Commons Sitting of 5 June 1857

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN.—For Penryn and Falmouth, Thomas George Baring, esq.; for Reading, Henry Singer Keating, esq.

COWS IN HYDE PARK—QUESTION.
MR. KER SEYMERasked the Chief Commissioner of Works by whose authority cows are permitted in Hyde Park, when they are excluded from the other parks; whether the number are limited, and whether any of the officers of the Ranger's Department, or of the Board of Works, are allowed to have the run of cows free of charge; and, if so, how many are allowed to each such officer?
SIR BENJAMIN HALL, in reply, said that he had himself no authority in the matter, but he hnd communicated with Mr. Stephenson, the superintendent of Hyde Park, and from whom he had received the following statement:—
"Cows are permitted in Hyde Park under the authority of the Ranger for the time being. The number is limited, being regulated according to the state of the herbage. Permission is granted to any person to put cows in the Park on payment of a rent; such rent is collected from many persons, and amounted for the last year to £470 14 s., which was duly carried to the Public Accounts. It has hitherto been considered to be of great benefit to the public that so large a supply of fresh
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milk should be so easily obtained during the summer months. The superintendent is the only officer in the Ranger's department who has the privilege of depasturing cows free of expense to the number of five, which privilege has been enjoyed by him for twenty-five years, and by his predecessors in office. If it should be considered to be more for the public advantage that the cows should be removed from Hyde Park, the Superintendent will make no claim for compensation."

SCOTCH REGISTRATION BILL.

  QUESTION.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEasked the Lord Advocate what are the intentions of the Government with regard to the Scotch Registration Bill.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that, however anxious the Government might be to extend to all boroughs the advantages at present confined to a few, it appeared to them more consistent to delay the consideration of the subject to next Session, when the Government had announced its intention to bring in a general measure relating to the representation of the people. Moreover, he did not think that, if the Bill were introduced at so late a period, it could be passed into law during the present Session.

THE LAW OF MASTER AND SERVANT.

  QUESTION.
  In answer to Mr. FORSTER,
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that although the present state of the law with respect to the relation of master and servant was one productive of considerable hardship, it was not the intention of the Government to introduce any measure for its alteration in the course of the present Session. They might, however, in the course of the next Session, deem it to be their duty to bring in a Bill upon the subject.

  EDUCATION—QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he was desirous of putting a question to the noble Lord at the head of the Government upon the subject of education, and as it would be necessary for him, in doing so, to make a few observations in explanation of the question, he should set himself in order by moving that the House at its rising should adjourn till Monday next. The Resolution of which he had given notice with respect to education stood for Thursday, the 11th, but was placed in such a position on the paper that he was afraid there would be no chance of his being able to bring it on at such an hour as

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  would insure to its discussion that amount of attention which its importance demanded. Having tried the ballot for several successive days, he saw no reasonable prospect of his being in a position to bring forward the question under circumstances favourable to its consideration until July, when he was afraid it would be useless to raise a discussion with respect to it, owing to the advanced period of the Session. Now, notwithstanding that he had, upon various occasions, experienced great courtesy from the noble Lord, he still felt that he had no right to ask him as a matter of personal favour to enter into any arrangement to facilitate the attainment of the object which he had in view, He felt, however, that he was entirely in the hands of the noble Lord, who had taken all the Thursdays after the 18th instant for Government business. Of that he did not in the slightest degree complain, but he would put it to the noble Lord whether, upon national grounds, he would not deem it to be consistent with his duty and in accordance with the general feeling of the public, who were extremely anxious to ascertain the opinions of the new House of Commons upon the question of education, to afford him an early day for the purpose of bringing forward his Motion upon that important subject.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the House at its rising do adjourn till Monday next."

  BRAZIL—QUESTION.
  MR. ROEBUCKsaid, that before the noble Lord answered the question of the right hon. Baronet, he should wish to put to him another in relation to the discussion which had some evenings before taken place in connection with Brazil. He (Mr. Roebuck) had upon that occasion stated that the Act of 1845—commonly called Lord Aberdeen's Act—to which he had then alluded, was one of the operation of which both the people and the Government of Brazil complained. The noble Lord had, however, stated in reply that the Act was one which, by the mutual consent of this country and of Brazil, was not enforced; and as that statement, owing to the experience in office of the noble Lord, was entitled to be regarded as having been made upon good authority, he should wish to ascertain from the noble Lord whether he had any objection to lay upon the table of the House the documents upon which that statement was founded.

  ELECTION PETITIONS—QUESTION.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he feared he must take the same course as the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, and, before the noble Lord rose to reply to the questions which had just been put to him, submit the subject of what he might call sham election petitions to the notice of the House. The presentation of sham election petitions was now become a wholesale practice; and he might state that he had been upon two occasions himself the victim of that obnoxious system. He would ask the House whether it was consistent with their own honour and interests to permit this system to continue. He had within the last few days been accused by a man, whom he had never previously heard of, of having been guilty of every species of corruption which it was possible could take place within the limits of a contested election. That person, however, as had been announced by the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair, had, without assigning any reason, intimated it to be his intention to forego his accusation, and he (Mr. Adderley) was therefore justified in arriving at the conclusion, from the manner in which the charge had been made and withdrawn, that its author never had the slightest ground for those suspicions in reference to his conduct which he seemed to entertain. Now, it appeared to him a somewhat peculiar position for any Englishman to stand in, that his character should be assailed without an opportunity being afforded him of being brought face to face with his accuser. Such an accusation once made should, if well founded, be proceeded with, if false, exposed. He had upon four different occasions been returned to that House for the county of Stafford. Upon two of those occasions there had been a contested election, and he had in both cases been used in the manner which he had just described by some unknown person, who thought that he would serve very well as a cushion off which to make a hazard either into his own pocket or into the pocket of somebody else. In the former case there had been various dark whispers to the effect that if he would accede to the proposition, terms of accommodation might easily be entered into. He had, however, he was happy to be able to say, treated all such hints with the contempt which they merited—with all the scorn which in his heart he felt towards any man, whatever might be his position, who connected himself with pro-

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  ceedings of a character so disgraceful. He had done his utmost by means of taunts—he might almost say by a recourse to insults, to induce the parties to the petition to which he referred to proceed with it, but he had been unable to induce those men of straw to come into the face of daylight to prefer their accusations. He consequently had had no opportunity of rebutting those charges, and of clearing his character of the foul aspersions which had been cast upon it. The petition which had lately been presented against his return to that House had been signed by a person named Fox, whom he had with difficulty ascertained to be a journeyman hatter at Newcastle-under-Lyme, and in that petition he had been charged with the commission of acts of bribery and treating, and with having in various other ways corruptly influenced the late election for North Staffordshire. Now, his opponent in the election for that county, Mr. Edward Buller, and his friends, so far from concurring in that accusation, had expressed their indignation at its ever having been made. Such, he might add, was the general feeling of those who had been opposed to him in North Staffordshire. He should, nevertheless, have desired to meet his accuser in open day; but, from a letter read by the right hon. Gentleman in the chair, he discovered that Mr. Coppock, the agent of James Fox, had intimated that it was not his intention to proceed with the petition. When, however, he found that such was the case, and that he could not hope for redress from a Committee of that House, he had appealed to some gentlemen connected with the legal profession with a view of ascertaining from them whether he could not obtain such redress in the Courts of Law. He was perfectly willing to spend £1,000 in the endeavour to obtain it. [Laughter.] It would seem as if those hon. Gentlemen opposite who laughed could not connect with the mention of a sum of £1,000 any idea but that of corruption. [Cries of "No, no!"] But, be that as it might, he was perfectly ready to expend that sum in the endeavour to convict upon a charge of libel the man who had now unjustly assailed his character, and who, having done so, was screened from the punishment which he deserved by the privileges of the House of Commons itself. It might be regarded as squeamishness upon his part to exhibit so much sensitiveness upon the subject, but he would confess he could not look upon
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  the matter as trivial. He recollected a debate in that House, in which several eminent men—and among them the late Sir Robert Peel—after admitting the difficulty of legislating in such a manner as to produce perfect purity of election, had given it as their opinion that the attainment of an object so desirable must, after all, be left to a great extent to public feeling, and that it could never he accomplished until candidates had learnt to look upon corruption at elections as a disgrace to a man of honour. If such was the light, then, in which it ought to be viewed, there was, he considered, every reason why he should exhibit some sensitiveness with respect to the accusation of wholesale corruption, brought against himself, even though it was notoriously a mere trick for electioneering purposes. If that House were to legislate for purity of election, and were itself to become the fountain of corruption, it would be guilty of a farce which it was time should be put an end to. If, too, the House continued to make itself the channel of such libels, and slanders, and to protect by its privileges those from whom they proceeded, it ought to cease to keep up the farce of attempting to legislate for purity of election. He would ask the House, and above all he would ask the leader of the House, whether it would be right and proper to leave this system of libel and slander, in the process of their judicial inquiries into corrupt practices, in its present state, or whether the noble Lord was prepared to take measures to put an end to it? It was not incumbent upon him to suggest a mode of putting a stop to the practice of which he complained, it was the business of the Government to say that it was impossible, or else to put it down. But, in his opinion, there was this simple mode of dealing with such cases. Recognizances were now entered into in order to ascertain that parties who proceeded with election petitions for corrupt practices were able to pay the expense of the proceedings if they took place. Now, by a very trifling extension of the provisions of a clause in the Act of 1848, it might be enacted that the petitioners should forfeit their recognizances if they did not proceed with their petition, or, at all events, show good ground for withdrawing it. Out of seventy-seven election petitions presented in the present Session, perhaps not fifty per cent were bonâ fide. Probably more than fifty per cent were what were called

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  pairing-off petitions, while many of those petitions were brought forward with an object not known to the House, but not unknown to the agents of corruption—namely, for the direct purpose of extorting money from the Members petitioned against.
  MR. G. H. MOOREsaid, the present, he considered, was a fitting opportunity to call attention to another abuse of the right of petitioning. Charges of the grossest character had been brought against him in an Election Petition which had been presented against his return. Of course he had no right to complain, as those charges would form the subject of investigation before the proper tribunal; but he had a right to complain that the public press and some Members of that House should use the allegations contained in that petition for such purposes against him, and should have deliberately attempted to prejudge and prejudice a case which stood for judgment before a Committee of that House. An article was published a few days since in The Times newspaper, in which all the allegations in the petition were quoted, and adding that those allegations—which were of a most disgraceful character—would in all probability be proved before the Election Committee. It was not only that those statements were read by Members of that House, but that they were read also by the very parties who were to try the case, and became the subject of public conversation from one end of London to the other; and men's minds became saturated with opinions which it was very difficult to remove. But he had, beyond this, to call attention to the fact that an hon. Member of that House—a gentleman for whom he entertained the highest respect, and whom he knew to be incapable, intentionally, of prejudging or prejudicing any case—the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner), who on a late occasion quoted the allegations in the petition against his (Mr. Moore's) return, as proving certain undue interference by the Roman Catholic Clergy, to which he was at the time calling attention. Now, he certainly thought that in all cases those petitions should be left to the constituted tribunals, and that any interference with the duties of those tribunals—any attempt to dictate to or prejudice their minds, by comments either by the press or by individuals ought not to be tolerated. In any other case there would be a remedy for the publication of
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  such charges by an action for libel; but in the case of a member whose return was petitioned against, there was no redress whatever. He hoped the charges which had been brought against him would be fully investigated by the Committee, and fairly tried; but he must protest against the abuse of the privileges of the press and the privilege of public speech for the purpose of endeavouring to prejudge and prejudice the minds of those who were to sit in judgment on the merits of the case.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, that if the hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) were a new Member he should not be so much surprised at the complaint he had brought forward, but seeing that he was a Member of the late Parliament, the hon. Member must surely have forgotten what occurred when that Parliament met. They had, he believed, some 120 or 130 election petitions presented, many of them, it was notorious, solely for the purpose of being paired off against others. All those election petitions contained much the same statements, and the same accusations of every species of iniquity connected with electioneering. Therefore, any Member who was a Member of the late Parliament, knowing those things, and who yet took no pains whatever to remedy the evil, had no right to complain of what was taking place now. He would ask what took place at the beginning of the late Parliament? He (Mr. T. Duncombe) was Chairman of the Committee that sat upon the Norwich election petition. Mr. James Coppock, the agent on the one side, and Mr. Brown, the Conservative agent, on the other, withdrew the petition, without consulting either the petitioner or the sitting Member. Colonel Dickson was the petitioner, he having been one of the candidates at the election. Colonel Dickson thought he had a good case—but without asking his consent, the petition was withdrawn by an arrangement between the agents. He appealed to the House, but no redress could be afforded to him under the Act of 1848. There was no doubt that the agent had the right to withdraw the petition, and it was found that the House could not inquire into the matter. Of the 120 or 130 petitions presented, about one-half only were proceeded with. Thirty-six Members were unseated, and the writs for the new elections were suspended in regard to nine of the boroughs—four of them for a short time, and five until the Corrupt Practices Bill

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  was passed. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) who introduced that Bill led the House to believe that it would cure everything, and effectually prevent anything like bribery or corruption of any kind for the future. And thereupon the writs were issued for Canterbury, Marlborough, Barn-staple, Cambridge, and Hull. But had that Act done any good? None whatever. Instead of a Bill for preventing corrupt practices, it ought, more properly, to have been entitled, a "Bill to conceal Corrupt Practices at Elections." There was the election auditor, it was true, but the candidates returned to him only such expenses as they knew were proper and would be allowed. No man would think of sending to the auditor what would be, in fact, evidence against himself. And yet the auditor's Report was the evidence which the Committee were to take. He contended, therefore, that that Act left the matter of corrupt practices at elections just where it was before. The attention of the House was called in the Norwich case, but what had the House done in reference to it from the year 1853 to the present time? Nothing whatever. The Committee reported that it had been proved that the petition from Norwich had been withdrawn, and that this withdrawal formed part of an Arrangement or compromise between Mr. Brown and Mr. Coppock by which eight petitions were simultaneously withdrawn, implicating the seats of ten Members of the House. The Committee added—
  "Your Committee think it right to direct the serious attention of the House to the facility that at present exists for originating and withdrawing election petitions, and to the public scandal that is notoriously created by the process of what politital partisans and the parties professionally engaged therein term 'pairing off petitions,' which abuse takes place under cover of the 8th section of the Act, entitled, 'The Election Petitions Act, 1848;' and whether it is not desirable that such alterations should be made in the said law as shall prevent the continuance of a system which, in the opinion of your Committee, is calculated to cause injustice and expense to innocent parties, and to bring the proceedings of this branch of the Legislature into contempt, as restricting this House in the exercise of the power of administering relief which the law, through the medium of election petitions, was specifically passed to afford."
  In consequence of that Report he (Mr. T. Duncombe) gave notice of a Motion for leave to introduce a Bill for remedying the evil; but the Government said, "We will bring in a Bill that shall answer every purpose," but they had never done so.
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  The remedy appeared to him perfectly easy. It might be accomplished by a short Bill, providing that, instead of going through the process of entering into recognisances, a certain sum—something under the £1,000, for which the recognisances were now entered—say one-half, or £500, should be paid down and deposited in the hands of Mr. Speaker. That would show whether the petition was bonâ fide or not. He would further provide, that no petition, when once presented, should be withdrawn, except with the consent of the House obtained by another petition, in which the grounds for such withdrawal should be made out, stating that the petitioners had been deceived in the statements made to them of corrupt practices, and that they believed there was no case again the sitting Member. That would completely meet the complaint of the hon. Member for North Staffordshire. He hoped, now that the attention of the House had been brought to the subject, that the present Parliament would not be allowed to pass over without at least something being done to remedy the evil.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, that as the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. G. H. Moore) had specifically alluded to him, he hoped the House would bear with him for a few moments while he offered a few observations in explanation. The hon. Member for Mayo had done him no more than justice in declaring that he (Mr. Spooner) would never do anything likely to prejudice a cause—or likely to induce hon. Members to prejudge a cause. Nor did he think that he had done anything in the present instance to forfeit his claim to such a character. What he had endeavoured to show was, that the education of the priesthood at Maynooth necessarily led to the interference of priests at elections; that there were many cases in which it was quite clear they had so interfered; and that he (Mr. Spooner) was not their only accuser, for that similar accusations were urged even by Members of the Roman Catholic Church in a petition before that House. Perhaps there would be some justice in charging him with unfairness if he had not referred to documents in the hands of Members, and to circumstances known to the whole House; besides which, he had specifically declared he should not offer any opinion as to the truth or falsehood of the allegations in the petition. He was quite sure that there was not a single Gentleman sitting in that House who

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  would be led to form an opinion as to the merits of the case from anything that had fallen from him, and he could assure the hon. Member for Mayo that if his conduct was capable of being construed into an attempt to influence Gentlemen's minds he should not have acted as he had done.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I am quite sure, Sir, that the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Pakington) will believe me when I say—what I am convinced must be the opinion of the whole House—that no Member is more entitled to courtesy than himself in regard to anything in which his own personal wishes are concerned. I am also ready to admit that the subject of education on which he wishes to state his views is one eminently deserving attention in the new House of Commons. On the other hand, I would submit to the right hon. Baronet, who, whatever may be his anxiety on his own question, will, I am persuaded, enter into the natural feelings of the Government, that we have made very little way yet in the Estimates, many of which remain to be discussed; and that there are several important measures which the Government is desirous of passing through this House in time to afford a chance of their receiving proper consideration by the other, branch of the Legislature. The Session has not been long begun, and therefore—though the right hon. Gentleman has not been successful hitherto in his attempts to obtain a night by ballot—a measure for which this mishap is not very likely to conciliate his support; still I hope he may be more fortunate on a future occasion. All I can say is, that I am afraid I cannot at the present moment offer him a Government day on which to bring on his Motion. But if, after the lapse of a certain time, when we have made more progress with the public business, it should really appear that the right hon. Baronet has not been able to secure a day for his purpose, we shall then be very happy to give him the opportunity he desires. In answer to my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Roebuck), I may observe that what I stated the other evening was exactly what he has mentioned just now; namely, that the operation of the Act of 1845, in regard to the Brazilian slave trade, was suspended by the mutual consent of the two Governments. Now, if the hon. and learned Member or the House understood from this that I meant to say the Brazilian Government had consented to the continuance of the
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  Act, even in a suspended state, they misunderstood me: I may, perhaps, have used that expression hastily and without due consideration, but what I intended to convey was, that the Act was suspended in consequence of communications between the two Governments—suspended by the British Government in deference to the wishes of the Brazilian Government, and on the faith that that Government would persevere in its active exertions to put down the slave trade. The papers connected with the Brazilian slave trade have been annually laid before Parliament in the volumes A, B, and C, published every Session, and the correspondence on this specific point must be contained in those papers. I shall not, however, give my hon. and learned Friend the trouble of hunting out the particular documents relating to this transaction from so large and bulky a mass; but I will take care to have references made for him to the page and volume in which this correspondence is to be found, and then he may readily discover for himself in the library the documents in question, together with the agreements which have been come to. With respect to the inquiry put by the hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley), and also adverted to by the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. G. H. Moore) and my hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe), it is no doubt perfectly true that the practice of petitioning against the return of Members of Parliament is frequently abused. Sometimes charges are brought which the parties making them know to be unfounded—at other times they are brought in order to extort either a compromise or possibly a money payment. Now, Sir, it would certainly be very desirable to prevent such things. On the other hand we have the character of Parliament to consider, and we ought not, for the sake of checking the abusive exercise of a power now given by law, to restrict too much the opportunity enjoyed by electors or defeated candidates of bringing before Parliament practices on the part of the successful candidate which may properly demand inquiry and lead to the avoiding of the election. At the same time there is a serious evil in the right of petitioning being perverted for the purposes already mentioned. But a petition can only proceed from an elector or a candidate. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. G. H. Moore) says, petitions are received containing libellous charges against Members,

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  and that then the petitions are dropped. But surely there cannot be a greater admission of the groundless nature of the accusations than the dropping the petition. Nobody at all acquainted with the public or private character of the hon. Member can for a moment suppose him to have been guilty of the charges which he states have been made against him. Now, the petitioner petitions under certain conditions, namely, the condition of paying the expenses incurred by proceeding with his petition. Then, as to the case of petitions being presented with the view of extorting money, I should say it is the duty of any Member to whom such an intimation has been given to bring that fact before the House as a breach of privilege; and I am sure this House, when appealed to, would be perfectly ready to take proper cognizance of the matter. Again, when one petition is presented for the purpose of inducing another to be withdrawn, if that other petition is well-founded, why do the parties withdraw it? They ought to say "No, your petition is groundless; we dare you to proceed with it; or if you don't bring it to trial we will compel you to drop it. But we will not pair off your petition with ours, which is well-founded. We shall go on, and leave you to do as you please." It is, therefore, in the power of parties confident in the truth of their petition to resist any attempt to induce them to withdraw it by offering to withdraw a counter charge. There are other cases, however, in which a petition may be rightfully presented and rightfully abandoned. Persons are obliged to present their petitions within a fortnight after the meeting of Parliament, at which time they may believe they have perfectly good grounds for challenging the election. In the interval before the trial of the petition those grounds may fail them. An important witness may have died, gone away, or been tampered with by the other side; or the petitioners may find on a more accurate examination that the evidence on which they relied would not bear sifting to the bottom. Therefore we should be injuriously curtailing the means of bringing to light practices which we wish to prevent were we too rigidly to limit the right of petitioning against election returns. Still, if anything can be suggested which would on the one hand give ample opportunity for the exposure of proceedings with which this House ought to deal, and on the other remove those abuses to which, the hon.
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  Gentleman find others have referred, it will certainly deserve careful consideration. But this can only be done by the alteration of the law, because the practice now complained of is authorized by the law, with which this House alone cannot interfere. The hon. Member for Mayo says that premature opinions have been expressed in the newspapers and elsewhere on a petition which is still pending. Why, hardly a case comes before the Courts of Law on which, in some way or another, opinions are not pronounced in public before the trial actually takes place. But I am quite satisfied that those hon. Members who are appointed to inquire into Election Petitions, and who are obliged to try them on their oath, will be guided solely by the evidence adduced before them, and not suffer their minds in any degree to be prejudiced by what they may read in the public prints, or what they may hear in clubs, or learn through any other channel.
  MR. HILDYARDsaid, he thought he could make a suggestion to the noble Lord, founded on the practice of the courts of law. If an indictment was preferred against a person he could apply to the Court for a copy of the indictment, and the Court, upon cause being shown, would furnish a copy to the party accused, who thereupon could take such proceedings against the prosecutor as he might think fit. Now, he (Mr. Hildyard) would propose that, in the same way, upon a petition being presented, the party against whom it was presented should be at liberty to apply to the House for a copy; and if the petition could be reasonably justified, and a fair case for presenting it could be made out, then the application should be refused; but otherwise, if no sufficient reason for presenting it could be shown, the application should be complied with. He believed that a measure of that nature would operate as a salutary check upon parties presenting petitions without any sufficient grounds, for he thought he knew how a Judge would charge the jury in case proceedings were taken, and how a jury would decide.

  THE CASE OF MR. STONOR.—QUESTION.
  LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I wish, Sir, to put a question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but before I do so I can hardly refrain from noticing the observations which have been made with respect to my conduct by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T.

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  Duncombe). He says that I introduced a Bill which I maintained would cure all corruptions and prevent all bribery at elections. I beg totally to deny the truth of that allegation. I introduced a Bill which I hoped might render bribery and corruption at elections less frequent, but I was not so sanguine as to hope that it would put an end to all bribery and corruption. However, that Bill was sent with other Bills to a Select Committee of this House. That Select Committee comprised the late Attorney General (the present Chief Justice of the Common Pleas), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole), the hon. and learned Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly), and several other Members of the late House, who were fully competent to consider the questions submitted to them. Many clauses which had been proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Suffolk were introduced into that Bill, and it was the opinion of the Committee that the provisions of the Bill would render bribery and corruption of less frequent occurrence. Now, Sir, notwithstanding the remarks of the hon. Member for Finsbury, I am inclined to think that the Committee was right in that view. But the question will soon be tried, because we shall have a number of Election Committees sitting upon the petitions which have been presented, and by the result of their inquiries we shall be able to see whether that is a useful Bill or not, and, if useful, whether such additions may be made to it as may have the effect of still further correcting the evil of bribery. But the hon. Member for Finsbury says that he has propositions of his own, which are admirably calculated to prevent certain evils which he pointed out. Why, then, does he not apply his industry to the correction of those evils instead of complaining that my Bill is ineffectual? With regard to the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hildyard), I am very much of the opinion stated by my noble Friend at the head of the Government—namely, that, although some remedies might be required, I think we ought to be very cautious how we shut the door against complaints of bribery and corruption. There may be cases, as my noble Friend stated, in which a person may in his own mind have had a perfectly good reason for presenting a petition complaining of corrupt practices, and that
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  opinion may have been well founded, but circumstances may have taken place by which he is unable to bring forward the truth of the case, and I think he is then perfectly justified in withdrawing his petition. The question which I wish to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies has some remote reference to this subject, but it refers more particularly to a Gentleman who considers himself to have been aggrieved by circumstances that took place in the late Parliament. The Gentleman to whom I allude is Mr. Stonor, who produced to the Duke of Newcastle, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, very high testimonials and recommendations, and on which the Duke of Newcastle recommended him to the Crown for a judicial office in one of the Australian Colonies. A Report was made to this House by one of the Selection Committees, which impugned the character of Mr. Stonor, and some discussion took place in this House on the subject. The Duke of Newcastle, although he believed that Mr. Stonor had been very hardly dealt with, thought it was his duty to advise the Crown to cancel his appointment. But, without entering into particulars, I think I may fairly say, that there was some misconception with regard to the imputations which were made against Mr. Stonor; at least, I was convinced when I was Secretary for the Colonies that if a vacancy should occur in any office which Mr. Stonor was competent to fill no imputation rested upon his character, and I should be prepared to recommend him to the Crown for public employment. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies is aware of the circumstances to which I have alluded; and I wish to ask him whether, in his opinion, there is any circumstance affecting the character of Mr. Stonor which would disqualify him for appointment to a public office.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Sir, I shall best answer the question of my noble Friend by stating exactly to him and to the House the reply that I made to Mr. Stonor, when he made a similar application to me. I had known that Gentleman when I was Secretary for Ireland, having had some intercourse with him upon the occasion of requiring the assistance of professional gentlemen to prepare some public measures which the Government intended to lay before Parliament. Mr. Stonor was then recommended to me by some of the

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  highest legal authorities in Ireland; and what they stated to me I certainly found to be true in my intercourse with him. That intercourse left upon my mind a very favourable impression of him, both as a private individual, and as an acute, sensible and learned professional man. Shortly after my appointment to the Colonial Office, Mr. Stonor called upon me, and stated the very fatal effects which the recall of the colonial appointment that he had accepted had produced upon himself and his family, and he asked me whether I would recommend the Crown, upon a fitting opportunity, to restore him to the colonial service. My answer to him was this:—I said that I had looked into the circumstances of the case; that the impression upon my mind was that they formed no permanent disqualification to his employment in the colonial service, and that I should have no difficulty in recommending him to the Crown for any office in this country for which he might be competent, but that I thought an appointment in a colony was a very different matter. This gentleman has been recalled from one colony, and I was satisfied that if he were sent to another colony, the impression there would be, that it had been hardly used. I should have no opportunity of justifying the appointment before that colonial community, and I therefore told him that I did not think it would be to the interest of the public service, if I should recommend him to the Crown for any colonial appointment. But I feel it to be due to him to make the declaration in this House that, in my opinion, there is nothing in the circumstances of his case which should permanently be held to be a disqualification of him for public employment in any situation for which he is competent.
  MR. HORSMANsaid that, having been a Member of the Committee before whom some charges were brought against Mr. Stonor, he considered it right to state a circumstance which had not been alluded to by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. When Mr. Stonor was an applicant for a judicial appointment in one of the colonies, he gave the Colonial Office the fullest opportunity of considering the facts which were laid before the Committee with reference to him, and which were supposed to reflect upon his character. It was proved before the Committee that, by some oversight, the papers of Mr. Stonor with reference to the
  1216
  charges preferred against him were not examined at the Colonial Office; and, in consequence of his testimonials, he received the appointment for which he applied. Shortly afterwards the appointment was brought before the House by the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. G. H. Moore), and the result was that, by the very mail following that which took Mr. Stonor to Australia, he was informed that his appointment had been cancelled. It was now manifest that he had been hardly dealt with. In order to accept the colonial appointment he gave up a lucrative practice in this country, and incurred considerable expense to settle himself in the colony. He was recalled without any fact in addition to those which he had taken every pains to bring to the notice of the Colonial Office having been brought against him. Under these circumstances, it did appear to him that the case of Mr. Stonor was a very hard one, and was well entitled to the consideration of the Government.
  MR. MALINSsaid, he had not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Stonor, although he was a member of the same profession to which he belonged. Mr. Stonor, too, entertained altogether opposite political opinions with him (Mr. Malins). These facts, therefore, were quite sufficient to show that he was not influenced by any personal considerations in the opinions he entertained respecting the position of that gentleman. He, however, had long been impressed with the feeling that Mr. Stonor had been very hardly dealt with, and he felt hound to stand forward in vindication of the character of a professional brother. He was sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary say that Mr. Stonor was ineligible for a colonial appointment, because if so, he would, under the circumstances, be ineligible for any appointment, inasmuch as there was nothing else which would be likely to suit that gentleman but a colonial appointment. It should be recollected that Mr. Stonor had given up a professional income when he had gone out to our colonies, and that he was now in fact left without any redress. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman had taken a very extreme view of the case, when he objected to recommend him to an appointment in our Colonies.
  Motion agreed to.
  House, at rising, to adjourn till Monday next.

  SOUND DUES—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Copy of Treaty, &c. (presented 7th May) referred.
  MR. LIDDELLsaid, he rose, pursuant to notice, to call the attention of the House to the subject of the Danish transit duties. In doing this he was actuated by no vexatious desire to oppose the going into Committee, but he thought the present a fit opportunity for bringing under consideration that portion of the Convention which related to the subject of his notice. He was not prepared to oppose the general scheme for the redemption of the Sound Dues, which he believed had long been a source of vexation and annoyance to the mercantile marine engaged in the Baltic trade. The collection itself was attended with both difficulty and danger to the shipping from the delay it caused, and, he believed, it would be for the benefit of all parties concerned that such an arrangement should receive the sanction of Parliament. But there was another subject of importance embraced in this scheme—namely, the transit duties levied by Denmark upon goods conveyed over lines of railway which intersected that country. Those duties were first levied in 1838; and it was then suggested that they should be at the rate of 9d. for every 100 lb. weight of goods. This rate was, however, the subject of remonstrance, on the part of Lubeck, and it was reduced to 4½d. The present proposition was, that four-fifths of those duties should be reduced. Now, it was the clear understanding when these duties were first imposed that they should be levied for the purpose of protecting the Sound revenue. When, then, this House was called upon to vote a large sum of money for the purpose of abolishing the Sound Dues, it was worth while considering the propriety of getting rid of the whole of the transit duties, instead, as was proposed, of leaving one-fifth of those duties still in existence. The Flensburgh Railway, over which British goods were conveyed, was that which intersected the Danish province of Lower Schleswig, and the amount of duties paid on about 17,000 tons of goods conveyed over this line last year was about £1,012. Reducing this by four-fifths you arrive at a sum of little more than £200 a year; and, even if the traffic upon this line double itself in future, Denmark cannot expect to derive much more than £400 a year under
  1218
  the new arrangement from this restrictive impost upon trade, and this might be reduced by the payment of a capital sum of £6,400 at fifteen and a half years' purchase. Now, he thought, when we were about making an arrangement like the one before the House, that a sum of this kind ought not to be allowed to stand in the way of an entire abolition of these transit duties. Now, the trade did not so much complain of the amount of duty as of the vexation, restriction, and delay which attended the declaration necessary for ascertaining exactly upon what goods it ought to be levied. The feeling was very strong against these dues in all the Hanseatic towns, the people of which were much more interested in the subject than we were. The total amount levied upon all the lines throughout the Danish dominions did not exceed at present £22,000 a year; reduce that by four-fifths and you arrive at the sum of £4,500 received by the Danish exchequer from this source; but, supposing that even double that amount should be raised, it was but a small receipt to justify such an odious and vexatious restriction as that which he had pointed out. But in addition to other grounds of complaint, he contended that the tariff of duties was most unfair. The raw produce of Russia, for example, including hemp, flax, tallow, timber, and so on, was exempt from all dues, and, he thought, it was only just, therefore, that our raw colonial produce, such as sugar, coffee, cocoa, and tobacco, should also be carried along the Danish railways free of duty. He believed, moreover, that the feeling which prevailed in Denmark itself was strongly opposed to the continuance of these dues; for he found in the Report of a Committee of the Danish Imperial Council which had sat to consider the whole subject the following passage:—
  "The Committee, therefore, could not avoid taking into serious consideration whether it would not be in the interest of the State to remove the whole of the duties and to allow the free transit of goods, particularly as that source of revenue has been so diminished by the treaty already concluded as to lose the chief part of its political importance."
  That passage, he thought, might satisfy the noble Lord at the head of the Government that he could rely upon a certain amount of assistance from the Danish Imperial Council themselves in pressing this point. He could readily anticipate the answers which he should receive from the Government. He should be told, in the

  1219
  first place, that a great number of States were parties to the convention, and that, by its terms, any further concession made in favour of any one particular State must be shared in by all; and he should further, he apprehended, be told that it would not be worth while, for the sake of so small a sum as remained to be levied, to re-open the question and thus endanger the success of the entire scheme. To these anticipated objections to his proposition he could say that we were going to pay Denmark for what she gave up, and that we had better pay her at once for abandoning the duties entirely, because, however trifling the sum that remained to be levied, the delay and vexation consequent upon the necessity of declaring the goods would continue as great as ever. Then, as to endangering the success of the whole scheme, he could only say that Denmark had been compelled to abandon what she bad from fear of a war with the United States, and that it was not likely that she would render herself liable to another embroilment by insisting on the maintenance of the small duty that remained if the British Government were to protest against it. He would beg to remind the House that memorials had been presented, complaining of the Convention as an incomplete and unsatisfactory settlement of the question, from the North of Europe Steam Navigation Company, from the directors of the Royal Swedish Railway Company, and from sixty-two of the principal London firms engaged in the Baltic trade; and he would respectfully urge upon the House that, instead of giving their implicit sanction to the convention as it stood, they should endeavour to obtain the absolute and immediate abolition of all the railway dues. In the recent case of a Convention with France on the subject of the Newfoundland fisheries, the Convention was allowed to fall to the ground by Her Majesty's Government by reason of the colony objecting to it. There was one circumstance which appeared on the face of the correspondence of which he should like to have an explanation from the Secretary of the Treasury. A letter, calling the attention of the Government to most important facts, containing statements of figures, and going to the gist of the whole matter, was addressed to the Treasury on the 14th January, 1857. It did not appear even to have been acknowledged, but remained in the pigeon-holes of that Department until the 8th of May—the very day on which he moved for the
  1220
  production of this correspondence,—on which day it was forwarded to the Foreign Office, this Convention having been signed on the 14th of March. He must again warn the House that this might be the last opportunity which would be offered for obtaining the total abolition of those transit dues, and he called upon the noble Lord at the head of the Government to put the screw upon Denmark, with a view to the attainment of that object.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that, as the abolition of the transit dues formed only one part of the question of the redemption of the Sound Dues, it would probably be more convenient that he should postpone any answer to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman until the House went into Committee, and he had an opportunity of explaining the whole of the Convention, one clause of which related to those dues.
  MR. BRAMLEY-MOOREsaid, he thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should favour the House with the views of Her Majesty's Government before he asked it to come to a Vote which would involve the expenditure of more than £1,000,000 of money. He had so strong an objection to the arrangement that he should oppose it at every stage.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, it was his intention to make a full and complete statement to the Committee before asking it to come to any Vote upon the subject.
  House in Committee, Mr. FITZROY in the Chair.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Mr. FitzRoy, although the arrangement with respect to the redemption of the Sound Dues has been voluntarily concluded by the British Government with that of Denmark, yet the time at which it has come under the consideration of this Government has been somewhat independent of its volition. The question was first raised by the Government of the United States. About two years ago they questioned the legality of the Sound Dues, and stated that they would not consent to the payment of them by their vessels. In consequence of this announcement there were negotiations of a somewhat unfriendly nature between the King of Denmark and the President of the United States, which ended in the latter Power peremptorily refusing to consent to the exaction of these dues. Owing to this the Government of Denmark considered whether means could not be

  1221
  devised for their voluntary extinction, and in the course of the year 1855 a Congress of delegates assembled at Copenhagen to attempt to arrange the terms of a redemption. For some time the delegates were unable to agree upon the bases of a settlement, but in the spring of 1856 it was proposed to the British Government that the object should be effected by the payment of a gross sum for their redemption. At that time the treaty of peace with Russia was under negotiation; it was uncertain how long we might continue to be engaged in an expensive conflict; and the Government of Her Majesty, while recognizing the importance to our Baltic trade of extinguishing these dues, yet from financial considerations showed no eagerness to enter into the arrangement, and the first answer contained in a letter of Lord Clarendon's to Mr. Buchanan, the British Minister at Copenhagen, dated March 23, 1856, was not a favourable one. I mention this to show the Committee that Her Majesty's Government did not enter into this arrangement precipitately, but gave to it a calm, a cool, and a protracted consideration. After that answer was sent the negotiations between Denmark and other Powers proceeded; and not long after the treaty was signed which put an end to the great war with Russia, Russia itself and one or two other Powers signified their acceptance of the terms which had been offered to them as well as to England. This materially altered the position of England with regard to the question, because obviously disadvantages would have arisen to our trade if the ships of other nations had been exempted from Sound Dues while our vessels had continued to pay them. Her Majesty's Government deemed that this was a proper subject for the consideration of this House, as no treaty could be executed without a grant of money by Parliament; and, therefore, nearly at the end of the last Session I moved the appointment of a Committee which examined Mr. Buchanan, our Minister at Copenhagen, and many witnesses connected with the Baltic trade, and presented a Report to this House. I will not trouble the Committee at any length with extracts from that Report, but I would beg leave to call their attention to the fact that these Sound Dues are oppressive to the trade of this country, not merely on account of the payments directly levied upon British ships, but on account of the incidental charges which those payments
  1222
  bring in their train, and also on account of the detention of vessels at Elsinore for the purpose of levying the dues. On this subject I beg leave to call the attention of the Committee to one passage in the Report of the Committee. That passage I states—
  "It is a matter of much complaint that these charges, which are only incidental to the payment exacted by the Danish Government, amounted to more than the dues themselves, in some cases being double the amount and an agent's account was submitted to the Committee, showing that the dues properly so called amounted to one-fourth only of the whole charges for which the owner of the cargo was made liable; these are composed of various items, such as commission, expedition, translation, stamped paper, &c.; and though some of these charges are sanctioned by treaty, the account when delivered is seldom examined, and if questioned, redress is difficult to obtain. Mr. Wilson, of Hull, says,—'We have to take the account of our agents, and I do not I see that we can check them; we should always be in a correspondence with them if we did; we are completely in their hands;' and witnesses admitting the correctness of the return that has been made by the Danish Government in the amount alleged to be paid by this country—namely, £70,000 per annum—place the burden falling on British commerce at not less than between £200,000 and £300,000.
  Now, if a sum of money, calculated not upon the total sum which British ships are compelled to pay, but upon that proportion of it which is directly levied, would redeem those duties, it appears to me that it is only reasonable to expend that sum for such a purpose. If the total tax levied upon British ships annually amounts to anything like £200,000 or £300,000 a year, and if the sum which we are asked to redeem amounts to only £70,000 a year, it appears to me that, assuming the sum which we have to pay for such redemption to be calculated upon an equitable basis, it would, I contend, be most advantageous for the trade of the country to effect that redemption. Then, again, it is not merely the charge imposed upon shipping that does the greatest injury to trade; there is a detention at Elsinore necessary to levy the dues, and I will trouble the Committee with one passage from the Report on this point:—
  "Mr. Fleming, of Dundee, has given in the following passage a summary of the mischiefs which follow from the stoppage at Elsinore:—'The delays ships meet with at Elsinore from having to remain for their necessary papers from the Custom House is often the cause of many disasters. In fine weather the master may be on shore two or three hours only, but if the weather is not fine he may be absent five hours, and occasionally much longer. The roadstead in spring and autumn is very exposed and unsafe anchorage,

  1223
  and frequently serious accidents occur, such as collision, slipping chains, parting from anchors, driving on shore; and sometimes ships are lost, and the crews drowned.'"
  The Report goes on to state,—
  "Upon reference to other evidence it will be seen that strong and unvarying testimony is borne to the mischief arising out of the detention of vessels at Elsinore, and, indeed, some of the witnesses connected with the shipping interest state that the evil of the detention is greater than the evil of the payment. It would be difficult to suggest any relief to the trade for this evil short of rendering it unnecessary for vessels to stop for the purpose of paying these dues in future.
  "The Sound Dues, therefore, as they are levied at present, combine in them what is most objectionable in taxes that fall upon trade; they are unequal in their operation, and they occasion great loss of time, and much needless expenditure, in the collection of a comparatively small revenue, and, as far as the cargoes are concerned, without professing to be raised for any service rendered in return, tend to impede and burden an important branch of trade. Under these circumstances, your Committee have no hesitation in declaring that these dues are the cause of annoyance and injury to British commerce, and that they deem it therefore highly desirable that they should be abolished."
  Now, that is the deliberate opinion of the Committee. They afterwards advert to the negotiations then pending, and conclude their Report by saying,—
  "Your Committee therefore think that the proposals made by the Danish Government to the Governments of the different States interested in the navigation and trade of the Baltic, among which Great Britain holds the first place, should receive immediate consideration, and become the foundation of a final and satisfactory settlement of the question."
  In consequence of the Report of that Committee, which was presented to the House at the close of the Session of last year, but in plenty of time to give any hon. Gentleman who wished to do so the opportunity of calling the attention of the House to its contents, the Government thought that, looking to all the circumstances of the case, the most expedient course to adopt was to entertain the proposal of the Danish Government, and, accordingly, soon after the prorogation of Parliament last year, we communicated to the Government of Denmark our willingness to consent to the redemption of the Sound Dues for a fixed sum of money. We, at the same time, communicated to that Government that all our arrangements were of a provisional character, and dependent upon the ultimate sanction of Parliament. That was thoroughly understood by the Government of Denmark from the beginning of the negotiations, and, therefore, the power of Parliament to assent
  1224
  to or dissent from these arrangements remains unimpaired. I mention that circumstance because representations have been made that we have not taken proper precautions. Well, Sir, the negotiations continued, and an offer having been made by Denmark, the amount was diminished, and ultimately the Government of Great Britain acceded to an arrangement to which Russia had in the first instance acceded, and which has since obtained the concurrence of most of the other great Powers of Europe. The total sum proposed for the redemption of the duties was fixed at 30,476,325 rix dollars, which were to be assessed among fifteen Powers, of which Great Britain was to pay 10,126,855 rix dollars, Russia 9,739,993 rix dollars, Prussia 4,440,027 rix dollars, France 1,219,003 rix dollars; and the sums to be paid by the other contracting parties were also settled. The Government of Her Majesty were of opinion that they could not, consistently with the international law of Europe, adopt the policy which has been taken by the Government of the United States of America. The ground taken by the President of the United States was, that America was not a party to the international law of Europe, that that law was a system by which the different States of Europe had bound themselves by successive treaties, and which was binding on them, but which did not apply to the United States of America, a new country situate in a different quarter of the globe. It is not for me to say how far the pretensions of the President of the United States were or were not well founded, or whether the ground which he took was in accordance with the law of nations. Be that as it may, Her Majesty's Government considered themselves precluded from the adoption of a similar course. We are a member of the European family, and England is bound by the international law of Europe. Now, with regard to these Sound Dues, ancient treaties entered into between Great Britain and Denmark specifically recognise them. The treaty of July, 1670, in the reign of Charles II., made between them, and afterwards renewed in 1814 by the treaty of Kiel, declares that duties for the passage of vessels through the Sound shall be paid according to the printed tariff or book of rates, which book of rates was agreed to between France and Denmark in 1645, and was further regulated by a treaty signed at London by my noble Friend at

  1225
  the head of the Government, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in June, 1841, when the scale of duties underwent a, complete revision and considerable reduction. There is no reason to suppose that these dues have not always been regularly paid, except during a time of war, and, as a question of international engagements in Europe, nothing can be more plain than that we are bound in the most distinct manner to a recognition of the legality of the Sound Dues. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, came to the conclusion that, if the Government of Denmark were not willing to abandon those duties, but were only willing to extinguish them upon the payment of a certain sum, British vessels must either continue to pay the duties as hitherto, and undergo the annoyance to which I have alluded, or else the terms proposed by Denmark must be agreed to. Under these circumstances, then, I think Her Majesty's Government were fully justified in signifying their acceptance of the terms which were offered by Denmark. Before, however, those terms had been finally agreed upon, an attempt was made upon our part in concert with Prussia, and upon the suggestion of that Power, to enter into an arrangement by which the collection of the dues should be continued, but in accordance with which the detention of vessels at Elsinore, which was alleged to be one of the main grievances of the system, should be dispensed with, and the tolls payable upon vessels passing through the Sound, should be levied at the port of arrival or departure in the Baltic. That was a plan which was suggested by Prussia, and which England would have assented to if it had been found feasible. Such, however, was not the case, and the Governments of both countries concurred in deeming it desirable that it should be abandoned. Nothing therefore, seemed to remain but that England should either agree to the terms which were proposed by Denmark, or refuse altogether to enter into any arrangement upon the subject of those dues; and Her Majesty's Government, having given the question the most mature consideration, came to the conclusion that it would, upon the whole, be most beneficial to the trade of the country to pay the sum of money for which Denmark had stipulated—a sum amounting to £1,125,206 sterling. Upon payment of that sum the Danish Government intimated their determination to abolish to the fullest extent the duties levied upon vessels at the Sound,
  1226
  and undertook the maintenance of lighthouses, and other institutions of a similar character, for the facilities and requisites of commerce. They also undertook to reduce the transit duties levied upon goods passing over the lines of communication which run across the Danish territory by four-fifths of their amount. The reduction of those duties was not a question which entered into the original negotiations with Denmark upon the subject of the Sound dues. The importance of effecting such reduction was, however, subsequently brought under the notice of this House in that Report of the Select Committee from which I have already quoted, and my noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs had, in consequence of the statements therein made, instructed our Minister at Copenhagen to demand a remission—at all events to some extent—of the transit dues. Greater difficulty, however, was experienced in dealing with that question than with any of the others involved in the negotiations. The Danish Government was unwilling to admit that the transit dues were intended—as was alleged by the witnesses who were examined before the Select Committee—to operate as a protection to the Sound Dues by preventing the evasion of the payment of those dues by the transportation of goods across the country. Very strong objections were, therefore, urged upon the part of Denmark to the proposal for the reduction of the transit dues, and, as Mr. Buchanan states, the subject led to a Ministerial crisis in the Danish Cabinet. Mr. Buchanan says:—
  "The only portion of the proposal of Her Majesty's Government to which the Danish Government strongly objects is that which relates to the reduction of the transit dues, a very influential portion of the Danish Cabinet being of opinion that to agree to such a proposition would be inconsistent with the dignity of the King of an independent country; but as Her Majesty's Government made the reduction of those dues a sine qua non, a convention embodying the proposal was eventually agreed to by the Danish Government. The subject has, however, occasioned serious differences of opinion in the Danish Cabinet, and M. Andre, the Minister of Finance, was not present at the Council, and has placed his resignation in the hands of the King."
  I wish to direct the attention of the Committee to that passage for the purpose of showing the terms which the British Government proposed upon the subject, and the reception which those terms met with at the hands of the Danish Government. Her Majesty's Government were of opinion that the transit dues operate

  1227
  as a protective duty in the case of the Sound Dues, and that the question of their remission might very fairly be introduced into the negotiations upon the subject of those dues. It was, however, no easy matter to prove that the transit dues did in reality operate as a protective duty; nor was it ever admitted upon the part of the Danish Government that such was the fact. They, upon their part, maintained that they had, independently of the remission of the transit dues, conceded as much as we were entitled to demand, and that as the transit dues were levied they could be regarded only in the light of a source of national revenue, in reference to which no foreign Power possessed the right to interfere. Now, it must be admitted, that it is not exactly the proper function of the British House of Commons to criticise the Ways and Means of the Danish Government, and that they have a right to impose such taxes as they deem best suited to the exigencies of their country. What should we think, for instance, of a foreign Power that should say to us, "You must allow our subjects to pass through your turnpikes without the payment of a toll?" We should consider such a proposal an undue interference with our internal traffic, and a precisely similar view of the proposition for the reduction of the transit dues was not unnaturally taken by the Danish Government. It might certainly be contended that such dues were a bad source of revenue, but the House of Commons have surely no business to go into that question. To the extent to which the transit dues were levied for the purposes of internal revenue, they lay beyond our purview. The hon. Gentleman who opposed Mr. Speaker leaving the chair said it was not the amount of the transit dues that he objected to. Surely that statement conceded the matter in issue. If it is once admitted that an internal duty is not objectionable in amount, this House cannot go further into the discussion. I trust, therefore, that under all the circumstances of the case, the Committee will come to the conclusion that Her Majesty's Ministers have obtained from the Danish Government as favourable terms with respect to the transit dues as they were entitled to expect, and that, looking to the whole arrangements which have been entered into, the importance of preventing a hostile collision between the United States and Denmark—the importance of preventing an arrangement being
  1228
  made for the redemption of the Sound Dues with some European Powers while we remained strangers to it—the importance of reducing these duties, and thus freeing our vessels, not only from the dues themselves, but from other charges which they brought in their train, and from the necessity of detaining the ships at the Sound—and looking also at the fact that four-fifths of the transit dues across Denmark have been reduced, I do trust that, having regard to all these circumstances, the House will come to the conclusion that, provided the pecuniary payment is considered reasonable, they will virtually ratify the treaty entered into. With regard to the amount of the redemption money, not only our own Minister who negotiated the treaty, but the very intelligent plenipotentiaries of the other Powers in the immediate vicinity of Denmark, who were more likely to be well informed as to the amount levied by the Sound Dues, came to the conclusion that the terms proposed were reasonable, and such as might reasonably become the foundation of an European compact. Russia, Austria, Prance, Belgium, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, Prussia, Sweden, and other Powers are parties to the treaty on precisely the same terms as Great Britain, and the signatures of their plenipotentiaries are affixed to the same instrument. I therefore trust that the Committee, looking to all the circumstances, will be disposed to approve the discretion exercised by the Government in coming to this arrangement. There is one point on which I have to ask the attention of the Committee, and it is as to the nature of the conditional agreement made by Her Majesty's Government with the Government of Denmark with respect to the payment of this large sum, because, undoubtedly, the sum I am asking the House to charge upon the Consolidated Fund is a sum of very considerable amount. The Committee will observe that no other course could have been adopted by Her Majesty's Government which would have left the discretion of Parliament more completely unfettered, or by which they could have called the House to their council at an earlier period. The subject was referred last year to a Select Committee before a final answer was given. The Select Committee examined our Minister at Copenhagen, who had conducted the negotiations, and had the power of putting any questions to him they thought proper. They also had communicated to them

  1229
  all the diplomatic correspondence that had taken place up to that period on the subject. The Committee must be aware that even if the treaty-making power were vested in the Houses of Parliament, as it is vested in the Senate of the United States, it would still be necessary to confide to one person, who would probably be our Minister at a foreign court, a discretionary power to negotiate the details of the treaty. It would be impossible for a legislative assembly to make a treaty with a foreign Power, without giving such a discretionary power to some person. Look at the case of the treaty recently negotiated with the United States in regard to Central America. The Committee are, of course, aware, that in the United States the President has not the power of ratifying the treaty, but that the power of ratification resides in the Senate. The treaty with regard to Central America was negotiated in London by Mr. Dallas, the United States Minister, with my noble Friend (Lord Clarendon), Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. They fully discussed the circumstances, and after they had come to an agreement, a treaty was signed by both, which was remitted to the United States for the approval of the Senate. The Senate, however, made alterations in that treaty, and hitherto no final arrangement; has been come to. But that shows, that even if this House had the power of ratifying a treaty, instead of only furnishing the funds necessary for its completion, they must have confided to Mr. Buchanan, or to some other Minister, the power of negotiating and signing a treaty for their consideration. There was no other course by which the action of Parliament could have been left more unfettered, or by which its advice could have been earlier called in. The treaty was made to take effect from the 1st of April last, but there was a protocol signed by the British Minister by which the Danish Government engaged to take bonds provisionally from British vessels passing the Sound after the 1st of April, on the understanding that the dues were not to be exacted if Parliament ratified the treaty; but that the Danish Government would have the power of exacting payment if Parliament refused to ratify the treaty. No precaution has, therefore, been omitted by Her Majesty's Government for securing a full and unfettered consideration of the whole subject by Parliament. As to the mode of paying the sum of money a separate convention
  1230
  has been entered into, by which the British Government undertake to pay the sum, not as they might have done, by an annuity extending over twenty years, but at once and within three months after the Act is passed. I will now state why the Government preferred that arrangement to the mode of paying the amount agreed to by other Powers. We were of opinion that there would be no advantage in tying up our hands by a terminable annuity. The time fixed by the treaty was twenty years; but in the event of a necessity arising for having resort to a loan, it appeared to us that a somewhat longer time might with advantage be gained. I have, therefore, made an arrangement with the Bank of England, in the event of the Government finding it expedient to raise the amount by a terminable annuity, by which they agree to advance the sum immediately upon a terminable annuity of £64,700 for thirty years, or of £60,014 for thirty-five years for liquidating the sum of £1,125,206. Upon these terms the Committee will perceive that there will be no difficulty in raising the loan, and I should be disposed to recommend that course to the Committee, if it were not that the present state of the balances in the Exchequer seems hardly to justify a resort to loans. In the financial statement which I made at the commencement of this year, I informed the House that a part of my statement of the revenue and expenditure of the year ending April 1, was necessarily founded upon an estimate. I made that statement on the 13th of February, and for the rest of February and the whole of March I was compelled to make an estimate both of receipts and expenditure. It is generally prudent in such estimates to be on the safe side, and I estimated the income at £71,885,000, and the expenditure of the year at £78,000,000. I calculated the balances in the Exchequer at the end of the financial year as compared with the balances at the end of the previous year at £1,384,000. But the actual result was, that the income of the year, which I calculated at £71,885,000, amounted to £72,334,000, and the expenditure, which I estimated at £78,000,000, was really only £76,588,000, being £1,412,000 below my estimate. Thus, the excess of income being £449,000, and the deficiency of expenditure £1,412,000, there is a sum of £1,861,000 in favour of the public beyond the estimate that I then stated to the House. The result is, that the balances

  1231
  in the Exchequer at the end of the year, instead of being £1,384,000, were £3,245,000 in excess of the balances at the end of the previous year. That difference shows that there is a sum of £1,861,000 in the Exchequer, which is available for the service of the present year beyond what I then stated. In my estimate I included £2,000,000 for the payment of the Exchequer bonds which were due early in the month of May. These bonds have been paid off, but that even after that large payment there should remain the present aspect of the balances in the Exchequer, is owing partly to the circumstance I have mentioned, and partly to the fall in the duties of tea, in consequence of which a large portion of the duties were withheld during the quarter ending the 1st of April, and fall into the Ways and Means of this year, instead of those of the year preceding. Taking all these circumstances into consideration, I do not feel justified, at the present moment, in asking the Committee for any borrowing powers: I therefore propose to charge the Consolidated Fund with the whole amount, and to pay it out of the present balances in the Exchequer. It would be possible, no doubt, to resort to a loan in the nature of a terminable annuity, by which a charge would be imposed on the public for a series of years of between £60,000 and £64,000 per annum. If that arrangement were adopted, provision might be made for the payment of that annual sum by a special Customs duty on articles imported from the Baltic, calculated to yield the requisite amount. This plan has been carefully considered by the Government; but though, possibly, some arguments may be adduced in its favour, it appears to proceed to a great extent on an assumption of very doubtful validity—namely, that the Sound Dues are a charge on the persons engaged in the Baltic trade; whereas it seems to me they must ultimately be regarded as falling upon the general consumers of this country. They are an addition to the expenses of the navigation through the Sound; and the merchants engaged in that trade, although subject to occasional losses from the capricious detention of their vessels and other causes, no doubt obtain the average profits on their capital. The charges consequent on the collection of the Sound dues being therefore ultimately borne by the consumer, would any particular benefit arise from imposing a duty on tallow, hemp, timber,
  1232
  corn, or other articles imported from the Baltic, with the view of indemnifying the Exchequer for the redemption of these duties? If this were done by the expedient of annuities, the amount would hardly justify the imposition of a special class of Customs' duties of the nature to which I have referred; and it is not my intention, therefore, to make such a proposition to the House. At the same time, if the House entertain insuperable objection to charging the proposed sum on the general revenue of the country—if they think the consumer would not be benefited by the remission of the Sound Dues—it will, of course, be competent for them to resort to the contrivance which I have alluded to. I have troubled the Committee at considerable length on this subject, but I have thought it right to lay before them distinctly the grounds on which, after mature deliberation, this arrangement has been made. And notwithstanding the magnitude of the sum by which this boon has to be purchased, I can scarcely doubt that, on a careful investigation of the question, the Committee will come to the conclusion that the exemption would be of the greatest value to the commerce of this country; that it would free from most harassing and inconvenient restrictions an important branch of our trade and navigation; and that we should be consulting the lasting and solid interests of our commerce by acceding to the arrangement now proposed, and by authorizing the Crown to complete the agreement which has been provisionally entered into. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by placing in the Chairman's hands a Resolution that a sum of £1,125,206, be granted out of the Consolidated Fund to compensate the King of Denmark for the abolition of the Sound Dues.
  MR. WEGUELINsaid, he desired to express, on the part of those engaged in the Baltic trade, his acknowledgments to the Government for the treaty which it had entered into with the Danish Government. He considered that the negotiation of that treaty had been very successfully conducted by Her Majesty's Representative at the Court of Copenhagen. He thought the thanks of the country were due to him for having brought the negotiations with respect to the Sound Dues to a satisfactory conclusion. The effect of the treaty on the trade carried on by this country in the Baltic was not exactly to be measured by the amount paid in dues,

  1233
  which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, he believed, correctly estimated at about £75,000 per annum. The great objection to the Sound Dues was the detention of vessels. The loss and inconvenience sustained by the merchants by that detention very far exceeded the pecuniary charge in the shape of Sound Dues. It had been estimated that on an average every vessel which had to pass through the Sound was detained three days there in order to effect her clearance. It was not that her actual detention for the purpose of paying the dues amounted to that time, but the accidents by change of wind, and such casualties to which the official detention subjected them, made the average loss of time amount to three days. Now, if the Committee took the interest for three days on the property conveyed through the Sound, they would arrive at an idea of the very great injury done in the shipping trade by such a detention. He believed that the Select Committee must have included that amount in their Report when they put down the whole detriment as amounting in money loss to something like £300,000 a year; for he thought it hardly possible that the agents' dues, which were percentage dues on the dues paid by the Government, could raise the annual loss by dues paid from £75,000 to £300,000. He should have been glad to have heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer more details of the principle by which the proportion to be paid by this country of the general indemnity had been fixed. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly correct in holding that the Sound Dues ultimately fell on the consumers of the country, but he should have wished to hear some details as to whether the relative quantities of goods consumed by England and foreign countries had been taken into correct account when the indemnification was being apportioned. He, however, presumed that this point had been duly considered, for he found that Russia had to pay nearly as large a share of the indemnity as England. With regard to the transit dues on the goods conveyed by railway through the interior of Denmark, he did not think that was a matter with which our Government could have dealt, except it had appeared that those dues had been laid on as countervailing dues, in consideration of the abolition of the Sound Dues. These transit dues had
  1234
  never been oppressive on the commerce of this country, and, therefore, he did not think we had any right to complain of them. As to the advantage which the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) appeared to think Russia had obtained by her facilities for internal transport, he (Mr. Weguelin) did not think that it was a reality. The goods likely to benefit from a reduction of transit to Russia were goods imported into Russia, the cost of which was borne by the Russian consumers. A class of persons denominated Sound agents had hitherto taken up their residence at Elsinore, their business being to negotiate the payment of the Sound Dues between the ships passing through and the Danish Government. He hoped that the English Government would not forget to suggest to the Danish Government the propriety of giving some compensation to these agents, now that their occupation was about to be put an end to by the redemption of those duties.
  MR. BRAMLEY-MOOREsaid, he could not concur in the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, or of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as to the proposed redemption. He, of course, admitted that it was absolutely necessary to the completion of a negotiation that something should be given up, but it was his opinion that our Government had yielded too much to the claims of the Danish Government in reference to this question. He did not think that the House of Commons would be justified in voting so large a sum as £1,125,000 for the redemption of these dues. No individual acting in his private capacity would enter into the bargain which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked the Committee to ratify. He (Mr. Bramley-Moore) was a Member of the Select Committee on the Sound Dues, and had the advantage of having heard the whole of the evidence, which proved most distinctly that the British shipowners did not complain so much of the amount of the Sound Dues as of the detention of their vessels. One of the witnesses called to prove that detention was the hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. Weguelin). The hon. Member for Southampton now said that the average detention was three days; but in no less than three places in his evidence before the Select Committee he estimated it at only twenty-four hours. He could not entirely concur in the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this was an inter-

  1235
  national question. To a certain extent it was such; but when the Committee considered the origin of these dues, that they were a sort of compensation in early times to the Danish Government for the protection of vessels against pirates, at a part which was now not at all troubled by pirates, and that for seventy years the Swedish Government was altogether exempted from payment of these dues, he thought it would be seen that it was a question not of international law, but merely of treaty. At the treaty of Bromsbro in 1645, Scania and other provinces were ceded to Sweden, and an exemption from Sound Dues, but with the stipulation that Sweden should not exact any for herself. At the treaty of Fredericksburg in 1720 further concessions were made to Sweden, and a stipulation that she should again resume the payment of the Sound Dues, which she has continued to do to the present time. Up to the year 1815 these dues went into the King's private purse. The Danish Government had acted in this matter with a sagacity and foresight to which the English Government could lay no claim. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had led the Committee to believe that the amount annually paid by British vessels in respect of these dues was between £200,000 and £300,000, and that the English Government had, therefore, made a good bargain by redeeming them at the price of £1,125,000; but there was no warrant for saying that the annual payment was anything like £200,000 or £300,000. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: I quoted the words in the Report of the Select Committee.] The amount really paid for dues was about £70,000 per annum, and, when the Report stated that the burden which the dues imposed upon British commerce was between £200,000 and £300,000 a year, the Committee meant, not that anything like that sum was exacted by the Danish Government, but that between agents, captains, &c., the burden amounted to the sum mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. In entering into an arrangement of this nature the Committee ought to be made acquainted whether the trade in question was increasing or diminishing. Now, the fact was that this was a diminishing trade. In the year 1853 our exports to Russia (it would be unfair to refer to the years 1854–5–6, as they were a mere nothing, in consequence of the war) were £1,100,000,
  1236
  but a few years previously they were £1,500,000. In the year 1849, the celebrated year of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, the number of British vessels that passed the Sound was 6,846; in 1853 the number had decreased to 4,665, showing a falling off of 2,181 vessels. But how stood the case with regard to foreign vessels? In 1849 the number of Prussian vessels that passed the Sound was 1,356, whereas in 1853 it had risen to 3,472, showing an increase of 2,116 vessels, being about an equivalent of the decrease in the British vessels during that period. The number of ships belonging to Sweden and Norway which passed the Sound was, in 1849, 5,038; in 1853, 5,387, showing an increase of 349. With regard to the Hanse Towns the increase was still greater. In 1849, 311 vessels belonging to the Hanse Towns passed the Sound; in 1853, 743, or more than double. He thought it was fully established, therefore, that we had been making a bargain with a decreasing trade, while the trade of other countries was an increasing one. Then he thought the arrangement, if effected at all, ought to apply equally to the Sound and the transit duties, for unless both were abolished we were paying our money without any proper equivalent. But even if we obtained a redemption of the dues payable both by land and water, we had no security whatever that they would not be reimposed in another way. He knew an attempt was made to provide for this by the treaty, but suppose the Danish Government increased their customs duties, how could we prevent it, consistently with a due regard for the rights of Denmark as an independent kingdom? It appeared to be considered that England must always pay for everything, no matter what. Upon the same principle, why did we not call upon foreigners to contribute for the purpose of abolishing our passing tolls? No such demand was ever thought of. If we found passing tolls to be an impediment to commerce we ourselves removed them without asking foreign countries to do it; let Denmark, therefore, act in like manner in this instance. But there was another difficulty which occurred to him in connexion with this subject. All nations ought to concur in contributing towards the redemption of these dues. They did not, however. He was not aware that America had agreed to pay, and the consequence was that when we had handed over this money, America would step forward, and

  1237
  would claim the same rights as were enjoyed by England, France, and other nations, and would compete with us on equal terms without having had occasion to put her hand into her pocket. Besides America, however, Spain, Portugal, the Italian States, Greece, and the whole of South America were in the same position, and represented in the aggregate a sum of £500,000, on the terms of redemption adopted by England. Now, it was perfectly idle to suppose that the Danish Government would maintain their establishments at Elsinore for the purpose of enforcing the dues upon these dissentient nations. There would be no means of excluding them from participating in the trade of the Sound. The tenor of the evidence given by Mr. Thompson, Mr. Pearson, and the other witnesses examined before the Select Committee was to this effect—that they did not complain of the money payment but of the delay occasioned. Could not Her Majesty's Government enter into arrangements with Denmark for putting an end to these delays? He did hope the Committee would not sanction the payment of this money, which was to be taken from the pockets of the people of this country without any security that the dues to be redeemed by it would not be reimposed in another shape. Suppose the case of a war with Denmark. We should have furnished her with the sinews of war in the shape of this £1,125,000! Altogether he considered the measure impolitic and unsound, and as such he ventured to oppose it.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he thought it most unjust to impose a tax upon the people of this country exclusively for the relief of the Baltic merchants. It was stated that the amount of tolls paid by these merchants was about £72,000 a year, and that the detention of their vessels, and consequent loss of time, cost them £200,000 or £300,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had intimated that one mode of raising the sum required for the redemption of the dues would be by terminable annuities. Now, he thought the just way of dealing with the question would be to raise the money required in the manner suggested, and to repay it by levying dues upon ships trading to the Baltic. The tax would be insignificant in amount, would only be imposed for twenty or twenty-five years, and would with far more justice be borne by the Baltic mer-
  1238
  chants than by the people generally. Passing to another point, he would remark that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated no reason why the United States should not pay a part of the gross amount required for the redemption of the Sound Dues. It was said, "Oh! the United States won't pay." Well, suppose we were to say, "England won't pay." We had just the same power of withholding payment as the United States, and were no more called upon to contribute our quota than she was. It seemed to him that in this case, as in many others, America, by acting upon true and independent principles had acquired for herself that justice which other nations, and especially this country, had failed to obtain.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he thought that the whole question with which the Committee had to deal turned on this—did the Sound Dues fall on the Baltic trade or on the consumers? Take any article of commerce coming from the Baltic and paying this tax, would the importer of this article be enabled to charge the tax upon the consumer? He should certainly wish to have that matter cleared up before they voted to a foreign country so largo a sum as £1,125,000. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that the income of the country for the last year amounted to £72,000,000, and the expenditure to £76,000,000 in round numbers. From that statement he thought it was tolerably plain that the £1,125,000 was not to come out of the income over expenditure for the year, but out of the loan raised for last year's expenditure; in other words, that this large amount was to come out of the pockets of the people, to be paid by the taxation of the country. This at once brought them to the question, did the Sound Dues fall on the Baltic trade or on the consumers? Now, that was a doubtful question. It was, at least, a nice question of political economy. He believed that a large portion of the dues went into the pockets of those who traded to the Baltic and those to whom the produce belonged; and it certainly did not appear to him to be a fair and just arrangement to place upon the taxpayers of the United Kingdom the large sum of £1,125,000.
  MR. ADAMSsaid, that looking at the vexatious character of the Sound Dues, their redemption, whatever the price paid for it, would undoubtedly be regarded as

  1239
  a great relief by the shipping interest. It was not simply the amount of those dues, but the detention and annoyances to which they gave rise, which rendered them an almost intolerable grievance; and he doubted if the actual loss they occasioned to the commerce of this country was overestimated when it was put, as it had been by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at between £200,000 and £300,000 a year. It seemed to him, therefore, that the bargain which had been entered into was, on the whole, an advantageous one. It should also be remembered that there were two parties to the bargain; that we could not say we would have it on our own terms; Denmark was certainly in the condition of saying what were her terms also; and that, however determined we might be in offering less, she might equally insist upon asking more. So far as we were concerned the whole spirit of our legislation of late years had been to do that which seemed right for the general liberation of commerce, irrespective of the question whether or not that policy would be beneficial to other nations as well as to ourselves. For these reasons, then, he should be prepared to give his support to the arrangement. But more than that; considering that the conduct of the treaty had been entrusted to perfectly competent authorities, he should be willing to concede much to negotiators, who must have taken into account all the surrounding circumstances of the question, and he was sure would endeavour to make the best bargain for their country. They might lament that other countries would not come into the arrangement. The United States, for instance, it was generally understood, had declined to do so. He did not, however, agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that her reason was that she was not a member of the family of European nations. He had always understood that she had denied the legality of the toll in the first instance, and contended that being illegal she was not bound to pay it. But there was no question that England had paid it for a considerable number of years; and that, under the provisions of treaties, and by the acquiescence of this country in the payment of it for many years, Denmark had acquired that indefeasible title which nothing but a resort to force on our part would enable us to evade. He regarded it as the first prin-
  1240
  ciple of political economy that duties fell upon the consumer. All outgoings were calculated by the shipowner, and the amount of freight was proportionate to the expenses incurred. In that manner these dues ultimately fell upon the consumer; and to get rid of them by imposing a partial tax upon, shipowners would be only substituting one grievance for another. Speaking in behalf of the shipping interest of the port he represented (Boston), he felt greatly obliged to the Government for having relieved the trade of that port, especially the timber trade, by the treaty they had concluded with the Government of Denmark for the abolition of those duties.
  MR. CLAYsaid, he fully concurred in the opinion just stated by the hon. and learned Member for Boston, that this tax fell upon the consumer, and rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect of getting rid of it. It was admitted by every one not to be a question of money as much as a question of annoyance, and he thanked the Government for concluding a bargain which would be generally beneficial to commerce.
  MR. RIDLEYsaid, he was unwilling to forego the immense advantage of an abolition of the Sound Dues simply because they could not at the same time get rid of the toll levied on goods in transitu. That was only a small bone of contention. The large bone of contention was the grievance of shipping being detained and large expenses incurred by agents at Elsinore, in addition to the amount of dues paid to the Danish Government.
  MR. WILSONsaid, he did not think it necessary, after the observations which had fallen from the hon. Members for Boston and Hull, to make any remark upon the incidence of this tax. It was quite clear that whatever the shipowner paid, the public had to reimburse in the price of the goods. Indeed, the public had to pay for loss of time, and every incidental disadvantage to which the shipowner was subjected. As to the question whether this charge should be made directly upon the shipowners or upon the Consolidated Fund and paid by the public at large, the very same observation applied; because, if a charge were imposed upon shipping going to the Baltic in order to indemnify the Consolidated Fund, the public must in their turn indemnify the shipowners, and thus we really arrived at nearly the same pay-

  1241
  ment by the public, only in a very roundabout way; and he might at the same time observe, that in these roundabout payments the public were always losers. In one shape or another they had had to pay this charge hitherto, and they would have to pay it now. All experience had shown, however, that great advantage invariably accrued to the public from the withdrawal of restrictions; and when it was considered that the goods which came from the Baltic included many of the raw materials of manufactures and some of the prime necessaries of life, it must evidently be for the interest of the public—whether regard were had to the price paid for the commodities or to the pressure upon manufacturing industry—that such restrictions should be altogether removed. He thought, from the discussion that had taken place, that that was generally admitted by the Committee, and, if it were, he did not see that any better mode could be devised for carrying out the object in view than that which had been proposed by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. To resort to a terminable annuity he believed would be the least advantageous plan that could be adopted, and there could be no doubt that if we were prepared to pay the amount at once out of the balances of the Exchequer that no method could be more profitable or economical for the country. He had risen principally, however, in consequence of a complaint which had been made by the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) of delay in the production of certain documents relating to the Danish transit dues. He was bound to admit that there had been some apparent delay in this matter on the part of the Treasury, but the circumstances of the case were these:—In November last he was waited on by Sir Samuel Morton Peto and others, who were deeply interested in certain railways, and in the transit duties of Denmark, and they presented a memorial and a letter to the Treasury. The subject was not one which immediately concerned the Treasury, and he forwarded the memorial and letter to the Foreign Office, the Department to which the matter properly belonged, together with a letter from the Treasury strongly urging the Foreign Office to use all the means in their power to induce the Danish Government to comply with the wishes of the memorialists. These documents were transmitted to the Foreign Office on the 25th of November, and on the 29th a commu-
  1242
  nication was received from Lord Shelburne, the Under Secretary of State, acknowledging their receipt. On the 20th of December the Treasury received another letter from the Foreign Office enclosing a communication from Mr. Buchanan, the British Minister at Copenhagen. Now he apprehended that any one who had read that letter from Mr. Buchanan must see that the matter was then concluded; and it must at the same time be remembered that when we came to treat upon the internal regulations of an independent State, it was a very delicate matter for one Government to appear to force any particular view upon another. Besides, Mr. Buchanan stated in his letter that he had brought before the Danish Minister the subject of that communication, and that the Danish Minister had given him good and substantial reasons why the Danish Government could on no account comply with that request. It must not be forgotten that the Danish Government had already of their own accord, and very greatly to their credit, reduced the transit dues to one-fifth of their former rate, and it was a very delicate thing for the English Minister after such a liberal reduction to press with great pertinacity the views of the English merchants or even of the Government upon such a subject. But the great difficulty in the way of the concession of that point by the Danish Government was thus explained in Mr. Buchanan's letter of the 10th of December:—
  "It must also be remembered that the reductions about to take place will not much affect the dues levied on the Berlin Railway, which I understood form nearly one-half of the whole revenue hitherto derived from transit dues. Therefore, even if the Danish Government were willing to make a sacrifice of the dues levied on railways between Danish ports on the North Sea and the Baltic, for which they might hope to obtain some compensation by an increased traffic, they would be deterred from doing so by the clause in the general treaty which is about to be submitted to them, stipulating that all privileges and facilities granted to Danish railways must be also extended to those crossing their territory from Hamburg to Lubeck, Mecklenburgh, and Prussia, the traffic-on which can never in any way promote the industry or prosperity of Denmark."
  The conditions of the treaty, therefore, imposed on the Danish Government the necessity of treating the transit dues on all those railways in the same way as on that single railway; and that was a conclusive reason in the mind of Mr. Buchanan why he should not urge further on the Danish Government the view of the English merchants. It had been represented

  1243
  to him (Mr. Wilson), however, by the Gentlemen who had waited on him at the Treasury that it was not so much the charge upon goods as the detention which was so vexatious and distasteful to the English merchants; but it seemed that upon that point the Danish Minister had shown every disposition to meet them, for Mr. Buchanan went on to say—"He," the Danish Minister,
  "Would, however, willingly, he said, recommend to the Department of Customs that every possible facility should be granted to the railway, and that some arrangement should be devised for preventing delay in the collection of the dues. I therefore venture to suggest that, in the event of the Danish Government declining to abolish the dues, which appear to be almost certain, an arrangement should be made by which goods, intended to be landed at Tonning for transmission by railway, should be classified and weighed before shipment, and that a certificate from the English custom-house of the weight of the goods subject to transit dues in each cargo should be delivered to the Danish authorities as the weight on which the railway would have to account to them for dues. I am not aware whether such an arrangement would be found inconvenient in England, but, as far as the Danish Government are concerned, it appears to me that it would be merely a slight modification of the system according to which the amount of Sound Dues to which a cargo is liable has been hitherto ascertained at Elsinore."
  That appeared to him (Mr. Wilson) to open the door for remedying the main grievance which the merchants complained of; and as it was a matter which belonged strictly to the department of the Treasury, he tried to see what arrangement could be made on this side of the water for the classification of goods, in order that no detention might occur when they were landed at Tonning. He accordingly wrote to the gentlemen who had called upon him, offering to make an appointment with them, in order to consider Mr. Buchanan's suggestion upon this point, and he certainly expected that they who had shown so much anxiety to get rid of the delay and inconvenience of which they complained, would have been glad of an opportunity of discussing the means by which shipments might be made in the classified form proposed. He had, however, never heard from them upon the subject. On the 14th of January they certainly wrote him another letter, in which they forwarded new information—though it did not materially affect the point—and they urged still upon the Government to endeavour to obtain a remission of the transit duties altogether before the treaty was signed. Those papers were not transmitted by the
  1244
  Treasury to the Foreign-office at the time, but he had had personal communications on the subject with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and also with the Under Secretary, and he was told that the matter had been so much pressed already on the Danish Government, and that Mr. Buchanan had expressed himself so conclusively on what the decision of that Government was, that it would only be delaying the treaty to urge the matter further, which was not considered to be either wise or desirable. Then, on the 8th of May, the hon. Member for South Northumberland moved for these papers, and when he asked him (Mr. Wilson) whether he had any objection to produce them, he stated that he had none whatever, but he asked the hon. Member to postpone his Motion for a day or two in order that the correspondence might be formally completed. His only object in delaying bringing forward the papers in question was to obtain, in the shape of a formal answer, from the Foreign Office the substance of that which had been personally communicated to him before, in order that the whole of the correspondence might appear more complete. Therefore, on the 8th of May he transmitted those papers formally to the Foreign Office, and the answer from the Foreign Office was dated a day or two later. Although there appeared, therefore, to have been some delay in closing the correspondence it was only a delay upon a matter of form, and practically there had been no time lost in the consideration of the papers, and in endeavouring to secure for the merchants that which they were anxious to have accomplished. That was the explanation which he had to give of the delay which had taken place in the presentation of the papers.
  MR. LIDDELLsaid, he was given to understand that a very strong feeling existed in the Danish Imperial Council itself in favour of the entire abolition of the transit dues, and it was his opinion still that it only required a little pressure to have effected that total abolition. The arrangement without it was incomplete and unsatisfactory.
  MR. G. DUNDASsaid, he shared in the dissatisfaction expressed by the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) at the shortcomings of the proposed arrangements with respect to the transit dues, and he thought that if the House would consent to "put the screw

  1245
  on," they would induce the Danish Government to concede all that we had a right to ask in that matter, and so secure the trade being open to us, and the abolition, not only of the Sound, but also of the transit dues. If they calculated the basis upon which it was proposed to redeem the Sound dues, the insignificant sum of £6,200 would have been quite sufficient for the purpose. He thought, therefore, that the treaty was most incomplete.
  MR. BRAMLEY-MOOREsaid, he wished to know if it were ascertained that Prussia had been favoured in the collection of these transit dues. It was stated in evidence that she had had one-third of the amount returned; and Mr. Buchanan said be had, been assured that it was the fact. He wished to say one word in reply to the observation of the hon. Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Wilson), that the Sound Dues fell upon the consumer. Now he was well aware that as a general rule, whatever taxes or duties were levied the consumer had to pay them in the end; but then there were exceptions to the rule, and that of the Sound Dues was one of them. For instance, if the same import duties were levied upon the produce of all parts of the world alike, unquestionably their burden would fall upon the consumer. But take the article of timber; if only one-tenth of the quantity of timber imported into this country came from the Baltic, and the remaining nine-tenths from other parts of the world, it was clear that the dues levied on the one-tenth as Sound Dues must fall on the merchant and producer, and not on the consumer.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, it is not necessary for me to trouble the Committee at any length, inasmuch as it appears to me that this subject has been well discussed by the hon. Members who have taken part in the discussion, and that, notwithstanding the minor differences of opinion and the strong expressions of dissent which have proceeded from some quarters—founded chiefly on the question of the transit dues and not on that of the Sound Dues—there appears to me to be a disposition on the part of the Committee favourable to the proposition which has emanated from the Government. With reference to the observations which fell from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Maldon (Mr. Bramley-Moore)—who, I must say, attended the Committee which sat last year with much diligence, and
  1246
  showed great industry in applying his mind to the subject under consideration—I regret that I have altogether failed in making my meaning intelligible to him. I thought I had stated that the sum on which the redemption-money was calculated was the amount of shipping dues paid by English vessels passing through the Sound, and not on any charges in addition to that amount. If hon. Gentlemen would refer to the Reports of Mr. Buchanan, our Minister at Copenhagen, they would see that that sum was estimated by the Danish Government at £75,730 a year; that the total capital on which, in the first instance, the redemption was calculated by the Danish Government was 60,000,000 rix-dollars, and that the sum which, according to that original calculation, would fall to the share of Great Britain was £1,893,000. The sum was objected to, and it was subsequently reduced from 60,000,000 to 35,000,000 rix-dollars, or not much more than half the original amount, and the sum which England has to pay was reduced from £1,893,000 to £1,125,206. The Committee will therefore see that a considerable reduction has been made in this demand, and that that reduction has been acceded to by the Danish Government. In addition to the £75,730 representing the annual amount of dues paid by English vessels passing the Sound, there are to be calculated the charges imposed on vessels on different grounds, and estimated by competent and well-informed persons at from £200,000 to £300,000 a year, and in addition to that again there is the extra charge and inconvenience arising to traders from the detention of vessels which takes place from time to time. The hon. Member for Maldon says we have made a bad bargain. If we have made a bad bargain, all I can say is, that we have erred in good company, for we have done so in common with all the principal Powers of Europe, and after a full and deliberate examination with them of the whole subject. I can scarcely conceive that greater security could be taken for an arrangement of this sort than the scrutiny and investigation of the Plenipotentiaries of so many of the considerable Powers of Europe, all of whom had a direct personal interest in the result, and all of whom directly concurred in the arrangements embodied in this treaty. What would be the result if we were to adopt the proposal of the hon. Gentleman, and refuse to ratify and conclude this treaty,

  1247
  and were to attempt to reopen the subject? In the first place we should negotiate singly, instead of negotiating in company with France, Russia, Prussia, and the other Baltic Powers, and we should be negotiating in the face of this fact, that we should be asking Denmark to give to us more favourable terms than have been granted to those other Powers, and Denmark would find it impossible to reduce the terms agreed to by us without at the same time granting a corresponding reduction to the other Powers concerned. I think, therefore, it will be obvious to the Committee that if we refuse to conclude this arrangement we shall not only not obtain better terms, but we shall obtain no terms at all, and that our ships will be still subject to the Sound Dues, while the ships of all the other great Powers of Europe will be free from those dues. Again, it is said that we have made a great mistake in completing this arrangement without the concurrence of the United States. In the first place, the share which the United States has at present in the trade of the Baltic is insignificant compared with that of the great European Powers. I find, in proof of this, that the average dues paid by the United States in the eleven years from 1842 to 1853 was 911 rix-dollars, whereas the average amount paid by Great Britain in the same period was 35,373 rix-dollars. This shows that the exclusion of America from the arrangement was of no great practical importance. But there is one paragraph in the letter of Mr. Buchanan which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bramley-Moore) appears to have forgotten. Mr. Buchanan says:—
  "I have been assured by the Danish Commissioner that a treaty between the United States and Denmark is ready for signature, in which the American Government engages to pay to Denmark the proportion of the general compensation money assigned to the United States in the table enclosed in this despatch."
  Therefore, if that information be correct, we may assume that by this time—or at all events at no very distant period—the United States will become parties to the treaty. The hon. Gentleman has likewise said that means may be found of avoiding this treaty, and that Denmark may impose Customs duties which will be equivalent to the Sound Dues. I must remark, however, that Customs duties would not be an equivalent for the Sound Dues, because those dues are levied upon all ships passing the Sound, although their destination
  1248
  may not be Elsinore, Copenhagen, or any Danish port, but they may be proceeding to some Prussian or Russian port. Therefore, even if the Danish Government were to alter their Customs tariff—which I do not think they are likely to do—that would in no way affect the question of the Sound Dues. I have before me a statement of the number of ships which have passed the Sound during the years since 1845, and I find that in that year the number of British ships was 3,645; in 1849 it had increased to 6,800; in 1850 it underwent some diminution; in 1851 and 1852 there was a further diminution; in 1853 the number was 4,665; in 1854 and 1855, the years of the war, there was a considerable diminution; but in the last year the number rose to 4,772. I trust, Sir, that with these explanations, the Committee will think fit to agree to the arrangement which we propose, and that they will see that if they do not sanction the treaty agreed to by the Government there is no probability that any more favourable arrangement can be effected with Denmark, but that they must choose between the two alternatives of confirming this treaty, or of allowing the Sound Dues to be levied as at present upon all British vessels engaged in the Baltic trade.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Resolved, "That a sum of £1,125,206 be granted to Her Majesty, out of the Consolidated Fund, for the purpose of compensating the King of Denmark for the abolition of the Sound Dues."
  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported on Monday next.

  CASE OF THE REGIMENTAL SERGEANTS—QUESTION.
  On the Motion that the House resolve itself into a Committee of Supply,
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNY?asked "the Under Secretary for War whether the Minister for War has any intention of taking into his favourable consideration the case of certain Sergeants who appear to have been accidentally excluded from the intended benefits conferred upon non-commissioned officers by the Order of the 16th of January, 1857? His reasons for putting the question were these:—Before the warrant of January 16, 1857, and under the warrant of 1848, private soldiers, upon five years' service with good conduct, were entitled to one penny a day increase in their pay; and they were also entitled to

  1249
  another penny increase for every further five years up to fifteen years, when it amounted to 3d. per day additional. The man, however, who was made a sergeant lost that additional pay, and was only entitled to 1s. 10 d. a day. On the 16th January of the present year a warrant was issued, giving good-conduct money to sergeants who had had it as privates, in addition to their pay. Now that was a grievance and a wrong to the older sergeants, who still received only 1s. 10 d. per day, though their promotion for good conduct dated, it might be, some twenty years before. In fact, the private soldier of fifteen years' good conduct was paid nearly the same amount as those sergeants of twenty years' standing, though the latter had been in a highly-responsible position long previous to the former having entered the army. The question he desired an answer to did not emanate from the sergeants, though he had a number of their letters on the subject, all complaining of the false position in which they were placed, but from a gentleman thoroughly conversant with the intricate subject of Army Pay. He hoped, therefore, the Government would be prepared to redress the grievances of this respectable and highly useful body of men.
  SIR WILLIAM RUSSELLsaid, he was sure, from the tenor of the warrant, that the Secretary for War was anxious to do justice to the sergeants, but it had produced a most anomalous result. Men who, in consequence of their extreme good conduct, had been made sergeants before they had served five years, were not entitled to good-conduct pay, and although they might have been sergeants for upwards of fifteen years they had no additional pay for good conduct. He was aware of a case of a regimental sergeant-major who had been sixteen years a sergeant, but he was only entitled to 1d. a day good-conduct pay, which he obtained before his promotion, while other men who had only been sergeants for a year were entitled to 3d. a day for good conduct. The injustice might be remedied at a cost of less than £500 a year, which he thought Parliament would readily grant for such a purpose.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, that the hon. Baronet had only done justice to the intentions of the Secretary for War, when he said, that in issuing this circular his intention was to do justice to all parties. It
  1250
  was very difficult to frame a regulation which should meet all cases; but the Government were quite prepared to act up to the spirit of the memorandum, and to consider whether the instances mentioned by the hon. Baronet were really so anomalous as he considered them.
  SIR WILLIAM CODRINGTONsaid, he hoped that the ease of these sergeants would be favourably considered by the Government. It seemed very hard that a man who had been a long time a sergeant, I and must therefore have been a good-conduct man, should be placed at a disadvantage of 2d., 3d., or even 4d. a day compared with one recently promoted.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, he would put the case of two men who joined the army at the same time, who were both made sergeants before they had served five years, and both continued as sergeants until they had been in the army ten years. Suppose one of them committed an offence for which be was tried by a court-martial and degraded to the rank of a private. Having served ten years he would be entitled to 2d. a day good-conduct money, but of this he would lose 1d. in consequence of the offence for which he had been reduced. If he conducted himself well during one year this penny would be restored to him, and if at the end of fifteen years' service he I again became a sergeant, he would have 3d. a day good-conduct money; so that, while the man who had never offended received but 1s. 10 d. a day, he would have 2s. 1d. Such a case as that was evidently overlooked when the circular was framed; but he was sure that the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Ramsden) would now give it his best consideration.
  SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMSsaid, he felt convinced that to raise the moral condition of the army the most valuable agents were the sergeants. He was glad, therefore, to learn that the anomalies which existed in regard to them were to be removed.
  LORD ADOLPHUS VANE-TEMPESTsaid, he was glad also to hear that the case of the sergeants was to be attended to, and he hoped the injustice complained of would not be suffered to exist a moment longer than was necessary to find an effectual remedy for it. At present the anomaly pressed very hard upon a class of men, the want of whom would be a serious loss to the English army.
  Motion agreed to.

  SUPPLY—ARMY ESTIMATES.
  House in Committee. Mr. FITZROY in the Chair.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £462,453, be granted to Her Majesty (in addition to the sum of £231,000 already voted on account), towards defraying the charge of Civil Buildings and Barracks at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment from the 1st day of April, 1857, to the 31st day of March, 1858, inclusive."
  CAPTAIN VIVIANsaid, it was his intention to take the sense of the Committee whether the Government should have £100,000 more to spend upon the erection of barracks at Aldershot. He could not conceive what the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams) was about in suffering such large sums of money to be voted for these barracks. He was of opinion, that it was not expedient to erect barracks there at all. For all purposes of military instruction the camp at Chobham was more effective and much less costly than Aldershot. At Chobham the men were, to a great extent, under canvas. In addition to brigade and division drill, they learned to erect and strike their tents, to drain the camp, and to make roads. The cavalry soldier learned to picket his horses. He never could find out who selected Aldershot as the situation of a camp; every one repudiated it. It had been laid to Lord Hardinge's charge, but that gallant nobleman had also repudiated it. When it was selected, however, engineers were sent down; huts were erected at an expense of £100,000, drains and roads were made, and the troops when they arrived were marched—he would not say into luxurious barracks, because the huts were about as bad as they could be for the money—but into huts instead of into a camp, and, except their brigade and division drill, they learned nothing. Not content with building huts, however, the Government were now erecting large and luxurious permanent barracks in which the soldiers would positively and literally learn nothing. They might learn to cook by gas, and to wash by steam; for he believed that both those processes were to be introduced—but as to their duties in the field, cooking their own meat, washing their own clothes, making-roads, draining their camp, erecting and striking their tents, and picketing their horses, they would learn nothing. If we were to reduce our army to a peace establishment, what did we want with extra
  1252
  barracks? It might be said that the day might come when we should require them; but it was much easier to find accommodation for 10,000 men by means of billets and tents than to find 10,000 men, and he believed that by sending young soldiers to Aldershot we should disgust them with their profession and render it more difficult to obtain recruits. As regarded morals, too, Aldershot being so near London was by no means a good situation for a camp. He objected to that camp on strategical and economical grounds, and also as a matter of policy. It had a tendency to prevent that which was necessary for our army—the establishment of a system of camps. He was firmly convinced, that after the extravagant Votes for that folly at Aldershot, the House of Commons, if asked for a sum of money for a camp in the neighbourhood of London during the summer, would laugh at the demand. He should therefore be glad if a majority of the Committee would support his Amendment to reduce the sum to be expended for permanent barracks from £100,000 to £50,000; and next year he should propose a Committee of inquiry into the military system at Aldershot.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £412,453, be granted to Her Majesty (in addition to the sum of £231,000 already voted on account), towards defraying the charge of Civil Buildings and Barracks at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of payment from the 1st day of April, 1857, to the 31st day of March, 1858, inclusive."
  SIR FREDERICK SMITHsaid, he wished to explain to the Committee that the barracks in question consisted of three divisions—one for infantry, another for cavalry, and the third for artillery. Two of those barracks would be completed by Christmas, and if the money were granted the third would be completed by the spring of next year. Any one acquainted with the erection of large buildings knew that a considerable increase of cost was occasioned by arresting the progress of their structure. The original intention was to have permanent barracks at Aldershot, and camps and tents occasionally for the accommodation of large bodies of men, who might there be instructed in brigade and divisional service. The establishment at Aldershot also enabled the Government to place there the embodied militia for the purpose of instruction in pitching and striking their tents and other duties. Complaints had

  1253
  been made to the Government of the detriment to discipline caused by the billeting of the militia in different towns, and arrangements were made to locate the militia in different garrisons; but as those garrisons got filled it was found necessary to have recourse to another system. The hut cantonment was hit upon, and if the war had continued the huts would have been filled by militia learning their duties and becoming efficient to fill up the vacancies in the regular army. He believed that during; the war 30,000 militiamen volunteered for the army from Aldershot. The hut cantonment was formed for receiving the militia regiments which could not other wise be provided for. There was no doubt that the present barracks at Aldershot were expensive in point of construction; but they were constructed on the recommendations of a Committee of that House, who laid it down that it was necessary to give more room to the men and the horses in all new barracks. He believed, however, that they would be found very substantial. During the time he was at Aldershot the Medical Returns showed that less mortality and sickness occurred there than in any other barracks in the world. Therefore great good had resulted from the establishment at Aldershot, and he believed the completion of the barracks to be a matter of sound policy.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he should support the Amendment solely on financial grounds, leaving the military and political questions at issue to be discussed by those hon. Members who better understood it. During the last two years £4,700,000 had been voted for naval and military works, and £6,000,000 in the last three years. £690,000 had been voted during the last two years for buts—namely, £175,000 in one year, and £516,000 in the last year. He wished to know whether these sums had been expended, and where? They were exclusive of the money voted for the Crimean huts, £140,000, and the money for the huts at Heligoland. Last year the total cost of permanent barracks at Aldershot was stated in the Estimate at £250,000. In the Estimates of the present year, however, the total cost was raised to £400,000, being a positive increase of £150,000 upon the Estimates, after £250,000 had been obtained from Parliament on the under-Standing that it was to be the entire cost
  1254
  of their erection. He found that £254,000 had been already expended on those barracks, and that £124,000 more was wanting, making the sum to be expended on that establishment £378,000. He should like to know when those expenses were to end. Did the country mean to lay out £500,000 on the present barracks at Aldershot? He considered that no course on the part of the Government could be more unfair than to begin with a low Estimate, and then to go on increasing it from £250,000 to £520,000, which it would be next year. He should vote for the reduction proposed in the Vote, in the hope of putting an end to such extravagant expenditure of the public money; and also, because he believed that the troops could not be taught so well in barracks as in a camp. Bearing in mind that £690,000 had been already spent in barracks, he thought the question ought to be seriously entertained, otherwise nothing could prevent an increase of taxation if such expense were persevered in.
  MR. DRUMMONDsaid, the real thing to be looked for was this—that there should be some one man with a name to him who should be responsible for these things. Who was to blame for the waste of money on the Houses of Parliament? Nobody; simply because they had a Committee here and a Committee there, managing the affair, and never got the right man. The same was likely to be the case with the new Government offices. Money was voted on account, and the House never knew how it was expended, nor who was responsible for it. The most frightful mistakes had been made in the drainage of Aldershot, in the first instance, and then it turned out that there was no water. Then they began to complain that they had no water, and they got £10,000 more for it. With respect to Aldershot, in fact, there had been no proper plan from the beginning. So little did Secretaries for War appear to profit by experience, that only last November he had been informed that some cavalry regiments upon their arrival at Aldershot, found nothing prepared to receive them. They were for three days and nights without shelter, and the result was, the old Crimean story—the men got dysentery and the horses died. The demoralisation in the vicinity of the camp was dreadful to contemplate. It appeared to be a sort of cesspool of immorality containing all the worst characters from the metropolis; and he had heard

  1255
  officers say that it would ultimately be impossible to preserve discipline, unless the further expense was incurred of building a wall around the whole camp. [Laughter.) Hon. Gentlemen might laugh, but he would venture to prophesy that within a year or two an Estimate would be laid before the House for that purpose. In fact, he thought that he had seen persons already preparing such an Estimate, by whose authority he knew not, perhaps by no authority. What, however, he wished most particularly to impress upon the Committee was, the expediency of not voting one shilling of the present Estimate without clearly knowing who was responsible for its outlay.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, the hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin (Captain Vivian), and the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), have expressed a great desire to know who is responsible for the establishment at Alder-shot, and I will tell them in a few words. I consider myself principally responsible. Now, so far from its being true, as the hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin has been informed, that the late Lord Har-dinge repudiated the establishment at Aldershot, I am able to state from my own personal knowledge that no one was more anxious for its establishment. At the time the land at Aldershot was purchased, I had the honour of being Secretary of State for the Home Department, and Lord Hardinge and myself co-operated together, and used to have frequent meetings in order to make arrangements for the military defence of the country, and I can assure the Committee that no man was more anxious for the purchase of that land than Lord Hardinge, and no man felt more strongly the great value it would be in improving the discipline and efficiency of the British army. As far, therefore, as responsibility goes, I am quite ready to take it upon myself, because I had a great share in persuading the Treasury to agree to the purchase of that land. It is said by some, that a camp like that at Chobham was a better system, and that we should confine ourselves to camps of that nature; but to continue that system is totally impossible. We are not to suppose that a Government can go to-morrow, or next day, or next year, or whenever they please, and find a space of ground unenclosed and adapted for assembling large bodies of men for the purpose of instructing them in military evolutions. Why, we all know that those
  1256
  great spaces of land are being enclosed. Chobham has been enclosed, and most probably Aldersbot would have been enclosed before now if Government had not purchased it. The purchase was made upon most advantageous terms, the price being, I think, about £13 an acre, and since that period the land has so much increased in value, that if at any future period the Government should deem it no longer expedient to continue the occupation of that land, they would be able to sell it at an infinitely larger sum than that which it originally cost. I say again that I, among others, am responsible for the purchase of the land at Aldershot, and for the system of military instruction which it was intended to establish, and I am satisfied, from what I have seen, that we judged rightly in determining upon that purchase, for I believe that nothing has been done of late years which has had a greater tendency to increase the efficiency of the army. I have been asked, on more than one occasion, whether it was originally intended that any permanent barracks should be established. Why, Sir, undoubtedly it was. Aldershot is not only a place where large bodies of troops can be assembled to be instructed in the performance of military evolutions, but it is, from its position, of vast strategical importance, with a view to the defence of the country; and if it should ever unfortunately happen that we are compelled to move troops for the defence of the country, the fact of having a large body of men assembled at Aldershot would be found of the greatest possible advantage. Aldershot is in a central position, it has means of communication by railroads with all parts of the country, it is easily accessible from London, and it is within easy communication with Portsmouth, Dovor, and Plymouth, and all those points upon which we might wish to collect troops, and therefore I say that in a strategic point of view, Aldershot is of immense value. It was, then, the original intention that permanent barracks should he established for the accommodation of about 4,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, and a few batteries of artillery, and I maintain that so far from the expenditure which has been incurred having been an improvident expenditure, the money has been exceedingly well laid out for the service of the country. It is true that these barracks may have cost more to build than those which we have hitherto been accustomed to construct, but that is owing to the recommendation of a

  1257
  Committee of this House which was appointed to consider the accommodation which ought to be afforded to officers and soldiers in providing places of amusement and instruction, separate accommodation for married men, and other conveniences. With regard to the salubrity of Aldershot, the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond) has drawn a picture, and said that an occurrence had taken place there similar to occurrences which took place in the Crimea. Now, I think that the hon. Gentleman must be very much mistaken in supposing that cavalry regiments were exposed without shelter, and that the result was such as he has described. I can only say that Aldershot is one of the healthiest stations in the United Kingdom, and so far from its being objectionable on that score, its salubrity is one of its greatest recommendations. Then, again, as regards the question of morality, I do not mean to say that the assembling together of large bodies of troops will not also collect together a number of idle and immoral persons, but this I will say, that the morality of the troops in camp is much better eared for than when they are billeted in towns; and that so far from collecting troops in barracks being an immoral system, it is as conducive to good conduct as to good discipline. What we intend to do is, to assemble in the summer large bodies of troops at Aldershot, consisting probably chiefly of the militia, one body after another, in order that they may practise those military evolutions which they would have to perform if called into the field. Well, then, the hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin complains that the men are quartered in huts, and thus are prevented gaining experience in pitching tents. Now, I have seen that practice going on, for I remember, a short time since, seeing a rifle battalion engaged in pitching tents. It is not, however, a very difficult art to acquire, and I think that it is only necessary that one regiment should be taught it at a time. Then again, with regard to cooking, no doubt that is a matter of considerable importance; but the subject of paramount importance at Aldershot is to teach a large body of men to perform military evolutions on a large unequal surface of ground, and that object the nature of the ground at Aldershot fully enables them to accomplish. Then, again, an hon. Gentleman has complained that the huts were put up at Aldershot, because
  1258
  at the end of the war we had a number of huts we did not know what to do with, and therefore we sent them to Aldershot; but the hon. Gentleman ought to remember that the huts at Aldershot were erected during the war, and not after its termination, and certainly no huts were brought back from the Crimea, so that there can be no foundation for that hypothesis. I hope the Committee will not allow itself to be run away with by declarations about the dulness of Aldershot, by statements that the officers do not like to be there, that they have not the same amusements they have in large towns, that they prefer Dovor, or Portsmouth, or Plymouth. Let not the Committee run away with the notion that money will be wasted by the completion of these barracks. The subject is one of the utmost importance as regards the efficiency of the army; and I maintain that nothing has been done for a number of years so well calculated to render the British army efficient as the purchase of Aldershot and the arrangements attendant I thereupon. This House has ever been anxious to make the army efficient; it has from time to time insisted upon a military education being given to the officers of the army. It has been said, that though the army was brave and heroic, and ready to plunge into any danger, it was deficient in experience in those matters which constituted military science; and when the Committee attach so much importance to the efficiency of the army, I trust it will not listen to any proposal which will have the effect of striking a blow at that efficiency, and will prevent the completion of arrangements for placing it on a footing in a time of peace which will enable it to do its duty during a period of war. I have stated on a former occasion that we are the only great Power in Europe, possessing an army of any considerable amount, which has not been in the habit of having recourse to those assemblages of troops for military instruction. The Governments of Foreign Powers are, however, obliged from time to time to hire ground for that purpose at a considerable expense. Now, if we had not Aldershot, if we were obliged to hire ground, the cost would be greater than the House of Commons would be likely to sanction, while on the other hand, the arrangements of Aldershot are not only cheap to the public in comparison with the advantage to the country, but they afford the means of giving an effi-

  1259
  ciency to the army—both to officers and privates—which without some such arrangements it could never obtain.
  MAJOR STUART WORTLEYsaid, he did not believe that the hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin objected so much to the purchase of the ground at Aldershot as to the circumstance that our troops at that establishment were about to be provided with permanent barracks, instead of being lodged in tents. The huts which had been erected there had cost a sum of between £600,000 and £700,000, and he believed they were found to be leaky, and fast going to decay. He could not help feeling that, although the construction of the proposed barracks had already been commenced, yet it was better the works should be stopped than that the country should be saddled with a permanent location—he could not call it a camp—at Aldershot. He deemed it for these reasons to be his duty to support the Amendment for reducing the Vote to £50,000, and he might add that he could not help thinking that our soldiers could not learn their profession sufficiently well at Aldershot to fit them for service in the Cape Colony or the other important points of military occupation abroad. It was of the utmost importance that the troops should be thoroughly skilled in cooking and other minor matters of military education, as otherwise they would never be able to operate with the necessary efficiency in the field.
  MR. SIDNEY HERBERT: Sir, I shall certainly give my support to the proposal of the Government in respect to this Vote. The first encampment established in this country within the recollection of the present generation was that which existed at Chobham. Public opinion had not previously been directed to the deficiencies of our army, and our troops were afforded very few opportunities of acting together in large masses; When I, as Secretary at War, therefore proposed that there should be a military encampment, the doctrine which I advocated, of the expediency of having the various regiments of the army brought together in divisions and brigades, was very much questioned, upon the ground of the expense which the carrying of that doctrine into practical operation would entail upon the country. Economy was at that time the order of the day, and efficiency was but little regarded in comparison. During the war a different state of things prevailed, but we may now perceive
  1260
  again a tendency to revert to economy. I must confess I am myself a great advocate for economy in matters such as that under our notice; but I feel bound to consider how far we should be consulting that principle by lopping off a sum of £50,000 from this Vote, and spoiling the whole of our plan, after the great expense to which we have gone with the view of securing the efficiency of our troops. It is proposed on the part of the Government to construct permanent barracks at Aldershot, but I apprehend that, in seeking to carry out that object, it is not their intention to do away with the system of having masses of troops encamped there during the summer months. I certainly think an error was committed in keeping a large body of soldiers there during the past winter, because the inclemency of the season tended to disgust the officers and men with those duties the discharge of which would in summer be a recreation, and would imbue them with a love of their profession. It was, however, I maintain, necessary to purchase the ground at Aldershot. The extent to which land is enclosed in England accounts for the circumstance that it is not easy to find an open space which is well supplied with water, and which in other respects is not open to objection. I believe the erection of permanent barracks at Aldershot to be a necessary step—and for this reason, that there is not at present in England a sufficient amount of barrack accommodation for our troops. When the Committee examines into the details of that accommodation, they will, I think, be surprized at the sanitary considerations which it will present to their view. Those who enter our army are picked men, in the prime of life, their period of service ranging from twenty to thirty years of age; they are examined by a medical man, and must, before their admission into the service, be reported free from malformation, and all tendency to disease. How comes it to pass, then, that among that class of men the mortality is greater than among those of the same age in civil life? There must be some reason to account for the circumstance, and one good one, in my opinion, is that they are generally badly housed. Well, the Government propose to construct permanent barracks at Aldershot, by which that objection will, to some extent, be met, and I cannot understand why the erection of these barracks should prevent them from bringing together other regiments

  1261
  besides those to which permanent accommodation is to be afforded, with the view of enabling as large a number of troops as possible to go through the evolutions which have been described as so necessary for the efficiency of the service. I must say that I hope greater care will in future be taken to instruct our soldiers in those minor points of military education in which they are so extremely deficient. Not one among them, unless he happens to have learned the trade of a glazier, or to have come from the bogs of Ireland, or the Highlands of Scotland, where men must more or less shift for themselves, knows how to put in a pane of glass in a window, or to accomplish any of those small contrivances in the way of cooking and hutting, which are of so much use to an army in the field. For these reasons I should be glad to see more of the work at Aldershot done by the troops themselves. You cannot, it is true, create an efficient commissariat in time of peace. I do not believe that that can be done until the second or third year of war. No man in his senses would dream, in the present state of England, of marching a regiment of troops from one quarter of the country to another with a Commissariat in its rear, going into every farmyard and purchasing its contents, when they might get the necessary provisions by contract with half the trouble and at half the price. Artificial difficulties, however, in every other way may be created, which it is desirable that the troops should be taught to overcome. 1 may add that, as I have always attached the utmost importance to the massing of troops together in divisions and brigades, I should like to see that system carried into effect; but I, at the same time, feel it my duty to warn the Government not to proceed to too great a length in that course, for if they do, they may produce a revulsion in public opinion against it. In conclusion, I have only to say that, deeming the original purchase of the ground at Aldershot to be a wise proceeding, and the erection of the proposed barracks to be economical, for here you have got the site, whereas, elsewhere you must purchase it, I shall give my support to the Vote under the consideration of the Committee.
  LORD ADOLPHUS VANE-TEMPESTsaid, he should support the Motion for the reduction of the Vote, because he believed the principle which this Vote carried, was completely antagonistic to the promotion of that, efficiency in the army of which the
  1262
  right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken was so distinguished an advocate. The Vote in question was for the purpose of making a permanent barrack at Aldershot. Now, this was destroying the very advantage obtained by sending soldiers to camp, by instituting a system that provided them with permanent shelter, and prevented the opportunity of teaching soldiers the valuable knowledge of shifting for themselves. He would appeal to any of the officers or visitors to the Crimea whether when the men were left to their own resources they did not manage much better for themselves than when they were supported by the "paternal rule" at home. He hoped that the hon. and gallant Member for Westminster (Sir De L. Evans) would tell the Committee whether the houses built by the soldiers in the Crimea were not far better I than the Government huts sent from home. The British soldier had plenty of resources, if practised in developing them, but the Government were so unpopularizing the service that it was no wonder they had been compelled to confess in the face of Europe that the service contained 50,000 men below the estimate voted by Parliament. There was at present, he understood, a great difficulty in obtaining recruits, and if we were at war to-morrow the same difficulty would still be felt. The service could not fail to be unpopular so long as the Government acted upon the principle of playing at soldiers, and sent them to a permanent nuisance like Aldershot, which "bored" not only officers, but men. If the men were really being educated in campaigning, as they would be, if sent for six weeks annually to lead a real camp life, and be instructed in all its details, they would go through the necessary inconveniences good-humouredly; but I to keep them for lengthened periods, and throughout the year at Aldershot, merely for reviews, and for what the noble Lord at the head of the Government called great evolutions, would, he did not hesitate to affirm, disgust the soldier with the service. He would say nothing of the officer, because he must do his duty whenever and wherever he was called upon. But, he felt confident if the system was pursued of keeping men the whole year round in camp for the sake of this expensive toy, the Government would find increased difficulties in filling the ranks. Why should the Government go to an expense of £500,000 in order to destroy whatever practical use was to be derived from Aldershot as a

  1263
  camp? He should vote for the reduction of the Vote, and he only regretted that the Motion did not go to the refusal of the Vote altogether.
  MR. TITEsaid, that having been a Member of two Committees which had instituted inquiries on the subject of the Vote now under consideration, he could state that the sum given for the land at Aldershot was extremely small considering its extent. It had been explained by many eminent Officers that it was necessary to have a large unoccupied extent of country for the education of the troops, and the land, if now resold, was worth a great deal more than had been given for it. It was true that some mistakes had been made at first, for the huts were covered with felt, which was too liable to decay to be a good roof. Then, it was said, and he had himself believed at one time, that there had been great jobbing in the contracts at Aldershot. Having, however, served upon the Committee on Government contracts, he felt bound to say that nothing could be more fair or more just to the nation than the system upon which those contracts had been given. They were thrown open to public competition; they were taken by respectable parties at a fair price, and the Government had satisfactorily defended themselves from the accusations made against them. Of course, if the contracts were broken and the works were stopped, they could only be resumed at a great sacrifice of time and money. He must therefore give his vote in support of the Government on the present occasion.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, what he had to complain of was, the very inconvenient mode in which barracks, land, and buildings were lumped together in the Vote. The Committee had also a right to complain of the mode in which the question of the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond) had been met and answered by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. That question was how much the expenditure upon Aldershot was to be. The hon. Member raised no question whether it was desirable to go to Aldershot or not. He only wanted to know who was answerable for the outlay. But up jumped the noble Lord and said that he was answerable, and afterwards that some one else was answerable. He apprehended, however, that the noble Lord was not the architect. The total estimated expense of the barracks at Aldershot was £360,000, of which £250,000 had al-
  1264
  ready been expended, but the noble Lord at the head of the Government had not ventured to tell the Committee that this £360,000 would be the outside of the expense. He did not believe that a single Member of the Committee—not even the Administrative Reformer opposite, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Tite), had the most distant idea whether the barracks were to cost £400,000 or £500,000 or any other number of hundreds of thousands. No doubt to a certain extent the Government could not help going on with Aldershot, but the discussion which had taken place that night had very much shaken his opinion as to the utility of it. Among all the complaints with which the newspapers had teemed during the late war, he had never seen any as to the inability of our troops to act together in bodies when called upon to fight. The Doctors were bad, the Engineers were bad, the Commissaries were bad, but there was no complaint of that sort. The right hon. Member for south Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert) said that our troops were very artificially brought up, and he seemed to think that by getting the soldiers into huts they would be taught how to manage for themselves. That might be, but the Committee were not asked to do that, for Aldershot was to be a great barrack establishment. The only means by which the Committee could express its opinion of the want of definiteness on the part of the Government was to vote them a little less money, and unless some explanation were given as to the extent to which the expenditure was to go he should be inclined to support the Amendment. It would be desirable, too, that the Government should give some information as to the intended outlay on the proposed depôt for army clothing, for the site of which £20,000—rather a formidable sum—was asked for in the Votes.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I thought, Sir, I had explained that permanent barracks are to be built at Aldershot for 4,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, and a few batteries of artillery, and that it is not intended to build barracks for a larger number of men than that. Troops are to be collected together there in a larger number during the spring and summer months for the purposes of exercise, but it is not intended to make it a winter camp.
  MR. HENLEY: The noble Lord has not said a word as to what further expense will be incurred.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: It is intended to build permanent barracks for the number of men which I have just stated, and that limit will not be exceeded, but I really am not able to say what the whole expense of building those barracks will be.
  SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, he wished to point out, that it was by means of the camp at Aldershot that London, Woolwich Arsenal, and the south coast were to be defended.
  COLONEL KNOXsaid, he could not avoid expressing his disappointment that the Government had given no information to the Committee as to where the extremely extravagant expenditure on Aldershot was to stop. He hoped the Undersecretary at War would inform the Committee whether it was intended, after the permanent barracks were erected, to keep up the huts, for that could only be done at a very heavy expense. He also wished to know whether anything would be done with Portman Street Barracks, which were a disgrace to the country, being nothing better than a tumble-down stable. The first object of the Government should be to provide proper barrack accommodation for the troops quartered in the metropolis, with a view to prevent them from being driven to the public-house. The barracks at Aldershot were complete in all their arrangements, but when fresh barracks were built at other stations all the new improvements ought to be introduced. The large item for Aldershot exclusively, to the neglect of other barrack stations, was highly objectionable, and the Government ought to give an assurance that some limit would be put to such a large expenditure.
  SIR DE LACY EVANSsaid, he fully concurred in thinking that before new barracks were constructed at vast expense at Aldershot that it would be as well to look to the state of the barracks in London. Before that enormous expenditure was incurred, Portman Street Barracks ought, at least, to be put in a proper condition. He had been surprised to hear from the hon. Member for Buckingham (Sir H. Verney) that the barracks at Aldershot were of the greatest possible importance—that they were designed for the defence of the metropolis, and indeed of our southern coast. The hon. Gentleman was evidently misled by the brilliant oratory of the noble Viscount (Lord Palmerston), who had dilated on the transport of
  1266
  troops from Aldershot to Portsmouth and Plymouth, until any one would have fancied our shores on the eve of being invaded. That, however, was altogether a delusion. If we were really in danger of invasion, undoubtedly some central spot, perhaps at Aldershot, or some large tract of land near Sandhurst, would be convenient for the assembling of a large body of troops, and if a corps d'armée were placed there capable of being transferred rapidly from one point to another, a valuable strategical object might be gained. But when that was made the excuse for demanding £400,000 to build barracks for some 4,000 or 5,000 men, he considered that it was trifling with their judgment. What could such a small corps do? The accommodation which was not sufficient for the concentration of a larger body than that could only enable our troops to play at soldiers. The hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W. Williams) had recommended that the whole of these Estimates should be submitted to a Committee, a course which, might be advantageously adopted without necessarily tying the hands of the Executive in the meantime. The noble Lord at the head of the Government spoke of the purchase of ground for practising our troops in large divisions, but that was only a diminutive item in the charge. It was very doubtful whether the large outlay that had been made for huts erected of fragile material was a prudent expenditure. For that purpose alone, up to the middle of last year, no lees a sum than £400,000 had been spent. Other items raised the outlay to nearly £800,000, and the aggregate charge would probably approach to £1,000,000 sterling. That large expenditure had escaped the proper scrutiny of Parliament, because everybody's attention at that time had been engrossed by the war in the Crimea; but now that peace was restored some curb ought to be put upon it. He had supported the Government the other night in their proposition for putting our great maritime depôts in the best possible state ofdefence—not that he seriously contemplated any danger of invasion, that was entirely out of the question—but because those establishments ought to be secure against all accidents. If the country were really in any danger, it could not be protected by a small force of 5,000 men from Aldershot. No sane foreign Government would venture to assail this country with less than 200,000 men, or without a conviction that but a

  1267
  small proportion of their army would ever return to its native shores. The noble Viscount was all-powerful in that House, and would doubtless be able to reject the Amendment; but, if there was any considerable manifestation of feeling that night against such reckless expenditure, the Government might be induced to practise greater circumspection and economy. The retention of our troops in huts during the winter months could only increase the difficulty of recruiting the army, without serving any useful purpose. He was glad, therefore, that it was to be discontinued.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he felt inclined to vote with the hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin unless the Government gave the Committee more definite information as to the ultimate cost of the barracks at Aldershot. It was clear they could not rely on the Estimates of the expense of these buildings which had been laid before them. There was an entry, for example, of £150,000 for the Hospital at Netley; but in the marginal note it was stated that the cost of the hospital would be £260,000. He hoped, therefore, that some definite assurance would be given as to the estimated cost of the barracks at Aldershot. There were other items in the Vote that also required explanation. He found an entry of £3,000 for drainage at Aldershot; another of £1,000 for levelling and gravelling the parade; and a third of £2,000 for making roads. Could not this expense of £6,000 be avoided by employing the soldiers in cutting drains, gravelling the parade, and making roads? There was also an entry of £40,000 for providing quarters at Dovor for forty-four officers. [Sir J. RAMSDEN: Look at the marginal note.] He was asked to look at the margin, and there he found that the building was to be in the mediaeval style; but surely, whether in the mediæval style or not, nearly £1,000 for every officer was a large sum to pay for their accommodation.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, he wished to say distinctly, in answer to the question put by the right hon. Baronet, that the sum of £400,000 stated in the Estimate was the entire sum that would be required for the completion of the works at Aldershot. The first estimate for the barracks at Aldershot was £250,000 voted in 1855. Next year it was thought desirable to have a careful inquiry into the whole system of the construction of the barracks, and the result of that inquiry was a recommenda-
  1268
  tion of sundry improvements, such as the erection of separate quarters for married men, a better description of quarters for all the soldiers, and the erection of covered places for the men on parade, at drill, and for general use in rainy weather. To meet the additional expense incurred by acting upon these recommendations the original Estimate of £250,000 was raised to £360,000. The Committee would observe that the total estimate of the work stood at £360,000, while the sum already spent, and that which was proposed to be spent, amounted to £400,000. That difference arose from the difficulty of getting a firm foundation for the barracks, by which an unexpected item of £40,000 was added to the expense. Undoubtedly the sum required was a large one; but the Committee should bear in mind that the object for which it was required was also a large one. Accommodation was provided for 4,000 infantry, 1,600 horses, the great number of men whom that number of horses implied, and a large body of artillery. The hon. and gallant Members who had taken part in the discussion were no doubt much better acquainted with these matters than he was, but with great submission he would observe that, according to his information, the amount stated was below the average expense for such a description of barracks. Barracks erected on the improved system cost for every 1,000 men £94,000, so that, taking the number of men at Aldershot, the expense of that barrack would be considerably below the average. They had it on the high authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert) that it was necessary to provide better barrack accommodation in England, and the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Tite) bore testimony to the open and fair manner in which the contracts for those works had been made by the Government. The right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Pakington) thought it was desirable that soldiers should be employed in making roads and other works. The Government had endeavoured to carry out that arrangement as far as practicable, and from a Return which he had obtained it appeared that the number of men daily employed on such works was 720. An explanation had been asked of a sum taken for a clothing depôts, and which was required for the purchase of a site. At present the central clothing depot was at Weedon, but great inconvenience was experienced by that arrange-

  1269
  ment. Weedon being in the centre of England, the cloth, when purchased, had to be conveyed there by land transport, at great expense, and the clothing, when made, was brought to London for distribution among the troops. It was, therefore, proposed that a depôt should be constructed at Rotherhithe, where it would be much more conveniently situated.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, they had now for the first time got an explanation of the discrepancy that existed in the Estimates between the sum of £360,000 and £400,000. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War had accounted for the £40,000 about which so many inquiries had been made, and lie was glad that the explanation had been given; but, if they were expected to vote away £40,000, without explanation, what sum might they not be expected to vote next year in the same way? He hoped that a more definite explanation still would he made with regard to the Vote under consideration, and unless it was given he should feel it his duty to vote for the Amendment.
  MR. JOSEPH LOCKEsaid, he was extremely glad to find that a discussion had taken place on the question, as he had frequently had reason to complain of the loose way in which the Estimates were framed. Whatever might be the opinion of hon. and gallant Members with respect to works at Aldershot, they ought to thank the hon. Members for Surrey, Oxfordshire, and Droitwich, for pressing this subject of the Estimates so strongly upon the Government. As to Aldershot he had not one word to say as a civilian upon a Vote which the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) said involved the defence of the country. But the attention of the Committee had been called to a discrepancy in the Estimates amounting to £40,000. He was perfectly willing to accept the explanation of the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Ramsden) that it arose from unexpected difficulties in constructing works at Aldershot. The discussion had elicited the important fact that for the Netley Hospital, which was originally estimated to cost £150,000, an extra sum of £110,000 was intended to be asked. The noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) had come forward very gallantly to the defence of the Vote for Aldershot, for which he said he was entirely responsible; but would he accept the responsibility of this extra sum for Netley Hospital? Netley Abbey looked on the mud banks of the Southampton Water, and he
  1270
  (Mr. Locke) should not have thought that that was a very eligible spot for a hospital. £70,000 had been already expended on that hospital, but it was rumoured that the Government intended to abandon it; and he wished to know whether that was the fact. The extra Vote of £110,000; upon an original Estimate of £150,000; showed how loosely and blunderingly those Estimates were laid before the House, and the noble Lord at the head of the Government ought to be held responsible for them. Only think of £260,000 being expended upon a hospital which was to accommodate no more than 1,000 men! They were constantly reminded in that House what they owed to the British soldier, but surely the House owed something to the country which had to pay such extravagant amounts. He had not intended to vote against the Government, but until a satisfactory answer was given as to the blunder with regard to the Estimate for Netley Hospital he should vote for the Amendment.
  MR. STAFFORDsaid, he thought he could give the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Joseph Locke) some information with regard to Netley Hospital. It was begun in utter defiance and ignorance of all those principles of sanitary knowledge which we had learnt by bitter experience during the last few years. Its site was chosen without any reference to medical authorities. When the building was commenced the attention of those who ought to have been consulted and who had the interest of the British soldier at heart, was drawn to it, and it was found necessary to make so many important and costly alterations that the Government consented to expend £110,000 more upon it. Even that increase, he believed, would not be sufficient to build it in the manner in which it ought to be built. The barracks for which so large a sum was asked were to be built in a manner against which that House had protested year after year, and which every Government had admitted to be defective. When we heard of the failure of our prestige and of the apparent annihilation of our army owing to mal-administration, we were told that all would turn out for the better, that Aldershot would console us for all our disasters, that the experience which we had learned at so dear a price would be there distilled in the studies and discipline of our army, and that, in fact, Aldershot would become our great stronghold of defence. Well, we had got it,

  1271
  and it was remarkable that after all our experience of it—[Cheers, and cries of "Divide !"]—he understood those ironical cheers, but they need not hope to succeed in silencing him by those means. It was remarkable that, except from some occupants of the Ministerial Benches, no one had risen to defend Aldershot except that remarkable Administrative Reformer the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Tite), who had spoken rather in its favour, but what he said was not his own opinion; it was that of two Committees which had the advantage of his being a Member of them. They had had the opinion of military men of all parties, who had criticised in no measured terms the system of carrying on military affairs at Aldershot; and they had all asked, and had as yet got no answer to the question, "What is doing at Aldershot?" Were you by the education of your troops taking measures to prevent the recurrence of those disasters of the Crimea? Were you teaching your soldiers to meet the contingencies of war? were you teaching them to trench, to cook, to dig, to make roads which was as indispensable to an army in a campaign as real fighting, or were you hiring labour to do that for them which they ought to be taught to do for themselves? If you only collected troops at Aldershot for the purpose of making them march to Farnham and back for the amusement of the people at the windows, and amidst the waving of the handkerchiefs of the ladies, he said that you were wasting the money of the country, and were more blameable than any previous Government, because you continued in a course of error in spite of large and recent experience. He had abstained from addressing the Committee at an earlier period of the evening because he had expected that some member of the Government would have risen to state what was really doing at Aldershot. He found the expense for the Staff had been increased by £100,000, and he wished to know what was the return for the money; for, if the troops were no better qualified to act together as an army, the outlay was pure waste. Our army at present was becoming something between a job and a toy, and, although it would never be unpopular with the people of England, still it might hereafter, if the present course were continued, be made a rallying cry for those who wished to lower our institutions. [Cries of "Divide!"] The Committee would divide, but, perhaps,
  1272
  not so quickly as some hon. Gentlemen desired. He had observed, during his Parliamentary experience, that when a subject was debated so thoroughly and so earnestly as the present subject had been, it proved that the matter was one of deep interest to the public, and he was sure the noble Lord at the head of the Government was not a man to overlook the importance of the present discussion nor the great interest which the general public had in it. He besought the noble Lord to consider well the matter, to inquire into its origin, and the parties who proposed it—why ill-ventilated huts were erected in the worst site that could be found in the neighbourhood. He should vote for the Motion to reduce the Vote, not because he objected to the erection of barracks, but because he believed the expenditure would produce no advantage to the country, and was opposed to the opinions of almost every military man in that House.
  MR. WILLIAM WILLIAMSsaid, he must remind the Committee that large sums had already been granted for the erection of barracks at Aldershot, and before the enormous increase now asked for was allowed, it would be well to have some explanation of the expenditure of the former amount.
  SIR WILLIAM CODRINGTONsaid, he would put it to the Committee whether it would be wise economy, having already built a considerable portion of the barracks for three regiments of infantry, three of cavalry, and two troops of artillery, they should now abandon those buildings and sacrifice the former outlay to avoid the expense of completing the barracks? There was one point in relation to Aldershot which he hoped would not be lost sight of. Although it might not be necessary or advisable to assemble troops there in winter when they could not manœuvre, yet it was highly important to assemble troops to accustom them to move together. He remembered at Varna seeing, to his own great instruction, the hon. and gallant Member for Westminster (Sir De L. Evans) move his division, and there could be no reason why the same operation should not be performed at home. There was no reason why brigades or divisions should not be made complete with ammunition, land transport, ambulances, &c., in the same manner as if really on the scene of war, and even if that system of practising the moving of troops should cost some money, the expenditure would undoubt-

  1273
  edly be compensated by the experience that would be gained.
  SIR WILLIAM WILLIAMSsaid, he wished to assure the Committee that he was quite in favour of Aldershot. He wished to see the higher branches of instruction carried on in that camp, so that not only might the men be taught to move with precision, but that they should understand siege duty. If such a system of teaching were pursued, he felt assured that the country would never regret the necessary expenditure. Should Aldershot fall through, our whole system of camp instruction would fall with it, and England would be reduced to the same condition as before the war. He had seen almost every institution conducive to the efficiency of the army destroyed, and he well recollected that when on a former occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), taunting the noble Lord at the head of the Government, inquired where were their plans, that reproach went to his heart, for he knew that in consequence of the destruction of the military survey department they never had any. No general, either in the Russian, Prussian, or French service, ever transmitted a Report to his Sovereign without a plan attached, while English general officers alone were without the means of doing so. Most certainly he should give his Vote for the original proposition.
  COLONEL SOMERSETsaid, he was also in favour of Aldershot, and if the Government stated on their responsibility that £400,000 was necessary for the erection of barracks there, he should record his vote with them.
  MR. LOCKE KINGsaid, he wished to inquire whether it was true that the Government had purchased, or had agreed to purchase, a piece of land in the neighbourhood of Aldershot for the erection of an hospital, the camp being considered exceedingly unhealthy.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENreplied, that so far from Aldershot being unhealthy, the number of sick was 1 per cent. less than in other quarters in the kingdom.
  MR. LOCKE KINGsaid, he must remind the hon. Under-Secretary that he had not answered his question with respect to the purchase of land for an hospital. He would also like to know if such a purchase had been made, why the item was not included in the Estimates.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, the Government were at present in treaty for the
  1274
  purchase of a small piece of land for an hospital, with a view to provide the necessary accommodation for an average number of patients. The reason why the item had not been included in the Estimates was, that the purchase not being yet completed the Government did not think themselves entitled to ask for a Vote.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he saw that, in addition to the sums which the Committee had been discussing, a further sum of £5,000 for Aldershot appeared in a different part of the Estimates. He wished to have an explanation of that item.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, that the sum in question was made up of a great number of small items which it would have been inconvenient to give in detail.
  COLONEL BOLDEROsaid, he objected to two different things, embracing military and civil expenditure, being mixed up in one Vote as in the present instance. He considered that he could put the Government in the way to save £150,000, merely by suggesting that instead of building an hospital for 1,000 patients, which would never be filled, to erect one capable of accommodating 500. He would instance two hospitals, one at Yarmouth and another at Deal, which had since been converted into barracks, as a proof that the Government were rather apt to build hospitals too extensive in their character. He wished also to know what the sum of £46,000 for drainage at Woolwich Arsenal meant. He thought it would always be wise to charge the drainage in the Estimate for construction.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, that the Government had taken the best medical opinion with respect to Netley Hospital, and it was entirely in favour of the present arrangement. The sum of £46,000 for drainage at Woolwich represented the cost of laying iron pipes under the roads throughout the arsenal.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 99; Noes 158: Majority 59.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. STAFFORDsaid, he hoped the Under-Secretary for War would not proceed further with the Estimates to-night.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, he would assent to the Chairman's reporting progress.
  The House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported on Monday next.
  Committee to sit again on Monday next.

  BANKRUPTCY AND INSOLVENCY (IRELAND) BILL—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  House in Committee.
  MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, he must appeal to the Government not to go on with the Bill, in the absence of members of the legal profession in Ireland, who alone were capable of discussing it. He should move that the Chairman report progress.
  MR. MALINStrusted that the Government would not persevere.
  MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, the Bill was substantially an unopposed Bill last Session, and it was only owing to his being a day too late to comply with the Resolution of the House of Lords that it was dropped. The Committee was postponed before the recess to suit the convenience of hon. and learned Members, and he was now asked to postpone it again. If he had to yield night after night to those requests, he might as well abandon the Bill at once.
  MR. VANCEsaid, that the Bill was one of detail, not of principle, and therefore any discussion must necessarily take place in Committee. There was no objection, that he knew of, to the principle of the measure, but it would be impossible to proceed satisfactorily with the details of a measure comprehending 400 clauses in the absence of those who had the greatest acquaintance with the state of the Irish law.
  MR. MALINSsaid, he should offer every opposition the rules of the House permitted if the Government did not comply with such a reasonable request.
  MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, it was because the Bill contained so many clauses that he wished to make some progress, but he would meet the convenience of hon. and learned Members, and consent to the Chairman reporting progress and resume the Committee on Monday next.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he would suggest that arrangements should be made for taking the Bill at a morning sitting on Wednesday. They would then probably be able to go through it at once, instead of taking it up piecemeal, which he did not think would enable them to do justice to it. He hoped it would not be brought on after twelve o'clock, when they lost as much time in discussing whether they should do anything or not as would enable them to make some substantial progress.
  MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, it was of importance that a Return which had been laid on the table should be in the hands of Members before the Bill was discussed. He hoped, that if the Return was not in the hands of Members on Monday, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland would postpone the Committee until Thursday next.
  MR. MALINSsaid, Monday was tolerably well disposed of if the Army Estimates were to be taken after the Oaths Bill. A Bill of this importance ought not to be brought on after midnight.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  House resumed: Committee report progress; to sit again on Monday next.
  House adjourned at a Quarter after Twelve o'clock, till Monday next.