Commons Sitting of 10 May 1866

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Kildare, v. Lord Otho Augustus FitzGerald, Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN—Charles Capper, esquire, for Sandwich; Charles Edwards, esquire, for New Windsor; Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, baronet, for Devon County (Northern Division); Roger Eykyn, esquire, for New Windsor.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Thames Navigation nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—Class III.—Law and Justice. Class IV.—Education, Science, and Art. Class V.—Colonial, Consular, and other Foreign Services.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Railway Companies' Securities *; Tramways (Ireland) Acts Amendment *; Poor Relief (Ireland) Law Amendment *; Solicitor to the Treasury *; Local Government Supplemental (No. 2).*
First Reading—Tramways (Ireland) Acts Amendment * [149]; Local Government Supplemental (No. 2) * [150]; Railway Companies' Securities * [151]; Solicitor to the Treasury * [152]; Poor Relief (Ireland) Law Amendment * [153].
Second Reading—Bankruptcy Law Amendment, &c. [106]; Fishery Piers and Harbours (Ireland) [93]; Labouring Classes' Dwellings (Ireland) [94]; National Gallery Enlargement [124]; Dean Forest (Walmore and the Bearce Commons) * [182],
Referred to Select Committee—Dean Forest (Walmore and the Bearce Commons) * [182]: National Gallery Enlargement [124].
Committee—Landed Property Improvement (Ireland) * [118]; Divorce and Matrimonial Causes * [102]; Burials in Burghs (Scotland)* [132].
Report—Landed Property Improvement (Ireland) * [118]; Divorce and Matrimonial Causes * [102]; Burials in Burghs (Scotland)* [132].
Considered as amended—Drainage Maintenance (Ireland) * [95]; Convicts' Property* [105].
Third Reading—Land Drainage Supplemental * [125]; Inclosure*[126J; Public Companies * [35], and passed.

ARMY—WAR OFFICE WARRANTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the following statement, which appeared in The Times of the 5th April, is correct:—
  "The Secretary for War recently established a branch of his department to codify and revise warrants and regulations issued from the War Office; be has appointed Mr. J. Norman Lockyer to the charge of this branch;"
  whether this duty is part of that formerly discharged by Mr. Orde Marshall, recently superannuated at the age of forty-eight; whether, if so, he will state what pay and allowances are received by Mr. Lockyer for performing this duty; who performs the remainder of the duty formerly performed by Mr. O. Marshall, and what pay and allowance are received for its discharge, and what is the precise economy effected by these changes?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he was afraid that he could not give his hon. Friend a full explanation of the subject without occupying too much of the time of the House. The short answer, however, which he might give was this. It was true that in December last such a branch was established, consisting of Mr. Lockyer and others, who would receive an extra allowance in addition to their pay. The duty was almost entirely a new one, and it was difficult to state precisely the amount of economy effected by the change, as it formed part of a larger system of reorganization which secured a saving of £4,000 a year. If his hon. Friend wished for a more detailed statement in regard to this branch he would enter into a fuller explanation on going into Committee of Supply.

IRELAND—REVALUATION OF PROPERTY. —QUESTION
LORD JOHN BROWNEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he is able to state the estimated cost of the revaluation of Rateable Property in Ireland, which it is proposed by the Rateable Property Bill to carry out every fourteen years; whether the expense of those repeated valuations are to be charged on the local rates, and whether they are to be compulsory; whether he has any objection to a Return stating the total actual cost of the last general valuation of Ireland, and of its estimated cost at the
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time that the Act authorizing it passed through Parliament; and if he can state how many valuations, including those solely for Poor Law purposes, have been made for Ireland during the last thirty years? He also would beg to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will postpone the second reading of the Rateable Property Bill until the production of such Return?
MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, in reply, that the estimated cost of the revaluation was £46,000. It was intended to take place once every fourteen years, and the expense would be equally divided between the local rates and the Treasury. He could not undertake to give the estimated cost of the last valuation, but he had no objection to giving a Return of the actual cost and also of the number of valuations made during the last thirty years. He was also willing to postpone the Committee on the Bill until the Return was produced.

LOTTERIES FOR CHARITABLE PURPOSES. —QUESTION.
MR. WHALLEYsaid, with reference to a Lottery publicly advertised to be drawn for on Saturday the 12th instant at Edinburgh, for the benefit of St. Vincent Roman Catholic School, to ask the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention has been drawn thereto, as being a violation of the Law respecting Lotteries; and what, if any, steps have been or will be taken by him to give effect to the Law in that behalf?
THE LORD ADVOCATE, in reply, stated that the statute under which such lotteries were punishable was one that permitted proceedings by a common informer. The course he had generally adopted in regard to these matters was to prosecute in cases where the lotteries were got up for private gain, but not in cases where they were promoted for charitable purposes. Whether that was a right distinction or not was a matter of opinion; but if it was not thought a proper course a common informer might at all times prosecute. It was right to say further that he did not think the law regarding lotteries should be made the subject of sectarian complaints. Lotteries, or at least what were said to be lotteries, wore resorted to by persons of all denominations; but most of the complaints within his knowledge had been mainly directed against those for Roman Catholic purposes.

IRELAND—LAND IMPROVEMENT.

  QUESTION.
  SIR FREDERICK HEYGATEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Government intend to adopt the recommendation in the Report of the Committee on Irish Taxation (1865), to the effect that
  "The advances for Land Improvement, &c, should not be limited to the sum of £8,000 upon any one estate; that the repayment of Loans should be extended over a longer period than twenty-two years; and that it should not be compulsory, when a loan is granted for a Farm Building, upon the proprietor to provide a house at a cost of £200?"
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, in reply, said, the Government had adopted the first recommendation, that the advance should not be limited to the sum of £8,000, subject to the discretion of the Lords of the Treasury. As to the second, his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury had introduced a clause giving the Treasury power to extend the repayment of loans to periods of thirty-five years in cases where the benefit the proprietor obtained was less than the percentage now charged on loans for twenty-two years; and with reference to the last part of the question, the hon. Baronet was, no doubt, aware that under the new Act loans would be granted for the erection of farmhouses as well as farm buildings, the present condition being that the value of the farmhouse built in conjunction with farm buildings should be one-third the amount of the loan made for such buildings.

IRELAND—COUNTY PRISONS.

  QUESTION.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Inspectors General of Prisons have made any representation to the Irish Government with a view to the consolidation and Amendment of the Laws relating to county prisons in Ireland; and, if so, whether the Government proposes to legislate on the subject? He also wished to know when the annual Report of the Inspectors General of prisons will be laid upon the table? He strongly objected to the practice of postponing the production of these Reports till the end of the Session.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, it was quite correct that the inspectors had made such representations to
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  the Government, and the Government, with their aid, had prepared a Bill for the consolidation and amendment of the laws relating to county prisons in Ireland. If the state of public business gave him any hope of passing the Bill during the present Session, he should wish to do so, but he was afraid he could entertain no such hopes. He proposed, therefore, to introduce the Bill and lay it on the table before the time when the Irish grand juries met at the summer Assizes, so that it might be considered by them and by the country. The Report would be produced before the end of the Session.

THE COAL FIELDS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.—QUESTION.
SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it would not be desirable to instruct the Director General of the Institution charged with conducting the Geological Survey of Great Britain and Ireland, by which mineral statistics are annually collected and published, to collect evidence bearing on the carboniferous system of the United Kingdom, the extent of the coal-fields, the thickness and quality, produce, and consumption of all bed3 of coal, and to Report thereon; and, if so, whether the Government would issue the necessary instructions accordingly?
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, in reply, that Her Majesty's Government had anticipated the suggestion of the right hon. Baronet and had even previously to the notice of the hon. Member for Glamorganshire (Mr. Hussey Vivian) of his intention to move for a Commission on the subject, addressed a letter to Sir Roderick Murchison, who was at the head of the Geological Survey, with the view of ascertaining from him whether by means of that Department certain inquiries into the extent of our coal-fields could be conducted, and what would be the probable expense of such a proceeding. The answer to that letter led the Government to hope that full information on this subject would shortly be obtained.

SALE OF CATTLE AT MARKETS AND FAIRS.—QUESTION.
MR. READsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to allow the sale of

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cattle at markets, fairs, and auctions in Great Britain after the 6rst day of June?
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, in reply, that as there were still three weeks to elapse before the expiration of the last Order, the Privy Council had not yet taken into consideration the question whether or not it would be necessary to make any alterations in the existing regulations. It was, however, certain that the unrestricted sale of cattle in open markets and fairs would not be permitted just at present. The nature of the restrictions to be enforced would be a matter for future consideration.

BANKRUPTCY LAW AMENDMENT, &c., BILL— [BILL 106.]
(Mr. Attorney Gen., Mr. Sol. Sen., Sir G Grey.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, in moving that the Bill be read the second time, said, that it was founded upon the recommendations of the Select Committee which sat in 1864–5, and was drawn up with the intention of reducing the whole of the bankruptcy laws of this country into one code, and also of effecting some very important alterations, both of principle and detail. As the plan proposed was intended to settle upon a sound basis the whole system of the law of bankruptcy in this country, it was necessary that the House should clearly ascertain how the question stood at the present time, and that they should take a retrospect of previous legislation upon the subject. The law of bankruptcy in England originated as far back as the time of Henry VIII.; and from that period down to 1705, in the reign of Queen Anne, it proceeded upon a principle which, whatever might be its defects, was in all respects consistent with itself—namely, that of regarding the bankrupt trader as criminal and fraudulent in contradistinction to other debtors. The law as it then stood was framed exclusively for the benefit of the creditors, and gave no discharge whatever to the bankrupt for any portion of his debts. The severity of that code was well illustrated by a clause in the Act of 21 James I., which provided that any bankrupt who could not prove to the satisfaction of the Commissioners that his debts were the result of unavoidable loss and misfortune was to be placed in the pillory and to have his ears cut off. In the year 1705, however, commenced a
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series of temporary Acts, which were renewed from time to time, but the general principle of which was ultimately made permanent in 1798. Those Acts were principally intended to prevent frauds by bankrupts; but they were the first in which was introduced the principle of the discharge of the bankrupt, for they gave upon certain terms a discharge to the bankrupt who had conformed to the law, and who did not appear to have been guilty of any criminal offence. That system continued in force without material alteration until the year 1825, when an Act was passed with the intention of consolidating all the previous Acts upon the subject, and some important modifications of the law were introduced. There must, however, have been something unsatisfactory in the operation of that Act, for it was repealed by another Act in 1826, and another consolidation statute was substituted. The most material difference in principle introduced by those Acts was, that they for the first time departed from the mode in which discharge had been previously granted; because from 1706 to 1825 nothing more was necessary for the discharge of the bankrupt than that he should have conformed to the law, and that a certain proportion of the creditors should consent to it, when his right to his discharge became absolute. A modification in that system was made in 1825–6, when it was provided that any creditor might oppose the granting of the certificate of discharge notwithstanding the assent of the other creditors had been obtained, and the Commissioners might then allow or disallow the discharge as they thought fit. No further alteration was made in the law until 1831. He should here state to the House that up to 1831 the Lord Chancellor appointed a separate commission for each bankruptcy, that the whole of the debtor's property was placed in the hands of the creditors assignees, who administered it subject to no effective supervision, and that then in all questions of law or cases of abuse there was an ultimate resort to the Lord Chancellor. That was the system respecting assignees from the 13th of Elizabeth down to the beginning of the reign of William IV. By an Act passed in 1831, the present Court of Bankruptcy was first established, and in that year the system of the appointment of official assignees for London was first introduced, and this principle was afterwards, in 1842, extended to the country districts. It was thought expedient in

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that way to apply a remedy to the abuses which had sprung up through the system of creditors' assignees, who were often practically irresponsible, and who unquestionably had often been guilty of gross frauds. The principle of the official assignee system was that all the debtor's estate was collected by the official assignee, and it was then dealt with by the creditors' assignee, subject to official interference at every step, and almost everything to be done took the form more or less of a proceeding in court. In 1842 another very important change was introduced. The system of certificates discharging bankrupts by consent was abolished, and the matter was referred to the Court, which was judicially to inquire into the title of the bankrupt to receive his discharge, and a provision was introduced into the Act, that in determining that question the Court should not only see that the bankrupt had conformed to the bankruptcy law, but should have regard to his conduct as a tradesman before as well as after bankruptcy. In 1844 there was another alteration, a trader was then enabled on certain conditions to make himself bankrupt. And then, for the first time, it seems to have been considered by the Legislature that the bankrupt law should be directed to the relief of the debtor as much as to the benefit of the creditor. So matters continued until 1849, when what was called a Consolidation Act was passed, although, in point of fact, it was not a Consolidation Act, inasmuch as a great deal of the former law remained untouched: by that Act, however, some very important alterations were introduced. In the first place the censorial jurisdiction of the Court, as regarded certificates, was not only retained and enlarged, but a classification of certificates was introduced, under which the Court had power to examine into the conduct of the trader, and to ascertain whether his losses were due to unavoidable misfortune. If they were found to be wholly due to that cause, he was to have a first-class certificate; if only partially, a second class certificate; and if they were not owing in any degree to that cause, then his certificate was to be of the third class. The Court was empowered to refuse altogether in certain cases the bankrupt's certificate, to withhold from him, or to suspend for a limited time, protection against arrest, or to adjourn his examination sine die. It was worthy of notice that the Act of 1825 had introduced the principle of allowing a composition to be effected with the cre-
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ditors, whereby the affairs of a debtor might be withdrawn from the administration of the Court of Bankruptcy, and this power was considerably enlarged and extended by the Act of 1849. It might be advisable for a moment or two to refer to the parallel legislation which had been going on upon a kindred subject, the case of insolvent non-traders, from the time of Queen Anne downwards. Almost at the same time that the principle of discharge by certificate was first adopted in relation to trader debtors, the legislation bearing upon the case of insolvent debtors commenced, the object of that legislation being to afford insolvent debtors relief from imprisonment by presenting a petition to the Insolvent Court. By that legislation an insolvent debtor was enabled to claim protection against personal arrest and imprisonment on giving up his existing property for the benefit of his creditors; and he was obliged to confess a judgment under which his future estate might be made available by an order of the Court for the payment of his debts—that was, theoretically, he did not obtain a discharge in respect of his future estate; but practically the result was during his life the same as if he had obtained such a discharge, although on his death his creditors were entitled to payment out of any property which he might have left. The distinction between traders and non-traders continued till the time of the Act introduced by Lord West-bury, when Attorney General, in 1861. By that Act the distinction between traders and non-traders was abolished, and non-traders who could not pay their debts became liable to be made bankrupts as well as traders; and the principle which had been introduced originally in 1844, when traders were first enabled under certain conditions to make themselves bankrupt, was still further expanded to the extent that any one was permitted to make himself a bankrupt without any conditions whatever being imposed. There was also another important alteration effected by that measure. That provision of the law which vested the administration of a bankrupt's estate in official assignees had proved very unacceptable to the mercantile community. It was therefore proposed to restore a considerable part of their former power to the creditors' assignees, to empower them to receive as well as to administer the more valuable parts of the estate, while the debts below £10 were placed under the care of the official as-

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ignee. By this means a double administration was established. The official assignee had to make his report to the creditors' assignee, who, in turn had to account to the official assignee. But by neither plan did the body of the creditors exercise any check, superintendence, or control over the receipts and administration. The working of this change was not found to be satisfactory. The great merit of the Act of 1861 was that it got rid of the distinction between traders and non-traders; but there were other matters on which it was not altogether successful. By that Act there was a further enlargement and expansion of what he (the Attorney General) had denominated "censorial jurisdiction." The Court of Bankruptcy was authorized to try a large class of cases which by one section of the Act were constituted misdemeanours. In addition a large number of mercantile offences were created, and of these offences the Court was empowered in considering the bankrupt's claim to his certificate to take cognizance, and to sentence him, if guilty, to a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year. The principal instances, he might add, of improper mercantile conduct were trading with fictitious capital, contracting debts without a reasonable expectation of being able to satisfy them, rash or hazardous speculation, and unjustifiable extravagance in living. These developments of the censorial jurisdiction were perfectly new in 1861, and were attended with considerable difficulty, inasmuch as they involved considerations of a retrospective character. Further provisions with respect to compositions were also introduced. But the system did not, on the whole, work well. Even the clauses relating to trustees, which seemed to work the best, were seriously defective. In the year 1864 his hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Mr. Moffatt), whose services in relation to the subject he now took the opportunity of acknowledging, obtained the appointment of a Select Committee, who bestowed a great deal of time and attention upon the subject. That Committee made several important recommendations, and the object of the measure before the House was to carry those recommendations, almost without exception, into effect. One branch of those recommendations might, perhaps, appear not to have been absolutely followed; but the object of the Bill was to carry into effect the more important of the recommendations of the Committee. One of the re-
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commendations of the Committee was that the whole of the bankruptcy laws should be brought together and consolidated. The fact that the law in relation to this subject was dispersed through a considerable number of statutes was undoubtedly extremely inconvenient. Whatever opinions, therefore, might be entertained concerning the changes which the Bill before the House proposed to effect, there could, he believed, be scarcely any difference of opinion as to the advisability of consolidating those portions of the law which related to this subject. It was unavoidable, under these circumstances, that the Bill should contain many clauses relating to existing enactments which it was not proposed to alter; and the number of them might prevent persons not giving very close attention to the subject from ascertaining what changes in the law it was really proposed to make. He would therefore inform the House of the nature of these changes; and first, as to imprisonment for debt. The leading recommendation of the Committee was that imprisonment for debt should be abolished. It would, he confessed, have given him pleasure to be able to state that a general concurrence of opinion existed upon that subject; but he regretted that even to this time a not inconsiderable portion of the mercantile community still clung to that small fragment of the old barbarous law of imprisonment for debt which remained upon our statute book, as if it were really useful. But he (the Attorney General) was satisfied that the effect of imprisonment, for any purpose useful to creditors, was already nullified. The House would recollect that arrest on mesne process was abolished in 1838, but arrest on final process still remained part of our law. The existing law, however, enabled every debtor to make himself bankrupt whenever he pleased, and by so doing to nullify whatever advantage the creditor might be supposed to derive from the power of imprisonment for debt. The Act of 1861 proceeded still further, and provided for an official visitation of prisons at short intervals, and for making all prisoners for debt bankrupt, whether they desired it or no. So, notwithstanding a very estimable witness had spoken of imprisonment for debt as a great constitutional remedy, he did not think the House would be of opinion that the remedy was of much value, or that creditors would lose any substantial benefit, if it were not suffered to remain. But it should not be forgotten that important

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considerations were connected with the principle of imprisonment for debt. It influenced the old law of bankruptcy more than anything else, and, as a matter of course, the moment it was determined to get rid of it, the various questions it was supposed to close were immediately thrown open, and it became necessary to deal with them from a new point of view. It was not a new recommendation, either of the present Bill or of the Committee of 1864, that imprisonment for debt on final process should be abolished. The Commission of 1832 appointed to inquire into the practice of the Courts of Common Law described in glowing terms the painful and pernicious effects of imprisonment for debt; and the Commissioners of Bankruptcy in 1842, recapitulating that description, strongly recommended the abolition of the practice. Nevertheless, all that had been done up to the present time was to deprive it of its practical value to creditors. He hoped that the House would feel that the time had at last come when the practice might be safely done away with; at all events, he proposed the change, and thought he could show that it was recommended by sound reason and expediency. The recommendation was based on sound reason, because nothing more ought to be desired than that the property of the debtor should be dealt with properly, and that the creditors should have proper and equitable remedies against it. To say in addition to this that punishment should be indiscriminately inflicted upon a debtor whether culpable or not was certainly barbarous. The abolition was also desirable on the ground of expediency, because it cleared the way and enabled them to place the law of bankruptcy upon a sound and satisfactory basis. Imprisonment for debt had led to enabling debtors on their own motion to effectually rid themselves of liability to their creditors; and it appeared to him that the moment an end was made of imprisonment for debt no necessity existed for permitting a debtor to rid himself of his liabilities purely at his own will and pleasure. Accordingly, the Bill proposed that creditors alone should put the law in motion against an insolvent person; and that from the moment imprisonment for debt was abolished no debtor should be permitted voluntarily to make himself a bankrupt. Desiring to show the actual conseqences resulting from the present law he would quote from the evidence given by Mr. Commissioner Holroyd, who had said—
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"The consequence of retaining imprisonment for debt on final process has been that a multiplicity of petitions for adjudication of bankruptcy on the debtor's own petition are filed when there are no assets whatever, and these are resorted to mainly either for the purpose of being released from prison, or to avoid being put into prison. In most of these cases a certain expense is incurred without the least utility to the creditors. The following are the number of cases where there were no dividends in the years 1862 and 1863, and, therefore, where there were little or no assets; in 1862, 6,910 out of 9,663; in 1863, 5,630 out of 8,470."
This showed that the law had drifted so far away from sound principles that debtors were actually allowed to come into court without having anything to offer their creditors, or the wherewithal to do them the least justice. He (the Attorney General) apprehended that no good reason whatever could be offered in support of such a practice; and when the state of the law permitting it was abolished the true principle of the law of bankruptcy might be restored. The true principle was stated by Mr. Holroyd when he said—
"I take the principle of the bankrupt law to be that a man has property to distribute. A commission of bankrupt being regarded as a species of execution, it was formerly considered to be no further authorized by the law than as a proceeding for the purpose of obtaining a fair distribution of the bankrupt's property among his creditors. If, therefore, a commission of bankrupt was issued by a creditor solely to serve the purposes of the bankrupt and not with any view whatever of benefiting the creditors, it was regarded as a sort of contempt of the Great Seal, or in other words, an abuse of the process of the Court."
And it might be said it was not the debtor's right, and no debtor should have it offered to him so as to interfere, at his option only, with any legal rights a creditor might have. By getting rid of a vicious system which gave occasion to these consequences, they would get rid of the consequences also.
He now came to the subject of discharge, and the House would excuse him if he dwelt upon it at some length. He would remind the House of what he had already said with reference to the history of legislation in bankruptcy—that from its commencement in the reign of Henry VIII. to the fourth year of the reign of Queen Anne, 1705, there was no discharge whatever of debtors in bankruptcy, and that in that year it was introduced. The order of discharge was made dependent upon a certificate signed by a certain number of the creditors; and from that date till 1842 the law upon this subject remained stationary.

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He would here state what he forgot to mention earlier—that it was not proposed by the present Bill to take away the power vested in the Judges of the County Courts of ordering a debtor to prison for a limited time, when it was satisfactorily proved that he was able to pay instalments ordered by the Court, and he refused to do so. Reverting to the point of discharge, having swept away imprisonment for debt, the first question that arose was, should there be any discharge at all? He knew that some Gentlemen, the hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. Moffatt) among them, had argued with great ability that there should be no discharge. He confessed that he had not been able, nor was the Commit tee, to arrive at such a conclusion. He was far from saying that reasons of considerable force might not be adduced against the discharge of any debtor; but his hon. Friend must be sensible that the general opinion of the country was not in favour of that conclusion; nor was the analogy of similar laws in other countries in its favour. He would now give some reasons why the House should not adopt it. In the first place, he doubted whether the result of adopting that extreme conclusion—enacting that no discharge should be granted, ought not to be the abolition of the law of bankruptcy altogether; for the question might be asked, under these circumstances—if there was to be no discharge of the debt, but the debtor was to remain liable to his creditor to all future time, why should the law interfere at all between the debtor and creditor? Be cause, it is not a contract between them that all the property of the debtor should be seized, his business broken up by the strong hand of the law, and that the creditors should take the administration of his estate into their own hands. That was the necessary operation of the bankrupt law; and the effect of this peculiar sys tem of administration which the law had introduced was obviously in many cases—perhaps, not in all—to interfere most materially with the chances of his ever being able to pay his debts in full: whereas, if a man was permitted to retain his property in his own hands, submitting to such pressing demands as he could not avoid, and if he could keep his business going by hook or by crook, in many cases the turn of the wheel of fortune might be such as to enable him to pay everything—or at least to pay more than he could do if all he had in the world
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was taken out of his hands and the goodwill of his trade destroyed, he being at the same time required by law to give assistance to those who took away from him the administration of his own affairs. It was reasonable to say when the creditors obtained that property which was deemed a fair amount for the basis of a composition, that at the end of the time necessary for that operation the bankrupt should have his discharge in order that he might start again in the world. It was, no doubt, extremely important that the terms on which a bankrupt might obtain his release should not be made too easy, seeing that there were rights of creditors as well as lights of debtors, and it was for the benefit of the creditors that such a proceeding was instituted. If those terms were to be made easy the bankrupt would not exert himself so much as he otherwise might to discharge his liabilities, nor would his friends be so anxious to help him in that endeavour; they ought to be such that no man would wish to put himself in the situation they involved. But that was a question as to the terms of discharge; not whether a discharge upon any terms should be wholly refused. If discharge was not to be given at all to a bankrupt it would then be necessary to choose whether all his future property should or should not be vested in assignees. If it were to be so vested the debtor would, in the words of Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque, be subjected to "perpetual mercantile excommunication," he would be made a sort of outcast, an outlaw, incapable of ever doing anything for himself, and without any proportionate prospect in ordinary cases of benefiting the creditor. Unless he happened to get what was called a "windfall," he could never earn anything, to pay his creditors, for he would have no motive, no inducement to work. He would be cut off from the menus of earning anything, and any inducement to his friends to give him those means would be removed. But if the bankrupt's property were not to be so vested, it would be necessary to revert to the process called cessio bonorum, his future property being left free subject at the same time to the ordinary legal remedies. And then would arise the question, what was to be the position of the creditors. If the property were not vested in assignees there would be a kind of scramble among the creditors by which it might be made very probable that no one would get anything; and inequalities would be introduced be-

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tween those who had proved on an equal footing, and received equal dividends out of the bankrupt estate. It would also be necessary to consider the claims of subsequent creditors. If a man were permitted to acquire future property, subsequent creditors ought to have their claims satisfied before those of creditors who got all the former property. All these considerations tended to the same conclusion—namely, that there should be some discharge. As he had before stated, it was not only the general opinion of the whole mercantile community of this country that on some reasonable terms discharge should be granted, but he believed it was in conformity with the general practice of all European States. It was quite true that it was not the general law of Europe that there should be exactly what we called a certificate of discharge; but there were powers given to a certain majority of creditors to make compositions, which amounted to the same thing, for when those compositions were made they put an end to the bankruptcy and discharged the bankrupt from his debts. It might perhaps be suggested that there was a step short of discharge which while it protected the debtor nevertheless allowed his future property to be got hold of—such a system as formerly prevailed under the Insolvent Court. That court had the means, if it thought fit, of taking in execution the future estate of an insolvent; though it was rarely exercised. There were very great objections to such a course. If a kind of sword of Damocles were suspended over the head of the insolvent, but were not actually to fall, it would be of no benefit to the creditors, while it was vexatious and harassing to the debtor. He had been informed on good authority that the working of the Scotch bankruptcy law tended to confirm that view. There, when a man became bankrupt, the creditors were able by a majority at the outset of the proceedings to determine whether the estate should be worked in bankruptcy, or sequestration as they called it, or whether it should be limited to cessio bonorum, and, like the Insolvent Court, leave the future estate liable; and as he was informed that the latter course was hardly ever adopted in Scotland, it tended to show that it was not thought of substantial value to creditors. The next question was, whether it would be proper to return to the old system, which was, to a certain extent, retained still in Scotland, of making the discharge depend upon the consent of a
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certain proportion of the creditors. But that system, when formerly tried in this country, had signally failed. The creditors were always tormented with the inquiry, whether they would enforce their power of keeping the debtor from the benefit of a discharge without the prospect of benefiting themselves. All sorts of experiments were tried upon creditors to induce them to sign, and a great many underhand agreements, which the law prescribed and rendered illegal, were nevertheless entered into; and, independently of these agreements, such canvassing was used, such pressure was put upon them, that it was almost as much as the comfort of their lives was worth to refuse to sign. The consequence was that consents were nearly always obtained or extorted; the system in that respect failed, and the Government therefore thought it right to recommend the House to adopt the advice of the Committee, and to endeavour to fix certain terms upon which the discharge may be obtained. Before he adverted to those terms he ought to say something with regard to the present system. It was a half-criminal, half-censorial system, which proceeded upon the assumption that Courts of Bankruptcy were to review the whole mercantile life of the individual trader, and the moral or legal propriety of the way in which he had carried on his business, and to decide upon questions such as whether he had spent too much money in household expenses, and a great number of other questions depending upon what he might call the laws of imperfect, not of perfect obligation, with regard to which the opinions of no two men were the same. The result had been an amount of dissatisfaction and complaint greater than that provoked by anything else in the whole law of bankruptcy except the attendant expenses. The evidence taken before the Select Committee on Bankruptcy in 1864 was full of expressions of opinion to the effect, among other things, that it ought to be part of the system of bankruptcy to enforce a strict code of commercial morality, taking cognizance not merely of matters which at law would constitute misdemeanors, but of everything else which, in the estimate of mercantile men, was otherwise than commendable in the merchant. But what was this mercantile law of morality? Where would they find the rules for thus measuring the conduct of individuals? How could they have a reasonable ground for believing that, in all cases, they

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could arrive at a satisfactory solution of matters in which men's prejudices, passions, feelings, and judgments were so strongly roused and affected? Things which solvent prosperous men were every day in the habit of doing without the least imputation on their characters or motives might become crimes if they were followed by failure. He would take an instance from the Act of 1861—the part which related to rash and hazardous speculation. Every day in the City of London a great deal of money was made by persons of high character and probity in speculations which nevertheless were frequently hazardous and in some degree marked by rashness. Not merely in London, but in other great cities, immense fortunes were made in speculations, which were highly applauded when successful, but which, if they happened to fail, assumed a very different aspect. Was it a sound principle that they should attempt to establish a judicature which, not proceeding upon the ordinary notions of criminal law, or estimating acts according to the legal character which they bore at the time when they were done, afterwards endeavoured to pass a species of semi-moral, semi-commercial judgment upon them, and to make the discharge or non-discharge of the debtor dependent upon the result? Experience showed the impossibility of succeeding in such an effort. Ever since the year 1842 that bad been the very thing most complained of. Somehow or other the Judges had never managed to discover this commercial code of morality. One Commissioner or one Vice Chancellor had taken an entirely different view of the subject from another. A case had been cited as one of signal hardship, in which a young man having no monies of his own, but having very great confidence in a house of business to which he was under obligations, put his name to a considerable amount of accommodation paper; and afterwards, being called upon to pay, had no assets to do so, and his protection and discharge were absolutely refused. In the opinion of a very competent witness that was an extremely hard case. He (the Attorney General) did not know whether it was or not, but he did know that, according to experience, the attempt to discover a satisfactory rule for every particular case bad been found impracticable. The Courts had endeavoured to do so, and they had broken down in the effort. They gave no satisfaction to the mercantile community, and certainly none to themselves. There
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could be little doubt that, while some traders got first-class certificates, the certificates of others were refused altogether whose losses had been suffered under circumstances not at all more censurable. Fie felt as strongly as any one that, when they had got at the real definition of a crime, it ought to be punished; but he thought it should be punished in the ordinary Courts of Law. It should not be treated as a crime on account of something that happened afterwards, and which had changed its aspect, but according to its character at the time; it should be treated like other crimes, not by what persons were pleased to call commercial tribunals, but by the ordinary tribunals of the land. When you get a crime of this kind, prosecute and punish it, and let it be a good reason for refusing the discharge in bankruptcy; but do not attempt to impose upon the Judges of any tribunal, you may create an arbitrary discretion to make those crimes or not, according to their own particular judgment of the moral complexion of each particular case. If they were to attempt to do so, they would fail to give satisfaction to every one, and in making the attempt they deviated from sound principle. The Committee recommended that, keeping in view the leading principle that discharge in bankruptcy was to be on the footing of a composition by law, they should fix a certain not inconsiderable dividend as a condition which, in addition to the absence of proved criminality, should entitle the bankrupt to be discharged; or in the alternative of there being no assets to pay that amount, should retain the hold of the creditors over the future estate for a reasonable and not too short period of time. The period they took was six years, by analogy to the Statute of Limitations, in case of simple contract debts. That was not so long a period as to make it equivalent to a life-long commercial excommunication of the bankrupt, and not so short as to make it a light matter to be subjected to the bankruptcy laws. After that time, if the legal composition had not been paid, then let the bankrupt obtain his discharge, provided there was no case of criminality proved against him in proper legal form, and that he had in all respects conformed to the law. It was impossible to fix any sum as the amount of the composition without its being necessarily open to the objection that it was an arbitrary amount. He had taken for the purpose what be considered would

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be adequate—the amount of one-third, or 6s. 8d. in the pound. They were not without precedents on this point in former legislation. For nearly a century, from 1732 till 1840, it was the law that a bankrupt, or an insolvent, or a person who had compounded with his creditors, and who became bankrupt a second time, should not get his discharge on a certificate unless he paid 15 s. in the pound; and in 1844 and 1849 the Legislature made it a condition that a person who made himself a bankrupt should at the outset satisfy the Court that he had sufficient available assets to pay a clear dividend of 5s. in the pound to all his creditors after providing for the expenses of the administration of his estate in bankruptcy. While men were subject to imprisonment for debt, there was, of course, a strong objection to leaving a man in prison, or liable to be put in prison, till he had paid a certain amount; but when it was proposed to relieve men from liability to such imprisonment, there was no longer anything unreasonable in saying that the law would withhold from a bankrupt the control over his future assets for a period of six years, unless in the meantime he, or friends Over whom he might exercise influence, could make up the dividend to 6s. 8d. in the pound. The effect of the proposed change would be to sweep away altogether all those small bankruptcies in which the debtor had no assets at all. Such cases would be left to the operation of the ordinary law of debtor and creditor, because there would be nothing to make it worth the while of the creditor to invoke the aid of the Bankruptcy Court; and, on the other hand, there would be no inducement for the debtor to go into that Court, if he knew that he would have to remain for six years subject to the law. Those debtors only who were able to pay the substantive dividend required by the Bill could be regarded as legitimate subjects for the operation of the relief offered by the bankruptcy law. There was one objection which he felt it to be his duty to take notice of, because there would be a good deal of force in it if it were not met by another provision. It was urged that the change might in some cases act as an inducement to persons contemplating bankruptcy to order goods on credit and increase their stock on fraudulent pretences, in order that they might have property to pay a greater dividend than could otherwise be got out of their assets.
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But that objection was intended to be fully met by other provisions of the Bill, which, if thought insufficient for that purpose, might be amended and made more effective in Committee; for if a trader ordered goods under circumstances which showed that he had no intention of paying for them, his act ought to be, and in this Bill was regarded as a criminal offence. They proposed to guard against that in the most effectual manner, because the person acting in that manner came within the category of those who had committed a crime and forfeited the right to a certificate. He thought, therefore, the objection was entirely met. There were those who held the opinion that the principle on which the Bill was founded went too far in the way of relaxation, and that persons guilty of fraudulent or reckless trading ought to be more severely dealt with, and that they should not abolish altogether that species of censorship which the Court of Bankruptcy now exercised over the conduct of bankrupts. He (the Attorney General) could not but think the most legitimate mode—he would not say of inflicting punishment, but of doing that which practically operated as a punishment—in such cases, was to interpose that disability which this Bill provided, by making it difficult for persons who had misconducted themselves to obtain their certificates; and if they put a man under six years' disability, which they would do if (as would generally happen in the cases contemplated) he could not pay the required dividend, they would subject him to an amount of inconvenience which would be no Blight mercantile punishment—though punishment was not the object of the framers of the Bill—they sought to do what was just to the creditor without confounding debt with crime.
He would now pass to the other branch of the subject—that which related to the management and distribution of the bankrupt's property. It appeared to him that the principle which had been in operation previously to 1832—that of as far as possible leaving the creditors to manage their own affairs—was a sound principle. In order to remedy what were considered to be defects, official interference was then substituted for that principle; but he thought the remedy should have been sought for in a different direction. The Acts of 1849 and 1861 involved a confession of the error which had been committed in departing from the sound principle of allowing creditors to manage bankruptcies as they

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would their own affairs. The change made in 1832 introduced official interference and a confusion between judicial and administrative functions. A safety-valve for that confusion was therefore sought to be applied by means of the trust deeds, the arrangement deeds, and the other forms of composition introduced in 1849 and 1861, and under which a certain majority of the creditors had the power of withdrawing the case from the court, and of putting in charge of inspectors of their own choice under arrangements made by themselves. Now, to illustrate the working of that system, he would just refer to certain statistics furnished in the Return of the Chief Registrar of the Court of Bankruptcy for the year ending the 11th of October, 1865. This Return showed that during the year there had been in the Court in London, in the district courts in the country, and in the County Courts. 8,305 adjudications, of which 769 proceeded on the petition of creditors, 5,937 on the petition of the debtor, 1,091 by the registrars in prisons, and 500 on petitions in formâ pauperis. The total assets realized amounted to £856,955 9s. 8d.—£524,486 19 s. 4d. by the creditors' assignees, and £332,468 10 s. 4d. by the official assignees. It was estimated by good authority that, including all costs, no less than £370,000 odd was expended in collecting and distributing that £856,955; while the whole amount of the dividends was only £434,952 12 s. 10 d., so that the expenses of collection and distribution amounted to 75 per cent on the sum divided. Now, what were the statistics referring to the transactions of trustees during the same period? While during that year the Courts of Bankruptcy and the County Courts acting in matters of bankruptcy divided only £480,000 at a cost of £370,000, the Return showed that under deeds of assignment, deeds of composition, and deeds of inspectorship, the gross value of the estates dealt with was upwards of £9,000,000. [Mr. MOFFATT: That was for six months only.] Those figures spoke for themselves, and they strikingly showed that the attempt to supersede the direct control of the general creditors in the Court of Bankruptcy drove nearly the whole of the business elsewhere, and they proved also that the creditors were able to manage those matters themselves under their own trust deeds, and under their own inspectors. The House would have observed from the figures which he
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had quoted that a very large proportion of the petitions were presented by the debtors themselves, and he might observe that in 5,727 of the cases there was no dividend whatever.
Now, what was the remedy which occurred to the Government? It was a very simple one, and had been recommended by the Committee. It was one suggested by the facts, such as those which he had just mentioned, and one which, fortunately, was recommended by the experience of the system which had been tried in Scotland since 1856. Those facts and that experience told us that to put bankruptcy on a right footing we ought to assimilate it as much as possible to that deed system, which the mercantile world approved, and which worked well. The principles on which the deed system proceeded were three—that there ought to be an economical collection of the assets of the estates, a speedy and equal distribution of them, and a release of the debtor on the payment of a certain composition. There was not a principle in the law of bankruptcy which was not present in those deeds. The only difference between the two systems was that by one system the creditors dealt with the bankrupt's assets through trustees and inspectors who represented the creditors, while by the other an official assignee was brought in, who knew nothing about the bankrupt's affairs, and who, consequently, failed to deal with them in a mercantile way. The superiority of the former system was proved by figures. That was the law of bankruptcy in Scotland, and it was in all substantial matters the same as had prevailed in that country since 1856. The mode in which bankruptcy was conducted there, and which the Government proposed to adopt in substance in the present Bill, was this. The Court is to have as little as possible to do in the matter. You must go before the Sheriff or some other easily accessible Judge, in order to start the bankruptcy by seeing that the necessary original steps are taken, and you must be able afterwards to go back to the Court if appeals are required to be made on questions of law which deserve or require judicial interference; but you should only go to a judicial officer to superintend the mere procedure when you cannot start the proceedings without him, and afterwards you should only go to the court when some question of law is to be determined. That was the Scotch system. The Sheriff recognized the primâ facie

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claims of persons presenting themselves before him, not for the purpose of finally determining their status or their rights as creditors, but for the necessary purpose of choosing a trustee; who, when chosen, receives the proofs, takes the vouchers and the evidence, settles all questions of administration, receives the assets, and realizes and divides them. But the trustee does not do this without responsibility, and not without inducement to do the work well. He is fairly remunerated upon reasonable terms agreed upon between himself and the creditors, which terms vary in Scotland from 5 to 2 per cent, This gives the trustee an inducement to realize everything he can. Then the creditors name inspectors, under whose advice, control, and observation the trustee is to act. These inspectors have themselves no interest except that of the general body of creditors. Over all these is an Accountant in Bankruptcy, who exercises a general supervision, and to whom reports are made, and who interferes if he sees anything going wrong. That system had been tried in Scotland for a good many years; and what was the evidence as to its working? The Committee which was moved for by his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Moffatt) examined several witnesses from that part of the kingdom who had the closest experience of the system—mercantile men, accountants, and officers engaged in the working of the system—and he believed that the testimony they all gave was consistent with that given by one from whose evidence he had selected certain answers. Mr. J. W. Guild was asked—
"Will you tell the Committee generally how, in your opinion, the Act of 1866 has worked?"
He replied—
"Remarkably well; most effectually."
He was then asked—
"Do you think it has given satisfaction to the commercial community generally?"
His answer was—
"Generally; indeed I may say universally. I use that term advisedly. I believe it has given the very highest satisfaction to the commercial community."
The next question was—
"Have you the means of telling the Committee what proportion, on the average, of the amount realized is paid over to the directors in dividend?"
Answer—
"I have."
He was then asked—
"Will you be kind enough to give us any details upon that matter?"
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He replied—
"The average amount divided among the creditors, taking the experience of the first six years since the passing of the Act, is 78 per cent of the whole sum realized."
Of the gross assets? it was asked, and Mr. Guild replied that he referred to the gross assets. In answer to other questions he stated that he took the figures from the Returns of the Accountant in Bankruptcy and from statements made out by him. 21⅛ was the exact amount of the expenses and was thus made out—¼ per cent allowance to the bankrupt, trustees' commission 4¾ per cent, law charges 7 per cent, miscellaneous ordinary expenses, 2⅞ per cent, extra miscellaneous expenses 6¼ per cent. The law charges and the trustee's allowance were altogether 11¾ per cent. Such was the statement made by Mr. Guild, and what a contrast it presented to the figures relating to bankruptcy in England! But it seemed to understate the matter, because Mr. Esson, the Chief Accountant in Bankruptcy, who was in fact the head of the system in Scotland, told them that the average of the dividends given by Mr. Guild was much lower than that which was paid in ordinary cases, because it included cases in which the expense had been unusually high; and he said that if you excluded cases in which, from special circumstances, there was an extraordinary amount of expenditure, the figures were as follows—88 per cent dividend and 12 per cent expenditure. He thought the conclusion to be drawn from the experience of Scotland was obvious, and that the House would not hesitate to adopt the recommendation of the Committee that our system of administration should be in all essential particulars assimilated to that of Scotland—for that is what the Committee meant when it recommended the establishment of substantially the same officers in this country, and the sweeping away altogether of official assignees, and messengers, and all their train. That would effect a saving of five-sixths, at least, of the expense of the official staff under the present system.
While on this part of the question, he was naturally led to mention to the House what was proposed by this Bill with respect to trust deeds. The Government regarded the administration of bankruptcy and compositions by trustees as being all one thing rather than two matters essentially differing from each other, and therefore they thought it right to apply to trust

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deeds some of the same rules which would be applicable in bankruptcy, and the want of which had been found to be a serious imperfection of the present law. The main proposals on that subject were as follows:—First, that the debts of creditors claiming to rank under trust deeds should be required to be proved in the same way as debts are proved in bankruptcy; secondly, that all the property should be ceded; and lastly, that persons should not have their debts discharged unless 6s. 8d. dividend were paid under the trust deed. There were also other provisions relating to trust deeds, the nature of which it was not at present necessary to explain to the House,
The last branch of the subject with which he should trouble the House was the only part of the case in which the Bill did not in all respects adhere to the recommendations of the Committee. He referred to the question of the Court. Now, before he stated what the Committee proposed, and how far the Bill agreed with or differed from their recommendations, he wished to ask the House to notice the effect of the changes which the Bill proposed on the work which the Court would have to do. In the year 1861, as everybody knew, the Government proposed to create a Chief Judge in Bankruptcy. It was thought by many that the want of a Chief Judge would lead to a failure with respect to several of the changes then introduced. Indeed, many mercantile men wore still of opinion that it would be highly desirable to establish a Chief Judge in Bankruptcy. The other House of Parliament differed from this House on that subject in 1861, and as the point was not thought to be one on which it was right to stake the success of the measure, the opinion of the other House was acquiesced in. And he (the Attorney General) was bound to say that the present Lord Chancellor had not seen any reason to alter his opinion in regard to that matter. But, whether the opinion of the other House with reference to the Bill of 1861 was or was not a sound one was not now the question, because they did not propose the same system that was proposed in 1861. Under the Bill of 1861 the whole administration of bankruptcy was, as far as possible, brought into contact with the Court. Now the present Bill proposed to take altogether out of the Court everything except the determination of questions of law which arose between debtor and creditor, and ministerial acts
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which they did not repeat, though, in the first instance, it was necessary to perform them. Therefore, they had reason to believe that a Chief Judge would not be required. The real truth was that the main object and purpose of the Chief Judge under the Act of 1861, and the great reason why the existing system did not give satisfaction to the mercantile community, was connected with the censorial jurisdiction which it was now proposed to abolish. As long as the discharge and certificate of a bankrupt was to be in the discretion of the Court, which discretion was to be exercised on a general view of the whole mercantile life of the bankrupt, then no doubt the apparent differences between one Judge and another and the contrariety of administration operated as scandals to the mercantile community. It was, therefore, felt to be necessary that there should be one mind to reduce the system into order, and regulate it throughout. But now it was proposed to withdraw the administration from the Court, to put an end to the censorial jurisdiction, and to confer no criminal jurisdiction upon the Court. There consequently seemed no reason at all to doubt that the existing machinery would be amply sufficient to deal with the questions of law which from time to time might arise, but which he thought would not very frequently arise; because, in regard to most of the questions between debtors and creditors the law had been settled by a series of decisions, so that under the present system these questions did not arise to any considerable extent. Having thus explained the nature of the change which would be made, he (the Attorney General) would state what it was that the Committee recommended in 1865. They were in favour of sweeping away the Court of Bankruptcy altogether, with all its Judges, Commissioners, and officers of every kind, and of throwing the judicial business upon the ordinary Courts of Law. Under what arrangements and by what division of labour this was to done the Committee did not explain, but the principle was laid down that the ordinary courts were to be relied on. Now, if you abolish the existing Commissioners and Registrars, and all the other officers, you will have to pay them all life pensions, while you will be dispensing with those services which you have a right to demand from them. That kind of thing had been done somewhat too often, and it might be greatly doubted whether Parliament would not require to be satisfied

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by cogent reasons that it was necessary to pension those gentlemen for life without their rendering any services in return for what they received. On examining into the matter it appeared that as far as the official assignees were concerned the new system would supersede them altogether; but with regard to the Commissioners it was not obvious that they might not still usefully render to the public such services as under this Bill would be required of them, bearing in mind that the judicial duties were reduced to a minimum, and that the question resolved itself very much into one of administration. The Bill did not, however, propose to continue these Commissioners for ever. It was proposed to reduce their number in London to two, and to allow the Commissioners in the country gradually to die off, leaving the duties discharged in Scotland by the Sheriff to be eventually discharged by the County Courts, and by the Registrars in such of the bankruptcy districts in the country as experience had shown it would be convenient to allow to continue. The continuance of some of these Courts of Bankruptcy in the country would be a matter of mercantile convenience; and there seemed to be no reason, as long as they had the present officers to pay, why the mercantile community should not have the benefit of their services in the centres of industry where the chief Courts were now established. The County Court Judges already had very onerous duties to perform, and he thought they might safely retain the services of these officers, reducing them in number as opportunity offered. He ought to say that it had been suggested that one of the Vice Chancellors might be appointed to discharge practically the duties of a Chief Judge; but, if he (the Attorney General) rightly anticipated that the amount of judicial business would be very moderate, he thought it could be conducted by the Court of Appeal in Chancery. Such a course would be obviously preferable to that of annexing it to the Court of any one Vice Chancellor, because then it must take its turn with the other business; and it was desirable that the bankruptcy business should be disposed of as quickly as possible.
Having now explained this measure, he thanked the House for having listened with so much attention to his long explanation. He had only to add this—his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Moffatt) had put on the paper a Notice of Motion that this
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Bill be referred to a Select Committee. He was sure his hon. Friend was as anxious as he (the Attorney General) was that this Bill should be made as perfect for its purpose as possible, and that being made as perfect as possible it should as soon as possible pass into law. If these objects were in the opinion of the House likely to be attained by referring the Bill to a Select Committee, he should be perfectly willing to agree to such a course being taken. Upon that point the Government desired to defer to the sense of the House as it might he expressed by those hon. Members who took an interest in and understood this subject.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now a read second time."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
MR. MOFFATTsaid, he would not trespass on the attention of the House by following the hon. and learned Attorney General through all the details of the Bill; but there were two or three important points to which he desired to draw the attention of the House. In the first place, he wished to point out the wide difference between the recommendations of the Committee and the provisions of the Bill. It was true that the recommendations of the Committee had been acted on in two or three very important points—such, for instance, as the abolition of the power of arrest for debt; but several other recommendations of equal importance had been disregarded. The Committee meant that there should be an entire abolition of the old administration of bankruptcy, and if there were one question more clearly defined than another by the evidence given before the Committee, it was that the whole system of the administration of bankruptcy had so excited the distrust and contempt of the mercantile classes by the delay, uncertainty, and malversation which attended all its proceedings, that every trader would rather suffer wrong and robbery from his debtor than have recourse to the Court of Bankruptcy. The only alleviation of that state of things proposed by this Bill was, not the adoption of the Scotch system, but only of a small fraction of it. The Committee recommended that the existing administration of bankruptcy should be abolished, that the Scotch system of one court of appeal should be adopted, that a Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, with one Registrar, or two if necessary, under him, should be appointed, and that the Court

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should be a Court of Record, and cheap and speedy in its operations. Those recommendations had been entirely disregarded. He would point out where, in his opinion, his hon. and learned Friend had entirely failed. The Scotch system was as bad as the English prior to the introduction of the present system by the Lord Advocate. But now in Scotland the trustee was made to give security in a fixed and definite manner, and besides this he was subjected to a constant supervision. This Bill followed the Scotch plan in a very feeble manner. There was, indeed, a power to take security, and there was the office of Comptroller, but this would be a nominal officer with scarcely any power of influencing the trustee. In fact, all the checks and safeguards of the Scotch system were wanting. The main value, indeed, of the Scotch system was the thorough stringency with which the trustee was held in hand. That, in fact, was the main question of bankruptcy administration. There was no need of a whole host of officials, but all that was required was a machinery by which the creditors could collect and distribute the assets. The Scotch system had been a success; but he could augur no success for the scheme now proposed with all its array of officials. What was the use of retaining all the Registrars, to be paid at the rate of £1,000 a year, to perform anomalous and uncertain duties? They would have nothing to do, for the trustees would transact all the business, and yet the Registrars were to be continued as well as the Commissioners. The Bill was constantly providing two officials to do the same business. There was no such official in the Scotch system as a Registrar; if there had been the system would not have worked so well, and he could not see anything to warrant their retention. If the Scotch system was to be adopted, let it be taken in its entirety. One deviation from that system was the non-appointment of accountants. The office of Comptroller would be a purely nominal one, and the object in proposing it seemed to be to create a place at £1,500 a year. He had not estimated the cost of all the new machinery, but it would amount to a heavy charge upon the assets of bankrupts. All the heavy fees now charged in bankruptcy were to be continued; there was scarcely a modification of them, and the Bill was a consolidation and continuation of the chief part of the existing system. The hon. and learned Gentleman said he had abolished
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the offices of official assignee and messenger; but that statement did not seem reconcileable with Clause 35, which proposed to continue all ushers. It came out before the Committee that these were gentlemen with nominal salaries of from £180 to £200 a year, but whose incomes in many instances amounted to £1,000 a year, owing to their appropriation of fees and perquisites which were to be continued. It was objected that it would be too expensive to pension off those gentlemen; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to know that pensions need not come from the Consolidated Fund, because they could be paid out of the £1,350,000 of fees which had accumulated since the reign of William IV. Therefore, if it was necessary to get rid of officials, there was a means of paying them. His hon. and learned Friend had not said much about the efficiency of the officials it was proposed to continue; but a good deal of evidence on this head was given before the Committee. It was complained against the Commissioners that they disregarded public opinion, that they were irregular in their attendance at the Courts over which they presided, that they gave contradictory decisions, and that they neglected their duties in a thousand different ways. One Commissioner in the country, with a salary of £1,800 a year, attended his Court three or four hours a fortnight. All the witnesses complained of the law as it stood, and of its administration in the Courts; and no one could go into a Bankruptcy Court to see how the business was done, without seeing that there was abundant cause for dissatisfaction. The Court of Bankruptcy in London was described as being "the filthiest" of all the courts, and he believed it to be so. The Bill would not, as was represented, prevent men making themselves bankrupts, for Clause 104 simply said that no debtor should be entitled to petition for adjudication against himself, and they all knew how an I O U might be given as a merely colourable pretext for a petition; while Clause 126 adopted such collusion by declaring that no petition for adjudication should be dismissed, nor any adjudication annulled, by reason only that the petition or adjudication or act of bankruptcy had been concerted or agreed upon between the bankrupt, or any person on his behalf, and any creditor or other person. With such provisions in the Bill he had little confidence in its working. He was also a little disappointed with the pro-

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visions affecting the discharge of a bankrupt. He wished his hon. and learned Friend had shown that there was any reason why the law should step in and confiscate the property of a creditor. He maintained that the law had no right to interfere between a debtor and creditor in regard to the settlement of the claims of the latter, and this was exclusively a matter between man and man, between trader and trader, with which the law had nothing to do. Although the Bill took a step in the right direction, it proposed a scheme fraught with many evils, the most apparent of which was that it would induce a man to go on as long as he could pay 6s. 8d. in the pound. He had long been convinced that the only way to diminish business in bankruptcy, and to insure honesty, was to give an inducement to the debtor to be honest; but if he knew that he could be acquitted of a debt on certain conditions, after paying 6s. 8d. in the pound, he would take care to comply with those conditions, but would go on until he could pay no more than the required 6s. 8d. in the pound. The only satisfactory rule would be to offer inducements to every man to declare himself insolvent the moment he became so. Instead of doing this the Bill tempted a man to go spending 8s. or 10 s. in the pound of the money of his creditors. This was essentially wrong in principle, and was a substantial invitation to fraud. The creditor had a right to the assets of the debtor to the full extent of the claim; and there was nothing in the recognition of this claim to prevent a man starting in business again, and maintaining his status in society. He would go so far as to allow a man who had paid 6s. 8d. in the pound to start again by giving new creditors a preference over those who were creditors before the bankruptcy. While thus giving every facility to a man to start again, it would be only proper to require that his accumulated profits should be liable for his previously incurred liabilities. He could not see that the Bill offered any inducement to a man to stop while he could pay more than 6s. 8d. in the pound, but it allowed him to go as long as he could make any arrangements to his own advantage. There was another point with respect to Scotland which his hon. and learned Friend seemed to have misunderstood, because he argued that, though they have the right there under cessio bonorum, they do not exercise it. But the reason was this—because they have that right the
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bankrupt's estates are more readily given up, and the law works more satisfactorily and more smoothly. There were cases occurring every day in which the insolvency was known to various members of the firm, but the fact was suppressed; but if the suggestions which he had made were carried into effect it would be the interest of the parties always to declare their insolvency as early as possible. He had hoped that the Bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman had brought in would have minimized the evils of bankruptcy by making it to the interest of the debtor to have recourse to bankruptcy without undue delay. That expectation had not been realized. He trusted, however, that they would be able to improve the Bill, and it was with that object that he had given notice of the Motion which now stood on the paper. He knew very well that in the present state of the public business they could not settle questions of this nature in debate across the House, and he would therefore persevere with his Motion that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. While he acknowledged the great pains that had been taken with the Bill, he could not help expressing his disappointment that more had not been done.
MR. BARNETTquite agreed with the hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. Moffatt) that it would be wise to have this Bill referred to a Select Committee. Bills of this kind, which it was desirable to make acceptable to the commercial classes, should be watched clause by clause—a thing which it would be difficult to do if the discussion was carried on upon the floor of the House. He took it for granted that the wishes of the commercial community were in favour of a measure of this kind. He did not profess to be well versed in the Scotch law; but he had seen the rapid way in which bankrupt estates under that law were wound up in comparison with our tedious process. Nobody who had any acquaintance with the commercial body would gainsay him when he stated that the present Act was most unsatisfactory, and that persons were most unwilling to have recourse to it, owing to the great uncertainty and expense of the process. The subject of penal censorship attached to our Bankruptcy Acts was a difficult one, but he was disposed to assent to the view taken by the hon. and learned Attorney General. The fact was that circumstances very often occurred which made it desirable that some sort of penal censorship should exist. In

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consequence of reckless trading, over-speculation, and other reprehensible proceedings persons often got involved in difficulties, and he had seen the most miserable results produced from estates which if properly managed would have given very handsome dividends. The consequence of the present state of the law was often this—the bankrupt having got absolved from his liabilities started again in a commercial capacity; in the course of a year or two, perhaps, he was rolling in his carriage, while a number of persons who had suffered by his failure might never recover the injury which he had entailed upon them. Difficulties of this kind might, perhaps, be overcome by the measures now proposed for the continuance of the bankrupt's liability. He feared one could not help saying, after an experience of some years, that the moral sense of our commercial community was not higher than it used to be, and that it was absolutely necessary that every possible means should be devised to save creditors from undue losses at the hands of their debtors.
MR. AYRTONsaid, that having taken part in the preparation of the Resolutions of the Committee upon which the Bill was founded, and having examined the measure under discussion, for the purpose of ascertaining whether his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General had done justice to their recommendations, he felt bound to say that he had formed a very different estimate of it from that which his hon. Friend (Mr. Moffatt) had expressed, So far from its being a feeble effort to give effect to those Resolutions, it was to his mind a very strong and very satisfactory effort. He should be sorry if it went forth to the public that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had in any degree failed to give effect to the general spirit and scope of the Resolutions at which the Committee had arrived. These Resolutions were over thirty in number, and they only embodied certain general principles. To the first Resolution with reference to the administration of the estate of bankrupts, his hon. and learned Friend had given full effect. The Bill carried out all that was suggested by the Committee in that respect—it entirely withdrew the bankrupt's estates from legal supervision and control, and placed them at the disposition of the creditors, to whom they belonged, and by so doing relieved our Bankruptcy Law from the scandal of making the bankrupt's estates a godsend to the
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lawyers. The next great principle embodied in the Resolutions of the Committee had reference to the discharge of the bankrupt. His hon. Friend (Mr. Moffatt) differed from the Committee on that subject, and he was, no doubt, disappointed at the manner in which the Bill was framed; but then it was framed entirely in accordance with the conclusions of the Committee, which it carried out in spirit and almost to the letter. The next great branch of the subject was the condition of the courts by which the law was at present administered. Upon that point the Committee undoubtedly came to the conclusion that the existing courts should be abolished; but in doing so they expressed a general view, and he believed he was only stating their opinion when he said that they rather recorded a principle than undertook the practical task of dealing with the proposition which they enunciated. They did not undertake to deal with that proposition, and why? Because they knew it involved a very important question of finance—a charge upon the public; and they were aware that it was for the executive Government who would be responsible to take that subject into consideration. The Members of the Committee had, therefore, no right to complain that their Resolution had not been carried out in the Bill. It was enough if the Bill were so framed that it tended to the abolition of the existing tribunals, and the substitution of that authority which the Committee wished to see set up, and the Bill certainly contained ample provisions for these purposes. The Bill had been described as a long and complicated measure, involving a number of questions, which could never be properly examined, except by a Committee upstairs. The fact, however, was, as anyone would see who took the trouble of examining it, that a large portion of the Bill merely consisted of the reproduction of clauses of the existing law which were to be retained. He regretted that these clauses were not distinguished from the rest, but those who were familiar with the law of bankruptcy, would recognize many old friends in the clauses of the present Bill. If the Bill were so printed as to show what were old, what were new, and what amended clauses, the House would not regard the Bill as such a formidable work of legislation as it had been represented. If the Bill were referred to a Select Committee upstairs, it must either be sent to the Committee of last Session or to a new Committee. But

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as the Committee of last Session agreed to the Resolutions which had been substantially adopted as the basis of the Government Bill, and as they must rely upon the acumen of the Attorney General in carrying them out, they would practically have nothing to do. If the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe), and other Members of the Committee had any complaint to make of the Government Bill, they would have stated their objections on the present occasion. Then of what use would it be to refer the Bill to another Committee? Suppose they differed from the Committee of last Session, would the Attorney General consent to begin his work over again upon their recommendation? It would be only a waste of time to have a new Committee with a different set of ideas. Every Member who entertained an opinion on the subject would be just as much entitled to bring his views before them in a Committee of the Whole House, as if the Bill had not been sent upstairs, and nothing would be gained. Besides, the Bill was one of general application, and if there was any doubt as to the principle of the Bill, it would be much more satisfactory to the trading community that it should be solved by public discussions rather than by a private inquiry upstairs. Should there be any difficulty in setting aside an evening for the discussion of the clauses, he thought it might be considered at a morning sitting. The better plan would be for Members to put their Amendments on the paper, but he doubted whether half-a-dozen substantial questions would be raised during the progress of the Bill through Committee. In his opinion the Attorney General would neither do justice to himself nor to the labours of the Committee of last Session if he consented to refer the Bill to another Select Committee. If it were to pass into a law at all, the Attorney General must proceed with it at once, in which case he had no doubt it would be passed during the present Session with the general assent of Parliament.
MR. FRESHFIELDsaid, there could be no doubt that the present Bankruptcy Law was entirely inefficient. Arrangements were made in regard to all the larger insolvencies, which entirely removed them from the pale of the Court of Bankruptcy—they were in fact administered by private agency, and deprived of the protection of any adequate tribunal. The
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legislation of this country on the subject of bankruptcy during the last century had been very unsatisfactory. Up to the time of Lord Brougham's Act, 1 & 2 Will. IV., the law was administered by a Commission directed to about seventy members. They were a body who were at all events easily accessible, and they did their business, if somewhat rudely, upon the whole well and satisfactorily. Lord Brougham's Act established a Court of Review, consisting of three Judges; and there were likewise fourteen official assignees, besides registrars and other officers. That Court appeared at first to administer its law satisfactorily. The reason for that probably was that the official assignees then had to collect a large amount of money which had accumulated in the hands of assignees who had neglected their duties; and, being paid by commission, the work was exceedingly profitable to them. But the defectiveness of the law very soon manifested itself, and the result was that by common consent the Court of Review was first allowed to lapse and then abolished; the Commissioners were permitted to dwindle down to their present number—three; the official assignees also, he thought, dwindled to three; and their payment and that of the messengers being altered from payment by commission to payment by salaries, those officers ceased to discharge their duties well. Then came the legislation fusing, or rather confusing, the law of insolvency with the law of bankruptcy; and the Court of Bankruptcy became what might be called a bear-garden—a place alike odious and intolerable to the Judges themselves, to the practitioners, the suitors, the debtors, and the public. The result was that matters at last came almost to a deadlock. In that state of things a Committee was appointed last Session, which had made its Report; and, as he understood, the Government now sought to carry out that Report by the present Bill. The Report appeared to have had great attention bestowed upon it, and he only wished he could see in the draught of the Bill evidences of the artistic skill of the hon. and learned Attorney General; and he would venture to suggest to the Government that it would be a prudent arrangement to appoint from three to five persons who should act as a Committee, to whom Bills of that character should be submitted before passing the ordeal of a third reading. It was impossible for the House itself to deal with a Bill of that kind, containing more than 300 clauses, in

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a satisfactory manner. It was notorious that the Bill of Lord Brougham dragged on through the Session until just upon its close, and then clauses of the crudest and most discordant description were hurriedly inserted, until the measure lost all its reasonable homogeneousness. The same result would again follow if the House attempted to deal with the present Bill; and it would be impossible to make its provisions workable. He was sure the hon. and learned Attorney General would give them the advantage of all his great learning and ability in passing the Bill through; but he thought that valuable assistance would be better rendered in a Committee upstairs He was not expressing merely his own opinion, but many persons interested in the subject had communicated with him on the point, and they had all declared their belief that it was impossible to put the Bill in a working condition without it underwent a calm and quiet consideration in a tribunal much more able to discuss its details than the House ever could be. After all that they had heard regarding the pressure of the other business before the House, they could not expect to have sufficient time to devote to the fair and proper consideration of that measure, and therefore he hoped the Attorney General would consent to its being sent upstairs to a Committee.
MR. CRAWFORDthought the observations made by his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) were really conclusive on that subject, and that the House was in a condition to deal satisfactorily with the measure. The object of the hon. Gentleman who spoke last (Mr. Freshfield) seemed to be to re-open the whole question in a Committee upstairs. The Bill appeared to carry out the principal recommendations of the Select Committee of last year, and nothing but delay would ensue if it were now sent to a Committee upstairs. He believed the general feeling of the mercantile community was that the Bill should be proceeded with as soon as possible, and that it should be passed, subject to such modifications as might suggest themselves to the House when they got into Committee.
MR. ALDERMAN LUSKthanked the Government, as a mercantile man, for bringing in this Bill, which he thought would effect an enormous improvement on the present system. Men seemed to have an inveterate tendency to get into debt, and the existing law seemed to facilitate the operation of that tendency as much as
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possible. The law was as bad as it was possible to be, and he thought this Bill would be an immense improvement upon it, and that the sooner they got it into operation the better it would be for the community. He hoped the Bill would not be referred again to a Committee, as it would be needless delay, causing this House to go over again on a future occasion the ground upon which they had already travelled. The measure was needed very much, and he hoped the Government would get it passed into law with all convenient despatch.
MR. BAZLEYsaid, that probably the provisions in the Bill for the conduct of the Court of Bankruptcy might be more extensive than judicious, but he saw nothing in the Bill which might not be corrected in Committee of the Whole House without being sent upstairs. The hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. Moffatt), in reference to the provision that a bankrupt should be compelled to pay 6s. 8d. in the pound before he could obtain his discharge, had taken the creditors' view of the subject; he (Mr. Bazley) thought the debtors' view ought also to be taken. There had been on that very day an unfortunate catastrophe in the City of London, and very great losses would ensue from the suspension of the business of our largest money-dealing establishment. Let them take the case of some person who, in his ignorance of how matters were, had deposited a very large sum of money in the hands of that establishment, involving not only his own capital, which established his bonâ fides in the transaction, but his creditors' capital as well, and he might be rendered unable to pay 6s. 8d. in the pound. It would be a very great hardship if he should be held to be ineligible for his discharge if he could not realize the amount required by the provision in the Bill, owing to having intrusted his money to a firm which was then enjoying the highest credit. If the Bill were considered by the Whole House, and a morning sitting were devoted to it, it would pass through Committee very rapidly.
MR. SAMUELSONalso objected to the provision requiring the bankrupt to pay 6s. 8d. in the pound. There was no provision whatever for the protection of the creditors of a bank, and the effect of that would be that in such a case as that put by the hon. Member (Mr. Bazley), a man who, through ignorance or mis-

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fortune, might be involved in difficulties, would become pauperised and be simply a burden upon the country. He also believed it would be in the interests of trade that some arrangement should be made by which precedence should be given to the creditors subsequent to a bankruptcy so that they might be satisfied before the other creditors. There would, of course, be some difficulty about that, and it might involve a debtor being constantly subjected to judicial investigation in order to ascertain whether he possessed a surplus; but he felt convinced that unless the clause under which a bankrupt would not be freed from the claims of his creditors until after six years from the date of his adjudication were modified to meet certain circumstances, it would be utterly impossible to work it.
MR. COWENthought it would be very mischievous to refer the Bill again to a Committee, and that it would cause great and unnecessary delay. He strongly recommended that the measure should be proceeded with as speedily as possible.
MR. LOWEthought the House had more than ordinary security for dealing with the Bill as a well-considerd measure. The subject was one which had been fully investigated by a Committee upstairs composed of some of the ablest Members of the House, among whom was the Attorney General. The Government had reviewed the decision of that Committee, and had, after mature consideration, adopted substantially the whole of their Report. To send back the Bill, therefore, to a Committee upstairs, which would not be the same Committee—for he did not suppose anybody who had had experience of the labour of the previous inquiry would be willing to undertake it a second time—and which would, in all probability, be a less informed tribunal than its predecessor, appeared to him to be a course which it was not expedient to adopt. The principles on which the Bill was based were, no doubt, debateable and difficult enough, but there was no good reason why a decision should not be pronounced upon them by the House. As to the drawing of the measure, hon. Members could not, he thought, pursue a better course than to place confidence in the Attorney General, who was much more likely to prepare the technical parts of it well than any Committee, because he possessed an amount of technical knowledge to which a Committee could scarcely pretend, and
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because he was a single individual and would feel a sense of responsibility in discharging the task which no one Member of a Select Committee would be likely to entertain. The House would by that means have a better chance of obtaining a good measure; and hon. Members had, in his opinion, reason to be thankful to his hon. and learned Friend, who, from his eminent position and great learning, so well deserved the trust which they might repose in him, for the pains which he had taken in preparing a Bill which was in some respects a very bold one, but which he hoped the House would address itself to passing with as little delay as possible, inasmuch as some amendment of the existing law was absolutely required.
MR. LEATHAMsaid, that the Chambers of Commerce generally had expressed themselves in favour of the Bill, except as to a few points relating for the most part to the discharge of bankrupts, and the winding up of the estates of deceased insolvents. Those, however, were matters which could be considered and adjusted in Committee of the Whole House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time accordingly.
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he would fix the Committee pro formâ for to-morrow week, and he would then state on what more remote day he should propose to take the Committee. As he had collected, the opinion of the House was in favour of the Bill being dealt with in Committee of the House itself. That was also his own opinion. He should therefore propose that the Bill be so considered, leaving it to his hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Mr. Moffatt) to recommend a different course if he thought fit.
MR. MOFFATTsignified his readiness to withdraw his Motion for referring it to a Select Committee, although he still, he said, retained the opinion that it might be made more perfect by the adoption of that course, and reserved to himself the right of renewing his Motion on a future occasion if he should think fit.
Bill commuted for Friday, 18th May.

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

TENURE OF LAND IN INDIA.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. SMOLLETTsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the present condition of Land Tenure in the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay in reference to the supply of raw cotton, and to move a Resolution. He said, that a short time since a meeting had been held at Manchester, composed chiefly of commercial men, but attended also by a larger number of Members of Parliament than usually attended debates on Indian subjects in that House, and by many persons who had spent a considerable portion of their lives in India. No resolutions were passed by that miscellaneous assemblage, but the position of our Indian Empire was discussed in a debate which lasted two days, and in which the expediency of endeavouring to enlist the sympathy of the new Parliament upon subjects connected with India was strongly enforced, He (Mr. Smollett) did not attend that meeting; but, not having obtained his seat in that House until Easter, and having then looked through the Journal and Order Book he was, he confessed, somewhat surprised to find that though three months had elapsed since the new Parliament had met, not a single Motion having reference to India had been placed on the Notice Book. The truth he believed to be that gentlemen connected with trade and commerce had for the most part little or no knowledge of India or its requirements, while those gentlemen connected with that country who were present at the meeting at Manchester went down there he believed rather with a view to share in the splendid hospitalities of that city, to revel in venison and turtle, and claret, than for any more serious object. It was under these circumstances that he had given notice of the Motion to which he was about to invite the attention of the House; and he was glad to have an opportunity of doing so, because he was desirous, among other things, of knowing what was to be expected from the present occupants of office in the Indian Department. He felt perfectly satisfied that his hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) did not wish to hide his light under a bushel; but he might nevertheless, he thought, safely prophesy that the House would very seldom hear the silvery tones of his voice while he continued to fill the office to which he had recently been relegated. So far, indeed, as discussions on Indian subjects were con-
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  cerned, the Department of the Secretary for India was a perfect sinecure, and it would, he believed, soon become a refuge for the destitute. Those who were in that House in the last Parliament would recollect that it was the custom of Gentlemen connected with Manchester, and those who supported their views, to speak in terms of great disparagement of the administration of Indian affairs by Sir Charles Wood. They accused him, among many other things, of having obstructed the supply of cotton from India to this country, whereas he ought to have afforded facilities for its cultivation by enabling the people in India to get land for the purpose gratuitously and exempting them from taxation; and because Sir Charles Wood would not listen to their suggestions, because he had some faith in the principles of political economy and in the doctrine of supply and demand, his administration was covered with abuse. In the clamour against that administration, however, he had taken no share. The real state of the case was that for many years the Southern States of America had obtained a monopoly of the cotton supply. That monopoly suddenly collapsed in 1860; and it was absurd to apply every possible epithet of vituperation to our Indian Government, because within the two or three years which followed, India was unable to furnish us with 4,000,000 bales of cotton, the amount of the supply withdrawn from the commerce of the world, and which we used annually to receive from America. India did all which we could, under the circumstances, reasonably anticipate She furnished us with 1,400,000 bales annually, or five times the quantity which we received from any other single region of the world. The men who blamed the Indian Government for the want of cotton were utterly misinformed in respect to everything connected with India. The same parties also found fault with Sir Charles Wood's administration in reference to the tenure of land, and blamed him for cancelling some well-devised resolutions of Lord Canning relating to waste lands, under the operation of which howling deserts were to have been converted into smiling cotton gardens. Now, what Lord Halifax did was to amend some ill-advised resolutions which Lord Canning passed before leaving Calcutta—for it was idle to suppose that howling deserts could be converted, as if by the wand of a magician, into smiling cotton gardens—indeed, many of these waste districts were wholly unsuited to the purpose

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  under any circumstances. Nevertheless, the Gentlemen connected with Manchester who made these unreasonable complaints sometimes made valuable suggestions, and one was that they might be brought into direct communication with the cotton producers of India. They said that all they wanted was to get a good article, and that they were quite willing to pay a fair price for it. This proposition, however desirable, was not feasible; because, unfortunately, all the land in the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay from which the greatest amount of cotton supply was derived was the property of the Government, and the cultivators were but serfs paying to the Government a very onerous rent. In the Presidency of Madras, for example, the Government had possibly 100,000 farms; but a farm was not let to a single farmer as in this country, for the officials allotted annually, in small holdings, the arable portion of a farm, containing perhaps 2,000 acres, to 500 or 600 tenants, and every one of those allottees was answerable to the Government for the rent of his small occupation. That rent in former times had been fixed at the money value of one-half of the entire produce of the soil. The condition of these serfs had been very much ameliorated during the last fifteen years. From the year 1828 to 1850 he could state from his own knowledge that they were steeped in the deepest, the most helpless misery. The prices of the material they raised being then extremely low, they were in reality paying to the Government as much as 60 or 70 per cent instead of 50, on the value of their produce. This state of things had, however, very materially altered within the last fifteen years. Since 1850 prices in India had gradually risen, and the condition of the agricultural population had at the same time improved, and the cultivators probably did not pay now the Government more than 25 or 30 per cent of the value of their produce. But the smallness of the holdings still continued to reduce the population to a very humble and wretched condition. From data supplied by the Madras Government he found that in the year 1862–3 there were in that Presidency 2,200,000 persons paying agricultural rent to the Government; but the House would be very much mistaken if they supposed these tenants to be anything like the tenant farmers of this country; for out of that vast mass of tenants there were only 420 who paid as much as £100 a year; there
  712
  were only 1,050 who paid between £50 and £100; there were only 5,600 who paid between £25 and £50; there were only 77,000 who paid between £10 and £25; 90 per cent of the whole number paid less than £10; and there were 1,200,000 of these occupiers of land who paid less than £1 a year. Here was an amount of agricultural pauperism. Agricultural destitution was made an institution in Madras. And these were the people whom the men of Lancashire wished to be brought into direct communication with in order to make contracts with them for cotton. The thing was altogether absurd. He had heard the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Henry Seymour), who was not now in his place, suggest that these men should be allowed to purchase their holdings. If they did they would have to borrow the money. But they could not be allowed to purchase their holdings, because there were no boundaries; and to permit them to purchase their holdings would only be making that system permanent which he wished to see abolished. In 1862–3, Sir William Denison, then Governor of Madras, recorded his opinions on this subject. Sir William Denison was an Engineer officer not conversant with Indian agriculture, but he recorded in a minute how much he lamented to see such an immense number of small holdings in the province. He said that while that state of things existed it would be impossible that capital should be applied to the productions of the soil; but, while admitting the mischief of the present system, he had no remedy to propose. He suggested, however, that the Government should take into their own hands a number of these holdings, make model farms of them, and raise the products by implements of agriculture imported from Europe. He (Mr. Smollett) did not think these suggestions smacked of absolute wisdom. If adopted, they would only degenerate into great jobs. The proposal received no support from the Members of his own Government. Two Members of Council, Mr. Pycroft and Mr. Maltby, civilians of thirty-five years' standing, concurred with his Excellency in lamenting that the holdings were so small, and the more so, because the subdivision of the soil was annually progressing; but when they came to suggest a remedy they merely indulged in platitudes—that irrigation must be improved, roads cut through the country, schools introduced, and courts of law brought near to the serfs. Finally, they alleged that if

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  the condition of the people was to be improved, rents must be lowered. Now, there was no way of improving the condition of the people but by putting an end to this most wretched system. He might be asked what he would substitute, First of all he would sweep away the present system and establish a system of village farms; renting out these farms to one person if possible, and, if not, to the heads of the community, instead of the rabble to whom the lands were let at present. The great advantage of renting out these farms would be this—instead of 2,200,000 small holders the Government would have to deal with a very much smaller number, and would be enabled to get rid of a great portion of the revenue collecting establishment. But was this plan of renting out the farms practicable? He contended that it was perfectly practicable. In point of fact, he had himself, during his official connection with India, carried out the system in a large tract of country, against the wishes of the Government, but with great success. He happened to have charge of a great estate for some years. It belonged to a gentleman (the Rajah of Vizianagram) who had recently occupied a seat in the Supreme Council of India. It was under the charge of the Madras Government for many years. His predecessor only collected £65,000 a year from it. The first year he took this great estate under his superintendence he collected £120,000, and it now yielded to its possessor £160,000. The Government censured him, but he treated their censures with supreme contempt. Now, although this renting system he had just described would be a great temporary improvement, still he believed that other and more desirable measures should be introduced. His opinion was that they ought gradually to introduce into India a permanent settlement—not such as Lord Halifax used to say he was in favour of, but such as Lord Cornwallis introduced into Lower Bengal in 1772; for Lord Cornwallis was a statesman very superior indeed to the Cannings, de Greys, and Lawrences of the present day, The principle of his settlement was the creation of a class of landed aristocracy, by uniting ten or twenty farms into one estate, and conferring it on one individual, burdened, indeed, with a heavy land tax, but still leaving a surplus to the owner. Under that system a body of proprietors existed in lower Bengal who were not only rich and powerful, but well affected to the Go-
  714
  vernment, their interests being bound up with it; and the value of the land had greatly increased. In Madras, on the other hand, during the half century ending in 1850 the value of land deteriorated, though of late years rents had increased, and the cultivation of the land had extended owing entirely to the great rise in prices. He wanted to see the system existing in Bengal applied to the other Presidencies; and until this was done, it was idle to talk of bringing Liverpool merchants or Manchester cotton-spinners into direct communication with the cotton-growers of India. If, however, he was asked whether there was any probability of these reforms being carried out, he must admit that there was not the smallest chance as matters were now managed—not because they were not perfectly practicable, but because they required the presence in high places of some one understanding the subject, and of resolute will. But, unfortunately, all the authorities in India were adverse to the creation of property in land. There was nobody whom a Madras or Bombay official hated so much as a Native landowner, and he was never so happy as when engaged in hunting down the few individuals of this class left by previous Governments, confiscating their estates on some frivolous pretext, and adding them to the Government domains. In this they were hounded on by their superiors, and. they found it, in fact, the surest road to promotion. To show the feelings that animated our rulers in the East, he might observe that during his residence in India Lord Harris was Governor of Madras. He did not wish to say anything disagreeable of that nobleman, who in private life was a man of the most estimable character; but on one occasion he had an interview with him to bring under his notice a gross injustice committed on some Native families of the district to which he had been appointed. Lord Harris received him with much courtesy, acknowledged that there was a great deal of truth in his statement, and that he to some extent sympathized with his views; but he added that he had come to India with the notion that it was our mission in the East to destroy all the native nobility and gentry. When an amiable nobleman in high position such as Lord Harris had got a notion of that kind, it was evidently no use arguing with him, and he accordingly withdrew. But if Governors held such views, what could be expected from their subordinates? Noble

  715
  Lords and hon. Gentlemen went out to India with no knowledge whatever of the country they were going to govern, and they consequently fell naturally into the same groove as their predecessors. Occasionally, indeed, there were Governors who had had a previous acquaintance with Indian duties. The present Viceroy, for example, Sir John Lawrence, had spent his life there. Such men, however, had generally been brought up with the same ideas to which he had referred, and they generally made the worst possible Governors. What, for instance, were the views of Sir John Lawrence? For the last two or three years he had been endeavouring to overthrow the system introduced by Lord Canning into Oude, a landlord settlement similar to what he was advocating, and which was one of Lord Canning's greatest and best measures. The Under Secretary for India would probably deny it, but Sir John Lawrence's wish had been to upset that arrangement. His object was to set the tenantry in Oude against the landlords, and put an end to the system by rendering it impracticable. Sir John Lawrence, who came from the "Black North," was a man who entertained some extraordinary notion of tenant right, and one of his ideas, he believed, was that the land should be the property of the peasantry, and that the landlord was a tyrant and oppressor—much the same notion as that which Irish tenants had of their landlords. That had been his "little game" for the last two years; and though his policy had been hitherto thwarted, he was an obstinate man, and would no doubt renew his attempts to carry it out at the first convenient opportunity. In that House, moreover, no attention was paid to Indian affairs. They had the Indian budget year after year, but nobody listened to it, and he thought the farce had better be discontinued. Every attempt was made by excluding Members of Council from Parliament to keep the House in the dark on Indian matters, and the Government endeavoured to keep out all debates on such subjects. The consequence was that the office of Secretary for India would decline in public estimation year after year, and a man of great debating power and talent would think himself thrown away in this Department, because he would find himself entirely shelved. He should not be surprised, some of these days, to see the appointment given away by public examination, and falling into the hands of some
  716
  Competition Wallah on the Liberal benches. He thought the personnel of the Department had greatly deteriorated in the recent changes. Lord Halifax was a man of considerable attainments as a statesman; he was a man of great business capacity; he had a will of his own; and his administration as regarded India was generally a liberal one. But what was the case now? He had stated that Manchester men never came to the House to discuss Indian matters; hut just before Easter a deputation from Manchester went to the India Office and had an interview with Lord De Grey to press upon him some most extravagant projects, which he hoped would never be listened to. What, however, was their reception? His Lordship received them very courteously, heard their story, told them that he had only just been removed from the War to the India Office, and was quite fresh to his duties. Lord de Grey admitted that he did not understand the subject they had brought before him, hut said he would endeavour to get the matter up, and if he had time, and was in that office for another year, he hoped to be able to give them a more satisfactory reply in the year 1867. Meanwhile, he told them he had a Reform meeting to attend to, in order to stir up the country during the Easter Recess, and he must, therefore, bid them good morning; and with that intimation he handed them over to the Under Secretary, the hon. Member for Halifax. When things were arranged in that way, he really despaired of seeing any improvement in the Indian Administration. He felt that he had only done his duty in bringing this matter forward, and he should conclude by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice.
  MR. CRAWFORDseconded the Motion.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the great subdivision of the soil in Southern and Western India, consequent on the present system observed in the revenues settlement of the Madras and Bombay Presidencies, deserves the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government, with a view to its amendment,"—(Mr. Smollett,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, he hoped his hon. Friend (Mr. Smollett), who had so

  717
  good a right to address the House upon the subject before them, would not regard him as presumptuous if he ventured shortly to reply to his speech—the more so, because his hon. Friend would recollect that in point of principle the system of permanent settlement he advocated, but with all the details of which he might not agree, was put into force by the well-known despatch of July, 1862. Perhaps he might have left the duty of replying to the hon. Gentleman in the hands of one of the hon. Members for Manchester, as the boo. Gentleman had paid several somewhat dubious compliments to that city in referring to a meeting held there a short time since, which he appeared to be disposed to class among meetings where a great deal of talk took place without any valuable result being obtained. But with regard to his remarks upon Lord Halifax and Lord de Grey, he (Mr. Stansfeld) would acknowledge his obligations to him. His hon. Friend had correctly stated the question between Lord Canning and Lord Halifax on the subject of waste land; but with regard to his estimate of the speeches at Manchester, he must take issue with the hon. Gentleman upon that point. He bad read the speeches made at the meeting with great care and interest, and he believed that, had some of them been delivered in that House, they would have assisted hon. Gentlemen to more fully understand the subject before them, and might even have affected the opinions of the hon. Gentleman himself. He should refer to the opinions expressed at that meeting by a well-known gentleman who was thoroughly competent to speak upon the subject—namely, Mr. Cassels. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the land in India as being Government property. He (Mr. Stansfeld) admitted that the hon. Gentleman spoke with an authority and a weight be could not pretend to, but that certainly was not the lesson he had been able to learn during the short period in which he had had the opportunity of studying the question; and he believed he was in a position to cite against the hon. Gentleman a Return made to that House in June, 1857, from the Revenue Department of the then East India House, which was signed by a gentleman whom the hon. Gentleman would himself acknowledge to be an authority on all questions of national economy, and more especially on all Indian questions—namely, the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. J. Stuart Mill). He
  718
  found in that report the following description of the land tenure of India:—
  "Under the ryotwar system every registered holder of land is recognized as its proprietor, and pays direct to Government, He is at liberty to sublet his property, or to transfer it by gift, sale, or mortgage. He cannot be ejected by Government so long as he pays the fixed assessment, and has the option annually of increasing or diminishing his holding, or of entirely abandoning it. In unfavourable seasons remissions of assessment are granted for entire or partial loss of produce. The assessment is fixed in money, and does not vary from year to year, except in those cases where water is drawn from a Government source of irrigation to convert dry land into wet, or one into two-crop land, when an extra rent is paid to Government for the water so appropriated; nor is any addition made to the assessment for improvements effected at the ryot's own expense. The ryot, under this system, is virtually a proprietor on a simple and perfect title, and has all the benefits of a perpetual lease without its responsibilities."
  That he maintained, upon the authorities he had cited, to be the state of the law in India, and the policy of Sir John Lawrence in Oude meant simply that be recognized the necessity of respecting those rights which were recognized by the several states he had to administer. The hon. Member (Mr. Smollett) had talked of the minute subdivision of the soil and of the agrarian poverty and barbarity to which it led; but he had by him three very useful books, which were prepared at the desire of the Governments of the three Presidencies in 1861, on the growth of cotton in India. The one having reference to the Bombay Presidency was written by Mr. Cassels, the gentleman to whom he had before alluded as having spoken at the Manchester meeting. What was his opinion upon these minute holdings? He said—
  "There can be no doubt that, until European energy and enterprise are brought into contact with the Natives of this country, the progress of improvement will be slow and unsatisfactory. All, however, who know India are aware that European agency cannot successfully be employed in the actual cultivation of the soil. A quarter of a century has produced very little change in the circumstances which led Sir J. R. Carnac to say, 'Cotton culture holds out no inducement for any private person who knows what he is about to engage his capital in any speculation on a large scale.' The whole of the cotton experimental establishments abundantly tested and proved that Europeans cultivating the soil could never compete in economy or compensating results with the husbandry of the ryots. Generally speaking, the whole of the work of his farm is performed by the ryot and his family, and their labour is given with all the goodwill of self-interest and all the constancy of personal concern. It is as impossible to compete with such efforts by hired labour, as

  719
  it is for the European to perform that labour himself under an Indian sun."
  What was the actual state of those cultivating the soil under the zemindar system in the Presidency of which the hon. Gentleman thought so much? The subdivision of the soil was equally minute, and the ryot was much more impoverished than by the other system; whereas in the latter case, the peasantry became in some degree capitalists, and were in a far better position than those to whose level the hon. Gentleman would wish to reduce them. But, whatever might be the truth upon that point, and without having regard to what would be the best method of dealing with the land with reference to the cultivation of cotton, he would ask by what system of confiscation the hon. Member proposed to bring about the change in the tenure he advocated? [Mr. SMOLLETT said, no confiscation would he necessary.] He supposed the hon. Gentleman meant that confiscation would be unnecessary because the law was not as he had stated it to be. [Mr. SMOLLETT: Hear, hear!] But he (Mr. Stansfeld) would venture to affirm that no Secretary of State for India, nor the Governor Generals of India, nor the Governors of the Indian Presidencies, ever dreamt of interfering with the proprietary holdings of the peasantry of that country. The only way in which this aggregation of small farms into large holdings could be brought about, was by the system of twenty or thirty years' leases which tended in that direction. It was the fact that the permanent settlement system was being brought to bear, and that it would tend to accumulate the holdings in somewhat fewer hands, and in that respect the anticipations of the hon. Gentleman were likely to be realized. But one thing which the hon. Gentleman desired, it was impossible to do—they could not artificially create a landed aristocracy. The system of Lord Cornwallis of erecting such an aristocracy had been unfortunate in many of its effects. In conclusion, he might say that he entirely approved the Report of the Committee of the House which sat in 1848 to inquire into the growth of cotton in India, in which the system was recommended which had added so considerably to the means and to the comfort of the population of Madras. He believed further in the recommendation of the Committee of Bombay of 1846, who authorized the promotion of works of communication, of irrigation, and so on—
  720
  works of which his hon. Friend appeared to think so slightly, influences which his hon. Friend had designated as platitudes—and he could not but think that if this country would unite its skill and capital with the industry and natural self-interests of the ryots, we should enable the future Government of India to he conducted more safely and more economically—we should enable the country to increase its own wealth, while it ministered to ours, and we should add greatly to the contentment and the prosperity of the 130,000,000 committed to our charge.
  MR. SMOLLETTsaid he would withdraw his Motion.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to,

SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.
  (1.) £17,850, Remuneration to Revising Barristers.
  (2.) £658, Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act.
  (3.) £15,555, Compensations and Retiring Annuities under the Bankruptcy Act.
  MR. GOLDNEYasked if this was in reality a payment out of the Consolidated Fund, and if it was, whether it was not repaid out of the Bankruptcy funds?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that these payments were charges on the Exchequer, though the latter might be indirectly recouped from other funds.
  Vote agreed to.
  (4.) £52,512, to complete the sum for Criminal Proceedings in Scotland.
  (5.) £32,880, to complete the sum for the Courts of Law and Justice, Scotland.
  (6.) £630, to complete the sum for the Exchequer, Scotland, Legal Branch.
  (7.) £14,511, to complete the sum for the Register House, Edinburgh, Salaries and Expenses of Sundry Departments, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy, Scotland.
  (8.) £48,214, to complete the sum for Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions, Ireland.
  (9.) £3,877, to complete the sum for the Court of Chancery, Ireland.
  (10.) £10,762, to complete the sum for the Court of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, Ireland.
  (11.) £2,407, to complete the sum for the Officers of the Judges on Circuit, Ireland.
  (12.) £1,031, to complete the sum for the Manor Courts, Compensations.
  (13.) £1,888, to complete the sum for the Registry of Judgments.
  (14.) £9,086, to complete the sum for the Registry of Deeds.
  (15.) £100, High Court of Delegates.
  (16.) £4,899, to complete the sum for the Court of Bankruptcy and Insolvency, Ireland.
  (17.) £7,668, to complete the sum for the Court of Probate, Ireland.
  (18.) £8,902, to complete the sum for the Landed Estates Court.
  (19.) £8,500, Process Servers, Civil Bill Courts.
  (20.) £420, Revising Barristers, Dublin.
  (21.) £38,200, to complete the sum for the Dublin Metropolitan Police and Police Justices.
  (22.) £550,046, to complete the sum for the Constabulary of Ireland.
  (23.) £1,714, to complete the sum for the Fourt Courts Marshalsea Prison.
  (24.) £14,790, to complete the sum for the Inspection and General Superintendence of Prisons.
  (25.) £254,492, to complete the sum for the Prisons and Convict Establishments at Home.
  (26.) £214,184, to complete the sum for the Maintenance of Prisoners in County Gaols, &c, and Removal of Convicts.
  (27.) £15,684, to complete the sum for the Transportation of Convicts,
  (28.) £145,466, to complete the sum for the Convict Establishments in the Colonies.

  CLASS IV,—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.
  £520,530, Public Education, Great Britain.
  MR. BENTINCKexpressed a hope that the Government would not proceed with the Estimates in the then state of the Committee. He had been requested by the First Commissioner of Works, at about seven o'clock, not to bring forward the Motion he had upon the paper, because it was impossible for the Government to go into Committee of Supply. Other hon. Members were, he believed, under a similar impression; and, in addition to that, the obvious importance of the subject made the introduction of it to such a Committee little
  722
  short of a mockery. He, therefore, appealed to the Government not to proceed with the Vote.
  MR. HADFIELDsupported the appeal. They had not a House present, yet they were voting away millions of money.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, intimation had been given to those Gentlemen most interested in the Estimates under consideration as to the course the Government proposed to pursue; but after what had fallen from hon. Gentleman, he suggested that they should proceed with the other Votes; and perhaps an hour hence, at about half past ten, the state of the House would admit of their considering the Educational Estimate.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, the next Vote was of equal importance.
  MR. CHILDERSasserted that when asked by several hon. Members what course the Government would pursue, he had most distinctly stated that at about nine o'clock the Government would take Supply. Still, if it were the wish of hon. Gentlemen he would consent to postpone Class IV.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, the Motion he had upon the paper dealt with Science and Art, and it was necessary, in his opinion, that that Motion be proceeded with before the Vote was considered. He, therefore, moved that the Chairman report Progress.
  MR. CHILDERShoped the Motion would not be pressed, and offered to go on with Class V.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, the Votes in Class VI, for religious purposes in Ireland, ought not to come on in the present state of the House.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he believed every Member who complained of that Vote was present when he stated that he would take it to-night.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Bentinck,)—put, and negatived.

  CLASS V.—COLONIAL, CONSULAR, AND OTHER FOREIGN SERVICES.
  (29.) £3,200, to complete the sum for the Bermudas.
  In answer to Mr. HADFIELD,
  MR. CHILDERSstated, that out of £30,000 a year which the establishments at Bermuda cost, this country bore a cost of £4,000; but the Treasury had been in correspondence during the last few months with the Government of the Bermudas, and

  723
  it was hoped that this Vote would be reduced next year.
  Vote agreed to.
  (30.) £2,513, to complete the sum for the Clergy, North America.
  In reply to Mr. HADFIELD,
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that some explanation was due respecting it. This was a matter of a very old arrangement with the colonies of North America, under which certain of the rectors and missionaries were paid from the Votes of Parliament; but as their number decreased by death the Vote would be reduced.
  MR. HADFIELDthought that the taxing of England for the maintenance of clergymen in such a wealthy colony as Canada was a piece of absurdity, and he therefore objected to the Vote.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that the country was pledged to this Vote during the lifetime of the present recipients of the money, and there was therefore no possibility of getting rid of it. With regard to the clergy in the West Indies, that did not at all apply to the present Vote. That, however, would be a very proper question to raise at some not very distant time when the statute under which certain payments were made would cease.
  MR. HADFIELDwanted to know in what manner the statutes would put an end to the claims in question. Would the successors to the present Bishops receive the same amount of money as was now paid, or would the payments cease with their death? There was a growing opinion both at home and abroad that it was time these things were done away with. They were mischievous, and produced a bad feeling in the country to which the clergymen were sent, although at the expense of England. He wished to have a clear understanding before going further that measures were being taken to put an end to these payments.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, it was very easy to give an answer to his hon. Friend. This was an expiring remnant of what was once a heavy charge, which had been taken away under Earl Grey's Government. The money was for the most part remitted in very small sums to missionaries in the North American colonies; it was on the faith of this provision that they had committed themselves to a particular line of life. The stoppage of these allowances was therefore felt to be a very great hardship, and, consequently, it was determined that the money should
  724
  be continued to the present recipients till their decease. The amount was gradually being reduced, and did not now exceed £3,000, and the time would come when Parliament could cease to grant the Vote without breaking faith with a number of earnest and laborious men. With respect to the statute of which his hon. Friend had spoken, that had nothing to do with the Vote in hand.
  MR. CANDLISHwas opposed to all grants of this nature, but where individual interests were concerned he would not, to give effect to his own views, consent to do a personal wrong.
  MR. AKLANDsaid, the money seemed to be received by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and a Society of that kind was not likely to die.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that they were only the agents through whom the money was paid.
  Vote agreed to.
  (31.) £1,000, for the Indian Department, Canada.
  (32.) £17,178, to complete the sum for Governors and others, West Indies, &c.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, he observed in the Estimates a sum of £1,500
  "To make good the loss of emolument sustained by the Governor of New Zealand owing to his transfer from the more lucrative Government of the Cape of Good Hope,"
  and he begged to ask for some explanation in reference to it.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that Sir George Grey was in receipt of a much larger salary before he went to New Zealand; but he was sent there on the supposition that he was the most suitable person, considering the state of the country, to fill the office of Governor, and the sum of £1,500 was to compensate him for the loss he had sustained by his removal.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, the salaries of both officers should have been stated, in order that hon. Members might be able to decide whether the sum to be granted was a proper amount.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that Sir George Grey did not profit by his removal to New Zealand. An addition was simply made to the ordinary salary of the Governor of New Zealand, to secure Sir George Grey against any loss in accepting a post inferior in the rank of Colonial Governors; and he accepted it solely at the request of the Home Government, for the sake of the public service.
  MR. HENLEYthought this was a curious sort of proceeding. In the ordinary course of affairs New Zealand paid its own Governor; but it appeared from this proposition that the sum which the colony allotted for the purpose was not enough to secure a sufficiently good man. At the same time, the circumstances of the colony were such as to require the presence of a man of the highest ability and great previous experience, and if the colony could find such a man they ought to pay him adequately. If New Zealand wanted a man as highly gifted as Sir George Grey—who was, no doubt, a very able man, and with great previous knowledge of the colony—they ought to pay a proper salary to secure him. It was not a sound principle that this country should supplement payments made by a colony for local purposes. Of course Sir George Grey ought not to be the loser, but this was an awkward precedent to set.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, nothing could be fairer than the way in which the question had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman. The Vote was one of a novel description, and it ought to be carefully watched by the House of Commons, lest it should grow into a precedent. But he thought it was justified by the peculiar circumstances of the case. A particular emergency had arisen in New Zealand—a state of war, in fact. It was true that New Zealand paid for its civil Governor, and it was very probable that for the sum they allot a competent person might have been found, and one that would have carried on the government in accordance with the views of the colonists. But there were questions, such as those connected with the aborigines, with regard to which this country had feelings and interests not fully shared by the colonists, and the object of the Government was to send out a man who would not simply carry out the views of the colonists, but who would do justice to both parties. Sir George Grey, having been Governor of New Zealand for a very long period, was held to be the fittest man to effect a settlement. Now it was not fair to call upon the colonists to pay the whole salary of this Governor; because, in point of fact, he was not sent out to give effect to their views, but of those of the Government at home. There being thus a public object to be gained, the Vote, he thought, was perfectly justifiable; at the same time the proposal was avowedly exceptional in its
  726
  character, and ought not to be drawn into a precedent. The order to proceed to New Zealand was sent to Sir George Grey at the Cape of Good Hope without any previous communication with him, and this, of course, increased the obligation of the Government.
  MR. READwished to know if it was intended that this Vote should go on indefinitely?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the Government of Sir George Grey had been already prolonged by exceptional circumstances in the colony, and therefore the extra charge was not likely to be of long continuance.
  MR. HENLEYagreed that the money ought to be paid, but the precedent was an awkward one whichever way it was looked at. The colony might complain and say, "You are paying a man high to come out here and do what we do not want to be done."
  MR. BENTINCKwas satisfied with the explanation furnished by the Government, but thought a full statement ought to precede Votes of so exceptional a character. He wished to learn the details of Sir George Grey's salary, and whether there was any likelihood that the amount now voted would ever be repaid by the colony.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the Vote was a free grant by the House, made with no undertaking, contingent or otherwise, on the part of the colony, to refund the amount. The Vote added to Sir George Grey's salary as Governor of Now Zealand would exactly make up his official income as Governor of the Cape of Good Hope.
  Vote agreed to.
  (33.) £5,750, to complete the sum for Justices, West Indies.
  MR. REMINGTON MILLSobjected to the principle of paying for the magistrates of the West Indies, especially as it appeared from recent events that justice there was very partially administered, and that the black people were cruelly oppressed, and a stipendiary magistracy, if it existed at all, ought to be paid from the local funds.
  MR. CARDWELLagreed with much that had fallen from the hon. Member. But it was an expiring Vote, the residue of a much larger sum. As to the administration of justice, it would require more than the six magistrates referred to, to do justice in the island.
  MR. HADFIELDasked would the Vote expire as the magistrates die off?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that after the Emancipation Act stipendiary magistrates were sent out from England, whoso exertions had proved most salutary. The House of Assembly, however, refusing to provide salaries for them, these were necessarily paid by the English Government. The Vote would diminish as the number of remaining magistrates grew smaller. He knew that great complaints had been made—he did not say with what foundation—as to the administration of justice in Jamaica; but he had never heard any complaint against the administration of justice by the stipendiary magistrates.
  Vote agreed to.
  (34.) £36,500, to complete the sum for Western Coast of Africa.
  MR. HADFIELDasked for some explanation on the Vote.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that a Committee who inquired into the question last Session were unanimously of opinion that, though it was not desirable to increase our establishment in Western Africa, it was necessary to maintain them.
  Vote agreed to.
  (35.) £3,524, to complete the sum for St. Helena.
  MR. HADFIELDobserved, that the constant demands under this head called for some explanation.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that certain charges which formerly had been paid by the East India Company were now paid out of the Imperial Exchequer.
  Vote agreed to.
  (36.) £500, for Orange River Territory.
  GENERAL. DUNNEasked how it was that this payment still continued?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that the money was paid in pursuance of an arrangement come to ten years ago, when the Orange River Territory was given up. Certain pensions were then given the recipients of which were gradually diminishing.
  MR. CANDLISHthought it would be a great advantage to us if we could get rid of other territories on similar terms.
  MR. BENTINCKinquired in what manner the persons who received the pensions died off. Were there any reversionary interests? Did their children receive pensions?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, there was no reversionary interest in the pensions. He did not know exactly in what manner the pensioners died off, but he presumed that they departed in the same way as all human beings did.
  MR. BENTINCKhad no doubt they died in the ordinary way. It did not require one to be a Privy Councillor to tell that. What he wanted to know was, the way in which the payment of the money was to come to an end.
  Vote agreed to.
  (37.) £1,100, for Heligoland.
  (38.) £3,875, to complete the sum for the Falkland Islands.
  (39.) £2,644, to complete the sum for Labuan.
  GENERAL DUNNEasked what were to be the future arrangements for Labuan? Was the garrison composed of British or Indian troops?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that expenses were incurred in consequence of the coal to be found in the vicinity of the station. The garrison was composed of Sepoys.
  MR. POWELLasked whether any portion of the Vote was applied to the investigation of the nature of the coal-fields?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the coal-fields were already open, and coal had been brought to the surface, so that it was now too late for inquiry on that head. Petroleum also had been discovered there; hut it was too early yet to say anything with respect to that.
  MR. POWELLinquired what was the extent of the coal-fields?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the coal-fields were considerable. He could not state with statistical accuracy the extent of the coal-fields or the quality of the coal.
  Vote agreed to.
  (40.) £300, for the Pitcairn Islanders (Norfolk Island).
  (41). £7,418, to complete the sum for Emigration.
  MR. POWELLsaid, he could not help thinking that the time might not be far distant when it would be no longer thought expedient to vote money for this purpose. He thought the time was not far distant when we should discover, to our loss, that we had not a surplus of population at home. If there was a field for the labour of emigrants in the colonies, the colonies ought to make the grant for emigration. There

  729
  could be no doubt that there was, even at present, a great scarcity of labour in the scenes of our commercial enterprize at home; and the policy of encouraging emigration to the colonies by Votes from the Imperial Exchequer was therefore questionable, to say the least. If Parliament were called on to vote a sum for this purpose, by parity of reasoning it might be called on to aid in removing labourers from Devonshire, or other agricultural districts, to the more populous and better-paid districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that the expenditure in question was not incurred in removing persons to the colonies, but for the very necessary purpose of seeing that those who emigrated did so in a manner consistent with humanity, safety, and comfort. He was sure that a Vote for that purpose would not be objected to, and that it would be contrary to the wishes of the House to do anything which should defeat the object in view, and allow persons to go to sea in un sea worthy ships, or under circumstances that might involve suffering or danger.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that in the inquiry which was made into the loss of the London, which had so greatly shocked the people of this country; reference was made to the surveys and so forth the vessel had undergone before leaving port. Prom the evidence on this point it appeared to him it was possible for some things, to use a common phrase, to fall to the ground between two stools. The Emigration surveyors seemed to look to one thing, and other parties to another; but there seemed to be no one responsible altogether for the safety of the vessel. He wished to ask whether, since that inquiry, the attention of the Emigration Officer had been called to that branch of the subject. The House would not grudge a proper payment to have the work of inspection well done. If it suited people to go to the colonies, it was necessary that there should be some oversight to afford security that the vessels in which they sailed were fit to take them; but care must be taken that money was paid for a good and useful purpose, and not for merely nominal surveys. From the evidence given at the inquiry it was impossible to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to the condition of the vessel when she left Plymouth, and as to whether she was or was not properly laden with a great quantity of deck cargo in the shape of coal which might have contributed to the loss
  730
  of the vessel. He asked for an assurance that the matter had received, or would receive, consideration.
  MR. CARDWELLcould assure the right hon. Gentleman that the matter did receive consideration at the time; and he would add that it should receive the further attention both of his Office and of the Emigration Commissioners.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, that having known for twenty-five years Captain Lean, the Emigration Surveyor of the port of London, he could testify that he was a conscientious and faithful officer, and that he troubled shipowners by being rather too particular. No man would look so much to the sails of a steamship as to those of a sailing vessel, and in the case of the London the Emigration Officer, having looked to the engines, took the word of the owners as to the sails. With respect to the loading of the London he had ascertained that it was quite in accordance with the rules of Lloyd's Emigration Commissioner, and that she had eight inches to spare out of the water. Therefore, Captain Lean and the Emigration officers were not open to the blame which had been imputed to them.
  SIR WILLIAM JOLLIFFEsaid, that the Vote for the London office, £6,031, and that for all other ports, £4,337, suggested the fear that there was a disproportion in numbers between the controlling staff and the working staff, and that, considering the duties to be performed, the subordinate officers were too few and were underpaid.
  SIR MATTHEW RIDLEY, in reference to the surgeons on board emigrant ships, wished to direct attention to the case of the surgeon of the East London, who, although he had been thirteen years in the emigration service, had been refused a re-appointment by the Emigration Office, solely, as appeared from the minutes of an inquiry held at Calcutta, because at the time of the wreck of the East London he failed to lodge a protest against the steamtug Elgin for leaving the East London. Considering the length of the surgeon's service and his unimpeached character, and especially that at the time of the wreck he was suffering from pleurisy and broken ribs, he was hardly used in being refused a re-appointment for so slight a neglect as the failure to discharge a duty which seemed to belong to a naval rather than to a medical officer.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, this appeared

  731
  to be a case of individual grievance perfectly well known to the hon. Baronet, but which had not yet been submitted to the Emigration Commissioners. [Sir MATTHEW RIDLEY: I beg pardon; it has.] At all events, it had not been submitted to him. All that he knew was that in the report of the Indian Commission some blame was attached to the Emigration Agent at the time; but the Emigration Commissioners were not able to take notice of it because the Emigration Agent died, and, of course, the matter was at an end.
  SIR MATTHEW RIDLEYsaid, the papers were in his possession, and he should be happy to place them in the right hon. Gentleman's hands.
  Vote agreed to.
  (42.) £3,500, Expedition.
  In reply to Mr. BENTINCK,
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that the Vote was for the establishment by the late Dr. Baikie of the station at the confluence of the rivers Niger and Tchadda, which was very important for purposes of trade. For one year they had little or no communication with Dr. Baikie who had gone up the river, and the expenses attached to the Vote referred to payments extending over some time for salaries of staff and contingencies. Dr. Baikie came down last year, but, unfortunately, he died at Sierra Leone before reaching this country. Whether the establishment would be kept up would depend very much on whether the Liverpool merchants would continue to send vessels up the Niger for purposes of trade.
  MR. OLIPHANThoped the House would not be alarmed by the protests of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) against establishments of this kind, which were in the highest degree desirable with a view to the maintenance of British interests. He trusted the trade up the Niger would be so great as to induce the Government to keep up the establishments which had been of such benefit to the country.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKwished to know why that House should pay £3,500 because the Liverpool merchants for their own purposes sent out an expedition?
  MR. LAYARDsaid, the Vote was necessary in order to keep up the credit of this country in those regions. It was necessary that trade should be protected, and that could be done only by a British Consul, whom they had promised to keep
  732
  at the junction of the two rivers, if the merchants engaged in the trade on the Western coast of Africa declared their intention of navigating the Niger for commercial purposes.
  Vote agreed to.
  (43.) £1,000, Treasury Chest.
  (44.) £29,000, to complete the sum for Captured Negroes, Bounties on Slaves, &c.
  MR. WHITEsaid, he did not think that so large a sum as that proposed was really required. Although there was a diminution of £8,000 on the Vote as compared with that of last year, nevertheless, the fact of the American Government having joined us now in our endeavour to put down the slave trade, he considered that there ought to be a much larger reduction in the Vote,
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, there had not as yet been time to appreciate the advantage of the co-operation of the American Government, but next year he anticipated there would be a considerable diminution in the Vote; but it was generally a year, and sometimes two, before the accounts were made up.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHreminded the Committee that the Spanish Government were also co-operating with us in the attempt to suppress the slave trade, inasmuch as they had sent bonâ fide instructions to their Captain General at Cuba to use his utmost energies in that direction; and as the American Government were also uniting with us to effect the same object, we might expect in future a very different state of things from what we had so long been accustomed to.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, he was happy to announce the gratifying fact that during the last year there had been only one cargo of slaves shipped from the Westerns Coast of Africa, as far as he could learn. The Foreign Office had information of a cargo recently landed at Cuba, but it was immediately seized by the Spanish authorities. They had not ascertained whence it had come. Nothing could exceed the energetic and able manner in which General Dulce carried out the instructions which he received from his Government for the suppression of the slave trade. He believed it was entirely owing to these instructions and to the resolute conduct of the late Captain General of Cuba—for he regretted to say that his term of office had expired

  733
  —that the importation of slaves in Cuba had ceased. Such had been the change of opinion in Cuba on the subject that a large and influential Society had been formed there, of which General Dulce was president, for the suppression of slavery and the introduction of free labour. If the objects of this society could be carried out the whole slave trade on the Western Coast of Africa would cease, and he trusted they would shortly hear no more of it. On the Eastern Coast it was quite another matter, and the trade there, he feared, was likely to continue.
  MR. MONKasked whether the proceeds of the slave captures covered the amount of the bounties?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that they did not.
  Vote agreed to.
  (45.) £7,450, to complete the sum for Commissions for Suppression of Slave Trade.
  MR. BENTINCKinquired by whom the trade in slaves was carried on on the East Coast of Africa?
  MR. LAYARDsaid, the trade there was carried on in two ways. In the northern part of the East Coast of Africa it was carried on by the Arab tribes in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf; on the southern side by the tribes under the protection of Portugal chiefly. The Portuguese Government, however, were exerting themselves to put a stop to this trade. We had cruisers on the East Coast as well as the West Coast of Africa.
  Vote agreed to.
  (46.) £123,978, to complete the sum for Consuls Abroad.
  MR. WHITEsaid, that the first item was for a Consul at Massowah, in Abyssinia; and after the painful experience we had had of the results of involving ourselves in Abyssinian politics, he thought the Government would do well to extinguish this consulate.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that notwithstanding the entry in the Estimates, Massowah was not in Abyssinia, though our Consul there had jurisdiction in that kingdom, but in the Turkish dominions. The imprisonment of the European captives in that country had had nothing whatever to do with our Consular establishment at Massowah.
  MR, DARBY GRIFFITHobserved,
  734
  that there was a large increase of salary for the Consul at Rustchuck—from £200 to £850.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that there was a change in the administration of the Turkish Provinces. The Turkish Government had established three great jurisdictions, and a full Consul would be placed at Rustchuck, which would be the seat of the Governor. The allowances for Consuls at Varna and other places would be at the same time reduced, and a saving would be effected.
  Vote agreed to.
  (47.) £121,978, to complete the sum for services in China, Japan, and Siam.
  GENERAL DUNNEasked, upon what ground the civil salaries had been augmented, whilst the military salaries had been diminished. He did not complain of the increase in the former, but he thought it was disgraceful that our soldiers in Hong Kong were treated in such a niggardly spirit. He attributed the frightful malady amongst them at Hong Kong lately to this system which had been adopted towards them.
  MR. READcomplained of the meagre information supplied them in relation to such large sums as those which comprised the Vote,
  MR. WHITEwas of opinion that considerable reductions might be made in the Vote.
  MR. LAYARDaccounted for the augmentation in the Vote for civil salaries by the circumstance of certain legal changes having recently taken place in the places in question, which necessitated this augmentation. An officer had been sent out to China and Japan to ascertain what accommodation in the shape of buildings, &c, would be necessary for our Consuls and other officers in those countries. No satisfactory estimate could be formed at home of the value of the buildings required for our representatives in China and Japan.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, the first item of this Vote would appear to carry on its face a reduction; but from the manner in which the information was given in the Votes it was impossible to say 'whether it was a reduction or not.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, he imagined it had been reduced by £2,000 last year; the sum of £8,000 was considered excessive. It was now reduced to £6,000.
  Vote agreed to.
  (48.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £24,000, 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 of March 1867, for the Extraordinary Disbursements of Her Majesty's Embassies and Missions Abroad.
  MR. CANDLISHasked for an explanation of the £1,000 in the Miscellaneous Charges for the French Embassy.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, he could not give a correct explanation of it. The hon. Member must see that many heavy charges were likely to be incurred by the Paris Embassy.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHcomplained of the unsatisfactory manner in which the diplomatic expenses were brought before the Committee. Part was charged to one fund and part to another. They had now a piebald account, which did not show what the diplomatic charges had been. They ought to be paid out of one fund instead of as at present out of two funds.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, the extra sum for the attaches was paid under Vote 22, in accordance with the recommendation of a Committee appointed to inquire into the diplomatic service.
  SIR ROBERT PEELwished to bring under the notice of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the case of a British subject who was in some danger on a charge of deserting from the Swiss Army. The man claimed to be a British subject; but the Swiss Government claimed him as one of their subjects, it being alleged that he was a citizen of Geneva, and it would be as well if our Minister at Berne could make some inquiries into the matter with a view to his being absolved from the charge that had been made against him.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, the case referred to was a very hard one, and it had occupied the attention of the Foreign Office. His right hon. Friend brought the subject under his consideration some time ago, and he had lost no time in making full inquiry into it. He only received yesterday a Report from the Law Officers of the Crown, and from it he feared the man had no case. It was a very difficult point of law, and he was afraid it would turn out that this person was not a British subject. His father was a British subject, but his grandfather was not, and the nationality of the grandfather decided the nationality of the grandson, and strictly speaking, therefore, he was not a British subject. He
  736
  hoped the Swiss Government, as a matter of comity and good feeling, would release him from the penalties which he had involuntarily incurred in ignorance of what was his real status. Every exertion would be used by Her Majesty's Government to release him from the difficult position in which he was placed.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, this person was born in London, and he could not see how the grandfather's accepting the citizenship of Geneva, when his son was thirty-three years of age, could deprive the grandson of his nationality—that of a British subject.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHcomplained that the Votes in Class V. had been taken rather unexpectedly; and as he knew that an hon. Member, who was then absent, wished to make some observation on one of the Votes, he moved that the Chairman report Progress.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Sclater-Booth.)
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 31; Noes 81: Majority 50.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he wished to receive some explanation of the item set down for the conveyance of distinguished foreigners from Dover to Calais.
  MR. LAYARDreplied that that item was not included in the Vote under discussion.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  (49.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £15,000, 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 of March 1867, for Special Missions, Diplomatic Outfits, and Conveyance and Entertainment of Colonial Officers and others."
  MR. REMINGTON MILLStook occasion to ask for an explanation of the sum of £21 17 s. 6d., which was set down under the head of "Expenses for the conveyance of the Bishop of Kingston and his servant from Jamaica to Belize and back."
  MR. CARDWELLreplied that the charge was one which was customary when a Bishop was obliged, as in the present instance, to go from one part of his diocese to another.
  MR. REMINGTON MILLS MR. REMINGTON MILLS moved that the item be struck out.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Item of £21 17 s. 6d., for the expenses of the Bishop of Kingston and servant from Jamaica to Belize and back, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Remington Mills.)
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, the item was one in the account for last year, and that its omission would not in reality effect a reduction of the Vote for the present year.
  MR. REMINGTON MILLSwas ready, under those circumstances, to withdraw his Motion. ["No, no!"]
  MR. HENLEYshould like to know who those distinguished foreigners were to whom he had just referred.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the discussion must be confined to the matter immediately before the Committee, which was the striking out of the item of £21 17 s. 6d.
  MR. HENLEYrenewed his inquiry as to who the distinguished persons were who were conveyed between Dover and Calais. He should like to know whether they were blacks or whites, and what objection there was to stating their names?
  MR. LAYARDreplied that he could not go into the details of the information which the right hon. Gentleman required. It was usual, when the guests of Her Majesty crossed the Channel between Dover and Calais, to convey them at the public expense. Their names were not given, because they were conveyed in special packets. Those whose names were given had been conveyed and entertained on board Her Majesty's vessels,
  MR. HENLEYwas quite aware that was so, but the list in the present instance appeared to be a very long one,
  MR. GUILDERSsaid, the charge for each of those special passages was £10, and there had been four of them.
  MR. OLIPHANThaving observed that a sum of £2,000 was asked for to defray the expenses of Mr. Palgrave, who went out to release Consul Cameron from his captivity in Abyssinia, he should like to know when Mr. Palgrave was appointed to that mission? How long he was employed on it, and generally, what were the results of his efforts in the matter?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHshould like to hear on what principle the various items in the Vote were charged. He found that, while the round sums of £2,000 and £1,500 were set opposite the names of Mr. Palgrave and Mr. Hutt, shillings and pence were very carefully given in other instances.
  MR. LAYARDreplied, that when the gross sums were put down as in the cases which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, it was because the money had been paid on account. With respect to Mr. Palgrave, as last year there was a strong feeling that sufficient was not being done—though he did not think so—to obtain the release of Consul Cameron and the other captives in Abyssinia, Earl Russell considered it to be his duty to take further steps to obtain their release, and he instructed Mr. Palgrave to proceed to Egypt, and from thence to Abyssinia in the event of Mr. Rassam's mission having failed. When Mr. Palgrave arrived in Cairo, Mr. Rassam had received the invitation from King Theodore, and Mr. Palgrave was ordered to remain at Cairo until the result of Mr. Rassam's visit to Gondar was known. When information had been received that it had been successful, Mr. Palgrave was directed to return to this country.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he did not think the explanation with regard to the conveyance of distinguished persons very satisfactory. The Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had said that the reason the names were not given was, because the distinguished persons were conveyed in special packets; but the names of the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess Mary, conveyed by special packets, were given, and he wished to know, therefore, why the names of the other distinguished persons were not given?
  MR. LAYARDreplied, that it was never the habit to specify by name distinguished foreign visitors to Her Majesty conveyed by special packets between Dover and Calais.
  MR. OLIPHANTsaid, that the release of the Abyssinian captives was not due to the exertions of Mr. Palgrave, and he thought £2,000 a large sum to give him.
  MR. CHILDERSexplained, that the sum of £2,000 was advanced when Mr. Palgrave was originally sent to Abyssinia, for the purpose of meeting the expenses of the mission. If the expenses did not amount to £2,000, the balance would be returned.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKobserved, that the expense of the mission for investing the King of Portugal with the Order of the Garter was put down at £659, and the expenses of the mission for investing the King of Denmark with the same Order was stated to be £915. He wished to

  739
  know the reason of the difference in the two cases?
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  (50.) £2,600, to complete the sum for Third Secretaries to Embassies.
  In reply to Mr. DARBY GRIFFITH,
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that since the system of unpaid attaches had been done away with in consequence of the Report of a Committee, and the junior members of missions had been paid, the class of attaches had signally improved during the last few years. The experiment had fully succeeded, and a highly competent body of men was now attached to the missions abroad.
  Vote agreed to.
  MR. CHILDERS MR. CHILDERS moved that the Chairman report Progress.
  MR. BENTINCKasked, what course would be taken if the House got into Committee of Supply to-morrow? Would the Education Vote be taken?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, the intention tomorrow was to take one Vote in the Army Estimates—that for Fortifications. After that they would take the remaining votes in Classes VI. and VII., but not the Education Vote. At eleven o'clock to-morrow night, he should move that the Chairman report Progress, and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would then take the second reading of the Customs Bill.
  House resumed.
  Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;
  Committee to sit again To-morrow.

FISHERY PIERS AND HARBOURS (IRELAND BILL— [BILL 93.]
(Mr. Childers, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
GENERAL DUNNEsaid, he thought it would have a good effect in Ireland if the hon. Gentleman would state the object of the Bill, as to which there appeared to be some misapprehension.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, the Committee on Irish Taxation reported that some doubt existed whether a charge of £5,000 on the Consolidated Fund for the purpose of
740
fishery piers and harbours still existed. Careful inquiry was made into the subject, and the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General being that the supposed charge on the Consolidated Fund for Irish fisheries did not exist, the Government determined to introduce a Bill to continue to a certain extent provision for Irish fishery piers and harbours. This Bill proposed to increase the maximum sum which could be granted in any individual case from £5,000 to £7,500; and if it passed, a supplementary Estimate would be proposed for the purpose.
MR. GREGORYdid not think that the increase of the sums from £5,000 to £7,500 would cancel the arrears, which he calculated at £148,000. He would ask whether, if this claim were given up, part of the sum could be advanced by way of loan to the fishery societies for the purpose of enabling them to lend out money for the construction of fishing vessels?
MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, the Government had been distinctly advised by the Law Officers that no such claim could be made.
Motion agreed to.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

LABOURING CLASSES' DWELLINGS (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 94.]
(Mr. Childers, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Childers.)
MR. CHILDERSstated that its objects were similar to those sought to be effected by a measure of the same character already passed referring to England. In the present Bill, however, were introduced such modifications as were suitable to the country.
GENERAL DUNNEthought that the Bill was a monstrous one. It would, he believed, be attended with mischief to allow the corporations in Ireland to enter into speculations in the manner proposed.
MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEbelieved that the Bill would be exceedingly beneficial to Ireland, where the dwellings of the labouring classes were open to greater improvement than they were even in England.
MR. GEORGEsaid, he would not oppose the second reading of the Bill, though he deprecated the way in which Irish business was treated in the House, Bills in which Irish Members were interested being brought on for discussion late at night, and being oftentimes read a second time before Members concerned in such matters had had an opportunity of ascertaining their principles.
MR. ESMONDE, as a proprietor of some town property in Ireland, believed that the Bill would be found beneficial in its operation.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time and committed for Thursday.

NATIONAL GALLERY ENLARGEMENT BILL— [BILL 124.]—SECOND READING.
(Mr. William Cowper, Mr. Childers.)
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. BENTINCKinquired whether the First Commissioner of Works would state the names of the Committee who would decide what architect's design should be chosen, and whether the plans would be laid upon the table of the House?
MR. SCLATER-BOOTHthought as the building would be proceeded with next year it was high time the council of the Royal Academy had some notice given them; and he also thought the House should be informed as to what the Royal Academy was likely to do.
MR. COWPERsaid, the architects had been requested to send in their designs in October, and at that time the judges would have to make their award. As the time was so distant, however, they had not been nominated. The Council of the Royal Academy had been told that they must leave the present building, and they had agreed to do so. Correspondence upon the subject was in the printer's hands, and would shortly be presented to the House. The designs would be ready in November, and if an autumn sitting were to be adopted hon. Members would then have an opportunity of seeing them.
In reply to Sir MATTHEW RIDLEY,
MR. COWPERsaid, there was no truth in the report as to the directions for space for the Royal Academy at Burlington House. He had, however, been able to
742
offer the Council the space that was disposable, but he had not heard whether the offer was accepted.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

TRAMWAYS (IRELAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
On Motion of Lord NAAS, Bill to amend "The Tramways (Ireland) Act, 1860," and "The Tramways (Ireland) Amendment Act, 1861," ordered to be brought in by Lord NAAS, Mr. GEORGE, and General DUNNE.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 149.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT SUPPLEMENTAL (NO. 2) BILL.
On Motion of Mr. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders under "The Local Government Act, 1858,"relating to the districts of Linthwaite and Ventnor, and for the repeal of the South Wales Highway Act in Briton Ferry District, ordered to be brought in by Mr. KNATCHBI;LI.-HCGESSEN and Sir GEORGE GREY.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 150.]

SOLICITOR TO THE TREASURY BILL.
On Motion of Mr. CHILDERS, Bill to make further provision for the performance of the duties of Solicitor for the affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHILDERS and Mr. BRAND.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 152.]

POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) LAW AMENDMENT BILL.
On Motion of Mr. CHARLES BARRY, Bill for the amendment of the Law for Relief of the Poor in Ireland by substituting an union rating for the present system of rating by electoral divisions, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHARLES BARRY and Major GAVIN.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 153.]

THAMES NAVIGATION BILL,
Select Committee on the Thames Navigation Bill nominated:—Mr. MILNER GIBSON, Mr. NEATE, Sir GEORGE BOWYER, Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Mr. TORKE, and Five Members to be named by the Committee of Selection:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
Ordered, That the Petitions presented to this House respecting the said Bill be referred to the Committee; and that such Petitioners as shall have prayed to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents, be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against such Petitions.—(Mr. Milner Gibson.)
House adjourned at One o'clock.