Commons Sitting of 4 August 1871

MINUTES.
— SELECT COMMITTEE — Report — Pawnbrokers [No. 419]; Slave Trade (East Coast of Africa) [No. 420]; Law of Rating (Ireland) [No. 423].
PUBLIC BILLS — Ordered — First Reading—Elementary Education Act (1870) Amendment (No. 3)* [286].
First Reading—Bishops Resignation Act (1869) Perpetuation* [283]; Burial Grounds* [284]; Church Building Acts Amendment* [285].
Committee—Report—Prince Arthur's Annuity* [280]; Elections (Parliamentary and Municipal) (re-comm.) [103–282]; Customs and Inland Revenue [238]; County Boundaries (Ireland)* [268]; Pedlars Certificates* [271].
Considered as amended—Summary Jurisdiction, &c. (Ireland)* [253].
Third Reading — Clerk of the Peace (County Palatine of Lancaster)* [265]; Judgments (Ireland)* [167], and passed.
Withdrawn—University Tests (Dublin)* [226]; Burials* [7]; Burials Acts Amendment* [66]; Public Lands and Commons* [252].
The House met at Two of the clock.

NAVY—LOSS OF THE "MEGÆRA."

  NOTICE.
  SIR JOHN HAYgave Notice that on Monday next he would ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, If he will state the circumstances under which the "Megæra" storeship, which was being used as a troopship for economical reasons, was run on the Island of St. Paul's to save the lives of the officers and men, and to ask him if he still thinks she left England in a seaworthy condition?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I wish to submit to you, Sir, whether it is right that in the Notice just given by the hon. Baronet that should be stated as a fact of which he knows nothing whatever. It is stated in the Question of which he has given Notice, that the Megæra was sent out "for economical reasons." I shall be prepared to state fully what the facts are on every point; but I want to know whether, in the form of Question he has handed to the Clerk, he can assert as a fact that of which I must candidly say that I deny the truth?
  MR. SPEAKER: The statement is a matter of opinion which may be established.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I understand from you, Sir, that contested matter and disputable matter ought not to be asserted categorically in a Question to be put in the House?
  MR. SPEAKER: When a Question is brought up to the Table of the House it is subject to revision.
  SIR JOHN HAY: If the Question is informal, I am quite ready to have it altered in any way you, Sir, think proper. I am ready to make a statement and a Motion; but I do not wish to interrupt the Business of the House, although I think I have a right to complain of two right hon. Gentlemen who have alluded to my statement in terms which I think are hardly courteous.

PENSIONS PAYABLE BY GREECE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the sums due by the Greek Government for pensions and compensations for British subjects on the cession of the Ionian Islands to the Crown of Greece, have been paid over

  843
  to Her Majesty's Minister in Athens in terms of the Treaty of 29th March 1864?
  VISCOUNT ENFIELD: Sir, by the Convention between Her Majesty and the King of the Hellenes of March 29, 1864, for the cession of the Ionian Islands, it was agreed that the several pensions and allowances payable by the Government of Greece should be paid ten days before the expiration of each half-year. It appears that the pensions under Schedule B for the half-year ending June 30 were accordingly paid to Mr. Stuart on the 15th of June. A complaint having been made by a gentleman in this country of the non-receipt of his pension, Mr. Stuart has been directed to inquire into the cause.

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN RAILWAY PASSENGERS AND GUARDS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether his attention has been called to a recent occurrence on the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, when the communication between the passengers and guard required by Act of Parliament was tried, and proved unworkable; and, whether he has considered whether it would not conduce to the public safety that some simple and easy mode of communication, such as is now in use on the South Eastern Railway, should be made compulsory on all Railways?
  MR. A. PEELsaid, in reply, the attention of his right hon. Friend had been called to the occurrence alluded to by the hon. Member, and an Inspector had received instructions to inquire into the case, and also generally into the whole system of communication between railway passengers and guards. He might add that his right hon. Friend was of opinion that it would be advantageous for the purposes of the inquiry if gentlemen in the possession of any authentic fact as to the use or disuse of any particular system of communication would bring it to his notice.

RE-ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY.

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN BEAUMONTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, now that purchase has been abolished, it is
  844
  his intention to bring in a Bill next Session for the re-organization of the Army?
  MR. CARDWELL: The Bill, Sir, of the present year contains the legislative provisions which Her Majesty's Government considered cardinal. Those which have been omitted are—1, the power to place men in the Reserve after less than three years' service in the ranks; 2, the amendment of the law of 1860 in respect of compulsory service; and 3, power to local authorities to borrow money to build barracks. I am not prepared to say that it will be necessary to introduce another Bill next year.

  NAVY—ACCIDENTS AT SEA.—QUESTION.
  MR. WINGFIELD BAKERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, If any annual or other character of Return is made to the Admiralty of the number of deaths on board Her Majesty's vessels, and whether such a Return shows from what causes such deaths arise; and, whether such is the case or not, he will cause a Return to be placed upon the Table of the House showing the loss of lives, of limbs, and other injuries to sailors, arising from serving the anchor in unfouling, cutting, and fishing it, in ships of Her Majesty's Service, as also, if possible, in the Merchant Service during the year 1870?
  MR. GOSCHEN, in reply, said, he could not at present say whether he should be able to give the Returns. So far as the Merchant Service was concerned it would be impossible. As to the Navy, he could not say absolutely whether the information desired could be procured. While on his legs he must express his regret that the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Hay) should have thought that his remarks with reference to the Question of which he had given Notice were discourteous; but the hon. and gallant Gentleman would understand that he naturally felt very strongly in consequence of the assertions made in his Question.

  THE MILITARY AND THE MEETING IN HYDE PARK.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL LEARMONTH (for Colonel WILMOT)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether an Order confining the Troops to Barracks was issued prior to the meet-

  845
  ing in Hyde Park on Sunday last to the regiments quartered in that neighbourhood; whether the Order relative to the confinement of Troops to Barracks on the evening of the Trafalgar Square Meeting, extended not to only those in that neighbourhood, but to those quartered at Chelsea, Knightsbridge, Regent's Park, and the Tower; whether the Soldiers of the Household Regiments have previously taken part in meetings of a political character, so as to render an order necessary so as to prevent their attendance on that occasion; and, whether any Communication passed between the Home Office and the Military Authorities at the Horse Guards relative to that meeting; and, if so, whether they referred to the attendance of soldiers, and if not, will he be so good as to state to the House the nature of those communications?
  MR. BRUCE: Sir, the hon. and gallant Gentleman asks whether an Order confining the troops to barracks was issued prior to the meeting in Hyde Park on Sunday last to the regiments quartered in that neighbourhood. I have to say that no such Order was issued, nor, in fact, could any such Order have been justified. If my hon. and gallant Friend who gave Notice of these Questions was in Parliament in 1866, he will recollect the discussions which occurred on the subject and the doubts that were raised as to the legality or illegality of public or political meetings in the Parks. A Bill was introduced to settle the doubts by the then Government of Lord Derby, but that Bill was not proceeded with; and at present I must presume that a meeting even of a political character, if held in a quiet and orderly manner, is not illegal. What constituted the illegality of the meeting in Trafalgar Square, as originally called, on Monday evening, was that it was held on a day when Parliament was sitting, to petition Parliament, and within one mile of the Houses of Parliament. The meeting in Hyde Park was held more than a mile from the Houses of Parliament, and on a day when Parliament was not sitting; therefore, it was unnecessary to take any steps to prevent it. With regard to the next Question, I am unable to answer it. It was considered inexpedient, for reasons that may well be imagined, that at the meeting in Trafalgar Square soldiers should be present.
  846
  These meetings are generally called by persons who have no intention whatever of behaving in a disorderly manner. I am informed by a person well qualified to judge, and who remained during the whole time the meeting lasted, that the number of persons constituting the meeting did not exceed 400, although several thousands were present. Such assemblies are very apt to bring together disorderly persons, and it is impossible to say what may occur at them, even if perfectly legal. Therefore, it was thought expedient or judicious to prevent the attendance of soldiers, who might otherwise have been there not from political reasons, but from ordinary curiosity; and the Under Secretary communicated with the War Office as to the issue of such an Order as they might think proper under the circumstances. The Order was left entirely to their discretion. I have no reason to believe that any of the Household troops, or indeed any other soldiers, take part in political meetings. With regard to the latter portion of the Question, I can only repeat that no written authority was given by the Home Office, but that a verbal communication was made by the Under Secretary for the Home Department.

IRELAND—UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WHALLEYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether there is any prospect of the Government adopting, during the Recess, any measures relating to Public Education in Ireland, in furtherance of the views of the deputation lately received by him on the subject of a Roman Catholic University; and, whether he is prepared to state that no resort shall be had for such purposes to the prerogative of Her Majesty?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I have to thank my hon. Friend for giving me Notice of his intention to put this Question, and also for putting it, because I see from the terms in which it is couched that some misapprehension dwells in his mind, and may dwell also in the minds of others. The deputation which I lately received from Ireland did not come to me on the subject of a Roman Catholic University. They placed in my hands documents stating in general terms their view on the subject of education generally; but I am doubtful whether

  847
  they did so much as to read that document at the time when it was presented. It was understood by them to be merely an opportunity for placing in the hands of the Government a statement of their views, and they did not ask from the Government any statement whatever, nor, as far as my memory goes, did I convey to them anything very material, further than an assurance that our conduct in the future would be governed by the same principles as those which had guided it in the past, and that it would be conformable to our previous declarations. The hon. Gentleman says he puts the latter portion of his Question partly with reference to what happened in the year 1866. In that year the Prerogative of Her Majesty was made use of with reference to the higher education in Ireland; but that was not done without documents having been previously laid upon the Table of this House, nor without what the Government believed to be a full declaration of their intention, although I am aware that, with respect to that declaration, a misunderstanding which was very deeply to be regretted occurred at the time. But the question at that period before the Government related only to the Queen's University in Ireland and to the Queen's Colleges in Ireland. Since the disestablishment of the Church the question of the position of Dublin University and College has not only been brought within the scope of the general subject, but has even come to constitute the principal and leading portion of it. Now, that could not be dealt with under any circumstances except by Act of Parliament. Consequently, it has become a matter for the consideration of Parliament, and I cannot anticipate any circumstances under which it would be becoming or expedient that the question of University Education in Ireland should be dealt with by Prerogative apart from a resort to Parliament; and most unquestionably it will never be done without a clear indication of Parliament in the first instance with a view of expressing its opinion. I hope I have answered the hon. Gentleman's Question explicitly. I will also take this opportunity of offering an explanation with regard to the speech delivered by me on Wednesday last. I learn that after I had been obliged to leave the House a portion of that speech was understood—I know not by what mental process—to
  848
  convey to the House an intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government not to endow a Roman Catholic University in Ireland, but to propose the endowment of a Roman Catholic College in Ireland. My speech contained no reference whatever to a Roman Catholic College, and the reason why it contained no such reference was that the subject of the endowment of a Roman Catholic College in Ireland has never, as far as I am aware, been brought before the Government in any shape. If it has been brought under their notice, the circumstance has entirely escaped my recollection. No such intention, I believe, has ever been entertained.

  PRISON MINISTERS BILL.—QUESTION.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, they had now arrived at the 4th of August, and a large number of Orders of the Day were still remaining upon the Paper, many of them being Government Bills. It would greatly conduce to the convenience of the House if the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government would state what Government Orders it was really intended to proceed with. There was one measure especially—namely, the Prison Ministers Bill—in regard to which a great difference of opinion prevailed. There were still many Votes in Supply to be granted, and the House had also to pass many important measures, such as the Factory and Workshops Acts Amendment Bill and the Prevention of Crime Bill. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would state whether these Bills would be proceeded with?
  MR. GLADSTONE: In answer, Sir, to my hon. Friend I have to state that I cannot give a general survey of the Bills which are now upon the Paper. With regard to the Prison Ministers Bill, however, I may make this remark. It is a measure which has no other aim than to give effect to what are confidently believed by us, and also, I think, by the generality of the House, to have been the decided intentions of Parliament at the time when the previous Act on the subject was passed. Under the circumstances, we cannot but hope that any discussion which may be raised on the Bill will be confined within very narrow limits indeed, and it is certainly the intention of the Government to proceed

  849
  with the Bill. As, however, the Bill comes from the Lords, it will not be taken until more progress has been made with the measures which have to be sent from this House to the House of Lords.

  PARLIAMENT—ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I rise, Sir, to move that, during the remainder of the Session, Government Orders of the day have precedence of the other Orders upon Wednesdays. I take this opportunity of saying that it will be for the convenience of the House, with reference particularly to lodging Amendments to the Ballot Bill with a view to the Report, that the House should meet to-morrow at 12 o'clock. I shall state in the course of this evening what business we propose to take when the House meets to-morrow.
  MR. RYLANDSsaid, he was not surprised, considering the present state of the Order Book, at the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government asking the House to agree to the Motion he had just proposed. He could not, however, allow it to pass without expressing, as an independent Member, his belief that hon. Gentlemen had good grounds of complaint in relation to one of the most important matters which claimed the attention of Parliament—namely, the voting of Supplies to Her Majesty. He did not venture to cast the blame on anybody; but he wished to point out that during the remainder of the Session the House had to pass 17 Votes of the Army Estimates, amounting altogether to at least £8,000,000, and that those Votes, including as they did such items as transports, stores, clothing, and materials of war, all required the most careful consideration. The Government had not yet sufficiently justified themselves in regard to the proposed increase of Army expenditure, and therefore, in his opinion, those Votes ought not to be hurried through the House. Then in the Navy Estimates, no fewer than 14 Votes remained, amounting in the aggregate to £6,000,000; while there were 10 Votes to be considered in the Civil Service Estimates, amounting to £500,000. Nobody knew better than the right hon. Gentleman that the spending servants of the Crown were continually stretching forth their hands in order to get possession of the public money, and unless that ten-
  850
  dency was checked by the vigilance of the Members of the House of Commons, no one need be surprised at the Estimates increasing every year. The Government asked this year for no less than £72,000,000, which could not be drawn from the taxpayers of the country without imposing a serious burden on them, and it was an unfortunate circumstance that the House should be asked at the close of the Session, in a perfect scramble to vote sums amounting in the aggregate to £15,000,000. No doubt it was very difficult for hon. Members to remain at their posts at this period of the year, and it seemed to him a perfect farce to ask the House in the second or third week of August to vote all these sums of money. The practical object he had in view was to express a hope that next year, at all events, the House would not be placed in a similar position. This Session one of the most important parts of the Business of Parliament had been thrust aside till a season when it could not be properly dealt with. If a similar course were adopted next year, he trusted that independent Members on both sides of the House would resist any such attempt on the part of the Government, and refuse to sacrifice the interests of the country to party exigencies.
  Motion agreed to.
  Ordered, That, during the remainder of the Session, Government Orders of the Day have precedence of the other Orders upon Wednesdays.—(Mr. Gladstone.)

  ELECTIONS (PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL) (re-committed) BILL— [BILL 103.]
  (Mr. William Edward Forster, Mr. Secretary Bruce, The Marquess of Hartington.)

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 3rd August.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. BRUENmoved to insert after Clause 2 a new clause, with 16 regulations, to enable non-resident electors to make their claims in writing, without personal attendance, and to vote by means of ballot papers to be sent through the post enclosed in registered letters. He argued that candidates would be less willing than hitherto to provide for the conveyance of non-resident voters when it could not be known afterwards how they voted; and that non-resident voters were entitled to some

  851
  facilities when the number of polling-places was to be increased for the benefit of resident voters.
  Clause (Claims of non-resident voters,)—(Mr. Bruen,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he could not assent to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlow (Mr. Bruen.) The clause of the hon. Member recognized the principle of non-personal tender and the claims of non-resident voters to vote by means of voting papers. It was impossible that the Government could accede to the proposal, for the reason that it was utterly contrary to the principle upon which they had hitherto acted. The fact was this—if the clause were to be embodied in the Bill, it would have the effect of re-placing personal voting in counties by non-personal voting; and not only that but if an exception was to be made on account of non-residence, an equally good case might be made out for voting without attendance on the ground of sickness and occupation. His impression of the Reform Bill of 1832 was this—that the exemption made in favour of non-resident voters would not have been continued if it had not been attended with the provision for personal voting. The present proposal would also have the effect of increasing considerably faggot votes, which he was sure hon. Members generally would disapprove of, as there were too many votes of that class already.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he thought a great deal might be said in favour of his hon. Friend's (Mr. Bruen's) proposal, which, however, was not likely to be considered with much earnestness in a Committee reduced so much in number as that now assembled—hon. Members being no doubt influenced by the feeling that nothing more could come of the Bill this Session. But as the county franchise was the only direct way in which property was represented in that House, he thought there was good reason for considering the case of non-resident voters. The least the Legislature could do for them was to afford them every proper facility for the exercise of the franchise. His hon. Friend proposed a scheme by which it could be exercised by means of voting papers, which would still preserve the principle of secrecy—namely, that those
  852
  papers should be sent through a magistrate in a registered letter to the returning officer. Primâ facie, the proposal appeared to him (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) a most valuable one, and he regretted to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council say he would meet it with a direct negative. It should be recollected that the voters for the Universities were allowed to exercise the franchise by means of voting papers. The result of that system was that almost the whole of the constituency voted when a contested election took place. That was a desirable object to bring about, and therefore furnished the proposal of his hon. Friend with an additional argument in its favour. With regard to faggot votes, the way to prevent their increase was by a careful inquiry before the revising barrister, and he thought the clause would not in any way tend to increase them. The matter however, was worthy of much more full discussion than it was likely to receive at present, when there was a sort of unreality in debating a matter which was to come to nothing that year at least.
  MR. BRUEN, in reply, maintained that if it was right that men should possess votes for constituencies in which they did not reside, it must be right that they should be enabled to record those votes.
  MR. ASSHETONsaid, he possessed votes for several counties, and no study of Bradshaw would enable him to give them all, while there was no valid reason why he should not give them with as little inconvenience as he gave his vote for Cambridge University.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 35; Noes 95: Majority 60.
  MR. COLLINSexpressed a hope that the polling-places for Ireland would be settled upon the same principle as those for England and Scotland.
  MR. JAMESmoved a new clause for making the register conclusive, by declaring that, unless legally incapacitated, or name not appearing on the register, any person whose name appeared on the register should be entitled to vote, any want of qualification notwithstanding, and imposing a penalty of £25 on any person infringing on the clause.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not object to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Taunton, and he would take care it was inserted on the Report.
  On the Motion of Mr. GOLDNEY, new clause, to follow Clause 3 (Copies of ballot papers to be placarded outside polling station), brought up, read a first and second time, agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  MR. JAMES, who had several new clauses on the Paper relative to personation and treating, said, that as the part of the Bill dealing with corrupt practices had been given up, he would not persevere with them on this occasion.
  SIR HENRY HOAREmoved a new clause to prohibit the payment of canvassers, to inflict a fine upon all persons acting as paid canvassers, and to unseat Members who might have employed them. He hoped the Government in the contemplated Act for the Amendment of the Corrupt Practices Act would prohibit canvassing of every kind. Canvassing was an endeavour, by appealing to the fears, or interest, or self-value or vanity of a voter, to induce him to vote for a particular candidate, and it partook of every species—corruption, undue influence, and intimidation. It was a frightful specimen of coercion exercised by the solicitor, the rate and tax collector, the medical man, and in many cases by the minister of religion. He looked upon a paid canvasser as a man who was bound to deceive his employer, and one who was paid to lie as to the colour of his employer's political opinions.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he could not accept the Amendment, because it was one of those clauses that would be better considered next year in the Amended Corrupt Practices Bill, which the Government intended to introduce at the earliest possible moment of next Session. There were strong arguments in favour of getting rid of paid canvassers—in fact, he doubted if they were any advantage to a candidate. But there would be great difficulty in working the clause as worded, and not only that, but he thought the question with which it dealt ought not to be embodied in a Ballot Bill. If they allowed a candidate to have any paid agent, although he might not be what was generally understood as a canvasser, yet he defied his
  854
  hon. Friend (Sir Henry Hoare) so to draw up his clause as not to render the agent liable to punishment. His hon. Friend might reply—"Get rid of paid agency." That was a question which could not now be decided. He was sorry, therefore, that he could not allow the clause to be read a second time. He opposed the clause on the ground that the principle of abolishing paid agents altogether must be fully considered next Session, and must be understood as in no way pledging the Government against the principle contained in the proposal of the hon. Baronet.
  Clause (Payment to canvassers prohibited,)—(Sir Henry Hoare,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  MR. CHARLEYconsidered that there were objections to the wording of the clause; but if the hon. Baronet should press it to a division, he would vote with him.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, the expense of paid canvassers in counties was enormous. In Ireland, where the property was left to the management of agents, the bailiffs made bargains with the agents that they should receive £40 for polling the tenants on the estate for a particular candidate. He had been fleeced, very much in having to pay £20 and £30 for paid canvassers, against his express directions, to his agent. He referred to the fact that the sheriff's charge for 10 polling-places in the county of Cork was £750. The Ballot would be useless unless canvassing was prohibited.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he had no great liking for paid canvassers. He believed that a great deal of the bad character which was given to those gentlemen was only their due; but he considered that the clause was proposed at an inopportune time, and he could not, therefore, support it. In many cases agency was actually necessary to put a candidate fairly before the constituency, so as to enable men of great intellect and ability, but not acquainted with the arts of dealing with a popular constituency, to enter Parliament. He could not agree that they could get rid of paid agency altogether, unless, indeed, they wished to make the seats in that House the exclusive property of unscrupulous, bustling, and demagogic candidates.
  SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid, the argument against abolishing paid agents had no application to this clause, which simply proposed to prohibit payment to canvassers. It would be for the Judge, in any case where this practice was alleged, to decide whether payments by a paid agent were colourable payments for canvassing or not. This clause was, in his opinion, peculiarly appropriate to a Ballot Bill. Paid canvassers were often selected for the power which they were supposed to possess over certain voters.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, the clause was badly drawn for the object it had in view. The clause was much too wide and sweeping in its character, and should have defined what was canvassing. Under it if a man sent out a circular he would be liable to the £5 penalty for canvassing. It would also be necessary to define what was a paid agent before the Committee could pass such a clause. He strongly condemned the system of paid canvassing; but he thought that at the present period of the Session it was impossible to give the question the consideration it deserved.
  MR. MELLYsaid, he should support the clause. While he thought that, especially in counties, a certain amount of paid agency was necessary to be used, he disapproved in the strongest possible manner of the employment of paid canvassers. He agreed, however, with the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council that it was not desirable to insert the clause in this Bill.
  MR. COLLINShoped the clause would not now be pressed, as its principle, with which he agreed, could not properly be discussed at that late period of the Session, more especially when the numerous Amendments proposed to be made on the second reading were taken into consideration.
  MR. CLAYsaid, he believed the Ballot was likely to strike a heavy blow at paid canvassing. If it did not effect that, it would not be of much service. He thought there would be no difficulty in distinguishing between the respectable agent and the paid canvasser.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he had voted for the second reading of the Bill under the impression that it was a measure of general electoral reform. Since then all electoral reform had been dropped out, and only secret voting retained, and
  856
  therefore he complained of a breach of faith on the part of the Government. He held that the clause ought to have a second reading, because there was a fundamental distinction between a paid agent and a paid canvasser. Nothing had tended so much to exclude from the House men of high culture as the system of paid agency and canvassing, the effects of which had been to increase the expense of elections and to increase corrupt practices. Cultured politicians were all the more likely to be returned without such aid as the system afforded, because of their possession of superior attainments. Elections were becoming more and more costly, and a Ballot Bill would do more harm than good if it did not diminish electoral expenses. The only argument against the clause appeared to be that its second reading was proposed on the 4th of August; and that argument was equally forcible if applied to the Bill itself, and if the object of legislators was merely to save time, the best thing they could do would be to suspend further proceedings with the Bill. He thought that Bill should be entitled "A Bill for Increasing Electoral Expenses," unless the Government inserted a provision which might have the opposite effect.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERdemurred from the statement of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) that the Bill must necessarily increase expenses. He was bound to admit that the increase in the number of polling-places might have that effect, at any rate to some extent; but in other respects the measure would tend to lesson expenses at elections. He was surprised at the remark of the hon. Member for Cork county (Mr. Downing) that the Ballot necessitated the abolition of paid canvassing, for there was every probability, as stated by the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Clay), that the Ballot would strike a heavy blow at that system. Without committing themselves to the principle of the clause, the Government felt that it could not be adopted without their first considering the whole question of agency. He hoped the hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir Henry Hoare) would withdraw the Motion.
  SIR JOHN GRAYagreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council that the whole question of agency should first be considered.

  857
  As favourable to the clause, he (Sir John Gray) deprecated a division as unnecessarily running the risk of an adverse vote.
  SIR HENRY HOAREregretted that he could not accede to the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council that the clause should be deferred.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time.
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 67; Noes 94: Majority 27.
  MR. JAMESmoved the insertion of a new clause, after clause 35, giving a voter immunity from being asked or required to state on oath, in any proceeding in which his evidence might be taken, the name of the person for whom or the manner in which he had voted, and providing that no evidence under any circumstances as to a man's vote was to be received. The only objection he could see to such a proposal was that such evidence might be required in a criminal trial. He could not, however, conceive such a necessity arising, while the Bill, without some such clause as this would, in his opinion, be liable to fail in the object for which it was intended.
  Clause (No evidence to be received as to votes,)—(Mr. James,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he was not so sure that the necessity for such evidence might not arise, and thought there might be circumstances, both in civil and criminal trials, where the statement of a voter would have some effect upon the question at issue; but he hesitated to place his own opinion as a layman against that of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. James). It was rather a new principle to lay down that a man should be protected from answers except such as criminated himself.
  MR. GOLDSMIDsaid, he thought it a most desirable clause. If it were not put in the Bill cases might be set up simply to find out how certain people voted.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTremarked that the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Mr. James) had said this clause was absolutely necessary to make the Ballot of any use; he therefore intended to vote against it.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEalso objected to the clause. Merely to carry out an abstract theory they would be damming up the whole course of justice, and introducing a judicial Reform Bill of a most dangerous character.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, cases might arise in which it was necessary to prosecute a returning officer, or other official person, for tampering with the ballot-box or the ballot papers, and it might be of great importance to show how votes had been given, in order to prove how they had been tampered with; but that clause, he thought, would shut out such evidence. Consideration for the nerves of voters should not prevent the truth being ascertained in such a case.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he thought the clause went too far, because prosecution for conspiracy might arise, or for tampering with the ballot-box. He could not agree to the clause unless it were limited, and with that view he would suggest the insertion, after the word "proceeding," of the words "relating to the validity of such election," and to strike out all the rest of the clause after the word "voted."
  MR. JAMESsaid, he would accept the limitation suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he thought some further Amendment was necessary to comply with the hon. und learned Gentleman the Attorney General's objection.
  MR. JAMESsaid, the Committee should remember the distinction between petitioning against a return and petitioning against an election.
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he could see no such distinction.
  MR. JAMESsaid, there were numerous cases of Petitions against the return, in which the returning officer had done something wrong; and that was quite different from a Petition against a Member.
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he could understand how, in an open election, a Petition might be presented against a return in which the only object was to correct the return; but under a secret system, if the returning officer acted improperly, the election would be invalid, and no petitioning could set it right.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 132; Noes 54: Majority 78.
  On the Motion of the ATTORNEY GENERAL, Clause amended by striking out the words after "proceeding," and insering the words "relating to the validity of such election;" and omitting the remainder of clause, after the word "voted," agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  MR. DIGBYproposed a clause, to the effect that, in Ireland, conveyance of voters should be deemed illegal, and should render void the election of the candidate in whose behalf the charge was paid.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the question would have to be fully considered upon the Corrupt Practices Bill next year.
  Clause negatived.
  MR. J. B. SMITHmoved a clause, imposing restrictions as to opening any inn or publichouse on the polling day.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERasked that the consideration of that point might also be deferred till next year.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  COLONEL BARTTELOT, (for Mr. G. B. GREGORY), moved the addition of a clause providing that a candidate might withdraw between the day on which the nomination took place and the day appointed for the poll, by service on the returning officer of a written notice signed by the candidate himself or his proposer and seconder.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the point raised by that clause had been fully considered and decided by the Committee, and it would be better to wait and see how the new system worked.
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he must strenuously oppose the clause, for it would be an additional puzzle to the voters if a candidate were allowed to withdraw after the ballot papers had been printed.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, that as the Bill itself would have to be discussed at a future time, he would not press the clause.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  First Schedule agreed to.
  Second Schedule. — Form of Ballot Paper.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERmoved an Amendment to simplify the Schedule, substituting an entirely new form for the one proposed in the Bill.
  MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he apprehended the principal object of that Amendment was to change the form of the ballot paper — a subject which had caused much discussion; and on comparing the new form of the ballot paper with the old one, he did not think the difficulties that attended the latter had by any means been removed. The right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill (Mr. W. E. Forster), on a previous occasion refused to answer a question he had put to him, because the tone in which he spoke was displeasing to the Government. Now, he had always thought that his tone towards the right hon. Gentleman was dulcet and persuasive. At least, it had proved persuasive, because he had induced the right hon. Gentleman to alter the Bill in many material particulars. He objected to retaining in the Schedule both the cross and the mark, and wished to have a mark alone.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that there was a legal distinction between the Bill and the Schedule, and if both terms had not been used in the 3rd clause, he was informed it might invalidate the vote. He retained the cross alone in the Schedule.
  MR. ASSHETONsaid, he would suggest that the rules for voting should be posted outside the polling-place as well as inside.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that he would bear the suggestion in mind.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Second Schedule agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  Third, Fourth, and Fifth Schedules agreed to.
  Preamble.
  On Question, That the Preamble be agreed to,
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, that Clause 21, which was omitted rather in a hurry, contained a valuable provision limiting the fees of the returning officers. Although those fees were still to be paid by the candidates, it would be a wise thing to retain that limit on their

  861
  amount, and he hoped that might be done on the Report. Before the Bill left the hands of the Committee he (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) wished to say that, having taken considerable part in these discussions, he desired to bear his testimony to the kind and courteous manner in which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) had met many of the suggestions made to him during the progress of the Committee. He would further express what he believed was the opinion of many other hon. Members, as well as his own, that hardly any other hon. or right hon. Gentleman could have carried that Bill through but the Vice President of the Council.
  MR. CANDLISHasked whether they would have a re-print of the Bill in their hands before the Report, and when would the Report be taken?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he must express his sense of the kindness of the hon. Baronet opposite the Member for East Gloucestershire, and also his gratitude to the Committee for the forbearance they had shown to him in those long discussions. He understood there was to be a Sitting of the House to-morrow (Saturday), and he felt almost certain that the Bill would be re-printed in time for hon. Members to obtain copies of it at 12 o'clock to-morrow. It was proposed to take the Report as the first Order on Monday. The point mentioned by the hon. Baronet in regard to the fees of returning officers had not escaped his attention, and the omission of the expenses clause would require some alteration to be made with regard to the three guinea limit; otherwise, that clause would operate rather hard against the candidate.
  Preamble agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 282.]

UNITED STATES—TREATY OF WASHINGTON.

  MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY, in rising to call the attention of the House to the Treaty of Washington, 1871, and to move for "Address for Copy of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the High Commissioners
  862
  during the late negotiations at Washington," said, he was sorry that so important a discussion as he now wished to introduce should come on at such an hour (nearly half-past 5). He also greatly regretted the delay which had occurred in that House having an opportunity of expressing its opinion on the Washington Treaty. It was, however, better that the House should express an opinion on that Treaty even now, than that it should express no opinion upon it at all. If the House were to take no notice whatever of the late Washington Treaty, what would be the opinion of the world as to the view taken by this country of that negotiation? All that would appear to the world, and all that would appear to those who were about to arbitrate on the subject, as indicating the feeling of this country in regard to the Treaty would be these three facts—First, that Her Majesty had conferred almost the highest honour on one of the Commissioners who negotiated it; second, that the other House of Parliament had refused to endorse a Resolution condemnatory of the Treaty; and, third, that the House of Commons had apparently given its perfect satisfaction by total silence. It would evidently be deemed, from those three facts, by the arbitrators, and by the world at large, that this country thought it had gained a signal triumph and made an extraordinarily good bargain for itself and for its colonies, whereas, the fact was that this country had made an enormous concession in the interests of peace. Now, it could not be too late to consider that subject in that House, or, if it were, it was equally too late when it was discussed "elsewhere;" for it was then remarked by one of the highest authorities who took part in the debate, that the Treaty was already in honour binding, as accepted by Her Majesty's Plenipotentiaries. It was, important, therefore, that the House of Commons should also express some opinion upon that Treaty, seeing that the arbitration was still before them, and would soon commence—the possible burdens thrown on the taxpayers of this country were still before them; and, what was still more important, novel rules of International and Maritime Law were proposed to be established, and it would be strange if the representatives of a commercial people like ours did not think it was worth

  863
  while even to give any opinion upon the imposition of new liabilities on neutral Powers. In opening the subject, he would state, as briefly as he could, the view he took of the conduct of the Government in prosecuting the Treaty; and the reflections he wished to make, impugned the Instructions of the Government, and did not at all impeach the Commissioners for the mode in which they carried out those Instructions, nor did he wish to find fault with all the terms of the Treaty itself. The circumstances which first led to the negotiations were simply these—At the end of last year, apparently, Lord Granville thought it necessary to instruct Sir Edward Thornton to urge on Mr. Fish, as absolutely necessary for the maintenance of good relations between the two countries, that there should be a Conference on the subject of the Fisheries. It was proposed that the Conference should be held at Washington, by Commissioners to be appointed by both Governments. In January the subject was opened by Sir Edward Thornton to Mr. Fish, who, on the part of the President, accepted the proposal, on condition that the Alabama claims should be added to the subjects of the Conference. Within 48 hours Sir Edward Thornton cordially thanked Mr. Fish for so accepting the proposal, and acquiesced in his condition, further adding to the subjects of Conference the claims of British subjects on the United States, and of American citizens against the British Government for damages received in the war. That was agreed to; and the Commissioners were immediately appointed. Now, on these preliminaries, he ventured to make this remark—he thought it unfortunate that this country was made a petitioner for a Conference the subjects of which were of far more importance to America than to us. The dispute about the Fisheries, for instance—which country was most interested in its settlement? The country in possession, and whose rights were undoubted to exclude others from the waters, or the country which wished to be admitted to a share of those rights? He did not mean to say that it was desirable the then state of the Fishery question should continue. Far from it. After the cessation of the Reciprocity Treaty in 1864, on the motion of America herself, the United States fishermen were admitted to Canadian waters upon licences; but
  864
  these were so difficult to enforce that the exclusion of unlicensed fishermen required an armed Canadian flotilla. Of course, a better settlement was desirable than then existed, but not primarily on our side. We were the grantors, and ought not to have been made the petitioners. If that was the case with reference to the Fishery question, how much more so was it the case with the Alabama claims, in the settlement of which, as he considered, America alone was interested, for England had confessedly cleared herself of all interest in the settlement of that question? The claims had been utterly discredited by the exaggeration of the Americans themselves in the person of Mr. Sumner. The sober, thinking men of America had tacitly admitted that we stood well in the matter, and the American Government had virtually confessed it by their refusing arbitration when it was first offered, on the simple question agreed to by Mr. Reverdy Johnson whether we had fulfilled our obligations at the time. He must say, without any reflection on the statesmen of that great country, it was an unfortunate result of their democratic institutions that they must always have some election cry, and no cry was so effective as a cry against England. Could there be a better American election cry against England than this—raising claims with reference to which we stood so clear in the eyes of the world? He had only one other remark on the mere incidental features of the negotiation to make in passing. It appeared, as he complained, that from the moment when the negotiations began the subject which was added to the terms of the Conference—the Alabama claims—became the principal one; while the Fishery claims, for which the Conference was originally proposed, became subsidiary, and assumed a very minor part in the progress of the negotiations. As to the Treaty itself, he would remark, as to the personages chosen to nominate the arbitrators, the Americans had certainly no reason to complain of them. The Emperor of Brazil, both by recent events and his position of neighbourhood, was not likely to be unfavourable to the Americans; and the President of the Swiss Republic, by the nature of the institutions of his country, was not likely to be unsympathizing with the Americans; while the place where the arbi-

  865
  trators were to meet — Geneva — was about as favourable to the Americans as the City where the negotiations were begun—Washington. We had boldly surrounded our altar as it were with trenches of water, so that no one could say fire from Heaven came down upon it by any unfair advantage. Now, with reference to the Instructions to the Commissioners, they referred to nine heads of subjects, which he had for economy of time collected under two groups, as follows:—1. War claims between England and America, comprising those made on account of the Alabama; those on account of British subjects against America arising out of the Civil War, and vice versâ; and connected with these war claims were the new International rules, or revision of the law of maritime neutrality. 2. Canadian claims, comprising claims on America on account of the Fenian raids; those on account of the Fisheries; those on account of Trade; and, finally, those on account of boundaries. In that division, or reduction of subjects under the two heads named, he did not by any means intend to separate British from Canadian interests as distinct things, but only proposed a convenient local classification. A common Sovereign made the Treaty in the names and by representatives of both divisions of her subjects united in common Imperial interests and speaking to America as one nation. Canada was most of all the British Empire interested in a settlement of the Alabama dispute; and England was, in common with Canada, deeply interested in her Fisheries, boundaries, and trade. The understanding throughout the negotiations was that one and all points of settlement were to stand or fall together. England was not to settle her interests without Canada; in short, the two were considered one, as they ought to be. He now proceeded to discuss the Treaty itself. To begin with the Alabama claims their reference to arbitration was not new. They had been proposed for arbitration in the Convention signed by Lord Clarendon and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. What were the terms of that reference?—"Whether England had fulfilled her obligations at the time the Alabama sailed." The American Senate refused to consent to that arbitration. Why? Because it was too certain that impartial arbitrators must
  866
  have said we had fulfilled all such obligations, even according to the strict interpretation of our own municipal law. But now America accepted arbitration. Why? Because of a very significant change made in the terms of reference to which Her Majesty, as a concession to friendship, had agreed. The reference now proposed for arbitration was, whether England, in 1861, had fulfilled international obligations according to new and stricter terms drawn up in 1871. The proposition, put abstractedly, was, that in a judgment of mutual obligation rules of interpretation should be adopted different from those on which the obligation rested. When the Americans rejected the first arbitration they put themselves in the wrong; and they eagerly accepted new terms, hoping to put us in the wrong. It was on these terms that we had consented to refer the claims. It had been said that no rules had been laid down of International Law at the time, and therefore it was necessary to put in terms some rules by which the arbitration should be guided. But the language of the Commissioners in conference struck that ground of excuse from under them; because they admitted distinctly that the rules on which the arbitration was now proposed did not exist, and were not in force at the time—that the principles on which the new arbitration was agreed on were not in force at the time the Alabama sailed, and therefore that the new terms were not an interpretation, but an innovation. He would not attempt to discuss himself the proposed revision of International Law; he should be glad rather to have the opinion of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) on that subject. Different views were taken of these new rules. Some argued they would be good for England for the future; but the reason they gave was because England was likely always to be a belligerent. He hoped that was not true, and it would be a bad reason if it was true; for law should not be shaped to meet accidental interests, but based on sound general principles. Others, on the contrary, said they were retrograde rules on principle, as increasing the liabilities of neutrals, and to such an extent as to be often impracticable, especially for a scattered colonial Empire like that of England. Those persons thought with Lord Palmerston, that if

  867
  two nations were such fools as to knock their heads together, it was no reason that all the wiser nations should embarrass their commerce, and turn spies upon their merchants, merely for the protection of fair play between the belligerents. Great concessions, in mitigation of the risks of war, to the convenience of neutral commerce, were made by the Declaration issued from the Congress of Paris, 1856, saving enemies' goods under neutral flags. If that indicated the tendency of recent revision, the new rules in the Treaty were certainly retrograde. But it mattered very little to the present argument what the merits of the new rules might be; what he asked was whether it was wise or an act of self-stultification to offer ourselves to be tried as to the fulfilment of a legal obligation by rules different from those on which the obligation itself rested? By the new rules it was stipulated that "due diligence" should be given by neutrals to stop privateering from their own ports. Did not that new version imply that what satisfied the old principles was something that the new would make "due diligence"—that the "diligence" demanded by the old principles of maritime neutrality was below the new standard? The change was a restriction of the rules by which we had been virtually acquitted, and a chance was sought of a verdict against us. He believed that even on these stricter rules we should stand clear, and it would be distinctly proved that we fulfilled all the obligations which even they would impose. But that did not at all justify the proceedings by which they had sacrificed themselves for the avowed object of friendly relations with those whose avowed object was our sacrifice. The friendly relations of simplicity with shrewdness might be more intimate than sound. He knew it was said by some that whether it was an act of self-stultification or not, it was liberal, and that it was the highest of national duties to promote the interests of peace—that the barbarism of readiness to take offence and to stand on points of honour was alike in public and private life giving way to the more generous and wiser sentiments of civilization, and the wider influence of cosmopolitan intercourse; that magnanimity became great nations, and that if England could not afford to be magnanimous, who could; and that England
  868
  might even teach a nation she had herself so lately brought into the world how to conduct herself worthily of so great an origin, and not with the restless sensitiveness of a parvenu. But there were limits beyond which magnanimity became folly, subjecting those who passed them to suspicion of want of proper spirit and self-respect. Extremes met; and when they stood pretty clearly in the right, to agree to change the standard of right in order to give opponents a better chance of putting them in the wrong, expressly to please those who wished to do so, the extreme point of magnanimity was passed, and the sublime had become ridiculous. With respect to the other war claims—namely, those of British merchants on the United States, and the claims of the United States on England for damages during the war—there was only one question he had to put, and that was put by Lord Cairns in "another place," but had received no answer. That question was why there was a limit of time for claims both of American citizens on Great Britain and for claims of British subjects on America for damages to person or property during the war—observe the significance of even the little circumstance of the order in which these claims are mentioned, first American, then British—while there was no limit of time put on the Alabama claims. The claims of British merchants for damages in war must, according to the XIIth Article of the Treaty, be solely in reference to damages received between the 13th of April, 1861, and the 9th of April, 1865, which latter date was at least six months before the end of the war. But there was no such restriction on the Alabama claims. The only answer made by the noble Earl (Earl Granville) was that, no doubt, the American Government would fairly acknowledge any further claims for damages after that date, and that American merchants claims were more strictly defined than British by a definition of them as "claims arising out of the war." Earl De Grey said that he thought British claims would be held all the stronger for damages after the termination of war, owing to the limit fixed, beyond which war ceased to be any excuse. But that was no satisfactory answer; the question remained to be answered, why a limit was placed against us and none against the other side, and

  869
  the hopes of the two noble Lords would avail little to modify a Treaty. He now proceeded to the second and last group of subjects — namely, the Canadian claims. First of all there were the Fenian claims. It seemed to him there was no possibility of defending the course which Government had instructed the Commissioners to take on the subject of the Fenian claims. Whatever gave weight to the Alabama claims gave tenfold weight to the Fenian claims. With regard to the Alabama, the question was whether the British Government had watched with due diligence her warlike intentions, and her escape for such purposes. He (Sir Charles Adderley) said they had, but if there had been the slightest failure of due diligence, he asked them to compare their loyal conduct with the fact that 50 regiments of Fenians drilled publicly for months on the American borders, avowedly for the purpose of invading Canada, their meetings, designs, and preparations known and winked at by the American Government, which excused itself from interfering by reasons plainly evincing a fear of electioneering loss to themselves. Consider the claims, identical in nature with what the Alabama claims would be if they could be substantiated, which were at once conceded to America and paid by Canada, when even Confederate Americans made a raid out of Canada on the Bank at St. Alban's, in Vermont. The only reason assigned for not insisting on compensation exactly of the same kind as had been conceded the other way, and enforcing a claim compared with the clearness of which the Alabama claims were as a shadow, was that America would not listen to it. Stet pro ratione voluntas. The only excuse on our side offered for not pressing such a claim was as futile as the reason of the Americans for resisting it — namely, that the amount of compensation claimable would have been very small. The mischief, however, of such weak concession was not the immediate loss, but the invitation to unlimited assumption in future. The second Canadian claim related to the Fisheries. On that subject, which was the sole topic on which they asked for conference, it was wrongly imagined that the Canadians had a special veto left to them. Such was by no means the case, for all three Powers had equal power of veto on all the Treaty, and Canada no
  870
  more than themselves; all three would have to legislate on some points essential to the carrying out of the Treaty, and therefore might cause its rejection. He must say he did not wonder at the sensitiveness exhibited by Canada on the subject of the Fisheries. The Fisheries were of enormous value to Canada. Their value had been greatly increased by improvements she had herself carried out. They were the best nurseries of seamen in the world, destined, he hoped, to furnish one day a great Canadian Navy. The greatest interest of the Dominion was its marine and Fisheries. They did well to consider them the primary subject of this negotiation, as they had done; but the right line of negotiation was not so clear, for one thing only was certain—they could not remain as they were. American fishermen once admitted could scarcely be made to pay licences, still less kept out by an armed Canadian flotilla; the question was, therefore, on what terms they should freely fish in all Canadian waters. Licences clearly were impossible, and exclusion still more clearly so, and the terms mentioned in the Treaty seemed to be the only ones upon which an arrangement could be made — namely, that all the seas being open equally to both countries, the difference of value should be estimated between them, and the possessors of the least valuable Fisheries should compensate by paying the difference. The Canadians would always have an advantage from fishing in their own waters, their trade being already established, and closer to home. They had superior waters, and that they would not lose their advantage by a common right of fishery. Canada seemed to have become mystified by long-continued controversy until she had identified in her own mind the Reciprocity Treaty and the Fisheries as if they were inseparable subjects. Good, however, might be done by lookers on, who, not being prejudiced by the long controversy, could take a clearer view of the matter, and see that there was no inseparable connection between those subjects. The Fisheries were valuable in themselves, and should not be shared without adequate payment; but to sell them for free trade would be to sell them for nothing, because free trade could be, would be, and was certainly being otherwise secured. Already it was working

  871
  its way steadily forwards and irresistibly. The Treaty, moreover, secured free admission of Canadian fish into America, the largest boon that reciprocity could attain. Coal and salt were on the eve of following, and lumber must follow in their wake; and even if that were not so, in many articles America was so dependent upon Canada for necessary imports, of which Canada had a practical monopoly, that whatever the tariffs might be, the American importers necessarily paid the whole duty they put on such imports. Those who put an end to the Reciprocity Treaty in the middle of the American Civil War, when there were no Members for the Southern States in Congress, did so not from Protectionist views but rather from an idea in the minds of the Northern States that the termination of that Treaty would so embarrass Canada as to lead to annexation. In that they had been entirely disappointed, for the cessation of that Treaty had done infinite good to Canada, having stimulated her to find a large foreign trade for herself, independent of the Americans. The trade with America also had rapidly increased since the cessation of that Treaty, from increasing wealth and population, and, as he had before observed, America in imposing duties on many articles was injuring Canada much less than herself. The Canadians were mistaken in connecting the revival of the Reciprocity Treaty with the opening of their Fisheries, which should stand entirely on its own merits. He thought, however, it required explanation, why the Commissioners were instructed to refuse such instalments of free trade as America had offered, although on the whole he was not without hope that Canada would find the terms of the Treaty were much more favourable to her than she at first imagined. The money compensation ought to balance the different value of the Fisheries, in addition to which the free admission of their fish to the American markets was of such paramount value that it had already reconciled the maritime Provinces to the Treaty. In fact, objection seemed now to come only from the Upper Provinces, and Newfoundland has formally voted its approval. There were also to be considered the trade arrangements, such as the opening of the St. Lawrence below the 45th parallel of latitude, but that
  872
  was nothing new, beyond its being made a matter of Treaty. The river was already open, on sufferance, throughout. Again, on the Canadian canals Americans paid only the same dues as the Canadians. Of course, if war broke out, it would be in the power of Her Majesty to close the passage of the St. Lawrence and of the canals to the Americans. On the other hand, the opening of Lake Michigan to the Canadian merchants was of very great importance, because on the south of that lake was that great emporium of Middle America—Chicago—and no greater advantage could be secured to the Canadians than the free navigation of that lake, in addition to which there was the concession of the coasting trade with the ports on those lakes. With respect to the boundaries he had nothing to say, because any such dispute was only to be settled by arbitration, and to the arbitrators he could offer no objection. With regard to the San Juan, he heard that documents had recently been discovered which would tend to the maintenance of the British claim on that boundary. On the whole, he was of opinion that the Government ought to offer some defence of their conduct with regard to the negotiations on all the following points—first, the mode in which they initiated this Conference; secondly, their permitting the substitution of the Alabama claims for the Fishery question as a primary topic of conference; thirdly, their consent to the setting up of new rules for the arbitration as to our fulfilment of obligations different from those on which the obligations rested; fourthly, the obvious inequality of foregoing on our part similar and much stronger claims for Fenian outrages; and lastly, the unfair limit given to closing the claims of British merchants, whereas no limit was given to claims against ourselves. On all these points the House should receive information from the Government, who ought to defend the Instructions they had given to the Commissioners whom they had sent to Washington. At the same time the House would, he believed, express a feeling which prevailed throughout the country by saying that, apart from any mistakes in the process of negotiation, it was the cordial and unanimous wish of this country that those negotiations might end in cementing permanent peace and

  873
  goodwill between the two countries, and in removing any irritation or causes of future dispute between two kindred nations that ought to go hand in hand in promoting the prosperity of the world. However wanting in equity might have been the negotiations on some points, he hoped the mistakes of administration would not hinder kindly relations between these two countries, but such relations would best rest on mutual self-respect. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, a Copy of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the High Commissioners during the late negotiations at Washington."—(Sir Charles Adderley.)
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMER:* Sir, it must be satisfactory to the House to find that on the colonial branch of this subject, on which the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Adderley) is entitled to speak with the greatest authority, the Treaty of Washington in entirely approved by him. I feel indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for having—with the assistance of Government—brought the subject forward, because I cannot think that it would have become the House to separate without devoting some time to a review of this matter. Personally, I take the deepest interest in it; because I was a Member, though a subordinate one, of the Government during whose tenure of office there arose many of the transactions out of which this Treaty sprung; and also because I, in common with every British citizen, desire that the honour of this country in all public matters may be maintained; that in all arrangements growing out of disagreements between this and other countries there should be taken due measures to obtain security for the future; and, of course, if it be possible, that cordial goodwill should subsist between ourselves and that great country on the other side of the Atlantic which has sprung from us. On our side that goodwill has subsisted without interruption, and the difficulty to many of us in forming a sober estimate of those transactions is increased by the wonder how it should be possible that our feeling towards the United States should be mis-
  874
  understood by them. There has never been a time at which we should not have been willing to make great sacrifices in order to maintain cordial relations with the United States; but no sacrifices are worthy of a great nation, or can really tend to the maintenance of cordial relations, which involve in any degree a compromise of public honour. Nor would it have been consistent with wisdom to enter into any arrangements for the removal of present differences, unless regard were had to the future, or unless there were a likelihood of their containing securities against future disagreement. Regarding, in the first place, the considerations connected with our national honour, I cannot look upon that honour as compromised by what has been done. Even taking the lower ground of the honour of the Government, of which I was a Member during the American War, I am unable to see that its honour or credit has been at all compromised. If I thought that it had been, I could not have expressed any acquiescence in the arrangements which have been made. I believe that Lord Palmerston's Government did nothing during that critical period, but what was thoroughly honourable and upright. That which has been made one of the main subjects of criticism is, to my thinking, one of the most satisfactory points of the Treaty—namely, that, while consenting to certain rules for the future, and allowing them to be applied as rules of judgment with respect to the past, we have guarded ourselves against being supposed to admit that we can be charged with any actual failure in the performance of our public duty, even if it should appear to any arbitrator that, being tried by those rules, our conduct at that time was in any respect wanting. We have distinctly declined to admit that those rules had any existence as rules of international obligation between ourselves and the United States at the time of these transactions; so that if an award on those principles, considered as established on the footing of international compact, could be made against us, it stands on record that we have not admitted anything derogatory to our honour, as to our having been at that time under such obligation as between nation and nation. I desire to place before the House—and I will endeavour to do it quite fairly and temperately—my view of the transactions during the Ame-

  875
  rican Civil War, which, so far as the differences on that subject are concerned, have led on the part of this country to the arrangement in question. If the present moment is not favourable to a complete appreciation of our conduct, I do not doubt that history will do justice to it; for there never was, in my opinion, a more honest, fair, true, or consistent neutrality professed or observed by any nation, than that which we observed during the American Civil War. It should be remembered that nations are represented by their Governments; and in a free country there must of necessity be various feelings and interests, and great freedom in the expression of opinion. Englishmen do not impute ill-will or wrong to the United States because there may appear in their newspapers or circulate in their society language which seems to be inconsistent with a kindly feeling; because we know well how to distinguish between the public attitude and conduct of a nation and the freedom of individuals composing it, and we have a right to hope and expect that the same judgment will be applied to ourselves. Tried by this test, the course taken by the Government was, from first to last, one of strict, honourable, and loyal neutrality. The first thing they did was to issue a Proclamation of Neutrality, for the purpose of making it understood, that we meant to submit to the exercise of belligerent rights on the part of the United States against those of our citizens who might be found guilty of running blockades or of introducing contraband of war, and, at the same time, of warning our citizens that they would be subject to those penalties. So far from that being an unfriendly act, the moment the war actually broke out it was a duty that we owed, both to the Americans and to ourselves, to issue such a Proclamation. To say that we were not to recognize the Civil War as a fact, and to make it known that we acknowledged the rights of war when they were asserted against us, was difficult for us to understand. Yet for a long time that was made the head and front of our offending; but it has now disappeared from the category of imputations. The next step of the Government was to issue rules against the use of our ports and waters as places of hostile operations. We would not allow any ships of war, belonging to either belli-
  876
  gerent, to remain for more than a limited time in our ports, nor would we allow any pursuit or attack to be initiated in our waters, or prizes to be brought in, or supplies of coal or other articles to be obtained, except within certain narrow limits which international hospitality prescribed. The Government thus prevented our ports or waters from being used as a base of hostile operations. The next question was, whether we should recognize the blockade of the whole seaboard of the Union, there being a great difficulty in maintaining it, especially at the commencement, and numerous questions have been raised as to its vilidity. Other neutral Powers on the Continent had been angry when we had established blockades in former years, and they were much dissatisfied with the decisions of Prize Courts in enforcing them. Great urgency was used with our Government to refuse to recognise the blockade of the American ports, with its unavoidable infirmities, especially in the early part of the war; but England declined to adopt that course, and stated that she would, when a neutral, abide by those rules which she had laid down for others when she was a belligerent. The war continued for a long time; during which the pressure of the blockade upon our commerce and manufactures was very severe; and many of our ships were captured and condemned, either for breach of blockade, or for carriage of contraband to the Confederates. Several of these captures, and the decisions maintaining them, were of a questionable character; but our Government adhered strictly to the principle on which they acted at the outset, and did not, in any instance, interfere with the free action of the American Prize Courts. During the progress of the war, the Confederates organized the forms of a regular Government, and maintained, for a long time, so vigorous and effective an opposition to the North, that many persons on this side of the Atlantic thought they must ultimately succeed in establishing their independence. Under these circumstances, both in this House and out of it, and on the Continent of Europe as well as in this country, overtures and suggestions were made for the recognition by us of the South, which had, so far, established its own Government. It is not for me to say whether there were, or were not, good grouds for assertions which were

  877
  confidently made, and for a belief which was very commonly entertained, that the adoption of that policy was urged upon us by at least one very great Power upon the Continent. But all those suggestions were steadily resisted by our Government; and in every public act that Government not only maintained an attitude of neutrality honourably and with integrity, but they did so in as friendly a spirit as was consistent with the nature of that neutrality towards both the branches of that great country, which we were sorry to see at variance with each other, and whose reconciliation was the thing we most desired.
  I now come to the subject, still, I am sorry to say, in controversy between the two countries, of the ships, in respect of which claims are made against us by the United States. And first I will speak of the state of the laws of both countries bearing on that subject. Our own Foreign Enlistment Act, which was then in force, was originally founded upon the precedent of the corresponding law of the United States, upon which it was, unquestionably, an improvement. One of the ablest of the American writers on this subject, Mr. Bemis, although not friendly towards us in this controversy, admitted the great defects of their law, even in comparison with ours. It should be remembered, that during the progress of the war, in 1862–3, our Government made overtures to the Government of the United States for a revision of the neutrality laws of both countries; and those overtures were received with courtesy, and even with an expression of satisfaction; but still with the distinct statement on the part of the Government of the United States, (as the conversation was recorded at the time by Lord Russell,) that they "Did not see how their own law on that subject could be improved." Mr. Adams himself reported his words as being, that his Government thought their own law "of very sufficient vigour." Clearly, therefore, they did not call upon us to make an alteration of our law; because they thought their own law, which was of inferior stringency, sufficient; and when formerly pressed by Spain, in 1818, to make that law more stringent, they had expressly declined to do so. The law of the United States was inferior to ours in this cardinal point—that it coupled the arming of ships within the jurisdiction
  878
  with the fitting them out, in such a manner that it would be hardly possible for them to stop an unarmed ship. This was done in the prohibitory clause in three places: it was done twice (without any qualifying context), in the clause under which power was given to the Executive to take possession of offending vessels; and the bonding and detaining clauses spoke only of
  "armed ships or vessels sailing out of the ports of the United States, belonging wholly, or in part, to citizens thereof,"
  and of vessels
  "manifestly built for warlike purposes, and about to depart to the United States, of which the cargo should principally consist of arms or munitions of war."
  The Alabama would not have been an offender against the United States' law, according to any ordinary principles of construction; and certainly she could not have been stopped under the detaining clauses of that statute, because she went out unarmed and received her armament elsewhere. The United States, therefore, must have thought our law sufficiently stringent; and they did not press us to alter it, although our Government, if they had thought both it and their own insufficient, would have been anxious to improve and strengthen it, as has since been done. But this was not a task which the Government, under the circumstances of that time, could prudently undertake, without a concurrence of opinion on both sides of the water as to its necessity; especially as the opinion, which our own Lord Chancellor had expressed as to the efficiency of the English law, happened to agree with that which Mr. Adams was instructed to declare, on the part of his Government, as to the law of the United States. If any proposal of that kind had been made in Parliament without being carried, it certainly would not have improved the situation of affairs. Such a state of the neutrality laws of both countries must at least be accepted as negative evidence of what they then understood to be the measure and limit of their obligations. It was not to be supposed that the United States, having made their original law in 1794, and their present law in 1817, when the wars between Spain and Portugal and their revolted colonies were going on, could have considered that any obligation rested upon them to go beyond what they were enabled to do by

  879
  that form of law. Our own view was this—We did not conceive that anything in our Foreign Enlistment Act rested upon any previously known international obligation; we conceived that it rested upon our own legislation, which was designed to enable ourselves the better to vindicate and enforce within our own jurisdiction our own neutrality; and there can be no doubt that the great writers and politicians of the United States always took substantially the same view of the matter. We did not for a moment say that the United States had not a right to call upon us bonâ fide to put in force our own law for the preservation of our neutrality; we distinctly admitted they had that right; but we said they had it upon the footing of a friendly State, asking us to enforce our own laws, and not upon any footing prior, paramount, or superior to our own laws; that they must seek to have that law enforced, as all other British laws were enforced, according to our own system of jurisprudence; and that it must be applied in cases where evidence was forthcoming, where juries and judges would say, or where at least there was a fair probability that they might say, it had been infringed. We could not suppose they would imagine it was their right to ask us to act arbitrarily, as if we were not a people governed, like themselves, upon the principles of freedom, by Parliaments and by laws. In this state of things we recognized their right to call upon us bonâ fide to the best of our power, by the use of all the means which the law gave us, to stop proceedings of this kind, the fitting out of these ships. We undertook to do this, in all the diplomatic communications upon the subject which passed between our Government and that of the United States: we at all times professed our determination to enforce our own law, according to the construction put upon it by our own Law Officers; and the construction put upon it at that time, though undoubtedly questionable, was that most favourable to the United States, which made the arming of ships within this jurisdiction not essential here, as it seemed to be under the United States Act, but which considered the fitting out of a ship for warlike purposes, with a view to her being afterwards employed as a cruiser or ship of war in the service of one of the belligerents, as sufficient to warrant
  880
  interference. The position, now embodied in the first rule of the Treaty, that a vessel ought to be treated as an offender, if she was "specially adapted, wholly or in part, for warlike uses within the jurisdiction," was very much in controversy before the Court of Exchequer in the Alexandra case; in which two Judges declared that the large and beneficial construction of the law on which we always acted was right, two that it was wrong, and the judgment of the Court, in point of form, was with those who thought it wrong. Nevertheless, the Government, being advised that the larger and more favourable view was the right view, continued always to act upon it. I mention this, because the first of the three rules now adopted, even though it may not coincide with the view which some lawyers took, does coincide with the view which the Government itself took of the measure of our own self-imposed obligations.
  I come now to what we did, and what we are accused of having left undone, in this respect. We stopped altogether five ships; the Oreto, afterwards called the Florida, at Nassau, which was acquitted there, and which was never armed till she had been in the Confederate port, I think of Mobile or Wilmington; the Alexandra, which was stopped twice, once here, where she was acquitted, and afterwards again at Nassau, where she remained under detention at the end of the war; the Pampero, which was seized in the Clyde, and condemned, and the two rams, which the Government, eventually purchased for a large sum, though not more than their value, rather than run any risk of failure at the trial which would otherwise have taken place. It is however, a total mistake to suppose, that in the case of the two rams there was any assumption of power beyond the law; because the Government acted on evidence which they thought to be sufficient. The ships which we did not stop, and which were afterwards employed by the Confederates against the United States, were three only; the Georgia, the Shenandoah, and the Alabama. In the cases of the Georgia and the Shenandoah, nothing was done within British jurisdiction; or, if anything was done which could have been treated as an offence against the law, no information of it was ever given to the Government. The Shenandoah had been the Sea King, a

  881
  trading-steamer, and was not even suspected by anyone in this country; it was not until she had got into or beyond Portuguese waters that she received any armament. The Alabama was officered by Americans, and armed at the Azores. She was built here to order, as an article of merchandise, under a contract with agents of the Confederates, and was not so equipped as to be capable of hostilities when she sailed from this country. A month elapsed between Mr. Adams's first communication with Lord Russell on the subject of that ship, on the 23rd of June, 1862, and the transmission by him to the Foreign Office of any evidence in support of it, which was not done till the 22nd of July; the Board of Customs being in the meantime unable to obtain any information on the cardinal point of the destination of the ship. Only one of the depositions sent by Mr. Adams on the 22nd of July contained really material evidence on that point. Two more depositions were sent (with Mr. Collier's opinion of the 23rd July) in another letter from Mr. Adams, dated the 24th of July, which was not received at the Foreign Office till Saturday, the 26th. On Monday, the 28th, these Papers were considered by the Law Officers of the Crown; on the same evening their Report was agreed upon, and it was in Lord Russell's hands early on the 29th. Orders were then immediately sent to Liverpool to stop the vessel, but on the same day she escaped. I was supposed, on a former occasion, to have stated that this was not business to which the Law Officers could attend on Sunday; which I never did state. Of course the Law Officers of the Crown would attend to urgent public business on Sundays; but in this case the Papers received on the 26th could hardly have been sent to their offices until Saturday evening, and, in the ordinary course, Sunday would intervene before they practically received them. There was as much diligence as could reasonably be expected to be exercised in any important legal matters, either for the Government or for private persons, and there was, at least, sufficient to show that the Government acted with good faith. As to what followed, when any of these ships were in the hands of the belligerents, we did exactly what the United States had done under similar circumstances. When any ship had once been commissioned as a public ship of
  882
  war, by a belligerent Power over whom we had no jurisdiction, no proceedings or inquiry having previously been held within our jurisdiction as to that ship, we did not consider ourselves bound or entitled to refuse to allow her, like other ships bearing a similar commission, and under the same restrictions, to enter any of our ports. While the arbitration is pending, it would not become me to enter into detail, so much as I otherwise might have done, as to the concurrence of the authorities of the United States themselves in the principles upon which we acted. It cannot be wondered at, if we thought it a matter of national honour to act when we were neutrals on the principles we professed as belligerents, that we should expect the United States when they were belligerents to act on the principles they avowed as neutrals; and had they done so, this controversy would not have been so long kept alive. All their authorities on jurisprudence, anterior to the late Civil War, notably Wheaton, held that commercial dealings in ships of war, as in other contraband, were not prohibited by International as distinguished from municipal law. There is one passage, particularly, in Wheaton's History of International Law, in which he treats it as a perfectly clear proposition, that the sale and delivery of armed vessels by neutral citizens, within neutral territory, to a belligerent Power, is lawful, jure gentium During the French Revolutionary War, no one thought of holding the United States responsible for captures of British vessels on the high seas, not brought into their own ports, by privateers which the French had fitted out in the most remarkable manner in the ports of the United States, openly, and in defiance of the legal sovereignty of the United States themselves. The idea of holding them responsible for prizes not brought into the ports of the United States was never so much as contended for; and even as to those which were brought into their ports, they declined to be responsible for their restitution, when they had been brought in before a particular day in 1793, on which notice was given to the French Minister that he would not be permitted so to use the ports of the United States any longer. As to all brought in before that date, they declined responsibility; and our Government did not press it; as to all after, they undertook

  883
  to restore them; and in cases within the latter category, and within that category only, in which it was admitted that proper deligence had, intentionally, not been used, it was afterwards agreed by treaty to make compensation. Between 1815 and 1818, there was a controversy between Spain and the United States, with respect to ships fitted out in the ports of the United States which had committed depredations on the ships of Spain during her war with her colonies; and uniformly the United States maintained that they were not responsible for the captures made by those ships; that their only obligation was to enforce their own law upon sufficient evidence, and that failing the production of such evidence they were not responsible. This controversy closed in 1819, with a treaty which involved the cession of Florida, by which all claims on both sides were waived without prejudice to the attitude the United States had assumed. A similar controversy between the United States and Portugal was carried on from 1816 to 1850; during which, over and over again, the United States refused to refer any such claims to Commissioners; saying that there was no responsibility for captures made beyond their jurisdiction, even by their own citizens, and although the ships which made those captures had been fitted out and armed in their own ports. Surely this country cannot be considered as having acted otherwise than in a spirit of bonâ fide neutrality, when it uniformly professed to adhere to that measure of obligation, which the United States had, on these solemn and repeated occasions, laid down for themselves. I maintain that Lords Russell and Clarendon were perfectly justified, in the first instance in declining to go into any arbitration; they were only doing the very thing which had been done by the United States in the controversy with Portugal as recently as 1850. But the real truth of the matter is, that this country does not like to be at variance with the United States. Whatever might be the measure of our obligation—whatever the legal view of it, this country most deeply regretted that any ships should have escaped from our shores, and committed depredations on the commerce of the United States: and the people of Great Britain, generally, preferred to waive a strict examination of the question on legal and international grounds,
  884
  in order to get any settlement of it which which might bring peace and goodwill for the present, and security for the future. Those were the circumstances under which Lord Stanley negotiated the former Treaty with Mr. Reverdy Johnson; and when that step had once been taken, it became manifestly impossible to go back. While I do not wish to say a word against the part taken by Lord Stanley in negotiating a Treaty, which fairly expressed at that time the sentiments and wishes of the country, I have no hesitation in saying that I greatly prefer the present proceeding.
  It being now ten minutes to Seven of the clock,
  COLONEL WILSON-PATTENrose to suggest that, considering the importance of the subject and of the speech, and that it was so desirable to preserve the continuity of both, the Orders of the House might be a little strained, and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Richmond permitted to resume his observations at 9 o'clock.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he had no objection to postpone the Motion which stood first in his name on the Paper, if the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government would pledge himself to give him an hour of the Tuesday Morning Sitting.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that with the present requirements of Public Business, he could not give the desired pledge.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, he would make the Order for resuming the debate the first after Supply.
  Debate adjourned, till this day.
  MR. GLADSTONEmoved, That the House, at its rising, should adjourn to 12 o'clock on Saturday, and said that no Supply would be taken, but that the Bill relating to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would be considered.
  Motion agreed to.
  House at rising to adjourn till To-morrow.
  And it being now Seven of the clock, the House suspended its sitting.
  The House resumed its sitting at Nine of the clock.

  SUPPLY.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. CARDWELL (in the absence of Mr. GLADSTONE)said, he must appeal to the hon. Member for Penrhyn (Mr. Eastwick) to postpone his Motion relative to British subjects being permitted to wear foreign decorations given as rewards for services rendered to the sick and wounded in the field during war, under the Convention of Geneva, to enable the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) to proceed with his remarks relative to the Treaty of Washington.
  MR. EASTWICKsaid, he was afraid if he gave way he should not have another opportunity this Session for bringing the subject forward. It was too much to expect independent Members, who had great difficulty in getting their Motions in a favourable position to give way, when the opportunity arrived of their being able to proceed with them; but at the same time he was willing to accede to the request of the right hon. Gentleman, if assured of a favourable opportunity being granted to him before the close of the Session.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the hon. Member would have several opportunities of doing so on Supply during the present Session, for it would stand on the Paper for the next few days.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he had a Motion of great importance to the Australian colonies relative to the postage question which he wished to bring forward. The Washington Treaty ought not to have been brought on that afternoon at an hour which it must have been known would not admit of the discussion being closed before the House would suspend its sitting, and he thought it was insulting, to say the least, to ask independent Members to postpone their Motions on that account. He hoped, if he gave way, an opportunity would be given to him of bringing the subject forward this Session.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the hon. Gentlemen would have an opportunity every day next week of bringing on his Motion.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, that seeing no chance of submitting his Mo-
  886
  tion on the subject of Treaties binding this country to intervene by Force of Arms in Continental disputes, he would withdraw it for the Session.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.

UNITED STATES—TREATY OF WASHINGTON.—MOTION FOR PAPERS.

  ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [4th August],
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, a Copy of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the High Commissioners during the late negotiations at Washington."—(Sir Charles Adderley.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMER: I repeat that Lord Russell, the illustrious man under whom I had the honour to serve, and on whom fell a great part of the responsibility for the affairs to which reference has been made, was, in my opinion, perfectly justified in declining to go to arbitration at all. That was a course exactly similar to that which had been taken by the United States when a similar question arose between the United States and Portugal. I did not, therefore, myself share in the prevalent feeling of satisfaction at the arrangement made by Lord Stanley and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. It appeared to me to be attended with such considerable risk of unsatisfactory results, that, as far as I was concerned, I would have preferred that matters should remain in the position in which they stood under the previous Administration of Lord Russell and Lord Palmerston. My reasons are these—In the first place, I could never have been a willing party to any arbitration whatever of any point which seemed to me to involve the honour of this country or the good faith of the Government. There are matters fit for arbitration, but this is not one. Every country is answerable for its own honour, and no referee whatever ought to be called in to determine questions of that kind. That is equally true with regard to questions of good faith. Of course it was not the intention of Lord Stanley to refer any question of honour to arbitration. But,

  887
  in such a reference as that to which he and Mr. Reverdy Johnson agreed, it is manifest, that, if there had been an unfavourable award against this country, it would have been capable of being represented as affecting our honour and good faith. All matters were left entirely at large; there was no question, from the Proclamation of Neutrality downwards, which had been in difference between the two countries, which was not involved in that reference; and, whatever award might have been made, either party would have been at liberty to place its own construction upon it. Arbitration between nations may be a very good thing; and certainly we, as a nation, are bound to take that view, seeing that at the time of the Declaration of Paris we concurred in the proposition, that it is desirable to refer to arbitration all international disputes which will admit of that kind of solution. But such international references have their disadvantages as well as their advantages. It is extremely difficult to find an arbitrator or arbitrators, of whose absolute, rigid, judicial impartiality there can be no reasonable degree of doubt. I do not at all desire to follow the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Charles Adderley) in some observations he has made as to the particular Powers chosen as arbitrators in the present case. I am perfectly ready to admit that they are as trustworthy, honourable, and capable as any arbitrators that could be chosen in the whole civilized world. I think myself bound to assume this, considering that this country has agreed to abide by their award. But of all such high arbitrators this must be said—that they cannot enter without a certain degree of bias upon the consideration of great public questions. We and the United States are the two great maritime Powers of the world; we cannot possibly find as arbitrators any Powers like ourselves. In one respect, that may tend to impartiality of decision: but in other respects there may be a risk of encountering a current of opinion different from that which has prevailed between the two countries parties to the arbitration, and possibly there may be an unconscious bias of political interest arising from the point of view from which the Powers called in to arbitrate may naturally regard similar questions. Bearing that in mind, I would, as I have
  888
  said, never have been a willing party to making any reference whatever to any form of international arbitration, which could possibly result in an award which might be regarded by the world at large, or by the other party, as affecting the honour and the good faith of this country. That appeared to me a great objection to an arbitration simply at large, such as that agreed upon by Lord Stanley and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. There is another consideration, perhaps of hardly less importance, which also deserves to be mentioned. The elements of the question then proposed to be referred to arbitration were not at all limited or defined. It would have been competent for the arbitrators to have awarded against us upon any of the numerous grounds vaguely involved in the whole matters in dispute. For instance, if they thought that we ought not to have issued any Neutrality Proclamation; and they were not bound to give any reasons for their award. I did not fear on that point, because my impression has always been that, while we were really clear on the main point, we were a thousand times more clear on that. But the matter would have been attended with this inconvenience—that whichever way the award was given, whether for us or against us, nobody would have known the principles upon which it was founded. Suppose the award were in our favour, what might have followed? How would that party in the United States, which had been irritated themselves and had constantly fomented irritation against Great Britain, have regarded an award unfavourable to them? They might have said—"The arbitrators have determined that what was done in Great Britain was right in International Law. Very well; then it is not necessary to use any diligence to prevent ships of war from being fitted out and armed to operate against the commerce of a belligerent Power, for we assert that Great Britain did not use proper diligence." The result, therefore, might have been to exonerate us from responsibility and pecuniary liabiality, but at the same time to leave the United States at liberty to represent the award as establishing it as a rule among nations that, whether they had neutrality laws, such as the United States and we ourselves had, or not, neutral Governments were not under any sort of obligation to use any dili-

  889
  gence to prevent the fitting out and armament of ships of that description. Such a view as that would not have tended to satisfactory relations between the two countries; for if, in the case of a war in which Great Britain was involved, those who had participated in the irritation against us wished to connive at ships like the Alabama being fitted out against our commerce, the award would not in the least have stood in the way of such a disposition—nay it might rather have led to its more open indulgence. I do not at all mean to say, that, in my view, the interest of Great Britain in this question is because she is, in general, more likely to be belligerent than neutral. I think that this country, if it were to have its own will and its own way, would never go to war at all, feeling that war, if voluntary, is a great crime and wickedness. That being so, I do not look forward to frequent wars on the part of this country. But that very feeling might be likely, under certain circumstances, to involve us in the disagreeable alternative either of having to go to war, or of submitting to such affronts and insults that our most honourable men and wisest statesmen would consider that war was the less evil. Suppose that in the background, that great country the United States, which ought to be our friend, was understood to be in such a frame of mind as to be inclined to ally itself with our opponents, or at least not to be active in enforcing its neutrality laws against its own citizens, war, whether we intended it or not, might be the result. Therefore, a decision favourable to us might have left us in no respect better off, with regard to security, than we were before. By that mode of arbitration, no rule as to the future would have been agreed upon between the two countries. Whatever was vague and disputable in International Law before, would have remained so still. On the other hand, if the award had been against us, it would still have laid down no rule whatever; and the United States would have been quite entitled, if it suited their convenience, to say, that they had succeeded in proving us wrong on the mere special circumstances of the particular case; and, for the future, to stand on the letter of their own laws, and say to us, as they did to Spain and Portugal before—"We shall put our laws in force whenever we
  890
  have sufficient information and proof of the facts, but we are not obliged to make a better or stronger law than we have already." But whatever maybe thought of the abstract merits or dangers of that arrangement, one thing at all events is certain—that Lord Clarendon, when he succeeded Lord Stanley in office, could not well do otherwise than ratify what Lord Stanley had done; and, from that time forward, this country became irrevocably committed to the principle of arbitration on this subject, both by the action of Lord Stanley and by the subsequent concurrence of Lord Clarendon—Members of two successive Governments representing both the great parties in the State. Whether the course which had been adopted was wise or unwise, it was totally impossible for the present Government, in 1871, to avoid abiding by the offer of arbitration which they had made on the subject before. Mr. Fish said that a removal of the differences which arose during the Rebellion in America, with reference to these so-called Alabama claims, was essential to the restoration of cordial and amicable relations between the two nations. It would have been a mere mockery to deal with the Fishery question, and other things, and to refuse to include this, when we were told that we never could have a restoration of amicable relations unless this was included. What, under this state of circumstances, ought to have been done? The first question is, whether Her Majesty's Government should have simply insisted on the renewal of the Reverdy-Johnson Treaty. Was it reasonably possible for them to do so? Could it be supposed that the United States would, without modification, agree to the very thing which they had rejected, so exposing themselves to the imputation of having acted, only two years before, from mere passion and caprice? But, even if it might have been possible, my own opinion is, for the reasons which I have already given, that it would not have been desirable. The House will, I feel confident, agree with me, that it was desirable that arrangements should be made to obtain the greatest possible amount of security for a good understanding for the future, to insure us against acts of hostility in case we should be at war, and thereby prevent other countries from supposing that in case of war between us and them the United States would com-

  891
  mit acts of retaliation on our commerce. If we have obtained that for the future, we have got a very excellent thing, which we should not have got under the arrangement made by Lord Stanley with Mr. Reverdy Johnson. And, upon the whole, I am disposed to believe that we have obtained this benefit by the present Treaty. The manner in which the rules established by the Treaty are expressed, may be, and I think is, open to criticism. When it is said that "a neutral nation is bound" to observe these rules, it bears the appearance of an attempt to do a thing which in point of fact is impossible—namely, to create for the future, by an agreement between two nations, new rules of International Law. We may make rules binding between the two nations, which in case all the civilized world adopted them, would no doubt become established rules of International Law; but so long as they rest on a contract only between two nations, they are binding only on those two nations. I should certainly myself have liked the phraseology of these rules to be, in some respects, different from what it is. But it ought to be remembered that to negotiate a Treaty at Washington is a different thing from negotiating a Treaty in London. With regard to forms of expression, the American Commissioners had an advantage, because they were at home and could at once communicate with their Government; whereas the British Commissioners, owing to the delay which would occur in communicating by letter with Her Majesty's Government, and to the inconvenience, and difficulty also, of discussing the bearings of every turn of expression by telegraph, may have considered it better to waive verbal questions, when they thought they were agreed about matters of substance, than to run the risk of disturbing a good understanding, once established, by two great punctiliousness about words. It is only fair to the Commissioners, to whom I think we owe a generous acknowledgment for their services, to remember this. We ought not to be too critical about the mere form of these rules, if the substance is, on the whole, satisfactory. I come, then, to the rules themselves. The first is, that
  "a neutral Government is bound to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming, or equipping within its jurisdiction of any vessel, which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to
  892
  cruise or to carry on war against a Power with which it is at peace, and also to use like due diligence to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction to warlike use."
  That appears to me to be a very good rule. What is meant by "due diligence?" I suppose it is meant that a neutral should use, within a reasonable sense, all the means legitimately in its power. It has been objected that the latter part of the rule departs from the former, because it does not repeat the words "has reasonable ground to believe;" but that, I think, is an ill-grounded criticism. "Like due diligence," necessarily implies the reasonable ground for belief required by the former part of the rule; and if so, there was no necessity to repeat those words. We, by our present Foreign Enlistment Act, now possess ample powers to prevent the acts intended to be prohibited by this rule, and I cannot doubt that the United States will also pass an Act of Congress as stringent as the law which we passed last Session. The first rule, therefore, provides securities for the future, equally beneficial to the United States and to ourselves; it does so in terms with which our Government has, by our existing law, sufficient powers faithfully to comply; and we are entitled to assume, that the good faith of the United States will lead them, without delay, to arm their Government with powers no less effectual for the same purpose. With regard to the second rule, I confess that when I first read it I was somewhat alarmed. I thought it was expressed with a degree of vagueness which might be dangerous, and which might be extended to things which I did not think it possible the Commissioners could have meant. It is, that
  "a neutral Government is bound not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the recruitment of men."
  On this point, I was fortunate enough to elicit from the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in reply to a Question which I put to him on the 13th of June last, the satisfactory answer that this second rule is understood by Her Majesty's Government, and by the British and American Commissioners, as ap-

  893
  plying solely to vessels cruising or carrying on war, or intended to cruise or carry on war, against a belligerent, and not to the case of military supplies or arms exported for the use of a belligerent from neutral ports or waters in the ordinary course of commerce. The right hon. Gentleman proceeded further to state, upon the direct authority of General Schenck, the distinguished Minister of the United States at this Court, that the President of the United States himself understood the rule in the same sense, and would be the first not only to admit and allow, but to contend for that construction of it. In the face of such an assurance, on the part of both of the great Powers who are parties to this Treaty, it would be unbecoming in me to criticize any longer the vagueness of the language in which this rule is couched; and without doubt this construction of it will be clearly laid before those other foreign Powers who are to be asked to accede to it. The third rule, being a mere corollary from the other two, requires no separate comment. So far, therefore, as these rules, interpreted and qualified in the manner explained by my right hon. Friend at the Head of the Government, apply to the future, we have gained the assurance of a good and useful understanding between the two nations, which would go far towards repaying us for any pecuniary loss which we might possibly sustain in consequence of an award being founded upon these rules, instead of upon the principles of International Law which were actually in force at the time of the escape of the Alabama. The future observance of these rules, to which foreign nations are to be asked to accede, will, I think, tend to promote a good understanding between all the Powers, and to preserve the peace of the world. In dealing with the question of the retrospective application of these rules to the matters in dispute, which we have agreed to refer to arbitration, the first observation which it occurs to me to make is, that it was not to be expected that the United States would have agreed to be bound by them in future, unless we had assented to their operation being made retrospective; and therefore, if the rules were good in themselves, it was worth our while to run the risk of giving the United States some advantage in the coming arbitration, which they would not otherwise have possessed, in
  894
  order to insure their adhesion to these rules. The choice was between two methods of procedure: the one, laying down the rules themselves, in terms, which might have been interpreted as expressing the view taken by the Commissioners of the just measure and definition of certain duties, incumbent on neutral nations as to these matters; so that their adoption for the future would carry with it, of necessity, a tacit admission that they ought also to be applied as rules of judgment to the past; the other (which was that actually followed), reconciling the application of these rules of judgment to the past with the views and principles on which our Government have hitherto acted, and distinctly setting forth that, for the sake of securing a good understanding between the two countries, we agreed to be bound by conditions which, in our view, were not in force, as rules of International Law, or by international compact, at the time when the cause of dispute arose. To me this course seems in every way preferable to the other. It is, on our part, the most consistent and the most honourable: it is also that which alone is in accordance with the plain and simple truth. Toll the truth, and shame the evil one, is a good maxim in public as well as private affairs. And, after all, by consenting to the retrospective application of these rules, we have made a concession, which is greater in appearance than in substance. I do not mean to say that we have made no concession, or that it is not possible — though I think it ought not to be so, and I hope it will not be so—that this concession may involve the risk of our having damages awarded against us, from which we might otherwise have been free. There is, no doubt, a difference of some real importance between a compact or undertaking on the part of one nation with another—which, it may be argued, we have authorized the arbitrators to assume in this case—and the mere right of one nation to claim from another the bonâ fide enforcement, by the means in its power, of a municipal or national law, to the same effect. Of the latter right, the municipal or national law is necessarily the sole measure; but not of the former. Still, it is important to point out that, so far as the substance of the obligation as distinct from its foundation and origin is concerned, the un-

  895
  dertaking on our part, which the arbitrators are to assume, does not materially, if at all, differ from the right which, at the time of these transactions, the United States confessedly had to call upon us to execute in good faith our own municipal law, as it was interpreted and understood by our Government; and which our Government actually, and in good faith, at the time undertook to do. The language of the first rule only differs from the substance of the 7th section of our own Foreign Enlistment Act, which was in force at that time, by introducing words to the effect that all vessels are to come within the ban, which, being intended for use by one of the belligerents, have been specially adapted in neutral ports, wholly or in part to warlike use. It is perfectly true that Lord Chief Baron Pollock and Baron Bramwell, as well as other great legal authorities, thought that such words as these did not convey the true meaning of our then Foreign Enlistment Act; which, in their opinion, was intended to imply only to those vessels which might be armed within our jurisdiction, either completely, or at least so far as to leave our waters in a condition immediately to commence hostilities. But this was never the opinion of our Government; who, following the view taken by Barons Channel and Pigott, thought that the Act would also apply to cases in which vessels, though not so armed and equipped, were nevertheless intended for the use of a belligerent as cruisers or ships of war, and, so far as their actual equipments might have been provided within British jurisdiction, had been equipped—whether in a manner distinctively warlike, or not—with a view to that use. Therefore, the application of this rule retrospectively is not the introduction of so new and arbitrary a hypothesis as to our obligations, as might have been supposed at first sight. The other rule, as interpreted by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government, and by the Minister of the United States, corresponds in like manner with the 8th section of our Foreign Enlistment Act. It deals with the renewal or augmentation of warlike equipments of belligerent vessels. That clause indeed, in our old Foreign Enlistment Act, applied only to ships actually in the war service of a belligerent Power at the time when their equipment was augmented; whereas
  896
  this rule extends also to ships intended to be used for similar purposes of war service. But this difference does not go beyond matter to be found in the 7th section; so that the two rules taken together, with the authoritative interpretation which the second rule has received, do not exceed the obligation which we had imposed on ourselves by our formal municipal law. To conclude—Looking at all the circumstances, I, for my part, am well content to acquiesce in and accept the recent arrangement, whatever may be its imperfections. I do not propose to go into all those matters which the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Adderley) has touched upon with much more authority, with reference to the colonial aspect of the question; but I may remark that I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is a blemish upon the Treaty, that the demands of Canada against the United States for the damage done by Fenian raiders should not have been included in its provisions. I am the more bound to say this, because the demands of the United States against Canada with reference to the inroads of certain Confederates upon St. Alban's were not only complied with, but anticipated by the spontaneous action of the Canadian Legislature, which at once voted the money necessary to make good those losses. The United States might, I think, have been expected to feel, on calm consideration, that the principle of the reference which we have agreed to, applies at least as forcibly to those Fenian raids. Nevertheless, if by the arrangement which has been entered into, permanent peace and goodwill should, as I trust, be secured between these two great countries, I, for one, am willing to pay a greater price for such a result than any which I can imagine the possibility of our having to pay under this Treaty.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he felt it was impossible for him to add anything to the arguments advanced by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) in favour of the general principle and provisions of the Treaty, and with regard to the other questions raised by his right hon. Friend (Sir Charles Adderley), it might appear more proper that he should leave it to Her Majesty's Government to answer questions and dispose of objections which came rather within their cognizance, than within the cognizance

  897
  of an individual Member of the late High Commission. Still, there were two considerations which induced him to trespass for a short time on the attention of the House. First of all, he desired to express a hope that his right hon. Friend would not press the Motion, because he could say, from his own experience in the conduct of the negotiations, that although there existed a not inconsiderable amount of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Commissioners, it would not in his opinion be advantageous to anyone that that Correspondence should be given to the world. It was thought desirable, on all accounts, that the negotiations should be conducted with that freedom which was only possible among those who knew that their communications with one another would be private, and more especially for these reasons—the questions the Commissioners had to deal with were of the most delicate character; they affected the good relations between two great Powers, and had given rise to much misunderstanding in times past, and lastly, in order to settle them permanently, and to bring about the establishment for a long time to come of thoroughly amicable relations between the two countries, it was desirable that the Commissioners should communicate among themselves in the freest and most unreserved manner, and that they should embody their conclusions in the form of documents which really represented the substance of all that passed, but which abstained from raising questions of an irritating character. In order to maintain a thorough good feeling between the two countries, it was better, he felt convinced, that the matter should remain as at present, and that the public of England and America should see the result at which the Commissioners had arrived without going into all the questions raised and discussed in the course of the negotiations. It had been remarked in discussions out-of-doors, and in "another place," that, according to the Correspondence and Protocols laid on the Table, the British Commissioners appeared to have done nothing but assent to whatever was proposed by the American Commissioners. That, however, was not at all the case. Long and animated discussions occurred on every point that was raised. Indeed, it often happened that days elapsed before an understanding was arrived at, and it would surely be most
  898
  unwise and unnecessary to renew the battles which had been fought in the State Department at Washington. All that was necessary to be known was the general course of the negotiations and the arguments which were finally adopted. The Government, he believed were prepared to give explanations on any point which might be raised; but he thought it undesirable to lay upon the Table of the House Correspondence of a confidential character. He seized that opportunity of saying, on his own part and on the part of the other Commissioners who were not officially connected with the Government, that there was substantially no difference of opinion between them on any of the important points of the negotiations, and, therefore, it was not to prevent its being known that they were overruled in any manner by Her Majesty's Government, that he thought the production of the Correspondence inexpedient. Undoubtedly the position of a Commissioner like himself, who was not officially connected with Her Majesty's Government, was one of some delicacy; but having undertaken the office, it would have been exceedingly difficult and improper for him to set up private and individual opinions—except in matters of extreme importance and urgency—in the way of thwarting the arrangements that had to be made; but, however, it might be assumed, and reasonably too as he thought, that, the responsibility lying on the Government, the Commissioners were not all in accord as to the arrangements that were effected. Speaking, however, for himself, although he did not mean to say there might not have been points on which there was a slight difference of opinion, he must state that he never found himself in a position of that kind. He cordially acquiesced in all; and he most heartily rejoiced in the arrangements that had been made. If he might venture to refer to a saying that he had heard used out-of-doors, that that was a Treaty of which everyone was glad and nobody proud, he spoke for himself as the exception which proved the rule—and he believed he could speak for the rest—that they were all proud of having had a share in that Treaty. He however would go further, and say that he could hardly understand the frame of mind of those who used that expression; for if it meant that the Treaty was one of which the Commission had reason to be ashamed

  899
  and it would not be a Treaty of which anyone had reason to be glad. But it was important that they should be jealous of national honour; and if there was anything in that Treaty that in any way derogated from the national honour, it must be a Treaty for which they ought not to be glad, but for which they ought to be sorry. But the Treaty did not derogate from national honour; on the contrary, national honour both justified and demanded it. In making those remarks, he wished to guard himself from being supposed to give to the Commissioners any of the credit which more properly belonged to Her Majesty's Government in that matter. It was, in fact, the Government who decided on the basis of the negotiations, and who were responsible for the arrangements which had been made. His right hon. Friend had remarked on five points. He complained of the manner in which the negotiations were commenced; he complained of their having given precedence to the Alabama claims in preference to the Fisheries; he complained of the introduction of the new rules; he complained of the omission of any stipulations with regard to the claims in respect of the Fenian raids; and he complained of their having introduced into the Treaty, a limit of time with regard to the claims of British subjects, whereas there was no limit of time with respect to the Alabama claims. With regard to one or two of those points, and especially the last, he thought his right hon. Friend had hardly read sufficiently the course of the negotiations. It was perfectly true that the claims of British subjects were limited to certain dates, which dates were intended to correspond with the period of the American Civil War. That was thought the most convenient way of describing those claims. But with regard to the claims arising out of the acts of the Alabama and other vessels of the same class, there was no necessity whatever for stating any limit of time, because what they had to deal with was the action of the different vessels, and that sufficiently indicated the claims in question. If the Commissioners had spoken of British claims generally there might have been cases sent in of a miscellaneous character, not included in the arbitration, and that might have prolonged the period of settlement. But with regard to the claims arising out of the action of
  900
  those vessels, they considered that instead of being to blame for the division that was one of the most successful features in the whole Treaty. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) in his observations as to the advantage which the Treaty possessed over the Conventions which had been previously negotiated, remarked that the Convention which had been negotiated, but not adopted, had allowed the introduction of a number of claims which could never have been admitted. In fact they were so vague that it would have been possible for the Americans to have raised a number of questions which the Commissioners were unwilling to submit to arbitration. They might have raised the question with regard to the recognition of belligerency; with regard to constructive damages arising out of this recognition of belligerency; and a number of other matters which this country could not admit. But if hon. Gentlemen would look to the terms of the Treaty actually contracted they would see that the Commissioners followed the subjects very closely by making a reference only to a list growing out of the acts of particular vessels, and in so doing shut out a large class of claims which the Americans had previously insisted upon, but which the Commissioners had prevented from being raised before the arbitrators. He contended, therefore, that the Joint High Commission had upon that point worked substantial advantage rather than injury to that country. His right hon. Friend (Sir Charles Adderley) had made it a ground of complaint that the Commission gave precedence to the Alabama claims over the question of the Canadian Fisheries; but that complaint was based upon a misconception of the facts of the case. Undoubtedly, the Commission grew out of a proposal to refer to a Commission the questions arising upon the Canadian Fisheries. The American Government, when the proposal was made to them, made it a condition that the same Commission should take cognizance of other questions, amongst them being the subject of the Alabama claims; and that was agreed to, and rightly so. But when they came to consider the question they did not give precedence to the Alabama claims or the Fisheries. On the contrary, they considered in what order the questions should be taken up, and

  901
  the very first was the question of the Fisheries. At the first meeting for business of the Commissioners, the first question considered was the question of the Fisheries; and they arrived at a conclusion on the basis upon which that question should be discussed. After that had been settled they went into the Alabama question. It was necessary to communicate with the Canadian authorities, and to get estimates of the value of the Fisheries. It was necessary to carry on a great many communications, and from time to time those questions were taken up. Therefore it was not true that the Commissioners gave preference to the Alabama claims. The question of the manner and time in and at which the negotiations were commenced was one on which it was more proper that the Government should speak than himself; but he might say he was perfectly satisfied, from what he heard while in America that Her Majesty's Government did wisely in taking the opportunity that offered of commencing the negotiations which had resulted in the Treaty now under discussion, and they would have acted unjustifiably if they had neglected the opportunity. What was the position of affairs? That country had departed from the course which they at first pursued, of saying that they declined to look into questions in dispute, and they said they were willing to submit the question of the English liability to arbitration. It was then scarcely possible for that country to withdraw from that position. It was true that having offered to submit to arbitration, and the offer having been refused, England could have refused arbitration. But other matters had come under the consideration of the Government, and it being desirable to come to a settlement, the Americans said they could not settle those things without settling also the Alabama question, and they were willing to go into all those matters. It would not have been right for the Government to have declined that. They proposed that the whole of those questions should be referred to a Commission, not to settle the question, but to consider what should be the mode of settlement. The American Government felt very strongly that an arbitration of a loose and general character would have settled no principle whatever; but that a settlement of differences
  902
  between the two countries in the interests of peace generally was most desirable. He thought those had been the views of the American Government, and that they were sound at the bottom, although they might from time to time have been stated in a somewhat unpleasant tone, and been accompanied by language calculated to irritate and offend certain classes in this country. He was satisfied that the result which had come of the negotiation, and which had eventuated in the Treaty and the clauses embodied in it, was a result for which all parties concerned ought to feel satisfied, for it would not have been satisfactory to have patched up that particular quarrel on a basis unlikely to afford a permanent settlement of the question. The arrangement not only opened the door for the settlement of a detrimental, difficult, and disagreeable dispute between the two countries, but would lay the foundation of important rules and important principles of International Law, which would be for the benefit of peace, and the general interests of the whole world. He could hardly believe that anyone, looking at the position of England, and considering what the commerce and navigation of England was, and what were her relations with the whole world, could doubt that it was of great importance that they should establish certain rules for the protection of their commerce in time of war. [Mr. BAILLIE COCHRANE: No, no!] There could be no doubt that if England were to go to war her commerce might be seriously injured by predatory incursions on the part of other States, and especially of America, and that it would weaken their position in the eyes of the world, and enable them to speak with less authority than they would otherwise do in its councils. [Mr. CAVENDISH BENTINCK: No, no!] He would venture to ask the hon. and learned Member for Whitehaven who cried "No, no!" whether he did not consider that in any case in which England was concerned it was a matter of importance to consider whether England might see America friendly or hostile? If the hon. and learned Gentleman said it was a matter of no importance he could understand that argument; but it appeared to him to be a matter so simple as to require no demonstration. It might be that they would

  903
  be perfectly able to protect their commerce, and that it would be unwise for any nation to interfere; but the question was, whether they were in the position in which they would like to be if they were attacked? Was it not of importance in any complication between them and another Power for that Power to say—"If England goes to war we can find plenty of Alabamas;" or—"We can see no use in making such an attempt, because America will not consent to anything of the sort." He should say that was a very moderate proposition. But he would go further, and say that it was of great importance to establish peace not only with respect to their position in the councils of Europe and of the world, but also in that which assisted them in the development of their great colonial Empire. Did that not affect the position of their colonies? Did it not affect the prosperity of the Dominion of Canada? He should like to know what part of the British Empire was so interested in having a good understanding between England and America as that Dominion? It had been said that in some matters connected with the Treaty the interests of Canada had been sacrificed. [Mr. BAILLIE COCHRANE: Hear, hear!] Now, he wanted to know in what way. He ventured to say that if there was one portion of the British Empire for the benefit of which the Treaty had been concluded it was the Dominion of Canada. And if it could be shown that in any minor details Canada had not got as good a bargain as she might have done, still he contended that the result was so great as to outweigh any small interest. [An hon. MEMBER: New Brunswick.] He denied that New Brunswick was a loser in any respect by the Treaty. What did that great Dominion want? She was now organizing herself, and spreading herself over an enormous area, possessing enormous undeveloped resources, which required confidence, peace, and time for their development. She was situated on the frontier of another country, which, however well disposed to England, was of a restless and energetic character, and between that country and Canada causes of jealousy and misunderstanding might from time to time easily occur, for, he thought, there always would be small questions arising along the border line of the United States and Canada. But it was
  904
  for the interests of the United States as well as for the interests of Canada, that Canada should prosper and be able to develop her resources. He believed that the idea of annexation, although popular with a small section of politicians, did not find much favour in the United States. But if jealousy and bad feeling between that country and the United States should arise, what portion of the Empire would be the first to suffer? They might safely defy the power of the United States in so far as their interests were concerned; but Canadian commerce and credit would be the first to suffer. Therefore it was of the highest importance that a state of feeling which was uncomfortable between that country and the United States should for the sake of this country, and of the peace of the world, be put an end to. The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Baillie Cochrane) had cheered when he said it was alleged that the interests of Canada had been sacrificed. He would ask what interests of Canada had been sacrificed? There was the question of the Fisheries. Everyone admitted that Canada was rightly in possession of her own Fisheries. That right had been confirmed by the fact that she was capable of making an arrangement for the admission of the United States fishermen for a term of years. Did she admit them for nothing? Not at all. She claimed for her fishermen a market for their fish, and when it was said that Canada complained, he wished to know whether the fishermen of Canada complained or other parties? He believed that the fishermen of Canada, although they would have been glad to get a little more, did not complain in the way which had been spoken of, and that they considered they had got a quid pro quo in the admission of their fish to the principal markets. The markets in which their fish was disposed of were the markets of the United States. And how was the matter looked upon in the United States? A Petition had been presented from Gloucester, in Massachusetts, complaining that the bargain was in favour of the Canadian Fishery and injurious to the American Fishery, and General Butler, in rather strong language, had denounced the bargain as a bad one for the fishermen of the United States. Therefore, what had happened was simply what happened in most bargains—both sides wanted more

  905
  than they could get, and consequently declared that they had the worst of it. But even if they had got the worst of the bargain the matter might be referred to arbitration. If a fair view was taken of the question, he believed it would be found that a considerable sum would be payable to the Canadians for the advantages which the American fishermen had obtained. The bargain was a gain to both parties, but it was a greater gain to the Americans. But it was said—"What you have really failed to do is this—you have given away our Fisheries, and have failed to get for us what we value far more than money—the Reciprocity Treaty?" But free trade was a point in which both Canada and America were far behind ourselves. He admitted that it was of great importance to Canada to get free admission for her produce into the United States. It would have been desirable, if Canada could, to have obtained a renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty; but that was a matter to which the Americans entertained considerable objection, and it was clear that the renewal of the Treaty would not have been conceded. Would it, then, have been right to sacrifice an arrangement which was clearly for the benefit of Canada because the Reciprocity Treaty could not be obtained? It was a question of some delicacy; but it was clear that they were more likely to get a reduction of duties in America on the productions of Canada by leaving the matter to work itself out than by insisting on the Reciprocity Treaty as a condition. The Americans said—"If England and Canada are so anxious to have that Treaty, and are ready to make so valuable a concession, there must be something very good for them in the bargain, and if it is good for them it must be bad for us." This feeling led them to think that a reduction of duties would have a prejudicial effect on themselves. He believed that progress of the doctrines of free trade in America, although slow, was perfectly certain—that as Western States developed themselves, and gained more and more the power in the councils of the Union, they would carry out the doctrines of free trade with Canada for their own benefit. The present arrangement was one of a temporary character, and Canada 10 or 12 years hence would be in a better position for negotiating than she was at the present moment.
  906
  She would have completed her communication from the Atlantic to the Pacific—her system of canal navigation, her works on the St. Lawrence—and would become the high road for the great Western States. He therefore felt perfectly convinced that they were acting directly in the interests of Canada herself in not pressing this question prematurely, and in directing the attention of Canada to that which was really of primary importance to her—namely, the consolidation of her Dominion, the maintenance of peace with her neighbour, and the completion of her great lines of communication by river, by canal, and by railway. He was speaking upon matters that had better have been left to others; but perhaps he should take notice of one observation that had been made by his hon. and learned Friend opposite the Member for Richmond. He referred to a certain amount of ambiguity as existing in the second of the rules, and which it was possible might be held to impede the ordinary operation of commerce, the importation of munitions of war. It certainly was not very easy to be very precise in the arrangement of every article. Very often there was difficulty and some little confusion as to the particular choice of language in consequence of the difficulty of telegraphic communication, and perhaps some better phraseology might have been used to make the matter clear to the whole world. But the question whether that particular rule was open to the objection that had been urged was raised before they had left America, and before the Treaty was confirmed by the Senate, and the matter was very carefully considered by the Commissioners, aided by Mr. Barnard and by the best authorities in America, and it was also discussed by some leading Senators of authority in that matter, and there was a universal agreement that the intention of the clause was to limit the rule to cases of naval operations. It was obvious that the opposite rule had always been acted on by the American Government, and had been prominently put forward by Lord Clarendon in his communication with the German Powers, and any other meaning would involve this absurdity—that what was prohibited by sea was allowed by land. Although, however, it was perfectly clear what was the intention of the United States and England—that it was to limit

  907
  the rule to naval operations only, it would still be a matter of importance, if we came to invite other nations to accede to that clause, that we should leave no room for doubt as to the meaning of the rule. He believed he was correct in saying that communications had passed between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States that if any other country were invited to accede to this clause that point should be cleared up. He would only, in conclusion, say that for his part he was perfectly convinced that the spirit in which that Treaty was negotiated by England, and accepted and negotiated by America, was a spirit of the utmost friendliness and cordiality; that the spirit in which the negotiation between the Commissioners was conducted — although they certainly tried on both sides to get the best terms for their own country, and occasionally argued pretty closely — the spirit displayed throughout was one of entire friendliness and confidence; and he was fully persuaded that throughout the United States there was but one feeling upon the general questions involved in that Report, and that was a feeling of satisfaction that questions of difference, that might have grown under different circumstances to something unpleasant and even threatening, had been put an end to. They heard from time to time incautious language used here in reference to that great country, and undoubtedly there was extraordinary language used in public journals and elsewhere in America in reference to our own country; but he entirely denied that if it was wanted to get up a popular cry there was none that would be so popular as one against England. He did not deny that if they thought that England was not treating them with justice, or was treating them with contumely, a cry against England might find great support among many Americans; but what they desired above all things was the prosperity of England coupled with friendship between that country and the United States; and that they should be treated with the same friendliness with which they treated other nations. They did not desire that they should treat them as spoilt children, but in the same way as they treated France or Germany. They were quite prepared to their having differences with
  908
  them occasionally, and they would dispute with them upon such questions in the same spirit as was displayed by other nations. He ventured to say that the peculiar susceptibility of America, as to what they thought contumacious or unfriendly on the part of this country, was no proof that their feeling was against England, but that there was an exceptional desire to stand well with England; and there never was a time when it was more desirable for the maintenance of the foremost position of England in the councils of Europe and of the world with respect to the maintenance of peace, and for the development of the great colonial Empire of England — the interests of which he thought we were hardly sufficiently alive to — and for maintaining, supporting, and consolidating a good understanding between all branches of the great Anglo-Saxon race—there never was a time when they had a greater opportunity, and at which a greater responsibility rested upon them than at that moment, and he firmly believed that the Treaty of Washington, although it might be open to captious observations, and might possibly contain some real defects, was, as a whole, a great step in the promotion and towards the attainment of that desirable end.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I am very desirous, as I may not have another opportunity during the present Session, of making some few remarks before this discussion closes, and especially so as upon my part these remarks need only be of an agreeable character. My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire (Sir Charles Adderley) has been the critic of the Treaty of Washington upon this occasion; but subject to some few exceptions, I do not think that even his judgment on it has been very unfavourable, for he closed his speech with a fervent aspiration, and an anticipation that the general result would be favourable to goodwill, peace, and international cordiality; and as to the points on which he bestowed most of his time as to that assemblage, the points that touch the interests of Canada, he gave a very weighty opinion that Canada had reason to congratulate herself on the result of that negotiation. It is not necessary, and, indeed, it would be almost impertinent in me, after the masterly argument of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell

  909
  Palmer), to attempt to enter into these questions at large; but I wish to say, with respect to the American War, how entirely just were the remarks of my hon. and learned Friend. The truth is, we live in a time when the duties of neutrals are becoming more and more delicate and difficult; and of all neutrals there are none whose position is attended with anything like the amount of difficulty which attaches to those of England, when war occurs among other countries of the world; for in truth, the difficulties of those duties vary with the amount of complication of the foreign relations of this country. I know no country that has so large a proportion of its energy in foreign commerce that has so extensive foreign relations; and we have recently had anxious and not painful experience that, make what efforts we will, it will not be possible for us wholly to avoid suspicion and offence when these great occasions of conflict occur. Since the American War we have had to deal with the war between France and Germany. Upon this last occasion nobody could suppose that there was any predisposition of any sort in the mind of this country, or of the Government, unduly and improperly to favour one party or prejudice the other; yet it is fresh in the memory of all on how many points we failed to give satisfaction, and our honest endeavours were frustrated. I do not wish to imply that in any case we ought to object to these complaints, or wonder that they are made. They are the natural results of the excited minds of men engaged in desperate conflict, and of the difficult and delicate nature of the questions themselves with which neutrals, as neutrals, have to deal; but I believe that uprightness of intention and due and reasonable care, with due diligence, will be sufficient to secure, in the first instance, an avoidance of quarrel, and ultimately, in moments of calm and tranquillity, a general acknowledgment that our conduct has been honest, and that we have not knowingly passed from the path of justice either to the right hand or to the left. With regard to the case of America, while there were many circumstances to account for the peculiar sensitiveness it had exhibited on that question, there were circumstances in the conduct of the British Government—plain, palpable and undeniable—which
  910
  in the mind of every impartial man must show that there was not only a desire on the part of this country and of its Government to maintain its neutrality, but a desire to make extraordinary efforts for the purpose of indicating that design. Some of those circumstances have been referred to by my hon. and learned Friend to-night; others of them are such as from their nature it would be hardly generous or fair, particularly at the present time, to refer to; but there are one or two which I do not think have ever been fully under the notice even of the public of this country. And yet it is only fair to the noble Earl (Earl Russell), fair to the Government of the day, and fair to Great Britain as a nation, that those who care for the subject should bear in mind one of them, which really is a subject that has been fully considered in the negotiation in which my right hon. Friend opposite the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) has borne a distinguished part, and with respect to him and to the part which he has borne in it, if I do not further dwell upon it now, it is because I have had previous occasions of offering him, on the part of the Government, my cordial acknowledgments. That subject is the Straits of San Juan. The negotiation between the two Governments on that subject was in full activity during the year 1860; and I think it was at the close of that year that the Government of Great Britain, which felt the difficulties of the question, tendered to the Government of the United States a settlement by way of arbitration. They had received no answer to that proposal at the time when the troubles in America occurred. Had there been the least ungenerous disposition on the part of the Government of England, how favourable an opportunity — I would almost say how fair an opportunity, because it would only have been the exercise of an undoubted right—for England to have pressed for an answer to the proposal, and how difficult would have been the position of the American Government if it had been disposed to refuse the proposal of the British Government for an arbitration in the case of the Straits of San Juan! But although we saw no other mode in which the question could be settled, it was allowed to stand over without reply or notice of any kind from the Government of America, from the

  911
  autumn of 1860, if I remember rightly, until long after the troubles of America had reached their conclusion; and it is impossible to conceive a more emphatic instance of fair, liberal—I think that is a moderate description—and considerate treatment on the part of the Government of this country. There is another instance worth mentioning, and it is the instance of the flotilla which was built in this country for the Government of China. That flotilla was built and intended to be manned by British officers and crews. It was so manned; but it was found difficult to arrange the relations between the British naval force so organized and the official persons of the Government of China. The Government of China determined—as they were perfectly entitled to determine—that they would break up the flotilla, and I fearlessly affirm that with respect to responsibility for that flotilla we had absolutely none whatever, and I believe I am also entitled to say that the vessels of which it was composed were vessels of exceedingly small value according to British ideas for the purposes of the British Navy. And yet, Sir, for fear the slightest whisper should go forth, and the slightest plausible suspicion arise that these vessels when cast upon the market of the world had been so cast with a view to their purchase by the Confederates, in order to be used against the Government of the United States, the Government of this country at once determined to become the purchasers of those vessels; and I affirm that you cannot quote from the history of nations a more remarkable instance of the disposition to give the largest interpretation to the obligations of neutrality. As respects the Government of the United States I will even venture to go one step further, and with reference particularly to the last instance which I have mentioned, I will not hesitate to express the opinion that if the fortunes of that war had been different—if the Confederates had succeeded in establishing their independence, and if they had in such an instance as that called us to account for the manner in which, towards them, we had fulfilled the duties of neutrality, I hope we should have had a complete and good case to make out; but I am by no means sure that we could have confronted them with the same confidence of having done that which was fair, which we now feel with regard
  912
  to the Government of the United States. Well, Sir, the war passed by, and the present Government, when they came into Office, found themselves happy in being able to commit the foreign relations of this country to the charge of Lord Clarendon. Lord Clarendon was a man who brought to the dealing with that great subject every advantage that a statesman could possess—great ability, long experience, and singular cordiality with all the Colleagues with whom he ever was in contact, extended celebrity, much influence on the Continent of Europe, and that union of every charm of manner, with a kindly heart, which had the effect of making his presence the centre of light and warmth wherever he appeared. This, Sir, was the first question to which Lord Clarendon had to address himself, and I think that, notwithstanding the liberal arguments with which my hon. and learned Friend has shown the positive disadvantages of the unlimited and undefined arbitration that was then before him—in contrast, I mean, with the nature of the arbitration now proposed—the House will feel that Lord Clarendon judged wisely in the interest of this country in taking up the labours of the present Lord Derby, not merely from regard to the spirit and manner in which those labours had been conducted, and which were deserving of every praise, but likewise from regard to the nature and wise consideration of the political exigencies that were before him. Well, Sir, the wish of Lord Clarendon and of the Government was frustrated by the refusal of the American Senate—a refusal which we all lamented at the time, and on which, perhaps, comments might be made. And yet at the point at which we have now arrived, so great is the advantage of having arrived at an arrangement that proceeds upon a basis more definite and clear, and that contains within itself so much of guarantee for the future, that if ever one was disposed to feel displeased and critical with respect either to the refusal of the American Senate or with respect to the nature of some of the arguments and representations that were laid before it, all these feelings we may now safely dismiss from our minds, and look tranquilly in the face the nature of the Treaty that we have to consider. Sir, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Staffordshire complains mildly

  913
  —as he always does, but still he does complain—that we became petitioners to the United States for the re-opening of negotiations. He says the United States had placed themselves in the wrong, and that there we ought to have left them until they should show some signs of repentance, and themselves request us to re-open the negotiations. My right hon. Friend also stands in particular upon this—that with respect to the Fishery question in Canada, although it was for the interests of Canada a settlement should be arrived at, it was still more important for the interests of the United States. I am not careful to follow my right hon. Friend into that controversy. I would not undertake to determine whether it was more important for Canada and for the British Empire or for America to settle that question. It appears to me that when two individuals have a difference, or two nations have a difference, whichever has the greater interest and whichever has the smaller, that nation deserves praise which is most ready to promote a proposal for the settlement of that difference. With respect to the Alabama claims, it was impossible for us, after what had happened, to undertake the initiative; but my right hon. Friend will see that, having as we had these other matters open, and requiring settlement, it was a great advantage that by proposing a negotiation upon the Fisheries and the colonial questions, we were able to relieve the American Government from what I believe they themselves felt to be a false position. My right hon. Friend has so characterized it — but his generous mind would be the last to take advantage of the fact that it was difficult for the Americans, and impossible for us to propose a negotiation upon the Alabama claims. Now, the proposal which it was open to us to make with respect to the colonial questions at once removed the difficulty from the path of the American Government, and enabled them to take upon themselves the responsibility which they would otherwise have been unwilling to assume, and put the whole of these questions in the position in which they were then placed. My right hon. Friend also complained that the Alabama question, having been thus in a certain sense treated, as to time at least, as secondary and collateral by the Govern-
  914
  ment, has primarily occupied the time and attention of the negotiators. Certainly, Sir, and why not? First of all, it was the greatest question; and secondly, it was the question which formed the sine quâ non in the minds of Americans to the settlement of any other question; and that desire on the part of Americans to settle the question of the Alabama claims became an effective instrument in the hands of the British negotiators for obtaining better terms than it would be otherwise possible for them to obtain. My right hon. Friend is perfectly just in what he says about the advantages connected with this settlement. But I doubt if even these advantages could have been obtained were it not that, the case of the Alabama being before the negotiators, the Americans were desirous of going further than they would otherwise have done, with the view of settling those claims. There is another point raised by my right hon. Friend, one which relates to the different dates fixed for the claims of the British Government on the American, and of the American Government on that of Great Britain. I trust he has been satisfactorily answered by my right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote); but there is another question, with regard to which I fully admit I am not able to make him so satisfactory an answer, and that is with respect to the Fenian claims. It would have been just and fair that those Fenian claims should have been included; but, of course, it is not to be supposed that because they are not included in this settlement they have therefore ceased to exist. They remain in all their fulness. We are charged withthem. It is our duty to see that the just claims of Canada growing out of these transactions in their relation with America are not in any way disparaged. But if he asks us why these claims were not included in the present settlement, we say because we were unable to include them, and because we did not think it right to abandon and sacrifice the whole of these extensive arrangements on account of not being able to bring within the scope of them that single and comparatively limited point. I make the statement frankly. I regret the fact; but I know that Parliament and the country will not do otherwise than approve the course we took. Sir, I think I have now noticed

  915
  the principal points raised by my right hon. Friend, with the exception of the main one, with regard to which he almost adopted a declamatory tone. He said the reference to be made to an arbitrator amounted simply to this—whether, in 1861, England had fulfilled rules which only came into existence in 1871. He said magnanimity was a very good thing, but that they were changing the standard of right, and passing almost from the sublime to the ridiculous. I refer for answer to my hon. and learned Friend behind me the Member for Richmond. I agree that it would be wholly unworthy for us to abandon the ground in principle which had been taken up by the Government of Lord Palmerston, not only because many of us are responsible for the proceedings of that Government, but because there ought to be a continuity in the Government of a great country. But my hon. and learned Friend has pointed out to us, with the utmost clearness and force, that there are two kinds of obligations binding on a neutral—one arising out of International law, and another arising out of municipal law. I will not add a single word, but for my own part and that of the Government adopt that view of the case in which he has shown that the principle embodied in the rules in the Treaty of Washington are the very principles for which the Executive Government of this country contended in the Courts of this country, and which, therefore, it was not too much for the American Government to expect we should be prepared to act on in coming to an ultimate settlement. There is no doubt that a great concession has been made to America; but that great concession lies in this—that we have consented to go to arbitration as to whether there was any defect in the administration of our own municipal law. That is undoubtedly what may be called stretching somewhat the measure of a strict necessity with regard to the fulfilment of international duties. Is there anything unreasonable in that principle? I do not think it shows any disparagement to honour. But be that as it may, this concession which has been made to the United States, so far as regards the specifications contained in the rules, my right hon. Friend has shown us we have had nothing to add to claims which America was already able to establish against us
  916
  out of our own mouths, while we have obtained the basis of that understanding between the two countries which I hope will harden and widen into an International Law for the benefit of the world. There has been in some minds a supposition, which I take to be quite idle, that this arbitration is a phantasm conjured up by us to cover, under decent forms, a foregone conclusion of defeat. Sir, on the part of the Government, and on my own part, I beg most emphatically to disclaim the slightest approach to any such view or intention. This arbitration will be real, honest, and energetic, though no doubt a friendly contention. All the resources of arguments and knowledge and legal skill will be used for the purpose of establishing the right conduct of England and her fulfilment of her international duties, and the same, no doubt, will be done on the part of America, for the two countries will enter into it as a perfectly real, though amicable contest, subject only to this consideration — that as they are bound by honour, they will either of them accept the result, whatever that may be. Such is a statement of the case, so far as it is necessary for me to touch it, after the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, and after the speech of my right hon. Friend who has just sat down (Sir Stafford Northcote); and I have only further to say that I observe with the utmost satisfaction the spirit of dispassionate calm with which the whole matter has been considered in this country. There has been, on the one hand, a free development of those friendly and fraternal feelings which I trust the English race in England will always entertain towards the English race in America. We are extending and improving communications, and with each addition of knowledge the vulgar errors as to the feelings and sentiments of the people of the United States in regard to ourselves are being dispelled. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Devonshire has given us a most interesting and just description of the feelings entertained on the other side of the water; and coming, as it does, from him, I hope it will assist that beneficial process which is going forward in this country, which is rapidly becoming undeceived, with regard to the existence of prejudices and antipathies, which on many occasions have, perhaps, been by

  917
  us too lightly assumed to prevail among the great body of the American people, through our having before our eyes peculiar phenomena in regard to certain portions of that people — phenomena painful to ourselves, but not less painful, I believe, to the bulk of intelligent Americans than to us—those intelligent Americans having some reason to feel, too, that the true root of the hostile feelings cherished in America, but not by America, towards England do not lie on their side of the water, but originate in the unhappy condition of a portion of the United Kingdom itself. I congratulate my right hon. Friend again upon the share he has had in bringing about what I believe to be a most beneficial arrangement; and, the more that beneficial settlement is examined, the more I believe the people of this country will arrive at the conclusion that without the slightest disparagement of honour, without any risk other than that which every man who engages in a controversy ought to be disposed to face—namely, the risk of having it decided against him, if so it should be—that Treaty has laid the foundation of future advantage in the administration and action of International Law; and has likewise, by removing the last of all serious causes of dispute between those two great countries, done much towards the accomplishment of the great work of uniting them in the ties of affection where they are already bound by the ties of interest, of kindred, of race, and of language, thereby promoting that strong and lasting union between them which is in itself one of the main guarantees for the peace of the civilized world.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, that after the eloquent peroration which had just been addressed to the House anyone who rose to differ from the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government must incur the odium of not sufficiently estimating the value of the blessings of peace. He therefore felt himself in a position of difficulty in replying to the right hon. Gentleman, and still more so, in consequence of the right hon. Baronet, who sat on the front Opposition bench (Sir Stafford Northcote), having been a party to the negotiation of the Treaty. But, although no one set a higher value upon them than he, he also valued the honour of the country, and thought that even such a Treaty
  918
  as that might be purchased too dearly. He did not blame the Joint High Commissioners, for they stated they acted entirely under instructions by telegraph, so much so, that he understood several thousand pounds had been spent on telegrams alone—he had heard it put as high as £25,000; but from the Papers which had been furnished to the House, he thought he could make out a strong case against the Government, under whose instructions the Commissioners had acted, and after reading those Papers he was astonished, either that Commissioners should have been found to sign such a Treaty, or that the House of Commons should approve it. Only three short Papers had been presented to the House, and he regretted that the whole of the Correspondence was not published, for it might have thrown some light on the extraordinary proceedings at Washington. He desired to know in what position this country stood with respect to the American Government; what we had gained and what we had sacrificed; and whether this country stood higher in the opinion of Europe in consequence of the negotiation of that Treaty. It should be remembered that the demand for this High Commission emanated from England; for, in the first place, Sir Edward Thornton communicated with Mr. Fish, proposing simply to bring before a Commission the question of the Fisheries. To that Mr. Fish replied that the President desired the re-adjustment of other claims, without which the proposed High Commission would fail to re-establish a lasting friendship between the two Governments. The answer of the Government was that all other claims, both of British subjects and citizens of the United States, arising out of acts committed during the Civil War should be referred to the Commission. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Alabama claims were more important than the Fisheries; but how did he reconcile that with the fact that the Fishery claims were the only ones brought before the American Government in the first instance? With reference to the Protocols of the Conference, the right hon. Gentleman had said that the first question submitted to the Conference was that of the Fishery claims; but there was not a single word about that in the Protocols. The first claim made by the Americans was for $14,000,000 for the

  919
  injury done to their commerce by the Alabama, Shenandoah, and other cruisers. Then the American Commissioners desired that the British Commissioners should place on record an expression of regret by Her Majesty's Government for the depredations which had been committed by those vessels, and it was next stated—
  "Although Great Britain had from the beginning disavowed any responsibility for the acts of the Alabama and the other vessels, she had already shown her willingness, for the sake of the maintenance of friendly relations with the United States, to adopt the principle of arbitration, providing that a fitting arbitrator could be found."
  The right hon. Gentleman had said there was no reference to arbitration; but here was the offer. It was added—
  "The American Commissioners expressed their regret at the decision of the British Commissioners, and said further that they could not consent to submit the question of the liability of Her Majesty's Government to arbitration, unless the principles which should govern the arbitrator in the consideration of the facts could be first agreed upon. The British Commissioners replied that they had no authority to agree to a submission of these claims to an arbitrator, with instructions as to the principles which should govern him in the consideration of them. They said that they should be willing to consider what principles should be adopted for observance in future."
  That showed that the principles laid down were not to be retrospective. Then—
  "The American Commissioners replied that they were willing to consider what principles should be laid down for observance in similar cases in future, with the understanding that any principles that should be agreed upon should be held to be applicable to the facts in respect to the Alabama claims."
  This was on the 8th of March, and the Commissioners telegraphed for instructions; but it did not appear that anything more was done until the 3rd of April. On that date—
  "The British Commissioners stated that they were instructed by Her Majesty's Government to declare that Her Majesty's Government could not assent to the proposed rules as a statement of principles of International Law which were in force at the time when the Alabama claims arose; but that Her Majesty's Government, in order to evince its desire of strengthening the friendly relations between the two countries, and of making satisfactory provision for the future, ageeed that, in deciding the questions between the two countries arising out of those claims, the arbitrator should assume that Her Majesty's Government had undertaken to act upon the principles set forth in the rules which the American Commissioners had proposed."
  920
  On the 5th of April the American Commissioners, referring to the hope which they had expressed on the 8th of March, inquired whether the British Commissioners were prepared to place upon record an expression of regret by Her Majesty's Government for the depredations committed by the vessels whose acts were now under discussion; and the British Commissioners replied that they were authorized to express, in a friendly spirit, the regret felt by Her Majesty's Government for the escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations committed by those vessels. And yet the right hon. Gentleman said that the country had done nothing derogatory to its honour; but he (Mr. Baillie Cochrane) considered that proceeding exceedingly humiliating to this country. Then the claims of British subjects arising out of the Civil War were brought forward. The nature of those claims was perfectly clear; but, with something like an ironical insult to the British Commissioners, the American Commissioners said that they supposed that they were right in their opinion that British laws prohibit British subjects from owning slaves; they therefore inquired whether any claim for slaves, or for alleged property or interest in slaves, could or would be presented by the British Government, or on behalf of any British subject, under the Treaty now being negotiated, if there was in the Treaty no express words excluding such claims. Was it possible that they could suppose that the English proprietors in Canada were slaveowners? The British Commissioners replied that by the law of England British subjects had long been prohibited from purchasing or dealing in slaves not only within the dominions of the British Crown, but in any foreign country, and that they had no hesitation in saying that no claim on behalf of any British subject for slaves, or for any property or interest in slaves, would be presented by the British Government. It was plain that the American Commissioners were only laughing at the British Commissioners. At the Conference of the 26th of April the British Commissioners again brought before the Joint High Commission "the claims of the people of Canada for injuries suffered from the Fenian raids. They said that

  921
  they were instructed to present these claims, and to state that they were regarded by Her Majesty's Government as coming within the class of subjects indicated by Sir Edward Thornton in his letter of January 26, as subjects for the consideration of the Joint High Commission." The American Commissioners replied that they could see no reason to vary the reply formerly given to this proposal, and the British High Commissioners said that, under these circumstances, they would not urge further that the settlement of these claims should be included in the present Treaty, and that they had the less difficulty in doing so as a portion of the claims were of a constructive and inferential character. But now the right hon. Gentleman said that it was intended to bring forward these claims at a future period, though the British Commissioners gave them up. He did not believe that anybody reading the papers could say that anything had been obtained from the American Commissioners, and it appeared that everything was sacrificed on the part of the English. It appeared that the Government had telegraphed to the Commissioners to give up everything. In the first place they apologised, then they gave up the Canadian claims, and they were prepared to pay £4,000,000. When all this was done it was represented that peaceful relations had been established with America; but peace might always be obtained with any country by accepting humiliating terms. In the case of the Reciprocity Treaty the British Commissioners asked most humbly that it might be restored in principle; but the American Commissioners declined altogether to negotiate on the basis of that Treaty. He might in the same way canvass every clause in the Treaty; but it was too late in the evening to do so, and he hoped some one would rise and point out any matter in which the Americans had given way. He contended that in these negotiations England had been subject to insult, an humble apology had been made to America, and Canada had been deeply injured. The right hon. Gentleman said that Canada approved the Washington Treaty; but he could see nothing in the Papers to that effect, though it might be that, in consequence of the formation of the Dominion, the interests of the smaller States were sacrificed to those
  922
  of the greater. In conclusion, he could not help feeling that the proceedings of the Commission had only resulted in another step having been taken towards the ultimate degradation to this country.
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, he would not at that late hour attempt to discuss the general question; but, if time had permitted, he would have wished to have done what the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) in his admirable speech had failed to do—namely, to begin at the origin of the dissatisfaction which was felt so strongly in America against this country, and which had really led to and fostered the spirit of hostility evinced in these Alabama claims; and that origin was the allegation that we had unfairly backed the Confederacy by acknowledging them as belligerents. He maintained that our course of action had been eminently fair, and that it was the Americans themselves who first gave belligerent rights by blockading the Southern ports as those of a belligerent enemy. They had done it also in a mode most unfair to this country, for vessels sailing from our ports with clearances from American Consuls were debarred from entering; no time was allowed for the blockade to become known, and the clearances of their own Consuls were utterly ignored. He thought our country had acted fairly all through; but he would confine his remarks to one point in the Treaty, one which had been only alluded to by the right hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Sir Charles Adderley); but which, notwithstanding its importance to British interests, had been passed over in silence by the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). And on that matter he felt bound to say that the right hon. Baronet had taken a most unusual course in speaking so early in the debate, for it was his place to defend the Treaty, and how could he do that before he knew what was to be said against it? Only two hon. Members had spoken before the right hon. Baronet, and by speaking so early he had shut himself out from his defence, for he (Mr. Anderson was about to charge Her Majesty's Commissioners with prejudicing British interests by allowing the 9th of April to be fixed as the end of the war, when it really was in no sense whatever the end of the war, as he would show the House by the simple statement of

  923
  certain dates of events. No date had been fixed as a limit to the Alabama claims; but as those were pretty well limited by the sinking of that vessel, it was no object to the Americans to fix a date; but British claims became greater towards the end of the war, and therefore it was of great consequence to America to fix an early date as the limit, while it was our interest to keep to the actual end of the war. The Alabama was sank on the 9th of June, 1864; General Lee surrendered his Army on the 9th of April, 1865; President Lincoln was assassinated on the 14th of April, 1865; General J. E. Johnstone surrendered his Army to Sherman on the 26th of April, 1865; General Taylor surrendered his Army on the 4th of May, 1865; Jefferson Davis was captured on the 10th of May, 1865; General Kirby E. Smith surrendered his Army on the 26th of May, 1865; and, finally, the President of the United States, by Proclamation, fixed the end of the rebellion as the 20th of August, 1866, which date had been ratified by the Supreme Court, on the ground that it was for the Executive by Proclamation to announce the close. With these dates of events of the war before them, he asked how our Commissioners could, with any show of reason, assent to the proposition that the 9th of April, 1865, should be fixed on as the end of the war? Of course, the surrender of Lee and the fall of Richmond were great events; but there remained no less than three other Confederate Armies in the field which were not included in Lee's capitulation. The last of these armies did not surrender for six weeks after, and there was a good deal of fighting and much destruction of property in the interval; but he maintained that even if Lee's surrender was taken as the date, a reasonable time should have been allowed for the event to become known over so large a country, where the railways and telegraphs were disorganized. He had no doubt many important British claims had thus been most unfairly shut out. He had heard of a case where about £12,000 worth of British property, registered as such in our Consulate, had been burned on the 11th of April, just two days after the date fixed by the Commissioners. That was at Montgomery, the capital of Alabama State, where it was almost impossible that Lee's surrender could be known, as well as un-
  924
  likely that even if known, it would be considered to end the war. It appeared to him that the American Commissioners, with that astuteness which seemed to enable them always to get the better of us in diplomacy, had in this case also succeeded, in getting the advantage of us; that our Commissioners had allowed themselves to be misled into agreeing to a date of a most one-sided character, in every way advantageous to the Americans and disadvantageous to us, and had thereby compromised those British mercantile interests which it was their duty to protect.
  MR. RATHBONEsaid, he differed altogether from the opinions expressed by the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Baillie Cochrane). He knew what the feelings of British merchants were on this matter, especially those of Liverpool. That feeling was one of gratitude to the Government and the Commissioners for what they had done in effecting this Treaty. The first public remonstrance against sending the Alabama out came from the leading shipowners of Liverpool. He believed that it would have been utterly impossible to maintain the commerce of this country after the Treaty of Paris, if such vessels as the Alabama could be fitted out in neutral ports, and it was therefore of the greatest importance that the precedent set by the Alabama should be cancelled as soon as possible. From personal experience he could state that the Americans valued the friendship of England more than any other country. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Government and to the Commissioners, because, putting aside the mere technicalities of law, they have looked only to the great principles of justice and national morality in the consideration of that question, and they had thereby laid the foundation of a real, permanent, and cordial alliance between the two countries.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he must make one observation on the fact that while the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government stated that the claims on account of the Fenian raids were still open, and that it was competent for the Canadian Government or our own to press them, it appeared from the Paper which the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Baillie Cochrane) had read that those claims had been given up by the Commissioners. The Canadians

  925
  fully understood that the Fenian raids were merely part of a system acted on by a power which had exercised and still continued to exercise great influence over States. That influence was at the root of the Alabama question. The whole object of the organization to which he referred was to foment and create war. The deliberate action of the Roman Catholic hierarchy was directed to produce dissension between America and this country, and one advantage from enforcing the claims on account of the Fenian raids would be that it would enable the Americans to emancipate themselves from the influence to which he had referred.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE BILL.
  (Mr. Baxter, Mr. William, Henry Gladstone.)

  [BILL 238.] COMMITTEE.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clauses 1 to 23, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 24 (Repeal of provision (11) of sect. 19 of the 32 and 33 Vict. c. 14).
  MR. M'LAREN, in the absence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gordon), proposed the insertion of a proviso at the end of the clause, extending the exemption already enjoyed in respect of agricultural horses and carts to their use on Sunday in the conveyance of a farmer and his family to a place of Divine worship.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 10, after the word "seventy-two," to add the words "It shall not be necessary to take out a licence for any cart or horse used for the conveyance of any goods or burden in the case of trade or husbandry, although such cart or horse shall be used on Sunday for carrying the owner thereof or his family to or from any place of worship."—(Mr. M'Laren.)
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, doubtless the employment of these agricultural horses and carts for the purpose referred to was a good work, but it had no connection with the ground of the original exemption, and therefore he must object to the insertion of the proviso.
  Question put, "That those words be there added."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 39; Noes 43: Majority 4.
  Clause agreed to.
  Remaining clauses agreed to.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEmoved a new clause, to exempt every dwelling house let out in separate lodgings or tenements, at a rent below 7s. 8d. per week, or under £20 per annum for each separate tenement, from the inhabited house duties. The result of the exemption would be to relieve the owner of a house who employed it in the most profitable manner by letting it out in tenements.
  A Clause (Exemption of certain houses from Inhabited House Duty,) — (Mr. Alderman Lawrence,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 9; Noes 70: Majority 61.
  New Clause.
  (Reduction of Inhabited House Duties on certain houses.)
  "From and after the fifth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and seventy one, every inhabited dwelling house which, with the household and other offices, yards, and gardens therewith occupied and charged, is or shall be worth the rent of twenty pounds or upwards by the year, which shall be occupied by any person who shall carry on in the said dwelling house the business of an hotel keeper or an inn keeper or coffee house keeper, although not licensed to sell therein by retail beer, ale, wine, or other liquors, there shall be charged for every twenty shillings of such annual value of any such dwelling house the sum of sixpence,"—(Mr. Alderman Lawrence,)—
  brought up, and read the first time.
  On Question, That the clause be read the second time,
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, he must oppose the clause on the ground of the extra taxation paid by licensed victuallers. [Several hon. MEMBERS: What is it?] Heavy licence duties.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he did not see why coffeehouse keepers should not be placed in the same position as other traders who paid 6d. instead of 9d.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, the coffeehouse was an occupied house.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, so was the trader's.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, other traders kept shops; but a coffeehouse was not a shop.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he thought some better answer ought to be given as to the special taxation paid by licensed victuallers. It must be remembered

  927
  that their trade was a monopoly, and coffeehouse keeping was not.
  After further short discussion, Clause read a second time, agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEmoved a new clause, to exempt offices and places of business from the inhabited house duty, although servants might dwell in them for the protection of the premises.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he must acknowledge the anomalous state of the law regarding the rating of inhabited houses; but as he learned that the clause would involve a loss of £200,000, which he could not afford to give up at the present period of the Session, which period, moreover, precluded present legislation, he asked the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman Lawrence) not to press his Motion, and the Government would consider the subject at an early period of next Session.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEsaid, the question had been a long time before the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose explanation was unsatisfactory.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was disappointed at the way the hon. Member for the City of London met the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had not an opportunity of proposing a remedy this Session.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, that as the most satisfactory remedy, he would suggest the ultimate abolition of all exemptions.
  MR. W. FOWLERsaid, although the clause would not do perfect justice, it would remove a great injustice.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he must support the suggestion of general legislation, with a view to the abolition of all exemptions.
  Clause negatived.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT (1870) AMENDMENT (NO. 3) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER, Bill to amend Paragraph Three of the Second Schedule of "The Elementary Education Act, 1870," ordered to be brought in by Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER and Mr. WINTERBOTHAM.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 286.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after Three o'clock in the morning.