Commons Sitting of 2 July 1867

MINUTES.
— PUBLIC BILLS — Resolution in Committee—Companies Act (1862) Amendment.
Ordered—Game Laws Amendment (Ireland)*; Companies Act (1862) Amendment *; Sea Fisheries *; Guarantees of Government Officers *; Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange*; County General Assessment (Scotland).*
First Reading—Lunacy (Scotland)* [219]; Recovery of Certain Debts (Scotland)* [2201; Companies Act (1862) Amendment* [221]; Sea Fisheries * [222]; Guarantee of Government Officers * [223]; Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange * [224]; County General Assessment (Scotland) * [225]; Game Laws Amendment (Ireland) * [226].
Referred to Select Committee—Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) * [95].
Committee—Representation of the People [79] [R.P.]; Land Contracts (Ireland) * [32] [R.P.]; Mines, &c., Assessment* (re-comm.) [R.P.]; Industrial and Provident Societies * [198] [R.P.]
Report—Sir John Port's Charity * [217].
Considered as amended—Public Records (Ireland)* [157].
Third Reading — Attorneys, &c., Certificate Duty [53], negatived.
The House met at Two of the clock.

INFECTION—SANITARY ACT OF 1866—CASE OF EMANUEL COOK.—QUESTION.
SIR J. CLARKE JERVOISEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has noticed the statement in The Times of May 11, headed "Sanitary Act of 1866," in which it appears that a pauper (Emanuel Cook) was confined in the pest-house of the Aylesbury Union Workhouse, under treatment for small pox, from whence he twice escaped, "setting the whole population of several villages in a terrible fright;" that he was taken before the Linsdale bench of magistrates, and, being a pauper, was fined in the mitigated penalty of 5s. and 12 s. 6d. costs, and, in default, "while suffering from a dangerous infectious disorder," whether the alternative of imprisonment was ordered; and, whether he can state what spread of small pox in the district has ensued?
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, that on receiving notice of the Question, he had ordered inquiry to be made into the facts of the case, but he had not yet received any answer. As soon as he was in a position to do so, he should communicate the information he should receive to the House.

CASE OF COLOUR SERGEANT CONNELL.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether any and what decision had been come to on the Petitions to the War Office of Colour Sergeant Connell, late of the 78th Highlanders, respecting his trial for insubordination by a Militia Regimental Court Martial, which sentenced him to confinement in Forfar Gaol with hard labour, and to the suspension of his pension for three months for conduct subsequent to his trial?
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: In consequence of having received the petitions to which the Question refers, and also from the communications received from the hon. Member himself, I referred the particulars of this court martial to the consideration

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  of the right hon. Gentleman the Judge Advocate General, and I received from him a communication expressing his opinion that the various proceedings in connection with this court martial were informal. In consequence of that communication, and fortified by the further opinion of my right hon. Friend that very doubtful evidence was adduced in support of the charge, I had no hesitation in thinking it my duty to quash the whole proceedings, and therefore gave directions to that effect. Official communications have been made on the subject, and I have also referred the matter to the consideration of the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital with reference to the pension.

VISIT OF THE VICEROY OF EGYPT.

  QUESTION.
  LORD EUSTACE CECILsaid, he had a Question to put to the Foreign Secretary on a subject of general interest to Englishmen, who, he was satisfied, felt deep concern that whatever of consideration, courtesy, and hospitality was due from the British Government to distinguished foreign Princes should be paid on their visit to this country. He begged to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is true that His Highness the Viceroy of Egypt has postponed his visit to this country; and, if so, whether he is at liberty to state the reason of the delay; and further, what arrangements have been made by Her Majesty's Government to give him a reception suitable to his dignity?
  LORD STANLEY: It is true that the Viceroy of Egypt has postponed his visit to this country, but has postponed it only, as I understand, for two or three days. The reason of the postponement is simply that he was requested by the Sultan to stay for a short time in Paris, and to meet him there; and that was an invitation which, considering the relations between the two parties, could not well be declined. With regard to the arrangements made by Her Majesty's Government for the suitable reception of the Viceroy, I may, perhaps, take this opportunity of entering into some little detail as to what they are. In the first place, I may say that as soon as I heard of the Viceroy's intention to visit this country, and could obtain from Her Majesty the requisite authorization, I lost no time in forwarding to him an official invitation. The Consul General for Egypt, Colonel Stanton, was sent over to Paris to
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  wait on the Viceroy, and to consult with him as to the arrangements which should be made. A Government vessel will receive him at the French coast to bring him over to Dover. At Dover he will be received with all military honours; he will be thence conveyed to London by a special train; an escort will attend him at the station; and he will be received by a guard of honour in London. I have arranged also, as an additional mark of honour, that sentries shall be placed before his door, and that either an equerry or groom-in-waiting shall be deputed to meet him and wait upon him at Dover. I was also authorized by Her Majesty, if he had come to-day as was expected, to invite him on her part to Windsor. With regard to further preparations and details for his reception, it is of course necessary to consult his own pleasure; but, generally, I can say that nothing within the power of the British Government will be left undone either to give him a reception suitable to his dignity, or to make his stay in this country agreeable.
  MR. MORRISONasked whether the Viceroy would stay at Claridge's Hotel?
  LORD STANLEY: I know of no other place where he can he received. [An hon. MEMBER: Buckingham Palace.] The rooms which are generally appropriated to the reception of distinguished persons in Buckingham Palace are at this moment under repair for the reception of the Sultan; and I know of no other Royal palace where he can be received. [Several hon. MEMBERS: St. James's.] There is no accommodation at St. James's Palace for distinguished visitors.
  MR. ROEBUCK: There is Prince Alfred's residence—Clarence House, I think it is called.
  LORD STANLEY: I must say I am not master of the Royal palaces; but, even were it otherwise, I very much doubt whether the accommodation at Clarence House would be by any means so convenient as that which will be provided at the hotel. I can only further say that all the circumstances attending his reception will show that we have every desire to give the Viceroy such a reception as is suitable to the dignity of the very highest visitor.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL—THE RATEPAYING CLAUSE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. DENMANsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer,

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  Whether it is the intention of the Government to bring up a new Clause defining the mode in which rates are to be demanded, as contemplated by Clause 3 of the Bill for Amending the Representation of the People; and, when he will place the Notice of such intended Clause on the Notice Paper?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Although the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Tiverton seems to have shrunk from the engagement into which he entered with the House to provide us with a clause to meet this difficulty, I notice that his hon. and learned Colleague in this difficult enterprise (Mr.; Locke) has resolved to meet that engagement, and I feel that I should be guilty of great want of courtesy towards him if I did not give the House the opportunity of discussing the propriety of the provision which he has prepared.

REPORT OF THE TRANSPORT COMMISSION.—QUESTION.
MAJOR ANSONsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, If he will be able to state to the House this Session the course he intends to pursue with regard to the Report of the Transport Commission; and, whether publicity will be given to the opinions of the heads of the several Departments in the War Office with regard to that Report?
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: In answering the Question of my hon. and gallant Friend, I think I can only repeat the substance of what I stated on a former occasion at a greater length, when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Harwich (Major Jervis) brought this question before the House. The Report of Lord Strathnairn's Commission, following as it does, closely upon the Report of the Royal Commission, presents, I think, a very favourable opportunity for a careful revision of the present organization both of the War Office and of the administrative departments in the army. But I need not point out to my hon. and gallant Friend that that is a task as heavy and as difficult as it is important. I think I shall be guilty of great presumption and great imprudence if in the short remaining period of this Session, occupied moreover, as it now is, I were to attempt to submit to this House a plan upon so complicated and difficult a subject with any hope that that plan could be worthy of the approbation of the House. The course which I propose to take, therefore, is to give my best
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and most careful consideration to the subject during the recess, calling to my assistance the best advice I can obtain, in the hope that at the commencement of the next Session I may be able to submit to this House a plan worthy of the consideration and approbation of Parliament. Under these circumstances it is not my intention—it would indeed be premature—now to lay upon the table any views upon this subject which I may receive from the various heads of the War Department.

INDIA—THE METRIC SYSTEM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.—QUESTION.
MR. J. B. SMITHsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, When the Report of the Committee appointed by the Viceroy of India, recommending the adoption in India of the Metric system of Weights and Measures,; will be printed, as ordered by this House on the 13th May last?
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, the Report referred to had not yet been received from India. He had written for it immediately after the Order was made by the House, and when it was received it would at once be printed and presented to the House.

IRELAND—THE TYRONE MAGISTRATES.

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN ARCHDALLsaid, he would beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether there is any truth in the rumour that some alterations were being made in the Report presented to the Lord Chancellor by the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the charges made by Judge Keogh at the last Assizes?
  LORD NAASsaid, he was much obliged to his hon. and gallant Friend for asking this Question, which gave him the opportunity of explaining some remarks made by him yesterday, which he thought had not been quite rightly apprehended. No alteration whatever that he knew of had been made in the Report submitted to the Lord Chancellor by the Commissioners referred to; and he hoped he might be allowed to repeat that the only cause of the delay which had occurred was that the Lord Chancellor had been very much occupied in other business, and had not had sufficient time to give to the consideration of certain observations which he thought it his duty to make to the magistrates upon this Report. He (Lord Naas) hoped, however, that these observations, together

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  with the remainder of the Papers, would be in the possession of the House in a very short time.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM—REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL— [BILL 79]
(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Walpole, Secretary Lord Stanley.)
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM—REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL— [BILL 79]

  COMMITTEE. [PROGRESS JULY 1.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. ROEBUCK: I hope the Committtee will allow me to make a few observations before the Chancellor of the Exchequer addresses them. They are aware that I have given him my most strenuous support during the passage of this Bill, and that I did so in particular on the Motion of the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), when I formed one of the majority.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he rose to order. He did not wish to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but there was no question before the Committee.
  MR. ROEBUCK: Then I shall move, Mr. Dodson, that you report Progress. I was about to say that the reasons which induced me to support the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion were—first, because I thought his plan of re-distribution the better one; and next, because I was told that if the Government were put in a minority the passing of the Bill would be jeopardized. Last night, however, another Motion was made, to which the right hon. Gentleman acceded, thus breaking through the rule which he had laid down that we ought to distribute the representation over various parts of the country, and not accumulate representatives upon large masses of population. The right hon. Gentleman, moreover, out of his especial favour, gave the town of Leeds an additional Member. Now, it must be recollected that the places suggested by the hon. Member for Wick were six—namely, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham, and Sheffield. Four of them are now to come in—not, I suppose, to do away with flagrant anomalies, because they will still exist. With regard to Leeds the right hon. Gentleman said he gave this additional representative to the great metropolis of Yorkshire. Now, I deny the claim of Leeds to that title, because Sheffield, though its population is somewhat smaller, has a larger constituency, thereby showing that there is a class
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  of persons in Sheffield of a higher and superior position to the people of Leeds. I supported the right hon. Gentleman at some danger to myself, for it was supposed that my constituents were about to be blessed with an additional Member, and everybody must know that I could have been actuated by no personal or party feelings in supporting the Bill. I was delighted to hear last night that there have been changes in the opinions of Members regarding the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire said it must now be passed—a very great change of opinion, and I think my foresight was rather better than that of the right hon. Gentleman, who so violently attempted to destroy it. I want to know, however, why Sheffield is left out. It cannot be because of the rule of not giving additional Members to large populations, because we have departed from it; and it cannot be that there is any difficulty in obtaining another seat. Why, then, should Sheffield be left in this way out in the cold? I have done my duty in this House, and I think my constituents have done their duty by sending a Member who will support this Bill. I put it, then, to the right hon. Gentleman whether he thinks it fair to me and to my constituency thus to desert us. I do not see myself any great advantage to Sheffield in its having another Member; but I cannot help feeling that the people of Sheffield will regard themselves as affronted, and I do not think that they or I deserve it. I move, Sir, that you report Progress.
  MR. KNATCHBULL - HUGESSENsaid, that after the concession of the Government on the previous evening and their departure from their original plan, he wished to take that opportunity of saying a few words upon the clause now under discussion. Shortly before the Whitsuntide recess he had felt it his duty—in a manner which he intended k> be most respectful to the Committee and to the Go-I vernmeut—to enter his protest against the insufficient means which Government had at their disposal in dealing with the question of re-distribution. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, unwilling that his policy should be criticized by so humble an individual, taunted him (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) with having made proposals without any weight of responsibility upon him, and jeeringly invited him to a further declaration of opinions to which the forms of the House prevented him from giving any practical effect. But since that time

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  he had had the satisfaction of hearing that protest (which he had made without concert with anyone) entirely endorsed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, and every alteration or Amendment which Government had made in their Bill had been in the spirit and in the direction of that schedule which he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) had been presumptuous enough to publish subsequently. Emboldened by this, he wished respectfully to urge upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer the consideration of the question whether he could not even now somewhat extend his scheme of re-distribution. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told the House last night that he hoped they would not attempt to settle the principle upon which the representation of the country was founded—that time, accident, and contrivance had much to do with its present position. But, however true this might be, and whether or no it was desirable that the Committee should settle any principle of this kind or not, surely the right hon. Gentleman would allow that the fewer incongruities and anomalies we left behind us now after the passing of this Bill, the better chance there was that the element of permanence would attach to the plan, and that the arrangement made would be satisfactory to the country. They might give—they probably would give—a large extension of electoral rights to the community, but unless with that extension was coupled a wide—a fair—a just revision of the manner in which electoral power was distributed, they would do but half their work, and would bequeath to their successors the necessity of dealing with this question, possibly, if not probably, in the teeth of an agitation which a little wisdom, a little foresight, a little courage now might forestall and prevent. And what was the right principle upon which to act? Not—as had been done by different Governments and individuals—calculate how many seats the House of Commons might probably allow them to take from small boroughs, and then consider how they should best distribute them, but consider in the first place what are the most patent and glaring incongruities in our system — how many seats it is necessary to obtain to remove or mitigate these, and then appeal to the wisdom and patriotism of Parliament in order to obtain the necessary number. Now what were the most glaring anomalies in the system? First, that the counties, that is, the population dwelling elsewhere than in represented towns, have
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  not got their fair share of representation. Secondly, that equal representative power is given to very large and very small constituencies. Thirdly, the existence of unrepresented towns larger and more important as regards population and property than many which are represented. No scheme would be satisfactory that did not in some degree touch all these three points, and he would venture to urge upon the attention of the Committee this broad principle—that where you find a large population representing a large amount of property and having, as compared with smaller communities, an insufficient representation in Parliament, you should equally consider the claims of that population, whether it is massed together in a town or scattered abroad over a wider area—namely, in the division of a county. Now, if they looked broadly to this principle of population they would find that including the five metropolitan districts which this Bill does not touch there are just eleven borough constituencies in England, the population of which exceeded 150,000 at the Census of 1861. The Government had already proposed to deal with counties upon this principle, according to their population and wealth; and if they would deal with the boroughs upon one and the same principle, the matter would stand thus: these eleven large borough constituencies would absorb eleven seats—seven seats had been already appropriated — Chelsea, Tower Hamlets, London University, Salford, and Merthyr Tydvil, and it was proposed to give twenty-five to counties. This would account for forty-three seats out of the forty-five at their disposal; and he would beg to observe at this point that, considering the strongest claim to be that of the counties, he would vote for no proposal, from whatever quarter it might come to abridge or curtail the number of spats allotted by the Government to counties. But having satisfied upon equal terms the claims of these large county and borough constituencies, then it was that, in his opinion, the question of the enfranchisement of other new towns should arise, and their claims weighed against those of existing constituencies of smaller importance. Now there were four ways in which additional seats might be obtained—first, there was the plan which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already proposed vith a view to obtain scats for Scotland—namely, an increase of the numbers of the House — and he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) would respectfully but earnestly press upon the Chancellor of

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  the Exchequer that the fairest, simplest, and most straightforward course to adopt would be to call upon the House to decide aye or no upon the question whether the number of its Members should be increased, before proceeding further with his scheme of re-distribution. The claims of Scotland were great and undeniable; but the question of increasing the number of the House ought to be decided not with reference to the claims of Scotland alone, but to just claims for increased representation from whatever part of the whole kingdom they arose, considering England and Scotland as one country. And if, as was now proposed, the Committee went on to distribute among English constituencies all the seats at their disposal, the question would come on at a time and in a manner most unfair to Scotland, when the House, if it objected to increase its numbers, would have to decide between doing that of which it disapproved or refusing the just claims of Scot land. But putting aside this point, there was a second plan for obtaining more seats, of which he spoke in fear and trembling, because he knew that it affected several friends around him, twelve seats might be obtained by taking away the second Member from the twelve boroughs which had a population between 10,000 and 12,000, Of the thirteen new boroughs proposed to be created by the Government ten were of much more importance than the other three, and with these twelve seats and the two over after the above disposition of forty-three seats, the Chancellor of the Exchequer might either exhaust his last, or might take these ten and have four seats over to give to counties or other constituencies. Then there was, thirdly, the adoption of the principle of grouping, by which the Government could get as many seats as they wished. He believed the grouping scheme of the hon. Member for Wick would give nine seats, and though it was not a system to which he himself was partial, it was certainly an alternative which might be suggested. Then, lastly, there remained the plan which appeared to him (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) to be by far the best—namely, the disfranchisement of very small boroughs. He was not afraid to say that in such places he believed the low suffrage which had been granted would be an evil, introducing an element upon which corrupt practices would be attempted, without the advantage of numbers to counterbalance and neutralize such attempts. Now, he was not in the
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  habit of troubling the Committee with statistics, but he would just read one single fact. There were at this moment forty boroughs with a population below 7,000 each — their aggregate population was 220,959—the number of their inhabited houses was 43,353—they returned sixty-three Members, and their population and inhabited houses altogether was less than several of our large towns and several divisions of counties which only return two Members each. Was it possible to leave such anomalies and expect your system to carry with it the character of permanence? But he would not ask for a violent or extensive change. If the Government would agree to disfranchise only those boroughs whose population was below 6,000, they would obtain twenty-three additional seats—which would enable them to enfranchise all towns whose importance was sufficient to entitle them to enfranchisement, to give another Member or two to counties, and to bestow eleven Members upon Scotland, whose just claims he contended could not be satisfied with a less number. ["Question!"] The hon. Member who cried question would soon be satisfied, for he had now discharged his duty. The Government had shown a pliancy and desire to concede, which encouraged him to urge upon them some extension of their scheme. He hoped the Committee would be able to get rid of those scruples against disfranchisement which really appeared to him so absurd, and urged upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer the consideration of the question.
  MR. JOHN HARDYsaid, he wished to explain his vote of last night. He protested against giving additional Members to the large boroughs at the expense of the smaller ones. He could not understand what right certain constituencies could have to give four or six votes to as many Members, while in other towns two votes were the limit. He did not object to giving an additional Member to the largest of these towns; but no man ought to have more than two votes. It was a most selfish thing on the part of the large boroughs to beg for more Members. The hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) said he could hardly call him a man who did not possess the franchise. If so, why did they not spread the franchise all over the country? But to give an additional vote to those who were already well off in that respect was like giving three coats to one man while another was naked, or like giving three loaves to one man while another

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  was starving. He thought it an anomaly and an injustice that any voter should have the power of voting for four Members. If this were done the large boroughs would get such a power with their four or six votes—for he supposed they would come to that—that they would swamp the counties.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he represented a borough that had been "left out in the cold." The hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) proposed to give Swansea an additional Member, to which it was well entitled. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would re-consider his scheme in this respect.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Although reporting Progress at the commencement of the Committee is not a practice which ought to be drawn into a precedent, I do not censure my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Roebuck). In the course of a lengthened Bill of this kind it is absolutely necessary sometimes to review our position. This consideration justifies the Motion. My hon. and learned Friend has referred to the marvellous change in my opinions on this Bill, but that change is grounded upon the marvellous changes in the Bill itself. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked last night to state the course he intended to take in consequence of the Motion made by the hon. Member for Liverpool and of the Government having acceded to that Motion. The Motion of the hon. Member (Mr. Horsfall) was not the last of the same kind, and therefore it is desirable that the Committee should take a view of their position and re-consider the whole question of enfranchisement and dis-enfranchisement generally. I believe the Committee will require more seats than are yet provided. To use a financial phrase, we are taking Votes of Supply on such occasions as last night, and must have Ways and Means to meet them. It would be most inconvenient to adopt the Motions for additional seats, and then ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to re-consider the Schedules. The right hon. Gentleman himself has on a former occasion laid down the course to take. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the proper course was to consider comprehensively the claims for enfranchisement, and adopt what should be adopted, and reject what should be rejected; and, having done that, then proceed to find the disfranchisement necessary to get the required number of seats. What I suggest is this—that with the consent of the House some arrangement
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  should be come to, by which we shall go through the various proposals about to be seriously made, either as to enfranchisement altogether new, or an addition to the representation of communities already represented. If we do that, then the right hon. Gentleman will be in a position to know what he can do with regard to providing any additional seats. I would beg the Committee to refer to the state of the Notice Paper for a few minutes, and they will find that we stand in this position. Last night we dealt with the question of additional enfranchisement, and then there is to follow a Motion of disfranchisement to be made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wick. Then we get to the proposals to give a third Member to Sheffield, and two Members to Huddersfield, Swansea, and Birkenhead. Then follows a Motion of my own, which seems to me to be perfectly irresistible in point of reason, and that is, to give two additional Members to the Southern Division of Lancashire. I do not at all wish to make that Motion as against the claims of any other county, but I wish my Motion, as every other Motion, to be considered on its own merits, so that it may not clash with anything else. Then we have Motions on the Paper to give Members to Cheltenham, Chesterfield, and other places, making in all sixteen seats which are asked for in good faith, and in no one case can it be said that the Motions are unworthy or unsuitable to be brought under the consideration of the House. Then there is the claim for Scotland — which is one upon which some decision ought to be come to before we proceed with the question of enfranchisement and disfranchisement. It appears to me that we should be altogether in a false position if we took these questions casually, as they will come up from their position on the Notice Paper, rejecting one to-night, adopting another to morrow, and endeavouring to provide by modifying the scheme of disfranchisement with reference to the Motion we adopt. I submit that the proper course would be to say nothing at all about alterations in the scheme of disfranchisements until we have gone through all these claims, and the sooner we go through them the better, because when we have gone through them we shall be in a position to try the question of what amount of disfranchisement this House ought to sanction.
  MR. BRIGHT: The hon. Member for Dartmouth (Mr. J. Hardy) has made a

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  reference to me. I beg to tell him and the House that I have received a letter from an important member of his constituency, asking me to propose the disfranchisement of his borough. The writer is a gentleman very well known to the hon. Member; and he says that the corruption of the borough is such that there is no cure for it but absolute extinction; yet, that if that absolute extinction cannot be had, it might possibly be desirable to unite the place with some neighbouring borough, the name of which I do not recollect. I am sorry I have not the letter with me; but if I had known the hon. Member was going to refer to me, I would have brought it down and read it to the House. The observations of the right hon. Member for South Lancashire will have shown the Government and the Committee the difficult position in which we are placed. If all these proposals are to be discussed fully and divided upon, the House will have to sit a good deal longer than most of us wish; and the Bill going up so late to the other House may give no opportunity for that consideration to which it is entitled from that assembly. If I were in the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—which is rather a bold figure of speech—I should do one of two things: I shall just mention them to explain to him what he should do to get us out of this difficulty. I think he knows, from the discussion which has taken place, what is the disposition of the House generally with regard to this matter of re-distribution. The scope of it is not sufficient to meet what the House really wishes. I do not confine my observations to this side of the House. I think it applies equally to Gentlemen opposite, many of whom, I am sure, do not desire to perpetuate the continuance of some of the smallest boroughs which now usurp a place in the representation, but are, in reality, no part of a true popular representation. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the liberality with which both sides of the House are disposed to treat him, might take this whole question into consideration and obtain a few more seats. I believe ten more seats would have been obtained if the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Portsmouth (Mr. Serjeant Gaselee) had been carried. The right hon. Gentleman might take those ten seats and so dispose of them as to enable the Committee to pass the Schedules as they ought to leave this House. Then we should get through without any of that prolonged discussion
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  which, if we go on from Amendment to Amendment, I foresee is likely to present itself. That is one way of getting out of the difficulty. The other mode is one which many might think unwise, and respecting which it might be said we had gone too far to adopt it. I regret extremely that the Government did not from the first include in their Bill the whole question of the franchise both in boroughs and in counties for the three kingdoms. They might have done that in one Bill, which might have been passed without difficulty during this Session, It would have been passed by this day if it had been so introduced, and then, in the next Session—next year the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to deal with the question of Scotland and of Ireland—in the next Session, he might in one measure have settled the whole question of re-distribution. When he came to give more Members to Scot land there would then have been no need of any proposal to increase the numbers of this House, which is, I think, one of the most untenable proposals which could be submitted to Parliament, and I hope one which will never be made. Scotland has no claim to more Members because it is Scotland, but because it is a part of the United Kingdom. It has just the same kind of claim as Lancashire. It does not derive its claim from the fact of its having been an ancient and independent kingdom. We repudiate all that. If I as an Englishman, and the hon. Member for Montrose as a Scotchman, are to look on our selves as belonging to different nations, and to contend here some of us on behalf of Scotland, and some of us on behalf of England, it seems to me that we are going back to a barbarous age, to which I hope nobody is anxious to return. I would treat Scotland exactly as I would treat Lancashire, Yorkshire, or any other portion of this kingdom, and would give more Members to Scotland just as I would give more Members to Lancashire. This matter, it is clear from the position we are in, has never been fairly considered by the Government; there always has been a difficulty with them; they have been afraid that they were going further than some of their sup porters would follow them. Notwithstanding what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday, they have been afraid that the measure might be of so popular a nature as to disturb what is called the balance of parties and of power in the House; but if you come before the country to adjust

  867
  a great question like this, pettifogging, cheese-paring, little tricks of management, are out of place and unworthy of statesmanship. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has shown great breadth of view in the course he has taken with regard to the franchise. I think it would be satisfactory to him, and I hope also to the Members of the Government and to Gentlemen opposite—I am sure it would be satisfactory to Members on this side of the House—if the right hon. Gentleman would only open his eyes a little wider to look at the question of these Schedules, and would bring before the Committee a somewhat broader scheme. I am not asking for anything extravagant or that need startle any hon. Member. I do not ask him to take the Schedules which I proposed some years ago. Many persons, especially among the powerful class, are perhaps not yet fit for that; but I ask him to do that which I think he may gather to be the view of the great majority of the House, and to meet, to a greater extent than this proposal does, the general wish of the country to get rid of the smallest boroughs, and of the "sham" representation and corruption inseparable from those boroughs. Let the right hon. Gentleman follow either of the plans I have suggested, and improve his Schedules as he perfectly well can—just as well as I could myself, and in saying this I am giving him as much credit as he will expect me to give him—and the difficulty is disposed of. If he cannot do that, I am not sure that he will not even now do better to dispose of the question of the franchise for the three kingdoms this year, and postpone the whole question of disfranchisement till next Session.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had absolutely pledged the Government to an increase in the representation of Scotland, and he would therefore be compelled either to obtain the additional seats from England, or to increase the number of Members in that House. The right hon. Gentleman must see the difficulty of increasing the number of Members in that House; and he therefore appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to relieve himself from the prospective dilemma which was thus before them by agreeing to one or the other of the two proposals which had been suggested by the hon. Member for Birmingham. In Scotland there was not a borough with less than 10,000 inhabitants which sent a representative to this House,
  868
  while in England there were eleven boroughs with less than 5,000 inhabitants, and fifty-six boroughs with between 5,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, that had representatives in this House. He submitted that such a glaring anomaly as this ought not to be allowed to longer exist.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The hon. Member for Birmingham has spoken much about the opportunities the Government have had of gathering the opinion of the House on the question of the re-distribution of seats. I must, however, be permitted to say that that opinion is not to be gathered from the speeches of individual Members, however ingenious, although these ingenious speeches may come from Gentlemen of influence. It is to be gathered from Motions made and votes given upon divisions. We have had two occasions presented to us during the more recent portion of the Session for considering the question of re-distribution and taking the opinion of the House upon it. Notice was given by an hon. Gentleman opposite that, in re-distributing the seats which we might have at our disposal, it was expedient that no borough with a population of less than 10,000 should be represented by more than one Member, even though it might now be represented by two. There was ample notice of that Motion; a very full House considered it and came to a decision upon it. It was carried by an overwhelming majority, and the opinion of the House thus distinctly pronounced, that no borough having not more than 10,000 inhabitants should in future be represented by more than one Member. I gathered, then, that that was the opinion of the House on the subject; and I thought that, like practical men having a difficult task before them, they were desirous that in legislation upon the point the Government should be guided by that division. We had also another Motion, the object of which was to disfranchise altogether boroughs whose population did not exceed 5,000. The decision of a very full House was taken upon that question, and a very considerable, though not an overwhelming, majority voted against the proposal. I gathered also the opinion of the House from that division, and it is only by such expressions of opinion that a Minister can satisfactorily be guided. Those proceedings have been going on for a considerable time; we have acted upon the divisions which have been taken, and I put it to the Committee what chance have we now, or can we ever

  869
  have, of arriving at a practical result on a question so large and complicated as this, if, after the House has formally and deliberately decided points such as those I have mentioned, we are on the 2nd of July to treat all those solemn decisions as a mere nothing? In acting in that manner we should really be proceeding more after the fashion of a debating society than of an assembly conducting its deliberations with the sedateness which is necessary in order that a great question should be settled in a manner satisfactory to the nation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire has a scheme for conducting the business of the House, and has favoured me with an intimation of it. He says that there are on the Notice Paper a great many clauses which relate to the re-distribution of seats, proposing enfranchisement in some cases and increased representation in others, and suggests that it would be better that the Committee should proceed to deal with that branch of the subject, and decide upon it, leaving the means to be afterwards considered by which those requirements, should we think fit to acknowledge them, might be satisfied. My answer to the right hon. Gentleman's that the new clauses proposed by the Government have been disposed of, and that those to which he refers are clauses which are brought forward by independent Members, in whose power it lies to arrange their own business, and to submit those questions to the Committee or not as they please. We, as a Government, are prepared to meet them, and to give our opinion upon them whenever they may come on for discussion; but I must at once say that we are not prepared to support any proposals for the further disfranchisement of boroughs, and there is not one proposal on the Paper with that object which the Government will not deem it to be their duty to oppose. The position of affairs, so far as the Government is concerned, is extremely simple. When I came forward with the proposal which I made yesterday, I stated to the Committee that it was made in the spirit of compromise and conciliation, and that it was not one which I approved in principle; but that I believed that the principle was one which might, under the circumstances, be applied without any of those dangerous consequences which, if acted upon on a larger scale, I apprehended might arise. I never for a moment concealed the spirit in which we made that overture, or the
  870
  opinion with respect to it which was entertained either by myself or my Colleagues, and I expressed a hope that it would have the effect of expediting the progress of these discussions. Nor do I despair that the Committee will, after calm consideration, be of opinion that the general scheme brought forward by the Government with regard to the re-distribution of seats is one which it is advisable to accept. Of this, at all events, I feel quite sure, that if after having, in the course of a long Session, arrived at decisions on points of importance connected with this subject, we treat all those decisions as mere idle matter, and indulge in all sorts of dreams and vagaries respecting the representation of the people, we shall end by doing nothing and thus disappoint the fair expectations of the country. I hope therefore, seeing that we have all made some sacrifices to come down here this morning and proceed with the Committee on this Bill, that we shall do so at once; but I would first recall to the attention of hon. Members the exact position in which we stand. The new clause which was proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool was, at my suggestion, read a second time. I then moved to report Progress, promising that when we met again I would propose an Amendment which would express what I believe to be the feeling of the Committee, and certainly the views of the Government, with respect to giving a third Member to a city and three boroughs which we yesterday decided should enjoy that advantage. If we proceed in Committee, I shall propose that Amendment. It will then be open to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon to move his Amendment if he should think proper. If he does not, I think the Committee will accept our proposal, and that we shall make some progress in our labours.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, he agreed with his hon. and learned Colleague in urging the claims of Sheffield to increased representation.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he entirely concurred with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in thinking that the only true way of ascertaining the feeling of the House was by means of Motions made and divisions taken, the results being duly considered. In dealing with a matter so difficult as the re-distribution of seats—in volving as it did so many various views and interests—he had thought that the best course which the House could adopt was

  871
  to support some one scheme, taking the good and evil together, and trusting to the Government as having looked carefully into the whole question. Acting upon this view he had made up his mind to give his support to the plan which Her Majesty's Ministers had proposed; but he must confess that he had felt, after what had taken place the night before, great difficulty in the course to be taken. The decision they arrived at seemed to be a complete reversal of what had previously happened, and a complete departure from the conclusions at which the House had already arrived, as evidenced by its votes. He was, under those circumstances, afraid that further opportunities would be laid hold of to endeavour to open up almost every question that had already been decided. He was glad, therefore, to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer announce his determination not to give way on any of those other points on which the opinion of the House had been pronounced. If that declaration were adhered to, some security as to the conduct of the Bill would be afforded. If, however, hon. Gentlemen opposite chose to bring forward their theories for electoral districts downwards or upwards, it was impossible to say when the Committee could arrive at the end of the discussions in which they were engaged. He had, until last night, some hope that there was a reasonable prospect of passing the Bill this year; but, unless the Government adhered to some definite scheme, it would be impossible in the course of the present Session to get through the work before them. He believed that this question could only be settled by adherence to some general system, and he was glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not mean to cast any more seats loose.
  Motion withdrawn.
  New Clause—
  (Certain Boroughs to return three Members.) From and after the end of this present Parliament, the several Boroughs named in Schedule (G) to this Act, each having a population (according to the last Census of one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one) of upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand, shall respectively return three Members to serve in Parliament.—(Mr. Horsfall.)
  Amendment proposed,
  In line 1, after the word "Parliament," to insert the words "the City of Manchester, and the Boroughs of Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds, shall each respectively return three Members to serve in Parliament."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, he proposed that the town of Sheffield should be added to the list. The trade of the town was increasing. It contained 38,000 electors, and was increasing with a rapidity unexampled; therefore, it ought to enjoy increased representation in proportion to other largely increasing towns. No charge of bribery had ever been brought against the constituency of Sheffield. The two great towns of Yorkshire ought to enjoy the same privileges of representation which had been granted to the two great towns of Lancashire.
  Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment, after the word "Leeds," to insert the words "and Sheffield." — (Mr. Hadfield.)
  MR. H. BERKELEYsaid, he must advocate the claims of Bristol to additional representation, when other constituencies were having their claims recognized. Bristol ought to be particularly favoured by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as it brought in a greater revenue to the Exchequer than Birmingham. Bristol had more claim to increased representation than any other city in the kingdom. The Customs returns amounted to upwards of a million, the Excise returns were nearly the same, and the number of electors was upwards of 14,000. Bristol was a city and county in itself, and had large shipping, mercantile, and manufacturing interests, and if it had three Members a Tory must come in.
  MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEsaid, he regretted that Bristol was not included in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposal. When they heard of the capital of Yorkshire getting another representative, and of all these northern towns, which were within an hour's railway ride of one another, having the same privilege conferred upon them, it would be a great shame if the south-west of England, including South Wales, were left without additional representation. Bristol was only a small degree inferior in population to Leeds, and was entitled to the favourable consideration of the Committee.
  MR. LIDDELLsaid, he regarded the Motion of the hon. Member for Sheffield as a very natural one, and he hoped and expected that similar proposals would be made by other representatives in large towns. It was the natural sequence of the vote of last night, and he was extremely anxious to hear the grounds on which the Government would resist this and other similar

  873
  Motions. Last night the Government sanctioned the principle of giving representation to numbers in large towns, and when the right hon. Member for South Lancashire raised the question of additional representation for South Lancashire, he should like to know how it would be possible to oppose it? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that he wished to be ruled in coming to a decision upon these great questions by previous decisions of the House of Commons, and that being the case, why was he not last night ruled by the previous decision of the Committee? As long as this vacillation on the part of the Government was exhibited, the House would be in a chaos of perplexity and difficulty. Every representative of a large town was entitled to ask what was the principle upon which the Government were prepared to act in giving representation to numbers.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, that the proposals of the hon. Members for Sheffield and Bristol were justified. With respect to the latter city, he had had a long hereditary connection with it, and therefore he felt an interest in it. He desired to know what guidance the House was under in respect to this Bill; for it appeared that the House enunciated one principle in one week and abandoned it in the next. Last night the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Adderley) had been put forward to raise the standard of "No Surrender;" but a little later in the discussion the Chancellor of the Exchequer surrendered at discretion, and was even more generous than the Member for Liverpool desired, for he threw in Leeds, as one would throw an additional penny to a crossing-sweeper.
  MR. MORRISONsaid, he was in favour of carrying the principle of representation a great deal further than was now proposed. He favoured the direct representation of minorities. He was only sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey was not able to bring forward his scheme, as it affected both boroughs and counties. But when Sheffield was singled out, and he was called on to give an additional representative to that borough, he could not admit that there was any specialty in the case which should induce him to vote in favour of the proposal. Leeds had a claim as the capital of the woollen industry of the country.
  MR. SCHREIBERsaid, the case of Sheffield was in very good hands, but he
  874
  wished to say a word or two in favour of Bristol, which was one of the great centres of industry.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, that the Question before the Committee had reference to Sheffield only.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he would suggest that, for the convenience of the Committee, the two cases of Sheffield and Bristol, which were so nearly alike, might be considered together.
  MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he had a horror of being a bore, and therefore would only say a few words. He thought there was a special case for Sheffield. It was a constituency so large that there was hardly another in the country equal to it at the present time to which it was not proposed to give a third Member. All the boroughs that were to have three Members, with the single exception of Leeds, were not larger in population than Sheffield. They had had it very often stated that if the Government were put into a minority they would desert the Bill. He had been very often frightened in that way; but, like the people who were called to by the boy that the wolf was coming, he had been so often called that he was no longer frightened. If they were to put the Government at that time into a minority, he had no doubt that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see excellent reasons for immediately including Sheffield. He wanted to put that to the test. He had hitherto voted for the Government, because the Bill was too good to be lost. Having said this, he must add that what he had foreseen had come to pass. He was told by a right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) and another hon. Gentleman very near him (Mr. Bright) that a Bill could not be improved in Committee. He thought the Bill had been improved in Committee, and he believed the proposal of his hon. Friend (Mr. Hadfield), if adopted, would still farther improve it.
  MR. LAINGsaid, he was placed in a position of considerable embarrassment by the present Motion, because he was the author of the proposal to give additional Members to six large towns, including Sheffield and Bristol. On the other hand, he felt there was considerable force in the appeal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that these questions should be met in a spirit of compromise and conciliation. A good deal of obloquy had been thrown upon, the Government in the course of this discussion by Members on the other side for having made the concession of an additional

  875
  Member to four large towns. He thought that concession was a most wise act on their part. He had urged additional representation mainly with a view of their arriving at some sort of settlement upon the question of re-distribution, which might be accepted by the common sense of the country as in a certain degree a permanent settlement. He therefore regretted exceedingly the decision to which the Committee came, under the pressure of the threat thrown out by the Government, by which any addition to the representation of large towns was rejected, though by a very narrow majority. He was not going to taunt the Government with inconsistency in having come forward with this proposal. Many inclined to take that course might have been quite as inconsistent if they had been in the places of the Ministers. It was an arduous and difficult task for any Government not commanding a decided party majority to carry a Bill of that sort through the House. On many occasions the second thoughts of the Government had been better than their first, and he thought it very honourable on their part that they had had the moral courage to reconsider this matter, and to bring forward a proposal in the spirit of compromise. As to the case of Sheffield, he felt pretty strongly that, under the peculiar circumstances which had transpired with regard to that town, the circumstances were very exceptional. He did not mean for a moment to say that the majority, or anything like a majority, of the people of Sheffield were tainted with the spirit which had produced these horrible outrages; but he thought it a good moral example, when a taint of that sort was introduced into a town, that they should not take that particular opportunity of giving it additional representation. In the case of Great Yarmouth, the House had decided on disfranchising a large and numerous constituency, of whom the majority was probably pure, because that pure majority had not exerted themselves sufficiently to prevent the introduction of the tainted and impure element. If, five years hence, when Sheffield had been freed, as he doubted not it would be, from the taint of that spirit, a seat should fall vacant in that House, he would be the foremost to support a Motion for giving that additional seat to Sheffield; but, under present circumstances, he saw no special ground for acceding to this Motion, and in the spirit of the compromise and conciliation exhibited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night, and accepting
  876
  the offer then made, he felt bound to give a conscientious vote against the proposal of his hon. Friend. He did not for a moment wish to prejudge the question as to what the Committee might do in respect of the other places, whether to enfranchise or disfranchise them. His only desire was to intimate that, while he should vote to give additional Members to the four large towns, he should not feel at liberty to support the proposal for giving an additional Member to Sheffield.
  MR. ROEBUCKsaid, that some time since, when a discussion took place with regard to the Pension List, the case of an unfortunate gentleman whose name began with A, and was therefore placed at the head of the list, was always being brought forward. The case of Sheffield, being the first of the kind, was placed at the head of the list, and it ran the risk of being continually brought before the House as a standing example. The Royal Commission had reason to believe that the evil which had been brought to light at Sheffield had spread further and deeper into the country at large. He was divulging no secret. They had asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to bring in a clause to repeal the one which limited their inquiries to the town of Sheffield, and to enable them to extend their inquiries throughout Great Britain. The county of Lancaster was not the freest from taint.
  MR. THOMAS HUGHESsaid, he must protest against what had just been stated. It would be improper to bring the matter before the House on that occasion; but as it had been stated that the Commissioners had asked for powers to carry over Great Britain the inquiry that had hitherto been carried on at Sheffield, he begged to say, as one of the Commission, that he did not understand it to be at all an application of that kind. The only application which had been made was to extend the inquiry to two places that the Commissioners had ear-marked, and which were in the county of Lancaster. Further than that there had been no application.
  MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he wished to say a word or two in explanation of his previous statement. The application of the Royal Commission to the Home Secretary was that a clause should be introduced authorizing the Home Secretary to extend their powers of inquiry to the towns in the county of Lancashire, and also to any part of Great Britain, should they think fit to ask him for such an extension of their powers.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that quite independently of the point which had been raised by the two hon. and learned Gentlemen, he thought that the conclusion which was drawn by the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) from the recent lamentable disclosures at Sheffield was erroneous. In the first place, the hon. Member said that he would not at this particular moment enfranchise Sheffield, in consequence of the circumstances that had been brought to light by these deplorable disclosures, but that it might be done some little time hence with propriety. The hon. Member admitted that the claim of Sheffield to additional representation in other respects was very strong. But the opportunity of enfranchising a town did not occur every year. Therefore, when the time arrived, which he trusted would not be long, when Sheffield had purged itself of this taint, the opportunity for increasing its representation would have gone — for the question of the re-distribution of seats was not one to be needlessly opened from year to year. But he went still further, and demurred to the proposition that, because, unhappily, certain persons in that particular town had been guilty of these abominable and horrible acts, and because certain other persons—their number was at present unknown—might have winked and connived at these acts, on that account a smaller share in our political institutions was to be awarded to that town than would otherwise have been the case. If it were desired to strike at the very root of these outrages the labouring classes must be brought into closer union with those who represented them; if it were desired that they should adopt more universally the laws of freedom in their dealings among themselves in the labour-market they must be placed in as close connection as possible with the representative system. ["Oh!"] That, at any rate, was the opinion he had conscientiously formed, and he confessed it appeared to him to be a reasonable one; if there were reasons against it he should be glad to hear them. The more the people possessed the privilege of representation in that House, the less likely would they be to devise for themselves irregular and guilty means of asserting what they believed to be their rights, but what other people perceived to be outrageous wrongs. So much for the special ground which had been taken by the hon. Member for Wick, but which he did not believe would be
  878
  taken into consideration by the Committee in coming to a vote upon the question before them. There were two other points bearing upon this question to which he wished to direct attention, In the first place, without any disparagement to the claims of the metropolis, he might say that the cases of Sheffield and Bristol stood upon ground in some degree peculiar to themselves, seeing that they were the remaining two towns out of the six which, by common consent—by their special and separate existence, by their great population and wealth—were taken to be in a special sense the great towns of England. The metropolis did not consist of a number of separate communities, but of subdivisions of one large community; so that the case of the metropolis ought to be treated rather by itself, than as standing on precisely the same ground as Sheffield and Bristol. The hon. Member for Wick said that the Government, having made a concession in the spirit of compromise, should be met half-way. But in looking at the question it must not be forgotten that the people had been waiting in long-deferred expectation for a settlement of the question of Reform, and that the wide measure which had been adopted during the present year in reference to the extension of the franchise had created, in the same degree, a desire on then1 part for an extension equally great with regard to the re-distribution of seats. In the belief that any decision which might be arrived at on this point would be a settlement of the question, not only within the walls of that House, but throughout the country at large, he was ready to go all possible lengths with the hon. Member for Wick in joining hands with the Government where they showed a disposition to meet reasonable demands, and to act upon the principle of compromise; but in the present instance he felt bound to support the proposal for giving an additional Member for Sheffield. A more important consideration, that led him to take that course, was an anxiety on his part that in passing this Bill they should leave no claim so prominent and powerful in character as would serve as a lover, either immediately or upon the meeting of the Reformed Parliament, for re-opening this great question. He felt convinced that if they left Sheffield and Bristol upon the footing upon which they now stood, especially after the concession which had been made in reference to the four towns last night, they would

  879
  leave behind them that excitement and that cause of renewed agitation that it was their first and obvious duty to put out of the way; and, upon this ground, he felt that if they really did mean to settle the question the wise course was to vote for the Motion of the hon. Member.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) has admitted the principle that the opinion of this House can only be arrived at legitimately by means of a division; but he has declared that he feels himself in a difficulty in consequence of my having deviated from that principle in adopting the course I did last night. ["Hear!"] No doubt by the cheers I hear that opinion is shared by other Members of the Committee, and I admit that it is one, the accuracy and soundness of which cannot be impugned. The principle, however, in its application, like every other, is capable of being modified, and let us see how that may apply in this instance. Taking the instances in which the opinion of the House on re-distribution has been expressed, there was in the first case an overwhelming majority in a full House, and in the second no inconsiderable majority in a full House; but in the case of the division on the Motion of the hon. Member for Wick, there was but a scant majority in a full House on the side of the Government. Although I am not prepared to say that where there is a majority, however slight, it is, as a general principle, expedient to deviate from its decision, yet, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, in advising the Committee yesterday to adopt the course I felt it to be my duty to recommend them, I considered I was justified in doing so, not only in consequence of the very small majority by which the Motion of the hon. Member for Wick was rejected. I found that that slight majority was not likely to continue. In the interval which occurred between the period of the rejection of that Motion and last night, frank and proper communications were made to me from a number of hon. Gentlemen who had voted with the Government on that occasion, and from those communications I learnt that I could not count upon receiving any further support from them upon this subject, unless Her Majesty's Government would reconsider the case, and were prepared to make some proposal to the House which would show that we were Willing to meet them in a spirit of compromise.
  880
  Under these circumstances Her Majesty's Government came to the conclusion that it was their duty to make the concession to which I announced yesterday we were willing to assent. I thought it would be unadvisable to ask the House to come to a division again upon the question—a course which must under all the circumstances have imported, most unnecessarily, party feeling into our labours, and which, considering the stage at which the Bill had arrived, would have been a most unwise one to have adopted. I thought it would be most unadvisable to have unnecessary divisions upon the question, which would have failed to carry out the object all sides desire to see accomplished; whereas, by treating this subject in a spirit of compromise, we have a fair chance of carrying that more moderate proposal which we recommended for adoption by the Committee. This proposal involves no assertion of new principles in our Parliamentary representation. We have opposed, and are not friendly to, the unnecessary development of the principle, but the principle has been accepted by the House long ago. We have counties with three Members: I regret that arrangement, but it exists; it has existed for some time, therefore it is merely a question of degree. We believe that at this moment the principle may be extended to a very moderate degree, whereas when the proposal of the hon Member for Wick was made there was every prospect, from the Motions on the Paper, and from the mode in which the hon. Member proposed to apportion the increased representation of the counties, that if he had succeeded then it would have led to a new machinery in our Constitution of which we have little experience, and which, in fact, would involve a great and, as we believed, a dangerous change in the mode of election. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) said that hitherto he has supported Her Majesty's Government in their course from a feeling of fear. I am sorry to hear that. I was in hopes that his conduct had been influenced by a more tender sentiment. I assure the hon. and learned Member that the Government have been very sensible of the honourable, disinterested, and spirited support which very often during this great struggle they have obtained from him, and coming from one who has gained so much of public respect, and who speaks in this House with such

  881
  authority, we have duly appreciated it. But although I can fully understand why the hon. and learned Member should seize this occasion of advocating the interests of his constituents and assert the claims of his locality, I am bound to say that I do not think the Committee ought to accede to his proposal. In my opinion a fair distinction may be drawn between the circumstances of these great cities as to the amount of their population and of their property. I must remind my hon. Friend (Mr. Liddell) that I have not at any time pretended that the course of the Government depended merely upon the principle of population. It is very convenient to refer to the question of population on these occasions. But, while I believe that few hon. Members would recommend that the extension of representation should depend merely upon population, no one would pretend that, in considering the case of any of these great cities of the North, population should not be considered in deciding the amount of their political interest. If you take Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow, you have in point not only of population, but of property, four great cities that stand apart from all others. With regard to Glasgow, we have made a proposal which I think a very wise one, and which I believe will be adopted in due course by the Committee. The claims of Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham will be conceded according to the scheme to which we have assented. With regard to Leeds, the population and the property of that town are not so considerable as in the four cities to which I have adverted. But there is something in the distinct industry of Leeds, in its local position, and in many other circumstances, besides its considerable population, which mark it out as one of the places which, if you choose to adopt this course, ought not to be omitted from consideration. Under these circumstances, we proposed as a compromise—for I defy anybody to attempt to adjust any of these matters upon a clear and severe principle of representation—that, taking a general view of the case, the Committee should adopt this course. I think it is unwise to proceed further in this direction, and therefore I must, under all the circumstances, oppose the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sheffield.
  MR. WALRONDsaid, that he would vote against the hon. Member for Sheffield, on the same ground that he had voted against the hon. Member for Wick's proposal,
  882
  and would have voted if he were in the House on the preceding night against the concession of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He would do so, because he did not see how they could expect agitation to cease so long as they gave a third Member to certain towns and withheld from other large and important towns any representation whatever. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had advocated this doctrine—that as Sheffield was composed, in great part, of a criminal population, it was therefore desirable to place this population in closer connection with the representation than they now were. In his opinion, this was not a reason for giving a third Member for Sheffield.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, that the town of Sheffield was in mourning, in consequence of the circumstances that had occurred, and the best remedy for what was wrong would be increased political power. Good order had always prevailed during election time.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, he should vote against the Amendment, not in consequence of the remarks of the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), because he thought that the unfortunate disclosures before the Royal Commission ought not to have been brought into this discussion, but because he accepted the clause of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a compromise.
  Question put, "That the words 'and Sheffield' be there inserted."
  The Committee divided;—Ayes 122; Noes 258: Majority 136.
  MR. MONKsaid, after the division that had taken place he should ask his hon. Friend the Member for Bristol to refrain from moving his Amendment. He (Mr. Monk) had placed a Notice on the Paper to this effect — that henceforward Clifton should cease to form a part of the city of Bristol for electoral purposes, and that in all future Parliaments Clifton should be a borough, and be entitled to return one Member. He had taken that course upon the principle enunciated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the present temper of the Committee he thought it was impossible for his hon. Friend to carry his Amendment. He did not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to treat any part of the country unjustly; but it appeared to him that West Gloucestershire was treated with greater hardship (he would not say the grossest injustice), than

  883
  any other county in the kingdom. It contained upwards of 300,000 inhabitants, and had only one borough in it—namely, Bristol, containing 163,000 inhabitants. Clifton had altogether distinct interests and had a different class of inhabitants to those of Bristol; it contained 32,000 inhabitants, and presented a somewhat similar case to that of Glasgow, to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to give an additional Member.
  MR. H. BERKELEYsaid, he regretted he could not comply with the request of his hon. Friend, nor was he convinced of the necessity of separating Clifton from Bristol, and making it a separate borough. He felt so strongly the right of the old city of Bristol to an additional Member that he should persevere with his intention, and he now moved that the words "city and county of Bristol" be added to the clause.
  Another Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment, after the word "Leeds," to insert the words "and the City and County of Bristol." — (Mr. Berkeley.)
  MR. SCHREIBERsaid, that the Bill took away two Gloucestershire seats—Cirencester and Tewkesbury. Seeing that Gloucestershire contained the largest city (Bristol) that had now only two Members, the largest town (Cheltenham) that had only one Member, and the largest division of a county that was not to be subdivided, he thought that Bristol might fairly claim an additional seat. No county in England and Wales had been treated with greater hardship in the Reform Bill than the county of Gloucester.
  MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEsaid, he thought that Bristol had a claim to an additional Member, and that all the seats that were gained should not be given to the large towns in the North.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he could not hear the claims of the county of Gloucester mentioned without saying a word in its favour. The only reason for his not voting for the addition of Bristol to the clause was the hope that when they came to the consideration of the counties, a strong case would be made out for West Gloucestershire on the grounds of its population, its variety of interests, and its extent of area.
  MR. SMOLLETTsaid, he wished to say a word of comfort to the hon. Members for Bristol and Sheffield. There would be
  884
  plenty of opportunities of meeting the just claims of those boroughs. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire had told them that the opportunity of enfranchising a borough did not often occur. He thought that opportunities of this kind would very soon occur. It was more than likely that at the very first election under this Bill a considerable number of constituencies would be disfranchised for bribery and corruption.
  MR. PRICEsaid, he thought the claim of West Gloucestershire was stronger than that of Bristol, and if the Attorney General could assure them that that claim would be recognized by the Government he should not vote for this Amendment.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 136; Noes 235: Majority 99.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, that the Question was that the clause be amended by inserting after the word "Parliament" the words "the city of Manchester, and the boroughs of Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds shall each respectively return three Members to serve in Parliament."
  MR. CHEETHAMsaid, there could be no doubt that Salford would have to suffer in order to give an additional Member to Manchester. Very soon after the Bill was placed on the table he gave notice of a Motion that Salford should have an additional Member. From what afterwards occurred, the borough authorities were led to suppose that the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended to give that borough an additional Member; but now they were informed it was to be taken away and given to Manchester. He considered that Salford had stronger claims for additional representation than Manchester. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to whether he would insist on his determination to deprive the borough of Salford of an additional Member in consequence of the course taken of increasing the representation of Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds, If he did so the country would witness the anomaly of Salford, with a population of 130,000, returning only one Member, and Birmingham, with 190,000, returning three.
  Question put: Words inserted.
  MR. SERJEANT GASELEEsaid, he

  885
  wished to propose that the following words be added to the clause:—"And that each of the said boroughs shall, for the purpose of election, be divided into two wards." If the clause was passed, he should propose that his Amendment be put into a separate clause. What he wished to do was to bring his proposal before the Committee. He proposed to deal with these boroughs in the same way as the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended to deal with Glasgow—namely, to divide them into two wards, not into three. The one ward would return two Members, and the other one. He regretted that the threat held out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to his (Mr. Serjeant Gaselee's) former Amendment—namely, that he would abandon the Bill—had operated on the minds of hon. Members. He was under the impression on the Friday that the Amendment, which was the best that had ever been brought forward, would be supported; but on the Monday came the threat of abandoning the Bill. Speaking in a Parliamentary sense, considering what had happened, he did not think they could rely on what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that day. The Bill without the Amendment to which he alluded would be mere waste paper, and he assured the Committee it would be again brought forward. The Bill, if amended as he proposed, would be a very good Bill, and to withdraw it would be a great misfortune to the country. When the Bill was amended by the adoption of his present proposal, he had no doubt that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find some reason for accepting it.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that before the Amendment was put, the words from "the several boroughs named in Schedule G" down to the end of the clause would have to be struck out in consequence of his own Amendment upon the original clause of the hon. Member for Liverpool having been accepted. He moved accordingly.
  Words struck out.
  MR. SERJEANT GASELEEsaid, he moved the following as the words of his proposed Amendment:—
  "And the said boroughs shall, for the purposes of an election, be divided into two wards, one to return two Members and one one."
  Amendment negatived,
  MR. BRIGHT: I wish to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will inform
  886
  the Committee how he means to get the four Members which he intends to give to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds. The right hon. Gentleman last night in rather a jocular tone proposed, I thought, to take a Member from Salford; hut, if I am not mistaken, the new clause giving that borough an additional Member has already received the assent of the Committee. ["No, no!"] I believe I am right in what I have said, and if I am it will be necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to repeal that clause, supposing him to be in earnest in what he said last evening, I was, I may add, surprised to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) speak of a compromise in connection with this matter; but that seems to me to be a very odd sort of compromise which is all on one side. No proposal came from these Benches, nor was it proposed by the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Horsfall), that those four additional Members should be taken from four boroughs which, by the Bill, it was intended to enfranchise, and to which proposal the Committee had agreed—at least a part of it—and to disfranchise or discontinue the proposed enfranchisement for the purpose of giving the four Members to large towns. That was not the proposal before the Committee. There is no compromise in it. But I suppose, as a question of party or of great results, nobody cares in the least whether a Member be given to Salford or Manchester, or whether one be given to West Bromwich or Wednesbury, or to the town of Burnley. The right hon. Gentleman is a little shuffling the cards in giving four to one class of boroughs and taking them from another class. That was not the proposal before the Committee. ["Order!"]
  Question put, "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  MR. BRIGHT: I did not wish to move that the Chairman report Progress, because it causes delay; and I do not in the least wish to cause delay. I wish to show the Committee that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, according to his proposal, in which I hope he is not in earnest, is depriving four boroughs, which he proposed to enfranchise, as in the cast: of Salford, for the purpose of conferring an additional Member each on those four towns. Therefore I say it is not a compromise, and I am very much surprised at the credulity of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham

  887
  in being influenced by such a proposal. It may be quite right to get rid of four of the smallest of the boroughs in the Schedule to give the seats to large boroughs; but that was not the question before the Committee, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have taken them from some other source—say, two from the boroughs and two from the counties. That would be something in the nature of a compromise both sides of the House might have consented to, but it is not so now. When we recollect that the five seats for the boroughs of Lancaster, Great Yarmouth, and Reigate—for I say nothing of Totnes—belong to the boroughs and ought to have been given to the boroughs, and to which the counties had no right, I say the course taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not a fair course, or one in general harmony with the object of the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not explained the course he will take, and I rise for the purpose of asking him to explain it before the clause is finally agreed to, and to intimate when he will say from what source he will take the four Members proposed to be given to these large towns?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. Member for Birmingham says I am only shuffling the cards in proposing to take four Members from the boroughs we originally intended to enfranchise and giving them to the large towns named in this clause; but that, I would remind the Committee, is the policy which he himself has always re commended. The hon. Gentleman has always proposed to disfranchise some of the small boroughs, in order to increase the representation of the large ones, and how, under those circumstances, he can call our policy a mere shuffling of the cards I am at a loss to understand. I have intimated to the Committee already quite clearly the source from which we recommend that the additional Members should be taken which by their decision are to be given to the four larger towns. We must find them in the Schedules of the boroughs we meant to enfranchise. The idea of a compromise entertained by the hon. Member for Birmingham is that we should take two Members from boroughs and two from counties; but to ascertain the justice of that proposal, I should have to enter again into the whole question of the balance of our representation and the manner in which
  888
  counties, as compared with boroughs, are now represented. That, however, is a subject into which I am sure the Committee has no wish that I should enter. The hon. Member for Birmingham, I may add, always takes refuge in those exploded fallacies on which I should have thought a man of his talents and standing would scarcely have found it necessary to descant in his Parliamentary exercitations. He wrings his hands over the assaulted interests of the four boroughs with which we have to deal, but he quite forgets that the borough is now double the county representation. If there be one subject on which both sides of the House are unanimous it is that the moderate addition to the county representation which the Government propose should be supported. I shall certainly resist any attempt to curtail it. The proposal we have made is in the nature of a real compromise. It is a very fair one. According to our original plan, we had a representation more distributed over the country, and which would have given Parliamentary life to new constituencies, but which, in the opinion of the House, ought to have added to the representation of some important constituencies which they deemed not adequately represented at present. We have conceded that point, and, with certain modifications, have endeavoured to carry it into effect. I have sufficiently indicated the source from which the four representatives for those large towns are to be derived, and, though it is unnecessary at present to go into details, I may add that it is in the Schedule we must find them.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that Salford was not in the Schedule, and that the case of that town had already been fully considered and decided on, the Committee having declared that it should return two Members. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, intimated that he would ask the House to recede from the decision and deprive Salford of that privilege which he had announced should be given to it. The alteration could not be made in Committee; but must be made out of Committee, if the right hon. Gentleman's present proposal were adhered to. It had already been enfranchised with Merthyr Tydvil in a separate clause. The Government must be prepared for the most resolute resistance to any attempt on their part to amend the clause on the Report. If he demurred to his hon. Friend's definition of a compromise at all, it would be because

  889
  it conceded too much to the right hon. Gentleman. The only way in which there could be anything really deserving the name of compromise would be in the enlargement of the number of seats proposed to be dealt with — a number which he contended was wholly inadequate. It was certainly not by—he would not say "shuffling," the right hon. Gentleman did not like the term—but not by any shifting of the cards backwards and forwards that the right hon. Gentleman would give satisfaction. A real concession, and one that would impart to this scheme of re-distribution any character of permanence, would be one that would render available more of the seats at present assigned to insignificant boroughs. There would be no prospect of anything like permanence in the system of re-distribution, except through an enlargement of the number of seats to be rendered available. The right hon. Gentleman, with all his power of charming, could not succeed, "charm he never so wisely," in producing a permanent settlement by a plan so limited and inadequate.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that the time was approaching when the question would be asked whether the House intended to pass the Bill in the present Session. If it were not passed, the country would like to know on which side of the House the fault lay. In that case, the verdict of the country would be that it was on that (the Opposition) side, and not on the other; and if they did not take care they would not escape the censure of the country. When the Committee by a large majority had arrived at a conclusion it, was absolutely necessary that they should proceed on that conclusion. The Committee had deliberately decided that it was impossible, under present circumstances, entirely to disfranchise any town. ["No, no!"] Well, it was a question of fact, find if any hon. Gentlemen could have charmed the House to a different conclusion, it was a pity they had not exerted their powers when the question was before them. The Government had submitted a scheme to the House, and having carefully examined it, he was bound to say that on the whole it was just and fair. Of course, it might; be altered in its details; and the House had, in point of fact, decided that it would be better to give Members to Liverpool and Manchester — that was, to communities of 300,000 or 400,000 persons—than to other Lancashire boroughs with only
  890
  20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants. When the Government spoke of a compromise they did not mean a compromise of principle or a compromise between the two sides of the House, but a compromise between their own friends. He trusted that the House would never allow itself by any power of speech or accidental combination of circumstances to be overborne by Lancashire, but that it would consider what was best for the interests of the country. The Gentlemen of Lancashire were much mistaken if they supposed they would be allowed to appropriate the representation which belonged to the South of England. If they wished to make progress with the Bill, they might proceed at once with the consideration of the Government Schedules, and vote on them, instead of on these isolated questions. If they did that, they would get through their work very soon—otherwise, they would only be frittering away their time and making no progress.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that he should be prepared to state on Thursday what modifications he would make in the Schedule, and he should be glad to find the Committee follow the sagacious advice of the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), and proceed to the consideration of the Government Schedules, though he would not say that there might not be some points to consider first.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he should be glad to do so, but in his case it would be impossible. The county Schedule contained only divisions with two Members each, and he wished to propose that South Lancashire should be formed into two divisions, with three each.
  MR. BRIGHT: I think it is quite right that we should hear on Thursday what are the intentions of the Government; but I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take the four Members from the most insigificant, and not from some of the largest towns, to be found in the Schedule. I object to their being taken from the boroughs at all; but if he is determined to do that, I hope he will not put such a strain upon the fidelity of some of his supporters on this side of the House as to ask them to support the disfranchisement of some of the largest instead of some of the smallest towns in the Government schedule.
  MR. PEASEsaid, he demurred to that doctrine and protested against the application to Durham of the last Census. At

  891
  Stockton-on-Tees, for instance, there had been an increase of 70 per cent in the population and rateable value since 1861.
  MR. HENRY SEYMOURsaid, he thought it would greatly facilitate progress if on Thursday the Government would state whether they saw their way to accept the Schedule of the hon. Member for Wick with reference to the grouping of boroughs. That certainly was the mode in which additional Members could most easily be obtained, and the principle of grouping had already been successfully carried out in Wales and Scotland.
  Motion agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.
  MR. LAINGsaid, he had proposed his clause for grouping boroughs originally as part of a complete scheme, based on a certain amount of enfranchisement. Seven seats were to be got in this way, because that number were required for the boroughs to be enfranchised. On the whole, he had no reason to complain of the manner in which the House had dealt with the proposal, a great part of it having been adopted. But the precise number of seats proposed to be got by grouping were no longer required, and he concurred in the opinion that any measure of disfranchisement should follow rather than precede enfranchisement, when the extent to which that was to be carried had been finally determined upon. It would not, therefore, be for the convenience of the Committee that he should press his proposal for grouping at the present moment, when they were ignorant of the exact amount of enfranchisement. It would be better to adopt the course suggested by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, that they should assist the Government in getting to their Schedules, which contained the real gist of enfranchisement. They would then know the precise manner in which the Government proposed to deal with the four large towns to which additional Members were to be allotted; and they would be in a better position to judge how far it would be necessary to resort to grouping in order to supply them. Sooner or later the very extended franchise now adopted would lead to a much wider system of distribution and more direct representation, which must be at the expense of the small boroughs, But the question was whether they would adopt this system at once, or be content to arrive at it by two separate steps. On the whole, he preferred the more prudent
  892
  and cautious course, if they could arrive at a fair compromise this Session, based on a system of permanence, not for ever, but for a term of years. He hoped the Government would re-consider the point in regard to Salford, because he felt that on questions of this kind, to supply the wants of Manchester by taking away the additional Member already given to Salford was robbing Peter to pay Paul. He would for the present not bring forward the clause of which he had given notice.
  MR. NEATEsaid, he moved the insertion of the following clause to follow Clause 17:—
  "Where any corporation, lay or ecclesiastical, shall be entitled as owners in their own right to lands or tenements of freehold tenure in any county, and such lands or tenements shall be let at rack-rent, and the rent recoverable therefrom in any one county shall be such as would give to each member of such corporation, according to the rules or statutes of such corporation, a sum of not less than £20 as his annual share thereof, then every member of such corporation shall be entitled to be registered as a voter, and, when registered, to vote at the Election of a Member or Members to serve in Parliament for such county."
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the clause would introduce a new principle of representation hitherto unknown to the law of England, and the Committee would no doubt hesitate before they accepted it. Corporations hitherto had not been permitted to do any personal act. According to Lord Coke, having no souls they could not be ex-communicated. What the consequence of such a clause would be he could not venture to foretel. That he must leave to gentlemen of the long robe; but that it was a great innovation no one could doubt, and in his judgment it was altogether unnecessary.
  Clause negatived.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, he had to move a clause to render the payment of expenses of conveying voters to the poll illegal. The subject was not one that would give rise to any party feeling, as both Liberals and Conservatives were equally affected by the enormous election expenses which candidates had to pay. He thought that the time had come when the House of Commons should make an attempt to reduce the burden which lay so heavy upon them. He admitted that the question was surrounded with difficulties, but he believed that those difficulties were not insuperable. According to the Returns laid before the House last Session,

  893
  the legal expenses of carrying on elections in the United Kingdom at the last General Election was something like £800,000; but they all knew that the actual expenses were much greater than those which the returning officer returned as legal expenses. Of this sum no less than £100,000 was paid for the conveyance of voters to the polling-places, and he found, on making a comparison, that the expenses of the Conservative and Liberal candidates were pretty nearly equal. By 21 &c 22 Vict. c. 87, it was provided that it should be lawful for any candidate or agent to provide a conveyance for any voter for the purpose of voting, but the Act made it illegal to give money to any voter in respect of his travelling expenses. This Act was continued by an Act passed in 1861; but in 1860 a Select Committee inquired into the operation of the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act of 1854, and recommended that the conveyance of voters should be prohibited in boroughs but not in counties. He admitted that in counties there were reasons for continuing the conveyance of voters which did not exist in boroughs, the population of counties being scattered, and the polling-places often very far apart. With respect to boroughs, he might be met with the objection that the clause would bear hardly upon the poor man; but he thought that the poor man who cared about exercising the franchise would not be debarred from doing so by reason of his not being conveyed to the poll. In Durham, at the last election, the cost under this head for the Northern division was nearly £3,000; in the Southern division, £2,456; in South Lancashire it was £4,947; in the borough of Chester, £707; in Lancaster, £804; in Liverpool, £1,084; and in other boroughs in the same proportion, the expense, as he had said, being borne pretty equally by the two parties. He objected to this practice both on account of the great expense it occasioned and also because it was a practice that afforded a great opening to bribery and corruption. As they were now about to increase the numbers of the constituencies, also to increase the number of the polling-places, he thought the occasion a very proper one for making an effort to repress this large source of expense at elections, and he trusted the Committee would accept his clause.
  Moved, That the following clause be added to the Bill after Clause 23:—
  894
  "It shall not be lawful for any candidate, or any one on his behalf, at any election, to pay any money on account of the conveyance of any voter to the poll, either to the voter himself or to any other person, or for any other person to receive from any candidate, or any one on his behalf, any money on account of such conveyance: and if any such candidate, or any person on his behalf, shall pay, and any such person shall receive, any money on account of the conveyance of any voter to the poll, such payment shall be deemed to be an illegal payment within the meaning of 'The Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, 1854.'"
  MR. P. WYKEHAM MARTINsaid, he was of opinion that if polling-places were multiplied, as the clause contemplated, election expenses would be increased instead of diminished. Travelling expenses formed but a comparatively small proportion of the total outlay. In an election for South Warwickshire, while the total expenses averaged £4 12 s. for electors polled, the travelling expenses were only 11 s. 8½d. A wide election experience led him to believe that there was little or no corruption under this head. The payment of the election conveyances was never made the excuse for bribery; and, in the long run, it would be both cheaper and better to pay the expense of conveyances than to increase the number of polling-places, which would inevitably result in a corresponding increase in the charges of agents, collectors, and other officers.
  MR. CLAYsaid, he differed from the hon. Member who had just spoken, and thought that, in every way, the present system lent itself to corruption. In boroughs if the cab system were continued it would be impossible to poll the new constituency within the time allowed for polling. Time would be saved by making the voters walk to the poll; for there were never cabs enough to convey them all, and constant delays arose in consequence. But as regarded counties, he was assured on good authority that it would often be impossible to poll the constituencies unless the use of conveyances was allowed. He therefore recommended his hon. Friend to limit the operation of his clause to boroughs, and in that case he hoped the Committee would support it as an additional means of introducing purity and good order during an election.
  MR. HENRY BAILLIEsaid, that the clause, if applied to counties, would disfranchise a large number of electors, for it would be impossible to carry polling-places to every man's door. In his own county many of the electors had to go 120

  895
  miles to the poll, over a country in which there were no public conveyances. Some of them lived thirty miles out in the Atlantic, and could not come to the poll unless steamers were sent for them. The case was different, however, in boroughs, and there he thought some such clause as that of the hon. Member would be useful. If the Committee had agreed to the proposal respecting voting papers, this question would have admitted of easy settlement.
  MR. HEADLAMsaid, he had had some experience in this matter. Some short time ago he was threatened with an opposition, not of a very formidable character, and he did not think it necessary to incur any expense in conveying voters to the poll. He found, notwithstanding, that the voters came up quite as well as when the conveyance was provided. He polled 2,200 voters, which was as large a number as he was accustomed to do on former occasions, and, what was more, the town was infinitely more quiet. He believed if the hon. Gentleman would confine his Motion to boroughs it would meet with almost unanimous support.
  MR. OSBORNEthought that however much the toiling millions might be delighted at the prospect of this Bill passing, it was not so much a subject of rejoicing to future candidates. Nothing having been done to lessen the expense of a contest, he looked forward with perfect horror to the idea of a contest, where there were 20,000 voters. They had refused to allow the expense of hustings or polling-places to be taken out of the borough or county rate, they allowed the payment of messengers, though they were not to be voters; and now the proposal was hanging in the balance whether provision was to be made for the conveyance of 20,000 voters in cabs and omnibuses. He had had some experience on this subject, and though the hon. Gentleman below him (Mr. Wykeham Martin) argued that this was a matter of 1s. 6d. a head, a connection of his represented Rochester for many years and found the case very different. He knew, moreover, that nobody could presume to enter upon a contest for Middlesex unless he was prepared to put down, at a moderate calculation, £2,000 for cabs. This acted as a direct bribe to livery-stablekeepers, and the man who was able to spend £3,000 for cabs got all their votes. The Committee, by the policy they were pursuing, were making the House only accessible to millionaires and great land-owners,
  896
  and were wiping out all chance of any man of moderate means getting in. It was all very well for the hon. Gentleman below him, who had an enormous rent-roll, to talk of this as a mere fleabite; for what was a fleabite to him was a very different thing to the man of modest means. He hoped, however, this proposal would be confined to boroughs; for there were great difficulties in applying it to counties, particularly that agreeable county (Inverness) represented by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who of course would never undergo a contest, because nobody could pretend to compete with him in chartering steamboats. If the Committee were really sincere—which he had always doubted, for he believed their policy was to confine the House to wealthy men—here was a good opportunity of showing their sincerity by supporting the clause of the hon. Member for Oldham, and so strike at the root of a great deal of bribery and corruption.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he recommended his hon. Friend to simplify the matter by consenting to limit the clause to boroughs, with respect to which the argument was really all on one side. There might be exceptional cases, such as grouped boroughs; but even there he thought it would be better that provision should be made for the establishment of polling-places in each of the boroughs. As to boroughs in general the whole thing was absurd, and he could point out the absurdity even in the cases to which reference had been made. With regard to Chester, it must be remembered that the expense of cab hire had no relation to the number of voters conveyed, and the fact of more being paid by one candidate, who polled only half the average number that the other three did, only showed how the candidate was made a victim of. The charge was not proportioned to the number conveyed, but the same amount of booty was expected from one candidate as from another. Conveyances were charged for, not according to the number of men that were conveyed to the poll, but those who were interested in the hiring of conveyances charged their expenses without reference to the work. The House had not heard much from county Members on this subject; but he hoped that, in a modified form, it would be found possible to make some provision for the county Members. If the plan were adopted for the boroughs—and he believed it would be almost unanimously adopted—and if no similar

  897
  lief were afforded to the county Members he should think it a great hardship. He hoped some of those gentleman who were well acquainted with the subject would consider whether some modification of the clause could not be applied to the counties.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, he would accede to the suggestion that the clause should be confined to boroughs.
  VISCOUNT GALWAYsaid, it would be necessary to insert a proviso for such boroughs as that which he represented (East Retford), which extended over a large area, and were, in fact, in the condition of counties.
  SIR ROBERT COLLIERsaid, that when he brought forward this question to forbid the conveyance of voters to the poll, a few years ago, he made exception of such boroughs as the noble Lord referred to. Notwithstanding, his Motion was defeated by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEsaid, he would like to see the expense of conveying voters to the poll declared illegal as much as the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but he defied them to do so as long as things remained as they were. If the Committee could reopen the question of voting papers they might dispense with the practice, but he did not see how it was to be done otherwise.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, he had carried a division against the late Government on this point in 1862, because in the case of agricultural boroughs it practically disfranchised a large number of voters. His borough (Shoreham) was as large as Rutland, and though he had since carried a Bill under which the polling-places had been increased from two to seven, they were still not sufficiently numerous to be within easy reach of old and infirm voters. When money was paid to voters on account of travelling expenses, great abuse took place; this was no longer the case, and though he would be glad to be spared the expense, he saw no possibility of it, so long as the present mode of taking the poll was retained.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he would urge the House to consider what they were about before they passed this clause. The question had been under the consideration of the House some years ago, but they were not able to agree upon the terms of the clause. The present state of the law was passed at his (Mr. Ayrton's) suggestion. If the present clause were passed this ridiculous consequence would follow—that if a gentleman
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  hired a carriage to take himself to the poll, and then took up another voter along with him, he would be liable to all the penalties of bribery. He suggested that the clause should be withdrawn, and that the Government should bring up a clause more distinctly defined.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he would appeal to the Committee not to be impatient to pass this clause, as the change which it would introduce was one of considerable magnitude and had not been duly considered. He maintained that it operated in favour of the poor candidate rather than the rich to allow voters to be conveyed to the poll. Suppose, as frequently happened, the rich candidate was supported by all the owners of horses and carriages in the constituency, what a disadvantage would the poor candidate be placed at if he were not allowed to hire vehicles to convey his supporters to the poll. Even with regard to boroughs, it would be a very serious matter to the poor man if they were to pass this clause. If they wanted to place all candidates on an equal footing, they must go further, and say that no man ought to be allowed to ride to the poll. Otherwise, there would always be a difference in favour of the rich as compared with the poor candidate. He admitted that the thing was wrong in principle, and that the real remedy was to bring the polling-places nearer the voter. The right hon. Gentleman opposite thought the case of the boroughs was a simple one, but he did not seem to be aware of the immense areas of many boroughs. This question with regard to boroughs had been under consideration before, and on that occasion he gave the House some statistics which he wished now to quote again. It appeared that there were 37 boroughs whose area was 15 square miles, 22 with an area of 20 square miles, 21 with an area of 25 square miles, 15 with an area of 30 square miles, 11 with an area of 35 square miles, 4 of 45 square miles, 1 of 47, 1 of 49, 1 of 69, 1 of 73, and 1 of 78 square miles. He quite admitted as a principle that they ought not to convey any voter to the poll who was able to walk there, if the poll was at a reasonable distance. But it must be remembered that there were aged and infirm people, and would it be maintained that no mode of conveying them to the poll should be allowed? He understood that as regarded counties the point had been given up, but with respect to the large boroughs the case rested on exactly the same footing.

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  He should be sorry if, in their zeal far purity, they inserted a clause which would not work, and he suggested that it should be carefully considered, and brought up again on some future occasion.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

MARTIAL LAW—CHARGE OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE.—RESOLUTION.
MR. O'REILLYsaid, he rose to call attention to the law as laid down by the Lord Chief Justice of England in his Charge to the Grand Jury at the Central Criminal Court on the 10th of April, 1867, in which he declared it to be the unquestioned and unquestionable law of the land that no English subject can be subjected to martial law; and also to the statement made on the 11th of March by the then Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Walpole) that the Government had not the intention of at that time proclaiming martial law, and hoped there would be no necessity to proclaim it; and to move a Resolution on the subject. To him, as an Irishman, the subject had a vital and a thrilling interest. It touched him and his countrymen more than it touched England and Englishmen. To them it was a vague tradition of the past; but to Irishmen, almost within the memory of living men, it had been a bloody and a cruel reality, and even within his lifetime it had been clamoured for by those who ought to have known better. When he heard the statement of the late Secretary of State, he at once determined to challenge the right of Government to proclaim martial law; but he postponed doing so, in order not to embarrass the Government, and knowing that a large part of the Session was still before them. More than 200 years had elapsed since the last attempt was made to enforce martial law in England, but judging from the statement of the late Secretary of State for the Home Department, in which he said it was not "at present" the intention of the Government to proclaim martial law in Ireland on the Fenian outbreak, it would seem there was still the danger of such a barbarous law being revived in that country. He had no idea when he first directed his attention to this matter with the view of bringing it before the House that he would find so powerful an ally in the Lord Chief Justice.
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If the masterly Charge of the Lord Chief Justice had been an authoritative decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, it might have been considered to have set the question at rest, but the form in which it was promulgated did not give it the weight of such a decision. The whole case could not be better put than in the words of the Lord Chief Justice, who said the simple question was, whether the Sovereign, by virtue of the Prerogative of the Crown, in the event of rebellion, had the power of establishing and exercising martial law within the realm of England, and whether there was such a thing as martial law known to the law of England? It was quite clear that Parliament might enact martial law—that was, it might pass a law declaring that men should be tried by courts martial, and that they should be English tribunals. That, however, would not be martial law in the sense in which he was using the term, but it would be the law of England. There was first the law of war, then the law of necessity in war; again the law of necessity not in war, and further that branch of the law of necessity which would justify acts to prevent a crime when it could not be in any other way prevented. Any one would be justified in slaying a man in the act of attempting regicide, or about to blow up a magazine with the view of destroying barracks and their occupants, and such exceptions extended to the acts of bodies as well as individuals. The law of necessity would also justify the executive Government on its own responsibility in taking steps for the preservation of social order. It extended—as he had stated—not only to individuals, but to bodies. It was natural that in every application of the law of necessity, men should have recourse to the authority of superiors—soldiers to officers, officers to the Commander-in-Chief, the military authorities to the executive Government, and that to Parliament—for indemnity on proof of necessity sufficient to justify resort to the measures adopted. A person who acted under a proclamation of martial law might adduce it as a proof of the existence of a necessity which would justify him in asking for an Act of Indemnity. The question came simply to this—did the Royal Prerogative extend to the creation of a new law? It might, perhaps, be thought that this was an old and Constitutional question which had been set at rest long ago, but this was not the case, Magna Charta declared

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that no freeman should be arrested or imprisoned but by the lawful judgment of his peers and according to the law of the land. That Charter had been ratified thirty-five times. The next statutory declaration was contained in the Act of 25 Edward III., and was to the same effect. It enacted that no person should be taken or imprisoned except by indictment or presentment in due manner or by legal process. It was true that Charles I. issued Commissions for trial by martial law; but when the King afterwards summoned a Parliament the first thing they did was to indicate the rights and liberties of Englishmen by the Petition of Right, to which the King was in the end compelled to assent. The words of that memorable document were of the same character as those contained in the Great Charter of 1215. The last of the Stuarts made an attempt to revive in some degree the claims of his predecessor, but the earliest Act of the first Parliament which assembled in the reign of William and Mary was to re-assert the liberties of England by passing the Bill of Rights. This was an old and celebrated contest, carried on for centuries between the Crown and Constitutional representatives of this nation. Chief Justice Hale laid down the maxim, quod enim necessitas cogit, defendit, and extended the maxim to bodies of armed men regularly embodied. This was also the doctrine of Coke. Lord Chief Baron Comyn laid down that martial law could not be used in England without the authority of Parliament. Cases might, perhaps, be adduced in which attempts had been made to establish martial law in this kingdom, but any number of such attempts could not prevail against the solemn declaration of the law. The principles enunciated in the Bill of Rights were repeated in the preamble to the first Mutiny Act, and had been retained in all the subsequent Mutiny Acts down to the present day. Notwithstanding all these assertions of the law, however, some persons had entertained doubts upon the subject, and it seemed that in the spring of the present year Her Majesty's Government themselves were not clear that the Sovereign had no power to proclaim martial law; and it was therefore necessary that the question should be raised, and that the House should give, as in former times it had never hesitated to give, a clear and distinct answer. In a work published by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for
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Newcastle (Mr. Headlam), there were some expressions which gave a certain countenance to the theory that such a power existed on the part of the Crown, although he doubted whether they were intended to have that effect. His right hon. Friend said that there was a broad distinction between "martial law called into existence and the ordinary law for the regulation of the army." He did not admit that there could be any such thing as martial law "called into existence," except by the authority of Parliament. But he entirely agreed with his right hon. Friend in his further statement that—
"Martial law is neither more nor less than the will of the general who commands an army; in fact, martial law means no law at all."
Another writer, Mr. Denison, seemed to give some countenance to the theory that the Crown had the Prerogative of proclaiming martial law. He said—
"The term law cannot be applied to it. When martial law is proclaimed it is the will of the ruler, or rather the will of the ruler is law."
Within a very recent period the exercise of martial law had been attempted in one of our colonies (Jamaica). In Ireland it was called into operation in 1798, under the circumstances stated in the Cornwallis Correspondence. He did not like to enlarge on so painful a subject, or to revive reminiscences of evil times over which he should prefer to draw a veil; but the question had been raised in regard to Ireland, and in regard to the colonies, and it demanded an answer. It might be a subject of abstract theory in England, but in Ireland and the colonies it was matter of vital importance that there should be no ambiguity. Martial law had been nothing but the rule of the soldier, nothing but violence and slaughter. He expected from the Government such a reply to his Resolution as had been given on many former occasions when the liberties of English subjects had been vindicated by the English Parliament. He could not doubt what the answer would be. It would be that which was given in 1215; again in 1350; again in the Petition of Rights drawn up in 1627, and again in the Bill of Rights in 1688, namely, "that none shall be for-judged of life and limb save by the judgment of their peers and the law of the land." He asked that the Government should tell them the rule under which they lived, and declare to them the law of the land.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That whereas, by the Law of this Kingdom, no man may be forjudged of life or limb but by the lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land; and no commission for proceeding by Martial Law may issue forth to any person or persons whatever, by colour of which any of Her Majesty's subjects may be destroyed or put to death, contrary to the Laws and Franchise of this land, and the pretended power of suspending of Laws, or the execution of Laws by Regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal; this House would regard as utterly void and illegal any commission or proclamation purporting or pretending to proclaim Martial Law in any part of this Kingdom."—(Mr. O'Reilly.)
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not rise to in any way controvert the statements of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Longford, but rather for the purpose of somewhat extending the scope of the discussion which he had opened. The Resolution which his hon. and gallant Friend had moved was confined to this kingdom, though his arguments and statements went somewhat beyond this kingdom. It was the wish of the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the House should declare the Crown had not the power to suspend the law without Parliamentary assistance. There could be little doubt of that fact. If his hon. and gallant Friend thought it necessary for the interest of that part of the United Kingdom with which he Was more immediately connected that some such declaration should be made, he would support him, but he himself did not think it could be necessary. He did not suppose that any Government of modern times, still less the present Government, could ever have thought of suspending the ordinary law in the United Kingdom and proclaiming martial law in its stead. But the rights of our fellow citizens in the colonies were involved in the questions raised on the present discussion. He held it to be the the duty of the House of Commons to consider the events in Jamaica, not as regarded the punishment of those concerned in those events, but to prevent a recurrence of what had been done in that colony. Were it not for the fact that legal steps had been taken, he should have ventured to call the attention of the House to those events. As a prosecution had been instituted, it would have been manifestly unfair to raise the question in a direct form; nor would he have alluded to it this evening only that the speech and the Motion of his hon. and gallant Friend rendered it necessary that the case of the colonies should be considered. He felt,
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however, that the House were not at present in a position to enter thoroughly into the matter, because all the facts were not before them. He had asked his right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Adderley) what steps had been taken as regarded the colonies, in consequence of the Charge of the Lord Chief Justice? In reply to a question which he had put to his right hon. Friend on a former occasion, he understood him to say that a Circular had been issued to the Governors of colonies some time ago on the subject of martial law, and that in consequence of the Charge of the Lord Chief Justice Instructions were to be issued to those Governors. He also understood his right hon. Friend to say that some legislation on the subject would be necessary. He could not express in terms sufficiently strong his warm approval of that part of the Circular issued by Lord Carnarvon in January last, in which it was requested that the Governors of colonies should do their best to induce local legislatures to repeal those Acts which authorized the proclamation of martial law. He hoped his hon. Friend would inform the House what answers had been received to that Circular, He believed that in Antigua and Bermuda there had been an undoubted power of proclaiming martial law vested in the Executive, and that in Jamaica there had been some doubt as to whether such power existed. He should like to know whether the Acts which were relied on as conferring that power had been repealed in those colonies? He believed such Acts empowering the suspension of the common, and the proclamation of martial law were not only a disgrace to the statute book of those colonies, but were in themselves a source of very great evil. Whether the power existed in Jamaica or not, there was no doubt that the Governor believed that it did. Such Acts were a disgrace to the statute book, because they held out a temptation to the Governor to misuse his power, trusting to a subsequent Act of Indemnity. If the Governor of Jamaica had not believed that such power existed, no Commission would have been issued, and the Charge of the Lord Chief Justice would not have been delivered. At all events the exercise of that power by the Governor of Jamaica would have been very different, and his opinion was that there would have been no proclamation of martial law at all, because the whole responsibility in that case would have rested with the Governor for proclaiming it. While

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approving with all his heart the first two paragraphs of the Circular from the Colonial Office, which contained positive directions for the repeal of these most mischievous laws, he could not endorse the concluding passage, which said—
"In giving these Instructions, Her Majesty's Government must not be supposed to convey an absolute prohibition of all recourse to martial law, under the stress of great emergencies and in anticipation of an Act of Indemnity."
He was not surprised at the addition of this safeguard to the Instructions, especially as they were issued some months before the delivery of the Charge by the Lord Chief Justice. Nothing, however, could be stronger than the declaration by the Lord Chief Justice that no Government ought to suggest to a Colonial Governor to declare martial law, trusting to an Act of Indemnity. That was the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice, who was acknowledged to be one of the highest authorities in the law; and that was the reason why he recommended some legislation in order to settle the question. Possibly the fact of the Lord Chief Justice having made such a recommendation was the reason why the Government stated that it was their intention to propose some legislation. He did not agree with the Lord Chief Justice in that recommendation. He regarded any legislation having for its object to legalize martial law with the greatest fear. Any attempt to provide for the suspension of the ordinary laws for the protection of life and liberty by the substitution of military authority must be regarded as an abdication of legislative power. He had never believed that martial law, as it was understood in this country, in Ireland, or the Colonies, was necessary for the purposes of government in those places. In that opinion he should no doubt be in a minority; but having paid close attention to all that had happened in Jamaica, and having looked over all similar cases in recent history, he had seen no case in which the proclamation of martial law was necessary. It was a great, but not a necessary evil. He admitted that to the restoration of peace and the preservation of authority everything else must give way, and that whatever acts of military authority were absolutely necessary for that purpose must be sanctioned; but he had seen no case where what was embodied in the notion of martial law, the power of punishment after the suppression of the outbreak, was essential. The Lord Chief Justice had
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pointed out that within twenty-four hours after the issue of the proclamation peace and order were restored in Jamaica. Nobody, therefore, could doubt that peace would have been equally restored by the action of the troops whether martial law had been proclaimed or not. He had stated last year that the lesson taught him by the events in Jamaica was that martial law ought never to be proclaimed unless the Executive Government had reason to believe that the troops could not act efficiently in restoring order without its proclamation. The Chief Justice stated, in the strongest terms, that the power of suppressing disturbances, without the necessity of proclaiming martial law, rests with the Executive Government. Nothing could be stronger. The Chief Justice said—
"The rebel in arms stands in the position of a public enemy, and you may kill him in battle as a foreign enemy. Being in the position of a public enemy, you may refuse him quarter, and deal with him as a foreign enemy. If it is necessary in putting down any insurrection for the troops not to be encumbered with any of the restraints of the criminal law so long as rebellion is in existence, and they have to meet illegal armed force, they are able to take these steps without the assistance of martial law."
This showed that as long as actual rebellion was in existence martial law was not needed for the suppression of disturbance. As to the allegation that the proclamation of martial law was necessary for the punishment of those who had taken part in the rebellion, such an argument showed that no real necessity existed for martial law at all. Surely, after all the centuries in which we had been labouring to protect subjects of the Queen from any exercise of arbitrary power, argument ought not to be needed for the purpose of combating the opinion that it was necessary to suspend the common law, not for the restoration of peace and order, but merely for the purposes of punishment. He should have moved an Amendment applying the principle already laid down to the colonies, with the understanding that it applied to the Prerogative of the Crown and not to the Imperial Parliament or to the local legislatures, had it not been that he thought the House was not in a position to come to a resolution on the subject until they were aware of the Instructions issued by Her Majesty's Government. Nobody could have read the despatch of the noble Lord the late Secretary of State for the Colonies (the Earl of Carnarvon) without feeling that full confidence might

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be placed in whatever was done under his authority; and there was no reason to suppose that the Duke of Buckingham and the present Under Secretary for the Colonies would not follow in his footsteps. He might however call attention to the fact that a variance existed between the Instructions issued by the Admiralty at the close of last year for the guidance of naval officers and the law as now laid down by the Lord Chief Justice. There were two theories as regarded martial law. One appeared to have been held by the principal lawyers in all stages of our history, from Chief Justice Hale to the present Lord Chief Justice. This was, that if, by any unfortunate circumstance, martial law were proclaimed in any part of Her Majesty's dominions, it meant military law, and the giving to military and naval officers similar powers with regard to civilians to those which they possessed with regard to members of their own services. The result would be a court martial constituted under the same regulations as a court martial for the trial of a naval or military officer. That was one theory spoken of by the Lord Chief Justice. The other was, that martial law applied to civilians is not military law, but the arbitrary will of the Executive. This latter theory the Lord Chief Justice regarded as a fallacy of recent growth, and it was no doubt the theory on which the Jamaica authorities acted, and also the theory on which the authorities in Ceylon and other places had acted where martial law had been proclaimed. This theory had high authority to back it. He did not blame those who had adopted this view, because it was supported by the authority which of all others they would think the highest. The Duke of Wellington had said that martial law was the will of the general—that in fact it was no law at all. There was the greatest possible difference between these two views, and he begged to call the attention of the House to the fact that the Instructions issued by the Admiralty did not agree with the dicta of the Lord Chief Justice, for they said that the arbitrary will of the officer in such cases as were contemplated superseded the ordinary law for the time being, in the same manner and degree as if the district where it was proclaimed were enemy's country, It seemed to him that either the statements of the Lord Chief Justice ought to be proved wrong, or that the Instructions of the Admiralty ought to be altered in conformity with them; or that if
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the discrepancy were irreconcilable, there ought to be fresh legislation. In treating of this sorrowful subject he had endeavoured to make no allusion to the blame which many might believe ought to be cast upon the authorities in Jamaica. But from what had happened a lesson might be learned which, as Members of the House of Commons, they ought to lay deeply to heart; and he would prefer giving it in the words of the Lord Chief Justice. The learned Judge said that a man must be dead to every sentiment of humanity, and mercy must be banished from the category of human virtues, if he could read without a shudder the narrative of the rebellion, and of the steps taken after its suppression; adding that if martial law must be continued it ought at least to be restricted to the time the rebellion was actually flagrant. It seemed to him (Mr. Forster) that our honour, our position amongst civilized nations, our safety as a country, and, more than all, our duty, should lead us to say that such things must not happen again.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, that while deploring the fact that necessity sometimes compelled the proclamation of martial law, the hon. Member had admitted the occasional occurrence of such a necessity, nor did the Lord Chief Justice ignore the necessity which might arise of setting aside the law of the land and securing with great vigour the military law, such as is enforced by a General in an enemy's country. The Lord Chief Justice in his Charge said,—
"I am quite ready to admit that if martial law could be lawfully put in force the circumstances attending the recent outbreak were such as would at first warrant its application."
But he added that he did not think that it should have been continued. This was quite in accordance with the opinion of Lord Chief Justice Hale, that it was lawful to call out any force to put down an insurrection, and to put in force the military instead of the ordinary law until the insurrection should be suppressed. The Lord Chief Justice also admitted in the passage immediately following that referred to by the hon. Member that though an insurrection were suppressed it might be necessary to continue the enforcement of martial law, in order to strike terror into the minds of the people for their better order in the future. Everyone was agreed that in cases of insurrection and danger to the lives of peaceful citizens it was

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the duty of those exercising the supreme power to put aside ordinary laws, and to proclaim military law until the insurrection was suppressed; and it did not need the existence of armed resistance to constitute insurrection. He knew of Mono who said that the Jamaica authorities who had been referred to were wrong in using in the first instance the most forcible means so put down the rising. Everybody was agreed that, assuming the facts to be as they were supposed to be by the Governor, he was justified in resorting to military law in putting down the rebellion. When there was an insurrection it was the imperative duty of those in authority to use the most rapid and forcible means to put it down. The hon. Member (Mr. Forster) said that he withdrew the qualification that military law never should be put in force unless the troops could not act without it, because the troops could at once act on that law; but the question was whether it was more straightforward to act on military law with or without proclaiming it.
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that what he meant was that the Executive could act with military power, and, therefore, that it was not necessary for them to attempt to act with military law.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, if an Executive were to act by military power it would proceed in accordance with the ordinary law of the ease, and military power or force would involve military law. If military force were adopted, it was surely fairer to announce to those against whom it was proposed to act that the ordinary course of law would be superseded? He agreed, with respect to the law upon this subject in the colonies, that they were not in a position to come to a definite conclusion upon the subject; nor did he think that it was advisable that the House should proceed to act by a Resolution in such a case as this. It struck him that the former part of the Resolution consisted of truisms, whilst the latter part would, if passed, hang in terrorem over the heads of those who were charged with Executive Government. Was the law so clear that the House of Commons could deal with it in the way proposed? He could not but sympathize with the Lord Chief Justice—of whom he desired to speak with all the respect due to his high position, the more so as he was evidently animated by feelings so warm and heartfelt for the due administration of justice to the meanest of Her Majesty's subjects — to some extent
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in the views which he had expressed; but it was evident that the Lord Chief Justice himself—viewing the facts from a distance—had, he would not say vacillated, but apparently gone from one side to another, admitting that the necessity had arisen for acting with peculiar rigour, or, in other words, with military law, yet at the same time doubting whether the insurrection had not been suppressed at a sufficiently early date—a matter about which the authorities in Jamaica held a different opinion—to render the continuance of that military law unnecessary. He did not deny that if the insurrection had been in existence, as it really was in the opinion of those in the colony, the employment of military law would have been necessary. The learned Judge laboured under great disadvantage. In page 127 of his Charge he stated that he felt deeply sensible of the exceeding difficulty of his task. He had for the most part been travelling over untrodden ground, and could find no judicial decisions by which he could in any way be guided. Not only was he without the advantage of having had the matter discussed by members of the Bar—a course by which the researches of able and learned men would have been brought to his assistance — but until the previous day he had had no opportunity even of consulting with the learned and excellent Judge who sat at his side. Now, if any one circumstance tended to add weight to the judicial decisions given in this country, it was the discussions by which they were preceded. Not only did the arguments employed by the advocates on both sides strengthen the conclusion arrived at by the learned Judges, but the learning, the skill, and the care which were evoked led to a ready obedience on the part of the people to decisions which they believed to be founded upon wise and thoughtful considerations. Would it, then, be right that the House of Commons—in consequence, not of a judicial decision, but simply of a Charge to a Grand Jury, qualified, however able and learned, by those admissions—should rush hastily to the final and conclusive judgment embodied in the Resolution moved by the hon. Member? The hon. Gentleman was evidently anxious to provide against an event that was not likely to happen. The hon. Gentleman was afraid that measures might be resorted to in his own country which would lead not only to bloodshed, but to the recurrence of the scenes of former years. But did the

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hon. Member bear in mind what had actually taken place in that country? Had any attempt been made to override the ordinary tribunals, or had the establishment of military law been employed, although it had been suggested in that House? No such thing had been done. He therefore said that the time had not arrived in which the House should be called on prematurely to condemn that which had not taken place nor was likely to take place. The learned Lord Chief Justice had evidently been shocked by the accounts of what had taken place in Jamaica with reference to the particular case under the decision of the Grand Jury, and he placed before the Grand Jury not only the facts of the case, but also his opinion, with a view to the after submission of the facts to the Petit Jury. Had the case been submitted to the Petit Jury the law which the learned Lord Chief Justice had laid down would have been subject to the revision of the Judges trying the case, of the Criminal Court of Appeal, and finally by a Writ of Error might have been brought before the highest tribunal in the kingdom. The learned Judge therefore was not prejudging the case; and supposing he was wrong in his law, that law would be subject to be reversed on a Writ of Error before the highest Court of Appeal. The Charge should therefore be taken with those qualifications, and surely, upon a direction to a Grand Jury made with a view to getting certain points afterwards decided by the law of the land, the House of Commons would not consent to place upon their books a Resolution which would unjustly hamper those who might hereafter be placed in the position of executive officers, and whose duty it might be boldly to employ the powers at their disposal in order to put an end to what might otherwise prove of serious danger to the State. The right hon. Gentleman the Judge Advocate of the late Government (Mr. Headlam) had, he knew, given great consideration to cases of this kind, and the opinion not only of the right hon. Gentleman but also of a right hon. Friend of his — Sir David Dundas, a former Judge Advocate, whose absence from the House he sincerely regretted—was contrary to that held by the learned Lord Chief Justice. The learned Lord Chief Justice, referring to these right hon. Gentlemen, said it was not their peculiar business to enter upon questions of this nature. But, with all due deference, the attention of the learned
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Lord Chief Justice himself did not appear to have been previously employed in this direction. As it was, it could not be asserted that the doctrine embodied in the Resolution moved by the hon. Member was laid down by judicial decisions, or by the Common or Statute Law of the land. It would therefore, he thought, be unwise in the House of Commons to commit itself to a pledge upon a matter so important. He trusted that neither in Ireland, nor in the United Kingdom, nor in any of the colonies would the occasion ever again occur for the employment of those powers which were necessary to the Executive in times of great emergency. At the same time he implored the House of Commons not to place an impediment in the way of those who were acting in distant spheres, and to whom, with great responsibilities, was committed the duty of upholding the authority of the Crown and the rights of the country.
MR. J. STUART MILL: There appears to be, as far as the discussion has gone on both sides of the House, a real dispostion to consider this question with reference to the future rather than the past. Certainly it is most desirable that when we are considering what is essentially a question of legislation, we should not allow ourselves to be diverted to the consideration of past transactions any further than they throw light upon questions which may exist or arise in the future. At the same time it appears to me that certain considerations of great importance have not yet been touched upon, and which I think it is particularly necessary should not remain unstated when we see an obvious desire to explain away and get rid of the effect of the Charge of the Lord Chief Justice of England. I do not mean to say that what has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in diminution of the validity, in a legal point of view, of this Charge is unfounded. We know, on the contrary, that it is well founded. We know that the Charge to the Grand Jury is not law, because it has not undergone the preliminary processes necessary to make it law. At the same time there can be no doubt that such a declaration as this Charge contains, supported by such a catena of authorities, and coming from a Judge of such high character and reputation, so elaborately produced and bearing the marks it does of most diligent and careful study, is, at all events, an exceedingly strong corroboration of that view

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of this subject which some of us have taken from the beginning, and which I will briefly state. Our opinion has been that the law is what I shall now venture to stale, and that if it has not been so, it ought to be made so. Our opinion was, that there is not, properly speaking, as regards nonmilitary persons, such a thing as martial law, and that it has no existence except for military purposes. Of course, Parliament can give it existence, because Parliament can make any law, however inexpedient or unjust. But the Crown, being only one branch of Legislature, cannot do this. We have thought that, although there was no such thing as martial law, except for military purposes, there was a law of necessity. There may be a public necessity in case of rebellion, requiring that certain acts not justified by the ordinary law of the country should be done; but these acts should be acts of suppression and not of punishment. Now, a point which has not been noticed, and to which I attach the highest importance, is this—that in a case of public necessity, as in any analogous case of private necessity, those who act upon it, and do under the supposed necessity that which they would not ordinarily be justified in doing, should be amenable to the laws of their country for so doing. As in the case of killing any person in self-defence, so in the case of putting any person to death in defence of the country, the person who does it ought to have the onus thrown upon him of satisfying the ordinary tribunals of the country that this necessity existed. What, therefore, we say does not exist, and ought not to exist, and which if it does exist we should do our utmost to put an end to, is, the idea that any proceeding, such as a declaration of martial law, can or ought to exempt those who act upon it from amenability to the laws of their country. We contend that the law of necessity, of which nobody denies the existence, would justify the Executive in doing those things if no such thing as martial law had ever been heard of, and that by using the term martial law you ought not to be able to get rid of all responsibility. We demand that the officers of the Government of this country should not be able to escape or get out of the region and jurisdiction of the law; but, that whatever they do, if it be against the law, they should be compelled to justify. They must show the necessity which existed, not to the satisfaction of a court martial merely, but of the regular
914
tribunals of the country. When it is said by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary that it is much hotter that the officers who intend to assume this power, and act on this supposed necessity, should declare beforehand their intention of doing so, by all means let them do so; but do not let them, or any one else, think that by using the term martial law, or by announcing that they mean to make a military tribunal one of the instruments by which they will exercise their power of superseding the law, they will clear themselves from all responsibility.
MR. HEADLAMsaid, he was some years ago asked for his opinion by the Defence Commissioners on the subject of martial law, with a view to putting this country in a state of safety against the perils of a probable invasion, The question was whether the Executive Government had sufficient authority to deal with persons and property, and whether it was desirable that statutory powers should be given to the Crown for taking possession of railways and other properly in districts where an enemy's troops might land, and in other respects for superseding the common law of the country. He considered the subject very carefully, and the conclusion he came to was that it was not expedient to make any alteration in the law, for the reason that statutory laws on the subject would rather fetter than assist the action of the Executive. He thought that the Law and Constitution of the country was not only expansive enough to enable the Crown to take sufficient measures for the defence of the realm; but that the Minister of the Crown would be liable to the gravest censure—would be liable to impeachment—who, on an emergency, from any fear of overriding the law applicable to ordinary times, neglected to take sufficient precautions for the defence of the country. That was his answer to the questions of the Defence Commissioners, which were adverted to by the Lord Chief Justice in his Charge. That case was, however, totally different from the present. The idea on the part of the Defence Commissioners was to strengthen the power of the Crown for the defence of the realm. In the present case a rebellion had taken place, and it was alleged that the power of the Governor had been exceeded. He was, however, of opinion in the present case also, that it was not desirable to alter the existing law; and that it was better to leave it in the state in which it had always been, the duty of

915
the Government being to take care, in the words of the old maxim, ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat. The objections to the Motion of the hon. Member were insuperable. Having laid down the law, the hon. Member asked the House to affirm that
"This House would regard as utterly void and illegal any commission or proclamation purporting or pretending to proclaim Martial Law in any part of this Kingdom."
Either such a proclamation would be legal or it would not. If it were legal, what power had the House, being only one part of the Legislature, to make it illegal? If it were illegal, what advantage would there be in the Resolution? The House in passing such a Resolution would be doing something beyond its functions, and to which no Court of Law would pay the least attention. If the proposition in question embodied the true law of the land, the House would only be throwing doubt upon it by bolstering it up by a weak resolution on the part of one of the Houses of Parliament. If the hon. Member proposed to alter the law, let him come forward and propose a Bill, which he, for one, should be glad to consider with the greatest care. Whether they called it martial law or the law of necessity it was the same thing. The difference was merely verbal. If the Executive authority superseded the ordinary law of the country when a sufficient case of necessity arose, they were all agreed that it should be supported in that, and also that it should be covered by an Act of Indemnity afterwards. He was not prepared to say that they ought to fetter and control any such authority by declarations of that description. There were two dangers before them. If they made precise declarations of that description they might fetter and control public men, and render them so timid in case of emergency that they would fail in their duty. On the other hand, they might pass enactments which would tempt weak men to exercise powers which ought not to be exercised unless absolutely necessary. Those were two dangers of a different description, against both of which the House should guard. The best way of doing that was by leaving the law as it was, and by making it perfectly clear to persons in authority that they must act in case of emergency, and take responsibility upon their own shoulders, looking to an Act of Indemnity to exonerate them if they had acted honestly and in good faith. It was, perhaps, too much to expect men to act with
916
perfect wisdom in every case; but if they acted in strict good faith and for the best, they could not be fairly refused protection by that Constitution for the preservation of which they had acted.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he concurred in the suggestion that his hon. Friend would do well not to force a division on a subject on which they appeared to be unanimous. He agreed with the hon. Member for Westminster that in regard to the question before them martial law had no existence, except indeed, in certain possible cases of legislation, which it was not necessary to discuss at present. There was the law of the land, and in certain painful and melancholy cases, another law, which might be called the law of necessity. Nobody acted upon the latter except under a great responsibility and the liability to render a future account to the ordinary tribunals of the country. Persons who, called upon by no act of their own, but for the protection of the public safety took a responsibility of that kind upon themselves, were placed in a position of extreme difficulty, and it often happened that, in order to protect them in a way which Parliament afterwards deemed just, a Bill of Indemnity was passed. That, however, was an act not of Prerogative, but of Parliament, and until Parliament passed such a Bill of Indemnity in their favour, such persons acted, and ought to act, subject to a liability to account to the ordinary tribunals of their country. Believing that to be the law, and to be a wholesome state of the law, he did not think any alteration of it was necessary. But if the law did require to be altered, a Bill should be brought in for the purpose, when the matter could be considered with the gravity with which a Bill was always treated in that House. The law of necessity to which he had referred was, in his opinion, strictly limited in time, and operative for repression, not for punishment. A man was justified in taking the law into his own hands for the the purpose of protecting his life when threatened by any extraordinary or sudden violence. So with regard to martial law. The principle equally applied. Necessity was the true test. In the memorable words of Sir James Mackintosh, to continue to act upon a supposed necessity after the necessity had expired, was an enormous crime. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) had spoken on that subject in a very proper spirit, and in one

917
of which they had no reason to complain; and, as they were all agreed, the question was whether the hon. Member for Longford should not rest satisfied with the useful discussion he had raised, and not press his Resolution further. The chief and most fertile source of abuse, when the deplorable emergencies to which the Motion pointed to occurred, was the fact that the inferior agents, over whom the higher authorities were called upon in circumstances of extreme difficulty to exercise control, were guilty of excesses which their superiors would, if they could, have been glad to restrain. The adoption of a vague abstract Resolution like the present one, instead of strengthening the bonds of discipline and increasing the control of the superior authority over its subordinates, might rather have a contrary effect. Moreover, when a Resolution of that kind, levelled against a supposed invasion of the rights of the Legislature by the Prerogative of the Grown, was proposed, they ought to be careful not to expose themselves to the charge of assuming to the House of Commons a greater power than the law assigned to it. For these reasons, he hoped the Motion would not be pressed.
MAJOR JERVISsaid, he could not understand the statement of the right hon. Member for the city of Oxford (Mr. Cardwell) that martial law was no part of the recognized law of the land. In 1833 an Act was passed for the more effectual Suppression of local Disturbances in Ireland, by which it was enacted that various offences should be tried by courts martial; and the 40th section of the Act ran thus—
"Provided always, and be it declared and enacted, That nothing in this Act contained shall be construed to take away, abridge, or diminish the acknowledged prerogative of His Majesty in respect of appointing and convening Courts martial according to the provisions of the Act for punishing Mutiny and Desertion, or the undoubted prerogative of His Majesty, for the Public Safety, to resort to the Exercise of Martial Law against open Enemies or Traitors."
Martial law was the law of the strongest, and if it was carried out by any Governor of a colony, that House would stand by him if he was in the right. The Duke of Wellington, when in the Peninsula, finding that his men were being murdered right and left, stated that if the civil law was not sufficient to prevent it, he should have recourse to martial law. He remembered some years ago that Sir Henry Ward, one of the leading Liberals of that House, and the conductor of a journal of very advanced
918
principles, was sent out as Governor of one of our dependencies—the Ionian Islands. He had not been there a week before he proclaimed martial law, and undertook to carry it out himself. After that martial law was proclaimed in Ceylon. He hoped, therefore, that when men in authority, under a heavy weight of responsibility, deemed it necessary to proclaim martial law, those in this country who sought to bring public odium on them for doing so, would reflect upon that which they themselves might deem it expedient to do should a sudden emergency arise.
MR. THOMAS HUGHESsaid, the cases put by the hon. and gallant Member opposite did not apply to this case. If, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, the House every year passed martial law in the Mutiny Act, he must on reflection remember that the Mutiny Act applied only to soldiers. The only real point which it was necessary to press upon the House and upon the country was that whoever did these acts was responsible to the ordinary tribunals of the country for whatever was done under so-called martial law. With respect to the so-called unanimity of the House on this subject, he should be glad to know that such unanimity really existed as was supposed. He should like especially to know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer held the opinions which he expressed last year.
MR. O'REILLYsaid, that after the appeal which had been made to him by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford he should not press his Motion to a division. He had attained the object he had in view, for he believed that no Government in this country, in the face of the opinions which had been expressed, and in the face of the clear statement of the law which they had had, would venture to assume the power of proclaiming any law which was not the law of the land.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) BILL. [BILL 95.]
(Mr O'Reilly, Lord Cremorne, Mr Pim.)
SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) BILL. [BILL 95.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. MURPHYmoved, as an Amendment, that the Bill be referred to a Select

  919
  Committee. He reminded the House that the evening that this measure was read a second time, there was a Notice preceding it on the Paper for the second reading of a similar Bill for England, and that the hon. Gentleman who had charge of that—the English Bill — unexpectedly postponed it in consequence of the lateness of the hour at which it came on. The result of that was that the Bill now before the House came on for discussion without any notice to the Irish Trade. On the reading of the Order, however, he (Mr. Murphy) took occasion to observe that, although he did not wish at that stage to oppose the second reading of the Bill, he thought that a fuller inquiry ought to be made into the matter before the House undertook to legislate upon it, and that he especially thought that a Select Committee should be appointed to enquire into all the details having reference to the subject matter of the Bill. The fact was that the parties who felt interested in this measure were under the impression that the English Bill would be first considered, when the nature and principles of the proposal would be fully discussed, and, therefore, none of the Irish Members were prepared to debate it. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, however, then admitted that the subject matter of the Bill was one which deserved a fuller inquiry in the interests of all parties; and although the noble Lord was not, as he said, prepared to oppose the second reading of the Bill, he suggested to the hon. and gallant Member for Longford that a Select Committee should be appointed to make further inquiry. The object of the Bill was to restrict the trade in liquors on Sundays, and it professed to provide further restrictions against their consumption in public-houses. The object of the promoters was, no doubt, most laudable, nor did he for a moment question the purity of their motives. He agreed as fully, as freely, and as largely as the most ardent of them in the desirability to do something to abate the nuisances which he admitted at present existed. But no matter what might be the philanthropy, no matter what might be the motives of those who professed that they wished to do great service to the human race, and to the Irish race in particular, he asked them in regard to the material interests of others not to be neglectful of those who, under the sanction of the Legislature, had invested their capital in this particular trade. That capital ought not to be prematurely interfered
  920
  with without fuller inquiry. He wished that that inquiry should take place, not only in the interests of the capitalists, but also in the interest of the Gentlemen who were promoting this Bill, and of those who were the guardians of the public peace. So far as to the interests of those who had embarked their capital in the spirit trade, all they desired was that there should be a full, free, and frank opportunity for inquiry before a Select Committee, or some other tribunal, so that they might be enabled to give evidence on their own behalf. If that inquiry were instituted the House would then be able to decide how far their interests as traders could be protected consistently with the interests of the public and the protection of public morals. The profession of the Bill was, that it was necessary to impose increased restrictions on the sale of liquors on Sundays, and that as Acts of Parliament already passed with that object had not been effective, it became necessary to enlarge and enforce those powers. In that preamble he entirely agreed, but he distinctly disagreed as to the means proposed for carrying out that intention. What will the Bill do? Its promoters saw that the sale of liquors on Sundays had a demoralizing effect, and that therefore it ought, in the interests of society, to be put a stop to. But how would they effect that? They would not do away altogether with the sale of liquors; they would not close the public-houses on Sundays, but they would allow the sale to be carried on within certain hours; but, allowing that, they would not suffer the liquors to be consumed when bought. [Mr. SMITH: Consumed on the premises.] He thanked the hon. Gentleman for the correction. How did it alter the case whether the liquor was to be drunk at the counter, or outside the shop? How could the publican prevent the man who came into his house, and paid his three-pence for a glass of whiskey from drinking it on the premises. The landlord would not have time to stop every customer from drinking his beer or whiskey if he chose at the front of his bar. It was absurd to suppose that he could. The police would be in constant requisition to carry out the law. In Cork there were 467 public houses; in Dublin there were 3,000. The policemen were in the same proportion. These figures were referred to by persons learned in these matters, but he could not help recurring to that point — what difference

  921
  morally did it make whether a man drank a certain quantity of ardent spirits on or off the premises? It appeared that eating-houses were to be exempted from this restriction. He could not understand this arrangement. Why were beer-shops to be opened when public-houses were closed? Under all the circumstances of the case, he thought the matter should be referred to a Select Committee in order to ascertain how the objects of the Bill might be best carried into effect. He would therefore move that the order for going into Committee be discharged in order that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave oat from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Order for the said Committee be discharged,"—(Mr. Murphy.)
  —instead thereof.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  LORD NAASsaid, he hoped that the House would assent to the Motion of the hon. Member. They could all have but one object, which was to endeavour to arrest drunkenness in every possible way; but from the information he had received from official persons and others in Ireland he believed that if the Bill passed in its present shape evils of an almost greater character might be created by the encouragement of a description of low beerhouses and irregular houses of the very worst kind. If they attempted legislation in the sense of this measure it would be necessary to review the whole licensing system in Ireland; for it would be manifestly unjust to restrict the sale of liquors in public-houses without imposing the same if not greater restrictions upon beer-houses, wholesale grocers, and others, who deal largely in spirits, and who would take advantage of such a prohibition to drive a trade which would be injurious to the public. He believed there would be time during the present Session to enter into the question, and with the information which would be laid before them by a Select Committee the House would be in a better position to legislate upon the subject than they were now.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, he strongly objected to the Amendment. There were some thousands of petitions in favour of the Bill, and but one petition against it, while not a single Irish Member had spoken against the measure. There were three
  922
  reasons why the proposal to refer the Bill to a Select Committee would defeat the measure. In the first place, there was not time for the inquiry. In the second place, it was not to be supposed that they would get fourteen Members willing to sit on it in the Dog-days. In the third place, a Committee sitting in London could not investigate the subject with advantage. If, on the other hand, the Bill were allowed to pass, he would guarantee to assist his hon. Friend in every way next year in procuring a Commission or Committee to inquire into the working of the Bill.
  The House divided:—Ayes 71; Noes 92: Majority 21.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, That the Order for the said Committee be discharged.
  Ordered, That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee.

ATTORNEYS, &c., CERTIFICATE DUTY BILL. [BILL 53.]
(Mr. Denman, Mr. Vance, Sir John Ogilvy.)
ATTORNEYS, &c., CERTIFICATE DUTY BILL. [BILL 53.]

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Denman.)
  MR. HUNTsaid, he must oppose the Motion. The Bill attempted to deal with licence duties in a piecemeal manner. The certificate duty was at present £9 for attorneys in London, and £6 for those in the country. Till 1853 it was £12 and £8. For the first two years after their admission attorneys had only to pay one-half the duty. The impost did not seem to keep gentlemen from going to the profession, for there were at present 13,475 attorneys on the roll. His hon. and learned Friend did not touch the licence duties paid by pawnbrokers and auctioneers, nor the licence duty paid by certificated conveyancers. The House had decided on the finances of the year. The loss to the revenue of the duty which his hon. and learned Friend sought to abolish would amount to £100,000 a year, which could not be spared.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Hunt.)
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, that very great pressure was put upon hon. Members to support this Bill. He thought the House ought to resist pressure coming from such a class of gentlemen as attorneys; and if for no other reason, he should give the Bill his decided hostility. It was objectionable as a piecemeal measure.
  MR. DENMANsaid, he had frequently answered the objections to the Bill, which, he repeated, were unfounded.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, he had received, from attorneys in his constituency, letters requesting him to to support the Bill. The answer he had made was that he considered the question to be one for the Government, and that as long as the Government thought it necessary to retain this tax, he would support them in doing so.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided;—Ayes 66; Noes 87: Majority 21.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Bill put off for three months.

  GAME LAWS AMENDMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of The O'DONOGHUE, Bill to repeal certain parts of the Acts tenth William the Third, chapter eight (Irish), and the twenty-seventh George the Third, chapter thirty-five (Irish), which impose qualifications for the keeping of Sporting Dogs in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by The O'DONOGHUE, Mr. COGAN, and Mr. Serjeant BARRY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 226.]

  COMPANIES ACT (1862) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend "The Companies Act, 1862."
  Resolution reported: — Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. STEPHEN CAVE, and Mr. HUNT.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 221.]

  SEA FISHERIES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. STEPHEN CAVE, Bill to carry into effect a Convention between Her Majesty and the Emperor of the French concerning the Fisheries in the Seas between the British Islands and France, and to amend the Laws relating to British Sea Fisheries, ordered to be brought in by Mr. STEPHEN CAVE, Mr. HUNT, and Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 222.]

  GUARANTEES OF GOVERNMENT OFFICERS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. JOHN ABEL SMITH, Bill to provide for the Guarantee of persons holding situations of Trust under Government, by Companies, Societies, or Associations, ordered to be brought in by Mr. JOHN ABEL SMITH and Mr. HANKEY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 223.]

  PROMISSORY NOTES AND BILLS OF EXCHANGE BILL.
  On Motion of Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, Bill to remove certain restrictions on the negotiation of Promissory Notes and Bills of Exchange under a limited sum, ordered to be brought in by Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN and Mr. PIM.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 224.]

  COUNTY GENERAL ASSESSMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Sir GRAHAM MONTGOMERY, Bill to abolish the power of levying the assessment known as "Rogue Money" and in lieu thereof to confer on the Commissioners of Supply of Counties in Scotland the power of levying a County General Assessment, ordered to be brought in by Sir GRAHAM MONTGOMERY and Mr. Secretary GATHORNE HARDY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 225.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.