Commons Sitting of 30 July 1872

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolution [July 29] reported—NAVY ESTIMATES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Elementary Education (Elections) (No. 2)* [281].
Committee—Report—Military Forces Localisation (Expenses) [222]; Kensington Station and North and South London Junction Railway Act, 1859 (Repayment of Moneys)* [273].
Third Reading—Local Government Supplemental (No. 3)* [254]; Greenwich Hospital* [253]; Public Works Loan Commissioners (School Boards Loans)* [266]; Turnpike Trusts Arrangements* [256]; Local Courts of Record* [276], and passed.
Withdrawn—Registration of Births and Deaths* [272].
The House met at Two of the clock.

INTOXICATING LIQUOR (LICENSING) BILL.—QUESTION.
COLONEL CORBETTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, considering the very small progress made with the Intoxicating Liquor (Licensing) Bill on Saturday, he is still of opinion that that Bill can receive the consideration it demands at this advanced period of the Session?
MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, he was so far from considering the progress made on Saturday as unsatisfactory, that he believed the discussion which then occurred was more profitable than any that had yet occurred on the Bill. It was the first opportunity of testing the real opinion of the House on a most difficult question; and he thought very clear indications were given of what that opinion was. He therefore considered the greatest difficulty of the remaining portion of the Bill had been overcome. It was the intention of the Government to press the measure forward, and he had no doubt, with the good will of Parliament, the Bill would become law before the conclusion of the Session.
COLONEL BARTTELOTwished to know for what day the Bill would be fixed?
MR. BRUCEsaid, that would depend a good deal on the progress made with other Business to-day. He had very little doubt the Bill would come on on Thursday.

OPENING OF MUSEUMS ON SUNDAYS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. W. M. TORRENSasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whethere there exists any obstacle or objection to opening the Museums at South Kensington and Bethnal Green to the public on Sundays?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he must refer his hon. Friend to the answer he had formerly given on this subject. The Government, after due consideration, were not prepared to open Bethnal Green Museum on Sundays. That would involve a change of policy which, if adopted, must lead to the opening of the British Museum and other museums on that day. Undoubtedly, there was a feeling in the minds of some persons in favour of the opening of museums on Sundays; but there was also a very strong feeling on the part of others against the adoption of such a course. He had received an important deputation of representative working men on the subject, and they referred him to the last occasion when a decision was given by the House of Commons relative to the opening of the British Museum in 1856, when 376 voted against, and 48 for the opening of the Museum; 24,000 persons had petitioned in favour, and 629,000 against it. Whatever his individual opinion might be, his hon. Friend would see that with regard to the principle involved, it was not a matter on which they should change the policy of the country without having reason to believe that there had been a change of public opinion in regard to it.

CATTLE PLAGUE.—QUESTION.
LORD ELCHOwished to put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Committee of Council. Yesterday, he (Lord Elcho) received a telegram from the convener of his county, stating that carcases of cattle which had died of disease had been washed ashore on the coast. He communicated that information to his right hon. Friend, who informed him that his attention had been directed to the subject; that not several, but only one carcase had been washed ashore; and that an Inspector had been sent down to inquire into the matter. He (Lord Elcho) telegraphed the substance of that

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communication back to his own county, and this morning he had received a letter from the convener of his county which showed the dangers that would arise if careful precautions were not at once taken. The letter stated that since Friday night last the entrails and carcases of the diseased cattle killed at Leith had been coming on shore; that on Saturday no less than forty pieces of entrails, some intact, had been buried; that four carcases had come on shore that morning; and that the district was running a serious risk, especially as the cattle of the neighbourhood were in the habit of going to the links on the sea-shore at this season of the year and standing for hours in the water. He wished to know, whether the Government are taking any steps to guard against this very great danger, in consequence of the destroyed cattle which have been thrown overboard being washed ashore?
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he was very glad the question had been asked. The Government had done all that it was possible for them to do. They had informed the local authorities of the danger, and had acquainted them with the provisions of the Act. They had informed them also that the responsibility rested on the local authorities, and that though the Government were not responsible, they had sent down the two best Inspectors they had—Professor Simonds and Professor Browne—to give them advice, and to assist them as much as possible. He was sorry to hear the statement of the noble Lord, which, from its circumstantiality and detail, was in all probability correct. Three infected cargoes of cattle had come in—one at Newcastle, one at Leith, and one at Hull—and in each case the cattle plague was found on board. At Newcastle the Inspectors succeeded in persuading the local authorities to destroy the cattle with the greatest precautions at the port of landing. At Leith and at Hull there was very great difficulty in obtaining the destruction of the cattle, owing to the difficulty of burying the animals, and therefore the local authorities undertook to sink them in the sea, informing him that they had taken certain precautions to ensure the sinking of the lighters to which the condemned cattle were removed. If they had not taken those precautions he could only say that he very much regretted it. He had no
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doubt that Professor Simonds was warning the local authorities on the coast to guard against the animals that might come on shore, and to put the people of the neighbourhood on the qui vive. In the case of the cargo going to Deptford, an animal was thrown overboard on the high sea by the captain, and it was impossible for the Government to prevent such a proceeding as that, although the captain of the vessel ought not to have done so. There might be some danger of an animal so thrown overboard coming ashore on the coast of Essex; but he had requested the secretary of the Department to telegraph to the local authorities of the county to guard against that danger. There was no use in denying that the country was in danger from the cattle plague; or, at all events, that there would be an opportunity for testing the efficiency of the Act passed by Parliament. He might mention that there seemed to be a most extraordinary outbreak of disease in cattle in the East. Indeed, every vessel with cattle coming from Russia seemed to have the cattle plague on board. The import of cattle from that country would be entirely stopped in a day or two.
SIR JOHN HAYwished to know what precautions were taken with regard to disinfecting the vessels bringing suspected or diseased cattle, and whether they were prevented from carrying cattle coastwise as well as on foreign voyages?
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the greatest care was taken to disinfect them, and they were prohibited for three months from bringing cattle from unscheduled countries.
MR. NEWDEGATEwished to know if the vessels that took the diseased cattle out to sea, in order that they might be sunk, had been disinfected?
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not know the exact details of the case at Leith, but he believed that the same course was adopted there which was adopted at Hull. At Hull the animals, after being slaughtered, were put on board the lighters and towed out to sea, and the orders given were, that the lighters on board which the animals were placed should be sunk with them. Of course in such a case as that there was no necessity for disinfecting.

PARLIAMENT—BREACH OF PRIVILEGE—FICTITIOUS PETITIONS.
Special Report [22nd July] considered
MR. C. FORSTERrose to move that the Order of the 11th day of this instant July, "That the Petition of the Inhabitants of Manchester, Salford, and district, praying for alterations in Sale of Intoxicating Liquor (Licensing) Bill, do lie upon the Table," be read, and discharged, and that the said Petition be rejected. The hon. Gentleman said this was the third occasion during the last seven years that it had been his duty to make a special Report to the House upon a Petition. In the first case it was found that there were a number of forged signatures, and a Committee of Investigation was appointed, over which he had the honour to preside. That Committee brought home the forgeries to the guilty persons, and they were committed to Newgate for the remainder of the Session. That was at the beginning and not at the end of the Session, however; and in that case there was a clue to guide the Committee in their inquiries. But in in this case there was no clue, and as Parliament would very soon be prorogued, he felt that he should not be justified in proposing the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry, which would occasion some expenditure of time and labour, with no certainty that it would not be so much time and labour lost. At the same time, it would not be consistent with the dignity of Parliament to allow the matter to be passed over, and after much reflection, and taking counsel with the highest authorities, he was of opinion that the simplest and most convenient course would be to follow the precedent of the Halifax Petition in 1867, and to move that the Order be discharged and the Petition rejected. The present Petition had all the characteristics of the one from Halifax. In the case of the Halifax Petition there was a wanton invention of names, but not the use of forged signatures. No doubt, the House would be amused to hear some things in connection with the Petition, and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Home Department would be surprised to find that two of his Colleagues sitting on the Treasury Bench were opposed to the Bill, which he, in the name of the Government, was
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now endeavouring to pass into law, and that their names were appended to the Petition. The name of the Prime Minister appeared twice—first as "William Ewart Gladstone, Scotland," and next as "William Ewart Gladstone, London;" and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was irreverently described as "Bob Lowe," was also represented as a supporter of the Petition. Then followed the names of other Members of the House, including the hon. Member for the city of Kilkenny (Sir John Gray), the hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), the noble Lord the Member for Argyleshire (the Marquess of Lorne), the right hon. Member for Birmingham, who was described as "John Bright, of Anne Street, Manchester," and there also appeared the name of the Marquess of Hastings as M. P. for Oldham. There were also, he was sorry to say, some disgraceful signatures. According to the Return furnished by the Clerk to the Committee there were 117 fictitious names; but disgraceful as that was, he should not have moved its rejection had it not appeared on a close examination that more than half of the signatures were in the same handwriting. Under these circumstances, the House might fairly treat the Petition as a fraud, and follow the precedent which was set in the Halifax case. If it should be considered that this was a harsh measure with regard to the bonâ fide signatures, his reply must be that the promoters should have exercised greater caution in the choice of agents. He was not prepared to charge the promoters of the Petition with being cognizant of this fraud; for he had no doubt that in this as in other cases fly sheets had been entrusted to inferior agents, who were paid according to the number of signatures they obtained, and who, in order to secure the promised reward, had taxed their ingenuity to find names to make up the requisite number. Considering the large number of bonâ fide signatures attached to the Petition, if the parties were prepared to offer explanations with the view of getting the Petition restored, and should instruct any hon. Member to move for a Committee, he should not oppose the Motion, although he should decline to serve on the Committee. He denied the rumour that the Committee on Public Petitions had been led to examine this Petition at the instigation

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of the United Kingdom Alliance, and said their attention was directed to the supposed character of the Petition by the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Jacob Bright), who only discharged his duty in giving information respecting a Petition which came from his own constituency. It was scarcely necessary to say that if their attention had been drawn to Petitions on the other side of this question a similar course would have been pursued, for the Committee knew no distinction of parties. Having made their Report they desired now to leave the matter with the House, merely remarking that the sacred and constitutional right of petitioning would degenerate into a farce if such proceedings were allowed to pass unnoticed. The hon. Member concluded by moving the rejection of the Petition.
MR. JACOB BRIGHTsaid, it was on his suggestion that this Petition was examined, for finding that the Petition was suspected in Manchester he thought it fair to the promoters that inquiry should be made; and, on the other hand, he considered that it would be very unfair, if the Petition was dishonest, that the great constituency of Manchester should be misrepresented in that House. It was stated by one of the promoters at the Home Office that the Petition would have 91,000 signatures; whereas there turned out to be only 69,000. The promoters did not think proper to submit the Petition for presentation to one of the Members for Manchester and Salford, but asked the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) to present it. That hon. and learned Gentleman had been attacked most unfairly for the course he had taken, for he acted in perfect fairness. It might be observed from this Petition how difficult it was in Manchester to get a Petition numerously signed in favour of extending the hours for the sale of drink; because from the justices on the bench to the poorest man and woman in the streets, there was a general feeling that these hours should be limited, while very wide support was given to the Bill of the Home Secretary upon this question. He ventured to say that no evidence could be adduced to prove that the temperance people had tampered with this Petition.
COLONEL WILSON-PATTENregretted that the hon. Member (Mr. Jacob Bright)
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had introduced the question of the feeling of the town of Manchester on the subject-matter of the Petition, for this was merely a matter in which the credit of the House and of certain parties to the Petition was involved. He thought the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. C. Forster) had taken the proper course in moving simply that the Order should be discharged. At the same time, if the period of the Session had permitted he should have been in favour of an inquiry, for unless measures were taken to prevent the recurrence of cases of this kind the right of Petition would become a farce. He had received letters from the neighbourhood of Manchester intimating that the false signatures had not been affixed by the promoters, but by persons who differed from their views. He declined to accept that explanation, and he hoped the House would not receive any explanation of that kind. In a future Session it might be found proper to institute an investigation. There was often too much elasticity in the getting up of Petitions; but there had seldom been a grosser abuse than this.
MR. SERJEANT SIMONsaid, he had communicated with the hon. Members for Manchester and Salford before he presented this Petition, and he might explain that the promoters selected him, as they stated, because, having practised many years on the Northern Circuit, he was well known in Lancashire, and also because he represented what they regarded as a working-class constituency. The deputation whom he accompanied to the Home Secretary assured him that the greatest care had been exercised in getting up the Petition. In fact, no one could have supposed that men of such intelligence could have been so foolish as to send a Petition in this manner; and he believed still that those whom he saw knew nothing of these transactions. The moment his attention was called to these improper signatures he communicated with the parties, as he stated on a former occasion; and the statements in the letter to which he then referred he was bound to say remained wholly unsupported by any evidence. If an inquiry was instituted he should be happy to serve on the Committee and do all in his power to unravel the mystery and bring the offenders to the Bar of the House.
MR. WHEELHOUSEalluded to the means adopted in large towns to obtain signatures to monster Petitions, and mentioned a Sheffield Petition which he said had been improperly signed.
MR. CANDLISHexpressed a hope that this matter would not be allowed to drop, but that the subject would be brought before the House at the beginning of next Session. He wished to know whether the parties guilty of this gross offence were not answerable to criminal procedure for forgery?
MR. BRUCEreplied that there had been no attempt to defraud individuals, though undoubtedly this was an fraudulent abuse of the right of petitioning.
SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, that as his name had been attached to the Petition, he begged to assure the House that if he had put his signature to the document, it would not have been at a sober moment. He could not imagine a more gross outrage upon that House and the public than had been committed in this case, and regretted that the Committee on Public Petitions had not arrived at a different conclusion, or that the authorities of the House had not taken the matter in hand.
MR. BRUCEsaid, there could be no doubt that the attempt to deceive that House on points on which it was anxious to ascertain the wishes of the people was a very great offence. The adoption of the Motion would not preclude the House from appointing a Select Committee next Session, and he hoped that during the Recess some means would be taken of detecting the offenders.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered, That the Order of the 11th day of this instant July, that the Petition of the Inhabitants of Manchester, Salford, and district, praying for alterations in Sale of Intoxicating Liquor (Licensing) Bill, do lie upon the Table, be read, and discharged.
Ordered, That the Petition be rejected.

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

NAVY—NAVAL RESERVES—MANNING THE NAVY.—MOTION FOR ADDRESS.
MR. GRAVES, in rising to move—
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commission to inquire into the present means of manning the Navy, the keeping up of the requisite supply of men for the Naval Reserves, and to consider whether the services of the seamen of the Mercantile Marine and the seafaring population generally, might not be made more readily available for the Naval Service of the country in times of sudden emergency or war,"
said:—The House will probably remember that towards the close of last Session I submitted for its consideration a Motion similar in terms to the one I desire to propose to-day. The sense of the House was not then taken in consequence of an assurance given by the First Lord of the Admiralty that he would, on the responsibility of the Government, submit a scheme to Parliament this Session for dealing with the subject-matter of my Resolution. The assurance was conveyed in these words—
"I would suggest, therefore, that the hon Member for Liverpool should be content with the discussion which has arisen, and should not press his Motion to a division, being assured that the Government will attempt to deal with this matter, and will endeavour, on their own responsibility, to submit to Parliament a proposal in reference to it in the course of next Session. If the Government scheme shall be deemed inadequate, or if it shall be thought desirable to collect more information, it will then be in the power of the hon. Member to renew his Motion for a Commission."—[3 Hansard, ccvi. 1633.]
The right hon. Gentleman was then but two months in office. I felt his appeal was reasonable, and having the fullest confidence in his ability to grapple with the question in a large and comprehensive spirit, I accepted his proposal, though I did not doubt then, nor have I doubted since, that the course I suggested would probably prove the more valuable mode for guiding this House to a right conclusion. We are now very near the close of another Session, and as no scheme has been laid on the Table of this House, I have thought it right to afford the First Lord an opportunity of unfolding his scheme, in order that I might, if I deemed it inadequate, take the sense of the House on it at the opening of next Session. It is not my intention to-day to enter into the subject so minutely as I felt was necessary on a former occasion. I do not wish to oc-

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cupy the time of the House one moment longer than is necessary to put my views clearly before it; besides, the question is better understood, and there are indications that the public mind of the country is becoming more alive to the necessity of laying down a clearer and better defined policy as to what are the real requirements of the country—what, in fact, is sufficient for times of peace, and necessary for a great war; and having arrived at the best conclusions we can, then to base on that policy our naval and military expenditure, in place of resting our expenditure, as is our habit, on no settled principle, and without any consideration for the offensive and defensive requirements of the country. If we keep up great fleets and large armies through times of peace, the less thought we need give to our Reserves; but if, on the other hand, we aim at keeping down our annual expenditure on our Army and Navy, and still be ready for war—which we all know is the desire and the interest of the nation—then, I say, there is but one way of accomplishing this, and that is to have large Reserves trained, drilled, ready for the manning of our fleets, our gunboats, and our transports—Reserves which can be maintained through long years of peace in the ordinary industrial avocations of the country, and which can be relied on in periods of emergency. The experience of recent years clearly shows the policy of non-intervention which England has of late laid down for her general guidance is not a policy that leads to international friendships; on the contrary, it is calculated to weaken alliances. When the American struggle and the Franco-Prussian War terminated, we heard more or less dissatisfaction with England expressed by each of the contending parties; so I fear it ever will be, that a policy of non-intervention is regarded as a selfish policy, directly leading to isolation in the end; and we must not shut our eyes to the fact that the nation which adopts it must be prepared to rely upon her own resources and her own strong arm for resisting unaided every attack, come from what quarter it may. No one could have attended that remarkable gathering at Wimbledon a few days since and have witnessed the marvellous efficiency of the competitors, or the spirit which animated them, without feeling satisfied that with such Reserves our mili-
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tary strength is equal to any possible emergency. Now, what I desire to see is our naval power supported by Reserves which would be to the Navy what our Wimbledon Volunteers are to the Army. There is no reason why we should not have such Reserves. We possess a loyal, hardy, brave, seafaring population, just as able and willing to defend our shores as our citizen soldiers are our soil—a race living on and by the sea, capable of acquiring the same high efficiency in the working of large guns and gunboats as our Volunteers have shown in the use of field guns and rifles; and yet with such natural materials at hand we have made but sorry progress in utilizing them. We have, it is true, good reason for relying on our fleets for offensive and defensive purposes; they are powerful, and manned by the sons of the men who fought at Trafalgar; but we must not overlook the fact that a naval disaster now, come from what course it may—storm, accident to hull, or machinery, or an enemy—will be a much more serious event than when in past times half-a-dozen ships could be ordered home to refit without materially weakening the strength of a fleet. The disabling of a single ship may now decide the fate of a naval engagement. If we desire to feel absolute security to prevent the recurrence of periodical panics, and the lavish expenditure which invariably follows panics, we must pay greater attention to our Reserves. We must have a comprehensive and voluntary system of coast defence; we must have gunboats in every port and estuary that will undertake to man them; the boats are easily provided, they cost a comparatively small sum each, and can be built in a few months; the men who would man them are just as easily obtainable, but it will take time to drill and train them. At all our principal ports we have a large sea-going population of pilots, watermen, riggers, and naval pensioners; 150,000 or more fishermen surround our shores, familiar with every bank and channel, the set of every tide, and who, knowing every inch of the coast, would attach themselves to their gunboats, handle the heavy guns after a time as readily as they do their oars, and who could in the face of any pressing danger be relied on to fight in defence of their shores, though they might have a repugnance to leaving their own homes.

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If there are any who regard such a proposal as visionary or impracticable, they know but little of the resources of our ports, still less of the spirit which animates our seafaring population. It is only a few weeks since the First Lord vaguely intimated that if men could be found to work gunboats, the Government would not be indisposed to provide them. The mere suggestion was sufficient; a public meeting was held, and I understand sufficient men have volunteered to man four or five gunboats. A gentleman conversant with the spirit that animates the Scotch ports, writes me that in Dundee alone there would be no difficulty in creating a naval brigade for local purposes of 400 to 500 men; and the marine superintendent of a leading railway—himself a distinguished naval officer—writes me in reference to my proposal—
"The expense of this, the first step towards a complete system of coast defence would be trifling, excepting the first cost of the boats, and would, I think, suffice to protect each place against anything but an organized attack. Take, for instance, this district, with a gunboat stationed at Beaumaris, Amlwch, Holyhead, and Carnarvon, a glance at the chart will show you that under almost any circumstances, at least two of these could be concentrated in a very short time, and in narrow waters would prove a formidable foe to any sea-going vessel. Were the boats provided, I could easily organize such a force in my establishment as would suffice to protect this harbour from any ordinary attack by sea. No doubt, many companies trading from other ports could do the same, and the trifling outlay necessary to keep the vessels from rusting would be well repaid by the additional security to property in the event of war. At present, we have no means of resisting the attack of even a steam-launch."
From other quarters I have received the same assurances, and I am persuaded that if we can but induce Her Majesty's Government to utilize by a comprehensive scheme the unrivalled resources which we possess round our shores, they would be consulting the best interests of the country. The steady diminution which is taking place in our Reserves generally cannot fail to attract the attention of the most casual observer. It is, in fact, the strong point of my case. The Manning Commission, which sat in 1861, was composed of some of our ablest statesmen; the present Secretary of State for War was the Chairman; there were also distinguished naval officers upon it, and Members of this House. In the Report of this Commission will
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be found four important recommendations—That Coastguard service afloat and ashore should be 12,000; it is now 4,252. That the Royal Coast Volunteers should be kept up to 10,000; they are now reduced to 1,517. That the Royal Naval Reserve, composed of the best seamen in the Mercantile Marine, should be instituted, with a limit of 31,000. This force was over 16,000 in 1869, 15,000 in 1870, 13,500 when I last spoke on the subject, and is to-day 12,400. But perhaps the most important feature in the Report was that at all our principal ports training-ships should be established, in which the carefully-selected, robust youths of the country should be trained conjointly for the Navy and the Mercantile Marine services. We are to-day without a single ship for such a purpose, nor have we one receiving the slightest aid from the Admiralty. It is true the Admiralty has organized a very extensive, and I must say admirable, system for the recruiting of its own seamen, and the result is the seamen of the Navy have kept pace with the highly-skilled requirements of our ships, and in physique, discipline, training, and intelligence cannot be surpassed. The boys thus trained are only sufficient to keep up the normal strength of the Navy, which is now about 18,000 blue-jackets—just a sufficient number to man our ships in periods of profound peace. For sudden and prolonged emergencies we have, therefore, to rely on our Reserves, and it is for this reason it has always appeared to me that their quality and strength were just as deserving of attention as the number and strength of the Forces we relied on to resist the first shock of war, and yet the condition of the Mercantile Marine, or the mode by which it is recruited, has received but small consideration at the hands of any Government since that Commission reported. We had in our Mercantile Marine, in 1865,197,000 of all grades, and it was then shown by official Re-turns that 72,000 of this number were A.B.'s. It is much to be regretted that the Board of Trade discontinued the separation, for we have no Returns of later date; but as in 1870 the total number was 195,000, or 2,000 less than in 1865, though the tonnage in that time has increased, I am warranted in saying there were not more than 72,000

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A.B.'s in 1870—I believe it to have been much less, for the scarcity of seamen was never greater than this year. The average annual drain is estimated by the best authorities at 16,000. Now, how is this drain met? About 5,000 boys enter annually as they best can; the residue is made up by the introduction of foreign seamen and landsmen. The latter, from their ages and habits, are incapable of becoming useful seamen; while the former, not being British subjects, are ineligible for Her Majesty's Navy, and are consequently valueless as Reserves, though they might, and no doubt would, be useful in the defence of their own flags. Various means have been taken to arrive at the precise number of foreigners in our service. The last official Return puts it down at 19,000, I think; but it is notorious that the great bulk of the foreign element is to be found in the A.B. class. It is not too much to assume that 20 per cent of our A.B.'s are foreigners. A close observation leads me to believe that the proportion is far greater, notwithstanding that some official Returns would show the contrary. There will always be great difficulty in getting at the exact truth, as we find from experience that England is claimed as the birthplace of foreigners in nearly every ship. To test the point fairly, I recently asked the marine authorities at Liverpool to take the last 50 sailing vessels and the last 50 steamers in foreign trade entering or leaving that port, to give me the number of A.B.'s, and how many of them were foreigners. Here is the result—In the 50 sailing vessels 375 A.B.'s were shipped, 224 of whom were British subjects, 151 being foreigners. In the 50 steamers there were 671 A.B.'s, 541 of whom were British subjects and 130 foreigners. Then if we take the crews discharged in the last 50 steamers, there were 653 A.B.'s paid off, 548 of whom were British subjects and 105 foreigners; while in the last 50 sailing ships there were 409 A.B.'s paid off, 277 of whom were British and 132 foreign; or, in all, 1, 590 British A.B.'s and 518 foreign, showing close to 30 per cent of foreign element in the blue-jackets of our Mercantile Marine. I have shown the result of the mode of recruiting the Royal Navy. I have over and over again asked that the same may be applied to the Mercantile Ma-
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rine, so far without much success. I hope it will not be asked in vain to-day. It is not that we have not the lads; it is not that there is no demand. We have had recently in our midst a gathering of men distinguished for the interest they take in the welfare of mankind. From one we heard how the unemployed children of the City and State of New York were, after being educated, turned into useful citizens by being removed to the Western prairies, where they found unlimited employment, congenial to their tastes. It is true we have no Western prairies to which we may send our neglected youth; but we have ocean prairies just as unlimited and as valuable, and yet we see this remarkable state of things, that not one shilling of State money is given to the support or education of the children of the virtuous poor in training ships. They are absolutely ignored. The responsibility of the Government has so far been shared only by the reformatory or the industrial school ships, excellent institutions in their way; but if we are to raise the morale of the Mercantile Marine to that of the Navy, we must recruit from the same classes. I showed last year that the cost of educating boys for the Royal Navy was about £60 a-head, as contrasted with £20, the average cost per head in charitable training ships. I urged that some scheme should be devised for a common education; that boys for both services might be educated in the same ship; that the Admiralty should select the most suitable, the Mercantile Marine adopting the remainder; the expense of the former to be borne by the Naval Estimates, the latter by the mercantile fund—a fund created by shipping. I tried to show the scheme of recruiting for the Navy, though admirably adapted to times of peace, was simple isolation in times of war. I asked that the lads might be brought up together, and thus by early intercourse and association in time bring about a more perfect union between both services; and I suggested that the youth there trained for the Mercantile Marine should become members of a cadet Reserve. The House will probably expect that I should explain why the Reserves have dwindled down from 16,000 to 12,000—if I had said squeezed out by impracticable legislation, I should best describe the process which is at work;

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and unless we can arrest it, we may rely on it we shall soon hear the question asked in this House, if trying to maintain a force annually falling into decay is not a waste of public money. The raising of the standard of height to 5 feet 5 inches—a greater height by half, if not an inch, than is to be found in the average of Her Majesty's ships—has been attended with the most mischievous results, and has excluded some of our best men, including 10 years' service men, from the Navy. This, happily, has been recently altered; but other as objectionable regulations remain. Take the case of men wishing to rejoin after five years' service; they have, perhaps, just returned from a 12 months' voyage; they are asked questions as to drill, which, if they do not answer correctly, they are refused re-entry; whereas, if these men were allowed to put in their month's drill they would have instantly passed. Now, it is not easy to see why these men should be put in a worse position than if they were entering for the first time, when training would have preceded, not followed, questions as to minute points of drill. Then this sea service is left undefined, and is regulated by the whim or caprice of the selecting officer. Some construe it as meaning foreign sea service in large square-rigged vessels, others admit coasting seamen, and we have instances of men being received with five years' service in ferry-boats and fishing craft. This should be altered, discretion should be done away with, and in time no one should be admitted to the Naval Reserves except through the second class. Then, very eligible men are refused because they have not been to sea for two years immediately preceding their offering to join. Now, it is well known, the ambition of most seamen is to marry, and get employment on shore, generally in connection with shipping. They are in most cases the steady, thrifty sailors. We have in all our large ports this class of men living by rigging, shifting, handling ships of all sizes and in all weathers, and yet they are not eligible, though the very men, it seems to me, we should select for a Reserve, being thorough seamen and always on the spot. There is one more illustration I should like to give. Members of the Force are prohibited from going round the Capes to India or the West Coast of South America, unless
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they have put in their 28 days' drill. It is clear the possibility of men being able to make these voyages every three or four months through the Suez Canal or the Straits of Magellan could not have been realized by the framers of these rules. The men regularly make three trips in the year, and they should be allowed to put in their drill any time in the year, just as men are allowed to do who go in sailing ships to ports north of the equator, occupying more time. A Second Class Reserve was created some two or three years since by my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers). It was limited in the first instance to 5,000. Seven men joined the force the first year, and 17 the next. Now, why is this? Simply, bad regulations again. The age is too limited—not less than 18 or more than 20; the height is too great—5 feet 5 inches. They must be able to hand, reef, and steer, know marks on leadline, and box the compass, and they must speak English. Now, there are thousands of our seafaring population who can reef a fore-and-aft sail who could not reef a topsail; there are still more who could steer with a tiller and yet not know port from starboard on a wheel, and there is even a larger class who could navigate any gunboat round our coasts, and tell to a foot the depth of water in every channel in the localities from whence they come, and yet not be able to box the compass, or read off at first sight the marks in a leadline. Then as to speaking English, it is not easy to see at first sight the force of a rule which excludes many Irish, Welsh, and, I might add, Scotchmen. Then as to enrolment, there are only seven places where they can be enrolled and drilled, while there are 130 places where the men of the First Reserve can be entered, and 44 where they can be drilled. A man residing at Aberdeen, wishing to join the Second Reserve, must go to Leith; a man in London to Harwich; and a man in Bristol to Weymouth. A man to be eligible must have been three years at sea, and one year as an ordinary. All this should be altered. Able, smart young men, who have followed a seafaring life fitting them for the handling of gunboats, likely to become good gunners, are the class we want for such a Reserve, and if we were only permitted to have a workable scheme there would

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be no more difficulty in getting 17,000 of these than the 17 who enrolled last year. If to these two Reserves were added or embraced reserves for boys trained in our training-ships and the Naval Coast Brigade, which I have referred to, we should have springing out of the loyalty of the people, and supported at a very moderate cost, Reserves that would make this country impregnable. Had I not been afraid of trespassing on the valuable time of the House, I would have shown the opinion entertained by our highest naval authorities of the efficiency and quality of the men who compose our Naval Reserve and the necessity of maintaining it. I will only give one opinion—the opinion of the Prime Minister himself when at Sunderland some years since in addressing the Reserve. Mr. Gladstone, on the 9th October, 1862, said—
"I hope you will not think I use the words of idle compliment when I state that I have seen nothing in the whole course of my most deeply interesting visit to the North of England with greater interest and satisfaction than your body gathered on this occasion. I do not believe that, among all the measures that have been taken by the Government, or suggested for the purpose of national defence, a wiser suggestion has ever been made or better measures adopted than the incorporation of the Royal Naval Reserve. It is a measure in its spirit essentially pacific, and at the same time it is a measure, as we know perfectly well from the experience of last winter, which has proved to be quite effective."
There is just one point which I would wish to think on before I close. It may be argued that our naval power is so much more concentrated now in strength as to require fewer men to man our fleets—an argument the validity of which I agree in; but I would remind the House that the reduction of men has taken place, for when the Commission sat we had over 30,000 blue-jackets afloat, and we have to-day but 18,000. We have discounted this phase of the question. Then, if it is said why not follow the same principle of reduction with our Reserves, the case is entirely different. We have, since the Manning Commission made their moderate recommendations, nearly doubled the value of the national interests at stake; our available personal resources have likewise increased, and our ability to bear the moderate necessary expenditure requisite for perfect defence is increased to a still more remarkable extent; and I entertain the opinion that just as we
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concentrate our naval power, so we require larger Reserves for manning the hundreds of ships which in one shape or other will have to be commissioned to supplement the limited number of our ironclads, to follow fleets, and protect our immense commerce all over the globe. Thus far the Naval Reserves have been Nobody's Child, unless it be one who spent his life in pressing the necessity of them on successive Administrations—I mean the late Captain Brown. His successor, Mr. Mayo, the Registrar General of Seamen, has rendered, perhaps, equal service in his efforts to keep up the Force; but however great individual efforts may be, they cannot succeed in the face of such adverse influences as I have described. There should be more encouragement given. Deserving members of the Force might be appointed as boatmen in Her Majesty's Customs, the Coastguard might be open to them, and the privileges of Greenwich Hospital extended to them. The officers selected for charge of the Reserves should be men specially suited for winning the confidence of the officers and men of the Reserve. What have the officers done for our Volunteers on shore? Do we not owe much of the success of that remarkable movement to the interest taken by the officers, many of them of high rank and great social influence? The Naval Reserve lacks this element to popularize it. Amongst the members of the Royal Family is a naval officer distinguished in his profession, full of zeal for the service, and of deserved popularity. Let His Royal Highness be invited to identify himself with the Naval Reserves, and we shall soon see where the real strength of England lies. We should obtain Reserves for manning the fleet and for coast defences, which alike would prevent the recurrence of discreditable panics, as they would be equal to any emergency—Reserves not resting on conscription or impressment, but on the loyalty and patriotism of a free people. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving an Address to Her Majesty.
MR. T. BRASSEYrose to second the Motion. He considered that the Naval Reserve was a valuable addition to the resources of the country, and the result of inquiries which he had had the opportunity of making in London led him to support the suggestions made by the

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hon. Gentleman. He was of opinion that the Reserve constituted a valuable link between the Navy and the Mercantile Marine, and if there was any want of efficiency in the Reserve he would attribute it in part to the obsolete nature of the greater part of the guns supplied to the drill ships. He also thought that something might be done by pecuniary inducements to stimulate the interest of seamen in their drill. At the present time a uniform retainer was paid to all seamen in the Reserves, irrespective of their efficiency, conduct, or attendance at drill. If it was possible to modify the present terms of the retainer with regard to those who were in future enrolled in the force—if the minimum was fixed at £5, rising by steps to £7, it would be a stimulus to attention to drill. The age of the men in the First Class Naval Reserve required consideration. The maximum limit for age in the First Class was fixed at 30 years, which seemed unnecessarily low, and he thought it might be advantageously advanced to 35. In 1869 there were only 477 seamen above the age of 40 in the Reserve, which numbered more than 16,000 men. That proved conclusively that the Naval Reserve would under any circumstances, and under all possible regulations, be constituted of the younger seamen of the Mercantile Marine. They might very safely relax many of the regulations which now applied to the drill and enrolment of seamen in the Reserve without losing any important guarantee for efficiency. But it was said that the substitution of steam for sailing ships had done something to diminish the nursery for seamen. Even in sailing ships the proportion of seamen to the tonnage was considerably diminished of late years. In 1854 the number of seamen employed to 100 tons of shipping was 4·17, and that proportion was reduced at the present time to 3·75; so that it was clear that if there was even the same tonnage of sailing ships, they did not furnish the same nursery for seamen which formerly existed. He fully believed that it was possible that the difficulty of recruiting for the Naval Reserve might continue, and he earnestly recommended to the Admiralty that additional means of recruiting for that force should be considered. It was universally admitted that the training in the Navy was most excellent. One ob-
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jection was the great expense, and if, therefore, anything was to be done in the direction of training seamen for the Naval Reserve it was necessary to adopt some cheaper plan. It had occurred to him, in thinking over the subject of recruiting, that it would be possible to revive the old and very valuable practice of taking the apprentices of merchant ships. It was true that compulsory apprenticeships had been abolished with the repeal of the navigation laws; but it would be possible to give the owners of sailing ships a bonus for taking an apprentice, the bonus to be paid on suitable conditions—namely, that the ships should be proper sailing ships; that the proportion of apprentices should be limited—one to every 100 tons; that the bonus should be limited to £5; that the ships be approved of; that the apprentices should be selected by an officer appointed by the Admiralty and the Board of Trade, and indentured to the Registrar of Seamen for a period of four years; and that there should be a condition that these young seamen, having completed their apprenticeship, should serve for a year in the Navy, and afterwards pass into the Naval Reserve. It might be said that in proposing such a plan he was merely proposing in a circuitous form, that a present should be made to shipowners; but he did not think that view should be taken of his suggestion. Training on board a sea-going ship would be more valuable than training in a stationary ship, and it would be less costly to the State than the education of young seamen in stationary vessels, in which they could not be usefully employed in commerce. Turning from the recruitment of seamen to the question of the officers, he did not think that any doubt needed to be entertained as to the facility of obtaining officers. In ships like the Conway and Worcester a large number of young men were being educated—the sons of officers of both services, clergymen, and merchants—and all they had to do was to fit these young men as officers for the Reserve, and complete what had been well begun. He would suggest that there should be on board the Excellent or Cambridge a school for education in gunnery for the special advantage of the officers of the Naval Reserve. They had done the same thing for their forces on shore, and why should they not do it for their

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Naval Reserves? It might perhaps be thought that officers of merchant ships would not be capable of maintaining discipline on board large vessels; but when the Great Eastern was employed in laying deep-sea cables she had on board a crew of a first-class frigate, but still there had been no difficulty in maintaining discipline there. He believed also that the establishment of a Naval College would be of great advantage in reference to matters of this hind. He thought that the suggestion that they should educate a staff of inspecting officers for the Reserve was most valuable, because, in his opinion, the Reserves had suffered much from this want. The supervision of our Reserve Forces had been really committed to a post captain in the Navy; but if there were inspection by an Admiral of high position it would undoubtedly ensure an improved organization, and a more ready deference to suggestions for improvements in connection with the Reserves. The regulations bearing upon that subject were framed 12 years ago, and they now required alteration to adapt them to the present circumstances. He hoped that the Motion would command the hearty support of the House.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commission to inquire into the present means of manning the Navy, the keeping up of the requisite supply of men for the Naval Reserves, and to consider whether the services of the seamen of the Mercantile Marine, and the seafaring population generally, might not be made more readily available for the Naval Service of the Country in times of sudden emergency or war,"—(Mr. Graves,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. GOSCHENentirely agreed with the views that had been expressed as to the importance of Reserves to this country. He also agreed that the subject ought not to be neglected, or bandied about between different Departments; but he was also confident that the question of the Naval Reserve had not been neglected; but had constantly occupied the attention of the Admiralty
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and of the Board of Trade. The regulations which had been framed might have been too stringent; but this had resulted not from any want of regard to the Naval Reserve, but from a desire to ensure the efficiency of the force. The greatest attention had been devoted to framing these regulations. The House would not fail to distinguish between the two parts of the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves), one of which related to the Royal Navy, and the other to the Mercantile Marine. He spoke of a falling-off in the Reserve, and in another important part of his speech he referred to a falling-off in the number of men in the Mercantile Marine. Now, these two questions, though having a bearing upon each other, were in many ways distinct. It might be held to be the duty of the Government to see that we had an efficient Navy, and that we should secure to ourselves the most valuable portion of the Mercantile Marine Force as a Reserve for the Navy. But it had been said that not only were we bound to see that we had sufficient sailors for our own Fleet, and to see also that we could secure out of the Mercantile Marine the best materials which it contained, but that, further, it was the duty of the Government and the State to assist the increase in the numbers of the men of the Mercantile Marine. The hon. Member said that year after year he had brought this falling-off in the number of sailors before the House, and that the matter was treated with unconcern. It had, in fact, not been so treated; but the House did not think it was the duty of the State to produce sailors for the Mercantile Marine. No doubt, it was most important that we should have a good supply of sailors, just as, in many other professions, a good supply of skilled men was essential to the interest of the country; but although the hon. Member met with some support in putting forward his views on that point—that it was the duty of the State to educate sailors for the Mercantile Marine, he felt confident that opinion would not commend itself to the country at large.
MR. GRAVESwished to explain that what he had said was that so long as the Navy rested upon the Mercantile Marine for its Reserves, so long the community had an interest in keeping up the Mercantile Marine.
MR. GOSCHEN: No doubt, they had an interest in it; but the question was whether the shipowners, because we might require a certain proportion of their sailors, were to call upon the Government to increase the number of men in the Mercantile Marine. If he wished to argue, in a narrow spirit, he should say that it would be more economical to the State to double the inducements as regarded the Reserve than to set about educating sailors for the Mercantile Marine. The hon. Member asked why the system which answered so well in the Royal Navy training ships should not be also applied to the Mercantile Marine, and that under State superintendence; which meant that as they trained for the Royal Navy 3,500 boys per annum, they should be called upon to undertake to train on board training ships the almost unlimited number of sailors which the hon. Member wished to see enrolled in the Mercantile Marine. But had shipowners no means of increasing the number of sailors for the Mercantile Marine? If they improved their ships and increased the wages paid, supply and demand would soon cause the deficiency to be met, as it would do in any other walk of life. Surely, it was not the duty of the Government to say because they required a certain proportion of sailors, they should increase the number of the Mercantile Marine. What he ventured to say from an Admiralty point of view was this—they were willing to make an arrangement with the Mercantile Marine, by which they would get a certain reciprocal advantage; but what he should object to was to train for the Mercantile Marine sailors, without any security that those sailors would be enrolled in the Reserve. He did not at all say that they would not be prepared to concur in an arrangement that would have this effect—that they should pay by results; that when a certain number of those who had been trained in the training ships should afterwards enrol themselves in the Reserve, and present themselves annually as members of that force, the State should pay a certain sum for the training of boys in training ships. This, he should say, would be a fair arrangement; but the Government would be afraid of contributing to the training ships without knowing whether the boys would enter the Reserve at all. The hon. Member for Liverpool said that he be-
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lieved they would enter the Reserve; but the Government would wish to see that they could ensure such an advantage. Whether they should obtain such an advantage or not would depend mainly upon the shipowners—that was, whether they would permit the boys to go for their 28 days' drill a-year; or whether they would be so short-sighted as to say that this would be inconvenient, and that they would prefer to take those who had not entered into any such engagements. It really would rest more with the shipowners than the Government; and it was only by the cordial co-operation of the shipowners that the Government could hope to develop a large Reserve. If the shipowners would take boys who were in the Reserve, then it might be possible for the Government not to take training ships under their supervision, but, at all events, to pay for results. The hon. Member alluded to training ships without contemplating any such engagement on the part of boys to enter the Reserve. If there was no such engagement—if the public service was not to be any security that the boys would enter either the Reserve or the Navy, then the question could not be discussed as one between the Admiralty and the shipowners, but it must be regarded as one between the shipowners and the Board of Trade. If the shipowners wished to have training ships to increase the number of boys to enter the service, it was for them and the Board of Trade to devise a plan; and there were few subjects which had occupied the attention of the President of the Board of Trade more seriously; indeed, he was prepared with a plan, but the success of it would depend greatly upon the shipowners themselves. The indirect advantage to the State would not be sufficient to induce the State to undertake the education of sailors. There must be a direct advantage to the State in the ability to get hold of the boys so educated; and if the shipowners wished in any way to tax themselves to secure training ships for the education of sailors for the Mercantile Marine, they would obtain every co-operation from the Board of Trade. Existing training ships had been established not for the purpose of increasing the numbers of the Mercantile Marine, but with charitable and philanthropic motives, for the benefit of the boys rather than of the service, Some

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of the training ships took criminals, others took destitute boys who had been saved from the streets, and the remainder were supplied from different classes. The gentlemen who had established these training ships had no doubt done great service to the State; but he did not know that the boys, considering that they were discharged at an early age and were of inferior physique, would be very suitable for the Navy or the Mercantile Marine; and this formed one of the great difficulties in the way of utilizing the existing training ships. The boys were taken young, and the object was that they should pass out of the training ships at an early age—that was, at an age at which boys were taken into the Government training ships. If the Government should take these boys they would have to train them over again. If there were training ships in which the boys were kept until a later age, so that they might more nearly approach the age at which they passed out of Government training ships, and if they turned out an article fit for use in the public service, he should be prepared to contribute to these training ships in proportion to the results achieved. The Government would only be too ready to avail itself of such co-operation, but there must be some direct advantage; there must be a means of securing that the boys who had been trained did actually enter the Reserves of the Navy; and for such results the Government would be prepared to pay. At present, they could get these boys without paying any contribution; but they were desirous to encourage the training ships, if they knew that the boys were sufficiently advanced to be of real use; and he wished to impress this most seriously upon shipowners, that the plan might succeed if they would spare the boys the necessary time for drilling, so as to make them valuable for the Navy, and not adopt the shortsighted policy of preferring boys who were not under that liability. This was what he had to say upon that part of the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool which related to training ships. The hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. T. Brassey) suggested that the State should pay a bonus of £5 to shipowners for conveying and training boys in their ships; but he (Mr. Goschen) did not quite catch whether the plan was to apply only to a certain limited num-
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ber of boys, whether they should join the Reserve, or whether it was to be generally a plan for training for the Merchant Navy. [Mr. T. BRASSEY said that, in the first instance, he intended it as an experiment.] But what would prove the success of the experiment? He thought that it was a questionable proposal. With respect to the existing Reserves, and the proposals for increasing them, there was much that fell from the hon. Member for Liverpool with which he (Mr. Goschen) concurred, and the more so as many of the suggestions which he had placed very clearly and succinctly before the House were suggestions that had been made by the Board of Trade to the Admiralty, and were now under consideration. The suggestion that a Royal Prince should be brought into connection with the Reserves was one that the Board of Trade had made some weeks ago, and it was now under discussion between the two Departments; but it would be premature further to enter upon the matter before the whole scheme had been developed and placed before the House. The hon. Member had spoken with regard to no Commission having been appointed; but he (Mr. Goschen) ventured to think that if a Commission had been appointed they would not have been so far advanced as they were at that moment. He stated this, partly because steps had been already taken, and because the question was not in reference to the collection of information, but rather to determine the principles of the policy upon which they should act, and such a question was more for the House of Commons and for the Government than a Royal Commission. Suppose that they came to a conclusion either to subsidize training ships, or to pay £5 for each boy carried under certain circumstances by shipowners, then there would be a chance of the scheme being carried out by the House; but if a Royal Commission should deal with the question and report, experience showed that their plans would require to be worked out over again in the House of Commons, and in the responsible Departments. It was upon these grounds, therefore, that he said that this matter was now really more advanced than it would have been if there had been a Royal Commission. The hon. Member for Liverpool had commented severely upon

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various regulations of the service. There should be, he said, three different forces in connection with the Navy in the same way as there was in connection with the Army. These were the members of the Royal Navy proper, the Reserve Forces, and the hon. Member had suggested a plan for having Volunteers. The Royal Naval Reserve corresponded with the Militia of the Army rather than with the Volunteers, and they had no Volunteers at present in connection with the Navy. The hon. Member said it would be a great thing if the Navy could get the advantage of the Volunteer movement the same as the Army had. He spoke somewhat reproachfully of the Admiralty, that they did not organize a force like that which was lately at Wimbledon. But what was the history of the Volunteer Force in connection with the Army? The movement originated voluntarily and not by Government initiating it; no Volunteer Force could be commenced by Government; the movement must come from outside, and all that the Government could do was to show willingness to meet the proposals when made. He had stated over and over again, that there was every inclination on the part of the Government to assist a Naval Volunteer movement at the various mercantile ports. The Admiralty had at present under consideration the rules which would be applicable if the scheme were carried out; but the mere promulgation of those rules would not suffice to call into existence a Volunteer Force, which could only be created by the efforts of Gentlemen like the hon. Member for Liverpool and the great shipowners in the various ports. Men like that must take up the Volunteer movement if it were in any way to succeed. Every facility in the shape of gunboats and means for training would be given to the Volunteers by the Admiralty, as soon as they had the necessary guarantees that the corps likely to be formed were of sufficient importance to justify them in taking such a step. The hon. Member (Mr. Graves) had stated that when this movement was first spoken of in Liverpool, the number of men who volunteered was sufficient to man three or four gunboats. He believed the number was between 70 and 80; but although he was very glad to hear of this, he must remark that, thus far, the leading shipowners in Liverpool had not
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taken part in the movement. However, he could assure the hon. Member that if there were any indications of the spirit spreading which he said now existed, he would find every disposition on the part of the Government to organize the force. One of the great difficulties connected with a Volunteer Force in the Navy was owing to the fact that the training required a greater degree of consecutive attention at one time than it did on land. Again, the Naval Volunteers would have to go longer distances in order to join their gunboats than their brethren ashore had to travel. It was, however, for the great seaport towns to determine whether the scheme could be carried out. The hon. Member for Liverpool had not sufficiently dwelt on the fact that we required Reserves of two kinds—namely, sea-going Reserves and Reserves to defend our coasts. Most of the hon. Member's remarks were upon the Reserves for our home defence; whereas, hitherto the main desire of successive Boards of Admiralty had been to make the Reserves efficient for manning our ships of war for any kind of service, and most of the regulations relating to that branch of the service had been framed with a view to exclude the temptation of including nominally on paper a number of men who might be useful in smooth water, but who would prove inefficient if called upon to serve in sea-going men-of-war. The bounty of a £6 retainer and £4 per year for a month's drill were very high terms, and wore likely to draw such men into the service; but it would be a source of great dissatisfaction to the House and a great disappointment to the country, if there should be a larger number on paper than were actually capable of manning ships in time of war. They must therefore make up their minds what Reserves they intended to use for their sea-going ships, and what Reserves should be employed at home. The present Royal Naval Reserve numbered between 12,000 and 13,000 men, and the Admiralty were most anxious to relax the regulations in every way possible, if they could secure under them the flower of our seamen for manning our ships in time of war. There were many fishermen and other persons engaged in various trades on our coasts who were anxious to be enrolled, and who would be serviceable in smooth water; but they ought not to be enrolled promiscuously with the First

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Royal Naval Reserve. The hon. Member for Liverpool had remarked that the term "sea service" was too vague; but the definition was what the words implied—namely, that they should he men fit to go to sea, and that riggers, and many other classes, who were not fit to go to sea, should not be enrolled in the First Royal Naval Reserve. [Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE said, that riggers always had been termed seamen.] Many of them had been a long time on shore, and some of them were too old to go aloft. Many elderly people who were competent to be riggers would not be able to go aloft. The Admiralty had looked through the regulations for the First Royal Naval Reserve with the greatest anxiety, with a view to relaxing every unnecessary severity. They had reduced the height from 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 3 inches, and offered greater facilities for enrolment. For instance, it had been arranged that the men should not be compelled to go to be surveyed to a ship where there was a medical officer, but that they might be engaged more locally, so as to remove the difficulty of their having to travel considerable distances. The number of places where the men of the First Royal Naval Reserve could be enrolled was 130, and there were 46 places where they could drill. He did not know that he could hold out to the hon. Member much hope of relaxing the regulations, beyond what he had stated as regards the First Royal Naval Reserve; but he was able to state that the Admiralty, having reconsidered the whole subject of the Second Reserve, proposed to make new regulations, which he hoped would succeed in the direction which the hon. Member and himself equally desired. The limit of age, instead of being from 18 to 20 years, as at present, would in future be from 18 to 23, or perhaps 25 years. There were now nine district training ships for the Second Class Reserve, and the men had to be drilled for 28 consecutive days in each year, and to live on board ship for that period. It was believed this requirement—that the men should live on board the ship, had practically caused the scheme to break down. Besides, the places to which the men could go were too few. It was, therefore, now proposed to put the Second Class Reserve on a different footing, and to make it similar to the First Reserve, but with less strin-
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gent regulations as to sea service. It would be composed of younger men and would be, as it were, a less picked force than the First Reserve. In this way, he hoped to be able to secure the advantage of largely increased numbers in the Second, while preserving the high character of the First Reserve. Instead of having to go to the nine district ships, the men of the Second Reserve would be enrolled at the 130 stations, and drilled at the 46 stations of the First Royal Naval Reserve. Again, the men would be permitted to take their 28 days' drill at any period of the year which might best suit their convenience, and 28 consecutive days of drill on board ship would only be required in order to qualify them to pass into the First Reserve. The House would see that under these arrangements we might be able to reach a class of men who were excluded by the present regulations. If a Volunteer Force could be created, he should much prefer it for coast defence. The old system of Coast Volunteers was believed to have broken down, because the men were obliged to serve for 28 consecutive days on board a ship. It would be much easier, he believed, to create and organize the force if the gunboats went in search of the Volunteers, than if the Volunteers were compelled to go to the different stations in search of the gunboats. And by judicious arrangements an amply sufficient number of men might, he believed, be secured. He could assure the hon. Member for Liverpool that he and his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade had not been so busy that they had not been able to give their best attention to this subject, and to go thoroughly into it. In the course of the autumn they would continue their investigation, and, by communication with shipowners and by getting information at all the ports, they hoped to be able to ascertain practically which of the two schemes he had sketched out—the Volunteer scheme, and the scheme for a local paid defence—would be most likely to attract good men in sufficient numbers. His right hon. Friend had, in addition, a scheme of his own with regard to the Mercantile Marine, at which he was working separately. Under these circumstances, the hon. Member for Liverpool, he trusted, would not think it necessary to press his Motion to a division. The House fully re-

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cognized the importance of the subject, and the great attention which the hon. Member had paid to it. Indeed, he believed such speeches as those delivered by the hon. Member for Liverpool, the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. T. Brassey), and others, would have quite as much effect in promoting the success of this new system of Reserve as the appointment of a Royal Commission.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, the establishment of a Royal Naval Reserve had been a work of great difficulty. They had started with 400 or 500 men. In four years they reached 5,000, and afterwards they increased to 16,000; but since then it had dwindled down to 12,000. He was inclined to think that by modifying the regulations in the manner described by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty the number might be again increased to 16,000 men. He attached importance to the establishment of school ships in the different ports. And though the right hon. Gentleman thought it was not the business of the Government to educate men for the merchant service, he believed that a claim of that kind did rest upon the Crown, so long as the right was reserved, even in theory, of calling in an emergency for the compulsory service of merchant seamen. He had to thank the right hon. Gentleman for granting, at his instance, a most serviceable and efficient ship to the town of Aberdeen; but, unfortunately, the community, though they had asked for the ship, found the expenditure so great that they shrank from incurring the charge. For the sum of £40,000 or £50,000 a-year, however, school ships could be placed in all the principal ports, which would educate not the scum of the streets, but the sons of respectable seafaring men and others—lads who, as they grew up, would hereafter be of great value to the nation, whether at home or in the colonies. If our Sailor Prince, now a thorough and complete seaman, and one of the most rising officers in the service, could be induced to take the Naval Reserve under his own care and patronage, he would vastly increase the efficiency and popularity of the force, and would bring to its aid younger and more energetic spirits to strengthen and replace those who had so long struggled in its behalf.
MR. CHILDERSconcurred in the greater part of the speech which had been made by his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, but thought he had somewhat undervalued the proceedings in recent years with regard to the Naval Reserve. Three or four years ago, when he came into office, the state of the Reserve was the subject of much public discussion, but it was incumbent on the Department to see how the requirements of the service stood before rashly deciding on any changes. They found a steady falling-off in the number of blue-jackets required by the service, consequent on the entire transformation of everything connected with the Navy; so much so that even in an extreme case, they would only have to call upon half or a third of the number of men of this class that had been required to carry us through our wars in former years. In deciding, therefore, the normal and the ultimate strength of this part of our forces, it became the duty of the Department, as it seemed to him, to deal with what they had, and to put everything into the most perfect condition; and then to consider what Reserves were necessary for extreme cases, and to build up a suitable force. The very earliest inquiries convinced him that the country had not reached in point of the efficiency of its nominal force of sailors anything like the proper standard. He ascertained that the Navy included a vast number of inefficient and worn-out men, whom it was necessary to replace with efficient seamen. In the existing Coastguard Reserve, in the Coast Volunteers, and the Naval Reserve they found men not of that kind of efficiency which the country had a right to expect. It was accordingly resolved to test these men in the best way that could be done. In the first place, every Coast guardsman was tested as to his fitness for sea service, and actually sent to sea every other year—the result being that nearly one-fourth of the force had to be discharged, and fit men substituted. Then, all our men in reserve at each of the ports were "roused up," in some cases very much to their disgust, but with results which had proved highly satisfactory. As regarded the Naval Reserve, it was tested in a way indicating both its strength and its weakness, a certain number of men being called upon to come out for active service. These in-

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quiries enabled them to see distinctly what could be done both in respect to the available naval forces of the country, and to the Reserve force. They then cast about in order to see in what respect the two branches of the service might be improved, and what additional Reserves ought to be provided. The existing Reserve of men who had completed their service had not been referred to in the course of the debate, and upon that question he desired to make a few remarks. It had long struck him as one of the greatest anomalies in our Naval policy, that while we admitted men of 35 into a comparatively untrained Naval Reserve, men who had served 20 years in the Navy were at 38 years of age, and when in the prime of life and the perfection of training, allowed by existing regulations to retire upon pensions, the State having no further claim upon them. It seemed to him, and those who acted with him, that the first Reserve it was necessary to form was a Reserve of trained men, a work which could be best accomplished by so altering the regulations, that after a fixed date pensioned seamen should not be allowed to be lost to the nation at the age of 38, but should be compelled to enter the Reserve. He believed that when, some years hence, the Naval Pension Reserve regulations took effect the result would speedily be to add 12,000 to 15,000 efficient blue-jackets in Reserve to the number of 18,000 which composed the Navy at the present time. In addition to that they would have the Coastguard, which, notwithstanding the complaint that it had not been brought up to the strength recommended by the Commission of 1859–60, was a thoroughly efficient Reserve, and formed an infinitely more effective force than it had ever before presented in the course of its existence. The result of these changes would be that should the unhappy event of war arise after these compulsory rules had taken effect, England would be able to command the services of a force of blue-jackets nearly double in number that which she could command at the present moment. Even though there was a combination against England of nearly all the naval Powers in the world, he could conceive no possible state of circumstances in which she would require more than 50,000 blue-jackets, and the plan he had described would give her,
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exclusively of the Naval Reserve in the merchant service, no less than 36,000 thoroughly trained and efficient men. In the summer of 1870, after he had improved the regulations as to the Naval Reserve, and had, in spite of great difficulty—for it was not a popular proposal—started the Second Class Pensioner Reserve, he took up the whole question of the larger Reserve which had been shadowed forth by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Goschen), and appointed a Committee to obtain such information as could be gathered at the Admiralty, in order that the question might be discussed during the winter, and that at the commencement of the Session of 1871 he might be enabled, with the assistance of the Board of Trade, to make some proposition to the House on the subject. His illness at the end of 1870 prevented his taking up the question officially, and he could only now do his best to support the views of those hon. Members who agreed with him that it was desirable to lay the foundation of such a Reserve as would ensure the services in an extreme case of the number of blue-jackets he had just named. He had not alluded to the Royal Naval Reserve in calculating the number of blue-jackets who would be available in a great national crisis, for while he thought the Reserve was a very useful force at the time when it was started, and that, considering the then state of artillery and ships of war, no more efficient force could have been obtained by the same expenditure of time or money, the case was very different now. The foundation of the Royal Naval Reserve was a wise and statesmanlike act; but he was also strongly of opinion that it was more important to have a Reserve Force composed of men trained from their earliest experience of the sea, than to take men of a certain age and attempt to train them afterwards. It was quite clear to his mind that the improvements which were now going on in the science of warfare made every early year's training infinitely more important than it was in former days. While, therefore, during the period of transition it was our duty to keep up the efficiency of the Naval Reserve as far as we could, we ought not to trust to it for the number of blue-jackets we thought we Ought to have in the event of a great war; but we must establish, with the assistance of the Mer-

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cantile Marine, a system of training coming before rather than after employment in merchant ships, but kept up by annual practice for a certain period. He rejoiced, therefore, that his right hon. Friend had come to the conclusion to establish such a system of early training, and he believed it would confer considerable benefit on the naval service. At the same time, he (Mr. Childers) was prepared to go much further than any limited voluntary submission to naval training on the part of those who adopted a seafaring life; and he felt confident that in the end the defence of our coasts would be some day ensured by a still bolder measure. He was one of those old-fashioned persons who, without seeing any great advantage in large standing forces, believed in the great principle that it was the duty of every man to take his share in the defence of his country; and he should not be afraid to see that principle carried further than it was at present with regard both to our Army and our Navy. What had been done during the last two years by his right hon. Friend the head of the War Office indicated very plainly the direction in which this country was going with regard to the establishment of that principle. For his own part he should like to see it applied to the Navy still more than to the Army; and he was confident that under generous regulations it could be speedily so applied, without encountering the opposition which at present he feared the unpopularity of military service was sure to meet with. Because the proposal of his right hon. Friend was in this, the right direction, he would give it his most cordial support.
SIR JOHN HAYregretted that the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) had not been able to introduce so interesting a subject at an earlier period of the Session, and more so because, when the First Lord of the Admiralty suggested that the question was one more fitted for discussion in that House than for the consideration of a Royal Commission, the right hon. Gentleman must have remembered that, at so late a period of the Session, there were many hon. Members who would not be likely to attend and take part in the discussion. He would gladly have supported his hon. Friend in the proposal for a Royal Commission; for, as Parliament was now about to rise, an opportunity
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would be afforded to a Commission to consider the whole subject in the Recess, and to lay the information before the House when it re-assembled. He was also fully confident that the two right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the front bench opposite (Mr. Goschen and Mr. Chichester Fortescue) would give their best attention to the subject, as they had promised. Yet it was to be borne in mind that other Departments of the State than the Admiralty and the Board of Trade must be considered, and the House well knew how difficult it was for the Departments concerned to arrange matters involving a certain amount of expense. With regard to education, he presumed that the Vice President of the Council had as much to do with the present question as the two other right hon. Gentleman to whom he had referred; for he believed it would be to the advantage of the country if all the lads who were being educated within a given distance of the sea shore could be taught that the sea was the place for earning a livelihood. Recently he had made inquiries in that part of the country in which he resided, and found that in a long 100 miles of seaboard there were not 10 men either in the Reserve or Coastguard—not because they were unskilful as a seafaring population, but because the advantages that were obtainable from service in the Naval Reserve, from long voyages in the Merchant Navy, and from a proper readiness to serve in the Navy whenever the nation required, were totally unknown to them. Were the training ships recommended by the Royal Commission established in certain ports, and if the scheme of the present First Lord of sending gunboats to the places where men were to be trained could be carried out, he felt confident that the naval service would become much more popular than it was now. The right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) alluded to certain changes he had introduced. He believed, however, the figures were these—in the year 1868 there were 22,000 efficient able seamen as against 18,000 now; and Coastguards, 4,200 as against 4,800, something like 300 inefficient men having been discharged. [Mr. CHILDERS: 900 inefficient men.] But the numbers were considerably reduced; and the Naval Reserve was now, he believed, 10,800 efficient men as against

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the supposed number of 12,000. The whole of these numbers, with the 14,700 Marines, did not by any means represent the force that would be necessary in the event of war. France alone had 93,000 men in her Navy, while we had only 60,000; and although it might be true that our ironclads and other ships we had for cruising purposes were not sufficiently numerous to occupy more than that force, yet if a maritime war were to break out, we should have to build more ships—which he trusted we should do—or we must employ many of our merchant ships to sweep away the enemies of our commerce. He did not think there would be much difficulty not in re-establishing the apprentice system as it existed under the navigation laws, but in arranging with the great shipowners of this country, as suggested by his hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. T. Brassey), that lads should be taken by the training ships, and that a certain subsidy should be paid to the shipowners for the employment of the lads, until the latter became of a stature and of an ability to make them entirely remunerative to those who employed them. If that were done—if the best of these lads were placed in the merchant service, under such conditions as would oblige them to perform duty in the Naval Reserve—we should then have a good force to fall back upon in time of need. Another point, deserving of the attention of the right hon. Gentlemen the heads of the Admiralty and the Board of Trade, was the necessity of a reserve of skilled stokers. He could not help thinking that the discharge of 500 skilled stokers by the right hon. Member for Pontefract, while he was in office, was an unfortunate circumstance. [Mr. CHILDERS: They were unskilled stokers.] He knew that when he had the honour of being at the Admiralty, his right hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Corry) took some pains to obtain a body of skilled stokers. There were 500 of them when he left the Admiralty, and what became of them he was unable to learn, although he had good reason to believe they were discharged, as he had stated. Seamen should not only be entered, but trained stokers should also be enrolled in the Naval Reserve in our Merchant Navy, ready for use in the event of war. So with skilled artizans—such as carpenters,
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engineers, and others—that when the occasion arose the whole of them might be ready to go on board ship and do their duty.
MR. BATESobjected in the strongest terms to the reflection cast upon the shipowners of the country, when it was said that shipowners ought to provide better ships and give better wages to their seamen. Such a remark came with ill grace from the First Lord of the Admiralty. Shipowners did not send Megæras to sea, and he believed the ordinary sea-going ships of the merchant service would float long after the newfangled iron-clads of the right hon. Gentleman had foundered. He recommended the right hon. Gentleman to look at home—to look at his dockyards and inquire into the position of the artizans and riggers. The men in the merchantmen building yards earned more in six days than the Government men earned in nine.
MR. GOSCHEN: Yet we get the men, and you do not.
COLONEL WILSON-PATTENthought that at so advanced a period of the Session, his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) would be satisfied with having provoked so interesting a discussion, and drawn from the Government two important admissions, without going to a division on his Motion. The first admission of the Government was that they were prepared to lay down regulations which would eventually give encouragement to the Mercantile Marine, and no doubt tend to the general benefit of the naval service. The other admission was that the Government were prepared to give encouragement to a Volunteer Force in the Navy, as they now did to a similar force in the Army. For his own part, he thought there were grounds for believing that, with proper encouragement, many men who had not yet paid attention to the question would be induced to enrol themselves in a Naval Volunteer Force. There were the life-boat men, for instance, who paid little attention to the question of an organized system for saving shipwrecked people until the volunteer element was introduced, and now they rendered the most efficient service. He desired to join in the expression of a hope that Prince Alfred would be induced to encourage the establishment of this force.
MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he wished to mate some remarks in reference to the interests of the Mercantile Marine in this matter, which were intimately connected with those of the Royal Navy. The subject of giving aid to training ships for the Mercantile Marine in connection with the Royal Navy had very much engaged his attention at the Board of Trade, in concert with the First Lord of the Admiralty, although he hardly had need to repeat that which was known to be the view of the Government—that the Mercantile Marine could not expect assistance from the public Exchequer for training seamen for its own service. The Board of Trade, however, was the administrator of an important fund contributed by the shipowners of the country, called the Mercantile Marine Fund; and if the shipowners should be willing that out of that fund contributed by themselves, some assistance should be given to the training of boys and young men for the mercantile service in connection with the Royal Navy, he, on the part of the Board of Trade, would be ready to aid them in carrying out that object. He believed that with no great expenditure a great deal might be done in stimulating private efforts, and that by means of contributions, under conditions, to the training ships a good article might be provided for the use of the Mercantile Marine as well as for the Royal Navy. The great objection in the case of the training ships was that the boys were taken in too young to receive proper training, as their physique was not up to the mark; but some of those ships were half empty, and he was not prepared to say that it would not be possible to make use of them for the purpose of training a number of boys for the Mercantile Marine in connection with the Royal Navy. There would be a wide difference beween the boys he contemplated and the boys now in the ships. Their age, for instance, would be different; and, supposing proper conditions were laid down, he should be glad to know whether the shipping interest would be prepared to consent to a certain contribution from the Mercantile Marine Fund. The general idea of the plan, which he hoped might be considered in the course of the Recess, was that first of all, the boys entering the ships for the merchant service should be apprenticed for five years; that they
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should not be below the age of 15 or 16 years; and that they should pass two years on board the training ship. Then their indentures should be handed over to a respectable master of a ship, in which they should serve the other three years of their apprenticeship, and a sum should be paid by the Board of Trade out of the Mercantile Marine Fund on account of their training. The boys should be invited to enter the Royal Naval Reserve, and for the remainder of their apprenticeships they should earn for their training ship an additional contribution on the part of the Admiralty. He believed that some scheme of that sort would produce in time a considerable class of valuable recruits for the Mercantile Marine and the Royal Navy, and would also give a large additional support to the training ships which turned out such an article. If, in the course of the Recess, such a scheme should be considered worthy of adoption by those interested, it would afford him great pleasure to aid in working it out.
MR. HENLEYsaid, that in every inquiry which had been made into this subject during the last 30 years one fact that remained uncontradicted was, that the number of good seamen had not increased; and the question was, whether the quality of the seamen was equal to what it used to be. That was a consideration of much consequence, and it appeared to him that the hand of the Government, in touching the matter with new schemes, had only had the effect of deteriorating and damaging it. Another point was, that they could not shut their eyes to the position of the able seaman who knew his business. Such a man was equal to any skilled mechanic; but what was his relative position in respect to wages? What was the inducement now for anyone to go to school to learn seamanship? Had a seaman as good a chance of getting on as the man of any other trade? The seaman was not good for much in going aloft after 50, and then what was to become of him? Besides, it should not be forgotten that the seaman worked seven days a-week, whereas the labourer on land worked only six. Again, the great increase in the size of ships made the chance of a seaman rising to the quarter-deck less than it used to be. In fact, that chance now was nil. All that was very much against a boy going to

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sea. He believed that the real difficulty the country would have to look in the face was not simply the mode in which they could best utilize them, but how to get the men themselves. Another fact was the relative number of wrecks, taking the number of voyages which vessels made, seemed to be increasing, although within the last three or four years the Board of Trade had not given them the statistics in so complete a form as would enable them to make an accurate comparison on that point. If, therefore, any inquiry was to be instituted, he hoped it would extend to the question whether there had been any falling-off in the number, or any deterioration in the efficiency of seamen, as well as into the mode of utilizing them, because it was of no use thinking of cooking their hare if they could not catch it. In the event of war they must fall back on the Mercantile Marine for men, and the better the men of the Mercantile Marine were the better would it be for the Navy. If proper inducements were only offered to men to go to sea, they would then have plenty of good seamen, as they formerly had.
MR. CANDLISHwished to ask the President of the Board of Trade two questions relative to the scheme he had just launched for having training ships, the boys passing through which might be available alike for the Mercantile Marine and the Royal Navy. First, did the right hon. Gentleman contemplate that the grant was to be entirely made from the Mercantile Marine Fund, or partly from that fund and partly from the Votes of Parliament? Secondly, in the event of the grant made from the one fund or the other, or from both, being insufficient to maintain those training ships, how did the right hon. Gentleman contemplate that the deficiency should be made up?
MR. NORWOODprotested against the gloomy picture drawn by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley) of the number and efficiency of British mercantile seamen. He ventured to say that the numbers of British seamen were not declining. They were in some degree increasing; but the mere test of numbers was not sufficient, because modern appliances for the working of sails and of ships generally had reduced the number of hands necessary to navigate ships. He did not think the chances
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of promotion or the pay of seamen were so poor as the right hon. Gentleman appeared to think. £4 5s. per month, or upwards, was paid to an able-bodied seaman on board a steamer, or an average of something like a guinea a-week, while at the same time he was housed and extremely well fed. That was not so very inadequate a remuneration. There never was a time when their forecastles were so spacious, or the food equal to what was given in them now; and scurvy was almost disappearing. Again, distinguished mathematicians had recently shown that the percentage of collisions and casualties at sea was less than it used to be, in proportion to the number of vessels afloat and the voyages made. As far as steam shipping went, there was no difficulty in getting excellent men, and the reason was, that they were paid handsomely. In time of war our Navy would have a great resource in our Mercantile Marine, which would be able to supply it with stokers, engineers, and even blue-jackets to a large extent.
MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, in answer to the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish) said, the plan he had sketched was thrown out for the consideration of the shipowners of this country, and he did not dream of forcing it upon them. He did not contemplate that the contributions now made to the industrial training ships by the Home Office would cease; but many of the boys there might not fulfil the conditions required to earn the grant. Such of them, however, as came up to the requisite conditions would earn such a grant out of the Mercantile Marine Fund as he had mentioned. In addition to that, such boys as came up to the conditions required by the Admiralty—that was to say, were willing to enrol themselves in the Reserve and to submit to a certain amount of drill—would earn for their training ships out of the Votes of Parliament on that account a further contribution. He could not, however, guarantee that any grant would completely maintain those ships.
MR. GRAVES, in reply, said, the First Lord of the Admiralty had said that he (Mr. Graves) had laid down the proposition that the State should educate the men of the Mercantile Marine. What he believed he had really said, was that youths ought to be educated in a common train-

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ing ship, from which they should be drafted into the Navy and the Mercantile Marine, the Admiralty paying its proportion for the boys it so received, and the Mercantile Marine in like manner bearing its proportion. The right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) appeared to think that in what had fallen from him with reference to the Reserves he had cast a personal reflection on him for his conduct while at the Admiralty. Nothing had been further from his intention. He felt that they owed too much to that right hon. Gentleman for his valuable services in regard to the Reserves to have said anything which looked like a reflection upon him in that matter. With respect to the course he should take on that occasion, it was clear to him that the Admiralty and the Board of Trade were now maturing their plans. They had not travelled as fast as he could have wished; but still he believed they were now on the right road, and therefore he felt that it would be wrong in him to embarrass their scheme by dividing the House. Next Session, if the plan which they brought forward was found to be inadequate, he should have it in his power to renew his Motion.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE VATICAN.—RESOLUTION.
MR. MONKrose to call attention to the withdrawal from Class 5, Vote I, in the Estimates for Diplomatic Services for the current year, of the Vote for the expenses of the Diplomatic Mission to the Vatican; and to move—
"That, in the opinion of this House, the omission of the Vote for Diplomatic Services at Rome, in page 343 of the Estimates, was calculated to mislead Parliament into the belief that no Vote was required this year for the Diplomatic Mission to the Vatican."
The hon. Gentleman said, that last year the sum of £800 was voted for the Secretary of the Embassy at the Vatican, with £200 for house rent, and this year he intended to ask the Government what advantage this country derived from the double Mission to Rome; but finding that the Vote had been omitted from the Estimates, he withdrew the Question which he had placed on the Notice Paper. When, however, he spoke to the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs on the subject, the noble Lord
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informed him with great candour that the Vote was not really withdrawn. Mr. Jervoise, our Diplomatic Agent at the Vatican, was appointed to that post in 1870; but the noble Lord informed him that the appointment was only temporary, and that the salary he should receive as clerk in the Foreign Office—namely, £530—had already been voted under the head "Foreign Office," while an additional allowance of £270 had also been voted under "Incidental Expenses," and the remaining £200 was paid, as it was paid to Mr. Odo Russell, his predecessor in Rome, for house rent. The noble Lord also informed him that Mr. Jervoise's stay in Rome was rendered necessary by the refusal of the Pope to hold any diplomatic intercourse with the Diplomatic Agent accredited to the King of Italy. Now, it was a grave question whether this country should continue to maintain diplomatic intercourse with an individual who was not the Sovereign of the Roman States, and whether, in case that course was followed, the Vote for Diplomatic Agency should practically be withdrawn from Parliamentary control. He cared nothing for the religious persuasion of the individual to whom a Diplomatic Agent was sent; but what he objected to was that the responsible Minister of the Crown should have withdrawn the Vote from the cognizance of Parliament, so as to leave the House to suppose that no Vote whatever was required for this Mission. Last Thursday, in answer to a Question, the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had informed him that—
"The salary of Mr. Clarke Jervoise as a clerk in the Foreign Office, amounting to £530, has been voted under sub-head A of the Vote for the Foreign Office; the additional allowance of £270 has been also voted under sub-head D for incidental expenses in the same Vote for the Foreign Office, and the allowance for house rent, amounting to £200, will be taken out of the Vote for Diplomatic Services under the sub-head P for Special Missions and Services, Mr. Jervoise's appointment at Rome being considered of a special or temporary character.
In the Act of Parliament which had been passed in 1848 to regulate our diplomatic intercourse with the Roman States, it was expressly provided that it should be lawful for Her Majesty to establish and maintain diplomatic relations, and to hold diplomatic intercourse with the Sovereign of the Roman States,

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and it was a grave and important question whether this country could lawfully send a Representative to the Court of an individual who was not now Sovereign of those States. We had a Minister—Sir Augustus Berkeley Paget—at the Court of the King of Italy, who was the Sovereign of the Roman States; but whether our Government had been right or wrong in sending a Diplomatic Agent to the Vatican as well, there could be no doubt that it was highly injudicious and improper to withdraw the Vote from its proper place in the Estimates, and to split it up into three parts, two of which had been already voted without the House knowing anything about it. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
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, the omission of the Vote for Diplomatic Services at Rome, in page 343 of the Estimates, was calculated to mislead Parliament into the belief that no Vote was required this year for the Diplomatic Mission to the Vatican,"—(Mr. Monk,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, he hoped, in the few observations he had to address to the House, he should be able to convince the hon. Gentleman that there was no attempt on the part of the Treasury or the Foreign Office to deceive the House in this matter. Had Mr. Jervoise been a regular diplomatic Secretary of Legation or Secretary of Embassy, or even an Attaché, no doubt, his salary would have appeared in the Vote for Diplomatic Services; but that was not the case, and as he received an increase of salary while he performed temporary diplomatic duties, it had been arranged, in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee on Public Accounts, that his salary should be accounted for in the way it had been, the recommendation being in these terms—
"Where a public officer receives a grant or temporary increase of his fixed salary in respect of special services, we are of opinion that provision should be made accordingly in connection with the Vote in which the fixed salary is charged."
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In accordance with that recommendation, the Foreign Office received instructions from the Treasury to put down Mr. Jervoise's salary in the Estimates in the way in which it had been put down. The Foreign Office had simply acted under instructions from the Treasury, and the Treasury had acted in accordance with the Report of the Committee on Public Accounts. The Act alluded to permitted Her Majesty to hold diplomatic communications with the Sovereign of the Roman States, and if the Pope had recognized the King of Italy there would have been no further occasion for the services of Mr. Jervoise. But the Pope had not done so, and it was considered that it would be unfair if this country were left without any representative to discharge duties that had hitherto been discharged in connection with the Papal Court. Financially, there was no intention to deceive the House, and next year, if he were in office, he would see that the matter was stated so that it could not be misunderstood.
MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUNwished to re-state the legal question. Formerly it was illegal to accredit a Diplomatic Agent to the Pope; then an Act was passed by which power was given to accredit one to the Sovereign of the Papal States. As the Pope had ceased to be a temporal Sovereign, how could we legally accredit a Diplomatic Agent to him? Was Mr. Jervoise acting as a subordinate to Sir Augustus Paget, or had he a separate commission? Did he correspond with the Foreign Office direct, or through Sir Augustus Paget? [Viscount ENFIELD said, they held separate commissions.] Under those circumstances, he wished to know if any similar course had ever been adopted in the case of any other country? At the same time, he would be glad to hear for what purpose Mr. Jervoise was accredited to the Pope. The Government were bound to offer an explanation on these points; and he appealed for one to the Attorney General.
MR. SCLATER-BOOTHwas inclined to think there was something anomalous in the position of Mr. Jervoise; but did not understand that the adoption of the Committee's recommendation was called in question.
MR. BAXTERsaid, the recommendation of the Committee was approved at once by the Treasury, which communi-

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cated with the Foreign Office, and the recommendation was at once acted upon.
MR. M'LARENsaid, this was not a question of accounts, but of legality. The Roman Pontiff had ceased to be a Sovereign; therefore he wanted to know why the Government sent a diplomatic representative to him, thus spending public money without Parliamentary sanction, and, by implication, violating an Act of Parliament. Not a word had been said on that point. The appropriation of the money was altogether without the sanction of Parliament. This gentleman (Mr. Jervoise) could not be acting as a clerk in the Foreign Office at the time he was in Rome. If Parliament voted £600 for a clerk in the Foreign Office, Parliament meant that he should sit at his desk, and should not go to Rome as an Envoy to the Pope. So long as the Roman Pontiff reigned in the Roman States, it might have been right that we should be represented there; but the moment he ceased to reign such an act was improper, and he believed illegal. He should, therefore, cordially support the Motion.
VISCOUNT ENFIELDassured the hon. Member that clerks in the Foreign Office were constantly detached for special services, and yet continued to be clerks of the Foreign Office, and to draw their salaries. At this moment one was in Washington, engaged on the work of the Treaty, and three were at Geneva; but they did not cease to be clerks in the Foreign Office because the exigencies of the public service induced the Secretary of State to send them to discharge public duties in different parts of the world.
MR. DICKINSONasked what were the relations which this gentleman was to maintain at the Papal Court? Such a Mission was not the work of a Foreign Office clerk, but of a diplomatic representative.
SIR PERCY BURRELLsaid, it was quite clear that Mr. Jervoise was an unauthorized agent at Rome. The Act of Parliament allowed Her Majesty to send a representative to the Sovereign of the Roman States; but Mr. Jervoise was accredited to one who was not the Potentate of the Roman States, and the appointment was therefore illegal.
MR. OSBORNE MORGANobserved that no answer had been given to the objection that this Vote sanctioned the accrediting of a Diplomatic Agent to a
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non-existing Sovereign. Before 1848 it was absolutely unlawful to accredit an English Diplomatic Agent to the Pope of Rome. The Act of 1848 empowered the Queen to accredit a representative not to the Pope of Rome, but to the Sovereign of the Roman States. Now, the Pope had ceased to be the Sovereign of the Roman States, and in point of law he was the subject of the King of Italy, and there appeared to be no useful purpose served by this mission. It had been said that the Pope had not yet acknowledged the Sovereignty of the King of Italy; but if we waited till that time we might wait till the Greek Kalends. Queen Isabella was not likely to acknowledge the sovereignty of King Amadeus; but we did not on that account continue to send a representative to Queen Isabella. Unless he heard from the Attorney General a better reply than had been given by the noble Lord he should regard this Vote as absolutely illegal, and would therefore vote against it.
THE ATTORNEY GENERALremarked that the Act to which reference had been made was brought into Parliament as a Bill to enable the Queen of this country to hold relations with the Sovereign Pontiff. There could be no doubt as to who the Sovereign Pontiff was; and the term "Sovereign of the Roman States" was put into the Act by the then Lord Derby in the House of Lords not for the purpose of describing any other person than the Pope, but as a description of the Pope which would not offend the religious susceptibility of many English people. The Queen however was empowered to hold diplomatic relations with a particular person who might be called Pope, Sovereign Pontiff, Bishop of Rome, or Sovereign of the Roman States. He was at that time Sovereign of certain portions of Italy, and although a great deal of that State had been taken from him he remained, within certain very small limits, an independent Sovereign. He believed that in a certain portion of Rome, the Pope was still supreme, and had the power of life and death. He did not pretend to an accurate knowledge on this point; nor was it material for his argument. The claim of the Pope to be an independent Sovereign was exactly what it was before the Act of 1848, and could not depend upon whether he had lost nine-tenths or

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even nineteen-twentieths of his dominions. Nay, more, Pope Pius IX. was actually the same person with whom the Act of 1848 authorized diplomatic relations. The Act of Parliament which empowered the Queen to hold these relations with the Sovereign of the Roman States eo nomine was in no degree affected because since that time a large portion of his dominions had been taken from him. The importance of a Throne, and of holding diplomatic relations with it, must not be measured by the number of square miles of a country over which it rules; and "the Sovereign of the Roman States" were mere words of description, the person remaining the same.
SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, his hon. Friends near him prided themselves on their advocacy of the principle of non-intervention; but the moment what was called "the red rag" of Popery was shaken in their faces the non-intervention principle of hon. Gentlemen vanished. There was one observation, however, which he wished to make, and which would commend itself to the common sense of everyone. Was there a Power in Europe, no matter how antagonistic to the Pope—such as Germany or Russia, that did not acknowledge the status of the Sovereign Pontiff; and, whether possessed of a large dominion or of the Leonine City alone, was there a man in this House who would say that the Pope was not a Power in Europe? It was not befitting, therefore, that this country, containing within it, as it did, so many different religions, should in this age of enlightenment be the only nation in Europe to ignore the fact that there was still a great Power resident in the Leonine City, and should be the first to withdraw the man who had been appointed to maintain diplomatic relations with that Power.
MR. MACFIEcontended that this country would never have sent any diplomatist to an ecclesiastic. It was only because that ecclesiastic happened to be a temporal Sovereign that diplomatic relations had been maintained with him. He, therefore, for one, as representing a Scotch constituency, could not compromise either his constituents or his country by doing anything now to perpetuate those relations.
MR. CARDWELLdesired to call attention to the Motion before the House.
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That Motion was simply a Vote of Censure for the form in which the Vote was laid upon the Table. But the form of the Vote was entirely in pursuance of the recommendations of the Committee.
MR. MONKsaid, that a great error of judgment had been committed by Her Majesty's Government in the matter. Under the circumstances, however, he would not ask the House to divide; but on the Vote of £200, on which the question might again he raised, he would certainly take the opinion of the House.
And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate was adjourned till this day.
And it being now five minutes to Seven of the clock the House suspended its sitting.
The House resumed its sitting at Nine of the clock.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  LORDS' AMENDMENTS.
  Order of the Day for the consideration of the Lords' Amendments read.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that in moving that the Lords' Amendments be now considered, it would be satisfactory to the House if he stated, in a very few words, the course which the Government meant to pursue with reference to the Amendments. He hoped he should be able to do so in such a manner as neither to provoke nor invite any preliminary discussion. The first Amendment of the Lords was upon the Preamble, and introduced a certain narrative with respect to instruction in religion. That Amendment he should propose to amend, so as to make it more strictly accurate in point of fact, and then, subject to the Amendment which he should propose, he should ask the House to agree to the Lords' Amendment. The second Amendment related to the Scotch Education Board. The view of the Lords in reference to this matte differed, in some, but not many, essential respects from the proposal contained in the 3rd clause of the Bill as it left the Commons. The chief of the distinctions was, that the Lords proposed to call that a Board which the Commons called an organizing Commission; and, of course, he should not for a moment think of asking the House to disagree

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  with their Lordships upon a mere name. But there was no provision in the clause introduced by the House of Lords for the cessation of the Board after the expiry of such a period as should be thought sufficient for them to discharge the whole of the duties by the Act imposed upon them. He should therefore propose to amend the Lords' Amendment to the extent of making the Board a temporary Board, the period of its endurance being substantially the same as the Government proposed for the organizing Commission. With respect to the duties of the Board, they did not propose to interfere with the views of the Lords, but those were duties to be performed during the period of their existence as defined upon the clause sent down by the House of Lords. But there was one matter upon which they thought it proper to make the provisions of the Bill quite clear—namely, the preparation of the Minutes upon which the Parliamentary grant was to be distributed. He did not think there was any substantial difference between Her Majesty's Government and the House of Lords upon this matter; but they thought it fitting to make the language such that there should be no doubt upon two points—in the first place, that it should be the duty of the Scotch Board to offer their suggestions on this subject to the Government—that was, to the Education Department; and, in the second place, that it should be the duty and the responsibility of the Department to prepare the Minutes containing the rates and conditions according to which the Parliamentary grants were to be distributed. With those Amendments he substantially assented to the Amendments of the Lords upon that head; but he thought it proper to explain the facts, in order that the House might quite understand the Amendments he had to propose upon the Lords' Amendments. In order to make the Board temporary in its duration; in order to make the matters clear to which he had adverted; and also to correct what appeared to him to be a certain inconvenience, if not an absolute inaccuracy in point of drafting, they proposed to substitute other clauses for those which the Lords had introduced into the Bill. The only other Amendments of any materiality proposed by the Lords were upon the Conscience Clause, and upon the clause of the Bill
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  which related to parents of poor children refusing or having the choice of the school to which their children should be sent. To these Amendments he should ask the House to assent. He moved that the Amendments be now considered.
  Motion agreed to.
  Lords' Amendments considered.
  Page 1, line 20, after ("Scotland") insert—
  And whereas it has been the usage in Scotland, sanctioned by legislation, to make provision for religious instruction in public schools as an essential part of education, and it is desirable in extending the system of education to afford means for continuing such religious instruction to all children whose parents do not decline it on conscientious grounds,
  —the first Amendment, read a second time.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the first word "the" to the end of the Amendment, in order to add the words "custom in the public schools of Scotland to give instruction in religion to children whose parents did not object to the instruction so given, but with liberty to parents, without forfeiting any of the other advantages of the schools, to elect that their children should not receive such instruction, and it is expedient that the managers of public schools shall be at liberty to continue the said custom, "—(The Lord Advocate,)
  —instead thereof.
  MR. GORDONprotested against the inconvenience of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate coming down to the House, and making proposals which hon. Members first heard as they were just put from the Chair, and had not therefore the opportunity of considering. The general rule of occasions of this kind was either to accept or reject the Amendments of the Lords, and not propose, as was now done, to amend them. He invited the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate to state clearly the nature of his objection to the form of the Amendments proposed by the Lords. For his own part, he saw no difference, and therefore he could not admit the necessity for the alteration proposed.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, his reason was generally that the form he proposed was more accurate in point of fact than the statement in the Preamble proposed by the House of Lords. The House would be in a position to judge between them, whether the words they had just heard as put from the Chair

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  were accurate in point of fact, and in conformity with the provisions of the Bill.
  MR. GORDONsaid, he did not think the proposal of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate differed in any material respect from the Amendment of the House of Lords, with the exception that the words "sanctioned by legislation" wore omitted. That was a matter upon which there was an undoubted difference of opinion in the House. The House of Lords were perfectly justified in coming to the conclusion that religious education was sanctioned by legislation, because in 1861 an Act was passed which declared that the schoolmaster should give instruction in accordance with the Scriptures, and in accordance with the Shorter Catechism. That did not stand upon his mere opinion, but was that of the Lord Advocate of the day, who, in introducing the Bill, said, according to the report contained in The Scotsman—
  "If we are to adopt any test in the Bill, these words are right. Such schoolmaster is to declare what he will do, and as part of his duty is to give religious instruction to the children under his care, I think he has only the right to say that his teaching shall be in conformity with the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, and with the Church of Scotland. This, in short, is only the declaration made by a man of that which he is bound to do, and the schoolmaster is bound—and I trust will always be bound—to teach the doctrines of Scripture in the school, and I know very few persons indeed who object to the schoolmaster doing this. The manner of religious teaching is found in the Holy Scriptures and the Shorter Catechism as agreed upon at Westminster, and approved by the whole Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and therefore there can be no harm in a man simply declaring what he is bound to do."
  That opinion was shared by the ex-Lord Advocate of the day—the present Lord Mure—who had at that time a seat in Parliament, and was one of the Members of a Commission which inquired into the question of the schools in Scotland. In answer to a question of this gentleman, one of the witnesses examined by the Commission expressed his strong conviction that the declaration of the Act of 1861 bound the schoolmasters to teach the Bible and the Shorter Catechism. He was aware that he was addressing the House under unfavourable circumstances. This Bill, seeing it was said to be the second of the Session, had been delayed for a longer time than it should have been delayed for a Bill of
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  so much importance. The Ballot Bill was brought before this House—["Order, order!"]
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, he must remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that he had no right to enter upon matters connected with the Ballot Bill, and that without the indulgence of the House he could not go beyond explanation.
  MR. GORDONwent on to say that the course pursued was very different from that of other measures which had come down from the House of Lords. It was now 11 days since the measure came from the Lords ["Order, order!"] If the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for England would allow him to proceed till the Speaker called him to Order—
  MR. CANDLISH: I rise to Order. I have understood from you, Sir, that any hon. Member rising a second time can only rise to explain. The hon. and learned Member is entering into arguments.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGU, speaking to the point of Order, said, it was quite impossible that the House could know the views of the Government on the course they proposed to take, unless the hon. and learned Member were allowed to proceed.
  MR. SPEAKER: The rule is clear. The hon. and learned Gentleman is not entitled to make a speech; but under the circumstances, and by the indulgence of the House, he can ask for explanation on the point raised by the Lord Advocate. If he travels beyond that, he will be exceeding the rules of the debate.
  MR. GORDONsaid, he was placed in a peculiar position, because no Amendment had been moved from the other side on the Lords' Amendments, and the first notice the House had was an Amendment as put from the Chair. He had, therefore, been obliged to address himself to an incomplete state of the question; and while doing so by the indulgence of that House, must maintain that an irregularity had been committed. Eleven days had elapsed since the matter had been decided by the House of Lords, and it was now brought forward at an hour of the evening when they were not always sure to find a full attendance. If, therefore, he acceded to the Amendments of the other side, it was not because he acquiesced in the

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  view which had been taken either as to the law as stated in the Preamble, or as to the propriety of inserting this Amendment, but simply that, under the circumstances, he was satisfied that there could not be any satisfactory opinion elicited of the views of the House as to the question at issue.
  MR. CRAUFURDregretted the course pursued in the proposal that the Amendment should be disagreed to, more especially as they were all in favour of the principle of the Bill, and sensible of the very moderate way in which it had been dealt with "elsewhere." There was some inconvenience in the course pursued, inasmuch as it was not always easy to understand the effect of words when read from the Chair, but his hon. and learned Friend would agree with him that it was essential to carry out the recitals of the Preamble of the Act, whatever those recitals were. He believed, however, that this Amendment would be utterly ineffectual, and that it was unnecessary and at variance with the recitals.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he trusted the House would accept the proposed Amendment. It seemed to him that the words now introduced, so far as he could catch them, proposed that instead of the affirmative assertion in the Lords' Amendment that it was the desire of the people of Scotland that their children should have religious instruction, the Amendment now proposed contained a negative assertion that there were persons in Scotland who disliked religious instruction. But it came to the same thing, as religious education was acknowledged in the Preamble, and he was very glad to have it even in the form in which the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate now proposed to amend the Lords' Amendment.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he did not quite understand why Preambles had fallen into such contempt. He remembered that there was a very animated discussion on the 6th of May, on the Resolution moved by the hon. and learned Member for the University of Glasgow, which was the same in purport as the Lords' Amendment then before the House. It did not seem to be a matter of indifference to the Lord Advocate or to Her Majesty's Government, when the House, on the 6th May, decided by Resolution to continue the use and wont of
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  Scotland in regard to the religious education which was the foundation of the Scotch parochial school system. They appeared anxious to oppose that Resolution, and divided the House against it, and were in a minority after a debate that extended over some hours; how was it, then, that they were told, when the substance of that Resolution had been inserted in the Preamble of the Bill by the House of Lords, that it was a matter of indifference? As a layman he had always understood that the Courts interpreted an Act of Parliament in accordance with its Preamble, if there were any doubtful point in the working of the Act. He saw the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General in his place. He was an authority in equity, and he (Mr. Newdegate) supposed in law, and he therefore believed that he should not appeal to him in vain, in confirmation of what he had said—that if there were doubtful terms in the clauses of a statute, the Courts in administering that statute would turn to the Preamble in order to ascertain the exact purport of the whole statute. That was what he, as an unlearned person, had always been instructed to believe. It did not appear to him that there was anything negative in these words—
  "And whereas it has been the usage in Scotland, sanctioned by legislation, to make provision for religious instruction in public schools as an essential part of education, and it is desirable in extending the system of education to afford means for continuing such religious instruction to all children"
  and here came in the only negative part of the paragraph—"whose parents do not decline it on conscientious grounds." It seemed to him, therefore, that the Lords had adopted the whole of the substance of the Resolution, which a majority of that House affirmed on the 6th of May, with a salvo in the concluding words equivalent to a Conscience Clause. He did not think, then, that that was a matter of indifference at all, although, of course, he would willingly bow to the high authority of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen University. True, that was a Scotch Bill; but, if he were in charge of the Lords' Amendments, he should be inclined to insist upon that which seemed intended to express the design of and to be the Interpretation Clause of the whole statute, since it was intended to preserve

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  that religious education in Scotland for which the Scotch people had always so earnestly and so honourably contended.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, he should have voted more sincerely for Her Majesty's Government, if he had more clearly understood what the proposal was. So much turned upon forms and expressions that before the House came to a decision they ought clearly to understand what was the general meaning. The position they occupied was a delicate one—not merely with regard to the other branch of the Legislature, but in the face of the people of Scotland and England, and they ought therefore to agree to something which carried with it the majority of the opinions of that House. He should not think there could be any objection to the introduction of words in the Preamble recognizing the last practice of the Church of Scotland. The proposal which had come up from the other branch of the Legislature was one which they might fairly accept, with the exception of the words "sanctioned by legislation." It was one which had been long since pointed out as a course which the Legislature might take in dealing with Scotland, and it had the sanction of Dr. Chalmers, who had pointed out the extreme difficulty in the present state of Scotland, of the nation setting for itself to define what should be or should not be the exact measure of religious education. In the sight of that difficulty, Dr. Chalmers thought that the State should confine itself to secular education. At the same time, he was in favour of the recognition of religious education in the Preamble. There could be no doubt that their forefathers had as keen a view for religious instruction as they had themselves, but they never did it by direct injunction. It was the alliance of Church and State which gave large powers of authority and discipline—not merely in regard to schools, but to the Universities throughout the country. The only question was, whether, by the introduction of the words proposed as an Amendment, they would be following the spirit of the education which had gone before the words seemed long and diffuse, but if they could be made clearly to express the past practice and the future intention of Parliament, he should be disposed to agree with them.
  LORD GARLIESsaid, that, as far as he could understand, there was no other
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  Amendment before the House than to consider that made by the Lords. ["Yes, yes!"] In saying that he was only following what had been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House, who had said they did not know what the proposition was. He confessed he came in a few minutes late. He could only say that every hon. Member who had spoken said he did not understand what the proposition was. He should like to ask what was the proposition before the House?
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, that so far as he could gather from the words which the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had laid before the House, these were less controvertible than those of the Lords' Amendment, and therefore he approved of them. He could not understand why the right hon. and learned Lord did not put his Amendment on the Notice Paper. It might not be usual to do so in small cases; but in a case like this, it would have added greatly to the convenience of the House to have had that done. If hon. Members had before them in plain print the Amendments proposed by the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, and if they were able to compare them with the Amendments proposed by the Lords, they might form a correct judgment between the one and the other; but they could not do so if they only heard the Lord Advocate's Amendments read over once. The course adopted must give rise to a good deal of irrelevant discussion, which might otherwise have been avoided.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the said Amendment," put, and negatived.
  Question put, "That those words be added, instead thereof."
  The House divided:—Ayes 113; Noes 5: Majority 108.
  Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  The next Amendment amended, and agreed to.
  Page 3, leave out Clause 3, and insert Clauses (A), (B), (D), (E), (F), (G), and (H), the next Amendment, read a second time.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEthen rose to propose the omission of the first six clauses, in order to insert three new

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  clauses. He said it would be necessary for him to offer a short explanation of the Amendment he was about to propose to the Lords' Amendment; but what he had to say would, as far as he could make it so, be an explanation only, and without argument. An explanation was the more necessary, because of the observations made on both sides of the House as to the inconvenience which sometimes arose from the practice of the House, to speak negatively, not to put upon the Paper Amendments proposed on Amendments by the Lords. There was undoubtedly an inconvenience arising from this practice. As far as he was able, therefore, he would endeavour, by a distinct explanation, to obviate the inconvenience with respect to the Amendments he was now about to propose. The purport of the Lords' Amendment the House was now dealing with was to establish a Board of Education for Scotland, and as he had intimated in the few sentences which he addressed to the House at the commencement of the evening, the Government were prepared to assent to the establishment of such a Board. But he stated at the same time the modifications on the proposal of the Lords with which the Government intended to accompany that assent. These were, in the first place, and chiefly, that the Board should be made of temporary duration. In the second place, the Government thought it should be made to appear from the language used, that while it should be the duty of the Board to offer its opinion to the Education Department respecting conditions according to which Parliamentary grants might with the greatest advantage be distributed in Scotland, nevertheless, the duty and responsibility of distributing the grants, and consequently of framing the Minutes specifying the rates and conditions according to which the distribution was to take place, should be with the Education Department. These were the two great, and, he might say, the only material modifications of the proposal of the Lords which the Government had to make in agreeing to their Amendment. He ought to explain, however, that the Government proposed to differ from the Lords to a certain extent as to the constitution of the proposed Scotch Board. The proposal of the Lords was that the two Law Officers for Scotland—namely,
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  the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General—should be by the statute members of the Board, and that in addition to those officers of the Government three members of the Board should be appointed by the Queen, the members of the Board being thus five in number. It appeared, however, to the Government that it was objectionable to make two Law Officers members of the Board by statute. He would not enter on the reasons for that. No doubt the reasons stated when the subject was mooted on a former occasion would be in the recollection of hon. Members, and it was not his purpose to argue the matter now. What the Government proposed was, that there should be five members of the Board appointed by the Crown—three of them only to be paid. If it should appear to the Government advantageous to nominate either the Lord Advocate or the Solicitor General, or both of them, to be members of the Board, it would be in the power of the Government to do so, but with this advantage—and the very obvious and considerable one over nominating them by the statute—that their nominations might be recalled, and other persons nominated in their stead, should such a course be found expedient. What the Government proposed, therefore, with regard to the constituent members of the Board was, that instead of the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General being members, along with three to be nominated by the Crown, five should be nominated by the Crown, the Government concurring with the Lords in this—that three of these five should be paid. It would, perhaps, be satisfactory to the House that he should read a part of the first of the three clauses by which the Government proposed to supersede the first six clauses proposed by the Lords. In order to define the duties of the Board of Education and the Department with regard to the preparation of the Code, the Government proposed that the creation of the Board should be in the following words:—
  "With a view to greater efficiency and convenience in the institution and organization of schools and school boards under the provisions of this Act, a Board of Education for Scotland shall be and is hereby established, to endure for the term of two years from and after the passing of this Act, with power to Her Majesty, by Order in Council made before the expiration of that term, to extend the same for a further period of

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  not more than three years, provided that such Order shall not have effect until it shall have lain for forty days on the Table of both Houses of Parliament."
  With reference to the period of endurance, instead of making three years imperative by statute, with power to extend the term by adding two years to it, the Government have proposed that the statutory endurance—which of course could not be interfered with, should be only two years, and that the power of extending it should be within the limit of three years. As far as he could judge at present, two years would suffice for the discharge of all the duties of the Board in the way of instituting and organizing schools and school boards under the Act; and if that expectation were realized, it would certainly be unfortunate if the Board were continued by enactment for an unnecessary year. On the other hand, if the continuance of the Board should appear to be proper, it would be competent for the Government and Parliament to extend the duration of it for a further period not exceeding three years. It would also be convenient, or at least satisfactory to the House, if he read the provision which the Government proposed to substitute for that of the Lords, prescribing the duty of the Board and the Department respectively as to the preparation of the Code, the Government proposed the following clause:—
  "The Board of Education may submit for the consideration of the Scotch Education Department the conditions according to which, in their opinion, Parliamentary grants may be most advantageously distributed in Scotland: Provided always, That the duty of determining from time to time the rates and conditions according to which the said grants may be given under the provisions of this Act, and of framing and from time to time revising the minutes containing the same shall be on the Scotch Education Department."
  He would not add to his explanation anything in the way of argument, but would call to the recollection of the House the views which had always been urged on that bench—the expediency of leaving the education and responsibility of administration of the public money with the Government—and he hoped the House would be good enough to take his assurance that the preparation of the Code would be distinctly left with the Board. He trusted the explanation would remedy any inconvenience which might have resulted from not putting the Amendment on the Paper. The right hon. and learned Lord concluded
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  by moving a series of provisions necessary to carry the views of the Government into effect.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "Clauses (A), (B), (D), (E), (F), (G)," in order to insert the words,—
  "3. With a view to greater efficiency and convenience in the institution and organisation of schools and school boards under the provisions of this Act, a Board of Education for Scotland shall be and is hereby established, to endure for the term of two years from and after the passing of this Act, with power to Her Majesty, by Order in Council made before the expiration of that term, to extend the same for a further period of not more than three years, provided that such Order shall not have effect until it shall have lain for forty days on the Table of both Houses of Parliament; and with respect to the constitution of the said board the following provisions shall have effect:—

  1. The board shall consist of five members to be appointed by Her Majesty, to hold office during Her Majesty's pleasure. Any vacancy occurring during the subsistence of the board shall be supplied by a new appointment. One of the members shall be nominated by Her Majesty to be chairman of the board, and with power to him to appoint any other member to be deputy chairman, and in the absence of the chairman and deputy chairman at any meeting of the board, the members present may nominate one of their number to act as chairman of the meeting. Two members shall be a quorum;

  2. The office and general place of business of the board shall be in Edinburgh;

  3. Her Majesty shall appoint a fit person to be secretary of the board to hold office during Her Majesty's pleasure, and the board shall appoint such necessary clerks and officers as shall be sanctioned by the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury, to hold office during the pleasure of the board;

  4. The board may from time to time appoint any one or more of their number to perform special duties connected with the execution of this Act, and to visit such places as may be necessary for that purpose, and in the performance of their duties the member or members so appointed shall be responsible to the board and subject to their control;

  5. The ordinary meetings of the board shall be held in Edinburgh, and it shall be the duty of the chairman or some other member of the board, as may from time to time be arranged, and of the secretary, to give regular attendance in the office of the board at ordinary business hours during at least nine months in the year, unless when absent on the business of the board or prevented by reasonable cause;

  6. The board and the members thereof shall be responsible to the Scotch Education Department, and on the expiration of the original or extended term of their endurance their powers and duties shall devolve and are hereby devolved upon the

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  said department, and thereafter the various clauses and provisions of this Act in which the term 'Board of Education' occurs shall be construed and have effect as if the term 'Scotch Education Department' were substituted therefor.

  4. The first meeting of the Board of Education shall be held in Edinburgh on the second Friday of October, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, or on such other day thereafter as shall be appointed by the Scotch Education Department, and at such place in Edinburgh as the said department shall appoint. Subsequent meetings shall be held at such times and places as the board shall direct. Ordinary meetings shall be held in the office of the board (except during the months of August and September) at intervals which shall not without reasonable cause exceed one month, and special meetings may be held at any time according to the pleasure of the board. Any meeting may be adjourned.
  5. The Board of Education may submit for the consideration of the Scotch Education Department the conditions according to which, in their opinion, parliamentary grants may be most advantageously distributed in Scotland: Provided always, That the duty of determining from time to time the rates and conditions according to which the said grants may be given under the provisions of this Act, and of framing and from time to time revising the minutes containing the same shall be upon the Scotch Education Department,"—(The Lord Advocate,)
  —instead thereof.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he was fully sensible of the inconvenience of the present mode of proceeding, because the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate moved Amendments of which he had not given Notice according to the almost universal custom of the House. The right hon. and learned Lord had also been careful to state to the House that he did not intend to explain his Amendments. In the first place, the House had not, according to the usual custom, the Amendments printed before it; and in the next place, the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate declares that he does not intend to explain them.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEreminded the hon. Member that he had stated it was not the custom to put Amendments to the Lords' Amendments on the Paper, and that, so far from saying that he did not intend to explain them, he had explained them.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: The right hon. and learned Lord said—"I am not entering into any explanation."
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, the hon. Member had misunderstood him. What he said was, that he would not enter into arguments, but would confine himself to explanations.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: The right hon. and learned Lord's definition between explanation and argument was somewhat abstruse. His explanation, if such it was intended to be, was the civilest and narrowest he ever remembered. He put it to the House if ever there was a narrower. Still, he thought he had been able to gather the intention of the right hon. and learned Lord, and he would thank the right hon. and learned Lord to correct him if he was mistaken. The original frame of the Bill, as it went to the Lords, rendered that education Board, then called a Commission, totally subordinate to the Scotch Department of the Privy Council for Education. The Lords had differed as to the propriety of that subordination; but the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate and Her Majesty's Government were determined that they would make this Board subordinate, and the step they took was to remove from the Board the two officers of the Crown, whom the Lords had proposed should form part of it. They then took the Amendments of the Lords down to Clause G. Now, Clause G was a clause which gave a separate and an independent constitution to the Board, inasmuch as it enabled the Board, as the Lords proposed, to frame the Code; and not only to frame the Code, but, independently of the Department of Privy Council, to submit that Code to Parliament. Now all that the right hon. and learned Lord proposed to eliminate. The whole purpose, therefore, of the right hon. and learned Lord's Amendments to the Lords' Amendments, including the rendering the duration of this Board temporary, was to make the Scotch Education Board as completely subordinate to the Department of the Privy Council as in fact were the Inspectors. The Board would, if the Government Amendments were adopted, be able only to suggest, and they could suggest only to the Department of the Privy Council. They could not, as the Lords proposed, suggest and propose anything to Parliament, with respect to the form of the Code or with respect to the appropriation of the grant. A strong objection was taken in Scotland and in this House to rendering the whole of the whole of the Scotch elementary education subordinate to the Privy Council. The House of Lords entertained that objection, and had

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  framed clauses whereby Scotland would have an. Education Board of its own, consisting of the two Law Officers of the Crown, and three other persons to be nominated by Her Majesty. The right hon. and learned Lord proposed that the duration of the Board should be temporary; and, in fact, in a rather roundabout manner, he was going to take the first clause of the Lords' Amendments and to convert them to the purpose of the Bill as it left this House, thereby completely reversing the intention of the House of Lords which was to frame a quasi-independent Scotch Educational Board, for the purpose of substituting an educational machinery which would be as completely subordinate to the Privy Council as were the Inspectors. That, at all events, was his understanding of the proposal of the right hon. and learned Lord. In a very civil way, and with a very narrow explanation, the right hon. and learned Lord would, if he could, just reverse the whole purport of the Lords' Amendments.
  MR. MACFIEsaid, he agreed that the intention of the new clauses submitted to the House was to deprive Scotland of what it wanted—a native Scotch Board, independent of everything except the distribution of money. The great controversy in the Established Church of Scotland was whether there should be religious teaching in Scotland independent of the State, and the great majority of the people said that they were willing that the Government should collect the money and manage its distribution; but with regard to the character of the education to be given, the Scotch people, almost to a man, said that having for three centuries and upwards managed their own education efficiently and with satisfaction to themselves, they objected to the proposal of the Lord Advocate, and wished still to regulate their own educational affairs; and the House of Lords, rightly interpreting their views, had introduced these clauses, which he was astonished that a Liberal Government should object to, with a view to have the education of the people of Scotland subjected to the control of Downing Street. He boldly said it in the presence of Scotchmen—and he knew there were Scotchmen in the gallery. ["Order!"] He begged to withdraw the expression, as he found it was not permitted by the Rules of the
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  House. However excellent and efficient the chief of the Privy Council Department might be, the work which fell upon him in connection with the cattle plague and English education was more than he ought reasonably to be expected to perform, and it was inconceivable that anyone could undertake the superintendence of English education, and at the same time devote his attention to the subject of Scotch education, which would occupy more time than what was called the Scotch Board would be able to give.
  MR. COLLINSremarked on the serious disadvantage the House was placed in on such occasions as the present, owing to the practice of not giving Notice of the Amendments which were to be proposed. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to omit six clauses and to combine their substance into three new ones, the full meaning of which it was almost impossible to catch as they were read from the Chair. He thought the practice of the House in this respect ought to be re-considered.
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, while admitting the force of the observations of the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken, did not think that at this period of the Session they could with advantage enter upon the question of changing the custom and practice of the House; neither did he think his right hon. and learned Friend had departed from precedent in the course he had taken. He did not believe there was much difference between the two Houses in the matter of the Board. The management of the schools was to be left to Scotchmen, and also the putting of the Act into operation. This House sent up to the House of Lords a Commission, and the House of Lords turned it into a Scotch Board. [Mr. KINNAIRD: For two years only.] His hon. Friend the Member for Perth said "for two years." Well, he (Mr. Forster) had no doubt that the Board could accomplish their work in two years; and, indeed, he might say that his knowledge of the facilities already existing in Scotland led him to believe that they would do it in less time. The Board, however, might be found useful, and, therefore, the Government had taken powers to continue it. With regard to the Code there was a slight misconception. There seemed to exist an impression that by this Bill the Government

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  were introducing a new principle, and taking power over the disposal of Parliamentary grants for Scotland which did not exist before. But they were doing no such thing. Every time that money had been granted for Scotland it had been disposed of in the same way as in England. Instead of taking more power, the Government were actually taking less. In giving Imperial money to Scotland, they must give it on the same principle on which it was given to England, making the Government of the day responsible for its distribution. However, the Government were quite willing that this Board of eminent Scotchmen should offer suggestions which they thought suitable for Scotland, for he thought the Board would give valuable hints with regard to education, not only in Scotland, but in England.
  LORD JOHN MANNERScomplained of the unfairness of the Government in proposing Amendments of that kind without giving due Notice of them. When Amendments were proposed to the Lords' Amendments, they were generally put in a succinct form, stating those to which the House proposed to agree, and those from which it was intended to dissent, so that the House might be able to arrive at a definite conclusion; but on the present occasion the House did not possess that advantage. Until the right hon. and learned Lord rose there was not any hon. Member of the House who was aware of the course which the Government intended to pursue. With respect to the three new clauses which the right hon. and learned Lord proposed to substitute for the six old ones, he had not been able to follow their meaning sufficiently to comprehend them. He gathered that in two particulars there was an important difference between the two sets of clauses. The right hon. and learned Lord proposed that the Board should exist for two years. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: With power to renew.] It was a complicated system, and the renewal was to be by Order in Council laid before Parliament. Now, two years was a very short time, and considering that the Act came into operation in October, the two years nominally might not exceed a year and a-half. It would be far better to give a longer period to the Scotch Board to deal with educational business. Then, again, he gathered from the statement of the
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  right hon. and learned Lord that whereas the House of Lords had decided upon a Scotch Education Board, and imposed upon it the duty of appointing a Secretary, the right hon. and learned Lord would take the power from the Board and confer it upon the Secretary of State or the Treasury. No reason whatever had been assigned for such a change. The right hon. and learned Lord had proposed a distinct scheme without giving the House the slightest notice of his intention, and the only intimation of the intention of the Government was that given by the Prime Minister, who stated that there was every reason to hope that there would be no difference of opinion respecting the Amendments.
  DR. LYON PLAYFAIRregretted that the Vice President of the Council had spoken so early in the debate on these Amendments, because he had hoped to have obtained from him some assurances as to the constitution of the Scotch Education Department. That was the supreme ruling power which would regulate education in Scotland, and would govern the Education Board, the Members of which would be merely Privy Council Commissioners for the specific performance of the duty of organizing schools under the Act. But the Scotch Education Department was the Government concession to the prayer of almost every Petition from Scotch constituencies—that the national characteristics of Scotch education should be preserved. He had never yet had any satisfactory explanation as to the constitution of that Department; and on this subject considerable anxiety prevailed. Was it to consist of men devoted to education, or was it to be made up of a few ornamental Privy Councillors, who, like the Committee of Council, existed rather in name than in reality? He did not wish to lessen Ministerial responsibility; but the Scotch people would recollect that the "Scotch Department" was the answer to their Petitions, and they would expect it to be a working reality, and not a mere name.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, he did not think the change proposed by the Government one of so sweeping a character as it had been represented. The House of Lords recognized the proper subordination of a Board sitting in Edinburgh to a Department responsible to Parliament, and to vest the responsi-

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  bility in the Education Department would best secure Scotch interests and wishes. He considered that course of conduct consistent with the tentative character of the present legislation upon the subject. There was already a tendency to bring all the scholars to a dead level, and he feared that unless the Revised Code were modified, the higher education given in Scotch schools would be discouraged. Care should be taken to show equal justice to elementary and higher education, and the Inspectors would be able to give advice to the Department in this matter.
  MR. C. DALRYMPLEmaintained that there was a material difference between the proposal of the Lords and that of the Government. While the former contemplated a permanent Board, the latter sought to limit its duration to two years, instead of three years, as the Bill originally proposed, there being little likelihood of an extension of the term hereafter. It would, moreover, apparently be the creation of the Scotch Education Department—a body the constitution of which he had vainly endeavoured to ascertain. He regretted that the Government proposed to exclude the Law Officers of the Crown from the Board, and he looked forward with little confidence to the way in which its members would be nominated.
  MR. KINNAIRDcondemned the course which had been taken by the Government in not placing their voluminous and intricate Amendments upon the Paper. The fact was, that they were living under a despotic Government. Within the last 10 days he had had communications from his constituents, praying him to give them some information as to what was the nature of the Amendments to be proposed by the Government in contradistinction to the Lords' Amendments; but that information, in consequence of the reticence of the Government, he had been unable to give them. He felt bound to enter his protest against the course which had been taken by the Government in reference to this question.
  MR. GORDONsaid, that, seeing that the House of Lords had sacrificed so many of their predilections, he thought their Lordships should have been met in a fairer spirit. The concession as to the Scotch Education Department was merely nominal. He should have infinitely pre-
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  ferred a Board popularly elected. In fact, the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, when Solicitor General in 1869, stated his approval of the Law Officers of the Crown having seats at the Board. There could be no doubt in what they had proposed that the House of Lords had put themselves in harmony with the general feelings of Scotchmen. The three great Presbyterian Bodies in Scotland, the Convention of the Royal burghs, and the schoolmasters, had all expressed themselves in favour of a Scottish Board. No more numerously signed Petitions had ever been presented to that House on any subject, and the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) had given the authority of Government to the wish of Scotland that there should be a national Board. The Bill, moreover, interfered not only with elementary education, but with the secondary schools, over which the Privy Council would take no charge whatever. There was the example of Ireland, where there had been a Commission of Inquiry, which had reported in favour of the continuance of the Board, and for Ireland there was a Supplementary Vote of £80,000 to be moved this Session to improve the position of Irish schoolmasters. Scotland acknowledged that the Privy Council should have a right finally to adjust the Board, and the Lords' Amendment expressly recognized that right, and he believed that the proper course would be to follow the Lords' Amendments. If they did not do that, they would be landed at once in the midst of considerable difficulties.
  LORD GARLIESsaid, he trusted the Government would prolong the duration of the Board to three years. Two years were not sufficient to enable the Board to complete the work of organization; and with a longer term of office a higher type of men would be secured.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the said Amendment."
  The House divided:—Ayes 72; Noes 128: Majority 56.
  Words inserted.
  Another Amendment made to the said Amendment.
  Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  Amendments, as far as the Amendment in page 7, line 35, inclusive, read a second time; several agreed to; one amended, and agreed to; and several disagreed to.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEproposed to disagree with the Lords' Amendments to Clauses 9 and 10, and to omit the clauses in question from the Bill in order to insert a new clause, leaving it to the Education Board, or, if it should cease to exist, to the Education Department, to fix the period of school-board elections, having regard to the peculiarities and convenience of the various localities in which the elections occur.
  Consequential Amendment proposed to the Bill in lieu of Clauses 9 and 10, to insert the words,—
  "Each school board elected under the provisions of this Act shall remain in office until a new election shall take place as hereinafter provided, and the time for every election subsequent to the first shall be appointed by the Scotch Education Department, having regard to the circumstances and convenience of the locality in which the election is to take place, and so that so far as practicable and convenient there shall be an election in each parish and burgh for which a separate school board is appointed to be elected once, and not oftener, in every period of three years, and that each school board shall remain in office for three years, and no longer; and it shall be lawful for the said department to appoint the time or times for the elections subsequent to the first in each parish and burgh by general order, which shall subsist until a new order shall be made; and the school board in office shall, a convenient time before the time so appointed for the next election, take such steps as they shall deem necessary, or as shall be directed by the said department, for the election of a new school board accordingly; and should any election not take place as required by this Act, and at the times hereinbefore specified, the Scotch Education Department may issue an order for an election at such time and place as the said department shall determine, or may allow the existing school board to continue in office, or may nominate a school board for the parish or burgh in which the failure has occurred, in the manner hereinafter provided with respect to any parish or burgh which on the expiration of twelve months from the passing of this Act shall be without a school board, and any board so nominated shall continue in office for the same period as a board elected under this Act at the time when the failure occurred, and shall have all the powers and be required to perform all the duties of a board so elected; and should a vacancy occur in any board during the currency of its period of office, such vacancy shall be supplied by the board itself nominating a person to supply such vacancy, and every person so nominated shall go out of office at the same date as the school board."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  Amendment proposed to the proposed Consequential Amendment, to insert, in line 4, after the word "by," the words "the Board of Education or by."—(Lord John Manners.)
  Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.
  Consequential Amendment made.
  Subsequent Amendments read a second time; several agreed to; several amended and agreed to.
  Committee appointed, "to draw up Reasons to be assigned to The Lords for disagreeing to the Amendments to which this House hath disagreed:"—The LORD ADVOCATE, Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER, Mr. Secretary CARDWELL, Mr. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, Mr. BAXTER, Mr. CAMPBELL, Mr. WINTERBOTHAM, Mr. HIBBERT, Mr. GLYN, and Mr. ADAM:—To withdraw immediately; Three to be the quorum.

MILITARY FORCES LOCALISATION (EXPENSES) BILL— [BILL 222.]
(Mr. Bonham-Carter, Mr. Secretary Cardwell, Sir Henry Storks, Mr. Campbell.)
MILITARY FORCES LOCALISATION (EXPENSES) BILL— [BILL 222.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Cardwell.)
  MR. RYLANDS, in rising to move, as an Amendment—
  "That, having regard to the advanced period of the Session, and the pressure of important Public Business in which the House is already engaged, it is not expedient to proceed further with the consideration of the Bill,"
  said, the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had stated that it would do away with billeting the Militia, and the impression which he conveyed to the House was, that a very large sum of money was required to build barracks for the Militia. But the right hon. Gentleman had also stated that the Militia were to be placed under canvas during training, so that the amount was not really needed. He (Mr. Rylands) believed that the Bill constituted really a scheme for getting more recruits; and against that he must contend that by means of our present system of recruiting, accompanied by certain modifications which would bring the Auxiliary Forces into active combination with the Line, we should have all that was required for the defence of the country; while it was idle to contemplate, with our small Army, making a foreign port the base

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  of operations for the purpose of coping with the vast Armies of the Continent. He was altogether opposed to the expenditure, enormous as it was, contemplated by the Bill, and he hoped, at all events, that the country would be afforded a longer time to consider the scheme which it involved. The expenditure, as far as he could judge, was wholly unnecessary as securing the objects alleged in its support, and for that reason he should move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "having regard to the advanced period of the Session, and the pressure of important public business in which the House is already engaged, it is not expedient to proceed further with the consideration of this Bill,"—(Mr. Rylands,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that after the strong expressions of opinion on the part of that House in favour of this measure, he could not think the hon. Member was serious in his opposition to the measure, and should not do more than express a hope that he would not put the House to the trouble of dividing.
  MR. R. N. FOWLER, in supporting the Bill, said, he was anxious to state that in doing so he did not mean to express approval of the policy of the Government, which had withdrawn the troops from the colonies—a policy to which he was strongly opposed.
  MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUNcommented upon the fact that the Members of Her Majesty's Government had taken so small a part in this discussion. He intended to support the Amendment.
  MR. W. M. TORRENSsaid, he entirely disagreed with the policy of the Government as evinced in dealing with this subject. He believed that the concentration of our forces in this country was a mistaken policy, as it was a craven, a cowardly, and a dastardly desertion of our colonies. If this country was to keep up its position, its flag must be seen all over the world, and our true policy should be to have both a national and Imperial Army, with interchanges of regiments for the colonies, and not to make the country look as if it were a
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  mere fortified workshop or a garrisoned bullion-case. If, however, the Government felt bound to spend this £3,500,090, let them apply it in getting rid of the slums that disgraced our great cities. It was hopeless, however, to expect to be able to reverse the Vote of the preceding evening, and for that reason he would recommend his hon. Friend (Mr. Rylands) not to press his Motion.
  MR. RYLANDS, in view of the fact that many hon. Members of his way of thinking in this matter had left the House, in the belief that the Bill would not be taken that night, would not press his Motion to a division, and therefore he begged to withdraw it.
  MR. WHALLEY, who spoke amid much interruption, entered his protest against the Bill, which was nothing more than an attempt to make the Mutiny Act perpetual. For the last two centuries we had been notorious for two things—our extravagant expenditure on military matters, and the utter inefficiency of our military system. Englishmen demanded the right to be drilled, and not to be defended by a mercenary Army.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee, and reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

SUPPLY—DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE VATICAN.

  RESOLUTION. ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [30th July], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" (for Committee of Supply); and which Amendment was,
  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, the omission of the Vote for Diplomatic Services at Rome, in page 343 of the Estimates, was calculated to mislead Parliament into the belief that no Vote was required this year for the Diplomatic Mission to the Vatican,"—(Mr. Monk,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Debate resumed.
  Amendment and Original Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee deferred till To-morrow.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.