Commons Sitting of 10 May 1858

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Chelsea Bridge Act Amendment; Prescription (Ireland).
2° Non-Parochial Registers.

LIMERICK CITY ELECTION.—REPORT.
House informed that the Committee had determined,—
That George Gavin, esquire, is not duly elected a Citizen to serve in this present Parliament for the City of Limerick.
That the last Election for the said City of Limerick is a void Election.
And the said determinations were ordered to be entered in the Journals of this House.

GOVERNOR GENERAL OF INDIA.

  NOTICE.
  MR. CARDWELL; Sir, I beg to give notice that on Thursday night I shall move a Resolution in the following terms:
  "That this House, whilst in its present state of information, abstains from expressing any opinion on the policy of any Proclamation which may have been issued by the Governor General of India in relation to Oude, has seen with regret and serious apprehension that Her Majesty's Government have addressed to the Governor General through the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, and have published a Despatch condemning in strong terms the conduct of the Governor General, and is of opinion that such a course on the part of the Government must tend in the present circumstances of India to produce the most prejudicial effect by weakening the authority of the Governor General, and encouraging the further resistance of those who are in arms against us."

  NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL MODEL SCHOOL AT BELVOIR.—QUESTION.
  MR. CALCUTTsaid, he would beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if the National Agricultural Model School at Belvoir, in the county of Clare is closed, and if so, how long it has been closed; and if

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  there is any objection to the production of the Correspondence between the Board of Education and the Patron of the School?
  LORD NAASsaid, that the Agricultural School was closed in June, 1855; the reason of such closing being that the Manager had not been disposed to continue the necessary outlay for keeping it up. There would be no objection to produce the Correspondence between the Board of Education and the Patron.

  GLOUCESTER GATE BRIDGE.—QUESTION.
  MR. WYLDsaid, he would beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, if it be intended to video and enlarge the Bridge over the Regent's Canal (near the Gloucester Gate), in compliance with the request contained in the Memorial of the Inhabitants of the Regent's Park and in its neighbourhood? A large population had grown up in that locality since the erection of the Bridge, the roadway of which was much too narrow to accommodate the increased traffic; and many accidents had resulted in consequence.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that he had looked carefully into the whole question, and he was decidedly of opinion that if the Bridge were widened and enlarged, it would lead to a great expense, which would certainly not be undertaken by the Government; and he therefore thought that the question had better be left to the consideration of the Vestry of Marylebone.

PROPERTY TAKEN IN LUCKNOS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. LAURIEsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Board of Control how the valuable treasure and other property found in Lucknow, and elsewhere in Oude, is to be disposed of; and whether any portion is to be subject to Prize Money for the Army?
  MR. BAILLIEsaid, that at present the Government had not received information whether any Prize Money or plunder had been taken at Lucknow, and until they had, it was impossible to say what course would be taken.

THE MAIN DRAINAGE SCHEME.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CHARLES S. BUTLERsaid, there were many conflicting statements as to the expenditure that the Main Drainage scheme would involve. It had been vari-
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  ously stated at from £1,200,000, to £5,400,000, and then it was said that if this large outlay were incurred it would not, after all, accomplish that purification of the Thames which was desired. Under these circumstances he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether having regard to the various Reports of the Referees and Commissioners upon the subject of the Main Drainage of the Metropolis and the Purification of the Thames, it is his intention, before acceding to any scheme for carrying out the 135th Section of the Act for the better Local Management of the Metropolis, to cause any further investigation to be made by a reference to the Committee recently appointed, or otherwise; and whether it is in contemplation to amend or modify such Act, with a view to the adoption of any scheme that may not be in accordance therewith?
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that no power was given at the present moment to proceed with the scheme recommended by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and should that Board contemplate carrying it out, he certainly, having regard to the fact that a Committee of the House of Commons had been appointed on the subject, should oppose sanctioning any proposition for that purpose until that Committee had made its Report. He was not aware that the Metropolitan Board of Works had expressed any desire for fresh legislative powers for the purpose suggested by the hon. Member; but should they make any application upon the subject, he would then consider whether such powers were necessary or not.

  ARMY MEDICAL OFFICERS.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL KINGSCOTEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary for War whether it is intended to carry out the recommendations of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Army Medical Department, of which Mr. Stafford was Chairman in 1856, or any of the recommendations of the Sanitary Commissioners, of which the right hon. the Member for South Wiltshire was President, which relate to the pay, rank, and organization of the Army Medical Officers, or whether it is intended to continue the system now prevalent under the present Director General.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he would beg to inform the hon. and gallant Gentleman that there was no intention to alter the

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  present system. The Reports of the Sanitary Commissioners appointed by Lord Panmure, and of the Committee of which the Right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert) was President, had been received, and, in conformity therewith, a warrant had been drawn and sent to the Lords of the Treasury, and as soon as it received their sanction it would be acted upon.

ORDNANCE SURVEY COMMISSION.

  QUESTION.
  VISCOUNT DUNCANsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary for War whether the Royal Commissionors appointed last year, on the subject of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, had made their Report? and if so at what period a Copy of it will be presented to the House?
  GENERAL PEEL: Sir, the Chairman of the Commission waited upon me to-day and stated that the Report would be ready in a few days. When it is received no time will be lost in laying it on the table.

  WESTMINSTER HALL.—QUESTION.
  SIR A. AGNEWsaid, he rose to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether there is any immediate intention of removing all temporary erections in Westminster Hall, and of substituting a permanent and ornamental doorway in place of that by which the public at present have access to the building?
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that there was only one erection in Westminster Ball at the present time, which enclosed some of the models for the Wellington Memorial which had not yet been removed. The parties had been requested to take them away, and if they did do not so the Government would remove them, and the erection would then be taken down. No Vote was intended to be taken this year for making a permanent door-way to the Hall, but he hoped next year that a Vote would be submitted for that purpose, and also for putting up more sightly notice boards in the Hall than those which now existed at the entrances of the Law Courts.

UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. COWANsaid, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate whether, as this Bill which had been placed on the Order of the Day had been scarcely seen in Scotland,
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  as great anxiety was felt with reference to some of its provisions, the Right hon. and learned Lord would consent to postpone it until after the Whitsuntide holidays.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he could not consent to postpone the Measure for so long a period as that suggested, but he had no objection to delay the second reading till the next week.

  LIMERICK CITY WRIT.
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, he rose to move that a New Writ be issued for the election of a Burgess for the City of Limerick, in the room of Major Gavin, unseated on petition.
  Motion made and Question proposed,—
  "That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland, to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Citizen to serve in this present Parliament for the City of Limerick, in the room of George Gavin, esquire, whose Election has been determined to be void."
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that at the commencement of every Session it had been usual to agree to an order that when a Member was unseated for bribery, the Motion for a New Writ should not be made until after a week's notice. In this case the hon. Gentleman had been unseated for acts of bribery committed by his agents. The practice which he had referred to was a sound one, and he thought, therefore, that it was unadvisable that the House should at present agree to the Motion.
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, there was no such Sessional Order at present in existence, or he should have given the usual notice required by it.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, he believed the notice required was two days, and not one week.
  MR. DUNLOPsaid, the Committee was not called upon to make any special Report as to whether much bribery and corruption existed in the borough. They did not receive any evidence to show that that was the case.
  Motion by leave withdrawn.

  OATHS BILL—LORDS' AMENDMENTS.
  Order read for the consideration of the Amendments made by the Lords to this Bill.
  The First Amendment, to leave out Clause 5, read 2°.
  LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I rise to move that the House do disagree with the

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  Lords in this Amendment. It will be quite unnecessary for me to renew the arguments which have been repeatedly used in this House, and which have been so successful, against the proscription and disability to which the Jews, subjects of Her Majesty, are subjected. There are, however, one or two points upon which I wish shortly to advert. I am aware that there are persons who say that without this clause the Bill is of great value in itself. Now it appears to me that the form of oath I proposed was a compromise and concession with a view to satisfy those who had not been satisfied, otherwise there are many things in the oath, as proposed, which I think quite unnecessary. I believe the words in the Oath of Supremacy, on the true faith of a Christian, were originally introduced in consequence of there being at the time, when that oath was framed, a sect of Roman Catholics who held the doctrine that no oath was to be kept with heretics, and therefore, to bind them, these words were inserted. With regard to the Oath of Abjuration, that was framed in consequence of the assumption of the sovereign title by the head of the house of Stuart, there being at that time many persons in this country who were favourable to the claims of that House. But, Sir, these are now merely records of forgotten battles and condemned causes which are now utterly repudiated by all parties. There are no parties I believe who hold that circumstances now exist, as in the reign of Henry VIII., rendering such a state of the law necessary to be maintained, or that the maintenance of a peculiar doctrine by a peculiar section of the Jesuits any longer requires such a safeguard. Again, the necessity for the retention of the words in relation to the claims of the House of Stuart has likewise expired with the extinction of that family against whom they were directed. So that if I were to frame a Bill according to my own views I should put nothing into it but a simple Oath of Allegiance. But in order to obtain a settlement of this question of religious liberty, I inserted those provisions which the prejudices of some persons lead them to think ought to be still retained, but which I consider as unnecessary. I certainly thought the chief value of the Bill which went from this House was the clause regarding the admission of the Jews to seats in the House, they being now kept out by a sort of legislative fraud, by words which were intended to exclude Roman
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  Catholics, and were never meant to apply to Jews. There is another point to which I would refer, and that is, that I think the question assumes a somewhat unusual complexion at the present moment. In the first place, after twenty-five years of discussion, and often as the principle of admitting the Jews has been affirmed by this House, we find that the Bill was sent up to the other House by a greater majority on this than on any previous occasion. This is the first circumstance I would call the attention of the House to—the next is, that we now see the Government in power opposing themselves in the Lords to the clause which proposes to relieve the Jews from their disabilities. In former instances we have had the Government—sometimes with an exception, but generally without—favourable to this relief, and it has been the house of Lords, as a Legislative body, that has rejected it. But we must now consider—all the Members of the Government, I believe, in the House of Lords, with one exception, having opposed this clause—that we are living under a Government who are hostile to the principle of religious liberty. That is also a matter for the serious consideration of this House. With regard to what is to be done it is quite premature to speak. With regard to proceeding by Resolution, I have no doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Aylesbury will take the question into his consideration, and that the House would listen to any proposition he may have to make with great respect. At present I have nothing to say upon that point, and will conclude by moving that this House disagree to the said Amendment.
  MR. GILPINseconded the Motion.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: Sir, I am unwilling that what the noble Lord has said with respect to this important question should pass altogether unnoticed. The noble Lord has told us that the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" were retained by him in the oath of this Bill to be pronounced—or their equivalent declared—by all except Jews on their entrance to this House, merely in deference to the prejudices of certain Members of this House; but that he attaches no value to these words, and both desires and expects to see them swept away. Now, many hon. Members on this side of the House believed that, in changing the terms of the oath, but retaining these words, in consenting to such an alteration in the form of the oath as would sweep

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  away those other parts of the oath which are assumed by hon. Gentlemen on the other side to be no longer necessary, because they relate to a family which is extinct, and whose claim to the Throne of these realms was no longer worth consideration, they were meeting a valid objection. But the noble Lord now tells us that the whole of this, his own Bill, that the oath that it contains—that in fact everything that has been done towards meeting the objections to the Oath of Abjuration, upon which he and others have laid so much stress, is valueless; and he has declared deliberately and openly, before this House, that he will accept of no such, concession; but he declares in plain terms, his right and his intention to reject the words "upon the true faith of a Christian," which we value most highly, but which he regards as totally unnecessary, and as a useless remnant of the bigotry of past ages, introduced for the purpose of binding Jesuits who no longer exist. That the Jesuits are an order which no longer exists, I was certainly not prepared to hear asserted by the noble Lord, considering all we know of their operations abroad and in this country; he has made a discovery of which I was not before aware.
  LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I did not say that. I said a particular sect of the Jesuits.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: If I understood the noble Lord rightly, he said the peculiar doctrines of the Jesuits no longer prevail against which these words were intended to guard. [Lord JOHN RUSSELL: No, No!] Does the noble Lord mean that the doctrines of the Jesuits do not continue what they were? If they do, the same reasons remain for the retention of the words which originally induced Parliament to introduce them. I do no see how the noble Lord can escape from that conclusion. What is the plain truth? These words were introduced to make this Christian oath especially binding upon a certain sect of Christians whose opinions were supposed to be lax with respect to the observance of any oath. I do not understand that. The noble Lord, now says, that this sect or order has altered its opinions, or that it has ceased to exist. The noble Lord has shown no reason on that ground for the exclusion of the words, but he has stated in the most unmistakeable manner that their insertion in the oath contained in this Bill is, in his mind, a worthless, a mere concession to the prejudices of hon.
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  Members on this side of the House, yet this is the Bill which the noble Lord has introduced himself. The plain fact is, and it is becoming patent to the country as it is to the House of Lords, that the Bill is based upon revolutionary principles which arc but thinly cloaked. It is a phase of the Bill, introduced in 1854 by the noble Lord, which this House rejected as based upon a revolutionary principle, principles never adopted in this country in either of the two revolutions through which it has passed, and which resulted in the establishment of true freedom. The oath which was adopted by the Long Parliament and the Commonwealth is one which distinctly recognizes the doctrine of the Trinity, but is distinctly Christian. Would to God we had it now! The noble Lord now asks us to adopt the principle of declaring against all professions of Christianity as a qualification for the admission to Parliament or to high office, against every restriction on the ground of religious belief. It was for refusing to read James the Second's declatation to this very effect, that the Bishops were imprisoned but acquitted, and their imprisonment was the immediate cause of the Revolution of 1688. The principle which the noble Lord is now endeavouring to apply to the constitution of this country is the principle upon which the first French revolution was founded, the principle of indifferentism to all religion. It is the principle to which France returned in 1831, and it was her return to that unhappy principle, and the rejection of the Christian principle upon which her dynasty had been reconstituted, that led to the second overthrow of the constitutional monarchy in that country, and eventually to the sacrifice of her entire constitutional freedom. Sir, I feel grateful, as does the most important, must religious, and most intelligent portion of the community, to the House of Lords for the course which they have taken in relation to this subject. I doubt not their adherence to that course; for, having assumed the ground of defending the religious convictions of the people of this country against the misguided attempts so perseveringly made to break down the Christian character of the British Parliament, the House of Lords have taken a ground, which they cannot abandon with honour, and which I know they will maintain with firmness and dignity. The noble Lord the Member for London has now thought proper to move that the House do disagree with the Amendments of their

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  Lordships. Sir, I, for one will not join in repudiating my own opinions, far less the authority of the House of Lords. I warn this House that difficulties and dangers will attend them should they be misled into any attempt to supersede the independent authority of the House of Lords. I warn them against being led into the mischievous and undignified course of setting themselves in opposition to the law and due discharge of the functions of those, whose duty it is to administer the laws of this country. I trust that the House will not adopt the minatory tone of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, that they will not follow the example, in this respect, of the Long Parliament, or perhaps they may find that they have exhausted the patience of the country, and that a fall similar to that of the Long Parliament awaits them. Let not this House arrogate to itself the pretence of infallibility or grasp at a power that has never before been safely wielded by any one branch of the Legislature. Any one who lends himself to such a proceeding will, in effect, be making a direct attack upon the constitution itself, and upon the freedom of our institutions. Depend upon it, this country views this question in a very simple light. It is viewed as a question between religious indifference and those principles of Christianity which form the basis of Our constitution. The people of this country will not be drawn into these subtle refinements as to how certain words found in the oath came there, but will look to their general effect and operation, and will regard those who maintain the Christian character of Parliament as the best friends of the constitution and of their freedom.
  SIR RICHARD BETHELLsaid, that having been referred to by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, and the opinion which he had expressed on a former occasion having been made the subject of remark in "another place," he was anxious to take the present opportunity of offering one or two observations to the House. Unquestionably, on a former occasion he had taken the liberty of pointing out what would be the result of a continued opposition on the part of the other House of Parliament to the often-repeated wishes of the people on this subject—wishes which, for a period of more than a quarter of a century, had been embodied in divers Bills for the emancipation of the Jews, and which had passed the House of Commons by continually augmenting ma-
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  jorities. He took the liberty of pointing out—not in his own language, but in the better-chosen and well-considered expressions of the right hon. Gentlemen now a Member of the Government (the First Lord of the Admiralty), that it might be possible this House would be compelled to resort to another mode of proceeding, provided it should ultimately appear that that was the only constitutional course by which this great public object could be effected. Undoubtedly, he approved of that proposition, recognizing in it the only ground on which he could ever venture to recommend to the House the adoption of an independent course of action. And he now stated, though with great regret, that should it become necessary—which he earnestly trusted it would not—he should consider it his duty to bring before the House a Resolution on this subject, and therein suggest a course, perfectly constitutional, by which he thought the great object of the people and of that House might be accomplished. Without adopting any minatory language, he might venture to appeal to any constitutional lawyer, and to any reader of our history, whether usage was not the law of our constitution, and whether they were not warranted by that usage in coining to the conclusion that when a particular measure had been adopted by that House on several successive occasions, and when a particular course had been adopted regarding it, not by one Parliament only, but by a series of Parliaments, not by small majorities, but by large majorities perpetually increasing—and that during a period of nearly thirty years—they were in a position to pronounce, with great justice and truth, that the measure in question fairly represented the views and wishes of the nation, and that it was the duty, as it had been the custom of the ether House, to yield to the wishes of the nation when so expressed. What was the position in which they were now placed? He thought this was the twelfth, if not the thirteenth, occasion in which the House of Lords had been solicited to confirm the opinion of the representatives of the people on this question. It was not merely that these Bills had been sent up to the other House; they had been sent up in a manner that showed the people of England considered this question not as involving the rights of the Jews only, but the rights of the constituencies of this country. That was, in reality, the true construction of the case. The ques-

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  tion was, whether the constituencies were, in point of fact, to be practically disfranchised; and whether an anomaly was to continue, the existence of which, to any great extent, would be quite sufficient to condemn the present state of things. It was the undoubted right of any constituency to elect a Jew, but the Jew, when duly elected and returned, was, in consequence of the singular interpretation put upon this anomalous law, unable to discharge the duty of a Member of Parliament. But it was not only that this question had grown up and gone on augmenting in successive Parliaments. By every considerate and careful observer it unquestionably must have been seen that in the course of the last thirty years this measure had been recommended by the opinion and speeches of the most able and enlightened and Most distinguished statesmen—men of all parties and of all shades of opinion having arrived at the conclusion that it was a measure justified by the purest wisdom. If that was the state of the case—if all these appeals had been made in vain—if, in reality, the exclusion of the Jew depended on that which he had frequently had the opportunity of describing as a perversion and fraudulent application of the law, and if they were still unable to prevail on the other House to change its opinion, then, undoubtedly, he conceived it to be the duty of the House of Commons to consider whether there was no other constitutional course of proceeding left for them to adopt. He would not enter at present into the reasons—which hereafter he hoped he might be spared to give to the House—why he thought he should be able to recommend a course of proceeding consistent with the duty of that House and consistent also with constitutional law and usage. He admitted that he should regard the necessity of taking that course as a very great sacrifice, and would not adopt it without deep regret. Indeed, he should regret as a great misfortune the establishment of such a precedent, the consequences of which, he readily admitted, it might be an exceedingly fearful thing to contemplate. He would, therefore, though with the greatest respect, avail himself of that opportunity to address the language of supplication, and not of menace, to those who persisted in opposing this measure, that they would consider the consequences of that House being left no other mode of discharging its duty to the country. This being the state of the case,
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  it might be right that he should say a word or two to relieve the minds of some hon. Members from the apprehension that the course which he might recommend the House to adopt would have the immediate result of involving the House in a collision with the Courts of law. He should deprecate that as an evil almost as great as the establishment of the precedent of independent action on the part of the House. He should undoubtedly hesitate very much before he ventured to recommend to the House any step that would repeat those discreditable scenes which were witnessed in the case of Stockdale and Hansard, and therefore he could assure the House that, if he ventured to propose such a Resolution as had been indicated, the course which he would recommend would be altogether clear of anything which would involve the House in the necessity of asserting, by a strong hand, its authority in overruling and overpowering in any way the ordinary authority of the Courts of law. He should confine himself now to saying that -he hoped no Member of that House would rashly bring forward a Resolution of that kind; and he would assure the House that the particular proposition in question, if unfortunately it became inevitable, could be shown to be right and constitutional, and not entail as its consequence any rupture or controversy between the established Estates of the Realm. The result of the rejection of this clause by the House of Lords was, that the Bill was converted into a measure for imposing a greater amount of disabilities upon the Jews within these realms than they were exposed to antecedently to the introduction of the measure. No wonder that the hon. Member (Mr. Newdegate) hailed this Amendment with pleasure; but he ventured to prophesy that it would be the herald to some further proceeding that would put an end to the necessity of repeating these attempts to carry a measure by legislation in which both Houses of Parliament, acting in conformity with the public voice during the last thirty years, ought to concur.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: One word in explanation in regard to a particular Resolution referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman. My hon. and learned Friend refers to the Resolution with which my name is connected, and which was submitted by me on a former occasion to the Committee over which the noble Lord the Member for London presided. In conse-

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  quence of this reference, as well as that of the noble Lord himself, there appears to be some misapprehension in the minds of hon. Members as to my real intentions in relation to this question. I heard, indeed, two noble Lords in "another place" express an opinion that, in pursuance of that Resolution which I submitted to the Committee last year, I was to bring the sub- stance of this Resolution before the House in the shape of a substantive Motion. Now, I beg to state that the hon. and learned Gentleman was quite right in his definition of that Resolution. It was deliberately written and submitted for the consideration of the Committee last year, of which the noble Lord the Member for London was chairman. I maintain the same opinion I therein expressed, and I adhere completely to what I then wrote. I think, however, that the hon. and learned Member for Aylesbury, and the noble Lord the Member for London, will admit that, in submitting that Resolution to the Committee, I gave no pledge that I would take any proceedings whatever in the House in relation to it, and that it is a most erroneous impression to suppose otherwise.
  MR. WARRENsaid, that but for the tone which his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aylesbury had adopted in speaking of those in "another place"—the tenants of the other Chamber of the Legislature—he should not have said a word on that occasion, and even then would content himself with very few remarks. The House need not fear that he was going to inflict on them a speech on the Jew Bill, but he rose to protest strongly against the tone and spirit of his hon. Friend's address, as calculated to introduce still greater difficulty and complication where none was needed. Surely this unfortunate Bill had returned to us with embarrassments enough of its own, which were suddenly aggravated when the noble Lord the Member for London rose to announce the course which he wished the House to take, without requiring the ill-timed and minatory tone of the speech to which the house had just listened. From beginning to end it was a tissue of mysterious threats that if the other House did not do what the hon. Member said they ought to do, then this House would do something very terrible indeed—would take a step which would bring it into a formal and deliberate collision with the other, and compel it to yield to the will and pleasure of this House. Now, did the
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  hon. and learned Member, did this House, did the country at large really believe that the other House would for one moment regard such threats? That they would abdicate their functions, and surrender their convictions, and their independent judgment on any question, especially so great a question as this, of introducing Jews into the Legislature? He could assure his hon. and learned Friend that he never made a greater blunder in his life than in thinking so. The Peers of England were not the men he (Mr. Warren) took them to be if they did not disregard and despise such threats, and they knew well that the country at large would rise as one man to support and vindicate the independence of the other House of Parliament, let it be assailed when, how, and by whom it might. But it was said by his hon. and learned Friend that the Peers were setting themselves deliberately and obstinately against the public opinion of the country, in resisting the introduction of Jews into the Legislature. He (Mr. Warren) denied it confidently, and asserted that however majorities might have been obtained in this House, they were not the exponents of public opinion out of doors. That public opinion was not slow to array itself on the side of truth, justice, and liberty. It could make its voice heard, when it pleased, in thunder. But how stood the fact? Judging from the petitions which have emanated from the people at large—so few as to be ridiculous when represented as the voice of the people—it was quite the other way. Notwithstanding all the skilful, scientific, and persevering efforts of the friends of the Jews, there were virtually almost no petitions in favour of their claims, nor any public meetings called; and out of all the constituencies of the United Kingdom, during a thirty years' agitation, only two constituencies had been induced, after desperate efforts, to return Jews to this House. But let him observe, that even in cases where constituencies chose to take such a course, that afforded no sound argument; for constituencies might go wrong in their exercise of the elective franchise, and in ignorance, or wilfulness, return persons notoriously incompetent to sit in this House. If they chose to return a Jew, why not a woman? an infant? a foreigner? a convict suffering penal servitude? Were constituents to return such, and then say, the fact of our having done so is sufficient to call on you to admit the objects of our

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  choice? It was not so—it was ridiculous. It was extremely painful to him (Mr. Warren) as an insignificant unit in that House, thus to feel compelled to resist the introduction of a class of his fellow-subjects among whom Were persons whom personally he regarded and respected greatly; but what was he to do, if he felt impelled by an irresistible sense of public duty? And before he sat down, he wished to draw attention to a remarkable circumstance, not hitherto, that he knew of, adverted to in that House, that so little did the Jews themselves desire admission into this House, that not a single petition from themselves to that effect had hitherto been presented to either House. [Expressions of dissent.] Nay, he asserted the fact, and challenged contradiction. And in this state of things, if the City of London would persevere in sending to this House, Parliament after Parliament, one who could not take his seat here, they were unconsciously establishing the fact, that in their own opinion, three Members were sufficient for their interests, and that they Were over-encumbered in having four. On the question immediately before the House, he should strenuously resist the Motion of the noble. Lord.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich for an explanation as to where the Resolution with which his name was identified was to be found. Such Resolution did not appear in the report of the proceedings of the Committee referred to, nor was it on the table of the House.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. In consequence of a point of form I was precluded from actually moving the Resolution in question. The Resolution, therefore, does not appear on the face of the proceedings of the Committee. But the hon. and learned Member for Aylesbury, who has, I suppose, kept a copy of it, having read the Resolution on two occasions, has now expressed its meaning quite correctly.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBE: That shows the inconvenience of discussing a Resolution.
  Motion made and Question put, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
  The House divided:—Ayes 263; Noes 150: Majority 113.
  The Second Amendment, to leave out Clause 8, read 2°
  LORD JOHN RUSSELL LORD JOHN RUSSELL moved, that
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  the House do disagree with the Lords' Amendment.
  MR. MALINSsaid, he wished to notice an observation of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Aylesbury, The hon. and learned Gentleman was under a misapprehension in supposing that the Bill, as it came down from the Lords, increased the disqualifications of the Jews. The Amendment made by the Upper House on the 8th clause was only consequent upon the former Amendment, and there never was any intention by this Bill of introducing new disqualifications, nor had it done so.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEbelieved, notwithstanding the opinion expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, that the course recommended would create a new disability.
  Amendment disagreed to.
  Committee appointed, "to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to the said Amendments."
  MR. T. DUNCOMBE MR. T. DUNCOMBE moved to have read at the table the Return of the Indenture sent to the Crown Office in obedience to the writ for the election of a new Member for the City of London, issued by Mr. Speaker on the 22nd of July, 1857. His reason for making this Motion was, that at that moment the House had no official cognisance of the return of Baron Rothschild for the City of London.
  Ordered,—
  That the Certificate of the Return of the Indenture sent by the Crown Office, in obedience to the Writ issued by Mr. Speaker on the 23rd day of July, 1857, for a new Election for the City of London, be now read.
  And the same was read, as followeth:—
  "Those are to certify, that Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, commonly called Baron Lionel Nathan do Rothschild, is returned a Citizen to serve in the present Parliament for the City of London, as by Indenture bearing date the twenty-eigth day of July, 1857, delivered into my Office this day, and there now remaining of Record appears.
  "Given under my hand at the said Office, this 28th day of July, 1857.
  "C. ROMILLY,
  "Clerk of the Crown in Chancery."
  Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, Lord STANLEY, Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Viscount PALMERSTON, Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS, Sir GEORGE GREY, Mr. LABOUCHERE, Sir JAMES GRAHAM, Mr. GLADSTONE, Mr. CARDWELL, Sir RICHARD BETHELL, Mr. BRIGHT, Mr. MILNER GIBSON, Mr. HORSMAN, Mr. BYNG, Mr. DILLWYN, Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMBE, Mr. HEADLAM, Mr. ROEBUCK, Mr. MONCREIFF, Mr. JOHN FITZGERALD, Mr. Serjeant DEASY, and Mr. JOHN ABEL SMITH, nominated Members of the said Committee.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, he believed it was perfectly competent for the House

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  to appoint Baron Rothschild one of the Members of the Committee. He would call the attention of the House to a precedent for that course which arose in 1715, when a Committee of Secrecy was appointed, consisting of twenty-one persons. On the 13th April, 1715, an objection was raised that Sir Joseph Jekyll, not having been sworn at the table, could not be appointed a Member of the Committee. The point was debated, and a division took place, on a Resolution which had been moved, settling the question then and for ever, that it was not necessary for a Member to be sworn at the table before he could be appointed a Member of a Committee up stairs. The House decided, by a majority of 225 against 117, that Sir Joseph Jekyll having been chosen on the Committee of Secrecy, could sit on that Committee, although he had not been sworn at the clerk's table. That was a case exactly in point with that of Eaton Rothschild. He was not aware that any hon. Member would object to the nomination of Baron Rothschild as a Member of the Committee. No one could be so as Baron Rothschild himself to draw up reasons for disagreeing with the Lords' Amendments. He believed that Baron Rothschild was quite ready to serve on the Committee, as he was ready to serve in the house and perform his duties on all occasions if opportunity were afforded him. An opportunity did now present itself, and he hoped that no objection would be made to the course now proposed, and that Baron Rothschild would be allowed to attend the conference with the Lords, and state his reasons for disagreeing with their Amendments.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild be one other Member of the said Committee,"
  MR. DILLWYNseconded the Motion, If Baron Rothschild had the right of sitting on a Committee, he ought to be allowed to do so. The very fact of a member of the Jewish persuasion acting as a Member of a Committee would give a practical illustration of the absurdity of the present law—an illustration which perhaps might have some effect in another branch of the Legislature.
  MR. NEWDEGATEwas understood to say that he begged to remind the House that formed Resolutions, in which both the noble Lords the Members for London and Tiverton had concurred, had been pass-
  350
  ed in the cases of Baron Rothschild and Mr. Alderman Salomons. The purport of those solemn Resolutions was that neither of those Gentlemen were competent to sit or vote in that House. He contended, therefore, that the precedent cited by the hon. Member for Finsbury could not apply to the case of persons elected to that House, but declared incompetent to sit there. He should be glad to hear the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, and other Members of the legal profession, as to whether a Gentleman declared to be incompetent to sit in that House could be appointed a Member of a Committee. If in the Resolutions to which he had referred the House had only resolved that the hon. Members in question had no right to vote, there might be some ground for supporting the application of the precedent of Sir Joseph Jekyll's case in the present instance. But as the House hall gone further, and declared that those Gentlemen were incompetent to sit, he could not see how the precedent applied. He did not think that the leading Members of that House, or the noble Lords to whom he had referred, would wish to involve the House in the absurd anomaly of placing on the Committee a Member whom they had declared incompetent to sit.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he had been somewhat taken by surprise by the proposition of the hon. Member for Finsbury. He thought the House ought carefully to consider the proposition of the hon. Member before coming to any positive decision. He (Mr. Walpole) was not at all aware that such a course of proceeding was about to be taken, and therefore had not had time either to look at the precedent or to consider the effect of the proposition. To the best of his recollection, the Act of Parliament attached the penalty to Members for voting or sitting during debate. If so, possibly it would not apply to the present case. One thing struck him on the face of the precedent which had been quoted—namely, that in 1715 no person was duly qualified to take any part in the proceedings of the House without being sworn, not merely at the table, but before the Lord High Steward. He could not find whether Sir Joseph Jekyll had been so sworn or not. if he had been so sworn, he would have been returned to the House as a Member, and that was a material element in the consideration of the question. All he could say was, that if Baron Rothschild by constitutional precedent was en-

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  titled to sit on a Committee, he would offer no objection to his doing so. But he would ask the House not to commit itself without due consideration to what was after all a perfectly unnecessary proposition, and thus establish a precedent which might lead to inconvenience and difficulty.
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that some years ago his attention had been called to this very point, and after looking carefully into the Act he then came to the conclusion there could be no sort of doubt that a Gentleman was competent to sit on a Committee although he had not been sworn at the table. He had no doubt that his decision was founded on the view that the Act of Parliament only excluded a Member who had not been sworn at the table from "sitting and voting" in that House. The precedent on the journals was founded on that view of the matter. If the hon. Member pressed his Motion, he should therefore feel it to be his duty to vote in its favour, though he should have wished that the House had had an opportunity of more fully considering the subject.
  MR. LYGONsaid, he was only anxious to know whether the precedent of 1715 referred to by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Duncombe) was in point or not. It would, however, be desirable to know whether Sir Joseph Jekyll was not sworn before he served upon the Committee? He knew that he was not sworn before he was nominated, but the question was whether he was not sworn before he served.
  LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, he was quite as much taken by surprise at the statement which had been made as the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Some three or four years ago he had looked at the precedent of Sir Joseph Jekyll. He believed that the fact was, that Sir Joseph Jekyll was appointed and served on the Committee before he took the oaths. At the same time he thought, although he had not the circumstances perfectly in his recollection, that it appeared that that was owing to some accidental cause, such as his not arriving in time to take the oaths, and that it was perfectly understood that he would take them as soon as an opportunity should be afforded. There was certainly that difference between the two cases; still he believed that the precedent did justify his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury in moving that Baron Rothschild should be a Member of the Committee of Conference. If, therefore, his hon. Friend
  352
  should think it necessary to press the question, he should vote with him; but after what had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, he thought that it would be but a matter of courtesy and more in accordance with the forms of the House if the Motion were delayed.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he was sure the House would admit that no question could have been treated with greater fairness than this had been by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole). If Baron Rothschild was found, upon due inquiry, to have a right to be on this Committee, he was sure there was no Member of the House, whatever might be his views on the abstract question of the admission of Jews to that House, who would wish to deprive him of the exercise of any right to which he might be entitled. At the same time he thought the hon. Member for Finsbury would have treated the House with greater fairness and courtesy if he had given notice of his intention to bring on this Motion. It rested entirely upon a precedent, set many years ago, of which few hon. Members could be aware, and with the real character of which they ought to have an opportunity of making themselves acquainted before being called upon to vote. His own views concurred very much with those expressed by the noble Lord the Member for London, and after what had passed he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not object to postpone his Motion until to-morrow.
  MR. WARRENremarked, that he had only one word to say, and that was a word of advice as a friend of Baron Rothschild's, and in the interest of the Jews, to advise the Friends of Baron Rothschild to consider very fully and deliberately the position in which he might be placed if this Motion was carried, and the consequences in which it might involve him individually.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, it seemed to him that this Motion was one which was contingent upon the decision to which the House might come with respect to time Amendments of the Lords on the Oaths Bill. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Buncombe) had waited until he saw what course would be taken by time House, and then felt himself justified in proposing his Motion. But he (Viscount Palmerston) thought that after the short discussion which had taken place, and the statement which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole), that the deci-

  353
  sion did involve the consideration of some precedents, which, as the matter now stood, they had not time to do; for that reason he thought the House would do well to accede to the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty, and postpone the consideration of the question until to-morrow.
  MR. T. DLTNCOMBEsaid, he would apologize to the House for any apparent want of courtesy of which he might have been guilty in not having given notice of his Motion, but the fault was not his, because he was not aware that the Committee would be nominated that evening. The usual practice was to give twenty-four hours' notice of the names of the Committee, and supposing that that practice would have been followed in the present instance, he had intended then to give notice of his Motion. He was perfectly satisfied, however, that the precedent which he had quoted thoroughly bore him out. There were the words in plain English upon their own Journals, that Sir Joseph Jekyll was capable of being chosen a Member of a Committee of Secrecy, although he had not been sworn at the clerk's table. All that he now proposed was, that Baron Rothschild should be chosen a Member of the Committee of Conference, although he had not been sworn at the clerk's table. He maintained that he had a right to make that Motion, and if the effect should be that they should find themselves in an anomalous and absurd position, all he could say was, "so much the better."
  MR. MELLORsaid, that no doubt the precedent quoted appeared to justify the Resolution to which the hon. Member for Finsbury asked the House to come. But he would entreat the friends of the Jews not to take a step which had the appearance of taking the House by surprise. It would be very unfortunate if they were to come to a division which would commit the House to a decision on grounds which they had not bad time to consider. On the other hand, if they were right today they would be also right to-morrow, and the question would lose nothing by the delay.
  LORD HARRY VANEsaid, he entirely concurred in the suggestion that the decision of this question should be delayed until to morrow, and he hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Duncombe) would accede to that suggestion, on the understanding that the question should have precedence of all others at half past four o'clock.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYalso, in the in-
  354
  terest of the Jews, recommended the adjournment of the Motion till to-morrow, being satisfied that nothing would be lost by the delay.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he thought the simple course would be to adjourn the debate to half-past four o'clock on the following day. It appeared to be a question of privilege, and he would therefore move that the debate should be then adjourned.
  Debate adjourned till To-morrow at half-past four o'clock.
  On the Motion for going into Committee of Supply,

  STATUE OF DR. JENNER'—QUESTION.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Works, a question with reference to his statement the other evening as to the erection of a statue to Dr. Jenner in Trafalgar Square. The noble Lord stated the other evening that he had no power to remove the statue, inasmuch as leave had been given by his predecessor to erect it there. He (Mr. Duncombe) did not mean to say that a statue of Dr. Jenner was not a very good thing in its proper place, but he thought it was altogether out of place among statues of our naval and military heroes. He hoped that if the present Government did not feel themselves at liberty to reverse the decision of their predecessors is this respect, that some independent Member would move an Address to the Crown for the removal of the statue of this promulgator of cow-pock nonsense from its position in Trafalgar Square. What he had to ask the noble Lord was, whether he had any objection to lay on the table any Minutes or Correspondence in his office with respect to the erection of this statue?
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, so far as he was concerned, he had not the slightest objection to the production of the papers asked for. But before answering the question, he should like to have an opportunity of consulting his predecessor in office, and to ask him whether he had any objection to the production of these papers.

  NEW ZEALAND.—OBSERVATIONS.
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNYsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to certain passages in the evidence given by one of the witnesses before the New Zealand Loan (£500,000) Guarantee Committee, and to compare the same with Re-

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  cords of the Proceedings of the New Zealand House of Assembly, in which the witness referred to took part; also, to call attention to certain dealings with the Natives for the sale of their lands, and to the manner in which certain contracts made with them, with respect to Schools and Hospitals, by a Government Officer, had been carried into effect. He feared that in bringing forward this Motion it would realize the old adage of shutting the stable door when the steed was stolen. Hon. Gentlemen were aware that last Session there was a proposal to guarantee a loan of £500,000, to the colony of New Zealand, for specified purposes, amongst which it was understood that £200,000 was to be applied to the discharge of a debt due from the colony to the New Zealand Company; while other sums were to be devoted to the purchase of native claims. What probably more than anything else satisfied the Committee as to the propriety of guaranteeing this loan was a statement made by those witnesses before the Committee which inquired into the subject, that the colony would not be disposed to accept of a guarantee for a smaller loan than £500,000, and he, therefore, felt it an incumbent duty to call attention to a very material discrepancy between that statement and the actual proceedings of the New Zealand House of Representatives on the 2nd July, 1856. He would not weary the House by reading at length the numerous records and documents which he bad in his possession to prove this assertion, but they were in the House and at the service of hon. Members who might be disposed to look at them. What he should attempt would be to describe the facts as briefly as possible. Mr. Henry Sewell, the Colonial Treasurer, who might be described as the Prime Minister of New Zealand, when examined by the Committee on this subject, distinctly gave the Committee to understand that the colony would not accept a loan of £200,000 instead of £500,000; that the colony must either have the whole of the latter amount, or they would have none. He (Sir J. Trelawny) would cite a passage from the evidence before the Committee. Mr. H. Sewell was asked (Question 193),
  "You speak now of the £500,000? Yes.£(194.) Supposing Parliament was willing to accede to the £200,000, and not to the £500,000, if the proposal were referred back to the colony, do you think that it would not be accepted? It would not be accepted. The question was raised in the Legislature, and was distinctly negatived.
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  There is no object in exonerating the lands of the middle island from the Company's charge, so long as you leave its land fund liable to be wholly absorbed in the purchase of native lands in the northern island. In fact, it would be a loss instead of a gain to the middle island.£(195.) It is your opinion that Parliament has the alternative of either guaranteeing the £500,000, or of not guaranteeing any, but that a middle course would not be acceptable? Distinctly."
  Now, on reference to the proceedings of the Legislature, as reported in the New Zealand Spectator of August 6th, 1856, and other authentic records of their proceedings, he (Sir J. Trelawny) found, on the contrary, that the Legislature had distinctly provided for the contingency of getting a guarantee for £200,000 only, and that Mr. Sewell himself had taken part in the debates which ended in the adoption of that Resolution for which he voted. it was true that Mr. Sewell had offered some explanations of his evidence in a letter to the London Spectator, dated April 22nd, 1858, but they were not of a nature that could be considered satisfactory; and he considered they did not amount to a denial of the charges made against him, but only to what lawyers called a confession and avoidance. And he (Sir J. Trelawny) could not help thinking that that gentleman had to some extent, perhaps inadvertently, misled Parliament into granting a loan of more than £200,000, which the assembly of New Zealand were quite willing to accept. He (Sir J. Trelawny) proceeded to read the Resolution come to in the New Zealand House of Representatives, which commenced as follows:—
  "That it, the event of the financial scheme of the Government falling from inability to obtain the necessary loan of £500,000, the loan of £200,000 offered by the Home Government for liquidation of the New Zealand Company's debt, shall be raised on the terms proposed; and yet Mr. Sewell said in reply to (Question 194) 'The question (of taking £290,000 that is) was raised in the Legislature, and distinctly negatived."
  This matter at least required explanation. There was also another point connected with the colony to which he wished to direct its attention—he alluded to certain dealings with the natives for the sale of their lands, and to the manner in which recent contracts made with them in respect to schools and hospitals by a Government Officer bad been carried into effect. He referred in particular to time purchase by Mr. Mantell of 30,000,000 of acres for £5,000. The land was obtained at this low rate in consequence of distinct promises on the part of that Government

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  officer, that the Natives should have the advantage of schools and hospitals, which promise was violated (as only £250 had been granted), and so indignant was Mr. Mantell, that he had thrown up his office, finding his complaint to the Colonial Office ineffectual, and that he had been made the instrument of a proceeding which could not be justified on any principle of honour, He (Sir J. Trelawny) had been informed that if actions of ejectment were brought, the grants which had been made of land in New Zealand would prove to be totally valueless. He held in his hand a letter in the original Maori, addressed by the simple natives of New Zealand to the Queen of England, which he would not read to the House as it appeared from a translation. They prayed that the laws and commandments should be made one for the white and the black man. They had looked in vain to the purchasers of those lands for a fulfilment of the promises that had been held out to them. He (Sir J. Trelawny) implored the noble Lord carefully to examine the facts of the case, and if he saw an opportunity of doing a great act of justice, that he would not leave the British name under the grave stigma which at present attached to it.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, that the hon. Baronet hail raised two distinct questions, and he (Lord Stanley) should deal with them separately. The first related to the evidence given by Mr. Sewell, before the New Zealand Loan Committee last year. The hon. Baronet could not have been more surprised than he (Lord Stanley) was when the apparent discrepancy between Mr. Sewell's evidence and the facts as they appeared in the official records of the New Zealand Legislature was first brought under his notice. The House would remember that they were last year asked to give an imperial guarantee for a loan of £500,000 for purposes connected with the colony of New Zealand. That amount was to be guaranteed in two separate sums of £300,000 and £200,000, those sums being required for different purposes; and the question was raised before the Committee to which the matter was referred by the House whether, in the event of Parliament being unwilling to grant a guarantee for the whole amount, a guarantee for £200,000 instead of for £500,000 would be accepted by the colony. The question was put to Mr. Sewell in this form: "Suppose Parliament was willing to accede to the £200,000 guarantee, and not to the
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  £500,000, if that proposal were referred back to the colony, do you think it would not be accepted?" To which Mr. Sewell replied, "That question was raised in the Legislature, and was distinctly negatived." Now, on referring to the Records of one branch of the Legislature of New Zealand, which appeared at the first glance not to bear out Mr. Sewell's statement, he found a Resolution to the effect that in the event of the home Government only consenting to a guarantee for £200,000 such guarantee should be accepted, but there followed certain stipulations which as appeared, from all explanation given by Mr. Sewell, completely neutralized the effect of that acceptance. He lost no time in applying to that gentleman to know in what manner the apparent discrepancy between his evidence and the Resolution could be reconciled. Mr. Sewell's explanation was, that the Resolution divided itself into two parts. The first, accepting the proposition of a guarantee limited to £200,000 was moved by a member in opposition to the local Government. For some reason the Members of the local Government did not like to meet it with a direct negative, but preferred to meet it by the addition of those words which formed the second part of the Resolution —words which would for all practical purposes neutralize the first part. The effect of the addition was, in fact, to render the Resolution as a whole totally unmeaning. In that light it appeared that the guarantee for the £200,000 without the £300,000 was opposed by the local Legislature. He (Lord Stanley) had reason to believe that this was so, for in the official records he did not find anything to show that the Resolution ever reached the Upper House. It appeared to have been treated as, what in fact it was, a dead letter. It was allowed to drop without any further proceeding upon it. The true explanation of the matter seemed to be that the question of accepting a guarantee for the smaller sum was raised in the local Legislature; that a Resolution was passed ostensibly in favour of accepting the smaller guarantee, but coupling with that acceptance conditions which made it equivalent to a refusal. He thought that Mr. Sewell would have done better had he explained to the Committee the circumstances upon which he based his statement that the Legislature of New Zealand had met the proposition of the smaller guarantee with a direct negative. Mr. Sewell acknowledged that

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  in one respect he had been inaccurate. He had told the Committee that the proposition to accept a guarantee for a smaller sum had been "distinctly negatived." That statement went further than was warranted by the facts, but some allowance ought to be made for a witness giving his evidence before a Committee, remembering that he was questioned and cross-questioned on all hands, and that his words were taken down as they fell from his lips. It was not unnatural that a witness should, under such circumstances, fall into some inaccuracies. Mr. Sewell, in his explanation to him, maintained that he was substantially right in stating to the Committee that the guarantee for £200,000 would not be accepted by the local Legislature. He (Lord Stanley) put it to him whether, if the smaller guarantee had been granted, would not the colony itself have been able to obtain the remaining £300,000 without an imperial guarantee. He was answered, "No doubt that might have been done; there was nothing in the Resolution to prevent it, but practically such a thing would be impossible. The Legislature would not have sanctioned it; the Government would not have proposed it: it was an alternative not contemplated by any one." With regard to the purchase of land from natives that was a very large question; but the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Trelawny), exercising a wise discretion, had not gone into it very deeply. The Gentleman to whom he had referred was employed as a Commissioner for the purchase of native lands. In that capacity he purchased a very large quantity of land. He (Lord Stanley) believed that the quantity—30,000,000 acres—stated by the hon. Baronet, was correct; and that the amount which he paid was £5,000. The hon. Baronet complained of certain transactions connected with these purchases. He (Lord Stanley) was willing to admit that the sum given for the land seemed inadequate, and he would also admit that many frauds had been practised by settlers in New Zealand on natives: but these transactions had taken place not in consequence of, but against the policy and wishes of the Government. When they spoke of the prices given for lands being inadequate, however, they should bear in mind that the value of land to the native owner might be very much less than it was to the settler. The value of land in a new country depended in a great degree on the exertions of the colonists
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  and on the result of these exertions—on the existence of roads, of harbours, of commerce, of agriculture—and it was not just that of these advantages, to which the native had not contributed, he should have the exclusive benefit. With regard to the promises of schools and hospitals, which the hon. Baronet said were made and broken, having looked into the matter, it appeared to him (Lord Stanley) that, though various representations had been held out as to what might be done by the Government, in the way of providing such establishments, nothing in the nature of a contract to that effect could be said to have been entered into; for nowhere could he find the slightest approximation to a statement of the amount which it was intended to expend on these institutions, or of the fund on which they were to be charged. The representations alluded to by the hon. Baronet could scarcely then be said to have assumed the form of positive promises. Indeed, the power of doing anything in this way had been taken out of the hands of the Imperial Government, for the waste lands had passed under the control of the local Legislature, and it was only from the funds arising from this land that such works could be undertaken. A sum of £7,000 a year was now at the disposal of the Government of New Zealand for such purposes, and he feared he should be only misleading the hon. Baronet and the colonists if he were to hold out any hope that that amount would be increased. As to the assertion that these were obligations binding on the Imperial rather than the provincial Government, he replied that they were in the nature of a charge on land, that the land had been transferred, and the obligations must therefore be held to have been transferred also.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid that, after the clear and correct statement of the noble Lord, he would offer but a few observations. As chairman of the Committee, he was in a position to state that they had not been misled by the evidence which was given by Mr. Sewell. From information which he had received, he had reason to know that substantially the statement of Mr. Sewell was correct, and that the only alternative before the Committee was to recommend a guarantee of £000,000, or not to recommend any guarantee at all. If there had been a guarantee for £200,000 only, it would not have been approved by the colony. He wished to say a few words as to Mr. Sewell. He was a

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  man possessed of great accomplishments, of high character, of great and varied information; he had great capacity for public business, and by his abilities had raised himself to the high position of chief adviser to the Government. Bearing all this in mind, he (Mr. Labouchere) was disposed to accept as satisfactory the explanation which had been given. At the same time he regretted that Mr. Sewell did not give to the Committee the explanation he had since given. With respect to the general question of guaranteeing loans to the colonies, that was not the proper time for entering into it; but he would say this, that while he held the seals of the Colonial Office, it had been his duty to refuse applications almost without number, upon the ground that, except under special circumstances, he was not favourable to the principle of guaranteeing colonial loans. On the other hand, he could not agree with those who said, that under no circumstances should the Imperial Government grant guarantees, because it appeared to him that one of the best means which the mother country possessed of rendering valuable assistance to a colony was by giving a guarantee, where it could be done without cost or danger to the Imperial treasury of this country.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he thought as a friend of Mr. Sewell, who was a gentleman of high honour, he had a right to complain of the manner in which this question had been brought forward against absent persons until further information and explanation had been sought for. The persons attacked were placed in a most unfair position, for while the attacks were spread throughout the country through the medium of the press, the only means they had of answering them was by writing a letter to the newspapers, which perhaps might not be read, or at any rate not by the same parties who had read the attack. Under these circumstances it was most unjust that attacks such as that made by the hon. Baronet should not be brought forward unawares. He (Mr. Adderley) was pretty well acquainted with the subject, having been the recognized correspondent of the colony in this country, and having been put in possession of the whole state of the case, he was prepared to state distinctly that the House had not been deceived. The simple state of the case was that there were two portions of the colony, one of which was interested in the exoneration of the land from one liability, and the other in its exoneration from another. Neither
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  of these portions of the colony would accede to the one exoneration without the other being made at the same time. On his (Mr. Adderley's) own authority, he could state that the guarantee for the smaller sum alone would not have been accepted. When the proposition for the acceptance of the smaller sum was made in the local Legislature by Mr. Fitzherbert, a Member of the Opposition, Mr. Sewell was absent from the House, and in his absence an inferior Member of the Government acceded to the Motion. When Mr. Sewell returned and found that that admission had been made without his authority, he saw it was too late to get out of the difficulty in any other way than by moving the addition of a rider to the Resolution which made the first part nugatory. There could be no question that Mr. Sewell was substantially accurate, when he stated to the Committee that the proposition for the smaller guarantee had been negatived; although, perhaps, he would have been more correct, if he had used the word "virtually" instead of "distinctly," negatived.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he concurred in the opinion that one scheme would not have been agreed to without the other. As regarded the demand that a larger sum should be reserved for native purposes, the fact was that the Parliamentary Government of the colony had so encroached upon the province of the Home Government, that not only had the Crown given up its power to increase that sum directly, but it was not able to do so indirectly.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he would admit that the explanation which had been given was satisfactory. At the same time he would ask, why had it not been given before the Committee by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Taunton (Mr. Labouchere)? He was one of those who opposed the loan altogether, and he hoped the House would be cautious in guaranteeing loans to the Colonies, as the result in all cases tended to injure the exchequer of this country, without a corresponding good to the Colonies.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSthought that the principle of guaranteeing loans to Colonies ought to be entirely repudiated, for if a loan were guaranteed to one colony and refused to others, great discontent would be created.
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNY, in explanation, said he could not blame himself for

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  bringing the matter forward, as he had tried every means of procuring the information now elicited, but without effect. He did not know that Mr. Sewell was in this country. He was quite willing to believe that the hon. Gentleman had had no intention to deceive the Committee or the House.

THE RECRUITING SYSTEM.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  GENERAL CODR1NGTONsaid, he wished briefly to call the attention of the House, before going into Committee, to several matters which were closely connected with the efficiency and well-being of the army. He would first refer to the present system of recruiting, which he thought was not worthy of this country. Considering the great number of men in the army—amounting nearly to 200,000 troops—we ought to have a very large recruiting establishment. The number of recruits required must amount to at least 20,000 a year, if not nearly 30,000, taking into account the casualties likely to happen from the climate of India. The system of recruiting as at present managed, he had said, was unworthy of this country. It was supposed that the army consisted of volunteers, but how did we obtain them? We seduced and cajoled men into the service by means which were dishonourable and degrading to the profession. He thought, if greater inducements were held out to recruits by the localities, or by those by whom the men were enlisted, in the shape of arrangements which would conduce to their comfort, we should raise a greater number of volunteers, and in a far more creditable way than we did now. As a general rule, the standard of height ranged from 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 7 inches, though sometimes we had had it as high as 5 feet 8 inches; we reduced it to 5 feet 3 inches for India, and had latterly raised it again to 5 feet 4 inches. Instead of paying a really good price for men of 5 feet 6 or 5 feet inches, and of good character, we got, by lowering the standard, a totally different class of recruits, inferior in character and in physical capacity. We got men, in fact, from the low town populations, instead of from the agricultural districts and the agricultural towns. This, he thought, had been the cause of much evil. He happened to have served on the Billeting Committee, and he knew that great complaints had been made by the licensed victuallers of the class of re-
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  cruits that had been enlisted since the Crimean war, and of the great difficulty experienced in establishing any discipline among them. For himself, he regretted that the system which originally obtained of naming regiments after particular counties and towns in which they were raised, and so of identifying them ever afterwards with those counties and towns, had been discontinued. It was a practice which tended to promote and keep alive the most kindly feelings between the men in the same regiments, and between them and the localities in which their military lives began. It had the happiest effect on the characters of the soldiers, who looked forward to the time when, their term of service ended, they would return to their native places, and live in the society of those among whom they had spent their early days. The late General Sir Charles Napier, in a book published in 1837, strongly culogized the practice of naming regiments after the counties and towns in which they were embodied, adding that he himself would willingly return to his own native village where he had spent his childhood. I may be, perhaps, allowed to read an extract from his work on this subject:—
  "I have always thought that each regiment should belong to, and have recruiting parties in some county or town of which the regiment should bear the name and arms on the colours. The 50th are West Kent; 52nd, the Oxford; 43rd, Monmouth, &c.
  "This old custom seems to lose ground, which is, perhaps, to be regretted, as it might be turned to advantage in many ways.
  "If each regiment had a town, in which it was recruited, though the men might be from other parts of the kingdom—if in that town he had certain rights granted to him—if there he might leave his family, and be assured that the magistrates and the people would guard and respect those he trusted to them—if to that town he felt assured he was to return from time to time; and that there he and his comrades would close life together, sure of occasionally seeing the regiment in which they had spent their youth. If this were the case, he would feel that town to be his real home;—if he saved a little money or got a larger sum in prize money, he would spend it in buying a cottage near that town; there his character would serve him—his name would be inscribed in some urbane record as a brave and honourable soldier; his deeds of valour would be known; and in war he would go forth to battle with a light heart, for his family would be protected if he fell.
  "I speak as I feel; I would willingly return to my own village of Celbridge, where I spent my childhood.
  "To a soldier his home is where his comrades in the war congregate.
  "I appeal to the Engineers, to the Artillery, to the Marines—do they not all feel that Wool-

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  wich, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Chatham are their homes? Do not most of them settle in or near those places.
  "The nature of man makes him desire to finish life with those among whom his best days have been spent; and if regiments had each a town, of which they bore the name, it would foster the better feelings a soldiers, it would make them serve more cheerfully, and it would make them feel how much the comfort of their latter days must depend on their obtaining a high character. It the 50th had Canterbury or any town in Kent as its head quarters, there I would live in preference to any part of England.
  "Such are soldiers' feelings: we cannot get rid of them, and a wise Government would turn them to good account."
  He (General Codrington) wished to see a system of recruiting established which would conduce to the honour and credit of the country, instead of the haphazard, undignified way in which soldiers were now caught. With regard to the keeping up of the establishments of the army, there had been great pressure in the direction of economy, which had resulted in reductions being made. He spoke now of the Military Train. If there was one body more deficient than another, on starting the army for the East, it was the Military Train; and if there was one body more than another on which the comfort of that army depended, it would have been a well-organized Military Train. The Military Train had been reduced to 1,100 men for the whole established army of England, which was just sufficient to move one division of all army. He wished to suggest that, as there was a certain amount of Military Train, it should not be kept as a matter of economy to do a variety of dirty things, but should be put to the purpose for which it was designed, namely, that of enabling troops to move with their tents, ammunition, and ambulance. That could be done at Aldershot. There was no reason why there should not be a certain number of packhorses kept there, that the ammunition should not be packed, and that they should now and then move ten or twelve miles out into the adjacent country. The Train might be kept together to show how a brigade, or a regiment, or a division was to march, complete in its establishment for field service. Again, the Commissariat Department had also been very much reduced, from the necessity of keeping the accounts under a different system. Those accounts were now more under the supervision of a military auditor than of commissioned officers actually identified with the military service, and accustomed to serve with troops in the field. That would be rather
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  a serious matter when it came to a question of foreign service, into which he feared the military auditor system would introduce an element of discord. He also understood that the new arrangement was much less economical, and that the military auditors who had been appointed to go out with the Chinese army had cost £4,000, as compared with £1,300, about the sum which would have been expended for a Commissariat establishment for the same purpose. There was another point to which he wished to allude. A sum of £20,000 a year was received from the Ionian Islands to the credit of this country. Notwithstanding that, it had come to his knowledge that an officer there had to pay a duty not only upon his wine, but also upon the clothes he wore. He thought that very hard, and he trusted some inquiry Would be made into the matter. The canteen arrangements in the Ionian Islands were also objectionable. A very large sum was paid in the shape of rent or head-money by the canteen-man, according to the number of men, and that rent must come out of the profits received from the soldiers, which he (General Codrington) did not think was right. He saw no reason why such a system, which existed no doubt in other garrisons besides the Ionian Islands, should be continued, as it was abolished in England, unless the money raised were applied to increase the comfort of the soldiers or to provide recreation for them, in the way of lighting and warming their barracks, and giving them the means of amusement.
  MR. MONSELLobserved that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Peel) had stated on Friday, with respect to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, that the new arrangements which would be carried out in consequence of the Resolution passed by this House a few days ago would entail considerable expense on the country in keeping the engagement entered into with the students in the military school at Carshalton. At the present moment that school cost the State nothing. The amount received from the boys there was something like £5,000 a year, while the expense of the establishment was about £4,500. But, as no more pupils would now be taken into that school, their number would, of course, decrease from year to year, until they were entirely absorbed by the Woolwich Academy, and next year or the year after the sum received front students would not be sufficient to support

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  the staff. He wished to point out to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, however, that he was under no obligation to charge the State with the present education of the Carshalton students. Perfect faith would be kept with them if they were allowed to go to private schools, care being, of course, taken that on presenting themselves at Woolwich at the proper age they should not be subjected to any competitive examination which, as they were received at Carshalton under the old system, would be exceedingly unjust. The country, therefore, need be put to no expenditure; all that was required was that the Carshalton students, no matter where they were educated in the meantime, should be allowed at the proper age, to enter into the Woolwich Academy, after a pass examination, should their attainments be satisfactory. Another point to which he wished to call the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's attention was the present state of the buildings of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. That Academy was originally built for the reception of boys between fourteen and sixteen years old. Now, there was no objection to allowing boys of that age to sleep three or four in a room; but at present the Academy was occupied only by young men who were admitted between the age of seventeen and twenty, and who were therefore frequently twenty-one and twenty-two before they left. It was perfectly monstrous that young men of that age should not have a room to themselves, and he would therefore beg the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to ask even this year for some small Vote in order to provide additional accommodation.
  COLONEL KNOXsaid, it struck him as rather extraordinary, considering the number of years which the right hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Monsell) had held an important post in the Ordinance Department, that the suggestion he had just made should not have occurred to him before. The evil to which he had drawn attention had been complained of for years, and the right hon. Gentleman had for a considerable period been in a position to rectify it; but he (Colonel Knox) had never heard that he had taken any step for the purpose of doing so. It was a pity the right hon. Gentleman had not grappled with it when he had the power.
  MR. MONSELLremarked that he had stated at the outset of his observations that there was not the same objection to
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  three or four boys of fourteen years of age sleeping in the same room that there was to young men of seventeen or twenty years of age.
  SIR FREDERICK SMITHobserved, that he concurred with the hon. and gallant officer (Sir W. Codrington) in thinking it very desirable that something should be done to make the recruit feel at home when he entered the service. This was the reason why the marines recruited so much better than the line, because when they came home from service afloat men knew that they would return to the division in which they enlisted, and to which they continuously belonged. Having himself served at Aldershot, he had always been of opinion that the Land Transport Corps was the only thing wanted there to complete the education of the officers and men in the art of campaigning.
  COLONEL BOLDEROsaid, he considered the marines the best service into which a man could enlist. After serving three or four years afloat a marine often found himself with £60 or £70 in his pocket, with part of which he might buy his discharge, and with the rest enter into some little business. In the line such a thing could never occur, and he was therefore not surprised that the marines formed the favourite corps. With regard to the remarks that had been made respecting the cadets at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich sleeping three or four in one room, he (Colonel Boldero) remembered the time when two subalterns used to reside in one room. At the time he was at Woolwich, he lived three or four in a room, and rather liked it, for this simple reason, that the provisions not being so nice as they desired, they were thus enabled to club together and provide additional comforts. They also made the cadets below them their fags to do the cooking, lay the table, and so forth. Messing four together was far cheaper and more comfortable than messing one in a room. He did not, therefore, see much ground for complaint in what the hon. Gentleman had said.
  MAJOR WORTLEYowned, he was surprised at hearing his hon. and gallant Friend say in effect that because the evil had existed in the British Army of keeping two subalterns together in one room, therefore the practice should be continued at one of our principal military academies. It remind him of the old argument which had been used in favour of retaining

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  "Brown Bess" in the hands of the soldiers rather than supply them with the rifle. All he knew was that when the regulation of placing two subalterns in a room was dispensed with and each had a room for himself, it occasioned a feeling of great satisfaction among that body of officers, and he was sure that the gentlemen in the Royal Military Academy would consider such a measure to be equally a boon to them. Their sleeping in different rooms would not prevent their messing together.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he could assure the hon. and gallant Officer opposite (Sir W. Codrington) that he had devoted much attention to the subject of recruiting during the time he had been in office. If hon. Gentlemen considered the requirements of the service at the present moment, and the pressure upon it, they would not be greatly surprised at the measures adopted by the Government for the purpose of obtaining recruits. In order to place the matter in the proper light and show the pressure that existed for men, he would briefly point out the condition of the army with regard to numbers this year as compared with 1857. In 1857, before the mutiny broke out, the total strength of the army was, in round numbers, 157,000, of which about 30,000 were in India, consisting of four regiments of cavalry and twenty-four battalions of infantry. The total British force at this moment was, in round numbers, 223,000, showing an increase of 66,000 men, which they had been called on to raise in doe course of the year. The establishment last year consisted of twenty-three regiments of cavalry, and 105 battalions of infantry, of which there were four regiments of cavalry, and twenty-four battalions of infantry in India. At the beginning of the mutiny it was necessary to send out to India from the home establishment seven additional regiments of cavalry, and thirty-six battalions of infantry; thus reducing the British establishment to twelve regiments of cavalry, and forty-five battalions of infantry. To make up the deficiency thus created, two new regiments of cavalry and one of infantry—the Royal Canadian Rifles—had been created, and twenty-four additional or second battalions. In order to increase the numbers of the army the strength of the cavalry regiments had been raised from 469 to 666, and the infantry from 840 to 950. He saw no reason why the whole contemplated establishment should not be completed
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  during the present year, especially when they considered that during the last eight months they had enlisted as many as 48,000 men. But it was not the British establishment alone that had to be supplied. The casualties in India were very great; and there was besides an absolute necessity that they should keep up the system of relief for regiments abroad, without which the army would greatly deteriorate. There were at this moment ten regiments in India that ought to be relieved, and also some that had been in the Colonies for many years. It also appeared that notwithstanding the increase which had taken place from recruiting operations, our strength at home was less than it was when the mutiny broke out by five regiments of cavalry and ten of infantry. That fact ought to be borne in mind; and as soon as it was ascertained what was the total number of regiments permanently required in India, it would be the duty of the Secretary of State to have adequate relief supplied. From these statements it would be seen how great was the pressure upon them in regard to the army. He thought some means might be employed to make the permanent staff of the Militia more available than at present for purposes of recruiting and drilling. With regard to the Commissariat and Military Train to which his attention had been directed, it would be admitted that nothing was more difficult than to keep up in time of peace an establishment which could be suddenly expanded for Commissariat purposes in time of war. This difficulty had always been experienced; but he could assure his hon. and gallant Friend opposite that the most careful inquiry was being made, and would yet be made into the subject, with a view of carrying out, as far as possible, practical improvements. He would also take the other subjects which had been mentioned into consideration. He was very glad to say that a plan load been suggested by which faith could be kept with the students at Carshalton, without any expense to the country. The accommodation for those at Woolwich should receive attention; but he would remind the House that at the time he came into office the determination come to was that they should be removed to Sandhurst.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, he would remind the House that he had opposed the reduction of the artillery at the time it took place, and he must say that at a time like the present, when there was so great a

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  pressure for men, and the establishment was 20,000 under its number, he could not but regret that no less than sixteen regiments of militia should have been disbanded. He thought that if the officers of the militia had received commissions as a return for the number of men they induced to go into the army, a great increase of the regular army might in that way have been insured.
  Motion agreed to.

  SUPPLY.—ARMY ESTIMATES.
  House in Committee of Supply, Mr. FITZ ROY in the Chair.
  £121,977, to complete the sum for Departments of the Secretary for War and the Commander in Chief.
  MR. W. WILLIAMScomplained that the Estimates for these departments were scattered through so many heads, that it was with difficulty he could follow them. He thought they ought to have a distinct and clear statement laid before them at one view of the expenses of each department. He could not understand what the Commander in Chief required with one Secretary and three Assistants, when even the Secretary for War, whose duties were so much more onerous, was content with only three. But even the Secretary for that department thought the staff was too numerous. There was the Director of Stores and clothing, with a salary of £1,200 a year, and an Assistant Director, with a salary of £800 a year. There was also a Chaplain General with a salary of £950 a year. He wanted to know what were his duties? He could understand a Chaplain being sent out with a regiment that was going abroad, but what were the duties of a Chaplain General? Were they similar to those of a Bishop in the Establishment?
  Colonel KNOXsaid, that without attributing any blame to the right hon. and gallant General at the head of the War Department, he might remind the Committee that when that department was reorganized, a pledge was given to Parliament that as soon as the Crimean war was concluded, the duties of the department should be clearly defined, and that a statement of its cost should be laid before the House. That had not yet been done, but he hoped that the House would insist on the promise being fulfilled. If the vote for the present departments of the Secretary for War and the General Commander in Chief were compared with the old votes for the War Office, the department of the
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  Commander in Chief, and the Ordnance Office, it would be found that under the new system the expenditure for clerks had been trebled, while he doubted whether the service was more efficiently performed. He thought that a revision of this portion of the Estimates was most desirable. With regard to the clothing departments, he believed that many of the officers who had been appointed to conduct it, although they might be clever enough at pen and ink, were wholly unqualified for the duties they were required to discharge. He hoped that a Commission or a Committee would be appointed to inquire into the departments to which this Vote related, wail a view to their revision. Sir Thomas Trowbridge had been appointed head of the Clothing Board; afterwards a change was made, and a gentleman was appointed whose only recommendation appeared to be that he knew nothing of the requirements of that department. The War Department was now under the control of the right hon. and gallant Member (General Peel), a military man, and he had no doubt there would be entire control and unity of action between the General Commanding in Chief and the present Secretary for War; but he thought that considerable difficulty might arise if a civilian should be placed at the head of the War Department, for he did not believe any civilian could deal satisfactorily with the various questions brought under the cognizance of the Secretary for War.
  SIR FREDERICK SMITHremarked, that he could state from his own knowledge that it was quite impossible that the duties of the Ordnance and War Departments could he carried on with a smaller staff than was at present maintained.
  SIR DENHAM NORREYSsaid, he would refer to the small number of hon. Members present (twenty-five) as evidence of the culpable apathy of Parliament on matters of national expenditure. He doubted whether there was a proper method of doing business at the War Office. He had occasion lately to make some inquiry relative to the property left by a certain soldier of a certain regiment, and he received a reply relative to some soldier of a different name and regiment; and even then a delay of six months had occurred before the matter was settled. This was highly discreditable to the management of the Department. The most lavish expenditure was incurred in the movement of troops owing to the want of system and

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  good management. He did not blame the right hon. and gallant General now at the head of the department for this wasteful expenditure.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, that nothing could surpass the civility and attention of the clerks in the War Department, so far as his dealings with them had been concerned. He had frequent occasion to make such applications as those of the hon. Gentleman, and found the greatest promptitude in attending to such applications. He knew by his own experience, that an admirable record was kept at the War Office, by which, in five minutes, the name of any deceased soldier and the property, if any, left by him could be ascertained,
  GENERAL COORINGTONsaid, probably the case to which the Hon. Member (Sir D. Norreys) alluded took place during the Crimean war.
  SIR D. NORREYSsaid, such was not the case.
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNYsuggested, whether a good deal of the expense of clerks might not be saved by using mani-folding machines?
  COLONEL BOLDEROsaid, instead of the War Department being too large, it was much too small for the work it had to do. The house had insisted on amalgamating the three departments of War, the Commissariat, and the Ordnance into one; and he would now show what they had gained by the change. At the Weedon establishment alone between one and two millions of money had been spent by the amalgamated department during the last two years and a half, and the accounts had not been audited up to that hour. So much had the work fallen into arrears that they had lately been obliged to send down twenty additional clerks to bring them up. To show the house what they had gained by the amalgamation, he might mention that in 1850 the number of soldiers voted amounted to 113,697; and in 1851, to 113,200; and the three departments being then in existence, the expense in each year amounted to about £9,000,000. In 1852–3, the number of men was 120,000, and the expense was £9,300,000. In the present year the number of men was only 10,000 more, and yet the expense was £11,500,000. These were the advantages the country had got by the amalgamation. It appeared that the accounts were framed on a wrong principle, for the staff was insufficient properly to conduct the business of the department, and he be
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  lieved that it would be necessary to add another million to the Estimates.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he could not but admit that the complaint of the hon. Member for Lambeth as to the complexity of the accounts was correct, and if it were his fortune to remain at the War Department for another year he would endeavour to remedy that defect. As to the number of people in his office, he did not believe there were too many. He thought there was need for more, and he could confirm the statement of the hon. and gallant Officer behind him, that they were all most anxious to afford any information in their power. He would make inquiries relative to the suggestion of the hon. Baronet (Sir J. Trelawney).
  Mr. W. WILLIAMSwished to know whether the Commander in Chief required four public Secretaries and one private Secretary.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that the only answer he could give was that the amount of correspondence at the Horse Guards was enormous, and that all those officers were fully employed.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONobserved, he could bear testimony to the magnitude of the correspondence of the Military Secretary to the Commander in Chief. He had to transact business connected with promotions wherever the British army was stationed.
  COLONEL KNOXsaid, he thought that by good arrangements they might dispense with many of the persons engaged in the establishment at, Weedon.
  COLONEL NORTHremarked, that he did not believe that there was one officer too many in the Commander in Chief's office.
  Vote agreed to.
  (2.) £233,000, to complete the sum for Manufacturing Establishments, &c.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, it was with great satisfaction he rose to ask for information on one or two points of this Vote from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of War, because he knew that that right hon. Gentleman was not actuated by any feelings of hostility towards the arms trade. He knew that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would believe that he was actuated by no sinister motive with respect to the question he was about to bring before the House. It had been an irksome task with him hitherto to bring forward this question, because he was suspected either of an undue jealousy

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  against others or of wishing to perpetrate a job, while it so happened that he and those whom he represented had no interest whatever in bringing the question before the House, but a desire to obtain a just Comparison between their productions and those of the Enfield establishment. He was sure the House would make all due al-allowance for any weaknesses to which they supposed him liable. He wished the House to remember that the expenses of the Enfield establishment this year had considerably increased. Last year it amounted to between £58,000 and £59,000, but this year it had reached the extent of £97,000. That was a great increase, and he hoped the right hon. and gallant General would state the exact proportion of the different items of the expense. But before going into that portion of the question, he wished to call the attention of the House to the concluding portion of a Report of the Committee on small arms which sat in 1854, and which, in order that Parliament might ascertain the success of the Government factory, in an economical point of view, recommended that an accurate debtor and creditor account, so far as the profit and loss of the establishment was concerned, should be fairly made out and published. He had long been in hope that this account would be produced, and, in fact, he had numerous assurances that it would be produced; for, besides its own intrinsic value, it would form a precedent to be followed with respect to the other Departments, from which, if he might judge from the reports he had heard tonight, seemed to be much wanted. At present the items relating to these Departments were scattered up and down the Estimates, so that it was impossible to find them. He found, for instance, that items relating to Enfield were mentioned at page 60, page 79, and several other pages of these Estimates. It was very hard upon hon. Members that they should be required to compile those accounts for themselves. They ought to have the amounts of the different establishments placed under separate heads, so that they might judge at one view of the expense of each. He did not understand the principle on which these Estimates were framed. He supposed there must be some reason for them, but as their object was professedly to give information, and as they did not, he thought there ought to be some change. Referring back to the Enfield Estimate, he found that not only was the Estimate in general
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  increased, but there were some remarkable additions in some of the separate items. Thus, the Committee of 1854 was told that the machinery at Enfield was calculated to supersede skilled labour, and upon that understanding the House consented to try the experiment to an extent which was promised not to exceed from £34,000 to £35,000. But the actual expense, far from being confined to that sum, had gone up as high as £150,000. This was said to be owing to the pressure of the war; but the important circumstance was, that notwithstanding all this expense, there had been, as he was informed, not a single musket produced during the war. But the expense of the establishment did not stop there. He had not been able to make out an accurate list of the expenditure, but it appeared to have amounted, from its first establishment till now, to between £600,000 and £700,000. Now, the House never contemplated an expenditure of that kind, and that, he thought, was an additional reason for reverting to the recommendation of the Committee of 1854, and insisting that the House should be furnished with a debtor and creditor account of the expenses of the establishment. The expense for the wages of artificers and operatives had increased from £39,000 last year to £86,000. He called the particular attention of the Committee to this item, because they were told, as the main reason for the establishment of this factory, that it would supersede the necessity of employing skilled labour, and would enable them to substitute unskilled labour at a cheap rate. Last year £39,000 had been voted for labour, and he believed there were about 1000 workmen employed. The original estimate of Mr. Anderson, who was the original proprietor of the Enfield factory, was that the establishment with that amount of labour — namely, 1000 workmen—would produce 150,000 muskets a year, at the rate of about 21 s. per week each man, or £33,000 men per annum, But what had been the result?—that more than double the sum estimated by Mr. Anderson had been expended on the erection of the factory, more than £300,000; while the annual payment for wages amounted to the sum of between £84,000 and £85,000 a years, being at the rate of about 32 s. a week for each labourer. He (Mr. Newdegate) had been told—and he hoped it was true—that the factory had produced 50,000 muskets—a quantity equal to only one-third

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  of the number promised. He doubted whether even that quantity had been turned out. He cited this to show that the House ought to regard this question as prudent conservators of a private establishment would do, they ought to take stock and ascertain what they were about. The House never contemplated making the experiment on such a scale as that, for the sum voted on the recommendation of the Committee on Small Arms was only from £30,000 to £40,000, and it was plain from the rate of wages they were paying that skilled labour was largely employed; whereas one of the promises most distinctly held out by Mr. Anderson was, that no large amount of skilled labour would be required if his plan were accepted. He knew that this produced great detriment to the small-arms trace in Birmingham. He did not say that the Government had no right to employ skilled labour if they required it; but Mr. Anderson had totally failed in avoiding the necessity for it, and he knew that the Government deprived the small-arms trade of their best workmen. The expectations which were entertained from that factory had been disappointed. He would not now enter further upon the controversy which had arisen on that subject. He had formerly taken occasion to refute in the newspapers the aspersions upon the small-arms trade, which he believed emanated from persons employed at Enfield, and he only referred to them now to express a hope that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would use his influence to prevent injurious and unfounded reflections being thrown out on semi-official authority to the injury of those who were engaged in the small-arms trade, and which, when circulated by the press, produced that result, not in this country only, but in foreign countries. There was, however, a serious ground of complaint which he wished to refer to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. This was, that the manufacturers of small arms were subjected to the inspection, supervision, and guidance of the same officer who was at the head of the Enfield establishment, which placed them in a position which exposed them to serious injury. It was the intention of the House, when the new Enfield factory was established, that by competition in production it should be a cheek upon the prices and production of the trade; but it must be obvious that if they wanted a fair trial they should not set one competitor to judge another. The head
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  of the Enfield established was naturally interested in the success of that establishment, and all that the trade asked was to be judged by the Secretary for War, by the Commander in Chief, or by some officer appointed by these authorities for that purpose, but not by any person connected with the Enfield establishment with which they competed. That in his opinion was but a fair and reasonable demand. The trade believed that the arms they produced were of more solid workmanship than those produced at Enfield, although they admitted that the latter were very neat. He could have, no object but the public good in bringing forward this question. All that he wished was the establishment of a fair test, and a trial before independent judges; it was most desirable that jealousy and suspicion should be removed from the minds of the trade, who had served their country so well in the hour of need, by the manufacture of the rifles used at Inkerman and in the Russian war, when no arms were forth-coming from Enfield or foreign countries to which orders had been sent. They truly served their country in an emergency, and it was but just now when they compete with the Government establishment, that the fairest possible trial would be accorded to them.
  MR. MONSELLremarked that the hon. Gentleman, who complained of the increased expenditure for the Enfield establishment in this year, would, if he had looked at the return on the table, have seen that the Enfield establishment, not having been finished until this year, manufactured between 52,000 and 60,000 muskets during the present year against 20,000 in the last year; and of course a larger amount of wages and material had to be provided for. The hon. Gentleman seemed to throw doubt on the success of the Enfield establishment, but the cost of the Enfield rifle was somewhere wider £3, whereas the Birmingham rifle cost about £3 6s. He had been informed that trials made with respect to the two rifles had in every instance resulted to the advantage of the Enfield rifle as to shooting. Witnesses had been brought from Birmingham to state that it was utterly impossible that rifles could be so accurately made by machinery that the different parts would correspond with each other. That prophecy made by the Birmingham people experience had proved to be utterly erroneous, as the different parts of the rifles made at En-

  379
  field perfectly corresponded together; and it was impossible for the trade at Birmingham to manufacture bayonets similar to those made at Enfield for 4s. or 4s. 6d. a piece for less than 9s. or 10 s. a piece. Therefore he considered that the experiment at Enfield had been entirely successful. He fully concurred in the praise that had been bestowed on the great exertions made by the Birmingham trade during the Crimean war, and he thought that on that account the country owed them a great deal of gratitude; but he did not conceive that the Enfield establishment would harm them in the slightest degree, and he understood that a company at Birmingham was making arrangements to imitate Enfield, and were preparing machinery to manufacture muskets.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that he could not allow the observations of his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Newdegate) to go unanswered. He was sure that his hon. Friend would do him the justice to say that, he had done everything in his power to promote the interests of the Birmingham manufacturers since his accession to office. There was plenty of work both for Enfield and Birmingham, and he thought that the competition between them was of the greatest possible service. He hoped, therefore, that his hon. Friend would allow the dispute between those places to come to an end. On looking over the returns furnished to him he saw that the cost of the Enfield rifle was put down at £2 6s. 10½d., but he remarked that that was not a fair calculation, for the interest of the money expended in plant had not been taken into account. The amount of capital expended in the establishment at Enfield was £352,580, and taking the interest at £10 per cent. he found that the cost of the Enfield rifles was only £2 11 s. 6¾d., while those produced by the trade cost £2 18 s. 3½d. It was also alleged that the various parts of the rifles manufactured by the trade did not fit so well one with another as those which were made by the Government, and therefore they could not go into the stores and make up the rifles with such facility. He was informed, however, that the manufacturers of Birmingham had volunteered to set up machinery to effect that object, and he assured the hon. Member for Warwickshire that he should not have the slightest objection on the part of the Government, to give them a trial, there being no less than 100,000 rifles on order for India at present.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that some of the muskets which were sent from Birmingham and tried at the Tower very nearly interchanged with each other, so excellent was the work, although they were not intended to do so. He also wished to explain that the evidence given by the best manufacturers with regard to the use of machinery in making rifles was, not that a system of interchangeability could not be established, but that they did not think that the work would be welded together so closely, or that it would be so durable, as that performed by hand labour. With regard to the difference of price, he could only say that the Americans, who made very cheap gulls, had not succeeded in making guns so cheaply as the Enfield rifles were said to be made, and before acceding completely to the statement that the Enfield rifle could be made at so much cheaper a rate than the trade rifle, he must have the opportunity of examining the accounts thoroughly with the aid of the manufacturers, whose intellects would naturally be sharpened by self-interest. As to the merits of the two arms, what the manufacturers desired was that these should be tested by a comparison of two pieces taken indifferently out of the stock supplied by Enfield and the stock supplied by the trade. In previous trials there was a doubt that the samples from Enfield had been specially finished for the purposes of comparison.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, that the Birmingham gun trade continued to make guns by hand, whereas at Enfold they were made by machinery, which had been obtained by a great outlay of capital, and this produced the difference in price. Every encouragement was given by the Government to the private trade, with a view to their erecting machinery, so as to keep the Enfield establishment up to the mark by competition.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that the manufacturers also use machinery. The only point in which there appeared to be a difference was the use of machinery for the cutting out of the stocks.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSwas willing to assume that the difference between the cost of weapons made in the Government establishment and by private individuals was correct. That was not the usual result, but the hon. Gentleman who spoke last explained the reason. He regretted to see, however, that there were still items for muskets made at Leige, St. Etienne,

  381
  and other foreign places. He should like to know the cause of this.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that these were contracts made during the war, which were not yet completed. In one instance 12,000 muskets had been delivered, and 10,000 in another, but all had not been yet delivered.
  COLONEL BOLDEROthought it would be more convenient to the Committee if the whole of the Estimate for small arms was placed before them at once, and not a single item for a particular establishment, Two years ago Mr. Whitworth, the first manufacturer in the kingdom, and Mr. Richards, a well-known gun maker of Birmingham, were commissioned by the Government to see if they could construct rifles superior to the Enfield rifles. They set their wits to work and produced a rifle called the Whitworth rifle, which went down to Hythe to the school for teaching the soldiers the use of the rifle. It was said at one time, "old Brown Bess does her duty very well," but on trial it was found that at a range of 500 yards only one shot in 3000 struck the target; the proportion of balls thrown by the Enfield which struck was 25 per cent.; but the Whitworth rifle, at a range of 800 yards, beat the Enfield at 500. The range of the Whitworth rifle also was 2,000 yards, while that of the Enfield was 1,100 yards only. This rifle was afterwards sent to Woolwich to be tested, but although it was sent a year ago no report had yet been made. He thought it was very desirable that the question as to rifle superiority should be settled, because if it was afterwards found that this rifle was vastly superior to the Enfield, a great deal of money would have been wasted.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONsaid, that he was the President of the Committee to whom the testing of small arms a as entrusted. They agreed to make various experiments: but it was necessary to make them with great accuracy and minuteness, so as to decide various questions—such as the range, the amount of precision, and the applicability of the arm to a soldier's sight. Last year they had not time to do more in testing this rifle than to settle the question of range. It was a question whether this Committee should be reappointed this year; but on making communication to the right hon. and gallant General he found that it was considered better that there should be a permanent Committee of officers, who should devote all their time and attention to these experiments. There
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  could be no question whatever of the very great value of these experiments, and he might add that there was no question whatever of the very great value of the Whitworth rifle. They had, after repeated trials, fixed the range at such a distance that they could not obtain a sufficient number of successful shots to form an average at all with the Enfield rifle, whereas there was no difficulty at all in doing so with the Whitworth, which showed that, at all events, with respect to range, it possessed an undoubted superiority. The other essential qualities were now being tested, but he did not think that any disadvantage would result from the delay, inasmuch as it was impossible at the present moment to change the small arms of the whole of the service. He was fully impressed with the value of the Whitworth rifle, and hoped that the experiments would be proceeded with as rapidly as possible.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, he wished to ask whether any alteration was in contemplation with reference to the amount allowed to officers on the staff in lieu of servants. Formerly they were allowed to take servants from the staff, but now that was done away with, and they were allowed only 1s. a day in lieu of them. He would put it to the Committee whether it was possible that they could get any kind of servant at the rate of 1s. a day.
  LORD ELCHOinquired of General Codrington whether the superiority in point of range of the Whitworth rifle was not to be attributed to the fact that it had a smaller bore than the Enfield, and that a harder material was employed for the balls, which gave them a greater power of penetration.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONsaid, that the experiments at Woolwich were carried on, not to try the absolute merits of Mr. Whitworth's gun, but to test it in comparison with the Enfield. They were, therefore, tried with the same weight and description of ball, and the same charges. Not only had the Whitworth a greater range than the Enfield, but the line taken by the ball was more direct, insuring greater accuracy. If the barrels of the Whitworth rifle, however, were formed of so hard a substance that they could propel bullets made of iron, that would be a still greater recommendation. One of the principal characteristics of the Whitworth rifle was that it contained more turns or grooves in the barrel.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that so far as the

  383
  experiments had as yet gone there could be no question of the superiority of the Whitworth rifle. Moreover, every encouragement would be given by the Government to bringing out its merits, as a Board of officers would shortly be appointed to continue and complete the comparison between the two arms. In answer to the hon. and gallant Gentleman behind him (Colonel North), he had the satisfaction to inform him that the matter had been taken into consideration at the Horse Guards, and that the allowance to the officers in lieu of servants would be increased.
  MR. CONINGHAMsaid that from what he had gathered as the result of the present conversation it seemed to him very likely that process of time the Enfield rifle would be superseded by the Whitworth. Under those circumstances he must express his conviction that it was highly imprudent for the Government to expend so enormous an amount of money upon machinery for the manufacture of small arms, when in consequence of the improvements which had been made, a large portion of the expenditure would become useless. He thought it impossible that the Government could continue for any length of time to manufacture cheaper and better small arms than private traders.
  GENERAL COLRINGTONsaid, he thought the manufacture of arms was an exception to the general rule, and that the result justified the experiment which had been made. It was a matter of experience that articles manufactured by contract were not always to be trusted, and it was of vital importance that the army should have weapons in which they could trust. The House would remember the case of the mortars made by contract during the Crimean war. At the very moment those mortars were wanted they burst, and they could not then be replaced.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, whatever might be the superior merits of the Whitworth rifle over the Enfield rifle, there was one satisfactory fact to be remembered, that very recently the Enfield rifle picked off 1,000 men, silenced a battery, and saved an enormous loss of life. Consequently, up to that time, it was proved that there was no weapon its equal. He trusted, however, that the Whitworth principle would be soon adopted. The fact was that the plan of the Enfield rifle was introduced by Mr. Westley Richards, and it
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  was an excellent move to associate the names of Whitworth and Richards together —the one being a celebrated gun-maker in Birmingham, and the other the largest manufacturer of small arms in the kingdom. The result was the production of the Whitworth rifle. Although there was great difficulty in changing the bore and stem of the musket throughout the army, the Whitworth principle could be adapted to cannon. The result of those improvements he believed to be this—that the six-pound artillery gun made on the Whitworth principle would be fully equal to the nine-pounder with increased range and without that improvement. He trusted that the Committee would not believe that because it might appear that the Government could manufacture those arms cheaper, that the trade would allow themselves to be beaten by a competition of that Sort. Individual enterprise would ever prove the best source of production on all occasions, and the country would make a great mistake if it ever countenanced any other principle.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONsaid, that he did not intend to find fault with the Enfield muskets made last year at Birmingham. On the contrary, nothing could be better. They were most efficient, very light, and beautifully made.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, that in the Estimates the store-keepers and barrack masters were in columns. He thought the duties of these Departments could be performed by one staff of officers.
  Vote agreed to; as was also
  (3.) £358,317 to complete the sums for Wages of Artificers, &c.
  (4.) £460,460 to complete the sum for Clothing and Necessaries.
  MR. MONSELLasked how it was that the charge for the clothing of the infantry of the line had risen from £174,000 last year to £264,000 this.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that £90,000 of the Vote went to supplying free kits to recruits. Therefore, as far as regarded the more clothing of the army went, there was no increase over the Vote of last year; the increase being wholly accounted for by the determination come to, that henceforth recruits should not be charged with the price of their kits.
  MR. WILLIAMSsaid, he also thought the amount very large. At the same time he begged to congratulate the hon. and gallant General upon his having abandoned the proposed building at Rotherhithe,

  385
  which would have cost £300,000, and he hoped that its erection would not be proposed in another year.
  COLONEL KNOXsaid, he thought the system now adopted would prove the most expensive system every tried in this country, and he had no hesitation in saying that the soldier of the present day cost very nearly double that which a soldier under the old system cost. There did not appear in the Estimate the amount that stores wasted and lost cost the country, but under the present system, when stores were rejected, they were thrown upon the hands of the Government and sold for a song as old stores. Under the old regulation the "colonel-tailors," as they were designated, made such contracts with the clothiers as enabled them to throw the goods upon their hands if they turned out inferior in quality, and in his opinion the men were by no means as well clad now as under the old system.
  COLONEL GILPINsaid, he also must condemn the system adopted regarding the clothing of the army. He believed that the system adopted during the war with regard to the clothing of the militia was the most economical. Under that, patterns were sent down to the colonels, who could select what they most approved of, and the bill was not paid for some time after. Now, the clothing was purchased at once, and if afterwards found worthless, the whole loss fell upon the public.
  COLONEL BOLDEROcomplained that the Vote did not show the net cost of clothing each regiment, and that in it necessaries were mixed up with clothing. He estimated that the clothing under the new system cost about £3 10 s. per man, while formerly the allowance, including accoutrements and other matters not now provided for, was only £2 6s. per man. It was difficult to gather from the Estimates what the precise cost was as compared with the former periods, but he was satisfied if all the details connected with clothing could be collected in one account, that it would be found that the expense under the new system had very nearly doubled that of the old.
  LORD ELCHOsuggested that the practice which had obtained in some cases of appropriating a great coat to each sentry-box in addition to the great coat which every soldier had should be universally adopted. He made this suggestion in consequence of having found, on a very cold day, that the sentries on duty at the
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  Castle in Edinburgh not only wore no great coats in the daytime, but had not the advantage of a coat hanging up in their boxes.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONsaid, that regiments might make arrangements of the nature referred to for themselves if they thought it necessary. All that they would have to do would be to obtain the permission of the Secretary for War to use up the old coats, instead of selling them for a mere trifle.
  GENERAL PEELadmitted that the suggestion was very good, and he could not sec any objection to its adoption. Great objection had been expressed in reference to the clothing system, and he felt sure hon. Gentlemen would learn with satisfaction that a new arrangement was about to be made in this respect. In reply to the hon. Member, he begged to say that the accounts were presented in the form in which they had been placed before the House upon former occasions.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he was anxious, before the Vote was agreed to, to suggest whether it would not be better for the health of the Guards than providing greatcoats, to do away with some of the useless sentries who were kept on duty in various parts of London during the whole night. The police were paid for such duty, and he could not see the necessity for making soldiers perform it.
  COLONEL BOLDEROsaid, that the East India Company was responsible to the Government fur 92,000 men; there was no provision in the Estimates for their clothing, although he had been informed that that responsibility fell upon the Government.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, a certain sum of money was paid every month by the East India Company into the Treasury, not to the War Department, on account of those matters. And accounts passed between the Company and the Treasury which did not appear in the Votes.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, he thought it was a more work of supererogation to have sentries at the Royal Academy and the British Institution.
  MAJOR WORTLEYsaid, those sentries were on duty only in the day time.
  MR. BLACKBURNremarked, that it would be better if the whole of the charge of the troops in India was borne on the Votes, and credit then given for the sum paid by the East India Company.
  Vote agreed to; as was also
  (5.) £690,624, to complete the sum for Provisions, &c.
  (6.) £420,727, to complete the sum for Warlike Stores.
  Mr. W. WILLIAMScomplained of the large sum of £280,000 which appeared under this head. in the Votes for small arms, and also £510,964 for the purchase of miscellaneous stores, and both these without one word of explanation.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENexplained that he was responsible for putting the £510,964 item down in a single line, for the explanation filled a folio volume of 150 pages, which, with further details, might be swelled to any extent; but, even in the concise form, the explanation could not be placed in the Votes.
  Vote agreed to.
  (7.) £192,736, to complete the sum for Fortifications.
  SIR CHARLES NAPIERsaid, he must take exception to the item in the Estimate for forts. The forts were small and useless, and, from their being spread over the whole of our coast, they would be quite inapplicable to repelling an invading force. It would be much better to bring down the gunboats, instead of building useless forts. He proposed, therefore, to move the reduction of the Vote by £50,000, the amount required for these intermediate forts,
  Sir JOHN RAMSDENobserved, that the hon. and gallant Admiral was under a mistake in supposing that the forts extended over the whole of the coast. The charge to which he referred was for three forts between Gosport and the advanced lines.
  SIR CHARLES NAPIERsaid, this explanation removed his objections to the Vote.
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNYobjected to the sum of £33,000 for the defences of Devonport. Hitherto Plymouth had never been defended, because it was possible to take it in reverse. Latterly, however, they had gone more seriously to work, and had laid out a large sum of money; but it was doubtful whether it would be attended with any good result. Behind Mount Edgcumbe a casemated edifice had been built, looking more like an ornamental Gothic villa than anything else, and he believed a ten-gun brig would knock it to pieces in five minutes, besides killing a number of soldiers by the splinters. It was at least questionable whether earthworks would not be better than these stone forts.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he also must deprecate the outlay for this class of works.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he wished to know whether the £21,000 stated in this Estimate would finish the work?
  GENERAL PEELreplied that he could not say; but, in answer to another question, said that any balance that might remain over the expenditure of the year Would be paid back again into the Exchequer. The limestone forts had been erected on the recommendation of a scientific Commission.
  Vote agreed to.
  (8.) £72,780, to complete the sum for Civil Buildings.
  COLONEL KNOXsaid, he had to object to an Estimate for the powder magazine at Aldershot being taken separately, as he wondered how it could be considered a "civil" building.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, it was placed in a separate head in accordance with the expressed wishes of the Committee last year; and he had classed it among civil buildings, as being neither a fortification nor a barrack.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, that with reference to part of this Vote which related to North Britain, he observed it was the intention of the Government to make an armoury on the Castle-rock at Edinburgh. The people of Edinburgh, who had already seen the Castle-rock covered with a number of ordnance sheds, which were more or less serviceable, as he had been informed, for the purpose for which they were designed, were now still more alarmed to see that the rock itself had been scarped and carried away to make the foundation of a wall on which to build this armoury. He hoped the building would not be proceeded with until the people of Edinburgh had had an opportunity of seeing the plans of the Government, and that the utmost publicity would be given to the new alterations.
  MR. BLACKBURNcomplained of the large items in this Vote, and he hoped the Government would extend their principle of economy in this direction, and cut down some of these large and extravagant sums.
  GENERAL PEELsaid he had already cut down the item by £10,000.
  Vote agreed to.
  Motion made and Question proposed,—
  "That a sum, not exceeding £397,091, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge of Barracks at Home and Abroad, which will come in course of pay-

  389
  ment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1859."
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, that the House bad lately voted large sums of money for the erection of barracks at home and abroad. He wished therefore to know whether any notice was to be taken of the prize plans, for which several of our architects had competed. He believed that his right hon. Friend had stated that barracks could be built more cheaply by the engineers than by architects, but the question was whether barracks so built would afford sufficient accommodation. He believed that the estimate given in for the prize plan was £140 a man for construction, and that the expense at Aldershot for construction had been £100 a man; and what he wanted to know was, whether the barracks built on the cheaper estimate contained the court-martial rooms, mess-rooms and all those other accommodations which had been pointed out by the Commissioners as being necessary. The illustrious Duke at the head of the army had a short time back referred to the question of barrack accommodation and to the general question of the comfort of the soldier, and every word which had fallen from his Royal Highness was perfectly true. That illustrious Duke stated that the Horse Guards were not at all accountable for the state of barrack accommodation throughout the country; that he had made constant representations upon the subject, but that he did not hold the purse strings of the nation; and that, although the truth of his representations might be admitted, he might be met with the answer. "All very true, but the Government has no money." The hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin (Captain Vivian) had moved for certain returns, which he believed would prove the truth of what was stated by his Royal Highness—a statement with which he believed all commanding officers concurred. It was equally true, as was stated on the same occasion by that illustrious personage, that in most cases the improvements which had been made in barracks of late years had curtailed the accommodation, so that what the soldier gained in one way he lost in another. Well, then, the noble Lord the late Secretary for War made a speech in "another place" on the same subject, and he mentioned certain improvements which had of late years been made in the condition of the soldier. The noble Lord said that at present the soldier could rely upon retiring at the end of a certain period with a pension; but
  390
  that was nothing new, for in past times a soldier could always rely upon a pension after a certain period of service. The fact was that the Duke of Wellington had held, as every soldier knew, that every man who had served for twenty-one years was entitled to a pension. He might not, perhaps, be able to claim one legally, but no Secretary of State could have refused him one, without compromising the honour of the country. The noble Lord had also eulogised the liberality of Parliament and said that the system of stoppages fur rations had been abolished. Well, that really was only a matter of strict justice, for previously the stoppages in certain colonies were actually higher than the sum expended by the Government. As to the present barrack accommodation, it was very deficient. At Chatham, the Engineers, which it must be remembered was a very superior corps, were worked harder than the Guards, and yet the men relieved from duty were obliged to occupy the beds which had just been left by the men who relieved them. That was a most disgraceful state of things; and, again, the Portman Street barracks, as regarded proper accommodation to the soldier, were in a most disgraceful condition. The noble Earl at the head of the cavalry (the Earl of Cardigan) had stated that it was seldom that soldiers did not get baked meat twice or thrice a week; that might be the case, but the soldiers were obliged to have the meat baked out of barracks and pay for it themselves. Our barracks did not afford our soldiers an opportunity of doing anything but boiling their meat. What is required is, that in every barrack accommodation should be found for roasting meat, so that the soldiers should not be obliged to pay for it. With respect to the question of the repair of those barracks, he might state that if the annual estimates for that purpose were found to be too large for the capabilities of the Exchequer, the consequence was they were returned to the military authorities for reduction, and in most cases notwithstanding the most urgent applications from the military authorities were left untouched. As an illustration of the way in which those repairs were managed he might mention a circumstance which had occurred in the case of the barracks occupied by one of the regiments of Life Guards. In the month of November last an iron grate had been found to be out of repair in those barracks, and a requisition had been sent to the proper quarter to obtain an order for its repair. It had been repaired and

  391
  brought back, but when the quartermaster had ordered it to be put in its place, the answer had been that the word "refix" was not to be found in the estimate. The consequence had been that the process of refixing had not been completed until the 14th of December, up to which time from the 20th of November, the clerks in the office had been obliged to sit without any fire and the stores had been allowed to become damp. With respect to the Report of the Sanitary Commission he would only say that, having carefully examined it, he could not find, notwithstanding the censure cast upon them in that report, that the military authorities were fairly open to censure. When in 1849, for instance, fever had prevailed, it was owing to the energetic remonstrances of the commanding officer that the troops had been removed from the old to the new barracks at the Tower. The real obstacle in those cases was, he could not help thinking, the House of Commons and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he felt assured that no regimental officer would even for a single hour be found to neglect his duty. The Horse Guards had been censured; but the Commander in Chief was merely the medium of communication between the regimental officers and the Secretary for War, and he trusted that the correspondence which had been moved for by his gallant Friend would prove all that was necessary upon that point.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that the correspondence and returns which had been moved for by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bodmin (Captain Vivian) would not give a just idea of the communication which had taken place between the War Department and the Horse Guards. They would, if given in the form originally asked for, have involved such a mass of detail that at the suggestion of his hon. and gallant Friend they had been altered. In their present shape, however, they would afford but a very meagre account of the urgent demands which had been made by the Horse Guards in respect to various improvements. Neither was there any want of requisitions upon the part of regimental officers upon the subject, but there was no sum taken in the Votes for those purposes, and therefore they were necessarily postponed.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, he concurred with the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel North) in thinking that the military authorities were not responsible for any shortcomings which might exist in our barrack accommodation. His
  392
  gallant Friend, however, in endeavouring to exculpate the Horse Guards, seemed to throw a considerable weight upon the shoulders of his (Sir John Ramsden's) noble Friend the late Secretary for War. Now, he thought he could show that his noble Friend was not open to blame in the matter. He had taken office in 1855, and within one or two months after he had appointed a Committee to inquire into the whole subject of barrack accommodation. That Committee had reported on it a short time since, and he (Sir John Ramsden) believed that the barracks which had been built since that report had been issued showed a marked improvement as compared with those which were in existence at the time. He might observe that the House of Commons appeared to him to be as equally free from blame as his noble Friend, inasmuch as it appeared, from a return which had been laid upon the table of the House, that no less a sum than £1,500,000 had, during the years 1855, 1856, and 1857, been expended on the enlargement and repair of barracks at home. The outlay upon barracks during a series of years had been enormous, but the barracks had fallen into such a state of disrepair that there were enormous arrears to make good. Even with a yearly Vote of £500,000, it would take a considerable time before the barrack accommodation was in a proper state.
  COLONEL NORTH: Who is to blame?
  SIR JOHN RAMSDEN: The economists of preceding years.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYprotested that a more unfounded charge had never been made than the accusation of niggardly economy in regard to barracks upon the part of the House of Commons. He found that the sums voted for barracks during the last four years were—in 1854–5, £495,755; in 1855–6, £846,719; in 1856–7, £1,269,444; in 1857–8, £522,715; making a total, for the last four years, of £3,134,633. The fault was not in the House of Commons; it must lie somewhere else. He wished to call attention to the first item of the Vote. In the years 1855–6–7 the House of Commons voted £700,000 for huts, and the sum now asked for Wits in addition. The total estimate for Aldershot barracks was £400,000. The sum actually expended was £413,770. The amount proposed for the present year was £88,000, and it was said that £20,000 more would be required to complete those barracks. Thus £521,770 was wanted for works which had been estimated to cost £400,000. There must be somewhere a

  393
  fault in the expenditure of those enormous sums.
  SIR HARRY VERNEYwished to know who was responsible for the selection of the site for barracks at Aldershot. The barracks were erected in such a position that hospitals could not be constructed without purchasing additional ground.
  COLONEL KNOXsaid, he had continually called attention to the subject of barrack accommodation. He regretted to find there was no vote this year for Portman Barracks. He wished to make an observation respecting the plans sent in by architects for barracks. The plans sent in were extremely creditable to the authors of them, and he wished to know whether those gentlemen would be employed to erect new barracks when any were required. If they were not to be employed he could not but think a great fraud had been practised upon them, and that the engineers who built the barracks would be picking the brains of those architects in a most unfair manner. He regretted the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Sir F. Smith) was not present, for he believed that gallant officer had laid out the ground at Aldershot barracks. The village which adjoined the camp was lighted with gas, while the soldiers in barracks, only separated from the village by the width of a road, were deprived of that convenience. The expenditure for barracks in the midst of that wild heath had been enormous, and still the want of barrack accommodation was enormous. He wanted to know what was to be done with the huts, Which would speedily require large repairs at a great expense? Great mistakes had been made in barrack building, and he thought it was time that an improvement should be made in those of the metropolis, where it was so necessary to keep the men out of temptation.
  COLONEL BOLDEROthought that experience ought to have induced a much wiser expenditure or money than had been the case in respect of barracks. In the case of Aldershot, several thousand acres of land were bought at a price of £25 per acre, in order to form a summer encampment. At first tents were established, but soon huts were built, the contracts for which stated that they were to be built of sound timber, free of sap; but, instead of that, the timber was full of sap and as rotten as a pear. He wanted to know how it was that, having a large body of men quartered at Aldershot, the Government did not employ them during part of the
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  day in making roads and drains for the use of the camp, which was part of military duty, instead of expending large sums of the public money for that purpose? Again, with respect to the site of the new hospital at Netley Abbey, the chief medical officer at Aldershot stated before the Commission that it was not at all a suitable one, being on the margin of a large tidal river, partly exposed at low water, and flanked on one side by a piece of marshy ground. Yet that was a place on which they were now expending a sum of nearly £300,000, or about £300 for each of the patients, of whom 1,000 were to be accommodated. He contended the Government might build an hospital on that scale for much less money, and on a much more eligible site.
  VISCOUNT EBRINGTONsaid, though he had no wish to anticipate the Motion of which he had given notice for the following day, with regard to the mortality of the army, he must make one or two remarks having a bearing on that subject. It was in vain now to indulge in elimination and recrimination in reference to the state of the barrack accommodation, and the consequent mortality in the army. The essential thing was to consider what line of policy the Committee was to adopt with regard to this important question. It was well known that enormous sums had been fooled away at Aldershot and elsewhere; but that money was spent, and the question now was, whether they ought not to go on spending more money until they lodged the soldier—he being a picked man—in a manner calculated to give him at least as good a chance of life and health as an ordinary civilian? The Portman Street barracks had been referred to, and they worn certainly very bad, but they were far from being the worst he had seen. The barracks at Woolwich were in so dilapidated a condition that the authorities had been obliged to have them shored up to prevent accidents and loss of life. Besides, under the very dormitories were lavatories, latrines, and the like, enough to breed a pestilence in the place; yet the state of these barracks had been represented to the authorities for no less than nine consecutive years. It was vain to think of bringing up the arrears of mismanagement without expense. But no economy could be worse than that of enlisting recruits and paying a bounty for them in order to kill them off prematurely twice as fast as the rest of the population. On every principle of justice, humanity, and true economy, Parliament ought not to rest until the bar-

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  racks of the country were put into a reasonably healthy, decent, and creditable state.
  MR. TITEsaid, it appeared to him that the Government and the country had been liberal in the outlay with respect to barracks, but the great defect had been that they had not proceeded on any distinct and well understood plan. They did not want a Commission to inquire into these things, but an intelligent practical man who would tell them, at little or no expense, what the real defects were and how they were to be remedied. It was not red-tapeism that was required, but a simple and intelligible plan of procedure. A few years ago architects were invited to send in plans for barracks, and a promise was given that the successful competitors should be employed, the premiums being made very small on that account; and the architects who happened to be successful now complained, and he thought justly, that the promise made had not been fulfilled. He had been in communication on the subject with the Secretary at War, who had promised to give the subject his best consideration. He could not but think that architects who were accustomed to erect civil buildings were the most suitable persons to erect barracks. He would appeal to the Secretary for War to postpone the Vote for Netley Hospital, on the ground that a gentleman of great intelligence had distinctly reported against the suitability of the site, as he (Mr. Tite) believed almost every other person who was an authority on the subject had done, including Mr. Stafford, whose death they all deplored. It was said that the building had been contracted for, and that we must therefore go on with it. He thought, however, it would be much the wisest course to compensate the contractor for any loss which he might have incurred, instead of going on spending thousands upon thousands foolishly and unprofitably. When the proper time came he should certainly press for the postponement of the £73,000 asked for on account of this vote until the papers which had been promised on the subject were forthcoming.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, of course if the architects alluded to by the hon. Gentleman were promised employment, they had a just ground of complaint. Their plans, however, did not seem at all economical. The estimate for infantry barracks was £140 per head, for cavalry barracks £300 per head, and for artillery £330 per head, whereas the cost actually incurred at Aldershot was £45 for the infantry, £150
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  for the cavalry, and £157 for the artillery. He thought that, although Aldershot had been so much abused, the barracks there were, on the whole, very good. The only fault which he had to find was, that they were situated at the extremity of the property. With respect to the remarks of the noble Lord (Viscount Ebrington), he thought his wisest course was to deal with matters as he found them. It was of no use to talk about the money which had been spent in vain; what the Government would do was, to endeavour, as far as possible, to apply a remedy to existing evils.
  MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, he cordially concurred with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State in thinking that but very little advantage would result from hunting back into the archives of the War Department to find out who refused to carry out barrack works which were considered necessary. The point they had now to consider was, the best mode of setting the matter right. He recollected the time when very little was thought of the army, when there was a dream of perpetual peace, and when economical questions occupied the minds of the English people. Very little was at that time done in this direction; but in defence of the House of Commons he must say that when a case was fairly put before them he saw no signs of illiberality. During the last three years a large sum of money had been voted by the House for these purposes—voted to compensate for the penury of previous years—and it had been said that that money must have been fooled away. When, however, hon. Gentlemen compared the amount per man spent upon barracks and compared that with the sum required for building a cottage, he thought they did not look upon the question in its proper aspect. In the one case there was a cottage and nothing more. In the other case it must be remembered that a barrack was not a house but a town. There were at this moment more men living in the Wellington barracks than existed in certain towns which were represented in that House. In connection with a barrack there must be a chapel, parade ground, ball court, prison, a library and reading-room, which corresponded with the literary institutions of the town; and quarters corresponding to the neighbouring squires' houses to accommodate the officers. A barrack was not merely a soldiers' habitation; it must be built to accommodate a complete society; and the deficiencies now existing in this respect

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  would not, he feared, be remedied without a very considerable outlay. He observed that Lord Panmure, "in another place," had quoted the Portman barracks in contradiction to the assumed assertion of the Commission that the greater mortality in the Guards resulted from their more crowded condition in comparison with those occupied by the line. Now, the Commission had made no such assertion. He had cautiously avoided giving anything but a bare statement of the facts, and knew better than to attempt to account for them. Lord Panmure, however, had quoted the Portman barracks to show that the Commission was wrong in an assertion they had never made. But as to the facts, his Lordship was entirely in error, though led away by a cry natural supposition. Lord Panmure found that there were fewer admissions to the hospital in connection with Portman Street barracks than any other; but if he had looked at the nature of the admissions he would have found that, tested by the serious character of the diseases and by the mortality, they were the most unhealthy barracks next to the Tower. He had every confidence that his right hon. and gallant Friend (General Peel) would, when the whole facts were before him, deal with the question of barrack accommodation in a proper spirit. With regard to Netley Hospital he (Mr. S. Herbert) still held the opinion that the site was an unfortunate one. It was not, however, the fault of Lord Panmure that such selection was made, for he had referred the subject to the Army Medical Board, who did diet which civil medical boards would also have done—showed that they had given but slight attention to the construction of hospitals. If they went through London and conversed with medical men they would be surprised to find how few of them had paid the slightest attention to the subject of construction, the quarters of administration and treatment.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, with regard to Netley Hospital, the Vote for which some hon. Gentlemen wished to postpone, the works had been contracted for and were in progress, and he did not see how it was possible to postpone the Vote.
  MR. TITEsaid, it was usual to take power in contracts to stop works when necessary, and he could see no difficulty in doing so in this case.
  SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, there was one fact that was decisive against Netley Hospital. No patient in it could see the
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  sun from the hospital windows. He had had great experience in hospitals, and he knew how important a cheerful situation was for the patients, which was altogether denied them in this hospital. But he had great confidence in the fairness and candour of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and of his anxiety to promote to the utmost the comforts of the sick soldiers.
  MAJOR WORTLEYsaid, that he should take this year the same course as he did last, and move for the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £88,000, the estimate for completing the works at Aldershot. He had formerly expressed the opinion, and he repeated it now, that the officers and soldiers did not learn the art of war at Aldershot, and that the soldiers were not taught cooking. He had also warned the House of the rotten state of the huts, and against the wild expenditure into which they were led at Aldershot—an expenditure of which there seemed to be no end. He moved the omission of £88,000, being the Vote for Aldershot.
  COLONEL GILPINsaid, the camp at Aldershot was essentially a camp of instruction, and that the soldiers there were accustomed to dress their own dinners. The militia regiment he had commanded there had more than once had their break fast and dinner in the field. He wished to know from the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Ramsden) why the allowances granted to officers under the Royal Warrant of July, 1848, and which was understood to apply to the troops encamped at home, had been discontinued at Aldershot? With regard to huts erected at Aldershot, it would be recollected that the noble Lord, lately at the head of the Government, stated that they were quite unfit for troops during the winter, and that they would only be used in summer; but a large body of troops had, nevertheless, been in those huts all the winter. He could assure hon. Gentlemen who were anxious about economy, that that virtue was severely practised at Aldershot, for in the course of one month last winter he was informed he had drawn half a scuttleful of coals more than his allowance, which must be deducted in the course of the next month.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, the allowances to which the hon. and gallant officer referred were field allowances given to troops when in camp, but they were not issuable to troops in permanent encampments in this country. The allowances were only intended to provide officers with

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  accoutrements for the field, and to meet other expenses which they were not put to in permanent encampments.
  CAPTAIN ANNESLEYsaid, he had no hesitation in stating, as the result of his own knowledge, that Portman Street Barracks were perfectly unfit for the habitation of any troops in Her Majesty's service. He begged to know whether there was any probability of their being rebuilt.
  GENERAL PEELreplied, that the condition of those barracks would be reported on in due time, and he hoped they might be able to replace them by new barracks.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONthought the field allowances referred to by the gallant Officer (Colonel Gilpin) should be given at Aldershot.
  Whereupon Motion made and Question, "That the Item of £88,000, towards completing the permanent Barracks at Aldershot, be omitted from the proposed Vote," put, and negatived.
  Original Question again proposed.
  Whereupon Motion made and Question, "That the Item of £73,000, for the erection of a new Hospital at Netley, be omitted from the proposed Vote," put, and agreed to.
  Original Question, as amended, put, and agreed to; as was also,
  (9.) £324,091, to complete the sum for Barracks.
  House resumed.
  Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.

  WAYS AND MEANS.—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  House in Committee of Ways and Means.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER moved, that towards making good the supplies a sum of £11,000,000, should be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.
  Resolved,
  That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty, the sum of £11,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND LOAN— COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Papers relating to Prince Edward's Island [presented 16th April] referred.
  House in Committee,
  LORD STANLEYsaid, he rose to move a Resolution, to the effect that Her Ma-
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  jesty be authorized to guarantee the payment of a loan, not exceeding £100,000, for the service of the colony of Prince Edward's Island. He did not intend to detain the Committee further than to assure them, that although it was necessary to ask them to assent to this Resolution in order that he might be enabled to introduce a Bill on the subject, they did not thereby pledge themselves either to the principle or to the details of the measure. He believed from what had taken place at an early period of the evening, and also from the proceedings last year with reference to the New Zealand Loan guarantee, that a general opinion was entertained in the House that Imperial guarantees of loans raised for colonial purposes were objectionable in principle, and in that view he fully concurred. He regarded any system of such guarantees as not only dangerous and embarrassing to the Imperial finances, but as contrary to the true interests of the colonies themselves, for these communities ought to understand that coextensive with the right of self-government was the duty of self-support. If he were asked why, having laid down a rule of that kind he proposed to depart from it in this instance, his justification was that the present was a special and exceptional case, and one which was not likely to recur. His justification was that in assisting the colony of Prince Edward's Island to relieve itself from the embarrassment in which it was placed they were not granting any favour or conferring any boon, but were simply, in some degree, repairing a wrong, which had been caused by an act of the Government of this country, and for which, therefore, they were in justice bound to provide a remedy. He could show to what an extent the growth of that colony had been retarded by an act of the Imperial Legislature passed nearly ninety years ago. In 1767, the greater part of the land in the colony, amounting to nearly 1,500,000 acres, was disposed of, he could hardly say by sale, but by public lottery in London, in the course of a single day. No less than 1,340,000 acres were disposed of in sixty-seven lots of 20,000 acres each. These grants were made subject to the condition of introducing a certain number of settlers, at the rate of one for every 100 acres, and also subject to a quitrent varying from 2s. to 6s. per 100 acres, to be paid to the Government. These conditions were in themselves sufficiently improvident, but the Government did not even

  401
  interfere rigidly, to enforce them on behalf of the colony. Soon after the settlement of the colony the American war broke out, and it was then alleged that the introduction of settlers according to the terms of the agreement had become impossible. Settlers were not introduced, and the Government tacitly, if not in express words dispensed with that part of the obligation. The payments fell into arrear, and were not pressed. The result was that almost the whole soil of the colony was alienated, and that the greater part of the proprietors were absentees, or speculators with very little capital, who from time conditions of their tenure were necessarily placed in a position of antagonism to the great mass of the population. It was well known to all who were acquainted with the feelings of colonial communities that the great desire of every colonist was to become the possessor of land; and from the period he had mentioned the history of Prince Edward's Island presented a record of one long quarrel between the proprietary thus imposed by the Imperial Government upon the colony and the population who were their tenants. Various attempts were made to have the land declared forfeited on account of the non-fulfilment of the original conditions. It would seem, looking back at this distance of time, that such a proceeding was founded in reason, but it was not encouraged by the Government of the day, who adopted a directly opposite course. A large amount of arrears was forgiven in 1818, and at the same time the amount of the very moderate quitrent originally imposed was reduced. In 1830 a further change was made, the quitrent was abandoned, and a land-tax was substituted. About that time the policy of the great mass of the colonists, who had all along been opposed to the proprietary tenure, appeared to have changed, and, instead of seeking to obtain the forfeiture of the estates on the ground of non-compliance With the original conditions, they attempted to drive out the proprietors by imposing upon them excessive and unfair taxation. At the same time a reduction in the value of the colonial currency took place to such an extent that 18 d. currency became only worth 1s., a proceeding which reduced in that proportion the rents payable to the proprietors. In 1851 representative government was introduced into the colony, but no attempt was made to settle the land question. On the one hand the colonists complained that
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  the land was alienated, and on the other the proprietary felt aggrieved at being first placed, in consequence of the former acts of the government, in a position antagonistic to the colonists, and then handed over to a legislative body, which was not very likely to do them justice. In 1855 the master was brought to a crisis. The Governor sent home two Acts, one imposing a rate or duty on the rent-rolls of the proprietors for military expenses, and for the further encouragement of education, and the other giving compensation to tenants for improvements. The Imperial Government seldom interposed in the internal affairs of a colony to which representative institutions had been granted, but those Acts were found to be so bad in principle and defective in machinery that the then Colonial Secretary (Sir G. Grey) felt himself bound in November, 1855, to disallow them both. It was to be remarked, too, that the Governor, in sanctioning them, spoke quite as strongly as the right hon. Baronet of the danger of the principle thereby established, and said he only gave his assent to these measures, in the hope of averting still greater evils which might arise from their rejection. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) who succeeded the right hon. Baronet wrote to the Governor in December, 1855, to express his intention to resist all measures of a similar character which were aimed at the spoliation of the proprietors. The right hon. Gentleman, feeling, however, the danger of leaving the matter open, suggested that an amicable settlement might be effected by these lands being bought up. The suggestion was acted upon in April 1856, both Houses agreed in proposing a loan of £100,000, to buy up these lands, and asked for the guarantee of the Imperial Legislature, promising to repay the loan in twenty years. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) assented to this request. From some cause the Bill was postponed last year, but a promise was given that it should be brought in early in the present Session. The revenue of the colony, which was £12,000 in 1848, was now between £28,000 and £30,000, being an increase in the proportion of five to two in eight years. The colony was free from debt, and though the expenditure nearly kept pace with the income there was a small available surplus. He would not enter into the details. Suffice it to say, that the net rental of the lands proposed for pur-

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  chase was £7,000 per annum, that their value was taken at twenty years rental, that a sinking fund was to be provided, and that the debt to be created would not extend over more than twenty years. The proposal now made would relieve the island from an embarrassment which it did not create for itself, and which had indeed been the direct work of the Imperial Government. The noble Lord concluded by moving that Her Majesty be authorized to guarantee the payment of a loan to an amount not exceeding £100,000 for the service of Prince Edward's Island, with interest not exceeding 4 per cent., and that provision be made out of the Consolidated Fund for the sum payable under this guarantee.
  MR. BLACKBURNsaid, this was one of the legacies left to the present, by the late Government, and was one which he supposed they would rather not have received. He trusted that the Committee would not agree to this Resolution. No reason had been given why, if the tenants of these lands wished to buy up the fee-simple, they should not do it individually; but it was proposed that it should be done by a guaranteed loan of £100,000. Now Parliament had objected entirely to the principle, and he thought the most simple way would be to negative this Resolution.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That Her Majesty be authorized to guarantee the repayment of a Loan, to an amount not exceeding £100,000, for the Service of the Colony of Prince Edward Island, together with the interest thereon, not exceeding 4 per centum per annum; and that provision he made, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for the payment from time to time of such sums of money as may become payable by Her Majesty under such guarantee.
  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.
  House adjourned at a Quarter after One o'clock.