Commons Sitting of 11 April 1864

MINUTES
NEW MEMBER SWORN—The Right Honourable Edward Cardwell,for Oxford City.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Scientific Institutions (Dublin).
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—ARMY ESTIMATES.
PUBLIC BILLS — Ordered— Church Building and New Parishes Acts.
First Reading—Thames Conservancy * [Bill 60]; Church Building and New Parishes Acts Amendment* [Bill 61].
Second Reading—Common Law Procedure (Ireland) Act (1853) Amendment * [Bill 43].
Referred to Select Committee—Government Annuities [Bill 11], Adjourned Debate [17th March] resumed.
Third Reading— Warehousing of British Spirits* [Bill 54], and passed.

THE HIGHWAYS ACT.—QUESTION.
MR. LIDDELLsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to move for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry into the operation of the Highways Act, previous to introducing further legislation on the subject, or any amendments of the said Act?
SIR GEORGE GREY, in. reply, said, he thought an inquiry would be desirable before they attempted to make any ex-

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tensive change in the law relating to Highways; but although the Act was in operation in a great many parts of the kingdom, yet it had not been so for a sufficiently long period to test its effects. He was, therefore, afraid that an inquiry by a Committee would necessarily be an imperfect one, owing to the want of experience of the working of the measure. He could not, therefore, propose a Committee of Inquiry in the present Session. The amended Bill, which he hoped to introduce, would not be an extensive measure, but only intended to remedy some defects found to exist in certain districts of the country, and which were said to interfere with the useful operation of the law.

DENMARK AND GERMANY—THE CON FERENCE.— QUESTION.
MR. HORSMAN: Sir, I have a question to put to the noble Lord at the head of the Government with respect to the coming Conference on the affairs of Denmark. I assume that in the Conference our representative may undertake certain engagements on the part of England which will not be valid until ratified by the Crown in the exercise of its prerogative under the advice of its responsible Ministers. The question I have to ask is, Whether Ministers, before they determine upon the advice they shall give to the Crown, will submit such engagements to the consideration of Parliament, so as to obtain the consent of Parliament before they advise their ratification by the Crown?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, my right hon. Friend is no doubt well aware that, in a mixed Constitution like ours, each branch has its separate functions, though those functions are very often so interwoven with one another that it is very difficult to draw a definite line between them. Nothing but great forbearance on the part of each branch enables the aggregate whole to work harmoniously as a Government. But there are matters in respect to which the line is distinct, precise, understood, and acknowledged. Such is the case with regard to the functions of negotiating and making treaties with Foreign Powers. That function is known to be distinctly with the Crown, acting under the advice of its responsible Ministers; and if the case should arise which is contemplated by my right hon. Friend, of which I am not at all aware, we should deem it our duty to adhere
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strictly to the spirit and practice of the Constitution.
MR. HORSMAN: I hope the noble Lord will excuse me, but I am afraid I have not made my question quite intelligible. I know, of course, that the Government would adhere, in whatever course they may adopt, to the principles and practice of the Constitution; but my question has reference to the practice of the Constitution so far as this, that the Crown exercises its prerogative under the advice of its responsible Ministers, and that those Ministers act under the control and advice of Parliament. I therefore wish to know whether Her Majesty's Ministers, before tendering their advice to the Crown, will give Parliament an opportunity of considering it?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I thought my answer went precisely to that point. It is not the practice, nor is it in accordance with the principles of the Constitution, that the Crown should ask the advice of its Parliament with respect to engagements which it may be advised are proper to be contracted. I ought, perhaps, to have added something with regard to the question of my right hon. Friend, whether, if the Plenipotentiary of England in the Conference should agree to certain engagements which would afterwards have to be ratified by the Crown, Parliament would be consulted between those two events. My right hon. Friend must be aware, that by international usage, the only ground upon which a Sovereign can refuse to ratify engagements made by a duly authorized Plenipotentiary, acting of course upon instructions, is that he has entered into such engagements either without instructions or against instructions. There is a Conference to be held in London, and it is not to be supposed that my noble Friends who are to represent this country will act either without instructions or against instructions.
MR. HORSMAN: Is there any case of exceeding instructions?
VISCOUT PALMERSTON: If a Plenipotentiary goes beyond his instructions he does that which is not authorized by his instructions, and therefore he acts either without instructions or against instructions.

THE ARMY ESTIMATES.—NOTICE.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he wished to give notice, that in the event of his not being able to get Votes to-night

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in Committee of Supply on the Army Estimates, he should ask the House to pass a Vote on account to-morrow evening.
LORD HOTHAMsaid, he wished to know whether the noble Lord intended to limit himself to-morrow night to asking for a Vote on account, or whether he proposed to take his chance of the double event of getting a Vote in Supply and taking a Vote on account?
THE MARQUESS HARTINGTONsaid, they hoped to be able to get a Vote in Supply that night, but if they were not able to do so, he would ask the House to give them a Vote on account.

GOVERNMENT ANNUITIES BILL— [BILL 11].

  COMMITTEE. ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [17th March], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair;" and which Amendment was, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words" The Bill be committed to a Select Committee," — (Sir Minto Farquhar,)—instead thereof.
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Debate résumed.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he should be glad to promote any proceeding which might lead to practical legislation on the subject of Insurances for the working classes, but the question before the House was not whether they should legislate for the evils that had long existed in regard to the conduct of Assurance Societies, but whether they should at once pass the Bill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer without any inquiry, and without satisfying themselves by any authentic means or evidence of the reasonable character and necessity for passing that Bill. He was in favour of the proposition of the hon. Gentleman opposite for a Select Committee. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had thought proper to make important statements involving very grave imputations upon existing institutions. No doubt hon. Members connected with those institutions would be able to defend whatever admitted of defence in the conduct of their affairs, but he was bound to ask himself whether, supposing the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were true, they afforded
  790
  any reason for the Bill under consideration. Supposing, as stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there had been an immense collapse of Life Assurance Companies within the last eighteen years, it only proved that there had been great eagerness to carry on that business; for, besides that great collapse, no less than 220 companies were projected in the same time, and did not even take root so far as to be regarded as having been founded. It proved that thousands of persons had been ready to embark in business of assurance of all kinds, but the market was so overstocked by the companies already formed, of standing and position, that they were not able to obtain sufficient custom to keep them alive. But if that was so, what necessity was there for the Government to interfere in that business? The right hon. Gentleman said that many of these societies conducted their business badly, but he really had not entered sufficiently into the merits of the question. Many Assurance Societies with large capital, and resting on a solid foundation, rejected for the most part the small premiums paid by the working classes, because they knew that that branch of business was attended with such risks and difficulties as would probably involve more loss than gain to them. Surely, then, the State ought to hesitate before it embarked in operations which men accustomed to large undertakings shrank from. The right hon. Gentleman sought to enlist the favour of the House for the measure by citing the success attained by his Post Office savings banks; but so far from the results of their legislation relating to savings banks affording any support to the Bill, they went rather to establish an opposite conclusion. There used, no doubt, to be great abuses in the management of savings banks, and it was necessary to legislate on the subject. Chancellors of the Exchequer, some time ago, without correcting these evils, brought forward measures which those who managed these institutions thought necessarily tended to put an end to them. Consequently, the proceedings of those Chancellors of the Exchequer were opposed in that House; and the right hon. Member for Wiltshire (Mr. Sotheron Estcourt), in order to defeat the late Sir George Lewis, moved for a Committee of Inquiry. The Committee sat, and found that the savings of the whole body of the working classes were, to a considerable extent, imperilled from defective legislation. The Government

  791
  ought at once to have taken the Report of that Committee into consideration, and proposed a law giving adequate protection to the deposits of the people. But, though asked to bring in a Bill founded on that Report, the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused; and why? Because he had conceived the project of establishing Post Office savings banks. He, therefore, felt himself at liberty to neglect all the warnings given by that inquiry, and contented himself with setting up a rivalry between the Government and the existing savings banks. That was an abandonment of the duty incumbent on a responsible Minister of the Crown, of watching over the general interests of the people; and it ought to operate as a caution to them against a repetition of the same error in regard to Friendly and Benefit Societies. It had been left to him and one or two other private Members to deal with the subject which the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to have taken up, and they had to bring in a Bill to amend and consolidate the law relating to savings banks. The first difficulty they had to encounter was the impossibility under which private Members laboured of passing through the House a Bill of that character, unless they cut it down to the narrowest possible limits; and, therefore, they were obliged to reject several valuable provisions for a reform of these institutions. The hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) had proposed that the savings banks might be made to facilitate the system of small Life Assurances for the people; but the promoters of the Bill were unable to entertain that suggestion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not undertake the responsibility of dealing with it; and so the people were deprived of that most legitimate opportunity of using the savings banks effectually for carrying out the very objects which the right hon. Gentleman now had in view. That illustrated the necessity of keeping the Government from operations like this, which could be and were managed by institutions wholly apart from the State. But the right hon. Gentleman said the Post Office savings banks had been very successful, and by their rivalry had improved the administration of private institutions. Now, he denied that proposition. In 1858, when the agitation which had existed against the savings banks generally was put an end to, the deposits in the savings banks were
  792
  £36,200,000; and from 1858 to 1860, being a period of only two years, after confidence had been restored, they increased no less than five millions sterling. From 1860 to the present time, since the Chancellor of the Exchequer declined to take upon his shoulders the responsibility of watching over these institutions, and set up as a rival in their business instead, what had been the result? In 1860 the gross capital was £41,258,000; and in 1863 that gross capital was £41,237,000; being a decrease of £21,000, It was a great question, then, whether the Post Office Savings Banks Bill had been any great advantage at all. But a possible future evil might arise from the Post Office savings banks. Let them once reach the position of having a capital such as could be felt in the money market in London; let them be as successful as other savings banks had been, and let there be 40 millions accumulated and payable on demand, and he ventured to predict that it would be in the power of any man, however insignificant, in a time when the interest for money was high and the wealthy got 5 or 6 per cent, to raise a cry that the poor were only getting 2½ per cent, and that cry would re-echo through the kingdom, and there was not a merchant or banker in that House who would not go down on his knees and beg that that 2½ per cent should be made 3 or 4 per cent to save the country from the consequences of the demand that must necessarily arise for the payment of that money. The danger incident to that mode of legislation was that it brought the people face to face with the Government, and there would be no intermediate moral influence operating such as existed in regard to all other savings banks, in the case of which, moreover, there were legal restrictions which would prevent such a contingency arising. The whole tendency of these transactions with reference to savings banks warned them to be careful as to what they should do on the present occasion. To his mind they afforded a conclusive argument in favour of the most full and complete investigation of the merits and application of the Bill before them. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in moving the second reading, had not made any reference to the efforts of working men for improving the condition of their fellows; for, whatever he might think of the labours of such

  793
  persons, there could be no doubt they had been far more useful than extreme freetraders were apt to imagine. No doubt there had been an immense development of industry as the result of free trade; but, to use the language of Adam Smith, the higher they carried organized industry the greater the degradation they might inflict on the people; and he believed that result would have been seen in England but for the labours of those who had associated themselves for the purpose of having their labour respected, and compelling employers to conduct themselves with some regard to moral restraints. It was a pity, then, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken in so disparaging a tone of Mr. Potter, a man who was admired and respected by the working classes, and those who were associated with him. Such remarks were likely to give reason to suspect the motives for the introduction of the measure, and it was to be regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not made a more complete and frank apology to the House than he had yet done. He had evinced an amount of ill-feeling which was wholly unnecessary for the purposes of his Bill. With respect to that class of Assurance Societies that were likely to be affected by the Bill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had thrown a cloud of odium upon them by speaking of them as creatures of the State, subsidized by considerable bounties; but he did not explain in his usual clear manner what he meant by those statements. Friendly Societies received, some of them, rates of interest higher than those which now prevailed; but that was only the result of past errors of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessors in office, and was not to be regarded as a boon given at the present moment. The Government had no alternative but to adhere to its engagements to these societies. These were founded upon the then current rate of interest, and no precautions had been taken that, when it was reduced, the societies should submit to a corresponding reduction in the rate they received. It could not, therefore, be said that these institutions were subsidized by the State, but that the country was paying for the errors of past legislation. It could not be said that these institutions were really subsidized by the State in the shape of small exemptions from taxation; they were rather relieved from what would otherwise be an unjust and oppressive
  794
  burden. When it was recollected for what purpose they were established, he did not think these institutions should be described as protected societies, using the old shibboleth of Protection in its invidious signification. They were not protected in the sense of an abuse of protection; they only enjoyed the requisite securities for carrying out their most beneficent design. But these institutions, it was said, were badly managed, and the only way to remedy that evil was for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have a model institution of his own, and leave some 20,000 institutions, in which hundreds of thousands of persons were interested, entirely at the mercy of accident and circumstances on the grand principle that free trade would bring about a cure. That was a most dangerous doctrine to accept in all the latitude of its announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What were the evils of the Friendly Societies? If they carefully and minutely examined into the matter, they would be able to arrive at the conclusion that there were specific general heads of mismanagement, which being cured, all the rest that was necessary would follow as a consequence. They might be summed up in two or three remarks, and illustrated in a thousand different ways, but they would result in two or three simple points in the end. He granted that it was true that they were ignorantly established with insufficient tables to accumulate the funds necessary to meet liabilities; and great loss and misery had in some instances ensued. But was there no remedy? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Bill was sound, they would be told there was an ample remedy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was said, had arrived at a theory and a principle that he could construct a table for working men's assurance that would operate of itself without any special knowledge of circumstances, and free from all risk and danger. If there was that patent table—if the nation could adopt it and make it the foundation of a new law, and work it out for all the people of England, was it not the duty of the House to see that the same table was made compulsory on these Assurance Companies? But others would say that the Bill was unsound, and that they could not have a universal table that would be self-working without loss or inconvenience. If so, there was an end of the argument. That was one difficulty. Then it was said the people suffered on account of lapsed policies.

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  He was really surprised to find the Chancellor of the Exchequer had fallen into this error of puffing Assurance Companies. The objection was evidently unsound when it came to be examined in detail. Of course, every one who paid and allowed his policy to lapse contributed something and got nothing in return; the accumulated fund was thus greatly increased; and if there was no lapse the companies would be obliged to charge a great deal more. In order to show how fallacious was the great argument about lapsed policies, he would refer to what had taken place under the present system. By the existing law a man could purchase an annuity absolutely, without any claim to a contingent return of payments, or he might purchase one upon certain conditions, giving him the power to receive back a certain amount. Thus it appeared from the Government tables, that if a man aged twenty-two wished to secure himself an annuity of £12 when he attained the age of sixty, and was willing to run the risk of the policy lapsing before the time of his receiving the benefit derived, he would have to pay 2s. per month. If, however, he desired to reserve to himself the power of getting back, under any contingency, the money he had paid, he would be required to pay 3s. per month. Thus, by the Government system, as it now existed, a man who chose to run the risk of his policy lapsing, could insure for 50 per cent less than under the other arrangement. But if there was a doubt of the view taken by the great bulk of the people as to this great evil of lapsing policies, he would again refer to the practice under the existing system. There had been, up to the present time, 10,800 annuities granted, amounting to £219,000 per annum, for which no less than £2,522,000 had been paid. But under the other arrangement, of insuring against the lapse of policies, only £59,000 had been paid for annuities. It was plain, therefore, that the boon of guarding against lapse of policies was regarded by the public as merely nominal and illusory. Then again, it had been said that the expense of the management of the Friendly Societies had been very great. That was true, but he feared that it was impossible for any society to avoid large expenses when engaged in minute transactions with the people. It was impossible to persuade people that it was for their interest to take their pence every week or
  796
  month to the Insurance Office to pay the premiums; but they would have a collecting agent to call at their houses, although the cost of such a proceeding entailed upon them a charge of 25 per cent. If the officers of any of those societies were asked upon that point, they would state that if they did not go themselves to gather the pence, their business would speedily come to nothing. It was the same with these offices as it was with the baker, and although it was possible for him to make a 41b. loaf, the people were not satisfied they had their weight unless they had a bit of bread over. It was impossible to alter the habits of the people, and it was useless to complain that the present mode of insuring was expensive, nor was that a reason for Government interference. Another objection, and a strong one, was that the smaller Friendly Societies conducted their business at public-houses. That was an objectionable state of things, but it was not an evil that could not be got rid of. If Parliament were to enact that it should be illegal for these societies to hold their meetings at public-houses, an end would at once be put to the system, and school-houses and similar places would be selected instead. But it must be recollected that the working classes were not without excuse in the example of other classes who met in taverns to discharge their business. In the City of London there was a great corporation which seemed to exist only for the purpose of feeding people; and, in our courts of justice, the Judges and barristers had to qualify themselves by the processes of eating and drinking, and a Queen's Counsel could not rise to the dignity of the Bench unless he almost swam in wine up to the table at which he sat. These things no doubt had an effect upon the people, but they were no arguments for the Chancellor of the Exchequer setting up an opposition establishment. He wished, however, to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what was really the source of this proposal — the opinion of Mr. Tidd Pratt. That gentleman was invested with the authority over all the Friendly Societies, but from want of moral influence he was incapable of exercising that authority. He was, doubtless, an active and intelligent gentleman, but the people all over England would not be governed by a person in an office in London. The consequence was that Mr. Tidd Pratt's communications were disregarded.

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  But there was a remedy other than this Bill. If the moral weight of a recognized officer of the Crown holding a position in the country was brought to bear upon the Friendly Societies, there could be no doubt but that those societies would be managed as well as the Poor Law Board, or any other Government department was managed. When it was found that the Manchester Unity Friendly Society was badly managed, their central committee having great influence, remonstrated with the branch offices, the result of which was that reforms were introduced which made the society the best managed in the country. But what kind of a remedy would the Bill be for the evils now complained of? Were all the existing members of these societies to be left exposed to those evils, or were private Members of Parliament to be expected to take up that subject? It seemed to him that Mr. Tidd Pratt himself had suggested a scheme which was worthy of consideration. That Gentleman had proposed a Bill to place the supervision of those societies in the Boards of Guardians. The Bill was introduced into the other House, but as it was to some extent a taxing Bill it could not be passed; and he (Mr. Ayrton) had intended to introduce it with some modifications into this House. It would be well that the provisions of the Bill should be explained to the Committee before any decision was come to as to the Bill now under discussion. The area over which the system would extend would be enormous, though not so large as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated. He believed, however, that without limitation or diminution it would include 9,500,000 persons. If the Bill were successful, the result would be that in every parish and hamlet a stipendiary officer of the Crown would be located, whose duty it would be to institute an examination into the private affairs of individuals. The services of medical men and employers of labour would also be enlisted in the same direction, and such an organization would, he believed, be an unfortunate thing for all classes in the country. The Government would pursue a much better plan if they were to encourage the establishment of associations among the people themselves, for it was through the exercise of local administration that a nation became most fitted for the enjoyment of political rights. What they needed was a thorough and searching
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  inquiry into the real character of the Bill, and not an examination into the mis-doings of all the Insurance Societies in the country, the result of which would only afford matter for contention, and tend to the gratification of rival companies. The Committee ought to examine such men as Mr. Tidd Pratt, to have the evidence of practical and independent persons who had made such subjects the study of their lives. There was no reason why that course should not be adopted, because there was not the slightest necessity for passing the measure hurriedly through Parliament. The measure did not press; it did not matter whether the Bill were passed in three months' or twelve months' time. He did not desire to defeat legislation on the subject. On the contrary, the Bill he had intended to bring in might be considered as hostile to the Friendly Societies now existing, but it was on a principle different from the present Bill, and more in accordance with the character and spirit of our institutions.
  MR. HUBBARDconsidered, that much of the hostility displayed towards the Bill, was excited in consequence of its being introduced under a title which neither explained its real nature and character, nor the intentions of the Government in bringing it forward. He believed, however, that the defect had been atoned for by the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in which he had given the requisite information. Any prejudice which had existed against the measure arising out of the mode of its introduction had passed away, and there was much in it that commended it to the acceptance of the House. The principle that Government should not interfere with schemes which could not be satisfactorily undertaken by individuals or private societies was generally good, but there were undoubtedly cases in which the interference of Government would be attended with benefit. The establishment of banks for the receipt of the small savings of the labouring classes was an instance of this, for the security elsewhere could not be so great as that afforded by the Government, and the increased security would probably be the occasion of attracting more deposits, the result of thrift and frugality. He therefore thought it was a measure the House might fairly entertain. He looked upon it as an extension of the Post Office savings banks principle, which had received the sanction of the country. When Government pro-

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  posed to establish a rate of interest which could in any way be supposed to compete with the operations of other societies, jealousy would not unnaturally be excited; but in a case of that kind such a feeling need not arise. At present the Government paid upon these deposits the moderate rate of 2½ per cent interest, and repaid the capital in only one way—namely, at call. They now proposed to leave to the depositors the choice of receiving their money in the form of deferred annuities, or in a sum payable at death. No doubt, Government would incur a strong risk, but he did not regard that as an objection to the measure. If the Government thought they could accept the responsibility, and carry out the system without endangering the finances of the country, he for one should not object; but he would strongly impress upon the Government the advisability of paying the same rate of interest upon the deposit money, in whatever form it was to be withdrawn. It was his intention to support the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Sir Minto Farquhar), but he believed that there would be no difficulty in so framing the Bill as to meet at once the purpose of the Government and the views of those who were at present opposed to the measure.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, that he had received many letters both for and against the Bill, and in this conflict of testimony he must necessarily pause before he gave his vote. The question ought to be considered dispassionately in a Committee, and the House would be better able to form a judgment after that Committee had reported. One of the soundest principles of political economy was that the Government should never do that for the people which the people could do for themselves; and the question was whether the maxim had not been violated by the Government measure. On the other hand he was quite sure it would be to the advantage of the working classes to get the Government security, because the Government would be able to pay. He should vote for the Amendment.
  MR. THOMSON HANKEYsaid, he objected altogether both to the inquiry proposed and to the principle of the Bill. According to the practice of the House, to vote for a Committee was to sanction the principle of a measure, and that he was not prepared to do. There was great danger, if the Bill passed, of overloading that already
  800
  overloaded department—the Post Office, and of incurring great risks and liabilities hereafter on the part of the State. His vote would be given both against the Committee and against going on any further with the Bill.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: This discussion appears to have arrived now at its natural close, and this is the less to be regretted because possibly the Amendment of my hon. Friend does not present to the House any difference of opinion. The effect of the Amendment will be that the House, at its discretion, will name a competent number of Gentlemen as a Select Committee. These Gentlemen will meet and probably will appoint me, as the author of the Bill, the Chairman of the Committee. I should then have the opportunity of giving all the information which it is in my power to afford respecting the Bill, and the views with which I should endeavour to act upon it, assisted by such officers of the Government as were able to render me assistance. After the Committee had been nominated, a further question would arise—namely, whether the Committee should have power to send for persons, papers, and records. Upon this proposal would arise practically the question, whether the Committee shall be a Committee upon the clauses of the Bill, or a Committee of general inquiry into the subject of the Bill. I certainly could not agree to any general inquiry, and it is but right we should have a clear understanding upon the point. I see no mode by which if "persons, papers, and records" were to be sent for, the Committee could avoid falling into great difficulty. The officers of the Government, and persons favourable to the Government plan, who would be examined, would give evidence upon a very complex question, involving an immense amount of detail, and then the Committee would say very naturally that they were bound to hear persons of intelligence and information who entertained opposite views. Now, that is a kind of investigation which it would be totally impossible to undertake. In the first place, it would amount on my part to an entire abnegation of the regular and ordinary duties of my office were I to become in any degree the organ of the Government in conducting an investigation of this sort. In the next place, great practical evils would arise from an investigation which it would be impossible to separate from a great deal of controversial matter. It

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  would be said that it was necessary to inquire into the manner in which the Bill would operate upon the interests of existing societies, and this would essentially involve the inquiry how these societies were conducted, and whether it was a good part or a bad part of their management which would be affected. We should thus in effect become a Committee of investigation and inquisition into the management of these societies, and Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to become responsible for such an inquiry. But we may accept the Amendment as it stands, with the limitation I have mentioned, the fact being, I believe, that the appointment of a Committee is supported by some hon. Gentlemen who agree in thinking that a general investigation would be far from expedient. I will now notice two or three of the points which have been touched upon, with his usual ability, by my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Ayrton). Let me remind the House that this Bill was met by a powerful concerted and organized opposition. There is nothing in the fact discreditable to the parties with whom the opposition originated, for they had a perfect right to organize an opposition if they thought right. But I certainly never remember a case of a Bill which was the subject of such an opposition out of doors, and yet gained ground by long delay. Generally speaking a long postponement is fatal, but in this instance during the considerable interval which has elapsed since the Bill was introduced there has been a remarkable development of public opinion in its favour. I appeal to the opponents of the Bill as well as to its supporters, and I ask whether the opinion of the press has not been declared in a very singular degree in favour of the measure, irrespective, so far as I know, of party interests and opinions. Certainly, in my public life of thirty years, I have never received so many letters upon any one measure as I have with reference to this Bill, expressing approval and even gratitude from all classes of the community, and especially from those who have a strong interest in the question. At the commencement of the discussion upon the Bill there was a great number of petitions against it, many of them drawn up in a common form. Now, meetings are held in favour of the Bill, and petitions in its favour are coming forward—petitions from working men, who can have none but the most disinterested motives in supporting it. My hon. Friend (Mr. Ayrton) lately
  802
  presided over a great meeting at Exeter Hall, called in opposition to the measure; but the independent working men mustered so strongly on the other side, that my hon. Friend could not determine on which side the majority lay, though some who favoured the Bill said that, had they been in the chair, they should not have been at all doubtful. And lastly, I must say, I have observed with peculiar satisfaction, that not only some public meetings, but also boards of guardians in the country are beginning to give their minds to this matter, and from many places petitions have been presented on behalf of the boards of guardians, expressing a hope that this House will not withhold so great a boon to the working classes as they think this law will prove. Under these circumstances, I most cordially wish to return to the position in which we stood when this Bill was introduced, and to free the discussion from the controversial element. It was not of my will that this element crept into our debates on the Bill, and what I did afterwards I did under the pressure of a public necessity. I think, however, that this necessity has passed away, and therefore I have not a word of accusation or reproach to utter against any society or public company. But I wish to define the precise extent to which I meant to carry my remarks in respect of living societies. I do not mean dead societies, of which I introduced examples, but such societies as the Royal Liver, the British Prudential, and other societies. I did not presume to attach, nor do I think I should be justified in attaching to any of these societies a fraudulent character. What I meant to do was this—the societies adopted certain language. They said, "We are quite aware there is a great field for insurance among the people of England; it is quite true that there is a great portion of that field unoccupied; it is quite true that the Friendly Societies, notwithstanding the large numbers of their members, leave the unoccupied portion of that field untouched;" but they also said, "we are ready to do the work, and therefore we claim that you should leave us to do it, and not have the Government enter upon it." That being so, as against that exclusive claim, I thought it right, by reference to the manner in which the most staple and respectable Life Assurance Companies were conducted, to show that those societies were not entitled to set up so high a claim, and that they could

  803
  not give the working man so positive a security after his twenty, or thirty, or forty years' payments as the great Insurance Societies give to the wealthy classes where they made a judicious selection of an office for that purpose. That is the extent to which I went. I would not be justified in saying that any of the existing societies were fraudulent societies. I disclaim the imputation that I said so before, and certainly I do not say so now. But, when I used language which I regret to say I am not prepared to retract respecting the heartless iniquity that had been at work, I did not mean it to be understood that any such language was applicable to existing societies. I further said, and I repeat it now, regarding the Professional Society, and every other society to which I alluded, that, though I believe all my statements to have been correct, no one shall be better pleased if it can he shown that the construction I put on my facts was an erroneous one, and that although there may have been a want of prudence and a want of care, still no corrupt motives have been at work. I am told by my hon. Friend the Member for York that he is of that opinion with respect to the Professional Society, and I am glad to accept my hon. Friend's opinion on the point. I think the case was one of the most reckless, hazardous, and. even unjustifiable management; but still I am willing to believe that the facts are not incompatible with the absence of fraudulent intention on the part of the managers. My hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets has alluded to what I said on the subject of working men's trades unions, and expressed his regret that I had not made a full explanation and apology. My reason for not having made a more full explanation is, that I have not had the opportunity of doing so since I first spoke on the subject, though I intimated in two words my wish to do so. The explanation is briefly this:—On a former occasion I adverted to a meeting which had been held under the presidency of Mr. Potter, at Exeter Hall; and, as far as my memory serves me, I stated that the name of Mr. Potter had been very much connected with that sort of agency, and those proceedings on the part of trades unions which were believed by the public to imply the coercion of the minority of the working class by the majority of the working class. I have been assured since I made that statement that my description would
  804
  not be a true description of trades unions as they exist at present. I am told that there was a great deal of that character attachable to them in former times; but that the real advances which the working class has been making, not only in intelligence and in the means of existence, but in the whole view of their social duties, has essentially and materially altered the character of these societies, and that there are few of them, if any, against which the charge would lie. I can only say I made those observations out of no hostility or indifference to the working class. I believe that to this hour, in certain cases and in certain parts of the country, there are instances in which a portion of the working class still tyrannizes over its own members. Those proceedings, I am glad to hear, are certainly alien to the views and feelings of the trades unions of London; and, therefore, I am extremely glad to believe that there is no foundation for any charge of that description being made against them. My hon. Friend has also referred to two other points. He mentioned the question of tables. He said I had not overcome the difficulty which arose on that point, and he then referred to a plan by which it might be overcome —namely, by proposing to this House to enact that the use of a certain set of tables should be compulsory; but my hon. Friend seemed to lose sight of a grand distinction between assurance by Government and assurance by private societies. The grand difference in favour of private societies arises from the fact that, after all, the rate at which assurance business can be done depends in the main upon the rate at which the managers can, with prudence and propriety, be allowed to make investments. Private societies working for themselves can make investments at a rate which it is impossible to aim at. You cannot say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day and those who advise him that they are prudent men, and you will allow them to go into the money market and invest the public money to the best advantage. You compel them to invest in securities on which they can get only 3 or 3¼ per cent; but it would be a very great hardship if we were to come down to this House with a set of tables which would absolutely preclude any private societies from adopting any other investment. My hon. Friend, moreover, anticipates great danger from the successful working of this Bill, and he denies that

  805
  the Post Office savings banks have succeeded, alleging that all the money they have got has been filched from the old savings banks. Now, I take the liberty of saying that this last conclusion of his is one which he will not be able to prove by figures. Then, he says, if the time ever comes when a vast sum of money is in the hands of the Government on account of the Post Office savings banks, and if at the same time the rate, of interest is high, there will be what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire once called, I think, "an ugly rush," and we shall be called on to reimbuse those funds which will be only bearing 2½ per cent interest. [Mr. AYRTON: Or to pay a higher interest.] Yes, of course, that is an alternative. The rate of interest allowed on money deposited in the Post Office savings banks is now 2½ per cent; and I am not prepared to say it ought ever to be higher. At the same time, I do not altogether exclude from my mind the hope that some addition may yet be made in that respect, compatibly, of course, with the essential requisite that the public is not to subsidize the Post Office savings banks to the extent of a single farthing, but should even reserve to itself a margin sufficient for its own perfect security. Within the last few months we have had a singular example of the preference of the public for low interest on Government security, rather than high interest in other quarters. The Birmingham Savings Bank determined, in consequence of the Act of last year, to close their establishment. At that moment the rate of discount in London was 8 per cent, and there were, of course, plenty of people in Birmingham to make by advertisement to the depositors offers of high interest, to the extent of 5 and even 6 per cent for the money at call. There were 35,000 depositors, but I believe two-thirds of the whole number and of the entire capital, went to the Post Office banks, giving only £2 10 s., rather than to other banks giving much higher terms. I feel the greatest confidence in the political security of these banks, and even if the argument of the hon. Member were good as regards these institutions, it would not hold good in regard to the present measure. If a man chooses to insure with the Government a sum of money payable on death, he cannot very well fulfil the necessary condition and claim his money just because there happens to be a high rate of interest in the market, I
  806
  judge from the tone of the debate that the House thinks we have gone sufficiently into this subject, and I hope my hon. Friend opposite understands exactly from my explanation what the Government is prepared to do.
  SIR MINTO FARQUHARsaid, that supposing they agreed to the Committee without a division, he should at a future period propose the Committee to the House, and, in doing so, should follow it up by asking for leave to send for persons, papers, and records. He thought it desirable that the Committee should examine such gentlemen as Sir A. Spearman, Mr. Chadwick, Mr. Scudamore, Mr. Tidd Pratt, several actuaries, and three or four gentlemen connected with Friendly Societies and Industrial Insurance Offices. He should like that evidence to be distinctly taken and printed for the benefit of the House, so that they might be assisted to come to a decision on the subject.
  SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, he rose to say a few words on behalf of certain societies to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made allusion on more than one recent occasion in that House. The right hon. Gentleman had indulged in a series of observations regarding these societies which the House was little accustomed to. He stated that the Professional Society had transferred its business to the European Society, but that, in order to make themselves safe, the European made it a condition that the amount of liability should be inscribed on each policy, in a manner and under circumstances which the right hon. Gentleman described. This, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, was no better than wholesale robbery. And wholesale robbery it would have been if there had been a particle of truth in the right hon. Gentleman's description of the transaction. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went farther, and said that a good many of these proceedings were worse than wholesale robbery, and that many persons who had never seen the inside of a gaol were fitter to be there than many a rogue convicted ten times over at the Old Bailey. Did the right hon. Gentleman apply this to the European?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he had applied that expression to many transactions of the kind, namely, amalgamations, but not to that particular case.
  SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, it was then a misfortune that so great a master

  807
  of language should have expressed himself in such a way that there was not a man of common understanding who would not imagine that the right hon. Gentleman had referred to one or the other of those societies, or to both; but he was glad to receive the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman would, he was sure, feel gratified when he (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) stated that there was no ground whatever for imputing the slightest impropriety of conduct to either of those two societies. He did not understand what the right hon. Gentleman meant by saying that, supposing there was a policy for £1,000, the outstanding value was £600, and the premiums paid £200. How could a policy of assurance, while the person was in life, be worth more than the aggregate amount of premiums paid upon it? The Professional, owing, perhaps, to undue expenditure in the management, and the misfortune of having a defaulting secretary, who embezzled a large sum of money, was obliged to suspend its payments and resort to the Court of Chancery for winding up. The affairs of the society were investigated by the Master of the Rolls, and the very transactions which the right hon. Gentleman had condemned— the combination of the Professional and European — was made with the express sanction of that learned Judge. That transaction did not involve the principle that a policy of the value of £600 should be treated as worth a great deal less. At the time the Professional Society was wound up there were outstanding policies to the amount of £1,500,000, and debts amounting to £150,000, £100,000 of which was for ordinary liabilities and money borrowed, and £50,000 necessary to make up to the European the difference between the value of the policies upon which certain premiums had been paid and the policies upon which for the first time the European should then assume a liability. And this, so far from coming to anything like 60 per cent, if there had been any loss, which there was not, would amount to only 3 or 4 per cent. That which the right hon. Gentleman described as loss to the extent of 60 per cent amounted to only between 3 and 4 per cent, but was no loss at all, for the directors, who must have considered themselves in some respects responsible, in a pecuniary point of view, for the misdeeds of their officers, advanced £50,000 to meet their liabilities; and out of the £150,000 of liabilities £100,000
  808
  had already been discharged, a contribution of 2s. 6d. in the pound had been paid on the other £50,000, and a further call had been made under which every shilling would be eventually paid. He (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) was not a defender of all these Insurance Societies. He listened to the opening speech of the right hon. Gentleman, when introducing the. measure, with much gratification. He thought the Bill, if it passed, would effect a very great public benefit if judicious amendments were introduced into it in Committee. All that could be said in favour of the Bill he was prepared to say, with some modifications and qualifications; but, with regard to the Professional Society, there was no ground for imputing to the managers misconduct of any kind, or anything beyond that misfortune which might happen to any company. He was quite sure the right hon. Gentleman would take some opportunity of doing justice to those gentlemen.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he had paused for a moment before rising to reply, in. the hope that some Gentleman would say something about the society to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred, but he regretted that superior attractions had drawn Gentlemen away from the performance of that duty. He trusted, therefore, that after what the hon. and learned Gentleman had said, the House would allow him to make a few remarks by way of explanation. In the strongest part of the language which the hon. and learned Gentleman had quoted he did not refer particularly to the Professional Company, but alluded to other societies, which he did not think it necessary to name. When he spoke of the wholesale loss inflicted upon holders of policies of the Professional Company he meant to describe the effect of rash and reckless speculation, without imputing any improper motives. It too frequently happened that persons of great respectability involved themselves in undertakings of this kind, which had the effect of deluding and robbing others, without the smallest impurity of motive on their own part. He believed, after what the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated, that there was no impurity of motive on the part of the Professional directors. It was also to be hoped—and might, indeed, be believed—that nothing would ultimately be lost to such of the policy-holders as might have kept their policies alive; while

  809
  he did not think that the ruinous loss inflicted upon the shareholders was in the slightest degree attributable to any intention on the part of the Directors.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee.

  SUPPLY—ARMY ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  (1.) £5,708,983, General Staff and Regimental Pay, Allowances and Charges.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he rose to make a few remarks on the subject of recruiting for the army. It might appear to some that the question was one of those respecting the discipline of the army with which that House ought not to interfere, but the recruiting for the army was governed by an Act of Parliament, and it was to the effect of that Act he wished to draw attention. He regretted that a Return for which he had moved had not been laid upon the table, because it would have shown whether the alarm which had been expressed with respect to the working of the Limited Enlistment Act was well founded or not. On a previous occasion, the Under Secretary for War had stated that the War Office had no alarm whatever on the subject, because there were only about 4,000 men who would claim discharges on expiration of service during the year. For his own part, however, when he looked at the manner in which it was proposed to meet the requirements of the service, he confessed he felt the greatest possible alarm. If it was necessary in time of peace to reduce the standard of the army by one inch—in other words, if the ten years' service men were to be replaced by recruits of a lower standard—he thought things could not be regarded as in a satisfactory condition. He did not mean to say that good men could not be got at 5ft. 5in.; but his alarm arose from the War Office being obliged in time of peace to resort to a measure which ought to be reserved for some great emergency. Nor did he believe it to be absolutely necessary to reduce the standard at the present moment. Additional men were not wanted for the Artil-
  810
  lery. Recruiting for that corps might be checked by raising the standard; and then the standard for the line might be kept at 5ft. 6in. But, looking to the inevitable consequences of the Limited Enlistment Act, he should wish to see a more intimate relation established between the militia and the regular army, and he thought it could be established with advantage to both. Hitherto the line alone had derived all the advantage. He well recollected the great benefits which the line derived during the Indian mutiny from the volunteers and the militia; but he wanted to see those advantages increased and made reciprocal. Was it impossible to obtain for the militia the services of those limited service men who, after the expiration of their service, should decline to re-enter the line? By this means the militia would get many good non-commissioned officers, and a reduction could be made in the permanent staff, in the corps of enrolled pensioners, and in that army of reserve of which he never saw anything except in the Estimates. At present, by the Limited Enlistment Act, men for the artillery and the cavalry were enlisted for twelve years, whereas men for the line and for the Guards were enlisted only for ten. He did not see why they should not all be enlisted for twelve years, the men in the line at the expiration of ten years being allowed to commute their two years' remaining service in the regular army for five years' service in the militia. The expenses of recruiting for India were very high. He found, on reference to the Estimates, that although the regular army in India was only one-third of the whole army, the expense of recruiting for that portion was larger than for the remaining two-thirds. That might be because of the great wear and tear of the regiments in India. If so, nothing could be worse than reducing the number of the depots to a hundred men. If a regiment was ordered to India, any man within a year and a half of the expiration of his ten years' term of service was not allowed to go out, because the Indian Government would have to pay his passage there and back. But why should not such a man be passed into a militia regiment? The estimate for furlough pay was £130,000 last year, and for the ensuing year was £137,000. With respect to the capitation rate of £10, he could not help thinking that it would be found, if the matter were strictly examined into, that they had now to pay more than

  811
  the £10 would cover. With respect to men volunteering in India, he admitted the propriety of offering men who volunteered there from one regiment into another more inducements than the ordinary bounty; but who paid the expense for men who volunteered in India? There was a small sum put down in the Estimates for enlistments in the colonies, but that could not apply to India. He wished to ask, what were the items covered by the capitation rate; and what, after two years' experience, was the opinion of the War Office as to its being sufficient to cover the amount now paid by that department?
  COLONEL DUNNEthought it extraordinary that the War Department remained ignorant of the fact known to every officer of the army, that there were something like 20,000 men whose period of service expired in each year. They had no right to calculate upon these men re-enlisting, and there was not an officer in the service who would not recommend that the first enlistment should be for twelve years for the line as well as for cavalry and artillery. The suggestion of the right hon. and gallant Member who had just spoken, for securing a more intimate and advantageous relation between the regular army and the militia, was one well worthy of the attention of the Government. It was one of the most important subjects that could engage their consideration. As things stood, a great number of men were discharged from the army, perhaps without a pension, and then spread discontent where they resided. At any rate they were entirely lost to the service. As the ten years' men were not sent out to India with their regiments if they had only a year or two of their term to serve, and as a year or a year and a half was required to make soldiers of them, it was clear that the country enjoyed but a short period of efficient service from them. If these men who could not be sent out to India were transferred to militia regiments, they would improve the efficiency of the militia, and be retained in the service of the country. The capitation rate was, he thought, a very bad bargain for this country. He noticed at page 12 of the Estimates, an item of £44,500 for the clothing of two Indian regiments in China. He wished to have some explanation of that item. The whole of the clothing system was in a most unsatisfactory state. No army in Europe was clothed in so expensive a manner as ours;
  812
  and no commanding officer could at that moment tell what was the price of a single article of clothing; and the department, though presided over by an officer of great talent for organisation and great experience, was not in the condition it ought to be. He believed that the work would be better done by contract, and that the large Government clothing establishments should only exist as a check to extravagant outlay. He thought it quite practicable to make a large reduction in these Estimates without at all diminishing the efficiency of the army. With reference to the purchase of horses, they would require to alter their system, or the cavalry would soon be dismounted. But he felt it was perfectly useless going over items; they talked there year after year on the subject, but nothing was done.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, that although reduction could not be well looked for that year, he had no doubt that a proper, well conducted inquiry would lead to very considerable economy in the general expenditure on the Army Estimates; but instead of reduction he saw symptoms of their increase. In the observations he was about to make, it might appear that he differed from two axioms laid down by high authorities. The first was that of the right hon. and gallant General opposite (General Peel), that the cost of the army might be taken to be, in round numbers, £100 per man; but he presumed the gallant General did not mean that such was the necessary calculation, but only that of late years it might be accepted as a fact. If they went on as at present, he believed the gallant General would agree with him that the expenditure would not be limited to £100 per man. The second maxim was laid down by the late lamented Secretary of State for War, that there was nothing whatsoever to be gained by a comparison with other services. He could not agree that a careful comparison in particular items between the administration and management of the French army and our own would be altogether futile. The totals were certainly sufficiently striking. The British army might be taken in round numbers to consist of 147,766 men; the number of horses, 13,693, or one horse to every 11 men. The total estimated cost was nearly £15,000,000; but if they deducted Votes 8, 9, 10, and 11, for auxiliary forces, £1,209,509; Vote 14, for fortifications, £73,000; Vote 16, for surveys, £88,345; and Vote 27, for disembodied

  813
  militia, £31,213 — in all, £1,402,167, they would arrive at the conclusion that £13,442,721 represented the cost of the army, which gave £92 2s. 6d. per man. The total number of men in the French army was 400,000; horses, 85,705, or one horse to 4⅔ men. The total Estimate was 430,260,367f., which was equal to £17,210,414, or about £43 per man. The causes generally assigned for the greater cost of the English troops were:—1st, higher pay and allowances; 2nd, the cost of recruiting as compared to conscription; 3rd, the extra expenses of troops in the colonies; and 4th, the extra cost of transport of troops to and from colonies. He would discuss the first cause, which was the main one, later. The total cost of the recruiting service was £102,471, or very nearly 14 s. per man. The French recrutement et réserve was 739,479f., or If. 80c., or 1s. 6d. per man; therefore the extra cost of recruiting was 12 s. 6d. per man. The extra cost of our troops in the colonies comprehended, as allowance for high price of provisions and allowance for wives whose husbands were abroad, a sum of £47,000, and extra allowance for China, £49,395. This amounted to 13 s. per man. But in the French budget, under the head solde et entretien des troupes, he found allowances special to Africa—namely, allowance to officers entering on campaign and indemnity for campaign rations a sum of 2,822,859f., which was 7f., or 6s. per man. Therefore the extra cost of English troops in the colonies was 7s. per man. Then, as to the extra cost of the transport of troops to and from our colonies, the total English transport service, as given at page 17, was £179,330. To this should be added allowance to discharged soldiers to take them home, £18,000, and travelling-expenses of officers, £7,000, making the whole £188,759, or equal to about £1 8s. per man. The total of the French service de marche was equal to 14 s. per man. Therefore the extra cost of English troops was 14 s. per man. The amount of excess in the English Estimates, accounted for under these heads, was:—Cost of recruiting, 12 s. 6d. per man; troops in colonies, 13 s. per man; transport to colonies, 14 s. per man—in all, £1 19 s. 6d. The cost of the British soldier—namely, £92, might be divided into the heads of the Votes; but this would neither enable them to compare it with the French, nor, in some cases, give an accurate idea. Thus the Vote for regimental pay and allow-
  814
  ances might give the idea that it meant all that the men received; but, in reality, for this purpose they must add the item, "cost of provisions above amount of stoppages," which came under the Vote for Commissariat, but which was substantially an addition to the men's pay. So also Vote 1, "General Staff," to be compared with French Vote for Etats Majors, must be augmented by 159 generals who came under Vote No. 20, and by the honorary colonels commandant of regiments, because the French Vote comprised all "generals in reserve," and all officers except those serving with their regiments. And the French of "Etats Majors "must be diminished by "Intendance Militaire," which corresponded to part of Vote 18, and by several items which corresponded to parts of our Votes for "manufacturing departments," "works," and "education." The House would understand that he was making a comparison of the items which were common to both services. Thus the expense of the general staff was about the same in each country—£2 a head. Regimental pay and allowances for food cost in England £41 15 s. per man, and in France £20. The Commissariat charges were in England £1 1s. per man, and in France 14 s. Clothing was a remarkable item, for it could not be said that wo were disadvantageously placed in that respect, and certainly the French soldier was as well clothed as the English; but while the cost of the former was only £2 2s. 6d., the latter cost £4 6s. When the Committee came to discuss those Votes in detail, he would take an opportunity of pointing out the differences of cost with greater minuteness; but he believed one all pervading cause of greater expense here, was to be found in what was called the establishment. He might, however, instance some other difference between the cost of similar items in the two armies. Thus martial law in England cost 6s. per man, and in France only 2s. 6d. But, the cost of medical attendance was more nearly alike, being £1 16 s. in the English army, and £1 10 s. in the French, proving that on those matters which concerned the well-being and efficiency of the soldier, the French were not behind us. In the article of stores there was a remarkable difference — the cost being in the French army £1 10 s. per man, while in the English army it was about £8 10 s. The total of the votes would give a sum of £10 10 s. per man; but he had made a deduction for

  815
  the amount supplied to the navy based on a calculation of the late Sir Gr. C. Lewis. Small arms in England cost £1 6s. per man, and in France only 7s. 2d.; while gunpowder which cost us £1 8s. per man, only cost the French 16 s., although they were not more sparing of that article than we were. Then came an item of considerable importance. The House would admit that French military education was quite equal to ours, and yet the cost there was 6s. as against £1; 4s. here. Probably if any one was asked what would be the cause of any greater charge for military education in this country as compared with the cost in France, the answer given would be that our young men were more expensively lodged and fed. The fact, however, was, that the cost of living and clothing in the French colleges was as great as it was in England, but the cost of teaching and administration in our military colleges was double that of the French. The administration of the French army cost 4s. 6d. per man, as compared with £1 7s. in England. Rewards and pensions cost us £14 4s., and the French only £6 6s., but he thought we got value for our greater expenditure in that respect. These facts certainly required consideration, for there could be little hope that the cost of the pay of the army would be reduced. On the contrary, it was more probable that it would become politic as well as just to increase the pay as the general prosperity of the country increased, but that fact rendered increased economy in the administration of the army more necessary. The cost of a French army of 400,000 men if paid, lodged, and pensioned as well as the English army, with as costly medical attendance, would be, instead of £17,200,000, as at present, £31,050,000, or an additional cost of £34 12 s. 6d. per man. And if to that were added the English rate of clothing, law, stores, education, and administration, the cost of the French army would be £5,350,000 more. On the other hand, if our Estimates were reduced to the French standard, with regard to these items the difference on 147,000 men would be a sum of £1,966,123. Allusion had been made to the charge for horses, and he had found that horses cost as much in France as here; but, while the cost of our staff for purchasing was one-ninth of the whole sum expended, in France it was only one thirty-fifth, although the expenses of maintaining the College of Alfort was included. The cost of the transport service
  816
  in this country was large, simply because no pains were taken to look clearly into the subject. In one instance 200 men had to be removed from Yarmouth to Deptford, and they were sent by way of London on their return. It was, however, suggested by an officer that the troops should be embarked on board a steamer which would stop opposite the barracks at Deptford, and this course was adopted at a saving of about three-fourths of the expenses which would by the other route have been incurred. A similar case occurred in Ireland, where it was proposed to remove a regiment from a town on the eastern coast to Aldershot by sending them by rail to Dublin, marching across the town, then going by rail to Kingstown, and then by steamer to Liverpool, instead of at once embarking the troops at the port where they were stationed for Liverpool, a plan which was ultimately adopted with much less expense. He also might refer to a case in Ireland where the War authorities paid £500 to obtain lodgings for some of the troops, while within an hour's distance there was an unoccupied barracks. He was not prepared to propose the reduction of any specific Vote, for nothing was easier on the part of Government than to meet such a proposition. If he pointed to any particular clerk as one whose services might be dispensed with, the Government would find no difficulty in proving that that particular clerk was the most important man in the service. The duty of individual Members of the House was to point out the grounds on which reforms should be introduced, but to leave their management to those with whom the responsibility rested. It was by those means that the reduction in the Customs had been effected. The simplest method of accomplishing this end would be through the agency of a great Minister, one sufficiently long at his post to be so thoroughly master of all the details as to resemble Carnot, the organizer of victory. Another would be by means of a Royal Commission, which had produced such valuable results in connection with the Indian army. The last course would be the appointment of a Committee of the House. The last plan, however, he considered to be undesirable, as a Committee of the House was always belligerent, and he did not think any good would result from its inquiry. He believed that the Government would act in the matter if the country, supported by the House, were to call upon them to do so.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, he wished to call attention to a recent regimental order, which he could only characterize as a piece of contemptible economy. It appeared that the veterinary surgeon at Aldershot, who looked after the horses of the staff and the mounted officers of regiments, had applied for assistance, and that, after a long correspondence, an assistant was granted to him, who was to receive 1s. 1d a day, or £18 5s. a year. They were now dealing with a Vote which amounted in the whole to nearly £6,000,000. The Committee would scarcely credit it, but it, was the fact, that an order was issued for the deduction from the pay of every officer receiving forage at Aldershot, a farthing a week, or a penny a month towards the payment of the salary of £18 5s. of the assistant to the staff veterinary surgeon. He did not know who had suggested that reduction, but whoever the person was, he showed that he might take a first-rate place in a competitive examination on the subject of practical economy. There was also an item of £1,460, allowance to an instructor for the men in cookery. He wished to know whether there were more than one instructor? He would also observe that the hon. Member who had just spoken was in error in attributing the mismanagement he had referred to the negligence of the Horse Guards. The Horse Guards only superintended the discipline of the army, and the facts mentioned by the hon. Member would come within the province allotted to the Secretary for War.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, that having voted the number of men, it was not possible to reduce materially the amount of the Vote; but he could not help thinking that the policy of Her Majesty's Government being to keep the country out of a war, the sum which was now demanded for the army was an extravagant one, and that a much smaller force and a much smaller outlay would be sufficient for the defence of the country. He also wished for some explanation as to the item of £1,435 for the director of gymnastics and fencing, and for sergeant instructors. He saw no necessity for such an expenditure.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he wished to call attention to the inconvenience of discussing so large a Vote as £5,708,000, and to suggest that it should be subdivided. It was utterly impossible for private Members to do more than express their opinions upon the Vote in its present shape. It appeared that the Bri-
  818
  tish troops in India were 146,700; but according to a marginal note, 1,532 Indian troops had to be added, making a slight increase over the number last year. He wished to know whether the 1,532 were to be considered as British troops, subject to the Mutiny Act.
  SIR FREDERIC SMITHsaid, he knew no reason why the Vote should always appear in its present gigantic form. It certainly could be more easily discussed in separate items. He was quite prepared to point out how an extensive economy might be practised; and if the noble Lord would turn his attention to the various items he was sure a reduction of £500,000 might be made in the Vote. He regretted very much the intention to make a reduction in the number of the Royal Artillery. The line might, perhaps, be reduced to a small extent, but a reduction of the Royal Artillery affected the most important element in the service; and yet this was, it seemed, to be attempted for the sake of a miserable economy. It required two or three years to make even an intelligent man a good gunner. When the last attempt of this sort was made, many of the men went into the Life Guards; but, of course, the experience they had gained as gunners was not of much use to them as cavalry soldiers. If the noble Lord desired to weed the Artillery he should take care not to lose efficient men. Why was it that our service was deficient in staff knowledge? The fact was that we had not selected a sufficient number of men from the higher ranks to receive instruction in staff experience, but in consequence of the arrangements now being carried out we should have a class of staff officers second to none in Europe. In the Peninsular war, no doubt the staff was equal to all the service it was called to fulfil, but they were placed under the direction of a great captain. The expenditure on that branch of the service might not appear to be useful at the moment, but at a critical moment, and in the present state of Europe no one could tell how soon that time might arrive, its use would be made apparent. The Crimean war was a war of siege and not of campaign, and there was no movement of troops there which could teach a single lesson. He approved very much of the establishment at Aldershot, which was an excellent strategic position, for troops could be transported thence to the most important points on the coast in a few hours, and on that very ground it was singled

  819
  out by Lord Hardinge. He hoped the Government would keep up that establishment in efficiency; it was an admirable school for the army, and many officers who had visited the continental armies had expressed peculiar admiration of the way in which the troops were moved at Aldershot.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he rose to reply to the questions he had put to him. As he did not then see the right hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon in his place, he would defer for a time his reply to the observations of the gallant General, as he hoped to be able in some degree to calm the apprehensions which he entertained in regard to the probable effect of the Limited Enlistment Act. The hon. and gallant Member for Queen's County (Colonel Dunne) asked what was the meaning of the Vote for pay and clothing for certain native Indian troops. The fact was, that the Home Government did not pay the expenses of these regiments in detail. The Indian Government sent in the account and the amount was paid in a lump sum. It had been alleged that the great source of extravagant military expenditure was the establishments. That was a very vague term, but he had a Return of the expenses of what he might call the establishments, and he had ascertained that the commissariat staff eost£l04,000; clothing staff, £24,000; barrack staff, £53,000; purveyor's staff,£28,000; stores, £218,000; War Office and Horse Guards, £202,000; and the chaplains, if they could be included in the list, £50,000, making in all £679,000. That was, no doubt, a large item, but not so great as the sweeping assertions which had been made would lead one to imagine. It was obvious that any reduction in the establishments would not make much impression on the total amount of the Estimates. He should be glad if any hon. Gentleman would inform him whether he had omitted any establishment from his list, and how any diminution could be effected. Reference had also been made to the depôt battalions which had been described as one of the most extravagant parts of our system. It was, no doubt, a question well worthy of discussion, whether some more economical system could not be devised, and he did not know any on which the attention of gallant Members could better be bestowed. He had not, however, as yet heard from them any practical suggestions on the subject, or, indeed, anything more than wide general statements.
  820
  He concurred in the laudatory remarks on the speech of the hon. Member for Longford, who appeared to have entered deeply into the question of the comparative cost of the French and English armies. That was a subject which had not escaped the attention of the War Office; and he agreed with the hon. Member, that although it did not follow that we could reduce our expenses in the same proportion as the French, a comparison of the accounts of the two armies would disclose where our expenditure was in excess and might lead to useful results. But, as he had said, his noble Friend at the head of the War Office had not overlooked the importance of such an inquiry, and had received valuable assistance in conducting it. However large the cost of our army might be, it would not be difficult to show that the additional expense was to be attributed, not to extravagance, but to causes easily accounted for. With respect to the relative cost of a French and an English soldier, it was very difficult to arrive at an exact comparison, because he believed the French Budget did not include all the expenses which were incurred for the army, and which were embraced in our Estimates. It was necessary to take out of other parts of the French Budget some expenses which were properly chargeable to the army in order to make a fair comparison. The general conclusion at which the War Office had arrived was not very different from that which had already been stated to the Committee. It was that the French soldier cost about £47 18 s. 10 d. per annum, while the English soldier cost about £91 17 s. 2d. In France the expense of the staff, putting together various items scattered through the French Budget, might be stated at £1 12 s. 11 d. per man, whereas in England it amounted to £2 5s. 7d. The great secret of the higher expenditure in England as compared with that of France was to be found in the fact that not only our soldiers but also all persons connected with the administration of military affairs, were better remunerated for their services than the same class in France. In the French War Office, for example, there were 479 employés, with salaries ranging from £72 to £1,000, There were no fewer than 382 whose salaries did not exceed £144 per annum. He did not know whether any hon. Member was prepared to say that we could find gentlemen capable of performing the responsible duties intrusted to the officials in our War Office for so small an

  821
  amount of remuneration. He did not believe we could; at any rate, it had hitherto been found impossible to do so. Again, taking the items in the French Budget for pay, allowances, beer and wine, recruiting service, gymnastic and musketry instruction, good conduct money, and other matters, and comparing them with the corresponding items in our Estimates, the result was, that the French soldier cost £18 4s. 10 d., and the English soldier £30, It thus appeared that the cost of the English soldier was very nearly double that of the French soldier; and that proportion might he said to run through the whole comparison. Moreover, it ought to be borne in mind that a great part of the administration of the French army was carried out regimentally, and not departmentally, as with us, and hence the charge for actual pay and allowances should be taken at a lower rate as regarded the French army and at a higher rate as regarded the English than appeared on the face of the comparisons laid before the Committee. The hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North) had referred to a charge of one farthing per week against infantry officers, and, in connection with it, had accused the Government of practising a miserable economy. It would be found, however, on inquiry, that the charge in question had been in existence for a great many years.
  COLONEL NORTH: Not with respect to infantry officers. The date of the order applicable to them is the 16th of October last.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, the deduction had been made in the case of cavalry officers ever since 1815, and it had only been extended to infantry officers when the latter received the advantages for which it was originally enforced. The hon. and gallant Member had also asked him a question with respect to cooking. In reply, he had to stale that the greater part of the item—£1,460—would go in extra pay to sergeants-instructors, of whom there were now 170, and the number was being increased. A considerable saving had been effected in the article of fuel, chiefly in consequence of the improvements made in cooking, which improvements were mainly due to the exertions of the sergeants instructors. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Willoughby) suggested that the Vote might be very advantageously subdivided, He did not exactly see how. A great many of these items were very small, and they were given in great detail.
  822
  It would be perfectly competent to more that the Vote be reduced by any one of them, if it was considered desirable; but the great bulk of the Vote was for the pay of the men, and he did not see how that could he advantageously subdivided. The form of the Estimates had been altered only two years ago, Hon. Members were generally agreed that a great improvement had been effected in the form in which the Estimates were now presented to the House; but if it was thought that any real advantage would be obtained by a greater subdivision, he did not suppose there would be any great difficulty in carrying it out. The hon. Member for Lambeth had asked a question about gymnastics. They had taken a very small Vote under that head, but he believed it was the commencement of a system to the army which he thought would be most important. A Committee had inquired into the whole subject of gymnastics as carried out in the armies of other nations, and they had reported that they were of opinion that it would be of immense advantage to the soldier if we had facilities for putting recruits through a regular course of gymnastics as part of their drill. Gymnastics for the amusement of the soldier were, no doubt, beneficial, and they were good in the way of providing a healthy recreation; but what was really required was that the soldier should go through a certain course in proportion to his strength as a part of his drill. It was difficult to estimate the advantage that would be attained by developing the muscles of our troops, and enabling them to undergo hardships to which many now succumbed. He regretted very much he had not been able to lay on the table the Return for which the gallant General (General Peel) had moved, and which he certainly did hope to be able to produce before proceeding with the Estimates. But if that right hon. and gallant General had been present, and he was sorry he was not, he would he was sure have agreed with him, that it was not desirable to postpone the Committee on the Army Estimates until he was able to lay on the table a Return which had been longer in preparation than he anticipated. The fact was, that although it was very easy to tell the number of men enlisted in particular years, it did not at all follow from these numbers that that was the number of men who would be entitled to take their discharge at the end of ten years. For instance, ten years ago, during the Crimean war, a very large number enlisted under the

  823
  Ten Years Act, but a very large number of these men died in the Crimea; a very large number, when discharged, were re-engaged, and a considerable number had died since then. Therefore, the large number of men enlisted that year did not represent the number of men entitled to take their discharge this year. The right hon. and gallant General said he had felt considerable apprehensions in regard to the number of men taking their discharge this year. Their information was not complete up to the present time, and the only way in which they could estimate the number that would probably be entitled to their discharge would be by considering the effect of the Limited Enlistment Act on previous years. They had Returns of the effect of the Enlistment Act up to the year 1860. Up to that time, 7,335 men had completed their term of service, and were therefore entitled to take their discharge. Of these, 3,845 were re-engaged; leaving 3,490 who were discharged. Of these 3,490, 650 re-enlisted within six months, and the total loss up to 1860 was only 2,340 men. This had been going on three years and a quarter, the annual loss was therefore only 860 men. There was no reason, he was aware of, to suppose that a larger proportion of men were about to take their discharge than in the three first years when the Act came into operation. They might assume that the same proportions would be maintained. It was quite true, as stated by the right hon. and gallant General, that considerable apprehensions were felt by the Commander-in-Chief and the officers of the army as to the number of men the army was likely to lose; but, although they were under some apprehension, the Commander-in-Chief and the Adjutant General had not estimated the number of men who would be entitled to take their discharge this year at more than 10,400. Now, applying the calculations he had just made to that number, the army was not likely to lose more than 4,000, retaining 6,000 of that number in the ranks; 4,000 would be the total loss at all likely to occur in the ensuing year, owing to the operation of the Limited Enlistment Act; and he asked the Committee to consider for a moment the advantages they had up to the present time enjoyed connected with it. By the Returns of 1850, 1851, and 1852, it appeared that the annual deaths in the army were over 29 per 1,000, while according to the same; Returns of 10 years subsequent, 1860,
  824
  1861, and 1862, the deaths were reduced to 18 per 1,000, showing in the death vacancies of the army a reduction of 11 per thousand. Now, the average number of men serving during the last years was 195,730, and the difference of the two rates of mortality would cause in these numbers an annual saving in death vacancies of 2,200 men. He was quite aware that they could not attribute all that saving to any particular cause. No doubt, the improved sanitary and medical regulations had done something, and he hoped a great deal; but the great bulk of the saving of 2,200 in the death vacancies annually was to be attributed to the fact that in 1860, 1861, and 1862, we had a much younger class of men than in 1850, 1851, and 1852. After our army had suffered great losses in the Crimea and the Indian mutiny, a very large number of young men joined it. Still it was quite evident that the army was to a certain extent composed of younger men, and, therefore, of a class of men less likely to die rapidly. In that view he was borne out by some medical statistics which had been drawn up, from which it appeared that in the army the number of deaths of men under 30 years of age was 7.06 per 1,000, while of men between 30 and 40 it was 15.99 per 1,000. In India the comparison was still more striking, for serving in India and China the mortality of men under 30 was 25.66 per 1,000, and of men between 30 and 40 it was 43.79 per 1,000. It was clear, therefore, that in an army composed of younger men the mortality was less than among older men. Against the loss occcasioned by the discharge of the 10 years' service men, must be set the saving arising from the diminished mortality. As he had before said, some years' further experience of the working of the Act would be necessary to ascertain what were its actual results. When the Legislature passed that Act it must have intended that a certain number of soldiers should take their discharge under it at the expiration of 10 years' service. But, besides the actual gain to the service by the diminished mortality, there were many other ways in which that subject must be regarded. There could be no doubt that men who had served for 10 years in the army must have been improved by the training they had received, and as they would generally remain in the country they might be available for re-enlistment, should an emergency arise. Still, in the uncertainty which ex-

  825
  isted as to the actual number who would take their discharges, and the certainty that a larger number than hitherto would be entitled to avail themselves of their right, Lord De Grey had had under his consideration a measure which, he hoped, would have the effect of inducing a larger proportion to re-enlist. It was hoped that the necessity for such additional inducement would only be temporary, but it had been decided to offer to the soldier who re-enlisted, not only the bounty which he would now receive, but also an additional £1, which would be the cost of a recruit to replace him. It was also intended to encourage the re-enlistment of soldiers who had taken their discharges, by extending the period of re-enlistment for six months after the discharge to twelve months, and then to allow them to reckon all their past service towards a pension on twenty-one years' service. The right hon. and gallant General (General Peel) had said he thought that alarm must have existed upon the subject, or the authorities would not have been induced to lower the standard in a time of peace. That measure, perhaps, was hardly necessary, and was not caused by the expectation of a greater number of vacancies, but the recruiting was proceeding at a slower rate than was desirable. Much of that slowness was attributable, he believed, to the stringency of the medical regulations, which threw the whole travelling expenses of a recruit rejected by the regimental surgeon upon the surgeon who had originally passed him. The consequence of that regulation was that the surgeons attached to the recruiting staff were over careful in passing recruits, and in order to encourage recruiting so as to obtain the ordinary number, it was intended to relax the regulation he had referred to, and to reduce the standard by one inch. The right hon. and gallant General had alluded to the item of levy money. It must be admitted that that item was not so clearly stated in the Estimates as it might have been. The item was made up in the following manner: — The levy money at home, £32,200, was for 15,000 recruits, and was the real expense of raising that number. The £5,800 for Indian depôts was the same charge for 2,700 men. But the item of £27,000 to make good casualties in India, ought not properly to have been called levy money. Of that amount only £9,000 was really levy money for 4,000 men, but the remaining £18,000 was for the passage of men to India, The
  826
  gallant General had inquired whether it was intended to pay the extra bounty to men who re-enlisted in India. The fact was, the Indian Government did pay the extra bounty, and it was right they should, as they saved the cost of the passage home of the men who re-enlisted. With respect to the capitation charges, they were, as the gallant General was aware, the result of a comparison of the gross charges paid by the Indian Government with the total number of men stationed in India. That rate would expire in April, 1866, when they could revise it on much more correct data than they had possessed at the time that the rate was first adopted. They sometimes thought at the War Office that they were losing money by it; but he believed that they would find that there had not been much either gained or lost. The explanation of the great increase of furlough pay was that the furlough regular turns for officers only came into force just before the Indian Mutiny. Of course, during the Indian Mutiny, very few of the officers took, advantage of those regulations, and, therefore, it was impossible in the first year to arrive at any correct estimate.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he wanted to know whether the supplementary Estimate of £40,000 for the yeomanry, was the exact sum that appeared in the original Estimate. The ground upon which the noble Lord had consented to call out the yeomanry was that the war in New Zealand was nearly at an end, and he should like to hear whether the sum of £40,000 was the saving from that cause.
  LORD HOTHAMsaid, he desired to say a word upon the Limited Enlistment Act. The opening observations of the noble Lord upon that subject had afterwards been materially diluted by the statement, that in consequence of the number of men who might claim their discharge at the end of their period of service, the Secretary for War had thought it necessary to offer inducements to these men beyond those to which they would have been previously entitled. The inducements that would have to be given, would depend very much upon the service on which the men were engaged. One of the objections which he had always entertained to the Act, that it might be the cause of the country being taken by surprise by great numbers of men leaving the army at times when it was very inconvenient to part with them, had, at length, been acknowledged by the Go-

  827
  vernment. At the close of the Peninsular war a large number of men, whose service had expired, claimed their discharge, and he well remembered being employed for three days in the duty of counting out the bounty monies to the men to induce them to re-enlist, at the rate of £16 16 s. per man. He had the honour two or three years ago to be employed as Chairman of the Royal Commission on the subject of recruiting for the army, and after a good deal of information had been obtained, it appeared to the Commissioners that, although there might not be any necessity for repealing the Limited Enlistment Act as it stood, yet inasmuch as a man was, perhaps, in the best of his soldier's life when he could claim his discharge under that Act, there was no reason why those who were willing to enlist for fifteen or sixteen years, should not have the opportunity of doing so. It was a mistake to suppose that men enlisted from a military feeling, or from a fondness for military life; they enlisted, for the most part, under the pressure of private circumstances; and there were very few who cared for what period they were to serve, or to whom it would be any inducement to enter for ten years rather than for fifteen. On the contrary, many were deterred from entering the army, now that the period of service was only ten years, by the fear that at the end of the time they would be thrown upon the world without any means of support. The Government might, without the slightest interference with the Limited Enlistment Act, to which they were very much attached because it was a favourite project of Lord Panmure's, carry out this recommendation of the Commission.
  COLONEL DICKSONsaid, that when he found that there was a reduction of only £215,000 upon an expenditure of nearly £15,000,000, and that the supplementary Estimates for the embodied militia amounted to a much larger sum, he thought they could not look with much favour upon the economy of a Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of which had, the other night, given them so severe a lesson upon the subject, especially when they found that that economy was accompanied by the reduction of 1,500 men belonging to the most valuable portion of the service. In the War Office the increase for clerks was £4,000, and in that monstrous establishment 409 clerks were employed at an average salary of £270 a year. There were
  828
  two kinds of economy—the one of expenditure and the other of management—and he wished to call the attention of the noble Lord to the advisability of not making the reduction of six men and four horses per troop of cavalry, and he hoped the noble Lord would take the matter into his most serious consideration. If the army really was to be reduced, 816 trained cavalry soldiers and 1,372 artillerymen were not exactly the men who should be selected for that purpose. The proposal only showed that they ought not to have at the War Office men unconnected with the service. The noble Lord would acquit him of any personal allusion, for when they considered the noble Lord's position — when they remembered that, with the whole world at his feet, the noble Lord had renounced the frivolities of life—they could not but regard such a course as being alike honourable to himself and advantageous to the country. He considered, however, that when men who had no practical knowledge came to decide upon such arrangements as the one proposed, they ought to consult those whose professional experience and education would have enabled them to form a trustworthy opinion upon the subject. The reduction of six men and four horses per troop would be most disadvantageous to the efficiency of the cavalry regiments. It might appear anomalous to say that horses were the less important part of a cavalry regiment, and it would have been better to have taken off double the number of horses to the same number of men. At present the strength of a cavalry regiment was 621 men and 400 horses, and yet it was almost impossible—the casualties averaging from 160 to 200 men—on any occasion to mount the whole of the horses. The fewer horses there were, the more they could be attended to, and the better instruction would the men receive. A horse, too, could be purchased at any time, and it would be ready for the ranks in six weeks or two months; but a man could not be replaced under a year and a half. If reduction were essential, it would be better to reduce six horses and four men, but it would be still better to leave the men as they were.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that the proportion of men to horses in which the reduction was being made was the proportion previously existing in the cavalry, so that if it were wrong, then it must have been wrong before. He quite admitted that at the War Office they were

  829
  not always qualified to judge of these matters, but when that was so they sought advice from those at the Horse Guards who were competent to judge. He did not mean to say that the Commander in-Chief or the Adjutant General would recommend the reduction of the army, But, when once that reduction was decided upon, the purely military authorities were consulted as to the best way of carrying it out. In this caso, the Adjutant General, than whom he did not think there could be any better authority, was of opinion that the efficiency of these cavalry regiments was not impaired by the proposed reductions, further, of course, than by the numerical decrease which would take place in their strength. Since the Crimean war, there had been a great change in the organization of our cavalry force, and a considerable increase in the strength of the regiments. Formerly a regiment of cavalry consisted of three squadrons; now it consisted of four. In 1853 the number of privates in the regiment was 304; in 1863 it was 504, and the reduction proposed would bring it down to 456. The force of cavalry was 9,132 in 1853, and in 1863 it was 11,331. He did not think that any just complaint could be made as to the manner in which the reduction was to be effected. With regard to the artillery, it was the fact that in the enormous French army there were no more than 30,000 or 40,000 artillerymen, while in our army there were 20,000.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, the noble Lord seemed to forget the fortifications, and how they were to be manned.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: By the militia and Volunteers.
  COLONEL NORTH: The militia and Volunteers! Oh, oh!
  SIR FREDERIC SMITHsaid, he wished to ask the reason for the increase of the Vote for fire brigade, musketry warders, works in the field, &c., from £500 in the last year to £3,700 in the Estimates before them.
  THE MARQESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, his only explanation was that he supposed the sum taken last year was not found sufficient.
  Vote agreed to.
  (2.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £1,319,047, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge of
  830
  the Commissariat Establishment, Services, and Movement of Troops, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1865, inclusive."
  SIR FREDERIC SMITHsaid, that the Vote stood upon the Estimates at £1,352,047.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that was one of the Votes alluded to by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when he stated that the extra cost involved in calling out the Yeomanry would not cause an increase on the total Estimates. The Vote had been reduced by £33,000—a reduction warranted, as the Government thought, by the accounts from New Zealand. That reduction was chiefly in the items for commissariat transport to the colonies, which was taken at a very high rate indeed, because while the army was actively engaged in New Zealand, the cost of transport was enormous. There might be a considerable saving on the Estimates which had reference to war in New Zealand, although the war might not come to a conclusion for some little time. The Estimates were framed on a supposition that the war would continue over the whole of the financial year; and though the war was not yet at an end, there was reason to believe that it would not last for more than a year from the date of the last accounts, which dated hack for a considerable period. The Government had estimated that the war would continue to April, 1865, and its cessation before that period would cause a corresponding decrease in the Estimates.
  SIR FREDERIC SMITHsaid he wished to ask, what was the reason of the great increase of £46,000 in the cost of forage?
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he thought the item for buildings and incidental expenses connected with the commissariat excessive.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that the increase in the item for forage was due to the high price of it in New Zealand. There were commissariat branches in all parts of the world, and the officers had a variety of duties to perform, and the amount referred to by the hon. Member for Lambeth was very reasonable.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he thought it desirable they should report Progress. For the sake of regularity he would suggest that, as an alteration had been made in the amount of

  831
  the Vote, an amended Estimate should be submitted.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, he took the same view. He would also observe that the charge for provisions was very high.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, an explanatory paper had been published on the subject of the increased price of provisions in certain parts.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he was quite surprised at the amount charged for forage. How many horses were there in New Zealand?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he could not tell the exact number of horses there, but there could he no doubt that forage was very scarce, as it had been found necessary to send out a certain kind of it from this country.
  MR. ARTHUR MILLSurged the Government to prepare an amended Estimate. He believed the cost of the New Zealand war had been much underrated, and at the end of the year it would be found to be nearer a million than half a million.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he would move that the Chairman should report Progress.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, the original Estimate was framed on the supposition that the war would last for three quarters of a year from that month, but later advices had led them to believe that it would be concluded in a shorter time.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, he wanted to know the items on which a reduction had been made.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he hoped the Committee would not insist upon reporting Progress. Estimates of future expenses were necessarily conjectural, as were those of savings. The fact simply was that they thought, from the latest advices, that the war would not continue as long as they at first imagined.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he wanted an explanation of the items of reduction.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, the chief reduction was in the item for commissariat transport. There was further a reduction in the cost of forage for the colonies, and also in the charge for provisions.
  MR. ARTHUR MILLSsaid, there would be a difficulty in comparing the items with those of the last and of the next year, if no new Estimate were prepared.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONobserved, that there would be a sum total for this year to be set against that for next year.
  ADMIRAL DUNCOMBEsaid, he thought previous notice ought to have been given of the reduction of an Estimate.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that the remark of the noble Viscount opposite, though true as regarded the Appropriation Act and the total amounts, yet, on a comparison of the Estimates of one year with those of another, it was more convenient that they should know what the items were.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Hunt,)—put, and negatived.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  (3.) £596,694, Clothing.
  COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he had tried for the last three or four years to obtain from the Government the prices at which the army was clothed, but he had never received any satisfactory reply on that point. He believed the reason was that the accounts were not kept as they ought to be. The system of a great central establishment for clothing the army was a very costly one, and that, under the existing system, the clothing for the army cost double what it otherwise would. Mr. Hume used to find fault with the system of Government establishments, and used to protest that, except in special cases, Government should not undertake any manufacture. He wished to know whether the accounts of these establishments were kept on any system, and whether the noble Lord could state the prices of the articles manufactured?
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he wished for an explanation of the item of £13,000 for the purchase of buildings for inspecting contract clothing. He agreed with the hon. and gallant Member that the cost of clothing the army was excessive, and ought to be diminished.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, he gave a preference to the system of clothing adopted in the French army, where the materials were supplied to the different regiments and manufactured by the men themselves. The result was that the clothes of the French soldier were of better materials than those of our troops—they fitted better, and were supplied at a more economical rate. In the Sanitary Report on the Indian army it was proved that the men suffered very much from the misfits of shoes sent out by the contractors. He would press on the Government the advantage of employ-

  833
  ing the soldier in his idle hours in some trade. From the Report of the Committee it appeared that all the officers examined were in favour of this except Sir George Brown, who maintained that when the soldier was not on drill he might spend his time in the canteen. Sir George Brown was decidedly opposed to the soldier being employed in trade. [An hon. MEMBER: He said nothing about the canteen.] He said that after drill the soldier should have his time to himself. It would be a great improvement if the clothing were made, as in other armies, by the soldiers themselves. He besought hon. Gentlemen who objected to Government establishments to have a care what they did. It was desirable to keep up a system of promotion in the army, and these central establishments offered to soldiers a sort of promotion to which the degree of their attainments rendered them eligible.
  MR. CARNEGIEobserved, that when the hon. Member for Longford drew a comparison between the French army and ours, it should be recollected that the French army was raised by conscription and ours by voluntary enlistment. The French army, therefore, had a much larger number of skilled mechanics than our own. He had always found there had been ample employment for all tailors and shoemakers in making alterations and repairs, without setting them to actual making of regimental clothing. If the clothing were attempted to be made in the regimental workshops, he believed it would not be attended with good results. He quite agreed as to the advisability of rewarding efficient non-commissioned officers, but he did not see how the introduction of the system of manufacturing in regiments the clothes to be worn by the soldiers would at all tend to that desirable end.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, that the duty required from the English soldier was much more than that required from the foreign soldier. He would also observe that if there was one thing more than another which would give offence to officers and soldiers in the army, it would be interfering with the buttons and facings of their uniforms. Civilians had no idea what were the feelings in the army on that subject, and he therefore hoped the day was far distant when the Government would interfere in such matters.
  SIR FREDERIC SMITHsaid, he believed it to be the opinion of many French officers that their own system was a bad
  834
  one. No fewer than 30,000 men were employed in making up clothing and shoes for the French army, and about 1,000 in making caps. These men never took part in action, or left the depots of the different regiments. Was the clothing of our army badly made just then? He did not think so. It was much better made than it used to be when the colonels of regiments had it made up and got a profit by it. Then nearly every suit had to be unmade and made up again in order to fit the men. It would be much better to leave the present system as it was, than attempt to make the clothing and shoes of a regiment by those who ought to be fighting men.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he wished to know whether it would not be more economical to hire buildings for their manufactures than to build great establishments at Pimlico?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONadmitted that the sum required for new buildings in Pimlico was very large, but those buildings were finished, and he could not see how it could be more economical to hire buildings when they had got what they wanted. It was said they could not tell the cost of any article; but they knew the cost of materials and the other expenses, and, therefore, they could calculate the cost of the articles made. Since they had manufactured clothing themselves, the cost of that portion which was still got from contractors was materially diminished. In 1859 the contract price of a private's tunic was £1 1s., but in 1863 it was only 16 s. 5d., such reduction being caused by the Government competition. Comparisons had been made between the cost of clothing in the English and the French armies; but, even admitting that the French soldier was equally well clothed as our men, it was certain that he did not receive so many articles of clothing, and had to wear them much longer. He really thought the clothing of the English soldier was the point least open to attack.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he was surprized to hear complaints of the clothing, as he had thought that if there had been any improvement in any department of the army, it wan in the clothing. When he established the Pimlico manufactory he believed experience would prove what it had done, that by that means army clothing would be produced both better and cheaper. He thought that the Royal Artillery had always made their own clothes.

  835
  When he filled the position of War Secretary he had caused Returns to be made, showing the expense of the clothing in every regiment in the army, and he should be glad if such a Return were placed before Parliament every year. It would afford much useful information.
  COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he believed that the establishment at Pimlico clothed 30,000 men, besides the Irish constabulary and the London police, but he did not think that one establishment would be sufficient to clothe the whole army. Although he did not object to a moderate establishment to operate as a check upon contractors, he deprecated too large an establishment as uselessly expensive.
  MR. HUNTsaid, there appeared to be a reduction in the cost of the clothing. Tunics that formerly were charged a guinea, were now supplied at 16 s. 5d. If they had had published the cost of the clothing in 1859 in the present Estimates, they would have been able to have formed some idea whether the new clothing department had had any effect in reducing the expenses in that department.
  MR. CARNEGIEsaid, he wished to call attention to the item with regard to clerks. The military store clerks appeared to have been got rid of and pensioners employed in their stead.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked, what was the meaning of the entire abolition of the military store clerks? A number of clerks had been engaged for a considerable time as temporary clerks, but he believed it was the feeling of the late Sir George Lewis and former Secretaries for War, that it was desirable to absorb them as much and as often as possible into permanent clerks. He asked if all the temporary clerks in the department had been so absorbed, or if they had been disposed of in any other way. Temporary clerks, so called, but who had discharged their duties as such for a number of years, and as such they were deserving of much consideration, should be dealt with tenderly.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, that taking the number of men in the Estimates, and dividing with them the cost of the clothing, it gave a sum somewhat less than £4 for each man. He, however, admitted that that was not a fair way of arriving at the individual cost.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, there had been no alteration in the Pimlico staff. Some of the store clerks had been removed, and absorbed in other de-
  836
  partments, as vacancies occurred; but he was not aware until that moment, that any of them had been only temporary clerks.
  Vote agreed to.
  (4.) £611,165, Barracks.
  COLONEL NORTHasked, to what cause the saving in the use of fuel, referred to in the Vote, was to be attributed?
  COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he wished for an explanation of the alteration with regard to the payment of the ranger of the Curragh of Kildare.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that as the Curragh had become a military station, it was thought better to transfer the charges to the military department, instead of continuing them with the office of Woods and Forests. The Curragh, up to that time, had hitherto been held by the Crown at a nominal rent, but now it was proposed to take a lease of the property. In answer to the question of the hon. and gallant Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North), the saving in the fuel had been effected partly by the use of improved grates in the barracks, and, still more, by better management in the cooking department. The plan of allowing the men a profit upon the price of the fuel burnt under the regulation quantity had in many cases been eminently successful.
  COLONEL NORTHasked the amount of the pay and allowances of the Inspector.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, the Inspector's (Mr. Marriner's) salary was £150 a year, and his travelling expenses actually expended. Captain Ross, Assistant Quartermaster General at Aldershot, who was not exclusively employed in the cooking department, was included in the general staff, the expense of which, when completed, would be about £1,750.
  Vote agreed to.
  (5.) £45,433, Divine Service.
  (6.) £40,549, Martial Law.
  LORD HOTHAMsaid, that although he could count a length of service in the House, only exceeded by that of the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government, and, he believed, by that of two other hon. Members, he could truly say he had never risen with so much reluctance as he felt on the present occasion. That reluctance proceeded from many causes, but he would trouble the Committee with, only two—one was, because the question was one of military discipline, and

  837
  the other, because he had to take exception to the conduct of the two high individuals to whom the Queen, in the exercise of her Prerogative as head of the army, had confided its management, and who it had always been both his desire and his habit to support. He felt, as he always had felt, that except under circumstances of an; extraordinary nature, questions of military discipline were not adapted to the consideration of popular assemblies; but Her Majesty's Government, having asked for a grant of money to cover the expenses of the late court-martial at Aldorshot, had created the necessity for a discussion, which it was impossible to avoid. If any hon. Member were of opinion that the money so asked for had been unnecessarily or wastefully expended, or that in its expenditure the efficiency of the service for which the House was called upon annually to sanction the disbursement of such enormous sums had been injured, it would be his imperative duty to say so. He was glad to be able to say (and this was the only occasion when he would thus express himself) that to Sir Hugh Rose, Sir William Mansfield, and Colonel Crawley, he was a total stranger. He could, therefore, be influenced by no personal feelings in the course he was taking. He wished it also to be borne in mind that he stood there to speak his own sentiments, and not those of any one else. He had been asked by no one to be his mouthpiece, or to say a word on the subject. And, above all, he desired to disclaim all wish to shelter any one from the consequences of his misconduct; for in his (Lord Hotham's) opinion, every soldier should do his duty properly, and if he did it not, he should be compelled to do it, He believed that both the House and the country had great reason to complain of the conduct of the military authorities in withholding information which they must have had in their possession, and which ought, on every principle of justice, to have been published. He did not mean. to impute any intentional error to those high authorities to whom he had already referred, but he believed that they were appalled by the fire of the battery opened upon them by the hon. Gentleman the late Member for Brighton (Mr. Coningham) and others, that they thus became victims to the common misfortune of overanxious and over-sensitive minds, and that they did injustice from the fear of being thought not willing to do justice, and
  838
  wrong, from the fear of being accused of not doing right. It would be remembered that great excitement prevailed in the country during the last year, in consequence of information which came from India respecting the Mhow Court Martial, and that the subject was brought forward in this House by the hon. Member for Andover (Mr. Dudley Fortescue), on the 5th of June last year. On that occasion, appeals were made by the hon. Gentleman to the sensibilities of every one, and attention was particularly attracted to such sentences as these: —"The prisoners had been confined in a bomb-proof building, unfit for habitation," "more like an oven than a human habitation," that "these facts were not imaginary, but that he had drawn them from documents placed in the hands of the military authorities." The hon. Member also stated that as to the brandy which it was said Sergeant Major Lilley had consumed, "the evidence of the sentries and of the medical officers proved conclusively that there was not the slightest symptom of excess, and that this had been endorsed by His Royal Highness the Commander-in Chief." With regard to the prisoner's quarters, it was now a matter of public notoriety that General Sir William Mansfield, the Commander-in-Chief in Bombay, was at Mhow in March, 1863; and that being so, he must have reported to the military authorities upon what he saw and knew to be the case on the subject, and information supplied by General Mansfield contradictory of the account given by the hon. Member for Andover must have been in possession of the Government at the time. Unless the noble Lord stated, of his own personal knowledge, that no such information was then possessed by the Government, he must be excused for remaining of that opinion. The noble Lord confirmed the greater part of what th hon. Member for Andover had said, and further stated — though his statement, strange to relate, seemed to have made no impression—"that the sergeant major had grossly derogated from his duty in not bringing to the knowledge of his commanding officer what was going forward in the regiment," and he assured the House that, "although he could not produce to them a victim, nothing would induce the Secretary of State to depart a hair's breadth from the strict rules and principles of justice." Soon after, it was announced that Colonel Crawley would be

  839
  tried by a court-martial; and subsequently, that he would be tried—not in India, but in England. A portion of the press took credit for having caused this change. It was monstrous, said they, that Colonel Crawley should be tried by a court nominated by Sir Hugh Rose, who had approved the proceedings of the court-martial at Mhow; and yet these lovers of justice said it was quite proper that the members of the court should be named by His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, by whom Colonel Crawley had been condemned, in language such as he (Lord Hotham) never remembered being used towards an officer of Colonel Crawley's position, and to which it would be his (Lord Hotham's) duty, before he sat down, to allude. Several inquiries were then made as to the propriety of the course announced. The hon. Member for West Norfolk asked if it was legal, and if legal, whether it did not involve a reflection on, if not an insult to, the officers of the army in India. The hon. and gallant Member for Limerick (Major Gavin) said that he had, not long ago, served in India, and that he considered it as an insult to say that the case could not be tried fairly there. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli), with the natural feeling of an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked whether the expenses would not be very great. Of this there was no doubt, as was shown by the Vote of upwards of £18,000, now under consideration. On the 25th of June it was asked by the Member for Brighton, whether a second memorandum, embodying the opinion of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief on the Mhow Court Martial, had not been issued, to which the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) answered in the negative, adding, "no public memorandum at least." Following these inquiries, a right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) said, he wished to know distinctly whether any communication had been addressed to Sir Hugh Rose, through the Adjutant General, the purport of which was to qualify the memorandum issued by the Commander-in-Chief on the 18th of the previous December. And now he (Lord Hotham) came to a point of very serious importance—a point involving not only the proceedings of which he had spoken, but involving the relations of the Government with the House of Commons. In replying to the question of the right hon. Gentleman, the noble Lord stated that if he would put
  840
  the question on another day he would answer it, but he apprehended that he should be compelled to repeat the answer he had already given, "that there was no public or official memorandum existing on the subject excepting that which had been published." The inquiries made about the second memorandum attracted the attention of the public, and, curiously enough, on the very day when the noble Lord denied the existence of any second memorandum, there appeared in The Times a letter signed "Civilian," in which the writer said—
  "I believe I can assist Mr. Bouverie in describing the document bearing on the Mhow Court Martial which he asks the War Office to produce. Two memoranda, emanating from the Horse Guards, have been read by Colonel Crawley to the assembled officers of the 6th Dragoons. They are, therefore, clearly not private letters, but public documents, which the House of Commons is entitled to see. The first of them is dated December 18, 1862, and has been published; the second, which was communicated by Colonel Crawley to the regiment at Mhow about the end of April or the beginning of May, 1863, is probably the document which Mr. Bouverie wishes to elicit. I have a resumé of it before me. It cannot possibly be identical with the letter dated Horse Guards, February, 1863,' privately sent to the Commander-in-Chief in India by the Duke of Cambridge, which has since been produced, inasmuch as a private document of that nature would certainly not have been formally read to the assembled officers of any regiment."
  He believed that there was no public office the heads of which were not promptly informed of anything which appeared in the papers affecting or reflecting upon them; and therefore it was impossible to surmise that not one of the numerous gentlemen employed in the War Office had called the noble Lord's attention to that letter, and that he should not have renewed his inquiries whether he had not been misled as to the existence of the document in question. On the 29th of June— four days afterwards — the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) repeated his inquiry, so worded as apparently to prevent all possibility of mistake. He asked whether any communication or memorandum signed by the Adjutant General has been sent to the Commander-in-Chief in India modifying the opinion on the proceedings of the court-martial at Mhow contained in the memorandum of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, now upon the table of the House, or in any way relating to the same subject. To that inquiry the noble Lord replied—
  "The only document which at all answers the description of it given by my right hon. Friend

  841
  is a communication or memorandum which was last March forwarded by the Adjutant General to the Commander-in-Chief in India, and which was covered by private letters to Sir William Mansfield and Sir Hugh Rose. The private letters that covered the memorandum were marked 'Private,' and they were addressed, 'My dear Mansfield,' and 'My dear Rose.'… I hope I have made it sufficiently clear to the House that when I stated there was no 'public memorandum' on this subject I was perfectly correct,"
  This question touched very importantly the relations between the House and the Government. It would be recollected that, Government had a great advantage in respect of the production of papers. It was the practice to give implicit credence to the assurance of any Member of the Government in such cases. If a paper were asked for, and the Government said it was prejudicial to the public interest to produce it, then it was taken for granted that the answer was a proper one, and no Member would venture to push his inquiry farther; but it was a matter touching the relations of the House of Commons and the Government if it should turn out, after repeated denials of the existence of a particular paper, that that paper had been in the possession of the Government at the time its existence was denied. With respect to this document nothing further took place until the present Session, when he moved for the production of "any paper or memorandum other than the one previously presented," and the Committee would be surprised to learn that the Return to that Motion was the very identical paper for which the right hon. Member (Mr. E. P, Bouverie) had made such repeated applications last year, and the existence of which was so constantly and perseveringly denied. He could carry the matter a step further, because they now knew that the paper of March the 14th was an answer to a letter of Sir Hugh Rose of the 20th of January, which, as hon. Members would doubtless remember, appeared in the proceedings of the Mhow Court Martial. The importance of the paper was very great, for if it had been produced, the statement of the hon. Member for Andover, as to there never having been any suspicion, either before or during Lilley's confinement, that he had taken spirits, could have been flatly contradicted, It was written in reply to the letter of Sir Hugh Rose, enclosing the addendum of the medical officer of the Inniskilling Dragoons, dated the day after the post mortem examination, which said—
  842
  "In addition to my report of yesterday, I have the honour to add that it has been brought to my notice that the deceased was in the habit of drinking a considerable quantity of brandy daily while in arrest, and on inquiry I find this to be true. It is my opinion that this, in conjunction with the other exciting causes before stated, was calculated to increase the predisposition to apoplectic seizure of which he died."
  Having stated these things, the conclusion which he drew was, that this court-martial need not, ought not, and if the whole truth had been told, would not have taken place in England. The noble Lord would no doubt refer to the excitement which existed, but to this, he (Lord Hotham) would reply, that that excitement was mainly created by the silence of the Government upon these points. If they had told the House and the country what they knew, but what they carefully concealed, he did not believe that there would have been half the excitement, or any of the scandal which they had witnessed during the last twelve months, nor should they have had to pay a Bill of £18,000. But other reasons had been given for holding the court-martial in this country. One was, that "grave charges had been brought against Colonel Crawley in the public press and in Parliament on the authority of persons entitled to confidence." The hon. Member for Andover was entitled to be implicitly believed as to anything which he stated of his own knowledge, but as in this instance he had received his information from others, and as the Government had responsible officers whose reports they had already received, he did not think that that was any reason for departing from the ordinary course. Then it was said, that the refusal to hold the court-martial here would have operated against recruiting, but there might be found in the proceedings of the court-martial at Aldershot ample evidence to set at rest any such apprehension. Again, the Secretary of State for War and the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) had given as another reason for holding the court-martial in England, that Colonel Crawley had admitted and confessed that he had committed an act of inhumanity. But any one who would take the trouble. of looking at the Mhow Blue Book would see that what Colonel Crawley said was that "if" he had been guilty of the act imputed to him, or had had any knowledge of it, it would have been an act of inhumanity on his part. Was that a reason for holding the court-martial in this country? It was also said that an-

  843
  other reason was to be found in a letter from Lieutenant Fitzsimon, complaining of Colonel Crawley, which Paymaster Smales had delivered to His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief. It was well known to be one of the first principles of military discipline, that no complaint should be forwarded otherwise than through, and accompanied by, the explanation of the commanding officer. And yet the Commander-in-Chief had received the letter in question from the hands of one, then only known as one just cashiered by the sentence of a court-martial, and had acted upon it without any previous communication with the Commander-in-Chief in India. And this was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as only a year before, on March 18, 1862, His Royal Highness had directed Sir William Mansfield to inform this same officer (Smales) that "he had been guilty of a great error and breach of discipline in forwarding a letter to the Secretary of State for War direct, instead of through his immediate commanding officer." When the court-martial met, Colonel Crawley earnestly prayed that he might be tried on every charge that had been made against him, but his prayer was not granted. Colonel Crawley then appealed again to the Commander-in-Chief, who replied, coldly, that it was not proposed to make any addition to the charges. Colonel Crawley then naturally thought that, at least, he would be allowed to show why he had done certain things of which he had been accused. The prosecutor objected, on the ground —first, that it would be irrelevant to go into these matters, and that if they did "the inquiry would be altogether endless." This was an unfortunate observation to proceed from the prosecutor. What would have been said of the Solicitor General if, when recently prosecuting seven foreigners (of whom five had since been executed) for piracy, he had made use of such language? He would have been execrated from one end of the country to the other; and yet, of what value would Colonel Crawley's life have been to him if he had been convicted of such charges as were brought against him? Then again, as to the prosecutor's reply. How was that to be characterized? He (Lord Hotham) had the advantage of possessing a large acquaintance among lawyers, and he had availed himself of it to ask whether the course pursued at the court-martial on Colonel Crawley would have been tolerated
  844
  in any court of law. They one and all declared that any attempt on the part of the prosecutor to introduce new matter in the reply would have been instantly stopped, and most probably reprehended, by the bench. What could have been the object of attacking, in the reply, the Commander-in-Chief in India and the Commander of the Forces in Bombay, who were not there to defend themselves, except to make a last expiring attempt to obtain on any terms a conviction, and to make such conviction apply to all that had been said and done against Colonel Crawley? When the result of the court-martial was known, every one expected that the Commander-in-Chief, in announcing it to the army, would deal handsomely with Colonel Crawley. He had been acquitted in the fullest and most honourable manner, without any defence except that which the prosecutor had made for him, and after a trial which would have been stopped in Westminster Hall, at the end of the prosecution, on the ground that there was nothing to go to the jury. He (Lord Hotham) felt sure that the Commander-in-Chief would take a wide and extended view of the whole of the proceedings, from their commencement to their end, and if it appeared that he had previously said against any persons that which they did not deserve, or in favour of others more than they deserved, he would take that opportunity of setting matters right, and putting everything before the army and the country in a way which no one could misunderstand. The object of military, like that of civil, punishment was not vengeance, but to deter others from committing the like offences. If a regiment or its officers were proved to be guilty of extraordinary misconduct, the fact ought to be published to the whole army. If, as in the present case, the commanding officer of a regiment was put on his trial and honourably acquitted, common justice required that the whole army also should be made cognizant of the fact. Cases of this kind were fortunately rare, but there were two which he would mention. In 1814, the commanding officer of the 10th Hussars was brought before a court-martial on the complaint of his officers, and although reprimanded on a point of small importance, the charges substantially failed. The proceedings of the Court being laid before the Prince Regent, he ordered the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, to announce His Royal Highness's opinion on the sub-

  845
  ject, which was that all the officers should be removed, and that the letter embodying his Royal Highness's commands should not only be read at the head of each regiment, but be entered in its order book. In the case of the 85th Regiment, also, in 1813, there was a solemn adjudication of the Prince Regent to the same effect. Surely, if there had ever been held a court-martial, the result of which ought to have been notified in the most solemn and formal manner, the late court-martial at Aldershot was one. No such notification, however, had been made to the army, nor had any thing appeared but a memorandum published in the newspapers— addressed, apparently, to no one, and remarkable for its deviation from the ordinary course of proceeding in being signed by the Military Secretary; whereas the universal rule was that all letters and orders on the subject of discipline should be signed by the Adjutant General. And when he looked at the contents of this memorandum, he (Lord Hotham) could not help saying that, considering that Colonel Crawley had been fully and honourably acquitted of the charges preferred against him, considering also the character he had received from innumerable witnesses—a character of which any officer might well be proud, it would have been more generous, and certainly more conducive to the good of the service, if instead of speaking of Colonel Crawley in the way he had done, His Royal Highness had seen fit to signify to the army his determination to support him in the exercise of his just authority, and to convey, privately, any further admonition which the case might have seemed to require. But how have matters been left by this memorandum? There remained the recorded and unrevoked opinion of the Commander-in-Chief that the regiment had always been in excellent order until Colonel Crawley took the command of it. The Committee, however, could not have forgotten a question which was put on the court-martial to which the prosecutor objected, and a letter which was asked for by Colonel Crawley, and of which, after two days delay, it was stated that it would be "detrimental to the public service" to admit the production. It was clear, therefore, what were the contents of that document, but in addition to this, it was also clear that His Royal Highness had been misled on this point, inasmuch as it was now matter of general notoriety
  846
  in India that, from the period of the arrival of the Inniskillings in that country, or shortly after, the state of its officers had been reprobated by Sir Henry Somerset, then Commander-in-Chief in Bombay, and by every, or nearly every, other general officer who had had the regiment under his command. And yet it was left on record that the Commander-in-Chief considered the regiment to have been in perfect order until it got into the hands of Colonel Crawley. And how stood the case as regarded Sir Hugh Rose and Sir William Mansfield? Personal compliments had, indeed, been paid them, and credit for good intentions given; but in no instance that he (Lord Hotham) had been able to discover, had any reliance been placed on their judgment. Sir Hugh Rose had reported, on the authority of Dr. Turnbull, Assistant Surgeon Barnett, and Mrs. Lilley, that the unfortunate Sergeant Major had, during his confinement, drank daily a sufficient quantity of brandy to "compromise" his life; and this was corroborated by two Inspectors General of Hospitals, Dr. Beatson and Dr. Linton. His Royal Highness gave his opinion that
  "Had Sir Hugh Rose been better acquainted with some of the facts of the Sergeant Major's case, he would have taken a different view of it."
  And again, His Royal Highness said that "there was no proof that he took brandy to such an extent as to cause his death." Sir William Mansfield had reported that the
  "Clandestine, unsoldierlike, and improper proceedings of the three non-commissioned officers might be fairly interpreted by Colonel Crawley into a conspiracy."
  And Sir Hugh Rose, in a letter dated April 16, 1863, referred to
  "Evidence in proof of a cabal on the part of the three non-commissioned officers having been already forwarded to the Horse Guards."
  His Royal Highness had given publicly his opinion that there seemed "not to have been a shadow of foundation for a charge of conspiracy." Again, Sir Hugh Rose had reported that Sergeant Major Lilley
  "Had, on more occasions than one, acted with great impropriety, and want of discipline; that he was not by any means the superior non-commissioned officer described by the Commander-in-Chief to have been."
  And that Sir William Mansfield had stated that he was "a very ill-behaved noncommissioned officer." And that there exists

  847
  "An official, recorded, and public proof of his misconduct already forwarded to the Horse Guards."
  Sir William Mansfield had also reported the use by Sergeant Major Lilley, of
  "Objectionable and opprobrious language, in presence of other non-commissioned officers, towards Colonel Crawley."
  That he
  "Hoped that there might be some mistake as to the use of those beastly and abominable expressions against his commanding officer, which had been attributed to him."
  And that he had ordered him to be deprived of his "situation of regimental sergeant major." Of these serious reports, the Commander- in - Chief had taken no other public notice than to say that
  "The character of Sergeant Major Lilley for sobriety and good conduct, previous to his arrest, seems to have been undoubted.
  All these circumstances were well known in the regiment, and every hon. Member could judge what effect was likely to be produced on the minds of the officers, noncommissioned officers, and men, when they found that the Commander-in-Chief had thought them undeserving of notice. But a great question still remained to be considered—namely, on what principles was the army, henceforward, to be governed. If it was to be governed on the principles which had been applied to this case, he (Lord Hotham) had no hesitation in stating that, before many years had elapsed, its discipline would be such as, to quote an expression of the Commander-in-Chief, "to render it worse than useless." An officer who received a commission in the army was bound to devote his best energies of mind and body to the service of his Sovereign, but he had a right to expect something in return. He had a right to expect that a liberal interpretation should be put on his actions — that allowance should be made for the difficulties under which he might be placed, and that he should receive protection and support from the Crown, at all events, until it had been proved that he had been guilty of any crime. That rule had clearly not been acted upon in the case of Colonel Crawley. The Government had had it in their power to protect him from much of the obloquy which had fallen upon him, but they had stood by, and by their silence allowed him to be condemned by public opinion for almost every offence, except cowardice and desertion, of which an officer could be guilty. He (Lord Hotham) need not tell the Committee how much,
  848
  in military operations, may depend on the exercise of promptitude and vigour in times of emergency. How could they expect officers to act with vigour and decision in such times, if they had to stop and think, not what should be done, but what the hon. Members for Brighton or Andover would say of them, and how much protection or support they would receive from their superiors!
  Sir Hugh Rose and Sir W. Mansfield were not "bloated aristocrats;" they had not got to their present high positions by influence or high connections, but as the result of their services in the field. They were officers who had rendered good service to their country at the time when the fate of the Indian Empire hung trembling in the balance, and to whom the country would look in any future war. He (Lord Hotham) took leave to say, that if they had been so utterly deficient in judgment as the orders issued from the Horse Guards had, not unnaturally, led the public to consider them, they ought, long since, to have been recalled. But although the authorities had not thought fit to remove them, they had allowed their representative at the court-martial to discredit the authority and to damage the character of these officers in the estimation of the army and the nation, by perverting their language and misrepresenting their conduct. He entirely agreed with the author of an able pamphlet, to which much reference had been made, in asking whether
  "It is in this manner that the authority and influence of Commanders-in-Chief are to be maintained in the eyes of their subordinates, and whether such treatment of such men is compatible with the well-being of the English army, or the safety of the Indian Empire."
  He (Lord Hotham) was deeply grieved to be compelled to make these observations, but the subject to which they referred was much too important to be allowed to pass unnoticed. What had been done by the Government had created general regret in the army, and it would require a long time, and a very different course of action, to restore to the Executive that confidence in its firmness and in its decisions which it ought to possess, and which had been so rudely and so lamentably shaken by its conduct in this case.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he hastened to dissipate the very natural apprehension of the Committee by stating at the outset that he did not intend to follow the noble Lord through the able but

  849
  very long statement he had made on the question of the trial of Colonel Crawley. It was with some surprise that he recollected that the noble Lord on a former occasion, when the Amendment was put that it was not expedient to produce any further correspondence on the subject, did not make a point of being present to return a negative to that question. [Lord HOTHAM: I was in my place.] Then he was still more astonished that the noble Lord did not cry "No!" [Lord HOTHAM: Does the noble Lord mean to say I did not?] At any rate, the noble Lord did not call for a division. No one could have assented to the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman opposite without also assenting to the principle he laid down, that such subjects ought not to be discussed in the House. Moreover, the noble Lord had an opportunity of expressing his views, but he made only a short speech, saying, as he understood, that he would not ask for more papers, and that he thought further discussion of the matter unadvisable. [Lord HOTHAM: No, no!] The noble Lord would not make his statement then, but waited for two or three weeks, and then delivered a very long speech, replying to many of the arguments used on the former occasion. What would be said if the hon. Member for Andover (Mr. D. Fortescue) took a week or two to consider the noble Lord's remarks, and then came down and answered them? The noble Lord asserted that the Government, when the subject was first brought before the House, were in the possession of information which ought to have enabled them to refute the great part of the hon. Member for Andover's charges. The other night he stated that the Government and the Horse Guards were no doubt in the possession of evidence which showed that the dwelling in which Sergeant Major Lilley died was one similar to that in which he would have lived if not in confinement. He regretted to find, in regard to his speech last year, that he either omitted to state that to the House, or, at least, that he mentioned it in such a manner that it escaped the notice of the reporters. He certainly never understood that the hon. Member for Andover wished to assert that Sergeant Major Lilley was confined in a black hole, or that the house differed from his ordinary dwelling. He was sorry, however, that he did not put the point to the House with sufficient distinctness last year. That was the only portion of the statement of the hon. Mem-
  850
  ber for Andover which last June he was in a position to dispute. As to the essential charge against Colonel Crawley, and that on which he was eventually tried—that he caused sentries to be posted in Lilley's quarters so as to render the punishment unnecessarily aggravating and severe—he had not then the materials on which he could contradict it. It was further said that there was a great deal of hesitation and delay about the production of papers. The fact was, that having to deal with such a mass of correspondence, the Government had great difficulty in knowing exactly what were the documents asked for. It had been asserted that it was wrong to give any papers at all; but the Government certainly desired to give only those which would enlighten the House. They were quite aware that the publication of one led to a demand for another, and that, therefore, it was very essential that none should be given except those which were absolutely necessary. As to the memorandum asked for, speaking on the authority of the Commander-in-Chief, he stated he did not know of any memorandum answering the description given of that required, except a private one. He believed that the memorandum asked for in the House was stated very clearly to be one in which the Commander-in-Chief modified the opinion given on the whole case in the first memorandum. His Royal Highness, conscious that he had never materially modified his first opinion, very naturally said he did not know of any memorandum of the kind. [Lord HOTHAM: What is the meaning, then, of the words, "very much modified?"] It was, he owned, unfortunate that these words were ever used, for they had led to great misapprehension. He believed many hon. Members and the public read those words without perusing the rest of the memorandum. The second memorandum modified was the Commander-in-Chief's opinion on Sir Hugh Rose'a remarks; but he did not think any document existed that materially modified his Royal Highness's view of the general merits of the case. As to the letter on which the noble Lord opposite laid so much stress, it was not a memorandum at all. His Royal Highness undoubtedly did not know what was the document which hon. Members wished to obtain when the delay arose as to the production of the memorandum. His Royal Highness, as he had told the House, was most anxious that all he had

  851
  written to Sir Hugh Rose modifying his opinion should be made known, and that led him to desire that certain passages of the letter referred to should, if possible, he given. The noble Lord was not correct in stating that the court-martial would cost £11,000 more than the House had yet heard of. He did not believe there was any sum including even the Indian allowances for witnesses in this country, of the slightest importance which was not comprised in the account already laid on the table. The noble Lord had complained of the narrow charge upon which Colonel Crawley was tried. Last year it was stated over and over again that Colonel Crawley was not responsible for the arrest. In that respect he was covered by the orders of his superior officer, but it was thought that there were circumstances connected with the manner in which the arrest had been carried out which ought to be made the subject of further investigation. Eventually that investigation assumed the form of a court-martial, and even before Parliament was prorogued last autumn the charges upon which it was intended to try Colonel Crawley were known. The noble Lord had also referred to the fact that the result of the court-martial was not promulgated in a general order. He did not know whether it would have been in accordance with precedent to issue a general order, but, at all events, the Commander-in-Chief had published a document in which the full and complete nature of the acquittal of Colonel Crawley was recorded, in which several hostile witnesses were severely censured, and in which others were subjected to punishment. It was not his intention to follow the noble Lord further. The whole question had already been decided, and he did not think any useful object would be gained by re-opening it.
  SIR WILLIAM FRASERsaid, he wished to call the attention of the Advocate General to what he submitted was the inexpediency of making the colonel of the regiment the prosecutor in the event of a court-martial upon an officer of his regiment. The practice was, in his opinion, most objectionable, as putting, it might be, a distinguished officer in an unpleasant position, and likely to breed ill-feeling in regiments. Supposing that an adjutant was brought before a court-martial and acquitted, how could the business of the regiment be properly carried on with the adjutant in daily communication with his
  852
  colonel who had tried, without success, to convict him of what had been laid to his charge. He trusted that some other arrangements would be adopted in future.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he thought that the whole question of the administration of military law required investigation. The present system worked well enough in ordinary cases, but, as had recently been proved, it broke down under unusual pressure. The duties of the Judge Advocate, he thought, wanted revision, for it was his duty to advise the prosecutor, whilst, at the same time, he was legal assessor to the tribunal that had to adjudicate on the matter. Surely a person who acted as assessor should not be connected with the prosecution; and probably it would be better to have a legal assessor to give his assistance to the court. It was also desirable that the practice of writing out questions should be done away with, and that witnesses should be subjected, when necessary, to a sharp cross-examination. There was another point as to the assistance given to a prisoner by legal gentlemen. If legal assistance was allowed to be given, why should it not be regularly recognized by the Court? In the case of Colonel Crawley, he was reprimanded by the Court for putting a certain question to; a witness, and he was obliged to explain that the question was not drawn up by him, but was first placed in his hands by the; gentleman who sat next to him—his legal assistant. Then the prisoner had to read a long defence, which was written for him by a legal gentleman the day before; but he did not see why, when the defence was to be made, the legal gentleman should not make his speech as in any other court. He thought the whole question of sufficient importance to be dealt with by a Royal Commission.
  LORD LOVAINEobserved, that the recent trial had shown the great inconvenience of the present procedure; because words had been placed in the mouth of an officer attributing injustice to one of the highest military authorities in India, and folly to another. With reference to the speech which had been read by the prisoner in this case, that it was quite clear, from a note that subsequently appeared in The Times, it had been sent to that newspaper before it was delivered in court. As published, it contained passages which were omitted when the speech was actually read before the court.
  COLONEL DICKSONsaid, he thought that the worst thing that could happen would be the introduction of an extra legal authority into courts-martial. He trusted that the time would never come when regimental or military courts-martial would be conducted by other than the colonel of the regiment; for, however much courts martial were blamed for their decisions, it generally turned out that they had been right after all. He hoped they had heard the last of the court-martial on Colonel Crawley. The continued discussion of the question was calculated to have a very deleterious effect upon the discipline of the army.
  MR. HEADLAMsaid, that when the subject was formerly before the House, he had expressed his opinion that in ordinary cases justice was well administered by courts-martial, but that the legal machinery of the Judge Advocate General's office was not sufficient to conduct such a trial as had lately taken place. At the same time, he could not admit many of the statements which had been made as to the manner in which that trial had been conducted; but that was a subject he would not go into at that time. It might be very easy to say that no legal assistance should be given, but he did not see how it was possible to preclude it. The whole subject of courts-martial was under consideration, and every effort would be made to place it on as sound and satisfactory a basis as possible.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he hoped that the noble Lord would take care that the Votes were amended in consequence of the favourable news from New Zealand.
  Vote agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
  Committee to sit again on Wednesday.

  CHURCH BUILDING AND NEW PARISHES ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.

    LEAVE. FIRST READING.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERALmoved for leave to bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend the Church Building and New Parishes Act.
    MR. HADFIELDsaid, he believed that the measure was intended to secure the payment of church rates in certain parishes. He thought that the Attorney General ought to explain its objects before he asked for leave to introduce such a Bill.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, the Bill wag recommended by a Select Committee and the same as introduced last year. It would not in any way interfere with church rates. The law would be left as it stood. If any Amendments could be suggested he would be most happy to consider them.
    Leave given.
    Bill to consolidate and amend the Church Building and New Parishes Acts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL and Sir GEORGE GREY.
    Bill presented, and read 1°. [Bill 61.]

    LISBURN ELECTION.
    MR. ADAIRsaid, he rose to move as a Resolution—
    "That the Minutes of the Proceedings of, and the Evidence taken before the Select Committee on the Lisburn Election Petition be laid before this House."
    The petition on the subject had been referred to a Committee, of which he was the Chairman. Up to the 22nd of March, the day on which the Committee adjourned, the proceedings had been regular and legal, and the evidence on both sides had been completed, and all that remained to be done was to hear the reply of the Petitioner's counsel on the whole case; but in consequence of the adjournment having, been made to a day which the statute did not authorize, a Report could not be made to the House, and the Committee also decided that they were unable to pass any Resolution. The Committee felt great regret at the position in which both parties had been placed. The petitioner had incurred great expense without obtaining that which he conceived he had a right to expect, the decision of the Committee as between himself and the sitting member, and owing to circumstances over which he had no control, he was afraid that the petitioner was without redress. With regard to the sitting member, he ventured to say that the result could hardly he satisfactory to him and his friends. He had been induced to make those observations because the circumstances attending the Committee had been such as were worthy of the consideration of the House, and it was for the House to decide whether some legislation was not necessary to remedy such a state of things.
    MR. HUNTseconded the Motion.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That the Minutes of the Proceedings of, and the Evidence taken before, the Select Committee on the Lisburn Election Petition be laid before this House."—(Mr. Adair.)
    MR. MACDONOGHsaid, the subject was one of considerable importance. He did not object to the production of the proceedings of the Committee, but resisted the production of the evidence as a thing unheard of and illegal. The Committee had not reported the evidence to the House, and, therefore, it would be irregular to lay such evidence before them. No sufficient reason had been urged for the adoption of the Motion. The proceedings of the Committee, and also of that House, with reference to Election Committees, were regulated by statute, and Mr. May's excellent work stated that the House had parted with its functions by the passing of the Act 11 Vict., and had delegated it to a Committee, and he would put it to the Attorney General to state whether the present proceeding was regular or not, and whether in these days of economy the House should be called on at ten minutes past one o'clock to discuss a subject which if carried would be irregular and entail useless expense. It was no party question, for the Motion had been moved by an hon. Member on the Government side of the House, and seconded by a Gentleman on the Opposition side. It was impossible to resuscitate that defunct Committee, and he objected to the publication of the evidence that had been taken in relation to a variety of matters connected with the election, unless it was strictly regular to do so. Two cases only of a similar character had occurred since the passing of the Act. One was the case of Great Yarmouth and the other Beverley. In the first case, the Committee declared the election void, and reported to the House that the place ought to be disfranchised. It was then ordered that the evidence should be laid upon the table of the House, but that was ordered to be done to enable the House to say if they would disfranchise the borough or not. With regard to Beverley, a similar course was taken in order to instruct the Attorney General to prosecute Mr. Glover for signing a false declaration. The Report of the Committee in each case was first laid upon the table, and the evidence was afterwards ordered to be printed and submitted to the House.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he so far agreed with his hon. and learned Friend that this was no party question, and he hoped the House would not make it so. It appeared to him not to be irregular but in the highest degree regular and proper that the evidence taken by the
    856
    Committee should be laid upon the table of the House, and there was not one word n the Act which was an obstacle to its being done. There was a much greater reason for its being done in this case than there was in those which had been referred to, because an occurrence of an unprecedented nature had taken place. The Committee, with the best possible intentions, had miscarried, and were unable to come to a Report after they had taken all the evidence which had been adduced be-Fore them; and after the case, upon the evidence, was closed on both sides. What, therefore, was the House to do? Was the House not to inform itself of everything that had taken place regularly before that Committee whilst its powers were perfect and legal and nothing had occurred to suspend them? They had taken evidence to show whether bribery or corruption was or was not practised by the sitting Member; and it might be that it completely exonerated him and his friends and the constituents of the borough, or it might be that a state of things had prevailed in the borough which deserved the attention of the House. Under circumstances so unprecedented, it would be a dereliction of duty if the House did not take care to have all the information which the publication of the proceedings before the Committee could give them.
    MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Speaker whether the Committee had not ceased to exist, and whether the present proposal was irregular. The Act said the Committee might report, and by the next clause they were permitted, after having first reported, to bring any matter in connection with their inquiry before the House, and take their opinion upon it, but it must be as a Committee. The Committee had ceased to exist, and therefore this proceeding was irregular. In the other House of Parliament it was enacted that if a Committee reported the existence of corrupt practices the House should recommend the appointment of a Royal Commission. But in this case there was no Report. Still, the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite said the House had the same authority to proceed as if there was a Report. If so, the last Act was useless. Was there, he asked, any precedent for taking steps on the Report of a Committee which had ceased to be a Committee?
    MR. COLLINSsaw no reason why the evidence should not be laid before the

    857
    House, for the use of those Members who desired to peruse it. No action could be founded on the evidence without a special Act of Parliament, and he did not think that any case would be made out for dealing by Act of Parliament with the borough of Lisburn. Still, if the House thought they ought to know all the circumstances of the case, the evidence could be printed and afterwards become lumber.
    MR. GEORGEsaid, he had no objection to the Committee setting themselves right with the House, but he did object to the evidence being printed. The Committee, when once appointed by the House, derived its power from the statute, and was no further under the control of the House. If a Committee neglected to perform its duties, and thereby became defunct, there was an end of it, and its proceedings. The very counsel for the petitioning Member in his book on election law said that in the case of an illegal adjournment the Committee was defunct. The Committee had never expressed an opinion. The investigation was in the nature of a criminal proceeding; and the law presumed the innocence of a man whose guilt was not proved.
    SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, there was no question of the appointment of a second Committee, nor as to the validity of the last election for Lisburn. The question was whether the Chairman, having reported that the Committee were not competent to proceed, the House had not a right to know what were their proceedings while they were a competent Committee under the Act of Parliament. The House did not call on the extinct Committee for the evidence, but upon the officer of the House, in whose custody that evidence was.
    MR. LYGONcontended that the evidence and the proceedings altogether of the Committee were all null and void. No action could be taken by the House except on the Report of the Committee, and in that case there was no Report. The Minutes ought to be laid before the House, because grave inconvenience might follow if that were not done. Upon that ground he was anxious that they should be produced, so that then they might take action, in order to prevent the recurrence of a similar failure of justice. He would move, as an Amendment, the omission of the words "and the evidence taken before."
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "and the Evidence taken before" —(Mr. Lygon.)
    SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid, he was of opinion that the evidence could not be produced, because no one was in a position to say that the inquiry had been completed.
    MR. HUNTsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for East Worcestershire would withdraw his Amendment. This was a very anomalous and exceptional case. The evidence was complete. The sitting Member was not in this country, but his father, who was in the House, was anxious that the evidence should be printed.
    MR. WHITESIDEsaid, no answer had been given to the argument. The question for the House to consider was upon what ground it was that the evidence should be printed. He asked for information from the Speaker, the highest authority on the subject.
    MR. NORTHsaid, he considered it would be advisable to print the real facts that had come out during the inquiry, because they had already appeared in the newspapers in a garbled form. The House might possibly, on receiving the evidence, address the Crown for a Commission to inquire into the corruption of the borough.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, that it was for the House to decide the question. If he had seen anything in the proposition contrary to the rules of the House he should have considered in his duty to call attention to it.
    MR. HASSARDsaid, he should support the Amendment on the ground that the Committee alone could decide upon the value of the evidence.
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    The House divided:—Ayes 114; Noes 22: Majority 90.
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Ordered,
    That the Minutes of the Proceedings of, and the Evidence taken before, the Select Committee on the Lisburn Election Petition be laid before this House.—(Mr. Adair.)

    THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Hutt, Bill to amend the Laws relating to the Conservancy of the River Thames; and for other purposes relating thereto, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HUTT and Mr. PEEL.
    Bill presented, and read 1°. [Bill 60.]

    SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS (DUBLIN).
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the condition of the Scientific Institu-

    859
    tions of Dublin which are assisted by Government aid."—(Mr. Gregory.)
    Debate arising,
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"— (Mr. Whiteside,)—put, and negatived.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Ordered,
    That a Select Committee be appointed, "to inquire into the condition of the Scientific Institutions of Dublin which are assisted by Government aid."—(Mr. Gregory.)
    And, on Monday, April 18, Committee nominated as follows:—
    Mr. GREGORY, Lord HENRY LENNOX, Sir ROBERT PEEL, Mr. LUKE WHITE, Mr. LYGON, Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, Mr. COGAN, The O'CONOR DON, Mr. O'REILLY, Mr. DILLWYN, Sir EDWARD GROGAN, Mr. GEORGE, Mr. LEADER, Mr. LEFROY, and Mr. WALDRON:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
    House adjourned at Two o'clock.