COMMITTEE (1862) ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE. (Hansard, 28 April 1863)

§ MR. KER SEYMER
, in moving that the Analysis of Evidence appended to the Report of the Select Committee of 1862 on the subject of the utilization of sewage be cancelled, said, he had two objects in view—first, to induce the House to take cognizance of an irregularity which had occurred in the proceedings of the Select Committee; and next, to obviate, if possible, the serious practical difficulty likely to flow from that irregularity. The Committee was moved for and obtained early in the last Session by the hon. Member for Leitrim, and met in March. It took a great deal of very valuable evidence, which was closed on the 26th of May. Then a very long and unusual adjournment, which he should like to hear explained, occurred till the 3rd of July. In the absence of the Chairman, a further adjournment to the 24th of July took place, and on the 28th of that month the Committee produced its Report. The Report was drawn up by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, and contained little or no debatable matter. He now came to the analysis of evidence prepared by the Chairman. He could assure the Members of the Committee that whatever conclusions they might have arrived at, and however he might differ from them, he should not presume to impugn them in that House. What he complained of was this, that all debatable matters, being excluded from the Report, were produced and brought prominently forward in the analysis of evidence. It was not the duty of the person who drew up the analysis to pass by one whole class of evidence, and to give prominence to the evidence of certain other witnesses who agreed with him in their views. This was the complaint which he made of the analysis in the present case. It imputed to Professor Way, who was one of the witnesses, that he had suppressed the truth, and also unfairly represented his evidence in other respects. Indeed, what purported to be an analysis of the evidence was in substance a second Report, and evidently that was the view 921 taken at a meeting of the Farmers' Club, where the analysis had been spoken of in a very irreverent manner. He was sure, however, that if the analysis had been discussed as a Report, paragraph by paragraph, it never would have been agreed to. His other object was to obviate the mischief the analysis was calculated to do. As he had observed, the agriculturists were not likely to be deceived by it, and in that he was borne out by the report in the Mark Lane Express of the fanners' meeting, where Mr. Mechi and Mr. Campbell, of Rugby, an excellent authority on the subject, had condemned the analysis as fallacious and dishonest. But town councils and other municipal bodies not conversant with agricultural questions might be misled by the analysis of evidence, and induced to incur expenses which would be ruinous to the ratepayers. As to the value of sewage as manure, he believed that when sewage was properly applied it was very useful in that respect, but he could not think the mode of application recommended by the hon. Member—namely, that of spreading small quantities over large areas by means of jet and hose—was a good one. The House was much guided by precedents in the matter, and he found that in one instance, where a Report had been drawn up by the Chairman after the Committee had ceased to sit, that Report, upon investigation, was cancelled. He did not believe that exactly such a case as the present had before occurred; but, as he contended that this was really not an analysis of evidence, he should move that that so-called analysis, appended to the Report of the Select Committee on Sewage of Towns, in Session 1862, he cancelled.

MR. PAGET
said, he would second the Motion. Although a Member of the Committee, it was not for a long while after the "analysis of evidence" was ordered to be printed that he discovered that it was not an analysis but consisted of deductions from evidence, animadversions upon evidence, and statements as to the opinions of the Committee upon such and such points. It was not right that such a document should be published to the world as containing the opinions of the Committee when that Committee had not enjoyed the usual opportunity of expressing those opinions.

§ MR. BRADY
said, that had certain Returns connected with the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the best 922 mode of utilizing the sewage of their towns and cities and applying it to beneficial and profitable purposes been given to him in time, he should have been able to prove that, strictly speaking, there was no Commission; that it had merged into one gentleman's hands, and that gentleman the largest manufacturer of artificial manure in the kingdom, who naturally had a direct interest in trying to show that sewage was not comparable in point of value to artificial manures. When the question was last under discussion the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cowper) lauded Mr. Lawes as a great benefactor to his country; but Baron Liebeg in his pamphlet on The Principles of Agricultural Chemistry, referring to that gentleman's experiments, said— With regard to the scientific principles by which Mr. Lawes is guided, it is worthy of notice that all these mixtures [of fertilizers] are made without any understanding of the case and without reflection, as if determined by more chance, And again— I should gladly have renounced all endeavours to oppose the errors of Mr. Lawes if his experiments had contributed ever so little to the scientific restoring of the fertility of the land. There were three propositions which he wished to submit to the House—First, that the agriculture of England at present suffered from the want of manure; secondly, that that want was, to some extent, supplied by the importation and manufacture of artificial manure; and thirdly, that it was not for the interest of those engaged in that trade that any change should be made in the existing state of things.

MR. LYGON
said, he rose to order. The hon. Member should confine himself to the subject before the House—namely, the analysis of evidence appended to the Report of the Committee.

§ MR. SPEAKER
said, he could not say that the hon. Member was out of order.

§ MR. BRADY
said, he denied that the question of sewage utilization was one of mere abstract science; it was nothing more nor less than a mere trade question, and those who, under the cloak of science, were pretending to deal with and examine into it in the interest of the public, were, almost without exception, themselves deeply engaged in the manure trade, and in the enjoyment of the profits derivable from the present monopoly. It was buzzed about in that House, and in a journal 923 specially devoted to the interests of the artificial manure manufacturers, that he was actuated by a personal and sordid motive. That was openly stated in that journal because he happened to know Mr. Ellis, who was the promoter of a plan for the utilization of sewage. He (Mr. Brady) had only simply to say that there was not a word of truth in those insinuations. With reference to the analysis of evidence which, at a great expenditure of time, labour, and anxiety, he had prepared for the information of the Committee, and to assist them in the preparation of their Report, did the hon. Mover of the present Motion mean to assert that he had not a perfect right to draw up that document for the instruction of the Committee? Did he mean to say that the Committee over which he had presided were not entitled to examine the document, reject it, or amend it, or order it to be reported to the House with the evidence? His Committee took it into consideration for two days, and ordered it to be printed and reported to the House. In consequence of the premature closing of the labours of the Committee, he had not thought himself in a position to prepare a Report: but instead, he prepared an analysis of the evidence as far as it had gone, giving to the Committee his opinion as to what had been proved. Amongst other things, he stated that in his opinion it had been proved that in 1,250 tons of town sewage there was an amount of manure which, if extracted and dried, would correspond to one ton of Peruvian guano. Even Mr. Volcker, the bitter enemy of a proper utilization of sewage, admitted that all chemists were agreed on that point. The observations he had made in his analysis had given great offence to Mr. Way, but he contended that those observations were perfectly justified by the evidence of Mr. Way. Another of his statements was that sewage was suited to all crops. Mr. Lawes thought differently, but he (Mr. Brady) was supported by no less an authority than Lord Essex. The value of sewage, when applied to land in a proper way and at a proper time, was abundantly and conclusively proved by the experiments of Lord Essex and others. The great thing was not to pour more sewage upon the soil than it had power to absorb. The hon. Gentleman had treated his friend Mr. Miles with scant courtesy. In fact, he had scarcely given him credit for veracity.

§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTON
said, he rose to order. The question before the House was whether the hon. Member for Leitrim, in his capacity of Chairman of the Committee, had not laid before the Committee an analysis of evidence which did not fairly represent the evidence. Consistently with the rules of debate, he believed the speech of the hon. Member ought to be addressed to that point, whereas it seemed to be rather a general summary of the evidence itself than any reply to the Motion before them.

§ MR. SPEAKER
said, he was very unwilling to say anything to curtail the observations of the hon. Member, but the Motion before the House certainly was whether the analysis of the evidence was a correct one, and drawn in the regular Parliamentary form. That was not the question to which the hon. Gentleman had been addressing himself for some time past. He had been discussing rather the evidence itself than the correctness of the analysis which was before the House.

§ MR. BRADY
said, he was sorry to trespass on the time of the House; but as the hon. Member had attempted to prove from the evidence that the statements made in the analysis were not correct, he thought he was justified in the course which he had taken. The public mind was sensitively alive to the subject, and it was clear now that it could not be burked. He hoped that there would be further inquiry by a Committee, and that the important question of utilizing sewage would at length be solved.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he regretted that the objections to the analysis of evidence had not been limited to the matter of form, instead of introducing a controversy which had been for six months raging out of the House. As to the informality, the Committee shared the blame with the hon. Member for Leitrim. The analysis of the hon. Member who was the Chairman of the Committee was questioned, and the Committee adopted his Report. He, however, thought that as the hon. Member for Leitrim had taken great pains in preparing his document, it should be printed with the Report, and the Committee assented to it. He believed that it was technically wrong, and that it was absolutely necessary it should be withdrawn; but there would be no reflection on the hon. Member.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that after what had fallen from the hon. and learned 925 Member for the Tower Hamlets, he supposed there could be no objection to the Motion. If an hon. Member submitted a draught Report and took a division upon it, it would appear as part of the proceedings; but it was not competent to print the individual opinion of a Member without any vote upon it. There had been a mistake, and the document, therefore, ought to be removed from the records of the House.

§ MR. BRADY
said, he was not responsible for the mistake, any more than the rest of the Committee, but under the circumstances he would assent to the Motion.

§ SIR JOHN SHELLEY
observed, that he must protest against any imputation on Mr. Lawes.