Commons Sitting of 24 June 1869

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Abyssinian War, nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolution [June 23] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Public Offices Concentration* [196].
Committee—Report—Assessed Rates (re-comm.) [149–178]; Greenwich Hospital [105]; Land Tax Commissioners' Names* [54]; Park Gate Chapel Marriages, &c. (re-comm.)* [111].
Considered as amended—Civil Offices (Pensions) [133]; Prisons (Scotland) Administration Act (1860) Amendment* [143]; Fines and Fees Collection* [171].
Third Reading—Judicial Statistics (Scotland)* [142], and passed.

BETTING HOUSES.—QUESTION.
MR. EYKYNsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, By what authority the Police have been instructed to take legal proceedings against certain Commission Agents who were brought before Sir Thomas Henry on Saturday last; whether these proceedings were based on the 1st or the 3rd section of the Act of 1853 for the Suppression of Betting Houses; and, further, if he will state how far the interpretation which has been now put upon these sections will affect other establishments where betting is carried on?
MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that the prosecutions against the persons to whom the hon. Gentleman's Question referred were instituted on the authority of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and with his own full consent and approval. Those prosecutions were based generally upon the Act for the Suppression of Betting Houses. He was not aware that it was necessary to lay information under any particular section. As no decision had yet been arrived at, it would be impossible for him to say how far other establishments might be affected, especially as he did not know the special circumstances under which betting was carried on in them, or whether they would come under the Betting House Act.

THE MORTALITY AT BARKING.

  QUESTION.
  MR. EASTWICKsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is not desirable that the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, and a chemist of eminence, should be associated with the Civil Engineer sent down to inquire into the state of Barking, in order that authoritative evidence may be obtained as to the

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  causes of the mortality at Barking, and as to the chemical state of the water in the adjoining creek; and whether, considering the importance of the subject, the Counsel from the Home Office should not also be associated with the Commission as assessor?
  MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that as far as he was at present advised, he thought that Mr. Rawlinson, the gentleman to whom the matter was committed, fully competent to conduct the whole inquiry. If he wished for any assistance, or if the inhabitants were desirous that there should be a special machinery of inquiry, they might communicate either with himself or with his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council, who would direct the medical officer of the Council to have an inquiry made. It did not appear at all necessary that any legal assessor should be added to the person now conducting the inquiry.

EDUCATION VOTES.—QUESTION.
MR. SAMUELSONsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Council, Whether a special day will be fixed for taking the Civil Service Votes relating to Education; and, whether he is able to name the day on which he will introduce those Votes?
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, his present intention was to propose the Education Votes on Monday, but he could not fix the day positively.

HOUNSLOW POWDER MILLS.

  QUESTION.
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether any Government Inspector has lately visited the Powder Mills at Hounslow, the scene of a recent explosion attended with loss of life, and has reported as to the probable security of that establishment; and, whether the regulations of the Gunpowder Act (23 and 24 Vict. c. 139) are or are not habitually enforced for the proper management and supervision of Gunpowder Mills and Magazines, and the protection of the lives of all employed in them, and of those who live in their neighbourhood?
  MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that there was no permanent inspector of gun-
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  powder manufactories at the Home Office; but whenever application for inspection was made directions were given by the Secretary of State for the purpose, if the special circumstances of the case appeared to warrant it. Such a demand was made about three years ago. A competent officer was sent thereupon to inquire into the condition and management of the powder mills at Hounslow, and his Report was entirely satisfactory. The explosion to which the question referred appeared, as far as had been ascertained—for as yet there had not been a full inquiry before the coroner—to have been caused by some accident to the machinery; the loss of life and injuries inflicted were confined to the premises of the powder mills themselves, and there did not appear to be any danger to those residing in the neighbourhood. With respect to the regulations under the Gunpowder Act, he had no reason to believe that they had not been regularly observed. The gentlemen to whom the establishment belonged had always shown a great desire to do everything in their power to protect their workmen, and from all he could hear there had been no defect of vigilance on the part of the local authorities.

ENDOWED SCHOOLS ACT.—QUESTION.
MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Who is to be the Secretary to the Commissioners under the Endowed Schools Act; what salary the Treasury proposes to give to the Commissioners and Secretary respectively; and, in the event of any of them holding another Crown appointment, whether such salary is to be in addition to, or included in, the remuneration at present received?
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was afraid that in meeting the demand of his hon. Friend he must do so under protest—that was to say, that it was not usual to communicate to Parliament the names of persons who might be appointed to assist the Commissioners in their inquiry before the Act relating to them was passed. It might, in many cases, be inconvenient to do so. There were, however, considerations of previous experience, skill, and knowledge, which plainly indicated the gentleman who, for the public advantage, should hold the

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office of Secretary to the Commissioners in question. He had, therefore, no difficulty in naming the gentleman. He hoped that Mr. Roby, who had been formerly the Secretary of the Schools Inquiry, would accept that office with a salary of £1,000 a year. The Government anticipated great advantage to the Commission from his co-operation. In respect to the salaries of the Commissioners, Lord Lyttelton would be Chief Commissioner with a salary of £1,500 a year; Mr. Robinson, a Junior Commissioner, would receive £1,200 a year; and Mr. Hobhouse, though a Junior Commissioner also, yet being in the legal profession, and possessing high legal attainments, and his emoluments therefore, being governed by different considerations, would receive a salary of £2,000 a year. The Commissioners would not receive any other public emoluments, nor hold any other salaried office whatever in addition to their office.

IRELAND—SEDITIOUS LANGUAGE IN THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES.—QUESTION.
MR. DAWSONsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the attention of the Government has been directed to the delivery in the Halls of the Queen's Colleges at Galway and Belfast of very questionable expressions on the part of certain students and others, especially in connection with the Literary and Scientific Society in the Galway Queen's College; and, whether the Government will not consider it desirable in such seminaries, supported by Imperial taxation, to require from the College authorities a stricter fulfilment of the prohibition against the discussion of political and party questions within the lecture rooms of the Colleges, and as set forth in one of the Statutes of the Queen's University?
MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, in reply, said, his attention had been first called to the subject by this Question of his hon. Friend, when he at once took measures to ascertain the facts. He put himself in communication with the Vice Chancellor of the Queen's University, and through him with the Presidents of the Colleges. He would tell the hon. Gentleman the result of those inquiries. First, as to Galway, it appeared that at the Queen's College there,
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and, he believed, in the other Queen's Colleges, there existed a so-called Literary and Scientific Society among the students, one of the rules of which had been the absolute exclusion of party and polemical subjects. But the President of the College informed him that in consequence of a statement in the Irish Daily Express of the 9th of March, characterizing the tone of a recent debate in that Society as seditious, a meeting of the College Council was convened to consider the matter, when it was discovered that, without their knowledge, and no doubt, in a very improper manner, the rule prohibiting the introduction of political and party subjects had been abrogated by the Society itself, and that, on the occasion in question, subjects of that nature had been introduced and discussed. Upon that the College Council took severe measures, and prohibited the meetings of the Society for some time. Afterwards they took care that the rule should be reenacted in a very stringent form, including the necessity of the presence of a College Professor or other officer on all occasions, and requiring him to put a stop to the introduction of any such subjects, if it should be attempted. But the President, he must say, added that the College Council, having examined with great care the charges made against that particular meeting of the Society, came to the conclusion that the allegation that seditious or treasonable language had been used was unfounded, and was disproved by every witness who appeared before the Council. It was also denied by the chairman, by the secretary, and also by the gentleman who read the paper in question. In respect to Belfast, it appeared that on an occasion which was also noticed in the public Press a lecture was delivered by a Mr. Killean, who was not a member of the College, although for a short time he had been a member, and that lecture undoubtedly violated that same rule of the exclusion of political and party subjects. But Dr. Henry, the President of the College at Belfast, assured him that great care would be taken that such an occurrence should not happen again, and promised that measures would be adopted to prevent in future even outsiders from thus violating the College rules, thereby impairing the utility of a valuable society, and inflicting an injury on a body of

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loyal and exemplary students. The result was that violations of the rule against the introduction of party politics did not recur. Whether absolutely seditious and treasonable language was used or not was more than doubtful; and they might hope that there was very little, if anything, of that kind going so far as that. But, at all events,—and this was the most important point—there was every reason to believe that there was no risk of a future recurrence of any such proceedings.

ASSESSED RATES (re-committed) BILL.
(Mr. Goschen, Mr. Secretary Bruce, Mr. John Bright.)
[Progress 21st June.]

ASSESSED RATES (re-committed) BILL.

  [BILL 149.] COMMITTEE.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 4 (Constructive payment of the rate).
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTsaid, he had given notice of an Amendment which raised a very important question. When this Bill was brought forward in its amended shape his right hon. Friend who had charge of it said it had two aspects—the first being its economical aspect, and the second being its political bearing on the franchise. As far as they had hitherto gone they had dealt with the economical aspect of the measure, and had determined to restore the system of compounding that was abolished by the Reform Bill of 1867. They had resolved to retrieve that which, by the admission of both sides of the House, was acknowledged to have been a great economical blunder produced by the political necessities of the day. They had been occupied last Monday in assisting at the obsequies of that once famous principle—''the personal payment of rates." Besides the active part taken on the Liberal side in that proceeding, they had had the additional advantage of the tacit consent of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who might be said to have assisted as mutes at the funeral of a personage who had been once so dear to them. The result of connecting the political franchise with the payment of parochial rates had been that the rating system could not be placed on a sound footing without revolutionizing the whole basis of the poli-
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  tical franchise, and for this reason the House of Commons had restored the system of composition. The effect of the first three clauses of the Bill, and of the new clause of which notice had been given by his right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board, would, unless further precautions were taken, be to deprive the whole of the operative classes of the country of the political franchise. The first two clauses provided that the occupier should pay the rate and re-coup himself afterwards from his landlord, while the 3rd clause enacted that by agreement between the occupier and the owner the rate might be paid by the owner and not by the occupier. But the really operative clause of the Bill would be that of which his right hon. Friend had given notice, for it proposed to give to the vestries a compulsory power to rate the owner instead of the occupier, and that clause would, if the law remained as it at present stood, in point of fact, produce the result to which he had just referred. Indeed, this new clause would sweep away Clause 3 altogether, though, he confessed, he did not complain of this, because he had always been in favour of compulsion. But, in spite of the Resolution of the House of Commons last Monday night not to give more than 25 per cent as a bonus to the owner, the new clause proposed to give him 30 per cent, thus reversing the former decision of the House. Now, if a man who was coerced by the vestry was to have 30 per cent, and if he agreed voluntarily with the overseers only 25 per cent, was it at all likely that any man would come to a voluntary agreement? The other evening he had stated his objection to making the fate of the occupiers dependent on the discretion of vestries in which the owners predominated by their plurality of votes.
  MR. GOSCHEN, interposing, reminded the hon. and learned Member that the owners had no vote in the vestries.
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTsaid, he was glad to be corrected on such high authority; but he had always been under the impression that the owners of house property possessed a plurality of votes in the parochial franchise. In his opinion, the position of the occupiers ought to be under the guardianship of Parliament, and not left to the discretion of vestries. His right hon. Friend hoped,

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  with himself, that by these clauses they would substantially effect the rating of the owners instead of the occupiers; but the difference between them was the method by which that result was to be produced. Supposing the plan of his right hon. Friend to be successful, the owner of every house under £20 rateable value in the metropolis, and under £8 rateable value in the country, would be rated instead of the occupier, and as long as the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 were adhered to, this would amount to a complete disfranchisement of every occupier of a tenement which came under the operation of the clause. That being so, let them consider the magnitude of the question. When they were dealing with the compound-householder below £6 it was estimated that it affected 480,000 votes; but in dealing with occupiers up to £8 in the country, and £20 in the metropolis, the number affected would not be far short of 1,000,000. By this Assessed Rates Bill they proposed therefore practically to determine the political rights of the working classes for the future. They might call the Bill what they liked, but there could be no doubt it was a new Reform Bill, necessitated by the errors of the Bill of 1867. Clause 4 gave the title to vote, and Clause 12 provided the manner in which that title was to be recorded. Clause 4 proposed to deal with two questions. It stated that—
  "Every payment of a rate by such occupier, notwithstanding the amount thereof may be deducted from his rent as herein provided, shall be regarded as payment of the rate by the occupier;"
  and then they came to the words which he proposed to alter by his Amendment—
  "And every payment of a rate by the owner, notwithstanding the allowance of the commission under this Act, shall be deemed a payment of the full rate."
  If there was one principle to which the Liberal party were committed more than any other, it was that they should not seek to establish the political franchise upon the basis of payment of rates; but in this enfranchising clause of this Liberal Reform Bill, it was proposed to make the title of the occupier depend on the payment of rates by the owner. He quite admitted that so long as the owner paid the rate his right hon. Friend had made provision that the occupier
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  should have the franchise; but that was no more than the law already did for him, when it said that a payment by the owner on behalf of the occupier should be deemed equivalent to a payment by the occupier himself. There was, however, a ease for which Clause 4 made no provision. Let him suppose that the owner did not pay the rates—what would happen? The question was one which affected thousands and tens of thousands of votes throughout the country, for the result of the non-payment of the rate by the owner would be that the occupier, who was not liable for its payment, would be disfranchised. But then it might be contended that the owner would be simply an agent for the parish to collect the rate, and that the person who really owed it was the occupier. The consequence would in either case be precisely the same. If the owner was to be the agent for the parish in the collection of the rate, and that he made default, he wanted to know whether the payment of the rate to him was not to be regarded as a payment to the parish so far as the occupier was concerned? Could anybody deny that when the owner collected the weekly rent, which included the rate, he being appointed by the vestry to collect the rate, the payment of it to him by the occupier was not a complete payment of the rate? If that were so, the occupier was, he maintained, as fully entitled to his vote as if he had paid the money into the hands of the vestry itself, or into those of the overseer, and it would be not more absurd to disfranchise him because the overseer ran away with the rate, than as in the present case to disfranchise the occupier because default happened to be made by the owner. The occupiers having paid their rate in their rent, ought not, he maintained, to be affected by the default of the owner, but until that morning the Bill of the Government contained no sort of provision for securing them a vote. His right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board had now admitted that some protection was due to occupiers in the case of default on the part of the owner. He had given notice of a clause which provided that where owners omitted to pay rates the occupiers might pay the same and deduct the amount from the rent. Was that an effective remedy? It was an old remedy which had been proved over and over again to

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  be ineffectual, and, in fact, inoperative. Under the Small Tenements Act of 1850 every facility was given to the occupiers to get upon the register, by paying the rate if the owner made default in paying it; but no occupier did anything of the sort, and the whole of those men were disfranchised. It was offering these people stone for bread. He could not help regretting that his right hon. Friend had proposed a remedy for them which was known to be practically inefficient. The scheme of his right hon. Friend was much the same as saying to a man—''Before you drink a glass of beer you shall pay the malt tax upon the whole barrel; but when you have paid the malt tax upon the whole barrel, you may deduct it from the publican." That would place a working man who wanted to drink a glass of beer in a considerable state of embarrassment. An owner of houses, for political reasons, might not choose to pay the rate, or might become bankrupt, so that the élite of the working classes might be disfranchised under the Bill as it stood. The Amendment which he proposed would provide that where the owner made default the occupier should have his vote in the same manner as if the owner had paid the rate, and this, in his opinion, was a fair provision. It would, perhaps, be said—"The result will be to produce residential household suffrage with reference to the working classes." No doubt, and he was in favour of that conclusion. Otherwise the Bill would give, not household suffrage dependent on the payment of rates, but household suffrage dependent on the solvency of landlords, or on their choosing or not choosing to enfranchise their tenants. This was, in fact, a new Reform Bill under Clause 4. He did not wish, from their side of the House, to re-enact the payment of rates at all as a condition of the franchise; but, if that principle were adopted, it should be payment of rates by the person liable. The clause as it stood was wholly inconsistent with the pledges of those who had undertaken to repeal the principle of the payment of rates as the foundation for the franchise. So far as this clause was concerned, all he could say was—"liberavi animam meam," and he now left the matter to the candid consideration of the House and the Government. He moved an Amendment to leave out in Clause 4, and in lines 14 and 15, the words—
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  "And every payment of a rate by the owner, notwithstanding the allowance of the commission under this Act,"
  for the purpose of inserting the words of which he had given notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 2, line 14, to leave out the words "and every payment of a rate by the owner, notwithstanding the allowance of the commission under this Act," in order to insert the words "and every occupier of any rateable hereditament in respect of which by agreement between the owner and the overseers, or otherwise, the owner is made liable to the rate, or in respect of which, in consideration of the payment by the occupier of a gross sum under the name of rent, the owner, with the consent of the overseers, undertakes to pay the rate, shall be entitled to all Municipal and Parliamentary franchises in as full a manner as if such occupier had been himself liable to and had paid the rate, whether such owner shall have made default in the payment of the rate or not." (Mr. Vernon Harcourt.)
  MR. GOSCHENagreed with the hon. and learned Member for Oxford in thinking this point important, because if the indictment just brought against Clause 4 were true great injustice would be done by it; but the hon. and learned Gentleman had rested his indictment against the Bill on both an erroneous assumption and a misconception of the facts of the case and of the present state of the law. The new clauses did not amount to a reversal of the decision of the House. The hon. and learned Member said that owners had a plurality of votes in the vestry; but the hon. and learned Member seemed to confound the vote in the vestry with the vote in respect to Guardians of the Poor, and it was in the latter case only that plurality of votes was allowed. He (Mr. Goschen) wanted to know in what way, if the hon. and learned Member's Amendment were carried, the owners of compound houses would be represented? Not only would they be unrepresented in the vestry, but even at the Board of Guardians. The really important point raised by the speech of his hon. and learned Friend was whether the non-payment of rates by the owner would disqualify the tenant from voting. That required to be met at once. He was no more afraid of residential suffrage than the hon. and learned Member, but he differed from the hon. and learned Member when he described the Bill as a new Reform Bill. He treated the question, in fact, as if the Reform Bill were entirely swept away, and as if the clause now proposed were

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  an enfranchising Amendment. The fact was that nothing more was proposed to be done than to get rid of an economical grievance, and to take care, at the same time, that in effecting that object those entitled to the franchise should not be deprived of it. His hon. and learned Friend was for giving the vote to the occupier, when the owner agreed to pay the rates, whether the rates were paid or not. The natural consequence of this would be that those who did not compound at all should also vote without being compelled to pay their rates. The question involved in the Amendment was whether, by a Bill introduced to remedy an economical grievance, the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Bill of 1867, and of the Reform Bill of 1832 should be repealed. The Government were not prepared to do that which they scarcely thought would be consistent with good faith to propose in the present stage of the proceedings. If it were true that the occupiers were liable to be disfranchised under the present clause, it would then certainly be a question whether the Government should proceed with it, because to such disfranchisement it would become neither a Liberal Government nor the Liberal party to consent. But what were the facts? In order to qualify the occupier to be put upon the register on the 1st of August, the rates previously due on the 5th of January must be paid; and if the rates were not paid by the 20th of June notice of that fact was to be given to the tenant, who would then have all the time from the 20th of June till the 1st of August to pay the rates, deducting them afterwards from the rent. His hon. and learned Friend had said that until that morning there was no provision as to how the occupier was to get his vote in the case of the non-payment of rates by the landlord; but, as a matter of fact, the Government had intended to adopt an Amendment on that subject, notice of which had been given by the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Dent). He knew of no reason why, even in case of a bankrupt owner, the rate might not be deducted from the rent. He, therefore, could not agree in the statement that the precautions taken by the Government to preserve the political franchise would be perfectly nugatory. He thought he had shown the Committee that the danger anticipated by his hon. and learned Friend—which, if real, would be a very serious one—
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  was practically not likely to occur. The question really before the Committee was this—was that danger so great as to compel them at that moment to reconsider the question of the Reform Act of 1867? That there were many points in that Act which at the proper time might require re-consideration was clear to everyone sitting on that side of the House; but the Government must really claim, on their responsibility, to choose the time for introducing such alterations as they thought proper. He did not think it would be felt that they had been remiss in their attention to matters during this Session. They had dealt with as many questions as they thought could fairly be dealt with this Session. His hon. and learned Friend had introduced new issues which would impede and perhaps imperil the Bill altogether. What was now proposed was to remedy, as far as they could, those dangers and inconveniences that had resulted from the abolition of compounding. He hoped the Committee would consider the matter fairly, and not give a vote which would really impede the carrying of the Bill.
  MR. CORRANCEsaid, that as hon. Gentlemen had been accused of sitting like mutes at the discussion, he would take the liberty of making a few observations. He could see nothing in the Bill to over-ride the provisions of Sir William Clay's Act; but the result of the Amendment under consideration would virtually be, that every one not an owner would be an occupier; that every occupier, under any circumstances, would become a voter; and that all those should be accounted rate-payers who did not pay any rates. That would be the effect of the Amendment, against which he should be obliged to record his vote. He was glad to know that the Government declined to re-open the political question, but would confine itself for the present to the more limited part of the subject.
  MR. CANDLISHsaid, that though, like most other Liberal Members, he was pledged to vote for the repeal of the rating clauses, he was unable to support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Harcourt), because it raised that important question in an incidental and fragmentary manner, and proposed to confer the franchise on a small class of persons, and differently to the way in which it was enjoyed by the mass of the people. But he should be

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  prepared, at the proper time, to support any Motion for the abolition of the rate-paying clauses.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, it was in vain to expect that the electors would be satisfied until the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act were done away with. They might as well ask a man to pay his butcher's bill before he could vote.
  MR. R. TORRENSsaid, he thought no portion of the Ministerial scheme had caused so much disappointment to the Liberal party as the manner in which the President of the Poor Law Board had dealt with this question. The right hon. Gentleman was in this case putting the screw on the wrong man—the small occupier—and not being satisfied with the explanation which had been given, he should support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford. Notwithstanding what the right hon. Gentleman said about the notice to the occupier from the 20th of June to the 1st of August, the effect would be that the tenant, having paid the rates in his rent, would have to pay them again in order to obtain the right to vote.
  MR. GLADSTONEurged the importance of making the Bill complete for the purpose for which it was introduced. Hon. Members had drifted from the consideration of this simple purpose into the discussion of the wider and strictly political question whether the rate-paying clauses should be abolished. No doubt they had a perfect right to enter upon this discussion, and so to mark the Bill as to make it serve a strictly political end; but he suggested that this more ambitious course might prevent the application of an immediate and complete remedy to a serious practical grievance. In order that it might not be supposed that the Government had any desire to shirk a discussion of the rate-paying clauses, he wished to point out that they had no choice. In the Speech from the Throne a paragraph was inserted, stating that—
  "A measure will be brought under your notice for the relief of some classes of occupiers from hardships in respect of Hating, which appear to be capable of remedy."
  That was a distinct pledge as to the character and scope of the measure; and no one who read the paragraph could for a moment suppose that it embraced the repeal of the rate-paying clauses, because the condition involved in those clauses was universal in its operation,
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  and not confined to "some" classes only. It was perfectly well understood that their intention was to ask the assent of the House to a measure which aimed at remedying hardships unforeseen by many, and. which had grown out of the operation of the Reform Act of 1867. If it had been intended to re-open political questions connected with the representation of the people, it would have been their duty to make an intimation of a totally different nature in the Speech, from the Throne. As they had not done so, it was necessary to limit themselves to applying a practical remedy to a practical grievance, and leave the discussion of the general question of the payment of rates as a condition of the franchise to be dealt with on another occasion, which was hardly likely to arise during the present Session. They were not by the present vote asking the House to express any opinion, favourable or otherwise, on the question of the rate-paying clauses. His right hon. Friend had shown that the Bill would provide an effective remedy for a practical grievance, and he very much mistook the disposition of the House of Commons if, in order to attain a good which was not in immediate prospect, they would put in hazard the realization of a practical and important measure.
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTsaid, that he was unable to withdraw the Amendment, because the speech of his right hon. Friend at the head of the Poor Law Board had failed to satisfy him that the Bill really accomplished the object aimed at in his Amendment. Supposing the case of a weekly tenant who had paid the rate to his landlord; the landlord became bankrupt, say on the 24th of June, or failed to pay over the amount to the overseer; the result would be that the name of the tenant would be struck off the register, unless he was willing to pay a second time the rate that he had already paid once. He would not be deterred from dividing because the right hon. Gentleman had said that it would be necessary, if the Amendment were carried, to do justice to all classes of rate-payers. He was prepared for that.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, his hon. and learned Friend had declared that he would not divide if he should receive an assurance that the occupier would not have to pay the rate out of his own pocket. That assurance he would

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  give his hon. and learned Friend, therefore he felt sure no division would take place. The occupier would not have to pay the rate out of his own pocket, for he would pay it out of the rent. There would be four or five weeks to deduct the rate, and there was no case where the quarterly rate would exceed four weeks' rent. He thought, therefore, that the Amendment ought not to be pressed after what the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated, and he hoped the Committee would not be called upon now to divide upon the question of the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act.
  Question put, "That the words 'and every payment of a rate by the owner stand, part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 291; Noes 42: Majority 249.
  MR. GOSCHEN MR. GOSCHEN moved, in page 2, line 14, to leave out after "owner" to "shall," in line 15, and insert—
  "Whether he is himself rated instead of the occupier, or has agreed with the occupier or with the overseers to pay such rate, and notwithstanding any ailowap.C3 or deduction which the overseers are empowered to make from the rate."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACHasked the President of the Poor Law Board whether he did not think it would be expedient to debar small occupiers whose rates were compounded for from voting at the election of guardians or parish officers. Such occupiers, not paying the rate themselves, might be under a great temptation to vote for any guardian who, for example, would support the absence of any labour test or the indiscriminate grant of out-door relief.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he thought it was not desirable altogether to disqualify small occupiers whose rates were compounded for from voting for guardians of the poor. On a future occasion, however, it might be important to consider whether the owners should not be placed in a different position in respect to Boards of Guardians.
  Amendment agreed to.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACH,in moving the addition at the end of the clause of the proviso of which he had given notice, said the Reform Act of 1867 had originally proposed to base the franchise on the personal payment of rates by the occupier. There was, however, a clause in that Act which enabled rates to be paid by the agent of the occupier; and
  530
  that was afterwards construed to mean that the landlord might be the agent of the occupier, and practically the rates were paid to a very large extent by the landlord for the occupier. That increased the franchise to a very considerable extent. To that, however, he did not object. But the right hon. Gentleman said he wished by that clause to preserve the political rights of all occupiers enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1867, while, at the same time, securing to them the economical advantages of this Bill. The clause, however, would not only preserve for the occupiers enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1867 the franchise which they already held, but would operate in many boroughs as a large measure of further enfranchisement. It had been repeatedly stated that the grievance to be remedied was this—Many small occupiers were unable to pay their rates directly to the overseer, and were either excused from payment; or, after the process of summons, had distress warrants executed against them, thereby forcing them into pauperism. If those occupiers were excused from payment or were compelled to receive parish relief, they would, in either case, lose their votes under the existing law. But the effect of this Bill in enfranchising the small occupiers would be proportionate to the amount of distress which had existed in certain boroughs. In boroughs like Birmingham or Hackney, where large numbers of persons had been excused from the payment of rates, or driven into pauperism by being compelled to pay, this measure would produce a great effect, because all such persons would become voters under this Bill; and, therefore, the House ought to consider whether some limit ought not to be put on the proposed extension of the franchise. Who were the persons on whom the franchise would thus be bestowed? They were persons not removed in reality from the pauper class; for he held that persons who were excused from the payment of rates were practically in receipt of parochial relief. Another qualification of the franchise—namely, residence—was also interfered with by this Bill. The Reform Act of 1867 provided that the residence should be for a year, and further that residence in different houses in immediate succession in the same borough should be equivalent to a continuous residence for twelve months in

  531
  one dwelling-house. This proviso, which had considerable connection with rating, was necessary to meet the case of workmen who were compelled to change their residence in order to be near the place of their employment; but he desired to point out that, under the present Bill, it would be possible, in a town where all the low class property was compounded for by the landlords, for a man to occupy several of such houses during a year, each for a month or two at a time, and to obtain a vote in respect of such residence, although he would have paid no rates, and might not have paid more than a very small amount of rent to any of his landlords. This was surely a class of persons who ought not to be placed on the Parliamentary register, and he begged, therefore, to move to add to the clause the following words:—
  "Provided, That no occupation of any tenement with respect to which the owner shall have made such agreement with the overseers as is provided for under the third section of this Act shall be taken into account in reckoning the period of occupation of different premises in immediate succession necessary for the purpose of any such qualification or franchise, unless the occupation of such tenement shall have been continuous for a period of not less that six months."
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board would agree to the Amendment of his hon. Friend, because he was strongly of opinion that some restriction ought to be placed upon this class of people. It might, however, be desirable to fix the limit at three, instead of six months. If a man did not pay either his rent or his rates for three months, no one could pretend that he had fairly entitled himself to the franchise. It might be urged that many people had to move about from one house to another in order to be near their work; but he thought that, generally speaking, a man who took a house for less than six months could hardly be what he should call respectable.
  LORD HENLEYsaid, he hoped the Committee would not accept the Amendment, which proposed that residences of less than six months should not be counted in making up the year which was necessary for enfranchisement. In canvassing a large town he had found that some of the most respectable working men were in the habit of moving about in order to be near their work.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he hoped the hon. Baronet would not press his Mo-
  532
  tion, not only on account of the excellent reasons given by his noble Friend (Lord Henley), but also because the proposed clause was open to the same objection that was applied to the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt). If this had been a new Reform Bill the hon. Baronet might very properly, from a Conservative point of view, have raised the present issue; but, as the Government had endeavoured to keep the political element out of the Bill, he trusted that no extraneous matter would be introduced into it in the shape of disfranchisement, or the establishment of a new qualification.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 5 (Liability of owner under agreement).
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTsaid, that he had prepared a plan whereby existing hardships on small tenants could be avoided. That plan was that, instead of distraining on a tenant as at present, the rent should for a given time be paid, over to the parish authorities, instead of to the landlord. In that way he thought the object of the clause could be secured, without undue injury to the occupiers. He was, however, glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board had on the Paper an Amendment that would meet the point. He was ready to waive his plan for that of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. CAWLEYsaid, that the words which the right hon. Gentleman was about to introduce completely protected the occupier; but he thought that power ought to be given to the overseers to attach the rents of a block of houses, and not merely of one house, when the rates were unpaid.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, the clause as originally worded was taken from the Small Tenements Act; but in consequence of the suggestions of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford and of the hon. Member for Salford, Amendments had been framed which he hoped would prevent any hard ship to the poorer class of occupiers. But to attach the rents of one house for the rates due upon another house would be to introduce an entirely new principle, and he hoped the hon. Member would not press his Amendment.
  MR. CAWLEYsaid, that an agreement was often made by a landlord in respect, say, of the rates of twenty houses, for which he was allowed a discount. His suggestion was merely that the rents of those houses should be jointly liable for the rates which were to be jointly paid, and that when the time for payment came the collector should not surfer loss by those that were unoccupied.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 6 (Recovery of rates unpaid by the owner).
  MR. GOSCHEN MR. GOSCHEN moved, in line 30, after "owner," insert—
  "Subject to the following provisions:—1. That no such distress shall be levied unless the rate has been demanded in writing by the overseers from the occupier, and the occupier has failed to put the same within fourteen clays after the service of such demand; 2. That no greater sum shall be raised by such distress than shall at the time of making the same be actually due from the occupier for rent of the premises on which the distress is made."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. DENTmoved, in page 2, at end, add—
  "Provided always, That any such occupier shall be entitled to deduct the amount of rates for which such distraint is made, and the expense of distraint, from the rent due or accruing due to the owner, and every such payment shall be a valid discharge of the rent to the extent of the rate and expenses paid."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 7 to 9, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 10 (Provision for successive occupiers and for occupiers coming into unoccupied hereditaments).
  On Motion of Mr. RATHBONE, an Amendment was introduced to the effect that an out-going occupier should remain liable for so much and no more of the rate as was proportionate to the time of his occupation within the period for which the rate was made.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 11 and 12 agreed to.
  Clause 13 (Interpretation clause).
  MR. DIXON MR. DIXON moved in line 5, leave out "who shall not be usually resident within the parish in which the hereditament shall be situated," and insert "for whom he is acting as agent."
  Clause agreed to.
  Remaining clauses agreed to.
  MR. GOSCHENproposed a new clause (Vestries may order the owner to be rated instead of the occupier), in redemption of his pledge that he would give the vestries power to rate the owners compulsorily, and thanked the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. C. Forster) for his exertions on this question. The owners were to receive 15 per cent for being compulsorily rated instead of the occupier; and if then they chose to compound for the empty houses, another allowance of 15 per cent would be made to them.
  MR. CHARLES FORSTERsaid, the clause gave effect to his suggestions on this subject, and on his own behalf and that of several other representatives of boroughs he expressed his obligations to his right hon. Friend for having carried it out. At the same time he felt that this was only a temporary measure, and would avail himself of any future opportunity of getting rid of the payment of rates as a condition of the franchise.
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTasked what was to be the inducement to owners to agree to compound under Clause 3 with an allowance of 25 per cent, whereas, if they held on, under this new clause, they would get 30 per cent?
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, there were many places where the vestries would not act at all under the powers now given to them by this clause; while Clause 3 was optional both with owners and overseers.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHobjected to the allowance of 30 per cent in face of the decision of the Committee that 25 was sufficient; and called attention to the fact that with the allowance of 20 per cent under the Valuation of Property Act, it would in reality make 50 per cent. If he had the slightest hope of success, he would move that the allowance to the owners for compulsory rating should be 10 per cent instead of 15, so as to reduce the total allowance under this Bill to 25 per cent, the original proposal of the Government.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, that the 20 per cent under the Valuation of Property Act was merely legalizing the practice which now existed, of considering that the value of a tenement let at a certain sum by the week was less than the value of a tenement let at the same sum by the year.
  MR. CHADWICKremarked that they allowed the composition to be made in

  535
  the metropolitan parishes up to £20, and asked why they should limit it in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and such towns to £8? He was quite sure that if this provision were adhered to it would create a sense of injustice in the minds of persons in the country. He suggested that the vestries should be allowed to decide whether the compounding ought not to extend up to £15.
  MR. COLLINSsupported the Committee's limitation, and said, that to give such power to the vestries would be to introduce all the old evils and difficulties which existed under the local acts, by which, in some cases, deductions of 66½ per cent were made.
  MR. GOSCHENexpressed his concurrence in the observations of the hon. Member (Mr. Collins). In the speech made by the President of the Board of Trade on this point, he distinctly stated that where the line should be drawn was a matter on. which the Government would be willing to act in accord with the general sense of the Committee, and they thought that the opinion of the Committee should be decisive upon the point. It would not be expedient to give power to the vestries to make any change, because it would give rise to a suspicion of jobbery, though he would admit that it would not necessarily lead to jobbery.
  MR. GILPINsaid, he hoped the Government would adhere to the £8 principle in the provinces.
  Clause agreed to.
  On Motion of Mr. GOSCHEN, a new clause was added—
  (Evidence of making and publication of rates.)
  "The production of the book purporting to contain a poor rate, with the allowance of the rate by the justices shall, if the rate is made in the form prescribed by law, be prima facie evidence of the due making and publication of such rate."
  MR. GOSCHENthen moved a new clause—
  (Notice to occupiers of rates in arrear.)
  "Section twenty-eight of 'The Representation of the People Act, 1867,' with respect to notice to be given of rates in arrear, shall apply to occupiers of premises capable of conferring the parliamentary franchise, although the owners of such premises have become liable for the rates assessed thereon under the provisions of this Act."
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTappealed to the right hon. Gentlemen to give a little more time. Notice was to be given on the 20th of June, and that was the
  536
  ordinary notice, no doubt; but as the lists were made up on the 31st of July, only five weeks were left to enable the occupier, who had already paid his rates to the owner, to find the money to pay them again to the overseer. The rate being the January rate, notice might very well be given in March or April.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he thought it would be productive of much confusion if they fixed one day for the owner and another for the occupier. He would consider the matter, and if it could be easily done would cheerfully accede to the proposal.
  MR. CANDLISHthought more harm, than good would result from introducing a new time of notice to the occupier.
  DR. BREWERsaid, he did not consider any longer notice necessary, as one week's rent would be sufficient to pay the rates due, which could be deducted from the five weeks' rent accruing.
  Clause added to the Bill.
  MR. RATHBONEproposed a new clause after Clause 9 (One justice may act in certain cases).
  MR. COLLINSobjected to the clause. It would place the borough and county magistrates in a different position; and besides that, it would give justices, in these particular instances, powers which they did not possess under the general law.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he was afraid he could not accept the clause, which gave very extensive powers; among others, that of committing a man. to prison, which it was very undesirable to give to one justice.
  Clause negatived.
  Preamble agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 178.]

CIVIL OFFICES (PENSIONS) BILL.
(Mr. Dodson, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
CIVIL OFFICES (PENSIONS) BILL.

  [BILL 133.] CONSIDERATION.
  Bill, as amended, considered.
  A Clause (Pensions under this Act payable quarterly out of Consolidated Fund,)—(Mr. Gladstone,)—brought up, and read the first and second time; amended, and added.
  MR. FAWCETTmoved the insertion of a clause, that—
  "None of the provisions of this Act shall apply to the tenure of the offices of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord Privy Seal."
  He said the object of the clause was to prevent the holders of sinecure Offices from receiving pensions under this Bill; and even from the remarks of the Prime Minister he thought he should be able to show that the two Offices named ought to be excluded from the privilege of pensions. He objected to the whole Bill, believing that it was vicious in principle and fragmentary, and that it met want in a very bad way, and thinking that if people were to have pensions for holding political Offices, they ought not to obtain them in the manner provided and under the conditions imposed by the Bill. What it did was to give a man a right to a pension under certain conditions, which were extremely objectionable; and it robbed these pensions of their great recommendation, because it gave no security that a poor man who really wanted and deserved a pension should be able to obtain one, for it limited the pensions to one a year, to be given at the option of the Prime Minister. The chief arguments advanced by the right hon. Gentleman, when he introduced the Bill, were that they were about to amend an Act which was passed in 1835, and that there was not to be found in the history of Parliament one so good, so economical, so wise as that of 1835. The right hon. Gentleman seemed also to assume that, because that Parliament passed that Act, this Parliament could not do wrong in following its example. They would, however, find that this good, economical, and wise Parliament in 1835 excluded the offices of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord Privy Seal from all claims to pensions, because they were sinecure Offices, and the holders ought not to be entitled to pensions. Then the defence of these Offices was that they were held by men who could not do much administrative work for the sake of the value of their advice. That was all very good in theory; but how was it carried out in practice? The Offices were now held by Lord Dufferin and the Earl of Kimberley, two of the youngest men in the Administration, who were perhaps as capable as any in the Government of doing administrative work, and who were, it might be
  538
  supposed, anxious to have it. Nor was this an exceptional case, for the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster in the last Liberal Administration was held by the President of the Poor Law Board (Mr. Goschen), one of the youngest and most active Members of it, and the Office of Lord Privy Seal in the same Government was held by the Duke of Argyll, who was by no means a worn-out man. Therefore the plea of these Offices being required to provide places for men who could not undertake administrative work or departmental labour absolutely fell to the ground. The second objection to the Bill was, that as the stipend paid to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was paid by the Queen, it was introducing a new and a bad principle, as stated on a former occasion by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, to pension a man from one source of revenue when his stipend was provided from another, but that the pension ought to be paid from the revenues of the Queen. The Prime Minister on that occasion said it would be interfering with the Prerogative of the Crown, and he could not consent to have the point raised. As to the Office of Privy Seal, a Select Committee, of which the present Earl Russell was Chairman, and of which Mr. Cobden, the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Bright), Sir William Molesworth, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) were Members, had reported, in 1850, that the Office was a sinecure and ought to be abolished; but that recommendation had received no attention, and, so far from abolishing the Office, we were, for the first time, about to confer upon it the privilege of a pension. The pensions might involve but a small amount; but a great principle was involved in the Bill. The Government had resolved to carry out economy and retrenchment, but we could not do that unless our economy and retrenchment were strictly impartial and just. If a discharged dockyard labourer came to a Member and said—" It is extremely hard that I, who have been in the service of the Government so many years, should be thrown out of it when labour is abundant, and that I should not have the means of maintaining myself and family;" the reply would be—"The interests of economy absolutely demand that not a single person should be employed by the Go-

  539
  vernment if the services of that person can possibly be dispensed with." If the workman rejoined—"While you are discharging me you are increasing the number and area of the pensions which you are giving to Members of your own body;" the Member could only say—'' It is impossible for me to reply to your objections; if you wish for an answer you must go to the economists on the Treasury Bench." He should certainly ask the House to express an opinion on the clause, which he concluded by moving.
  MR. MONKseconded the Motion.
  Clause (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, &c.,)—(Mr. Fawcett,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he hoped Ms hon. Friend would not think him disrespectful when he pointed out to him that no portion of his speech applied to the proposal he had made. His hon. Friend's speech was divisible into two parts. He objected to the principle of the Bill, and added that the Government were increasing the number of pensions, and that they were giving them to persons of their own class. That was not the case. His hon. Friend's speech was, in fact, full of inaccurate references. His hon. Friend had said that he (Mr. Gladstone) had praised the Parliament of 1835 for passing the Pensions Act. Now it was not passed at that time, and he never praised the Parliament of 1835. His non. Friend had also said that he objected to the arrangement proposed by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer about the Duchy of Lancaster because it interfered with the Prerogatives of the Crown, but the fact was he made no such objection; it did not interfere in the slightest degree with the Prerogative of the Crown. He must enter a general protest against being bound by the recitals the hon. Member had made.
  MR. FAWCETTexplained. He might have misquoted the date of the Act. It was either 1833 or 1835.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he never mentioned the Parliament at all, and it was most important that the error of his hon. Friend, that the present Government were increasing the number of pensions, should not go forth without correction; because the fact was that the Bill diminished instead of increased the number of pensions, equalized the applica-
  540
  tion of the principle of law, and imposed restrictions and greater responsibilities in granting them. He did not at all mean to say that the existence of these Offices was not a fair subject of discussion by the House; but the balance of argument preponderated in Ms mind in favour of their maintenance. He would, however, not say much in favour of their maintenance then, because it was irrelevant; but he would be ready to discuss it on another occasion. His hon. Friend had said that the Government defended the maintenance of these Offices in order that they might be held by persons who were not strong enough for administrative duty. He defended them on totally different grounds. His hon. Friend said that the Office of Lord Privy Seal was held in the last Government by the Duke of Argyll. That was quite true; and while the noble Duke held it he applied himself to the study of the affairs of India, and conducted the whole business of India in the House of Lords in the face of great authorities on Indian matters, and the knowledge that he acquired at that time enabled him to carry out all the great transactions connected with the change in the management. He mentioned that to show that it was not a mere pretence, but that there was a reality in the allegation that the holders of these Offices, having regard to the dual character of our Legislature, and the due representation of the Government in both Houses of Parliament, had constantly to perform most valuable public duties. His right hon. Friend the present Secretary for War held the Office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster under the Government of Lord Palmerston, and at that time he had applied to him he believed more than once, but certainly on one most important occasion, when he found that it was impossible for himself or the Secretary of the Treasury to undertake the task, to conduct the inquiry with respect to the most difficult and complicated questions connected with the adjustment of the sugar duties. His right hon. Friend undertook the conduct of the inquiry, and brought that long controverted matter to a termination, which was regarded as perfectly satisfactory, on the whole, to all the parties concerned. These were not by any means the only arguments he could adduce in justification of his position; they were only in-

  541
  stances which he had chosen in order that the statement of his hon. Friend might not remain wholly unnoticed. But that was not the question then before them. If the House should at any time think that the political staff of the Administration ought to be reduced in numbers, and that those Offices ought to disappear, let them disappear. He, for one, did not think that it would be the death of the Constitution if they did. But it appeared to him to be wholly unnecessary to mix up with that question any sentimental allusion to the condition of the dockyard labourers; and he should say, with great respect for his hon. Friend, that it was hardly worthy of him to introduce upon the present occasion any such invidious topic. The question was if they were to maintain a law of political pensions in their statute book, what was to be the ground of that law? That ground, as it had hitherto been recognized, was that persons who had held high Offices in the State might be without private means, although they had shown great capacity in the public service, and that after they had held those Offices it would not be for the credit and therefore not for the advantage of the country, that they should be left in a state approaching to destitution. That was the argument on which the present law stood, and if his hon. Friend disapproved of that law let him propose its repeal. The Government were then only endeavouring to improve the existing law, and to make it more consistent in its application. The argument of the discredit which would be reflected upon the country by the need and penury of persons who had held high public Offices was just as applicable to the Offices of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord Privy Seal as to any other Offices in the State. If they disapproved of those Offices let them abolish them, and then the pensions that attached to them would, of course, also be abolished. What he contended was, that as long as those Offices existed their holders ought not to be excluded from the right to a pension. That was the point which was then really at issue, and it was one upon which he thought the House was competent at once to decide.
  MR. WHITEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had informed the House that he had not sought to justify the pensions which were now about to be attached
  542
  for the first time to certain Offices by a reference to the Parliament of 1834, The right hon. Gentleman had, however, pointed to that Parliament as a model Parliament. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I used the word "period," not Parliament.] Well, the right hon. Gentleman, at all events, spoke of that period as being characterized by the existence of one of "the most honest, upright, and thrifty Administrations ever known in England.'' Yet, although during that "model period" a Bill was brought in with the object of conferring pensions on noble Lords, right hon., and hon. Gentlemen who had filled sundry Offices, yet the "honest, upright, and thrifty Administration" of that day did not think proper to include the holders of the Offices of Lord Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the list of those who should be eligible for pensions. He hoped the honest and upright Parliament of the present day would imitate their example.
  MR. M. CHAMBERSsaid, the argument of his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton was, as he understood it, that those were sinecure Offices, and that no pensions ought, therefore, to be attached to them. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said, that after persons had been appointed to high Offices, it would be wrong that they should not have pensions granted to them. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No!] Well, if that was not the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, his (Mr. Chambers') intellect was very confused.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Shall I explain?
  MR. M. CHAMBERS: By all means.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I stated in the most distinct and explicit manner that no man, whether he holds a sinecure Office or any other Office, acquires, in my judgment, under the existing law, or would acquire by the present Bill, any title to obtain a pension.
  MR. M. CHAMBERS: The right hon. Gentleman, at all events, said that it would be a disgrace to the country if, after a man had. held high political Office, a pension were not granted to him, and he was left in a state of destitution. It was true that by this Bill no absolute title to pensions was given; but certain named officials after a certain period of service were qualified to receive them. They had heard from the Prime Minister that, while filling the Office of

  543
  Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of Argyll had time to devote himself to the study of Indian affairs, and to transact a great deal of the business connected with the government of India. Now, he did not think it was right to give any man a pension or a claim to a pension for having filled an Office which was so much of a sinecure that the holder was able to be a student in acquiring knowledge not connected with the duties of that Office. He considered, therefore, that the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton was a reasonable one, and that it ought not to have been treated—he would not say contemptuously, because there was no such thing as contempt in that House—but coldly by the Government. He could understand the propriety of granting a pension to a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a Secretary of State—Ministers who worked hard and rendered great service to the country; but as, whenever pensions were asked for persons who had filled humble positions, the economists were sure to object, he could not understand the proposal of the Government to give pensions to the Lord Privy Seal and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; or, as the number of pensions was limited, the justice of placing them upon an equality with the more laborious and responsible Members of the Cabinet.
  DR. BREWERwas of opinion that the proposal of the Government was a concession to public opinion. That proposal was not to give pensions to persons who had held sinecure Offices, but to enable the Government to give pensions to men who had held high Offices in which they performed service to the State, and whose circumstances rendered it desirable that they should receive pensions. They might have such a man as Mr. Burke in the House—a man occupying an inferior position in the House, but taking a leading part and occupying himself in most laborious labour; and that man might suddenly become paralyzed, and it would not be endurable that such a man should find himself without the assistance which the country could render him. His talents might even have saved the country from an engagement in an unjust war. Such a man should have an opportunity of applying to the Prime Minister for a national allowance.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the policy of this Bill was not, as the hon. and learned Member for Devonport (Mr. M. Chambers) and the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) seemed to suppose, that certain persons should become entitled to pensions. No title to a pension was given to anyone by this Bill. That was to be clearly understood. No person, no matter how great or how brilliant his services, or how abject his poverty, would be entitled to a pension by reason of the passing of this Bill. Under certain conditions the holders of particular offices might become recipients of pensions. Among those Offices were that of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and that of the Lord Privy Seal. It was argued that those two Offices ought not to exist, and that, therefore, no pension should be given to persons who had held them. That was not the question. The Offices existed, and the question was whether they should come within the meaning of this Bill. What was the policy of the Bill? The hon. and learned Member for Devonport said it was this—that when a man had held high Office of any kind he should have a pension. With great submission to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that was not the policy of the Bill. The policy of the Bill was that when a man had held an Office of importance and dignity it was not to the credit of the country that he should be allowed to fall into abject poverty; and that, in the rare and singular cases where there was a danger of such a thing happening, it should be in the power of the Prime Minister of the day, he being satisfied that the person was unable to maintain his position in life, to give him a pension. But this Bill did not entitle anyone to a pension for any service, however long, or however laborious. He could not doubt that the Offices of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Lord Privy Seal should come within the Bill when it went so much lower in the official hierarchy. That was the question—whether those two Offices were of sufficient dignity to render it desirable that persons who had held them should be placed among those to whom under the circumstances he had mentioned the Prime Minister might give pensions.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
  The House divided:—Ayes 36; Noes 68: Majority 32.
  MR. FAWCETTrose to propose the insertion of the following clause:—
  "After the passing of this Act any person who applies for a Political Office Pension shall make such an application in writing to the Prime Minister; this application shall contain a statement of the various political offices which the applicant' has held, and the time during which he has contained in each office; the applicant for a pension shall declare that in consequence of accepting a political office under the Crown he was obliged to relinquish some trade, employment, or profession, from which he obtained a maintenance; and that upon leaving office he is left without adequate maintenance, because he cannot resume the trade, employment, or profession which he had previously relinquished."
  His object in proposing the clause was to strike a direct blow at the whole of the pension system. If hon. Members would recollect what the present declaration was and some of the results to which it led, they would agree with him that this Pensions Bill ought not to be allowed to pass until that declaration was repealed. They had been told that the object of the Bill was to prevent distinguished men from falling into poverty. If the operation of the pension system was to give pensions to poor men only, who had rendered distinguished service to the country, he should be the last to object to that system, because he agreed with the Prime Minister that it would be a scandal to the nation if men, after holding distinguished Offices, and after having rendered distinguished services, should be allowed to sink into poverty. In his opinion, the present Bill would not have that effect as long as the present declaration was retained, because it allowed the pensions to be given to those who did not require them. The present declaration merely required a man to state that a pension was necessary to enable him to maintain his station; and, therefore, it established the vicious and bad principle that the position of an ex-officio Member was different from that of a private Member of that House. To illustrate his argument he would refer to two or three cases; but, as it would be invidious to mention names unnecessarily, he should refrain from doing so, unless the House required him to state them. An hon. Member sat for many years in this
  546
  House. He was in no profession. He never relinquished an iota of income. He held Office for six or seven years. At the expiration of that time he made a declaration that the pension was necessary to enable him to maintain his station. Now he (Mr. Fawcett) would like to ask what was the position of that Gentleman when he made that declaration? Why he had his town house, his country house, his shooting box, and his yacht; and yet he declared that a pension was necessary to support his station in life, and he was allowed a pension of £2,000 a year. The reason he was opposing this Bill was to prevent a repetition of such gross scandals as that to which he referred. He would mention another case, and as the circumstances attending it were matters of notoriety, he had no difficulty about acknowledging that he referred to that of Lord Clarence Paget. That nobleman left the Navy for a time, and came into that House. By doing so, he rather gained than lost promotion in his profession. Not only did he enjoy a high salary while in the House, but when he resigned his seat in order to take the command of the Mediterranean Fleet, having made the necessary declaration, he obtained a pension of £1,200 per annum, to commence when he relinquished his naval command. He (Mr. Fawcett) maintained that this was a state of things which could not be defended. But how had the subject been treated in the public newspapers? Why, that very newspaper which supported the policy of the Administration with ecstatic and sentimental enthusiasm, after he had raised the discussion, took the ground that as seats in the House were becoming more costly every year, it was only right that pensions should be granted to those who succeeded in obtaining Office. Throughout the whole argument it was assumed that the end of every successful and useful politician must be to obtain Office. But were there no men in that House who had been successful and useful politicians except those who obtained Office? He maintained that all the arguments employed in favour of this Bill could equally be applied in favour of the payment of Members. He did not mean to declare that a poor man who had served his country faithfully should be deprived of the opportunity of obtaining a pension; but he meant to say that the Bill

  547
  did not give sufficient security that the pensions which were granted would really be enjoyed by poor men. On the contrary, he was convinced that, if the declaration were not altered, pensions would be granted to men who ought certainly not to receive them. It was rather a dangerous doctrine to lay down, as this Bill tended to do, that those only were successful politicians who took Office. All the experience of the last century went to prove the contrary. No one, for instance, could be pointed out within that period who was more distinguished, or who had done more valuable political services to the country than Richard Cobden. And with such examples in view, were pensions needed to induce men to render service to the State? He by no means wished to put an end to pensions altogether, but his object was to do away with the present declaration, and to substitute for it a declaration to the effect that the Member on taking Office was obliged to relinquish some trade, employment, or profession—not some lucrative trade, employment, or profession, as he was represented to have said, but one which provided the Member, at the time of taking Office, with a maintenance—and which, on quitting Office, he could not resume, and was, therefore, left without adequate means. A declaration of this character would have prevented the occurrence of a scandal like the case of Lord Clarence Paget. From the whole tone of discussion in the House, as well as in the public Press, the Pensions Bill would seem to have been defended upon the plea that men required pecuniary rewards to induce them to do their duty in Parliament. He asserted that the moment pecuniary inducements to enter the House of Commons were held out, a blow, well-nigh fatal, was struck at Parliamentary government. At the height of the financial mania, in 1865, an impression sprang up throughout the country that a seat in the House of Commons was of considerable pecuniary value, owing to the income which it enabled men to make out of directorships, and a feeling of distrust was excited, which it would take long to eradicate, with regard to all commercial legislation. It was therefore of great moment to discourage, as much as possible, the prospect of pecuniary emoluments being obtained by men who entered Parlia-
  548
  ment. If ever there was a fragmentary and unsatisfactory measure he believed it to be the present Bill. With the doctrine laid down by the Prime Minister, that a man having once held high Office should not be allowed to sink into poverty, he entirely agreed; but how did this measure meet the supposed case? As far as he could understand, the pensions were absolutely at the disposal of the Prime Minister. Therefore, however poor a man might be, his obtaining a pension at all was a matter of great uncertainty. If he should happen, just before he became entitled, to displease the Prime Minister, he might lose his pension, which might be given to somebody who had shown himself more subservient. The declaration was left by the Bill in such a form that the evils which had happened in the past might happen again in the future, and they might have the scandal repeated of a man who lived with all the appearance of wealth and luxury, who kept a town house, a country house, and a yacht, retiring on £1,500 or £2,000 a year pension, which he declared to be necessary to the maintenance of his position. The hon. Member concluded by moving his clause.
  Clause (Declaration of relinquishment of trade,)—(Mr. Fawcett,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, his hon. Friend had referred to what was undoubtedly the most intricate part of the whole question. He wished to point out, however, that, if there were difficulties in connection with the declaration, they had arisen in consequence of the indisposition of Parliament—a wise and just indisposition, he considered—to admit the dignity of the Office held by any public man, the length of time he had served, or the amount of service he had rendered, to constitute in themselves a title to a pension. For his own part, he should object extremely to admit any of these grounds as a title to a pension, and the phrase itself had been erroneously used in debate. The question really was how they could most effectually hedge about the pensions granted by the Bill, under certain circumstances, so as to prevent abuses. His hon. Friend

  549
  had selected two cases for remark. It was invidious to the last degree to make observations upon particular cases; and had his hon. Friend been in a mood of perfect impartiality, while condemning the Bill as fragmentary and mentioning the case of a gentleman who, having had a salary of £2,000 a year, took a pension of like amount, he would have remembered that under the present Bill nothing of the kind could happen. [Mr. FAWCETT said he was aware of that.] And, further, he would have remembered that the particular abuse which he denounced would be prevented by the Bill. ["No. no!"] Yes as far as the culminating point of the case went—which certainly was a very staggering one—of a gentleman with a salary of £2,000 obtaining a pension of £2,000 a year, for the pension in respect of such a salary would not at the utmost exceed £1,200. He confessed that he did not see his way to any provision for substituting machinery of any other kind for the declaration at present taken, though the point no doubt deserved consideration. But when the House came to judge of the operation of any measure they would naturally look at its whole scope, and if reference were made to the list of pensions, granted under the Act of 1834, though they might not have succeeded in excluding every questionable case, the real question was whether the object of that Act had not been attained. He greatly doubted whether, at any period since the Act had been passed, one-half the pensions authorized by its terms had been in existence, a fact the significance of which could not be too well weighed by hon. Members. He hoped that, under the provisions of the present Bill, at least a similar reserve would be maintained in future. His hon. Friend by the clause which he proposed had not got rid of any portion of the difficulty of the declaration, and the clause seemed to rest upon a principle which could not be sufficiently defended in argument. Any honourable and right-minded man ought to have no very great difficulty, he thought, in forming a conscientious and intelligent judgment as to whether his private fortune was adequate to the maintenance of his station or not. The large majority of those who had received pensions under the Act had made the declaration under conditions with which, he thought,
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  the most fastidious could not find fault. It would often be a difficult thing, however, for a man to say that he had relinquished a trade, profession, or employment. He had been told by one of the most eminent surgeons in London that a medical man required to have his brass plate on his door and to challenge public approval for twelve years before he could expect to pay his way. Could such a gentleman, although by investing his capital and walking the hospitals he might insure a future fortune, be said to have relinquished a trade or profession by which he made his livelihood? Take a case in mercantile life. Take the case of one of these directors, to whom the hon. Member had referred. He did not know into what pitfalls a man might not slip if he were called upon to declare that he had relinquished an employment from which he obtained a maintenance, when they considered how precarious and doubtful the sources of maintenance must be in the present complicated state of society. He admitted his hon. Friend's object to be good, but he objected to the principle of his clause; because he thought it would be unwise to say that they would recognize the title of men who, provided with ample means, came into that House and obtained pensions in case of their need, but that they would not recognize the title of men who had never had a trade, employment, or profession in the strict sense, but who from the earliest days of their manhood had devoted their time, mind, thought, and all the powers of their body and soul to the service of their country. Was that an unimportant class of public men? Let them turn to the page of history, and they would find that a very large proportion of the men who had conferred the most distinguished services upon their country were men who had never relinquished a trade, profession, or employment which had afforded them a maintenance, and yet they were the very men on whom a pension ought to be conferred. He would not enter into minute details, he would only take four names which occurred to him at the moment—Burke, Fox, Pitt, and Canning. He would rather erase from the statute book the whole of this legislation on pensions than have a system of legislation so clumsily contrived as to be incapable of including them. Under these circumstances, although he

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  did not deny the difficulties of the question, he was willing to consider whether any practical improvement could be made in the machinery of the law, and he trusted that his hon. Friend, would not require the House to express an opinion on the clause he had proposed. He fully admitted the justice of purpose with which he had framed it; but he did not think it would be adequate to attain the end he had in view.
  MR. GILPINsaid, he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would withdraw the clause; but, at the same time, he thought that it would be very desirable that gentlemen claiming pensions should be required to put into writing the length of time they had served in any Office, and that they were not in a position to maintain themselves, on their own resources, in a position of comfort and respectability.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he would not put the House to the trouble of a division.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 3 (Limit of amount of pension).
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, that he had three Amendments on the Paper, in regard to which the Government had consented to meet him half-way. The House would remember that under this Bill there were three classes of pensions. In the first class, pensions were granted after "four" years' service; he proposed "five" instead of "four;" but the Prime Minister had objected, and therefore he should not press the Amendment. The Bill proposed, in the case of second-class pensions, that the time of service should be "five" years; he proposed "seven;" the Prime Minister had consented to "six," and to that compromise he (Mr. Fawcett) gladly assented. As to the third class of pensions, the Bill fixed "five" years of service; he proposed "ten," and the Prime Minister had accepted the Amendment. He begged to move these Amendments respectively.
  MR. SCLATER - BOOTHsaid, he thought that this was rather a serious change, and would exclude almost every claimant from the third-class pensions. The House ought to know on what ground the Government had acceded to it.
  MR. GLADSTONEreplied that ten years was the term fixed by the existing law; and, after consideration, the Government did not think they would be justified in departing from it.
  Amendments agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 6 (Pensioner not to hold pension under another Act).
  MR. GLADSTONE, in moving an Amendment, to the effect that any salary received by a pensioner from the public service shall go in suspension or abatement of his pension, said, that if this Act purported to give pensions as of right, and earned by service, they must be given whether the persons receiving them had other public employments or not. Inasmuch, however, as it depended upon the actual need of the pension, it would be right to declare that this pension ought to be a pensioner's only public emolument, or that, if he received any other emolument, it should go in suspension or abatement of his pension. The right hon. Gentleman moved, in page 3, line 1, after "Act," leave out to end of clause, and insert—
  "Was at the time of his application for such pension, or is afterwards entitled to any emolument (including in the term any salary, compensation, superannuation allowance or pension), which is payable out of any monies raised by taxation or of other public revenue in any part of Her Majesty's dominions, or is received by way of fees or otherwise in respect of his holding any public office or employment in any part of Her Majesty's dominions, the payment of the pension under this Act shall, so long as he receives such emolument if the amount thereof is greater than or equal to the pension under this Act be suspended, and if less be diminished by the amount of such emolument; and if any person is at the time of his application for or while receiving a pension under this Act entitled to any such emolument, he shall forthwith deliver to the Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury a declaration under his hand stating the nature and amount thereof."
  MR. FAWCETTstated that this clause was brought up to remedy the defect he pointed out in the original Bill, which would permit a man to hold two pensions. One instance of this kind was well known to the Government; a man holding a diplomatic pension also held a Civil Service pension as a permanent Under Secretary of twelve years' standing.
  MR. GLADSTONEexpressed his obligations to the hon. Member for having called attention to the matter.
  Clause added to the Bill.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYasked the Prime Minister whether it was the intention of the Government to exclude the holders of the Office of Judge Advocate General from those entitled to pensions, and suggested the propriety of including it?
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was bound to confess that his arguments in opposition to the hon. and learned Member on this point upon a former occasion were not well founded, and he would gladly include the Office of the Judge Advocate General, if the feeling of the House were in favour of doing so.
  Amendments made.
  Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL BILL.
(Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Childers, Mr. Adam.)
GREENWICH HOSPITAL BILL.

  [BILL 105.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. LIDDELLrose to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. This Bill involved questions of a financial character, questions of a national character, and it also involved considerations of a personal character; and, on all these grounds, he wished to obtain for this Bill careful consideration at the hands of the House. The great complaint against this Bill was that it was at variance in its main provisions with the Report which had been presented, and he thought the Admiralty were bound to adduce good reasons for departing so widely as this Bill proposed from the recommendations therein contained. One of the recommendations was that Greenwich Hospital should continue as an infirmary, but on a much larger scale than at present; and it was proposed to facilitate admission to the infirmary by requiring less harsh conditions; and it was proposed to reduce the expenditure to the lowest point consistent with proper care and attendance upon those who would become inmates by right of the infirmary. What did the Bill do? It proposed, in very few years, to abolish Greenwich Hospital as an institution altogether. It proposed to induce the largest number possible of the present inmates, by a bribe, or at all events by a very liberal scale of pensions, to leave the Hospital, and it proposed to distri-
  554
  bute among the hospitals of the country those infirm and disabled men who had been maintained at the expense of Greenwich Hospital. The case turned upon the question whether the House should be guided by medical evidence in the decision it might arrive at as to men disabled in the service; and as to these men the head surgeon of Haslar Hospital (Sir David Deas) declared he would not undertake to maintain the proper discipline of the Hospital if pensioners were admitted to it; and when asked whether an additional ward would alter the case, he asked—" What am I to do with the many applications which are constantly made by disabled men, incapacitated from maintaining themselves through disease contracted in the service?" In fact, all medical men were against the scheme. The present Bill proposed to manage Greenwich Hospital as a subordinate department of the Admiralty, and proposed that the audit of its estates should be conducted by the Admiralty. It was proposed to repeal the 4 & 5 Will. IV., c. 4, an Act which was founded on a scheme of deep and wise State policy, the object of which was, first of all, to encourage men to enter the naval service, and then to call upon the tax-payers of the country to contribute their quota towards the maintenance and comfort of those who had been disabled in the public service. That was a burden against which no tax-payer ever had raised, or, he believed, ever would raise a single note of complaint. The tax-payers of the country were proud of their Navy, and, provided the resources of Greenwich Hospital were wisely distributed, no word of complaint would be ever heard. And now we were about to deprive Greenwich Hospital of a sum of £16,000 in hard cash. By the Act of 1865, the Exchequer claimed £15 per head for every man that fell short of 1,400, which was held to be the average number that Greenwich Hospital was bound to maintain. This claim of the Exchequer to relieve itself from contributing to the maintenance of the public servants had been regarded by every one who had inquired into the subject as inequitable. The Commissioners of 1859 condemned such a plan, and expressed their opinion that, in the question between the Crown and the Hospital, the pensions saved by the exchange ought to be applied not to the benefit of the Crown, but of

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  the Hospital. The Committee of last year also said that they were unable to admit the justice to the Hospital of a claim which required that £15 per head should be paid to the Consolidated Fund for every man short of 1,400. And the Accountant General, Mr. Walker, said he could tell the facts; as to the principle he could not explain it, because there was no principle in it, and he considered it an inequitable arrangement. Now, he asked the House to pause before it relieved the Consolidated Fund of this charge which was applied to the benefit of the Navy. This was a bad time for reducing the income of the Hospital by this large sum of £16,000; because there would be a much greater strain upon its resources for the future, in consequence of the terms of the Act, which made it easier for the sailor to acquire admission; the result of which would be that there would be a greater number of applications than before. Another point to which he wished to direct attention was that the Bill recognized for the first time, and most justly recognized, the claims of merchant seamen to some share in the emoluments of that Hospital, especially now that its finances were in a flourishing condition. A sum of £4,000 a year was to be placed at the disposal of the Board of Trade for the benefit of merchant seamen, especially of those who had formerly paid 6d. a month out of their wages towards the Hospital. He had only wished the amount was larger; but he apprehended if would be found that the number of men entitled to be pensioned out of the sum was considerably larger than the Government anticipated. There was a financial point also that ought not to be overlooked. By the 13th clause of that Bill a new mode of account was proposed that he thought a most objectionable one; which was that in future the proceeds of the rent and profits arising from the estates were to be paid to the account of the Paymaster General at the Bank of England, after deducting all the costs of the estates. It was very objectionable that any part of their control over those revenues should be withdrawn. Mr. Anderson gave it as his opinion that the Commissioners of Audit were the proper persons to audit those accounts, as they embraced transactions which were better audited by an independent department, more especially when they came to deal, as was the case
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  in this instance, with questions of capital and income. But under that Bill there would be no independent audit at all of those accounts; and unless the Committee of Public Accounts were satisfied with the efficacy of the audit under that measure, he thought it would be their duty to direct attention to the matter. The next point to which he came was a national one. He wanted to know what the Government intended to do with the building; because he need not remind the House that Greenwich Hospital had in the mind of the country peculiar associations, and was endeared to it by its many traditions? The Bill proposed to deal with the building in a very off-hand manner. It took power to hand it over to any charitable or public purpose, with or without requiring rent, and on such terms respecting repairs as the Admiralty might think fit. He was bound to say that the country would not approve of the building being applied in that offhand manner to any purpose to which the Admiralty might think fit to apply it. He should like to know what purpose it would really be turned to; for if they once parted with the building, and located there anybody, however useful or charitable its purpose might be, there would be great difficulty in getting it out again? Questions of compensations arose, and the country might at any time have 1,000 men landed on its shores in a disabled state without having an available place to receive them. The House ought, therefore, to be told distinctly to what purpose the building was to be applied before the Government parted with it. The Hospital, moreover, was constructed out of endowments, and ought not to be transferred as a free gift to any body that wished to have it. Again, the Bill proposed to abolish the office of Mr. Lethbridge, the controller, who also filled the office of solicitor. Those two offices were combined under the Act of 1865, and a salary of £500 was attached to each of them. Mr. Lethbridge's total official income was, therefore, £1,000 a year. Although he might not have a legal claim to compensation, he had a strong moral claim to it; for he had filled the office of solicitor for twenty-four years, during the last four of which he had also acted as controller, and attention to his official duties had to a great extent involved the abandonment of his private practice. He was to hold

  557
  his appointment dum se bene gessit, and had never contemplated its abolition by Act of Parliament. He (Mr. Liddell) also wished to know under what circumstances Mr. Bristowe, the solicitor to the Admiralty, was to undertake the further duties of solicitor to the Hospital. A few years ago Mr. Bristowe had appealed to the Admiralty on the ground that he was overworked, and had asked for help. The result of the appeal was that an allowance of £300 a year for the payment of a clerk was made to him. He had asked to be permitted to appoint his son assistant solicitor; but to this the Duke of Somerset objected, and he then appointed his son as his clerk, at the salary of £300 a year. How was it that Mr. Bristowe, after declaring that he was overworked, had undertaken these additional duties? He admitted that the pensions which the Government proposed to bestow on those who were disabled in the service were very liberal; but these were men borne down in the service by such diseases as rheumatism, ague, asthma, or consumption, to whom no money allowance would make up for the loss of good beds, comfortable well-ventilated chambers, wholesome diet, and regular and tender medical administration. We had the best infirmary in the world, and we should continue to maintain it for the benefit of these sufferers in our service. Believing that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord was wise in his legislation of 1865, he was, nevertheless, of opinion that he was now riding his hobby too hard, and pushing his policy to such an extent that he would do violence to the feelings of the nation, and prejudice the interests of the British Navy. In conclusion, the hon. Gentleman appealed to the House to support him in the Motion he now begged to make—namely, that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Bill be committed to a Select Committee,''—(Mr. Liddell,)—instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  CAPTAIN STANLEYsaid, the observations he was about to make must only be accepted as the expression of his own opinion, inasmuch as, from the excep-
  558
  tional circumstances of the late Parliamentary Recess, he had been unable to hold any consultation with his late Colleagues on the subject. He had nevertheless thought it his duty to consider as fully as possible the recommendations of the Committee, and to see how far any sufficient legislation could be founded upon them; and he wished here to express his sense of the extreme ability and energy of the Committee, and of the ability with which his predecessor, Mr. Du Cane, presided over it, and drew up its Report. The treatment of this question appeared to have been a hobby with every Civil Lord of the Admiralty. They had all tried to introduce some new plan of regulations for the Hospital, and he thought it was generally agreed that Greenwich Hospital had in some degree suffered from the treatment. He might classify all the recommendations which had been made as coming under two heads—first, those which tended to fill the Hospital, and utilize all the large buildings of which it was composed; and secondly, those plans which were rather directed to extending the benefits of the institution, without much reference to the great central establishment. He admitted that the recommendations of the Committee of 1867 pointed to the first of these courses; but he confessed he should not have felt justified in embodying those recommendations in a Bill without first carefully examining the estimates and ascertaining as far as he could what they would, be likely to amount to in future years. There was invariably a tendency in establishments of this kind for salaries to increase; and the First Lord would bear him out in the assertion that no inconsiderable portion of the duty of the Admiralty authorities was to resist the constant and urgent appeals which were made for the increase of salaries. In his opinion a wider margin should have been allowed for possible variations under this head. Another objection to the re-creation of of such a great establishment was that such establishments could not well be elastic in their nature. It was necessary to draw a "give-and-take" line between the minimum and maximum requirements of the institution. The operation of the Act of 1865 at once produced a very considerable diminution in the number of in-pensioners, the number falling from 1,382 to 395; while of those left in the Hospital not a few were left merely

  559
  because they could not comply with the conditions which were necessary to allow them to leave it. From those who had left the Hospital there had been but few applications for re-admission, and the rate of mortality among them had been only about half what it was in the Hospital. He was of opinion that the Act of 1865 had operated very favourably for the interests of those who were principally concerned—namely, the pensioners themselves. The Duke of Somerset, in a memorandum dated April, 1864, said that one portion of the Hospital had been well administered, and that while the great body of pensioners could only obtain the advantage of residence in the institution by the sacrifice of freedom, domestic comfort, and social independence, the helpless and infirm, who who had no relations, found judicious care and kindly attention there, and his Grace recommended that the Hospital should be restricted to the latter use, and that any surplus should be applied for the advantage of the fleet. If those observations applied to the class of pensioners which then existed, they applied more forcibly to the present class of men, whose claims it would be impossible wholly to ignore. Those expressions applied to old men-of-war's men, who, however much they might object to restraint, were not unaccustomed to it. In any legislation upon the subject at the present time it would be necessary to provide for the participation of the merchant navy, who would find the necessary restraint of Greenwich Hospital much more irksome, as they would not be used to the same amount of discipline, and from their previous habits and lives they would not be as likely as men-of-war's men to conform to such restraint and discipline. He attached much importance to the provision respecting the admission of invalids to Greenwich Hospital. He thought that the hon. Gentleman seemed to attach undue importance as to those applicants who were not entitled under the pension rules to the benefits of the institution, but who, nevertheless, had seriously damaged their health either by service or by disease. He understood that under this Bill it was proposed in some measure to recognize not the legal, but the moral claims of these applicants, and therefore the question of hardship raised by his hon. Friend fell to the ground when read by the light of the speech
  560
  made by the hon. Member when the Bill was laid on the table. It would appear by that speech that the object of his hon. Friend was to gather together the greatest amount of money he could, and to apply it to the wants of those whom the Government believed to be entitled morally or otherwise to the benefits of this institution. The Government were the best judges as to whether the cases referred to by the hon. Gentleman ought to be sent to a Government hospital or to Greenwich. With regard to what had been said as to the accounts, with some exceptions, he thought that on the whole the system of accounts referred to in the Bill would be found to be advantageous, particularly if they were kept with reference to the system in the department of the Accountant General likely to be adopted. One point he did not contemplate with so much pleasure was the application of the building. He thought it would be more satisfactory, supposing the Government were not in a position to inform the House what they meant to do as to the building, if the clause respecting it were struck out of the Bill, and if a separate Bill with respect to it were brought in at a future day. To whatever purpose the building might be applied he hoped it would not be diverted from those naval purposes for which the Hospital funds were originally given, but that it would be devoted for the benefit, if not exclusively of the Royal Navy, at least for the benefit of seafaring men. It had been said that considerable inconvenience would arise if the building were given over for the purposes of any particular society. He did not speak without some knowledge of this part of the question; and he confessed that he had not been able to satisfy himself as to the possibility of giving it up entirely to the use of any society. He need not say more than a few words as to the controllership. He certainly did think that it was rather a matter of hardship, because an additional appointment was given to the present controller four years ago, that that officer should lose not only the appointment then created, but the appointment which he held, he believed without complaint, for a long time prior to that when the affairs of Greenwich Hospital were brought under the attention of Parliament. He was glad his hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan) did not propose in the Bill any forced sale of the Greenwich

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  Hospital estate, and looking to the results, either in a commercial view or with reference to the interests of the Hospital, of former proceedings on that point, he thought the hon. Gentleman had done better by keeping the estate in his own hands. With respect to the Greenwich livings, there appeared to be among naval men a remarkable unanimity in favour of conferring them upon naval chaplains who had efficiently served their country afloat, and who in their old ago were anxious to settle down to a somewhat less roving life; but he certainly felt bound to confess that the interests of the future pensioners ought, whatever arrangements might be made, to receive careful consideration. The hon. Gentleman had not paid much regard to the suggestions of the Committee with respect to the schools. There was much to be done on that point, ably as the schools had been hitherto managed. If the hon. Gentleman wished to carry the Bill this Session he ought not to attempt to do too much at once. He would ask his hon. Friend near him (Mr. Liddell) whether any definite advantage would be gained, which could not be gained in a Committee of the House, by sending the Bill to a Select Committee. Considering the time of the year he doubted whether any practical result would follow the sending the Bill to a Select Committee. Though not concurring in all the provisions of the Bill, he still had every confidence in his hon. Friend, who, he believed, desired to carry out this measure as a continuation of the Bill of 1865, and he was convinced that the details might be so adjusted as to lead to the benefits of the institution being conferred upon those entitled to them. He had not, therefore, felt it his duty to offer any opposition to the measure, which he believed was capable of being properly moulded in Committee, without adopting a course which would probably lead to its postponement.
  MR. TREVELYANbelieved, with his hon. Friend who had just down, that at this period of the Session it would be much better for the House to go into Committee on the Bill than to send it upstairs. There were three sets of circumstances under which a Bill was referred to a Select Committee. When the subject was fresh, and information was needed; when the details were abstruse and complicated, and could be
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  discussed better in a room upstairs than in a Committee of the Whole House; and when the Government wished to shift responsibility. None of these conditions existed here. The subject had been well thrashed out by previous Committees and Commissions. The provisions of the Bill were simple, and the Government were quite prepared to treat the question on their own responsibility, and he submitted that that was the proper mode of proceeding. As to the principle of the Bill, it was this—There were at present large numbers of permanently invalided men who had lost their health in the service of the country, but who had no valid claim under existing regulations, though they had a strong moral claim. The Admiralty could only benefit these men by scraping together all the money upon which they could lay their hands, and this was exactly what they had done. The savings pointed out by the Committee were savings on paper only; but the saving shown by the Government was a genuine saving, which would be effected by inducing men to leave the Hospital, where they were kept at great expense to the country, and go to their homes, where they were more comfortable and were maintained at a much smaller expense. That was the key-note of the whole scheme of the Government. The money they had to spend would be spent in the way the men liked best; not in keeping up a Hospital at a great expense to the country, and with no special benefit to the men themselves. With regard to Mr. Lethbridge, whose claim for compensation had been mentioned, that gentleman, up to 1865, was merely paid fees for work done, like any other solicitor employed by a private client. In 1865 he was appointed a salaried officer at £500 a year, but it was specially provided at that time that the appointment was a personal one, giving no claim to compensation or a retiring allowance. It was true that Mr. Lethbridge was also appointed controller at a salary of £500 a year, but that appointment rather weakened than strengthened the claim, for the office was uncommonly like a sinecure. In proof of this, he (Mr. Trevelyan) was going to undertake the duties without a farthing of additional remuneration, while Mr. Bristow, the solicitor to the Admiralty, was going to undertake the legal duties, the heavy part of the work being done, as a rule,

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  by the solicitors in the North. How could the Government, under these circumstances, be asked to give any compensation to Mr. Lethbridge? If they did, the Government would be the only body of persons in the country who were not protected by the black and white of a written contract? His hon. Friend had complained that the audit had been proposed to be transferred to the Treasury Department. The clause authorizing that transfer had been recommended by the Commissioners; but, on consideration, the Treasury had dropped that clause. He considered the proposed measure, to use the words of the hon. Member for Northumberland, economical and lenient—economical, because it made the money go as far as possible; and lenient, because it made the money go as far as possible in the direction in which the recipients desired it to go. He therefore confidently recommended the measure to the favourable consideration of the House.
  SIR. JOHN HAYsaid, having been on the Commission in 1859 and 1860 which considered the subject of Greenwich Hospital, and having also been a Member of the late Government which took this matter into consideration, he could not give a silent vote upon it. His own opinion was that further inquiry into the matter was necessary, before legislation was adopted. The present Bill carried out, but not in the way recommended by the Commissioners, certain of the principles laid down by them, but it was directly in the teeth of the recommendations of the Committee appointed by the late Board of Admiralty. The Bill contained many points worthy of acceptance, and, if two or three clauses were omitted, would be of considerable value; but he thought that in a Committee of the Whole House a measure of this special character could not have the attention it deserved, whereas in a Committee upstairs the whole thing might be settled in two days. The 4th clause was that—
  "The Admiralty may, under regulations to be from time to time made by them, send any noncommissioned officers or men admitted to the benefits of Greenwich Hospital to a naval hospital or infirmary, to be there maintained at the expense of Greenwich Hospital."
  But it was necessary that a great deal of room should always be kept in the hospitals to meet sudden demands upon it. He remembered close upon 500 men
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  being sent to Haslar in one day, and great room would be suddenly required in the event of an epidemic like scarlet fever breaking out among the boys upon the training ship, because it would be very necessary to isolate such cases. According to the Report of the Greenwich Hospital Commission of 1859 and 1860 there were 1,100 and odd persons who had served in the Navy receiving relief in workhouses. Those persons would now have the right to receive assistance from Greenwich Hospital. With reference to the 7th clause, he had taken the liberty of placing a Notice of Amendment on the Paper, because he thought the proposition that—
  "The Admiralty may from time to time permit Greenwich Hospital or any part thereof, with the appurtenances, to be occupied and used temporarily for the purposes of the naval service or of any department of Her Majesty's Government, or for any public or charitable or other useful purpose,"
  was going entirely beyond the purposes for which the Hospital was founded. Under such a clause the First Lord of the Admiralty might entertain them all to a fish dinner in the Painted Hall. In short, there was no sort of protection as to the use to which the Hospital might be put. His Amendment, therefore, would insert these words—
  "For any charitable or benevolent purpose for the benefit of persons engaged in seafaring pursuits, or their widows."
  He should propose that Amendment if it should be the decision of the House to consider the Bill in a Committee of the Whole House; but he thought the better course would be to send it to a Committee upstairs. He was glad to hear that the clause as to audit was to be altered; but he should also be glad if the £16,000 of which the Hospital had been deprived was to be given back to it. The reasons for giving this money to the seamen of this country were indisputable. When the First Lord introduced his Bill, in 1865, he had joined issue with the right hon. Gentleman on a point which, perhaps, the House would not remember. The Bill, contrary to the opinion of the Royal Commission, appropriated a portion of the money taken from the Hospital to the payment of pensions to officers. That seemed to him a wrong appropriation, although it was a relief to the country; the pensions were well deserved, but they ought not to have been paid from the funds of Greenwich Hospital. That was entirely

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  different from the misappropriation by which the right hon. Gentleman refused to pay the Governor of Greenwich Hospital his salary. That position had always been considered the due reward of the most efficient officer in the Navy. When Sir James Gordon died the right hon. Gentleman selected as Governor a most distinguished officer, the second in command of the Black Sea Fleet, Sir Houston Stewart, but instead of giving him £1,000 a year, which the late House of Commons voted he should have, he gave him a sum of £1,200, but deprived him of his good service pension and all his pay and emoluments, so that he actually rewarded the distinguished services of this gallant officer with only £132 a year. That was not carrying out the spirit of generosity in which the House had determined that the office of Governor of Greenwich Hospital should be continued. That was not due and just economy. He therefore felt bound, as this Bill ratified that unjustifiable transaction, to second the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) to refer it to a Select Committee upstairs.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he rose to support the proposition of the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) because the Bill appeared, to him to be one to confiscate the revenues of Greenwich Hospital. He strongly disapproved the measure, and would give it all the opposition in his power. No provision was made for extending the schools at Greenwich, nor was there any provision made for a girl's school, which was urgently required. The deprivation of a retiring pension to the controller he thought a very harsh measure. But the principles of the Government were principles of confiscation. These principles pervaded the whole policy of the Government. It was most unjust to deprive the Governor of the salary hitherto attached to the office, particularly when they knew that some of the most distinguished men in the country had filled that office. The Government had degraded the naval service by reducing the pay of such officers and depriving them of their other emoluments. Sir Houston Stewart, the distinguished man who now filled the office of Governor, had been deprived of his salary, and was reduced to a mere nominal salary. He (Sir James Elphinstone) had accompanied that eminent man on his appoint-
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  ment to Greenwich Hospital, and his inauguration there was more like a funeral than the reception to which he was entitled. If his hon. Friend had moved that the Bill be committed that day six months, he should have supported him.
  MR. CHILDERSexpressed his hope that the House would go into Committee on this Bill. The hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Portsmouth. (Sir James Elphinstone) had not ventured to refer to any of the clauses of the Bill, but rather to deliver a formal oration on the departed splendour which usually surrounded the installation of the Governor of Greenwich Hospital. The Act of 1865 reduced the numbers from 1,500 to 400, and at the same time took away all the duties, and he could not feel much surprise if, under these circumstances, the inauguration of the Governor was rather a quiet affair. The only other remark he had to make was that he stood between those who wished to get £15,000 more from the Exchequer for Greenwich, and those who desired to deprive the Hospital of £20,000 a year paid by the Exchequer, and that he hoped to have the assistance of each against the other. All the other objections were of merest detail; but, with the permission of the House, he would deal with the criticisms of his hon. and gallant Friends in Committee.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 124; Noes 43: Majority 81.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported;as "amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

ABYSSINIAN WAR.

  NOMINATION OF SELECT COMMITTEE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Sir Stafford Northcote be one other Member of the Select Committee on the Abyssinian War."
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the order [21st June] that the Select Committee on the Abyssinian War do consist of nineteen Members be discharged,"—(Mr. Craufurd,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Mr. GRANT DUFF, Sir JOHN HAY, Mr. SEELY, Mr. EASTWICK, Major ANSON, Mr. CHRISTOPHER DENISON, Mr. WHITE, Mr. HOWES, Sir PATRICK O'BRIEN, Lord ELCHO, Captain BEAUMONT, Mr. CHARLES TURNER, Mr. MUNDELLA, Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE, Mr. HOLMS, Colonel BARTTELOT, and Mr. CANDLISH, nominated other Members of the said Committee:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.