Commons Sitting of 26 February 1867

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Army (India and the Colonies) appointed.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Attorneys, &c, Certificate Duty; Hypothec Abolition (Scotland); Metropolitan Improvements.*
First Reading—British North America * [52]; Attorneys, &c., Certificate Duty [53]; Hypothec Abolition (Scotland) * [54]; Metropolitan Improvements * [55]; Thames Embankment and Metropolis Improvement Loans* [56]; Railway Construction Facilities Act (1864) Amendment * [57].
Committee—Trades Unions Bill* [58].

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid: Mr. Speaker—I think it would be convenient to the House that I should take the earliest opportunity with respect to the subject of discussion yesterday of stating the course which the Government proposes to pursue with regard to that matter. The great object we had in view in bringing forward the Resolutions which were the subject of yesterday's discussion was really to secure for the propositions, which we hoped in a legislative form to introduce to the House, a fair and candid consideration. Now, it is impossible to conceal from myself, from the many observations that have been made by Gentlemen of authority in this House, and particularly the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that there is, if not a formal, yet, I would venture to say, a moral understanding and engagement that any Bill which the Government may bring forward on the subject of Parliamentary Reform shall receive a fair and candid hearing. Indeed, the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets the other night, immediately followed by the right hon. Gentleman, seemed to enter into an engagement that the second reading of the Bill would meet with no difficulty. [Murmurs, and "Hear, hear!"] I do not wish to put a severe interpretation upon anything which has been said by Gentlemen in the course of our debates; but, from the spirit of courtesy that has been exhibited by the House, I think it right to take the earliest opportunity of saying that Her Majesty's Government, considering all that occurred in the House yesterday, and with a feeling on their part still that their mode of procedure would be extremely advantageous for the advancement of the question, and every day more and more convinces them of the propriety of the course they took. I say Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that they should best promote the course of public business and their own object in dealing with this question in not asking the House to proceed any further with the
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  consideration of those Resolutions, but to allow me, on the earliest practical opportunity, to introduce a Bill. [An hon. MEMBER: When?] Of course, it is impossible exactly to fix a day. ["Oh, oh!"] The Reform Bill is not like a Road Bill. Considerable preparation will be necessary; but I should really think that probably in a week's time—["Oh!" and "Hear, hear!"] I will not make a formal engagement, but my own opinion is that on Thursday week at furthest I shall have the honour, with your permission, of introducing a Reform Bill to this House. [For the Resolutions see Contents February 11 and Appendix.]
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, the right hon. Gentleman having referred to me upon a matter that is of considerable difficulty and importance, I find it necessary to follow the statement he has made, out of the usual order of business, although I do not say out of the discretion which he may be entitled to use under the circumstances—I find it necessary to follow that statement by a very few words, and lest any difficulty may arise on the question of Order, I think this is an occasion on account of the public interest attaching to the question on which I may properly conclude with a formal Motion for the adjournment, of the House. As the right hon. Gentleman has made known to the House the intentions of the Government, I cannot avoid saying that great trouble would have been saved if he had announced that intention at the time when the whole reasons for the course, which he is now prepared to take, were placed in his possession by my hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) and by others who followed on that occasion. I am bound also to state to the right hon. Gentleman what, perhaps, he is not aware of, that, some minutes before the announcement he made to the House, I had myself placed in the hands of the Clerk a Motion to this effect, as an Amendment to the Motion that you, Sir, do leave the Chair on Thursday next in order to go into Committee—
  "That Her Majesty's Government, having informed the House of the principal provisions of the Bill which they propose to introduce for an Amendment of the Representation of the People in Parliament, it is the opinion of the House that, under present circumstances, a discussion of the Resolutions now before it must tend to delay the practical consideration of the question, and that it will be for the public advantage that the plan of Her Majesty's Government should be submitted to the House in a definite form."
  That Motion does not go so far as the

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  right hon. Gentleman has gone; because, if carried, it would have left it open to Her Majesty's Government to take their choice between the re-construction of their Resolutions and the introduction of a Bill. But I do not hesitate to express my opinion that the course which the right hon. Gentleman has now announced, of the immediate introduction of a Bill, is the course most advantageous to the interests of the subject. Further, I will venture to say with reference to a momentary expression of impatience when the right hon. hon. Gentleman spoke of the necessary delay, that the delay, whatever it may be, is a delay necessarily inherent in the mode of proceeding which has been adopted, and therefore is a delay for which the right hon. Gentleman cannot be liable to any blame on the present occasion. It is necessary that a certain time should be expended in the consideration of the details of the Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, take care that such time shall not extend beyond what is absolutely necessary. I wish to cause no misapprehension to the right hon. Gentleman or anybody else with reference to the other important topic to which he adverted when he said that he had obtained from my hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets and myself something like an engagement that no opposition would be offered to the second reading of a Bill if introduced by Her Majesty's Government. With respect to that point, I must say that anything which tends to compromise or limit the discretion of Members of Parliament in any matter of proceeding is too important to be left a subject of misconception of any kind. I will therefore recall to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman exactly what took place. The question raised in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets, and in the remarks which I ventured to make, was not the question of opposition to the second reading of any Bill introduced by Her Majesty's Government in the usual and ordinary manner; but it was a question whether a particular point in some portion of that Bill was to be selected and embodied in a Motion, and then made the means and occasion of opposition to the second reading of the Bill. That was the immediate question in discussion, and I am desirous of not being misunderstood. I state this in vindication of my own liberty of action, and that of every Gentleman on this side of the House who could be presumed, in
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  the slightest degree, to be interested or concerned in any remarks that might have fallen from the hon. Member free the Tower Hamlets and myself. It is our duty to preserve our discretion free and unfettered as to the Bill of Her Majesty's Government when presented to us—in as much as it must necessarily come before us in a form far more developed than it could possibly have been in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. It will be our duty, as Members of Parliament, in a matter of so much importance, deliberately and advisedly to make up our minds whether we can consent to the second reading of the Bill or not. Thus far, however, I will go. I will express a confident hope, and further, a very earnest and sincere desire, that we may find that Bill to be such that we cannot only assent to it, but even promote and expedite its passage through its earlier stages, so that if it be conducive to the public interest, we may join issue with Her Majesty's Government on those subjects, be they many or few—and that is a point upon which at the present moment I cannot give an opinion—upon which we may, unfortunately, be compelled to differ from the conclusions to which Her Majesty's Government may have come. For that purpose the Committee would evidently be the place. I admit that there are many circumstances in which, when great differences of opinion prevail and numerous and important Amendments are likely to be proposed, so as, if accepted, to be calculated to give an entirely different character to the Bill, it is often convenient that, without waiting for the Committee, issue should be joined on the second reading. But that is a question on which entire liberty of action should be reserved to us all. I shall be glad, however, if we arrive at a conclusion that the second reading may be supported, and that our differences may be brought to issue on the discussion of clauses in Committee.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  MR. BRIGHT: As the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in the mood for receiving advice from this House, I rise for the purpose of making a suggestion which some Gentlemen on this side may disapprove, and to which many Gentlemen opposite may think it is not in their power to accede. Still, I believe no wiser suggestion in favour of efficient

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  Parliamentary proceeding in a great question was ever offered to the House. I wish to recommend to the righthon. Gentleman to consider whether the advice which I gave to the Government of Earl Russell a little more than a year ago would not be wise advice for him to take—that is, to introduce his Franchise Bill by itself. I promise hon. Gentlemen opposite that if the right hon. Gentleman will do so, I will not read to them any portion of the speech made by the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) last year. I make the suggestion with perfect honesty and sincerity, believing that it would be greatly to the interest of Parliament, and also that it is the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to take that course. What is it that you want particularly? Apart from the question of what is good in Parliamentary Reform for the whole nation, and in which every class may be said to be equally interested, you have this other special thing that you want. You want to remove an acknowledged grievance on the part of the excluded working classes. Suppose that the question of seats is not meddled with this Session, or next Session, or even the Session after that, yet we may all be conscious that it is a question that will sometime have to be dealt with. But it is not a question that creates differences between one great class and another. No class has any special grievance with respect to that particular evil in our representation. But the other question, that which refers to the exclusion—and notwithstanding the figures on the table, practically the almost total exclusion of the working classes—is a very different question; and I venture to say that every day that it is left unsettled it is charged with evil to all classes in the country. Take the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman as he sketched it last night. The universal feeling in the House, I think, is, that the plan on which he proposes to deal with the question of the re-distribution of seats is very incomplete and very unsatisfactory. It is as bad, at any rate, as the plan which was offered to us last year. Whether it is worse or not, I will not undertake to say. It is so bad, that I am quite sure that any time which the House might expend upon it, with a view to make a Bill of it as it is, would be time wasted, and it is one of those questions which the House would find the greatest possible difficulty in altering either in the Resolutions, which have been withdrawn, if it had been in-
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  cluded in these Resolutions, or in the Bill which is to be submitted to the House. In fact, I do not know how we could, wishing to improve a Bill, really make anything useful out of the re-distribution plan which the Government has submitted to the House. Why should we not take the course of dealing with the franchise first? There were quotations made last year from what pretended to be a speech of mine, in which I said that if the franchise were extended, Parliament would be more popular—I hope it would—and that there would be a better leverage afterwards to deal with the questions of the little boroughs. Does not the right hon. Gentleman at this moment wish he had some leverage by which he could deal with those little boroughs? Are there not now in this House hon. Gentlemen who, if they sat for other constituencies, would wish the Parliamentary representation of such little boroughs exterminated? We have all an interest in getting rid of the representation of those little boroughs, and distributing the Members, whether amongst counties or large boroughs, at least amongst free and independent populations of the country. Such representation is bad for the Members of the House, and it is corrupting and evil to the little boroughs themselves. But you find every time when a Bill is brought in on the suffrage, as was done last year, and as is to be done this, it is clogged with this additional difficulty. When you have the chance of settling that paramount question of uniting the non-voting class with the present voting class, you have not the common sense to do that which is most wanted, which is the work of the hour and lies in your way. Why not leave for a subsequent Session—for two or three, or even half-a-dozen Sessions, or till after a General Election if you like—I am not at all particular as to time—the other question. I say, in the name of all that is patriotic, you ought to make up your mind to settle this question of the franchise without reference to the question of the re-distribution of seats. I have only noticed what I said in a public speech, for I had no communication with Lord Russell or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire. I should have said it if this Government had been in power, and I say it now because I am satisfied it is the wisest course to pursue in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues will find their course infinitely smoothed by

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  adopting the advice which I give them in all frankness. If he will make a change now—and he may do so with the utmost consistency, considering the many changes that at the present moment are said to be taking place—ho may bring in a Bill in such a shape that there will be no disposition on this side of the House to contest the second reading; and in Committee there would be so few points to settle, that some hope might be entertained of its passing the House. But as to the Seats Bill, it is so unsatisfactory, so incomplete, so ridiculous for all purposes, that by bringing it forward at the same time you would be only clogging a matter which is absolutely necessary and may be done, with a thing that is not so necessary and cannot be done. I say, therefore, that to deal with the two together is not a statesman-like mode of dealing with this question. I have relieved my conscience by making this statement. The right hon. Gentleman will believe me that I give the advice from an honest wish and conviction that as we are in a difficulty on this question, every man should, if he can, help to smooth the way out of it, and enable us to do something satisfactory to the great body of the people. The right hon. Gentleman having received so much courtesy and so many kind offers from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, I have shown him this courtesy and made him this offer. After the many difficulties which hon. Gentlemen opposite have got into since the meeting of Parliament, I am not quite sure that they may not take a little advice from this side of the House, and I believe that what I have suggested will smooth their course as much as any advice that has been hitherto given them. The right hon. Gentleman, I hope, will consider it between this and next Thursday, for it is quite clear that if he cannot bring the whole Bill in next Thursday, he will be able to bring half of it in, and we may have a fairer and better Franchise Bill if he would devote his whole attention to that particular branch of the subject.
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: Sir, the hon. Member for Birmingham having, on former occasions, assumed a monopoly of honesty on this question of Reform, I am not surprised that on this occasion he should go a step farther and claim a monopoly of wisdom. He knows that he has not the slightest chance of being supported by the great body of Gen-
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  tlemen who sit on his own side of the House; but he is nevertheless so persuaded of the wisdom of the course suggested, that he does not hesitate to recommend it to my right hon. Friend. It is not, however, new advice. It is advice which a former Government adopted. Strange to say, the hon. Gentleman forgot to tell us the result of that advice. I should like to know Earl Russell's opinion of the advice which was given to him. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman, before we adopt his recommendation, will allow us to ascertain whether Earl Russell is satisfied of the wisdom of the advice on which he acted last year. The hon. Gentleman went on, in a mode which is rather inconsistent with the speedy despatch of public business, to discuss at considerable length the proposals of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the re-distribution of seats. I will not on this occasion follow so very inconvenient an example. I will only say we are of opinion that our scheme is one which can be sustained by argument when the proper time comes. It does not appear to Her Majesty's Government that the course which the hon. Gentleman suggests is more likely to be successful now than it was last year. I hope, however, the hon. Gentleman will not think that we are receiving his advice in any other spirit than that in which he offered it.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

IRELAND—EMPLOYMENT OF THE IRISH CONSTABULARY.—QUESTION.
THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland a Question relative to certain alleged proceedings of a large police force under Sub-Inspector Gilpin, in Dingle, on the 15th instant?
LORD NAASsaid, in reply, that the statement in the newspapers was not altogether correct. Sub-Inspector Gilpin exercised his men in the street, but he was informed that there was no firing on the occasion. The County Inspector and the Inspector General had, however, expressed their disaproval of this proceeding.

SCOTLAND—COLLECTORS OF TAXES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. E. CRAUFURDsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whe-

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  ther there is an intention of making a change in the office of Collectors of Taxes and Distributors of Stamps in Scotland by transferring the duties to officers of Customs or Excise, or otherwise, as vacancies occurred in the present appointments?
  MR. HUNT: In Scotland, Sir, distributors of stamps are also collectors of taxes, which is not the case in England. It has within the last three or four years been the practice, upon the occurrence of vacancies in distributorships of stamps in towns where there are collectors of Excise, to transfer the duties discharged previously by the distributors of stamps to the collectors of Excise. In Scotland this arrangement has at present only been effected at Dumfries and Glasgow; in England it has been carried out in fourteen places, and the change will be carried out throughout the United Kingdom as opportunities offer. It is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government, as at present advised, to transfer the duties of distributors of stamps and collectors of taxes to officers of the Customs Department.

STORM SIGNALS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE.—QUESTION.
COLONEL SYKESsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he has received Memorials or Communications from the Meteorological Society of Scotland, mercantile bodies at Leith, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, or from any of them, or from other bodies in Great Britain or elsewhere, respecting the discontinuance of Storm Signals by the Board of Trade, and whether he will lay such Memorials before the House; whether he has considered the greatly increased cost of the proposed plan of sending Meteorological data by telegraph to seaports, instead of a short recommendation as heretofore from the Board of Trade to "hoist storm signals;" and whether the proposed plan may not prove abortive in many instances from the parties at the ports not being "experts" in the interpretation of meteorological phenomena?
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, the Board of Trade has received various memorials and communications from several mercantile bodies on this subject, but I am not aware that direct communication has been received from the Meteorological Society of Scotland. I have no objection to produce all the memorials that have been received. The purport of them has
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been correctly described by the hon. and gallant Member; they are all expressions of regret at the discontinuance of the signals. With regard to the probable cost of the proposed plan, I may mention that the committee of the Royal Society proposes that the information spoken off should be given to those places which may express a wish to have it, and are willing to bear half the expense of the communication. No applications have yet been received, so that I can hardly say what the probable cost would be. With regard to the third part of the question, it is not probable that any place would be willing to bear half the expense of the information unless they had the means of properly interpreting the local phenomena of the district; and the committee of Lloyd's Society are of opinion that the plan proposed is the most likely method of carrying out the object in view.
MR. M. T. BASSsaid, he wished to know, whether it would not be advisable to erect some midland station as well as the stations on the coast?
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I am not aware that this point has been particularly brought under the notice of the committee, but I will draw their attention to it.

IRELAND—WATERFORD COUNTY ELECTION—THE 12TH LANCERS AT DUNGARVAN.—QUESTION.
MR. SERJEANT BARRYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether, having regard to his answer on Thursday last (to the Question of the hon. Member for Tralee), to the effect that if the sixteen men of the 12th Lancers had broken away from the control of their Commanding Officer and had charged along the Quay of Dungarvan he (the Secretary of State for War) should consider further inquiry necessary, it is to be understood that, notwithstanding the sworn testimony of the witnesses on both sides before the Coroner, the official Report of the Officer in command denies that the sixteen men charged along the Quay, or, if they did charge, denies that they did so without orders; and whether the Officer has given, or has been required to give, any explanation to show how stabbing through the breast with a lance Harbour Master Keily, who admittedly was not one of the mob, and was standing near the door of his dwelling at a considerable distance from the scene of alleged stone-throwing, was,

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in the language of the Report, "unavoidable?"
GENERAL PEEL: Sir, in my answer to the Question put to me on Thursday, I read a verbatim copy of the official report of the officers commanding the 12th Lancers at the affair in question, which concluded by saying that "the men carried out the orders of the magistrates, communicated to them through him." With regard to the latter part of the Question of the hon. and learned Gentleman, the officer in command has reported that he was on the other side of the bridge at the time in question. Any question arising out of the finding of the jury would be a matter for civil inquiry, and if the hon. and learned Member puts any question respecting it to the Law Officers for Ireland they will be able to give him an answer.
MR. SERJEANT BARRYsaid, he would call the attention of the House to the subject on another occasion.

RIOT AT WOLVERHAMPTON.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, that he begged to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department a Question of the greatest importance, of which he had not had the opportunity of giving him any notice, as to "Whether any communication has been received from the authorities of Wolverhampton in reference to certain Roman Catholic riots that have taken place there, and whether he has received any explanation from the stipendiary magistrate of the town on what grounds he had refused protection to a gentleman there—Dr. Armstrong—a gentleman of high position, who appealed to the Magistrates publicly for protection against the rioters, and was publicly refused it? In justification of this assertion he (Mr. Whalley) held in his hand a letter from the district, saying that in consequence this gentleman had received several threatening letters from persons who signed themselves Fenians, and he had written to him (Mr. Whalley) in a state of genuine alarm that these threats would be carried into effect. He attributed it to the fact of his having been publicly denied protection by the Stipendiary Magistrate.
  MR. WALPOLE: Sir, I have only to inform the hon. Member that I received no communication from the stipendiary magistrate with reference to the riots or to the particular matter involved in the
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  Question of the hon. Member. If he had been good enough to give notice of those Questions before coming down to the House, I could have made inquiries at the office if any communications had been received up to the moment of my leaving.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he had only received the information since he entered the House.

PRINCESS OF WALES—REPLY OF HER MAJESTY.
The Comptroller of the Household reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:—
"Your loyal and dutiful Address on the Birth of the Princess, My Granddaughter, has afforded me much satisfaction; and I thank you for the renewed assurance of your attachment to my Person and Family."

ARMY (INDIA AND THE COLONIES).

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MAJOR ANSONsaid, that after the military events of last year no apology seemed to be required for bringing under the notice of the House the duties performed by the British army in India and the colonies. The Indian and colonial duties of the British army were very different from the duties performed by the armies of other nations, and were the main reason why it was more expensive and less fit for the purposes of war than the army of any other country. Our Empire was composed of a larger number of different races—many of whom were of a warlike character—than any other Empire in the world. We were also more scattered than any other nation. It was often said on the discussion of these questions that the British army was an army of defence, and not of aggression. He did not object to the term "army of defence," but only to the spirit in which it was used. The army had many duties to perform other than the defence of this country. In the first place, the defence of Canada and the North American colonies must mainly depend upon the British army, although, no doubt, they would receive a loyal and gallant assistance from the militia and population of Canada in the defence of a frontier of 1,000 miles in extent. The maintenance of our maritime supremacy

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  must also depend upon our garrisoning with a sufficient force such places as Malta, Gibraltar, Halifax, Bermuda, the Mauritius, and other places which it was necessary to garrison for the refuge and provisioning of our fleets. The British army was also necessary for the defence of commercial communities, such as China, the Straits settlements, the West Indies, and colonies like New Zealand, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, &c. In those places, in case of a war with a great maritime Power, so far from—as was the general impression—our being able to bring reinforcements from those colonies to the mother country, we should, on the contrary, be obliged to send reinforcements from the mother country to those colonies and military dependencies. That would entail an enormous amount of duty on our army in time of war. In the late Russian war it was very different, because we were able to shut up the fleets of that country in their own harbours; but in the event of any future war with a great maritime Power we should find circumstances greatly changed. He now came to the case of India. The duties to be discharged there by the British army were even more onerous than in the case of the colonies, and the importance of them could hardly be exaggerated. Years ago, when we were consolidating our power in that country, a large Native army was absolutely necessary. We had little or no fear of mutiny or disaffection in its ranks—in the first place, because we kept it actively employed, and next, because we kept alive the feelings of hatred and animosity among the different races and castes. But when the Punjab had been annexed, and a period of peace came, the Native army sank into a state of idleness. The English army had been greatly reduced; the Native army had gradually begun to feel its power, and the Government of India felt its power also. The consequence was that the bonds of discipline gradually relaxed in the Native army, which finding itself in possession of all the great fortified places and artillery of the country, felt that it only had to stretch out its hand and snatch the power from us. During the Crimean war rumours of disaster to our arms began to be spread about in India, and the result was that the lethargy which overtook the administration there after the consolidation of our power was rudely broken upon by the great Mutiny of 1857. A great many persons had tried to explain the
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  causes of that mutiny, which he thought was, perhaps, the most natural occurrence that had ever taken place in the history of the world. They had been told by various authorities that the real cause of the mutiny was the injustice of our rule in India, our denial to the Native Princes of the right of adoption, our interference with their religious feelings and customs, the land question, and, last but not least, our policy of annexation. If these authorities were right in their conjectures, the Native army would have been backed up by a popular rising or by the Native Princes. But, on the contrary, with the exception of a very few small districts and a few robber chiefs, there was no popular rising of any kind. Others, again, had attributed the mutiny to the issue of greased cartridges to the troops, which so insulted their feelings that they thought it necessary to rise, because they feared they were to be forcibly converted to Christianity. If that had been the real cause, the population would have broken out into rebellion, too; because, if the army were convinced that it was intended to convert them by force to Christianity, they certainly would have had the support of the people. The Returns he held in his hand were quite sufficient alone, without going into anything else, to account for the mutiny of the Bengal Army. It appeared from the Adjutant General's Returns for 1857 of the numerical proportions and local distribution of the Native army and the British troops respectively in Bengal and the North Western Provinces of India in that year, that an enormous disparity then existed between the strength of the two forces. In the seven divisions, from Calcutta to Peshawur, we had 195,000 Native troops and 17,000 British troops. In the Lahore, Scinde, and Peshawur division, there were 12,000 British troops to 70,000 of the Natives. In the Meerut, Cawnpore, Presidency, and Dinapore division, there were 5,000 British troops to upwards of 90,000 of the Natives; and in the Cawnpore division there were 35,000 Native troops to only 1,500 British soldiers. Those figures were quite enough to explain the cause of the mutiny. His object in reverting to the time of that outbreak was to impress on the House the real danger they had to fear in India. Until this country had accomplished its mission in India, until we had educated and civilized its inhabitants—which it was our duty to do without reference to the consequences

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  to us—until we had taught them to govern themselves, there was no fear of any danger to our Empire from anything except the Native army which we had raised, trained, armed, and disciplined ourselves. No doubt things had greatly changed 'since 1857. At present we had a very much smaller Native army in India than we had then, and on the other hand a much larger force of Europeans. At this moment there was not the slightest danger of a rising in the Native army there. But we ought to look at the position we must hold in that country in case of war, and of any great strain being put upon our military power at home. At present we had to maintain an army of 65,000 men in India in order to keep that country quiet, and overawe, as it were, the small force of Native troops which we had now. But in time of war we should be obliged to draw largely from that force of Europeans. In the present day, when communication between Europe and India had become so rapid, and in India itself was being so quickly developed, India would vibrato much more to the occurrences in Europe than she had hitherto done; and those who possessed in that country the power to disturb us there would be more likely to take advantage of their opportunity than they over were before. The duties the British army was liable to perform in time of war were not small. Moreover, the enormous amount of foreign duty it had to perform at all times was a serious drawback to it during peace. There was a curious circumstance to begin with connected with the British army, and that was that the influence of age upon the mortality of the soldier increased from the time he entered it, while in most other armies it decreased up to some ten or twelve years' service. The last Army Sanitary Report furnished an illustration of this. He need hardly point out to the House that the great amount of tropical service performed in India, China, the Mauritius, and other places, must have a very serious effect on the physical condition of our soldiers in case they had to undertake a hard campaign in Europe. It was utterly impossible to expect these men to compete in marching with foreign troops who spent their lives in their own climates. That was a very important matter when they thought of the enormous amount of foreign work which our soldiers had to undergo. But it had also a very serious effect upon recruiting for the army; for it
  1036
  was absurd to say that our soldiers liked the idea of being banished to an unhealthy climate, where the chances were almost ten to one in favour of their being either ruined in constitution or dying. It likewise had a very bad effect in preventing a better class of men from entering the army—a most important consideration in the present day, when they were applying science to the art of war at the rapid rate they were now doing. Another point, though he did not like to say much about it, was this—that a great number of officers were sent, during the best years of their life, to out-of-the-way places, where they had nothing whatever to interest them. They were not so likely to get a large proportion of good officers, if they were to be so long banished, as they were now, from the centres of civilization. In the first place, therefore, it must be felt that it was desirable to do something to diminish the immense amount of foreign service undergone by our army in time of peace, and, in the next place, to diminish the duties it would have to perform in time of war, so as to be enabled to reduce with some safety, and utilize elsewhere, the enormous European force now locked up in India. The way to do that would be by utilizing the Native army in India, and by putting it for foreign service upon the rota with the English army for colonies and places where the climate and the duties to be performed were suitable to the constitutions and mode of life of such Native troops. He would refer to those colonies in which Native troops might with advantage be employed. He would first touch upon China, because we were able, from having employed Native troops, to form an opinion as to the advisability of using them generally. During the fourteen years from 1850 to 1864 the loss in China was, of European troops, 1,300 dead, 2,500 invalided, out of an annual average force of 1,300 men. The whole force had been sacrificed three times over in fourteen years. This was a scandalous waste of our soldiers for no purpose whatever. In the three years preceding 1864 Native troops from India had been employed in the most beneficial way. The mortality in China of white troops was 57 per 1,000, whilst that of black troops was only 23. The proportion of white troops invalided was 57, whilst that of the black troops was only 27. The proportion of white troops constantly sick was 74, whilst that

  1037
  of the black troops was only 49. The influence of age on the mortality ran up, in the case of Europeans, in twenty years, from 40 to 118; whilst in the case of the black troops it decreased from 31 to 28. These statistics clearly established the inference that black were, so far as health was concerned, more useful than European troops in China. When the black troops were withdrawn an epidemic set in among the Europeans, because they had to perform duties which were previously performed by the former; that course having been taken without the opinion of a single officer who had served in China having been asked as to the propriety of the stop. The result was that the white troops had been so reduced by the epidemic as to have been rendered perfectly useless. There were, however, two objections made to the non-employment of European and the employment of black troops in China. The persons whose wishes seemed for the most part to be consulted on the matter were the Chinese merchants, and they seemed to be of opinion that they would not be safe if left to the protection simply of Native soldiers. His answer was that there was hardly a Chinese merchant at Hong Kong who had not, in all probability, two-thirds of his capital at Shanghai, where there were no European soldiers at all, and not even an English fleet. The same might be said of Singapore, where the population was infinitely worse than that of Hong Kong. But if it is absolutely indispensable to employ some Europeans there, their numbers might be so small as to enable the authorities to take such care of them as to obviate the effects of the climate. In case of a foreign attack on our Chinese settlements, their defences must entirely depend on naval defence. It was true that the Government had raised local corps for service in China and Singapore; but in case of war in China, Japan, or the Malayan peninsular, we should have to fall back on the Indian army as we did in 1860, and your forces ought to be always adapted, in time of peace, to the duties they would be called on to perform in time of war. Passing from China to New Zealand, where wre still kept up a regiment of European troops—the only object being that they should help the colonists in their bush-fighting—he maintained that such work would be done quite as efficiently by a regiment of Native troops from India, As to Australia he should never dream of
  1038
  sending black troops among an Anglo-Saxon population; but he did not see why we should keep there and at New Zealand 4,000 soldiers, at an expense of £127,600, when there was no reason why we should spend a single sixpence for the purpose. Taking, in the next place, the Mauritius, the House would find, from the evidence which had been taken before the Select Committee on the Military Expenditure for the Colonies, which sat in 1861, that Sir John Burgoyne stated, in answer to the question how many men it would take to defend the fortifications erected there at a cost of £200,000, that 6,000 men at least would be required. Was it likely that we should at any time send out such a force from this country to garrison the Mauritius? The money spent on these fortifications had been literally thrown into the sea. The only way in which they could be garrisoned would be by the employment of Native troops from India, who might defend the fortifications in the event of any sudden and temporary attack. Again, at the Cape we still kept a largo force for the purpose of protecting the frontier; but that duty also, could be performed most efficiently by Native Indian troops. Other reasons were assigned for having a large force at the Cape, one being that we by that means provided a sort of army of reserve for India; but we ought never so to reduce the European force in that country, or the Native troops so increase, as to make it a matter of vital importance for us to be able to secure the service of two regiments from the Cape. It should be borne in mind that we were every day getting practically nearer to India than the Cape itself, and that it would be easier to despatch troops from home in the event of their being required than from the Cape. The idea, however, prevailed that it was desirable to keep up in the colony a force of European troops, so that we might be able to draw upon it in the event of pressure here in time of war; but it would be just as well, considering what a future maritime war would be, to maintain a large station in the Arctic regions with that object as at the Cape of Good Hope, as it would be doubtful whether any large body of troops from there would ever be allowed to reach this country. He came next to the West Indies, where we spent something like £300,000 in providing a mere police. We had there a large black force, and a large European force to guard them, and it was

  1039
  desirable that some alteration in that state of things should be introduced, for it was a system useless in time of war, and therefore expensive in time of peace. He did not see why troops should not be brought from India. As to Malta and Gibraltar, it would be well that we should be in a position to reinforce those great garrisons from our Eastern Empire as well as from the West. The duties which were there to be discharged were admirably adapted to Native troops, who could fight well behind stone walls. The state of those great fortresses showing what power this country had for keeping the highway between England and India, would have a very considerable effect on the impressionable mind of the Native army in India. In the last campaign in China, in 1860, our gallant allies, the French, not having the enormous resources of a country like India to turn to, were not to be compared in efficiency to the British troops. A very favourable effect as to the power of England was thus produced on the minds of the Indian troops. Having pointed out the way in which the duties of the British army might be lessened, the military power of this country consolidated and strengthened in time of war, and this country relieved from serious anxiety in respect to India, he would now proceed to consider the various objections which might be urged to the plan. It might be said that it would lead to an increase of the number of British troops at home; but he thought that the saving effected by the employment of Native troops as he suggested would enable the country to increase to a certain extent the number of troops at home. One great object should be to keep our troops at home for half their time, and this could only be done by curtailing the duties they were now called upon to perform. It might be said that it would not be safe to employ the Indian troops in the colonies; for if there were fears of their mutinying in India it might also be dreaded that they would mutiny in the colonies. There was a great difference, however, in the circumstances of the two cases. In India the Native troops lived in the midst of a sympathizing population, and had an opportunity to mutiny; but if sent from their own country to isolated stations there would be no chance of mutiny, for they would know that the only means by which they could hope to return again to India would be by the employment of British
  1040
  ships for the purpose. It might be objected, perhaps, by the colonies that it was not desirable for them to have Indian troops; but the fact was that those troops were better behaved than European troops. They seldom, or never, gave way to drunkenness, and, consequently, instances of crime were comparatively few among them. It might be objected that his proposition amounted to a proposal for the employment of mercenaries. At the time of the Crimean War, when this country was hardly pressed for troops, search was made in the back slums of Europe in order to make up that wretched force called the Foreign Legion. It would have been much better to have had recourse to those races which were subject to the rule of England than to have gone a begging for soldiers in the cities of Europe. There were other objections to the plan he proposed, connected with the difficulty of recruiting in India for this purpose, and the amount of pay and pensions to be granted; but these were matters which might be left for the consideration of the Select Committee. He believed that the plan he had sketched would, if adopted, lead to a very great saving in the military expenditure for colonial purposes, and be the cause of an enormous increase of strength to the country in time of war. He likewise thought that it would tend to remove a great source of anxiety in India, and give this country far greater power and control over the Native Indian army. In 1856 and 1857, before the great Mutiny broke out, there were certain regiments which showed symptoms of disaffection. The authorities, not having the courage to punish them severely, caused them to be paraded and addressed on the enormity of their offence. Then they were disbanded, the discharged soldiers being allowed to return to their own districts, there to sow the seeds of discontent. Should it be argued that if Indian troops were wanted in case of war in Egypt or elsewhere we could always obtain them, his answer would be that no system would be efficient in time of war that was not carefully organized in time of peace, and that in matters of this sort we ought not to trust to the chapter of accidents. Under his plan, in case disaffection appeared in any regiment, the disaffected troops might be marched down to Calcutta and embarked for duty in some other region. Should it be objected that it would not be advisable to withdraw Native Indian troops to the colonies, as

  1041
  their services might be required in other parts—in Egypt, for instance, he replied that it was impossible to have any efficient system unless it was previously organized in time of peace. In the case of a European war our colonies must mainly depend on naval defences, and the nature of the troops employed would be a matter of very little importance. He deeply felt the importance of the subject, and his object was to draw attention to our military system in the colonies and in India, which contained the greatest seeds of danger to ourselves and those who were dependent upon us.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the duties performed by the British Army in India and the Colonies; and also to inquire how far it might be desirable to employ certain portions of Her Majesty's Native Indian Army in our Colonial and Military Dependencies."—(Major Anson.)
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, he had an Amendment to propose, which would not clash with the proposition of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but rather enlarge the scope of the inquiry. He proposed to add to the Motion the following words: "or, to organize a force of Asiatic troops for general service in suitable climates." Three objections had been urged to the employment of Native troops. First, that the distinction of caste and religion prevented their employment out of their own country. Secondly, an interference with the Indian army, as to pay, and rate of service. Thirdly, that it would be interfering with the control of Parliament, over the whole force employed. If we wished to employ Indian troops in our other colonies, we might either take the whole Indian army, as it existed, and put it upon the general Establishment, or we might take a branch of that army, and deal with it in that way, or we might organize another special Asiatic force. The words he proposed to add to the Motion would only extend the scope of the inquiry. It was surprising that the subject had never been brought forward before, for he did not believe there had ever been another instance where a country had spread forth its Empire, from one small centre, over a great part of the world, and held its foreign possessions by troops recruited from the home soil only. France, with its comparatively small African territory, had organized African troops. When
  1042
  Spain conquered so large a portion of Europe, did she hold these possessions by Spanish troops only? No. She had her Walloon Guards and troops of every country subject to her arms. And when Rome had Empire over the entire circuit of the known globe, did she ever think of recruiting her legions from the Roman soil alone? No, she took advantage of the military capacity of every people to supply what the limited soil of Italy could not afford. There was a difficulty, and it increased, in recruiting for the small army which we maintain. The drain upon our population for European troops was enormous. In May last we had 203,568 European soldiers under arms; 80,999 of them being in Great Britain, distributed in this manner:—There were 6,195 men in our household troops, 58,000 in complete regiments and battalions, and 22,800 in depots and detachments. He might here urge that we had had an unnecessary number of depots, and that a true economy might be found in diminishing the number of our European troops abroad and the number of our depots at home. In India we had 51 battalions of European infantry, and 11 regiments of cavalry, containing 63,600 men; in our two great garrisons in the Mediterranean we had 11,300 troops; at the Cape and St. Helena, 4,300; in New Zealand and Australia, 5,700; in China and Japan, 2,275; in Ceylon (exclusive of local corps), 980; in the Mauritius, 1,800; in Canada, Nova Scotia, and our North American provinces, 12,300; in the West Indies, 3,000; and on passage, 5,000. In addition to these, having found our home troops insufficient for the colonial service, we had, on emergency, and to stop a gap in time of danger, here and there, organized local corps, and of these there were in the West India regiments, 3,000 men; in the Ceylon Rifles, 1,200 men; of Canadian rifles, 1,200 men; and of Cape rifles, 500 men. He doubted whether it was conceivable to imagine a worse system of supplying troops for colonial service than that of raising local corps in the manner now adopted. It was admitted that our army possessed great advantages in the variety of service it saw, and its chance of active service in every part of the globe. On the other hand, a colonial corps remained in one place, it could never meet any enemy but a local one, and the officers, deprived of the prospect of a distinguished career, must settle down to perpetual expatriation from their country, and the command of

  1043
  a corps, in which they could never rise, beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel. It was almost impossible that such a corps could attain distinction in military service; and yet such a corps was to be organized for China, and officered by officers on the half-pay list. Could men, who had the prospect of spending their lives in China, be expected to enter, heart and soul, into their military duties? It was impossible that a corps, thus irremovable, should attain to a state of satisfactory efficiency. "We had, on all stations, home and foreign, of European troops, altogether 197,000 men to deal with. Of these, we had at home 40 battalions, leaving out depôts; and, in India and the colonies, or on passage, 100 battalions; the practical result being that we condemned our troops to ten years abroad, in unhealthful climates, for five at home; and even these terms, with them, we did not keep. The House might conceive what a check it was to recruiting, to have such prolonged service in such climates. He suggested that a force of Asiatic troops should be raised for employment in our colonies—for instance, three out of eleven battalions of troops employed at our Mediterranean stations might be composed of Asiatic soldiers, and probably eight more battalions might be substituted for a similar number of battalions of Europeans in our Asiatic colonies. We had a number of colonies stretching together in one long line on the map, from the Cape to the top of Japan. Next the Cape was the Mauritius; then our possessions (at present nearly ungarrisoned) in the Red Sea; then (leaving out our Indian possessions) Ceylon, Singapore, Borneo, Australia, and New Zealand, China and Japan. We might economize our troops to the greatest possible extent, and meet the difficulty of recruiting by rendering service less distant and onerous. There were two immense elements of management, of increasing force every day, which we might very well employ for such a purpose—the telegraph and our improved means of steam transport. If hon. Gentlemen would look to the Report of the Committee of last year on Indian Communications, they would see that the submarine telegraph would soon extend throughout the whole line of our possessions in the East to which he had referred, and practically all those possessions would become one vast military position. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, in his evidence before the Commission on Re-
  1044
  cruiting, said that he was most favourable to the employment of Asiatic troops, but that there must always be a backbone of European troops to support this system. But where was this backbone to be placed? Singapore was a good central point for the whole China seas; it was a healthful place besides, and any number of troops desirable might be retained there. Was it not plain that the way to use our troops with most economy and efficiency was to reserve the European portion for the backbone of our strength, to keep them in healthful places, and to supplement them by Asiatic troops in the more distant stations, the telegraph and steam transport giving efficiency to the system? Take, therefore, Singapore as a central point, particularly healthy for Europeans, where we had at present only some two companies of Europeans, with six of the Ceylon Rifles. Measuring distances by the days occupied in steaming, the distance from Shanghai was only about twelve and a half days; Japan, thirteen; and Ceylon, ten. By means of the telegraph and the now Indian transports, in course of construction, troops could be moved as far oven as Japan certainly in less time than a month. On the other side, the distance from Point de Galle to Suez was sixteen days, and on to the Cape twenty-six days. Make this line the backbone of colonial defence supplied with Asiatic troops, and we should likewise be strengthened by keeping in practice our main defence—the navy, which suffered from the want of movement, and of employment on different stations. Was it not time to look at this question in a large and comprehensive spirit, and to organize our forces on a system which might be applied to the general advantage of the Empire? When the war in China first broke out troops were borrowed from the Indian establishment. That was felt to be wrong, and successive Secretaries for War appeared to think it unconstitutional. He believed the first to say so was the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and so it went on until the beginning of last year, when one Secretary for War took courage and sent Europeans to China, and the fatal result was seen in the destruction of two battalions of European troops. What successive Secretaries of State were to be blamed for, was endeavouring to tide over the difficulty and to live from hand to mouth, thinking, perhaps, that the system would go on without breaking down as long as they should

  1045
  remain in office. He was not in favour of removing the responsibility from the Advisors of the Crown as to the proper way of dealing with the question.
  Amendment proposed, at the end of the Question, to add the words, "or to organize a force of Asiatic Troops for general service in suitable climates."—(Mr. O'Reilly.)
  MAJOR DICKSONsaid, he thought the House was much indebted to the hon. and gallant Member (Major Anson) for bringing forward the question; for the opinion of an officer who had seen so much service, and was so well acquainted with the manners and customs of the Natives of India, was entitled to great weight. Considering our voluntary system of enlistment, the increasing demand for labour, and the advancing rate of wages, it was high time to inquire whether the population of this country were able to boar the annual drain which was required for the defence of India and our colonies. England owned her position as a first-class Power mainly to her dominion in the East, her vast dependencies, and her increasing commerce; and if in any extremity we were unable to defend our possessions and protect our commerce, she would necessarily sink to the rank of a second or even third-rate Power. It was sometimes argued that our ancestors having been able to dispense with extraneous aid in upholding our national honour, we ought to do the same. But from the time of Lord Clive to the Mutiny of 1857 we had held India by the employment of Native troops. In 1857 we had in India no less than 235,000 Native soldiers, the European forces numbering only 22,000 Queen's troops, and 14,000 Company's troops. At the close of the Crimean war also we were obliged to raise a foreign legion, though he believed that had that legion been brought into active service its exploits would not have justified the outlay which had been expended upon it. Even if our ancestors found themselves able to protect the national honour without recourse to foreign troops, it must be remembered that the value of labour had very much increased, that emigration was on an extensive scale, and that armies were of much greater size and magnitude than formerly. The experience of 1857 showed how essential it was to the very existence of our Indian Empire to employ almost entirely a European force in that country. He believed
  1046
  we had now 65,000 European troops there, and, in his opinion, not one of these could be spared. Last Session, in recommending the employment of the Sikhs, he expressed an opinion that the annual casualties in our Anglo-Indian army amounted, in time of peace, to 10 per cent. He had been since furnished with Returns by the Adjutant General which showed that in 1865, out of a force of 66,039 men, 1,667 died, 568 were discharged, 5,166 were invalided, or their time had expired, and they declined to re-enlist; making a total of 7,401, or rather more than 11 per cent. He was informed at the Horse Guards that 1865 was an average year, so that it was necessary to send to India about 7,000 men annually to reinforce our army there. If we succeeded in making the army more popular, by an increase of pay or by improving the position of the soldier, we should doubtless be able to meet that claim. The question, however, naturally suggested itself whether we could maintain such an Indian army in the event of our becoming involved in a great European war; and it appeared to him that our experience in the Crimean war proved that that question must be answered in the negative. During that war we had only 22,000 soldiers of the Royal army in India, and yet we found it necessary to withdraw some of those men for service in the Crimea. But he feared that if such an operation were effected on any large scale it would be regarded in that country as a sign of weakness on our parts, and might become the signal for a new revolt. If that were so, it became the duty of the Government and of that House to see how far we might be able to meet any exigency that might arise; and upon that point there were two things, he thought, which they ought most carefully to consider. The first of these was the organization of our militia, with a view to render that force an efficient auxiliary to the army. Now the militia might, no doubt, be re-organized so as to constitute a well-defined army of reserve; and this, he felt sure, had already received the attention of the Government. Next came the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member to utilize the warlike tribes of India, which up to 1857 formed a large and valuable auxiliary to our army. He believed that Sikh regiments, properly armed, and commanded by officers thoroughly acquainted with the language and customs of their men, would be second to no troops

  1047
  in the world, and that they might be very advantageously employed in China, New Zealand, Australia, the Mauritius, and the Cape. It had been objected that their peculiar ideas of marriage and other social institutions might lead to evil results, and this objection would be of some weight if it were intended to bring Sikh regiments to this country. He never expected, however, to see a regiment of Sikhs mounting guard at St. James', or a regiment of Beloochees defending Chester Castle, though he thought that if a number of the non-commissioned officers were brought over to study at the School of Musketry at Hythe, they would carry back such accounts of the grandeur and magnitude of England as would have a very beneficial effect on their regiments. This course had been adopted with regard to West India regiments, and he had never heard of any bad results from it. He would briefly enumerate some of the advantages which would accrue from the employment of Native troops for general service. It would enable us to relieve our home regiments in some of the most unhealthful stations in the world, where British regiments were too often decimated by the climate. It would also give English troops a longer period of home service. Previous to the Crimean war our regiments had six or seven years of home service. That would go a long way towards solving the difficulty of obtaining recruits for the army. If, unfortunately, the Natives of India should again be found in arms against the Sovereign, a larger number of European troops would be available to send to that country. If, on the other hand, a European war should break out, we should have an army of reserve that might be increased to any extent, and composed of soldiers second to none in the world. There might be many difficulties in the way, and they could only be surmounted by carefully investigating the subject. He should be very glad if the hon. and gallant Gentleman could obtain the Committee. He felt that if the Government would at once take some steps in this direction to place the defences of the country in a good position, and to adopt the best precautions to avert disaster, we should, at a moment of danger, difficulty, and extremity, meet that danger without fear and with success, and above all, the British army would be found in a position to maintain the ancient honour and glory of the country.
  SIR HENRY RAWLINSONsaid, he wished to offer a few practical remarks on the subject before the House. During the Affghan war, he had abundant opportunities of witnessing the conduct and capabilities of the Native troops when out of their own country. The result was to show that the Natives of India, under the privations of a severe climate, became almost disorganized. He did not wish to derogate in any way from their military qualities; but if they were employed in many of the countries that had been mentioned, he felt convinced they would disappoint the expectations that had been formed of them. In some of our colonies, where the climate was similar to that of India—such as the Mauritius and China—they might prove very valuable troops as auxiliaries. But he should be sorry to garrison New Zealand, for instance, with Native troops from India; because he believed that the Maories were hardly inferior to Europeans as fighting men, and it would not be fair to rest the defence of the colony exclusively upon Native Indian troops. He did not believe cither that the Natives of India would stand the climate of the Cape or Australia. It was also to be remembered that the Natives of India had a great objection to leaving their own country. They were understood to be enlisted for local service, and it was impossible to send them out of India except as volunteers. No doubt their military spirit had induced them to volunteer to serve in the war in China; but he doubted whether they would be so ready to serve as garrison troops in foreign stations. It might be possible to alter the terms of enlistment so as to make them available for service abroad, but this could not be carried to a very great extent among the ordinary material of the Indian army, however it might succeed among the Sikhs. There were, however, certain evils and dangers in the constitution of a large Sikh army that should not be overlooked. The Indian Mutiny had been attributed to a want of discipline inherent in Native forces; but he could not agree with those who asserted that the system of ruling India by a Native army had thus been tried, and had broken down. It was the injudicious and vicious organization of that army that had broken down. The proof was that in hardly any case did a regiment revolt which was judiciously organized. The mutiny was, in a great degree, the result of a mistaken

  1049
  feeling of military pride in the Bengal officers, who wished to have their regiments composed exclusively of fine tall high-caste men. The Bengal army was very much composed of fine high-caste men, the Natives of Oude and the North Western Provinces, and thus a spirit of independence was generated which defied control. In those Bombay and Madras regiments which were composed of different classes, hardly a single instance of military revolt had occurred. He believed that if the Bengal army had been similarly organized, they would never have had an Indian mutiny; and he still looked forward to the time when the amalgamation and equipoise of various races in the Indian army would render it perfectly amenable to the control of European officers, and when we should, in a great measure, be relieved from that drain on our English military resources which our tenure of India at present imposed upon us. But he should deprecate the creation of a very large Sikh army for the same reasons which led him to deprecate the restoration of the Bengal army on its former footing. The agglomeration of members of the same race and creed in an Eastern army was apt to engender among them a feeling of independence and insubordination; and it thus became to the ruling power an inevitable element of danger. It must also be borne in mind that if Native regiments were taken away from India to garrison our colonies, the place of these Native troops must be supplied by others. The Native army of India was no larger at present than was necessary. Any loss must, therefore, be compensated by fresh levies, and no diminution could be made in the corresponding number of European troops. They might, however, look forward, perhaps, to the time when, under a more judicious organization of the Native army, and by the increased facility of transport, owing to the numerous railways that would intersect India in all directions, it might be possible very much to diminish the great drain upon our resources arising from I having to maintain nearly 70,000 Europeans as a permanent garrison in that country.
  GENERAL PEEL: Sir, I do not rise for the purpose of opposing the appointment of the Committee for which my hon. and gallant Friend moved in a speech of very great ability, and marked by a degree of professional knowledge which must, of
  1050
  course, give great weight to his opinion. If this were a mere military question, I should very much doubt the propriety of referring it to a Select Committee of the House of Commons. I agree with those who think that a Committee of this House is not the best tribunal for arriving at a sound conclusion upon purely military subjects. But there are sanitary questions and also questions of expense connected with this subject, which make it perfectly right that the House, if it thinks proper, should appoint a Committee to inquire into it. It will be very easy for a Committee to ascertain what are the present duties—the matter included in the first part of his Motion—of the British army. But when they come to decide upon which, and what proportion, of those duties can be done by other troops, I think they will find that they have a much more difficult task before them. I beg to warn my hon. and gallant Friend that he must not confine himself merely to military witnesses. I venture to say that he might obtain any number of military witnesses, who would give very different opinions as to the propriety of employing Native troops instead of British. I think what we have heard from the hon. Member who has just sat down was very different from what we heard from those who preceded him. My hon. and gallant Friend must be perfectly aware that no Report of a Committee of the House of Commons would relieve either the Governor General or the Government of India from the responsibility of calling upon the House to supply the number of British troops which they thought necessary for the safety of that country. The best security we can have that they will not call for more British troops than they deem absolutely indispensable is the circumstance of the great drain it occasions upon the finances of India. At the present moment the force of British troops in that country is reduced below what many of the highest authorities—Lord Clyde, Lord Strathnairn, Sir William Napier, Sir Hope Grant, and others—have thought necessary. My hon. and gallant Friend must recollect, when he goes into the Committee on this question, that the wishes and views of the Governors and the inhabitants of the various colonies to which he proposes to send Indian instead of British troops, must be consulted. "We are now throwing on the colonies, as far as we can, the expense of maintaining the troops they have; and if

  1051
  they are to pay they will hardly be satisfied if you merely send them a Native regiment. I could read to you reports from several Colonial Governors in which they positively refuse to have only Native troops. Within the last few months it was proposed to move the British troops stationed at Demerara on account of the sickness there, and the colonial authorities and the colonists declared that if you took away the British troops they would rather you would withdraw the black troops also. I do not gather, either from my hon, and gallant Friend who brought forward this Motion, or from the hon. Gentleman who spoke with so much ability in seconding it, whether they propose that these Native troops should be in addition to or in substitution of European and British troops—whether they propose to raise the force of Native and reduce a certain number of British regiments, or whether they are to be an addition to our establishment. The adoption of the one plan rather than the other would make a most material differ-once as to the expense to be entailed on the country. The hon. Member who spoke last told us that out of all the colonies we have there are only two, Mauritius and China, for which Native Indian troops would be suitable. With regard to my experience as to the case of four companies of a Ceylon regiment sent to China, I may say that the sickness among the Native troops there at the present moment is quite as great, if not greater, than among the European troops. The subject is one which may fairly be inquired into by the Committee; but I should much object to Indian troops doing duty in place of British at Gibraltar, Malta, New Zealand, Australia, or similar healthful colonies. If you take the whole of the forty-two English regiments now in the colonies, the number for which you could properly substitute Native and Indian troops, are nine regiments only. The plan, therefore, of my hon. and gallant Friend (Major Anson) would have very little effect in reducing the requirements made upon the British army generally. There is the greatest possible advantage in having British troops in our colonies. Those colonies are so echeloned, so placed towards one another, that by having British troops the greatest confidence is given to them. I will not say that India, during the mutiny was absolutely saved by the British troops that were sent thither from the Cape, from China, and Ceylon; but with-
  1052
  out any communication with this country those troops were at once despatched from the colonies to India; and if they had been garrisoned by Indian troops, what might have been the state of things then? We are, as I before said, throwing on the colonies the expense of their garrisons; but if you, for your own Imperial purposes, were to send them Indian, in lieu of British troops, the colonists would naturally object to pay. At this moment we have taken away one regiment from the Cape, and given notice to the authorities there that gradually they must expect that England will only supply them with one regiment, and that everything they require beyond that must be paid for by the colony. They would naturally object to being supplied with Native troops. Again, we are now taking troops over for the first time to the Straits Settlements, and they are to pay £60,000 towards the expenses of our troops in that region, but then it is a condition that they should have the wing of a European regiment. So, again, with Ceylon, Australia, and New Zealand, which pay so much per head for the British troops they have. If you were going to have a large standing army in this country I could imagine that it might be very useful indeed to have such a system as that suggested by my hon. and gallant Friend; but of this I am perfectly certain, that this country will never agree to have a very large standing army of British troops, except in time of war. I believe that as we throw these expenses on the colonies they will naturally seek to reduce, as much as they can, the number of regiments they require. I will not anticipate what I have to say to the House with regard to the formation of an army of reserve, or as to the mode by which it is proposed that we should keep up the recruiting of the army. But I have no hesitation in saying that, with our large and increasing population, we ought to have no difficulty in getting the number of men necessary to maintain the army at the point which is required. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion referred to the regiment which we are about to raise for service in Hong Kong. We are doing exactly in that case what he wishes; that is to say, we are about to supplement with Native troops where the climate is unhealthy for British troops. We have applied to the Secretary of State for India to advise upon to the best method of arranging as to this regiment. But I should

  1053
  myself prefer the proposal of the hon. Member who seconded the Motion, and I think if we are to have Native troops raised for general service that it would be much better that we should raise them for ourselves, perfectly independent of any engagement with the Indian Government. Supposing you greatly increase the number of Native troops as a supplement to the British army, the question arises as to how you are to officer these troops. It would be necessary that their officers should have a certain knowledge of their language, and should be able to command the respect of their men. The hon. Gentleman opposite said I objected on constitutional grounds to the employment of the Native troops during the Chinese war.
  MR. O'REILLY: I only said I understood the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to object to their continuance in China.
  GENERAL PEEL: My objection to their continuance there certainly was a constitutional one. That is one of the objections which I think would apply to the employment of a great number of Native troops. There were at one time no fewer than 12,000 to 16,000 Indian troops employed in China that were never voted by Parliament; and they might have been 20,000 or 30,000, as far as Parliament was concerned. To that I certainly object, for I contend that the number of Indian troops so employed should be set down in the Estimates. But I must again come back to the question whether the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman would lead to an addition to the British army, or whether he desires that it should be reduced, substituting Natives. That, I think, is the main point to be decided. So long as we can raise the troops ourselves—and we shall, I hope, have no difficulty in doing so—it is in my opinion better that we should adhere to the present system, because the Native regiments—and I have no wish to decry them—everybody will admit must be inferior to our own. "With regard to India, my noble Friend (Viscount Cranbourne) will be better able to speak as to what would be the effect of reducing the British army there. It is not my intention to oppose the appointment of a Committee; but unless the hon. and gallant Gentleman confines the inquiry to some particular and definite object, I do not see what good can result from their labours. He may very easily
  1054
  find out what the nature of the employment of British troops is abroad; but he will have great difficulty in ascertaining exactly the extent to which Native regiments can be employed as he suggests.
  CAPTAIN VIVIANsaid, he congratulated the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had brought forward the Motion on the success he had met with. No one need be surprised at the introduction of such a matter after the experience of the past. The House would remember that it was only in the last Session of Parliament that a Committee was appointed to inquire into the mortality which had taken place among our troops in China. That mortality had resulted in the decimation of almost two European regiments at Hong Kong and elsewhere, and the evidence taken before the Committee went to prove, beyond a doubt, that the European soldier was not fitted for the climate. The point was accordingly raised, as a matter of course, for consideration whether we could not substitute Native troops for the British soldiers in such countries. His hon. and gallant Friend had had great military experience in India, and he had turned his attention to the subject whether it would not prove advantageous to employ Asiatic troops in certain of our Eastern dependencies. The right hon. and gallant Member the Secretary of State for War (General Peel) said, that we had no more troops in India at the present moment than were absolutely required. He (Captain Vivian) did not mean to dispute that; but he wished to call the attention of the House to the fact that at this moment we had 30,000 more troops in India than we had during the Indian Mutiny. At the time of the outbreak there was a large Sepoy army drilled and organized by us which no longer existed. There was not now a single gun belonging to the army, and he did not believe that if the Sepoys were inclined to revolt to-morrow they would be able to collect a force of 10,000 men. What, then, was our large force in India required for? It was partly in order to enable us to keep under our control the Sikhs, who were the most warlike of all Asiatic troops. These Sikhs were soldiers that had fought against us and proved their valour on many a hard-fought field—men who were almost born soldiers, and who were admitted by all who knew anything of them to be about the most warlike nation in the world. On the other hand, no one disputed that when these Sikhs were taken

  1055
  away from their own country and their own traditions, and water put between them and their native land, they were as faithful and good troops as could be employed. He would, with the permission of the House, read an extract from a letter he had received from Sir Charles Wyndham—an officer of experience in India. In that communication Sir Charles said—
  "With regard to the Sikh nation, from my knowledge, I am certain you might rely upon their courage and fidelity when employed at a large distance from their own country."
  Now, the question which his hon. and gallant Friend proposed for the consideration of the Committee was simply to inquire whether we might not with advantage employ those troops, instead of Europeans, in certain military dependencies. The right hon. and gallant Member the Secretary of State for "War asked whether it was meant to substitute the Natives for European troops. The answer to that would be that if in certain colonies or dependencies we could with safety substitute Native for British troops it would be our duty to do so, even though it should be one regiment only. In this country we were paying more than any other nation in the world for our army. We were paying something like £14,000,000 a year, and yet we had less to show for the money than any other nation. It was therefore one of our first duties to reduce, when we could do so with safety, the number of our troops. If we were to have an European crisis to-morrow, what force could we bring into the field to defend ourselves at home in exchange for our £14,000,000 a year? The fact would not be disputed that we could only bring something like 50,000 into the field for European purposes, for we had in India, and on the high seas, something like 80,000. If therefore it could be proved that for the protection of India or our colonies we were able to substitute a force for the British which would equally serve the purpose, and by that means be enabled to reduce our own army, we should at once do so. The first duty of the Executive was to reduce our army as much as possible. He held that it was absurd to talk about a reserve force if we were not to reduce our standing army. The hon. Baronet the Member for Frome (Sir Henry Rawlinson) said, among other things, that his experience of the Affghan war proved the Native troops under severe trials became disorganized. That also was a question for the consideration of the
  1056
  Committee. He quite agreed with the hon. Baronet that if it was the nature of the Native trooops to become disorganized under severe trials they should only be employed in climates which agreed with them, and where there would be no danger of disorganization from such a cause. China was one of these, and therefore it was open for consideration whether they might not be employed there. The right hon. and gallant Member the Secretary of State for War said that the colonies, having to pay for the troops, would not be satisfied with Native troops, and as an illustration he instanced the case of Bermuda, where, when it was proposed to remove the English troops, the authorities asked that the blacks should also be removed. But it should be borne in mind that it was a very different thing to place negro troops over a negro population, and to send troops belonging to the Sikh nation to China. His hon. and gallant Friend had, in introducing the subject, so completely exhausted it, that he would not trouble the House with any further remarks.
  MR. LAINGsaid, that as this was a question which specially related to India, and as he must naturally take a warm interest in all that related to that country, perhaps the House would bear with him while he made a few observations on this question. He believed that the Native interests of India required the presence of a European force there. Without going into the question of the mutiny, he might state that he believed the European force in that country, in the opinion of all military men, ought not to be reduced much below 60,000 men. With the improved communications of the present day, and with a command of the railways and telegraphs, a smaller force might possibly suffice; but in so reducing the amount a certain danger would be incurred, and looking upon the question as one of insurance it would be unwise to go much below the limit he had stated. His fear was that, on an emergency, India would be denuded of her European troops to supply the colonies or the army at home. The question was not one of money, but of men; and the point for consideration was really how we could best economize men in other quarters of the globe, so as to render them available for service, either in India or at home, in case of need. He had been rather surprised at the argument of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Peel), who seemed to imply that the wishes of the

  1057
  colonists were to be final in this matter. The question was not one for a Governor nor yet for the people of a colony to decide; if they did not like to accept such troops as we could give them, why, let them protect themselves. European regiments might be more acceptable on account of the society which they introduced into a colony, but it would never do to leave it optional with the colonists to say, "You must keep one of your costly regiments here." He would confine himself to the case of India. Having been in India at the time the troops returned from service in China, and having had special facilities of communication with military men, he could declare that in India we possessed a reserve of naturally warlike populations, who might be drawn upon largely for reinforcements. Some of the Native regiments which had served in China distinguished themselves highly, and displayed qualities rendering them fully equal to any auxiliary forces which served with the great armies of Europe—to the Cossacks, for instance, in the Russian levies, and the Turcos and other Native African troops, enlisted pretty largely in the service of the French Empire. He agreed with what had been said as to the military qualities of the Sikhs. It would be a dangerous mistake, however, to look to the Sikhs alone for our levies—so martial a race might be tempted to take advantage of their position. They might be tempted to say to the Europeans, "We are almost as good as you are, and we are numerically stronger, and we shall therefore take advantage of the situation." This argument, however, would not apply to Sikh regiments scattered in garrisons over distant colonies. But besides the Sikhs, there were the Ghoorkas, the Belooches, and the Pathans, descendants of the Native Affghans, as white in colour as the men of Southern Europe, being derived from mountainous races. The high authority (Sir Henry Rawlinson) who had spoken that evening of Native troops in Affghanistan being disorganized by the severity of the climate, must have had in his mind the army of Bengal, the old Brahmin Sepoys of the plains of Oude, of whom the army was at that time composed, who, coming from a tropical climate, were ill-fitted for exposure to a severe climate. But during the Chinese campaigns some Native regiments from the mountainous races, who were exposed in their native hills to every degree of cold, remained behind at Tien-
  1058
  tsin, and were exposed during the winter to a degree of cold greater than any which troops would suffer in garrisoning any town in England. Making a proper selection of regiments, so far as such climates as China, up to Shanghae, or the Strait settlements, even the northern parts of Australia, or the settlements towards Torres Straits, or, nearer home, such as those of Malta or even Gibraltar were concerned, he was satisfied that there was nothing to prevent the employment in those places of such troops as might be raised in India. With regard to the indisposition of the Natives to serve across the sea, this might be true of the high class Sepoys of whom the Bengal army was formerly composed; but there was a considerable number of Natives who had no objection whatever to cross the sea, as was instanced in the case of the Madras army, regiments of which had been in the habit of crossing the sea to the Burmese coast and to Singapore. "With regard to the Sikhs who had served in China, they were delighted with what they had seen of the British troops during that campaign, and having had a good opportunity of contrasting the French and British armies, they were so strongly impressed with the superiority of the latter that they evinced the most ardent desire to go and serve under the British flag in any quarter of the world to which they might be sent. In fact, a native officer, the second in command of one of the Sikh regiments, had asked him (Mr. Laing) whether Paris would not he a splendid city for loot, and whether it was not true that the Cossacks had once been there. There was an evident desire on the part of that officer to serve under the British flag in an European war, so that he might have a chance of marching into and assisting in the loot of one of the great capitals. He concurred in the remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Anson) as to the desirability of sending a Native regiment upon foreign service instead of breaking it up; and he believed that, just before the Indian mutiny, if one of the regiments in which disaffection first showed itself had been sent to a foreign station the Mutiny might have been averted. What was now proposed had, in fact, been carried out to a considerable extent already. Aden, a fortress almost equal in importance to Gibraltar, one of the great stages on the high road between England and India, was garrisoned mainly by Native troops, with some European artillery. Yet the station slept in perfect tranquillity

  1059
  under its guards, and in matters of police there was less difficulty with a Native than with a European regiment. The same might be said of Singapore, of Rangoon, and of places along the Burmese coast. So far from mutinying, isolated Native regiments on foreign stations had little disposition to show such a temper, for they knew themselves to be in the power of England, and their only chance of getting home again lay in the ships which she provided. The presence of a few European artillery usually sufficed to keep them steady to their allegiance, and our European contingent might be described as the backbone of our colonial forces. The real difficulty, as pointed out by the Secretary for War, consisted in officering these regiments, for, however efficient the Native regiments might be for service in India or abroad, their efficiency entirely depended on the class of officers in command of them. The ordinary run of officers could not be taken, as in the case of European regiments, for then there would be the risk of appointing officers ignorant of the language and habits of the men over whom they were placed. There must be European officers especially trained for the purpose, and acquainted with the manners and prejudices of the men, or other wise the officers might provoke a mutiny by some apparently trivial act, which a student fresh from Sandhurst could see no harm in. Under the measure for the amalgamation of the Indian army, the means of supplying this class of officers had been got rid of to a very great extent, though at present things went on very well, be cause there was a reserve of officers left by the old system. There were 4,000 of them that had been so available. But how were they to get on for the future. The great difficulty of employing Native regiments abroad was that the Indian officers of the old army could not be asked to accompany them to the Mauritius or to Malta, for a lower scale of pay than they received for Indian service; and, if the Indian scale were granted to them, what must be the feelings of the other European officers serving alongside of them? That was the great difficulty, for otherwise, by the employment of Indian troops, great relief might be given to the European forces scattered over the colonies, the necessity of sending so many British troops abroad would be diminished, and increased security for India would be acquired by having a larger available British force to draw
  1060
  upon. The difficulty he had just adverted to not only applied to Indian regiments sent abroad, but still more strongly to those which remained in India. The question was how to supply a class of officers having qualities like those possessed by the officers of the old Indian army. The measure adopted some years ago for breaking up the staff of the Indian army, and doing away with the local European force and the separate establishment of Addiscombe for the training of European officers, was a mistake, and if that had to be done again, no one with the experience since acquired would advocate such a measure. The forces might have been so united as to be under one Commander-in-Chief. Both might have been held to be under one Commander-in-Chief; but a separate force of 30,000 or 40,000 men, with their officers, might have been kept for the separate service of India. However, when a step such as that was taken, it was difficult to retrace it; but he invited the right hon. Secretary for War to consider the question, because he regarded it as the most important and the most difficult in the future of India. He thought the House ought to feel exceedingly indebted to the hon. and gallant Member (Major Anson) for the manner in which he had brought the subject under its notice.
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNEsaid, he quite concurred in thinking that the House was very much indebted to the hon. and gallant Member (Major Anson) who brought forward the Motion, and he believed that the proposed inquiry would be very valuable. He only hoped that the hon. and gallant Member would exercise some discretion as to the subjects to be investigated, for by wandering into a multiplicity of topics the whole value of a thorough investigation might be lost. He trusted that the hon. and gallant Member would not be induced to go into the question of the amalgamation of the Indian army. He quite concurred with the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) as to the difficulty which had arisen from the measure passed a few years ago, though he did not say that it was a mistake, because it would, perhaps, have been impossible to avoid greater difficulties still, if the old system had been stood by. It was right that the operation of that measure should be most carefully watched to see whether a remedy might be provided for the evils it occasioned; but he should be sorry if the value of the in-

  1061
  vestigation now proposed were lost by mixing it up with so enormous a question. Another question which had been raised, not strictly germane to the subject, was whether the army in India was not too large. The hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) observed that the British force was increased since the mutiny to nearly double its former amount, and argued that the Native army having been reduced, so large a British force was unnecessary to watch them. It must, however, be borne in mind that before the mutiny the Native troops were drawn from the provinces of Behar and Bengal, and that now they were drawn from the hill tribes, so that if there were any element of danger in the Native Indian army, it was much intensified by the more martial character of the force. With regard to the selection of the men, there arose this difficulty—that if men of the most docile races were chosen, they were of a feeble constitution, and incapable of being removed from the climate and food to which they were accustomed; and if men of the hardier races were selected, then a class was obtained which could be moved about and made little difficulty as to food, but they were more dangerous to deal with, and the precaution which the hon. Member for Wick alluded to, of keeping European troops and artillery in the neighbourhood of any such large Native force, could not be abandoned. With regard to the objection raised against the employment of Native troops out of India, on the ground of the difficulty of inducing them to leave that country, the hon. Member for Wick thought that objection refuted by the experience of the campaign in China. Having discussed this subject with some authorities on Indian matters, he knew that the feeling which dwelt in their mind was that the Native troops could not be induced to leave India in any large number unless there were a prospect of "loot." The hon. Member for Wick was struck with the enthusiasm of a Native at the prospect of "looting" Paris. That was a picture of the minds of those men; and, no doubt, if they were told that Paris was to be "looted," an enormous number of them might be got to go there. But it would be impossible to induce them to volunteer for the dull unhealthy duty of a garrison town. But really he supposed in this, as in everything of the kind, this was very much a matter of money; the difference between the cost of an European
  1062
  and a Native soldier, was as between £110 and £40, and they would have to pay these troops about double if they used them for their colonial service; and in doing this they diminished the motive for adopting this principle. It was not because there was a difficulty in getting European soldiers, but because they were so costly that this proposal was made. He suggested these as points for consideration by the Committee. Very great difference of opinion, no doubt, existed upon the subject; but they had a very large amount of experience to guide them, and the subject was one eminently fitted for Parliamentary inquiry. He trusted, however, that the Committee would not be content with oral evidence alone; but that its members would listen to the suggestions of some of the higher authorities of India who could not be brought from their posts to give evidence. In that way the Committee would be able to collect very valuable information, and perhaps be the means of introducing very useful reforms into the military service of the British Crown.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he thought the speech of the Secretary of State for War, with which he heartily agreed, was eminently fitted to stand as an argument against the Motion for a Committee. While he did not wish to oppose the Motion, he certainly thought it would have been better if the Secretary of State had imposed some limit to the proposed inquiry. Presuming that the policy indicated by the Motion could be adopted by an English Parliament, he doubted whether the many subjects which would have to be discussed by the Committee were such as should properly be considered by them. Even the Mover and Seconder of the Motion for a Committee had said that the change, if carried out, would be extremely complicated; and that, whether it were carried out or not should depend very much upon the balance of advantages and difficulties with which the change would be accompanied. It appeared, then, to him very strange that a Committee of the House should be appointed to inquire into the advisability of a change, the principle of which had not been sanctioned by the House, and which he believed the House on further discussion would not approve. He entirely dissented from the policy which the hon. and gallant Member for Lichfield (Major Anson) and his friends advocated. Not to dwell upon the

  1063
  minor points raised by the Secretary for War, such as the disinclination of the colonies to receive garrisons of this kind, he had heard no satisfactory answer to the query as to what it was proposed to do with the British troops now employed in colonial service. It was evident that if the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member for Lichfield were carried out our military establishments must either be reduced in proportion as they were added to by the enlistment of Native troops, or else the Estimates must bear the whole additional cost of the enlistment of Indian troops. It had been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) that it would be the duty of any Government to propose a reduction of the army whenever a battalion could be dispensed with, and he concurred in that view; but the proposal now made was to substitute a battalion of Indian troops for a battalion of British troops. He had heard no satisfactory argument in favour of the principle of the proposal. He believed that the force scattered over the colonies was not so effective for Imperial purposes as the same number of men would be if concentrated at home; still it was not altogether useless. The proposal now made was to substitute a force which might or might not be as efficient as Europeans for colonial purposes, but who certainly could not be equally efficient in any great Imperial emergency. For these reasons he regretted that before the subject had received more complete investigation and before Parliament had expressed any opinion as to the policy of such a change, the Secretary of State should have consented to the appointment of a Committee which would waste considerable time and could lead to no practical results.
  MAJOR WINDSOR PARKERsaid, that touching this question of amalgamation, he felt it was due to the old Indian service to remind the House that it was not only in the recent services in China that these armies were usefully employed, but under Abercrombie in Egypt; and in their services in Java they distinguished themselves to the great satisfaction of those in authority. Although it was very questionable how far Native troops, under present circumstances, could be employed out of Asia, he thought to employ those troops who had shown a mutinous disposition in India to uphold the British flag in other parts would be most injurious
  1064
  to the discipline of the troops in India, and to the honour and welfare of this country.
  MAJOR ANSONsaid, he thought questions connected with the withdrawal of troops, or the substitution of one kind of troops for another, should be left entirely to the Executive. He also thought the objections to his scheme were such as to show how useful the proposed inquiry would be; and he was extremely glad the Secretary of State for War had given his consent to the proposition he had made.
  Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed "To inquire into the duties performed by the British Army in India and the Colonies; and also to inquire how-far it might be desirable to employ certain portions of Her Majesty's Native Indian Army in our Colonial and Military Dependencies, or to organize a force of Asiatic Troops for general service in suitable climates."
  And, on March 6, Select Committee nominated as follows:—Viscount CRANBOURNE, Mr. CHILDERS, Sir JAMES FERQUSSON, The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Captain HAYTER, Mr. OLIPHANT, Sir HENRY RAWLINSON, Sir WILLIAM RUSSELL, Captain VIVIAN, Viscount HAMILTON, Mr. LAING, Lord WILLIAM HAY, Colonel NORTH, and Major ANSON:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

ATTORNEYS, &c, CERTIFICATE DUTY BILL—LEAVE.—FIRST READING.
MR. DENMAN MR. DENMAN moved for leave to bring in a Bill to reduce the annual Duty upon the Certificates of Attorneys, Solicitors, and others. He said, that having received an assurance that the Bill would not be opposed on the first reading, he would not, on that occasion, go into the reasons for a reduction of the duty. The subject had very often been before the House, and on many occasions the principle had been affirmed that this annual payment ought to be abolished. The Bill he sought to introduce did not propose to abolish the tax entirely, but to reduce it to the nominal sum of 5s. The reason for that was that there were in existence several Acts of Parliament that would have to be repealed or considerably altered, at great inconvenience, if the duty were altogether taken off; but by reducing the amount to 5s. all the existing machinery would re-

1065
main, and both the public and profession would be benefited by still having a regular authentic list of attorneys, solicitors, proctors, and notaries published annually. The principle had been affirmed in 1865, and by former Parliaments, and the tax had been retained upon grounds affecting the revenue of particular years and not from any opinion that in itself it was either just or expedient.
MR. M. T. BASSsaid, he thought that licenses on trades and professions ought to be altogether abolished, or to be extended to all. Of all licenses, however, that on common brewers was the worst. It was a hardship to which the license of attorneys and solicitors could afford no parallel. Every brewer was required to pay a license upon the work he did, and not upon the profitable result of his operations. He (Mr. Bass) as a brewer paid as large a sum as 1,100 or 1,200 solicitors did, and he should think it very hard if solicitors were relieved of their eight guineas a year, while he had to pay so large a sum for permission to carry on his business.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby on the large sum which he pays for his licence, and there can be no doubt that on the same conditions we should all be perfectly willing to contribute such an amount to the national Treasury. I think that licences are a most enlightened scheme for recruiting the national Treasury, and I am not at all inclined to favour the proposition of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite. It is a very difficult thing for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to encounter attorneys and brewers. They are, without exception, the two most influential classes in the community. The late Henry Drummond, whom we all knew in this House—"alas, poor Yorick!"—speaking one night of the Powers then convulsing the world, just before the Crimean War, said, "After all, what is their power to the power of an attorney?" I feel that at the present moment. It is under these circumstances I must consent to the introduction of this Bill. It is because I wish to respect a majority, though not a great one, which sanctioned the principle upon which the Bill is founded. At the same time, I must say I disapprove of the practice of the hon. and learned Gentleman in attacking the Consolidated Fund with a perseverance which may be applauded, but which is not laudable. As
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to the general principle, I would oppose Motions and measures of this nature made at this moment. The right time to bring forward subjects of this nature is when the Chancellor of the Exchequer has placed before the House and the country the state of the national Finances. That is the legitimate opportunity. If there be any surplus—and I speak with all reserve on a point so problematical—that is the moment when any persons who think they have a fair claim to consideration should come forward. But that an assault on the national resources is to be made as a matter of course appears to me a supposition which ought not to be encouraged. It would be an act of discourtesy were I, under the circumstances, to oppose the introduction of the Bill; but I do not wish the hon. and learned Gentleman to suppose that, in agreeing to its introduction, I at all sanction the principle upon which he has appealed to the House tonight. He represents on the present occasion a very influential, a very affluent, and a very patriotic class; and I am sure we can always appeal to them to bear their fair proportion of the national necessities. The Bill may be introduced tonight; and when the hon. and learned Member has become better acquainted than he can be at this moment with the condition of the Treasury, he can exercise his discretion as to whether he will proceed with or withdraw it.
Motion agreed to.
Bill to reduce the annual Duty upon the Certificates of Attorneys and Solicitors and others, ordered to be brought in by Mr. DENMAN, Mr. VANCE, and Sir JOHN OGILVY.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 53.]

FACTORY ACTS (EDUCATIONAL CLAUSES).—RESOLUTION.
MR. FAWCETT MR. FAWCETT moved that, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient to extend the Educational Clauses of the Factory Acts to children who are employed in agriculture. He said, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would not suppose that he made this Motion in any spirit of hostility to the measure which the right hon. Gentleman had promised to introduce for the extension of the Factory Acts. On the contrary, he sincerely thanked him for that measure, and his gratitude was strengthened when he remembered the

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promptitude of the right hon. Gentleman in this matter. All that had read the Report of the Children's Employment Commission must feel that it contained fearful disclosures. It proved that thousands of lives were yearly sacrificed, and that thousands more of young people were ruined in body and soul by premature employment. He wished, however, to impress upon the House that if the right hon. Gentleman confined his measure to those trades only which had been reported upon by the Commissioners, he would but touch the fringe of a great question, and leave unsettled a problem in the solution of which the most vital interests of the country were involved. When the Factory Acts were introduced they were met by two kinds of arguments. It was urged, first, that such an interference with particular trades would materially jeopardise their prosperity, and would too much encroach on individual liberty; and secondly, that such special and exceptional legislation was unjust because it was exceptional. Now, the first of these objections had been refuted and silenced by experience. The Factories Act was first applied to the textile manufactures of the country, and that branch had ever since continued in a progressive state of prosperity; and those who most stoutly opposed this legislation were now ready to admit that it had worked with marked success. They were now, likewise, quite ready to admit the advantage they had derived from having a class of operatives who, from being taken care of in youth, had grown up sound in body and mind. Again, the argument with regard to the interference with individual liberty had also been silenced by experience. He was as much opposed as any man to all unnecessary interference on the part of the Government. Perhaps there was, at the present day, a tendency to ask the Government to interfere too much with private individuals; and, as a Radical, he thought that that was a tendency which, in a reformed House of Commons, must be carefully and constantly watched. He had learned his love for individual freedom from his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill), who had made the most philosophic and., eloquent defence which had ever been written of personal liberty; but he felt sure his hon. Friend would agree with him that the State was performing one of its clearest and most undoubted duties when it rescued
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a child from a grievous and irreparable injury. A child was not a free agent; he had no power to defend himself, and no one could over-estimate the injury that was done him if his education was neglected through the avarice or the ignorance of his parents. As for the second argument against the Factory Acts, he (Mr. Fawcett) did not see how it was to be answered; on the contrary, the more those Acts were extended the more unjust they became, unless they were made general. Owing to the zeal of the right hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Bruce), the Acts were applied to the pottery district, and with the most beneficial results. While admitting this, however, the masters said it was unjust to legislate for them and not to legislate generally. They said they were placed under special disadvantages. They said agriculture was not under the same restrictions, and that the result was that boys would not come to their half-time factory work while they could get full employment in agriculture. They did not get their fair share of the juvenile labour of the district. If the Government had not the courage to introduce a general measure, based on the principle that no child under thirteen should be permitted to work unless he spent a certain number of hours per week at school, he (Mr. Fawcett) wished to point out the pressing need there was for applying, without delay, the half-time system to agriculture. The agricultural population was deplorably ignorant; and he feared that there were circumstances which put a meretricious and deceptive gloss upon the education of the rural population. We had Government grants; we had great zeal on the part of ministers of religion; we had admirable schools, and in many cases ample funds; but these were not sufficient. If a child was taken away from school at eight or nine years of age, all he had named would be useless. He knew villages in the West of England where there was plenty of money for educational purposes, but where there were excellent schools, where there was scarcely a youth who could read sufficiently well to understand a newspaper. If a child was taken away from school at eight or nine years of age, he was certain to forget the little he had learned, and he would grow up in a state of ignorance, for it was found that the rudiments of learning were rarely acquired in after life. It was said that there were practical diffi-

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culties in the way of applying the half-time system to agriculture. There might be such, but he feared that those difficulties were readily, perhaps joyfully, seized upon as an excuse. At a recent meeting at Wolverhampton, the Earl of Lichfield, who knew something about agriculture, had made a most admirable speech in favour of applying the half-time system to the rural districts of the country. No doubt many hon. Members would recollect Mr. Paget the late representative of Nottingham. He was a well-known agriculturist, and he had for many years adopted the half-time system on his farm with signal success. His experience was that the boys took greater pleasure in their school, and did their work better—emphatically better—for their change of occupation. However, he (Mr. Fawcett) would examine some of these "practical difficulties." It was said that the Factories Acts had been successfully applied to those branches of industry where labour was concentrated, and the children worked half-time and went to school the other half; but that in agricultural districts the work was often two or three miles on one side of the labourer's dwelling while the school was a like distance on the other, and that, therefore, half-time was impossible. This must be overcome by adopting the alternate day system, school one day and work the next, and if this would not do, there was the alternate week system. But if this half-time system was general, we should diminish the supply of juvenile labour, and increase its efficiency, and by so doing increase the value of the children's labour, and consequently increase their remuneration. Then it was said there were some labourers in the worst paid districts who were in such a state of wretched poverty that they could not live without the children's earnings. It might be said that to take away 1s. or 2s. a week from a Dorchester labourer, who was dragging out a miserable existence, would be to starve him. But why were the wages in Dorsetshire and Wiltshire exceptionally low? Why did the labourers continue in a state of the greatest hardship when for the same kind of labour they could obtain higher wages elsewhere? How was it that competition did not equalize wages in different parts of the country? The reason was that labourers were ignorant, and as isolated from the rest of England as if they lived in a distant country. Their wages
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were not affected by the labour market of the country. The wages were always at the minimum. They were not determined by competition with the rest of the country, and the problem was, how much could a man and his family just live upon? In this the earnings of the boy were not left out of the calculation. If, then, that labourer was deprived of his boy's earnings, the wages of the man must be raised to enable him to live. He would not suffer, he could not suffer, for it was impossible for him to be in a worse position. It might be said, "You admit that the result of your legislation would be to increase the price of juvenile labour, and in some cases to increase the general price of labour, and therefore to cast a burden either upon the landlord or the farmer." Even if that were so, he did not think the House would hesitate; but on the strictest principles of political economy it would be admitted that whatever increased the efficiency of labour increased its productiveness, and thus augmented the fund divisible as landlord's rent, farmers' profit, and labourers' wages. One word to the agricultural interest. Agriculture was daily becoming more and more a skilled industry, more complicated machinery was used in it, and greater intelligence was required for its management. Let them remember that the cutting machines must not be intrusted to ignorant workmen. They had heard much of the danger of foreign competition; but that danger would be fully met by improving the education of the people of this country. Timid people expressed their alarm about strikes; but if they wanted men to understand the true principles of economy, they must educate them in their youth. They stood aghast at trades unions, and were shocked at the outrages in Sheffield; but if they had read the horrors which were published respecting the children of that town, they would not be surprised at outrages being committed by grown men. The Children's Employment Commission disclosed horrors with regard to the town that made it matter of surprise that outrages were not more frequent. Sometimes it was said, "Compel landlords to improve cottages;" but educate the people and raise their tastes, and they would not live in miserable two-roomed hovels. The philanthropy of a nation was sometimes appealed to on behalf of a wretched peasant who was starving with his family on 8s. a week; but he would not do so if he could read the papers and

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learn of the demand for labour in other parts of the country. How much wiser would it be boldly to strike at that ignorance which was the root of pauperism and crime than to struggle under the burden of these evils! It was chiefly by the Conservative party that the first Factory Act was carried; their policy in this respect had conferred inestimable blessings on the nation. Let them continue the good work and prove their sincerity to the nation by conferring the same blessings upon the industry with which they were more intimately connected. Personally, he was pledged to do what he could to improve the condition of the agricultural poor, among whom he had lived all his life. He was confident if they could do anything to promote their education, they would be assisting effectually to lighten the burden of poverty which oppressed them, and to make their condition more worthy of that nation, to the wealth and greatness of which their class had contributed so much, and from whose advancing civilization and increasing prosperity they had derived so slender a share of augmented happiness.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient to extend the Educational Clauses of the Factory Acts to children who are employed in agriculture."—(Mr. Fawcett.)
MR. AKROYDsaid, that his experience might possibly have some weight with those who had not had the same opportunities of witnessing the beneficial results of factory legislation. The first step towards national education was taken thirty years ago, when the Factory Bill was opposed by the millowners, with certain exceptions. He joined in opposition, not from any unwillingness to shorten the hours of labour, but from a conviction that legislation for a particular class of employers was one-sided and unjust. He maintained at that time that the condition of the factory districts was not worse than that of others, and the recent Reports of the Children's Employment Commission had proved the truth of what he then said. That Commission had occasioned the extension of the Factory Acts to trades not originally embraced. Having at first opposed the Act, he wished now joyfully to offer his testimony to its beneficial results. In his own neighbourhood a squalid population had been succeeded by a healthy one. The operation of the Act had changed the
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aspect of many a once wretched district, and brought upon the scene scores of happy chubby-faced children, full of health and activity, who, but for the interference of the Legislature, would have been wearing away their young lives with premature toil. Hitherto the whole course of legislation had been tentative and experimental. If the Government of the day had attempted to deal with the question as a whole, and to apply legislation to many trades, the task would have been too great for them, opposed as they would have been by several united interests. The extension of the Factory Acts to mines and collieries, bleaching works, the lace works of Nottingham, and the potteries of Staffordshire, aided the work of education and brought a large number of the trades of the country under its operation. These successive steps had tended to diminish opposition to this mode of education, and had secured a greater number of witnesses to its beneficial results. We seemed to have arrived at the half-way house of national education, and if the measure of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) received the assent of the agricultural Gentlemen we should have solved the problem of national education, and little more would remain to be done. What objections could be raised by the country Gentlemen? He was bound to admit the benefits they conferred on the manufacturing interest by determinedly pressing the Act upon them. Happily, times were now changed; classes were not so banded one against another as they had been; and there seemed to be no reason why they should not together carry a national system of educacation. Was there anything in the condition of children employed in agriculture which forbade the application of this Act to them? From his own observation he would say that there were many reasons why this Act was more imperatively called for in agricultural than in manufacturing districts. The children of farm labourers were taken from school early, left the parental roof, and were hired by farmers from year to year. He could confirm what had been said by the hon. Member for Brighton as to the ignorance of children in agricultural populations compared with that of children in manufacturing populations. Farming, however, was now a very different thing from what it had been; clodhoppers could not be trusted to deal with costly instruments, and farmers must of necessity have skilled labour. On these

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and other grounds a good case was made out for the extension of the Factory Act to the children employed in agriculture. Those who feared an interference with their liberty would, like himself, in a few years bear testimony to the good fruits of this paternal Act.
MR. GOLDNEYsaid, that the country Gentlemen did not fear the extension of education among their labourers. No class of men had endeavoured to do so much towards establishing schools and encouraging education as the country Gentlemen. Speaking for the county of Wilts, at all events for the northern portion of it, in which he had lived all his life, he could say that in no part of it bad the education of the agricultural population been neglected; on the contrary, it had been provided for in the most ample manner. There was hardly a village or hamlet in which schools had not been started, or some attempt made in the kindest and most liberal manner to educate the labouring population. The great difficulty that was experienced was in getting the children to school. In some cases, no doubt, the parents were desirous of adding to the comforts of their families by the earnings of their children; but in most instances the children stopped away because they preferred to go bird-nesting, or rabbiting, or something of that sort, and the country Gentlemen had even offered premiums for getting them to school. It was a trying time for a child to be taken from school at eleven. He believed it was Dr, Johnson who said that no one learnt anything which he retained in later life before twelve, What he wished to point out in the first place was that there was no objection on the part of the landed interests to have the children well educated. But the mere fact of preventing farmers from retaining the labour of those children for more than half-a-day or half-a-week would not meet the evil; there must be some compulsory power, as in Prussia and other parts of Germany, to keep the children at school, or all other efforts would be vain. The extension of the Factory Acts to the agricultural population would not give the results they desired. A word with regard to payment for labour. In the northern portion of Wilts they had a large railway, they had quarries and factories; labour there was in great demand, and men were employed at very high rates. What was
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the practical result? Labourers, after having been employed on the railway, in the quarries or factories, at high wages, come back to the farmers and said that they preferred agricultural work, even though with lower wages. Agricultural labour did not expend such an extraordinary amount of strength as was required in other employments. It was not from ignorance, therefore, but from choice that these men, having tried other occupations, went back to farm labour. In the northern portion of Wilts agricultural labourers were, he believed, as happy, as well educated, and as well disposed as in any other part of England, and both landed gentry and farmers were ready to do everything in their power for the purpose of encouraging education.
MR. TREVELYANsaid, that the hon. Gentleman had spoken of the wish of country Gentlemen to encourage education among the children of the labouring classes, and that they had proved the sincerity of their desire for the promotion of education by aiding the passing of the Factory Act. All that was now wished was that they would aid in extending that Act to the children of peasants. It might be true that the higher branches of learning could not be properly comprehended by children under ten years of age; but experience had proved that they could be taught to read, to write, and to cast up a column of pounds, shillings, and pence under that age, besides possessing some elementary knowledge of the scriptures, and being able to comprehend a simple Saxon sermon. All that was desired was to keep the children at school till they were ten years of age, and he was sure that all friends of education must have experienced much gratification at seeing the Notice of his hon. Friend on the Paper, and especially those who believe that by bold and judicious legislation they might do something to remove from the land that gross ignorance which was its especial shame. It was neither their hope nor wish that, during the present Session, the attention of the House should be called in an extended and general manner to the question of popular education, which could not be done until the great question of Reform was settled. Ardent as he was in the cause of Reform, he did not believe that the question, a branch of which was before the House, was of inferior importance; and although no radical change could be expected at present, he hoped that the

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subject would not be allowed entirely to sleep, but that even during the intervals between the conflict of parties the trumpet of the friends of education would give forth an occasional warning note. As soon as Reform was settled, the friends of education must make a combined effort for a radical and sweeping change of the pre sent system. When the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) brought on his Bill for the improvement of the Factory Acts, they would hear a good deal about the Manchester and Salford Education Society. That Society divided Manchester and Salford into 144 squares, and made a diligent house canvass, and the result of their inquiries might be summed up in this—that half the children between the ages of three and ten were running about the streets, no more educated than Kaffirs. The same was the result of a similar inquiry in Liverpool. If that was the state of great and flourishing districts, what must be the state of the rural districts, in which, in spite of the efforts of Gentlemen like the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney), many resided who were more chary of their time and money. The last Report of the Committee of Council on Education also disclosed some startling facts, amongst which was the circumstance that in one agricultural district the clergyman of the parish was so well satisfied with the attendance of 4 per cent of the children at his schools that he closed its doors against the Inspector; while, in another case, the squire of the parish locked up the school, and sent the key to the vicar age, with a message to the effect that he could do what he liked with his own. In another instance the Commit tee reported that a wealthy landowner had discovered a very simple way of cut ting the Gordian knot, by taking the floor out of half a small cottage, whitewashing the apartment, and transforming it into a school, while he put an old woman to live in the other part, who, at a very trifling expense, afforded the children quite as much education as this enlightened land owner thought they ought to have. The result of our system of education must be judged by statistics. In 1859 an examination was held in the army by direction of the military authorities, and they discovered that out of 10,000 men taken at random, 2,675 were unable to write, though they could read imperfectly, and 2,080 could neither read nor write. The state of education in this respect contrasted
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most unfavourably with that of Prussia, in which country the military found that out of 100 recruits only two were unable to read or write. In the same year 15,000 men were discharged, 6,000 of whom signed their marks. The Recruiting Commission, two or three years after that, reported that, in a single month, out of 4,500 recruits, something under 3,000 were taken from the rural districts, and something under 2,500 were taken from the towns: which proves incontestably that we must look for the cause of the ignorance among the class from whom our recruits are drawn, at least as much in the country as in the towns. It evidently showed that the parents of these poor children eked out their means by withdrawing them from school at a very early age, and putting them to work. The only hope they had of effectually educating poor children was through the means of an educational rate, because it was useless to compel them to attend schools unless proper schools were provided for them. Private benevolence had done its utmost, and they must now have recourse to an educational assessment. In very poor districts the clergyman was deprived of comforts in order to contribute to the wants of the school, whilst the resident landowner only subscribed his £5. It was to the clergyman that they were indebted for the education which the country possessed; and under the circumstances, although it was against his political convictions, he could not, if the burden was not removed from their shoulders to the rate book, insist on their subscribing to the Con science Clause. In one of the midland districts, consisting of 168 parishes, 169 clergymen subscribed £10 each. In the same district there were 400 landowners, whose united incomes amounted to £650,000, yet they subscribed only £2,000, or £5 each. Although very often a squire would support a school near his own park gates, he would give nothing towards the schools of neighbouring parishes from which he derived his rents. That state of things should be got rid of, and the people be compelled to send their children to school, the expense of which should be defrayed by a rate. Experience in Canada and Australia proved that when the people had paid their money in the shape of rates they were almost certain to avail themselves of the advantages offered by the Constitution, on the principle of getting as much as they could

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for their money, and the same, he believed, would be the case in this country. The Returns of crime and pauperism clearly showed that our present system of education was unable to cope with the evils which were growing rapidly around our gigantic and complicated system. If they looked to England, in comparison with Germany, they must blush for their own country. We, who had abundance of money, and possessed the spirit of local self-government, advantages which foreign nations lacked, ought to be able to keep up with them in the race. He hoped that in the next or following Session, or at the first opportunity after the flood of Reform had subsided, the advocates of a comprehensive scheme of national education would unite in passing a measure which would show that our ancient and time-honoured institutions were compatible, equally with those of Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and America, with the universal diffusion of morality and religion.
MR. READsaid, that the farmers of England would endorse the principle laid down by the hon. Member for Brighton, but would question his conclusions and deny some of his facts. It was an exaggeration to say that many children under nine years of age were often employed in agricultural pursuits. Generally, they would be no sort of use. It was only exceptionally that they were engaged in bird keeping, hop-picking, and minor operations in the harvest field, and then it was generally at a time when the schoolmaster was taking his holiday. In factory work seasons, weather, and daylight were of little consequence, whereas on the farm everything depended upon them. Moreover, a child taken out of a factory had to go but a very short distance to school; whereas in the rural districts a child on an average would be obliged to walk considerably more than a mile. It was impossible, therefore, to give half a day to school and the other half to work on the farm, and the best plan seemed to be to devote half the week to the former and half to the latter. Great benefit had accrued to the rural districts from night-schools, not merely in keeping up the slight elementary education which farm boys received, but in preserving them from bad company, and employing their winter evenings. Too often, however, few persons besides the clergyman and a few irregular volunteers took an interest in
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them. He thought the Government would do well to grant a little pecuniary assistance to the best of these schools.
SIR FRANCIS CROSSLEYsaid, he agreed with the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Akroyd), in what he stated with respect to the short time system in factories. At one time the manufacturers hardly knew how to obtain sufficient labour to fill the factories on the whole time system, and when the half-time system came into operation, they thought that it would be necessary to close their mills altogether. That apprehension, however, had not been realized, and the children were not only much healthier but were more attentive at school from having to work three days a week, and more industrious in the factory from having a change of occupation in the school. It was quite the exception in the factory districts to find boys and girls unable to read and write, and in the concern with which he was connected the ability of reading figures and of writing to some extent was almost essential. The Factory Act operated, therefore, very beneficially. Since that time the principle of those Acts had been applied to many other trades, and he was not aware of a single failure. Beneficial results had invariably followed. He himself had a farm at Somerleyton, in Suffolk; but, though a day school was established there, he found there was a great difficulty in getting the children to attend it, because their parents persisted in sending them to work in the fields at too early an age. He once suggested to his manager that the children should labour and go to school on alternate days, but the reply was, "Well, sir, if I do that, I shall not be able to make the farm pay. If they are employed at half time I shall have to pay them as much as if they were fully employed." In the manufacturing districts the children were now receiving as much for short time as they did for full time. He thought that a very good thing, and did not see why wages should be so very low in the agricultural districts. He thought the children ought to have the opportunity of going to school, so that they might have a better chance of rising in the world than they had at present. Education did not render a man dissatisfied with his labour, for the best workmen were those who were the best educated. There was no reason to fear that because men were educated they would not be good agricultural labourers. He was quite satisfied that if the principle

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were adopted that children under thirteen years of age should not be employed without a certificate of their attendance at school, the result would be very beneficial. In that case there would be no lack of schools. He hoped some such system would be adopted, because he believed it would promote the best interests of the country.
MR. M'LAGAN, as one deeply interested in agriculture, and more connected with it than any other profession, thanked the hon. Member for having introduced this subject to the notice of the House. It was evident that some measures, whether compulsory or otherwise, must be adopted to enable the agricultural labourer to keep pace in intelligence and education with the workmen in other trades. And this is the more necessary when we consider that, from the progress that has been made in agriculture of late years, the rapid advancement it is still making, and the application of delicate and improved machinery to the operations of the farm, better educated and more intelligent labourers were required. Before, however, we compel parents to educate their children, we must see that the means of education are sufficient in all districts of the country. Such, he believed, is not the case in some districts. But there is no doubt that where the means of education are abundant and sufficient there is too often an indifference on the part of the parents to avail themselves of these means. This is particularly the case in those districts where there is a great demand for the labour of children—where the parents prefer sending the children to work for 6d. or 7d. per day to sending them to school. He did not think that the plan recommended by the hon. Member, and practised by Mr. Paget, could be applied in purely agricultural districts, or where the population is sparse and the distance from school is great, as in many parts of the Highlands of Scotland. No doubt it would be better to send the children to school every alternate day or every alternate week than not at all; but there are several objections to the plan which he now took the liberty of stating. On all well-managed farms there is a regular force of labourers kept for the daily labours of the farm. By sending one or several of these away on alternate days there will be an interruption of the labour of the farm, and there would be a temptation to the farm manager, when there was a stress of work
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on particular days, to retain the services of the children when they should have been sent to school. Another objection he had to the plan recommended was, that the full benefit of the teaching would not be obtained; for what was learnt the one week or the one day would be partly forgot before the child appeared at school the next. Education or teaching, to be quite successful, should be continuous; being thus interrupted in the plan recommended, the children would not make the necessary progress. Besides, children sent to school only now and then, in addition to not making the necessary progress, would retard the due progress of the others at school; for the master would have to devote more time to the former to enable them to keep pace with those who were kept regularly at school, and thus his attention would necessarily be abstracted from the latter. There is nothing so annoying to a teacher, and so injurious to the progress of the pupils, as the irregular attendance of the children. He thought that a better plan would be to enact that no agricultural employer should engage any child for work unless he received a certificate from a schoolmaster that the child could read, write, and do sums in arithmetic. The objection to this plan is the machinery that would be required; for it would be necessary to have some inspector who would be invested with power to demand from the employer at any time the certificate brought by the child under a certain age. If he could assist the hon. Member for Brighton in carrying out any efficient measure for the better education of the agricultural children, he would be most happy to do so. There is no doubt that it is the duty of every parent to educate his child, and it is the duty of the State to see that the parent faithfully discharged this duty.
MR. BRUCE: Sir, whether the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) presses his Motion or not, I am sure it will be the opinion of this House that the discussion cannot have been without use. I must say that the principle, as I look upon it, is not so much the improvement of the agricultural population as the improvement of the population generally. You cannot consider the question of the county population without considering also the case of the neglected children who live in the suburbs of our large towns, and it presses irresistibly on the minds of all who examine this subject that enough has not yet been

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done in regard to education, and that we have no adequate national system. Our attempts up to this time have been partial and experimental. After thirty years of continued efforts we have failed to bring education home to the people, and as Christian men and legislators we ought never to rest until we have done our best to accomplish that object. The condition of agricultural labourers varies considerably. Labourers in the neighbourhood of populous cities are comparatively well off. In my part of the country, for instance, few labourers receive less than 3s. a day, and in many parts of Yorkshire agricultural labourers earn good wages. They may want, and I believe they do want, improved education, but all that you need do with respect to them, is to see that further means are taken for supplying the machinery of education. I wish I could give as favourable an account of the labourers in the southern and western parts of the country. The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) has stated that in the north of Wiltshire the condition of the agricultural labourers is very different from that described by the hon. Member for Brighton, as existing in his part of Wiltshire. In North Wiltshire the ironworks and quarries may create such a demand for labour as to insure fair wages to the agricultural population. It is otherwise in South Wiltshire. There during the winter months it is usual to give steady employment to the married labourers, while a large portion of the unmarried labourers are thrown upon the poor rates. I once offered to find employment for 100 labourers in one part of that county, where I was assured that while the married men during the winter earned only 8s. a week, the unmarried men were supported by the poor rates. That showed something radically wrong. It arose from the same cause which has created that miserable state of society in Spitalfields and other parts of the metropolis—the improper distribution of manufacturing labour; and this arises from ignorance. A fact was brought to my knowledge at the Educational Department, that where schools were opened in the Western Islands, and where the inhabitants learned English, from that moment emigration began, the population diminished, and the condition of those who remained began to improve. I believe that the emigration which has done so much for Ireland, may be traced far more to the increased know-
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ledge of the people, in regard to the resources of other countries than to the misery experienced in Ireland. The same misery has been endured by a portion of the population at the East End of London, among whom a state of ignorance exists which it is difficult to believe. There are in our populous districts and in our large cities many industrial interests which, as well as the agricultural districts, are well deserving the attention of the House; but I agree with the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Akroyd), that much of the success which has attended our factory legislation is owing to the fact that we have proceeded gradually and cautiously. At the same time, I think that the amount of experience we have gained justifies a much bolder application of the principle of those acts. No doubt we shall hear from the right hon. Gentleman at the Home Office that it will be his happiness and privilege to introduce a measure which will affect millions of our working population. It will probably have a wide scope, and embrace all but the agricultural population, and when that is done it will be impossible to keep out the agricultural population. The hon. Member for Brighton has made various suggestions as to the manner in which the half-time system may be applied to the agricultural population. I would add another, suited to the conditions of labour in the rural districts—namely, that attendance at school should be secured, not for so many hours in a day, or so many days in a week, but for a certain number of days in the year. But whatever may be the scheme adopted, I have no doubt that Parliament will evince towards the agricultural population the same kind and considerate spirit which has animated its legislation towards their manufacturing brethren.
MR. WALPOLE: Sir, the subject is one which, when the facts are fully before us, must engage the early attention of the Government and the House. In this question collateral topics of immense importance have been brought under our notice; but I shall be best discharging my duty by confining myself to the terms of the Motion before us, and giving my opinion with regard to that only. At the same time, I cannot wholly pass by the able observations of the hon. Member for Brighton upon the general questions of extending education by rates levied universally, so as to enforce the means of education in

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places now unprovided for. The hon. Member will forgive me for saying that this is a question which has excited so much controversy in this House that he will excuse me if I do not follow him into it. Still, I will not disguise either from him or from the House that I do think that the general question of education must come, and at no distant period, under the immediate consideration of the House, for the purpose of extending the benefits of education, especially in those poorer districts, where the means of education are less generally provided. I now pass to the terms of the Motion. My hon. Friend, followed by the hon. Member for Halifax, has dealt powerfully and justly on that which, after long discussion, is now an admitted fact, that the provisions of the Factory Acts have contributed to the advantage of all classes of the community. The hon. Member for the West Riding (Sir Francis Crossley), not only to-night, but on previous occasions, has expressed an opinion—and no opinion is entitled to more weight than that of the hon. Member on such a subject—that the beneficial operation of these Acts is felt both by masters and men, especially with regard to the spread of education among the operatives of our manufacturing towns. But I wish to ask the hon. Member for Brighton whether there are not conditions and circumstances connected with trades in large towns which make it difficult—I will not say impossible—to extend the operation of those Acts to rural districts, even in regard to compelling education. I will not say that some of the provisions of those Acts may not be extended to the rural districts; but, taking the words of his Motion, I would suggest that the condition and circumstances of the rural districts are such that the provisions of the Factory Acts, even in regard to education—to which subject his Motion is confined—are not so applicable to agricultural districts as to the larger towns. He was not, I think, quite so successful in meeting the objections to the application of the Act to rural districts as in other parts of his speech. Consider what the principles of the Factory Act are with regard to education. They are that the children engaged in factories shall be compulsorily required to attend school—that they may attend those schools either on alternate days for not less than five and a half hours, or on every day in the week for three hours at a time at one part of the year, and two hours at
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another. These provisions are enforced partly by penalties on the parents, partly by certificates; and the means by which these penalties are enforced is by a general inspection. This can be done in your larger towns where the houses of the parents of the children are not far removed from the place of work, where the schools are known, and the means of inspection either insure proper attendance of the children or prevent them from working in the factory. But when you apply these conditions to the rural districts the reverse is the case. The houses of the parents are removed from the fields in which they are employed. The schools will also often be distant, and if you adopt the system of morning and evening attendance, there is a danger of their not being enforced unless there is some one to see them carried into execution. I have some apprehension, recollecting an observation made at this side of the House, that it is essential for the early education of the young, that instruction must be as continuous as you can make it. If there be any interruption or break in the instruction it must impede the progress of the child in his educational studies. Let not my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton suppose that in making that observation I wish to thwart him in the object of obtaining a better education for the children in agricultural districts. I rather think the suggestion of the hon. Member for the West Biding would probably meet the difficulties better than any other I have heard made—namely, that when a child is required to work at agricultural labour, as children are in the factories, there should be a certificate given to state that the education of the child is going on at the same time. If, however, that should be done, it will not be following the provisions of the Factory Acts, though it perhaps may be effected by grafting on the Factory Acts a provision applying to children engaged in agricultural labour. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton alluded to the valuable Reports of the Commissioners on Education—five folio volumes, which are applicable to all trades. I shall have to call attention to those Reports when stating the principles of the two Bills, relating to Factory Acts Extension and Hours of Labour Regulation, which I propose to introduce on Friday night; but bear in mind that in those five volumes you have not one single line respecting the children employed in the

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agricultural districts. The Commission has been extended so as to embrace an inquiry into the employment of those children; and since my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton put his notice on the paper, I have taken an opportunity of asking how soon we are likely to get a Report in reference to the children employed in gangs. I am informed that it will be presented to the Government very soon, and, of course, when it is presented to the Government it will be laid before the House. I think we shall be in a better position to deal with the subject when that Report is presented. I will frankly add that, having gone carefully through the Reports which have been made, I have arrived at the conclusion that some of the principles of the Factory Acts will have to be extended to the agricultural districts. Whether it will be necessary to extend the power of the Commissioners so that they may inquire, not only into cases in which children are employed in gangs, but also into cases in which they are employed not collectively, is a question on which I would rather not give any opinion now. I mention these matters now to show my hon. Friend that none of the topics which are material for a consideration of the subject have escaped the attention of Her Majesty's Government; but, looking at the terms of the proposal, and having made the declaration I have made, I trust my hon. Friend will not think it necessary by an abstract Motion to press his proposal to a division, because I think it may take another form when the facts are all before us. I have expressed my belief that the principles of the Factory Acts, in some form or other—what the form may be I do not now say—may be made applicable to children employed in agricultural districts. I should not, therefore, attempt to meet the proposal of my hon. Friend with a negative, nor should I like to even move the Previous Question; but, after what I have said, I hope he will not ask the House to come to any decision on his Motion.
MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he thanked the hon. Member for Brighton for bringing the subject forward. He liked to hear a subject of this kind discussed in the House of Commons, because it would cause the question to be considered throughout all the country. The time was come when the children through the country should be taught to read and write and do the simple sums in arithmetic. It was a
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question of great importance, and there was a most deplorable amount of ignorance prevailing which required some cure. There was no instrument in the world better calculated to promote the advancement of society than education, and though some people objected to the enforcement of compulsory education he did not see that it was any hardship at all. The State had as much right to compel a man to educate his children as to require him to feed and clothe them. On the contrary, it was a great benefit. It did not follow that compulsory education should be mixed up with disputes on matters of religion, for there was no more connection between religion and education than there was between a dissertation on science and a sermon.
MR. AYRTONwished to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, before they proceeded further in reference to the education of the people, they would have some opportunity of considering the mode in which that education was carried on under the Committee of Council. It was necessary for the House, before they extended the application of the Factory Acts, to consider the manner in which the public funds were administered on the subject of education, and whether they were properly distributed. At present the poor were to a great extent passed by, while the education supposed to be provided for them was given to large numbers of people who were capable of paying for it. The rural districts, to a great extent, were deprived of the educational grant. He felt obliged to the hon. Member for Brighton for bringing the subject forward, for the discussion was extremely useful, and might lead to very beneficial results. He trusted that after the assurance which had been given by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, his hon Friend would withdraw his Motion.
MR. WHALLEYsaid, the result of his experience was that, as education was now administered in this country, parents could not see what benefit their children derived from going to school, and therefore did not send them. It was a known fact that pauperism and crime were on the increase, and he believed the reason for all this was that the clergy generally took no interest in education, except for the purpose of crippling and confining the minds of their pupils in order to bring them to their own sectarian views. He hoped the right hon.

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Gentleman the Home Secretary would I give his attention to the question, as to what was the education to be administered so that it might be useful and profitable to the children themselves and to others.
COLONEL W. STUARTsaid, he thought he should be borne out by Gentlemen on both sides of the House in saying that the clergy generally had earnestly co-operated in measures for the general diffusion of education, and had not shown the sectarian and narrow-minded views imputed to them. No doubt there might be exceptional cases, but as a rule they had always endeavoured to advance the progress of education in its freest sense. While the clergy generally through the country desired that the Bible should not be ignored, they did everything in their power to facilitate education. In many places there were no schools except those which were supported by zealous and self-sacrificing clergymen. He believed that if the Government would encourage night schools as much as possible the great majority of the lower classes were ready and anxious to avail themselves of the opportunity thus offered them. In agricultural districts the difficulty was to get the children together. In his own parish a night school which had been formed was three or four miles from the homes of many of the children. He doubted whether it was practicable to educate the children in agricultural districts by an extension of the Factory Act for education.
MR. FAWCETTsaid, it had been far from his intention to ignore the zeal shown on behalf of education by many country gentlemen and ministers of religion. Indeed, the very persons among these classes who had bestowed most time and attention upon that cause were precisely those who in all parts of the country had most emphatically implored him to stir in the matter, being fully persuaded of the necessity for their having additional powers. He had been greatly pleased with the whole tone of the discussion, and felt particularly gratified by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, not only because it was very kind and courteous towards him personally, but also because the right hon. Gentleman had evidently considered the practical difficulties of the subject. There were, however, none of those practical difficulties which had not been carefully considered by himself; and therefore he was the more
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confirmed in the opinion that the educational clauses of the Factory Acts might, with modifications, be applied to agriculture. He should be sorry to impede the passing of the measure for the extension of the Factory Acts which the right hon. Gentleman had promised to bring in. He believed the measure would be most valuable, and he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for undertaking to introduce it. After that discussion it was his present intention, with the assistance of his friends, to frame some clauses affecting agriculture which he desired to add to the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. Although he thought those clauses might be adopted, if he found when the Bill was discussed that they would in the least degree jeopardize the passing of the Government measure, he pledged himself at once to withdraw them.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HYPOTHEC ABOLITION (SCOTLAND) BILL—LEAVE—FIRST READING.
MR. CARNEGIE, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill for abolishing the Landlord's right of Hypothec in Scotland, said, he desired simply to state the reasons which had induced him to bring forward the measure. Two years ago he moved for and obtained a Royal Commission to investigate the subject. When the Commission came to the conclusion of their inquiries there was a difference of opinion as to their Report, and of course the actual Report was the Report of the majority. He (Mr. Carnegie), in conjunction with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wigton (Mr. Young) and two other experienced Members of the Commission, dissented from that Report. He understood there had been introduced into "another place" a Bill embodying the recommendation of the Report of the Commission. Under these circumstances, he had thought it his duty to prepare a Bill embodying the opinions of the minority of the Commission. If the Bill were read a first time now, he proposed to fix the second reading for a comparatively remote day, in order that persons in Scotland, interested in the subject, might have ample opportunities of considering it.
SIR GRAHAM MONTGOMERYsaid, he would not offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill, but he reserved

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full liberty to oppose it at its future stages.
Motion agreed to.
Bill for the abolition of the Landlord's right of Hypothec in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CARNEGIE, Mr. FORDYCE, and Mr. EDWARD CRAUFURD.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 54.]

HYPOTHEC ABOLITION (SCOTLAND) BILL—LEAVE—FIRST READING.

  METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. AYRTON, Bill to make better provision for the raising of money to be applied in the execution of works of permanent improvement in the Metropolis, ordered to be brought in by Mr. AYRTON and Mr. TITE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 55.]
  House adjourned at Eleven o'clock.