QUESTION. (Hansard, 1 August 1862)

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether a Conference is about to take place at Constantinople regarding the late events in Servia; and whether any mitigation has been obtained by Her Majesty's Government in the employment of forced labor on the Suez Canal? The slavery of America, he contended, was not so bad as that of the forced labor that was now being employed on this canal.

MR. SEELEY
, reverting to the topic introduced by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Sir M. Peto), complained of the want of courtesy shown in the answer of the noble Lord the Secretary of the Admiralty. He thought the Government were too prone to charge hon. Members who brought forward Motions with knowing nothing about the matters on which they spoke. He contended that his hon. Friend (Sir M. Peto), who was one of the largest employers of labor in this country, was peculiarly well qualified to give advice on this question, whether ships could be built more cheaply by the contract system than by the Admiralty system. He was not aware of any single measure of reform obtained by the 1148 House during the present Session; but if, in the opinion of hon. Members, the expenditure of the country was enormous, they had a right to express that opinion. Sixty or seventy Gentlemen on the benches near him were returned by 400,000 voters, and represented 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people; and, with all deference to the noble Lord and his colleagues, their opinions should not be sneered at, and they would not be put down by the statement that they knew nothing on the subject. They should look to the defenses of the country in two points of view—what was necessary for aggressive warfare, and what was necessary for defense. It might be very well to be always armed and ready to inflict a blow on an enemy, if it cost nothing; but it cost a great deal of money. There was no one on the benches near him that would refuse any sum for the defense of the country. They would be fools if they did they had property in trade and commerce, and in everything that would be most injured by anything in the shape of an attack. ["Hear, hear!"] The landowners might laugh, but their property would not be so much injured by an invasion as the property of persons engaged in commerce. No Member of the House—no man throughout the country—had acted as if he thought there was a probability of an invasion. Would they go on extending their concerns if they feared an invasion? What would become of all their property if an invasion took place?

§ MR. LAYARD
did not know that he could give the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Darby Griffith) any further information beyond that he had given on a former occasion. He then stated, indeed, that 25,000 men were employed in forced labor, for which it was alleged they were paid; but he believed that statement was below the mark, and that from 70,000 to 80,000 men were taken from their ordinary labors in their own villages, to aid in the construction of the Suez Canal. Such a course of proceeding must be productive of great misery, and must seriously interfere with the production of the most advantageous occupation for labour—for instance, the production of cotton. There was, however, no mode by which this Government could intervene, as in all treaties with the Turkish Government the latter reserved power to employ labor of that description. He could only hope that the Pasha would perceive the infinite mischief which such a course of proceeding would entail upon 1149 his country, and would put an end to a system that entailed so much suffering and hardship.