Commons Sitting of 14 February 1873

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTE—Contagious Diseases (Animals), appointed; Imprisonment for Debt, nominated; Endowed Schools Act (1869), nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CommitteeR.P.
PUBLIC BILLs—Ordered—First Reading—Monastic and Conventual Institutions [62]; Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Orders* [63].
First Reading—Portpatrick Harbour (Repeal of Acts)* [61].
Second Reading—Polling Districts (Ireland)*[1].
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee— Union of Benefices* [28].

METROPOLITAN POLICE—LEGAL ADVICE.—QUESTION.
MR. STAPLETONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether since the retirement of Sir Richard Mayne the Metropolitan Police have been without legal guidance in the initiation of important prosecutions; and whether, if that be so, it is desirable, in the opinion of the Government, that such a state of things should continue?
MR. BRUCE,in reply, said, the Chief Commissioner of Police enjoyed the same powers and had the same legal assistance as was given in the time of Sir Richard Mayne. Sir Richard Mayne, being then a barrister, was associated with an officer in the Army at the time of the formation of the Metropolitan Police, and on the retirement of Colonel Rowan Sir Richard Mayne became Chief Commissioner, and remained so, as was well known, for many years. During that time he laid it down as a principle of action not to act on his own opinion as a lawyer, but, when legal questions arose, to take a legal opinion. In important prosecutions lie always had recourse to the Law Officers of the Crown. In all matters relating to the construction of Acts of Parliament he had recourse to the legal firm who were still the advisers of the Commissioners of Police. He must say that the system which had worked well in the time of Sir Richard Mayne worked well at the present moment, and lie saw no reason to change it.

THE FACTORY ACT—ENFORCEMENT OF THE ACT.—QUESTION.
MR. C. DALRYMPLEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government intend to appoint local officers, under Her Majesty's Sub-Inspectors of Factories, in certain populous districts where small workshops are numerous, and the present Act for their better regulation remains a dead letter, owing to the want of sufficient inspection, to carry out the provisions of the Act, or to adopt any other course?
MR. BRUCE,in reply, said, he must admit that the Act was not so thoroughly enforced as he could wish in certain districts, owing largely to an unusual degree of sickness among the sub-Inspectors. He had considered various plans
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for remedying a failure which he hoped was only temporary; but he had not adopted the suggested appointment of local officers under the sub-Inspectors. School Boards had been elected in most populous districts, and had usually adopted the principle of compulsion. This would lead to careful inquiry into the attendance of children at schools, and he hoped the Inspectors would thus receive important co-operation. He could not judge how far this expectation would be realized; but it would be inexpedient to increase the number of Inspectors, unless it was made clearer that the present staff would be unequal to its work.

CRIMINAL LAW—CHATHAM CONVICT PRISON.—QUESTION.
MR. R.N. FOWLERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government intend to take any measures calculated to diminish the number of accidents, self-mutilations, and other injuries officially reported from Chatham Convict Prison in the last annual volume of the Directors of Convict Prisons in England and Wales (issued in the autumn of 1872), whereby it appears that out of an average of 1,692 convicts at Chatham there were, during the year, 1,725 admissions to the hospital (being more than one admission to every prisoner on the average), and 20 deaths; also an increase of abscesses from 153 to 270, and of ulcers from 98 to 247; and a further increase of contusions from accidents from 316 to 487, including 17 cases of prisoners purposely fracturing their arms orlegs (by thrusting them under waggons and engines), and 24 cases of purposely self-inflicted wounds; the prison surgeon adding to the Report in reference to these self-mutilations that they were "of so severe a character that amputation was immediately necessary in most cases, as the limbs were so mangled as to preclude any hope of recovery?"
MR. BRUCE,in reply, said, his attention was called some time ago to the Report of the surgeon at Chatham Prison. Although malingering had always been practised among convicts — to whom, as the idlest of mankind, work was the greatest punishment they could undergo —it did not exist to the same extent at Portsmouth and Portland as at Chatham. During 1871 it did not increase

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in the former prisons, in one, indeed, there was, he thought, a decrease. The increase at Chatham was certainly startling, and the only explanation as yet afforded him was that the work, being the excavation of ground for the formation of docks, was very severe. It was therefore very distasteful to the convicts, and they had recourse to more than the ordinary extent to various disabling practices. Some of them created, as they easily could, sores and ulcers, others broke their limbs, the great number of waggons used in the removal of earth giving special facilities for this, and others, doing what men often did in other countries to avoid the conscription, mutilated themselves. It was remarkable, however, that they always selected unloaded waggons, so as to disable themselves with the least serious consequences. The sudden increase in malingering called for special inquiry, which had for some time been on foot, with the view of explaining the difference between Chatham and the other prisons.

TRIBUNAL OF COMMERCE BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. W.H. SMITHasked Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been drawn to the Tribunal of Commerce Bill, introduced as a Private Bill; and, whether the sanction of the Law Officers of the Crown has been given to the measure?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,in reply, said, his attention had been drawn to the Tribunal of Commerce Bill, which had been introduced as a Private Bill, but the sanction of the Law Officers of the Crown had certainly not been given to it. As the hon. Member had not asked whether their consent would be given, it would be superfluous to say anything on that point.

  RUSSIAN SETTLEMENTS ON THE RIVER ATREK.—QUESTION.
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he has any objection to lay upon the Table the Reports as to the Russian Settlements on or near the River Atrek, which have been made to the Foreign Office during the last three years by the representatives of Her Majesty at the Court of Teheran?
  VISCOUNT ENFIELD,in reply, said, the Reports on this subject would form part of the Papers relating to the Question of the hon. Member for Penrhyn (Mr. Eastwick), and would be presented to Parliament.

ARMY—MONCREIFF CARRIAGES.

  QUESTION.
  MAJOR BEAUMONTasked the Secretary of State for War, If he has any objection to lay upon the Table of the House the Report of the Special Committee on Moncreiff Carriages, dated July 1872?
  SIR HENRY STORKS: The Report asked for is one of a series on the Moncreiff gun-carriage, and the Committee are still pursuing their inquiries. It is unusual to give Reports until the investigations are concluded. When the Committee have sent in their final Report, the Secretary of State will consider the propriety of laying the series on the Table.

  ARMY—REGIMENTAL FACINGS AND BADGES.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL NORTHasked the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (the Surveyor General of Ordnance), Whether the answer he gave him relative to the facings and badges of regiments of the Line was equally applicable to regiments of Militia?
  SIR HENRY STORKSreplied that they were equally applicable.

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

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE VATICAN.

  QUESTION. MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  MR. SINCLAIR AYTOUN: I rise to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What is the object with which the Government of this Country maintains an Envoy at Rome to the Pope, and what are the Instructions under which that Envoy has been and

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  is now acting? I shall further move for Papers upon the subject. It is necessary that I should say a few words in order to explain the purport of my Question, and to show the importance of the information which I trust the House will obtain from the noble Lord. In the first place, I may remind the House that at the close of the Session a discussion took place with regard to the question whether or not the Government, in appointing an Envoy to the Vatican, were or were not acting in contravention of an Act of Parliament, passed in the year 1848, which rendered it lawful for the Government of this country to enter into diplomatic relations with the Sovereign of the Papal States. Upon the occasion to which I refer, the end of the month of July, or the beginning of the month of August, a discussion took place upon the question. It was contended by several hon. Members that the Government, in appointing Mr. Clarke Jervoise as Envoy to represent this country at the Vatican, were acting in contravention of the Act of 1848. Hon. Members who took this view of the question relied mainly upon those words in the Act of 1848, which rendered it lawful to appoint an Envoy to the Sovereign of the Roman States. But it was contended that the Sovereign of the Roman States was now the King of Italy, and that the words of the Act in no sense applied to the Pope, who had ceased to exercise any temporal power whatever. On the part of the Government, it was maintained that this was not the correct interpretation of the words of the Act, and the Attorney General made a speech, in which he endeavoured to show that the Government were perfectly justified in appointing an Envoy to the Pope. In the first place, he argued that the Pope was still a temporal Sovereign, and that he still exercised sovereignty over some portion of his territory, however minute that territory might be. He afterwards abandoned that argument, as supposing that the Pope still exercised sovereignty over a portion of the City of Rome, but the hon. and learned Gentleman defended the action of the Government upon this ground—I will quote four or five lines from the statement made by the Attorney General in justification of the conduct of the Government. He stated that the holding of intercourse
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  with the Pope, be he Sovereign or not, had never been forbidden by law, and, in support of that position, the hon. and learned Gentleman cited the opinion of several eminent legal authorities, who had been consulted by former Governments as to the legality of entering into diplomatic relations with the Court of the Pope. He stated that these legal authorities had given it as their opinion that there was nothing to be found upon the Statute Book that rendered it unlawful to appoint an Envoy or a Minister to the Pope. But the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to overlook the fact that all these opinions had been given before the passing of the Act of 1848. I wish now to call the attention of the House to the extraordinary consequences which would follow from the opinion expressed by the Attorney General, if he was correct in the opinion he expressed. The result would be that although the Government might ask the authority of the House in order to make action lawful, it would be justifiable and permissible on the part of the Government if, on finding that the Act did not meet the objects for which they had asked the House to pass it, for them to go back upon the Prerogative of the Crown, no matter what the interpretation of the Act itself might mean. I say, then, that if the Government are correct in the matter, and were it to act in that manner, the passing of Acts of Parliament would be a simple mockery. But the opinion of the Attorney General could not be supported by a reference to other and analogous cases. The power of the Crown with regard to coining money was long, I believe, without any limitation; in process of time it began to be disputed to what extent the Prerogative reached, and ultimately it was held by all the greatest lawyers of the country that the passing of an Act in the reign of George III. had finally settled the question that the Prerogative of the Crown in respect of the coining of money was extinct, because the authority of Parliament having been once revoked, it followed as a necessary consequence that the Prerogative was abandoned; therefore I say, in the case of this Act of 1848, authorising diplomatic relations with Rome, by the same reason Parliament, having been once consulted, and its authority invoked upon the question, it is not within

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  the power of any Government to fall back upon the Prerogative, say whatever may be the interpretation of the Act, there was no opinion by high legal authorities in former times antecedent to the passing of that Act that there was no law to prevent the country from entering into diplomatic relations with the Pope of Rome. I do not wish to dwell upon this; but the question I wish to put to the noble Lord who represents the Foreign Office in this House is—"What is the object with which the Government of this country maintains an Envoy at Rome to the Pope, and what are the Instructions under which the Envoy has been, and is now, acting?" It appears to me to be a most extraordinary circumstance that we should have at the same time two Diplomatic Agents residing in the same city, one credited to the King of Italy, and the other an Envoy to the Pope. The reasons given for the appointment of an Envoy to the Pope, in addition to the Diplomatic Agent already accredited to the Court of the King of Italy, is, I believe, because the Pope does not regard the King of Italy as the legitimate Sovereign of what were formerly the Papal States, but as an usurper; and, consequently, he would not have any intercourse with the Minister accredited from this country to the Italian Court. That appears, however, to me to be a course in the highest degree insulting to the King of Italy, and not only to that Sovereign, but to the nations by whose will he has become Sovereign of the Papal States. It is, I say, a course in the highest degree insulting to that Sovereign and to the people of Italy, that this country should accredit a separate Envoy to the Pope on the ground that the King of Italy is regarded by the Pope as a usurper. I should like to have some information from the noble Lord whether he does not think that in sending an Envoy to the Pope in this manner we are not acting with that courtesy which we ought to observe towards the King of Italy. What I wish to learn from the noble Lord is —what is the object for which this country has maintained Mr. Clarke Jervoise as its Envoy at the Vatican, and what are the duties assigned to him—what is that he has to do as Envoy to the Vatican? It is perfectly clear that the duties of Mr. Clarke Jervoise must refer
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  either to religious questions or to temporal questions. If the noble Lord states that he is commissioned to communicate with the Pope upon religious questions—upon questions arising out of the position of the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic Church—in which position he no doubt exercises great influence and authority over a large number of the subjects of this kingdom—if the noble Lord informs us that the object of Mr. Jervoise's appointment is to enable him to communicate with the Pope or his Ministers on questions of this nature, then, Sir, I think no other information would be required. It will then be perfectly clear what the object of the Government has been in adopting the extraordinary course of maintaining two Diplomatic Agents in the same city. But I do not anticipate that this will be the answer of the noble Lord. I expect the noble Lord will say that Mr. Clarke Jervoise has not received any instruction to communicate with the Pope or his Ministers upon questions of a purely religious character. I fully expect he will state that the subject on which Mr. Clarke Jervoise is commissioned to treat are subjects of temporal character. If that is the case, I cannot see why the Ministers accredited to the Court of Rome should not be perfectly competent to fulfil all the duties which I suppose Mr. Clarke Jervoise is expected to perform. The duties of a Diplomatic Agent are usually to attend to all the interests of the subjects of the country which he represents, whether in regard to matters of trade or questions affecting the personal interests of British subjects. For what reason is it that the Minister accredited to the King of Italy cannot perform this function? What is the real object and use of the particular Diplomatic Mission of Mr. Clarke Jervoise. I have endeavoured from the Papers which have already been laid before Parliament to discover the nature of the duties to which Mr. Clarke Jervoise has been engaged, and I find that he has interested himself upon a question relating to "Peter's Pence"—a certain sum of money sent from the Roman Catholics of this country to the Pope under the denomination of "Peter's Pence." It appears that some questions had been raised whether the sum of money derived from this source should not be confiscated by the

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  Italian Government, and the question has occupied the attention of Mr. Clarke Jervoise. He has also occupied himself with a question relating to the interests of various British subjects, one question having reference to an injury sustained by a vineyard belonging to a religious community at Rome. He also interested himself in various other questions involving the protection of the individual interests of British subjects. I wish to know upon what ground it is that questions of this kind, when any British subject conceives himself to be unjustly treated, are not referred at once to the Diplomatic Agent accredited to the Court of the Sovereign of that country? I want to know what it is that Mr. Clarke Jervoise does that might not be quite as well done by the Minister accredited to the King of Italy? I will conclude by putting the Question of which I have given Notice to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and I also beg to move for Papers in continuation of the Papers already laid before Parliament.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "there lie laid before this House, a Copy of Papers (in continuation of a Paper [C—247], Session 1871, intituled 'Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Rome, 1870–71')," — (Mr. Sinclair Aytoun,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDhad entertained the hope that the explanation which he had given on three successive occasions during the last Session, as to the position of Mr. Clarke Jervoise at Rome, would have been accepted by the House, and that no misapprehension would have prevailed as to the precise position of that gentleman. He would restate, as briefly as ho could, the position of Mr. Clarke Jervoise at Rome. He was not an Envoy to the Papal See. He was not accredited, and had no instructions in the general sense with which Ambassadors, or Ministers, or Chargé d' Affaires were provided. He was a clerk in the Foreign Office, and was discharging special duties which might or might not cease at any moment. He did not form part of the staff of Her Majesty's Lega-
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  tion at Rome; he reported home independently. He (Viscount Enfield) stated, in reply to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), on the 30th of July last, that—
  "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."—[3 Hansard, ccxiii. 156.]
  And again, on the 9th of August, in reply to the hon. Member for North-east Lancashire (Mr. Holt), he stated that—
  "Mr. Jervoise had no definite position at Rome, but would report to the Foreign Office any information which might be communicated to him directly or indirectly in regard to the relation of the Papal Government with foreign Powers. That beyond this he had no general instructions, and his duties, as so defined, are understood, though not prescribed in writing." —Ibid. 840.]
  He (Viscount Enfield) did not know that he had anything further to answer. Mr. Jervoise was kept on for the present at Rome, because the interest of Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects might at times require communication with the Pope, and as the Papal Government declined official intercourse with the representatives of foreign Powers accredited to the King of Italy, Mr. Jervoise was able to furnish information which otherwise Her Majesty's Government would probably not b e able to receive. He (Viscount Enfield) repeated that Mr. Clarke Jervoise was not Envoy; that he was not Ambassador; that he was not Chargé d' Affaires or Consul General, and was not accredited in any sense of the word, but performed duties which were of a temporary character. He trusted these explanations would be satisfactory to the House.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: I quite remember this question being brought forward last Session, and the proceeding appeared to a great number of hon. Members, and to some of the most learned of our Members, illegal. There may be sonic excuse for saying that the position of Mr. Clarke Jervoise is not technically a violation of the Diplomatic Relations Act of 1848, which prohibits all diplomatic communication between the Government of this country, as represented by Her Majesty, and that of the Pope of Rome in his ecclesiastical character, or, in other words,

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  with the Pope of Rome in any other character than as being then the Sovereign of the Pontifical States. His Holiness, having now ceased to be the Sovereign of the Pontifical States, and the prohibition of the Act being unchanged, it seems to me to be in full force. It appears to me also an anomaly, that Her Majesty's Government should recognize the determination of the Pope not to acknowledge the King of Italy, after Her Majesty's Government have themselves fully recognized that Sovereign. This is another point in regard to which I think the present state of things is anomalous. I can perfectly understand, that some of the attachés to the Embassy at the Italian Court might be empowered to obtain information as to the proceedings of the Pope. I cannot take upon myself to say, that the obtaining of such information would, per se, be a violation of the Act; but the position of Mr. Clarke Jervoise is clearly that of a negotiator, whether technically or formally accredited, or not; and therefore, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many learned Members of this House, it constitutes a violation of the intention and principle of the Diplomatic Relations Act of 1848. That opinion I retain, after hearing the answer of the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs—in fact, the substance of that answer confirms the objection which is raised by the Motion of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy. I cannot see, that the position is at all altered, and I must say, I think that this House ought to be in a condition hereafter to consider, whether the position of Mr. Clarke Jervoise, with reference to the Court of the King of Italy, should not be altered or abandoned, since the position of Mr. Clarke Jervoise at Rome seems to me an insult to the King of Italy. This question must arise when the House is asked for money to meet the expenses of the Mission which Mr. Clarke Jervoise now fulfils.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he wished to point out to his hon. Friend who had made the Motion, as well as to the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, that if there were anything in the particular point they had raised, the objection, whatever it was, applied just as much to the plan for which they seemed to contend as to that which they repudiated. Mr. Clarke Jervoise was in no sense an Envoy; but if they were right in think-
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  ing that it was contrary to law that the Queen should in any manner, through Lord Granville, employ a servant for the purpose of communication with the Pope, it was perfectly immaterial whether that servant was connected or not with Her Majesty's regular Legation. If the objection were a valid one—and the Government were advised that it was not valid—it would apply equally in both cases. He should oppose the production of the Papers moved for.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 116; Noes 63: Majority 53.

TREATIES WITH FOREIGN POWERS.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. RYLANDS,who had given Notice to move—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the Commercial Treaty recently negotiated with France, and all future Treaties between this country and Foreign Powers ought to be laid upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament before being ratified, in order that an opportunity may be afforded to both Houses of expressing their opinion upon the provisions of such Treaties,"
  said: I have purposely framed this Motion in such general language that in agreeing to it the House will not be committed to any expression of opinion further than that in future Parliament shall have an effectual control over all Treaties that the Government of this country may enter into with foreign Powers. Such a result might be secured by one of three courses—namely, either by requiring an Address from Parliament in favour of a Treaty before ratification; or by making Treaties subject to the disapproval of Parliament; or by submitting all Treaties prior to ratification to the consideration of a Joint Committee of Members of both Houses. I express no opinion upon any of these courses; but I am anxious simply to obtain an acknowledgment of the principle of Parliamentary control, leaving the Government to suggest the best means of carrying the principle into effect. In making this proposal, I do not suppose that at the present day I shall be met with the objection that I am seeking to deprive the Crown of one of its Prerogatives. Indeed, two years ago there was great opposition on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite to the exercise of the Royal Prerogative in the abolition

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  of purchase in the Army. I did not concur in those views; but still it may be said that on both sides of the House the exertion of the Royal Prerogative was not regarded with favour. In fact, one Prerogative of the Crown after another has disappeared, and it is singular that this in reference to Treaties—one of the most dangerous—has lasted so long. No doubt the making of Treaties was in former ages a substantial Prerogative exercised by the King in his own right and frequently for his own personal interests. But that is now all changed. It is well understood that the Sovereign actually takes no part in making Treaties on behalf of this country with foreign Powers, but that the whole responsibility in the matter lies upon the Cabinet. And it is an extraordinary fact that whilst we refuse to allow the 15 right hon. Gentlemen sitting round the Cabinet table to pass a Turnpike Bill, or to lay a tax of a fraction of a penny in the pound, without the consent of Parliament, we invest them with absolute authority to pledge this country to undertakings that may lead in after times to war, and involve the people in enormous expenditure and in loss and disaster. Blackstone says that the right of the Executive to make Treaties is because it is "the sovereign power"—but the sovereign power now rests with the three estates of the realm, and it is with them and not with the Crown alone that the authority for making Treaties should now reside. This question naturally arose during the two past Sessions in connection with the discussion of the Treaty of Washington, and opinions were expressed by eminent Members of both Houses in favour of the policy which I am now advocating. In this House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liskeard (Mr. Horsman), and my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne), both urged the right of Parliament to control the treaty-making power; and similar opinions were expressed in the other House on June 12th, 1871, by a distinguished nobleman whose judgment will carry great weight with hon. Gentlemen on both sides. In the speech to which I refer, Lord Derby put the matter very clearly, and I am happy to fortify myself by quoting the following passage from his speech. He said—
  "No doubt there is a great deal to be said, both on theoretical and on practical grounds, for
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  the principle that the Parliament and the country ought not to be bound by the acts of the Executive, whoever at the time may compose it, in making international treaties without having an opportunity of considering the merits of those treaties."—[3 Hansard, ccvi. 1854.]
  In one of the discussions in this House to which I have alluded, the Prime Minister admitted that a great deal was to be said in favour of limiting the power of the Crown to conclude and ratify Treaties without the consent of Parliament; but he objected to it on the ground that it would be a very inconvenient system, and said that it would introduce open instead of secret diplomacy, giving as an instance of the serious effects of the "open system," the course taken by the Due de Grammont in the French Chamber in making public declarations which destroyed the chance of the maintenance of peace with Prussia. But I respectfully submit that the right hon. Gentleman in urging these arguments entirely missed the point. The open system of diplomacy was expressly adopted by the Due de Grammont for the purpose of exasperating the French people and of forcing on the war; but no one recommends a policy of that kind. No one for a moment proposes that pending negotiations shall be made public or that they should not go on, as they have hitherto done, in a confidential manner. But what I contend for is, that after Her Majesty's Government have carefully discussed—and with such secrecy as they may think necessary, in conjunction with the other parties concerned—the conditions of a proposed Treaty, the Treaty itself shall be submitted to Parliament. The Prime Minister said that if tiffs course were adopted the negotiation of Treaties would be rendered more difficult. But that is not a very great objection. We have had too many Treaties. It would have been a very great advantage, instead of a disadvantage, if a large number of objectionable Treaties between this country and foreign Powers had never been entered into. If a proposed Treaty was manifestly for the public interest there would be no difficulty in getting the assent of Parliament; and clearly, if a majority of Parliament were opposed to any Treaty, it is only right that it should be dropped. The Senate of the United States have the power which I am asking for this House, and the National Assembly of France at the present moment possess

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  the power, which they are about to exercise, of reviewing the Commercial Treaty just entered into with this country before it can receive the ratification of the President of the Republic. But in order to give the House the power which the Senate of the United States and the National Assembly of France possess, it is necessary that in the Treaty itself there should be an Article providing that the ratification shall be dependent upon the sanction of the Houses of Parliament being secured by Her Majesty's Government. The other evening, when I urged upon the Government the advantage of giving the House an opportunity of considering the French Treaty, the Prime Minister very courteously assured me that it would be immediately laid on the Table, and inasmuch as it would have to be considered by the National Assembly of France before it was ratified, there would be an opportunity afforded to hon. Members of the House to consider the matter. But while that is undoubtedly true, the fact of the Treaty being now in the possession of the House is merely an accidental circumstance, which practically gives Parliament no control. The position in which we are placed is this—that while under the 24th Article of the Treaty the assent of the National Assembly is to be obtained before the President of the Republic undertakes to ratify the Treaty, our Plenipotentiaries, as I understand, have come under the absolute obligation of ratifying the Treaty without reference to the action of Parliament. Precisely the same kind of accidental circumstance occurred in reference to the Washington Treaty in 1871, which was laid upon the Table of both Houses before it was ratified. Lord Russell took the opportunity, on the 12th of June, 1871, in the House of Lords, of moving an Address to the Crown, praying Her Majesty not to ratify the Treaty —and how was that Motion met? The House of Lords felt itself barred by the terms under which our Plenipotentiaries were appointed from interfering in the matter. A noble and learned Lord of very high authority (Lord Cairns), put the case very strongly. He contrasted the credentials of the Commissioners of the United States—which consisted merely of an authority to discuss and sign a Treaty subject to the ratification of the Senate—with the credentials of the Commissioners of Her Majesty conferring
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  plenipotentiary powers. Those credentials were in the usual terms; but the noble and learned Lord thought them so important that he quoted them at length, and called attention to the fact that the Queen "engaged and promised upon the Royal word" that the acts of the Commissioners should be "agreed to, acknowledged, and accepted" by the Crown in the "fullest manner," and were to be taken with "equal force and efficacy" as if done by the Queen herself. Lord Cairns added—
  "I refer to these words for this purpose. I am as jealous as any of your Lordships can be to preserve intact and in full the proper power of Parliament; but I maintain that when a Treaty has been signed, as this Treaty has been, by plenipotentiaries possessing the powers I have read, the mere accidental circumstance that the ratifications have not been actually exchanged makes no difference to the substance though it may to the form; so that, to all intents and purposes, this Treaty is at this moment, in honour and honesty, as binding upon this country, according to the Constitution of the country, as if the ratifications had been actually exchanged."
  The House of Lords were evidently impressed with this view of the case, and there was no division on Lord Russell's Resolution. In this House the Washington Treaty was not formally considered until subsequent to its ratification, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Charles Adderley) who raised the discussion, admitted there was no power of interference. And yet, notwithstanding all this, the question is now raised as to whether Parliament is not equally with the Ministry responsible for the Treaty of Washington. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the other night that the House is responsible for the "Three Rules," about which there had been so much discussion, because "the Washington Treaty was laid before Parliament, and therefore Parliament was cognizant of the Three Rules." My right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie), very properly in my opinion, protested against this doctrine, and denied that the House of Commons were parties to the Treaty. He said—"It was the Crown that made the Treaty, and the Ministers of the Crown are responsible to Parliament." But I observe that the leading journal is pressing this charge of responsibility against us. Two or three days since The Times argued that—" Parliament, having the power by an Address to abrogate the Treaty acquiesced in it, and must therefore share

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  the responsibility." It may be true that technically we had the power; but how was it possible to exercise it under the circumstances? The position of things was such that we could only have stopped the Treaty by an overthrow of the Government, with a great political convulsion, and with the occasion of fresh sources of quarrel with our brethren across the Atlantic. I have a very strong opinion that if the right of considering the terms of the Treaty had been reserved to Parliament, that right would have been effectually exercised, and that the blots in the Treaty would have been detected and cured. In fact, the main blot, even in the partial discussion which took place, was indicated. But the discovery came too late to be cured, and we were left for months in a state of great public anxiety lest the proposed Arbitration should fail. We learned with much surprise that one of the Commissioners, Professor Bernard, justified the dangerous ambiguity of the Treaty by giving reasons which sometimes make it necessary for diplomatists to avail themselves of "less accurate" language than they would otherwise employ. Of course the Foreign Office sanctioned this "less accurate" language. Yet the Foreign Office always prides itself upon its powers of accuracy of expression—they say the training of the service enables them to draw up diplomatic documents in language which shall be free from mistake; but I must say that my experience has shown that the Foreign Office has by no means succeeded in this object. The Washington Treaty was certainly a case in point. It appeared that certain expressions that might otherwise have been insisted upon had been yielded in order to avoid offending the susceptibilities of the Senate of the United States; but if our Commissioners at Washington had been able to say that the language they adopted must be such as was likely to be also accepted by the House of Commons, their position would have been strengthened, and the use of ambiguous language might have been avoided. I think altogether, in this view, the relative position held by our Commissioners was an unfair one, and I hope the Government, by accepting my proposal, will prevent similar disadvantages in future in the negotiation of Treaties by British Commissioners. I think the responsibility of Parliament
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  in the matter of Treaties should be a real responsibility, and whilst I may not carry hon. Members with me to the full extent of all Treaties, I think they will be disposed to agree with me that in the case of Commercial Treaties there should be in every case a special Article rendering their ratification conditional upon the sanction of the House being obtained. We have a right especially to urge this in respect to the French Treaty on the ground of former precedents. Mr. Pitt, in 1787, laid the Commercial Treaty with France on the Table of the House, and an Address to the Crown was moved upon it. In 1860, Lord Palmerston informed the House that in reference to the French Treaty he proposed to follow the course adopted by Mr. Pitt, and he stated that by a distinct Article it was subject to the approval of Parliament. In the present Treaty such a power was reserved to the French Assembly, though not to the House of Commons; but without this power it was impossible that the House of Commons could deal with the subject. It surely seems only reasonable that an opportunity should be afforded of discussing this question, not as a matter of party politics, or of confidence in the Government, but as solely affecting the commerce of the country, and I hope it is not too late even now to introduce a Supplemental Article in the Treaty providing for the prior approval of the House of Commons before ratification. We have yet to discuss the question, whether it is desirable to have any Treaty at all, and I have hitherto heard no arguments which justify the course taken by the Foreign Office. My belief is that the Treaty is altogether an impolitic one. Had Lord Melbourne been alive, he might with advantage have suggested to the Foreign Office—"Why can't you let it alone?" The great thing is to impress upon the Foreign Office the necessity of letting things alone, and of intermeddling as little as possible. Lord Granville at the Mansion House did make a defence of the proposed Treaty, and The Times, which had apparently varied in its judgment upon this question—though I do not complain that it has reflected the changes in public feeling—thus summed up its comments upon Lord Granville's speech—"The weak point in his argument was that he did not show why it was desirable to have

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  a Treaty at all." I quite agree that this was the weak point in his argument. We should have left the French people to learn by experience the effect of the denunciation of the Treaty of 1860, and I believe that in a short period the denunciation of the Treaty would have been generally acknowledged to be very injurious to the commercial interests of France, and that a lesson of political economy would have been taught to the nation, which would have been greatly in favour of free commercial intercourse. We ought not to have stopped forward to assist the President in what was a reactionary policy. By assisting him in this way we have placed ourselves in a false position. I have been ashamed to see deputations from English Chambers of Commerce haggling for terms under the Treaty. Such proceedings must shake the opinion of the world as to the confidence we feel in our own principles, and the policy of the Government has struck a blow and given great discouragement to the Free Trade party in Europe. As an exponent of the opinions of that party, Monsieur Chevalier may fairly be taken as one of the greatest authorities, and he says he is at a loss to explain—
  "Why the English Government, which, since 1846, has assumed to itself the great honour of being the standard bearer of commercial freedom, should be content to endorse the policy of M. Thiers, whose object notoriously is to induce the world to walk backwards."
  The truth is, that without the assistance of England, M. Thiers would have found it absolutely impossible to carry out his reactionary policy. He distinctly acknowledged in his Presidental Message that—
  "The want of accord between France and England would render impossible any understanding with the other commercial Powers, and that once England had refused to admit our tariffs, they would have stood no chance of being accepted elsewhere."
  The main reason for the course taken by Her Majesty's Government probably was their anxiety to get rid of the sur-charge imposed upon the British flag in France— a sur-charge which they believed would inflict great injury on British commerce. No doubt there was some alarm expressed in this House. But it was most unfortunate that the Government had not waited for further experience of the operation of the sur-taxe before taking any action. If we had left the question to be dealt with in France, the tax would
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  probably have been abolished in a short time, as a great outcry had been raised against it on account of its injurious effects upon French commerce. The principal shipping ports were up in arms against it. Rouen and Marseilles, Lyons and Dunkirk, Havre and Nantes were all loud in opposition to it. In the Paris correspondence of the London papers last October, it was stated that—
  "There is not a port of any importance in the country that is not sending up either deputations or remonstrances of some kind against an impost which has driven all their usual means of transport from their harbours, and left their produce to rot in their warehouses. Their misfortunes are aggravated by seeing the ports of neighbouring countries benefiting just in the degree in which they suffer."
  Nor would the effect of this impost have been an unmixed disadvantage for the time, even to English interests. I saw a statement in the papers last month, that owing to its effect in diverting the current of trade, certain shipping interests in Liverpool would have derived a considerable benefit in increased traffic. But it is now perfectly well understood that M. Thiers simply put on the tax to drive the British Government to renew negotiations with him for a new Treaty, and Lord Granville fell into the snare. M. Thiers is a man of great astuteness, and it is understood that he is making use of other matters of policy to carry the Treaty in which he feels so much interested. It is in fact doubtful whether the National Assembly will support the Treaty if taken upon its own merits; but its ultimate disposal will depend entirely upon other considerations affecting the position of parties. All this makes it more unfortunate that we have had anything to do with it. So far I have dealt with the question as to whether there should be a Treaty at all; but that point being conceded in the affirmative, the details of the Treaty become a matter of the gravest importance to Parliament. There are already doubts expressed as to the meaning of some parts of the Treaty arising from the usual ambiguity and want of precision of our Foreign Office. We agree to allow compensatory duties to be levied on British goods on account of taxes which France intends to impose upon the raw materials used by her manufacturers; but it appears that those taxes upon raw materials cannot be levied unless Germany, Austria, Italy, Holland,

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  and Switzerland agree to have compensatory duties upon their goods notwithstanding their Treaties to the contrary, which, unlike ours, will not expire until the year 1877. The question then arises, if Frances is unable, until 1877, to impose any taxes upon raw materials, are our goods, notwithstanding, to pay compensatory duties? I think we ought to have distinct information upon this point, or we may otherwise find that we have agreed to place ourselves at a great disadvantage in relation to other countries trading with France. A rumour has recently obtained currency to the effect that representatives of the British Government had been urging certain Continental Governments having treaties with France to concede what M. Thiers desired. I trust that Her Majesty's Government have adopted no such undignified course, and I shall be delighted to hear the rumour contradicted. But whatever may be the real intention of the Treaty in respect to the compensatory duties, there is no doubt that, as matters stand at present, England will be at a disadvantage with other countries in her trade with France until the year 1877. Up to that time she submits to be excluded from the "most favoured nation" clause. It is not my intention on this occasion to go into any question as to the amount of duties which are proposed to be levied. Any hon. Gentleman in glancing at the schedules will see that the duties are very numerous and very complicated, and must necessarily occasion great interference with trade. But I think I have a right to urge upon the Government, as a reason for submitting the Treaty to the consideration of the House, that several important Chambers of Commerce have expressed strong opinions against it. I hold in my hand Reports of the proceedings of three of those Chambers to which very briefly I wish to direct the attention of the House. The Macclesfield Chamber express their—
  "Entire disapproval of the policy of Her Majesty's Government with reference to the adoption of the Anglo-French Treaty of 1872, which they regard as marking a step backward in the path of free trade," and "they look with confidence to Members of Parliament to oppose with all their influence the adoption of such a retrogressive commercial policy."
  The Macclesfield Chamber also take the opportunity in their Report of expressing an opinion in favour of the Resolution which I am at present recommend
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  ing to the adoption of the House. I will now quote an extract from the Report of the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester. It says—
  "The directors object to the sacrifice of principle involved in endorsing the policy of M. Thiers, and they share the conviction entertained by a large majority of the French Chambers of Commerce and the French commercial public that the tax on raw materials will do little or nothing to relieve, even temporarily, the financial embarrassments of France; and that by lending countenance and support to its imposition, the Government of this country would violate those principles of free trade and sound commercial policy by the observance of which alone they believe the true and ultimate prosperity of nations can be secured."
  The Bradford Chamber of Commerce appear to be equally dissatisfied with the Treaty, and the President of the Chamber at a recent meeting remarked—
  "That the terms conceded by the French Treaty to Bradford were perhaps more favourable than those obtained for any other trade in the kingdom, yet he could not but express his deep regret that the English Government had not been able to make further progress in the direction of free trade instead of returning to the dark ages of protection."
  I need not trouble the House with any further evidence of the dissatisfaction occasioned by the policy of the Government. My hon. and learned Friend who will second this Motion (Mr. Staveley Hill), will be able to tell us that his constituents are much dissatisfied with the Treaty. I dare say that the views entertained by my hon. and learned Friend may differ in certain important points from my own; but, at all events, he represents the opinion of the manufacturers of Coventry that the Treaty is an objectionable one, and that it ought not to be adopted without the sanction of Parliament being previously obtained. I presume we shall be told that other Chambers of Commerce have yielded some measure of approval to the Treaty. But it must be remembered that Macclesfield, Manchester, and 13radfUrd represent the silk, cotton, and woollen trades, which are three of the greatest interests affected by the proposals of M. Thiers. Our exports to France in 1871 amounted, in value of silk goods, to about £500,000; of cotton goods to £2,250,000; and of woollen goods to £3,250,000; making a total in value of one-third of our entire exports to France. Amongst the other heavy items of our French trade were coal, corn, machinery, iron, &c., which were not affected by the proposed compensatory duties, so that the remaining

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  articles which were so affected were of minor importance compared with silk, woollen, and cotton goods. I think that the facts which I have now stated furnish very strong grounds in favour of the Resolution which I have submitted, and in an especial manner justify me in believing that it is essential to the welfare of the trading community that Parliament should have an effectual means of considering the provisions of Commercial Treaties before they receive the ratification of the Crown. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution; but the House having already decided that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair, the Question could not be proposed.
  MR. STAVELEY HILLexpressed his opinion that the proposition which had just been made could only be controverted upon one of two grounds —either that the consideration by Parliament of Treaties before their ratification would be derogatory to the dignity of the Executive Government, or that it would give rise to inconvenience in getting full consent to the Treaties. Why should it be said that it was beneath the dignity of the Executive to take into its confidence the Houses of Parliament in reference to the ratification of Treaties? A similar objection to this was raised in 1781 and 1782, when an attempt was made by Parliament to put an end to the American War, and it was said that it was beyond the duty of Parliament to advise the Sovereign in such a matter as that. In the debate which was raised at that time upon the great speech of General Conway, all the precedents on the subject of Treaties were quoted and considered, and it was clearly shown that it was competent to the Houses of Parliament to advise the Sovereign on all matters connected with the relations of England with foreign countries, and notably the precedent furnished by the fact that Henry VII. called his Parliament together to advise him whether he should assist the Duke of Bretagne against the King of France was relied on. But it had been objected that the consideration of a Treaty by Parliament before its ratification would be fraught with inconvenience, inasmuch as, there being two parties to the Treaty, it might produce an unwillingness in the mind of either to enter into it. But what possible inconvenience could arise if it should happen that, on consideration,
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  this country became unwilling to enter into a particular Treaty? So far from such unwillingness being inconvenient, it would, having arisen from full discussion, be attended with advantage to the trade of the country. It was, indeed, true, as was said in the year 1860, when the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government made his famous speech on the subject of Treaties—if, indeed, one of his speeches could be more famous than another — that the publication of a Treaty, which had been kept secret during its negotiation, might "send a thrill through the country;" but it could not be urged with any appearance of sound argument that it would be better that a section of the community should be injured by the operation of a Treaty, without having been consulted, than that before it was entered into they should be allowed to be heard in reference to it through their representatives in Parliament. Would it not, on the contrary, be better and wiser to allow them to show the pressure which the Treaty would bring upon them, rather than leave them to grumble at it after it had been entered into? Was it likely to make a Treaty more acceptable to the trades affected by it to bring it upon them suddenly than to afford them an opportunity of having their opinions in reference to it expressed in Parliament before it was ratified? Again, it was said that a discussion on the subject-matter might make the other party to the Treaty unwilling to enter into it. Well, did anyone think that a Treaty would be regarded by a foreign nation as being worth entering into if they discovered that this country had got the better of them? A commercial Treaty was merely a bargain between two countries, and if either of them were to find out that the bargain was an unfair one would not that country at once repudiate the bargain? It might agree to be bound by the Treaty for the time specified in it; but they might depend upon it that was not the way to produce amity among nations. His hon. Friend the Member for Warrington had gone at length into the question of the Treaty of Washington, and it was not his intention to follow him into that subject further than to ask whether they could not on the floor of that House have settled a far better Treaty than that was? For his part, he believed that the great bulk of the

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  people of this country regarded that Treaty as being one of the greatest shams that ever was palmed off upon the British nation. But they had now to deal more especially with the Treaty with France. It had been said that it was of importance that that Treaty should be completed in secret, and that its publication before ratification would be attended with mischievous results. But upon what ground could that be urged? Only upon the supposition that the 15 gentlemen who sat round the Council Board were qualified to advise the Foreign Office without extraneous assistance; because, if they required such assistance, it ought to come from the Houses of Parliament. Had they, then, of themselves the necessary qualification? That they had not was shown by the fact that the Chambers of Commerce of Macclesfield, Manchester, and Coventry had received communications, marked "confidential" it was true, requesting advice upon particular portions of the Treaty. What was that but a confession that they had not sufficient means of judging for themselves on such matters? His hon. Friend the Member for Warrington had referred to the expression of Lord Granville to the effect that no Treaty of this sort should be retrogressive. But was not the new Treaty with France retrogressive? It was said, indeed, that France had undertaken not to put anything in the shape of a protective duty upon manufactured goods. Well, he found by the Treaty that the tariff duty on raw silk was to be 1f. 25c. per kilogramme, while that upon thrown silk was to be 2f. 50c. per kilogramme. Where was the compensatory duty there? In the conversion of raw silk into thrown silk it was reduced to the extent of from 6 to 9 per cent only. How, then, could it be said that the doubling of the duty was anything but a protective duty? That, however, was riot the time to enter more fully into the subject. The Treaty had been kept private up to the present time, and Parliament had had no opportunity of considering, before it was too late, whether it was likely to be conducive to the prosperity of the country. If no better reason could be shown against the proposal of his hon. Friend than that its adoption would be productive of inconvenience, or that discussion might excite in the minds of either party to a Treaty an unwillingness to enter into it,
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  he hoped the House would agree to the Motion, for he could not but think that it would be for the benefit of the country that Treaties, and especially commercial Treaties, should be considered by Parliament before they were ratified.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, that the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) had in his Motion referred to a particular case and laid down a general proposition. It would, he thought, have been more convenient if his hon. Friend's Motion had followed the course of his speech—namely, if it had taken the general proposition first and then had illustrated it with the particular cases. He would thus have avoided the mistake into which he fell, of merely illustrating a general proposition by an exceedingly modern instance. It was a mistake, because there was a tendency in the human mind, which it was not easy to avoid, rather to exaggerate the comparative importance of those events which were passing immediately around us. He would be the last to deny the immense importance of the negotiation with America, or of that which had been recently concluded with France; but lie must say that when his hon. Friend brought forward so broad a proposition—namely, that all future Treaties between this country and foreign nations should be treated in a particular way—it would have been well if lie had supported the proposal by other illustrations than the two which lie had adduced in his speech, and on which lie entirely relied. He confessed that when tile hon. and learned Member for Coventry (Mr. Staveley Hill) got up he expected the hon. and learned Member would have made up for the shortcomings of his hon. Friend; but in that expectation he had been disappointed, as the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred to one authority only, and that in the reign of Henry VII. He (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) would endeavour to treat the matter in a more general way; and, first, he would refer to the general proposition stated in the Motion. There ran, he thought, through the speeches made in support of it a radical misconception as to what the powers of the House of Commons were, and as to what the Constitutional theory of this country as to the making and ratifying of Treaties was. If he thought that the House was placed in the doleful posi-

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  tion described by his hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, he might be disposed to agree in the view which he took of the remedy. But, believing the case to be otherwise, he should certainly go into the lobby against him. Now, he would begin by referring to the great authority of Mr. Wheaton for a definition of the treaty-making power in this country, for Wheaton was not only an international jurist, but from his knowledge of the Constitutions of the countries to which he was accredited in a diplomatic capacity, was also an authority on constitutional and municipal law. He laid it down, though the treaty-making power as a branch of the Royal Prerogative had in theory no limits, it was practically limited by the general control of Parliament, whose approbation was necessary to carry into effect Treaties by which the existing territorial arrangements of the Empire were altered. Starting, then, with this definition, he would examine the various kinds of Treaties, in some of which the power of the House and of the Executive differed from their power in others. As to Treaties of Guarantee, the hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), though he obtained little support last Session to his proposal that we should get out of our existing guarantees, certainly represented the national feeling in expressing a horror of them, and no Minister would venture to bind this country to a now guarantee; but he (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) thought it only fair to set aside for the present the consideration of Treaties of guarantee when they were considering a state of things very different from that under which Treaties of Guarantee were possible. Treaties of Limited Succour, by which a Sovereign lent or sold men to be used against a State with which he was not at war, also belonged to the past; for no English monarch would now imitate those engagements and loans of troops of which the engagement of Hessians by George III was a fair illustration. He would now proceed to consider the doctrines regarding Treaties known as Treaties of General Alliance—offensive or defensive. The question was whether it would be advisable for that House to exercise the interference which the hon. Member for Warrington advocated in respect to such Treaties. He would remind the hon. Member that
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  a few days ago he had a Motion on the Paper involving an attack upon the conduct of the First Commissioner of Works for the Rules he had framed for the regulation of Hyde Park at a time when Parliament was not sitting. Now, it appeared to him that the arguments at that time used in justification of those Rules applied with far greater force to the making of Treaties without the assistance of Parliament. He submitted that a state of things might arise requiring the making of Treaties of General Alliance and Peace by the Executive alone, without calling Parliament together for the consideration of what might perhaps turn out a very trivial matter; but, on the other hand, might be a matter requiring the utmost secresy and despatch—one in which the time necessary for the consent of Parliament could not possibly be spared. But whatever might be the powers of the Executive, it was incorrect to say that Parliament had no power in the matter. This, indeed, had not always been so. There was no doubt that two centuries and a-half ago there existed a great jealousy on the part of the Executive Government against any interference on the part of the House of Commons in what were called the affairs and mysteries of State. He found it stated by the historian Hallam, that in the reign of James I. the House of Commons drew up a Petition complaining of the conduct of Government in concluding a Treaty with Spain, and of the injustice suffered by English merchants and mariners from the mariners of that Power. They were about to present their Petition to the Crown, when the Earls of Salisbury and Northampton, two of the Ministers of that day, told them that the House of Commons was an excellent body for the management of local concerns, but they had no right whatever to interfere with the Government in the consideration of the affairs of State. The difference between this language and that used the other night by the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), who laid down the very opposite doctrine, and advised the House to recollect that it had other duties besides those of a large select vestry, showed how much the position of the House had changed since then. James I., on another occasion, when the House was about to address him on a question of foreign politics relating to

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  the marriage of his son, rebuked the "fiery and popular spirits" who had presumed to meddle with "mysteries of State." His hon. Friend, had he lived at that time, would have been deemed a "fiery and popular spirit." The question then arose, how had the great change in constitutional theory to which he had alluded been effected? The House had obtained power in foreign as in domestic questions by their power of the purse, and by the appropriation of Supplies—a doctrine maintained with one or two exceptions since Charles II's reign. This gave them the command, not only of the purse, but of the helm of Government. The importance of this doctrine had been pointed out by Hallam in the following remarkable words:—
  "The House of Commons would be deeply responsible to the country if through supine confidence it should abandon that high privilege which has made it the arbiter of court factions and the regulator of foreign connections."
  A great deal of what he had just said applied to Treaties of Peace, and even to those which ceded territory at the end of a war. Lord Loughborough, indeed, at the end of the American War, brought forward a Motion in the House of Lords declaring that the Prerogative of the Crown in matters of Treaty was limited, and ought not to be exercised without the consent of Parliament in respect to any Treaty under which a cession of territory took place. Lord Thurlow, then Chancellor, ridiculed and denounced this with great violence, but he himself believed the doctrine laid down by Lord Loughborough on this point to be bad law, and only as he had shown by Mr. Wheaton to be correct so far as it applied to treaties of cession made in a time of peace. The only exception he knew of was the cession of Dunkirk under Charles II., which formed one of the articles of impeachment against Clarendon. The cases of the Orange River Settlement and the Ionian Islands were not to the point. It was interesting to know, from a recent letter by Mr. Forsyth in the leading journal, that the matter had recently assumed the position of a practical question, because the Indian Government, acting with the power of the Crown, had thought fit, de proprio motu, to transfer 116 villages, now under English rule, to an Indian rajah. It might, therefore, be said that the authority of the Crown
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  was hero exercised by the Indian Government in the cession, in a time of peace, of so much British territory to Native rule without consulting the opinion of Parliament. As an illustration of cases in which the Government might have to make Treaties when Parliament was not sitting, and when if the Executive Government had to wait for the meeting of Parliament a very important opportunity might be lost, he would take the Treaty made in 1840, concerning the Ottoman Empire. In the secret Protocol annexed to that Treaty, it was stated that the Plenipotentiaries had agreed that the preliminary measures should be carried into effect without oven waiting for the exchange of ratifications, so urgent was the need. If it had been one of the Rules of this House that no Treaty should be valid which had not received the assent of Parliament, that Treaty could not possibly have been carried out. The hon. Member for Warrington had laid great stress upon the French Treaty being a Commercial Treaty, and he was willing to grant that the circumstances of the time had materially diminished the power of that House over Commercial Treaties. When the commercial system of this country was founded on a protective tariff, it was necessary, when the changes proposed affected the Revenue, to come to the House with a measure which was technically a Money Bill, and the House could refuse to pass the Bill if it did not like the Treaty. Since the time, however, that this country had adopted free trade theories, it was now hardly ever necessary for the Government on any such ground to ask the consent of the House of Commons to a Commercial Treaty. The 9th section of the Treaty of Utrecht contained a clause at variance with the Methuen Treaty, which had been concluded with Portugal, and owing to the opposition of Mr. Gould, one of the Members for the City, and the speeches of General Stanhope and others, the Money Bill thereby made necessary was rejected, and the clause was struck out of the Treaty of Utrecht. Although, however, this change had occurred, the power of the House over Commercial Treaties was still great, as it was over all other Treaties, by its general hold on the Executive. Again, its influence could make itself felt by the assertion of its opinions upon commercial matters

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  by Resolutions or Motions for Addresses to the Crown. If the House, for example, thought that the Ministers had effected a bad Treaty, the House might move a Vote of Censure against them. He would remind the House that the Ministry which concluded peace with the American Colonies fell on an Amendment to the Address, and a Resolution of sympathy with the American loyalists being carried against them. While a Treaty was being negotiated a discussion upon it could always be got up, and the opinion of the commercial world could easily be obtained upon it. If, on the other hand, Parliament was not sitting, the Government could consult the Chambers of Commerce, and although the hon. Member did not appear to think that the Government had given clue weight to their advice, it was the undoubted duty of the Government to obtain light from all quarters, and abide by the result. Upon the whole, therefore, lie came to the conclusion that the present state of things, as regarded the making of Treaties, was the best for all interests. In the negotiation of a Treaty, the Executive Goverment was independent and untrammelled by outside interference. The moment, however, the Treaty was concluded, the Minister had to come down to the House and answer for it. The House of Commons, therefore, possessed a great and. real authority in regard to Treaties, and was not in the position of helplessness suggested by the hon. Member for Warrington. His hon. Friend having alluded to the Commercial Treaty with France, he wished to observe that there was one clause in it which had been pointed out in The Economist newspaper of last November as very ambiguous. It appeared to be in direct contradiction to the "most favoured nation" clause which had been held out as a great inducement to this country to submit to the differential duties in the Treaty. Clause 2, sub-section 2, after providing that the duties in the tariff shall be the maximum duties, so long as the Treaties with foreign Powers shall not be modified, provides—
  "That the difference, as against such goods, of the duties therein specified shall not be increased relatively to the duties on the like goods now levied under treaties existing between France and any third Power."
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  This clause, if it meant anything, meant that if under now subsisting Treaties between France and Austria and between France and England there were duties of 2 and 3 per cent on Austrian and English goods respectively, it would be open to France to make a new Treaty with Austria admitting Austrian goods at 1 per cent, while at the same time she could not be compelled to admit English goods at less than 2 per cent. What, then, became of the "most favoured nation" clause? Returning to the general question, he might say that it was not from any wish to circumscribe the privileges of that House that he expressed the views he had done; but the present Resolution was, in his opinion, unnecessary for the good government of the country, and not likely to increase the prospects of peace either in this country or in Europe. He would accordingly vote against it.
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: The hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) in his very able speech, said, although he did not think that all the Members of that House would go along with him in the object of his Motion, nevertheless some he believed would sympathise with him, so far as Commercial Treaties were concerned. Now he (Lord John Manners) confessed that, so far as the hon. Member's Motion regarded Commercial Treaties, he fully sympathised with his views. The confession just made by the noble Lord (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) that the House of Commons did not possess the same power over Commercial Treaties which it possessed 50 or 100 years ago, might, he thought, be taken as a concession to the views of the hon. Member for Warrington. His (Lord John Manners) objection to the present system under which Commercial Treaties were effected was that it materially interfered with what he held to be the undoubted right of the House of Commons to decide upon the financial arrangements of this country. It was impossible to say that the House of Commons could properly consider the provisions of the Budget annually proposed by the Government when hon. Members were well aware that whole classes of possible sources of taxation were removed from that consideration. Last night, when the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W.H. Smith) asked the Prime Minister if Her Majesty's

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  Government had any intention of imposing an export duty on coal, the right hon. Gentleman replied that the new French Treaty contained nothing to prevent the imposition of an export duty on coal; but he added that until the Treaty between us and the Zollverein, which was signed in 1865 and which did contain such an obligation, had expired, which would not be until 1877, France, supposing the new Treaty to be ratified, could claim exemption from any duty on coal under the "most favoured nation" clause. There was not a man in that House who, in the present condition of the country, would say, when the Financial Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to be considered, that the question of the propriety of imposing an export duty on coal was not worthy of discussion; but until the year 1877 that House was precluded from considering so important a question. The noble Lord, qualifying the concessions that he made, proceeded to point out the reason which, in his opinion, rendered the diminished power possessed by the House of Commons of less practical consequence than it would otherwise be. He said that the tendency of modern commercial legislation was no longer to impose import duties on foreign articles, and therefore, though the House of Commons had nominally lost its power in that respect, that in reality it had only lost the shadow of its power. If they examined the Treaty with France they would find, it was true, very few duties retained in our favour, hut it contained an enormous schedule of duties imposed on articles imported from this country into France, and the interests of those classes to whom the noble Lord referred might be most deeply prejudiced by the imposition of those duties. It appeared to him that the House of Commons had a perfect right to be the arbiter of the financial arrangements of the year unimperilled and unimpeded by these Commercial Treaties. He could not support the Motion in that part affecting Treaties in general. The forms of the House, indeed, prevented the hon. Gentleman from putting the Motion for its acceptance; but he could not refrain from expressing his sympathy with that portion of it which referred to Commercial Treaties with foreign Powers.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I do not know whether it be the pleasure of the House
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  to pursue this conversation into a debate upon a scale which, I must submit, would be suited to the importance of the subject. The debate or conversation that has taken place has been conducted with great ability, and in particular I feel indebted to my noble Friend the Member for Calne (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) for his able speech, in which he has given us the benefit of those real historical studies that can never be too sedulously pursued by Members of this House, especially by those who take part in foreign affairs, if they wish to make their talents useful to their country. There have, however, been several points on which appeals have been made to Her Majesty's Government, and it seems to me right that the debate should not last any longer without a declaration on our part. The noble Lord who has just sat down (Lord John Manners) has essentially altered the nature of the issue—if, indeed, issue it can be called—where there is neither a division in prospect nor even a Motion before the House. The hon. and learned Member for Coventry (Mr. Staveley Hill) in his zeal seconded what he called the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands); but though it was true in the spirit in which ho spoke, it was not correct in the actual position of the question before the House. The question, as it is raised by the noble Lord opposite, is really and entirely a different question from that which is before the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) has proposed, under what I may call adverse circumstances, not, indeed, to empty benches, but to a thin House, and without the opportunity of testing by Motion, the largest Constitutional change which of late years has been submitted to the House. No doubt my hon. Friend has been already complimented on the ability of his speech, and he has shown no want of courage in the course he has adopted. But the proposal of the noble Lord (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) is of a much more limited character. With respect to our Commercial Treaties, it has happened de facto that for the most part Parliament has intervened up to this time. Indeed, I am not aware of any case in which a Commercial Treaty has been made by the Executive Government having important consequences as regards the trade and commerce of the country when

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  Parliament has not had an opportunity of intervening. The noble Lord will permit me to point out that I think he has fallen into an error in the single instance he has quoted of the prohibition by Treaty of an export duty on coal. On that single instance the noble Lord founded the sort of general proposition that in consequence of the system in which we live it happens that behind the back of Parliament important sources of possible Revenue are closed by the act of the Executive at its own discretion. But this is not the case, because the Treaties in force which preclude our laying an export duty on coal are Treaties copied from the very same provisions into which we had entered with the full assent of Parliament. The origin of this prohibition of an export duty on coal is in the Treaty of 1860 between this country and France. The noble Lord and others, who took part in the debates at that period, know that the Treaty was contingent on the assent of Parliament, and that all parts of it were discussed in this House at great length. Indeed, it formed a large part of the Session of 1860. In those discussions Parliament either actively or tacitly gave its assent to the principle on which we had acted of renouncing the export duty on coal; and therefore it was on that principle, approved of by Parliament, that the Government acted, and extended it to Austria and the Zollverein. If the proposal is made to limit the Prerogative of the Crown with respect to Commercial Treaties alone I should consider it a matter of such vast importance as to deserve separate and careful discussion. The main elements of difficulty which attach to the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington do not attach themselves, or only in a minor degree, to the more limited proposal of the noble Lord. At the same time, I must reserve the freedom of my own judgment, and of the judgment of the Government, with respect to it, and must not be supposed in any way to compromise either myself or them with respect to it. But the question we have before us is the very large one raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, on which I understand the noble Lord opposite to part company with my hon. Friend when they have disposed of that portion of the subject relating to Commercial Treaties alone. On the broader
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  question I will offer a few remarks to the House, for I do not believe that even in the mind of the Mover of the Motion it has received the amplitude of consideration which it deserves in all its aspects. The hon. and learned Member for Coventry thought objection could be only taken to the Motion on two grounds —the dignity of the Executive Government, and the inconvenience which might arise to the negotiators themselves if the Motion were adopted. As regards the first of these objections, I certainly, for one, shall not attack it. I do not feel embarrassed by any consideration of dignity in the matter; and on the part of the Government generally and of the Crown it may be stated that the dignity of the Executive Government, and even of the Crown, consists in having that arrangement of public business, and that judicious distribution of duty between the executive and legislative powers which best promotes the interests of the country. With respect to the argument of utility, with which the noble Lord proceeded to deal, I must confess I differ from him. He said we must have some stronger argument in order to overthrow the Motion than the argument derived from the inconvenience which the Motion would import into negotiations. I do think, if it is to be admitted that the success of negotiation is a thing entirely immaterial, and that, if approval of the Motion would be fatal to the successful conduct of negotiation, that would do nothing towards making out the case against it—if that position is to be assumed, I confess I am in despair, because my objections to the Motion are of a practical character. Dealing with a subject of a practical character, on political grounds, I really cannot conceive that the House would for a moment hesitate as to the conclusion at which it must arrive. With respect to the Commercial Treaty with France, there is nothing to prevent the House expressing its opinion at this moment. If the House is disposed to think that, upon the whole, we have done wrong in signing that Treaty, the House is perfectly free to express that opinion, and it is liable to no imputation of breach of faith. But look at the difficulty in which we are placed. My hon. Friend seems to doubt on the whole the expediency of that Treaty, and he, doubting it, and

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  stating some of the arguments against it, the only course open to the Government would be to defend the Treaty. I cannot meet my hon. Friend—I frankly own I am not prepared at the present moment to enter upon a defence of the Treaty, because I think it would be injurious to the public interests. I wish for the Treaty; I think it is our duty to do nothing which might imperil the safe arrival of the Treaty at its conclusion and ratification. I think an argument in this House upon the merits of the Treaty, which might produce abroad exaggerated apprehensions and estimates, either in one sense or the other, might very possibly tend to perplex and embarrass discussion in France. If there is to be discussion, it ought to be unprejudiced, impartial, and spontaneous —derived from French impressions and informations, and not from English opinions and telegraphed reports of what may be said here. I am unwilling to expose the public interests in this way. This, on a small scale, illustrates the difficulty which would arise in these cases, though as regards information there can be no difficulty. I will make a short statement on points upon which appeals have been made to me, and with respect to which I can do so without injury. My hon. Friend is under the impression that we are acting in support of the Government of M. Thiers. We are neither the friends nor the opponents of any particular minister or Executive Government on the face of the earth. Our business is to maintain the friendly relations of this country with all other nations; and if we are to do this we must sedulously abstain from interference with regard to forms of Government or the persons who occupy the post of power. But my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. He says truly that M. Thiers has been a Protectionist statesman, and is imbued with those doctrines which my hon. Friend and I believe are profoundly erroneous and exclusively mischievous, and that is quite true. Moreover, we go a little beyond the objection to protection. We are agreed that it is a most mischievous policy, even though it need not involve the principle of protection, to tax the raw material of manufacture. But in this matter we have not been dealing with the Executive Government alone; we have been dealing with the French
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  nation speaking through its authorized representatives. Until it had spoken we maintained great reserve. The first propositions of the French Government were not entertained by us, as will be recollected from the discussions which were held last Session; and in the month of July last year the French Assembly passed a law which involved and applied largely the principle of the taxation of raw materials. I am not able to convey the notion that that produced any change in our view of the policy or the impolicy of the matter; but it did for the attitude of one of the parties to the transaction —namely, that of the French Government and of the French nation; and after the Act had received the sanction of the Assembly it was impossible for us to overlook the fact that the French nation had actually spoken. In reply to the questions of my noble Friend (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) I have to say that what both parties understand as to the application of the compensatory duties is this—the compensatory duties upon manufactured goods and the duties upon raw material will become applicable together, and not one before the other, and they will become applicable to the imports from this country without becoming of necessity applicable to imports from those countries with which France is under certain Treaty engagements, for a limited time, that may prevent it. That is the state of the case as regards differential duties. Then my noble Friend did not understand the stipulation in the Treaty that there was to be no augmentation of the difference against us—namely, the difference between the duties which France is now stipulating to levy upon our goods, and the duties which by the present Treaty with Austria she is bound to levy as a maximum upon Austrian goods. The meaning of that stipulation I will illustrate by a supposititious case. Suppose there is a particular article on which, by her Treaty with Austria, France may levy a tax of 4f. Suppose we agree by this Treaty that on the corresponding British article she may levy a tax of 5f. She is free under the Treaty with Austria to reduce her tax upon Austrian goods, say, from 4f. to 2f., but she may not do that without at the same time reducing her tax upon British goods from 5f. to 3f. The words in the Treaty have reference to possible

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  reduction of duties, and they are intended to provide a guarantee, which, I think, is necessary and effectual, that that reduction should not be the means of increasing any disadvantage under which for a time we may be obliged to stand. [Lord. EDMOND FITZMAURICE, interrupting, asked a question with reference to the "favoured nation" clause.] I apprehend the answer to the question would be found in this: the most "favoured nation" clause is enacted in this instrument, and, being enacted in it, I apprehend it is subject to the limitations which the instrument itself contains. In bringing forward the Motion, my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington ought to have laid a very broad ground, largely illustrated by cases of admitted inconvenience arising out of the present system, in order to warrant him in recommending the enormous change he wants us to adopt. He has only referred to the Treaty with France, which, as I have said, I feel myself precluded from discussing on the merits, and to the Treaty of Washington, with regard to which he makes assertions, which may be true or not, but which for the present are really assumptions only. He says that, if this Treaty had only been a proper time before the two Houses of Parliament, it would have been of a different character. If the two Houses contain men of the transcendental ability which the hon. Member indicated, it is a pity they do not put them into the Executive Government. It seems to me to be the business of the two Houses of Parliament to get the best men they can to carry on the Government of the country. The hon. and learned Member for Coventry (Mr. Staveley Hill) does not doubt that we could have made a better Treaty on the floor of this House. I, for one, do not doubt it at all; we could have made what we should think a much better Treaty on the floor of the House, and. I will go further, and say we could have done so in the Cabinet. But then the question is—Would the Americans have agreed to it? There is the difficulty. In these negotiations there are two to the bargain, and. the question is— Do you intend to meet the other side, or do you not? As all the ideas of youth and poetry get dreadfully injured by the friction and attrition of practical life, so generally, in matters of covenant and bargain, that which one party has
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  set before his mind as desirable to attain, has to be modified before he can bring his ideas into the consonance of other men whom he has to meet. That is the secret of this difficulty, and a great difficulty it is. The question, as I have said, is too large to attempt to discuss it now. It goes really to the root of one of the most important parts of the Prerogative of the Crown; and in using that phrase do not let it be supposed I intend to draw a hard and fast line between the Prerogative of the Crown and the power of Parliament. All that is meant by that Prerogative is the practical division which it is necessary to make between the duties of the Executive and the duties of the legislative power. I will not attempt to argue this vast question in full; I will only point out a few considerations relating to it. First of all, I will say, whenever the trade and commerce of this country ran a risk of being injured, in every instance there has been ample provision for ascertaining the mind of Parliament. I do not beg the question as to the present French Treaty. I look upon that as suspended, although, of course, if an hon. Member thought it his duty to make a Motion to prevent its ratification, it would be our duty, whether we liked it or not, to discuss the question. The House of Commons does enjoy real power; and, that it should enjoy all the power which the hon. Member may naturally desire, is a matter which may present itself to the minds of some as a simple one and free from difficulty; but if negotiation is one of the most anxious and difficult duties which the Government have to perform under the complications which now exist, it would be still more anxious and difficult if those complications were multiplied. To one point I will address myself with rather more fulness, because I think it really the foundation on which my hon. Friend and others erect, not logically, but practically, the argument they make and the proposition they wish us to adopt—it is the precedent of the United States. They think that in the case of the Senate of the United States you have an instance of a provision wisely made and which gives a new guarantee for the safe maintenance of the interests of the country; and they wish to have something of the same kind in relation to our own Government and Parliament.

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  Now, Sir, I will venture to say, with all possible respect for American institutions —not scrupling to go so far as to say that, in my opinion, no instrument was ever drawn by human skill and sagacity —but drawing a wide distinction between Constitutions made and Constitutions that have grown—I say no Constitution was ever drawn by man that shows equal sagacity with the Constitution of the United States. Therefore, I do not undervalue at all the excellence that there may be, for the interests of America, in the provision which reserves to the Senate a very large power with regard to foreign negotiations; but without hesitation I propound these propositions—first of all, as far as political Treaties are concerned, the condition of America is quite different from that of a Power which forms one of the European family of nations. America is, as it were, remote from the rest of the world, and that remoteness exempts and liberates her from many of the complications that attach to other countries merely united as members of the European family. Secondly, I hope I shall not be thought disrespectful to America if I say, so far as I am able to judge, that whatever benefit America derives from that provision in regard to the Senate is purchased by a very considerable inconvenience to the Powers with whom negotiations are conducted. It both complicates and weakens the action of the American Government. It would be invidious to refer to particulars; but that is the conclusion to which observation and experience have led my mind. And what I wish specially to point out is this—that the precedent of the American Senate is totally inapplicable to this country. If you could have it to-morrow, you would not take it; for what is the precedent of the Senate? It means this—that one of the Legislative Houses of America has a Committee on Foreign Relations, and acts itself with regard to foreign affairs, and that in all critical and important action, when it proceeds to deal with that great branch of its functions, it proceeds to do so in secret. Now, does my hon. Friend propose that this House shall proceed in secret to check the details of negotiations? That would be impossible. But does my hon. Friend think this House would consider it an improvement upon the present state of matters if you were
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  to appoint a Committee on Foreign Relations, and that Committee were to meet in secret to check the action of the Executive Government with regard to the forms of Treaties? But we are not the only parties concerned. There is the House of Lords. They would have the same power as ourselves; they must have another Committee, meeting in secret; and these two Committees meeting in secret are to exercise the ultimate power of control over the responsible Executive, the members of these Committees being of necessity comparatively irresponsible; and that is to be the great guarantee for the maintenance of the interests of the people. Sir, I think my hon. Friend has not taken a just measure of the real and enormous difficulties involved in this matter. My hon. Friend did indeed refer to the expedient of a Joint Committee of the two Houses, which, he thought, might perhaps get over any of the difficulties he foresaw. My hon. Friend has been complimented for his ability and his courage; I must compliment him also for his tactics—he has been wise in adhering to generalities, and avoiding particulars. He has produced a principle, not a plan. He wants to commit us to his views, and commit us blindfold. He makes the proposal of a Joint Committee of the two Houses. I can understand a proposal to have a Joint Committee, to bring their energies into one common stock for the consideration of Railway Bills—that these Bills should go before one Committee, and not before two. I think it a proof of our folly that for 20 years we have not adopted that plan; but as to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons, which is on behalf of both and in behalf of the people of England to exercise an ultimate judgment and control in respect to the formation of Treaties with foreign Powers, I must confess I have no such exaggerated faith in Joint Committees as my hon. Friend appears to entertain; and until he is prepared to give some body and form to the dreamy proposition he has laid before us, I must stoutly refuse to accompany him in the path in which he would lead us. It is not necessary to carry the discussion much further; but the proposition he wishes us to countenance goes far beyond what is contemplated—it goes to Treaties of Peace. In the midst of the agonies of war, while the whole energies of the

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  Government were engaged in devising the conditions of a Treaty of Peace, even then the stern and iron will of my hon. Friend is determined to restrain their discretion, for fear of accidents, and would compel a Treaty of Peace, it might be from the camp, to come before this House possibly in the midst of its recess in the autumn, or during the Easter or Whitsuntide holidays. I do not think this proposal has yet attained to such a state of health and vigour as to be able to bear more serious treatment. I do not know that it is desirable to discuss it to-night. I do not make light of the difficulty my hon. Friend feels; I do not say the responsibility of Government as to errors in diplomatic negotiations should entirely satisfy the mind of my hon. Friend; but I do humbly think that the changes that are contemplated should not be lightly entertained; they must be strictly and constitutionally examined. We must not commit ourselves to the principle of change till we see our way to a practical arrangement; and as my hon. Friend has not succeeded in any degree in opening such a path, considering the important calls upon us, we shall do better by pursuing our ordinary avocations rather than be beguiled and inveigled by his speculations to take a course which might lead to great practical inconvenience.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, his expectation of opposition on the part of the Prime Minister had been fully realized, for his right hon. Friend had said all he possibly could say against his hon. Friend's Motion, but some of his arguments were not very convincing. He was surprised to hear his right hon. Friend say that the discussion of the French Treaty in that House might be injurious to France. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I said "injurious to public interests."] His right hon. Friend did not say whether he alluded to France or England; but as to France it was well known that no public discussion could take place there. It was said a Treaty might be urgent, and Parliament might not be sitting; but if it was a matter of the least importance, Parliament might be called together to discuss it. He thought his hon. Friend had been fortunate in that he consented last year to postpone his Motion, at the request of the Prime Minister, while the Treaty of Washing-
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  ton was under discussion, because the results of the proceedings with regard to the Treaty went to show that his hon. Friend was right in the view he entertained on this subject. One fact was worth many arguments; and what was the fact? Our cousins across the water were a great deal sharper than we were. They referred the Treaty to the Senate, and they made a much better bargain than we did because the Government did not take the House of Commons into council with them. There was an old and true saying which applied in this case, that "Where there is mystery there is mischief." It had been said to-night—and it was always said when this question was brought before the House—that the Ministry are responsible to Parliament for what is done. It was perfectly true that the House had a great deal of power if it chose to exercise it; but as a matter of fact it was very slow to do so. It was very seldom now-a-days that Parliament cut off the head of a Minister. A Vote of Censure on a Government was a very serious matter, because it upset all the arrangements of an industrial country like this. Therefore, when you said—"Oh, the Ministry are responsible in the end," you merely evaded the point, because you spoke of a remedy which in practice was hardly applicable. When a Treaty was being made the practice was to bring arguments forward to try to prevent Parliament from discussing it. In the preliminary stages, when anyone got up to object, he was told by the powers that be—"You are too soon." If he rose at a later period, it was said—"Don't bring forward the subject, or you will interfere with the progress of the negotiations, which are going on in a most satisfactory manner." If an hon. Member got up in his place months after all was concluded, then the language was—"Oh, you are wasting the time of the House, for all is over." Besides Treaties of Commerce, which in time came to a conclusion, there were Treaties of Guarantee, which were interminable, and these it was most important should be discussed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) said very truly, in a great speech that he made last spring, that our relations with other countries were the most important part of politics; that there was nothing which

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  so much influenced taxation, or which so much affected the industry and enjoyments of the people. It was most desirable that such Treaties should be brought under the consideration of the House. The noble Lord the Member for Calne (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) alluded to a Motion which he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) made last year, and said that ho wanted the Government to get out of those Treaties of Guarantee. But what he wanted the Government to do, was to take the necessary steps to see whether we could not withdraw from them after due notice to the parties concerned. With regard to these Treaties, the matter seemed to be this. We told certain foreign countries we would employ our power and influence to protect them. When the time for action came, we were told that if public opinion was against it there was no objection to the Treaty not being carried out. In that case we deluded the people of the country to which we had given the guarantee. In another case we might be deluded ourselves, because we might have an unscrupulous Minister, who might come down and say—"There, you are bound to go to war," knowing all the time we were not so bound. The noble Lord the Member for Calne had said that no Government now would make such a Treaty. But that was not so, because in 1870, when war was about to break out between France and Germany, a Treaty of Guarantee was entered into on behalf of Belgium by the present Prime Minister. That Treaty was, in his opinion, a most mischievous one, because it gave the people of this country the idea that they were bound in honour to fight for Belgium, and he could trace to that feeling a great deal of that extravagant expenditure from which we were now suffering, and which would probably form a subject of discussion many times this Session. It might be said that danger would be incurred by laying the subject-matter of Treaties before the House. But it might be very important to call this House into council, because when you legislated in a hurry you might legislate in a panic, and there could not be a greater evil than panic legislation. But when panic legislation arose, there would always be found two or three men who would stand up and say all that could be said against a policy which, though popular, might be dangerous.
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  He should be glad to see the principle of his hon. Friend's Motion affirmed by the House—namely, that it was its duty to criticise and deliberate upon all those public negotiations which ought to be made wholly in the interest of the people.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: Sir, I congratulate Her Majesty's Government upon their having fulfilled to-night the engagement they entered into in 1871, when, upon the recommendation of a Committee, the unofficial Members of this House yielded on Thursday to the Government, on condition that they always placed Supply first upon the Business Paper on Friday afternoons and kept a House. I am truly glad that the Government have fulfilled that pledge; and now I would advert for a few moments to the subject-matter of the Motion, which has been introduced by the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands). I fully admit the justice of the general objections urged to that Motion by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. I do not see my way to empowering this House to relieve the Government from the responsibility of negotiating Treaties in general; but there is one species of Treaty which I think ought to be taken out of this general category—I mean Commercial Treaties, which are again coming into fashion, and of one of which we have received a copy this morning; the Treaty at present in process of settlement between France and England. I shall not attempt to dwell upon the contents of that Treaty, because I have not had time to read it, and I think that the moment which the hon. Member for Warrington has chosen to bring on his Motion is unfortunate in this respect. If the hon. Member had confined his proposal to Commercial Treaties, he would have found in me a most ardent supporter, because I have a deep and painful recollection of the Commercial Treaty of 1860. Under that Treaty, notwithstanding all the assurances which were given to this House, those of my constituents who are engaged in the ribbon trade were most severely sacrificed, and I find the Chamber of Commerce at Birmingham alluding to the Treaty now under negotiation somewhat after this manner. I need not quote the words; but, after expressing their satis-

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  faction at having warded off from some of the metal trades the imposition of duties in France in a manner that would have been highly injurious to those trades, they proceed to admit that this Treaty must bear heavily upon the textile fabrics of this country. I remember that in 1860 the people of Birmingham were induced to believe that the people of Coventry and of that district were alarmed without a cause; but it was not long before they saw the distress, which was consequent upon the operation of that Treaty. I was Chairman of the Relief Committee, and I remember the morning when I and the committee found ourselves with 22,000 persons to relieve beyond the capacity of the Poor Law. I remember that Her Majesty and the Prime Minister contributed to relieve that distress; and, with all these recollections still upon me, the House will forgive me if I press upon its attention that these Commercial Treaties ought to be taken out of the category of Treaties, the negotiation and arrangement of which ought, in my opinion, to be conducted solely by the Government, and on the responsibility of the Government. Because what happened in 1860? Two or three of the manufacturing interests of this country were absolutely sacrificed to considerations of general policy. Now, Sir, I think that that is a hardship, a grievous injustice, which Parliament ought to interfere to prevent. There is another consideration. It is perfectly true that the duties of this country cannot be altered without the intervention of this House, and that therefore the alteration of our duties involved in or consequent upon a Commercial Treaty must bring the Treaty itself before this House; but in what way does this question come before us when thus submitted to the House? In 1860 I objected to the removal of the duties which guarded in some degree the interests of the silk trade, considering that France had still the power of returning her high duties, and that there was a manifest want of reciprocity. Well, how was I met? In this way— "We, the Government of this country, have agreed with the Government of France that the duties of Franco shall be high, and that the import duties which are levied in England shall be abolished; if you object to this arrangement, you take the responsibility; the
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  House takes the responsibility of a rupture with France; we warn you that unless the duties which are levied in this country are sacrificed, you entail the danger of a rupture with France." Now, I ask, is that a fair position in which this House ought to be placed? That the House must abandon its peculiar function as guardian of the finance and revenue of the country; and why? Because the Government of the day have entered into an agreement with a foreign Government to alter our financial arrangements, not for a year, but for a period of 10 years in this case. I ask, then, whether that is not a sacrifice of the liberty of the House of Commons; whether that is not an interference by the Government with our special duty, and this in concurrence with the action of a foreign Power? Sir, it does appear to me that on this ground alone Commercial Treaties ought to be taken out of the category of Treaties in general, which I admit ought to be negotiated, concluded, and ratified on the responsibility of the Government. With regard to these, as the Prime Minister pertinently asked the hon. Member for Warrington, would you invest this House with the particular function of the Senate of the United States of America? because, if you are not prepared to do that, you have not suggested any method by which your object can be accomplished. He also rightly enough observed that there is considerable inconvenience—there is certainly delay—in the intervention of the Senate of the United States in regard to Treaties of Peace or War, or the cession or acquisition of territory in consequence of war. In all the right hon. Gentleman said on this part of the question I concur; but he never once adverted to the case of Commercial Treaties. I remember when the Commercial Treaty between France and Austria, which through the Treaty of 1860 indirectly affected this country, was under discussion, that I suggested to the right hon. Gentleman this fact—the Treaty which is thus to indirectly affect this country has been submitted to the Legislative Assembly of Austria; why are we to be kept in ignorance of it? and I never received an answer to that question. Now, again, this Commercial Treaty has been submitted to the Legislative Chamber in France. Why is the House of Commons not to

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  have this Treaty submitted to it by Her Majesty's Government? These instances are completely outside the analogy of other Treaties and the action of the Senate of the United States. Sir, I do not think that the terms of the Motion of the hon. Member for Warrington are convenient. They are too wide; but I trust that the subject will be raised before the House again, in order that the House may have an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon this point, whether Commercial Treaties, as affecting the financial and commercial position of this country, ought not to be submitted to this House earlier—that is, before ratification, in contradistinction to the practice which prevails with respect to other Treaties. Because, look at our position at this moment. The right hon. Gentleman told me, and I believe truly—it was in reply to a Question that I put to him—that the Commercial Treaty now negotiating with France will not affect the duties of this country. But, then, it will do this. It will give the consent of this country to the levying upon the produce of this country, when imported into France and her dependencies, and when passing through France to other countries, heavy duties; and those heavy duties will by this Treaty become guaranteed to France for a certain period. So that, literally, this Treaty will make this country and the Legislature, through its inaction, if it takes no part in the matter, parties to the imposition of heavy duties by France and her dependencies upon many articles which have hitherto been profitably employing the industry of this country. If it had not been for the able speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and the omission from it of this particular consideration, and the exceptional position which, as I think, these Commercial Treaties ought to take in the estimation of the House, I should not have ventured to address to the House the few words I have spoken; but I think I have submitted to the House matter with respect to these Commercial Treaties which, I trust, will induce the House hereafter to insist upon an earlier recognition of its financial functions than has hitherto been the case.
  MR. AUBERON HERBERTsaid, he thought his hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands) need not be at all discouraged at the manner in
  486
  which his Motion had been treated; for he believed he had gained this much by it—that no Commercial Treaty was likely to be made by any future Government of this country without being previously laid before that House. The Prime Minister had acknowledged that a de facto right to criticise Commercial Treaties existed in the House of Commons; and the control over those Treaties now contended for would be only a legitimate extension of the rights which the House had exercised in financial matters for centuries. The French Chamber had the present Treaty before them. Why was it to be withheld from the House of Commons? The position was one in which it seemed to him most humiliating that the House should be placed. As to that part of his hon. Friend's Motion which related to Treaties of Peace, he believed that the withholding such Treaties from discussion in the House of Commons had a very bad effect. It tended to produce among hon. Members a certain carelessness with respect to foreign affairs. They felt that they wore not responsible to the country, and therefore did not exert themselves to inform themselves on such subjects. Hence it was that there was not one hon. Member in twenty who really took an interest in questions connected with our foreign relations. That was one reason why the complaint was constantly made of us on the Continent that nobody could say what course would be taken by England on foreign questions, which would not be the case if the House felt itself as responsible in regard to our foreign relations as it did with respect to home affairs. It was scarcely fair, he might add, on the part of the Prime Minister to endeavour to frighten the House in the way he had done by talking of secret sittings. If the House possessed the thorough confidence of the country there was no reason, if the interests of the moment really demanded it, why the House should not, in dealing with Treaties, follow the example of the Senate in America, and hold such sittings. While believing that it was, as a general rule, far better to discuss questions in public, there was no reason, when the necessity for it arose, why such a course should not be taken, for there was in secret sittings nothing of which the House need be ashamed. It was also said by the Prime Minister, with even more than his

  487
  usual force and eloquence, that the line of action proposed would greatly increase the difficulties in the way of carrying out Treaties. But it was, in his opinion, much better, when two countries were about to enter into a Treaty with regard to a very critical question, that the Treaty should be delayed and the whole matter thoroughly talked out—that whatever was done should be done with the full consent of the whole people, and only when the time for doing it was quite ripe—than that an arrangement should be made for which the hour was too soon and the two countries who were parties to it were not quite prepared. By leaving matters in the hands of the two Governments difficulties might no doubt for the moment be better managed; but difficulties got over in that way would be sure constantly to reappear in a worse form. The Treaty between England and America might, it was true, have been delayed if it had been discussed in that House; but then his belief was that better results would have been produced. The curious relic of power in such eases which was left in the hands of the Government, was, he believed, altogether contrary to the general principles of our Constitution, and could not last many years longer. For his own part, he put his faith entirely in that perfectly free, open system of which we had felt the advantages in other directions.
  MR. WHEELHOUSEregretted that the Motion of the hon. Member for Warrington was of so wide a character. Treaties of War and Peace, or what might be called Military Treaties, belonged to one class; but Commercial Treaties belonged to a totally different one, and the line between them was broad and distinct. He could quite understand that it might be desirable, for many reasons connected with the good government of the country, and with the maintenance of proper relations with foreign nations, that the power should be preserved to the Government of enabling them to deal with Military or Naval Treaties; but he earnestly protested against the conclusion of any Commercial Treaty before Parliament had had the fullest opportunity of saying whether that Treaty ought to be ratified or not. It was the duty of Parliament to carefully scan every word contained in such Treaties before they were concluded,
  488
  so as to ensure that the nation should not be called upon to sacrifice any particular branch of trade unless there was the most urgent necessity for such a course. Parliament ought to be far more astute than it had hitherto shown itself in such matters, and ought especially to see that we were not called upon to give up everything and to receive practically little or nothing in exchange. In the case of Commercial Treaties they ought invariably to be laid upon the Table of the House of Commons for ratification. If the House were to insist upon that, it would really be nothing more than was insisted upon in nearly every country of Europe, even where discussion was not so free as it was in England. Reference had been made to what had occurred at Coventry and at Macclesfield, and certainly that ought to be a warning for the future with regard to the fortunes of the textile fabric trade. Within a circumference of a very few miles round the constituency he represented (Leeds) there were more textile fabrics made than were produced anywhere else in Great Britain, and in the case of Manchester, with its cotton districts, and Leeds, with its woollen districts, the slightest change or modification of the present aspect of commercial affairs by a trade Treaty might operate most harshly and hardly. There was one aspect of this question which he thought had not yet been sufficiently considered. If we were to go on giving our coals, our models, our machinery, and our skilled labour to foreign nations, as we had been doing for years, what was to hinder those foreign nations from successfully competing with us in our own markets, and in the markets all over the world? The interests of the artisans of this country ought to be considered, and it should be remembered that by as much as was prevented from flowing into their pockets for the productions of their labour might there be a tendency to pauperise the wage-class population of Great Britain. It was said that everything would come right in the end; but he had not much faith in such sanguine expectations. What he wanted was to see what he had to deal with, and to know what he had to give up. To a certain extent, no doubt, it was desirable that there should be secrecy in the earlier negotiations with regard to Treaties; but no step should be taken to

  489
  bind this country for a certain number of years until we knew precisely what we were doing, what was expected of us, and whether an adequate return was to be offered for that which we were to give. The hon. Member for Nottingham (Mr. Auberon Herbert) had said something about being frightened. No one was likely to be frightened; but still it was the duty of Parliament to deal carefully and cautiously with these important matters, and not to allow the country to be rashly and hastily committed to a course of action which might turn out to be disastrous.
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDcould assure the Members of the House who had spoken on this subject that before this Treaty was proceeded with, the most ample information was sought and obtained from the various Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom. Those gentlemen were requested by Lord Granville, and they complied with the request, to appear before the Mixed Commission in Paris in order that their various claims should be considered. During the Recess, gentlemen representing the manufacturing and commercial classes of this country attended frequently at the Foreign Office, and subsequently upon the Commissioners in Paris. They gave their views, they entered into the fullest explanation before the French and the English Commissioners; and he believed that when the further Papers were presented to Parliament it would be seen that, by the advice of those gentlemen, very great and important alterations and emendations were made in the Treaty. He thought that, after careful consideration, the House would come to the conclusion that, so far as the Foreign Office was concerned, neither the commercial nor the manufacturing interests of this country had been neglected by the Treaty.
  DR. BREWERsaid, an hon. Member had suggested that the people at large should be consulted on the subject of a Treaty before it was ratified. Now, as to the Treaty of Washington, which had been specially alluded to, he (Dr. Brewer) believed that if it had been first of all referred to the people of the two countries, such great exasperation would have been exhibited at the terms of the Treaty as would have utterly prevented the Government from performing their duty. That would have
  490
  led to great procrastination, and, perhaps, ultimately to war. He thought the transfer to the House of the responsibility of the Government with reference to Treaties would be nothing but a delusion and a snare.

ARMY—THE 9TH LANCERS—CASE OF THE LATE SUB-LIEUTENANT TRIBE.

  QUESTIONS.
  LORD ELCHO,on rising to put Questions to the Secretary for War relating to the case of the late Sub-Lieutenant Tribe, said, that when he brought the case forward last Session he was in hopes that he would not have to trouble the House again upon the subject, and it was with extreme reluctance that he now felt compelled to refer to it. When he spoke of reluctance, it was just possible, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were in his place, the right hon. Gentleman might not believe him when he said so, because last Monday, when he alluded to a grievance affecting an interesting class which it was desirable to bring forward on some suitable occasion, and when he urged the House to consider whether it was wise to take away the old privileges of the House of bringing forward grievances on the Order for going into Committee of Supply, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he (Lord Elcho) and those who opposed his Resolutions were simply actuated by a wish to speak in that House and to bring themselves prominently forward. Certainly, the right hon. Gentleman had had a good opportunity of forming an estimate of his character some years ago, when they were both inhabitants of the Cave; but possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer was no more correct in the estimate he formed of the character of his friends than he had shown himself to be in framing a Budget, and perhaps therefore the House would give him (Lord Elcho) the benefit of the doubt. For the information of those hon. Members who were present, and who were, perhaps, not aware of all the circumstances of the case, he would say a few words upon the main points. On that occasion he showed that there was nothing in the question whether Mr. Tribe was what was called a "Cardwell's man," or had gained his commission without purchase. The serious question was that this officer had

  491
  been placed under arrest by his commanding officer on a distinct charge of falsehood, and that a Court of Inquiry, consisting of very distinguished officers —Infantry as well as Cavalry—and presided over by General Lysons, was ordered to investigate the case. This Court went fully into the evidence, and, he believed, intended to report; but a telegram came from the Adjutant General desiring them not to report, and they obeyed. The next step was a Memorandum from the Adjutant General upon the evidence laid before the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief. The effect of this Memorandum was that if Mr. Tribe elected to remain in the Army, he must remain in the 9th Lancers, although his conduct in some respects was not such as had been characteristic of the British officer, and there was an addition to the effect that if he remained he was to be treated with cordiality. The result was that as this sub-lieutenant had not been relieved by the Court of the charge of falsehood, the officers declined to associate with him. He complained, and the next step in this strange story was that the Adjutant General went down to Aldershot officially, and told the officers of the regiment that the Secretary of State insisted upon obedience to the order of the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief; that any officer who did not obey would be removed from the regiment. After consideration the Adjutant General requested the colonel, on behalf of the regiment, to write a letter to him, stating the course which the officers intended to pursue. When he mentioned the case last year ho was not aware of the exact nature of their reply, but he expressed his confidence that it could be none other than English gentlemen would give—namely, that as long as an officer in the regiment was unexonerated of charges of falsehood made against him by the commanding officer they must decline respectfully to associate with him socially, though they would, of course, do what was necessary in matters of discipline and duty. He had reason to believe that this was the actual tenor of the answer to the request made by the Adjutant General. To that letter the officers received no reply, and no further steps were taken with regard to it. He was told, however, that when the letter of the officers was received at the War Office, a committee met, com-
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  posed of the Secretary of State, the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, and other Generals. Amongst them was his right hon. Friend the Surveyor General of the Ordnance (Sir Henry Storks), who was strongly in favour of dissolving the regiment, pretty much as he would have dissolved a recalcitrant Parliament in Corfu, under his administration of the Ionian Islands. He said his right hon. Friend was in favour of dissolving the regiment, for he recommended that the threat of removing every officer from the regiment should be carried into execution; and that was much like dissolving the regiment. He hoped he was wrong in this statement; but so he was told, and he alluded to the point because, if he were right, it had an important bearing upon another branch of military administration, because it showed that his right hon. Friend, who had nothing to do with questions of discipline, and was not responsible for them, but simply happened to be a General in Her Majesty's Service, was nevertheless called on to advise the Secretary of State and the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief on these matters. Such a fact showed that there was something wrong in the administration of the War Office, and it was not desirable that a General Officer should be Surveyor General if he was to be called in to give advice on matters with which he had no official connection whatever. The Committee, however, came to the conclusion that no steps could be taken, and that an order forcing English officers and gentlemen by official authority to associate with another officer who had not cleared himself from a charge of falsehood was an improper and impossible order. The matter was, therefore, allowed to drop, and the regiment heard nothing more of it. The next stage in Mr. Tribe's career was that on the transfer of the head-quarters of the regiment to Woolwich, he absented himself three times without leave from stable duty. On the first two occasions he was reprimanded. On the third occasion he was taken before the Commandant, Sir David Wood, and was reprimanded by him; and he (Lord Elcho) mentioned last Session that on the very day he was bringing this matter before the House he received a telegram stating that Mr. Tribe was again under arrest upon the old charge

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  of falsehood. He had now traced this history ab ovo down to the point when the question came before the House last year. The Secretary of State appealed to him not to bring it forward, as a Court of Inquiry was then sitting upon the case. The character of a most distinguished regiment, however, being at stake, he thought it his duty to persevere. He came now to the Court of Inquiry to which the Secretary of State had referred. That Court was appointed to inquire into complaints made by Mr. Tribe against the officers for not associating with him. Instead of this case of arrest for falsehood being dealt with in the ordinary way, the Quartermaster General was sent down to inquire into complaints made by Mr. Tribe against the officers; and in August Mr. Tribe, being summoned to the War Office, was taken there under arrest. The Adjutant General then informed him that his complaints had fallen through, and, by order of the Commander-in-Chief, severely reprimanded him, but then released him from arrest without alluding to the charges of falsehood, and directed him to return to his duty, stating that his conduct might still render necessary some further inquiry or be the subject of further proceedings. Why did the Adjutant General release this officer from arrest? The Court of Inquiry was appointed on the 19th of July, and on the 20th this officer was put under arrest by his colonel on charges of falsehood. It was to these charges that the telegram he had read in the House last year referred. They were forwarded to the Horse Guards by the General in command at Woolwich, Sir David Wood, for trial by a general Court Martial, as, in his opinion, the evidence was such as would insure conviction. But notwithstanding this, the Adjutant General, on reporting the result of the inquiry into matters which had nothing to do with these charges, released Mr. Tribe from arrest. Having been released from arrest, the next stage of the eventful story was that, Mr. Tribe was sent to the dep6t of his regiment at York, and while there obtained three days leave to go to Doncaster. The Doncaster Races took place on the 9th of August, and on the 16th he was seen to leave the barrack yard at 5.30 p.m. with a little black bag in his hand. From that day to this the regiment had seen nothing of him; but
  494
  soon after his flight it was discovered that he had left a considerable number of debts behind him. He was indebted to the regimental master tailor and the regimental master shoemaker; he had borrowed £11 from a sergeant in the regiment, and. he had forgotten to pay his regimental servant's wages; several of his cheques were returned dishonoured, one of which had been paid by him to the mess sergeant, and another for £25 to a hotelkeeper at York. This cheque was drawn on Cox and Co., signed "L. Martin," and endorsed by Mr. Tribe; Cox and Co. returned it unpaid, as the only L. Martin who banked with them was an officer of the Lancers who had informed them it was not his signature. This cheque was submitted to Mr. Netherclift, the expert, who stated that, in his opinion, the whole of the cheque, including the signature, had been written by Mr. Tribe. It had been taken up by the officers of the regiment for the sake of the honour and credit of the regiment. This cheque, with the opinion of the expert as he was informed, was shown to the military authorities, yet no action was taken on the matter, and some time afterwards Mr. Tribe was gazetted out of the service "absent without leave." He had already stated he brought forward this question with reluctance; he had, however, been forced to do so through the acts of Mr. Tribe's friends. A pamphlet had been issued entitled The Tribe Scandal, of the existence of which he had no knowledge until a copy was forwarded to him. A letter signed "Civilian" had appeared in the newspapers on the subject, of which he had no knowledge until it was sent to him through the post; and a statement of the affair bad been published in some of the newspapers, respecting which a solicitor's letter had appeared, he believed, in The Morning Post, signed Wilkinson and Son. This writer said he hoped the reports would not be believed by the public, and urged them not to form an opinion on the question until all the facts had been made public, and invited Lord Elcho to apply at the earliest possible moment in Parliament for all the Papers connected with the case, including a letter from Dr. Tomkins, dated the 30th of December last, to the Commander-in-Chief, in which lie would find more than he expected or had been told of. After this distinct challenge it was

  495
  impossible for him to refrain from bringing forward the question, and as regarded the letter of Dr. Tomkins, if it were what he believed it to be, it would give him no information. The letter of Dr. Tomkins to the Commander-in-Chief made a most cruel assertion as regards the officers of the regiment—as cruel as it was unjust. Admitting that Mr. Tribe forged a cheque and left in debt, got into trouble, and absconded, Dr. Tomkins declared that he was not responsible for his actions, because he had been driven into a state of insanity by the persecutions of his brother officers. On receipt of this letter, the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, or the Secretary of State, or probably the Surveyor General, sent to Cox's for information as to the state of his account, because the letter stated, among other things, that Mr. Tribe, at the time, had ample funds, and therefore had no inducement to forge a cheque or leave his debts unsatisfied. The answer returned was that bills of his had been repudiated before, and that he had no assets. If any of these statements were inaccurate he should be glad to hear them corrected, nothing would give him greater pleasure. He could not personally vouch for the truth of them, they had not come within his own knowledge, but the source whence he had obtained them induced him to believe they were true. He had avoided, as far as possible, commenting on the various points; but having stated what he believed to be the facts, he wished to put a few Questions to the Secretary for War. He asked, first, Whether the right hon. Gentleman would lay on the Table the Papers connected with the case? He did not suppose he would. They had refused him last year; and if presented they would not give a complete history of the case, for no Memorandum was issued of the censure passed on Mr. Tribe, or of the explanations given to the officers. The proceedings by the Adjutant General were conducted orally throughout. He would further ask his right hon. Friend whether the circumstances he had stated, and which he was told could be substantiated, were materially correct? He would likewise ask whether he could give any satisfactory explanation of the apparently strange way in which this matter had been dealt with by the authorities? He asked this in the hope and belief that some such
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  explanation might or could be given; for in the absence of it there was on the face of the case an appearance of weakness, vacillation, temporizing, and seeming partiality which tended to injure the public service by shaking the confidence of the officers of the Army in the fair and impartial administration of its discipline. He had no wish to bear hardly upon this poor man, but simply to support discipline. He admitted that matters of this nature should rarely and not rashly be brought before the House even under the new system, whereby power was centred in the Secretary of State, and the quasi fiction of the Prerogative of the Crown as to the special command of the Army had been weakened. It was, however, an answer given by the Secretary of State for War himself to the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms) that first brought this affair before the House, that answer being given in a way which conveyed an incorrect impression, and was hurtful as regarded the officers of the 9th Lancers. It was not only the right, but the duty of every hon. Member of the House, as the great inquest of the nation, to bring before it any question affecting the Army in which truth, justice, and discipline were at stake.
  MR. CARDWELL: In whatever else I may differ from the noble Lord, I certainly shall not differ from him as to the right and duty of this House to inform itself upon the mode in which public duties are discharged; and it was in consequence of thinking that the House has a perfect right to know the result of any such proceedings that when my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney asked me the conclusion at which his Royal Highness the General Commanding-in-Chief had arrived in a matter of discipline that I felt it to be my bounden duty to answer the question in the manner I have done, because I thought the House of Commons would be satisfied with the announcement made, and would not wish to enter upon the discussion of such a subject. I abstained, therefore, from entering into any details or reasoning on the subject, which I was sure the House would deem to belong to the administrators of the Army—that is to say, his Royal Highness and the Adjutant General, and should not be entered into in this House. I gave that answer after consultation with his Royal Highness,

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  and I still maintain that an hon. Member putting a Question as to the result of an inquiry had a right to be told what the result had been. I am also prepared to maintain that it would not be a good example or consistent with principle or the discipline of the Army that I should go further and enter into details and arguments. This has been an unhappy case, and it has been so much dealt with by the noble Lord that I really wonder I have never been able distinctly to elicit what is the grievance which with such very great reluctance he has twice brought before the House. I presume it is that he supposes the discipline of the Army has in some way been taken, or sought to be taken, out of the hands of his Royal Highness by the Secretary of State. [Lord ELCHO: No.] If that is disavowed, I really do not know what the grievance is. The question has been handled from beginning to end by those responsible for the discipline of the Army. [Lord ELCHO: Hear, hear.] The noble Lord stated last year that he had no charge to prefer against his Royal Highness or against the Adjutant General, and that his only charge was against myself. [Lord ELCHO: No.] The noble Lord so stated, and I was present and answered the charge. If that was not the complaint I really do not know what it is. I proceed to give a narrative of what has actually occurred. In the first place there seems some sort of confusion about the mode in which Mr. Tribe entered the Army. The noble Lord apparently intended to suggest that I took sonic sort of interest in this young man because he came in under the new system. [Lord ELCHO: No, no; it was The Daily Telegraph.] Whoever said it, he no doubt came in under the new system, because he got his commission without purchase; but the way in which the new system applied to him was this—he came in. as a probationer, and would have been liable to have his commission taken from him unless he obtained the proper certificates of conduct the first year. He had been on the list of those already deemed entitled to commissions under the old system, and he came in on the terms of the new system. He went to Sandhurst under the new arrangements, and did not stay the whole of his time there, but left, as the distinguished governor of that Institution told me, without any charge having been
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  made against him. When the time came for him to join his regiment, instead of being allowed to join it, he was asked on behalf of the subaltern officers, in a letter which I hold in my hand and which has been widely circulated among all who hear me, whether he had any objection to being transferred to another regiment. There were circumstances respecting that letter which received the marked censure of his Royal Highness. Then there were complaints on both sides—complaints from his Commanding Officer and complaints on his part, and a Court of Inquiry was appointed to examine into them, and means were taken to make it effectual. Nothing, as the noble Lord says, could be better than the constitution of that Court, but ho says a telegram was sent down from the War Office ordering it not to deliver its judgment. Now, in words that is true, but in spirit it is not at all true. I am informed—and I am speaking in the presence of officers, and I have referred to the Queen's Regulations—that a Court of Inquiry does not report an opinion unless it is directed to report an opinion. This Court of Inquiry had not been directed to report; they telegraphed to the Adjutant General to know whether they were to report an opinion or not, and the answer was No, they were only to furnish information. Thereupon the information was laid before His Royal Highness, and was decided upon by him, with the assistance of the Adjutant General and the officers around him. This had been done several days before the proceedings came to my knowledge at all; and it was only when my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney put a question on the subject that it became my duty to inform myself about them. Accordingly, the laborious and very unpleasant task was laid on me of reading all these proceedings from beginning to end, and I could only give my opinion for what it was worth, that his Royal Highness and the Adjutant General could come to no other conclusion than that at which they had arrived. They gave their order accordingly, and the result I stated in answer to my hon. Friend. To say, therefore, that the Court had reported—
  Lord ELCHO: I said they were told not to report.
  MR. CARDWELL: But the noble Lord said the officer had been charged

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  with falsehood, and had not been exonerated by those who sat in judgment upon the charge. I deny that altogether. The Court of Inquiry were not authorized to sit in judgment or to give their opinion, but those who did give it were his Royal Highness and the distinguished officers by whom he is surrounded. They sat in judgment upon the information with which the officers furnished them. They came to the conclusion that the charges had not been proved, and, coming to that conclusion, they communicated it to the regiment.
  LORD ELCHOasked whether he had been correct in stating that the Memorandum giving the opinion of his Royal Highness and the Adjutant General contained the words—"Although his conduct had in some respects not been such as had hitherto been characteristic of a British officer?"
  MR. CARDWELL: There were some qualifying observations.
  LORD ELCHO: The whole question lies in that.
  MR. CARDWELL: No, it does not. The whole thing turns on the conclusion at which the Commander-in-Chief and the Adjutant General arrived. The noble Lord then says there were charges brought against this unfortunate man which the General Officer who commanded at Woolwich thought sufficient to justify a Court Martial, and he wished to know why the Adjutant General, while reprimanding Lieutenant Tribe, took no notice of these charges. I will tell the noble Lord why. Because these charges had been very carefully considered in the Adjutant General's Office, and the Adjutant General differed from the Commanding Officer at Woolwich, and did not consider that the facts were sufficient to substantiate the inquiry or to justify the Court Martial. The Adjutant General did not, therefore, use these charges in the way of reprehension or censure of the individual whose conduct had been impugned. The noble Lord then said that a document had been presented to the Commander-in-Chief making cruel charges against the officers of the regiment, and he asks me to tell him something of the contents of that document. I will tell him just this much—that the Commander-in-Chief did receive such a document, and that it called upon him to institute an inquiry, and threatened legal proceedings. He said—"If you
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  threaten legal proceedings you have no right to call upon me to institute an inquiry, nor is it fair to the gentlemen who are going to be submitted to a legal inquiry." The Commander-in-Chief, therefore, laid the document entirely aside, and having done so, I am not going to gratify the noble Lord's curiosity as to anything I may know about the contents of that document. What happened? The first complaint was inquired into by a Court of Inquiry, presided over by General Lysons. Those who were responsible to the Commander-in-Chief and the Adjutant General carefully considered with them the evidence taken before the Court of Inquiry, and they arrived at their own independent judgment. They communicated that decision to the regiment, and there that matter ended. There were further complaints upon the part of Mr. Tribe against the officers, which were investigated by Sir Thomas M'Mahon, and the result was communicated to all the parties concerned. Complaints were made from Woolwich relating to charges of falsehood. They were carefully considered by the Adjutant General, and as those charges could not be sustained, the Adjutant General declined to act upon them at all. Complaints were then made by the officers against Mr. Tribe, and investigated by the Quartermaster General and a Court of Inquiry, which went down from the Horse Guards. The result of that inquiry was also communicated to the officers of the regiment and to Lieutenant Tribe. The noble Lord was mistaken in saying that the Adjutant General told Lieutenant Tribe that his conduct might call for further investigation. What he actually said was that he was a probationer, and that he must not think that by the result of the Court of Inquiry his past conduct had been condoned, but that at the end of his period of probation all his conduct would be taken into consideration by the Commander-in-Chief, and that on its being approved or not would depend the conclusion at which the Commander-in-Chief would arrive. The noble Lord said that Lieutenant Tribe had issued dishonoured cheques, and that one of them was a forgery. [Lord ELCHO: Believed to be a forgery.] And then the noble Lord asks me whether that is true. I wonder that the noble Lord, who says that if I think so it is my duty to prosecute that

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  soldier, did not consider it more proper for me not to enter into the truth of those charges of which I have no evidence before me, particularly as they might hereafter become the subject of legal investigation. It is not my province to give the noble Lord any opinion as to the truth of those charges. I limit myself to saying that it is true that it has been reported to the military authorities that such was the opinion of the officers of the regiment. The noble Lord also wants to know whether any inquiry was made at Cox's. To my knowledge no such inquiry was made. I cannot tell the noble Lord everything I learn in the course of my duties. He seems to have some eavesdropper at the War Office who appears to know exactly what happened, because he seems to know not only who met to consider the question in the room where I discharge my duties, but some one under the table, or somebody else, knows exactly what the Surveyor General of the Ordnance said, and also what the Commander-in-Chief and I said. The noble Lord has no right to carry his curiosity so far, and he will derive no assistance from me. I have great difficulty in knowing what is the grievance with which I have to deal. Is it that I have taken this matter out of the hands of the military authorities with whom the primary duty of investigating it rested? If so, that is a total and entire hallucination on the part of the noble Lord. If any hon. Member puts a question to me, it is no doubt my duty fully to inform myself thoroughly of the case and to give an answer as to the result. Here was a young man who was on his Royal Highness's list, and who, having passed his examination, joined his regiment. He has since been the subject of these various inquiries, of which I have given the detail, as the House has appeared to desire. At every step the greatest attention has been paid to all these complaints by those who were responsible for the discipline of the Army. As it has been made a political question, or rather has been made the subject of so much discussion, I must say that I believe the military authorities have discharged their duty ably, faithfully, conscientiously, and with a desire to do justice. This young man has left the Army, and, under all the circumstances, I really think that this question has
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  occupied the time of the House much longer than it ought to have done.
  MR. BARNETTwished to say a few words on behalf of the officers of the 9th Lancers. He had been thrown on more than one occasion into their company, and as no mention had been made of the high character of the regiment, or of the officers by whom it was commanded, from a long acquaintance with the Colonel, he wished to say that a higher-minded, more courteous, and more kind-hearted man did not exist. He was not the man to oppress or act unfairly towards any individual placed under his command. In his (Mr. Barnett's) intercourse with the officers of the regiment he had heard the subject discussed over and over again, but never heard any unkind feeling expressed by them against this young man, except that he had not conducted himself in the manner in which gentlemen expected officers to conduct themselves. The Secretary of State was quite justified in saying that these matters had better be left in the hands of military authorities, and ho (Mr. Barnett) deprecated the practice of bringing them before the House of Commons. Although the question of truth had not been reported upon by the military authorities, it would be for the House and the public to consider whether there had not probably been some want of truth on the part of the young man who had quitted the Army under such circumstances. The House had to lament in this case the effect of letters which had appeared in the newspapers, the writers of which sometimes paid little attention to facts. The matter had now passed away, and the House would be glad to hear no more of the case of Lieutenant Tribe.
  LORD EUSTACECECILwished to say a few words in vindication of his noble Friend (Lord Elcho), whose motives had been misunderstood, and who did not desire to make a personal attack on the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State or on the Field Marshal the Commander-in-Chief, but to advocate the cause of the officers of the 9th Lancers. He believed that regiment had suffered a great deal from what had been said about it in the public press, and this circumstance had no doubt gone much to the heart of those officers who were now in the regiment, and of those who had left it. He therefore regretted that the right hon.

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  Gentleman the Secretary for State had not in his very long reply said a few words on behalf of the officers of the regiment. It seemed to him that errors of judgment had been committed, but, at the same time, he must confess he did not think a sufficient answer had been given to the statement made that evening by his noble Friend. There was a Memorandum which stated that if Mr. Tribe remained in the Army he must remain in the 9th Lancers, although it was said that in some respects his conduct had not been such as was characteristic of a British officer. Now, this was the whole gist of the question. Why were not some steps taken to get rid of a man whose conduct had been so described? for there was not the least doubt subsequent events proved the correctness of this Memorandum. In conclusion, the noble Lord expressed a hope that no such painful case as this might again be required to be brought forward in that House, and that hon. Members would hear of no more "errors of judgment" on the part of military authorities.
  SIR HENRY STORKSsaid, he shared the opinion of his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War when he stated to the noble Lord that he did not quite know what he was driving at—whether against the Secretary of State for interfering with the discipline of the Army, against the Commander-in-Chief for not arriving at a proper conclusion, against him (Sir Henry Storks), or against the 9th Lancers. The noble Lord seemed to aim especially at him (Sir Henry Storks) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he spoke of the happy days he passed in "the Cave" with his right hon. Friend. He agreed with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that there had been errors of judgment on all sides in this question. There was no doubt that this was a case which, in the first instance, ought to have been settled regimentally; and, if it had not been so settled, it ought to have been dealt with by the authority of the General Officer commanding on the spot. But, as it happened, it came up to his Royal Highness the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief to be settled, and he ordered a Court of Inquiry. In this place he wished to make some professional observations with reference to the remarks of the noble Lord.
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  The Court of Inquiry was ordered to assemble in the usual way to investigate all the circumstances connected with the case. The Queen's Regulations pointed out the course to be pursued, and in accordance with them the General Officer commanding at Aldershot caused a Court of Inquiry to assemble to take evidence and to report it in the customary way. No instructions to the contrary by telegram or otherwise were sent from the War Office to the President of the Court. The President of the Court subsequently applied to the Adjutant General to know if the Court was to give an opinion, and he was informed in reply that it was not. On the receipt of the proceedings of the Court, the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief settled the question by giving his decision, parts of which had been referred to by the hon. Member for Essex (Lord Eustace Cecil), though not the end of it, for the following expression of opinion was also given—
  "His Royal Highness highly disapproves the letter written by Lieutenant Green to Lieutenant Tribe in the name of his brother officers, and would take serious notice of any repetition of similar conduct which might be brought under his notice."
  There the matter ought to have ended; but the noble Lord proceeded to quote the decision of the Commander-in-Chief that Lieutenant Tribe was to remain in the 9th Lancers. But it should be remembered that the Commanding Officer would be required, on the expiration of 12 months, to report whether Lieutenant Tribe were a fit officer in a military sense or not, and that, if not, he would have been removed from the service. Then the noble Lord complained that the Adjutant General went down to Aldershot, assembled all the officers together, and communicated to them further remarks made by the Commander-in-Chief. This, he maintained, was by no means an unusual proceeding, but a customary, a proper, and a reasonable one. Adverting to that part of the noble Lord's speech which referred especially to himself, he quoted a remark of a late hon. Member of that House that the noble Lord had a large swallow, but a very weak digestion. That evening the noble Lord had proved the truth of that remark. For his own part, he emphatically denied having made use of the expres-

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  sions attributed to him by the noble Lord, and that at the meeting at the War Office he was very earnest in expressing his opinion that he thought the 9th Regiment should be dissolved—he thought that was the word used. [Lord ELCHO: No, no!] At any rate, the noble Lord represented him as being responsible for the discipline of the Army, with which he in no way interfered. He held, however, that the Secretary of State had a perfect right to ask him his opinion on any subject connected with his (Sir Henry Storks) duties, or on any other military subject, if he thought that his opinion, after his long connection with the Army, would be of any benefit to him, and he intended on all occasions when asked to continue to give his opinion. But he distinctly disclaimed that he was in any way responsible for the discipline of the Army. As to the arrest of Sub-Lieutenant Tribe at Woolwich, the General Officer there was the mere channel for transmission of letters and papers, and it was no part of that officer's duty to decide whether Mr. Tribe should be brought before a Court Martial or not. When the papers came to the Commander-in-Chief it was considered from the précis of the evidence that the evidence would not support the charges, and when the Adjutant General went down to Woolwich of course he did not refer to these charges, or tell Mr. Tribe that the evidence submitted against him would not warrant the charges. He appealed to the House if anything could be more regular than that, and he was at a loss to see what other course the Commander-in-Chief could have pursued. Again, Mr. Tribe had been gazetted out of the Army in the usual way, for being absent without leave from his Commanding Officer, as he himself or any other officer would be if they were absent without leave. There had been no irregularity or anything to complain of in Mr. Tribe being gazetted out of the Army. As regards the remarks of the hon. Member for Woodstock (Mr. Barnett), he was quite sure it was neither the wish nor the intention of his right hon. Friend, nor of the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, to say anything which was not most respectful, most praiseworthy and honourable to the officers of the 9th Lancers. There could be no officer in the Army who did not appreciate the
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  services, and gallantry, and general conduct and high position which that regiment had always rendered and borne in the Army. He was sure he only represented the feeling of those in authority, of those who knew the regiment, in the House and out of it, when he said that a more gallant and distinguished regiment did not exist. There had been errors in judgment, but there had been none on the part of the Commander-in-Chief, who had tried this case from beginning to end with a due regard to discipline, with a regard to impartial justice, and, at the same time, with that decision for which his Royal Highness was characterized. He hoped that what he Lad said of the officers of the 9th Lancers would be satisfactory to the hon. Member for Woodstock, and that the explanations he bad given in reference to the case generally would be considered sufficient.
  MAJOR GAVIN,having had the honour of serving with the 9th Lancers, said, he did not wish the debate to close without his saying a word for the regiment. He wished first to ask whether this was a question for the House of Commons to settle, and whether such a paltry and petty matter ought to be brought before it? If he were Commander-in-Chief he would not hold the office 10 minutes if the House of Commons attempted to interfere in such a matter. Respected as his Royal Highness was by every soldier and officer, surely his conduct in such a matter was not to be submitted to a House consisting mainly of civilians? The Officer Commanding the 9th Lancers had commanded it with vigour and with duo regard to its welfare. Looking, therefore, to the welfare of the officers and the regiment, the commander of the 9th Lancers was bound to get rid of a man who had acted as Mr. Tribe had done. Extreme measures were taken in this case, and one of the last was sending a letter to the Commanding Officer, desiring that he should make his officers associate and live with Mr. Tribe, and, as a gallant and honourable man, he wrote back to resign his Commission because he could not comply with the request. He could not allow the slightest slur to be cast on this gallant corps; and believing as he did that Mr. Tribe was a disgrace to the regiment, he thought that the sooner he was got rid of the better.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member who had just spoken was quite in error in supposing that the Commanding Officer of the regiment had written to resign his commission; that idea was quite unfounded. For himself, he begged to say nobody shared more fully than he did the feelings of respect that were entertained for the Commanding Officer and for the reputation of the 9th Lancers; and his right hon. Friend (Sir Henry Storks) desired him to say that if he was supposed to have thrown any slur upon that officer, or on the regiment, he certainly did not intend to do so.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  UNION OF BENEFICES BILL— [BILL 28.]
  (Mr. Spencer Walpole, Viscount sandon, Mr. William Henry Smith, Mr. Andrew Johnston.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. SPENCER WALPOLE,in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he was ready to accede to the Motion of which Notice had been given by the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Crawford), that it should be referred to a Select Committee. The object of the measure was to amend the Act of 1860, and to institute a better machinery for the carrying out of the purposes of that Act.
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, that as his right hon. Friend had agreed to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, his hon. Colleague had been relieved from the necessity of persevering in his Motion for the rejection of the measure. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that the Bill was a valuable one, but exception was taken in the City to some of the changes now proposed, especially on this point—that whereas each parish has now the power of interposing its dissent, to prevent any scheme being carried out, that power would be withdrawn by the Bill. In regard to the composition of the proposed Commission, it seemed to him that there would be an undue predominance of the clerical element, and he could see no sufficient ground for
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  giving to the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester the right of each nominating a Member of the Commission.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
  And, on February 25, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Mr. GRAWFORD, Mr. WHITBREAD, Mr. WALTER, Mr. STONE, Mr. CHARLES REED, Sir JAMES LAWRENCE, Mr. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, Mr. MOWBRAY, Mr. CROSS, Mr. CUBITT, Mr. FRANCIS POWELL, Mr. BERESFORD HOPE, Mr. CAVENDISH BENTINCK, and Mr. SPENCER WALPOLE:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACT.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. CLARE READ,in moving that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operations of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, and the constitution of the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council, was happy to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had assented to his Motion, and although it might on that account be considered unnecessary for him to make any statement to the House, he thought he should not ask for such a Committee without stating the reasons why he did so. Any question having reference to the supply of meat at the present time must be of vast importance. Within the last 20 years the price of beef and mutton had almost doubled, while that of pork had been nearly stationary. No doubt that increase of price was partly occasioned by increased consumption; but the unfortunate droughts of 1868 and 1870, the cattle plague of 1865, and the continuous outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and pleuro-pneumonia had also very much to do with it. It was highly essential to guard the health of our home stock rather than place our chief reliance on the foreign importations, which did not amount at present to one-tenth of the consumption of the country. There was no party feeling in this Motion; he would be seconded by an hon. Gentleman who sat behind Ministers. He should say nothing disrespectful of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council. He thanked him for the very courteous reception he had at all times given to the deputations that waited upon him. Even when he

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  had to express a negative, it was always couched in the most respectful and courteous language—an example which might advantageously be copied by the heads of other Departments. But it was quite possible that the right hon. Gentleman was better acquainted with the Ballot and with Education than the cattle diseases, and he might have left too much to the subordinates of his Department. He had been pressed on both sides, first by the consumers, and then by the producers; but both of them came to the same conclusion, and told him plainly that the Act worked badly and required amendment. Notwithstanding the expense, trouble, and restrictions of the Act, they had gone from bad to worse, till in 1872 they had reached what he hoped was the climax of the cattle disease. The Act of 1869 was a half-and-half measure; and a compromise as affecting disease was sure to fail. It was a halting between the unanimous Report of the Cattle Plague Commissioners and the veterinary authorities of the Privy Council Office. The Commissioners said there must be a total isolation of foreign cattle, and then they might have a strict regulation of the home trade; but the Bill did neither, and had consequently failed. He could not separate the Act from the Department that had administered it. That Department seemed to publish their Reports about three years after they were due. In 1867 he happened to know that the Cattle Plague Report was in print, but it was not laid on the Table till the latter part of 1869; and now, three years after the passing of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, they were favoured with a Report of 14 pages. It stated that the first 18 months following the passing of the Act were occupied by the Department in getting it put in force; but that, taking the year 1871 as that in which its powers were fully in operation, the result was the occurrence in England and Scotland in that year of 5,869 cases of pleuro-pneumonia, and of 691,000 cases of foot and mouth disease. If they compared the beginning and the end of that year, the figures were these —that in January the average number of farms infected with pleuro-pneumonia was 90; in December it was 113; in January the number infected with the foot and mouth disease was 1,100; in December it was 5,500. In his own
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  county of Norfolk in 1871, there were 32,000 cases of foot and mouth disease; in 1872 the number was no less than 200,000. The great proportion of the animals affected was, fortunately, sheep; but at least 2,800,000 lbs. of meat had been lost from this cause, or a weight equal to that of 5,500 carcases of foreign bullocks in the county of Norfolk from that one disease in 1872. In the Report there was a very considerable flourish made about cattle plague and sheep pock having been kept out of the country; but in July, the very month when this Report was written, there were imported direct from Russia several cases of cattle plague. The Department sunk the carcases at sea, and 17 of them were washed up on the coast of Norfolk, and if they in that county had not been very quick in burying them, there might have been an outbreak of cattle plague. No proper provisions had been made in this matter, except in the port of London. When the outbreak of cattle plague occurred in Yorkshire, with all the powers of the Act, there had been a certain lack of vigour and determination. The disease should have been stamped out at once. It was necessary that the Privy Council should have power to send down their Inspectors and kill not only the arrivals affected with the disease, but all which were contiguous to them; and if they did this by the action of the central authority, the whole compensation for the cattle killed for the public good should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer rather than be thrown on the county rates. Whatever was the nature of the disease of pleuro-pneumonia, the Act was wholly unable to resist its progress. In 1872, in his own county, there were 1,621 cases, whereas in the previous year there had been only 389 cases. It had been said that the local authority had not done its duty, but that he altogether denied. At the time of the cattle plague Norfolk had set an example to England, as Aberdeenshire did to Scotland, for stamping out the disease. Norfolk on that occasion did, as he hoped it always would do, its duty, however unpleasant that duty might be. The Report on ale foot and mouth disease was at variance with all the evidence which had been taken before the Committee of this House and the Cattle Plague Commission. It says that it is the duty of the Department to carry

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  out any experiments relating to these diseases, and it adds that some cattle had died in consequence of having been improperly treated. But it had not given a single receipt, recommendation, or suggestion for checking the disease, except that which related to carbolic acid mixed with whitewash. But the Department issued arbitrary forms and orders, which some could not understand and many would not obey. They made Inspectors return all sorts of forms, which he supposed would be published three years after they reached the Department. Then they expressed a doubt whether the foot and mouth disease could not be raised spontaneously. But why not employ a man like Dr. Saunderson, who investigated the cattle plague thoroughly, and proved that it could not be produced spontaneously, to go into the matter? This last outbreak had been peculiar in attacking sheep with a virulence never before known. It was before unknown that cattle could be attacked twice in 12 months; but they had been attacked twice, and even three times this year. Then the Department appeared to be above receiving suggestions. That they should not do so from one sitting on the Opposition side of the House might, perhaps, be expected; but they treated Radical Members in the same way. Take the case with regard to Irish cattle. The Lord Lieutenant said that Ireland was entirely free from disease, and the Reports confirmed that statement. Well, a man bought a number of cattle, as he had done, and took the utmost care in every possible way that no contagion approached them, and yet in three or four days after reaching England the whole of them fell down dead with the murrain disease. He believed that the hold of the ship was the place where this disease was generated, and it would be easy to make a few experiments to see whether better ventilation could not be introduced. If we could ventilate a coal mine 600 or 700 feet deep, it ought to be far easier to ventilate a ship's hold. The Report went on to say that the foot and mouth disease could not be connected with importation—that increased importation did not appear to be followed by increased disease. But during the cattle plague restrictions, not only was the cattle plague got rid of, but foot and mouth disease was exterminated in this country, and it was not until the foreign
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  sheep were turned out of the Metropolitan Market that we had any outbreak of foot and mouth disease; but from that time we had continual outbreaks, which reached colossal dimensions, as it did last year. He would give one or two illustrations of practical defects in the Act. Pleuro-pneumonia was treated in this way—You might remove diseased cattle for immediate slaughter; but there was no power to remove those that were healthy, even to save them being starved. With regard to foot and mouth disease, if a herd was going to market you could lay your hands on those which were infected and stop them; but the rest were allowed to go to market and thus to distribute the disease all over the country. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for having provided a good supply of water at the railway stations, and also for having taken it upon the Department to appoint Inspectors at the ports rather than leave their appointment to the Customs. But there was one thing which the right hon. Gentleman had not done, and that was to help agriculturists to avoid the frightful delay which their cattle experienced at the different railway junctions. A gentleman had a lot of cattle loaded at the Norwich station at 6 o'clock on Monday morning to go to Deal; but they did not arrive at Deal until 25 minutes past 2 on Wednesday, and never received either food or water on the transit. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire sent him a lot of valuable heifers, which left Aberdeen at 10 o'clock on Monday morning, but were not received at the station near his residence until the Thursday following. There seemed to be an increasing objection to the development of the dead meat traffic owing to the prejudice of the butchers; but on every principle of health, economy, and humanity we ought to encourage the trade. If Aberdeen could supply the West-end of London with the best dead meat, there could be no difficulty whatever in transferring dead meat from the ports to the midland towns. The supply of a perishable commodity like fish was regulated by the telegraph; why should not the supply of dead meat be regulated by the same means? There ought to be greater facilities for developing the dead meat trade. When the City undertook anything they generally did it thoroughly well; and their mallet at Deptford was an excellent one; but

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  it had this one serious defect, that it had no railway connection with it. The Act, which was costly in its operation, had failed to effect the object for which it was passed, and the Department to which its working was committed had failed also, except in the matter of spending a great deal of public money. He hoped that on the Committee for which he moved all parties interested would be represented—not only consumers, but producers, from all parts of the United Kingdom, and he was particularly desirous that they should have the valuable assistance of several Irish Members. The importance of securing the services of Irish representatives would be apparent to all who remembered that the import of cattle from Ireland was far greater than that from all other countries. As a Norfolk man, one of those whose county bought from Ireland 40,000 store cattle in the year, he felt how essential it was that they should be received in the best possible condition. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for the Committee—the inquiry to embrace the operation of the Cattle Diseases Acts in Ireland.
  MR. BASSETT,in seconding the Motion, said, that his hon. Friend who had just sat down had dealt with the subject as a producer. He proposed to approach it from the consumer's point of view. He was strongly of opinion that it was as much a consumer's as a producer's question. When he reflected upon the very small proportion of foreign stock and meat they had in the country—namely, about 4¼ per cent in live stock and 4¼ per cent in dead meat, as against 91½ per cent of home stock, he thought it must be evident to all that it was very needful every precaution should be taken that in having free trade in all that is healthy and good they should have protection against all that is injurious and bad. The most sanguine Freetrader would not, he thought, be in favour of free trade in disease. They must all feel for the very painful position which the Vice President of the Council was often placed in—pressed, as his hon. Friend had said, on one side by the consumer, and on the other by the producer. He was sure the House would be desirous of relieving him of his difficulties, and to that end he trusted they would support the Motion before them. There seemed to be a delusion in the minds of many persons that fanners were op-
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  posed to the importation of foreign stock. They were not opposed to the importation of healthy stock. They were, on the contrary, directly interested in it. A very small number of farmers bred their own stock. He believed it would be found that in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire out of every 50 farmers not more than two were breeders of their own stock. They had consequently to buy stores in the spring and autumn, and if the price of meat was very high, stock had to be bought at such a price as to give very little chance of ultimate profit. Any means, therefore, that could be devised which would have the effect of securing a supply of sound store stock would be hailed by the farmers with great pleasure. He knew of one case in Buckinghamshire in which a farmer laid out from £20,000 to £25,000 in stock, and just before the cattle were ready for market, disease which had been brought from Bristol market broke out, and the depreciation in the stock amounted to more than 30 per cent. In Herefordshire, the statistics showed that of the cattle attacked—as they had been in great numbers—40 per cent died, while of sheep and pigs over 20 per cent died. These were serious facts, and showed clearly that it was time some effective measures were taken to put a stop to so disastrous a state of things, and the sooner decisive steps were taken the better.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 1869, and the Cattle Disease Acts (Ireland), and the constitution of the Veterinary Departments of Great Britain and Ireland."—(Mr. Clare Read.)
  MR. DENISONsaid, that his hon. Friend (Mr. Read) had by implication rather than by direct statement thrown some obloquy on railway companies for their neglect in the conveyance of cattle. Certainly his hon. Friend did bring forward two very gross instances, which were, perhaps, susceptible of some sort of explanation. He would, however, mention a case which came within his own knowledge, and which tended to show that the railway companies were not always to blame. Some time since a number of Irish cattle were taken in transit at Liverpool, and the truck in which they were conveyed was filled to the utmost by the drover with a view to

  515
  save expense. At Retford Junction where the company were compelled by the Act to keep water for the use of the cattle they were taken out, and they drank and were fed. But inasmuch as the same number of cattle after being fed could not be squeezed into the truck again, some had to be left behind, the railway servants not knowing what to do with them, and the North-Western Company were actually sued by the owner for damages arising from cattle losing the market at Peterborough, owing to the delay at Retford. This fact would show the difficulties with which the companies had to contend in the conveyance of cattle.
  MR. J.W. BARCLAY: Sir, I wish to make a few remarks upon the experience of the people of Scotland on this subject. I cannot concur in the disparaging remarks on these Acts made by the hon. Member (Mr. C.S. Read), for with respect to Scotland, and especially in the North-eastern counties, their operation has been highly beneficial; but, at the same time, it is to be remembered that the legislation was very much of a tentative nature, and I am sanguine that the experience of the last few years will enable those interested in the trade to point out several improvements that can be made towards simplification of the present mode of dealing with disease. In supporting the Motion, I trust the House will bear with me for a few minutes while I briefly submit a few facts, showing the magnitude of the interests involved in this question. Several figures have been quoted on both sides of the House tonight. I am not sure on what authority those statements have been made; but I have looked carefully into the figures for myself, and taking the Agricultural Returns of 1871, I estimate the total value of the cattle and sheep of Great Britain —I do not include Ireland—at no less than £115,000,000 sterling. Now, Sir, that is about double the value of the total amount of the registered shipping of the United Kingdom. This stock, I estimate, supplies annually animal food to the value of £48,000,000 sterling. Now, Sir, taking the Board of Trade Returns also for 1871, the total value of the live stock imported is estimated at £5,370,000. The proportion which the foreign supply bears to home produce is thus only about one-ninth, or about 10 per cent of the whole supply. That is
  516
  what I find from the Statistical Returns, and when I state further that an animal is deteriorated almost 10 per cent of its value by even an ordinary attack of foot and mouth disease, it will be at once seen of how great importance it is not only to the farmer, but also to the consumer, that our herds should be protected from disease in the best possible way that can be devised. I do not anticipate that it will be found necessary to have any increased stringency of the provisions of the Act; neither do I think that it will be necessary to augment the powers of the Privy Council under the Act. So far as the experience of Scotland has gone, the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council has exercised those powers judiciously, promptly, and energetically—and, speaking for the counties which I know best, entirely to the satisfaction both of the farmers and the people at large. The local authorities in Scotland have acted up to their full powers under the orders of the Privy Council, and I am convinced that if local authorities generally throughout the kingdom would act up to the orders of the Privy Council with the same energy and efficiency, contagious disease among animals would be very soon exterminated, and, if re-introduced, quickly put down. But there is reason to suspect that certain local authorities do not carry out the provisions of the Orders in Council with the zeal which one could wish to see, and which we are entitled to expect; and I think it would be highly desirable, in adjusting the provisions of the Act, that authorities should be taken to exercise a control and supervising power over the mode in which local authorities carry out their duties. If the local authorities in the districts in Yorkshire which have been referred to had been as zealous in carrying out the duties imposed upon them by the Orders in Council as the people in the North of Scotland, I do not think that the cattle plague would have existed nearly so long in that part of the country. A good deal may, I think, be done in respect to the constitution of local authorities, to introduce more simplicity as well as greater economy in the working of the Act. In the county which I have the honour to represent there are no less than six local authorities, one for the county, and one in each of the five boroughs within the county. Now, Sir, it is quite possible

  517
  for each of those local authorities to issue separate regulations under the Orders in Council, and it is necessary for any person dealing with cattle, not only to be acquainted with the Act and the Orders in Council, but with the provisions and regulations of each of the local authorities in the county. It is evident that it would require a lawyer to understand the position of the farmer who wishes to move his cattle when the regulations are in force, and at present it is utterly impossible for the great majority of farmers and cattle-dealers to know what they may, and what they may not do. I therefore think that arrangements ought to be made, if possible, whereby there should be only one local authority for each county. I am fully persuaded that this would lead to greater efficiency in the working of the Act, and greatly reduce the expenses of the various local authorities. It is the opinion of the Scottish farmers, as well as of the farmers of Norfolk, that the great source of disease is Ireland. I cannot, however, agree with hon. Members who think that the disease is originated during the very brief period of the transit from Ireland to Scotland. Reports which were made to the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture by various authorities, and in particular by the chief Veterinary Inspector in Ireland, show clearly and distinctly that the simplest way of getting rid of the disease which comes from Ireland would be to have an inspection of cattle prior to their embarkation at the Irish ports; and the authorities to whom I allude say that this would also be a very great benefit to Ireland itself, because dealers in that country, when they found that animals must be inspected prior to embarkation, would be more careful to keep them, if possible, in good condition on their way to the ports. For these reasons, I feel great pleasure in supporting the Motion for a Committee made by my hon. Friend on the other side, and I am very happy to hear that my right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council has consented, on the part of the Government, to grant a Committee.
  MR. J. HOWARDsaid, there were one or two points to which he would call the attention of the House, that had not been taken up by the previous speakers. He could not agree with his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. C.S. Read), as to the Act
  518
  being the total failure ho had represented it to have been, for as his hon. Friend (Mr. J.W. Barclay) had pointed out, the farmers of Aberdeenshire had, under its operation, exterminated pleuro-pneumonia from that county. There could be no question that the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act was a well conceived and vigorous remedy for dealing with imported as well as established diseases in our live stock, and as far as rinderpest was concerned, it had been completely successful. There was no fear oven if this dire disease gained a footing once more in this country that it would spread to any alarming extent. But in the matter of that troublesome and over recurring disease, the foot and mouth complaint, ho must express the opinion that the Act had been a total failure. A prevalent opinion existed that the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council had been somewhat inert in the matter, and had not put forth that energy and knowledge which it possessed, or, at all events, which it ought to possess. So far as he could ascertain, no adequate measures, if any, had been adopted to trace the origin of the disease. The theory of the veterinary authorities was, that the imported animals, which fell soon after landing, must have had the germs of the disease in their system before they were embarked on board ship. A host of facts could be adduced to prove this to be an erroneous idea, and persons qualified to express an opinion protested against these veterinary professors being considered the only wise men on the subject. As the Veterinary Department had been inert upon the question, the Royal Agricultural Society of England very commendably, and at great expense during last summer and autumn, set on foot an investigation as to the causes of the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease. The information obtained proved conclusively that our system of inspection was totally inadequate for its purposes. This fact was also revealed—that the provisions of the Act were systematically ignored in Ireland, and that Irish cattle were neither inspected on one side nor on the other side of the Channel, and this from a country which sent us more disease than all the world beside. The gentleman who conducted the investigation, an eminently qualified man, came to a conclusion exactly opposite to the view expressed by his hon. Friend

  519
  below him (Mr. Barclay). He was of opinion, after having made 11 voyages in cattle boats, between England, the Continent, and Ireland, that foot and mouth disease was generated on board ship, or, at any rate, was taken by the animals whilst on board, probably from the ships being infected. [The hon. Gentleman here read extracts from a document in support of these views.] He (Mr. Howard) would also remind the House that their own Committee which had sat upon the subject had arrived at the same conclusion. And he wished to hear from the Vice President of the Council what steps, if any, had been taken by the Veterinary Department to prove whether there was any foundation or not in this theory. His hon. Friend (Mr. C.S. Read) had alluded to the losses in Herefordshire, which last year amounted to £100,000. In the much smaller county of Bedford 38,000 animals were attacked last year, 800 of which died; the loss to that small county could not be reckoned at less than £60,000. Thousands of acres of grass land with abundance of keep were only half stocked last year, in consequence of the fears entertained of introducing the disease upon the farm. With respect to quarantine, he desired to point out to the House the great advantage which would accrue to importers, and which had not hitherto been recognised. When the Bill was before the House in Committee, he remembered pointing out the fact that Irish store beasts fetched from £1 to £2 per head less than their value through their liability to disease; especially establish quarantine grounds to which farmers could resort with some confidence in being able to buy healthy stock, and the price of store cattle would at once be considerably enhanced; and, with respect to fat cattle, a few days rest and quiet would restore their blood and system to a healthy and normal state, and their flesh would be far more wholesome than when killed in an excited feverish condition. He was glad the Government had consented to the appointment of a Committee, believing it would result in much good, and give great satisfaction to the public.
  MR. W.E. FORSTERsaid, he had not been opposed to the appointment of a Committee last year, but had then stated that it was proposed too late in the Session, and that he would be glad to assent to it this year. He not only
  520
  now assented to it, but would welcome the inquiry. He thought the time had come when the working of an Act that had given such strong powers to the Government should be fairly considered, and that they ought to make up their minds whether their legislation had been in the right direction or not. In conducting the Act through the House he had felt that the powers vested in the Government were most unpleasant powers, and it would be a rope round his neck that would be strongly pulled before he had done with it. It was impossible for anyone in his situation to act without meeting with a great deal of complaint on both sides arising from Government interference. It could not be otherwise in a matter like that affecting both the supply of food of a large population and the very great commercial interests, both of the home producer and the foreign importer. Another ground on which he welcomed that inquiry was that he wanted his hon. Friend (Mr. C.S. Read) to have an opportunity of bringing before the Committee the charges which he thought he had a right to make against the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council. He had such confidence in his hon. Friend's candour as to believe that, after making those charges and having them thoroughly sifted, he would find there were not a few of them which he would be glad to withdraw. As to the Act and the administration of it, his hon. Friend had alluded to him personally most kindly, yet evidently supposed that he had not time, with the many other things he had to do, to give full attention to that matter. There was no part of his hon. Friend's speech with which he more agreed than that in which he suggested that the duties should be handed over to the Local Government Board, to the Board of Trade, or to any other authority. A Minister who was pretty well worked during the Session did not like to lose his holidays; but owing to business connected with the Veterinary Department, he had not had a fortnight's holiday this year, and if there had been any fault committed it had not arisen through want of attention on his part. He did not, however, think very much would be gained by transferring those functions from one Minister to another. Whoever was intrusted with them would find them very difficult and responsible, and, whatever

  521
  else he had to do, he would have to discharge them carefully. His hon. Friend had made a mistake in reference to the importation of animals infected with rinderpest into this country. There were eight vessels that came to England with cattle plague on board, but in only one case—namely, at Hull, did any ill result happen; and their precautions were sufficiently stringent to prevent any harm arising except in that single instance. As regards rinderpest, he must, indeed, claim a little credit for the Department. Although during the last few years the Department had had to confront the greatest possible danger of cattle plague, which had been raging in Germany, France, and Belgium, yet until last autumn they had managed to keep it away from this country. His hon. Friend said that just as a ship came to Deptford an animal was accidentally found to be ill, and if it had been thrown overboard the whole cargo might have come into the interior. But lie forgot that such were their regulations that not a single animal from Russia would have been allowed to go into the interior. No animals came from Russia to Deptford—whether the vessel had cattle plague or not on board—without the condition of immediate slaughter being enforced. His hon. Friend thought the disease would not have taken so much hold in East Yorkshire if the Department had shown more vigour and determination; but the very moment the telegram reached London informing the Veterinary Department of the existence of cattle plague there, their best available Inspector was sent down. He himself was up in London in a very few hours, and never had a much more difficult task before him. One animal was said to be ill; at any rate, the plague appeared to be confined to one farm; and with only that information it was not easy to put the most stringent powers of the Act into force. Yet he did not hesitate to issue an order stopping all markets and the movement of cattle in the East Riding, and how the Department could have acted with greater vigour and determination he could not see.
  MR. C.S. READexplained that he had not charged the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council with being remiss, but had simply said that either in the local authorities or in the Veterinary Department there was a certain amount of inactivity.
  MR. W.E. FORSTERsaid, he must express his thanks to a late Member of that House, Admiral Duncombe, the chairman of the local authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and also to the magistrates, for the earnest and determined manner in which they put the Act in force. He could not anticipate the results of the proposed inquiry, and he should be most willing to be guided by them; but he was rather sanguine that it would show that the Department had carried out faithfully and to the utmost of its power the Act that had been passed. It was quite true that they had not done some things that had been charged against them, because they were only empowered to carry out the law, and not to constitute themselves a curative department. They had not set themselves up as doctors with a cure for every disease, and it would be a serious matter for any Committee to recommend that any Government should undertake to act as physicians for all the animals in the kingdom. The time had gone by when a Government could interfere and insist upon a dead meat traffic. They could only leave that to the action of supply and demand. His hon. Friend (Mr. Howard) thought that they should try a few experiments, but the Veterinary Department had no power to detain animals in Ireland or to compel an inspection there; and he much doubted whether they would have been justified in trying experiments in England. He thought it would be found that there would be very great difficulty in changing from the present system of dealing with the foreign importation. No doubt it gave a great discretion to the Government as to the cases in which it should compel the immediate slaughtering of the animals. But lie was strongly of opinion that it would be found very difficult to change from that practice without great inconvenience to the home consumer. There was one matter of experience to which he wished to call the particular attention of the House. It was this—if they were to say that every animal imported into England from foreign countries should be slaughtered at the port of landing, according to experience up to the present moment, in all probability we should have a great many more diseased animals in the country; for when time animals came from fo-

  523
  reign countries which were not scheduled, as, for instance, from Holland, much more care was taken as to what kind of animals were included in the cargo, than in the case of those sent from a scheduled country to Deptford to be slaughtered there. Then, it should also be remembered that the import of foreign cattle, though bearing a comparatively small proportion to the home production, was, in fact, much larger than was generally supposed. One hon. Member had stated that the proportion was 4½ to 5 per cent, and he was very much gratified to find from the most practical remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire that he, by a calculation made upon an entirely different basis from that which had been gone into by the officer of the Department, had arrived at almost precisely the same conclusion—that the real proportion was 12 per cent. That was a calculation which he believed would be nearer the truth. He wished, in the next place, to make one or two remarks with regard to the home diseases. When the Act was passed the first real practical legislation with respect to the prevention of home diseases had been entered upon, and he was quite of opinion that the time was come when we should carefully consider whether it was more desirable to go backward or forward in that course. His own impression on the point was very much that which had been conveyed to the House by the hon. Member for Forfarshire — that the restrictions in the Act were of use in stopping home diseases, especially that very dangerous disease pleuro-pneumonia, if put in force by the local authorities throughout the country. If not put in force, however, they were of little avail, and it would be for the Committee to consider whether much good could be expected from them when put in force in one part of a county, or one county, and not put in force in another. That was a point on which he should be exceedingly glad to hear the opinion of the Committee, whether we should proceed in our present permissive legislation or have recourse to more general and compulsory powers. With respect to the spread of the foot and mouth disease, a good deal of complaint had been made against the Department on account of the spread of that disease; but he thought they could defend them-
  524
  selves by laying the blame partly on the Act as not being strong enough, and partly upon the local authorities for not carrying it into effect. The year after the Act was passed — 1870 — he was called back from the Continent in the autumn in consequence of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in this country, and when he returned he found that five or six counties required more stringent rules. The Department, thinking they would be supported by public opinion, issued those stringent rules for the whole of Great Britain; but the result was that county after county protested against them, saying that the remedy was a great deal worse than the disease. The Department found, therefore, that they were greatly in advance of public opinion, and the local authorities, upon whom it relied to put the Orders in force, were so slack in the matter that the Orders had to be cancelled, and it was left optional to the authorities whether they should carry then into effect or not. Some local authorities enforced them successfully; some did nothing at all; and some, he had no doubt, failed because their neighbours had not done anything. It would, under those circumstances, be for the Committee seriously to consider which course they would deem it expedient to adopt, whether they would leave things as they stood, optional with the local authorities, and against that he thought there was a great deal to be said; whether they would strengthen the restrictions throughout the kingdom, in favour of which there was a great deal to be said; or whether, taking one year with another, they would arrive at the conclusion that the foot and mouth disease was not bad enough to call for such restrictions, for which view there was much to be said also. Indeed, he recollected that when the Act was passed his lion. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. C.S. Read) had expressed considerable doubt whether the foot and mouth disease should be included in its provisions. He was glad, he might add, that his hon. Friend had included in his Motion the operation of the Act in Ireland as well as in England. Statements would, no doubt, be laid before the Committee as to the extent of foot and mouth disease supposed to have been imported from Ireland, and in dealing with that question the Committee would, ho hoped,

  525
  have the assistance of Irish Members. Nor must it be forgotten that, though we might get some disease from Ireland, we also got an immense amount of food, and care must be taken that no restrictions should be enforced with regard to Ireland that were not really necessary. He wished, at the same time, to add that nothing could, in his opinion, do more good to Ireland as a producing country than that more care should be taken at home with respect to the prevention of disease in the case of animals intended for the English market.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, that as an Irish Member, he had not the slightest objection that the inquiry should be extended to Ireland. It would be shown, he thought, that much exaggeration prevailed with respect to the existence of disease in the case of cattle exported from that country. He also concurred with the right hon. Gentleman in the opinion that a great deal too much had been made of the foot and mouth disease, for in the county which he had the honour to represent there was not a single instance of an animal having died of that disease. There was not a single case of rinderpest, he might add, in Ireland, and England would be very badly off indeed were it not for Irish cattle. He hoped the noble Lord the Chief Secretary would take care the Irish Members were fairly represented on the proposed Committee.
  MR. PELLattributed the spread of these disorders among cattle to the variation in the orders as issued by the boroughs and by the counties. The largest markets in England were held in the boroughs, and the orders there issued were very frequently at variance with those which emanated from the authorities in the counties; while even among the latter there was a great want of uniformity, at any rate in the county he represented. In one petty sessional division of Leicestershire they had, according to the last Return, spent £1 only in preventing disease amongst cattle, whilst in another division of the same county the amount was over £100, though the disease prevailed over the whole county, indicating want of vigilance on the part of one section of the authorities which might jeopardise the operation of the Act. Many persons had conic to the conclusion that more
  526
  stringent regulations were required with regard to the foot and mouth disease, because the character of that disorder had greatly changed, being now much more severe than formerly. Cattle frequently took it a second time within 12 months, and the second attack was more serious than the first. He should be sorry, he might add, that the Committee should do anything to interfere with the free importation of cattle from Ireland; but he felt bound to say that a great amount of foot and mouth disease was found to exist among them from one cause or another.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the operations of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 1869, and the Cattle Disease Acts (Ireland), and the constitution of the Veterinary Departments of Great Britain and Ireland."—(Mr. Clare Read.)
  And, on February 28, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, Mr. MONSELL, Mr. RIDLEY, Mr. DODSON, Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, Mr. JACOB BRIGHT, Mr. PELL, Mr. JAMES BARCLAY, Mr. KAVANAGH, Mr. DENT, Mr. CAWLEY, Mr. CALLAN, Mr. TIPPING, Mr. LUSK, Mr. WILLIAM JOHNSTON, Mr. O'CONOR, Mr. NORWOOD, and Mr. CLARE READ:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
  And, on March 4, Mr. NORWOOD discharged, Mr. CLAY added.

MONASTIC AND CONVENTUAL INSTITUTIONS BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. NEWDEGATE,in moving for leave to bring in a Bill for appointing Commissioners to inquire respecting Monastic and Conventual Institutions in Great Britain, and for purposes connected therewith, said: I propose, with the leave of the House, to introduce the same Bill that the House permitted me to lay before it last Session: such was, however, the pressure of business last Session that I was unable to bring on the second reading. This Bill has, therefore, never been submitted to the House for a second reading. I am sorry to see that Notice has been given of a Motion to oppose the introduction of the Bill. Last year the House expressed its opinion, though not by a division, that the adoption of so unusual a course as resisting the introduction of a Bill has now become, ought not to be adopted with respect to this Bill, which

  527
  contains nothing that can justly be considered offensive. Last Session I was accused by some of the Roman Catholic Members of having made too large a statement on introducing this Bill. I made that statement, and went fully into the circumstances which had induced me to ask the leave of the House to introduce this Bill, owing to the peculiar character of the opposition I had then to meet. But, upon the present occasion, I see no reason at all for making any lengthened statement. My having spoken fully was held by my opponents to be one of my chief offences last Session; and I acknowledge that my having done so was a departure from the usual practice, but it was only adopted, and it was justified, by the peculiar circumstances of the opposition I had to encounter. It is enough for me now to state that there is a strong impression prevailing in this country that the original intention of the House, when, in 1870, the House ordered an inquiry into these rapidly increasing Monastic and Conventual Institutions by a Select Committee, has never been carried out, because the Instruction to the Committee was such as to limit their inquiries far within the necessities of the case; and the opinion of the necessity for inquiry gained strength, especially with reference to the possession of property by these institutions, and the practical exemption of that property from the Law of Mortmain. There is also a strong impression prevalent in this country, signally manifested at three large public meetings which I have attended—one of a thousand people at Aberdeen, another of a thousand people at Dundee, and another at Blackheath—that a Committee of the House of Commons, being bound to conduct its inquiries entirely within the House, and not having the power to examine locally or upon oath, is not competent to carry out the investigations which are necessary for the elucidation of this subject; and that a Commission with power to examine locally and upon oath is necessary to obtain the information Parliament ought to possess with respect to this subject. All other institutions in this country—the Church of England through the Ecclesiastical Commission, schools, hospitals, lunatic asylums, poorhouses, institutions of every description—have at some time or other been inquired into
  528
  by Commission for the information of Parliament. These Conventual and Monastic Institutions form the solitary exception; they stand alone as exempt, as a class of institutions respecting which Parliament has been precluded from obtaining adequate information by means of a Commission or otherwise. Throughout the other countries of the world, except the United States of America and this country, these institutions have been inquired into, and, where not suppressed, are more or less regulated by the Legislature and the law of the country; their exemption from inquiry in this country has at last generated a feeling that this exemption is a peculiar privilege conceded to the Roman Catholic Church. The existence of this, a privileged exemption, has greatly strengthened the opinion that Parliament ought to inform itself as to the circumstances connected with these institutions, by issuing powers of inquiry by statute to a Commission. I will not now say another word, but simply move the Notice which stands in my name.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill for appointing Commissioners to inquire respecting Monastic and Conventual Institutions in Great Britain, and for purposes connected therewith." —(Mr. Newdegate.)
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he had been censured by the hon. Gentleman for intimating his intention to oppose the introduction of this Bill. He reminded him, however, that the same course was taken in 1853 with regard to a similar Bill proposed by the Common Serjeant (Sir T. Chambers), and that amongst those who voted against its introduction were the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Sir James Graham. There was no other course possible for those who, like himself, maintained that no primâ facie case had been offered for that sort of legislation which the hon. Member pressed upon the House. The whole question had been inquired into in 1870, as far as the House thought it ought to be investigated, and it was unfair of the hon. Member to press matters further. Every inquiry that even legitimate curiosity could desire was satisfied by the Committee of 1870—even the mind of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire

  529
  must have been satisfied. Well, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire shook his head; but he maintained that an unconstitutional inquiry of this kind ought to be backed by facts, and not by mere surmise, before it was proposed to the House of Commons. What the hon. Member now wanted was a permanent Commission with paid officers, and having unlimited powers to inquire into everything connected with those monastic institutions. It was, in fact, not a Commission sitting to inquire into a specific allegation, but a roving Commission, with powers to punish for contempt, in order to enforce answers. There was no analogy between these institutions and institutions like hospitals and lunatic asylums. So far as convents were concerned, they were purely private homes. The homes where those ladies lived were as much private as the homes of hon. Members, or the Clubs to which they belonged in Pall Mall, and there was no case made out for applying to them State inspection, or State interference, seeing that the State did not give them protection, authority, privilege, or endowment. This was an attempt to apply inquisitorial powers to the private life of private ladies, who made no complaint themselves. If there were any case for inquiry, the House might be sure that those who had relatives and friends in such institutions would be the first to demand it. If the object of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire were obtained, it would simply result in the discovery of a state of things in conflict with the statute law; but that statute law was of such a nature that Parliament would never enforce it. As to the question of property, the idea that there was any grievance or evil requiring redress, so far as property was concerned, was simply childish. On these grounds he asked the House to refuse leave for the introduction of the Bill.
  MR. M'CARTFIY DOWNINGsaid, he supported the Amendment, and had pleasure in stating that his daughters had been educated in a convent. He pointed out that if any further precedent were required for the Amendment, it was furnished by the action taken last Session, when the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish) was refused leave by a large majority for the introduction of a Bill repealing the 25th clause of the Education Act. He protested against the
  530
  annual occurrence of these outrages on the feelings of Irish Gentlemen.
  SIR THOMAS CHAMBERSsupported the Motion for leave to introduce the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had moved a negative to the Motion admitted that monasteries existed in defiance of the letter of the law, and that convents existed in defiance of its spirit and intention. But was illegality to be an argument for impunity? The House gave him (Sir Thomas Chambers) leave some years ago to introduce a Bill for the inspection of convents, though that Bill was not carried. All that was asked for by the Bill of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was, not legislation, but simple inquiry, and no good reason had been given for refusing to allow the Bill to be introduced.
  THE O'CONOR DONsaid, the Roman Catholics made the same objections to this inquiry as they would into an inquiry into their family affairs; but it had been shown that this Bill was really one for inspection rather than inquiry. He had four sisters in a convent. He could visit them at any time, and would be happy to introduce them to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, if lie desired it, in order that he might gather their opinion with regard to his Bill. He (the O'Conor Don) complained of the charges made against convents, which, he said, had never been substantiated, and objected to the introduction of the Bill because no case had been made out for inquiry.
  MR. BRUCEadmitted that the hon. and learned Gentleman who opposed the Motion had taken a constitutional course, which he had a perfect right to do, in opposing the Bill on its first introduction, and wished it had been oftener adopted with regard to Bills which were afterwards rejected by large majorities, and which wasted much time. He hoped the House would reconsider in some future Session the plan it had pursued of late years with respect to the introduction of Bills, which, being brought in Session after Session, occupied time to the exclusion of useful legislation. But, as the Government had assented in a great number of instances to the introduction of measures which they intended to oppose on the second reading, he could not draw a distinction with regard to this Bill, and should therefore not

  531
  object to the Motion. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire must, however, adduce stronger and better arguments than had hitherto been given to induce him to vote for the second reading of the Bill.
  MR. LEAobserved that the opposition to the Bill last Session was founded on what had previously occurred.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: In reply to the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Matthews), I wish merely to read the last paragraph of the Report of the Select Committee of 1871, on which he served, and I did not; for I declined to serve upon that Committee, as did the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Sir Thomas Chambers), because it was a continuation of the Committee of 1870, which had refused to hear evidence that we thought essential on questions relating to property. The paragraph I refer to is as follows:—
  "The observations contained in this Report will probably suggest some alterations in important branches of the law, and those alterations would be of a very different kind according to the point of view from which the subject is surveyed. A complete discussion of the position, if any, which Conventual and Monastic Institutions ought to have in our law, and of the means by which their existence and action might be adjusted so as to bring them into harmony with recognized doctrines of law as to mortmain and perpetuities, would lead to much difference of opinion, and might exceed the limits of our inquiry, and we have therefore abstained from recommending any such alterations."
  Therefore, the hon. Member has concurred in a Report the conclusion of which suggests that alterations in the law with respect to mortmain and perpetuities affecting those institutions are, at all events, needed, and that the inquiry, which the Committee was authorized to institute, could not reach this point. That, then, is my answer. The hon. Member has also adverted to what he described as the inquisitorial nature of this Bill. I merely seek to place the Bill before the House, who can then modify its provisions and remove the imputation, which I think unfounded, should the House be convinced that it is just. I confess that I am disappointed at the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department; for last Session he spoke, in the sense of the Report of the Committee of 1871, that there are matters connected with the tenure of property, and in other respects connected
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  with these institutions, that he thought ought to be dealt with by Parliament, and that therefore he felt it to be his duty to support, whether or not in accordance with the provisions of this Bill, an inquiry into them. I trust that, under these circumstances, this House will not adopt the unusual course of refusing permission to bring in the Bill.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 74; Noes 31: Majority 43.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. NEWDEGATE, Mr. HOLT, and Sir THOMAS CHAMBERS.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 62.]

  DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LANDS (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WILLIAM HENRY GLADSTONE, Bill to confirm Provisional Orders under "The Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Act, 1863," and the Acts amending the same, relating to Mulkear River and Kildare Drainage Districts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WILLIAM HENRY GLADSTONE and Mr. BAXTER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 63.]
  House adjourned at One o'clock till Monday next.