Commons Sitting of 16 April 1875

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Kilkenny, v. Sir John Gray, knight, deceased.
WAYS AND MEANS—considered in Committee—Resolutions [April 15] reported—Consolidated Fund (£15,000,000) *.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution in Committee—Ordered—First Reading—Interments in Churchyards* [125].
Ordered—First Reading—Local Authorities Loans* [123]; Bishops Resignation Act Perpetuation* [124].
Second Reading—Municipal Corporations (Ireland) [41]. debate adjourned.

ARMY—THE MERTHYR VOLUNTEER RIFLES.—QUESTION.
MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it be true that the locks have all been taken off the rifles which are in the armoury for the use of the Volunteers of the Merthyr district, county Glamorgan, South Wales; whether they have been removed out of the county; and, whether he will state by whose orders the locks were removed from the rifles and carried away, if it has been done?
MR. GATHORNE HARDY: Sir, the General Officer commanding the Western District, acting on his own discretion, but according to the precedent authorized in 1873 by the War Department, ordered the locks to be removed from the rifles of the Merthyr and Dowlais Volunteers, and to be placed in security at a certain distance from the arms.
MR. MACDONALD: I beg to give Notice that on Tuesday next I will ask the Secretary of State for War on whose representations he gave the orders—
MR. GATHORNE HARDY: I gave no orders, Sir; the General commanding the district gave the orders on his own responsibility.

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION—APPOINTMENT OF CHAPLAINS.—QUESTION.
MR. MARK STEWARTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, If he will reconsider the arrangements for the Arctic voyage of discovery, with a view of appointing a chaplain to accompany the expedition?
MR. HUNT: Sir, I stated to the House, a few days ago, the very great difficulty there would be in providing a chaplain for the Arctic Expedition, in consequence of the want of accommodation. Since then I have very carefully reconsidered the matter, and I found that no such appointment could be made without displacing one of the officers from the establishment who has been already approved. Considering that that establishment was settled by a Committee of very experienced Arctic officers, I have taken upon myself great responsibility in disturbing the arrangement. After much deliberation, however, I have determined to cancel the appointment of two assistant paymasters who were going as acting paymasters, and to

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appoint a chaplain to each ship in their place. I will make the best arrangements I can for the fulfilment of the very important duties which were to have been discharged by the officers who are now displaced.

METROPOLIS—CAB LAW.—QUESTION.
MR. HOPWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a case recently before Mr. Arnold, the police magistrate, wherein it appeared that though the hirer of a cab, in case of dispute, can by 16 and 17 Vic. c. 33, s. 18, require the driver to drive to the nearest police court, if sitting, when the complaint may be determined by the magistrate without summons, or if no police court be open, then to the nearest police station, where the complaint shall be entered and tried by the magistrate at his next sitting, yet that, if the hirer do not wish to go to a station, the driver cannot complain, nor the police detain him, though he refuse to pay any fare or give his name and address; and whether, if such be the state of the law, he will take it into his consideration with a view to amendment?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, he believed the hon. Member had stated the law of the case to which he referred correctly; but he had not informed the House that there were provisions which gave strong powers to the drivers of cabs to summon, and, if necessary, to issue a warrant, against any persons who had not paid their fares. Of course, it was a question whether the law as it stood was sufficient for the protection of drivers; but that was a point which should receive consideration.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION ERS—LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. A. BASSasked the hon. Member for West Surrey, Whether the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have, in pursuance of the power given them by the Ecclesiastical Commission Act of 1868, entered into a provisional agreement with the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral for the transfer to the Commissioners of the corporate property of such Dean and Chapter; whether the said Dean and Chapter are prevented
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  from carrying such agreement into effect by their Visitor, the "Bishop of Lichfield," refusing his assent thereto; and, whether any reason which, in the opinion of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, constitutes a legitimate ground for such refusal has been assigned by the Visitor, or is it understood by the Commissioners to exist; and, if so, what is the nature of the same?
  MR. CUBITT, in reply, said, the facts were correct as stated by the hon. Member in his two first Questions. The right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Lichfield), however, had given Notice in the other House of Parliament that he would move for Copies of the Correspondence on the subject, and that Correspondence, when presented, would give all the information which the hon. Member asked for in his third Question in a more complete form than the limits of an answer would allow.

IRELAND—THE ISLANDS OF BOFFIN.

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN NOLANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If any steps have been taken to re-transfer for fiscal purposes the Islands of Boffin from the county of Galway to that of Mayo, as suggested by a letter of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, dated 10th July 1873; and, if not, can any proceedings be instituted by the Lord Lieutenant in Council to remedy the difficulties which the original transfer of the Islands has occasioned in the repair of the roads of these places?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in reply, said, that in October, 1873, the question whether these islands could be re-transferred to the County of Mayo for fiscal purposes only was referred to the late Law Officers of the Crown, and they were of opinion that this could not be done. Further inquiries had been made, but he feared no proceedings could be instituted by the Lord Lieutenant in Council to remedy the difficulties.

THE SURVEYOR TO THE OFFICE OF WORKS.—QUESTION.
MR. DILLWYNasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether the Surveyor to the Office of Works, in addition to his salary, is allowed a commission

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on all purchases of land made for the Department; whether he is also allowed to take private business; and, whether, if he transfers any of his work for the Department to his partner, that gentleman is paid for doing it?
LORD HENRY LENNOX: Sir, the position and emoluments of the Surveyor of Works were laid down and determined in a Treasury Letter dated March 18, 1869. The gentleman in question attends at the office once a-week, and whenever the First Commissioner requires his attendance, and he receives a commission on whatever purchase of land he may make for the Government. Being a member of a private firm, it is of course understood he takes part in the business of that firm. With regard to the last part of the Question of the hon. Gentleman, whether he transfers work for the Department to his partner, who is paid for it, I have to say that I believe such a thing is impossible, unless it is done with the knowledge of the First Commissioner and the sanction of the Treasury.

THE METROPOLITAN GAS COMPANIES.—QUESTION.
SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the President of the Local Government Board, When the annual Accounts of the Metropolitan Gas Companies will be presented?
SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY: Sir, when the gas companies' accounts have been received, they shall at once be presented. The Metropolis Gas Act, 1860, does not require those companies that are still under its provisions to send in their accounts until two months after their general meeting. It is not probable, therefore, that all these accounts will be received at the Board of Trade until the middle of June.

ARMY—DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON RECRUITING, &c.

  QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY HAVELOCK, asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he would (excluding the parts that are Departmental and therefore confidential) lay upon the Table of the House the Statistical Tables and Numerical Returns attached to the Report of the late Committee on Recruiting, so as to enable the valuable information contained
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  therein to be considered by honourable Members previously to Tuesday, the 20th instant, on which day an important Motion regarding the recruiting and efficiency of the Army will be brought forward for consideration?
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, that he had that afternoon received the Appendices to the Report of the late Committee on Recruiting, and had gone through them as rapidly as he could. He had given directions that the tables to which the hon. and gallant Baronet had referred should be printed and given as quickly as possible to the House; but he could not state that they would be ready in time for the debate on the subject.

POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. GOLDSMIDasked the Postmaster General, as he is unable to lay the Papers upon the Table, If he will state to the House what is the substance of the Report he has received on the Savings Bank Department; what steps he proposes to take in consequence of that Report; and, whether, the suspension of promotion inflicted by him as a punishment on the Department has been removed?
  LORD JOHN MANNERS, in reply, said, that the substance of the Report of the Committee on this subject was contained in 101 paragraphs, extending over 12 closely-printed pages, and therefore it would be impossible, in answer to a Question, to give the substance of that Report to the House. One of the principle recommendations was, that an inquiry should be made into the practicability of simplifying the transaction of business in the Department, with a view to preventing the large additional cost with respect to the staff now thought necessary. That inquiry was now in progress, and other recommendations of the Committee were also under consideration. The Report was presented on the 18th of March, and on the following day the suspension of promotion was removed.

MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1854—BOARD OF TRADE CERTIFICATES.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL BERESFORDasked the President of the Board of Trade, Why,

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  under the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, those naval officers who had passed their examination for Lieutenant and Navy Lieutenant should only be entitled to a certificate of service as Master Mariner, which certificate is exceedingly disadvantageous to them when in merchant employ, as it prevents them commanding emigrant ships, and in many cases keeps them out of valuable employment; and, whether there would be any objection to granting such officers who have passed the requisite examination to qualify themselves for the higher position in Her Majesty's Navy a certificate of competency as Master Mariner on producing such certificate of examination?
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY, in reply, said, certificates of service were given as stated in the Question, under the 135th section of the Merchant Shipping Act, of 1854. Examinations for certificates of competency under the 134th section were examinations specially directed to the requirements of the Merchant Service, and it appeared to him to be necessary that naval officers who wished for certificates of that description should pass that examination.

ARMY—MILITARY DRILL IN SCHOOLS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. O'BYRNEasked the Secretary of State for War, If it is his intention to recommend the adoption of military drill as a compulsory feature of education in all schools; and if so, whether, with the view of attaching soldiers more permanently to the service by improving their professional prospects, it is intended to reserve the lucrative appointment of Drill Instructor for non-commissioned officers of good character on discharge?
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, that military drill in schools would, no doubt, be a very useful thing to be adopted as a part of public education. He would consult his noble Friend the Lord President of the Council on the subject, because, as teachers would be necessary, they would not be paid by the War Office, but the Education Department. That Department, moreover, being responsible for their payment, it naturally followed would select them.

PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS—DR. KENEALY AND "THE QUEEN v, CASTRO.—QUESTION.
COLONEL LOYD LINDSAYasked the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, To name a day for proceeding with the Notice of Motion which stands in his name, but for which no day has been fixed, "to call attention to the Government prosecution of 'the Queen v. Castro' and to the conduct of the trial at bar?"
DR. KENEALY: Sir, after the language addressed to me last night by the hon. and gallant Member, I will not deign to answer any Question put to me by him.
MR. MACDONALD: Then, Sir, I beg to give Notice that on Monday next I will repeat the Question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. ["Go on!" "Do it now!"] Then, Sir, if I am in Order, I will put the Question now.
MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member would be in Order in putting his Question.
MR. MACDONALD: As the Forms of the House allow me, Sir, I will ask him now to name a day for proceeding with the Notice to call attention to the Government prosecution of the Queen v. Castro, and to the conduct of the trial at bar.
DR. KENEALY: Sir, I shall bring on the Motion at the time when it seems to me most likely to advance the liberation of Sir Roger Tichborne, and not before.
COLONEL LOYD-LINDSAY: Sir, I beg to give Notice that, as the hon. Member for Stoke has declined to name a day, I shall on Monday move that his Notice be expunged from the Notice Book.

ARMY—NEW BARRACKS AT GALWAY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MORRISasked the Secretary of State for War, When it is likely the building of the new Barracks at Galway will be commenced, which, in reply to a similar Question put on the 24th March 1874, he stated would be commenced about the 1st June, 1874?
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, that tenders were received for these barracks last July, instead of June, as he expected, but being excessively high

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  as compared with careful estimates were declined. It was then determined to reconsider the plans with a view to economy. New plans had been prepared and were now with the proper authorities in Ireland for report as to their suiting the site which was available for the barracks. He could not, therefore, name a time for the commencement of the building.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—INEFFICIENT PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. NORWOODasked the Vice President of the Council, What are the steps, if any, which the Government intend taking to give effect to the suggestions made by a deputation from several large towns, introduced to him in January last, with respect to the obstacles presented by inefficient private schools to the enforcing of attendance at Board Schools?
  VISCOUNT SANDON: Sir, this subject is a large and a difficult one, and has for some time engaged the attention of the Government. These private adventure schools—that is, schools frequented by the same classes as attend the public elementary schools, but kept by private individuals for their own profit and receiving no public money—are numerous, and are said to be increasing in towns where direct compulsion is in force. Though some are held to be fairly good, many are reported to be very bad as respects teaching, and to be wretched and unhealthy in their accommodation for the children. The question was well brought before us some two or three months ago by an influential and able deputation of leading members of school boards, who stated that these schools were more and more used as a means of evading the operations of the compulsory bye-laws, as they are not open to inspection and need not keep any register of attendance. We have been asked by means of new legislation to secure the regular inspection of all these private schools, and to treat attendance at an uncertified private adventure school as absence from school and therefore as a punishable offence. The House will at once see from this that the subject is a very serious one, and I am bound to say that many authorities on education matters on school boards and elsewhere
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  consider that premature interference with these schools and additional interference with the choice and school by a parent would largely increase the difficulties of carrying out the bye-laws for compulsory school attendance. Anyhow, before any decision is adopted by Government, either in favour of or against legislative dealing with private adventure schools, we are of opinion that most careful inquiries must be made respecting the matter in all parts of the country, and we are taking and shall take all necessary steps to inform ourselves thoroughly respecting it. But we do not consider that during this Session we shall be in a position to state what course we think it will be desirable to adopt.

PARLIAMENT—ARRANGEMENT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  QUESTION.
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, it may be for the convenience of the House that I should state the course of Business proposed for next week and the week after. We propose on Monday next to take the Artizans Dwellings Bill. On Thursday, the 22nd, we propose to take the Peace Preservation Bill, and continue it till we have concluded our labours on it, and on Thursday, the 29th, we propose to consider the Budget Resolutions. The Friendly Societies Bill will be proceeded with the same night, if an opportunity presents itself.

LOANS TO FOREIGN STATES COMMITTEE.—BREACH OF PRIVILEGE.
Order for the attendance of Mr. Goodlake and Mr. Hales, read.
MR. CHARLES LEWIS: Sir, I rise in accordance with the usual practice of this House to move that Mr. Goodlake be called in; and I trust that I may look for the indulgence of the House for a very few minutes. With reference to the part which I have taken on this question, and especially to endeavour to justify myself in the eyes of hon. and right hon. Members who were not present on previous occasions when this matter has been discussed, I wish to recall the recollection of the House to the fact that on the 9th April there appeared in The Times and The Daily News a letter signed "Victor M. Herran," which was dated the 7th of April, and was addressed

1115
to the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Foreign Loans Committee. That letter was, in no respect, verified or identified as having been written by M. Herran; and it was full of libels of the most serious character against a Gentleman who had been examined on oath before the Committee, and who has the distinction of enjoying a seat in this House. It is only fair to the House to say that this Gentleman had been a perfect stranger to me. I had no personal acquaintance with him, and even that ordinary acquaintance which one Member has with another was very restricted indeed; but when I read the letter knowing that the very nature of the inquiry would ensure its publicity, I thought it was most unfair that, in the course of an inquiry affecting great public interests and a large number of people, a letter should be communicated to the public Press which would be read, not only by the individuals who were interested in the question, but also by a far wider range of persons. I felt oppressed by the reflection that libels of the most severe character upon a Member of this House, contained in an unverified document, such as it is, would not only tend very much to injure the position—I will not say the character—of the hon. Member for Gravesend, but would also tend very much to discredit the proceedings of this House, and of the Select Committee in the course of whose proceedings the letter was published. What I ventured to do I did without conference with Her Majesty's Government. It was, perhaps, a mistake; but I felt I should be better justified, in the position I might take as an individual and an independent Member, if I did not in any way mix the Government up in the matter. Accordingly, being advised that the letter was of a peculiar description, and its results were likely to be injurious, not only to the hon. Member for Gravesend, but also to the House and the Committee themselves, I ventured to take the course which I did, of calling the attention of the House to the breach of Privilege which had undoubtedly been committed. But, Sir, having taken that course, and the House having unanimously resolved that a breach of Privilege had been committed, and having subsequently, by considerable and substantial majorities, resolved that the printers of The Times
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and The Daily News should attend at the Bar of this House this evening, it seems to me, although I do not, at the present moment, withdraw the Motion which I think it my duty to make, I cannot, at all events, do a better thing under the circumstances than to promise, as no doubt the House will hear the best arguments from the right hon. Gentleman for adopting the Amendment which he has suggested, having, I think, performed my duty by laying this Motion formally before the House, to leave the question in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman to whom it more properly belongs. I will only say this—that while the House will ever, under the guidance of its Leaders, be disposed to protect its privileges, it will always be disposed also to protect the liberty of the Press, and do strict justice to hon. Members who, by chance and accident, have their characters improperly attacked. I now beg leave to leave the matter in the hands of the House by moving, in conclusion, that Mr. Francis Goodlake be called in.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Francis Goodlake, the printer of 'The Times' newspaper, be called in."—(Mr. Charles Lewis.)
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I am going to move an Amendment to the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry. The House is aware of the origin of the circumstances under which the matter is brought under their consideration. It appears that a Committee was appointed to consider the manner in which certain loans had been raised by Foreign States in this country, and that Committee, when it met, thought fit—and I have no doubt showed a wise and conscientious discretion in coming to that resolution—to avail themselves of a modern privilege of the Committees of the House of Commons, and take evidence on oath upon the important and delicate affairs they were investigating. It appears that a Member of this House was summoned to give his evidence, of course upon oath. Shortly afterwards a letter arrived by a foreign post, addressed to the Chairman of the Committee, contradicting the evidence given by the Member of this House, and imputing to him conduct most discreditable and infamous. What occurred in the Committee is, of course, what the House

1117
would like accurately to ascertain; and under ordinary circumstances, so far as my knowledge of the practice of Committees of this House can guide me, the course would be this—If under such circumstances the Chairman received a letter by post from the Continent, and addressed to him by a person of whom he had no knowledge, he would hardly think it evidence; if he thought it trivial, he could, on his own responsibility, put it into his waste-paper basket; if he thought it weighty and important, he would order the room to be cleared; and then he would take the opinion of his Colleagues upon the merits of the communication, and, if they followed the course which, generally speaking, would he considered a wise one, they would come to a resolution that the letter should not be published. I cannot pretend to inform the House what was the course taken by the Committee; but apparently it was not the course which I have indicated to the House, and which, so far as my experience would guide me, is the usual course, for the letter appeared in the report of the proceedings of the Committee which had been published for some days without any objection being taken. It was said the other night that this letter, though published in the proceedings of the Committee, formed no part of the evidence before the Committee, because the Committee had come to a resolution to take evidence on oath, and of course this—not anonymous letter, but a letter from a stranger in a foreign country, having arrived by post, was not evidence on oath. I really can-not pretend to presume to offer an opinion on such a point—I will not call it a quibble, because many Gentlemen of the long robe might take a different view of its importance; but the vast majority of the House, who, like myself, must be guided on the subject by such share of common sense as they have, would not, in considering a question like the present, enter into a consideration of so technical a point. "Whatever may be the case, this letter appeared and was published in the proceedings of this Committee. It is not at all wonderful that either the hon. Gentleman whose conduct is impugned, or his Friends, or any Gentleman influenced by a sense of what is due to the House and by what is for the general interest of the House in which he has a share, should have felt, as the hon. and learned
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Member for Londonderry did, that something should be done to vindicate the character of the individual Member, and give him that opportunity of vindicating his honour and character which we all desire he should have. Having arrived at that resolution, they would, and they did, naturally avail themselves of a Privilege of the House which cannot be impugned, and which the highest authority has pronounced to be violated in the present instance; and, though it is one that has been fortunately in desuetude, still it is not an obsolete one, and I must remind the House there are many which are seldom had recourse to, which are often referred to in debate and described as obsolete, but which the House has steadily and studiously refrained from abolishing, in order that they may on occasions guard the House and its Members from abuse. That I am sure the House will take into its consideration. Accordingly, last Tuesday the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry brought the question before the House as a breach of Privilege, which it cannot be said it is not. I had occasion to address the House after the hon. and learned Gentleman, and being myself very adverse to having recourse to this Privilege, except it is unavoidable, I indicated to the House, in observations I made with little preparation, as the matter had come suddenly upon us, a course which I thought would save us from the painful one of asserting this ancient Privilege, and that was that some Member of the Committee, or its most important Member, should place the matter clearly before the House, without at all entering into the merits of the case which was before the Committee. That suggestion was received by the House with favour, but it was not productive of success in the quarter to which it was addressed, and we were informed subsequently in the debate by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, that the Chairman of the Committee declined to assist the House in the manner I had suggested because it was a Rule of the House that transactions of a Committee should not be discussed while it was sitting upstairs. That is an excellent rule as a general rule, and I trust it will always be observed. It, however, appeared to me on Tuesday night that it would not have been difficult for the Chairman or any

1119
Member of the Committee, without in any way introducing the matters then before the Committee, to give the House, in a few words, clearly expressed and courteously received, information which might save it from taking the course it was forced to take. It is under these circumstances that the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry proposes his Motion that the printers of these newspapers should be summoned before the House. It was said on Tuesday night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Liskeard (Mr. Horsman), a high authority in this House, especially on the subject of procedure, though he did not act on his own suggestion, that we should have met this matter by the Previous Question.
MR. HORSMAN: I beg pardon. What I said was that I expected some of the opponents of the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry would have moved it. I did not say that I should have done so or that I should support it.
MR. DISRAELI: I, too, beg pardon; there was, at all events, a suggestion of the Previous Question. But I do not believe myself in a too liberal use of "the Previous Question." It is a convenient and valuable instrument, no doubt, on occasions; but if by carrying it we should indirectly deprive any Member of a privilege which he believes is necessary to the vindication of his character, we should not be justified in moving the Previous Question. We have now had some time to consider our position. After reflection, I have recurred again to those views and conclusions which I less formally expressed to the House on Tuesday, and I have explained the course which I would recommend the House to take in the Amendment which is on the Table. Admitting fully, as I do, and thinking it to be an admirable rule that no debate should be held in this House upon affairs which are being investigated by any Committee upstairs, I am still of opinion that there is a power in this House—and it is a most valuable and salutary power—which will direct the Committee upstairs to report to this House specially upon any point on which information is required by this House, and of that power I recommend the House now to avail itself. Therefore, I have proposed that—
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"It be referred to the Select Committee to report to the House whether such letter was produced and read before the said Committee and under what circumstances, and whether any copy of the said letter was communicated by or on behalf of the said Committee to the said newspapers or either of them."
I may be asked why I did not propose this Amendment on Tuesday. Well, there is an excellent reason why I did not propose it on Tuesday. It did not occur to me. I do not pretend for a moment to be an infallible Leader of this House. The duties I have to perform are difficult and delicate in regulating the Business of the House, and I do not pretend that I could discharge them, unless I was supported by the sympathy and indulgence of both sides of the House. Well, thinking over this question, it occurred to me that a recurrence to this power of the House of referring to a Committee on some specific point on which they desire information would prevent us from the necessity of following up the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry, and would supply this House in a legitimate and unobjectionable manner with the information we desire, and which would, I believe, lead to a general conclusion of this business that will be satisfactory to the House, satisfactory even to the dignity of the Committee, and satisfactory to the hon. Member of the House who believes that by circumstances, which are to him perplexing, he has been assailed in a manner not warranted by our Parliamentary practice. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it being stated in 'The Times' and 'Daily News' newspapers of the 9th instant, referred to in the Order of the House of the 13th instant, that a letter, professing to be written by M. Victor Herran, Honduras Minister in Paris, and addressed to the Right honourable Robert Lowe, Chairman of the Committee on Loans to Foreign States, was read and made part of the proceedings before the Select Committee on Loans to Foreign States on the 8th instant, it be referred to the said Committee to report to the House whether such letter was produced and read before the said Committee and under what circumstances, and whether any copy of the said letter was communicated by or on behalf of the said Committee to the said newspapers, or either of them,"—(Mr. Disraeli,)
—instead thereof.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, it is a somewhat singular but irregular Motion that the Leader of the House has submitted to our notice. It is an attempt with which, I take it for granted, we should all sympathize to extricate this House from what I may venture to call the somewhat undignified mess which has been the result of the combined action of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government. Now, those distinguished personages do not always act together. We have sometimes seen them in collision; but the result of their combination is more serious and unfortunate for this House even than their antagonism. It was said of two great characters of antiquity that they were two bright stars whose conjunction was more fatal than their opposition, and I think that may be said of the two Members of this House who have brought us into this difficulty—they are the Cæsar and the Pompey of above and below the Ministerial Gangway. But, Sir, the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry told us a short time ago that it is the great merit of the Conservative Party that they act en bloc. Now an example that we have of their so acting occurred on Tuesday last. It, however, can hardly be said that they are acting en bloc to-day, because the hon. and learned Member, having succeeded to his heart's desire in bringing the printers of The Times and The Daily News to the doors of this House, and having proposed a Motion which he succeeded in carrying by the assistance of the First Minister of the Crown the other night, the First Minister now moves an Amendment on the joint Resolution which they carried, and therefore the en bloc system of the Conservative Party may be said to be in abeyance. Well, Sir, I myself am not an admirer of the en bloc system, and I am surprised that the hon. and learned Member, who is never wanting in the resources of the English vocabulary, should have found it necessary to define the fundamental principles of the great historical Party to which he belongs by resorting to a foreign tongue. If I had been in his place and been asked I should have used the good old Saxon English, and called it the block-headed party. A very distinguished authority has said that the reason why a dog wags his tail is because the tail
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cannot wag the dog. ["Oh, oh!"] All rules have an exception, and I should be very sorry if I have said anything to give offence to hon. Members opposite. In our school days we have all read the story of an impatient and ambitious young man who thought he would like to conduct the chariot of the sun. It sometimes happens that fond parents indulge their children too much, and I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury bench has allowed Phaeton to drive the chariot, and that the consequences have been disastrous both to himself and those to whom the fortunes of the chariot of the State were confided. The hon. and learned Member for Londonderry told us in language upon which I cannot improve that he should not think of mixing himself up with Her Majesty's Government. Now, when an hon. Member belonging to a Party which acts en bloc is going to bring forward a Motion of Privilege in this House, I should have thought that he might at least have condescended to "mix himself up" with the Leader of the House in considering as to whether that was the proper course to take upon a question affecting the dignity of the House and the liberty of the Press. However, he obtained possession of the chariot for the day, and he will excuse me for saying that I think he rather made a mess of it. Now, let us see what is the situation we are in. On Tuesday last the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry came forward and made a Motion which he succeeded in carrying unanimously that the publication in The Times and The Daily News of the 9th of April instant of the proceedings and evidence taken before the Select Committee on Foreign Loans of the 8th instant was in each case a breach of Privilege. Now that Motion asserts distinctly, and the House has voted it, that what appeared in The Times and The Daily News is considered as part of the proceedings of the Committee. I have seen it stated, with surprise, elsewhere, that there was confusion, and that people thought it was not part of those proceedings; but the House was asked by the hon. and learned Member, and did vote that these transactions were part of those proceedings. That is absolutely essential to the Motion, because if it were not a part of those proceedings there was no breach of Privilege at all,

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and the hon. and learned Member said this in introducing his Motion. He said The Times and The Daily News published—what?—the proceedings of the Committee on the previous day, and it was stated that Mr. Lowe had received a letter from a person in Paris which was read in English by a Member of the Committee. Therefore the hon. and learned Member knew, everybody knew, and the House of Commons knew that this was a letter read before the Committee, and that it was part of its proceedings. The hon. and learned Member for Londonderry proceeded—
"He had drawn the attention of the House to the fact that the proceedings of the Committee had been printed in The Times and The Daily News, and he would now read to the House that which was the point of the charge—namely, that, under cover of publishing an inchoate and incomplete account of the proceedings of the Committee, that document had been published."
Therefore he said, and it was the basis of his case, that the publication was part of the proceedings of the Committee, and therefore he moved that the Papers which I hold in my hand should be read at the Table of the House, and he particularly asked that the beginning should be read—namely, that Mr. Lowe had received a letter in French from M. Herran, Honduras Minister in Paris, which was read to the Committee in English by Mr. Kirkman Hodgson. Therefore, as I said, everybody knew when that appeared on Tuesday that the letter was—professed to be and was—a part of the proceedings of the Committee, and thereupon he made the Motion to which I have referred, in which the House declared that that was a publication of the proceedings of the Committee. It is necessary that he should have done that, because the Resolution of 1837 which he had read was this—
"That according to the undoubted privilege of this House and for the due protection of the public interest, the evidence taken by any Select Committee of this House, and documents presented"—not only the evidence but the documents presented—"ought not to be published by any Member of such Committee, nor by any other person."
Very well, that is the Resolution. He affirms that this letter was read as part of the proceedings of the Committee, and thereupon he asked the House to declare that this was a breach of Privilege, and the Leader of the House acquiesced in
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the course of declaring that a publication of part of the proceedings was a breach of Privilege. But that is not all. The right hon. Gentleman has objected that we ought to have had some information from the Chairman of the Committee. Now, Sir, I am informed, and you will correct me if I am wrong, that a Notice was actually put on the Paper by the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry of his intention to ask the Chairman of the Committee a Question with reference to this very matter, and that you, Sir, caused that Question to be removed from the Paper on the ground of its irregularity. Well, the Speaker having declared that the Question ought to be removed from the Paper, the Prime Minister repeats a Question to the same effect, and expects to receive an answer; but the Chairman of the Committee could not answer it. He had received the ruling of the highest authority that it would be improper to answer the Question, and accordingly he did not. But, Sir, that is not the only authority on this matter. Though the mouth of the Chairman of the Committee was sealed, another Member of the Committee, who is also a Member of the Government, thought himself entitled, in consequence of the imputations that had been made, to get up. I allude to one of the most respected Members of the Government—the right hon. Gentleman the Judge Advocate General; and he said that this letter was tendered to the Committee in evidence, and I understood and still understand that, in common with the rest of the evidence, it was taken down by the reporters in the room. Therefore, Sir, the House had full knowledge at the time the Prime Minister supported the Motion that this was a breach of Privilege and that the printers should be called to the Bar, of the very facts which the right hon. Gentleman has stated to-day. Well, but on the very same day that this transaction was happening here, the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry was giving evidence in a room upstairs upon corrupt practices at elections; and the next morning there appeared in the papers—not in The Times, but in The Daily News and in The Standard—his evidence, in which he severely criticized the conduct of the Election Judges. He said that the decisions of the Judges are by no means satisfactory. That is

1125
reported in those papers, and why have we not had a Motion upon the subject? [Mr. CHARLES LEWIS: I beg the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. I never said anything of the sort.] Well, then, why does not the hon. and learned Gentleman, or the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who seconded the Motion the other day, seek to bring the printer of The Standard to the Bar for publishing a garbled and false report of his evidence? I took down the words myself from the newspaper—"that the decisions of the Election Judges are by no means satisfactory." I do not complain of the hon. and learned Gentleman saying so, or of his entertaining that opinion if he does. If he did not use the words, I am sorry for having mentioned them; but I found them in the newspapers, and the remarkable part of it is, the Chairman of that Committee is also Chairman of the Foreign Loans Committee—my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe). Why does be not, in this case, make a Motion to call the printers of both these papers to the Bar for having published an incorrect and incomplete report of the evidence, as he did in the other? Well, Sir, that being the fact, and with a full knowledge of the case, we have voted that the publication here complained of was a publication of part of the proceedings of the Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government comes down and says—" Let us now on Friday inquire whether that was a fact which on Tuesday we unanimously declared was a fact." On Tuesday we declared that the reading of the letter was a part of the proceedings of the Committee, and now the right hon. Gentleman proposes that the House should—I do not like to use so strong a word as stultify itself—but, at all events, commit itself to inquire whether that is true which we unanimously declared to be true on Tuesday last. A more Rhadamanthine proceeding I cannot conceive. Castigatque auditque. We have summoned the printers to the Bar, and now we are going to inquire whether there was any reason for summoning them at all. It is quite clear that if we refer this matter to the Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman gets the answer he wants—namely, that this letter was part of the proceedings of
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the Committee, we must summon the printers to the Bar, because we have already declared that if this letter were part of the proceedings, the papers, in having published it, committed a breach of Privilege. I venture to press upon the House this consideration, and that what is proposed to-day is a mere postponement. But then the question is—a more serious one than that—is this a question of the printers at all? Was it ever meant to be a question of the printers at all? Does not this Resolution reveal clearly, and does not the speech of the right hon. Gentleman reveal more clearly still, that this is meant to be an attack upon the Committee on Foreign Loans, and upon its Chairman more especially? We had a faint indication the other day that not the printer, but a very different person, was intended to be affected. Sir, there is an old text about those who have dug a pit falling into it themselves. We heard a great deal not long ago about the necessity of supporting constituted authorities, and that if you want to impeach them you must do it directly and not indirectly. I venture to say that what is true of Her Majesty's Judges is not less true of Committees of this House. If Committees of this House have misconducted themselves, if Chairmen of Committees have acted improperly, they can be called to account by this House. But they ought to be called to account directly upon specific charges, upon intelligible questions. You may censure their conduct, and put an end to the Committee; but in these indirect methods, through printers and by suggestions, a course has been taken that ought not to be adopted, a proceeding, I venture to say, which will not tend to support the authority of Committees, and I venture to think that if Committees are so treated, you will not get Gentlemen to sit upon them. And what is this Committee? It does not wholly consist of my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London. Upon it sit two of the most respected Members of Her Majesty's Government—the Judge Advocate General and the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and as I remember, too, Her Majesty's Solicitor General. So that they have the advice of one of the Law Officers of the Crown as to their proceedings, and now you are asked, in this indirect method, practically to impeach

1127
their conduct on a matter which specifically affects a legal question. I cannot but think that if so grave a course as that be taken, it ought not to be taken upon an Amendment to the Motion to summon the printers to the Bar. If this is intended as a direct attack upon the Committee; if the Committee has been wrongly conducted; if you think, as a great many people think, that it ought never to have been appointed, why, then, do you not come forward and make a Motion saying so? You can stop its Report now—you can suspend its proceedings; but let it be done, if it ought to be done, in a straightforward and direct manner, and not by a proceeding of this kind. There are many people who think it would have been better if this Committee had never sat; but it is too late now to repudiate their position, even on the part of the Government, who have placed three of their own Members upon it. Therefore, I venture to say that to question the conduct of that Committee without bringing forward some direct charge by Motion is a course which ought not to be taken. Well, Sir, in that case, I venture to think that we ought to dispose of the question of the printers at once, and that we ought not to bring up this Order. If we have made an error in this ease, why, we ought to correct it in a straightforward and manly way. Do not let us go through the farce of pretending that we do not know what we all know perfectly well, or that we want some information upon the subject whether this was or was not a part of the proceedings of the Committee. It was so stated. We have so voted unanimously. It was because we knew and said it was that the printers were summoned to the Bar. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government said he doubted whether the letter was properly admitted. Indeed, he seems to think that it was improperly admitted, and he has practically censured the Committee by the remarks he has made. Now, what took place, according to the reports which are impeached? The hon. Member for Gravesend (Captain Pim) made an attack in his evidence upon an individual abroad. That individual claimed to be, and for all I know is, a foreign Minister. He says that his character was attacked by the hon. Member for Gravesend. He wrote
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an answer to that attack, and the Committee, I suppose, from what appears, believed he was entitled to make an answer. He was a person who could not be summoned on account of his diplomatic character, and the Committee took the course with respect to him which they had already taken with respect to another foreigner who was actually in England, Senor Don Carlos Gutierrez. They received from him and his secretary written statements, without exception, as they afterwards received the letter of M. Herran, and that course was taken by a Committee of which Her Majesty's Solicitor General is a Member. That is the case that is brought before the House. I venture to think that what we might do to-day is either to bring those printers to the Bar or to dismiss them, for we heard from the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry a great deal about the liberty of the Press. Well, I will give him an opportunity of separating this question from that of the liberty of the Press. Let him deal, and let the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government deal, with their own Committee. That I can quite understand. But do not let us hang it on the peg of the printers, whom I do not desire to see hung up under the ban of this Resolution to be called up at some future time when we have settled our quarrels with our Committee. Let us get rid of the question of the printers to-day, and for that purpose, when the Motion of the hon. and learned Member has been, as no doubt it will be, negatived, and the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government becomes a substantive Motion, I shall then move in place of it these words—
"That it being inexpedient to proceed further in the matter of the Order made on Tuesday 13th April that Mr. Francis Goodlake, the printer of 'The Times' newspaper, and Mr. William King Hales, the printer of "The Daily News' newspaper, do attend at the Bar of this House, the said Order be now read, and discharged."
MR. GATHORNE HARDY: Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), with his usual and elaborate humour, has thought proper to cast considerable obloquy upon my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government and upon those who supported him upon

1129
a recent occasion; but perhaps I may be allowed to say that my right hon. Friend, with the good humour which characterizes him, has acknowledged that the reason why he did not adopt the course he has taken to-day on the former occasion was, because it had not occurred to him to do so. Under these circumstances, therefore, a good deal of the humour of the hon. and learned Gentleman has been altogether thrown away, because my right hon. Friend admits that the course he has now taken is the better one. My right hon. Friend has further stated that he is most reluctant, even in cases of breach of Privilege, to bring up persons to the Bar of this House, who are themselves perfectly innocent, in order that they may be used as a means of our obtaining information with regard to the matter in dispute. The hon. and learned Gentleman has told us that he is very much afraid that we are going to keep these two gentlemen, the printers of the newspapers, in a perpetual state of suspense as to what we intend to do with them. Let me relieve the hon. and learned Gentleman's mind on the subject at once by stating that my right Friend, after communicating with the highest authority in this House, will be prepared, if this Resolution is carried, to follow it up immediately by a Motion that the Order requiring the appearance of these gentlemen at the Bar should be discharged. In taking that step we should be adopting a course which would relieve the Committee from all embarrassment in the matter. What was the state of things on Tuesday last? The reports in the newspapers were brought before us by the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry (Mr. Charles Lewis) as containing what professed to be an account of proceedings before the Committee on Foreign Loans, and I presume that they were as much reports of the proceedings of that Committee as were those of the Committee on the Corrupt Practices Act, which the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry has informed us are incorrect. We ought, therefore, to be informed whether the report in question is correct or incorrect, for no one has told us the state of the case. The right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee, I am quite sure, acting upon his views of what he deemed to be the principles and the Rules of the House, refused to
1130
get up and explain the matter, and I quite agree with him that, looking at the matter from a strict and technical point of view, he was merely doing his duty in declining to explain the matter. But, seeing that this letter had appeared in the newspapers as part of the proceedings of the Committee, had the right hon. Gentleman risen in his place and said that, with the leave of the House, he would tell us how the letter had got into the newspapers, no objection would have been made to his doing so, the whole thing would have been over in five minutes, and we should not have been led into all these difficulties and trouble in which we now find ourselves. I quite agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt) that we have got into difficulties in this matter, and for this reason—that if we call these gentlemen to the Bar of the House, and examine them, they will probably only refer us to somebody else, and then if we call those to whom they refer us before us they again will refer us to some other persons. Still, however, the course we have taken is the form that has always been adopted by the House, and it is the only way in which we can come eventually at the truth of these transactions. On behalf of myself and of my right hon. Friend I wish to state most distinctly that in bringing forward this Motion there is neither desire nor intention on our part to attack either the Committee or the right hon. Gentleman who presides over it. All we want is that the Committee shall give us some explanation as to how this letter reached the newspapers—whether by inadvertence or by any other means, and if it should turn out that the newspapers are not in fault, we should have no desire to inflict any vengeance upon them, and most certainly not upon their printers. ["Oh, oh!"] The hon. and learned Gentleman says that that statement is absurd; but what object can we have in punishing the newspaper printers for what is practically no concern of theirs? When this question was before us on a former occasion, the hon. and learned Gentleman says an explanation was given of these transactions before we voted a breach of Privilege; but he is mistaken on that point. No Member of the Committee rose before the vote on the point was taken, and the discussion

1131
which took place was upon the Motion by which, in accordance with the ordinary practice on such occasions, the first Resolution was followed up. Assuming that the technical objection taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee to his offering any explanation of the circumstances under which this letter found its way into the newspapers is a good one—and I do not say that technically it is not—the course we have now adopted of enabling the Committee to report upon the matter is certainly free from all technical objection and is strictly in accordance with precedent, for Select Committees can, and often do, present successive Reports of their proceedings. Therefore, it is, in this instance, with the view of relieving the Committee from any embarrassment, and to set ourselves free from all difficulties, that my right hon. Friend has moved his Amendment to the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry. I repeat on behalf of my right hon. Friend and of myself that this Motion is not intended to operate as a Vote of Censure on the Committee and upon its Chairman, but to afford an opportunity of explanation that will bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.
MR. GOLDSMIDsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had stated to the House, with the candour that always marked his utterances, that he had been caught napping on Tuesday last. To his (Mr. Goldsmid's) mind it was a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman had not continued napping to-day, because the course that he asked the House to adopt that evening was contrary to all precedent, and would be most dangerous in its results. The hon. and learned Member for Londonderry had told the House that he had initiated these proceedings for the purpose of vindicating what he was pleased to call the honour of the hon. Member for Gravesend (Captain Pim); but he (Mr. Goldsmid) should like to know how the hon. Member for Gravesend could for a moment suppose that the course that had been taken by the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry was calculated to effect that object. If the hon. Member was ready to vindicate his honour, why did he not ask the Committee to permit him to be re-examined, in order that he might contradict the statements made by M.
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Herran in the letter in question. Calling two printers of newspapers to the Bar of the House could not be said in any way to be a proceeding by which it would be possible to vindicate his honour. He denied that there was any precedent for the House requiring a Committee to report upon its own proceedings, without their having expressed a desire to do so; and, if the Motion were carried, it would, in his opinion, serve as a warning to all Members of the House not to consent to sit upon Committees the independence of whose action was thus interfered with. The whole action appeared to him to have been exceedingly irregular on the part of the hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Charles Lewis), who, if he had objected to the proceedings of the Committee being reported, should at once have brought the matter before the House, and not have waited until a letter attacking a Member of the House had been published as part of its proceedings. Numbers of letters which, under the circumstances of the case, necessarily affected the regulation of individuals, had been previously read without any notice being taken, and it was not until the letter of M. Herran was published that these proceedings had been initiated. The object for which "privilege" was established, was to maintain the rights of the people against the Crown, and not to vindicate the honour of any individual Member who might be attacked. In this case, if the hon. Member for Gravesend felt that his honour had been unjustly assailed, he could appeal to the legal tribunals of the country. The hon. and learned Member opposite said that the object which he had in view was not an overt object. He stated that he was well aware how this letter got into the papers; that reporters were by permission of the Committee reporting the evidence, and that among other things they took down this letter which was read to the Committee. Yet it was now proposed to ask whether the letter was or was not read. Surely the proper and consistent course, after what had taken place, would be to call the printers to the Bar and ask them how they obtained the letter. Probably they would say that they received them from the reporters, and then, so far as the printers were concerned, the matter would be at an end. If it should be then thought fit, it would be open to the right

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hon. Gentleman to suggest such further proceedings with regard to the Committee as he thought proper. That would be a better course than letting the printers remain outside with the probability of being censured for doing that which he (Mr. Goldsmid) thought that it was right and proper for them to do—namely, report correctly the proceedings of this Committee. The reason why the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry had, in the case which had just been mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford, not been reported correctly was because The Standard only gave a summary of the proceedings; and, therefore, it was far better that the evidence should be reported exactly as it was given. No Member of that House would desire for a moment to check the reporting of their proceedings. The country owed so much to the Press that they could not be justified in any proceedings having that object. He hoped, therefore, that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would not be adopted; but that they would carry the original substantive Motion and have the pleasure of seeing the two gentlemen at the Bar of the House. They would after that be able to vindicate the honour of the House much better by attending to its proper business than by going further into this inquiry, which could only lead to futile results.
MR. REPTONsaid, that some years ago a question of Privilege arose which excited considerable public attention at the time. A Select Committee, of which he (Mr. Repton) was a Member, was appointed to ascertain what would be the best means of communication between London and Paris. In connection with the proceedings of that Committee, a paragraph appeared in The Times stating that some of its Members who had a personal interest in the success of a French railway—the Great Northern of France—were actuated by pecuniary motives. That paragraph being obnoxious to the Committee, its Chairman consulted the then Speaker, now Lord Eversley, as to what ought to be done in regard to it, and the Speaker strongly advised that the manager of the newspaper should be called before the Committee. That was done, Mr. Mowbray Morris appeared, and nothing could have been more frank and candid than his statement. He was asked—"From
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whom did you receive this libellous paragraph?" and his answer was—"From The Globe of the preceding evening." The Chairman then went again to the Speaker, and the result was, that the manager of The Globe was summoned. In the most simple and natural manner that gentleman told the Committee, in answer to a similar question to the one put to Mr. Mowbray Morris—"A communication was put into our letter-box and we inserted it in our paper. If it has given pain to any member of the Committee I am very sorry for it." Under the circumstances, the Committee thought it the most dignified course to say nothing more about it. He had a notion that if the House summoned Mr. Goodlake and the printer of The Daily News to the Bar they would get very little more satisfaction. It would be an awkward position to be placed in, and he hoped they would succeed in avoiding it; and for that reason, it would be best to adopt the course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government.
MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, he was far from wishing to blame the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry for the course he had taken in this matter, as he had no doubt acted from plausible motives. He believed himself that the unfortunate predicament in which they found themselves was the almost necessary result of embarking upon such an inquiry as that which the Foreign Loans Committee had been appointed to carry out. When the Committee was proposed he entertained the gravest doubts as to the propriety of appointing it. Notwithstanding its great merits as a deliberative Assembly, he had every day become more and more convinced that the House of Commons was utterly unfit to undertake a judicial inquiry. And this was a judicial inquiry. ["Question!"]
MR. SPEAKERsaid, he must remind the hon. and learned Member that he could not enter upon the merits of the inquiry before the Select Committee. That question was not at present under the consideration of the House.
MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, he was not going to do so; he had simply referred to the original Resolution for the purpose of pointing out that it was the real cause of the present difficulty. The House of Commons had done what

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it had not done for 200 years—it had usurped the functions of a Court of Justice. In the course of the proceedings of the Committee a letter containing a gross libel upon a Member of the House was addressed to the Chairman. How would that letter have been treated if it had been addressed to a Judge or Vice Chancellor conducting a judicial inquiry? He had had the curiosity to ask a Judge the question that morning, and the answer he got was—"If I could not have committed the writer for contempt of Court, I should simply have thrown the letter into the fire, or if I had referred to it, it would only have been to express my strong disapproval of the writer's conduct in sending it to me." He looked upon the admission of that letter as a most improper proceeding. Well, copies of it got into two newspapers. Either the letter was or was not a part of the proceedings of the Committee; if not, the publication of it was in no way privileged, and the hon. Member for Graves-end had his remedy in an action at law, just as much as he would have had if the letter had been addressed to the Editor of The Times or the Editor of The Daily News. But if, on the other hand, the letter was really a part of the proceedings of the Committee, as they all believed it was, where was the offence in publishing it? He was perfectly well aware that, according to the Standing Order, technically, it was a breach of Privilege to publish the proceedings of the Committee. It was similarly a breach of Privilege to publish the evidence of the hon. Member for Graves-end, to which the letter was a reply, and it would be a breach of Privilege to publish the speeches delivered in the course of the present debate. But publicity was the life and soul of their being as an Assembly, and the consequence was the Standing Order was one which was "more honoured in the breach than the observance." Moreover, they could not permit the public to be present at their proceedings and refuse that permission to reporters, and, this being so, it was surely desirable to have correct reports of what passed? The report which had been complained of appeared to be a correct and not a garbled report, and he wanted, therefore, to know what offence had been committed by the newspapers. If no offence had been committed, what was the object of the present
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Motion? There might, of course, be some ulterior object. Perhaps, as had been suggested by the hon. and learned Member for the City of Oxford, the disguised object of the Motion was to attack the Committee, and in particular the Chairman of the Committee. He did not say that such an attack was not within the power of the House; but he ventured to submit that it would be an exercise of power which would set a very dangerous precedent. A Committee was appointed, great powers were delegated to it, and in the middle of its proceedings a check was suddenly to be put upon its action. That was a course unworthy of this House, unworthy of any Government; and he, for one, would certainly oppose the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman.
MR. BENTINCKsaid, he greatly regretted that the debate had taken what was called a Party turn. During the many years he had sat in that House he had always disclaimed Party ties and obligations, and had always claimed the right to give, to the best of his ability, an independent vote. This right he claimed equally upon the present occasion, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite had put forward arguments which proved the correctness of their views, he would not have hesitated to give them his support; but it seemed to him the House somewhat misunderstood its position. The House had got into a difficulty by the step it took on a previous occasion. It had been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that the course then adopted was not the best which was open to them, and he accordingly proposed what he deemed to be a better plan. It seemed to him (Mr. Bentinck) that the course suggested by the right hon. Gentleman was the right one. The object of all this debate had been to find out whether the Privileges of the House had been violated, and if they had, by whom the wrong had been done. A proper and practicable means of attaining this object had now been proposed by the right hon. Gentlemen. No doubt a mistake had been committed in resolving that the printers of the two newspapers should be called to the Bar, but it was a mistake for which a majority of the House was responsible. With great deference to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of Oxford, he ventured

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to think that the course recommended to them by the right hon. Gentleman was that which ought to be adopted in order to extricate themselves from the difficult position in which they were placed, and he hoped the Committee would at once proceed to put the House in possession of the information which it asked for. They ought to have from the Committee an official statement as to the line they had taken in the matter, and as to the grounds on which they justified the policy they had adopted, and then it would be for the House to decide what they thought proper to do under the circumstances. In voting for the Motion, he wished it to be understood that he was by no means attacking, or suggesting any impropriety of conduct on the part of the Committee, who, he believed, had acted to the best of their judgment under the circumstances. He, however, should support the Motion, as he considered that was the only mode of extrication. At the same time, he wished the Committee to continue their investigation, in the belief that the result of their labours would be valuable.
MR. DODSONsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had recommended them to vote for the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, because, he said, it was one of two ways to dispose of the matter—namely, that they might either have those printers up at the Bar, or extract from the Committee the circumstances under which they had acted. He (Mr. Dodson) ventured to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that there was a third way by which they might arrive at the truth, and that was by waiting patiently until the Committee had finished its business, and reported in the ordinary course. They were told the character of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gravesend (Captain Pim) had been impugned and involved in this question; but it appeared to him (Mr. Dodson) that they had altogether lost sight of the position of the hon. Member for Gravesend. How would the position of the hon. Member be affected by calling the reporters or publishers to the bar of the House? In what way would that proceeding remove or alter the aspersions that had been cast upon him? If the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire
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were carried, and the Committee called upon to give the information concerning the appearance of this letter in The Times and The Daily News, how-would the position of the hon. Member for Gravesend be bettered? The fact was, if the hon. Member felt himself injured, he had two very plain courses open to him. The letter in question appeared in the newspapers. The hon. Member might therefore have addressed a letter to the editors which would have been published in the same sheets; or he might have asked to appear again before the Committee, and contradict the statements which had been made. A great deal had been made by some speakers of the fact that the letter had proceeded from an unauthenticated source, and had not been fortified on oath; but the hon. Member for Gravesend might appear on his oath, and his position was therefore infinitely stronger than that of the writer of an unauthenticated letter. It had been admitted that the House got itself into a false position, by the fact that it somewhat rashly and hastily allowed itself to be seduced the other night into calling the printers of those newspapers to the Bar; and now how was it proposed that the House should extricate itself from that difficulty? Why, by a course which was in a manner a reflection upon one of the Committees of the House. [Mr. BENTINCK dissented.] The hon. Member for West Norfolk shook his head; but the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry that evening said—and he (Mr. Dodson) had taken down his words—that the appearance of that letter was a discredit to the Committee, and if they were to carry that Motion calling upon the Committee immediately to report as to their proceedings in regard to the matter, they would be endorsing the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire spoke in the same sense, and further criticized pretty severely the conduct of the Chairman of the Committee; but he was not going to enter into that part of the subject, for it appeared to him that no Member of the Committee objected to the course taken by the Chairman. It had been explained that the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee could not, without violating the Rules of the

1139
House, state to the House what had passed before the Committee, but a Member of the Government, who was also a Member of the Committee, had conveyed to them pretty plainly how it all came about. He contended that by the course now proposed, the position of the hon. Member for Gravesend would in no way be improved, and he cautioned the House against involving itself in another unpleasant position by appearing to reflect upon the conduct of one of its Committees. He trusted therefore that the House would support the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Oxford, and that they would at once get rid of this difficulty by carrying the proposal that the Order for the attendance of the publishers at the Bar of the House be discharged, and that this question be put an end to. This Session they had been having nothing but questions of Privilege or quasi- Privilege. He thought the multiplication of those questions was not calculated to raise the dignity of the House, nor the honour in which it was held by the country; and that if they proceeded, night after night, with discussions of this character they would be in great danger of losing their prestige in the country, and not be far from taking that short but fatal step which separated the sublime from the ridiculous.
THE CHANCBLLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I think that if the House had before been in want of any reason for supporting the Motion of my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government, reason sufficient would have been supplied to it by the speech which we have just listened to, and especially if we couple with it the speech we heard a few minutes ago from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan). I am particularly anxious to call the attention of the House to the effect of these two speeches taken together, because it was my lot to be the organ of the Government in conveying to the House the assent of the Government to the original Motion for the appointment of the Committee which is now under discussion. When I conveyed to the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) that assent, it was felt that its appointment was a step for which there was no precise precedent, It was felt that the House was committing to them
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an inquiry of great delicacy, and one which it was a matter of some hesitation whether it was right and safe to hand over to a Committee. We have been told now to-day by the hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire, that if the proceedings which are carried on before that Committee had been carried on before another tribunal, the letter about which so much has been said would not have been admitted, and therefore, from the talk which goes on, from the publication to which attention has been drawn, and from the comments made, we may ask with some anxiety, how is this Committee carrying on its business, and is it carrying it on in a manner satisfactory to the House and in accordance with the general feeling with which it was appointed? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chester (Mr. Dodson) says that in calling on the Committee to give a Report with regard to a matter to which its attention has been drawn, you are casting some reflection, and implying some blame on that Committee. We are doing nothing of the sort. We are doing precisely the opposite. When we hear that certain things are said as to the mode in which the business before the Committee is conducted, we want to know whether there is any foundation for the charges made, and we take the respectful course of asking the Committee itself to report to us what is the mode in which they have proceeded. I cannot conceive anything less disrespectful or anything more respectful to a Committee than that, when our attention is called to a matter which involves a breach of Privilege, we should refer to the Committee itself to tell us what it is that has been going on. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chester says—" Oh! but what need for this? You know all that goes on. It is in the newspapers." But we do not know whether the proceedings are reported correctly in the newspapers or not. A case has occurred this evening which shows that reports in the newspapers are not to be depended on as thoroughly accurate. We consider, therefore, that the proper, the legitimate, and the respectful course is to refer to the Committee itself to report to us what its proceedings have been. I do not doubt for a moment that when the report is made we shall see that the proceedings of the Committee are thoroughly correct,

1141
and such as we can approve. There is no other way of acting without leaving the matter in an unsatisfactory position. Our attention has been called to the fact that a certain letter which, if addressed to the newspapers directly, would expose them if they published it to an action at law, was read at the Committee, and afterwards found its way into certain newspapers. What we want to know is whether that letter was read at the Committee; whether, if read, it was taken down by the reporters from the mouth of the person who read it, or whether it was imparted by the Committee to the reporters. In short, we want to know whether, if so imparted, it was the act of the Committee, or whether it was done with or without consideration by any Member of the Committee. That is the matter before us, and I venture to think that we are taking the course not only most respectful to the Committee, but most convenient to the House.
MR. CHILDERS: Sir, I think the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer should persuade every Member of the House to vote against the Motion of the First Lord of the Treasury. I venture to say a few words on this occasion as one who during the 15 Sessions I have been in the House, have had the good fortune or the ill fortune to be the Chairman of a good many Committees. Now, what follows if the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman is carried? It depends upon the success or failure of the Motion whether a Gentleman may accept with satisfaction the office of Chairman, or whether he must shrink from accepting it. ["No, no!"] Though I do not pretend to be an authority on Parliamentary practice, of this I am sure—that if there be one rule which is certain above all others, it is, that when a Committee is appointed, the House does not interfere with its proceedings except on a Report from that Committee. With respect to the internal conduct of a Committee, that is left to the Chairman, with the consent of the majority, and it is absolutely unknown that the House should interfere, not upon the Motion of the Chairman or of any Member of the Committee, but on a Motion of a Member of the House, who only draws his information from the newspapers. If this were only an ordinary case, the person
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so interfering would be transgressing a well-known principle established for many years. But what has the Chancellor of the Exchequer said? He has told the House that this Committee is dealing with questions of great delicacy and difficulty. He has told us that it was he who, on the part of the Government, recommended the House to appoint the Committee. But my right hon. Friend might have added that, until his speech was over, we were in doubt whether the Government would consent to the Committee or not. In fact, we listened to my right hon. Friend's speech wondering whether he would find out, from certain sources of information consulted in the meantime, whether the Committee might safely be consented to or not. My right hon. Friend has said that it was a Committee appointed to inquire into matters of great delicacy. But surely that, of all possible reasons, was the strongest why we should not interfere with its action. My right hon. Friend, however, says that, because the Committee was charged to report upon matters of great delicacy, we are entitled to see how it is carrying on its business. That reminds me of the story often told about children who, when they have sown seeds in their garden, are in the habit of digging them up to see how they are growing. If ever there was a case when it would be unwise to interfere, it is that of a Committee entrusted with the charge of inquiring into matters of the greatest delicacy and difficulty. But let us now go back to the origin of the muddle and mess into which the House has got. What happened during the last few day? In the first place, the hon. Member for Londonderry handed a Notice to the Clerk at the Table of a Question that he intended to ask. He was told that it was informal, and then the hon. Member, without consulting the head of the Government, who is responsible for matters of this kind, proposed that we should take a certain course in punishment of a breach of Privilege. The hon. Member made a speech of some length on Tuesday last, and when he had finished some seconds passed before anybody rose to second his Motion. It was only after considerable delay that an hon. Member at this side very unexpectedly did so. No one rose to answer; we were not assisted by the Leader of the House; then an hon. Member spoke

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a few sentences, which were received with dead silence; and, no one else rising, the Question was put. Nobody said "Aye" but the hon. Member for Londonderry and the Seconder; a very large number on both sides said "No," and I am sure a great many Members on both sides believed that the Motion was rejected. But the Seconder insisted on a division, and then we became aware that the right hon. Gentleman, who would not advise the House, who would not say a word, most unexpectedly instructed a particular person to say that he was going to vote with the "Ayes." That was the first after-thought of the right hon. Gentleman, and that was the way in which we had got into the muddle. The right hon. Gentleman said, a little while ago, that it did not occur to him at the moment that the present course ought to be taken; but it has since occurred to him to put the present Motion on the Paper, and he proposes that a certain reference should be made to the Committee. Hon. Members come down assuming that all that is proposed is this reference to the Committee; but, since the right hon. Gentleman has decided that, something else has happened and it has occurred to him that the Motion should be followed by the discharge of the Order for the attendance of the two publishers. That is the second after-thought. If that is so, may I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman to have a third after-thought, and to adopt the proposal of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Oxford? He must have seen from the course of the debate, and from the speeches made on his own side, that we are engaging in another difficulty, and that he will require a fourth afterthought in a few days. The Committee consists equally of Members on both sides of the House; it contains three Members of his own Government, and not one Member of the Committee voted with the right hon. Gentleman the other evening. He is taking a course of antagonism towards the Committee, and surely it would be much more dignified to drop the Motion and this affair altogether, and to go on with the other business
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, the question was how the House could best escape from the difficulty in which it
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was placed. It seemed to him totally impossible, that the House should withdraw from the proceedings which it took a few days ago on this question. If it did, he felt with the Prime Minister that they were in danger of having those printers appear at the Bar, and, in language however courteous, convicting the House of not having defined what should and what should not be published in the shape of proceedings of one of their Committees, and thus being covered by the Privilege of the House. It appeared to him that the difficulty arose from the practice of the proceedings of the Committee being reported from day to day, and that the House had adopted no means whereby its Privilege might be secured against abuse being used for the purposes of libel and slander. This was brought home to the House by the charge directed against one of its own Members; but, surely, the House should protect not only one of its own Members, but should take precautions against its Privilege being used as a shield for libel and slander under cover of reporting the proceedings of Committees. This was, in his opinion, part of a very great question. Hitherto the House had trusted to the newspaper Press for the reports of its debates; but having now adopted a system of secret voting, and several other practices which had been prevalent abroad, they would have to follow the example of the Legislatures of France, the United States, Austria, and other countries in other respects, and especially in appointing an authority to supervise the publication of not only the proceedings of their Committees, but the reports of their debates. He doubted very much whether the Chairmen of Committees were competent to revise the reports of the proceedings which were issued to the public, and he believed that some authority—either the clerks of Committees, or some one else—ought to be directed to see that nothing libellous, slanderous, or discreditable, was published under cover of being part of the proceedings of the Committee. He thought they were quite right in asking some explanation from the Committee how it happened that this discreditable letter had been published.
MR. HORSMANthought the further they proceeded in this discussion the more the difficulty appeared hopelessly inextricable. He could not see how

1145
those who voted with the majority the other evening could vote for either the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman or the Amendment. They were both at variance and inconsistent with the second vote the other evening. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to the original appointment of this Committee, and to what then took place in debate. He said the House had entrusted to the Committee a very delicate inquiry. He might also have stated that it was an almost unprecedented inquiry; for he had not only implied it in the course of his speech, but asserted it more than once. The Government came down at 5 o'clock, intending to oppose the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James); but they found the feeling of the House too strong, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer put a new head and a new tail to the speech which he had evidently prepared to oppose the Motion, and then spoke in favour of the Motion; but he saved himself by taking two divisions. He stated the difficulties of the case, and he made one condition to limit the inquiry—that the hon. and learned Member for Taunton should put himself in communication with the Government, and they should take the lead in the nomination of the Committee. Three Members of the Government were named, with the Solicitor General, to watch the Committee generally, and make themselves responsible for their proceedings. The Committee decided it should be an open Committee, and new difficulties arose. A letter was read, it was heard by the reporters, and published with the rest of the proceedings. That was the state of the case, and he could not help thinking that the Chairman of the Committee had been treated rather unfairly. The Chairman of that Committee regulated its proceedings just as the Speaker regulated the proceedings of that House; but the one was no more responsible for those proceedings than the other for the course of their debates. In this case, the letter which was read contained a request that it should be sent to The Times and The Daily News, and as no Member of the Government asked how it was to be dealt with, the letter in the usual course of the proceedings got into those papers. The House knew all that it wanted to know, but having voted that a breach of Privilege had been committed,
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the question was, by whom? Was the Committee really responsible for that breach of Privilege? That seemed to be suggested by their sending back this inquiry to the Committee. There was an implied censure on the Committee. They asked the Committee to report that they were themselves responsible for the breach of Privilege. That was a very extraordinary proceeding. It was perfectly unprecedented to interfere with the proceedings of a Committee before they reported. He should be very glad to see his way out of the difficulty which did not involve him in inconsistency; but he must either vote for the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman, which he could not help thinking implied censure on the Committee, or he must vote for the discharge of the Order, contrary to the vote he gave the other evening. He thought the fairest, the most just, and the most generous course was to vote for rescinding the Order.
MR. BULWERsaid, he thought it very extraordinary if a Committee of which several hon. and learned Gentlemen, Her Majesty's Counsel, were Members, and who had determined to take evidence only on oath, had allowed an unauthenticated letter to be treated as evidence; and he did not believe that they had done so. But if not given in evidence, how came it to be published as part of their proceedings? That it ought not to have been published was perfectly clear, and if published by the authority of the Committee, it could only have been through inadvertence, which he had no doubt could very easily be explained. But as the matter stood, without explanation, the Committee and the House were in a difficulty. Three modes had been pointed out for getting rid of the difficulty. He ventured to suggest another—that the Chairman of the Committee or any other prominent Member of it should tell the House exactly the circumstances connected with the publication of that letter, and express their regret that a letter containing scandalous libels on a Member of that House had through inadvertence got into the newspapers, and the whole thing would drop.
MR. RATHBONEsaid, he would remind the House and the hon. and learned Gentleman that that was precisely the step already taken by a Member

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of Her Majesty's Government, the Judge Advocate General, who said that notwithstanding the Rules which regulated the proceedings of Committees, he should state what really took place, and he did so state. ["No, no!" and "Divide!"] He repeated that the hon. Gentleman had stated what took place at the Committee. ["No, no!"] He (Mr. Rathbone) should give his vote against the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman, and for this reason, that he did not wish to be a party to what appeared to him to be a solemn and untruthful farce
MR. CHARLES LEWIS: I hope, Sir, the House will allow me to say a few words after the very peculiar terms in which I have been referred to by the hon. and learned Member for the City of Oxford. The hon. and learned Gentleman has proved himself a perfect master in twisting the remarks of other persons. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that I did not mix myself up with the Government. The observation which I really made was, that I would not mix the Government up in my action. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the evidence I gave before another Committee, as if for the purpose of twisting that also into a meaning different from what I ever intended. I will not retort upon him, as I might, by referring to the elegant expressions he has used in reference to the Party of which I am a Member. His idea was old, but the phraseology was new, and what was new was not good. In lieu of of telling us that we were a stupid Party, be thought proper, when addressing us in the elegant language for which he is often remarkable, to say that we were the "blockheaded Party." We are not in the habit of resenting such expressions coming from such a quarter. We know that is part of the stock language, stock imputation, and stock proprieties of the hon. and learned Gentleman. Will he allow me to remind him, by way of retort, that it has been said during the last few months that the Party to which I suppose he belongs is a no-headed Party. We hear that repeated frequently from those benches opposite. Let me suggest an alteration of the title. I think, from what we notice of the conduct of the hon. and learned Gentleman himself, and one or two right hon. Gentlemen on that bench, we may better
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describe it as a many-headed Party. We know that some who watch with interest the proceedings of the hon. and learned Gentleman think that what he desires is to bring it back to being a single-headed Party, and the noble Marquess at the head of the Opposition might address him in these well-known words—
"I stay too long by thee; I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honours
Before thy hour be ripe? "
Will the hon. and learned Gentleman allow me to continue the quotation, if I assure him that I mean nothing personal when I say—
"Oh, foolish youth!
Thou seekest the greatness that will o'erwhelm thee.
Stay but a little."
And the noble Marquess, without any vindictive feeling, might go on to say—
"Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assur'd of it.
Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts
Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
To stab at half an hour of my life.
What! can'st thou not forbear me for half an hour?"
Sir, I do not pretend to be a master of that wonderful chaff and badinage in which the hon. and learned Gentleman is so great a proficient; but as he so often levels his shafts against me, let me have the liberty of telling him that, although he has left his seat here, he left part of his mantle behind him. I am sorry he did not take the whole, but still we have seen upon the front Opposition bench that divided allegiance and marvellous independence of spirit of which he might have shorn this bench, but which he left for me to copy as an example. But, Sir, the independence I have represented here has been independence of principle. I have never gone down to my constituents to rejoice over the misfortunes of my Party. In conclusion, and while asking the leave of the House to withdraw the Motion which I formally made, I would earnestly entreat of the hon. and learned Gentleman for the future that, instead of taking a person so unworthy of his ridicule and his shafts as

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myself, he will endeavour to measure his sword with some one more worthy and more able to meet him.
MR. SPEAKER: A Motion and an Amendment being before the House, I must remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that the Motion cannot be withdrawn unless the Amendment be withdrawn also.
Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.
Question proposed,
"That the words 'it being stated in 'The Times' and 'Daily News' newspapers of the 9th instant, referred to in the Order of the House of the 13th instant, that a letter, professing to be written by M. Victor Herran, Honduras Minister in Paris, and addressed to the Right honourable Robert Lowe, Chairman of the Committee on Loans to Foreign States, was read and made part of the proceedings before the Select Committee on Loans to Foreign States on the 8th instant, it be referred to the said Committee to report to the House whether such letter was produced and read before the said Committee and under what circumstances, and whether any copy of the said letter was communicated by or on behalf of the said Committee to the said newspapers or either of them,' be there added."
Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment,
To leave out from the word "being" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "inexpedient to proceed further in the matter of the Order made on Tuesday 13th April that Mr. Francis Goodlake, the printer of 'The Times' newspaper, and Mr. William King Hales, the printer of 'The Daily News' newspaper, do attend at the Bar of this House, the said Order be now read, and discharged,"—(Sir William Harcourt,)
—instead thereof.
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the said proposed Amendment."
The House divided:—Ayes 231; Noes 166: Majority 65.
Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
Ordered, That, it being stated in "The Times" and "Daily News" newspapers of the 9th instant, referred to in the Order of the House of the 12th instant, that a letter, professing to be written by M. Victor Herran, Honduras Minister in Paris, and addressed to the Eight honourable Robert Lowe, Chairman of the Committee on Loans to Foreign States, was read and made part of the proceedings before the Select Committee on Loans to Foreign States on the 8th instant, it
1150
be referred to the said Committee to report to the House whether such letter was produced and read before the said Committee and under what circumstances, and whether any copy of the said letter was communicated by or on behalf of the said Committee to the said newspapers or either of them.
MR. DISRAELI: I now move, Sir, that the Order for the attendance of Mr. Francis Goodlake, the printer of The Times, and Mr. W. R. Hales, printer of The Daily News, to attend at the Bar of the House be read and discharged.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTthought that the House ought to have some explanation on this matter. The House had resolved to ask a question of the Select Committee; but it now appeared that the answer was so unimportant, that the House were called upon to determine on the course to be adopted before they got the answer. It appeared to him that every step they took involved some additional absurdity. His right hon. Friend the Member for Chester (Mr. Dodson) feared that the House would lose its prestige in the country, but he (Sir William Harcourt) thought they were becoming the laughing-stock of the nation by going on in this way. It was always an unpleasant operation to eat your words; but the House of Commons was now asked by the Prime Minister unanimously to revoke what it had unanimously voted on Tuesday. This appeared to be a greater absurdity than any which they had already committed.
MR. DISRAELI: Mr. Speaker, I believe there is no passion which more influences the human breast than envy. When we remember that the hon. and learned Gentleman had announced that it was his intention to propose the very Motion I have now made, I think that we can sympathize with and pardon the excessive expressions in which he has conveyed his sentiments. The hon. and learned Gentleman is filled with the great desire—to use his own words—of "hanging these printers up." He says nothing can be more inconsistent than the course we are about to take. He says you have determined to refer to the Committee for information, and you will want the printers when you get that information. The hon. and learned Gentleman assumes that the Report of the Committee will be condemnatory of themselves, and will call upon the

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House to avenge its outraged principles. I will take a calmer and more charitable view. I would give the Committee the opportunity—standing high as they all do in the estimation of this House—of rising still higher in general esteem. I believe the communication they make will be satisfactory to all the interests and persons concerned. All that we shall then remember of this debate will be that the time has not been wasted—particularly when we see what is on the Paper this evening—which has given an opportunity to the hon. and learned Gentleman and his Friends to develop those Constitutional principles and pour out that Constitutional learning which the House so highly appreciates, and the possession of which tends so much to maintain—I will use the expression of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Dodson)—the prestige of the House of Commons.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Oxford did, Sir, express a wish to discharge these printers from their attendance; but he took that course, because he thought it never was necessary to require their attendance at all, and that the further progress we made in this matter the deeper we got into the mud. In total ignorance of what the Report of the Committee may be, the right hon. Gentleman moves that the printers should be discharged from their attendance, notwithstanding that the Report may show that a very serious breach of Privilege has been committed. We do not know whether the letter the publication of which is complained of was read in the Committee at all; we do not know that the newspapers did not acquire possession of the letter by some totally illegitimate means; but, still, although the House has declared that the printers have been guilty of a breach of Privilege, and although the right hon. Gentleman wishes to obtain further information as to the way in which that breach of Privilege was committed, he thinks it necessary to ask the House to discharge the printers from further attendance. I am sure that the Motion will not be disputed from this side of the House, although I cannot altogether concur in it for the reasons I have stated.
Motion agreed to.
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Ordered, That the Order that Mr. Francis Goodlake and Mr. William King Hales do attend at the Bar of this House, be read, and discharged.—(Mr. Disraeli.)

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

BRISTOL CHANNEL—HARBOUR OF REFUGE.—RESOLUTION.
MR. MONK, in rising to call the attention of the House to the want of a Harbour of Refuge in the Bristol Channel, and to move—
"That, in the opinion of this House, the construction of a Harbour of Refugeat Lundy Island, which was suggested by the Royal Commission of 1859, demands the serious and early attention of the Government as a work of national importance,"
and after having presented various Petitions in favour of the Motion, said, there was no part of the coast where a harbour of refuge could be more useful, or where it could be less expensively constructed than at the place designated in the Resolution. The great question, however, had been one of cost, and with reference to that, he thought money could not be better laid out than in the protection of valuable lives at sea. The statistics furnished periodically by the Board of Trade showed that the number of wrecks and casualities which occurred periodically in British waters, within 10 miles of the coast, was absolutely appalling. Between 1852 and 1857 the average number of wrecks and casualties on the coasts of the United Kingdom annually amounted to 1,051; between 1858 and 1862 they had risen to 1,389; from 1863 to 1867 they averaged 1,732 annually, and between 1868 and 1872, 1,779; while in the first six months of 1873, beyond which the Returns did not extend, the number was 967. During the six years ending 1872, the annual average loss of life was 2,008, whereas during the six years from 1852 to 1857 it was only 780. In 1859 the loss of property was estimated at £1,500,000 sterling, while it now exceeded annually £2,500,000 sterling. These figures alone showed that the subject was one which well deserved the consideration of the House. A Committee of the House sat in 1857 and 1858 to investigate it, and

1153
they reported in favour of grants of sums of money for the construction of harbours of refuge. A Royal Commission was subsequently appointed, which visited the various ports and made a valuable Report containing a similar recommendation and pointing especially to the advantage of Lundy Island, as a site both for a harbour of refuge, and a naval station for the defence of the coast. In the year 1860 Mr. Lindsay moved that the recommendation of the Royal Commission should be adopted, and although the Motion was opposed by the Government of the day it was carried, and amongst those who voted in the majority were seven Members of Her Majesty's present Government, including the First Lord of the Admiralty, the noble Lord the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the Judge Advocate General. In the year 1861, probably in consequence of the carrying of that Motion, the Government brought in a Pier and Harbour Bill and it became the law of the land; but the construction of harbours of refuge had received no support from successive Governments. The Royal Commissioners recommended that where there was an entire or a virtual absence of local interest at the place selected for the site of a harbour of refuge, and where the benefit would be confined exclusively to the passing trade it should be considered a national undertaking and be constructed at the public expense. A harbour of refuge at Lundy Island, as had been shown, would be most valuable as a point of departure for oceangoing ships, as a refuge for convoys, and as a naval station. The proposed works might be properly executed by convict labour, and the island was admirably adapted for a convict station, being 2½ mirably adapted for a convict station, nine miles distant from the nearest land, with good water, and exceedingly healthy. The cost of the proposed harbour works, if carried out by free labour, would be about £500,000; but if executed by convict labour, for which the island was very well suited, it would be only one-half of that sum. Lundy Island possessed a lighthouse and a good anchorage; but during the westerly gales the pilot boats were driven away from the island, to the detriment of the service, and inconvenience and danger to life and property. If ever a harbour were to be constructed there, now was
1154
the time to think about it. The island belonged to one proprietor, it had good water, and he thought convict labour might be transferred thither from Portland. The number of vessels that navigated the Bristol Channel was somewhere about 80,000 per annum, representing some 11,000,000 tons of shipping. The loss of life on our coast was perfectly appalling, and he regretted to say a considerable number of the wrecks occurred in the Bristol Channel; for instance, in the year 1872, 250 vessels were lost in only a portion of it. At present there was no harbour except the small and dangerous one of Padstow along 60 miles of iron-bound coast from the Lands End to Lundy. He was sure the Government would give the matter their consideration, and he should leave it in their hands. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution.
MR. CORDES, in seconding the Motion, said, he could bear testimony to the interest excited by the subject throughout the district. The question involved, however, was not a mere local one. The extent and value of the shipping which passed during the year through the Bristol Channel might be realized from the fact that it amounted to one-sixth of the shipping of the whole Kingdom. There could be no doubt whatever in the mind of any one who studied the subject that Lundy Island was well calculated for a harbour of refuge. One of the witnesses examined before the Royal Commission said the island was fixed there on purpose to supply a harbour of refuge. The Commissioners themselves were without doubt about such a harbour being necessary, and though they did not advise that it should be at once constructed, they recommended that the matter should be kept in view. That could not be said to have been done, for since then 16 years had elapsed, and now the question of a harbour of refuge at Lundy was hardly visible. They wished again to bring it into prominence, so that at no distant day a harbour into which vessels could run with safety might be made in the Bristol Channel. If he proposed that they should ask for £500,000, no doubt the Chancellor of the Exchequer would probably point to his cash-box, the empty condition of which he had on the preceding evening pointed out as the acme of financial art; but what he

1155
did propose was that a small amount should be expended annually until the harbour was completed.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the construction of a Harbour of Refuge at Lundy Island, which was suggested by the Royal Commission of 1859, demands the serious and early attention of the Government as a work of national importance,"—(Mr. Monk,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. E. J. REEDsaid, that no part of the country had shown greater enterprize than the ports of the Bristol Channel, and he should be sorry to do anything that would be injurious to the interests of their shipping trade; but when the House was asked to favour a Motion for the construction of a harbour of refuge it became it to look closely into the grounds upon which that proposal was based. Although he had nothing but praise to offer for the spirit in which the Motion had been made, he must say that the case presented was a weak and unsatisfactory one, since the particular harbour now advocated was not one which had really received the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Cordes) said he did not apply for any large or immediate expenditure, he only asked for a small sum to begin with; but when once begun, the work could not be abandoned. The Royal Commission spoke of this harbour only in connection with the trade of the Bristol Channel, and to that extent it partook of all the incidents of a local trade, and although they did not recommend its adoption, they did one at the Mumbles. [Mr. MONK said, they recommended it as a naval station.] They recommended it as a harbour for the convenience of the Bristol Channel; as a harbour of refuge in its full meaning, it would be worth nothing. It was said that the formation of a harbour of refuge by means of convict labour would save much of the expense of the construction of the harbour in question. But it was proved that such labour was of very questionable nature; but the great objection that he had to the proposal of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk)
1156
was, that if the Government contemplated yielding to this demand they would decidedly fly in the face of the Report of the Commissioners, by taking up a harbour which they did not recommend in preference to those which they did recommend. He hoped the Government would not give any assent to this project, without giving the opportunity of re-considering the whole question of harbours of refuge. If the question were taken up under the auspices of the right hon. Gentleman opposite they might succeed in getting a number of harbours of refuge constructed with propriety, and in due order, worthy of the House, the country, and the period, and a great service would thus be rendered to the maritime interests of the world.
SIR EARDLEY WILMOTsaid, he should have great pleasure in supporting the Motion, for it was impossible for anyone though not a sailor, to reside in the locality, and not see, as he had at Weston-super-Mare, the many disasters which occurred to shipping, and which testified to the necessity for the provision of a harbour of refuge, not merely for the benefit of the trade of the port of Bristol, but also for the shipping trade of the Bristol Channel generally. From Gloucester to the Land's End there was not a harbour which was not a tidal harbour, and, owing to the sudden changes in the wind, and violent storms in that locality, there were sometimes 500 vessels windbound in the Channel, the ports of which owned a very large proportion of the shipping of the country. As regarded Lundy Island, no doubt the great objection made to it was the amount of expense attaching to it, from the great depth of water in which the works would have to be constructed. If it was too considerable, he would suggest that it might be desirable to construct a harbour and port of refuge at Brean Down, a promontory of the Bristol Channel, which, he contended, might be done for £100,000, and respecting which the testimony of eminent civil engineers, and especially of Sir John Coode, had been already adduced as to the practicability of constructing it. Anyhow, the Bristol Channel had a fair claim to be considered, and if the Government would give the subject its impartial consideration, he had no doubt the wishes of the hon. Member for Gloucester would, sooner or later, be carried into effect.
MR. SCOURFIELDsaid, that as one of the few Members left in the House, who had served on the Committee on Harbours of Refuge, he felt greatly tempted to sing the praises of Milford Haven, and certainly if it were proposed to expend £500,000 on this coast, a fifth part of that sum might be advantageously spent upon the docks at that port. He doubted whether the representations of individual Members in favour of expenditure on their own locality had much weight with the House. The Executive was the proper Department to take such matters up, and if the Government declined to be guided by the Report of the Royal Commission of 1859 on account of the lapse of time, let them appoint another Royal Commission.
MR. BROGDENsaid, that the establishment of telegraphic communication between Lundy and the mainland would be an object of great importance to the mercantile community and to the public, and one much more easy of attainment than that proposed by the hon. Member for Gloucester. Lundy presented already many of the features of a natural harbour of refuge; but for want of communication with the mainland, ships ran in there in stress of weather, and lay there for many days together without any knowledge of their safety reaching those who were interested in them.
SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYsaid, that the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) had rested his whole case on the Report of the Royal Commission of 1859. On turning to their Report, however, he found that they were of opinion, with regard to a breakwater at Lundy Island, that the depth of water was so great that the cost of construction was not to be thought of until the other harbours on the coast, which they regarded as more important, had been completed. The hon. Member, therefore, at once disposed of his own Motion. Lundy Island was itself a natural breakwater against the waves of the Atlantic, and he agreed as to its natural advantages as a harbour of refuge. It had also excellent material for building, and was well circumstanced for using convict labour; it was also better situated than other places named further up the Channel. But allowing for all the advantages attaching to Lundy Island, the Commission to which the
1158
hon. Member for Gloucester referred recommended that public money should not be expended in making a harbour of refuge there until all the other places they mentioned had received prior attention. The constitution of harbours of refuge, in a national sense, moreover, was a very disputable point. It was a preferable course to facilitate the efforts of those engaged to deal with the necessities of commerce by the improvement of existing trading harbours. Since it had been found that the country was not prepared to expend money on artificial harbours of refuge, the local communities had set to work improving their own trading harbours. In the Wear, and the Tees, and the Tyne especially, gigantic works had been taken up by the localities interested in them, aided only by advances from the Exchequer Loans Commissioners. In that way the trading harbours had been so greatly improved as to be useful, not only for their original purpose, but likewise as harbours of refuge. Provision for maintenance was as important as that for first construction. These works were carried out with the support both of the communities where they were situated and also of the shipping interest; and they were afterwards kept in repair by the same means. The financial advantages of such a course were obvious, for the mercantile community, who were a rich interest, were ready to spend their money on works of that kind, and in a better way perhaps than the Government could expend it. On the other hand, the shipowners distinctly told them that they were not willing to pay passing tolls for the support of national harbours of refuge, and the Underwriters equally rejected them. Perhaps it was thought that these interests considered themselves safe by their own insurances. But it should be remembered that they were perfectly ready to pay passing tolls for lighthouses, which they deemed useful to them, but not for harbours of refuge. In this case there would be no local dues to support the harbour, for the population might be said to consist of rabbits, and if it was meant to charge the shipping interest generally, one such harbour as this would make the Mercantile Marine Fund bankrupt. He could not think that the proposal contemplated that such a work should be carried out simply at the expense of

1159
the Consolidated Fund, especially as Lundy had no prior claim in the matter. With regard to the case of Dover, he had made no claim to the expenditure of public money there on account of its being a fit place for a harbour of refuge. He had laid his chief stress on the advantages of Dover for a naval and military station at a most important point on our coast. The changed circumstances of the coasting trade also further weakened the claim for harbours of refuge, because steam was now so much used that many vessels stood out to sea rather than seek such harbours. Altogether, then, he must tell the hon. Member that having appealed to Cæsar, to Cæsar he must go; and in the words of the Royal Commission, he said the cost of the construction of a harbour of refuge where the hon. Member suggested ought not to be thought of, at all events, until harbours of more urgent necessity had been made.
GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURthought the policy now so distinctly announced by the President of the Board of Trade of encouraging the improvement of mercantile harbours which would be valuable both for trading purposes and as harbours of refuge, was a sound and wise one, and he hoped it would be adhered to and enforced by the permanent officers of the Board of Trade, as well as by the Government. The fact of localities improving their harbours by means of loans from the Exchequer Loan Commissioners was most important, only it must be borne in mind that the aid rendered had only amounted to a loan of a little more than £1,000,000 against upwards of £25,000,000 borrowed from other sources, and in face of this short aid they now found the Board of Trade using every effort to draw the country into an expenditure on Dover Harbour to the extent of the aid granted as loans to all the other harbours in the kingdom. It was a project pushed forward with great force by the Liberal Party, which committed the country to this large expenditure, by obtaining a Vote of £10,000 at the end of the Session by a majority of 61 to 59 votes. The reasons now given by the President of the Board of Trade for the proposed large expenditure at Dover were quite new, and certainly they had never been put forward by the late Duke of Wellington. So far from
1160
that great man advocating Dover as the place to be improved on that coast, he, on the contrary, in 1843, before the Shipwreck Committee, pointed to Dungeness as the proper site; and in a conversation with Mr. Walker, the engineer, to Seaford, as shown in the Proceedings of the Committee on Harbours of Refuge of 1858.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

THE QUEEN v. CASTRO—PETITION OF THOMAS BIDDULPH AND OTHERS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. WHALLEY, in rising to call attention to the Petition signed by Anthony Biddulph and others, praying for a free pardon to Castro alias Tichborne, said, that the Petition would have been signed by many other persons, including several noble Lords, but that they were prevented by the Forms of the House from addressing it on the subject. Among the signatories, however, was the cousin of the convict, a gentleman of unimpeachable position, and several persons residing in the neighbourhood of the Tichborne estates; and if he had been in this country he might have asked the present Viceroy of India to attach his signature, as he was one of those who, at the early stage of the proceedings, subscribed the sum of £5 towards a fund which was started with the view of enabling the person called Castro to prosecute his claim. Others who signed the Petition had been tenants on the Tichborne estate, but some of them, because they insisted that the Claimant was the heir to the Tichborne property, had lost their occupation. It was signed, also, by representative men, eight of the petitioners being chairmen of Tichborne Associations in the neighbourhood of London. The Petition, therefore, he submitted, was entitled to the attentive consideration of the House. There was nothing whatever contained in it to which the Committee on Public Petitions could possibly take exception. It broadly and boldly, but in respectful language, stated that in the opinion of those who subscribed their names there had been a serious miscarriage of justice, which raised by implication a charge against those who were responsible for

  1161
  the prosecution and for the conduct of the trial. The Petition was read at the Table and had since been printed by order of the Committee of Petitions. Each of those who signed it would, he believed, be found on inquiry to be well entitled to convey to this House his views on the subject, and not one of them could be justly styled a fool or a fanatic, or specimen of that ignorant, infatuated, and deluded multitude who, in public meetings throughout the country and by Petitions to Parliament, showed their views. The Petition was free from any of the objections successfully urged last night against other Petitions—that was to say, it did not expressly impute to the Judges who presided over this trial, misconduct; but it appeared to him that, by reasonable implication, it did put on trial the conduct of, those Judges, and all who were responsible in any degree for the administration of the law in the memorable cause, and it afforded to the House the opportunity of doing justice to all such persons and authorities, if the House deemed them to be unjustly assailed. The Petition from Prittle well had been rejected, because it stated in express terms that the Judge of the Tichborne trial had not secured for the defendant a fair trial. This Petition stated no more than they believed that the man now lying in penal servitude was innocent of the offences for which he was convicted, and, looking at the circumstances of that trial, such a statement was equivalent to the gravest and most specific charge of dereliction of duty on the part of those who were responsible to the country for originating and conducting that trial. What were those circumstances, and who were the persons or authorities responsible for that unprecedented trial? First, and in the highest degree, the House was responsible, and he laid stress upon this in order that the House might understand why it was that the vast sympathy which the people exhibited in public meeting and otherwise for the convict did not expose itself to insult and ridicule by open expression in the House. The late Attorney General, Sir John, now Lord, Coleridge, was counsel in the civil action which had terminated, not as was generally supposed, in a verdict against the Claimant, but in a non-suit. Notwithstanding that
  1162
  fact, however, the same hon. and learned Gentleman had taken the extraordinary course of having the defendant arrested and lodged in Newgate on a charge of perjury, and that without preliminary investigation; and, at the same time, with the leave of the House, he undertook to conduct and to pay the expenses of that prosecution. Subsequently, however, the hon. and learned Gentleman admitted the partiality, impropriety, and rashness of his proceedings by withdrawing from further connection with the matter. When called upon, however, to give an explanation of his conduct in the House, he declined to do so, throwing the responsibility upon the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary. He (Mr. Whalley) then applied to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer for the expenses of the defendant's witnesses, which he would be entitled to had he been examined before a magistrate; but the right hon. Gentleman referred him to the public, stating that the sympathizers with the defendant would, doubtless, find the money for his defence. That was, as he stated at the time, an outrage upon the course of proceeding and an insult to the administration of justice. At that time no less than £3,000 had been subscribed out of the pence of the working classes to enable the friends of the defendant to obtain his release from Newgate. It was necessary, in order to act as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had advised, by appealing to the public, to make explanations to them, and, accordingly, his friend, Mr. Guildford Onslow and himself held meetings for the purpose. They found, however, that upon an ex parte statement, Mr. Hawkins, instructed by the Government, had obtained their conviction for contempt of Court for addressing a public meeting in St. James's Hall before the trial. They attended the Court of Queen's Bench not to defend themselves, because they were advised that if they did it would be considered an aggravation of the offence alleged against them. The result was they escaped with the small and comparatively merciful penalty of £100 fine each. It was all very well to call the numbers of people throughout the country who believed that this man had not had a fair trial deluded and ignorant, and to characterize them as fools and fanatics. But the man had

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  no means of defending himself, for ever since the death of his mother he had been utterly penniless, depending for his support entirely on subscriptions from the public, while he had been deprived of the aid and the protection of the law by the act of the Attorney General. His (Mr. Whalley's) own conduct in the matter had been regulated by his sense of public duty; he had declined to permit his fine to be paid by public subscription, and he could assure the House that it should never hear a complaint from his lips with regard to his own personal grievances. The question was, had or had not this man a fair trial? and it was one that was being asked by the whole English-speaking race. He knew of his own knowledge that upwards of 200 witnesses in this man's favour were unable to be called for want of funds. Yet the House stood by when men were sent to prison, and fined for their honest efforts to provide for him the means of defence of which he was so deprived, with the direct cognizance and consent of this House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) demanded that this question—those charges against all concerned in this trial—should again be brought before this House, and the hon. Member for Stoke was severely censured by him for his delay in doing so. Until last night he (Mr. Whalley) shared the opinion that the hon. Member for Stoke should forthwith bring before the House the grounds upon which, with such extraordinary success, he had aroused the country to a sense of the injustice of this Tichborne trial; but that discussion and its result brought out plainly the fact this House was at present in no condition to do justice either to itself or to the question, and whether by reason of its sense of responsibility for any miscarriage of justice and waste of public money, or for any other inscrutable reason, social or political it mattered not, he could not but feel that the national scandal which that trial presented to the whole world would be greatly aggravated by any such action as would assuredly be taken at the instance of the hon. Member for Stoke. Could the House itself believe that it was at present in a fit state of mind, or adequately informed to enable it to discharge in the presence of that country and of the world
  1164
  the high judicial function of which it now demanded the exercise? Could it believe that when discussing the merits of a Petition, Member after Member, without a single exception, pledged himself, whatever his opinion on other matters, to the view that the petitioners and all others who believed that the defendant had not a fair trial were the fools and fanatics, the deluded, uneducated, and ignorant mass of humanity as described? Could that House desire to exhibit itself before the world, deciding in that temper and spirit upon questions involving the liberty of an individual and the gravest questions which for centuries had arisen upon the administration of justice? Was it not enough that they should have been for seven or eight years the ridicule of all who ever heard of the Tichborne Claimant; that either they could not punish an impostor, or that they would not do justice? He was not in the councils of the hon. Member for Stoke. He and the hon. Member for Stoke formed something like a party in that House, for they seemed to be the only Members in the House who believed that the Claimant was the true man, or even that he had not had a perfectly fair trial; for if there were any other Members sharing their opinions, surely under such stress as they were subjected to, they would have the manliness to step forward to their help against the overwhelming torrent of abuse and obloquy to which he, for a long time alone, and now the hon. Member for Stoke, were exposed. It had been generally accepted that there must be in this Tichborne Case a conspiracy on the one side or the other. He could assure the House that there was no conspiracy; no, not even combination or concert, between the hon. Member for Stoke and himself. Until last night he had but once seen or communicated with the hon. Member since he first entered the House, and he had no part in his public meetings, nor was he in any sense whatever responsible for his public writings or speeches, and he shared the opinion that he should not defer bringing the whole question before the House. For himself he had been a Member of the House for 23 years, and he trusted that nothing would occur to lessen the respect and the veneration he had always felt and manifested towards it; but after what occurred yesterday, he asked

  1165
  himself to what avail would it be, or what other result than to place this House in direct antagonism with so vast an amount of honest, earnest, patriotic sentiment throughout the country, and also with the common sense and the traditional respect, at home and throughout the world, which had so long been the heritage of their Courts of Justice. He was, therefore, of opinion that the hon. Member for Stoke had consulted the dignity of the House in declining to bring forward his Motion until a sufficient number of Petitions had been presented to educate the House on this question. He had been in America and in other countries on this subject, and he could assure hon. Members that this Tichborne Case—ignore it as they might—had attracted very considerable notice throughout the English-speaking world, and he lamented that it should be debated by the House in the temper which he had regretted to see manifested on a recent occasion. The jury never decided the question of his guilt or innocence at all; and therefore if the question were to be considered from that point of view, the case was entitled to the greatest consideration from the House. It was impossible to deny the assertion so often made that he had not had a fair trial; but he was sorry to say that from the present temper of the House he feared the question would not, or could not, be properly dealt with. There was, undoubtedly, a strong and growing feeling that the man was Tichborne; but, apart from that, there was a conviction that he had not had all the advantages in the way of defence which he ought to have had. The Lord Chief Justice himself had said there were grave doubts in the case; and on several occasions, addressing the defendant's counsel, he asked—"Have you considered what a disastrous effect, socially and morally, would follow if, after all that we have heard from these lords and ladies and gentlemen to the effect that he is not Tichborne, the jury should find that he is?"
  MR. BULWERasked the hon. Member from what part of the Lord Chief Justice's Charge he had been quoting?
  MR. WHALLEYreplied, that he had not spoken of the Charge; but had said that the Lord Chief Justice on more than one occasion addressed the defendant's counsel in language to that effect. In conclusion, he would make an appeal
  1166
  to Her Majesty's Government to devise some way to get out of the difficulty in which the question was now placed. If the object of those who demanded further discussion was to arrive at the truth of the case, that could best be done by a Select Committee, or by a Royal Commission, as prayed for in the Petition, and the Prime Minister knew how to set in motion such an inquiry. He knew also how to stop it when it was set in motion; for taking out of his (Mr. Whalley's) hands the appointment of a Committee on this subject last Session, the right hon. Gentleman did himself personally superintend the proceedings of that Committee; and when he (Mr. Whalley) brought before them charges and imputations against the Judges, as strong and specific as in the Petition they yesterday rejected, and offered to establish them, the right hon. Gentleman deemed it best for the Judges and for the credit of the administration of justice to stop the inquiry, and to cover up still more effectually the scandal, he did himself propose a complimentary addendum to the Report in favour of the Lord Chief Justice. Nor could that House say they had had no opportunity of discussing and repudiating those charges against the Judges, for he (Mr. Whalley) did himself attempt to raise such discussion. He read the Petition of his constituents, stronger in terms than that of Prittlewell, and after various devices resorted to by the friends, he presumed, of the Lord Chief Justice, the Government and the Opposition combined to count out the House. He, for one, was not afraid of inquiry or discussion, and he repeated what he stated last night—that if the Prime Minister would again appoint a Committee, he (Mr. Whalley) would, if permitted, substantiate the statements in the Petition of his constituents, substantially the same as those of the Prittlewell Petition; but if, on the other hand, the object of demanding further discussion was to discourage, by the expression of opinion by hon. Members here, the action of the public out-of-doors, he was disposed to believe that the hon. Member for Stoke exercised a sound discretion, and that it was alike for the interest of the public and for the credit of that House and for the honour of the country, that that question should not be submitted to so prejudiced and heated a tribunal until it

  1167
  should have been further ventilated in public meetings. He had, however, attended no meetings, and was not responsible for the action of the hon. Member for Stoke. With reference to the evidence given before the Committee of last year, he would say that if there ever was a man who deserved to be disbarred, it was Mr. Hawkins. Ladies of rank in the neighbourhood of the Tichborne estate were prevented from giving evidence by his scandalous abuse of forensic licence. The Home Secretary had refused to attend to affidavits which he had placed before him, and the Secretary of the Treasury had declined to give explanations with regard to the £55,000 paid for the expenses of the prosecution. As he had said, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had advised him, if he wished to raise funds for the Claimant's defence, to go about the country and solicit subscriptions. He did so, and he should be prepared, if necessary, to resume what had been termed his "mountebank operations," and to support the hon. Member for Stoke in his fearless agitation of this question, for the sake not merely of the Claimant, but of others who might be suffering from a miscarriage of justice. In two cases, he himself had at the last moment saved men from being hanged in consequence of a miscarriage of justice. He had now fulfilled his duty, and would only urge the House to grant the prayer of the Petition to which he had the honour of calling their attention, that they would recommend Her Majesty to grant a free pardon, or that there might, at all events, be a full investigation of all the circumstances of the case.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that, as he was specially responsible for the advice which must be tendered to Her Majesty in all cases where persons were convicted of crime, he hoped the House would allow him to say a few words on this subject. It was not his intention, however, to follow the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) in all the matters he had laid before the House on the present occasion. The hon. Member had undertaken to call attention to a Petition signed by Anthony Biddulph and others, praying for the pardon of Castro alias Tichborne. Now, although the House rejected a Petition last night on one particular ground, it
  1168
  had shown by the expression of opinion it then made that it would not too nicely scrutinize the language in which Petitions were couched when it related to a grievance which ought to be brought under the notice of the House. With regard to the Petition now before the House, he had no objection to make to one part of its prayer; but he had an objection to make to the speech of the hon. Member for Peterborough, because, although the hon. Gentleman had undertaken to call attention to the Petition, he had not alluded to a single paragraph in it, and none of the allegations made by the hon. Gentleman as to this trial were to be found in the Petition, from one end to the other. The hon. Member opposite had entered into the question of the origin of the prosecution by the late Attorney General, to the trial before the late Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to the Government payment of expenses, and to the fact that the expenses of witnesses for the defence, though promised by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, were not paid—although a large sum had been paid to the witnesses for the defence. The hon. Member also said he was told by the Government that he must go about the country, and that because he did so he was convicted in his absence for contempt of Court, and he and Mr. Onslow were punished for doing what they believed to be their duty. There was not a single word about these matters in the Petition. What the Petitioners did refer to was this. They stated a number of facts, or rather, alleged facts, and they said—"If facts like these should tell in the defendant's favour, they ought to be preferred to mere probabilities which tell against him." In effect they said—"If the law of evidence had been entirely changed and hearsay evidence admitted, the result might probably have been different." The Petitioners said—"The facts now mentioned by your Petitioners are only a few out of many which have come to light since the trial;" and then they proceeded to
  "Pray your honourable House to advise Her Majesty to grant the defendant a free pardon, or, in the event of your feeling that you cannot accept all these statements as true merely on the assertion of your Petitioners, that you will advise Her Majesty to appoint, without delay, a Royal Commission to inquire into their truth."
  For his own part, he strongly objected

  1169
  to a Petition praying that a Royal Commission should be appointed for the purpose of re-trying a case which had been heard by a Judge and jury. It was a proposition that could not be acceded to on any grounds. The hon. Member for Peterborough said that this case had not been tried by a jury, and that trial by jury was never intended to apply to a case extending over many months. Did the hon. Member think a Royal Commission would be much better? If the complaint were that the defendant had not been pardoned, he (Mr. Cross), and he alone, was responsible for the advice he had tendered to Her Majesty in this matter, and his hon. Friend knew perfectly well what course of action ought to be taken if, in the opinion of the House, he was wrong in giving that advice. He had paid attention to every Petition which had been presented in reference to this case. The hon. Member had stated that the defendant had not been treated in some particulars like other prisoners; but he (Mr. Cross) had invariably given directions that no difference should be made for or against that man in any shape, and that he should be treated in precisely the same way as other prisoners. If, on the other hand, the complaint was that there had not been a fair trial in the case, that the Judges and jury had been corrupt—that the Judges should be removed on account of the way in which the case was conducted—then, again, the remedy was plain. That House had stated that it would receive Petitions for an Address to the Crown to remove Judges; but he was bound to say that no Judges ought to be called upon to sit on the Bench and go on day after day administering justice while charges of the gravest possible description were hanging over their heads. It was our duty, if we had a charge against a Judge or any other person, to bring forward that charge directly with all our force—just as in a case of Privilege in that House, there must be no delay in bringing forward the case. He (Mr. Cross) must demand from the hon. Member for Stoke, if he meant to proceed with his Motion, that it be brought on immediately. He appealed to both sides of the House whether it was not the positive duty of the hon. Member for Stoke, if he was not prepared to proceed with that Motion, to take it at once off the Order Book of
  1170
  the House. The hon. Member said he was not prepared, because he had not got Petitions in his favour; but he had no right to leave his Motion on the Order Book until he got Petitions. He ought to know that it was his bounden duty to take it off. If, eventually, he got Petitions, he knew perfectly well that he had the power of putting it on the Order Book again. He (Mr. Cross) maintained it was due to those eminent Judges who had fairly and uprightly tried this case, in whose honesty, fairness, and purity, he believed most heartily, and who deserved and, he believed, had the perfect confidence of the country, that the Motion should not be allowed to remain on the Order Book of the House, unless the hon. Member was prepared at once to follow it up. He did not think that he ought at the present moment to detain the House further, except to say that, if the hon. Member for Peterborough thought he (Mr. Cross) was wrong in having advised the Crown that a free pardon should not be granted in this case, he was perfectly ready at any time to be answerable for his conduct to the House if the hon. Member chose to bring it before the House.
  DR. KENEALY: Sir, when I came down to this House this evening I did not intend to speak upon this question. I had not read the Petition which was presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), and it was only a few minutes before he brought on this Motion that I was first favoured with a view of it. I do not think it is a Petition that I could have laid great stress upon, and I candidly admit that it is open to some of the objections which have been raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. Nevertheless, this House has never been too technically fastidious about the language of Petitions, and I hope it never will be, because Petitions are the expression of the wishes of the common people, who are accustomed to express themselves in common language, and who should not be required to get a special pleader to draw them up. Now. Sir, the plain aspect of this country upon the unhappy Tichborne Case is perfectly unparalleled in the annals of our history. There is no more law-abiding people in the world than the English nation. There is no other nation in the world that from

  1171
  long custom and from family recollections have a greater respect for the Bench than they have; but when we find millions of our English fellow-people, actuated by one strong and powerful impression that justice has failed to be performed at a late trial, certainly I think the matter deserves our most earnest attention. A statesman would look upon the present circumstances of our country with very great care. I have gone through the length and breadth of this land, through England, Wales, and Scotland—I have been summoned to various large localities, not by any desire or action of my own, but on requisitions made to me signed by thousands and thousands of people, all of which have been couched in nearly the same language calling upon me—["Speak out!"] I would speak louder if I was able; but, unfortunately, I am not able. ["Oh, oh!" and "Order!"] My object must be to make myself heard by as many of you as there are here, and if I fail that must be my misfortune, not nay fault. That language conveys only one universal idea on the part of the thousands of signers, that there has been a failure of justice in the late trial, that that unhappy man whose life has exercised the curiosity of the world for so many years has somehow or other been dealt differently with from all other prisoners that have been tried within human recollection. With regard to this point, I am sure a statesman might very well pause before he ventured to taunt the great common people with such opprobrious epithets of contumely and contempt as have been lavished upon our countrymen of late. If they are under a delusion, it is a delusion shared in by millions, and one that no statesman ought to pass by or can afford to despise. The more they are immersed in clouds of delusion, if they be ignorant and infatuated, as is falsely pretended, the more likely is their delusion to end in a terrible way. Therefore I say that to treat them as scoundrels and to treat them with scorn, is undoubtedly not the right way to deal with that large and mighty section of Englishmen. I have gone amongst these people. I have conversed with them. I have addressed them, and I have seen women weep, and tears in strong men's eyes as they talked of that terrible trial. [Laughter.] Gentlemen may laugh, but it is true.
  1172
  I have seen such feeling pervading thousands of the masses as I have read have pervaded the masses previously to a revolutionary outbreak. I honestly and firmly believe that if one half the Members of this House could bring themselves to realize the spectacles that I have observed in the greatest centres of industry in England and Wales and Scotland, they would hesitate a very long time before they persevered in the course on which they now seem desperately bent. Gentlemen—["Order, order!"]—I humbly beg pardon. I do hope the House will make allowance for a new Member. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department has very pointedly addressed me to-night upon the question of the Motion which stands in my name. I did not have an opportunity last night of explaining fully to the House the reasons that persuade me that I ought as much in justice to the unhappy man whose claim I advocate as in justice to the House itself to postpone that Motion; and I certainly did not think when I sat down, without any opportunity of reply, that I should have been made the subject of so cruel and ungenerous an attack as was made upon me by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham. The right hon. Gentleman made an allusion to my character as if it were a bad one. [Mr. BRIGHT: You are mistaken.] I am glad to hear that I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman, and will at once retract the observation I made; for, to some extent, the right hon. Gentleman is deserving of gratitude at my hands. The House will remember that on the second night when I entered this House I gave Notice of my Motion. Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a man to give a Notice which I did not mean to follow up. I very soon saw, however, that for reasons which I could not and cannot understand, I was treated as a sort of Pariah or outcast in this House. I am not ashamed to say that I stand on an equality as regards honour with any man in this House, and therefore I do not deny that I felt most keenly the treatment which I thought so ill-deserved. No man has undergone a more terrific ordeal of revengeful punishment than I have. I have been expelled from my profession—turned out of it, as if I had been guilty of crime. I have been

  1173
  ruined at a time when I have no means of recommencing another profession, and that solely on the ground, as was alleged by my persecutors, that I was connected with a newspaper which they do not admire. Upon my professional honour in the course of the trial my bitterest enemy had not dared to lay his hand; and I may well complain that for an offence which I consider no offence at all I have been driven an outcast from society—I will not say in my old age, but at a time when it is impossible to recommence life. Sir, I saw the feeling against me that pervaded this House when I entered it, and there was a full and mighty manifestation of the same feeling last night. I had not been more than two or three days in this House when the hon. and learned Member for Poole (Mr. Evelyn Ashley) denounced me before his constituents as a man guilty of the basest crime, as one who had called a witness whom I knew to be false, and then I demanded redress from the House, and you know what I received. Again, a fortnight or so ago two hon. Members got up at one of their farmers' dinners in Stafford, and one of them said that I was in the House of Commons, but that I was such a character that I would not be admitted into any London Club. Another hon. and learned Gentleman, a member of my own former circuit, said that I was expelled from the Bar, because I was a disgrace to it. If I or those who may be said to represent my views are a little intemperate when language of that kind is used with reference to me, I think some little consideration might be shown me, bearing in mind that I never alluded to one of those three hon. Members in my life so as to justify them in dragging me before the public; as they did. Last night an hon. Gentleman whom I never saw before got up publicly in this House of Commons, and charged me with going about the country diffusing palpable lies, and no hon. Member called him to Order for it. I sat and listened to it with silent scorn. You, Sir, of course, as the guardian of the dignity of this House, felt it your duty to do so, and the hon. Member retracted, but did not apologize. With insults such as these heaped upon my head without any provocation—["Oh, oh," and Laughter]—with insults such as these, sanctioned and re-echoed as it were by Gentlemen
  1174
  such as are now applauding these sentiments from day to day, how can it be expected but that I should make some sort of reply? Why should I be taunted because I do not bring this unhappy man's case before this Assembly? If I do not receive common justice from some hon. Members here, how can I expect this man, against whom a lowering crowd of prejudice presses, will receive justice when I simply advocate his cause? It is not merely for my own sake, but his, that I postponed that Motion. I entered this House with the greatest reverence and veneration for all its ancient traditions of glory and honour. I am anxious that there should be no impairment of those illustrious traditions; but if I bring that man's case now before this Assembly, which I hope will pardon me for saying is prejudiced and prejudging, what will be the inevitable result? Why, that I should make a lamentable failure. As far as I know, I can never twice bring before the House the particular Motion which I mean to place before it. [Mr. BRIGHT: Not in the same Session.] The right hon. Gentleman tells me, not in the same Session; but with the greatest respect and deference to him, I fancy if he knew what my Motion was, he would not doubt the observation which I have made. I myself feel confident that I never can bring it forward a second time, and if I cannot do so, what a terrible load of responsibility will be upon me! Should I then depart from that which, in my own conscience, I believe best for the man, and lose a chance which once lost is lost for ever? I feel confident I shall be beaten. I feel equally confident that the people of England will not accept that defeat. But I feel as sure as that I stand in the presence of this illustrious Assembly that the morning that follows the rejection of my Motion will carry dismay through England. [Ironical cheers and laughter.] Sir, Nero fiddled while Borne was burning, and I have heard and read of statesmen who danced upon volcanoes. I know there is a volcano in this Kingdom which may merge it at any moment in utter fire and ruin. Therefore I repeat what I said, that the morning which follows the rejection of my Motion will carry dismay and rage throughout the United Kingdom. What will be the result of that dismay and rage? Will it

  1175
  be to elevate the character of this great Assembly in public opinion? Will not the great masses of our countrymen say that, as the Court of Queen's Bench, which tried this man, prejudged his case, so the House of Commons prejudged his case also, and I do not envy those hon. Members who are chary, and rightly chary, of the glory and honour of this House, if they are prepared to accept an alternative such as that. I can tell them it is perfectly sure to come. I can tell the House that upon this subject the people of England are determined and serious beyond all other subjects that ever I saw; and if I am appealed to by thousands and thousands of our countrymen, if I am summoned by requisition to all the great centres of industry in this Kingdom, I shall be compelled to tell them the reception that I have met with here. I shall be compelled to give them my real opinion, that this House met to adjudicate upon a case which it was determined to reject; that this House had apparently set its mind, and was determined to listen to no reason, no argument, but was resolved to let a prisoner die in Dartmoor without redress. I may be wrong in that impression; but the result of the debate on my Motion will make the world know whether I am right or wrong. If, under these circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary and the statesmen near him think that the honour and reputation of this House will be sustained by my bringing on that Motion, I am ready to bring it on whenever they please; I am as prepared now as I was on the second day of my entrance; but I respectfully warn hon. Members to beware of the consequences of its rejection. ["Oh, oh," and Laughter.] They may laugh, they may sneer—[Increased laughter]—they may indulge in such an ebullition of feeling as they now exhibit, but I wash my hands of the consequences. I shall now address myself to the Petition before the House. Paragraph No. 3 says the Lord Chief Justice testified that most of the witnesses were respectable people, and so forth. With respect to that, it is contrary to true law—not sham law or Judge-made law—that the Judges should give suggestions to the jury on evidence. It is a maxim as old as Magna Charta that the jury shall act on matters of fact, and the Judges on matters of law. When a
  1176
  Judge goes beyond that, he travels out of his province and usurps the province of the jury. If, therefore, it be substantiated before a Commission or any other tribunal that the learned Lord Chief Justice has, in this case, mainly relied upon supposition and hypothesis, I say that that alone justifies the interference of the Home Secretary. I want, therefore, to know if the right hon. Gentleman thinks this case differs from others, when, upon information received subsequently to conviction, he has become persuaded there has been a failure of justice and advised the Crown to remit the sentence. All I ask of him in the present instance is, that he should set his mind to think if it is possible that so many millions of the people of England can be mistaken in their views of the case, and if it would not be advisable for him seriously, cautiously, and carefully to investigate, with the view that he may at once satisfy his own conscience, and at the same time satisfy the reason and judgment of so many millions of his fellow-countrymen. The people of this country are not the only people who are dissatisfied with the result of this trial. The people of Germany almost unanimously believe that the Claimant has not had a fair trial. This fact is one of great concern, for in all matters of jurisprudence there are no people more competent to give a reliable opinion than the people of the great Teutonic nations. If they then have made up their mind that justice has not been done, it is a serious matter to take into consideration. A short time since the Countess De Civry was brought to trial, and after careful investigation, convicted by a jury, but subsequently the right hon. Gentleman became convinced that that lady had been wrongly convicted, and advised Her Majesty to grant her a free pardon. If then a jury such as that—for nowhere can you get better juries than in the City of London—was wrongly convicted after an investigation of only 24 hours, the right hon. Gentleman can hardly with much force throw in my teeth the verdict of the jury in the case to which this Petition refers. The 8th section of the Petition states that 18 witnesses were examined at the trial who swore that they saw and knew both Orton and Castro in Australia, and that they were distinct individuals, while only one witness

  1177
  was examined to prove that Orton and Castro were one and the same person, and that since the trial that witness has been convicted of bigamy and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. I always understood that the sentence passed upon that man was one of 12 months' imprisonment, and therefore I am surprised at this allegation in the Petition, that the sentence was only for six months; but the mistake is probably owing to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman, for some reasons which have not been made known, has remitted one-half the man's penalty. Another witness from Australia who swore that Orton and Castro were the same is Mrs. Jury, and she has since been convicted of robbery and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Here we have two important facts stated—that two of the most important witnesses for the prosecution, and who were complimented both by the counsel for the prosecution and by the Lord Chief Justice as witnesses of value and respectability, have turned out to be fit occupants of one of Her Majesty's gaols. I would have thought that facts like these would have weighed with the Home Secretary, who has had more judicial training and more legal training, as everyone who has read his excellent book on law must be constrained to admit, than any of his predecessors in that high office. The 15th paragraph of this Petition states that Dr. Wheeler, a surgeon in the Navy, who was absent from this country at the time of the trial, has made an affidavit that he knew both Castro and Orton; that the latter were earrings and was pockmarked, and that he admitted he was a ticket-of-leave man, and had been convicted of horse-stealing, thus confirming an important part of the evidence. Again, it states that it has been sworn that at the age of 18 Orton was 5 feet 9 inches high, while the prisoner is only 5 feet 9 inches at the present time. The 24th paragraph of the Petition is the only other portion of it to which I would now refer. The great and powerful point laid hold of by the prosecution was that no man of the Osprey ever turned up to confirm the story told by the Claimant; but it was most conclusively proved that a ship called the Osprey did bring a shipwrecked crew into the port of Melbourne, and it is just as reasonable we
  1178
  should doubt the existence of the Bella, because no person connected with that vessel bad turned up, as that we should doubt the existence of the Osprey. In conclusion, I have to thank the House for the attention with which it has listened to me, and I most cordially join in the prayer of the Petition, that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary will either himself re-consider the case, or else issue a Commission to ascertain if the country has been guilty of the awful crime of punishing an innocent man. I am certain that if he can bring his mind to the conclusion that this is a matter for deep and serious investigation, and that if after going through that investigation he comes to the conclusion that justice has not been done, he will release this man, he will do an act which will crown his name with honour, not only in the present, but in the future, and which will earn him an undying title to the regard of his fellow-countrymen such as no other statesman ever enjoyed.
  MR. BRIGHT: Perhaps, Sir, I may be allowed to make a little explanation. The hon. Member for Stoke has used language which showed that he had been somewhat pained by the observations I made last night. I observed to him at the time, sitting close to him, that he was entirely mistaken in the impression he had formed of what I said; but another hon. Member of the House has since told me that, having read one of the reports in the papers, he had come to the same conclusion. I have not read any of the reports, and do not know exactly what the error was; but what I intended to say last night was this: that if a Member of this House had made charges—and I refer to charges like those made by the hon. Member, and embodied in these Petitions, against the Judges—had brought forward a Motion and postponed it from day to day, and had given no intimation of when he intended to bring it forward, that, in the interim, by the various moans at his disposal or supposed to be, he was exciting strong feelings amongst the public, or a portion of the public calculated, as I said, to destroy their confidence in the administration of justice, which I hold to be a great misfortune, and he failed to bring forward proofs and refused to substantiate charges, then in that case he himself would be guilty of conduct

  1179
  not less criminal than that which he charged upon the Judges. Now, Sir, up to this time, if the hon. Member were now to fix a day for his Motion I should not condemn him for having for a very undue period put off the proof which he has offered to the House; but, if it is deferred, I think I am entitled to say that the hon. Member is not doing that which he can reconcile or commend to himself, and I am sure he is not doing that which will be commended by the great body of his countrymen. Now, I have not—I take the House to witness if I have—said a word against the hon. Member for Stoke. I am conscious, as he is conscious, that he came into this House, and has been in it under unusual difficulty, and I have felt that it was my duty, as it was entirely my inclination, to greet him with all the respect that is due to the Representative of a great constituency and a Member of this Parliament. Sir, the hon. Member has moved a little, as I think, in his observations, from the position which the House understood him to occupy last night in this way. He has conveyed to the House tonight that his Motion would be directed especially to the case of the person whom he defended in the late trial, and that his object would be to induce the House to induce the Government to take some steps for re-trying the case, or for liberating the convict from his confinement. If that is all, it would not matter very much whether the Motion was brought on now or a month hence. [Dr. KENEALY: I was only referring to the present Petition.] I beg pardon; what I said was based upon the postponement of the original Motion. All I am urging is the great harm done to the public and the great injustice done to the Judges, if the charges against them are insisted upon, should an unnecessary delay be allowed to take place before an attempt is made to substantiate the charges. Now, I must beg the hon. Gentleman and the House to recollect, what he must be conscious of, that, whatever these charges are, whether they are true or false, they can receive no kind of support, by way of evidence, from the Petitions which will be presented. The Petitions may come in in great numbers, they may show the strength, or it may be the universality of the belief that the charges are true, but the House, when it comes to decide
  1180
  the question, will not decide upon the averments in the Petition, or of the belief of the petitioners, but upon its own consciousness of what is right and just, having heard the statement of the hon. Member and of any others who may support him, and the statements of other hon. Members which may be made in opposition to his case. Therefore, so far as the charges against the Judges go, the fact of the Petitions not being presented which may be expected—it may be during the next three months—is no kind of answer to the claim that the charges should be proceeded with and the question be determined. Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in his speech to-night has made an appeal, as I made an appeal, to the hon. Member for Stoke, urging that this question of the character of the Judges should be brought to issue at some early period, and I will ask the right hon. Gentleman if he cannot undertake to say that an early day, whatever day may be convenient to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke, the Government would give him one of their days, in order to discuss what he may be prepared to bring forward. I tell the hon. Member with the greatest sincerity—and I hope he will believe it—that I make this appeal to him with no feeling of opposition to him, or with the view of putting any difficulty in his path in regard to anything that is honest and right, but it is because I am sure that in all parts of the country where statements that I think are incorrect, and unjust, and exaggerated to an extraordinary and incredible degree, are made to thousands of persons who have no fair opportunity of correcting them from their own investigation and their own knowledge, a great and real injury is inflicted upon the Commonwealth. The hon. Gentleman is not callous—he cannot be callous to the appeals which are made to him in this House to bring forward the Motion which stands in his name on the Paper. His speech tonight has been one which must show to the House how much it might gain if the hon. Gentleman abstained from some things which we think extravagant and ill-advised, and devoted himself to the public service and the service of his constituents as a Member of this House. His speech is one to which I have listened with great interest, and it only

  1181
  leads me to lament the more the course which he has taken under the aggravation to which he points, an aggravation which will justify great allowance for him. I say I am only sorry that he should not be able to get rid of, if it were possible, the sense of injury under which he acts, and become one of the 650 Members of this House who in the main, I believe, are honestly endeavouring to do their duty to those who send them here and to the country at large.
  MR. WADDYsaid, he should be one of the last persons in that House to complain of the good faith or of the good intentions of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), or, in some respects, perhaps, even of the hon. Member for Stoke; but when the hon. Gentleman complained of his treatment in that House, and described himself as a martyr or a Pariah, he (Mr. Waddy) desired to state broadly and boldly, and in the most uncompromising manner, that the treatment which he had received was far kinder than he had any right to expect, considering the language to which he had committed himself with regard to that House before he came into it. There was a Paper pretty well known with which the hon. Member's name was indissolubly connected; and sooner or later it might perhaps be the duty of some hon. Member to ask the hon. Member for Stoke, whether it was with or without his consent that, week after week, it was publicly stated that The Englishman was edited by himself, and whether or not it was true that a paper containing the most scandalous statements with regard to hon. Members of that House and which bore his name was, in reality, edited by a Member of the British House of Commons? It was all very well in the presence of the Speaker to speak "with bated breath" and in reverential terms of that House. Of course, one would not pretend to doubt the perfect sincerity of the expressions now used; but what was the language published in connection with his name a short time before he entered the House? In a letter stated to have been addressed by himself to the people of Manchester, and signed Edward Vaughan Kenealy, there occurred this passage—
  "We have no man in Parliament with courage enough or knowledge enough to meet the Speaker when he dares to say that he will not receive the Petitions of the people. We have no man to
  1182
  complain of the violated laws and outraged institutions of our once free country. Everything in that House and in the newspaper Press savours of falsehood, bribery, servility, and corruption, and I can hardly conceive any great nation that has sunk into a more degraded condition than we have. To stem this torrent which seems likely to sweep us all away headlong is the object which I have now in view. I wish to arouse the whole Kingdom to a just indignation at the conduct of the three Judges, of Cross, and of Brand the Speaker. I wish to test whether the old English spirit still survives."
  On the same page the House of Commons was spoken of as—
  "A House of corruption, bowing down like a body of footmen, or spaniels, or beaten, frightened curs before Speaker Brand, when he dared to refuse Petitions from Englishmen, contrary to the Bill of Eights and all our ancient laws from time immemorial."
  He (Mr. Waddy) ventured to think it was not with the best possible grace that the man whose hand, at all events, presumably, penned those passages should come to that House two or three weeks afterwards and complain that Members were not over anxious to associate with him. Still, let it be said that when any hon. Member came into that House, however far he might have forgotten himself before, it was their duty and their practice, until he challenged their memory, to try and forget what he might have said before his election. Therefore, with that reminder of what might have slipped the hon. Member's recollection, he passed to the Petition he wished them to deal with. It was a Petition, the purport of which was that a man who, on the statement of his own case, was disbelieved by one jury—and, on the statement of the case against him, was convicted by another jury—who, on the statement of his own counsel, was a man whose imposture, assuming it to have been one, was almost the most venial part of his character—that that man having been at last safely committed to prison, the House ought to be called upon to recommend Her Majesty to let him loose on society. Not that there had been any slip or mistake in the trial, but that, without any fresh trial, that man should be pardoned and released, for some reason which he had not yet been able thoroughly to comprehend. The only reason given for it that night was the somewhat strange one from the logical mind of the hon. Member for Peterborough, that the man should not have been convicted, because his trial took so long a

  1183
  time. According to that argument, no criminal, however vile or guilty, if he could call one or two hundred witnesses, could ever be convicted, because his trial would last so long. Those who, for reasons best known to themselves, had been agitating the country, could not have a bonâ fide expectation that that sentence would be reversed without rhyme or reason. The hon. Member for Peterborough told them the House was responsible for the excitement and the uncomfortable feeling abroad in the country in regard to the convict Orton; while the hon. Member for Stoke said there was a flame in the country which they ought to take care not to spread. Did that language come well from the lips of the firebrand, and were they to be asked to do what they verily believed to be contrary to justice, in order that the flame, which he had done his best to kindle, might be allayed? [Cheers. Mr. WHALLEY: Oh, oh!] He was delighted to find there was actually one man besides the hon. Member for Stoke who disagreed with him (Mr. Waddy); but he was also delighted that the majority of Members of that House would agree in opinion as to who was chiefly responsible for setting the country aflame. Somebody was to blame for this, and the man was he whose voice they had heard in the House that evening; because for a long time past, by such means as he had already mentioned, that man had been permitted, unfortunately without contradiction, to set on foot and keep on foot throughout the length and breadth of the land a system of misstatements, exaggerations, and slanders that was perfectly shocking to every right-minded person. [Mr. WHALLEY: What are they?] He had not the slightest objection to describe them, though if he did not feel that the matter was becoming too serious to be laughed down, he would not help to give notoriety to the slander, ribaldry, and rubbish which were to be found in that wretched publication. Was it a right thing that there should be published from week to week a print in which the Judges of the land, the Speaker of the House, hon. Members on both sides, anybody and everybody who did not happen to take the fancy or suit the taste of one particular person, should be constantly slandered in the most vulgar, scurrilous, and defamatory style? [Mr. WHALLEY: Why do you
  1184
  not prosecute him?] That was not a question for him (Mr. Waddy) to answer, but if the hon. Member only exercised ordinary patience he would find that he was going to ask it. If he were asked to say how this excitement and confusion were produced in this country he would direct attention to this notice in The Englishman—
  "Let no time, therefore, be lost in organizing the great Hyde Park demonstration, and the meeting of delegates. Let not an hour be wasted in preparing and signing Petitions."
  In the same print, a late Member of that House, now one of Her Majesty's Judges was constantly called by a nickname that was intended as an imputation of fraud and forgery; three of Her Majesty's Judges were almost incessantly defamed; Her Majesty's Solicitor General was treated with contumely and insult; the right hon. Gentleman who had spoken last was treated in the same style, and, indeed, no reputation was sacred enough to be respected. While all that went on unchecked, no wonder there were confusion and trouble in the country. He had said almost everybody was defamed; but he must do stern and strict justice. There was one remarkable exception. The volume he held in his hand, which would appear to be written by one person, contained the following:—
  "A man so highly gifted, and uniting in himself numerous accomplishments of the highest order, to an undaunted courage and a generous philanthropic disposition, will not find his equal in the whole of that Assembly at St. Stephen's. Deeply learned in the knowledge of the Constitution, it will be hard to point out a rival to him in this respect; experienced as a lawyer, he has taken the highest honours of the Bar; as an orator, impartial scholars have pronouced passages in his ever memorable speeches during the great trial to be equal in sublimity of thought and refinement of expression to the loftiest efforts of Burke or Chatham; as an editor, by the very power of his name, he has obtained such a circulation for his journal as was never before attained in the same space of time; as a poet, he has supplied materials for the productions of a whole host of fledglings that now appear among us; as a linguist, it would form a long list only to mention the names of the languages he is the complete master of. To write a most beautiful stanza in English, to translate it into "Welsh, Irish, French, Latin, Greek, and Hindustanee, is to Dr. Kenealy one of the easiest of all tasks. Most of the editors of the daily papers would be inflated with unendurable conceit if they only knew as much of literature as the learned doctor has forgotten—the very remnants of his garments would make them a splendid suit of clothes in comparison with which their present attire would seem beggarly.

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  Such is the man, then, those noble Englishmen have returned for Stoke-upon-Trent, undaunted by the spleen of a Lord Chief Justice."
  There was much more of the same sort, but he really could not go on with it any longer. The serious part of the matter was, that it was believed by hundreds and it might be thousands of deluded people; and that alone made it worth while to quote such rubbish in the House of Commons. How long was that kind of warfare to continue? Not only were the acts of public men challenged, but the attempt was made to deter them from doing their duty and make them wretched by threats of dragging into public light the absurdities or the follies of their earlier days. Weapons were brought to the work of journalism and the strife of politics more like the scalping knife and the tomahawk of the savage than anything else; and if public men did what they thought to be their duty, they were to be reminded of "domestic circumstances" If a public man did not choose exactly in all ways to bow down to the editor of that odious publication, there was to be something discovered in some strange and unheard-of fashion, or invented, which should do duty to bring him into discredit. It had even been said—he did not know, or care to inquire, how truly—that some of those who were attacked in that print, and of whom stories had been narrated or darkly hinted, were unwilling to come and face the light of day, because those stories might have been based perchance on something or other that had been extracted in hours of friendship in bygone days. If that were true, these slanders were written by a hand which had received benefits from the very man on whom he tried to heap ignominy and disgrace. But if it were true, he believed every one in that House would join him in saying that in comparison with that infamy even falsehood itself was venial. The hon. Member for Stoke said he should postpone his Motion for a time until he had received more Petitions. By what means? By continuing to spread this poison throughout the country? It was more and more necessary, therefore, for the House to insist on the Motion being brought forward. It was no longer the case of the wretched convict Orton; it had not been the case of the wretched convict for some time past; it was the
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  case of those to whom they were accustomed to look up to with honour and reverence. In conclusion, he should ask two different questions from two different people. First, he would adopt one remark of the hon. Member for Peterborough, and he would turn to the Government Bench and ask "Why do you not prosecute?" He affirmed distinctly that the country expected it, and said it was high time. In this country people might go on for a time trampling decency under foot, but a time must come when a snake, however contemptible a snake, deserved to be killed. In the name of the country, of justice, and of everything dear to England, he called upon the Government to bring it to a short and speedy issue. There should be a criminal information filed against the person responsible for the abominable slanders and the wretched defamations of character of which there seemed to be no end. And, in the last place, he would ask a question from the hon. Member for Stoke. For any high-minded Englishman and a Member of the House of Commons to submit to have his name connected with these vile, scandalous libels was almost incredible; and while he hoped the Government would take speedy action in the matter, the House of Commons was entitled also to call upon one Member to say aye or no "Have we among us the man responsible for this vile work?
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, as one who had endured a criminal prosecution himself, he begged the House, under the spell of the burning speech to which they had just listened, not to order a criminal prosecution. He believed the hon. Member had greatly exaggerated the feeling of the country; and he therefore asked the House not to be hurried away or to rush into such a false step as that suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Barnstaple—such a proceeding must have a very bad effect in any case.
  MR. MACDONALDsaid, he had heard the speeches of the hon. Member for Stoke last night and that evening, and he yet shrank from attempting to substantiate those charges which, left as they were, must be felt by every right-thinking man in the country as offensive—to wit, against the Judges of the land and the administration of the law of the land. To defame that House would be

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  a trifle. To defame the Crown would even more be a trifle, by comparison, in his (Mr. Macdonald's) estimation; but the law of this country was that which bound one man to another—which gave us repose and confidence the like of which no other country possessed. Men who went about defaming those institutions so sacred were guilty of the vilest offence known in the country. Not a moment should be lost in proving such charges to be true or false. If true, let them be established; and if false, as he believed they were, let no more be heard of them. He knew the people of the country as well as the hon. Member for Stoke—his (Mr. Macdonald's) knowledge was not based upon an imaginary grievance, but extended over 25 years—and he affirmed positively that no such feeling as the hon. Member had described was in existence. Let them have the "abyss," if there was one. He did not fear for the effect of the slanders on high and upright persons, but he did fear that the law and the administration of it might he brought into contempt by such writings as the hon. and learned Member for Barnstaple (Mr. Waddy) had read to them. He read in the paper the other day a speech of the hon. Member for Stoke, in which he said that on his arrival in the House 300 Members would cry out at his terrible presence. When he did come, however, nobody appeared to be frightened or alarmed; but now the hon. Member was here, he called upon him to bring forward his charges. If he did not bring them forward, then the Government must take some strong step to give to the people a feeling of confidence that they should not tolerate these slanders any longer.
  MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, he must deny that he had used some of the expressions which the hon. Member for Stoke had imputed to him. As a Member of that House—and he was sure that those who felt most strongly with regard to the hon. Member's conduct were animated by the same sentiment—he desired that there still might be a locus penitentiæ for the hon. Member. He hoped that the advice of the hon. and learned Member for Barnstaple (Mr. Waddy) with regard to a criminal prosecution would not be accepted, and in that view, he would appeal to the hon. Member for Stoke to leave the course which he had pursued, to abandon
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  the phantom idea he had taken up, to endeavour to occupy in that House the position of the Representative of a great constituency, to employ his talents for the honour of his country, and not to force Her Majesty's Government to that which would be so deeply to be regretted—the criminal prosecution of a Member of that House.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 41.]
(Mr. Ronayne, Mr. Butt, Mr. Bryan.)
MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 41.]

  SECOND HEADING. ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [23rd March], "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Butt.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, it had been his duty to look at the whole question, of which a part was raised by his Bill, and he was very doubtful whether the course proposed of assimilating the municipal law of Ireland to that of England not only with regard to administrative details, but also with regard to the franchise, was the best mode of dealing with it. The Irish Municipal Reform Act of 1840 had extinguished many old corporations, leaving but 10 in existence. In the 35 years that had since elapsed, only one other town had obtained a municipal charter; yet, if this Act had been really adapted to the requirements of the country, surely other large and growing towns would have followed this solitary example. They had, however, preferred to place themselves under the provisions of the Towns Improvement Act of 1854. The franchise under this Act appeared to be of a more popular character than the municipal franchise; a protection to owners of property being secured in municipalities—except Dublin—by the high franchise of £8 value, and in towns under the Act of 1854 by the limit fixed by that Act on the rating powers of the Town Commissioners. Objection might be taken to both of these provisions; he went so far with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Limerick as to say that to maintain the municipal

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  franchise at £8 was not satisfactory, and to limit the rates which might be levied in towns might prevent their governing bodies from efficiently carrying out those objects for which they were appointed. Neither party in Ireland seemed to be satisfied with the working of the existing Municipal Acts; but the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman merely touched upon the fringe of the question, and in no way dealt with the government of towns, but provided that they should appoint their own sheriffs and their own clerks of the peace. There might be no objection to this proposal in itself; but as he believed—and the various Bills that had been introduced upon the subject confirmed him in the opinion—that the operation of the whole law relating to town government in Ireland required investigation, he did not think it advisable that the House should adopt a proposal which dealt with only a small portion of that law, and for which there was certainly no urgent popular demand. On the contrary, if the offices in question were to be dealt with at all, it seemed doubtful whether they might not be abolished; for if the recent recommendation of the Committee on the Jury Law were adopted—that the jury lists of the towns and of the counties should be fused—there would not be any occasion for town sheriffs to form the jury panels; while as regarded the clerks of the peace, the law with respect to their appointment, whether in counties or in towns, would, he hoped, soon be considerably modified. He hoped that the result of an inquiry by a Select Committee such as that he would propose as an Amendment to the Bill of the hon. and learned Member would, within a reasonable time, enable Her Majesty's Government to settle the municipal government of Ireland on a more uniform and satisfactory basis than at present. He begged to move, as an Amendment to the Motion for the second reading of the Bill, that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation of the several Acts relating to the municipal government of Ireland.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation in Ireland of the following statutes: 9 Geo. 4, c. 82. 3 and 4 Vic. c. 108,
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  and 17 and 18 Vic. c. 103, and the Acts altering and amending the same, and to report whether any and what alterations are advisable in the Law relating to the Local Government and Taxation of Cities and Towns in that part of the United Kingdom,"—(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. POWERmoved the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. BUTThoped the Motion would be agreed to. He objected to discuss the re-actionary policy of the Government at 20 minutes to 1 in the morning, and some hours at least should elapse before the right hon. Baronet should strangle the liberties of Ireland by obtaining the assent of the House to his Motion. The right hon. Baronet's proposal had for its object the extinction of all municipal privileges in Ireland, and contained the denial of the demand of the Irish Members for an equality of municipal rights in the two countries. He (Mr. Butt) maintained that the Government were pledged to pass the Bill, and that it was something very like a breach of faith on the part of this right hon. Baronet to bring forward such an Amendment as that proposed.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he would not object to the adjournment of the debate; but believing that this subject ought to be fully investigated by a Select Committee, he was anxious that the inquiry should be commenced as soon as possible. The adjournment of the debate would, he feared, much delay the settlement of the question; but the responsibility for that delay would rest with the hon. and learned Member for Limerick and his Friends. He simply objected to the Bill, because he believed further inquiry to be desirable. He further had to complain that the intentions of the Government on the question had been grossly misrepresented by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and must emphatically state on their behalf, that they had no intention whatever to interfere with the existing rights or privileges of the municipal corporations in Ireland.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONregretted the course which the Government had taken with regard to the Bill and thought it would not tend to exalt

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  the estimate of the proceedings of that House which was formed by the Irish people. In proposing a Select Committee, after the consideration the measure had already received, he was afraid that the Select Committee was proposed simply for the purpose of defeating the Bill. He therefore supported the Motion for the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion agreed to.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday next.

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Resolutions [April 15] reported and agreed to:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. RAIKES, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH.

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March 1876, the sum of £15,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next;
  Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

  LOCAL AUTHORITIES LOANS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, Bill to amend the Law relating to Securities for Loans contracted by Local Authorities, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER and Mr. WILLIAM HENRY SMITH.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 123.]

  BISHOPS RESIGNATION ACT PERPETUATION BILL.
  On Motion of Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, Bill for making perpetual "The Bishops Resignation Act, 1869," ordered to be brought in by Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON and Mr. Secretary CROSS.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 124.]

  INTERMENTS IN CHURCHYARDS BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend and declare the Law of Interments in Churchyards in England and Wales.
  Resolution reported:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. J. G. TALBOT, Mr. HEYGATE, and Mr. MAJENDIE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 125.]
  House adjourned at One o'clock, till Monday next.