Commons Sitting of 30 May 1870

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Pawnbrokers, Mr. Crum Ewing and Mr. Orr Ewing added.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—NAVY ESTIMATES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution in Committee—Ordered—First Reading—Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 2) * [154].
Ordered—First Reading—Registration of Voters* [149]; Saint Olave, &c. Charities* [152]; Jewish United Synagogues* [151]; Factories and "Workshops* [150].
First Reading—Local Government Supplemental* [153]; Horse Racing* [155].
Second Reading—Customs and Inland Revenue [133]; Stamp Duties [135]; Gun Licences [134]; General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Supplemental * [147].
Report of Select Committee—Thames Navigation * [No. 261].
Committee—Report—Sale of Poisons (Ireland) * [140]; Metropolitan Board of Works (Loans) * [132]; Turnpike Trusts Arrangements*[129].
Report—Public Prosecutors * [45–148].
Third Reading—Irish Land [145]; Married Women's Property* [16], and passed.

PALACE OF WESTMINSTER—PLANS OF OF THE FLUES, &c—QUESTION.
CAPTAIN DAWSON-DAMERsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, If it is true that, in consequence of the want of plans of the flues, &c. of the Houses of Parliament, the persons in charge of the arrangements for the prevention of fire in the building do not hold themselves responsible for its safety; and, if so, whether he does not consider it requisite, in order to prevent the possibility of a recurrence of a disaster, to provide some plan to insure the preservation of the building?
MR. AYRTONin reply, said, it was undoubtedly true that the officers of the Board of Works were not in possession of the plans of the flues throughout that large building. No doubt that was a source of considerable inconvenience,
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though he could not go the length of saying that the persons in charge would not hold themselves responsible for its safety in case of the occurrence of fire in the building. The hon. Member must be aware that steps were being taken to get possession of the plans, and he trusted that, in some way or other, the officers of the Board of Works would obtain possession of the plans, so that the matter might be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

METROPOLIS—LEICESTER SQUARE.

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN DAWSON-DAMERsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, If it is true that the continued state of Leicester Square arises from a disputed ownership; and, if so, whether some steps could not be taken to ascertain who is liable for the present condition of that Square?
  MR. AYRTONsaid, in reply, that some years ago an Act was passed by which local authorities in the metropolis were entitled to take possession of any vacant space of which there did not appear to be an owner, and under that Act an attempt was made to get possession of Leicester Square; but then an owner appeared and claimed it as his property, and he sufficiently established his right to prevent any action being taken in the matter. Being private property, of course the owner might do whatever he pleased with it, however disreputable it might be in the eyes of those who passed by it. He knew of no mode by which the place might be made more sightly, except by putting in force some law for dispossessing the owner and appropriating it to some public purpose. There was a general Act to enable local authorities to take property for the purpose of widening or altering a street on certain conditions; but he was not aware of any Act enabling any local authority to deal with any square or place enclosed or partially enclosed, however badly. It would be necessary, he believed, to introduce a private Act for the purpose, by which in the ordinary way the owner would be compelled to sell the property for a public purpose. An Act of that kind, however, did not come under his Department, but should be introduced and promoted by local authorities.

THE MAGISTRACY OF LANCASHIRE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, before putting the Question of which he had given Notice, he would take the opportunity of thanking Lord Dufferin the Chancellor of the Duchy, for the kindness with which he had met him in regard to that matter. The Question he now would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury was, Whether such arrangements have now been made as will prevent for the future political appointments to the Magistracy in the county of Lancaster; and, if so, if he will be good enough to state the precise nature of such arrangements?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, it has been felt by the community in Lancashire, and likewise in this House, that the mode of appointing magistrates in the county of Lancaster recently introduced has not been satisfactory, without attaching any blame to any party or any person in particular; and it appears that the remedy is not a difficult one, because it consists simply of returning to the ancient practice, or to the wisdom of our ancestors. In former times the magistrates of the county of Lancaster were appointed, like all other county magistrates, on the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, only that the Chancellor of the Duchy discharged the same function on the part of the Crown as the Lord Chancellor discharges in the case of other counties. But it has now been arranged simply to return to that ancient practice—the Chancellor of the Duchy will now appoint on the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of the county. An official Minute was passed on the 1st of this month, with the approval of Her Majesty, by the Chancellor, directing that for the future that shall be the practice. I, therefore, hope this may be regarded as a permanent change, and I have no doubt it will be satisfactory in its operation.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MACFIEsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If negotiations are in progress or completed for International Copyright Arrangements with the United States of America; if he will state the general
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  tenour of these arrangements; and if Parliament will have an opportunity of considering them before they are confirmed in the form of a Treaty?
  MR. OTWAYsaid, in reply, that as negotiations were still pending on that subject between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States, it was impossible now to state what the tenour of the arrangements would be. The question was not unattended with difficulty, and his noble Friend the Secretary of State was very desirous of conferring with certain eminent authors and publishers on the subject. As to the last part of the hon. Gentleman's Question, he was informed that the General International Copyright Act might be put in operation by the Crown by Order in Council in favour of any country which conceded reciprocal advantages to this country. A Convention with the United States would be within the power given by that Act, and therefore would not necessitate further legislation on the subject.

WORKMEN'S INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.—QUESTION.
MR. T. HUGHESsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade, Whether he can hold out any hope of protection being extended to unpatented inventions of workmen which may be exhibited at the forthcoming Workmen's International Exhibition?
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, in reply, that it was the intention of the Government to introduce a measure for that purpose. In 1865, an Act was passed for that purpose; but it had been pointed out to him that that Act was, to say the least of it, ambiguous. He was told that some persons put this interpretation upon it—that if an inventor exhibited his invention any other person might obtain a patent in respect of that invention in fraud of, and behind the back of the inventor. Now, that never was the intention of the Legislature; and if the Act was open to that construction, certainly it was right that any misapprehension as to its meaning should be removed. He therefore proposed, on the part of the Government, to introduce a Bill, the effect of which would be to protect exhibitors, who were the true inventors, against any loss of the patent rights that would accrue to them from their publishing their inventions,

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and which, would not give any other person whatever the right to obtain a patent in respect to any invention so exhibited. He should state further that it was thought fair to workmen, who might exhibit in that exhibition, that protection should be given to them for six months from the date of the commencement of the exhibition. That being so, there would be no reason to apprehend any fraud or piracy. He had made an arrangement with the secretary of the exhibition that, if he would send to his, or to the Solicitor General's chambers a list of the inventions exhibited, care would be taken that exhibitors, who might have reason to think that persons applying for patents had any intention to pirate their inventions, should have due notice to enable them to oppose such applications for patents, as they were entitled to do by law. He trusted that a Bill, in the form he had described, would meet all the requirements that might be thought necessary.

COURT OF APPEAL IN CHANCERY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WINTERBOTHAMsaid, he wished to ask Mr. Attorney General, Whether his attention has been called to the state of the Court of Appeal in Chancery; and whether he is aware that there has been only one Lord Justice of Appeal since August last; that Causes can be heard on Appeal only by two Lords Justices sitting together, or by the Lord Chancellor; that the Lord Chancellor has sat on only eleven days, or fragments of days, since the 23rd of March, and has in that time heard only one Cause; that forty-seven Causes are already waiting to be heard on Appeal, and if he supposes that they will be heard before the long vacation, considering the present state of the Court of Appeal; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that there being only one Lord Justice, Causes on Appeal from the Vice Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster cannot be heard except by making the Chancellor of the Duchy, who is not a lawyer, one of the Judges of Appeal; if he is aware that dissatisfaction is felt at Causes being heard on Appeal by one Lord Justice sitting alone; whether the Government intend to appoint at once another Lord Justice in the place of the late Lord Justice Selwyn; and, by
  1598
  what prerogative the Crown abstains from filling up judicial posts created by statute?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, in answer to the first Question of his hon. and learned Friend, he had to say that of course he was aware of the fact stated in that Question. In respect of the statement that the Lord Chancellor had only sat 11 days, or fragments of days, since the 23rd of March, and in that time had only heard one cause, he had to observe that he had been informed that one cause was an exceptionally long one. He was aware that 47 causes were already waiting to be heard on appeal, but he believed they had been only entered four months ago—in February. He was informed by the Lord Chancellor that he intended to sit during the Whitsuntide Recess, and that his Lordship expected all the appeals would be cleared off before the long vacation. He (the Attorney General) admitted there was some difficulty with respect to appeals from the Duchy of Lancaster; but those appeals were very rare. There had been only one for a long time; and that of itself would hardly justify the appointment of another Judge if there were not other reasons for such an appointment. His hon. and learned Friend asked him whether he was aware that dissatisfaction was felt at causes being heard on appeal by one Lord Justice sitting alone. In reply, he had to say that he was not aware of such dissatisfaction. With regard to the inquiry, as to whether the Government intend to appoint at once another Lord Justice in the place of the late Lord Justice Selwyn, he need not remind the House that two Bills of a very important character were now pending in the House of Lords. If those Bills should pass, the office to which the question of his hon. and learned Friend related would be put an end to, or, at all events, considerably changed. Under those circumstances the Government would not feel justified in at once appointing another Lord Justice; but, in the event of such an appointment becoming necessary, it was not improbable that a short Bill would be introduced to enable the Government to make an appointment of the kind for a limited period. In reply to the last Question of his hon. and learned Friend, he had to reply that it did not require a

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  prerogative of the Crown to enable the Crown to dispense with the exercise of a prerogative.

IRISH LAND BILL.— [BILL 145.]
(Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. John Bright.)
IRISH LAND BILL.— [BILL 145.]

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY: Sir, I am not going to detain the House from coming to a conclusion on a business which has occupied it so long; but I think it necessary to say a few words on the Bill before it leaves this House. I believe the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government and his Friends will admit that from this side of the House there has been no opposition that could in any sense be called factious. We took Divisions only on points of primary importance, and I think it will not be denied that much of the delay to the progress of the Bill has proceeded from the right hon. Gentleman's own side of the House. Now, Sir, with regard to the Bill itself, I must first say that in my opinion it has been made better than it was when introduced by the right hon. Gentleman. The Bill, however, still contains principles to which I strongly object, and which, I trust, will be amended elsewhere. Certain points of the measure are of such importance, that I hope the House will permit me briefly to advert to them. The first point in the Bill, with regard to which I have never felt any doubt or objection, is that which proposes to render legal the Ulster tenant-right. I, however, take exception to that which has been added to the Bill since its introduction into this House—namely, that in the case where the tenant has agreed with his landlord as to a certain mode of dealing on a change of tenancy, an option should be given him to elect whether he will place himself under the Ulster tenant-right or under the 3rd clause of the Bill. The Bill gives him power to throw aside that which you yourselves have given him, and to resort to another method of recovering compensation than that which has been marked out under the previous part of the Bill. That, in my opinion, is an unnecessary provision to introduce, making the Bill even more exceptionable than it was before. Passing over the 2nd clause, which is practically the
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  same as the first, I come to the 3rd clause. Looking at that clause as laying down the principle that there shall be damages given for the removal of a tenant from is holding, I think it is objectionable in principle. But I cannot conceal from myself that Irish gentlemen have, as a rule, acted towards their tenants upon a liberal and generous system. When their tenants have been disturbed in their holdings the landlords in many parts of Ireland have given liberally—I believe, in some cases, even more liberally than is provided for by the scale under the Bill; not exactly as a compensation, but as a charitable act towards their tenants, who have thus been enabled to settle in other parts of the country or to emigrate at their option. It seems to me, however, an unreasonable thing that that which has been done voluntarily and very generally should become compulsory upon every landlord in Ireland, and this under conditions which do not allow the parties to exempt themselves from its operation under any circumstances. By the law as laid down in this Bill, tenants of holdings under a £50 rental are precluded from entering into any relations with their landlords other than those provided for by the Bill. And it is a remarkable thing that the Bill having originally laid down that non-payment of rent should disentitle the tenant to compensation, it now declares that, under special circumstances, the matter shall be considered by the Court—that is to say, that non-payment of rent shall no longer be regarded as a sufficient ground for removal of the tenant from his holding, and this although under the wording of the Bill the rent may be already two years in arrear. It is a curious thing that when the Government made such a point of the inability of the tenants to contract with their landlords, that then, in the later stages of the Bill and just before it left the House, a clause should have been inserted in it which proves that the Government feel that the tenants are in a position to contract with their landlords upon the very important subject of the right of distraint. If the tenant is not in a position to contract with his landlord upon other matters connected with his holding, I do not see how he can be in a better position to contract with respect to the very difficult question of the landlard's power to distrain for ar-

  1601
  rears of rent. I pass from that point to the question of improvements, and although the Bill with reference to this part of the subject has been very much modified and amended, still I object to it, inasmuch as it throws retrospectively the onus of showing that he made improvements upon the landlord. In my opinion it is the tenant who makes the claim who should be required to adduce the affirmative proof necessary to support that claim. Of course, there can be no objection to the Bill laying down the course by which persons are to be guided in future; but, as far as its retrospective effect is concerned, I think such a provision is most objectionable. There is another point to which I have already called the attention of the House, which, is this—No doubt, it is only reasonable that a tenant should have power to assign his tenancy, but does it not seem an unreasonable provision that, supposing that the tenant is about to be ejected for good cause, he should have power, at the last moment, to assign his tenancy to an incoming tenant against whom the landlord has no reasonable cause of complaint, and who, therefore would be entitled to full compensation under the 3rd clause of the Bill? It is clear that the Bill has not provided that no transfer shall be allowed to take place after notice to quit has been given. When the Bill was first brought forward I called attention to the litigation that was likely to ensue under its provisions, and I hope that the Government will, when the Bill is in "another place," endeavour to see whether unnecessary litigation may not be prevented. The tenant, on quitting his holding, will undoubtedly send in the highest possible claim for compensation, acting on the assumption that weak arbitrators frequently think to meet the justice of the case by splitting the difference between the amounts named by the two parties. Under Clause 14, the moment a single item of the tenant's claim is disputed, a dispute is declared to have arisen, and the Court, or arbitrator, alone has power to settle the matter, and no contract can be entered into between the landlord and the tenant whereby the claim of the latter can be invalidated. It is almost impossible to escape from expensive litigation under the Bill as it now stands. I would, therefore, ask the Government whether they may not deem
  1602
  it advisable to consider whether it is not very important that greater freedom of contract should be allowed—at all events between the period when the notice to quit is given and the time when the tenant leaves the holding? It is impossible that the tenant, who in negotiating would have the 3rd clause at his back, could suffer any disadvantage in entering into a contract with the view of avoiding future litigation. Then, under, the 23rd section, the limited owner appears to have greater power given him to agree with his tenant as to the amount of compensation than the owner in fee is to have. [Mr. GLADSTONE made a gesture of dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite shakes his head; but I am not alone in the opinion I have formed upon that point. At all events, if the Act is doubtful upon the question it ought to be rendered more clear. I have already expressed my opinion upon the part of the Bill which relates to the purchase of the holdings by the tenants, which I regard as being highly objectionable; but, the House having approved that principle by a large majority, I do not intend to trouble it with any further observations in respect to it. Finding the Bill still very objectionable, I have to ask myself whether the objects that are to be gained by it are of such great importance as to render it unadvisable to offer further opposition to it. If I believed that the Bill would have the good effect predicted by the right hon. Gentleman and others, even perhaps in a more remote future than they refer to, I should be prepared to overlook many of the objectionable provisions that it contains, and to give up even a great deal more than has been given up on this side. I, however, never can believe that when you do injustice to one party for the sake of benefiting another you are acting upon principles that will bring about a permanent peace. On the contrary, although by adopting such a course you may, as by indiscriminate almsgiving, satisfy your conscience for the moment, and apparently be acting with generosity, you are really doing a great deal of harm. I believe this Bill will, instead of satisfying the people of Ireland, rather encourage them to ask for more, and that, therefore, you will fail to attain your object of restoring peace and harmony to Ireland, which you can only secure by meting out equal justice to all. Am I, then, prepared on

  1603
  these accounts to oppose the third reading of this Bill? No, I am not, because I should be extremely sorry that there should not be legislation upon the subject this Session, and because the Bill is now going to a House in which it will be discussed by those who themselves are deeply interested in the property of Ireland; and I hope it will there receive that fair consideration, and amendment which, without making it unacceptable to this House, will improve it for the benefit of the whole of Ireland. It is with that hope and that expectation I refrain from being a party to opposing the Bill at this stage; and, although I have a strong feeling that many of its provisions are unwise, it is my ardent prayer that it may confer those benefits which the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government hopes it may.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, he would not have interposed at this stage of the Bill but for the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, which he thought were of enormous importance as regarded the future of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman did not intend to oppose the third reading; but he suggested an amount of opposition which might be fatal to the measure, and create a most deplorable state of things throughout the country. He (Mr. Maguire) hoped the Bill was about to leave the House finally, and that discussion upon it was at an end; and, in the hope that this would really be the case, he asked the House to consider why the Bill had become necessary, and how far it was likely to fulfil the object for which it was designed. For nearly 50 years past the grave and active mischief in Ireland was insecurity of tenure, despite the existence of good landlords, whose word was as good as their bond. This abiding sense of insecurity, coupled with a system of agriculture more backward than that of any other country, had caused thousands, and even millions to emigrate, and had fostered a feeling among the people that they were the victims of British law and British tyranny, and, as many of them conceived, of British hate. A Roman Catholic Bishop, of great moderation, who would hail this Bill with satisfaction, and had given wise advice to the people, had testified to him of the feeling of bitterness with which Irish emigrants left their native land, and, on the authority of a friend in the United States, he was
  1604
  assured that this feeling of hostility to England continued. He believed it would require many years of liberal and kind treatment of Ireland to eradicate that feeling from the Irish heart, and when that was done, and not until then, would they see the end of the Irish difficulty. The popular demand for fixity of tenure meant nothing more than what was at present the custom on many estates, but Parliament declined to grant that. Still, he believed, that, when properly understood, the Bill ought to satisfy the wants of the Irish people. It was not as much as he would ask for them, or endeavour to get; but it was impossible for any Government to pass a Bill more advanced than that the House was sending to the Lords. The right hon. Gentleman was right in saying the measure had not been factiously opposed from his side of the House; but it had been seriously opposed, and the opposition now foreshadowed was the most serious of all. He (Mr. Maguire) promised to urge his constituents to accept the Bill as it stood; but if it were cut down, mutilated, and deprived of its protecting properties the consequences would be melancholy and disastrous. If the other House obliged the rejection of the measure as unfit for the emergency, a fierce and violent agitation would be the result, to end no one knew how. Neither he nor many of his friends would join such an agitation; but there were men of a certain class in Ireland who would scoff at the people as dupes for having faith in the English Parliament and in English justice; a deep feeling of dissatisfaction would be raised and assume an active state, justified by the hopes Parliament had raised only to dash them to the ground. Ireland wanted repose, and there would be sufficient occupation for active politicians for some time to come in explaining the provisions of this Bill to those who did not understand it—in opposition to those who would not, and those who would prefer to misrepresent it—without having to oppose professional agitators. He did not believe the Bill would give rise to angry litigation, but litigation must, of course, result if persons could not agree; and what the Bill did was to lay down a good broad agrarian law to guide the Judges in their decisions. He could not think that the effect of the Bill would be to increase emigration.

  1605
  On the contrary, he believed that if the occupier had a hope of security he would look forward to passing his life in his native land. The Bill would not interfere with the good landlords; it would only compel the bad ones to act more justly towards their tenants. The right hon. Gentleman urged that, because the Bill contained a clause empowering the landlord and tenant to come to an agreement between themselves as to the question of distress, therefore there ought to be no interference with any contract between them. For his own part he should like to see the law of distress abolished; but he did not think that the clause referred to was worth the paper it was written on. Indeed, the proposal was uncommonly like a mockery. To the question whether the Bill would be accepted by the people of Ireland, his reply was that if carried in its present state it would, he believed, produce a beneficial effect, and he must testify to the earnest desire of English and Scotch Members around him to make the measure work for the good of Ireland, Provided the Bill passed in its present form, he would do all he could to reconcile his countrymen to their disappointment at not having obtained all they desired. This question could not be re-opened for years to come, and it therefore became the duty of every Irishman, who loved his country, and who desired to promote peace and order, without which there could be no progress, to render the measure as acceptable as possible to his countrymen.
  SIR FREDERICK W. HEYGATEsaid, he thought the hon. Member had better have waited till the Bill came back from "another place" before making the remarks with which he had favoured the House as to the reception it was likely to meet with there. The hon. Member had paid a compliment which was fairly deserved by Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side of the House when he stated that, although landowners themselves, they had endeavoured to consider the Government proposals with fairness and impartiality, and without selfishness. When the Bill went to "another place," it would, he felt assured, receive from the distinguished individuls who formed that House the same consideration it had received in the House of Commons. No tenants in any part of the world had ever been so favoured as the Irish farmers would be by this Bill; but although the
  1606
  measure contained many provisions the policy of which was more than doubtful, still, on the whole, the question had become an Imperial one, and it was necessary for the Government to see how it could be dealt with. As these provisions had given rise to hopeful expectations in Ireland he was unwilling to throw any obstacles in the way of their passing. The English and Scotch Members generally, he believed, had been actuated by the same feeling. He particularly wished, however, to recall to the remembrance of the House the fact that the charges brought against the landlords as to the number of evictions and the harsh treatment of tenants had not been substantiated. The boon conferred on Irish tenants by this Bill was enormous. No one could indeed look carefully through the Bill without being struck with the circumstance that all the benefits were on one side. Almost every presumption in favour of the owners of property had been reversed. Having always felt, however, that a half measure would do more harm than good, he trusted to the good feeling of the Government to introduce certain alterations into the Bill; but he regretted to say that of all the proposals made on that side of the House not one of the smallest importance had been accepted. While we were holding out such large promises to Ireland, the wanton disturbances now going on in Canada formed a commentary on much that had been said respecting the causes of Irish disaffection. It was, of course, ridiculous to suppose that Fenianism could be cured by any legislation of this kind; but he trusted the Government would strictly and firmly administer the law of the land and not encourage the idea which had been prevalent in Ireland for many years past, that every misfortune of the country was to be cured by legislation. Everyone ought to share in the sentiment of the Member for Cork (Mr. Maguire) that there should be no more legislation for Ireland, but that peace should be established in the country. As to the Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray), who had devoted some years to attacking the Irish Church and the owners of land, he hoped the hon. Gentleman, following the advice of a noble Earl (Earl Russell), in "another place" in reference to another matter, would now "rest and be thankful." Let any Englishman put

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  himself in the position of an Irish landlord. How would he like to see the Church of his country disestablished and disendowed, and to be told that it was the duty of the landowners to display their liberality by re-endowing the Church? What had occurred in the last two years was enough to make every good man despair. He earnestly hoped, however that Ireland would no longer be made the battle-field of party or a practising ground for Government to make their legislative experiments upon. As to the landlords, though they might be placed in a somewhat unfair position, he felt assured they would do their best, and the increased prosperity of the country would be an adequate return for any sacrifices they might make; while, he trusted, the tenants would show themselves worthy of the boon conferred on them by the Bill, by becoming industrious and prudent. As to the labourers what had been done done for them? Nothing. He could only say, as someone else had said in that House—"God help the labourers." A day he hoped would come when something would be done for them also. As to the Bill tending to put a stop to emigration, all he could say was that of all the absurd modes which could be devised for that purpose, none could be more absurd than the subdivision of land into minute plots, at a time when the price of provisions was constantly rising, and when it could not be expected that men would rest contented with a wretched pittance. It would be found that so long as the temptation of high wages and constant employment existed on the other side of the Atlantic, and so long as no adequate means of livelihood were to be derived from the pursuit of trade or commerce, men would not be satisfied with the subsistence to be drawn from a few miserable acres of land at home; and that no legislation, however just, would stop that stream of emigration from the shores of Ireland which was sapping the lifeblood of the Empire.
  MR. BRYANsaid, he did not rise to oppose the third reading of the Bill. A Motion of this kind would, he thought, come better from those Irish Members who had voted against his Amendment on the second reading, and who then stated that unless the Bill were so modified in Committee as to meet their views they would not assent to its passing its final stage. In the absence of any op-
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  position, however, on their part on the present occasion, he must, he supposed, take it for granted that in their opinion the Bill met all the requirements of Ireland. In that view he, however, could not concur with them; for he did not think the Bill had been much improved in Committee, and he could not allow the third reading to pass without expressing his great regret that Her Majesty's Government had not thought it their duty to introduce a clause for the amelioration of the condition of the agricultural labourer in Ireland—a class in whose behalf legislation was for some time imperatively demanded. It had been, he might add, stated by more than one Member of the Government that the Bill was growing in favour in Ireland from day to day. Such, however, was not the nature of the information which reached him from that country. But, upon that point, he would merely observe that, believing it be honestly meant, no one could rejoice more than himself if it were, in practice, found to be a panacea for the discontent of the tenant; and should that happy consummation be the result of its enactment, no one would acknowledge his error with greater humility.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, the point—the advanced point, happily—which we have reached in the progress of this Bill is one of great importance, and it is desirable to take some notice of the position in which we stand. I cannot be at all surprised, therefore—nor do I make any complaint—that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) should have made use of this opportunity to state the objections which he feels to the measure; and to state, further, the hopes which he entertains that those objections may be removed by alterations made in "another place." There was, indeed, a phrase he used which was most ominous in its character; but I do not think it ought, from the subsequent tenour of his speech, to have a very literal construction placed on it. I allude to the sentence in which he declared that there were principles in the Bill which he thought ought, in some degree, to be amended. Now, it is not for me to seek to limit the discretion of the right hon. Gentleman. He has a perfect right to desire that amendments or alterations should be made in any way in which they can be legitimately

  1609
  introduced in the principles of the Bill. It is, however, impossible for the Government to hear the expression of his opinion upon that point without feeling that any alteration in those principles, in the sense which he has indicated, would deprive the measure of all its force and value. But with respect to the particular points mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think it necessary that I should go over them all in detail. In one or two instances, I think it is plain his objections may be removed by a mere statement; or, if they be well founded, we should offer no objection to removing them in any other manner. He says, for example, that there will be much unnecessary litigation under the Bill, because after a dispute has arisen the parties will have no power to retire from it. Now, that is entirely contrary to our opinion. There is nothing whatsoever, it seems to us, independently of the power of arbitration and the proceedings of the Court, to prevent the parties from coming to an agreement and dropping the prosecution of their dispute at the very outset. Who, I am at a loss to know, will there be to prosecute? If both parties retire, our belief is that any arrangement made between them, after they have entered into the dispute, will be as effectual as if they had entered into an agreement without any dispute whatever. As to any changes in that clause in the Bill which provides that non-payment of rent under special circumstances should not be a bar to a claim for disturbance, the right hon. Gentleman cannot, I am sure, forget that it is entirely limited to tenancies already in existence. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that it was inconsistent in my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) to have introduced a clause into the Bill permitting a tenant hereafter to contract in regard to the process of recovering rent by means of distress when the general operation of the Bill was to destroy freedom of contract. I think the right hon. Gentleman has erroneously stated the principle of the Bill. Its principle, as a rule, is to leave freedom of contract, and it is only with respect to particular matters in the 3rd clause that it is interfered with. By any contract made by any tenant, from the day the Bill receives the Royal Assent, to pay any rent whatsoever reasonable or un-
  1610
  reasonable, he will be absolutely bound, and he will not be able to escape from the obligation. I was not, I may add, surprised at the declarations of the right hon. Gentleman; but I own I was somewhat surprised that the hon. Baronet the Member for Londonderry (Sir Frederick W. Heygate) should have found fault with my hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Maguire) for saying that he hoped the Bill would not be altered in "another place" in a sense opposed to his views, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford had just expressed a hope that it would be altered in accordance with his views, and that the hon. Baronet himself went on to exhibit his sense of the value of the complaint which he made regarding my hon. Friend the Member for Cork by imitating the example of the right hon. Gentleman near him. Surely, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. But, leaving matters of detail, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford has stated his general view of this measure, there are two or three propositions to which I would wish to call his attention. I will not ask him to re-call his charge—which has been echoed by the hon. Baronet the Member for Londonderry—that this is a one-sided Bill against the landlord and in favour of the tenant; but I will just point out this fact, that for generations and centuries legislation has been almost entirely in favour of the landlord. What has been the result? What is the position of the landlord in regard to security of life, security of property, and in regard to the price which his estate will fetch in the market? And when we find the result has been what it is, of the adoption of the too one-sided policy pursued by Parliament in former generations, will not the right hon. Gentleman bring himself to admit that legislation in favour of the tenant for the purpose of giving him security in the prosecution of his industry may turn out to be the best and surest method of legislating for the interest of the landlord? But that is a disputed matter, and I cannot ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to agree in our views as to the operation of the Bill in that particular, however strong may be the conviction on the point which we ourselves entertain. I wish, however, to state that in framing this measure we

  1611
  deliberately and advisedly declined to meet the popular demands in Ireland. There can be no question at all as to what those demands were. There were demands widely spread that the Ulster custom should be recognized as the universal land law of Ireland. To that demand we declined to accede, and we have refused to admit into the Bill the recognition of any custom out of Ulster as the Ulster custom, unless we found it to possess in the most stringent way all the characteristics of that custom. Another demand which went though the whole of Ireland was one for the valuation of rents and for fixity of tenure, and there are those who say that valuation of rents is involved in the Bill as it stands. Now, that is true where the Ulster custom prevails up to a certain point; but that case does not stand on the ground of conventional legislation, but on the recognition of rights already in existence. I contend that the principle of the 3rd clause, establishing damages for eviction, is entirely different from the principle of the valuation of rents. It places a burden, I admit, on the landlord who evicts without a cause; but that burden is limited and cannot go beyond a certain point. A valuation of rents would fix the absolute amount of rent that should be paid; the amount under the Bill is left wholly free, and the fine or burden that may be levied on the landlord is confined within the limit of a certain maximum. It is, notwithstanding, well known in Ireland, and the speech of the hon. Member for Kilkenny county (Sir John Gray) is a sufficient proof of it—that we declined to found our Bill on the principle of the valuation of rents. We, therefore, advisedly declined to accede to those popular demands. We have declined to accede to them, and having brought in a Bill founded upon a distinct and much more limited basis, we have presented it to the House after an amount of labour on our own part such as in the course of a long political life I have never known bestowed on the preparation of a Bill; and I must add, entirely agreeing in the main upon this point with the right hon. Gentleman, that the House of Commons, which has spent 22 or 23 nights in the discussion of the Bill, has bestowed on it an amount of care, attention, and time for which there are but few precedents; but this, so far from being matter of
  1612
  reproach, was amply warranted and even demanded by the gravity, magnitude, and intricacy of the case, and we are thankful to the House for the assistance we have received. The hon. Baronet opposite says that no Amendment of importance has been received from that side of the House. But when an Amendment was proposed we have not asked ourselves from which side it came; at all events, this is a statement which the hon. Baronet will not question—that many Amendments have been made in the Bill tending to render it more acceptable or less unacceptable to him and those who think with him. I would also ask the House to consider whether we have not framed a measure of which we can fairly allege that when it comes into operation it will do so without shock to any interest in Ireland. I know of nothing that it would be incumbent upon any man, be he landlord or tenant, to do under the clauses of this Bill—I mean in the way of exercising legal powers—after it becomes law. What I hope will be is this—that the tenant will prosecute his industry with a greater sense of confidence; that the landlord will find the benefit of that increased industry in the augmented value of his property, and that the labourer, for whom it seems to be supposed that we ought to have invented some nostrum, will receive some advantage in the only important way in which it is possible for Parliament to confer it—in the greater demand for what he has to sell, the strength that lies in the muscles of his arm. That gentle mode of operation which we have tried to secure is, I believe, likely to characterize the action of this Bill when it becomes law, and to it I trust the words of Dryden on another subject may be applicable—
  "The flood of mercy that o'erflowed our isle, Calm in the rise, and fruitful as the Nile."
  It is by that imperceptible action on the community of Ireland that we hope this Bill, when it becomes law, will be characterized, and not by sudden and violent change, least of all by producing any results which might tend to aggravate animosity or to create mistrust between class and class. I am glad to record that from the great body of those who opposed us on the second reading, the representatives of popular sentiments and principles in Ireland, without any compromise of their liberty, after many

  1613
  attempts made in the spirit of perfect fairness for more extended legislation, we have received the most valuable support. They have been content to accept a measure which many of them think less, much less, than they would have been entitled in absolute justice to demand; and not only have they been content to act in that way in this House, but they have energetically used all the influence they possess in Ireland to propagate among the people the sentiments by which they themselves are animated. We have every reason, therefore, to hope that those in whom the mass of the Irish occupiers have been accustomed to repose their confidence, whether persons sitting in this House or others—in short, all classes resident in Ireland—will give to the State their best assistance in carrying this Bill, should it become law, into happy operation, and in making it the means of restoring that confidence in the law, and the public authority, the want of which is the greatest of all Irish difficulties and at the bottom of all Irish mischiefs. I am bound to say that the moderation of spirit which has generally characterized the conduct of Irish Members on this side of the House—and justice requires me to say the same of a large number of Irish Members on the other side also—has imposed upon us the higher obligation to be faithful to those who have been faithful to the public interests, and, having striven in every way to frame the matter of this Bill, not in the interests of one party, but in a large and equitable spirit, to use our best efforts to maintain it in its integrity and efficiency. And I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, surveying in one single glance, and with rapidity, the Amendments to which he has adverted, and considering the gravity of the motives which render it necessary for the public interest that this Bill should pass into law, is it worth while, for the sake of points like those he has raised—even if we could accede more than we can to the view that he takes, to risk the miscarriage of this great undertaking? For it is a great undertaking, upon which the Imperial Parliament has thought it worth while—nay, has thought it its duty and honour—to spend more than half a Session, and great will be the responsibility of those who should prevent the work from attaining the desired consummation. Now,
  1614
  Sir, what are the sentiments which seem to predominate in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman, so far as he is an objecting party to the provisions of this Bill? It is that they import some injustice to the Irish landlord. But I put to the right hon. Gentleman this question, and I found myself on the conduct of the Irish landlords in this House for the opinion I entertain—Suppose we could gather the Irish landlords in a mass, and obtain from them, honestly, their judgment whether they would prefer the Bill, on the one hand, as it stands, or, on the other, the state and prospects of Ireland were the Bill to be rejected or to be mutilated in a manner to ensure its rejection, and we were to put to these Irish landlords, categorically, the question—"Will you take it as it is, or will you have it lost?" I may be wrong; but my firm conviction is, that the cry of these landlords would be—"Let the Bill pass into law!" There is no doubt that the settlement of questions of this kind should be governed by a studious moderation; that is essential in order to make it tolerable to a country which is distinguished for its attachment to the stability of property as much as its attachment to the principles of law and order. It is therefore, I think, that my hon. Friends who represent the popular party in Ireland have so often, even with cheerfulness, acquiesced in our declining to accede to what we felt to be extreme demands—demands which they knew the people of Great Britain would never have agreed to. Excesses we have endeavoured to avoid; but it would be idle—it would be conferring no benefit upon anyone—it would be fatal to our own character—it would be injurious to the reputation of Parliament, it would be hostile to the interests of the Irish landlord—were we to attempt to induce Parliament to pass an ineffectual measure. Of course, we may have erred in our attempts to realize that just moderation of view which lies between violence, on the one hand, and feebleness on the other; but we have not erred from want of upright intention or of studied labour. The aid we have received from the House, bestowed with such unexampled care and patience, and with so much intelligence, knowledge, and ability, has, I confidently think—setting aside those minor touches

  1615
  which in every work of art, law, or industry, may always be applied with advantage to bring such works to perfection—brought this measure to a state in which, if it be allowed to take its place in the statute book, it will redound to the honour of Parliament and the benefit and security of the Empire.
  CAPTAIN ARCHDALLsaid, the object of some hon. Members below the Gangway might be described as confiscation pure and simple. Allusion had been made to the overwhelming majorities by which the different clauses of the Bill were carried. But how had these majorities been obtained? Were they obtained from the convictions of hon. Gentlemen that they were voting for what was just or expedient, or were not the clauses carried rather by the force and power of a tyrant and unreasonable majority? He was supported in that view by the leading organ of the Press, which said that English Members in supporting the Government during the progress of the Bill had abnegated their own opinions on every important occasion. The Government found the Province of Ulster peaceable, prosperous, and contented. The relations between landlord and tenant rested there on a sound and healthy basis, and the tenant-right of that district was not the cause but the result and sign of the existence of those happy relations. The Government, by legalizing the Ulster right, had taken a strong step towards destroying that happy state of things to which he had alluded, and which had existed for centuries in that part of Ireland. They had destroyed the rights of property and substituted litigation for peace and contentment. He regarded the measure as unstatesmanlike in its conception, and as likely to act most detrimentally and mischievously upon the welfare of Ireland. No one could more fully acknowledge than he the necessity for some legislation which should give to the tenant security for his improvements—but he must enter his protest against this Bill; and so monstrous and unjust did he think it that he should place his protest on record by dividing the House against the third reading.
  SIR JOHN GRAYdid not intend to trespass at any length on the indulgence of the House; but he could not remain silent after the allusion made to
  1616
  the course he pursued in reference to the Irish Church and Irish land questions by the hon. Baronet the Member for Londonderry. He accepted all the responsibility of the Church agitation and of the land agitation; and he would confidently ask, would the Irish Church be now disestablished and disendowed if that agitation had not been earnestly pursued, or would even the incomplete Land Bill be before them in its present form if public attention had not been awakened on the subject of the tenants' wrongs? When he began the agitation of the Church question in that House, four years ago, the present Ministers were in Office, and all he could get from them, in 1866, was a cold "God speed." In 1867 he got some aid, but not the votes of the Leaders, and the Liberal party was beaten only by 12 in a large House; but, before two years from the date of that Division, religious ascendancy was put an end to by the complete measure introduced by the Prime Minister. The result he was proud to point to now, though he was abundantly sneered at when he first began that agitation. He (Sir John Gray) had hoped the Minister who had given them a complete and final measure on the Church question, would have settled the land question in the same complete and final manner. In this he was disappointed; for, though hon. Members on the other side talked of the Bill as a great concession and a great boon, he would ask what was it but a tardy act of justice? They no doubt, with all the old feudal ideas still fresh in their minds, thought they had made great concessions in allowing the tenant to enjoy the fruit of his own industry. Thanks to the agitation which men were ready to decry in order that the country "might have repose"—and perhaps other "repose" than that of the country was also thought of—the agitation produced the conviction that the tenantry of Ireland would no longer submit to be deprived of the fruits of their industry; and to give them their property was no boon, but a simple act of restitution. The Irish tenantry did not desire to interfere with the landlord's just rights in his property. They asked for no penalties against landlords; for, acting in accordance with law, what they did ask was that the notice to quit, except for statutory causes, should end for ever,

  1617
  and that so long as the tenant paid his rent and performed all his duties, capricious eviction should be rendered impossible by law instead of being recognized, and the landlord fined for doing that which was legal. This Bill, while fully recognizing principles to which he would not then advert, fell immeasurably short of what it ought to be; but he was, nevertheless, thankful that the Committee had amended the measure so far, and he hoped the House would persevere until they passed a measure of complete justice, and one which should be a full and successful settlement of the land question. This Bill was not such a settlement—it was not, and would not be, accepted by the Irish people as a full settlement. Some hon. Members assured the House that the Bill was looked on with great favour in Ireland by the tenantry, and accepted as a final settlement. He would be the last to detract from the really useful parts of the Bill, to discredit the advantages it would confer, or deny to its authors the full meed of praise for what they had done; but he saw no indication that the Irish tenantry accepted the Bill as a settlement. The Petitions presented in favour of a measure formed the true test of the popular feeling with regard to it. He would apply that test to this measure. When the Minister introduced his Irish Church propositions in 1868 nearly 2,500 Petitions were presented from Ireland, signed by more than 500,000 people. How many Petitions were sent from Ireland in favour of the Land Bill? Not one. The 22nd Report of the Petitions Committee stated that two Petitions had been presented to the House in favour of the Bill, though it was three months before the country, and neither of these came from Ireland—one being a Petition from Scotland, signed by one person; and the other a Petition from Newcastle, also signed by one person. ["Divide."] These might be bitter truths, and disagreeable to have uttered; but it was better for hon. Members to know the truth, and recognize the fact that, whatever the benefits conferred, the Bill was not accepted in Ireland, and would not be accepted as a settlement. The Bill did not deal out the same measure of benefit to all the tenantry; and equality of treatment was the first essential of a settlement of a question by
  1618
  which all are equally affected. When the Prime Minister introduced this Bill he repudiated the doctrine of fixity of tenure as something so monstrous that no man having regard to the rights of landed proprietors could even consider it, and he promised instead "stability of tenure." But what did the Bill do as modified by the Amendments made in Committee? It actually gave perpetuity of tenure to more than two-fifths of the of the present tenants-at-will in Ireland, and this statement, and these words, "perpetuity of tenure," or rather "perpetual leases," were taken from the Report of the Landlord's Committee, of which many hon. Gentlemen opposite were members, as the true description of the condition in which more than 200,000 tenants would now be under the 1st and 2nd clauses of the Bill, as the consequence of important alterations made. As the Bill was first framed these 200,000 tenants, who have Ulster custom in either North or South, would only be compensated after being evicted like other tenants; but as the altered Bill stands they will have fixed or perpetual tenure, and, as has been admitted to-night by the Premier, valuation rents. ["Divide!"] He would wish to say in the House what he would say outside the House, as to the reason why he I did not, and why the people of Ireland I would not, accept this unequal Bill as a final settlement. When the Bill was read a second time he objected to it, because the tenant-right of Ulster was not secured, and that of the South would be abolished by the Bill as it then stood, and the result would be consolidation of farms. He objected to it now, because, though the clauses which dealt with the custom of continuous occupancy at fair rents were so altered after the exposure of them, that 200,000 tenants obtained perpetuity and valuation of rents, the remnant were still subject to capricious eviction, and had neither stability nor fixity, and because the smaller of these tenants would be liable to be consolidated out of their farms, and converted into that class of labourers whose misery was so well described in the official Reports. He would not be unjust to the Bill or to its authors. It was a Bill most humane and most effective for its purpose of putting an end to the cruelties that heretofore attended on evictions in Ireland, and the details of which so

  1619
  often harrowed the feelings of that House. These cruelties could never again be repeated, and for that he thanked the Government. No father, with his wife and little ones, could again be cast wantonly into the ditch-side to die in the presence of his ruined cottage; he must at least be provided with means to emigrate, or to obtain shelter and food; and for putting an end for ever to all the torturing cruelties of the eviction process he could find no words too strong to express his approbation. The 200,000 tenants secured perpetuity and valued rents had all they could justly ask—all that he ever asked for the Irish tenant—and his discontent and dissatisfaction were, that the same benefits were not extended to all the Irish tenants. He said, in his speech on the second reading, that he feared the Bill would lead to the consolidation of small farms. As regards the farms held by those excluded from perpetual leases and valued rents, he was of the same opinion still; and he would, with the indulgence of the House, proceed to show that others—many of them persons who did not think as he did, were of the same opinion. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Saunderson), recently in discussing his (Sir J. Gray's) proposal to permit other landlords to do for their tenants what the Bill did for 200,000 of the tenants-at-will, referred to the great number of holdings under 15 acres in Ireland, and asked whether it would be well for that country that such a state of things should remain for all time. He asked would any friend of Ireland stereotype the 15-acre farmer, and in continuation, said that if the Member for Cork City (Mr. Maguire) were in his seat he would ask him whether a farm of 15 acres was a desirable holding, and whether, if they acceded to his (Sir John Gray's) proposition, there was any hope in our time of seeing any alteration in the condition of Ireland. That speech of the hon. Member for Cavan, which in terms declared that the 15-acre farms must be consolidated if there was to be any hope for Ireland under the improved legislation, was applauded in a marked manner by the occupants of the Treasury Bench; and after it was concluded the greatest authority in the House passed on it a most glowing eulogium, which he confessed increased his (Sir John Gray's) conviction as to the ten-
  1620
  dency of the Bill. But, high as was the authority of the hon. Member for Cavan, a still greater authority on the policy and effect of the Bill—and an authority which Government conld not repudiate—had interpreted the Bill in the same way, and in much more forcible language, in commenting on the speech of the Member for Cavan. The language was so remarkable that he would quote it verbatim. This eminent authority thus wrote on the morning after the debate he referred to—
  "As Mr. Saunderson pointed out, the plan would likewise have done enormous harm by tending to perpetuate those small holdings, under 15 or 20 acres, on which it is impossible for a family to live save in a state of squalor and starvation. He is the worst enemy of Ireland who would lift a finger to prevent such miserable holdings from being merged in larger farms. The process of extinction must, of course, be made gradual, in order to prevent the hardship which would come from a sudden change; but the doom of the 15-acre farmer is written, and any attempt to put off the day of destruction—as Sir John Gray's clause would have tried to do—is utterly mischievous."
  These were the words of, and this the interpretation given to the Bill by the admittedly powerful morning organ of the Government. If words have meaning, these words declare that to tolerate holdings of 15 and 20 acres would destroy the policy of the Bill, and that the effort to do so by some of the Irish Members was "utterly mischievous." The men who would prolong the existence of the 20-acre farmer are described as the worst enemies of Ireland and of the measure of the Government. They were thus semi-officially informed that the doom of the 15-acre men is "written." Written where? Written in the Bill the writer was discussing; and it is added that the "extinction" and "destruction" of that class of farmers, the 15 and 20-acre tenants, is to be effected painlessly, but with irresistible certainty. Others, then, and those who are supposed to know the mind of the Cabinet, believe that this Bill will prove to be a Bill that will extinguish the 20-acre farmers during the present generation. He (Sir John Gray) did not impute that intention to the Premier, whose humane sentiments and feelings he knew never contemplated such a result. But the provisions of the Bill caused him (Sir John Gray) and the authorities he quoted to conclude that, whatever the intent, this would be the

  1621
  result. He would be doing a wrong to his own convictions if he said he believed the Government meant it to be so; but he would be equally doing a wrong to his judgment if he did not frankly recognize the conclusiveness of the argument of the leading journal of the Treasury Bench, who objected to permissive tenant-right because it would tend to stop the "extinction" and "destruction" by consolidation of the 20-acre farmers, and their conversion into; exiles or pauper labourers. He would ask them to remember that in Ulster, where the rule henceforth by law was to be perpetual lease and valued rent—in Ulster, the most peaceable and contented, because the most prosperous part of Ireland, the average of all the farms, great and small, was 22 statute acres; yet the 20-acre men were to be extinguished, according to the daily organ of the Government. There were in Ireland 428,000 tenant-farmers whose holdings were valued under £15, which, in fact, represented the class thus doomed to destruction. Would that message content or give peace to the farmers of that class who were not to have fixed tenure or valued rent? Nearly one-half were to have these blessings, the other half were not. This was the blot of the Bill—one that must sooner or later be remedied. He gave all credit for what was done, and only regretted that more comprehensive counsels did not prevail, and that the real boon of perpetuity of tenure and valued rents conferred on one moiety by the Bill was not conferred on all. This was the great blot of the Bill. He honoured the Government for conceding to them in Committee this "fixity of tenure and valued rents" to so large a portion of the tenantry. The blot of its non-extension to the remainder must be cured if there was to be a final settlement of the land question. One word as to the second part of the Bill. The principle of that part was one worthy of all acceptance; but he believed that, in the absence of some compulsory provision, it would never work save only in the cases of compulsory sales in the Court. No landlord having an estate, if divided into 50 or 100 small farms, would sell voluntarily 10 acres to one man, and 20 to another, and so on, creating some 10 or 12 fee-simple owners in the very centre of his estate. The idea was Utopian, as was well-known to every
  1622
  man who understood the feelings of Irish proprietors and the value set by them on the ring fence, so much prized by the landed gentry everywhere. Some pressure must be put on owners, for the clause could not work unless they gave some such alternative as fixed tenure, or a sale at the full value. If this were done, even with the other defects, the Bill would soon work out a final and satisfactory settlement of the land question of Ireland; otherwise Part II. would be a dead letter.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, he had not intended to make a single observation on the third reading of this Bill; but, after the speech of the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray), he did not think he would be doing his duty, as the representative of one of the largest agricultural constituencies in Ireland, if he remained altogether silent. To a certain extent he agreed with the hon. Member for Kilkenny. The Bill was not all that he could have desired it to be. He wished it had a still larger scope, and conferred larger rights on the agricultural population of Ireland; but as one who took a very deep interest in this matter, and had devoted whatever experience he had acquired to the task of improving the measure, he must express his belief that the Bill would have the effect the Government intended. It would put an end to capricious evictions. He was pretty well acquainted with the administration of the existing law, and he knew what the feelings of the people were. What they wanted was protection for their improvements and protection against eviction. He did not say that as a rule evictions were extensively carried out by large proprietors in Ireland but, unquestionably, there were evictions which in too many cases were unjustifiable. He was satisfied that if this Bill became law in the shape it was leaving the House of Commons no long period would have elapsed before the people of Ireland would thank the Government for having passed another great remedial measure. Within the last few days he had had an opportunity of talking to one of the largest landed proprietors in Ireland. The nobleman to whom he referred was a Member of the other House of Parliament, and a man who had been always much opposed to legislative interference with landlords. Well, that noble Lord

  1623
  agreed with him in thinking that this Bill did not interfere with the landlord who was disposed to act properly, justly, and generously towards his tenants, but only with those proprietors who brought disgrace on their country. He thought that certain Amendments which he had proposed and which the Government had not accepted would have been beneficial; but, in fairness, he must remember that, while refusing to accede to those Amendments, the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench had shown equal determination in resisting Amendments coming from the other side of the House, and which would have trenched on advantages which the Bill gave the tenants. He thanked the Government for the Bill, believing, as he did, that before 12 months it would be generally regarded as a measure worthy to have followed the measure for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and as one which would contribute to make Ireland prosperous and contented.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he rose for the purpose of recommending his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Fermanagh (Captain Archdall) not to divide the House. He agreed in the views of his hon. and gallant Friend, and had supported those views from the beginning of the discussions on this measure. Day after day, and night after night, he and a number of his hon. Friends attended in that House to do their duty to Ireland as well as they knew how. The House, by large majorities—arrived at in what manner he would not say—had decided that this Bill should go up to "another place" in its present shape. He now asked the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government whether the Conservative Members had not done their duty in a more consistent manner than the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray) had discharged what he said was his. What would be the effect of the speech which that hon. Gentleman had just delivered? Had he not given utterance to opinions which, when circulated in Ireland, would be most dangerous to the people whom he professed to love? Half of the mischief which had been brought about in Ireland might be attributed to the expression of such opinions. He thought it right that the Members of that House should speak plainly when they heard such addresses
  1624
  as that of the hon. Member for Kilkenny. He (Colonel Barttelot) and his Friends felt they had discharged their duty. They knew not what would be done with the Bill in "another place;" but if it became law he hoped it might at least, conciliate the Irish nation, and in that spirit he asked his hon. and gallant Friend not to press his Amendment to a Division.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: Sir, I do not know whether we are to divide [Captain ARCHDALL: No!]; but I rise to enter my protest against the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray). Part of that speech we do not quarrel with. He has given much time and attention to this Bill, and he has a right to express his opinions on it. He said it would put an end to evictions. [Sir JOHN GRAY: To the cruelty of evictions.] Well, the cruelty of evictions; but he then went on to say, for reasons which I cannot explain, that this was a Bill which would encourage clearance and undue consolidation in Ireland, and that under its operation the small tenantry would disappear. Nothing would induce me to sit in my place and hear such an assertion without at once rising to protest against it. I say further that nothing would induce me—and I can equally answer for my right hon. Friend the First Minister of the Crown and those who act with him—nothing would induce us to frame such a Bill as this if we for one moment believed its operation would be of the cruel character described in the prophecy of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny. I do not know his authority for the statement he has made on this point. He referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Cavan, but when, in his lively and vigorous speech, he (Mr. Saunderson) was applauded by my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government and by others on this Bench, we did not cheer him for anything he said on the subject of consolidation, but for the spirit in which as a landlord he accepted this Bill. My hon. Friend referred to some other authority. I do not know what it was, but how any human being can think that a Bill framed for the special protection of poor tenants can deserve the character he has given it passes my comprehension. All the changes made in the Bill with reference to that class of tenants have strengthened

  1625
  their position. The changes which have modified the provisions relating to tenants refer mainly to the richer and more independent tenants; but as respects protection to the poorer classes of tenants, the Bill has come out of Committee stronger than when it went in. We are now, however, told that a Bill, which will afford exceptional protection to the small tenantry against the cruelties of eviction, is a Bill for their extinction, and the consolidation of their farms. I protest against such a description of the Bill; but I am not at all frightened by the strange views of the hon. Member for Kilkenny. I am sure they are not shared by the small tenants of Ireland. These tenants know very well what they are about; they know who their friends are; and if they have not yet learnt they will before long discover the benefits which this Bill confers on them. They entertain no such views—I call them morbid and distorted views—as those on which my hon. Friend's gloomy vaticinations are founded. It would, indeed, be disheartening to those—and I am not afraid to say that I am one of the number—who have laboured day by day, for many months past, in devising a measure of protection for the Irish tenantry, to find that the Bill would work in the way the hon. Member for Kilkenny has described. But I protest against his forebodings. My hope and confidence are very strong that the predictions of the hon. Member, who on this occasion has made himself a prophet of evil, will not be realized.
  MR. H. A. HERBERTsaid, that, as a landlord in the South of Ireland, he could not but express his satisfaction that the discussions on this Bill had come to an end. He did not say he liked every provision in it; but he thought there was so much good in the Bill that every sacrifice the landlord might have to make would be small as compared with the benefits which would result from the measure. He hoped the Bill would become law in its present shape. He also trusted that the country would be warned against the mischief which words spoken that evening would effect, if they were not met by counter-statements. An hon. Gentleman (Sir John Gray) had told the House plainly that he was going to begin another agitation; he said the Bill could not content the country, and the country would not be satisfied with it. He believed that if
  1626
  the hon. Gentleman went about the country telling the people those things he would find men to meet him. He for one would raise his voice to prevent another agitation and to forward the views of the Government in this matter.
  MR. BRADYsaid, he was anxious that the Bill should pass, inasmuch as it gave great satisfaction to the inhabitants of that portion of Ireland which he represented. With regard to the observation of the hon. Gentleman who spoke last, he felt assured that in every word he uttered he had the welfare of the country at heart; but the hon. Member had been mistaken. He (Mr. Brady) believed that, in a short time, the measure which the Government had introduced, would confer great and lasting benefit on the people of Ireland.
  MR. MURPHYsaid, that representing as he did, a constituency—the City of Cork—which felt a strong interest in the Bill; and having watched the measure in its progress up to the present stage, it was impossible that he could sit silently in his place and not rise to repudiate, as far as his words could repudiate, the baneful consequences which the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray) had predicted with regard to the operation of this Bill. That hon. Member began by giving the measure almost unqualified praise; but when he spoke of the Amendments of the hon. Member for Cavan, he said they would have the effect of consolidating small farms, and he then described the Bill as mischievous. His (Mr. Murphy's) belief was that the measure was the most practical measure that could be brought in by any Government desiring, in all sincerity, to pass the measure which they introduced. He believed that the country would not have sanctioned perpetuity of tenure. Any Government who proposed such perpetuity would know that it would be impossible to carry it. He gave the First Minister of the Crown and the Cabinet great credit for their sagacity and their high courage in bringing forward this measure; and he tendered Ms warmest thanks to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who, by virtue of his office, was largely engaged in the preparation and carrying of the measure. Every hon. Member who communicated with the Chief Secretary was treated with courtesy, but at the same time with firmness.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE BILL.

  [BILL 133.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. G. B. GREGORYsaid, he wished to call attention to that portion of the measure in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to abolish hawkers' licences. He thought that any measure which tended to increase vagrancy or give facilities for its operation was highly objectionable. He lived on one of the great roads leading to the Southern Coast, and his house was situated between two workhouses, so that he saw a good deal of vagrancy. The higher classes, however, did not suffer so much from the presence of vagrants as their poorer neighbours, who in harvest and hopping times left their cottages unprotected to go to their work, and the vagrants often obtained access to the premises, and carried off trifling articles that might be hanging or standing about the dwelling. He feared the provision in the Bill would aggravate these evils, inasmuch as vagrants would be enabled to take themselves out of the jurisdiction of the magistrates by becoming the hawkers of lucifer matches or any other small wares. He wished the right hon. Gentleman would introduce some clause which would prevent this. Another point to which he would call attention was this—great difficulty was sustained by the surveyors of highways in obtaining horses to draw materials for the repair of roads. If the farmer should let his horses for the purpose he would become liable for the duty of 10 s., and therefore he refused to let them. This was a difficulty which ought to be removed in this Bill, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would be disposed to give relief in this direction, and thus remove one of the chief difficulties now experienced by the surveyors of highways in keeping those roads in repair.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see his way to make those alterations with regard to agricultural horses in Committee. He knew that the highway surveyors were put to a serious inconvenience by the strict interpretation of the law as it stood. One point he also wished to suggest as to the hawkers' licences. He took it for granted that
  1628
  they would have some registration or police supervision substituted for the provision of the law as it now stood. He quite understood the desire of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that hawkers who travelled about the country in carts should pay the two guineas tax, as a substitute for the house duty and other taxes paid by resident traders; but there were hawkers of a lower grade who travelled with a pony or a barrow, and he thought that a guinea was as large a sum as they ought to be called on to pay. Hon. Members had learnt from the newspapers that the whole of the clauses relating to the proposed alteration in the railway passengers' duty were to be struck out; but it would have been more seemly if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given notice of his intention to omit those clauses when he moved the second reading of the Bill. It was impossible, however, to discuss the question unless it was known whether the statements in the newspapers, to which he had referred were correct. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: They are correct.] In that case the railway interest had great reason to complain. Justice required that, as the duty upon horses and carriages had been reduced, the 5 per cent, duty upon railways should also be reduced, and he trusted that next year some reduction would be effected.
  MR. BOWRINGsaid, he wished to thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the concession which the 5th clause of this Bill contained in favour of a poor, but, he believed, industrious and honest class of the community—he referred to the families of the fishermen of the port of Brixham, in Devonshire, and other places similarly situated. Owing to the peculiarity of the fishing trade, and the uncertainty as to the exact time when the fishing vessels would return from their voyages, it was necessary to take steps for the sale of the fish immediately after its landing, in order that it might be despatched to London and other markets by the first departing train; and, in practice, it was found that this could only be done by selling it to the highest bidder, in other words, by auction; and it was held by the officers of Inland Revenue that this rendered the vendors liable to pay duty as auctioneers. The consequence was, that these poor women—for the sales were generally conducted by women who sold the

  1629
  fish which, probably, their own husbands or apprentices had caught—whose total income did not amount to more than £30 or, at the outside, £40 a year, were actually compelled to pay £10 a year as auction duty, being the same sum as that paid by the greatest auctioneers in the country, through whose hands property to the value of millions passed every year. When he (Mr. Bowring) found that there was no doubt that this duty was legally levied, which he hoped had not been the case, he also found that great practical difficulties existed in the way of giving the desired relief from duty, although the hardship of the case was readily admitted by the Government. He therefore rejoiced to find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had at length, seen his way to overcome those difficulties; and, on behalf of those poor persons, into whose humble homes the provisions of this clause would carry comfort and happiness, he begged to tender to his right hon. Friend his warmest thanks.
  MR. BARNETTsaid, he wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he had received any communication from the police authorities with respect to the probable effect of the repeal of the hawkers' licences upon crime in this country? The chief constable of the county with which he was connected expressed great alarm at the proposed abolition of hawkers' licences.
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, he would postpone his observations upon the question of the drawback upon sugar until the Motion came on for going into Committee upon the Bill. He wished, however, to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why it was still necessary that the duty upon tea should remain an annual duty?
  MR. HERMONsaid, he thought it very hard that employers were now to be called on to return the amount they paid to those in their employ. Hitherto they had only been called on to furnish a list of persons receiving more than £100 a year; and then the recipients made their own returns. He was sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not been able to see his way to make a distinction between income derived from property and income derived from professional skill or industry. Physicians, clerks, and others, whose incomes ceased on death or illness, were placed in a more
  1630
  critical position than those incomes which were derivable from property. He trusted that the duty of 6d. a pound on tea would be permanent; for any further reduction would only stimulate the production of a spurious article, and put money in the pocket of the Chinaman.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEsaid, he was pleased that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had withdrawn the proposition for taxing the carriage of goods on railways. That was the first attempt to place a tax on goods carried by sea or land, and he hoped it would never be introduced again. With respect I to the tax on railways, he would like to see it swept away altogether. It was not, I however, a tax on railway proprietors, because the companies recouped themselves by making an addition to their maximum fares; and if the tax were taken off, the railways would have to reduce their fares by the extent of the tax. Licences on trades had been taken off, except with regard to the manufacture of soap and paper, and these the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to remit. He did not see why the same course should not be taken with regard to auctioneers. There was no reason why the licence duty on auctioneers should not be abolished. As to the proposed introduction into the Bill of further inquisitive regulations with respect to the income tax, he agreed with the remarks of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hermon). He was disappointed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not sought to remedy some of the defects which prevailed in respect of the duties on inhabited houses; and he gave the right hon. Gentleman notice that in Committee he would move to introduce a clause to this effect—
  "That houses let out in tenements or separate holdings, where the rent on each separate tenement or holding does not exceed 7s. 8d. per week, or £20 per annum, shall be exempt from house duty."
  MR. LIDDELLsaid, he wished to add a very strong remonstrance to those already addressed to the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) against the proposed abolition of hawkers' licences. It was a very painful task to cast reflections upon any trade, more especially one which was carried on by persons in a humble station of life; and, indeed, it was not his intention to do so on the present occasion. Still great apprehension was felt in the

  1631
  North of England and on the Borders in consequence of the intended repeal of the hawkers' licence, because it was anticipated that great encouragement would be thereby given to vagrants to go about the country and rob people, under the pretence that they were hawkers. He wished, in particular, to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give the House some information as to any Reports he might have received from the chief constables of the Northern counties, to whom, he understood, inquiries had been addressed on this subject.
  MR. WREN-HOSKYNSsaid, he desired to urge a plea on behalf of coffee, which was of more importance than tea in point of nutritive value, and in the property of being able to retain warmth in the bodies of persons exposed to cold and fatigue. The duty was at present 3d. per lb, which was a very large proportion of the actual cost, the real value of a pound being not more than 10 d. or 1s. The quantity of coffee imported was 31,560,000lbs in 1867; 30,608,000lbs in 1868; and 29,109,000lbs in 1869. The duty was, therefore, becoming "small by degrees and beautifully less," a proof that the duty was too high.
  MR. M'MAHONsaid, he trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer would consider the desirability of reducing the Excise duty on home-made sugar. In France about 300,000,000 tons of sugar were manufactured in the year 1868; whereas Ireland consumed only about 30,000 tons annually. Beet root might be successfully cultivated in Ireland, and manufactured into sugar, if there were no Excise duty.
  MR. RYLANDSsaid, he deeply regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been unable to remove the differential duties upon sugar, as they entailed a large amount of unnecessary labour in our Custom Houses, and led to a lower description of sugar being imported than would otherwise be the case. While admitting that the country would gratefully accept the proposed large reduction of the sugar duties, he must take exception to some of the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Budget. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was no reason why there should be further agitation for the further reduction of the duties; but he must enter his humble protest against such a doctrine. We ought not
  1632
  to refuse to contemplate the possibility of doing away at an early period with all import duties on this important article of consumption. The right hon. Gentleman thought we should retain our hold on this means of taxation, in order that we might raise additional revenue in the event of a war; and, he added, that by some drunken freak, a few extra glasses of wine, or some other accident, this country might be involved in war. In the first place, no drunken freak on the part of a diplomatist could get this country into war as long as prudence reigned in our councils at home; and, instead of rendering it easy to raise money in the event of a war, we ought to make it difficult to raise money, and thus endeavour to prevent the Government from going to war.
  MR. M'LARENsaid, he was sorry to find such a demonstration against the poor hawkers. The people of his own country seemed to have taken alarm lest multitudes of hawkers should be let loose upon them. He believed there never was a more complete delusion, and that there never was a more cruel and unjust tax than the licence tax now chargeable upon hawkers. There were thousands of honest industrious people who earned a very small living in that way, and who should not be confounded with vagrants or any criminal class. When they considered that the person who went about hawking books, pamphlets, or any articles of that kind, had to pay £2 perhaps out of an income of £30 a year, it would be seen that this tax was most cruel in its operation. A large trade had sprung up latterly in connection with religious tract societies and book societies all over the country. He knew a society which employed about 50 of these licensed hawkers to sell Bibles and religious tracts, and all kinds of books having a good moral tendency; and for each of these they had to pay £2 of licence duty. He agreed that it would be very advantageous that there should be a register of these persons, by way of check; but he repeated it was a very hard and unjust thing to tax in this way industrious but very poor people. Therefore, he thanked the Chancellor of the Exchequer with his whole heart for the relief he had given these poor persons.
  MR. GRIEVEsaid, he took a view diametrically opposite to the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) in re-

  1633
  gard to a uniform duty on sugar. The town he had the honour to represent (Greenock) imported and refined one-fourth of the whole imports of the United Kingdom; and he was bound to say importers, merchants, and refiners were satisfied with the scale now in operation, and to impose a uniform duty would be a gross injustice, for it was well known some qualities of sugar were not more than about one-third of others in value. He therefore hoped the right hon. Gentleman would preserve the scale. He took the opportunity of thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his declaration in I introducing his Resolutions, that he did not wish to hold out that he proposed to go on dealing with the sugar duties from year to year. That was important, as it was well known the dread of such interference had the effect of unsettling business in that article for months.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he hoped the House would excuse him if, taking into account the amount of business which was to be got through that evening, he replied very briefly to the various observations which had been made in the course of the discussion. He would remind the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) that in proportion as we made it difficult for ourselves to go to war we made it easy for others to go to war with us, and that, therefore, the best way to avoid war was to be prepared for it. With respect to what had been said on the subject of sugar, he must protest against the use of the term "differential" duties as applied to the present duties on that commodity. What he understood by a differential duty was a duty, differing in amount, imposed on goods of the same quality, according to the place from which they came or were manufactured. Now, the duty on sugar was a duty of varying amount imposed upon goods of different quality—that was to say, according to the saccharine principle which they contained, and had nothing in common with differential duties properly so-called. He adhered to the opinion that it was not desirable to propose—nor did he contemplate proposing at an early date—the further reduction of the sugar duties. He, at least, should not recommend the adoption of such a course, and he might say the same thing with regard to tea. As to what had been said about horses, he would merely observe that, as
  1634
  notice of an Amendment had been given on the subject, he would reserve the observations which he had to make upon it until the Amendment came on for discussion. At present he would merely say that, according to his view, it was not in his power to remit the duty in those cases in which persons received money for the use of their horses. As to railways, as the portion of the Bill which related to them was to be omitted, it was not necessary that he should say anything with respect to them, beyond remarking that he did not think he was open to any grave censure for not having made an announcement to the House on the subject before, inasmuch as he had no opportunity of doing so, unless some hon. Member had thought fit to put a Question to him, when, of course, he should have been glad to have given him an answer. He was asked, he might add, whether he would not take into consideration the case of Schedule D with reference to the income tax, and his reply was that he had considered it, as might be found by reference to the Report of Mr. Hubbard's Committee in 1860, in connection with which there was a draft Report, in which he had given at great length the reasons why he thought there should be no difference in the rate of charge under Schedule D and other Schedules of the income tax. As to calling upon employers to give an account of the incomes which they gave those in their employment, the reason for doing so was obvious; for there were a great many persons who received over £100 a year in the shape of salary who escaped the income tax altogether. It was but just to those in a similar position who did pay that such persons should not escape; and it was thought that the readiest way of reaching them, following the analogy of Schedule B, was to request employers to advance the tax, and afterwards to recoup themselves out of the salaries which they paid. That was, in the case of large establishments, obviously an easy and simple method of collecting the tax; and he thought hon. Gentlemen should not grudge the Revenue Department the relief they would derive from that arrangement. With regard to beet-root, he could not assent to a proposal which would be to establish in its favour a protective duty on foreign sugar. He came now to the last topic to which he need advert, that of

  1635
  the hawkers. A noble Lord had written a letter to the newspapers, in which he stated that he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was not competent to give an opinion as to the morals of that class of men. Now, they might be guilty of many offences and irregularities—upon that point he left it to those who were better informed on the subject than himself to decide—but even if that were proved to be the case, all that would have been done would be to make out a case for strong police regulations and not for taxation. Hawkers were the poorest class of tradesmen in the country; they dealt with the very poorest customers; and they, therefore, in his opinion, formed bad subjects for the imposition of a tax, because the effect of taxing them must be to limit competition, and raise the price of the commodities in which they dealt to the poor, who were their customers. Considering how many large branches of industry escaped taxation altogether, it would be a great anomaly and injustice, he thought, to pick out the poorest for its imposition. He was, at the same time, prepared to admit that he had seen several letters from chief constables of counties expressing great dislike of the proposal with respect to hawkers, and speaking of them in terms of strong disapprobation. Now, he attached great weight to the opinions of chief constables as far as the character of those persons was concerned, but they were not authorities on which he was disposed to place equal reliance as to the question of taxation. He had, he might add, been in communication with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who, at his request, had been good enough to look into the subject, and who had undertaken to submit to the House a measure which would put, he thought, a far more efficient check on the abuses complained of than any tax which he could impose. What his right hon. Friend proposed to do was, in general terms, that every hawker should be required to have a licence, which should be given by the chief constable of the county, and. not at all, as a matter of course, and for which a small nominal sum should be paid. The licence, he might add, would be given only in those cases in which the person asking for it was known to be of good character. It was also pro-
  1636
  posed that it should be annual, and revocable on conviction for a certain class of offences. A register of hawkers would also be kept. That, he thought, would be a more effectual method of dealing with those men than screwing out of their small gains an unjust tax. He was happy to find that no more serious objection had been raised to the Bill. The question of coffee was under consideration.
  MR. MAGNIACsaid, that as an employer, he should be very unwilling to collect the income tax from those in his service. He wished for some explanation on the subject.
  MR. DODSONsaid, he was glad to hear the observations made by the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) with respect to the registration of hawkers. He regretted that he was not prepared to exempt owners of agricultural horses who received remuneration for the services of those horses from duty. Now he (Mr. Dodson) would suggest whether the right hon. Gentleman might not abolish the duty on horses kept for agriculture or trade, and levy a duty only on horses kept for enjoyment or luxury. It might be well to go further and abolish the duty on all horses, and, if necessary, increase the duty on carriages. Neither steam power, air power, or water power were taxed, and he had never heard any justification for taxing animal motive power.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he believed that, as a whole, the Budget was a good one.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he wished to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the great inconvenience that was felt in Scotland, in consequence of farmers not being allowed to give the use of their carts for carrying materials for repairing roads without being charged duty on their horses. This inconvenience was the more felt since the tolls were taken off and the assessment for maintaining the roads was thrown entirely on the land.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, in reply to the question asked by the hon. Member (Mr. Magniac), he had to explain that the income tax on the salaries of employés would be paid only by public companies; private employers would furnish a list of the persons employed by them and the amount of the salary paid to each.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday, 9th June.

STAMP DUTIES BILL— [BILL 130.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. HUNTsaid, that this was a Consolidation Bill; but he understood from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion that certain changes were to be made. Would it not be well, then, that some Paper should be laid on the Table which would point out which of the provisions were new?
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, that one way in which the changes would be introduced would be through the definitions of the Bill.
  MR. BOURKEsaid, that some of the proposed alterations deserved discussion. There was no branch of our law that needed alteration more than that which related to stamps. There was one clause in the Bill by which anybody who had got a paper or document in his custody, which he declined to allow a person appointed by the Commissioners to inspect, would be liable to a fine of £50. That was one of the alterations, and would need consideration. He regretted that this Bill contained no repeal of the old Acts; and the result would be that if this Bill became law, all the old Acts would still remain on the Statute Book, which would produce a great deal of litigation.
  MR. MAGNIACsaid, that the definition of a bill of exchange had been largely extended in the clauses of the Bill; this was probably intended to check evasion of the duty, but it might be a question whether the matter had not been overdone.
  MR. G. B. GREGORYsaid, he hoped that ample time would be allowed for the consideration of a measure which affected so many persons.
  MR. MUNTZsaid, he regretted that the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), in bringing forward this consolidation Bill, should have altogether ignored the strong desire of the commercial classes to have adhesive stamps made permissive on bills of exchange. Extreme inconvenience was felt from the present state of the law, from the North to the South of the island. When he brought the subject forward last year the objection was, that if adhesive stamps were used, the cancelling might be removed by chemical agents. But he maintained that it would be ex-
  1638
  tremely difficult to do so without obliterating the bill itself; and it was not likely that a man would risk the value of his vouchers for the sake of the small sum to be gained by the practice. Adhesive stamps were in use in France, Belgium, the North German Confederation, and various other parts of the commercial world, and he did not see why we should be denied the use of them in England.
  MR. W. FOWLERsaid, he could confirm the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. Few persons received more bills of exchange than he did, and he could not see why an adhesive stamp was so dangerous on an English bill of exchange, while it was so useful where foreign bills of exchange were concerned.
  SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, he wished to direct the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the inconvenience resulting from the law in dealings with regard to cheques. It appeared rather hard that a banker should be required to put an ad valorem stamp on a cheque which he might not have known would go abroad.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, that it was a mistake altogether to impose a penny stamp on cheques; and the burden fell very heavily on London, while in Liverpool, Glasgow and other great commercial towns they did not employ half so much as they did in the South. Again, for every delivery order they gave, however small, they had to use a penny stamp. That was not just towards those who lived by buying and selling; and he thought that fair play should be given to traders as well as to those engaged in other occupations.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would be happy to accede to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hunt), and endeavour to point out the principle of the proposed arrangement; but he was afraid it would be impossible in a matter of that kind to give in any Paper a complete enumeration of the changes to be made in the effort to consolidate the law. Of course, there would have to be brought in another Bill, which was already drawn, that would repeal the present statutes as soon as this Bill was passed. If this Bill was to become law this Session, or in any Session, they would have to draw largely on the con-

  1639
  fidence and the indulgence of the House, because the task was most Herculean. The immense quantity of matter to be fused together in order to bring it within the compass of an Act of Parliament had necessitated the re-writing of a great deal; and it was almost impossible to rewrite such a number of clauses without making more or less variation in them. He looked on this Bill not as a settlement but only as a beginning—as only laying the foundation of future labours in that field; and once they had got the old Stamp Law within the compass of a single Act, they would then be able to direct their attention to the great amount of amendment and of simplification of which the subject was capable. If the speech of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Alderman Lusk) was to be taken as a sample of the manner in which the Bill was to be discussed, it would be absolutely impossible to pass the measure, which ranged over so wide a field. The only way in which the Bill could be carried would be if hon. Gentlemen would refrain from asserting and arguing their individual views as to particular taxes, and would accept the measure as in the main what it was intended to be—namely, a Consolidation Bill, and would remember that, when it had passed, they would have the best opportunity of working out the reforms that were desirable in the Stamp Law—a task with which it was almost hopeless to deal while that law remained the maze it was. He would promise that the House should have ample time to consider the Bill before it was asked to go into Committee upon it. He would respectfully suggest that those hon. Gentlemen who might feel it their duty to move Amendments in the Bill should, as much as possible, limit their Amendments to making the measure that which it professed to be—namely, a faithful reflex of the law as it stood at present, and not attempt on this occasion to raise questions of the substantive amendment of that law. Any Amendments or suggestions which hon. Gentlemen could make tending in the limited direction he had described would be most valuable; and he hoped that those who might wish to propose them would be kind enough to put them on the Notice Paper in good time. They would be most carefully considered, and he should be happy to confer in private with hon. Gentlemen on the subject with
  1640
  a view to save the valuable time of the House, and also, if possible, to settle questions that were inherently very nice and abstruse.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday 16th June.

SUPPLY.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

PARLIAMENT—EXCLUSION OF THE REPORTERS.—OBSERVATIONS.
MR. HENLEYsaid: Sir, in calling the attention of the House to the subject of which I have given Notice—
"To call the attention of the House to the rule or practice of ordering strangers to withdraw, and the effect thereof,"
I have, in the first instance, to state that I am quite aware of the regularity of the proceeding to which my Notice more particularly refers, and I do not in any way question either the power or the discretion of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Craufurd) who thought fit to put the Order of the House in force. What I wish to do is to call the attention of the House to the gravity and extent of the subject which, was then prevented from being discussed in public, and to the interest which the public had and take in that subject. Now, Sir, up to the 23rd instant, which was the date of the last Return, the Petitions presented to this House on that subject had more than 330,000 signatures attached to them; from 70 to 80 public meetings had been held on the matter; and I believe that, with the exception of the Education question, there was no other on which during the present Session so large a number of people had manifested an interest. Some 20 years back, strangers having been ordered to withdraw on one occasion, a Committee was appointed, of which I had the honour to be a Member. No evidence was taken on the point; but, as far as I recollect, it appeared that, on all occasions when this Order had been enforced, the matter was more or less of a personal nature. No discussion on a matter of great public interest had been kept back from the public by means of the exclusion of strangers. But what was the question

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discussed the other night with closed doors? The delicacy or indelicacy of a subject, whatever it may be, is in the subject itself. The subject may be discussed in such a manner as not to offend the most delicate ear. And if we want an illustration of the matter, what happened? On that very night, when strangers were excluded from the House, some speeches were made on the same subject in the other House of Parliament. What is more, the next day what is called the leading journal had a leading article of nearly two columns on that subject, and also a garbled account of the debate which was held in this House. On a matter which excited such curiosity, he thought it was far better to have had what was said accurately reported, than that a mystery should be thrown over it by any attempted secresy. Now, the question itself is not whether more or less ailment affects our soldiers and sailors, or whether the means for curing it about to be devised are the best means. The matter which the public takes so great an interest in is this—whether the moral question is to be subordinate to the sanitary one. That is a matter on which the public have a right to know the opinion of their representatives. It is one of the largest questions we have been called upon to discuss. The treatment of the persons subjected to this legislation is also a question on which the people have a right to know the opinion of their representatives. They have a right to know whether their representatives consider it proper that women who wear stuff gowns should be subjected to treatment which women who wear silk gowns are not to be subjected. They have a right to know whether their representatives think the moral ought to be subordinate to the sanitary consideration, and whether they think this treatment ought not to be extended to men as well as to women. They have a right to know whether their representatives hold that, in subjecting a certain class of women to this treatment, if mistakes be made—and evidence shows you that mistakes have been made—those mistakes must be confined to women of a poor class, and the injury must not be inflicted on a higher grade who can wear silk. Those reflections have occurred to my mind, and, curiously enough, if I wanted any confirmation of the belief I had formed, it would have been fur-
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nished by something that has occurred within the last few days. The circumstance to which I allude shows the wisdom of discussing those matters in public. What was called a sanitary meeting was held a few days ago at Manchester. The Bishop of that diocese took part in the proceedings. It is impossible for me to say what sex was there under the shelter of the lawn sleeves. A report, published in The Times of the 26th of May, gave these remarks of the Bishop with reference to the objections against the legal measures—
"That they tended to propagate moral evil by making prostitution safe; that women were subjected to treatment at the hands of the officials to which no woman should be subjected. If that complaint were true, it certainly demanded attention; but neither of these matters had anything to do with the sanitary or medical element in this question; they ought to be discussed on different grounds, and if there were moral evils or social evils, surely legislation could remove them."
From that extract it would almost seem that, in the opinion of the speaker, the moral evil of the treatment of women ought to be postponed to another season; but if an extract which appeared in The Globe be correct, that would, be a misapprehension of the speaker's meaning. It was in these terms—
"He thought the sanitary question should be kept separate from the moral question, and that the moral question should be dealt with by its own proper remedies."
If those be the opinions of the Bishop upon the subject, it would almost appear as though he did not comprehend the view taken by other people, that that very mode of treating the sanitary question was in itself a moral evil. I think it would be impossible to find a stronger confirmation of the necessity of accurate reports than those two versions of the Bishop's speech to which I have referred. It is not for me, nor do I presume, to offer any opinion to this House as to what is the proper course for it to adopt in reference to this question; but, before I go further, I ought to say that we were prevented by the same means from offering an opinion to the Government upon the subject, and from pointing out to them how unsatisfactory any inquiry by a Commission must be to meet the evils felt to be attendant upon this species of legislation. There must, of course, be a difference of opinion upon the subject; but it is felt by many people that such legislation is a great evil in itself.

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It is copied from our neighbours the French, who have derived no good from it. The Committees which have sat, with the view of ascertaining whether the operation of these Acts ought to be extended more widely, have not in any way met the question, which is not whether a few persons more or less shall be saved from the inconvenience to which they are subjected to under these Acts. What the public take an interest in is what they believe to be the immoral tendency of the legislation, and I should not be candid to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) if I did not say that I do not believe that any Committee will decide that question, which is too wide to be dealt with in such a manner. ["Order!"]
MR. SPEAKER: I feel bound to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the Notice which he has given is, that he intends to call the attention of the House to the rule or practice of ordering strangers to withdraw, and the effects thereof. Now, it is perfectly competent to the right hon. Gentleman to point out that he thinks the subject on which the right of excluding strangers was exercised a very important one; but I think he is not in Order in entering into the details of that subject.
MR. HENLEY: I shall, of course, at once bow, Sir, to your decision; but I beg leave to explain that I was about to show that I conceived the exclusion of strangers on the occasion to which I have referred would prevent our constituents from knowing the opinions which we, their representatives, had formed upon what the intentions of the Government upon this subject had been stated to be. I hope that such a topic comes within the terms of my Notice, because I believe that it would be a great inconvenience to the public not to know the opinion of their Members upon such grave and serious matters. I have no intention of suggesting to this House what they ought to do in the matter; but I thought it to be my duty to call the attention of the Government to the subject, because there is a strong feeling in the country that the exclusion of strangers was the doing of the Government. I myself have no reason to believe such to be the case; but it would not be right for me not to say that that belief is entertained by a considerable number of the public. In consequence of the enforcement of
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that Order the public had no opportunity of knowing what they would otherwise have known, that the offer made by the Government to refer the subject to a Commission had been declined by the hon. Member who had charge of the Motion. Therefore, although I feel sure that the Government had not anything to do with the matter, I thought it well to give the Notice that stands upon the Paper in my name, in order to give them an opportunity of disclaiming any wish on their part to shut out a fair discussion upon this matter of the gravest interest. I also thought it proper to call the attention of the Government to the question of what is the proper course to be pursued, for this reason—there are other matters of the greatest public importance coming forward, and many people think that when certain of those subjects come before the House, on the same principle as the matter under discussion the other night, involving as they believe a proof that the tree of knowledge is going to be put uppermost, and that the tree of life is about to be put downwards—other hon. Members may exercise the power that is in their hands of closing up discussion upon these matters by excluding strangers from the House during the debates upon them. I should be very sorry to be driven to exercise that power with the view of forcing the House to consider the matter; and, therefore, I have adopted this course in order to direct attention to the subject. I should I have regretted had I been obliged, in order to compel the House to look into the matter, to have gone on moving that strangers should be excluded until I became a nuisance. [A laugh.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite smiles at that. Perhaps he rather doubts whether such conduct would have rendered me a nuisance, because we should, under such circumstances, get through our business much quicker than we do at present. But what I mean to represent is that publicity is worth everything in the world, and I cannot conceive that any subject cannot be discussed in this House in such a manner as not to shock even the most delicate minds. I believe that there is ten thousand times more evil in attempting to carry on discussions of this character in secret than in public, and I hope and trust that we have not become so corrupt that we cannot bear to

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look in the face or name the vices around us. That is a state of things that has been described as the greatest curse that can befall a country, and I hope that we have not yet arrived at it. I ask for no opinion at present from the Government upon the matter, and I merely express a hope that they will consider the subject during the Recess.
MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, it is not my intention to offer any remarks upon the subject that was under discussion the other night when the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs (Mr. Craufurd) exercised the power—for I cannot call it the privilege—of calling the attention of the House to the fact that strangers were present, and thereby brought about their exclusion. I agree, however, with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the occasion for the exercise of that power was inopportune, and that the subject in question was one with respect to which, notwithstanding its peculiar nature, the lesser evil was that it should have been discussed in public, than that our constituencies and the public at large should remain ignorant of the opinions existing in this House with reference to it. At the same time, the question is not whether in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley), in my mind, or in the mind of the majority of the House the power so exercised was happily, or unhappily, used upon that special occasion; but whether it was such an exercise of that power as to make it good policy for the House to reconsider its rules, under which its individual Members possess the power of excluding strangers. I wish, however, to point out that, although the opinion of the majority of the hon. Members present at the time was unfavourable to the course taken by the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs, yet, as far as I can learn, the opinion out-of-doors on the subject appears to be very much divided. It cannot, therefore, be said that the conduct of the hon. Member on the occasion referred to has met with universal or even general disapprobation. I feel the more called upon to make these remarks, because I happen to differ from the hon. Member upon the expediency of the course he adopted. There is, therefore, nothing of a startling nature in the particular exercise of this power to distinguish it from any other case in which it has been used, although I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it has
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had the effect of keeping an important subject from the knowledge of the country. I will for a moment go back to the Committee of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member, and which, if he had not been afraid of seeming to be guilty of self-praise, he might have said was a Committee of very great weight. The Committee was appointed on the 15th of June, 1849. It was presided over by Sir James Graham, and amongst its Members were Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Goulburn, Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Mr. Hume, and Mr. John O'Connell. Mr. John O'Connell was the Member who had exercised the power of excluding strangers; he was a man of experience, and all the other Members of the Committee were of great weight and consideration in the House. On the 21st, a further addition was made to that Committee, consisting of Sir Robert Peel, the Lord Advocate of that day, Mr. George Hamilton, Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Green, the Chairman of Committees, and lastly, whom I should, perhaps, have mentioned first, the name of yourself, Sir, the present Speaker. Here are 15 Gentlemen, including no Minister except Sir John Hobhouse, who was in Lord John Russell's Cabinet, a Committee of remarkable weight and judgment, who resolved:—
"That the existing usage of excluding strangers upon the Motion by an individual Member that strangers were present, has prevailed from a very early period of Parliamentary history, that the instances in which the power has been exercised have been very rare, and that it is the unanimous opinion of your Committee that there is not sufficient ground for making an alteration in the existing practice with regard to the admission or exclusion of strangers."
This unanimous Resolution is an important fact in the consideration of this question; at any rate, it is a fact which weighs with the Government in considering whether it is their duty to propose any alteration in the matter. In the particular case we have in mind the discretion was exercised in a manner on which opinion is much divided; I have, therefore, no proposal to make for the alteration of the practice on the responsibility of the Government; at the same time, if the House should think the opinion prevails extensively in the House that the time has come when its practice should be altered, the safe course will be to do that which was done in 1849, and appoint a Committee carefully composed and representing, as far

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as possible, the weightiest judgments of the House, to go impartially into the matter. There is no doubt that in former times this power of exclusion was abused, and abused by the majority of the House. There is no doubt, also, I presume, that in later times the power has been clung to, even after any great practical necessity for its continuance, or at least for its daily use, had disappeared. It has been clung to from the idea, not altogether unjust, that there may be circumstances in which the free exercise of that power may be connected with the perfect freedom of opinion and its expression in debate—a privilege as valuable as the practice of publicity. That is a matter which ought to be taken into consideration; but upon which it is not necessary for me to come to a decided opinion at present, because we are, I believe, quite agreed that if the practice is to be disturbed, the resolution to disturb it should grow out of the deliberations of a Committee rather than out of the opinion and initiative of the Government. We do not see sufficient grounds for recommending the appointment of that Committee; but such a measure would be entirely unexceptionable if the opinion of the House warranted it.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he wished to throw out for the consideration of the Government, whether it would not be possible to give the intending occupants of the Ladies' Gallery upon any particular evening notice that the House proposed to discuss matters which they would prefer not to hear discussed. He believed those who approved the exclusion of strangers on the occasion referred to were of opinion that the presence of ladies in their Gallery would interfere with free discussion. Perhaps the matter could be arranged by the Serjeant-at-Arms, so that the Press would have an opportunity of being present at a discussion with which it was well the public should be made acquainted.
MR. CRAUFURDsaid, it was unnecessary, after what had fallen from the First Lord of the Treasury, that he should say a word in justification of the course he had pursued, and he was quite content to leave the matter to public opinion. He would not have risen but for the observations of the last speaker, which seemed to be based on a misapprehension similar to that which had become current through some portion of the Press. It had been said that his
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sole object in excluding strangers from the House on the occasion referred to was to clear the Ladies' Gallery; in justice to those for whom that Gallery was set apart, he disclaimed any such motive. The ladies of England required no such notice to withdraw from a debate which would be disagreeable to them. He had taken the trouble to make inquiry, and every one of the ladies in the Gallery on that evening, with the exception of two, rose to leave immediately after the Division which preceded the Motion of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler). His object was to secure that the debate should not be reported. A feeling of disgust had been expressed by correspondents in the newspapers with regard to what had already been published in the public Press, with reference to a notorious case that was just now creating great excitement, and he conceived it to be the duty of any hon. Member who felt as strongly as he did, to avail himself of the privileges of the House to prevent their breakfast tables being flooded with authoritative reports of details utterly unfit for modest eyes. He thought it due to the ladies of England to state thus much.
MR. W. FOWLERsaid, he must repeat that he found a difficulty in drawing a distinction between reports which were constantly appearing in the newspapers of details far more disgusting than anything which had fallen from his lips on the occasion referred to, and the discussion of an abstract question like that which he had introduced the other day. If any distinction could be drawn it must be in favour of the debate the other evening, as compared with the publication of the actual proceedings of individual men far more disgusting and far more corrupting than anything which occurred in the course of the debate on his Motion. On that occasion the House was discussing an important social question upon which the public had a right to know their opinions; and he had not heard a word this evening to show him why an individual Member should be intrusted with the monstrous power of ordering the public to withdraw. They had been told that freedom of debate was involved in the question; if so, let it be in the power of the House to order strangers to withdraw. It might have been expedient in times when the personal safety of Members was at stake that such a power should reside in the

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hands of an individual Member; but these were happier times. The House had heard the conclusion arrived at by the Committee in 1849; but it was not in possession of the reasons which induced the conclusion. He still believed the course pursued by the hon. Member was exceedingly improper. [Cries of "No!"] At all events, it was not well-advised. He regretted it very much, and he thought a Committee ought to be appointed to see whether there was not now good reason for altering the rule.
MR. DALGLISHsaid, he thought the Order for excluding strangers should be so framed as not to include the Press. He thought the House might safely leave it to the good sense of the reporters in reporting such debates not to report anything offensive to the general public.
Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £159,368, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Admiralty Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1871."
SIR JOHN HAYrose, not to propose any further reduction of the Vote, but to call attention to the mode by which the reduction of £9,336 had been obtained. Last year the Vote for the Admiralty Office was £168,706, and in addition to the decrease of £9,336, there was a transference to four other Votes of the sum of £4,106, which made the total decrease £13,442. As against that, it would be found that there were pensions to the amount of £25,511, which had been granted on the reduction of the Office; those appearing in the Estimates amounted to £20,511; and pensions estimated to amount to about £5,000 had been granted since the Estimates were printed. The retirement of 10 officers had been announced in the newspapers; and, as they were mostly well-paid officers, an average of £500 a year was a low estimate, Deducting the decrease for which credit was claimed, £13,442, from the increased amount of the pensions, £25,511, the reduction appeared to involve a present additional cost to the country of about
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£12,000 a year. Perhaps the staff of the Office had not been reduced below the strength adequate to the work of a time of peace like the present; but, in case of emergency, as those on the pension list could not be brought back to the Office, the increase of the staff that would be necessary would be very likely to render the present reduction anything but economy, although it might in the end be economy, if the present peaceful state of affairs were maintained long enough, and no expansion of the Office were called for.
MR. GOURLEYsaid, that if the Admiralty received £160,000 for the purposes of management, it ought to manage all the departments of the Navy with that sum; but, inasmuch as it appeared that part of the management of the Transport Service was let out to a private firm at a charge of £1,800, an outlay which the country ought to be saved, he should move the reduction of the Vote by that sum. Although it was said we had 390 ships in the Navy, when we deducted steam tenders, yachts, training-ships, and other vessels, which would be an encumbrance in case of war, we had but 131 vessels which could be of use, and of these only 40 were iron-clads; and the mere management of this number of ships cost us £3,000,000 per annum—a sum which might surely be reduced without impairing the efficiency of the Navy. Again, £1,800 was required for three Constructors in addition to the Chief Constructor; and considering that there were a number of draftsmen in the dockyards besides those in the London Office, and that we had but one, two, or three ships building at one time, he held that so many Constructors were unnecessary, and should, therefore, move the omission of the £1,800 required for their salaries. Coupling together the two items, he would move the reduction of the Vote by £3,600.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £155,768, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Admiralty Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1871."—(Mr. Gourley.)
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, it was notorious that the whole of the business connected with the Admiralty had been intrusted to the personal friends of either the First Lord or the Secretary of the Admiralty. The system was one which it was impossible sufficiently to

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deprecate. It led to jobbery of every description; and, at this moment, he believed greater jobbery was going on in the Admiralty Department than there had ever been at any former period in the history of this country. The matter of freight had been intrusted to a house with which the Secretary to the Admiralty was connected. They had repelled the accusation that they had received more than 1s. 3d. per ton; but there were such things as commissions. These commissions were an enormous price in time of peace, but a princely price in time of war. Boilers were taken out to Hong Kong at 15 s. per ton, and there was a commission of 1s. 3d. on the freight. The same system of jobbery was running through every department of the British Navy. ["Oh, oh!"] Some hon. Gentlemen might have reasons for supporting the present system; but he denounced it as a fraud upon the public. Formerly, the plan was to go by open tender, and take the lowest offer for every description of stores required; but now a broker was employed who went into the market. The result of this was what The Shipping Gazette described the other day. Some freight was required for a ship bound to Bermuda. The ship captain went to his broker, who told him the price he could get was 13 s. a ton. The captain declined to take it; but then came a gentleman on the part of the Admiralty, who said—"I will get you 26 s. How much commission will you give me upon that?" He did not state that on his own authority, but on the authority of The Shipping Gazette. The evictions at the dockyards among the labourers and artisans had been of a more grievous nature than any evictions which had taken place in Ireland. The First Minister of the Crown said it might be written upon his tombstone that he had saved the country £2,000,000. But to effect this saving 5,000 homes had been desolated, and stores had been sold on such a scale that if a war arose the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues would be driven from Office, for they would be unable to refit the crippled ships that might come into port. These heartless evictions might have been prevented, even if the ships they intended to break up had been broken up by the Admiralty in their own yards, which might be done at a paying price. The reductions made at the Admiralty were made at the expense of the foreign squadrons and of the honour of the country; but there
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were hon. Gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House who did not care about the honour of the country. ["Order!"] The Vote now under discussion really raised the whole question at issue. The reduction of our foreign squadrons was a reduction of the power, the prestige, and the honour of England. What had been the effect of it? It appeared, from the discussion on what took place some time ago on the Chinese coast, that the origin of Lieutenant Gurdon's interference was the insult which had been received by a British subject, who had been robbed of a large amount of property.
MR. CHAIRMANsaid, he did not see how the question of the reduction of the foreign squadrons was involved in the present Vote.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, the reduction of the foreign squadrons necessarily involved the reduction of the working power at the Admiralty, and the result was that our countrymen were in peril in every part of the globe. Look at the murders in Greece. He had the authority of Admiral Hobart for saying that, had not our squadron been withdrawn from Greek waters, these lives would not have been sacrificed; he believed this to be the fact. Friends of the Secretary to the Admiralty, or of the First Lord, were now employed to do what the Admiralty officers did before. Then the Estimates had been increased to pay a higher salary to the Chief Constructor of the Navy, and it was stated that Mr. Reed was also to receive a bonus of £5,000. This statement took him completely by surprise; for he had gone through the list of the Chief Constructor's ships with a distinguished naval officer, and all were failures, though in some respects the Monarch might be a success. Mr. Reed first of all constructed short vessels; but now his ships were only 50ft. shorter than the longest ever built in the service, and he had an enormously increased amount of power to force them through the water. Had he built ships which were a credit to the country, £5,000 would be a very small sum to grant him, and even £20,000 would not be too much. We had the Monarch and the Captain, and between the types of those two vessels would be the Navy of the future. Mr. Reed had educated himself at the cost of the country, which had spent a great deal more money upon him than

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it had in educating the Conservative party. The present Government talked about economy; but they drove from the country a set of unfortunate creatures, desolating their homes, and leaving their wives and children mourning. As the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Kavanagh) said to the First Minister of the Crown, the poor Irishman had nothing to look forward to but America or the workhouse. An elaborate Bill had been passed for the purpose of compelling landlords in Ireland to give seven years' rent to the tenants they ejected; but the unfortunate dockyard labourers who were driven from their employment got nothing but a passage to America in a transport. Yet the present was styled a Liberal Government, although it had reduced our dockyard establishments to such a point that they could not fit out two line-of-battle ships. For his own part, he should not vote for the reduction of any of the Votes, but would endeavour to make an increase in a great many of them.
MR. NORWOODsaid, he thought the Committee ought not to discuss a question of this importance at the wrong time and in an irregular way.
MR. GOURLEYsaid, he was of opinion that the matter of the Transport Service might be better discussed on Vote 17, and he was willing to limit his proposed reduction to the demand for the Constructors of the Navy. It would, however, be for the Committee to decide on this point.
MR. M. CHAMBERSsaid, he was surprised at the irregularities of the Committee, which had rendered it necessary for him to see what was the Vote under discussion. He discovered that it was an extremely important one, and one, moreover, which would enable him to make certain remarks which might not be acceptable to the present, nor, indeed, to any Government. The Vote was headed as follows:—"Estimate of the sum which will be required in the year ending upon the 31st of March, 1871, to defray the expenses of the Admiralty Office, £159,368." Upon that Vote he desired to express his humble but strong sentiments with reference to the constitution of the Board of Admiralty. Over and over again he had said that that Board was wrongly constituted, and although, of course, he did not wish to charge his party and his Friends with
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anything improper, he must confess that, in his judgment, some of the officers on that Board were not required. He hoped he should not be personally offensive, for he would name no names. He first referred to the First Lord, who had a house and £4,500 a year. Well, he must assume that every First Lord deserved that. Then came the Senior Naval Lord with a house and £1,500, which was a very small sum for an able Naval Lord. For family as well as national reasons he was attached to the Royal Navy, and consequently expressed his opinion, perhaps, a little too strongly. The Third Lord and Controller received £1,500; the Junior Naval Lord £1,000, without a house; the Civil Lord the same. Then there was an allowance of £400 to the Third Lord and the Junior Naval Lord in lieu of a house. He had often been asked by persons out of that House—"What is the Board of Admiralty? How is it constituted? How much money do its members get out of the finances of the country? Are they overpaid or not, and what is their business?" To questions like these he confessed his inability to give a satisfactory reply, and he had never heard one given. For a long time, however, he and others had been of opinion that the Board was badly constituted. At the commencement of the Session his right hon. Friend who was at the head of the Board endeavoured to explain the position he occupied; but he did not quite understand his right hon. Friend's statement. He started by saying—and it must be acknowledged that he was most anxious to do his duty for the benefit of the Navy—that he was responsible for everything; but that there were officers who discharged their duties under him, but what those duties were, and how they were distributed, remained unexplained. Now, he ventured to say that the noble Lord (Viscount Milton) who was so dreadfully attacked in the newspapers a short time ago, in consequence of the course he pursued when a Question he put to the head of a Department was answered by a subordinate, was substantially in the right. Being connected, as he was, with a dockyard community (Devonport), and having formerly represented a borough in which there were two dockyards and one steam factory, he watched with the greatest anxiety the proceedings of the Board of Admiralty. He desired that it should be ascertained

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how the Board was constituted, and why there should be so many members of it—some of them naval officers and others civil functionaries. In his humble judgment there were too many officials at the Board of Admiralty. There was an excellent Secretary to the Board, who rose and answered Questions in the House, and there were several others besides. [Cries of "Move, move!"] His hon. Friends below the Gangway might cry out "Move"; but the time had not yet come to adopt that course. The Board of Admiralty had, in his opinion, been extremely rash, and their mismanagement of the dockyards in some matters was perfectly frightful. ["Oh, oh!"] You exclaim "Oh, oh!" I say the more you say it the better pleased I am, because I am satisfied that the men who now say "Oh" will, when they go home, say "Right, right." The present state of things in our dockyards was the result of the reckless economic spirit of the age. The Government said there must be a decrease of expenditure, and that the Army and Navy Estimates must be cut down. A number of men in our dockyards and steam factories were, in consequence of that policy, discharged. Some of those on the establishment in the dockyards were entitled to pensions; but they complained that they were suddenly discharged before their full period of service had expired, and thus the pensions awarded were inadequate. In the factory at Keyham the discharged men were not so entitled, and to them was given what was called a gratuity of £5, or £10, or £15. A great many useful men had in that way been discharged, who might easily have been retained for the benefit of the public service. The Admiralty had already been asked in that House why they did not break up in the public dockyards those ships which were useless, and thus afford employment for those poor unhappy and hard working artizans who were driven out of work? The Admiralty had never answered that question, although it had been shown that the course he advocated would be the most profitable one to pursue. Why, he was informed that breaking up these ships would give employment to those distressed men for two or three years. He also wished to ask why ships should be built by private contractors when the public dockyards were almost empty, and if he did not get a specific answer to
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that question he would move for a Return on the subject. Members of the Government might be received with cheers when they rose to reply to such questions; but a time might come when they would not have to support them so large a majority as they had at present. [Laughter] Hon. Members below the Gangway, whose object appeared to be to disparage and destroy national establishments for the benefit of private contractors and speculators, might laugh, but he did not trust them; he never had trusted them, and never would. As to ships built by private contract, he had seen them stripped, and had seen the "dummies"—or short bolts—and knew all their other faults. It was well known that the precautions taken to secure sound materials and good workmanship were unavailing, and that all the vigilance of Government surveyors might be baffled. He supported the principle of maintaining public dockyards, and considered it would be an evil day when they were abolished, and the work which was now done in them given to private contractors.
MR. SAMUDAsaid, he was of opinion that the concluding remarks of the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. M. Chambers) should not have been made, as they referred to ships which were built 40 years since. As to the iron-clads which had been constructed of recent years, they were stated by those who preceded the present Board of Admiralty to be in every respect as perfect as any vessels that had ever been built in the public dockyards, and depreciatory statements should not be made by an hon. Member who had not the slightest knowledge of the subject. In reference to the Vote, he regretted that the office of Consulting Engineer had been abolished, for, having had an acquaintance for nearly 30 years with Mr. Murray, the gentleman who had occupied that post, he was convinced that the country did not possess a more faithful or more useful public servant. He desired to know what were the duties of the Professional Secretary to the Chief Constructor, an office of which he had not previously heard. If it meant a legal adviser for the purpose of drawing contracts, it was a work of supererogation, for there had been no contracts, as the Chief Constructor had issued no contracts since the present Government had been in Office. He (Mr. Samuda) also wished for some explanation as to

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why the sums received for turtle were not credited in the Estimates? Having lately visited a tavern in the City he found a place as large as that chamber filled with water tanks, and having about 200 turtle swimming in it. Having asked the landlord how he obtained such a large supply, he was informed that they were purchased on the arrival of Her Majesty's ships from abroad, and that the house had a regular contract with the Lords of the Admiralty. But there was no notice of any such receipts in the Estimates. Looking again at the figures of Admiralty office expenses, it would seem that the management expenses amounted to £160,000. A reference to another portion of the Estimates would show that the expenditure in the building of ships, materials, and wages was to amount to £726,000, so that the cost of management on this score was no less than 22 per cent. Hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, who were never tired of making professions of economy, should remember that it had been shewn that the expenses of management ought not to exceed half that sum.
MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he would remind the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken that the expenses on account of management stood at £183,000 only two years ago. As one who had formerly found fault with this sum, he must express his satisfaction at witnessing its steady and gradual reduction.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he desired some explanation with reference to the assistance which the Vice Admiral and the Rear Admiral of England were expected to render to the Admiralty. Hitherto those posts, together with that of the Governor to the Greenwich Hospital, had been regarded as sinecures, and had been conferred as recognitions of merit upon officers of distinction. At the commencement of the year the post of Rear Admiral of England was conferred for distinguished services upon Sir William Hope Johnstone, and at the end of February, after having held the office six weeks, that gallant officer found that he was to be removed. Now, the office had never been in the gift of the Admiralty; it had been a patent office, and had been voided only by promotion to Admiral of the Fleet or by death. It was perfectly true that Sir William Hope Johnstone had suffered no pecuniary loss, because the
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amount of his salary had been made up to him in the shape of retired pay; but he had been deprived of a distinguished office, and could not help feeling that a slur had been cast upon him. He called on the First Lord of the Admiralty to protest; but he was informed that, in consequence of the new scheme of retirement, it had been thought right to deprive him of his post of honour and of his patent office. A correspondence, which the right hon. Gentleman (the First Lord of the Admiralty) would perhaps consent to lay upon the Table, had passed between him and the right hon. Gentleman, and in that correspondence, which related to a conversation between Sir William Hope Johnstone and the right hon. Gentleman, it appeared that the right hon. Gentleman had stated that these posts must be held by officers on the active list, because they might be called upon to perform duty in case any casualty occurred at the Admiralty. But if it was necessary that these posts should be filled by officers on the active list, in order that the vacancy might be supplied, in case the First Lord of the Admiralty were drowned, the Vice Admiral of England, who had not been superseded, was eight years older than Sir William Hope Johnstone. There was another matter, too, upon which the right hon. Gentleman ought to give some explanation. It would be in the recollection of the Committee that last year the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox) challenged the conduct of the Admiralty in reference to the discharge of Admiralty clerks. The right hon. Gentleman, in his reply, said—he was quoting from Hansard—
"No clerks have been discharged against their will. In several cases there was hesitation and some correspondence; but ultimately I believe that in every case the retirement was voluntary under the terms approved by theTreasury."—[3 Hansard, cxcvii. 413.]
The right hon. Gentleman led the House to understand that such was the policy of the Admiralty. But, far from this being the case, compulsory retirements of a very grievous character had occurred; and to two of these he thought it right to call attention. The cases were those of Mr. Henry Dundas and Mr. James, two officers of great distinction, of whom the Admiralty determined to get rid, by hook or by crook. At the time that he himself was at the Admiralty no officers

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performed their duty better than those two gentlemen. Mr. Henry Dundas was the Private Secretary to Sir Alexander Milne, had been Private Secretary to Sir Frederick Grey, and from the time of his appointment had always held the highest character. Mr. James was an officer of even higher rank, at the head of the Gunnery department, and as he (Sir John Hay) had been superintendent of that special branch of Admiralty business, he was brought into frequent contact with Mr. James, and received from him the greatest assistance in carrying out the various and complicated duties of that department—assistance and good services which he was glad to have that opportunity of acknowledging. Mr. James, however, and Mr. Dundas were pitched upon and endeavoured to be got rid of, and, having first been pressed and cajoled, to retire, were at last threatened if they refused to do so. They, however, had no wish to quit a service which they liked, and the duties of which they performed admirably; and building their hopes on the statement of the right hon. Gentleman in his place in Parliament that no clerks had been discharged against their will, they not unnaturally supposed that no clerks would be so dismissed. After several attempts to get rid of those gentlemen, who declined to go, a Report was obtained—how, he did not know—stating, in vaguish terms, that they were the two most incompetent officers of their rank in the Admiralty. This, he ventured to state, was certainly not his own experience of those gentlemen while his right hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) or his right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) were in Office; both of them were officers of high rank and capacity, and one especially had held the post of Private Secretary to the First. Naval Lord in successive Administrations. When the Report was made there were renewed attempts—he really must say—to bully these two gentlemen out of the Service. Mr. Dundas went; but Mr. James was not the man to do so. He sought the advice of his solicitor, and was advised to summon the officer who had drawn up the Report to a Court of Law for defamation of character, and made arrangements for summoning the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty and other official personages as witnesses.
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Thereupon he was sent for to the right hon. Gentleman's room and begged to stay in the service. He consented to do so, and was in the service at this moment. These were cases freely mentioned in private conversation; they were cases known to his right hon. Friends who had held the Office of First Lord of the Admiralty; and they were cases that ought to be known to the Committee and the country. The public service could not be conducted if gentlemen, who had devoted their lives to it, were to be hustled and bundled about in this way and threatened to be turned out of it, being only relieved when, they turned round and began to take the law of the authorities. Last year there was a newly-fledged department called the "Purchase and Contract department," of the working of which exceedingly little was known, but what little transpired was very much to its detriment. Under the old contract system, though high prices might sometimes be paid, the articles were, at least, according to sample, were faithfully delivered, and the public had the advantage of tenders. The new system, however, was to make the purchases direct, and through a single firm, Messrs. Shaw and Thomson, of 150, Leadenhall Street. There could be no mistake as to the name, for he had in his hand a dozen printed papers of the Admiralty, sent to him by different firms in the City, with the names of Messrs. Shaw and Thomson upon them. These were the gentlemen who showed great consideration to the Admiralty when they made the blunder of selling all their good anchors, and allowed the Admiralty to have them back again. The question was asked at the time whether they were to have anything for it, and this was denied. Immediately afterwards it was said that they had been made the agents through whom the Admiralty would, in future, obtain their contracts. This also was denied; but the printed forms which he had in his hand as to different articles required by the Admiralty left very little doubt upon this point. Messrs. Shaw and Thomson accordingly were agents or had been agents for a sufficient time to recoup themselves for the services rendered to the Admiralty in re-selling them their iron anchors. Notice was given of a Question addressed to the Secretary to the Admiralty, a gentleman of great commercial experience, and him-

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self an employer of labour, as to the terms on which those gentlemen had been employed to purchase articles for the public service. But although it was the Secretary to the Admiralty who was challenged, the First Lord immediately rose and said that it was entirely against the Secretary's wish, and only at his own urgent request, that these gentlemen had been employed as private agents to make purchases for the Government. Take another instance of the working of the new Purchase department. There was a colliery in Wales called the Hirwain Colliery, the coal of which might be applied to certain uses, but was of a dangerous and inferior character, and was condemned by the proper officers as unfit to be used in the Navy from the probability that ships carrying it would be set on fire. No prudent shipowner would allow it to be used on board his vessels. Nevertheless, 18,000 tons of that coal were received at Sheerness, having been purchased at a lowish rate. Coals for the Admiralty were no longer bought by tender, but by a friend of the Secretary to the Admiralty, a Mr. M'Culloch, who, it was understood, received 3d. a ton from the Admiralty for every ton of coals received by them—what he might receive at the other end, of course, nobody knew. He had been informed that there was a gentleman of the same name as Mr. M'Culloch who was the manager of the Hirwain Colliery; he did not know whether they were related in any way, but Hirwain coal was certainly bought by Mr. M'Culloch. Some of the coal so purchased was placed on board the Megœra, and when on the Line she caught fire and might have been lost owing to the fuel that she carried. A Return had been moved for upon the subject, but the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give a much larger Return than was asked for, and it had not yet been produced; he was, therefore, obliged to make this statement upon what he believed to be very tolerable authority. It was well known that in the different Government establishments the supply of coal was kept down to the lowest quantity, and that when the officers of the yards were compelled to make purchases for the immediate necessities of the public service, Mr. M'Culloch had been sent down to find fault. He would give an instance. When the right hon. Gentleman opposite took command last
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year of the Channel Fleet, an order was sent to Pembroke Dockyard to have a supply ready for the fleet. The Storekeeper, a most excellent officer, found that the stock of coals was not sufficient for the requirements of the fleet, which was to arrive next day, and he accordingly applied to the Captain Superintendent, who directed him to procure the supplies necessary for the squadron. The right hon. Gentleman duly arrived with his fleet; the Storekeeper was complimented for his energy and activity by the First Sea Lord, who accompanied the vessels, the necessary supplies were taken on board, the fleet sailed, and the Storekeeper thought that there was an end of it. But the other Board in London and the Secretary to the Admiralty immediately found fault with what had been done, they refused to pay for the coal which had been purchased, and Mr. M'Culloch was sent down to complain, and he supposed to inquire why he had not received his threepences. Since then the Storekeeper had been dismissed—or retired, or whatever the phrase was—and he (the Storekeeper) was quite ready to give any hon. Gentleman, who might desire it, all necessary information upon the subject.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he would endeavour to answer in a few words the various questions which had been put to him. And, first, he might be permitted to congratulate his hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. M. Chambers) on having found the speech which he forgot the other day, when Vote 6 of the Navy Estimates, to which it related, was under discussion. His hon. Colleague, however, in the representation of Devonport (Mr. J. D. Lewis) then made a speech precisely to the same effect, which was very fully answered at the time, and therefore it was as unnecessary as it would be irregular for him to answer these statements again, beyond saying that he believed the course of the Government could be fully justified. The hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir John Hay) had asked three or four very pertinent questions. The first was as to the amount of superannuations and pensions granted to officers at the Admiralty on reduction; and the hon. Baronet suggested that these exceeded the amount saved by the smaller establishment. Even if this were so, as the amount of such pensions must fall off

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every year, it would be no argument against the reduction in the civil establishment; but he had on a previous occasion shown that, allowing for pensions, there had been a large net saving; and he had no means at hand of cheeking the hon. Baronet's calculation. He would, however, willingly lay any Return on the subject on the Table, which might elucidate the case. The hon. and gallant Baronet had put to him a second Question of which he had had no Notice, and, therefore, he was not able to answer it with great minuteness. He would, however, give the best reply he could from memory. Among the officers recently retired from age was a very gallant officer in his 72nd year, Sir William Hope Johnstone, who a few days before had been appointed to the ancient office of Rear Admiral of the United Kingdom. This retirement necessitated his vacating this office, and the hon. Baronet opposite says that the gallant officer called on him (Mr. Childers), and that he told him he could not retain the office because when the Admiralty went to sea they might be drowned, and he might be called on to discharge their functions, which he could not do if retired. He need not assure the House that he had not said anything so absurd; and if Sir William Hope Johnstone had not understood what he had actually said, he would willingly try to make matters clearer to him. The fact was that great consideration, in point of money, had been given to this officer. Although at his advanced age retirement was obligatory on him, a special clause had been inserted in the Order in Council allowing him to receive not only the improved rate of half-pay, but, for life, the full salary of his office—a privilege which the provisions of the Order of 1866 would not have allowed to any officer coming on the list after its date. And here he might remark, parenthetically, that to avoid for the future this inconvenience three additional good service pensions, to be held after retirement, had been substituted for the salaries of these nominal offices. When Sir William Hope Johnstone called on him he was satisfied that on the pecuniary question he had been fairly treated, and that he would receive the full value of his sinecure, but he urged that he ought to retain its title. He (Mr. Childers) had explained to him that the duties assigned to him by the patent,
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although he would probably never be called upon to perform them, were such as could only be performed by an officer on the Active List. That was the whole story, and there was really nothing in it. Then the hon. and gallant Officer (Sir John Hay) brought forward the case of two clerks in the Admiralty—Mr. James and Mr. Dundas. First of all he said that last year he (Mr. Childers) had stated that at that time no clerk had been absolutely forced out of the office under retirement, although some had gone voluntarily, and he assumed, therefore, that it was implied or that he had said under no circumstances whatever would any clerk be required against his will to retire. Now he never had said anything so preposterous. They were greatly reducing the number of clerks, and it might of course happen that some gentlemen, though offered a handsome compensation, would not be willing to retire. But what had been the result? With very few exceptions indeed—he thought the whole number was not more than three or four—all had been retired without any serious objections. In the Secretary's Office a considerable reduction in numbers had to be made. The selection of clerks for that reduction was made on the responsibility of the officers placed over the clerks—the Secretary and Chief Clerk. They recommended that those particular officers should be reduced whose services might be spared with great advantage to the public service. All these took the retirement in the Secretary's Office except two. What was done with respect to them? First of all he called in the responsible officers to report the reasons which led them to recommend that they should be retired against their wishes. He then referred that Report to Lord Camperdown's Committee, which, as he had explained on a former occasion, dealt with all these cases. On Mr. James and Mr. Dundas objecting that this Committee had not fully considered their case, he was himself so anxious that no possible injustice should be done that he determined to hear the whole facts himself. Two or three of his Colleagues met with him in his own room; those gentlemen came before them; they heard the evidence of each of the Secretary, Chief Clerk, and several other officers under whom they had served, and the decision come to was that in the case of Mr.

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James, although his conduct had not been uniformly satisfactory, the case against him was not sufficient to retire him against his will; but, in the case of Mr. Dundas, it was sufficient, and he was retired. With regard to Mr. James having summoned him, or given notice that he was about to summon him, to prove a libel against some inferior officer, he could only say this was the first time he had heard of it. With regard to the concluding remarks of the hon. and gallant Officer he should leave the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Baxter) to answer them. He would only say that the hon. and gallant Officer (Sir John Hay) was quite mistaken in what he had stated as to the coaling of the Channel Fleet. The arrangements for that purpose had been entirely satisfactory, and there was no foundation for the statement which had been made on the authority of some superannuated officer. Then, as to the question put by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) with regard to the employment of shipping agents, when they came to Vote 17 the subject would more conveniently be discussed. That arrangement had been made after full consideration, and in accordance with the practice of all men of business; it was only for one year, and if it was not found to work well it would be altered. He now came to his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir James Elphinstone). He was sure his hon. and gallant Friend did not seriously expect him to follow him in all his remarks; but there were one or two he must refer to. His hon. and gallant Friend said the Turkish Admiral had stated that if we had not reduced the fleet in Greek waters, the recent deplorable murders of British subjects would not have been committed. He was not aware that so naked an opinion had been expressed by Hobart Pasha, and he must demur to that gentleman being considered quite impartial on the question. But, as a matter of fact, the arrangement of their Predecessors in Office with regard to the disposition of the Mediterranean Fleet had been adhered to. Not a ship had been removed, and its disposition was now as then made by that very excellent officer, Sir Alexander Milne, whose arrangements were entirely approved by both the Foreign Office and the Admiralty. So that the whole of his hon. Friend's remarks on that subject fell entirely to the ground.
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Then his hon. and gallant Friend said that Mr. Reed had only built one good ship, and that they had paid pretty well to educate him. Now, he was bound to say that Mr. Reed, by common consent, and not in the opinion of one Admiralty alone, had been a most successful shipbuilder. The Monarch was not his only success; and it was the late Board of Admiralty that recommended £5,000 should be paid to him. With regard to the complaint of his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Samuda), he would say the officer who formerly held the post of Engineer at Portsmouth had been appointed by the late Board to a sort of roving inspection of all the other dockyards. This arrangement did not work well, and when the offices of Master Shipwright and Engineer were amalgamated, Mr. Murray was brought to London, combining with the office of General Inspector of Factories and Workshops the office of Consulting Engineer. But the work proposed to be done by Mr. Murray in connection with the Factory and Workshop Accounts was found to be more suitable for Mr. Fellows, the Inspector of Dockyard Accounts; and the office of Consulting Engineer did not take up Mr. Murray's full time. He ceased, therefore, to be a salaried officer, but would be consulted on a fee when required. The duties of the officer who acted as Secretary to the Chief Constructor were distinctly stated in the Estimates of last year. The last point to which he must advert was the real question before the House. The hon. Member for Sunderland had moved a reduction of the Vote; but anyone acquainted with the business of the Department must be aware that it would be impossible for Mr. Reed to get through the work assigned to him if he had not the aid of Assistant Constructors. With respect to the whole staff Sir Spencer Robinson had been able, with the aid of Mr. Reed, to effect considerable economy.
MR. CORRYsaid, that with regard to the question of contracting for ships, there was a good deal of truth in the observations of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Samuda); but they did not altogether accurately represent his (Mr. Corry's) views. What he said three years ago was that the work done by contractors was of admirable quality; but at the same time he added, that, as

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regards unarmed ships, he gave the decided preference to those built in the Government dockyards, and that though in the first instance the contract-built ships might be cheaper, yet, when the cost of them was accurately cast up during their whole life for repairs and other matters, the non-contract ships were really less expensive. With regard to the removal of Mr. Murray, he entirely disagreed with the First Lord of the Admiralty when he spoke of Mr. Fellows being an admirable substitute for Mr. Murray. The right hon. Gentleman might as well have said that he was a good substitute for Mr. Reed. As much science was required in selecting steam engines as in constructing men of war. [Mr. CHILDERS: I stated that Mr. Fellows analyzed the accounts.] Something more than the examination of accounts was necessary, and it was a most alarming consideration that at this moment there was no officer at the Admiralty competent to advise the Board as to the selection of designs and specifications of engines for ships of war. He defied the right hon. Gentleman to name any gentleman so competent to perform that duty as Mr. Murray was. Of all the many mistakes which the present Board of Admiralty had committed, the removal of Mr. Murray from his responsible duties was, perhaps, the greatest. Mr. Murray regarded his removal as a great slur on his professional character, and it was to be hoped that the First Lord of the Admiralty would make a public declaration of the high estimation in which the Admiralty held that gentleman's abilities, and that his removal was not occasioned by any fault of his own. Mr. Murray was told that he would be consulted on important occasions; but those important occasions had never arisen, and it would be satisfactory to Mr. Murray to know whether or not he had any relation with the Admiralty. With regard to the Purchase department, every hon. Member must know that under the present system of purchasing there was very great and widespread suspicion that justice was not done to mercantile men. He did not mean to deny that Mr. M'Culloch was a most honourable man; but the system was one which did not inspire confidence. It was difficult to see how the old system had been improved upon. It was true that under the contracting arrangement the disgraceful case in which Mr. Gam-
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bier was concerned occurred; but that person, although he tried to humbug the contractors, had no more power to influence their acceptance than a doorkeeper of the House of Commons.
MR. BAXTERsaid, the present was not the time for entering on a defence of the purchase system, and if upon every Vote everything connected with the Admiralty was to be discussed, the Navy Estimates would never be got through; but he was prepared to answer one or two remarks made by the right hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry). The first statement was that the appointment of Messrs. Hogg and Robinson to the Transport department was one which exercised an influence on the Purchase department, and for which the Purchase department was responsible. The appointment of these gentlemen, however, had nothing to do with the purchase and sale of goods; it was simply an arrangement for the shipping of goods in the Transport department. The matter was one which was pressed upon him by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers), who, however, deferred, attention to it until the arrangements for the purchase and sale of goods had been placed on a proper footing; and then his right hon. Friend determined to recur to the question of the shipping of goods in the Transport department, and they together arrived at the conclusion that it was expedient to employ a gentleman to advise their gallant Friend at the head of the department (Admiral Mends) in connection with the shipping of small quantities of goods. What that had to do with the Purchase department he could not understand. It was stated that, instead of tenders being advertised for and purchases being made in the open market, purchases were made by friends of his; and that he indignantly denied. No friend of his, no gentleman he had ever spoken to, had been employed by the Admiralty in connection with the Purchase department. He was deeply indebted to hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House for calling upon him and speaking to him in the Lobbies in order to give him excellent advice as to the best mode of securing supplies; but not a man of his acquaintance had been employed in any way in connection with the Purchase department of the Admiralty. He thought the attack that had been made was quite uncalled for, and he ap-

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pealed to the House and the country against such charges as had been made against him by the hon. and gallant Gentleman with a recklessness which passed his comprehension. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone, on the last day of February, brought several charges of the gravest possible nature against him in connection with the Purchase department, every one of which he shattered to the winds.
MR. CORRYsaid, he brought no charge; but he made statements, which were contradicted at the time, but which had since been confirmed on inquiry of the principal officers of the dockyards. He suggested that the hon. Member should wait until they came to Vote No. 10.
MR. BAXTERsaid, the right hon. Gentleman attacked him, pronounced the Purchase department a failure, and, when he was about to reply, told him to wait until they came to another Vote.
MR. CORRYsaid, no Member of the Government had a right to regard what had been said as a personal attack.
MR. BAXTERsaid, the hon. and gallant Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay) had stated that he had employed friends of his own in the Purchase department.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he wished to explain that he merely said this was the general report out-of-doors, which he thought the hon. Gentleman ought to have an opportunity of answering in the House.
MR. BAXTERsaid, he was not afraid of his character out-of-doors. He did not complain of criticism of the management of the Purchase department; but he did complain of insinuations of this kind, which, everyone connected with the Purchase department knew to be quite baseless. He was quite ready to wait until they came to Vote No. 10; but he complained that a discussion which they had expected to-night had not come on because the right hon. Gentleman was not in his place at the proper time. When it came on he was quite prepared to show the House and the country that in the past the management of the purchases and sales of stores for the Admiralty Department had been unbusiness-like and absurd. Having disposed of two charges, he now came to the third, which was that they had been guilty of using Hirwain coal. This was a hard anthracite coal of South Wales, which
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ought not to be used by itself, but which was one of the very best coals for mixing with bituminous coal. In one or two instances it was naturally complained of by officers of the dockyards. A gentleman connected with the Purchase department, whom he never saw or heard of until he became Secretary to the Admiralty, was sent down to show the officers how it ought to be used and ought to be mixed with bituminous coal; and in both instances the Report was that, having had the matter explained to them, the mixture was highly satisfactory. With respect to the Megœra, he regretted that the Papers were not on the Table; but when produced they would not support any of the accusations which had been made.
MR. M. CHAMBERSsaid, he wanted to have a reply to his question, why mere useless ships were not broken up in the public dockyards?
MR. CHILDERSsaid, the matter was one of expediency and policy, depending upon many circumstances which could not be stated in reply to a question. Many were broken up in the public dockyards; others were sold to be broken up elsewhere. The whole matter was fully discussed in a Committee which sat the year before last; and the result was, the passing of an Act of Parliament last Session to enable the Government to sell a larger number of ships than they could formerly dispose of, but which put an end to the system under which the Government sold the ships, and then had to buy back the part of them which they required. It was he who recommended the retirement of Mr. Murray; but it was his intention to carry out the arrangement under which Mr. Murray retired, and which was, that from time to time he should be employed as Consulting Engineer in special inquiries for which he was specially fitted. His opinion of Mr. Murray was expressed by the fact that he had recommended, him for the distinction of the Bath.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he did not propose to move the reduction of the Vote; but the right hon. Gentleman opposite had not explained the working of the Purchase department, and he therefore gave notice that, if there was time this Session, and, if not, next Session, he would move for a Committee to inquire into the working of it.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had been referred to, and it had been stated that it was understood personal friends of his had been employed.
SIR JOHN HAYexplained that he did not say it was understood; he said it was reported.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, it was a very easy thing when you heard a cock-and-bull story to damage your opponent by saying it was reported of him, and when challenged to confess to knowing nothing about it; but, while he was responsible for naval affairs, he would not receive such imputations without indignantly contradicting them.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, the Government must see that the course they were pursuing was completely upsetting the old principle of competition, and involving them in difficulty and trouble. All that was said and done by persons in the Purchase department was known in the City and everywhere else; they were watched from the time they got up until they went to bed; and whenever one of them said anything about business it was supposed to have reference to a Government contract. The hon. Member (Mr. Baxter) said hon. Members offered him advice, no doubt commending assorted samples of this or that; but that was not the way the business of the country ought to be carried on. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) and the hon. Gentlemen opposite were honourable men, but no man could touch pitch and not be defiled; and they could, not under such circumstances, save themselves from imputations, as they could under the old system of open tender, with officers to test the samples. Admiral Cooper Key was evidently dismissed and visited with the vengeance of the Admiralty because he had rejected a quantity of bad stores, and then, when the Admiralty found there would be a disturbance, he was transferred to Malta. Nothing would persuade him that this was not so. The stores now supplied for the use of the Navy were of an inferior class to those formerly purchased. For example—there never was such smoky, bad coal as that which was now supplied, and which came from districts represented by hon. Gentlemen who loudly supported the Government. The Admiralty ought to employ patent fuel. The French bought the best Welsh coal. They
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crushed it, combining it with bitumen, and the result was more steam and better work, while the ships were kept clean. At present the smoke corroded the rigging, destroyed the clothing of the ship's company, and deteriorated every part of the ship. The present source of supply was maintained for nothing else than in order to get political capital for the Government. Again, the oil supplied was deficient both in lubricating and in illuminating power, and it clogged and destroyed the machinery. Where did this come from? Dundee.
MR. BAXTERsaid, that no oil now came from Dundee at all. When he took office he found that sperm oil was bought for the use of the Navy at £134 per ton; but he now bought colza oil at £38 15 s. a ton.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he hoped to hear who bought this oil, and he would promise, on a future occasion, to lay before the House some data upon which statements had been made that evening.
MR. NORWOODsaid, he did not think any vindication of the character of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baxter) was necessary; but he awaited with some curiosity at a future time an explanation of the system of purchase now adopted at the Admiralty. In his opinion public tender, not private purchase, was the best system.
CAPTAIN STANLEYsaid, it was far from the intention of those near him to say anything which might occasion even temporary annoyance to the personal feelings of hon. or right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench; and he thought they should be glad of the opportunity of explaining as publicly as possible charges which, however groundless, had been generally circulated, and as to which the Committee were no doubt glad to receive a disclaimer. At the same time, he claimed for his side of the House full liberty upon Vote 10 of criticizing the Purchase department of the Admiralty.
MR. DYCE NICOLasked the First Lord whether, in the recent Admiralty arrangements, the period of service of the First and Third Naval Lords at the Board of Admiralty had been fixed; a subject of interest not only to the service, but to the public generally, as affording encouragement to meritorious officers of high standing, by holding out

1673
the prospect of being taken into the counsel of the First Lord; and which appeared particularly desirable at a time when appointments on shore were becoming more and more limited, and when an entire revolution was taking place in the construction of our ships of war and in their armaments, regarding which the advice of those who had been recently afloat, might be of much value in the administration of the Navy. He was satisfied that should the right hon. Gentleman think it consistent with his duty to intimate that these important offices were not, under ordinary circumstances, to be held for a longer period than three or four years, it would show the public that the patronage of the Admiralty was being used solely with a view to the public interest.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, that no limitation, as to the period of service, had been put upon the selection of Her Majesty of officers to fill the appointment of First and Junior Sea Lords. The tendency, however, of what had been done with regard to retirement would be in the direction of such a limitation.
Question put, and negatived.
Original Question put, and agreed to.
(2.) £196,955, Coast Guard Service, Naval Coast Volunteers and Naval Reserve.
MR. GRAVESsaid, that the sum now asked was very much the same as the sum taken last year; but he perceived by a foot-note that it was possible there might be some modification in consequence of the Report of the late Committee. If that Report were adopted in all its integrity, the effect would be very seriously to diminish the strength of the Naval Reserve. Hitherto the minimum height had been 5 feet 5 inches; but the Admiralty had power to make exceptions in certain cases. That power was now to be withdrawn, and the standard of 5 feet 5 inches to be observed for the future. From the Return appended to the Report, it appeared that one-fifth of the men introduced into the Naval Reserve of late years had been under 5 feet 5 inches; and, therefore, if the rule to which he had alluded were to be acted on, we should lose one-fifth of our Reserve Force. At least 30 per cent of the men in the Royal Navy were under 5 feet 5 inches; indeed, on board
1674
one of our large iron-clads, no less than 42 per cent were under that height. But taking the number at 30 per cent, these men, the blue-jackets serving on board of Her Majesty's ships, were now to be precluded from entering the Naval Reserve when their engagements in the Navy had terminated, and more valuable men could not be got. There was another point to which he wished to call attention. Hitherto the Admiralty had power to give special permission to the men of the Reserve to go on foreign voyages, if the nature of the voyage was stated in the permission. But it was proposed in the Report to confine the voyages of the Naval Reserve men to 12 months. The effect of that would be that owners in the long voyage trade to India and China would not take these men, because, before the end of the voyage, they would be obliged either to return or to break their leave, and incur the penalties of forfeiture under the regulations of the Reserve. Now, the men engaged in those voyages were the very cream of the Reserve, and this obligation, which it was proposed to impose upon them, was quite needless, and would be productive of much loss to the Reserve men. Then it was usual to have small batteries around the coast for drilling the men who joined the force; but now they would be obliged to go for their 30 days' drill into the large seaports, where they would spend their money away from their families, and be exposed to many temptations. He feared the best feeling towards the Reserve was not exhibited in this Report. For instance, while in one line it was said—"By Article 169 the Government is pledged never to discharge a man without his own consent, except for misconduct or physical disability," in the next line this most extraordinary recommendation occurred—"The Committee see no good ground for this being continued." Now, what was that but recommending a direct breach of faith with these men? The recommendations of the Commission with which the Reserve originated proposed that it should reach 30,000, but it had never exceeded 16,000; not because this limit was placed on the numbers, but because at this point men having suitable qualifications were exhausted; and it was now proposed, in the Estimates, that it should be the latter

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number—4,000, at least, less than it ought to be. But if the restrictions to which he had called attention were carried out in their integrity, it would be impossible to keep up a force of 16,000 men. We had, in our naval service afloat, 19,000 blue-jackets at most; then there were 16,000 in the Reserve, 4,000 Coastguard men, 3,000 Coast Volunteers, and 17,000 Marines, making, in all, a total force, effective and reserve, of 59,000 men. He had no desire to introduce national comparisons, but it was sometimes necessary, especially when he had been informed by authority which could not be doubted, that France had, in her effective Navy, 37,000 petty officers and able seamen, 140,000 seamen in her maritime inscription between 18 and 50 years of age, 55,000 of whom had passed three years in the Navy, and were liable at any moment to be called out, and the remainder, by an Imperial decree, could be called out in time of war. So that France had a Reserve of 140,000 men against our 23,000. He was glad a subsidiary Reserve had been adopted; he had long advocated one; and he should be glad to see the greater part of the fishermen brought into it. He would once more suggest that the Reserve should be raised to 20,000, and that a Vote should be taken for this number.
MR. BONHAM - CARTERsaid, he was not sorry to see an increase in the Vote for the Naval Reserve, and he believed the feeling of the country generally was in favour of that force. There was no doubt that the experimental squadron of last year, which brought together the Coastguard and the Naval Reserve, had most valuable results. Of course, they could not expect such an experiment to be made every year; but it was successful in every way, and certainly not the less so through the squadron being under the command of a very able officer. It was exceedingly important that that experiment should be followed by another under the eye of the same officer who conducted the first. With regard to what had been said as to that gallant Admiral having been almost dismissed for quarrelling with something that the Government had done in respect to stores, those who knew the position he had held in the scientific portion of the service, and how well he had conducted the various duties that had been intrusted to him, could not
1676
doubt of his high qualifications being perfectly recognized.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, no one appreciated more highly than he did the services of Admiral Cooper Key, and no one could have been more surprised than he was at what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Sir James Elphinstone) as to that distinguished officer's connection with the Admiralty. He knew of no officer who was more likely to rise to the highest position in the command of our fleets than Admiral Cooper Key. With regard to the Naval Reserve the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) seemed to think the suggestions of the Report he had referred to were rather restrictive and prejudicial to that force, instead of being, as they were intended to be, the very reverse. The Naval Reserve was started on a certain basis, and many relaxations were afterwards made in respect to that basis. What was proposed in the Report was to withdraw those relaxations to a certain extent, but also to effect some improvements greatly to the benefit both of the force and of the public. The hon. Gentleman had not seen the very considerable advantages held out to the force in respect to clothing, to prizes, and to other matters, all of which would tend to attract the men into the Reserve far more than they could possibly be repelled by the withdrawal of those relaxations of which the hon. Gentleman had taken an exaggerated view. With regard to the article about retirement and discharge, it was never intended that there should be any breach of faith or going back from the existing engagements with the men now in the force. There certainly was no hostility to the Reserve on the part of the present Board of Admiralty, who were entirely in harmony with the Board of Trade with respect to it, and there was no ground for any insinuation that the Admiralty were desirous of doing anything prejudicial to the force.
Vote agreed to.
(3.) £69,267, Victualling Yards at Home and Abroad.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he thought they ought to have some explanation as to the condition in which the victualling yards now were, and also in reference to the changes to be made in consequence of the Earl of Camperdown's Report.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, it was plain, on the face of the Estimates, what was proposed to be done in respect to the management of the victualling yards. They would be placed hereafter in charge of the superintending storekeeper, with a sufficient number of subordinates officers attached to him to discharge the duty.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he was dissatisfied with the proposed arrangements in respect both to the victualling yards and the superintendence of the sick in hospital.
MR. CORRYsaid, while wishing to speak with every respect of the medical officers, he must say that the men felt that officers of their own branch of the service had more interest in all that concerned them; he could not, therefore, think the change a judicious one.
Vote agreed to.
(4.) £57,730, Medical Establishments at Home and Abroad.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he concurred in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry). One of the most unpopular changes made by the present Board of Admiralty was the taking away of the superintendents of hospitals.
Vote agreed to.
(5.) £18,122, Marine Divisions.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he did not propose to take Votes 10, 11, 12, and 17 till to-morrow, at the Day Sitting. The Notices of Motion on going into Committee of Supply would, of course, come first to-morrow.
Vote agreed to.
(6.) £16,678, Martial Law and Law Charges.
(7.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £118,791, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of various Miscellaneous Services which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1871."
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, as this Vote included the £5,000 proposed to be given to Mr. Reed, he should move to report Progress.
Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Sir James Elphinstone,)—put, and negatived.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he would take occasion to call attention to the sum proposed to be granted to Mr. Reed.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he thought some explanation ought to be given on the subject of that grant.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had given an explanation of it three months ago. Mr. Reed, before he became a salaried officer of the Government, had done certain work for the Admiralty of a very valuable character, for which he had never been remunerated. Since he became an officer of the Government he had been very successful in designing iron-clads, but it was not until this year his success could be said to be established. On the first ground the late Board of Admiralty had recommended a grant to him, which the Treasury had not sanctioned. The present Board of Admiralty had renewed this recommendation on both grounds, and the Treasury had sanctioned it.
MR. HUNTsaid, that the late Treasury Board had refused to accede to the demand for a grant to Mr. Reed, on the ground that he had already received a valuable appointment as a reward for his services. The late Treasury were of opinion that the value of any service which Mr. Reed might have given might have been a ground for increasing his salary, but not for making him a grant of money. He did not know what were the additional services that Mr. Reed had performed since that period which entitled him to have the decision of the late Board set aside.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, that the grant was first asked for on the ground that the services of Mr. Reed, before he became an officer of the Crown, had not been properly remunerated. The success of Mr. Reed's labours with respect to the new iron-clads had only been proved since the late Admiralty Board had left office.
MR. CORRYsaid, he believed that the late Board of Admiralty had fully recognized both these claims of Mr. Reed.
MR. HUNTsaid, he could see no distinction between the case of Mr. Reed and that of Colonel Boxer, to whom a grant had been refused by the War Office.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that his Predecessor in Office (Sir John Pakington)

1679
was averse to giving Colonel Boxer a gratuity, but was ready to increase his salary, and had adopted that course.
MR. HUNTsaid, he thought that Mr. Reed's services should have been recognized in the same way as Colonel Boxer's had been.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that Colonel Boxer had received a gratuity the first time, but it had been refused on the second occasion.
MR. GRAVESsaid, he objected to the Vote, on the ground that it did not accurately define the particular services for which the gratuity asked for was to be given. Had the grant been asked for on the ground of the success of the two iron-clads last built by Mr. Reed he should have been quite willing that it should be made. The vessels, however, which were built by that gentleman when he was first appointed were great failures.
MR. SCLATER - BOOTHsaid, he thought the Vote if agreed to would prove a very bad precedent. The question was, whether the large sum of £5,000 was to be given to a very highly-paid officer in Her Majesty's service for doing his duty?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that if the grant were to be made in respect of Mr. Reed's earlier patents, there were persons who said he was not entitled to the credit of them. When an officer was employed in Her Majesty's service all his labour should belong to his country. He wished to know how the gratuity was proposed to be apportioned for the different services rendered by Mr. Reed? Mr. Reed was now to be remunerated for services rendered eight years ago.
MR. CHILDERS, in reply, said, that the gratuity was asked for, not in respect of any particular patents, but in respect of services for which Mr. Reed had never been remunerated. The success of Mr. Reed's inventions had saved the country upwards of £1,000,000. Under these circumstances, the present Board of Admiralty felt that they were justified in endorsing and renewing the recommendation of their predecessors in Mr. Reed's favour. There were many precedents for the course which had been adopted in the present instance.
MR. HUNTsaid, that a very important question of principle was involved in this case—namely, whether, when
1680
the Government obtained the services of a gentleman for any particular Department, and paid him for the whole of his time, he should, because he was successful, have a gratuity in addition to his salary? That was the question raised in Colonel Boxer's case. The First Lord of the Admiralty mixed up what was done with Mr. Reed before he had a salary and what was done afterwards. He was appointed to his office because he showed ability in constructing ships, and the emoluments of the office was his reward; the late Treasury Board decided not to give him any gratuity, and he (Mr. Hunt) had heard of no reason since to justify doing so.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he entirely agreed that, as a general principle, public servants remunerated by salaries should not have a gratuity; but it was as unwise to make no exceptions to this rule as it would be to make frequent exceptions.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he found no fault with the construction of Mr. Reed's ships, but with their formation, especially as regards draught.
Original Question put, and agreed to.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow, at Two of the clock;
Committee to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

GUN LICENCES BILL— [BILL 134.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he had come to the conclusion not to press it in its original shape. In deference to what he understood to be the general wish of the House, he proposed to retain the game licences, but to give holders of them a licence to carry fire-arms. It would rest with the House to say whether the amount of the licence should be reduced.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he regretted the decision come to, because by it the Chancellor of the Exchequer withdrew the boon he had promised. It had been said that the original proposal of the right hon. Gentleman would relieve the rich; but his (Mr. Hunt's) object in wishing to see the licence reduced was

  1681
  to enable poorer persons to enjoy the pleasure of sport at a moderate cost. To prevent poaching, he would make a provision to withhold a licence from any person found trespassing in pursuit of game or committing any offence with fire-arms.
  VISCOUNT GALWAYsaid, he differed entirely from the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House, and must express his satisfaction at the concession made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If only a £1 licence on guns were imposed there would be a vast increase in the number of poachers. It appeared from the Bill that nobody but an officer of the Inland Revenue or a constable would be entitled to ask for the production of a licence; and he wished, therefore, to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether an owner or occupier of land, or a keeper deputed to look over a property, would not also be authorized to demand the production of a licence from a person trespassing on the property? He also wished to know whether persons employed in scaring birds would be exempted from the operation of Clause 7?
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he was very grateful indeed to the right hon. Gentleman for the concession he had granted. He should, however, prefer to see the licence applicable to the barrels or chambers rather than to the actual gun, in order to check the dangerous practice of carrying revolvers, which was growing very common in the North of England.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERexplained that the licence was not imposed on the guns themselves, but on the carrying of guns.
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he should like to have the tax increased in proportion to the number of chambers each gun might contain.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he thought his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have done well to adhere to his original proposition; but he congratulated him on the support he was receiving from the game preservers. As this tax, he believed, amounted to £150,000, it was high time for another Financial Statement to be made.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, that as the proposed alteration was en-
  1682
  tirely in accordance with the Amendment he had himself given Notice of, he begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the concession he had made. The retention of the game licence was, in his judgment, the greatest check on poaching which could be devised. He trusted, however, that the right hon. Gentleman would fix the cost of the gun licence at 10 s.
  MR. R. SHAWsaid, he was also glad that the game licence was to be retained. It would, however, be a great boon to clerks and others who had an opportunity to go shooting for a week or two if licences available for a week, a fortnight, or a month could be obtained at the Post Offices for 5s. or 10 s.
  MR. ORR EWINGsaid, that gentlemen who only went shooting for two or three days in the year never thought of taking out a licence. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for retaining the old game licence, as the Bill in its original form would have given the greatest encouragement to poaching. He concurred in the suggestion of the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) that the tax should be imposed on the barrels, in order to check the use of revolvers.
  MR. MUNTZsaid, he would point out that the Bill had entirely changed its appearance, and would consequently require careful revision in Committee. If the old game licence were to be retained, no tax ought to be imposed on guns; and when the Bill went into Committee he intended to propose a clause to that effect.
  MR. MACFIEsaid, that he had had the honour of presenting a Petition signed by 36 working men, who stated they should experience great pleasure at being allowed a month's shooting in the spring free of gun tax.
  COLONEL BERESFORDsaid, he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to adhere to the £1 gun tax, which was necessary for the purpose of putting a stop to the shooting of small birds in the neighbourhood of towns.
  MR. CRAUFURDsaid, he thought his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been a little precipitate in announcing his intention of maintaining the game licence in addition to the gun tax, as the Inland Revenue Department were intensely re-

  1683
  luctant to be made the means of prosecuting poachers in consequence of a tax being levied on guns.
  MR. M'LAGANsaid, he would make the common-sense suggestion that game preservers who sold their game should be made to take out the dealer's licence.
  MR. GRAVESsaid, he wished to know whether it was meant to include, as subject to the tax on guns, the large number of guns in the armouries connected with the shipping of the country?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The tax is to be, not on guns, but on the carrying of them.
  MR. GRAVESsaid, there was a large number of guns carried annually between the armourer's shop and the ships.
  Bill read a second time, and committed, for Thursday 9th June.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.—ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [3rd May],
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, humbly to express the desire of this House that in the exercise of the power conferred upon Her Majesty by the 9th, 10th, and 19th sections of the Act 31 and 32 Vic. c. 118, with respect to the five Statutes for determining and establishing the constitution of the new governing bodies of Shrewsbury, Winchester, Harrow, Charterhouse, and Rugby Schools, Her Majesty will be pleased to ascertain whether the said Statutes correspond with the provisions of the 17th and 19th sections of the Endowed Schools Act of 1869, and, if they do not correspond with the said sections, to disapprove of them, or of so much of them, accordingly."—(Mr. Thomas Hughes.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYmoved the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "Majesty" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "representing that the Five Statutes for determining and establishing the constitution of the new governing bodies of Shrewsbury, Winchester, Harrow, Charterhouse, and Rugby Schools, have been considered by this House, and humbly to express their desire that, as since the passing of the Public Schools Act 1868 the Endowed Schools Act 1869 has passed, Her Majesty will be pleased to refer back those Statutes to the Special Commissioners appointed under the Public Schools Act, in order that they may have the opportunity
  1684
  of reconsidering certain parts of the said Statutes with reference to the principles applied in the Endowed Schools Act to other Endowed Schools,"—(Mr. Russell Gurney,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. NEWDEGATEmoved that the Debate be now adjourned. He was assured by competent legal authority that if this Amendment were carried into effect an action would lie against any person appointed under it for his very first official act, and he, as a trustee of Rugby School, should certainly bring an action.
  SIR JOHN LUBBOCK: Sir, I rose at the same moment as the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) in order to second the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for Southampton, and I hope the hon. Member will allow that Amendment to pass, for I can assure him that the delay is highly prejudicial to the interests of the public schools. In seconding the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Southampton, I beg to assure my hon. Friend the Member for Frome that I am actuated by no spirit of hostility to his Motion. On the contrary, as one of the Public School Commissioners, I have, from the commencement, been strongly opposed to the clause which he wishes to cancel. Indeed, Sir, it must be obvious to every hon. Member who considers the constitution of the Commission, that it would be our wish to regard the whole question from a liberal point of view. In the opinion, however, of the highest authorities, as, for instance, of the Solicitor General, the Commission really had no option in the matter. I confess I should not myself have taken this view; but I cannot, of course, set up my opinion against that of so eminent an authority. Moreover, it must be remembered that the Commissioners are making most extensive changes, and are naturally watched from many quarters with much jealousy; and, under these circumstances I am sure the House will sympathize with the anxiety of the Commission to keep well within their powers, and not unduly to stretch the authority vested in them. Sir, as far as the interests of the Church of England are concerned, this clause in the

  1685
  proposed statutes seems to me to possess very little importance. Take, for instance, the case of Winchester. The Governing Body of that school will be composed as follows:—The Wardens of New College, Oxford, and Winchester, one member each elected by the Wardens and Fellows of New College, the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, the Royal Society, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Head and Assistant Masters; and two or four by the Governing Body for the time being, a provision which will materially strengthen the Conservative element in the Governing Body. Sir, I hope the time may come when all these bodies will elect the best man, independent of his religious opinions; but, as matters now stand, out of the 13 members of whom the Governing Body will consist, there is obviously no chance that more than one or two will be Nonconformists. Even that is doubtful, for though the Royal Society of the University of London will certainly elect those whom they consider most fit, irrespective of their religious opinions, they will certainly not elect anyone because he is a Nonconformist. I submit, therefore, that in the interests of the Church of England it is undesirable to fight this question. No doubt there are some privileges necessary to the existence of an Established Church; but this is not one of them, and it does seem to me very unwise on the part of friends of the Church to grasp at the mere shadow of a privilege, thus jeopardizing the substantial advantage of popular sympathy and support. Moreover, Sir, this privilege seems to me to be one of a very dangerous character, since it excites hostility without, on the other hand, conferring any strength. As regards the schools themselves, however, the limitation seems to me of considerable importance, since it will exclude some whose presence all would regard as most desirable. I regret, therefore, that all the public schools cannot be thrown open, and for the same reason I should, of course, like to see the 19th clause of the Endowed Schools Act reconsidered, as it seems to me contrary to public policy that anyone should be able to tie up his property, and thus offer a premium to the teaching of certain opinions—a premium, which if they are right they do not require, and if they are wrong they ought not to have. Sir, the Amendment seems to me preferable to
  1686
  the original Motion, because it would effect the same object in a simpler and more expeditious manner. Neither, indeed, will it effect all that I myself should wish; but the Amendment will at least strengthen the hands of the Commissioners, and enable them to throw open some of the Governing Bodies. Under these circumstances, I trust that it will be accepted by the hon. Member for Frome, and by the House.
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYsaid, he did not see the use of prolonging this discussion night after night; but would, after making his protest, yield to the overwhelming numbers of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and consent to the adoption of the Motion, for it was useless to oppose a Government that argued with legions at its back.
  MR. T. HUGHESsaid, he was willing to accept the Amendment in preference to the Motion of which he had himself given Notice.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, the House was called upon to ask Her Majesty to act under a statute from the operation of which the public schools were expressly excluded, and therefore this matter could not be carried further without special legislation. There should be legislation before Her Majesty was asked to do anything.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he believed the Commissioners were perfectly right in the course they had pursued. There was nothing to prevent the Commissioners from acting without special legislation.
  MR. DENMANsaid, he hoped the Motion for Adjournment would not be pressed.
  COLONEL BERESFORDsaid, he must submit that the House could only direct existing legislation to be carried out, and there was nothing in it affecting the schools mentioned. He must oppose the Address, considering it a step towards the disestablishment of the English Church, at which the artillery of destruction was now pointed on that (the Opposition) side of the House.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Newdegate.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 55: Majority 25.
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. CHARLEYmoved that this House do now adjourn.
  Motion made, and Question, "That this House do now adjourn,"—(Mr. Charley,)—put, and negatived.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.
  Question put, "That those words be there added."
  The House divided:—Ayes 54; Noes 26: Majority 28.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

  REGISTRATION OF VOTERS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. VERNON HARCOURT, Bill to amend the Laws relating to the Registration of Voters in England and Wales, ordered to be brought in by Mr. VERNON HARCOURT, Sir CHARLES DILKE, and Mr. RATHBONE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 149.]

  SAINT OLAVE, &C. CHARITIES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER, Bill for confirming a scheme of the Charity Commissioners for certain Charities in the parishes of Saint Olave and Saint John in the borough of Southwark, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER and Mr. Secretary BRUCE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 152.]

  JEWISH UNITED SYNAGOGUES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER, Bill for confirming a scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the Jewish United Synagogues, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER and Mr. Secretary BRUCE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 151.]

  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary BRUCE, Bill to amend and extend the Acts relating to Factories and Workshops, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary BRUCE and Mr. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 150.]

  PIER AND HARBOUR ORDERS CONFIRMATION (NO. 2) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  Resolution reported:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE and Mr. STANSFELD.
  Bill Represented, and read the first time. [Bill 154.]

  HORSE RACING BILL.
  Bill "to amend the Laws relating to Horse Racing," presented, and read the first time. [Bill 155.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before Three o'clock.