Commons Sitting of 18 February 1868

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Wellwood Herries Maxwell, esquire, for Kirkcudbrightshire.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Admiralty Monies and Accounts appointed; on Special and Common Juries appointed.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution in Committee—Oxford and Cambridge Universities.
Ordered—Oxford and Cambridge Universities; Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland); Landed Property Improvement (Ireland); County Courts (Admiralty Jurisdiction)*; Judgments Extension *; Fines and Fees (Ireland).*
First Reading—Oxford and Cambridge Universities [30]; Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) [31]; Landed Property Improvement (Ireland) [32]; County Courts (Admiralty Jurisdiction) * [33]; Judgments Extension * [34]; Fines and Fees (Ireland)* [35].
Second Reading—Industrial Schools (Ireland) [6].
Committee—Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Act Continuance [28].
Report—Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Act Continuance [28].

PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. DODSON:* Mr. Speaker—Sir, great care and attention have been devoted to the Private Business of the House: nevertheless, there is a feeling, both in Parliament and out of it, that our Private Bill Legislation is in that condition which is best described by the term "unsatisfactory." I, for one, share that feeling so strongly that I have thought myself bound to bring the subject under the notice of the House. Moreover, I have thought that the present Session, being one in which there is a lull in private business, offers a favourable opportunity. The subject can now be considered on general principles, without trenching upon particular interests, nor will Parliament incur the suspicion of being animated merely by a desire to deliver itself from an irksome duty. Private Bill legislation is unsatisfactory, owing to the length and costliness of its proceedings, but still more from the uncertainty, or as some would say the caprice, that characterizes its decisions. These evils may be traced to two causes. The first is the fluctuating nature of the tribunals to which the decision on Private Bills is remitted; the second and most important, in fact that which lies at the root of our difficulties, is the fluctuating state of public opinion—the changes which that opinion has been undergoing, during the last quarter

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  of a century, in regard to the concession of powers for works, and especially for railways. As to the tribunal, several persons of great ability and knowledge have recommended the substitution for Parliamentary Committees of a permanent judicial Court. Others, not less able and experienced, have recommended a system under which a Government Department, or some Court external to Parliament, should grant powers to applicants—subject however, to an appeal to Parliament. As for a permanent tribunal, whose decisions should be final, things are not ripe for such a step now, whatever they may hereafter become. At present the objections to such a tribunal are very strong. What are the questions before a Committee on a Private Bill? It is not the interpretation of a law, the construction of a document, or the ascertainment of a right and a wrong. It is a question of expediency, a balancing of advantages and disadvantages to the public. It is essentially a question of policy—often a very important question. A judicial tribunal must aim at consistency; and from the very nature of its being, always seek to uphold that which it has once decided. Imagine our position if decisions respecting railways had, during the last five-and-twenty years been left to such a Court. The court must either have broken away from its own rules and precedents—in which case it would have lost all weight and character as a judicial tribunal—or it would have lagged behind, and found itself long ago in antagonism to, the wants and the opinions of the country. In regard to a Court or Department making orders to be subsequently confirmed or rejected by Parliament, I shall have some suggestions to make hereafter. Its application, however, to cases which parties were determined seriously to contest, would be worse than useless. If Parliament fell into the habit of endorsing preliminary decisions, we should be landed in all the evils of a fixed tribunal. If Parliament investigated matters for itself, we should only have added one more inquiry to those by the two Houses we already have. Committees of this House, and more recently the Royal Commission, reported decidedly in favour of maintaining the immediate jurisdiction of Parliament over Private Bills. Parliamentary Committees are flexible; they are watchful of, and responsible to, public opinion. They bring to their duties great assiduity, ability, and perfect independence. On the other hand, they are want-
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  ing in technical knowledge of the particular subjects brought before them, in the habit of directing counsel, and of admitting or rejecting evidence; they are wanting in familiarity with the decisions given by other Committees. The establishment of the General Committee on Railways and Canals, forming a Sessional Chairman's panel, excellent as it has proved, does not, and cannot, altogether supply the element that is wanting in Committees. Few Members can undertake the labour of a continuous Chairmanship. Of those who do, not a few, when they have acquired experience, and their labours have become most valuable, are, from various circumstances lost to the service. The representative element should preponderate upon our Committees; but if we could secure, on groups of Bills involving technical questions, the presence of at least one expert possessing technical knowledge and experience of Parliamentary law and practice, it would give strength and consistency to the tribunal. In the official Referees we have such a body of experts ready to our hand, and a Referee Court is such a mixed tribunal as just now suggested. The evidence of the bar, and of other persons interested in private business, as given before the Select Committee on the Referee system, was, I may say, all but unanimous in favour of the constitution of these Courts. I will also appeal to Members who have served as Referees, and I am confident that they will agree that a mixed tribunal works well, and that a permanent official constitutes a valuable addition to a Committee. But, hitherto, the Referees have been entrusted only with part of an inquiry—not, however, as the examiners on Private Bills, with an inquiry only into the performance of certain acts by certain persons. The Referees inquire into a portion of the merits of each case. Now, the question, whether a Bill shall be passed or not, depends on an estimate of its merits in the aggregate, and to separate these is usually very difficult. The inquiries before Referees and Committees, as it were, overlap each other, and thus are attended with waste of time and of labour. To the Referees is allotted the task of ascertaining the sufficiency of the estimate and the efficiency of the engineering for the proposed object. In fact this amounts to little, if anything, less than ascertaining whether the means are adequate to the end. By the time they have done this, they have

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  directly or indirectly heard nine tenths, in some instances ninety-nine-hundredths, of the whole case. But when they have reached this point, the Referees are to stop short, and with great expenditure of time and of labour to prepare a condensed Report, in writing, on a limited portion of what they have heard, for the benefit of another set of minds. The fresh tribunal, which is to pass final judgment upon the Bill, must necessarily travel over a great deal of the same ground. The above, however, are only instances of waste of time and power. There are numberless others in which the divided inquiry imperils the arrival at a right decision. The Referees constantly find that the engineering objections made to a scheme are more or less valid, though the engineering cannot on that account be pronounced absolutely inefficient for its object. For instance, a railway is to cross a navigable river by a viaduct, marsh-lands by an embankment, a street by an archway. It is objected that the navigation, or the drainage, or the traffic will be impeded. The Referees find there will be "a slight," or "a serious," or "a certain" impediment. The actual measure of the obstacle cannot be defined in words or in figures. But the whole question to be decided is—given an impediment—is the advantage of the line such as to outweigh it? The Referees have not the advantages of the line put before them. If they have them incidentally put before them, the comparison of the good and evil is the very thing beyond their jurisdiction. The Committee, on the other hand, succeeds to the subject, and hears the good, but how is it to weigh the evil against it in the scale? To do this, the Committee must in some way hear the details of the evil, and form its own estimate of its weight. If the Committee does this, it rehears what the Referees heard. If it does not, its judgment on the matter must be imperfect.
  In making these observations I am far from intending to make it any reproach to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Lancashire that he along with the Referee Courts established a divided inquiry, The establishment of the Referees is not the least of the many services he has rendered to the private business of the House. But the Referees were an experiment. The House would naturally have hesitated to entrust to these untried mixed tribunals entire Bills. The very success of the tribunal
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  now constitutes a reason for dropping the divided inquiry. I therefore would ask the House to repeal the Standing Orders providing for the divided inquiry, and to give power to the Committee of Selection to remit any group which, from the technical questions involved, or from other reasons, they deem expedient, to a mixed tribunal. In recommending this step I may appeal to experience. Last Session, by an order of the House, power was given to remit entire Gas and Water Bills to the Referee Courts. In other cases Railway Bills have been so remitted by the consent or at the request of promoters and opponents. Finally, at the close of last Session both Houses of Parliament concurred in passing an Act giving the Referee Courts the same power of examining witnesses upon oath and awarding costs as Committees possess; thus giving proof of their confidence in the tribunal, and removing the only difficulty that existed in remitting to it entire Bills. I know that some gentlemen whose opinion possesses weight are in favour of joint Committees of Lords and Commons on Private Bills. I will not now stop to discuss such a plan. I will confine myself to expressing the hope that we shall not delay reforms in this House till that union is brought about. The mere fact that the House of Lords has not yet resolved to make attendance on the part of its Members on Private Bill Committees obligatory presents a serious obstacle to our working conjointly with them. Should it at any future time be deemed expedient to fuse the tribunals of the two Houses, the course now recommended would constitute no bar to such a step. If the official Referees were still retained, there would then be a mixed Commission likely to prove the most efficient tribunal for the purpose. Before I quit the subject of the tribunal, let me say a word upon the point of practice. When our present Committee system was formed, railways were in their infancy. The appearance of one in a country was looked upon as the invasion of an enemy, rather than the approach of a friend. Owners of property and local authorities were up in arms to resist. Hence Committees naturally called upon the promoters to begin by proving that the line proposed was of such importance as to justify the overriding of all private and local rights. Now-a-days things are so changed that the presumption is that a railway will benefit the district it traverses; and the first question is, what are the objections to the work?

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  The Referees, recognizing this fact, as soon as established, reversed the proceedings. They require the opponents to begin, and the result has been beneficial. A great deal of unnecessary speaking and evidence is obviated, and time and labour saved to all parties, without detracting from the real efficiency of the inquiry. It is the most logical mode of proceeding. The case of the promoters is usually before the Committee in the shape of plans and sections, and of the Bill deposited. If the Court requires any further explanation at starting, it can ask for it. If the absence of plans, or peculiar circumstances, render it in some particular case desirable that the promoters should open, they can always be required to do so. These proceedings, however, are not regulated by, or dependent, upon any orders of the House. They are, I apprehend, matters within the discretion of Committees themselves. Probably, however, without some expression of opinion from without, each Committee, singly, would hesitate to break through the established custom. I hope that the General Committee on Railway and Canal Bills, and the Chairmen of other Committees, will consider the policy of adopting the course that has proved so successful in the case of the Referee Courts.
  Thus far we have considered the means for improving the constitution of Parliamentary Committees, and of abridging and simplifying their procedure. I will now address myself to the expediency of transferring some portion of the business to a more summary and less expensive tribunal. Preliminary or provisional certificates or orders are useless, or worse than useless, where a scheme is keenly contested, because neither party will rest without appealing to Parliament and fighting it out to the bitter end. But where the stake is not so great, or the feeling is less strong, it is likely that the defeated party may acquiesce in the decision of a preliminary tribunal, and that both parties may thus be spared the expense and labour of a Parliamentary contest. The Railway Construction Facilities Act, 1864, was an attempt to give effect to this principle. It provides that where a would-be company has contracted for the purchase of all the land it requires, it may apply to the Board of Trade, and the Board may issue a Certicate giving power to make a railway. The Act has remained almost totally inoperative; and the reasons are obvious. The Act requires unanimity on the part of
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  the persons beneficially interested in the land required—a condition difficult to secure. It requires the absence of objection by any other railway—a condition which it is, one may say, impossible to secure. The repeal of section 9 would not really alter the case, because the rival railway could and would always induce some one landowner to come forward and veto the action of the Board of Trade. There should be a further Act providing that, without exacting unanimity on the part of landowners, in view of a marked preponderance of agreement in favour of a scheme, the Board of Trade might issue, if on inquiry it thought fit, not a certificate as under the Act of 1864, but a Provisional Order such as those under the Piers and Harbours Act. The provision would be, that where a railway company has contracted for the purchase of three-fourths in extent of the land required, and obtained the assent of three-fourths in number of the owners of the property to be taken, the Board might make an order. There must be the actual consent of three-fourths in number of the owners, because it is obvious that, in the case of a short line, the agreement for purchase of three-fourths of the land might represent the consent of one or two grandees only, while a large number of owners of valuable properties might be objectors. On the other hand, there must be the agreement for three-fourths of the land, because the consent of three-fourths in number of the owners might represent only the consent of the owners of some worthless cottages or bits of waste, while all the valuable property injured might be in the hands of the dissentient one-fourth. The instrument should be a Provisional Order, and not a Certificate. The difference is this:—A Certificate once laid upon the table of the House, can only be rejected by the action of Parliament itself. An opponent cannot demand a Committee, and thus traders and freighters, local bodies, inhabitants of districts, and, generally, parties injuriously affected, are shut out from opposition, except so far as they can induce the Board of Trade to listen to their remonstances. A Provisional Order is a less potent instrument, it has to be embodied in a Bill and pass through Parliament. Any Order will, on the demand of an opponent who would have had a locus standi against the scheme if introduced in a Private Bill, be sent to a Committee to be dealt with as a Private Bill. A rival company would not be able, as under the Act

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  of 1864, to prevent the issue of a Provisional Order by itself, or by putting forward one dissentient landowner to veto the action of the Department. But no opponent, whether a rival company or other, who would have had an opportunity of opposing the scheme, if introduced as a Private Bill, would be deprived of his hearing before Parliament if he insisted. Probably, however, in view of the approval of the undertaking by so large a proportion of those immediately affected and of the sanction given to it, on inquiry, by the Board of Trade, the Provisional Order would, in the majority of instances, be acquiesced in.
  Next to railways, gas and water works constitute the most important part of Private Business Gas and water works, especially the former, differ from railways in this, that they are in the majority of instances of a purely local character. They affect a local community whose opinion can be ascertained either directly or through some representative body. Gas and water works comparatively seldom require to take property compulsorily, they do not affect the surface of the ground permanently, they only cause a temporary disturbance by the breaking up of roads and streets. In fact, it is usually only in order to obtain the power to break up roads and streets that gas companies, at least, are compelled to come to Parliament. They can and do, in many instances, incorporate themselves under the Joint Stock Companies' Act, and by consent break up roads, but they are, as I understand the law to be, in such cases always at the mercy of any individual who pleases to indict them. This state of things prevents the establishment of works, especially in small country towns. On the one hand, the cost of obtaining an Act of Parliament would amount to, perhaps, half the cost of the works themselves; on the other, people are shy of investing in an undertaking which exists only on sufferance. The principles of the Railway Construction Facilities Act might be beneficially extended to such cases. Where the local authority or authorities are consenting, the Board of Trade, or some other Department, might, after reasonable inquiries, be empowered to issue a Certificate, giving the requisite powers to Gas and Water Companies. Of course it must be a matter of speculation how many schemes, under such an arrangement as now recommended, might be settled by a Department without recourse being had to Parliament. There
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  are, at the present time, before the House about thirty-six Bills for the construction of gas and water works. Judging from the character of these Bills, more than one-half might probably be settled without any application to Parliament. What number of railways would be constructed under Provisional Orders, it is still more difficult to estimate: they would naturally be the shorter railways, to which a purely local interest attached. It is obvious that, the trunk lines of the country having been already made, the railways now applied for are mainly, and will be more and more, of the above description. I said at the outset that the greatest drawback to Private Bill Legislation lay in the unsettled state of public opinion. Opinion has been, and to some extent still is, in a state of transition as regards the concession of compulsory powers for the construction of railways and other public works. Hence the rules and practice of this House, having become somewhat divergent, tend to increase that prevalent confusion of ideas. The great difficulty is the question of Competition. Let me ask attention to the Standing Order on Competition. The late Mr. Phinn said, if this Order were abolished, the whole gallery upstairs, with its Committee-rooms, would become a desert. Without going so far as that, it may be said, without exaggeration, to give rise to one-half of all the Parliamentary contests. It is a very remarkable Order, because the idea that persons supplying certain articles, or providing certain accommodation to the public, are to have a formal recognized right to oppose any other persons entering into the same business lest their profits should be reduced, is one which is foreign to our notions and our policy in other matters. Let us see the reasons assigned for this exceptional policy. I will speak of railways, because they are the most important works. Let me also premise that my observations apply to opposition on the ground of competition, by an existing line, to a proposed new work. They do not apply to rival schemes presented to Parliament in rival Bills: those are alternatives out of which Parliament is invited to select one or more. I wish to state the reasons as fairly as I can; and I believe they are substantially the following:—First, that the principle of competition does not apply to railways; that the number of possible competitors is by natural necessity so limited that combination can, and will, quench competition; that we must accept things

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  as they are, and look not to competition, but to Parliamentary regulations and Government control, to protect the public against abuse of their powers by railway companies. Secondly, that the cost of making a railway is far in excess of that of all ordinary commercial undertakings; that the capital so invested is immutably fixed in that particular form; that in consequence, if two railways be made where one would suffice, the second railway represents an irrecoverable sacrifice of capital which constitutes a national loss. It is further said that that portion of the public which uses the railways will find itself in the long run worse accommodated and more highly charged by two impoverished lines than by one prosperous line:—worse accommodated, because the staff and the rolling stock of a poor company must necessarily be less efficient than those of a wealthy company; more highly charged, because a profit has to be made upon two capitals instead of one, and this must and will, in some form or other, be extracted from travellers and traders. Now, as to the first, it seems strange to argue that because an undertaking is naturally a monopoly or nearly so, it should be necessary artificially still further to secure that monopoly. Granting what no one will deny, that competition is less effectual in the case of railways than of undertakings which can be indefinitely multiplied, and that conditions must be imposed upon, and supervision maintained over, railway companies in the interest of the public, still that is no reason why competition should not be allowed free action as far as may be. That there is a waste of power where two capitals are employed to do the work of one is true of all undertakings; but in this country we leave such matters to the self-interest and acuteness of private enterprise, and believe the national interest is thereby in the long run better served than by any Government supervision. The magnitude and permanence of the outlay make no difference in principle: they must operate as incentives to greater caution on the part of adventurers. But is it the fact that competition does always end in combination, and combination in injury to the public? In several important instances we see that active competition subsists, either in charges or in accommodation, or in both, to the great benefit of the public. There is competition between London and Birmingham, between London and Manchester, between London and Liverpool. There
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  is competition for the Scotch traffic between the East and West routes. In other instances competition has resulted in combination, not however, as a general rule, with higher charges, but with lowercharges, to the public than before the competition was established. The history of many competitions has been this:—the old and the new lines begin by attempts to underbid each other, and for a time charges are unnaturally low. They then combine to carry at higher rates than the unremunerative rates they have been trying to ruin each other by, but at lower rates than the one line exacted before the competition was introduced. Such is the general tenor of the evidence before the Royal Commission; and I would especially direct attention to that of Captain Huish, late manager of the London and North Western, of Sir Daniel Gooch, the chairman of the Great Western; of Mr. Seymour Clarke, the manager of the Great Northern; and others. I would also refer to Mr. Galt's work on Railway Reform. There is a very intelligible reason why this should be the case. Experience shows that when rates have once been greatly reduced, they cannot be very largely increased without discouraging traffic. There are, no doubt, instances, but they are exceptional, in which competition results in higher charges than before. The evidence before the Royal Commission as to these cases is not always consistent, The fact is, companies shift their rates, both as regards classes of goods and as regards places, with a view to developing or trying to develope traffic; and if through combination they raise charges in one quarter, they seek to stimulate trade by reducing them in another. But even in cases of increased charge there is probably a benefit to the public from the multiplication of lines. Suppose, there being one line from A to B, a second comes in, and the two agree to raise their charges higher than the charges of the first line. Rival railways do not, like rival steamers between Liverpool and New York, traverse the same barren ocean without intermediate traffic. The second line can hardly fail to accommodate some places not reached by the first. Thereby the conveyance by cart, by waggon, by omnibus, is reduced, and the entire cost of transport to the district is diminished, although the railway charges may be augmented.
  What is the history of this Standing Order? The original rule and practice of Parliament was that petitioners against

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  Private Bills were not admitted to be heard on the ground of competition. When the rule was first relaxed I have not been able to ascertain; but, judging from a passage in Sir Erskine May's valuable work on Parliamentary Practice, the first case appears to have been in 1850, when two Gas Companies were admitted to be heard against a Gas Bill. Be that as it may, the present Standing Order was made by the Standing Order Committee in 1853. No reason appears to have been assigned for it, and no debate took place upon the subject; but I have always understood that it was found that rival lines subsidized landlords, and fought through them, and that thereupon it was thought better to unmask the real opponent and bring him face to face with the Committee. Moreover, if we may read this order by the light of the Fifth Report of that which is known as Mr. Cardwell's Committee on Railway and Canal Bills, which Report was made in the same year (1853), the idea was that the line competed with might be heard to argue, not that its own profits might possibly be diminished, but that the construction of a new line would be of no service to the public. The Order made was in these words—
  "It shall be competent to the Committees on Private Bills to admit petitioners to be heard upon their petitions against a Private Bill, on the ground of competition, if they shall think fit."
  It is an empowering order, authorizing a Committee to make an exception from a general rule in a particular case if it saw fit. Committees, however, acting separately, and without knowledge of what other Committees had done in analogous cases, when pressed by ingenious counsel to admit their clients, inclined, from a timidity natural under the circumstances, to hear them, as being the safer course. Thus it gradually became the practice always to admit an opponent who alleged himself competed with, unless the competition appeared so remote as to be absolutely frivolous. That practice has now become so established that no Committees or Referees would venture to break through it. While, however, this practice was growing up, the change in public feeling in regard to railways, which had already set in when the Order was made, kept increasing. Gradually the whole position of Parliament towards the promoters and opponents of Railway Bills was altered. Originally it had submitted to it a scheme for a great national highway, which was bitterly op-
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  posed by all the local interests affected. Now lines are of local concern; and when local interests oppose, it is not so much because they wish the line to be rejected as because they wish to obtain a diversion, to secure increased accommodation, or in some way to make better terms. In fact, Parliament is now-a-days little more than an arbitrator between parties all of whom are in the main desirous that the line should be made. Thus it comes that we have arrived at this state of things, that Parliament as a matter of course admits the old line to oppose, and, almost equally as a matter of course, decides in favour of the new. The directors of old lines feel bound to fight—although they probably know that they fight with a halter round their necks—lest their shareholders should blame their apathy; shareholders in old lines are led to fancy they are a protected interest; the shareholders in new lines are led to fancy they will be; Parliament is reproached by the old companies with granting too many lines, and by the new with unduly thwarting railway enterprize; if old lines do not pay, it is said Parliament has ruined them; if new lines do not answer, it is said how improvident of Parliament to have sanctioned them! Let it be distinctly understood that the possible abstraction of profits from an existing work will not be considered a ground for opposing a new work; abolish this Order; and all concerned will gain by the adoption of a fixed and intelligible policy—the old companies, the new, the public at large, and Parliament itself. Here are the words used not many days ago by one of the most eminent authorities in this House on railway matters. The hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), addressing the shareholders of the London, and Brighton Railway, of which he is the chairman, said—
  "The monopoly, and Government control over railways, were no doubt better suited to the genius of Continental nations than of England. No doubt also the public had derived benefit from the construction of so many railways, and the competition thus established; but Parliament having decided not to uphold Lord Dalhousie's reports and the Continental system of a qualified monopoly, ought to have gone to the opposite principle—free trade—instead of tantalizing Railway Companies by hopes of protection, which, however, were falsified."
  He instances the case of the Brighton line, which fought on, undertaking "useless" lines to protect itself, yet at last a competing line was sanctioned.
  "They were led on [he said], by degrees, by the inconsistent conduct of the Legislature, in just

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  holding out sufficient hope of protection to induce them to make great sacrifices, trusting to a reed which broke under them, because they did not think they were to be subjected to competition."
  What harm can ensue from the abolition of this Order? It is said people will make useless lines: but why? To obtain an Act is expensive: the promoters incur the risk of costs if their application be held frivolous; they forfeit their deposit if they do not complete the line within a given time. They must think the line proposed is one they can work at a profit themselves, or sell or lease to other persons. In either case they must believe the line to be one that will be used by the public, otherwise it would possess no value. Surely Parliament may assume they are the best judges of their own interests—better than any Committee can be. But it is said, people apply for an Act who have no intention of making a line; they only want the power, in order that they may frighten or cajole some other company into buying them up. Here the same answer really applies: we must leave commercial men to take care of themselves, and not proceed on the supposition that people in their senses will be coaxed or bullied into buying powers to make a line that is to be of no use. I should be content to abolish the Order, and there to rest. Still, it maybe said, although Parliament is not called upon to prevent people from constructing useless works—if they are unwise enough so to do—it is not called upon to assist them so to do by granting them special powers for the purpose. In this view of the case an existing line should be admitted to argue the inutility of a new line. If it undertook to prove, at the risk of incurring costs, as it now would, under the Costs Act, that the proposed line would be of no service to the localities already served, nor to any fresh localities, let it come forward. That profit would be abstracted from the existing line would be an argument which the Referees or Committees would not listen to. Nor if a rival railway put forward a landowner, would he be allowed to go into this argument. Supposing, however, the ingenuity of counsel found means to introduce all these arguments, still it would be a great gain to disabuse shareholders of the notion that they are, or would be, protected interests. How prevalent this notion is, is evident from the language held at railway meetings, and by railway newspapers. "Look," it is said in the railway world, "at the recklessness of Parliament
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  in granting so many unremunerative lines, which have only served to ruin themselves, and to beggar older lines." In this sort of language two fallacies are involved: one, that it is in some way the duty of Parliament, before it grants a line, to ascertain that it will be remunerative to its undertakers; the other, that an unremunerative line is, as a matter of course, of no benefit to the public. Now no doubt if a line be remunerative to its proprietors, we have a proof that it is of use to, and used by, the public. But the converse of the proposition is not true. The fact of a line being unremunerative does not prove it useless. It may be unremunerative from financial mismanagement, or a hundred other reasons, and yet be a useful line. To prove it useless, it must appear that the public sends no traffic by it. As to the assumption that Parliament takes upon itself to pronounce, before it grants a line, that the investment will be a good one for the promoters, it needs only to be stated to show its absurdity. Yet this Order fosters, and gives colour to, the delusion. For if Parliament is so paternally solicitous for companies in their maturity as to take care that their profits be not reduced, as those of other traders are liable to be reduced, the inference is not unnatural that it watches with equal solicitude over the prospects of infant companies.
  I have now a proposition to make in reference to the locus standi of owners of property. There is no Standing Order regulating the appearance of a landowner whose land it is proposed compulsorily to take; but by the practice of Parliament such a person has an unquestioned right to be heard. The justice of the rule that a man should be heard in defence of his own property is, I think, indisputable. But the rule is carried in some cases to an inconvenient length. Many Bills, now-a-days, are what are known as "Omnibus Bills," that is, Bills for miscellaneous matters, such as the making, by a trunk-line, of several little branch lines, each, perhaps, twenty or thirty miles apart, the raising of capital, the re-construction of the direction, &c. Any man who has a cabbage garden, or a dung-heap, one corner of which is touched by one of these little spur-lines, now acquires an indefeasible right to be heard against the whole Bill and everything in it. This appears unreasonable, and I ask the House to give Referees and Committees a discretion, not to exclude from a hearing an owner whose

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  property is sought to be taken, but in certain cases to limit his opposition to such portion of the Bill as affects himself.
  There remains only one more point to which I wish to ask attention. I do not now intend to offer any observations upon the regulations imposed by Parliament upon the financial operations of companies incorporated by special Acts. I would, however, ask the House to consider Standing Order 155, by which Committees are especially directed to inquire into "the financial arrangements made or proposed by the company formed for the execution of the railway." I would ask the House to expunge these words. They are not the words that prescribe the ascertainment and fixing by the Committee of the amount of share and loan capital of the company: that is elsewhere provided for. They are words that make it obligatory on the Committee, in all cases, to investigate whence the promoters' money comes and on what terms they obtain it. If the words be omitted, it will still be in the discretion of any Committee, if it think fit, fully to inquire into these matters. As it is, Committees seldom enter into the question, and the Standing Order is ignored. The reasons for it have ceased to exist. Formerly it was required as a condition precedent to obtaining an Act that there should be a subscription contract binding the promoters and their heirs to find the money, or a large part of the money, required for the undertaking. The bonâ fides of this subscription contract and the solvency of the subscribers was then a matter for inquiry. The subscription contract proved in practice futile and deceptive, and was several years ago abandoned. The more simple and tangible security of a deposit of caution money by the promoters, to be forfeited if they failed after obtaining powers to carry out the works was substituted. By a new Standing Order adopted last Session, this deposit, whatever may have been the case hitherto, has been made, we hope, effectual as a security for the bonâ fides of the promoters. Private persons, aggrieved by the failure of a company to carry out its works, will, in future, be entitled to claim compensation out of this deposit for the injury inflicted on them. The words in Standing Order 155, however, are now not only obsolete, but mischievous. Taken in conjunction with the Standing Order on Competition, they engender and cherish the delusion that Parliament is bound to ascertain, and can and does ascer-
  878
  tain, before it concedes powers for making a line, that the undertaking is financially a sound and a prudent one. The idea gives a fictitious value to the schemes of private speculators, and is a lure and a snare to investors. I therefore ask the House to amend the Order as proposed.
  The summary of the proposed changes then is this: A power to the Committee of Selection to remit such Bills or groups of Bills as from the technical questions involved, or on other grounds, they think expedient, to the mixed tribunal of the Referees. The abolition of the divided enquiry between Committees and Referees. The assimilation of the practice of Committees to that of the Referees in making the opponents begin. A cheaper and more summary method of disposing of uncontested or less keenly contested cases by means of Provisional Orders or Certificates to be issued by a Department. The possible abstraction of profits from an existing work to cease to be recognized as a ground of opposition to a proposed new work. Power to the Referees to restrict opposition by a landowner to such, portion of the Bill as affects his property. The removal of the obligation on the part of Committees in all cases to enquire into the pecuniary circumstances of promoters. These are changes of a more comprehensive character than have, at all events, in recent years, been submitted to Parliament; but the present lull in Private Business affords an opportunity for considering the whole subject dispassionately. At the same time they are changes that concern this House and its tribunals only—they do not touch the privileges or affect the proceedings of the other House. From this observation must be excepted the proposed application to certain cases of the system of Provisional Orders and Certificates, which, if the House be disposed to adopt it, would require an Act of Parliament. The subject of Private Bill Legislation does not give rise to popular interest out of doors, nor excite feeling within these walls; still the immense amount of property involved, and the number and extent of the private interests depending on it, render the subject eminently worthy of consideration, and will, I trust, be accepted as an excuse on my part for having brought the matter before the House. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—
  New Standing Orders to follow Standing Order 92.
  A.—The Committee of Selection may, if they

  879
  think fit, refer any Private Bills to the Referees, instead of to a Committee of the House, with power to the Referees to inquire into the whole subject matter of such Bills, and to report them, with or without amendments, to the House.
  B.—A Court of Referees inquiring into Bills referred by the Committee of Selection shall consist of not less than four Referees, of whom not less than two shall be Members of this House.
  Repeal Standing Orders 93, 95, 96, and 97.
  Repeal Standing Order 131 (Competition to be a ground of locus standi).
  New Standing Order 131.—It shall be competent to the Referees on Private Bills, if they think fit, to admit the Proprietors of existing works to be heard upon their Petition against a Private Bill relating to similar works within a town or district served by them, on the ground of absence of public advantage.
  New Standing Order to follow Standing Order 132.—The owner of lands or other property to be taken under the powers of a Private Bill shall be entitled to be heard on the allegations contained in his Petition, against the Preamble and Clauses of such Bill, or against part only of such Bill, as the Referees shall think fit.
  Standing Order 133.—At the end add the words "or against part only of such Bill, as the Referees shall think fit."
  Standing Order 151, s. 1.—Omit the words "The financial arrangements made or proposed by the Company formed for the execution of the Railway."
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Committee of Selection may, if they think fit, refer any Private Bills to the Referees, instead of to a Committee of the House, with power to the Referees to inquire into the whole subject matter of such Bills, and to report them, with or without amendments, to the House."—(Mr. Dodson.)
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, he thought his hon. Friend had done good service in bringing those matters under the consideration of the House. With regard to the first proposal, there could be little doubt that if the Court of Referees worked well, as was generally considered to have been the case, there could be no reason why the jurisdiction of that tribunal should not be extended, seeing that the economy which had been produced by it had been so very beneficial to the public. His hon. Friend proposed to extend the application of the system of Provisional Orders and Certificates to railway companies, gas, and water works in certain cases, to which there was reason to anticipate that the decision of a Department would be acquiesced in without an appeal to Parliament. He (Mr. Stephen Cave) might say, in passing, that it would be a good thing if the Provisional Order were in many cases replaced by the Certificate, and vice versâ, with, perhaps, some machinery for amending the Certifi-
  880
  cate which did not now exist. But on general grounds there could be no doubt that it would be a great benefit to the public to be relieved, as they might be in various cases, from the necessity of proceeding by way of Bill, or, at any rate, enabled to have recourse to the simpler and cheaper form of Bill lately prescribed. Parliamentary fees were reduced in that manner, and a still greater reduction was made in the expenses of professional men, witnesses, and others, by which railways have been so heavily weighted before the first sod had been turned. When his hon. Friend mentioned throwing that additional duty on Departments it became a grave question, for the discussion of which that was not the proper moment. On what Department were they to be imposed? It could not have escaped notice how many of those subjects, such as those relating to gas, water, the purification of rivers, and others which might be arranged under the head of health of the people, were distributed almost at hazard over various Departments of the State, involving great waste of power, and the still greater evil of inconsistent action. With regard to the Department which he himself had the honour to represent, it could authorize the construction of a railway and incorporation of a company when all landowners agreed, could confer unlimited powers of raising new capital, authorize working arrangements and combinations between companies, and extend the time for selling superfluous lands—all, of course, subject to the revision of Parliament. That list might well be extended. It was scarcely worth while, for instance, to compel a company to bring in a Private Bill to reduce the number of its Directors. There was a still more important point. Under a temporary Act, 11 Vict., c. 3, passed in 1847, the Board of Trade had power to extend the time for a limited period of two years for carrying out works, and they did so extend the time in the case of no less than 132 railways. There were fifty-three Railway Bills for extension of time before Parliament this Session, and if it were possible to act again under that old enactment, those companies would be saved the expense of a Private Bill in each case, and the Board of Trade might by Certificate or Provisional Order give them the opportunity of extending their time. A still more important point was that many railways had come to the Board of Trade with applications under the Abandonment clauses of the Act of last Session.

  881
  The Board of Trade would have extremely difficult questions to decide between promoters and their opponents, and he thought in many cases a just and reasonable compromise would be found in the alternative of extension of time for carrying out works. The question was so very urgent that he proposed that evening to give notice of a Bill for re-enacting the provisions of the Act of 1847. But he must observe that it was of little use to give facilities to companies if they would not profit by them; nor to endeavour to save their pockets if they preferred expense. Many companies were proceeding this Session by Bill for powers which they might have obtained by Certificate. Why they should be advised to take that course he could not tell. There had been no complaints of the working of the Act of 1864, and the companies which had proceeded in that way must have saved largely, as the Board of Trade did not charge more, he thought, than the £10 fee paid to counsel for settling the draft Certificate. It was necessary for Parliament to endeavour as far as possible to save expense in the making of railways. It must be remembered, as his hon. Friend had said, that the main lines of railway were nearly completed—indeed, not more than eighty miles were proposed by Bills of this Session—yet no one could doubt that thousands of miles of branch lines and extensions would be required in future, and those lines being short and the profit upon them small, the companies would not be able to endure the profligate and enormous expense which had been saddled on the existing lines. His hon. Friend had indicated one most important plan of relief—that of reducing to a minimum, opposition on the ground of competition alone. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) had more than once brought in a Bill with the same intention; but he would have thrown upon the Board of Trade legislative functions beyond what it ought to exercise, and would have increased expense by causing a double trial. Without going into the general question of Competition, as raised by his hon. Friend, his hon. Friend, if he understood him rightly, proposed that the Board of Trade should not entertain the question of Competition at all, but should grant a Certificate as it granted a Provisional Order, if satisfied in other respects, leaving the question of Competition to be tried, as now, by Parliament, which would be a discourage-
  882
  ment to frivolous, but not to bonâ fide opposition. The Royal Commission had, indeed, stated that a company could always oppose through a landowner. True, but even then a great deal of evidence now received would be rejected by a Committee. Parliament might also improve its practice and diminish expense in the construction of railways by taking the opinion of an independent engineer—perhaps a member of the Court of Referees—on plans and estimates, instead of bewildering itself with the conflicting statements of advocates and paid witnesses. He would only advert to one other proposal of his hon. Friend—it was the last on the Notice Paper. It would not be difficult to give illustrations of the mischievous interference with railway finance in a somewhat different sense from that of his hon. Friend. He remembered a great landed proprietor coming to Parliament a few years ago for the construction of a dock with his own money, on his own land, and the Bill being thrown out on the ground of insufficiency of estimate, though if it had really turned out so he would simply have had to supply the funds from his own resources. The landowner thus incurred the expense of another Bill, as well as the loss of a year. He had heard, on the other hand, of an estimate of £300,000 being passed for work which would cost at least £600,000. This, however, was not exactly what his hon. Friend meant. His hon. Friend referred to the financial arrangements, on which he (Mr. Stephen Cave) had expressed his opinion last Session. He questioned, however, whether his hon. Friend would be right in pressing that alteration at this moment, partly because—after the extremely lax system of railway finance of which we have heard so much—any relaxation of the supervision of Parliament might be misunderstood, and partly because new Standing Orders were agreed upon only last year for the purpose of bringing into harmony the working of the Committees of both Houses. Practically a Committee of the Commons would refuse to re-open a question on that point which had been decided by the Referees. He might mention, as germane to the subject, that a provision had been inserted in a Bill about to be introduced by the noble Duke the President of the Board of Trade, to the effect that what was called the Wharncliffe meeting should precede the introduction of Bills, instead of intervening, as at present, between the inquiries of the two Houses of

  883
  Parliament, so that shareholders might have an opportunity of passing their opinion upon a measure before the initiative was taken and expense incurred. Parliament did well occasionally to review its proceedings in these matters by the light of experience, and he thanked his hon. Friend for giving them that opportunity, feeling sure that his hon. Friend's intimate acquaintance with the working of our system would prevent his doing so on insufficient grounds.
  LORD HOTHAMsaid, he did not rise to offer any opposition to the proposals of the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson), nor even to enter into any discussion of their merits. The House was aware that at the commencement of every Session a Committee of Standing Orders was appointed. That Committee was nominated only yesterday, and it held its first meeting that morning for the purpose of choosing its Chairman and arranging its proceedings. The Committee were pleased to do him the honour of electing him to be their Chairman, and he could assure the House that nobody could feel more strongly than himself how inadequate he was to the discharge of the duties performed in that capacity by his predecessor, his right hon. Friend the Member for North Lancashire (Colonel Wilson Patten), who had filled that position ever since the Committee had been appointed, and who had always conducted its business in a manner as satisfactory to the country as it was agreeable to all those with whom he was associated. Immediately after the preliminary business which the Committee had assembled to transact had been disposed of, their attention had been directed to the Resolutions which the hon. Member for East Sussex had given notice that he would propose, and he was requested by the Committee to suggest to the hon. Gentleman the expediency of allowing some time—certainly not less than a week—to elapse for considering the subject, in order that the House and the Committee might have an opportunity of duly weighing the arguments by which the Resolutions had been so ably supported. It appeared to him that that was a reasonable suggestion, and taking into account the importance of the question, he felt assured the hon. Gentleman would accede to that request without rendering it necessary for him to make a formal Motion for the postponement of the discussion.
  MR. CHARLES FORSTER MR. CHARLES FORSTER moved
  884
  the adjournment of the debate until that day fortnight, in order that railway companies and other parties interested might have time to consider the proposed scheme.
  MR. BOUVERIEseconded the Motion. The scheme token in its entirety would, if adopted, work a complete revolution in the mode of conducting the Private Business of the House. It was so elaborate that his hon. Friend should not then ask the House to give an opinion upon it. He should have thought that the preferable course would be to refer the question to a Committee to consider the scheme, and hear the opinion entertained by other parties connected with the Private Business of the House; but he was ready to support the proposal for an adjournment of the debate.
  MR. DODSONsaid, he had no objection to the adjournment, but expected on that occasion to have some further expression of opinion on the part of the House, considering that it was desirable that the subject should be discussed and ventilated. He trusted the House would not entertain the suggestion to refer the matter to a Committee. During the last twenty-five years there had been more than five-and-twenty Committees on the subject of Private Business. Every possible question that could be asked had been asked, and every possible amount of information that could be accumulated had been collected. The House must make up its mind to take the matter in hand itself, and take some decisive action upon it. The first Resolutions proposed the reference of Bills to one tribunal instead of to another, and after what was done last Session he should hope that the House would be prepared on that day week to come to a decision on the first two Resolutions. He was of course entirely in the hands of the House; but begged to point out the expediency of coming to an early decision on these Resolutions.
  MR. SERJEANT GASELEEsaid, he thought it desirable that the discussion of the first proposal of the hon. Gentleman, which he regarded as the most important, should at all events be put off for a fortnight. This matter concerned the railway companies, and they would not have a sufficient opportunity of conferring on it in a few days.
  Motion agreed to.
  Debate adjourned till Tuesday, 3rd March.

  SCOTLAND—TOLLS ON THE BRIDGE OF DUNKELD.—QUESTION.
  MR. BAXTERsaid, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, If it is correct that tolls, both on foot passengers and carriages, continued to be levied at the Bridge of Dunkeld by the Duke of Athole, although his right to do so has lapsed, and although the Post Office authorities have for some time refused to pay for their conveyances, which now passed free; if, in consequence of this illegal imposition, great excitement prevailed in the neighbourhood, resulting on Monday night in the destruction of the toll-gate; and if Her Majesty's Government intend to take any steps in the circumstances?
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, in reply, that he believed it was true that tolls, both on foot passengers and carriages, continued to be levied at the Bridge of Dunkeld by the Duke of Athole; but he could not admit that the right to exact those tolls had lapsed. The bridge was built in 1803 by the Duke of Athole, who was to have the right to levy tolls until the whole expenditure on the works had been repaid; and it was alleged by the present Duke that a very large balance, including interest, was due to him under that provision. There had been a litigation between the Duke of Athole and the Post Office in 1851, 1852, and 1853; and the result was that there had been an investigation into the accounts, which had since been regularly transmitted every year to the County Board. Viscount Canning the Postmaster General of that day, had thus become satisfied that the expenditure had not been paid off by the tolls; and he had even gone so far as to say that there was no prospect of its ever been paid off. He (the Lord Advocate) was aware that considerable excitement had of late prevailed in the neighbourhood, and that there had been a destruction of the toll-gate at night by men in disguise. The question at issue was one which it was not the duty of the Government to determine; but it was manifestly the interest of all parties concerned that it should be settled; and probably the road trustees or Commissioners of Supply might have some right of interference in the matter. He would express no opinion upon the claims put forward by the Duke of Athole. That was a point which would depend upon the construction of the Act of Parliament; and upon the question whether or not the expenditure had been defrayed by the tolls.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, he wished to know what was the balance said to be clue?
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that the balance claimed was about £56,000.
  MR. BAXTERsaid, he would give notice that he should move for all the accounts relating to that expenditure.

  LAW OF MARRIAGE.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he would beg to ask the Right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge, When the Report of the Commissioners on the Law of Marriage will be issued?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, that the Commissioners would meet to-morrow for the purpose of considering their Report.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT, 1867—COMPOUND HOUSEHOLDERS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. SCHREIBERsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer with respect to the "inhabitant occupiers" of parishes in which compounding Acts are now in force, but the whole or part of which it is proposed for the future to include within the limits of Parliamentary Boroughs, from what time the personal liability of such occupiers to the Poor Rate will commence; Whether, in his opinion, they will be in a position to avail themselves of the first Registration of Voters under the Reform Act of last Session; and whether, the repeal of a compounding Act in one part of a parish will entail its repeal in the remainder?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, in reply, that the Question of his hon. Friend divided itself under three heads. With respect to the first two, his hon. Friend would find that they were specifically noticed in the Report of the Boundary Commission, recently laid on the table. The subject to which the Questions referred was under the consideration of the Government, and it would be his duty, when the House had considered the Report of the Commissioners, to introduce a Bill to carry out their recommendations. His hon. Friend would then see that the Government had duly considered the two points. With respect to the third Question, "whether the repeal of a compounding Act in one part of a parish will entail its repeal in the remainder?" he apprehended that there was no doubt that it would.

ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION.

  QUESTION.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether our position will not be greatly complicated in Abyssinia if it be true that the Egyptian troops are advancing into that country; and, further, to ask whether high Indian officials—namely, Sir Henry Durand and Sir William Mansfield, did not emphatically warn the Government, before the war was decided upon, that the national feeling of Abyssinia would be united against us, if it appeared that we were obtaining any aid or support from Turco-Egyptian alliance; and whether, considering these warnings, the Government, before commencing the war, obtained any assurance from the Sultan and the Viceroy that they would abstain from all interference. He also wished to know whether some of the troops were not suffering from great dearth of water; and, whether the monthly cost of freight between Bombay and Abyssinia was not £392,000?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, in reply, that with reference to the Question as to the serious complications which might arise from any advance of the Egyptian troops, the House was aware that it had been represented by those who were acquainted with the state of feeling in Abyssinia, that it would be very undesirable that, in any action that we might take in that country, we should invite Egyptian assistance, and therefore Her Majesty's Government had carefully abstained from asking any such assistance from that Government, and from doing anything in the nature of forming an alliance. But as our troops had to advance from a point in the Egyptian territory, and as a portion of our supplies had to be forwarded through that territory, it became necessary to enter into communications with the Egyptian Government, in order to ascertain whether there would be any objection to our using their territory with a view to our having proper facilities for obtaining supplies for the troops. These facilities were given, and, as far as communications had passed between the Egyptian and British Governments, those communications had been of the most friendly character. The Egyptian Government had intimated their desire to assist in any way that was proper, but there had been no attempt on the part of the British Government to obtain any assistance other than such as he had men-
  888
  tioned. With regard to the Question as to whether Government had made representations to the Egyptian Government requiring an assurance that they would abstain from all interference, he had to observe that it would hardly have been decorous to make such a request, when they had no reason to contemplate that the Egyptians would interfere, and, therefore, no such assurance had been asked for at the commencement of the proceedings. Recently, however, communications were received from the commanders of the British force that there were movements of Egyptian troops at Massowah, which appeared to indicate that there was a disposition on the part of the Egyptian authorities to send troops into Abyssinia, and it was represented that that would produce a bad feeling against the British forces in Abyssinia. Accordingly, representations were made by the Foreign Office to the Viceroy of Egypt to the effect that any movement of that kind would be misunderstood, and a request was made that His Highness would countermand any orders given for the advance of Egyptian troops. Those representations were received in a most friendly spirit, and the Viceroy stated to the British Consul that reinforcements, the amount of which had been very much exaggerated, had been sent to Massowah, but that he would order a battalion to be recalled. This was the information received by the British Government, and, in all probability, a portion of the Egyptian troops had been recalled. With respect to the reports in the newspapers, made on he knew not what authority, as to the advance of Egyptian troops, he might observe that he had received telegrams from Sir Robert Napier and Colonel Merewether since the date of the reports in question, and no reference was made in them to the advance of Egyptian troops, and he therefore concluded that the reports had reference to the earlier proceedings to which he had alluded. With regard to the Question relative to the supply of water, he had to state that he had no information to the effect that the troops were suffering from want of water. All accounts seemed to show that there was water in abundance. In a letter received from Sir Robert Napier, dated the 8th of January, it was stated—
  "The water daily condensed by the two fixed condensers and by the vessels in harbour amounts to 160 tons. Of these, 120 tons are daily placed on shore, which affords a copious supply for all the troops, followers, and animals at present at Zoulla."

  889
  Sir Robert Napier, in his last letter, dated January 25, stated—
  "This place (Koomayloo) is one of great importance to us; it has the first good water. The wells are in the bed of a river; the water excellent and plentiful, requiring only means of pumping it out. I think there is little doubt that this should be our supply for Zoulla, having the convenience of the railway to bring out the piping, and the convenience of the pipes to supply water for the engines. It is a very important question. The human consumers of water at Zoulla by the last estimate amounted to 11,500, and a failing of water would be something not to be thought of without great anxiety. Of course, as long as we have our condensers at work we are sure of a general supply, but if a bad gale came the ships might be out of gear for a time."
  With regard to the monthly cost of freight, he did not know on what the calculations referred to by the hon. Gentleman were founded. All he could say was that he had no information which would enable him to name any particular sum as the cost of freight. The information he had received of course placed the cost at a very much less sum. In anticipation of the Session he had telegraphed to the Governor of Bombay for all the accounts as to the charge of transport that could be furnished. That morning he had received a considerable number of them, and he had given directions that the best Estimate that could be made should be drawn up from them. He had no reason to believe that the report alluded to by the hon. Gentleman was founded on correct information.
  MR. OTWAYsaid, he wished to know Whether the right hon. Gentleman had received any information as to King Theodore having reached Magdala; and, also, whether any encounter had taken place with his troops?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: We have received no such information. Those telegrams which have been received since Saturday morning make no mention of it; but, according to the latest information, he was at no great distance from Magdala. It is not probable that there had been any engagement between him and Menalek.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he wished to know, Whether the right hon. Gentleman will lay the Estimate of the expense of freight, when made, on the table?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: The hon. Gentleman must wait till I see what information has been received, and whether it is such as can be laid on the table.

INDIA—IRRIGATION WORKS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether it is the intention of the Government (with the view of promoting the fulfilment of the hope expressed in the concluding portion of his speech of the 2nd of August last) to bring under the consideration of the House the question of what will be the best means to adopt for more speedily carrying out irrigation works throughout India, so as to avoid the recurrence of periodical famines and inundations, and so as best to develope the internal resources and external trade of the country?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, in reply, that he was not quite sure that he understood the purport of the Question of the hon. Member. It was not in contemplation to bring before Parliament any proposal on the subject; but he should be very glad to state to the House what course had been taken in India for the energetic prosecution of the work of irrigation. A great deal had been done this year. The director of irrigation works had been engaged carefully revising the projects sent up from the several provinces; and the Government had sent out an additional number of engineers. The Government had made an offer, or requested him to make an offer, to private irrigation companies to purchase their works; and the letter in which that proposal was made so fully stated the views of the Indian Government as to the mode in which irrigation works should be carried on to work well that he intended to lay it on the table, and he should therefore move for its production at once.

ADMIRALTY MONIES AND ACCOUNTS.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. SEELYsaid, he rose to call attention to the Correspondence relating to the cost of building the Frederick William and of repairing the Brisk and the Cadmus; and to move for a Select Committee to inquire and report (1st), as to the application of Monies voted by Parliament for the use of the Admiralty; and (2ndly), as to the Accounts of the Department, and more especially as to the method in which they should be prepared for presentation to this House. The hon. Member said it would be in the recollection of the

  891
  House that at an early period of last year he had called attention to the constitution of the Board of Admiralty, more particularly in relation to the management of the dockyards; and on that occasion he was met by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington), then First Lord, with the flattest denial that one gentleman could possibly give to another. The expressions he made use of were—
  "I know no process or mode of construing figures by which the hon. Gentleman can prove that ship (the Frederick William) to have cost £281,000. I have taken pains on this subject, and inquired of those most competent to inform me, and I cannot make out that the Frederick William cost more, including all her fittings, masts, and sails, than £197,000."—[3 Hansard, clxxxv. 609.]
  The right hon. Baronet did not object to the items of the cost of that ship, but he denied the correctness of his statement. It was scarcely possible for the right hon. Baronet to give that statement a more emphatic denial; and he added—
  "This is a matter for great regret, and the only result will be that the public confidence will be shaken in statements made under such circumstances."
  He (Mr. Seely) felt this very strongly, and accordingly, on the morning after the debate; he wrote to the right hon. Baronet and asked that the matter might be investigated. The Controller, before his letter reached the Admiralty, had preferred a similar request; and the right hon. Baronet perfectly concurred in the propriety of an investigation. An investigation was entered upon, and towards the close of the Session was completed. The House ordered the Correspondence to be printed, and it was to portions of that Correspondence he now desired to call the attention of the House. The statement to which the right hon. Baronet objected was made by him in July, 1866, and no exception was taken to it at the time. He had repeated it at Lincoln. But subsequently the right hon. Baronet complained that he (Mr. Seely) had selected three cases, whereas the fact was, that the right hon. Baronet had himself made the selection; he (Mr. Seely) having offered more than half a score of vessels, to show the excess of cost in public as compared with private yards. The Controller in his letter of the 10th of July admitted that, accepting his definition of the words "cost, building, and repairs" as correct, he could not take exception to his figures. Therefore, so far as his (Mr.
  892
  Seely's) own accuracy was concerned, when he defined what he meant by the word "cost" he might fairly leave the matter to the admissions of the Controller. But there were some questions of public interest in this Correspondence. The Controller said that he (Mr. Seely) included in the word "building," as applied to the Frederick William, conversion, maintenance, wear and tear, and repairs, which the Admiralty omitted. The total expenses from 1841 to April 1, 1865—a period of 24 years—were materials and wages, £197,988; indirect charges, £60,613; or £258,601; and to this pensions and interest—items which had to be taken into account in the cost of ships—ought to be added, £25,860—making in all £284,461. But the Controller said that "maintenance" must be included in the cost of the Frederick William; if, therefore, there was an error, it was on the part of the Admiralty in including in the statement the charge for maintenance. What did that amount for maintenance come to? This raised another question—When did the charge for building cease? Now, in the Navy Ships' Account for 1861–2 were the following words:—
  "In order to institute an exact comparison of the cost of ships built in different places, it has been arranged between the Controller of the Navy and the Accountant General that in future (i. e., after April, 1863) the capital account of the cost of every ship shall not be closed until she is fitted for sea and has left the port in commission."
  Now, the Frederick William was commissioned in June, 1864. Up to that time, therefore, everything spent on that ship must be included, according to this official definition, in the term "building." Now, from June, 1864, to the 1st of April, 1865, there was charged to the Frederick William, materials and wages, £939 16 s. 10 d., and indirect charges of the Admiralty, £365, making £1,305. Deducting this amount from the cost of the ship, there would remain £257,296, according to the Admiralty's own figures. Deducting £1,305, the cost of maintenance when in commission, with £130 for pensions, interest, &c., from his £284,461, there would remain £283,026 for the cost of the Frederick William. The Admiralty admitted his figures to be correct; for, in order to give the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Corry) the means of answering him fully and clearly on this occasion, he wrote to him a fortnight ago to say he should be very glad to put before him his statement in support of his Motion. The right hon. Gentleman accepted the offer, the figures

  893
  had been examined, and were generally shown to be correct. In the Correspondence the Controller objected to the calculation respecting the cost of the repairs of the Brisk, because he (Mr. Seely) had taken two years when that ship was in commission. Striking off these two years, and taking the two years accepted by the Controller, the amount was £38,052, which, added to £3,805 for pensions and interest, made £41,857, or £1,641 less than his statement, while the Cadmus, in the same way, only cost £20 less. His original statement, then, was that these three ships cost—the Frederick William for building, and the Brisk and Cadmus for four years' repairs—£390,989; while it seemed that excluding the £1,405 for maintenance in commission, and the two years' repairs objected to by the Controller, the cost was £390,663, or less by £326. The right hon. Baronet (Sir John Pakington) had given the cost of building the Frederick William at £197,000, the building of the Brisk at £59,703, and that of the Cadmus at £85,705. Now, he admitted that a gentleman might use the term "cost" in any sense, provided only that his hearers understood in what sense; but if it were used without definition it would be in the ordinary sense of the term. Now, the right hon. Baronet must have used it in two different senses, because when he spoke of the Frederick William he excluded £60,000 for indirect charges, but when he spoke of the Brisk and Cadmus he included indirect charges. It appeared as though it were the interest of the Admiralty to make the cost of building the Frederick William as small as possible, because he (Mr. Seely) was contrasting it with the cost of building her in a private yard; while the Admiralty appeared to wish to swell the cost of the Brisk and Cadmus because he was then making a different contrast. He (Mr. Seely) had also stated that the Frederick William might have been built for £134,453, and he would now give the grounds upon which he had made that estimate. He had found that the Admiralty had bought certain vessels at £22 10 s. per ton, and he referred to Mr. Eyde's book to ascertain what would be the increase of cost for such a vessel as the Frederick William. He found that it would be £3 3s. 8d. per ton, and adding that to the cost of £22 10 s., and allowing £23,000, or £7 6s. 4d. per ton, for the full equipment, sea stores, and engineer's stores, he got £106,953, or
  894
  £33 per ton. He added to that the engines at the rate of £55 per horse, which gave £27,500, making a total of £134,453. The Controller contended that there had been improvements since the vessels on which he based his data were bought, but the fact was they were built only just before, during 1861 and 1862. The Controller also said that some of the vessels had machinery, and some not; but there was not one of these vessels that had not machinery. He (Mr. Seely) had referred on a former occasion to the expenditure by the Admiralty since 1841 of £170,000 more for anchors than the market price. In the correspondence he found no reply to that assertion. He observed that this was a grave charge against a public Department, and that the Admiralty should clear themselves from it if they could. The right hon. Baronet made no definite reply, but it was intimated to him that there was no market price for anchors. Now, he (Mr. Seely) had brought down the price-lists of no less than thirteen anchor-makers during a series of years, and if the right hon. Baronet liked to look at them they were at his service. The right hon. Baronet continued—
  "The hon. Gentleman told us last year that the Admiralty anchor was almost the worst in existence, and that the result of an inquiry before a Committee was that of eight different descriptions of anchor the Admiralty anchor was found to be the worst except one. The Admiralty anchor to which he then referred was, however, a different one from that now in use, which has been very much altered and very much improved in its construction by the makers Messrs. Brown, Lenox, & Co."—[3 Hansard, clxxxv. 607.]
  Since that statement was made he had gone down to Woolwich with his hon. Friend the Member for Rye—who was a captain in the Navy, and knew much more about anchors than the right hon. Gentleman—and with two other gentlemen who were competent to give an opinion. They saw anchors that were made previous to 1853, when the Committee in question reported, and anchors made up to 1865, and they came to the conclusion that there was no practical difference between them. The right hon. Baronet complained that he should make—
  "These charges and complaints of extravagance, which excite an outcry from one end of the country to the other, by means of figures which I believe to be entirely erroneous."
  Now, there were only two modes of putting an end to these complaints. One was by refusing to give any opportunity of ascertaining what was going on by holding back re-

  895
  turns, and by so publishing accounts as to prevent hon. Members from discovering the truth; and the other was the simpler and wiser course of removing the grounds upon which these complaints were made. He was glad to have done with these personal matters, but they really bore upon the more important part of the Motion he had to make to the House, namely—the appointment of the Select Committee to investigate the accounts of the Department, and especially the manner in which they are prepared, for it appeared that Sir John Pakington had stated that the Frederick William had cost £197,000, the Controller £258,000, and he (Mr. Seely) £281,000; and surely if accounts could reveal such different results to different people they required investigation. Now, it appeared to him that what was required in accounts was that they should be clear, should show all the money that was received, and what was done with it. There were four main accounts connected with the Admiralty—the Navy Estimates, the Navy Savings and Deficiencies, the Manufacturing Account, and the Navy Ships' Account. Now, the Navy Estimates did not tell what amount was required for shipbuilding. They gave a total of wages paid to seamen and marines for 1867–8 of £2,900,952, and a total for victuals and clothing of £1,241,614; but they did not tell how much was wanted for shipbuilding. He defied any hon. Member of that House, he defied the cleverest accountant in London, or even the First Lord of the Admiralty himself, to take any of the past Estimates and point out how much money was required for shipbuilding. Now, the first point which he would submit to a Committee was, whether it was not desirable that the Admiralty should state distinctly how much money they asked for shipbuilding purposes, then it would be seen that items were excluded which ought to have been included in those accounts? Then there was the Savings and Deficiencies Account, which showed the money expended as contradistinguished from the money Vote; then the Manufacturing Account, which gave details of the various articles made; and, lastly, the Navy Ships' Account, which was an account of the expenses incurred on Her Majesty's ships, building, converting, repairing, and fitting during the financial year. In the financial year 1865–6 there were, perhaps, 800 ships building, converting, repairing, and fitting, upon which money had been expended; but in not a
  896
  single instance was the cost correctly given. The whole expenditure might be divided into three heads—first, wages paid to shipwrights, amounting in 1865–6 to £586,786; secondly, materials, £843,534; and thirdly, indirect charges, £956,216. Now, the wages paid to shipwrights and part of the cost of materials bought were charged correctly; but the cost of materials which were manufactured in the dockyards, such as timber and converted iron, could not, according to the mode in which the Admiralty accounts were kept be correctly given, because they had one rate book price which was made up of the accounts from all the seven dockyards. As an instance of the difference of the cost of the same article in different dockyards, he would just give the cost of three topsail yards. It appeared that in 1863–4 three topsail yards at Portsmouth cost £434; the charged rate price was £150, or too little by £284. At Devonport there were two lower masts charged £63; they only cost £33, so that they were charged £30 too much. And these charges were all lumped together in the several dockyards, and the average price taken. The figures he had given were admitted by the Admiralty to be correct. At Portsmouth in 1862–3 there were three launches built at a cost of £655; they were charged at ships' rate price, £415, or £240 too little; boats fitted cost £1,593; the rate price charged was £799. He held in his hand a whole list of different articles, in which masts cost £377, while the rate price charged was £228; topgallant yards charged £421, while the cost was £632; topsail yards charged £150, the cost being £434, and so on. At Devonport, generally speaking, the cost and the rate-book price were the same. He now came to indirect charges which formed a lump sum of £956,166 in the Estimates of 1867–8. They were altogether incorrectly charged. They were all lumped in the several yards and then charged pro ratâ over the different dockyards—even to the extent of distributing them over the foreign yards. As an example of the ridiculous manner in which the accounts were kept he might state that salaries and expenses abroad were 92½ per cent on wages, while those at home were only 22½ per cent. Abroad, yard and factory wages were £46,773, salaries and expenses £40,379; ships were charged £10,000, as part of the indirect charges, it should be more by £30,000. At home, yard and factory wages were £1,064,635,

  897
  salaries and expenses £223,141, ships were charged as part of indirect charges £253,000 or £30,000 too much. Then in our yards at home he found that, while at Deptford yard and factory the wages were £47,879, and the salaries, &c., £13,164 or 28 per cent, at Chatham the wages were £182,000, and the salaries, &c., 17½ per cent. Such accounts, he submitted, were perfectly misleading. Sir James Graham, one of the ablest Administrators who had ever sat in that House, when examined before the Royal Commission, used these words—
  "An account misrepresenting values is infinitely more dangerous than no account at all. An imperfect account is, in my humble judgment, infinitely worse than none."
  And now he (Mr. Seely) came to the Manufacturing accounts, with regard to which he was obliged to refer chiefly to the years 1862–3–4, because, since his hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) was taken from the office he had filled so well, the accounts had become very meagre, and what was formerly given in five pages was now compressed into as many lines. There was a great advantage in being able to check the cost of particular articles, and that was illustrated by his being able to point out to the Admiralty some years ago, in consequence of the detailed accounts, that they were in the habit of charging iron in the dockyard in such a manner that that which cost 10 s. a cwt. was charged 5s. to one class of forgings and 35 s. a cwt. to another. He might be told that in giving those charges in detail considerable expense would be incurred, but he submitted that the Controller must have these charges brought before him, if he were to exercise any check at all over the cost, and then all the additional expense for furnishing the House with details would be the cost of printing, which would be a very proper matter for the consideration of the Committee. Many of the charges in particular shops—such as the wages of the foremen of smitheries, inspector of smiths, and so on—were not charged to those shops, but were lumped together, and formed part of the £956,216 charged for ships building, converting, and repairing, so that it appeared that a portion of the cost of the foremen of smitheries at Portsmouth and Devonport was charged to a ship repaired at Malta. He would next briefly call attention to the many changes which had been made in the mode of preparing the accounts. In 1864, according
  898
  to the method in which the accounts were placed before the House, the excess of cost over rate book was stated at 2¾ per cent; but a sum of about £800,000 had been charged for articles having no rate book price, and if that sum were deducted the excess would probably amount to 5 per cent. From 1858 to 1861 the wages and materials used upon ships first appeared in the accounts as forming the whole of the Admiralty stated cost of such ships. In 1861–2 an addition was made of about 20 per cent for different and further charges, and in 1864–5 a further addition was made of 20 per cent for other items, so that no less than 40 per cent was added in the course of a few years. The effect of this was, that ships put down in the accounts as costing at one period (in 1858·9 for instance) £1,507,212, would be put down at another period (that is in 1864–5 or 1865·6) as having cost no less than £2,118,213. He came now to the sums which ought to be included in the cost of ships, and here he would remark that Sir James Graham expressed his opinion before the Committee of 1861 that "the account will be imperfect unless every kind of charge which a shipowner would bring to book is carried to account." But how far had the Admiralty acted on that opinion? In the first place not a single shilling was charged to ships in respect of constructors and clerks, whereas private shipbuilders had paid designers, whose salaries were paid by the vessels built by them, Then there were pensions to artificers and clerks, amounting to £176,000 upon an average of the last thirty-five years; and he apprehended that a fair and reasonable charge would be about £127,500, but, notwithstanding this, he believed an attempt would be made on the part of the Admiralty to fix this item at £52,501—a rather odd proceeding—though he was aware that the Government had consulted Mr. Finlaison on the subject, and he had recommended that £50,000 should be charged. Another question which might properly engage the attention of the Committee was whether £44,787 was a sufficient amount to charge for interest upon a total capital in plant and stores of £18,000,000, which, at 3½ per cent, would be £630,000. As to depreciation, 5 per cent, and sometimes 10 per cent was charged in private yards, and though in the Admiralty accounts of last year there was a charge under that head of £78,187—and he acknowledged that it was a step in the right direction—the sum

  899
  was hardly sufficient. As a proof of the desirability of having the accounts presented in a form not quite so misleading he mentioned that the Duke of Somerset had stated in a pamphlet and in speeches that during the five or six years he was at the Admiralty there had been expended £10,000,000 exclusive of machinery and ships of war, whereas in those years there had actually been expended £14,000,000, the difference being due to the exclusion by the noble Duke of the indirect charges to which he (Mr. Seely) had alluded. Last year the House voted £888,588 for the purpose of new works, machinery, repairs of plant, &c., and the expenditure for new works for the last thirteen years had averaged about £600,000 yearly. A considerable part of this was strictly for shipbuilding and manufacturing plant—therefore it would be seen that the sum charged by the Admiralty to ships for interest and replacement of plant was too little; still this was certainly a step in the right direction. Before he drew attention to the matter, no charge was ever made even for repairs of plant, but the Admiralty now admitted that the actual expenditure for repairs ought to be included in the accounts. Probably there would be a repetition of the old argument—that we must always have our dockyards in an efficient state, in order that they might be useful to us and capable of great extension in time of war; but he wished to point out that during the last nine years we had spent on the average about £440,000 a year in buying ships. That was a proof that our dockyards had not been too extensive for our present wants, for he could hardly believe that the Admiralty would have allowed their plant and their men to remain idle while they were purchasing ships. Then as regards the application of the monies voted by Parliament for the use of the Admiralty, he thought it was a fair question to submit to a Committee, whether it were wise that the Admiralty should pay £29 per ton for gunboats constructed in their own yards when they could purchase them at from £20 to £24 per ton, which would make in one instance a difference of £4,000 in the price. He might mention that Mr. Thompson, of Glasgow, who constructed boats for the Cunard Company, and therefore presumably a very respectable builder, had constructed gunboats at about £25 per ton. There was another point which might be advantageously referred to the consideration of a Select Committee.
  900
  Some time ago he asked the noble Lord the Secretary to the Admiralty (Lord Henry Lennox) for a Return of the cost of chain cables, and the House granted the Return; but he was subsequently informed by the noble Lord that its publication would be injurious to the public service. Under these circumstances, of course, he gave way and did not press for the Return; but he could not help expressing his belief on the present occasion that the noble Lord had been deceived, and that the contract with Brown, Lenox, and Co., for chain cables, ought to be investigated in the same way as their contracts for anchors. He (Mr. Seely) would now call attention to the articles which the Admiralty sold to friendly Powers, merchant ships, and private individuals. With regard to articles sold to friendly Powers, it appeared that 10 per cent over the rate—that is, the average cost of the raw materials or labour—was charged, and 20 per cent for those sold to private individuals for merchant ships, 10 per cent extra being charged for freight if abroad. The goods so sold during the five years 1861–2 and 1865–6 produced £272,065. Now, the indirect charges on all materials, bought or made, and on labour in ships, was in 1864–5 38¾ per cent, and in 1865–6, according to the Admiralty's own account, 60 per cent. Assuming the percentage between 1861 and 1864 to have been the same as in 1864–5, the actual indirect charges on these articles had been £101,999, whereas the 10 per cent charged to friendly Powers only came to £24,727; so that had all the articles been so disposed of the transactions would give a loss of £77,272. If, on the other hand, they had all been sold to private persons, the 20 per cent charged amounted to £47,205, while the real indirect charges were £92,726, showing a loss of £45,521. Taking the mean between these alternatives, the loss on these transactions had been £61,396, or £12,279 per annum. Now, he had no wish that the Admiralty should make a profit by their transactions, but he did not think that they should sell at a loss of £12,000 a year. These were the main facts which had induced him to ask for a Committee. They certainly had not any regular account for the money that the Admiralty asked for shipbuilding, and the consequence was that they could make the accounts more or less as it pleased them. During the last five or six years there had

  901
  been three different methods of keeping the accounts, and it was high time that a proper system should be introduced. The Royal Commissioners reported in favour of their being kept so as to show the exact cost of each ship, believing that an emulation in economy would thus be excited between the different dockyards; and the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Pakington), when examined before the Committee of 1861, admitted the justice of that conclusion. Unless the accounts of each dockyard were kept separately, it was impossible to arrive at the exact cost of ships; but if that separation were made it would probably be found expedient to give up or disuse one or two of the yards. Lord Clarence Paget, in his evidence before the Commissioners, stated that superintendents should be informed of the cost of vessels in each yard, and that the Board should promote those who were found to manage economically. If, however, these expenses were lumped together and distributed pro ratâ over all the ships, and if the same course were taken with the greater portion of the materials, the accounts thus "mingled and muddled" were useless, and it was impossible to compare the cost of articles manufactured in our dockyards with that of similar articles manufactured by the private trade. Mr. Walker, the head of the Audit Office, in his evidence last year before the Committee on Public Accounts, admitted that as the store accounts were not examined by that office, the Admiralty might make presents of their stores right and left without any check whatever upon them. Surely this state of things required amendment. How this Motion would be met he did not know. The statements he had made could not be controverted; but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Corry) would probably adopt the course usually taken by officials when not disposed to concede what was required, and would urge delay, and promise to make an investigation. There had, however, been too much delay, and he hoped the House would not tolerate any more. The Duke of Somerset, before the Committee of 1861, said—
  "My opinion is that the accounts are not yet perfect; but, in his report, Mr. Anderson states that up to 1830, for 100 years, the accounts had been more imperfect than they had begun to be from that time. From that time the accounts began to improve, and they have gone on improving at different times; so that, although the accounts are far from perfect, I believe that anyone who looks into them now, and looke dinto
  902
  them in former days, will say that, with all their imperfections, they are better than they have been before."
  Only three months previously, however, the Royal Commission, of which the Duke was a member, reported that the system of accounts, though elaborate and minute, was not to be relied upon for any practical purpose, and with this opinion he himself (Mr. Seely) fully agreed. There ought to be no difficulty nor any difference of opinion as to the proper way of keeping accounts; and there were hundreds of men in the metropolis, and many doubtless in the House, who could accomplish so simple a task. It might be difficult to manage a large dockyard or a large manufacturing establishment, but there surely was no difficulty in rendering clear accounts.
  Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire and report (1st) as to the application of Monies voted by Parliament for the use of the Admiralty, and (2ndly) as to the Accounts of the Department, and more especially as to the method in which they should be prepared for presentation to this House."—(Mr. Seely.)
  MR. CORRYsaid, the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Seely) was reminded last year by his hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) that criticism, if it were unjust or exaggerated, lost more than half its value. Now, he (Mr. Corry) must say that he never heard a criticism more unjust or more exaggerated than that in which the hon. Member had indulged, as to the cost of the Frederick William, or anything more unsustainable than his statement as to the cost at which a similar ship could be built in a private yard. He wished to remind the House what the statement of the hon. Member to his constituents was respecting the cost of the Frederick William. He stated in his speech at Lincoln—
  "The Frederick William cost—adding the items which a private shipbuilder would have to charge—the sum of £281,691, in building. She could have been built for £134,453, so that the loss on that transaction was £147,138."—[Cries of" Shame!" and laughter.]
  Now, the gentlemen the hon. Member addressed had, probably, very little idea of what ought to be the cost of building a screw line-of-battle ship in a dockyard, or what the coat of the same description of vessel would be in a private yard. But what excited their indignation and merriment, was the statement that work which could have been done for £134,453 in a private yard, should have cost in a dock-

  903
  yard £281,000. But when the hon. Member (Mr. Seely) made this statement he was absolutely ignorant of the thing he was criticizing. He had no conception of what sort of ship the Frederick William was. He thought she was built originally as a screw vessel; for what did the hon. Gentleman's secretary, Mr. Fellowes, admit in the Papers which had been laid before Parliament? He said that the hon. Member for Lincoln "was not aware she was a converted vessel, nor that she had been from twenty-four to twenty-six years under conversion." The hon. Member was perfectly ignorant of all this, and yet now, when he knew it, he still persisted in the accuracy of his figures. Such a course on the part of an hon. Gentleman who claimed to be so precise in matters of account hardly came within his comprehension. What was the work done to the Frederick William, over and above building her as a screw line-of-battle ship? Was she laid down in 1841 as a two-decker? No such thing, but as a three-decker; and the average cost, as he (Mr. Corry) knew, of building a three-decker in those days was £25,000 more than that of building a two-decker. She was not only laid down as a three-decker, but perfectly completed as such in her hull, with the single exception of her fittings; and on this vessel so built as a three-decker, £84,000 had been expended, as appeared from the figures furnished by the Controller, on which the hon. Member's calculation was based. And yet, although now knowing that this sum had been spent upon her as a three-decker before she was taken in hand for conversion, the hon. Gentleman still said that his figures and comparison were correct, and that the same work would have cost only £134,000 if done by the private trade. The hon. Member dealt with such large figures that he (Mr. Corry) supposed he considered such a trifle as £84,000 to be beneath his notice. In 1850, circumstances had occurred, which justified the Admiralty of the day in not completing the Frederick William as a three-decker. As he was at the Admiralty from 1841 to 1846, he could say of his own knowledge that the Board to which he belonged left behind them four line-of-battle ships in course of conversion into screw vessels. They were shortly afterwards tried with such satisfactory results that the Admiralty in 1850 did well to hesitate before going on with the building of sailing three-deckers. The suspension, therefore, of the comple-
  904
  tion of the Frederick William, as originally designed, which was one of the things for which the Admiralty of that day had been blamed, was a very proper measure, although her conversion was necessarily attended with a great loss of labour and materials. A whole deck, with the poop and forecastle had to be removed. She was cut down to a two-decker, her form was altered by lengthening her for the screw, which added nearly 200 tons to her burden. She was then finished at a total cost of £197,000, which included fittings and stores of all descriptions, and her maintenance for a considerable period in the Reserve, and yet the hon. Gentleman, who was ignorant of all this when he made his comparison, still asserted that the cost of a ship so treated was to be fairly compared with that of a ship built ab initio—as a screw vessel by the private trade—which he imagined could be done for £134,453. He (Mr. Corry) thought that was not a fair or just criticism. If he had been in the hon. Gentleman's place when he had made such a mistake, he would have written to the Controller of the Navy, and admitted his error. But the hon. Gentleman, while he admitted through his secretary his ignorance of the thing he was criticizing, still thought proper to adhere to his criticism. He said that the capital account of a ship was not closed until she was put into commission; and, therefore, he put down everything from the laying down to putting her into commission, as included in the cost of building the ship. Now, this appeared to him (Mr. Corry) to be a mere quibble. Everyone knew that in the building of a ship, anchors, tanks, sails, masts, yards, rigging, and stores of all descriptions, were not included. Yet, the cost of all these articles, as well as the maintenance of the ship in the Reserve, was added by the hon. Member to the cost of building her, because, according to the technical mode of keeping the Admiralty accounts, the capital account was not closed until the ship was commissioned. But now he would go on to the hon. Gentleman's statement that a ship similar to the Frederick William could be built for £134,000 in a private yard. If he had not the Papers before him, he should wonder how the hon. Gentleman arrived at such a conclusion, because no existing private shipbuilder had ever built a line-of-battle ship, and therefore none could say off-hand at what cost he would

  905
  undertake to build such a ship. There was a time when line-of-battle ships were built in private yards. During the great war forty line-of-battle ships were built by private shipbuilders, and they were known by the name of the "Forty Thieves" on account of the quantity of money they ran away with. Did the hon. Gentleman suppose that if the Controller of the Navy went to the trade and asked them what they would build a line-of-battle ship for, they would not first ask to see his specifications? They would say "We have never built a line-of-battle ship, and we do not know anything about your scantling, your magazines, your bulkheads, your gun fittings, and other arrangements." And yet the hon. Gentleman jumped to the conclusion that the private trade would build such a ship for £134,000. Now, on what ground did he make that statement? By inference alone. He instanced certain small ships that had cost £22 10 s. per ton, and £7 6s. 4d. for equipment. And then he said that Mr. Eyde added an additional cost for line-of-battle ships of £3 3s. 8d., making a total of £33 per ton. The hon. Member's calculation was entirely a question of inference. He omitted to state that even of the ships he had enumerated, the Fenella and Hunter were never completed, and that the other two, the Jasper and the Jaseur, cost an additional £4 3s. per ton each, to complete in the dockyards. He would now state one or two facts to disprove the hon. Gentleman's inferences, and to show that he was wrong in thinking the Frederick William could have been built for the sum mentioned in private yards. First there were two troopships—the Tamar and the Orontes—built in 1861 by contract. The tenders for these ships varied from £21 10 s. to £30 2s. per ton. One was built for £26 18 s. 4d., and the other for £28 7s. 4d. Additional claims were made by the contractors—in the one case for £13,801, and in the other for £21,855. These claims were not recognized by the Admiralty, because they held the contractors to the terms of their contract, but they believed that the contractors were this money out of pocket. The total for hulls, incomplete and without equipment, would have been £89,483 in the one case, and £101,618 in the other. Including engines—which were purchased by the Admiralty from other contractors—and masts, yards, rigging, and stores, which were supplied by the
  906
  dockyards, the total cost came in the one case to £130,601, and in the other to £138,693, being, exclusive of various fittings afterwards added in the dockyards, in one case £46 4s. 6d. per ton, and in the other £49 3s. per ton. Yet, although these ships were not vessels of the scantling, and with the fittings of line-of-battle ships, the hon. Member said that a ship like the Frederick William could have been built complete for £41 9s. 8d. There was another case still stronger. The five India troopships were built by contract in 1865. Their tonnage averaged 4,173 tons. The average payment to contractors was £46 14 s. per ton. This amount was raised by additional work in the dockyards to £50 6s. per ton. The contractors in this case also declared that they had lost by the transaction; yet the hon. Gentleman said that a screw liner, with scantling and fittings, which were very costly, for heavy guns, could be built for £41 9s. 8d. per ton, which would be the rate for a Frederick William, including engines, at the cost of £134,000. But let it be assumed for a moment that the ship in question could have been built for £134,000. The price of a thing proved nothing. Price must be considered with reference to value. You could buy almost any article at any price; but it did not follow that because a thing was low in price it was therefore cheap, or because it was high in price that it was therefore dear. A philosopher of antiquity said we ought never to predicate happiness of a man until after his death, because, however prosperous the first part of his life might have been, he might afterwards suffer misfortune greater than his former prosperity would compensate. So he would say of a ship, do not predicate anything about her cheapness until you know something of her latter end. It was very important to show that ships which were the cheapest in the first instance were not always very cheap in the end, because the object of the hon. Member was to drive the country into building its ships of war by contract instead of in the dockyards. [Mr. SEELY: I never said any such thing.] The hon. Gentleman observed last year that if the country wished to build its ships in the dockyards let it do so, but let it do it with its eyes open, and know that it cost (he believed he said), 50 per cent more than in a private yard—and he thought that was much the same thing as trying to induce the country to give up building

  907
  in the dockyards. The subject was not new to him (Mr. Corry). When he was Civil Lord of the Admiralty, in 1843, he wrote a paper, of which he held a copy in his hand, upon the state of the dockyards, which was printed for the use of the Cabinet, and which led to the undertaking of many important works. In that paper he referred to the great loss sustained in consequence of the enormous cost of repairing ships in ordinary. His argument was that the longer a ship remained on the slip, the better, because the more the wood would be seasoned and the longer the ship would last. He referred to 38 line-of-battle ships, of the age of 25 years and upwards, which were then on the sea-going list. Twelve of these belonged to the unfortunate ships once known as "The Forty hieves." The average price of these was £54,500; but these contract-built ships soon began to show signs of decay, and they cost on an average £59,476 in repairs in the first 12 years of their existence; in other words, their repairs in 12 years exceeded their first cost by £4,976, and in 12 years a total of £113,976 was expended on the average upon each of them. On the other hand, the average cost of the dockyard-built ships was £63,131, and the average cost of repairs in from 25 to 30 years was £40,000, making their total average cost in that time £103,131 each. It, there fore, appeared that the dearly built dockyard ships cost on the average £10,000 less in 25 years than the cheaply built contract ships cost in 12 years. The hon. Member would say, "These are references to old times; you must not judge of the present by such antiquated illustrations." Well, between 1859 and 1861, 12 small ships were built by contract at £23 a ton, and the hon. Gentleman, in the paper which he had submitted to him at their interview, contrasted them with six dockyard-built ships, which he estimated to have cost £39 per ton by the addition of his 35 per cent for incidental charges. Of the 12 cheaply-built contract ships five had disappeared altogether, being found too rotten to be repaired, after an average service of five years; one was about to be broken up—
  MR. SEELYwished to know the authority from which the right hon. Gentleman derived his figures?
  MR. CORRYsaid, he was quoting from a statement which the hon. Member had put into his hands at the interview he had the pleasure of having with him at the
  908
  Admiralty a few days ago. Of these 12 ships, five were broken up after an average of five years' service, being too rotten to repair, one was now under orders to be broken up from the same cause, and the six survivors, of which the contract price was £9,844 each, had each, on the average, cost £7,200 in repairs. So much as to positive facts in relation to ships built by contract. The whole of the six extravagant dockyard ships built at the same time were still in the service, and the expenditure on them for repairs had been only on the average £3,968 each. It was, however, useful to inquire not only what ships cost to build, but how they broke up, and what was their comparative condition at their last stage. To obtain information on this point he wrote to an eminent ship-breaker in the West of England, who had broken up a great number of Her Majesty's ships, some built in the dockyards and others by contract. The answer to the letter of inquiry was as follows:—
  "SIR,—In answer to your letter of the 14th instant, we most respectfully beg to inform you, from our experience in breaking up Her Majesty's ships, we have found, as a rule, those built in the dockyards are considerably superior to those built by contract, as in many instances in the contract-built ships we find the timbers defective and very rotten, which we consider arose from the timber being used before it was properly seasoned."
  The interest on timber kept to season in the dockyards was one of the charges against dockyard-built ships, which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Seely) adduced as proof of Admiralty extravagance.
  "And as regards the fastenings in the contract-built ships, we found a great many dummies, or short copper bolts only partially driven into the plank, and not through the timbers as they should have been; and even the knee-bolts in some instances were only three or four inches long, which is a very serious thing, and the work generally in the building these ships was of a much rougher class than those built in the dockyard, more especially in the framing."
  He had a letter from the shipwright officers at Chatham confirmatory of this opinion, derived from the breaking up of contract ships in that yard; but he would not occupy the time of the House by reading it, as greater weight would be attached to what was said by a gentleman wholly independent of the Admiralty. He had no intention of disputing the accuracy of the figures as to the cost of the work executed on the Frederick William, assuming that the hon. Member's principle was correct, but he wholly dissented from

  909
  that principle; and, indeed, he dissented from the admissions in respect of percentages and other charges made by the Accountant General of the Navy, who, he believed, had since seen his error in making them. The hon. Member wanted to charge interest upon all the plant, buildings, docks, basins machinery, the stock of timber, and every article in store while a ship was in course of building. It was true that a private shipbuilder must do so, because he acted upon the principle of supply and demand, profit and loss, and he must suffer if he provided more docks and slips or kept a larger stock of timber and other articles in store than he required for his immediate purpose. But the Admiralty did not and could not conduct their dockyard affairs upon strictly commercial principles, and they would utterly neglect their first duty if they were to do so. They were obliged to be prepared at all times for the emergency of war, and to maintain the dockyards and the stock of various articles of store, and the establishments, on a corresponding scale of preparation. What would be our position if we had to commence the building of docks and basins when war broke out, and when the additional accommodation required would be indispensable to the maintenance of the efficiency of the fleet? It was absolutely necessary that this accommodation should be provided beforehand; and to charge the interest of their cost on the limited amount of work executed in time of peace would be most unreasonable. They were in the nature of an insurance made for the protection and safety of the country, and it was impossible to deal with them on commercial principles. The Admiralty had charged the sum of £47,000 against the ships in 1864–5, as interest, at 3 per cent, on final productions of the yards, which he thought was not an unreasonable or unfair charge; but he totally denied the right of the hon. Gentleman to calculate those charges on the principle he had adopted. The House should remember that the charges by means of which the hon. Member had made the work in the dockyards appear to be so extravagant were only assumed charges, and that not one shilling of public money had actually been expended on the Frederick William beyond the £197,000 specified in the printed correspondence, although the hon. Member, by one of his methods of calculation, made her to have cost £332,000, which he could only call figures run mad. He would
  910
  give an illustration to show the absurdity of the principle which the hon. Member had laid down. When he was first appointed to the Admiralty in the year 1841, a frigate of fifty guns—the Worcester, was occupying a slip in Deptford Dockyard. Not having being wanted for immediate service, instead of being launched she was left to season on the slip by way of experiment, and there she remained for the period of about eighteen years. If she had been launched immediately on completion, she would have been sent up the Medway to form part of the Reserve, which it is necessary to maintain in sufficient force to meet the emergency of war, and the process of decay would have commenced from the moment she was put into the water. Calculated at the average rate, if she had been required for service at the end of the eighteen years, she would have required little short of half her first cost, which was about £40,000, to put her in a sea-going condition; but, in consequence of having been left on the slip, instead of being launched, the actual estimate for the repairs she required when launched was only £162. Therefore on that one frigate by that experiment there had been a saving of about £20,000 in hard money, which would otherwise have had to be voted in the Navy Estimates. The example of France was constantly held out to us for imitation, and the system of allowing ships to linger on the stocks, as it was now reproachfully called, was universally adopted in the French Navy in the days of sailing ships. In order to carry out this system, and thus avoid the enormous expense occasioned by the repair of a large reserve of ships afloat, the French increased the number of their building slips from 28 to 111; and their practice was to allow their line-of-battle ships and frigates to remain on the stocks, like the Worcester, completed up to 22–24ths until required for service. The example of the Worcester was an illustration of the saving which was thus effected; but, according to the hon. Member's principle, this was all a mistake, because some imaginary percentages which he would have charged against her on account of plant, buildings, machinery, and other such items during eighteen years, would amount to perhaps more than what had been saved in hard money on the score of repairs. It really appeared to him that this was an absurdity. Again, before the days of armourclad ships, a great number of ships were

  911
  built at Pembroke because it was the cheapest yard. There were thirteen slips at Pembroke, and on every one of them, in former days, a ship was usually being built; but on visiting that yard last year he found that in consequence of the introduction of iron-clads, and the great labour and expense of building them, instead of all the thirteen slips being occupied, only four of them were in use. Now, according to the hon. Member, the interest on the whole cost of everything connected with the yard, including the nine unoccupied slips, ought to be lumped together and charged to the four ships in course of construction; and he would exclaim, "Look, what fearful extravagance there is going on in Pembroke yard!" But did the hon. Gentleman suppose that any Board of Admiralty would be so destitute of common sense as to abstain from building ships at Pembroke merely because by his peculiar mode of calculation he thought he made out that it was attended with enormous cost, while, in reality, the work was done there cheaper than in any other yard? He thought the illustrations he had given were a proof of the fallacy of the principle on which the hon. Gentleman insisted. The hon. Member had entered into a great number of figures with his usual ability and clearness; but the House would be glad to hear that it was not his intention to follow him through his labyrinth of figures. He would, however, refer to one or two of the hon. Member's assertions. One of them was that in the Navy Estimates there was no statement of what was wanted for shipbuilding purposes. The explanation of that was this—if they looked at the programme of works published with the Navy Estimates they would see there every ship which was about to be built in the dockyards, the amount of work which was to be done on each, and also the number of men who were to be employed. They would likewise see in that programme the list of ships which were to be repaired; but it was impossible to fix beforehand the number of men and the amount of work required, as some of the ships had not returned home from foreign service at the time when the programme was being made out, and the repairs wanted, with the consequent amount of work required, were therefore unknown. The programme, however, always stated the number of men who were to be set aside for repairs. With respect to contract-built ships, the Admiralty purposely abstained from stating the amount
  912
  estimated to be spent upon them, and for the obvious reason that if they put down a certain sum for particular ships there would be very little chance of many of the tenders being under that sum. Then, the hon. Gentleman said they did not charge enough in their accounts for pensions, and differed on that point from Mr. Finlaison, a high authority in such matters. The hon. Member took the amount of the pensions now payable, and he included those given to artificers who were building ships forty or fifty years ago, making out a total of £127,000. Mr. Finlaison reckoned this item at 7 per cent on the wages, and placed it at £52,000. For himself, he (Mr. Corry) confessed that he doubted the strict accuracy of charging those pensions to the cost of building the ships. The Admiralty experienced no difficulty in obtaining any number of hired men at the ordinary rates of wages without offering them pensions; but the pensions were given, partly perhaps, from a feeling that it would not be humane to turn them adrift in their old age, and partly on political grounds, to prevent the men from striking for higher wages in times of war or other emergency. He concurred with the hon. Member in his criticism as to the advisability of keeping separate accounts for each dockyard, and had already given directions that the forthcoming accounts should be prepared in that form. With regard to the incidental charges, the Admiralty estimated them at 3 per cent to be added to the cost of building, fitting, and repairing ships, as the final productions of the yards. Then, in justification of his theory, that interest on the whole of the plant, buildings, &c., should be charged on the limited amount of work executed in time of peace, the hon. Member said they spent £400,000 a year in buying ships, which showed that they had not enough building accommodation. The answer to that was that means had been provided for building iron ships at only two of the dockyards—Pembroke and Chatham, and it was on iron ships that the greater part of the £400,000 was expended. Moreover, the buildings and other works in the dockyards had not all relation to shipbuilding, but included accommodation for the repairing of ships, the docking of ships, and the maintenance of ships in ordinary, which ought not to be charged against the cost of shipbuilding. With respect to anchors, the hon. Member talked of their market price, but there was no market price or contract for five-ton Ad-

  913
  miralty anchors. Besides, what was the value of anchors purchased at the market price? He would give an illustration. A few years ago two ships were purchased for the service and they had twelve anchors between them which were supplied by the private trade, but only four out of the twelve were found to stand the Admiralty test. The remaining eight were rejected. As to the price of anchors, the whole question between them and the hon. Member involved a difference of only £7,000 a year—a very small rate of insurance for the country to pay for the safety of Her Majesty's valuable ships, and the still more valuable lives of their crews. Then, the hon. Gentleman said they did not charge enough for the articles they sold to friendly Powers; but it was their practice in these cases to add 10 per cent on contract articles, and 22 per cent on dockyard articles sold to foreign countries. The hon. Gentleman said they did not make a profit, and that they ought to charge 60 per cent. If they could do that they would drive "a roaring trade," but he feared they would find few customers. At present they charged quite enough to cover any loss they might incur in the manufacture. As to the criticisms of the hon. Member on the dockyard accounts, he had to observe that much of the hon. Gentleman's information was obtained from the improved form of the very accounts he was criticizing, which had been introduced by the hon. Gentlemen opposite (Mr. Childers and Mr. Stansfeld) when they were at the Admiralty; and he would leave it to those two hon. Members to make such observations on the subject as they might think necessary. He would, however, state that, with a view to the better preparation of those accounts, his right hon. Friend the late First Lord (Sir John Pakington) had contemplated a separate office in connection with the Controller's Department. When that right hon. Gentleman was First Lord, and he himself was Secretary to the Admiralty, in 1858, their attention was turned to the subject. Sir Richard Bromley was consulted, and the whole matter was very fully considered. There was at that time a difference of opinion as to whether the Department of the Accountant General or that of the Controller was the one which should be charged with the preparation of the accounts. The Board affirmed the views of the Accountant General, thinking that the accounts should not be prepared in the Department which spent the money, but by an independent authority. That
  914
  view was confirmed by Sir James Graham, and had been acted on ever since. Having been himself a party to the arrangement made in 1858, he had felt some doubt as to the policy of detaching those accounts from the Accountant General's Department, and creating a new office for their preparation in more immediate connection with the Controller's department, and having considered the whole question with the heads of the Departments, he thought it advisable to adopt an arrangement differing in form from that proposed last year by his right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington), and yet fulfilling all its important objects. The arrangement which had been decided upon would, he thought, secure greater simplicity; while it would be equally efficient in providing a control over dockyard expense and charges. It appeared to him and his Colleagues that as the Controller, the Accountant General, and the Storekeeper were all concerned, and that as their independent action had not conduced to uniformity and simplicity, both the one and the other of these two objects could be promoted by the constitution of a Committee consisting of those three principal officers, who would report, in the first instance, whether the present basis and form of dockyard accounts realized their purpose, and whose conjoint action would secure more complete uniformity and simplicity in the preparation of the accounts. These accounts would be initiated in the Department of the Accountant General, subject to his supervision and that of the two other principal officers, by whom they would be signed before being laid before Parliament. In connection with this Committee a new officer (Mr. H. Walker, a Gentleman whose ability was well known to many hon. Members) had been appointed as Assistant to the Accountant General, and his duty would be to exercise a supervision over the expense accounts, and to bring all questions relating thereto before the Committee, and also to audit the cash accounts of the Navy, so as to insure harmony between the cash expenditure upon dockyard labour and materials and the charges for these services as recorded in the expense accounts. In order to assist that officer and to secure his undivided time and experience in the conduct of the dockyard account business, he had appointed to the office of inspector of the yard accounts Mr. Henry Brady, the present Accountant of Devonport dockyard, who had been selected on account of his

  915
  peculiar fitness for the appointment. His relationship would be common to the Controller of the Navy, the Accountant General, and the Storekeeper General; and in the performance of his duties regard would be had to the requirements of these three officers. Without some such common agreement as would be thus secured, it appeared to him that it would be difficult to prepare these accounts in a satisfactory manner without the loss of much time and labour in intercommunications between the three Departments and between them and the dockyards. His intention was to lay before Parliament the Report of the Committee of the principal officers which would suggest the basis on which the accounts should in future be kept and presented to Parliament, with the view of referring it to the Committee on Public Accounts, of which the hon. Member for Lincoln was a member, who would be invited to report to the House the groundwork for the preparation of a Bill, laying down the conditions and form in which these accounts were to be kept. He thought that the Departmental Committee would be at least as competent to deal with the question as any Committee of the House of Commons, and he would therefore suggest for the consideration of the hon. Gentleman, whether any good would result from the appointment of the latter. At the same time he was so anxious the House should not think that he desired to screen the Admiralty from the most searching inquiry, that he would not object to its appointment if the hon. Gentleman thought it right to persevere in his Motion. He had only one condition to make, and he hoped the hon. Member would not think it unreasonable—namely, that the inquiry of the Committee should be limited to an examination of the accounts in relation to dockyard expenditure—and that it should not go into questions of policy, or of the appropriation by the Admiralty of money voted for general purposes.
  MR. CHILDERShoped the House would allow him to say a few words after the appeal made to him and his hon. Friend (Mr. Stansfeld) by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty. He had, in the first instance, to express his opinion that the thanks of the House were due to his hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Seely) for having on this and former occasions brought forward a subject of so much interest. There was a great difficulty in dealing with this sub-
  916
  ject, for many of its details were very dry, and, at the same time, were calculated to give rise to differences of opinion. But he must say that, though he and others had had to dispute particular conclusions arrived at by his hon. Friend (Mr. Seely), the hon. Gentleman, in his treatment of the question in successive Sessions, had avoided the use of strong or disagreeable language, and of anything which could be offensive to individuals; while by his facts and figures he had raised discussions which must have a beneficial effect. This abstinence from heat in dealing with figures was somewhat rare just now. There had been a time when the odium theologicum was supposed to be the bitterest of all feelings entertained by disputants; but anyone who had read the papers during the last three years must have perceived that quite as angry questions could be raised and squabbled over by accountants as any which had ever engaged priests or philosophers. The real question before the House was as to the expense and manufacturing accounts which were laid upon the table in connection with the proceedings of the Admiralty. What the House had to consider was, how they could improve these accounts, and put them into a more satisfactory state. He thought that the object of these accounts was two-fold—namely, that the Admiralty and the House might be enabled to compare the work of one dockyard with another, and that they might also he enabled to compare the work done in the dockyards with that done in private yards. They wished to know, not whether their servants were pecuniarily honest, but whether they did their work in a satisfactory way? But in dealing with the question they were met by this at the outset—that no accounts of any company or manufacturing department could be compared with those of the Admiralty, so much greater in magnitude were the latter. He had taken some pains to look into various published accounts of large manufacturers, susceptible of comparison with the dockyards, in order to see how they were rendered. He had, for instance, taken the accounts of manufacturing departments of the Army, and compared them, item for item, with those of the Navy, excluding the victualling and clothing in the Navy and the clothing in the Army. He found that in the manufacturing departments of the Army the buildings and plant amounted to £998,000, and the stock of stores to

  917
  £1,040,000, making a total of about £2,000,000. On the other hand, the value of the premises belonging to the Admiralty, with their stores, not including a quantity of stock in a half-manufactured state, amounted to £14,577,967. Going outside of the Government Departments and taking, for the sake of comparison, one of our largest shipowning and repairing companies—the Peninsular and Oriental—he found that the value of the whole of their premises and plant did not amount to more than £319,000, and their stock of stores to not more than £515,000, making a total of only £834,000. Taking, also, the case of one of our greatest railway companies, he ascertained that the whole of the wages and materials employed by it in carrying on its operations in the making and repairing of engines and tenders was only about £260,000, while the Admiralty spent on ships under the corresponding heads £1,800,000. He had quoted those figures simply to show that there were no other establishments in the country rendering detailed accounts which we could well compare with so large a Department as the Admiralty. He would, in the next place, remind the House of what had been done within the last few years to amend the very unsatisfactory state of things which his right hon. Friend opposite had found to exist when he was Secretary to the Admiralty in 1858–9. There were then no accounts of the Admiralty expenditure except the cash appropriation accounts, which were audited by the Audit Commissioners. Any other account was merely casual, being sometimes rendered and sometimes not. Every year since then, however, a progressive improvement in the accounts has been going on. His right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty had pointed out that he began the system of improvement by deciding that an expense account should be prepared by the Department. That was carried still farther in 1860, when Lord Clarence Paget was in office. The whole of the books were put upon a proper system of double entry, and the expense accounts were made out on that system, though they were still very imperfect. This was followed up in the next year by extending the system of dockyard audit. In 1864 his hon. Friend (Mr. Stansfeld) instituted an annual stock valuation account—the necessary foundation of any sound system of accounts—and that was followed during the next year
  918
  by the establishment by him (Mr. Childers) of a capital account and balance-sheet, and the reform of the rate book and manufacturing accounts. But, notwithstanding the improvement which had thus been introduced into our dockyard accounts, he must confess that he did not regard them as being perfect in their present form, and he hoped the Committee moved for, and which his right hon. Friend opposite consented to grant, would, with the assistance of the officers of the Admiralty, still further improve the accounts. As a whole, no person could take up the stock valuation and shipbuilding expenditure account without seeing that they might be put in a more condensed form, and at the same time give the whole of the information they now contained. There might, for instance, be a more complete consolidation of the capital account, and a more distinct reconciliation between the expenditure for ships and services, and the amount of money voted by Parliament for shipbuilding purposes. He quite concurred, also, in the view that it was desirable that the incidental expenses of each shop, and of each dockyard, should be in a greater degree charged to them, and not spread over the whole work. In fact, we should be able to bring home distinctly to the officers in the various dockyards and workshops the cost of the work done, so that the question might be put to them, "Why is it that that which costs £5 a ton in your yard or shop can be obtained in another at the rate of £4 a ton?" In those and some other respects he thought the accounts were decidedly susceptible of considerable improvement. As to the charge for pensions, he did not agree with the First Lord opposite. He looked upon them as being practically a part of the pay which was given, and it was but proper, he had laid down in 1865, that the charge for them should be taken into account. The main point on which his hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln, however, seemed to dwell was the expediency of having the dockyard accounts made out precisely in the same manner as those of private shipbuilders. Now, both his hon. Friend near him and himself had, while at the Admiralty, carefully directed their attention to that point; but they at once found that there must be always two essential differences between the accounts of a private firm and those of a Government Department. The first was as to the proper charge for interest on capital, to which he would refer after-

  919
  wards; the other, that it was impossible that there could be at the Admiralty what was termed a profit and loss account. He would give an instance of how difficult it was to deal with our dockyard accounts as with the case of private establishments. Suppose a private firm to build ten, or twenty, or thirty ships during the year; they would, he presumed, open for each of those ships a separate folio of their ledger, and charge her with cash paid in wages, with the value of the stores put into her, and with the proper amount of incidental expenses connected with supervision and other matters; they would, on the other side, place the amount received for the ship when sold, and would carry the difference to their general profit and loss account for the year. But that was not all. Suppose the private shipbuilder had a very large amount of stores and timber, and was obliged from time to time to take into consideration any depreciation of them which might take place. In a year, in which the value of the stock of a shipbuilder became depreciated, he would, of course, charge to the account of a particular ship the lower price of the stock employed, and the ship would thus appear to be built at a cheaper rate. But although the balance carried to profit and loss in favour of the shipbuilder might thus appear to be greater, in reality he might be worse off at the end of the year, because the loss on the stores would go far to eat up the profit on the building, and this loss would be written off before he struck his balance of profit for division among the partners. On the other hand, when the value of stores was on the increase the profit upon a ship would be apparently less, but in reality the builder might be all the better off, being recouped by the increased value of his stock. It must be borne in mind that the Government, with the approval of the House, now revalued its stores at the end of each year; but, in the absence of a profit and loss account, there was no heading under which the item of depreciation was shown, except under the general balance sheet into which went all the Admiralty works in connection with shipbuilding. The result, therefore, was in every case to convey a wrong impression as to the cost of building. Ships appeared to have been built at a greater price in a year when the value of materials had fallen, and, on the other hand, at a less price in a year when the rise in the value of stocks was carried at the end of the year to the credit of the work done. As
  920
  an instance of this, he might say that the difference between the percentages for incidental expenses, 35 and 51 respectively in the years 1864–5 and 1865–6, which his hon. Friend had pointed out and commented upon, was due almost exactly to the fluctuations which took place in those years respectively in the value of the stock of stores on hand. For these reasons he was disposed to believe that it would be desirable to open a separate depreciation account, in which, upon one side and the other, the changes in value from time to time and their results might be accurately set out. He would give another illustration of the effect of stating the account in the strict mercantile way. His hon. Friend not only enumerated several methods of his own of keeping accounts, but he asked, Why not follow the practice in the Army? The Army accounts were rendered in two ways; one without any allowance for interest and depreciation; the other as follows:—They charged 3½ per cent on the stock of stores, on the semi-manufactured articles, on the working capital, and on the plant and buildings; they charged 5 per cent for depreciation of buildings, and 10 per cent for depreciation of machinery. If the Army method were applied to the Navy, what would be the result? The estimated value of land, buildings, plant, and stores, according to the last accounts, was, in round numbers, £15,000,000. Upon that sum 3½ per cent would amount to £525,000; 3½ per cent on one-fifth of the annual expenditure, on account of working capital, would be £10,000; 5 per cent for depreciation of buildings would amount to £420,000; and 10 per cent upon plant to £69,000; making a total, after deducting the £46,000 at present charged by the Admiralty, of £978,000. Adding this to the £910,000 for other incidentals in 1865–6, this would represent a total of £1,888,000, or at the rate of upwards of 110 per cent on the cost of wages and materials. These figures surely might suggest how absurd the result would be if we applied to the Navy a system which had been adopted as an alternative in the Army accounts. The real explanation of this was plain. In nothing was the disproportion more striking than in the capital invested in the Army and in the Navy respectively in permanent stock. The capital of the Admiralty in land, buildings, plant, and stock amounted to £14,577,967, being eight times the amount of what was paid for materials and wages in ships in 1865–6; thirteen times

  921
  the amount of what was paid for materials only, and ten times the amount of the materials which passed through the factories, including the value of the labour employed. In the Army establishments, meanwhile, the whole amount of capital was just over £2,000,000, nearly equally divided between plant and stores; whereas the production, without including interest and depreciation, was £894,000, or, including both those items, as nearly as possible £1,000,000. The Army establishments only were on a scale of plant and stores, each equal to a year's out-turn; whereas the capital of the Navy was equal to eight or ten times the year's out-turn. The reason is that four-fifths of the capital of the Navy was not employed in time of peace, but was ready to be employed in time of war; it was therefore out of the question to regard it as capital, upon which interest should be charged in estimating the value of the work done in peace time. There were many questions into which he should have liked to enter more into detail; but he quite agreed with his right hon. Friend opposite that there was one thing which it was most desirable to do, and that was to settle the question. It would be most impolitic to let this question go on from year to year, disturbing the public mind and occupying the time of departmental officers with controversies which, except so far as they led to real results, could do no good whatever. The time had fully come for concluding this matter; and if the Committee which had been granted did lead to the settlement of the many important, though rather minute, questions which had been raised, it would have done a good work, and the position for usefulness of the Admiralty would be very much improved.
  MR. SAMUDAthought it most desirable that this question should be settled in such a way that the accounts presented to the House should be such as could be relied on for the guidance of those who prepared them as well as of those who investigated them. There was nothing which went more to show the importance of the proposal before the House than the manner in which it had been met by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and by his hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers). It was by no means so easy a thing to form a manufacturing account for a dockyard manufacturing a large quantity of vessels as would at first sight appear. His hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) had intimated that
  922
  it was most desirable to approximate as closely as possible the accounts of the Government dockyards to those of well-managed private establishments, but that he found a difficulty in the way of accomplishing that object. His difficulty appeared to be that he could not see how, the one necessarily having a profit and loss account and the other necessarily having none, a comparison could be kept up perfect and entire. Now, no such difference ought in the smallest degree to enter into the account. The object of a private yard was to obtain an accurate account of the cost of each vessel produced, wholly independent and separate from that account which showed the profit or loss on the sale of each vessel at the end of the year. The one was a manufacturing, the other was a commercial account, and they had nothing to do with each other; and the importance of having an accurate and simple way of arriving at this conclusion would be ascertained on looking at the question in this point of view, that there was no single item of material that entered into the construction of a ship which did not, in its finished form, represent a totally different value from that which it possessed as the raw material. The difference was sometimes as great as 300 per cent. There ought to exist, therefore, both the means of ascertaining and charging the approximate value of all the finished material that had been used, and also of correcting this account by substituting the actual for the approximate value; and this correction should be attained by the usual process of stock-taking, and a comparison of the value of actual stock remaining with that which the approximate accounts had appropriated. These matters required careful consideration, in order to arrive at a correct system of cost. The Admiralty accounts were not formed on a basis which enabled the House to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. He thought it would be desirable to refer the result of the deliberations of the Committee, composed of the Controller of the Navy and other Heads of Departments, appointed to consider the means of arriving at the most accurate mode of keeping the dockyard accounts, to the Committee on Public Accounts, and if the suggestions of this Committee were satisfactory on these heads it might be sufficient, but he doubted if they would be; and then it would be most desirable that a Committee of this House should thoroughly investigate the altera-

  923
  tions in the Admiralty accounts, necessary to furnish a clear and correct account of the expenditure by the various dockyards, on the ships they had built and the work they had done. The total amount of money expended on the dockyards should not be considered as expended entirely on the construction of vessels. Care should be taken to eliminate from the capital account that which was locked up as a national investment for the defence of the country. An erroneous impression might prevail if some notice were not taken of the observations which had been made with reference to the state of things which existed some half century ago. When vessels were built of wood it was insisted that that class of vessels should be built in the Government dockyards, from the difficulty of finding seasoned timber of the required forms, and in sufficient quantities, in private establishments, but this objection did not apply to vessels built of iron.
  MR. CORRYsaid, he meant to have guarded himself against intending to apply anything respecting wooden ships to iron ships. He was convinced that iron ships built by contract were quite as good as ships built in Her Majesty's dockyards, and such was the opinion of the Controller of the Navy.
  MR. SAMUDAwas glad that his observations had produced the statement from the right hon. Gentleman.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXstated, in reply to the hon. Member for Lincoln, as to why the Admiralty accepted tenders for the composite gunboats at prices above £25 per ton, that when firms tendered for the boats at prices varying from £20 per ton to £40 per ton the Admiralty were well aware that no firm could build those gunboats on the specifications issued by the Admiralty at the lower price without a great loss, and, therefore, did not think it right or safe to accept the generous offer thus made, except as far as one ship was concerned. He appealed to the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda) or to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Laird) as to whether it were possible for any good firm to build such vessels at such a low price as £20 without loss? The Admiralty, accordingly, had taken a medium course, and accepted the eight lowest tenders, of which the highest was £29, and the lowest £20 per ton.
  MR. SAMUDAsaid, the boats could not be made for less than £30.
  Motion amended, and agreed to.
  924
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire and report (1st) as to the application of Monies voted by Parliament for the use of the Admiralty in the building, repairing, and equipment of Her Majesty's Ships; and (2ndly) as to the Accounts of the Department, and more especially as to the method in which they should be prepared for presentation to this House."—(Mr. Seely.)
  And, on March 9, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. SEELY, Lord HENRY LENNOX, Major ANSON, Mr. DALGLISH, Mr. LIDDELL, Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Mr. CHILDERS, Mr. WEGUELIN, Mr. HANBURY-TRACY, Sir DANIEL GOOCH, Mr. STANSFELD, Mr. AYRTON, Mr. M'LAREN, Mr. CANDLISH, Mr. DYKE, Mr. SCOURFIELD, and Sir JOHN HAY:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

SPECIAL AND COMMON JURIES.

  MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE.
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, he wished to renew a Motion to which the House agreed during the last Session—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire and take evidence as to the Law and practice relating to the summoning, attendance, and remuneration of Special and Common Juries, and to report to the House as to any alterations which ought to be made therein."
  The Committee, over which he had the honour to preside, sat four times; but, owing to the late period of the Session at which it had been appointed, could not complete its inquiries. They therefore reported the evidence they had taken, and recommended the re-appointment of the Committee in the next Session. Without wishing to anticipate any definite conclusion that a Committee of this kind, if re-appointed, would be likely to arrive at, he would yet say that from what he had read, and from the private communications he had received, these four facts appear to be notorious—Firstly, that the number of persons liable to serve upon juries in the county of Middlesex was considerably less than it should be, owing to the imperfect manner in which the lists were made out; secondly, that the notices given to those persons were, generally speaking, so short that the greatest inconvenience arose both to jurymen and suitors; thirdly, that the uncertainty as to when the services of these gentlemen were required operated disadvantageously to the certain and punctual trial of causes; and fourthly, that the same individual was liable to serve repeatedly upon juries in a very short space of time, and not unfrequently was summoned for the same week in three or four different Courts, He would cite three cases,

  925
  two of which he had gathered from the public journals; the third was one among many private communications which he had received bearing upon this subject. The first case he took from The Times of December 5, 1867. It was that of "Murley v. the South Eastern Railway Company"—
  "In the course of the day bitter complaints were made by various special jurors of the mode in which they were summoned, the short notice given when they will be required to attend, the frequency of the occasions on which they are summoned, &c. The Lord Chief Justice said the present system was most unsatisfactory; but that a Committee had been sitting, which, with the assistance of Mr. Erle, the Associate, who had studied the question carefully, would, his Lordship trusted, materially relieve the evils complained of. One gentleman on the jury just sworn said he had served fifteen times in the last year, and three times during the last month; and once he had been fined £10 for not attending."
  The second case occurred on the 1st of February, 1868—
  "Upon this case ("Keen v. Hartnoll") being called on, it appeared that there were only ten of the twenty-four special jurymen who had been summoned in attendance, and the counsel declined to pray a tales. The Lord Chief Justice said it appeared in this case the trial had been postponed in consequence of the non-attendance of jurors, and the parties had been put to unnecessary expense. A juryman complained that he had been summoned at ten o'clock the previous night to appear in court at ten o'clock that morning, and when he arrived he found the cause withdrawn. The Lord Chief Justice said that it was a matter in which he had no power to interfere; but he heard from Mr. Erle, the Associate, that this subject had been brought before a Parliamentary Committee, and it was probable some rule would be laid down. He added that he would not fine any juryman who had received so short a notice."
  He would now read an extract from a letter he had received from a literary gentleman, dated February 17, 1868—
  "I have been called upon to serve in six cases during the last seven months. This implies, with the allowance on the average of four to five days for the delay in bringing on the causes after the date fixed for attendance, of a month's duty out of every seven; or, if I refuse to attend; to a possible fine of £60, or, on the twelve months, of more than double the rent of the house I inhabit. The point to be ascertained is, are there so few special jurymen in the country, or so large a cause-list, as to justify the summoning officers in laying such a tax in time or money upon any inoffensive dweller in the land?"
  With reference to the question of expense, he believed, if the same system were pursued in Middlesex which was followed in other parts of the country, a very great saving would ensue; and since he came into the House a statement had been
  926
  handed to him which, with the permission of the House, he would read. It was as follows:—
  "We have 100 special jury causes for trial at these sittings at the Guildhall during Hilary Term. Juries will be actually summoned in about half (not less) of these, that is—1,200 summonses will be served; and the costs (at £7 8s. in each case) for striking, attendances, &c., will be altogether £370. In the country, on the other hand, if one panel of thirty-six jurors were summoned, each panel to serve for three days, 180 summonses would suffice, at a cost which certainly ought not to amount to £50."
  These figures had been supplied to him by Mr. Erle, the Associate of the Court of Common Pleas, who had paid much attention to this subject, and without further trespassing on the time of the House he might be allowed to say that if he were allowed the assistance of a Committee like that of last year for perfecting this inquiry, he hoped that means would be found to remedy an inconvenience from which the public in the county of Middlesex had for a long time past extensively suffered.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire and take evidence as to the Law and practice relating to the summoning, attendance, and remuneration of Special and Common Juries, and to report to this House as to any alterations which ought to be made therein."—(Viscount Enfield.)
  And, on March 11, Committee nominated as follows:—Viscount ENFIELD, Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL, Mr. DENMAN, Mr. HUDDLESTON, Mr. HEADLAM, Mr. FRESHFIELD, Mr. HASTINGS RUSSELL, Mr. TURNER, Mr. Alderman SALOMONS, Mr. WHATMAN, Colonel WILLIAM STUART, Mr. CHARLES WYNN, and Mr. Alderman LUSK:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITIES BILL— [BILL 30.]
(Mr. Coleridge, Mr. Bouverie, Mr. Grant Duff)

COMMITTEE.
Bill considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
MR. COLERIDGE MR. COLERIDGE moved—
"That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal certain Tests and alter certain Statutes affecting the constitution of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge."
The title of the Bill had been somewhat altered since he gave notice, owing to a fact which he would explain. A good deal of objection had been raised—and certainly, as far as he might be permitted to express an opinion, not altogether without reason—to the fact that the Bill brought in by

927
the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock and that which had been introduced on several occasions by himself (Mr. Coleridge) had been treated as separate measures, both being, in truth, parts of one and the same subject. In deference, therefore, to the opinion of those who thought it would be better to amalgamate them, the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock and his own had been combined. He did not propose now to trouble the House with any observations on the matter, which had been so frequently and so fully discussed; he would content himself with moving that the Chairman be directed to move for leave to bring in the Bill which incorporated in substance the two measures he had described.
MR. GATHORNE HARDY: I do not, of course, intend to offer any opposition to the introduction of this measure. I am glad, indeed, that we are to encounter legislation on this subject in a more convenient form than we have hitherto done. The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Coleridge) talked, I remember, on a previous occasion of the little Bill he then brought forward in reference to the question. It has now grown to be a great Bill; and I promise him the utmost opposition that I can offer to the measure; and I have no doubt but that many other hon. Members will be equally prepared to oppose it in every way.
Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal certain Tests and alter certain Statutes affecting the constitution of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Resolution reported;—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. COLERIDGE, Mr. BOUVERIE, and Mr. GRANT DUFF.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 30.]

SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  THE O'CONOR DON(on behalf of Major O'Reilly) moved for leave to introduce a Bill for further regulating the Sole of fermented and distilled Liquors by retail on Sundays in Ireland. The hon. Member observed that the Bill was the same as the measure of last Session.
  MR. PIMseconded the Motion.
  THE EARL OF MAYO, while not opposing the introduction of the Bill, expressed the opinion that ample time should be allowed before the next stage of the Bill was
  928
  taken in order that persons affected by its provisions might take it fully into consideration. Public opinion in Ireland was very much divided in reference to this subject, and he believed that legislation could not be satisfactorily undertaken upon it until the question had been carefully investigated by a Select Committee.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill for further regulating the Sale of fermented and distilled Liquors by retail on Sunday in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Major O'REILLY Lord CREMORNE, and Mr. PIM.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 31.]

LANDED PROPERTY IMPROVEMENT (IRELAND) BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. PIM, in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to further amend the Law relating to the Tenure and Improvement of Land in, Ireland, said, that the present Bill was similar to the measure he had introduced last Session; but with some important additions in reference to improvements made by tenants, and some other provision affecting the relation of landlord and tenant in Ireland. The principle of the present Bill, as respects tenants' improvements, was identical with that of the measure proposed in 1866, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, but there was a difference of detail which would have an important effect on the practical working. The objects sought to be effected by this Bill were—firstly, to enable limited owners in Ireland who may improve their lands to charge a portion of their expenditure to their successors. Secondly, to enable limited owners, within specified limits, to grant leases and make contracts with their tenants, which shall be binding on their successors and on all parties who derive under them—and this without the necessity of notice to the Court or to any third party. Both these objects were included in the Bill introduced last year by the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but he (Mr. Pim) proposed to give the limited owner freer action, in this following the precedent set by the Scotch Montgomery Act (10 Geo. III., c. 51), which was passed so long ago as the year 1770, and which had, he believed, worked very usefully in Scotland. He had endeavoured to divest the proceedings of all unnecessary formalities, so far as could be done consistently

  929
  with the precautions needful to prevent fraud and preserve the legitimate rights of the successors. The third object was this, that in the absence of a specific written contract the tenant should be secured by law in the ownership of whatever improvements he might effect by his industry or his capital; but he proposed that the tenant should, within twelve months after the completion of these improvements, be bound to record them in a public registry, to be kept for this purpose; which provision he had inserted for the protection of the landlord against the possibility of a false or unfounded claim being made long afterwards, when it would be difficult to obtain evidence to disprove it. If no such registration were made, the tenant was not to be allowed to set up a claim against his landlord at any subsequent period. Fourthly, he proposed to put an end to the power of distress, and to the priority of the landlord's claim for rent over the other debts of the tenant. By this means he believed that the relations between landlord and tenant would be placed on a much more fair and satisfactory footing; that it would make the landlord more careful in his choice of tenants, and that it would remove one of the most serious impediments to the improvement of the land which now exist in Ireland. It was a necessary consequence of the abolition of the power of distress, that the landlord should have the utmost facility for obtaining possession of his land in case his tenant failed to pay the rent. Much had already been done in this respect, but he proposed to abolish the right of redemption which the tenant now possessed for six months after eviction for non-payment of rent. This six months' right of redemption was very injurious to the landlord without being of any use to the tenant, and he believed many landed proprietors would consider its abolition to be an ample equivalent for the loss of the power of distress. The principle on which the proposed measure was founded, was "complete freedom of contract between landlord and tenant," and giving perfect validity to such contracts when entered into bonâ fide, and without fraud; and, in the absence of a specific contract, the recognition of the tenant as the legal owner of all improvements effected by himself and duly registered. He (Mr. Pim) proposed to repeal altogether the Act of 1860, incorporating into his own Bill many of the valuable provisions of that Act, so that the proposed measure would be com-
  930
  plete in itself, and therefore more readily intelligible, than if he had merely proposed to amend the Act of 1860, repealing some portions and retaining others in force. This question was not one in which the tenant was to be benefited at the expense of the landlord, but proper legislation would benefit both parties. He had no doubt that whatever measure was eventually adopted by Parliament, it would be just and equitable; and justice had this quality in common with mercy, that it blesses both the giver and the receiver. This equitable settlement of the land question would be a benefit, not only to landlords and tenants, but to the whole of Ireland. He begged to move for leave to introduce the Bill.
  MR. VANCEsaid, the object of this Bill was to give unlimited leasing powers to the person in possession of the property to the detriment of the remainderman, and in effect put an end to the law of entail—a proposition to which he felt sure the House would refuse its assent. The Bill also proposed to compel the landlord to compensate the tenant for improvements with regard to which he had not been consulted. The crude suggestions of the hon. Gentleman with regard to an exceptional law for Ireland were only calculated to deceive the public mind, for the House would never pass such a law. Any legislation respecting landlord and tenant in Ireland must be based upon the English law relating to real property. If any departure from that rule were once permitted, the result would be a complete surrender of the property of the landlord to the tenant. He had, however, no objection to the introduction of the Bill, but merely wished on the present occasion to point out its incurable defects.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill further to amend the Law relating to the Tenure and Improvement of Land in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. PIM and Mr. O'BEIRNE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 32.]

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (IRELAND) BILL.
(The O'Conor Don, Mr. Monsell, Mr. Leader.)

[BILL 6.] SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
THE O'CONOR DON, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, it was precisely the same as the measure which he had introduced last Session, with the single exception that he had omitted from it the clause which would empower public

931
bodies to make grants for the establishment of industrial schools. He hoped that the hon. Member for Dublin, who was so great an advocate for the assimilation of the laws of England and Ireland, would not object to this Bill, which was the same as the law which had been passed on this subject for England, and which had done so much good.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The O'Conor Don.)
MR. VANCEsaid, he would rather not enter into a discussion upon the Bill on that occasion. There were objections to the Bill which would prevent the House passing it; but he had no objection to its being read a second time, provided the hon. Member would name a late day for the House to go into Committee upon it, to enable those hon. Members who opposed it, to be in attendance.
THE O'CONOR DONsaid, be had no objection to adopt the course proposed by the hon. Member, and he would therefore name the 25th of March as the day for the Committee upon the Bill.
THE EARL OF MAYOsaid, he did not mean to oppose the Motion for the second reading of the Bill. But he did not think that any great necessity existed for such a measure, and that was, he found, the opinion of many persons who took a very active part in the management of the reformatory movement in Ireland. He had further to state that it was his intention to introduce on an early day a Bill for the amendment of the Reformatory Act, which would have the effect of extending its powers very much in the direction contemplated by the hon. Member for Roscommon; and when the hon. Member saw that Bill, it was possible he might think that the present measure was unnecessary.
LORD CLAUD HAMILTONrepeated the objection he had urged last year that such a measure as this was entirely unnecessary and uncalled for, and would, if carried, impose a heavy burden upon the cesspayers of Ireland. The Bill of the hon. Member had not received the support of any public body or person of note in that country. He should not, however, oppose the second reading of the Bill; but should reserve what he had to say against it until another opportunity was afforded him.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for Wednesday, 25th March.

HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENSION (IRELAND) ACT CONTINUANCE BILL.
(The Earl of Mayo, Mr. Secretary Gathorne Hardy, Mr. Attorney General.)

[BILL 28.] COMMITTEE.
Order for Committee read.
MR. MAGUIREsaid, he wished to make a few observations in answer to a statement made by the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland on a former evening. The noble Lord then said that the policy of Government with respect to the Fenian conspiracy was prevention, and that no one was left at large who was known to have been concerned in the outbreak of March last year. In connection with this statement he (Mr. Maguire) wished to ask the noble Lord for some explanations. Corydon, who was examined as a Crown witness in the trial of General Burke in April last, stated that he had been in the active employ of the Government from the previous September, and had kept them acquainted with every circumstance connected with the conspiracy, including what was contemplated in Liverpool. He (Mr. Maguire) was quite surprised, when he returned to this country, at what was going on, remembering the noble Lord to have said that it was not his intention to renew the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, whereas here was the statement of Corydon that he had been in the employment of Government for six months and had made them acquainted with every step of the conspiracy. That was the statement of a man who had sent more than one man into penal servitude. He (Mr. Maguire) hoped the noble Lord would give some explanation of this matter. There was another matter of great importance to which he wished to call the noble Lord's attention. He understood that most of the persons who were taken up under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act were sent to Mountjoy Prison, and it was of the utmost importance to know how that prison was managed. There was formerly there a most admirable physician, Dr. M'Donnell, who made several important recommendations as to the dietary of the prisoners, the time they should be confined, their exercise, and their treatment generally; but that gentleman had now ceased to be connected with the public service, and his successor was a Dr. Young. He (Mr. Maguire) held in his hand a copy of the Freeman's Journal, in which was reported an inquest on the body of Matthew Lynch, an inmate

933
of the prison, who had died on the 12th, the inquest being held on Friday last. He did not know whether this Lynch had not been arrested on the Lord Lieutenant's warrant; but it was the opinion of the jury that a very unworthy successor had been appointed to Dr. M'Donnell. The Roman Catholic Chaplain saw Lynch on the 2nd; he was miserably prostrate, and dying. He called the warder's attention to his state, and to the bad ventilation of his cell, and added that he ought to be in the hospital. It was four days before he was removed to the hospital; he was taken there on the 6th, and he died on the 12th, but to the last hour the doctor did not know what was his disease. First he said it was diarrhœa, then that it was diabetes, and he did not think till death took place that it I was pulmonary consumption. The verdict of the jury was that the man had died of pulmonary consumption, and they further expressed their opinion that he should have been sent sooner to the hospital, and that the doctor should be more attentive to the extern patients, meaning those who were in the cells. It appeared, therefore, that the humane and skilful doctor had been chassé, to be replaced by a man who was branded by the jury as inattentive. He wished for some explanation as to this appointment of Dr. Young.
THE EARL OF MAYO: The hon. Gentleman gave me no notice of the attacks he has just made, and as I have not, therefore, a single document to refer to, the House will see that I speak under considerable disadvantage. I think, however, my memory is sufficiently clear to enable me to give such an answer to the statements of the hon. Gentleman as will satisfy the House. With regard to the revelations made by Corydon, which were never brought to my notice at the period to which he referred, I can say that for several months previous to February the 15th of last year, our information was that no Fenian Directory or Council, nor anything like one, existed in Ireland. We knew this from sources of intelligence that were perfectly accurate. In the previous November we were led to believe that a very great change took place in the Fenian councils, and it has been proved on oath at several trials since then that the Fenian leaders in America resolved about the end of the year that it was not desirable for the present to pursue their plans of active operations in Ireland, In fact, we knew that—as far as the leaders of the conspi-
934
racy were concerned—intentions of immediate outbreak in Ireland were for the time given up. I am speaking of a period shortly before Christmas, 1866. About Christmas—I forget whether a few days before or afterwards—a meeting was held in New York of the men who styled themselves the military leaders of the Fenian movement, and a resolution was passed deposing the regular leaders and giving to the military chiefs the whole control of the Fenian organization. The result was that about the 15th of January the new military leaders began to move towards Europe, and continued doing so during the whole of that and the greater part of the ensuing month. When the Government recommended to Parliament that the Habeas Corpus Act should no longer be suspended they were aware of the determination which was come to before Christmas, but were not aware of the events which subsequently took place. That information came to our knowledge very soon. We saw immediately that a change had taken place in Fenian affairs, that the policy adopted in November was abandoned, and we felt it our duty immediately to acquaint the House that, to our extreme regret, it would be necessary to renew the suspension of the Act. These are the grounds upon which we acted. A simpler story can hardly be told; and I venture to think that it is a complete vindication of the Government in the course which they took at the beginning of the last Session. Believing, then, that the Fenian designs were abandoned, and knowing that as Parliament was sitting we could, in case of necessity, at once obtain the suspension of the Act, it would have been unjustifiable on our part to have asked for the renewal of that suspension. Whatever Corydon may have said later in the year, at the beginning of the Session there was nothing to warrant the Government in making such a request. Men in Corydon's position often make statements; but it is sometimes only after a considerable lapse of time when they can be accurately tested that the Government can ascertain whether they are of any value. I think I have disposed of the charge made by the hon. Gentleman that at the time we recommended the discontinuance of the Suspension Act we were in possession of information from Corydon, and had tested it, showing what the Fenian designs were. A more unfounded statement was never made. [Mr. MAGUIRE: I never made such a statement. I merely said what Corydon swore.] And now with

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regard to Dr. M'Donnell, who is a man of high professional attainments and for whom I have the most profound respect. Dr. M'Donnell on one or two occasions differed from the Directors of Convict Prisons, but they were not differences of a serious kind, and were generally settled by amicable discussion. But the fact is that the arrangements with respect to Dr. M'Donnell's services were such as did not exist in any other convict prison in Her Majesty's dominions; and I say that the medical officer of Mountjoy male prison, having a large private practice to attend to, could not give that attention to the requirements of the prison which was indispensable, and, consequently, the arrangement was exceedingly unsatisfactory. Now, I believe that an abler man than Dr. M'Donnell never discharged the duties of physician to a convict prison; but, looking to the nature of the duties which the doctor in such an establishment has to perform, it was impossible that they could be attended to properly by a man in private practice. What happened? Dr. Banon, the physician of the female convict prison, died, and an opportunity offered for consolidating the duties of the male and female establishments, and obtaining one medical officer for both. Representations were made to me by the Directors of Convict Prisons that it would be for the interest of the public service, that the two offices should be held by one man. It was a considerable time before I acceded to that representation. I made inquiries as to what was done in England; I consulted Colonel Henderson, and other gentlemen of great authority in such matters, and they all agreed that a Worse arrangement than that of employing a gentleman in private practice as medical officer to a convict prison could not be; that the thing had been tried before, and that in every convict establishment of sufficient size a medical man who had given up all his time to his duties in the prison was engaged. Having this information at my disposal, and having to choose a successor to Dr. Banon, I told Dr. M'Donnell frankly what my opinions were. He did not altogether agree with me; but he told me that his own practice was increasing so rapidly that it was very likely at a very early period he would find it necessary to retire from attendance at Mountjoy. That being the case, it was clearly my duty to take the advice given by such high authorities in the convict service, and appoint a resident medical officer
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for the male and female prisons at Mountjoy Now that is the whole story, and a more unfounded calumny was never propagated (and it was made the most of by the Fenian papers) than that Dr. M'Donnell was dismissed and another gentleman appointed in his place because he refused to sanction the very arbitrary and severe treatment of the prisoners confined under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. I know the hon. Gentleman did not make such a statement in this House. [Mr. MAGUIRE: I did not say so.] I know you did not say so, but pages upon pages about it have been written in Ireland, and I believe that many have been led to accept it as a fact. Dr. Young, who has been appointed as medical officer to both the male and female prisons of Mountjoy, is a gentleman with whom I happen to be personally acquainted, and a more humane, an abler man, or one more competent to discharge his duties does not exist in any convict prison in the kingdom. And as long as Dr. Young remains in Mountjoy, I am quite sure that neither the hon. Gentleman nor anyone else will be able to prove any harshness on his part to any particular prisoner. Mention was made to me this morning in a communication from Dublin about the case to which the hon. Gentleman has called attention, and I wrote for full and accurate information on the subject. I shall only say that in this matter, and in every other, whether founded or unfounded, I shall take care that every charge of this kind shall be thoroughly inquired into. I feel that I have satisfied the House that as far as the officials of Mountjoy are concerned, no harshness has been shown to the prisoners. In conclusion, I will say that it has been my duty to read hundreds of letters from prisoners in Mountjoy, and in them they have invariably expressed themselves grateful for the treatment they have received, and for the excellence of their diet. Considering their painful position, the irksomeness of confinement, which must be very great, they have contributed valuable testimony to the uniform humanity with which they have been treated. A prison is not a pleasant place—persons are not sent there for amusement—but I will say that the whole object of the Government and of the Directors of Convict Prisons is to carry out the law without unnecessary severity. I am certain that no matter by what Returns you may test the truth, you will find that there is no ground whatever for the allegations of harshness which

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have been so repeatedly and generally circulated by those whose object it is to throw odium upon the Government in consequence of the measures it has adopted for the suppression of the Fenian movement.
MR. BAGWELLsaid, he was willing to give credit to his noble Friend for doing what was the best under the circumstances, but must object to the plan of having a resident medical man under the control of the officers of the prison and of the Government, and who must be very slow indeed—except he was a very extraordinary man—to object to anything he might be directed to do by those over him. He trusted that plan would not be carried further, and that as the Government had taken the thing out of their own hands, they would be more particular than they would be if the medical officer was a man having the means of living if he lost his situation. When he found that the jury had returned a verdict that the man into whose death they had inquired ought to have been sent earlier to hospital, and that the doctor should have been more attentive to exterior cases, he considered it a very grave matter. No doubt the verdict was a most unsatisfactory one for the medical officer, as it had been returned by a number of independent men upon their oaths, selected by the coroner from the general body of citizens. He thought there ought to be some means by which the public outside might be made aware of what was going on within the walls of the prison, and that in reference to the case of Matthew Lynch, the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland would, at some future period, be enabled to furnish a satisfactory explanation to the House.
Bill considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
MR. BAGWELLproposed the following new Clause:—
"That no warrant granted under this Act shall be in force for a longer period than three months, and every person arrested under this Act shall be entitled to be discharged on the expiration of the warrant under which he was arrested, unless a new warrant for his further detention shall be lodged, previous to the expiration of the original warrant, with the Governor of the gaol in which he shall be confined."
His reason for moving this clause was that it had been stated that one prisoner had been in custody for a year and eleven months without having been brought up,
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and he wished to prevent the possibility of prisoners being kept in confinement for a lengthened period, and possibly forgotten.
New Clause (No Warrant to be in force for more than three months,)—(Mr. Bagwell,)—brought up, and read the first time.
THE EARL OF MAYOassured the Committee that for a prisoner to be detained in gaol through forgetfulness of his case was impossible. Returns were constantly made to the Government of all persons in custody under the Lord Lieutenant's warrant, with any new information respecting them; and they had every facility, of which they frequently availed themselves, of memorializing the Government for release, these memorials always received careful consideration. He was ready at any time to give information respecting the arrests that were made; but if an impression went forth that persons were only arrested for three mouths, and that they would then be certainly released, the effect would be mischievous. He could not assent to the clause proposed, which would have the effect of putting a limit to the powers of the Government, which was not contemplated in the provision already sanctioned, and under which those powers were confided to them for one year. He hoped the hon. Member would be satisfied with his assurance that the circumstances of no single case were ever forgotten, and that representations made by any prisoner were always attentively considered.
SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLENsaid, he thought there should be some limitation of the period of detention, since two years' imprisonment was the maximum punishment for misdemeanour. If there was an objection to three months, six months might be fixed, and this would impose no trouble on the Government beyond the preparation of fresh warrants.
MAJOR GAVINsaid, he would press upon the Secretary for Ireland the propriety of introducing this clause. He admitted that everything done by the present Government under the Suspension Act had been done discreetly—with great prudence and mildness—and in a way which had given great satisfaction to every loyal man in the country. It was possible, however, that before this Act expired the present Government might not be in office. There might be a Lord Lieutenant and a Chief Secretary not so prudent and discreet as the present ones, and not so well acquainted with Ireland. In view of this

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contingency, he should support the clause, for whenever anything in Ireland had been violently and badly done, it had been done not by true Irishmen but by foreigners.
MR. WHALLEYsaid, he thought that anything that could tend to modify the Act and satisfy those in the House who represented the parties against whom it was directed, was deserving of the best attention of the Government.
MR. PIMconcurred in the suggestion that the operation of the warrant should be limited to six months, and observed that that was the term to which the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act extended when it was first proposed. The ground of the arrest of these persons was that they were dangerous, and he believed the Act would have an equally beneficial effect if the Lord Lieutenant was called upon to review every six months the reasons for the detention, while such an arrangement would give satisfaction to the people of Ireland.
MR. REARDEN, while giving the Lord Lieutenant the utmost credit for humanity, thought the clause was a wise one.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, his noble Friend's conduct had been greatly eulogized by hon. Members opposite, especially with reference to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. So far from the Government wishing to keep men in prison longer than was necessary, the practice had been to discharge them as soon as it could be done without risk to the country, and that was shown from the fact that whereas there were 260 persons in custody last year, there were now only ninety-four. That was convincing proof that the Government were anxious to get rid of the charge of these men as soon as they ceased to be dangerous. The House by the second reading of the Bill had assented to the propriety of suspending the Act for another year, and surely, after the Government had acted with prudence, discretion, mildness, and humanity, the Committee would not hesitate to continue to them the powers now asked. The Government had at anytime given every information required, and furnished a list of the persons incarcerated under the suspension of the Act. No one had alleged that any prisoner had been unjustly treated, for whenever any of them gave an assurance that they would not again engage in the transactions which were the cause of their detention, and would at once leave the country, they were immediately set at liberty. Such being the
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case, the passing of the clause now proposed would be a slur upon his noble Friend, as it could not be supposed that it was really necessary to have the warrant renewed every three or six months. And what would be the result of such a course of procedure? At the present time every prisoner had the power of presenting petitions, which were regularly and carefully taken into consideration; but if at the end of three or six months all warrants were to be renewed the necessary signatures would be affixed to them without any inquiry whatever. Every official knew the mode of signing routine papers. Hitherto the inquiries respecting prisoners had been conducted with the greatest care and prudence, even according to the admissions of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and under these circumstances he trusted the Motion for the insertion of a new clause would not be pressed.
Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause be now read a second time."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 18; Noes 31: Majority 13.
House resumed.
Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.

COUNTY COURTS (ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION) BILL.
On Motion of Mr. NORWOOD, Bill for conferring Admiralty Jurisdiction on the County Courts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. NORWOOD, Mr. HEADLAM, and Mr. CANDLISH.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 33.]

JUDGMENTS EXTENSION BILL.
On Motion of Mr. CRAUFURD, Bill to render Judgments or Decreets, obtained in certain Courts in England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively, effectual in any other part of the United Kingdom, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CRAUFURD, Mr. HUDDLESTON, Mr. MONCREIFF, and Mr. DUNLOP.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 34.]

FINES AND FEES (IRELAND) BILL.
On Motion of Mr. HUNT, Bill for transferring to the Consolidated Fund the sum produced be the accumulation of certain Fines, Penalties, and Fees levied and paid in Ireland, ordered to by brought in by Mr. HUNT and Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 35.]
House adjourned at Eleven o'clock.