Commons Sitting of 24 March 1868

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Scientific Instruction appointed.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—ARMY ESTIMATES.
Resolutions [March 23] reported.
WAYS AND MEANS — Resolution [March 23] reported—Consolidated Fund (£6,000,000).
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Investment of Trust Funds Act Amendment*; Revenue Officers Disabilities Removal*; Boroughs and Divisions of Counties; Mutiny*; Consolidated Fund (£6,000,000).*
First Reading—Mutiny*; Consolidated Fund (£6,000,000)*; Revenue Officers Disabilities Removal* [76].
Committee—London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance [43]; Court of Appeal Chancery (Despatch of Business) Amendment* [68]; Indian Railway Companies* [55].
Report—London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance [43]; Court of Appeal Chancery (Despatch of Business) Amendment* [68]; Indian Railway Companies* [55].
Third Reading—Compulsory Church Rates Abolition [72], and passed.

PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION.

  STANDING ORDER 131.
  Order for Consideration of Standing Order 131 (Competition to be a ground of locus standi) (by Order), read.
  MR. DODSONsaid, that having gone into this subject very fully not long ago, it was not his intention to trouble the House at any length on the present occasion. His object was to elicit as far as he could arguments from hon. Gentlemen with regard to the difficult question of the allowance of opposition to Private Bills on the ground of competition. The Standing Order 131 was capable of two different constructions. It might be taken to mean that the proprietors of existing works might be admitted before Committees to argue that the proposed new works were not required for the public advantage; or, without denying that the works were for the public advantage, that they might be allowed to oppose the construction of the new works on the ground that those works would interfere with their private interests. The Report of Mr. Cardwell's Committee on Railway and Canal Bills in 1853, upon which the Order was based, merely recommended that in contested cases careful arrangements should be made by which established railway companies and municipal or other public bodies
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  might raise the question of public advantage, and, in order to secure fairness in raising the issue, provision should be made for payment of costs in the case of illusory, vexatious, or unwarranted opposition. Companies, however, had affixed to the Standing Order the interpretation that they should be allowed to object to proposed new works, on the ground that their private interests would be interfered with, and having gained admission to be heard on that ground they naturally claimed that Parliament recognized in them a vested right, more or less absolute, to the monopoly of the district in which their works were situated. He did not believe that Parliament ever had recognized such a right, and as under the present state of things, investors were led to indulge in hopes of protection which were constantly disappointed, he thought an Order which was liable to this misconstruction ought not to be maintained. The effect of its repeal would be that companies sanctioned by special Act of Parliament would return to the position in which they stood before 1853, and would be in the same position as companies incorporated under the Joint-Stock Acts, which were not allowed to oppose each other on the ground of competition. To this day, docks, although specially sanctioned by Parliament, were not heard in opposition to each other, and why should railways, or any other works? It might be said that companies incorporated by special Acts of Parliament were subjected to special conditions, but then it was in return for special privileges granted. It might be a fair question to consider, whether the conditions imposed were not in some cases too onerous in proportion to the privileges? He thought himself that the restrictions on the financial operations of companies, sanctioned by special Acts, especially of railway companies, were unnecessarily onerous, and were often injurious to the companies, without being attended with benefit to the public. Most of these attempted restrictions, perhaps all of them, like the old usury laws, broke down when put to the test; for it was impossible for Parliament to control the money market and the exigencies of lenders and borrowers. He believed it would be best to revert to the old law of Parliament, and not to allow one company to oppose another except in case of interference with its works. He was not contemplating, however, by his present proposition to withdraw from companies sanctioned by

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  special Acts the concession intended for them in 1853; therefore, in proposing the repeal of the ambiguous Standing Order 131, he would substitute for it a new Standing Order, rendering it competent to the Referees on Private Bills, if they thought fit, to admit the proprietors of existing works to be heard upon their petition against any Private Bill relating to similar works within a town or district served by them, on the ground of the absence of public advantage. It might be said that the words "public advantage" were rather vague; but he thought that his proposition would have an incalculable advantage over the present more indefinite Standing Order, inasmuch as it would plainly declare that the public advantage would be the paramount consideration. In order to form a judgment as to how far the permission to be heard on the ground of their private interests being interfered with was of value to existing companies, he would refer the House to the evidence of Mr. Blenkinsop, solicitor to the London and North Western Railway Company, who stated before a Committee that the Standing Order 131 had not been productive of fruitful results, and that generally speaking the feeling of Committees was to sanction competing schemes. According to the best Returns, the companies established under the present system had, within the last fifteen year, expended £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 in legal and Parliamentary proceedings. Captain Huish, manager of the London and North Western Railway Company, and other witnesses also gave evidence as to the delusive character of the present Standing Order. He thought the House ought not to retain a Standing Order, the terms of which led people to suppose that Parliament was likely to reject a proposed work of public utility simply because it might appear to interfere with private interests.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Standing Order 131 be repealed."—(Mr. Dodson.)
  MR. LEEMAN, from his experience of Private Bill legislation, was opposed to the alteration of the Standing Order in the manner now proposed. During the existence of the Standing Order in question, hundreds of millions of pounds sterling had been invested in public works in this country. The hon. Gentleman himself had admitted that fully one-half of the opposition in Committee-rooms was based
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  on this Order, which he now sought to repeal. If this were so, he would leave the House to draw their own inference as to the views which existing companies held with regard to that Order. In 1862, 1863, and 1864, when Railway Bills were more than ordinary rampant, and when no less than 852 Bills were deposited, only 478 actually passed. The railway companies then had succeeded to a very large extent in their opposition, and entirely on the ground of this particular Standing Order now sought to be repealed. But this was not all. In 1865, 1866, and 1867, when Private Bill legislation, owing to the financial condition of the country, was not carried to the same extent, the same relative results followed as in the previous period to which he had referred. The hon. Gentleman told them, on the last occasion when this subject was before the House, that railway directors were conscious of the want of success which had attended their efforts when seeking to avail themselves of this Standing Order. He must say that his own experience as a railway director for twenty years was wholly opposed to such a statement. Many millions of needless outlay had been prevented by railway companies by virtue of this very Order. The hon. Gentleman knew that during the last fortnight a deputation had waited on the Minister, representing the whole railway interest from the English Channel to the Tweed, and more than one-half of the capital of the existing railways — representing £250,000,000 of capital; and what was he told by that deputation? Why, that they looked on the repeal of this Standing Order with the greatest possible anxiety and alarm. He now repeated that statement as a railway director, and he knew he spoke the feelings of thousands whose capital was invested in railways. The hon. Gentleman said that the Bills thrown out during the period to which he had referred were not thrown out on the ground of competition; yet he admitted that fully one-half of the opposition to new schemes was based on this Standing Order, and the railway companies had no other right to be heard against them. Was it too much to ask that the large interests which Parliament had itself sanctioned and encouraged—he did not say protected, for the object of the railway companies was not protection — should be permitted to set up their own case, if the Referees or the tribunal to which a particular Bill might

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  be submitted should think fit? But the hon. Member asked, why railway companies should be alarmed when the Order he proposed to substitute would equally, entitle them to be heard against new works? Because the words proposed to be substituted for "as the Referees shall think fit," were these, "on the ground of absence of public advantage"—words which the hon. Gentleman himself admitted he should not and could not define. The hon. Member had told them that the great object of the change he proposed was to save expense in Private Bill legislation; but the most direct method of reducing the costs of parties promoting Private Bills in Parliament would be to substitute one tribunal for the five different tribunals before which such Bills had now to be taken. If this plan were adopted it would be far more effectual than the mere repeal of a Standing Order.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, he was certainly not one of those who thought that a railway company should be able to prevent the formation of another railway, merely on the ground of interference with profits. Parliament gave compulsory powers over land in return for restrictions imposed; but it did not guarantee monopoly, as the hon. Member for York appeared to suppose, and therefore such a provision as that in the Railways Construction Facilities Act, which enabled an existing company absolutely to stop in limine a competing line, would be most injurious to public interests, if extended to proceedings before Committees of that House. At the same time he was not sure that he went as far as the Chairman of Committees, and would exclude a railway company from tendering evidence on the ground of competition. Indeed, he doubted very much whether such evidence might not, in every case, be presented in the guise of absence of public advantage—whether prudently or not, he would leave it to Mr. Blenkinsop to decide—and would this not be reasonable? It was easy to say that Parliament would not interfere with the establishment of two banks or two hotels where there was only room for one; but there was a difference in the nature of things between the two cases. The weakest bank or hotel would succumb, the proprietors would be injured; but the premises might easily be turned to some more useful purpose, and the public would suffer to a very small extent. The same might be said, though with some qualification with
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  respect to docks. In the case of two railways, on the contrary, being constructed in a district which could only maintain one, a vast capital would be wasted in permanently spoiling a large tract of land; and the public would be exposed to the hazard and inconvenience of being carried by companies who were obliged, in order to make both ends meet, to stretch economy beyond what was consistent with public safety. Moreover, there had always been this merit allowed to Committees of that House—namely, that they shut out no evidence, but that, whatever might be the value of their decisions, they gave all parties a patient hearing. He was afraid a departure from this rule might have the appearance of injustice and hostility to existing companies, and might also lead to the evil of frequent appeals to the House to suspend the Standing Order in such cases. It was also manifest that in most instances opposition might be carried on through landowners. He thought, therefore, looking at the period of the Session, that his hon. Friend (Mr. Douson) had done the best thing by bringing about, as he had done—though his own Motion was not carried—in the course of economy and justice, the discontinuance of the double trial and the strengthening of the Committee which would have to decide between reasonable and unreasonable opposition on the ground of competition, and in this he would be materially assisted by the late Act with reference to costs. But he did not think that for the future competition would be heard very much of before Committees. The main lines were for the most part made, and new lines would chiefly be feeders of existing lines, and he believed that Parliament would have to take care that fair arrangements were made for working these small weak lines, so that they might not be oppressed by powerful companies. Competition was, doubtless, the safeguard of the public. Under it they secured convenience and economy. In many instances the maximum rates of fares had been fixed with the intention that they should be moderated by competition. But just now competition was likely to be reduced below what was wholesome and safe by the process of amalgamation and working arrangements. It was an old saying that competition ended in combination, and this had received a remarkable illustration, as the House knew, in the case of the gas companies. The House should have its attention

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  directed to what seemed to him to be a great danger to the public. From 1860 to 1867 344 Bills had been passed for amalgamation and working arrangements affecting no less than 465 railway companies. He proposed to lay this list with a map on the table of the House. This year the number of Bills was only fifteen, but among them was a gigantic scheme affecting a large district in the South of England. Now, he was not opposed on principle to amalgamation. There could be no doubt that it produced the advantage to the public of greater economy and more harmonious correspondence of trains; at the same time it deprived them of this safeguard of competition. He wished that in an earlier year this subject had been referred to a strong Committee, in order that efficient Standing Orders might have been framed, instead of the useless 162nd Order, requiring the Board of Trade to do what in many notorious cases it certainly could not do—namely, satisfy itself of the amounts of capital actually paid and expended, and that provisions had been insisted on not only for present regulation, but for periodical future revision. He had thought it right to say so much on this occasion, in order that the House, while admitting the value of competition by discussing this comparatively small question of locus standi in the few cases likely to arise in future, might not suffer to pass unheeded vast schemes for the substitution of monopoly in the place of competition throughout every district of the kingdom.
  LORD HOTHAMsaid, that the proposal made by the Chairman of Ways and Means had received due consideration at the hands of the Committee on Standing Orders. It was thought that it would meet with opposition from a great many Members who had made up their minds on the subject, while many others would not agree to it without further inquiry. The Committee accordingly recommended that the proposal should not be entertained for the present; and not only did he concur in this opinion, but, though he had heard ten times as much on the subject as he had ever expected to hear, he had seen no reason to alter his opinion. He hoped that the hon. Gentleman would be satisfied with the discussion which had taken place, and would at all events postpone the matter.
  MR. WATKINconcurred in the suggestion of the noble Lord.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION—ASSISTANT BOUNDARY COMMISSIONERS' REPORTS.—QUESTION.
MR. SERJEANT GASELEEsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, What instructions were given to the Assistant Boundary Commissioners for the Borough of Portsmouth, and whether he has any objection to lay them upon the Table of the House, and also their Report to the Boundary Commissioners, recommending for Parliamentary Elections the annexation of the town of Gosport to the borough of Portsmouth, contrary to the wishes of both?
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, with respect to the instructions given to the Assistant Boundary Commissioners for the Borough of Portsmouth, it is unnecessary for me to produce them, because they are already lying on the table. With regard to the Reports of the Assistant Boundary Commissioners, they are essentially confidential documents, supplied for the information of the Boundary Commissioners, who form their opinion upon them, and who are responsible for the opinion they give to this House. It is, therefore, quite out of the question to produce these Reports.
Afterwards—
MR. DARBY GRIFFITH: Sir, I scarcely understood the Answer given by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury with respect to the Assistant Boundary Commissioners' Reports. Does he mean it to be understood that there are secret Reports made by the Assistant Commissioners of Boundaries differing from those laid on the Table of the House, and that their Reports are not to be laid upon the Table?
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I understood the Question addressed to me by the hon. and learned Member for Portsmouth (Mr. Serjeant Gaselee) to be, Whether the instructions to the Assistant Boundary Commissioners who visited the Borough of Portsmouth will be laid upon the table of the House: In answer to that, I said there was no difference between the instructions given to the Assistant Boundary Commissioners for the Borough of Portsmouth and those given to the other Assistant Commissioners, which are upon the table of the House. And I also said what is invariably the case, that the Reports of Assistant Boundary Commissioners are confidential documents, for the use of the

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Boundary Commissioners, whose Reports are laid on the table. The Reports of the Assistant Boundary Commissioners are not laid upon the table, but are made solely for the use of the Boundary Commissioners.

INDIA—BANK OF BOMBAY.

  QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY RAWLINSONsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of Stale for India, Whether the opinions of any Members of the Council of India on the subject of the Government connection with the Bank of Bombay have been placed on record, as provided for in the twenty-third section of "The Government of India Act;" and, if so, whether he will lay such opinions upon the Table of the House, with any other explanatory Papers which may have been addressed to him on the same subject, and in addition to the Correspondence that has been already furnished to the House?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEreplied, that there was only one Minute of a Member of the Council of India that had been recorded under the provisions of the twenty-third section of the Act. There were several other memoranda and papers of a more or less formal character; but inasmuch as the Minute referred to the personal character of individuals and matters that were about to form the subject of an official inquiry, he considered it would not be convenient or proper to produce it.

CONTRACT LAW FOR INDIA.

  QUESTION.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, If he has any objection to lay Copies of Papers upon the Table of the House showing the present position of the question of a Contract Law for India; and of all Reports of the Indian Law Commissioners on the subject of Contracts?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, in reply, that he had no objection to lay copies of the Papers in question on the table of the House.

NAVY ESTIMATES.—QUESTION.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he wished to ask, Whether it is the intention of the Admiralty, previous to the discussion on
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the Navy Estimates, to lay upon the Table of the House any detailed Estimates of the expenditure to be incurred in the various Dockyards during the ensuing year, and the particulars connected with the building, repairing, and re-fitting of vessels?
LORD HENRY LENNOXreplied, that the information which the hon. Gentleman desired to have would probably be found in two Papers which he had just laid on the table of the House, and which would be distributed to Members on Thursday. The first was a supplement to the Appendix to Vote 6 in the Estimates. This supplement would show the class and tonnage of each ship, and the estimate cost of labour and material to be expended during the year. The second was a general summary, showing the intended appropriation of Vote 6, distinguishing the sums to be expended in building and re-fitting of ships, and that for the wear and tear and maintenance of the fleet for the year 1868–9.

LICENCES.—RESOLUTION.
MR. MARSHcalled the attention of the House to the subject of those licences which restrict the trade and commerce of the country, with a view to their abolition, and, in case of a financial necessity, a transfer of the charges to make or sell any article to a direct tax on the article itself; and moved that, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that all Licences injuriously affecting the industry and commerce of the Country should be abolished. He said that he should endeavour to show that there was no defence for maintaining these licences; that the amount paid was collected in an expensive manner; that they checked the industry and commerce of the country; that they pressed more on some trades than on others, and on some classes of the community more than on others, and especially upon the humbler classes; that they produced, to a certain extent, monopoly and higher prices, and, in some cases, prevented articles from being used. Another objection was that the taxes so imposed were collected by three separate Departments—the Excise, Stamps, and Assessed Tax Offices; and certainly if they were to be continued it would be better that they should all be placed under the control of one Department. The licence to make soap, which was £4 4s. a year, produced £1,234 16 s. The time was past, he presumed,

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when any defenders of taxing soap could be found. The licence to make vinegar, which in fact made itself, was £5 5s., and produced £330 15 s. Then the vinegar maker was protected against his foreign competitor, and, that nothing might escape, pickles were taxed. The papermaker had to pay £4 4s. a year, notwithstanding the House had long since declared paper should be free of taxation. Then came a class which was of much greater importance—the licences to tea and coffee dealers. Such persons, if their premises were rated at as much as £8, had to pay 11 s. 6½d. for a licence, and if such a person living in a village sold only 30lb. of tea in one year the licence duty would amount to 4½d. per lb., whilst the import duty was only 6d. The consequence of the licence creating a sort of monopoly was, that in villages tea, which could be bought at 2s. 2d per lb. in the towns, was sold for as much as 4s. in the villages. The tea licence produced £66,577; and the import duty on tea, chicory, and coffee £3,110,000; so that a fractional addition to the duty on tea would recoup the Government for any loss it might sustain by abolishing the licence, and the only hardship that would result would be a rise of about half a farthing per pound on tea. Tobacco manufacturers whose make did not exceed 20,000lb a year had to pay £5 5s. for a licence, and the charge increased by a sliding scale, according to the make, up to 100,000lb, for which the charge was £31 10 s. The arrangement was exceedingly complicated, and, of course, hampered the manufacturers very much. The dealers in tobacco paid 5s. 3d. for a licence; small dealers paid as much as large, and occasional dealers, such as the man who sold a cigar and a light on the Derby Day, were expected to pay 4d. This last charge was of course evaded, and it would be better at once to abolish it. The total received for tobacco licences amounted to £77,957; the total revenue from duty on tobacco, £6,332,000; so that an increase of 1¼ per cent on the duty would enable the Government to abolish the licence altogether. He now came to the licence duty for selling wines, and he believed that the way in which this duty was imposed had some effect in preventing people from selling wines to the extent that they otherwise would. There were many other licences, including what were called occasional licences, which occasioned much vexation and annoyance, and produced
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after all, comparatively, very little to the public revenue. In respect to the article of wine, it was charged at a much higher rate than it ought to be. Now, take the case of a traveller by railway; he could procure a newspaper for 1d., a bun for 1d. at a station, a sandwich for 2d., or a sausage and potatoes for 4d.; but if he were to venture upon a glass of wine he would have to pay 6d. for it. Now, he was told that such wine as that usually sold at stations for 6d. a glass could be purchased for 16 s. a dozen, and that each bottle contained about sixteen glasses. The result was, that for each bottle costing to the retailer only 1s. 4d. he received 8s., being a profit of above 600 per cent. The total produced from wine licences to the Inland Revenue was £130,911; the revenue from the Customs was £1,409,127. If such an alteration as he suggested were made, and 10 per cent additional put upon the Customs in respect to this article of wine, it would amply recoup the Government for any losses they sustained by this change in the licencing system. Dealers in sweets were taxed to the amount of £11,000. Dealers in plate were also taxed, and the mode in which the tax was levied upon them was unequal and complicated. A very small percentage on the value of the plate would in this case also render licences unnecessary, and at the same time guard the Revenue of the country against loss. He might observe that under the existing system a considerable advantage was given to the French manufacturers of plate. Pawnbrokers in London paid £15 licence, and in the country £7 10 s. Pawn-broking was said to be a necessity to the poor, and foreign Governments took this trade into their own hands. He did not say that, as a protection against receivers of stolen property, pawnbrokers ought not to be registered in some way; but he did think that the State ought not to tax the wants of the poor. With respect to malt and beer, they were taxed six times over and in twenty-five different ways. So unequal was the manner in which the licences were levied that the small man had to pay most, the large man paid least, and the country gentleman who brewed his own beer at home paid nothing at all. He did not propose to deal with the retail trade, though he believed that the licencing system was of no use in preventing drunkenness. In some places where there was free trade in brandies and wines there was no

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drunkenness at all. He knew that the malt tax was an unpopular impost; but it was a question whether it would not be better to raise money by a tax on beer than by means of all those licence payments in the malting and brewing trades. He believed there would be no difficulty in raising a tax on beer, and the great advantage of this would be that the Excise would be levied in the last stage before consumption. Adam Smith laid it down that this was the most advisable way of levying excise on a manufactured article. A brewer had written to him to explain that there would be no difficulty in raising a tax on beer. The private brewers at the present moment were becoming an extinct species. They could not contend in towns against the machinery and capital of the large brewers, and hence private brewing practically was confined to the wealthy farmers and country gentlemen. But these were the very persons least likely to cheat the Excise, and assuming even that the disposition existed, how was it to be done? The income tax might be evaded, because you could not smell it; but he defied any person to conduct brewing operations without the fact becoming known. If the duty levied upon malt were levied at the last moment, instead of at the first, a great many disadvantages would be got rid of. It was impossible for a maltster under the conditions of modern science to comply literally with Excise regulations, some of which were 200 years old. If the course which he advocated were adopted, anybody would be free to use barley, according to its quality, for any purpose that he liked; and it was only if he turned it into beer that he would have to pay duty. The duty raised from spirits was enormous; but it was not merely the amount of the levy which was oppressive, but the operation of the tax, which extended to chymists, and exercised an effect almost prohibitory upon various industries. If we allowed Trench tables to come in duty free, at least we ought to take care that the materials for French polishing were not denied to our own tradesmen. Stage carriages were taxed in ten different ways, and it appeared to him that many of those taxes were most injurious, some of them acting very severely upon cabmen, a much abused but good class of men. It would be better, instead of licences, to increase the assessed taxes on horses and carriages. Why, again, should auctioneers be called upon
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to pay a license of £10 10 s.? Abuses there might be connected with auctions; but, on the whole, the system of public competition was the fairest that could be devised. One would suppose that the classes invidiously subjected to the payment of licence duty would remonstrate and petition Parliament for relief. But as long as they fancied that monopoly was thereby secured to them they reconciled themselves to the payment of these charges. A wine merchant to whom he spoke upon the subject recently avowed that he did not think the licence duty any hardship. For, said he, "it keeps people out of the trade," thereby letting the cat out of the bag. It might be thought that if this small additional percentage were added to the Customs and Excise duties the odd sums would be found very difficult to collect. But tables could, of course, be produced which would give equivalents; and, moreover, the existing proportions of duty — such, for instance, as 3s. 1d. and eight-tenths of 1d. per pound upon tobacco — were often quite incomprehensible. The licence system, in fact, had been tolerated because the payments were almost inappreciable; but surely it was better to pay 6d. and know it, than to pay 1s. and know nothing about it. He objected to the charges which he had enumerated, because they were partial; and unjust in their operations; interfering unequally with many industries, and because they were often evaded, and where paid, established a monopoly resulting in more than commensurate loss to the consumers. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice, intimating, however, that it was not his intention to put the House to the trouble of dividing.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that all Licences injuriously affecting the industry and Commerce of the Country should be abolished."—(Mr. Marsh.)
MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he wished to make a few remarks on the subject of one licence, especially as it seemed to be supposed that the burden fell upon the consumer. He referred to the licence upon those unfortunate victims of taxation, the brewers. That licence was entirely paid by the brewers themselves; and what did it amount to? A London brewer who made 100,000 barrels of beer per annum, would require a capital of about £300,000.

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At the average price of barley, the profit per barrel would be 5s., or £25,000 per year. From that must be deducted the interest on the £300,000, which would leave £10,000. But the duty would be £1,300, which would be 13 per cent. on the trade profit. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone) imposed the tax, he urged as an argument in its favour that the brewers would be more than compensated by the abolition of the hop duty; but the fact was that since that time hops had been dearer, the hop-growers being now able to hold their hops, instead of submitting to forced sales in order to pay the duty. The result was that the brewer had to pay an additional tax of 13 per cent, and received no compensation for it. He (Mr. Labouchere) could see no reason why a brewer should be taxed more proportionally than a cotton spinner. There was indeed a species of delusion abroad that brewers made large profits, but that was not the case—certainly not with the London brewers, who very seldom received more than 8 per cent upon their money. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer chose to levy a general tax on trades, there might be some reason for that; but he (Mr. Labouchere) did complain of this invidious burden upon one; and he trusted not only that the right hon. Gentleman would inaugurate his entry into office by modifying to a considerable extent this licence, which was really a measure of spoliation, but that the right hon. Gentleman below him (Mr. Gladstone), whose prediction had not been verified, would assist the brewers in obtaining a modification of the tax.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I have listened with great attention and interest to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Marsh), and I am glad to find from his concluding remarks that he does not intend to divide the House upon his Motion; because if he had done so I should have opposed it, as no one in my position could assent to a Motion which would, at the present time, strike off so large an amount of the Revenue without proposing a substitute. The question is one of great importance, and I must remind him and the House that the licences to which he has referred come under different categories. These licences were first imposed upon those who sold exciseable or dutiable articles; and though the duties on many of those articles have been relaxed the
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licence on the vendors still remains; and I must admit there are some anomalies connected with them which I think it would be desirable to remove. The licence for the sale of beer and spirituous liquors produces £1,150,000, and in considering it we must do so, not merely as a licence on the sale of articles for the purposes of revenue, but also to a certain extent with reference to police regulations, as bringing the persons who sell these articles under the control of that body. The stage and hackney carriage and postmasters' licence yields about £170,000 per annum, and the game licences about £158,000. The postmasters' licence is a subject to be dealt with when a convenient time arises; but I think they should all be dealt with together, when the locomotive duties are dealt with as a whole. The brewers', distillers', and auctioneers' licences yield about £420,000 per annum; and tobacco, tea, hawkers' licences, &c., about £270,000. The licences on the larger classes which I have enumerated have been imposed for different reasons, and the hawkers' licence was imposed partly in order to protect small shopkeepers, who complained that these itinerant dealers who paid no rates and taxes ought have a duty imposed on them, and partly as a police regulation, it being necessary that men who were always going about the country, and who had many opportunities of committing frauds and depredations, should be subjected to some supervision. The hon. Gentleman has made a great point with regard to the licence for selling coffee and tea, which is no doubt a matter open for consideration. There is a great difficulty in imposing a fixed rate of licence, because it must press much heavier on the small trader than on the man who carries on an extensive business. In 1853 the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) proposed a scale of trade licences according to the value of the premises; but he found considerable difficulty in dealing with the question, and eventually he was obliged to give it up. It has, however, been urged by some that a general trade licence graduated according to the rateable value of the premises, should be imposed in lieu of the income tax on profits of trade, but great, if not insuperable, difficulties present themselves in devising such a scheme. Now if some trades are required to take out a licence it is difficult to see why all should not. But then again arises the difficulty of imposing it in such a manner

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as that it shall press equally upon all. The rateable value of the premises does not indicate the magnitude of the trade carried on, because some trades, from the bulky character of the goods, require much larger premises than others. I have referred to these matters to show that this is a subject that ought not to be dealt with hastily, and without due consideration; and with regard to the machine referred to by the hon. Member in Somerset House, I do not think there is in existence any machine which would devise a scale of duties that would be likely to give satisfaction. The subject which the hon. Member has brought before the House is one of considerable importance, and it shall have my best attention.
MR. POLLARD-URQUHARTsaid, the licencing system was one of those subjects that would very early engage the attention of the new Reformed Parliament. The poor in the agricultural districts had gained less by the great reductions that had taken place in the duties of all articles of consumption than any other class in the kingdom, from the fact that the retailers in the small villages had not made a corresponding reduction in the price of those articles of necessity and comfort so largely consumed by the poor. The traders retained a monopoly of the trade, because others were deterred from embarking in business on account of the heavy licences they would have, or thought they would have, to pay. A labouring man with £1 1s. a week in Manchester or Birmingham gained the whole benefit of the reduction, whilst the poor Dorchester labourer, on his 8s. or 10 s. a week, got none.
MR. M. T. BASSsaid, he could not understand why one trade should pay a licence while others did not—why a soapboiler and a papermaker should pay a licence and a calico maker should not; why a banker should pay and a merchant should be exempt; why a horse-dealer should pay and a cow-keeper be exempt. The hon. and learned Member for Tiverton (Mr. Denman) annually brought forward the grievance of attorneys and their certificates or licences; but the attorneys were by no means singular in this respect. He wished the hon. and learned Gentleman were present that he might challenge him to a discussion of this whole question. Either licencing was good or bad; if good, it should be made general, and if bad, it should be abolished. In America, a vast
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number of licences were imposed, and where licence duties were imposed almost every trader and manufacturer paid duty on their articles. In this way alone he thought licence duties upon articles should be collected. But he rose chiefly to call attention to one particular licence which he thought the most grievous of all. It was a blot, a special blemish, on the great financial schemes of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone). When he brought forward the measure originally it was presented to the House as a commutation of the hop duty. He argued that every one would pay the duty according to the quantity of malt he consumed. He himself had ventured to oppose that view; but the right hon. Gentleman persisted. It happened that at the last General Election he had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of an important portion of his constituents—the Licensed Victuallers—who took it into their heads that he had supported the right hon. Gentleman in maintaining the proportion he had taken of two bushels of malt to a barrel of beer; whereas the reverse was the fact, and he was obliged to seek a certificate from the right hon. Gentleman in order to appease their wrath, who was kind enough to state that he had taken the opposite course. Instead of two bushels, four bushels of malt were used, and the result was that they paid a double tax. The duty paid upon one cwt. of hops used in the brewing of pale ale was 6s. 7d., and the duty upon the malt £6 5s. 7d. The duty paid upon strong beer was 9s. 9d. for the hops and £10 2s. 8d. on the malt, being 50 per cent more than the other and nearly 100 per cent on the malt duty. The right hon. Gentleman attempted to push this tax further and place it on all private brewers; but he himself, accompanied by an hon. Gentleman engaged in one of the largest trades in this country, said they should not insist on the tax being extended to private brewers. He confessed, however, that he had made a great mistake. It was a real injustice which the right hon. Gentleman had inflicted on the brewer, and the private brewer had been allowed to escape altogether. The right hon. Gentleman gave as one of his prime reasons for imposing this tax that it would be recovered in a reduction of the price of hops. But the very reverse was the fact. There had been an average advance of 35 per cent in the value of hops. The brewing trade had in the interval paid the sum

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of £1,500,000 in the increased value of hops, and in licence duties over £2,000,000. He defied any person to show that they had received a single penny in exchange for this. It was his firm conviction that the brewers' tax was paid out of capital this year and last; and he had heard, on reliable information, that one of the oldest houses in the trade did not get a single shilling last year. They were required to pay £12,000 before they were allowed to begin business; and he knew a house that had paid £46,000 by means of this tax since 1862, and they had not made forty-six pence in return for it. He asked the House, was it just to impose this additional property-tax on the brewers, whilst other trades were free? The whole system of licences was bad unless it was made general. The licence tax was an iniquity. They might as well require Chancellors of the Exchequer to pay a tax of 50 per cent, although there were no persons he would deal with more liberally. He would double their salaries to-morrow. He hoped in return they would do something for him. He defied any Chancellor of the Exchequer to defend this tax. He would seek some other opportunity of bringing this matter forward.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that he thought the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Marsh) had exercised a wise discretion in not calling for a division on the question he had introduced. However important it might be to discuss the principles on which a remission of taxation should be made, it was obvious that such discussions could not have any practical effect in the face of a progressive increase in every branch of the public expenditure. It was on their success in restricting expenditure that they must chiefly depend for the remission of taxation; because, if they continued to increase the expenditure rapidly, it was quite in vain to make the most enlightened speeches on the subject of the reduction of taxes. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite correct in stating that the subject of licencing was a very difficult one to deal with; and, indeed, so great were those difficulties, and so anomalous our licencing laws, that every attempt which he (Mr. Gladstone) had hitherto made to reduce them to something like order and principle had failed; and he had always been obliged to desist from bringing forward any propositions on the subject in a practical shape. When the hon. Member called
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upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to establish some principle with respect to licencing, he (Mr. Gladstone) would suggest that there was a class of commodities on which he considered that it was expedient to obtain the maximum amount of revenue which it was possible to obtain. Such a commodity was ardent spirits. It appeared to him to be perfectly fair, with some small reservation, to get as much as they could in the shape of indirect taxes from such a commodity; but it was quite a different case with respect to tea. He did not for a moment suggest that the present was a time when the licence duty on tea could be further reduced; but he thought that, as a general rule, all licences which acted as a restraint to trade ought to be the first to be dispensed with. Then, again, with respect to licences granted to small dealers, which produced only an insignificant amount of revenue, he quite agreed with the hon. Member for Salisbury, although he could not think of parting with that revenue at present. Such licences operated as a restraint to trade, and ought to be parted with at as early a period as was convenient. With regard to the sale of strong liquors, he did not see that the licencing system was at all objectionable, nor ought it, in any probable or proximate circumstances, to be abandoned. The brewers' licence pressed upon brewers beyond the ordinary rules of trade, and could only be justified by necessity. [Mr. M. T. BASS: It is nearly double what you compute it to be.] The question was not now before the House, and his hon. Friend would do him the justice to admit that, when it was proposed in lieu of a duty on hops, it was unanimously accepted by the House, and met with the approval of several eminent members of the trade itself. His hon. Friend, with great magnanimity, refused the advantage offered to private brewers, amidst the cheers of the House. However, he hoped that the time would soon come when the whole question of licences could be fairly considered, and when any objectionable one brought before the attention of the House could be dispensed with altogether. With respect to brewers' licences, he admitted that he would not support them if they could be commuted into a duty upon malt; and if Her Majesty's Government made such a proposal he should not oppose it. He admitted that the brewers' licence was a question which was fairly open to discussion, and should,

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therefore, be glad to see it brought forward at any time in that House. As regarded licences granted to bankers, they in no degree acted as a restraint upon trade, from the simple fact that they were only required to be taken out by banks of issue, and there were obvious reasons why a licence should be required in their case. He thought the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was quite right in sticking to his licences, and he was glad that the hon. Member who had brought forward the Motion was not going to press it to a division, as he should otherwise have been compelled to vote against it.
MR. GREENEcomplained that the brewer was unable to recoup himself for his licence by raising the retail price of a pint of beer by an impossible fraction of a penny, and therefore the whole sum came out of his pocket. He could not see why the brewer should be taxed while the cotton manufacturer got off free. He did not object to the brewer paying a licence; but he said that the licence in lieu of hop duty was unfair in the extreme. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Marsh) proposed that the duty should be raised upon the beer, instead of upon the malt; but experience had shown them that the restrictions imposed upon the brewer by such a practice were such as it was impossible they could now submit to; and, moreover, this was not the proper time to propose the reduction of the malt tax now we were at war with Abyssinia. His object in rising was to express his regret that, when practical questions came before the House, there should be so thin an attendance of Members; whereas, if the hon. Member for Birmingham, or any other hon. Member, brought forward a sentimental grievance from the other side of the water to be discussed a large number of Members were invariably present. He hoped that the Motion of the hon. Member for Salisbury would be brought forward on some future occasion, and that a Committee would then be appointed to consider the whole question of trade licences.
SIR GEORGE BOWYERremarked, that according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the licences of hawkers were needed for the protection of shopkeepers. But this was an argument that could scarcely be recognized in these days of free trade. Hawkers were amenable to the criminal law of the country; and if
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they committed any offence they could be pulled up before the magistrates and punished without any aid from the system of licences. He considered that these hawkers' licences were oppressive and exceptional. They produced only about £50,000 a year, and they were a very great restraint on the trade of the poorer classes, many of whom were thus prevented from getting an honest living. To impose such restrictions on those persons was a very likely means of forcing them into the workhouse or the prison.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. SAMUELSON, in rising to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the provisions for giving instruction in theoretical and applied Science to the Industrial Classes, said, that in the Notice which he had given he had been careful to avoid the use of the term technical education, and for this reason: technical education was of two kinds—that of the school and that of the factory. Now, it could not be denied that the instruction received by artizans in our factories was at least equal, if not superior, to the instruction received in the factories of any other nation in the world. Our manufactures had long carried off the palm among the industrial productions of nations; our manufactures had been renowned at a time when the Continent had even the rudiments of good workmanship to learn. But it should be remembered how very recent was our present great industrial system. It dated from the inventions of Watt, of Arkwright, and of Crompton; and to show how entirely it was of modern creation, he would simply mention that the manufacture of iron in this country had increased from 60,000 tons in 1788 to 5,000,000 tons in 1867, or very nearly a hundred-fold. Whilst this great industrial edifice was being created, European countries were suffering from exhausting wars. It should be remembered that until within a comparatively recent period the exportation of machinery from this country was prohibited; while, until the middle of the reign of George IV., it was an offence punishable, he believed, with death, to entice any artizan to go abroad for the purpose of teaching his trade to foreign workmen, Meanwhile, schools were established

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  on the Continent for conveying, not only theoretical instruction, but also for the purpose of imparting instruction in practical manipulation. In France les Ecoles des arts et des metiers were established; the great Ecole centrale was created in Paris, and polytechnic schools throughout North and Western Germany. It was urged that the example of the United States showed that there was no necessity for the establishment of technical schools. He was not aware whether the United States as yet possessed any such schools; but that they regarded the subject as being one of great importance might be seen from the fact that, in the midst of their troubles, they voted towards technical schools land of no less a value than 8,000,000 of dollars. There were in this country no technical schools, and though our Universities end some of our public establishments of instruction contained the elements of such schools, yet they were from this point of view open to several objections. In Oxford, he was glad to say, scientific instruction was gaining ground; but he contended that it was not only of too theoretical a character, but that Colleges were conducted on principles which were too severely denominational. A son of a friend of his, in the sixth form at Rugby, offered himself as a candidate for a prize at Christ Church in natural science; but his father holding the views of the Society of Friends, and he being consequently unable to produce a certificate of baptism, he was not permitted to compete. The only two unsectarian institutions we had were those of the University College of London and of Owen's College in Manchester. He was aware that there were two great schools in London which partially fulfilled the purpose he had in view—the School of Mines together with the College of Chymistry in Jermyn Street, and the School of Naval Architecture in Kensington. The School of Mines was no doubt an institution of great use, but it was not a polytechnic school; and one inquiry of his Committee would be, whether this school could not be made the foundation of a great school of general technical instruction? The School of Naval Architecture was also of great use; and he had been told by Mr. Reed that till it was established he could not find anyone to draught his plans, and he was obliged to sit down to a drawing-board himself to work out his own designs in detail. But there was not a complete polytechnic
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  school in England. The case was different in Ireland. There was a College of Science in Dublin whose curriculum was very complete; but it was too recent in its establishment to enable him to speak of its success. As regards secondary education, some attempt was made to instruct the middle classes in the applied sciences; but the general working of these schools might be summed up in a remark from the Report of the recent Schools Commission, that in general the masters were ill supplied with apparatus, and that they were very deficient in manipulative skill. As far back as 1859 attempts had been made to get up classes for the teaching of theoretical and applied science to the working classes; but the result was that they had been established in very few of the manufacturing districts, and that, with the exception of Lancashire and London and its neighbourhood, they had taken no hold on the industrial population. In Lancashire, an excellent school had been established at Oldam, mainly through the munificence of the hon. Member for that town (Mr. Platt); and in Halifax, in Yorkshire, there was another excellent school, sustained by the liberality of the hon. Member for that borough, (Mr. Akroyd). But there were no schools in Durham, none in Northumberland, few in Staffordshire, none in Derby. He had no doubt, however, he would be told by the noble Lord opposite that the number of persons receiving scientific instruction was increasing. [Lord ROBERT MONTAGU: Hear, hear!] He was aware that was so; but in the majority of instances it would be found that the increase was made up of children taught in the elementary schools, and taught in a very superficial way. For instance, it was stated that at Plymouth in 1865 there were two scientific schools, and in 1866 there was a third added for navigation. But in the first year that school had 458 pupils, and it had only one master. The consequence was, that not one of the pupils gained a certificate at the examination—as, indeed, how could they when the whole 458 were taught by a single master? And yet the Inspector reported everything coleur de rose, and the only remark he made was that it would be better if there were more masters. But only 123 of the 601 existing certificated teachers were being employed; and, taking this in conjunction with the cry for more teachers, it was evident something in the shape of a grievance

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  existed, into which the House might do well to inquire. Of this he felt sure, that the Minute of Council which enabled holders of Queen's prizes to become teachers, without having undergone a special teacher's examination, was a great mistake, and ought to be repealed. Already the instruction was weak enough, as shown by the results. In the annual papers of examination throughout the country upon scientific subjects, he found in those of May, 1866, that in geometry, 51 per cent of those examined were failures; in mechanical drawing, 36 per cent; in applied mechanics, 46 per cent; in geology, 42 per cent; in mineralogy, 45 per cent; in steam, 57 per cent; and in physical geography, 61 per cent. This was excused on the ground that two sets of papers had been issued under a new system, and that the pupils, in error, had taken the more difficult. The statistics, however, showed that a majority of the failures took place in the easier papers. This, for instance, was so with regard to 40 out of the 61 per cent of failures in physical geography. One reason for the want of success in these schools he believed to be, was that their practical management was in the hands of a gentleman who was thoroughly familiar with art, but, he was afraid, was not equally acquainted with science — Mr. Cole—and who therefore could not do his duty in the Department of Science as, notwithstanding all the fault found with him, he believed he had done in regard to art. But there was one excellent thing done in this Department—the establishment of drawing classes in elementary schools. For his own part, he believed that nothing could so much tend to promote efficiency in the schools to which his Motion had more especial reference than the giving of preparatory instruction to young children in drawing; not, however, as was now the case, by art masters exclusively, since the Department by one of its rules acknowledged their incompetency to give instruction in geometrical or mechanical drawing, but rather by science masters; and a Minute had lately been issued granting scholarships to advanced scholars in elementary schools who should pass a satisfactory examination in science and art; but that had been issued so recently that he was unable as yet to give an opinion of its success. The answers forwarded by the different Chambers of Commerce to the circular issued by the Privy Council declared that British workmen
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  were placed at great disadvantages by their want of systematic instruction; but he was sorry to find that those Chambers appeared to be quite unconscious of the defective education of the managers and proprietors of manufactories. One difficulty surrounding the subject at this moment was that we hesitated to grant efficient Government aid to any class except the working classes in this country; while they, on the other hand, were not prepared by their previous training to accept it, and so matters moved in a vicious circle. He believed that a solution, to a great extent, of the difficulty might be found in granting aid towards the establishment of professorships upon the understanding that, whatever other instruction the professors might give, they should also give instruction to working men in the night schools. If in some form or other the Government were prepared to promote more systematic plans for teaching science in our great manufacturing centres, local efforts in aid of them would not be wanting. As to the necessary funds, he would not, as was so often done, compare the grants for education with those for naval and military purposes; but when he stated that education in the British army cost four and a half or five times as much per head as it did in the French service, he thought he had pointed out a fund from which some portion of any additional grants in favour of science might be recovered. If ever cultivation was to be extended to our industrial classes, it must be in the first instance by educating them in science. He by no means undervalued other branches of education. The claims of classical literature, indeed, had latterly been under-rated, he thought, by men like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe), who themselves were masters of the subject, and owed many of their greatest successes to the perfection of their classical training. If they wished to give the industrial classes of the country, from manufacturers and managers down to the artizans, a desire for instruction, it must be done by tempting those classes to instruct themselves, in the first place, in the principles underlying the arts they pursued in their daily avocations, and that having been accomplished, the question would arise whether a combination of such instruction with literary instruction could or could not, in the majority of instances, be effected. He believed that encouragement

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  of technical instruction in this country would not merely promote arts and manufactures, but would tend to the advancement, of the general education of the people. The hon. Member concluded by moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the provisions for giving instruction in theoretical and applied Science to the Industrial Classes.
  MR. DIXONsaid, he sincerely hoped that the graining of the Committee would not be a bar to giving the assistance immediately and urgently required by some of the provincial towns, and which would be asked for by others. He hoped that the result of the inquiry would be practical legislation, and a disposition on the part of the Government to grant the supplies necessary to carry out the recommendations of the Committee. They could not hide from themselves the fact that this was a question of no small importance; because it was beginning to be fully recognized that, upon the right method of dealing with this question depended, to a considerable extent, the continuance of the manufacturing prosperity they had hitherto so largely enjoyed. We did not now occupy the same position in regard to manufactures as we had occupied ten or twenty years ago. He referred to our position as compared with that of other countries. The letters written by jurors at the Paris Exhibition showed that we had not kept pace with Continental nations. This was the opinion of Chambers of Commerce, which ought to be able to; arrive at a correct conclusion on the matter; and Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth held that in our middle-class education there had been scarcely any advance during the last thirty years. He hoped that the Committee, if appointed, would inquire, not only into the provisions now existing respecting technical education; but would also inquire into the provisions that ought to exist, and which it should be the duty of the House to bring into existence. The Science and Art Department, in its last Report, informed them that in all the schools connected with the Department, there were not more than 7,000 pupils under certificated teachers—or not more than one pupil, in a scientific school, out of every 4,300 inhabitants. To the science and art school in one small town the Government of Saxony allowed £3,000 per annum; while £7,000 a year was the aggregate allowed by our Government to the provincial schools of science
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  and art in this country. Government should do a great deal more than they had hitherto been able to do. Much had been done by private enterprize at Birmingham to promote technical education; but there was still work before them which they could not perform for want of means, for which they were now applying to the Government, and he trusted they would give it to them. He trusted also that, when the Report of the Committees was before the House, the Government, backed by the opinion of the House and the feeling of the country, would do a great deal more for technical instruction than they had ever yet dreamt of doing.
  MR. BAINESsaid, he considered it was very desirable that the Government should grant the Committee asked for. If a Committee were appointed, it should be composed of men of science, practical manufacturers, and men connected with public and political life; and the inquiry might be more efficient if it were carried on by a Royal Commission, because the services of men of science would be more at the command of a Commission than of a Select Committee; but if the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council thought that the inquiry ought to be referred to a Committee, he should make no objection. He must do the Government the justice to say that the Department of Science and Art had been by no means idle in the matter of technical education; nor had their efforts been unattended with good. It was only eight years since the Government Grant was first given, and the number of scholars had increased from 500 in 1860 to 10,000 in the course of the present year. He believed, however, comparatively little had been done out-of-doors to provide the education which was suited to persons intended as managers for large manufacturies. Still, he might say, if science had been neglected by the humbler classes of the community, it had been neglected in a still greater degree by the upper and middle classes. In the middle-class schools the great defect was found to be the want of scientific education; and he believed the fact was in a great degree attributable to the Universities, where, until recently, science was not made an especial study. The University of London, and other kindred institutions, had given a great stimulus to the study of science; and, although they might be disposed to look with favour upon what had been accomplished, they were forced to admit that

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  as compared with other countries there was a great inferiority in this with respect to scientific education. He hoped to see artistic and scientific education in this country raised to a point commensurate with our manufacturing ascendancy. He trusted the Committee asked for by the Motion of the hon. Member would be granted, and that it would enter on its duties with a resolution to bring the matter to some practical result.
  MR. BAZLEYsaid, he did not despair of the capabilities of his countrymen, who, he believed, would still be found unrivalled in the race of the world's competition; and with regard to education he bought that the first duty which that House had to perform was to provide primary instruction for the great masses of the people. His hon. Friend had omitted to mention the great advantage which a man's genius gave to his labour. There were many persons in this country who were continually undergoing a system of self-education, not being much indebted to school education, and to that class the manufacturers of this country owed more than to those who were deeply skilled in science and art. He took a more cheerful view of the result of the Paris Exhibition than was entertained by his hon. Friend. According to the Report of an engineer artizan (Mr. Evans), published under the sanction of the Society, it appeared that in the engineering department of the Paris Exhibition there was nothing to surpass British workmanship for finish and soundness; and that for exactness and perfection of design nothing could exceed the tools of Messrs. Whitworth and Co. In like manner, it was stated in the work published by that society upon the Paris Exhibition that in the watch trade the English, taking quality into consideration, had really nothing to fear. From Coventry two individuals were sent to the Paris Exhibition, and the report drawn up by one of them stated that for the mauufacture of good, plain ribands Coventry had no reason to be apprehensive of rivalry. Speaking generally, he thought that, instead of asking the Government to patronize the British workman, he should himself forego his invocations to Jupiter and put his shoulder to the wheel. The cotton trade was originated by self-teaching and self-help. Within his own recollection Mr. Heathcoat, formerly Member for Tiverton, commenced the lace trade in this country: he had no scientific teaching, but
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  the manufacture succeeded so well that £1,000,000 a year, at least, is contributed to the public Revenue by those engaged in it. He should not despair of the working class, with only that education which he hoped the Government might give, keeping pace with the times; and he hoped manufacturers would keep pace with their workpeople. He would rather see efforts made out-of-doors to educate for particular trades than that the Government should provide that education. To prove that, after all, we were not so far behind our neighbours as some represented, he would mention this fact:—The French were reported to be, from their superior knowledge of chymistry, more skilled than ourselves in the art of dyeing, and yet, within the last fortnight, the manufacturers of Rouen had applied to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce for what information they could give with respect to the common art of dyeing. He did not think that our own workmen were sufficiently appreciated; yet it was well known that they were always applied to where great skill was required for the development of any new branch of trade. In the manufacture of steel it was said we were inferior to Prussia; but he had been assured by one of the most competent judges that we were not behind Prussia in that manufacture. We had formerly produced steel which others had converted into watch-springs; but now that branch of trade had sprung up among ourselves, and watch springs were largely produced in this country. This was a convincing proof that we were not retrograding in the race and struggle of inventions. With only a broad system of education he believed our course was perfectly clear. He had every confidence in the resources of the country, and he hoped they would be left unshackled by the Government, for any kind of patronage would rather retard than develope their resources. He hoped his hon. Friends would not press the Motion for a Committee.
  MR. BAGNALLmentioned, as an instance of the want of education among skilled workmen, the fact that, some years ago, he required a manager for a very large and important iron works, and was obliged to give the appointment to a man who could neither read nor write. That occurred some eleven years ago, and he believed the difficulty in procuring educated workmen had scarcely lessened tip to the present day. He hoped the noble Lord

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  would not object to the appointment of a Select Committee upon this question; and he trusted the result of that appointment would be, that some provision would be made to provide a technical, scientific, and artistic education, not, first of all, for the working classes, but for those among whom one would look for managers of manufactories.
  MR. E. POTTER, as one well acquainted with calico printing, admitted, that in the higher class of goods the French excelled us in design and colour; but said that, although we imposed no duty, the importation of French prints had increased very slowly, and only amounted to £500,000 a year. Under our system of Free Trade it was impossible we could compete with them in the supply of their description of goods, as the manual labour required in their preparation cost 40 per cent less in France than in this country. He should be the last to oppose inquiry; but they should very carefully guard against any attempt to make grants for education to those who were very well able to pay for it themselves. Though schools of art had been in existence in this country for many years, the subscriptions for their support from manufacturers in all the great manufacturing towns did not exceed a total of £2,000 or £3,000 a year. If our employers of labour did not come forward as they ought to do to provide this education, it was not the duty of the Government to supply their deficiencies. The total number of artizans taught in the schools did net exceed 7,000 or 8,000. A great deal had been said about the Continental system of education; but what were its results? In France the cost per head was nearly double that in this country, and there was very irregular attendance, after all, in the schools, while the technical education which the students received had not enabled them to strike out any new path of practical industry. He hoped if the Committee were appointed its Members would be carefully selected, and that its investigations would be strictly confined to certain definite subjects connected with the progress of our own manufactures. The hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Dixon) stated that our manufactures were losing ground; but how did he reconcile that allegation with the fact that our exports and imports had doubled during the last twelve years, and that, notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstance that our manufactures were liable to a heavy duty at
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  nearly every Continental seaport? All that we required and all that our manufacturers had a right to ask for was that our working classes should receive a sound and solid primary education.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUwas not at all disposed to dispute the position of the hon. Member for Banbury, with whose arguments he agreed in the main, and with whose general conclusions he concurred; and yet he ventured to differ from him upon a very few points. On the other hand, there was a great deal of truth in what had fallen from the hon. Members for Manchester and for Carlisle. He believed that competition was in a great measure the cause of the present cry for technical education. The hon. Member for Banbury said that during the French war our industries had been firmly established in this country; but that since 1815 foreign countries had been able to make great progress in their manufactures, and in a large degree to supplant those of this country; and that the cause had been their technical schools. There were, however, other reasons which could be assigned for the fact that foreign nations were catching us up in the race. Not thirty years ago there were but few manufactures on the Continent, and but few railways throughout Europe to distribute the produce; whereas at the present time the Continental nations had as many manufactures as we had, and their countries were intersected with railways, by means of which their productions were taken to foreign markets easily and cheaply, to compete with our own. To these circumstances it was due that we were beginning to feel the pinch of competition; our difficulties were not solely to be attributed to our want of technical education. He could, however, not agree with the hon. Members for Manchester and Carlisle in altogether making light of the case of the hon. Member for Banbury. Several deputations had had interviews with him lately on the subject of our manufactures, and had mentioned facts which had startled him much. He had learnt from them that a very few years ago no person abroad could compete with us in the manufacture of woollen goods, whereas at the present time upwards of £5,000,000 worth of wool was annually sent abroad to be dyed and worked up, instead of being manufactured in this country. He had been informed by Mr. Behren the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Bradford, that in the year 1864 upwards of £33,500,000 worth of woollen

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  goods were manufactured in that town, yet that even that long-established trade, with all the exceptional facilities which Bradford possessed, could scarcely hold its own against foreign competition; and that at Rheims in France large quantities of our Australian wool were worked up, and the articles manufactured from it competed successfully in the market with those produced by this country. Why was this? Because that abroad they excelled both in their patterns and their dyes, in their art and science. The hon. Member for Manchester said that the dyers in this country were superior to the dyers on the Continent; but was the hon. Member aware that many thousands of pieces of Orleans—a fabric composed of wool and cotton—were annually sent abroad to France to be dyed? Again, with regard to silks, ribands, and velvets: fifteen years ago we imported only one-tenth, whereas we now imported nine-tenths of our annual consumption of those articles. This result was doubtless owing to some extent to Free Trade, but it was also greatly due to the superiority of the dye and finish of the articles made abroad. The hon. Member for Carlisle asked how could we complain of the want of technical education when we had doubled our exports and imports within the last few years. True, our imports of raw silk from China may have doubled, and our exports have increased; but we export the raw silk to be worked up abroad, and we import the manufactured article after it has been worked up. Why was this? Because the manufacturers abroad were superior in their style and finish — that is in their art and science. Mr. Mundella, a well-known manufacturer in Nottingham, had informed him that the lace trade of that town was beginning to fall away in consequence of the design and the workmanship being far inferior to that of Continental manufacture. Doubtless, many hon. Members had seen the Lyons lace which had been exhibited at the Paris Exhibition, the design of which was not a mere pattern, but was shaded like a picture. The lace manufacturers of this country never produced anything to compare with those fabrics. Unfortunately our inferiority was not confined to the lace trade. Messrs. Creed and Williams, in their letters which appeared in The Times last year, stated that France and Belgium supplied the greater part of Europe with iron. French and Belgian productions were fast supplanting those of this country both
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  in Russia and Spain. Yet, Russia and Spain were in the first stage of railway development. This was a most significant fact. To show to what extent foreigners were succeeding in their competition with our workmen he might remind the House that a contract had recently been entered into for the erection of some new buildings at South Kensington; an immense number of iron girders which were required were brought from Belgium, although the contract for the buildings had been taken by an English contractor. Germany had been greatly retarded by the recent war. Yet what we had to fear from that country was sufficiently depicted by the list at the end of the answers from the Kendal Chamber of Commerce, which was among the Papers moved for by the hon. Member for Bradford. The hon. Member for Whitby had stated that in consequence of not being able to find a competent man to fill the post, he had been compelled to appoint as overseer a man who could neither read nor write. Complaints of a similar character were frequent; and he had been informed that in the large machine-making firms of Yorkshire and Lancashire the practical managers were generally selected from Germans who had been educated in the German Polytechnic Institutions. What was the cause of all this? England could boast of workmen inferior to none in energy and talent; she possessed more coal and iron, a cheaper transit, a seaboard, everything, in short, tending to superiority except technical education. Where the effect was different it was due to the only difference in cause. In England, trade was a tradition; it was a rule of thumb handed down from father to son. Abroad it varied with varying circumstances, and adopted new improvements. He could not help remarking that in the course of the discussions last winter upon this subject, no one had ventured clearly to define what it was that he meant by "technical education;" the speeches and articles were all like clouds, up in the air, and therefore led to no conclusion. The hon. Member for Westminster had defined education in his speech at St. Andrew's as "the effect produced on the mind and character by things which, perhaps, might have another purpose." That might be accepted as the definition of the genus, of which technical education was the species. If that were so, technical education must also be a means of forming the mind. The end was not to increase practical skill, but to

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  enable a man to pursue his calling with intelligence. The object of technical education would be not so much to instruct the pupil in the mechanical branches of any particular trade as to make him acquainted with the general laws by which certain results might be obtained; for though the State might have a duty to perform towards the brains of its subjects, it was the workshop alone that could employ hands. He would say that technical education consisted in giving a workman such a knowledge of the natural laws involved in his pursuit that he could apply them intelligently to any case. If the end of technical education were to enable a person to procure, in greater abundance, the necessaries of life, then technical education would have a very low rank. The knowledge of medicine and dietetics are sciences which have for their end the preservation of human life. This is a much higher end. Moreover health has far more to say to happiness than money or an excess of the necessaries of life. Again, if the end of technical education were to increase the wealth of the country, it would rank very low. For to increase the intelligence and raise the character of the nation is a far higher end. If therefore technical education has the importance which is attached to it, it must have for its aim the improvement of the mind, and not the increase of trade. Let them now consider the species of technical education. There was a technical education for the artisans or those who produce for wages, and a technical education for the middle class, or the heads of firms, and those, who manage factories. That for the artizans might be divided into two kinds, one of which—that for the girls—was, he believed, very much neglected, and yet he held it to be the most important of all. In elementary schools girls had to be taught sewing, as an absolute requisite before any grant could be made to the schools. Why was this? Because that sewing would be useful to them in after-life. Yet sewing could have no beneficial effect on their minds. How much more then should we require such branches of learning as would not only be useful in after-life, but will also tend to raise the character and mind. He would teach them how to make homes comfortable, how to bring up and teach infants—in fact, the whole art of household economy. He would give them habits of cleanliness and of thrift. In the Reports of the School Inspectors for this year
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  he observed recommendations that cooking should be taught in elementary schools. It was mentioned that in one parish the church alms were not given to the poor in money; but were used for the purchase of provisions, which were cooked day by day in the schools, and then served out to the poor. The same alms thus served two charitable purposes. The importance of such technical teaching was very great. First, with regard to the nation—it was the wife which gave the character to the family, and the family was the cell of the nation. Secondly, with regard to the working man, the importance of it was shown by a comparison of the homes of the artizans at Manchester. Those of our English artizans were too often comfortless and uninviting, while those of the German artizans, receiving no higher wages, presented a great contrast. The difference arose from the fact that the females in the one case lacked that instruction which in the other had been carefully imparted when young. Thirdly, it would have an effect on our elementary schools. One cause of non-attendance was said to be poverty; it was shown in evidence before the Committee on Manchester and Salford Education, that this arose from the great quantity of money spent at public-houses. Why did the man frequent the public-house? Because his home was uncomfortable and cheerless. Alter this, and his children would attend the school. And, fourthly, this technical education would have a great effect on the girls themselves; it would train them for servants, and enable them to gain an honest, rather than cater for a base livelihood. He turned now to the effects of the technical education of lads. And first, as to the produce. A skilled workman was more productive, and caused less waste and spoiling of materials; so that the production by skilled workmen was greater. By skill he did not mean a knack, but a knowledge of physical laws, and a readiness in applying science. Again, it is frequently the dye of tissues—for instance, the colour of silks or curtains—which determines their sale; and the success of the dye depends on a knowledge of science. The sale of various articles—as shawls, ribbons, carpets—also depended on the design; while the shape of china goods, furniture, or ornaments, often determined the purchaser. This was the result of art. Secondly, as to the man himself. The great enemy to elementary education was what was termed the labour claims. Let

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  them consider that point for a moment. No one rejects that which conduces to his ends in life. If, therefore, you desire that persons should seek elementary education, make it conduce to their aims. What was the end of the working man? To better himself in life. If your education will assist him in this, he will not despise the education which you give him. If you give a man a key to a treasure house, and he knows it, you will need no compulsory law to make him lift the latch. The education imparted in early youth had generally too little in view the advancement in after-life. Boys as a rule received the education which would be proper for a clerk, but other matters which might enable a lad to rise in life as he increased in age were generally neglected. Hitherto the means sought by working men to rise in life were unions to obtain less work and more pay. He believed that they now saw a better way; they were aware that by knowledge they would command a superior position. Their desire for knowledge was proved by the growth of science schools. While in 1860 there were only nine science schools in the country, with 500 scholars, there were in May, 1867, 212 schools, with 10,230 scholars, and in January, 1868, 282 schools, with 12,800 scholars. The existence of working men's Colleges all over the country, for higher scientific education, was an additional proof of the same proposition. They might, he believed, receive encouragement not only from the increasing desire for education which was exhibited by the working men, but also from the great advance which had been perceptible of late years. That advance dated from what was termed the Albertine movement — a movement which had its origin in the Exhibition of 1851, when the newspapers were teeming with articles lamenting the increasing superiority of foreign productions over those of English artizans. The Exhibitions in Paris in 1855, and in London in 1862, were attended with similar effects, but with this difference—that while in 1851 the excellence of French productions excited in the minds of the English a fear lest our nation should be distanced, the two subsequent Exhibitions caused an alarm in the minds of the French which was equally strong. The French were terrified as to their future place in the scale of nations; and the cause of all this alarm was due to the art schools which had been established since 1852. That this was so might be seen from the Reports of the French jurors
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  appointed to attend the Exhibition of 1862. One of these Reports said—
  "The upward movement is visible, above all, among the English. The whole world has been struck with the progress which they have made, since the last Exhibition, in design. … It is impossible to ignore the fact that a serious struggle awaits France from this quarter."
  The sculptors' Report said—
  "The progress made in sculpture by England has been immense since the Exhibition of 1851. She has made a gigantic advance."
  The shawl designers—"Envy England her schools of design." The porcelain painters reported that—"The vast progress within the last ten years is due to the immense extension given to the study of drawing." Was not that a great encouragement to us, and a proof that we had taken the right road, and that all we had to do was to continue to travel on that road with patience? The French, in consequence of their alarm, appointed an Imperial Commission to consider the whole subject, and to look for remedies. That Commission recommended, firstly, the introduction of physical science into primary schools. We had done that by the Minute of December 22, 1867. Secondly, the French Commission recommended an increase in the number of evening schools—a matter dealt with by the Bill introduced that evening in "another place." Thirdly, they suggested the establishment of large central schools for giving technical education — a point to which he would presently refer. He would venture to throw out two more suggestions for consideration. Anyone who had been to the institution at Limehouse, or Hanwell Central District School would know the enormous value of places where pauper boys were taught a trade as well as general knowledge. Again, the statistics, contained in the evidence before the Manchester and Salford Education Committee, and relating to the industrial schools at Aberdeen were perfectly astonishing as to the rapid decrease of crime and poverty which they produced. By a Bill passed last year it was made compulsory on every union in the metropolis to have an industrial school, and he did not see why a similar provision should not be applied to every district throughout England. The reformatory schools had been found equally beneficial; and if all beggar and vagrant children were placed in them by a simple order of justices at petty sessions, it might be still more advantageous. What was so powerful to cure would do much to prevent.

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  He now came to the education of the middle classes, in which, he believed, lay the whole gravamen of the charge. The hon. Member for Leeds had admitted as much. The whole tenor of the letter of the hon. Member for Banbury revealed that this was the fons et origo mali. It was said there was a great want of technical education for those classes in England; and it was asked why that want should not be supplied by the State? Now he asked, in turn, why should the State supply it? Eton, Cambridge, Oxford, and all middle-class schools were originated by local endowments; they were not paid by the State. It did not provide general education for the middle classes, and why, then, should it pay for their technical education? What had been the course pursued in regard to the farmer when he felt the effects of foreign competition? The technical education for a farmer is Scientific Agriculture. The State had not aided him by giving him such a technical education; but left him to adopt those mechanical appliances which saved labour, and to find out for himself those scientific processes which yielded the results he wished to attain. Since free competition had been brought about in 1846 the farmer knew that his livelihood depended on his possessing superior knowledge. In the same way, when the English manufacturer felt the pinch of competition, owing to there now being more manufactories abroad and more railways to distribute their produce than was formerly the case, he said it was not the business of the State to give him technical education in order to save him from that competition. Besides, the danger, after all, did not arise so much from want of technical education as from defective morals. An illustration of this was afforded by the practices resorted to by the throwsters and others employed in the silk trade. He took his statements from a letter by Mr. Bennoch, which had been moved for by the hon. Member for Bradford. The goodness of silk depended on its fineness and on its evenness. From China and Japan we procured silk of very different qualities. The Englishman reeled the coarse and uneven silk first, and then covered the reel with the finer and more even silk. The foreigner had been frequently deceived by this means; so that while English reeled silk had been depreciated 25 per cent within the last year, French and Italian silks had risen in price. The same practice prevailed in the throwing of silk. The
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  throwster received, say, 100lbs. of silk at 30 s. per pound. When thrown it should yield not more than 95lbs. of silk at 33 s. 6d. per pound, and 5lbs. of waste or rough thread. The throwster did not remove the rough thread, however. Again, all silk contained 25 per cent in weight of natural gum; this must be boiled out before the silk could be properly dyed. Yet the throwster left this in, and also soaped the silk to make it smooth. Hence, our silk lost 35 per cent on boiling before it was dyed, and the foreign manufacturer would not look at it. If there was a little more honesty in trade, they would hear less of the cry about competition and technical education. And, moreover, if a trade languished from such a cause, should the State give money to revive it? Technical education, as he had said, was a means of cultivating the mental faculties. He was for giving a man all the knowledge and all the science he could, but he would certainly avoid equipping him for a trade. He would abjure schools for special training. They had already been tried in England. When the "Department of Practical Art" was first started, the object was to educate the artizan for special pursuits. And consequently every effort had been made to carry this out. Special masters were engaged; special classes were established for painting porcelain, metal working, and many other trades. Exhibitions of £40 were given, and every effort was made. But it did not succeed, because there was no demand on the part of the manufacturer for this superior artizan. Or if the superior artizan became a teacher there were no scholars willing to be taught by him; and so, when they had trained him they had made him a useless being. All these things depended on a demand on the part of the public. Hence, what they had to do was to educate the taste of the nation and create a demand, and all the rest would follow; but, of course, that could only be done slowly and by degrees. In 1853, special training was abandoned in England. The French Commission reported to the like effect. They said—
  "It is better to annex the school to the workshop, than the workshop to a school." "The Real Schulen of Germany are found dwarfing to the mind, lessen the culture of the intellect, and lead to materialism."
  We should therefore teach the sciences which are applied to trades, but not the trades to which sciences are applied. We should aim, not at work, but at intelligence

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  in work. The Dutch taught science in the evening after the day's work. With the French the scientific studies were carried on in the morning, while in the afternoon the practical part of the work was learnt in the different workshops in Paris. With regard to Germany the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Samuelson) in his letter said—
  "The apprenticeship schools themselves which I visited, with the exception of the one at Crefeld, drag on a languid existence, and the opinion is almost universal in Germany that for all trades, except those whose conditions approach to that of an art, as the designing and weaving of complicated patterns, and others of a similar kind, the true apprenticeship is in the workshop or factory."
  The first thing to be avoided by the Government was the giving of special instruction, and the second was the establishment of State manufactories in order to encourage trade. State manufactories would actually stamp out and crush the trade itself. That stood to reason, because a private individual with his limited capital could not compete with the State, whose capital was practically infinite. The private individual had to pay for failures and mistakes, but the State did not smart under its failures. That was seen in the case of the manufactory set up by Louis Quatorze at Sévres. Sevres now stood alone in France. The example of Meissen in Saxony taught the same lesson. Meissen and Sévres were now beaten by Minton. The speech made by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) among his constituents had been referred to. It was a very sensible speech. He said, they ought not to establish central technical schools in England. They were all very well abroad, being all of a piece with the policy pursued, where nothing was done by private enterprize, and everything was done by the State. Here, on the contrary, we left as much as possible to local action, and were jealous of central authority. If in England the Government was to begin to do everything, what would become of their Anglo-Saxon independence? It would soon dwindle away and disappear. But it was said that the foreigner had technical education forced upon him, while the Englishman groped his way, and struggled through failure to success. True; but you might buy central assistance at too high a price. History showed that the highest excellence in art might exist with the lowest moral degradation. Mere beauty of design could not save a State in which public spirit had evaporated. The decadence of a nation
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  would not be stopped by grace in a cup and saucer. If the want really existed, those middle classes who were not ignorant of their interests, nor too poor to attain them, would surely supply it. The hon. Member for Banbury had asked him a question with respect to the new Minute of the 21st of December. Two classes of scholarships had been established by it. The first enabled parents to keep their children at the elementary schools longer than they otherwise would; that had already been applied for by about twenty schools; next came the science and art scholarship, which enabled the pupil to go away from his own neighbourhood to a College where he would study in the highest walks of science. The first of these scholarships was procured by competition among the children at any elementary school; one scholarship being given for every 100 children. The second was reached by competition among the science and art pupils. And thirdly, exhibitions were established which enabled students to proceed for three years to College. Thus the Minute provided a ladder by which the humblest pupil might reach the highest possible position to which education could help a man. The Minute had been in operation only three months, yet its introduction had already been followed by results which promised exceedingly well for the future.
  MR. BAZLEYwished to state, with reference to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Samuelson) on the subject of London-made watches, that the watch he held in his hand had kept time with a variation of only two minutes during the last ten months.
  MR. BRUCEthought the House should feel much obliged to the noble Lord for his careful statement; he had touched upon many topics worthy of consideration, but his own opinion regarding the defects and shortcomings of our educational system was that the remedy would be found in measures of extreme simplicity. The simple fact was that our elementary schools were insufficient in number and quality, and that the want of good elementary schools, especially those of a supplementary kind, formed the real obstacle to the success of science schools. The remedy would be found in the improvement of our elementary schools, and the establishment of what the Commissioners had recommended—namely, schools which should take up the education of pupils after they had

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  done with the elementary schools. But he was convinced we should be unable favourably to compare this country in point of education with Switzerland and Prussia until we had adopted such measures as were in force in those countries. Mr. Matthew Arnold had made a special Report on the canton of Zurich, which he described as about equal in population to the county of Leicester, and, presumably, not superior in wealth. The people of the canton were notoriously frugal, looking to the material prosperity of their country as much as any people in Europe, and not likely to be carried away by enthusiasm. What they did, it might be presumed, was done because they were satisfied it would pay. The canton had a University, a veterinary school, a school of agriculture, two great classical schools, and, besides other special schools, it had fifty-seven secondary and 365 primary schools. Many of these schools Mr. Arnold declared were among the best in Europe; then, how were these results obtained? Zurich devoted nearly one-third of its public income to education, although the canton possessed considerable endowments, and the parents paid more or less for the education of their children. These facts might serve to show that in any attempt to give efficiency to any new educational system, we must incur a considerable outlay. For his part, he believed that they had better make up their minds to establish a system by which the local expenditure should be locally raised and locally supervised.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he understood the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House to have drawn an unfavourable contrast between the state of education in the county of Leicester and in the canton of Zurich. But he (Lord John Manners) did not think it was fair to pick out the county of Leicester for the purpose of that comparison.
  MR. BRUCEexplained, that he had merely quoted Mr. Arnold's comparison of Zurich with Leicester in the matter of wealth and population.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSobserved, that the right hon. Member had given statistics to show Zurich's efficiency in educational establishments; he had said nothing regarding Leicestershire's, and his remarks, unless contradicted, would lead the public to imagine some frightful contrast existed between the state of education in Leicestershire and Zurich. ["No!"] Now, he should state that, as far as he was aware,
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  there was nothing to justify such an imputation. There was one manufacturing town—namely, Loughborough—in that portion of Leicestershire which he had the honour to represent, and he ventured to say that there was no other town in England, or even in the canton of Zurich, which was better supplied with schools for the purpose of both primary and the higher branches of education.
  MR. HENLEYremarked that of all the strange things which had happened during the last two or three years nothing was more strange than the sudden discovery which some persons appeared to have made of what they called the extreme ignorance of our working classes, and more especially of our artizan class. The strange statements he had come across during the last few months had caused him the greatest surprise. Not three years ago a sort of general triumph was going on in the country over the singular progress of our people, and we were called on to rejoice in the marvellous growth of intelligence observable in the working man. This progress was so great that the wealth of the nation had been doubled in twenty years; and what had produced this; The skill of those very men whom it had been the pleasure of some persons during the last year or two to call all manner of names, in some cases hardly respectful. That increase of wealth which had been pointed to with so much pride had been created by those very men who, in his humble judgment, had not received their fair share of it. He might be right or wrong; but he thought it remarkable that they had heard nothing of this extraordinary ignorance both of masters and men, for the masters were not spared by many persons, until a kind of stoppage came in the great race of prosperity which we were running. As a looker-on he had read in the papers reports by those who had been about the Continent collecting information on the subject, and in every such report it came out, as if in a postscript, that those highly-educated and technically-educated workmen abroad always worked longer hours for less money than their ignorant English competitors. Whether it was desired to reduce English workmen to long hours and short pay he did not know; but that, as far as he had read, was the state of things on the Continent under the system so much commended. One gentleman of the name of Mundella, who gave an account of what he had seen

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  at some place in Germany, after having alluded to the vast number of the workmen employed, added that to be sure many of them were without shoes or stockings. Now it might be that some of our fellow-countrymen expended a portion of their earnings in clothing themselves and their families instead of applying it to the purposes of technical education; and if they did so he thought the fact was very much to their credit. He was glad that the noble Lord had agreed to grant a Committee on this subject. His own opinion was that if they would give the people of this country a good elementary education those who had better heads than others would get the scientific education that would enable them to lift themselves out of the crowd. But they could not make seamen except upon the sea, and they could not make skilled workmen except in a workshop. They would only deceive themselves if they thought they could train English workmen in schools to be better workmen than they now were. He should wish to see them become better workmen if possible, because if they were better workmen they would be better citizens. But of all those who had talked about foreign competition abroad, not one had asserted that any particular process had been executed by a number of foreign workmen because they had been technically educated. It leaked out in all these cases that these men had worked longer hours for less money than our own workmen. That might be the secret of the competition for anything he knew. The hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Samuelson) said something about these people abroad giving great attention to small economies. It appeared that he thought our English workmen quite above these small economies. They could not shut their eyes to the vast race which this country had been running for twenty years, in which men with money and men without money, but with credit, had run into all sorts of trades, their object being to find men who knew that which they themselves did not know. It was not possible that these men should find all that they wanted in that direction. It was, however, marvellous to see the extension of manufactures in this country during the last twenty years, to know how the workmen had been found, how they had adapted themselves to the new state of things, and to see the wealth that they had created. Notwithstanding the wealth these men had created and
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  the sanitary improvements that had been made, it was lamentable to think of the frightful death-rate where large numbers of the people were gathered together. For the last twenty years there had hardly been in such cases any decrease of the death-rate. That was a most serious thing for their consideration. These men had been stimulated by considerable wages to create an amount of produce and wealth that was almost unparalleled, and it was astonishing how the demands of the world had been supplied. These men, too, who were so ignorant, were sent for all over the world to teach these "highly-educated people abroad." He was anxious that every means should be taken to improve the education and condition of every class; but there was something at the bottom of this cry about the ignorance of our workpeople which had been raised during the last two years which he could not exactly see or understand. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr (Mr. Bruce) talked about the agricultural schools of Zurich, but where, he (Mr. Henley) asked, was agriculture in a more advanced state than in England? Where was land to be found of the same fertility which produced a greater amount of produce? Calling men hard names was not a ready way to draw them, and without they had the people with them it was useless to attempt anything for their benefit; but he was sorry to say that during the last few years too many hard names had been applied to many of our fellow-countrymen. These artisans had certainly not had a fair share of that wealth which they had helped to create. It was only about a year and a half ago, in connection with the iron trade at the East End, they heard they must meet the "world's wages." Some gentlemen went over to Belgium, and they published a string of figures. They said that things were cheaper in Belgium but that the work was not so good. He had never seen that the foreign workman, man for man, could turn out more work by the same process than the English workman. But the masters got the work done for less money. He doubted whether, man for man, our men would not work the foreigners' heads off. He could only say that he never saw them put to anything that they did not do it.
  MR. T. T. PAGETmerely rose to say that the right hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Bruce), in the remarks he made, did not convey to his mind the idea that he

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  intended to cast any slur upon Leicestershire. That right hon. Gentleman merely drew a comparison between the position of the canton of Zurich and that of the county of Leicester, as affirmative of the advantages which might be derived in the case of that county from the adoption of a system of education which he was known so warmly to advocate, and of which he (Mr. Paget) was a warm supporter. He was not an advocate of all that which was called technical education, because he thought that it was in some measure a work of supererogation. Such was the opinion he entertained of the skill and knowledge possessed by the British workmen, that he had no fear that they would not be able to compete with the workmen of any country in Europe, if only they received the elementary education which would be afforded them by the scheme propounded by the right hon. Member for Merthyr. He did not believe that his native country was behind other counties in regard to education; but he believed that the present system of education might be greatly extended and ameliorated. Much knowledge on the subject, no doubt, might be obtained from our Continental neighbours, and with a compulsory rate, great advantages would result.
  MR. ACLAND, after pointing out that farmers were the only class who had prosecuted technical education for the lust twenty years, remarked, that the farmer and the manufacturing implement maker, the engineers and the manufacturers very well understood their own business—namely, how to make money; but he was convinced that the time had arrived when merely the art of money making would not enable this country to hold its position. In addition to capital and skill it had become necessary to diffuse amongst their workmen a sound scientific knowledge. He was of opinion that next to a good general education a knowledge of mathematics lay at the foundation of the manufacturing prosperity of this country. In three Registrar General's divisions lying on the coal field from Bristol to the north of Yorkshire there were 7,000,000 inhabitants, and instead of there being, according to calculations which had been made, about 70,000 boys in the public schools of that district learning mathematics, there were only 2,098, while the entire number learning natural science, such as it was, was only 1,009, The hon. Member for Leeds
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  (Mr. Baines) had cast some blame on the Universities for not doing their part; but he had reason to know that immense efforts were making in the University of Oxford for the express purpose of enabling it to take its proper place in this country in teaching the general principles of science to all comers; and at the present time that University was spending £10,000 on a department of natural philosophy, limited strictly to the subject of physics. He believed Cambridge was equally alive to the importance of scientific teaching.
  MR. SAMUELSON, in replying, said, he was glad the noble Lord had acceded to the inquiry he had proposed. With regard to the introduction of workshops into schools, which the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bazley) had supposed that he favoured, he had never contemplated any such plan, which was being gradually abandoned in the Continental schools. As to Grants for middle-class education, he had not proposed the introduction of the system, as the noble Lord appeared to think, for, in point of fact, such Grants were already made in several cases—as, for instance, to the School of; Chemistry and the School of Mines, and a contribution towards the endowment of a chair of engineering had been promised to Edinburgh; but he regarded it as a proper subject for inquiry whether grants of this kind should be continued or increased. As to extended hours of labour, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley) in deprecating that system, believing that such labour was in the end the most expensive.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the provisions forgiving instruction in theoretical and applied Science to the Industrial Classes."—(Mr. Samuelson.)
  And, on March 27, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. ACLAND, Mr. AKROYD, Mr. BAGNALL, Mr. BAZLEY, Mr. HENRY AUSTIN BRUCE, Mr. BEECROFT, Lord FREDERIC CAVENDISH, Mr. DIXON, Mr. GRAVES, Mr. GREGORY, Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Sir CHARLES LANYON, Mr. M'LAGAN, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, Mr. EDMUND POTTER, Mr. POWELL, Mr. READ, and Mr. SAMUELSON:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

POST HORSE AND CARRIAGE LICENCES DUTIES, AND HACKNEY CARRIAGE DUTIES.

  MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE.
  Acts relating thereto read—
  MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCEsaid, that in proposing a large reduction in these taxes on locomotion, and that a great change should be made in the mode of charging, and in the manner of collecting these duties, he was aware that he was considered by some to be infringing to a certain extent upon the prerogative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, doubts having been expressed whether any Member who was not a Minister of the Crown was competent to move such a Resolution. He could assure the House, however, that he should confine his Motion within Parliamentary rules and regulations. The taxes to which his Motion referred were levied most unfairly and unequally; were collected at great expense to the Revenue, and involved a considerable loss of time, labour, and money to the parties whom they affected; and acted as restrictions opposed to the first principles of Free Trade, being alike injurious to the trader and the public. The House, and possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, might be surprised to hear that these taxes were levied in five distinct ways, formed rive distinct items of account in the statement of the public Revenue, and, more extraordinary still, were paid on thirty different occasions in each year, some at one place and some at another. For instance, if the same person were the proprietor of an omnibus, a cab, and a brougham, let for hire in London, he would have to pay five distinct duties, and to make the payments in two separate places in the metropolis at thirty different times every year. The only wonder was that the system had lasted so long, and that the business of locomotion continued to be subjected to such exceptional imposts. The stage coach and omnibus mileage duty was levied at a uniform rate of a farthing per mile throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, and in the metropolis the duty was paid monthly at Somerset House. The amount of duty was the same whether the omnibus was drawn by one horse and carried eight passengers, or was drawn by two horses and carried twenty-five passengers, or was drawn by three or four horses and carried thirty-five or forty
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  passengers. The annual licence duty, levied on stage coaches and omnibuses, in addition to the mileage duty, presented this difference, that three guineas were charged for those drawn by two or more horses, and 10 s. only on those drawn by one horse and not carrying more than eight passengers. The licence duty was paid annually in the first week in November; but the mileage duty was paid monthly, the proprietors being compelled to send in monthly returns of the licence number on each omnibus belonging to them, the number of journeys run by each on every day during the month, the number of miles of each journey, the total number of miles and the amount of duty. Hon. Members might have observed men at different corners of the streets in the metropolis taking down upon slips of paper the number on the plate of each vehicle as it passed; these slips were sent in daily or weekly to Somerset House, to check the returns of the omnibus proprietors; and the cost of the ten or fifteen stations where these men took their stand was something like £1,500 or £2,000 a year. It followed, from what he had already stated, that the omnibus proprietors or their agents in the metropolis had to attend at Somerset House and make payments thirteen times a year for the duties. Throughout the country eight payments sufficed; but the House could imagine the amount of labour involved in furnishing and checking these returns. Ireland he excepted from the calculation altogether, because the system there was not identical with that prevailing in Great Britain. The post horse and carriage licence duties were levied differently in the country and in the metropolis. Hackney carriages, cabs and flys plying for hire in the public streets were taxed under these duties in every city and town throughout Great Britain, with the single exception of London. These duties were levied on an entirely wrong principle of taxation, and one which aggravated the difference between the man of capital and the man of small means. Although an alteration was made in the scale of duties in 1866, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, which somewhat mitigated the evil, yet the evil still existed, because the larger the business carried on the less in proportion was the duty paid. For example, under the present scale of duties, the proprietor of one horse and one carriage paid £5 per annum; of twenty horses and fifteen carriages, £70

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  per annum; and of fifty horses and twenty-five carriages, £100 per annum. These duties were paid differently from the stagecoach and omnibus mileage duty, being paid once a quarter or four times a year in advance at the nearest district office of the Inland Revenue, each proprietor making a return of the number of horses and carriages which he employed. Then with respect to cab duties, the grievance here was still greater. The proprietor of cabs at Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Brighton, and other places paid the post horse duty, the charge for which commenced at £5 for one carriage, and diminished on each additional carriage in proportion to the number kept. But in London the proprietor of one cab had to pay £19 5s. per annum, and the like sum for each additional cab. This was enormous. That the system should have lasted so long was most extraordinary! It was true that if he used it only six days in the week he paid only £16 13 s. But compare this amount with the sum paid in other towns. In the metropolis there were proprietors who had as many as fifty cabs, and they had exacted from them fifty times the charge of one cab. This was altogether a different principle from that of the post horse duty prevailing in the country. So that the proprietor of fifty cabs in London had to pay the enormous duty of £902 10 s. per annum, while the proprietor of fifty cabs at Liverpool, Edinburgh, Brighton, &c., had to pay only £170 per annum. The complaint was often heard that the metropolis was not supplied with vehicles as it ought to be, and that the London cabs were not equal to those of Birmingham or Manchester and other English towns, and compared most unfavourably with those of Continental cities. But it should be remembered that in London the highest possible duty was exacted, and the lowest fare awarded, the fares being much less in London than in any other city or town. It was perfectly clear that between the two a very good article could not be supplied. The duty was originally imposed as a war duty, and hackney carriages and sedan chairs in London were taxed at the same time, when there were only 800 hackney carriages and 300 sedan chairs: it was made a security for a loan, and its duration was limited to thirty-two years; but it had not been taken off when the war had ceased, and had been allowed still to continue, to the great disadvantage of the public. The
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  stage carriage duties and the post horse duties were originally imposed in 1779, the largest amount received from them being in the year 1836, when £524,500 was received for stage carriage duties, and £266,500 for post horse duties. The metropolis had submitted to those large taxes, because neither the public nor the cab proprietors were aware that they were paying so much in excess of what was paid in other towns, and he believed that even many Members of that House were not aware of the difference. It might be asked why were there so many cabs if they did not pay? But it was well known that they were starving the cabmen out, and it would be seen from the Returns issued at Somerset House that in April, 1867, the number of cabs in the metropolis had diminished by 304, and there had been a further diminution of 500 this year, and the number was still decreasing. It was all one trade whether cabs or omnibuses were employed, or post horses and carriages were let for hire, and why, then, was there such a difference made in the amount of duty and the mode of paying it? How did the cab proprietors pay the duty? Once a year they had to pay the licence duty of £1 for each cab, which was due on the 1st of January, and must be paid before the end of March in each year; they had to pay the remainder of the duty at Somerset House monthly. In this metropolis, there were 2,000 cab proprietors, of whom 1,400 owned only a single cab, and from the first Monday to the first Friday in each month the duty was received at Somerset House. There the men went in droves, and, although great improvements had been made in the mode of receiving the duty, yet it was well known that they were often obliged to wait one, two, or even three hours before they were able to pay it. The loss of time incurred in that way might be taken as equivalent to a loss of 2s. 6d. on each occasion, and if, from sickness or any other cause, a cab proprietor was not able to pay the duty between the first Monday of the month and the Friday following, immediately on the Saturday a summons was issued by a solicitor in Chancery Lane, and he had to go and pay that gentleman a fine of 10 s. and make arrangements for paying the duty within a certain limited time. The cab proprietors were supplied with fresh licence number plates from Somerset House every three years, and an additional plate, with a different

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  number, was affixed to each cab by the police, certifying that it was fit for public use. A saving of expense might be effected here. Now, the suggestion he would make was this—that all the present taxes should be abrogated and the restrictions removed, and in lieu thereof an annual licence duty, similar to the duty so successfully imposed upon dogs, should be levied, payable in one sum in advance. By this arrangement a great boon would be conferred upon the proprietors of public vehicles and the public, and a large saving would be effected in the heavy expenses now incurred in the collection of these taxes. He would suggest that an annual licence duty of £1 should be levied upon each horse, whether it was used to draw a cab, an omnibus, or a brougham let for hire; and that an annual licence duty of £2 should be levied upon each vehicle, whether it was a cab, an omnibus, or a brougham or other carriage let for hire, and drawn by one or more horses. The London cab proprietors required five horses for two cabs, so that the tax would amount to £4 10 s. annually upon each cab, instead of the present duty of £19 5s. As to omnibuses, which required ten horses, £2 for each horse and £2 for the vehicle would give £12 for each omnibus in London, instead of the present duty of £24 per annum; and the same ratio would hold good throughout the country. As to horses and carriages charged under the post horse duty, one horse and one carriage would pay a duty of £3 per annum, instead of £5, and three horses and two carriages would pay £7 per annum, instead of £10 as at present. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, in their tenth Report, pointed out, in reference to the post horse duty, that the circumstances of the times had complete changed since 1779, when this duty was first imposed, and that the incidence of a burthen originally borne exclusively by the wealthiest classes has been shifted to those who were formerly exempt from it. The people who are most affected by this tax are those who hire carriages, because they cannot afford to keep their own; and the posting business in the old form has almost entirely disappeared. Jobmasters in London and in the great provincial towns, and owners of flys which ply in the streets of those towns and at the railway stations are those who are primarily charged with the tax, and if the removal of it should not cause much reduction in the cost of hired carriages,
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  it would undoubtedly afford more accommodation to the public by an increase in the number of such conveyances — especially at small railway stations in the country. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue also state, that the reduction which had now been made in the stage carriage duty was only a step towards placing it on the same footing as the railway duty, and that the present tax of ¼d. per mile on omnibuses was nearly twice their share of taxation at the same rate as the railways. The Commissioners were of opinion that the time must come when the subject would be taken into consideration. The one great advantage of placing the duty in the form in which he (Alderman Lawrence) had recommended would be the abolition of all restrictions whatever, thus enabling the proprietors of horses and carnages to use them in any manner they pleased. It would enable a tradesman in a small town, by paying £3 a year duty, to keep a horse and a waggonette, which he might use to carry passengers to and from the nearest railway station on market days, and also to let out the vehicle for hire when required. If he were to do this at the present time, he would have to take out two separate licences and pay two different duties. He would now state what the difference would be in the receipts under the present system and those which might be expected if his plan were adopted. He had been unable to obtain from the Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue an exact account of the duties received in 1867; but a Return moved for by his hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Bazley) gave the figures. For the year ended 31st of March, 1867, the hackney carriage duties and licences amounted to £113,000; the stage coach and omnibus mileage duty and licence duties, and the supplementary and occasional licences, to £74,200; the postmasters' and jobmasters' licence duties to £141,400; and the drivers' licences to £3,300—making a total of £331,900. The higher duties had not all expired in 1867. For 1868, he was obliged to make an approximate estimate; but one which, he believed, would be found tolerably accurate. He estimated that the total amount of the duties for the year ending 31st of March, 1868, would be £294,000, consisting of hackney carriage duties, £104,500; stage coach and omnibus mileage duty, and licence duties, and supplemental and occasional duties, £46,500;

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  postmasters' and jobmasters' £140,000; drivers, £3,000. The change he suggested would cause a loss to the Revenue of about £120,000 or £125,000; but from this must be deducted the saving that would result from the reduction of the staff kept at Somerset House and throughout the country in consequence of the existing system, and also the saving arising from the abolition of the ten or fifteen stations in the metropolis for checking the omnibus duties. He was afraid that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while not disputing his facts or denying that a change would be desirable, might plead the Abyssinian War, and the fact that other taxes were falling in amount. Now, he could not agree in the doctrine which had been laid down this evening—namely, that no re-adjustment of taxation should take place except when there was a surplus; because if that proposition were true, no burdens ought to be lightened till we had paid off the National Debt. Then, as to Abyssinia, since our expenditure, there was by millions and additional taxation had to be imposed, whether an additional sum of £100,000 had to be raised or not, could make no appreciable difference. But he (Mr. Alderman Lawrence) was able to suggest a plan by which, if the trade were thrown open, the Revenue for the year ending the 31st of March, 1869, would gain instead of lose by the change. Supposing the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to fix the alteration to take place on the 1st of October next (the time when the present stage coach and omnibus licences are renewable), and that the proposed annual licence duties of £1 per horse and £2 per vehicle should then become payable, he would receive before the 31st of March, 1869, the following sums:—namely, six months' duty on hackney carriages to the 1st of October, 1868, £50,000, and arrears, £4,000; six months' stage coach duty, £18,000, and arrears, £6,000; supplementary and occasional duties, £2,000; postmasters and jobmasters, £70,000, and arrears, £1,000; making a total of £151,000. The new duties payable on the 1st of October, 1868, may be estimated as follows: Hackney carriages (say 7,000), amount of duty, £31,500; stage coaches and omnibuses, £22,500; postmasters and jobmasters, £110,000; total amount of new duties, £164,000; making, with the six months' old duties of £151,000, a total amount receivable before the 31st of March,
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  1869, of £315,000, being a gain to the Revenue over the amount received for these duties in 1868 of £21,000. In addition to this, there would be the saving in the cost of the collection for the last six months of the year. He would not give the House the trouble of dividing; but would move that the House do resolve itself into Committee to consider the taxes on locomotion, with a view to their being revised, reduced, and equalized.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House will immediately resolve itself into a Committee to consider the said Acts."—(Mr. Alderman Lawrence.)
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that, in 1861, he presided over a Committee which investigated the subject of hackney carriages. The tax on these was originally a local tax, for the repair of roads in the metropolis; but it was found so profitable that it was transferred into the national Exchequer. There it had ever since remained. After the Committee reported deputations waited right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire), who intimated that it was desirable to re-consider the whole of the taxes on locomotion. The present Prime Minister, when addressing the House on the question of finance, recognized that principle, and stated that as soon as the state of the finances of the country permitted, he would consider the matter with a view to the abrogation of the present system. He was sorry that his hon. Friend had not contented himself with urging these general views; and that he should, instead of insisting upon the total remission of these taxes, have anticipated the functions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and proposed a sort of equinal Budget. It would be a great misfortune if the Government should undertake to re-adjust these taxes on the scheme which had been suggested, instead of applying themselves to their total remission. Instead of being able to repeal taxes on horses and carriages in this country, we were driving mules and carriages in Abyssinia. He was afraid it was hopeless to ask the Government to pursue the settled policy of the House, and to re-consider the whole of the taxes on locomotion. However, at present he should oppose going into Committee on the subject.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERhad already touched upon this question, and had said he thought it would

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  be highly desirable, when a convenient opportunity arose, to consider the whole question of taxes on locomotion, and he saw no reason to change this opinion. Against one remark made by the hon. Member he must enter his protest. The hon. Member said that, at a time when we were spending millions, the spending of another £100,000 did not much matter. He would rather insist that when they were compelled to spend such large sums in one direction they were all the more bound to practise economy in another. The hon. Member estimated the financial loss in this instance at only £120,000. The loss estimated by that Department was £137,000; but it was also calculated that his proposals, though in effect a relief taken broadly, would in certain cases involve a considerable additional charge. For example, in one case, the average charge for a one-horse omnibus was now £2 10 s. 7d.; but it would be £3 under the plan suggested; so that the hon. Member would impose there an additional charge of 9s. 5d. The House would hardly expect him on that occasion to enter into a question which ought to be considered in all its bearings. Even if the Government were prepared to make the sacrifice recommended, they would not be able to adopt the hon. Member's scheme in its entirety. He hoped that the Motion would be withdrawn, and that the question of the alteration of the duties on locomotion would be left to the proper occasion.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, that if relief from these taxes were delayed until our finances were in the favourable condition desired we might wait a long time. He thought the thanks of the House were due to his hon. Friend for having called attention to this question, which pressed very unequally and unjustly upon cabmen and omnibus keepers.
  MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCEsaid, he was not surprised at the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets dissenting from any scheme he had not himself proposed. If the country was to wait for the time when the Government was prepared to remit the whole tax, he believed they would have to wait a very long time indeed. The Home Secretary was preparing a Bill to regulate the hackney carriages of the metropolis, and he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that it would be impossible to impose further restrictions upon the proprietors unless this enormous taxation were reduced. He would leave
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  the matter in the hands of the Government, and withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

BOROUGHS AND DIVISIONS OF COUNTIES BILL.—LEAVE.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYmoved for leave to introduce a Bill to settle and describe the Limits of certain Boroughs and the Divisions of certain Counties in England and Wales, in so far as respects the Election of Members to serve in Parliament. He said it was not necessary for him to make any statement, as there had been a Parliamentary Commission, and the Bill would be introduced in the shape in which the Commission had reported to the House; and he therefore simply moved for leave to bring in the Bill.
Motion agreed to.
Bill to settle and describe the Limits of certain Boroughs and the Divisions of certain Counties in England and Wales, in so far as respects the Election of Members to serve in Parliament, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary GATHORNE HARDY, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Sir JAMES FERGUSSON.

LONDON COAL AND WINE DUTIES CONTINUANCE BILL.
(Mr. Dodson, Lord John Manners, Mr. Hunt.)
LONDON COAL AND WINE DUTIES CONTINUANCE BILL.

  [BILL 43.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. CANDLISHmoved that the House go into Committee on the Bill that day six months: firstly, in deference to a sense of duty to his constituents; and secondly, because he regarded the Bill as essentially bad in itself. The Bill did not propose to impose a duty upon coals brought into London; that existed already; but it proposed to hypothecate the coal duties for seven years, from 1882 to 1889, and so withdraw them from the control of Parliament for twenty-one years. The duties were obstructive to trade, and particularly to the coal trade of the Newcastle district. He was surprised that the Bill was not opposed by metropolitan Members; for the coal duties were a tax upon one of the first necessities of human life to the amount of 1s. 7d. per head per annum for each man, woman, and child in the London district. Coal, too, was one of the raw materials entering into nearly all our manufacturing operations, and hence these

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  dues were a tax upon all our manufacturing processes. London ought to provide for its municipal necessities by local taxation, and not by octroi duties.
  MR. SAMUDAseconded the Motion. He believed the tax was much more injurious now than when it was first proposed. At first, London was the only district for manufactured goods; but now they met with competition all over the Continent. In France, for instance, all the materials for shipbuilding were free; and coals were actually cheaper in France than in London, though this country supplied coal to all parts of the world. At this moment, the French manufacturers were paying 1s. 1½d. per ton less for coal than the manufacturers of London. The Bill was also objectionable because it proposed to deal with a tax which was not available at the present time; but which had been forestalled for the next twelve or fourteen years. That was a process which could only be likened to an extravagant youth selling a post obit. Among the many resources from which money might be obtained for metropolitan improvement none was so unjust as that proposed in the Bill. He should certainly follow his hon. Friend into the Lobby if the Motion were pressed to a division.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House will, upon this day six months, resolve itself into the said Committee,"—(Mr. Candlish,)
  —instead thereof.
  MR. PEASEdeclared that the tax was opposed to the interests of the coal-producing districts, because the increase of price was a great bar to their industry. The collieries in the North were working four or five days a week, and were they to be exposed to a further detriment by means of this tax? It was a tax of 8 or 9 per cent on the shipbuilding in the River Thames, and when the industry of the Thames was crippled it was a fit time to call the attention of the House to this tax. It was a grievous tax on the poor of the metropolis, and injuriously affected the districts around the metropolis which derived no benefit from the City improvements. He opposed the Bill.
  MR. LABOUCHERE, while regarding this as an excessively bad mode of raising money, thought it better that the funds should be raised even from this source that that the improvements now in progress
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  should be stopped. The noble Lord (Lord John Manners), he understood, proposed that a portion of the money should be expended out of the metropolitan police area in freeing the bridges over the Thames, and therefore it was not his intention to continue to oppose the Bill, in accordance with the Notice which he had placed upon the Paper. He should, however, move an Amendment when the Bill went into Committee.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSremarked, that the opposition to the measure did not proceed from the representatives of the constituencies who would have to pay the duty; but from Gentlemen who represented constituencies in a remote part of the kingdom. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish) had clearly explained the object of his opposition, when he stated that he spoke in the interests of his constituents; but in reality the hon. Gentleman was not correct in saying that the interests of his constituents would be in any way prejudiced by the Bill, for the coal duty, as it now existed, did not operate as a bar to the export of coal from Newcastle and Sunderland. The quantity of coal exported thence into the metropolis was annually on the increase. In 1863, the imports into London amounted to 5,127,000 tons; in 1864, to 5,476,000 tons: in 1865, to 5,909,000 tons; and in 1866, to 6,029,000 tons. The hon. Gentleman wondered that the metropolis did not find some local object of taxation in order to carry out local improvements as other towns did; but surely the hon. Gentleman could not be ignorant of the fact that a number of other large towns—such as Dublin and Brighton—had recourse to this very mode of levying funds for local purposes. When the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Pease) objected to the tax as interfering with the consumption of coals, he ought not to overlook the fact that Newcastle itself placed an export duty of 2d. a chaldron on coal sent to the metropolis; and, until the hon. Member induced the municipal authorities of Newcastle to abolish that duty, it was hardly consistent in him to endeavour to withstand the wishes of the inhabitants of the metropolis and to oppose the present measure. The hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Samuda) had suggested that the Government might propose some substitute but surely it was the duty of the opponents of the Bill to make a suggestion on that point. The House would remember that two years ago the Metropolitan Board of

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  Works proposed to make three most necessary improvements in the metropolis, stating at the same time that they had not the requisite funds to carry them out. These three measures were submitted to the Committee over which the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets presided, and the Committee, after taking evidence, came to the determination by a majority of votes that these public improvements should be carried out by a continuation of the Coal and Wine Duties. That determination was sanctioned by the Government, the City of London, who had in hand the Holborn Valley Improvement, and the Metropolitan Board of Works. Last year fifty-nine Petitions were presented from different bodies who would come under this taxation, praying that the Bill might be passed into law. Under these circumstances—without saying that this was the best system of taxation, or that some better system might not in course of time be devised—he was confident that if the House wished the immense public improvements of the Thames Embankment, the widening of Park Lane, and the viaduct over the Holborn Valley to be carried out, it would reject the Amendment which had been moved.
  MR. WATKINtrusted the House was not to be considered as a mere vestry meeting in the City of London; for the question affected not merely the metropolis, but the production of minerals all over the country, and also manufactures within the district of the metropolis itself. The tax was not going to expire until 1882. Surely, under the circumstances, this measure might be left for the consideration of a Parliament elected by household suffrage. Had the small consumers who suffered most from the existence of the tax met together to say that this was a desirable form of taxation? In the country the people said that in consequence of this tax, which they called a tax upon production, trade was being abolished. He thought the noble Lord (Lord John Manners) might very well postpone this Bill, as there were several years to consider it. He hoped the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish) would not be intimidated, but go to a division upon his Amendment.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, what the House really had to consider was this—the House having sanctioned certain Bills for certain improvements, how were those improvements to be paid for? He was not going
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  to say that the coal tax was the best tax; but what he asked was, from what source of revenue were the improvements to be carried out? That was a question which might be fairly put before the House. When the Acts sanctioning the improvements had once passed, it seemed to him a somewhat illogical proceeding for hon. Gentlemen to oppose the only mode of carrying them out. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) said that, in the country, people did not like this matter to be looked upon from a metropolitan point of view; but he would remind the hon. Gentleman that what the people of the metropolis had to look to was, whether they preferred an increase in their rates, or the passing of the noble Lord's Bill. If hon. Members would propose some means by which the funds could be got without increasing the taxation of the metropolis, they would perform a considerable service to the metropolis; but he had not heard of any counter proposal. Surely the people of the metropolis were the best judges of what taxes they ought to bear, and he might say that the working classes of the metropolis strongly protested against any increase of taxation. He did not say the measure of the noble Lord was the best measure that could be produced; but, seeing that there was no alternative proposal before the House, he had no option but to vote with the noble Lord. The House had sanctioned all the works for which this tax was to provide—for instance, the Holborn Valley improvements. For these, a 6d. improvement rate had been proposed, but it had been rejected by the efforts of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), and now no resource was left except the coal tax.
  COLONEL HOGG, as a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works, could tell the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) that, unless this Bill was passed, it would be impossible, from want of funds, to make the approaches to the Thames Embankment. It would also be impossible to complete the improvements in Park Lane, or to finish the Chelsea Embankment; and he might add that the latter work was necessary for the completion of the low level sewer.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that in the Select Committee which had been referred to, he made a proposal against the continuance of this tax; but the noble Lord the Chief Commissioner of Works proposed an Amendment, and that Amendment was

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  carried, because the hon. Member for South Northumberland, who was appointed on the Committee to protect the interests of the coalowners, voted with the noble Lord. Therefore, if the coal-owners suffered they ought to know whom to blame. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone) approved his scheme. The present Government also adopted it, and the noble Lord introduced his Bill continuing the Coal duties while he was requested to bring in his Bill; both were to proceed pari passú. It was found to be impossible to pass his Bill last Session, and the noble Lord withdrew his. In the present Session, his right hon. Friend (Mr. Goschen), the Member for the City of London, brought forward the subject of metropolitan finance, and the Government thought it their duty to consider the question, and accept the responsibility of proposing a scheme to carry out metropolitan improvements. This Bill was accordingly introduced. The responsibility rested entirely with the Government, and the metropolitan Members had no option but to accept it, although they considered it a very bad Bill.
  COLONEL, W. STUARTcomplained of the injustice of taxing rural districts for metropolitan improvements, simply because the coals they consumed passed through London.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 147; Noes 33: Majority 114.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1 agreed to.
  Clause 2 (Coal Duty of Fourpence to be applied by Corporation of London for Improvements).
  MR. LABOUCHEREmoved, to add words to allow the Corporation of London to give a drawback for the coal duty to certain manufacturers carrying on business within half a mile of the county of Bucks. He explained that it was intended that this power should have reference to certain papermakers, whose places of business were just within the line of taxation, and who had to compete with other papermakers whose places were just on the other side of the line.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, the chief objection to the insertion of the words was that the Mayor and Corporation of London had no power whatever over these duties, which were paid into the Treasury. The last time the House passed this Bill the town of Hertford, which was under the patronage of the then Prime Minister, was exempted from its operation. He did not know whether the county of Bucks was under the patronage of the present Prime Minister. Perhaps it would be better to exempt from the operation of the Act the coal used in all manufactories.
  MR. COWPERdenied that the town of Hertford was mentioned in any Acts of Parliament relating to this subject.
  CONONEL HOGGopposed the Amendment.
  MR. LOCKEobserved, that although the name of Hertford was not expressly mentioned in any of these Acts, alterations had been made in the boundaries of the district affected by the Act, which had had the effect of excluding Hertford from its operation.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, it would be very difficult to adopt the proposition of the hon. Member for Middlesex, as it would interfere with the boundaries which had been fixed by competent authority.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he would withdraw his Amendment.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, as the Amendment had been withdrawn, he should move the addition to Clause 2 of the following words:—
  "For every ton of Coals consumed for any purpose of manufacture in any factory separate from any dwelling house, there shall be allowed to the consumer of such Coals a drawback of one shilling a ton, provided such consumer shall comply with such regulations and conditions as may be prescribed by the said mayor, aldermen, and commons, and approved by one of Her Majesty's Secretaries of State, to ascertain the amount of such drawback, and to prevent any abuse therein."
  There were other industries besides those which had been mentioned; he referred especially to the case of the iron shipbuilders, upon whom the tax of 1s. 1d. per ton was peculiarly oppressive.
  Amendment proposed, at the end of the Clause, to add the words—
  "Provided, That for every ton of Coals consumed for any purpose of manufacture in any factory separate from any dwelling house, there shall be allowed to the consumer of such Coals a drawback of one shilling a ton, provided such consumer shall comply with such regulations and conditions

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  as may be prescribed by the said mayor, aldermen, and commons, and approved by one of Her Majesty's Secretaries of State, to ascertain the amount of such drawback, and to prevent any abuse therein."—(Mr. Ayrton.)
  LORD JOHN MANNERSregretted that he could not assent to that Amendment. The Committee having sanctioned the continuance of those dues for the limited period of seven years, on the assumption that they would be levied on all classes of consumers within the prescribed radius, it was now impossible to exempt a large class of consumers from their operation. If such an exemption were allowed, it would be necessary to impose those dues for an additional number of years. If there was a class of persons who ought to contribute their fair share of the funds required for cleansing and embanking the Thames, improving the thoroughfares, and all the other great works to which the coal dues were applicable, it was the manufacturers, who by the nature of their business did so much to obstruct those thoroughfares and pollute the river.
  MR. WATKINsupported the Amendment, and asked for statistics as to the proportion which the amount of coal tax collected from the manufacturers bore to the total proceeds of the impost.
  MR. LOCKEsaid, that what the manufacturers complained of was that, while they paid as high rates and taxes as the rest of the community as ordinary householders, they were subjected to a heavy extra tax on the trade they carried on. The Thames iron shipbuilders naturally had to pay more for their coals than their rivals on the Clyde, and yet an additional impost of 13 d. per ton was extracted from them for the fuel they consumed. He should support the Amendment if it were pressed to a division.
  MR. SAMUDAalso pointed out the onerous character of the tax as affecting the struggling iron shipbuilders of East London, who had lately been called upon to pay rates, not on their buildings alone, as formerly was the case, but also on their plant. Within the last seventeen years fifteen of the shipbuilding firms of the metropolis had failed in their business, or discontinued building, and these firms had during their existence employed 4,000 persons; which really meant that they had provided the means of support to about 20,000 individuals. It was now vitally important that the trade should not be too heavily loaded with taxation. He
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  thought that some such Amendment as that proposed by the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets should be adopted.
  COLONEL HOGGremarked, that as the evidence given before the Committee showed, in spite of the taxation complained of, the profits on the London shipbuilding trade at the time admitted of one of the witnesses making extensions which would cost £100,000—a fact which justly excited comment on the part of the Committee. He opposed the proviso on the ground that the tax was absolutely necessary to meet engagements entered into. The noble Lord had given every possible care and attention to the affairs of the metropolis, and all persons connected with it ought to be grateful to him.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he should be reluctant to throw difficulties in the way of the manufacturers; and, if the case were perfectly free, he should be inclined to vote for the Amendment; but they were in reality discussing what was to happen sixteen years hence. He regretted that their taxation should have reached such a point that they were obliged to begin to pledge the revenues that would only accrue sixteen years hence. For his part he would rather say let them get rid of the matter as soon as they could. He thought it would be better to leave the tax as it was than to begin and establish differences which could not begin until sixteen years from the present day. The difficulty would arise of deciding what was a manufacture at the interval of sixteen years, and he therefore thought it would be best to allow the matter to stand as it is.
  MR. AYRTONthought that his right hon. Friend was mistaken in supposing that the proviso would not take effect at once, and, in case he was not mistaken, he would alter his proviso to the extent that it should take effect from and after the day on which the Bill may pass.
  Question put, "That those words be there added."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 146: Majority 116.
  Clause agreed to.
  Remaining clauses agreed to.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that it being felt as a grievance by those who lived in the district outside the Metropolitan Board's area, but who were, nevertheless, subject to the Coal and Wine

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  Duties, that they could receive no direct benefit from their imposition, he begged leave to move the addition of the following Clause:—
  "That the several Coal and Wine Duties by this Act continued for the year ending the fifth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty nine, shall be applied in the first instance in freeing from toll the following Bridges on the Thames: viz., Kew, Kingston upon Thames, Hampton Court, Walton upon Thames, and Staines; and next in making free from toll Chingford Bridge and Tottenham Mills Bridge upon the River Lee; and should there be any surplus remaining the same shall be applied as Parliament may hereafter direct."
  MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSproposed, that in the event of any arrangements being proposed for freeing toll-bridges by means of the Coal and Wine Duties, the Creek Bridge at Deptford should be included.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERthought the two bridges at Battersea should be included.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, if the clause was to include bridges within the metropolitan area, the dues would have to be continued for a much longer time.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, the boon was given distinctly as a compensation for those bridges beyond the metropolitan area, the inhabitants of those districts receiving no advantage from the tolls.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that to include the bridges within the metropolitan area would be a departure from the principle upon which they were asked to agree to the clause. He trusted that the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Alderman Salomons) would withdraw his Amendment.
  MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSsaid, that rather than have his Amendment rejected he would withdraw it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause added to the Bill.
  MR. AYRTONmoved a clause providing for the audit of the accounts.
  At the suggestion of Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH, the clause was withdrawn, with a view to its introduction upon the Report.
  MR. WALDEGRAVE-LESLIEremarked that the Bill had no Preamble. To supply the deficiency, he moved the adoption of the Preamble of the previous Continuance Act.
  LORD JOHN MANNERShad been assured by the highest authority that a
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  Continuance Bill like this required no Preamble.
  Motion negatived.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Thursday.

RAILWAYS (GUARDS' AND PASSENGERS' COMMUNICATION) BILL.
(Mr. Henry B. Sheridan, Sir Patrick O'Brien.)
RAILWAYS (GUARDS' AND PASSENGERS' COMMUNICATION) BILL.

  [BILL 66.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, he would ask the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. H. B. Sheridan) to postpone the second reading; partly, because the Bill had not been distributed, though he believed it was in the Bill Office; and partly, because clauses requiring a communication to be made between the guards and passengers of railway trains had been introduced in a Bill brought into the other House by his noble Friend the President of the Board of Trade. It would be more convenient to wait until that measure came down to them, and then the House would see whether the principle for which the hon. Member had so long contended had been sufficiently carried out in the Government Bill.
  MR. H. B. SHERIDANsaid, he had no objection to the course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman.
  Second Reading deferred till Tuesday, 21st April.

COMPULSORY CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL— [BILL 72.]
(Mr. Gladstone, Sir George Greg, Sir Roundell Palmer.)
COMPULSORY CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL— [BILL 72.]

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  MR. HENLEYhoped the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire would not go on with the Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] He thought reasonable time ought to be given to consider the Bill as it now stood. The Amendments have been put in by instalments, and time ought to be given to consider them. ["Oh!"]
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, the right hon. Gentleman must well know

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  that the Amendments were the result of the discussion which had taken place upon the Bill, and in reality did not alter the general character of the Bill at all. The Amendments were some days on the Paper, and no hon. Member offered any objection to them. The object of the new clauses had been to put church rates in parishes under local Acts as nearly as possible on the same footing with church rates elsewhere; to prevent the parishioners in new parishes from voting in respect of voluntary rates at vestries of the original or old parishes; and to allow owners the option of paying the rate instead of occupiers, giving them a vote in case they did so.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, it was his intention to move the adjournment of the House. ["Oh!"] The hon. and learned Gentleman who last addressed the House had not said a word as to the purport of the Bill as it now stood. He (Mr. Newdegate) could show that the Bill as it now stood virtually infringed the parochial system of the country. He begged to move the Adjournment of the House.
  Whereupon Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn,"—(Mr. Newdegate,)—put, and negatived.
  Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. SCHREIBER, remarking that it was not desirable that the House should adjourn until the Mutiny Bill had been introduced, moved the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned." — (Mr. Schreiber.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 28; Noes 131: Majority 103.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that as the Motion for the third reading had been made after one o'clock in the morning, and as great exertions had been made to collect the party opposite while there were but few on that (the Ministerial) side of the House, he would make no further opposition. He would only say that the Bill would destroy the parochial system of the Church of England.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  INVESTMENT OF TRUST FUNDS ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HENRY B. SHERIDAN, Bill to amend the Investment of Trust Funds Act, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HENRY B. SHERIDAN and Mr. AYRTON.

  REVENUE OFFICERS DISABILITIES REMOVAL BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. MONK, Bill to relieve certain officers employed in the collection and management of Her Majesty's Revenues from any legal disability to vote at the Election of Members to serve in Parliament, ordered to be brought in by Mr. MONK, Sir HARRY VERNEY, and Mr. OTWAY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 76.]

  MUTINY BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. DODSON, Bill for punishing Mutiny and Desertion, and for the better Payment of the Army and their Quarters, ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, and The JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL.
  Bill presented, and read the first time.

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Resolution reported;
  "That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the Service of the year ending 31st day of March 1869, the sum of £6,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland."
  Resolution agreed to: — Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH.
  Bill presented, and read the first time.
  House adjourned at half after One o'clock.