Commons Sitting of 12 May 1871

MINUTES.
WATS AND MEANS—considered in Committee—Resolution [May 11] reported—Consolidated Fund (£7,000,000).
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Consolidated Fund (£7,000,000) *.
Second Reading—Protection of Life and Property in certain Parts of Ireland [129], debate adjourned; Customs and Income Tax * [136].
Committee—Report—Police Courts (Metropolis) * [131]; East India Stocks (Dividends) * [134].
Considered as amended—Postage * [124].
The House met at Two of the clock.

ALLEGED DEATH FROM STARVATION.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CADOGANasked the President of the Poor Law Board, Whether his attention has been called to an inquest held at Swindon, on the 11th of April, on the body of a woman named Jane Hale, and to the evidence upon which the jury found that she had died of starvation; and, whether he proposes to institute any inquiry, as the woman appears to have been under treatment by order of the guardians?
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, he had instituted an inquiry into the cause of the death of the woman Jane Hale, upon whom an inquest had been held at Swindon. He had received the report of the Inspector with regard to the matter; but he had not yet had an opportunity of reading it.

SUNDAY TRADING.—QUESTIONS.
MR. HARVEY LEWISasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, considering the results caused by the partial application of the Act 29 Charles 2, c. 7, against the humblest class of traders in particular localities, and the bad effect of the contradictory action and decisions of the various London magistrates in dealing with prosecutions at the suit of informers under this Act, he will afford an early opportunity for considering the Bill to repeal the said Act, so as to secure a settlement of the question this Session?
MR. CHARLEYtook the opportunity of inquiring, Whether it is true, as reported, that Mr. Arnold, the police magistrate, has refused to fine a fishmonger for trading on Sunday, on the pretence of waiting to see what Parliament may do in respect to the Bill of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor); and, whether it was not the duty of the magistrate on that occasion to put the law in force?
MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, in reference to the last Question, he was not in possession of the facts of the case alluded to. In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Marylebone, he was as anxious as any hon. Member that the question raised should be discussed as soon as possible. But the hon. Member must be well aware that it was impossible for the Government at that period of the
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Session to set apart a day for the consideration of that subject. The time at the command of private Members was considerably larger than that at the command of the Government.

COAL FIELDS OF SOUTH WALES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BROGDENasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether instructions have been issued for the survey of the coal fields of South Wales on the 6-inch scale; and, if not, when it is proposed to give them?
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that at present he had not received the information necessary, before the issue of instructions for the survey of the coal fields of South Wales on the 6-inch scale. As soon as the requisite investigations were concluded, instructions for the further prosecution of the survey should be issued.

GUNPOWDER IN PRIVATE STOCK, &c.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he does not consider the quantity of gunpowder allowed to be kept by private individuals and gun-makers on their premises, viz. 50 pounds the former and 200 pounds by the latter, excessive; and, whether he will in that case bring forward a measure to restrict the amount now allowed?
  MR. BRUCEreplied, that the whole subject was now under the consideration of the Government. There was no doubt that the existing law on the subject required amendment; but that could only be effected by a careful consideration of the various circumstances under which gunpowder and other explosive materials were collected and used. The whole subject would require immediate attention, and the Government were now making inquiries into it.

PROTECTION OF LIFE AND PROPERTY IN CERTAIN PARTS OF IRELAND BILL.

  [BILL 129.] (Lords.) SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that as it was important the measure should pass through its various stages as quickly as possible,

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  he should endeavour to set a good example by trespassing as little as he could help upon the time of the House; at the same time, he must say that the Government did not, in any way, wish to restrict or curtail hon. Members in their consideration of its details. The very full discussion which had occurred in an earlier period of the Session, before and upon the appointment of the Select Committee, had, he thought, relieved him to a certain extent of the necessity of entering into a detailed statement of the condition of those parts of Ireland which came within the scope of the Bill, as all that he had stated, when the subject was first brought under the attention of the House, had, he believed, been substantiated by the witnesses examined before the Committee; and, in passing, he might observe, that he should be ready, at a subsequent period of the debate, to give any information that might be required. The character of the outrages which had been committed was, as in former times, chiefly agrarian; but he stated—and that statement had been confirmed by the witnesses—that during the last few years the operations of the Ribbon Society and those connected with it had been extended to other subjects to which they did not formerly direct any attention; and he had stated that the Ribbonmen now endeavoured to influence not only the relations existing between landlord and tenant, but also those existing between employer and employed, and, in some cases, even the relations of trade. There was, however, only one point to which he did not advert on a pevious occasion, and which had been brought out very strongly before the Committee, and that was the very remarkable system of outrages committed in the case of the railway running through the district—namely, the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland. From the evidence of Mr. Cusack, the Chairman of the line, which was such as to take every member of the Committee by surprise, including himself, it seemed that the objects of the conspirators were such as not only to affect the relations between landlords and tenants, but positively to endanger the lives of those who travelled by this railway. The statement, too, which he (the Marquess of Hartington) made with respect to the difficulty of obtaining evidence in the case of these outrages had been more than substantiated by the resident
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  magistrates and the Crown Solicitors for Meath and Westmeath, as had been also his statement with regard to the effect of these murderous outrages upon the public mind of the district in which they occurred. Every witness had borne testimony to the reign of terror established by the Ribbon Confederacy, and every witness had spoken of this society as something which was above and more powerful than the law; and all of them united in deprecating the baneful effects of the conspiracy as it now existed, substantiating his remarks on a former occasion, that the state of the district had become intolerable. In fact, so completely had all his statements been corroborated by the evidence of the witnesses examined before the Committee that, until any of them were called in question, it would be needlessly wasting the time of the House to quote anything from the evidence in their support. There were only two points to which it would be his duty especially to refer, and he should refer to them, because they bore to a certain extent upon measures which had been brought forward by the Government: the first of these subjects was the evidence which went to prove the existence of an organized conspiracy; and, secondly, that part of the evidence which went to prove the limitation of the area in which crime now generally prevailed. With regard to the first, the resident magistrates had borne testimony, without any hesitation, to the existence in all its organization of a Ribbon conspiracy, modified in some respects perhaps, but conducted generally on the same principles as those which prevailed formerly, and the only witness who had expressed any doubt on the point was Dr. Nulty, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Westmeath, but even he, in cross-examination, stated his belief that these outrages were committed by the remains of the organization of what he called the old and defunct Ribbon Societies, and that there existed certain small and secret societies, whose leaders were nevertheless well known to the police and to the public of the district generally.
  "I understand you to state that Ribbonism, in your opinion, does not exist as a confederacy at present in the county of Westmeath?—Certainly it does not.—[Q,. 2806.]
  "In what sense, then, does it exist?—In this sense: that there are certain small cliques of vagabonds here and there through the county, who

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  formerly belonged to the regular Ribbon confederacy, and who may be considered to be, as it were, the disbanded Ribbonmen of former times.—[Q. 2807.]
  "And in your view it is incorrect to say that there are five or six persons at the head of the whole thing in Westmeath upon whom the magistracy could lay their hands?—There are five or six persons at the heads of these little cliques or knots, as I have said.—[Q. 2836.]
  "What you stated was that you thought there was one head who ruled each particular body?—Yes.—[Q. 2904.]
  "That is what I ask you; you say that there are several persons, each of whom exercises his influence over a distinct body?—There may be only one or two.—[Q,. 2905.]
  "Is one or two enough?—I mean one or two individuals in each of these little cliques.—[Q. 2906.]
  "Are those persons pretty well known?—I do not know; they are said to be known, but of course I have no direct positive knowledge of that."—[Q. 2908.]
  Therefore, though Dr. Nulty was not in favour of the measure of the Government, yet even he would not, he believed, deny that for the arrest of the supposed leaders of the secret society its provisions would be effective. Then, with reference to the second, the proof of the limitation of the area of crime, Captain Talbot stated in his evidence, and he was borne out by Mr. Rogers the resident magistrate of King's County, that the operations of the society had extended throughout the whole of Westmeath, although in certain districts the state of things were worse than in others. He would next deal with the means which had been, and should be, taken to repress the state of things described by the witnesses, and here the evidence showed that everything had been done by the magistrates and the police consistent with the powers conferred on them by the ordinary law and the special Act of last Session, although it was true that some witnesses had expressed opinions that, notwithstanding the police were zealous in the performance of their duties, their organization was defective, but no practical suggestion had been made for its amendment. He (the Marquess of Hartington) thought that any hon. Member reading the evidence must be of opinion that the organization of the detective force was clearly not as complete as was desirable a short time since, nor was it such as to enable them efficiently to cope with this description of crime; but efforts had been made to improve it, and the police examined were naturally indisposed to go very fully into a description of the amended
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  system. Probably, under these circumstances, the House would rest content with the assurance that the attention of the Government had for years been directed to the improvement of the detective force, and that any change experience could suggest for its improvement would be adopted; but he was afraid that little, however, could be expected from a purely detective system, no matter how efficient, while the people were still indisposed to assist the police in the detection and punishment of criminals. The witnesses themselves, with two exceptions, suggested but one means, and one only, for the repression of agrarian outrage, and that was the temporary and local suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; and those exceptions were Dr. Nulty, and the right hon. and gallant Member for Roscommon (Colonel French). Dr. Nulty relied upon the rigid enforcement of the present law, accompanied by the beneficial workings of the Land Act and measures for the improvement of the labouring classes. The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, Dr. Nulty thought, might check agrarian crime, but would excite the conspirators to retaliate; he relied, in fact, on a more vigilant police, an increased number of resident magistrates, and more stringent regulations over publichouses as regarded closing and granting licences. With part of those recommendations few would disagree, for, unquestionably, the only sure way to prevent agrarian outrage was to remove its causes. The Land Act would do much in removing the cause, and he agreed that when the operation of that Act was felt the condition of the labourer would be improved, and the motives to commit crime greatly decreased. The Legislature had done all it could towards effecting it by passing the Land Act of last Session; and he believed it had been shown by witnesses that the action of the Legislature was beginning to have a good and salutary effect; but it would be too much to expect—and the supporters of the Bill never did expect—that its results would be immediate; and what the Government desired was to give that remedial measure every opportunity of being tried, but which the present state of Westmeath would not permit, for there was an organization existing, which sprung from former times and from causes that no longer existed, but which

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  it was the duty of the House to meet by temporary measures, as he believed the organization was only temporary. In regard to effecting what he had stated as desirable, Dr. Nulty's remedial measure everyone would admit to be inadequate, for it had been stated that the police had done everything in the way of patrolling, but that could never put a stop to the acts of determined and well-organized men, and the closing of publichouses had been tried under the Act of last year, being in some cases attended with very good effect, and in others not, and therefore it could not be admitted that Dr. Nulty's remedy was adequate for the necessities of the case. Some witnesses had asked for a more efficient patrol of police; but no system of patrol would check the proceedings of Ribbon conspirators; and the right hon. and gallant Member for Roscommon had suggested the repetition of measures adopted upon his suggestion in 1848, when special constables were enrolled and stationed at various places within call of each other, so that a large force could be gathered at any point of attack upon short notice. But the state of things prevalent in Roscommon at that time was very different from the state of Westmeath, for, in 1848, armed bands wandered about the country, and administered the oath to travellers with a pistol at their head; and whereas the proceedings of those times might be described as open rebellion, the proceedings of these times must be described as secret assassination, the same remedy could not therefore be relied on in each case. The Government, after a full consideration of the subject, came to the conclusion that they ought to adopt the only remedy that had been seriously proposed by the great majority of those who were fully qualified to give an opinion upon the subject, and that remedy was the one known as the partial suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Government admitted that this remedy, as regarded the suppression of agrarian crime, was a new and unconstitutional one, for formerly Parliament had attempted to deal with this class of crime simply by defining and describing new offences, by giving additional powers to the police and to the magistrates, and by imposing excessive penalties upon those who were convicted of those offences; but the measure which the Government now asked the
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  House to adopt, although an unconstitutional one, and one which would place in the hands of the Government a grave and a novel power, was not necessarily a severe one, its object being not so much the punishment, as the prevention of crime. He did not mean to say that to put a man into prison for two years was not to punish him; but that the object of the measure was not so much that the man so imprisoned should be punished, as that he should be prevented from committing crime. The only way that the Government saw before them of putting an end to this organization was to keep its leaders out of mischief for some time by imprisoning them. The question naturally arose why, when a similar state of things had prevailed in Ireland for the last 40 years—for it could easily be proved that the state of things all over Ireland had been much worse within that period than it was in Westmeath at the present moment—this particular remedy had never been proposed before? The truth was, that the various Governments, who had never been checked or restrained in their measures for putting an end to agrarian crime in Ireland by any weak feelings in favour of the perpetrators of these crimes, did not propose this particular remedy, because Parliament had always looked with the greatest possible jealousy upon any interference with the securities we enjoyed for our personal liberties, to which, it attached an extreme—he would not say an excessive importance; for instance, he, himself, did not think it possible, even in this day, to attach too great an importance to the right which a man possessed of being brought to trial within a reasonable time after his arrest. It might, doubtless, be said, with some show of truth, that the necessity for jealously guarding this safeguard of our liberties no longer existed with the same force as in former times, because no Government of the present time was likely to be so powerful that they could afford to abuse the power of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Were we to surrender this right that every man now possessed, the time might come when we might have occasion to regret our precipitation, because strong and arbitrary Governments sprung sometimes from democratic as well as from despotic institutions, and some time the time might come when we might see in this country a Government

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  so strong that we should be unwilling to place in its hands the power of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. When the question as to the appointment of the Committee came before the House, he was much astonished at the extreme levity with which the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was discussed; and he was also surprised at the tone of some of the questions put to witnesses examined before the Committee, for the Government had not felt themselves justified in proposing this measure until every other remedy had been tried and had failed. In order to check the state of things that a year or two since had prevailed, not only in Westmeath, but over the whole of Ireland, the Government had introduced the Peace Preservation Act of last year, and the result of that measure had been to restore the supremacy of the law in all parts of Ireland, with the exception of the district of Westmeath and a part of Mayo; but had the Government, however, listened to the suggestions of the resident magistrates in Ireland, instead of passing the Peace Preservation Act, which had proved so successful in its result, they would have at once asked Parliament to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. Under these circumstances, the House would see that the Government were not justified in bringing forward this measure until every other remedy had been tried and had failed; and, in his opinion, that justification was well borne out by the facts that the necessity for the measure had been fully proved before the Committee; the provisions of the Peace Preservation Act had been put into execution in Westmeath without effect; and the chief causes which might have excused in some degree agrarian crime had been removed. Dr. Nulty himself had stated that he could call to mind no evictions on a large scale in the district during the past few years; and, therefore, the Government felt justified in asking Parliament to give them the power mentioned in the Bill. He admitted that much still remained to be done to improve the condition of the labouring classes; but that must be effected by other means as well as by legislation, because it was impossible that the rate of wages could be raised, or that a hovel could be converted into a comfortable dwelling, by Act of Parliament. The evidence
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  taken before the Committee tended to show that the condition of the labourers in Westmeath, although, perhaps, not such as could be desired, had greatly improved during the past few years, and that, therefore, their condition could in no way account for the exceptional state of things that existed in that part of the country. Sir George Lewis had stated that he despaired of the success of any repressive measures for Ireland until the causes that led to crime had been removed. He recommended the establishment of the Poor Law in Ireland, and the Poor Law has been established, there. He also spoke of the state of the land question; and Parliament had made a sincere, an honest, and, as he believed, a successful attempt to deal with the land question. Until within the last few years Parliament, though always willing to deal by coercive measures with Irish crime, had hesitated to deal with the causes that had been pointed out as producing it; but now the Government and Parliament stood in a different position, because they had done all they could to remove those causes. Again, when crime in any district was the result not of an organization such as now exists in Westmeath, but of a general lawless state of the population—of a general state of discontent, disaffection, and desperation—then he did not believe that such a measure as this could repress it, because under such circumstances when any man who had the opportunity was willing to take the life of anyone who he thought had injured him, any mere power of arbitrarily arresting a particular person could not put an end to such a state of things, and they could not arrest or put in prison the whole or the half of a population. But he believed that no such state of things now existed in Westmeath, where, as the evidence before the Committee proved, although there might be some sympathy with the Ribbon Society in the mind of a great number of people, still they were themselves ruled rather by a feeling of terror, and the great majority of the people would hail with satisfaction anything that would repress the exercise of power on the part of the leaders of that society. There was nothing desperate about the state of the population of Westmeath—nothing very desperate even in the operations of the Ribbonmen themselves.

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  It was the impunity with which their operations were carried on that encouraged them; and it had seldom been found of late years that even the most determined Ribbonmen had put their own lives in any considerable danger by risking a collision with the police. During the last suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, though it was not at all directed against agrarian crimes, yet the people of those districts were hardly aware of that fact, and when they thought there existed an arbitrary power of arrest they almost entirely desisted from the commission of those crimes; and he thought there was every reason to hope that the Bill proposed would be equally effective in districts where crime was limited, as he thought it was in this case, to a small number of the inhabitants. He now came to the scope of the Bill, which was directed against two classes of persons, and the first of those classes were the leaders of the Ribbon Society. With regard to these, power was given to the Lord Lieutenant, by his warrant, to arrest any person whom he had reason to believe was a member of, or connected directly or indirectly with, the Ribbon organization: that part of the Bill was strictly limited in its local operation; and it would only apply to a leader of the Ribbon organization, who was or who had been during the present year resident in Westmeath or the prescribed districts; and the rest of the inhabitants of Ireland would have nothing whatever to fear from that portion of the measure. The second class of persons against which it was directed were the principals or accessories to any crime committed in Westmeath; and it had been necessary there somewhat to extend the local application of the Bill. Frequently, when an outrage was to be committed in a district, a person was brought in from some place outside of that district, and he immediately passed out of it again; and it was evident, therefore, that if they confined the operations of the Bill to residents within the district it might fail in its object; and that the power taken to arrest in any part of Ireland either the principals or the accessories in any crime was a necessary one. The power, however, to which he attached the greatest importance, and which he believed would be most effectual, was that directed against the leaders of the Ribbon organization and not against the
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  actual perpetrators of crime. The measure was founded on the belief that the area of the crime was limited; and the evidence, he thought, showed that its area in Westmeath was limited; therefore, the Government asked for all the powers that were necessary, when they asked that these powers should be intrusted to the Lord Lieutenant in those districts only. They also thought that those crimes being the effect of causes which had been mainly removed, if they could suppress that organization which had survived its original causes, then the operation of natural causes—the improved general condition of the people and of the country, would enable the Government and the well-disposed of the community by themselves, and without the assistance of any extraordinary powers, to deal with the evil-disposed classes. There was one other point to which he wished to refer, and that was with regard to the clause for the extension to two years of the operation of the Peace Preservation Act. He found that several Irish Members objected to this clause, and his hon. Friend the Member for Roscommon (The 0'Conor Don) had given notice of his intention to oppose it; but he would remind them that the powers of that Act were now, and had been, very sparingly exercised. Under them the counties of Westmeath, Meath, King's County, and Mayo were proclaimed. Since the passing of the Peace Preservation Act the number of outrages committed in Mayo had greatly diminished, and there was every reason to believe that, under the powers conferred on the Government by that Act, tranquillity would soon be entirely restored to that county. The only other parts of Ireland to which that Act applied were very limited portions of Longford, Cavan, Tipperary, Roscommon, and Sligo. He much doubted whether the inhabitants of the districts now specially proclaimed would desire that special proclamation to be removed; but as soon as the necessity for it ceased in any of those districts, the Government would immediately discontinue their proclamation. No injustice or hardship had been inflicted under that Act. Since it was passed it had not been necessary to enforce its provisions against any newspaper published in Ireland. The tone of the Irish Press was sufficiently free at present; and if that Act had prevented it from degenerating into absolute

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  licence, and deterred certain newspapers from publishing downright treason and incitements to murder, no hon. Member would, he thought, regret if its provisions were continued for some time longer. He would show the House the nature of the writings which, except for that Act, would be disseminated throughout Ireland, being published in newspapers printed in America, and seized, under its provisions, on coming into Ireland. [The noble Marquess proceeded to read extracts from the newspapers referred to.] One of these writings declared that secret societies, in other words Ribbon Societies, were the only associations worthy of a moment's attention in Ireland: another called upon the Irish people to possess themselves of arms by any means, even advocating the search for them, either by night or day; while a third begged of the subscribers to these prints in America to post them to their friends in Ireland, and to get them scattered broadcast over the island, because the sentiments to which they gave expression could not be printed in any newspaper published in Ireland. [Mr. CONOLLY: Where was that printed?] It was printed in America; he thought in New York. [The O'CONOR DON: What was the number of papers seized, and where?] The papers from which these quotations are made were seized during the present week, he believed at Cork; and, although he did not know the number of papers seized, he believed it was very considerable, and there could be no doubt, if it were not for the Peace Preservation Act, treasonable writing such as he had read, and worse would, if not printed and published in Ireland, be printed in America and scattered broadcast over Ireland, and he thought the House would not hesitate to give the Government the power to prevent the contamination of the Irish people, or of any people, by such mischievous and abominable stuff. He regretted it had been necessary to detain the House much longer than he had intended; and he would conclude by expressing the hope that the House would, after such discussion as it deemed necessary, agree to pass the Bill, the second reading of which he now proposed.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The Marquess of Hartington.)
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGrose to call the attention of the Speaker to a Question of Privilege. There were three Amendments on the Notice Paper in reference to this Bill—one by the hon. Member for Roscommon (The O'Conor Don), which was—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is not expedient to continue 'The Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1870,' beyond the date settled by that statute;"
  another Amendment was by the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. M'Mahon), and it was this—
  "That, before proceeding further with this Bill, it is expedient to inquire into the causes of agrarian outrages and to remove the same if found to be the consequences of existing legislation;"
  and the third Amendment was his own—namely, "That the Bill be read a second time this day six months." He wished to know whether his Amendment had not precedence over the other two?
  MR. SPEAKERreplied that there might be a question as to the hon. Members for Roscommon and New Ross; but there could be no question whatever as to the position occupied by the hon. Member himself; for both of the other Amendments were Amendments immediately following the word "that" in the original Motion, but the Amendment of the hon. Member came in in the middle of the sentence, and was, that instead of the word "now" there should be inserted "this day six months;" and, therefore, the hon. Member for Roscommon had the right of precedence.
  THE O'CONOR DON, in rising to move—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is not expedient to continue 'The Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1870,' beyond the date settled by that statute,"
  said, he had no intention, when he put his Notice on the Paper, of interfering with the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Downing), nor had he placed it there without much hesitation, and a full sense of the responsibility he was incurring. He felt that as the second reading of the Bill involved two very important principles, and as he could not approve of both he was bound to give Notice of the Motion which he now rose to move. In doing that, he must say that he was not one of those who believed that it was, under all circumstances and in every case, the duty of an

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  Irish Member, representing what was called a popular constituency, to oppose every Motion of an exceptional or coercive character, simply because it happened to be so, for every Representative was bound to consider the special circumstances of the case, to examine whether there was any justification for the proposal, and if there was, then, however distasteful or repugnant the case might be, he was bound to support it. Having read the evidence given before the Westmeath Committee, and given the subject every attention, he could not conscientiously say that the Government would be justified in standing by and allowing things to remain as they were in that district, for he thought the state of things shown to exist there was a disgrace not only to Ireland, but to the principle of constitutional Government. There was no doubt that, up to the present time, in the minds of the people of Ireland there existed reasons for secret confederacies and Ribbon conspiracies, for so long as there were unjust laws between landlord and tenant—which Judges denounced in their administration of the law as instances of injustice—so long was it idle to expect that the people would quietly submit, and the result of those laws was the organization of the Ribbon conspiracy. While these laws existed, he would not feel justified in supporting coercive measures such as that now brought in; but when the tenants were placed on an equality with the landlords, and the Courts of Justice would not be called on to administer injustice against the tenants, the reasons which had existed in favour of the conspiracy existed no longer, and he thought that the Government and the Legislature were bound to interfere, and with a strong hand to put down the illegal combination. He had never regarded the Habeas Corpus Act as a mere nominal security of personal liberty, to be abandoned on every trifling difficulty in the administration of justice, on the contrary, he had regarded it as one of the strongest bulwarks of the liberty of the people who lived under this Government, and as a measure, the operation of which was not to be lightly suspended whenever a Minister found himself in a slight difficulty; and he exceedingly regretted that an occasion should arise when he should find himself obliged to support the extension to his own country
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  of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Had he seen any other proposal to put an end to these combinations, gladly would he have had recourse to such a measure, instead of having recourse to the unprecedented course now proposed—the suspension of personal liberty for agrarian outrages. He was very much struck by the unanimous opinion expressed by the witnesses who were examined before the Committee, that the real difficulty of administering the law consisted in the impossibility of getting evidence. It was not that the magistrates and the police were not aware who were the leaders and concoctors of the Ribbon conspiracy, but that it was utterly impossible to procure evidence that could bring conviction home to any person that might be charged. It was not that the juries would not discharge their duties; he believed that notion to be a libel on Irish juries, and he believed that there had been no want of courage on the part of Irish juries in convicting offenders. It seemed, then, that the proposal made by Her Majesty's Government with respect to the district of Westmeath and the surrounding country, although unconstitutional and abhorrent to his feelings, was justifiable, and he could not undertake to vote against it in that House. If Her Majesty's Government had confined the measure to dealing with Westmeath and the surrounding country, and to the partial suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, he would not be opposing them. But was that the case; was that the character of the Bill, which had been explained by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) in a speech of more than an hour's duration. What was the measure which the House were now asked to read a second time? In that Bill there was one of the most unprecedented enactments which, till the present Session, had ever been introduced into Parliament; for what was the character of the Peace Preservation Act of the last Session? Why, the right hon. Gentleman the present President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) told the House that it was the most stringent measure ever proposed within the memory of man; and this measure, proposed for only one year, was now to be extended for twice that term, and there was not a single word said in its favour,

  731
  except the few words uttered by the noble Marquess at the close of his speech. As the noble Marquess had not alluded in any detail to the Peace Preservation Act, it would be necessary for him to speak of some of its provisions. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade told them that it was the most stringent and the most efficacious Act that was ever passed; but in this he did not agree, for if it had been so efficacious, the House would not be now called on to continue it for double the term, nor would the Committee have been sitting upstairs to inquire into the state of Ireland. Before that Committee, every magistrate admitted that the Act was utterly useless in those provisions to which the right hon. Gentleman attached, last year, the greatest value. The only result of the clause relating to the enforcement of evidence was perjury, for even if the witnesses, compelled to give evidence, were to give a sort of truthful account of what they knew, they would so hedge it about with difficulty and doubts as to render it useless. He thought, then, he was perfectly justified in saying that this part of the Act had resulted in nothing but perjury, excepting in some parts of Ireland, where witnesses had refused to give evidence, and had been locked up by the magistrates for a week, and then were obliged to be released. He now came to the proposal of levying a rate on certain districts as a compensation for criminal outrages. He was aware that, by a technical rule of that House, the clause relating to compensation had been omitted from the Bill, for the Bill was introduced in "another place," where, according to its rules, financial matters could not be dealt with. If it was the intention of the Government to exclude that clause he would be exceedingly glad, because he believed it to be most mischievous; in fact, the Bill itself seemed to him to be a return to the ancient barbaric days. It was an endeavour to harmonize subsisting institutions with those existing in the Anglo-Saxon times. It was trying to reconcile impossibilities. In principle, the plan of imposing a tax on a locality for a crime committed in it was unjustifiable, and it could not be said that practically it had succeeded. Quite the contrary. The evidence on this point before the Select Committee left
  732
  no doubt on the subject. Captain Talbot said it had totally failed in procuring evidence or in stopping crime, and that while it did not touch the guilty, who were unable to pay, it rendered the loyal and well-disposed inhabitants discontented. The fear of the Ribbonmen was greater than the desire to escape pecuniary loss, and consequently it was idle to expect that through this tax information which would lead to the detection of crime would be received. Such was the evidence of a gentleman who originally believed in the efficacy of the tax, but who, having seen its practical working, told the Committee that he had seen reason to change his opinion. Mr. Reed, another resident magistrate, Captain Barry, Mr. Boyd, and Dr. Nulty, all regarded the tax as one which alienated friends and loyal inhabitants without rendering the detection or suppression of crime any easier. The only two witnesses who approved the tax were Mr. Julian and Mr. Rogers, neither of whom, however, could produce a single fact in support of their view. Moreover, the manner in which the grand juries had discharged the functions imposed upon them respecting this tax was in itself highly unsatisfactory. It was proved before the Select Committee that in the case of a man named Moran, who knew perfectly well the name of his assailant, and refused to give it, the grand jury awarded compensation; in another case a man named Pox, who asked only for £150, was awarded £300—though, however, the Judge overruled the verdict—and in a third instance the compensation was so heavy that it amounted to 5s. 10 d. in the pound on the poor inhabitants of an impoverished agricultural district, the crime in this case never having been even imputed to those who were obliged to make compensation for it. The proposal of the Government to raise an additional 2d. in the pound income tax had lately been violently opposed on the ground that it would press harshly on the professional man and small trader; but what was 2d. in the pound to 5s. 10 d., as incurred by the operation of this Act? As for the argument that the people when they found themselves made responsible for the discovery of crime committed in their district would hunt up and endeavour to discover the criminal, he could only say that the Irish people never regarded it in that

  733
  light at all; they regarded it simply as a tax imposed upon them by Parliament, and its imposition they felt as an injustice. He believed that any proposal to apply such an enactment to England would not be listened to for one moment. He now came to the subject of the restrictions to which the Press in Ireland was liable by some of the clauses in the Peace Preservation Act. He believed that they had been utterly useless, for anyone who consulted the files of the "National" papers for the last 12 months would find in them plenty of articles of a highly spicy and seditious character, and full of inuendoes that were more dangerous and objectionable than open treason. It was not the treasonable article, upon which, if brought into Court, the Government could obtain a conviction, that did the most harm; the greatest danger lay in the insidious articles which were daily published in the journals in Ireland, and in dealing with them the Government was powerless. Moreover, if the argument of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) was good for anything, this supervision of the Press in Ireland must be perpetual; for it was pretty certain that the time would never arrive when certain American papers would cease to contain seditious articles against England. The sooner, therefore, that this enactment, which had yet found no record in a Court of Law, was erased from the Statute Book, the better. As the Peace Preservation Act was continued by a single clause, it might be asked why he did not content himself with voting for its omission in Committee, instead of opposing the second reading; he hoped to do so, but the continuance of the Act was referred to in the Title and Preamble of the Bill as well. Holding these views, it was impossible for him to vote for the second reading of a Bill which proposed to continue that Act; and he appealed to his hon. Friends around him to support his Motion, which did not clash with the others that stood on the Paper. He wished to know what had passed since the passing of the Peace Preservation Act to render its continuation necessary? The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade and the Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated that the condition of Ireland was most satisfactory; then, why propose such a measure as that now before the House?
  734
  The Peace Preservation Act ought not to be re-enacted for twice the term for which it was originally proposed, without a single reason having been alleged for its continuance. And if such a system were countenanced he feared we might insensibly glide into the practice of renewing these coercive enactments as a matter of course. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.
  MR. DEASE, in seconding the Amendment, expressed his conviction that the Bill which had been introduced by the Government was not at all necessary. To show the use which was sometimes made of the Peace Preservation Act, he wished to state, on the authority of a brother magistrate, that a young man was apprehended by a constable for being out at night under suspicious circumstances. No ground was shown for the arrest, and when the magistrate asked the constable why the man had been apprehended, the constable replied that the mother of the young man came to him, and asked him if there was not an Act which would enable him to take into custody a person who was out at night under suspicious circumstances. On being told that there was such an Act, the woman desired him to arrest her son, who went out at night for the purpose of paying his addresses to a young woman in the neighbourhood whom she did not want him to marry. That was one way in which the Peace Preservation Act was carried out in Ireland, which he thought was scarcely one of the purposes contemplated in the renewal of that Act, a proceeding, in his opinion, fit to be linked in with the present Bill, which he considered altogether unnecessary, and he therefore trusted it would be sent to that place to which the Matches Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone, and like that measure to rest there in peace, if it were possible to do so.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it is not expedient to continue 'The Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1870,' beyond the date settled by that statute,"—(The O'Conor Don,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. M'MAHONsaid, no one could deny that it was expedient to suppress the conspiracy which now existed; but the House ought to be in possession of such materials as would enable it to effect that suppression. It was an ascertained fact that the heads of that conspiracy did not reside permanently in Ireland; but that it was conducted by persons who could not be reached by that Act, but who were within the jurisdiction of the House, for they resided in Manchester or Glasgow, and the society was directly governed from Manchester. If that were so, why did the Government not take means to catch and punish the offenders in those places? In Glasgow there was no Habeas Corpus Act, and the Government could lay their hands upon the offenders at once; but he thought it was clear that the Government could not rely on the statements of their informants, or, relying upon them, were either ashamed or afraid to ask for power to deal with the liberty of the people of England as they systematically did with the people of Ireland. By the Bill now before the House provision was made that the Lord Lieutenant should be able to seize upon and imprison for two years all persons who were suspected by him, and they were not to be allowed to communicate with anyone. Now, what punishment would that be to any idle, dissolute vagabond, who, after being locked up for two years, would be again let loose upon society? One of the witnesses called on the part of the Government—the Rev. James Orofton—in reply to the Question—"What would be the effect of locking up such a man?" replied that the result would be that he would come out foaming at the mouth like a mad dog. There was another anomaly—namely, that by the Act the law of forfeiture for treason-felony was abolished; but that punishment would be renewed in Ireland by the present Bill. The crimes now complained of began in 1760, and Acts had been passed from time to time for their suppression; but it was not until the last Session that any Act for the removal of the causes of discontent had been passed, and it could not yet be said that that Act—the Land Act—had done anything whatever to ameliorate the condition of the agricultural labourers and small farmers, the classes among whom these crimes chiefly prevailed. It was
  736
  clear that the cause of Ribbonism was the want of constant employment and the insecurity of tenure; and as an illustration of that, he might mention that when employment was abundant, as it was in the summer months, crime and outrage were unfrequent, and they were only committed when the nights were long and there was a great want of employment. Now, what had preceding Governments done to provide employment for the people? Why, they had not merely been contented with not doing anything, but they had on two occasions deliberately destroyed the means of employment which the people possessed, and which they had provided for themselves; for instance, the cultivation of tobacco, which at one time was carried on in Enniscorthy, and which gave employment to great numbers of people, had been put an end to by Parliament; yet, according to the statements of Mr. Davis, the cultivation of that plant was productive of the most beneficial effects. The result of that ill-judged interference had been that Wexford, which had hitherto been a quiet and law-abiding district, had become noted for the crime and outrages prevailing there. In Belgium the very same system of agrarian discontent had prevailed for three centuries, and crimes of all kinds had been committed by persons who had been hired at a distance, in broad daylight, and under the eyes of the population. That system had arisen from causes similar to those which existed in Ireland, and, in his opinion, the change which had been effected in Belgium might also be effected in Ireland. In 1838 some industrious people in Ireland, finding that there was no Excise law upon the manufacture of sugar from beet-root, commenced that manufacture, and in that year they made 1,500 cwt of sugar, but the Government then came down upon them, and instead of encouraging such a trade they imposed heavy Excise duties, which abolished it altogether. If the Government were to seek for means of giving employment to the people, instead of passing these Coercion Bills, they would do a great deal more good, for mere coercion was of no use in that country, and entertaining that conviction very strongly, he should oppose the second reading of this Bill.
  SIR FREDERICK W. HEYGATEsaid, he thought the debate would have turned upon the policy of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, but instead of that it had become a criticism upon grievances that might or might not exist under the Peace Preservation Act, the main clauses of which, relating to the system of fines, and which were so much complained of, he thought had been struck out of the present measure. The real question, however, was, whether this Bill ought or ought not to be passed? He did not wish to add to the difficulties of the government of Ireland, for he admitted that these difficulties were so great that it was the duty of every hon. Member of that House to sink all personal and political animosities and feelings in endeavouring to pass those measures which were for the welfare of that country. It was the first duty of every Government to enforce law and order, and if they could not do so by ordinary means, they should without any loss of time, on their own authority, and without any reference to a Select Committee, propose such measures, even though they might be extreme measures, as they might think were necessary. He looked upon the present Bill, not as the result of the deliberations of the Select Committee—for that Committee had never made any recommendations—but as a measure proposed simply and solely on the authority of the Government; and he did not understand how there could ever have been any question of appointing a Select Committee at all, unless it was the belief of the Government that Parliament and the country would pay more attention to the recommendations of a Committee than to the recommendations of the Government themselves; a belief which, if it existed, was certainly humiliating to any Government. His own impression, confirmed by reading the evidence, was that no good could result from such inquiries, especially as in this case the Government were in possession of far more evidence than they were able or dared to produce. If such inquiries could not be full and exhaustive, it would be far preferable to accept the dictum of the Government and have no inquiry at all. The same observations would also apply to the second part of the Bill, which was so much complained of; and the Government ought to be allowed, if they thought
  738
  it necessary, to continue the operation of an Act of Parliament the effect of which they themselves best knew. He felt some pity for the embarrassed condition in which Her Majesty's Government now found themselves; but he attributed that position to the legislation in which they had indulged during the last two years. When the Irish Church Bill was introduced two years ago, it was said that it would cure almost all the evils of Ireland, and be a message of peace; but such results had certainly not yet been brought about; and, on the other hand, only very recently the Chancellor of the Exchequer had complained in his Budget that the deficiency in the year had been aggravated by the advance of £500,000 to the Irish Church under that Act. The Irish Church Act had led to the attack on the English Church, which was so well defended the other night by the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) in a beautiful speech, which everyone must have felt was almost as well applicable to the case of the Irish Church Act. Then there was the Irish Land Bill; but he admitted it was unfair and hard to charge the Government with the want of success of an Act which had really not yet had time to work. Whatever the results of that Act might be however, it would have nothing to do with the increase which had taken place in the amount of Irish crime. While he felt sorry for the Government, he was still more sorry for the position of the noble Marquess the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and he would not say a word against the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fortescue), who preceded the noble Marquess in that office; but that right hon. Gentleman had certainly viewed the state of things before him with marvellous equanimity. When, however, the noble Marquess became Chief Secretary he was naturally struck with the amount of crime and outrage in Ireland, and he did not lose a day before he brought the question before the Government. In 1866 the number of agrarian outrages specially reported in Ireland was 87; in 1867, 123; in 1868, 160; in 1869, 767; in 1870, 1,329; and in the first three months of 1871 the number was no less than 1,050. He did not wonder that the noble Marquess took instant action upon the matter; but he did wonder that, instead of proposing

  739
  a legislative measure at once, the noble Marquess should have contented himself with moving for a Select Committee, which must inevitably cause delay. He did not believe that these agrarian outrages and crimes were due to the causes to which they had generally been attributed, for at the time of the Fenian conspiracy in 1866, 1867, and 1868, one of the most alarming features of the conspiracy was that burglaries and other smaller offences almost ceased to be perpetrated in certain parts of Ireland. It was a lull before the storm, and was a dangerous portent, inasmuch as it showed how entirely the one idea of Fenianism had banished or absorbed all other kinds of crime; but as the hopes of the Fenians became more and more faint, ordinary crimes grew up again, and Ireland returned to its normal state. The amount of crime and outrage that had been lately committed was fearful to contemplate—and here he wished to answer the allegation that the county magistracy of Ireland had failed in the performance of their duty. He denied that allegation altogether, and he would tell hon. Gentlemen who were county magistrates in England that they would scarcely feel so comfortable in the discharge of their duties if they knew that a terrible retribution might possibly fall upon them. It was all very well, also, to talk of Irish juries; but it should be remembered that the men who served on those juries did so at the hazard of their lives, and the question of Irish juries deserved the most serious attention of the Government. With regard to the magistracy, a mixed system was adopted in Ireland, a stipendiary magistrate sitting with a certain number of county magistrates, and it was not to be expected that such an arrangement would work so satisfactorily as the system adopted in this country. As to the Irish police, it had been said that they were of no use as detectives, and that they were too military a body of men; that was true to a certain extent, but it should be borne in mind that when the police were taken from among the people they would naturally have a strong sympathy with the people, and that feeling could only be got over by making them a semi-military body, and giving them a special pride in the force to which they belonged. That the desired result had been gained he thought
  740
  was evidenced by the fact that nothing could be more striking than the way in which the Irish police behaved during the existence of the Fenian conspiracy, for there was not one case of hesitation. With one consent the whole of the police force stuck to the cause of law and order. He disliked this sort of legislation; but he believed the present Bill would succeed for two reasons—first, because agrarian outrages seldom took place in the summer months, when the nights were short and the days long; and secondly, because the Irish people, who were a clever race, began to perceive that the Government were really and truly in earnest in their efforts to repress outrage and crime. This knowledge would restrain them from the commission of crime, and would render it unnecessary to put the Act in force. The worst feature in the Bill was that the time it was to remain in operation was defined—a fact which might cause quiet during two years, followed by a return to acts of violence, rendering it necessary to re-enact the measure. He thought it would have been better to state in one of the clauses that the Act would remain in force until a certain fixed time had elapsed during which no outrage had been committed in the district affected by the Act. He hoped that a policy like that of Lord Palmerston's—who thoroughly understood the state of Ireland and the character of her people—would be adopted by the Government, and that, though it was now necessary to pass an Act like the one under discussion, Ireland would speedily return to a state of peace and quiet.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, the hon. Baronet who had just sat down (Sir Frederick W. Heygate) must have changed his opinions very much since last year, for when the Peace Preservation Bill was introduced, he stated that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was not warranted by the state of Ireland in the month of April, 1870; and as the state of the country in May, 1871, was very much better than in April, 1870, the hon. Baronet could not vote now for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act with much consistency. The Government had been deceived on this question altogether; in the Queen's Speech, delivered on February 9, it was said that Ireland, if not in a

  741
  state of perfect tranquillity, was at all events in a state not calling for any immediate attention, and that it only wanted repose; and yet, on the 23rd of the same month, the noble Marquess the Chief Secretary for Ireland had moved for the Westmeath Committee. Had any outrages been committed in Westmeath in the interval to justify that Motion? Not one. According to the noble Marquess's speech in February, seven murders and ten attempts at murder had been committed in Westmeath in the year 1870 and winter months of this year; but, according to the actual fact, there had only been two murders there during the whole of the time; and thus the House was led to believe there were seven murders, whereas five of these occurred before the introduction of the Peace Preservation Act, and led to the adoption of that measure, and yet the Government, with such slight reason on their side, now proposed a Bill which was without parallel even in the darkest phase of England's hatred to Ireland. Was it to be tolerated that, because there had been two murders committed in a population of 175,000 inhabitants, they were not only to continue the Peace Preservation Act, which had been described by a noble Lord in "another place" as little short of martial law, but also to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act? But what was the state of Westmeath? In January of this year there was no murder and no attempt at murder, though there was one case of firing at the person, and although in 1870 there were no fewer than 648 threatening letters and 346 administrations of illegal oaths, there were not in January, February, and March any case of the administration of unlawful oaths, and only 14 threatening letters. The correspondent of The Times at Dublin stated that Ireland was tranquil from one end to another; that the country was never so prosperous as it was at present; and yet this was the time that a Government that was supported by Irish Members selected for bringing in a Bill that had never been outdone even by the Whigs in their worst days. The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Westmeath might do no harm to any well-disposed person; but the power was a serious one to intrust to any man or to any set of men; and the power, moreover, would, as a matter of fact, be intrusted to the police, for it was
  742
  from them that information was obtained, and such a power afforded the members of that body an easy mode of feeding their revenge or clearing a rival out of the way. In 1852 crime was excessive, but the Committee which inquired into the state of Ireland at that time—the Conservative party being in power—simply recommended the amendment of the jury laws, powers to change the venue of trial, and some slight amendment of the licensing system. They had recommended no such severe measures as were contained in this Bill. Even the testimony of the witnesses before the Committee, although they were chiefly composed of official persons, the Government having called no extra-official, except Dr. Nulty, and he being called only in consequence of statements made to the Committee, yet when analyzed, it did not justify the course they were about to take. Mr. Seed, the senior Crown solicitor, agreed with the late Sir Matthew Barrington that the vigorous administration of the ordinary law was the most effectual remedy for the suppression of disturbance; and that gentleman, in his evidence stated, that though he believed that crime must more or less exist in every country—for that state of things appeared unfortunately inseparable from the weakness of humanity—yet it was his conviction that Ireland was at that time as free from the commission of aggravated crimes as any country in Europe, and he added "that crime in Westmeath was not a twentieth of what it was in former years." He (Mr. Downing) felt deeply grateful to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for the many benefits he had conferred upon his country; but he asked him whether he had really road the evidence to which he referred, because if he had, he could not believe that the right hon. Gentleman would have consented to the introduction of the present measure? If he uttered not a word more, he thought he might appeal with confidence to the justice and generosity of both the English and Scotch Members against the enactment of a law against Ireland so unconstitutional as that now under consideration. Would the Representatives of England or Scotland tolerate the introduction of such a measure for their countries, founded upon such a weak and unwarrantable basis? But he was afraid that because his country was Ireland,

  743
  that many hon. Members would be disposed to support any measure of coercion, without thinking it necessary to investigate the reasons for it, and that when the bell rang for the division, many such Gentlemen would be found hastening into the House who had not been listening to the debate, eager to support by their votes a Bill intended to crush the liberties of Ireland. On the 17th March, 1870, St. Patrick's Day—a day which was dedicated by the people of Ireland to pleasure and the interchange of courtesies, friendship, and goodwill—a debate occurred in that House; this House presented to the people of Ireland its offering in the shape of the Peace Preservation Act, and on the 17th March of the present year, the subject of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act engaged its attention. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in replying to some observations of the hon. Baronet the Member for Londonderry (Sir Frederick W. Heygate), on the first occasion stated that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus was not a measure that ought to be adopted except under the most stringent necessity'—in cases only of apprehended outbreak or civil war. That was the deliberate opinion of the Premier in March, 1870, and yet he was the head of the Government that now, in 1871, introduced this unconstitutional measure, when the state of Ireland was infinitely better than it was a twelvemonth ago. Even in the Speech from the Throne, on the opening of the present Session, it was declared that Ireland was in a state of comparative peace; and he denied that there was any evidence to prove that the condition of Ireland was worse at the present time than it was on the 9th of February, when the Queen's Speech was read from the Throne. What, then, was there to justify this exceptional legislation? In 1870 there were upwards of 600 threatening notices. What was the case in the present year? In Westmeath, the most disturbed part of Ireland, as it was alleged, there had been only six such notices in January, eight in February, and none, he believed, in the following months of March and April. The Irish Members had had two years of heavy Parliamentary work; and, on reading the Queen's Speech for the Session, he (Mr. Downing) had flattered himself that they would have a quiet
  744
  time of it in the present Session; but he had not been on English soil more than two hours when that pleasing delusion was dissipated, on reading the Notice given by the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, which resulted in this Bill being introduced, on the Report of a Committee before whom the witnesses had shown how the reports of alleged outrages had been fabricated. Many of the cases that had been represented as crimes in Westmeath were got up. One person said he had been fired at and wounded, and he showed the blood; but the blood was nothing more than the colouring with which sheep were marked, and the whole thing was found to be a fabrication. Another man was proved to have written a threatening letter to himself; and a constable named Supple reported that he had been fired at and struck by three bullets. He said he knew the man who fired, but he was acquitted. A memorial was sent to the Government to have the case investigated, but the Government made no reply. What was to be thought of cases manufactured in this way? Yet he believed Supple was promoted, and received a medal of honour, whilst Westmeath was to have a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Memorials, too, had been sent from time to time, to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, praying for an investigation into many such cases, but those memorials were not even acknowledged. He (Mr. Downing) thought that his country had been most unfairly and unjustly assailed, and that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had been deceived; for he believed that there was not in that House one who would be less willing to give his assent to such a measure as this, if he could have informed himself of the facts, than that right hon. Gentleman. He knew that the right hon. Gentleman could not possibly apply his mind to the examination of all the circumstances connected with the various measures that were introduced into that House, burdened as it was with the weight of Imperial legislation that was cast upon it; he therefore did not think the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for this part of the scheme for the good of Ireland; but the Executive of Ireland were the parties that were responsible for it. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he knew was a man to whom power might

  745
  safely be confided, and, he must say, that noble Lord was esteemed and respected by all classes in Ireland. The noble Marquess the Chief Secretary for Ireland, too, though not as experienced with the duties of his new office as his predecessor, was yet a man who was connected by family ties with that country, and who, he believed, was moved by the best intentions and the most sincere desire to improve the condition of Ireland. Giving the two Noblemen he had named and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government every credit for the possession of the purest and most honourable feelings, he (Mr. Downing) still maintained that they had been imposed upon in the information upon which they were now acting, and that they had utterly failed to make out any case to justify this harsh and exceptional measure. They had been told, for instance, that they should go into a Committee of Inquiry; but what did they get there that was not fully known before? The noble Marquess the Chief Secretary gave up the condition of secresy which he had first suggested in connection with this Committee, and subsequently refused to make any Report upon the evidence that was produced before it; what, then, he (Mr. Downing) asked was the Committee appointed for? The present Bill was the unhappy sequel of those proceedings, which Bill he defied them to justify by any evidence that would be tolerated by the English and Scotch Members, as furnishing the slightest pretext for legislation for any other part of the United Kingdom. This was a measure which the people of Ireland could not but resent; it was one which public opinion would denounce as cruel and uncalled for; and as an additional wrong driven to the quick without cause or justification. At present the Constitution was almost entirely suspended in Ireland, and English Members could not have the least idea of the state of things which now existed there. As an example of what went on there every day, he would instance a case coming within his own knowledge, in which a most respectable farmer, of 70 years of age, living on the sea coast, and whose crops were destroyed by crows and wild pigeons, wanted to obtain a gun licence for shooting; but his application was repeatedly and persistently refused. Having himself known the man intimately for many years as
  746
  being one of the most respectable inhabitants in his barony, he willingly certified to his good character; but the recommendation of a Member for the great county of Cork was not deemed sufficient to secure for him from a resident magistrate a licence to shoot crows. He would now conclude, as he knew that he had trespassed much too long upon their valuable time; but he hoped he would be forgiven, in consideration of the love he bore his country, and his indignation at seeing it treated far worse than they would think of treating any other part of the British Empire, even under farmore aggravated circumstances, and he trusted that they would give him credit for an indisposition to obtrude upon their time, except upon matters with which he was thoroughly acquainted and deeply interested. He had entered that House as a warm supporter of the Government, and he was desirous of continuing his confidence in them so long as he could do so consistently with his principles, but not a moment longer. He believed this to be a fatal step of the Government, and one which would prove fertile in the production of discontent, disloyalty, and national hatred to the British Legislature; and if he might presume to give advice to the Prime Minister, he would suggest the withdrawal of this Bill, as the Government had twice withdrawn their Budget. It was not too late to remedy the evil they had committed; let them perform that act in a gracious and conciliatory spirit, and they would go far to bind the people of Ireland to this country by the strongest ties of justice and generosity, and secure their warmest feelings of regard, esteem, and confidence.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYsaid, that it must have been inferred from the statement of the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, that Mr. Seed had given an opinion adverse to the Bill now before the House. If, however, his evidence was referred to, it would be found that he thought it essential that the power to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in particular districts should be given to the Lord Lieutenant, though he hoped that it being known that he had the power, it might not be necessary for him to exercise it. The hon. Member had by mistake referred to a Paper laid before the Committee by Mr. Seed, in which he gave a full account of the organization

  747
  and mode of action of the Ribbonmen. One paragraph would read—
  "The deed of blood is usually done in implicit obedience to command; but if the party commanded should demur, it is done by lot. If he escapes immediate detection, money is collected and he is sent out of the country; if detected, he is supplied with means for his defence. At his trial witnesses also are provided for him."
  This was the confederacy with which, according to Mr. Seed, whom hon. Members described as a witness upon whom the House might rely, they had now to deal, and the evidence before the Committee showed what were the results of that confederacy. Between the 1st of January, 1870, and the end of February, 1871, there were committed in Westmeath, 115 agrarian offences, and only two were followed by punishment. In King's County there were 42 cases, and not one person was punished; in Meath there were 83 cases, and only one person was punished. But the whole story had not been told; for not one-third of the outrages that occurred were reported to the police, and information was obtained only with the greatest difficulty even from the sufferers themselves, because they were held in terror of their lives by the Ribbonmen. For instance, a poor farmer's wife having ventured to report her case to the police, she had to be guarded night and day by two constables. Then the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Downing) referred to the absence of murders; but what was the cause of this? Nobody dared to do that which would provoke the murder. There was ample evidence to prove that farms remained unlet for years because nobody dared to take them; and on one of these a tenant was evicted in 1856; another man took the farm; he was threatened, he disregarded the threat, and in 1858 he was shot; another person ventured to take the very same farm in the following year, he likewise disregarded a similar threat, and he too was shot. From 1859, when the last outrage took place, that farm had not been the scene of any more murders, simply because nobody had dared to do that which had provoked murder—namely, to take the farm, which remained unlet on that account. In 1863 the tenant of another farm was evicted for non-payment of rent. A person took the farm and was shot at. He refused to give information that he had been
  748
  shot at, but he gave up the farm to save his life. That was the reason why there had been no murders lately, and it was part of the evidence that something was necessary beyond the ordinary law. Nor was the case an isolated one, for very many cases of the same character had occurred in Ireland; and he was convinced that they were not such as might be dealt with by the ordinary law. The system of terror was not confined to land. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington), who brought forward this Bill, had alluded to the extraordinary evidence of the chairman of the railway which passed through Westmeath. There, for example, was a case of terrorism. That railway was controlled, not by chairman and directors, but by a secret body, whose efforts prevented its proper management. An inspector of the railway was reported for incapacity, and his place was offered to another person; a threatening letter came from that secret society, and the company had to retain an incapable inspector on the line; while a station master who had discharged his duty faithfully was obliged to be removed, because he had reported a man for stealing coals, and in consequence of that he was threatened and obliged to make the station bullet proof in order to protect his life, and had two policemen to watch day and night. The Crown prosecutor told the chairman of the railway that he could not be answerable for the consequences if he remained, and he had to be removed to another place. Another station master, who was not removed under similar circumstances, actually lost his life. The hon. Member for the county of Cork (Mr. Downing), having referred to the evidence of Dr. Nulty, Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath, he (Mr. Russell Gurney) would allude to that Bishop's Lenten Pastoral of this year. He there said that Ribbonism now occupied itself in sending threatening letters and notices, paying domiciliary visits, breaking into peaceful dwellings, and shooting down men and even women when the operation could be performed with safety. That was the state of things which the hon. Member described as one of peace and prosperity. In fact, he might say, and with perfect justice, that the operation of these secret societies extended to all the affairs of every-day life. The only question, then, he had to ask himself was, whether the proposed

  749
  remedy was adequate to the end; would the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act have the desired effect? If we might rely upon the evidence of persons acquainted with Westmeath it would. They told us that there were a number of Ribbon leaders well known to the police, any one of whom could be laid hold of, and the seizure of them would produce an amount of terror which would destroy the organization; for the existing organization was such that witnesses could not be got, and if they were, verdicts could not be obtained from juries. At the last Assizes at Westmeath, there was no difficulty in six cases of ordinary crime, and prosecutions were successful in six others which were proved by the police; but in three cases witnesses refused to repeat the evidence they had formerly given; in ten, juries disagreed, and witnesses had to be protected by the police. He (Mr. Russell Gurney) cared little by what name such a confederacy was called. The evidence had satisfied him that the ordinary powers of the law were not sufficient to meet it. He (Mr. Russell Gurney) entered upon the inquiry with grave doubts as to what was the fitting remedy for this evil. He knew that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act would afford temporary relief, but he feared it might be only temporary, and that, trusting to the compelled quiet, other remedies for the evil might be neglected. But he was convinced that even if temporary, much would be gained, as in Ireland time was everything, in order that the measure of last year might have its natural effect, and he trusted that it would be more than temporary, and that the leaders being either taken or compelled to quit the country, the organization, which at one time extended over a large portion of Ireland, might be driven from the limited districts where its baneful effects were still seen. The Bishop of Meath was, no doubt, unwilling to admit that that which he called Ribbonism existed; but he admitted that in different districts there were distinct bodies which were led by one or two "heads" who knew each other, and kept up communications; and if one of them wished an outrage to be committed in his own neighbourhood, he knew that some one from a distance could be secured to commit it, with diminished chances of detection. These "heads" being known, could be
  750
  taken, if they remained on the spot, which he did not believe they would do; and, if they did not, their dispersion would break up the organization which, was doing the mischief.
  MR. O'CONOR MR. O'CONOR moved the Adjournment of the Debate.
  Debate adjourned till Tuesday next, at Two of the Clock.

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

THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE COLONIES.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. MACFIE, in rising to call attention to the relations between the United Kingdom and the Colonies, and to move the following Resolution:—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed, to consider whether any and what ameliorations should, in concurrence with the Colonies, be made in the relations between the United Kingdom and the Colonies, with the view of the permanent maintenance of the best and most cordial interconnection between all parts of the Empire,"
  said, he believed that the Government of this country had for a very long time failed to realize the great interest which the majority of the people, and especially the working classes, felt in the subject of the relations between the mother country and her Colonies. He was afraid that was a fault for which one party in the State could not pass censure on the other. He wished chiefly to direct attention to three groups of Colonies—the North American Colonies, the Australasian Colonies, and the Colonies in Southern Africa. The North American Colonies contained a population of about 4,250,000, the Australasian about 1,750,000, and the Colonies in Southern Africa about 1,250,000. The population of the first of these groups approached that of Belgium, and surpassed that of the Netherlands and Portugal; the population of the second exceeded that of Denmark; and the population of the South African group approached that of Greece. Of course, such States as these—for so he might call them—could not be kept in a condition of pupilage. With their growth in population and in prosperity they

  751
  attained a new position. They were naturally inclined to make new claims, while, on the other hand, we made fresh claims on them. The hon. Gentleman read extracts from colonial newspapers and other documents showing the loyalty of our fellow-colonists. An influential review—The Contemporary—published last month, quoted the words of Sir Alexander Gait, who said that although the subject presented many difficulties, he thought Confederation offered the best, if not the only chance of holding the British Empire together; and the author of the article in that review maintained the proposition that Federalism alone was the principle on which the constituent parts of the Empire could be permanently welded together. Passing to the public opinion of Australasia, he first looked to the Press of Australia, and quoted the opinion of The Melbourne Argus, in an article written when some alarm was felt in that Colony lest England should be involved in a Continental war. In that article the writer stated that both the Government and the people of that Colony had acknowledged the paramount duty of maintaining the integrity of the British Empire, but pointed out that the Colonies were in a state of semi-dislocation. The Report of the Royal Commission which had been issued in Victoria to consider the relations between the Colonies showed that they presented the phenomenon of responsibility without corresponding authority or adequate protection; it stated that the only right which the Colony of Victoria did not possess was that of contracting obligations towards other States, and recommended that the tie between the mother country and the Colonies should be reduced to the merest personal one of being ruled by the same Sovereign. Turning to another Colony, he found The New Zealand Herald complaining that Earl Granville did not care whether the connection between Great Britain and her Colonies was maintained; but protesting, as a member of the Empire, against the idea that the Foreign Secretary or any other Minister should take upon himself the responsibility of severing it. Another newspaper in New Zealand thought it would be necessary to claim the independence of the Colony, while a third urged that England should relinquish her sovereignty over that possession.
  752
  He wished to quote a passage from one of the despatches of Sir George Bowen, to the effect that the absurdity as well as the iniquity of the present system were too great to last much longer. He would next read various extracts relating to South Africa, representing that separation from the Empire must be the necessary consequence of the policy pursued by the mother country. He questioned whether our relations with the Colonies were such that we could, if a sudden emergency arose, call on them to contribute their proper quota of troops for the defence of the State. If we were leaning, as we were entitled to lean, on the Colonies for support in case of war, he feared we were leaning on what, in such circumstances, must prove a broken reed. On the other hand, the Colonies were not sufficiently consulted by us. The transfer of our territory on the Gambia, for instance, might have been completed before the colonists had the opportunity of knowing that it was contemplated. He would next refer to the important subject of emigration, and would state that the yearly transference of our home population to the United States is proceeding at such an accelerated ratio, that before the century closes about 500,000 of our people would be going annually to the United States, while our Australian Colonies received not more than half the number that emigrated thither five years ago. He would quote the report of Mr. Edward Johnson, Secretary of the Treasury in the United States, which appeared in The Times, stating that half the emigrants to the United States were of British origin, and came from the United Kingdom or the British Provinces of North America. Would it not have been possible to have directed a very large portion of this emigration to the British Colonies? He believed that might have been done; and that it was only from neglect and indifference that it was not done. The cause which had led him to this result was, in a great measure, the rapidity with which that House transferred to the Colonies the possession of the unoccupied lands without consideration or debate, though it was clearly understood that those lands should be sold, as hitherto, with a view to encourage emigration. It might now be said by some that it would be right to "let well

  753
  alone;" but he asked whether it was well that Englishmen, by going to the United States, should give up their allegiance to the British Crown, and should no longer contribute to the wealth of this Empire, or use their brawny arms for the defence of the interest and honour of their native country? Other Empires were growing in extent and population. Germany, Russia, and the United States had increased in territory and in the number of inhabitants, and this country could not maintain its relative position if it did not retain its population as members of this noble Empire. Was it right that some of the best of our population should go to the United States while the mother country was being oppressed by pauperism? This country had always employed its great power and resources in the propagation of civil and religious liberty, but its power would become much enfeebled if it separated from the Colonies. It was a matter to be regretted that the immense business of the British Colonial Empire was always entrusted to one individual, who, if he were an angel, could not find time for the management of so many and such important interests. It would be well to have a Colonial Council or Board, at which the Colonial Minister would be surrounded by members of the Legislature interested in colonial matters; but what would be still better would be a great Conference, composed of representatives of the Colonial Empire, and entrusted with the task of establishing among the various Colonies, and between the Colonies and the mother country, a greater degree of reciprocity and co-operation. One of the most hopeful plans in his (Mr. Macfie's) opinion, was that of confederation. This nation had a great future before it, and he trusted that the House would hear some declaration from the Government that they would grant a Committee to consider this great and important subject. The hon. Member concluded by proposing the Motion of which he had given Notice.
  SIR HARRY VERNEY, in rising to second the Motion, said, that no one could have resided in any of our Colonies without finding that there was a deep feeling of affection on the part of the colonists towards this country, and that there was the greatest anxiety that the credit and honour of our country
  754
  should be upheld. The character of the British merchant was maintained, as he had himself seen in the ports of South America, where British goods were all sold by invoice, whereas those from other countries were never sold until they arrived; and even the Red Indians of North America, in their dealings, were in the habit of drawing a distinction between a King George's man and a Boston man, very favourable to the former; looking upon the one as a faithful, trustworthy friend, and upon the other as one who wished to "improve them off the face of the earth" in order to appropriate their hunting-grounds. It had been said by some that our Colonies were a source of weakness to us, and only afforded our enemies an easy opportunity of assailing us; but the connection with them might be viewed very differently, and it might be said that as long as we looked upon them with affection and treated them as they deserved, they would be to us a source of strength, though it was possible they might become a source of weakness to us if we looked upon them with anything like an absence of sympathy. We were told, moreover, occasionally that there was a strong desire among the people of this country in favour of separation, but he did not believe that such an opinion prevailed to any extent; and he was sure that that Colony, which we treated with the greatest confidence, and into which we infused the utmost self-reliance would be most attached to us, and render us the most valuable assistance in times of emergency. All that was desired was that our colonists should acquire for themselves such habits of self-reliance as a father would desire his son to display, but there was no wish that the connection between the old country and her Colonies should in any way be severed. The attachment of the North American Colonies to the mother country had been very much strengthened within the last few years, and their unmistakable desire to preserve their connection with us had been proved by the fact that they had formed themselves into the magnificent Dominion which they had now settled down into, and which, he thought, was ultimately destined to become the high road from China to Europe, and one of the most important districts of the world. We should, however, be very careful in selecting

  755
  the men whom we sent out to govern our Colonies. He had asked a colonial Governor, on one occasion, what were the best characteristics of a good Governor; and the reply he obtained was, that the best colonial Governor was the man who would carry most of England with him to his new home—who would carry the most of English life and character abroad; and the worst Governor was the man whom the Government were ashamed to employ in this country, and who was therefore sent out to direct a Colony. He trusted that Governors of the latter sort would never be sent out again by any Government, although he knew that such men had been sent out in the past. By such conduct much would be done towards cementing that bond by which the old country and her dependencies were united. The hon. Baronet concluded by seconding 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 consider whether any and what ameliorations should, in concurrence with the Colonies, he made of the relations between the United Kingdom and the Colonies, with a view to the permanent maintenance of the best and most cordial interconnection between all parts of the Empire,"—(Mr. Macfie,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he must oppose the Motion, because he had always desired that cordial relations should exist between the Colonies and the mother country; and because he believed our relations at this moment were most cordial and most truly permanent, and in every way giving us such a guarantee of the utmost permanence and stability, that it would be better to act upon the old maxim quieta non movere, and not to enter upon such an investigation as was contemplated by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie) at the present time. The Government, too, might possibly find itself compelled just now to oppose this Motion, and such an opposition might be interpreted by those in the Colonies, who were unfavourable to the maintenance of the connection with this country, as implying that the Government were indifferent to the wishes and
  756
  aspirations of the colonists, and that the House of Commons had no sympathy with their wants and requirements; for that reason, if for no other, he should counsel his hon. Friend not to press his Motion to a division. Although he had listened to the speech of his hon. Friend with all possible attention, yet there was, he could not help thinking, a certain vagueness in the complaints made by his hon. Friend, and in the remedies which he proposed, which were fully set forth in a pamphlet, in which he expressed his regret that the tide of emigration was not directed to the British Colonies, but was suffered to flow into the United States, and that the great towns of the country were overcrowded, to the injury and depopulation of the smaller country places. His hon. Friend must, however, bear in mind that this country was the great workshop of the world, and that there seemed at present, so long as our manufactures were cheaper than those of other countries, little likelihood that they were about to diminish. He begged, moreover, to deny that there was a plethora of population in our great towns, although he admitted there was sometimes a congestion, causing a temporary displacement of the labour market, consequent on the migration of industry from one centre to another. Labour, however, like everything else, soon found its own level, and he did not, therefore, anticipate that great failure in the labour market which his hon. Friend seemed to apprehend. But even let him suppose the occurrence of such a failure, did the hon. Gentleman imagine, that, unless we were to pay each individual emigrant, we could compel him to settle where we pleased? No; the proper way of meeting the case was by holding out inducements, and showing that the British Colonies were the most desirable places to which to emigrate; but, even with all that, he thought, in many instances, that the vast plains in the interior of the continent of North America, lying open to the operations of the emigrant, would even yet more attract than the best of the British Colonies. Again, his hon. Friend, in his pamphlet, advocated the taking of legislative measures to facilitate the exchange by noblemen and gentlemen in this country of the lands which they possessed for a larger area in the Colonies. But with whom were these exchanges to be made?
  MR. MACFIEexplained that what he meant was that the nobility and gentry of the country should be encouraged to exchange 10,000 acres, which they might possess in this country, for 100,000 acres, by selling the 10,000 acres here, and investing the proceeds in the Colonies.
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he was not aware that there was in existence any law which would prevent any nobleman or gentleman who might please to do so from exchanging his patrimonial acres for 10 times their number in the Colonies, while there was no reason why any of our gentry should not settle there if they wished. Our laws, too, though his hon. Friend did not seem to be of that opinion, were pretty much Imperial in their range, and as to our literature a somewhat similar remark might be made; while with regard to our money, he (Viscount Bury) had never heard of any British Colony refusing British coin. As to gentlemen from the Colonies being received into British society, there had been a great change as far as that was concerned within the last few years, and any colonial gentleman would now be received into the highest society in this country with all the respect due to his position; but whether the Colonial Office could be made more accessible to the colonists, his hon. Friend (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen), who would be sure to treat with the greatest courtesy everyone who approached him, could best say. As to our taxation being framed with the utmost regard to the development of trade in colonial products, he might remind his hon. Friend that he might have heard, in some cases at least, of differential duties being imposed by the Colonies on British goods, and it was we, not they, that had reason to complain. The House had discussed before the question of removing British troops from the Colonies; he had been against it; but those who thought with him had been fairly beaten, and until the happy day arrived, when they should be able to upset the decision of former Governments, they could not expect much change in that respect; indeed, he even doubted its advisability, if it were possible. There might be a sentimental grievance underlying the complaints of his hon. Friend; but were they of such magnitude as to induce them to grant a Select Committee to inquire into their validity? His hon. Friend proposed an Imperial council to
  758
  conduct the affairs of the Colonies and of the English people, which should leave all matters specially affecting Great Britain and Ireland to the Imperial Parliament as at present, and all matters specially affecting the Colonies to their own control; in that course what labour would there be reserved for the Imperial council? It would only squabble with the various Legislatures, which would then degenerate into provincial assemblies.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEhere interposed, and asked the noble Lord who had been referring to Mr. Macfie's pamphlet, which he held in his hand, whether it was the hon. Member's speech to which he had been referring?
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, it was the same as the speech, being, in fact, a synopsis of the views of his hon. Friend, expressed in the House, and frequently in a society to which they both belonged. He feared his speech might read as if he undervalued the connection between England and the Colonies; but it was quite otherwise, for he had been too intimately connected with the Colonies, and had their interest too much at heart, to say anything which could be to their disadvantage; but he did not think the appointment of a Select Committee would promote the object which his hon. Friend had in view. The hon. Baronet who had seconded the Motion praised the Englishman in his dealings with the aboriginal tribes, who, he said, were in the habit of distinguishing between a "King George's man" and a "Boston man." Now, he had been for some years Superintendent General of Indian Affairs in British America, and his experience was, that in the eyes of the aboriginal tribes a "King George's man" and a "Boston man" were pretty much tarred with the same brush, for they had suffered from our system of obtaining cessions of territory. He referred to North America generally, and not to one particular portion of our possessions, which the hon. Baronet perhaps had in view. For the reasons he had stated he was unable to support the Motion.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he very much regretted the want of sympathy which official men and the House, in general, had till recently shown towards the colonists; but he was somewhat consoled by the thought that the people of this country generally, sympathized with

  759
  them. As an instance of the unwise way in which the Government had dealt with our Colonies, the hon. Gentleman referred to the case of New Zealand, one of the finest colonial possessions of the British Empire. New Zealand fell into difficulties with its native tribes, and, at a critical moment, the Colonial Office withdrew our troops; and the Government also refused to guarantee a loan for the Colony, until the expression of public opinion in this country forced them to do so. That was not the way to treat our Colonies, which he regarded as an integral portion of the Empire. The United States would have spent every shilling they possessed in putting down the rebellion in the Southern States; and in paying the great Debt incurred in the suppression of that rebellion, they had set us an example which we were afraid to follow. Our Colonies were the heritage of the poor people of this country; and while our population was increasing at the rate of 750,000 yearly, and when there was a scarcity of labour in this country, as when a financial crisis occurred, which meant starvation to tens of thousands of our population, the Government ought to aid emigration to them. Ministers of the Crown had, by unwise legislation, sacrificed those lands in the Colonies which were the inheritance of the people of this country, and some day they would have to answer for it. He would not, however, that night, add to the perplexities of the Government, because he knew that his hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies was inclined to adopt a conciliatory policy towards them.
  MR. SERJEANT SIMONthought the thinness of the House that evening was to some extent a proof of the slight interest which was taken in this important subject. The island of Jamaica, with which his family had been connected for at least two centuries—was an instance of the improvident legislation referred to by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie) for, having once been wealthy and highly productive it had sunk into an impoverished state, while the negroes, who at the time of the emancipation were emerging from barbarism, had been plunged again into an almost savage condition. Our colonial policy had been inconsistent; yet he was glad to say that the policy of compelling
  760
  the Colonies to shift for themselves had been dropped during the last Session or two. Some Colonies might in time become independent; but it would not be possible for the West India islands to do so, since, if separated from this country, they must attach themselves to the United States. The right policy to pursue was that indicated by the Premier last Session, when the right hon. Gentleman said that the links between England and the Colonies should be maintained with as little interference as possible by the Home Government in the affairs of the Colony. The Colonies should not be regarded as outlets merely for our poor population, but men of wealth and position ought to be encouraged to go out to them and carry thither English energy and capital. The notion that a Colony ought to defend itself might be very well as regarded Canada, but applied to the West Indies it was absurd, for there was not in those islands the material out of which a self-protecting body could be formed, and nothing was saved by the removal of troops that had been maintained there to defend the white population against the negroes, who were in much larger numbers. At the same time, such was his detestation of slavery, that he should have preferred to see those Colonies reduced to a wilderness, rather than that they should have continued the system of slavery. Those negroes, however, upon whom we had spent so many millions to emancipate, had since become mere squatters on the land; in fact, the system we had since pursued in respect to them was not honourable to this country. The hon. Member for Leith ought not to press his Motion for a Committee, if the House could be assured that the Premier's policy of last year would be maintained; but he should like to see some guarantee for that, for it must not be forgotten that influence were always being used to induce a Government to modify its plans. In conclusion, he would say that the Colonies ought not to be treated with indifference, but should be regarded as part and parcel of a great Empire, so that every colonist might cherish the sentiments of attachment to the mother country, which he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) knew was uppermost with them, and feel that they were Englishmen.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENsaid, that though he could not appeal to

  761
  a colonial experience equal to that of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Serjeant Simon) who had just sat down, he did not yield to him in the deep interest he took in all that appertained to the Colonies. He had heard, with regret the wide scope which the discussion had taken, because it induced no inconsiderable risk of the object for which the Motion was brought forward being forgotten. He would forbear taking any notice of Fiji, alluded to by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie), because Papers had been moved for on that subject, and they would form the matter of subsequent debate in that House. Then, again, emigration was not a subject which the House had a right to expect would be brought forward upon that occasion; and, as there was a Motion standing on the Books with reference to the matter, and which was in most able hands, he hoped the House would not think him disrespectful if he forbore making any speech that night on that part of the question. With regard to the removal of troops, there was much to be said on both sides; but that had been debated before, and no good purpose would be served by re-opening it then. He preferred dealing with the question which had been brought before them, and he took that opportunity of thanking the hon. Member for Leith for the printed exposition of his opinions on colonial subjects, which, in common no doubt with other hon. Members, he had been fortunate enough to receive. The observations to which the House had listened appeared to divide themselves under two heads—the general remarks with regard to the relations of this country and her Colonies, and the Motion for a Select Committee. With respect to the second point, he would at once say that the Government, being satisfied with the relations at present subsisting between this country and her Colonies, were not prepared to delegate to a Select Committee those powers, duties, and responsibilities, which they conceived were adequately discharged by the Department to which they were, at present, specially entrusted; but with regard to the general question, it was his duty to trouble the House at somewhat greater length. His own observation of the opinions entertained on the subject of the Colonies was, that one class of persons spoke of the Colonies as the brightest gems of the British Crown
  762
  and Great Britain's most precious possessions; while others, of a more modern school, held that all Colonies were, more or less, a source of embarrassment and weakness, as well as of strength; and that the maintenance of the connection not only entailed a burden on the mother country, but checked the growth and development of the Colonies, so that a time might come when separation would be desirable. In studying colonial questions they must not leave out of consideration those different schools of thought. No country could hold distant possessions without their being a source of expense, anxiety, and responsibility. In time of peace, questions would, from time to time, infallibly arise in which the difficulty of reconciling the interests of the Colonies and of the mother country was not inconsiderable, and required the exercise of that prudence, patience, and caution which were among the first qualities of statesmanship. Then, again, in time of war, a distant dependency often afforded temptation to an enemy to strike a blow, through the Colony, at the mother country, whose power at home he might be unable successfully to assail. They would always find men ready to magnify those two evils, and to build on their existence an argument against the desirability of a Colonial Empire; but they were not opinions which had ever been avowed—and he hoped they never would be avowed—by a British Government. It was not difficult to point out some of the advantages which had been derived and were still derivable from the British system of colonization. Take our position as a great trading community. Well, our Colonies had been the means of extending our trade over every part of the world, and had opened markets for us, which would otherwise not only have been shut against us, but unknown to us. Glancing at our geographical situation, with a vigorous and healthy population confined within a limited area, the natural result of our greatly increasing numbers was, that a large emigration annually left our shores, every citizen taking from the parent State something of material wealth and strength. Was it nothing that, when an Englishman thus left his country, instead of being compelled to begin his new existence in a strange land, hearing nothing but a foreign language spoken around him, obliged to adapt himself to alien institutions,

  763
  and to be gradually weaned from all the memories and associations of the past—was it nothing that an Englishman should find open to him lands in which his native language was spoken as the language of the country, the institutions of England were copied, the name of England cherished as a household word, and everything around him tended to kindle and keep alive within his breast a patriotic affection towards that England to which he still belonged, and in whose power, glory, and prosperity, he still participated? These were not vain imaginative words, for such patriotic feelings did exist throughout our colonial possessions, and they were appreciated and reciprocated by the people of this country. Take Canada, for instance. Canada was a Colony of which we might well be proud; to the federation of her Provinces a year or two ago, and to the confederation of British Columbia, even now in progress—to the great future probably before her, and to her growing prosperity and gradual development, every Englishman must look with pride and satisfaction. The people of Canada were most loyally attached to this country. We read that loyalty amounts to a passion in Canada. Ever and anon we hear of manifestations of the devoted attachment of the Canadian people towards the Throne and institutions of this country, and the House might rest assured that the great true heart of the people of this country went out in ready and responsive sympathy to greet the expression of such feelings, and that it was their will and determination to maintain and cement their connection with their fellow-subjects who, though separated from them by distance of time and space, were united to them by community of interest and identity of affection towards the Throne and free institutions of their common mother country. It might be said that this was true of Canada and of Australia, where a similar spirit prevailed; but that these countries had each a great future before them, and that England might hereafter hope for some equivalent benefit in return for the trouble and expense incurred on their behalf. But what could be said regarding the smaller Colonies? Well, with regard to the smaller Colonies, some of them, indeed, were hardly Colonies, in the strict sense of the word, they were rather naval and military stations, held
  764
  for Imperial purposes; but to all of them we were bound by honourable engagements. Some of them had been acquired for purposes of trade, some perhaps for philanthropic purposes. It was by their means that our fame and reputation had been heralded throughout the world; they were standing monuments of the energy and enterprize of Englishmen. Through their agency Christianity and civilization had penetrated into regions where they would otherwise have been unknown, and although in many individual instances their pecuniary value to this country might be nothing, or even less than nothing, he was prepared to maintain that their aggregate possession had added a moral weight to England in the councils of the world, which was not to be lightly esteemed, and of which no true friend to his country would wish to deprive her. The hon. Member for Leith wished a Select Committee to be appointed to inquire into our existing relations with these Colonies, and the answer he had to make was this—the Colonial Office was a standing Committee, satisfactory to the country, and, he believed, to the House. This country had shown herself fully alive to the growing importance of colonial business, and it now received full and adequate consideration. Up to 1854, colonial business had been transacted by great Departments of the State, which were also charged with other important business. In that year, a separate Secretary of State, with adequate staff, was appointed for the exclusive transaction of colonial business; and what was the present constitution of that Department? So far as that House was concerned, he felt sensibly the disadvantage entailed by the comparative inexperience in colonial matters of the individual who had charge of the conduct of colonial business then; but he might be permitted to speak of others. It had been his lot for between nine and ten years to labour quietly and unobtrusively in various subordinate offices, under different Governments; he had, therefore, acquired that knowledge which enabled him to gauge the value of official men, and he must say, looking to his noble Friend the Secretary of State and the permanent civil servants in the Office, he had never known a Department of Government better manned with able and industrious public servants. Every colonial question

  765
  received prompt attention, diligent consideration, and had brought to bear upon it an amount of practical experience and ability which could not fail to be advantageous to all concerned. What did the hon. Member for Leith propose to alter? He proposed some scheme of confederation of which the outward and visible sign was to be a federal council sitting in London, to which England, Scotland, and Ireland should send 13 or 14 members, the Colonies electing 23 or 24, and India 8, so that Great Britain and Ireland might be outvoted by the Colonies. Either this council must be endued with powers so limited as to render it of little real value, or its powers must be so considerable as inevitably to clash with the authority of Parliament and the Executive Government. What improvement was likely to result from such a council? It would effect no improvement whatever in the internal management of the Colonies themselves, and the demand for it had not been endorsed by public opinion either in this country or in the Colonies. What was this council to do? The hon. Member said that he would leave all matters that specially affected the United Kingdom to the British Parliament, and all matters that specially affected the Colonies to their own Legislature and Government. That was exactly what was done now. They did leave as far as possible to the Colonies the management of their own affairs, and any change must be inconvenient, which was in the opposite direction. Surely Canada would never submit that a representative from Natal should interfere in her internal affairs, or the Cape allow a delegate from Jamaica to have a voice in her home government? If they gave the council larger powers, the difficulties would become insuperable. Did the hon. Gentleman think that the Parliament of this country would consent to abrogate its duties in favour of a federal council, or that the people of England would allow questions affecting peace or war to be decided by it? Did the hon. Member think that the people of England would allow the interests of this country to be subject to the decision of any body but their own Legislature? If, on some great question, this council differed from the Executive Government, which was to give way? By such a plan there would be two Governments sitting side
  766
  by side, and the affairs of the country would be involved in inextricable confusion. If it were to be only a consultative council, it would not be worth anything; and there would then only be a third party interposed between the English Government and the Colonies, and the result would be the introduction of a system of delay, which could not be other than inconvenient. It might be said that no harm would result from the appointment of a Select Committee; but he thought great harm would follow from it. Such a Select Committee would be misinterpreted out-of-doors, and would, moreover, give rise to uneasiness in the minds of the colonists, and create an uncertainty which might be injurious, as to the intentions of the Government. The Government did not wish to wrap up their policy in doubt or ambiguity: the policy of the Government was clear, plain, and simple, and it found its best exposition under the present system, through the agency of the Colonial Office. The policy of the Government was to retain and preserve the connection between the mother country and the Colonies, basing always that connection on the sure and sound foundation of mutual good and the promotion of mutual interests. In furtherance of that policy it was the duty of the Colonial Office to consider every question that arose with a sincere desire to consult the wishes of the Colonies themselves, and to reconcile colonial and Imperial interests; it being understood that if the Colonies had a right to expect protection from the forces of the Empire they must also consent to submit to the policy of the Empire. It was the duty of the Colonial Office to exercise a careful supervision over the colonial expenditure in Colonies where such supervision was necessary; to promote economy in the administration of the colonial revenues; to direct and advise the colonial Legislatures, whenever direction and advice might be useful; and continually to promote and develop that spirit of self-reliance and energy, without which neither an individual nor a community could hope to be permanently prosperous. Self-reliance did not mean separate existence, for a Colony might be great and self-reliant, and still maintain an intimate connection with the mother country. The Government wished to retain the Colonies; but they wished to retain them

  767
  bound to this country by ties of kindred and affection. They were sometimes taunted with having told the Colonies that they might go free if they pleased. [Opposition cheers.] He understood those cheers; but were hon. Gentlemen who used those taunts prepared to say that when a Colony had become so great and powerful as to desire an independent existence, they would employ the force of the Empire to retain it? If the Colonies desired to remain with the mother country, that was also the earnest desire of the Government; but they were also resolved so to shape their policy that if the time came when any Colony desired a separate existence, then, if separation was inevitable, this country would be able to part with it not without regret, but with the assurance that the separation not being caused by any fault, folly, or harshness on our part, we should only substitute for a loyal dependency a faithful and powerful ally. On his conscience he believed that of all courses this was the one most likely to retain with us our great and growing Colonies. Let them feel that there was nothing to be gained by separation; let them have nothing to complain of; let them see that we regarded them as brethren, made their interests our own, and viewed their increasing power and prosperity not only without jealousy, but with real and cordial satisfaction, and he believed their hearts would be more and more closely knit to us, and they would still make it their boast to rank with us as fellow subjects of the same Sovereign and citizens of the same Empire. This was the policy of the Government: it was no new policy; it was no party policy. It had been endorsed by successive Governments, confirmed by the votes of Parliament, ratified by the opinion of the Colonists themselves, and approved by the intelligence of the people of this country. Such a policy did not require to be supported by the inquiries of a Select Committee. It was able to stand alone. But the hon. Member wanted something more, and he alluded to a scheme of confederation. Now, he was not going to prophesy, for it was never the act of a wise man to prophesy; but he confessed that there had sometimes floated before his mind a vision of a confederation of all English speaking people, bound together by a tie too light to be galling or oppressive,
  768
  but too strong to be broken by hostile attack. But for the realization of any such vision they must wait for the development of the still distant future. In the present their duty was manfully to do the best work they could with the instruments ready to their hand. And there was much work to be done, for there were Colonies yet, comparatively speaking, in their infancy, still learning the first lessons of self-government, and with their resources as yet only partially developed; their growth, their development, their progress on the path of prosperity might all be accomplished under the existing system. Let the hon. Gentleman doubt the power, but not the goodwill of the Government to aid in this accomplishment; let him and those who were specially interested in the Colonies keep a vigilant eye upon the Colonial Office, and, if they found it failing in its duties, let them call it to the bar of public opinion and impugn its conduct in that House. He courted Parliamentary criticism, he invited Parliamentary discussion, he would assist to his utmost in promoting Colonial development, and the hon. Member might be assured that the Government, in refusing his Motion for a Select Committee, did not do so with any hostile spirit towards the Colonies, but because they believed that without any such inquiry as that proposed, and by the agency of the present system, they would be able to carry out that policy, the object of which was at once to advance the prosperity of the Colonies and maintain the integrity of the British Empire.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he had given up all intention of addressing the House that night; but, after the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, he could not refrain from expressing what he held to be the general feeling of the House—that he had listened with great satisfaction to the observations which had just fallen from that hon. Gentleman, and which were worthy of an English Colonial Minister. The hon. Gentleman referred to the prevalent impression in the House and the country that the Government regarded with indifference the interests of our Colonial Empire, and that their separation would occasion little regret. That impression had certainly existed in the country; for Earl Russell, when moving

  769
  for a Royal Commission last year, alluded to that feeling as an apology for the Motion; Earl Grey also referred to the same impression; and the authority of the late Sir William Denison, than whom no man had greater colonial experience, might also be cited respecting the apathy which had been said to prevail at home in regard to colonial interests; but the speech of the hon. Gentleman would, however, go far to remove that unfavourable impression. He admired the speech of the hon. Gentleman for its whole tone; it was a deprecation of that ridicule which had from time to time been thrown on the word "prestige." The Lord Chancellor, the other day at the Mansion House, had made a speech in which he ridiculed the word; but the prestige of a country was the respect which that country received from other nations and the regard it paid to its own self-respect. He would illustrate what he meant by an example. In our Australian Colonies, where a number of French colonists resided, there had been sent out, from time to time, by the late Emperor of the French, presents to the Colonies, which showed the interest he took in them. He had sent them valuable presents of books, and his portrait had been put up in public halls. Contrasted with that interest, which his late Majesty had shown in the French families in one of our own Colonies, was the policy which was pursued by our own Government; for it was with the greatest difficulty that one or two of the Colonies had been allowed to receive our Parliamentary publications. With respect to the most important question of the withdrawal of the troops, there could be nothing more inconsistent than our conduct in connection with that policy. In 1830, the whole of our expenditure for the Colonies was £1,200,000 a-year; and, in 1852, it had risen to £4,000,000 a-year. Earl Grey, in 1852, had introduced the subject of the withdrawal of the troops in "another place," and at the present time there was not in the whole of the Colonies above four regiments. Though he did not wish to dispute the policy of the withdrawal of troops, he could not but ask if they were not carrying the policy too far. Any man who had lived in the Colonies would tell how great the interest of the colonists was in seeing the arrivals of the English regiments; they said now—"We
  770
  have lost them all now, and we have only one link left—the connection with Government."
  MR. GREENEappealed to the hon. Gentleman who had brought this subject before the House, to pause before he interfered with the Colonies in the manner he proposed to do.
  MR. MACFIEsaid, he would beg leave to withdraw his Motion, believing that the House would be quite satisfied with the very gratifying statement of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies, and that the Colonies themselves would be equally gratified.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

INDIA—NAWAB OF TONK.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. E. N. FOWLERrose to move the Resolution of which he had given Notice—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into whether the procedure adopted in the case of the Nawab of Tonk is conformable to recognized principles of justice, and calculated to insure that a right decision be arrived at,"
  but said that, as the House was aware, the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir Charles Wingfield) had an Amendment proposing to refer the question to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and if Her Majesty's Government would accept that Amendment, he should be very willing to withdraw his own Motion in favour of it. The Nawab of Tonk might or might not have been unjustly treated; but at any rate he had been treated without any thorough investigation of his case. The Nawab of Tonk was a Mahommedan Prince whose territory was situated in the midst of the Rajpoot States, and the Rajpoots being Hindoos, the difference of religious opinion led to dissensions. The father of the Nawab stood loyally by England in our troubles in 1857, for which we owed him a debt of gratitude. In 1866 Lord Lawrence held a Durbar at Agra, and recommended reforms, which were carried out by the Nawab. The causes which led to the dethronement of the Nawab were these—The Chief of Lawa was the greatest tributary of the Nawab, and was stated to have been a notorious freebooter. He was a Hindoo, and difficulties had arisen between him and his Sovereign. He was invited to Tonk by Hukeem Surwah Shah, the Nawab's

  771
  Prime Minister, and proceeded there at the end of July, 1867. It was alleged on the Lawa side that on the evening of the 1st of August he was summoned, to the house of the Hukeem, that he did not go himself, but deputed his uncle, Rewut Singh, and his cousin, with 16 officers and retainers, who were attacked in the Prime Minister's house, and all, except one man, were treacherously murdered. On the other hand, it was stated by the people of Tonk that Rewut Singh and his party spontaneously went to the Hukeem's house, and attempted to force an entrance, after being informed that Surwah Shah was too ill to see them; that an affray sprung up, a general melée ensued, and that the Thakoor and nine of the Lawa party were killed, while seven were sacrificed by the Tonk people. The occurrence was investigated by Captain Bruce, who acquitted the Prime Minister of any intention except to seize some of the Lawa people. Colonel Eden, on the other hand, held there was a treacherous intention on the part of the Tonk authorities. Lord Lawrence adopted Colonel Eden's view, and decided that Lawa should be detached from Tonk, that the Nawab should be dethroned, and that his son should be substituted for him. In addition to this, the Prime Minister, Surwah Shah, not being a British subject, was imprisoned in the fortress of Chunar, the hottest place in India. Lord Lawrence's decision was confirmed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). Now, the Nawab asserted that he was ready to give a complete and satisfactory answer to all the charges made against him. It appeared to him that this Prince had been condemned by a secret tribunal worthy of the worst days of the Council of Ten, while the evidence on which the judgment was founded was of a character as contradictory as that which is now exercising the learning of a Court on the other side of Westminster Hall, and might well task the judicial acumen of the most eminent lawyers. And yet it was only sifted by men who, though distinguished in the military profession, were unused to judicial inquiries. Captain Bruce acquitted the Nawab of the charge; and his opinion was overruled by Colonel Eden. He (Mr. Fowler) thought, therefore, that the case deserved to be investigated by men of legal experience.
  772
  Another question he had to submit to the House was—Was the Nawab an independent Prince, or a British subject? If he was independent, what right had we to interfere? If he was a British subject, what right had we to refuse him a fair trial? The fact seemed to be that Colonel Eden condemned him, Lord Lawrence supported Colonel Eden, and the Secretaries of State and Lord Mayo followed Lord Lawrence. Now, he did not think that this House was bound by Colonel Eden's decision. Nor were the Government bound to uphold the conduct of their officials whatever the circumstances. He did not ask the House to give an opinion on the guilt or the innocence of the Nawab of Tonk in regard to the charges made against him; but he did ask them to give him that which every subject of of Her Majesty, and everyone under British protection was entitled to—an impartial trial. He asked for this unfortunate Prince a fair field and no favour; and, believing in the justice of Englishmen, believing especially in the justice of that House, he submitted his Motion to their consideration with confidence. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Resolution.
  MR. MORRISON, in seconding the Motion, said, the chief facts of the case were these. The fray took place on August 1st. Captain Bruce arrived in Tonk on the 15th, and reported on the 26th; and that Report was the ground of the decision arrived at; and though a parade might be made of the agreement of Colonel Eden, the Governor General in Council, and two Secretaries of State, practically they would find that they confirmed the opinion arrived at by Captain Bruce; and in his Report presented to Parliament they had the whole grounds of their decision, and were capable themselves of coming to an independent judgment on it. Now, Captain Bruce came to the conclusion that the ex-Nawab was guilty of endeavouring to entrap the Thakoor, but that the Minister was responsible for the murder alone, while Colonel Eden argued that the Nawab must have been privy to the whole plot. The hon. Member proceeded to examine and comment upon the statements contained in the Papers laid before Parliament, and said that if, as he thought he had proved, Captain Bruce had shown, within the

  773
  four corners of his Report, his deficiency of the power of seeing obvious and patent flaws in the evidence, the House should pause before they accepted his decision as final, and deprived the Nawab of his throne, and consigned his Minister, Surwah Shah, to life imprisonment, on evidence which would not, in an English Court, convict the humblest criminal. Had he been a Native of the British territory in India he would have had the opportunity of cross-examining witnesses face to face, and all the protection of the forms of law; and, whatever the truth might be, there seemed to him ground for an examination afresh into the whole case, either through a Committee of the House, or, as proposed by the hon. Member for Gravesend, by the agency of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
  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 whether the procedure adopted in the case of the Nawab of Tonk was conformable to recognised principles of justice, and calculated to ensure a right decision being arrived at,"—(Mr. Robert Fowler,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  SIR CHARLES WINGFIELD, who had given notice of an Amendment—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying tier to refer the case of the Nawab of Tonk for consideration by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, under the provisions of the Act of the 3rd and 4th years of Will. 4, c. 41, s. 4, commonly called the Privy Council Act,"
  said, he did not mean to pronounce an opinion as to the nature of the occurrence which led to the deposition of the Nawab, nor as to what degree of culpability, if any, attached to him—he confessed himself quite unequal to the task; but, looking at the conflicting nature of the testimony, and to the fact that the conclusion which had been formed adverse to him rested entirely on presumption, he was of opinion that the case was one which a judicial authority was alone competent to deal with. Briefly stated, the Lawa story was that they were invited to the Minister's house, and there treacherously murdered. The Tonk story was that the Lawa people came uninvited,
  774
  and that a quarrel ensued, which ended in loss of life. If the Lawa version was correct, there had been an act of foul treachery and murder. If the Tonk version was the true one the affair was merely an affray, for which the Nawab could not be in the slightest degree responsible. The hon. Member for Falmouth (Mr. R. N. Fowler) had explained the course of procedure adopted. The Political Agent and the Governor-General both submitted Reports on the subject. They both admit there is no judicial proof; and they both agree in thinking that the Lawa party were invited to the Minister's house with the Nawab's sanction; but while Captain Bruce thinks the intention was only to secure their persons, and there was no intention to kill them, and that the loss of life ensued from the bungling execution of the plot, Colonel Eden comes to the conclusion that the purpose of the invitation to the Minister's house was to murder them, and they were massacred in pursuance of this design. The Government of India adopts the conclusion of Colonel Eden, and the Secretary of State says he has no reason to doubt this is the right one, and approves the deposition of the Nawab. Now, it was merely but fair, before condemning the Nawab, to send him copies of the Reports of Captain Bruce and Colonel Eden, and to allow him to offer any explanation or defence to the conclusions therein formed of his guilt. But it was not till one year after he had been deposed that copies were furnished to him. The hon. Baronet having reviewed the facts as detailed in the Reports, and the competency of the officers engaged in the investigation, said he had now to ask the House to contrast the course pursued in this case with that which would have been adopted had this occurrence taken place in British territory, and the parties had been British subjects. An experienced magistrate, who had passed examinations on the Law of Evidence and the Criminal Procedure Code, would have conducted the preliminary investigations; the case would have been tried by the district judge, a judicial officer of many years standing; counsel would have been heard on both sides; then it would have been submitted, either on appeal or for final orders, to the High Court of Justice, composed of barristers and civilian Judges. Finally, the Executive

  775
  Government could, on review of the proceedings, have exercised, had it seen fit, its prerogative of pardon or mitigation of punishment. Of course, the Nawab, being an independent Prince, could not have been tried in the British Courts; but that was no reason why the common safeguards of justice should have been denied to him which were accorded to the meanest British subject. He thought the Government should have appointed a Commission of one or more Judges to hear and pronounce an opinion on the case; or they might have referred the Exports of Captain Bruce and Colonel Eden for the opinion of one of the High Courts, at the same time allowing the Nawab to be heard by counsel in his defence, before coming to a decision in the case. It was now too late to take this course in India, but it was not too late to obtain a judicial opinion from one of the highest and most competent judicial tribunals in this country—the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He did not think a Committee of this House possessed the necessary qualifications to deal with a case of this kind, whereas the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council did possess these qualifications in the highest degree, numbering as it did among its members Judges who had presided over the Supreme and High Courts of the Presidencies, and had been accustomed to weigh native testimony. It would, perhaps, be said that this course would not be acceptable to the native Princes themselves, because it would be to make them amenable to a municipal court, and thereby derogate from their independence. But a moment's reflection would show that he did not propose to subject the Nawab to the jurisdiction of a Court of Law—he only asked that the Executive Government should be guided in its decision in a most difficult judicial case by the best judicial advice available; indeed, it was a sufficient answer to say that the Nawab in his appeal to this House asked that a Commission might be appointed to hear his case, and he (Sir Charles Wingfield) knew his representatives in this country would gladly accept a reference of the case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as he proposed. But it might also be said that to adopt that course would be to restrict the exercise of the Sovereign and paramount power of the British Government over the feudatory
  776
  Princes which was so essential to the preservation of peace in India. Now, there would be force in this argument if the offence with which the Nawab was charged was one against the British Government; that was to say, if he had been accused of treason or disloyalty to the Government. In such a case the Government could allow no one but itself to be judge. But the offence with which he was charged was one against his own subjects; it was essentially a criminal, not a political offence. The distinction was clear, and in practice it would be always easy to draw the line. Lastly, it might be said that the authority of the Government of India would be weakened if the decisions of two Governors General and two Secretaries of State were to be submitted to review by even so high a body as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Now, in the first place, he demurred to the orders of the present Governors General and Secretaries of State in the appeal of the Nawab being treated as decisions. Naturally they would be averse to reversing the decisions of their predecessors. But, secondly, he emphatically protested against the doctrine that the authority of the Indian Government could be impaired by giving a man the opportunity, which had as yet been denied him, of defending himself against a charge on which he had been punished without a hearing, or by recognizing an injustice if he had sustained any. Ever since the assumption of the Government of India by the Crown, the chiefs and people of India had looked on Her Majesty as the authority to whom they could in last resort apply for the redress of grievances; and this feeling on their part was one to be encouraged rather than repressed, because it was a safety-valve against discontent and the sense of wrong, which, if denied a legitimate outlet, might ultimately find vent in insurrection. The doctrine that the Governor General must be supported at all risks, however questionable, or even indefensible, his act, was one which, if it could ever justly be maintained, was quite untenable at the present day, when education had given the upper classes a sense of their legal rights, and the freest criticism of the acts of the authorities was permitted in the public press, and it had, in fact, in numerous instances been set aside. He was informed that he could not, in accordance

  777
  with the forms of the House, move the Amendment of which he had given Notice; but he hoped Her Majesty's Government would not object to adopt it. So strongly, however, did he feel that the Nawab had not had fair treatment, and that, if his prayer to be allowed the hearing which had improperly been denied to him was refused, it would shake the confidence of the chiefs and gentry of India in the justice of the British nation, of which they entertained so high an opinion now, that if Her Majesty's Government refused to accept his Amendment, he should vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth, if he went to a division—as he hoped he would.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE moved the adjournment of the debate. The Motion had been brought forward under circumstances which made it impossible to discuss it fairly and fully, for there were papers bearing upon the case which were not yet before Parliament, and the right hon. Member for Devonshire (Sir Stafford Northcote), who shared part of the responsibility, was not now in the country, and therefore not in a position to offer any explanations to the House. The question was, whether the principles of justice had been maintained in the manner in which the inquiry was conducted, and he confessed that, on the face of it, it did seem hard that a Sovereign Prince should be dethroned on an inquiry conducted by a subordinate officer; but the whole question was so intricate and so difficult that it should not be decided upon while there was further information yet to be obtained with regard to it.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, that complaints had been made of the way in which the case of the Nawab had been tried; but the House was now trying the Member for North Devon, who was responsible for this matter, and was in a distant land on public business, and unable to answer for himself. He quite admitted that the Princes of India should feel that they could appeal to Parliament; but the House would do wrong unless they could discuss the question fully and carry it to an issue, and that could not be done in the absence of his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon.
  MR. BECKETT DENISONalso urged that the debate should be adjourned.
  Debate adjourned till Monday next.

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Resolution [May 11] reported;
  "That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty, the sum of £7,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  Resolution agreed to:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. BAXTER.
  House adjourned at a Quarter after One o'clock, till Monday next.