Commons Sitting of 3 August 1869

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Antrim, v. Rear Admiral George Henry Seymour, C.B., deceased.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Benefit Building Societies Regulation *.
Ordered — First Reading — Attorneys and Solicitors Remuneration * [260]; Sanitary Act (1866) Amendment (Ireland)* [261].
First Reading—Millbank Prison * [258]; Straits Settlements* [259].
Committee—East India Loan* [251]—R.P.; Parochial Schools (Scotland) (re-comm.) [215] —.R.P.
Committee—Report—Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) *; Warehousing of Wines and Spirits, Ac* [201]; East India Loan* [251]; Harbour of Galle Loan* [250]; Sanitary Act (1866) Amendment * [244]; Metropolitan Commons Act (1866) Amendment (re-comm.)* [221].
Considered as amended — Dividends on Public Stocks* [217]; Inclosure of Lands * [31].
Third Reading—Metropolitan Board of Works (Loans) [238], debate adjourned; Hackney and Stage Carriages Law Amendment * [227], and passed.
Withdrawn—Inclosure of Lands (No. 2)* [148]; Offices Abolition * [246].
The House met at Two of the clock.

INFANTICIDE.—QUESTION.
MR. RAIKESsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce any measure, during next Session, with the object of enabling juries to convict persons guilty of infanticide, without exposing them to the sentence of death now necessarily pronounced, but never carried out in such cases?
MR. BRUCE: Sir, I am unable to give any pledge on this subject, more especially as I am in doubt, as at present advised, whether it would be proper to consider infanticide apart from the general question of murder.

COURTS OF JUSTICE—CAREY STREET SITE.—QUESTION.
MR. MONKsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed forthwith with the erection of the New Law Courts on the Carey Street Site, in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee?
MR. GLADSTONE: In answer, Sir, to the Question of my hon. Friend, I have to say that I do not think it possible for the Government to arrive at any positive decision, much less to take any positive step in relation to a document understood to proceed from a Select Committee, but not yet laid before the House, and which, if laid before the House, could not be considered along with the evidence. I am afraid, at this period of the Session, my hon. Friend's Question is premature.
MR. MONKsaid, he would like to know from the Secretary of the Treasury when the Report would be in the hands of Members?
MR. AYRTONsaid, he could not say. It rested entirely with the Chairman of a Select Committee to see that his Report was printed accurately.
MR. MONKsaid, he had asked the question of the Secretary to the Treasury in the absence of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) the Member for King's Lynn, who was Chairman of the Select Committee.

SCOTLAND—DISTRIBUTOR OF STAMPS FOR AYRSHIRE.— QUESTION.
LORD GARLIESsaid, he wished to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether Mr. Oswald has resigned his appointment as Distributor of Stamps for the county of Ayrshire; and, if so, whether the appointment has been or is intended to be filled up?
MR. AYRTON: Sir, it is quite correct that Mr. Oswald has ceased to hold the office of Stamp Distributor for Ayrshire, and arrangements are made for the appointment of another officer to discharge the duties, but on the understanding that the appointment will be subject to further arrangements with a view to economy.

INDIA—TROOPS IN BHOOTAN,

  QUESTION.
  SIR ROBERT ANSTBUTHERsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the troops that served in Bhootan in 1864 and 1865 will receive the medal granted for frontier service in India; and, if not, the reasons for not giving it to them?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: Sir, I must repeat to my hon, Friend the Member for

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  Fife the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) some weeks ago—namely, that the North-west Frontier medal was conferred at the suggestion of the Government of India, but that the Government of India has not recommended the grant of any medal for Bhootan.

UNION OF PARISHES IN WESTMINSTER.

  QUESTION.
  DR. BREWERsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Poor Law Board, If, before proceeding to unite the parishes of St. Margaret's and St. John's Westminster, to the parish of St. George Hanover Square, he will cause an investigation to be made into the Workhouse accommodation, the debts on account of Poors Rate, and more especially into the general system of management prevailing in the aforesaid parishes?
  MR. GOSCHEN: In reply, Sir, to my hon. Friend, I have to say that I cannot undertake to cause an investigation to be made into the workhouse accommodation in question, because it has already been made. The debts have also been ascertained; they will be discharged by the parishes of St. Margaret's and St. John's, and, of course, no portion of them will fall on the parish of St. George, Hanover Square. It is also unnecessary to inquire into the general system of management prevailing in the aforesaid parishes, because that will be charged on the union of the parishes under the Amalgamation Act, in which amalgamated management very probably my hon. Friend will have a part.

INDIA—PUNJAUB TENANCY ACT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. C. DENISONsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, If he will lay upon the Table the Petition of the Landed Proprietors of the Punjaub against the enforcement of the Punjaub Tenancy Act, together with the Minute of the Lieutenant Governor, Sir D. MacLeod, transmitting the said Petition to the Supreme Government; and, whether he will state the substance of any Resolution thereupon which may have been adopted by the Secretary of State?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: Sir, these Papers cannot be laid at present on the
  1146
  Table, as no resolution has yet been taken about them. The whole question is engaging the attention of the Secretary of State.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL—COMMITTEE.
  (Mr. Dodson, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Ayrton.)
  Bill considered, in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. CRAWFORDbegged leave to call the attention of the House to an important alteration which had been introduced into one of the clauses of this Bill. In all previous Appropriation Bills there had been a power of borrowing on the part of the Government, but that power had been somewhat restricted. The power hitherto was expressed thus— "The Governor and Company of the Bank of England shall have power to lend to the Government." He believed that these words were in the draft of the Bill as it originally stood; but it had since been altered, and they now ran in this way—"The Commissioners of the Treasury may borrow on the credit of the same "—or, in other words, that the Commissioners of the Treasury should have a general borrowing power conferred upon them. Now, he had no objection to such a borrowing power; but this was a very important alteration, and he thought attention should be called to it, giving, as it did, great latitude to the Treasury. He conceived the Treasury was quite justified in obtaining for the service of the State such advances of money as might be required from any quarter they might think fit; and he wished the House clearly to understand that it was not at all in consequence of his connection with the Bank of England that he raised any objection to this change in the borrowing powers conferred on the Government. His only wish was that attention might be drawn to the fact, and that the people out-of-doors might know that this great change had been made in the borrowing powers of the Government. The only further observation by way of criticism he should like to make on the matter was this—that the change was of that important character that he thought the attention of the House ought to have been called to it by some one of those having charge of

  1147
  the Bill, and it should not have been left to any private Member to draw attention to the subject. He wished distinctly to repeat, standing there as the representative of the Bank of England, that no jealousy was felt at the enlargement of the powers of the Government, and he only made these observations on the subject because he thought it right that the people out-of-doors should be informed of the fact of the change which had been made. He was quite aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pointed to a change of this kind on introducing his Budget; but the language of the right hon. Gentleman had hardly justified the expectation that his intention would so soon be carried into effect.
  House resumed; Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.

EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.

  COMMITTEE.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee).
  MR. GRANT DUFF*: The House has just resolved itself into Committee, for the purpose of discharging, what I may be permitted to call, not the least important of the many duties which are discharged by the most powerful and most hard-worked Assembly which exists, or ever has existed, in the world. It has resolved itself into Committee for the purpose of hearing the annual statement which it requires with regard to the affairs of its great vassal Empire in Asia—an Empire covering as large a portion of the earth's surface as France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, North Germany, South Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Scandinavia, Turkey, and Greece, all put together, and inhabited by men at least as various as those who inhabit all these countries, but of whom some 147,000,000 are our fellow-subjects, just as much as the inhabitants of Yorkshire or of Kent, and another 50,000,000, although not precisely our fellow-subjects, are amenable to our influence in a far greater degree than any of our neighbours in this quarter of the globe. Nothing gives a more striking idea of the ease—or ought I to say the heedlessness?—with which
  1148
  this great nation still, in spite of the poet, sustains "the too vast orb of its fate," than the fact that it so seldom takes the trouble to investigate, through this House, which is the reflection or concentration of itself, the progress of its affairs in the East, giving its confidence thoroughly to those who represent it here and in India, and only asking an account of their proceedings at distant intervals. If the effect of this were that our affairs were neglected, and that our Empire were slipping from us, such conduct might be properly represented as a base dereliction of duty; but if our affairs are going from better to better, then perhaps it is only a sign that the instinct which taught us how to acquire, till teaches us how to keep our wonderful possession. The phrase Indian Budget, usually applied to the business which comes before us to-night, is a misleading one. We have to deal with something less and something more than a budget. Our position is a very different one from that which we occupied on the 8th of April last. Then we were considering matters directly bearing upon our own pockets and purses. Now we are going to consider matters whose direct bearing is on the pockets and purses of men separated from us by many thousands of miles, and by still wider gulfs than any that are made by mere distance. Even if it were possible for the representative of the Indian Government in this House to invoke the assistance of the fairy Agreeable Surprise, who generally presides over English Budgets, the Committee would hear with comparatively languid satisfaction that such and such taxes, which neither they nor their constituents pay, can be dispensed with. But that fairy cannot possibly be invoked; for those hon. Members who take most interest in the affairs of India, know pretty well the main features of the statement which I shall have to present to them. I cannot accordingly indulge, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer did on a recent occasion, in the pleasure so natural to a benevolent mind, of shaking my hearers over the pit of financial ruin, or of letting them drop into it, and catching them half-way down. That pleasure, I say, is denied to the mouthpiece of the Indian Government; but as some compensation he is always encouraged by the Committee, and is, in-

  1149
  deed, obliged by the necessity of the case, to enter into somewhat wider considerations than the English Chancellor of the Exchequer is permitted to do. For the India Office is not a great Department, like the Treasury. It is the whole controlling government of an Empire, with its own Treasury and its own War Office, dealing with interests, not so large, indeed, as those with which the English Departments deal, but larger than those which are managed by the corresponding Departments at Vienna or Berlin.
  The necessity for compressing an enormous mass of matter into a small space must make the statement which I have to lay before the Committee to-day drier than I could wish; but I shall do my best to eliminate from it all facts which are incapable of being retained in the mind of the hearer. My business, as I understand it, is to give such an exposition of the finances of India as may make pretty clear to all who listen to me, what is the actual position of that country at this moment; how it has been getting on since the 31st March, 1867, and how it seems likely to get on up to the 31st March, 1870. The Committee will see that I mean to devide my statement in the usual way, into three parts. I mean to explain the actual completed accounts for the year ending on the 31st March, 1868; to tell hon. Members, as well as I can, how the accounts of the year, ending on the 31st of March, 1869, of which we have not yet seen the whole, are likely to turn out, and to make the best predictions which our information enables me to make about the year which will end on the 31st March, 1870. In technical language, I will deal first with Actuals; secondly, with the Regular Estimate; thirdly, with the Budget Estimate. First, then, for the Actuals; that is, for the year which began on the 1st of April, 1867, and ended on the 31st of March, 1868. In that year the gross amount of our receipts was £48,534,412. That is to say, we had not so large an income as the United States, as France, as England, or as Russia; but we had a larger income than any nation except these four. Now, from what sources did this enormous income come to us? Much the largest item of our Indian Revenue is the sum which we derive from our assessments on the land. This amounted in the year ending March 31, 1868,
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  in round numbers, to £20,000,000 (£19,986,640). This source of income is sometimes described as a rent, but that description is not altogether an accurate one; for, as is well said in the despatch by which the Court of Directors replied to a remarkable Minute of Lord Harris's in 1856—
  "The officers engaged in the duty of fixing the assessment should always bear in mind that, as you have expressed it, the right of the Government is not a rent which consists of all the surplus produce, after paying the costs of cultivation and the profits of the agricultural stocks, but a land revenue only, which ought, if possible, to be so lightly assessed as to leave a surplus or rent to the occupier, whether he, in fact, let the land to others or retain it in his own hands."
  The spirit which animates these lines is that which has guided the Indian Government of late years. The tendency has been to diminish assessments—not to increase them—in ether words, to let the people, as we say in Scotland, "sit easy." In 1862, it appeared that the then rulers, forced to take action by a Resolution of Lord Canning and his Council, in the autumn of the previous year, had made up their minds that the old Indian land revenue had not the virtue in it which used to be believed, and that the summum bonum of the financier was to be found in a wealthy people, able to buy large quantities of taxable articles, and to endure all the various financial tortures which modern ingenuity has divised for the contriluable of Europe. And so a despatch went forth from the India Office on the 9th of July, 1862, decreeing the establishment of a judicious permanent settlement. A few days afterwards, Mr. Vansittart moved for certain dissents which had been recorded by Members of Council. The result was the laying before Parliament of two most excellent Papers — one by Mr. Mangles, advocating the old land revenue arrangements, the other by Sir John Lawrence advocating a permanent settlement. No one can read these Papers without being greatly impressed by both of them, but the side which he will take will depend rather upon his general views with regard to taxation, than upon his special views with regard to India. Far be it from me to say to which opinion I incline when such great doctors disagreed; but the outcome of the controversy, looking at the matter purely historically, has been a strange one, for the victrix causa has,

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  it would seem, pleased the gods as little as it pleased Cato, and the old system of moderate assessments, liable to be revised at the end of long periods, still goes on. The permanent settlement which was contemplated has never been carried out. We are now, with regard to our land revenue, very much in the position of a gentleman who has property in various parts of the British Isles, where different customs prevail with respect to the granting and length of leases. In the North-west Provinces, for instance, no increase is to be looked for till the end of the century, for we are just commencing a new period of settlement or lease for thirty years. In Madras, on the other hand, where the settlement is made on totally different principles, we may look for a slow and steady increase. In Bombay, we may look for an increase which will be steady and not slow; and so I might go on through most of the provinces of India, showing that we and our descendants may expect a large rise of revenue from the land throughout the greater part of British India. Tributes and contributions from Native States form the second item of our revenue, and bring in not much less than £700,000 (£689,286). To explain how that aggregate has accrued to us would be to recount a very large part of Indian history during the last 200 years. The amount is not great; less than would be brought in to the English Exchequer by a halfpenny income tax at home. Of old, however, tribute has been the distinguishing mark of rule, and he must be strangely constituted who does not reflect, with a certain satisfaction, that amongst those whose offerings swell this sum are men who may vie in the splendour of their lineage with the oldest European Sovereigns, and more than one who could, with no offence to truth, make prouder answers than even that which Prince Massimo made to the First Napoleon, when he was asked if he was descended from Fabius Maximus—"I cannot prove it; but it is a story that has been repeated for 1,000 years in my family." Our forests yielded about,£330,000 (£331,088), a much smaller amount than they would have yielded if we had begun to attend carefully to them when we first grew strong in India. That, however, was not to have been expected. Forests always seem inexhaus-
  1152
  tible until they begin to be exhausted. When history comes to number up the good deeds which Britain has done for India, she will not, I am sure, forget to record amongst them that—not an hour to soon, indeed, but yet not too late— she called in European science to check the destruction of the forests. No one who has not looked into this subject has the faintest idea how terrible have been the effects, over wide regions of the globe, of carelessness in keeping up a proper proportion of trees. Let any one to whom this whole subject is new turn to the remarkable work of the American Minister at Florence, Mr. Marsh, upon Physical Geography as modified by Human Action, and he will shudder at the dangers which we have only just escaped. If our predecessors had known what we know, much of the enormous expense that we are now being put to with regard to irrigation would have been quite unnecessary. But the mistakes of former days are past praying for, and we can now only rejoice that free course has been given to Dr. Brandis and his subordinates; that the saving of the forest has been recognized as a great State necessity; that a regular Forest Department has been inaugurated, which will take to India the science of France and Germany, and that the good example of forest conservation set in British territory is beginning to spread into some of the Native States. The forest revenue is derived chiefly from the sale of timber, but also from a system of seignorage or license to cut, which will, however, disappear when the amended arrangements for forest organization are complete. In Burmah, something is brought in by a duty levied on the wood floated down the great rivers from non-British territory. Something, too, is gained in many places by miscellaneous products, such as honey, bees' wax, and lac. I have no doubt that when science has been more systematically applied in various places to the investigation of the resources of India, a great many small gains of this kind will be realized, all tending to make heavy the coffers of the State, and to ease the burden of the taxpayer. With a view to this, among other good results, the preparation of a Flora Sylvatica for the Punjaub and the North-western Provinces has just been sanctioned. A large project for taking stock of the natural products of India is

  1153
  like wise in contemplation, and the preparation of a Guide to the Indian Forester is proposed. In time we shall, no doubt, have a special college for forest science in India, like that for teaching engineering, which already exists at Roorkee. There are few sources of revenue the increase of which it is more agreeable to contemplate than this; and, although the rise will be gradual, because we have a great deal still to do, and much to expend before we can reap the full results of good and economic forest management, it will ultimately be very large. The next head is Excise on Spirits and Drugs, or, as it is sometimes called, the Abkari revenue. From this source we derived nearly £2,250,000 (£2,238,931). The articles which contributed to swell this large amount were many and various. There were spirits distilled by native methods from several palms—as the cocoa-nut, the date, and the palmyra. There were spirits made from the young leaf-stalk of the cashew, as well as from the fruit of the mangoe. There were spirits distilled by English methods from rice and sugar, and there were the many preparations of opium and of hemp, which, to a great extent, take the place in India of the alcoholic stimulants familiar to more northern climes, happily without producing quite such bad effects, although, no doubt, mischievous enough. The next head is the Certificate Tax, which gives us more than £650,000 (£653,848). This impost was introduced in 1867, by Mr. Massey, under the name of a license tax, but was somewhat altered in 1868, and changed its title. It amounted to a kind of graduated income tax, upon persons engaged in trades and professions; but as it has now, in the year 1869–70, merged in a different tax, of which I shall have to speak presently, I need not dwell further upon it. The Customs gave us upwards of £2,500,000 (£2,578,632). They are derived partly from export and. partly from import duties. The schedule of the first of these is very short, and contains only indigo, grain, lac, oils, seeds, shawls, cotton goods, hides or skins, and spices. The list of import duties is longer, still comprising sixty-five principal heads of taxed articles. Before 1867 they were far more numerous. The rates are low, 7½ per cent ad valorem, being the usual duty. Some classes of goods are exceptionally fa-
  1154
  voured—thus cotton twist pays only 3½ per cent; cotton, flax, silk, and woollen piece-goods only 5 per cent. It will be seen that our Indian tariff contrasts favourably with most others, though I confess that, speaking only for myself, and by no means committing anyone else, I trust the hour may one day arrive when we shall be enabled still further to reduce, not to say to extinguish, it altogether. The next head of revenue is that of Salt, from which we derived more than £5,700,000 (£5,726,093). The days are long gone by when this tax could fairly be represented as an extremely oppressive one. Nevertheless, there are large districts of the country, more especially the Punjaub, the Northwest Provinces, Central Provinces, and Oude, in which a very great deal is to be said for a reduction of duty, and in some parts of which the existing state of things is, at the least, highly inconvenient. This salt question has occupied, during the last year, much time, both in India and at the India Office, and I trust that before very long some improvements may be inaugurated. We are certainly very far from having yet arrived at the dernier mot of politico-economical wisdom in dealing with this matter. From salt, the third largest feeder of our revenue, I pass to Opium, the second largest, from which we received in 1867–8 nearly £9,000,000 (£8,923,568). Our opium revenue is derived from two sources — first, from the opium which is grown under our own superintendence, and prepared for exportation at Patna, in Bengal, and at Gazeepore in the North-west Provinces, after which it is sold by public auction for Government account; and, secondly, from a transit duty levied on the opium grown in the States of Central India, and shipped at Bombay. No one who occupies himself with Indian finance can be altogether happy about this revenue. I do not speak of its moral aspect; that is a large and interesting subject, on which I cannot enter now. When I speak of our opium revenue as a weak point, I am thinking only of its financial aspect. It is exposed, it seems to me, to three dangers—first, to the possibility of some movement in China which may effectually close that market; secondly, to an effective competition in the Chinese markets from other countries; and, thirdly, to such an improvement in the

  1155
  manufacture of opium in China itself, as to make it independent of the Indian supply. The first of these dangers is not an imaginary one; for we know that hostility to the poppy was one of the many strange characteristics of that terrible rebellion misnamed the Great Peace, which lately desolated so many cities in the Flowery Land, and added by its results one more irony to history. Nevertheless I cannot believe that any movement of this kind will ever be so general in China—a country which is, be it remembered, equal in size to eighteen Great Britains—as to lead to anything like an entire cessation of our traffic. Nay, rather, I expect that increased communication with Western China will favour it. As to the second danger, the increase of competition from other countries, especially Persia, some persons think it the gravest of the three; but it has not yet been proved that the supply is likely to increase very much. As to the third danger, the best authorities tell us that although the poppy is very largely grown in some parts of China, for instance in the great province of Szechuen, the Chinese drug cannot compete with the Indian, which stands to it in the relation of the Havanna cigar to ordinary European produce. At the same time, no one can venture to say that this superiority will always continue. Stamps gave us nearly £2,200,000 (£2,186,269). These do not differ materially in general character from those with which we are familiar at home. Up to the days of Mr. Wilson, the use of stamps in India had been confined to proceedings in the courts, but by him they were extended to bills of exchange, receipts, agreements, and other papers. Some persons expect a great deal of increase under this head of revenue, meeting the argument of the possible danger of a denial of justice, resulting from the operation of the stamp law, by pointing to the intense litigiousness so common in India, which they would fain check, lest our tribunals be altogether broken down—and no doubt the stamp revenue has grown enormously, having trebled itself since 1859–60; but it is a financial expedient, the operation of which seems to me eminently to require watching, and on which it would be easy to build too high hopes. The Mint yielded £120,000 (£120,252). The Post Office £660,000 (£659,670)—not a large
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  sum; but then it should be remembered that within the limits of India our post is one of the cheapest in the world. From Cape Comorin to Peshawur in the far North-west, from Peshawur to Sudyah in Assam, whence a few days' march takes the traveller into China, the charge is uniform, and the service is generally performed with fair regularity, though the Government of India very justly conceives that it can be still further improved, and is taking measures to import the last European methods. It is, perhaps, worth considering whether we should not increase our revenue, and do more real good to the population of the Indian Continent, taken as a whole, if we somewhat increased the charge for letters passing over long distances, and very considerably reduced the charge on letters passing over very short distances. A large amount of native correspondence is said to dispense with our postal facilities. The Telegraph gave us about £215,000. Fees of court and similar payments brought us in about £720,000 (£719,342), under the head of Law and Justice; and about £232,000 (£231,972) came in under the head of Police, from fines and payments for services performed. Shore dues, pilotage charges, and the like gave us £455,000(£455,090). School and College dues, with other small matters, made up a sum of about £74,000 (£73,845), under the head of Education. Interest on Government Securities held in the Currency department, on shares in the Bank of Bengal and Madras, and on advances to the various service funds, brought us about £212,000 (£211,975), and under the three heads of Miscellaneous, Army Miscellaneous, Public Works Miscellaneous, we received the large sum of £2,428,000 (£2,428,103) from sources too numerous to mention, but chiefly from the sale of stores. I have been dealing with round numbers, but the Committee will, I dare say, take it from me, that the amount of all our items of receipt united came to £48,534,412 in the year with which I am occupied, the year of Actuals, the year ending March 31, 1868.
  I now come to the other side of the account—to our expenditure. The first item which I would mention is the Interest on our Registered Debt in India, amounting to £62,827,200, for which we paid in the year ending 31st March, 1868, £2,761,000 (£2,761,833). Our home debt

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  was, on 31st March, 1868, £30,697,000, on which we paid £1,452,490, so that we are paying £4 13 s. 8d. per cent on the debt in England and India taken as a whole. In the year 1800 we were paying 8½ per cent upon our debt. That is not a very unsatisfactory state of things —little more than 4½ per cent on a debt equivalent to about twice our gross annual income. I wish our home debt was no worse, and the other great Empires of the, world, the United States, France, and Russia, may well wish the same, although our positions are not quite similar. I do not know if the attention of hon. Members interested in India has been called to a short Return which was laid before the House some weeks ago, showing approximately the amount of our registered debt in India held by Europeans and natives respectively. From that it would appear that a good deal more than three times as much of our securities is held by Europeans as by natives, and that a larger amount is held in London, in enfaced paper alone, than is held by natives in all our funds put together. One sometimes hears a good deal of uneasiness expressed at the small amount of the Government securities which are held by natives, and conclusions are drawn unfavourable to the confidence of the native population in the security of the tenure by which we hold India. No doubt it would be desirable to have a far larger number of native holders, and perhaps as time goes on we shall, by savings banks and other devices, succeed in tapping the hoards of the non-mercantile classes. The education of those classes has not, however, yet reached the investing point; and, as for the mercantile classes, why on earth should they invest at under 5 per cent, when they can get perfectly good security at 12 or 18 per cent? Such being the golden opportunities of the Indian investor, we cannot be surprised that those natives who hold our securities largely should be chiefly persons whose families have risen to importance through their connection with the British, and who are, to a certain extent, Europeanized. The second item is Interest on Service Funds and other Accounts, for which we paid more than £800,000 (£824,113). The Military and Bengal and Bombay Medical Service Funds have been taken over by us since the amalgamation, we be-
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  coming responsible to the subscribers and annuitants for the amount they would have received if the old arrangements had continued. When the last beneficiary under the funds dies, the whole funds, and a good deal more which we have given as a matter of grace and favour, will have disappeared, the charge will vanish from our account, and the capital which we only administered, so to speak, as trustees, will vanish also. The Civil Service Annuity Fund and the Widows' Funds, also in connection with the Civil Service, still go on, and, so long as they continue, the charge on their account will appear in our expenditure.
  Then come the expenses in getting in our revenue, classed under thirteen heads, with which I will not trouble the Committee, because there are only two of these items to which I think it is worth while particularly to allude. These are the Post Office and the Telegraph. The facilities given by the former are, as I have already shown, very great, but the expense is also considerable, and it is steadily increasing. In the year with which we are dealing it cost £490,000 (£491,690). The Telegraph cost£396,000 (£396,517), being more than it brought in; but, considering the peculiar conditions under which the service is carried out, this is not surprising. We send messages of ten words from one end of India to the other for 2s. Law and Justice cost £2,500,000 (£2,544,849), a sum whose relative if not absolute amount may be perhaps diminished, if it is found, as I hope it may bo, that we can substitute, to a considerable extent, in the judicial department, cheap native for high-priced European agency. I do not think I need specify the sums which we paid for Marine Charges, Ecclesiastical Charges, Medical Services, Stationery, and Printing; but the Committee may be interested to know that Superannuation, Retired, and Compassionate Allowances in India cost more than £900,000 (£911,256). Administration and Public Departments are set down in our accounts as costing £1,100,000 (£1,124,396); but, of course, a large part of the items which I have described as charges for getting in our revenue, are made up of administration charges. It is a pity that no one has ever succeeded in convoying to the imagination of Englishmen what their countrymen

  1159
  really do in the way of administration in India. When one has realized it, one's first feeling is one of satisfaction that men taken out of the ordinary current of English life, neither superior nor inferior in point of natural ability to the ordinary run of fairly successful professional men at home, should be capable of doing, under the stimulus of early responsibility, such wonderful things; and his second feeling is, that we hardly make sufficient use of the large number of trained administrators who return year by year to our shores. England affords no field for their labours, no field for the exercise of their peculiar aptitudes. If they succeed here, it is by virtue of possessing other aptitudes; but the remarkable administration of Sir John Peter Grant in Jamaica shows that England need never be at a loss when a colony situated like that island has to be rescued, and surely if such things were possible, more than one country might borrow retired Indian Governors to its own great advantage. The next charge which I shall mention, is that for Allowances and Assignments under Treaties and Engagements, about £1,900,000 (£1,873,072), a head of expenditure which was once neatly described in this House as the purchase-money of our position in India. That is a phrase which would require, of course, large qualification to make it square accurately with the facts, but it represents a side of the truth about our position in India which is too often forgotten by persons of the blood-and-iron school. The Indian Diplomatic Service cost £240,000 (£241,801), not a large sum when we remember the vast amount of work that is done for it. It is impossible to keep too continually before us the fact that India was not won, is not held, and never will be held, by force alone. It was won, it is held, and it always will be held, while our Empire lasts, partly by force, but largely, much more largely, by policy. Next to making the people happy within our own territories, there is nothing so important as the maintenance of satisfactory relations with the powers, small and great, scattered up and down through our vast dominions, and that not only with great princes like Scindiah, or, greater still, the Nizam, but with very many others of far inferior importance, who are yet, most of them, a good deal more influen-
  1160
  tial than the observer of Indian politics would, at first sight, suppose. I am happy to say that at present our relations with all the native States is very satisfactory. From this trifling charge for policy, it is melancholy to turn to the frightful drain on our resources which is caused by the sad necessity of being always ready to use the "last argument of kings." The total Army charges in India for the year under consideration amounted to over £12,600,000 (£12,603,467). In England, including costs of stores, they nearly reached the sum of £3,500,000 (£3,499,829). Thus the total Army charges in England and India were £16,100,000 (£16,103,296). Enormous as this sum is, the force which we maintain is not very great. We had, by the last Returns, 64,704 Europeans serving in India, as against 45,522, the number which we had on the 1st day of January in the year of the Mutiny; and we had of native troops 122,984, as against 249,153, whom we had on that same 1st day of January, 1857.
  "There is no country in the world," says Major Cheney, "in which the military force bears so small a proportion to the population. City for city, the military garrisons of India are smaller than even those of England."
  The strong point of our system is, that we have an organization by which we could rapidly, in case of war, increase our Army to any extent we desire. Its weakest point is its enormous cost, and to this the attention of the Secretary of State in Council has been lately called. The result has been a despatch to India, which will, I trust, strengthen the hands of economists in that country. Over and above our Army we have a Police Force, which numbered, at the end of 1865, nearly 160,000 men, and cost, in 1867–8, nearly £2,500,000 (£2,434,125.) Rears have been more than once expressed in this House as to whether it was safe to maintain so large a body of armed men alongside of our native troops. The truth would seem to be, that through very large districts of the country the police is in a satisfactory condition, and in no way either dangerous or inefficient, but that in other parts it is susceptible of improvement. The next item to which I will allude is Education, Science, and Art, our civilizing agencies, which, with its £780,000 (£783,510), shows very poorly beside our colossal military outgoings. The purely educational portion

  1161
  of this sum of £780,000 went, for the most part, to the maintenance of Government Schools and Colleges, but some of it also for grants-in-aid, scholarships, payment of inspectors, Government book-depots, &c. We have six classes of schools in India—(1.) Village or Vernacular Schools; (2.) District Schools, where English is taught in the higher classes; (3.) Colleges, where the education is conducted in English; (4.) two Presidency Colleges, each with a faculty of arts and law; (5.) the Engineering and Medical Colleges; (6.) the Normal Schools. In all, we may have about 20,000 schools, or like establishments, with a continually improving network of official inspection. It is a matter for congratulation to those who have had of late years the disposal of Indian patronage, that when the University of Edinburgh was called upon to select a successor to a man so eminent as the late Sir David Brewster, it sent to the other end of the world for the Director of Public Instruction at Bombay. So much for our teaching machinery. Our machinery for testing the success of our higher education consists of three Universities—one at Bombay, one at Madras, and one at Calcutta—all modelled on the University of London, and doing their work extremely well. £780,000 would not be a large sum if the whole of it were spent on education; but out of this inconsiderable amount come innumerable expenses, such as those of our great surveys, the trigonometrically, the topographical, the revenue, and others; so also do the expenses of observatories, museums, scientific and literary institutions, botanical gardens, and other things too numerous to mention. In the Central Provinces, which are about as big as the British Isles, surveys and museums seem to have cost, in the year of which I am speaking, the magnificent sum of £35. This is, however, the day of small things in all these matters, and I heartily hope that this item of Indian expenditure will steadily increase, because money expended on education and civilization will, to take the lowest view, soon pay us cent per cent. Under the head Miscellaneous come expenses which defy classification; such as rewards for the destruction of wild beasts, charitable donations, cotton experiments, with much else. Under this head, too, are classed famine relief charges, which, in Bengal,
  1162
  amounted to no less than £227,826, that is, to rather more than a third of the total amount which stands under the head of Miscellaneous in India—over £670,000 (£672,992).
  I come now to the last item of our ordinary expenditure in India, the largest of all except our Army expenditure, that, namely, for Public Works Ordinary, for which we paid in India, in the year with which I am dealing, no less than £5,800,000 (£5,800,269). There are two reproaches often brought against Indian administration which effectually neutralize each other. The one is, that enough is not done to improve the magnificent estate which we possess in the East; and the other is, that India lives quite up to her income, and is always borrowing a little. The position, however, of the Indian Government is precisely the position of a country gentleman who, with a moderate immediate income, has a large and very improvable property, on which it is distinctly right for him to make improvement of two kinds, improvements which, I suppose, the country gentleman would class in Ms accounts as improvements not bearing interest, and improvements bearing interest. The first of these are what we call in India "Public Works Ordinary," and the second are what we call "Public Works Extraordinary." Under the first of these heads the country gentleman would class cottages, roads, and other improvements which he made for the general benefit of his estate, but not as directly and immediately remunerative. And we class under it in India precisely the same kind of things—as roads, improved barracks for our troops, and, in short, all ameliorations which will improve our general position, but will not give direct, obvious, palpable returns for our money. Till recently it has not been the custom of financiers in India to draw a sufficiently broad line between these two very different kinds of expenditure; but a peremptory order was sent out by my right hon. Friend opposite, directing that henceforward only irrigation works, State railways, and what are known as the Special Fund works of Bombay, shall be considered as Extraordinary.
  The Committee is aware that new barracks are now being constructed all over India on a magnificent scale. Some persons wish us to treat these as the for-

  1163
  tifications of this country were treated by the Government of Lord Palmerston, urging that the saving of European life which they will bring about will diminish our military expenditure, and that they will be possessions for ever, as useful for posterity as for ourselves. We are not so sanguine. We feel that, although it is right to provide the best accommodation for our troops that the science of the day can give, we have by no means arrived at final results, good for all time, with respect to the method of housing our troops; and that, although the huge buildings which are now rising, in deference to public opinion, under the combined advice of benevolence and science, are an improvement upon much that preceded them, they may yet be very far from fulfilling the conditions which the same authority may prescribe to the Indian Governors of the future. Again, even if these barracks could be considered the last expression of sanitary science in stone and lime, posterity, if it has not barracks to build, will, assuredly, have plenty of other things to build. We need only see how our expenditure, both on improvements bearing interest and improvements not bearing interest, has increased in our own time, and to listen to the loud voices, which even now accuse us of sluggishness, to be very sure of that. Common roads, again, we think, should be paid for out of income. The reason of this is, that while we can see some end, though a far-off end, to the making of railways in India, the making of roads will be endless; and to throw the charge for thorn upon capital would be wildly improvident. A great deal has been already spent upon making roads in the last quarter-of-a-century, since a sudden impulse was given to this form of improvement, first by Mr. Thomason in the North-west Provinces, and then under the orders of Lord Dalhousie in the Punjaub. Still, so enormous is the country with which we are dealing—as large, the Committee will keep in mind, as Europe without Russia—that we have hardly done more than make a commencement, although we are already constructing at the rate of about 8,000 miles of good road in every ten years— each mile of good road costing, according to Major Chesney, £1,000 to make, and £75 a year to keep up. What are 8,000 miles of road, however, in a coun-
  1164
  try like India? After all it only means, supposing it were distributed equally, eighty miles of good road a year in each of the ten provinces; eighty miles in Oude, which is as big as Holland and Belgium; eighty miles in the Punjaub, which is as big as the kingdom of Italy; nay, eighty miles in Bengal, which is very much bigger than France. If we were once to begin borrowing for roads we should borrow to the crack of doom. Looking through the items for Public Works Ordinary, I confess it seems to me that the amount spent is greater than it ought to be, and I hope that, although it might be bad economy suddenly to stop plans in progress, greater caution may be used in future before new schemes are entered upon. Another part of the Public Works Ordinary expenditure requires a word of explanation, loss by exchange on railway transactions—£ 101,877. This loss arises in the following way:—When the arrangements with the Indian railway companies were made, it was provided that for every rupee they paid in in India from their traffic receipts, they should be credited with 1s. 10 d. in London, and for every 1s. 10 d. they paid in in London to our account at the Bank of England, that is, for every 1s. 10 d. of capital they raised, they should be credited with a rupee in India. A rupee is, however, at the usual rate of exchange, worth 2s., and not 1s. 10 d., and all accounts between the Indian Office and the Indian Governments are settled at that figure. It follows, therefore, that the companies lose 2d. on every rupee they pay in in India, and gain 2d. on every 1s. 10 d. they pay in in England, and that as the one-and-tenpences they pay in in England are more numerous than the rupees they pay in in India, they gain and we lose a great deal in the course of the year. Ere long, however, I am happy to say, that the tables will be turned; they will pay in more rupees in India than one-and-tenpences here, and we, not they, will begin to be the winners in the game of exchange.
  I have now exhausted our ordinary expenditure in India. It remains to say a very few words on that portion of our expenditure which, as a matter of convenience, is disbursed at home, but over nearly all of which the Home Government has, in the nature of things, only the same general control that it has over

  1165
  the expenditure in India itself. First came the Charges on account of our Home Debt and of some other debt paid at home, for which we paid in 1867–8, £1,516,841, to which must be added £629,970, the Dividends on the Capital Stock of the East India Company. Over these charges we have, of course, no control. Then came the charge for the guaranteed Interest on Railway Capital, less net traffic receipts. That cost more than £1,500,000. Next followed Stores, which cost £970,000, and some other items of the same nature which I need not mention. The Committee will understand that the authorities in India indent on us for everything they want from home. We collect most of the manufactured goods which they require in that large building which stands on the south side of the river between the railway bridge at Charing Cross and Westminster Bridge, examine the articles carefully, pack them, and send them off; other things go direct. From time to time we consider the indents too large, and remonstrate; but, on the whole, the check over expenditure of this kind must be exercised by the good sense of those who order, not by the agents who execute the orders. Our business is rather to see that the Indian Government gets its money's worth for its money, and I must say I think the indents of India might often with advantage be reduced. Then came an item over which we have more control—the Secretary of State's Office and its dependencies, the great India Stores of which I have just been speaking; and, in short, the whole machinery of Indian government in this country. That cost about £193,000 (£193,141). We subscribe £35,000 a year to aid the Imperial Government to keep up a Mission at the Court of Persia, and Consular and Diplomatic Establishments in China. Our Army expenses at home I have already stated. As with revenue so with expenditure, I have been using throughout round numbers, but the Committee will, I dare say, take it from me, that the exact amount of the whole expenditure that I have been tracing conies to £49,542,107, chargeable against our income for the year ending 31st of March, 1868.
  So much then for our ordinary expenditure. We are not done, however, with our outgoings for 1867–8, for we spent
  1166
  £219,255 for irrigation works, £382,613 for Special Fund works, as they are called, and £594 in preliminary expenses in connection with railway operations to be undertaken by the State; £602,462 in all. About irrigation works and about State railways I shall have to speak presently. I must first, however, say a word about the Special Fund works, for this phrase, which occurs so often of late years in the Indian accounts, certainly requires explanation. Some time ago the Government of Bombay determined to pull down the ramparts of that city, which were considered useless for modern purposes, to sell the land on which they wore built, and to apply the proceeds to the construction of now and more available defences, as well as of a new post office, new court houses, recreation grounds, roads, and a great many other good things. If Bombay had continued prosperous, I think it is probable that all this could have been carried out without making any demand for assistance from the Imperial funds of India. But the crash came—the land cleared of the ramparts, which was expected to fetch immense prices, became temporarily unsaleable, except at a ruinous sacrifice, and Bombay had to approach the Government of India as a suppliant, and to ask for assistance to carry on its works, until the tide of prosperity began to flow again. The Government of India agreed to assist it, and the result is this frequently recurring expenditure for Special Fund works at Bombay, which, if the Government of India holds perfectly good security for the re-payment of its advances, both principal and interest is, quite rightly, not charged against annual income. The accounts, then, of the year ending 31st of March, 1868, when balanced, show a deficit, proving that £1,007,695 have been expended over and above what has been received, irrespective of an amount of about £600,000 which has been sunk in directly reproductive works, and which may be considered simply as capital invested. In round numbers, then, India was, in the year 1867–8, just about £1,000,000 to the bad.
  I come now to what is called the Regular Estimate, by which not very appropriate term is designated the estimate of our receipts and expenditure for the year intervening between the close of the year of which we possess

  1167
  the actual accounts, and the commencement of the year with regard to which all is calculation or conjecture. In this case, of course, the year of the Regular Estimate is the year which began on the 1st of April, 1868, and ended on the 31st of March, 1869. In March of this year, 1869, the Indian Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Richard Temple) expected to receive about £750,000 more during the year of the Regular Estimate than Mr. Massey anticipated in March, 1868, from the year of the Regular Estimate, and expected to pay, in round numbers, for the ordinary expenditure of the year, £3,750,000 more than Mr. Massey anticipated having to pay in that year. £3,750,000 of extra expenditure is somewhat startling, but I hasten to explain that £1,750,000 of it arise simply from a change of account. Mr. Massey having charged £1,750,000 for barracks and like works to extraordinary expenditure, or, as we should say in our own private accounts, to capital, and Sir Richard Temple, under the orders to which I have already alluded from the right hon. Gentleman opposite, being most properly, as I think, obliged to charge the same to ordinary expenditure. It remains then to account for the increase of £2,000,000 anticipated by Sir Richard Temple. That arose— first, from an unexpected additional outlay on central jails; secondly, from the fact that the amount of traffic receipts paid over by the guaranteed railway companies to us, in diminution of the interest we pay to their shareholders, has been less than we anticipated; thirdly, from a largely increased expenditure in England, including stores sent out to India from this country, on the requisition of the authorities there—an increase which we observed during the progress of the year, and thought so formidable that we were obliged to call the attention of the Government of India to it by a special despatch; fourthly and lastly, from famine relief works. The year 1868 was, as we all remember, a very exceptional year in Europe so far as the weather was concerned. It was also a very exceptional year in India, and towards its close the greatest possible alarm was excited about the condition of Behar, of the North-west Provinces, of the whole of the native States in Rajpootana, and of all the British districts bordering upon them.
  1168
  It was not only a famine of grain, but a famine of water. The cattle, so indispensable to the native cultivator, died by thousands, and great populations pouring out of the most afflicted territories, such as Marwar, overflowed into our provinces. The great calamity of Orissa had, however, produced its effect. Immense efforts were made alike by the local and by the central authorities; and before Christmas it was pretty clear that, although there might be terrible distress, there would, in purely British possessions, be no famine. Just, however, at the most critical moment, telegrams reached London to say that copious and far-extending falls of rain had suddenly come to the rescue, so that the spring crops have been saved in extensive regions, where, before this fortunate event, there was no hope. Still, however, the failure of last year's crop has pressed with terrible severity upon many thousands of people, and not only does it show its effects in diminishing the expected receipts, and increasing the expected expenditure of the year with which I am dealing — the year of the Regular Estimate—but it throws something of a shadow over the year of which I am presently going to speak—the year of calculation and conjecture. The general result of the somewhat increased receipts and the much increased expenditure, as it seemed to Sir Richard Temple, in the month of March last, was that the ordinary expenditure of the year of the Regular Estimate will be about £1,000,000 more than the receipts. In short, he conceived that there would be a deficit of about £1,000,000. Such were substantially the prospects of the year of the Regular Estimate — for the year, that is, ending 31st March, 1869, when Sir Richard Temple made his statement in Calcutta in the month of March last. Our latest news, however, from India, does not, I regret to say, permit me to stop here. The Committee will remember that in the month of March, Sir Richard Temple had only before him the accounts of about eight months of the year 1868–9, and the four months of which he had not the accounts are the critical months of the Indian financial year. The two great Indian crops are gathered in November and March, and the briskest Indian trade goes on during the cold seasons. We have still only imperfect informa-

  1169
  tion, but it seems probable that the accounts of the year 1868–9 will not turn out even so well as Sir Richard Temple expected.
  I come now to the year 1869–70, the year of the Budget Estimate; the year for which we have no accounts, and which is entirely dependent on calculation and conjecture. Speaking in the month of March, Sir Richard Temple expected to receive about £49,300,000. He calculated on a great falling off in the opium revenue — a falling off of nearly £637,000, as compared with the year 1867–8; but he expected to retrieve this by a better return on various heads of expenditure — for instance, on salt, and by changing the certificate tax into an income tax. This is, I think, a very good impost, free from the faults of the old income tax imposed by Mr. Wilson, the defects of which have been, perhaps, a good deal exaggerated. It will very slightly alter the taxation of those who now pay the certificate tax, while it will catch the rich landholder, the holder of house property, and the fund holder who receives his dividends in India. Managed by a rough assessment, it will not require any returns or any inquisitorial process; and not falling below £50 of annual income, it will only be paid by 150,000 persons — that is, literally, by about one in 1,000 of our Indian fellow subjects.
  Turning to the other side of the account, Sir Richard Temple expected to expend rather less than he did expend in the year 1867–8, and a good deal less than he expected to expend in the year 1868–9—£49,250,000 in all, thus obtaining a small surplus of £50,000. This was, it is impossible to deny, running it very fine; and I am not over sanguine about our surplus in 1869–70, though, if peace and weather favour us, all may be well. I am speaking, the Committee will ob-serve, of our ordinary expenditure. Over and above our ordinary expenditure, however, we shall have in this year, 1869–70, to expend about £3,500,000 (£3,565,800) in remunerative public works—public works for the execution of which we think ourselves entitled to borrow. Of this large sum about £2,750,000 will be for irrigation works. £360,800 will be for the State railways, including £250,000 for a railway from Lahore to Peshawur (£257,000). The rest will be for the Special Fund works
  1170
  at Bombay. The very large sum which we propose to devote to irrigation includes rather more than £1,000,000 (£1,055,000), which we have lately paid under the provisions of an Act of Parliament of this Session, for the transfer to us 6f the great works commenced by the East India Irrigation Company in the delta of the Mahanuddy in Orissa, and of certain rights, which that company had, to make irrigation works in the province of Behar. A further sum of about £600,000 will be spent in various parts of India, much of it in connection with the Granges and Jumna river system, some of it near Poona, and in many other places. Irrigation is, I need not say, of the last importance in the development of our great Indian estate, and we shall spend, I believe, a great many millions upon it before the century is done. At the same time we should, I think, be cautious not to allow ourselves to be led away by those who believe irrigation to be a panacea. Irrigation would not by itself have prevented the Orissa catastrophe. Roads and railways coming in aid of irrigation would have prevented it. Anyone who looks at the maps prepared by Mr. Frederick Danvers, which I lately laid upon the table, and which will presently be in the hands of Members, will be glad to observe that although much remains to be done, much has been already effected. The Granges Canal alone would entitle the Government which created it to a high place amongst the benefactors of mankind. It is, however, out of the question for us to carry on either great irrigation works or State railways out of annual income; and if they are to be useful, as we believe, to future generations, and if they are to be directly remunerative to us, there is no reason why they should be so carried on. Some of our friends are advising us to spend £10,000,000 a year, out of borrowed money, for the construction of remunerative public works. No array of terms can express how glad we should be to do so if we had a certainty that we could spend that sum in works which would be remunerative to us. We think, however, that in the new railway scheme which has been so much discussed since it was laid before the country by my noble Friend the Secretary of State for India, ten days ago, and which will, I doubt not, be much

  1171
  discussed here to-day, we are going just as far and as fast as we dare, with a due regard to prudence and to the safety of our credit. If we find we can in future years go further and faster, depend upon it we shall be only too happy to do so; but I fear our friends who are so very urgent in pressing us to spend £10,000,000 a year on remunerative public works would be uncommonly sorry to guarantee the Indian funds standing as high this day ten years, if we follow their advice, as they did in The Times this morning.
  Now, then, the Committee knows all that I can tell it about the probabilities of our receipts and outgoings for 1869–70. There is, however, another question which must be asked and answered, before our pecuniary position is fairly before hon. Members, and that is, What was the state of our Indian cash balances at the close of the year of the regular estimate? In other words, What balance may India have had at her banker's on 31st March, 1869? India had at her banker's, on 31st March, 1869, £10,359,497. That is, I think, a sufficient cash balance, but she will, during 1869–70, have to borrow £3,565,000 for extraordinary public works, and she will have to borrow the better part of £1,500,000 to meet certain liabilities becoming payable during the year, if she is to have as good a balance at her banker's on 31st March, 1870, as she had on 31st March, 1869. £2,000,000 of this she has already borrowed on an open 4 per cent loan at 901/6 in India. £400,000 has been lent on reasonable terms by the Rajah of Putteealla, and the remainder, that is, £2,600,000, will be raised chiefly in this country. A Bill enabling us to borrow £8,000,000 in this country stands on the Orders to-day. We may very possibly be able to get through this financial year without trenching upon this sum, but that is very doubtful, for our borrowing powers under the last Act are nearly at an end.
  Well, then, I have told the financial story of the year about which we know everything, the year about which we know a good deal, and the year about which we can, in the nature of things, only make more or less plausible guesses. I have told it with an earnest desire to blink no disagreeable facts, and have, with that object, been studious to use, at the risk of incurring excommunica-
  1172
  tion from all the optimist school of Indian financiers, the ugly, unpleasant word deficit. Now, however, when it is all said and done, is our position so very bad? Let us see what prospects there are of things getting better. I will not enlarge on our undeveloped resources. It may be very right for others to do so, but for me it is more pardonable to err on the side of expecting too little than too much. In 1874 we shall get rid of a charge of about £430,000 a year, being so much of the old India Stock as will be covered by the Guarantee Fund now accumulating to pay off as much as it can of our liabilities under this head. Turn, then, to Guaranteed Interest on Railway Capital. That figures at considerably over £1,500,000, alike in the year of the Actuals, in the year of the Regular Estimate, and in the year of the Budget Estimate. Now, here is an expenditure which, although it may continue at its present amount for some time, will not continue at its present amount indefinitely. One line after another will gradually become paying, and the burdens of the State under this head will be largely reduced. Turn, then, to loss by exchange on railway transactions, more than £100,000. I have already shown that the items of loss by exchange on railway transactions will ere long cross over from the expenditure to the receipt side. There was a time when a great deal was expected from the sale of waste lands in India. It was to go far, in the opinion of some, to pay off our debt. These golden dreams have not been realized; yet a decade in the life of a nation is but a small thing, and in the next two generations I fully believe that the sale of waste lands, partly to natives, and in certain districts also to European colonists, will not improbably have to some extent lightened our burdens. That, however, is for the future. For further help at present we must look to economy, and our chief hopes must centre in a large reduction of Army expenditure, and a determination to restrict Public Works Ordinary within reasonable limits. It is all very well to say that most of these works are likely to be very useful; but unless they are to be directly remunerative, some of them must wait until we can afford them better than we can now. In so great an expenditure there is abundant room for retrench-

  1173
  ment. Something may be done, I think, in other directions, but I will not weary the Committee by speaking of smaller economies. I have no doubt, however, that if the Anglo-Indian mind once disabuses itself of the pernicious heresy that its finances are in a thoroughly satisfactory state, and once for all resolutely refuses to listen to the sirens who sing to it that barracks and the like should be built out of loans, we shall soon put an end to Indian deficits. It should never be forgotten that our revenue not only rises, but positively springs upwards. In the year 1856–7, the year before the Mutiny, it stood at £33,000,000. In the year 1867–8, it stood, as we have seen, at £48,000,000, and this not by acquisition of fresh territory, and in spite of the fact that India, after making all allowance for the comparative poverty of her population, is one of the most lightly taxed countries in the world. The progress seen in all directions is great and incessant. If India is living fully up to her income, she has, at least, the consolation of enjoying her life. We hear much about the laches of the Indian Government in promoting commerce; but the imports and exports, which were under £15,000,000 in 1834–5, were over £101,000,000 in 1867–8: not bad progress for one generation. We have over 4,000 miles of railways open, and we have 1,820 more under construction, or about to be constructed, as part of our old scheme, and we have a huge new scheme settled and about to be undertaken. Material progress is the mother of moral progress, and it needs but little insight to see everywhere indications that the ideal of at least the upper and middle classes in India is sensibly rising. The civilization of Europe is beginning not merely to varnish over the surface of Indian society, but to stir the Indian mind to its depths. The two great branches of the Indo-European race, which parted before the dawning of history on the plateau of Central Asia, have met, rich with the contrasted experiences of I know not how many thousand years. The ancient and fruitful antagonism between East and West, which fills so large a part of human history, is renewed under changed conditions, to what strange issues who shall say?
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it appears by the Accounts laid before this House that the total Revenue of India for the year ending the 31st day of March 1868 was £48,534,412; the total of the direct claims upon the Revenue, including charges of collection and cost of Salt and Opium was £8,957,464; the charges in India, including Interest on Debt, and Public Works ordinary, were £32,362,402; the value of Stores supplied from England was £970,920; the charges in England were £5,710,880; the Guaranteed Interest on the Capital of Railway and other Companies, in India and in England, deducting net Traffic Receipts, was £1,540,435, making a total charge for the same year of £49,542,107; and there was an excess of Expenditure over Income in that year amounting to £1,007,695; that the charge for Public Works extraordinary was £602,462, and that including that charge the excess of Expenditure over Income was £1,610,157."
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, it was not his intention to follow his hon. Friend through all the figures he had submitted. His hon. Friend in the course of his very able and lucid speech had referred to matters of great moment to one who, like himself, had passed many years of his life in India, and who still felt great interest in that country. He should like to say a few words upon the demand now made by the Secretary of State for India to use his borrowing powers, and to the great change in the policy of the Indian Government in regard to the manner in which railways were in future to be constructed and worked in India. With regard to the Financial Statement, the best conclusion he could come to was that the Indian Government required to raise, during the present year, a sum of about £5,000,000; of which £3,500,000 was required for carrying on various extraordinary works for India, £1,000,000 for paying the debt, and £500,000 for replenishing the cash balances in India. By the Bill which would come on for discussion at the Evening Sitting his hon. Friend would ask the House to authorize the Secretary of State to raise between the present time, and April 30, 1872, the very large sum of £8,000,000 sterling in this country for the service of India. What he (Mr. Crawford) desired to do was to call attention to the way in which this power of borrowing money was likely to be exercised, judging from the manner in which it had been exercised by previous Secretaries of State. In the year 1863, the then Secretary of State for India (Sir Charles Wood) came before Parliament for authority to raise a similar sum of £8,000,000 for the pur-

  1175
  pose of re-placing debts that had been incurred in this country; and what was the course of policy which he pursued? Why, he went into the market, when he wanted money, without any communication with the public, disposed by private arrangement of the securities for the sums he was authorized to raise, and the public knew nothing whatever of the demands made upon it. The whole transaction was conducted secretly, so that only a limited traffic or dealing took place in the particular stock dealt with in the market. That was not a proper way of raising money. In the language of the Stock Exchange, the Secretary for India "turned on the tap when he wanted to raise money." If, however, he wanted money, it would be better that he should come into the market and say how much he wanted, in which case, by inducing competition, he would raise money on better terms. His hon. Friend had referred to the public debt of India, which he stated was £62,000,000. He also alluded to a Paper, which had been laid upon the table two or three weeks ago, giving the details of that debt, from which it appeared that the securities were of various forms and denominations, extending as far back as 1824–5. Some of the loans were of very small amount, and if measures could be taken for consolidating these into one single debt he believed that considerable advantage would be gained. The ultimate re-payment of principal might be secure, and also the payment of interest meanwhile; but with small stocks not easily marketable, a loss was always entailed on those holders who found it necessary to realize. If, however, these different stocks were all consolidated into one stock in a form which would meet the requirements of the present day, the public would not alone be pleased, but the value of the security would doubtless be increased. He desired also to make a remark with regard to the export duties of India. It was perfectly true, as stated by his hon. Friend, that they were few in number, but they were levied, contrary to all sound principles, on some of the principal commodities exported from India. Every 82 lb. of grain exported—and this country drew from thence a great deal of grain in the shape of rice and for consumption in distillation,—incurred a charge of 3 annas, or 4½d., before it left
  1176
  India, the effect of which was not merely to limit our access to the Indian market, but to diminish the sales of the producer of grain. That portion of the indigo crop produced in Madras had to encounter a sharp competition here with the indigo grown in Central America; yet while the Madras indigo had to pay 3 rupees for every 82 lb., that which came from Guatemala and other Central States was free, and being produced on the Continent of America was admitted into the New York market on more favourable terms than the produce of India. Moreover, these very commodities, taxed so heavily on their export from India, had already paid a heavy tax to the Government in the. assessment of the soil upon which they were grown. There were other commodities to which reference might be made; but he had said enough, he thought, to show that the continued levy of these charges was attended with positive disadvantage to Indian interests. Another subject to which he would refer, and which was of the greatest importance, was the new railway policy to be carried out in India, which had been described by the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) in "another place," and was also described in the despatch which had been laid upon the table. No opportunity, however, had been given to the House of Commons of perusing this despatch till Saturday last, though there was reason to believe that it had been for some time in readiness; the Report of Mr. Danvers on the Indian railways had been ready, to his own knowledge, for some time before it was published. The House had a right to expect that these documents would be placed before them in sufficient time to enable them to be perused and considered, and these should not have been, he must almost say, withheld, until so late a period of the Session. He believed the view taken in that despatch was based upon a Minute by Lord Lawrence, dictated, he was sure, by a single object of what was for the benefit of India. A new state of things had arisen, and the Government were perfectly justified in seizing the present opportunity of considering whether they could not extend the railway system of India by a principle of action different from that which had hitherto been followed. The only exception which he took to the action of the Government was that they ap-

  1177
  peared to ground this new policy upon a condemnation of the existing system. Instead of being condemned, the existing system was rather, in many respects, an example to be followed. The foundation of the Government policy in constructing railways for themselves was this. Hitherto, no money had been found for the construction of railways in India, except on the security of the Government, and as the rate guaranteed for raising money in the market had been uniformly 5 per cent., whereas the Government themselves could borrow money at 4 per cent, they were losers of 1 per cent upon the transaction. He was pre- pared to dispute these assertions, and to prove that they were based upon error. The Government also alleged that the railway companies had hitherto constructed their lines—as it was called in India—departmental!)'; that was to say, by means of contractors, acting under the direction and supervision of the engineers and staff of the companies. Contractors had been employed in this country and their servants sent out; and it was suggested that these measures could as well be taken by the Government as by the companies. It was further alleged that the process of construction by the companies heretofore had been needlessly extravagant and costly, and that the working was extravagant, ill-managed, and profitless. He admitted the necessity of a Government guarantee to raise money for works in India, but the remainder of the argument he denied. When it was represented, for instance, that it had cost 5 per cent to raise the money for construction, and that the Government guarantee accordingly was the sole test of the value of the railway property, he pointed to the fact that there were different railway companies whose shares commanded, not an uniform, but different values in the market. The stock of the line with which he was connected—the Best Indian—was selling for 111, whereas the stocks of the other Indian companies as a rule did not fetch more than 106 or 108. If the Government guarantee of 5 per cent were the sole test of value they would all be exactly equal in price. There was an- other element which had been left out of sight, and that was the element of the speculation that the profits arising from the railways would exceed 5 per cent, as they had already done in two or three
  1178
  instances. In the course of the last year and the present year, his company had occasion to raise £2,000,000. The Government said,'' It is unreasonable in you to ask us to guarantee 5 per cent, because you will issue the stock at a large premium, which you will then put into your own pockets." The company felt the objection to be a reasonable one; but they urged the Government not to make a difference in the rate of interest hitherto guaranteed, and undertook to pay over the gain of £110,000, obtained by the issue of the stock at the current price, into the hands of the Secretary of State, to form part of the capital of the company to which the Government guarantee would not attach, because it was not the property of any individual shareholders. There was one passage in the Minute of Lord Lawrence which he thought had been written without due care or consideration, and was certainly unjust to the railway companies. His Lordship stated that their capital was an investment from which a return was guaranteed under all circumstances, and that in some cases even a wasteful outlay might be directly advantageous to the officials, as leading to the creation of stock. The meaning of this—and it was so stated in the despatch of the Government — was that the shareholders and managers of these railway companies were indifferent to the sums which they expended on the construction of their railways, because the more they expended, and the more stock they got out, the more they would make in the way of profit in placing these shares in the market. He ventured to assert that out of the £80,000,000 raised in this country for the construction of Indian railways there had been no larger outlay or allowance than fairly covered the expense of placing these shares in the market. The whole of that money had been paid over, and not a single farthing beyond the legitimate profit on the issue had been kept for their own advantage. He fully admitted that there were times when the Government might go into the market and borrow money at 4 per cent, but there were other times when they could not do so. During 1859, when the Indian Government was unable to obtain money on reasonable terms, or on hardly any terms, in the market, the railway companies wore enabled to raise large sums at a moderate rate of interest,

  1179
  partly, no doubt, because they could offer the security of the Government guarantee, but also because they could offer, in addition, the tangible security of valuable property. Under these circumstances it could not be said that the Government were in a better position to raise money than the private railway companies. The Indian railway companies had been charged with reckless extravagance in the construction of their lines. He would lay before the Committee a few facts which, he thought, would show that that charge was entirely unfounded. It appeared from Mr. Danvers's Report — which was issued on Saturday last, and which divided the cost of the construction of these Indian lines into its several elements, such as the mileages, the permanent way, stations, rolling stock, &c. —that the East Indian Railway Company had constructed their 1,500 miles, 600 being double and the rest single lines, at a cost of less than £20,000 per mile; and that the Madras Railway Company, also a single line, had constructed their line at a cost of less than £11,000 per mile. The great difference between the cost per mile of these two railways was accounted for by the fact that the latter, while having an excellent management, had none of the engineering difficulties to encounter which had rendered the construction of the former line so costly. Another cause of the great cost of the construction of the East Indian Railway was the Indian Mutiny. The question had been elaborately gone into, and the result, which had been reported to the Government, was that if the Mutiny had not occurred, that great work would have been constructed at a less cost by about £3,000,000 sterling. The expense of the conveyance of materials had been enormously increased by the Mutiny, and a large portion of the finished line had been destroyed—no less than 17,000 tons of rails being found wanting in transmission up the river. £500,000 had afterwards to be expended upon the erection of a steamboat flotilla, for the purpose of sending the materials up the river. In fact, the total extra cost resulting from the Mutiny might be safely put at £2,000 per mile. It must not be forgotten, in calculating the cost of the Indian railways, that they had to pay enormous sums for conveying from this country the materials
  1180
  necessary for building their bridges-The East Indian Railway had constructed no less than three miles of iron bridges, one being nearly four-fifths of a mile in length, and the whole of the materials for erecting those works, and for locomotive purposes, had been sent out from this country, at a total cost for conveyance of nearly £3,000,000. They had also to provide European superintendence; and. for every man sent Out to India they had to pay two or three times as much as they could secure their services for in this country. The expenses incurred for drivers of locomotives was a most costly item. All these elements must enter into the question of the cost of the railway. When they were pointed at as persons who had been guilty of extravagance, all these things should be taken into consideration. What he had said as to one railway applied to all of them. It was not improbable that the Indian railways might have made mistakes in the construction of lines for the first time over the vast Continent of India; but the Government would be warned by those mistakes, and would, therefore, be to a certain degree benefited by them. If they were guilty of extravagance, which he denied, the Government ought to share the blame with them, because the companies could not, and in fact did not, spend money without Government control. If the Government said — ''You are extravagant and thriftless," he said they were parties to these things. But he denied the fact. He maintained that the Indian railways might be held up as instances of the expenditure of enormous sums of money, with as little cause for reproach as had ever occurred under similar circumstances. In the whole course of this expenditure there had been nothing illicit in the contracts or profits of the company. He did not mean to say that everything might have been entirely proper in the case of every subordinate; but he affirmed that, as a whole, this vast expenditure might be held up as an example of fidelity on the part of those concerned. With reference to the subject of the cost of working the Indian railways, he would call the attention of the Committee to the Return laid before the last half-yearly meeting of the shareholders of the East Indian Railway Company, comparing the working expenses and receipts of that railway with those

  1181
  of thirteen of the principal railways in this country. The real tests of the profitable working of a railway company were its mileage receipts, its mileage cost, and its mileage net receipts. Judged by these tests, during the half-year ending the 31 st of December last, the East Indian Railway Company appeared, out of every £100 earned, to have expended £41 for working expenses, leaving £59 profit; while the London and North-Western Railway Company had expended £46 per cent for working expenses; the average expenditure under that head of the whole of the English railways being £49½ per cent. It was impossible, under these circumstances, to contend that the management of the Indian railways was expensive as compared with that of other countries, and the Government of India when asserting that that management was guilty of profligate extravagance, was doing it a great injustice. The directors had endeavoured to exercise the utmost economy in. their business, but the Government authorities did not take the slightest notice of this. The Government of India not only did not do the railway company justice, but they did the company a positive act of injustice, when they charged them with want of economy, and with the design of securing fresh profit on the issue of additional capital. The Government ignored the fact that the company had lately sent out to India an eminent and experienced engineer, at great expense, to ascertain the exact cost of all the necessary works remaining to be executed, so that they might prove at once what would be the full outlay in this costly expenditure. So far from the company-trying to increase the cost, they actually refused to undertake the construction of a bridge over the Hooghly, at Calcutta, which the Government wished to put upon them, and which would have rendered it necessary that their capital should have been increased by £1,500,000. They would not have acted thus if they had desired to traffic in the profits of new capital. They had also declined to undertake the construction of a line from Cawnpore to Lucknow, and willingly surrendered to another company that from Delhi to Lahore. They were anxious to be free from adding to the capital. He might add many other instances in proof of his argument. Their object had been to limit themselves to the works on the
  1182
  enormous line of 1,500 miles which they had undertaken to construct, and the resources of which they desired to utilize as quickly as possible, and to do the best they could for their shareholders. He quite agreed that in the case of Native States the Government must make the railways themselves, and that where railways were required for political purposes it might be left to the Government to make them. This would afford an opportunity for comparison between the two systems; but he deprecated their entering upon great operations of this character merely for presumed economical reasons. He did not think that any Government, as a Government, could do work of this kind so effectually as those who had devoted years to the consideration of the work, and who possessed experience which no Government Department could secure. What would be the effect of the Government going into the market for the purchase, from time to time, of 10,000 or 15,000 tons of rails by advertisement? Why, not only the price of iron but the cost of freight would be immediately raised. Whereas the Government, for their own protection, were compelled to buy by public tender, private companies could purchase what they required for the construction of their lines by ordinary contract, usually at a much lower price than the Government would have to pay. They were under the control of the Government, and had the official director appointed by the Secretary of State sitting by their side. He regarded the conduct of the Government in this matter as showing a remnant of the old exclusive policy; they did not like an imperium in imperio. The Government had resented the unwillingness of the directors to succumb to the Government officials. In one instance the Government desired the removal of a gentleman whose position was not agreeable to them, but the directors did not think that this would be just. There was a feeling of discontent on the part of the Government in having a body to deal with whom they could not command. It was very questionable whether these operations should be removed from popular observation. Opportunity should be given to the people of this country of knowing what was going on in connection with these railways. Once these lines passed under Government control nothing more would be

  1183
  heard about them, and the public interest in them would be quenched. There still remained the question of the extent of the intended operations of the Government with respect to these lines to be considered. It was now proposed that the Government should make 10,000 more miles of railway, at a cost of £120,000,000 of money. This was the demand to be made upon the money market. They had been told that there was owing by India in this country and in India between £90,000,000 and £100,000,000; and he thought that they did not sufficiently weigh the effect of coming, year after year, to the House for authority to raise money for the service of India. It was one thing for £80,000,000 to be taken out of the market for the construction of railways by railway companies in twenty years, and another thing for the Government to borrow £4,000,000 year by year for thirty years from the public on, that account. He maintained that the Government could not expect to be able to continue to place these large sums upon the market at the rate that they boasted they now raised it—4 per cent. He also wished to point out that had railway construction been in the hands of the Government at the time of the Mutiny in India the works would not have been proceeded with, as the whole attention of the Government was directed to quell the Mutiny, whereas the railway companies continued the construction of the railways, notwithstanding the Mutiny, and were enabled to assist the Government by the facilities afforded by such portions of the lines as were constructed. One clause of the Bill that was before them earmarked £4,000,000 of the money proposed to be raised, and set it apart for the construction of railways only; but this money would not be so spent if war or other adverse circumstances should absorb the attention of the Government. An instance of this was that when Lord Ellenborough went to India in 1843 he found there was war with Gwalior, and in consequence he suspended the works of the Ganges Canal. He took the opportunity of calling the attention of the Under Secretary for India to the manner in which the telegraph service with India was carried on. Last year a convention on this subject was held at Vienna, and every State on the Continent of Europe, together with England,
  1184
  was represented at that convention. One of the terms there agreed on for the conduct of the telegraphic business was that every message should be sent in the order in which it was received; but a priority in the dispatch of messages was still given to Mr. Reuter. A remonstrance was made to the Secretary of State, and then it was found that Mr. Reuter had made terms at Constantinople with the Turkish Government, giving him, in spite of the convention, an advantage over everybody else. The system still continued, notwithstanding it was said that steps would be taken to put a stop to it, and he hoped that the promise which had been given would now be carried out.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that, as there was other important business on the Paper, he would not waste time by complimenting his hon. Friend the Under Secretary for India on the excellent speech he had delivered, but would at once notice an expression which was not characterized by the same exactness as the rest of the hon. Gentleman's observations. The hon. Gentleman spoke of two complaints against the Government of India which, he thought, effectually neutralized each other. One of these complaints was, that the Government did not do enough to develop the great resources of the Indian Empire, and the other was, that the Government were living up to or rather exceeding their income. The hon. Gentleman thought that those two charges might answer each other; but that was not strictly the case, for it might happen that the Government, though exceeding their income, were not by economy saving means to improve the resources of the country. That was a danger which the Government of India should guard against. There was a magnificent field in India for the development of the resources of that Empire, but care should be taken to provide by prudent economy the power to effect that object. He wished to direct attention not only to the importance of economy in details, but to the adoption of a sound principle of finance by laying down a distinction between the different classes of expenditure which were being incurred. What he meant was what was shown in the speech of Sir Richard Temple, in which he laid down the great importance of the Government maintain-

  1185
  ing a distinction between unproductive expenditure and that which was not so. His (Sir Stafford Northcote's) opinion was that upon the strict maintenance of this distinction depended the whole foundation of our credit and prosperity. Our Indian credit might be seriously affected if we went on borrowing without making proper provisions for re-payment, and therefore it was of great importance that the distinction that he had pointed out should be maintained. He, last year, with the approval of the Council of India, endeavoured to draw a distinction between productive works and other classes of works. The principle they proposed to go on was that they would allow no expenditure to be provided for out of borrowed money, except that class of expenditure that would be reproductive, and they meant not only that expenditure that was capable of reproducing, but that which was made that it might reproduce. To do this there must be separate accounts kept, in order to see that the money so laid out did come back to the Treasury. He had no doubt that this subject was still engaging the attention of the Indian Government; and he would press upon Her Majesty's Government the importance of seeing that the principle to which he had referred was carried out. If this principle were adopted the Government might then borrow freely, because they would be sure that the money would come back again. There was another principle which they must not lose sight of; they must take care that in their ordinary balances of income and expenditure they kept a good regular surplus of income over expenditure. It was very well to have a £50,000 surplus for a year or two, but it would not do in the long run; for there should be a regular surplus of £500,000 or £1,000,000 of income over expenditure, because contingencies might arise which could not be foreseen. The only safe policy therefore was to keep a really good margin of income over expenditure. That involved both economy and the careful maintenance of their resources. He believed the principle of the income tax was a great, a bold, and a wise step. It required some sacrifice on the part of the Government of India. There was great temptation to put off works, owing to the necessity of raising funds by what was considered an unpopular
  1186
  tax. He hoped they might look to a fair surplus. With regard to items of taxation, he would not say any more than that he most cordially agreed with what his hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Crawford) had said of export duties. He hoped the time would come when they would get rid of duties which were wrong in principle, and very injurious to India as well as to the trade of this country. With regard to railways he entirely sympathized with his hon. Friend in the expressions he had used, and the spirited defence he had made for the existing companies. He sympathized with him as to the want of cordiality and generosity of their treatment in these despatches. Considering the work done they ought not to have been treated with harshness; there should have been every acknowledgment of the services which the guaranteed companies had rendered. Even assuming that such companies were to be altogether dispensed with, still there should have been some acknowledgment of the fact that we never should have had this great network of railways so well constructed, and so ably worked in so short a time had it not been for the assistance of the companies. Though they might find fault with some details of management and upon the principle upon which the system was founded, still they should speak a little more gratefully of those who had initiated the plans of so great a man as Lord Dalhousie, and who had carried them out so successfully. His hon. Friend had complained that these Papers recently laid on the table had been kept back rather long from them. He (Sir Stafford Northcote) did not think it was right to make that complaint, for the Duke of Argyll's important despatch was only dated the 15th of July, and could not have been produced much sooner than it had been. But it was to be lamented that there had been so short a time to consider the Papers, and that they were not in so complete a form as they might be. It would, have been better if the Papers had extended a little further back, and if the origin of these communications had been given; for this matter had been under consideration for a year or two, and some Papers had not been produced which would have thrown light upon it. As to the distinction between commercial and political lines, that was a

  1187
  distinction that was drawn in a despatch that went out when he was Secretary of State for India, and that despatch was intended to call attention to the importance of making some definite plan for carrying out in future the railway system in India. He thought that there were several reasons why that despatch and others should have been printed, and they would have given an answer to several of the objections of the hon. Member. Now this was a matter that had been forced upon the Government. It had become necessary that something should be done to systematize the railways in India. Projects came in in driblets from the Hooghly, Madras, Assam, or Bengal for the construction of railways, here or there, and the Council for India always felt it extremely important not to commit themselves to general plans, or to inconvenient expenditure. He therefore addressed a despatch to the Governor General of India, asking them to take into consideration the general wants of India, and give a systematized plan of the works recommended—at what rate it would be possible, with reference to financial and other considerations, to carry out those works; in what order they should be proceeded with; and by what agency they should be conducted. At the same time, the Government of Sir John Lawrence had directed their attention to the same subject. He wrote to the Government at home at the same time that the despatch of the Secretary of State was being prepared. These despatches were both independent of each other, but both came to the same conclusion— that it was desirable to come to some systematic arrangement as to what should be done, and at what rate. He hoped these Papers would be printed, and that they would be able to turn their attention then more deliberately to them than was possible at present. There was a great deal yet to be considered as to the propriety of the State undertaking the whole railway management of India. It was pretty plain from expressions in these despatches that the mind of the Government of India was hankering after getting the whole system into their own hands. That policy, however, had not been adopted by the Duke of Argyll, and he hoped it would not be; but this was a point which would have to be fully considered next Session. In the
  1188
  meantime he was entirely satisfied with what the Government proposed to do. The principle was, that where railways were to be made for political considerations or for the general benefit of the country, but which were not likely to pay —these railways should be made by the State. There was another principle, that where railways were to be made through Native States they also should be made by the Government. Upon both these principles he thought that there was a general agreement; and he entirely agreed as to the importance of the action of the Government with regard to the political railways. He would, however, venture to point out that there were one or two special considerations that the Government should bear in mind. In the first place, they should consider whether they really would be able to take the matter up as a whole, when its very advocates admitted the scheme to be imperfect. He hoped that he might say, without offence, that there was certainly an impetuosity about some of Lord Lawrence's writing, when he took a strong view, that rather carried one away. He appeared to take always a strong view of a subject, so that one side of it was seen very clearly indeed. He also spoke his mind very strongly and ably, therefore one side was always presented in the clearest possible light. Where action was required this was a very valuable quality; but when they had to take counsel they were apt to be staggered by seeing the case made out, as it were, too good. The noble Lord talked of the expediency and importance of limiting the outlay of capital upon lines of railway, and no doubt it was important; but was he quite sure that the Government would always limit their own outlay better than the companies, when they were acting under the control of the Government? The Government, no doubt, had not properly controlled the action of the companies; but if they could not control another person, would they be able to control themselves and their own officers, as to the outlay of capital? There was a strong temptation on the part of the Government to save themselves from any outlay on their ordinary expenditure. He observed a tendency on the part of the Government of the day to put down everything they could to capital, and on the part of the Indian Government there

  1189
  was just as much temptation to put down all expenditure on public works as remunerative. But was it true that the Government would always keep these works going as well as the companies that undertook them? There were, if he mistook not, instances in which the Government were not quite so ready to carry on works of this kind when other and more pressing claims were made upon them. The history of the Great Trunk Railway of India did not show that the Government always proceeded very rapidly with the works they undertook. There was another point of importance, and that was whether the Government would be able to get a proper staff and work these undertakings properly. They had the admission of Lord Lawrence that the Public Works department was not in a proper state to undertake these works. The Indian Government had taken a great deal upon themselves. They had only just taken in hand all. the irrigation works, and it was not yet known whether they could carry them on satisfactorily. They were now going to undertake the railways, and they called upon the Government at home for more assistance and for engineer officers, and the Indian Government complained that they did not receive all the assistance they ought to have. He would earnestly urge upon the Government of India that, if they were going to take these great works upon themselves, they should take care to strengthen the hands of the departments which had the execution of the works, not merely by sending out officers, but by a proper organization of these departments, and by regulating relations between the Public Works departments of India and those of the several presidencies; because, if jealousies existed between them, a good deal of mischief might happen. He would also urge the Government not to suspend the execution of the harbour and irrigation works which they might have in hand for these new pet railway projects. He would likewise impress upon the Government the importance of not running into debt, and of providing a proper system of account for writing off the debt. He believed that the matter was in good hands, both at home and in India. He was not afraid of the expenditure, estimated by the hon. Member for the City of London at
  1190
  £120,000,000, if it were incurred wisely, and expended in a way to develop the resources of India. He had sanguine hopes of the future of India, if the Government did its duty in promoting the moral and social progress of that country. The Government of India was a paternal Government of the very best class, and its relations with its neighbours and subjects were of the most satisfactory and friendly character. They must, however, look to the possibility of dark days; but the best way of providing for them was by developing and husbanding the resources of India, and making the people feel that we were real friends to them. Whatever the Government did, let them not overwork their departments or overstrain their finances.
  SIR CHARLES WINGFIELDsaid, he observed that for the year 1868–9 there was a deficit of about £1,000,000, and a total deficit during the last three or four years of about £4,500,000; but he thought that this would soon disappear if the principle laid down by the late Secretary of State for India were carried out—namely, that all expenditure, except that which was extraordinary and strictly reproductive, should be met by income. By such a course only could the Government meet its liabilities and this country so preserve its credit as would enable it to borrow such large sums as would be required for railways and irrigation. With respect to barrack expenditure, he feared that many of the sites which had been declared to have every sanitary qualification would be found to be unhealthy, and consequently be abandoned. He did not believe that in India health was promoted by mere solidity of construction. The great want in that country was cubical space and free ventilation for currents of air, and mud walls and a thatched roof were cooler than stone or brick buildings. Where the barracks now in course of construction were likely to last some time, and where they were also military stations, the works might be suspended, and the Exchequer saved from any further outlay of money for some time. There wore fifty one places in India where barracks were either built or building. Some were only seventy miles distant from each other; and it was worthy of consideration whether some concentration were not possi-

  1191
  ble. He should like to see a Return of the outlay in building barracks since the Mutiny. He believed that they had been a most frightful drain on the resources of India. He believed that the expenditure from this source was not less than £15,000,000 up to the present time. With regard to railways, he thought it probable that the strategic considerations upon which they had been laid out would undergo a change, and that new military stations would have to be undertaken. As to the Army expenditure, he did not think that the European force could be reduced below its present standard, which he believed to be 62,000 men, He doubted whether the Native troops would ever have revolted if they had believed there were sufficient European troops in the country to coerce them. He should have regarded with greater satisfaction the increase in the Indian revenue if he did not know that half of that increase had been derived from opium and salt. It was stated that the Chinese Government had renewed their edicts against opium; but this he regarded as only the means of obtaining larger bribes for the officials. Across the Continent of India there stretched a huge Customs line, guarded by an army of several thousand officials. To the north of this line salt paid a duty of 6*. per 80lb., while to the south of the line salt was only taxed at 3s. Statistics showed that in the northern districts the consumption of salt was only at the rate of 81b. a head, whereas to the south the consumption amounted to 13lb. a head. If the rates could be equalized, or nearly so, a considerable increase in consumption might be expected. At the same time, he could not agree with the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote) that the consumption of salt afforded the best test of the condition of the poorer classes, for, unlike tobacco or alcohol, a man was not likely to consume more salt than nature prompted him. He was glad to perceive that by the extension given to the quantity of roughly manufactured salt which a man might have in his possession the convictions for infractions of the salt laws had fallen nearly 1,000 in number. As to the railways, he had for a long time been of opinion that a system of public companies would work most advantageously, fearing that in times of financial
  1192
  difficulty the construction of railways in the hands of the State would come to a standstill; and also remembering that at the time of the Mutiny a 5½ per cent open loan did not fill. Having read the despatch, however, and the exhaustive Minute on which it was based, he had come to the conclusion that the principles laid down by the Government were those which ought in future to be acted upon. The Government of India had shown a very strong case for raising such funds as were necessary upon their own credit, and they ought, he believed, to be supported in doing so. There was an apparent increase in the circulation of the paper currency. That increase, he thought, was more apparent than real, a large proportion of it being only issued in the sense of having left the central establishment for the district offices, where it lay unissued. The true remedy had been suggested in the Report of the Paper Currency Committee. As a mark of the increase of comfort and prosperity amongst the population of India, it was gratifying to observe that 600,000 lbs. of sugar were now imported, whereas, in 1850 and 1851, there were 1,800,000 lbs. exported, so that in the article of sugar, India from an exporting had become an importing country. He considered that there were two reforms needed in India. The first was the separation of the executive and fiscal from purely judicial functions, and the restriction of all offices in the service to one or other of those branches of administration. Such a multiplicity of duties were now thrown upon a collector that it was impossible he could get through them all except by devolving the larger share of the duties upon his assistants. Another evil of the existing system was that men, unless they would sacrifice pay and promotion, were constantly being transferred from one branch of the service which they thoroughly understood, and for which they were well fitted, to a totally different branch, for which, perhaps, they had no taste whatever. A separation already existed in the upper branches of the administration, which ought to be continued downwards through the various stages. He would not interfere with the general apprenticeship served by a man on entering the service, which was always useful to him, but after four or five years he ought to be called upon to

  1193
  choose between, the executive and the judicial branches, and, having done so, should be strictly confined to that which he had selected. With a view of ascertaining the opinions and feelings of the natives, and bringing these into harmony with the acts of our officials, weighed down as they were by their various duties, Sir Robert Montgomery had recommended the establishment of consultative native councils. Such a course would be quite in accordance with the views of the late Lord Canning, that we should abandon "the anomalous at- tempt to govern a country by thrusting aside every man whose birth, position, or social influence gave him a right to share in administering its affairs." Had such councils been in existence, with, the facilities which they afforded for studying Native sentiment, the recent spectacle would not have been witnessed of a large number of landowners in India presenting a Petition against what they conceived to be an infringement of native laws and usages, and a violation of the spirit of Her Majesty's proclamation. Such a course could not but be injurious to our reputation in the East,
  MR. R. N. FOWLER: Sir, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India (Mr. Grant Duff) has admitted that it is unsatisfactory, on financial grounds, that £9,000,000 of the Indian revenue should depend on the article of opium Sir, I object to this source of revenue, not only on financial but on moral grounds. I have always regarded the conduct of this country in forcing this poisonous and deleterious drug upon the Chinese, as the greatest blot upon the name of the British nation. Did time permit I could quote the authority of eminent men of all classes—statesmen, diplomatists, officers in the Army and Navy, physicians, and missionaries—in support of my opinion; but, at this period of the debate, considering the number of hon. Members connected with India who are anxious to take part in it, I feel that I ought not to trespass on the Committee, and will content myself with two short extracts. The first is from a speech in this House by the late Sir John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton, and long President of the Board of Control, who stated that "he did not deny the use of opium being a great vice, for a great vice it was." The other is a sentence from a despatch
  1194
  of the East India Company, the originators of the traffic, who declare that "were it possible to put an end to the use of the drug altogether, except for medical purposes, we would gladly do it in compassion to mankind." I may be told, Sir, that the question stands on the same ground as the revenue derived from wine and spirits; but there is this essential distinction, that whereas the use of wine and spirits is constantly ordered by medical men, I never heard of any patient being directed to smoke opium. I trust that Her Majesty's Government and the Indian authorities will endeavour so to regulate the finances of India that this large portion of its revenue shall not continue to be dependent on the trade in this pernicious drug.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON: Sir, the Committee, no doubt, observed that in the able and comprehensive statement of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Grant Duff), there was one point on which he touched hastily and lightly. I allude to the revenue derived from opium. The hon. Gentleman said he should not allude to the moral aspects of that question. He was right; for there is no defence on moral grounds to the raising of revenue by these means. He told us that about £9,000,000 of the Indian revenue (nearly one-fifth) was derived from opium. What does that mean? It means that a large portion of the most fertile soil in India is diverted from the production of food for the people, and devoted to the production of a deleterious drug. This drug is employed to pauperize and de-moralize hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of the inhabitants of China. Thus, it indirectly is a great hindrance to that legitimate trade with China which it is generally considered so desirable to promote; for not only are the pauperized inhabitants unable to become our customers, but the better educated and superior classes in that country, seeing our hateful policy of forcing this drug upon their country for our own gain, become more and more hostile to us, and determine to throw every obstacle in their power in the way of our commercial pursuits. Those Gentlemen in the House—and there are many—who are interested in missionary operations, know well that nothing sets the Chinese so much against accepting the truths of Christianity as witnessing this immoral and cruel policy of our Government and

  1195
  merchants. What, then, is the defence of this trade? There is no defence, except that the money must be had. Is, then, money to be set against morality? Several times during the Session I have heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) inveigh with righteous indignation against the power of mammon, when he has seen, as he thought, a tendency in our public proceedings to sacrifice moral to material interests. I hope, therefore, that he and hon. Gentlemen who sit with him will aid my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. E. N. Fowler) in the move which he has made in this matter. But I fancy that it may be said, raising this large revenue from opium in India is no worse than raising, as we do, a large revenue from drink in England. I do not say that it is worse; both are bad enough, but two blacks do not make a white. And we must remember that there is a feeling rapidly rising here against the English system to which I have alluded, which is certain in the end to sweep it away. Many years ago the present Prime Minister of this country (Mr. Gladstone), speaking on certain resolutions in reference to China and this opium traffic, moved by the late Sir James Graham, said—
  "Justice is with them (the Chinese); and whilst they—the pagans and semi-civilized barbarians—have it, we—the enlightened and civilized Christians—are pursuing objects at variance both with justice and with religion."
  Now, those were the words of the head of the present Ministry. But I am not so sanguine as to believe that our Government will at present act in this spirit, and abolish this evil system. I know the temptation which there is for Government to raise money in an easy, handy manner. I fear that the Government will, for a time, go on in the old system; but I do hope that the remarks of my hon. Friend (Mr. E. N. Fowler) may help to arouse the public conscience, bring it to bear upon our rulers, and ultimately compel them to desist from raising the revenues of this great Empire by promoting the misery and degradation of millions of the inhabitants of another Empire.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he could not help congratulating the hon. Member (Mr. Grant Duff) in having been the first to create in that House an interest in Indian Budgets. Time was—and he
  1196
  recollected more than one occasion—when not a dozen Members remained in the House to listen to the annual Indian Financial Statement, and this was the first occasion since he had a seat of more than forty Members being present when, the Indian Financial Statement was made, and he trusted that the present comparatively large attendance was a proof that the new Parliament was taking an interest in matters connected with that gigantic Empire which had been committed to our care, and for which we were responsible, both morally and physically. He was glad to hear from the statement of the hon. Member that the result of reducing the amount of the assessments on land had been to largely increase the land revenue. He had always maintained that we did not levy a rent in India, but imposed a tax on the produce of the soil — in fact, a land tax. With regard to the question raised by his hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Crawford), he must say that the idea of the Government assuming the execution of railway works in India was by no means a new one. It was broached in the days of the East India Company, when railways in India were first spoken of, and at that time it received the support of several men who might well be considered authorities on Indian affairs —George Tucker, Butterworth Bayley, Sir Henry Willoch, and others. As to the Army in India, it was worthy of remark that before the Mutiny the cost of our Indian Army was £12,000,000. Now it was £16,000,000. The number of European troops in India before the Mutiny was about 42,000; now it was 64,000. The native Army had been diminished by 130,000 men, and the European Army had been increased by 22,000. There was no justifiable reason for this. When the Mutiny broke out it was confined to the Bengal Army. The armies of Calcutta and Madras were not parties to it. The 42,000 European troops had sufficed to break the neck of the Mutiny before a single reinforcement had landed in India, and the number that had sufficed before would suffice in the case of another mutiny, of which there was not the remotest probability; indeed, in the Mutiny of 1857, had the native soldiery been adroitly handled, there should not have been any Mutiny at all. He not only objected to the present num-

  1197
  ber of European troops, but that 20,000 or 30,000 of them were not local troops, as under the East India Company, by which the great expense of relieving annually 6,000 men would be greatly diminished. That European troops could be maintained for lengthened periods in a state of efficiency we had a proof the other day in the arrival of one of the East India Company's regiments at Aldershot, which had been 112 years uninterruptedly in India. He felt convinced that the revenue of India was amply sufficient to meet any calls that might be made on it. There was a mischievous belief in the native mind in India that England drained bullion from India, and that India was consequently being impoverished. The fact being that the balance of trade had been in favour of India since 1800, and that balance had been paid in bullion. From successive Returns given to him by the House of Commons, it appeared that, after deducting exports of bullion from India from imports, there remained an annual balance of bullion in India on the 30th April, 1867, of £311,131,300, the aggregate accumulation since 1800, and of that, £262,567,643 had been coined into rupees in the Mints of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. It was his wish to have noticed some other subjects in the Budget, but the hour did not permit him to do so.
  MR. J. B. SMITHmoved the adjournment of the debate. It was now half-past six o'clock, and they could not hope to conclude the debate before the time when the sitting would be suspended.
  Motion agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again this day.

IRELAND—TRINITY COLLEGE (DUBLIN).

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. FAWCETTrose to move a Resolution respecting Trinity College, Dublin, and remarked that the Prime Minister, in his memorable speech in introducing the Irish Church Bill, had admitted that Trinity College must be dealt with. The question, therefore, arose whether it could be dealt with in such a manner as to place all the inhabitants of Ireland, whatever might be their religious opinions, in a position of perfect
  1198
  equality with regard to University education. This was a subject of vast importance. It would, of course, be idle to say that it was of so much importance as the disestablishment of the Irish Church; but, at the same time, it was no exaggeration to say that the establishment of that Church did not inflict greater injustice on the residents of Ireland who did not belong to its communion than was inflicted upon them by their being excluded from the emoluments and from many of the honours which were associated with University education. He would ask the House to picture to itself the relative positions of two youths, one a Catholic and the other a Churchman, who entered Trinity College, Dublin, together. Suppose, for instance, that they lived on terms of intimacy with each other, that they were inspired throughout their academical career by an ennobling intellectual rivalry, and that when the examinations had been concluded the Catholic student was adjudged to be somewhat the more distinguished of the two. Yet the Catholic student would go out into the world without any reward for his intellectual achievements, while the other, because he was a Churchman, would obtain a Fellowship, which was valuable not only in a pecuniary point of view, but as an honour and a distinction. That very morning a Catholic Irishman, who was a most eminent mathematician, had remarked to him— "Catholic emancipation has no doubt been a great been for the people of Ireland; but, as far as men of science and letters are concerned, it has been a dead letter. Most of the educational positions, emoluments, and honours from which we were shut out before Catholic emancipation we are shut out from still. And," he added, "this must continue until all the Fellowships, Professorships, Scholarships, and honours in Trinity College, Dublin, are thrown open to all without distinction of creed?" The question, then, was, what was the best mode of carrying out this policy of educational equality? Three schemes had been propounded with this object. First, it had been proposed to leave Trinity College in its present position, and to found in the University of Dublin Colleges for Catholics, Presbyterians, and other denominations. In his opinion such a scheme was utterly impracticable; but

  1199
  if practicable would prove so mischievous that he, for one, would sooner see things continued as they were. The endowments for those Colleges should be as large as that of Trinity College itself, and would amount to no less a sum than from £4,000,000 to £5,000,000. There was no Government that would propose to ask Parliament for such a sum. When the late Liberal Government proposed to give the supplemental charter to the Catholic University, they were opposed by some who were in general their most stedfast supporters, and the late Conservative Administration brought disaster on itself at the General Election in consequence of their attempts to charter and endow the Catholic University. Such a scheme would also prove pernicious in the highest degree. He was bound to confess that in Trinity College, Dublin, many of the advantages of an undenominational education were encouraged at the present time. When at Oxford and Cambridge no Roman Catholic or Dissenter could obtain a degree, no impediment was thrown in the way of Roman Catholics and Dissenters obtaining degrees at Trinity College, Dublin. The consequence had. been that in that College a great number of men of different religions had been educated and had lived in harmony together with the happiest results to their country. Many a most distinguished Roman Catholic Judge and many a distinguished Member of that House—among whom he need only mention the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Sullivan) — had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin. If, therefore, denominational Colleges were established a deadly blow would be struck at the principle of undenominational education in Ireland, and every Roman Catholic student would be withdrawn from Trinity College and sent to a Roman Catholic College. Nothing ought to be done that would discourage that mixed system of education, which was the best antidote to those religious rancours and sectarian animosities which had so long been the bane of Ireland. Another scheme, analogous to that which he had just noticed, had been proposed by the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Monsell), but it had one point of difference which made it still worse. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to endow the suggested denominational Colleges, not by public money,
  1200
  but by spoliating and taking away the revenues of Trinity College, Dublin, a proceeding which would inflict a great injustice upon that institution, inevitably break it up, and destroy the mixed character of its education. Without professing to be an attached friend to Trinity College, he should not hesitate to give his humble assistance and vote, if they were of any service, to defeat this attempt at spoliation. It was of a very small advantage to bring students of different religious opinions into the same examination room; what they should do was to bring them to live together in the same Colleges, under the same daily social influences, where they would become friends, and never feel that mutual antipathy and religious bigotry which, unhappily, too often were the fruits of denominational isolation. With that view they ought to free Trinity College, Dublin, from all religious disabilities. That was a scheme at once simple and practicable; it would not, in the least degree, affect the efficiency of Trinity College itself, and, instead of discouraging undenominational education, it would place it on a wider and safer basis. He understood that the authorities of that College had at last recognized the fact that it could not continue in its present position; and, unless he was misinformed, they were prepared to accept the scheme he had last described. By leaving Trinity College with its revenues untouched, and simultaneously freeing all its Professorships, Fellowships, and Scholarships from religious disabilities, they would take the course which was most likely to increase its usefulness and render it in the future still more illustrious in respect to intellectual distinction than it had been in the past. Contemporaneously with those changes certain other internal reforms in the College itself— among others the improvement of the constitution of the Board of the College, an alteration in the mode of electing to Fellowships, and the establishment of less inequality between the emoluments of the senior and the junior Fellowships — would, he was led to believe, if adopted, prove beneficial to the best interests of the institution. In conclusion, he trusted that his personal connection with that subject would cease that evening. It was the duty and the privilege of the advanced Liberal party to advocate questions which

  1201
  were in a minority. When their proposals had advanced to such a point as to be ripe for legislation in that House, then they ought to resign them to the Treasury Bench, the occupants of which should reap the fruits of their past efforts. In relinquishing the question of Trinity College, Dublin, he placed it in the hands of the Prime Minister with the most sincere pleasure, knowing that it would give the right hon. Gentleman another opportunity of passing a great measure of justice to Ireland. Since he had had charge of the question it had gone through many strange vicissitudes. Only last year it was thought to be so awkward and troublesome a subject that its discussion was thwarted by counting out the House at four o'clock in the afternoon. Little then had he supposed that in nine months after that "count out" the Prime Minister would admit that it was a question which must be dealt with, or that the authorities of Trinity College would themselves give a conciliatory reception to his Motion. He hoped that next Session the Government would propose a measure on the subject; and if it was based on the principle of placing all the inhabitants of Ireland, whatever might be their religious opinions, in a position of strict equality in regard to University education, it would be alike his duty and his pleasure to give it a silent but cordial support. If, however, the Government should be unwilling to do that, then he should see that the House should have an opportunity of affirming the great and important principle that the splendid educational endowments of the United Kingdom should be so administered as not to promote the opinions of any particular sect, but rather with a view to destroying the rivalry of religious rancour and of promoting the moral, mental, and material advancement of the nation.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, those who are not members of the Established Church cannot be placed in a position of equality with regard to University Education in Ireland until all the Fellowships and Scholarships of Trinity College, Dublin, are freed from all religious disabilities."—(Mr. Fawcett.)
  DR. BALL: At this period of the Session, and with the great amount of Public Business which remains undisposed of, it is impossible to enter upon
  1202
  the very extensive question raised by the hon. Gentleman in such a manner as its importance demands. It is quite plain that you cannot consider the ease of the University of Dublin or of Trinity College, which is in effect that University, without considering the position of the other Colleges in Ireland. In fact, you must consider, if you enter upon the question, the whole system of collegiate education in Ireland. Now, it is quite unnecessary to say that no more extensive or more important subject for discussion or investigation can be proposed. It is not with a view of entering upon this extended subject that I rise, but in consequence of a communication made to me by the Board of Trinity College, to the effect that whereas, on former occasions they did petition in opposition to the Motion of the hon. Member for Brighton, they do on the present occasion feel it their duty not to petition against it or oppose it. The Board, in taking that course, have been actuated by the consideration of the change which has occurred with regard to the ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland. The Board were of opinion —and I believe history confirms them in the opinion—that the prominent and main object of the foundation of the University of Dublin was to place a great educational institution in connection with the Church which was a very short time before established in Ireland—the same Church as had been established in England—the Protestant Episcopal Church, according to the faith of the Church of England. It was the liberality of the University itself which afterwards expanded its sphere of action and provided general education for all religious denominations; but the main object, as I have said, was originally education in connection with the Established Church. As long as that Church remained the Established Church of Ireland, it is plain that the Governing Body of the University, which the Board were, could not support a Motion which went to introduce among the Governing Body persons of other religious persuasions than that for the maintenance of which the University had been established, without infringing upon the object of the original foundation; and, therefore, when the hon. Member proposed to open the Scholarships, senior Fellowships, and

  1203
  membership of the Governing and Teaching Body to the professors of different creeds, the University heretofore opposed the Motion. But now when the Legislature has, by the Irish Church Act of this Session, terminated the connection between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the State and the policy on which that connection was founded, the Board feel that they are no longer called upon or in a position to oppose the Motion. And here I wish to call the attention of the House — because in this respect I do not think that justice has been done to the University—to the fact that long since they opened all their Professorships, except those connected with the Divinity School, and all their other honours and emoluments, except Fellowships, to persons of every religion. The offices limited to Protestants are— 1, Fellowships; 2, Foundation Scholarships; and 3, Professorships confined to Fellows, or ex-Fellows, which are as follows:—Regius Professorship of Divinity, Archbishop King's ditto, Hebrew, (salary only £60), and Lectureships in the Divinity School. All other Professorships, without distinction, are open to Roman Catholics and Dissenters. For example — Feudal and English Law, salary £700; Civil Law, salary £210; Anatomy, emoluments over £1,200 (now held by a Presbyterian); Chemistry, emoluments nearly £1,000; Surgery, Botany, and all other Professorships in the School of Medicine; all the professorships in the Engineering School, that of Political Economy—which is at present held by a Roman Catholic— Sanscrit, Arabic, and the Professorships of modern languages. The Arabic Professor is a Mahomedan. All the Medical Professorships were opened to persons of all religious denominations, by an Act passed in the year 1867, promoted by the Board, and with their sanction. Fourteen University Studentships —the entire number—are open to Roman Catholics; three are actually held by Roman Catholics: all University honours and prizes, without distinction, except those in the Divinity School (the amount annually distributed is about £1,000); and all Exhibitions, except those which by original foundation are limited to Divinity students or sons of clergymen are also open. Now, taking as the basis what the Board had laid down for itself, that the University was con-
  1204
  nected with an. Established Church, and was founded in the interest of that Church, I say, with the exception of the Fellowships which, as connected with the Governing Body, they considered to be essentially and intrinsically connected with this primary and paramount interest, they have always shown the greatest liberality to persons of a different religious persuasion. They opened all the various prizes and Professorships, with the exceptions that I have stated; and, as I have mentioned before, at this moment there are Roman Catholics holding these College emoluments. The number of Roman Catholics and Dissenters educated at the University has always borne a fair proportion to the number of Episcopalians, and there has always been a large number of persons not members of the Established Church receiving their education there. For myself, I must say that I believe one of the greatest benefits ever conferred on the country was that this University at an early period admitted persons of all persuasions to the advantages of education. I admit that the Professorships and other offices have been opened only in recent years—I believe since the Union; but before the Union Roman Catholics and Dissenters were admitted to education in the University, and from that period to the present time no man has ever said there was any attempt to interfere with the religion of any person educated in the University; no man has ever complained of the way in which the Roman Catholic students were dealt with, as regards the distribution of the honours or advantages held out to them. The confidence which this honourable conduct created led to a large proportion of the Roman Catholics, distinguished in the legal and medical professions and in public life, receiving their education in Trinity College. Protestant and Catholic met together to pursue the same studies and imbibe the elevated and generous sentiments which those studies inspire. Hence arose mutual esteem and respect, friendships and intimacies, mitigating and softening differences of opinion upon public questions in after life. One of the most important testimonies in support of the principles which ought to be kept in mind in any legislation on this subject, is a petition by the Roman Catholic laity of Ireland to the Irish House of Commons, in 1795, at the time when

  1205
  Maynooth was founded. The petition was presented by their great advocate, Henry Grattan, in opposition to that foundation, and on what ground? On the ground that Maynooth, which originally was not confined to ecclesiastics, but was open to laymen, was to be devoted to Roman Catholics, while Protestants were to be excluded. That petition says—
  "The petitioners submit that if the youth of both religions were instructed together in those branches of classical education which are the same for all; their peculiar tenets would be no hindrance hereafter to a friendly and liberal intercourse through life; that the petitioners having received the permission of having their youth educated along with the Protestant youth of the kingdom in the University of Dublin, and experience having fully demonstrated the wisdom and utility of that permission, they see with deep concern the principle of separation and exclusion revived and re-enacted."
  This is an extremely remarkable document, and it is the only one in which, as far as I am aware, the educated Roman Catholic laity of Ireland have expressed their opinions on the subject. The only observation I wish now to make in reference to the general question, is to express my earnest hope that in any future legislation, nothing will be done which shall have the slightest tendency to diminish the beneficial effect that is to be derived from men of every variety of religious opinion being educated together, and living on terms of intimacy from the earliest period of their lives.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: I hope it will not be considered unreasonable if I request the hon. Member who has brought this subject forward (Mr. Fawcett) not to press his Motion to a division, or, if in case he should not yield to my appeal, I move the Previous Question. I fully admit that the two speeches we have just heard are speeches of very great interest upon a most important question. The speech of the hon. Member for Brighton was marked by all the sincerity and earnestness which he always brings to bear on this important subject; and the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for the University (Dr. Ball) has shown a spirit most creditable to the right hon. Gentleman and to the great institution he represents. I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he does not object to the Motion of the hon. Mem-
  1206
  ber on the part of those whom he represents; but there is a ground upon which the Government and, I think, the House cannot accept the Motion as it stands. The Resolution of the hon. Member for Brighton implies more than we can with prudence or safety accept, with due consideration for those whose interests and feelings we are bound to consider. The Motion is couched in strong and even indignant terms; it calls upon the House to affirm that a certain change in the University system of Ireland is the only change that can satisfy the claims of justice or, I presume, the rights and feelings of the people of Ireland; but it is a question whether the change asked for is in accordance with the feelings of those who have a right to complain of the present educational system of Ireland. Upon that point I am bound to say we have not sufficient evidence to bring us to an affirmative conclusion; indeed, on the contrary, we have reason to believe, from the long controversies which have already occurred upon the subject, and from the further controversy which may be anticipated, that the change demanded by the Motion before us would not by itself satisfy those who believe themselves aggrieved by the system of education in Ireland as regards the higher branches. The Motion of the hon. Member implies that the great University College of Dublin, Trinity College, shall be thrown open to all comers without religious tests being imposed upon those who are to enjoy any of its emoluments or dignities. With that doctrine I am certainly not here to quarrel; but what I have to say is that, judging from the experience of the past, that doctrine does not meet all the views of large bodies of the Irish people, because their grievance is not that they cannot obtain the dignities and emoluments of Trinity College, Dublin, in consequence of the religious tests imposed, but that a large part of the Irish population are unable to obtain a University degree without passing through Colleges constructed upon a system which is not approved by their consciences. That is the grievance with which we have been often asked to deal, and it is not met by the Motion of the hon. Member. We all know that there is no access in Ireland to a University degree except through the Queen's Colleges and the Queen's University on the

  1207
  one hand, or through Trinity College and the University of Dublin on the other; this is a matter of complaint by a large body of the Irish people, and the change suggested by the hon. Member would not satisfy the complainers, although it goes a long way in another direction in which the hon. Member has my sympathies largely with him; the change suggested, in fact, gives no opening for the attainment of a University degree except through Colleges constructed on the principle of mixed education. This is the only objection I have to the hon. Member's Motion, but it is an objection which makes it impossible for the Government to endorse it in its present form. I have listened with great satisfaction to a great deal that has been said by my hon. Friend and my right hon. and learned Friend on this subject; but I am bound not to limit the action of the Government or of Parliament to the change suggested, inasmuch as the Motion evidently excludes any other change in the higher branches of the Irish educational system. Perhaps the hon. Member will excuse me if I point out one circumstance of a general nature of vital consequence which must be taken into consideration in dealing with this matter. The difficulty of framing a satisfactory educational system is far greater in a case where you have, as in Ireland, to deal with a Protestant and a Roman Catholic population, than where you have, as in England or Scotland, to deal only with a variety of Protestant denominations. That is a circumstance which is continually forcing itself upon me as one who knows something of these questions both in England and in Ireland; and those whose experience is derived simply from educational affairs in England or Scotland are very often misled by that experience when they come to review an educational system designed to meet the wants of a people composed of Protestants and Roman Catholics. The difficulties in our way are obviously, for this reason, far greater in the case of Ireland than in the case of Scotland or England, and demand from us corresponding caution. Feeling therefore, and asserting on the part of the Government, the duty of dealing with that grievance of a large portion of the people of Ireland to which I have alluded — the grievance that they cannot
  1208
  gain a University degree in their own country without doing violence to their conscience—I am bound to say I am not able to pledge the Government to the terms of the Motion of the hon. Member. Perhaps as the hon. Member has by bringing forward his Motion re-excited interest in the subject, and, as I fully admit, that it will be the duty of the Government to deal with it, he will not think it necessary to divide the House upon the question.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, that if he had to consider simply in the light of the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he should divide the House or not, he would be obliged at all risks to divide, because he disagreed so entirely from every sentiment the right hon. Gentleman had expressed, and because the whole tone of his remarks was so contradictory of the true principles of Liberalism. But many Irish Members had left the House, and the present attendance was so meagre that a division would not probably test the feeling of the House, and for this reason he proposed to withdraw his Motion. He had listened to the two speeches that had been delivered from the front Benches, and pronounced them the most remarkable and perhaps the most significant he had listened to since he had been in Parliament. The speech of the right hon. and learned Member for the Dublin University (Dr. Ball) was liberal and enlightened, and he agreed with every word of it; indeed, he was bound in candour to say he had never heard the advantages of undenominational education put more forcibly than when he described the benefits which result from bringing persons of different religious opinions within the educational advantages of Trinity College. This Motion, which was too wide and sweeping to be accepted by the Government, was, according to the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin, already accepted by the institution which we were accustomed to look upon as the centre of Conservatism. As a supporter of the Government, he believed it best that if he meant to oppose their policy he should frankly tell them so in time. In reply to the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he would observe that he thought the whole line of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman pointed clearly, distinctly, and unmistakably to the establishment of de-

  1209
  nominational Colleges in Ireland; and of all schemes that could be proposed there was none that he should feel it his duty so warmly and so strenuously to oppose. In this respect his opinions were those of the English and the Scotch constituencies, and of the great majority of the Liberal Members. What did the Secretary for Ireland mean to do in order to carry out his scheme of denominational education? His Government had already tried their hand at founding a denominational College; they attempted to force a supplemental charter upon the Queen's University. ["No, no!"] It was not the present Government, but it was the late Liberal Government, of which many right hon. Gentlemen now on the Treasury Bench were Members. They attempted to grant a supplemental charter to the Queen's University; he opposed the Motion, and he knew something about it; and, but for the determination of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lowe), the unfortunate scheme would have been carried out. Remembering what occurred last year, he would add that, if there were any force or reason in the remarks of the Secretary for Ireland, the right hon. Gentleman was bound to support the scheme of Lord Mayo for the establishment of a Catholic University. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman, he could well have supposed it was Lord Mayo come back to advocate the policy of "levelling up." Although he would not divide the House, he trusted the Government would re-consider their opinions upon this question. He would earnestly and emphatically entreat them to remember, before it was too late, that there was nothing which the Liberal party in this country and in Scotland more deeply cherished, and were more firmly pledged to, than the carrying out of undenominational education. In conclusion, he begged to withdraw the Motion.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, he would not have risen but for the remarks just made. There were men who assumed to themselves a peculiar Liberalism, and who would ride to death theories which they believed to be imbued with Liberalism; but they were not liberal in attempting to force their own favourite abstract ideas on multitudes of people. Now, it was to him a subject of regret that an hon.
  1210
  Gentleman, a Professor of a distinguished University, should get up in that House, and, speaking on behalf of Liberalism, put forward a theory which he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) as a Liberal Member begged to repudiate. He would also inform that hon. Gentleman that if he would have regard to true Liberalism he must consult the feelings of the people for whom it was proposed to legislate. The hon. Gentleman had said that anyone who knew Ireland would share his opinion. Did the hon. Gentleman, in the presence of the Irish representatives, mean to assume that he spoke with the authority of a Delphic Oracle on this subject? He might profess to know as much of his own country as the learned Professor, and his belief was that the Resolution proposed by the hon. Gentleman would find no favour with the great mass of the people; but an idea had been put forward by a Member of the Government which might be fairly accepted as a compromise between those who wanted an essentially denominational system and those who wished for a University open to all. It had been stated that it was possible to connect with the University of Dublin colleges for Catholics and Presbyterians, who, having received their education in their own Colleges, might enter into fair and honourable competition with men of all opinions and creeds, in the examination of the University for the degrees which it might confer. he merely rose to protest against the assumption on the part of the hon. Gentleman of a peculiar Liberalism. He not unfrequently found that men who spoke most about liberty were, in regard to all questions about which they entertained peculiar theories which were not accepted, the most illiberal and dogmatic.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, his object in rising was to protest against the distortion of the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland of which the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) had been guilty, no doubt, unintentionally, and to his entire misrepresentation of the conduct of the Government of Earl Russell with respect to the proposal of a supplemental charter for the Queen's University. "What the right hon. Gentleman said was that he objected to the Motion of the hon. Member because it did not provide for that which was the great need of Ireland, which was an examining body for

  1211
  all Ireland—the creation, either in the University of Dublin or elsewhere, of a body to which all persons, whether coming from Colleges, denominational schools, or elsewhere, might go for a degree. With reference to the project of the Government of Earl Russell, he would speak of what he knew, because he was in Ireland at the time, and had much to do with the negotiation of the matter; and he affirmed most distinctly that there was nothing in that negotiation which had for its object the encouragement of denominational education, or the discouragement of the mixed system pursued in the Queen's Colleges. All that was proposed by the Government of Earl Russell was that the charter of the Queen's University might be so enlarged that it might examine not only the members of the Queen's Colleges, with which it was not proposed to meddle, but all persons who might present themselves from any part of Ireland. That was the simple object of what was proposed, and it had nothing of the character which was imputed to it, and which the hon. Member for Brighton represented it to have. When the hon. Member first brought similar charges against the Government of Lord Russell, they had been explicitly contradicted; and now that they were repeated he could not refrain from repeating the denial of their accuracy or justice.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  NATIONAL DEBT.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. LAMBERTrose to call the attention of the House to, the financial position of the country with regard to the National Debt, and to move a Resolution in favour of steps being taken to reduce it gradually. The hon. Gentleman said, if he wanted a precedent for his Motion he should point to the case of America. She commenced her late war with no debt at all, and at the end of it had a debt almost equal to ours in amount and larger in interest, and America had all her resources within herself. Our position was very different, for we draw a large portion of the necessaries of life from abroad, our vessels are scattered over every sea to bring them to us, or to carry away our productions to pay for them. In case of war, as Mr. Reverdy Johnson had said in one of his speeches, we should be in
  1212
  a worse position than any other nation. Our vessels would be preyed upon by privateers from every port, our commerce ruined, and our supplies stopped. Now, therefore, when we were at peace and prosperous, was the time to reduce this enormous debt, which hung like a millstone round our necks. In a smooth sea we might swim with it, but in troubled water it might swamp us. During four years since the termination of their war America had paid off £100,000,000 of debt, or at the rate of £25,000,000 a year, and was still reducing it. Belgium was gradually reducing her debt, which now only amounted to £25,000,000, little more than three times the amount of her annual revenue. Let us follow their example and put our house in order while yet it was in our power to do so. The question would be asked, how was this to be done? and several ways had been suggested. One was by converting our debt into terminable annuities. He did not, however, see how this could well be done, and he would prefer to "take the bull by the horns" and have a special direct tax for the purpose. An increase in the income tax would be best, and he suggested that to the present 5d. 7d. should be added, making the tax 1s. in the pound. Including compound interest at 3 per cent, this would enable us to entirely sweep away our debt in thirty-two and a-half years; but in all probability, owing to the increased wealth of the country, it would be paid off in twenty or twenty-five years. As to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's last Budget, he regretted that, when the duty on wine, the rich man's luxury, had been so much reduced, a corresponding reduction had not been made in beer, which was not only the luxury, but the necessary of the poor man. What could supply the waste and exhaustion of the body so well as good beer? Instead of taking off a 1d. on the income tax, which nobody expected, and the 1s. registration duty on corn, amounting together to more than £2,000,000, he would have liked to see the malt tax reduced to that extent. In his Budget the right hon. Gentleman did not allude to the National Debt, making only a passing remark on the floating debt. The expense of the Abyssinian War was probably the reason why he proposed no reduction in the debt

  1213
  this year. It was to be hoped, however, that next year he would come forward with a bolder policy, and say to the House and the people of this country— "Your position with regard to your National Debt is unsatisfactory and even dangerous, and if you consider your own interests and the interests of your children, you will submit to a tax to pay off your debt." The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.
  MR. MACFIE MR. MACFIE, in seconding the Motion, said, he should be proud to be a Member of a House of Commons which tried to rid the country of the millstone that might one day bring us to the ground.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that steps should be taken gradually to reduce the National Debt."—(Mr. Lambert.)
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I do not exactly know how to deal with the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, because it really expresses approval of a policy which has been hitherto pursued by this country. The Motion was probably not intended in that sense, and the hon. Gentleman may not know what we have done of late years to reduce the debt; but if I can show him that such a reduction has been effected, he will probably withdraw a Motion which might otherwise bear an ambiguous interpretation. I have caused a statement to be prepared with reference to this subject, and this is the effect of it—On the 31st of March, 1858, the National Debt of this country was £832,843,000. On the 31st of March, 1868, it was £795,024,000. That is to say, in the ten years between March 31, 1858, and March 31, 1868, the National Debt of this country has been reduced by no less a sum than £37,819,000, being at the rate of about £3,782,000 a year. Thus, though some of us may wish to go faster, I think it cannot be said that this great and important subject has been neglected. We have, in fact, been making progress in the right direction, and I only hope that that progress may be maintained. As far as I am concerned, I should be very glad if the House would consent to put on a 1s. income tax for the reduction of the debt; but I cannot say that I think they would allow me to do so, and I cannot hold out any hopes to the hon. Gentleman of such
  1214
  a result. But by means of terminable annuities and of sinking funds we are making very fair progress in the way of reducing this great national burden; and if we can only keep clear of "just and necessary wars," and other things of the same kind, and if gentlemen who come to me on deputations, the object of which is always to increase and never to diminish the public expenditure, would limit their efforts a little in that direction, I do not despair of making still further progress in the reduction of our Debt.
  MR. LAMBERTsaid, that an annual reduction of only £3,700,000 would hardly make any impression on the National Debt.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  SIERRA LEONE—CASE OF THOMAS v. HUGGINS.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. H. B. SHERIDANrose to call attention to the case of Samuel Thomas v. Horatio James Huggins, Assistant Judge of the Supreme Court at Sierra Leone, a report of which appeared in the "African Times," June 23rd, 1869, and generally the conduct of the said Mr. Huggins in his capacity of Judge. The hon. Gentleman said, Thomas, it appeared, had been induced to plead guilty to a charge of having stolen a coat and a pair of trousers, although no evidence had been called to prove the offence, in the expectation that he would be leniently dealt with. The leniency, however, which was extended to him by Mr. Huggins was to sentence him to receive 150 lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails, to be imprisoned for a year, and to be kept at the hardest possible labour during that time. The trial had created the greatest interest at Sierra Leone, because the punishment was regarded as excessive, and as being altogether inconsistent with the law. Mr. Huggins was also accused of having been guilty of many offences of the same sort, and the action brought against him might be said to be the action of the whole community of the colony, because it was impossible for Thomas to bear the expense of such a proceeding. The decision arrived at was one which was not calculated to allay their anxiety, for it was to the effect, without any opinion being pronounced as to whether the punishment inflicted on Thomas was

  1215
  legal or not, that Mr. Huggins was not responsible for any act which he might do in his judicial capacity. The only court of appeal from that decision was the Privy Council, to whom an appeal would involve a very great expense, or the Colonial Office, failing to obtain redress from which it only remained for the people of Sierra Leone to appeal to that House. A number of petitions had been sent to the Colonial Office, complaining of the sentences that have been pronounced by Mr. Justice Huggins; but, notwithstanding the complaints made, Mr. Huggins was, in 1868, promoted from the office of Assistant Judge to that of Judge. The answer given by Mr. Huggins to the allegations contained in those petitions was that, under an old Act of the reign of George III., he was justified in passing such sentences as that which he had passed in the case of Thomas. It was, however, generally understood in Sierra Leone that that Act had been virtually repealed by what was called a general ordinance of the local Government, passed in May, 1862, by which the laws in force in England were made applicable to that colony. They contended, therefore, that the sentence in the case of Thomas was illegal, as the use of the lash was certainly repugnant to their feelings. Earl Granville, he might add, stated in a despatch of the 26th of February, that there were six sentences pronounced by Mr. Huggins which could not, in his opinion, be in any possible way, explained or justified. Several of the sentences passed by him were, the colonists complained, excessive. In some instances he had sentenced persons convicted on charges of simple larceny to be imprisoned with hard labour and whipped three times, while in other instances sentences of penal servitude had been passed for one, two, three, four, and as many as seven years beyond the period prescribed by the Act of Parliament for the offences of which they had been found guilty. In a great number of cases it was alleged that punishments had been awarded in excess of the power conferred on the Judge. When the case of "Thomas v. Huggins" was tried it was dismissed with costs, although, according to a statement in the African Times, the excess of punishment awarded by the defendant beyond what the law authorized was, in the aggregate of cases decided by him, no
  1216
  less than twenty-one years of penal servitude, six years of hard labour, and 2,200 lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails. All that the petitioners asked was a full and fair inquiry in which both sides should be heard; and he hoped that so reasonable a prayer would not be refused by the House or the Colonial Office. The hon. Gentleman concluded by proposing his Motion.
  MR. E. N. FOWLER MR. E. N. FOWLER, in seconding the Motion, said, he was inclined to concur in the opinion expressed some time ago by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, that it was desirable that the connection between some of the colonies and the mother country should cease; but until that state of things was brought about, it was the duty of that House to bestow careful attention upon all colonial questions which were brought before it. He believed it would be only fair for the sake of Judge Huggins himself that the proposed inquiry should take place, because there remained upon his reputation at present a certain amount of suspicion which nothing but such an inquiry could remove. He, therefore, had great pleasure in seconding the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, a Court of Inquiry should be held at Sierra Leone to investigate the charges against Mr. Horatio James Huggins, the Assistant Judge of the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone, contained in the Petition from that Settlement sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies."—(Mr. Henry Brinsley Sheridan.)
  MR. MONSELLsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for Dudley could hardly complain that the attention of the Colonial Office had not been directed to this subject, for three or four petitions in reference to it had been presented to the Department, and they had felt it their duty to give their consideration to each of those petitions. One of these was presented when the Duke of Buckingham was Secretary of State for the Colonies; it was referred to the then Governor of the colony, who, in reporting on it, stated that he had a very high opinion of Mr. Huggins, and that he acquitted that gentleman of all fault in the course he had pursued. After that petition had been so decided upon, the Duke of Buckingham promoted Mr. Huggins to the position he at present occupied. Hon. Gentlemen would, doubt-

  1217
  less, agree with him that it would not be a desirable thing for the House to require the Colonial Office to constitute itself a court of appeal in judicial matters. Nothing, indeed, could be more calculated to impede the course of justice. The course laid down by the colonial regulations was as follows:—In every colony where a complaint like the present was made against an official a petition might be presented to the Governor, who was bound, after referring it to his council, to consider and decide upon it. If the Governor was of opinion that the Judge was in fault, he could suspend him, and refer the case to the Secretary of State. That course was not pursued, however, in the present case, and his hon. Friend might shorten matters very much if he would recommend the persons whose cause he was pleading to adopt that course. As to the law laid down by the Judge, that was a question sub judice. As his hon. Friend stated, it had been brought before the Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, and he understood it was now before the Privy Council in this country on appeal. [Mr. H. B. SHERIDAN said, there had been no appeal.] He understood that an appeal was contemplated, and, at all events, an appeal was open to the parties interested. In regard to the punishments referred to by his hon. Friend, the simple question was whether the Act 22 & 23 Vict. c. 57, was in force in the colony or not. If it was not in force there, the sentences were in accordance with law; if, on the contrary, it was in force there, the sentences were not in accordance with law. This was a point which neither the House of Commons nor the Colonial Office was the proper tribunal to decide. When Sir Arthur E. Kennedy arrived in England—and he was expected very soon—the complaint should be submitted to him; and he should be glad to lay upon the table the petitions, the replies of Mr. Huggins, and the remarks of Colonel Blackall and the Governor, if the hon. Gentleman would move for their production. All he could promise the hon. Gentleman was that the whole question should be submitted to Sir Arthur E. Kennedy.
  MR. H. B. SHERIDAN MR. H. B. SHERIDAN, in reply, pointed out that Earl Granville had stated that six of the cases were not justified by any law. He (Mr. Sheridan) relied upon that in calling upon the
  1218
  right hon. Gentleman to say whether he would institute this inquiry which had been so earnestly asked for.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MARLBOROUGH STREET POLICE COURT.

  MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  MR. EYKTNrose to call the attention of the House to the charge made by the Police against three young men on the night of the 30th June last, and tried before Mr. Knox, the Police Magistrate at Marlborough Street, who dismissed the case with observations strongly condemnatory of the conduct and evidence of the Police; and to move an Address for Papers on the subject. The hon. Gentleman said the police and the public were certainly not in that accord which ought to exist between the two. The police deserved gratitude for the general care they took of the metropolis by night and by day; but still there were blots in the management of the force, to which he wished to draw the attention of the Home Secretary. Among those blots was their conduct in reference to the charge made before Mr. Knox, as to three young clerks of the National Bank. Those young men, after balancing their books on the balancing night of the bank, partook of a light supper, and proceeded, perfectly sober, from the bank towards home, when an altercation ensued between them and the police, and they were taken into custody. The police endeavoured to make out that the young men were in a state of intoxication at the time; but the evidence of their superiors at the bank went entirely to exonerate them from any such imputation; and in his judgment, Mr. Knox treated it as incredible that they had been drunk or had used the bad language attributed to them. He (Mr. Eykyn) fooling that there might be more doubt in the case than was to be gathered from the statement in the newspapers, went into the neighbourhood; and, though the police in most cases exercised their duties with great discretion and forbearance, still he found them using extremely bad language to the unfortunate creatures who were walking in the neighbourhood. It was true that at present we placed implicit reliance upon the police; but if these combinations of policemen took

  1219
  place, and brought about such results as in this case, he should soon lose confidence in them. So grave was the charge in this instance, that Mr. Knox declined to take on himself the responsibility of a public prosecutor, but he gave instructions that counsel should be retained by the Treasury on the part of the police. The defence of these three young men had entailed on them and their friends an expense of over £100; and as the prosecution had failed, and as the police were involved in the much more serious charge of perjury, he thought the Treasury were bound to see that the young men were put to no further expense. He knew from experience the way in which the police would sometimes act, for on leaving that House after a late division, in 1866, a policeman came up to him, when within a few yards of his own door, and told him that a dog which was his companion was a perfect pest to the neighbourhood, being in the habit of killing cats. He (Mr. Eykyn) said it was not so, and was proceeding on his way, when the policeman laid violent hands on his neck, causing him to suffer the sensation of being strangled, and led him across Grosvenor Square. He did not know what to do—whether to knock the man down or to call a cab; but at last, after talking to him, he gave the policeman a kick and sent him head first in the mud; and then, using his heels as well as possible, he ran home as fast as he could. He was told that, not long ago, one of Her Majesty's Judges suffered almost the same indignity as himself, when on duty as a Judge of Assize. If such things were done to a Judge and a Member of that House, it was natural to suppose that the lower orders must be treated still worse by the police. There was a growing want of cordiality between the public and the police, owing to acts of that kind; and he hoped the Home Secretary would take steps to relieve the anxiety existing on the subject. Some more Governmental notice ought to be taken of the particular case to which he had referred; the three young clerks ought not to be called on to pay any further expense in the matter, and the affair ought to be sifted to the bottom. The hon. Member then moved for the production of any correspondence that had passed between the police authorities and the Home Office in regard to the case in question.
  MR. CRAUPURD MR. CRAUPURD, in seconding the Motion, expressed a hope that a more satisfactory reply would be given by the Government than that which they gave a few days since to the Question of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) on the subject. He agreed with his hon. Friend (Mr. Eykyn) that the general conduct of the police was good; but he could quote instances that came under his own knowledge, in which the police exercised their power in an offensive and even oppressive manner. One evening a friend of his, who was about to leave this country for a foreign appointment, came out of the theatre when a cab "touter" pressed him to let him get a cab for him. His friend begged the man to go away, and a policeman coming up and seeing the gentleman being annoyed, instead of gently removing the man, gave him a slap in the face, struck him with his fist on the head, and knocked him down. The gentleman remonstrated, and said that the policeman ought not to have knocked the man down, as he was not committing a breach of the law, whereupon the policeman told the gentleman that if he did not move on and refrain from interfering with him in the execution of his duty, he would take him into custody. His friend having to go abroad very soon, and not wishing to figure at the police courts, preferred to walk on. If that could happen to a well-known gentleman they could easily tell how poor men would be knocked about and oppressed by the police. The case of the three young clerks which had been brought under the notice of the House ought not to be allowed to rest without inquiry. It ought to be taken up as a public matter. In the evidence brought before Mr. Knox it was distinctly shown that the policemen must have perjured themselves, and, therefore, this was a case, if ever there was one, in which the Home Secretary should prosecute. It was very hard if, after having spent upwards of £100 in defending themselves, and having- gone out of court with a character perfectly established, they were to be told by the Home Secretary that the policemen were men of the highest character in the force, and that if the young men felt themselves hurt they must prosecute at their own expense. But if the young men were to undertake a prosecution it would be said that the

  1221
  action was a vindictive one. He hoped, therefore, the Home Secretary would give an assurance to the House that an inquiry should be made, and thus afford protection to all those who were not in a position of life to protect themselves.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Papers relating to the Charge made by the Police against three young men on the night of the 30th June last, and tried before Mr. Knox, the Police Magistrate at Marlborough Street."— (Mr. Eykyn)
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he was not able to accede to the Motion of his hon. Friend, inasmuch as there existed no correspondence whatever upon the subject. The hon. Member was perfectly right in bringing under the notice of the House any case in which he thought the police had been guilty of improper conduct. He (Mr. Bruce) was not there to defend the police, but was simply there to listen to statements regarding them, and see that justice was done. What, in this case, he was asked to do, however, was to undertake, on behalf of the Government, the prosecution of a number of men. of whose guilt, after a careful examination of the case, he entertained the greatest doubt. His hon. Friend had himself looked at the Papers in connection with the case, and had read the result of the inquiries made by the Chief Commissioner of Police; and he would ask him, having done so, whether he felt satisfied that the story was so clear as it had been generally assumed to be. He had carefully looked into the question himself, and he felt bound to say that there existed in his mind very grave doubts as to whether the imputations cast upon the policemen were well founded. Under these circumstances he was asked to bring the authority of the Government to bear on those men, and to institute a prosecution for perjury against them. The whole case of the young men was open to very grave suspicion. In going homo to Pimlico or Putney they found it necessary to go to the top of the Haymarket in search for a cab, though it appeared there were cabs in the lower part of the Haymarket. The case of the police was confirmed by a statement which he had heard from an inspector, who was one of the most trusted men of the force. This inspector
  1222
  stated that in passing by this portion of the street he saw a considerable disturbance, but he did not observe the young men nor anybody in particular. He spoke to the crowd and told them to go away, and then went on the duty in which he was engaged of visiting some night houses. As the disturbance continued, he turned back, and saw at a distance the very thing which the police swore to—namely, the umbrellas of these young men raised over their heads. That was the statement of a man long in the force, which those who knew him did not doubt. Since the case has been tried before the police magistrate a good deal of additional evidence had been obtained, and under the circumstances he declined — and he thought himself justified in declining — to throw the weight of the Government against these men by undertaking their prosecution. The remedy was a simple and easy one. Those gentlemen were not called upon to bring an indictment for perjury against the police. All they had to do was to summon one or other of them for an assault; the witnesses were all known, the cost would be next to nothing, and if they were successful the expense would be thrown on the police. In that way the matter could be judicially decided, and it would be far better than to have recourse to an exceptional proceeding. The hon. Member had spoken of the employment of counsel in the case on behalf of the prosecution. When the police commenced proceedings, they proposed to do so without professional assistance, by merely tendering their evidence; but as the accused had a barrister of eminence to defend them, Mr. Knox, from a feeling of fair-play, recommended the police to apply for counsel to conduct the prosecution, and it was only on his recommendation that counsel was employed. He admitted that the observations of Mr. Knox were very strong; but they had been carefully considered, and the result of the examination by the Chief Commissioner of Police had led him to entertain grave doubt whether most unwittingly a great injustice had not been done to the police. Under these circumstances he did not think himself justified in undertaking to prosecute them.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he regretted the answer which had been given by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. He could assure the right

  1223
  hon. Gentleman that there was an immense sympathy on behalf of these young men. It was wrong, in his estimation, to refuse the inquiry which was now demanded. A case in which the police were to blame had come within his own knowledge. A gentleman, who was a foreigner, happened to be passing through a turnpike, and did not know that he had to pay anything. His horse was seized, and, upon his making an effort to proceed, he was dragged off his horse and was taken to the station. He (Mr. Kinnaird) went to Sir Richard Mayne on behalf of the foreigner, and had a gentleman to produce as witness who saw the whole transaction from his parlour window; but his experience was that no person had any chance against the police, and it was perfectly useless to proceed against them. The gentleman who had been thus ill-treated was well known at Geneva and in Switzerland, but would not prosecute because he did not wish to have his name spoken of. He had found that every policeman swore that every other was right; and if the Home Secretary would not use his influence to protect individuals proved to be innocent, there would be a lack of justice in this country.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYsaid, he had heard the answer of the Home Secretary with great regret. He had no stories to tell against the police, and was not likely to be accused of being ready to join in any cry against them. He had always been in the habit of placing great confidence in them, and had invariably encouraged others to do the same. He feared, however, that if no inquiry took place into this case he would not be so successful for the future as he had been in the past. What were the facts? The case referred to had been investigated before a most intelligent police magistrate. Witnesses were heard on both sides, and after a full and complete inquiry the magistrate decided clearly that the story told against these young men was false, who accordingly quitted the bar without any stain upon them. The real decision which the magistrate came to was not merely that the young men were innocent, but that the police were guilty. He did not profess to form any opinion upon the matter; but he said that the matter ought not to be allowed to rest where it was. Public confidence in the police would be
  1224
  weakened if the matter were not investigated. It seemed to him, therefore, to be very important that the matter should be sifted to the bottom. Government could easily direct proceedings to. be taken, which could leave no doubt as to which party was really to blame. It would be a great neglect of duty if the question were allowed to rest, and if those young men, who had been pronounced innocent, were to be put to all the expense and trouble of a fresh prosecution. Who were the parties interested in the matter? Not the young men, for they had been pronounced to be innocent. Their characters were cleared, and they had no interest in the question, except as part of the general public. And who were to represent the general public? Assuredly it must be the Government. They were the parties who were interested in having this case decided. There was one other party still more interested, and that was the police. It was for the sake of the police —for the sake of the character of the police, and for the sake of the public confidence in the police, that it was absolutely essential that some further inquiry should take place.
  MR. EYKYNsaid, he was still utterly at a loss to account for the refusal of the Government further to inquire into the subject. Mr. Knox had declared himself unable to believe the evidence of the police; but no doubt ulterior proceedings would be taken, and expressed the opinion that the young men had been much wronged. He, therefore, again urged the Government to inquire further into the subject.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALobserved that the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Eykyn) had not answered the challenge thrown out by the Home Secretary, when he asked him to state the impression left upon his mind on reading the Papers which had led the Home Secretary to the conclusion he had come to. The hon. Member had seen those Papers, and it was due to the House that he should state candidly whether that perusal of those Papers had or had not induced him to change his original opinion on the subject. And he would entreat the House to consider what the Home Secretary was asked to do. He was asked to bring the whole power of the Government against certain policemen—a measure which it would

  1225
  be excessively disagreeable for a Minister to take, unless he was satisfied in his own mind that those whom he prosecuted were substantially in the wrong. He (the Solicitor General) had not gone into the matter sufficiently to form a decided opinion on the case; but he was by no means satisfied that the policemen were in the wrong, or that the clerks were as much in the right as Mr. Knox had decided. His opinion, however, was beside the question, because his right hon. Friend had to act upon the conviction the information at his command obliged him to come to. That might or might not be a satisfactory state of) things; but it was the necessary consequences of the present state of our criminal law and its administration. Guided by the ordinary rule, the matter must be decided by the opinion of the Home Secretary, and the Home Secretary was often applauded for reversing the judgment of a jury or a Judge when it happened to assume the shape of a conviction; why should he not be left to decide in a case because it happened to result in an acquittal, and say in such a case that the court was wrong? His right hon. Friend said he had looked into the case, and was satisfied from information laid before him that this was not a case in which he should instruct a prosecution of these policemen? Did the House think it would be wise for a Home Secretary to prosecute in a case in which he was not himself satisfied that the persons charged deserved conviction? Would such a course inspire confidence among the police? The House was bound to trust in the character of the Minister, and it would much surprise him if the House obliged the Home Secretary to proceed in this case after the statement he had made.
  Mr. JESSELsaid, he very much lamented that the Home Secretary did not think it incumbent upon him to institute a prosecution in this case. On the one hand, they had a public investigation before a magistrate of high character and authorized judicial reputation, who had given judgment after having heard evidence in public from witnesses submitted to the severest test of cross-examination. On the other hand, they had that decision impugned—he did not say wrongly impugned—and virtually upset by a private investigation in a room without the assistance of counsel or the test of
  1226
  cross-examination, and without the check of publicity. That was not a satisfactory feature in the criminal jurisdiction of this country, and was only another reason for the appointment of a public prosecutor. In countries having a public prosecutor such a state of things as that before the House could not occur, because the public prosecutor would interfere as a matter of course. They would hear nothing about bringing the whole force of the Government against the accused, because it would then be the ordinary duty of the Government to institute a judicial inquiry against its officers, whether policemen or not, who, in the opinion of a competent magistrate, were guilty of misconduct. At the same time, he could not help agreeing with, the right hon. Gentleman when he said that, in this case, having arrived at a conclusion favourable to the police he would not lend the weight of the Government against the accused, and that he did not feel justified in taking so extreme a course when he was not satisfied that the probable result would be a conviction. It was said that the young men referred to might move in the matter, but no one appealed against a decision in his favour. They were satisfied, and it was not their business to institute an inquiry into the conduct of the police. If he were a friend of theirs he would feel very much for them on account of what had fallen from the Home Secretary; because if the policemen had not committed perjury some one else had, and the ease, if it had rested with this debate, would have ended with a slur upon the characters of those young men, from which they could not have been freed but by incurring heavy expense. He lamented a state of the law which permitted such occurrences as this, and. trusted the Home Secretary would not allow another Session to pass without introducing a measure to amend it.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERremarked upon the very probable circumstance of these young men having been detained late at night on the 30th of June, seeing that upon that day it was customary for bankers to balance their books for the half-year. As a banker he could say it was a natural thing that these young men should be going home late at night at that period of the year; one cabstand might be empty, and they might have to go to another; and in that case no-

  1227
  thing was more natural than that they should find their way to the Haymarket in search of a cab. It seemed to be thought that it was some imputation on their character that they should be there at that time of night; but it seemed to him, as a practical man, that nothing was more natural. What he was most anxious to do was to vindicate the character of gentlemen in the same business as himself, to show that they might legitimately be at the Haymarket at that time of night, and that the fact was no imputation upon their character.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, he thought that what had been said almost resolved itself into a charge against the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman had made considerable inquiry, and he found nothing which induced him to prosecute the police; but he did not cast any slur upon the young men, whom he left exonerated from blame by the decision of the magistrate. He had found that further investigation might possibly tend to relieve the police from the slur cast upon them; but he did not wish to push the matter any further, and he did not think it was the duty of the Government to take any steps in the matter. Was the House to call the Home Secretary to account under such circumstances? They ought to remember that this great metropolis was in the charge of the metropolitan police, and that the Home Secretary was responsible for their conduct; and it would be exceedingly dangerous if the House were, on every slight occasion, to interfere with him in the discharge of his duties, or to insist on his prosecution of every policeman who might be censured by a magistrate.
  MR. T. CHAMBERSsaid, it did not appear to him that the decision of the magistrate would necessitate any action on the part of the Government. Mr. Knox stated that it was an extraordinary case of conflicting evidence, which he spent many days and nights in considering, and he came to the conclusion that he ought not to send the young men to trial, but that he ought to dismiss the charge against them. What was the process by which he arrived at that conclusion? He asked whether it was probable that three young men holding responsible offices in a bank should misconduct themselves so soon after leaving it? but à priori argument
  1228
  was worth very little in such a case, which must depend upon the credit due to evidence. Mr. Knox proceeded to remark that it was natural there should be confusion in the Haymarket at the hour when the night houses were being cleared, and that in the confusion the wrong person might have been taken into custody; so it did not at all follow, because he thought it right to dismiss the charge, that the police were perjured. The magistrate did not say he arrived at the conclusion that the police were perjued; he only said he believed their statements "improbable." The whole story was an improbable one. Commenting on the manner in which a policeman gave his evidence, did the magistrate deduce perjury? He only said that it "jarred vehemently with. his opinion of what was fitting." The decision acquitted the young men, but left open the questions involved, and it did not justify anyone in imputing perjury to the police. The language used by the magistrate showed that, while he discharged the young men without any stain upon their character, he studiously avoided imputing perjury to the police; if he had intended to do so he would have used much stronger language. After subsequent investigation the Home Secretary did not see reason to interfere, and there was nothing extraordinary in that conclusion.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, the Home Secretary appealed to the hon. Member for Windsor, asking him whether the Papers he had read had not changed his views, and to that appeal no response had been made. He should like to hear a reply from the hon. Member.
  MR. EYKYNsaid, he had read the Papers, and it was the perusal of them which induced him to word his Motion as he had done, in the hope that they might be laid on the table, and hon. Members derive their own impressions from them.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, the Papers could not be produced without doing the grossest injustice to the young men whose characters were at stake. They contained the statements of a number of witnesses, many of whom were not called before the magistrates. The witnesses mentioned circumstances corroborating the statements of the police, and to publish the Papers alone would be unjust.
  MR. W. M. TORRENSsaid, that an extra-judicial decision of the Home Secretary had over-ridden that of Mr. Knox.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he had given no decision, and he had not set aside that of the magistrate.
  MR. W. M. TORRENSsaid, he thought the remark made by the Home Secretary that, looking at the papers before him, he had great reason to doubt the accuracy of the magistrate's decision, amounted virtually to setting aside that decision; and he held that the Home Secretary was bound either to act upon that opinion, or to give the House an opportunity of considering the grounds upon which it was formed.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND)(re-committed) BILL— [BILL 215.] [Lords.] COMMITTEE.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 24 (Act not to affect certain bequests).
  MR. ELLICEsaid, he wished to make a few observations on this subject, and, in order to put himself in Order, he would conclude by moving that the Chairman leave the Chair. The very sudden metamorphosis that had taken place on the Bill last night had placed him and many other Members of the House in the position that they really had not time to consider the course they should take with regard to the small remainder left of the original Bill, which was called, and was now miscalled, the Parochial Schools Bill. It was, therefore, perfectly fair, in the circumstances, that he should take that opportunity, once for all, of expressing his opinion upon the Bill as it now stood, and stating the course which he would take. This question of education had been for many years occupying the thoughts and attention of the people of Scotland. There had been the greatest possible anxiety to have a complete and perfect measure of education, which would not only overtake all that class of the population that had been stated by competent authority to be without the necessary means of education, but which would also improve and strengthen the existing parochial system of Scotland. The points upon which
  1230
  it appeared to him that the minds of the people of Scotland were set were these—that the parochial system should be liberalized, and that in any extension of it they should, as far as possible, get rid of its sectarian character. The Bill, as first introduced by the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, went far to satisfy the reasonable desires of the people of Scotland, and he had hoped to give it support upon all its material points. Minor amendments were desirable, but upon the main points the Bill was satisfactory, and he had a strong hope that they would be able to pass it into law. The Bill, after it was introduced into the House of Lords, was largely amended on many important points. They were points to which, no doubt, objections would have been taken here; but at the same time it was a Bill which was open to discussion and improvement, and it might possibly, with one indispensable alteration with respect to the denominational principle, have been passed in despair of getting a better. But since the Bill came from the House of Lords into that House it had been wholly and entirely altered. Two-thirds of the Bill were excluded from it last night, by knocking out the whole parochial system. The title of the Bill could no longer be called the Parochial Schools (Scotland) Bill—it ought rather to be entitled a Bill for encouraging a new system of sectarian schools in Scotland. What was the effect of knocking the parochial schools out of the Bill? It left those schools under the restricted and limited management which had been so long complained of. It was all very well to say that the Government had agreed to extend the qualification of heritors, by reducing it to all heritors who held under the old valuation roll, and who were liable to assessment for the maintenance of the parochial schools. The answer to that was, that the heritors were not the only parties interested in the question. It was those people whose children were educated at these schools who were most interested in the matter, and the complaint had always been that those who had the greatest interest in having the schools properly maintained and properly conducted had no share whatever in the management. What had been done, therefore, by shutting the parochial schools out of the Bill, was to leave

  1231
  the whole system under the old restricted form of being managed exclusively by the heritors and the minister of the parish, without any reference to the great bulk of the parents and guardians of the children who were educated in the schools. The management remained the same; the clerical element remained the same. He could not conceive that anything could possibly give greater dissatisfaction than a Bill which left a state of things which it was the greatest object of a reform in the educational system to remove. What was done by the Bill with regard to denominational education? The measure, as originally introduced, did away in some measure with the denominational system of education. It liberalized the parochial schools, and enacted that the new schools should be national schools. In what manner had the Bill been altered? It had been altered so as to allow of the continuance of a system under which denominational grants might be made. If the Bill passed in its present shape, the denominational system, which it had been one of their great objects to get rid of, in order to prepare the way for a system of compulsory education in Scotland, would be strengthened. With regard to the Central Board, he had no objection to it as it was now proposed to be constituted. He thought it far preferable to the constitution of the Board originally proposed, and he did not believe that it would be possible to invent a much better constituted central authority. He entirely differed from his hon. Friends who desired to see that central authority brought to London. He thought that in Scotland they were perfectly capable of managing their own affairs. They had always been able to manage their own affairs well, and he did not see why any fear should be entertained that they would not be able to do so for the future. But he wanted to know what the proposed Board under the Bill as it now stood would have to do. Under the old Bill the Board proposed was not too large. Three members were nominated with large salaries to do a great duty; but by striking the parochial schools out of the Bill, they had entirely removed them from under the control of the Central Board, whose duties had been reduced to something like one-third of what they would have been under the original Bill. He asked,
  1232
  then, whether they were going to maintain this Board upon precisely the same footing as if it had—as it was intended it should have—control over the whole educational system of Scotland? He thought he misunderstood the learned Lord the other night when he stated that the meetings of the Board were to be open to the public; and he must say now that the more he considered this matter, the more fatal he thought it was to the transaction of any business. Would they think of proposing that the Committee of Education in London should transact all their business in public? He thought that in any Bill they must place some restriction on the operation of the clause which was passed last night, and which enacted that all the ordinary meetings of this Board should be in public. He thought that on every ground the Bill ought to be postponed. He could not conceive that, even if the Bill were in a reasonable shape, and not in the confused and shattered form in which it was now before them, it would be fair to ask them at the eleventh hour to proceed with it. Thursday now was taken up, and if this Bill was to be proceeded with at all it must be proceeded with that very morning. He thought the discussion which had taken place on the Bill this year would have cleared the way very much for future legislation, and that any delay which might be suffered now would be fully compensated for by being enabled next year to consider a mature and thoroughly satisfactory measure, which should be based upon the principle of liberalizing the present management of our parochial schools, and, as far as possible, getting rid of the denominational character in their educational system. He would only add that, if the Bill was persevered in, the Government would take that course on their own responsibility. He entirely washed his hands of having anything whatever to do with it. He had no hesitation in saying that, if the Bill were to pass in its present shape, it would not be at all satisfactory to the people of Scotland, and he for one threw the whole responsibility of it upon the Government.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Ellice.)
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEalso urged the Government to postpone le-

  1233
  gislation on the subject till next Session. He felt it was impossible to legislate effectually at this late period of the Session, and no Member of Her Majesty's Government could foresee what course the House of Lords might take with regard to the Bill. In point of fact, the Government was in such a position that they wore obliged to yield this way or that. He would not anticipate what course the other House might adopt, but it was unreasonable to suppose that they would accept it at once; and the result would probably be that the House of Commons, during the very last hours of the Session, would be called upon to decide a most important question, affecting not only Scotland, but the whole Empire—because the measure involved principles which, if earned for Scotland, must almost of necessity be subsequently applied to the whole kingdom. On the whole, he thought the Government would act most prudently if they postponed legislation on this difficult subject until next Session.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, the time had now arrived when they should have some explicit declaration from the Government as to their real intentions with regard to the Bill. It was clear from the speeches just addressed to the Committee that the Bill could not pass into law this Session. Last night he had stated that the measure had passed through four phases; but the Committee were now actually about to consider a fifth edition of it, as he understood the right hon. Gentleman intended to accept in bulk the Amendments of which notice had been given. He might take this opportunity of remarking that there was a practice very much in vogue just at present with respect to Scotch legislation, and one which, if extended, might be productive of great inconvenience. It was what the Americans called the "Caucus" system. He admitted that, in regard to questions on which the great majority of Members had not the opportunity of informing themselves, legislation might be advantageously expedited by the Members specially acquainted with those questions meeting together and agreeing upon a combined course of action. But, in his judgment, the practice ought not to be extended to important public questions, which might serve as precedents for the whole of the United Kingdom. He had
  1234
  reason to believe that the attitude assumed by Her Majesty's Government on the various occasions when the Scotch Members had this subject under consideration in another part of that House underwent a considerable change. There would, he trusted, be no more of these attempts to expedite legislation. In conclusion, he expressed a hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not allow this measure to occupy any longer the time of the Committee, as it was evident that it could have no practical effect.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERdid not think this was a question that could be considered as a party question by Members on either side of the House; and he hoped both Liberals and Conservatives would look at it merely with regard to education. He should not endeavour to anticipate the decision of the Committee as to whether the Bill should be proceeded with or not. That must depend on the feelings of the Committee; but especially on the feelings of that portion of the Committee comprising the Scotch Members. But if it was the feeling of the Scotch Members that this most important Bill should be proceeded with at this time, Her Majesty's Government were prepared to proceed with it, whatever inconvenience they might suffer. It was, however, essential that they should proceed upon a correct state of facts. No one would say that his hon. Friend the hon. Member for St. Andrew's (Mr. Ellice) had not given a clear statement in regard to the facts. But it was his (Mr. Forster's) business to look into the figures, and he could not help thinking that his hon. Friend had very much overrated the importance of parochial schools in this whole matter of school education. The parochial schools in the eyes of Scotland were naturally most important; because they were the representatives of the old system which gave the country education, but which no longer gave it. Therefore, he was not surprised that it occupied a most important place in the minds of the Scotch Members. But what were the facts of the case? There were 312,000 scholars on the rolls of schools, and there were 510,000 children that ought to be at school, and there were 418,000 who were at some sort of school. Well, how many were at the parochial schools, after giving them the side schools and the Par-

  1235
  liamentary schools? There were 88,000 children at the parochial schools. His hon. Friend (Mr. Ellice) said that what affected the parochial schools affected the education of Scotland. But the parochial schools only affected less than a quarter that of those who were on the rolls. Besides, it only affected the mode in which these schools were made over. The Bill still remained a Bill that would give a complete education to all the children in Scotland, and would restore that state of things of which Scotland was in former days so proud, and would make the professions of Scotland accord with the actual facts. Scotland professed to have a national system, but she had it not. This Bill would give it; and this great feature of the Bill had not been altered by any change that the Bill had undergone. If the Scotch Members were still of opinion that the Bill should be given up, then, he thought, the Government and the Committee would feel bound to yield. But if they wished, notwithstanding the late period of the Session, to take the opportunity of this year to secure that there should be a national system for Scotland, all the Members that care for education will suffer any inconvenience to enable the Bill to pass.
  DR. LYON PLAYFAIR: Sir, if we are to abandon this Bill, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Andrews, we must have better reasons than those given by him. He argues that the national schools are removed from the educational system. This is a mistake. They will be under inspection, and will be as efficient and unsectarian as they have always been. All that will happen is that the £48,000 per annum now devoted to education will be continued to it, and that a liberalized management will be extended to them. The denominational compromises in this Bill have created keen opposition in the minds of many Liberal Members, who view it as a sort of contradiction to the effort for nationalizing our schools. The Bill, no doubt, abounds in compromises to the Churches and to their schools, and naturally disappoints the expectations of those who hoped to see Scotland adopt a truly national system, in which the ground, should be open and common to the children of all classes and all religions. I find this feeling so prevalent among English educationalists in this
  1236
  House, that if you will bear with me for a few minutes, I should like to explain to them the object and nature of these compromises. They must remember that the Bill does not deal with a new country, but with one whose educational history begins in the first half of the 12th century. Her educational traditions, though progressive, are blended by time into the characteristics and habits of the people. Without dwelling on details, let me remark that there are three notable periods in Scottish education. The first period was purely ecclesiastical, and began as early as the reign of David I., continuing even a century after the Reformation. During this period the Church did everything and the State nothing for the education of the people. The second period of Scotch education began in 1646, when a short-lived Act of Parliament founded the present parochial school system, and was followed by the great Act of 1696. This national period lasted till 1843. Though it was essentially national, the schools being supported by a tax upon land and managed by lay heritors, still the Church continued its visitations through the Presbyteries. The minister of the parish also, by custom if not by right, took an active part in superintending the parochial school. Finally comes the third or denominational period of education, beginning with the disruption of the Church in 1843, and continuing to the present time. The Free Church has, during this quarter of a century, made immense efforts in the cause of education. In all three periods — the ecclesiastical, national, and denominational —there has been a strong Church influence bearing upon and pervading the education of the Scottish people. When the Royal Commissioners found this to be the case, could we have expected such a body of men, versed as they were in public affairs, to have framed a scheme of education from which all consideration for the religious bodies of the country had been carefully eliminated? Such a scheme might indeed have been prepared, more logical and coherent than that in the present Bill, but it would have been totally unfitted to receive support from the various interests represented in Parliament. The most satisfactory feature of all the periods to which I have referred is that the national character of the people has dominated them

  1237
  all, and modified the ecclesiastical pretensions of the Churches. On this account, the denominational peculiarities of schools in Scotland have never become marked, not because the Churches did not encourage them but because the people took possession of the schools in their determination to use them for their primary educational purpose, and not with a view to their secondary object, of upholding the influence and powers of the Churches. So markedly has this been the case, that the Church of Scotland schools contain 40 per cent of Dissenting children, and the Free Church schools 39½ per cent of those of other denominations. Hence, though there has been denominational management, there has been no sectarian teaching in any of them. The freest conscience right prevails by custom in all of them—so much so, that upwards of 7,300 Roman Catholics and 2,600 Episcopalians enjoy their toleration. All this proves beyond doubt that Scotland is ripe for a national system of education, and the Bill skillfully provides for this in a way that does violence to none of the many interests affected by it. There was a necessity to reconcile these interests, for their power is nearly balanced. The old national schools, including in these the side and Parliamentary schools, notwithstanding their excellent service to the nation, educate only 28 per cent of the school children, while schools actually supported by grants from the different Churches have 31 per cent; and schools which are either undenominational or connected only by friendly alliance with the different Churches educate the remainder, or 41 per cent. A compromise between such little preponderating claims was absolutely indispensable. You could not pick out denominationalism, the growth of a quarter of a century, and prefer it to the national system, which had the traditions of 250 years in its favour, simply because the former had 3 per cent more of scholars; neither could you ignore the existence of the undenominational and allied schools, which had aided so largely the deficiencies of the national system. Hence have arisen the adopted schools of the Bill, with the facilities for absorbing them into the national system, when they desire absorption. But let me remind those who, like myself, are anxious for a more thorough national system, what a large
  1238
  concession the Churches in Scotland have made to promote it. They have accepted without resistance, and in a spirit of perfect conciliation, the scheme of undenominational inspection. This is an immense gain to the nation, both as regards economy and efficiency, and gives an example to the Churches of England, which I hope the Vice President of the Council will bear in mind in his Education Bill of next Session. So far as one vote can influence the result, I, for one, shall not be responsible for the rejection of this Bill. Out of a population little exceeding 3,000,000, 92,000 children are growing up without any education, and a greater number with a very indifferent one. This Bill gives to us organization, efficient undenominational inspection, and a graduated scheme of adoption, which must before long end in a thorough national system. But above all, it gives us means, by local rates and Imperial subsidies, which will enable us to offer education to every child in Scotland. With this in our view, and almost within our grasp, it would be a heavy responsibility for any man to sacrifice the education of a people.
  MR. KINNAIRDhoped the Government would persevere with the Bill, and throw upon those Scotch Members who were opposed to it the responsibility of stopping it. If they allowed this opportunity to pass, they would not have a similar opportunity next Session, because the English Education Bill and the Irish Land question would absorb the whole time of Parliament. They had now devoted night after night to this measure; and if they were now to give it up, let the whole responsibility rest upon those Members who had opposed their proceeding with it.
  SIR GRAHAM MONTGOMERYsaid, that as the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council on Education had invited the Scotch Members to express their opinion on this subject, he had no hesitation in saying that, in his opinion, they ought not to proceed further with the Bill this Session. His reason for doing so was that the course which the Government had taken with regard to the parish schools was one of which they had great reason to complain. Originally it was arranged to leave the management of the parish schools as they were, in accordance with the recom-

  1239
  mendations of the Royal Commission. That was the position of matters when the Bill came into this House. Now it was totally altered, and they were told that the management was to be changed and handed over to different parties altogether. Another objection was the introduction of the provision making the proceedings of the Board public. Further, he thought it a very bad precedent that a Bill of this importance should be discussed in the dying and expiring days of the Session. It did not seem to him that there was any great haste in this matter. They had had many Education Bills before, and he did not think that they would be doing their duty to their constituents if they proceeded to pass rapidly a Bill of this description. This Bill would have paved the way for a settlement of this question in a future Session; and he appealed earnestly to Her Majesty's Government whether it would not be consistent with their duty to withdraw this Bill and bring it in at an early period next Session.
  MR. M'LARENsaid, he thought the Government were getting a very hard measure of justice. When the Bill was before the Committee on Tuesday last, the Government refused to make any concessions in regard to opening up the management of the parish schools. On that occasion a vote was taken, and the unexampled fact was manifested that thirty-three Scotch Members voted against the Government and in favour of opening up the parish schools. The Government thereon resolved to retrace their steps and to open up the management of the parish schools; and, having done that, the two hon. Members who had made the most vigorous speeches against the Government came forward and found fault with this very thing, and urged it as a reason for not going on with the Bill. He entreated the Committee to go on with the Bill, for when it was carried through he was sure they would receive the gratitude of a large proportion of the people of Scotland.
  MAJOR WALKERsaid, the measure as it now stood was an entirely new one, and he declined to enter into its merits when there was not time to deliberate upon them. He also repudiated most emphatically the insinuation that those who opposed the progress of the Bill would be morally responsible for the non-education of some 90,000 children
  1240
  in Scotland. He wished that Gentlemen who said so had taken, the subject more to heart at an earlier period of the Session; if they had, there would have been a good chance of carrying a measure of Scotch Education successfully through Parliament this Session.
  THE MARQUESS OF LORNEsaid, the hon. and gallant Member for Dumfriesshire (Major Walker) had stated that this was entirely a novel measure; but he was puzzled to understand which part of the Bill the hon. and gallant Gentleman considered the most important. For his own part, he thought the importantce of the Bill lay in this—that it was an endowment Bill for the education of Scotland. If it were not an endowment Bill for this purpose, it was nothing; and regarding the measure as one of national importance, he hoped the Government would press it forward.
  MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUNsaid, that if the Motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair were pressed he should vote for it, as it would be impossible that any good could be done under the circumstances. Whether a denominational Bill were better or worse than an undenominational Bill he would not stop to discuss; but he thought it impossible to have a more denominational Bill than the present.
  MR. GRAHAMurged the Government to persevere with the Bill. He did so on behalf of his own constituents, among whom, there were 25,000 children in the neglected condition described, of whom 3,000 would be dead before another Session. Now, this Bill gave an opportunity of obtaining additional schools, and he thought that whatever objections hon. Members might have to some of the minor features of the Bill, they would in the main be found to assent to the principal project, which was that of providing the new schools which were so much required.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, that whether this Bill were or were not intended to promote denominational schools, the subject was so vast, indirectly affecting, as it did, both England and Ireland, that it would be utterly impossible on the 4th of August, at ten minutes past one in the morning, to discuss it. They would probably have one division, and then the Government would say that they very much regretted the divided state of opinion of the Scotch Members

  1241
  on the subject, and therefore felt compelled to abandon the Bill.
  THE LORD ADYOCATEsaid, that the question of whether they were to go on with the Bill or not depended very much on what they really wished to do. There were two things which the Bill professed to do, but they were two things of very different relative importance. The one was to provide the means of education for those who were now uneducated, and the other was to improve the existing means of education. The first was certainly the matter of most importance; and, if it were not for that, he doubted whether it would have been worth while to have spent all the time they had already devoted to legislating upon this question at all. The existing means of education in Scotland might not be the very best, but the main reason why this Bill, was required was that there were, as had been stated by the hon. Member for Glasgow, a large number of children who from year to year are without education. The question, therefore, was, whether it was not a duty to provide the education which was required, and whether or not they should perform this duty now. As regarded this portion of the Bill, there was no real difference of opinion in the House. With regard to the question of central management, all were agreed upon that point. They were also agreed that the Board should ascertain what schools were required; that they should make, as it were, a map of the educational destitution of the country, and that having done that they should provide the means for alleviating that destitution. He utterly denied that this was in any respect a denominational Bill in any sense of the word. He knew indeed he had many antagonists to contend against, but the most formidable was the period of the Session. The Government had done their best to struggle against that enemy, and he now appealed to the House to assist them.
  MR. ORR EWINGsaid, that there were so many good points in the Bill that he would rather see it carried than not. But he rose principally for the purpose of correcting the exaggerated statement which had been made as to the deficiency of education in Scotland, especially in his own native city of Glasgow. The Commissioners who reported that there was this vast number of 60,000
  1242
  children going about without education, and that the school accommodation was deficient to the extent of 23,000, came to that conclusion upon the estimate of the umber of children between three years and fifteen years who were not at school. But was that a fair basis for calculation to go upon? Where was it the practice to send a child of three years of age to school? Six years was the earliest period at which a child ought to go to school. Therefore he said that the datum upon which the calculation was made was perfectly erroneous, and he had not the slightest hesitation in saying that instead of 60,000 children being without education in Glasgow at that moment, there was not one-third of that number.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that if the hon. Gentleman would refer to page 174 of the Report, he would find that the estimate was made of children not between three and fifteen, but between four and thirteen years of age.
  MR. MACFIEcontended that the Bill was denominational in character; but, if the Government would leave out the second part of Clause 66, with a view to that section being brought up in the measure for dealing with parish schools, he would support it.
  MR. GOLDNEYasked whether there was any reasonable chance of the Bill passing this Session, when there were no less than 258 notices of Amendment to it upon the Paper.
  MR. CRAUFURDsaid, his opinion was very well known already. He was ready to share with others the responsibility of urging upon the Government to withdraw this Bill; and he did so on the ground that he did not think the Bill would do any of the good pointed out by the Vice President of the Council of Education and the learned Lord Advocate. It had been said that the new schools which were to be planted will not be denominational; but no proof of that had been shown, and he; ventured to deny the correctness of that statement. Was there not a clause in the Bill enabling denominational schools to be planted in those places where the Board may deem it proper that they should be be established? Was that an undenominational system? Then they were appealed to to let the Bill proceed, on the ground of the number of children who were without any education at all;

  1243
  and the hon. Member for Glasgow had informed them that the want of education had led to the starvation of 3,000 children.
  MR. GRAHAMsaid, that what he said was that 3,000 children in Glasgow wanted the bread of intellectual life. He protested against his expressions being thus misrepresented.
  MR. CRAUFURDsaid, hitherto he had always believed that people died of starvation for the want of bread, and not for the want of education. The changes which had been introduced into the Bill were such that it was utterly impossible to understand what its effect would be. He was satisfied that the people of Scotland were in utter ignorance of what they were doing. They believed that the Bill which they were now discussing was the same that came down from the House of Lords, and under all the circumstances he hoped the Government would not press the Bill.
  MR. C. S. PARKERsaid, that Her Majesty's Government had appealed to the Scotch Members to know whether or not they should go on with the Bill. He thought the majority of those who had spoken on his side of the House had urged upon them that they should go on with it. He begged to add his voice to theirs. He thought they would have much cause to complain if the Government should now fail to press the Bill forward.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he must refer the Government to the clock, which now pointed to half-past one, and remind the Committee of what had been done during the day, how long the House had sat, and that they would meet again at noon to consider a most important measure, the Habitual Criminals Bill. He trusted, therefore, the Government would not compel them to proceed with the discussion of this Bill in Committee. The Lord Advocate had referred to the large number of Amendments that were to be proposed; and he had heard so many different opinions expressed by Scotch Members that he was driven to the conclusion that there must be considerable discussion on every portion of this Bill. One hon. Gentleman pledged his support if half a clause were dropped; another laid stress on undenominational education, which he held to consist in a certain kind of school; another considered that this was
  1244
  not a denominational school—all these things showed that the Bill would give rise to numerous controversies; and was it reasonable of the Government to press the Bill, under these circumstances, when the time had arrived that hon. Members were entitled to know when Parliament would rise? The Bill had been discussed two or three nights, yet the Committee had reached only the 24th clause— and that in spite of meetings upstairs to arrange matters. On the Opposition side of the House there had been unusual silence, and no attempt to interfere with the progress of the Bill in an irregular manner. Influential Scotch Members on both sides of the House were dissatisfied with the Bill. They said it was in a state of confusion, and that the House could not deal with the question without a much longer discussion than there was now time for; there were on the Order Book a number of important Orders which must be disposed of; and he would, therefore, ask the Government whether they must not feel it was impossible to carry the Bill. They had made great efforts to pass the Bill; but, under present circumstances, they were only wasting time and energy in the attempt.
  MR. BRUCEadmitted the great difficulties under which the Government laboured. At the same time they felt the very great importance of the Bill; they were quite uncertain as to what would be the fate of any measure to be introduced next Session; they felt that if there were any earnest, honest determination to pass the Bill it could be carried this Session; and as long as a sufficient number of Members would assist the Government they would press the Bill forward.
  Question put,
  The Committee divided:— Ayes 35; Noes 98: Majority 63.
  LORD ELCHOmoved that the Chain-man report Progress. He said the question of Scotch education was a serious one, and there was a danger of it becoming ridiculous. It was desirable the curtain should fall before the question degenerated into a Parliamentary farce; and it became a farce when a Government, however strong, backed by a majority, however willing, at twenty minutes to two o'clock, endeavoured to force them to

  1245
  sit on, discussing a Bill on which there was the greatest diversity of opinion, to which there were 200 Amendments, and on which they had got only to the 24th of its 69 clauses. A broader and deeper principle than education was at stake, and that was the mode of conducting not only Scotch business, but all Public Business. He would not shirk responsibility; but if he stood, alone he would resist such attempts to force important measures through Parliament by the mere influence of a strong Government. That was a principle he would resist.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Lord Elcho.)
  The Committee divided:— Ayes 24; Noes 102: Majority 78.
  MR. KNIGHTmoved that the Chairman do leave the Chair. It was not reasonable, the House having sat, with a short interval, since two o'clock yesterday, to call on hon. Members to continue the discussion of such an important question at so late an hour—especially as the House was to meet again at twelve o'clock this day.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that the Home Secretary seemed about to treat the House after the fashion of "habitual criminals," by asking them to meet this morning again at twelve o'clock to consider that Bill as the first Order.
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that it was clear Progress must now be reported—it was impossible that they could do anything at two o'clock in the morning—and the Government would do well to consider in the interval whether what the Lord Advocate had described as the greatest enemy to the Bill was not absolutely invincible. If they thought the Bill might yet pass he was prepared to stay in town to assist in passing it; but if, looking at all the circumstances of the case and the other business still to be got through, the Government made up their minds to withdraw the Bill, he should recognize the necessity under which they acted. Anything would be better than bandying accusations at that hour of the morning from one side to the other as to the responsibility of abandoning this measure.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair." —(Mr. Knight.)
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 24 ' Noes 100: Majority 76.
  MR. E. N. FOWLERsaid, it was now twenty minutes past two, and moved that the Chairman do report Progress.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, it was of course impossible to resist reiterated Motions of this sort. He could assure the House that the reason the Government had been so anxious in pressing this Bill was that they really believed it in all its main principles acceptable to both sides. The Government would consider what course they should take. It would be with the greatest mortification and regret if they found themselves compelled to abandon the Bill.
  LORD ELCHOsaid, that the pressure for time arose partly from the difference of opinion on the Ministerial side and the long speeches made by its Members. It was stated in one of the journals that four Members had in one afternoon spoken twenty-five times.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  ATTORNEYS' AND SOLICITORS' REMUNERATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. RATHBONE, Bill to amend the Law relating to the Remuneration of Attorneys and Solicitors, ordered to be brought in by Mr. RATHBONE, Mr. MORLEY, and Mr. GEORGE GREGORY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 260.]

  BENEFIT BUILDING SOCIETIES REGULATION HILL.
  On Motion of Mr. GODKLEY, Bill to amend the Act for the Regulation of Benefit Building Societies, ordered to be brought in by Mr. GOURLEY, Sir ROUNDELL* PALMIER, and Mr. STEVENSON.

  SANITARY ACT (1866) AMENDMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND, Bill to amend "The Sanitary Act, 1866," so far as the same relates to Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND and Mr. CHICHESTER FOR-TESCUE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 261.]
  House adjourned at half-after Three o'clock.