Commons Sitting of 22 June 1869

MINUTES.
— SELECT COMMITTEE — New Law Courts, appointed.
PUBLIC BILLS — Ordered—First Reading—Suburban Commons* [174]; Criminal Lunatics* [172]; Poor Law (Ireland) Amendment (No. 2) [173].
Second Reading — Witnesses (House of Commons)* [129]; County Courts (Admiralty Jurisdiction) Act (186S) Amendment* [121]; Debts of Deceased Persons* [165]; Joint Stock Companies Arrangement* [140].
Committee—Imprisonment for Debt (re-comm.) [98]—R.P.; Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister [23], debate adjourned.
Committee—Report —(Bankruptcy (re-comm,) [97–169]; Sunday and Ragged Schools [67–170]; Companies Clauses Act (1863) Amendment* [138]; Fines and Fees Collection * [159–171].
The House met at Two of the clock.

THE ARREST OF MURPHY.—QUESTION.
MR. GREENEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true, Murphy, the Protestant lecturer, was taken into custody on Monday the 14th, previous to the meeting at Birmingham on the Irish Church Question; if so, will he object to lay upon the Table a Copy of the information on which he was arrested showing the charge preferred against him; whether any investigation has taken place; and, under what Act of Parliament he was arrested?
MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that he had recently received, a letter from the Mayor of Birmingham stating that large placards were posted about the town informing the people that Mr. Murphy would attend the meeting on the Irish Church Question. Considering this announcement respecting a man who had created so much tumult in Birmingham and other towns might lead to fresh disturbances in a meeting called to consider so interesting a subject as the Irish Church Bill, he (the Mayor) was impressed with the conviction that in the interest of peace and order he should prevent Murphy entering the Town Hall, and therefore ordered his arrest. Murphy was accordingly arrested, bail was taken for him, and he appeared before the magistrates, who dismissed the case. No information was laid, and consequently none could be produced. He (Mr. Bruce) had been unable to discover that the Mayor of Birmingham acted under any Act of Parliament or had legal sanction for what he did; he appeared to have acted on the basis of salus populi suprema lex, and to have undergone some considerable personal hazard, for the purpose of averting a popular danger.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he wished to know when the Returns in answer to the Order of the House will be made with reference to the precedent of Law under which the right hon. Gentleman himself acted in a previous case with respect to this person and others who contemplated holding a meeting?
MR. BRUCEsaid, he was very sorry to say he was unable to answer that question.
MR. GREENEsaid, he would beg to ask, Whether any man was answerable for the consequences, if he happened to cause a disturbance by his speech;
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whether, in fact, he was liable to be arrested?
MR. BRUCEsaid, he had given the Mayor of Birmingham's own statement of his reasons for acting as he had done; he was not prepared to say whether he acted in strict accordance with legal principles.

NAVY—ADMIRALTY CLERKS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether the re-organization of the Secretary's Office and other Departments of the Admiralty have been completed; if so, what is the result of such changes; whether the reductions have been effected by the voluntary retirement of Clerks; and, whether the Report of the Committee and the Correspondence relating to these reductions will be produced?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, the re-organization of the departments of the Admiralty in London is not completed. It is proceeding steadily, but not with undue haste, in order that it may be as complete as possible, and that personal interests may be fully considered. The department of the Controller of the Navy, the Store Branch, the Contract Branch, the Medical Office, and the Coastguard Office may be considered as finally dealt with. The new arrangements of the Accountant General's Office are under consideration of the Treasury. Those of the former establishment of the Secretary are nearly complete, but will not be finally settled until the new permanent Secretary has had time to consider them. The establishment of the Victualling Office is now being re-arranged. That of the Transport Office has not yet been taken in hand. Up to the present time fifty-two clerks in these offices have been discharged, or decided to be discharged, whose salaries were £20,250. Of these, forty have actually left. This reduction has been effected with the help of the Committee, of which the Earl of Camperdown is Chairman, who first consulted the heads of departments as to the abilities of their officers—both those who applied to retire and those who did not —and then personally saw those whom it was desirable to pension off. The Committee heard and considered every representation made by these gentlemen, and the public owe much to their considerate and careful action. The result so far is that whereas the salaries of the

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  establishments in last year's Estimates were at the rate of £148,823 a year, and in this year's Estimates at £135,368, we have already reduced them to £125,644, or by £23,000. But when the other establishments are revised still greater reductions will be made, because writers will be substituted for a considerable number of clerks as vacancies occur; and, besides, other clerks than those already retired are expected to apply for retirement shortly. No clerks have been discharged against their will. In several cases there was hesitation, and some correspondence, but ultimately I believe that in every case the retirement was voluntary under the terms approved by the Treasury. I cannot give the exact financial effect yet; the pensions not being all settled, and the reductions not completed. On the whole Vote I do not think that the reduction will be less than £25,000 a year. Against this there will be the increase of superannuations to the extent of £15,000, but these of course will fall off every year. I propose to lay on the table, when the operation is complete, the Report of the Committee and all the correspondence between the departments of the Admiralty and with the Treasury as to this and as to other reductions, and I hope before the end of the Session to have an opportunity of giving the result of other economical arrangements as to contracts and stores. I may add that we have commenced further reductions in the establishments of clerks and civil officers at the dockyards. Twelve have been already reduced, all at their own request, but the inquiry as to the future strength cannot be fully made until the autumn.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, he would beg to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his answer; and to ask whether he will engage that the case of those gentlemen whose interests have suffered and are suffering from the delay which has occurred in the organization of the office will be taken into consideration by the right hon. Gentleman when the organization has been completed?
  MR. CHILDERS: I am not aware that anyone's interest has suffered from delay; but, on the contrary, I have always been apprehensive that some might suffer from haste. However, I will undertake to say that any case where personal interests have suffered shall have my best attention on its being brought to my knowledge.

BANKRUPTCY (re-committed) BILL.
(Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General.)
BANKRUPTCY (re-committed) BILL.

  [BILL 97.] COMMITTEE.
  [Progress. 18 th June.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Postponed Clause 130 (Compensation to holders of abolished offices). Amendment proposed, in page 46, line 1, to leave out the word "Where:"—(Mr. Ayrton:)— Question proposed, "That the word 'Where' stand part of the Clause."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he would state, in a few words, the course proposed to be taken by Her Majesty's Government. He understood that a very strong opinion had been expressed by many of his hon. Friends that it would be somewhat invidious to place the Commissioners in a different category from that of the Registrars. He would accordingly propose to strike out Clause 130, and to deal with all entitled to compensation in Clause 131. In that way the Commissioners, the registrars, and all who held office during good behaviour, would be dealt with alike. A wish was also expressed by several hon. Members that there should be a power given to the Lord Chancellor —and he was sure that the Committee would feel that the Lord Chancellor might be safely trusted—in certain special cases to award to the Commissioners or registrars the full amount of their salaries where he might think that justice required it. A provision had, therefore been introduced to that effect. Where any claims to compensation beyond the ordinary amount of two-thirds arose those claims would come before the Lord Chancellor, who, with the consent of the Treasury, would be empowered to deal with them, and award the compensation which he might think just. He begged to move that Clause 130 be struck out.
  Clause struck out.
  Clause 131 (Compensation to clerks).
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALmoved in line 12, after "office," to insert "or employment," which he believed would meet the views of the Committee.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. SERJEANT SIMONproposed after the word "abolished" to insert "or discontinued," with the view of compensating short-hand writers who had given their whole time to taking notes of the evidence.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that the word "employment" which had been introduced in the clause would embrace all who had any title to compensation. He must therefore oppose the Amendment.
  MR. G. GREGORYsaid, he thought the Government had gone quite far enough.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. MORLEYasked what security they had in the case of future employments against this claim of freehold?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the matter would require legislation, and he had it in hand.
  MR. MORLEYsaid, he was glad to hear it.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL THE ATTORNEY GENERAL moved in line 18, after "service," to insert—
  "Provided, That when any such person held his office during good behaviour, or during good behaviour subject only to removal by the Lord Chancellor by order, for some sufficient reason to be stated in such order, the Lord Chancellor may, with the approval of the Commissioners of the Treasury, award under special circumstances an amount equal to the salary of any such person; and in every other case the sum awarded shall not be less than two-thirds of the salary of such person."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALmoved a new clause, embodying the regulations under which the creditors of a debtor unable to pay his debts may, without any proceedings in bankruptcy, by an extraordinary resolution, resolve that a composition shall be accepted in satisfaction of the debts due to them from the debtor.
  Clause ordered to be added to the Bill.
  MR. G. GREGORYproposed a clause providing that every solicitor of the Court of Chancery shall be, and may practise as a solicitor of, and in the Court of Bankruptcy, and in matters before the Judges, Commissioners, or Registrars, in Court or in Chambers, may appear and be heard without being required to employ counsel. His object was to put the solicitors in the London
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  district on the same footing as solicitors in the country in the respect of bankruptcy practice. He submitted this proposal with no wish to make any invidious reference to the other branch of the profession; but there was a great deal of rough - and - ready practice in bankruptcy, and he thought it would be admitted that the business devolving on solicitors there had hitherto been satisfactorily discharged by them.
  MR. NORWOODsaid, that barristers should not have priority of audience in bankruptcy.
  MR. HINDE PALMERthought that solicitors should be allowed to continue to practice as they had hitherto done in the Court of Bankruptcy, though he thought that the clause was hardly necessary for that purpose.
  MR. WESTthought that the phrase in the clause should be "solicitors and attorneys."
  MR. JESSELsaid, that so long as we had a separate set of practitioners for advocates the privileges of these advocates should be maintained; but, as the other branch of the profession had for many years had the privilege of practising in bankruptcy, he would ask the Attorney General to agree to the clause, especially as it would tend to save expense. The clause, however, would want some amendment, for otherwise it would give solicitors the right of appearing in the Court of Appeal.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he doubted whether the clause was necessary; but, as it might be, perhaps, a matter of some doubt, it was desirable that the law should be clear. He quite agreed that it was for the public benefit that solicitors should practice in the Court of Bankruptcy. He would therefore accept the clause, but proposed to make a slight alteration, and that it should run—"Every attorney and solicitor of the Superior Courts."
  Clause, as amended, ordered to be added to the Bill.
  MR. G. GREGORYmoved the insertion of a new clause (Fees and expenses of sheriff)—
  "Where the trader is adjudged a bankrupt after his goods have been taken in execution by the sheriff, but before the sale thereof, the fees and expenses of the sheriff consequent on such seizure, including therein mileage, levy fee, and possession money, shall be paid by the trustee out of the property taken in execution, or the proceeds thereof."

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  In such cases at present the sheriff was compelled to make a return of nulla bona, and in consequence lost his costs.
  Clause (Pees and expenses of sheriff,) —(Mr. George Gregory,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  MR. JESSELopposed the clause on the ground that it dealt with too large a question—the reform of the law of sheriff. The person to pay the sheriff was the execution creditor, because he set him in motion, and he paid nothing if the sheriff got nothing from the debtor. He could understand a proposition to make the execution creditor pay in such a case as the hon. Member contemplated, but the hon. Member wanted to make another person pay. If the law of the sheriff's officer was altered, he would recommend that he be made an officer of the court and paid a salary; but he deprecated any Amendment of that law in a Bankruptcy Bill.
  MR. M. CHAMBERSobserved that the sheriff was bound to act by order of the Court, to take possession of the goods, and to advertise their sale; and it would be unfair that he should be put to that expense without being recouped.
  MR. G. GREGORYsaid, that it was really only carrying out a principle of the general law that a sheriff should be paid his expenses.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he did not see sufficient reason for the proposed change in the law. The effect of it would be that the sheriff, or rather the under sheriff, would receive certain fees out of the bankrupt's estate which he did not receive now. That would be a premium to execution creditors to issue executions when they ought not. He was not prepared to alter the law in the direction of paying sheriff's fees out of the bankrupt's estate.
  MR. BARROWsupported the clause. The sheriff was acting in obedience to an order from a Superior Court, and it was only right that he should be indemnified for the expenses incurred in the execution of that order.
  Motion made, and Question put, ''That the Clause be now read a second time."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 60; Noes 141: Majority 81.
  MR. RATHBONE MR. RATHBONE moved, after Clause 125, to insert the following clause:—
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  (Office of justice of the peace or town councillor vacated by bankruptcy.)
  "Any person who, being a justice of the peace or town councillor is adjudged bankrupt, or has his affairs liquidated by arrangement, or compounds with his creditors, or makes an assignment to trustees for his creditors, shall, from the date of the order of adjudication, or of the commencement of the liquidation, or of the deed of composition, be and remain incapable of acting as a justice or town councillor until he has been re-appointed or re-elected, as the case may be; and if he so acts before such re-appointment or reelection, shall, for every occasion on which he so acts, incur a penalty not exceeding one hundred pounds."
  MR. HINDE PALMERobjected to the clause as not possible to be adopted in its present shape.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that under all circumstances, he could not accept the clause.
  Clause negatived.
  MR. HIBBERTproposed a new clause to provide that County Court Judges should receive an increased salary in case they had conferred upon them jurisdiction in Admiralty or Bankruptcy under "the County Courts Admiralty Jurisdiction Act, 1868."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he was by no means sure that this Bill would throw extra work upon those Judges. The question ought to be left until it were seen whether they had to perform extra duties or not.
  MR. HIBBERTcontended that the duties of the Judges would be increased by the provisions of this Bill.
  MR. MORLEYsaid, he hoped the Government would not consent to the clause. It would be time enough to increase the salaries of the Judges of the County Courts when they ascertained that this Bill would increase their duties.
  Clause withdrawn.
  MR. HIBBERTproposed a new clause to regulate the retiring pensions of Judges of County Courts.
  Clause negatived.
  MR. HIBBERTthen moved a clause to repeal the 11th, 12th, and 13th sections of 29 & 30 Vict. c. 14. Those clauses enacted that in the event of a vacancy occurring in the office of high bailiff in any County Court, if the registrar of such Court were willing to perform the duties of that office, no successor to such high bailiff should be appointed unless the Lord Chancellor should

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  otherwise determine. Most of the County Court Judges had remarked that this change, which was hastily made, was by no means a desirable one; and the result of it had been that in many large towns the registrars had undertaken the duties of high bailiff, whereas in small places the two offices had been generally retained, because the office of bailiff was not sufficiently remunerative to induce the registrar to accept it.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that his hon. Friend's proposition was irrelevant to the present Bill, and, besides it would be very imprudent to resuscitate those officials who had been got rid of with so much trouble. The clauses referred to in the Amendment had been enacted after the fullest consideration.
  Clause negatived.
  MR. NORWOOD(in the absence of the hon. Gentleman Mr. Whitwell) proposed the insertion in the first Schedule, line 6, after "dyers," of the word "farmers" contending that there was no good reason why farmers and graziers should not come under the head of traders.
  Schedule I.
  Amendment proposed, in page 47, line 6, after the word "dyers," to insert the word "farmers."—(Mr. Whitwell.)
  MR. M'MAHONcontended that farmers and graziers were not traders, but producers—they never had been treated in any other capacity, and he hoped the Attorney General would not consent to the Amendment.
  MR. MORLEYsaid, the object of the exemption was to exempt non-traders from the penal consequences of the law, and he saw no reason why the farmers should be exempted.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, there could be no doubt that in one sense farmers were traders; but they had never been treated as such, and he saw no reason to alter the old and settled principles of law. There was the less reason for this, as everybody could now be made a bankrupt whether he was trader or non-trader.
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, notwithstanding the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he must urge his hon. Friend to persevere with his Amendment. Farm-
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  ers were traders in every sense of the word—they traded in manures and seeds, and produced a marketable article. He hoped his hon. Friend would persevere with his Amendment.
  Question put, "That the word 'farmers' be there inserted."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 58; Noes 152: Majority 94.
  Schedules and Preamble agreed to.
  On Question, That the Bill be reported,
  MR. NORWOODsuggested that, as the Bill had undergone so much amendment, it should be re-printed, and that the Report should not be brought up for a week.
  MR. G. B. GREGORYconcurred in this suggestion.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he had intended to bring the case of the Commissioners and Registrars before the Committee; but when he rose for that purpose he was told by the Attorney General that that was not the occasion. He afterwards found that that was the occasion, and that he had lost his opportunity. These gentlemen had been appointed under an Act of Parliament, under which they had a freehold office for life.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he thought the hon. Gentleman would find that he was right in stating that the matter in question did not rise on the clause which they were discussing when the hon. Member rose, but on Clause 131 and the two following clauses. He thought that the Commissioners and registrars had had ample compensation awarded them. With regard to the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman behind him (Mr. Norwood), he had to acknowledge his services and co-operation in passing the Bill, and had no doubt he was sincere in his desire that the Bill should become law this Session; but his desire to postpone the Bill for a week was hardly consistent with that desire. They were now arrived at the end of June, and there were many other measures of great importance before the other House. Then, though there had been a great many Amendments made in the Bill, the substantive principle of the Bill had not been altered. The Bill would be printed to-morrow, and he trusted that the House would not think

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  it unreasonable if he proposed that the Report be brought up on Friday.
  Motion agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Friday, at Two of the clock, and to be printed. [Bill 169.]

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT (re-committed) BILL— [BILL 98.]
(Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT (re-committed) BILL— [BILL 98.]

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 18th June.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 4 (Abolition of imprisonment for debt, with exceptions).
  Question proposed, "That the words 'default in payment of sums in respect of the payment of which orders are in this Act authorized to be made,' stand part of the Clause."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, it would be convenient that he should now state the reasons which had induced him to make a change of some importance in the Bill. The principle of this Bill was the abolition of imprisonment for debt. By imprisonment for debt he meant the power which a creditor had to imprison a debtor for an unlimited time until the debt was paid, without reference to the question whether the debt was contracted by fraud, whether the debtor was or was not able to pay, or whether non-payment arose from misconduct or unavoidable circumstances. That power of imprisonment for debt he proposed to abolish; but, if so, it was only fair to give the creditor every reasonable facility for obtaining the property of his debtor, and for that purpose the Government believed they had made the Bankruptcy Law simpler, cheaper, and more stringent. But that law applied only to debtors of a certain amount. It would be obviously absurd to make a day-labourer a bankrupt; there must be some limit, and the limit which the House had adopted was that of £50; so that, where a man owed above £50, the Bankruptcy Law could be enforced against him, and he could be examined, under some circumstances, arrested, and his property taken from him and divided amongst his creditors. But then came the
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  question, what were they to do with the debtors below £50, and who were not subject to the Bankruptcy Law? Were they to be allowed to escape from the payment of their debts altogether? This raised the very difficult question of the County Court jurisdiction. The County Courts had not the power of imprisoning a debtor merely for non-payment of debt, but they could commit a debtor to prison, under two sets of circumstances which it was desirable to keep distinct. The first was where the debt was originally contracted by fraud, or incurred by the debtor knowing that he had not the means of payment; and, secondly, where the debtor could pay the debt, but wilfully refused to do so. The desirability of abolishing the power of imprisonment in County Courts had been pressed upon him in many quarters; but he did not feel himself justified in acceding to the request, although he had acceded to it so far as imprisonment under one set of provisions was concerned; and he did propose to abolish the County Court power where the debt had been originally contracted by fraud, believing that the acts of such debtors would be better dealt with by the general criminal law. Therefore, instead of leaving a fraudulent debtor subject to the County Court jurisdiction, he proposed to transfer him to the Criminal Courts, where the rich and poor would be dealt with on the same footing, and punished accordingly. But then came the other question of County Court imprisonment, where a man was able to pay his debt, but would not do so. He did not regard that imprisonment as a mere punishment for a past offence; but it was a process of imprisonment for the purpose of compelling the payment of a debt, and it was a process very analogous to the principle of the Bankruptcy Law. He had had conferences on the point with the County Court Judges, and he found that they were almost unanimous in favour of maintaining the power of imprisonment in the latter case, as they thought that the Courts could not be worked without it. The power, however, was exercised in comparatively few cases. He found, by a Return showing the proportion of debtors imprisoned to the number of plaints issued in the years 1864, 1865, 1866, and 1867 in all the County Courts of England, that the average for the

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  our years was 834,088 plaints entered, 93,383 judgment summonses, 26,833 warrants issued, and 7,202 debtors imprisoned, or one imprisonment to 104 plaints entered. Many men would not pay their debts until the order of committal was made out; and he had received representations not only from County Court Judges and the trading classes, setting forth that these debts would not be paid if this power were not continued, but also on behalf of the working classes themselves, stating that if it were abolished their credit would be gone, and credit to a poor man, let it be remembered, was almost a necessity of his existence. For these reasons he had come to the conclusion that this power of imprisonment in the one case he had mentioned must be maintained. Then came the question, if maintained in the County Courts, why should not the same power be extended to the Superior Courts in cases where the debt exceeded £50? And as the general feeling of the House appeared to be in favour of such extension, he was ready to amend the Bill in that sense. He therefore proposed that the Superior Judges should have the same power of committal as the County Court Judges—namely, for six weeks. He trusted that this proposition would meet with the approbation of the Committee, and he now moved to omit at the end of Clause 4 the words ''in the County Courts and other inferior Courts."
  THE CHAIRMANintimated that a previous Amendment had been given notice of by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson).
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, he had given notice of an Amendment to leave out paragraph 6—
  "Default in payment of sums, in respect of the payment of which orders are in this Act authorized to be made in the County Courts and other inferior Courts."
  Having alluded to the expense incurred by the country in consequence of the present system of imprisonment for small sums ordered to be paid by the County Court, he remarked that the fear the working classes would be unable to get credit if the power of imprisonment were abolished was groundless, because they would continue to get credit on the only proper basis—that of good character; and the abolition would have the good effect of putting a stop to the tally system. But as the Attorney General had
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  consented to adopt the proposal of the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood), he would not move his Amendment.
  MR. BRODRICKsaid, his experience had shown him that a very strong objection existed among the working classes against the abolition of imprisonment for debt, because the present state of the law was the only security a large proportion of the community was able to offer for credit. The position of the large and the small debtor was essentially different. The man who owed a large sum was almost always able to give security. The man who owed a small sum had nothing but his person to pledge. By taking away the power of imprisonment for debt a large portion of the community would be prevented from obtaining any advances at all. He hoped the Committee would pause before taking a step which, in the supposed interests of the working men, would inflict a considerable evil on that large class of the community.
  MR. WESTstated that his position in Manchester obliged him to deal very largely with small-debt summonses, and his experience had led him to conclude that the sooner they were put an end to the better. In the first place, the cost to the public of maintaining prisoners and their families was very considerable; but besides that, the sacrifices which the law forced the working classes to make, in order to avoid committal, amounted to a very serious burden. It had been often stated that the County Court Judges were opposed to abolition of imprisonment for small debts, but the weight to be given to their objection was diminished by the consideration that they seemed to think that society only existed in order to maintain some work for them to do. Now, if the small-debt summonses were abolished there would be hardly any work for the County Court Judges, because as it was now they only sat on an average two days and a fraction of a day a week. He thought the argument with respect to credit had been put rather too strongly. It was said that these small debts ought to be regarded as debts of honour. He believed that to be the right view, and was fortified in that view by the opinion of Lord Abinger, who said a man of good character could always get credit; if his character was bad he did not deserve to have any, and it was better he should

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  not be trusted at all. He had great experience in these matters, and he could say that there was no part of the duty of the Judge in the Small Debts Court so painful or unsatisfactory as the decisions which he had to give in these cases. How could a County Court Judge give an opinion as to whether a working man would be able to pay or not? He admitted that there was a strong feeling throughout the country on the question, and that probably the country was not ripe for the abolition of imprisonment for debt altogether. He was glad that the Attorney General proposed to apply the same law to the rich and to the poor. The proposal of the hon. and learned Gentleman was, perhaps, the most satisfactory that could be made in the present state of public opinion, and under the circumstances he should give it his support, reserving to himself, on a future occasion, to move the total abolition of imprisonment for debt, when he should find the country in favour of it.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he was sorry to think that the Government were taking in this matter a decidedly retrograde step. In what was entitled a Bill for the Total Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt they were giving to the Judge an arbitrary power of imprisonment if he thought the debtors were able to pay. It was rather a fine distinction for the Attorney General to say that this was not imprisonment for debt. The injustice which had been going on for some years was never made more clear than by what was now attempted to be done. They could not justify a state of things by which a man who owed a debt below £50 was liable to imprisonment, while one who owed a large sum went free, and therefore it was now proposed to extend penal imprisonment—for penal imprisonment it was—to all persons. The Attorney General did not state in what condition in the prisons the new class of prisoners would be — whether they were to come into the same category as those whom the County Court Judges made prisoners. The Attorney General had justified his proposal by the opinions of the County Court Judges; but those who had lived some time in the world must remember when a man might be hanged for stealing a shilling's worth, and plenty of learned Judges gave it as their opinion that it would be impossible to say what might happen if
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  this penalty were taken away. And so also, when imprisonment on mesne process was taken away an injustice was got rid of, but now they were taking a backward step. It appeared from the last Return of judicial statistics that there were more than 8,000 cases of imprisonment under the County Court Acts, and he should like to ask how many there would be under the proposed new process. He had hoped that when they spoke of a Bill for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt that it would have been fairly carried out, and that the humble would have been exempted as well as the great; but, as he had said, they were retrograding—giving to the higher a power of appeal which was not secured to the humbler debtor. As to stopping credit, he did not believe that the abolition of imprisonment would have any such effect.
  MR. D. DALRYMPLEsaid, that if imprisonment for small debts were abolished they would inevitably do away with the system of credit, without which, the poor man in periods of scarcity and distress would not be able to get on. He had experience of a working population which earned large wages for nine or ten months of the year, and were out of work for two or three; and were it not for the credit given to these poor people when out of employment their homes would inevitably be broken up and they would have to go to the workhouse. Instead, therefore, of having to maintain a certain number of debtors who would not pay, the country would be saddled with the expense of keeping a great number of people in the workhouses. On behalf of a considerable number of small shopkeepers in the city which he represented (Bath), he could state that they were adverse to the abolition of imprisonment for debt.
  MR. G. GREGORYsaid, he thought that grave consequences had followed from the extent to which we had already gone in the abolition of imprisonment for debt. That could not be altered, but still graver consequences might follow if we were to go further in the same direction. He would therefore support the proposal of the Attorney General.
  MR. JAMESsaid, if he understood the proposition of the Attorney General, it was this—to confine imprisonment for debt to the case of debtors who, having means to pay, refused to do so. Of late

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  years the current of our legislation had taken one direction—that of gradually depriving the honest creditor of his right and remedy. He had placed an Amendment on the Paper, by which he proposed that a man incurring a debt with the knowledge that he would be unable to meet it should be liable to imprisonment, and in support of this principle he could refer to the Bill now under discussion, because one of its clauses made this a criminal offence, with imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year. By adopting this course, however, you would take away from the creditor every opportunity of recovering his money, because he would have to incur all the expense of a criminal prosecution, and, if he abstained from going on with it in consideration of the payment of his debt, would lay himself open to a prosecution for compounding a misdemeanour; while if he failed in substantiating the charge, as he probably would, because the knowledge of a man's financial position could not well be obtained from anyone but the man himself, he would expose himself to an action for malicious prosecution.
  MR. PEEKsaid, that a good deal had been said as to the poor man in reference to the question before them. He believed there was no real hardship in the law as it at present existed, and in support of this view referred to a Petition which he presented to the House some three weeks ago, in which 107 clerks, artizans, and others living at Reigate and in the neighbourhood objected to the Bill on the ground that the powers intrusted to the County Court Judges were not harsh towards the working classes, while their removal would prevent the working classes from obtaining credit when out of employment. He had ascertained that at Reigate, during three years, there had been only nine persons imprisoned by committal from the County Court; while at Dorking, from January, 1866, to December, 1868, out of 690 plaints there had been only twenty-three committals, and of these only six were actually imprisoned. He was glad that the Attorney General proposed to keep the law in its present state.
  MR. JESSELsaid, that though he should vote for the proposition of the hon. and learned Gentleman, yet he confessed that for a long time his own opi-
  428
  nion had been in favour of abolishing imprisonment for debt; and, as a question of general policy, he believed that the majority of the people were prepared to support total abolition. He believed it was a mistake for people to imagine that with the removal of the power of commitment for debt the practice of giving credit would also cease. The same thing was said when imprisonment for mesne process was abolished, and he believed the objection now urged to be as much without foundation as it was then. As the Government, however, were very much better able to judge of the opinion of the country than he was, and as they did not feel themselves justified in entirely abolishing imprisonment for debt, he did not feel warranted in dividing the House on this point. The Bill proposed to punish a man because his friends could not, or would not, pay his debts, and to imprison him for an indefinite time. Perhaps, until it was possible to get the public mind to advance as far as to say that in no case should a man suffer penal imprisonment because he failed to pay a certain sum of money under a private contract with which the public had nothing to do, the proposition of the Attorney General was the best that could be adopted, and therefore he should not divide against it. He trusted, however, that at some not long distant period public opinion would be in favour of the abolition of imprisonment for debt altogether.
  MR. GREENEsaid, that every one would be glad to see imprisonment for debt put an end to; but he thought that the Attorney General's Amendment was a proper one under the circumstances.
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALmoved, at the end of clause to add—
  "Provided, That no person shall be imprisoned in any case excepted from the operation of this section for a longer period than one year."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. JAMESmoved, in page 2, after Clause 4, insert (Actions for debts of £50 in Superior Courts)—
  "Provided, That in any action brought in any of the Superior Courts at Westminster, where the sum recovered amounts to £50 or upwards in respect of any debt or liability incurred for or on account of any loan or advance of money, or for the price of goods sold and delivered, it shall be lawful for the plaintiff in such action to obtain and issue a summons from the Court in which the said

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  action shall be brought, calling upon the defendant to appear before a Judge of the said Superior Court, and to show cause why a writ of capias ad satisfaciendum should not issue against him; and if on the hearing of such summons it shall appear to such Judge, by examination on oath of the defendant or other oral or documentary evidence, that the defendant has the means of discharging that said debt or liability, and neglects so to do, or that the defendant has wilfully contracted the said debt or liability without having had at the time of so contracting it a reasonable expectation of being able to discharge the same, or that the defendant is wilfully evading service of the said summons, it shall be lawful for the said Judge to direct a writ or writs of capias ad satisfaciendum to issue against the said defendant; Provided always, That if the said defendant be dissatisfied with the decision of the said Judge, he may appeal against the same to the Court in which the said action was brought."
  He merely submitted the clause to the Committee to be dealt with as they should think fit.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that the proposed clause would give a penal jurisdiction to the Superior Courts, and would be reviving in an important degree the principle of imprisonment for debt. Under these circumstances he trusted that the hon. and learned Member for Taunton would not press his Amendment.
  MR. NORWOOD MR. NORWOOD, though he agreed with the principle of the Amendment, hoped that, as the Attorney General had yielded several important points during the progress of the Bill, the hon. and learned Member would not press his Amendment.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYsaid, that in the face of the concession that had been already made, it would be scarcely right to press the Amendment to a division, though, for his own part, he much sympathized with the view embodied in it.
  MR. JAMESsaid, he would withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 5 (Saving of power of committal for small debts).
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL THE ATTORNEY GENERAL moved, in line 12, to leave out from "mentioned" to "provided," in line 25, and insert—
  "Any Court may commit to prison for a term not exceeding six weeks any person who makes default in payment of any sum due from him in pursuance of any order or judgment of that or any other competent Court."
  MR. HENLEY MR. HENLEY, as a visiting justice, hoped that, at a future stage, the Attorney General would make it clear upon what conditions the persons to be committed under that new power would be in their prisons. The County Court debtors, when in prison, were placed under very stringent regulations, framed by the Secretary of State.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALpromised that the matter should be considered.
  On Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill,"
  MR. M'MAHONmoved an Amendment by which a Judge of a County Court was prohibited from sending any debtor to prison in respect of any sum not exceeding 20s. exclusive of costs.
  But it being now Seven of the clock—
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Friday, at Two of the clock.

POOR LAW.—RESOLUTION.
MR. RATHBONE, in rising to move the following Resolution:—
"That, in the opinion of this House, a closer and more harmonious correspondence between the Central and Local Poor Law authorities, and, in consequence, a more uniform and efficient system of parochial administration would be established, and the incidence of Local Taxation would be safely rectified if, as in the case of Education, grants, conditional on efficiency, were made from National sources, through the medium of the Poor Law Board."
said, that the subjects of local taxation and the administration of the Poor Law had been brought before the House on different occasions by county Members. These subjects had been treated mainly as if they affected agricultural interests only; but he maintained that the rural districts and the large towns had a common interest in both matters. The evils arising in the large towns from the present system of local taxation were so striking that he could not rest satisfied without bringing them under the notice of the House. He was aware that the proposal embodied in his Resolution had been considered in some quarters to be an attempt on behalf of the rate-payers of large towns to escape from the burdens which fairly belonged to them. He could show that that was not the case. He maintained, with the hon. Baronet the Member for South Devon

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(Sir Massey Lopes), that a large portion of the wealth of this country escaped altogether from contributing to local taxation; and that in consequence of that exemption those local rates fell most unequally on different classes of the population of the country. He further maintained that the change in the Law of Assessment joined to the increased cheapness and facility of locomotion, and the want of a uniform management in the administration of the Poor Law, combined to throw upon the large towns great masses of pauperism which had been created elsewhere. The Law of Settlement, combined with those causes, had, however, greatly modified the character of pauperism. He would first ask the House to consider the effect of the exemption of large masses of property from contributing to local taxation. The hon. Baronet the Member for South Devon, speaking of the landed proprietary, said it was a great hardship that the local taxation should fall exclusively on real property, and that such a system seriously affected the agricultural interests. He (Mr. Rathbone) thought he would be able to show that it pressed with far more cruel injustice upon the small householders of large towns. The principal wealth of our large towns consisted of commercial, manufacturing, and trading interests; but, except incidentally, none of these interests contributed to this taxation. Those classes did not contribute their fair share towards the rates levied for the support of the sickness, accidents, or poverty of the populations of large towns. Nay, more, as their wealth increased, and large towns were extended, those classes escaped more and more from the contributions. They did not pay on their capital, because that capital, consisting mainly of personalty, was not subject to local taxation. Nor did they contribute in the towns on their domestic establishments, because now the merchant, the banker, or the broker, instead of living on the spot where his business was conducted, resided out of town, beyond the area of taxation. The fact that men of the class to which he referred paid so insignificant an amount towards the relief of the poor had, he was convinced, a good deal to do with their withdrawal from a discharge of the duties of Poor Law Guardian. From inquiries which he had made into this subject he found
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that in the large towns the richer a man was the smaller was the proportion he contributed, and the poorer a man was the larger was the proportion which he paid. A merchant doing a large business in a moderately large office and warehouse only paid rates for those premises, whatever might be the extent of his transactions. Merchants who had made the calculation informed him that the proportion of their income derived from trade on which they paid poor-rate amounted to only from 1½ to 2 per cent, while the proportion of their income on which labourers in the employment of those merchants paid poor-rate was 3¾ per cent. From this it appeared that the proportion in which persons paid in large towns was in almost inverse ratio to their wealth. Upon the class of small tradesmen the poor rate operated most oppressively, and with especial severity upon those who were in the humblest circumstances. It might be said that it was foolish for the mercantile community to be active in promoting a change of system; but the mercantile community were not foolish or short-sighted enough to believe that a system could be good which transferred a considerable portion of the burden of taxation from their shoulders to those of the very poor. As to the argument that the weight really fell upon the owner and not the occupier of property, it was sufficient to point out that the pressure of increased rating always fell first upon the occupier, and it was not till the charge became permanent that, gradually and only partially, the charge was transferred to the owner. Increasing the area of taxation would only meet part of the evil and injustice of this system, and the parishes were already too large for careful or economical management. The very wealthy would still manage to escape the burden. Take the parish of Liverpool; its workhouse, hospitals, and schools, under the management of the vestry, contained at times over 6,000 inhabitants, a number larger than the population of some towns returning Members to that House. Then, again, masses of the population accumulated in towns which were not properly responsible for their poverty. It was often alleged that towns, as they obtained the benefit of the labour of the poor, ought properly to be chargeable with their support; but although a connection was

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capable of being established between particular trades and particular localities, there was a large amount of pauperism unconnected with special localities which might fairly be considered national in its character, and chargeable, therefore, on the general wealth of the country. The possibility of employment in times of distress attracted numbers to large towns, and that excess of labour, so far from contributing to the wealth of those towns, was sure, sooner or later, to become a burden on the rates. This mass of surplus population had been called our reserve of labour, but these reserves to be of service should be available when wanted. They did not, however, come to the large towns in times of prosperity, but only in periods of distress, when they became not resources of labour, but reserves of pauperism, and from them the large towns derived no benefit. Again, it was impossible in large cities to exercise the same control over able-bodied pauperism which was possible in small towns; and the consequent evils were aggravated by the fact that, in the different parishes, there was no uniform system of treatment for the sick, lunatic, and infirm. It often happened that a poor sickly family, hanging on in the helpless way characteristic of the class to which they belonged, heard at length of some adjoining parish where either private charity or parochial humanity made some better provision for the sick; to this they accordingly shifted and settled down, and, after a twelvemonth's residence, became permanently chargeable, not upon the parish that had neglected, but upon the parish that had done its duty. A man had come from the Isle of Man on four or five different occasions to the Liverpool workhouse to be cured. The Isle of Man, therefore, had the benefit of his health, and the parish of Liverpool the cost of his sickness. He did not advocate a return to the Law of Settlement, because its operation was most oppressive on labour, and most unjust to the landowners and farmers, and also to the parish—that a man should be chargeable to the parish where he was born, and not to the parish where he had worked all his life. Whilst, however, they remedied one injustice, they ought not to inflict another by it on a class still less able to bear it than poor householders of our large towns. He had shown that
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the present incidence of taxation was doubly unfair. It placed a tax on large towns which did not belong to them, and it distributed it unfairly over the different classes of the population. The waste and demoralization of the present system clearly demanded the adoption of some means for its correction. Want of uniformity of management of the Poor Law system with regard to the sick was antagonistic to good management, and since he had put his Motion on the Paper he had received various communications upon the subject. One guardian wrote to him to complain of the incredible carelessness which prevailed in the collection of rates, adding that in his parish not less than 55 per cent of the rates remained uncollected when the collector closed the rate, which was a great injustice on those who had honestly paid their rates. Another pointed out numerous and serious defalcations on the part of the officers employed by the guardians to collect the rates, which it was urged would be impossible under a proper system of audit. Another showed the wide discrepancies in the amount given in adjacent parishes near him for the relief of the poor, the guardians of one parish expending 1s. 7¼d. per head weekly in out-door relief, while the guardians of another spent 3s. 10¾d., showing that either one parish was making paupers by under-relief, or that the other was doing the same thing by over-relief. He believed both systems were going on in almost every parish in the kingdom, and the sooner it was remedied the better. The rates were said to be kept down in some parishes, not by under-relieving the poor, but by paying the officers so low that men of education and capacity could not be found to do the work. Men who had failed in other departments of life, for the want of those qualities which were most wanted in governors of workhouses and relieving officers, were selected by the guardians for the discharge of those duties. On the master not only the welfare of the inmates but the success of the Poor Law system depended; and incompetent relieving officers relieved those who ought not to be relieved, and in that way a vast number of idle and profligate paupers were relieved who ought not to be relieved at all. The hon. Member said that experience, discrimination, and business habits were seldom to be found in parish officers, be-

435
cause there was no sufficient system of training and no sufficient inducement to competent persons. The deficiency was not supplied by the guardians, who were apt to become wearied and tired of their work just when they were beginning to learn it. The result was that a pauper, if he looked round, could always find some parish in which he could live in idleness. Then, owing to the want of due supervision and guidance, parish after parish made the same costly experiments and blunders, unaware that the same experiments and blunders had been made elsewhere. Nay, the same parish often repeated its own blunders. Half the failures of the Poor Law system would be avoided if the Poor Law Board were in a position to collect, preserve, and re-distribute all the experience that was daily gained and lost in the parishes of this kingdom. One of the worst features of our social system was that the increase of pauperism was contemporaneous with the vast increase of wealth, as shown by the Returns of Income Tax. The increase of wealth during the nine years previous to 1862 was in Liverpool 42 per cent. The Census for the borough of Liverpool showed that, in the previous ten years, the increase of population was a little under 20 per cent. With regard to pauperism, he would take two periods which, following upon years of commercial panic, were periods of distress, and he found that the average number of paupers during the first half of the year 1858 was 30,038, and in 1868, 44,136, being an increase in ten years of 14,098 eases. So that within that interval there had been an increase of 42 per cent in wealth, an increase of only 20 per cent in population, and an increase of more than 43 per cent in pauperism. In the metropolis, during the same period, the population had increased 19 per cent, while pauperism had increased 110 per cent. Evils existed which the present system of Poor Law administration had been found altogether inadequate to remove. In other words, the Poor Law system was a failure in our large towns. It might be said the Poor Law Board ought to remedy this. It ought to collect and disseminate experience, and to counsel, guide, and, if necessary, to control Boards of Guardians. And why had it not done so? It was instituted in 1832, and had to rule with a very
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high hand. It had to exert a tremendous despotism over the Boards of Guardians, and the consequence was a perfect storm of public indignation. The power nominally placed in its hands broke down when it was attempted to be used in opposition to Boards of Guardians. He referred in proof of this to the evidence given by officers of the Poor Law Board themselves before the Committee which sat on the subject from 1861 to 1864. The present President of the Poor Law Board had stated that the same opposition still existed, with the same results. The Board failed because they could only coerce, because they could only say to Boards of Guardians—"If you do not do this we will, and you shall pay for it." Surely it would be better that the Board should have power to induce the guardians to do what was right. Improvements in the administration of the Poor Law would, in his opinion, check and diminish pauperism to a great extent; but he feared they would after all have to come to a change in the principle of the law. He did not think that a pauper, however indolent or vicious, had an absolute right to relief at the expense of the industry of the country. That rule did not exist in Scotland, and people did not starve there. Speaking from the experience derived from the courts and streets of large towns and the workhouse, he would infinitely prefer—speaking for those he cared most for in the world—that they should be exposed to any amount of physical suffering or to death itself rather than to the degradation and temptation to which they were exposed under the present system in our large towns. The President was the only reality of the Poor Law Board, and he changed not only with every Administration, but with almost every change of every Administration. He had not the slightest doubt that either the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Villiers), the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. G. Hardy), or the present head of the Board (Mr. Goschen) would make the present reforms if they remained long enough to originate and carry them out. It was found necessary at first to have Sir George Lewis, Sir George Nichols, and Mr. Lefevre as permanent members of the Board. They all felt grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury and

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his Colleagues for their vigilant control over the public expenditure; but there was a danger of confining their attention too exclusively to the Imperial taxation and expenditure of the country. There was an equal necessity for vigilant control of local taxation and expenditure. If, as in this matter, education grants were made from national resources, conditional on efficient local Poor Law administration, the proper remedy would, in his opinion, be applied. That would lay under contribution to local rates wealth which was now only subject to Imperial taxation, and would promote harmonious action between the central Board and the local authorities. He would make the Poor Law Board the medium of these conditional grants, and another effect would be to make local management more uniform, because the inspectors' reports would have to be far more carefully made in order to ascertain efficiency, on which the grants depended; and those reports would have to be more carefully studied, so that the conditions were more likely to be learnt on which grants depended. At the same time those grants should not be made in a way that would relieve the local ratepayers from any waste or extravagance on the part of Boards of Guardians. The Boards of Guardians of Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds had already proposed to relieve the rate-payers of the exclusive cost of sickness, lunacy, and imbecility. The way it would work would be this—the Poor Law Board would first ascertain what would be a fair amount of sickness which ought to be provided for in each district of the county, and, having ascertained that, they would be authorized to grant to such district a sum in proportion to the amount of such sickness. The grant being fixed, any additional expense, whether caused by a greater number of sick being thrown on the rates through epidemics or by lax management on the part of the guardians, would still be borne by the local rates. An inspection, if it were thorough, would secure that the sick did not suffer from any dishonest parsimony. The principle was capable of being applied to any part of the Poor Law expenditure. He would propose that a grant should always be limited to a proportion of the cost of the expense, leaving the balance, whether reduced by economy or swelled by extravagance, to be borne by the
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body electing the local managers. The Metropolitan Poor Act of the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) carried out this principle in the metropolis by bringing to the aid of particular parishes grants from wider areas. He believed he was not too sanguine in hoping that the remedies he suggested would make taxation more just and administration more efficient, and that it would prevent us being startled by disgusting disclosures, leading to hasty and, therefore, wasteful expenditure. This was not merely or principally a money question. A nation of citizens individually virtuous and industrious could stand very heavy and even wasteful expenditure; but if it tended, as he believed the wasteful expenditure of our system did, to destroy the industry, the virtue, and the independence of the population of that country, it undermined the very foundations of national greatness. He begged to propose his Motion.
MR. DIXON, in seconding the Motion, said the principle involved had received the sanction of the Poor Law authorities in Birmingham. And that fact was not surprising, because the two adjoining parishes of Birmingham and Aston—the circumstances of which were nearly identical—were very differently rated to the poor, and the system of management appeared to' be distinct. In Birmingham, however, where there was a greater amount of wealth, and where the proportion of the working class was smaller, the poor rate was nearly four times as great as in the other part of the borough, without any other reason being shown for it than the different system of management. Along with lavish expenditure in the one, there was a greater care for paupers; in the other, along with economy, there was great disregard of the real wants and necessities of the poor living at a distance from the centre of the union. The question was how these evils could be overcome; and the principle involved in the Motion was one which at any rate was well worthy of the consideration of the House. It was that we should look to the central authority for a greater amount of control, believing that the control of the Government would be more wise and efficient than that provided by localities, and that along with it there must ne-

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cessarily come the supplementing of the rates out of the national taxation of the country. If that were done a great step would be taken towards equalizing the burden of the rates and reducing the amount of that burden. He had no doubt that a properly constituted central Board would very much diminish the existing defective management, whether it took the form of pampering the poor or of starving them, and would, in the same proportion, diminish the enormous evil of pauperism. One objection raised to the plan was that it would relieve local authorities from a responsibility which was supposed to rest exclusively upon them, and that it would induce them to spend more largely because they would be spending other people's money. If the plan were judiciously carried out he did not believe that these results would by any means follow. He had no fear of the results of giving more power to the central authority; for, although the system of centralization had always been looked upon in this country with very great fear and apprehension, they might be dismissed now that we had a reformed House of Commons. They need not now fear any undue exercise of central power; and the wisdom and experience which might be collected in a central Board might be of enormous use if it were diffused all over the country, fertilizing every distant and ignorant union, where everything in the shape of innovation was shunned. He was glad that the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone) had brought forward his Motion, the principle of which he hoped the Government would not refuse to take into consideration, and which he trusted would before long meet with a very considerable amount of favour.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That, in the opinion of this House, a closer and more harmonious correspondence between the Central and Local Poor Law authorities, and, in consequence, a more uniform and efficient system of parochial administration would be established, and the incidence of Local Taxation would be safely rectified if, as in the case of Education, grants, conditional on efficiency, were made from National sources, through the medium of the Poor Law Board."—(Mr. Rathbone.)
MR. LIDDELLsaid, he believed that questions of that kind sometimes derived great weight and importance from
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the quarter whence they proceeded; and he, therefore, hailed with satisfaction and pleasure the fact that the representative of one of the largest towns in the country had brought that question forward with so much ability. Although he thought it would be premature for the House to pass a positive opinion upon the very large scheme propounded by the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone) it was very important that the attention of the country should be fixed upon it; and he trusted, also, that it would receive the earnest consideration of the Government. They all knew that considerable jealousy of the interference of the central authority existed in many parts of the country; but if the aid of the public Exchequer was to be invoked to lighten the pressure of local burdens, the various local bodies must be prepared to submit to a larger degree of central control than they had hitherto been subjected to, in order to secure that the money obtained from the State should be properly expended. The proposition brought before them that night was, he thought, the best solution yet offered of that most difficult problem—namely, how they could reach a large amount of property which had hitherto been un-taxed. The hardship of subjecting one description of property only to local burdens had long been complained of, and the difficulty which had always met them was, how to reach property that was not visible. The hon. Member for Liverpool had suggested a means by which they could accomplish that, and, having once done so, it was to be hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not lose sight of that great principle. The proceedings of the House lately appeared to him to have paved the way towards the attainment of that great object, because they had heard propounded a principle which had rather startled himself, but which had been accepted with great unanimity —at any rate on the other side of the House. He had always fancied that the liability to local taxation attached to occupation, and hitherto that principle had been the accepted principle of the law. But they had lately heard that principle contested, and it had been asserted that the liability ought to attach to ownership, and the moment they found the man the first query that arose was as to his liability to pay. Did anybody think that when once the question of

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the ability of the owner to pay was raised, the question would stop there, and his ability to pay would rest with the house or a small portion of land? He did not believe it. It would then have reference to what his whole ability was, and his whole property—not a mere portion of it—would be deemed liable to the payment required of him. In that sense he thought he saw an inclination on the part of the House to extend the liability beyond its present limits. He would not enter into the question of the increase of pauperism, or the mal-administration of the Poor Law; but he thought the present system was really an encouragement to pauperism, and the country was awakened to that great and melancholy truth. The hon. Gentleman had perhaps rather weakened his case by mentioning the fact that a guardian had written to him telling him that only 50 per cent of the rates due had been collected. But the hon. Member had stated one maxim which it was to be hoped would be taken to heart by the country at large—namely, that the wealthy merchant in our great towns pays in an inverse ratio to his wealth towards the support and relief of the poor.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone) has travelled with great ability over a space in which I hope I shall be excused from following him, because I shall endeavour to confine myself to the proposition immediately before the House. I trust also that the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution will content themselves with having so ably stated their views, and not think it necessary to press the Motion to a division. I am glad to think this is likely to be the case, because, under these circumstances, it will be unnecessary to adopt a controversial attitude in considering some of the difficulties of the case. The hon. Member has drawn what I am afraid is too true and too painful a picture of the progress of pauperism in this country. He tells us that it is on the increase, that the poor rates are on the increase, that they fall very heavily on the poor who are just above the grade of pauperism, and that this has a most degrading effect on the whole community. This is a sad picture; but though I tried to find out from the hon. Gentleman's speech what
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is his remedy, there I confess I am somewhat at fault. I do not understand whether he wants the administration of the Poor Law to be more lenient or more stringent—whether, in his opinion, pauperism ought to be ruled by a more lax or by a more rigid system. Certainly he said something about the system in Scotland, which made me think that he is of opinion that the Scotch system is a more satisfactory one than the English; but I confess that, having listened with great attention to my hon. Friend's speech, I am unable to come to any conclusion as to what would be his test of efficiency, and, until we have such a test, I do not see how we are to arrive at the conclusion which he invites us to adopt. Without we know what his test is, we can hardly deal with his proposal. But, passing over that, we come to the remedy he proposes. I suppose we all agree that those evils exist—that pauperism is increasing, and that the poorest class feels the pressure of the poor rate very severely. But some think that more assistance should be given to the poor, while others hold that independence is the best riches of the working class, and that we should do them more harm than good by further weakening that independence. Looking at the matter as it is now presented to us, I ask, what result would follow from the proposal of my hon. Friend? He wants us to adopt in respect of the poor the system of the Privy Council in respect of education. But if you send down an inspector to give his opinion as to the efficiency of the school, you have a test. In what does the efficiency of a national school consist? In reading, writing, and ciphering. Put a book in a child's hand and you may see whether he can read, put a bit of paper before him and you can see whether he can write; put a slate before him and you may see whether he can cipher. But what does the hon. Gentleman mean by efficiency in the administration of the Poor Law? I cannot grapple with that. Would my hon. Friend make the smallness of the expenditure the test of efficiency? That would make the Government grant depend on greediness towards the poor. Would he make the largeness of the expenditure the test? That would make the Government grant depend on the extravagance of the administration of the Poor Law.
MR. RATHBONE: I said that the grant should be fixed, and not proportionate to the expenditure.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I thought the amount of the grant was to depend on the efficiency; but whether there is more or less efficiency, there is not to be more or less grant. Is the administration of a workhouse to be considered efficient if it contains a great number of paupers, or is the management to be most efficient where there are the fewest paupers? If the hon. Gentleman would not apply either of those tests, is the system to be considered most efficient where most is done to protect the paupers and to make them comfortable and happy, or where the paupers are under the most rigid rules of government? What is to be our guide in this matter, or how are we to know on what principle the money shall be given? These questions will have to be considered, and some definite criterion of efficiency laid down, before we can advance a step. At one time uncertainty of somewhat the same kind as that which would arise here was experienced in the case of the education grants. Before the change was effected which established the system of deciding by results, the inspector visiting a national school, judged by was called the "moral atmosphere" of the school. That was the test in the case of schools; but we have no test here, and before we advance we ought to be told what the test is to be. Passing from that point, there are other considerations which render it impossible for us to decide on adopting the hon. Gentleman's proposal. Is this plan to be limited to England, or is to extend to the three Kingdoms? because, if it is to be made the rule in the three Kingdoms, we must bear in mind that there is a different system of Poor Law in Scotland from that which exists in this country. If there is not to be an entire change, what is to be the general criterion of efficiency? Then, as to expenditure; the Privy Council Grant amounts to one-third of the whole expenditure for education. Now, if the same ratio is to be adopted in the case of the grants proposed by the hon. Gentleman, we shall have to make an Imperial contribution of £3,000,000, the total expenditure for the administration of the Poor Law being £9,000,000. Again, why should the principle, if it
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be a good one, be limited to Poor Law expenditure? Why should it stop there? Why should it not extend to the outlay for highways. I think an inspector might have great difficulty in deciding as to deficiency in the case of Poor Law administration; but the thing would be easy enough in the case of highways. If a road overturned your gig and threw down your horse, you would know it was a bad one. If my hon. Friend succeeded, his principle would have a very wide extension, and the expenditure would be proportionately great. Now, first consider this question—where is all this money to come from? As I have stated £3,000,000 would be required for the contribution in aid of poor rate; but, if all the local taxes were brought within my hon. Friend's principle, the third of £20,000,000, or something like £7,000,000, would be required. It may be said that this money should relieve local taxation, but where are we to get it? The hon. Gentleman has said, and with great truth, that the poorer classes already contribute too much to the poor rate, but will you relieve the poorer classes of the people by increasing the burden of Imperial taxation from £48,000,000 to £55,000,000? Where would that money be got? Would it be got by taxation on the necessaries of life? And is that the assistance to be given to the poor? I can imagine nothing more cruel. I now turn to the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell), and ask him whether the adoption of such schemes as this, supported on grounds such as those which he has put forward in support of them, would not be likely to eventuate in additional taxation on realized property? If increased burdens be placed on the poor, does not the hon. Gentleman think that the ingenuity of some persons will be directed to placing what he and his friends would consider to be intolerable burdens on realized property? But there is another difficulty to which I wish to call the attention of the hon. Member for Liverpool. It is the habit in this country to place the administration of the Poor Law in the hands of persons who have a local interest in the application of the funds. They are responsible for the application, and that is the system which has been at work in this country for nearly 300 years. Now, I can understand persons who complain

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of the many grievous evils that are connected with the local administration of the Poor Law, and who, in their impatience of those evils, would prefer a system of Imperial taxation—I can understand them saying—we will have efficiency, at any rate, even if we have to give up local administration and adopt Imperial administration. Either of these two principles I can understand. But what I cannot understand is the mixing up of the two together with just enough of local government to thwart the influence of Imperial efficiency, and with just enough of central assistance to render the local administrators still more lazy and careless. I can understand the system of official responsibility, and I can understand the system of local responsibility. But a system of responsibility which is neither the nor the other, I cannot understand. It would add to the burdens of the country by what it took out of the central fund, while, in all probability, it would leave the burden of the local rates as grievously offensive as ever. These are the difficulties that occur to my mind. I do not say they cannot be met. I have spoken without any possibility of preparation, and I am afraid without very much knowledge of the subject; but I venture to think that my hon. Friend has not furnished us with a criterion which is necessary before we could think of adopting his proposal; and, therefore, I hope he will be satisfied with having stated his views in an able speech.
SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, the subject was one of great interest to the county which he had the honour to represent, which must be his excuse for troubling the House on this occasion. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had endeavoured to lead the House away from the true meaning and purport of the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Rathbone). For himself, he had always regarded this as more a town than a rural question, and as one affecting the small rate-payers rather than the rich; and it was in that point of view he wished to argue the question to-night. But the right hon. Gentleman said that this was a plan to mix up central with local administration, and that the thing was impossible. But they all knew that that was the system now in existence. The Government sent down inspectors
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who exercised a most scrupulous superintendence over the proceedings of the local guardians. He was, therefore, astonished how the right hon. Gentleman, possessed as he was of so much wide and varied information, could stand up and say in the face of the House, that there could be no mixture of central superintendence with local administration. He wished to lead the House back to consider the real question—the question how this system affected the towns rather than the country. The right hon. Gentleman asked if a grant was to be made in aid of the local rates, from what source that grant was to come? He would meet that question by saying that as the wants of the country had been caused by Imperial legislation, the local rates ought to receive aid from the Imperial funds. ["Divide!"] He must remind the House that this was a question requiring much deliberation, and that it was not to be settled by howling him down. A Report of the Lords' Committee on Parochial Assessments, said that the relief of the poor ought to come out of every description of national property. It was also the opinion of the Judges that all things which were charged for the Imperial revenue, ought to be taxed for the relief of the poor. It was therefore not right to say that one kind of property only ought to be taxed for relief of the poor. The cases of hardship arising from the present system were greater in towns than in the rural districts. From inquiries he had made he ascertained that in one manufacturing town (Trowbridge, in North Wilts) the rates varied from 4s. 8d. in a good year to 10s. in a bad one, and in another populous town (Westbury) things were still worse. Cases such as that of an old woman aged seventy-four, whose husband had recently died, being summoned for 8s. 3d. arrears, was really a reproach to our legislation. At Bradford, in Yorkshire, again, a gentleman had built twelve almshouses for the relief of as many aged women, and endowed them besides with a annuity for each. These almshouses cost £10,000 to build, and although some of the occupants had previously been relieved at a cost to the parish of 6s. a week, the authorities actually rated those buildings. If he was asked what was the remedy for this state of things, his answer would be the property of the

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nation—the income tax. £100,000,000 only of property were rated for the poor—whilst £300,000,000 of property were rated for the income tax. A rich man who died lately, owned property in the funds that yielded £28,000 a year, and that fund contributed nothing to the poor rate or to the various local burdens, whilst the owner of it enjoyed all the protection of the police, the county prison, the Militia, and the various institutions which are maintained by local rates, to which he contributed absolutely nil in respect of that property. Surely no one could justify that and call it justice. He believed that much good would be done to the working classes, as well as to the revenue of the country, if those classes were relieved from the rates which they now paid, and were charged a moderate amount of income tax proportioned to the wages which they earned.
MR. RATHBONEsaid, he would withdraw his Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

REPORTS OF JUDGES ON ELECTION INQUIRIES.

  BRIDGWATER ELECTION.
  Queen's Answer to Address reported, as follows:—
  I have received the joint Address of the two Souses of Parliament in reference to the Report made by the Judge appointed to try a Petition complaining of an undue Election and Return for the Borough of Bridgwater; and I have given directions accordingly for the appointment of the Gentlemen named in the Address to be Commissioners for the purpose of making the Inquiry prayed for.
  The Queen's Answers in respect of Beverley Election, Cashel Election, Sligo Borough Election, Norwich Election, reported in the same terms.

PUBLIC-HOUSES, &c—RESOLUTION.
MR. RYLANDS, in rising to move a Resolution, said, that the question was not entirely disconnected with the subject which had been introduced by the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone), for the large expenditure to which he has directed attention was to a large extent rendered necessary by the drinking habits of the population. It was unnecessary for him to show that drunkenness produced a very large amount of the pauperism, crime, and
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mortality of this country, for he took it for granted that hon. Members on both sides of the House were perfectly convinced of the evils arising from intoxication, and were anxious that measures should be adopted with the view of diminishing those evils. He did not for a moment wish to insinuate that hon. Members who might not be prepared to adopt the views he was about to submit were not desirous of doing what they could to diminish drunkenness, though they might conscientiously differ from the views which he entertained. He asked the House carefully to consider the subject of the connection of drunkenness with crime. Now, the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) stated the other night that, in his opinion, crime was decreasing. He (Mr. Rylands) was sorry to say that, as far as he was able to judge, there was no reason to think that crime was diminishing. He was afraid that careful examination of the Returns would prove that crime and drunkenness were increasing. It must be borne in mind that at the present time there were influences at work in favour of progress, moral, religious, and intellectual, very much greater in extent, and which, therefore, ought to be very much greater in effect, than at any previous period; they had the old agencies at work, but in a very much more effective fashion than formerly; they had the pulpit—and he believed that never were the pulpits of all denominations filled by a larger number of earnest men than they are at present; they had also a larger amount of educational agencies; they had far more schools that at any former period, and all the reports of educational societies showed that the education of the people had gone on increasing. He might say further, that they had an instrumentality, the effect of which could scarcely be over estimated—a cheap Press. Newspapers were disseminated by tens of thousands, at a low price. Now, if in the face of all these instrumentalities—schools, both Sunday and day schools, the pulpit, and cheap literature—they did not keep far a-head of crime and drunkenness, there must be something in our system which was wrong and deserving the attention of the House. He had no doubt that the great influence which thwarts all these agencies for good was the influence of drink. He knew it would be

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said that they could not make men righteous by Act of Parliament, and he did not think they could; but he would tell them what they could do, they could at all events, by Act of Parliament, prevent men having facilities for evil, and could render the path of virtue more easy. Indeed, the whole of our legislation aimed at mitigating temptations to evil and giving facilities for virtue. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government laid down the axiom, in a speech which he delivered some time ago, that the Government should so legislate as to make it "easy to do right and difficult to do wrong," and that was the only reason why he ventured to bring this question before the House. He wished to induce the House to act so as to make it difficult to do wrong, and easy to do right. It might be said that the Legislature had no right to interfere with the liberty of the subject in this matter; but that it had the right to interfere to restrict these evils he might refer to the various Acts that had been passed during the last 400 years. It would be impossible to go through these various enactments, which afforded ample precedents for legislation at the present day; but he wished particularly to instance the 7 Edward VI., c. 5, which was entitled "an Acte to avoyde the great price and excesse of wynes." It provided that certain towns should only have a certain number of public-houses. London was allowed forty, York eight, Bristol six, and others four and three. In carrying out this Act Sir Nicholas Bacon, when Lord Chancellor, succeeded in getting 200 ale-houses closed in London, Southwark, and Lambeth, and the example was followed in other parts of Middlesex. Later on, the Lord Keeper Egerton, in his charge to the learned Judges when going upon circuit, in 1602, instructed them to ascertain for the Queen's information—
"How many ale-houses the justices of the peace had pulled down, so that the good justices might be rewarded and the evil removed."
In those day, therefore, the fact was recognized that drunkenness would always be in proportion to the facilities which were afforded for drinking. He wished now to bring before the House the fact that in their recent legislation there were instances of the way in which the Legislature had dealt with the subject of Sunday closing. Up to 1848, the
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public-houses, with the exception of Liverpool and London, and two or three other places, which were under local Acts, were open from Saturday night during the whole of Sunday morning up to Divine service, when they were closed for a couple of hours, and were open during the remaining portion of the day. The effect of it was found to be very objectionable, and in London it was found that the closing of public-houses during the whole morning was very beneficial. In consequence a general Act was passed, in 1848, entitled "an Act for regulating the Sale of Beer and other Liquors on the Lord's Day," and in the Preamble it was stated that—
"The provisions in force within the Metropolitan Police District, and in some other places in England, against the sale of Fermented and Distilled Liquors on the morning of the Lord's Day have been found to be attended with great benefits."
It was accordingly applied to the country at large. In 1855 the House of Commons appointed a Committee, which was presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Villiers). The Report of that Committee bore striking evidence to the beneficial effect of the Act of 1854, for, with one exception, the reports of the police superintendents spoke of a very marked improvement as the result of the closing of public-houses during the morning of Sunday and up to one o'clock. In consequence of the benefit resulting from partial Sunday closing, and the evidence collected by the Committee, they recommended that the hours of closing should be extended so as to close during the whole Sunday with the exception of four hours. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lancashire (Colonel Wilson-Patten) accordingly introduced a Bill to carry out that restriction. The Preamble of the Act recited that—
"Whereas the provisions in force against the sale of Fermented and Distilled Liquors on the morning of the Lord's Day have been found to be attended with great benefits, and it is important to extend such provisions."
That Act was in operation for twelve months, and nothing could be more overwhelming than the testimony of the persons competent to form a practical opinion in favour of the beneficial working of the Act, and it led inevitably to the conclusion that an Act wholly closing these houses on the Lord's Day would be attended with the most salu-

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tary effects on the moral condition of the community. The Society for Promoting the Due Observance of the Lord's Day forwarded circulars to the mayors and chief officers of police of the principal towns in England and Wales, asking them to give their opinon as to the effect of the Act. Eighty-seven replies were received; of these eighty-two spoke most favourably of its effects. Of these fifty-one said that the Act might be improved, and no fewer than forty suggested the propriety of wholly closing these houses. As regards the metropolis, the newspapers spoke with astonishment of the altered appearance of the police courts the moment the Act came into force. Of the Southwark Police Court, a newspaper, speaking of the morning of Monday, the 14th of August, said—
"This court had a very unusual appearance— such as had not been known before on a Monday within the memory of the oldest officer, owing chiefly to the new public-house law, which came into effect on Sunday. The usual average number of drunken charges taken into custody on Sunday amounted heretofore to between thirty to forty persons, and generally occupied the attention of the magistrate the chief part of Monday morning. Yesterday, however, there was only one drunken person charged, and only two trifling assaults."
The same observations were made in reference to Bow Street and Marlborough Street. At the latter, instead of from sixty to 100 cases, there were only twenty-five. And it was to be observed that of these cases nearly all were brought to the police stations on Saturday night—there was scarcely one Sunday charge. Mr. Gilbert a Beckett, the police magistrate, bore testimony to the beneficial effect of the Act in a remarkable letter, in which he stated that on nineteen Mondays there had been only thirty-seven Sunday cases, or only two for each Sunday. The Rev. Mr. Clay, the chaplain to Preston Gaol, bore equally striking testimony, for he stated that comparing four months before the passing of the Act with four months after, there had been a decrease of 31 per cent on the whole, and more than 50 per cent on the Monday committals. Now, it might have been supposed that an Act, the good effects of which were reported in the papers, and acknowledged by the leading magistrates, would have been supported by public opinion and by the House; but the fact was that a very important class of people in the country were opposed to it. The
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trade connected with the sale of these drinks was particularly affected by the Act, and began to agitate at once. In almost all the towns there was a general feeling in favour of the Act, except amongst a certain proportion of publicans, and the publicans created an agitation and put a pressure upon Members of this House. It happened that at that time there was a Sunday Trading Bill, which had been brought in by Lord Robert Grosvenor, and though it did not in any way affect the sale of beer, it created a very large amount of excitement amongst a certain class of the community in London. There were tumultuous assemblages in Hyde Park, and the opportunity was afforded and taken to make it appear that the riots were occasioned by the disapproval felt by the people at large for Wilson-Patten's Act. The riots had really nothing to do with the closing of public-houses on Sunday, as was proved by the public prints at the time, but simply had reference to Lord Robert Grosvenor's Bill; but the hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Berkeley), who had great sympathy with the particular class of people to whom the Act was distasteful, came forward as their acknowledged advocate— for he did not disguise it—and proposed a modification of the Act. He moved for a Committee, and that Committee was appointed under circumstances of a very peculiar character. It was appointed entirely in the hon. Member's interest, and the large majority of its members were understood to be opposed to the Act of 1854, into which they were directed to inquire. They heard the evidence of a very small number of witnesses, and these with one exception exclusively from London, and refused to hear a very considerable number who had been brought up from the country at considerable expense in order to give evidence of the good working of the Act. They refused to listen to evidence which would have proved the great benefit of the Bill; and, upon small and very partial evidence, they hastily came to the conclusion that the Act ought to be repealed. Accordingly, the hon. Member brought in a Bill which recited that some slight inconvenience had been occasioned by the Act. Now, he (Mr. Rylands) entirely denied the alleged fact on which the Bill was based, and he believed it had inflicted a very serious in-

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jury on the country by removing the benefits of the Act of 1854. He had shown the good results of the Act of 1854, in EnglandandWales—he believed he should carry the House still more decidedly with him when he appealed to the experience of Scotland; where a measure precisely such as that which he was now advocating had been in operation for a number of years. The working of it was challenged just as the Act of 1854 was, but instead of being referred to a small Committee manipulated in the way he had described, and presided over in a particular manner, it was referred to a Royal Commission, which went through Scotland to make inquiries. It examined between 700 and 800 witnesses, and the result was that they reported the operation of Forbes Mackenzie's Act to have been highly beneficial. The Commissioners in their Report stated—
"The improvement in large towns has been most remarkable; whereas, formerly, on Sunday mornings, numbers of persons in every stage of intoxication were seen issuing from the public-houses, to the great annoyance of the respectable portion of the population on their way to church, the streets are now quiet and orderly, and few cases of drunkenness are to be seen. The evidence of the police authorities prove that whilst there has been a considerable diminution in the number of cases of drunkenness and disorder since the passing of the Act, the change has been more marked on Sunday than on any other day of the week. Employers of labour, and workmen themselves, are unanimous in testifying to the great improvement that has taken place in the regularity of attendance at work on Monday morning, and many publicans examined before us express themselves as grateful for the existing law."
He had thus adduced evidence to prove —first, that restrictions have been imposed by the authority of this House; and secondly, that they have had the effect of diminishing crime and drunkenness. Why, then, should there be any difficulty in imposing further restrictions, especially when there was, at all events, a considerable public opinion in favour of Sunday closing. A great majority of the householders had expressed themselves in favour of the entire closing of public-houses on Sunday, and Petitions had been presented to the House in very large numbers to the same effect. He might also refer to public meetings, chiefly consisting of the working classes, where resolutions had been carried in favour of Sunday closing. He asked the House, therefore, to adopt this Resolution with the view of urging on the
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Government the desirableness in the important measure they were expected to bring forward early next Session on the licensing law, of including in it very considerable restrictions on the sale of liquors on Sunday. He believed that in treating that question, together with other modes of restriction, they would receive the general support of the House. This question is not one of party—hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House are as earnest as Members on this side in favour of restriction. He believed that, if the Government dealt with it next Session, they would pass a measure which would not be in the least beneficial of the great measures they have in hand. He believed it would be in the interest of the working classes; that it would augment the force of those important agencies for good which were at work throughout the country; and that all those agencies, whether moral, religious, or intellectual, would be advanced and benefited by the removal from their path of the difficulty arising from the temptations to drink; and if, as the result, they freed the working classes from those temptations, and enabled them to take advantage of the benefits offered them, to that extent we would succeed in placing the people in a position which would justify the confident hope that they would maintain the high position which this country had hitherto held.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that any measure for the general amendment of the Laws for Licensing Public Houses, Beer Houses, and Refreshment Houses should include the prohibition of the sale of Liquors on Sunday."—(Mr. Rylands.)
MR. LOCKEsaid, that while the hon. Gentleman had been very copious in his references to the law of 1854, he had carefully avoided the year 1868. The Select Committee of last year was presided over by Sir James Fergusson, and a more careful, independent, and scrutinizing Chairman never sat upon any Committee; and, moreover, he was a Scotchman, and had his prejudices. The Committee had a large blue book before them, the Report of the Commission sent to Scotland, which painted druken-ness in the most vivid colours, whether it occurred in the open streets or in public-houses; but it was entirely overlooked when it occurred in a shebeen. Now the question entirely resolved itself

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into one between the shebeen and the public-house. The great question was whether the restrictions on the liquor trade had in Scotland caused a diminution of drunkenness, and a great many witnesses gave evidence that it had not diminished—that instead of being public it was private—instead of being in the public-house it occurred in the she been. Then they had before them the Bill of the hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. H. Berkeley) and the measure of Lord Robert Grosvenor with regard to Sunday trading, which created the row in Hyde Park. Many of the tradesmen who were interfered with—the barbers said it was the publicans and the publicans said it was the barbers—made a noise and the consequence was that respectable people were insulted and the Act was repealed. Then various statistics had been got up by all the religious societies which were opposed to drunkenness. It must be borne in mind, however, that these societies were of a peculiar description. Some time ago an account of them appeared in The Times, showing that the persons who organized these societies made a very good thing of it, and that the greater part of the subscriptions went into the pockets of those who carried them on. ["No, no!"] Well, he was only repeating what he had read in The Times. He might mention that a host of these persons appeared daily before the Committee of 1868, and that they did not go there for nothing he was perfectly certain. These societies had got up and excited his hon. Friend, who had a great many members among his constituents. Now as to the Acts of Parliament, he thought he had gone through them all except the statute of Edward VI. But those were barbarous times and did not understand political economy. Even Henry VIII. did not understand it, because one of his statutes required tailors to make cloth coats and sell them at a particular price; and Edward VI. laid down the rule that nobody should drink unless he liked it. Well, people in those days drank because they liked it. The rule was that everybody might do as he pleased, provided he did not interfere with other people. That was an exceedingly good rule, but it was not the doctrine of my hon. Friend. But he might say this with regard to his hon. Priend—that he had seen him in the dining-room, and
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he had seen him the better for drink. Well, if he could improve his condition in that way, why should not other people? His whole speech from beginning to end was not against drinking in particular but against drinking in general; and it was only in the latter part of it that he touched upon Sunday, and he touched it in the lightest way possible. But it must be obvious to everybody that a man was thirsty on Sunday as well as any other day, and therefore to deny any man the right to drink on Sunday simply because it was Sunday was one of the most preposterous propositions he ever heard of. His argument went to this, that nobody was to use spiritous liquors at all; but, if any day, why not on Sundays? If he wants to be enlightened on that point let him read the Report of the Committee of 1868. That Report went upon the honest straightforward principle, and stated this fact—that drunkenness had greatly diminished and was greatly diminishing, and that the sense of the country dictated that you should not unnecessarily interfere with the interests of the public at large. Now, when the hon. Gentleman went back to the reign of Edward VI., and to Lord Robert Grosvenor and the hon. Member for Bristol, and all those things, it seemed somewhat extraordinary that he should entirely have left out the Report of the Committee of 1868, which to his (Mr. Locke's) mind disposed of the question. He hoped that the Government would take no notice whatever of his Motion.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he could not admit that hon. Members on his side of the House were indifferent to the promotion of temperance. He had himself anxiously supported Mr. Porbes Mackenzie in canying the statute which bears the name of that hon. Gentleman; adhering to the same principle, he had supported the Act of 1854, and had opposed the repeal in 1855. As regarded the Porbes Mackenzie Act, so far as related to Scotland, he believed it had done much good. The discontent caused by the operation of the Act of 1854 had led the House to repeal it, and he was anxious not to see the House again placed in the position of passing an Act one year and of being compelled to repeal it the next. The hon. Member for Warrington had alluded to the agitation on this question. To show the character

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of the agitation by those, who promoted the movement, he would refer to a resolution passed at Manchester in October, 1868. It was moved by Archbishop Manning, and was to the effect, that the Executive should be directed to promote conferences on the question in all the great centres of population. Some hon. Members might recollect the movement of Father Matthew, and what was the result? It led to an organization, which was established for the purpose of temperance, but was turned to political purposes. ["No, no!"] He said yes. ["No!"] The result was that the temperance movement, by being converted into political objects, had produced serious disorganization in Ireland. He was in favour of modification of the present law, but he was opposed to the extreme measure indicated by the Resolution before the House. If the House adopted extreme views he was afraid they might find themselves in a position similar to that of 1855.
MR. BRUCEsaid, that considering the great interest on this subject which was manifested throughout the country, and the very extreme views with respect to it which undeniably received the support of a very large number of persons out-of-doors, nobody could complain of the manner in which the hon. Gentleman had introduced the subject. At the same time he could not but think that the Resolution was somewhat unseasonable. He would not dwell upon what took place last Session, when a much more moderate measure than that which the hon. Gentleman recommends was referred to a Committee and condemned as unsuited to the wants of the time. He would rather refer to two discussions that have already taken place on this subject this Session, and to the distinct pledge which had been given on the part of the Government that the whole subject with respect to licensing and other points should be considered. When that was done, it would be the duty of the House to consider whether any further restrictions should be imposed on the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday, and he thought it would be better to abstain from entering at present into the question whether such restrictions were expedient. The subject fully deserved and would receive the consideration of the Government. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would be satisfied with that
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assurance, and would not press his Motion to a division.
MR. HIBBERTthought the remarks made by the hon. and learned Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) were calculated to convey an erroneous impression with regard to the proceedings of the Committee of last year. He stated that the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) had not referred to the Report of that Committee, because it was so strongly against him that he was afraid to mention it. Now, though no doubt the Committee reported in that sense, they were not unanimous. He (Mr. Hibbert) himself brought forward a Motion in favour of further restriction on Sunday, though not to the extent proposed by the Bill of last year, but in favour of curtailing the hours public-houses should be open on Sunday, and that Motion was only lost by 1 vote. He might say, too, that the evidence before it, almost from all quarters of the country, was in favour of further restriction on Sunday. The proper way to meeting the question would, be to close all these places at an earlier hour on Sunday evening, and not to go in the face of that strong opinion which would be likely to be expressed if they attempted to close them the whole day. He entirely sympathized with the object the hon. Member had in view, but he hoped he would not press his Motion to a division.
MR. RYLANDSsaid, that after the speech of the Home Secretary, he would withdraw his Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW LAW COURTS.

  MOTION FOE A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. GLADSTONE, in rising, pursuant to notice, to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the Site and Charge of the New Courts of Law, said: I need not trouble the House at any great length in stating the reasons which have induced the Government to think that it would be expedient to refer this subject to a Committee. I need not especially enter into the comparative merits of one or other of the plans which have been brought under our consideration. The manner in which the question has risen is this—It will be recollected that at the commencement of the Session my

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  right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had then only recently came into Office, was very much startled, and even shocked, at the probable outlay of about £4,000,000—which was, I think, the estimate as the project then stood— on the erection of the new Courts on the Carey Street site. He made a statement to the House, in which he strongly objected to an expenditure on that scale, and he went on to make a suggestion which was supported by my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works —to the effect that the Courts should be erected on a new site on the Thames Embankment, which, in his opinion, would be preferable on the score of economy and convenience, and the selection of which would not be likely to give rise to any considerable delay—if, indeed, to any delay at all—in comparison with the Carey Street site. When my two right hon. Friends had developed their plans, they so far made a decided impression on opinion out-of-doors and within-doors that it was generally admitted, both by friends and opponents of the Carey Street site, that it might be advisable to think of a great contraction of the plan. But it was said— "Granting that it may be right to diminish very much the area and the cost of the new Law Courts, why should we leave that site which has received the sanction of an Act of Parliament, which cannot be disposed of without a considerable loss, and with respect to which we have already incurred and inflicted all the inconvenience of clearing away a very considerable population?" I wish, however, to point out that the plan which we found in possession of the ground at the commencement of the year—namely, the great scheme in Carey Street, for which seven or eight acres had been acquired and six or seven more were to be acquired—has practically disappeared, and that the plan for a reduced edifice upon the Carey Street site is, in fact, a new plan for all practical purposes like the plan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Commissioner of Works upon the Thames Embankment. It may be said that this is not a new plan, inasmuch as it is a return to the scheme which was originally contemplated. But then it must be borne in mind that the authorities to whom the maturing and execution of that project was entrusted did depart
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  from that original plan, for reasons which we must assume to have been sufficient; and, therefore, I contend that the question whether we can revert to a contracted plan upon the Carey Street site is a question which must be considered either altogether or at least in a great degree as a new question. Now, my right hon. Friends were probably sanguine enough to believe that they would be able so to impress opinion in favour of the plan on the Embankment site that no opposition would be raised to it in favour of a contracted plan on the Carey Street site. But that has not been the case. Naturally enough, those who had originally projected the Courts upon the Carey Street site, and had obtained for that site the verdict of a Commission—although they obtained it at a time when the Carey Street site was not in full competition, nay, was hardly in competition at all with the Embankment site—these highly intelligent persons and the powerful interests which they represent could hardly be expected to forego the advantages they had gained by the sanction of Parliament and by the fact that important steps had been taken towards the execution of the plan. We have also to take into view the period of the Session at which we have arrived, the great pressure and importance of the public business which has to be transacted, and the almost absolute impossibility of asking the House of Commons at this period to devote so much time upon the floor of the House as would be sufficient for that examination and settlement of all the matters controverted between my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer), the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Manners), the right hon. Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper), and others on the one side, and those who, on the part of the Government, and as independent Members, have given their decisive adhesion to the Thames Embankment, and the plan recommended with singular ability and great fertility of resource by the distinguished architect who was selected by the noble Lord opposite for the execution of the new Law Courts. Under these circumstances, as well as from former experience, the Government are aware that these are not subjects upon which the House of Commons is to be led merely by authority, and that there is no way of obtaining its assent

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  except by carrying conviction to its mind. The Government, therefore, desire to associate the House of Commons with themselves, and not at the close of a Session, when the power of an Administration is generally supposed to increase greatly in relation to the power of independent Members, avail themselves of that or any other collateral advantages for the purpose of giving less than fair play to the contending merits of either of these places. We think, therefore, that the most convenient course for the House of Commons and the fairest for all parties would be to ask the House at once to appoint a Select Committee for the purpose of examining into the questions immediately connected with the site and the charge of the new Courts. Another question, into which I will not enter at any length, arose in connection with the Committee on Standing Orders. The Committee on Standing Orders very naturally felt that they were hardly in a condition to recommend that the Standing Orders should be dispensed with, so as to allow the Bill to go forward, unless the authority of the House had been definitively given to the plan recommended by my right hon. Friend. They being appointed for the defence of private rights and interests would not have been justified in setting aside those private interests under any sanction less than the authority of the House. For that purpose an immediate vote in favour of the Embankment plan would have been necessary, and the House is not in such a state of opinion as to justify us in asking for such a vote at the present moment. Upon this ground it is that, without entering into the controversy between these plans, or asking any Gentleman to abate any opinion he may have formed or expressed in favour of either of them—as a measure of general fairness and convenience, and one intended to promote expedition—I beg to move that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the Site and Charge of the New Courts of Law.
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMER: The House will hardly be surprised to hear that it is not with entire satisfaction that I assent to a proposal tending to keep open a question which in my mind ought to be considered as closed by reasons upon which existing Acts of Parliament have been founded. Having on former occasions had opportunities of stating my opinions on this matter to
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  the House, I should not, however, do right to depart from the example of my right hon. Friend by going into the merits of the general question. I own it is with regret that I find the Government suggesting any course which leads to delay in a matter on which we have available materials for an immediate decision. I regret also the cost of this delay, for the interest on the capital expended amounts to £30,000 or £40,000 a year. On the other hand I feel, and I think the House will feel, that it would not become me or any other Member to oppose a proposition for inquiry recommended to the House by the authority of my right hon. Friend and upon his responsibility. But I am bound to say that I think the time at which the inquiry is proposed is very inconvenient. Personally for me to take part in such an inquiry would be a simple impossibility. My engagements make that out of the question. Now, much will depend upon the manner in which the proceedings of that Committee are conducted and upon the nomination of the Members. I need not say that, whatever may be the decision of a Committee so appointed, it is not necessarily the decision of the House. Of course, if a Committee were nominated with a majority of persons already known to entertain opinions either in favour of the Carey Street site, or in favour of the River site, although they might be instrumental in collecting important information, no one would be surprised if in the end they adhered to the opinion with which they began. I feel perfectly sure, however, that it is the intention of my right hon. Friend to constitute that Committee in the fairest manner possible; and I do not doubt that the proceedings of the Committee will be conducted, by the help of those who entertain opposite views, so as to add something to the materials already existing for a correct judgment upon the subject, or at all events, to bring those materials forward with some additional authority. I therefore acquiesce, though with some reluctance, in the proposal of the Government.
  MR. HINDE PALMER, referring to a question which had been put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this subject, wished to state that a Petition had been presented to this House by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole) expressly stating that the Hon. Society

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  of Lincoln's Inn were ready to abide by their original proposal as to the erection of the Equity Courts in Lincoln's Inn. The right hon. Gentleman had reminded the House that a reduced building to be erected either on the Carey Street site or on the Thames Embankment, and if there was to be any deviation from the original design in this respect the Committee should consider whether the proposal of the Society of Lincoln's Inn should not be entertained. By the adoption of the proposal of Lincoln's Inn an outlay of at least £100,000 would be saved to the country, and on another opportunity he would move that the Petition he had mentioned should be referred to the proposed Committee.
  MR. WALTERthought that before the question was put it would be convenient if the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would state whether or not he considered that, not only the respective sites and charges, but also the particular plans and designs of the different architects should be submitted to the consideration of the proposed Committee, for it must occur to everyone that a design suitable for one site might not be suitable for another. He doubted whether the whole question could be properly considered by the Committee without the particular plans being brought under their consideration.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that as far as he was able to judge, the designs would not be brought under the consideration of the Committee, but the details of the plans would naturally come before them. He need hardly say how completely he concurred with his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer) as to the necessity of having an impartial Committee. It was quite obvious that one which was not so would have little weight with the general judgment of the House.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the Site and Charge of the New Courts of Law." —(Mr. Gladstone.)
  And, on June 28, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, Lord STANLEY, Mr. LAYARD, Lord JOHN MANNERS, Mr. WILLIAM COWPER, Mr. HUNT, Earl GROS-TENOR, Mr. MOWBRAT, Mr. WILLIAM GREGORY, Mr. HOPE, Mr. TITE, Mr. BENTINOK, Viscount ENFIELD, Mr. GOLDNEY, Mr. TORRENS, Mr. RUSSELL GIIRNEY, and Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

SUNDAY AND RAGGED SCHOOLS BILL.
(Mr. Charles Reed, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Graves, Mr. M'Arthur.)
SUNDAY AND RAGGED SCHOOLS BILL.

  [BILL 67.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that as it was the intention of the hon. Member to alter the Bill by introducing certain definitions, and as hon. Members had not been made acquainted with the nature of the alterations, the most convenient course to pursue would be to commit the Bill pro formâ now for the purpose of introducing the Amendments.
  MR. REEDsaid, the alterations he intended to make were exceedingly slight, and were prepared in order to meet the views of the President of the Poor Law Board. He hoped he would be allowed to proceed with the Bill in Committee.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he thought the course now proposed to be taken most objectionable. A Bill had been introduced to exempt certain things from taxation. [Laughter.] He called them things because they did not yet know exactly what they were, but the people were to be called on to contribute the amount which certain institutions should pay. It was reasonable before going into Committee that the House should know what the institutions were. They were called Ragged Schools and Sunday Schools; and as definitions of those terms had been asked for the hon. Member stated that he had prepared them, but unreasonably asked the House to go into Committee without explaining what they were. It was proposed to make, in favour of denominational Sunday Schools, an exemption which was equivalent to a grant. Under compulsory church rates the minority was compelled to contribute towards the support of the religion of the majority, which was bad enough; but in this case it was proposed to make the majority pay for the schools of the minority. Everybody who set up a Sunday School was to have a grant towards the expense of it. The House had a right to see the terms defining the schools that were to be exempted, and he therefore trusted that the Committee would be postponed for three days, in order that the Bill as amended might be re-printed.
  MR. BAINESsaid, the Bill was one of the utmost simplicity. There was only one clause likely to provoke discussion.

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  He wished the Government to give an undertaking that progress should be made with the measure at the end of the three days, if the suggested postponement were acceded to.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that there was an Amendment on the Paper to establish certain definitions. Was it reasonable they should impose taxation without knowing its limits? It was all very well to talk about exemptions, but exemption to one man was increased taxation to another.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, he hoped the Bill would be proceeded with. The Bill was good as far as it went, and, if necessary, an interpretation clause could be introduced. The House had affirmed the Bill by a large majority on the second reading.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, that if the hon. Member wished to proceed with his Bill he had better accede to the suggestion of the Government. A great principle was involved in the Bill that required consideration.
  MR. BRUCEappealed to the hon. Member not to insist on proceeding with the Bill. Although the Government might be opposed to the principle of the Bill, they offered no opposition to its introduction. It was necessary to pause until they had the fullest information on the subject. The Bill proposed only to deal with one part of a great subject. There was extreme danger of extending Ragged Schools at the expense of other schools. However necessary Ragged Schools might be, their number should be limited to the strict wants of the locality, as they were not fit receptacles for the children of respectable persons. Partiality to these schools would tend unduly to multiply them at the cost of better schools. There were grave doubts whether the House ought to proceed further with the Bill.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, that if the Members of the Government entertained objections to the principle of the Bill they ought to have been in their places on Wednesday, and to have supported the President of the Poor Law Board. This was a question of rating rather than of taxation, and the reasonable and logical course would be to permit the parishes to exempt these schools if they thought fit. For Parliament to do it was to impose fresh contributions on the owners of other property. He
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  should endeavour to oppose the further progress of the Bill.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the Government had exposed themselves to an unfair reproach by abstaining from discussion on the second reading of the Bill, which they did out of consideration for the hon. Member in charge of it, and in order not to obstruct him; but the Government was largely represented in the division. To press the Bill on was not the best mode of making progress with it.
  MR. CANDLISHsaid, he thought the object of the hon. Member would be best promoted by acceding to the suggestion of the Government.
  MR. HENLEYconsidered the proposal a very fair one. The House ought not to be called on at one o'clock to discuss Amendments which they had never seen.
  MR. REEDhad never said he desired to press the Bill against the feeling of the House; but he wished to retain his position in regard to a measure the principle of which had been affirmed by the vote of a large majority of the House. He confessed himself astonished at finding the Home Secretary that night attacking the principle of the Bill. He simply asked the Government to give him a day on which he could bring his definitions, prepared at the request of the Government, before the House. He supposed there would be no objection to the Bill now being committed pro formâ.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would withdraw his Amendment.
  Bill considered in Committee, and reported; to be printed, as amended [Bill 170]; re-committed for Friday.

MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL— [BILL 23.]
(Mr. Thomas Chambers, Mr. Morley.)
MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL— [BILL 23.]

  INSTRUCTION. ADJOURNED DEBATE.;
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [8th June],
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, that they have power to make provision therein for a woman to marry her deceased husband's brother."—(Mr. Collins.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEappealed to the hon. and learned Gentleman who had charge of the measure (Mr. T. Chambers) not to go on with it at that late hour (one o'clock). If it was too late to discuss the question of the rating of Bagged Schools at half-past twelve, a fortiori they could not proceed half-an-hour later with an alteration of the whole Marriage Law of England. The proposed Instruction to the Committee that "they have power to make provision for a woman to marry her deceased husband's brother," opened up a very wide question. He honoured Dissenters for opposing this Bill. The argument for extending marriages might be pushed further on the same ground, for a father to marry his son's wife, for who was more likely to be a good father to his son's children than their grandfather? He moved the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Beresford Hope.)
  The House divided: Ayes 52; Noes 100: Majority 48.
  Question again proposed.
  MR. T. CHAMBEBSsaid, those who proposed the Instructions were not doing it for increasing the efficiency of the Bill, but to defeat it and a principle that had been sanctioned over and over again. If the Amendments were withdrawn, he would not press their going into Committee.
  SIT HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONmoved the adjournment of the House.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, if a man were allowed to marry two sisters, a woman ought to be allowed to marry two brothers. The Marriage Laws should be discussed in a whole, and not in this piecemeal manner. Let it be done broadly, and not in this wretched manner. He supported the Motion for the adjournment of the House.
  MR. MONKsaid, that as an imputation had been, made on him and the hon. Member for Boston (Mr. Collins) who had placed Instructions to the Committee on the Notice Paper, he begged to say he had not been actuated by any factious feeling against the Bill. It was impossible to discuss the Bill without noticing the absence of principle in every clause. He had no such sinister motive as had been attributed to him by the hon. and learned Member for Mary-
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  lebone (Mr. T. Chambers.) He called upon the First Minister of the Crown and upon the Government generally to oppose a measure which was so exceptional to the general law of marriage of this country, while the Report of the Commissioners on the Laws of Marriage was lying on the table and recommended uniformity in the three Kingdoms. The Bill proposed to allow a man to marry his wife's sister, who stood towards him in the second degree; but it did not propose to allow him to marry his wife's niece, who was related to him in a more distant degree.
  MR. BRIGHT: The hon. and learned Member who introduced this Bill has just told us that this measure has been before the House for at least thirty years. It has passed this House on repeated occasions, and by considerable majorities. It passed the second reading after as much discussion as such a Bill was likely to have by a majority of 100. To-night the division shows a majority of 2 to 1, and there can be no doubt that, so far as this House is concerned, the Bill is destined to pass; and there are strong reasons for supposing, looking at the opinions of those who direct the conscience of the other House, that the Bill may meet with a not unfavourable reception there. The hon. Member (Mr. Monk) says it is an exceptional measure. What was the Bill of 1835, which this Bill is intended to meet? There is nothing in this Bill more exceptional than that Bill. I will not now go into the discussion whether the hon. Gentlemen opposed to it have any reason in their objections or not. But see how many hundreds of fathers with their wives and children throughout the country, whose interests, whose peace of mind, and in some sort, whose characters are concerned in the passing of this Bill; and I ask hon. Gentlemen whether, when the Bill has received the sanction of the House so many times—and during this Session, I believe, by a larger majority than on any former occasion—they will not consent to let it go through? The hon. Member says—why pass a partial measure like this? If they were in favour of this Bill, so far as it goes, and wished for something farther, they could consider it in Committee. But they are not in favour of the Bill so far as it goes. The object of the Bill is to meet an existing and admitted grievance. When

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  the brothers and the nieces, of whom the hon. Members (Mr. Collins and Mr. Monk) speak—when they are in great suffering and have a great cause of grievance, then the House of Commons shall take that into consideration. For it is a good custom of the House to take a grievance as it stands, and not to remedy grievances and put into Bills more than the public ask for and are prepared to accept. I do not want the Bill to go over, because I think there are many hundreds and many thousands in this country who have a right to ask Parliament to relieve them from the sufferings which they now endure; and when the House of Commons has said they should have that remedy, I should not like to be in the position of those who, after such incessant action on the part of the House of Commons, should still interpose against this great measure of relief, which many hundreds of fathers, as good as any Members of this House, ask to meet their case. I therefore hope that the hon. Member will allow the measure to go into Committee.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that nothing could be more inconvenient than business upon which there was a difference of opinion being brought on at so late an hour of the night. The question raised by the Bill was whether there was to be a different Marriage Law for England, Ireland, and Scotland. Sir Robert Peel's rule of allowing no contested business to come on after twelve o'clock at night was an excellent one, and facilitated Public Business.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that the rule the right hon. Gentleman referred to was well worthy of consideration; but it was scarcely fair to revive it, after it had been a dead letter for so many years, just in time to put off the hon. and learned Member's Bill. The proposition of the hon. and learned Member that the extraneous Instructions should be cleared out of the way was only reasonable, and he trusted that the House would assent to it.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 43; Noes 101: Majority 58.
  Question again proposed.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTmoved the adjournment of the debate. It was time that the House should be adjourned.
  MR. T. CHAMBERSsaid, that all that had been yet done was in the way of obstruction, and he wished to know whether the hon. Member who had proposed the Instruction would at any time, or under any circumstances, take the sense of the House upon it. He should submit to the wish of the House.
  MR. EYKYNcomplained at the delay that would be occasioned by the adjournment of the debate, but he was ready to concede it.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSremarked that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade—that this Bill had been incessantly passed by the House of Commons—was inaccurate, as it had been thrown out by the last Parliament, and he believed the Parliament before.
  MR. MONKsaid, that the hon. Member who had accused him of obstruction did not know what he was talking about. No opportunity of moving the Instruction had yet been afforded to him.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEurged the Government to give a Morning Sitting for the discussion of the question.
  MR. T. CHAMBERSreminded the House that the principle of the Bill had been already discussed, but of course he should be glad to get a Morning Sitting. He could not then, however, further resist the opposition on the other side.
  Motion agreed to.
  Debate adjourned till Wednesday, 30th June.

  SUBURBAN COMMONS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. COWPER, Bill to provide for the Improvement, Protection, and Management of Commons near cities and large towns in England, ordered to be brought in by Mr. COWPER and Mr. LIDDELI,.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 174.]

  CRIMINAL LUNATICS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN, Bill to amend the Law relating to Criminal Lunatics, ordered to be brought in by Mr. KNATCHBULLL-HUGESSEN and Mr. Secretary BRUCE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 172.]

  POOR LAW (IRELAND) AMENDMENT (NO. 2) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. GREGORY, Bill to amend the Act of the first and second years of Victoria, chapter fifty-six, intituled "An Act for the more effectual relief of the destitute Poor in Ireland," ordered to be brought in by Mr. GREGORY and Colonel VANDELKUK.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 173.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.