Commons Sitting of 3 August 1874

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Sir William Augustus Fraser, baronet, for Kidderminster.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Education Department Orders * [239].
Committee—Report—Considered as amended—Third Reading—Church Patronage (Scotland) * [234]; Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873) Suspension * [235].
Committee—Report—India Councils * [154].
Considered as amended—Irish Reproductive Loan Fund * [183]; Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings * [188].
Third Reading—Expiring Laws Continuance * [201]; Public Worship Regulation * [236]: Statute Law Revision (No. 2) * [237], and passed.
Withdrawn,—Bills of Sale Amendment * [231]; County Courts * [175].

STANDING-ORDERS.
Standing Order 25 was read, and amended, by inserting in page 16, line 40, after the words "local and road authorities," the words "in England and Scotland."
In line 42, by inserting after "1870," the words—
"And in Ireland shall be the grand jury of the county in respect to any highway or portion of highway within the jarisdiction of such grand jury; and in respect to highways wholly or partly within any city, borough, town corporate, or other place or district in which the public roads are not under the control of the grand jury of the county, shall be the respective local and road authorities of such city, borough, town corporate, or other place or district mentioned in Section thirty-eight of 'The Tramways (Ireland) Act 1860.'"
To follow Standing Order 165:—
(Railway Bills charging payments on grand jury cess or local rate to be submitted and approved by grand jury and local authorities.)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That when in any Railway Bill a provision is inserted by which the payment of any moneys
1142
is directly or contingently charged upon grand jury cess, or any other local rate in Ireland by means of a guarantee or otherwise, such Bill shall, after the first reading thereof, be referred to the Examiners, who shall report as to compliance or noncompliance with the following order:
"A copy of the Bill, as deposited in the Private Bill Office, shall be submitted to the grand jury or other authority empowered to present such grand jury cess, or to make such local rate, and according as the payment of any moneys is by the said Bill proposed to be charged upon a county at large, or upon one or more baronies in any county, or upon any part or parts of any barony or baronies, such Bill shall also be submitted to presentment sessions for such county at large, or for such barony or baronies, as the case may be, and also to the poor law guardians of every union in which any lands proposed to be charged with the payment of any moneys are situate:
"Notice of an intention to submit a copy of such Bill to such grand jury or other authority, and to such presentment sessions and board of guardians, shall be given previously to submitting the same, by advertisement inserted once in each of two consecutive weeks in some one and the same newspaper published in the county upon which, or upon any barony or baronies in which, it is proposed by the Bill to impose any local rate or charge, or if in such county no newspaper is published, then in some one and the same newspaper published in any adjoining county and also in some one morning newspaper published in Dublin:
"A copy of such Bill shall be submitted not earlier than three months before the time fixed for the deposit of such Bill, and not earlier than the seventh day after the last insertion of such advertisement; and shall be approved by at least two thirds of the members of the grand jury or authority, presentment sessions, and board of guardians respectively to which the same shall have been submitted, and the presentment or resolution of each of the said bodies approving the same shall be signed by all such members of each of such bodies as shall have approved the same, and shall be deposited at the Private Bill Office, together with a statement under the hand of the foreman, chairman, or other person presiding when such presentment was made, or such resolution was passed, of the number of the members then present."—(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.)
Amendment proposed,
In line 17, after the word "same," to insert the words "to the secretary of the grand jury of the county or counties and the clerk of the union or unions in the districts proposed to be assessed and."—(Mr. Downing.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
An Amendment made, by inserting after the said word "same," the words "to the secretary or clerk of such grand jury or authority and board of guardians, and."
Another Amendment made, in line 24, by leaving out the word "three," and inserting the word "six," instead thereof.
Another Amendment made, in line 27, by omitting the words "at least two-thirds," and inserting the words "a majority," instead thereof.
Amendment proposed, in line 27, after the word "authority," to insert the words "and of at least two-thirds of the members of the board of guardians, and."—(The O' Conor Don.)
Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.
Another Amendment made, in line 29, by inserting after the word "submitted," the words "then present and voting thereon."
Another Amendment made, in lines 30 and 31, by leaving out the words "signed by all such members of each of such bodies as shall have approved the same and shall be."
Ordered, That when in any Railway Bill a provision is inserted by which the payment of any moneys is directly or contingently charged upon grand jury cess, or any other local rate in Ireland by means of a guarantee or otherwise, such Bill shall, after the first reading thereof, be referred to the Examiners, who shall report as to compliance or noncompliance with the following Order:—
A copy of the Bill, as deposited in the Private Bill Office, shall be submitted to the grand jury or other authority empowered to present such grand jury cess, or to make such local rate, and according as the payment of any moneys is by the said Bill proposed to be charged upon a county at large, or upon one or more baronies in any county, or upon any part or parts of any barony or baronies, such Bill shall also be submitted to presentment sessions for such county at large, or for such barony or baronies, as the case may be, and also to the poor law guardians of every union in which any lands proposed to be charged with the payment of any moneys are situate.
Notice of an intention to submit a copy of such Bill to such grand jury or other authority, and to such presentment sessions and board of guardians, shall be given previously to submitting the same to the secretary or clerk of such grand jury or authority and board of guardians, and by advertisement inserted once in each of two consecutive weeks in some one and the same newspaper published in the county upon which, or upon any barony or baronies in which, it is proposed by the Bill to impose any local rate or charge, or if in such county no newspaper is published, then in some one and the same newspaper published in any adjoining county and also in some one morning newspaper published in Dublin.
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A copy of such Bill shall be submitted not earlier than six months before the time fixed for the deposit of such Bill, and not earlier than the seventh day after the last insertion of such advertisement; and shall be approved by a majority of the members of the grand jury or authority, presentment sessions, and board of guardians respectively to which the same shall have been submitted then present and voting thereon, and the presentment or resolution of each of the said bodies approving the same shall be deposited at the Private Bill Office, together with a statement under the hand of the foreman, chairman, or other person presiding when such presentment was made, or such resolution was passed, of the number of the members then present.
To follow Standing Order 171:—
(As to bills relating to local government in Ireland.)
Ordered, That whenever by any Bill application is made by or on behalf of any municipal corporation, municipal commissioners, or town or other commissioners in Ireland for any now powers or for any increased or additional powers, the promoters shall be required to obtain a certificate under the seal of the Local Government Board of Ireland, setting forth whether such application is made with or without the sanction and approval of the said Local Government Board, which certificate shall be produced before the Committee to whom the Bill is referred, and shall be reported upon by the said Committee.
Ordered, That the said Orders be Standing Orders of this House.

METROPOLIS—PLUMSTEAD COMMON.

  QUESTION.
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the fact that the Artillery stationed at Woolwich habitually leave Woolwich Common and exercise over Plumstead Common, thereby destroying the surface and seriously interfering with its use for purposes of recreation; and, if so, whether he will take steps to prevent the continuance of the injury; and, whether the opinion of the legal advisers of the War Office has been taken on the point of whether such use of the Common is legal, or whether it is included in the lease of manorial rights to the War Office?
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY,in reply, said, that the Artillery stationed at Woolwich did leave there and exercise over Plumstead Common, inasmuch as they were compelled to do so in consequence of not having sufficient space on Woolwich Common. As to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's Question, his answer was, that the legal advisers of the War Office were consulted in 1862

  1145
  as to that course being legal, and their answer was, that the Artillery enjoyed the same right to practice on Plumstead Common which was enjoyed since 1745.

RIVERS POLLUTION COMMISSION.

  QUESTION.
  MR. LYON PLAYFAIRasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he intends, next Session, to deal with the recommendations of the Royal Commission and the Select Committee of the House of Lords in regard to the pollution of rivers?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: Sir, the Rivers Pollution Commission was appointed in the year 1865, and was reconstituted in 1868. During the time that has thus elapsed they have presented five interesting and valuable Reports. A sixth and final Report is, I am told, in print, and will shortly be presented. Meanwhile, proposals for legislation on the subject were submitted to the House of Commons in 1872, and withdrawn; and a Bill was introduced into the House of Lords last year, referred to a Select Committee, and afterwards withdrawn. So soon as the final Report is in my hands, I propose to have the recommendations of the Commissioners embodied in a shape fit for legislation, so that the Government may come to a determination during the Recess whether or not it shall be submitted to Parliament next Session.

IRELAND—THE CONCORDATUM FUND.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ERRINGTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is intended that the pensions charged on the Concordatum Fund shall in future be given for the lives of the recipients, as was the custom until last year; and, whether it is the intention of the Lord Lieutenant to continue the system of investigating the claims of applicants for pensions charged on this Fund, which was established by Lord Spencer, and gave such general satisfaction?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, in December last the Treasury notified to the Irish Government that it was their intention that in future no fresh pensions should be created, and no new recipients of donations nominated in connection with the Concordatum
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  Fund; and that, as pensions ceased, the Annual Vote should be gradually reduced and finally extinguished. It is, therefore, not in the power of the Lord Lieutenant to grant any more pensions from the Concordatum Fund.

  PUBLIC HEALTH ACT—FEVER AT CLAYTON WEST.— QUESTION.
  MR. ALFRED MARTENasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether his attention has been called to a recent outbreak of typhoid fever at Clayton West, near Huddersfield; and, whether he is aware what measures have been taken by the Local Sanitary Board of that place to ascertain the cause of the outbreak, and prevent the spread of the disease?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: Sir, so long ago as the early part of July the attention of the Local Government Board was called to this outbreak of enteric fever at Clayton West, and they immediately inquired of the sanitary authority about it. They were informed that the disease was attributable to the state of the drains, that disinfectants were being applied, that the sick were being isolated, and that steps were being taken to improve the water supply. So matters stood till last Friday, when, in consequence, I fear, of the extension of the epidemic, application was made that an Inspector should be sent down. This application will be attended to as soon as possible.

METROPOLIS—THE REGENT'S CANAL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. FORSYTHasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether his attention has been called to the polluted state of the water in the Regent's Canal, especially that portion of it in close proximity to the Zoological Gardens; and, if it is the fact that the refuse of the animals in these gardens is emptied in the canal; and, if so, whether any action will be taken to prevent the same?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: Sir, my attention has not been called officially to the matter; and, indeed, as my hon. Friend is aware, the Local Government Office has little to do with the sanitary affairs of the metropolis; but I have had the opportunity of making private inquiries, and I have been informed that

  1147
  little more than surface water passes from the Zoological Society's Gardens into the Regent's Canal, the whole refuse of the animals being removed by a contractor; and that when the water draining from the gardens into the canal was examined some time back by the medical officer of health of St. Pancras, it was pronounced to be free from deleterious matter, and far purer than the water of the Canal itself.

METROPOLIS—HYDE-PARK CORNER.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. W. GORDON (for Sir CHARLES RUSSELL)asked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he is in a position to state the nature of the Government proposals to relieve the pressure ef traffic Between Hamilton Place and Grosvenor Place; and, if the plans for carrying out this object can be shown before the close of the Session?
  LORD HENRY LENNOX: Sir, I have decided what I think will be the best means of relieving the traffic. The plan, which it will be my duty to submit, and which I hope may meet with the approval of Parliament, is designed to divert a large part of the traffic by making a road across the Park from Hamilton Place to Grosvenor Place. This road will be 700 feet long, and GO feet wide, and will be made with the easy gradient of 1 in 60, passing under Constitution Hill by means of a bridge; that bridge will be 16 feet high over the proposed road, that being the height prescribed for railways when passing over a road. The alteration in the gradient of the proposed bridge, as regards Constitution Hill, will be scarcely perceptible. By permission of the Serjeant-at-Arms, the model will be placed in one of the Committee Rooms to-morrow; and as many hon. Members may be leaving London, I have placed in the library to-day the plan from which the model was made.
  SIR JAMES HOGGsaid, he should like to know from the noble Lord whether it was likely the work would commence early in the Autumn, so as to remove the inconvenience as soon as possible?
  LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, that as the Question involved an expenditure of public money, he could not give the hon. Gentleman any promise, without
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  the concurrence of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He could, however, assure him that they would be commenced as soon as possible.

IRISH FISHERIES DEPARTMENT—GUNBOATS.—QUESTION.
MR. O'CLERYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is the intention of the Government to carry out that portion of the Report of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries, with regard to having a cutter or gunboat placed permanently under their control for the protection of the fisheries, and to enable the Department to carry out desirable experiments; and, whether it is the fact that, although the Scotch Fishery Board has for this purpose a vessel of 100 to 150 tons, with a crew of 22 men; and, when required, the aid of as many gunboats as may be necessary, the Irish Fishery Department has not under its control even one such vessel?
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, the recommendation to which the hon. Member alludes is contained in the Report of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries, which has been recently issued, and the Government have not yet had time fully to ascertain whether the requirements of the Fishery Department demand the exclusive use of a cutter or gunboat. I may say, however, that whenever the Inspectors have asked for the use of a Government vessel to enforce the fishery laws or preserve order, their request has been invariably complied with, as far as practicable with other demands on the Royal Marine. For example, they have had the use of gunboats on the East Coast of Ireland, where the herring fisheries are carried on; on the South Coast, at Kinsale, for the preservation of order during the mackerel fishery; and for the salmon fishing at the mouth of the Blackwater, near Youghal. The Scotch Fisheries are much more extensive, and are resorted to by more fishermen of foreign nationalities; and it cannot but be a satisfaction to any one connected with Ireland that it should be more easy to preserve order among her fishermen, and to secure the due execution of the fishery laws in her waters, than is the case in Scotland.

THE MAGISTRACY—ROCHESTER CITY BENCH.—QUESTION.
MR. GOLDSMIDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is not the case that it has been for some years the constant practice of Lord Chancellors to communicate with the corporations of boroughs before new magistrates are appointed; why this practice was not observed in the case of the recent appointments at Rochester; and, whether, with reference to the Home Secretary's statement as to the political opinions of the Justices of Rochester, any record exists of the political opinions of justices; and, if so, on what authority he made that statement?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS: I have, Sir, communicated since the Question was put on the Paper with my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor. He is most ready at any time to receive and give the fullest consideration to any representations which municipal corporations may desire to make to him as to the necessity for any addition to the Bench, and as to the names of persons which they may desire to submit to his consideration with a view to their appointment. At the same time, he considers that the responsibility of selecting and appointing proper persons for the Bench belongs to him, and not to the municipal corporation or any other person or persons; nor can he admit the right of any corporation or persons to require him to make a communication to them previous to appointing magistrates. Of course, he cannot undertake to say what has been the practice of previous Lord Chancellors. The magistrates of Rochester must be very extraordinary persons indeed, if they think their political opinions are not known. It is very well known what are the political opinions of magistrates in the county with which I am connected.
MR. GOLDSMIDsaid, he should repeat the Question as to the authority on which the Homo Secretary made a statement respecting the political opinions of the justices of Rochester.

IRELAND—OYSTER BEDS OFF WEX-FORD AND WICKLOW.—QUESTION.
MR. O'CLERYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Irish Fisheries Department has received any
1150
information with regard to the existence of large unworked oyster beds off the coasts of Wexford and Wicklow; and, whether the Inspectors have taken, or propose to take, any steps to ascertain if such oyster beds exist?
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, some Arklow fishermen reported to the Inspectors of Fisheries over a year ago that they believed, owing to having taken up some oysters when engaged in fishing operations outside the Kish Bank, that an oyster bed existed there. The place the fishermen indicated is nearly 14 miles from the shore, and dredging operations can only be carried on during fine weather. The Inspectors of Fisheries contemplated making some investigations last year, to ascertain whether the supposition of their informants was correct, but other engagements prevented them until the season became too advanced. Before this summer is over they propose doing so, and intend forthwith applying for a Government vessel for the purpose, which will probably be granted. The place where the fishermen got the oysters lies off the Wicklow coast, more towards Dublin than Wexford.

IRELAND—IRISH FINES FUND.

  QUESTION.
  MR. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he proposes to take any step to put an end to the payment of five hundred pounds annually out of the Irish Fines Fund to the Consolidated Fund, the office on account of which such payment was formerly made having been abolished so long since as the year 1850; and, whether he is aware that no provision exists for superannuation or retiring allowance for the Registrar of Petty Sessions Clerks in Ireland and the officers in his department; and, if it is the intention of the Government to make any provision for that object?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH,in reply, said, he had made it his duty to make a communication to the Treasury on the subject, but he was sorry to say they had not consented to give up the annual payment. He hoped, however, to prevail on them to do so, and should be glad if he succeeded. With regard to retiring allowances for the officers in the department, the Treasury could hardly be expected to provide them, as

  1151
  the hon. Gentleman must be aware that the department was sustained entirely by the Foes Fund, not by payments from the Exchequer.

METROPOLIS—BOW STREET POLICE COURT.—QUESTION.
MR. RUSSELL GURNEYasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether his attention has been called to the utterly insufficient accommodation at the Bow Street Police Court, and, when a now Court is likely to be provided, for which £10,000 was voted by Parliament in the last Session of Parliament?
LORD HENRY LENNOX,in reply, said, the attention of the Office of Works had for two years been constantly called to the insufficient accommodation at Bow Street Police Court. It was true that a sum of money had been expended last year under the sanction of Parliament towards the purchase of a new site in Castle Street, Leicester Square; but the Secretary of State for the Home Department had requested him to cease looking to that site, as another part of London would be more convenient for carrying on the Police duties of the Metropolis.

MERCANTILE MARINE—OCEAN ROADS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ANDERSONasked the President of the Board of Trade, If, since the question was last asked, he has given any attention to the subject of Ocean Roads, or if he will do so during the Recess, with the view of endeavouring, in concert with other Governments, to establish certain sailing tracks to reduce the risk of collision at sea?
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY: Sir, the subject of ocean roads has long been under the careful consideration of the Board of Trade; but it is found very difficult and not desirable to fix a compulsory rule. In most trades, and in the Atlantic particularly, the route is necessarily affected by the season. Ocean roads are not so important as roads in more confined waters, as the English and Irish Channels; and the ocean route adopted by the Cunard Company ceases to be of use at the two extremeties, where most needed. The subject is surrounded with difficulties, and the Board of Trade do not as yet see their way to recommending legislation on it. The
  1152
  North Atlantic Steam Traffic Conference last March deprecated any compulsory rule. The late Admiral Fitzroy thought it impossible for sailing vessels. A Bill has been introduced on the subject in Congress, not by the Government—but nothing has been enacted. Inquiries are being made, and communications have passed with other countries on the subject.

JUDICATURE ACT—BILLS OF SALE AMENDMENT BILL.—QUESTIONS.
In reply to Sir HENRY JAMES and Mr. ROEBUCK,
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that when the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873) Suspension Bill got into Committee, he would explain the course which the Government intended to take with regard to it. With reference to the Bills of Sale Amendment Bill and the County Courts Bill, which stood upon the Paper for a second reading, he might explain that those were measures which had been introduced by the Lord Chancellor, in consequence of numerous representations made to him from different parts of the country. They had, however, arrived at a period of the Session when it would be impossible to proceed with them, the more especially as they could not be taken after half-past 12, in consequence of Notices for their rejection having been placed upon the Paper. He should in consequence, when these Bills were reached, move that the Orders be discharged, and that the Bills be withdrawn.

PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION BILL.
(Mr. Russell Gurney.)
PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION BILL.

  [BILL 236.] THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Russell Gurney.)
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I read a letter which I have just received with reference to the office of Judge under the Bill. It is as follows—
  "House of Lords, S.W., August 3, 1874.
  "Sir,—We have the honour to inform you that we intend to submit to the Crown, through you, the name of Lord Penzance for the office of Judge under the 'Public Worship Regulation Bill,' in case that measure shall become law.

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  "Lord Penzance has consented to undertake the office, subject to the provisions as to salary and emoluments which are embodied in the Bill, and which may hereafter be made by Parliament.
  "We think that it may be convenient to the Government to be made aware of this, even before the passing of the Bill, and we feel confident that the name of Lord Penzance will have the approval of the Crown.
  "We believe that we shall be able to submit to the Government a plan by which a salary might be provided for the Judge by a rearrangement of ecclcsiastical fees.—We are, Sir, your faithful servants,
  "A. C. CANTUAR.
  "W. EBOR.
  "Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli, M.P."
  The House will observe that the statement of the conditions under which Lord Penzance has agreed to accept the office vary from the explanation I made on a previous occasion with reference to the disposition of the Judge in regard to it, and Lord Penzance has very properly called my attention to the apparent inconsistency between the views which he has always held and the statement I made in the House two or three days ago. The fact is, the misconception that bas arisen has been occasioned by a peculiar, but a very simple cause. When I referred to a Judge, and the condition on which I had reason to hope he would accept the office, I really did not refer to Lord Penzance, but to another eminent and distinguished Judge. Therefore, Lord Penzance is under an erroneous impression in supposing that I made, on his part, a statement to the House to which he had not given his adhesion. I, therefore, wish to take this opportunity of explaining the apparent inconsistency, and to express my conviction that the conditions under which Lord Penzance has stated his readiness to take this office are not only just, but reasonable and liberal.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I wish also to say a word to remove a misapprehension. I should be very sorry that there should be any misconception about the expectations of the Archbishops in regard to the payment of the salary of the Judge out of ecclesiastical fees. I think it may be perfectly possible that these fees may be available and entirely sufficient for the purpose, but in speaking of fees in the recent debate as being entirely unreal, it was my intention to signify a different opinion, and to state that if the salary had been fixed upon the Common Fund of the Ecclesiastical
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  Commission, all prospect of the readjustment of the fees for the purpose of recouping the money would be quite out of the question. I shall be very happy, however, if the expectations formed by their Graces the Archbishops are realized by the result.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: Sir, before this Bill is read a third time, I desire to say a few words upon it, the more especially since I have taken no part in the discussion during its progress through Committee. Perhaps, in so doing, I may be permitted to sot myself right with the House with respect to certain words of mine upon a previous stage of the Bill. I am told that I am supposed to have threatened what is called "factious opposition" to the Bill, and it is possible that words hastily spoken may have borne that construction. Nothing, however, could have been further from my intention. That which I intended to convey was this—that if the Bill was to pass during the present Session, the House must be prepared to sit for a longer period than was at that time contemplated, inasmuch as every detail of the Bill would have to be closely scrutinized before such a Bill could become law. Well, Sir, I think that has been done, and, moreover, the passing of the Bill has been purchased on the part of the Government by the sacrifice of more than one of the most valuable and generally popular measures upon which they had staked their legislative credit for the Session. The alterations which have been made in the Bill are considerable, and I propose to enumerate three of them. First, the delay for which I earnestly pleaded upon the second reading, has been so far granted, that the Bill is not to come into operation until July in next year; Secondly, the Judge is no longer to be paid out of funds heretofore appropriated to the augmentation of poor benefices, against which I was the first to protest upon the second reading; and thirdly, sins of omission, as well as commission, are to be included within the offences with which the Bill is to deal. However, speaking only of details, there are at least two great blots left in the Bill. In the first place the Bishops themselves are not to be amenable to the law which is to govern their clergy, so that the officers and soldiers of the Army are to be subject to different rules of discipline,

  1155
  I doubt whether this will promote the efficiency of the service. But the second is, in my opinion, a still greater blot. When it was proposed to make the Bishops amenable to this law, we were told that it would be an insult to them, and that their discretion might be trusted to keep them within the law. And, in the matter of initiating proceedings under this Bill, a discretion was in the first instance given to the Bishops. But, as the Bill advanced, the opinion of its authors as to the discretion of the Bishops seems to have changed, and this discretion has been taken away, or, at least, left only onesided. It has been said that a Bishop is in this instance to discharge the functions of a grand jury. Well, if a grand jury finds "a true Bill," the prisoner is tried; if a grand jury finds "not a true Bill," the prisoner goes free without an appeal. But here you entirely reverse the process. The clergyman complained of is indeed to be tried, if the Bishop finds "a true Bill," and no appeal is given to him; but if the Bishop finds "not a true Bill," the prosecution has an appeal which is denied to the clergyman; and this you call fair play! Surely, there ought either to be no appeal, or an appeal for both sides. I can only hope—and I confidently expect—that this unfairness will even yet be remedied in "another place," before this Bill becomes law, and that the maturer consideration of this House will confirm the alteration. But, Sir, whatever improvements have been, or may be made, I cannot pretend to regard the Bill with satisfaction. In the debate upon the second reading, I ventured to make a prophecy, which was received, as prophecies usually are received in this House, with some laughter and more incredulity. The Bill had been described as a simple Bill, dealing only with forms and excesses in Ritual observance. I ventured to say that there was a power behind, urging forward this Bill, which would not allow its promoters to stop at the point at which they professed to wish to stop. I humbly submitted that from dealing with symbols of doctrine, the step was very short to dealing with doctrine itself, and that this would infallibly follow. Well, Sir, what has happened? Even before this Bill went into Committee, an Instruction was moved, with a view to bring within its scope offences
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  of substance as well as form. This Instruction was only withdrawn upon the promise of the right hon. and learned Recorder—somewhat hastily given—to introduce some such measure next Session; and the House will, perhaps, now perceive that in passing this Bill, we have only entered upon a course of ecclesiastical legislation of which the end is not yet apparent. Sir, I am not going to enter into any lengthened criticism of the Bill. The House has determined that it shall pass, and no doubt it will pass. But I would call attention to the different aspects under which it has appeared before us. At first it was called a small Bill, a little Bill, a mere Bill of procedure, which would not alter the law. Then the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister gave it a new title. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing upon the Bill for some time. His Secretary of War had spoken against the second reading, and his Chancellor of the Exchequer and Postmaster General had given votes indicative of their opposition to the Bill. But when the feeling of the House had been declared unmistakeably in its favour, the right hon. Gentleman not only rose and supported it in this House, but, speaking at a civic festival, he actually took credit to his Government for having, as a Government, supported the Bill; and—as he called it—"grappled with the mysterious disturbance "which had arisen among us. The action of the right hon. Gentleman appears to me to merit a somewhat different description; it has been rather that of a man watching two others fighting, without interfering with them, and then, when one has knocked the other over, jumping upon the man that is down. But, Sir, I said that the Prime Minister gave this Bill a new title; he called it a "Bill to put down Ritualism." I will venture to give it a title which I believe the result will show to be still more appropriate. I will term it "a Bill to expedite the Disestablishment of the Church of England." Sir, for opposing this Bill I have been called a" Ritualist." I do not much care what I am called, but no accusation could be more untrue. It is not because it attacks "Ritualists" that I have opposed this Bill; but because I believe it tends directly to the disestablishment of the Church of England, and that disestablishment I do not desire. Why, Sir,

  1157
  what is the Church of England? My hon. and learned Friend near me (Sir William Harcourt) says it is a Protestant Church. Well, Sir, I am not going to quarrel with my hon. and learned Friend over that designation. My hon. and learned Friend is a formidable person to contend with; he argues against you at night, and writes against you in the morning. But here, at least, I am happy to be able to agree with him. We are a Protestant Church, in that we protest against what we believe to be the errors of the Church of Rome. But the Church of England has not only a religion of negation. We have a positive Catholic faith as well as a negative Protestant disbelief; and if we had not, we should be unworthy of the name of Church. But we call ourselves a National Church. What does that mean? It means that we desire to represent the nation, and we take nationality as our bond of union. To maintain that bond, it is necessary to keep the basis of the Church as broad and comprehensive as possible, and to tolerate within it as wide a divergence of opinion upon points of doctrine, as is compatible with the maintenance of the fundamental truths of Christianity. The moment you encourage one party in the Church to war against the other—the moment you facilitate and stimulate attacks, first upon the symbols of doctrine, and then upon doctrine itself, that moment you strike a blow at the comprehensiveness, and so at the nationality, of the Church, and you enter upon a course which can only end in its disestablishment as a national institution. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister says this is a Bill to put down Ritualism. Put down Ritualism? Why, you could not do more to encourage Ritualism than by making martyrs of Ritualists. And what are you going to do? You are not only going into country parishes, to liberate congregations upon whom innovations have been thrust by their clergymen against their will, and in opposition to their feelings. You are going to deal with churches in London and other towns where the clergymen who delight in Ritualistic practices are supported by large and enthusiastic congregations, and you will put it into the power of a few individuals who never attend the church, and who have nothing to do with the congregation, to stir up strife
  1158
  and create schism and dissension. Why, Sir, no Church can stand the perpetual blister which this Bill will impose upon it; it can result in nothing else than disestablishment. The one hope we may have, is that the Bill will be so little acted upon as to become a dead letter; but if the contrary be the case, and if, as I fear, disestablishment follow, the persons responsible will be first, in the Upper House, the two Archbishops of the Church; and secondly, in the Lower House, the Conservative Prime Minister. Sir, I have made these observations with the greatest respect for the majority of the House, who are in favour of this Bill. But, with equal respect, I would remind them that majorities are not always right. Little more than 20 years ago, an enormous majority passed the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. And yet that Bill has remained a dead letter ever since, and has only recently been repealed by common consent. ["No, no!"] At least, then, it has been repealed, and I believe that, with perhaps one or two exceptions, English statesmen of the present day think the less said about the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill the better. Sir, I hope the Bill now before us may work no greater evil. I object as much as any one to the fantastic excrescences of Ritualism, and if I thought this Bill would only deal with such cases, I would have readily supported it. My fear is that instead of merely cutting off a diseased limb, this measure will inflict mortal wounds upon the whole body. I fear that it will be used against a valuable body of clergy who have done, and are doing, good work which ought not to be interfered with. Since, however, the will of the House has been emphatically pronounced in favour of the Bill, I have been unwilling to delay it by moving small Amendments in opposition to the general feeling, and I have thought that such abstinence was at once wiser and more respectful to the House than taking part in any factious opposition to the measure which the majority has resolved to pass.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPE: Mr. Speaker—I, like my right hon. Friend opposite, endeavoured to facilitate and not to oppose the passing of the Bill in Committee, as soon as I realized that it was the wish of the House, mistaken as I own I think that wish to have been.

  1159
  I felt it my duty not to attempt to defeat it by delay; while, in Committee, I took my part in mitigating its unfair and oppressive character with respect to one section of the Church. It is on behalf of that section of the Church that I now desire to address a few words to this House, and they shall be plain and honest words. I am not speaking as a Ritualist. I am not a Ritualist, but an old-fashioned and a moderate High Churchman; a High Churchman of that school which has come into active prominence within the last 40 years; and my opinions on Ritual and Ceremonial were formed before the modern school of so-called Ritualists came into existence. I hold them independently of that school; and whatever may be its fate, I shall continue to hold them still. On behalf, then, of the great body of High Churchmen, I protested and still protest against the unfair manner in which the word "Ritualism" has been handled in these debates, so far as that word has boon used to define what may be against the letter or the spirit of our Reformation, and the letter and the spirit of the Prayer Book in which that Reformation is enshrined. I protest against it. I am a Churchman of the Church of England. I am a Reformer, just so far as the Church of England is reformed. I am a Protestant, just so far as the Prayer Rook makes me a Protestant. I am an anti-Roman, thoroughly and entirely. Against everything that is adverse to the letter and the spirit of the Prayer Book, whether smelling of Rome or of Geneva, I protest; and anything which, without being strictly illegal, is unwise or extravagant, and forced upon ignorant or unwilling congregations by the fancy, the caprice, or the illguided zeal of hot young men, I stigmatize as folly. Why then, you may say, do I oppose this Bill? The Bill was first introduced in "another place" by those who, I contend, ought to have been at once more guarded and more sympathetic in their words—being the pastors and the rulers of the entire Church, of the Ritualist as much as of the Evangelical or the Broad Churchman—words which tended rather to promote than to allay popular discontent by inflating vague suspicions and yet refusing to point them to any definite object. And when it was brought in here, as we know, it was recommended
  1160
  by an authority, to which we looked for guidance and moderation, as a Bill to "put down Ritualism." Again I ask, what is Ritualism? Say it is to put down unlawful practices in the Church, that it is to regulate the relations between Bishops, parish priests, and congregations; do that, and invite us to consider it on its merits, and on its merits we should consider it; but begin by giving a bad name to a set of men in the Church, devise a tyrannical and one sided use to put your Bill to, and of course you raise suspicious opposition, and the common feeling of fair play begets a spirit of the strongest antagonism. So has it been since that unlucky day in March, when, for the first time, all the other clergy and laity, and some even of the Bishops, saw the draft of a scheme, not brought out in a formal shape, not reduced to heads, but in a jaunty, airy way played over in a leading article of a leading newspaper. In short, the thing was ill-started, ill-launched, ill-contrived from the beginning; and it is only through the exercise of unrelaxing moderation, and the determined effort of self-abnegation on the part of its opponents, who have shown themselves more ready to mend the badly constructed scheme, than to try conclusions with its authors, that the measure has reached its present stage. I am thankful to say that the Bill came down to us from the House of Lords in a better and more satisfactory shape than that in which it was brought in there, though, still, as I think, it is in a very unsatisfactory condition. In this House it has certainly been improved; and while all along opposing the Bill and protesting against the heat and vehemence of those who forced it on, we have readily acknowledged those improvements. The first is the postponement of the date at which the Bill is to come into operation, whereby time will be given for matters to settle down, feelings to become cool, and the voice of the Church to be heard. The next improvement carried, let me note, by a narrow majority, was the one moved by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) to make the defect of ornament or vesture as cognizable as its excess. That has made it a fair Bill in the sense of converting it into a two-edged sword instead of a one-edged knife, sent into the field

  1161
  of the Church to cut down the too obtrusive poppy-heads on the left hand not less than the right. Now, I thank the House for these two concessions, and for the first, the promoters likewise. But this brings me to that which I think, and have always thought, and never hesitated to say, was the great danger of the Bill. I claim for the High Church party in England for the last 40 years that they have done, and are doing, a great and good work in the Church of England. I claim for the High Church party in England that they, above all men, have placed the Church in that position of moral, of spiritual, and of material strength which she now holds. Very different, indeed, is that position from the one she filled in the reign, for example, of George IV. During that interval churches have been built in every quarter of the country; thousands of old churches have been restored; cathedrals have been raised to the level of their high functions; the House of God has been open on week days and holy days, as well as on Sundays, communions have been multiplied, confirmations brought home to the rural parishes; sermons are now preached in the naves of "Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral; and of our provincial minsters, works like that conducted by a Hook at Leeds, a Goulburn in Paddington, and a Wilkinson in Belgravia, have testified to the latent strength of the Church organization. The missionary at home and abroad has been carrying his life in his hand; delicately nurtured women have made selfsacrifice for their suffering fellow creatures; hospitals and schools have multiplied in direct subordination to the Church's laws of charity and order; and in particular the development of our national school system, has revealed a wide appreciation of the Church's method of education, and thereby fostered that opposition of other organizations to the 25th clause of the Elementary Education Act, which otherwise would be so unaccountable a caprice. All these things I unhesitatingly claim as visible results of the High Church movement of the last 40 years. I do not say that they are the work of the High Church party exclusively. I am ever ready and anxious to do all honour to the earlier movements of the Evangelicals—to the self-denial of those
  1162
  great men of 70 or 80 years ago, who developed and gave an impulse to the feeling of personal religion in a sceptical and material age. That was the foundation on which the superstructure of corporate church life had to be raised, and this was done by the High Church party, while pari passu other parties in the Church went on in the path of material improvement. I give them all credit for the work they have done and are doing; but the motive power which has impelled them to contend in a noble rivalry was the High Church movement. Having said that—and I should be a coward if I said less—let me add that none of us who have studied the literature of the day, and especially that most waspish literature, the complaints of the religious press, could fail to see that alongside of this Church movement there has been the growth of a bitter spirit, of what I must call, not offensively, but as the only term which can embody my meaning, Puritanism. This spirit has been as unfair as bitter, ever refusing to acknowledge the good done, and indefatigable in clogging the mistakes whether in word or deed of over zeal. There have been plenty of these, no doubt, for no great movement has ever gone on in this world without much to blame in it, much to regret, and much which had bettor never have been done; and the High Church movement is no exception to this general rule. It has accordingly been systematically misrepresented, and above all things it has been taunted with that hateful word which always makes the British public oblivious of logic and blind to fact—the word Popery. I saw, and others saw too, that this Bill, used as it might be, and in the way in which many persons designed to employ it, would not be one to regulate and prevent excesses and extravagances in public worship, still less one that would provide against deficiencies. Indeed, it was not until the division took place on the Motion of the hon. Member for the City of London that these deficiencies had any recognized place within it. It was a weapon ready to hand for that antagonistic party to put down that healthy development of corporate worship in the Church of England, of which I believe the great majority of hon. Members in this House would be very sorry to see the overthrow. I trust that may not now be its effect;

  1163
  but it would have been such an instrument, had it not been sharply criticized and opposed very strongly, although, I contend, in a legitimate and reasonable manner. Another reason which led me to look on the Bill as inopportune was the period which was selected for its introduction—namely, the very time when the Church itself, by the invitation of the Government, was engaged in reconsidering its ritual and rubrical law. The Ritual Commission was the offspring of the Conservative Government which was in office before the late one. It examined and considered the matters which were submitted to it with the greatest care; some of its recommendations have been embodied in two Acts of Parliament—the new Lectionary Act of 1871, and the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, which legalized the shortened services in 1872, both of them measures with a scope beyond their formal titles. Whatever may be the constitutional relations of the Convocation to this House—a matter upon which I do not enter now—it is certainly, as an assembly of representative churchmen, as a Committee of learned men, worthy of all respect. The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury has maturely considered, and brought out in its Lower House, a body of amended rubrics, built upon the fourth Report of that Ritual Commission, of which I have the honour to be a Member, and it might have proceeded further with its task this year had the Letters of Business been granted to it earlier. But by the month of July next year I trust that more complete results from that work will be before the public. If a series of amended rubrics can be agreed on, there will then be an intelligible basis for the action of the present measure. Men's passions will have had time to cool down in the interval, so I trust that when the period of action is reached, it will prove to be a Bill not to put down Ritualism, nor one to put down Evangelicalism, Broad-churchism, or any other energy in the Church calculated to do good to men's souls and lead them to worship God according to their conscientious convictions; but an Act to regulate and keep all parties within the line of common sense and in sufficient conformity with the elastic law of our English Church; an Act to maintain that Church not only as an Establishment, but in its higher
  1164
  and more spiritual character, as the great guide and consoler of souls, and the beacon-light of Christ's Gospel throughout the land.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had denounced to a certain extent, extravagant forms and ceremonies which he described as "the more prominent poppy heads." He argued from that remark that his hon. Friend would like to cut off the heads of those "more prominent poppies." At all events, it was to be hoped that it might be done by this Bill. He would not, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sandwich (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) go into the question whether that was "a little Bill, or a small Bill." In his (Colonel Barttelot's) opinion, it was an exceedingly important Bill, the most important the House had had before it during this Session. It was a Bill which had commended itself to the vast majority of the people of this country. It had been supported by overwhelming majorities in that House, and those majorities only reflected the feeling of the country from one end to the other. He wished now for a moment to thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Recorder for the tact, courtesy, and kindness with which he had dealt with the difficulties and varying circumstances of this Bill. He would also like to express his thanks to his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), who in his clear and plain Saxon-English had swept away those canonical cobwebs and rubbish with which it was sought to envelope and obscure the measure, and put in plain language that the law should be obeyed by all parties. One word with regard to the appeal to the Archbishop. In the Bill, as amended in the House of Lords, the provision was contained, though no doubt it did not come down to the House of Commons. But when his hon. Friend the Member for North East Lancashire (Mr. Holt) proposed the appeal, it was carried by a majority of 103 to 37. It was perfectly true when the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Greenwich, moved to omit that provision on the Report the majority was not quite so large, but he would say it with every respect to the Home Secretary, that without having convinced them as usual, many hon. Members did follow the right

  1165
  hon. Gentleman, and some of them afterwards told him (Colonel Barttelot) that they were ashamed of themselves for having run away from a principle which they had before supported. Therefore, without meaning to say anything offensive to the other House, he hoped that a proposal which the majority of this House who had consistently supported the Bill had placed in it, would receive that consideration in "another place" to which it was so justly entitled. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had extolled in the highest degree the great body of the clergy. He echoed that sentiment. He believed no body of men had ever done their duty more conscientiously, untiringly, or with greater zeal or liberality, poor as many of them were. And when the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that that appeal to the Archbishop would not be known to many of the clergy throughout the length and breadth of the land, he would go still further, and say that he hoped many throughout the length and breadth of the land would know nothing of the provisions of this Bill. There were thousands of the clergy who would do their duty, and would not have anything to suffer under this Bill. But, no doubt, there were many who would suffer. There were many who had written to hon. Members of this House in a strain for which he was sorry; but he had received letters from clergymen of all parties, stating that their unvarying wish was, that the matter should be left to be dealt with fairly by the House. The hon. Member for Cambridge University had said that the putting off the operation of this measure to next July would be a great boon to many with whom he was associated. He (Colonel Barttelot) agreed in that belief, and would only venture to hope in the meantime that Convocation might do that which they had never yet done—namely, revise the rubrics so as to reconcile them to the consciences as well as the wishes and feelings of the large majority of Churchmen. Parliament was giving Convocation an opportunity of doing so; but if they failed to do their duty, Parliament would not fail to do it. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman who had so eloquently pleaded for certain things, whether it was right that rural congregations, where these things were thought of
  1166
  and talked of more than would be supposed, should be compelled to leave their parish churches in consequence of the introduction of practices repugnant to their feelings; or did the right hon. Gentleman think it desirable that people of the middle and lower classes should suffer the same penalty, because they understood neither the Ritual nor the ceremonies of the persons who had been sent down to them. That was a position in which the right hon. Gentleman would not wish the people to be placed, and yet that might have been the result of his Resolutions, had they been adopted. For his own part, he (Colonel Barttelot) had supported the Bill throughout, because he believed it would bring peace and harmony to the Church, that it would prevent the disestablishment which the right hon. Gentleman apprehended, and would maintain that union between Church and State from which all hoped so much. It was a fortunate circumstance that in this happy country, they were able to maintain that union, for the right hon. Gentleman had said that Churches when disestablished, were less free than those which were established. He therefore being anxious that Church and State should remain united and that peace should be maintained in the Church, had conscientiously and consistently supported the Bill.
  MR. SCOUREFIELDsaid, he had great pleasure in expressing his appreciation of the generous and wise concessions made by the promoters in postponing the date at which the Bill was to come into operation, as he never liked to give persons the credit of being martyrs. He regretted the appeal to the Archbishop, and he objected to it on two grounds. In the first place, by the old rule, an appeal lay against a conviction, but here there was to be an appeal against an acquittal. In the next place, as there was no higher authority than the Archbishop, it was clear that in the archiepiscopal diocese there would be no appeal from his decision. At least, he knew of no greater authority to appeal to unless it were the Archbishop's wife. That Amendment he considered to be a great defect in the measure.
  MR. GRANT DUFFsaid, that, being one of those who did not as a matter of speculation and philosophy believe that Church Establishments could be indefinitely

  1167
  maintained, but who nevertheless hoped, till a few weeks ago, that any serious movement for the disestablishment of the Church of England would be postponed until the days of their grandchildren, he had carefully abstained from taking any part with reference to this Bill. Before, however, it passed from that House, he wished to say that he had witnessed the un-Conservative action of a Conservative Government on this and the Scotch Patronage Bill with more surprise than he had witnessed anything in that House. It seemed to him that the two Bills might fitly have been introduced on the same evening, and in a single speech, and that speech might have consisted of just one sentence from Holy Writ in the Vulgate Version. "Et quid volo nisi at?" "And what will I but that it be kindled?"
  LORD HENEY SCOTTwished to say that with regard to the part he had taken in the discussion of the Bill in Committee, he had not been actuated by any desire to obstruct the progress of the measure, his sole object being to make it as good a Bill as possible. He believed that no party in the Church, and certainly not the High Church party, desired to defy legitimate authority. There was, no doubt, an excrescence of that party which had indulged in extravagant observance of ritual; but that extravagance had arisen, partly from the dubious state of the law, and the difficulty of enforcing it when unsatisfactorily ascertained. He trusted the Bill would clear up any misapprehension which might exist as to the state of the law, and that those who now constituted themselves the sole judges of what was right, would render it the obedience which was due from them.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: Sir, as one of the majority who rejoice in the passing of the Bill, I am quite ready to concede to the minority, its opponents, that on the whole, they have let us off easily. I would not say anything so disrespectful to those right hon. and hon. Gentlemen as to imply that they have not manifested their usual ability in conducting their opposition; but the truth is, that this is not a Government measure, so much as it is a measure of the whole Parliament. This House was asked to pass the Bill, and the House has done so, and I claim for the Bill
  1168
  that it is as much a measure of the House of Commons as it is of the House of Lords. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff) says he is surprised that a Conservative Government should ever countenance such a Bill as this. By saying that, the right hon. Gentleman has explained why he is a Liberal. He seems to think that the function of a Conservative Government is simply to preserve abuses. If I believed that Conservatism meant merely the preservation of abuse, I could not be a Conservative. The hon. Gentleman also alluded to the Church Patronage (Scotland) Bill. I own I felt myself some difficulty about that Bill, and have not voted for it, and for this reason—that I thought it calculated to separate the heritors of Scotland still further from the great body of the people. But when the hon. Gentleman declares that the Bill will lead to the disestablishment of the Kirk, he will allow me to remind him that those who are avowedly in favour of the disestablishment of that Church have petitioned against the Patronage Bill. Whatever I may apprehend the effect of the Church Patronage Bill will be upon the social condition of Scotland by further separating the landowners from the people, I, nevertholess, fully admit I firmly believe that the Bill is strictly consistent with the spirit of Presbyterian Christianity. With respect to the Bill now before the House, and the reasons for its introduction, it is idle to say that there is nothing to correct. We all know that there are excesses on the part of clergymen in carrying on public worship in the rural districts. That these excesses have reached to a great extent we know. I have known firm Churchmen, who have subscribed in many instances towards the erection of Dissenting places of worship, that they might escape from those violations of their feelings which were constantly practised in too many parishes. Nay, I am acquainted with a town—I will not name the town—where such was the apprehension excited among the people by the accession of a new incumbent that a large Dissenting chapel sprung up, and was literally in use before the new incumbent had entered upon his duties, and had an opportunity of openly manifesting his opinions. Do not tell me, then, that the danger of disestablishment

  1169
  from the passing of this Bill is greater than the danger arising from circumstances such as I have now described. My firm conviction is, that, if nothing had boon done to correct these abuses, to bring the Broad Church clergy a little more within the compass of the law, and to prevent the adoption by the Ritualistic clergy of those symbols which indicate a decided Romish tendency; that although this feeling has not manifested itself in the usual form of agitation, there is yet a feeling rapidly spreading throughout the country that must have terminated the existence of the Church as a National Establishment. I deprecate the idea of disestablishment as much as any hon. Member can deprecate it; because I am convinced that if disestablished—the Church would be loss tolerant than she has been during her connection with the State.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, that it was evident from the observations of the hon. Member for Elgin, and from the speeches of right hon. Gentlemen below, that if the occupants of the front Opposition bench had been in office, this Bill would never have boon passed. As an independent Liberal Member, he desired to thank the Prime Minister for the plain and unvarnished way in which he had dealt with the measure, and also the hon. and learned Member for Oxford for the cordial assistance he had rendered the Government in passing a Bill which he believed would have a most peaceful and healing effect upon the Church. It was most satisfactory that a question of that nature, so calculated to arouse feeling, should have been discussed with so little excitement. That circumstance was due to two causes—in the first place to the wise discernment which had placed the conduct of the measure in the hands of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Recorder; and, secondly, to the good sense of the opponents of the measure, who, seeing what was the feeling of the House with regard to it, did not persist in opposing the Bill altogether, but confined themselves to amending it in Committee. But, what was to him the greatest source of satisfaction and an occasion for the highest congratulation was, the strong, unmistakeable, and irresistible determination displayed by the House to uphold the principles of the Reformation, and to insist that the
  1170
  Church of England should continue a Protestant Church. The hon. Member for Cambridge University had thought it necessary to enlarge on High Churchism and Ritualism. What the Bill really proposed to deal with, was the practices of those who, as had been well said, combined the pay of one Church with teaching the doctrines of another. It was that scandal and immorality which had roused public feeling and compelled the action of Parliament. The question was not as to High Church or Low Church, but, whether these men were Protestants or Roman Catholics—whether they were loyal members of the Church of England or disguised emissaries of another Church. He did not agree with those who thought that this was the commencement of the disestablishment of the Church. In his own opinion the measure had an opposite tendency.
  MR. HORSMANsaid, it must be a great satisfaction to the House to find that a measure of that character had approached its last stage without exciting those animosities and heats which so frequently attended the discussion of kindred subjects. He attributed that, in the first place, to the judicious selection of the right hon. and learned Gentleman by whom the measure was introduced into that House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Recorder had exhibited a perfect mastery of the subject, and had treated it in a way which had secured sympathy and confidence from all parts of the House. He must add, in justice to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope) and of those who acted with him, that that result was partly due to the good sense and judgment they had evinced in yielding to the feeling of the House of Commons, and endeavouring to amend, rather than oppose, the Bill. The greatest source of satisfaction, however, was the unmistakable and irresistible determination displayed by the House to uphold the principles of the Reformation and to insist that the Church of England should be a Protestant Church. The Bill was directed against that section of the clergy who were not Ritualists so much as Romanists. They were best described in the words used in that House many years ago by Lord Macaulay, who said he objected to clergymen of the Church of England combining the pay of one Church with teaching the

  1171
  doctrines of another. Beyond that, a feeling existed in the country that there were clergymen of the Church of England, who in virtue of their sacred office, had access to homes in the most confidential character, and who, under a system of concealment and deceit, had in many instances destroyed the peace and harmony of families. Those clergymen had carried more people over to Borne than all the Popes, Cardinals, and priests in the Church of Rome. It was that scandal which had aroused the indignation of the country and caused the intervention of Parliament. The question was, whether these clergymen were Protestants or Romanists. Did they uphold the doctrines of the Church of England or were they disguised emissaries of another Church? Work was promised to the House next Session of a more serious character, but it would be very much facilitated because the strength of parties had been so clearly ascertained. He believed the work of this year would be carried out more successfully in the coming Session. The right hon. Gentleman below him (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) had said, that was the commencement of the disestablishment of the Church. He hoped, however, and believed it would be very much the reverse. Indeed, his only doubt was, whether that action had not been taken too late. If it had been taken 20 years earlier it would have been better. No one could say whether it would be effectual now, but certainly it was the necessity of the case and the opinion of the country which had compelled this action. The motive was good, and he hoped the results would be effectual and advantageous.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that speaking for himself, he thought he might congratulate the House and the country that they had now arrived at the last stage of the Bill, and that all these discussions, which had no doubt seriously touched the matters men had most at heart, had been conducted with the greatest possible moderation. He should not have risen but for a remark which fell from his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot). It was true that he differed from his hon. and gallant Friend on one of the minor details of the Bill; but he believed that no one who had taken part in these discussions had spoken more strongly than
  1172
  he had done in favour of the principle of the measure. He took, an early opportunity of speaking on the second reading, and had always been anxious to see the Bill passed. He did not at all believe, that was the first step to-wards the disestablishment of the Church, for he could not imagine how such a result could be brought about by enacting that clergymen should obey the law which they had undertaken to obey. There would, in his judgment, have been far greater danger of disestablishment if this Bill had not been introduced. He hoped that the Bill, sharp and sudden remedy as it was, would be taken throughout the country in the sense of—as it was—a protest that, though in the Church of England, Parliament was perfectly willing to give all the liberty that was consistent with her rights and liberties, yet beyond that limit it would not allow the Establishment to go, either on the one side or on the other. The passing of the Bill would show that the law was to be upheld; and he was in great hopes that many clergymen would be perfectly willing and content to abide by that law, and that the measure would establish more permanently than ever peace in the Church.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he would endeavour to avoid even that partial reference to general topics of great breadth and importance which had been made by hon. Members who had taken part in the debate. Since the speech in which he endeavoured to open the broader aspects of the question, he had deliberately and advisedly confined himself to points of a strictly practical character, for he owned he was not so sanguine of the satisfactory effect of the great amount of ecclesiastical legislation by that House which some hon. Gentlemen, including his right hon. Friend the Member for Liskeard (Mr. Horsman), were looking forward to with eagerness and avidity. He confessed he thought that even the partial conversion of the House of Commons into an ecclesiastical Synod—constituted as it was, and appointed for other purposes—would be found to strain very severely not only the temper of the House, but its position and its working in the Constitution. As between the two opinions which had been expressed—one that the House, proceeding freely and readily in that direction, would greatly strengthen the National Establishment—

  1173
  and of the reason for which he quite understood the grounds—and the other that it would tend to shake and accelerate the day of the dissolution of the union between Church and State—he confessed he inclined to the latter and the more unfavourable rather than to the earlier and more sanguine view of the case. He had been compelled to rise in consequence of the speech of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot). He was unwilling to be misunderstood; but from long experience he knew perfectly well that misapprehension and misrepresentation of an involuntary character were the fate of all those who declined to concur exactly with the prevailing sentiments of the majority in times when religious feeling was to a certain degree excited. He spent the Session of 1851 in voting in minorities of about 30 or 40 against majorities of 400 or 500 on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. The composition of those minorities was no more attractive, than their numbers were such as to invite anyone to appear among them. In fact, those minorities were made up of Members of another religious communion from the Sister Isle—he need not describe them more particularly. Along with 30 or 35 of those hon. Gentlemen there voted about half-a-dozen Members of a now extinct political sect, called Peelites, to which he had the honour to belong, and likewise three or four good, stout, sturdy English Radicals, one of whom was Sir William Molesworth, another was Mr. Cobden, and a third was still a Member of that House, his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham. The reward he got for voting in those minorities was that in a religious newspaper, it was deliberately announced that he had been received into the Church of Home. Such was the reward he then obtained. But he eventually obtained another reward. He found that the counsels of the minority were in every point borne out by the result. Not a single attempt was made to put the law which had been inscribed in the Statute Book into operation against any Roman Catholic Prelate, while the aggressive spirit, which found perhaps freer scope in that communion now than at any former period, was encouraged and pampered by the legislation into which Parliament had been betrayed. Well, after about 22
  1174
  years, that statute was repealed with an unanimity—[Mr. NEWDEGATE: No, no!]—or an approach to unanimity, more marked than that with which it had been enacted. Of course, he did not moan to say that his hon. Friend, if he might be allowed so to call him, the Member for North Warwickshire, concurred in that repeal; but if the hon. Gentleman alone opposed the repeal, there was a greater approach to unanimity than there had been when the Act was passed. On this occasion, if the two causes had been similar, he would have adopted a like course, though he was now a great deal older, and had much less fight in him; but the two causes were not similar. In 1851 the whole attempt to legislate was, in his judgment, a folly. In 1874, however. he, for one, never denied that there was a cause for legislation. It was true he had considerable doubts as to the form and manner of legislation; but he had never for a moment denied that there was a cause for legislation, and therefore, having endeavoured to lay his views in some degree before the House, he had willingly refrained from any persistent attempt to enforce them. At the same time, he must say it was little flattering to one's vanity to find that, in the opinion of an intelligent, upright, and experienced Member of Parliament like the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Sussex, he had been so unsuccessful in conveying his ideas that the hon. and gallant Gentleman quietly, calmly, and evidently with a perfectly good conscience, got up and saddled upon him opinions directly the reverse of those which he had endeavoured practically to enforce. The hon. and gallant Gentleman appealed to him (Mr. Gladstone) on behalf of rural congregations, and said it was hard that they should be driven away from the Church, by the introduction of changes at the will and discretion of the clergyman, contrary to their own feelings and religious convictions. Why did the hon. and gallant Gentleman address such an appeal to him? He would rather address it to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who apparently had never done him the honour of reading his Resolutions. In them it was distinctly set forth that one great cause—perhaps the main cause of complaint against the Bill—was the insufficiency of the protection it afforded

  1175
  against precipitate and needless revivals and innovations by clergymen. There had been many revivals which ought not to have been allowed, and he should not be at all surprised if there were many more of these revivals under the Bill, contrary to the wishes of rural congregations. He lamented and regretted greatly that protection was not given to congregations, for during the last 40 years the greater part of the excitement which had existed in the country from time to time had been due, not to illegal, but to legal changes of Ritual, injudiciously made in defiance of local custom and feeling, and without any attempt to soothe or conciliate that feeling. He would refer the hon. and gallant Gentleman to the terms of one of his Resolutions in order to dissipate his delusion, and bring him to a correct historical view of the matter. It stated that the members of the Church should receive ample protection against precipitate and arbitrary changes by the sole will of the clergyman, which protection did not appear to be afforded by the provisions of the Bill. Therefore, it seemed that both the hon. and gallant Gentleman and himself had looked in the same direction, only he had gone a little further in that direction than the hon. and gallant Gentleman had, whilst he was now in the condition of being accused of having lagged behind. He understood the allusion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman as to the sweeping away of "ecclesiastical rubbish." The amount of his offence was, that he quoted a Statute of Henry VIII., and some other Acts of the period of the Reformation, to show what was the constitutional position of Metropolitan and Suffragan Bishops in this country; and he thought it no reproach, but the contrary, to our statute law that it was in accordance with the general voice of Christendom and of civilized mankind, which was embodied in a law which had stood the test of 15 centuries, in comparison with which our oldest constitutional law was but of yesterday. He concurred in the opinion that the vote of Friday night was a mistake, and he wished the Forms of the House had permitted another division on the subject. An examination of the Division List showed that the minority included a preponderance of Parliamentary years, and that it was made up mainly of superannuated Members,
  1176
  with whom he classed himself, while the majority embraced the youth and vigour of the House and the hope of the country. If the Forms of the House admitted of another discussion, he had no doubt the vote would be reversed. He earnestly joined, however, with those who had expressed their desire that the working of the Bill might be for peace, and he had never denied there had been just cause for drawing down the displeasure of the ecclesiastical authorities, of Parliament, and of the country; but he had been anxious that they should not confound and mix together those who were contumacious with many who were among the best and most valuable servants of the Church of England, and in whose minds the utmost alarm had been created by this Bill. He had been delighted to see that the Bishop of Ely at a diocesan meeting had endeavoured to prepare the minds of the clergy and laity for the reception of this Bill. It was not in their power to anticipate exactly what its operation might be, but he was sure it would require the utmost calmness, temperance, and discretion, to give a chance of effecting the beneficial objects its promoters had in view. He would appeal to hon. Members that each in his sphere should endeavour to avoid those dangerous regions of passion, misrepresentation, suspicion, and insinuation which it was so difficult to exclude from ecclesiastical controversy, and which, when they had found their way, whether within the walls of the Synod or of Parliament, so poisoned the atmosphere that even the upright might cease to be upright men for the business of the moment, and aims the most legitimate and beneficial were frequently defeated, simply because the temper in which they were sought was a temper rather of excitement than of judicial calmness, and because the desirableness of the thing was not always sufficiently associated with true scrupulousness as to the means by which it was to be gained.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEYsaid, that in reference to what had been said by his hon. Friend (Mr. Beresford Hope), he could assure him that the object of the Bill was to put down simply unlawful practices. It was not to put down any one particular party, but to put down disobedience to the law in the Church. It was on that ground alone

  1177
  that he had advocated the Bill. He knew perfectly well that at the same time, it would have particular effect upon one particular section of one particular party, because that one section had been particularly disobedient to the law; because, as they said, they thought that the law was not such as they thought they were bound to obey. It had been said that the giving an appeal from the Bishop to the Archbishop was contrary to all our practice, because it was what was called an appeal against an acquittal. It was, however, not at all an appeal against an acquittal; but it was an appeal against an objection to put the law in force, and it was an analogous case to that of a man brought before the magistrates, who refused to commit him, and who was not precluded on that account from being brought before a grand jury. He joined most heartily in the concluding appeal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich—that they should individually and collectively do all they could to prevent the measure from being viewed in an acrimonious manner, and to prevent the peace of the Church from being disturbed. He trusted that the Bill would receive the support of the House, and pass unscathed through any other tribunal.
  Bill read the third time; verbal Amendments made.
  Bill passed, with Amendments.

EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.

  COMMITTEE.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,in moving a Resolution relating to the Revenue Accounts of India for the year ending the 31st day of March, 1873, said, that the Annual Statement which was made in reference to Indian finance differed from that which was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, inasmuch as the Indian Statement dealt with the figures of three years instead of two years. In accordance with that practice, the figures which he had to place before the Committee, connected with the Revenue and Expenditure of India, were the Actual Accounts for 1872–3, the Regular Estimate for 1873–4, and the Budget Estimate for 1874–5. Complaints had
  1178
  sometimes been made by hon. Members that they were not able to ascertain the total expenditure for a year, in consequence of the system of accounts, which excluded from the ordinary accounts the expenditure upon extraordinary public works; he would endeavour to get rid of that objection, and in order to deal frankly and fairly with the Committee, he would first state the Revenue for the three years he had mentioned, and he would place against it the total Expenditure of those three years, including all the money which had been expended upon Public Works, Extrordinary as well as Ordinary, as well as the amount expended in averting the Famine.
  The Expenditure for 1872–3 amounted to £50,638,386, as against a Revenue of £50,219,489, showing an excess of expenditure of £418,897. For 1873–4, the first Famine year, the Expenditure amounted to £55,122,738, as against a Revenue of £49,478,795, showing an excess of expenditure of £5,643,943. For 1874–5—the Budget Estimate—the total Expenditure was estimated at £54,935,050, as against an estimated Revenue of £48,984,000, showing an excess of Expenditure over income of £5,951,050 making a total excess of Expenditure in those three years of £12,013,890. He would take these figures in another way excluding from the ordinary Expenditure of the year the Famine expenditure and the sums expended upon Public Works extraordinary. The Expenditure of 1872–3——was £48,453,817, as against a Revenue of £50,219,489, showing a surplus of £1,765,672. For 1873–4 the Expenditure amounted to £47,611,158 and the Revenue to £49,478,795, showing a surplus of £1,867,637; and for the Budget Estimate' of 1874–5 the ordinary Expenditure amounted to £47,792,000, against a Revenue of £48,984,000, showing a surplus of £1,192,000, making a surplus for the three years of £4,825,309. If the Committee would add to the deficit of the first table the surplus of the second table they would arrive at the exact amount of money spent during the three years in the construction of Public Works Extraordinary, and in averting the Famine—namely, £16,839,199 or £6,500,250 towards averting famine in Bengal, and £10,338,949 on Public Works Extraordinary, which latter were

  1179
  supposed to pay the interest of the money borrowed for their construction.
  The income and expenditure of every year of Indian finance were subjected to a treble ordeal and came before Parliament in three different stages. First in the shape of a Budget Estimate, the whole of the figures of which were those of estimate. Next year the figures came before them as a Regular Estimate, composed of eight months actual accounts and four months estimate, and finally they arrived at the actual year, the whole of the figures of which were those of actual account.
  He would take the Actual Accounts for 1872–3, and compare them with the Regular Estimate of last year. In the Regular Estimate of last year his hon. Friend and Predecessor (Mr. Grant Duff) calculated on a surplus, exclusive of Public Works Extraordinary, of £1,492,038; it now amounted to £1,765,672. There had been an increase under almost every head of receipt, except Irrigation Works, and the Land Revenue stood higher in that year than it had ever been before. The expenditure was £30,000 in excess of the Regular Estimate. Comparing the income and expenditure of 1872–3 with that of the former year, 1871–2, they arrived at this result—that the expenditure was about £1,500,000 in excess of the preceding year, and the receipts were about £100,000 in excess of the income of the same year.
  He now came to the Regular Estimate of 1873–4, and would for a moment exclude that moiety of the Famine expenditure, which was incurred during this financial year. On the Budget Estimate of 1873–4 there had been an estimated surplus of £140,000, and so carefully were the Estimates framed that Lord Northbrook considered himself justified in abolishing the Income Tax. The surplus this year had grown to £1,867,637. There had been an increase of Revenue under 17 heads—only five showing a decrease, two of them being Land Revenue and Customs, due no doubt to the Famine in Bengal. Opium showed an increase of £822,000, and both Stamps and Excise had considerably increased. On the other hand, there had been a decrease of expenditure of £535,000, and this year was also memorable from the fact that the Army expenditure was lower than it had been since 1863–4. Last year the Government
  1180
  determined to construct Public Works Extraordinary to the amount of £3,878,000 out of the Cash Balances; and they actually expended £3,591,330; yet the Cash Balances in consequence of the surpluses of preceding years stood £3,000,000 higher than was estimated last year. It was necessary during this year to spend nearly £4,000,000 in averting the consequences of famine, yet the whole of this expenditure had been defrayed out of these balances, and they only stood £910,000 lower than was estimated last year. The total Famine expenditure, as he had said, was £6,500,000, and it would be spread over two financial years in two unequal moieties—£3,900,000 over 1873–4, and £2,600,000 over 1874–5.
  He now came to the Budget Estimate of 1874–5, comparing it with the Regular Estimate of 1873–4. The Revenue showed a falling-off of about £500,000; "but, on the other hand, it was £700,000 in excess of the Budget Estimate of last year. The difference was entirely due to the careful estimate made in reference to the revenue which might be derived from opium. The Land Revenue showed an increase in the receipts of £364,500 over the preceding year, and stood higher than was ever known before. He would not enter into the disputed questions of permanent versus periodical settlement, but would simply state that the Secretary of State was in favour of moderate assessments. The Opium receipts for the year were £7,615,000, or less by £707,000 than the Regular Estimate of the preceding year. Excise and Forests were nearly stationary. There had been a decrease of £72,000 upon Salt. This was not owing to a falling-off on the Salt Revenue, but the result of a very important Customs improvement effected by Lord Northbrook. The Committee were aware that salt was taxed at different rates and in a different manner in different Provinces of India. There was a Customs line of 2,400 miles in length; which line might be divided into two parts, one of 1,600 miles, running from the upper Indus to Burhanpur, and separating our territories from those of the native princes of Rajpootana and the Indore Agency. The other part consisted of 800 miles running from Burhanpur to the Bay of Bengal. Both sides of this line belonged to us, and the

  1181
  greatest inconvenience had been experienced by the levy of duties along this inland line. There was great unanimity of opinion on this subject. Sir George Campbell who had been Governor of Bengal as well as Commissioner of the Central Provinces said—
  "Throughout the Chief Commissioner's tour it has seemed to him that the Customs line has been felt by the people as a greater grievance than all other grievances put together; no one can travel along the valleys of the Nerbudda and the Wurdha without being liable to constant search by endless Customs officers of low degree, posted at very short intervals, armed with iron search-forks of the nature of cheese-tasters."
  The Indian Government had, therefore, determined to abolish this line; but, as the Salt Duty was considerably higher on one side of it than on the other, they were obliged to take certain steps to protect the Revenue. A Bill had been introduced into the Legislative Council to accomplish this important reform; and to prevent the Salt Duties from being evaded. That was done by a mileage duty on all the salt brought up from Bombay, so graduated that by the time it arrived in the Central Provinces the amount payable upon it would be as much as the present tax; and on the other side the scale was graduated in a different manner, but it was hoped with a similar result. He attached the greatest importance to that alteration of Customs duties. There were two different schools of thought in regard to the Salt Duties. Men of great experience and knowledge of India maintained that they could not diminish the high duties now levied on salt without great risk to the Revenue. On the other hand, others contended that the duty might be reduced and that the great increase of consumption would be a compensation for that reduction. There was a remarkable fact in support of the latter view—that although the tax was lower in Madras and Bombay than in Bengal, the amount of consumption per head was so much greater than in Bengal, that the actual tax paid per head in the more lightly taxed Presidencies was greater than in Bengal. He therefore thought that the abolition of the Customs line was valuable as an experiment to show whether reduction led to increased consumption. If it could be proved that the Salt Duties could be lowered without loss to the revenue, during time of emergency, it
  1182
  would be possible to re-impose the higher duty, not merely upon the present consumption but upon the increased consumption created by the reduction of the duty. The Customs Duties showed an increase of £113,000. The increase and decrease of other heads of Revenue were unimportant. The Forest revenues remained about the same. The Forest revenues had been very much neglected, but the Department was now placed under the able supervision of Dr. Brandis and Colonel Pearson; and with the attention these gentlemen had given to the subject, the Forests would, it was hoped, form in future a not unimportant item of national revenue.
  He now came to the Expenditure of 1873–4, which, including that of the Famine, was £1,150,408 below that of the preceding year. That was accounted for by the reduced Famine expenditure, which was less by £1,340,000 than that of the preceding year. There was a slight decrease in the charges for administration, notwithstanding the fact that a Commission had been appointed for Assam which entailed an additional charge, and there was also an increase of £42,000 for stationery. There was likewise an increase under the head of interest of £100,500, the effect of the contemplated loan operations. Summarizing the Revenue of 1874–5, he might state that the Revenue was estimated at £1,250,000 below the actual receipts of 1872–3; but that was nearly accounted for by the difference in the estimated receipt for Opium. The Expenditure, comparing it with 1872–3, was £660,000 less, and that although the Opium charges exceeded those of that year by £300,000.
  He had stated that the Famine expenditure amounted to £6,500,000, and was divided between the two years. The Famine operations might be divided into five distinct heads—the purchase of grain and transport; the encouragement given by the Government to private traders by reduction of freights and suspension of tolls on roads and ferries; the employment of the ablebodied; loans to corporations and private persons; and the provision of charitable relief. The first and chief item was the purchase of grain, £4,000,000; payment to railways for transport of Government grain, £450,000; payment also for the transport of private grain, £450,000; contracts

  1183
  for transport in Tirhoot, £435,000; Durbungah Railway, £200,000; transport, including steam-vessels from England, £499,250; charitable grants, £250,000; supervision, £135,000; making a total of £6,419,250.
  He next passed to Public Works Extraordinary, with regard to which, as he had already stated on a former occasion, the Government of India determined in July 1873 to expend, during the four years ending 1877–8, the sum of £17,000,000, of which sum they proposed to expend £4,500,000 during the present year. The Committee would see that in consequence of the heavy Famine expenditure and the Public Works expenditure, it would be necessary to raise money on loan, and he (Lord George Hamilton), had introduced a Bill at the beginning of the Session to empower the Indian Government to raise £10,000,000. The Secretary of State had availed himself of that power to raise £5,000,000, and the Governor General had borrowed £2,500,000 in India. They had also received on loan a sum of £860,000 from the Maharajahs Holkar and Scindia for railways constructed through their dominions, making the total amount raised by loan £8,360,000. The total amount expended during two years in Famine expenditure and Public Works Extraordinary was £14,654,000. The difference between that amount and the amount borrowed "was defrayed out of the Cash Balances, which stood excessively high in consequence of the surpluses of preceding years. There would thus be an increase in the charges of interest in future years; but, on the other hand, there would be a reduction arising through the redemption of the capital Stock of the East India Company, and the reduction on that redemption would amount to an annual saving of £446,793. Having now done with figures, he would consider the main sources of expenditure. The first item was the military expenditure, which the Indian Government, since the year 1868–9, had succeeded in reducing by about £1,000,000 sterling. Not only so, but they had maintained the European Force in as great numbers, and in a state of as high efficiency as before. That result had been entirely due to economical administration, and it was more than probable that
  1184
  a still further reduction would be effected. The Secretary of State had given his sanction this year to a scheme for accelerating the retirement of officers, and Lord Northbrook attached great importance to it as the keystone for the future reforms of the Native Army of India. A Committee of that House had sat to consider the subject of Home charges. They directed their attention to some of the military charges in this country, and he trusted that the results of their deliberations would tend to the reduction of the sums paid by India to this country, without imposing upon England any burden which she could not fairly be called upon to pay.
  The provincial allotments were about the same as last year. The decentralization system of Lord Mayo had been greatly attacked both in and out of the House, upon the ground that it would cause increased cesses, and lead to the imposition of fresh cesses in different Provinces. If any such increase had taken place, it was due, not to decentralization, but to the great improvements in judicial machinery. Lord Northbrook had collected information from the Governors of the various Provinces, and they were unanimously of opinion that Lord Mayo's decentralization scheme had reduced the friction between the Supreme Government and Local Governments; and as Lord Northbrook was aware of the importance of checking any undue local expenditure, the good to be derived in the future would be still greater than that experienced in the past.
  He would now advert to the guaranteed railway system. There had been 6,201 miles sanctioned, of which 5,490 miles had been completed, and the remainder were in course of construction. The total outlay was estimated at £96,000,000 sterling, of which £92,000,000 had been spent, and the cost, including Government contributions, and one eighth being double track, was £16,480 per mile. The loss upon the guaranteed interest was £2,110,000 in 1872–3, £1,567,000 in 1873–4, and in 1874–5, £1,394,000, showing a considerable decrease, which was due probably, to some extent, to the excessive traffic in grain for the transport of which the Government had paid. There could be no doubt that there had been a great increase in

  1185
  railway traffic in India; but the increase had not been such as the Government had a right to expect, and the great difficulty as to railway success in India lay in the non-expansiveness of the passenger traffic. The Government of India had determined to construct railways in future themselves, and the want of expansiveness which had manifested itself in that traffic must be carefully taken into consideration in the sanction which might be given to the construction of railways by the State. The year, however, had not been an uninteresting one as regarded experiments in railway making. At the commencement of the Famine, a line very much of the character of a tramway had been laid down between the Ganges and Durbungah, and it had been very creditably constructed at the rate of a mile a day. It had also been shown that light railways, partaking more of the character of tramways, were what were required, rather than the costly lines we were accustomed to in England.
  He passed on to the most important subject in connection with this Financial Statement, and that was the proposed expenditure on Public Works. In 1868, a stricter line was drawn between Public Works which were to be constructed out of ordinary revenue, and those which were to be constructed with borrowed money. It was then laid down that only those works which showed a fair prospect of repaying interest on the money borrowed for their construction, should be classed under Public Works Extraordinary, that was works constructed with borrowed money. The Government of India did not intend to avail themselves any further of the system of guarantee for the construction of railways. In consequence, £12,000,000 would be expended on Government railways during the next four years. The Secretary of State was most anxious that only works of a reproductive nature should in future be constructed out of borrowed money, and he had therefore intimated that only those works which would pay the interest upon the amount borrowed for their construction should be termed Public Works Extraordinary, the cost of all other works to be included in the ordinary expenditure of the year.
  He (Lord George Hamilton) passed on from Public Works expenditure to
  1186
  expenditure which was very closely connected with the Public Works Department, and which he would call the Famine expenditure. The Government of India had had imposed upon them during the past year the duty of saving from famine and starvation a very large number of their subjects, and Lord Northbrook and his advisers were quite prepared to submit to the result of the policy which had thus been imposed upon them. In the Financial Resolutions which were published on the 25th of April this year, the Government of India pointed out that famines in India were not like the Irish Famine, which was an exceptional occurrence, but that famines in India occurred with regularity during certain periods. During the last 10 years there had been no less than three famines—one in Orissa in 1866, another in the North-Western Provinces in 1868, and another in Bengal in 1873. Therefore, the Government of India deemed it necessary that certain provisions should be made in order to carry out this famine policy. Successive Secretaries of State had laid down, as a principle, that the ordinary Revenue should exceed the ordinary Expenditure by £500,000, and Lord Northbrook, in addition, proposed that there should be a margin besides this surplus, and that the margin should make provisions for checking the consequences of famine in the future. Now, famine might be averted, or, rather, the consequences of it, in two ways—first by pouring food by sheer expenditure of money into the distressed districts. But no return was got for that money beyond the satisfaction of saving life. On the other hand, famines could be rendered less likely to occur by famine preventive works, and a certain return might be reasonably expected from such works. He (Lord George Hamilton) had, during the short time he had held the post he then occupied, had the pleasure of talking with many men of eminence who were connected with India, and there seemed to be an almost unanimous opinion among them that there had never been a year in India in which there was not sufficient food on the Continent of India for the whole of the people in India, and that the very causes which produced famine in one part of India produced an unusually

  1187
  abundant harvest in another; and certainly this year, while there had been a famine on an enormous scale in Bengal, there had been an unusually abundant harvest in the Punjab; therefore, it seemed that a primary object should be to open out the resources of the country by the construction of railways, and other means of communication. Irrigation works were no doubt useful in preventing drought, at the same time there was a certain difficulty in making them pay which must not be overlooked. Let them take Tirhoot for instance, the scone of the present famine; nine years out of ten it had plenty of rain, the tenth year the want of rain would probably affect the amount of water in the canal; and even if there was sufficient water for irrigation they would have difficulty during a time of distress in enforcing payment for the use of the water. It had not escaped the attention of the Secretary of State, that if a general sanction were given to famine preventive works, a certain number of schemes which would not come under the head of reproductive works might be constructed out of borrowed money; and, to guard against that, he had pointed out to the Indian Government that although he would not obstruct or forbid the construction of such works out of borrowed money, the expenditure must be included in the ordinary expenditure of the year. Therefore, the second point to which the Secretary of State had called the attention of the Indian Government, was that they should meet the expenditure necessary for the construction of all works, except those of a reproductive character, out of the ordinary income of the year.
  A large expenditure on Public Works had boon sanctioned—although, as he (Lord George Hamilton) pointed out, that expenditure was sanctioned before Lord Salisbury came into office—to meet that expenditure it would be necessary to raise loans. At present the disbursements in England exceeded £15,000,000 per annum, of which upwards of £'6,500,000 went in payment of interest, including guaranteed interest on railway capital. It was a well known axiom of political economy that if any one nation had to pay a large annual sum to another nation in the shape of tribute, or in any other form, the country making the payment lost in two ways; it not only lost the actual
  1188
  sum thus paid, but the equation of international exchange being upset by this payment, it paid more for its imports, and obtained less for its exports. The Secretary of State was therefore most anxious to reduce the Home Charges in England, and he had intimated to the Indian Government that if it should be necessary to borrow for reproductive works, the money must be borrowed in India.
  The three points, therefore, of the financial Despatch which the Secretary of State had addressed to India were as follow:—1. No works in future except those which would yield a revenue at least equal to the interest on the cost of construction were to be made with borrowed money. 2. That all wants of the year, with the exception of reproductive works, were to met out of the income of the year. 3. If any money be borrowed, it must be borrowed in India. It was said in the debate on the India Councils Bill by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Pawcett), that if a Minister of Works were added to the Council of India, the Secretary of State would encourage excessive expenditure; but, as he (Lord George Hamilton) had pointed out, the object of that Bill was to prevent excessive expenditure, and to require a full account of the money expended, so that we should know whether we had got value for the money that was expended. If his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India had intended an increase of expenditure he would not have laid down those three conditions.
  Speaking generally, he (Lord George Hamilton) thought he was entitled to say that if they could only control the Public Works and get the money's worth out of the Public Works Department, the condition of Indian finance was satisfactory. Exceptional expenditure amounting to upwards of £14,000,000 had been incurred during the past two years, and only £8,000,000 had been borrowed, the difference having been met out of the surpluses of the preceding years and Cash Balances.
  Many people would, undoubtedly, maintain that the present financial condition of India was open to certain objections; that it displayed little elasticity; that the revenue derived from opium was very precarious; and that in cases of emergency it would be difficult to increase taxation. Now, he for one

  1189
  did not desire to shirk the difficulties of Indian finance. On the contrary, he desired to face them, and to deal with them frankly and dispassionately. First of all, then, with regard to the want of elasticity. There were two sources of revenue which indicated pretty clearly the condition of the lower orders in India—the Salt and the Excise Duties—because they were almost the only two which were derived from articles of consumption. Well, he found the Excise Duty had during the last 10 years increased 35 per cent. and the Salt Duty. 39, though scarcely any alteration had been made in the rate levied on the Salt Duty. He was perfectly aware that the Indian revenue had not increased with the same elasticity as English revenue; but that was not the fault of the system, but was a consequence of the entirely different condition of the two countries. Recent Returns in reference to local taxation at home had shown the very much larger ratio in which personal property had increased as compared with real property. It was that increase which had made English revenue so elastic. In India, an old and settled country, there was a dearth of that personal wealth, and that was the cause why the Revenue of India had not shown the same elasticity as the English Revenue. Then as to the charge that a certain proportion of the Indian Revenue was precarious. No doubt, that was true to some extent of the Opium Revenue; but there was no country in the world which had not certain items of Revenue which were precarious—for instance, the Revenue of this country for 1873–4 amounted to £65,000,000, and of that we raised £37,000,000 on tobacco, spirits, and beer, clearly analogous sources of Revenue to that of opium. Although the gross receipts from opium amounted to over £8,000,000, yet there were large disbursements, amounting to some £2,000,000, to be set against those receipts. He also freely admitted, however, that the incidence of taxation in India was not quite in accordance with European ideas, and also that the tariff might require revision. But what he would say was—"Give us a little time." The income tax had been abolished in India, but that was the instrument by which almost all the beneficial reforms in English finance had been carried out. Such reforms might be easy in theory,
  1190
  but in practice they were difficult, for the inconvenience of sacrificing a certain amount of revenue might more than counterbalance the advantages which might otherwise be derived. At the same time, the Secretary of State was of opinion that there were three cardinal points to be attended to. The first was, to render the Indian Government as independent as possible of the Opium Revenue; the second, to equalize as far as possible the incidence of taxation; and, thirdly, so to alter the tariff of Export and Customs duties as to encourage trade and commerce, thus creating fresh Sources of wealth which would be available as fresh sources of taxation in time of emergency.
  Having thus, not unfairly, he hoped, placed before the Committee the conditions of Indian Finance, he might take credit for two things which would prominently characterize the year 1874–5. If one wanted to ascertain whether a nation was taxed in excess of her resources, the money market was the most accurate and delicate gauge for that purpose. It was a curious coincidence that the nearer nations lay to the Equator, and the warmer their climate, the worse was the state of their credit, and the greater the amount of their indebtedness. A warm latitude begot high interest, and high interest meant bad security. But there was one exception to the rule, and that was India. India stood next to England in the money market. He did not deny she owed that advantage to her connection with England, because it was due to English financial capacity and English administrative skill, which had secured to India the inestimable benefit of peace and order. We had never borrowed, either in England or India, upon easier terms than during the present year. That was the first fact. The second fact was the object for which the money had been borrowed. It was borrowed simply to save millions of the poorest and the humblest of Her Majesty's subjects from the fate which otherwise inevitably awaited them—death by starvation. Political Economy or Political Philosophy might say that was a task which no Government ought to, or could successfully undertake. In reply, he would simply say that the duty was imposed on the. Indian Government by the unanimous wish of the English people. And that duty had been fulfilled to the very

  1191
  letter. So adequate had been Lord Northbrook's preparations, so perfect his schemes, that those who wished to find fault—and there were always plenty of such persons—complained now that there never had been any famine at all. He would not waste time by answering such an assertion. It was only due to Lord Northbrook that he should express his opinion, that all the praise bestowed upon him was only an inadequate expression of the value of Lord Northbrook's services. That noble Lord had not only given unremitting attention to the operations against the famine, but had absolutely denied himself during the hot months that recreation and change of air which were almost essential to a hard worked European in a hot climate. He had preferred to stop in Calcutta, so that he might be at hand in case of any emergency. And, well had Lord Northbrook been supported by the late and present Lieutenant Governors of Bengal. Sir George Campbell, though in failing health, had declined to leave the country until he had himself so far matured his part of the scheme of relief that he could safely entrust it to another. Sir Richard Temple, with indefatigable energy, had visited every portion of the famine district, and cheered by his voice and example those officers who so nobly performed their duty. He would not attempt to describe to the Committee the horrors which had been averted, or the miseries from which the people of a part of Bengal had been saved. Edmund Burke had well described "the plague of hunger "—
  "Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is."
  It was against a plague such as that, upon a scale almost unknown, that the Indian Government for the past year had been successfully conducting a campaign, and was he too sanguine in hoping that the result would be lasting? He could not believe that the mere fact of English officers of every grade, from the highest to the lowest, toiling day and night to save the poor suffering ryot from the fate which inevitably awaited him, could fail to produce a just impression on the susceptible and quick-witted race over whom we ruled. And though previous years might have shown a nicer
  1192
  adjustment between income and expenditure than 1874–5, yet he honestly believed there never was a financial year the results of which would more tend to create and increase between England and India that reciprocal sympathy, that interlacing of mutual interests and regard, which every statesman must regard as the foundation upon which our great Asiatic Empire could securely rest. He begged to thank the Committee for the attention with which they had heard him, and would conclude by moving the Resolution.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it appears by the Accounts laid before this House that the total Revenue of India for the year ending the 31st day of March 1873 was £50,219,489; the charges in India, including the collection of the Revenue, Interest on Debt, and Public Works ordinary, were £38,205,212; the charges in England (including £1,146,116, the value of Stores supplied to India) were £8,138,104; the Guaranteed Interest on the Capital of Railway and other Companies in India and in England, deducting net Traffic Receipts, was £2,110,501, making a total charge for the same year of £48,453,817; and there was an excess of Income over Expenditure in that year amounting to £1,765,672; that the charge for Public Works extraordinary was £2,184,569, and that including that charge the excess of Expenditure over Income was £418,897."—(Lord George Hamilton.)
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, no one more regretted than he did that there was not a fuller House to hear the clear and able statement of his noble Friend. It was also much to be regretted that the Indian Budget had been brought forward at the very fag-end of the Session, for no one acquainted with the feelings of the people of India could doubt that this would produce the worst possible impression—a worse impression than a more serious practical grievance. In previous years the people of India had, at least, the satisfaction, whatever it might be worth, of being told that the Budget could not have been brought forward, because there was other important Business before the House; but that year they were only comforted by the reflection that the Indian Budget was introduced on the 3rd of August, because a fortnight had been occupied by the Government in struggling over a Bill of which, according to their own confession, they did not understand a single clause. Sometimes he had been accused of taking

  1193
  a gloomy and pessimist view of Indian finance, but he never thought it was in a hopeless condition. All he had contended for was, that it was in an extremely critical condition—a condition so critical, indeed, that if certain great fundamental principles were not observed, Indian finance might soon become almost irretrievable. On the other hand, he was free to admit that Indian finance might be recovered, and placed in a perfectly satisfactory and sound position; and he felt bound to confess that, in spite of the Famine expenditure, he was far more hopeful of the future of Indian finance than he ever had been since he had troubled the Committee with remarks on the subject. He was bound to express the most complete confidence in the present Governor General, Lord Northbrook, as an administrator. His Lordship clearly recognized the fact that India was a poor country. What had done more than anything else to contribute to the financial embarrassments in India was the conclusion that India was inexhaustibly rich; but Lord Northbrook clearly recognized the fact that not only was she poor, but that her resources for taxation were small. Lord Northbrook had, undoubtedly, conducted his financial administration with extraordinary assiduity, and with an unswerving resolution to be economical. The result was, that many items of expenditure, which formerly presented a serious increase, had now been most materially reduced. Hitherto, the whole strength of English public opinion had been in favour of spending Indian public money; but he believed the House of Commons might render invaluable assistance to Lord Northbrook by reversing the current of public opinion in this respect. Having spoken those words in favour of Lord Northbrook, he was bound to say that, after the speech of the noble Lord opposite, he felt great confidence in the financial administration of Lord Salisbury, the Secretary of State for India. He, therefore, regretted that in connection with the noble Lord he had used strong language when speaking upon his policy, for when he last spoke on the subject he described Lord Salisbury as being determined to launch out into a great scheme of public works expenditure, and he was quite sure the Under Secretary would admit he was justified' in his apprehensions by the
  1194
  speeches delivered by Lord Salisbury in "another place," in introducing the India Councils Bill. He now understood, however, from the speech of the noble Lord who had just sat down, that Lord Salisbury had determined to stand firm to the following great principles—First, that no works should be carried out in India, save under exceptional circumstances, by means of borrowed money, unless it could be proved that the work was likely to repay the interest on outlay; secondly, that all public works which would not pay interest on outlay must be carried out by the ordinary surplus revenue of the country; and, thirdly, that borrowed money should be obtained from India, and not from England. More important principles it would be impossible to lay down; but their whole utility and efficiency would consist in the extent to which care was taken before a reproductive work was commenced, to ascertain what was the evidence of its being likely to be reproductive in the future. There had been works promising to be reproductive constructed in India—some of which had produced loss than 1 per cent. some had produced nothing, and. some had had to be abandoned altogether. That, however, was a matter which depended on the vicissitudes of trade. If they wished to see the real state of India financially, they should not take any particular year; and he would draw no unnecessarily gloomy conclusions from the years 1873–4 and 1874–5, which had been rendered worse than they otherwise would have been by the exceptional expenditure caused by the Famine. A fairer and juster view of the subject might be obtained by taking several years together. Now, what had been the financial condition of India during the last seven years, and during the previous 10 years? He took the last seven years because, in an able statement issued on the Motion of his hon. Friend the late Under Secretary for India, it was stated that in 1868–9 the unfavourable years ceased, and an era of greater prosperity commenced. In a comparison of revenue and expenditure it was absolutely necessary to include extraordinary public works. Most of these works which had been constructed during the last few years did not pay interest on the outlay. Many of them, indeed, had not returned any revenue at

  1195
  all. There had been barracks, for example, classed as extraordinary public works. During the last seven years, which had been described as a period of great financial prosperity, the aggregate deficit had been £16,500,000; therefore, if they excluded the famine expenditure, which was stated to be. £6,500,000, the deficit during that period would be no less than £10,000,000. These were not exceptional years. In the nine previous years, when what was known as the Budget system commenced, the aggregate deficit was £10,000,000, and during that time there were only two years of nominal surplus. In the three years previously to 1868–9, India borrowed £6,500,000 to make up deficiencies, and in addition to that her cash balances were reduced by£3,500,000, and therefore an addition of £9,500,000 ought to be made to the large deficit he had mentioned. He might further observe that many of the charges transferred from the Imperial to the local funds were increasing charges, and that consequently each year the amount which the local authorities had to make up had been steadily increasing. Therefore, although there might not be any increase in Imperial taxation during the last few years, yet the amount raised by local taxation during the last seven years had increased by no less than 50 per cent. The great principle to be borne in mind in regard to India was, that, from the nature of the case, her revenue only grew slowly, and unless great care was taken her expenditure must increase. In that state of things the most rigid economy ought to be practised. The slowness in the increase of the revenue could be proved by figures and also by considerations as to the condition of the population. The great bulk of the people lived by agriculture, and on extremely small wages, their circumstances resembling in some respects that of the agricultural population of Ireland immediately before the famine. With regard to the actual revenue during the last seven years—the period of exceptional financial prosperity—it showed very little increase at all, if the amount of the income tax, now repealed, was deducted. He would ask the Committee to contrast the trifling increase of revenue with the great increase in the expense of administration. Sir John Strachey said, and he entirely
  1196
  concurred with him, that the increase of expenditure was duo to two causes for which no one was particularly responsible. He stated that after the Indian Mutiny in 1857, the administration of India had become far more expensive, and added that in consequence of the enormous balance of trade, which necessitated a large importation of bullion into that country, a great rise in prices had been brought about. He showed conclusively also that that rise affected far more the expenditure than the revenue, thus throwing the balance on the wrong side. In 1856–7, the cost of law, justice, and police in India was £2,500,000, while in 1868–9 it was no less than £4,100,000, or an increase of 70 per cent. Taking the year 1869, and comparing it with the year 1870, he found that, while the expenditure in the former year for stationery and printing was only £170,000, it had in the latter increased to £250,000; while this year it appeared there was an increase of £40,000. Again, for the Bombay Establishment in 1856–7 the charge was £201,000, and in 1870 no less than £360,000, or an increase of 70 per cent; the household expenses of the Governor of Bombay having risen from £7,000 in 1856–7—probably owing to the increase of prices—to £21,000, or 300 per cent. The medical charges, which in 1856–7 were £160,000, were in 1870 no less than £520,000, or an increase of 320 percent. There was another way in which he thought he might make the point which he was endeavouring to impress on the Committee perfectly clear. A better illustration of the increasing costliness of the administration of India could not be given than the increased cost of collecting the revenue, and he found that the cost of collecting the land and opium revenue—he believed the same remark would apply to other branches of revenue—was just 100 per cent more than the increase in the revenue itself. But the increase in the expenditure became still more striking when the Home charges were taken into consideration. These charges were something 'like £15,000,000, and although he was aware that a portion of that amount was simply a matter of account, yet it must be borne in mind that in the course of comparatively a few years these charges had no loss than doubled. Taking the Homo charges for the present year, he found

  1197
  that for absentee allowances and Civil Service furlough they had increased in a single year from £160,000 to £250,000. There was observable, too, the same constant tendency to accumulate charges on the revenues of India. For instance, when the Engineers' College at Cooper's Hill was established, he and others had objected to the proposal, because, among other reasons, it would impose a serious burden on those revenues, but they were told it would be self-supporting. Now, however, it appeared that it would entail a charge on India of £24,000 a-year, which did not include the interest on the sum which had been expended in purchasing the estate. What was the practical evidence to be drawn under those circumstances? It was that if there was a slowly increasing revenue and a rapidly increasing expenditure, there must inevitably be an increase of taxation, unless the expenditure could be kept down by practising the most rigid economy. Now, the increase of taxation was a serious thing in any country. If they wanted to raise £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 in this country to make up a deficit, there were 20 ways in which it might be done, and no one would pretend to say that it would necessarily impede the progress of the nation, although it might be regarded as an evil and a misfortune oven in a rich country like England; but it would be a far greater evil and misfortune in the case of India, and in dealing with taxation in that country it was absolutely necessary that a financier should study the genius and character of the people. The Indian people loved rest and repose, and nothing annoyed them more than the threat of increased taxation. Nothing had done so much harm to our rule within the last few years as the constant proposals with which the Indian people had been worried with respect to new taxes. Not a year went by without some new cess or some petty new impost being proposed or suggested. One year it was a tax on marriage feasts, another year it was a local income tax, almost reaching the pauper with 2s. a-week, and another year it was a tax on household furniture, and so on. He understood it was insisted upon by Indian officials—for instance, by the Governor of Madras—that the time had come when the practice of worrying the people ought to be stopped, and a pledge should be
  1198
  given them that except in case of war, no new tax would be imposed for the next 30 years. That would be laying down a valuable principle for the future guidance of Indian statesmen. Supposing that by embarking in some rash scheme of public works for India they were landed in a deficit of £5,000,000, what would they have to do? In England £5,000,000 could be raised by a 3d. income tax; but India was so poor that that sum could not be raised without an income tax of 2s. 6d. in the pound—an impost which it would be impossible to levy and hold the country in peace and tranquillity. What was the practical conclusion? That they should do all in their power to strengthen the Governor General and the Secretary of State in pursuing a policy of economy. They should do more—they should when the Indian Budget was before the House for Home charges, exercise the same close supervision over the items as was done with respect to our own Budget. If that had been done under former Governments and in past years, the present financial position and future prospects of India would have been much more satisfactory. The guarantee for Indian railways might now be a diminishing charge, but still it was a most serious one. That charge on the revenues of India would not be nearly as large as it was now but for the disgraceful carelessness and extravagance with which the contracts between the guaranteed railways and the Indian Government had been drawn up. Even admitting the principle of those guarantees, there was no reason why the contracts should be so onesided against India as they now were. But in future a great savingmight be effected in regard to guaranteed railways. One of the clauses in those railway contracts was called the Annuity or Commutation Clause. At the end of 25 years from the period of the first contract it was possible for the Government to buy up the railways from the existing proprietors by giving them an annuity for 75 years, estimated at the then price of the stock, and calculated according to the current rate of interest, estimated by the amount at which the Indian Government could borrow money. Unhappily that right of purchasing had been surrendered in the case of three important railways—namely, the Madras, the Bombay and Baroda, and the Great Indian

  1199
  Peninsula. That right could be surrendered by the Secretary of State at any moment without concert with the authorities in India or the consent of that House. He did not suppose the Secretary of State would surrender it; but if the Under Secretary, in the name of his Chief, would give a promise that that right of purchasing those railways, by bringing into operation that Annuity or Commutation Clause, would not be abandoned in the case of any other guaranteed Indian railways, without previously consulting Parliament, it would effect a most important saving. That opinion was expressed in a Despatch from Lord Mayo and signed by all his Council, who objected to that clause being surrendered in the three cases he had named. He had calculated that by paying an annuity of something like £4 14 s. a-year instead of £5, on each £100, for 7.5 years, the Indian Government, through the operation of that clause, would at the end of that period have acquired the property in those railways, and the payment would cease altogether. He did not ask for a pledge that the railways would be purchased, but for a promise that the right of purchasing them would not be given up until Parliament had had an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the subject. That money could be borrowed on the security of India at a little over 4 per cent might be a proof that the credit of the Indian Government was only second to that of England itself. The low rate of interest was, without doubt, due to a great extent to the confidence which was felt in the stability of British rule in India, but that was not the only reason. There was a vague impression existing in the public mind in India that England would in the last resource be responsible for the Indian debt. That impression was strengthened by the unfortunate passing of an Act which allowed trust moneys to be invested in Indian securities, and therefore he thought it could not be too explicitly stated that England was no more responsible for the Indian debt, than she was for the debt of any other of her Colonies. The holders of Indian securities were now receiving a great deal more of interest than they would be entitled to, if England were responsible for the debt, and therefore he urged the importance of making it clear, if such was the case, that there was no English
  1200
  guarantee at the back of the Indian debt. He regarded the English policy with regard to public works as by far the most important question connected with Indian finance at the present time; and in connection with this question, he wished to endorse what had been said by the Under Secretary for India in reference to Lord Northbrook, who had shown some of the highest qualities of a statesman. Instead of giving way to the excitement which was created, the noble Lord had stood firm, and. displayed energy, zeal, and devotion, which, though they had procured for him some unpopularity, had been of great and unspeakable service to the country over which he ruled as Viceroy. The exhibition of these qualities had not been confined to Lord Northbrook, but had also distinguished Sir Richard Temple and the other officials who had been engaged in carrying out Lord Northbrook's policy. With regard to the public works, there were two entirely opposed schools. One party contended that the works ought to be constructed, even though they did not pay directly, on account of the indirect advantages which they conferred upon the country. Judging from recent speeches of the Secretary of State for India, he had concluded that the noble Marquess held this view, and it was, therefore, with great satisfaction that he had heard the noble Lord the Under Secretary state the view of his Chief to be that no public works were to be constructed in India with borrowed money, unless it could be proved that they would pay the interest on the outlay. The impression he had received upon the point had been shared in by Sir Arthur Cotton, one of the most enthusiastic and skilful engineer officers who had ever served in India. The other view maintained in reference to this question was, that no public works should be constructed in India unless they paid for themselves, and that the Government ought not to seek to prevent famines by these means, but by attempting to deal not merely with the physical but with the moral causes which led to them; for nothing seemed so unsatisfactory connected with the population of the country, as that when famine came upon them they had no accumulated stock of food to fall back upon. His own view was that great care and caution ought to be exercised, for it had been shown,

  1201
  both with regard to irrigation and railway works, that there was in the Native mind a strong indisposition to use them when constructed. He would be the last to say a single word against the construction of public works in India. If such works were constructed out of the revenue and savings of the year, they would be productive of great benefit. If, however, they were constructed through the medium of borrowed money, all experience showed that the question whether they would pay or not was so grave a problem that, in the present state of Indian finance, the utmost and most scrupulous care should be taken and caution adopted before such a course was entered upon. He was happy to think that the House of Commons and the people of this country were beginning to take greater interest than they heretofore did in the affairs of India. Some people were apprehensive that the fact might lead to undue and unnecessary interference in Indian affairs. Such, he believed, would not be the case. There were many services which England could render to India, not only with regard to good government, but in the interests of economy. They could advocate that the policy of justice, wisdom, and economy should be more fully carried out, and that the Natives should be more generally employed than they now were in the various branches of the public service. As he had already said, he did not take a desponding view of Indian finance, and he had carefully avoided censuring any person for what had already occurred. He had, he thought, proved that Indian finance was in a critical position, and that if great care were not taken with respect to expenditure, that position might become extremely serious. But he thought that if the policy of economy which had been commenced were continued, Indian finance would soon become as satisfactory as could be desired, that all the charges that could be so dealt with should be reduced, and that then great public works might be constructed out of savings. It should be remarked that the more economical they were, the more prosperous the country would become, the more contented the people, and therefore the less expensive would be the task of governing them. In a word, each economy might be regarded as a saving of seed from which a future and
  1202
  bountiful harvest of economy would be gathered.
  MR. FORSYTH, as one who for years had taken great interest in Indian affairs, desired to address a few words to the House with respect to the policy pursued by England towards that great dependency. Without attempting in any way to blame the Government, he regretted that the Indian Budget was not brought forward in the House of Commons until the last week of the Session, and he hoped that the sparseness of the attendance would not be considered by their Indian fellow-subjects as evidence of caring little for the welfare of the millions who inhabited that country. He feared they might suppose that the feeling of the House of Commons was that expressed by the Poet Laureate in the line—
  "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."
  He thought that hon. Members might congratulate themselves upon the vast improvement which had been made in the government of India during the last few years. It had been said in former times that if our Empire in India were to come to a sudden end, the sole relics of our rule would be broken champagne bottles strewn about the country; but such a statement would be a calumny at the present time, seeing that we had covered the land with a network of railways and with irrigation works, which were converting arid plains into fertile fields. The population of India were contented with our government, preferring the homogeneousness of Imperial rule to being split up into independent principalities which would be always at war with each other. He entirely approved the India Councils Bill, which would secure both responsibility and efficiency in the management of the public works in that country; but he wished to point out to the noble Lord, that in expending public money on public works in India, the greatest caution was necessary, not so much because they might be unproductive, as because of future eventualities which it behoved us to provide against. It was impossible to look at the state of things that existed in Cabul and Afghanistan, and at the advance of Russia in Central Asia, without seeing that we ought to hold ourselves in readiness to

  1203
  meet possible contingencies. The ruler of Cabul was an elderly man, who had selected one son over another, and his eldest son had reared the standard of revolt. When the ruler of Afghanistan died, no doubt there would be a civil war in the country, and he maintained that India was nowhere more open to attack than through Cabul and Afghanistan, lie did not accuse Russia of an aggressive or a hostile policy towards this country; but it was impossible to overlook Russia's progress in Central Asia, whore she was overlapping us from west to east, and we could not shut our eyes to the probability that she might come into collision with us on the North-western frontier of India. Under these circumstances, we ought not to be too lavish of our Indian resources in time of peace. It was impossible suddenly to raise the taxation of the country—not because India was a heavily-taxed country, the taxation amounting to only about 8s. 6d. per head of a population of 184,500,000—but because the Revenue of the country was derived from some seven or eight sources, the receipts from which could not be increased at pleasure. The normal Revenue of India amounted to about £34,000,000, which was derived as followed—The Land Tax yielded £21,000,000, and it was impossible to increase that tax, owing to the Settlement of 1795. The tax upon Opium yielded £8,000,000, and no one would wish to see the revenue derived from that pernicious drug increased. The tax upon Salt yielded £6,000,000, and any attempt to further tax that necessary of life would be attended with disastrous consequences. The assessed taxes yielded the munificent sum of £19,600, while the Customs yielded £2,624,600. The revenue derived from Stamps amounted to £2,697,800, and it was to this item that he wished particularly to draw the attention of the noble Lord. Of the total of £2,697,800, as much as £1,729,148 was derived from the taxation of legal proceedings by means of stamps. For stating your own case in Court, in order to lay the foundation for obtaining justice, there was necessary the payment of £5 on every £100 at issue, up to a maximum stamp duty of £300; so that it not unfrequently happened that a party had to pay what in his (Mr. Forsyth's) opinion, amounted to a most unjust and unfair tax upon justice. The
  1204
  argument by which it was defended appeared to be that such an impost prevented litigation; but that should be done in an open, aboveboard manner. He regretted the great falling off exhibited by a recent Return in the number of Natives employed by the Government, for nothing was more calculated to attach the Natives to our rule than giving them employment in the public service. A Return of Natives who were receiving salaries of 150 rupees a month and upwards, showed that in 1867 there were 700 Hindoos and 193 Mahomedans; while in 1871, there were only 351 Hindoos and 85 Mahomedans. No policy could be better than that of employing Natives, as far as we could do it safely, in offices of trust; and that they were fitted for such offices by their intelligence, could not be doubted by any one who had been brought in contact with them. Nothing could be more plausible than choosing members of the Civil Service of India by competitive examination, but he very much doubted whether it secured the best men for India; and he feared that it was likely to prove a failure if it were adhered to too closely. A member of the Indian Civil Service went out to India to be a ruler of men—of men who were intelligent, kindly, affectionate,-but very susceptible, and we required in such an official a man who understood men, and who could manage them. Of this capacity the present system afforded no guarantee, for it simply ascertained whether a young man could acquire a certain number of marks by proficiency in algebra, or a readiness in the use of certain languages. He did not advocate a return to patronage, but a union, to a certain extent, of the two systems; and what he suggested was, the establishment, at Oxford or Cambridge, of a college for the candidates for the Indian Civil Service, so that they might, by contact with each other, rub off their rusticity, expand their knowledge of men, and cultivate some esprit de corps, in addition to passing the examinations which tested their knowledge.
  MR. GRANT DUFFoffered congratulations on the manner in which the noble Lord had told the financial story of India for the year, and upon the fact that, notwithstanding the dark shadow which had overspread India, the financial result was, on the whole, very satisfactory.

  1205
  When the present Government came into office, he believed they found a reasonable policy in reference to the Famine already in action, and they found that the Home Government and the Government of India were absolutely at one on the matter; so the present Government had followed the policy of their Predecessors, as the late Government must have done had they come into office under similar circumstances. In the month of January, when violent and unfounded things were being said in the public Press, be expressed his absolute trust in the Government of-India; and that confidence had been vindicated by what had since transpired. The most satisfactory features of the financial review were the statements with respect to the increase of the land revenue, which we must always rely upon as our main resource, the change in the salt line, the rise in forest revenue, and the reduction in military expenditure. He could not pretend to be so much of a party man that he should not be delighted to see the present Government carry off the honour of effecting a very serious reduction in the Indian tariff. The noble Lord had in the India Office one of the most cautious and wisest financiers who was employed in the public service, and in addition to that he bad the assistance of the first commercial statesman in the British Islands, Sir Louis Mallet; and he trusted that in a few years, by the aid of those gentlemen, we should see a great change in the Indian tariff. He was bitterly disappointed when he saw that the Government to which he had belonged was likely to be precluded from doing anything in this direction when Lord Northbrook found it necessary to do away with the Indian income tax. He had no doubt that on the whole the competitive system had benefited the Civil Service, though it might not have been quite so successful as could have been wished; and it would be possible to combine the advantages of the old system and the new one by some new college at Oxford, or if a new college were not thought convenient, then by such arrangements with the authorities of a University that competitors could secure the benefits of such a training as used to be obtained at Haileybury. The right hon. Member for Horsham (Sir Seymour Fitzgerald) the other day very unnecessarily attacked a Despatch of the
  1206
  Duke of Argyll, and he must say a word about it. The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that not one word was said in it against him personally. The Despatch was cautiously and carefully impersonal. It blamed, and he was afraid it justly blamed, the Government of Bombay; but there was not one word in the Despatch to point the moral specially against the right hon. Gentleman. The case seemed now to stand in this position—Sir Bartle Frere, through the hon. Member for Northampton, denied in the most explicit manner that he was responsible for the enormous expenditure referred to, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham, his successor, said he was equally guiltless in the matter. The House had no means of discovering who was the guilty, or the more guilty; and the best thing for all parties would be that the matter should be amicably referred by them to the present Secretary of State, whose verdict, he was sure, would be taken as absolutely binding.
  SIR SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, be had no intention of taking part in this debate, but after the reference which had just been made to him, he hoped the Committee would allow him to make a very few observations. On the former occasion, having been distinctly referred to by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Pawcett), he bad felt it necessary to make a personal explanation, and, having done so, he expressly said he would not make any charge or throw any responsibility on his distinguished predecessor. While he was himself perfectly free from any responsibility as regarded that expenditure, his predecessor had given very good reasons why he was equally not responsible. It was a totally different thing when he had to refer to the conduct of the Secretary of State and the India Office, of which the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down was himself a Member, because he felt it to be his duty to say this—that in the Despatch referred to they were grossly inaccurate, and, being inaccurate, they were also unjust. He repeated it. He said they referred to a particular expenditure as being a new expenditure, which they had the most complete means in their own power of knowing, so far from being a new expenditure, had occurred at least three and a half years before. "With regard to the general question, the

  1207
  hon. Member for Hackney applauded the conduct of the Indian Government, because the noble Lord the Under Secretary had announced for the first time, as the cardinal principle of their policy, that no public works chargeable as extraordinary works should be undertaken unless they were shown to be reproductive. Giving every credit to the present Viceroy, he must say that was by no means a new principle now for the first time introduced. It was a principle first announced and distinctly acted upon by Lord Mayo at least three years ago. It seemed to be assumed that because a work was represented as reproductive, it would be so; but his own experience taught him differently. Works were undertaken as being extraordinary public works on the ground that they were reproductive, but, without variation, the estimate of the Return was found to be utterly fallacious. He himself, when in Bombay, saw public works estimated to produce 25 and 30 per cent. as to which it subsequently turned out that they were unable to pay their expenses. The moral he drew from that was this—not only that there was a great temptation on the part of those engaged in the Public Works Department to overestimate the revenue, but that the House should be very cautious how they lent their impulse to the constant tendency in India to engage in these large public works. No one who was interested in that country could look to the future without more than grave apprehension. The financial difficulty was the great difficulty, and those who wished India well would not indiscriminately encourage the idea that the thing of all others which was to promote her interests was the extension of public works. He had himself, while in India, sanctioned irrigation works—he would not say to what amount, or he might, perhaps, be charged with profligate expenditure; but, believing that irrigation works were the panacea for all the ills of India, he had sanctioned large works of that kind. When he left India, however, he had formed a very different conclusion, and he believed that of those works which he had sanctioned not one would pay 2 per cent. The hon. Member for Hackney said a great deal about securing economy in administering the finance of India. He believed the place to exercise supervision was not in that
  1208
  House, but in India itself. The only way of securing economy in India was to follow strictly in Lord Mayo's foot-steps, when he introduced a system of decentralization, which had conferred the greatest benefits in India. His principle was this—that instead of the local government being enabled to spend almost as much as they liked, knowing they had a bank to draw upon, they should have only a fixed sum, for the right administration of which they should be held responsible. The result of the initiation of that system was like magic; every charge was taken into consideration by the Council; the expenditure of every shilling was weighed; and 30 per cent more work was done for the same amount than was done under the old system. The observations of the hon. Member for Hackney—he spoke with the greatest respect—showed the difficulty even the most able men must have who acquired their knowledge of a particular subject by reading, without practical experience. The hon. Member spoke of the charges in the various Presidencies for law and police. The hon. Member said that the police were largely increased in numbers; but he had compared two years when the circumstances were essentially different, for during the time the police had, in fact, taken the place of the irregular force, which now was not employed in any part of the Presidency with which he had been connected. He also referred to a large increase in what he called the Governor's establishment. This showed the evil of contrasts made upon very imperfect information. The fact, however, was that the expenses of the private secretary, the military secretary, all the clerks, personal allowances and expenses, had been added to the establishment charge, and therefore, said the hon. Member, they had been largely increased. In conclusion, he might be permitted to say that he did not think there had ever been a statement more lucidly or more moderately made, and there was every reason to think that the finances of India, notwithstanding the great strain to which they had been put, were placed upon a satisfactory footing.
  MR. GRANT DUFF: I thought, Sir, I had built a bridge over which the right hon. Gentleman might retreat; but, as he has taken up the matter in a

  1209
  totally different spirit, I will read a paragraph of the Despatch to which I referred—
  "From this summary it appears that a work, for which an allotment of 3½ lacs—that is, £35,000, was originally granted, on the express instructions of the Government of India that that amount should not he exceeded, was constructed on such a scale that the Government became committed to an expenditure exceeding 9½ lacs, before any design or estimate had been approved; and that notwithstanding the censure conveyed in the remarks of the Government of India and the Secretary of State on the breach of rules involved in the action of the Government of Bombay, a similar course was subsequently pursued, until the expenditure actually amounted to six lacs (£60,000) in excess of that for which authority was so unwillingly conveyed on the former occasion; while it has only been kept within its ultimate limit by carrying out the subsidiary works under a separate account, in opposition to your Excellency's instructions."
  Now, these were the subsidiary works put forward in the flimsy argument of the right hon. Gentleman, which was pooh-poohed by the Governor General in India and by the Secretary of State at home. I speak now as a private Member, and I say, either Sir Bartle Frere and his Council are guilty, or the right hon. Gentleman and his Council have very grievously misapplied public money; and if he does not accept my challenge—if he and Sir Bartle Frere do not submit this matter to the Secretary of State, who is on the same side of politics with the right hon. Gentleman—I will only say, in conclusion, that I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not be put in any position in which he will have to deal with public money until this matter is thoroughly cleared up.
  SIR SEYMOUR FITZGERALD: I think the Committee will agree with me that a few words are necessary after the extraordinary speech of the hon. Gentleman, on the good taste of which I will not comment. He has read a Despatch, but in doing so he has put into it certain words of his own. He says that the Government of India complained that the Government of Bombay had so acted that they were committed to an expenditure of nine lacs, and then the hon. Gentleman introduced the words—"During that time you (meaning myself) were Governor of Bombay." I beg to say I was not.
  MR. GRANT DUFF: It went on for six months after you arrived,
  SIR SEYMOUR FITZGERALD: I beg to repeat the statement I made on a former occasion, that on the very first opportunity, finding that a large expenditure was going on, and a large expenditure having taken place——
  MR. GRANT DUFF: It was sixmonths after your arrival in India.
  SIR SEYMOUR FITZGERALD: It was a much shorter time. About three months after I arrived I went up to Poonah. I found an expenditure going on, and I directed an estimate to be made. I found that the Government were committed to an expenditure of nine lacs, but they were committed to that expenditure not during that throe months, but long before I arrived in India. I feel that this is not the place for this discussion, and I offer my humble apologies for introducing these personal matters to the House. The complaint I made against the India Office—against the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll), who was at its head, and the hon. Gentleman who was Under Secretary—was this—not that they complained of an expenditure of two-and-a-half or three lacs, but that they treated that as new expenditure which had occurred after the Government of India had complained of the larger expenditure. Instead of that it was an adjustment of accounts, the money having been expended two or three years before I went to India.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he wished to draw the attention of the Committee back again to the important question before them, and he was sorry that the consideration of it had been interrupted in the manner it had been. If they contrasted the finances of India 30 years ago with their present condition, and found that every item of revenue had increased, the House need be under no alarm, the more especially when, notwithstanding the Famine, they had heard a statement from the noble Lord which his predecessor in office regarded as most encouraging. He could not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) in regretting the imposition of the duties on stamps in India, seeing that they brought in upwards of £2,000,000 to the Exchequer. He was delighted to hear the testimony which his noble Friend the Under Secretary of State had borne to the administration of Lord Northbrook and

  1211
  Sir William Temple in connection with the Famine, and it must be gratifying to the Governor General to know that his policy had been completely successful. One result of it must be to raise this country in the estimation of the people of India.
  MR. FORSYTH,in explanation, said, he wished to say that if the stamp duties had been a tax on lawyers, he would have said nothing against them; but he objected to them because they were a tax upon justice.
  MR. MASSEYsaid, he rose principally to notice a statement which had frequently been made both in and out of that House on the precarious character of Indian finance. In those remarks he could not concur, seeing that there were £42,000,000 of revenue to which the Indian Government could look with as much certainty as any European Government could look to a similar amount derived from the same sources. There were two great disturbing causes in India; one on the side of income, and the other of expenditure. The disturbing cause on the side of revenue was in respect to opium, the returns from which varied from causes that were inscrutable even to the Indian Government. When he first went to India, the price of opium was 800 rupees a chest, and in the next year, or next year but one, it was selling at 1,400 rupees. That fluctuation in the price of opium showed the great instability of the income of the year in regard to the revenue derived from that article. Over and above the revenue of £42,000,000 to which he had referred, there was a revenue of £8,000,000, which was to a certain extent precarious, and it was on that margin a financier had to operate, and upon which he must carefully and cautiously adjust his income with his expenditure The other disturbing cause referred to expenditure, and it was the outlay upon public works, which was in the hands of a great spending Department. If the two disturbing causes to which he had referred were removed, there would not be a sounder system of finance in any country in Europe than that of India; but so long as these difficulties existed, there must be financial uncertainty, and the greatest possible caution ought to be observed in incurring liabilities which the country might not have resources
  1212
  sufficient to meet. Unlike other countries, India could not avail itself of new sources of income, when there was a temporary deficit to meet, and it was a most dangerous thing there to resort to modes of taxation hitherto unknown to the people. Notwithstanding all that might be said for the prosecution of great public works which were to remove crying evils, and to conduce to the material prosperity of the country, it would be better to defer the prosecution of those works, than to alarm the people of India by devising new taxes which would be regarded by them as a means of extortion. As to the income tax, it was a weapon of great power in this country, but a very weak and dangerous one in India, and in no case would the returns be commensurate with the dangers of imposing a tax of that character upon a people unacquainted with the civilized modes of collecting taxation which existed in Europe. The Natives of India regarded an income tax as inquisitorial, and as an introduction to a system of confiscation, and like every conquered people, they were suspicious, and looked with misgivings upon any new devices of their conquerors for getting money from them. Another great spending Department besides that of the Public Works was the Military Department. He was glad to hear that under that head there had been a considerable saving effected; but seeing that the expenditure in the Department amounted to so large a sum as £14,000,000, he could not help thinking that a closer inspection and more methodical management would result in still greater savings. In its financial administration the Government of India had also to encounter difficulties arising from the existence of nine somiindependont Governments, which were supposed to be under the control of the Government of India, but the arm of the latter was not long enough to control their expenditure. Two of them, in fact, were in direct communication with the Secretary of State, and assumed in consequence airs of independence. When he was in India, one of the great difficulties which the Government of India experienced was in enforcing the rules of economy which it was their duty to enjoin upon the semi independent administrations. He hoped the Secretary of State would support the Governor

  1213
  General and his Council in insisting upon a due observance by the local administrations of those orders with regard to expenditure which were from time to time issued by the Government of India, and which he was sorry to say were almost systematically disregarded. If, on a proper occasion, the Secretary of State were to remove from his post a Governor or administrator who had been guilty of that systematic disobedience, he would do a great deal to support the Government of India in enforcing economy. He would admit that much had been effected by the introduction of what was called a system of decentralization—a clumsy phrase which implied much more than was really meant. Under that system an estimate was formed, not in any arbitrary manner, of the needs of the local government, and a certain sum was given from the general fund of the country, to be administered locally within the limits allowed. He wished to dispel any vague notions which existed of alarming prospects with regard to our Government of India on account of its financial instability, and he was therefore glad to hear the noble Lord toll them that evening that it was the intention of the Government of India to engage in no public works to be derived from loans which should not be of a reproductive character. That was an excellent resolution, and he hoped it would receive a practical application. He had adverted to the difficulty of devising now sources of income in India. That was the only danger they had to encounter; all other dangers had been substantially removed. There was now a strong conviction among the people of India, far greater than it was 20 years ago, of the power and resources of this country, and he believed that no attempt would be made, at least for a long time to come, to resist the authority of England. They could only alienate themselves from the respect and attachment of the people of India by wild and vague devices of finance, and the best security for peace was to maintain, a due balance between the revenue and expenditure of the country.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, after the very able statement of the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for India that evening, it was not necessary
  1214
  for him to say much on the subject. He was glad to have heard the noble Lord speak of reduction in the public expenditure, believing, as he did, that order and regularity would result from a well-directed economy. The noble Lord adverted to the great saving that had been effected by the reduction of the Native Army; but it should be borne in mind that the European Army had been greatly increased there, and that heavy expenditure was incurred in that way. He congratulated the noble Lord, however, on the reduction which had been made in the Army, and would suggest that it might be still further decreased, without sacrificing efficiency, by reducing the number of European troops employed in the service. Military difficulties, however, had been small matters in India as compared with financial difficulties, and he had, therefore, peculiar pleasure in noticing the fact that the financial machine was working much more smoothly now than it had done in former periods. With regard to the mode in which the accounts were kept, he must express his opinion that greater clearness would be secured by keeping the "ordinary" and "extraordinary" accounts apart in separate budgets. That would so far simplify matters as to render perfectly easy the now difficult task of comparing the receipts and expenditure of different periods. He had heard with great pleasure the remarks made by the noble Lord in reference to improving the commerce in India. Having given much thought to this question, he had come to the conclusion that if the Government would abolish the whole of the Customs duties along the 2,000 miles of Indian seaboard, it would give such a stimulus to the native industries as to recoup in the shape of exchanges all the loss that would be involved in the abolition of Customs duties. It was now a considerable number of years since he had been Commissioner of Public Works in India, but he was enabled from his experience to speak with correctness upon that subject, and he had no hesitation in saying that unless they exercised great precaution in not undertaking public works but such as they were satisfied must prove reproductive, great evil in the expenditure would result. With regard to irrigation, they should take care and secure water for that object when it was available, taking care to see that above

  1215
  all things the work was well and thoroughly done. In that way, in the Madras Presidency extensive irrigation works had been constructed; the Natives manifested a great willingness to use and pay for the water supplied; and the result was a much greater fertility than was to be found in those parts of the country where irrigation works were not maintained in so high a state of efficiency. The provision of ample and cheap means of conveyance was also vastly important. It was not likely to happen that all India would be short of food at one time; and what was wanted, therefore, in order to secure the country against the dire results of famine, was that food might be cheaply and rapidly conveyed from place to place, and with a view to that he would strongly recommend the India Office to consider the advisability of purchasing the railways. With respect to the question of public works, he thought that the mixed system under which they were constructed, partly by the Government and partly by private enterprise, was a great mistake, and injurious to the interests of India. Either the Government ought to undertake the works, or simply encourage private enterprise to carry them out. The mixed system had been found to be a mistake, and it had in it inherent qualities which would cause it to be unsuccessful for any practical good to all time. He would also suggest that the Bengal Presidency should be still further subdivided, so as to bring it reasonably within the power of one man to superintend its Government. Assam had already been separated, and he thought it would be largely to the benefit of all concerned if a similar course was taken with regard to Orissa and the country lying inland from it. With regard to the mode in which the accounts were kept, he very much regretted that the auditing was not more strict. He would also call the noble Lord's attention to the important Minute which had been recorded by the auditor, and must express his regret that the country had lost the services of that able officer. He had to complain of a large amount of charges which were unfairly imposed on India, especially in connection with China, and also on account of our Embassy in Persia; and he trusted the Government would see that they were placed against the proper quarter that was liable for them. In conclusion,
  1216
  he must say he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) on the subject of native employment, and he hoped the Government would give their attention to the subject with a view to its development in all cases where practicable.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, in rising to reply to the various questions which had been put to him, said, he had consulted the Secretary of the Finance Department of India as to the time at which the figures could be sent to this country, and the Secretary was of opinion that in another year, the figures might be sent home in sufficient time to admit of the statement being made in June. He (Lord George Hamilton) was much afraid, however, that the great pressure of business in Parliament at that period of the Session would always prevent the Indian Budget being submitted earlier than July. With regard to public works, the Despatch which had been referred to, did not say that no public work of any kind should be constructed out of borrowed money, but laid it down that only works the revenue of which would be equal to the interest of the money borrowed for their execution, should come under the class of public works extraordinary. Famine preventing works were to be executed out of the ordinary income of the year; but if it was absolutely necessary to complete them in a certain time, they would be completed out of borrowed money, but included in the ordinary expenditure of the year. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) had asked what amount was expended in provincial services in 1874–5. The provincial revenues and allotments were estimated at £6,130,000, and the expenditure at £6,224,000. The expenditure connected with Cooper's Hill College, which had been alluded to, was caused by certain alterations and additions made to the institution, the cost of which must be regarded as a charge on capital. The actual receipts of the College came within £6,000 of the total expenditure incurred for maintaining it. The very able document written by Sir John Strachey, to which reference had been made, was not an official statement of the views of the India Office, but was the result of the writer's own experience. The subjects to which the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Forsyth) had directed attention—namely,

  1217
  stamp duty, the employment of Natives in offices of public trust, and competitive examination—had been, and were, all under the consideration of the Secretary of State. With regard to a school of native forestry in India, his noble Friend had been in favour of its establishment, but it was not found to be possible to carry it out. As to the gauge of the Indian railways, he believed the line from Lahore to Kurrachee would be constructed on the broad gauge, but that the Government of India had not made up their mind as to the gauge of the portion from Lahore to Peshawur. With respect to the annuity and commutation clause in their contracts with the guaranteed railways, if the Government could be sure that their credit would remain at the same point where it now was, and could also be certain that they could work the railways as efficiently and as cheaply as they were now worked by the companies, it would be a great advantage to the Government to make use of that clause. But there were two considerations which must enter into the calculation of an annuity—first, the length of time it would have to run, and next the rate of interest at which it was to be estimated. The rate of interest was not very clearly laid down in the clause; and although several eminent men had endeavoured to agree as to the meaning of the clause, they had been unable to do so. The point, however, was to be decided by the Governor of the Bank of England. The Secretary of State was fully aware of the advantages of the annuity clause under certain circumstances, but it would not be possible for him to make any promise on behalf of the present Secretary of State, for even if his noble Friend undertook to purchase the railways at a favourable time, his promise would not be binding on his successor. Moreover, it would be inconvenient if the Government pledged itself at all hazards and risks to embark in so large an enterprise. In conclusion, he begged to thank the Committee for its kind attention in listening to him.
  MR. FAWCETTwished to state that the noble Lord had slightly misunderstood him on the subject of the annuity clause. All he pressed for was, that the Government should give him an assurance that they would not surrender their right to avail themselves of it until Parliament had an opportunity
  1218
  of expressing its opinion upon the question.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

INDIA COUNCILS BILL— [BILL. 1.54.]
(Lord George Hamilton.)
INDIA COUNCILS BILL— [BILL. 1.54.]

  [Lords] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he must apologize for rising; but he was not responsible for two Indian subjects coming before the House on the same evening. In the debate on the second reading, those supporters of the Government who spoke in favour of the Bill, indicated their preference for a measure of a very different character, and one which he should be disposed to approve. The hon. Members, however, had not put on the Paper the Amendments they suggested in their speeches, being deterred from doing so by the late period of the Session. Therefore, there was no opportunity of considering the very Amendments which the supporters of the Government had advanced. For himself, he was not anxious to oppose the Bill, but considerable misapprehension prevailed with regard to it. There was the widest divergence between the speech of the Secretary of State on this Bill and that of the Under Secretary, and that divergence had not been cleared up. The Prime Minister had spoken of the approval of the Governor General being obtained before any appointment was made, but there was nothing to that effect in the Bill. If that idea had been put forward in the first instance, it would have prevented any opposition being offered to the Bill, whereas the fact was an impression had got abroad that a very able official, but a very enthusiastic projector was about to be sent out to India at once. Some people were very much alarmed about it. The Under Secretary wished the Bill to pass in order that vacancies might be filled up next spring; but if there were to be that delay, would it not be better to delay the Bill until next Session, when the views of Lord Northbrook could be known? If that were done, and if time were allowed for the consideration of the suggested Amendments, he should support the Bill, because the Public

  1219
  Works Department required cautious and well-considered reform.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERthought the opponents of the Bill were mistaken in supposing that a great increase of expenditure would take place under it, for no such inference was justified by its provisions. Reform was required in the Public Works Department of India, and the remedy for defects of administration would be found in the appointment of a responsible official. It had been suggested by the hon. Member for Hackney that the Bill should be postponed till next Session. He (Sir George Bowyer) did not think that was desirable, for that was not like an English Bill, and if such a postponement took place, it would mean throwing the Bill over for a long time. He thought the House might have confidence that the conclusion to which the Under Secretary invited them was one that was wise and mature. This question ought to be considered as a matter of principle, and it was deserving of earnest consideration whether one person should not be placed in the position of supremacy, and be responsible for these works.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, it was a matter of the highest importance that public works should be proceeded with in India without delay, for as matters now stood, there was a want of concentration of responsibility for the construction of such works. If it turned out that works were more expensive than they should be, or that a great mistake had been made, there was now a difficulty in fixing the responsibility, and the consequences were great delay and considerable waste of money. The object of the Bill was to prevent the occurrence of such a state of things by the proper concentration of responsibility, and by the securing of some one person whose duty it would be to look into the matter and see that the work was necessary, and further that it was done, and done in the best manner. But it might be said that some one was to be appointed whose object would be not to promote economy so much as to connect his name with great and ambitious schemes. There was no foundation for such an assertion. The name of a distinguished officer had been freely mentioned, but however flattering the fact was to the officer in question, he could assure the House that there was
  1220
  equally little foundation for the rumour. He could state on behalf of his noble Friend (Lord Salisbury) that no appointment would be made until, in the first instance, the Governor General had been consulted on the subject. Further, it was also right to say that the gentleman spoken of had never made the slightest motion to secure the appointment. There was no intention whatever on the part of his noble Friend to make a place for any particular person. His sole object was to concentrate responsibility, to develope the resources of India, and to put a proper cheek upon expenditure. Nothing was more fascinating than the erection of great public works, but they were apt to lead to uncomfortable financial results. The Government were thoroughly awake to this fact, and it would be their primary duty rigidly to criticize all schemes laid before them. He hoped, therefore, the House would proceed with the Bill, as nothing was to be gained and much might be lost by delay.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite satisfactory, and he should not offer any further opposition to the Bill.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1 (Number of ordinary Members of Governor General's council may be increased. 24 & 25 Vict. c. 67. 32 & 33 Vict. c. 97.).
  MR. DUNBARmoved, as an Amendment, to leave out after the word "Act," in line 19, to the end of the clause. The effect of the Amendment was, that the Minister to be appointed would not be limited to the duty of looking after public works, but would be generally available to assist the Governor General in Council.
  MR. BECKETT-DENISONsaid, that it was not possible to accept the Amendment without taking out the pith and marrow of the Bill.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, that it was impossible for economy to be exercised in public works in India while the Governor General was responsible for them.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, that with the view of indicating the purpose of the Bill, he would propose as an Amendment,

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  in line 20, to leave out the words "called the Members of Council for public Works purposes," in order to subtitute for them the words" the Member of Council responsible for the Financial Administration of the Public Works Department."
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,while agreeing entirely with the object of the hon. Member, that whoever was appointed to the office should direct his attention to the finances of the Public Works Department, thought that the Amendment would prevent the person appointed from being paramount in his own Department.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause amended, and agreed to
  Clause 2 (Number of Members of Council may be subsequently diminished).
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,in reply to Mr. BECKETT-DENISON, explained that, although it would be necessary, in the first instance, to appoint a new member of Council; yet if, after the appointment, the Governor General was of opinion that his Council did not require an augmentation, the number of his Council would remain unchanged.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 3 (Power of Governor General to make rules for conduct of business not to be affected).
  On the Motion of Lord GEORGE HAMILTON, Amendment made by leaving out from the word "power" in line 15 to end of clause, and insert—
  "provisions of section eight of the Indian Council Act, 1861 or the provisions of section five of the Act of the thirty-third year of Her Majesty, chapter three, or any power or authority vested by law in the Governor General of India in respect of his Council or of the members thereof."
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

CHURCH PATRONAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 234.]
(The Lord Advocate.)
CHURCH PATRONAGE (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 234.]

  [Lords.] THIRD READING.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he had one or two Amendments to move in Committee, and he should therefore propose that the order for the third reading be discharged and that the Bill be recommitted
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  as regarded Clauses 3, 5, 7, and 8.
  MR. M'LARENsaid, he had no wish to take up the time of the House; but there was Clause 3 which as it stood was susceptible of an interpretation which could not have been intended.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEhoped the hon. Gentleman would first allow the Bill to go into Committee.
  Motion agreed to.
  Order for Third Reading read and discharged: Bill recommitted in respect of Clauses 3, 5, 7, and 8.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 3 (Repeal of Acts 10 Anne, c. 12., and 6 & 7 Vict. c. 61. Appointment of ministers in future).
  On the Motion of the LORD ADVOCATE, Amendment made in page 2, line 4, by substituting the words "such minister" for "a minister."
  MR. M'LARENsaid, it still appeared to him that that clause was susceptible of such an interpretation that the Church election committee having half-a-dozen names before it, might strike off first one and then another, until only one person be presented to the congregation, who would thus only have Hobson's choice as respected the choice of their minister. He repeated that that could not have been intended. He might add that he would be willing to accept any words proposed by the Lord Advocate which would answer the purpose of his Amendment, and of other Amendments of which he had given Notice.
  Further Amendments made.
  Bill reported; as amended considered; read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT (1873) SUSPENSION BILL.— [BILL 233.]
(Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General.)
SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT (1873) SUSPENSION BILL.— [BILL 233.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1 (Repeal of s. 2. of 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66).
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERtrusted that in the interval before the Act of 1873, came into operation, the Government

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  would consider the question of the ultimate Court of Appeal. He was of opinion that the House of Lords was the greatest Court of Appeal in the world, was unequalled in dignity and learning, and that no other Court of Appeal would so fully secure the confidence of the Bench, the bar, and the public.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 2 (Commencement of Supreme Court of Judicature Act. 1878).
  On the Motion of Sir HENRY JAMES, Amendments made, in line 13, by leaving out "or on such earlier day as Her Majesty may by Order in Council appoint;" and in line 16, by leaving out "or such earlier day as aforesaid."
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Remaining clause agreed to.
  Bill reported; as amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.

IRISH REPRODUCTIVE LOAN FUND BILL— [BILL. 183.]
(Mr. William Henry Smith, Sir Michael Hicks Beach.)
IRISH REPRODUCTIVE LOAN FUND BILL— [BILL. 183.]

  CONSIDERATION.
  Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be now taken into Consideration."—(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.)
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNING, in moving that the Bill be considered that day three months, said, the loan was subscribed for the relief of a famine in Ireland, and was not applied in the manner intended. What he would say to the right hon. Gentleman was, let the Bill be withdrawn; and having thus expressed his opinion in reference to the measure, he would move its rejection.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Downing.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the Resolution to give support to the Irish Fisheries was of a very vague description, but the Government were anxious, as far as possible, to carry out the wishes of the House in the matter. They had, therefore, introduced this Bill
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  with the view of utilizing, for this purpose, an Irish fund, which was at present not satisfactorily employed; and he believed that the only hon. Member opposed to it was the hon. and learned Member for Cork. He assured the hon. and learned Member that it would be used, as it should be used, for reproductive loans for useful purposes. He might point out to him that this was a tentative measure, and he hoped one that would prove advantageous to the poor of Ireland.
  MR. SYNANsaid, he could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Resolution was of a vague description. He hoped, however, the hon. and learned Member for Cork would not press his Amendment.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered.
  Clause 5 (Regulations as to loans by Commissioners).
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGmoved, as an Amendment, the omission of the 2nd sub-section of the clause, on the ground that it limited the assistance to be given to the fisheries of the county of Clare to £170, which would be of no use whatever, and it would be better to leave the matter in the discretion of the Commissioners.
  Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 28, to leave out "sub-section 2."—(Mr. Downing.)
  Question proposed, "That sub-section 2 stand part of the Bill."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHassured the hon. and learned Gentleman that the sum to be so appropriated was much larger than he supposed. He hoped the hon. Member would not press his Amendment.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 83; Noes 21: Majority 62.
  Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 6, to leave out the word "their," in order to insert the word "the,"—(Mr. Downing,)—instead thereof.
  Question, "That the word 'their' stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.
  Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 6, to leave out the words "signed by all," in order to add the word "of,"—(Mr. Downing,)—instead thereof.
  Question, "That the words 'signed by all' stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.
  Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
  House adjourned at One o'clock.