HC Deb 21 July 1873 vol 217 cc669-85

(Mr. Attorney General.)

[BILL 237.] CONSIDERATION.

Order for Consideration, as amended, read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now taken into Consideration."—(Mr. Attorney General.)

MR. GREGORY

moved, that the Bill be recommitted with reference to Clause 14, which related to the salaries of the future Judges. In his opinion, the arrangements which had been agreed to, were exceedingly objectionable in many respects. As the clause stood certain of the Judges of the Divisional Courts would be in receipt of higher salaries than those of the Judges whose duty it would be to revise their decisions on appeal. For instance, while Judges of Appeal would be receiving £5,000 per annum, the President of one Division would have £8,000, of two £7,000, and of the other £6,000 a-year. The natural consequence would be that these offices would be more sought after by men of distinction at the bar, and their decisions would be subject to the revision of men of inferior standing who had accepted the lower salary. It must be remembered also that this might be done by a decision of three Judges of the Court of Appeal with reference to the judgments of a President and two Judges of the Court below.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "now taken into Consideration," in order to add the words "recommitted in respect of Clause 14 (Salaries of future Judges)," —(Mr. Gregory,)—instead thereof.

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

MR. CHARLEY

asked what would be done with the Queen's Counsel of the County Palatine after the passing of the Bill; and, what the Government proposed to do with the present Chamber clerks of the Judges?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,

said, that he had put an Amendment on the Paper to meet the case of the Queen's Counsel of the County Palatine. With reference to the Chamber clerks of the Judges, that question had already been fully discussed, and he would not enter into it again. He must also decline, with all respect to the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory), to renew again the discussion on the subject of the Judges' salaries.

Question put, and agreed to.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered.

Clause 22 (Transfer of pending business)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

moved in page 10, line 32, at end, to add the following words:— In all cases of appeals from any Ecclesiastical Court, where her Majesty shall be advised that the judgment of the Court below ought to be reversed or varied, and that any sentence of suspension or deprivation ought to be passed on any clerk, it shall be lawful for her Majesty to remit the cause to the Court to pass such sentence, and such Court shall pronounce such sentence accordingly. The object of the Amendment was to continue the existing practice, by which the formal passing of the sentence was remitted to the inferior Court.

SIR GEORGE GREY

did not understand the object of the Amendment, and thought it could only be agreed to on the understanding that it would confer no new power on the Ecclesiastical Courts, but would continue to them the duty—acting ministerially—of communicating the sentence to the party to be affected by it. He thought, however, that they should have some further explanation with regard to its effect, and the necessity for introducing it. If its object was to give to the Ecclesiastical Courts the power of pronouncing sentence without that control or check to which they were now subject from the superior civil Courts, it would be a clangorous innovation. If, on the other hand, the function of the Court below was to be purely ministerial, and they had merely, as at present, formally to pronounce the sentence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then he did not see the object of introducing it. He thought it would be much better to leave to the Superior Court the duty of pronouncing and enforcing obedience to its own sentences. With regard to the general question of the transference of ecclesiastical cases from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to the new Court effected by the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy), his strong conviction was that the subject had not been treated by the House or by the Government in the manner in which it ought to have been treated. When the Bill was brought in, it was distinctly stated by Her Majesty's Government that the question involved many delicate and important considerations, that it ought, if dealt with at all, to be made the subject of a separate measure, and that it was not desirable to include it in a Bill for the reform of the civil judicature of the country. Well, 17 days ago, when the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was agreed to, there was not the slightest intimation given by Her Majesty's Government that they had in any way modified that opinion. The Amendment was made in the most precipitate manner, and practically without any Notice. There was technically a Notice put on the Paper for the omission of certain words between brackets, but the Notice did not itself clearly indicate what the effect would be. Independently of that, the Notice was given only on the night immediately preceding the Two o'clock sitting, at which the Amendment was moved. He believed there were very few hon. Members of the House who knew that the Motion would be made, and still fewer who thought it would be accepted by Her Majesty's Government. He came himself down to the House without the slightest idea that such an Amendment would be moved. It might be said—"You ought to have looked at the Notice Paper, and seen what Amendments were to be proposed." But the fact was, it was very difficult to read through the multitudinous Amendments on such a Bill. He was, therefore, greatly surprised when his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government, without having given any intimation that the Government had changed their mind on the subject, and without any communication with the heads of the Church, accepted the Amendment. He was not going to deny that the change might be a right one; but it was a change which required the most careful and deliberate consideration, whereas it had received no consideration whatever, and had been adopted in a very hasty and precipitate manner. He must say that the wisdom, the learning, and the strict impartiality which characterized the decisions of the Privy Council in ecclesiastical cases had conferred great benefit on the Church, and he was not himself prepared to take away its jurisdiction, without being fully satisfied as to the Court to be substituted for it. He agreed with what had been said by Her Majesty's Government, that that was a question which demanded and ought to receive separate consideration. [Mr. GLADSTONE: By whom?] By the Lord Chancellor in the other House. If, in the case of decisions by the Privy Council, there were to be found persons in the Church who were slow to accept them, he should be very much surprised if those persons would receive with deference and willing obedience the decisions of this new Court of Appeal. If that transfer of jurisdiction was made, they would apparently have a stronger reason for refusing obedience; because it would be said that the judgments which would be come to would be the judgments of laymen only. He would not ask the House now to reverse the decision at which it had arrived; but he hoped the matter would receive in "another place" more deliberate care and attention than it had received in that House.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY

said, no doubt the Notice he had given was a very short Notice; but it was given under peculiar circumstances. His right hen: Friend the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) had referred to what had been said "elsewhere;" but he was not quite accurate in saying that the Government had made so broad a statement as that they would not deal with the ecclesiastical appeals in that Bill. As far as he (Mr. G. Hardy) understood the Government made a very modified statement on the subject. What they did say was, that there were certain difficult questions which should be the subject of future consideration, and that the Government did not take up the subject of ecclesiastical cases, because they were afraid they would not succeed in the House of Commons, even if the transfer of jurisdiction were agreed to in the House of Lords. He had not himself intended to propose any change in the Bill as introduced by the Government. But when the question of including Scotch and Irish appeals was agreed to he began to make inquiries among hon. Gentlemen with whom he usually acted, and also among some on the other side of the House, one of whom was the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt), whether he should receive their support if he brought forward the Amendment, and he found that there was an almost general agreement in favour of it. He also spoke to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government the day day before he moved it. The right hon. Gentleman finding that there was no difference of opinion on the subject, and that everyone took the same view, assented to the striking out of the words; but he was bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman told him the night before that he could not pledge himself to accept the Amendment, but would leave it open to the consideration of his Colleagues. His right hon. Friend stated that he was not aware that the Amendment was about to be proposed; but it stood first on the Notice Paper, and anybody who looked at the Paper could not but see it. His right hon. Friend further said he did not intend to take any steps to reverse the decision to which the Committee had come, but would leave the matter to be dealt with by the other House. Well, he (Mr. G. Hardy) was quite prepared that it should go to the other House to be considered there. He said, when bringing forward the Amendment, that if the Government were hostile to it he would not press it; but he was still of the same opinion as when he moved the Amendment, that the change was a proper one to be made, and that it was a much better course to send those ecclesiastical causes to the new tribunal.

MR. BOUVERIE

said, he shared in the regret expressed by his right hon. Friend near him (Sir George Grey), and he likewise agreed with him in thinking that the adoption of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. G. Hardy) was a very hasty and precipi- tate step. The principle involved was, in the minds of many men, even of more transcendent importance than the whole question of final appeal in other cases, and had excited the greatest interest throughout the country at various times, and in regard to it he (Mr. Bouverie) contended that, in the opinion of a great many persons, a lay tribunal ought not to be the only Court to determine questions of doctrine and discipline within the Church of England. No one could be more fully aware of that than the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, who well knew that from the time of the Reformation downwards every tribunal which had been constituted to decide upon the doctrines, practice, and discipline of the Church of England had been a mixed tribunal, lay learning being in the ascendant, but there being also an infusion of the ecclesiastical element. Indeed, a great complaint on the part of the Church was that it was not entirely ecclesiastical. His right hon. Friend at the head of the Government, more than 20 years ago, wrote an elaborate paper, which he published in his own name, to demonstrate that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was an absolutely unfit tribunal to try these cases, because it was composed of laymen. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no! Read the whole book.] He had read the whole book several times, and he could quote chapter and verse for it. He sometimes refreshed his memory by reading over what the right hon. Gentleman had written; and he could only attribute the denial of his right hon. Friend to the fact that he did not adhere to the opinion he had expressed 20 years ago. These were the right hon. Gentleman's words— No one pretends that the constitution of the Judicial Committee of Privy Council is adapted to the due and solemn decision of cases of doctrine. Before the decision in the Gorham case was delivered, and when no man had an interest in upholding unduly the credit of the Court, there was but one voice of reclamation throughout the country against the gross indecency of such a mode of provision for such causes. Several Prelates sat as assessors with the other Judges in that case, but this did not satisfy the right hon. Gentleman, who went on to say— And even now, when the case is much altered in that respect, there is still a nearly universal acknowledgment that the law requires material alteration. It is enough for me to stand on this acknowledgment, and upon the further fact that so many persons of the greatest weight—from the Episcopal Bench downwards, will find themselves precluded from acquiescence, at any time or under any circumstances, in the law as it now is, because they are convinced that it is a state of law which has already led to the violation, and would ultimately lead to the destruction, of the faith and work of the Church. In a subsequent part of his essay, the right hon. Gentleman said— The transference, then, of these functions to the Court of Privy Council is not progress, but retrogression and decay. The maxim overthrown and disregarded is not one antiquated and unfit for these times, but one deeply founded in the nature of things, and in right human and divine. It being such a maxim, justly may we say that the statute which thus tramples it in the mire is an unconstitutional statute. It is a statute as truly unconstitutional as would be our investing the Executive Committee with the right of taxation or with the dispensing power; as was one which, in the time of Henry VIII., gave to the Royal Proclamation the force of law, or one which, in the time of Charles I., perpetuated the Long Parliament. Thus, in the right hon. Gentleman's judgment at that time, a mixed tribunal, containing laymen appointed by the Minister of the day, was totally unfit to decide these questions; yet he was now going to make bad worse by removing entirely the ecclesiastical element—a step which would never have been assented to by any Minister of prudence and moderation who had to consider the interests of the Church as well as of the State. He believed that many who favoured the proposal would hereafter advocate the doctrine which his right hon. Friend's pamphlet was written to advocate—that questions of doctrine and discipline should be decided by ecclesiastics only. The Bishop of London at that time proposed that the Court should merely decide questions of law, and that all questions of doctrine should be referred by it to the Bench of Bishops, and it was in support of that, that the essay was written. He feared that a large portion of the clergy and a not uninfluential portion of the laity, on finding cases decided by a purely lay tribunal, no longer modified by the good sense and moderation of some of the most distinguished Prelates in the Church, would set up a how] for the creation of a purely ecclesiastical tribunal. That would be an evil day for the Church of England. There was still a notion among a large body of the clergy, that they were a distinct nation within a nation, entitled to determine questions which, however, affected the laity as much as the clergy. The tendency of the Amendment would be to give a leverage by which that view would be urged, and he lamented, therefore, that any Minister charged with the responsibility of governing Church and State, and of enforcing wisdom and moderation on the contending factions which from time to time almost rent it in twain, should have assented to what would be the beginning of the letting out of water.

DR. BALL

said, that when the question was last discussed, the majority of hon. Members who spoke seemed to be in favour of not introducing the episcopal element into the Court for the decision of ecclesiastical cases. Being an Irish Member, representing an Irish constituency, he did not then think it was for him to come forward with a proposition to the effect that, in the High Court of Justice, the Archbishops and the Bishop of London should be members of the Court when ecclesiastical cases came before it. It did not appear to him that the particular Amendment now being considered was open to such objections as had been made to it. Apart from the question of the effectiveness of the Privy Council as a legal tribunal to decide ecclesiastical cases, there was another question—namely, whether, when these cases were transferred to the High Court of Justice, assistance should not be called in before their decision? In the Privy Council the two Archbishops and the Bishop of London sat, and the same provision must be made with regard to the High Court of Justice when ecclesiastical cases were to be heard. It was a serious question whether there should not be an admixture of the ecclesiastical element in decisions upon cases that involved questions of doctrine, and its consideration must be governed by what was found to be the feeling generally in the Church of England. Unless the Amendment were introduced in that House, it could not be introduced in the House of Lords, and therefore it was better to insert it, and allow the Bishops and the House of Lords either to strike it out, or to agree to it as they thought fit.

MR. VERNON HARCOURT

said, the Amendment was inconsistent with the spirit of the main decision of the House, inasmuch as it endeavoured to clothe with some ecclesiastical sanction a decision which was essentially a lay decision. The main point was whether the House was right in determining that the judgment itself should be purely lay, and not a mixed ecclesiastical judgment. He had had no difficulty in concurring in that course. He had been a party to the abolition of juries de mediatate linguœ, in which a certain number of foreigners were mixed with a certain number of Englishmen for the purpose of giving what was supposed to be more complete justice. That Court of the Privy Council was a sort of jury de mediatate linguœ, where it was expected that one class of persons would administer one sort of law, and that another sort of persons would dash it with views of a different description. He had never approved of that course. He had always regarded the Church of England as essentially an Act of Parliament Church, and a Church standing exclusively on lay foundations. He could never forget that in the great statutes of the 1st of Elizabeth, which established the Prayer Book in this country, it was recorded, he believed, as a solitary exception—that those statutes on which the Reformed Church of England stood had been made by the Lords temporal and the Commons, to the exclusion of the Lords spiritual, who were named in almost every other statute. Why was that so? The Prayer Book of Queen Elizabeth was established by William Cecil. He settled the Book at a private conclave in his own house, upon doctrines not altogether consistent with those sometimes promulgated by the descendants of that eminent statesman, and he established it by Act of Parliament against the unanimous remonstrances of the whole of Convocation, and against the opinion of the whole of the English Bishops, except one. The course taken on that subject was to establish the supremacy of the Crown against the clergy and Bishops. That being the foundation of the Established Church, it had always seemed to him that the doctrine and discipline of the Church should be interpreted by a lay, and not an ecclesiastical tribunal. He therefore entirely concurred in the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, and would vote against the Amendment proposed to be inserted, because it seemed to east a doubt on the purely lay character of the judgment by introducing some ecclesiastical element in order to give it execution.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that they had begun that evening by the adoption of a small Motion for the purpose of enlarging the little store of time at their command for getting through the necessary business; and immediately after having thus added to their resources in a slender degree, but still in a sensible degree, they were invited by the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down, to discuss the foundation of the Church of England in doctrine and discipline. He must decline to follow his hon. and learned Friend into such a discussion, but must also acknowledge that he was not the first who had endeavoured to draw them from the consideration of the Amendment, for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) had preceded him, in adverting to a matter not connected with the provision before the House. Then came his right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie), who often recalled the House to its duties, who wound up the discussion by reviving the memory of a pamphlet he (Mr. Gladstone) wrote some 23 years ago; but although he (Mr. Gladstone) frequently found occasion to lament the failure of his own memory, yet he had found that day that his recollection of that pamphlet was better than the recollection of his right hon. Friend, although he appeared to have read it only that morning. His right hon. Friend said that the proposition in that pamphlet was that ecclesiastical causes should be tried by an exclusively ecclesiastical tribunal, and he said he would prove it by reference to the pamphlet itself. But every line which his right hon. Friend read had to be followed by several lines of his-own comments; yet he did not produce a single word to affect the cardinal proposition of that pamphlet. He still thought that pamphlet contained a great deal of important and valuable matter. [Mr. BOUVERIE: It is very difficult to understand.] The conduct of the Government had been animadverted upon in two points—first of all, it was said they had departed from the opinion they had expressed when they adopted the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford; and, secondly, his own conduct on that occasion had been animadverted upon. Now, there had been no change of opinion on the part of the Government. The Government had never put forth that, upon the merits of the case, it would not be wise to make that transfer from the Court of Privy Council to the purely lay Court of Appeal, and he did not find recorded a single word disapproving of that transfer on its merits. The only opinion expressed on the subject was in the other House, and was to the effect, that to introduce such a transfer into the present Bill would increase its burden, and might endanger its passing. And what happened when the Amendment was introduced? Why, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hardy) said very considerately, he did not wish to force the Amendment against the opinion of the Government. No fewer than nine hon. Members had addressed the House, representing every view, and he was desirous that the expression of opinion should be as full as possible. When he (Mr. Gladstone) rose to speak, he was determined to ascertain whether there were two opinions on the subject. The words he used were as nearly as possible to this effect—that from the debate which had arisen, he was fully convinced there was not a single hon. Gentleman in that House who did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hardy), in the desire to bring ecclesiastical causes within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal; and he must say, when the change was adopted by the House, he thought it was supported by the high authority of his right hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth. If they had declined adopting that change, and a division had been called for, the Government, he believed, would have been left in a minority, and they did not wish to place themselves in that position. Under all the circumstances, he did not think it could be considered that any great haste had been shown in the adoption of the Amendment; and as it was quite impossible now to have any satisfactory discussion upon the merits of the question, he hoped they would be allowed to proceed. Beyond that, the matter had been, he thought, fully and freely discussed, and he objected to its being now again brought forward in an irregular and collateral manner.

SIR GEORGE GREY

wished to say in explanation that he had been mis- understood. He did not say that the Government had expressed any opinion adverse to the Amendment; he himself had not done so, provided it were adopted after due deliberation. He said, they had expressed an opinion it ought not to be included in this Bill, but ought to be reserved for separate consideration. On the occasion alluded to, he came to the House utterly unconscious that any such proposal was about to be made towards the close of the discussion; and, not knowing what had been already said, he did not feel qualified to take part in the debate.

MR. HENLEY

thought the change had been made somewhat hastily, and he very much doubted whether it would lead to peace or quietness. For the last 30 years, one party had sought to diminish the weight of the judgment of the Court, on account of the preponderance of the lay element, and they would now have their hands strengthened in a way that must work most inconveniently. He regretted the change had been made without more deliberation. He did not mean to say anything had been informally done, because due Notice was given; but he did not think anybody in the House had the least notion of what was being done, and everyone now seemed to be taken by surprise.

MR. OSBORNE MORGAN

asked whether anything was to be gained by the Amendment. Why should not the Court execute its own decree?

MR. HOLT

wished to enter his protest against the Government allowing a question of that magnitude to be mixed up with the main question before the House. That opinion was expressed by the Lord Chancellor, and he had reason to know that many hon. Members who concurred in the Amendment, still thought it would have been wiser to have left this matter over for more consideration. He thought that the result might be the placing in ecclesiastical hands the very power which they all wished to keep in the hands of both ecclesiastics and laymen.

MR. COLLINS

observed that that could not be considered a new question, for when a Bill connected with the subject had been brought forward by Sir Robert Collier, then Attorney General, he (Mr. Collins) moved that the Bishops should not form part of the Privy Council. On that occasion, he was told that the subject ought to be dealt with in some such a general scheme as the one before the House. It was hardly fair to turn round now and say that this House was taken by surprise. There was no grievance whatever. It was ascertained that the feeling of the House was that these eases ought to be decided by laymen, and not by ecclesiastics. They might be called in as assessors or experts by order of the Court, just as they were in other cases. Bishops, from their position, must be partizans, and it was far better that laymen should decide dry questions of law, as to whether a man did or did not render the obedience required of him.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, the Bill carefully provided that the Court of Appeal should take the place of either of the Privy Council in advising Her Majesty, so that their fellow-subjects in the colonies, and especially in India, should have the sentences in their appeals pronounced, as hitherto, by Her Majesty herself. By a change in the Act establishing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, careful provision was made for remitting its order to the Court below—say in India—to be enforced. When ecclesiastical jurisdiction was first given to the Judicial Committee, by the3rd and 4th of the present reign, no such provision was made. A discussion arose as to whether the practice of the Privy Council was to be followed in these cases; and it was held that under the particular statute the Judicial Committee had power to pronounce sentence. In order to avoid a similar dispute, the Attorney General, in response to the hon. Member for Lancashire (Mr. Assheton Cross), brought up on the Report, the Amendment to set at rest the question of practice, and to prevent there being any doubt as to the law in the future. In all these matters the ultimate Courts of Appeal had always remitted their sentence to the Court below; that was as much the practice of the House of Lords as of the Privy Council. The House of Lords did not carry out its own orders, so that the Amendment simply maintained the present practice and preserved consistency. It would be inconsistent if Her Majesty were to the Court below in every case except in ecclesiastical cases.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

thought the House ought to take care that, in trans- ferring that appeal to a purely lay tribunal, they should do so in such manner as to interfere as little as possible with the consciences of the clergy of the Church of England. He thought the Amendment proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman would give great satisfaction.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 55 (Divisional Courts of Appeal).

MR. W. H. SMITH

in moving an Amendment, to add at end of clause the words— If such divisional Court shall differ from the judgment of the Court below, such appeal shall be reheard before a full Court consisting of not less than five Judges on the application of either party, said, a feeling prevailed among suitors in the Courts of Law, that if the clause remained in its present form, and if there were to be no redress in the event of the Judges of the Appeal Court differing in opinion from the Court below, injustice would be done to them on very many occasions. In all Probability the Appeal Court would only consist of three Judges.

Amendment proposed, At the end of the Clause, to add the words "if such divisional Court shall differ from the judgment of the Court below, such appeal shall be reheard before a full Court consisting of not less than five judges on the application of either party."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, no good could arise form reviving the point which was discussed and decided while the Bill was in Committee. If the addition were adopted there might be repeated re-hearings of the particular case. He considered it most important that the judgment of the Court of Appeal should be final, and hoped that, as a rule, more that three Judges would sit in the Court of Appeal.

MR. HINDE PALMER

denied that the subject had been thoroughly debated in Committee, and expressed his opinion that when the Judges of the Appellate Court differed among themselves it would be a most desirable thing to have another re-hearing. Where they were unanimous, it should be final with re- spect to the judgment of the Court below.

MR. AMPHLETT

said, that when he proposed this Amendment on a former occasion it was supported by a substantial minority of 144. As the question was then virtually decided, he should recommend his hon. Friend not to press it to another division, although if he did he should feel bound to divide with him.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

said, he could not accept the Amendment. It proceeded on the fallacy that the Judges of the Court of Appeal would be weaker than the Judges of the Court below, and that question having been argued at great length on a former occasion he trusted that the House would not reverse the decision of the Committee.

MR. JAMES

said, that the Court of Appeal ought to be stronger than the Court appealed from, and if there were three Judges of the Court below it would be unsatisfactory to the suitor to have his case decided by less than five Judges of the Court of Appeal.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 55; Noes 97: Majority 42.

Clause agreed to.

AYES.
Adderley, rt. hn. Sir C. Harcourt, W. G. G. V. V.
Amphlett, R. P. Hardy, rt. hon. G.
Assheton, R. Henley, rt. hon. J. W.
Baggallay, Sir R. Holt, J. M.
Ball, rt. hon. J. T. Hope, A. J. B. B.
Barclay, A. C. James, H.
Barttelot, Colonel Jenkinson, Sir G. S.
Beach, W. W. B. Lennox, Lord G. G.
Beaumont, H. F. Locke, J.
Bective, Earl of Mitford, W. T.
Bright, R. Morgan, G. O.
Bristowe, S. B. O'Conor, D. M.
Brooks, W. C. Pim, J.
Butt, I. Powell, F. S.
Buxton, Sir R. J. Powell, W.
Charley, W. T. Raikes, H. C.
Clay, J. Saudon, Viscount
Collins, T. Scourfield, J. H.
Craufurd, E. H. J. Stanley, hon. F.
Dilke, Sir C. W. Taylor, rt. hon. Col.
Dowdeswell, W. E. Torr, J.
Dyke, W. H. Wait, W. K.
Dyott, Colonel R. Waterhouse, S.
Ewing, A. Orr Wells, E.
Fellowes, E. Wheelhouse, W. S. J.
Figgins,
Fowler, R. N. TELLERS.
Goldsmid, J. Fowler, W.
Gore, J. R. O. Smith, W. H.
Gore, W. R. O.
NOES.
Anderson, G. Kingscote, Colonel
Ayrton, rt. hon. A. S. Knatchbull-Hugessen,
Baines, E. rt. hon. E.
Baker, R. B. W. Lambert, N. G.
Barclay, J. W. Lawson, Sir W.
Bassett, F. Leatham, E. A.
Baxter, rt. hon. W. E. Lefevre, G. J. S.
Bentall, E. H. Leith, J. F.
Bolckow, H. W. F. Lowe, rt. hon. R.
Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P. Lyttelton, hon. C. G.
Bowling, E. A. Mackintosh, E. W.
Brassey, T. M'Clure, T.
Brewer, Dr. M'Lagan, P.
Brocklehurst, W. C. M'Laren, D.
Brown, A. H. Matheson, A.
Bruce, rt. hon. H. A. Miller, W.
Campbell-Bannerman, Mitchell, T. A.
H. Monk, C. J.
Candlish, J. Muntz, P. H.
Cardwell, rt. hon. E. Norwood, C. M.
Carter, R. M. O'Donoghue, The
Cave, T. O'Reilly-Dease, M.
Cavendish, Lord F. C. Palmer, J. H.
Childers, right hon. H. Parker, C. S.
Colebrooke, Sir T. E. Parry, L. Jones-
Coleridge, Sir J. D. Peel, A. W.
Corrigan, Sir D. Philips, R. N.
Cowen, Sir J. Playfair, L.
Davies, R. Power, J. T.
Delahunty, J. Price, W. E.
Dickinson, S. S. Reed, C.
Ennis, J. J. Roden, W. S.
Finnie, W. Rylands, P.
Fitzwilliam, hon. C. Seymour, A.
W. W. Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.
Forster, rt. hon. W. E. Stone, W. H.
Fortescue, rt. hon. C. P. Stuart, hon. H. W. V.
Gilpin, C. Talbot, C. R. M.
Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E. Trevelyan, G. O.
Gladstone, W. H. Villiers, rt. hon. C. P.
Goldsmid, Sir F. Vivian, H. H.
Goschen, rt. hon. G. J. Wedderburn, Sir D.
Gray, Sir J. Weguelin, T. M.
Greville, hon. Captain West, H. W.
Grieve, J. J. Whitwell, J.
Grosvenor, Lord R. Williams, W.
Hartington, Marq. Of Woods, H.
Henderson, J. Young, rt. hon. G.
Hibbert, J. T.
Holms, J. TELLERS.
Hurst, R. H. Adam, W. P.
Jessel, Sir G. Glyn, hon. G. G.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday.

Clause 59 (Power to direct trial before Referees).

On the Motion of Mr. LOPES, Amendment made in page 31, line 3, by leaving out the words "or any scientific or local investigation."

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 79 (Transfer of existing staff of officers to Supreme Court).

On the Motion of Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Amendment made in page 39, line 12, by adding the following words:— Nothing in this Act contained shall interfere with the office of marshal attending any Commission of Assize.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule.

SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMID

moved an Amendment in page 51, paragraph 18, line 36, to leave out the words "be as brief," and insert "set forth the requisite facts as briefly." He proposed the Amendment on the ground that the Bill was not sufficiently definite, in his opinion, upon the point.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

said, that what the Bill did in that respect was intended merely as a kind of outline or indication of what would be more fully provided for by general rules under the Bill. It was not intended, however, that every plaintiff should file a Bill or draw a declaration.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be read the third time Tomorrow, at Two of the clock.