HC Deb 17 March 1871 vol 205 cc179-203
MR. NEWDEGATE

Mr. Speaker, I rested my objection to the attempt made last night, to alter the course of Business for to-day entirely on my respect for the maintenance of due order in the conduct of the Business of the House; and if any hon. Member will look at the Notice Paper for to-day he will understand the reason of the objection which I felt to withdrawing the Motion that stands in my name, so as to alter the established system of precedence. For the first time in this Session there appears upon the Notice Paper the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. P. Villiers) to move the re-appointment of the Committee on Conventual and Monastic Institutions, upon the appointment of which the House decided by increasing majorities last Session. The right hon. Gentleman proposes that this Committee shall be re-appointed on the same terms as last Session. It is due to the House, and also to the hon. Members who served with me upon that Committee, that I should explain why I and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone (Mr. Thomas Chambers) felt it to be our duty, as Members of the Committee, to object to the re-appointment of the Committee of last Session in the same terms. Sir, the evidence taken by, and the proceedings of, the Committee are before the House, and if hon. Members will turn to the proceedings for a moment they will find that the Committee, before closing its investigations last Session, had, on the 25th of July, to consider a proposal made by myself for the examination of the Rev. William P. Nicholds, of Holy Cross Priory, Leicester; and I now wish to explain the purport of that proposal, as illustrative of the objections which I feel to the re-appointment of that Committee in the terms of the reference under which it sat last Session. The Committee were directed to inquire into the property held by conventual and monastic institutions, and I wish to explain the great difficulties with which we had to contend. It happened that there was property held by the Dominican Order in the township of Hinckley, and in the adjoining parish of Burbage; and evidence will be found in the Report before the House of the sale by auction of the part of this property which is situated in the parish of Hinckley. The evidence also shows that this sale was conducted under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Nicholds. Although the Committee had before them the title deeds, which were produced by the purchasers of the property in Hinckley, we had not sufficient proof of the exact nature of the vendor's tenure. I agreed in opinion that the evidence was not conclusive; but it happened that a property in the adjoining parish of Burbage also belonged to this same community. I know every field of it. This property was sold to the owner of a settled estate by private contract previous to sale by auction. The owner of this settled estate could not, of course, become the purchaser, unless the trust money of his estate were released by the Court of Chancery for the purchase, and it is the duty of the Vice Chancellor to ascertain that the title of the property to be purchased is valid before he signs the order for the release of the trust money. I went to the Vice Chancellor, and asked whether the tenure of the vendor or vendors was a joint tenancy or a tenancy in common. I said—"Mr. Vice Chancellor, you have authorized the purchase—who is the vendor? Have you any objection to informing me who is the principal vendor?" The Vice Chancellor, Sir John Stuart, replied that he would consider the application, and the next day I received a letter from his chief clerk, informing me that there were several parties to the sale, whose names he gave me, and the principal vendor was the same person who had conducted the sale of the property in the adjoining parish of Hinckley—namely, the Rev. Mr. Nicholds—and that the Rev. Mr. Nicholds had given such information as satisfied the Vice Chancellor with regard to the title of the property, of which he had sanctioned the purchase. I several times repeated to the Committee that the Vice Chancellor had been satisfied by the evidence given to him by the Rev. Mr. Nicholds, and I asked the Committee to hear that gentleman, as the person who was competent to satisfy them, as he had already satisfied the Vice Chancellor with regard to the title, by which this community held that property. At last I was compelled to move that Mr. Nicholds be called as a witness, and somewhat to my surprise three of the Members out of the five present, besides the Chairman, voted against calling this witness, as appears in the proceedings. Mr. O'Reilly, Mr. Sherlock, and Sir John Ogilvy resisted the calling of this witness, and left my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone and myself in a minority. It then became manifest that a Committee, who would not accept evidence, which had satisfied the Vice Chancellor as to title, were not likely to proceed either accurately or earnestly to ascertain the property held in other cases by these conventual and monastic institutions. The next proposal was, that the Committee should report the evidence, taken to the House, and, further, should recommend its own re-appointment. To the latter part of this proposal the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone and I felt it our duty to object—I mean to the suggestion for the re-appointment of a Committee which had just rejected evidence that been accepted by the Vice Chancellor. I immediately gave Notice of the Motion which I now make, and to which I ask the assent of the House, and of which I last Session gave Notice. But, Sir, I have not as yet attempted to explain to the House how necessary the evidence of such persons as Mr. Nicholds must be in the endeavour to ascertain what is really the property of these institutions. When this House had decided by repeated majorities—first by a majority of 2, then by a majority of 28, and lastly by a majority of 45—that it would appoint the Committee last Session in the terms which I originally proposed, and which I will read to the House—terms which included the terms in which the Committee was ultimately appointed, and others— A Committee to inquire into the existence, character, and increase of conventual and monastic institutions or societies in Great Britain, and into the terms on which income, property, and estates belonging to such institutions or societies, or to members thereof, are respectively received held, or possessed. That was the Instruction or Order which the House three times last Session affirmed; but on the urgent representations of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government the words "existence, character, and increase of conventual and monastic institutions," which were contained in the original Instruction, were omitted from the altered Instruction ultimately adopted by the House, and which formed the reference of the Committee of last Session. I ventured to tell the House when the omission to which I have referred was made, that, in my humble opinion, it would be impossible for the Committee, under the Instructions thus given, to carry out the investigation successfully. I will quote the words. On referring to Hansard, I find that on the 2nd of May I am reported to have said— He (Mr. Newdegate) could not say that he did not regret the decision at which the House had just arrived. He thought it was impossible for the Committee successfully to prosecute such an inquiry without entering into the subject in the manner specified in the Order which the House had been pleased to rescind. But he certainly should not oppose the Committee now suggested. A good deal had been gained by what had occurred, if only in showing the vast increase of those establishments of late years. He should, therefore, watch the progress of the Committee, fearing it might find itself incapacitated by the omission of the terms embodied in the Resolution which had been first adopted by the House, and reserving to himself the power of moving any Instruction which experience to be gained from the proceedings of the Committee might prove to be necessary."—[3 Hansard, cci. 81.] I have quoted these words for the purpose of showing that I anticipated difficulty. The difficulty did occur, and I will now refer to a Resolution of the Committee to show how impossible we found it to proceed within the terms of that Instruction. On the 28th of June the Committee came to this Resolution— That no evidence be taken as to the property of any community, or the members thereof, until sufficient evidence has been given to prove that they are members of a conventual or monastic institution or society, or of a religious institution of a conventual or monastic character. Now, here, upon the showing of the Committee itself, and by a formal Resolution, it appears that we found it impossible to ascertain the property until we had tested the character of the institution. To that Resolution, though it went beyond the Instructions of the House, I did not object; and for this reason—I knew that the Instruction of the House had limited us in conducting the inquiry in a manner that rendered it impossible for us to carry out the intentions of the House; and I use this Resolution of the Committee to show that the omission of the words, which I deprecated when it was agreed to at the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, was found by the Members of the Committee to incapacitate them in prosecuting their labours. The Committee, in accordance with its Resolution, examined into the character of the Oratory at Brompton, because the Oratorians had produced witnesses who declared that theirs was not a conventual or monastic institution. It so happened that business connected with the will of the late Rev. Mr. Hutchinson, devising property for the benefit of this institution, had been before the Court of Probate; and this furnished the Committee with the requisite evidence as to the transactions through which this property was devised, and as to the character of that institution. The Committee thereupon came to a Resolution to the effect that the Oratorians are, and do constitute, a monastic and conventual Order. [Mr. O'REILLY: Will the hon. Member read the words?] This is the Resolution to which the Committee came on the 4th of July— That the evidence already given is sufficient to show that the Oratorians are members of a religious institution of a conventual or monastic character in Great Britain, and that no further evidence on that point be heard. The conclusion, Sir, to which the Committee came, is exactly the same as that to which the Courts in Italy came, for before those Courts this question, regarding the monastic character of the Oratorians, was twice decided, finally by the Court at Genoa, although the Oratorians strenuously deny that their institution is of a monastic character; but it has thus been decided they are of a monastic character and constitute a monastic Order. During the sittings of the Committee I received copies of the Italian law, under which this case had been tried, together with the decisions of the Italian Courts on the subject, and these are precisely coincident with that at which your Committee arrived last Session. If hon. Members will take the trouble of inquiring, they will find that the evidence which was taken by the Committee corresponds with the evidence given before the Italian Courts, and is sufficient to account for the coincidence of decision with that of the Italian Courts. I thought and hoped at the time that the Committee were proceeding in a satisfactory course. I was myself the principal means of collecting the evidence. The evidence from Scotland was very conclusive, particularly that from Glasgow, owing to this fact—that by a municipal organization there is an exact list of the properties within that city, including those which constitute endowments, and because by the law in Scotland generally there is a register of deeds, as well as a very carefully kept valuation list of all properties. The House will, consequently, find the evidence relating to the conventual institutions of Glasgow very complete. We had, in great measure, the like facilities for obtaining information respecting such institutions at Perth and at Edinburgh. But, then, Sir, we had to begin with England, and here the difficulties of the Committee commenced. In the Midland Counties my own information and knowledge were sufficiently accurate and extensive as a magistrate, and otherwise to enable me to adduce evidence to the Committee as to several institutions in Warwickshire, and some in Leicestershire; but the moment the Committee began to travel beyond the immediate knowledge of its Members it fell back again from its Resolution, and refused the only evidence which it was possible, as I believe, to adduce in order to trace the properties which we were desired and instructed by the House to examine. The House will find this shown in the proceedings; and I made the most vigorous attempts I could to carry the investigation further. I will give the House an instance. Some very upright and intelligent persons were sent throughout London to apply to the Poor Law officers and examine the valuation lists, for the purpose of ascertaining what were the properties described in the Roman Catholic "Directory," as held by the religious Orders therein mentioned. But the Committee seemed suddenly to have discovered that the Resolution of the 28th of June went beyond their Instructions, so they stopped, and turned back. I believe they were perfectly right as to order, for I always thought that the Resolution went beyond the Instruction. I think I have now said enough to show the House that, if it is desirable to carry out the expressed intention of the majority of this House, and the earnest feeling that prevails throughout the country upon this subject, the House must appoint a Committee with more extended powers, and with a less restricted Instruction than that under which the Committee acted last year. I will now show the House still further the necessity of taking this course. The first evidence which was taken by the Committee was that of Mr. P. Earle, the senior Charity Commissioner, who clearly proved that the Charity Commissioners had no knowledge of any of this property as charity property; that no application had been made to them to exercise the powers vested in them, conjointly with the Court of Chancery, with reference to it, or, if applications had been made, the Commissioners could not be aware of the distinctive character of the property as conventual. Nothing could be more distinct than the evidence of Mr. Earle, the Chief Commissioner, and that of Mr. Hobhouse, another Commissioner upon that point. We had also an officer of the Rolls Court before the Committee, who produced the best accounts he could select for the information of the Committee, but fairly told us that he had no means of distinguishing these properties; that the habit of giving or devising property to individuals, with concealed trusts, was not met by the existing state of the law, and that, therefore, the means of ascertaing the properties held by those institutions were not accessible to the Court of Chancery, or to the Charity Commissioners, except through some such accident as the sale of the property in the parish of Burbage, to which I have already adverted. But this peculiar concealment of trusts is by no means an accident, for there appeared before the Committee Mr. Harting, a Roman Catholic solicitor, who is well known, and who declared that he appeared before the Committee as the representative of 215 convents; there appeared before us also a Mr. Cuddon, another Roman Catholic solicitor, who declared that he was the representative of all the male monastic Orders in Great Britain, and that he was accurately acquainted with their property; there appeared before us another solicitor, a Mr. Arnold, for a like purpose, supported by the learned counsel, Mr. Bagshaw. I had hoped that we were about to have a full account; but these gentlemen all declared their determination not to imperil the interests of their clients by giving the Committee the slighest clue either to the site or to the value of properties their clients held, taking them separately, nor the names of the nominal owners, being in fact trustees. I felt it to be my duty to examine these gentlemen to the best of my ability; but was ever such a thing heard of as placing professional men into the witness-chair before a Committee of the House of Commons, that they might there plead "privilege?" Why, Sir, privilege only exists in the client, and only in the client properly in case of litigation. There is no privilege in the professional representative. Neither the solicitor nor the counsel has any privilege of his own; and yet these gentlemen—when, if there were any trial at all, it was a trial between the monastic Orders and you, Sir, as the representative of the House—claimed privilege, and refused repeatedly and emphatically to give the name of a single individual as connected with this property, the name of a single owner, the name of a single trustee, the site or the value of any separate property—any description whatever, in short, which would have enabled the Committee to test the general statements which they made, showing a comparatively small amount of income and property as belonging to these institutions in the aggregate. But, Sir, there was no trial; it was merely a more successful attempt to defeat an inquiry directed by this House. It is perfectly ridiculous if you consider it for a moment. Here is a gentleman who says—"I am the professional representative of 215 convents, and I say that these 215 convents have real property in land amounting in the aggregate to so much, and an income derived from personal property amounting to so much." He is asked—"To whom does it belong?" "To the 215 convents," he answers, and will not give the name of any one convent; he will not mention the name of a single trustee, or point to a single piece of property, or tell you where the personal property is invested or is to be found. What was this but a simple refusal of information, which made it impossible for the Committee to get at any one fact connected with such property through these witnesses, or to test the accuracy of their statements? I endeavoured to ascertain what Mr. Harting meant by "owner." "Oh, no," said this learned gentleman in other words, "we are not going to tell you who is the owner. I am not going to name a person or a property. I will not allow you to follow me in detail into any one circumstance connected with those 215 convents." The Roman Catholic "Directory" indicates that there are 69 monastic institutions; but Mr. Cuddon says that there are only 30 monasteries. I hold, then, that is impossible, without more extensive powers of investigation, to overcome an opposition of this kind; for it amounts to nothing less. I think I have now shown the House that, where the Committee really did accomplish the wishes of the House, they went beyond their Instructions; and I will now show that the moment they fell back, and retreated within the terms of the Instruction, they found themselves perfectly paralyzed. Under these circumstances, I came to the conclusion, as did the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone, that a Committee must be appointed with extended powers, or that the intention of the House could not be accomplished. I am very glad to see that my hon. and learned Friend is now present, because the Instruction, which I agreed upon with him, and which I now move, goes even somewhat beyond the Instruction that I moved in this House last Session, and which the House three times affirmed by a majority. The Instruction which I now move goes further in this respect. In the Session of 1851 a Bill was introduced in this House by Mr. Lacy, then a Member, which originated in the escape of a nun from a convent at Wimborne, and her having taken refuge with a Dissenting minister, complaining of the severe treatment she had experienced in the convent. The introduction of this Bill for securing the means of free exit for the inmates of those institutions eventually led to further demands for inquiry. The House rejected the Bill on the second reading, supposing the case was not made out. In the same year, 1851, the case of the late Lady Edward Howard, who was a ward in Chancery, was brought before the House, and through the action taken in this House the Lord Chancellor was induced to sit on an unusual day, a Saturday, to ascertain the circumstances in which that then young lady found herself in the convent at Clifton, and the result was her liberation. After this the House determined over and over again, first in the Session of 1852, that they would inquire as to whether proper means of exit were afforded under the present law to the inhabitants of these convents; but the House was defeated by the use of its own forms. In 1853 and 1854 my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone, and the late Mr. Phinn, another hon. and learned Friend, induced the House over and over again to affirm the imperfection of our laws for securing the personal liberty of the inmates of those institutions. The representations which I received from the country during the sittings of the Committee last Session, and previous to its appointment, were so strong that a Committee upon conventual and monastic institutions ought to investigate this subject, that I have thought it right to include words in this Motion which will leave it at the discretion of the Committee whether they will not proceed to inquire into this part of the subject. Sir, I remember that last Session the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government said that I was bound to show some special case in order to justify such an Instruction to the Committee. Well, Sir, I showed a special case in 1865; for I then stated to the House that a case had been brought before Mr. Justice Wightman, in connection with the convent at Colwich, in Staffordshire, and that Mr. Justice Wightman, after perusing the affidavits, made by a large number of witnesses, copies of which I have in my pos- session, decided that he would instruct certain persons, whom he selected, to go down and inquire whether the lady in question, a Miss Selby, was really confined in that convent from which she had escaped, and to which she had been brought back by Dr. Ullathorne against her will. It was then discovered that the lady had been removed from the convent at Colwich to the very convent at Wimborne from which the nun had escaped whose case was brought before the House by Mr. Lacy in 1851. The persons appointed by Mr. Justice Wightman followed Miss Selby, by his directions, to Wimborne, where they had an interview with her, and she informed them that she found her then present abode a happy home; but she would not reveal why she had escaped from the convent at Colwich. She never would reveal that; but she said she was contented to remain at Wimborne, and added very significant words to this effect—"Were I to leave this convent all my relations are Roman Catholics and they would reject me; I should be cast penniless upon the world." In these words, Sir, you have described one of the means by which many an unhappy lady is retained against her will within these convents. I was told in 1865, and have been told since, that I have been propagating false reports; Dr. Ullathorne has done all in his power, by writing and otherwise, to impugn the evidence to which I have alluded; but I hold in my hand a letter from Mr. Mander, a justice of the peace, resident in the neighbourhood of Colwich, and who was commissioned by Mr. Justice Wightman, with two other persons, to prosecute the investigation, the result of which I have just mentioned to the House. Here is his letter to The Times, in which he declares that he is ready to produce all the evidence, which satisfied an English Judge, before a Committee of this House To-morrow; and, having long known Mr. Mander, I can answer for it that nothing can shake his evidence or destroy the effect of these affidavits. If, then, the right hon. Gentleman asks me for a special case, I give him the case which satisfied Mr. Justice Wightman as to the necessity for investigation. But there is yet another case. Whilst this House was engaged last Session in considering the propriety of appointing a Committee to inquire into the property of those con- ventual and monastic institutions, a nun escaped from the convent at Badesly Clinton, not far from Birmingham. That lady was brought before my brother magistrates, and it was proved that she was insane. She is still insane, and is at present an inmate of the County Lunatic Asylum. In the course of that investigation it appeared that she was a cloistered nun, and that, although connected with that convent, there are ladies—nuns—who go forth to teach and on other missions; there are a certain number within the convent walls described as "of the inner circle," and who, we know, are never seen beyond the precincts of the convent. This lady was one of these "cloistered nuns." All this came out before my brother magistrates. I am enabled, therefore, to speak with confidence as to the circumstances of the case. That convent belongs to the Order of the Discalced Carmelites; and I have been at some pains to ascertain whether it is a rigid order, whether the discipline is severe, and I find that it is the same Order to which belonged the convent at Cracow, in which was made the miserable discovery of Barbara Ubrick, who was found mad, and confined under circumstances of such barbarity, that I believe nothing had a more powerful effect than that discovery in bringing the Austrian Government to the determination to break the concordat, under which they were bound to preserve such a system. Such was in Austria the effect of these revelations in that case. But I was not satisfied with that, and I have by me here, obtained from a gentleman, who was himself a member of a monastic Order, and a priest, an exact description of the discipline of that Order, which is so severe, that it is most likely to affect the health and the sanity of any unhappy lady who maybe subject to it; in my opinion the severity of the discipline is sufficient to account for the insanity of the lady of whom I have spoken. There is yet another matter, for I never make a proposal to this House without endeavouring to satisfy the House of its propriety. Last Session I moved for a Return, the result of which, with the permission of the House, I will place before you. Part of the evidence adduced before Mr. Justice Wightman, in the case of the Colwich Convent, was to the effect that the burials of all nuns dying within the convent were conducted within the walls of the convent, and in the case of a convent, now removed from Derby, it was shown that the register of deaths had not been kept, and yet that funerals took place within the convent walls. All these facts I shall be prepared to prove. So I moved for a Return of the number of coroner's inquests, held on persons of either sex, known to have been at the period of their death inmates of any conventual or monastic institutions, distinguishing the finding of the juries in England and Wales, in each of the years 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, and in the first six months of the year 1870. Hon. Members will find that this Return has lately been delivered, and is No. 41 of the Parliamentary Papers issued in the present Session. I have compared this Return with the annual Returns of the coroners under the Act of Parliament, and find this result. All the coroners in England and Wales have made Returns except 12, and from these Returns it appears that in the course of the 5½ years three inquests only were held upon males, who had died within the walls of conventual or monastic institutions. Now, we know that the monastic institutions for men are, at the utmost, 69; according to the evidence of the Roman Catholic witnesses who were examined before the Committee last Session there are only 30, whilst the convents number 200, at least, in England and Wales, so the nuns must be much more numerous than the monks and friars; yet there has not been a single coroner's inquest upon any female, upon any nun, in those conventual institutions during the period comprised in the Return. You may go back for years, and you will find that such a thing as a coroner's inquest on a nun has never been held within these establishments. But inquests have been held upon males. Can there be a more pregnant fact than that? I made careful inquiries before I moved for that Return. It extends over 5½ years; and if a Return extending over a longer period were ordered, I do not believe you would find such a circumstance at any time as that the causes of the death of a female have been investigated by a coroner in any of these conventual institutions. I say that considering the number of these nuns, estimated by some to be from 10,000 to 13,000, it is impossible that there should not have been deaths, the causes of which ought to have been inquired into by coroners. Deaths occur among the males, and some have been investigated; is it to be presumed that there have been no deaths among the females, who are in far greater numbers, the causes of which deaths ought not also to have been investigated? If the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government asks me for proof that the House of Commons was right in 1853 and 1854, I reply that this evidence of itself ought to induce the House to inquire more accurately than it has ever yet done into the character, discipline, and circumstances of those institutions. But I pray in aid the experience of all Europe, the decision of Spain, which has placed all those institutions within the reach of the civil power. I pray in aid the laws of France, which, to the extent of her ability, has for many years held those institutions in the grasp of the civil power. I pray in aid the practice of Germany and of Prussia. I pray in aid the decision of Austria and the action of Italy. I trust this House will not leave England to be the only country in which those institutions are to be permitted to increase and multiply, while their inmates are suffered to remain beyond the reach and knowledge of the law. Let me beg the House to reflect upon the rapidity with which those institutions are increasing. In the year 1830 there were only 16 convents in the whole of Great Britain; in 1863 there were 162; and in 1870 this account shows, and I believe it is correct, or nearly so, there were 233. So that the total increase of convents in 40 years was 217. Of monasteries in 1830 there were none; in 1863 there were 55; and in 1870 the number, according to the Roman Catholic "Directory," the accuracy of which is disputed, but has not been disproved, was 69. The increase in the convents from 1830 to 1863 was not less than 146, or at the rate of 4½ per annum during that period; but let the House observe this—that from 1863 to 1870—that is, for seven years—the increase was 71, or at the rate of 10 per annum. Sir, it is not as if the number of these institutions were stationary; but the fact is, that gradually, progressively, in an increasing ratio, these institutions multiply; apparently in proportion as the inhabitants of like institutions in foreign countries find themselves brought under the control of the civil government, the chiefs, directors, or generals of these various Orders seem to have given a stimulus to the multiplication of such institutions in Great Britain, where they are virtually, at all events, comparatively, independent of the civil power. The circumstances are of growing strength, and therefore I say that it is the duty of this House to inquire whether some legislative or administrative organization should not be adopted for the control, for the due inspection and examination of these institutions. I am unwilling to detain the House; but I trust that the House will forgive me, if I advert for one moment to the substance of a pamphlet which has been particularly addressed to my supposed misdeeds in having requested a majority of this House to interfere. The Dublin Review, which is well known to be an Ultramontane organ, has devoted an article, in its number for October last, to what the writer describes as my misdeeds. The persons who appear to have been most alarmed at the prospect of some action on the part of this House are naturally the Jesuits. I see by an account copied from The Civiltà Cattolica into The Times, that there is a large increase in the numbers of that Order, and that Stoneyhurst and Roehampton are two of the principal centres of the Jesuits in England, although the Order is prohibited by law in this country. Last Session it pleased the Rev. Father Gallwey, who places after his name the letters "S.J.," and thus announces himself to be a Jesuit, to publish a pamphlet, which was directed against the action of the very humble Member who now addresses the House. This person, Father Gallwey, seems to suppose that I asked the House to appoint a Committee for the express purpose of dragging, as he describes it, nuns from their seclusion, to submit them to the ordeal of public examination; and Father Gallwey seems to have been rather alarmed, not quite sure, lest some of the nuns might not be glad to have the opportunity of appearing— What, so easy"—writes Father Gallwey—"as that a lady, long secluded from the staring world, and brought suddenly before a tribunal, as one suspected of grave crimes—her modesty abashed by the unaccustomed gaze of men—should, in her confusion and distress of mind, answer most incoherently? If I may take a few liberties with Hotspur's speech, her account of her state would be this— 'I, then, all smarting, with my face red hot, To be so pestered with a Newdegate, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered confusedly, I know not what, We do or we do not, for he drove me mad.' This will be the state of a nun under torture in a Committee-room. What wonder, if she say too much, or too little, or blunders, or trembles, or falters, or contradicts herself, and thus prepare future texts for Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Whalley, and Mr. Murphy, and much future anguish for herself? During the sitting of the Committee last Session we were favoured with the presence of so many ladies, who, I believe, were Roman Catholics, that I hope by this time the nuns are assured that we are not such ruffians in the House of Commons as most Ultramontane writers, and as this Father Gallwey, would have them believe. The pamphlet is clever, and it is worth remarking that Father Gallwey addresses himself particularly to the Roman Catholic Members for Ireland, and exhorts them to use every device known to them, all their experience as Members of this House, for the purpose of defeating the action, of the House— Neither is it necessary for me," again writes Father Gallwey, "in the next place, to dilate here upon the opposition that can be made to this oppressive measure by our Catholic Members of Parliament and their friends. They have had, in the course of a long struggle for religious liberty, to learn the use of every allowable stratagem. May they be inspired to use them all now! For, in the face of this most wanton aggression upon nuns, I think theologians would be easy with Members who fight the battles of the oppressed, if they were even almost, but not quite, to adopt the prayer which Mr. Puff puts into the mouth of the gallant Earl of Leicester— 'Lord grant us to accomplish all our ends, And sanctify all means we use to gain them.' Now, this is rather peculiar in its style and tenour by way of advice coming from a minister of religion, yet it seems, although jocosely turned, to be given in earnest, and it embodies one of the most vicious and fatal principles upon which the Jesuit Order is known to act—that the end justifies the means. What I have quoted may give the House some idea of the difficulties which I, as an active Member and promoter of the Committee of last year, had to encounter in endeavouring to accomplish the desire of a majority of this House, for information relating to these institutions. Let me now, in concluding these observations, show to the House what is the latest evidence with regard to the social effects which may be anticipated from the increase and growth of those institutions. Hon. Members of this House have, no doubt, seen in Ultramontane publications, continual denials of the truthfulness of the accounts of the demoralization which was found to exist by the Commissioners of Henry VIII., before he finally suppressed the monasteries in this country. Now, I take what I am about to read to the House from the letter of a correspondent of The Times at Naples, and I only take it because it is the best summary I have seen of the information furnished to the Italian Government, with regard to the state of those institutions and their effects in Southern Italy. He writes, under date October 9, 1866— The following statistics, which I copy from no doubtful papers, explain, in a great measure, the causes of the recent insurrection in Palermo. Leaving Lombardy, Venice, and the Pontifical States out of the calculation, the number of the members of Religious Orders is—of males, 5,687, occupying 625 houses; of women, 12,481, occupying 537 houses. Of the Mendicant Orders, including those suppressed since 1860, but existing individually, there are 18,856 males, occupying, or supposed to occupy, 1,209 houses; and 1,372 women, occupying 43 houses: making altogether 38,396 persons dedicated to a so-called religious life, and divided among 2,414 houses. To bring the case more nearly to Palermo, it is stated that there are upwards of 80 religious houses in that city alone, while one-third of the land in Sicily is mortmain. Indeed, the great proportion of the land is divided between monastic bodies and barons almost of feudal pretensions. To confine my remarks, however, to the Religious Orders, it must be evident that to a man and a woman they are opposed to the constitutional government of Victor Emmanuel, and possess an influence as wide as it is degrading. They daily feed and demoralize thousands; for the monastery is the refuge not of the sick, the halt, or the blind alone, but of the lazy and the ruffians of the neighbourhood, and anyone who has witnessed the scenes which occur at the doors of the religious house would certainly be ill-disposed to call it a 'holy' house. Estimate the number who were thus fed daily by 2,414 houses in all Italy, and you will arrive at the number of those who never lifted a finger to obtain a honest livelihood, who depended altogether on their midday minestra, and who wallowed in filth, ignorance, and superstition till tocco of the next day. There comes, then, an order to suppress these religious bodies; thousands of other interests are touched, for their daily dependents have spread the epidemic of laziness and superstition far and wide, and a whole army is ready to rise in defence of the Church, or rather of the trencher. If to those be added the outlaws, brigands, renitenti, or deserters, and the discontented and disappointed, who hoped for better things from the new Government, you have a multitude, who might well prove a danger to the State, and should have invited greater precautions. As a proof of the indolent character of the Sicilians, generated in a great measure by the circumstances described above, a letter from Palermo states that 'in the large cities there is no bourgeoisie; near to Palermo there is scarcely an industrial establishment, and not one smoking chimney.' As to the monasteries, the Government has now an opportunity of suppressing them with a large amount of public sympathy, which should not be lost, and those of the Dominicans, the Paolotti, the Benedittini, and others in Palermo have been already occupied by the troops. The friars of San Francesco have been all arrested, and will be tried by a military tribunal. … . General Cardona may suppress the insurrection, but great administrative talent will be necessary to secure order and prosperity. That is from The Times of October 15th, 1866, and the letter is dated the 9th of that month. I have adduced this compendium of the information contained, as I understand, in the papers of the Italian Government, merely for the purpose of justifying the House in not regarding with indifference the rapid increase of such institutions in Great Britain. Sir, I have now to thank the House for the patience with which it has listened to me. I hope I have made no statement that I cannot prove, and I humbly submit to the House that, having to the best of my poor ability endeavoured to carry into effect the intentions of the majority of last Session, unless the House thinks fit to grant wider powers to the Committee, which is to inquire into these institutions on its behalf, it is my firm belief that the intentions of the House will be defeated. I now beg to move the appointment of the Committee. I have taken the best advice I could in framing the Notice. I have conferred with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone and other Gentlemen, competent to give an opinion upon it, and I believe, that any Committee with more restricted powers than those which I propose, would be unable to accomplish the wishes and intentions of the House and of the country.

MR. GREENE

seconded the Motion.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the existence, number, increase, and regulation of Conventual and Monastic Institutions in Great Britain; into the income, property, and estates acquired, received, held, or possessed by or for such institutions, or by or for members thereof; and, further into the Laws affecting such institutions; and, whether adequate legal securities or means exist for ensuring the personal freedom of the inmates thereof,"—(Mr. Newdegate,) —instead thereof.

MR. C. P. VILLIERS

said, he would not have addressed the House on this subject, but for the circumstance that he had acted as Chairman of the Select Committee appointed last Session. He was induced to follow the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, in order to assure the House that the question they would have to decide presently was one of a far more simple character than might be imagined by those who had listened to the statements made by the hon. Member. He believed the hon. Member had taken a very unusual course in making this Motion, and the House would be able to judge whether he had offered any sufficient reasons for doing so. It was not his intention to join issue with the hon. Gentleman upon any of the facts he had stated, or the views he had propounded. His facts, however, had been merely assertions and ex parte statements; and it required all the credit which usually attached to the hon. Member to cause any importance to be given judicially to what he had stated. In making this proposal, the hon. Member had, no doubt, been a little perplexed in consequence of having been a Member of the Committee last year, which excluded from its inquiry the matters which he desired to bring under the notice of the House. The hon. Member acted throughout with that Committee, and was instrumental in inquiring into matters that were irrelevant to the subject which the Committee was appointed to investigate. In order to reconcile the House to the nomination of a new Committee, the hon. Member had asserted that the Committee of last year acted with unfairness, rejected evidence which he proposed—[Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear, hear!]—and declined to receive information which he was prepared to give; and that the inquiry concluded with the rejection of a witness whom he proposed to call. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Several.] He was sure the hon. Gentleman would not think he meant anything offensive to him, if he said that these assertions were perfectly gratuitous. The hon. Gentleman certainly was interrupted in the course of his examinations frequently, because he departed from the ordinary rules which were observed by persons examining witnesses, and introduced matters which the terms of the Reference excluded. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the rejection of a witness named Nichol; but he did not tell the House that he submitted that witness to the Committee on the last day of the inquiry, when there was hardly a quorum present. The hon. Member would probably remember that it was the hon. Member for Dundee (Sir John Ogilvy) who objected to a witness so important in the view of the hon. Member himself being examined before a Committee which was thinly attended. The terms of the Resolution passed by the Committee were that "no further evidence should be received this Session." The hon. Gentleman had said he was supported on one occasion by the advice and vote of the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers); but should also have told the House that that was the only occasion on which the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone appeared at all. The hon. Member was disappointed, he thought, not so much at the composition of the Committee as by the conduct of some of its Members; for it so happened that of those Members whom he relied upon to support his views, some did not attend, and others did not altogether agree with him. That was not the fault of the constitution of the Committee, but rather the misfortune of the hon. Member. The majority by which the hon. Member carried his first proposal for the appointment of a Committee, and the definition of its functions, did not, owing to certain circumstances, represent the majority of the House, and subsequent consideration by the House resulted in the striking out of those words in the Instruction to the Committee, which would have caused the inquiry to be extremely painful and offensive to Roman Catholic subjects of the Queen. No doubt this emendation interfered with the scope and nature of the inquiry which the hon. Gentleman wished; but, instead of declining to take part in the inquiry under the circumstances, he assented to his nomination as a Member of the Committee, and so, tacitly, acquiesced in the scope of the inquiry. During the sittings of the Committee, the hon. Member took a prominent part in the inquiry; in fact, he was regarded as being the most remarkable member of the body. For more reasons than one, he (Mr. Villiers) was extremely anxious that the hon. Gentleman should preside over the deliberations of the Committee; but though he declined to take that position, he could not, as Chairman, have enjoyed a larger discretion than was allowed him both in producing evidence and conducting such inquiries as he desired to make. The hon. Member must recollect that general surprise was felt and expressed by the Committee at the small number of witnesses and the meagre nature of the evidence he produced, considering the large expectations he had raised in the House and the country. But he was not aware that there was anything in the inquiry of which the hon. Gentleman had a right to complain. The course he had taken was an attempt to cast a sort of slur on the Committee. The hon. Member must be perfectly well aware that he (Mr. Villiers), as Chairman of the Committee, was instructed to lay the Report on the Table of the House with a distinct recommendation that the Committee should be re-appointed; and he thought the Committee had some reason to complain of the hon. Member for seeking to originate another inquiry, upon assertions of unfairness which were not made in the Committee, and had not been heard of before that evening. Nothing transpired during the inquiry to lead the Committee to suppose that they required further powers, and though the hon. Gentleman had commented upon some of the evidence given, he must have been rather staggered by the clear and intelligent way in which the professional witnesses set forth the precise state of the law and its operation in respect of Catholic charities, and by the very candid admissions made on the part of the Catholics themselves as to the manner in which they were compelled to evade the law by reason of the difficulties placed in the way of persons receiving and possessing property to be applied to charitable uses. It was this last point which prevented the Committee from going into certain minor details in relation to the inquiry, and on which the hon. Gentleman proposed to offer evidence. It would be for the House to determine whether they would support the re-appointment of the Committee of last year; or whether they would consent to the appointment of the new Committee proposed by the hon. Gentleman. There were abundant precedents for Committees which had not been able to conclude their inquiries in one Session, applying for re-appointment; but he believed there was no precedent whatever for an hon. Member severing himself from the Committee to which he had been appointed, and originating another inquiry of still wider range. The House would have to consider whether it would be wise to establish such a precedent.

MR. PEMBERTON

observed, that he had supported his hon. Friend last year; but he should be unable to vote for the Motion he had made on this occasion. The Resolution which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire originally proposed last Session involved an inquiry into two subjects of a totally distinct character: one as to the character, management, and internal arrangements of convents and religious houses; and the other as to the amount and description of property held in trust for their benefit. If it had been possible to divide that Motion into two distinct propositions, he should have opposed the former, because he did not think a sufficient case had been made out for instituting an inquiry which would have been utterly distasteful to a large portion of their fellow-subjects, and he should have supported the latter proposition because he thought advantage would arise from an inquiry as to the property of religious houses. The hon. Member carried his Motion in a large House, by a majority of 2; and subsequently, after several nights' discussion, terms of Reference were adopted, on the Motion of the Prime Minister, by a majority of 290, confining the inquiry to the condition of the law respecting the property of conventual and monastic institutions. It was evident that the House deliberately intended that such should be the result, and it was accepted by the hon. Member as a compromise. The hon. Member seemed to suppose that the Committee were ordered to inquire into the property belonging to these institutions; but this was not the case, for the inquiry was only into the law as to such property. There was nothing which would authorize a Committee appointed under that Reference to inquire into the amount or nature of the property held by any particular institution. The evidence that was given before the Committee was of a very vague and uncertain character. One witness led them to believe that he was going to give them very important evidence; but he explained afterwards that it was only cir- cumstantial evidence that he had heard from other parties, and it was very properly excluded. There was another gentleman who had a grievance. A child of his had been converted to the Roman Catholic religion, and that was all the information that he could give them. There was a third gentleman whose wife's brother had left his fortune to a community instead of to this gentleman's wife, and he was very indignant, and he went fully into the history of a trial before the Probate Court that established the will in question. Under these circumstances, he (Mr. Pemberton) trembled to consider the fate of any Committee who should sit upon an enlarged inquiry such as that now proposed. His hon. Friend said that the Committee were hampered by the terms of the Reference. Speaking for himself only, he thought that he could say that he thought that the hampering was felt by his hon. Friend only; and this was shown by the Report of the Committee, from which it appeared that in several instances the whole of the Committee divided against him. Of course, if the present Motion were carried, the Committee would gladly devote their best efforts to the performance of the duty imposed upon them; but he, for one, did not think it respectful to the House, after the discussions which had been held last Session, that what had then been solemnly done should be undone, as it were, by a side-wind, especially as the Committee was capable of being re-appointed.

MR. PEASE

, as a Member of the Committee, objected to their labours being ignored. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire not only wished to get rid of the compromise of last Session, but to take up ground from which he was then beaten, and also that there should be an enlarged scope given to the inquiry. The Committee of last Session ought not, he contended, to be treated as though they had laboured in vain. What caused the hon. Member for North Warwickshire now to propose a new Committee, with enlarged Instructions, was the refusal by certain solicitors and conveyancers to give more detailed information in reference to the property of these institutions than they had laid before the Committee. For his own part, he considered the manner in which those professional gentlemen had given their evidence was not only highly creditable to themselves, but very much simplified, and aided the labours of the Committee.

MR. GREENE

observed, that there was the small majority of 2 when his hon. Friend (Mr. Newdegate) first brought forward this matter; and he believed that the Prime Minister voted in the minority on that occasion. His hon. Friend did not complain of the action of the Committee, but of the Instructions given to them. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear, hear!] It would be in the recollection of the House that after one or two Divisions, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government came down with a Motion altogether different from that of his hon. Friend, knowing full well that in moving that Instruction his followers were but too ready to support him, provided that they could do so consistently with the feelings of their constituencies. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire protested against it, and also against the way in which the Committee was proposed to be formed. It was quite clear the powers of the Committee were not sufficiently extensive. The question really was, whether convents and monasteries should be inspected, and upon that the Division should be taken. In Spain they had put many of them down; in Italy, since 1850, there had been 2,097 clerical establishments suppressed, and in Portugal there had been suppressed 652 monasteries and 118 nunneries; but in our Protestant country it was permitted that such institutions should be carried on without any control whatever. All that was asked for was liberty of conscience and liberty of action. They asked that if there were persons confined against their will in such places, they should have the opportunity of coming out. In 1829 there were but six convents in England; but now there were 216 convents and 69 communities of men. He well recollected how annoyed the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government was when the hon. Member for North Warwickshire carried his Motion in the first instance, and how roused the feeling of the country was on the subject. He believed that it was the desire of the country that the matter should be investigated, and the honest and proper way to meet the matter was to carry the Motion now before them.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 196; Noes 79: Majority 117.

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," by leave, withdrawn.

Committee deferred till Monday next.