Commons Sitting of 27 April 1869

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Lord Hyde, for Brecknock Borough.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Game Laws (Scotland), appointed; Registration of Voters, Mr. Goldney discharged, Mr. Staveley Hill added.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Greenwich Hospital
Second Reading—Beerhouses, &c. [22].
Committee—Report—(£17,100,000) Consolidated Fund*; Merchant Shipping (Colonial)* [91]; Colonial Prisoners Removal * [92].

MALTA—NEW PORT AND DOCKS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ONSLOWsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, What is the present state of the works in the intended new Port and Docks at the Marsa in Malta, and when they will be completed so as to afford accommodation to Merchant Ships?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, the Marsa, or extension of the harbour proper, is complete, though some disappointment has been experienced from a large area of it having a rocky bottom. This we propose to remedy by laying down the requisite moorings. The works at the north-west basin have been suspended, partly at the instance of the Local Government, pending the decision as to its depth. The proceedings of the Admiralty have been also retarded owing to the different interpretation placed by the Admiralty and the Local Council of Government upon the agreement as to the value to be assigned to the island property transferred to the Admiralty. I have, however, in concert with my noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Office, and with the assistance of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, proposed certain terms, which have now been sent out for the instruction of the Governor at Malta, and which I trust will lead to a settlement satisfactory to the island community. No further delay need therefore be anticipated in the merchant shipping availing itself of the accommodation prepared for it in the Marsa.

POLICE SUPERANNUATIONS.

  QUESTION.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of
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  State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the remarks of the Inspectors of Constabulary for England and Wales, in their Reports for 1868, on the subject of Superannuation Funds for the Police; and whether he is taking any and what action in the matter?
  MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, he was bound to admit that the present state of police superannuations was unsatisfactory. He hoped, though he must not be understood to promise, that he would be able to introduce a measure on the subject in the course of the present Session.

  CATTLE PLAGUE—IMPORTATION OF DISEASED SHEEP—QUESTIONS.
  MR. CORRANCEsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Council, Whether he has received any official intelligence of the arrival of a cargo of 900 sheep by the "Trident" from Hamburg; and, whether they have been condemned as infected by Small Pox; if so, whether, under such circumstances and the recent arrival of a similar cargo from Antwerp, he does not intend to re-enact the recent Order for the slaughter of sheep coming from such ports?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, it was true that last Saturday a cargo arrived from Hamburg of 905 sheep. The Custom House authorities suspected that four of these sheep were suffering under the disease of the sheep-pox. They were detained, and they had all since been killed, and measures were taken, as in the other cases, to disinfect the vessel and the wharf. But there was great doubt whether this was the sheep-pox or whether it was another disease similar in its symptoms, but by no means so fatal in its character. However, the Custom House thought, and in his opinion most rightly, that if they were to err at all it was better to act on the side of caution, and all the sheep were killed as if they had the sheep-pox, though, he believed, they had not. As an impression had gone abroad in the country that the other two cargoes, some of which were diseased, were altogether infected, he was anxious to remove that impression. The facts of the case were these—The cargo that arrived in London from Antwerp consisted of 1,800 sheep, of which five were diseased; and of these 1,800 only 219 came from the person

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  to whom the diseased sheep belonged. There was no reason to suppose that the rest of the sheep were diseased, but all were killed. So with regard to the cargo that was landed at Harwich, only four sheep were diseased out of 375, but the whole were killed. As to the latter part of the Question, he had to say that his noble Friend Lord De Grey was giving the subject his closest consideration; but, as they were at present informed, the Government did not think it was necessary to re-enact the Orders in Council for the slaughter of sheep, and if the House would allow him he would state why this was not thought to be necessary. Hitherto they had been able to contend, and to contend successfully, with all the cases of diseased sheep that had been imported; but if the Orders in Council for the slaughter of sheep were re-enacted the effect upon the consumption of the country would be very considerable. The House would, perhaps, allow him to state that a large portion of the consumption of mutton in London was supplied by foreign importation. In 1865, 41½ per cent of all the live sheep brought into London were imported from abroad. In 1866, the importation was more than 50 per cent; in 1867, it was nearly 50 per cent, while in 1868, when the Orders in Council for the slaughter of sheep were in force, the importation was only 12 per cent, but up to the present time this year the importation had been 48,000, against 25,000 for the same period last year. The hon. Member (Mr. Corrance) would therefore see that if these Orders in Council were renewed it would be a real hardship to the consumers. He might also state this other fact, that there was a great difference between the cattle disease and the sheep-pox. The cattle disease, when it had once broken out, could only be stopped with great difficulty; whereas, since the sheep-pox made its appearance in 1865, in every case they had been able to stamp it out, without allowing it to do any harm. Taking all these considerations together, they were not prepared to renew the Orders in Council.
  MR. HENNIKER-MAJORsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether, with reference to the recent importation of sheep infected with the "Sheep Pox," it is true that this disease has lately largely prevailed, and does at present, largely
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  prevail at Hamburg, Antwerp, and Schleswig-Holstein?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that he had directed inquiries to be made on this subject. At Antwerp and in Belgium there was no sheep-pox. From Rotterdam he had heard that the sheep-pox had entirely disappeared from South Holland and Zealand. From Hamburg he heard that there were no fresh cases in Mecklenburgh and Holstein.

  IRELAND—EDUCATION—SALARIES OF TEACHERS.—QUESTION.
  SIR FREDERICK W. HEYGATEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he has any intention of revising the scale of salaries of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses under the National Board of Education in Ireland?
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, in reply, that he had no present intention of doing so; but the question was an important one, and would be considered in connection with the national system, which would have to be taken in hand as soon as the Government were in possession of the Report of the Commissioners now engaged in inquiring into the whole matter.

CANADA—DOCKYARD EMIGRANTS TO.

  QUESTION.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, If he has received any official Communication from the Government of the Dominion of Canada respecting the prospects, on arrival at Quebec, of the Artizans and Labourers who were last year discharged from the Royal Dockyards and Ordnance Factories, and who are now proceeding to Quebec in the "Crocodile" and "Serapis;" and, if so, whether he would have any objection to lay the Communication upon the Table of the House?
  MR. MONSELL: In answer, Sir, to my hon. Friend, I have to inform him that a Despatch such as he inquires about has been received from the Governor General of Canada. He states that the emigrants sent out by the Admiralty will have the same facilities afforded to them as other emigrants that arrive in Canada. There is a tax imposed on emigrants for emigrant hospitals; that tax will probably be dispensed with in their favour by the Government of the

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  Dominion. Government emigration agents will meet them at Quebec, and will give them all the assistance and information necessary for them. The Government of Ontario gives free grants of land to emigrants, and the Intercolonial Railway will probably afford employment to any that may wish for it. There is no objection to presenting a Copy of the Despatch if my hon. Friend will move for it.

  NEW COURTS OF JUSTICE.—QUESTION.
  MR. W. H. GREGORYsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether the Government have decided finally on the site for the New Law Courts, suggested in his speech on Tuesday the 20th by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, if so, whether the proposed site can be acquired without delay; and in what manner and how soon will the subject be again brought before the House of Commons? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be able to state the precise spot mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a desirable site for the New Law Courts.
  MR. LAYARD: In answer, Sir, to the Question of my hon. Friend, I beg to state that the Government have finally decided to propose to the House a plan for the erection of the New Law Courts on the site mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Tuesday last. As much misapprehension appears to exist in the House and out-of-doors as to the nature of the scheme suggested by my right hon. Friend, I may take this opportunity of stating that the site proposed to be acquired by the Government is that comprised between Somerset House and the Temple, bounded on the south by the Thames Embankment, and on the north by Howard Street and and several small alleys and passages connecting that street with the Temple and King's College. This site will furnish six acres of building ground. Mr. Street, who is now occupied in adapting the plans which he has already prepared for the Carey Street site to this new site, informs me that he will be able to erect all the Law Courts, and every office necessarily dependent thereon, upon these six acres. It is my intention to introduce very shortly—if possible, before Whitsuntide—a Bill which, should the House think fit to pass it, would enable the Govern-
  1700
  ment to proceed without delay to acquire the proposed site, and to commence the erection of the Law Courts upon it. I shall be prepared, on the introduction of that Bill, to give a full explanation to the House of the plan contemplated by the Government, and to point out its great advantages over all other plans hitherto suggested. At the same time I shall be able to give such assurances to the House as will, I hope, convince them that it may be carried out, including numerous and most convenient approaches, for the sum mentioned by my right hon. Friend—namely, £1,600,000, or at a much less cost than any other scheme. Mr. Street is now preparing detailed plans, which I shall be able to submit to the House before the second reading of the Bill. Before sitting down I may state to the House, what I had not the opportunity of stating the other evening, that I have received a communication from the Chief Baron of the Exchequer (Sir Fitzroy Kelly) stating that he and all the Judges with whom he has communicated, except one, are of opinion that upon every ground, as regards the Bench, the Bar, the solicitors, the suitors, and the public—I quote his own words—the Thames Embankment should be preferred for the site of the Law Courts.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he wished to know if notices have been given to the parties.
  MR. LAYARD: If the right hon. Gentleman will wait till I have an opportunity of introducing the Bill he will obtain every explanation.

  CRIMINAL LAW—THE CONVICT WILTSHIRE.— EXPLANATION.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he desired to correct an involuntary omission to answer one of the Questions put to him the other day by the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir George Jenkinson) respecting the convict Wiltshire. The hon. Baronet had asked whether Wiltshire was the man of that name who, since his conviction, attempted to murder a warder in Gloucester Gaol. The best answer he could give would be to read a letter from one of the Visiting Justices of Gloucester Gaol, who was, of course, a competent authority. The justice wrote—
  "It is my duty to communicate to you that at 2 a.m. yesterday morning Charles Wiltshire, whose sentence to death I reported on the 8th of April, committed a violent attack on the warder who

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  was placed to watch over his safety during the night. The night patrol being within hearing, promptly gave the alarm and called assistance. When I inspected the prisoner about a quarter of an hour afterwards, he had become calm, and my believe is that the warder in attendance for the night, though a very steady and experienced man, must have fallen asleep on his seat, and the prisoner seized the opportunity to attempt to escape, believing erroneously that the warder had the keys of the prison on his person."
  The hon. Baronet being a magistrate would understand that a wide difference existed between an attempt to murder and a violent attack, and would appreciate the extent to which this report should have influenced his judgment. He had to decide whether, because of this occurrence, no serious consequences having ensued, the original sentence should be executed. He decided in the negative.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL BILL.

  LEAVE.
  MR. TREVELYANrose to ask for leave to introduce a Bill to make better provision respecting Greenwich Hospital and the application of the Revenues thereof. The hon. Gentleman said that in a Session when so many measures of such gravity in their principles, and demanding so much time for the consideration of details, were being submitted to their consideration, he did not propose to detain the Committee by a lengthy exposition of the circumstances which had induced the Government to ask leave to lay this Bill upon the table; and he ventured to introduce the Bill to the notice of Parliament with less hesitation and with greater brevity, because it had been framed in accordance with the spirit of the present House of Commons—a spirit which demanded that every piece of business, small as well as great, should be done boldly, should be done thoroughly, and should be done once for all. He would not enter upon an historical disquisition with regard to the formation and the object of Greenwich Hospital, or dilate upon the terms of the charter and the original intentions of the founders—the House had enough history of that description on its hands already; he would confine himself to reading a single clause from the charter of 1694—
  "Whereas, the Seamen of this Kingdom have for a long Time distinguished themselves throughout the World by their Industry and Skilfulness in their Employments, and by their Courage and
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  Constancy manifested in Engagements for the Defence and Honour of their Native Country; and for an Encouragement to continue this their ancient Reputation and to invite greater Numbers of His Majesty's Subjects to betake themselves to the Sea, it is fit and reasonable that some competent Provision should be made that Seamen who by Age, Wounds, or other Accidents shall become disabled for future Service at Sea, and shall not be in a condition to maintain themselves comfortably, may not fall under Hardships and Miseries, may be supported at the public Charge, and that the Children of such disabled Seamen, and also the Widows and Children of such Seamen as shall happen to he slain, killed, or drowned in Sea Service, may in some reasonable Manner be provided for and educated. And also the Widows of such Seamen, Watermen, Fishermen, Lightermen, Bargemen, Keelmen, and Sea-faring Men, who shall be slain, killed, or drowned in the Sea Service, and the Children of such Seamen. Watermen, Fishermen, Lightermen, Bargemen, Keelmen, or Sea-faring Men so slain, killed, or drowned, and not of Ability to maintain or provide comfortably for themselves, shall be received into the said Hospital, and there be provided for."—[7 & 8 Will 3, c. 21.]
  These were the words—the very apt and expressive words—in which the Royal founders conveyed their benevolent intentions towards those gallant seamen who, by their conduct at La Hogue, had shown that the great Revolution had done as much for the Navy of Britain as it had done for her other institutions. Those were the words which it was the duty of our generation to interpret according to the best and highest of its own ideas, as it had been the duty of generations past to interpret them according to the best of theirs: and our interpretation of them was that King William and Queen Mary were bent upon providing that British seamen who had served their country and their Sovereign faithfully should not, at the close of life, or in sickness, or after wounds, fall into distress, but should confidently look forward to being maintained, at the public expense, in decency, in comfort, and in self-respect. These ends they undertook to carry out, after the notions of the age in which they lived, by erecting a great asylum in which the old men might, to the end of their days, lead a life in common, much resembling that which they had led on shipboard, where they might be fed, clothed, and nursed, and physicked, and preached to, and prayed to, and subjected to a little mild discipline. For those were days when no one had yet questioned the belief that charity was best promoted by gathering people into almshouses, and that learning was best promoted by herding them

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  together permanently in richly-endowed Colleges. And it was probable that those who followed that course knew very well what they were about. It was evident that some great change must have passed over the ordinary social and domestic habits, when we remembered that the founders of the Charterhouse, wishing to treat broken-down gentlemen as gentlemen, collected them together in a charitable institution, and dressed them in a peculiar dress, called them "poor brethren," and that under the same roof with a great school of boys. But times had very much altered since then, and with the times the feelings of men; and that alteration told nowhere more than at Greenwich Hospital. The symptoms which indicated that that institution did not square with the modern condition of things became so evident and so scandalous, that it became the duty of those responsible to ask whether the existing organization of this great charity did or did not conduce—as far as it could humanly speaking be made to conduce—to maintaining our worn-out seamen in comfort, in decency, and in self-respect? The question was duly asked, and was answered in a most unmistakeable manner by the Commission of 1859. He would not quote from the Report of that Commission. It was notorious at the time, and was easily attainable now. But the gist of it was that the expense of the establishment was only equalled by the discomfort of its inmates. Good seamen would not surrender their pensions to enter Greenwich Hospital to live in a barrack under vexatious discipline, with nothing in the world to do, and 1s. a week of pocket money out of which to maintain their wives and families. Their places were filled by a class of men who, to say the very least and mildest, were utterly unfit objects for so noble a charity; and yet, even thus, only 1,600 people could be got together; and the only wonder was that 500 real sailors could have been induced to enter upon such a career of restraint and idleness when they compared it with the busy roving lives which they had hitherto led in the pursuit of their calling. When we thought of the distaste with which College Fellows so frequently regard that life of compulsory celibacy and retirement into which they have drifted, or been tempted, under our present University system; and when we
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  remembered that these men were the most highly educated and often the ablest persons of their time, with every intellectual resource at their command, we might judge what must be the state of mind of an uneducated man, who had consumed the prime of life in hard but not unexciting manual labour, when he found himself amidst hundreds of his fellows in the same plight, condemned to do nothing from morning to night, and night to morning, except to take his stated meals at the stated hour, cut off from all the associations of home and friends, and all the thousand little interests and cares of the happy private citizen. What wonder, then, was it, that they were only able, by sweeping together—to use the expression of Dr. Liddell—the very dregs of the Navy, to collect 1,600 men in the Hospital—a good 1,000 below the number it was built to contain. And on this miserable number, of 1,600—a mere drop in the great sea of naval destitution—£99,577 was expended, not leaving a single farthing for out-pensions to that great number of infirm and helpless seamen for whom King William and Queen Mary had ordained the benefits of the Hospital, and for whom successive Sovereigns had loaded it with the produce of fines, confiscations, shares, stoppages, and percentages. An institution, out of gear with the customs and ideas of the age, it had become pre-eminent for evil among other institutions of the same faulty nature. While at Greenwich, £99,000 a year supported 1,600 inmates, the 3,500 pensioners of the Invalides were maintained on very much the same scale of personal comfort for £112,000. There probably was not an extravagant or corrupt Board or Committee of Management, from one end of the island to the other, that did not plume itself on the reflection that the establishment at Greenwich—the salaries to military and civil officers, clerks and servants, with rates, taxes, and repairs to buildings—consumed £48,667, at the rate of £28 18 s. 4d. per head to each individual pensioner. It was very much this state of things that the Board of Admiralty found in 1865, and that they considered it an imperative duty to remedy. It was their duty to see that the intentions of the founder were fulfilled as far as the varying circumstances of generations would admit. And those intentions evidently were—for

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  William was both a wise and a thrifty man—that his bounty should not be jobbed and should not be wasted, but that—set aside as it was for the advantage of our Navy—it should be made to go as far as possible, and in the direction most agreeable to the Navy itself; and, therefore, the Board resolved upon a policy by which that bounty should be so expended that the greatest number of seamen and marines should be benefited in the way which they themselves would individually prefer. That policy may generally be described as the conversion of Greenwich Hospital into an infirmary for infirm, decrepid, or imbecile pensioners, and the engrafting once more a system of out-pensions upon the funds of the institution: once more, for to satisfy the consciences of those who loved precedents, up to the year 1829, either the whole or part of the out-pensions to seamen had been paid by Greenwich Hospital. This policy was carried into effect by offering to the men inside the Hospital certain pensions and money allowances which made up £36 10 s. a year, or 2s. a day. It was obvious that if these men preferred to live in their own homes, at a cost to the Hospital of £36 10 s. a year, instead of living inside it at a cost of £60, both parties in the transaction would be largely benefited. Admission was then afterwards only to be given to real seamen and marines who could prove their claim to the title—who were actually infirm, helpless, and in real need of being nursed, housed, and tended. It was calculated that this measure would enable the staff to be diminished to what would be sufficient for 600 patients, and the Bill of 1865, accordingly provided for reducing the overgrown establishment to more manageable and defensible dimensions. Such an infirmary, it was estimated, would be maintained for £45,000 a year, which would leave, therefore, about £60,000 available for out-pensions. The anticipations which had been entertained with regard to this change had been fully borne out. No less than 987 out of 1,382 inmates of the Hospital had at once accepted the terms offered and had become out-pensioners, and 150 more would also have accepted the terms if they had come within the circle that would have been been benefited by the offer. Only thirty-one of those who had accepted terms had applied for re-ad-
  1706
  mission. The beneficial action of the change upon the men's health had been most marked—the annual death-rate among the out-pensioners being 6·4 as against 12·3 per cent among the inmates of the Hospital. The saving that had been effected in the management of the funds had enabled a further pension of 9d. a day to be paid to every out-pensioner over the age of seventy who had been on the books for ten years, and 5d. a day to those over fifty-five years of age who had been on the books five years. It was only within the last two months that the present Board of Admiralty had found themselves in a position to enter into this arrangement. The Board of Admiralty were anxious that this beneficial state of things should be carried still further, and with that view, they had determined to propose a reduction of the number of in-pensioners to such as could be accommodated within the walls of the infirmary. Any person visiting Greenwich Hospital would see there a large building of quite a different description to the rest of the buildings. That was the infirmary, and within that it was proposed to lodge the in-pensioners. There would then be at the disposal of the Government the large building designed by Inigo Jones; but the Government had not determined to what use they would apply it—whether to some naval or to some other purpose of great national interest. All the Government knew was, that the building could not be profitably utilized for the purposes to which it was at present devoted, because they found this immense building with its great corridors and fine rooms—a palace in itself—actually deserted. It was simply a lodging for clerks and others connected with the establishment, and the expense of keeping the place in repair amounted to something just below £5,000 a year. In order to reduce the number of the inmates of the infirmary several of the patients were to be sent to Haslar and Portsmouth Hospitals, where they were to be maintained at the cost of Greenwich Hospital. Henceforward the admission to the infirmary would be given only to naval pensioners who were helpless and infirm, to seamen and marines who had served for ten years, or to men discharged from the service on account of wounds received in the service. After their exa-

  1707
  mination they would have the alternative of entering the infirmary or receiving a pension not exceeding 1s. 6d. a day. It was considered probable that a great proportion of the old men would adopt the alternative of the 1s. 6d. a day, so that we might look forward to the time when the infirmary would be closed; and, if closed under these circumstances, it would be brought to an end by the suffrages of the seamen themselves. The effect of these changes might be thus stated—The sum spent upon establishment, salaries of officers, contingencies, and repairs of buildings, amounted, in 1859, to £48,670, and that was deducted from the comforts of the men. Then came the change of 1865, and then the sum amounted to £21,083; but under the system proposed by the present Board of Admiralty, the sum would only amount to £6,831. It was probable that, in a few years, those charges would entirely disappear, 'and that the whole of the Greenwich Hospital might be applied to the maintenance of those seamen who had a claim on the country. He should not, however, go into details on this subject, because they would be found fully set out in a Paper which he would lay upon the table in a few days. He now came to the most important part of the scheme. When the Government proposed to diminish the number of inmates in Greenwich Hospital they were told that there were a large number of seamen of the Royal Navy in the workhouses of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and that, therefore, the proposed diminution ought not to be made. He believed it was notorious that the seamen of the Navy who were in the workhouses belonged to the class of permanently invalided seamen who had been discharged from hospital, and who had not served a sufficient time to entitle them to a pension. There could be no doubt that the nature of the service sometimes caused men to be invalided, who, had they followed agricultural occupations, might have been in comparatively good health. Accordingly the Committee were of opinion that if funds could be procured for the purpose, all men who had lost their health in the service should be received into Greenwich Hospital. The Admiralty believed they saw their way to providing for all these men by giving them the alternative either of entering Haslar Hospital or Plymouth Hospital, or of
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  receiving a maximum pension of 1s. 6d. a day, on which they might live in comfort and decency. If the scheme was carried out Parliament would have the satisfaction of knowing that no man who had worthily served his country would be in danger of the workhouse. He would now say a few words as to the relation between the Royal Navy and the merchant service. The House were aware that there existed an excellent institution called the Seamen's Hospital. Since 1831 that institution had done much for the national honour with scarcely any aid from the national purse. The Hospital was ordinarily in the Dreadnought, an old ship-of-war; but in cholera times the managers had used an additional ship as an Hospital. The inconvenience of having the sick on shipboard had been felt so strongly that the society had endeavoured to build a Hospital on land, but it was found that to erect a suitable one would cost £80,000. The question was, whether that society might not be benefited by the nation in a way that would not entail any national charge. He had shown that it was highly probable that after a short time the infirmary at Greenwich might not be required for its present purposes. In such case, would it not be well to hand that infirmary over to the society which conducted the Seamen's Hospital? As to the old seamen, the Government had very carefully considered their claim on Greenwich, and the Government were of opinion that they had no legal claim on it. As, however, the Government were prepared to acknowledge that these old seamen had a moral claim upon them, he would not enter into the question at any length. It would be sufficient to say that those who paid this Greenwich sixpence were allowed to count their enforced payment as a payment towards an annuity guaranteed by the Government, and to which they could look forward as a certainty. But when the Merchant Seamen's Fund was wound up in 1851, and the money handed over to the Government, certain onerous conditions were attached to the payment of these pensions—the recipients were not to engage in any other employment, or to be receiving parochial relief. The Government considered that these old men were somewhat harshly treated. Therefore, by way of acknowledging the intimate connection between the two ser-

  1709
  vices—by way of acknowledging that these old men were, if not harshly, at any rate somewhat inconsiderately treated in the year 1851, and above all, in order to remove that deep grievance which rankled in the heart of every merchant seaman—the Government had determined to hand over to the Board of Trade a sum not exceeding £4,000 a year, which sum was to be given in pensions of £3 8s. to men, and £6 16 s. to masters, the condition of the pension being that the pensioner should have actually paid the Greenwich 6d. for the space of ton years. These old men always thought they had some claim on Greenwich Hospital, and therefore he thought the Government had taken a very wise course in removing a grievance which existed among a very numerous class of men, whose affection to their sovereign and their country was of the very greatest importance. The Government had not only adhered to the spirit of the recommendations of the Committee as regarded the main provisions of the Bill, but they had accepted several of the Committee's smaller suggestions, and they proposed to abolish the office of Controller over the local receivers, relying, for their check, on the honesty of those receivers, and on the auditor and the securities which he gave. The Government, in the framing of this measure, had been anxious that every penny belonging to the Greenwich Hospital should be expended upon the seamen of the Royal Fleet in a manner most advantageous to the seamen, and with that object they were anxious to cut down all unnecessary establishments and to abolish the remains of a great system of semi-sinecures. He had now gone through the main provisions of the Bill; and had likewise explained to the Committee, as he best could, those arrangements which were within the power of the Board of Admiralty to carry out by means of the Board's own orders. The objects for which the scheme was devised were very simple and yet not unimportant nor ignoble. The Government was desirous to devote every penny of the funds of Greenwich Hospital to the benefit of those for whom the Hospital was founded in the manner which by a rare coincidence was believed to be best for them, and which they believed to be best for themselves. It was desirous, with this end in view, to cut down unnecessary establishments, and
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  to destroy the last relics of a great system of semi-sinecures. It looked forward, and, what was more, looked forward with confidence, to the day when no seaman who had done his duty to his Queen and country need choose between beggary and the parish; when, instead of the benefits of the Hospital being confined as in 1857 to its 1,000 questionable inmates, every genuine mariner of the Royal Navy might come within the circle of its beneficent influence—when the Greenwich pensioner, instead of dragging on a dull existence, pinched by want of money, and worried by monastic rules, might live among his children and grandchildren in the full tide of village gossip, or in some fishing hamlet or seaport town, among the associations of that calling which, to the end of his days, never loses its attraction and interest to the true sailor.
  MR. LIDDELLthanked the hon. Member on behalf of a gentleman who was no longer a Member of the House, but who presided over the Admiralty Committee last year, and whoso labours on this subject were of great service; he referred to Mr. Du Cane, to whom the hon. Gentleman had paid a just and honourable tribute. He was glad to hear his hon. Friend say that the Bill would be a complete measure, and that what was to be done was to be done once for all. That was different from the spirit in which previous Greenwich Hospital Bills had been framed, for hitherto a Greenwich Hospital Bill had been brought in, on the average, about every other year. That shifty legislation depended very much, however, on the fluctuating character of the hon. Gentleman's own position; for Greenwich Hospital seemed to be generally a hobby with Civil Lords of the Admiralty, who did not always agree in their views, and possibly whoever succeeded the hon. Gentleman might introduce a novel scheme of his own for the management of the Hospital. It was not for the good of the Hospital that the views as to the system of management should be continually changing, and therefore he hoped this Bill would contain the elements of stability and permanence. He was glad something was to be done for old merchant seamen; but he wished to know whether men belonging to the Navy, who were incapacitated by wounds or disease acquired in the ser-

  1711
  vice, and unable to provide for themselves, would be entitled either to the 1s. 6d. a day, or, if they did not choose to accept that, to admission to the Hospital as an infirmary. There were many men who might have no relations or friends, and to whom even a pension of 1s. 6d. a day would be very little real benefit. Such men might prefer, if they could, to go into the Hospital. He was glad that the stringency of the conditions of admission was to be relaxed, because as long as it was insisted upon that a man should serve a certain time before he could receive a pension—and only pensioners could be admitted—many deserving persons would be excluded from the benefits of the Hospital—a result which he did not think was the intention of the founders. With regard to the finance part of the question he should be perfectly content to leave it in the hands of his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty. In giving up any part of the Hospital to the Dreadnought, he trusted that it would be made an absolute condition that that portion should again be at the service of the country if any public emergency should render it necessary that the whole of the establishment should be made use of for the Royal Navy. That must be an absolute condition. In regard to the merchant service, he had always been of opinion that they had not any legal claim to the benefits of the Hospital; but, at the same time, there was a moral claim, and he was glad that it was to be recognized by the payment of £4,000 a year to the Board of Trade, to be applied in pensions to the most deserving old seamen of the merchant service who had formerly paid the Greenwich sixpence. He quite approved the spirit in which this free gift was made.
  MR. CANDLISHexpressed his thanks for the care and attention bestowed upon the Bill, and for the general principles upon which it was founded, believing that it would increase the efficiency of of the Hospital and utilize its property. It was not suprising that the subject had been taken up by successive Civil Lords of the Admiralty, seeing that the establishment charges had absorbed so large a proportion of the revenue, and he thought he saw a guarantee that this evil at least would be remedied, in the proposal to put an end to the establishment altogether. He concurred in the
  1712
  opinion that merchant seamen had no legal claim, and, of course, if they had one, the assertion of it would not require the intervention of Parliament; but they had a very high moral claim, in consequence of the enforced exaction of a portion of their money for many years, and he was glad that the Government recognized the claim, and he hoped the recognition would be approved by Parliament. In the borough he represented there were twenty or thirty merchant seamen in the union workhouse, and, no doubt, their condition would be alleviated by the proposals of the Bill; and in the same borough there were between 300 and 400 sailors of the mercantile marine who had paid the Greenwich sixpence. In the name of all these men he thanked the hon. Gentleman and the Government for the recognition of their claims. A matter which demanded careful attention was whether the vast estates of the Hospital should be retained or whether they might not be realized and the money invested, as such realization would still further reduce the cost of managing the estates, and thus leave a large sum for distribution amongst those entitled to its benefits.
  MR. CHILDERS, after stating that nothing could be more satisfactory than the explanation made by his hon. Friend, replied to questions which had been asked. The payment of 1s. 6d. a day was considerably more than was given for out-door relief, and was quite sufficient to keep an old seaman out of the workhouse. Such seamen, however, would have no absolute right to go into the Hospital instead of receiving the 1s. 6d. per day. That would be a matter in the discretion of the authorities. As to the Dreadnought, it was only proposed to hand over to the Committee the Infirmary, if it were not required for seamen of the Navy. There was already power to sell the estates, and it might be exercised under certain circumstances, but that right would have to be exercised with great caution. There was no more unfortunate financial measure than the sales of the Greenwich Hospital estates by Sir James Graham in 1831; they involved the Hospital in great loss; and its income would have been much larger now if the sales had never been made. The establishment charges, which had been one-half the income, were now reduced to one-seventh.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to make better provision respecting Greenwich Hospital, and the application of the Revenues thereof, ordered to be brought in by Mr. TRE-VELYAN, Mr. CHILDERS, and Mr. ADAM.

GAME LAWS (SCOTLAND).

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. LOCHsaid, he rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the operation and effect of the Game Laws in Scotland. He did so, because this was a subject upon which there existed a very strong feeling in Scotland, as was evinced by the fact that there were three Game Bills now before the House. They were to have been read a second time on Wednesday last; but, owing to the long discussion which took place on the second reading of the Bill to legalize Marriages with a Deceased Wife's Sister, they were postponed to the 23rd June, the earliest clay available. The result of that delay was to make it hopeless to attempt to pass any one of them this Session. Now, this was a subject of very great importance to him. He had hoped that something might have been done during the present Session to allay the feeling to which he had alluded, and which could not be much longer disregarded. He now, therefore, rose to propose that a Select Committee should be appointed to inquire into the subject, with a view to obtain the best information accessible upon the question, to guide the House in legislation upon it next year. He desired by his Motion to convince the people of Scotland that he was actuated by a most sincere and earnest desire to obtain for them a remedy for a real and serious grievance which existed to his knowledge, under the present state of things. He was anxious that a Select Committee should be appointed at the present time, because he thought that the period between this and the close of the Session might be so occupied in Committee as to lay the foundation for legislation next year, in a manner far more satisfactory than if they were to pass this year any of the Bills now before the House. Now, although there were many Gentlemen in this House who were thoroughly acquainted with the state of feeling prevalent in Scotland, and were, therefore, perfectly competent to consider the question in all its aspects thoroughly and well, yet, as far as the general body of the House was concerned, there were many points in connection with the ope-
  1714
  ration of the Scotch Game Laws which were not sufficiently known, and on which it was very desirable that the House should be better informed, in order that a satisfactory conclusion might be arrived at. That information could be obtained through the investigation of a Select Committee; and, in order to render whatever conclusion the House came to as satisfactory as possible, it ought to have the fullest information which a Select Committee could give. He therefore hoped the House would be prepared to accede to the Motion for the appointment of the Committee. There had been no inquiry into the Scotch Game Laws at any period. In 1845 a Committee was appointed, to which the Instruction was, to inquire generally into the Game Laws. The Committee sat for two years—the end being that they presented a long and elaborate Report; but they did not inquire into the Scotch Game Laws for the reason, as they stated, that the condition of the law in Scotland was so entirely different from the English law on the subject. The law of trespass in Scotland was different; the state of society in Scotland in relation to tenants and landlords was upon a different footing altogether, in consequence of the existence in Scotland of leases. Over a large portion of England the farms were held upon parole agreement, from year to year; but in Scotland the existence of leases was universal, forming, he might add, the basis upon which the better intelligence, prosperity, and liberal outlay of the tenants in that country had so long been established as compared with the general body of English farmers. Now, this circumstance, so advantageous in other respects, exposed the Scotch tenantry to difficulties peculiar to themselves, because, when a tenant entered upon a lease for nineteen years, which generally contained strict game clauses, he was bound down to a state of things over which he had no control whatever, and he had no means of protection from the game, nor any means of escaping the penalties and consequences of his lease; therefore, the condition of things in Scotland was essentially different from anything which existed in this country. For this reason he proposed that the inquiry should be limited to Scotland, and not be extended to England. An Amendment had been given notice of by an

  1715
  hon. Friend (Mr. Hardcastle) that the inquiry should be extended to England; but to that proposal he thought there was considerable objection. It would, in the first place, give a magnitude to the inquiry which would render it utterly impossible to bring it to a practical conclusion during the present Session of Parliament, while, by confining the investigation to Scotland, the Committee would be able to accomplish a great deal towards legislation next year. In addition to this he thought it would be very undesirable to raise questions in connection with the English Game Laws, which were not necessary to decide those matters which were at present producing such an unhappy state of feeling in Scotland. For his own part he could not but wonder the landlords of Scotland did not see the true character of the position which they occupied. There was a social revolution going on in many of the counties which was being caused mainly by this matter; and the legitimate influence which the landlords had so long exercised was departing from them, because they had not yet shown a desire to meet their tenants half-way on this subject. Knowing the tenants in Scotland so well as he did, he said that if there was the least disposition to meet them, they would meet their landlords fully half-way, and there would be an end to these difficulties. He did not intend to go at all into the merits of the question, and he contented himself by moving the appointment of a Select Committee.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, he agreed with his hon. Friend most heartily in all he had said in reference to the enterprize and general character of the Scottish tenantry, and also as to the desirableness of bringing about, if possible, by legislation, a better feeling between landlords and tenants on the subject of game than unhappily existed at the present moment in Scotland. Now, he had himself brought in one of the three Bills on this subject now before the House, and he had honestly promoted the Bill in the form in which he believed in his conscience it was possible to legislate. The history of that Bill was somewhat curious. Practically, it was not the Bill he brought in two years ago—it was the Bill of a Select Committee. It would be in the recollection of the House that his Bill, along with that introduced by
  1716
  the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan) was referred to a Select Committee. His (Lord Elcho's) Bill was taken as the basis on which the Committee went to work, and the result of their operations was the Bill now on the table. The principle of the Bill as originally brought in was to put the tenant in the best possible position for making a bargain with his landlord in the matter of game—that is, that when he took his farm he should be considered as having a primary right to the game, which he either retained or gave up when he made his covenant with his landlord. Now, the way that principle was struck out of the Bill was curious. The hon. Member for Fife entered into consultation with him (Lord Elcho) on the subject, and agreeing with the principle, he allowed his name to be put on the back of the Bill. When the Committee came to this clause, he said, of course, there could be no question about it; but, unhappily, the Lord Advocate said he had an objection to the principle; and upon a division it was struck out by a majority of 1, and amongst the majority against the principle was the hon. Member for Fife, who actually voted against what he had previously approved of. Wishing that this present Parliament should know exactly what the last Parliament had done on this subject, he (Lord Elcho) brought in the Bill exactly in the form in which it left the Committee; and moreover than that he printed the clause which was knocked out in Committee, and which, as he had said, gave the tenant the primary right to the game when he entered upon his lease. This he had done to facilitate legislation, and in doing so acted perfectly bonâ fide. He entirely agreed that it was desirable that this question should be dealt with somehow or other by Parliament; but when those Bills stood for second reading the other day, he felt that there was no hope of carrying them through. In his opinion the principle of the Bill of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Wick Burghs (Mr. Loch) was so wrong that he hoped Parliament would not sanction it. His own impression was that the Government should be invited—nay urged—to take up the subject, and deal with it, because it was only a strong Government which could deal with a question so difficult as this undoubtedly was. If the House would bear with

  1717
  him he would read an extract from the proceedings of a meeting of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture in Edinburgh, at which the tenantry of Scotland spoke of these three measures; and in order to show that he was dealing fairly, he would give first the extracts referring to his own Bill. A letter was read from Mr. M'Keig, who said—"I consider Lord Elcho's Bill a mere mockery." The President said—
  "Lord Elcho's Bill is one which common sense will at once dismiss as a sham; an insult to a class who deserve better things of a nobleman of his Lordship's standing. The Bill is as valueless as a remedy as it is deceptive. His Lordship must have a poor idea of our intellects if he thinks we can be caught by such chaff."
  Mr. Hope, of Fenton Barns, said—"After the remarks of the Chairman he would not throw water on a drowned mouse;" and Mr. Goodlet, of Bolsham, said—"As to Lord Elcho's Bill, it was humbug and a sham, not worth talking about." He now came to the measure proposed by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. M'Lagan). Now, what was said about that Bill? Mr. Gentle, of Bell, Inverness, said—
  "Henceforth and after dropping hares and rabbits out of the Game List, the agreement between proprietors and tenants will be quite superfluous. Many tenants are as determined game protectors as their proprietors. For my part, I will give the public welcome; only if damage is done it must be paid for."
  Mr. M'Keig said—
  "Mr. M' Lagan's Bill is a step in the right direction, but it will not remove the tenant-farmer's grievance to any considerable extent. It certainly would not protect us from determined game preservers, and it is there we require protection. It will not do for a landlord and his tenant to agree to destroy crops."
  Mr. Scot-Skirving said—
  "He wished those who were in favour of the Bill would show him how it would allow hares and rabbits to be killed otherwise than by letting poachers do it. There was a fallacy about the law of trespass. An action for trespass must be at the instance of the landlord. No occupant of land could prosecute for trespass. All that he could do would be to prosecute for damages. If the Bill passed, then there must be so stringent a trespass law that it would interfere with the pleasurable rights of the population."
  Mr. Davie said—
  "Knocking hares and rabbits out of the Game Law was all right as far as tenants were concerned; but how tenants could agree to this bill, which knocked hares and rabbits into the hands of the poachers, he could not understand. If Mr. Hope knew what the difficulties of keeping poachers off farms were, with the terrors of the present Game Laws, he thought he would not have supported Mr. M'Lagan's Bill."
  MR. CRAUFURDrose to Order. He wished to know whether it was competent for the noble Lord to quote these opinions about the details of Bills which were at present upon the table of the House, and which stood for discussion on a future day?
  MR. SPEAKER: The Motion before the House is for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the whole subject proposed to be dealt with by these Bills, and therefore a general reference to those Bills is permissible. But it will not be right for the noble Lord to go into details.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, he would not go too much into details, but he thought it was only right the House should hear the opinions which were expressed at the meeting in respect to the Bill of the hon. Member for the Wick Burghs. The main principle of that Bill was to take hares and rabbits out of the Game List. Alluding to the subject, the President said—
  "As far as the tenant-farmers were concerned it would give everything many would desire; but the question was, would the House of Commons pass it? I am afraid not. Besides, we know it is a delicate thing to interfere with an agreement or a covenant."
  Mr. Hope, of Fenton Barns, said—
  "With respect to Mr. Loch's Bill, he held that the clauses giving power to the tenant to kill game on his farm, notwithstanding any agreement in the lease to the contrary, to be an immoral clause. He did not think it was the duty of the Legislature to over-ride private bargains in any way, unless those bargains were for an immoral purpose. If he promised to preserve hares and rabbits, he would consider himself bound to act up to that obligation. He did not think the farmers of Scotland were so weak and imbecile that they required to go hat in hand to the Legislature and ask them to protect them from their own acts."
  Mr. Goodlet said—
  "Supposing the Bill passed, and he made a bargain with his landlord to preserve hares and rabbits, if he were an honest man, he would keep his bargain notwithstanding such an Act."
  MR. SPEAKER: I must remind the noble Lord that he made an engagement to the House that he would not enter into the detail of these Bills.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, he would pass to another point. He thought he had shown that a very considerable amount of disagreement existed on the part of tenantry of Scotland on the subject of these three Bills. They objected to the principle of his (Lord Elcho's) Bill, although it was to give to the tenant the

  1719
  primary right to the game. They objected to the Bill of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan), because it would have the effect of bringing poachers on the land; and they took exception in the strongest terms to the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for the Wick Burghs (Mr. Loch), because they said it was an unprecedented interference with the right of private persons with respect to agreements. As one gentleman put it, "he (Lord Elcho) hoped the Legislature would, not in any way sanction such an insult to the tenantry of Scotland as to suppose that they would enter into an agreement of this character." This showed the extreme difficulty of the subject-matter of these Bills; and what he should deem more satisfactory would be to urge upon the Government the propriety of their dealing with this question. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Loch) proposed a Committee. No doubt the Committee would take evidence; but it was a question if their inquiry could be terminated, or that they would be enabled to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion this Session. No doubt it would be extremely convenient to the Government to shelve the subject, as it were, by handing it over to a Select Committee. But we had a "strong Government," and if they were to take it in hand they might settle it without any reference at all to a Select Committee. With regard to the Game Laws in general, it was an open question with some whether we should have any Game Laws or not; but let the House mark this, that every country in the world had Game Laws. The Game Laws of America extend to the preservation of small birds, and in France the Game Laws were more stringent than ours. There was one law in particular, not passed under any Imperial regime, but in the time of the Citizen King in 1844. By it every man must take out what was called a permit de chasse. Without this, he might not shoot at all; with it, he might shoot anywhere if he had the permission of the person who owns the land. If he was the owner of land surrounded by a four feet fence, he could make his own Game Laws, and fix when the season was to open or close; in other cases the Prefêt decided what should be the close or open season. With regard to the general question—they had in every
  1720
  country either a very stringent Trespass Law or a Game Law; and he did not think the House would be prepared to do away with all protection to property of this kind. As regards the landlords themselves, he wished that they could bring themselves to look at this question as one of even-handed justice between man and man, as if there were no hustings either behind or before them, and as if the tenant-farmers had no votes at all. He maintained that all that legislation could do was two things—they could do what the 1 & 2 Will. IV., c. 38, did for England, they could transfer the primary right to the game, and to those creatures that run upon the soil, from the proprietor to the occupier. That was the state of the law in England. In Scotland it was different. Rabbits, by the common law of Scotland, were the property of the occupier, but all other description of game were the property of the landlord. Scotland and England were a united kingdom, and he thought they ought to pull together, and that one law should rule these matters throughout the country. He believed that in this matter the principle of the English Law was sound, and that the principle of the Scotch Law was unsound—that it was sound that the man who was the occupier of the land, who farmed it, who grew his crops on it, should have the right of control over those creatures by whom those crops might be injured. If he covenanted, if he received a consideration to give it up, that was a matter between him and his landlord, and the Legislature had done all that the Legislature could do when it put him in the best possible position to make his bargain with the landlord. It was on this broad principle that he had endeavoured to deal with the matter by his Bill. The other point on which he thought Parliament could come to the aid of the farmer was this—Supposing a bargain to be made, they ought to see that it was kept on the part of the landlord, and provide most summary and stringent remedies for redress and compensation. Depend upon it that—look upon this question how they would, say what they liked on the hustings, promise one thing or another—when they came soberly to discuss the question as between landlord and tenant, the whole thing resolved itself into a question of bargain and compensation. All that

  1721
  Parliament had to do was to put the tenant in the best possible position to make his bargain, and having made it, to place him in the best possible position to force, if needs be, his landlord to keep it, and to give him remedy and redress in case of departure from it. That he maintained was a sound principle. The hon. Member for the Wick Burghs proposed in his Bill that agreements between landlord and tenant should not have effect, and also an alteration with regard to the Law of Trespass. What would the effect of that be in a country like Scotland? A letter appeared about a fortnight ago in The Times newspaper from a well-known sportsman and crack shot, Captain Boss. He said—
  "They (the farmers in the Highlands) know very well that, owing to the charms of Highland sports, estates in Highland counties hare sold at a rate of purchase which is quite unknown in any other parts of Great Britain—I believe I may say of the world. From forty to sixty years' purchase of the free rents, including shooting rent, have in many instances been the price paid for Highland estates. The shooting rents amount from one-third to a-half of the gross rent, and on them the marriage settlement of younger children's provisions, public and local burdens, have been charged. Pass such an Act as that which has been introduced by the hon. Member for the Northern Burghs, and the shooting rents will go down at once, and the value of the estates will fall about 10 per cent."
  Who were the people who gave these prices for Highland estates? They were the merchant princes of England—the men who made their money in trade and commerce and manufactures, and who came and spent part of their time in Scotland. Since he (Lord Elcho) saw that letter he had endeavoured to get some figures, which would show the real, actual, and intrinsic value of this property, which the hon. Member for the Wicks Burghs thus rudely dealt with. He was once the tenant of the hon. Member for a deer forest, in so far as he is manager of an enormous principality, in the Highlands. He rented a forest on that, and the rent he paid was £750. They managed the property exceedingly well—so much so that his hon. Friend raised the rent, and they had to leave it. What was the sheep rent of that ground. The utmost of the sheep rent of the land which they occupied for sporting purposes at £750, would have been £400 a year. But he had got figures from an authority which his hon. Friend would not dispute—he
  1722
  meant Mr. Snowie, the well-known gunmaker, who had the letting of a great part of the shootings in the Highlands. Mr. Snowie happened to be in town, and a friend of his (Lord Elcho's) went to him and got the following figures:—In 1865 the shooting rents in Inverness-shire, exclusive of land in the occupation of owners, and exclusive of deer forests, was £33,810, and of this only £11,000 was for land not moorland. Shootings near Inverness were let, in 1824, at £160, and the same shootings let, in 1868, at £3,000. For shootings and sheep the relative value of the land was from 6d. to 1s. per acre—so that the value of the sheep and the shooting was about equivalent. They heard a great deal about clearing for deer forests. The clearing was as much done for sheep, and the land which produced so much under deer to the proprietor, employed far more people and brought infinitely more money into the country than sheep-farming. These were facts which were indisputable. In Perthshire, he learnt from another authority that in many districts the shooting exceeds the grazing rental. For instance, A was a grazing proprietor, and had £1,000 for grazing and £1,300 for shooting; B has £1.200 for grazing and £1,150 for shooting; B again has £800 for grazing and £500 for shooting; with C and D the shooting and grazing rentals are nearly equal. In districts, shooting's with ordinary accommodation let at 1s. per acre, which was about equal to the value of the pasturage. The rental for deer forests, in 1866, was £25,570, and the reserved deer forests were valued at £13,000—making £38,570. Add to that the money spent in Scotland, which generally equalled the sum paid in rent by those who came from the South to enjoy the pleasant sport of the Highlands. He said it was a strange thing for a Gentleman to come into Parliament and to bring in a Bill which practically reduced the value of that property, as stated by Mr. Ross, by 40 per cent. Did anyone think that any of these merchant princes would come and take these shootings if they knew that anybody who chose might go and trespass and shoot rabbits over the whole of it? The Bill of the hon. Member, at one fell swoop, introduced a principle of legislation which would reduce the value of property to a serious extent. There was another

  1723
  point with reference to the value of property to which he would like specially to call attention. The principle of the hon. Member in dealing with this question affected not simply one description of property. There was another description of sporting property—salmon. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright), who took a deep interest in the salmon, and was much addicted to salmon fishing, was present, but he had no doubt that he would agree with him that salmon was an article of property, as well as an article which formed a great amusement, and which it would be desirable to deal with in a careful way and not to confiscate. There had been sent to him a paper which purported to be a statement of the Committee of the Galashiels Fisheries Laws Reform League, which showed really how lax were beginning to be views of persons in Scotland with reference to this question of property. The object of the Galashiels Reform League was to make all salmon public property. The Duke of Richmond gets £12,000 a-year for his salmon fisheries, and. he has a right to this as a private property in salmon. But to show the extent to which men went, when once they take up a crotchet, he would read what this paper said—
  "By the Common Law of Scotland, as interpreted by the courts in recent occasions, all persons, except proprietors of land, or those having their permission, are excluded from angling for trout in any river, loch, stream, or water in Scotland. The exclusion is practically as complete as regards angling for salmon. The main fact to be considered in connection with these fisheries, and the unparalleled code of laws—commencing with the Tweed Act of 1857, instituted for their protection—is that they at once divide the communities living on the Tweed into two distinct classes, the eighty or ninety owners on the one hand, and many thousands of people on the other, who are totally excluded from the rivers. The present is the first generation of Borderers which has been rigourously subjected to the severe statutes the fisheries proprietors secured in 1857 and since; and while they feel that exclusion from the rivers very keenly, and suffer from the severity of the law, they cannot be made to see that there is anything felonious in taking a fish from a river. An attitude of antagonism is thus created—an antagonism destructive to that good social feeling which should exist in mixed communities."
  They talked about the Borderers, but there was a good deal of the Johnny Armstrong feeling in this Galashiels Reform League; for if this document were parodied, was there one word of it which any burglar or man who coveted a pearl,
  1724
  or any object in a shop in London, might not exactly repeat? Might he not say that "antagonism is created by the destruction of that good social feeling which ought to exist between mixed classes"—between the police and the burglar? This, he thought, ought to open people's eyes as to the language and tone which were held by some upon this question. He hoped that this Committee, if it was appointed, would not go into this question with any wild ideas upon the subject, and would look upon it calmly and deliberately. He hoped that as regards the question between landlord and tenant they would be guided by the words of one whose name ought undoubtedly to work great weight on that side of the House, and whose pupil he had been in this matter ever since 1847. A gentleman had written upon the question of the Game Laws, and there was a preface to that work which contained a letter, which he was about to read, addressed to the tenant-farmers of Great Britain—
  "No change in the law can do so much for you as you may do for yourselves. At present the right to the game is in your own hands unless you consent to transferor reserve it to your landlords. When you take a farm and give up full control over all that lives upon it, you sign over your own subjugation to the system against which you so loudly and justly complain."
  These words were taken from a letter written by the President of the Board of Trade, and published in the preface to Mr. Wellford's book on the Game Laws. This letter was written immediately after the close of that inquiry, and related to the Committee on the English Game Laws—an inquiry which lasted for two Sessions; and the conclusion to which it came as regards the farmers was that by the existing law they had the remedy in their own hands, and that they had themselves to blame if there was any subjugation to the system against which they so loudly complained. He thought that this was a question which ought to be discussed, and that they ought to speak out clearly, plainly, and boldly upon it. He maintained that, as between landlord and tenant, legislation was almost powerless. What was all powerful was public opinion. No man deplored more strongly than he did, the extraordinary extent to which this system of slaughtering had been carried. But that was an abuse of legitimate sport. He thought it right and reason-

  1725
  able that a man should be fond of sport. He did not think a man was worth much if he had not a little of the Red Indian in him, and he thought that those who lived in towns were quite prepared to agree with the receipt of the famous Mrs. Glass, that "before you cook your hare you must catch it." With reference to the question of the sale of game, a great change in the law of England was the licence to sell game by the Act of William IV. The intention of the Act of William IV., was to prevent poaching, but it had led to the abuse of game preserving. He held that the proprietors, as an act of duty, ought not to make money out of game, or to prevent poaching, or to sell it. There ought to be some legitimate means of supplying game to those who like it at their dinners, in order to prevent the operations of poaching; but, as I said on that question what I said on the last question, what we must look to was public opinion. He believed that public opinion, rightly and frankly declared, would check the abuse of game preserving, and for himself he would say that he should endeavour, by all means in his power, to bring about such a change of feeling as would create confidence on the subject, and lead to the establishment of a kindly feeling between the landlords and tenants of Scotland.
  MR. M'LAGANsaid, he was sorry that this discussion had not been taken on the second reading of the Bill he had introduced. He must express his surprise at the course which his hon. Friend proposed. The question of the Game Laws had been before the House for the last three Sessions. When the hon. Member first entered this House he was so anxious for legislation upon the subject that he introduced a Bill—from which he (Mr. M'Lagan) supposed that his knowledge must have been great upon the subject, and that his experience must have been extensive; but instead of that, and although his Bill had been before the House for six weeks, he now came forward and asked for a general inquiry into the whole subject. The uses of a Select Committee were two—one was to have a bonâ fide inquiry into the subject; the other was to shirk inquiry, and to shelve the question. He did not by any means wish to say that that was his hon. Friend's object, but certainly his Motion would have that
  1726
  effect. He objected to the Select Committee because there was no necessity for it. It would be useless to go into an inquiry after the Whitsuntide holidays, when only five or six weeks of the Session would be left, in which time it would not be possible for those Gentlemen, who did not agree with those who proposed alteration, to collect their evidence and to hold their witnesses in readiness, so as to enable them to report to the House this Session. He was told that the Government intended to support this Motion, and therefore there would be no use in his opposing it by moving the Previous Question; but he put to the Government whether it would not be better, instead of appointing a Select Committee, to have a Royal Commission, who would have much more time to go into the subject during the Recess than a Committee of that House in June or July, and the farmers of Scotland would be much more satisfied by such an appointment than by the appointment of a Select Committee. The Bill which he had had the honour to introduce to the House on this subject did not originate with himself—it was founded on the Resolutions of the Chamber of Agriculture of Scotland unanimously agreed to at a meeting three years ago. The farmers did not ask for protection against their landlords, or make any puerile complaints of injustice done; what they wanted was to be allowed to use their capital and their skill and their industry to the best advantage for themselves and for their landlords. He would ask the learned Lord Advocate to consider whether it would not be more advisable to have a Commission than a Select Committee. His own feeling was decidedly against both, but he certainly preferred the Commission to the Committee.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he thought that, under the circumstances, the House ought to consent to the appointment of this Committee. If there was no other reason for it, the speech of the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) was sufficient to show that there was so much difficulty in the subject that it ought to be inquired into. It must be perfectly plain to the House that legislation this year on the subject was entirely impossible—indeed, even if the three Bills had been considered earlier in the Session, I should have said that

  1727
  it was not desirable to have legislation this year. The subject had excited a great deal of attention, a great deal of excitement, and a great deal of irritation in Scotland—it was the subject of discussion during the recent elections; it was a matter that had aroused agitation in all parts of the country; and, in his opinion it would better, if there was to be legislation at all, to allow this Session, at least, to pass over before attempting to settle a question which was full of difficulty, and in some respects full of delicacy also. But he thought they would spend their time to advantage in inquiring into this subject, for he believed that, under the inquiries of the Committee, it would assume its real dimensions. There was, he thought, a good deal of exaggeration both on the one side and upon the other; but he also believed there was a real grievance to be remedied; at all events he was certain that there was a very strong public opinion on the matter, and therefore under the circumstances it was the duty of the House, whatever may be the ultimate result, to take care that those opinions are accurately and sedulously sifted. Upon these grounds he thought they should accede to the Motion of his hon. Friend. Whatever may be the merits of these Bills, it appeared to him that by far the best remedy for the existing evils would be found in a proper relation and good feeling between landlords and tenants. That, and that alone, could produce the true remedy. On the other hand he must say he thought his noble Friend (Lord Elcho) had argued his view of the case upon an entirely false foundation. Nothing could be done in the way of legislating on the Game Laws without keeping clearly in mind that they were the creations of statute and of statute alone. Game was not property in any sense. When a man killed a hare or a partridge on the ground of another, he did not commit theft if he carried it away; and the Legislature therefore protected the right of the proprietor of the soil by enactments directed to an entirely different result—such as the day and night poaching Acts, which attach criminality, not to the taking of the wild animals, but to the circumstances under which it was taken. Therefore, being entirely the creation of statute, the Legislature would not interfere with property even
  1728
  if it abolished the Game Laws altogether to-morrow; nor would it interfere with property if it attached any conditions it might think right to the Game Laws as they stand. That consideration must be the foundation of all inquiries into these matters. Salmon fisheries, which had been alluded to by the noble Lord, was property in a certain sense. It did not follow from what he had said that they were to abolish the Game Laws, or do anything to deprive the country generally of that love of sport which was part of the national character, and which existed in the minds of the tenants as well as in those of the landlords. Believing that inquiry would be useful, as bringing together the conflicting opinions on the subject, the Government would support the Motion for a Select Committee.
  MR. MACFIE, on behalf of the masses of this country, thanked the Government for yielding to the request for a Select Committee. He should himself have preferred the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian to have a Royal Commission. He trusted that this inquiry, when it is entered into, will not be entered into in the spirit of the Game Laws being a landlords' question or a tenants' question, but a question of public policy especially; in order that in Scotland, where there were such large tracts of uncultivated land, something might be done for the employment of the people, and for the prevention, to a large extent, of that great evil—emigration. He trusted that deer forests would be considered to come within the scope of the inquiry.
  MR. LOCHsaid, he desired to say a few words with reference to what had fallen from the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). In the first place, he thought the noble Lord was hardly justified in going into the details of the Bill which he (Mr. Loch) had presented to the House. In the few observations with which he proposed this Motion, he had abstained altogether from discussing the various questions involved in it; but after what had fallen from the noble Lord, he had no choice but to say one or two words with reference to the observations he had made. The noble Lord had entirely misapprehended the meaning and scope of his Bill. There was nothing whatever in it that proposed a power to break exist-

  1729
  ing covenants or agreements. The clause to which the noble Lord had adverted was purely declaratory of the law in the future, and with reference to future agreements, and was founded upon a principle as well established as any other principle could be in connection with the law—that no man had a right to use his property so as to make it injurious to third parties. That was the real meaning of the clause to which the noble Lord had adverted. But if his noble Friend had looked at the Votes, he would have found that, some fortnight or three weeks ago, he(Mr. Loch) proposed to insert a clause in the Bill in Committee, in which express provision would be made with reference to existing leases, that, in the event of a tenant desiring to take advantage of the powers conferred by the Bill, to kill hares and rabbits, he must first pay to his landlord any difference or abatement of rent, expressed in his lease as the consideration for the original reservation of that power by the latter. It was his intention, therefore, if the Bill had proceeded, to have proposed that the mutual rights of landlord and tenant—so far as affecting themselves—should be scrupulously respected. As regarded the question in its effects on the public interest, it became a different matter altogether. The clause in the Bill to which he now adverted was a declaratory clause with reference to future agreements between landlords and tenants. There were various other points to which his noble Friend alluded in the tone and spirit of a sportsman only. He spoke of the pecuniary advantage to be derived from clearing large tracts of land from sheep, and putting them under deer, and that this gave employment to an increased number of people. To a certain extent there was some truth in the observation. There could be no doubt, too, that in these days persons were willing to pay very high rents—indeed, exaggerated rents I believe them to be—for land devoted to deer; and that they did employ a number of people was also most true; but he was quite sure that the habits taught to these people, employed as gillies and gamekeepers, were not to be compared in usefulness to the habits which they would acquire as shepherds and labourers, if employed on ordinary farms. Nor are these things to be estimated merely by the amount of rent that was received. He could not think that there was in this sufficient to
  1730
  justify the diversion of great tracts of country from the useful purpose of producing mutton and wool, to more purposes of sport; at the same time he was far from desiring that existing deer forests should be put an end to. The noble Lord was under a misapprehension in speaking of his (Mr. Loch's) Bill as one that would interfere with the value of deer forests. He must have been confusing it with the Bill of the hon. Member for the county of Linlithgow. The remedy proposed by his (Mr. Loch's) Bill was that the tenants should have absolute power to kill the hares and rabbits on their farms. There are no tenants on deer forests, and, therefore, the danger his noble Friend thinks likely to accrue to the deer forests from his Bill is an illusory one.
  SIR DAVID WEDDERBURNrose only to express the hope that the evidence laid before the Committee would be ready in time to admit of satisfactory legislation early next Session. This was a subject upon which the people of Scotland felt very deeply. They had sent up fifty-two Members to support the Government, and he believed there was scarcely one Member who had not promised his constituents to support some well-considered measure on the subject. The fate of the three Bills before the House showed that this was a matter that could only be dealt with successfully by a strong Government. They now had a strong Government, many of whose most zealous supporters had been sent here to effect a reform of the Scotch Game Laws. He thought, therefore, the Scotch Liberals had a claim upon Her Majesty's Government in this matter.
  MR. P. A. TAYLORdenied that there was any need of further inquiry so far as England was concerned, and thought his hon. Friend (Mr. Hardcastle); who had proposed to extend the inquiry to all parts of the United Kingdom, must either have forgotten or not paid much attention to the proceedings and Report of the Select Committee which sat upon this question in 1845–6, because there was not a single question that could be raised upon any branch or bearing of the Game Laws which had not then been raised. The proceedings of that Select Committee were of the most exhaustive character, and the Report furnished the most satisfactory reasons for effecting a change in the Game Laws.

  1731
  The question was thoroughly sifted, as might be concluded from the fact that the Report extended to 1,578 pages, and contained 25,603 questions. On the preservers' side there were thirty-seven witnesses examined, not one of whom was an independent tenant-farmer. These thirty-seven witnesses were made up of eleven game-preservers, eight chief-constables and inspectors of police, one master of a jail, one retired game-dealer, one beerhouse-keeper, five solicitors, four agricultural labourers, who held allotments under preservers, one farm bailiff, three gamekeepers, one land agent to a preserver, and one tenant-farmer, who was, however, also tenant to a preserver. Among the thirty-five witnesses examined on the case against preserving, there were twenty-one independent tenant-farmers. Various recommendations had been made by the majority of the Committee, but the recommendations had remained untouched. It was recommended that cumulative penalties for poaching should be abolished, but nothing had been done; that the penalty for sporting without a certificate was excessive, but nothing had been done; that informers should not receive a moiety of the penalty, but nothing had been done; that night poaching, when unattended by circumstances of aggravation, should not be punished by transportation, but nothing had been done. Neither had anything been done to carry out other recommendations of the same majority of the same Committee, as follows:—That persons convicted of night poaching, not in gangs, and without violence, should not be required to find sureties for not repeating the offence; and that pecuniary compensation should be given to the owner of crops damaged by game. One recommendation had indeed been carried into effect, which, perhaps, was not surprising considering the constitution of that House—namely, that hunting and coursing should be allowed without a certificate. Another suggestion of the same Report, that owners and occupiers of land should be allowed to kill game upon such land without a certificate, had been partly carried out by allowing hares to be so killed. A minority Report was also drawn up, and the views of the minority, among whom was his right hon. Friend (Mr. Bright), who had moved for the Committee, were
  1732
  the following:—That the police should not be employed in enforcing Game Laws; that the Night Poaching Act should be repealed; that there should be no limitation of time for killing, and owners and occupiers should have unrestricted right to kill game, as they now had to any product of the soil; that persons who preserved game upon their own lands should be liable for the damage done on the lands of other persons; and that no time should be lost in repealing the laws so injurious to agriculture and demoralizing to labour. He need hardly say that these recommendations remain untouched. Indeed, since that time, instead of the law having improved, it had rather retrograded, considering the Act which was passed, in 1862, for the purpose of enabling the police to assist in the preservation of game, and in which the old constitutional principle of supposing a man innocent till he was proved guilty was distinctly violated. That Act he (Mr. Taylor) and many of his friends whom he saw around him had done their utmost—exhausting the forms of the House in their opposition—to prevent passing into law. Should he be going too far in a Reformed House to designate that Act as an atrocious measure? He repeated, that what had taken place since the Committee of 1845–6 was that the evils then proved had greatly increased, in consequence of the increasing head of game preserved to meet the change in the character of what was called sport. In those days it was more the custom for a gentleman to walk over his land with his gun as a healthful recreation, instead of the prevailing system of butcherly battues. It had been said by the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) that the question of the Game Laws was simply one between landlord and tenant, and that its solution was to be found in arrangements satisfactory to those parties. He (Mr. Taylor) maintained that important as was the question, with respect to the interests of tenant-farmers, other and more important interests were actually involved—the interests—namely, of the whole community, in respect of the waste of its productive power, and, more important still, the demoralizing effect produced upon the labouring population. Sensible as the noble Lord had shown himself to some of the injurious effects of the Game Laws, it was strange that

  1733
  his Lordship had omitted to mention the 12,000 or 14,000 convictions which take place under these laws every year. Take the case of a contract between a landowner and his tenant, where the latter agrees to pay £200 a year rent, reserving the game to the landlord, for a farm for which he would otherwise give £400; that might be an arrangement satisfactory to a farmer, especially if he were fond of sport and a slovenly farmer, but it would by no means satisfy the interests of the country, or save the demoralization of the people. Were we to be told that, in discussing these matters, we were interfering with the rights of the landlord, he (Mr. Taylor) maintained that a landlord had no more right to overstock his land with hares, than to breed Bengal tigers. In either case it was a question of public policy. He was not sure that tigers would really do the greater mischief—they would devour a few Christians, while the hares devoured and destroyed food that would feed thousands. It was in this view of the question that he thought the noble Lord had made a mistake, when he declared that a provision making invalid an agreement between landlord and tenant, reserving the property in game to the former, would be an unprecedented violation of the principles of Common Law. In his (Mr. Taylor's opinion, such a provision partook of the nature of an immoral, and therefore not binding, agreement, amounting in fact to a conspiracy to produce wild animals to an extent injurious to the public weal. It was maintained by some hon. Gentlemen, that the evil of the Game Laws consisted in their name, and that if the so-called Game Laws could be abolished, and the same results produced either by making game private property, or by increasing the stringency of the Trespass Law, all that was essential would be effected. He (Mr. Taylor), on the contrary, maintained that the evil lay in a fact, and not in a name, that fact being the forced maintenance of a too large quantity of wild animals in the midst of a civilized community; and, in his opinion, that was the real evil against which legislation must be directed. He believed that carrying into effect the recommendations of the minority Report of the Select Committee of 1845–6 would attain the result desired. He did not know whether his hon. Friend (Mr.
  1734
  Hardcastle) still proposed to deal with the question in accordance with a Motion he had given at the beginning of the Session, or whether the Government would take the matter up; but if not, he (Mr. Taylor) begged to give notice that he would, at latest, in the commencement of next Session, ask the permission of the House to bring in a Bill based upon the principle that there should be no legal distinction made between various classes of wild animals in respect of their preservation and slaughter.
  SIR HENRY HOAREthought that, in a House elected on the basis of an enlarged constituency, some attempt should be made to bring legislation upon matters of that kind more into harmony with the feelings of the people than at present was the case. The House ought to consider how these laws affected the distribution of food and the way in which the law was administered, as well as those by whom it was administered. He advocated the appointment of a Royal Commission or a Committee for the consideration of a subject in which the great mass of the people felt deeply interested. No doubt, hares and rabbits consumed a large quantity of what would otherwise be good and wholesome human food. It was a constitutional maxim in this country that no one should administer the law on an occasion when he had a positive interest in its administration, and rather than violate this maxim magistrates left the bench; but county magistrates heard charges made against poachers, although, according to this maxim, they were not the people who ought to decide on offences committed by poachers. Under Sir Baldwin Leighton's Act the police were constituted gamekeepers, whose wages were paid by the ratepayers. He believed that, if these questions were taken up in a spirit of justice, a conclusion might be arrived at which should reconcile the interests of both owners and occupiers.
  MR. GREENEthought the hon. Member for Leicester's (Mr. P. A. Taylor's) remark, that landlords had no more right to keep hares than they had to keep Bengal tigers on their land, might be left to answer itself. Perhaps no man in that House knew more about poaching than he did. When he came to the parish where he now resided there were twenty-four men who regularly carried guns for the purpose of poaching, for

  1735
  his predecessor was a kind-hearted lady, who would not prosecute. But when he (Mr. Greene) came he offered them employment, at the same telling them that if he caught them poaching he would prosecute them. He did catch some of them; but he was happy to say that now, with the exception of two or three, they had forsaken poaching and taken to regular employment. He would like to know how they were to alter the Game Laws without giving some other protection to property. The penalty for trespass was only 40 s., and if a man were apprehended for shooting without a license, that was an offence against the Excise Laws, and not against the Game Laws. Much had been said against the Act which was passed a few years ago, giving the police power over poachers; but he was bound to say that the measure had acted most beneficially; for the poacher could now be met and stopped on the road, as well as being watched on the land. But while he insisted that property should be protected he was no friend to excessive protection; he emphatically condemned it; and he knew that in his own county of Suffolk the practice was extending year by year of the landlord giving the tenant the right to kill rabbits, while the tenant, on the other hand, was desirous to show his landlord that he had game on his land, for he knew that if the landlord found no amusement when he came into the county he would not long reside there. What was a gentleman to do when his friends come down to visit him in the winter, if after breakfast he had no sport to take them out to? He believed England would then be reduced to the state of the Continent—the landowners would flock to the capital, and leave the provinces to take care of themselves.
  MR. BRIGHT: I am sorry I was not in the House to hear the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire. As I have taken for many years a great interest in this question, I shall ask to join in this debate, but only for a few minutes. The Committee which sat in 1845 and 1846, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) referred, went thoroughly into this question—as thoroughly, indeed, as it was possible in that day. There were not only on that Committee strong opponents of the Game
  1736
  Laws; there were on it also men whose conduct I thought was not altogether to be commended in the violence with which they upheld the law as it then was. The late Lord George Bentinck was the leader of the opposition to my plans and principles, and every Member of the House who was in it when he was here will feel sure that everything that could be said and done in favour of the Game Laws was said and done by him. The result was a Report which recommended very small alterations, which alterations for the most part have not been made. The country gentlemen until very lately—and for aught I know it may be so now—have had a very large share of power in this House, and their union is marvellous when there is anything of this kind to defend. I suppose they are influenced by the feelings of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken; they would hardly know what to do with themselves and their visitors at their country houses in winter if there were no game. In the preface which I wrote to Mr. Welford's book, and in the evidence which I gave before the Committee, I said that the case really was in the hands of the farmers themselves, but I did not mean by that that there was no necessity for alteration in the law. What I meant was that the farmers themselves have in their own hands the power, whenever they choose to use it, to compel in this House an alteration of the law. I hoped and believed that after the abolition of the Corn Laws, in 1846, there would grow up rapidly in the counties and among the tenant-farmers a commercial spirit which would insist upon this—that every farmer when he undertook a lease for the holding of land should have the entire control over all the animals upon the land that lived upon its produce. I have been very much disappointed in that. I expected that the farmers would have made greater progress in commercial principles than they have made. But I think the last election has shown that in one part of the island the farmers are beginning to comprehend not only their own interest, but what is almost of equal importance, the mode of promoting it—and that is to return Members for the counties who shall, at least, take as impartial a view of this question as is generally taken by the representatives of the towns. Some few years ago there

  1737
  was a great agricultural meeting in London. Half-a-dozen or more leading tenant-farmers from different parts of England called upon me to discuss the question of the Game Laws. I was not then taking any special interest in the question, but from what I had done before they called on me as a deputation, and discussed the question with me. I told them, as I told the farmers in 1845, that the question was in their own hands—that if they would make it a great question at all their county elections, they were sufficiently numerous to insist on a change in the law, and greater attention to their interests on the part of the representatives of this country. I recommended them to start a farmers' candidate in every county. County gentlemen are anxious to get into Parliament; they do not like opposition, and do not much like the expense of contests. And I argued with the farmers, and I think I showed them conclusively, that if they would in every county bring forward a tenant-farmer—a man who was in favour of their rights and interests, who objected to the Game Laws, who insisted on it that when a farmer took a farm he should have undisputed control over all the animals living on it; if they did that, whatever his politics on other questions, I thought they would find he would receive very large support, and I believed a greater number of the electors for the counties connected with the towns would be willing to give their support to such a candidate, and to help the farmers against what I conceived to be a very grievous injustice, which the law and the practice of country gentlemen now inflicted upon them. At this moment, I see in Scotland that which I hoped twenty years ago, is only now coming about. In Scotland at the last election—I may appeal to every one who knows anything of the representation of that part of Great Britain, whether it is not the fact that the Liberal candidates who offered themselves, not only on Liberal principles in politics, but on Liberal principles in regard to this particular question, had a very great advantage over their opponents; and I venture to say that probably there is no Scotch Member for any county who would feel himself safe to go back to his constituency if he gave a vote in opposition to the proposition now before the House. Well,
  1738
  Scotland leads in agriculture, and in all probability it will lead in the reformation of the laws which so much affect the interests of farmers. I have been very glad to see the course that the Scotch farmers have taken, apart from their sending Members to sit on this side of the House; and that those whom they have sent here come with some sense of their own interest, and not acting solely as if they were here to support in all respects the class interests of the country gentlemen, for it is monstrous to suppose that the interests of land and agriculture can be safely confided to the care only of the owners of land. The great body of persons connected with land, the tenant-farmers, are as ten or twenty to every landowner; and the tenant-farmers have not only a right to be heard here, but they must be heard here, if there be any fair representation of the interests of the land throughout the country. I hold now the opinion I held twenty years ago, and it is now stronger than ever, that the practice of preserving game, as it exists in this country, is one wholly opposed to the true interests of the people—that it does demoralize the labouring classes to a great extent—that it does cause a vast destruction of what otherwise would be human food, and makes the occupation of a tenant-farmer much more precarious and much less profitable than it would otherwise be. And what is more than all this, it degrades the tenant-farmer by the position he occupies under these laws, watched, annoyed, and irritated by the law and by the gamekeepers whom the owner employs. He is degraded under this system and cannot have that self-respect which a person in his position ought to have. I maintain that the Game Laws are bad in every way; and in a populous country like this, where you have a vast population with almost no property, it is a monstrous and incredible evil that there should be thus placed in their way temptations like these to lead them into breaking the law and into all the consequences that must necessarily follow from breaking the law. I am exceedingly glad this Motion has been made, and that this Committee is about to be appointed. I believe the result of it may be—probably will be—that whatever there is of opinion in Scotland not gathered up on this question will be gathered up into a

  1739
  more firm phalanx, and that we shall find the Members for Scotland insisting that, as regards their country, these evils shall be to some considerable extent remedied; and perhaps, if once remedied in Scotland, we may find the example may extend to England, and that ultimately, from the Motion to-night and the inquiry about to be made, we shall have at least some chance of lessening, if not wholly remedying, laws which I believe to be a great discredit to our civilization and a great evil to almost every class of our people.
  MR. LIDDELLregretted the course which this discussion had taken. The real question was the appointment of a Select Committee of Inquiry into the operation of the Scotch Game Laws, and it was most desirable that they should follow the admirable advice of the Lord Advocate, who told the House, wisely and prudently, that the question involved many matters of the most difficult and delicate kind. He therefore hoped, notwithstanding the inflammatory language he had heard to-night, that the inquiry would be conducted in a calm, impartial, and. judicial spirit. If there were objections to the Game Laws, let them be stated. He believed those evils were very much exaggerated. It was not the Game Laws themselves but the abuses of the Game Laws that were the cause of complaint. There was such a love of sport innate in Englishmen that public feeling required laws to protect the wild animals that furnished such sport; and if they encouraged wholesale depredation and trespass by abolishing those laws, the rural population must be demoralized to a very great extent. He reminded the House that if they abolished the Game Laws they must have a new and much more stringent Law of Trespass.
  MR. NEWDEGATEwished to remind the right hon. Member for Birmingham that the recommendations which he made in the Committee of 1845 were widely circulated through the Midland counties during the last election, and he was therefore repeatedly called upon to discuss them with the farmers in his county. The ground he took was this—The right hon. Gentleman said they were degraded by the present state of the law. He was now a Member of the Government, and if the Government would bring in an improvement on the last Game Act for England, in passing which he had him-
  1740
  self taken an active part, he should be most happy. But he recommended them to go to the President of the Board of Trade, and ask him to embody his views in a Bill, and not to continue circulating calumnies against game preserving, and deprecating the state of law which existed without committing himself to some principle for its amendment. They asked him could he suggest any improvement in the present law? He said it had rendered game as nearly property as it could be. He did not see his way to any further progress in that direction at present, and unless they and the President of the Board of Trade assisted, they must be content to wait till the right hon. Gentleman embodied his views in something like a tangible shape.
  MR. MUNTZsaid, he had calculated the damage done to the crops by hares and rabbits as not less than 1,000,000 bags of wheat a year. They not only did mischief to game preservers, but to their neighbours, because they could not be exterminated by the parties who were often the principal sufferers. Why should they not make a law that hares and rabbits should not be considered as game? They were unwholesome and unfit for human food, as they might find in "Leviticus," and he had known a whole family poisoned by eating rabbits. [A laugh.] It was well known that rabbits had a power of communicating poison. The bird, on the other hand, did no harm whatever to the farmer; and though hare shooting was a disgrace to any one, as a matter of skill, there was skill and sport in bird shooting in every other way than that of driving them up into a corner and shooting them like barn-door fowls. One great defect of the present law was that, the magistrates had no power of commuting any fine that might be inflicted, and it happened that if a child were fined 1s. the costs were sometimes 12 s. 6d., which was far more than his father, if an agricultural labourer, could pay.
  COLONEL BRISEsaid, that the President of the Board of Trade, in the preface to his speeches, stated that the remedy for the abuses of the Game Laws was in the hands of the farmers, and that they had nothing to do but to send representatives to that House to express their opinions. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that the farmers were not indisposed to see a moderate

  1741
  quantity of game. Many of them were as fond of sporting as any Member of that House. What they disliked was the abuse of the Game Laws, and they had at the last election sent Members to represent them who would carry out their views as far as possible; but not to sanction any interference with the rights of property, or the extravagant measures recommended by some hon. Members on the opposite side of the House.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the operation and effect of the Laws in Scotland relating to Game."—(Mr. Loch.)

THE O'FARRELL PAPERS.

  ORDER [6th APRIL] DISCHARGED.
  Order [6th April] for presenting Address for Return relative to O'Farrell's crime read.
  MR. MONSELL, in moving, pursuant to notice that the Order [6th April] for presenting Address for Return relative to O'Farrell's crime be read, and discharged, said it was with great pain he was obliged to make this Motion. The fact of there being strong political differences between the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) and himself would only make him desirous to avoid even the appearance of discourtesy towards him. The subject-matter of the Papers to which the Order referred might be described in a few words. They consisted of certain documents moved for by Mr. Parkes the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, and in accordance with that Motion they were laid on the table of the Assembly, and printed and circulated throughout the colony. It was natural for the Government to supposs that these documents were not likely to contain anything un-desirable to be presented to the House of commons, and, therefore, When the hon. Member (Mr. Newdegate) asked him whether there was any objection to present them, he said "Certainly not." Accordingly the hon. Member moved for them and they were ordered to be presented to the House as an unopposed Return. But when these documents came to be looked into it was found that the matter in them, no less than the way in which they were obtained, made it undesirable that the House should identify itself with their production. This
  1742
  was no question of publicity being given to the documents, because that had been given already. The question was, whether it was right or wrong that the House of Commons should indentify itself with their production. The principal document contained an account of certain conversations which took place between the prisoner O'Farrell when lying under sentence of death in his condemned cell, and Mr. Parkes. Those conversations were taken down by a shorthand writer, of whose presence the prisoner, he believed, was not aware, If such a circumstance had occurred in this country, and if any Minister of the Crown had taken such a course, would the House of Commons give its sanction to such a proceeding, or to the publication of any information so obtained? The Papers which had been moved for contained matters which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, it would be contrary to their duty as Ministers of the Crown to be parties to laying before the House. He made this statement, not merely in the name of the Colonial Office—not merely in the name of Earl Granville—but in the name of the whole Government, who had deliberately considered the matter; and he now distinctly stated, on their responsibility, that it would be improper for the House of Commons to identify itself with the publication of these documents. He thought it only fair to the Colonial Legislature—on whose proceedings his remarks might be supposed to cast some reflection—to explain the way in which these documents were presented to that Assembly. Her Majesty's Government had, of course, no control over that Assembly, which was perfectly free to take its own course, and which would, no doubt, resent any interference on their part with its proceedings. When Mr. Parkes went out of Office he left these Papers sealed up in a parcel. Through the intervention of some Member of the new Government he got back those Papers, and gave notice of his intention to present them to the Assembly, not as a Minister of the Crown, but as a private individual. When the time for the Motion had arrived he was absent from the House, though the Prime Minister of the day was present to oppose it; and when the Prime Minister had left Mr. Parkes returned and moved that the Papers be printed. They were

  1743
  printed, and the result was a series of serious political discussions. Under these circumstance he should, without any further remarks, move that the Order of 6th April, for presenting Address for Return relating to O'Farrell's crime be read and discharged.
  MR. NEWDEGATE*: Mr. Speaker, I think the House has a right to feel surprise that the right hon. Gentleman, who has just addressed us as the representative of Her Majesty's Government, should have consented to present these Papers on the 19th of March, when I asked whether he was willing to do so. I put the Question on the Order of going in Committee of Supply, and I was not careless as to the manner in which I invited the Government and this House to consider the matter. I have here a record of what I did. On the 18th of March I placed a Notice on the Paper that I should ask Her Majesty's Government, through their representative in this House connected with the Colonial Office, whether they would lay these Papers on the table of the House, and I privately communicated to the right hon. Gentleman afterwards the very day upon which these Papers were ordered to be printed by the Legislature of Australia. I told him that it was on the 13th of December; and I requested that the Minute of Mr. Parkes, which accompanied the Papers and explained them, should also be presented to this House. In fact, my Question completely covered the whole notice upon which the Legislature of Australia voted for the production of the Papers. I did not put my Question without a statement in this House of my reasons for asking that this information should be produced. I stated that these Papers contained a more accurate description of the Fenian organization in this country, and of the objects of that organization than is to be found anywhere else, together with an assertion of the fact that the "warrant," as it was called, of the "Fenian Government," as it is termed, was sent out of this country for the "execution," as it is described, of the Duke of Edinburgh. I had stated all this in my place in this House, that the House might know exactly what it was for which I was asking, and why I asked it. I said further that it was necessary and desirable that the magistracy throughout the country, liable as they had been
  1744
  to such surprises as that of the meditated attack upon the Castle of Chester, should understand the nature and character of the organization, to which they may find themselves opposed. I have studied these Papers very carefully, and I think it is desirable, in the interest of the public, that they too should know precisely what Fenianism is, and what it means; that they should know precisely the sort of organization to which they are exposed, and that they should know precisely the kind of agents with which they have to cope. Well, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman has stated that these Papers contain matter which Her Majesty's Government consider ought not to be laid before Parliament; while he admits the fact that they have already been published. Is it not mere affectation on the part of the House of Commons to pretend to ignore matter which has been circulated throughout the whole of the Australian colonies, and published in the newspapers here? Why, Sir, this proceeding on the part of Her Majesty's Minister appears to me to be no less discourteous to the House of Commons than futile for any purpose, if that purpose is concealment of any objectionable matter these Papers may contain, because, if such matter is contained in the Papers which ought to be suppressed, why did not the Government know of the existence of this matter before they answered my Question on the 19th of March, when the right hon. Gentleman, rising from his seat close to the Prime Minister, who had just spoken, replied that he should present these Papers "with the greatest pleasure?" What is the House to understand from that? And now, having heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, what, I ask, is the light which has fallen upon the Government which they ought not to have possessed before his first answer was given? Are we to understand that the Government answered the Question without really knowing what these Papers contained? I had no intention of taking the Government by surprise. The Government need only have requested me to defer my Notice until the Order for Supply in the following week, and I would have done so with the greatest pleasure. But no; there was not one word of warning. They gave their full and unqualified consent; and inquiries in private have convinced me that when they did that they

  1745
  were in full possession of the information, and knew exactly what I was asking for. When I put my Question the House was a full one. It is quite true that the Prime Minister was urging the House to pass to the Irish Church Bill; when is he not? Still, in a full House, I was heard, was met with an expression of assent, and the Government consented to produce the Papers with the full knowledge, I believe, of every statement they contain. Having been the humble organ of the House thus far, after nearly three weeks, on the 2nd of April I asked when we were to have the Papers presented, for I intended to call the attention of the House to some matters connected with them, and the right hon. Gentleman stated, as I find him reported here, that he would not present them, but that I might move for them, and the Government would consent to their production. Sir, I could scarcely believe my ears. I repeated theQuestion—"Does the Government, after the lapse of three weeks, and without reason assigned, mean to retract their promise to present these Papers?" In reply, I was told that that was the case. I intended to have asked a further Question on Supply, it being a Friday night, had not other matters detained the House until very late. So, taking the advice of the Government, I gave notice on the 5th of April for the production of the Papers on the following day, and on that day the Question was put by you, Sir, distinctly from the Chair, and agreed to—by the House. There had been an error in the form in which the Notice was printed. I corrected it; you read the Notice as corrected from the Chair, and with the full consent of the House and of the Government the Order was made. That was on the 6th of April. Time went on, but the Address produced no Return; no explanation was offered. Thinking, then, that the right hon. Gentleman might not perhaps have correctly represented the views of the Government, I asked the Prime Minister himself when these Papers would be placed in the hands of Members. Twice—distinctly twice—at an interval of more than a fortnight, had the Government consented to produce the Papers to the House, and then the right hon. Gentleman suddenly discovers the objections which have just been stated by the Under Secretary for the Colonies, though not
  1746
  so distinctly as the right hon. Gentleman has now stated them. And these objections are that the Papers contain matter which is objectionable, and which, owing to the manner of its acquisition by the Colonial Government, he was of opinion ought not to be in the hands of the House of Commons. Now, if there was any blame resting upon the Colonial Government for the manner in which that information was obtained, where is the sense of visiting upon the House of Commons, by keeping them in ignorance of the contents of these Papers, a fault committed by the Colonial Secretary in Australia? I think, Sir, that no satisfactory answer can be given to that question: and, having myself perused those Papers, I am confident of this, that whether O'Farrell knew or did not know that a reporter was taking down his words, he would not have altered a syllable had he known it; because it is evident to everyone who reads these Papers, as I have done, and they are Papers of a most interesting description, that that unhappy man, having been bound by oath and under fear of his life to commit this crime of attempting to assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh, after he found that the people of Australia would have saved the law the trouble of executing him, so enraged were they; after he found that there was no sympathy in the colony with the act he had perpetrated; after he found that all around him joined in condemning the act, to which he had been forced under fear for his life, the unhappy man endeavoured in every way to compensate for the crime he had committed. He rejoiced that the Duke of Edinburgh was likely to recover. He gave the authorities a useful warning when he was informed by the Colonial Secretary that the Duke of Edinburgh would go to New Zealand, that the Duke ought not to go thither. This man, induced and forced into the commission of his crime, repented, and endeavoured to make the only reparation in his power to the individual whom he had injured and to the society, which he had outraged; and yet he was faithful to his oath, and he must have been a man of considerable ability, for not by one single word did he betray the names or whereabouts of any of those whose names he had sworn to keep secret. These Papers contain O'Farrell's warning to England; for he

  1747
  must have known whom he was speaking to when he gave the Colonial Secretary all this information. Through the Colonial Secretary of Australia he warned England, and I wish that warning to reach England, but Her Majesty's Government interposes to withhold it. I had another reason for asking that these Papers should be produced. Information has been circulated with reference to what was supposed to be the last confession of this unhappy man. I find in the Australian papers, and principally in the Roman Catholic papers, which copied it from the Sydney Herald, a Paper written or supposed to have been written by O'Farrell the night before his execution, and which was to be delivered to Mr. Parkes but not opened until after his death. Now, of all the singular circumstances connected with this case, this, I think, is the most singular. The day after the execution of O'Farrell this Paper was asked for in the Australian Parliament, but Mr. Parkes refused to produce it. Next day it was asked for again, and was again refused, and then I find in the Weekly Register that some Member of the Australian Legislature, whose name is not given, produced a copy, and that copy was transmitted to this country, circulated through the newspapers, and has even found its way into works of reference. For in that very useful work, lately published, called The Annals of Our Time, I find the greater part of this document. Now, why do I advert to this? Because the most important particulars of the statements made by O'Farrell to the Colonial Secretary, to the principal warder of the gaol, and to the chief of the police, as well as alluded to in the leaves of his diary, which was found amongst his luggage, are contradicted by the Paper which has been circulated in this country as his last confession. With the permission of the House, I will read a few words from that Paper; for this is not a question as to whether information derived from O'Farrell shall be circulated for the first time, but the question is shall the erroneous publication, which has been thrust upon the English people, be corrected. The Weekly Register, in alluding to the trial, says that the evidence of O'Farrell's insanity perfectly failed, and that there was clear proof of most deliberate preparation for this crime—then
  1748
  comes this document, from which I will read some passages. O'Farrell says—
  "From the very bottom of my heart do I grieve for what I have done. I have hitherto said that I was one of many who were proposed to do the deed had I not done it. I had not the slightest foundation for such a statement. I was never connected with any man or any body of men who had for their object the taking of the life of the Duke of Edinburgh. Neither was I in any other than an indirect manner connected with any organization in Ireland or elsewhere which is known by the name of the Fenian organization. I wish, moreover, distinctly to assert that there was not a single human being in existence who had the slightest idea of the object I had in view when I meditated upon and, through the merciful providence of God, failed in carrying into effect the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. I have written to the printers of two Irish periodicals an address to the people of Ireland. So certain was I of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh that I stated therein that which I believed to be the fact, and I think I had more than implied, that I was but one of an organization to carry the same into effect. I need but say that the truth of the latter portion rests upon a slighter foundation than the former; in fact, that unless from mere heresay, I had no foundation for stating that there was a Fenian organization in New South. Wales."
  Now, Sir, that is a most extraordinary document—it is evasive; because he had previously stated that the ten men who were the executive appointed to assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh were sent out to New South Wales, and all but one had left the colony before the crime was attempted—all but one; and that one man O'Farrell stated was left behind to see that he did his work, and he had not a doubt to murder him if he failed to do his work. Of that man O'Farrell said—"I bear him not the least ill-will—he was appointed to that work." I have these documents here, and although I trust the House will not be induced to assent to what I must call this disrespectful proposal to rescind the Order it has made, I will read some passages to the House to show how little the document circulated in England, and to which I have referred, bears the impress of the truth. And, first I will read a part of the Minute of Mr. Parkes; but here let me observe that during the General Election Mr. Parkes appeared to have suffered from his refusal to produce this Paper, written by, or purporting to be written, by O'Farrell the day previous to his execution, and which I believe to be evasive and incorrect. It was in self-vindication against the attacks of adversa-

  1749
  ries that Mr. Parkes appears to have come down to the House of Assembly, and to have moved for the production of the Papers for which I have moved. There was nothing underhand in this proceeding. Any man who reads the papers must see that as Colonial Secretary he did his duty. When a document was placed in his hands which was diametrically opposed to the evidence that he had been at the pains of collecting he would be no party to the dissemination of that which he considered an imposition; yet there were those in the colony who assailed him for that refusal. In justice to Mr. Parkes I will read to the House a few words from his statement; and I must say that, considering there was already in his hands direct evidence that one of the party of Fenians had been murdered by his accomplices; or, at least, there was presumptive evidence of such a murder, he was perfectly justified in seeking to ascertain whether this murderous band of nine remained in the colony, and whether any traces of the murder which he had reason to believe had been committed were to be found. In the diary or documents taken from O'Farrell's luggage there is this passage—
  "There was a Judas in the twelve; in our band there was a No. 3 as bad; but his horrible death will, I trust, be a warning to traitors. Such another, I am confident, is not amongst the nine. Oh, that I were with them."
  It seems to me, therefore, that it was in the performance of his duty that Mr. Parkes, when he found O'Farrell willing and ready to give information, adopted means for having that information recorded; for O'Farrell had held a conversation with him, to which Mr. Parkes refers, before he called in the reporter. In his Minute Mr. Parkes says—
  "The substance of the prisoner's principal statement in the unreported conversations was that a 'warrant' came out from England to 'execute' the Prince; and that he and nine or ten others met in Sydney to consider the expediency of carrying out this warrant; that before entering upon the discussion they took an oath binding each individually to abide by the decision of the majority; that he (O'Farrell) spoke and voted against it, and that a majority decided to carry it out. It was next agreed that the executioner should be appointed by lot; but before drawing lots a second oath was taken, binding each individually to do the deed if the lot fell to him; and a third oath, binding each individually to take the life of the man to whom the lot fell if he failed to do it. The conversations which were subsequently written down consist naturally of
  1750
  fragmentary allusions to the fuller statement already made; but it will be seen that they are quite consistent with the prisoner's first account, which, to a great extent they repeat. The most striking circumstance, however, is that these voluntary statements of the prisoner in gaol, made at different times, and to different persons, derive confirmation in a remarkable degree from the entries made by him in his private journal, when he was at large and unsuspected—probably several weeks before the murder was attempted. In the course of his conversations O'Farrell made various incidental statements where his truthfulness could be tested, and in all these cases it was ascertained that he spoke the truth. It is inconceivable that he could have had any object which would be served by statements of the character here described. His language and manner after his arrest were precisely what might be expected in a man relieved, as he described himself to be, from the horrible obligation to commit a crime against which all the better feelings of his nature rebelled. It may be said that the report of the inspector-general of police was not called for by the Government. It is, therefore, the voluntary expression of opinion on the part of the head of the police, who must be supposed to possess the best means of forming an opinion on the subject. If O'Farrell's account is true, it will be seen that it would be next to impossible to discover his accomplices unless some one of them was prepared to sacrifice his life in the interest of justice."
  O'Farrell distinctly stated that most of his accomplices had left the colony, and there is every reason to believe that they had returned to England, whence the order for the commission of this crime had issued. Under these circumstances, I, as a Member of this House, respectfully submitted to Her Majesty's Government that, as Fenianism was evidently alive, and as they were releasing Fenians, it would be well that a Fenian's description of this organization thus obtained, should be furnished to the Imperial Parliament, to the magistracy throughout the country, and for the information of the public generally. And is it not important, Sir, that those who are tempted to join the Fenians should understand that they join a band of men who are governed by a despotism which is enforced by the fear of death upon those who are once committed to its influence and control? I will now show the House the motive which lay at the root of the crime of O'Farrell. The principal warder of the gaol, at Sydney, said to him—
  "I suppose it (the order for the assassination) came out signed, sealed, and delivered with a big pound of wax on it, and green tape, of course?"
  —to which O'Farrell replied—
  "It came to us all. It is the power of secresy, and the power of terror. There is never anything done but under the influence of fear."

  1751
  Then follows an exact description of the objects. The Colonial Secretary asked whether the object of the Fenian organization was the establishment of a republic in Ireland alone, but O'Farrell replied—"No," and then he described how England was to be treated as part of a federal Republic, and how there were to be three States in Ireland, three in Scotland, and seven in England, all decided carefully; not merely on a basis of population but with some geographical considerations, and O'Farrell avowed that the object was to overthrow the monarchy, to destroy the dynasty, and to overturn the existing state of things in the United Kingdom. (A movement on the Liberal Benches.) Although hon. Members may think this to be a chimerical idea, still they must admit that it has a hold on these men's minds, or they would never submit to an organization which binds them under fear of death to the commision of murder. Sir, we have had experience enough at Manchester, Clerkenwell, and elsewhere, of the desperate enterprizes of which these men are capable. But I have heard it reported in the Lobby that the real reason why Her Majesty's Government decline to produce these Papers is that there are some passages in O'Farrell's statements as to Fenian opinions the publication of which would be disagreeable to the Royal Family. One report is that O'Farrell had quarrelled with the Duke of Edinburgh in an affair of gallantry. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members cry, "Oh!" I am going to give O'Farrell's own contradiction of the statement. The principal warder said—
  "It is most extraordinary the reports that have circulated about this affair. It is said you had animosity against the Prince in consequence of an affair with some woman."
  —["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen say "Oh," but it is only fair to allow the man to give his contradiction. The prisoner said—
  "Those are the penny-a-liners' stories; they must make up something."
  These stories of the "penny-a-liners" have been circulated in the Lobbies of the House to-day, with a view to inducing the House not to abide by its own Order. O'Farrell added—
  "There is something genial about him. He is a good-natured soul altogether. I Toted against it, and argued against it."
  1752
  Here, then, is a proof of the falsehood of the scandal against the Duke of Edinburgh, which has been circulated in O'Farrell's name. He says—"I voted against it and argued against it"—meaning the assassination; and I believe that he spoke the truth. But there is another portion of this document containing rumours which are said to be unfit for the attention of Parliament. I know that for months these "rumours" have been circulated throughout the country; to the effect that O'Farrell stated that the Fenians who planned the death of the Duke of Edinburgh had declared that they did not care about assassinating the Prince of Wales, because they thought he "would disgrace royalty." ["Oh, oh!"] Aye; but these things are circulated abroad, and I repeat that it is affectation—mere affectation on the part of this House to pretend to ignore them. Sir, these rumours may be very disagreeable to the Prince of Wales. But by whom are these rumours circulated? By men who are aiming openly at bringing the monarchy, his inheritance, to an end. They have attempted the life of his brother; who can doubt that they would willingly utter calumnies against the Prince of Wales himself? Why it is the most natural—I had almost said the more innocent—weapon of the two. It is one that for months and months, from other information, I have known that these men have used; and my anxious desire is that Parliament should call for those Papers, have them printed, and give every true and honest subject of Her Majesty the opportunity of reading these Fenian calumnies by the light of the attempt to murder the Duke of Edinburgh. That is my wish. Then, supposing you could enjoin secresy upon these Fenians and their advisers as to some act of the Prince of Wales which had better be concealed, would it, think you, be in safe keeping amongst these Fenians? I should not think it would be in very safe keeping with Dr. Manning, who fraternizes with them; but would it be in safe keeping with them? No, Sir; it were safer placarded all round the base of the statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross, than to leave it in their keeping. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh; but you are asked to ignore facts which are already known throughout the country. And why? Because there are some passages in those

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  Papers in which the Fenians reflect upon the Prince of Wales! Was ever anything so shallow put forward as an excuse? I can quite understand that an influence has been exercised for the suppression of these Papers. I have read to the House portions of them, which contradict the statement said to be O'Farrell's last and true confession, which has been widely circulated, circulated months ago, and which declares as upon O'Farrell's authority, that he had no accomplices, and that he was not a Fenian. Now, is it not strange that the same man who, day after day, willingly furnished the information which these Papers contain, and I have described to the House, should then sign a Paper contradicting the main points in his previous statements, including those which he appears to have made with the view of guarding others and society itself against the evil of which he had become the victim? Now, it happened that Archbishop Polding visited him for the first time on the Sunday prior to his execution; so did several Roman Catholic priests, and one a priest of his own name, O'Farrell. Up to that time he had refused to make any statement but those which he had made to the Colonial Secretary and the warder; and it was not until after the visit of the persons I have mentioned that the Paper was written which was not to be opened until after his death, and which Mr. Parkes refused to produce in the House of Assembly. I can easily conceive, therefore, that this unhappy man may, by spiritual influence, have been induced to sign a Paper in which, for the sake of shielding the Fenian organization, he qualified, up to the point of denying, everything which he had stated to Mr. Parkes, and all that the documents taken from him contained with respect to his connection with the Fenians and touching the Fenian organization. ["Hear, hear."] The hon. Members who cheer me have the Papers before them, and they are competent to form a judgment upon them. But I am reminded of an account which is given by Mr. Trench in that admirable work of his on the state of Ireland, entitled Realities of Irish Life. That work contains striking illustrations of the influence of the Roman Catholic priests over men condemned to death. Mr. Trench describes the facts connected with the imprisonment of a
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  man who was lying under sentence of death for participation in a murder connected with the Ribbon system in Ireland. The name of this man was Hodgens. He had been known to Mr. Trench, who was persuaded that, if he could be induced to give information, the whole system of Ribbonism in his neighbourhood might be crushed. Accordingly, he succeeded in obtaining from the Lord Lieutenant a promise that if this man would give full information his life should be spared. The man entertained the proposal, and I will read what took place from Mr. Trench's book. His clerk was sent to the prisoner's cell to communicate this intelligence to him; that is, that his life would probably be spared, and, in answer to the request of the clerk, the prisoner said—
  "'Well, may be, I might as well tell it all out. Come to me to-morrow morning, and you shall have all I know; but Mr. Trench must come himself, as I will, not trust anyone else. I must have it from his own lips, that my life will be surely spared!' 'You shall have it from himself,' replied the clerk; 'but why not to-night? he is waiting now to see you: let me call him now, and tell him all you have to say!' 'Not to-night,' said he—' not to night; I am to see the priest in the morning, and I will say nothing to anyone till I see him.' 'Tell Mr. Trench all about it now,' entreated the clerk; 'let me call him this minute, may be it will be your last chance.' … 'I can't and I won't,' said Hodgens doggedly; 'I must see my clergy first, and there's no use in pressing me more.' At ten o'clock next morning my clerk obtained access to the condemned cell of the criminal. The first glance at the prisoner showed that a great change had taken place since the interview of the preceding day… he saw at a glance that Hodgens had made up his mind, and was at peace within himself. 'Well,' said the clerk, disguising his fears as well as he could, 'may I send for Mr. Trench, and will you tell him all you know about, what we were talking of yesterday?' 'I will tell nothing,' returned Hodgens, calmly, and with a composed and resigned countenance. 'I will tell nothing either to Mr. Trench, or to anyone else. I have seen my priest, and I'm now prepared to die; and may be I would never be so well prepared again, so I am content to die, and there is no use in asking me any more. I will tell nothing except to them that has a right to know it; and who should that be but the priest? So now let me alone, for you will never get another word out of me. I am content to die for my country.' He calmly sat down, and remained in perfect silence, until the clerk, who had addressed him several times without effect, was compelled to leave the cell. What passed between the prisoner and the priest I know not, but Hodgens adhered to his determination, and his secret died with him.'"
  Is there not a parallel between these two cases? Both these men had seen the priest; and whilst after having done so,

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  one refused to give the information that would have saved his lifet—he other made a statement contradicting the evidence on which he was convicted, and the description he himself had furnished of the Fenian conspiracy and of the organization of this conspiracy against the dynasty and the Crown of England. This document, contradicted by such evidence as I have described to the House, has been widely circulated, and found its way even into books of reference. Ought not then such futile and squeamish objections, as have been stated on the part of Ministers, to give way to the great purpose of informing the people of England of the real nature of this Fenian organization, and of placing in the hands of the magistracy and of the Members of this House the means of judging of the machinations of these conspirators, and the means, as I also believe, in many cases of defeating them. These, Sir, are the considerations by which I have been actuated in suggesting to the House that it should require the publication of the documents, which have been already furnished to the Legislature of Australia; there being clear evidence that a centre of this conspiracy exists here in England, and that it is operative amongst us. For these reasons, I, for one, feel bound to assume that the consent of the Government and the Order of the House for the production of these Papers will not be trifled with.
  MR. DILKEdesired to address a few words to the House, in the belief that hon. Members would like to hear a different version of facts which were, he thought, almost one and the same. It was the general belief of the people of Sydney at the time of the attempted assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh by O'Farrell that the prisoner was acting entirely alone, and that he was a man who had been led away by vanity to the commission of the crime. That opinion was not weakened when it was heard from day to day that the prisoner was making a confession, and that Mr. Parkes was seen daily to resort to his cell with a clerk and a shorthand writer. The feeling, indeed, became stronger every day, until at length it culminated in the loss of Office to Mr. Parkes. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire had not correctly stated what had taken place in the House of Assembly after
  1756
  O'Farrell's execution. Mr. Parkes, who was then the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales—a position that was somewhat analogous to our Home Secretary—said from his place in the Assembly, not that the prisoner had died without making a confession, but that he had made a second and most important confession. In reply to a Question addressed to him by a member of the Opposition, he said that that confession would in a few days be laid before the Assembly. Several days, however, elapsed, and as a confession was not produced, the Question was repeated. Mr. Parkes then stated that, on the whole, it was not thought advisable that the statement should be published. The hon. Member had quoted the chief of the Sydney police. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: I beg pardon; I quoted the words of Mr. Parkes' Minute.] At all events, the hon. Gentleman used the words ''chief of the police." It was the chief of the police who rose in his place and said he did not share in the delicacy of the Colonial Secretary; and that he did not feel that it was contrary to public policy that the second confession should be produced, and he then read the very confession of which a portion had been read that evening by the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire. That confession was not written by O'Farrell himself, but it was vouched for by the priest who attended O'Farrell, in the presence of the Committee of the Assembly of New South Wales which was appointed to investigate the question. That Committee reported against the truth of the first confession. Anyone who read that first confession could see that the prisoner had a motive for making it. He had, first of all, the motive of vanity; and he had in the next place the motive of misleading Mr. Parkes, and thus avenging his supposed injury—an object in which he actually succeeded, because Mr. Parkes lost his Office in consequence of the discredit brought upon him by his credulity. The view taken of the matter in Sydney was that the prisoner had all along been making game of Mr. Parkes and of the Government. The fact was that not a tittle of evidence had ever been produced to show that Fenianism had found a resting place in New South Wales, although it was well known that it had extended to the West Coast of New Zealand. The statements in O'Farrell's

  1757
  first confession were considered utterly incredible in the colony, where they had been investigated on the spot, and he (Mr. Dilke) believed that a bad precedent would be established if such a document were circulated with the sanction of the House of Commons.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he thought it extremely desirable that they should obtain every possible information upon that subject. The speech to which they had just listened was in itself a justification for the Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. The hon. Gentleman had stated that the confession had led to the expulson of Mr. Parkes and the Government from Office. There was nothing in Mr. Parkes's conduct that deserved that punishment, and the only interpretation of that statement could be that so much importance was attached to the suppression of this document by the Roman Catholic party that they at once organized an opposition to the Government and turned them out of Office. The argument of the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Dilke) was in itself a confirmation of the necessity for the production of these Papers. He (Mr. Whalley) first called the attention of the House to the Fenian movement in 1862, and from time to time he adverted to it, but he was scarcely ever permitted by the House to state anything at all. In the course of three or four years, quite unexpectedly to the House, but not to himself, he was relieved of the duty of noticing the proceedings of the Fenians by their actions and the investigations which followed them. Fenianism, however, had received exceptional treatment in this respect, that the Government had endeavoured in every way to suppress inquiry and information about it. If the House had granted him a Committee he would have elicited the history of the organization; he would have exposed the knowledge and complicity of the Roman Catholic priesthood in America, and he would have shown that in this country and in Ireland it was co-extensive with Catholicism. He even offered, if he failed, never to trouble the House on the subject again; but the House would not grant him a Committee. Much of what he had said had been confirmed. But the Fenians were as quiet as mice now, because they were amenable to discipline as strict as any that prevailed in
  1758
  the army. Speaking of the army, the Roman Catholic soldiers in it, who were more or less under the direction of the priests, were as five to one; they had been increasing of late years; and it was a remarkable circumstance—the result of deliberate design somewhere—that the Roman Catholics were to be found strongest in the higher services, the Artillery and the Engineers. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Oh, oh!] From communications with the authorities of the towns in the neighbourhood of his residence, he knew that they doubted the trustworthiness of the Roman Catholic police. If there were any truth in his suggestion that Fenian organization was based on the same principles as were the risings of the Roman Catholics, in 1798 and 1641, it was scarcely possible to over-rate the gravity of the question, and the urgent necessity for obtaining all available information. It was extremely difficult, in the absence of any sort of explanation from the Government, to conceive any substantial reason why the information in question should not be afforded. In New Zealand we had had wars and rebellions, and a few hundred natives had defeated the regular troops and the colonists; and in vain had he moved for the Reports of the Governor, Sir George Grey, who, in a speech reported in the New Zealand papers, had said he found that the Roman Catholic priesthood were at the bottom of the war, that they were organizing it, and that they and they alone were the cause of our troubles there. It was admitted by the hon. Member for Chelsea that there were Fenians in New Zealand, and it was due to our fellow-subjects there and elsewhere that we should obtain the fullest information as to the origin, nature, and present position of Fenianism.
  MR. NEWDEGATE, in explanation, said, he had not read from the Report of the Committee spoken of by the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Dilke), but hereafter he should ask for its production.
  Question put, "That the said Order be discharged."—(Mr. Monsell.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 123; Noes 15: Majority 108.

MILITIA AND RESERVE FORCES— SNIDER-ENFIELD RIFLES.

  MOTION FOR RETURNS.
  MAJOR WALKER, in rising to call attention to the fact that the greater part of the Militia and Militia Reserves of Great Britain are still unprovided with the Snider-Enfield Rifle; and to move a Resolution on the subject, said that he would not waste time by discussing the question whether or not the Militia should be supplied with breech-loading Snider and Enfield rifles, for after the experience of the Bohemian campaign he took it for granted that no British troops would ever be sent into action armed with the old-fashioned muzzle-loader. The only point to be decided was, whether or not it was practicable either now or shortly to place the Snider-Enfield rifles in the hands of the Militia and the Militia Reserve. He believed that he was not far from the fact when he said that, by the end of last March, 350,000 stand of old English muzzle-loading rifles were converted into Sniders. How, then, should those arms be disposed of? In the first place they should be assigned for the use of Her Majesty's regular Army. As these weapons were only fit for infantry, he should say that, putting aside cavalry, artillery, musicians, &c, 150,000 stand of the Snider-Enfield rifles would be sufficient to arm all the rank and file of the British Army. A certain portion would be required for Marines and the Navy, and he believed that, when the position of affairs in North America was less satisfactory than at present, it was thought desirable that a certain portion of these arms should be sent out to Canada. Calculating 50,000 for the Royal Marines and the Royal Navy, and 20,000 for the Canadian Militia, the total amount disposed of would be 220,000 stand of arms. It then became a question whether a portion of these arms might not be placed in the hands of the Militia and Militia Reserve. He should be told, no doubt, by the Secretary for War, that it was necessary that a large reserve of these weapons should be kept within reach in case of emergency; but would they not be within reach if placed in the hands of the Militia? If they were kept in the barracks and stores of the different regiments throughout England, they would be more available on an emer-
  1760
  gency than if they were massed together in some central depot, and they would not be exposed to entire destruction by fire—a calamity, which befell almost the whole of the old stores in the Tower. He presumed that the reserve of weapons was desired for a case of emergency, when a large increase would be made in the regular Army. The means for that increase must proceed from the Militia, and if the Snider-Enfield rifles were distributed among them, there would, upon an emergency, be found the arms in readiness, and, in addition, the men to use them. As to the 3,700 men forming the Militia Reserve, the force was thought by some to be a failure; but he dissented, entirely from that conclusion. The fact was that the conditions of the Militia Reserves were published so late last year that the men and officers had no time to satisfy themselves respecting the terms of service. The conditions had, however, been modified; suspicions had been, or would be, removed; and he had no doubt that in the course of this year the Militia Reserves would swell to 12,000 or 15,000 men. Under the present system, however, supposing an emergency to arise, you would have to draft them into the depôt companies, in order that these men might be taught the use of the breech-loading rifle; whereas, if his suggestion were adopted, they might go at once to swell the service companies. He hoped, therefore, that the Secretary of State would modify the system he had introduced. No doubt this could only now be done to a certain extent; but a large proportion of the English Militia, and a still larger proportion of the Scotch Militia, did not go into training till next month, and he hoped it would be found possible to issue the new arm to a certain proportion of those regiments. If the new arms were not issued to the regiments during their present training, he hoped that, at least, the Secretary of State would prevent the scandal of 70,000 or 80,000 men learning the use of a weapon which they never could be called on to use. The platoon exercise was the most difficult, the most intricate, and the most tiresome part of the soldier's instruction. At least one-fourth of the Militiaman's twenty-seven days of training must be set aside to make him a tolerable master of this antiquated exercise. Now, if it was impossible to arm the Militia with

  1761
  the new rifle, these 70,000 or 80,000 should, at any rate, not be forced to waste their time in learning that which would be as useless as if they were learning ornamental needlework, and it should be optional with the commanding officers to go through the platoon exercise or not. In conclusion, he acknowledged the efforts of the Secretary of State to raise the Militia force from its present discouraging position. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman was thoroughly in earnest in wishing to make the force efficient, and it was with that belief that he ventured to bring the subject under his notice.
  MR. COLLINSseconded the Motion. He concurred with the hon. and gallant Gentleman in the hope that as many Militia regiments as possible would be supplied with the new weapon.
  Address for "Return of the number of the Snider Enfield Rifles converted, the number issued, and the number in store."—(Major Walker.)
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that no one could desire more heartily than he did to see the Militia efficient in all respects, and particularly in the skilful use of an improved weapon. He had already stated what had been done with regard to the supply of Snider rifles to the Militia; and the reserve of Snider rifles was probably greater than was stated by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. But our position was this—It was very necessary that we should be always in possession of a sufficient reserve of the best weapon, because, of course, we never knew what emergency might arise. That remark did not apply particularly to the present time, because, fortunately, there never was a time when we need be less apprehensive; but it was a general maxim always to keep in store a sufficient reserve of the best weapon. At present the Snider rifle was, he believed, the best weapon with which any service in the world was armed; but they had also just received and circulated the Report of a most competent Committee, which recommended another rifle in substitution for the Snider rifle. It was necessary that a full trial should be made of the new Henry-Martini rifle before it was finally adopted. That trial was about to be made with as much rapidity as possible, but the machinery had to be altered, and some months must elapse before the new weapon
  1762
  would be ready in sufficiently large quantities to be tried in the regiments and in the different climates where it would be necessary to try it before its final adoption. Meanwhile it was manifestly not for the public interest to manufacture the Snider rifle more largely than they could help, because, although it was the best weapon in use in any service at present, yet we had in prospect the early adoption of a better weapon. These considerations forced the Government to be economical in the supply of the Sniders in store; but, nevertheless, they had not been forgetful of the desire to arm the Reserve forces with this rifle. At the beginning of the present year the Militia were only in possession of 7,422 of these rifles. That number he had already raised to 25,918; and this was quite irrespective of 11,000 issued to that portion of the Pensioners and second Army Reserve, who were going out for drill in the course of the present year. He thought that this showed an earnest desire to arm the Militia to an increased extent with the best weapons. Those Militia regiments had been chosen which either were going to encamp at Aldershot or Shorncliffe, or which had shown, during the last three years the greatest efficiency in target practice. This selection was intended as an encouragement to target practice, and instructions had been issued that increased attention should be paid throughout the Militia service to target practice. The hon. and gallant Member seemed to recommend that the Militia Reserve should especially be armed with the Snider rifle. As to the Militia Reserve, it was manifestly impossible to select it for the exclusive possession of the Snider, rifle on the ground on which so distinguished an officer as the hon. and gallant Gentleman would no doubt object to having any portion of a regiment under his command supplied with that weapon unless it were supplied to the whole. Such was the course which the Government had pursued. They had been desirous to maintain their reserve at the only point which prudence and considerations of usefulness would suggest with respect to a reserve meant to provide for a case of emergency. He had been very anxious to give an increased supply of the Snider rifle to Militia regiments, especially to those engaged in target

  1763
  practice, and he wished to encourage that practice throughout the force with a view to a more extensive distribution of rifles next year. He trusted, he might add, that, when a decision had been arrived at in regard to the Henry-Martini rifle, there would be an opportunity afforded of largely arming the whole force with a breech-loading weapon—a result which he looked forward to with as much interest as the hon. and gallant Gentleman could feel in the matter. As to the Return for which he moved, he should be very happy to produce it.
  MAJOR WALKERthanked the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy, and said, he had only moved for Returns to put himself in form.
  Motion agreed to.
  Return ordered.

BEERHOUSES, &c, BILL.
(Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson, Mr. Akroyd, Mr. Headlam.)
BEERHOUSES, &c, BILL.

  SECOND READING. [BILL 22.]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, observed that there had been a long struggle with growing intemperance on the one hand, and the attempts on the part of the Legislature to suppress it on the other. The hon. Baronet briefly referred to the Acts passed in the reign of Henry VI., in which he said the licensing system of the present day had its origin, and to the Act of 1828, which consolidated the previous Acts on the subject. Prior to 1830 licenses were granted by the Excise after a previous license had been granted by the magistrates, into which entered the question of the character of the individual to whom it was granted, the character of the house licensed, and the wants of the locality in which it was situated. In accordance, however, with the Act of 1830, beer-houses were licensed by officers of the Revenue, who might be supposed to be interested in creating as large a number of them as possible throughout the country, the only check being the insufficiency of the rateable value of the home of the applicant for a license, and the necessity of obtaining the certificates as to his cha-
  1764
  racter of six householders occupying houses of a certain rateable value. There was very little difficulty in obtaining the testimonial required, and the value had been frequently raised in a surreptitious manner. The result of the passing of a measure, which contained only those checks, was that drunkenness so greatly increased that a Committee of that House was appointed in 1834 to inquire into the subject. That Committee reported against the extension of beer-houses such as then existed, and, in 1839, Lord Brougham, who had been a strenuous supporter of the Bill of 1830, carried through the House of Lords a Bill for the repeal of the very measure of which he had been a few years before so warm an advocate, observing that the beerhouses were sowing the seeds, not of ignorance, but, what was ten times worse, of immorality broadcast through the land. Lord Brougham, moreover, protested against the question being made a party question; but, notwithstanding his warning, party differences were permitted to affect it and the Bill was thrown out in the House of Commons. The next step taken in connection with the subject was in 1850, when a Committee of that House reported that the beer which was sold was an inferior article, and that under the system which prevailed the morals and comforts of the poor were seriously impaired. No steps to remedy those evils were, however, taken in consequence of that Report, and, in 1853 and 1854, another Committee sat under the able presidency of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. P. Villiers) which, after an elaborate investigation of the whole question, reported in favour of uniformity of license; recommending that the distinction between beer-shops and public-houses, both as to the extent of the license and the manner in which it was granted, should be discontinued. The Committee farther recommended that the licensing authority should be the same for all houses, and that authority should be magisterial. After two such Reports one would imagine that some action would have been taken in the matter, but it was not again dealt with until a Bill with respect to it was introduced by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy). That measure, which was in some respects similar to the present, met

  1765
  with considerable opposition. Some ton. Members argued that there ought to be no legislation on the subject, and that we must trust to improved education to remedy the evil; but the right hon. Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) promised on the part of the Government that, if the Bill were withdrawn, another on the same subject should be matured in the approaching Recess. Eventually his right hon. Friend was beaten by a small majority, but no Bill was introduced by the Government in the following year. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth (Sir Robert Peel) next brought in a measure relating to Ireland, and this was followed, in 1867, by the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves). Some people had advocated entire freedom of the liquor trade as a means of meeting the difficulty, and, in 1862, the Liverpool magistrates adopted this plan and licensed every person who could produce certain certificates of character. The system was tried for four years, at the end of which period Liverpool was preeminent for drunkenness and crime in proportion to its population over every other seaport in the country. A petition was then got up, which was signed by a great number of medical men, and 31,000 of the inhabitants, and the magistrates on inquiry found that a much smaller number of beer-houses were necessary, and only licensed twenty-two. The history of the past condemned the system established in 1830. It had been proved that that system had covered the country with a class of public-houses which had tended to promote drunkenness, crime, and profligacy. The facts which were brought to light at the present day condemned the system no less emphatically. Three-fourths of the criminals who were brought before justices of the peace attributed their first step in crime to beer-houses and the associates they had met there. The Judges, in their charges, told the same story, which was repeated in the presentments made by grand juries during the last few months. From the boroughs more than 100 mayors, writing in the names of the corporations, had expressed opinions in favour of the Bill, and the chief constables of Halifax, Blackburn, Leeds, and upwards of seventy places, and the superintendents of police of numberless towns were unanimous in their condemnation of the
  1766
  present beer-house system. He might also refer to two letters which appeared lately in the leading journal on the "Haunts of Crime." They were written by a man who thoroughly understood what he was about, and who, in company with the police, visited a number of beer-houses which were the haunts of habitual criminals. He found letters came pouring in not only from magistrates and clergymen, but from tradesmen and every other class of the community, against that system. He had a letter the other day from a magistrate in the county which he had the honour to represent, stating that it had just been brought to his notice that a man, who had been convicted at quarter sessions of larceny, and who had previously held a public-house license, had taken out a beer-house license under the Excise, and that his house was now an established haunt of bad characters. If time permitted, he could multiply testimony of the same kind. Statistics showed that the convictions in all the counties were 1 in 29 of public-houses, and 1 in 12 of beer-houses; in all the boroughs, 1 in 20 of public-houses, and 1 in 7½ of beer-houses. He maintained that the evidence of facts, both present and past, alike condemned the system established in 1830. That evidence pointed, he thought, to uniformity of authority in the licensing of all houses of that description; also pointed in the direction of uniform magisterial control, and increased police supervision; and also indicated the necessity for an attempt to strengthen the law by giving greater facilities for the conviction of those who violated it. All those points, he believed, would be met by the adoption of that Bill. He had divided the licenses into two classes. The first class related to sale of these articles over the counter, but not to be consumed on the premises. For that first branch of the trade he had made the facilities as great as he could; but a different course ought to be pursued in regard to the consumption of these liquors in what was falsely called the poor man's club. When they knew that the unrestricted increase of the number of those places increased the adulteration of the articles consumed in them, and that the customer was expected to drink not only what he required but also for the good of the house, then it was justifiable to say that

  1767
  their number ought to be reduced within the limits of the wants of the country. He tried by his Bill to encourage the class of houses licensed to sell beer, but not for consumption on the premises; and, in order to check the evasion of the conditions of such licenses, he had sought by a clause to strengthen the power of conviction, while in another clause he had extended the power of the police to all beer-houses. He would likewise render the customer liable to a penalty when he forced the landlord to infringe the law; and, again, by doing away with what was called the limitation as to convictions, the keeper of the house would not only have additional motives for being careful how he carried out his license, but it would also be made the interest of the owner of the house to see that he had a proper tenant. It had been objected that, as the Bill now stood, three past transgressions might be brought forward against any man, and that he would thus be prevented from taking out a license; but it was not his intention to make that legislation retrospective, but prospective. He might be told that so grave and important a question ought not to be dealt with by a private Member, but should be left in the hands of the Government. Now, he felt very strongly not only that legislation, but that immediate legislation on that subject was necessary; and, before placing his Bill on the table, he had done everything he could to ascertain whether the Government intended to take the question up this Session; and it was only after learning that, although they would probably grapple with the subject in a future Session, they did not mean to attempt to do so now, that he had ventured, as a private Member, to propose that measure. Speaking of the probability of future legislation to be initiated by the Government, he would remind the House that, in 1857, they had a direct promise from the then Home Secretary of a Liberal Government, which was supposed to be a strong Government, that they would consider that question in the course of the Recess, and deal with it completely in the following Session. Well, the following Session came, but from accidental circumstances nothing was done in the matter; and so they had gone on for twelve years without arriving at any practical result. He
  1768
  did not wish to imply any doubt of the sincerity of the present Government's intention to take up the question in another year; but next Session, even though the Irish Church Bill might then be out of the way, other grave matters—for example, the Irish land question—might interfere with the fulfilment of their intention. And, therefore, he thought his Bill would be useful in the meantime in checking evils which would be assuming more and more gigantic proportions, while the Government measure might be undergoing preparation. His Bill—even if it were but a temporary stopgap—would not interfere with the future legislation which might be introduced by the Government. He went further, and said that it would assist them in their future legislation; because if, unfortunately, his Bill did not now pass, and if the Government intended to bring in a measure of their own next year, a vast number of new beer-houses would be opened, and a great many fresh vested interests thus created between this time and the next Session. He had to thank the House for the patient indulgence with which they had heard him. From a sad and mournful cause he had not been able to pay the subject the attention which he should have wished, but he felt that this question was one of such deep and vital importance that it must make its way. The evil was an old and long-standing one, and the country was thoroughly roused upon the subject. Over 800 Petitions, signed by every class in the community, had been presented, all calling loudly for a remedy; and it was because he believed that the Bill would afford that remedy, would tend to diminish the evils of which they complained, would increase morality and diminish crime throughout the country, that he ventured to recommend it to the consideration of the House. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he had listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Baronet, and there was no one who would go further in any step to check drunkenness—which was an evil apparent, above almost all the evils of the country. But he could not jump to the

  1769
  conclusion which the hon. Baronet had come to—that this particular system of licensing had been the cause of all the mischief which he seemed to throw upon its shoulders. A mighty agitation had come upon us from Lancashire; an agitation that had swept through the whole of the West Hiding of Yorkshire—that had diffused itself through the whole kingdom—and had finally culminated in a meeting at St. James's Hall, with an Archbishop at its head. Now, he was in favour of the object they had in view. He had looked as carefully as he could into all that had been said on the subject, and he found this to be the main burden of the song—that drunkenness is a great evil, that beer makes people drunk, that beer-houses sellbeer, and, therefore, beerhouses are a great evil. That was the clear logical deduction which was the burden of the song throughout, and therefore he had turned his attention to see whether, as unfortunately he was an old man, the evils had or had not increased in the country since this system had been enforced. Every one would allow that was a material point to consider. Now, he should hardly be surprised that some of those Gentlemen who, like himself, were alive many years before this change of the law had occurred, should turn in their graves in wonder, considering the abuse that was heaped upon them for the part they had taken with respect to the horrible shame of those restrictions in licensing. There was no sort of abuse that the English language supplied—and it was not very barren in terms of that kind—which was not applied to "the unpaid" for the way in which they executed their office in this matter. Well, he had lived to see a great change of opinion come round. He knew only one thing like it, and that was the present condition of Manchester and India with regard to cotton. In his early life Manchester did all she could to injure the cotton of India by means of high and differential duties, and now she did everything to make India grow cotton for her, except to carry her own money to India for that purpose. It seemed as if a sort of retributive justice had come upon both parties in these two cases. He admitted that the object of the beer-house legislation had utterly failed. That legislation was promoted for three purposes; one was to break up the brewing monopoly, just about the
  1770
  time of taking off the duty upon beer; the next was because it was supposed these houses would brew their own beer; and the third was to discourage the use of spirits. Well, there was the brewing monopoly still—these houses did not brew their own beer; and the use of spirits had increased relatively, while that of beer had rather decreased. That appeared from official Returns. Then came the question they had to consider—namely, whether, generally speaking, drunkenness had increased or decreased under the system. He had no doubt it had decreased everywhere with the exception of a very few places, and the largest of those places was Lancashire. Lancashire was at the head of all things, and in the case of drunkenness it did stand very prominent. Now, he would tell the hon. Baronet at once that he was not going to oppose the Bill. He would leave the matter to the discretion of the Government. This was part of a very large question; and if the Government thought it right that this measure should pass, he was not the person to oppose it. But he would leave the responsibility with the Government. He would, however, state a few facts in proof of what he had stated, and then he should follow the course which the Government, with full information before them, would think it their duty to take. Drunkenness was the parent of crime; and, if they did not do what they could to get rid of it, they would fail in their duty to the country. He had said that the beer-houses had not succeeded in diminishing the use of spirits, and he would state what had brought him to that conclusion. A Parliamentary Paper was issued in 1868, according to which, he found that in 1800, when the population was a little more than 9,000,800, the consumption of spirits—colonial, foreign, and home—was about 7,994,572 gallons; so that about thirty years before the passing of the Beerhouse Bill the consumption of spirits was something less than a gallon per head of the population. The quantity of malt consumed in 1801 was over 18,000,000 bushels, or in other words, as nearly as possible two bushels of malt per head. In 1831, the population then being very nearly 14,000,000, the consumption of spirits of all kinds was 12,131,000 gallons; therefore, it was still somewhat below a gal-

  1771
  lon per head; whereas the consumption of malt had increased to 32,963,470 bushels, or nearly two bushels and one-third per head of the population. About the year 1830, therefore, the consumption of spirits had somewhat diminished, while that of malt had increased. At least they might presume that it had, because there was a general belief—he did not know whether true or not—that malt was more or less used by brewers in the brewing of beer. Well, in 1867, according to the Registrar General's Return of the preceding year, the population was 21,400,000, and the consumption of spirits was 18,487,000 gallons—still keeping below a gallon per head; but the consumption of malt had decreased in proportion to 43,158,000 bushels, being at the rate of only two bushels per head of the population. It appeared, therefore, that the consumption of beer was higher at the time the Beerhouses Bill passed than it had been since; and unless the brewers had got rid of malt in brewing beer, the consumption of beer relatively to the population could not have increased. The next point to which he would call attention was that, in the year 1853, the late Mr. Hume obtained a Return of the drunkenness of the people of England, which extended from 1841 to 1851. In ninety out of 102 towns of 10,000 inhabitants or more, to which the official Returns referred, it appeared that 75,000 persons had been taken up for drunkenness in 1841, the population of England then being 16,000,000. In 1851 ninety-four of the same towns made Returns, and it appeared that the drunkenness had decreased to 70,000, the population meanwhile having risen to 18,000,000. He had taken the trouble of making out from the Judicial Statistics for 1867 that in these ninety-four towns drunkenness had decreased to 59,000, while the population of England had risen to 21,000,000. It was, of course, quite possible that, under another state of things, a better condition of the people might have existed; but still, taking things as they were, the condition of the people shown by these figures was not unsatisfactory, indicating as it did a turn in our favour. In the metropolis the change was quite as marked, and probably even more so; for there the administration of the police had been in one and the same hand, whereas, in other
  1772
  localities, changes, no doubt, had frequently occurred. At the earlier date, the population of the metropolis being then 2,000,000, upwards of 30,000 persons were apprehended for drunkenness; at the later date, the population in the police district having grown to 3,000,000, there were but 16,000 persons apprehended. He was unable to give the exact population in 1867, because the Returns were based on the Census of 1861. In Lancashire, from which county the demand for this Motion mainly came, the figures unfortunately indicated that some special causes were at work. In Lancashire, in 1861, the persons apprehended for drunkenness were 23,900 in number; but in 1867—only six years later—that number had increased to 35,800; while over the whole of England except Lancashire, there were about 64,000 cases, a state of things of which but for the official Returns they could hardly credit. What did these figures show? Why, that in England, with the exception of Lancashire, the persons apprehended for drunkenness were at the rate of 1 in every 302 persons, while in Lancashire they were at the rate of 1 in every 65 persons. Deducting those under fifteen years age, who could scarcely be supposed to be guilty of the crime of drunkenness, it would leave 1 person in every 44 taken up for that offence. Liverpool had hitherto been king in the matter of drunkenness, but last year Manchester, that ambitious town, had run ahead. One might have thought that Lancashire, being a very busy county, other counties similarly circumstanced would exhibit similar features as regarded the extent of drunkenness. An alteration in the law took place in 1861. Drunken people used to be fined 5s., or placed in the stocks; but in that year the fine was increased to 40 s., or seven days' imprisonment. The West Riding of Yorkshire, with a population of 1,500,000, had 6,000 cases of drunkenness in 1861, and in 1867 but 6,063. Hence drunkenness had not progressed in Yorkshire as it had done in Lancashire, and it showed that there must be some governing influence apart from the occupations of the people, or even from the existence of beer-houses, for these were frequent in the West Riding and also in Birmingham, where drunkenness, thank God! was very limited in amount. In Leeds, 353 per-

  1773
  sons were apprehended for drunkenness in 1841, and in 1867 that number had grown to 1,340; beer-houses in Leeds being at the rate of 1 to 318 of the population. From the election inquiries, one would have thought that Bradford, a town close to Leeds, was not a particularly sober place, but in the official Returns it came out very handsomely. There were 550 beerhouses, or one for every 193 inhabitants in Bradford; so that if beer-houses did all the mischief that was alleged, Bradford must be, one would suppose, a very bad place. But what were the facts? In 1851, 262 persons were apprehended for drunkenness there, and, in 1867, only 191. Birmingham, with its population of 296,000, showed remarkably well. In 1848, there were 2,020 persons apprehended for drunkenness, and in 1867, he was happy to say, that number had decreased to 1,340. That result, again, was very remarkable, for beer-houses there were at the rate of one for every 227 persons. Therefore it did not seem that there was any want of beer-houses to do the mischief. In Bristol, another large place, the beer-houses were in the proportion of 1 to 238 of the population; and the drunkenness there amounted to 1,500 cases in 1841, and had fallen to 800 cases in 1867. If the Government thought it desirable that the Bill now before the House should be taken up, he, for one, should heartily support it; but, looking at the figures he had just quoted, he hardly thought there would be any great gain from the change which was recommended. He had spoken of Manchester having at last gone ahead of Liverpool,. In Liverpool, in 1841, there were no less than 17,500 persons apprehended for drunkenness; in 1867 the number had decreased to 11,900. Therefore, with all its increase of population, Liverpool was improving, though, God knew, it was still bad enough. In Manchester, where, in 1841, the convictions were 5,743, the number had, in 1867, come up to 9,742, or 1 in 37. He did not wonder at the movement which had taken place in Manchester, for, with such a state of things, the people would be glad to do anything that would do some good. He feared that no mistake existed in the case of Lancashire, because he had satisfied himself that there had been no extraordinary action on the part of the police, and the things that had
  1774
  accompanied drunkenness—crime and death, would prove the excess of drunkenness even if they argued back from the proportion of crime and death to that of drunkenness. In England and Wales the number of persons charged with indictable offences in 1835, 1836, and 1837 was 21,775. In the year 1865, 1866, and 1867 the number was reduced to 19,144. A great many summary offences had been taken out of the class of indictable offences and therefore no conclusion could be drawn, but there was some classes of tables in which there had been no change in the Criminal Law—the class of offences of violence against the person. In the first three years he had named there were 1,870 offences against the person, and in the last three years 2,360, being an increase of 26 per cent. The population had, however, increased between the mean years 1838 and 1866, by 38 per cent, so that for the whole of England the result was not unfavourable. The increase in all the criminal tables, except that containing larceny, was 17 per cent which, remembering the increase of population of 38 per cent, was not again unfavourable for all England. In Lancashire, the number of persons charged with indictable offences was, during the first three years, 2,576; but in the last three years it jumped up to 3,057—a fearful amount of increase. In the class of offences of violence against the person the number in Lancashire in the first period was 182, and in the second 350—an increase of 92 per cent. The increase of population in Lancashire was about 50 per cent, which did not, by a long way, come up to the increase in these offences. The indictable offences of 1867 amounted to 39,621 in all England less Lancashire, and in Lancashire alone they amounted to 15,900. The summary offences were in the same proportion. The death rate for all England, without Lancashire, was 2·266 per cent, while in Lancashire it was 3·16. He had been compelled by the communications sent to him during the last two months to look into these things. The Government might be aware of them, or they might not, but it was their duty to get to the bottom of this state of things, and apply a remedy. In 1865, the present Prime Minister, in one of his remarkable speeches at Glasgow, spoke of the general prosperity of the country, and remarked—

  1775
  '"These are things which touch material interests alone. There are some men—aye, high-minded men, too—who would bid you beware of such things lest they should lead simply to the worship of Mammon."
  The right hon. Gentleman then went on to say—
  "I do not think it is the duty of Parliament to withhold laws which are good for many, for fear of their leading to the worship of Mammon. By this I understand only that we are not to avoid doing that which is good because it may be abused to do evil."
  An hon. Colleague of his, the Vice President of the Council of Education, had also used expressions closely bearing upon this subject at a time when the House was occupied with a matter almost as interesting as the Irish Church—the question of salmon and the cleansing of rivers. Three or four years ago the House went rather wild on the question of salmon and the cleansing of rivers, and the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) said—
  "The debate on the present occasion had not been carried on as a dispute between anglers and the manufacturers, but as a discussion in reference to the health of towns; and upon that principle he thought they might, having due regard to vested interests, lay down this rule—that the evils referred to ought to be removed when they could be prevented by manufacturers at such a reasonable cost as would not put it out of their power to compete with foreign countries and would not stop their trade."—[3 Hansard, clxxvii. 1349.]
  This was the same feeling that led our soldiers to club their muskets at Inker-man; to do and die, but never to yield. But if the Vice President of the Council was right in saying that competition with foreign countries must go on at whatever expense of health and life, and if the Prime Minister was of opinion that in some cases Mammon guided the coach, and that the opposition was so sharp that the horses were to be driven to death rather than lose the race, depend upon it, whether the water-trough was quite close, or round the corner, the horses when they were taken off would run to get their noses into it. The official statistics showed the state of things in Lancashire, and there could be no doubt that a fearful responsibility rested on them all, and what he asked of the Government was that, if the Bill was likely to stop the evil, in God's name to support it. If, on the other hand, this was only a plaster on the cancerous sore, to hide it for a moment, let them take the manly course of applying a remedy. The House
  1776
  was endeavouring to bring about an improvement in the country by instituting a better system of teaching; he trusted it would be the endeavour, not only to make the people better money-making machines, but to improve them really by instilling into their minds better principles, and thus enabling them to resist temptation. This could only be done by basing the education of the masses upon sound religious teaching. Whatever couse the Government took in reference to this Bill he would support them, because he thought they were the proper persons to take the initiative in this matter.
  MR. AKROYDsupported the Bill. The country had pronounced decidedly in favour of this Bill, and it was only by such a measure that the evil effects of beer-houses, now beyond the control of the magistrates, could be averted. They were, in fact, in many cases, no better than brothels. He endeavoured on one occasion, with the aid of the police, to expose the iniquitous practices carried on in a beer-house of this character in his own neighbourhood; but having failed to obtain a third conviction, he was unable to get rid of it. He had been recently informed that the same state of things continued there, the magistrates being powerless to put it down. He joined a deputation that waited on the Home Secretary some weeks ago, asking the right hon. Gentleman to introduce a Bill to remedy the evils, and it was not until he found that the hands of the Government were too full to entertain the subject this Session that he joined in bringing forward this Bill. There was no doubt that the publicans, but for the restrictions they were under, would be as bad as the beersellers; but if both were placed under the same magisterial control, there was every reason to believe that beerhouses would be as well conducted as public-houses. The opposition to this measure arose from the Beer and Wine Retailers' Association of the metropolis; and, indeed, if there had been no opposition from the beersellers, there might have been a fear that the Bill was not sufficiently stringent. The statistics of crime quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) hardly bore upon the question. Mr. Cobbe, the head constable of the West Riding of Yorkshire, reported that, in 1868, the number of public-houses in

  1777
  the West Biding amounted to 2,396, and the beer-houses to 1,614. For the same year the convictions of publicans in the West Riding were 110, or 4½ per cent of the number, and the number of convictions of beer-houses for the same year was 200, being at the rate of 12 per cent of the whole difference, or nearly 3 to 1 in favour of public-houses. In Staffordshire, in 1868, the head constable stated that there were, in his district, 2,118 public-houses and 2,648 beer-houses. For the same year there were 158 convictions against public-houses or 7½ per cent of the whole, and 394 convictions against beer-houses, which was equal to 15 per cent of the whole. His district was divided into three parts. In the rural district there were two licensed victuallers to every beer-house, and there was one conviction in every fifteen; in the mining district there was one conviction in every nine; and in the Potteries, where there were seven beer-houses to every two licensed victuallers, the convictions were in the proportion of one in five. That was conclusive as to the character of the two descriptions of houses. In the borough of Leeds there were, in 1858, 675 convictions for drunkenness, and, in 1868, 1,264 cases, an increase of 100 per cent, while the population had increased only 20 per cent. In 1860 there were 384 public-houses and 399 beer-houses; and, in 1868, there were 374 public-houses, a decrease of 3 per cent, and 565 beer-houses, an increase of 40 per cent. Thus it was clear drunkenness had increased as beer-houses increased; and the Watch Committee of Leeds had petitioned the House to the effect that this state of things would continue until all the beer-houses were under the control of the justices. The chief constable of Leeds had no hesitation in stating that, in his opinion, the great majority of these houses had a tendency to increase crime, unless a police-constable was stationed at their doors, especially those which harboured thieves and prostitutes. He further expressed his opinion that these houses would remain the pests of society as long as the present system of licensing continued in force, and that it would be exceedingly beneficial to place the licensing power in the hands of the justices. It was most important that some steps should be taken to put a stop to the evil
  1778
  without loss of time. He had no fear that the Government would meet the measure with a direct negative; but he was afraid that they would treat it in such a manner as to cause delay. The right hon. Gentleman might, perhaps, promise to deal with the question at some future day. A similar promise was made in 1857 by the then Secretary of State for the Home Department the right hon. Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey), but that promise was never fulfilled. If this question were to be postponed until next Session the mischief to be dealt with would go on increasing, and would every day become more unmanageable. The Bill of the hon. Gentleman was a very moderate one, and he warned those opposed to it that, if they refused to agree to its provisions, which treated vested interests with great tenderness, a much more stringent measure would be passed in a future Session. He trusted that the Government would press upon their supporters the necessity of not opposing the second reading of this Bill, which he believed would conduce greatly to the good order, welfare, and propriety of society.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, that although this measure did not, in the opinion of the Government, meet all the exigencies of the case, and although, in their opinion, the question was one which required further consideration, yet he thought it might be convenient to the House to be informed that it was not their intention to oppose the second reading of the Bill. The House must recollect that there were already thirty-two Acts of Parliament in existence relating to public-houses and beer-houses, while the whole subject, in all its branches, might be amply dealt with in one Act of no greater dimensions than any one of them. Under these circumstances, it would have been the wish of the Government to have dealt with this great question during the present Session; but it needed but little apology at their hands for not having done so, looking at the press of other weighty business they had to discharge. When the question was brought under the notice of the Government they determined, after mature consideration, to inquire into the whole subject during the Recess, in order to introduce a measure at the meeting of the next Parliament, which

  1779
  should deal with every portion of the question. He was bound to say that, in thus recommending legislation, he was not actuated by any exaggerated view of the extent of drunkenness, nor of the evils which resulted from beer-houses in particular. The hon. Gentleman who had introduced this measure, in a speech of singular moderation and ability, had departed a little from strict accuracy in referring to the opinion of the Judges to the effect that the increase of crime was due to the increase of beer-houses and of drunkenness. The statistics of the right Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley) showed unanswerably that crime had not been on the increase of late, and that, while the population was increasing, crime had remained stationary for many years past. Therefore, if there were this close connection between drunkenness and crime, it was evident that drunkenness could not be on the increase. Those who recollected what used to be the state of the streets in our towns twenty or thirty years ago on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning could hardly refuse to admit that there had been a very considerable improvement. Then, as to the especial demerits of beer-houses, it was undoubtedly true, as had been stated, that they had been more frequently convicted for offences against their licenses than the ordinary public-houses; but, on the other hand, the latter had more frequently been convicted of a higher class of offences, in the proportion of three to one, a circumstance that was due to the lateness of the hour until which they were permitted to remain open. The fact was the more striking when it was recollected that among the public-houses were included the first-class hotels and inns throughout the country, which would, of course have to be left out of the account. It was, however, impossible to deny that there were special faults connected with the present system of licensing beer-houses, and it was also impossible to deny that there was no sufficient check upon their indefinite increase; while, on the other hand, the magistrates exercised their licensing power generally with judgment and good sense. It was clear, therefore, that there was a check exercised on public-houses which did not exist with regard to beerhouses, and there were reasons for arguing that such check might be usefully ap-
  1780
  plied to the latter also. But, while admitting that to be the case, the House must not forget that the result of a most careful inquiry, by the Committee of 1854, was to lead them to recommend that the licensing of public-houses ought not to be left in the hands of the magistrates. That Committee recommended that while certain duties, such as seeing that certain conditions of their licenses were complied with by all houses licensed for the sale of liquor, were intrusted to the magistrates, they should not have the power of granting or refusing those licenses. He did not deny that the House had some good reason to distrust the promises of Ministers in this matter. The subject had been regarded as one involving questions of great difficulty and delicacy, and great doubt had been entertained as to the possibility of carrying a comprehensive measure through Parliament. He had already stated the intention of the Government upon the subject; but, of course, it greatly depended upon many and various circumstances whether that intention could be carried into effect next Session. He thought, however, that the hon. Member who introduced this Bill had exercised great judgment in pressing for what might be called a suspensory measure, which should take effect until the whole question could be considered by the Government and the House. It was in that view, and not as approving the principle of the measure—as regarded intrusting magistrates with the power of licensing the beerhouses—that he, on the part of the Government, gave his assent to the second reading of the Bill. In announcing the intention of the Government to support the second reading of the Bill, he thought it right to say that, in Committee, they would move a clause to limit the operation of the Bill to a period of two years. This would be a pledge of the intention of the Government to consider the whole question with the view to more comprehensive legislation. If they failed to do so, the House would have it in their power to renew this Bill. There were several stringent provisions in the Bill which only applied to beer-houses. He did not see why they should not be extended to other houses in which intoxicating drinks were sold. That, however, was a minor matter and one which could be discussed in Committee.
  MR. HIBBERTobserved that some of the statistics, quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), made Lancashire look very black in regard to drunkenness; but he did not think that a fair comparison could really be made from the statistics of different towns, because the instructions to the police might not be at all uniform in those towns. There were circumstances, such as the large amount of wages paid weekly, which, to a certain extent, accounted for the statistics from Lancashire. It was creditable to Lancashire that there was, in that part of England, a great desire for education, and that it had taken an early and prominent part in calling attention to the subject now under discussion. He begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary for consenting to the second reading of the Bill, and was sure the Government had exercised a sound discretion in doing so. It was one which had received more support from all parts of the country than any Bill introduced into that House for many years past.
  SIR ROBERT CLIFTON SIR ROBERT CLIFTON moved the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir Robert Clifton.)
  The House divided:—Ayes None; Noes 232: Majority 232.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday 11th May.
  House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock.