Commons Sitting of 17 March 1869

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Dumfriesshire Writ, Turnpike Acts Continuance, appointed; Poor Law (Scotland), appointed and nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Brazilian Slave Trade * [58].
Second Reading—County Courts [9], debate adjourned; Revenue Officers [14], negatived: Libel [17], debate adjourned; Land Tax Commissioners' Names * [54].
Third Reading—East India Irrigation and Canal Company * [8], and passed.

DUMFRIESSHIRE WRIT.
Resolution [15th March] reported from the Select Committee on Members holding Contracts (Sir Sydney Waterlow) read, as followeth:—
"That Sir Sydney Hedley Waterlow is disqualified, under the Statute 22 Geo. 3, c. 45, from sitting and voting as a Member of this House."
Resolution read a second time, and agreed to.
Ordered, That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a New Writ for the electing of a Knight to serve in this present Parliament for the County of Dumfries, in the room of Sir Sydney Hedley Waterlow, who is incapable of sitting and voting as a Member of this House under the Statute 22 Geo. 3, c. 45.

COUNTY COURTS BILL. [BILL 9.]
(Mr. Norwood, Mr. Akroyd, Mr. Mundella.)
COUNTY COURTS BILL. [BILL 9.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Beading read.
  MR. NORWOOD, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that the object of the measure was to relieve manufacturers and wholesale dealers from the serious hardship to which they were subjected by a provision of the County Courts Amendment Act of 1867.
  1562
  By the clause to which he referred, to recover a debt not exceeding £50, the plaintiff must bring his action within the district where the defendant resides, or carries on his business—a provision which operated very harshly. For instance, a manufacturer at Manchester or Birmingham might sell goods upon credit to a trader residing in a small town at a considerable distance, and if the debtor neglected to pay, the plaintiff had to go to the County Court of the district where the defendant lived and prove I his debt, often at an expense—putting out of view the trouble and inconvenience—very nearly as great as the sum claimed. He proposed to meet the hardship of the case in this way—In the case simply of goods sold and delivered in the course of trade, and in no other, he proposed that the plaintiff might, upon filing an affidavit, institute his suit in the County Court of the district in which he resided. Though at the first blush there might appear to be a hardship to the debtor in compelling him to defend himself in the County Court of the plaintiff's district, there would be really none at all, because in nine cases out of ten there is no defence, and judgment goes by default. The practical result of the existing state of the law was that many wholesale houses refused to give credit on small accounts, because the expense and trouble of obtaining payment was almost worse than the loss itself. But to prevent the possibility of hardship to the debtor, he proposed to insert a clause to this effect—that on the defendant receiving from the County Court of the plaintiff notice of the plaint, he might go to his own County Court, and upon stating that he had a good defence, and paying into court a reasonable sum to cover probable costs of plaintiff and his witnesses, the action might be brought there. Several Chambers of Commerce, and among them those of Worcester and Wolverhampton, were in favour of the Bill, and the question having been brought before the Associated Chambers of Commerce they had passed an unanimous resolution that there ought to be an alteration of the law. The Incorporated Law Society of London had intimated their satisfaction with the measure, with the exception of some trifling details which they would have altered; they had even

  1563
  asked him to go further, and not to restrict its operation to the sale and delivery of goods, to which it was confined. But there was higher authority still in its favour. The committee of County Court Judges appointed by the Lord Chancellor to take into consideration all questions affecting County Courts had, through their secretary, sent a communication entirely approving his Bill, and making suggestions the more effectually to meet any cases of hardship. To show the necessity for a change in the law, he might mention that it appeared from a Return that in 1866, out of 872,437 plaints issued, there were only 8,874 decisions in favour of the defendants, and more than half the plaints were decided without trial at all. That fact would abundantly support his statement—that the great bulk of the actions to which he alluded were positively undefended. Another thing that he proposed to do was to give a summary jurisdiction with reference to cases of tradesmen's dishonoured acceptances below £10, for there was an immense number of them which ranged between £10 and £5. Now, it was in the interest of the small tradesmen themselves that reasonable facilities for the recovery of debt should be afforded, because they depended upon the credit given by the wholesale houses, and that would not be given freely where those houses possessed no proper protection. He anticipated active opposition to the Bill, but he besought the House to weigh sufficiently the interests of the commercial classes in a matter so widely affecting their interests.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Norwood.)
  SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMIDrose to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. He thought the Bill open to the objection of being at once too extensive and too narrow—too extensive as comprising things which did not, and too narrow as not comprising things which did, fall within the mischief intended to be remedied. The case which the hon. Gentleman sought to make out was that of the inconvenience and damage caused by the present state of the law to wholesale traders in their dealings with the retail trade. But he (Sir Francis Goldsmid),
  1564
  had heard, over and over again, that the retail traders were subject to quite as much inconvenience from unpaid debts as the wholesale. Tailors, for instance, were obliged to charge their paying customers much more than they otherwise would, in order to recoup themselves for losses from customers to whom they gave credit, and who did not pay. But it was not suggested that retail traders would be benefited by the proposed enactment. On the other hand, he would show that this Bill would extend to persons as to whom the hon. Gentleman had made out no case, and whom he did not intend it to affect. The 2nd clause applied to actions for the price or value of goods sold and delivered to the defendant to be dealt with in the way of his trade, profession, or calling. If that clause were adopted, such cases as these might occur. An artist, for the colours to be used in the painting of his pictures, a schoolmaster for school requisites, a clergyman for the paper on which he might have written some excellent theology, might each be brought from one side of the kingdom to the other to defend an action—in a case, where, perhaps, an overcharge had occurred—simply because they made use of the things supplied in the way of their profession or calling. The hon. gentleman had assumed that in almost all instances the plaintiff was in the right, and he instanced the large number of cases which were undefended. But that was owing to the present state of the law, and was no reason for altering it, since if we gave facilities for bringing actions carelessly, they were sure to be brought. Now, if the House considered to which party the greater inconvenience would be occasioned by a cause being tried at a distance from his place of business, they would find that it would be to the retail trader, because the wholesale dealer had a number of travellers who were constantly going about, and it might be no great hardship to have one of them attend to prove the debt. It would be quite otherwise with the retail dealer, who might be called from one end of England to the other in order to defend the action. Then the 3rd clause was even worse, for it proposed to give the holder of a bill of exchange the right to sue in the district in which he carried on business. Every gentleman who, whether from being engaged in com-

  1565
  merce or otherwise, had acquired any knowledge of bills of exchange must be aware that it was of their very essence to be transferable from holder to holder. Now, any man taking a bill of exchange either knew or might easily ascertain where the acceptor was, and therefore where the holder had to sue. But if this Bill passed the unfortunate acceptor never would have the slightest conception where he was to be sued, because the bill of exchange might at one moment be held in Northumberland, at another in the neighbourhood of Land's End. That would afford the greatest encouragement to unfair actions. Commercial men might, no doubt, be well aware where the shoe pinched; but, speaking as a lawyer, he ventured to say that they did not always know how to prevent its pinching. Believing that the object of the Bill was ill denned, and that its provisions were ill calculated to effect that object, he begged to move that the Bill be read the second time that day six months.
  MR. WATKIN WILLIAMS, in seconding the Amendment, said there were several grounds which might fairly be put forward in opposition to that Bill. One of the most important of those grounds was that it was unwise and impolitic to legislate on this subject in the way of reforming one branch of our system of judicature when the whole of that system required, and would, he believed, shortly undergo a thorough reform. The present County Courts were established in 1846 to give cheap and speedy remedies for the recovery of small debts. For that purpose they proved successful; but from time to time a continual course of casual and piecemeal legislation had been adopted in regard to those courts, which had entirely altered their original character and objects. Their jurisdiction had been successively extended to Equity, Admiralty, and Bankruptcy cases, in addition to questions of Common Law; and, not only had the Judges of those courts to perform their multifarious duties without a Bar to assist them, but, to add to their difficulties, they had to administer all those various branches of the law subject to different courts of appeal, each governed by different, and sometimes conflicting, legal principles. Their decisions were liable to review in Equity cases by the Court of Chancery; in Admiralty cases by the Court of Admiralty; and
  1566
  in Common Law cases by the Common Law Courts. The result of that state of things did not redound to the credit of our system of judicature; and it arose from the fact that small Bills of that kind were allowed to pass through Parliament almost without attracting any attention, until, by degrees, the whole law of England was fundamentally altered and thrown into confusion, and the odium of it was cast upon the lawyers. That was a system which it was their duty to oppose. The lawyers and the commercial men should join together in carrying out the reform of our system of judicature. A Commission was now sitting on that subject, whose Report might be expected very shortly, and they might hope that, from its recommendations, a complete and sweeping reform of that description would follow. He thought that all the different superior courts should be consolidated into one supreme tribunal, with universal jurisdiction, and possessing absolute and complete power to distribute the different classes of business amongst different branches of such tribunal, and to construct the necessary machinery for doing complete justice in every instance. In addition to that, let them have one final appellate court for the whole Empire. And, lastly, he would have all these County Courts made into distinct courts, associated with the supreme court, to bring justice to every man's door throughout the country; and the limit of their jurisdiction might be fixed at £100, £200, or £500, as might be deemed expedient. He believed that no obstacle would be raised by the lawyers to the adoption of such a reform, the interests both of the lawyers and of the commercial men being the same in that matter. With regard to the Bill then before the House, its 3rd clause, in his opinion, involved a mischievous principle, and would cause great injustice to acceptors of bills, who might be sued without notice and even without presentation. He did not refer to trade bills, but to bills of other classes. There ought certainly to be a summary remedy afforded in reference to bills of exchange, but the mischief of the clause applied to those numerous cases where bills of exchange had been improperly obtained, and where either nothing at all was due, or only a portion of the amount named in them was so. In

  1567
  many cases it would happen that an acceptor sued in a remote part of the kingdom by a pretended bonâ fide holder for value would find it more to his advantage to submit to some amount of extortion than to travel to that place with witnesses to defend himself.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day sixmonths."—(Sir Francis Goldsmid.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. MACFIEwas disposed to reserve his judgment upon that Bill until they had heard the Attorney General's opinion of it. The present occasion, however, was, he thought, a good one for the House to consider the question of whether the codification of the commercial law was not desirable. Very great inconvenience arose from the difference in the law north and south of the Tweed, and it was especially desirable to consider whether Scotland should not be brought within the range of the English law where the English law was the best, and England also brought within the range of the Scotch law where the Scotch law was best.
  MR. MORLEYdesired to endorse the opinion which had been expressed by the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood), that the class of cases proposed to be dealt with under this Bill was one which called for attention at the hands of the Legislature. The fact that only one in ten of the actions brought in the County Courts was defended established this. A man who purchased goods on a fixed term of credit, and failed to keep his engagement, was guilty of a breach of contract, and the plaintiff, in recovering the money, ought not to be put to any more trouble than was absolutely necessary. He would give the defendant every security for his costs, provided he could make good his defence, but the plaintiff ought to have every necessary facility for recovering the money which the defendant had failed to pay. Whether the present Bill met the evil complained of or not he would not pretend to say, but he certainly did think the state of things which now existed called for the attention of the learned Attorney General.
  Mr. SERJEANT SIMONsaid, if this were a Bill extending the jurisdiction
  1568
  or altering the character of the County Courts, pending the inquiry to which, reference had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Denbigh (Mr. Watkin Williams), he would have been prepared to vote against it. But the measure did not really partake of that character. It seemed to him to be only the proper and natural corollary of the Act of last Session, and to which indeed the objection now taken to the present Bill was more properly applicable. During the operation of the first Act, no matter where the debtor might reside, the plaintiff had the right of bringing his action in the superior courts for any debt exceeding £20, or for any sum where the cause of action did not wholly arise within the district where the defendant dwelt, and of bringing him from any part of England to defend himself. But the last Act had taken away this right, and the plaintiff was compelled to bring his action in the County Court of the district where the defendant dwelt, under pain of losing his costs if he recovered less than a certain sum. There were provisions in the Bill to guarantee the defendant against the hardship of being taken to a great distance in order to defend himself. The plaintiff was required to make affidavit of his debt, and also that it was a debt for goods sold and delivered. The defendant might give notice to the registrar of his district that he had a good defence, and then the plaintiff would be required to find security for the costs. With regard to loss from being taken away from his business, it must be assumed that the Judges would make proper compensation in cases where the defendant proved to be in the right. In the case of bills of exchange, he thought it would be unfair to persons who might give bills of exchange to transfer that jurisdiction wholesale—as might be done on the face of the Bill—to the County Courts; but, as he understood the hon. Member (Mr. Norwood), it was intended to give those courts jurisdiction only to such an amount as they already possessed, in the case of goods sold and delivered. Believing that the Bill would only bring into fair operation the Act of last Session, as a lawyer he was very happy to offer it his support.
  MR. T. CHAMBERSsaid, there was a preliminary objection to the Bill proposed—namely, that its object was to

  1569
  apply a special remedy to a special grievance at a moment when the whole operations of our system of judicature were under the consideration of a special Commission whose Report was soon expected, It appeared to him, therefore, to be inexpedient to press, at such a time, alterations of so trifling a character as where a cause should be tried. The alleged grievance complained of was, after all, a very doubtful one; and if the proposed remedy were adopted, it was very questionable whether it would not have the effect of creating a much more serious and substantial grievance in respect to a large class of individuals who might be improperly sued upon claims against which they had a good defence. There was no doubt that the establishment of the County Courts had conferred great advantages upon the public generally; and even supposing that it was wrong to make the creditor follow his debtor, the remedy proposed by the hon. Member for Hull involved the introduction into the County Courts of a scale of costs which would go far towards frustrating the very object for which those tribunals were established—namely, the cheap and facile recovery of small debts. Any incidental advantage which might accrue from the adoption of Bills like the present would not compensate for the injury they might do to the most useful institutions ever set up in this country for administering justice. He therefore hoped that the measure would not be pressed.
  MR. ST. AUBYNsaid, that according to the statement of the author of the Bill himself the measure was introduced in the interests of manufacturers and whole-sale dealers and, besides that it certainly paid small regard to those of the smaller tradesmen, it entirely overlooked those of the working classes who might be grievously oppressed under its provisions. He hoped that the Bill would be withdrawn for the present, with a view to its provisions being rendered more fair and equal to all parties concerned.
  MR. STAPLETONsaid, he doubted very much whether the Bill was viewed with favour by either the commercial community or the legal profession, and the only lawyer in the House who had yet spoken in favour of the Bill represented, in common with most of those who supported the measure, a commercial and manufacturing community.
  1570
  One of the objections to the Bill was that it would enable a gang of swindlers to carry on their calling by spreading themselves over the country and suing the same parties at the same time in the County Courts in remote districts. He recollected a story in Yorkshire of a very ingenious tradesman belonging to that county, who carried on business as a saddler. When he found there was one saddle sold, as to the purchaser of which he was in doubt, his custom was at Christmas, when he made out his bills for his customers, to set down a saddle in every individual account, so that if he made out twenty-seven bills he charged twenty-seven saddles to his various customers. There were parties also who might do a most successful business by bringing suits on the speculation of getting the costs. He could not help believing that the real author of this Bill must be the ingenious tradesman he had mentioned. Instead of its being a hardship on a dealer to go a long distance in order to sue his debtor, the hardship was generally the other way, as the plaintiff was provided with an attorney who could very easily manage the matter for him. In his opinion the science of jurisprudence was less understood in England than in any other civilized country. For instance, a Bill was often allowed to be proceeded with although clause after clause was inserted which destroyed all the efficiency of the original measure. With respect to the question now under consideration, the best way to deal with it would be to retain the present rule as to the issuing of the plaint, but to allow the Judge to change the venue on good ground being shown for such a proceeding.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he was always unwilling to thrust in his oar among learned Gentlemen, because he knew the danger of so doing. Ho, however, venturd to ask the attention of his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, because he knew that the hon. and learned Gentleman had strong opinions upon the question of imprisonment for debt; and he wished to ask him whether, under the provisions of this Bill, there might not be an extension of the system of imprisonment for debt? Now, imprisonment for debt under the County Courts Acts really meant penal imprisonment. It was not simple confinement at the will and pleasure of the

  1571
  Judge of the County Court when it was alleged that the defendant was able but unwilling to pay—under what he (Mr. Henley) always considered the miserable pretence of contempt of court—but an imprisonment of an absolutely penal character. In the original Act, he believed it was laid down that for every 1s. owed there might be one day's imprisonment; but the statutes on the subject had been since so altered and multiplied, that he could not pretend to say what the present law was. If the Government were disposed to assent to a large extension of the jurisdiction of those courts he hoped they would take into their consideration how far imprisonment for debt ought to exist in respect to poor people when it was almost entirely abolished in respect to all other classes. He confessed he always thought it unfair that this power of imprisonment, as it was now exercised by the County Court Judges, should exist; and he now ventured to suggest to the Law Officers of the Crown and the Home Secretary—if they were going to extend this jurisdiction—the necessity to which they might be exposed of providing much additional prison accommodation for the many more unfortunate persons that would be committed under the orders of the Judges.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he intended to take an intermediate course in reference to the Bill. He should ask his hon. Friend (Mr. Norwood), who had charge of this Bill, to postpone its further progress until, at all events, they had received the Report of the Judicature Commission who were now investigating the whole judicial system of the country. Their Report when complete would deal with the rearrangement of circuits, and other provisions for the more effectual administration of justice locally by the superior courts; and as the local administration of justice was a question to be dealt with as a whole, he thought he was entitled to ask his hon. Friend to postpone the consideration of this measure. Some of the objections that had been urged against the Bill were of a very serious character, and he confessed he looked with alarm upon the powers proposed to be given to the holders of bills of exchange. These powers were such as might be perverted so as to effect a great injustice upon parties who
  1572
  might be sued by an endorser, living hundreds of miles away, upon bills of exchange for which they had, perhaps, received little or no consideration. He concurred in the remarks made by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers) that the County Courts worked on the whole extremely well, and that their institutions were among the most successful efforts of modern legislation. He therefore deprecated the practice of endeavouring every Session to tinker them by the introduction of some such measure as that before the House. Such efforts tended rather to despoil those courts of their many advantages than to improve them. He trusted under those circumstances, that the hon. Member would accede to the reasonable request of postponing his Bill. With respect to the appeal made to him by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley), he could assure him that he felt the full force of his observations. He (the Attorney General) had already succeeded in passing an Act limiting the power of imprisonment for debt exercised by the County Court Judges, and he believed that the Act had worked successfully, and that they had now fewer complaints upon that point than they had had previously to its passing. He was however aware that the evil still existed. It was a question, no doubt, of great difficulty; but he did not think that the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman in respect to it applied fairly to the Bill, inasmuch as its object was not to extend the jurisdiction of the County Courts—although one or other of its clauses might have such an effect. In a few days, it was his intention to bring in a Bill for the total abolition of imprisonment for debt, when he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would find that he had provided some safeguard against this particular jurisdiction of the County Court Judges.
  MR. NORWOODsaid, that after the appeal which had just been made to him by the hon. and learned Gentleman he would consent to the postponement of the Bill, reserving, however, to himself the power to proceed with it at a future time in case he should deem it expedient to do so.
  Amendment and Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Second Reading deferred till Wednesday 12th May.

REVENUE OFFICERS BILL— [BILL 14.]
(Mr. Monk, Sir Harry Verney, Mr. Craufurd.)
REVENUE OFFICERS BILL— [BILL 14.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading, read.
  MR. MONK, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said the Bill proposed to repeal portions of a statute of the 12 & 13 Will. III. and of two statutes of Anne, which prohibited the civil servants of the Crown from interfering in elections, under penalty of £100, of being deprived of their appointments, and being rendered incapable of holding any office of, trust under the Crown. The measure was, in fact, merely the complement of the Revenue Officers' Disabilities Removal Act, which was passed last Session. That Act restored to the servants of the Crown in the Revenue Departments the right of voting at Parliamentary elections, but it did not give them the full rights of British citizens, for they were still precluded by the statutes referred to from some important privileges. The Bill consisted only of one clause, with a Schedule attached to it, but nevertheless it affected the rights of a large number of civil servants of the Crown, who earnestly desired, and had a right to demand, that they should be put on a footing of equality in respect to the franchise with their brethren in other departments of the Civil Service. With a partial and somewhat remarkable exception, to which he would presently refer, the revenue officers were precluded by the restrictive statutes enumerated in the Schedule to the Bill from the exercise of the rights and privileges of British subjects; they were unable to take any part at an election beyond simply recording their votes, and if they attended political meetings they must remain silent, and take no active part in the proceedings; they were likewise prohibited from proposing or seconding a candidate on the hustings, and from; soliciting a vote for the candidate of their choice. Now, was it not an anomaly that a man should be allowed to record his vote while, at the same time, his mouth was so effectually closed that he dared not discuss the merits of the rival candidates even with his next-door neighbour? He believed that the enactments in question could not be allowed to remain in force now that Parliament had decided upon giving to revenue officers the right of voting. When he brought forward the Revenue
  1574
  Officers' Disabilities Removal Bill, he restricted it within the narrowest possible limits; and he was ready to take upon himself his full share of blame for not having trusted implicitly to the spirit of fairness and generosity which animated the late Parliament; but he must remind the House that the supporters of that Bill had to contend not only with a Government which was opposed to them, but with the heads of two of the Departments which they were seeking to enfranchise. If he had embodied in that measure the provisions of the present Bill, the 36,000 revenue officers who were enfranchised last year, would, in all probability, not have been enabled to record their votes at the last election. He was, however, happy to say that during the last year a great change had come over the Commissioners, and some of those high functionaries who then opposed the proposition were now completely in favour of it. A friend of his, holding a high official position in the Civil Service, who not only opposed the Bill of last year, but furnished the text for the speech of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in opposition to it, told him the other day that he heartily approved of this Bill, as a necessary corollary to the Franchise Act. He added that he had been obliged to decline to propose a candidate, now a Member of this House, through fear of the exceptional penalties to which his branch of the service was subject. According to the existing law, a revenue officer who proposed or seconded a candidate for a seat in that House rendered himself liable to be fined £100, and on conviction he would be deprived of his situation as a civil servant, and permanently incapacitated from holding any office of trust under the Crown. Now, the object of the present Bill was simply to repeal the sections of the Acts which imposed penalties of this nature. The 89th section of the 12 & 13 Will. III., c. 10, prohibited officers in the Customs from taking any part in elections, and inflicted the penalties which he had enumerated on all offenders. The 9 Anne, c. 11. sec. 45, inflicted similar penalties on officers in the Post Office, and in the tenth year of the same Queen another statute was passed affecting the collectors of certain taxes therein specified. He had grave doubts whether the 10 Anne, c. 18, prejudicially affected any officer in the Civil Service at the present

  1575
  day; but as it had been stated on high, official authority that certain subjects of duty included in that Act still remained subjects of duty, and as all the provisions of that Act were continued in relation to duties, which were in the place of those thereby imposed by the 55 Geo. III., c. 184, sec. 8, he considered it desirable to include it in the repealing Schedule of this Bill. He came now to the third and last remaining Department. The officers in the Inland Revenue Department had been prohibited, under similar penalties, from taking part in elections, by virtue of the 5 & 6 William and Mary, c. 20, sec. 48, but that Act was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1867. That repeal was owing, he believed, to the fact that a more recent statute—the 7 & 8 Geo. IV., c. 53, sec. 9, imposed a penalty of £500, instead of the smaller penalty of £100, imposed by the Act of William and Mary on officers of the Excise who interfered in elections. But this more severe penalty was repealed by the Revenue Officers Disabilities' Removal Act of last year, so that the revenue officers were, at the present moment, politically free, unless the penalties of the Act of Anne were revived by the Act of 55 Geo. III., c. 184, sec. 8, or by some other obsolete statute. To guard against the possibility of any of those officers being left under any disabilities after the passing of the present Bill, he should, when it went into Committee, move the clause of which he gave notice about a fortnight ago. It was to the effect that, after the passing of the Act no commissioner or person employed in collecting the revenues should be liable to any penalty by reason of his having endeavoured to persuade any elector to give, or to dissuade any elector from giving, his vote to any candidate for a seat in Parliament. This clause would enable the revenue officers not only to vote but to take part in elections in the same manner as any other people, and would complete the legislation of last year. It was needless for him to add that the revenue officers looked upon this disability as a grievance, if not as a positive stigma and disgrace. He was not aware that any sound arguments could be adduced against completing the measure. The revenue officers were a highly independent body of men, and by conferring on them the right of voting the House had introduced a valuable ele-
  1576
  ment into the electoral body. That element might indeed be Conservative, but it was Conservative in the best sense of the word; and he might remark in passing that most of the newly-enfranchised officers in one of the Departments at Gloucester voted against him at the late election—and he honoured them for their independence—yet no class of men were more interested in the stability of our institutions or less likely to encourage revolutionary measures. He was inclined to hope, until a day or two ago, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have come down to the House fortified by reports of a far more favourable description than those which were laid upon the table last year by his predecessor in Office, and that the right hon. Gentleman would have announced the determination of Her Majesty's Government not to refuse so trifling a boon as was now claimed on behalf of these hard-working and well-educated men in the Civil Service. But whatever might be the course which the right hon. Gentleman should think it his duty to pursue, he should ask the House to express its disapproval of the anomalous state of the law, which allowed one branch of the Civil Service to vote and speak and canvass at elections, while it restricted another branch to a silent vote. The hon. Member concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.
  SIR HARRY VERNEY, in seconding the Motion, said, that if, as had been formerly urged, there was a fear of any combination on the part of the revenue officers, the Government would be as well able to deal with it as they were now with a combination in the army. The privilege of taking part in elections ought, in his judgment, to be granted to these men, in the same manner as it was to Army and Navy and the other Departments of the Civil Service, and if they abused it they should be removed from the public service. He had great pleasure in seconding his hon. Friend's Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Monk.)
  MR. PEASEsaid, that he had always entertained very strong opinions on this subject. Last year the Legislature thought fit to confer the right of voting on a great number of revenue officers;

  1577
  but he always had had doubts on the propriety of enfranchising these men, on the ground that it was placing in the; hands of the Crown political power, of which the House ought to be very jealous. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) mentioned that almost all the revenue officers in that city voted for the Conservative candidates. They did so likewise in one of the boroughs in the county which he (Mr. Pease) represented. But in his opinion it was not because they were Conservatives at heart, but because they had a feeling of hostility against Liberal Governments for having pursued a course with regard to the repeal and reduction of duties inimical to their interests. It appeared to him that this House had from all time most jealously guarded its privileges as against the power of the Crown, and in placing political power with those who were the servants of the Crown; and, however little that view might have anything practical in it at the present time, it behoved the House to guard well the safeguards and liberties of the House. In his opinion this was a Bill which, like that introduced a short time ago respecting the re-election of Ministers of the Crown, affected the privileges of the House of Commons. The First Lord of the Admiralty had informed the House a few evenings before that a great reduction had been made in the number of clerks in that Department, and how, he would ask, were the; men who had been thus discharged likely to vote at the next election? Was it not natural to suppose that they would vote against the Government which had been the means of depriving them of their situations? Being very jealous of the privileges of that House, he believed it had gone far enough in the direction to which the Bill of the hon. Member for Gloucester tended, and holding that opinion he should, although he was well aware that there were many worthy men in the position of revenue officers, in whom great confidence could be placed, but who should not be allowed to take active part in elections, move that it be read again that day six months.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I rise to second that Motion. I would beg to remind the House that the exact question before us is not whether the persons to whom the Bill relates ought or ought not to have a vote.
  1578
  That question was decided last year; and the question with which we have to deal to-day is whether they ought to be allowed to persuade voters to vote in a particular manner; whether, in other words, they should be permitted to be canvassers, proposers, and seconders, and in these capacities to take an active part in elections, like the rest of Her Majesty's subjects. This question turns on the duties which are performed by those whose capacity of political action we are now invited to enlarge. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) asks us why we withhold from officers in the Revenue Departments privileges which we give to clerks in the West End—to those, for instance, in the Home, the Colonial, and the Foreign Offices? The answer is, I think, very plain; we do so just because they are revenue officers. The clerks in the West End offices write letters all day; they are removed from the parties to whom those letters are written; they are not brought into personal contact with them, and exercise, as a general rule, no power over them whatsoever. The position of the officers in the Revenue Departments is entirely different. To them is entrusted the collection of a good deal more than £60,000,000 per annum; and how do they collect that amount? Not by sitting in a room in Downing Street and writing letters, but by going abroad among the people, mixing themselves up in some measure with their affairs, instituting into those affairs a most inquisitorial examination, counting the number of a man's servants, of his clerks, his horses and carriages, looking minutely into his income, making themselves acquainted with the correctness of the returns of the income which he sends in, with the progress of the manufacture in which he may happen to be engaged, imposing all sorts of disagreeable and annoying interferences on the course of his trade—in short, doing all those things which, except for the purpose of collecting the revenue, the law of England would not for a moment tolerate. In all this consists the difference between the position of the revenue officers and those other officers to whom my hon. Friend has referred. But lest the House may think that I am not competent to form a just opinion on a matter of such enormous importance, I will take the liberty of reading a few passages bearing

  1579
  upon it from the Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to the Treasury last year. They say—
  "The real danger lies in an opposite direction. It is not the increase of the power of the Government in controlling elections which is to be apprehended, but the paralyzation of the Executive in administering the revenue laws firmly and impartially, and to use the words of our Oath of Office, 'without fear, favour, or affection' for the public good; and it is with a deep sense of this danger that, being responsible for the assessment and collection of duties amounting to £40,000,000 in the year, we seize the opportunity afforded by your Lordships' reference to deprecate most earnestly the projected enfranchisement of those employed in the Department of Inland Revenue."
  They go on to state—
  "Our answer is because clerks in the War Office and officers in the army are not distributed over the kingdom with charge of distillers, brewers, maltsters, spirit dealers, tobacconists, and other traders, to watch and control their operations, in the course of their manufactures or trades, as are officers of Excise; nor to ascertain the profits of every trader and professional man, and the number of servants, horses, and carriages kept by every individual, as are officers of taxes. … If an Excise officer so situated should find it his duty about the time of the election to procure a search warrant to ransack C. D.'s house, or to put his distillery under seizure, and bring an information against him for penalties, no one can doubt that he would subject himself to the greatest suspicion of using the power conferred on him as a revenue officer to serve a political party, and the mischief of such an imputation would be nearly the same, whether it were true or false. Again, it is often necessary that we should use the large powers confided to us in the interest of the public, in a mode necessarily placing an Excise trader at a disadvantage in competing with others, as by requiring a maltster, whom we know to be in pecuniary difficulties, to pay the duty upon each steeping of grain as soon as it is made into malt."
  Observe the minute interference. They suspect a man's credit, and they require him to pay the duty upon each steeping of grain. But suppose the suspicion to be unfounded, and the man happened to be a political opponent of the revenue officer who acted upon that suspicion, how easy would it not be to make a charge against that officer of having sought to effect the man's ruin? The Commissioners proceed as follows:—
  "We must, of course, be guided very much by information from our local officers in such a case; and it is a difficult and delicate matter, even now, to make it manifest that we are acting with strict impartiality. If our officers were political partizans it would be parfectly impossible. The converse of such cases is equally to be apprehended. If a trader, subject to the Excise laws, or a manufacturer, liable to make returns of profits under Schedule D, came under the super-
  1580
  vision of a revenue officer, known as an active supporter of the party to which the manufacturer or trader also belonged, what can be more certain than that rivals in trade of the opposite party would impute to favouritism, at the expense of the revenue, any immunity from charges or restrictions which they themselves might not enjoy."
  These are considerations which appear to me to possess the greatest possible practical weight. They come from persons who have a thorough knowledge of that about which they write; and, if the House will allow me, I will read one more paragraph from the Report. The Commissioners add—
  "The power of removal to which we have just been referring is one of the most valuable parts of our disciplinary system. If an officer is believed to be on terms of too great intimacy with a trader under his survey; if he has fallen into the company of bad associates; if he appears to be deficient in the acuteness and energy requisite for dealing with some fraudulent trader; or if he has identified himself with any particular religious sect or parochial party, so as to be obnoxious to other sects and parties in the locality, his removal to another district is a ready and effectual check to the mischief which would otherwise ensue. But when the officer becomes a voter, when he is perhaps one of the managers for a political party in a small borough, what will not be our difficulty in sending him away, perhaps on the eve of an election, and what will not be the suspicions of party motives to which the Board, and the superior officers who recommend his removal, will be subjected."
  I am sorry to have been obliged to trouble the House with these extracts, but it is much better that they should have the opinions of men who speak with the advantage of longer practical experience than mine upon this subject. We must not forget what is at stake in this case. It is no sentimental matter. It involves the question of the collection of a revenue of over £60,000,000 a year; and the anticipations of the dangers which would be likely to arise if the change now proposed were carried into effect appear to me to be justified by the most ordinary principles of human nature. The result of that change must, I think, be that the control of the Department over its officers would be weakened by the fear of having it imputed to them that they were actuated by political motives, and that those officers will be supposed to be actuated by other motives than a desire to perform properly their duties in the collection of the revenue. The discipline of the machine will in consequence be imperilled. Disorder will ensue, and no

  1581
  one can fix the extent to which the revenue may suffer. An element of confusion will be introduced into an establishment which requires the most careful management and the most minute supervision, which has to be worked with a delicacy of which many persons little dream, and in which the slightest change in the ordinary rules, however necessary that change might be in the public interest, would be sure to be attributed to other motives than the wish to promote the efficiency of the Department. Such being the dangers against which we have to guard, how very slight is the advantage which this Bill proposes to confer on those upon whose behalf it is brought forward. The officers of the Inland Revenue have already power to record their votes at elections; what is now asked for is that they should be allowed to mix themselves up with the turmoil of election contests; and are we, for the sake of indulging a little vanity on their part, and giving them an opportunity of involving themselves in proceedings which most sensible men would be very glad to keep out of, to run such risks as those to which I have adverted? Let me suppose a man wished to be returned for a town in which the revenue officers took an active part in politics; he would naturally desire to conciliate them; they would be the best canvassers he could employ. See what mischiefs they might; be able to do the trader, and how, owing to the influence which they would exert over him, they might render themselves the most potent possible agents in intimidation. For no species of intimidation goes so directly home to a man sometimes as that which arises from the knowledge that another is almost as well acquainted with his affairs as he is himself, and that he can, by making a report with respect to them, hamper him in the pursuit of his business. There are other considerations to be taken into account—such as the influence which a Government may, under certain circumstances, exercise over the officers of this Department; but putting that consideration aside, I would remind the House that, if it permits those officers to mix themselves up actively in political life, the neutral positions which they now occupy between the two parties in the State will be destroyed. One of the reasons why we are enabled to raise our
  1582
  present immense revenue, and to support the immense burdens which are placed upon the shoulders of the taxpayer, is that the Revenue Departments have—at all events ever since the time of Lord Liverpool—been free from, any suspicion of political influence. You may, however, depend upon it that once you introduce into that branch of the public service the political element it will spread, and you will see realized in England that which is the greatest bane of America—an evil from which she is now manfully struggling to relieve herself, and as I sincerely hope with success. If you insist upon the right of these officers to transform themselves into active political partizans, you may rely upon it that a Government coming into Office will not tolerate in situations of great trust under it persons advocating violent political opinions—opposed, it may be, to its own—and it will come to pass, not, perhaps, at once, but by degrees, that we shall witness here that miserable state of things which prevails in America—the change of the civil servants of the country as one party or the other happens to hold the reins of Office. I would say, then, principiis obsta—do not advance the first step in such a career. You have now, I believe, as admirable an instrument as was ever placed in the hands of any Government for the performance of that peculiarly delicate service—the collection of the revenue. Let well alone. Do not, for the sake of a few vain persons who may seek to make themselves a little more important by meddling in business which will be just as well transacted without their interference, break in upon principles which have so long enabled us to bear such enormous burdens. America has boundless resources, and can afford to do almost anything without being ruined. We, with our limited area, are in a very different position, and I earnestly hope the House will not assent to a measure the dangers of whose operation may be so great, while the advantages which it seeks to confer are so infinitesimal.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Pease.)
  MR. CLAYsaid, he should support the Bill. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer would agree with him

  1583
  that it was the interest of them all to make the voter aware of the sacred nature of the trust committed to him, so as to induce him to record an honest vote for the public good. Now, what was done with these men? We allowed them the privilege to vote, but forbad them at any public meeting to state the reasons for the vote which they were about to give, or to make any profession of the faith that was in them. Was that the way to bring home to them a knowledge of the sacred nature of the trust confided to them? The fact was that every argument which was used last year against giving these persons the franchise had been urged that day against allowing them publicly to express their opinions, and the whole question resolved itself into a distrust of their honesty. We did these men great injustice in distrusting them. He asserted with perfect sincerity that he had never found in his life a body of men more honest and less liable to be influenced by party feeling than the civil servants, and he did not believe that there was any class of men in the country more likely to make good and independent voters. It was apprehended by some that if this Bill were to pass, a pressure might be put upon Members of that House by civil servants. He had had more to do with these persons than probably any other Member of that House, and he could say that though pressure had been put upon him by many other classes of persons he had never experienced the slightest pressure from that quarter. Then it was objected that they had powers of combination. Did no one else combine? Not to speak of trades unions, the Lobby gave daily evidence of the best organized combinations of all interests. Publicans and Maine Liquor Law men, Sabbath observance advocates and those who would open places of amusement on the Sunday, all properly found strength in combination.
  MR. LIDDELLsaid, he was one of those who voted last year in favour of giving the officers in question a right to exercise the franchise; but he, nevertheless, must admit that the tendency of the present Bill seemed to him to throw grave doubt on the wisdom of the decision at which they then arrived. Those who voted for the Bill of last Session felt that the continuing to withhold the power of voting from those men was
  1584
  perpetuating an injustice on them, considering the position they held in the country; but, the arguments which he had just heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer induced him to think that the House ought to pause before it proceeded any further in the same direction—for there was nothing in which the country was more deeply interested than in the preservation of the purity and high character of its public servants. The House, therefore, would, in his opinion, do well to reject a proposal which might have the effect of leading those to whom it related to mix themselves up with political agitation in a way that would be injurious to the best interests of the community.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, that he had some acquaintance with the civil servants in the Customs Department, and felt bound to declare that he had not come into contact with a more straightforward or honest set of men, and he deprecated the idea that any danger to the public service would result from their admission to the exercise of the privileges which the Bill sought to confer. Prophecies of evil did not go for much with him, they had been made by those who were opposed to the repeal of the Corn Laws; while it was said, last year, that if a measure granting household suffrage were passed a House of Commons would be elected which would be composed of persons who "feared not God neither regarded man." Well, those hon. Gentlemen who had been elected knew best whether that prophecy was or was not correct. He, for one, did not believe it had been realized, any more than would be the prophecies which they had listened to in the course of that discussion. He hoped, therefore, the House would not refuse its assent to a measure which was just in itself, and would enable the meritorious class of officers in our Revenue Department to enjoy those electoral privileges which other classes of the community possessed.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that when the subject was under the consideration of the House last Session he had opposed the measure then brought forward by his hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), because he anticipated that, while no advantage to the public interest would result from its operation, it

  1585
  might endanger the proper working of the Revenue Department. Now, he felt bound to state that, so far as his own personal experience had since gone in the borough which he had the honour to represent, it was not favourable to the legislation of which his hon. Friend was the author. He would not, however, enter into details with which that experience furnished him, beyond remarking that he happened, fortunately, to occupy a position in the borough which enabled him to defeat the proceedings to which he was alluding in a way which other hon. Members might not be able to do when engaged in a close contest. But the question before the House on the present occasion was not, whether Parliament had last year acted wisely or otherwise in dealing with the subject; although it might very well form matter for discussion whether the Bill of his hon. Friend as then passed embodied the deliberate opinion of the House of Commons, or owed its success to any of those accidental circumstances for the occurrence of which the last Parliament was quite peculiar in the history of the country. Be that as it might, what the House was now invited to do was to make a large stride in advance of the legislation of last Session. In replying to that invitation, hon. Members ought, he thought, to bear in mind that there was a fundamental distinction between officers in the Revenue and those in other Departments. The latter, though servants of the Crown, took part in elections as simple inhabitants of the particular district in which they happened to reside; but revenue officers would mix themselves up with such proceedings, bearing with them, as it were, the income of the nation to the extent of £70,000,000. ["No, no."] Hon. Members might cry "No," but there was no doubt that they could use the influence which their position gave them to a very large extent. He, however, should oppose the Bill before the House, not only on public grounds but in the interests of the best class of revenue officers themselves—that was to say of those men who were disposed to devote themselves to the discharge of the duties of their situation, and not to mix in politics with the view of recommending themselves to the notice or patronage of any party in that House. That was the sort of officer, who, in his opinion, ought to be supported. It was
  1586
  probable, he might add, that owing to the numerical proportions of the constituency in the metropolis, the officers there engaged in the collection of the revenue, might not be able to exercise a very great influence at elections; but there were other places beyond the metropolis where a man so situate might exercise very considerable influence; and how, he should like to know, would a Member in whose behalf such a man might have actively exerted himself, refuse to listen to a claim on him made by one of his best supporters? As matters at present stood, there was a very good regulation against the interference of Members of the House of Commons for the purpose of obtaining the promotion of an officer in the Inland Revenue Departments. He deemed it to be his duty, on accepting the Office which he had the honour to hold, to inquire into the subject, and he asked the Chief Commissioners of the Boards of Customs and Inland Revenue whether they rigidly adhered to that regulation? They assured him that they did. Now, he (Mr. Ayrton), would state to the House, that, if any Member of the House of Commons spoke to him on the subject of promotion for any officer in their Departments, he should place the regulation in the hands of that Member; and if, after that, he chose to mention the name of the person for whom advancement was sought, and the person was known to him, he should send the name to the Commissioners—not for his benefit, but that punishment might be inflicted on him in accordance with the rules laid down. He had been induced to make these remarks because the Chairman of the Board of Customs said that—
  "Since his appointment he had received numerous applications from noblemen and gentlemen, soliciting the promotion of officers and clerks in the service, and it appeared that other members of the Board had frequently received similar applications."
  [An hon. MEMBER: How long ago?] The Minute from which he was quoting was dated the 16th of January, 1847—there was no doubt that we had in those matters been improving of late, in consequence of the Minute, which proceeded as follows:—
  "There can be no doubt that in most, if not in all of these cases, the applications have been made at the instance of the respective officers and clerks, in direct contravention of their instructions and the Board's 'General Orders' upon the

  1587
  subject. The Board are determined that the promotion in the Department shall be governed solely by good conduct, efficiency, and length of service, and that they will not allow their recommendations to the Treasury to be influenced in any degree by any applications or representations which may be made to them by persons unconnected with the Department; such applications are, therefore, not only irregular, and in violation of the recorded orders and regulations of the service, but useless for their object; they tend also to embarrass the discretion of the Board, inasmuch as in any case in which an officer would be entitled to promotion on his own merits, application made in his favour by influential persons affords ground for suspicion that the selection of the officer has been influenced in some degree by private considerations, and that without the exercise of such interest the claims of the officer would have been passed over, a suspicion which, however unjust and unfounded it may be, cannot fail to weaken in the minds of the officers of the Department that confidence in the justice and fair dealing of the Board which the Commissioners are most desirous to possess. The Commissioners will, at all times, be ready to receive and take into consideration representations from officers in the Department addressed to the Board officially; but they think it right to apprise the officers and clerks throughout the service once more, and in the most formal manner, that private applications from officers themselves, or from other persons in their behalf, addressed to individual members of the Board, are expressly interdicted, and that the same will not only have the effect of retarding the promotion of the parties, but subject them to the Board's severe displeasure."
  That was the notice which had been issued by the Customs Department. A similar notice had been issued by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue; and he (Mr. Ayrton) would confidently appeal to hon. Members to say whether those rules could be maintained if such a change as that proposed by the Bill was effected, not only in the relations of revenue officers to that House, but in their relations to one another? The fact was that it would be impossible, under the altered circumstances, to preserve the necessary discipline in the Department. If its officers were permitted to take an active part in elections they would, as a matter of course, be recommended for promotion by those whom they supported, and those recommendations would be forced, not only on the heads of the Department, but on the Government, and as far as possible on that House. The offices in the large cities, where the pay was better, would be sought after, and perhaps obtained, by an officer in a small borough who was able to make himself of great importance at the elections there in promoting the success of a par-
  1588
  ticular candidate. As things at present stood, we possessed a system under which the officers in our Revenue Department occupied a position of neutrality, and which might challenge comparison with the system of any other country; but if the Bill before the House were adopted there was great danger, as had been said by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we should drift into that system which seemed to prevail in the United States. He had asked an American politician to give him an account of the working of the United States' constitution in that country; and the reply was that it resolved itself very much into a question of "in" and "out." When they entered on a political contest he said they cast about, and the "outs" having ascertained who were likely to obtain offices if they should be successful, got them to subscribe to a common fund. When that fund reached the necessary amount, they went to work as hard as they could on the election, and if they succeeded all the candidates for places got them according to the amount of their contributions. The "ins" contributed to a fund in the same way, and if they were victorious those who already had the places of course kept them. Did hon. Members think this a better state of things than existed in England? Surely it would be a deplorable change if the smallest shadow of such practices should prevail here. With that view it was of the utmost importance to keep our revenue officers entirely free from such participation in politics as was likely to disturb in any way the regular discharge of their duties. He hoped, therefore, that the House would not concur in this proposal, which would gratify the feelings of only a few of those affected by the Bill; while, in the end, it would be prejudicial to the great majority, even of the revenue officers themselves.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he voted for the Bill of last year under the full belief that those officers would use their votes as honestly as other men; but the arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of the Treasury, if good for anything, showed that the revenue officers were not worthy of the electoral trust, and would abuse it; implying distrust, also, of their integrity in the discharge of their peculiar duties. Such arguments tended strongly to show the necessity for the Ballot, which, hap-

  1589
  pily, now loomed, not in the distance, but very proximatively.
  MR. BREWERthought there were questions of great moment involved in the Bill. He admitted that the revenue officers were generally men of high character, but, as servants of the Crown, their position was a peculiar one. They were intrusted with functions and duties of a very delicate character; and he thought that the very nature of their trust required that they should be subjected to some restraint. He should, therefore, support the Amendment, from no disregard for the claims of these gentlemen, but from a paramount regard for the interests of the community generally.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYthought that this question could not, in any way, be made a party question. It seemed to him that the objections taken by the opponents of the Bill were rather inconsistent with other portions of their speeches. They were loud, for instance, in their praises of the body of men for whose benefit the Bill was proposed, and declared that no persons could better deserve the confidence and esteem of their countrymen. But how were these praises to be reconciled with the argument also urged—that the virtue of these men was so feeble that they must not be placed in the way of temptation, and that it was absolutely necessary, in order to keep them pure, to deprive them of the ordinary privileges of Englishmen? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the object of the measure was to enable the officers of the revenue to gratify their vanity, and enable them to distinguish themselves by speaking upon the hustings. He was surprised that, when persons sought to take part in public affairs and exercise the ordinary privileges of Englishmen, they should be told that they were seeking to gratify their vanity. That was not an argument which he expected to hear urged at this time of day and in that House. To listen to some of the speeches just made from the Treasury Bench one would have supposed them not to be arguments directed against the Bill of his hon. Friend, but in support of a proposal to repeal the Act of last Session; because if the arguments used on the Treasury Bench had any weight at all, they were not half so weighty against the present measure as against
  1590
  the Act of 1868. Not only, indeed, were they arguments which might have been urged against that Act, but every one of them had been urged against it, though urged in vain. It was true that the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Ayrton) had introduced rather a new topic, because he had shown the House how easily and how extensively bribery and corruption might be carried on in a country in which the Ballot prevailed; but this was an argument more germane to the debate of last night than to the present discussion, though probably it was not an argument likely to have fallen from the Treasury Bench upon that occasion. That was the only new point which the hon. Gentleman suggested in his interesting account of the mode in which elections were managed on the other side of the Atlantic. Now, the House should remember that this Bill was not confined to the servants of one particular Department. It included the officers of the Post Office as well as officers of the Customs and the Inland Revenue; and he had not yet heard a suggestion that the officers of the Post Office were so intimately connected with the collection of the revenue that they would exercise any baneful influence upon those with whom they came into contact. The question belonged in no way to party—it was a question upon which different opinions might prevail on both sides of the House; but he confessed that some of the arguments just urged were not such as he had expected from those who had used them, and did not apply to officers of the Post Office, who were not in the least likely to exercise those privileges improperly. With respect to the apprehended danger of intrusting political power to an organized body, such as the civil servants of the Crown, who might organize opposition to the Government of the day, or support the Government, as the case might be, with a view to their own private interest, he was tempted to ask whether other organized bodies were unknown to the country and the House? Was there no such interest as the railway interest or the publican interest? Yet, he had never heard any proposal to deprive railway shareholders or publicans of any of their privileges as citizens lest they should organize themselves with a view to their private advantage. He could not, therefore, see on what possible ground a

  1591
  special body of men whose character and services hon. Members had vied with each other in eulogizing should be denied the privileges enjoyed by their neighbours from a fear, forsooth, they might exercise an undue influence on Members of Parliament and on the proceedings of this House. Upon these grounds, he should give his cordial support to the Bill.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he differed from the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, and thought the Government had come to a sound conclusion upon this subject. It was not a consideration whether the civil servants of the Crown were pure or not. He had always been of opinion that our public servants had done their duty with great fidelity and impartiality; but he was also of opinion that if they got mixed up in all the turmoil of party conflict—a result of which, if this Bill passed, there was great risk—though they would not necessarily become impure, they would not be free from suspicion. Now, suspicion in such a case was almost worse than actual impurity, because with the one you could grapple, but not with the other; and, considering the very delicate and difficult duties which those gentlemen had to discharge, it would be a great misfortune if anything arose which rendered them liable to suspicion of partiality, especially from political motives. He should support the Government, not because he thought that these gentlemen might not be as well fitted as anybody else for the exercise of political privileges, but because, if they exercised these privileges as the Bill proposed, they might be suspected of partiality in the discharge of their duties.
  MR. CRAUFURDsaid, he would not go over the arguments which had been so well urged by other speakers in favour of the Bill, and in which he entirely concurred. He might indeed, observe, in support of those arguments, that in Scotland the question occupied a very peculiar position. He had several years since introduced into the Burgh Boundaries Act for Scotland a clause which enabled revenue officers to be placed on the electoral roll for municipal purposes. By that clause they obtained the right to vote, to canvass, and even to become candidates for municipal honours. Now, in Scotland the same electoral roll served both for municipal and for Parliament-
  1592
  ary elections, and he thought this state of things brought out very prominently the absurdity and hardship of allowing a certain class of men to become citizens for one purpose and not for another of a similar nature. But his object in rising was to draw the attention of the House to a point in the Bill which, he thought, had been hitherto entirely overlooked in its discussion. The Preamble declared that it was expedient to solve certain doubts which had arisen owing to the legislation of last year. It had been supposed at first that by the Act of last Session, and by the Act for repealing certain statutes passed by the Statute Law Commission in 1867, an end had been put to all political disabilities of revenue officers. But doubts were suggested, arising from the existence of two editions of the statutes at large, in which the chapters were differently numbered, as to how far the penalties for canvassing or interfering actively in elections had been repealed. And in Scotland, at any rate, there arose a different practice in different counties, causing much confusion during the late General Election. Thus in Ayrshire, an Inland Revenue officer was allowed to act as the paid agent of one of the candidates; while in an adjoining county the Inland Revenue officers received notice of their liability to penalties if they canvassed, and they consequently abstained from all interference in polities beyond simply recording their votes. He thought that it was most undesirable to continue such a state of things, and therefore all doubts upon the subject should be cleared up by passing this Bill.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Craufurd) would not wish the House to believe that we are discussing a question no broader in its scope than the removal of doubts as to the construction of an Act of Parliament. We are really engaged in discussing a most important principle; and as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) does not seem to have been aware, when he moved his Bill of last year, to what it would lead in the present Session—he gave us no intimation then that we were to have a Bill of this nature this year—so I think he cannot now be aware what this measure, if adopted, would lead to next year. There is no doubt that by

  1593
  the Bill of last year the hon. Gentleman established an important change in the position of members of the Civil Service; but the question we are now dealing with touches the position of some of the most important members of the Civil Service. It has been well said by the hon. and learned Member for Southampton (Mr. Russell Gurney) that this is not a party question. Now, I know not whether the rumour to which I am about to refer be well founded, but I have heard it stated that members of the Civil Service, in preponderating numbers, voted at the last election for the party which is now in Opposition. I know not if this be true, nor do I greatly care to inquire, but it has been stated in the course of this debate that they did so, and it was intimated that they did so because they looked upon me as having been for a long series of years distinguished by too great rigour in the administration of the public finances. Now, if this be true, I must say that I do not think it is a source of strength but rather of weakness to the party opposite; because, if it has the effect of making us weak with this particular class, it must make us so much the more strong in the support of the nation at large. I say, if it be true that such an impression prevails, and upon that account the members of the Civil Service have a leaning to the party which is opposed to us, we can have no better title than this with which to place our cause I before the country. Mind, I do not make the charge. ["Oh, oh!"] I say I know nothing as to the truth of the statement; but with great deference to the Gentleman opposite who sneers at what I am saying, I warn him and all who think with him—and though I do not expect him to believe me, the warning is a friendly one—against building their hopes of public strength, and influence upon any foundation so narrow and unsound as the acquiring of the favour of particular classes by measures which are not for the general good. The House has a natural prepossession, and I own a just one, in favour of the removal of restraints upon the exercise of political rights. I respect the opinion of the hon. Gentleman who spoke last, and I respect the opinion of the hon. Member for Gloucester; nor will I stop to observe that, although, as has been said, the revenue officers at our ports may not
  1594
  interfere with the discretion of Members of Parliament, it happens by some strange coincidence that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gurney) represents an important port, with many revenue officers among his constituents, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) are in the same predicament. When my hon. Friend (Mr. Norwood) says he has not found any great pressure put upon him from revenue officers I do not at all wonder at the statement, because I think in his case no such pressure was at all required. My hon. Friend (Sir Harry Verney) says that if danger is anticipated from the operation of this Bill we must rely upon the firmness of the Government. Now, I have not a bad opinion of the firmness of Governments, but the Executive Government is essentially and necessarily political in its character, and is it right that the Legislature, which ought to be jealous in the interest of the public, should say—"We will repeal restraints which now exist in the interest of the public, and rely, instead, upon the firmness of the Government to do"—what? Not to restrain the aberrations of civil servants who may be its opponents so much as the zeal of those who may be its friends. But then it is said—and this was the main assertion of my hon. Friends who support the Bill—that the whole argument against it rests upon an imputation of dishonesty as regards our civil servants; and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Russell Gurney) adds that there is a gross inconsistency between the language used, according praise and credit to the officers of the Civil Service, and the conduct pursued in withholding from them these privileges. Now, I impute no dishonesty to our civil servants. In a long series of years, during which I have been in communication with our civil servants, no one has heard a syllable of that kind fall from my lips. But I deny that an imputation of dishonesty is involved in particular cases by those restraints upon political liberty which are otherwise accorded to all. What is our law about contractors? We do not permit a contractor to sit in this House. Do we, therefore, mean that contractors are dishonest, or that they are less honest and upright than other men are? Certainly not; but we will not allow them to take a position where

  1595
  their honesty may be exposed to particular solicitation and trial. That, and no more than that, is what we exact with regard to our civil servants. But then, what is the position of Members of this House? Is no restraint imposed upon them? Why those rigid rules in the Revenue Department prohibiting and resenting the interference of any Member of Parliament with regard to the promotion of any person employed in that Department? Are not Members of Parliament in many respects persons well qualified to recommend for such promotions? My hon. Friend the Member for Hull (Mr. Clay) says he has perhaps had more intercourse with revenue officers than any other Gentleman in this House, and his recommendations, therefore, in this respect would be well founded and valuable. Nevertheless, if he were to send a recommendation to the Board of Customs or Inland Revenue, he will get an answer which would be more intelligible than polite. Am I to be told that on that account there is any imputation on the honesty of Members of this House? The reason is that the position of Members being one which exposes them to peculiar solicitation, they are liable unconsciously to come under a bias adverse to the interest of the public service, and therefore, we deny ourselves the advantage which might often be derived from their local knowledge and experience, and compel them to remain silent upon every question of promotion in the Revenue Departments. Can anything be more absurd, can anything be more anomalous than the system which my hon. Friend deliberately proposes to establish? I will suppose myself, for a moment, to be Member for Liverpool. As the Member for Liverpool, I should not be permitted to say a single syllable upon the subject of the fitness of any revenue servants there for promotion in the Customs or the Post Office; yet, at the same time, under the Bill of my hon. Friend, the Collector of Customs at Liverpool might have been the chairman of my election committee, and his verdict would be that which would decide every case in which recommendation for promotion might be made. Is such a relation desirable? Would a Bill which established it be a measure of reform or a measure of retrogression? Would it be a measure favourable to
  1596
  the interests either of the community or of the class? And if it were—as I think it would be—a measure of retrogression, would it not be the most dangerous of all retrogressions, inasmuch as it comes to us in the shape of a reform? Now, I am going to make a confession which I have seldom made, but I am now released from the charge of finance—and by-the-way, I cannot say what satisfaction and comfort I personally feel when I reflect that I have now made it over into other and abler hands—being thus released, and having the tie taken off my tongue, I beg the House to bear in mind what extraordinary duties the officers of our Revenue Departments are called on to perform. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Russell Gurney) cannot satisfy us by setting up the case of the Post Office, though if he will move for a Committee to institute a careful inquiry, with a view of seeing whether there are any persons to whom those restraints should not be applied, I do not know that I should resist such an investigation; but he proposed to sweep away the whole, and therefore I am bound to inquire what the particular nature of these duties is. We have to raise in this country a revenue of some £70,000,000 a year. That is about one-eighth or ninth part of the whole revenue of the country. If there is any Gentleman in this House who happens to have nine sovereigns in his pocket, though he may believe them to be his own, they really are not, for one of them will infallibly, on the average, find its way into the Public Exchequer. It is the duty of the revenue officers to draw out the ninth sovereign and put it into the Exchequer. The processes are many and various, and some of them are not devoid of danger to the liberty of the subject. I grant that there is no great difficulty or temptation when we collect the revenue by means of Queen's heads pasted upon the corners of letters; and if we could collect our whole revenue in that innocent form, the arguments against the Bill would be weaker than they are. But there is very little raised in that innocent form; and when we come to the greater branches of the revenue, the Excise and the income tax—painful as it may be to make the confession—and it is of no use to conceal it,—the hard necessities of the State and the heavy legacy which our ancestors left to

  1597
  us—along with other more desirable things—in the shape of a National Debt compel us to take much money from the subject by means which undoubtedly greatly invade and restrain the liberty of the subject. I do not believe that our ancestors who, ages ago, objected we strongly to the Excise, could ever have dreamt of the income tax; but when they objected to the Excise they were not so irrational—it was not without cause that the country was torn from end to end by the horrors of a system which appeared to be such an invasion of personal liberty. I hardly think that in our day the House is quite aware of the functions which have to be performed by revenue officers; and if Parliament were called upon to re-enact clause by clause the Excise Laws and Income Tax Acts of this country, I think the House would be shocked at the nature of the powers which the absolute necessities of the State render; necessary. Now, the exercise of these powers is in the hands of men who, down to this time, we have carefully separated from the temptations and the passions of political strife. Not only so, but of all the administrative reforms in the present century, the best have been those which sought to abridge the influence of the Executive Government, its power over the patronage of the Civil Service, and that power of Parliament over the Civil Service. The name of Lord Liverpool ought to be honoured; among us to this day, for he was the Minister who did away with the power of promotion—infinitely more powerful than the power of appointment, which had before his time been the scandal of the country and a fertile source of corruption. Patronage is a powerful instrument of Government; but why is patronage to be taken out of the hands of politicians sitting in this House and placed in the hands of another set of politicians sitting in the Customs or in Somerset House? We have tried by our public law to create a body of functionaries entirely exempt from these temptations; but the measure of my hon. Friend is a much further departure, and a more important and dangerous departure, from this principle, than any that we have hitherto recognized. It has been said that we do not restrain the permanent heads of Departments at the Treasury and elsewhere from taking
  1598
  part in elections. No, we do not—but they restrain themselves. Who ever heard of Mr. Hamilton, since he has been permanent Secretary of the Treasury, or Sir William Dunbar, since he has been Commissioner of Audit, or Mr. Anderson, or Mr. Arbuthnot, or Mr. Hammond, interfering in political strife or taking part in political meetings? Why not? Because they have chosen their career; and though there is no law applicable to them individually, they know there are Acts of Parliament which clearly declare the principle that men so engaged should avoid the snares of political partisanship. I think I have said enough, after what has been urged to the same effect by others, in deprecating the measure which my hon. Friend has proposed. I am quite satisfied that the picture drawn by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of the Treasury—of the extensive changes which such a measure might bring about in our political system—is not overcharged; and, without the slightest disrespect to the introducers of the measure or to the people of the United States, I think that if there is any one point on which we can draw a conclusion favourable to ourselves and unfavourable to them, it is that here we have striven to limit and reduce the influence of the Executive Government over patronage, and to separate entirely the popular branch of the Legislature from any direct connection with the exercise of patronage; while there we see a system which is the full-blown development of the idea of my hon. Friend, and the working of which no one can contemplate with satisfaction. I concede my full sympathy up to a certain point with those who are contending for the abolition of these restrictions; but the conditions of society and the hard necessities of the Sate must, I fear, continue to impose limits in the case of individuals upon the enjoyment even of political privileges. The case of these gentlemen is not an isolated one. A similar restriction has been adopted—perhaps with less strong reasons for it—in the case of the police, and I confidently believe that this House will not take the very questionable and dangerous step of passing the measure.
  MR. MONKsaid, in reply, that he had already stated that it had been his

  1599
  intention, when going into Committee on the Bill of last year, to include in the repealing Schedule of that Bill the clauses which it was proposed to repeal by the present Bill; but he was opposed on that occasion both by the Members of the late Government and by his right hon. Friend the First Minister of the Crown. To have done so under those circumstances would probably have insured the rejection of that measure, which happily passed into law. All the arguments which had been used to-day were used last year, and, in fact, they were more applicable to the Bill of last year than to the present, which merely gave the civil servants freedom of action and freedom of speech. The revenue officers asked the House to repeal those obnoxious statutes, not with the desire of canvassing or taking an active part in elections, but because they considered it a grievance that they alone of the civil servants should be placed under exceptional disabilities and restrictions, which might have been necessary 170 years ago, but which he believed to be quite uncalled for at the present day.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEwished to say one word in explanation. He had no communication with the gentlemen to whom he referred; but he wished to know how they could prevent these gentlemen from holding their own opinions. In private they could do more in support of them than they could do by going to the poll and recording their votes. In their present position those persons were more dangerous than they would be if they were in the enjoyment of the privileges proposed to be conferred on them by the Bill.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 207: Majority 119.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Bill put off for six months.

LIBEL BILL [BILL 17.]—SECOND READING.
(Mr. Baines, Mr. Candlish, Mr. Morley.)
LIBEL BILL [BILL 17.]—SECOND READING.

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading, read.
  MR. BAINES, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he had no cause to apprehend that the
  1600
  Motion would lead to a division, for the measure, when under the charge of the present Judge Advocate (Sir Colman O'Loghlen), had been agreed to by the House in the two previous Sessions, after having been carefully considered by a Select Committee comprising many of the most distinguished Members of the House. Its object was to obtain from Parliament a fair and reasonable protection for the public Press in the exercise of one of its most important duties—the publication of reports of the proceedings of public meetings. It was not intended to give the slightest impunity to defamation—in fact, it would give a greater protection against defamation than was afforded by the present law, and a cheaper remedy against defamatory aspersions. The great number of Petitions which had been presented in favour of the Bill showed that the persons connected with the periodical Press felt that they were now exposed to gross injustice. The present Law of Libel was very singular in regard to public meetings, for the individual who uttered a libel at a meeting, knowing that the public were present through the medium of the reporters, was not answerable for what he said; but the unfortunate proprietor of a newspaper—who was utterly incapable of knowing whether what was said was right or wrong, but whose reporter, in the discharge of a duty acknowledged to be most important, gave a report of the proceedings—was made responsible. That was a remnant of the barbarous Law of Libel which so long existed in this country, and which, after several protracted struggles, had in process of time become ameliorated. It was true that publishers were no longer liable to be placed in the pillory, nor exposed to the decision of a Judge unrestrained by the opinion of a jury on the character of the alleged libel, nor were they subjected to the injustice of not being allowed to plead the truth of the statement, and that the publication of it was for the public interest. But they were liable to an action for damages for defamation uttered by a person of whom they might know nothing. It was only recently that the right of newspapers to publish an account of the proceedings in courts of justice had been distinctly acknowledged, and it was not longer ago than four months that the law in regard to reporting the proceed-

  1601
  ings in Parliament was decided, he hoped finally, by the Court of Queen's Bench. In the case of an action brought by Mr. Rigby Wason against The Times for publishing the report of a debate in the other House of Parliament, founded on a petition containing the severest imputations on the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, the Lord Chief Justice, in his admirable judgment, on the 19th of November, 1868, made use of the following language:—
  "It is now well established that faithful and fair reports of the proceedings of courts of justice, though the character of individuals may incidentally suffer, are privileged, and that for the publication of such reports, the publishers are neither criminally nor civilly responsible. The immunity thus afforded in respect of the proceedings of courts of justice, rests upon a two-fold ground. In the English Law of Libel, malice is said to be the gist of an action for defamation. 'The rule,' says Lord Campbell, in the case of "Taylor v. Hawkins," 'is, that if the occasion be such as repels the presumption of malice the communication is privileged, and the plaintiff must then, if he can, give the evidence of actual malice.'
  "It is thus" continues Chief Justice Cockburn, "that in the case of reports of proceedings in the courts of justice, though individuals may occasionally suffer from them, yet as they are published without any reference to the individual concerned, but solely to afford information to the public and for the benefit of society, the presumption of malice is rebutted, and such publications are held to be privileged. The other and broader principle on which this exception to the general Law of Libel is founded is that the advantage to the community from publicity being given to the proceedings of courts of justice is so great that the occasional inconvenience to individuals arising from it must yield to the general good."
  Referring to the publication of Parliamentary proceedings, the Chief Justice observes—
  "It may no doubt be said that while it may be necessary, as a matter of national interest, that the proceedings in Parliament should in general be made public, yet that debates in which the character of individuals is brought into question ought to be suppressed. But to this, in addition to the difficulty in which parties publishing Parliamentary reports would be placed, if this distinction were to be enforced, and every debate had to be critically scanned to see whether it contained defamatory matter, it may be further answered that there is, perhaps, no subject in which the public have a deeper interest than in all that relates to the conduct of the public servants of the State—no subject of Parliamentary discussion which more requires to be made known than an inquiry relating to it."
  The House will observe—first, the condition laid down by the Chief Justice for exemption from prosecution—namely, that the publication should be without
  1602
  malice; secondly, the reason for privileging reports of proceedings in courts of justice and Parliament—namely, "the general good;" and, thirdly, his reply to the demand that the reports should be expurgated of all defamatory matter—namely, the difficulty of "critically scanning" the reports for that purpose. As for requiring the exclusion of everything of a defamatory nature from the reports of proceedings of public meetings, such an obligation would necessitate a critical scanning of their contents, which would be absolutely impossible on the part of a newspaper proprietor, who receives reports from various quarters just before his newspaper is about to be printed off in order to be despatched by the railway trains. Having had the honour of being connected with the public Press for many years, he knew that that could not be done; and, therefore, the Bill proposed that no newspaper proprietor should be liable to an action or prosecution for a true and fair report of the proceedings at a public meeting, unless he should refuse to publish a fair reply to the libel complained of. It also provided a statutory sanction for the decision of the Judges that no civil or criminal proceeding should be maintainable for the publication of a fair and true report of a debate in either House of Parliament. It might be said that a slander uttered at a meeting where, perhaps, only 100 persons were present, became known to thousands when published in a newspaper. He admitted that; but considering the advantage which resulted from publicity being given to the proceedings of public meetings in reference to political, municipal, and social questions, to the management of railway and joint-stock companies, to charitable and many other objects, he considered that any inconvenience which might occasionally affect individuals should be deemed as outweighed by the benefit received by the public. It must be borne in mind that to public meetings the country was greatly indebted for the extension of its liberties and for the promotion of beneficial objects of all kinds. If anything should be done unwittingly by a newspaper to damage an individual, the Bill gave him greater facilities than the existing law for obtaining immediate reparation. At present, if a person was defamed by a newspaper report, he

  1603
  brought an action against the newspaper proprietor at an expense to both parties perhaps of hundreds of pounds, and after the lapse of some months, during which his character remained under the imputation of which he complained, he might or might not get a verdict in his favour. The Bill proposed that the newspaper proprietor should be liable to be called on to insert without charge an explanation furnished by the person injured, and in as conspicuous a portion of the newspaper as the original defamatory matter. That was one way in which the party aggrieved might obtain a remedy. There was another mode in which he might obtain redress. He proposed that the author of any defamatory matter spoken at a public meeting at which, to his knowledge, the reporter of any newspaper was present, which newspaper might thereon publish a fair and true report of the proceedings of that meeting, might be called upon by the person defamed to publish in that newspaper, or in some other public journal, a suitable apology; and on his refusal might be proceeded against by action for libel. By that provision the author, and not the mere publisher, would be punished for his abuse. That was a common-sense way of doing justice to the party aggrieved. It was intended to exonerate the publisher on condition that he published a fair and faithful report without malice, and was ready to publish a retractation; and the speaker of defamatory matter was to be liable, unless he was willing to make the amende honorable when fairly called on to do so. Not a few newspaper proprietors had been subjected to the payment of £300, £400, and £500 for that of which they were morally as innocent as any Member now hearing him; and he hoped the House would feel it a duty to put an end to that state of the Law of Libel under which such injustice could be inflicted. He hoped there would be no objection to the second reading of the Bill. If objections were entertained to any particular clause, he should be happy to meet them in Committee. He only desired justice to all parties, and injury to none.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Baines.)
  MR. NEWDEGATEobserved that the thin and flagging appearance of the House shewed the strength of the organization by which the Bill was supported. Undoubtedly, as was proved by the Petitions which formerly and in the present Session had been presented, the Bill was supported by a very large number of members of the provincial Press. He thought he could show that this Bill would so extend the privileges of the Press beyond the protection afforded by the present law that it must lead to one of two results, perhaps to both—to a total exemption of newspaper proprietors from legal penalties upon the propagation of any amount of scandal, else, whilst granting what Lord Campbell thought an undue privilege to the Press, it must tend to the limitation of the freedom of speech. The hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines) had cited the opinion of the Lord Justice in the case of "Wason v. The Times" yet there was a provision distinctly reserving the privileges of Parliament, in which the Press, after the decision in the case of Mr. Wason, clearly shared; and by a former decision it appeared, that the House granted this privilege, that the publication of their reports and their debates came within the privileges of Parliament. He wished hon. Members to dismiss from their minds any impression which might have been caused by the citation of the opinion which had been given on that point, for there was a clause in the Bill distinctly reserving the privileges of Parliament. The present Law of Libel was drawn by Lord Campbell, who, in the commencement of his career, was a reporter in the Gallery of the House of Commons, and was therefore able to form a correct opinion upon the whole subject. That noble Lord swept away many of those means of oppression which existed prior to the passing of his Act; yet he proved that the public should expect every newspaper proprietor to exercise a discretion, not over the notes of the reporters that came in in different hands, and in a hurry, but over the proofs when printed from these notes, which was the only form in which reports were submitted to the editor or sub-editor. Thus all difficulties of reading the reports were removed by the practice of the newspaper offices. The present law proceeded upon the principle that a

  1605
  person who deliberately, and after seeing the proofs of a speech, should circulate libellous matter, ought to be held answerable for the publication of libellous matter he thus issued to the public. He hoped his hon. Friend opposite would think that he had put the point right; because at the present moment words spoken in the heat of debate by persons who, for want of practice, had no command over their expressions, were treated by law far more leniently, as mere scandal, than were words which were deliberately written, printed, corrected, and published. Yet this Bill would abolish this distinction and would subject the mere utterance of hasty words to the penalties of deliberate libel. He put it to the common sense of the House whether it was right to put the two cases upon exactly the same footing, and to award the same punishment? That, however, was not all. The Bill proposed that another principle should be adopted. It sought to enact, that unless a speaker could prove that he did not know that a reporter was present, then he should be liable for what the reporter might attribute to him. He would ask, was it intended that there should be a close and direct relationship between speakers and reporters? Were this to be the case, gentlemen would require to hire reporters whenever they wished to go to a public meeting, for otherwise he could not rebut, by equivalent testimony, the imputation which might be made by some reporter, who was unknown to him, that he had uttered libellous matter. If this were not done the effect of the Bill, if passed, would be, that although the reporter was not an agent of the speaker, and had really no connection with him, yet the latter would be liable for what the former attributed to him. The speaker, in fact, would be liable to be prosecuted for the act of a person who was not his agent, who was not acting on his behalf. Every unguarded speaker, at a public meeting, would, in short, be required to prove a negative. Words, for instance, might be attributed to him in a form and in a connection, in which he had not certainly used them; and he might be held responsible for words the meaning of which had been changed. How was he to prove a negative? Unless he had a reporter by his side who took down all that he said, he would, in fact,
  1606
  have no equivalent evidence to set up against that of the reporter who may have attributed to him certain expressions. The hon. Member for Leeds laid great stress upon the fact that the speaker would have the privilege of writing to a newspaper proprietor and saying—"You have attributed to me a meaning which I did not intend to convey, and made that a libel which was not one when I uttered it." But then it was to be remembered that the very first principle of the Bill exempted a newspaper proprietor from any necessity of exercising discretion with respect to the matter that he might publish. He was to publish the defamatory matter, if he chose to do so, and to be held free from prosecution on the strength of his attributing the libel to another person. This principle, however, was found to be too strong even by the promoters of the Bill. They strove to qualify it by declaring that newspaper proprietors should be obliged to publish apologies and retractations for unjust accusations which they might have inserted by way of report. This was good enough as far as it went, but let the House mark the qualifications which followed the means of escape for the speaker, "unless the explanation or retractation contained libellous matter." If it did, in the opinion of the editor, then he need not publish it. Thus the discretion of the editor was to be invoked at the second stage of the transaction, after the harm had been done, instead of requiring the exercise of the discretion of the editor in the first instance to prevent the publication of the scandal, supposing it to have been uttered in words by the speaker at some public meeting. This proviso, moreover, would be of little avail in protecting speakers from contortions and misrepresentations of their meaning, and the consequence would be that the freedom of public discussion would be very much curtailed and restricted. It should be remembered that the proprietors of newspapers have already a distinct privilege: they can plead that they publish reports of speeches not maliciously, but in the course of their business. The Bill, in fact, proposed to extend the privilege of a small section of the community at the expense of freedom of speech at present enjoyed by the public. The first thing which the Speaker of the House of Commons did

  1607
  upon the assembling of the new Parliament was to crave from the Throne freedom of speech; and, that being so, the House ought very jealously to guard a privilege of such value, and not to impair or renounce it merely for the sake of increasing the privileges of the Press. The conduct of debate, the free expression of opinion in public, was one of the chief means upon which they depended for preserving honesty among all classes of society; and if a blow were aimed at this freedom of speech the public morality would suffer. Public opinion would be to a great extent emasculated. He considered that this Bill was dangerous in its tendencies. They were told that the second reading should be agreed to because it was only sanctioning the principle pro formâ, and that there would be plenty of time to discuss the provisions of the measure at a subsequent stage. This was an argument which he hoped would carefully be guarded against, as it was calculated to mislead. According to the practice and constitution of that House it was the custom to decide the principle of every measure upon the second reading: it was very desirable that this practice should be preserved, for there was a feeling growing up among the public that the House was somewhat departing from its old custom in this matter, and that the principle of measures was not sufficiently tested. This point was referred to in a pamphlet which he had recently seen, and which was entitled, The Democracy of Reason, or the Organization of the Press, just published by Simpkin and Marshall. The writer, after touching upon this point, proposed that the Press should be so organized that every subject could be canvassed by a central committee of the Press before being submitted to Parliament, that the whole initiation of legislation should be made over to a central committee of the Press as organized. [A laugh.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh; but let them read the pamphlet. The proposal was not carelessly made, but with, an ability which was most striking; and, seeing that there was a feeling displayed among the members of the Press, that great questions were often not sufficiently considered, he asked the House to pause before—as it would by passing this Bill through its second reading—thus carelessly encouraging contemptuous re-
  1608
  flections with respect to the capacity of Parliament, as now constituted, to conduct the great business of the nation. Neither the hon. Member for Leeds nor the right hon. Gentleman the Judge Advocate (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) were men of equal authority upon this question of libel as the late Lord Campbell—the author of the legal principle, which by this their Bill they sought to reverse; that principle being, that the responsibility of publishing any libellous report should rest with the person who published it. Upon this point he would quote the opinion of the present Attorney General (Sir Robert Collier), who, in a debate which arose in the autumnal Session, when the Judge Advocate had attempted to slip this Bill through the second reading on the same day that it was delivered to Members, said—
  "If the Bill had been confined to the clauses which gave extended liberty to the Press, he should have endeavoured to expedite it ……But the Bill appeared to contain other provisions, which he deemed to be in the last degree objectionable. There was the provision tending to restrict freedom of discussion at public meetings. The third clause provided, for the first time, that a man should be liable for what he spoke at public meetings to the same extent as if the words were written. He (Sir Robert Collier) held not only that there was a difference made by the law of this country, but that there was a fundamental distinction between words spoken and words written. Words written were taken by the law to express the deliberate conviction of the writer; words spoken had a different force attributed to them. Allowance was made for expressions used in the heat of debate. Besides, some men had not sufficient command of language to express their opinions with perfect clearness; and it was well known that a constant conflict of testimony was going on as to what words had really been spoken on a particular question. For these, among other reasons, he thought the law had wisely protected the privilege of speech, so far as a man did not impute to his neighbour an indictable offence, or something calculated to be injurious to him or his business. As for speeches calculated to bring men into contempt or ridicule, he had heard such, not only out of the House, but in the House; and a high authority among them had said that invective and sarcasm were the ornaments of debate; yet the object of invective and sarcasm was to hold their adversaries up to ridicule and contempt. Without, however, entering on this matter, he might say that, because an essential part of the Bill tended to curtail the privilege of discussion in a manner injurious to the public interest, he thought it highly desirable that the principle of the Bill should be discussed in that House, and he advised the hon. and learned Baronet (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) to concur in the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire so far as not to press his Motion for the second reading."—[3 Hansard, cxc. 312. 313.]

  1609
  The Solicitor General, who was present, had, in the following Session, that of 1868, also expressed himself strongly against some of the principles embodied in the Bill. He said it was very desirable that all that was true should be published, but not that which was untrue. They had heard some remarks about fair reports; but what was a fair report? Was it to be conceived that local newspapers could give a full report of every speech made at every meeting which took place? That was out of the question, and yet no report, which was not a full report, could be a fair report. A condensed summarized report was the work of the intellect of the reporter and of the editor, and not the production of the speaker. Isolated passages, when taken without their context, and put together, unless very carefully selected and arranged, might not convey the meaning of the speaker. The proprietors of newspapers were already invested with great privileges, and were possessed of great powers, but he thought it would be dangerous to exempt them from the responsibility to which they were at present liable, and to exempt them at the expense of the public-speaker. For these reasons he should move that the Bill be read a second time upon that day six months.
  MR. LIDDELLseconded the motion.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Newdegate.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. T. CHAMBERSsaid, this was not simply a question of relieving a certain number of persons in the community from a supposed grievance, but one which in many vital points touched first principles in the most important department of constitutional law. It touched principles vital to the liberty of the subject and vital to the administration of the law. It bore, for instance, on the vital question of liberty of speech. That freedom was one of the most important privileges secured to the people by the Constitution of this country—one which lay at the very foundation of all our liberties; and it, therefore, became important to consider whether, if this Bill were passed, that privilege would not be seriously impaired. Under the law as it at present stood a person who spoke under the in-
  1610
  fluence of excitement at a public meeting, and made use of epithets in the heat of the moment which he could not afterwards justify, could not be prosecuted for libel; but if the measure now proposed were agreed to he could be so prosecuted. Moreover, the Bill laid it down that a man could be held guilty and punished for an offence which the Bill itself said he had not committed, while the man who had committed the offence was to be held harmless and allowed to escape. That was a principle which ought not to be sanctioned. It touched too first principles connected with the administration of the law. No question had been discussed more fully than the Law of Libel; on none had the opinions of the judicial tribunals been more frequently delivered; but this Bill would upset them from the foundation. It was said a grievance existed which required such a remedy. But the grievance must be proved; it must be a serious one—one of which there was a loud and universal complaint—not a trifling affair, or one on a mere matter of procedure—before they could be called on to over-ride the principles of the Constitution and the law in order to apply such a remedy as was now proposed. The whole question was a novel one—it was proposed to give not liberty, but license. What was the grievance? The hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines) had said that numerous Petitions had been presented in its favour. Well, he (Mr. Chambers) had referred to the Report of the Committee on Public Petitions, and he found twelve Petitions had been presented, with fifteen signatures. He did not call that a large matter or a loudly expressed grievance. It was, on the contrary, a ludicrously small one. The Preamble of this Bill was in these words—"Whereas it is expedient to amend the Law of Libel." But, looking to all that has been said in favour of the Bill, he must say that it was inexpedient so to amend the Law of Libel. He would contrast with this the Preamble of the Act 6 & 7 Vict. c. 96. The title of that Act was—"An Act for the better protection of Private Character, and for more effectually securing the liberty of the Press, and for better preventing abuse in exercising the said liberty, be it enacted," &c. Now, he (Mr. Chambers) would vote for any Bill to which such a Preamble could be honestly prefixed, and he would vote for the

  1611
  Bill of the hon. Member for Leeds if it would accomplish these objects more effectually than Lord Campbell's Act; but it was perfectly obvious that the hon. Member could not put such a Preamble to his Bill. In what position were newspaper proprietors and editors at present? In an action for libel it was competent for the defendant to plead that the libel was inserted in the newspaper without actual malice and without gross negligence. The plaintiff in such action must therefore prove, in order to recover, actual malice or gross negligence. Was not that protection enough, or was the newspaper proprietor to be protected though he might have published libellous matter with actual malice and gross negligence? What was the history of this matter as regarded the publication of newspapers and books? Prom the reign of Henry VIII. to that of William III. there was a censorship of the Press. William III. very properly removed the censorship; but were no securities provided against an abuse of the liberty of printing? On the contrary, the printer and proprietor of a newspaper had to register their names at Somerset House, and give securities in order to afford facility of redress to parties aggrieved by libellous matter. That was a guarantee to a certain extent that the newspaper would be properly conducted, and it operated as some protection to private persons. The hon. Member talked of the barbarous Law of Libel. He might as well speak of the barbarous Law of Murder. The Law of Libel was not of itself a barbarous law, for to assault a man's character was to do him as much wrong as to attack his person. It was quite true that up to a recent period there was a grievance in regard to the Law of Seditious Libel; but now the jury decided upon the facts, and with very great fairness between the Crown and the party charged. The Act of the 6 & 7 Vict. which put the law upon its present footing, was framed by a man who understood these matters as well as any one. The hon. Member (Mr. Baines) said that the Law of Libel was in a most unsettled and dangerous state, that nothing could be more scandalous, and that it was only three or four months ago that an action was brought against the publisher of a newspaper for publishing a debate in the House of Lords upon an important subject, and
  1612
  that the action failed, being held not maintainable under the circumstances. But did not his hon. Friend see that by citing this case he had cut the very ground from under his feet? It could not be said after that decision that there was any confusion on this point as to the Law of Libel, and the argument founded on this case was now of no force whatever. He thought the House ought long to consider before it passed a measure like the present. On reading the abstract of the 1st clause of this Bill, it must be seen that it would be utterly impossible for the House to pass it, because it enacted that—
  "No proprietor of a newspaper shall be liable to an action or prosecution for a faithful report of the proceedings at a public meeting, and proof that it was such shall amount to a defence."
  His hon. Friend said that nothing could be so important as the publication of these reports. But nothing could be so easy as to exaggerate their importance. Would the hon. Gentleman say that it was important the public should know how A. and B. abused each other at a meeting of a gas company in a small country town, and that their abuse should be carried into every corner of the country? It was important when a certain class of meetings was held, attended by a certain class of speakers, that the proceedings should be disseminated far and wide; but with regard to the great majority of public meetings such as he had alluded to it was a great, waste of ink and paper ever to publish them at all. His hon. Friend by exaggerating the importance of these reports desired to prepare the mind of the House to form an undue estimate of the value of these provincial newspapers. He confessed he could not follow his hon. Friend at all in this matter. The hon. Member stipulated that it should be a full and faithful report; but the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) truly said there never was or could be a full and faithful report. But then his hon. Friend went further, and said with regard to any defamatory matter that all this virulence and abuse was the very part of a speech that ought not to be left out. He said that the public were interested in these investigations, in "sifting," as he called it, a man's character. No doubt, many provincial newspapers circulated a very much larger number of copies than they would otherwise do by inserting the

  1613
  scurrility spoken at public meetings. It made the report more racy and stimulating, especially if you happened to know the person whose character had been "sifted." If the publication of this matter were of so much importance as his hon. Friend alleged, he should go a step further and make the proprietor of the newspaper liable if he left out any of the virulence and abuse. The fact was the newspapers generally did leave it out. He was more familiar with the London than the provincial Press, but of the London Press it might be said they were not interested in the Bill, because they did leave out such matter. What his hon. Friend wished to obtain immunity for publishing was that part of a man's speech which the speaker generally regretted as soon as he had said it. That was the part which was now left out. When the editor came to it he described but did not report it, saying—"Here the speaker attacked So-and-so with much vehemence." All those who listened to the speech knew the speaker and the circumstances, and the slander, as slander, was harmless on that account; but if it went to every corner of the country where people knew neither the people nor the circumstances, the effect would be very different. The grievance lay in this—that a newspaper proprietor said he must get his newspaper out in time to print and circulate it, and that in order to enable him to do so he must do this injustice to the character of individuals. Getting the newspapers out in time was the first thing to be considered; but the publication of a newspaper was a business matter, and it could not be put as if it were the function of the Government or the action of a court of justice, or a debate in the Houses of Parliament. He agreed in the decision in the case of "Wason v. Walter;" but what analogy there was between that case and the cases put by the hon. Gentleman he could not see, because in the case of "Wason v. Walter" it was right that the publication of an important debate should not be suppressed when it turned, not incidentally upon the character of an individual, but when that character formed the whole subject of the debate. For these reasons he must give the Bill his strenuous opposition.
  MR. SERJEANT DOWSEsaid, that when the hon. and learned Gentleman
  1614
  who had just sat down (Mr. T. Chambers) quoted the Act of Parliament he began to think he had left all his law behind him in Ireland. He discovered, however, that the hon. and learned Gentleman left out the particular passages he ought to have read. He omitted half the plea, leaving out the part of Hamlet altogether. If the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman were no better than his law, his hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) would have little difficulty in carrying his Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman wished the House to believe that the defence to an action for libel was merely that the defendant had published the libel without malice and without gross negligence. Now, if that were the case, the pleas he would have drawn would nearly always have saved his clients because he could have shown that the subject-matter of the libel was inserted by inadvertence. The hon. and learned Gentleman had, however, left out the material part of the plea. The clause of Lord Campbell's Act said that in an action for libel contained in any public newspaper it should be competent for the defendant to plead "that the libel was inserted in such newspaper or other periodical without malice and without gross negligence, and that before the commencement of the action, or at the earliest opportunity afterwards, he inserted in such newspaper or other periodical selected by the plaintiff a full apology for the said libel;" and that on filing such plea such defendant should be at liberty to pay a sum of money into Court by way of amends. Why did the Common Serjeant of the City of London—who appeared to him to be a very uncommon Serjeant—make such an omission, and give him the trouble of getting up there to explain the matter? He had not the smallest intention of speaking in the debate, but he confessed he could not let such an opportunity slip. To the general principle of the Bill he gave his hearty concurrence. The distinction between libel and slander, which was well known to the law of England, had existed for centuries, but was based on no rational foundation whatever. It was not slander unless you imputed to a man misconduct in his trade or profession, the commission of an indictable offence, or that he was labouring under a contagious disease; but it was a libel to write

  1615
  or print of a man anything which was calculated to excite feelings of hatred, contempt, or ridicule against him. It appeared to him rather absurd that if a man said of another words which did not make him liable to an action for slander, a publisher should be liable to an action for libel for the same words if he put them in a newspaper. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) said there was no such thing as a full and fair report. Well, but if the reports were never full and fair, the newspapers would get no protection whatever, because if it were necessary to prove that the report was full and fair and it was not, the plea was got rid of. It was necessary to fix the responsibility somewhere. He, for one, was as obnoxious as anyone to the charge of speaking hastily at public meetings, and if the effect of this Bill would be to make persons more cautious in what they said against the character of others, it would be a very wise and beneficial measure. In England the law was such that if an action were brought against a man the plaintiff got no costs unless the damages amounted to 40 s.; but in Ireland, till lately, if a plaintiff only got one halfpenny damages the defendant had to pay all the costs. He heard of a case in which the jury assessed the damages at a halfpenny, and the defendant taking a penny-piece from his pocket said to the plaintiff, "Give me change out of that—the value of your character." In this case the halfpenny damages carried £450 costs. He should support the second reading of the Bill.
  MR. WATKIN WILLIAMSsaid, that the Law of Libel had its origin in a time when the art of printing was in its infancy, and public meetings were very rarely held. He supported the present Bill, not so much in the interests of the Press as that of the public. The Press had in fact become a medium for extending the area of public meetings. The great difficulty in the way of this Bill arose from the peculiar line drawn by our law between written and spoken slander. By the law of Scotland and France this distinction between written and oral slander was not recognized, and the House would do well to put the law of England on the same scientific footing as that of Scotland and France. Several Committees had inquired into the subject, and recommended this change.
  1616
  In 1834 a Committee of that House examined an eminent French jurist, M. Dupin, who forcibly pointed out the absurdity of our distinction between written and spoken slander. In 1843 the House of Lords appointed a Committee, including Lords Campbell, Brougham, and other Law Lords, who recommended this alteration in the law affecting defamation of character. The public demanded early and full reports of the proceedings of all meetings of public interest, and it was impracticable for the Press, under the conditions of newspaper publication, to examine into the truth of the statements made at public meetings before they were published. Under existing circumstances, therefore, justice and convenience alike demanded that honest and correct reports of such proceedings should not subject the publishers to an action for defamation. He supported the second reading of the Bill.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he was sorry to interpose at this stage of the Bill, but hon. Members would see that it was quite impossible to take the sense of the House upon the Bill as it now stood for their consideration. It was one which involved a principle of very great importance, and he was sorry that the Bill had been brought on before Her Majesty's Government had had an opportunity of introducing a measure which they had in preparation, which would relieve the Press from the restrictions imposed in years gone by, and which were supposed in those times to be necessary. That measure, when it was laid upon the table, would be found to relieve the Press from every fetter, and to enable those who embarked in the publication of newspapers to carry on their occupation with the same freedom as in any other business. At the same time, while they gave the Press the most perfect freedom and permitted every one to establish a newspaper, it was necessary to consider most carefully whether, and in what way, they would, alter the laws that now protected the public, so that any abuse which might arise from that perfect freedom might be corrected. It was desirable before the House pronounced an opinion on the present measure that the Government measure to which he had referred should be considered. Journalists had been treated almost from the commencement as if they were criminals, and were com-

  1617
  pelled to give security for large sums to meet any actions for libel. When the proprietors and conductors of newspapers were relieved from these oppressive conditions of former years, it would be necessary to consider what should be the law for the protection of individuals. The House would not be doing right to express an opinion upon a measure of such gravity and importance in the absence of the Attorney General, who ought to state his views on the subject. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Dowse) said, that under the Bill public meetings would be harmless, because everyone would control himself and would not indulge in so much freedom of speech. It was very easy for the hon. Member who had given such ample proof of his established reputation for eloquence to say that; but, so far as his experience went, the majority of the Members of that House did not possess the power of control which the hon. and learned Gentleman enjoyed, and were not capable of manifesting it as he had done—
  And it being now a quarter before six,
  Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

POOR LAW SCOTLAND.

  SELECT COMMITTEE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [10th March], "That the Select Committee on Poor Law (Scotland) do consist of Nineteen Members."—(Mr. Craufurd.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Select Committee to consist of Twenty Members:—Mr. CRAUFURD, The LORD ADVOCATE, Sir ROBERT ANSTRUTHER, Mr. ANDERSON, Mr. ARMIT-STEAD, Mr. CAMERON, Sir THOMAS COLEBROOKE, Mr. ELLICE, Mr. CRUM-EWING, Mr. ORR-EWING, Mr. FORDYCE, Mr. HAMILTON, Mr. LOCH, Mr. MACKINTOSH, Mr. M'LAGAN, Mr. MILLER, Sir GRAHAM MONTGOMERY, Mr. PARKER, Sir DAVID WEDDERBURN, and Mr. ARTHUR PEEL:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

  TURNPIKE ACTS CONTINUANCE.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Schedules of the annual Turnpike Acts Continuance Act, 1868, and report their opinion thereon."—(Mr. Gathorne Hardy.)
  And, on April 2, Committee nominated as follows:—Lord GEORGE CAVENDISH, Mr. BEACH, Mr. WENTWORTH BEAUMONT, Mr. HENNIKER-MAJOR, Sir ROBERT ANSTRUTHER, Mr. WELBY, and Mr. HARDCASTLE:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Three to be the quorum.
  House adjourned at seven minutes before Six o'clock.