal—he said, if you will adopt the income tax for seven years, I will only ask you for 7d. for the first two years, 6d. for the next two years, and 5d. for the remaining three years, after which the income tax will cease. I admit that when the right hon. Gentleman was asked whether the income tax would really expire at the end of seven years, he took very good care not to involve himself in his reply to any great extent. But certainly the House did not then know he had in his possession information, in virtue of which information, and as a natural result of that information, the income tax before twelve months were expired would be doubled. It was now fourteen pence in the pound. And I think the right hon. Gentleman will hardly deny, if the House knew the state of our foreign negotiations—known then to Ministers—that they would not so readily have fallen in with the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman, and given him an income tax for seven years on the faith of a proposition that the income tax was gradually to lessen, and in seven years should altogether expire. It would have been more candid, more generous, and more becoming his high personal character, if the right hon. Gentleman had frankly told us the state of European affairs, rather than to hold out a hope that the income tax would expire at any given period; and that if the necessity should arise—though he told us there was a difference between the amount paid by the land and that paid by other classes of property, the difference being somewhere about 22 per cent—to increase the tax, that its inequality should be remedied. The right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, do this side of the House the justice to recollect, that although he had himself admitted that incomes derived from land and houses paid a much higher tax than other descriptions of income—a difference amounting, as he had just stated, to 22 per cent—and, although the agricultural class had long suffered under the injustice of paying upon the gross rent, while others paid only upon the net rent, yet they made no objection to going on with the tax upon the condition of having only to pay the income tax for the period which he proposed. But I will say, if the right hon. Gentleman was looking forward to increase the income tax, as he ought to have done, because afford-

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  ing the means to pay the expenses of the war, being aware that the income tax was always regarded as essentially a war tax, and if made a war tax the 7d. must be doubled, and as I think before many months have elapsed to be more than doubled, I say the country had a right to have the tax made an equal tax, and the right hon. Gentleman was bound to take one of two courses, either to make it a graduated tax or to say all classes paying the tax ought to be taxed alike, and no distinction to be drawn between the owner of real property and other property, but that the difference of 22 per cent shall be done away with, and all incomes contribute on the same footing. I will now advert to another part of the Budget of the right hon. Gentleman, in which I think he dealt not wisely, but improvidently, with the resources of the country, by repealing the duty on tea and remitting the duty on soap. The right hon. Gentleman has contended, and I have also heard it asserted out of doors, that although taxes to a large extent were taken off, yet the revenue did not suffer. But I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is in a position to urge that argument, although I have heard it urged, and cannot acknowledge the justice of it, because, with the prospect of war hanging over us, I think he was not justified in impairing and weakening the resources of the country. It appeared to me if it should become desirable to increase taxation, and adopt a succession tax, which Mr. Pitt always regarded as a war tax, the plan of the right hon. Gentleman ought to be to retain all the means of revenue in his possession, and which he was at perfect liberty to retain, and which a word to the House would have induced the House to support him in retaining. It appeared to me, if new imposts were required to support the burden of the war, that the country would rather have duties retained, however objectionable otherwise, than to have a further increase of the highly objectionable income tax. But what was the course of the right hon. Gentleman; it was rashly and unnecessarily to abandon the soap duties, which yielded a net revenue of 1,110,000 l. This amount was completely thrown away, I think most improvidently and unnecessarily thrown away. I need not point out to the House how much more easy it is to retain productive branches of revenue, little complained of, than to revert to the income tax for increased supplies. With respect to the
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  remission of the tea duties, the right hon. Gentleman, I find, has had another correspondence with his old friend the Birmingham clerk, who is at issue with the right hon. Gentleman, for he does not appear to agree in the right hon. Gentleman's statement of the comparative advantages of the remission of tea and soap duties set against the income tax, and who is still less satisfied now that he is called upon to pay an additional income tax. But this is not the light in which I am dealing with the question. The question is whether, with coming war, with an almost certainly coming war, it was wise for the right hon. Gentleman to tamper with the great and important items of revenue in this way? It only required firmness and candour on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have retained the soap duty and other imposts? It is true my right hon. Friend (Mr. Disraeli) dealt with the same items in his Budget; but at that time all was peace, and we were likely to remain at peace. And I say this with a feeling of pride. I say, that the overtures for the partition of Turkey were not made to the late Government—they were not made by the Emperor except to "his old friend of forty years' standing." I have some satisfaction in this fact, that we had no knowledge of the coming danger, and, therefore, the circumstances under which my right hon. Friend intended to deal with the tea duties were wholly different to those under which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to deal with them. The tea duty was not a trifling item of revenue. The right hon. Gentleman says the amount of remission will be enormous; it would be, on a fair calculation of all circumstances, about 1,300,000 l.—too much to expect the revenue would recover all at once. The right hon. Gentleman estimated the loss on the first year at 366,000 l., but that sum turned out to be 375,000 l. The next year the loss was put at 510,000 l.; the next. 454,000 l.; the next, 604,000 l.; making altogether a sum of 1,934,000 l. The right hon. Gentleman then made calculations as to the effect of increased consumption and the cessation of effects from that cause at the end of four years. But then for four years—with the knowledge of almost inevitable war—the right hon. Gentleman was tampering with large items of revenue. The tea and soap duties produced together about 3,000,000 l., and it

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  was this large amount the right hon. Gentleman was endangering. The calculation of loss on tea duties last year was not too sanguine, for instead of 366,000 l. it amounted to 375,000 l. Then comes the question whether, after parting with those large items of revenue at a moment of danger, when the country required all its resources to be at command, the right hon. Gentleman is in a position to say—"Although I lose these large items, I gained an equivalent, and did not hurt the revenue." I will now turn from the question of having parted with these large items of revenue at a moment of great public necessity, when it was almost certain that the country would require all her resources to be in the fullest possible vigour, to a question at which I have before glanced, namely, whether the right hon. Gentleman was in a position—admitting the argument, which I do not—to say that, although these large items were reduced, he had added others as an equivalent. I must again turn to the papers, and I beg to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to the part of the papers to which I am about to advert. It seems to me that there is an error in the figures. It seems to me, perhaps unintentionally, that the mode of stating these figures is hardly fair. At page 6 of the statistical extract there is given a tabular statement of the amount of taxes repealed or reduced, and the amount of taxes imposed in each year, from 1840 to 1853 inclusive. I ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to the entry for the year 1853. The entry for taxes repealed in that year amounts to 3,247,474 l. That was the amount of taxes taken off by the Budget of last year; and on the other side were the taxes imposed, which were stated to amount to 3,356,383 1.; showing by this paper that the taxes imposed exceeded the taxes reduced by about 100,000 l. I wish also to state that I think the mode of making this entry is calculated to mislead the public. It is an annual paper, and therefore, as an annual paper, I contend it ought to convey to the public at once the figures as they bear upon the current year. The paper ought to convey to the public the effect of financial operations for specific periods. Now, is it right to enter the amount of the succession tax at 2,000,000 l. in 1853, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself estimates that he shall be four years in receiving that amount? The
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  right hon. Gentleman says he only expects 500,000 l. in the current year. It is, therefore, misleading us to insert 2,000,000 l. when 500,000 l. only will be received. If it be desirable to show the effect of taxation, the amount ought to be entered in a different manner, and there ought to be something on the face of the paper to show that the 2,000,000 l. stated to affect the revenue of 1854, was short of the amount by 1,500,000 l. I now wish to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the entry relating to the tea duties remitted, which is stated to be 915,877 l. These figures appear to be erroneous. That certainly was not the loss of last year, for that was 375,000 l. It certainly could not be the aggregate loss of last year and this year together, for that would be 885,000 l. Certainly it was not the ultimate loss when the whole change was effected, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer put it down at nearly 2,000,000 l. of money—he put it down at 1,934,000 l. If I am in error, I shall be glad to be corrected. I am sorry to weary the House by going into these details; but, with the qualifications I have pointed out, I will ask the House to regard the actual financial result of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's remissions as applied to the present year, when we are about to embark in an unfortunate and too probably a protracted war. Instead of this paper showing that the succession tax had made up the deficiency, the actual result of the remissions is a sacrifice, in round numbers, of 1,300,000 l. of the resources of the present year, and that at a time when it was most desirable to possess them. The right hon. Gentleman told us the other evening, when applied to on behalf of the communication with Dublin, that, just now, every farthing was precious. Why did he not think of this in 1853? Was it wise or constitutional to come forward with popular propositions?—why they were popular I will not stop to inquire. I expressed my opinion on them in the last Session, and since then my opinion has undergone neither change nor modification. Let me advert for an instant to the connection of my line of argument with what fell from the right hon. Gentleman on the subject of defraying the expenses of the coming war—namely, to make the revenue of the year meet the expenses of the year. I do not mean to say the right hon. Gentleman attempted to mislead the House with regard to the calls he might have to make upon us. He intimated his intention to double

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  the income tax for six months, at the same time letting the House know the addition might be insufficient to cover the additional charges; of course, the amount of actual expense to the country must depend on the duration of the war. But what the right hon. Gentleman did not say—and while I subscribe to the justice of the principle to defray current expenses from current revenue, this being a sound principle so long as it can be adhered to without imposing intolerable burdens on the country—what he did not say was, that he foresaw a war. And this gives double force to what I have said with regard to his financial operations in 1853. I say most emphatically that Government must last year have foreseen the war. I do not believe you could collect a jury from any part of the kingdom who, after reading the papers I have referred to, could have hesitated to come to any conclusion but one—that war, humanly speaking, was a probability. Government, I say, must have foreseen war, knowing what they did, and with the information they had. Well, then, if the right hon. Gentleman wished—and he was right in wishing—to defray the expense of the war out of the revenue of the year, why did he waste the revenue—why did he part with the sum of 1,300,000 l. from the revenue, which nobody asked him to give up? Why did he not reserve these impositions to swell the revenue, which even when thus swelled will, I fear, be found inadequate to defray the expenses of the war? Well, the right hon. Gentleman tells us, in addition to the principle mentioned, he intends to defray the expenses of the war out of direct taxation. The right hon. Gentleman feels that the career of last year is difficult to retrace; but if the expenses are to be met by direct taxation, let him remember the strain he is putting on the resources of the country—let him remember that by resorting to doubling the income tax, he is doubling a tax which is inquisitorial and oppressive, and which he even acknowledges is unjust. I say your prudent course would have been to have reserved the items you have so rashly parted with, and then you would have had a better chance of adding direct taxation to these items. You would have had a better chance of carrying out your principle—in which I say you are right—that of defraying charges from the revenue of the year. Sir, I thought it my duty to draw the attention of the House to the course taken by the Government, and to indicate the
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  causes why the addition to an obnoxious tax has been laid on. I move no Amendment. I have no intention to resist the progress of the measure. In a few moments it will be imposed on the people, and I hope and believe, in the event of this unhappy war continuing, that the representatives of the people will continue to act with the same spirit they have evinced; and if so, they will, I am persuaded, represent the real feelings and desires of the people. If the present Government remain in their places to conduct the war, the country will support them without hesitation and with unanimity never exceeded, provided they conduct the war with energy and vigour; and God grant they may conduct it to victory; and the country will, I feel confident, not refuse to grant the sum that may be wanted, but rather, with unparalleled liberality, will give as large means as may be desired to effect this great object. But, then, I say to the Government, the people have a right to expect, in this solemn state of affairs, that you manage the finances prudently, and that you do not waste or impair the resources of the country for the sake of an ephemeral popularity, but that if you are obliged to call on the people to bear burdens they have hitherto willingly borne, at least those burdens be so imposed as to be equal and just.
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, I think it may be fairly asked what object my right hon. Friend who has just addressed us had in view in raising this discussion on the third reading of the Income Tax Bill. Certainly it was not to debate the subject of the income tax, or the propriety of raising the amount proposed by this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman entirely concurs in the opinion it expresses, and supports every one of the arguments that have been addressed to the House in support of it. What, then, was his object? It certainly was not to debate the Eastern question; for he told us, when he began to read extracts from the secret despatches, that there was nothing he so much desired to avoid as anything that could give rise to a debate on the Eastern question. And I pledge myself to the House that I will carry into effect the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman by avoiding to follow him into that subject; but I cannot help bringing one circumstance to the notice of the House, which I hope hereafter the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind. The House and the country will learn from the assertion that has fallen from the right

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  hon. Gentleman, that in the middle of April last, if it had been his duty to direct the financial policy of the country, and if at that period he had been in possession of those secret despatches of which Her Majesty's Government were then in possession, the right hon. Gentleman would have prepared his Budget, and have addressed the House, under the deep and settled conviction that there was then presented to the Crown of England a certain alternative. Again, towards the close of his speech, he adverted to it, and he said he could not too emphatically repeat his conviction that in the middle of April last, when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer laid his Budget before the House, there was presented to the Crown of England an alternative, and that was—war on the one hand, or, on the other, being made a consenting party to the disgraceful partition of the dominions of an ally. When we do come to debate the Eastern question, and when the topic shall be urged, that this is an unnecessary war, which might have been averted by greater promptitude and greater vigour at an earlier period—namely, when the invasion of the Principalities took place—I hope toy right hon. Friend will again emphatically declare his conviction that there was then presented to the Government the certain alternative either of dishonouring the Crown of England or of engaging in an inevitable war. The right hon. Gentleman said he had for his object to enforce upon the Government the duty and the necessity of a prudent financial administration. He said it was their duty to maintain the balances in the Exchequer unimpaired, and not to waste the resources of the country by giving a continued remission of taxes in obedience to a desire to court popularity. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say what would have been the nature of the Budget he should have proposed, if, with that knowledge of the secret correspondence, he had prepared the Budget of last year. I think we are much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the light he has thrown upon the subject. The right hon. Gentleman talks of courting popularity, and of making remissions in order to court popularity; but I should like those who pay the taxes of this country—I should like those who are subject to what the right hon. Gentleman is pleased to call the unequal burden of the income tax—to listen now to the speech which the right
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  hon. Gentleman has made. It is not long since we were told that the unequal burden of the income tax rendered it necessary to diminish the burden in Schedule D, and to reduce it from 7d. to 5¼d., in order to redress that inequality; but the right hon. Gentleman has learned such a lesson since, that he now speaks of the injustice the income tax imposed by calling nominally equal what he now says is, to the extent of 22 per cent, an unequal tax upon the holders of fixed property. That is an admission which we are indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for having made. Then the right hon. Gentleman said it was wrong to part with the duty upon tea, and that it was also wrong to part with the duty upon soap. I do not think the people of England will be of opinion that under the circumstances of last year it was wrong to part either with the duty upon tea or upon soap. I am quite sure that from the argument of the right hon. Gentleman they would draw a very strong confirmation of the propriety of that policy which by imposing the succession tax, has added a contribution of 2,000,000 l. annually to the public Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman has adverted to the circumstance of the total estimated amount of the secession tax, communibus annis, having been inserted in the statistical abstract, instead of the fractional amount for the first year. All I can say on the I subject is, that in future issues of the paper, the additional information shall, if necessary, be given in a note at the
  bottom of the page. But I want the House to take notice of this—that if the right hon. Gentleman had the management of the finances of this country, so far from reducing the burden of the income tax in Schedule D, he is of opinion that a certain class of the taxpayers of the country is injured by the income tax as it now stands to the extent of 22 per cent. I wish the House and the country to bear in mind that if it had depended upon the right hon. Gentleman, we should not have had the remission of the soap duty or the reduction of the duty on tea. But, said the right hon. Gentleman, "It only required firmness and candour on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have retained these taxes." Well, certainly, if my right hon. Friend, being anxious to retain the income tax, had come down to the House last year and alarmed them with greater apprehensions of war than he himself entertained, that

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  might have been imputed as a want of candour. But by what stretch of imagination can it be supposed that a Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was desirous to retain a tax, would conceal from the House of Commons the magnitude of his apprehensions with respect to foreign affairs? But could my right hon. Friend so easily have retained any tax which he might have desired to keep? When he was pressed on the subject of the advertisement duty, the attorneys' certificate duty, and the duty on hops, did he always obtain that unanimous support in maintaining these imposts upon which the right bon. Gentleman opposite now tells us that he might have depended? How deep then must be the right hon. Gentleman's conviction of the certainty of war in April last, if it would have induced him—could he have then known the state of affairs—to refuse his vote on those occasions when he supported a remission of taxation; nay, it would even have induced him to withhold the boon which his own Government proposed to grant—the reduction of the duty on tea! But if he feels sure that his conviction of the certainty of war would have been so strong in April last—had he been in possession of the information in the hands of the Government—do not let him impute the war to anything that has passed since April last. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON here made an observation which did not reach the gallery.] My impression is that the words were "certain alternative." ["No, no!"] Well, then, it is not so. But in that case what becomes of his argument against remitting these taxes? But, Sir, what can be the object of raising this discussion upon the third reading of the Income Tax Bill? If you say that the Exchequer should be replenished—and all your arguments are directed to show that the Exchequer is not now sufficiently full—why do you address these arguments to the House on a third reading of a Bill for imposing an additional income tax? The right hon. Gentleman referred to this return for the purpose of pointing out some minute alterations which he thinks should be made in one or two lines of that return. If he would appeal to the statistical history of the country contained in that return, he would find what a moral lesson that history gives—a lesson never so valuable as at a time like this, when all the nations of the world, and particularly the nation with which we are now drawn into collision, are examining the condition of this country.
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  That history would have read the right hon. Gentleman an important lesson on the policy of making timely remissions of taxation, and upon the strength which they have imparted to this country. The right hon. Gentleman has said that, in deference to a desire for popularity, the revenue was improperly diminished last year. But the paper to which he has referred would have told him that, improvident as was the Budget of last year, although the succession tax did not produce 2,000,000 l., but only a small portion of that sum, and although the soap duty was wholly and the tea duty partially remitted, that, nevertheless, the balance of income over expenditure during the past year was 3,250,000 l. The right hon. Gentleman is very learned as to the amount of the balances in the Exchequer, but he has not told the House of the reduction of debt which has taken place. This paper would have shown him that the total remission of debt in the course of last year was 8,500,000 l.; and that, therefore, if the balances in the Exchequer have been reduced 4,000,000 l., there is a clear advantage of 4,000,000 l. to the credit of the nation on that account. If he had looked to the Exchequer bills, he would have found that they are probably lower in amount than they have been during the present century. He would have found that, in spite of a harvest which compelled us to make almost unprecedented imports of grain, and in spite of the apprehensions of war, trade had been greatly on the increase. He would have found every evidence of growing prosperity and increasing strength, both for the purposes of peace and war. Then I think that it is certainly very instructive to the House to know, that if the right hon. Gentleman had been in power, with the knowledge which these despatches would have given him, he would not have pursued the policy which this House, in its wisdom—and that, too, with signal success—has thought proper to adopt. The right hon. Gentleman, in conclusion, adverted in terms of just commendation to the spirit in which the present exigency has been met on both sides of the House. I think it will be a circumstance of pride to this country, and of discouragement to its enemies, that we are in a position like that which is disclosed in this return, at the commencement of those hostilities which we all so much deplore. I think it will be a circumstance of satisfaction that we are enabled to meet, at all

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  events, all the expenditure which the House has already thought it necessary to sanction, without the necessity of imposing fresh burdens, or of withholding from the great body of the people the remissions of taxation already given, or of adding to the pressure of the debt that has already been incurred. These are the circumstances under which, at the close of a long period of peace, happily improved for the prosperity and advantage of the country, we find ourselves plunged into war. As there is no Motion before the House, except the third reading of the Income Tax Bill, to which no Amendment has been moved, and as every succeeding argument of the right hon. Gentleman tended more strongly than its predecessor to show the necessity of replenishing the Exchequer, and therefore in agreeing to the Bill, I do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman should have thought it necessary, in giving his cordial concurrence to its principle and objects, to draw the House into a discussion upon the circumstances attending the Budget of a former year.
  MR. MALINSsaid, that every point in the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington) had remained unanswered by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, and he could not, therefore, congratulate him on his defence. The right hon. Gentleman asked why those on that side of the House had thought proper to raise a discussion on the third reading of the Income Tax Bill. Had he forgot that the proposition to double the income tax for the first half of the year was, in fact, the whole Budget of the Government for the present Session, and that, therefore, if no discussion were raised on this Bill, it would in effect be to adopt the Budget without debate? No Amendment had been proposed, because of the determination of hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House not to impair the vigour of the Government by opposing any proposition they might make for the purpose of carrying on the war with success; but, at the same time, they heartily condemned the policy of the Government in taking off indirect taxes which nobody felt, in order to put on direct taxes which everybody would feel. The right hon. Gentleman was a disciple of the late Sir Robert Peel, and adhered to one part of that right hon. Baronet's scheme. Sir Robert Peel always stated that in imposing direct taxation the amount might be saved to the taxpayer by the remission
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  of indirect taxes. The right hon. Gentleman was now about to double the income tax, and in doing so proposed no new remissions, but reminded them of those which had been made in the tea and soap duties last year. The right hon. Gentleman was mistaken if he supposed that if he doubled the income tax it would be any consolation to the great majority of taxpayers that a remission of 4d. in the pound had been made in the duty on tea, more especially when the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that though the duty had been reduced on soap and tea, neither soap nor tea were cheaper. If the right hon. Gentleman would make inquiry of persons acquainted with household affairs he would find a unanimous opinion that the relief by the remission of indirect taxes was, as an equivalent for the income tax, altogether imaginary. Last year when the finances were under discussion it was often stated that it was important the House should be made acquainted with the state of the Eastern question, and the answer was that the public service would suffer if the Government divulged what was going on. He thought that whatever might have been the inconveniences of divulging the negotiations that had been going on last year with regard to the Eastern question, the country would come to the conclusion that much greater inconveniences had arisen from keeping them secret, as, if the secret correspondence which had been placed on the table had been made public last April, the House would not have parted so readily with the sources of the income of the country. All that correspondence was concealed from the country, and the House was allowed to separate in August, after a statement from the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston) that there was every prospect of the dispute with Russia being speedily settled. The general opinion in this country was, that the war actually commenced when the Russians crossed the Pruth, on the 8th of June. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade said, that it was true that the balances in the Exchequer had been diminished, but that the public debt had also been diminished. The ground of complaint was, that the Government had been paying off a debt without having the money with which to pay it. Because the 3 per cents were at par, the right hon. Gentleman had come down with a proposal to pay off between 9,000,000 l. and 10,000,000 l

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  of stock. Those stocks he had to pay at par, though the three per cents were now as low as 86. The right hon. Gentleman had ridiculed the idea of borrowing when the funds were at 90; but his (Mr. Malins) hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) warned him that he might have to borrow when the funds were at a lower amount. This bore out the proposition of his right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington) that the Government had taken an extremely short-sighted course, and the House would in future hesitate before they adopted a proposition for paying off the three per cents because they happened to be at par. He knew a society which held stock to the amount of 40,000 l., and last year they had to consider whether they would accept any of the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They had prudently declined all his proposals, and said they would take their money, and the consequence was, that, on the 5th of April, they would receive 40,000 l. cash, and at the end of a week become possessed of about 46,000 l. stock, thus gaining 6,000 l. by the right hon. Gentleman's proposition. It had been proved to the House that the result of those financial operations, if they had been carried into effect last week, would have cost the country 700,000 l., and that now they would cost the country 800,000 l. Such was the lamentable failure of the right hon. Gentleman's first effort in finance! The success of future efforts of the right hon. Gentleman might, indeed, ultimately prove that he would be cheap to the country even at that price. At present, however, that was the price which they had had to pay for him. In answer to the taunt of the right hon. Gentleman who had last addressed the House, "Why do you renew these discusssions if you are not going to divide?" he (Mr. Malins) answered, that he renewed them because he desired to raise his voice, as he should continue to raise it so long as he had a seat in that House, against the proposition that this war could be carried on by means of direct taxation. He could have understood the right hon. Gentleman proposing to double the income tax if he had still belonged to the great Peel party, but he was at a loss to understand it, associated as he now was with the noble Lord the Member for London, the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, and others who had over and over again denounced it as the most detestable and obnoxious tax that
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  had ever been imposed upon the people of this country. These associations of men who had no opinion in common led to acting upon no opinion at all; arid it was this constitution of the Government which had led to the war which they were now considering how we should pay for. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he saw the three per cents still falling, railway shares reduced not less than 10 per cent, and every kind of property going down rapidly, whether he was still of opinion that the expense of the war could be defrayed by direct taxation raised from year to year? If he did, he ventured to warn the right hon. Gentleman that he had not deceived himself more when he had proposed to reduce the South Sea Annuities in 1853 than he was now deceiving himself in making this proposition. The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that the cost already incurred for the war amounted to 4,000,000 l. If, in the first year, it should amount to 12,000,000 l. or 14,000,000 l., how would the right hon. Gentleman raise that sum by direct taxation? There were limits to direct taxation, and the right hon. Gentleman must not suppose that he could go on indefinitely increasing direct taxes. It became the duty of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, both for the sake of the country and for the sake of his own reputation, to come to a distinct conclusion with respect to the mode in which he should levy the very great amount of taxation which, in the event of a prolonged contest with Russia, must he rendered inevitable. The right hon. Gentleman would find that the requisite amount of money for that contest could not be raised solely by means of direct taxation, and that he must have recourse, in order to meet the exigencies of the State, either to indirect taxation, or that he must raise the necessary supplies in the shape of a loan. Now, if they were going to carry on a war at the cost of several millions, he did not believe that it would be found possible, by means either of direct or indirect taxation, to procure an amount of money sufficient for the purpose. In that case the right hon. Gentleman must come forward in order to propose a loan, and he (Mr. Malins) for one could not see how such a proposition could fairly be maintained to be based upon injustice to posterity. The present generation were but the occupants of the hour; and if, by a great struggle, the interests of this country were to be permanently

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  benefited, he did not understand why it was that those who were to reap the fruits of that struggle should not bear their share of expense which, in its prosecution, must be necessarily incurred. Upon the same principle that the proprietor of a particular estate made improvements upon that estate, and paid part of the expenses consequent upon those improvements, leaving the remaining portion to be defrayed by his successors, a nation was justified in taking the course to which he had referred, and which it was but too probable the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find it necessary finally to adopt. He hoped, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would take the question seriously into his consideration, and that he would take such steps with respect to it so as to prepare for their sanction a system of finance by which might be raised supplies adequate to the successful prosecution of a great contest, without, at the same time, pressing too heavily, and with too great a degree of inequality, upon the present as compared with succeeding generations. The right hon. Gentleman, in proposing to levy the money to meet the existing exigencies of the State by means of direct taxation, was making too great a demand upon the energy and the forbearance of the people. It was highly desirable that the mode in which the burdens which the coming struggle made it necessary that they should bear should not be levied in a shape which was unpopular. Now direct taxation, when carried to a great extent, must necessarily assume that shape. The tax-gatherer was regarded by the people as a most unwelcome visitor, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman would be acting wisely in refraining from pursuing a system of finance which must make a contest extremely unpopular, which it was so desirable we should prosecute with all the zeal and all the energy which it was possible to bring to bear upon it. He therefore trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would take these matters into consideration, and that the Session would not terminate before the House, acting upon an enlarged view of the subject, would settle a system of finance by which the war might be carried on without proving unduly burdensome, grinding, and oppressive, upon the present generation. If this were not done, but direct taxation were increased, those energies of the nation which now supported the Government might be destroyed, and the war become
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  so unpopular that we might eventually be compelled to submit to an ignominious peace.
  MR. LAINGsaid, that two questions of a very different nature had been raised during the debate. The one referred to the financial system which ought to be adopted on the eve of a great war; the other was of a purely retrospective nature, as regarded the conduct of the Government at a former period. The retrospective question—which was one of no great importance at the present moment, except in a party point of view—had formed the great staple of the speeches delivered by hon. Members sitting on the Opposition side of the House. The speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Pakington) consisted of it almost entirely. For his own part, he attached much less importance to the second question than to the first, and it was to that solely that he intended to address himself. As regarded the past, he would simply say that, in his judgment, on the most dispassionate view he had been able to form on the correspondence that was before the House, he did not think the charge was justified against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he had acted with unjustifiable rashness, because, in April last, he did not foresee this war as an inevitable necessity, and because he then reduced the Budget for the year. The argument urged by the right hon. Baronet was, that there was then a clear alternative before the Government, and that their only choice lay between embarking in war or acceding to all the demands of the Emperor of Russia. But in his judgment there was a third supposition possible in the circumstances, namely, that the Emperor of Russia would do as he had done on previous occasions when similar overtures were made, and that he would, on finding this country opposed to his views, withdraw his pretensions and proceedings. However, that was purely a question of opinion, on which it seemed to him idle or impossible to enter, unless it were wished to renew those long discussions on the Eastern question, which had already occupied so much of the attention of the House. By far the more important question of the two was, that as to the means of raising money—the question of direct taxation or indirect. It was true that there had been no opposition to the Motion, but speeches had been repeatedly delivered on the other side of the House, the purport of which was to persuade the country that the in-

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  come tax was so excessive and unpopular, that they ought not to submit to it, and that, in point of fact, the necessary funds for carrying on the war should be raised by some other means. He conceived it to be a question of vital importance to the country, whether, being embarked in the present war, it was to be followed by the additional calamity of retracing the commercial policy of the last ten years, and, step by step, undoing what had been done since 1842 in the remission of indirect taxation. In that view of the question, it did seem to him not unimportant that some of those representatives of commercial interests more peculiarly affected by the tax, who, like himself, had a very strong opinion that it was not so unpopular, should assert that opinion on the present occasion. The question of continuing the income tax was, at present, really very much in the same position as it was in 1842, when first brought forward. At that time the income tax was really submitted to as, and for the sake of, a reform in our financial position. It was not supposed by any one to be popular in itself, but it was thought infinitely less unpopular than that heavy indirect taxes should be imposed upon the necessaries of life, the great articles of consumption by the labouring classes, and the raw materials of commerce and manufactures. It was considered then, also, that a more considerable sum of money could be levied by a moderate amount of direct taxation than could be done if it were taken up by way of indirect taxation. Now, at the expiration of ten years from that period, they were precisely in the same position. They had now additional burdens to meet, and they must be met in one way or other, either by increasing the present income tax, or by retracing their steps, and imposing a great measure of indirect taxation. The question was, which of these courses was most advisable, and which would be most popular. He could say, without hesitation, that a return to the income tax would be much the more popular, and much the more advisable and beneficial. What did experience teach us with regard to the income tax during the last ten years? That it was a most excellent instrument for cheapening the necessaries of life for the labouring poor; and next, that it had enabled the Chancellor of the Exchequer to remit taxes which pressed heavily on the raw materials of those articles of manufacture which entered most largely into the consumption
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  of this country. During the ten, from 1842 to 1852, in which the income tax had been in operation, the total remission of Customs duties on imports was 8,677,488 l. The articles included under that head were cotton, timber, and a variety of articles of provision, which were of the greatest necessity to the comfort of the labouring classes. These taxes had proved to be serious impediments to the trade and commerce of this country. During the same period there had been a large remission of Excise duties, which affected the sanitary condition of the people or were restrictions on trade. That remission amounted to 3,762,000 l. So that the result was this, that by levying during the last ten years an income tax of about 5,500,000 l. taxes to the amount of 12,430,000 l. had been remitted. And was the revenue a loser by the course that had been adopted? On the contrary, the revenue had gained enormously; for whilst the total average of the revenue during 1840, 1841, and 1842 was 47,539,188 l., it was now, at the end of ten years, 54,430,344 l., showing an increase of 6,891,156 l. Previously to the introduction of the income tax, the expenditure of the country was greater than the revenue by 3,179,509 l.; but the result was now very different, for we had a surplus revenue of 3,255,000 l. And when hon. Gentlemen talked of the unpopularity of the income tax, they ought to be prepared to accept the alternative of retracing the steps taken during the last ten years, and reimposing the taxes which had been remitted, or of assenting to the course now proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He (Mr. Laing) felt perfectly certain of this, that nine of every ten of the intelligent men in this country would rather pay a large income tax than have the taxes which were taken off since the introduction of the income tax reimposed upon those articles which entered most largely into consumption in this country. He would venture to say that there was not one in ten of men of business and intelligence in this country who would not most cheerfully vote for an increased direct tax in preference to increased indirect taxation, so long as the honour of the country might require him to bear the burden. In 1842 this country, unhappily, was divided into many parties and factions. Chartism, especially, was then rife. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction with the aristocracy on the part of the middle and working classes. The two

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  latter classes were disaffected towards the institutions of the country. But those differences had been happily removed. He believed that this country presented no more remarkable spectacle than that improved feeling which had grown up in this country during the last ten years among all classes. What could be more satisfactory than to see all classes in this country, from the highest to the lowest, on the eve of a great European war, cordially and loyally attached to the institutions of the country? And to what were we indebted for that great result? Mainly, he would maintain, to that great moral spectacle which the upper classes afforded to the middle and lower classes, of willingly submitting to direct taxation for the purpose of doing away with those unequal burdens which previously pressed upon the great mass of the labouring population. He believed that the people who paid the income tax were too wise to be led astray by that cry which some hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches wished to get up against it. The people who paid that tax were men who could weigh results well; and, unless the taxes that were proposed to be substituted for it were likely to be less objectionable, he was certain they would not assent to its removal. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, who alleged that there was an impatience on the part of the people of this country to bear taxation, were doing all they could to provoke the Russian Emperor to continue in his career of aggression and spoliation; for he would argue with himself, that a people who were impatient at taxation in ordinary times would not consent to be taxed to carry on a vigorous war against his injustice—he would conclude that we would not consent to bear the burden of bringing this war to an honourable conclusion. Now, for his (Mr. Laing's) part, he did not believe that there was such impatience in this country against taxation as some had represented. He believed that the people of this country had entered into this war deliberately—with no enthusiasm—with a calm consideration of the consequences. They had entered into it because they believed that it was absolutely necessary for the honour and interests of this country, and they believed that the best mode of prosecuting it with vigour and success was by submitting to an increased amount of direct taxation. He, therefore, believed that hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches, who thought of making political
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  capital out of a clamour against the income tax, would find themselves grievously deceived.
  MR. VANSITTARTsaid, he thought it was grossly unfair and unjust to endeavour to persuade the House to levy a war tax entirely by direct taxation, on the plea that it was to direct taxation, and direct taxation alone, they owed the increase of the revenue which had lately taken place, and which, though it might in some degree be owing to the lightening the burdens of commerce, was also owing, in a much greater degree, to the ability and energy of our manufacturing population—to the energy and skill with which Englishmen had carried their commerce to every part of the world, and had recently discovered sources of wealth which up to that time no one in that House had dreamt of. He thought also that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and the right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Cardwell) had made some very erroneous observations with reference to the state of the Eastern question. With respect to the correspondence which bad been laid upon the table of the House, and to which reference had been made that evening, he should observe, that it must have placed clearly before the Government in April last the consideration that war was at least extremely probable. There was then undoubtedly a greater probability that war would take place than that peace could be preserved, and he could not help thinking that under those circumstances the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been incautiously and wantonly playing with the resources of the country in proposing the financial scheme which he had last Session submitted to the House. He maintained that if hon. Members who sat upon his (Mr. Vansittart's) side of the House were acquainted with one-tenth of the information which the papers to which he referred contained, there was not one of them who would not have repudiated the course which the right hon. Gentleman had asked them to sanction. He thought they would be doing quite right, and that though they did not mean to oppose the income tax, still there was ample ground for discussion, because if those who were now managing the financial affairs of the country had been guilty of a great lack of discretion when discretion was most required from them, it became the more incumbent upon that House now to impress upon them the necessity of caution, and, at the same time, the necessity of taking bold measures when

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  boldness was required. He would add one more consideration. The sum which the right hon. Gentleman had, by his manœuvres of last year, lost to the nation, amounted at the present time to a sum considerably more than the increased sum which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take from those who now received salaries between 100 l. and 150 l. a year. That was the class also which would feel the increase in the tax the most deeply, because the rise in the price of provisions had forced many of them to trench upon their income for the next quarter, and that evil would be felt by them still more, if there was a heavy pressure upon the money market. Under these circumstances, he considered that it required not only prudence but boldness in a Minister, and they all expected and hoped that, should the crisis in the money market come, the Minister would not hesitate or waver; that he would not wait to apply his remedy till the pressure had been converted into panic and thousands had been reduced to ruin, but that he would at once apply the remedy with a bold hand; and seeing that the right hon. Gentleman himself was mainly responsible for the present pressure by the manner in which he had thrown away so large a sum from the present uses of the country, he hoped he would now act with the more boldness and openness, and save the country from the consequence of his former rashness.
  MR. GREAVESsaid, that he wished to say a few words on the injudicious attempt which had been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reduce the interest on Exchequer bills. The right hon. Gentleman perhaps thought, that because the premium was higher than the annual interest, it was an absurdity that the same rate of interest should be continued. This rule might apply to bills of exchange, but there was no analogy between bills of exchange and Exchequer bills, for the former were usually applied for temporary purposes, while the latter were often held to be ready upon any emergency which might arise. He must ask, was it expedient to reduce the interest on Exchequer bills at the time when the interest on bills of exchange was rising in the market? The experiment had failed, but they ought not to expect failures from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had the best possible means of information at his command. He (Mr. Greaves) believed that the right hon. Gentleman had expected that money would
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  have been plentiful; and if the tide had continued to flow as the right hon. Gentleman had expected, he would have come into port on the crest of the wave, but he had now been left high and dry with his cargo of unconverted South Sea stock and unrenewed Exchequer bills.
  Bill read 3°, and passed.

  CONVENTUAL AND MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS—ADJOURNED DEBATE (SECOND NIGHT.)
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [28th March], "That the following Members be Members of the Select Committee on Conventual and Monastic Institutions."
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Thomas Chambers be one of the Members of the said Committee."
  MR. GOOLDsaid, he rose to move as an Amendment that the names of Mr. Thomas Chambers, the Marquess of Stafford, and Mr. Newdegate, be omitted, and that the names of Mr. Sotheron, Mr. Ker Seymer, and Lord Harry Vane be substituted. In thus moving the omission of the first name on the list of the Committee, it might appear that he was taking a very strong step, but he thought he could show that he had good and sufficient grounds for doing so. Before, however, going into that part of the question, he wished to say a few words of explanation with regard to the two classes of Members to whom his Amendment referred, namely, those to whom he objected and those whom he proposed to substitute. With regard to the first, he begged to disclaim any intention of personal disrespect or discourtesy in performing the unpleasant task, which he had undertaken only from a sense of duty. With regard to those whom he proposed to substitute, he owed them an apology for having used their names without consulting them, but he had dune so advisedly, believing that it would be unpleasant to them to be asked to be substituted for other Members. He was well aware that this inquiry was felt by Roman Catholics to cast a stigma upon them as fathers and brothers, inasmuch as it implied that they had not the courage to rescue their relatives from the alleged cruelties to which they were subjected in convents, and it was a duty he owed to his constituents to object to the Committee. He would state the grounds on which he

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  objected to the placing of the hon. and learned Member for Hertford on the Committee. He had no intention of reading any of the speeches of the hon. Member, either from Hansard or the Record, but he wished the House to judge the hon. and learned Member by his acts. He thought that as regarded the Committee generally, in order to satisfy the country, and in justice to those who must appear before it, that it should consist of men of standing, station, and repute, of moderate views—neither men of intense bigotry nor those who were in the habit of using scoffing and insulting language towards millions of their countrymen, and who were trading in publications which made indecent and violent attacks on a section of their fellow-citizens; but the Committee ought to be such an one as would command the respect of Roman Catholics both in this country and in Ireland. Let them look at the first act of the hon. and learned Member for Hertford, in this matter, last year. The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that his constituents were not aware that he was going to make such a Motion as he did. It would have been surprising if they had been, for his Motion was only for leave to bring in a Bill for the "recovery of personal liberty in certain cases," and no one could have imagined that there was concealed beneath that such a snake in the grass as the inspection of nunneries. The stratagem of the hon. and learned Gentleman succeeded, and he snatched a successful division on his Motion. But was that the spirit in which this question ought to be approached? Were the holiest and tenderest feelings of human nature to be trampled on, in order to afford the hon. and learned Gentleman a field whereon to display his adroitness in Parliamentary tactics? That alone ought to disqualify the hon. and learned Member to a place on the Committee. What was his next step? His proposed Bill having come to nothing last Session, this year he mended his hand, and went for a Committee of inquiry into the
  "Number and rate of increase of Conventual and Monastic Institutions in the United Kingdom, and the relation in which they stand to existing law."
  That was a very specious and plausible notice. If the hon. and learned Member had confined himself to such a notice, the matter might have been arranged by the appointment of a Committee of legal gentlemen skilled in the English and canon law, and they might have settled the question of the relations in which those institutions
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  stood to the law of England, and it would have been easy to have got a statistical account of their number and rate of increase. He (Mr. Goold) had made an arrangement with the hon. and learned Member to put a question to him as to whether it was proposed to give the Committee power to send for persons, papers, and records, which would have had the effect of bringing nuns and other monastic persons before the Committee; but when he rose to ask the question, the hon. and learned Member was not in his place, which was, he considered, a very uncandid and unfair proceeding. After the hon. and learned Member had carried his Motion for a Committee, a fortnight elapsed, and then he put a list of names of those of which it was to be composed in the notice book. There certainly never was such a list presented to the House before. It was quite a gem in its way. He would read it. The names were as follows:—Mr. Thomas Chambers, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Kinnaird, Mr. Horsfall, Mr. Shirley, the Marquess of Stafford, Mr. Fagan, Mr. Drummond, Mr. John Fitzgerald, Mr. Robert Phillimore, Mr. John Ball, Mr. Whiteside, Mr. Dunlop, Mr. Newdegate, and Mr. Napier. He put it to the fairness of the House whether it did not show a desire to strike a deadly blow against nuns and nunneries, a defiance of all decency, to put on the list eleven names out of fifteen which were those of Members of one way of thinking. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in his eagerness, did not act like a Crown prosecutor in England, but more like a Procureur du Roi in France, whose personal honour and credit are involved in his obtaining a conviction. Naturalists told us of a certain flat fish which had both its eyes on one side of its head, and, therefore, cannot see on both sides; and many worthy people were like that flat fish in looking at a Roman Catholic question, and, as regarded nunneries, could see no virtue or excellence in their inmates. They could only see that they were Roman Catholics, and, as such, that they ought to be molested. He thought he had made out a strong case for his Amendment. English Members could not tell how deeply the people of Ireland felt this Motion. They regarded the Committee as a sort of jury before which the most respectable Roman Catholic women of the country would have to stand as persons accused. He would appeal, then, to the House—they were going to empanel this jury; would they pack it? Let them remember, too, that if the

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  hon. and learned Member for Hertford (Mr. T. Chambers) were a member of it he would be the foreman, and he would practically be the conductor of its proceedings. He did, therefore, regard him as a most objectionable person to be placed upon it, and he moved the Amendment, also, as the most emphatic mode he could devise of protesting against the appointment of the Committee altogether.
  SIR JOHN FITZGERALDseconded the Amendment. He considered the present time was most unseasonable for the introduction of such a measure as that of the hon. and learned Member for Hertford. The only effect of such a measure, he believed, would be to excite again those religious differences which had for so long a time so unhappily distracted Ireland, but which were now, to a certain extent, stilled; and which, if not again imprudently excited, would, he believed, in the course of time, be entirely obliterated.
  Amendment proposed to leave out the name of "Mr. Thomas Chambers," and insert the name of "Mr. Sotheron" instead thereof.
  Question put, "That the name of 'Mr. Thomas Chambers' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 117; Noes 60: Majority 57.
  Question, "That Mr. Thomas Chambers be one of the Members of the said Committee," put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Walpole be one other Member of the said Committee."
  MR. LUCASsaid, he rose to move the Amendment of which he bad given notice, namely, that the further nomination of the Committee be postponed for six months. He admitted that it was unusual to renew a discussion after the House had pronounced an opinion on the subject, but under the peculiar circumstances of the present case, he thought he was not unreasonable in pursuing the course he was following. There was a phrase applied to deliberative bodies sometimes, which, although at first it might appear offensive, yet also bad a technical meaning—the phrase tyrant majorities. He believed the English House of Commons was freer than most deliberative bodies from tyranny of that kind, but still it did occasionally appear even there. He wanted the House to consider that it had never yet had a clear statement of the objects for which the Committee was to be appointed. Many
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  statements had been made which were inconsistent with each other, but he defied any hon. Member to state what the functions of the Committee were to be when appointed. They had been told that it was not the intention that the Committee should examine the inmates of convents, but at the same time other Gentlemen had let fall expressions which were absolutely inconsistent with the adoption of any other course; and he thought this fact alone sufficiently justified him in asking the House to reconsider the decision which it had now twice given on the subject. The House had just voted the mover of these proceedings to be one of the Committee; at present he was the only Member, and it was to keep him in that distinguished prominence that he (Mr. Lucas) moved the present Amendment. The hon. and learned Member for Hertford the other night referred to a great deal of correspondence which he stated he had had with Roman Catholic gentlemen, laymen, and ladies, and said that the result of all former inquiries had been, not to confirm the original suspicions, but, so far from throwing light upon the subject, to enshroud the whole matter in utter darkness. But the present inquiry was to lead to a different result, and how could that be, unless the Committee collected evidence from the only quarters whence it could be derived? The hon. and learned Gentleman had stated the main objects of the inquiry to be to ascertain whether there existed any practice of imprisoning or transporting nuns, and also whether there was any secret, subtle, and sinister influence which undermined the liberties and drained away the property of the people. How could the hon. Gentleman obtain that knowledge otherwise than by taking the living testimony of those who dwelt in convents? They could not obtain that object without resorting to means which they themselves described as unmanly. The hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), whose name was proposed for nomination on this Committee, threw out to Roman Catholics the startling and bold challenge that he would undertake to prove particular instances in which superiors of convents had fraudulently deprived nuns of their property by exercising an undue influence over them. Now, he should like to know how it was possible. Specific charges of this kind could not be inquired into by a Committee unless it actually summoned before it ladies who were inmates of these establishments, and

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  forced them to give an account of transactions within the building, or at least give them an opportunity of defending themselves. The very nature of the discussion implied their personal appearance before the Committee; in fact, there was no other alternative, and though the two hon. Members he had alluded to disclaimed any intention of forcibly calling them as witnesses, yet, without their evidence, the inquiry would end in no rational conclusion. He, therefore, thought he was justified, and that every Roman Catholic Member, as well as every other Member of that House who was not led away by feelings of fanaticism and bigotry, were justified in calling on the House, even after its two previous decisions, to reconsider the course it had entered upon, especially when that course would not lead to anything creditable to itself. The hon. and more serious Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) also made a specific charge. He pledged himself to prove that there were convents or monasteries in the country so built as to contain cells which were places of incarceration. How did he mean to ascertain that fact before a Committee sitting upstairs, without taking the evidence of the female inmates which he had disclaimed availing himself of? In the same manner the noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland (Lord Lovaine), who did not wish to enter into any vexatious inquiry, but whose desire was to inquire into the circumstances and property of each convent which came before the Committee, and to learn all about the mode of life of its inmates, would find it impossible to obtain that information unless he adopted this course, which was denounced as unmanly. He was not going to object to the appointment of the Committee on many of the grounds which had been advanced, wishing to narrow the question as munch as possible; and he agreed with what fell from the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord J. Russell) that, if abuses were really to be inquired into, whether it were a time of war or peace, such abuses ought to be investigated, and, if possible, remedied, but he contended that, in the present instance, there was no case for investigation. He and those who thought with him treated this as a matter in which feelings of bigotry and fanaticism were to be indulged, and in which no other object was sought by inquiry than that species of entertainment which created such a lively satisfaction in
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  certain minds; and, therefore, they asked the House not to postpone a proper and legitimate investigation, but to postpone the gratification of those morbid feelings to a period when they might be more harmlessly indulged. He would not allude to the feelings of outraged honour, and the sentiments of indignation which this unnecessary and uncalled-for proceeding was certain to excite; for, if there had been any cause for such an inquiry, it would be their duty to discard all such considerations. The hon. and learned Member for Hertford said that all other institutions of a public nature were subject to inquiry from time to time, and that there was no reason why convents should be excepted from the general rule. What was the position in this respect of other institutions? The cases adduced were factories, lunatic asylums, mines, and collieries. The Legislature, however, had never laid down any rule that an institution, merely because it answered a particular description, should become the subject of inquiry and investigation. Had the Legislature ever laid down the rule that institutions should be examined because they were of a particular description? He ventured to give a direct negative to any such proposition; for the simple and tangible reason of the inquiries that had been made was, because abuses were known to exist in them, and it was into those abuses the inquiry took place, and not upon the abstract principle that, because they were institutions of a particular kind, an inquiry should be made. The Legislature had been dealing with factories for a long course of years, the facts were patent to the whole world; and who was it, he asked, who first mooted the subject, and led to those investigations which resulted in the various Acts passed to regulate them? Those parties were the inhabitants of Manchester; and the medical men who, dealing with the facts constantly, formed a society for the purpose of correcting certain evils of which they had knowledge; they brought under the notice of the Legislature the effect of the evil management upon the children and young persons employed in factories, and the amount of pestilence and disease throughout the localities in which they resided; and one of the very first persons to take steps in the matter was Sir Robert Peel, the father of the late lamented statesman. He drew from his own knowledge of the evils which existed, and an overwhelming amount of evidence was brought before the

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  House, before legislative interference took place. There never had been a case of suspicion laid before that House which could lead them to make this inquiry. On all other subjects there had always been some facts alleged, proved, and brought before the House, before they had been asked to make any inquiry, as, for instance, in the case of lunatic asylums, and also when the Earl of Shaftesbury brought his proposition before the House for fresh legislation upon the subject of the labour of children in mines and collieries. In these cases parties were not considered justified in asking for legislative interference until they could produce a great body of facts. In the present case they had no facts; they did not pretend to possess any evidence; they had nothing but their unworthy suspicions and their intolerable fanaticism, the disease of their own minds, to offer to the House in support of their demand. They had the most monstrous stories, but year by year they had decreased; and, from the period the discussion on this subject first began to the present time, each year had become more barren of facts. On what ground that had ever been recognised before in the history of legislative interference in this country, could the hon. and learned Member for Hertford call on the House to name this most portentous Committee to inquire into the laws and rules of monasteries and convents? He said it was for an inquiry into the state of the law. But what law, what rule, regulation, or arrangement, did he wish to inquire into? With regard to the rules which had been adopted by convents, there was no investigation to make. There had been no rule made by them which was not in strict accordance with the law of the land, and no hon. Member had attempted to show the least presumption or suspicion that it was otherwise. He would assert that there was no power known to monasteries or convents which allowed them to enforce incarceration; and there was no rule, law, or regulation, with which he was acquainted, which allowed the will of any inmate to be forced to act against her will in the disposal of her property. With all their intense hatred for those institutions, hon. Members had never shown any rule to the contrary. The law of convents and the law of the land were identical; and if there were any need for inquiry at all, it might as well issue from the Ecclesiastical Courts as from that House. Hon. Mem-
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  bers had referred to supposed abuses, but where was the evidence in support of them, for none had been produced? If they had a case at all, it must lie in the possibility that the law of the land and of convents had been outraged together; but then, he would again ask, where were the facts? Where do they exist? Where were the influences over the will in the disposal of property for which the law, as it at present existed, was not sufficient? There were none stated. With regard to that part of the inquiry which concerned monasteries, it deserved much more consideration than it had received. By a clause in the Catholic Emancipation Act, monasteries inhabited by men had been made illegal. But still they existed, and they would continue to exist. What did hon. Members propose to do with them? Those illegalities existed because they were found to be necessary. If hon. Members were possessed with a spirit of justice, he would welcome the Committee of inquiry into monasteries, for he (Mr. Lucas) would state frankly that the present state of things connected with them
  was not satisfactory to his mind. But hon. Members were entering into the inquiry with a hostile spirit, because they wished to destroy those establishments, and because they wished to enter into a crusade against millions of their Catholic fellow-countrymen. But in those objects they would be defeated. The Catholic millions of this country were prepared to stand upon their rights of religious freedom, whatever the law might say, or whatever the Legislature might do to prevent them. If they attempted to make the laws more stringent—if they put them in force against the religious convictions and against the religious feelings of the Catholics, they would accept the challenge, and abide by the conflict. But it was said, "If so pure in your acts, why not let the inquiry take place?" If any case had been made against any particular establishment or house, he would say, let it take place; but, he would repeat, they had only cases of suspicion, and no evidence whatever to support them. The only cause for inquiry arose from the intense hatred they nourished in their hearts, and from the possession of a fanatical spirit of hostility against the Catholic establishments and institutions; and if the voice of an angel spoke to them, or if one arose from the dead, and endeavoured to convert hon. Members, still it would be

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  insufficient to convince them of their error. If this were the single subject which they would inquire into, it might, perhaps, be granted; but it was not. It was only one of many points on which it was the intention of hon. Members to assail die Catholics, and deny their right to be equal in the eye of the law. If they conceded that point to hon. Members, then next year another point would be demanded. On that ground, therefore, he would oppose to the utmost the present inquiry. Until their minds had undergone a total change, there would be hostility in some form. What use, then, of concession, since concession would only lead to fresh demands? If the Catholic Members believed the proposal was made upon any grounds, or even upon reasonable suspicion—if they believed that the minds of those who promoted the inquiry were open to evidence, and would be influenced by evidence, then they might listen to the proposal; but knowing that their object was nothing less than the total destruction of all Catholic institutions by the power of law, if such power should unfortunately come into their hands, he was determined to move the Amendment on the paper.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'the further nomination of the said Committee be proceeded with upon this day six months,' instead thereof."
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. D. O'CONNELLsaid, he felt that he should not be doing his duty to his constituents if he did not take the opportunity, on the first occasion of his addressing the House, to state the reasons which induced him to vote in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Lucas). He felt opposed to the appointment of the Committee, because he believed it to be a step uncalled for, unnecessary, and insulting, and one which, if carried into execution, would be likely to lead to results of a painful and disastrous nature. The hon. and learned Member for Hertford had not brought forward any cases showing that the proposed inquiry was necessary, although the hon. and learned Gentleman had certainly said that he would be enabled to bring some cases before the Committee. He (Mr. O'Connell) thought, however, that if the hon. and learned Gentleman had been acquainted
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  with such cases, he would have mentioned them when he introduced his Motion to the House. He (Mr. O'Connell) could say for himself, that he hail never heard of any cases of the kind, nor did he think they were known to any Catholic Members, and he could not admit that the hon. and learned Member for Hertford understood the wants of Catholics better than they did themselves. He would put it to the House whether they thought it likely that Catholics would allow their relatives to enter convents, if they were subjected in such establishments to the tyrannical treatment which some hon. Gentlemen had described? He believed that the appointment of this Committee would be regarded as a great insult to their religion by the Catholics who had recently gone forth to fight the battles of their country. He did not mean to say that the loyalty of the Irish could be affected, for their loyalty was proof against anything; but, when they were doing their utmost to show their loyalty, he thought it was, to say the least, injudicious to offer them an unnecessary insult. Supposing this Committee should be appointed, who were to be examined as witnesses? If they examined Catholics, they would hear nothing more than they already knew. Was it intended to call as witnesses the ladies who were inmates of convents? If that were done, he believed they would have nothing to prove; but, even if they could prove anything, how was it possible to make them do so? Assuming that there was to be some legislation on this subject, he supposed he might conclude, after the Bill which the hon. and learned Member for Hertford brought forward last year, that it would be proposed to appoint inspectors to make periodical visits to convents and nunneries. Now he could conceive of no measure which would be more disastrous in its consequences. If local inspectors were to be appointed, the duty might in some instances be entrusted to persons of strong political and religious opinions, who would delight in the opportunity of visiting Roman Catholic institutions; while, on the other hand, supposing it was to be a Government inspection, although the business might be done in a delicate and judicious manner, still it must be recollected that the cells of convents were the private rooms of ladies, whose privacy their friends were bound to protect. He asked any Gentleman in that House if he would allow a Government inspector to go into his house

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  and put impertinent questions to the ladies of his family. He believed, moreover, that the inspection of convents would be resisted by the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. He did not make that statement as a threat—far from it; he only mentioned a fact, and he appealed to the common sense and justice of that House if it would be wise to employ the military and police force in carrying out a law which would be most obnoxious to a vast majority of the people of Ireland. For the reasons he had given he should give his vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Meath.
  MR. MASSEYsaid, that inasmuch as the House had decided upon two separate occasions to prosecute this inquiry, he should not be a party to any Motion which would have for its object the obstruction of such an investigation; and therefore on that ground he could not assent to the proposition of the hon. Member for Meath. But he apprehended the House would be cautious in the mode in which the inquiry was to be conducted. This was a question of great delicacy, and one which called for the utmost circumspection on the part of the House in every step which might be taken. It was viewed with extreme hostility and irritation by the Roman Catholics, and therefore care should be taken, in the appointment of the Committee, to nominate Gentlemen who were not committed to extreme, or, if possible, to any, opinions upon the subject. Now, he would just ask the House whether the Committee, as proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Hertford, complied with those conditions? He had gone through the names upon the list very carefully, and he found that at least seven or eight of them had committed themselves to very strong opinions with reference to Roman Catholic institutions, not merely opinions to the effect that an inquiry should be instituted into the nature and constitution of those establishments, but opinions absolutely antagonistic to the institutions themselves. He thought it would not be proper to send any of those Gentlemen upstairs to prosecute this inquiry; indeed, he would say that the very circumstance of those Gentlemen having expressed strong opinions upon the subject was in itself a disqualification to serve upon the Committee. The first name upon the list was that of the hon. and learned Mover of the Committee, who had been objected to by some of the Irish Members. Now, he felt that he could not vote against the
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  nomination of that Gentleman, because it was the invariable rule of the House that the Mover of a Committee should himself be a Member of that Committee. He was supposed to possess information upon the subject to be inquired into; however strong his feelings might be, he was expected to keep them under control; and therefore no objection could fairly be taken to the name of the hon. and learned Member for Hertford. The case was different, however, with regard to some of the other names. Second upon the list was the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole). Now, they all knew that that Gentleman was a most eminent and distinguished advocate of what he might be allowed to call strong Protestant opinions, and that he had expressed himself strongly upon the subject of nunneries and monastic institutions. It would have been as well, therefore, he thought, if he had not been nominated on the Committee. The next name he found was that of the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), who certainly had expressed many strong and singular sentiments, both within and without the walls of that House, with regard to Roman Catholic institutions. He consequently should think that that Gentleman was one of the least eligible to be placed upon the proposed Committee. The third name was that of the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird), a Gentleman who had honourably distinguished himself, though some of his opinions might be erroneous, in the cause of religious liberty, but who had also expressed very strong sentiments upon tins particular subject, and who was therefore, he considered, not a fit person to be chosen as a Member of the Committee. He next found the name of the hon. Member for Greenock (Mr. Dunlop), who, upon the very last occasion when this subject was discussed in that House, certainly expressed himself in very strong terms in favour of the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Hertford. Next came the younger of the two hon. Members for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) of whom he need say no more than that he was, upon every occasion and in all respects, a conscientious opponent of Gentlemen of the Roman Catholic persuasion. Then they had the name of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier), who had likewise expressed strong opinions upon this subject. It would be impossible to speak of that

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  Gentleman without the utmost respect and regard, but he had certainly expressed and was known to entertain very strong and conscientious feelings upon sectarian subjects, and, therefore, he certainly was not a person who was qualified to exercise an impartial judgment upon this matter. He now came to the names of Gentlemen upon the other side of the question. He found upon the list the names of four hon. Gentlemen, Members of the Roman Catholic persuasion, who under no circumstances whatever would listen to the prosecution of the proposed inquiry. The first was the name of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Bowyer) who had himself actually moved that the inquiry should be put an end to, and who, therefore, could not be expected to serve upon the Committee.
  MR. T. CHAMBERS: All the Roman Catholic Members have agreed to sit upon the Committee.
  MR. MASSEYsaid, that was no reason why the House should consent to allow them to serve. It was for the House to consider to whom they should entrust so important and delicate an inquiry, and he hoped they would appoint none but Gentlemen of moderate opinions, and such as would be able to pursue the investigation in that cautious and temperate manner in which it ought to be conducted. He objected to the name of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk altogether, as also that of the noble Lord the Member for Arundel (Lord E. Howard), who had also expressed very strong opinions upon this subject. Then came the name of the noble Lord the Member for the county of Sutherland (the Marquess of Stafford). He did not know what the feelings of that noble Lord might be, but as the Gentlemen who represented the northern part of the kingdom were generally hostile to the Roman Catholic Church, it was probable the noble Lord shared in the same opinions; and at all events, considering that this was a subject of extreme difficulty and of the utmost delicacy, and that it would require to be dealt with by the most experienced and the most judicious men in that House, he did not think it would be proper or becoming to place one of the youngest Members of the House upon the Committee. He also objected to the name of the hon. Member for the city of Cork (Mr. Fagan). But really he had found fault with so many, that he had scarcely left one name upon the list. He had no objection, however,
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  to the name of the hon. Member for Carlow County (Mr. J. Ball), a Gentleman on whose judgment and discretion the House could rely with safety, or to that of the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. J. Phillimore), a Gentleman of that moderation and good sense that he would be an acquisition to any Committee. If the names of the other Gentlemen to whom he had referred were put to the vote, he would be obliged, notwithstanding his desire to throw no obstacle in the way, to move their omission, because he was convinced the House would not or should not be satisfied with the Report of a Committee composed of Gentlemen committed to one side or other of this most important and painful question. He thought it would be difficult, but he hoped it would not be impossible, to select Gentlemen who had not so committed themselves, and who would be prepared to conduct the inquiry calmly and dispassionately, and to make such a Report as would enable the House to deal effectively with the matter. He distinctly disclaimed any desire to contravene the expressed wishes of the House, but he could not agree to the Committee as proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Hertford, because he did not think it would be calculated to enter upon the contemplated inquiry with a spirit of moderation and impartiality, or to pursue it in such a manner as would enable the House, either with propriety or with safety, to proceed to legislate upon the subject.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, he would not follow the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down (Mr. Massey) through all his observations, but there was one expression he had made use of which was rather singular. He said he did not wish to contravene the wishes of the House, and yet he had made his objections so large and general that he (Mr. Spooner) could not conceive how he could form a Committee that would not fall under some of the hon. and learned Member's animadversions. The hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Lucas) spoke of the tyrant majority, but he (Mr. Spooner) might speak of the tyrant minority, which was a term applicable to those who, in spite of the divisions that had taken place, were determined to do what they could to prevent the House carrying out its resolutions. The hon. Member for Meath had also alluded to the absence of the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), and taunted him with not having laid any

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  ground for this inquiry. That hon. Member had documents in his possession which would convince any Committee that there was a system rife of enticing young people into convents, and using moral influence over them for the purpose of obtaining possession of their property. The supporters of the Motion had not the slightest intention of dragging the inmates of convents before a Committee. There was evidence quite enough without that. There were the records of the courts of justice, facts to be brought before the Committee that would convince any honourable-minded man that there was a system of moral influence used to get the property of others for the purpose of increasing the secular power of the Roman Catholic Church. The hon. Member said they would defy the Legislature, and that they were determined to resist, and he warned the House of the dangerous consequences that would ensue if they proceeded with this inquiry. Did the hon. Member think the House was to be so intimidated? He would find that he was very much mistaken. And if he thought the country was to be so intimidated he was greatly mistaken. If the hon. Gentleman's observations went forth to the public through the usual channels, they would arouse a spirit which he apprehended the Roman Catholics would have great reason to fear. The supporters of this question would not desist from the object they had in view by any threats the hon. Member might utter. However the tyrant minority on this question might succeed in obstructing for a time, they would assuredly be ultimately defeated.
  MR. J. BALLsaid, he thought it would be difficult to carry out this inquiry unless there were on the Committee a fair representation of what might be deemed the strong views of both sides of the House. But the House was bound by every feeling of justice to see that this inquiry, if entered upon at all, was conducted with some decent regard to impartiality and justice. When the hon. and learned Member for Hertford first proposed his Committee, out of fifteen Members eleven were strongly opposed to the existence of these establishments. At present the hon. and learned Member was satisfied to have eight hon. Members pledged to the same views as himself. Notwithstanding the votes which the House had come to, he did not believe that the House would seriously undertake such an inquiry as this with what he could describe as nothing less
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  than a packed Committee. He had recommended, when the hon. and learned Member did him the honour to consult him on the subject, as the fairest tribunal for considering this question, a Committee composed of five Members who were hostile to conventual establishments, five who were favourable to them, and five fair and honourable men who had not committed themselves upon either side, and who would go into the inquiry with unprejudiced minds. He hoped that hon. Members opposite, even upon the question of convents, were prepared to act with fairness and justice.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he thought the principle enunciated by the hon. and learned Member for Newport (Mr. Massey) as to the composition of Committees was a most extraordinary one. He denied having expressed any strong opinions on this subject, in the House or out of it. He was quite in the hands of the House. He had his opinions, but he approached the subject with the utmost impartiality.
  MR. GOOLDsaid, he had thought the name of the hon. Member objectionable, because he had seen his name among the managing members of the Protestant Alliance—a body who were engaged in distributing tracts against the Roman Catholic religion. He had seen publications issued by this body which contained pictures of persons kissing the Pope's toe, and were otherwise calculated to throw ridicule upon, and were likely to irritate Members professing the Roman Catholic religion. To be one of the managing committee of such a body argued a certain amount of prejudice, and rendered the hon. Member, in his opinion, unfit to take his place as a juror to inquire into the guilt or innocence of the nuns and convents of the Church of Rome.
  MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, that the speech of the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) was characteristic of the whole of this proceeding. That hon. Member had represented himself to that House as quite unbiassed on the subject of nunneries, and well qualified to sit as an impartial judge of conventual institutions. But from the hon. Gentleman's silence when charged by the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Goold) with being one of the managing committee of the notorious Protestant Alliance, it now appeared that he was an active member of that bigoted body. It was clear, therefore, that he was now coming forward like a wolf in

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  sheep's clothing, by endeavouring to pass himself off for a liberal Member, and to persuade them that he was a proper person to be selected as an unprejudiced juryman. He would call the attention of the House to a pamphlet which had issued from the shop of that hon. Gentleman. It was one of those infamous tracts, filled with deliberate calumnies, which had been disseminated by the Protestant Alliance for the sole purpose of prejudicing the public mind against Catholics and their religion. This pamphlet professed to be on the nunnery question, and had been thrust into his hands as an Irish Catholic Member, in pursuance, as he presumed, of an offensive practice recently sanctioned by high authority in Ireland. It was compiled by the Secretary of the Protestant Alliance, a London barrister, named John Macgregor, notorious for a letter published some years since, containing infamous reflections upon the Catholic clergy of Maynooth, which he had visited upon a private introduction to one of its most accomplished professors, Dr. Russell. In that pamphlet were reiterated those vile untruths, which the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) had truly designated "cock-and-bull stories," but upon which alone the proposed inquiry was attempted to be based. It repeated the scandalous anecdote narrated in another place by the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, but which that dignitary had shrunk from substantiating when challenged to do so by the Rev. Mr. Marshall, of Dublin. It reiterated also the old woman's story told by the Bishop of Norwich, as to a Roman Catholic mother, whom that right rev. Prelate had encountered in a morning's stroll across Phœnix Park, but of whose name he had professed an entire ignorance. The hon. Member for Perth had placed himself in convenient juxtaposition, and was an apt bottle-holder to the hon. and learned Member for Hertford (Mr. T. Chambers), whom a majority of the House had just selected as an impartial judge; but who, as it appeared from the pamphlet, had already committed himself to the opinions that—
  "Conventual buildings are uniformly bolted, barred, and grated like prisons. Internally, he believed, there were not only cells, but dungeons. Nothing, therefore, would make the public believe that those buildings were erected for contented and happy inmates, but rather for keeping them there when entrapped."
  The same pamphlet attributed statements
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  even more shocking to another hon. Member (Mr. Drummond), whose name likewise appeared among those proposed, as an unbiassed judge upon the contemplated inquiry. One of the opinions thus attributed to that hon. Member, was conveyed in these most revolting terms:—
  "As to the nuns, they are in a state of continual strife among each other, and the crimes committed among the ladies who are boarders are too shocking to mention."
  The pamphlet contained a variety of other scandalous matter, with which he would not trouble the House. It attributed to other proposed Members of the Committee, such as the junior Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), preconceived views, which should absolutely disqualify them from acting as impartial judges, and among other atrocious calumnies asserted, on the authority of a Protestant clergyman, the Rev. W. G. Cookesley, that—
  "One of the most remarkable, if not the most formidable, agents made use of in subduing the understanding and whole beings of the sisters is mesmerism."
  What right had hon. Members to put forward, either in or out of that House, such infamous statements or stories which were quite incapable of any semblance of proof, and which every Catholic Member declared to be utterly false? He had himself often heard a most extraordinary anecdote or report respecting a religious practice currently attributed to the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), but should refrain from mentioning it, because he did not at present see that hon. Gentleman in the House. He had also frequently heard a queer statement regarding the prime mover of this inquiry (Mr. T. Chambers), which, if true, would not merely disqualify him from acting on the proposed Committee, but even from having a seat in the House. The statement was that the hon. and learned Member belonged to some peculiar sect, of which he was a sort of clergyman, and that on every Sunday evening he preached a sermon to his congregation at Hertford, in a chapel there. Were he to follow the example of the Protestant Alliance, and of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kinnaird), he ought to believe the truth of this curious rumour, and argue upon it as a proved fact, although he knew nothing respecting the truth or untruth of the story, except that it could not possibly be more false than those which the hon. Member had propagated respecting Catholic convents. Should the hon. and learned Mem-

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  ber (Mr. T. Chambers) now deny that story condemning him, he would at once believe the denial; and he expected, as a Catholic Member, to obtain equal credence when he positively denied that any of those idle tales about the nunneries of these countries had one atom of foundation in solid truth. But if English Members of the House would not accept as conclusive proof his individual assertion as an Irish gentleman, perhaps they would not disbelieve the emphatic declaration made last year by all the Catholic Peers and Baronets of England, and many other members of the first Catholic families in this country. Among other matters that document stated that—
  "The undersigned, having sisters, daughters, or near relatives, in convents in this country, and maintaining with them a constant intercourse, by themselves and the female members of their families, most of whom received their education, and still frequently reside therein, are perfectly acquainted with the habits, discipline, and mode of life pursued in convents, and are enabled to deny, as they do hereby deny, that any person is imprisoned in them, or that any physical impediment exists to prevent any inmate from quitting them who may be minded so to do.
  "The undersigned declare, that it is morally impossible that cases of unlawful imprisonment or physical restraints on liberty should exist in convents, without the fact being known to them and to their families. Therefore, that any assumption of the existence of such cases directly inculpates them as neglectful of their first duties as men and Christians, and as participators in the wrongful detention of those whom, by every tie of kindred and honour, they are called on to protect.
  "And, therefore, that the present proceeding, by countenancing the false and injurious suppositions of ignorant and prejudiced persons that inmates of convents are subjected to unlawful imprisonment, is a libellous insult to the ladies in question, to their families, and to the undersigned."
  When the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Chambers) had spoken to him upon the subject, he informed him in private, what he now repeated in public, that he regarded the mere proposal of such an inquiry by any Protestant Member as a piece of impertinent intermeddling, and a personal insult to himself and the other Catholic Gentlemen in that House. It was tantamount to asserting that he and they would continue passive and quiescent under wrongs done to their female relatives. He had near relations—aunts, sisters, and daughters—at present in convents in Ireland, in England, and abroad. Why should any Protestant gentleman constitute himself a protector of his female relations? That was his own duty, and no one had a
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  right to take it out of his hands. He repeated that it was entirely impossible that inmates could be confined against their will in the Catholic convents of these countries, without his becoming aware of the circumstance within a very short time; and it was equally impossible that lie could be deterred from doing his duty by any such fear or influence as had been so insultingly imputed to Catholic Members in that House. For his own part he had felt almost indifferent to the proposed inquiry, which must prove entirely abortive, and could lead to no practical result. As a Catholic he despised it, and viewed it in the light of a personal insult. It was proposed for the purposes of persecution, and was dictated by the same spirit which, in a coarser and more cruel form, had animated the executions at Tyburn in the time of Elizabeth, and the plunder of Catholics in that and subsequent reigns. It was the same persecuting spirit which within the last eighty years had prevented his grandfather from becoming an owner of land, and had excluded his father from all civil offices in the State. Perhaps those disabilities were not in those former times more sensitively felt than he and the other Catholics of Ireland now felt the more refined system of persecution which in various forms was daily directed against them and their religion, but especially against their pious female friends. Were he an English Protestant, he should feel even more strongly opposed to this course of legislation, as fraught with disgrace to that Church and danger to the empire. He had an utter contempt for this peddling inquiry, which it was proposed to conduct by a packed Committee. ["Oh, oh!"] He stated it advisedly, but in no offensive sense, that it would be a packed Committee; for on it would be placed Gentlemen whose judgments must necessarily be partial and one-sided, unless they belied their previous acts and professions. The whole proceeding was dictated by that feeling of Protestant bigotry which was now so prevalent, both in and out of the House. In using these expressions he desired to be clearly understood as not casting any reflection upon the Liberal Protestants of these countries, and at the same time to disclaim altogether religious intolerance towards persons who differed from the religion to which he belonged. He had no feeling of bigotry towards his Protestant countrymen, and no feeling in common with those who might entertain such feelings. He thought the House ought to affirm the present Motion

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  to postpone, for six months, the further nomination of this most offensive Committee; and though he concurred entirely with the able arguments advanced by the hon. and learned Member for Newport (Mr. Massey), he could not concur in his conclusion, that because the House had come to two wrong decisions, it ought, therefore, to decide erroneously a third time; on the contrary, he thought that it should retrace its stops on the present Motion. [Cries of "Divide, divide!"] As some hon. Members opposite seemed indisposed to listen further to his arguments, and appeared anxious to divide, he should at once gratify their wish by moving an adjournment of the present debate.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."
  The House divided:—Ayes 74; Noes 150: Majority, 76.
  Question again proposed. "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. KENNEDYsaid, as a Protestant Member, he felt called upon to protest against the insult which, by the Last division, had been offered to the Roman Catholics of the United Kingdom by the Protestant representatives of Great Britain; and in order to postpone the decision of the House for even twenty-four hours, he should move the adjournment of the House.
  MR. BELLEWsaid, he would second the Motion; and as it had been said that the Irish Members were afraid of inquiry, he admitted that of an inquiry by a Committee such as that which was proposed to be nominated, he was afraid.
  MR. SERJEANT SHEEsaid, that the "tyrant minority," to which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) had referred, were but discharging their duty as the Members for Roman Catholic Ireland. He felt called on to assert that the real ground of the hostility of the Members of the Protestant Alliance and of the Church Missions to Roman Catholics to these conventual establishments was, that the members of them were, in the way of their unworthy and cowardly attempt, to do in the nineteenth century what was attempted by Primate Boulter long ago—to get hold of the little children and so pervert the people of Catholic Ireland to any variety—it appeared to him that it mattered not which—of the Protestant religion. He had referred to the "tyrant minority" in order that he might
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  appeal to the honour and justice of the Protestant gentlemen of England, who had the power to do with the Catholics almost as they pleased, but who he confidently trusted would, when they came to consider the course in which they were embarking, think that it was consistent neither with their honour, their justice. nor their generosity. For many years he had lived on terms of friendly intercourse with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. T. Chambers). His hon. and learned Friend had proposed his name as a Member of this Committee, but he had thought it due to himself as an English gentleman to send word to his hon. and learned Friend that he would sit on no Committee with him upon his nomination. He was in hopes that his hon. and learned Friend had made this Motion in obedience to the wishes of his constituency; but when he heard him say that he did it entirely of his own accord, he could not help thinking that the hon. and learned Gentleman had offered a most wanton and gratuitous insult to the Catholic Members of that House; and he must say, that a Committee of which his hon. and learned Friend was a Member, and appointed on grounds such as he had urged in support of his Motion, was one on which no Catholic Gentleman could serve with comfort, and scarcely with credit and honour to himself. He could not have conceived it possible that any Gentleman acquainted with the Catholic Members of that House could, without intending a deliberate insult to them, have uttered what the hon. and learned Gentleman did in the speech which he had delivered on a former occasion. Nearly every Catholic Member of that House had relations in these convents. He himself had had sisters in them, and now had a child in one of them, and he knew that what the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated was not true. He had no doubt that his hon. and learned Friend did not know it was false, but he did not know it was true. The conduct of the hon. and learned Gentleman in this matter reminded him of what Burke said in one of his letters to his son, "There are some persons, who, in order to draw some slight respect to their persons, pretend to be bigots." He never knew his hon. and learned Friend to be a bigot until the time arrived when, if bigotry was not the only way to get a seat in that House, it was the best way to keep there. Let them hear what his hon. and learned Friend

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  said—[Cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Divide!"] Were they afraid to hear what he said? It was what they approved and encouraged. The hon. and learned Gentleman was their trump card—the very "Pam" of their party. [Laughter.] He (Mr. Serjeant Shee) was so accustomed to silent audiences, that this was rather agreeable than otherwise. It gave him time to breathe; but he feared he should detain them longer than he wished, if they did not allow him to say what he had to say in comparatively few words. His hon. and learned Friend said:—
  "Roman Catholics ought not to deny that convents were places of restraint and infliction. Who had not heard of the girdle, inside of which were sharp points, or bonnet rouge, which caused the most excuciating pain and insensibility when put upon the head?"
  As a man of honour, could the hon. and learned Gentleman affirm there was any pretence for saying anything of that kind was ever carried on in England, Scotland, or Ireland? [Mr. T. CHAMBERS indicated assent.] The hon. and learned Gentleman nodded his head in assent; then why did he not state the fact broadly? He challenged him to the inquiry. He had not dared to mention the convent, when it took place, or where. He did not attempt to descend to particulars, but threw out a charge to inflame the feelings of the House against conventual establishments, and to defame and to calumniate the Catholics of this country. How did he go on?—
  "It would not do to conceal the facts out of complaisance; and when it was said to be an insult to the Roman Catholic body to say that fathers would allow their children to be put into these institutions against their will, he could not help it—it was true."
  What pretence had he for saying it was true? None whatever. Even his faithful allies, the Members for the University of Dublin, the bitterest of all the Irish enemies of the Irish Catholic people—["Oh, oh!"]—or if not the bitterest, only not so because the hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside) was the bitterest—even they, with all their acquaintance with party disputes in Ireland, had not been able to advance one single instance of the kind. He (Serjeant Shee) declared on his honour he had never heard of any instance, and he could not conceive it possible such a case should have occurred without its having come to his knowledge. His hon. and learned Friend went on—["Oh, oh!"] That groan was such a
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  weak one, it was so self-condemnatory in its very tone, that the hon. Gentleman was evidently ashamed to hear stated that which it was his duty to state to the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman said, "It was true, and always had been true. A parent could not afford to give his daughter a suitable dower, and she was put into a convent." An inmate of a convent must have something to enable her to live in a convent, so that calumny could attach only to persons in the higher ranks of life—to the noble Lords who had signed the address—to some dozen baronets, and a few gentlemen of the highest rank as gentlemen in England—to some five or six of the same class in Scotland—and to a more considerable number, which would have been still more considerable but for Protestant confiscations in other times, in Ireland. Was it endurable that a person in the position of his hon. and learned Friend should make charges against a comparatively small number of persons, without any proof at all? Did he know that had he written that statement he would have been guilty of a scandalous libel? Then he went on, "A young girl falls in love, and to escape a bad match she is put into a convent." The man who said that could not have known what a young girl in love was. He should have said, if it had not been said by his hon. and learned Friend, that it had fallen from lips which beauty had seldom blessed. Did he not know that a young girl in love would scale almost any wall in England? It was the most preposterous and absurd suggestion that could possibly have been made. These were not the only charges made by the leader of the proud Protestants of England, not off-hand either. Lawyers were not entitled to excuse for want of consideration in anything they did. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in his chambers, prepared a measure which the hon. Member for the county of Limerick (Mr. Goold), who was not particularly favourable to conventual establishments, said was disgraceful to him as an English lawyer. The hon. and learned Gentleman brought in a Bill, he would not say under false pretences, but under pretences which he must now know not to be true. It was a Bill to facilitate the recovery of personal liberty in certain cases. It recited—[interruption]—that females were supposed—[increased interruption]. Perhaps the House would like to hear the recital of the Bill. [Cries of "Oh! oh!"] They would not let him go on; but if they

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  would do so, they would spare themselves another speech from him, which should be some inducement. The Bill recited that females—[Cries of "Divide, divide!"] The hon. and learned Gentleman's Friends were evidently ashamed of the Bill, and he would not say another word about it that night. He would yield to the wish of the House, but he had just one or two words to add. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) that night had said that he wished to go into Committee in order to adduce evidence to establish the fact that persons of property were placed in convents in order that the convents might become possessed of their property. This was one of those stories which the noble Lord the Leader of the House had aptly called "histoires du coq et de l'âne," and carried absurdity on the face of it. Now, the case must either be that of a young lady with a settled property, or that of a young lady with nothing but what she derived from the bounty of her parents. In the former case, nobody could divert the property from her. How absurd it was to suppose that the relatives or guardians of a young lady with a settled property would let her go into any such convent, the result of which would be to take the property from the family and hand it over to the convent! Then, take the case of a young lady without anything but what she might hereafter derive from the bounty of her parents. Her parents knew perfectly well when she went into the convent that they could make an arrangement to prevent the convent from getting any benefit from her. What was there to prevent her father, when she made up her mind to enter the convent, from giving her the portion of 1,000 l., which the convent required, and then making his will and leaving her 1s.? He knew that he could prevent the convent from receiving a farthing beyond the small allowance he gave it for the maintenance of his child. Curiously enough, when the M'Carthy case was contested, the brother claimed that it should be decided that the doctrine of civil death still existed—the effect of which would have been that the young lady would have been in the same position as if she had died intestate, and the family would have had the property. In that case, it was perfectly clear that the father knew what he was about—that when his daughters entered the convent he gave them the portion of 1,000 l. each, and prepared a will, which for fifteen years was never executed,
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  leaving them one shilling; thus demonstrating that in the case of a lady with no settled estate, the parents had the power of preventing the convent from getting a farthing, and that power parents were not unwilling to exercise. He was about to proceed to examine the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside), but he would leave that to another time, merely protesting that it appeared to him to be about the most absurd proposal for the purpose it professed to have in view that could have emanated from the head of a lawyer so distinguished as the hon. and learned Gentleman. He would now conclude, but he did not think it would be candid in him to thank the whole of the House for the patience with which it had listened to him; but he thanked Mr. Speaker and the great majority of hon. Members for the attention they had given to him, and he would merely add that he should vote for the Adjournment.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That this House do now adjourn."
  The House divided:—Ayes 68; Noes 121: Majority 53.
  Question again proposed; Debate arising; Debate further adjourned till Thursday next.
  The House adjourned at Two o'clock.