Commons Sitting of 15 March 1867

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Huntingdon County, v. The Hon. Robert Montagu, commonly called Lord Robert Montagu, Vice President of the Committee of Council for Education.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN—Viscount Newport, for Salop (Northern Division); Right Hon. Sir John Somerset Pakington, baronet, for Droitwich.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—ARMY ESTIMATES.—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES (in Account.)
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Mutiny.*
First Reading—Masters and Workmen * [77]; Public Schools * [78]; Mutiny.*
Second Reading—Charitable Donations and Bequests (Ireland) [49]; Chester Courts* [60].
Third Reading—Dublin University Professorships * [59], and passed.

MR. CHURCHWARD'S APPOINTMENT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. TAYLORsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Mr. Churchward who has lately been nominated to the Magistracy at Dover is the same gentleman of whom a Committee of this House remarked, in their Report in 1859, that he had—
  "Resorted to corrupt expedients affecting injuriously the character of the representation of the people in Parliament,"
  and of whom likewise it was reported by a Select Committee of this House, in 1853, that he had been guilty of bribery.
  MR. WALPOLE: Sir, since the hon. Member placed his Notice on the Paper I have communicated with my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor, and I have also referred to the Report to which, I suppose, the question of the hon. Member alludes, imputing bribery to Mr. Churchward, I will read the exact words of that Report, which are contained in two distinct paragraphs, and I think the House will see that it is really not a fair thing to say that Mr. Churchward was charged with bribery in the sense which the question implies. The first charge relates to the election at Ply mouth in 1853. The Report says—
  "That it was proved that George Knapman was bribed by C.J. Mare, Esq., and by Joseph George Churchward by the promise to use their influence to obtain a situation in the Excise."
  That is the first Report, and the House will see that the case was one of promising to procure a place, and not one of bribery by giving money. I hope hon. Gentlemen will see that there was a very material distinction between the two things in the view of the Committee, whose opinion has never been challenged by the House. The Committee make this further Report—
  "That a general belief appears to have prevailed at Plymouth both previous to and at the election in 1852 that it was not illegal for a candidate or his agents to obtain, or promise to obtain, situations or employment for electors who had previously pledged their votes"

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  The Committee add—
  "That the circumstances of the case are not such as to induce the Committee to recommend a further inquiry by Commission."
  These being the facts of the case, I will communicate to the House the answer which my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor has given relative to his appointment of Mr. Churchward as a magistrate—
  "Mr. Churchward was a stranger to me. In the application for new magistrates for Dover he was recommended by gentlemen upon whom I felt myself justified in relying, and I was utterly ignorant until I was shown the Notice of the Question that he had over been suspected of being concerned in any irregular transactions connected with elections."
  That is the answer of my noble Friend.
  MR. SERJEANT GASELEE: I wish to ask whether the noble Lord, now that the facts have come to his knowledge, has rescinded the appointment?
  MR. WALPOLE: The hon. and learned Gentleman, if he asks such a question, ought to give me notice.
  MR. SERJEANT GASELEE: Then I beg to give notice that I shall ask the question on Monday next.
  MR. TAYLORsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the part of his (Mr. Taylor's) Question which referred to whether Mr. Churchward was the same gentleman of whom a Committee of that House, in their Report in 1859, remarked that he had—
  "Resorted to corrupt expedients affecting injuriously the character of the representation of the people in Parliament?"
  MR. WALPOLE: I thought I had answered that question. Mr. Churchward is the same gentleman to whom both branches of the hon. Member's inquiry refers.

IRELAND—SALMON FISHERIES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he rose to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce, during the present Session, a Bill similar to that promised by the late Administration, to amend the Laws relating to the Salmon Fisheries of Ireland?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MORRIS)said, in reply, that he was not aware that any Bill was promised by the late Government; but if the hon. Gentleman would call upon him and state what he wanted, he (Mr. Morris) would consider the subject, and offer the
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  best advice in his power to the Government.

METROPOLIS—HYDE PARK.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, If he thinks it desirable to continue the elaborate horticultural embellishment of the Park Lane side of Hyde Park, at considerable public expense, while the Bays-water side and Kensington Gardens are in the same respect comparatively neglected?
  MR. DYCE NICOLsaid, he also wished to ask, whether the unsightly fence surrounding the Park should not be removed; whether the contractor could not be induced to complete the new railings before July, 1868; and whether it was true that the price of those railings was to be £40,000?
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: Assuming, Sir, as I cannot do, that the adjectives and adverbs of the worthy Alderman's Question are correct, I can only answer it in the affirmative. With respect to the Question of the hon. Member for Kincardineshire (Mr. Dyce Nicol) no doubt the contractor might be induced to hurry on the work, if the public are prepared to pay him more money for so doing. But, considering how and by whom the railings were destroyed, I am not prepared to recommend the House of Commons to make any additional outlay. As to the latter portion of the hon. Gentleman's Question, it is one of the most incorrect statements I have ever known placed on the notice paper of the House.

MILLWALL IRONWORKS COMPANY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WEGUELINsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Government has entered into a Contract with the Millwall Ironworks Company (Limited) for the manufacture of a considerable quantity of Gun Iron; whether there was any reason for the Government in this case differing from the usual practice of putting such Contracts up to public competition, and whether it was done in pursuance of a suggestion made by a Mr. Hughes, said to be Manager of that Company, on the occasion of a deputation waiting on Earl Derby to represent the state of distress in East London; and, if so, whether the Government are aware that an equal amount of distress exists among

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  the Ironworkers in other districts; whether he will consent to lay a Copy of the Contract in question upon the table of the House, and will state whether he has satisfied himself as to the capability of the said Company to execute it; and whether he is aware that the representation of Mr. Hughes that the Company would at once take on 1,000 workmen was unauthorized and exaggerated?
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: Sir, the hon. Gentleman is, of course, aware that this transaction took place before I assumed my present office; but I have reason to believe that it arose partly in consequence of a communication made from the Treasury to the War Office, and partly from the desire to find some employment, if it could properly be done, to persons suffering from distress in the East of London. My answer to the first part of the question is that a contract was entered into to the extent of 1,000 tons of iron with the Millwall Company. In reply to the second question, I think that the hon. Gentleman has too much assumed that this was a departure from the usual custom with respect to putting up such contracts to public competition. The facts are, that the War Office called upon several selected companies for a supply of iron, the object being to obtain the superior class of iron necessary for making guns. The Millwall Company sent in the lowest tender. It was accepted, and they were employed. They performed their contract well, and this order for 1,000 ions of iron was, in fact, only a renewal and continuance of a pre-existing contract between these parties. I have no objection to lay a copy of the contract on the table. With respect to the last question, I believe the hon. Gentleman has been misled as to the number of persons that it was said would be employed if the order were given. I am informed that Mr. Hughes never held out any such expectations, and that his statement was that the order would bring such a number of workmen into employment as would relieve the parish of the maintenance of 1,000 persons, including their families. The difference between 1,000 workmen and 1,000 persons, including the families of the workmen, is a very material one.
  MR. WEGUELINsaid, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was satisfied that the Millwall Ironworks Company were in a position to execute the contract?
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: That sub-
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  ject has been considered. The company have been carrying out the contract up to this time in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the War Office, and the result of inquiries on the spot is that we have no reason to doubt their competency.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The right hon. Gentleman has been understood to say that the Treasury made the recommendation to the War Office that there should be an expenditure of public money with a view to relieve the distress in the East of London. I wish to know whether the right hon. Gentleman has been correctly understood; and, if so, whether he will lay the correspondence on the table?
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: As I have already stated, whatever took place on this matter occurred before I came into my present office. I have reason to believe that very strong representations were made to the Government as to the great distress prevailing at the East End of London. Inquiries were made during the time I held the office of First Lord of the Admiralty as to whether iron ships could not be ordered with a view to relieve that distress. I believe that no direct recommendation was made, but that a suggestion came from the Treasury whether it would be consistent with the practice of the War Office to give an extended order to the Millwall Ironworks Company?

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

LIFE SENTENCES.—QUESTION.
MR. HIBBERTrose to call attention to the present mode of carrying out life sentences, and to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, having in view the immediate discontinuance of transportation to Western Australia, and the proposal to substitute in many cases sentence of penal servitude for life for the punishment of death, he intends to make any better provision for the effectual treatment of such sentences. He believed that great progress had been made of late years in regard to penal legislation, and the treatment of criminals in prisons, and there had been a great tendency in their legislation to do away with capital punishment and add to the number of life sentences. When it was remembered that

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those sentences were applicable to the most hardened class of our offenders—to those who had their capital sentences commuted to penal servitude for life, and who had committed the most violent offences, such as burglary and the like, the House, he thought, would agree with him that those sentences ought to be carried out in a manner which was properly deterrent, and that those on whom they were passed ought not too easily or too soon to be thrown back into society. According to the rules laid down by the Directors of Convict Prisons, a different rule applied to those prisoners who were sentenced to penal servitude for life before the 12th of July, 1864, and those who had received such sentences after that date. The rule as to the first-class was this—
"Convicts under sentence of penal servitude for life received on public works prior to the 12th of July, 1864, to be brought forward when they have served twelve years from date of conviction; but it is clearly and distinctly to be understood that, although no recommendation for release is to be made until after twelve years, no right of release at that period is to be conceded, nor is the expectation to be held out that it will be granted."
The rule with regard to those convicts who had received life sentences since the 12th of July, 1864, was that no expectation of release from prison after a certain number of years should be held out to them, and that every case must be taken on its own merits. The rules of the system, however, were not observed in practice. According to the evidence of Colonel Henderson, the chairman of the Directors of Convict Prisons, every prisoner expected a remission of his sentence at the end of about twelve years. If the fact were so, it was quite time to consider whether that was a proper mode of dealing with sentences of that nature. Colonel Henderson was asked by the Capital Punishment Commission in 1864 whether they had then in their convict prisons in England a considerable number of persons under sentences of penal servitude for life. He answered "Yes:" and when further questioned whether all these persons had not hopes that, after some time, by their good conduct and industry, they would get out of prison, his reply was again in the affirmative; and he added that he believed it would take a century to prove to the criminal class that they were in earnest and that they would be kept locked up; not one of them would believe it. Colonel Henderson went on to say—
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"All those men now under sentence of penal servitude for life are told that they can expect no remission whatever; but they do not believe it; they know perfectly well that ten or twelve, or fourteen or fifteen years hence their cases will be brought forward, and that the crime will be almost forgotten; they are quite sure that something will happen, and that they will be released."
Captain Cartwright, Governor of Gloucester Prison, was asked—
"Do you think that any of the convicts believe in the existence of such a thing as perpetual imprisonment under the present system?—No, they do not. They are perfectly aware that it will not be perpetual?—They are perfectly aware of it."
Similar testimony was borne by the Governor of the Portland Convict Prison. It was not the custom to retain these prisoners in confinement beyond twelve, fourteen, or fifteen years, even though they had been sentenced to penal servitude for the whole of their lives. All these convicts were placed under the separate system for nine months at one or other of the separate system prisons. They were then carried forward to the public works at Chatham, Portland, or some other public works prison. The whole system of public works prisons was based on the convict gaining his liberty at some future time by good conduct and industry. Therefore, if prisoners under these sentences were to be detained for life, it was impossible that they could be kept in the convict prisons and put upon public works, where the prisoners obtained their release after a certain period by their good conduct and industry. The system of our convict prisons was not intended, at the time it was established, for sentences of this kind. It was originally intended entirely for dealing with sentences of ten, twelve, fifteen, or twenty years, which were to be carried out on public works, with the chance of a remission of the term on account of industry and good conduct. Formerly we sent away criminals to the Australian or other colonies; but that system had ceased. Western Australia declined to Receive any more convicts from this country, and for the future we must provide for their retention in this country. Sir Walter Crofton, a very able man, in the evidence which he gave before the Capital Punishment Commission) said—
"3,554. The convict system in England, as established by Sir Joshua Jebb, was meant for an intermediate system?—It never contemplated keeping these men for life. Practically; if you have this class mixed up with others, they will be so accustomed to see stimulants to good conduct given in the way of tickets-of-leave, and other inducements, that they, not having anything of the

1921
sort, would be likely to be very troublesome; whereas, if they were in a special prison by themselves, where they would not be surrounded by those kinds of stimulants, they would be content with any slight improvement in position; you can preserve hope among prisoners by taking them from very hard and distasteful labour and placing them gradually to industrial employment."
Again, when asked—
"3,549. What do you suggest is the proper place? He said, I should keep them in prisons by themselves. I am firmly convinced, from my own personal experience, that almost all serious and successful assaults upon prison officers arise from negligence or carelessness on their own part, or from the want of what has been termed 'individualization,' or study of the individual character of the prisoners; so that many of them are placed in situations and at work from which they should have been carefully excluded. The danger of successful murderous assaults on officers will be found absolutely nothing under a judicious management."
But two distinct objections were advanced against the detention of persons in prison for life. It was said that it would be bard to confine a man without holding out to him some hope of a remission of his sentence or some hope of some kind, because perpetual confinement with no other prospect before him would be dangerous to both his mental and physical health. In answer to that argument, he (Mr. Hibbert) might state, on the experience we had gained from our convict prison at Broadmoor, that there were on an average 100 prisoners kept in confinement at Broadmoor for nearly the whole of their lives without any such evil results being in their case produced. Another argument used against life confinements was this, it was contended that the safety of the warders would be endangered if they had to deal with prisoners sentenced to confinement for the whole of their lives. This argument was equally unsupported by experience. The number of the attacks made on the warders at Broadmoor did not, he believed, exceed those which were made on the officers of other prisons. He might add that in those instances in which such attacks were made his opinion was that they resulted from a neglect of the proper principles of treatment. A very able man, Captain Knight, formerly director of the Portland Prison, said he was perfectly convinced, after a long experience in such matters, that almost all the serious assaults which were made on the officers of prisons were in great measure due to their own carelessness, or from the want of what was termed "individualization." It was also shown by very important information which had been furnished by Sir Walter Crofton
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with respect to the prisons in Belgium and Baden, that the prisoners under life sentences there underwent long periods of solitary confinement, if judiciously treated, with little or no mental or bodily deterioration. The information which was furnished by Captain Knight with respect to the prisons of Louvaine, Ghent, and Namur, was still more important. Several prisoners were reported as having been subjected in those prisons to confinement for periods ranging from ten to twenty-five years, and one thirty-three years, without having their physical or mental health in any way injured. At Baden prisoners for life passed the first six years in solitary confinement, and that treatment was continued after that period if a prisoner wished it. At present there were six prisoners there under life sentences who were kept in solitary confinement, one of whom had been under that treatment for fifteen years, another for nine years, but their mental and bodily health had not suffered. Twelve other convicts had been in prison from twelve to fifteen years—they enjoyed good health mentally and bodily and were by no means depressed. Colonel Henderson said he might add that prisoners without the hope of liberty could only be confined in ordinary convict prisons by treating them as wild beasts in the Zoological Gardens. But, when asked if they could be kept in a prison apart from other convicts, under a separate provision, he stated that that could be done. The question which he had brought under the notice of the House was all the more important that the system of transportation was being done away with. He found that during the last six years 98 life sentences had been passed in this country, while 62 capital sentences had been commuted into life sentences, making altogether 160 which came under the latter head. Now, it was no easy matter to deal with so large a number of prisoners of that class. In 1856 no less than 31 convicts under life sentences were sent to West Australia, there being already there 83, so that there were thus 114 of those prisoners taken off our hands. Colonel Henderson, indeed, said in his Report for 1865 that there were only 81 life-sentenced convicts in the English prisons, 51 of whom were invalids. It was difficult to get at the exact number, but let him suppose there were only 81—it might very fairly be assumed that the state of things would be very different for the future. Owing, as he had said be-

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fore, to the abandonment of transportation to West Australia we would have to deal with an increasing number of those convicts at home, while the tendency to do away with capital punishment, except in extreme cases, would also operate in the same direction. Under those circumstances, he felt assured his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the House would concur with him in the opinion that it was highly desirable our penal system should be established on a sound basis and on large and intelligible principles. We had been going on very well of late years, building up a penal system which had obtained the approval of the French Government, whose Commissioner sent over to inquire into its working had reported favourably with regard to it. He hoped his right hon. Friend would not hesitate to do everything in his power to render it still more worthy of the country. He begged, in conclusion, to ask him, Whether, having in view the immediate discontinuance of transportation to Western Australia, and the proposal to substitute in many cases sentence of penal servitude for life for the punishment of death, he intends to make any better provision for the effectual treatment of such sentences?
MR. GILPINsaid, it was impossible to overrate the importance of this subject, which he thanked the hon. Gentleman for having brought forward. He most emphatically agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the tendency of our legislation was towards, and would very shortly culminate in, the abolition of capital punishment, though a few antediluvians still clung to the belief that it was the great protector of our lives and liberties, just as the Judges of old believed that the jibbet was necessary to prevent stealing from a dwelling-house to the value of 40 s. But just as he believed that capital punishment would soon be abolished, so to the same extent did he believe in the necessity for the establishment of such a system of secondary punishment as should act as a deterrent from crime. He was not one of those who could be charged with sentimentality in advocating the abolition of capital punishment; but he desired to prevent crime, and that the Judges should really mean what they said when they sentenced criminals to longer or shorter terms of imprisonment. The object of punishment should be threefold—first, the protection and security of society; secondly, the reformation of the offender;
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and, in the third place, any system should be deprecated which absolutely shut out all hope from the criminal, however abandoned he might be. And when he said "hope," he did not mean the hope of freedom; there were other sources of hope for prisoners. He did not say that the prison doors should ever be opened again to the worst class of criminals; but even to them there should be offered the opportunity of getting their prison condition improved in consequence of their good conduct in prison. He trusted that our future legislation would have the tendency to make the sentences that were passed real instead of merely nominal, and that the exception and not the rule should be to make the sentence less severe than the Judge had pronounced in open court.
MR. DENMANsaid, he took a great interest in the question. At the last Social Science Congress held in Manchester in the autumn, he presided over the Jurisprudence Department of the old Law Amendment Society, which had been included within the scope of the Congress; and, on that occasion, at a meeting of one of the sections, presided over by the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Hanbury), Sir Walter Crofton read a paper on this subject, which led to a very interesting and able discussion, in which a great number of those best acquainted with the subject took part. The result was that a large and very intelligent meeting came to a strong and almost unanimous resolution that the proposition now brought to the notice of the House was one that ought to be adopted as part of the law. There were, at the present moment, reasons of the greatest urgency why that should be done. One was that the old system of transportation to Western Australia was at an end; and another was, as he had heard Judges over and over again declare, that it was a great derogation to their high judicial office that they should be obliged to pass sentences of penal servitude or imprisonment for life, which they, and the jury, and the audience, and the prisoners, perfectly well knew would never be carried out. That was a mischief which tended to bring the law into contempt. The present was a fitting time to bring the question forward, because Parliament was on the verge now of considering carefully a Bill to limit the number of offences to which capital punishment should be applicable; and it was absolutely essential that the question which

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had been introduced that evening should also at the same time, and in view of such a change, receive consideration. If the Bill became law, a great additional number of life sentences would be passed; and it was admitted on all hands that prisoners on life sentences, if placed with other prisoners not sentenced for life, and if deprived of all hope of obtaining, as the others might, a diminution of their sentence, or of procuring better treatment for themselves, in consequence of good behaviour, would be rendered unmanageable; but, if separated from the rest, their health would not suffer, and they could be induced by the hope of improvements in their condition, short of the recovery of their liberty, to behave themselves well.
MR. THOMAS CHAMBERSsaid, he was present at the discussion in Manchester which had been referred to by his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Denman), and he listened for three or four hours until his blood ran cold at the elaborate descriptions of the system which was now proposed for adoption. The arguments in favour of the suggested change implied an absolute alteration in the present system of punishments. As long as transportation to the colonies could be continued it was known that the prisoners, if they behaved well, would obtain tickets-of-leave; and though they could not return to this country, they regained their liberty, and they or their children sometimes reached the highest positions in the colonies to which they had been sent. But since the convicts had been retained at home thousands of persons had been sentenced to penal servitude and transportation for life, but the sentence was never literally and exactly carried out, and no Judge who uttered it ever imagined that it would be. There had never been any false pretence about the matter as has been alleged, and no Judge had ever been wronged, or ever thought himself wronged, by the remission of the sentence. It might be doubted whether the public knew as well as the Judge did that the sentence would not be strictly carried out; and therefore the sentence when pronounced in court might have its full deterrent effect. But now, under the pretext of altering the administrative arrangements for carrying out the criminal law, Parliament was asked to make a substantial alteration in the system of punishment in this country. It was proposed that a man sentenced to imprisonment for life should have that sentence
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strictly carried out; and a man so convicted would be loft without hope—except such hope as it was suggested he would get from the prospect of an alteration in the circumstances of his confinement—the lightening of his fetters or of his labours—the confinement itself, however, lasting until his death. Nothing could be more unequal or unfair than that proposal which might condemn the young prisoner to sixty or seventy years of dreary imprisonment, while the old prisoner would die in a year or two after his sentence, and so escape. The principle of the English law had hitherto been to improve a prisoner under the influence of hope; but here was a new doctrine seeking to improve him without the use of that great agent for reformation. The proposal with all its surroundings was a step back towards barbarism, and not an advance in civilization, nor was there any excuse for the change. He contended that murder was almost invariably the single crime of a life. A man who might in every respect be good and exemplary—a good husband, a good father, a good neighbour—from some motive or impulse might be hurried into committing a murder, and for that he very justly forfeited his life; now, however, the law said to its administrators that the capital sentence might safely be done away with; but was it therefore necessary that a man who had committed a murder and whose sentence was imprisonment and not death should be kept in prison forty or fifty years without being allowed even the hope of getting out? Would any man say that it was probable if he should come out of prison that he would go and commit another murder? The pickpocket who was imprisoned and then let out again might very naturally return, and very frequently did return, to his former evil courses; but the man who committed murder was not at all likely to commit another if he were liberated. There was no danger or peril to society in letting such a man out of prison after he had been confined some time; and he could not therefore see why this stringent rule of confinement for life should not be relaxed. It appeared to him that some of the arguments used in favour of this proposal were the strongest arguments against it. It was said by those who were advocating such a course that if sentence of death was commuted into penal servitude for life it would take a hundred years to make the convicts comprehend that this sentence would not be further commuted

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to a sentence of imprisonment for years. It was satisfactory, however, to find that there was such faith in the clemency of the Crown that the convict who deserved the clemency of the Crown would get it, and he rejoiced that to root out that conviction from the mind of the convict would be no easy matter. Those men who were sentenced to penal servitude for life were to be kept like wild beasts in a menagerie. The effect of that would be most disastrous. The prison would in that case become a hell upon earth, because the very meaning of hell was a place whence hope was excluded. All hope of release was to be taken away from the convicts, which would reduce them to a condition that could not easily be imagined. Even those who favoured such a scheme acknowledged this, for they gave colour to the belief that the warders' lives would be endangered in having to take charge of men rendered desperate by despair of release, by making certain provisions which it was hoped would secure the warders from personal violence. One great and convincing argument against such a system was that men could not live under such circumstances. Mind and body would break down under a system so remorseless as this. The experiment, it was said, had been tried on the Continent to what extent they could inflict prolonged pain without destroying life. He hoped such an objectionable experiment would not be carried out in this country. The object of punishment was to protect society against crime and its consequences; but if care were not exercised we might establish a system of punishments which would re-act most unfavourably upon the moral tone of this country. Flogging, for instance, was a punishment which he should be sorry to see permanently established as a punishment in this country, not because he sympathized with the men who were to be flogged, but because he sympathized with the warders who were to inflict it, and with the public who had to read most revolting descriptions of the punishment. Another argument against the employment of extreme punishments was that crime was not increasing in this country, and that cruel and violent crimes—such as burglary with violence, and highway robbery with violence—were rapidly diminishing. For one burglary where the parties in the house were put in terror there were twenty where it was a merely secret entry; whereas burglaries used to be committed by half-a-dozen men with crape over their faces and bludgeons
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in their hands, and the utmost violence was used to the parties in the house. Extreme punishments were therefore not wanted to deter from crime. The nation was advancing favourably in this respect, and unfortunate indeed would it be if they should set up an entirely novel system of punishment, excluding hope and inflicting as much pain as possible, and for as long a time as possible, only not mitigating, not moderating, but graduating it to such a nicety as just to preclude the escape of the wretched victims from their tortures by dying.
THE O'CONOR DONsaid, he took a great interest in this question, and desired to point out that the hon. Member's (Mr. Hibbert's) proposition went to this extent only, that remission of life sentences should be made the exception, instead of being the rule, as it was at present. He could not help thinking the great desideratum was that it should be known what would be the effect of the sentences as pronounced by the Judge, and that the public at large should know what it meant. This was not the case at present. When a man was sentenced for only a certain period people knew what his punishment would be; but when he was sentenced for life they did not know. Up to the year 1864, the rule as regarded life sentences was that during the first twelve years of his imprisonment the convict could expect no remission, but that after that time the sentence would be taken into consideration and might be commuted. The result was that men sentenced to penal servitude for life got released sooner than men who had only been sentenced for twenty years. This was a great anomaly; and the alteration proposed was not a subversion of our criminal system, but carried it out to its logical conclusion.
MR. WALPOLE: In order to discuss this question in a fair manner, I think it may be as well to pay attention to what is the present state of the law—or rather the practice—as applicable to the existing state of things, and what will be the state of the law if the alterations be made in it proposed by the measures now before Parliament. The two questions are quite distinct. With regard to the first question the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hibbert) is not quite accurate in his representation of the state of the law as regards life sentences. It is perfectly true that from the year 1857 down to the year 1864 the practice with respect to life sentences was that they

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should be brought forward for the consideration of the Home Secretary at the end of twelve years, although it did not necessarily follow that any immediate action should be then taken upon them. But this is not the present practice. When last year I succeeded to the office which I have now the honour to hold, I found that the right hon. Gentleman who preceded me (Sir George Grey) had had his attention drawn to the question whether twelve years was the proper period at which life sentences should be brought forward for further consideration, and that he had given a qualified approval—which met with my concurrence—to the proposition that life sentences should not be brought forward for the consideration of the Home Secretary until twenty years after they had been passed. The state of the practice under the present law is therefore much more severe than it was three years ago. The reason for this alteration is unanswerable, and has been pointed out by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (The O'Conor Don). According to the present practice a convict who has been sentenced to twenty years is not entitled to a remission until the end of fifteen years; and a man sentenced to twenty-four years is not so entitled until the expiration of eighteen years; and it appears to me that it is most unjustifiable that a man on whom has been passed what purports to be a much heavier sentence—imprisonment for life—should have it commuted at the end of a shorter period. The Secretary of State for the Home Department has three things to look at in the remission of sentences. In the first place, they have to take into consideration the heinousness of the crime committed; and this very year I have refused to look into case after case upon the ground of the enormity of the crime committed by the convict whose case was sent up for remission. In the second place, the Home Secretary has to look at the conduct of the convict in prison; and thirdly, he has to take into consideration the health or age of the convict, or any other peculiar character the case may present which may constitute a reason for the remission of the sentence. I need scarcely point out that as under the present practice a life sentence cannot, as a matter of course, be brought up for remission until after a period of twenty years it constitutes a most terrible punishment. With reference to the number of life sentences, I may observe that there exists some misapprehension. I have been much
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surprised at the small number of cases in which such sentences are pronounced. Thus, in the year 1865, there were only eleven, and in the year 1866, there were only sixteen instances in which convicts were sentenced to confinement for life; while the total number of convicts in England subject to such a punishment is only; eighty-one—a state of things which is very different to what is generally supposed to exist. Of these there were sixty-three, I who, from age or state of health, it had not been practicable to transport. That being the state of the law as it stands at present, a very difficult question arises as to whether any and, if so, what alteration can possibly be made in the law when transportation has been discontinued, which will, in all probability, be the case at the end of the coming summer. A ship was dispatched to West Australia the other day with 250 convicts; and probably another ship, which would be the last dispatched, would carry out about 280 more. When that event takes place the question will arise as to what is to be done with our convicts who have been guilty of the graver offences. When I had to consider this question in 1852, it was then represented that it would be necessary to secure some place near the United Kingdom—Lundy Island was at one time thought of—where the worst class of convicts might be sent, and where they could be placed under a more severe discipline and punishment than those who had been convicted of lesser offences. That, however, is a matter for future consideration, although at the time it was made, I thought the suggestion was a proper one. Some such system ought, I think, to be adopted, especially with regard to convicts who, having had their life sentences remitted, have afterwards forfeited their light to be at large. I must further say a few words as to the mode in which life sentences ought to be carried out. Life sentences are now passed for the crimes of murder, attempts to murder, manslaughter, rape, arson, and one or two other offences. Persons convicted of these different crimes are, have been, and should be, dealt with in precisely the same manner. Therefore, I think, some discretion should be given to the Secretary of State as to the principle upon which these sentences, passed upon convicts whose crimes must necessarily vary somewhat in degree, should be carried out. I own I rather shrink from the notion that you are to lay down a rule by Act of Parliament which is to be inflexible

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under any circumstances. It must not be forgotten that if you destroy hope you destroy one of the great objects of punishment—namely, the reformation of the offender. I therefore think that no better rule can be adopted than to say that these life sentences shall not be brought up for remission until after a period of twenty years, and I would then leave the Minister who has to administer the law with reference to this subject free to exercise his discretion in the matter, to take into consideration all the circumstances of the individual case brought before him, and to decide whether the convict should remain in prison for life, or whether his sentence might be properly commuted. The conclusions I have come to upon this subject are that it is desirable, in view of the alteration in our convict system about to be introduced in consequence of the abolition of transportation, we should have some penal establishment near this country, where we can send the worst class of offenders; and secondly, that some discretion should be left to the Minister who has to administer the law with regard to the remission of life sentences, so that the prisoner should not be left entirely without hope in case he redeems his character after undergoing punishment for a long period. But, in saying this, let it not be understood that I have made up my mind upon either of these points absolutely, since, before any practical decision can be arrived at, the whole matter must undergo very careful consideration.
MR. SULLIVANsaid, he did not understand the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert) to object to any remission of life sentences, but merely to propose that in cases where those sentences had to be carried out in their entirety a separate place of confinement should be provided for those undergoing penal servitude for life. He had no desire to aggravate that punishment, or to lay down any rule by which the exercise of the prerogative of the Crown in remitting the punishment was to be controlled. He had risen for the purpose of calling the attention of the Home Secretary to a Return laid upon the table of that House in 1865 in relation to penal servitude in Ireland, which showed the number of prisoners undergoing penal servitude for life, the crimes for which that sentence had been awarded, and the number of cases in which the punishment of death had been remitted to that of penal servitude. It appeared from that
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Return that on the 14th of June, 1865, out of thirty-eight persons who were then undergoing penal servitude for life, ten of these had been found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death, but their sentences had been commuted; one was a case of manslaughter. Of the remaining twenty-seven persons eight were for crimes of violence to the person, two had been convicted of having base coin in their possession after a previous conviction, one for sheep stealing, after a previous felony. One was for robbery from the person, two for highway robbery, one for sacrilege, four for burglary, one for burglary and robbery, and others for robbery. If therefore, as had been suggested, it were made an inflexible rule that no application for the remission of life sentences should be entertained till after twenty years, it would operate very harshly on prisoners whose offences had been of a much less serious character than murder. He felt no hesitation in saying that, in many of the cases set out in the Return, not such sentence as that of penal servitude for life ought ever to have been passed. With regard to persons who had given such reins to their passions as wilfully to take the life of a fellow-creature, he thought they could rarely be allowed to regain their liberty, and that their confinement was necessary for the protection of society. He believed that the subjects of life sentences were humanely treated, and that there was no reason to fear the infliction of the severities deprecated by the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Chambers.)

BRITISH TROOPS IN NEW ZEALAND.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. GORSTsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the proposal to maintain permanently a British regiment in New Zealand. The House had been informed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) that it was proposed to excuse the colony from bearing the cost of that regiment on condition of its voting £50,000 a year for Native purposes. An item of between £60,000 and £70,000 accordingly appeared in the Estimates for the support of that force, and he presumed that in the event of further disturbances the cost would be considerably increased. He regarded that expenditure both as unnecessary and as positively injurious to the colony; but, as the right hon. Gentleman had promised to lay on the table papers on the subject,

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  he would now content himself with apologizing for having troubled the House, and with asking when those papers would be ready, in order that he might renew his notice on a future occasion.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, the question was one of no inconsiderable importance, and the hon. Gentleman had no need to apologize for calling attention to this matter, there being no Member of the House better acquainted with the affairs of New Zealand than he was. The Correspondence was already in the hands of the printer, and he hoped that in about ten days it would be laid on the table of the House. There were in November last 4,000 British soldiers in the colony, but orders had been sent for 3,000 to leave, and they had probably done so, only one regiment remaining. That arrangement for the retention of one regiment at the cost of this country, however, was only temporary, the facts being these:—In 1860 the colony made a proposal to pay the Imperial Treasury £5 per head for all the troops in New Zealand, and that proposal was accepted. In 1861, the Governor, Sir George Grey, sent home a plan for the amelioration of the condition of the Native population, the estimated cost being £50,000 a year, upon which the Government returned the £5 head money in part payment of that sum. In 1864 the late Colonial Secretary, in dealing with the question of guaranteeing a loan of £1,000,000 to New Zealand, proposed that, save as to one regiment, New Zealand should come under the same arrangement which prevailed in the case of Australia, and should pay £40 per head for infantry, and £55 for artillery; but that, in consideration of the attitude of the Native population, one regiment should be maintained, not permanently but temporarily, by the Imperial Treasury, the £50,000 annually for Native purposes being defrayed by the colony as long as that regiment remained. In 1865 a resolution was passed by the Colonial Legislature, which was interpreted as declining to pay that rate for the troops, and much correspondence had ensued, the result being that only one regiment would remain. Many of the colonists, including Mr. Weld when Prime Minister, were adverse to the stay even of that regiment, and the present Ministry, though they had not displayed so strong a feeling, appeared anxious to develop the self-reliance of the colony. Indeed, he was bound to say that no colony had shown a higher spirit,
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  both in money matters and in undertaking its own defence, than New Zealand. The present arrangement, and also the question of the debt owing by the colony to the Imperial Treasury, were both open to reconsideration. He hoped to be able to lay on the table the papers referred to in the course of the ensuing week, or early in the week following.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, he desired to add one word to what had been correctly stated by his right hon. Friend. Three years ago there were more than 10,000 men in New Zealand who were spending £1,000,000 a year. A large debt was then running up from the colony to the Imperial Treasury, and in addition the colony applied to the Home Government to guarantee a loan of £3,000,000. The arrangement made was that the Government should guarantee not £3,000,000, but £1,000,000; that the troops, if they remained, should be paid for by the colony at the rate of the payment made by the Australian colonies, and that the debt should be closed and liquidated. This arrangement was not only laid upon the table, but the House, approving it, required that it should be embodied in the statute. The result was that the colonists determined to pray for the recall of the Queen's troops, and they had accordingly been recalled. He was only sorry that any portion of them still remained in New Zealand; but for any beyond one regiment that remained permanently, the full amount of the head money agreed to be paid for troops in Australia was to be paid. It was, however, thought that under the circumstances of the Native population, it would be unreasonable to recall ail the troops, and one regiment was to remain, to be maintained at the Imperial expense, on condition that the colony continued to devote £50,000 a year to Native purposes. The arrangement was, on the face of it, liable to revision at a future time; and if the colony of New Zealand did not desire any longer to insist on the terms, no doubt the English Parliament would be willing to re-consider the arrangement.

SHIPPING RETURNS.—OBSERVATIONS.
MR. CANDLISHsaid, he rose to call attention to a Return of "the number and tonnage of Vessels entered inwards and cleared outwards at each of the twelve principal Ports of the United Kingdom, &c," during the year 1865; and to move

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for Returns showing the number of Vessels and tonnage entered inwards and cleared outwards at each of the twelve Ports of the United Kingdom at which the aggregate tonnage entered and cleared has been largest during the year 1866; of the official and declared value of Imports and Exports at each of the twelve ports of the United Kingdom at which the aggregate of such Exports and Imports has been largest during the year 1866; and of the number of Vessels and amount of tonnage registered at each of the twelve Ports of the United Kingdom at which the largest amount of tonnage was registered on the 31st day of December, 1866. The Return in question was in many respects inaccurate, and calculated to lead to erroneous conclusions. It referred to "the twelve principal Ports of the United Kingdom;" but the House would be surprised to learn that only seven of the Reports named in the Return came under that designation. The remaining five ports were inferior, as to tonnage and clearance, to the ports of Cardiff, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Swansea, and Grimsby. In several other respects, also, the Return was inaccurate. The entrances and clearances at the port he had the honour to represent (Sunderland) were larger than the entrances and clearances of five of the ports included in the Return. The same observation applied to other ports which were omitted, and the test of tonnage gave a similar result. If the Return were again moved for he hoped it would be so modified as to convey an accurate idea of the facts.
MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, that the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland proved, he thought, one thing—namely, the inexpediency of granting so easily many of the Returns for which Motions were annually made by Members of that House. The attention of the House ought to be directed to that question of unopposed Returns. In his humble opinion there should be some hesitation in asking for and in granting Returns which were only intended to serve a particular purpose of perhaps no general interest, as well as those which were contained in books in the Library or in annual Reports laid before Parliament and distributed among Members. The practice was a growing one, and one which had caused much anxiety to his hon. Friend the Secretary of the Treasury, as entailing a heavy expense upon the country. That Return, for instance, to which the hon. Member had not
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without reason taken exception, was moved for many years ago and had been continued every year since. He was sorry it was so continued. It always had been, and must still be, incomplete; and, whatever might have been the case originally, the title of it certainly was incorrect now. Those ports having been once selected, the Return seemed kept for comparison with former years. The expense of printing those Returns was, as he had said, very great; but that represented a very small part of the whole cost of the country. In the Customs and other Departments a special staff was obliged to be maintained for that exceptional work, in order that the regular work of the office might not be delayed. Now, the annual statement of trade and navigation distributed to every Member of Parliament and to every Chamber of Commerce throughout the country contained the following particulars:—1, Number and tonnage of vessels entered at each port in the United Kingdom; 2, number and tonnage of vessels under as well as above fifty tons registered at each port; 3, the value of exports at each port; and 4, the amount of Customs duty received at each port, besides much other information. The only Return for which the hon. Member moved which he had not enumerated as given in these statistical tables was that of the official value of imports and exports, which, as the hon. Gentleman would see from a note to the Return of which he complained, could not be given without enormous labour and expense, as the value had never been computed except for imports and exports of the kingdom at large. He found no fault with the hon. Member's objection to the title "principal ports." It was very difficult to define principal ports in such Returns. Some ports had more vessels entered and cleared and less registered tonnage, and to take one and omit the other would give rise to jealousy. For instance, at Cardiff there were, according to last Returns, only 121 ships of 18,481 tons registered, and 5,970 ships of 1,921,030 tons entered and cleared. At Bristol there were 388 ships of 62,155 tons registered, and only 1,291 ships of 333,589 tons entered and cleared. Many ships were registered at the place where the owner resided. Many, for instance, were registered in London which were not built there and never traded from it; and registers were transferred from port to port by a simple letter to the Customs. Again, Bristol imported a great deal and exported

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little. The great coal ports did exactly the contrary. Nor was Customs duty a criterion. A sugar port would figure far above its proper rank. Nor was value less delusive. Then there were disputes about the area which Returns ought to include. Newcastle thought the aggregate of the Tyne should be given; Shields that the ports should figure separately. If the Government listened to all appeals for alterations, the expense, trouble, and delay would "be immense. He was glad the hon. Member did not press his Motion, as it would be impossible to give all the Returns he wished; but he would undertake to confer with the hon. Member for Liverpool (who was unhappily absent on account of a domestic calamity), and either discontinue altogether the Returns of which the hon. Gentleman complained, which, he thought, would be the best plan, or alter the title, which, he quite agreed with the hon. Member, was inaccurate and calculated to mislead.

IRELAND—RAILWAYS.—RESOLUTION.
MR. BLAKEsaid, he rose to call attention to the Act of last Session intituled "The Railway Companies (Ireland) Temporary Advances Act, 1866," and to move that it is the opinion of this House that, with a view of affording to Irish Railways the full relief contemplated by the said Act, it is expedient, under existing circumstances, that the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury should exorcise the powers conferred on them under the fourth Section, by directing that the period within which temporary advances should be made be extended to the maximum period allowed by the Act. He felt it was rather a novel proceeding to ask the House to express its opinion that an important public Department should do its duty by carrying into effect the manifest intention of both Houses of Legislature as expressed in an Act of Parliament. He would not have troubled the House with this matter only that he had exhausted every means to try and induce the Treasury to do what he considered they ought in conformity with the spirit of the Act referred to. He came before the House on behalf and at the express desire of very large railway interests in Ireland to ask that what was determined on by Parliament last year should be carried into the full effect intended. Towards the close of last Session, in consequence of the very strong
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representations made of tie difficulties in which several Irish railway companies were placed, owing to the general money panic, but more particularly to the want of confidence in all Irish securities in consequence of the Fenian conspiracy, the late Administration resolved to bring in a Bill to temporarily assist Irish lines in their emergency to the extent of £500,000. The 4th clause would explain the terms on which the loans were granted—
"1. Every Loan shall be made either for the Purpose of discharging the Principal of Money temporarily borrowed and actually applied within Three Calendar Months before the passing of this Act in discharging Principal Money secured by any Debentures or other Securities of the Company duly issued before the passing of this Act pursuant to the Acts relating to the Company, or for the Purpose of discharging the Principal Money secured on any such Debentures or other Securities due at the Time of the passing of this Act, or falling due within Three Calendar Months afterwards, or within such further Period not exceeding Twelve Calendar Months from the passing of this Act as the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury may from Time to Time direct."
This Act was subsequently passed by the present Government. By the 4th clause the Public Works Loan Commissioners, at whose disposal the money was placed, were authorized on their own responsibility to advance loans due on debentures falling due within three months after the passing of the Act. All debentures due at periods beyond that time could not be liquidated by Government advances unless by the express sanction of the Treasury. The Loan Commissioners made advances when they deemed the security satisfactory to the full extent allowed them, but the whole sum lent by them for bonds falling due within three months after the passing of the Act was, he believed, under £200,000. Therefore, fully £300,000 of the sum voted by Parliament remained undisposed of, the greater portion of the debenture debt being due at periods beyond the three months. Under these circumstances, the Treasury was applied to to exercise the powers vested in it to grant loans for debts falling due beyond the period within which the Loan Commissioners were empowered to act. To the surprise, however, of the applicants, the Treasury refused to exercise their powers for the purpose. He (Mr. Blake) had some interviews with the Secretary to remonstrate against this decision, but without effect. The reasons assigned by the right hon. Gentleman (and which, he supposed, would be again advanced that night as he had resolved to oppose the

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Motion) were, that the chief reason Government recommended Parliament to grant the aid to Irish railways was in consequence of the high rate of interest at the time the Act was passed, fully 10 per cent, but that, as it was now down to 2½ per cent, railway companies, if their security was good, ought to go to the money-market to supply their wants; and that the fact of being now willing to give the Government 4 or 5 per cent went far to prove that the security offered was not unexceptionable. He (Mr. Blake) denied altogether the accuracy of the assertion of the Secretary to the Treasury that the high rate of interest was the chief reason why Government recommended aid to be given to Irish railways, and would refer to the hon. Gentleman's own speech when the subject was under discussion, to show that it was not the principal plea which Government put forward to induce the House to comply with their recommendation. He would now endeavour to show that, in a strictly financial point of view, railways were not in a better position at present than they were when the Bill was passed to obtain loans on debenture bonds. These securities partook very much of the character of investments, and in the height of the money panic the interest on good investments was not beyond what it was now. But Irish railways, in common with similar securities in England, even if no political causes had existed at all to depreciate the value of the former, were in a much worse position to raise money than they were six months ago. The decision of Baron Cairns respecting debenture bonds had so reduced their value as a security that nearly every one having them, except in very prosperous lines, were trying to realize often at a very large loss, and few would be induced to touch them. In this respect Irish lines suffered in common with those of England; but in addition companies in Ireland had their property depreciated in consequence of the Fenian disturbances, and in that respect were much worse than when the Bill passed. If the existence of Fenianism was a good reason when the Bill passed for making concessions to Irish railways, it could now be advanced with additional force as an argument for giving full effect to the spirit of the Act, which the Treasury resolutely refused to do. The Fenian threatenings in 1866 had culminated in actual outbreak in 1867, and had made matters, with regard to Irish securities, especially railway property, much worse—
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and in consequence the companies found it quite impossible to get their debenture bonds taken up at interest they could offer; it was not a question of interest but of confidence, and there was an absence of that to an extent that left many companies unable to meet their liabilities. [The hon. MEMBER having read portions of the debate of last Session to show that Fenianism was a chief ground of the Bill then introduced, proceeded to say.] He supposed they were now satisfied that the rate at which Fenianism was going on in June last, and not the rate of interest, was the main reason for the introduction and passing of the Act. Now, what was the pie-sent position of matters? True discounts had gone down, but cetainly Fenianism had gone up. The gracious Speech of Her Majesty at the opening of Parliament announced that Ireland had become so tranquil that the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act would be removed. In little more than a week there was open rebellion in Kerry. That was suppressed, and half-a-dozen, or perhaps a dozen, similar demonstrations took place in different parts of Ireland, which surprised every one, and, he believed, none more than the Government, as they evidently did not expect so practical a denial of their statement, that Ireland had become tranquil and well affected. The effect on money-lenders was such as might be expected—they closed their coffers so far as Ireland was concerned, wisely remarking that when Government were so much out in their calculations about Ireland they would not venture their money there. The most sensitive of all sensitive things was capital, and on the present occasion it shrank from coming in contact with Fenianism. The directors of many of those lines had pledged their own personal security for large amounts to sustain their companies—in one instance to the extent of £60,000; but there must be a limit somewhere to men involving themselves personally for matters in which they were only interested as shareholders, probably to an extent far below the heavy liabilities they undertook, to save from destruction the undertakings in their charge. They had, through him, appealed to the Treasury to help them through their difficulties by simply carrying out the Act of last Session, but had been refused; and he seriously warned the House and Government that, if the application then made failed, the consequences would probably prove most disastrous to the

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country, and even to the Government itself, as some of the lines applying for aid were in the centre of the scene of the Fenian disturbances. The Secretary of the Treasury told him that without a vote of the House the Treasury would not relax their determination; and he (Mr. Blake) confidently appealed to the House, for the sake of the important interests involved, to confirm the wise and previous decision they came to last Session with regard to sustaining Irish railways in their struggle with difficulties caused by the exceptional circumstances in which they were unfortunately placed by difficulties for which neither proprietors or directors were accountable.
MR. POLLARD-URQUHARTseconded the Motion. He wished to guard himself against the supposition that he was suing for the Irish railways in formâ pauperis. There were peculiar circumstances which existed now which did not exist at the commencement of this undertaking. Great part of the hostility of the malcontents seemed to be directed against railways, and therefore the value of railway property was peculiarly affected by this unfortunate conspiracy. Then another thing which had depreciated the value of railway property was the recent decision of Lord Justice Cairns. He contended that; these two reasons were quite sufficient to justify himself and his friends in asking that the Act of last Session should be carried out in no niggard spirit. In conclusion, he would express the hope that the Government would give a favourable consideration to the Motion which had been made.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is the opinion of this House that, with a view to affording to Irish Railways the full relief contemplated by the Act of last Session, intituled, The Railway Companies (Ireland) Temporary Advances Act, 1866 it is expedient, under existing circumstances, that the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury should exercise the powers conferred on them under the fourth Section, by directing that the period within which temporary advances should be made be extended to the maximum period allowed by the Act,"—(Mr. Blake,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. HUNTsaid, that the Act, the operation of which the hon. Gentleman asked the Government to extend, was
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one of a very exceptionable and peculiar nature, it being an Act to enable the Government to advance money to Irish railway companies to pay off debt. Previously to its passing he was not aware of any case in which public money had been advanced, except for the execution of works. The policy of successive Governments in late years had been to lend money at a low rate of interest to promote public improvements; but he believed that the Act he had just referred to was the first instance where public money had been advanced to pay off debts. It was regarded with jealousy when introduced, and the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) observed at the time that the measure required to be watched, or it would form a dangerous precedent. The circumstances under which the late Government undertook to introduce the measure were set forth in two Treasury Minutes laid on the table of the House last year. The first Minute was dated May 24, and it began with a statement that a deputation consisting of gentlemen largely interested in Irish railways waited on Earl Russell and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and represented that, in consequence of the then existing monetary derangement, it was not only impossible for these railway companies generally to obtain money for the works in progress on reasonable terms, but that many of them were called upon to repay at a short notice large sums borrowed on mortgage and other security for the prosecution of their works; that Earl Russell and Mr. Gladstone found difficulty in adopting any scheme of a permanent nature affecting railways in Ireland until the Royal Commission on Railways should have made their Report; but that this objection would not apply with equal force to temporary measures taken in view especially of the existing derangement of the money-market; and they recommend that the Public Works Loan Commissioners should be authorized to advance during the next three months on the security of debentures already issued, and being overdue or falling due within that time, sums not exceeding in the whole £500,000 for one year at a rate of interest not less than 4 per cent, upon being satisfied as to the sufficiency of the security offered. Before the expiration of the three months, it was likewise stated in the Minute, it would be open for consideration whether circumstances might render any further extension of the period advisable. He wished the

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House to observe that the reason stated for the advance was the existence of derangement in the money-market—the Bank rate of discount, he believed, being 10 per cent when the Minute was framed, and when the Bill was brought in by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and himself the Bank rate of discount was still at that figure. With respect to the question whether the period in which the debentures falling due were to be paid by money raised under the Act should be extended, there was a second Treasury Minute, dated June 15, which stated that another deputation had been to the Treasury and urged that the power of the Public Works Loan Commissioners to lend money should be continued by the Act for a period of three years, so as to enable any debenture falling due during that time to be taken up. The Minute went on to state that Mr. Childers said that should circumstances hereafter require an extension of the period, during which the lending and borrowing powers were to be exercised, it would seem the more proper course to seek from Parliament in a future Session an extension of the powers. When the Bill was introduced the Chancellor of the Exchequer rested the case for it, as the first Treasury Minute did, on the derangement of the money market. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Blake) had said that he (Mr. Hunt) alluded to the Fenian disturbances. It was true that he did allude to them as aggravating the difficulties, but he did not rest the case solely on that ground—as he had said the main consideration was the state of the money-market. Now, what had taken place under the Act? The Public Works Loan Commissioners were solely to be the judges of the security, and had power to make advances without reference to the Treasury in all cases within the meaning of the Act, with this single exception—that they could not extend the time without Treasury sanction. £500,000 were destined for the purpose of the Act, and there had been applications for the loan to the extent of £926,089. Of that amount there had been refused on account of insufficiency of security applications for £226,992, and applications for £244,865 had been refused on account of not coming within the limit of the Act. Sums to the amount of £123,796 had been advanced, and loans which had been agreed to be advanced to the amount of £10,700 had not been taken up. In addition, one company had withdrawn their application.
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Now what was the state of things when the time was about to expire? At that period the monetary derangement had entirely passed away, and the Bank rate of discount had fallen from 10 per cent to 4 or 4½ per cent. Therefore the monetary considerations which had induced the Government to introduce the Bill had entirely disappeared; and the view of the Government was, under the circumstances, that parties could go into the market for their money. He would mention a fact which confirmed the view of the Government on that point. A large sum of money was applied for by one of the companies in Ireland, and it was found on examination that a great part of the sum did not fall within the meaning of the Act. A certain portion, however—£34,000—did fall within the time, and the Commissioners offered to advance that sum on the same terms as they advanced money to other companies—namely, at £5 per cent. The company then, informed the Commissioners that in such case they declined the offer, as the public offered better terms. [An hon. MEMBER: What was the date?] The date of that transaction was the 30th of October; and this he contended was a confirmation of the propriety of the decision of the Government at the time that decision was taken. That being so, the House, he thought, would be of opinion that the Board were justified in the view they took that the exceptional state of things which induced the Government to bring in this Bill having passed away, they would not be justified in extending the time beyond the three mouths limited by the 4th clause. The Government took this view—that supposing the state of things existing now had existed when the measure was introduced, they would not have introduced it. The present Government would not, and he did not believe the late Government would have introduced it; and he might say the House would not, in his opinion, have assented to it, except under the exceptional circumstances then existing. The passing of the measure had, as many predicted, given rise to various applications for Government loans for various purposes; and this showed that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Henley) was quite right in saying that it would be a dangerous precedent. The other day a large and influential deputation waited on the Ministers of the Crown and applied for loans to pay off debts incurred in the construction of works of public utility; and they represented that

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they would be able by getting loans from the Government to save the high rate they were now paying for the money they had taken up in order to construct those works. Such a policy was pessimi exempli, and he heard of other applications about to be made, as if the Government were a great "Credit Company," bound to find money for all persons who could not get it elsewhere, or to lend at a lower than the current rate of interest in the market. He did not see any difference between Irish railways and certain English railways. It might be said the Fenian outbreak bad affected the question. No doubt it did to a certain extent. We bad no Fenian disturbance here, except at Chester, and that did not alarm us much; yet many railway companies in this country had great difficulty in taking up their debentures; and why should they mete one measure to Ireland and another to England? Supposing the House were of opinion that they ought to comply with the terms of the Motion, he confessed he did not see how they could resist applications from railway companies in this country. He thought the special circumstances attending the monetary crisis under which the Act was passed having entirely passed away, they would not have been justified in using the powers given under the Act, which were never intended for the state of things which now existed, but only applied to the contingency of the rate of interest keeping up during the Parliamentary recess. If they adopted this Resolution, he did not see how they could resist applications from other quarters of a similar nature, and be confessed the amount of such applications and the number of them would be perfectly appalling to any one filling the position he had the honour to do. He therefore hoped the House would not assent to the Motion, but leave the matter as it now stood on the decisions come to last October.
MR. LAWSONsaid, what his hon. Friend (Mr. Blake) asked was not to extend the operation of the Act, but to pass a Resolution that it is expedient that the Commissioners of the Treasury should act on powers already given by the Act of Parliament. The Secretary of the Treasury had spoken of applications from other companies; but he seemed entirely to forget that the English Companies had no Act of Parliament. The Legislature last Session passed an Act placing at the disposal of Irish railways,
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under certain conditions, a sum of £500,000 for taking up debentures falling due within three months after the passing of the Act, without application to the Treasury, and debentures falling due in twelvemonths subject to the approval of the Commissioners; and the only thing asked was that the Commissioners of the Treasury should exercise their discretion of granting these loans, although the debentures had fallen due at a longer period than three months after the passing of the Act. There was no possible danger to the public revenue in this, for the Loan Commissioners were directed not to make loans unless the security were both sufficient and proper. The necessity for such loans was just as great now as when the Act passed. The Legislature meant that the whole £500,000 should be appropriated for that purpose if proper security were given for it, and the other conditions mentioned in the Act complied with; but of this sum only £144,000 had been advanced; and therefore, he contended, there was no reason, either connected with the state of Ireland or the public funds, why the extension proposed should not be granted. Nothing but common justice was asked; and he could not but contrast the grudging and niggard spirit in which these loans were administered with what they had heard from deputations to the Viceroy and otherwise about the generous and enlightened policy the Government were prepared to pursue towards the sister country, pledging their belief, and almost their assurance, that very great aid would be given to Irish railways. He trusted the Secretary of the Treasury would re-consider the matter.
MR. M'KENNAdesired to make a few remarks in reference to the objection which had been urged to a compliance with the requests of Irish railways, where applications for loans were not made within the three months provided by the Act. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury had referred to the fact that at the time the Bill received the sanction of the House the rate of interest in the general market was 10 per cent per annum. This was doubtless true, and it constituted one ingredient in the conditions of pressure under which the railways then suffered; it could not, however, have operated as an inducement to Parliament to help them, for it rendered any help then given a cost and loss to the State. The pressure on the railway companies now arose from one cause only; but if that cause were adequate the

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Government were bound to use their powers to continue the operation of the Act, for the railways were not now asking any concession whatever at the expense of the State; the companies were prepared to secure to the country 5 per cent per annum, and this money would cost the country under 3½. The present pressure on the Irish railway companies mainly arose from the panic of investors consequent on the Fenian movements. No one could have less nervousness on the subject of that movement than he (Mr. M'Kenna.) But fears which were unwarranted and contemptible did prevail, and were sufficient to paralyse industry and injure credit. He hoped that these railway companies which were constituted of the best friends of order in Ireland would receive from the Government at this juncture that consideration which Parliament so lately sanctioned.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he did not wish to enter into the general question; but he understood the Secretary of the Treasury, in the remarks he had made, to intimate that the Bill of last year was likely to prove an inconvenient precedent. He had said that that Bill was pessimi exempli, and that if its principle was correct, what they had done for Ireland they might be called upon to do for England. But he (Mr. Childers) wished to point out that there was no need to fear that the railways of England would have a better title to the assistance of Parliament in consequence of the passing of the Act of last year. In reply to the same objection, which had been taken last year, he had explained that the railways of Ireland stood in a very different position from those of England. The English railways had been constructed entirely by private enterprize, whereas the Irish railways had been constructed to a great extent by means of loans from the Public Works Commissioners, which had to be repaid by yearly instalments. The Government, therefore, having lent the money for the construction of the lines, and having been repaid large sums, the re-payment of which, with the addition of the sinking fund, had compelled the companies to borrow on debentures; and those debentures having been, in the pressure of last year, unrenewable, it was not, he thought, unreasonable to allow them as a temporary loan a portion of the money that they had made in re-payments. He Loped that the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) would not still maintain that the Act of last year would
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justify the English railway companies in asking for similar relief.
MR. HUNTexplained that what he said was, that if this Motion were acceded to there would be a difficulty in resisting a similar application on behalf of the English companies under similar circumstances.
MR. CHILDERShad not asked the hon. Member to accede to the present application.
MR. SYNANsaid, that the influences that had deranged the finances of Irish railways last year were still in operation, and therefore the Government were bound to carry out the intention of the Act passed in the last Session. Good security and high interest were offered for the loan, and he could not see why Government should decline to carry out the intention of the Act. All that was asked was that they should examine the securities the railways had to offer, and if they were satisfied to advance the money.
SIR HENRY WINSTON-BARRONreminded the House that the Act under which this application was made was passed at a time when the money-market was deranged by the rate for money varying from 10 to 12 per cent. Since then there had come the Fenian outbreak, and the consequence was that the money-market was more deranged than ever. It was more difficult now than it was last year to get money, either for the English or Irish railways. He wished to remind the House that the Government would really gain by this scheme, for they would be able to borrow money at 3 per cent, while they would lend it to the Irish railways at 5. As for the securities, there could be no doubt about their value, because, in fact, the Government would examine their value for themselves. If the loan were refused let Parliament depend upon it that the Irish people would not forget the circumstance.
MR. J. B. SMITHhad been disposed to object to this Motion, as he understood that it was an application for money to assist Irish railways, which he thought ought on principle not to be acceded to. But he found on examination that the application was only to carry into effect the provisions of an Act of Parliament which had been passed by universal consent last Session; it was not a new application for a loan to which he would have objected, and in the peculiar condition of affairs in Ireland he hoped the Government would accede to the renewal of the loan which Parliament had authorized.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The matter now before us is one which, since we succeeded to office, has much engaged my attention. The position of the railways in Ireland had attracted the attention of our predecessors in office, and they had entered into arrangements and engagements, probably not to be vindicated by strict principles of political economy, but which yet might he defended on grounds of political justice. We accepted the position which was left to us by our predecessors, and it appeared to me one in which the State might interfere with very great advantage to Ireland, and, generally speaking, in a manner which could be defended on every principle of sound policy. What were the circumstances? They were laid before us by deputations headed by persons of great position in Ireland, and who sit in both Houses of Parliament. There was then a monetary panic of a peculiar character, which doubtless does not exist at the present moment, though its consequences remain, and naturally must remain, to some extent, in a country situated like Ireland. We found that the means of communication in that country were endangered, and it was possible circumstances might arise which would interrupt the public communications in a manner not merely injurious to the interests of Ireland, but of the Empire. We agreed to assist the Irish railways under certain conditions, which I think were well considered, and so conceived as to effect, not only the purposes which we desired, but to secure the public interest and to protect the public resources of this country. No doubt, the state of affairs in a monetary sense has changed. No one can say now that he is obliged to pay 10 per cent as the minimum rate of interest at the Bank; but, at the same time, the consequences, even in England, of the great anxieties of that period are seriously felt, and property of this kind has not yet recovered its proper and natural condition. But, in addition, the social condition of Ireland is different from that of England. In Ireland there are social circumstances of a very perplexing character which exercise a most injurious effect on its industry, on the employment of its capital, and, of course, on the employment of its labour. I do not want to intrude the Fenian invasion into this discussion, which is one relating purely to a matter of business; but, as that subject has been introduced, it is impossible to
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shut our eyes to the remarkable consequences of that almost unprecedented state of affairs. What the Fenian movement is I do not at this moment understand, although in the course of the day I receive several telegrams on the subject, and give them very anxious consideration. I believe it is rather to be accounted for by physical than political causes. I know that in the Middle Ages there was a "dancing mania," and whole nations fell into fits of I dancing, and passed the borders of contiguous countries till they accomplished a distance of 3,000 leagues. There is no doubt that there is an epileptic feeling which affects nations like individuals, and I can only account for the Fenian movement on the epileptic principle. There is no doubt that movement has affected the value and position of railway property in Ireland. Whether the Fenian invasion is as bad as a 10 per cent minimum rate it is very difficult to say; but there are many Members on both sides of the House who are no doubt competent to consider the proposition, and in due time to give us the result. I can only take a rough estimate. I look on the Irish railways now as being almost in the identical position which they were when we acceded to office, and succeeded to the policy of our predecessors. I wish to carry out that policy in its integrity. I do not want to change it. I do not propose to change it, and I will not sanction any change in it. If the Irish railways can come forward and give us good security it will be the duty of the Government, in compliance with the original arrangement, naming a period which has not yet been completed, candidly to consider their claims. They will be considered, I must fairly tell them, with the severity that becomes the office which I hold. If they can offer us ample and complete security, then I think the duty of the Government will be to give them that assistance which the legislation of last year approved and authorized us to afford.
MR. BRADYexpressed his satisfaction at the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and said that had the reply of the Secretary of the Treasury been as explicit and straightforward, there would have been no occasion for entering upon the discussion. He was rejoiced at the course taken by the Government, being convinced that bad it not been adopted the most serious results would have taken place in regard to railway property in Ireland.
MR. BLAKEalso thanked the right

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hon. Gentleman for his very satisfactory speech, and begged to withdraw his Motion.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

FLOGGING IN THE ARMY.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. OTWAY, in rising to move the Resolution of which he had given notice—
  "That this House, reserving for future consideration when requisite the question of the exigencies of a state of war, is of opinion that it is unnecessary that the punishment of Flogging should be awarded during the time of peace to Soldiers of the Army or Corps of Royal Marines serving on shore,"
  said, that he had given notice of this Resolution with a view to elicit a declaration as to the inexpediency of continuing the system of flogging in the army. The present moment appeared to him most opportune for mooting such a question, as it appeared that additional burdens were about to be laid upon the country to induce men to enter the army. The subject was, in his eyes, of such paramount importance that he would have hesitated, humble as he was, to bring it before them if it had not been for the deep convictions he entertained on the subject, and for the support he knew he would obtain from many Members of the House. The subject had been formerly brought before the House of Commons by the hon. Member for Brighton, by the hon. Member for Leicester, and others, who objected to that clause in the Mutiny Bill which authorized the punishment. But he thought the division lists on those occasions showed that the question had never been fairly submitted to the judgment of the House. In the first Reformed Parliament the subject was brought forward by a relative of his own, and one of the most distinguished men in it—the late Sir Francis Burdett—who proposed to restrict corporal punishment to three offences, and there appeared on a division the very small majority of 11 against Sir Francis Burdett's proposition. To prevent the question being again brought forward as was threatened, Mr. Ellice, who was then Secretary at War, issued orders on the authority of the King William IV., to commanding officers of regiments, restricting the punishment of flogging to certain heinous offences—mutiny, insubordination, or violence to a superior officer, drunkenness on duty, sale or making away with arms, munitions, or necessaries, stealing from comrades, or
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  other disgraceful practices. But how did the question stand at the present day r He feared, by the Returns on the table of the House, that the question had retrograded since that time. The offences for which flogging was inflicted had increased from seven to seventeen. The number of men flogged in 1830 was 658; in 1831 it was 646; in 1832 it was 485, and in 1833 it was 370. It was remarkable that whenever a discussion had taken place in Parliament on the subject the result had been a diminution in the number of floggings, and that the amelioration which had taken place in the military code of the country had arisen from the opinions expressed by civilians in Parliament in opposition to the views of military men. The number of men flogged in 1863 was 518, and the number of lashes inflicted 23,668; the number of men in 1864 was 528, and the number of lashes, 25,638; the number of men in 1865 was 441, and the number of lashes 21,561. So that, in point of numbers, more men were flogged in 1865 than at a previous period when the matter was very little considered, though it must be mentioned that the number of men now in the army was much greater. There were certain offences also now punishable which did not find a place in the order to which he had alluded. In 1865 men were flogged for habitual drunkenness, breaking out of prison, disobedience of orders, loss of necessaries, unlawful possession, drunkenness in camp, and one man had been flogged for an offence new to him, entitled "miscellaneous." He wished to call the attention of the House particularly to two of those offences which were punishable with flogging—habitual drunkenness and desertion. It was unnecessary to describe the nature of the punishment itself. In many cases it went far beyond the intention of those by whom it was awarded, and in a recent case a man had died in hospital at Limerick after a severe flogging. He submitted that if it were possible that death should result from the punishment, the punishment ought to be abolished altogether. The Returns before the House showed that the punishment was utterly inefficient as a remedial measure. A most valuable Return entitled "Subsequent Conduct of Men who have been Flogged," most clearly proved this. It had been stated that the word "desertion" had suddenly come into the Mutiny Act in 1858, and that many men had since that time been punished for

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  an offence which was intended to be excluded from the Bill. Now, if there was any one offence for which a man ought not to be subject to this punishment, it was that of desertion. How did a man enter the army? He was frequently entrapped by some wily sergeant when in a state of intoxication, and when he recovered he instinctively ran from the trap in which he had been caught. No doubt a man deserved some punishment for such an offence; but he ought not to be subjected to the most degrading punishment that could be inflicted. Of all offences "desertion" ought to be excluded from the list, except that of drunkenness. In 1865 the number of men flogged for desertion was seventy-two, and for habitual drunkenness, twenty-seven. When a man had been convicted of habitual drunkenness three times, he was brought before a court martial for the fourth offence, and degraded to the second class. Now, what was the case with respect to an officer offending in a similar way? At Agra a captain on the Staff was arraigned the other day, charged with conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, prejudicial to good order and military discipline, in having been drunk at a public banquet given by the Maharajah of Jeypore, an ally of Her Majesty, and caused such a disturbance that he had to be removed by force. The Court found him guilty of the charge, and sentenced him to be severely reprimanded. The sentence was approved and confirmed by W. R. M. Mansfield, General Commanding-in-Chief Her Majesty's Forces in India. Mark the contrast ! The unhappy recruit who got muddled with beer was brought to the halberts, stripped to the waist, and flogged till the blood ran down his back, whilst the accomplished captain of the Staff who had to be removed for drunken violence was merely reprimanded. Truly might it be said—
  "That in the captain's but a choleric word
  Which in the soldier is rank blasphemy."
  If that were the treatment recruits had to expect, while at the same time they were debarred from rising to the position of an officer, how could we hope to popularize the army? It was said that the punishment was necessary for the maintenance of military discipline. But to disprove that assertion it would only be necessary, without going back as far as the Jews, who, more humane than ourselves, inflicted only forty stripes save one, or the Romans, who did not inflict the punishment at all on their
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  soldiers, to look at the Continental armies. In the two great wars which had recently taken place, the four Continental armies had been engaged—those of Russia and Austria, France, and Prussia. In the armies of France and Prussia corporal punishment had been altogether abolished. In the Russian army it still existed. In the Austrian army it was on the decrease. And what had been the result of the different systems? The armies disciplined under the lash had been defeated, whilst those in which the lash had been abolished had achieved invariable and brilliant success. In England, also, we had seen an army in which discipline had been maintained without the lash. Flogging was unknown in that famous army of Cromwell, of which Macaulay says, "No enemy ever saw its back." And how was it with the descendants of those Cavaliers and Roundheads who had once again met in deadly strife in the new world. The lash would not be tolerated for a moment in the American army, and yet during the recent gigantic war discipline had been fully maintained. It had been said that the English soldier was an exceptional soldier, and no doubt he was so to a certain extent; but it was not necessary on that account that he should be governed by the lash. In the metropolis discipline was maintained in the three regiments of Household Cavalry without the use of the lash. It might be said that they were composed of men of a superior class. And why? No doubt the men received better pay; but he maintained that a better class of men were attracted to those regiments, because they were not subjected to that degrading punishment. During the Indian Mutiny, in one of the most gallant regiments, under the command of the hon. and gallant Member for Norwich (Sir William Russell), discipline was fully maintained without the use of the lash, and it must be a source of great satisfaction to the hon. and gallant Gentleman to find that the Returns showed a continued absence of flogging in that regiment. One word with respect to recruiting. It had been admitted by the late Secretary for War that great difficulty existed in obtaining recruits. He was surprised to find that the Recruiting Commission had so much confined themselves to a certain class of witnesses, who could afford but little information as to the reason why men did not enter the ranks. Still, there was some evidence of import-

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  ance upon this point. Several of the witnesses called before the Commission stated that flogging in the army checked recruiting, and was one of the causes which rendered it less attractive than it would otherwise be; and one of them said—and he (Mr. Otway) could confirm the statement—that he had heard mothers declare that they would sooner see their sons dead than in "the army. It was understood that the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary to the Admiralty had issued orders limiting the amount of flogging in the navy. Now, it was not sufficient merely to issue orders, for orders in the army were not attended to. There was but one remedy, and that was, the entire abolition of the punishment. The House had been led to understand that there was an absolute protection to a man entering the army from this degrading punishment; and that before he was degraded to the second class he could not be punished. [Sir JOHN PAKINGTON: Hear, hear!] He (Mr. Otway) regretted to say that that was not the case—that there was no absolute protection for a soldier in the first class; for soldiers in the first class had been flogged before they were degraded into the second. The question as to those by whose orders the punishment of flogging was inflicted, opened up too wide a field for him to pursue now; but the House would remember that the regimental court martial before which a man was tried, was composed for the most part of young officers—that the tried soldier had not that protection which was given to every other citizen of the country—he was not tried by his peers. In France and in Prussia two private soldiers sat on every court martial, and their voices were equally free and powerful with those of their superior officers. No doubt the young gentlemen who constituted the judges pursued what they regarded as a proper course in sentencing men to this degrading punishment; but he maintained that it was not a satisfactory tribunal for subjecting men to such a degradation. It had been said that flogging was only given as a punishment for the gravest offences, but that that was not so was proved by the fact that regimental courts martial had power to inflict it; while the gravest offences could only be tried, not before a regimental court martial, but before a general court martial. Then, again, it was sometimes alleged that the soldiers themselves desired the retention of the punishment; but this on the face of it
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  was incredible, and was quite counter to the testimony of those who had had opportunities of learning the feeling which they really entertained. In the Life of Sir William Napier an interesting anecdote was related of a private who, on a critical occasion, risked his life in rescuing that of his Commander, and when Sir William asked the motive for his gallant conduct, he replied, "You saved me yesterday from corporal punishment;" General Napier having, on the eve of the engagement, remitted his sentence. That man afterwards became an excellent soldier, and died a Serjeant pensioner. The statement that the lash had been entirely abolished in Prussia was sometimes questioned; but he was able from a recent visit to that country, and on the authority of a Prussian officer of high rank, to assert positively that such was the fact. Corporal punishment having being thus dispensed with in France, Prussia, and America, and being on the eve of abolition in Austria, why, he would ask, should England lag behind? The House had passed a number of measures mitigating the punishment of the soldier, but always, he regretted to say, in opposition to the views of the military authorities. When the 1,000 lashes were reduced to 300, and when the barbarous punishment of tying up cavalry soldiers by the wrist with their toes suspended over spikes was abolished, it was emphatically declared that discipline could not be maintained—just as Lord Eldon predicted that if hanging for burglary were given up people would all be murdered in their beds. He remembered, too, that on a visit to Van Diemen's Land—in an innocent capacity—he found the inhabitants greatly alarmed on account of the capital penalty for sheep-stealing being abolished. He hoped the House would disregard such bugbears, and would disdain to believe that the discipline of our army was dependent on the lash. The Resolution he was about to propose did not, he admitted, go as far as he should himself prefer; but he hoped that in time of peace, at all events, a punishment so demoralizing to those who inflicted and witnessed it, as well as to those who endured it, would be abandoned. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.
  MAJOR ANSON, in seconding the Motion, said, that he had always voted against propositions arbitrarily interfering with the power of those who were responsible for the maintenance of the discipline of the

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  army; but it could not be denied that corporal punishment was contrary to the spirit of the age, and was condemned by public opinion. It consequently deterred a number of persons who would otherwise enlist in the army—and especially operating prejudicially on the class and description of men who actually did enter. It was time for the House to consider whether it was absolutely necessary to retain this punishment in order to maintain the discipline of the army. That flogging could be done without was shown by experience. In 1811, when the character of the men was far worse than at present, Colonel Dalrymple, who commanded the second battalion of the Scots Fusileer Guards, announced his determination never to have recourse to the punishment of flogging. Colonel Dalrymple remained in command for two years and a half, and when he was promoted, a General Order was issued by the Duke of Gloucester, setting forth that the battalion under his command had supported the character of the regiment by its uniform good conduct, that this had been effected without the infliction of corporal punishment, and that no corps were ever in a higher state of discipline. If the House wished to know the effect of corporal punishment upon the men, he would refer to a Return moved for by Lord Alfred Church-hill, in 1865, of the number of men flogged in 1862, and the number of courts martial subsequently held upon the same men, with the punishments inflicted. It appeared from this Return that in 1862 there were no less than 329 men flogged, and out of this number there are only 107 who have not been since tried by court martial, and of these some 20 had their punishment extended from one to two years' imprisonment, leaving but short time to judge of their reformation; 63 had been discharged, in most cases ignominiously, from the service; of 16, no further information had been received after the first punishment; and on the rest as many as 275 further courts martial had been held, inflicting various punishments. It was certain that the punishment of the lash did not deter from the commission of subsequent offences. These figures were quite sufficient to justify the House in expressing an opinion, and the thanks of hon. Members were, he thought, due to his hon. Friend for the manner in which he had brought forward the subject, by giving the House an opportunity of expressing its opinion without taking
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  immediate action. He trusted that if his hon. Friend should carry his Motion he would not take any steps to embody it in the Mutiny Bill of the present year. If a General Order were issued by the Commander-in-Chief suspending the punishment of flogging for a year in the army, the authorities would discover whether it would be possible to do away with corporal punishment or not. This would give both officers and men an opportunity of showing that they could do without the punishment of the lash. Such a course would, he believed, offer the easiest means of settling this difficult question.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House, reserving for future consideration when requisite the question of the exigencies of a state of war, is of opinion that it is unnecessary that the punishment of flogging should be awarded during the time of peace to Soldiers of the Army or Corps of Royal Marines serving on shore,"—(Mr. Otway)
  —instead thereof.
  MR. MOWBRAY: In rising to offer a few observations in answer to the Motion so ably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway), and so ably seconded by the hon. and gallant Member for Lichfield (Major Anson), I feel that I labour under great disadvantage in speaking merely from the experience which I have acquired in the administration of the office with which I have the honour to be connected. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham has introduced his Motion with an announcement that he speaks on behalf, not merely of his constituents at Chatham, who are deeply interested in this question, but of the mothers of England, who are interested on account of their sons who are now in or may be likely to enlist into the British army; and he says he speaks also with the authority of experience which he obtained in our Australian colonies. The hon. and gallant Member for Lichfield also has added to the Motion the weight of the authority which he has derived from his experience during many years of distinguished service in the field. I feel that in attempting to answer those two hon. Members I labour under great disadvantage; yet I venture to say that the case which those two hon. Members have sought to make out is one that admits of a complete answer. The Motion which the hon. Member for Chatham has submitted to this House is to this

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  effect—That during the time of peace, under all circumstances, under all conditions, in all parts of the vast extent of the British dominions, where the British army may be placed, this House will be of opinion that the punishment of flogging shall under no circumstances be awarded; and the hon. Member, in introducing the Motion, stated to the House that this question has never fairly been submitted to it. But he himself has given a complete contradiction to his own statement, by showing that from the year 1833 and down to the year 1867, on various occasions, the opinion of this House had been elicited by various Members on this question. I do not hesitate to say that to pass the Motion of the hon. Member for Chatham would be an interference on the part of the House with the discipline of the army, and one which is contrary to the opinions and judgment of those to whom the administration of the army is intrusted, and which might—I do not wish to use an exaggerated phrase, and therefore do not say that it will—effect a revolution in the army, but I do say that the result will be a fundamental change in the law; and such as I think this House will be unwilling, except in the strongest possible case, to adopt. The hon. Member for Chatham says that the question has retrograded since 1834, when the question was introduced into the Reformed House of Commons by an hon. and gallant Member (Major Fancourt), and Mr. Ellice, then Secretary at War, made certain promises to the House which were embodied in a Memorandum issued by order of King William IV. restricting the punishment of the lash to seven classes of offences. Now, the hon. Member says, the classes of offences to which the punishment is applicable have been increased from 7 to 17, and that thus the question has retrograded since 1834. Well, I felt a difficulty throughout the speech of the hon. Member for Chatham in understanding what was the nature of his objection. At one time he seemed to object to the punishment as degrading to the soldier; at another he objected on the ground that it was applied to offences to which it ought not to be applied; and it was with respect to the latter that I understood him to complain that the 7 classes of offences specified by William IV. in 1834 had been increased to 17 in 1867. But, so far from the question having retrograded during the last 33 years, I think I shall be able to show that there has been a most remarkable diminution in every re-
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  spect in the amount of corporal punishment awarded within that period. He has spoken of the number of men flogged in 1831–2, and of the number of men flogged in 1863–4–5. But did the hon. Gentleman compare the number flogged with the total number of the forces at each of the two periods—the forces of the King in 1830, and the forces of the Queen in 1865? In 1830 the hon. Gentleman said the number of men flogged was 658. So they were. But that was 658 out of 88,498, or 1 man in 135. And how stands the case during the last three years? Why, in 1863 the British army, including the Indian army, consisted, not of 88,498,but 280,000 men; and the number flogged in that year was only 518, or 1 in 403. In 1864 there were 528 men flogged out of a force of 204,057 men, or 1 in 386. In 1865 there were 441 flogged out of 198,048, or only 1 in 449. Let me ask my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham whether that is not an aspect under which the question should be regarded? Let me take another point. Compare the men sentenced to corporal punishment with the number tried by courts martial. Some 40 or 50 years ago, from 1821 to 1823, every other man—1 man out of 2 of those tried—was flogged. From 1825 to 1828 1 in 5. How stands the proportion in the last three years? In 1863 there were tried by court martial 18,659 men, of whom 518 were flogged, or 1 out of 36; in 1864, there were tried 18,028, of whom 528 were flogged, or 1 in 34; in 1865, there were tried 22,261, of whom 441 were flogged, or 1 in 54. Whereas somewhere about 40 years ago every other man who was tried was flogged; in the last year the proportion was only 1 in 54. How, then, can it be said that we have retrograded on this question since the year 1834. There is another point, and that is the amount of punishment inflicted. The hon. Member has talked of the question having retrograded, Why, in 1834, a general court martial could award an unlimited number of lashes; and there is a Friend of mine sitting behind me who says he has seen 999 lashes given. I will show you the progress which has been made since that time. I am not defending the practice of by-gone days. I adduce it as a matter of history, in answer to the observation that the cause of abolition has retrograded since 1834. In that year an unlimited number of lashes could be given by a general court martial. A district court martial

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  could inflict 300 lashes, and a regimental 200.
  MR. OTWAYwished to explain that the right hon. Gentleman had misunderstood his argument. He had not said that they had retrograded in respect to the points to which the right hon. Member was referring, but in respect to the number and class of offences for some of which flogging was not previously inflicted.
  MR. MOWBRAY: I am answering the general statement that we have retrograded since 1834. In 1847 the number of lashes to be inflicted in any case was reduced to fifty, and no more than fifty can now be awarded for any offence whatever; and this has been the case for the last twenty years and upwards. This is a third answer to the alleged retrogression since 1834. The hon. Gentleman has spoken of courts martials being composed of young officers, leading the House to infer that punishments are awarded in a reckless way. But there can be no court martial that does not require confirmation. Every sentence is submitted to superior authority. A sentence of a general court martial is submitted to the Sovereign, and the Sovereign acts under the advice of the Judge Advocate General; a sentence of a district court martial is submitted to the confirmation of the General Officer commanding the district; a sentence of a regimental court martial undergoes the double revision—first of the Commander of the regiment, and secondly of the General Officer commanding the district. The hon. Member has alluded to one case of flogging that occurred in 1865, which in a Return of corporal punishments was said to have been inflicted for "miscellaneous" offences. I really do not know who compiled this Return; but I imagine the explanation would be that the man was convicted of several offences at the same court martial. The case occurred in the East Indies. The hon. Member's Motion is that in time of peace the punishment of flogging should be abolished in the British army under all circumstances. Now, I do not stop to inquire exactly what the hon. Gentleman means by "time of peace." What is "time of peace" at home may not be "time of peace" at New Zealand or at the Cape. We learned yesterday that it is not time of peace in Honduras, May there not be parts of the British Empire at all times where there is not peace? Let me call the hon. Gentleman's attention to this point with respect to these sentences of corporal punishment. A
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  very small proportion after all is inflicted for offences committed at home. The hon. Gentleman has spoken of the Guards. Well, there is an hon. and gallant Friend behind me (Sir Charles Russell) who will be able to state that the amount of corporal punishment inflicted in the Guards is almost nil. [Opposition cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen cheered; but it did not follow that because in a well-disciplined corps in London they could dispense with corporal punishment they could dispense with it also in New Zealand, China, and our distant dependencies. You will find the annual average number of persons flogged during the last three years to be 141. In 1863 the number was 167; in 1864 it was 109; in 1865, 147; so that the average of the 3 years was 141. Well, where is the punishment principally inflicted? You will find at one time a mutiny at Sierra Leone, on which occasion 30 were flogged. At New Zealand a very large proportion of flogging-took place. There would be great difficulty in imprisoning offenders in New Zealand; and yet what other punishment than imprisonment could be substituted for the lash? And the same remark applies to India and to China. The majority of these instances are cases, as I have said, relating to distant dependencies, such as New Zealand, the East Indies, and Canada, and in the latter colony the floggings have chiefly taken place for the crime of desertion—there being great temptations for soldiers to pass over the borders into the United States. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Chatham objects to such a punishment being inflicted for desertion, or for drunkenness. I would like therefore clearly to understand what it is that the hon. Gentleman wishes us to do. Does he wish the House to affirm that corporal punishment is to be abolished, or does he wish us to pass an opinion as to the particular class of offences which ought to be punished in that way? My own idea is that the latter is rather a question to be dealt with by those to whose charge the discipline of the army is committed. At present there are offences—such as absence without leave, which are no longer brought under the head of desertion. It is not for this House to decide what class of offences shall or shall not be visited with corporal punishment. According to my own experience the offences for which it is mainly inflicted are thefts from comrades, striking non-commissioned officers, making away with necessaries, desertion, and habitual drunkenness;

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  but in the two latter cases this punishment is rare. I speak only from my official experience of a few years; but comparing the years 1858·9 with 1866–7, I find that in the latter years the courts martial are more loth to inflict it than they were in the former, and that it is only in the most flagrant cases that the presiding officer is willing to inflict the punishment. ["Oh, oh!"] There can be no doubt whatever that flogging is diminishing instead of increasing, and that those who administer the discipline of the army are slow to take advantage of the powers which the law gives them. There is a growing indisposition on the part of officers to resort to such a measure, and that, coupled with the facts I have already brought under the notice of the House, makes me believe that no case has been made out for intervention in this matter. The hon. Gentleman says it should be restricted within the narrowest limits. With respect to that point, I speak my own sentiments, and I am sure I but echo the opinions of all in this House, that we are perfectly at one with him. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief and those upon whom depends the administration of discipline in the army also earnestly wish to restrict this punishment within the very narrowest possible limits. Upon that point we are all agreed. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the important change introduced by the late Lord Herbert in 1859–60 with regard to the classification of soldiers, and he complains that the orders sanctioned on that occasion have not been complied with. The hon. Gentleman having appealed to me in the matter, I feel bound in all candour to tell him all that I know with respect to it. It is well known to the House that by means of Lord Herbert's classification, soldiers upon entering the army are placed in what is called the first class, and so long as they continue in that class they are protected from being subjected to corporal punishment. It has been urged by the hon. Gentleman that this immunity has been violated, and that a soldier belonging to the first class had actually been subjected to the lash. That is perfectly correct. In the course of last autumn it was my duty to read the proceedings of a court martial, from which I found that a soldier of the first class had been sentenced to corporal punishment. My attention was immediately directed to the case, and I may add that it was one of so detestable and abominable a character that
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  were the facts disclosed I am sure every Member of this House would agree that the punishment was fully merited. In that case the principle laid down in Lord Herbert's classification was certainly violated; a soldier belonging to the first class had corporal chastisement inflicted upon him, but it occurred under what were very exceptional circumstances. I felt it my duty, however, to write to the confirming officer, and to point out to him that, as a pledge had been given to Parliament in the year 1860 that soldiers of that class should possess an immunity from such sentences, those to whom the duty of administering discipline in the army should keep faith with Parliament and carry out the regulations which the Queen had sanctioned. I also addressed a communication on the subject to the Secretary of State for War and his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief; and the result has been that in future the provision applicable to the cases of soldiers of the first class, instead of forming part as it hitherto has done, of the Queen's Regulation, will form part of the Articles of War, and will thus be imperatively binding on all commanding officers, and absolute protection will in this way be afforded. Passing from that, I may remark that one would really suppose from the way in which the hon. Gentleman has put the question that the only persons in the British dominions who are liable to be flogged are the British soldiers, and that such punishment was reserved for one class of Her Majesty's subjects, and for one alone. Nay, more, the hon. and gallant Member for Lichfield spoke of it as opposed to public opinion. But is this really the case? Is it a fact that corporal punishment is opposed to the public opinion of this country? ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Gentlemen say "Hear, hear!" but I should like us to be explicit upon this matter. The question has been put to the House over and over again for the past twenty-five years, and it has always been answered in the same way. And in what way has it been answered, let me ask? I am speaking now, of course, of civil offences. What happened twenty-five years ago? Why, in the year 1842 this nation was shocked by a succession of impotent and unmeaning outrages against its Sovereign, and it being strongly felt that the cases could not be treated as high treason, a special Act of Parliament was passed providing that this crime should be visited with corporal punishment. The result of that has been that since then

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  there has not been a single instance of personal outrage against the Sovereign. What happened somewhat later? A senseless and miserable man entered the British Museum and wantonly destroyed a beautiful work of art—the Portland Vase—then Parliament felt that the outrage was so gross, and that it gave evidence of such a brutal and degraded nature, that corporal chastisement was really the only punishment which could be inflicted. Again, in the year 1861, when we had the whole of our criminal law under review, Bills were introduced with the greatest deliberation by the Attorney General of the day, submitted to a Select Committee upstairs, and discussed there week after week, and were passed by the House sanctioning the infliction of corporal punishment on offenders not over sixteen years of age. Again, in 1862, Parliament passed an Act especially to regulate the mode in which juvenile and other offenders should be whipped, and prescribing the mode in which they should be whipped in England as well as the way in which the punishment should be inflicted in Scotland. ["Oh, oh!"] I have not the Act by me; but any hon. Member can refer to it for himself. It is a short Act of two clauses, prescribing the mode in which the whipping of juvenile and other offenders should be carried out. But there are even stronger instances in favour of my argument than those which I have already adduced. Four years ago, when garrotting was very prevalent, and when an hon. Member of that House was unable to proceed to his home in safety at night, a special law was passed making violent outrages of that description liable to corporal punishment. That measure was carried on the Motion of my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Adderley), then a private Member of the House, without the weight which attached to a Member of the Government, and solely relying on the preponderating public opinion out of doors. But Parliament has done more. The hon. Member for Chatham complains of the brutal system of corporal punishment in the army, which consists in the administration of fifty lashes. Does he forget that in 1863 the Legislature provided that garrotters might be whipped not only once or twice, but three times? [Mr. BUXTON: How many lashes?] I will tell the hon. Gentleman. If the person on whom they are inflicted happens not to be over sixteen years of age the number of lashes prescribed is twenty-five each whipping—
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  that was to say, seventy-five if the three whippings are inflicted, as against fifty in the case of the soldier. Any male offender over sixteen may, however, receive fifty lashes at each whipping, or 150 in the whole, while that brutal punishment—the relic, as the hon. Gentleman would have it, of an obsolete age, is maintained in the army only to the extent of fifty lashes for a single offence. I have, I think, said sufficient to show that there is but little force in the argument that corporal punishment is opposed to public opinion; and, when it is borne in mind that only one out of every 400 soldiers is now flogged, and that the lash is not carried to such an extent as to shock the general feeling, I think I am justified in appealing to hon. Members not to interfere with those who are responsible for the discipline of the army, and whose business it is to maintain that army in a state of efficiency, by passing a Resolution couched in such general terms as that under discussion, and which will, if passed, operate in all parts of the world and under all circumstances, however difficult or inexpedient it might be to act upon the suggestion which it contains.
  CAPTAIN VIVIANsaid, he thought that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Mowbray) furnished the best arguments—if any arguments were required to show the propriety of abolishing corporal punishment in the army—in favour of the Resolution of his hon. Friend the Member for Chatham. The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by putting on that Resolution a construction which the words did not bear, and had argued that Motions of the same character had been brought before the House on various occasions, always to meet with the same fate. The present was, however, he (Captain Vivian) believed, the only occasion on which such a Resolution had been submitted to the House in a substantive form. In all previous cases it had been introduced in Committee by way of Amendment to one of the clauses of the Mutiny Bill. The Motion on the present occasion would therefore have more force than it could previously have had. The right hon. Gentleman went on to charge his hon. Friend with stating that the question of flogging in the army had gone back within the last thirty years, but what he really said was that the class of offences for which that punishment was inflicted had retrograded. He was, however, glad that the right hon. Gentleman had

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  misinterpreted the words used by his hon. Friend, because upon that misinterpretation he hung an argument which was one of the best that could be advanced in favour of the abolition of corporal punishment; for surely, if the cases in which that punishment was now inflicted were only as one in 400, whereas thirty years ago they were one in 137, it was clear that the discipline of the army had gone on rapidly improving without the aid of a brutal and barbarous practice. The right hon. Gentleman the Judge Advocate General had referred to the fact that a gallant Officer in that House had witnessed the infliction of 999 lashes. It had been his (Captain Vivian's) misfortune to have witnessed the infliction, under the sentence of a general court martial, of 200 lashes; but now only fifty lashes could be given, which, in his opinion, proved that the army got on just as well without this brutal and barbarous practice as it did when the larger number were inflicted. The Guards had been instanced by the right hon. Gentleman as a regiment in which corporal punishment was rarely, if ever, inflicted, and he gave as a reason their good discipline, arising from their being in London; but every one connected with the army knew that London was the worst place in all the world where they could enforce discipline. If that could be done with regard to the Guards, who were stationed in London, why could not the discipline of the whole of the army be maintained without corporal punishment? The Household Cavalry regiments had been quoted to show that corporal punishment was not required to enforce discipline; but that was owing to the fact that it was considered the greatest disgrace that could happen to a man to be turned out of the regiment. They should, therefore, endeavour to teach the whole of the army that it was a glory to belong to the profession, and a disgrace to be driven from it. There was no gentler nature or kinder man than His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, and he knew that His Royal Highness would be glad to see corporal punishment abolished if he could, and he only wanted the sanction of the House for it. ["Hear, hear!"] He understood that cheer; but he had no doubt that if the Resolution was adopted by the House the discipline of the army would be quite as safe as it was now. The right hon. Gentleman had compared the British soldiers to felons, because he had urged that public opinion was in favour of the lash in the
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  case of garrotters, those who committed high treason by firing at the Queen, men who wilfully destroyed property, as in the case of the Portland Vase, and also in the case of juvenile offenders; but it was precisely because it was so that the punishment lowered the moral standard of the army, and rendered it so difficult to get recruits of a character different from those who now enlisted. But he (Captain Vivian) wished to see the British soldier stand on a different footing. The Secretary of State for War had introduced a new system of recruiting, which no doubt would bring a greater number of recruits to the ranks; but he (Captain Vivian) wished to see a different class enlisted. Nothing prevented a man of respectable family from joining the army so much as the fact that he might be subjected to the lash, and it was therefore only natural that a mother should say to her son, "Don't go where you may be disgraced by the application of the lash." Flogging was not brutal as it was now carried out. A case had been referred to in which a man who had received punishment was supposed to have died in consequence; but from the report of the inquest on Private Symes, of the 74th Highlanders, who died in the Limerick Military Hospital, after receiving fifty lashes, it appeared that the military medical men said he died of erysipelas of the brain, independent of the flogging, while a civil doctor attributed death to irritant fever, consequent on the flogging; and the verdict was that he died from congestion of the brain and fever, accelerated by corporal punishment. It was not proved, then, that he died from corporal punishment, and the probability was that he died from disease, induced by intemperate habits. But in this case the sympathy of the public was in favour of the victim. One of the strongest reasons he had to urge against the continuance of corporal punishment was that it was now administered with such mildness that it had ceased to have any deterrent effect; and that was proved by the Return already quoted, which showed that of 328 men flogged, only six were reclaimed by the flogging. Formerly, when men received 500, or even 999 lashes, it had a different effect, because men's minds were struck with terror. Now, however, it was not the abuse of the lash, but the use of it, that was objected to. It did not deter the really bad from committing crimes, and yet it degraded the army. He sympathized not with the rascal and the

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  ruffian, but with the good soldiers, who were obliged to witness this degrading punishment, knowing that at any moment whilst he were the Queen's uniform he was liable to it. ["No, no!"] The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that men of the first class had received the lash; the public did not understand the distinction of classes, and the whole army was lowered by the infliction of the punishment. He could not understand the process of reasoning by which it was inferred that if flogging were abolished resort must be had to capital punishment. It was not so in other countries; and the proper punishment of the soldier was that inflicted upon other persons who committed crimes—namely, useful hard labour, and not the dragging of shot and shell. If the Resolution were carried, something must be done to strengthen the hands of commanding officers, and facilitate their getting rid of bad characters, and it might be easily done. The other day he was conversing with a gallant friend who commands one of the most distinguished regiments, and that officer said he would be glad to see flogging abolished if power were given to commanding officers to get rid of bad characters. At present it was impossible for an officer to get rid of a bad character unless he was branded—that was marked, painlessly, with the letters "B. C." He had received a letter from a commanding officer, who said—
  "About the year 1863 a man enlisted in the regiment named James—, a quietly contumacious and mutinous blackguard. He soon proved himself, never doing his punishment, and always absenting himself. On the occasion of one of his long absences I caused his kit to be examined, and there discovered a 'branded' discharge, purporting to be that of 'James—,' who had been drummed out of the Royal Marines as a notoriously bad and incorrigible character. On his return (he was apprehended soon after) he acknowledged the fact. I wrote to the Admiralty, complaining that this man had not been marked 'B. C.,' and had thus re-enlisted. I received as an answer that they were 'not in the habit of marking men discharged with ignominy.' I then applied to the Adjutant General for leave to discharge him, as a man unfit for the Marines was evidently unfit for any other regiment. The reply was 'You must wait till he further commits himself, then try him, and brand him; but till then he cannot be discharged, as he would again enlist.' I humbly submit that it is Her Majesty's gracious prerogative to discharge any man she pleases. The Household Cavalry have the power, and until the hands of commanding officers are strengthened, we cannot do without the example of flogging, which, however little it may benefit notorious offenders, has a most wholesome effect (by the terror it inspires) upon the young soldier."
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  I will mention another case—that of a man guilty of a horrible offence. A true bill was found; but, on his trial, the counsel pleaded that the indictment was faulty, inasmuch as the offence was not committed on the Queen's highway as stated, but in a passage three yards away. This man was returned (legally innocent) to his regiment, who have him still, inasmuch as a discharge was refused because the man was not branded. How can commanding officers ameliorate the condition of the soldiers, when recruits are thrown into the society and companionship of such men? If the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the War Department would inaugurate his reign there by abolishing the cruel and useless punishment of flogging, and by enabling commanding officers to get rid of bad characters, he would do more to raise the moral standard of the army, and bring recruits into the service, than could be done by any other system that could be adopted. He wished to see the moral standard of the army made equal to the moral standard of other classes of society. He was quite sure that if the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of War brought his abilities unbiassed to bear on this question of flogging, and if he adopted the present Resolution, he would do more for the condition of the soldier than could be effected by any other means.
  COLONEL PERCY HERBERTsaid, he cordially agreed with the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Vivian) that the Commander-in-Chief would be very glad to dispense with corporal punishment in the army if he could; but as it had been said that his Royal Highness would consider his hands strengthened if the present Resolution were passed, probably the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War would be able to inform the House that the Commander-in-Chief was not of that opinion, but would, on the contrary, think that the passing of the Resolution would very much derogate from his power of carrying on the discipline of the army. His right hon. Friend the Judge Advocate had gone so very fully into the subject that he (Colonel Herbert) would not do more than state a few facts. According to a Return which he had seen, it appeared that out of 187,000 and odd men comprised in the Returns of the Army, 170,000, or 91 per cent, were in the first class, and therefore not liable to be flogged, and only 17,000 were liable to that punishment. The hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway)

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  must have fallen into an error when he referred to the flogging of a recruit for desertion, because a recruit must commit a great crime to be put in the second class, where he would be liable to be flogged. The hon. Member also referred to the case of a soldier being flogged for drunkenness, and gave a sensational description of the different punishment inflicted on the officer for the same offence. The House, however, should bear in mind that a soldier was not flogged for a simple act of drunkenness, but only for habitual drunkenness; and, therefore, the comparison of the case of the officer was hardly a fair one to put before the House. He thought that the House would be prepared to admit that if the punishment of fifty lashes was allowed to be given for a great variety of offences in civil life, the punishment of flogging in the army, if it were to be inflicted at all, was not excessive; and in reference to the case which had been alluded to of loss of life having ensued on flogging, he apprehended that it was owing to some accidental circumstance that the man's days were shortened. There was no punishment, not excepting imprisonment, that did not place a man's life more or less in danger, and tend to shorten it. Some stress had been laid on the efficiency of other punishments, and admitting, as he did, that they were efficient, he asked how could they be carried out unless enforced by the dread of corporal punishment? There was an old story that when some one was pressing the Duke of Wellington on this subject of preventing crime in the army by other punishments besides flogging, and suggesting that the offenders might be sent to drill, the noble Duke observed, "Suppose they won't go to drill?" It was not to be denied that a system of other punishments could not be carried out unless there was behind the ultimate terror of corporal punishment. The Resolution expressed an opinion in favour of the abolition of flogging in time of peace, and disclaimed the idea of getting rid of it in time of war, when the soldiers had to undergo the severest hardships and privations. But if, in accordance with such Resolution, flogging happened to be discontinued for ten or twenty years, how would it be possible afterwards, on the occurrence of a war, to resort to that punishment again? Upon this point he would read to the House a statement made before a Commission of Inquiry by the Duke of Wellington. The noble Duke said—
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  "It would be a very unfortunate circumstance if a punishment pronounced by the Government and Parliament to be an improper punishment should be inflicted on those who are to perform the service abroad, which it has been the object and duty of those at the head of the army to represent as a service of honour and advantage.…If it (going abroad) was to be attended by corporal punishment being revived—having been put down in England and Ireland—I do not mean to say that there might not be some instances of mutiny and difficulty in getting the soldier abroad, from the fear of having, or under the pretext of the fear of having, this punishment inflicted."
  The Duke of Wellington also expressed an opinion that if corporal punishment were discontinued it would not be possible to enforce the minor punishments. Now, these remarks applied much more strongly to soldiers on active service. When he was on service in India it was his fate to have to bring to court martial and to confirm the sentences of corporal punishment on three men in the course of one morning. Two of those men were guilty of having been found asleep while on their posts as sentries on an outpost, with a large number of the enemy in front of them. The other man had committed a deliberate murder of a native, who had been given into his charge as a prisoner. He had put him in charge of a rearguard, whom he had told to take care of the man; but he had hardly ridden away from them the length of that House when he heard the discharge of a musket, and on turning back found the prisoner lying dead. Seeing the man's musket smoking, he made a prisoner of him, and tried to get evidence on the spot; but he found there was a disposition to screen the offender on the part of his comrades. However, he managed to get evidence sufficient to bring the man before a court martial. Now, he would ask the House to consider whether, as he had not power to hang the man, it would have wished such a crime to have been dealt with in a more lenient way than by corporal punishment? In order to show that he was not of a barbarous or cruel disposition, he might mention that on the very same day he remitted half the amount of punishment awarded to the two other men, and apologized to the regiment for having to inflict the same punishment on them as was inflicted on the man who had committed the murder. Now, what was the course pursued in the French army in regard to crimes of violence? A case occurred in the neighbourhood of the English army in front of Sebastopol. A soldier

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  struck an officer; though, as far as he was aware, there was no pretence that the soldier had any design on the officer's life. Now, according to the French code the penalty for the offence was death. The officer commanding the troops halted on the spot, sent a message to his superior officer, obtained authority to hold a court martial, tried the man, found him guilty, dug his grave, shot him, and marched home. Now, he would ask the House whether, in the interests of humanity, did they wish punishments of this kind to be inflicted in the English army? He had no hesitation in saying that in the English army a similar crime would have only led to corporal punishment, and that the discipline of the English army would have been thereby fully and entirely sustained. It was certainly true that some officers of very high character entertained an objection to flogging, and said they could do without it. Now, no doubt, it was not very difficult for individual officers to take that line under ordinary circumstances; yet their men well knew, if driven into a corner, they would change their minds and resort to it. Moreover, it must be remembered that officers were always enthusiastic about their own regiments, and their opinions must therefore be accepted cum grano salis when they said that their own corps could do without that which was found necessary under other circumstances by other people. The confidence which some officers had in the honour and good behaviour of their men was a part of that esprit de corps of which exaggerated instances were sometimes seen. On this point he might refer to the case of officers of the Bengal army, who after the commencement of the Mutiny were still convinced that their own regiments were still faithful, and would never turn against them. That example showed conclusively that officers were sometimes carried away by their esprit de corps. Now, as corporal punishment was under the present system moderate in amount, as it was only resorted to when serious offences had been committed, as it was effective for the repression of crime, and as without it it would be impossible—especially in time of war—to maintain the discipline of the army unless recourse were had to the more severe punishment of death, he thought he had made out to the satisfaction of the House that there were good grounds why Her Majesty's Government should resist the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. OSBORNE: The right hon. Gentleman the Treasurer of the Household—[Colonel PERCY HERBERT: Not "right honourable."] Well, you ought to be right honourable. I will say, then, the hon. Gentleman has somewhat misapprehended the Motion of the hon. Member for Chatham, which is for doing away with the punishment of flogging in the army during the time of peace; whereas the anecdotes so graphically narrated by the hon. and gallant Officer referred entirely to a state of war. He has given us anecdotes of his own personal experience in the Crimea, where he so much distinguished himself, and at Sebastopol, where he also distinguished himself; but his distinctions have been gained in the field of war, and his experience does not apply to a time of peace. But the hon. and gallant Officer, following the lead of the Judge Advocate, attempted to deter the House from dealing with this question by saying it would be an interference with the discipline of the army. But ever since I have had the honour of a seat in this House, that has always been the argument of all Judge Advocates, and if it had held good in this House we should have had the same state of things in 1867 as existed in 1812, when any number of lashes might have been inflicted by a district, regimental, or general courts martial. I ask, what has been the cause of the great amelioration, not only in our criminal code, but in the army, if it has not been the influence of this House? Before 1830 there was a punishment in the army of attaching an enormous weight to a soldier's leg. It was proposed to abolish that mode of punishment; and the Judge Advocate of that day, and no doubt the Treasurer of the Household of that day, said then as now—no; that would be interfering with the discipline of the army. But in 1830 a Commission sat; Lord Hill was examined before it, and he said that the punishment was more fit for a beast than a man; and that punishment was abolished altogether. When I heard my hon. and gallant Friend below me describe this punishment as being now tolerably mild, I could not help remembering the lines of Pope—
  "Narcissa's nature, tolerably mild,
  To make a wash would hardly stew a child."
  The hon. Gentleman on the other side is also of opinion that the punishment is excessively moderate; but how has it been reduced to that moderation but by the interference of this House. Prior to 1832

  1975
  there was no limitation to the number of lashes that might be given by regimental, district, or other courts martial; and a most serious thing happened in 1833, when the same language as we have just heard was held by the Judge Advocate of that day. In that year a clause was moved by Mr. Hume to be inserted in the Mutiny Act absolutely forbidding the punishment of flogging in the army. The division was a very narrow one, and the Motion was only lost by eleven votes—there being 140 for it, and 151 against it. But what happened immediately in consequence of that narrow majority? The punishment was restricted to certain offences, and cut down from 500 to 300 lashes; and so it has been always going on. When the House interfered military men always got up and said, you should not interfere with the British army. I made a Motion in 1843 that the punishment be restricted to fifty lashes. Of course, I was told that it would interfere with the discipline of the army. But what followed in 1845? The Minister for War came down, and on his proposition the punishment was restricted to fifty lashes. What is the argument of the Judge Advocate at the present time? Why, Sir, I was a little ashamed of the speech coming from a man of his official dignity and position; and I thought that if that speech were published side by side with your new army recruiting regulations, that what you gained by your extra 2d. a day you would lose by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman compared the British soldier to a felon, and almost spoke as if he were the flogging master at Eton, or an amateur at flogging. He seemed to say, Is not this a fine national punishment? What do you do with your garrotters? And then he turned round and attempted to apply his great garrotting argument to the recruits of the British army. I was astonished. He thought possibly that he was malting rather a smart defence for the punishment of flogging. I thought how it would probably tell in the city of Durham to-morrow morning, and how much more it would tell in the British army. I say if we are ever to have any improvement in anything in this country it will never be done by the mere authorities, whether they he a Royal Highness unnecessarily dragged into this discussion, or any one else; it will never be done until it is effected by the common sense and good feeling of this House. I heard with great satisfac-
  1976
  tion the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway), who has served as an officer of the army in several quarters of the globe, make a most excellent speech, in which he displayed the mind of a statesman as well as the humanity of a man. I see now many Gentlemen who were not in the House when that speech was made—they are probably rushing in to vote that they will not interfere with the discipline of the British army. But I hope that, at any rate, we shall find that there are men in this House who will not be deterred by these hobgoblin arguments. There is one right hon. Gentleman in this House who has rather gained a fame for re-construction. He was about to re-construct the British navy some time ago, and the other day he was about to reconstruct the Board of Admiralty; but somehow or other he failed in both—at least, he has not done either—and now, like an Admirable Crichton, fit for any office, he is removed to the War Office. Well, let him now make a re-construction there, and the first thing he does, let him re-construct the system of punishment in the British army. Let him take my word for it, that if he wishes the army to be well disciplined and well recruited he will remove this abominable punishment from the page of our criminal code in the army, and then he will get a better class of men, and give satisfaction not only to the army but to the country at large.
  SIR CHARLES RUSSELLthought the right hon. and gallant General who brought forward the Army Estimates the other evening gave a convincing proof of the most effectual mode of stimulating recruiting for the army by practically improving the condition of the soldier; for no sooner was a little addition made to his pay than the recruiting for the quarter was in excess of the demand, and even time-expired men, who know the necessity of maintaining discipline, were re-entering the ranks because they knew that some ameliorations of a practical character were about to be effected on their behalf. The hon. and gallant Member who last spoke (Mr. Osborne) had congratulated his hon. and gallant Friend the Treasurer of the Household on having told some very graphic anecdotes; but he found fault with them on the score of their applying to a time of war rather than a time of peace. Now, he (Sir Charles Russell) also would tell the House two anecdotes, and they should be both confined to a period of peace, and which showed how deterrent this

  1977
  punishment was. In 1846 he was put on board an old hulk called the Cornwall in which there were many draughts going to the Cape, Mauritius, Ceylon, and China. The officers had never been together before, and the men were entirely recruits. They had not been long at sea when there were serious exhibitions of a mutinous spirit. The non-commissioned officers told the officers that the men in their hammocks were discussing how they could seize the vessel, and that a rising had been determined on. Preparations were made by getting together the most trustworthy of the men in a sort of band for protection, and they were told in the event of anything like a mutinous spirit exhibiting itself to rush to the poop. They did so when a man was haranguing his comrades, telling them that if they would only cut their officers' throats and seize the ship he would lead them; that he knew the use of the quadrant and would take the vessel into a port. The man was tried then and there—he himself was a member of the court martial; there was a difficulty with respect to drummers, for there were none on board; but Colonel Erskine, who commanded, was determined the punishment should be inflicted. The man received corporal punishment before all on the deck; and from that instant, though much anxiety prevailed, every mutinous symptom vanished, and they arrived at the Cape without a single syllable of discontent. That was during peace. The hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) appealed to him, pointing to the Guards, and asked why they got on so admirably? When Colonel Hamilton commanded his battalion there were a series of violent assaults made on the non-commissioned officers in the execution of their duty. He tried every punishment; but these failing, he assembled the men and told them if there was any repetition of the offence he should have a sufficient number of officers kept in barracks to form a court martial; he should have the offenders tried on the spot, and they knew what that meant. Next day a soldier, a very good man, knocked down a noncommissioned officer; he was tried by court martial, and, although all regretted that he should be the subject of the example, he was flogged, and from that instant the offence ceased. It was no argument against the punishment to say that because a soldier was flogged twice it was ineffectual. It was not to punish an individual but to preserve the discipline
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  of the army. And if they stamped out offences against discipline by vigorous means they often prevented more serious offences arising. He would relate an anecdote of a case in time of war. At the Crimea he saw a French soldier taken prisoner for striking his superior officer, and on asking the serjeant in charge of the man what would be done with him, he said that which being literally translated was—"We will whiten his face over with lead to-morrow morning;" and he afterwards found the man was shot. No one would exert himself more than he would to benefit the soldier, but it was the good soldier he spoke of; and if they referred to the evidence before the Recruiting Commission they would find that the good soldiers did not object to this punishment. He would add that in company courts martial soldiers were flogged. He would join in limiting flogging as much as possible; but if they sent officers to distant stations, and did not allow some moans short of death by which they might check mutiny and other outrageous misconduct, they would materially interfere with the discipline of the army without benefiting the soldier one iota.
  CAPTAIN GROSVENORsaid, they had been favoured recently with the views of Her Majesty's Government on the whole question of military organization, but the question of flogging remained just where it was before, though it eminently demanded solution; and he quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) that the success of this Motion would materially tend to facilitate the solution of the problem, and therefore he must tender his thanks to the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) for bringing the subject at such a time under the consideration of the House. After the expression of opinion by so many Members—be would not say on both sides of the House, but of various political complexions—he thought there was fair reason to hope that, at least within the limits described, civilization would no longer be disgraced by the use of a punishment which, if it could find justification at all, must seek it in urgent and paramount necessity. It was to him a matter of genuine wonder that a system so justly held in abhorrence should have shown such tenacity of existence. There were some persons who thought that officers viewed the application of the lash with indifference or with positive satisfaction. It was impossible to make a greater mistake.

  1979
  No calumny could be greater. Yet, when the practice was attacked, officers were always found to defend it despite their personal feelings, and because they would not shrink from the enforcement of what they deemed due to discipline. He had had the honour of serving thirteen years in a regiment in which he was happy to say the lash was unknown; and in the brigade of which that regiment formed a part there was less crime than in any other of the service. Hon. Gentlemen argued that the Household Cavalry did not come fairly in comparison with other regiments, because there were certain inducements which secured for that cavalry a better class of men. He maintained that the most powerful of those inducements was the absence of the lash. There was another case particularly apposite just now. He alluded to that of the Irish police—a most gallant body, 12,000 strong. There was no flogging in that force, and yet no one would allege that there was not good discipline in the Irish police. He concurred with his hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham (Mr. Osborne) in what he had said upon this point. Years ago there were persons who said that if the tortures then in vogue were done away with discipline would suffer. 300 lashes were then inflicted for, he would not say trivial, but certainly for ordinary offences. Well, the number of lashes had been very considerably diminished; and yet discipline in the British army remained pretty much what it was when that severe punishment was held to be necessary for its maintenance. The opponents of this Motion took their stand on the cases of a certain body of hardened, incorrigible offenders, and contended that on their account the lash must be continued. But he ventured to ask whether a demoralizing punishment, which had been inefficacious either in deterring or improving, ought to be maintained throughout a regiment merely on account of a few hardened and incorrigible offenders. It must be very gratifying to every one to see wicked persons turn over a new leaf; but he very much questioned whether any hon. Gentleman had ever heard of a case in which a reformed culprit, looking back on his career, dated his conversion from the hard, incisive, and deliberate infliction of the cat-o'-nine-tails on his own person. The duty of officers was at times very difficult, and that there was much crime, insubordination, and drunkenness in our army nobody could deny; but the remedy must
  1980
  be sought in other means than the lash. Why was it that those disorders existed in the ranks? It might be partially accounted for when they bore in mind the classes of the people from whom the offenders were originally drawn and the "haphazard" way in which they were drafted. As an onward step in our national civilization he hoped the House would affirm the Motion; and that they would affirm it as a step towards making the military service more palatable to the nation at large. In supporting that Motion he felt that he was but exercising his duty towards his constituents, and likewise that he was consulting the best interests of the profession with which he, in common with many hon. Gentlemen opposite, had the honour of being connected.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: I am sincerely sorry that the first duty I have to discharge in my new office is to appear as a supporter, to some extent, of corporal punishment, from which, in the abstract, every man on both sides will shrink. In fulfilling the duties of the office which I now fill I shall have to ask the indulgence of the House; but I confess I have less hope than I should otherwise have had of receiving that indulgence after the tone—and, as it appears to me, the uncalled-for tone—in which I have been referred to by the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Osborne). I have never in this House heard a subject discussed which appeared to me to require to be decided more by calm reason, and less by party feeling, than the one now under discussion. It seems to me that in this matter we should be guided solely by the real merits of the case. On the one hand, I do not believe there is any man in this House who does not hold it to be necessary that the discipline of the army should be maintained. I am sure the hon. Member for Chatham (Mr. Otway) is of that opinion. On the other hand, I am convinced there is no Member of this House who would not be glad to get rid of corporal punishment if we could do so with a due regard to that discipline. In coming to a decision on the proposition of the hon. Member for Chatham, the sole question we have to consider is whether, looking at all the facts of the case, we can afford to get rid of the comparatively small remnant of corporal punishment still inflicted in the British army. Now, it appears to me that in discussing this matter the hon. Member for Chatham and the hon. Gentlemen who have supported I him have not sufficiently born in mind the

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  important alteration effected in 1861 by the division of the army into two classes, the first of which classes is entirely exempted from corporal punishment, except only for mutinous conduct. It is otherwise only in the second class that punishment can be inflicted, and even in this case it is so guarded that it can only be inflicted for gross and serious offences. I heard with some surprise from the hon. Member for Chatham that this distinction between the two classes has not always been adhered to. I heard with some surprise that there had been a case in which it was not observed. [An hon. MEMBER: Several cases.] I am very sorry to hear it. I beg to say that I, for one, can be no party to any such deviation from the general rule. I can be no party to a double code; and hon. Gentlemen may now be assured that after what has passed this evening, whatever may have been the case heretofore, no instances of the kind can occur again, because in the annual revision of the Articles of War, which will take place before long, the exemption of the first class will be incorporated in the Articles of War. The hon. Gentleman in his speech made use of an argument which was a rather dangerous one for him to touch on. He alluded to the military codes of France and Prussia. He said that in France corporal punishment was not known, and that the same was the case in Prussia. But I very much doubt whether the British soldier would exchange our military code for either that of France or of Prussia. For offences which in our service render the British soldier liable to be flogged, the French or the Prussian soldier would be shot or sentenced to a long term of imprisonment; and though in the military service of those countries there may be no corporal punishment, yet their codes are so severe that the change might seem merciful. The hon. Gentleman also, I think, referred to the military code of the United States. In that code corporal punishment by flogging is not included; but in the United States they have a punishment called the. II and chain," which I am told inflicts severer corporal suffering. There, again, exchange would be a very bad one for British soldier. Then in Austria, where corporal punishment is not unknown, they have a system under which the wrist and ankle are chained together, a punishment by which great torture is inflated. The hon. and gallant Member for, Truro (Captain Vivian) referred to the
  1982
  opinion of the Commander-in-Chief. I am sure he only does justice to the kind disposition of the illustrious Duke, and that his Royal Highness would be delighted to see an end of corporal punishment in the army if that were possible. But I am sorry to say that in the present view of his Royal Highness the system cannot be entirely abolished. The right hon. and gallant Member for Huntingdon (General Peel), my predecessor in the office I have the honour to hold, with the view to meet the Motion of the hon. Member for Chatham, wrote a letter to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, in which he expressed his deep sense of the importance of the question about to be brought before the House, and expressed his desire that his Royal Highness would inform him of the opinion he held upon this question. I am authorized by his Royal Highness to read to the House extracts from the letter he wrote in reply to the right hon. Gentleman. His Royal Highness says—
  "Within the last few years a great change has taken place in the regulations which govern the infliction of corporal punishment, and the only crimes for which it can be awarded are of a very flagrant and disgraceful nature. … The very general opinion among those who command or have commanded regiments is that it cannot be dispensed with; and, under these circumstances, I desire to state that although no one can be more opposed than myself to the exercise of the power of carrying into execution sentences of corporal punishment awarded by courts martial except in very flagrant cases, the abolition of it would, in my opinion, be fraught with extreme danger to the discipline of the army."
  That is the deliberate opinion of the Duke of Cambridge. I have also here the opinion of the Adjutant General to the same effect, but I need not detain the House by reading it. Hon. Members must agree with me that, after having received this opinion from these distinguished persons, it would be impossible for me to accede to the Motion of the hon. Member for Chatham. The hon. and gallant Member for Truro has stated, with perfect truth, that I come to this question with an entirely unprejudiced mind. I wish it to be decided solely upon its merits; but I am bound to consider, as the first duty of my position, the preservation of the discipline of the army. The hon. and gallant Member for Westminster (Captain Grosvenor) has alluded to the experience afforded by his own regiment—the 1st Life Guards; but I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will forgive me if I remind him that he can hardly compare the mode of preserving discipline

  1983
  in the Household Brigade in this country with that which prevails in other regiments in the army serving in different parts of the world. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will no doubt support me when I say that when a man misbehaves himself in the Household Brigade, and it is considered undesirable to retain him in the regiment, he is at once turned out, and in that case, therefore, there is no occasion to resort to the punishment which we are now discussing. The hon. and gallant Member for Truro has expressed a hope that the recruits for the army will be obtained from an improved class. I sincerely hope that such will be the case; but I must remind him, that even in that case we shall still find that where we have to deal with very large bodies of men assembled under military discipline, however high their general character may be, there will always be among them a certain proportion of inferior and abandoned characters, for whose correction it will be absolutely necessary that some severe punishment should be adopted. I can only say that if on further experience it should be found possible to do away with this particular mode of punishment as unnecessary to maintain the discipline of the army, no one will be better pleased than myself.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he felt somewhat nervous in making a few remarks after the somewhat solemn injunction of the right hon. Gentleman to avoid party spirit and to preserve calm reason. He would, however, endeavour to reason as calmly as possible when speaking upon this subject. The right hon. Gentleman said every one must admit the truth of the proposition of the hon. Member for Chatham, considered as an abstract question. In his (Mr. Fawcett's) opinion that admission, unless some strong arguments were brought to bear on the question on the other side, was conclusive that the right hon. Gentleman ought to vote in favour of it. The army was gradually becoming a skilled profession, requiring a skilled soldiery. They required skill to carry on their operations; the greatest mechanical and scientific genius was displayed in perfecting their weapons, and to use those complicated weapons they required men of intelligence to do justice to the genius that devised them. No one who had mixed at all with the class from which the army was recruited could deny that flogging in the army was positively abhorred by the people of England, and that fathers posi-
  1984
  tively entreated their sons not to enter a profession in which they would be subject to such a terrible disgrace. He was not speaking a single word which was not justified by experience when he said that the effect of retaining flogging was to keep the best men in England from entering the army. The statement made by the right hon. Gentleman at the end of his speech was conclusive in favour of the Motion; for he told the House that the men in the Household Brigade felt that it was such a disgrace to be turned out of it that flogging was wholly unnecessary. If the army were properly administered, what was felt in the Household Brigade would be felt throughout every regiment in the British army. The army should be looked upon as the noblest profession a man could enter. They made this pledge to their country—that if the honour or interests of the nation required it they would freely give up their lives to maintain it. When a man did that he ought not to be treated in such a way as was allowed under the existing system, when a dismissal from the profession would be considered by him as the greatest disgrace. Flogging was not required to maintain the discipline of the police force, because the men there considered that a dismissal from it was sufficient disgrace. He was confident that they would never have the army in a proper condition until they gave up this exceptional punishment, which was not necessary to keep up the discipline. If they abolished flogging they would satisfy the wishes of the English people, and thousands would then enter the army (who were now deterred from doing so), because they would look upon it as one of the most honourable professions.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, it was always painful to him to appear as the advocate of any punishment, particularly of one so degrading as that of flogging in the army; but since he had had the honour of a seat in that House, he felt it his duty, in the interests of the soldiers themselves, to oppose such Motions as that of his hon. Friend The House, in considering this question had, he thought, lost sight of the interests of the good soldiers. The problem to solve was, to invent such a punishment as would preserve discipline without diminish the strength or increasing the duties of the well-conducted soldiers of the regiment The case of civilians was altogether different, for offenders might be punished by imprisonment, without any injury being

  1985
  done to innocent parties. In the army the duties of the regiment must be performed, and every man taken away from the ranks and committed to prison, occasioned the performance of his duty to be thrown upon the shoulders of the good and efficient soldiers. The hon. Member opposite was wrong in saying that soldiers were liable to be flogged for habitual drunkenness. That punishment could not be inflicted except for drunkenness while on duty or under arms. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham (Mr. Osborne), who had spoken so strongly that night, had changed his opinions very considerably since they were in garrison together several years ago. Fault had been found with the system of flogging for desertion; but there was no crime, he thought, that deserved greater punishment than that of desertion. He would mention one instance in which flogging had been administered, and the case was that of a man who had deserted eleven times, and had taken eleven differrent bounties. A good deal had been said about soldiers being treated like garrotters, but there were 91 per cent of the soldiers who could not be flogged, and there was only the remaining 9 per cent who were in the second class, and thus were liable to be flogged; though it did not at all follow that those of this class would be flogged if they committed offences. He wished to remind the House how the soldier was guarded from being flogged. He must first be tried by a court martial consisting of five officers; and even if they awarded the punishment of flogging it could not be carried into effect without the consent of the commanding officer and general of the district, and even then the greatest number of lashes which could be inflicted was fifty. As to civil flogging, it appeared from a Report presented to them last year, that men received fifty and twenty-five lashes for breaking their cell windows, and in another case a man received thirty-six cuts for refusing to read and disrespect to a magistrate in school. He asked whether crimes of them descriptions would be punished by; flogging in the army? He (Colonel North) had been held up to obloquy by hon. Gentlemen opposite, for supporting the system of branding, which he believed to have a beneficial effect; and it was most unfair on part of the Admiralty that they did not, carry out the system with regard to Marines who were drummed out of the service. He must say that there was no body of men who would be more grateful
  1986
  to any one who would invent a punishment by which flogging could be got rid of than would officers in command of troops, but till such was forthcoming the flogging system must be maintained. As to the case which had been referred to, in the 74th Highlanders, he thought that it should have been stated that three military medical gentlemen differed from the opinion which had been given as to the cause of death.
  CAPTAIN VIVIANexplained that he did not believe that the man in the 74th had been killed by flogging, and he had argued on the assumption that this was not so.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, his complaint was that the conflict of opinion between the civil doctor and the army medical officers who saw the man in question had not been mentioned.
  CAPTAIN HAYTERobserved, that many of the statements which had been made in the course of the debate did not apply to this Motion at all; some referred to what occurred in service in the field, and others to what happened at sea; whilst this Motion applied only to time of peace, and to regiments serving on shore. There was one point which had not been referred to, and it was this. In 1846 the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, with the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Wellington, introduced the question of the reduction of the punishment of flogging to fifty lashes, and the Duke sanctioned that proposition, and a noble Earl (the Earl of Dalhousie) made a speech, the substance of which was that the punishment would be gradually abolished. A Royal Commission in 1835 had made a recommendation to a similar effect, but still since 1846 nothing had been done. The object of the Motion was not to injure the discipline of the army, but rather that bad men should be altogether eliminated from its ranks, and they only asked that the profession of arms should be placed on the same footing as all other professions. The supporters of the present Motion were speaking on behalf of those who, as a class isolated from society, could have no representatives in Parliament.
  GENERAL PEEL: I can easily imagine that it is with great regret my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War finds it necessary, on the first occasion of his performing the duties of that office, to oppose the present Motion. Many arguments and statements have been made in

  1987
  the course of this debate which were well calculated to carry away the feelings of hon. Members. But I rise for the purpose of urging that they should not allow themselves to be carried away by feeling, but should coolly and deliberately consider the grave question now before us. Many arguments have been brought forward in support of this Motion, and I perfectly admit that there is but one argument which can be brought forward in answer; but that one is so conclusive that it must overrule all other arguments—that argument is that the power of inflicting this punishment is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of the discipline of the army. You have heard from my right hon. Friend that His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief and the Adjutant General look upon this punishment as absolutely necessary for the discipline of the army; yet, even the hon. Member who introduced the question, and those who have supported him, would not be more ready to abolish the punishment of flogging than the Commander-in-Chief if it could be done consistently with the maintenance of that discipline for which they are responsible. The position of the hon. Member is, I think, perfectly untenable; he would reserve the punishment of flogging for times of war. I tell you to make up your minds either to abolish it altogether, or to maintain it without exception—who can tell when a war exists? It may exist at this very moment. Only last night a question was asked as to the conduct of the troops at Honduras. I shall not express any opinion on that question until it is investigated; but I believe that the conduct of these troops will subject them to the greatest penalty under the Mutiny Act. Are you going to tell the men who enlist that in time of peace they are not to be subjected to capital punishments, but that they are to be flogged when in face of the enemy? If you say that, you condemn your argument altogether. I venture to say that there is no country in which it is more necessary that discipline should be maintained than in England; any irregularity of the troops in this country would be looked upon with the greatest alarm; and depend upon it that, unless an army, however small, is subject to the strictest discipline, it is perfectly intolerable. Thirty years ago a Royal Commission reported strongly, not only in favour of retaining the punishment, but against making any distinction between the service at home and the service abroad.
  1988
  Upon that point no distinction can be made. You enlist a man without a character; if he turn out badly you have no means of discharging him, but you require from him strict obedience, and subject him, to a discipline which you could not call upon him to undergo in any other condition of life. In order, then to ensure that obedience, it is absolutely necessary that his commanders should have the power to inflict upon him a punishment which could not be inflicted upon him in any other condition of life. But, although the recruit may be a man of bad character, it is assumed that his character is good, which is a very charitable assumption, if the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) be right; and the man is told that he shall not be subject to flogging until he has so degraded himself that he is passed into the second class, and that even then he will not be flogged until he has, by repeated acts of disobedience, gained for himself the character of being so incorrigible that no other punishment would have any effect. The example of one bad man will affect a whole regiment. And what do you propose to substitute for flogging? Do away with the disgraceful custom of flogging, you say, and good men will come to the service; but I say it is because flogging is a defence of the good man that I would continue it. A man of good character in the army is no more in danger of being flogged than any of us. Would you say to those whom you desire to enter the army, "Here's glorious news for you; you are no longer liable to be flogged—you will be shot instead?" That, I say, is the only substitute you could offer for some of the worst crimes; and, as I am not prepared to take upon myself a responsibility which the Commander-in-Chief and Adjutant General shrink from, I shall vote against the Motion.
  MR. WHITBREADsaid, that on former occasions he had refrained from voting upon this question, as he felt the heavy responsibility of voting against a majority of military men on a military questions; but he had now formed his opinion upon it. As a Member of the Royal Commission on Recruiting for the Army, he had put questions to witnesses as to the effect of flogging upon recruiting, and although the answers told in various ways, he was forced to the conclusion that the punishment of flogging was the great cause of keeping good men out of the army. Why was it, he asked, that the service was looked on

  1989
  with such pride in the upper classes, and with such aversion in the lower classes? He was bound to conclude that flogging was one reason for this. The service was unpopular because of the punishment; and the punishment was needed because the service was unpopular; he appealed to them to strike away the punishment and the unpopularity at the same time. There was no doubt, however, that if flogging were abolished, the commanding officers should have great powers of getting rid of bad men. He desired to explain that the descriptions "refuse" and "dregs" which he had used with reference to recruits were not his own, but quotations from the evidence of officers and men before the Commissioners.
  MR. DAVENPORT BROMLEYsaid, he had come to the House resolved to rote against flogging, and he intended doing so still; but he had been almost induced to change his opinion by hearing speeches from the Opposition side of the House in support of it; the remarks of the hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Osborne) had been most powerful in their influence in this direction. He would go beyond hon. Members opposite, and would vote for the abolition of the punishment even in time of war. He desired simply to relate one incident which weighed heavily with him. When in the Crimea he had seen a man receive fifty lashes for having thrown down his firelock and run away in the face of the enemy. He had certainly never heard of a case in which the punishment was more disproportionate to the offence.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 107; Noes 108: Majority 1.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Resolved, That this House, reserving for future consideration when requisite the question of the exigencies of a state of war, is of opinion that it unnecessary that the punishment of Flogging should be awarded during the time of peace Soldiers of the Army or Corps of Royal Marines serving on Shore.—(Mr. Otway.)

  AYES.

  Adderley, rt. hon. C. B.

  Beach, W. W. B.

  Archdall, Captain M.

  Bentinck, G. C.

  Bailey, Sir J. R.

  Benyon, R.

  Barrington, Viscount

  Biddulph, M.

  Beach, Sir M. H.

  Bridges, Sir B. W.

  1990

  Brooks, R.

  Lindsay, Colonel R. L.

  Bruce, Sir H. H.

  Lowther, J.

  Burrell, Sir P.

  Malcolm, J. W.

  Calcraft, J. H. M.

  Manners, rt. hn. Lord J.

  Cartwright, Colonel

  Montgomery, Sir G.

  Cave, rt. hon. S.

  Morgan, O.

  Chatterton, H. E.

  Morris, rt. hon. M.

  Clinton, Lord E. P.

  Mowbray, rt. hon. J. R.

  Clive, Capt. hon. G. W.

  Neville-Grenville, R.

  Cole, hon. H.

  Nicholson, W.

  Cole, hon. J. L.

  North, Colonel

  Curzon, Viscount

  O'Neill, E.

  Dickson, Major A. G.

  Paget, R. H.

  Dimsdale, R.

  Pakington, rt. hn. Sir J.

  Disraeli, rt. hon. B.

  Peel, rt. hon. General

  Du Cane, C.

  Powell, F. S.

  Dyott, Colonel R.

  Repton, G. W. J.

  Earle, R. A.

  Ridley, Sir M. W.

  Eckersley, N.

  Robertson, P. F.

  Edwards, Sir H.

  Rolt, Sir J.

  Egerton, hon. A. F.

  Russell, Sir C.

  Egerton, E. C.

  Schreiber, C.

  Egerton, hon. W.

  Selwyn, C. J.

  Fane, Colonel J. W.

  Severne, J. E.

  Fergusson, Sir J.

  Seymour, G. H.

  Floyer, J.

  Simonds, W. B.

  Forester, rt. hon. Gen.

  Smith, A.

  Garth, R.

  Smollett, P. B.

  Gilpin, Colonel

  Stanley, Lord

  Goldney, G.

  Stanley, hon. F.

  Gore, J. R. O.

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir W.

  Hamilton, Lord C.

  Stopford, S. G.

  Harvey, R. B.

  Surtees, H. E.

  Hay, Sir J. C. D.

  Sykes, C.

  Herbert, hon. Col. P.

  Tottenham, Lt.-Col. C.G.

  Hervey, Lord A. H. C.

  Trevor, Lord A. E. Hill-

  Hildyard, T. B. T.

  Vance, J.

  Hodgson, W. N.

  Vandeleur, Colonel

  Hogg, Lieut.-Col. J. M.

  Verner, E. W.

  Hood, Sir A. A.

  Walker, Major G. G.

  Hunt, G. W.

  Walpole, rt. hon. S. H.

  Karslake, Sir J. B.

  Walrond, J. W.

  Karslake, E. K.

  Whitmore, H.

  Kavanagh, A.

  Williams, F. M.

  Kendall, N.

  Wyndham, hon. P.

  King, J. K.

  Wyvill, M.

  King, J. G.

  Kingscote, Colonel

  TELLERS.

  Knox, hon. Major S.

  Taylor, Colonel

  Lennox, Lord H. G.

  Noel, hon. G. J.

  Lindsay, hon. Col, C.

  NOES.

  Akroyd, E.

  Childers, H. C.E.

  Amberley, Viscount

  Cogan, rt. hon. W. H.F.

  Ayrton, A. S.

  Craufurd, E. H.J.

  Baines, E.

  Crossley, Sir F.

  Barclay, A. C.

  Dalglish, R.

  Barnes, T.

  Denman, hon. G.

  Beaumont, H. F.

  Dillwyn, L. L.

  Blake, J. A.

  Eaton, H. W.

  Blennerhasset, Sir R.

  Edwards, C.

  Brady, J.

  Eykyn, R.

  Bright, Sir C. T.

  Fawcett, H.

  Briscoe, J. I.

  Fordyce, W. D.

  Bromley, W. D.

  Forster, C.

  Bryan, G. L.

  Forster, W. E.

  Butler, C. S.

  Gaskell, J. M.

  Buxton, C.

  Gavin, Major

  Calthorpe, hn. F.H.W.G.

  Gilpin, C.

  Candlish, J.

  Glyn, G. G.

  Chambers, M.

  Graham, W.

  1991

  Greville-Nugent, Col.

  Pelham, Lord

  Gridley, Captain H.G.

  Potter, E.

  Grosvenor, Capt. R. W.

  Potter, T. B.

  Hadfield, G.

  Power, Sir J.

  Hankey, T.

  Pugh, D.

  Harris, J. D.

  Rearden, D. J.

  Hartley, J.

  Russell, Sir W.

  Hayter, Captain A. D.

  Scholefield, W.

  Henderson, J.

  Scott, Sir W.

  Herbert, H. A.

  Seely, C.

  Holden, I.

  Seymour, H. D.

  Howard, hon. C.W. G.

  Sheridan, H. B.

  Hughes, T.

  Sherriff, A. C.

  Jervis, Major

  Simeon, Sir J.

  Lawson, rt. hon. J. A.

  Smith, J. B.

  Lechmere, Sir E. A. H.

  Stock, O.

  Leeman, G.

  Stuart, Col. Crichton-

  Lefevre, G. J. S.

  Stucley, Sir G. S.

  Lennox, Lord G. G.

  Sullivan, E.

  Lusk, A.

  Synan, E. J.

  MacEvoy, E.

  Taylor, P. A.

  M'Laren, D.

  Torrens, W.T.M'C.

  Marsh, M. H.

  Trevelyan, G. O.

  Merry, J.

  Vanderbyl, P.

  Mill, J. S.

  Vivian, Capt. hn. J.C.W.

  Mitchell, T. A.

  Waring, C.

  Monk, C. J.

  Warner, E.

  Murphy, N. D.

  Watkin, E. W.

  Neate, C.

  Whitbread, S.

  O'Beirne, J. L.

  White, J.

  O'Brien, Sir P.

  Williamson, Sir H.

  O'Conor Don, The

  Wyld, J.

  O'Donoghue, The

  Young, R.

  Oliphant, L.

  Osborne, R. B.

  TELLERS.

  Pease, J. W.

  Otway, A. J.

  Peel, A. W.

  Anson, Major

  Bill read a second time, and committed for Friday, 5th April.

SUPPLY—ARMY ESTIMATES.
Resolved, That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee of Supply.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)

Land Forces, Pay, and Allowances &c., on account

£1,700,000

Commissariat Establishment, Services and Movement of Troops, on account

400,000

Clothing Establishments, Services and Supplies, on account

150,000

Barrack Establishment, Services, and Supplies, on account

200,000

Divine Service, on account

14,000

Administration of Martial Law, on account

7,000

Hospital Establishment, Services and Supplies, on account

80,000

Disembodied Militia, on account

280,000

Yeomanry Cavalry, on account

28,000

Volunteer Corps, on account

120,000

Enrolled Pensioners and Army Reserve Force, on account

16,000

Manufacturing Departments and Materials for Warlike Stores, on account

360,000

Military Store Establishment and Purchase of Warlike Stores, on account

130,000

Superintending Establishment of, and Expenditure for Works, Buildings and Repairs, at Home and Abroad

250,000

MR. AYRTONwished to know up to what period these Votes on Account would last?
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONreplied that, with one or two exceptions, they were one-third of the total amount of the Army Estimates.

SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.
(28.) £1,000,000, Wages, &c, to Seamen and Marines on account.
MR. AYRTONinquired if this Vote bore the same proportion to the entire Estimates as the former Votes?
LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, that the total amount was £2,900,000, and the present Vote was on Account. There appeared to be a general agreement in the House last night that, considering the state of business, that Vote might be taken.
Vote agreed to.

SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
That a sum, not exceeding £1,924,000, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charge of the following Civil Services, to the 31st day of March, 1868:—

Class I.

Royal Palaces

£6,000

Public Buildings

25,000

Furniture of Public Offices

3,000

Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens.

25,000

New Houses of Parliament

10,000

New Foreign Office

13,000

Public Offices, Site (Re-Vote)

15,000

Probate Court and Registries (Re-Vote)

8,000

Public Record Repository (Re-Vote)

3,000

1993

University of London Buildings

£5,000

Chapter House, Westminster

3,000

Sheriff Court Houses, Scotland

5,000

Rates for Government Property

7,000

British Consulate and Embassy Houses, Constantinople

1,000

Metropolitan Fire Brigade

3,000

Harbours of Refuge

20,000

Holyhead and Portpatrick Harbours, &c.

8,000

Public Buildings, Ireland

19,000

Ulster Canal

2,000

Lighthouses Abroad

5,000

Class II.

Two Houses of Parliament, Offices

18,000

Treasury

14,000

Home Office

7,000

Foreign Office

16,000

Colonial Office

9,000

Privy Council Office

7,000

Board of Trade, &c.

9,000

Privy Seal Office

1,000

Civil Service Commission

3,000

Paymaster General's Office

6,000

Exchequer and Audit Department

10,000

Office of Works and Public Buildings

9,000

Office of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues

7,000

Public Record Office

6,000

Poor Law Commissions

25,000

Mint, including Coinage

12,000

Inspectors of Factories, Fisheries, &c.

10,000

Exchequer and other Offices in Scotland

2,000

Household of Lord Lieutenant, Ireland

2,000

Chief Secretary, Ireland, Offices

4,000

Office of Public Works, Ireland

7,000

Copyhold, Tithe, and Inclosure Commission

6,000

Inclosure and Drainage Acts; Imprest Expenses

3,000

General Register Office, England, Ireland, and Scotland

17,000

National Debt Office

4,000

Public Works Loan Commission and West India Relief Commission

1,000

Lunacy Commissions and Inspection, &c., of Lunatic Asylums

4,000

Superintendent of Roads, South Wales

1,000

Registrars of Friendly Societies

1,000

Charity Commission

5,000

Local Government Act Office, and Inspection of Burial Grounds

2,000

Landed Estates Record Offices

1,000

Quarantine Expenses

1,000

Secret Service

8,000

Printing and Stationery

90,000

Postage of Public Departments

38,000

Class III.

Law Charges, England

9,000

Criminal Prosecutions, &c.

48,000

Police, Counties and Boroughs, Great Britain

66,000

Admiralty Court Registry

4,000

Late Insolvent Debtors' Court

1,000

Probate Court

22,000

County Courts

37,000

Land Registry Office

2,000

Police Courts, Metropolis

6,000

Metropolitan Police

41,000

Bankruptcy Court Compensations

4,000

1994

Common Law Courts, including Crown Office, Queen's Bench

£13,000

Criminal Proceedings

18,000

Courts of Law and Justice, including Accountant in Bankruptcy, and

12,000

Exchequer, Scotland, Legal Branch

Register House, Edinburgh, Salaries and Expenses of Sundry Departments

5,000

Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions

12,000

Court of Chancery

2,000

Court of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer

4,000

Officers of the Judges on Circuit

2,000

Manor Courts' Compensation

1,000

Registry of Judgments

1,000

Registry of Deeds

4,000

Court of Bankruptcy and Insolvency

2,000

Court of Probate

3,000

Landed Estate Court

3,000

Process Servers, Civil Bill Courts

3,000

Dublin Metropolitan Police and Police Justices

13,000

Constabulary of Ireland

208,000

Four Courts Marshalsea Prison

1,000

Inspection and General Superintendence

5,000

Prisons and Convict Establishments at Home

83,000

Maintenance of Prisoners in County Gaols, &c. and Removal of Convicts

72,000

Transportation of Convicts

6,000

Convict Establishment in the Colonies

38,000

Class IV.

Public Education, Great Britain

174,000

Science and Art Department

44,000

Public Education, Ireland

85,000

University of London

3,000

Universities, &c. in Scotland

5,000

Queen's University in Ireland

1,000

Queen's Colleges, Ireland

2,000

Belfast Theological Professors, &c.

1,000

British Museum

25,000

National Gallery

4,000

Scientific Works and Experiments

2,000

Board of Manufactures, Scotland

1,000

Class V.

Bermundas

1,000

Clergy, North America

1,000

Governors and others, West Indies, &c.

6,000

Justices, West Indies

2,000

Western Coast

5,000

St. Helena

2,000

Falkland Islands

2,000

Labuan

1,000

Emigration

3,000

Treasury Chest

1,000

Captured Negroes, Bounties on Slaves, &c.

8,000

Commissions for Suppression of Slave Trade

3,000

Consuls Abroad

42,000

Services in China, Japan, and Siam

32,000

Ministers at Foreign Courts, Extraordinary Expenses

9,000

Special Missions, Outfits, &c.

9,000

Third Secretaries to Embassies

1,000

1995

Class VI.

Superannuation and Retired Allowances

£47,000

Polish Refugees and Distressed Spaniards

1,000

Merchant Seamen's Fund Pensions, &c

14,000

Relief of British Distressed Seamen

8,000

Miscellaneous Charges, formerly on Civil List

1,000

Public Infirmaries, Ireland

1,000

Hospitals in Dublin and Board of Superintendence

4,000

Concordatum Fund, and other Charities and Allowances, Ireland

3,000

Non-Conforming and other Ministers, Ireland

11,000

Class VII.

Temporary Commissions

8,000

Patent Law Expenses

8,000

Fishery Board, Scotland

4,000

Local Dues on Shipping under Treaties of Reciprocity

14,000

Inspectors of Corn Returns

1,000

Household of the late King of the Belgians

1,000

Miscellaneous Expenses from Civil Contingencies

20,000

Total

£1,924,000

MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he should like to know what course the Government proposed to take with regard to the Estimates. Supposing they took money sufficient to last for four months, they might not go into Supply again until that time. He wished to know whether the Secretary for War would bring on the Votes again within any reasonable time, for some opportunities of discussion ought to be afforded.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he might appease the alarm of his hon. Friend by informing him that it was intended to proceed with the Army Estimates on Monday, if there should be sufficient time after the introduction of the Reform Bill.
MR. DARBY GRIFFITHthought that would be a most inconvenient time.
Vote agreed to.
House resumed.
Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

CHARITABLE DONATIONS AND BEQUESTS (IRELAND) BILL.
(Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, (Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
CHARITABLE DONATIONS AND BEQUESTS (IRELAND) BILL.

  [BILL 49.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHATTERTON), in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, that it was based upon Resolutions adopted by the Board of Charitable Donations, and it had received the approval of a fully attended meeting of that Board. The Bill differed from that brought in by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake) last year in leaving the constitution of the Board untouched, and in imposing no additional burden upon the Consolidated Fund. The Bill was intended chiefly to remove the difficulties and simplify the procedure in relation to charitable bequests in Ireland. It provided that any trustees of charitable property should have the power of applying for advice from the Board of Trustees, and that the advice obtained would indemnify them from responsibility, provided the application had been free from misrepresentation and fraud. That provision would not, however, prejudice third parties, but would only indemnify the trustees. The Board, too, might, with their own consent, be nominated as trustees of charitable funds. There were other provisions providing for a speedy and economical mode of recovering small bequests, and it was hoped that the Bill would remedy a great many evils connected with the present state of charitable bequests and donations in Ireland.
  Motion agreed to.

  MUTINY BILL.
  Bill "for punishing Mutiny and Desertion, and for the better Payment of the Army and their-Quarters," presented, and read the first time.
  House adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock, till Monday next.