Commons Sitting of 19 June 1865

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee —POST OFFICE PACKET SERVICE.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading —Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act (1856) Amendment [219]; Ulster Canal Transfer* [211]; Carriers Act Amendment * [224].
Report of Select Committee — On Chemists and Druggists* [78]; Chemists and Druggists (No. 2)* [84]; Chemists and Druggists [Sir FitzRoy Kelly] * [78]; Chemists and Druggists (No. 2) [Sir John Shelley]* [84].
Committee — Fortifications (Provision for Expenses) * [215]; Colonial Governors (Retiring Pensions) [133]—R.P.; Sugar Duties and Drawbacks* [198]; Comptroller of the Exchequer and Public Audit* [208]; National Gallery (Dublin) * [203]; Fire Brigade (Metropolis)* [153]—R.P.; Harbours Transfer* [216]; Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 2) (re-comm.)* [222]; Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 3) (re-comm.)* [223]; Roads and Bridges (Scotland) (re-comm.)* [165]—R.P.
Report —Fortifications (Provisions for Expenses)* [215]; Sugar Duties and Drawbacks *[198]; Comptroller of the Exchequer and Public Audit * [208]; National Gallery (Dublin) * [203]; Harbours Transfer* [216]; Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 2) (re-comm.) * [222]; Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 3) (re-comm.) * [223].
Considered as amended — Greenwich Hospital [212]; Malt Duty* [160]; Sugar Duties and Drawbacks* [198;] Trusts Administration (Scotland)* [158]; Record of Title (Ireland)* [217] [Lords']; Parsonages * [205] [Lords]; Wick and Ayr Burghs Election * [166].
Third Reading —Sugar Duties and Drawbacks * [198]; Crown Suits, &c. * [206]; Kingstown Harbour * [185]; Pheasants (Ireland)* [193] [Lords]; Ecclesiastical Commission (Superannuation Allowances)* [201], and passed.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA— THE CONFEDERATION.
MR. CARDWELL,in laying upon the table copies of the Official Correspondence which has taken place on this subject, said, these papers will be found to consist of a despatch from the Governor General of Canada, enclosing a Minute of his Executive Council recommending the appointment of four Members of that body to proceed to England to confer with Her Majesty's Government on four questions of importance — namely, the proposed Confederation of British North America, the Defence of Canada, the Reciprocity Treaty, and the North Western Territory. On the arrival of these gentlemen in England, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary for War, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Secretary to the Colonies, were appointed to confer with them on the part of Her Majesty's Government. Several conferences were held, and the result of these conferences was embodied in a despatch to the Governor General of Canada, which has been adopted by Her Majesty's Government, and by the deputation from Canada as a record of the views expressed. The papers are already
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in type, and will be circulated to Members of the House to-morrow.
Papers relating to the late Conferences presented [by Command]; to lie on the Table.—Parl. Paper, No. [3426.]

ENDOWED GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HODGKINSONsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, What progress has been made in collecting and arranging the information required for the Return ordered in the last Session of Parliament, with reference to Endowed Grammar Schools; and when the Return may be expected to be laid upon the table of the House?
  MR. H. A. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that a certain number of Endowed Schools had sent in the required information. That information had been tabulated and arranged, and he hoped the result would be laid upon the table before the end of the Session.

TREASURE TROVE.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JERVOISE JERVOISEsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, referring to the fact stated in a Return (Treasury Trove, No. 297, of Session 1864) of portions of the Royal Revenue having in two cases been disposed of according to directions of the Lords of the Treasury, Whether it is not right that so unprecedented a step as the free transfer of the Crown's Revenue to private individuals should not be guarded by the usual constitutional forms?
  MR. F. PEELsaid, in reply, that the course which had been taken in these two cases was not unprecedented, nor any other than the usual course. The treasure was sent to the British Museum, and having been reported by the authorities there to be of no intrinsic value, was returned by the Treasury to the finders. There was no objection to this course on constitutional grounds, as it was authorized by the Civil List Act, In answer to the observation that was frequently made that the Treasury did not act with sufficient liberality to the finders of treasure, he might remark that the Crown's rights would be of very little value unless that course were pursued.

ARMY—EMPLOYMENT OF DR. SUTHERLAND.—QUESTION.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, In what capacity Dr. Sutherland is employed by the War Department; what pay and allowances he receives; whether he is paid by salary or by day pay when actually employed; and, if by day pay, for how many days in the year he is employed on an average—from what Vote of the Estimates the payment is made; whether the arrangement has received the approval of the Treasury; and, whether there will be any objection to lay upon the table of the House a copy of the terms of his original appointment, and of any correspondence between the War Office and the Treasury on the subject?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, the House would recollect that at the conclusion of the Crimean war a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the sanitary state of the Army. The result was that several sub-Committees were subsequently appointed to consider and report upon the best mode of carrying out several of the subjects which had been reported upon by the Royal Commission. Dr. Sutherland, who had been a member of the Royal Commission, was appointed to serve on four of these sub-Committees, and he still continued to serve on one, and the most important of them—that originally called the Barrack and Hospital Committee, and now called the Army Sanitary Committee. The duties of that Committee were to consider and report upon all questions relating to sanitary improvements in existing barracks and hospitals, and the most healthy form of construction for new buildings. Dr. Sutherland's great experience and knowledge in such matters enabled him to render services upon the Committee more valuable probably than those of any other gentleman who could be found. As to the rate of remuneration, it was fixed by the right hon. and gallant Member for Huntington (General Peel) at £3 3s. a day, and afterwards, upon the recommendation of the late Mr. Sidney Herbert, then President of the Royal Commission, it was continued at the same rate so long as he was completely occupied upon these duties. Dr. Sutherland's time had since been entirely occupied on the details of the business of the Sanitary Committee, and he therefore continued to receive the above rate of
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remuneration. His salary was charged to the Sanitary Vote of the Army Estimates. Under Vote 14 a sum of £20,000 was taken for sanitary services. The arrangement made for the payment of expenses incurred by this Committee was generally approved by the Treasury, and there would be no objection to lay upon the table all the correspondence between the War Office and the Treasury on the subject.
COLONEL PERCY HERBERTsaid, he wished to inquire whether there is no Officer in the Army capable of performing the duties of Dr. Sutherland, and whether he is entitled to superannuation?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he was unable to answer the question of the hon. and gallant Member, whether there was no officer of the army who was qualified to discharge the duties performed by Dr. Sutherland? It was the opinion of the present Secretary of State, and it had been the opinion of two or three of his predecessors, that these duties were better performed by Dr. Sutherland than they could be by any other person. He was unable to answer the question relative to Dr. Sutherland's superannuation; but should rather imagine that, under the circumstances, he was not qualified to receive superannuation.

INDIA—DHAR PRIZE MONEY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HARVEY LEWISsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, When the second issue of the Dhar Prize Money will take place; what is the cause of the delay of such issue; and what is the total amount now available for distribution?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, in reply, that he was unable to answer the question, as no information had arrived from India on the subject of the second issue of the Dhar Prize Money; and he was unable to even say whether the amount of the fund would admit of a second distribution.

THE SAVINGS BANKS AND THE NATIONAL DEBT.—QUESTION.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the sum of £7,703 4s. 9d, stated in Parliamentary Paper No. 328, of Session 1865, to have been paid under the authority of the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 14, out of the fund for the Banks of Savings, ought not to have been paid out

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of the fund upon which the Establishment of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt is chargeable; whether the sums of £255 14 s. 2d. and £297 10 s., being the amounts charged in columns 1 and 2 of the same Parliamentary Paper, ought not, under the Act 26 &c 27 Vict. c. 87, to have been charged upon the fund upon which the Establishment of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt is chargeable; and, whether the several sums charged in columns 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, ought not to have been charged to the same fund?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would answer as clearly as he could the three questions of the right hon. Gentleman. The first related to the payment of £7,703 4s. 9d. It was, according to the view of the Treasury, perfectly regular, and charged to the proper fund. It was, however, competent for the right hon. Gentleman to raise the, question if he thought fit. With regard to the second question under the Act 9 Geo. IV., the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt were authorized to appoint a barrister and to pay his allowances, together with those of his clerks and the expenses of the office, out of the fund upon which the Establishment of the Commission was chargeable. Under another Act, however, 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 14, the incidental expenses were authorized to be paid out of any fund standing in the names of the Commissioners. For the last twenty-two years all those incidental expenses had been paid out of the fund standing in the names of the Commissioners in the accounts of the Savings Banks. As the barrister was originally appointed there could be no doubt that his salary came under the head of incidental expenses, because he was paid by piece according to the work done. Subsequently, however, when these payments were commuted for an annual allowance, it was still held that these were clearly incidental expenses according to the sense and meaning of Parliament. They were still so treated, and were charged on the money Standing in the name of the Commissioners. The third question relating to the minor expenses he would take next, because it fell precisely under the same conditions as the first. The question here was whether, irrespective of the manner in which these sums were charged before the passing of the Act 26 & 27 Vict. c. 87, they ought not to have been charged on the Consoli-
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dated Fund — namely, the fund out of which the salary and expenses of the National Debt Commissioners was charged. The answer was, that although the 26 & c 27 Vict. c. 87, did generally repeal the 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 14, yet that Clause 68 was a saving clause for certain portions of that Act, and said that the Act should not repeal any of the powers and authorities of the Commissioners of the National Debt with regard to the control, management, investment, conversion, and regulation of the funds remitted by the Trustees of the Savings Banks and Friendly Societies. That section had been construed as keeping alive the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV., with respect to the payment in question.
MR. HENLEYsaid, that the Act 26 &c 27 Vict, repealed in terms Section 21 of the Act of Will. IV., which authorized these payments, and re-enacted the provisions of the 9 Geo. IV. If the right hon. Gentleman had not given his attention to the subject, and would do so, he would find that the general saving clause to which he had referred did not cover those payments.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would look into the matter.

BISHOPS' TRUST SUBSTITUTION ACT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MUNDYsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Member for Cambridge University, Whether the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, under their common seal, was previously obtained for the substitution of the Bishop of St. Asaph for the Bishop of Bangor, as President of the Hospital of Christ at Ruthin, in the county of Denbigh, as ordered by the Board of Charity Commission, on January 24th, 1860, pursuant to Section 2 of 21 & 22 Vict. c. 71, commonly designated "The Bishops' Trust Substitution Act of Session 1858;"whether the like consent for the substitution of the Bishop of Oxford for the Bishop of Lincoln, as trustee of Lady Conyngham's Charities for the benefit of poor Clergymen in county of Bucks, and of certain poor persons in parish of Hitchenden or Hayenden, in same county, by order of such Charity Commission, dated August 7th, I860, as disclosed in the Return ordered to be printed on 1st of March last (No. 84 of present Session); and, whether he considers that these two solitary instances in

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  a period of seven years are sufficient to justify the statement made by the Bishop of Oxford as promoter of this enactment, and of himself when taking up the conduct of this measure, as Her Majesty's Secretary of State, and now publicly recorded on the pages of the Statutes at Large, in the following words:—"Whereas it frequently happens that a Bishop of a diocese, &c,"in the preamble, section 1 of said enactment?
  MR. WALPOLEreplied, that the object of the Bishops' Trust Substitution Act was simply this: that when a diocese had been altered in which the former Bishop, by virtue of his office was trustee of a charity, then the trust was transferred to the Bishop of the new diocese in which the charity would be from the time when the alteration was made. This was to be done by the Charity Commissioners, except where a right of patronage or any other ecclesiastical matter was involved. Now, the first two questions of his hon. Friend did not relate to cases of ecclesiastical patronage or to anything of the kind, and, therefore, the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was not needed; for then the change was made by order of the Charity Commissioners, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had nothing to do with it. With regard to the third question—whether the Bishop of Oxford, as promoter of the enactment, and of himself when taking up the conduct of this measure, as Her Majesty's Secretary of State, were justified in the use of certain words in the preamble of the Statute? he had only to say, that he knew nothing of any statement made by the Bishop; but he believed that there were other cases besides those to which his hon. Friend had referred, and the word "frequently" would apply to such cases, as well as to the other two, and then the inference would be very different from that which the questor assumed.

FORFEITURE FOR TREASON AND FELONY BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. CHARLES FORSTERsaid, he wished to ask Mr. Attorney General, What course he proposed to take respecting the Forfeiture for Treason and Felony Bill?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,in reply, said it would be impossible to proceed with the Bill during the present Session. He was anxious to give effect to the engagements which he had entered into on the subject last year, but the difficulties experienced with regard to the working
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machinery of the Bill had been found too great, and it was now too late in the Session to overcome them.

STAMP DUTY ON HIGHWAY CONTRACTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. TREFUSISsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether Contracts for the maintenance and repair of Highways are liable to the Stamp Duty of one pound fifteen shillings; and, if so, whether, considering the heavy additional expense thereby entailed upon Highway Boards, he will consider the advisability of reducing the amount of Duty payable upon such Contracts?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he believed there was some doubt as to the actual state of the law, but the practice had been to assume that these contracts were not liable to a stamp duty of thirty-five shillings. There was no great reason why they should be so liable, and if they were liable the liability arose entirely out of technical considerations. In order that they might be put upon a more favourable footing, he intended, on bringing up the Report of the Inland Revenue Bill, to move the insertion of a clause providing that the stamp duty should not exceed sixpence.

THE GERMAN ZOLLVEREIN.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HEYGATEsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he will lay upon the table of the House a Copy of the Treaty recently contracted with the German Zollverein, and of the Tariff connected therewith?
  MR. LAYARD,in reply, said, the treaty had not yet been ratified, but he believed the ratifications would be exchanged in the course of a very few days. There was no tariff annexed to the treaty.

COMPANIES WORKMEN'S EDUCATION BILL.—QUESTION.
In reply to a question by Mr. W. E. FORSTER,
MR. ADDERLEYsaid, that it was not his intention to proceed further with the Bill during the present Session, but he intended to re-introduce it the next Session. He now moved that the Order for the Second Reading be discharged.
Motion agreed to.
Order discharged: Bill withdrawn.

INDIA—LAND TENURE IN OUDE.

  QUESTION.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether he has received any Report with regard to the Inquiry into the Land Tenure in Oude, which was now, he understood, approaching its conclusion; and, if so, whether he would state the substance of such Report, and whether the result of that Inquiry went to confirm the Talookdars in all important cases in their holdings?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, in reply, that up to the present time he had not received any official Report. The inquiry was being conducted by several officials, and their Reports would in the first place be addressed to the Chief Commissioner. They would then go to the Government of India, and of course he (Sir Charles Wood) would not receive complete information until the Reports were transmitted to him. But he had received information of what was going on, and it went entirely to confirm the statement of the noble Lord. The general tendency of the Reports was to the effect that though it was perfectly true that by common custom the occupiers had not been disturbed by the landowners, whether Talookdars or Zemindars, as long as the rent was paid, yet there were but very few cases in which they had been able to establish any right to the land amounting to a legal right. They had themselves shown the greatest indifference on the subject. The result, therefore, on the whole was to confirm the possession of the Talookdars in the estates which they held, and, practically, to do away with anything like legal right on the part of the occupying tenants to the land which they occupied.

LAHORE BISHOPRIC BILL—QUESTION.
In reply to Mr. HENRY SEYMOUR,
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, it was not his intention to persevere with the Bill this Session and he should therefore move that the Order for the Second Reading be read and discharged.
Motion agreed to.
Order discharged: Bill withdrawn.
MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, he begged to give notice that he would on a future occasion take the sense of the House on the policy of extending the English Church Establishment in India at the expense of the members of other religious communities.

PATENT LAWS.—QUESTION.
MR. LOWEsaid, he would beg to ask the noble Lord the Chairman of the Patent Law Commission, What steps it is proposed to take with regard to the Report of that Commission?
LORD STANLEYsaid, in reply, that the Patent Law Commission appointed three years ago was confined as regarded the scope of its inquiry. It was not a Commission to inquire into the principle upon which the Patent Laws were founded, but simply into the working of the existing laws, and to suggest any amendments which might be made in the working of those laws. The Report of that Commission was before the House, and, as the House was aware, they had suggested many amendments in detail. But he was bound to say that having had the subject under consideration now for nearly three years, having heard a great variety of evidence upon it, and being compelled to consider it in all its bearings, the effect of that inquiry on his mind had been to raise a very serious doubt as to the utility of Patent Laws at all. He was not the only Member of the Commission upon whom that effect had been produced. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), who was not now present, had authorized him to say that in that expression of opinion he entirely concurred, and he might say the same for the hon. Member for Bradford. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Hear, hear!] That being the case he should feel some difficulty in proposing to the House, either in the present or any future Session, those amendments of detail which had been embodied in the Report of the Commission. The preliminary question in his opinion for the House to try was this, whether they meant to have a Patent Law at all. If the House came to a decision that they intended to retain the Patent Law, then he should confidently recommend the amendments which the Commission had proposed as better qualified than any others in their opinion to meet the inevitable inconvenience which arises from the continuance of the law. But the House ought first to have an opportunity fairly and deliberately of deciding upon that larger question which had not been submitted to the Patent Law Commission—namely, whether it was expedient that Patents for inventions should continue to be a part of the law.

VISCOUNT AMBERLEY'S TRAVELLING EXPENSES.—QUESTION.
MR. HENNESSYsaid, with respect to the correspondence on the subject of the passages made by Viscount Amberley in the Greek waters on board Her Majesty's ships Liffey and Phoebe, he wished to call the attention of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the circumstance that, at page 2, Lord Amberley was described as an attachœ, but he had failed to find the name of the noble Lord on the Foreign Office List. He wished, therefore, to ask the hon. Gentleman, The date of the nomination, the date of Lord Amberley's examination by the Civil Service Commissioners, and whether there is any objection to produce a Copy of the Certificate of the Civil Service Commissioners required by the Order in Council, stating Lord Amberley's fitness?
MR. LAYARDreplied that he was not responsible for the title which the commander of the vessel might have put after Lord Amberley's name, but Lord Amberley was acting at the time as Mr. Elliot's private secretary, and in that capacity he was attached to the Mission. It was a common practice for a Minister to appoint his own private secretary. They formed part of the Minister's suite. It was an entirely exceptional thing that Lord Amber-ley's name should be mentioned at all in the Return. On a former occasion he had pointed out that in the same Estimate many other journeys by Ministers and their suites were mentioned, and no names of the persons composing their suite were given as in this instance. That was the ordinary practice. There was altogether a wrong impression prevailing with regard to this Return. It was a simple matter. When vessels of war were employed to convey Her Majesty's diplomatic servants and their suites from one place to another, of course no passage-money was paid, but a small allowance was made to the commander of the vessel for table money if the journey was sanctioned by the Foreign Office. In this case as in all similar cases where such charges were in question the Admiralty wrote to the Foreign Office to know whether they sanctioned the journey, and on receiving an affirmative answer this allowance was granted,

SUPPLY.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he must ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he was prepared to take into consideration the great disadvantages to the harmonious co-operation of military authority and Constitutional Government which arose under present circumstances from the absence of the Secretary for War from the House of Commons? Earl Russell had pointed out that the Secretary for War ought to possess a seat in the House of Commons and should be a person of vigorous character. That principle was a sound one, and when it was acted on and Mr. Sidney Herbert and Sir Corne-wall Lewis filled the office the business of the Department was satisfactorily conducted. But at present he did not think that the proper constitutional check existed upon the War Office. The noble Earl who was now Secretary for War bad been an ultra-Liberal in military matters, and on several occasions he had supported Motions which, with his present views, the First Lord of the Treasury would probably regard as almost revolutionary. In 1855 the noble Earl, then Lord Goderich, proposed that promotion should take place from the ranks to a much greater degree than had ever been thought desirable by this House. That Motion was negatived by a considerable majority, of which the noble Lord at the head of the Government was one. In 1856 Earl De Grey supported the Motion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir De Lacy Evans) to abolish the system of purchase in the army. Again, in 1858, he acted as teller for a Motion to place the Commander-in-Chief more completely under the responsible direction of the Secretary for War than he now was; and Earl Russell and the present Judge Advocate General supported the same Motion. Was the appointment of Earl De Grey in accordance with what was understood to be the view of the noble Viscount—namely, that the Secretary for War should have very little control over the Horse Guards, which was to he paramount in all military matters? No doubt there was a difficulty in the case, for on the one hand the authority of this House ought to be paramount. Every question of national importance was settled there. Then, on the other side, there was the prerogative of the Crown, which was nothing more than a remnant of that absolute

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  power of the Sovereign which constitutional proceedings for hundreds of years had first checked and then removed; and that remnant rarely made its appearance or was invoked in discordance with the action of that House. That prerogative, however, had now suddenly been called into activity to place all the officers in the service at the arbitrary disposal of the military chief. In the law there were, no doubt, useful fictions — John Doe and Richard Roe had in their time played a very convenient part—and so the prerogative of the Crown, as to making war or agreeing to treaties and matters of that kind, was an extremely convenient, respectable, and loyal fiction; for everybody knew that even in such cases nothing was really done without the intervention of Parliament. The noble Lord was about to go to the country—the existence of the Ministry depended upon the personal popularity of the noble Lord, so much so that it was said the cry of the Liberal party would be, "Palmerston and no Politics," "Palmerston and no Principles." But did the noble Lord wish an addition such as "Palmerston and Martial Law," or "Palmerston and Military Despotism?" He could assure the noble Lord that such additional items to his electioneering programme would be most disadvantageous, as the feeling of society and of the profession was extremely strong upon the subject. There ought to be a responsible Minister of the War Department in that House. He had every respect for the noble Marquess the Under Secretary for the War Department (the Marquess of Hartington), and he did not mean to say that any Gentleman in that House would perform the duties of the office better, but the noble Marquess did not really know what it was he was responsible for. The responsibility of the office had only a Protean existence. The other night the noble Marquess said that he was personally responsible for any statements he made in that House, but they did not affect the Commander-in-Chief or the Secretary for War. Such a declaration left the whole matter in abeyance, and made the responsibility something like thimblerig responsibility. Although the Foreign Minister (Earl Russell) was in the other House his place was well supplied there by the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), who, of course, was thoroughly acquainted with the foreign policy of his own Government, and who was never taken by surprise; but when
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  they had only a lower authority the House was at once placed in difficulty. Men were now required to invest large sums, amounting in some cases to £8,000, £10,000, and even £15,000, in the purchase of their commissions, and yet they were now for the first time to have hanging over their heads a despotic power which could take away their rights. This was a great constitutional question, and the House ought to see to it. The question was a grave one, for they had a rule which was entirely new, The control of the Crown over the army was to be one of a purely despotic character, without the slightest check. It was to be a control based as much as possible on the Russian system. The prerogative was to be stretched to the utmost, and that which was heretofore in abeyance was to be brought down into actual life, and every officer was to be at the mercy of the military chief and those who surrounded him. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) contended that this was justified by the Commission of 1857, but the Commission of 1857 gave no such authority. There was, however, another aspect. We were said to be a nation of shopkeepers, but whether or not we were so we attached great sacredness to pecuniary rights. If a railway took a man's house, or even obstructed his view, the law required an equivalent. If a public servant held an office for a short time, and that office was abolished, he received compensation for the loss of it. But in the military profession a man might invest his fortune in his profession, and if he became obnoxious to one, two, or three of the authorities above him all his property, it appeared, might be arbitrarily swept away. It was said that there had been previous cases in which officers had been thus put upon half-pay, but those were cases in which either there had been a regular trial, or the verdict of society—namely, of the world at large and of that House— had been first pronounced, and then recognized by the authorities. Now, however, a Court of Inquisition resembling the Star Chamber sat in private with closed doors, and no questions could be put to the accuser except such as were approved by the Court; while no report of the proceeding before the tribunal was suffered to see the light, and if moved for in that House they were refused. The whole of the subject required the careful consideration of the noble Lord. It was exciting very serious

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  attention among various classes out of doors. There was not an officer rising to any rank in the army who did not feel that his position was made insecure and his prospects were injured by a precedent to which the noble Lord appeared to lend his sanction. It was a satisfaction to him to have to refer that subject to a Minister of the noble Lord's high and responsible character, because he felt sure that be would give him a consistent and clear answer. He moved—
  "That in the opinion of this House it would be convenient, under present circumstances, that the Secretary of State for War should be a Member of the House of Commons."
  MR. VANCE MR. VANCE seconded the Motion.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it would be convenient, under present circumstances, that the Secretary of State for War should be a Member of the House of Commons,"—(Mr. Darby Griffith,)— instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, I do not mean to follow the hon. Gentleman through the case of Colonel Dawkins, which has been already sufficiently disposed of, but I shall confine my observations to the Motion which he has made and to that part of his statement which bears upon that Motion. There can be no question that that general principle of human nature, the love of power, affects the Members of this House as much as the rest of the community, and I can quite understand that the hon. Gentleman and others would like to have to exercise that power over every Chief of every Department of the Government sitting in this House. No doubt that might on many occasions be very convenient and satisfactory, but the constitution of the English Government does not admit of it. It is impossible to concentrate all the Heads of Departments in the House of Commons. Some of them must be in the other House, and therefore it must depend in every case upon the particular circumstances which govern the distribution of offices to particular individuals which Heads of Departments should have seats in this House, and which should have seats in the other House. There are certain Members of the Government who must be in this House—for example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, There is one Member of
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  the Government who cannot be in this House—namely, the Postmaster General. But, with regard to others, it must depend upon the particular qualifications which Members of the Government have for particular Departments whether they should have seats in this or in the other House of Parliament. But the hon. Member seems to think that unless the Head of a Department has a seat in this House, and is here to answer charges and complaints made against him, his responsibility is diminished, and the constitutional power of this House impaired. Now, in that respect he is entirely mistaken. The constitutional power of this House to investigate, to inculpate, and to judge the conduct of every Member of the Government is exactly the same, whether that Member of the Government happens to have a seat in this or in the other House. It may be more convenient, no doubt, if a serious charge is brought against a Member being the Head of a great Department, that he be here himself to explain and defend himself, rather than that his explanation should be given and his defence made by an Under Secretary. But at all events, in the instance to which the hon. Member at present alludes, I think that those who have the good fortune to hear and see the manner in which my noble Friend the Under Secretary for War acquits himself of his duties, the complete master he makes himself of every subject with which he has to deal, and how fully he understands the whole matter which he has to treat, will agree that he is as good as the Chief of the Department for all purposes of interrogation and explanation as to the conduct of that Department. The hon. Member, if I caught what he said, appeared to suppose that there was some rule by which the Head of the War Department ought to be in this House; but he is entirely in error upon that point—he is in error as to the course of practice. Until the Crimean war the War Department was united with the Colonial Department, and for a long course of time the Minister who was the Head of that combined Department was generally a Member of the House of Lords. Lord Bathurst, who held the office for many years, was in the House of Lords. The Duke of Newcastle also, before the Crimean war; and when the two Departments were separated the Duke of Newcastle remained in the Upper House as War Minister, The Secretary at War was a most limited officer. I know that, because

  455
  I was for some time Secretary at War myself. The duties of the Secretary at War were to examine the regimental accounts, and he had nothing to do with the general organization or discipline of the army. He had to move the Army Estimates, and was therefore a Member of this House for the same reason that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is also a Member of it. When the Government of which I am a Member was formed, Mr. Sidney Herbert was appointed the head of the War Department on account of his peculiar fitness for the performance of the duties connected with it, and of the attention and study he had bestowed on everything connected with the army during the time that he was Secretary at War. The state of his health unfortunately rendered it necessary to remove him from this House to the House of Lords, in the hope, which unfortunately proved vain, that a change of seat would restore him to health. When we lost Lord Herbert, as he had then become, Sir George Lewis was appointed; we were desirous of bringing back the army to the House of Commons. But a vacancy again happened, and we had to look about and see who was the fittest, in our opinion, to carry on the duty. Lord De Grey had been Under Secretary both to Lord Herbert and to Sir George Lewis, and he had also devoted himself peculiarly to everything connected with the army. It was, consequently, my opinion, and that of my colleagues, that he was the fittest man to take charge of so important a Department, and that his being in the House of Lords formed no valid reason for objecting to the appointment. My noble Friend here is perfectly well able to answer for Lord De Grey, when he says that his statements in this House do not involve any responsibility on the part of his chief; what my noble Friend means is, that, for the accurate statement of facts which have occurred, or transactions that have taken place, the responsibility is upon him, and not on the Head of the Department. But my noble Friend cannot be responsible for the future; for what is to be done the Government are responsible; we all are responsible with the Head of the particular Department, and we are all here to answer for and defend what has been done, and to state our intentions for the future. Therefore, it is a mistake to suppose that because the Head of the Department is in the other House it exempts him or the Government
  456
  from that full responsibility which attaches to anything which the House of Commons may think it their duty to inquire into and sift in any manner. The hon. Member seemed to think that I proposed a very new and suspicious doctrine the other day when I said that the Crown had the power of dismissing officers from the army without assigning any reason, if it should think fit to do so; and the hon. Member says, "Why, here are officers who have paid money for their commissions, liable to be capriciously sent about their business at the will of the Crown," or rather of the responsible Minister of the Crown, for the Crown we know only acts on the advice of its Ministers, who are responsible to this House and the Crown for the advice which they tender. But I say it is a facility essential to the constitution of this military body that that power should be vested in the Crown, to be exercised by its responsible advisers, at the risk of being condemned if it should appear that they have given their advice improperly and without sufficient grounds. The army could not exist if the Crown were not invested with that power; and every officer who purchases his commission or who goes into the army knows that is the tenure on which he holds the commission that he purchases or receives. And, therefore, no officer can complain that any rule has been applied to him which he had no reason to expect would be applicable when he entered the service. I cannot agree to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, because it would limit most inconveniently the discretion of those who have to form a Government with regard to the distribution of offices. I will say, fairly, that perhaps it is not in itself desirable that those at the head of the great expending Departments—the army and navy—should both happen to be in the House of Lords. That, however, is a circumstance arising from peculiar accidents, and also from the peculiar fitness of the individuals for the offices which they hold. But I maintain that both with regard to the army and the navy, those who represent the Departments in this House, as far as details go, are just as competent to give explanations to the House as the Heads of those Departments; and that the aggregate Government, the Government as a body, are responsible one for the other, just as the Heads of the Departments impugned are responsible for the Departments which they respectively represent. Therefore, as regards any constitutional check

  457
  essential to the working of our institutions, I maintain that it is perfectly intact and just as effective whether the Head of the Department is in this House or not. For these reasons I hope the House will not agree to the Motion of the hon. Member. If carried, it would be introducing an entirely new principle; it would embarrass the action of those charged from time to time with forming a new Government, and it would not forward any constitutional purpose, while the sense of Parliamentary responsibility is as strong and valuable under the present system as under the one which he proposes to introduce.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he wished to say one word in explanation of the reason why the Government could not grant, as an unopposed return, a Motion which the hon. Member had put down for that evening. The hon. Member asked for the names of all those officers who had been removed or placed on half-pay without a fair trial. It would be extremely invidious to give such a return. There was no reason why officers removed or placed on half-pay should have that punishment aggravated by the fact of publicity. Although, as he had before stated, the cases in which officers had been actually removed and placed on half-pay were very rare, cases had occurred much more frequently in which the officer, rather than be exposed to any steps of the kind, thought it right to make a formal application to be placed on half-pay. It would be very unjust to officers that their names should be given, yet in both cases the ground of interference was the same. His noble Friend at the head of the Government had so completely explained the meaning of the answer which he gave the other night as to the responsibility of the Department that he did not feel it necessary to add anything further upon that subject.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, that what his Motion asked for was the names of officers whose retirement had been compulsory.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

PUBLICATION OF IRISH RECORDS.

  RESOLUTION.
  COLONEL DUNNEwho had given Notice to call attention to the state of the Ancient Records of Ireland, and to move—
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  "That it is the opinion of this House that measures should be taken for their publication as has been for the publication of the Reocrds of England and Scotland,"
  said, the subject was of such importance that the Master of the Rolls in England had brought the matter under the notice of the Government. In Ireland the transcription and translation of its ancient documents and Records had been intrusted to Mr. Morrin. His work met with much criticism; he was accused of plagiarism, and an inquiry was, in consequence, set on foot by the Irish Executive. Every one would of course admit that the value of such a work depended on the fulness and accuracy of the translations; but, owing to the small amount of money which had been allowed by the Government for the purpose, Mr. Morrin had been obliged in some cases to make a condensation instead of giving a full translation of the Record. Objection having been taken to this as diminishing the value of the translation, a Commission of Inquiry was appointed, which admitted some inaccuracies and plagiarisms, but declared that the work, as a whole, was very creditable. Under these circumstances, he wished to know what the Government now proposed to do in the matter. It was the bounden duty of the Government to have a perfect set of these works issued, and to do that for Ireland which had been done in the case of England and Scotland. At present the Rolls published came down to Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Charles, but a gap occurred at the reign of James I., which he need not inform Gentlemen at all acquainted with the subject was a most interesting period of Irish history. There were no less than 1,200 statutes of the Irish Parliament still unpublished, and it would be of great advantage in an historical point of view if they were given to the public in a collected form. In England as much as £22,000 a year for several years, or £600,000 in all, had been voted for purposes similar to those which he now advocated. In Scotland £143,000 had been granted for the like object; but in Ireland only £15,000 had been voted, and even that amount was to be applied mainly to the construction of a building to contain the Records. But it was not merely their custody but their publication that was desirable. He wished to impress on the Government that the time within which it would be possible for them to

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  collect a staff of gentlemen capable of undertaking the work which he indicated was rapidly passing away.
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, he had intended to support the Motion. He complained that no encouragement was given to the study of Irish literature, and that no effort had been made by the Government to supply the places of the late Mr. O'Donovan and Mr. Eugene Curry, the most eminent Irish scholars which the country had produced. Now, whatever selection the Government should be pleased to make they ought to appoint men who could properly examine these documents and make a proper translation of them for publication. The system pursued in the government of Ireland would not be tolerated in England or Scotland. So far as the chief departments were concerned, the rule was that "no Irish need apply," and the Government thus put it out of their power to secure the services of gentlemen who, being acquainted with the country, would be able to advise them in every conjuncture. No other part of the country would submit to the system adopted in Ireland, and allow natives to be excluded from office. Englishman succeeded Englishman, and the only department at the head of which they found an Irishman was that of education. This was manifestly unfair, and no nation whose citizens were thus passed over and excluded from the management and administration of its affairs could be expected to be contented. They possessed the ablest arcæologist in the world in Ireland—he was the man most competent to perform the duties of calendaring and editing these records. If a new office were about to be created in regard to the Irish records, he trusted that, as an Irishman might be found who was highly competent to discharge the duties of the office, he would not be passed over.
  MR. SCULLYsaid, he believed there were only two archivists in Ireland. He was personally intimate with both of them, and he had asked them who there was to succeed them in the event of anything occurring to render a successor necessary? They both said they knew of no one but Mr. Stokes. But instead of appointing Mr. Stokes, the work of editing the Brehon laws was given to Professor Hard wick, who, like every Member in that House, he (Mr. Scully) included, was profoundly ignorant of Irish. If the publication of these old musty records were good for Scotland and England, as illustrating the
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  ancient history of those countries, it would be equally good for Ireland. He had no candidate to recommend for the appointment of editing these records, but he hoped a competent person would be selected.
  MR. PEELsaid, that it was not necessary to re-open the controversy with respect to Mr. Morrin. He had been selected by the Treasury, on the recommendation of the Master of the Rolls, to edit and publish the Calendar of the Patent Rolls of the Chancery in Ireland. He published three volumes, which, with the preface, were severely criticized in a certain pamphlet. In fulfilment of a pledge made in that House, the Treasury sent the Rev. Duffus Hardy and Mr. Brewer to examine the work of Mr. Morrin and compare it with the original records of the Calendar. Their report, on the whole, was favourable to Mr. Morrin, and the Government gave their sanction to the completion of the work. After the manner, however, in which the work had been handled, Mr. Morrin thought it better not to proceed with it, and since then no steps had been taken for the completion of the Calendar of the Rolls of Chancery in Ire-laud. The Rolls of James I. had not been calendared by Mr. Morrin, but he believed that work had been already done, and all that was required was that these rolls should be printed uniformly with Mr. Morrill's work. The grants made by Parliament in previous years were intended to apply to Ireland as well as to other parts of the kingdom, and he knew that the Master of the Rolls had secured the publication of important papers illustrative of the history of Ireland. He thought that Irish members had every reason to be satisfied with the measures taken by the Government for the preservation and publication of Irish records. The Estimates of the present year abounded in items of this kind. The sum of £8,000 had been expended upon a commission for transcribing and translating the ancient Celtic laws, called the Brehon laws, and all that remained was to pass the work through the press. For that purpose the Estimates contained an item of £500, and a further provisipn for printing was contained in the stationery vote. There had also been this year an increase of the grant to the Royal Irish Society, specially to enable them to purchase any Celtic manuscripts, and to make copies of any that might be found, either in private collections in this country

  461
  or on the Continent. With regard to the grant made to the Master of the Rolls in this country, he might say that it was intended to publish the second volume of the work, he believed, by Mr. Hans Hamilton, containing the domestic papers from the time of Henry VIII. to Elizabeth. In other parts of the estimates provision was made with respect to papers in the Lambeth and the Bodleian Library. The President of the College of Maynooth and Mr, Prendergast had been appointed to make the selection in the former case, and Mr. Bullen to prepare a calendar of papers in the Bodleian for the purpose of this work, which would be entirely confined to the illustration of the history of Ireland. All that was enough to show that the question of the publication of the records of Ireland was one which had received the attention of Government. But the most important thing of all was the step which was being taken to erect a Public Record Office in Ireland, in which the various important papers that were now scattered about should be collected. That building was on a scale large enough to receive all those records, it would be completed in the month of October next, and then it would be necessary to form a staff. It would be the business of the clerks to make an index of the papers, and he presumed the officer in charge of the department would take the same care as the Master of the Rolls in this country, to select the most competent persons to make compilations. He knew the interest which was taken in the subject by his hon, and gallant Friend, and be had no doubt the result would be satisfactory.

THE TREATY WITH THE ZOLLVEREIN.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. HUBBARDsaid, he wished to draw the attention of the House to this subject. It had transpired that the treaty had been already discussed in both the Prussian Chambers, and that though it had not been formally presented the ratification was now on its way. He had received from a traveller a copy, which be believed to be a true one, and it might not be uninteresting to call attention briefly to a few points in connection with it. The treaty might be described in a few words to be an engagement between Prussia and the Zollverein on the one hand, and Great Britain and her colonies on the other, to the effect that the two contract-
  462
  ing parties should, with reference to trade and traders, he placed upon the footing of the most favoured nation. It was a declaration of reciprocity, and that only. But there was one very remarkable clause, the fifth, which contained this stipulation—
  "The two contracting parties engage not to prohibit the exportation of coal, and to levy no duty upon such exportation."
  It would be in the recollection of the House that when the French Treaty was discussed there was one clause which met with very serious animadversion, and that was the clause in which the Government of Great Britain undertook for a period of ten years not to prohibit the exportation of coal, and not to levy any duty upon it. That clause was so utterly devoid of any reason to support it that it was assumed on all sides to be the result of an oversight. He could not think, however, that the recurrence of a similar clause in this treaty was the result of an oversight. There were two ways in which this clause might be regarded In the first place, it might be said that the clause was totally unimportant, and therefore might pass without any notice whatever, or else that the conditions to which Great Britain had bound herself were in themselves impracticable, and that, in point of fact, we had promised nothing except what we were really obliged to concur in. He was not prepared to accept that solution, because it would mean that our Government had made a solemn compact on a point either which was really wholly unimportant or that we were practising a delusion on the other contracting parties. But let the House consider whether the point was so unimportant. In certain circumstances nothing could be more legitimate or useful than an export duty, and if they were to look for precedents, what should they find? They found that in almost every instance a new country had begun by levying a duty upon its exports, because they were the first means of raising a revenue through their trade. And what had been the course in Europe? He had been engaged in the Russian trade all his life, and he could perfectly well recollect that Russia had invariably levied an export duty upon her productions. This country had from time to time strongly protested and remonstrated against this as an infringement of the principles of free trade, but the reply always was to mind our own business. Russia had not been able to continue to levy uninterruptedly the same duties in

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  consequence of the competition of other countries. India with its jute competed with her hemp, Australia competed with her in the production of tallow and hides, and thus Russia was forced to diminish her duties, and at present they were hardly noticeable. But we had an example nearer home. In India the late Financial Secretary, Sir Charles Trevelyan, had selected the four important articles of tea, wool, jute, and coffee for the purpose of raising a revenue. That proposal had met with the disapproval of the Secretary of State, and rightly, because in the present position of India there was not one of those articles on which a duty could be levied without some risk of arresting their production and consumption. Turning to the United States, we found that they were proposing to replenish their exhausted Treasury by levying a duty as high as 25 per cent on the export of cotton. Here we had instances in which important countries had taxed articles of annual production, which must, therefore, more or less, come into competition with the productions of the whole world. But there were other products of a different character not reproductive and not exposed to direct competition. There had been an export duty on Sicilian sulphur, but the Italian Government were obliged to diminish it, not owing to the competition of other sulphuric mines, but owing to the rivalry of chemical substitutes. The principle of export duties was by no means a new one, and although they required careful regulation, und that few countries were able to maintain them, yet when circumstances warranted their adoption, they were irreproachable. There were in England two commodities—coal and iron—the exports of which might be taxed without interfering with industry or checking the export of the commodity. In common with many economical writers he contended that they were both legitimate and advantageous subjects of taxation, because whatever duty was imposed on them was so much clear gain to the country, and, if kept within a moderate amount, it was a gain which carried with it not the slightest disturbance of trade, inflicted not the slightest injury upon the producers, and was so much tribute secured from the foreigner in return for our unexampled natural products. Coal and iron were gifts of Providence, and it was the duty of the Government to utilize these commodities for the benefit of the coun-
  464
  try. From them a revenue of three-quarters of a million sterling might be derived without any countervailing disadvantage. It might be said that this was a selfish policy, and that we ought to allow foreigners to receive freely these products of ours. But did we find that foreigners were as forbearing in the admission of our products as we were in allowing the free export of those products? We were engaging not to tax the export of coal; but Belgium levied a duty of 9d. on the import of coal; France, 1s.; Turkey, 2s. 3d.; the Zollverein, 2s. 6d.; and Spain, 5s. 6d. There was no reciprocity in an arrangement binding us not to tax the export of one of our staple commodities, while the contracting parties taxed it so seriously. He did not wish to advocate a selfish or narrow policy, but coal and iron were essential to the manufacturing industry of the age; they were also essential elements in war, and the country which could command them more readily than her neighbours would be best able to maintain her supremacy. Why, then, should we bind ourselves to cede untaxed these essential elements of commercial, manufacturing, and warlike superiority to other countries without any equivalent consideration in their engagements? In this treaty there was not the slightest consideration for the concession that was made. Much had been said lately of the hardships of the paper manufacturers arising from the fact that foreign countries levied upon the export of rags a very large percentage of duty, amounting, in the case of the Zollverein, to £5 per ton. Now, when we were undertaking to let the Zollverein have our coals free of duty, it would not have been too much to ask that the Zollverein should let us have their rags free of duty. Passing, however, from the commercial and fiscal question involved, he objected to a treaty which placed a continuous and serious embarrassment in the way of the Government of this country for years to come. What right had any Government in a treaty to tie the hands of its successors for twelve years to come in dealing with the important article of coal? If it were necessary to touch the question at all, surely the Government might have been satisfied to extend to the Zollverein the same indulgence as was extended to France. The clause of the French Treaty by which we undertook to put no export duty on coal would terminate in five years, as five had already run, and under the

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  most favoured nation clause the Zollverein would have enjoyed the same privilege; but this treaty was to last for twelve years, and during this time the Government had abdicated the right of regulating our revenue with reference to coal. He should like to know with whom the clause originated. Was it proposed by our Government or by Prussia, or by some of the minor States? Was it Hanover or House or Oldenburg that proposed it? Hanover was a coal-producing country. Now, suppose Hanover could only produce coals at 17s. 6d. per ton, and Prussia could import them from this country at 15s., Prussia might impose an import duty of 2s. 6d., bringing up the cost to the producer to the price at which Hanover could supply them. It was monstrous to let an article go untaxed from here, and be taxed on arriving at the other side of the water for the sake of the local producers of the same commodity. Had any concession been promised in return for the clause? He did not wish to ask for correspondence, which it might be unusual or inconvenient to produce; but he wanted to know how this remarkable fiscal blunder had originated, how these treaties were got up, who was responsible for them, and what was their object. Did they originate with the Board of Trade or the Foreign Office? Was there an itinerant mission going through the Continent making treaties in an arbitrary dilettante manner? The Austrian Treaty was supposed to be on the stocks, and the issue might be a document of a similar nature. It was therefore important to know who was responsible for arrangements which embarrassed the Government, impaired the internal management of the nation, and conferred advantages upon foreign countries without any consideration in their engagements towards us.
  MR MILNER GIBSONsaid, he was afraid that if his hon. Friend were to propose an export duty on coal he would find much greater difficulty than he imagined in getting the consent of Parliament to such a proposal. Years ago an export duty on coal was deliberately given up by Parliament as an impolitic tax, as a failure in point of revenue, and as an impost that pressed injuriously upon a great branch of industry. Coal was only won by human industry; and if the colliers were prevented from selling the produce of their industry in the best market by the imposition of an export duty you would be inflicting upon large bodies of persons a very great
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  injustice. The propriety of such a course was fully discussed when the French Treaty was before the House, and the special clause relating to the free exportation of coal was then approved by large majorities in both Houses of Parliament, though speeches against it might have been made at the time. It was well known at the time of making the French Treaty, as it was well known at the present time, that this country had no intention either of prohibiting the duty on coal or of putting an export duty upon it, and there could be no objection whatever to our giving an undertaking not to do that which we never intended doing. The commercial world would have greatly blamed the Government had they, for the sake of some pedantic doctrine with respect to the export of coal, refused a treaty which would confer such valuable privileges upon our commerce. By the most favoured nation clause in the Zollverein Treaty this country fully participated in all the benefits conceded by the Zollverein in recent treaties to France, Belgium, and Austria, advantages gained by them after years of negotiation and after yielding large tariff equivalents. The advantages we gained by the most favoured nation clause, which without the trifling concession of the export of coals we should never have obtained, were, first, a reduction on the German tariff on cotton goods from 50 thalers per ceutner, to a range from 12 to 34; on tissues of wool from 20 and 50 to 15 and 34; on silk, from 110 to 50; on linen, from 20 to 12; and on earthenware, from 20 per cent to 15 per cent, and some minor articles formerly subject to duties were now to be admitted free. The hon. Gentleman was, therefore, wrong in saying that the Zollverein had made us no equivalent concession in return for the insertion of this clause, which gave that country the assurance that for a limited time we should not place an export duty upon coal. With reference to the question the hon. Gentleman raised as to this clause being an interference with the belligerent rights of the Crown, on the ground that it would tie the hands of the Government by depriving them of the power of prohibiting the export of coal in time of war, he stated, upon the highest authority, that no commercial treaty could affect the belligerent rights of the Crown. When this point was raised in the House of Lords, on the insertion of the clause in the French Treaty, the Lord Chancellor said—
  "The article would not in any way interfere with

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  the belligerent rights of the Crown. The Treaty was exclusively a Commercial Treaty, and, like all other treaties, was to be interpreted according to the true intent of the parties."—[3 Hansard, clvii. 635.]
  And that intention, as recorded in the preamble in the light of which the treaty must be read, was to extend the relations of commerce between the two countries. The power of the Crown to prohibit coal as a munition of war was inherent, and was in no way affected by this engagement to permit the export of coal for the purposes of trade. Seeing that the clause in question was identical with the one contained in the French Treaty, which received the deliberate sanction of both Houses of Parliament, and what important commercial advantages this country would derive from the operation of the treaty, he thought the view taken by the hon. Member on the subject was quite wrong, and that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had acted most judiciously in making the treaty in question. When the treaty was ratified Government would have no objection to lay the correspondence asked for by the hon. Gentleman upon the table, but at present it would not be advisable to do so.

IRELAND—CASE OF PATRICK DONOHUE.— PAPERS MOVED FOR.
MR. O'REILLYwho had given Notice to call attention to the Papers laid on the table of the House relative to the case of Patrick Donohue, county of Longford, and to move for Copy of any Correspondence on the subject between the Lord Chancellor of Ireland or Lord Lieutenant and the magistrates who acted in the case, said, that the facts were that the house of a gentleman of the name of Thompson had been burnt down on the night of the 20th of June, 1864. On the following day he had some reason to suspect a certain labourer of the name of Donohue had been concerned in the affair, and accordingly, on the 21st of June, Donohue was arrested without a warrant, and another man who was wanted as a witness was also arrested without a warrant. On the 22nd of June, four magistrates assembled in the ordinary sessions house, although it was not the regular petty sessions day, for the purpose of investigating the charge. No summons to attend the meeting was issued to the other magistrates, and the hearing took place with closed doors. In fact, it was not an open court of justice. The accused person was not allowed to call witnesses, or to give
468
bail—no evidence was given of the arson —and Patrick Burke, the person who had been arrested to give evidence as a witness, said he had no evidence to give. Notwithstanding, Donohue was sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. This was done, not by the great unpaid, but the stipendiary magistrate, who received £800 a year for his presumed knowledge of the law. The Lord Lieutenant subsequently commuted the sentence and directed the man to be discharged. He had received some compensation, and the conviction was quashed by the Irish Court of Queen's Bench. He wanted to know what steps had been taken by the Lord Chancellor with regard to the magistrates who had acted in this manner, and how far it was legal to arrest a man without a warrant. He understood that the rules of the House precluded his moving the Resolution which stood on the paper, but he hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be able to answer the question satisfactorily.
SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that the papers which had been laid upon the table showed that the case was one which called for the attention of the Government. No doubt this Patrick Donohue was harshly condemned to imprisonment, illegally undoubtedly—as was stated by the Lord Lieutenant in his communication to the magistrates. It happened that at that time several incendiary fires had taken place in the neighbourhood, and that a positive information was sworn that this person, whose name was given at the time, had threatened to burn the farmstead.
MR. O'REILLYsaid, that there was no such statement as this in the papers.
SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that though it did not appear in the papers, it was nevertheless the facts.
MR. O'REILLYsaid, he wished to ask why such an important fact had not been published.
SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, it would not do for the Government to produce private information. They could not produce confidential communications made by a servant of the Government to the Government itself in such a matter as this. The man was sentenced to be imprisoned for three months by a bench consisting of one stipendiary and three local magistrates, and was committed to prison. But there was some illegality in the forms that had been employed; and directly the Lord Lieutenant, the late Lord Carlisle, heard of it, he took the opinion of the Law

469
Officers of the Crown, and on their advice the prisoner was at once liberated, after about fifteen or twenty days' confinement. The Lord Lieutenant, moreover, administered a censure to the stipendiary magistrate, and expressed a hope that he would be more careful in future. No communication passed between the Lord Chancellor and the local magistrates; but the Government did take the matter up, and considered that the magistrates acted illegally in the matter.

SHEERNESS DOCKYARD.—QUESTION.
SIR EDWARD DERINGsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, To explain the grounds of his statement that the important Dockyard at Sheerness was among those destined eventually to be abandoned, no such recommendation having been made by the Dockyard Committee of 1864? He said it was not to be wondered at that the statement which had been made a few nights ago by the noble Lord had occasioned a good deal of surprise, because when last year the hon. Member for Finsbury (Sir Morton Peto) alluded specially to this subject, the noble Lord, in reply to the hon. Member, very candidly said he had no hopes of Sheerness being abandoned, as it was a station of great importance, especially for North Sea purposes. He further stated that it was a matter of consideration how far other dockyards should be abandoned; but no Amendment was moved in Committee specifying this particular dockyard. The noble Lord said there was not a single Member who was of opinion that Sheerness ought to be in the number of the dockyards that ought to be sold or abandoned. It should be remembered that Sheerness possessed some special advantages. At any time of the tide ships could be brought up close to the yard, and at low tide within a cable's length of the main entrance there was fifty feet of water; and at a trifling expense the largest ships in the navy might be docked in this harbour at low water. He (Sir Edward Dering) anticipated that the House would be of the opinion expressed by Sir James Graham in his place in that House, that any Government that should seriously entertain the idea of selling or abandoning so useful a harbour as Sheerness would be trifling with the best interests of the country. He could not sincerely believe that the noble Lord bad formed any very serious intention in this matter. He (Sir Edward Dering) main-
470
tained it would be a sacrifice which, if it were placed at half a million of money, would he below the mark. Should he have the honour of a seat in the House in the next Parliament, and the question be brought forward, he should feel hound to give it the most strenuous opposition in his power. He hoped the noble Lord would give the House some assurance that he had no intention of making a sacrifice of this particular dockyard.
LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, the hon. Member had put forward the strongest arguments that could be used in favour of the dockyard at Sheerness. When on a former occasion he had alluded to the contingent probability that at some future time the dockyard at Sheerness would be closed he did not intend to convey the idea that there was any immediate intention of closing the yard. It was true that the dockyard Committee had inserted Deptford, Pembroke, and Woolwich as the dockyards recommended to be closed, and said nothing about Sheerness. It must, however, be borne in mind that the Admiralty, on taking the matter into their serious consideration, had felt that there were extremely powerful reasons against closing Pembroke Dockyard; and, indeed, so far from closing it they had, with the consent of the House of Commons, made there a new dockyard, so to speak, in which to construct iron ships. As to Deptford, also, after giving the recommendation of the Committee full consideration, the Admiralty thought that it would be a very unwise thing to close Deptford yard at the present time. They had, therefore, decided not to close either Pembroke or Deptford Dockyards; but the Admiralty thought it right to consider whether any other of the dockyards should be closed. When the establishment at Chatham should be really completed it would be the greatest establishment of the kind in the world. It was under these circumstances that he had the other night alluded to Sheerness, in answer to a question; not that he had the slightest idea of closing Sheerness Dockyard at the present time; but eventually, when Chatham should be completed, it would be for the Parliament of that day to consider whether Sheerness Dockyard should not he suppressed. Sheerness had undoubtedly deep water, but it was very confined, the dockyard being so small that it was unfit for the large men-of-war of the present day. The

471
hon. Member and the people of Sheerness need be under no alarm that their dockyard, which was at the present time very useful, was going at once to be suppressed.
Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put and agreed to.
Main Question put, and agreed to.

SUPPLY—POST OFFICE PACKET SERVICE.
SUPPLY—POST OFFICE PACKET SERVICE considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
(6.) Question again proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £841,867, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge of the Post Office Packet Service which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1866; no part of which sum is to be applicable or applied in or towards making any payment in respect of any period subsequent to the 20th day of June 1863, to Mr. Joseph George Churchward, or to any person claiming through or under him by virtue of a certain Contract, bearing date the 26th day of April 1859, made between the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Admiralty (for and on behalf of Her Majesty) of the first part, or in or towards the satisfaction of any claim whatsoever of the said Joseph George Churchward, by virtue of that Contract, so far as relates to any period subsequent to the 20th day of June 1863."
MR. WHITEsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Government had come to any decision on the question of a weekly mail to India, leaving on Friday. Such a mail would be of great importance to those engaged in the India and China trades.
MR. CRUM-EWINGsaid, he wished to express a hope that the Government would adopt the suggestion of having Falmouth or Plymouth as the port for the colonial and foreign mails instead of Southampton; as such an arrangement would be a gain of nearly three days in the postal communication with India to the whole of Scotland and the north of England.
COLONEL SYKESsaid, there was an increase in the Vote for the Post Office Packet Service, but he would suggest a mode of getting rid of it, and even occasioning a saving. There were 70,000 European troops in India. The whole were to be relieved in ten years, at the rate of 7,000 each year; making 14,000 in transitu between England and India every year. In addition, there were expired men and invalids, and men going out to fill up vacancies caused by death, which would give about 2,500 each way, or 5,000 in all, to be added to the 14,000;
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so that they had the total brought up to 19,000. The annual conveyance of these men involved a very considerable item of expenditure; and the consequence was that his right hon. Friend the Secretary for India had before him a proposition for the building of transport vessels of a large class, like the Himalaya, to convey troops between this country and Alexandria and between Suez and Bombay and Calcutta. But as it was not advisable to land troops in India during the monsoon or the hot weather, these vessels could only be used as transports during six months of the year. It was worthy of the consideration of his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Treasury whether they could not be turned to good account in carrying mails during the whole year as well as troops during the other six months. The number of vessels was such that they would allow of weekly communications in accordance with the views of his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, and a saving in the present expenditure might be effected. He wished to know why an increase had taken place in the charge for the postal communication with the West Indies, and why there had been an increase of £7,000 for the Packet Service between this country and India.
MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, that the question of substituting Plymouth or Falmouth for Southampton as the port for the India mails had been fully considered by the Postmaster General; but the noble Lord had been unable to see that such a change would be attended with advantage. Though there might by it at times be a saving of a few hours, as a rule there would be a loss of time. Southampton had great advantages. It had a double line of rail to London, and good dock accommodation for the steamers; while neither Plymouth nor Falmouth possessed either of those requisites. Special trains would not be run to and from there without danger. In addition, Southampton was within two hours of London by rail. Instead of there being a saving of time such as that spoken of by the hon. Member (Mr. Crum-Ewing), the probability was that a delay in the transmission of the mails would be, as a general rule, the result of such a change. Southampton had as good a through communication with the north both by broad and narrow gauge as any other port, and postal communication, therefore, to the north could be effected as rapidly from Southampton as from Plymouth or Falmouth.
MR. GILPINsaid, he hoped that the House would not be led into a discussion on this question in the absence of the representatives of the rival ports.
MR. CRUM-EWINGsaid, that it was sufficient to look into any map to see the advantage of Falmouth.
MR. PEELsaid, that as he had been prevented by a count out from answering some remarks made by the hon. Member for the City of Loudon on the memorial presented to the Treasury praying that the despatch of mails to India, instead of being on a fixed day of the month, should be on a fixed day in the week, as was the case with the Cunard mails to North America, he wished to say that the Postmaster General was quite as sensible of the value of such a change as any one could be. The question, however, was one of expense. It must be remembered that the mail service to India did not stand alone, but was connected with the mail service to China and Australia, and it would be impossible to make alterations in one service without making them in the others. The scheme of the mail service was this:—The Indian mails went out four times in the month to Alexandria, both by the way of Falmouth and Southampton on this side of Egypt, and on the other side they went twice in the mouth from Egypt to Bombay, and the other twice to Ceylon, and thence to Calcutta and China. One of these two last mails went on to Australia. So that there were 48 departures in the year for India, 24 for China, and 12 for Australia. If, therefore, weekly departures were substituted for the present departures of four times a month, the mail service would be increased by one-twelfth—there would be 52 departures for India instead of 48, 26 for China, and 13 for Australia. The increase in the frequency of departure would, of course, increase the expense to a proportionate amount. The expense of the service, as hon. Members were aware, was very large indeed. The total expense amounted to about £390,000 a year; and of that £160,000 belonged to the Australian service, the loss upon which was divided between the Imperial Government and the Australian Colonies. The remainder — £230,000 — represented the gross cost of the service to India and China, and the net loss upon that was divided between the Indian and the Imperial Government, The proposed increase of service would entail a further expenditure of about £35,000 a year, and though that
474
might be probably covered by an increase in the number of letters sent, there would still be a large sum to be added to the present cost of the service. The proposal which had been made by the Post Office was, that the postage to India should be increased from 6d. to 1s.; and, when it was proposed that a fortnightly mail should he sent to Hong Kong, he believed that the commercial community had cheerfully acquiesced in such an increase, nor was he aware that any single complaint had been raised. The hon. Member for the City spoke of a charge of 16 d.; but that referred to letters going by the way of Marseilles, the additional 1d. being the charge of the French Government for the transit through France. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had called attention to the impolicy of foreign Governments imposing heavy transit rates, and he quite concurred in the hon. Gentleman's observations. The present payment to the French Government was 10 d. per ounce, but in the opinion of the Post Office the French Government would be indemnified if the charge were reduced by one-fourth; and in that case the transit charge on an ordinary letter, instead of being id., would be only 1d.; and the charge under the new system would be 1s. for letters going by Southampton, and 1s. 1d. for letters via Marseilles. This change would enable the Government to give additional postal facilities. It had been suggested that there should be a weekly mail to Bombay, but that would necessitate an increase in the number of vessels running from Bombay to Suez; but, judging from some recent tenders which had been received, that would be an additional expense, which could only be defrayed by an additional charge on the public. No decision had been come to yet, for it did not appear that the mercantile community would be satisfied to pay the additional charge. With regard to fixed days weekly for the departure of mails to India he thought it ought not to be confined to Bombay, but to go alternately to Bombay and Calcutta, the railway facilities from the latter place being now very great. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) had referred to the communication between this country and Alexandria, and between Suez and Bombay and Calcutta, and he also referred to some transport vessels that were being built for that purpose by the Indian Government. At present he believed there were only two running this

475
side of Egypt and three on the other side. He did not know the number of transports that would be necessary for that service, but as the whole of the ships would not be finished until the 1st of October, 1867, there would be ample time to discuss that question on a future occasion. With regard to the West India packets receiving their mails at Falmouth instead of Southampton, he thought it would not be easy to make the transfer, considering the immense docks the company had established at the latter place; but, on the other hand, he thought that if a saving of time could be effected by landing and receiving the mails at Falmouth, instead of at Southampton, and proper arrangements could be made with the railway companies, the Post Office authorities would have no hesitation in adopting it. He, however, doubted that there would be such a saving in the landing of the mails at Falmouth as had been stated by the hon. Member (Mr. Crum-Ewing). As to the postal service for the West Indies, the increase this year arose from their not having made any reduction in anticipation of a contribution from the colonies. The expense of the service to the West Indies was now much less than it had been. The old contract required an annual subsidy to be paid of £230,000; but the amount was last year reduced under the new contract to £170,000. It was also expected that the colonies would pay half the loss upon that portion of the service, but their Governments had not yet been able to make arrangements on that subject, and it had been necessary, therefore, to provide in the present Estimates for the entire cost of the service until the arrangements as to the colonial contributions were made. With regard to the Indian service, the contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company provided for their carrying Government passengers at two-thirds of their ordinary passenger rates. But it had been thought that the Government ought not to make a contribution towards the cost of the passage of persons travelling between this country and India, and the company had arranged to charge the ordinary passenger fare for Government passengers, making to the Government an abatement of £15,000 from the subsidy on that account. There was not a real increase of cost for the Indian service, but, on the contrary, a reduction. The total charge was £162,125. From this they must deduct £44,000, the proportion to be paid
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by the Indian Government. A less sum would be paid by the Indian Government than last year, and the reason was that the postage was more. They had to deduct the amount of the postage from the whole charge, and what remained was divided equally between the Governments of this country and of India. The net loss last year was £100,000, but this year it was reduced to £80,000, half of which the Indian Government paid; but, of course, the gross charge had to be voted.
MR. CAVEsaid, there could be no doubt that a great saving of time would be effected in the landing and dispatch of the West India mails, both as regarded Scotland and the West Coast, and only in a less degree as regarded London, if the mails were landed and embarked at Falmouth instead of Southampton. At present the mail steamers sailed from Southampton at between two and three in the afternoon, and the consequence was that the mass of the correspondence went down by the evening mail of the day before, so that a day might be said to be lost, whereas, if the mails could be taken on board at Falmouth, the letters could be posted on the evening of the day on which the packets leave Southampton. The same applied to the arrival of the mails. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Peel) two questions. The first was with reference to the Liverpool steamers. A convention had been entered into with the Royal Mail Company by which a certain subsidy was to be paid to them for carrying the mails, and an arrangement had also been come to with a steam-packet company at Liverpool for carrying letters to certain places. It appeared to him that in that respect the right hon. Gentleman had made a bad bargain, because the postage of all the letters the latter carried must be added to the amount of subsidy to be paid to the Royal Mail Company. The other question he had to ask the right hon. Gentleman was how long the French convention would last. The right hon. Gentleman had said on a former occasion that it was an anomaly that the French Government should be able to send letters at a lower rate than was charged in this country, and he wished, therefore, to know whether there was any chance of our putting the French Government on a footing with ourselves.
MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, he thought they could not overrate the importance, in a social, commercial, and poli-

477
tical point of view, of increasing and facilitating their postal communication with all parts of the world. Greater convenience, he believed, might be secured to the public without burdening the Exchequer. Southampton was so flourishing that it did not require the Government contracts. He had long been of opinion that our communications with India were not as perfect as they ought to be. More use should be made of the Indian railways in the conveyance of mails. The mails were not sent out with sufficient frequency; and it was most desirable that the civil and military employœ's of India should be able to visit this country as often as possible, and at the most moderate cost. He objected to the arrangements that had recently been entered into, whereby the whole of the Indian civil servants, covenanted and un-covenanted, would have to pay the full passage rate to and from India. The contracts for India were not on the best footing. There ought to be a separate contract for Alexandria, a separate contract for the Red Sea and down as far as Aden, and then they should have branches for India, China, and Australia, the Mauritius, and the Cape. In that way they might, without greater expense, have a weekly communication with these various important places. An increase of the Indian postal rates was a most impolitic measure, while it would bring a mere peppercorn to the public revenue, and he trusted that the Government would carefully ro-consider the matter in the recess. In China the merchants were making large gains, and therefore, in equity, if the rate of postage to India was 1s., to China it should be 2s. 6d.
MR. PEELsaid, that the payment to the Liverpool Mail Company was for the conveyance of mails between Jamaica and Honduras. For that service a sum of £8,000 was paid last year, but this company undertook to carry the mails for £2,250, and, moreover, to carry letters between this country and Jamaica at the charge for ship letters. The arrangement had been subject to certain conditions of contribution on the part of the Honduras Government, which conditions had not been complied with, and therefore the Government had given notice to the company to discontinue the arrangement. With respect to the convention with France, he had to state that the French Government only paid one shilling per ounce for letters to the West Indies, which was less than the charge for English letters; but the total
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postage on letters from France to the West Indies was not below that of letters from England to the West Indies.
MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had not answered his question—whether the House would be consulted before an alteration was made in the rates of Indian postage.
MR, PEELsaid, no such arrangement could be carried out without the concurrence of the Indian Government, and at present that Government had not been applied to.
SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, he wished to know why so extraordinary a course was adopted of excluding one particular person from all participation in the Vote. After listening patiently to the debate which took place three years ago upon the subject of Mr. Churchward's contract, he had been unable to understand why so extraordinary a course should be adopted. Upon what grounds was Mr. Churchward to be excluded Session after Session from payment for a contract duly entered into between himself and the Government? If some explanation were not given he should divide the House.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, the reason why the Vote was proposed in the present form had been stated over and over again, and he was not disposed to revive the discussion. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir FitzRoy Kelly) was aware that Mr. Churchward's contract had been fully considered and discussed, and that the House came to the conclusion that that gentleman had endeavoured to obtain a contract by corrupt means—not imputing to the Members of Lord Derby's Government who granted it corrupt motives. The House came to a determination that none of the money voted for the packet service should be paid to him, and therefore this Vote had since always been proposed in its present form.
SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, that a charge of corruption had not been proved against Mr. Churchward; and, in the absence of a satisfactory explanation, he should divide the Committee against the Vote.
Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS II.—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
(7.) Question again proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £20,482, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day

479
of March 1866, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues."
MR. CAIRDsaid, it was now seven years since he brought under the notice of the House the extravagant expenditure incurred by the Office of Woods in converting 2,000 acres of Hainault Forest into a farm. The cost of doing so was £67,000, and the rent realized was little more than interest on this outlay, so that the fee simple went for nothing, while the public were for ever excluded from such rights as they had before enjoyed over this part of Epping Forest. During the last ten years, however, the revenue of the Crown estates had been steadily increasing, the gross receipts having risen in that period nearly 30 per cent. But one branch of the Crown estates, the Royal forests, presented a very different result. The net revenue, which in 1854 was £13,448, had fallen in 1864 to £7,090. Possibly some part of this was due to the conversion of forest land into farms, but still the fact remained that from some 120,000 acres of land, chiefly in the southern counties, the net rental realized was little over 1s. an acre. The original object for which these forests were maintained—the production of navy timber—no longer existed, partly from the substitution of iron in the construction of our ships, and also because we could now import from other countries better and cheaper oak—required principally for"knees"—than we could produce at home. This pretext, therefore, for maintaining in some of our finest counties a dreary waste in the midst of the civilization of the nineteenth century was gone. The time had come to alter the system and to turn to better account, alike in the interests of the Crown and the country, these extensive tracts of unimproved land, In Hampshire alone the Royal forests exceeded 70,000 acres in extent. When Aldershot was chosen for a camp the War Office had to purchase the land at a high price, not knowing that the Crown forest of Woolmer was within a few miles of it, yielding not a shilling of revenue, and better adapted for the purpose of a camp, being on the high road from London to Portsmouth, now touched by the Direct Portsmouth line of railway, and having the advantage of a plentiful supply of water. Since then it had been found necessary to have a subsidiary camp at Woolmer. Then, there was the New Forest, a wild and picturesque tract of
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upwards of 60,000 acres, in South Hants, but yielding little more than £5,000 a year. About twelve years ago the Duke of Somerset, then Commissioner of Woods, directed inquiries into the matter, and an Act was passed for the removal of the deer, in lieu of which the Crown obtained leave to enclose 10,000 acres for plantations. A Commission was appointed to ascertain the extent and value of the common rights, but all further progress seemed to have stopped when Mr. Kennedy ceased to be one of the Commissioners of Woods. Enough was ascertained to show that no improvement could be effected until these common rights were dealt with. One was the right of cutting turf for fuel, claimed to an extent which had been computed to be equal to the scalping the surface from 300 acres annually, a process which in the course of time had already most seriously injured the agricultural value of the forest. The whole tract was traversed by the South Western Railway, it was within a short distance of the sea, and was healthy and picturesque, and in a favourite neighbourhood for residental occupation. Some of the land was good, and highly improve-able. The fee simple of the land and the timber upon it were valued some years ago by the Crown Surveyor at upwards of two millions sterling, and the common rights had been estimated to be worth about £100,000. There seemed to be the elements of a great improvement. If the common rights were ascertained and extinguished either by allotment or purchase, and the remainder dealt with as a property in fee simple, great advantages would be obtained. Let it be offered for sale in moderate-sized estates, and in a few years, instead of an uncultivated waste, that country would be covered with houses and enclosures, affording food and wages to a well employed population. Instead of £5,000 a year, the present net income, the income of the capital realized by the sale, at the surveyors' estimate, would add £70,000 a year to the Crown revenues. This country was too small to admit of the continuance of so large a tract of wild land within two hours of the metropolis. The time had come when it should be dealt with, and every interest could not be otherwise than benefited by such a change. He wished also to say a word or two on the system of payment by commission of surveyors and receivers. This matter he touched upon some years since, and it was then admitted by the Secretary of the

481
Treasury that the surveyor received from (he office upwards of £10,000 a year. [Mr. PEEL: £8,000.] This charge formed a deduction from the revenue, and did not appear in the Vote, hut he believed that it continued nearly as great as it was then. The charge for similar duties for the Ecclesiastical Commission appeared last year to have exceeded £30,000, so that the Woods and Forests were not the only public Department which suffered from this monstrous system. An architect possessed of eminent talent might fairly claim to be paid largely for that talent; but a land surveyor, though a very useful, was by no means a very high class professional man, and nothing but habit and excessive negligence could permit such men, however respectable, to be paid sums for their services far exceeding the salaries of our highest functionaries, and beyond the earnings of the most eminent professional men in this country. The Office of Woods and Forests ought to have within itself a competent salaried officer, adequately paid, and responsible for his valuation and advice, and he trusted that the Treasury would stir themselves in the matter and put an end to a system which was quite indefensible.
MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, he wished to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that within his own knowledge in-closures had been made in Epping and other forests by the lords of the manors without a shadow of title, and that the Office of Woods and Forests when called on to resist these encroachments and to protect the public rights had neglected their duties.
MR. AYRTONsaid, that when this Vote was last under the consideration of the House attention was called to the proceedings of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests in respect to the management of Epping Forest, He regretted that the Committee on open spaces, by whom the subject was being considered, had not yet been able to make their Report, It would be unfortunate to discuss a matter of such gravity and importance in anticipation of that Report. It would, therefore, be better to allow the Vote to pass, and to abstain from what must necessarily be a partial and imperfect consideration of the subject.
MR. COXsaid, he believed that the best plan would be to allow the Vote to pass without discussion, but he still hoped that some supervision in the case of these in-closures would be exercised by the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests. By
482
these encroachments, not only were the public deprived of their rights, but the Crown also lost the value of property to which it was clearly entitled.
LORD ELCHOdesired to state a fact which had come under his knowledge with reference to the inclosure of Wimbledon Common. The Crown had set up rights over this manor. It would be remembered by the House that a Bill upon this subject to define the rights was introduced early in the Session, and that Earl Spencer was much abused for interfering, as was thought by many, with the public rights. The Bill was to inclose the common, reserving to the public a certain space. It was deemed advisable to withdraw that Bill, but since that time Earl Spencer had been offered for the rights, the existence of which some people altogether denied, the sum of £100,000. That placed the public in an awkward position, because, if Earl Spencer accepted an offer, which certainly was a very tempting one, the public would have to contend with a large and powerful company. Earl Spencer knew that he was possessed of extensive rights, and that life was uncertain. He wanted, therefore, at once to secure to the public the enjoyment of a large open space, reserving to himself only certain rights.
MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, he must rise to order. If the discussion upon the subject of Wimbledon Common were to be continued, he should have to refer to the evidence taken before the Committee. He should be sorry to have to go into the other side of the question.
LORD ELCHOsaid, that it was not a question of evidence but of fact, which had come out since the sitting of the Committee. He simply desired to show that a large and tempting offer had been made for rights which were supposed not to be in existence. He believed if such an offer were made to trustees they would be bound to accept it.
MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, he believed that Earl Spencer had sold one-half the common without any title at all.
MR. PEELsaid, he agreed with those who thought that, the Committee not having reported, it would be inconvenient to go into the question of alleged neglect of duty in not preventing encroachments. He would only say that it had not been shown that the Commissioners of Woods were responsible for the course taken. They had acted as they were advised by the Law Advisers of the Crown, to whom

483
they had referred in every case; and although it was true that the Committee had recommended that no further sales of forest rights should take place, it should also be remembered that there was a second course open, and that was too rigidly to maintain those rights and defend them regardless of expense. He did not believe that these rights were lost because the parties had encroached upon them for any particular period. The reason the hon. Member (Mr. Caird) had given for the new mode he recommended of dealing with these forests was that the present system was not productive of sufficient revenue, and that by adopting his course a much larger revenue could be obtained. Now, what was the expense and income of these forests? The expense was not so much as had been stated. There were 100,000 acres subject to very extensive common rights. When the land was planted and the plantations were enclosed, the common rights were excluded. The planting and enclosing took place under special Acts of Parliament, and if the planting had taken place one hundred years ago, no doubt the revenue derived would be sufficiently large to satisfy the hon. Member; but the Acts were not passed more than sixty years ago. The Commissioners were, therefore, in the position of having a growth of timber not yet arrived at maturity. The only receipts, therefore, that could be obtained from these forests until the timber arrived at maturity were from the thinnings of the plantations. Some years ago the thinnings were more extensive than at present, and the receipts were therefore larger. There had also been a considerable fall of timber. In the course of the last ten years the gross receipts from these forests amounted to £508,000, and after meeting all expenses the net payment into the Exchequer was £270,000, or at the rate of £27,000 a year, or about 10s. an acre on planted land. With regard to the proposal of the hon. Member, there were only two forests to which it was applicable—Dean Forest and New Forest. The former was a most valuable mineral property, where the revenue was about £11,000 per annum and was rising year by year. The whole of the New Forest was subject to common rights, which had been ascertained to attach to upwards of 1,000 properties. With regard to his at forestation and enclosure, considering the number of parties entitled to common rights, it was impossible for the Crown to take any step without their concurrence.
484
But if they were desirous that the forests should be enclosed, he was not aware that the Crown would offer any opposition.
MR. CAIRDsaid, he was rather surprised at what had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman as to the age of the forests. The Royal forests had been in existence since the days of William the Conqueror; and for many years past, down to recent times, there had been large falls of oak for the purposes of the navy. In Nelson's time the New Forest was largely used for the growth of timber for the Royal Navy. The question was whether it was right to maintain these large tracts of land for a purpose that was no longer necessary. There were extensive tracts of land perfectly open, where there was no timber whatever, where the common rights were of extremely little value; and the proper course would be to extinguish those common rights and convert the land to purposes beneficial to the Crown, the commoners, and the public. There was a great deal of desolate country perfectly capable of profitable conversion into smiling fields and homesteads.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he must express a hope that as the House had decided that these rights should not be sold the Commissioners would not allow people to steal them. The last time the question was discussed the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that those rights were of no value, and that anybody ought to be allowed to run away with them. Now, the House were trustees on the part of the Crown, and if they did not like to convert the right into money they ought to keep other people from robbery. It appeared that because the Woods and Forests were stopped from selling, they became, to use a vulgar phrase, "awkward," and would not allow the people to enjoy the rights which they had hitherto exercised in these forests.
Question put, and agreed to.
Vote agreed to.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE.
  CLASS I, VOTE 27.
  (8.) £10,000, Works at Landguard Point.
  SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE.

    CLASS I, VOTE 28.
    (9.) £20,000, National Gallery Enlargement.
    MR. COWPERsaid, that the Committee would naturally expect from him some explanation in regard to this Vote. The

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    national collection of pictures had increased to such an extent since the year 1838, when the present National Gallery was first used, that the gallery was no longer adapted to fulfil the purpose for which it was originally intended. Every resource had been adopted to enable the existing building to supply the space required by the public. As the Committee were aware, the pictures were crowded together in such a manner that they were hung in some rooms as high as the cornice, which was 22ft. from the floor. Screens were also placed on the floor to receive the pictures that could not be hung on the walls, to the great inconvenience of the visitors. Yet, after all, a large portion of the national collection could not be received with- in the building, but received the hospitality of South Kensington, where they were exhibited to the public. The large and useless hall of the National Gallery had been taken for the purposes of exhibition, and formed the only good gallery in the building. It was taken just in time, when the National Gallery ran the risk of losing the Turner bequest, for the space thus gained enabled the Trustees to fulfil the condition of the donor, that his pictures should all be exhibited in one room called the Turner Gallery. He had given notice to the Royal Academy that the time had come for them to surrender to the National Gallery the rooms they had occupied for so many years, and the Royal Academy were now engaged in considering the propriety of erecting a new gallery for themselves on the site of Burlington House. But when the rooms now occupied by the Royal Academy were added to the National Gallery there would still be insufficient space for the proper exhibition and classification of all the pictures in the possession of the Trustees of the National Gallery. Those pictures were now 750 in number, exclusive of 200 water-colour drawings at South Kensington, and exclusive also of 19,000 Turner drawings, and the building was not sufficient by about one-fifth for the proper exhibition and classification of all the pictures. The collection was increasing annually by purchase and by gifts, and bequests of pictures would be encouraged by providing a suitable place for their exhibition. There were valuable original drawings in the British Museum which could not now be seen, and were put away in drawers. If these drawings could be exhibited at the National Gallery, near the pictures which they illustrated, great assistance
    486
    would be afforded to the study of those pictures. There were some portraits in the British Museum, which it was contemplated to remove to the National Gallery. Then there were certain pictures at Hampton Court, which it would be desirable to exhibit in London. It was necessary, moreover, to have a proper place for the exhibition of the portraits belonging to the National Portrait Gallery. These would require a building, and the site of the National Gallery would be the proper place for these portraits, even if there were no combination between the two galleries, and if the National Portrait Gallery should remain under different trustees. It was necessary that a proper structure should be raised for these purposes in some part of the metropolis. The present National Gallery was not only inadequate in regard to wall space for the proper exhibition of the pictures, but also in regard to floor space for the visitors who thronged to see them. From the Return it appeared that 630,000 persons visited the National Gallery last year, and one Whit-Monday there were not less than 10,000 persons in the gallery. Such numbers assembling in these small rooms must be inconvenient to the public, as well as most prejudicial to the pictures. Experiments upon the purity or foulness of the air in various exhibitions and places of public resort had been made, and he was sorry to say that the National Gallery showed a greater degree of foulness in the atmosphere than any other place. This was not owing to any neglect of ventilation, but to the crowds forced into these small rooms, in which there was not proper space for them to circulate freely. A building of this kind ought to be a large and spacious gallery, where people were not obliged to jostle each other, but could pass and repass with the greatest ease, and containing benches upon which they might sit down and enjoy the pictures quietly. Such a building should have sufficient entrances, vestibules, and staircases; but the reverse of all this characterized the present building. A National Gallery intended for the receptacle of these choice specimens of art ought not in itself to violate the rules of art, but in its exterior as well as its interior it ought to be an example of architecture. The present building was designed by Mr. Wilkins, the architect, in compliance with the wishes of those who did not desire the edifice to overpower or obscure the portico of St. Martin's Church. The front was set back from the pavement, and the several

    487
    features were arranged so that they might not interfere with the portico of the church. The object was undoubtedly obtained, for if any one stood near the statue of George III.—that with the pigtail—the building made an excellent vista and a pretty appendage for the portico of St. Martin's Church. The whole effect was undoubtedly picturesque from this point, and there was variety of light and shade. But the effect was very different when the National Gallery was viewed from Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross, for the edifice was not suited to that point of view. From those points it had a low and mean appearance, and was deficient in harmony and dignity. It was not high enough for its situation on that eminence, and was not a building which Mr. Wilkins would have desired to erect in order to be seen from Parliament Street. The first thing to be considered was the possibility of extending the present building, and of enlarging it on a site contiguous to that upon which it was erected. Now, in the rear of the National Gallery, between the northern wall and Hemming's Row, there was about an acre of ground covered by the Workhouse of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, the parochial offices and schools, Archbishop Tenison's School, and five houses in St. Martin's Place and Castle Street. This land it was possible to acquire. The workhouse was not well adapted to its present purpose. It was in a confined situation, and was less healthful and convenient than a workhouse was required to be for the benefit of its inmates, or than it would be if it were removed to the suburbs in a fresher air and where the inmates would be better accommodated. The Vestry of St. Martin's did not object to their workhouse being taken for the purpose of enlarging the National Gallery. All that they required was that they should be paid such a sum of money as would enable them to re-build their workhouse in some other position not in the heart of the town. They also required that there should be built for them within the parish a casual ward and the necessary parochial offices. The trustees of Archbishop Tenison's School were also willing to surrender the present buildings and the site if another school equally convenient were erected for them. If all these buildings were removed, and the site were covered by the enlargement of the National Gallery, the street now leading to these offices and schools—Castle Street—
    488
    would be unnecessary, and might by an Act of Parliament be stopped up and acquired for the site of these buildings. Assuming that this site could be acquired, the next step would appear to be to prepare plans for building upon it. It would he premature, however, to obtain plans until the Government knew what was to be the site, and no steps had yet been taken for any preparation of architectural plans. Such an extension would afford all that was necessary for present use. It would provide a building double the size of the whole of the existing edifice. Whatever might be built could be erected from time to time according to the wants of the Gallery, and it would be a great advantage thus to possess the means of future enlargement. Before, however, any additions were built, a complete plan of the whole design ought to be adopted, so that every addition made from time to time would he an integral part of the complete whole. He did not think that a plan for new buildings in the rear of the National Gallery would he complete unless it included a plan for the re-construction of the faÇado of the National Gallery. The new part should be made to harmonize with the old, and it would be impossible to obtain such a building as the House would desire should occupy so fine a site without a plan for its greater or less reconstruction. That might be done in several ways. They might remove those portions of the building most offensive to the eye—the dome and pinnacles—and substitute a more elevated and dignified structure for the centre; or they might construct a building with a new facade along the edge of the pavement at the point where Mr. Wilkins originally drew the line of his building. This would give thirty feet additional space between the present building and the new front, or they might demolish all the existing building and re-construct it on a different plan. Any plan that would make the Gallery worthy to contain such a collection of pictures opened a vista to considerable expense, but he believed the House and the country would not wish that this subject should be dealt with in a niggardly or pennywise spirit. England possessed a most admirable collection of national pictures, and the people were deservedly proud of it. It was very comprehensive, and illustrated the history of art from the early development of the ancient school, to those modern pictures which interest the general public. It thus provided the means of amusement

    489
    for persons possessing different tastes, and promoted the study and cultivation of art. It would be admitted that our National Gallery ought to be worthy of such a collection of pictures and also of the dignity of the country. It would be necessary to bear in mind the desirableness of enabling the pictures to be seen at night, and it would, therefore, be necessary to have proper regard in the new building to its space and ventilation, and to make provision for the introduction of gas without injury to the pictures. The estimate he laid upon the table referred to the portions of the site covered by the workhouse, the parochial offices and schools, and Archbishop Tenison's School. He was unable to give an accurate estimate of the sum which these buildings, &c, would cost, as it would be premature to have entered into negotiations with the vestry and the trustees of Archbishop Tenison's School, without the authority and sanction of the House. He believed, however, that the sum of £100,000 would be a maximum sum, beyond which it would not be necessary to go. The first step would be to make an agreement with the vestry and the trustees for the purchase of the site. It would not be possible to conclude the bargain and pay the value of the land at once, because it would be necessary for parochial purposes, before the vestry surrendered the present buildings, that others should be provided for them elswhere, to which the inmates of the workhouse could be sent. A large deposit might, however, be paid to the vestry in the first instance i to enable them to enter into contracts, &c. The sum of £20,000 would cover all that could be paid on the conclusion of the agreement between this and the 21st of March. No further proceedings would be taken by the Government except to obtain a site, but at some future time, perhaps next year, an estimate of the buildings for the new site must be brought forward, and that would be the time when the question of the plan and extent would be before the House, and when the Government would state what in their opinion the new design ought to be.
    LORD ELCHOsaid, he had given notice of a Resolution on the subject which he did not propose at present to move, but which he would read, since it expressed the opinion he held on this subject—
    "That the present National Gallery, owing to its architectural defects, and to its not being fireproof, cannot be considered a fitting receptacle
    490
    for the national pictures, and does not safely admit of their exhibition at night for the benefit of those who are unable to visit them by day; that, if the present site is to be retained, a fire-proof building should be constructed, capable and worthy in all respects of containing the national collection, together with such future bequests and additions thereto as may from time to time be reasonably expected; and that any money that may be required for the purchase of land at the back of the Gallery should, if granted, be voted on the understanding that plans for its re-construction shall be forthwith obtained, by competition or otherwise, and shall be laid before Parliament early in the ensuing Session."
    Having, however, been told that as a matter of form it would be inconvenient to press a Resolution anticipating the labours of the Committee, he should abstain from doing so, merely observing that the Resolution he had read expressed the views which he held upon this question, and entertaining the hope that this expression of opinion would receive such sympathy from the Committee as would induce his right hon. Friend to go a little further than he had done towards there-construction of the National Gallery. He thought that they might assume two things, The one was that the present National Gallery was utterly insufficient for the exhibition of the national pictures. The other was a question of taste, that such a building should be erected as would be benefiting the great object to which it was to be dedicated and worthy of the British nation. The present building was not fire-proof, and was not a fit receptacle for the treasures of art which constituted our national collection of paintings. The national jewels ought to be lodged in a safe and suitable casket. The subject had been constantly under inquiry and discussion, and since 1833, when it was built, there had been eight Committees and eight Commissions to inquire into various subjects connected with the edifice and its contents. The Government had at last proposed that Burlington House should become the sight of the new gallery, and he had supported that proposal because he believed it would be the cheapest and the most convenient that could be adopted. It would not have necessitated any removal of the pictures while the new gallery was being prepared for their reception. But if the present National Gallery were to be re-constructed he feared that it would be necessary to remove the works, and that they would probably be removed to South Kensington, for that was the point to which all our art collections seemed by some invincible force to gravitate. When

    491
    Mr. Cole paid him a visit he implored him not even to wish for any work of art of his (Lord Elcho's) to he exhibited at South Kensington. With regard to economy, he believed the re-construction on this new site would cost far more than double that which the construction on the Burlington House site would cost. The two sites were equally central, and therefore equally convenient. With regard to the Royal Academy, the Royal Commission recommended that the Royal Academy should adopt certain suggestions favourable to other artists, and by handing over to them the present building better terms might be obtained from them in the interest of art, and they might be obliged to put up such a handsome front as Parliament, might order. But the House had decided that the National Gallery should remain where it was, and he looked upon that question as settled. The only question that remained to be considered was the best mode of carrying it into effect. His right hon. Friend proposed to buy land at the back of the National Gallery, and to erect upon that site buildings which should form part of the new Gallery. But that would be, as it appeared to him (Lord Elcho), a simple continuance of what had been the bane of the present building—a system of jobbing and patchwork, which must be fatal to the completion of any great and satisfactory work. Those who were liberal in politics were also liberal in voting money for good purposes, and a well considered plan would be sure to meet with their approval. The Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night, in speaking on a different subject, laid great stress upon the importance of being able to light those galleries at night, so that the industrious part of the population who were employed during the day might at night have an opportunity of enjoying themselves. But as long as we had a building which was not fire-proof, it would not be safe to light it at night, though the Royal Academy had ventured to light their rooms. On all those grounds he hoped the Government would deal with the question in the broadest way, that they would invite the whole world, if necessary, to send in designs to be laid before the new Parliament, where the matter would be settled in the way which he believed would be the cheapest in the end, and which he was sure would be the most creditable to the nation.
    MR. TITEsaid, he could not help fearing that the Government would find
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    it very difficult to obtain the land they would require, unless they should take compulsory powers for the purpose as was done in the case of the Law Courts, and he would recommend them to introduce a measure which would give them those powers. He had no objection to grant the £20,000, which was the amount of the Vote; but he should rather the Government had produced a plan for the complete re-construction of the gallery, as in the case of the Foreign and India Offices, and had stated what would be the total estimate of such a work. The £20,000 asked for to-night would probably go like the £10,000, which was all that was asked for at first for Brompton, and which had now got to £120,000 a year. It was quite idle to think of adapting the present building to the purposes of a National Gallery. They had only to be made acquainted with the real nature of the undertaking, and it would then be their duty to set about it in a bold and liberal spirit.
    SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, that this piecemeal mode of voting money away could never prove satisfactory. The present National Gallery was a building to be greatly reprobated. It was said to occupy the finest site in Europe, but it was one of the meanest and most detestable buildings in the world. The building was low, while what was specially required was height. He protested against resorting to the mode of showing pictures by means of skylights. As to the remedy, they might add a storey to the National Gallery, which would improve its appearance and give room for the Royal Academy, but he thought the best way would be to pull down the building altogether. He was sure the House would vote the sum necessary for a new one. Why had they not a building like the Louvre? He begged to express his disapproval of the proposition to pull down Burlington House, which was one of the finest pieces of architecture in London, and he did not think anything half so good was likely to be erected in its place. He had no confidence in the architects of the present day, who had never yet erected a fine building.
    MR. LOCKEsaid, he entirely concurred in the opinion that if anything was to be done with the National Gallery it ought to be pulled down altogether. After his right hon. Friend's condemnation of the original entrance hall of that building, which was the only good thing about it, and his

    493
    admiration of the little miserable rooms which had been built at the back of it, he could repose no confidence in his taste; and, therefore, before he began any of these works, he should like to know exactly what he was going to do. As he understood the right hon. Gentleman, he was about to put a. new face upon the National Gallery, but putting a new face upon a man did not alter his inside, nor did it produce any greater change in a building. Although a new face might be put upon the National Gallery, the old miserable rooms would remain within, and every disgrace and inconvenience which attached to the building would be perpetuated. It was premature to ask for this sum of money until the House was informed what was to be done with the existing huilding, and he should refuse to support a grant for such patchwork proceedings. He agreed with the hon. Baronet the Member for Dumlalk (Sir George Bowyer) in protesting against the destruction of Burlington House. If the site was to remain as an "open space," about which there had been a good deal of discussion lately, it might be very well; but the probability was that if another building was erected in place of that which now covered the ground it would prove to be an eyesore. If Burlington House, which was a very handsome building, were pulled down, what was to be put up in its place? He was decidedly opposed to the present Vote without a full explanation being given of what was intended to be done.
    MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, that the nation now possessed a remarkably fine collection of pictures which was increasing in value daily, and last year the House decided that the site of the building for them should be Trafalgar Square. He was surprised, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman should have allowed the Session to pass over without bringing in a Bill for compulsorily obtaining ground for the buildings which Parliament determined should be erected there. The arrangement proposed was different to what any railway company would have asked Parliament to grant them. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to leave standing behind the National Gallery the baths and wash houses, which ought never to have been erected there, and which were most injurious to the national collection? He considered the right hon. Gentleman's plan very inadequate, but he would vote for it, because he looked upon
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    this demand for £20,000 as a pledge that something would be erected worthy of the nation. The Government of the day was to blame for beginning the building in Trafalgar Square. It was an express stipulation that the Royal Academy should only be located in the building of the National Gallery while the apartments were not wanted for the national collection, and he had frequently asked why the Government did not call on the Royal Academy to give up their apartments. He trusted that when the new Parliament met the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared with plans for all the space behind the National Gallery, for a building worthy of the splendid national collection of pictures, and also for proper approaches to it.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, he had always contended that the pictures at Kensington, the drawings of the great masters at the British Museum, and the pictures in the National Portrait Gallery should be placed in the National Gallery, and he was happy to say that this principle had been conceded by the right hon, Gentlemen. For these pictures 2,200 linear feet would he necessary, hut in the present gallery there were only 1,500 feet. It was now promised that before anything was done a complete and comprehensive plan should be exhibited to the House; and he trusted that such would be the case. The piece of ground at present proposed to be taken would form part of what might afterwards be converted into a quadrangle by the purchase of the site of the barracks; but he believed that to the proposition to take the barracks there was some military objection which he could not understand. He hoped that his right hon. Friend would make it a sine qua non that the new gallery should be built de novo, and that nothing should be taken from the present structure. No patchwork whatever could convert the present Gallery into a creditable building worthy of the treasures it was to contain. The bequest of Turner alone had been valued at £400,000, and having such treasures of art, it was the duty of Parliament to provide a structure to contain them which should be a credit to the nation.
    MR. COWPERsaid, he had heard of no proposal to pull down Burlington House, and therefore the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir George Bowyer) was premature in his alarm. There was a proposal to build on the front of the courtyard, but that would leave Burlington House on one side of a quadrangle, and be the

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    substitution of a building for a dead wall. With regard to the National Gallery, the hall had been useless for the purpose of exhibiting pictures, while the alterations made there had converted it into the only good gallery—seventy-one feet in length —to be found in the whole building. In the hands of a skilful architect that gallery would be turned to account and would be of use in constructing a new building. It would be a clumsy thing to pull down the present Gallery entirely; a good architect would leave great part of it standing, but transform it by additions into all that was desired. There might be a new facade, and a new building might be attached to the old building, which might be so altered and re-constructed that you would not know: it again. With regard to the discussion that had taken place, he was glad to see a different, and, as he thought, a wiser tone than in the debate of last year. It was true the Government had not got the most economical plan, but by reconstructing the present building in Trafalgar Square, and by the proposed extensions behind, they would, if successful in the architect they employed, secure a noble building, worthy of the treasures it was to contain. The Vote now before the House had no bearing whatever upon the building or the plan; it was therefore not a fair representation to speak of it as a piecemeal affair; it was confined to the preliminary step—the purchase of the site.
    LORD ELCHOsaid, he desired that there should be a clear understanding as to what it was proposed to do. Was it proposed to lay before Parliament next Session a plan or plans for the reconstruction of the old National Gallery?
    MR. COWPERsaid, that when the agreement had been made for the purchase of the site, the next step would be to bring before the House an estimate for whatever was to be erected upon that site. That would be the time to mention the plan. He would rather not give any pledge on these points, because the proper time to enter into the discussion of the plan was when the estimate was proposed for the building. At present the House was asked to decide whether the enlargement was to be at Trafalgar Square. If not, were they of opinion it should be at Burlington House? When that point was decided, then would come the estimate and the plan for the building to be erected there; and he had also stated that that plan would be made harmonious with the
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    existing building, and would be treated, not piecemeal, but as a comprehensive measure.
    MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, it was impossible to decide such a point until the plan was before the House. The first thing was to know what the Government meant to erect.
    MR. COXsaid, he wished to ask whether, if hon. Members voted now against the £20,000, it would be supposed they were voting in favour of the removal of the National Gallery to Burlington House?
    MR. COWPER: It has been decided that there is to be an enlargement of the old building or the erection of a new one for the National Gallery, and as only two sites have ever been mentioned, I presume those who do not wish to have it at Trafalgar Square are for Burlington House. If the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cox) is for no enlargement of the old, and for no new building at all, he will vote against any grant whatever.
    MR. LOCKEsaid, he did not want to destroy the harmony of the evening; hut he should be extremely sorry if the Committee came to any vote which pledged Parliament to the erection of a new National Gallery "in harmony with the old one." It would be a dead failure, cost a great deal, and satisfy no one.
    MR. AYRTONsaid, he thought this discussion wholly unnecessary; it appeared to be carried on chiefly by Gentlemen who last year wished to remove the National Gallery from its present site, and being then defeated were now striving to hinder anything being done to improve the present building. The Government only asked now for the means to purchase land adjacent to the Trafalgar Square site, and expressed no opinion as to the mode in which it should be used, whether for a new design or for a modification of the present one. That was left a purely open question. He thought it fair to give the Government a Vote on Account, and enable them to get the land by agreement, if possible. The noble Lord (Lord Elcho) said that the first thing must be the destruction of the present Gallery, and that then you must run about to find a place for the pictures. But what would be done would no doubt be first to erect all the rest of the quadrangle except the front, and lastly to pull down the Gallery which was now being used. At present, however, there was no plan before the House, so that there was no occasion to discuss these difficulties, Why the noble

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    Lord (Lord Elcho) introduced a question that could not arise for five or ten years to come he could not conceive.
    LORD ELCHOsaid, he regretted the defeat of last year, but he accepted that defeat; and all he wanted to do now was to stop this jobbing, patchwork system. What the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cowper) proposed was simply to continue the patchwork. ["No no!"] He (Lord Elcho) said "Yes, yes !"He was about to buy a piece of land behind the National Gallery to erect a building "in harmony with the existing building," and then at some other time—the hon, Member (Mr. Ayrton) said five or ten years—do something else with the present building. He was quite willing to vote the money now asked for on the understanding that the Government would undertake next Session to lay on the table of the House a large and comprehensive scheme for a new Gallery which should be worthy of the nation.
    SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he had been much alarmed by an expression which fell from the right hon. Gentleman — namely, that a new building was to be erected "in harmony with the old one." That was exactly what the House did not want to see, and he, for one, hoped there would be no harmony whatever between the old and the new, but a complete design made with reference to the site and to the objects for which the building was required. This, however, was not now the question before the House, and they would have ample opportunity hereafter to protect themselves from any plan which was, objectionable. The present discussion was in substance, a renewal of the discussion of last year between the National Gallery on the one hand and Burlington House on the other. He very much preferred the site of the National Gallery, and was quite prepared to give his vote now in favour of the proposal to intrust the Government with this money for the purchase of the land, which was indispensable for the erection of a proper building on the present site. He should support the vote with the understanding that there would be as little harmony as possible between the old building and the new one, whatever it might be.
    SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, he was glad that Government had no intention of pulling down Burlington House. He was afraid that in course of time this fine building would be surrounded by buildings which would be a disgrace to it, but
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    he hoped the words of Pope, in his address to Lord Burlington, would not be forgotten. Those words were—
    "You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care,
    Erect new wonders and the old repair;
    Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
    And be whate'er Vitruvius was before."
    MR, TITEsaid, that what was wanted was for the House to have the plan of the building first and the site could be chosen afterwards. He meant that the two things should go together. They might take steps to obtain the site, but at the same time pains should be taken to instruct the House as to the sort of building to be placed upon it. When compulsory powers were applied for to enable the Government to obtain the land behind the National Gallery, the architect should be prepared with designs of the building to be erected upon the site. He thought they had waited long enough for the building, and that there was no occasion to wait ten years more. If £20,000 would faciliate in any manner the proceedings of the Government in this important work he should support the vote.
    MR. HENLEYsaid, he was willing to vote the £20,000, but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cowper) had used language in his closing speech which seemed to commit the House to some sort of scheme which he had in his head as to the future building. That was not fair to the House. The right hon. Gentleman had also said that when the Estimates were laid on the table there would be plans which would present the old building in a shape in which hon. Members would not know it. He did not want the House to be pledged to any transmogrification of that kind. There could be no harm in voting this £20,000, if it was laid out in land, which would be always worth its money; but he strongly protested against being committed to any cut and dried scheme of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Vote agreed to.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.
(10.) £700,000, New Courts of Justice and Offices.

NAVY—No. 18.
(11.) £63,915, Greenwich Hospital. House resumed.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow, at Twelve of the clock.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL BILL— [BILL 212.]

  CONSIDERATION.
  Bill, as amended, considered.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had an Amendment to propose in Clause 13, which he believed took precedence of the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington). In 1862 Sir Richard Bromley, now one of the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital, held the office of Accountant General of the Navy, with a salary of £1,000 a year, and an allowance of £300 a year for a house, making £1,300. He also held the important office of Auditor of Prize Accounts, with a salary of £300 a year, which brought his official income up to £1,600. His health having become somewhat impaired from the labours of his office in which he had conducted himself to the satisfaction of all who had been officially connected with him, in the early part of 1863 he accepted the office of Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, at a salary of £600 a year, with allowances of different kinds, amounting to something more than £200 a year. On his thus vacating the office of Accountant General of the Navy he received a special retiring allowance of £1,000 a year, being about £300 a year more than he was strictly entitled to, and it was declared that the Commissioner ship of Greenwich Hospital must be treated as a public office within the meaning of the Act. His salary as Commissioner, with his superannuation allowance, amounted accordingly to £1,300 a year, and he still continued by leave of the First Lord of the Admiralty to enjoy the emolument of £300 a year as Auditor of Prize Accounts. Under this Bill it was proposed that the Commissionership should cease, and the effect would be, as the clause stood, that Sir Richard Bromley would continue to receive £1,600 a year so long as he held his office of auditor of Prize Accounts. That appeared to the Government to be a fair arrangement; but it had been stated that he was entitled to receive more— namely, £715 in respect of his former appointment of Accountant General, and £800 in respect of the Commissionership, or between £l,500 or £1,600 a year, besides his salary of £300 a year as Auditor of Prize Money. This idea was founded on a supposed illegality in the condition,
  500
  in the grant of pension, as to the Commissionership being an office within the Act. In order, therefore, to prevent Clause 13 from having a retrospective effect in respect of the superannuation allowance, he was now about to propose certain verbal Amendments. The clause provided—
  "That if any Commissioner or any officer who is removed from office as aforesaid is at the commencement of this Act in receipt of any superannuation allowance in respect of any former employment in the civil service of the Crown, he shall be entitled to continue to receive, in addition to such annuity as aforesaid, the amount of superannuation allowance of which he is at the commencement of this Act in receipt, and no more."
  He proposed to leave out the words "in receipt," where it first occurred, and insert "entitled to receive in addition to the salary of his office," to leave out the word "of" after "allowance," and in the last part of the clause to leave out "in receipt," and insert "so entitled to receive." So that whatever amount of superannuation allowances Sir Richard Bromley was entitled to in addition to the Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital he would still be entitled to receive after the vacation of that office. He begged to move the first of these Amendments.
  Amendment agreed to, as were also the two other Amendments which were subsequently proposed by the hon. Gentleman.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he rose to move that the clause be struck out, and submitted that the Treasury had deprived Sir Richard Bromley—a most able and distinguished public servant—of £233 a year, to which he had an absolute legal claim. He asked the opinion of the Attorney General as to whether this was not so. He could not help remarking upon the extraordinary and unexpected course which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) had just taken. He was sorry to see that the Government had inserted in a Bill placed before that House a clause which he could describe in no other terms than as a shameful clause. The Bill was introduced many weeks ago, and the omission of this clause was moved by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Sir Morton Peto). The Government resisted the Motion, and had persistently adhered to the clause. The clause in the Bill, as it originally stood, had for its object to debar a meritorious

  501
  and distinguished public servant from seeking a remedy in the Courts of Law. The Government must have introduced this clause under an erroneous impression, for the House would not have tolerated such treatment of any subject of Her Majesty. However, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) had seen right to change his course, and this change must be attributed to a conversation which he (Sir John Pakington) had with the Attorney General on Thursday last. He felt so clearly the nature and mischief of the clause that he drew the attention of the Attorney General to it, and asked him if he were conversant with the facts of the case, as he could not believe the House would tolerate such an injustice as was sought to be effected by this clause. After this conversation the clause which had stood for weeks in the unjust shape was changed so as to leave Sir Richard Bromley open to sue the Government in a Court of Justice. It was evident that the Attorney General saw the unreasonableness of the original clause. But the House had a right to be informed of the nature of Sir Richard Bromley's case. A Minute of the Treasury was passed in 1854 by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time when Sir Richard Bromley was appointed to the office of Accountant General of the Navy, in which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognized the services of Sir Richard Bromley during the Irish famine, and mentioned eleven instances in which that gentleman had performed essential service to the country, apart from his official duties, and gratuitously. The Minute went on to say that those services ought to establish his claim to a special reward, and ought to be taken into consideration when the amount of his retiring allowance came to he settled. He (Sir John Pakington) in 1858 found Sir Richard Bromley as Accountant General of the Navy, and about this time his health gave way, and it became so impaired that it was necessary to give him a long leave of absence. On that occasion a Minute was drawn up at the Admiralty in which he (Sir John Pakington) thought it due to Sir Richard Bromley to express his sense of the manner in which this able officer had discharged his duties, and that such a series of special services established a claim to special acknowledgment and reward and the highest superannuation allowance consistent with the existing regulations. Sir Richard Bromley was then
  502
  allowed a long leave of absence, and his health was restored; he returned to his duties and continued to act for two or three years as Accountant General until his health again broke down from the multifarious duties which for a long series of years he had performed. In 1862 he asked the Duke of Somerset to increase his salary by £500 a year for additional duties placed upon him, and the Duke of Somerset replied that he wished him to go to Greenwich Hospital with a view to reform it, and that this would be his reward. In October, 1862, Sir Richard Bromley expressed to the Duke of Somerset that if it was his Grace's pleasure to appoint him a Civil Commissioner of the Hospital he should be happy to accept it, as he could hold it with his pension. In December, 1862, Mr. Whitbread, the Lord of the Admiralty, by the direction of the Duke of Somerset, again asked Sir Richard Bromley if he would go to Greenwich Hospital, and Sir Richard Bromley, on the 9th December, replied that he was willing, as he felt the work of his present office too harrassing to go on with after thirty-three years of service, and he could hold the Commissionership, with his pension, as others had done. In this he alluded to Lord Auckland and Sir Thomas Thompson, both of whom held the office with an untouched pension. In February, 1863, Captain Drummond and Lord Clarence Paget spoke to him on the subject, and on the 19th of March, Captain Ryder, the Private Secretary of the Duke of Somerset, wrote that he was directed to inform him that it was the pleasure of the Queen to approve of his being appointed to a Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital. Thus this office was offered to Sir Richard Bromley without conditions, and was accepted by him on the principle that he was entitled to hold his full pension. In April, 1863, Sir Richard Bromley wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty resigning his office of Accountant General, applying for his pension to be granted him, and the Board of Admiralty passed a Minute recommending his pension to be fixed at the largest amount consistent with the law, which would be £1,300 a year. At the moment the Board of Admiralty recommended the highest amount of pension to Sir Richard Bromley he was in possession of his appointment at Greenwich Hospital, In their Minute of July, 1863, the Treasury said that under the Superannuation Act he was entitled to

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  £715 a year, but added that with a view to mark the sense entertained of Sir Richard Bromley's eminent and special services, and with the understanding that the Superannuation Act applied to his appointment in Greenwich Hospital, his allowance would be fixed at £1,000 per annum. Now, was Greenwich Hospital under the Superannuation Act? He (Sir John Pakington) did not think any Member of the Treasury Bench would say it was. The Government had unjustly and illegally endeavoured to override the Act of Parliament by introducing a condition of this kind, and to set up their own decision in opposition to the Superannuation Act. Professing to give Sir Richard Bromley £1,000 a year they had practically reduced his pension to £481, although he had a positive legal right under the Superannuation Act to £715 a year. He admitted that Sir Richard Bromley had no absolute right to the £1,000 promised him, and that to give him that sum would be an act of grace and favour on the part of the Treasury for which he would be grateful; but if he applied to the Court of Queen's Bench for a mandamus the Treasury might be compelled to pay him the £715 a year, to which he was entitled under the Superannuation Act. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Childers) had consented to alter the clause so as no longer to preclude Sir Richard Bromley from asserting his right in a court of law; and he therefore appealed to the hon. Gentleman and to the House, whether it was not better that a claim of that kind, on the part of a distinguished public servant, should be met by the generosity and good feeling of the Government rather than that he should be driven to establish it against them in a Court of Justice. The clause applied to Sir Richard Bromley and to him only, and its sole effect had been to keep him out of a court of law. The words having that effect being, however, now abandoned, he asked what was the object of retaining the clause at all? He hoped the House would support him in his endeavour to have the clause struck out altogether, as a record against an attempt to deprive a distinguished officer of his rights. He moved the rejection of the clause.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he was at a loss to understand what object the right hon. Gentleman (Sir John Pakington) could have in objecting to a clause which he himself acknowledged afforded
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  sufficient security for perfect justice being done to the gentleman whose name he had mentioned. It was not at any time the intention of the Government to interfere with any legal right which Sir Richard Bromley might be able to establish, and he did not believe that the original words of the clause would have been construed in a court as having that effect; but the moment they found that those words were thought to be in the least degree ambiguous they had endeavoured to amend them, so as to obviate the possibility of any such construction being put upon them, and to leave Sir Richard Bromley with all his legal rights entirely untouched. If that gentleman was able to satisfy the Government that he had the lights which he claimed without having recourse to a Court of Law, they would admit them; but if he was unable to satisfy them on that point, or to establish his claim in a Court of Law, surely the House would not go out of its way to give him that to which, upon that hypothesis, he was not legally entitled. The whole circumstances of the arrangement had not, he believed, been fully stated by the right hon. Gentleman. As far as his (the Attorney General's) information went, he believed that the arrangement forgiving the appointment of Greenwich Hospital, and the pension, were parts of the same transaction. With regard to the question of law, having done his best to make himself master of it, he must say he thought that question was by no means so clear as it appeared to be to the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Putting aside all questions of form, the question was whether the Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital was an office in a Public Department within the meaning of the 20th section of the Superannuation Act. He had looked into that Act, but did not feel competent, without further consideration, to pronounce a decided opinion. If he looked at the list of Public Departments mentioned in the Act, he agreed that Greenwich Hospital was not one of those Public Departments, but it would be erroneous to decide upon the meaning of the words "public department" with reference to that clause only. No doubt Greenwich Hospital was not mentioned in the Act. No doubt the 14th section said that superannuation allowances were to extend to all civil offices and Departments of State set forth and enumerated in the schedule. But it did not stop there, for the same section gave power to the Lords of the Treasury

  505
  to add to the list of Departments any others which then existed or should thereafter exist, and to place them under the provisions of the Act. Therefore, those enumerated in the Act did not exhaust the list of Public Departments. The question required examination whether Greenwich Hospital had or had not been treated as a Public Department. He was not prepared to say decidedly whether the Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital had been treated as a public office. Seeing that the payment on account of the office was not voted by Parliament, nor did it come out of the Consolidated Fund, he thought those were, at first sight, arguments in favour of the view of the right hon. Gentleman. But he did not think that these arguments were of necessity conclusive, and the House would be ill-advised if it were to come to a vote upon an assumption of the question when the rights of Sir Richard Bromley had been strictly preserved to him by the clause in the Bill.
  SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, he was sure that the Government had acted under some misapprehension in this matter. He agreed that they ought not there to discuss a question of law; but he was also sure that when the hon. and learned gentleman (the Attorney General) had considered the terms of the statute of William IV. he would at once see that the Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital was not within that Act. He would state shortly the facts. When Sir Richard Bromley, after thirty-two years' service, was desirous of retiring from the office of Accountant General of the Navy, his services had been recorded in successive Minutes of the Admiralty and of the Treasury, and it was said that those services entitled him to the highest pension consistent with existing regulations whenever he should retire. He had performed many gratuitous services, and the Government had expressed a desire to reward him for them, and it was a question whether he should receive a considerable increase of salary; but instead of this course being acted on, he, at the suggestion of the Duke of Somerset, accepted the office of Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital. Sir Richard Bromley had accepted the office of Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital on the understanding that he was to receive £1,000 a year, or £285 more than he was legally entitled to as retiring Accountant General. On 1st April, 1863, when Sir
  506
  Richard Bromley resigned the office of Accountant General, he was entitled by law to a permanent retiring pension of £715 a year; and, upon accepting the office of Commissioner, he became legally entitled to £818 a year more, making his total income £1,533 a year. This was undisputed. But the Government had offered him £1,000 a year, or £285 more than the £715 to which he was legally entitled. Such were his legal rights on the 1st April, 1863, when he resigned his office. He applied for his pension, and he hoped in addition to receive something from the grace and favour of the Government for his meritorious services. He applied, and then the Treasury made tills Minute. It recited his services, and the records of those services by the Treasury and the Admiralty, and then it recited that his permanent retiring allowance had been fixed at the highest amount. It went on —
  "My Lords therefore feel that the case is eminently one to be dealt with under the 9th section of the Superannuation Act of 1859."
  The question he wished to ask Her Majesty's Government was, whether or not they intended to give Sir Richard Bromley £285 per annum, according to the recommendation of the Admiralty, beyond what he was strictly entitled to? Unfortunately, the Government had annexed the condition that the office was to be deemed to be within the Act of William IV., and by so doing, instead of giving Sir Richard Bromley the £285 per annum, for his extraordinary services, in addition to the £1,533 to which he was legally entitled, they had actually despoiled him of £235 per annum, out of the £1,533 per annum to which he was legally entitled. As the office was not within the Act of William IV., let the Government grant him a pension of £1,000 a year according to the statute, without more, and Sir Richard Bromley would receive the reward they professed to give him of £285 a year in addition to that to which he was legally entitled. If the office was within the Act, which cannot be seriously contended, the Minute was superfluous, and unnecessary.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he would explain why the clause had boon inserted, It was the principle of the Superannuation Act that an officer receiving superannuation and appointed to another office, should not draw more of his superannuation allowance than would make up the salary of his new office to his former salary. But it

  507
  was necessary to provide that, on being a second time removed from office, the annuity should stand in the same position as the second salary. If the clause was not inserted in the Bill, Sir Richard Bromley would, apparently, be able to claim to have no deduction made from his superannuation, whatever deduction was legally made from it while he held office. Thus he would, receive more for doing nothing, than while in office; a state of things which he felt the House would be indisposed to tolerate. Sir Richard Bromley was at present in receipt of a total sum of £1,600, and that income, so long as he is Auditor of Prize Accounts, he would still retain. With respect to the supposed hardship of the Treasury decision, he was obliged to explain to the House that at Sir Richard Bromley's request, the Duke of Somerset had already made up to him all he could claim. On the 12th of June, 1863, and subsequently to his acceptance of the office of Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, Sir Richard Bromley wrote to the Duke of Somerset stating that he understood that a pension had been granted to him of £1,000 a year, calculated upon his salary of £1,300 a year. Sir Richard Bromley complained of the condition which was insisted on—that his salary as Commissioner of the Hospital and his pension together should not exceed the £1,300 a year which he had previously enjoyed as Accountant General of the Navy. He then requested to be allowed to retain his £300 as Auditor of Prize Accounts, an office which he regarded as having been conferred upon him personally, and not in his capacity of Accountant General. In accordance with this request he was allowed to retain the office of Auditor, which till then had been combined with that of Accountant General, and it enabled him to receive the £1,600 which he had before received. He (Mr. Childers) asked whether that proposal of Sir Richard Bromley—in consequence of the decision of the Treasury—and the acceptance of the proposal by the Duke of Somerset to allow him to receive £1,600 per annum up to this time, as provided in the Bill, did not do justice to that officer.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he wished to say a few words, as the justice of Her Majesty's Government had been called into question. With regard to the liberality of the Government, he might state that if Sir Richard Bromley had retired from the office of Accountant General
  508
  of the Navy on his superannuation allowance, and had afterwards been appointed to the Commissionership of Greenwich Hospital and superannuated or pensioned on the abolition of that office, he would be in a better position than if the Minute which had been referred to had not been made. The Minute intended to make a liberal arrangement for Sir Richard Bromley, but it was rather an injury to him than a favour. He hoped, after what had fallen from the Attorney General and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers), the case would be fairly considered by the Government, and that the House would be spared the necessity of dividing on the clause, on the understanding that Sir Richard Bromley's legal rights, whatever they were, would be preserved to him.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he hoped after what had fallen from the Attorney General, who had dealt very fairly with the case, that the Government would concede to Sir Richard Bromley whatever was due to him in point of law.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he was not prepared to enter into any condition.
  Question put, "That Clause 13, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  The House divided: —Ayes 124; Noes 67: Majority 57.
  Bill to be read 3° To-morrow, at Twelve of the clock.

PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT (1856) AMENDMENT BILL— [BILL 219.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Robert Peel.)
  MR. BAGWELLsaid, he opposed the Motion. If it were really necessary at this late period of the Session to pass a measure on the subject it ought only to be a continuance Bill for a single year. Let a Bill for the registration of arms be separately introduced; and let them no longer be compelled, as they had been at the Tipperary assizes, to convict lads simply for having percussion caps or bullets in their pocket.
  MR. BRADYsaid, he opposed this Bill, as he had constantly done for years, believing that it degraded the people of Ireland. Originally this had been called a Crime

  509
  and Outrage Bill. The necessity for it had long passed away, and the only effect of it was to irritate the people and to perpetuate the oppression of which they justly complained. There were trials going on under it in Ireland that would disgrace any part of the world.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, he opposed the Bill, on the ground that it was an instance of exceptional legislation for which no necessity whatever had been shown.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he thought it highly satisfactory that the Bill had been opposed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Clonmel (Mr. Bagwell), a resident proprietor in Tipperary, who would have been the first to support the Bill had there been any real necessity for it. When the Bill was brought in the Chief Secretary admitted the peaceable state of the country, and therefore the right hon. Baronet ought at least to make the concession suggested by the hon. Member for Clonmel.
  MR. ESMONDEsaid, he had voted for the Bill on a former evening, but hoped now the right hon. Baronet would be content to pass it for one year.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that the Bill was proposed to be passed for the smallest possible period, that was to the end of the next Session. As to the general state of the country, everybody would admit that it was most peaceable. For instance, in 1853, there were a thousand prisoners in gaol in Clonmel, but in the present year there were only sixty-three. That showed conclusively the great improvement which had taken place in the county of Tipperary. This Bill was proposed to be reserved only by way of precaution. There were certain baronies in Mayo, Galway, and Monaghan, and after communicating with the magistrates the Lord Lieutenant in Council would be prepared to take away the proclamations from those baronies. He trusted the House would consent to pass the Bill.
  MR. LANIGANsaid, he wished to inquire whether the right hon. Baronet would consent to withdraw the proclamation from the county of Tipperary, which he had stated to be so peaceable?
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, the magistrates of Tipperary had made no representation on the subject.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, the right hon. Baronet had given a most admirable description of the state of Ireland, and it was well that the fact should go forth to
  510
  the English people, because it was said that capital was kept away as there was no security in Ireland. The peaceable state of Ireland, however, was no justification for a coercion Bill. The existence of former Governments depended on the introduction of such a Bill, but now the Chief Secretary rose and proposed a coercion Bill as easily as he performed the very homely personal function described the other night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley). Persons engaged in an illegal marching at Ballincollig had some time since been brought before Mr. Justice Keogh, and the common law of the country was found sufficient for their punishment. It would be wise policy of the Government to show their increased confidence in the people of Ireland by not again passing this measure, as there was no necessity for it. If the Government could show no necessity for the Bill, hon. Gentlemen were justified in opposing it. As the right hon. Baronet had not consented to limit the operation of the Bill he should move that it be read a second time on that day three months.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Maguire.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. TORRENSsaid, that the hon. Member (Mr. Maguire) in the earlier part of the Session had made a statement that there was great disaffection in Ireland, and that being so, it was a sufficient justification of the Bill.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that he had waited with the greatest anxiety to hear what grounds the Chief Secretary for Ireland would allege in defence of a Bill which he could not help denominating a very exceptional and unconstitutional one, and the only reason which he had heard him assign for adopting this measure was that it had been in force before, and, therefore, it might as well be continued. He had paid some attention to the judicial statistics of Ireland, and they certainly afforded no justification for passing such a Bill as this. When a district was proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant, any man who had in his possession any part of a gun or an ounce of powder was liable to twelve months' imprisonment; any body who met another body upon the road with such a thing

  511
  might take it from him, and any policeman might search any man, woman, or child, turn them up, and see whether they had anything of the kind about them. The Government could, by means of these proclamations, put a perpetual blister upon any part of Ireland in the shape of an extra police force to be paid by the district. He was surprised to hear the Chief Secretary say the other night that the noble Lord the Member for the county of Mayo had told him that the gentlemen of that county thought that a proclamation now in force there might be removed, and that, therefore, he should write to the Lord Lieutenant on the following day to ask him to recall it.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that what he had said was, that he had communicated with the noble Lord, who said that he would make inquiries of the magistrates, and let him know whether they thought the proclamation might be withdrawn.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that the words of the right hon. Baronet, as he understood them, and as they were reported in The Times, which generally pretty accurately reported the debates in that House, were that he—
  "Had been in communication with his noble Friend the Member for the county of Mayo upon the subject of the proclamation, which had been in force since 1861, and he intended to inform the Lord Lieutenant that in the opinion of the gentlemen of that county there was no reason why it should not be revoked."
  If this was the way that proclamations were recalled, perhaps they were sometimes issued under parallel circumstances. During the five years preceding 1851 the number of criminals indicted in Ireland was 130,000; during the five years ending 1863 the numbers had dwindled down to about 29,000. This was a most remarkable change. The people were flying from the land as if it was a pesthouse, and was that to be wondered at when such laws as this were in force? In Ireland there was a policeman to every 420 people, while in England the proportion was only one to every 880 or 890. Surely with such a force of police and the powers given to them by the ordinary laws the Government could preserve the peace of the country. As he had heard no reason for the passing of this Bill, he should vote against the second reading.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) had not correctly apprehended the argument of his
  512
  right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary What his right hon. Friend (Sir Robert Peel) said was that it was the intention of the Lord Lieutenant, in communication with the lieutenants and magistrates of counties, to see how many of the proclamations now in force could be safely withdrawn; but that was a very different thing from allowing them all to lapse by the expiration of the Act of Parliament which this Bill was intended to renew. Such neglect might be attended with the most disastrous consequences. All that was now asked was that time might be allowed for the further consideration of the state of Ireland with a view to see whether it would be necessary to retain that Act. The Government hoped that it would not, but that must depend upon the state of the country. In the meantime the continuance was only sought for a year, and till the end of the then next Session of Parliament, the shortest period for which it was the practice to take annual continuance Bills.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, that under this Bill the Act would remain in force during the whole of] 866 and until the end of the Session of 1867—that was, till August, 1867. The proposal which would satisfy everyone was that it should be renewed only till the end of 1866.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: —Ayes 76; Noes 29: Majority 47.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read 2°, and committed for Tomorrow.

COLONIAL GOVERNORS (RETIRING PENSIONS) BILL— [BILL 133.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  SIR WILLIAM JOLLIFFEsaid, he had formerly drawn attention to the memorial of Sir Francis Head, asking that his claims should be considered; but it now appeared that the Government were unwilling to make any special provision in his favour. Under these circumstances he had received the following letter from Sir Francis, asking that his case should not be pressed:—

  513
  "Croydon, June 6, 1865.
  "My dear Sir William Jolliffe, — In cheerful submission to the adverse decision of Her Majesty's Government with respect to my services in Canada, which has just been privately communicated to me, I lose no time in expressing to you my earnest desire that you will kindly abstain from uttering in the House of Commons another word in my behalf. For, as my case is now hopeless, you will, I am sure, concur with me that it would ill become me to allow—if I can possibly prevent it—any Member of Parliament uselessly to interrupt, for a single moment, the unanimity with which the Colonial Governors Pension Bill will, I hope, without any further reference to my services, now pass into a law.
  "Believe me to remain
  "Yours faithfully and gratefully, "F. B. HEAD."
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1 agreed to.
  Clause 2 (Definition of "Metropolis" and "Company").
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he wished to ask what rule had been adopted with regard to these pensions, and upon what principle the claims of Sir Francis Head had been rejected.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, this Bill was based upon length of services, and the period of Sir Francis Head's service was extremely short. Last year he had given a pledge that the subject should be fully considered; so that, if they were unable to admit the claims of Sir Francis Head, the right hon. Gentleman opposite should have the opportunity of taking what course he felt inclined to take upon this Bill. Since then the case had been fully considered, and the Government thought it impossible to insert a clause providing for that particular case.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, that Sir Francis Head's letter did that distinguished public servant great honour. He expressed his deep regret at the decision come to by the Government.
  MR. ADDERLEYmoved the insertion of words limiting the grant of these pensions out of the British Treasury to cases in which the salaries were a charge on the British Treasury. It was an act of absolute folly to charge the Imperial Revenue with pensions in cases where the salaries were payable by the colonies. The Bill was a continuation of the old vicious system by which the interests of the Crown and of the colonies were regarded as being separate.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the objections taken to the Bill were the same as those which were made on the second reading, and they had therefore already been disposed of by the House.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he wished to remind the House that it was already nearly a quarter to two o'clock, and that they had to meet again at twelve o'clock.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, it would only take twenty minutes to go through the Bill.
  Amendment negatived.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

SUGAR DUTIES AND DRAWBACKS BILL. [BILL 198.] COMMITTEE.
Order for Third Reading read and discharged.
Bill re-committed; considered in Committee.
MR. CAVEsaid, that this Bill was founded upon a convention which was to last ten years. That was much too long a time. There might be mistakes ab initio as that with regard to paper and rag duties in the French Treaty; or an altered state of affairs might arise, as was the case with the oyster fisheries affected by the French Fishery Convention, and so much mischief might ensue. Could not the Chancellor of the Exchequer arrange these conventions for shorter periods?
Amendments agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported; as amended, considered.
Bill read 3°, and passed.

AZEEM JAH (SIGNATURES TO PETITIONS).
The Sergeant at Arms attending this House informed the House, that George Morris Mitchell had been this day apprehended, and was now in Newgate.
A Petition of George Morris Mitchell, a State Prisoner in Her Majesty's Gaol of Newgate, expressing his deep contrition and regret if he has offended against the dignity of the House, and praying for his release from custody, brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [App. 2.]
House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.