Commons Sitting of 16 July 1875

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—New Forest [No. 341].
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolutions [July 15] reported.
RESOLUTION IN COMMITTEE—Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873) Amendment [Salaries, &c.]
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation (Abingdon, &c.)* [253]; Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation (Aberdare, &c.) * [254]
Committee—Report—Conspiracy and Protection of Property* [204–260]; Washington Treaty (Claims Distribution) * [218].
Considered as amended—Employers and Workmen* [259]; Public Works Loan (Money)* [243]; General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Provisional Order Confirmation [227]; Entail Amendment (Scotland) * [248]; County Surveyors Superannuation (Ireland) * [65].
Third Reading—Pharmacy* [215], and passed.
The House met at Two of the clock.

TRANSLATION OF IRISH MANUSCRIPTS—TREASURY MINUTE, 1857.

  QUESTION.
  MR. SULLIVANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the necessary arrangements have yet been made for the promised resumption of the publication of the Irish Manuscripts; and, if not, if he can state what the obstacles are, and when they are likely to be removed?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in reply, said, that during last autumn he was in communication with several distinguished Irish scholars upon the question of resuming the publication of the Irish manuscripts, and he also, on the part of the Government, requested the Royal Irish Academy to undertake such of the work as might now properly be commenced. The result of this request had been a correspondence of considerable length between the Government and the Royal Irish Academy. Questions arose relating to the expense of the work, which had to be considered very carefully both by the Government and the Royal Irish Academy, and as the meetings of the Council were not very frequent, this correspondence occupied a considerable time. He hoped, however, within the course of two or three days he should be able to submit to the Treasury a final proposal with regard to the expenditure. He might add that the Government did not in any way desire to fetter the Council as to the mode of executing the work, beyond showing the caution which the Government were bound to exercise over a work to be published at the public expense.

SUPERANNUATION OF POOR LAW OFFICERS, SCOTLAND.—QUESTION.
COLONEL ALEXANDERasked the Lord Advocate, Whether he proposes, this Session, to bring in a Bill permitting
1576
parochial authorities in Scotland to grant superannuation allowances to officers connected with the administration of the Poor Law, in cases where those authorities consider that it will be for the public advantage that such officers, when disabled by old age or ill-health for the efficient performance of their duties, should receive such allowances?
THE LORD ADVOCATE, in reply, said, that some weeks ago he was waited upon by a number of Scotch Members, who expressed to him their desire that a Bill should be introduced with regard to giving parochial authorities in Scotland a discretionary power, subject to the sanction of the Board of Supervision, to grant retiring allowances to the various officers engaged in the administration of the Poor Law. As his own opinion was favourable to the proposal he had a Bill drafted for the purpose of giving effect to it, which he was on the point of introducing when he was waited on by several other Scotch Members, who stated that they were strongly opposed to giving such power to the parochial authorities. Peeling that in the present state of Public Business it would be impossible to pass such a measure without the general concurrence of Scotch Members, he determined to postpone legislation for the present. At his request, however, the Home Secretary applied to the Poor Law Board for their opinion as to the working of the Superannuation Act in England and Ireland, and replies had been received which, along with the communications of the Board of Supervision, it was proposed to lay upon the Table, so that public opinion on the subject might be matured before next Session.

INDIA—MAJORS OF ARTILLERY IN INDIA.—QUESTION.
MR. W. HOLMSasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If it is the case that officers in India holding the substantive rank of Majors of Artillery, under the Royal Warrant of 5th July 1872, have from that date, till 1st April 1875, received no addition to the combined pay and allowances which they enjoyed while previously holding the rank of Captain; and that officers in England holding the rank of Major under the same Warrant have, during the period referred to, received the full pay of their rank?
LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, in reply, said, it was true that the officers in question had not received additional pay during the period referred to; but the reason was that the remuneration they enjoyed, in the opinion of the Government of India, was adequate to the services they performed. In England, officers holding the rank of major under the same Warrant had received additional pay, but he was informed that the pay received was not the same as that given to other officers of the same rank.

CRIMINAL LAW—CASE OF SARAH CHANDLER.—QUESTION.
MAJOR O'GORMANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he will lay upon the Table of the House, the names, professions, or trades or callings of the magistrates, and each of them who presided at petty sessions at Spalding, Lincolnshire, when the girl Sarah Chandler was prosecuted for plucking a flower from a geranium, and sentenced by those magistrates to a punishment of fourteen days imprisonment and four years in a reformatory?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, I do not see that anything would be gained by formally laying the names upon the Table of the House. The names appeared in the public Press at the time of the prosecution, and there is no reason to suppose that they were wrong names. They were—Mr. Moore and Mr. Dove, clergymen, and Dr. Ball, who is, I believe, a medical man. I repeat that I do not see of what use it could be formally to place the names on the Table.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—PENSION MINUTE—SUPERANNUATION ALLOWANCES TO TEACHERS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WHITWELLasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, If he is prepared to announce the terms of the Order in Council under which the arrangement for granting superannuation allowances to teachers appear?
  VISCOUNT SANDON: Sir, I shall be happy to inform my hon. Friend who has taken so warm and useful an in-
  1578
  terest in this matter what are the slight modifications which we have made in the Pension Minute which I propose to lay on the Table this afternoon. In the former Minute it was laid down that pensions should only be granted to teachers whose income during the last seven years had not exceeded £120 per annum (men), or £60 (women). We have now omitted the condition as to income, as we think it best to follow closely the conditions of the Minute of 1851, whereby the late Lord Lansdowne, as Lord President, interpreted his own former Pension Minute of 1846, and also as it is clear that both this House—judging from the debate on the Education Estimates—and the teachers themselves are very anxious that the Department should not hamper its own action by laying down a hard-and-fast line as to salaries. The cases, therefore, will be judged simply on their own merits, preference being of course given to those in greatest need of assistance. We have also removed all uncertainty as to the eligibility for these pensions of certified teachers of normal schools, and also of assistant teachers. I am glad to believe that this question, about which the teachers have naturally felt very strongly for many years, will now be settled to the satisfaction of the teachers and with the cordial approval of both sides of the House.

SUGAR DUTIES—INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION.—QUESTION.
Mr. WAITasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is in a position to communicate to the House that the Draft Convention agreed on at the Conference recently held at Brussels on the subject of the Sugar Bounties has been confirmed by the respective Governments; and, if not, whether any other solution of the differences under discussion is likely to be arrived at?
MR. BOURKE: Sir, I am happy to inform my hon. Friend that the Draft Convention lately agreed upon by the respective Governments at Brussels on the subject of the Sugar Bounties has been assented to by the Governments of France, Holland, and Belgium, and is now under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

CONSPIRACY AND PROTECTION OF PROPERTY BILL— [BILL 204.]
(Mr. Secretary Cross, Mr. Attorney General, Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
CONSPIRACY AND PROTECTION OF PROPERTY BILL— [BILL 204.]

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 12th July.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in rising to move the following new clause—
  (Repeal of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871.)
  "The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, shall he and is hereby repealed,"
  said, he had only one object in view, and that was to settle that vexed question in a satisfactory manner. If he could do so, he was sure it would confer a great benefit on society at large. He would simply state that he had been very much struck, in the interviews he had had with masters and men, by the sincere desire which both sides had shown to come to a satisfactory settlement. He hoped the words which he had adopted in a subsequent clause, some of which were the same as had been placed on the Paper by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) on the former occasion of the Bill being in Committee, would be accepted without much discussion, in order to prove both to masters and men that the Committee was united in this matter.
  Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  On Question, That the clause be read a second time?
  MR. LOWEsaid, he would have great pleasure in acceding to the clause as it stood, to which the right hon. Gentleman had just referred. He only wished to point out to him that it was almost a pity to retain these words, "shall use violence to any person or any property," because at present a person who did use violence could be punished by summons or indictment. It did seem unreasonable to have two offences, one for which a man could be imprisoned for two months, and another for which he could, under this Bill, be imprisoned for three. It was a pity also to make the proposed exception in the law of threats. The law was a very sensible law. If a man uttered a threat which the magistrate thought serious, he would have to find sureties,
  1580
  and, if he did not, to go to prison. Sureties were generally found, and nothing more was heard of the matter. It would be, therefore, a pity to have two sets of law. It was not wise to introduce unnecessarily such a wide distinction between Acts. He did not see that threats to compel a man to do or abstain from doing a thing were any worse than threats which came out of the malice of a man's heart, nor why the one should be so much more severely punished than the other. He thought it also a bad thing to have two sets of positions; one that a man did a thing with intent, the other that he did it with a view to compulsion. The matter would be placed on a much better footing if we were to get rid of this idea of compulsion. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman thought it wise to retain the words, he would not make any objection.
  Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he was extremely obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for what had fallen from him. In a consultation with masters and men both sides seemed to desire to retain the words in question, and he hoped, therefore, the Committee would adopt the clause as it stood. He therefore begged to move the following new clause:—
  (Penalty for intimidation or annoyance by violence or otherwise.)
  "Every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, shall use violence to any person or any property, or shall threaten or intimidate any person in such manner as would justify a justice of the peace in binding over the person so threatening or intimidating to keep the peace, and every person who, with a view seriously to annoy or intimidate any other person, shall persistently follow such other person about or hide any property owned or used by such other person, or deprive him of or hinder him in the use thereof, or watch or beset the place where such other person resides or is or the approach to such place, or shall with one or more persons follow such person in a disorderly manner in or through any street or road shall be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding three months."
  Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  On Question, That the Clause be read a second time?
  MR. BRISTOWE, while agreeing to the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, regretted the introduction of the words which the Home Secretary had put in this clause. They were, in fact, a repetition, though in a different form, of the 1st section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. He had no desire to oppose a clause which had been brought forward under such circumstances, and he heartily hoped that on both sides of the House they would unite to settle this question; but he must add that, in his opinion, the clause in its present shape was ambiguous, and would certainly require the introduction of verbal Amendments to make its meaning clear and distinct, or an interpretation clause.
  MR. FORSYTHconcurred with his hon. and learned Friend in the opinion that the clause was so worded as to leave room for doubtful construction.
  MR. DODSONreminded the Committee that the Question was now that the clause be read a second time; the consideration of Amendments would properly arise on the Motion that the clause be added to the Bill. The substantial and operative part of the clause was the latter part of it, and it was with respect to that part that Notice had been given by his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London. The only alteration made by the Home Secretary in that part of the clause was, that he had substituted imprisonment with hard labour for a term not exceeding three months for imprisonment with hard labour for a term not exceeding two months, as proposed by his right hon. Friend. Although the terms introduced by the Home Secretary were unnecessary in law, they were such slight modifications that it would not be worth while to differ about them.
  MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that having been in constant communication with all the various bodies of workmen who were interested in this matter, he thought himself entitled in their name and on his own behalf to thank the Home Secretary for the very fair way in which he had met the representatives of both masters and working men since Monday night, and the very important changes of which he had given Notice in his own name. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman had in his own clause incorporated the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of
  1582
  London, and he hoped they were now about to arrive at something like a final settlement of this long-vexed question. Indeed, he believed the course pursued by the right hon. Gentleman would tend to prevent a renewed agitation on the subject. All the working men had demanded was equality in dealing with matters of this kind, and as they had now obtained equality, they could have no ground for complaint. When the Judges were called upon to consider the Bill, he felt satisfied that they would place upon it a satisfactory interpretation, knowing, as they would, that it would apply to all classes of the community alike. At the same time he must observe that if Parliament were now legislating on the question for the first time, they would be undertaking a very dangerous task, for, as a lawyer had said to him, the clause, applying as it did to the whole community, left nothing to be complained of from the workmen's point of view—they demanded equality, and here they had got it—but if the unfortunate widow in the Scripture had happened to live when a clause of the kind was operative, the unjust Judge would probably have given her three months' imprisonment with hard labour.
  MR. MACDONALD, as one who had some interest in a very large portion of the working classes, concurred with the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) in thanking the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary for the patience, courtesy, and careful attention he had given to the representations of the working men, and felt it to be his duty to say on their behalf, that he believed from the first the Home Secretary had attempted to deal fairly with them; and he hoped the question would be settled once for all.
  MR. BUTTsaid, it appeared to him that the working classes were satisfied, not because the Bill was good in itself, but because it removed many of the grievances of which they had previously complained. He, for one, however, objected to making these special changes in the Criminal Law, because he believed there was sufficient power already existing to meet these cases. He also objected to the definition of intimidation, consisting in a magistrate's binding, or not binding, a man over to keep the peace. There was nothing in which

  1583
  magistrates exercised a wider discretion than they did in reference to matters of that kind. He did not think the proposed change was necessary, and at the proper time he should take the sense of the Committee upon that point.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTwould have preferred if the clause had simply repealed the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman had very good reasons for the course he had taken, but he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Limerick that great mischief might arise from the ambiguity of the clause. So far as it went beyond the existing law, it was altogether unnecessary.
  MR. J. S. HARDYsaid, the clause was necessary to meet the case of a man saying to another—"I will not strike you on the head, but somebody else may."
  MR. SERJEANT SIMONsubmitted that this was a superfluous enactment. It created, moreover, a new offence, the definition of which it left to the discretion of the magistrate. Such a mode of criminal legislation was dangerous and wholly without precedent. He thought the Statute Book ought not to be encumbered by such a clause.
  MR. HOPWOODremarked that before that enactment passed care should be taken that it was not hurtful to the community. It was matter for remark that what had long been considered fitting legislation for a particular class was found inconvenient when applied to the entire community. The Home Secretary had himself not long since remarked that the multiplication of offences of misdemeanour was a crying evil, and yet this Bill proposed to enact four or five new offences altogether.
  MR. SAMPSON LLOYDpointed out that the existing law was inadequate to meet the cases of threats to injure property.
  Question put and agreed, to; Clause read a second time.
  MR. HOPWOODproposed an Amendment of the clause, in line 3, by omitting the third "any," and substituting for it "such," with the purpose of restricting the violence against which the clause was directed to violence offered to the person to be coerced or his property, instead of "any person or any property."
  Amendment proposed, in line 3, to leave out the first word "any," in order to insert the word "such."—(Mr. Hopwood.)
  MR. W. E. FORSTERhoped it was a mistake, but undoubtedly the language of the clause went further than the Criminal Law Amendment Act which they were repealing. The words were—
  "Every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing, or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, shall use violence to any person."
  He could not suppose that to be the intention of the right hon. Gentleman, and therefore hoped he would accept the Amendment.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALhoped the Amendment would not be accepted, because the violence, by which it was sought to intimidate a man, might be directed towards his wife, children, or servants, and the clause was necessary to meet such a case as that.
  MR. BRISTOWEsaid, at all events, admitting that might be so, yet it was clear the clause went further than the old law, and created a new offence.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSobserved that the real question was, whether this violence, if used to a man's wife, children, or servants, for the purpose of forcing him to do something which he ought not to do, ought not to be an offence.
  MR. GOLDSMIDthought the Amendment would meet every case, and would not go so far as the words in the clause.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERtrusted that the Government would accede to the Amendment. It was agreed that there was to be no exceptional legislation, and although the clause did not come under that description, yet it was probable it would be more used upon the labour question than any other. The draftsman could not be aware that he was by the present clause altering the present law, and it was only reasonable to ask that the new clause might leave the law as in the Criminal Law Amendment Act, where it was provided that the violence should be used to such person.
  MR. CAWLEYcould not agree that the clause either created a new offence, or that it was unnecessary. The object of the clause was to prevent intimidation. One of the original causes of the passing

  1585
  of the Criminal Law Amendment Act was to prevent interference by what he might call extraneous means, such as interfering with children or property.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTwas certain that everyone would wish to meet the case of violence to a man's wife or children, but such an offence was punishable under the present law, and therefore the words objected to were not wanted. What his right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. Forster) had said was perfectly true—namely, that the clause went further than the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which enacted that the violence should be used to the particular person whom it was sought to coerce, and to nobody else.
  MR. NEWDEGATEasked whether it would be necessary to specify and name the persons intimidated?
  MR. E. JENKINS, in supporting the Amendment, said, there was a case not long ago in Oxfordshire of a farmer who, because one of his men joined a Union, thrashed him within an inch of his life.
  MR. DODSONhoped the Home Secretary would not be disinclined to re-consider this matter, and accept the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport. Cases of violence were substantially met by the existing law, which it was therefore unnecessary to enlarge.
  MR. HOPWOODsaid, he believed that cases of cutting bands and injuring machinery were already provided for. He asked the Committee to observe that it was now proposed for the first time, that an offence against an individual might be a ground for proceedings against the offender on the part not of the subject of the offence, but of a third person.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSwould again put it to the Committee as a matter of broad common sense. Did the Committee mean to say that it should be wrong to use violence to A, to compel him to do something, and that it should not also be an offence to do the same violence to A's wife or children or anybody in his house for precisely the same purpose?
  MR. BUTTwould support the Amendment if it was pressed to a division, because he considered that the clause extended the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, instead of mitigating them as it professed to do.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that if his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport went into the Lobby he felt bound to go with him, because the clause would make the law more stringent than it was at present, and he did not think it would work well.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANsupported the Amendment.
  Question put, "That the word 'any' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 225; Noes 112: Majority 113.
  MR. BUTTmoved to omit the words
  "or shall threaten or intimidate any person in such manner as would justify a justice of the peace in binding over the person so threatening or intimidating to keep the peace."
  Such a definition of the offence was, he thought, highly objectionable.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "property," in line 3, to the word "peace," in line 6, inclusive."—(Mr. Butt.)
  MR. MORGAN LLOYDdid not agree with the clause as it stood, and thought the words proposed to be omitted by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick were particularly objectionable, and that the object desired could be attained by words of a different character. The offence should be defined with greater certainty, and less discretion given to the magistrates.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he could not accept the Amendment, though he was willing to insert the words, "on complaint made."
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the proposal in the clause was new legislation and stringent legislation, and it went far beyond what was now in the Criminal Law Amendment Act. An employer would have the right to proceed against a workman who sent a threatening letter to another workman. Surely the prosecution should be left to the man who was threatened; a third party ought not to be brought in.
  Question put, "That the word 'or' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 241; Noes 104: Majority 137.
  On the Motion of Mr. BEISTOWE, Clause amended, by inserting in line 3, after "shall," the words "with the view aforesaid."
  On the Motion of Mr. W. E. FORSTER, Clause further amended, by inserting in line 6, after "peace," the words "on complaint made."
  MR. HOPWOODmoved, as an Amendment, in line 6, to leave out "seriously to annoy or," and insert "to." He objected to those words as vague, difficult to interpret, and likely to place those for whose benefit this Bill was intended in a worse position than before. He preferred that the description of the offence should simply be "every person, who, with a view to intimidate," &c.
  Amendment proposed, in line 6, to leave out the words "seriously to annoy or," in order to insert the word "to."—(Mr. Hopwood.)
  MR. BURTsaid, that some time ago the Home Secretary had said he was anxious to bring this question of the relationship between masters and workmen to a settlement, and he had given clear evidence that he was perfectly honest in that desire. It was equally clear that all the Members of the House were as desirous of accomplishing that end as were the Government. That being so, it behoved them to see that when it was settled it was settled satisfactorily. That could not be done without the total repeal or considerable modification of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. The clause under discussion undoubtedly possessed the great merit of placing all classes of the community on terms of equality. That was certainly a step in the right direction. But it was worth the while of the House to consider what sort of equality it was which the clause would produce; whether the equality, in fact, partook of the character of steady progress along the solid highway, or was not rather a case of the blind leading the blind into the ditch. The question which the workman would most likely ask himself was, whether men who were in no sense of the term criminals ought to be sent to prison? He did not think workmen would be satisfied as long as such a thing was possible. The real question for consideration was, what effect the proposal under discussion would have when it came to be definitely applied to strikes and locks-out? During such disputes there was always a large amount of ill-feeling manifested. The object of the employer was to prevent
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  his old hands getting work elsewhere and to obtain fresh hands if he could. The object of the workmen was to prevent fresh workmen taking their place while they were on strike. Neither party was at such a time over scrupulous in the means they employed. He himself knew of a case where on the occurrence of a strike the masters sent into another district, and enticed away men by gross misrepresentations. When the new men arrived the men on strike very naturally induced them to remain out of work till they had exposed what the masters had done, whereupon the former returned to the district whence they had come. Well, he wanted to know whether the men had been more guilty of violence in that case than the masters? He feared the clause, as it stood, would be open to very great abuse, and he was therefore in favour of its being altered.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he was not disposed to retract a single word of what he stated some time ago with reference to this subject. The law was clearly laid down by the Royal Commission, by the Recorder, and in part also by the learned Judge who tried a recent case. What they wanted was to prevent one man worrying another man's life out. That was what was wanted, if it could only be put into an Act of Parliament. The effect of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London was really to express the serious character of the annoyance to be such as practically to destroy the man's free will. His object was to secure perfect freedom of individual action on the part of the workmen against all-comers whether masters or fellow-workmen. That was his sole and sincere object. He believed the words of the right hon. Gentleman carried out that object, and he would adhere to them till better words were suggested.
  LORD ESLINGTON, on the other hand, viewed the words with very considerable apprehension. It was all very well to talk of serious molestation. Suppose a man owed another a sum of money and the other followed him about. That would certainly be a serious annoyance. But ought it to come within the law?
  Question put, "That the words 'seriously to annoy or' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 264; Noes 100: Majority 164.
  MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department had intimated to him his readiness to accept the Amendment of which he (Mr. Mundella) had given Notice, provided he substituted £20 for £5. He was very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, and he had great pleasure in adopting his suggestion. His Amendment would now therefore run thus—in line 12, after "liable to," insert "a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or to."
  Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  Preamble agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Tuesday next, at Two of the clock, and to be printed. [Bill 260.]

EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN BILL.
(Mr. Secretary Cross, Mr. Attorney General, Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN BILL.

  [BILL 202.] CONSIDERATION.
  Bill, as amended, considered.
  Clause 3 (Power of county court as to ordering payment of money, set-off, and rescission of contract, and taking surety).
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had an Amendment to propose which he trusted would meet with the acceptance of the House. When he originally came to consider how an order upon the defendant to perform his contract should be enforced, it occurred to him that if the master or servant waived his right to obtain damages at once, an order should be made for the performance of the contract, and that the plaintiff should be able to ask for a summary mode of obtaining the money which he had a right to demand. The clause he had inserted with regard to the order upon the defendant to perform his contract was proposed in the interest of the men themselves, and he had no intention of reviving the punishment of imprisonment for breach of civil contract. He repudiated any intention of reviving imprisonment by these words, and he trusted that the House would acquit him
  1590
  of any such intention. But finding that an impression had gone abroad that such might be the practical effect of the clause, he had now to propose another plan, which would, he believed, induce persons to become sureties for a person against whom damages were given without imprisoning the man himself. Instead of awarding damages, resulting in the case of non-performance in imprisonment, the Court might order that the man should perform his contract and require sureties that he would do so. If the surety were called upon to pay the money for the person against whom damages had been awarded, he would have the same right to recover the money against the defendant which the master originally had. Without further explanation, therefore, he would move in page 2, line 14, after "defendant," leave out "to" and insert "and one or more surety or sureties that the defendant will."
  MR. MUNDELLAheartily assented to the proposal, which was practically the one he had himself made on Monday, and which the House had then divided upon.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSthen moved, in page 2, line 17, leave out from "and may be," inclusive, to end of Clause, and insert as a separate paragraph—
  "Any sum paid by a surety on behalf of a defendant in respect of a security under this Act, together with all costs incurred by such surety in respect of such security, shall be deemed to be a debt due to him from the defendant; and where such security has been given in or under the direction of a court of summary jurisdiction, that court may order payment to the surety of the sum which has so become due to him from the defendant."
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONthanked the right hon. Gentleman for the course he had taken in adopting an alteration which was precisely that for which during a considerable debate the Opposition had contended. The Bill, as amended, would meet with the unanimous consent of the House, now that it contained no provision for imprisonment for the breach of a civil contract. They were ready to admit that the right hon. Gentleman had introduced the Bill in what he conceived to be the interest of the working men; but it contained a most objectionable provision, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman

  1591
  would admit that the Opposition were justified in the somewhat pertinacious objections which they offered to the clause.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he did not wish to make the Amendment the subject of controversy, and he was grateful to the House for the manner in which they had received it. He had not seen his way on a former occasion to give the surety that right which he thought he ought to have against the defendant, and the Amendment supplied that which was not suggested the other night.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 9 (Summary proceedings).
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSthen moved, in page 5, line 4, after "summary jurisdiction," insert—
  "And in particular for the purpose of regulating the costs of any proceedings in a court of summary jnrisdiction, with power to provide that the same shall not exceed the costs which would in a similar case be incurred in a county court."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Bill to be read the third time upon Tuesday next, at Two of the clock.

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT (1873) AMENDMENT (SALARIES &c.).

  RESOLUTION. COMMITTEE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, who had given Notice of a Motion that the House go into Committee that day three months, said, he had placed the Amendment on the Paper, because he regretted the course which the Government had taken, no doubt, reluctantly, under pressure of Motions from both sides of the House. It might perhaps be necessary for him to seek the protection of the two Bills which had just been dealt with against serious annoyance, because for protesting against an indefinite multiplication of the number of Judges he might be regarded as a "black sheep" by the great profession to which he had the honour to belong. But the hon. and learned Attorney General had given Notice of an Amendment, to be moved on the Report of the Judicature Act
  1592
  Amendment Bill, which in a great degree obviated the objections which had led him (Sir William Harcourt) to give Notice of opposition to the Bill. The number of Judges of the First Instance were by the Bill of 1873 reduced by three, it being understood and expected that the amelioration of the law and the economy of judicial time under the new procedure would enable a smaller number of Judges to do a greater amount of work. It was also proposed that three additional Judges should be made Members of the single Appellate Court which it was the intention to constitute under the Act of 1873. That intention was continued in 1874, and in 1875 the Bill as it came down from the other House maintained that reduction of three in the number of the Judges of First Instance. It was, however, still more beneficial than the Act of 1873, because, instead of adding three new Judges to the Appellate Court, it only created one new Judge and took two Judges from the Judicial Committee for the new Intermediate Court of Appeal. The Government therefore proposed to economize five Judges as compared with the original proposal. But what occurred 10 days ago? The first thing done was to abolish the three Judges of First Instance, as provided in 1873 and subsequently affirmed and re-affirmed. The next, and of this he approved, was to give up the proposal to take two Judges from the Privy Council; and the next was, instead of creating one new Judge, to create three new Judges of the Appellate Court, thus practically adding to the original scheme no fewer than five new Judges. A more inconsiderate proposal, one less capable of being supported by any consideration of public expediency or economy, he could not conceive. He was happy to think that the Government thought so too, as that morning a proposal appeared on the Paper in the name of the hon. and learned Attorney General which, if adopted, would strike off two of the five new Judges. Instead of creating two Judges for the Court of Appeal, two of the Common Law Judges were to be borrowed when their services were required. With respect to the continuance of the present number of Judges, he knew it was hopeless to resist the proposal, but he was no less sorry it had been determined on. It was said that the Judges were overworked. He was

  1593
  not at all certain about that; but if they were, how did it happen that a case of which they had all heard so much—the Tichborne Case—had been sent to be tried before three of the Common Law Judges at Bar, instead of, as it ought to have been, to the Central Criminal Court, where it would have been tried by one Judge? Three Judges were thus occupied for months, and one or two others went abroad—at least four being absent from the ordinary judicial work. The object of the Judicature Act was to economize the time of the Judges, so that a fewer number might get through more work. It was not the smallness of the number of Judges, but the absurd disorder, the ludicrous want of organization which prevailed, which prevented the legal business of the country from being readily got through. It was impossible to tell where the Judges were to be—now they were at Westminster, now at Guildhall, now on Circuit; and that was the state of things the Act ought to remedy. It ought to abolish the Long Vacation, deal with the Circuits, do away with the distinctions between Queen's Bench, Exchequer, Common Pleas, Admiralty, and Equity Courts, so that there might be that interchangeability which would enable the judicial strength to be fully utilized and the time of the Judges economized, and which was essential to anything like effective organization. The assertion that more Judges were required was a most bitter censure upon the Judicature Act. It was an admission that it provided no real legal reform at all—that what it did was to create more Judges. He was himself an advocate of Law Re-form, but he would never advocate Law Reform which resulted in the mere creation of new places for Law Reformers. What was the present position? Under the Act of 1873 there were three Judges of Appeal to be created, but the Government having abandoned the creation of the great Final Court of Appeal—at least, for the present Session—proposed to constitute an Intermediate Court of Appeal. He had always objected to an Intermediate Court of Appeal, because in the legal profession there was not sufficient material out of which two good Appellate Courts could be constituted. If the House, instead of making one strong Appellate Court, established two indifferent and moderate Courts of Appeal
  1594
  it would be doing that which would not strengthen the law, while it would enormously increase the expenses of litigation. The proposal carried two days ago to create two new Judges for the Intermediate Court of Appeal was one of the most unreasonable proposals ever made, because the Court was to be temporary and provisional, and to last no longer than one year. But the Government now made a reasonable proposal, as far as circumstances would admit, for they were going to borrow pro hac vice two Judges from the Courts of First Instance in order to transfer them to the Appellate Court when their services were required there. Under all the circumstances, he would not move the Amendment he had placed on the Paper, in the hope that the Government would not create additional Judges, and that they would so amend the Bill as to render it a good measure.
  MR. GREGORYsaid, that as he was to some extent responsible for what had taken place in reference to this matter, he considered he was called on to vindicate the course adopted, and the opinion he still entertained concerning it. The state of things at present in reference to the despatch of legal business was not satisfactory, and it was only necessary to refer to the large number of remanets standing over for trial to show the inability of the Judges, under the existing system, to get through the business of their Courts. He hoped the new system would remedy that unsatisfactory state of things—a state which was attended with heavily increased law expenses and vexatious delay in the administration of justice. There was a further improvement also to which he looked forward. Under the existing system most trivial points were referred to the opinion of the Court above; and he hoped a great part of the judicial strength, now wasted to a certain extent by the sittings of the Judges in Banco, would be more judiciously applied under the Act of 1873 as supplemented by the present Bill. He trusted that there would be continuous sittings in London and Middlesex, and that more time would also be given for the proper trial of civil causes on Circuit. But in his opinion the constitution of the Intermediate Court of Appeal was one of the most importance requisites in reference to the working of the Act of

  1595
  1873. The presence of the Chiefs of the respective Courts could not be relied on in the Court of Appeal. You could, therefore, only rely on the two Lords Justices and the new Judge to constitute the Court. But the Appeal Court would have to dispose of appeals from the Lords Justices, the Courts of Admiralty, Probate and Divorce, and Exchequer Chamber, probably with many cases which now went to the Courts in Banco. Now, three Judges were quite inadequate to dispose of this business. The Lords Justices at present heard about 200 cases a-year, and their business alone was quite as much as any Court could dispose of properly. For the other appeal business there must be another Court which would find full occupation. It was proposed that this Court should be made up of Judges taken hap-hazard pro hac vice, or the request to the Chiefs of the Courts of First Instance. Now, with great respect for the Bench, it was well known that some Judges were men of greater capacity than others. Well, then, if for the constitution of the Court of Appeal two strong Judges were chosen, the Court of First Instance would be weak; and if two weak Judges were chosen the Appeal Court would be of the same character. He regretted the change which the Government proposed to make, because it was of the greatest importance in bringing a new system into practice that it should be regulated, to a considerable extent, by a Court of Appeal, and it must be anticipated that a greater number of cases would come up on appeal than was the case now. It was derogatory to a Court of Appeal that its Judges should be taken from another Court as it were by the job, and the same respect would not be paid to its decisions. It was of great importance that the Appeal Court should be well constituted at starting, for a weak tribunal might crystallize faulty decisions which it would be very difficult afterwards to get rid of. The money required for the purpose of properly constituting the Court might be saved by a better regulation of offices and a better distribution of the work. The general opinion of both branches of the legal profession was, that the Common Law staff of officers was in excess of what was required. If the Masters were brought together and worked together, instead of
  1596
  having four of them in each Court, one-third of their number might be dispensed with, and the Associates and Clerks of Assize might be utilized and appointed to vacancies as the Masters fell off. Again, many of the clerks attached to the offices might also be saved; and by these economies three Judges might be provided with little additional cost to the country.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, it did not seem likely that the House would go to a division, or in that ease he should have been content to give his vote without occupying the time of the House. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Gregory) insisted upon a large increase of the public charge in the appointment of Judges whose offices had been prospectively abolished, while at the same time he pointed out countervailing economies by the reduction of certain officers of the Courts. That was an exceedingly pleasant and satisfactory prospect, the only drawback being that the increase of charge was about to take effect while the economies were in the air and dwelt in the region of possibilities. The public would have to endure a certain outlay, while the compensations were purely visionary, and he, therefore, wished those who had shown such zeal in recommending an augmentation in the number of Judges would equally apply their abilities and experience in the work described, and introduce a clause in the Bill for the purpose of giving effect to the economies held out as compensation for the additional charge. He (Mr. Gladstone) was almost a solitary representative of opinions respecting public economy which, 30 years ago, were the opinions of all men of any note in both political Parties alike. Since that time a great fundamental change had occurred; and although, of course, any objection taken by him must, in the first instance, be taken to the conduct of the Government, who were immediately and primarily responsible, yet he must frankly admit that the course they took was one which appeared to be urged upon them by the profession, which did not seem to be disapproved by the House, and as to which he could see no decided symptoms of disapproval by the country. It now seemed to be the desire of the country, in entire reversal of the principles and ideas which prevailed 20, 30, or 40 years ago, that our establish-

  1597
  ments should be enlarged and the expenses of the Government increased from year to year; and, as long as public opinion had this tendency the country would never find any difficulty in discovering political Parties—he knew not whether on both sides of the House, but, at all events, on one side—who would readily undertake to conduct the work of the Government upon these principles. As to the work of the Judges, it was impossible for outsiders to contend with the Members of the profession who had led on the assault upon the public purse in this matter with respect to the details of the work of the Judges. He could only point to the solemn and deliberate judgment of Parliament in 1873, and consider that which they were now doing in comparison or contrast with that judgment. He was never very proud of the achievements of the late Government in the matter of public economy. They had to contend with difficulties which were no doubt felt by the present Government who, perhaps, might otherwise be inclined to respect the lingering traditions of other times, when it was thought one of the great duties of Parliament to restrict and restrain the public expenditure. At the same time something was done in the Act of 1873. He gave the utmost credit to his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) for the stand he had made on this occasion, because, as a distinguished member of a great, learned, and distinguished profession, invaluable to the country in their sphere, it could not be agreeable to him to oppose himself to the general sentiment of his profession. In one respect his statement admitted of being enlarged. It was perfectly true that, in the Act of 1873, while Parliament provided for the extinction of three Judges of First Instance, it provided for the creation of three new Judgeships with a view to man the Court of Appeal as then contemplated. But that was not the whole case. The three new Judgeships were not to be created for the purpose of trying English cases. All these Judgeships were expressly created with a view to fill them by persons who might represent the profession of Scotland and the profession of Ireland in the Court of Appeal. Consequently, as far as England was concerned, these were reductions of Judgeships; and, on the other
  1598
  hand, one new Judge was appointed who was to form part of the Appellate Tribunal. The Bill embodying this proposal was always recommended to the public upon the ground that our judicial establishments were enormously wasteful, and that the loss of judicial time and power was such that establishments were created for which there was no necessity; because, by better arrangement of these establishments, the same work could be done with a much smaller expenditure of power. It was on that basis that Parliament was induced to address itself to the formidable and serious task of interfering so much with the ancient traditions of British Judicature, and of re-casting the Court in which the higher causes of the country were to be tried. What was the result? That the flowery promises of great economy and the prevention of the waste of judicial power had vanished into thin air, and an absolute addition was to be made to the number of Judges for the purpose of carrying on the judicial business of the country. He hoped he had not done injustice to the Government in the matter. Those who were in his position—those who drew their recollections and traditions from other days, must be thankful for the smallest mercies, and therefore he made his bow to the hon. and learned Attorney General for the merciful manner in which he had dealt with the country, for he frankly admitted that if the hon. and learned Gentleman had adhered to the whole of the propositions which had been put before him on a former occasion, or even had he wished to go beyond them, he (Mr. Gladstone) was afraid there would be in the House no power of offering any effectual resistance. The limited concessions they had were due to the merciful and generous feelings of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and he (Mr. Gladstone) was truly thankful to him. Viewing the question by the light of a long experience, he was very sorry to be compelled to say that these Law reforms turned upon establishments, and turning upon establishments, he would not say what they generally contemplated; but what they generally involved was the creation of new establishments, the continued existence of the old establishments, the pensioning and providing for the old class of officers, and the appointment of a new class of officers in their place, who

  1599
  would probably be pensioned, too, by some fresh Law reform after a reasonable lapse of years. The name of reform as regarded administrative changes in this country was a name justly claiming regard and awakening grateful recollections; but with respect to Law reform the recollections were not so sacred nor so satisfactory as under the circumstances could have been wished. It was certainly a very melancholy reflection to himself and to such Members of the House of Commons as might share in his sentiments, that here once more there was an entire breakdown of the promises which had been held out to the country with respect to the great economy of judicial time and power and the consequent contraction of establishments which those important changes were to produce, for the old friends had come before them with a new face, and extension of establishments and increase of charge were to be the immediate result of the reforms in which they were now engaged. He declined the controversy with professional gentlemen who told him how many cases had been brought forward and how many decided in the course of a year, how rich this country was growing, and that we should not take niggardly notice of the proportion between establishments and the cost at which they were maintained. In this matter he took his stand upon the judgment of Parliament in 1873, and, without claiming any particular credit for the part he had in bringing about that judgment, he wished to point out, with sorrow, the contrast between the state of things then and the present state of things. He did not attempt to lay any undue share of blame upon the Government, though they were undoubtedly responsible; but it was with the Parliament and above all with the public of this country, to determine upon what principle, whether on that of economy or on that of waste, the public service should be conducted. He could not honestly say that he thought public opinion on this subject went in the same direction as his own. Therefore he bowed to the judgment of those who ought to know better than he did how all these matters were conducted, and would content himself with a silent protest against the course of things which the Government intended to pursue.
  SIR HENEY JAMESsaid, he was sorry to differ from his right hon. Friend who had just spoken, and from his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), but he should be wanting in moral courage if he did not take upon himself the responsibility of the course which he had urged upon Her Majesty's Government. Of course, they would all agree with a great deal which his right hon. Friend had said as to the objection to the creation of new offices without disbanding the old and to the giving of pensions. But with great submission to his right hon. Friend that was not the question they were discussing that evening. They were dealing with two matters which he thought should be dealt with separately. They were, first of all, dealing with the question whether it was advisable to diminish the number of our Common Law Judges as effected by the Judicature Act of 1873; and, secondly, they were discussing the form of the Intermediate Court of Appeal. On the latter point, he agreed with much that had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Oxford. He did think that the creation of three new Judges for a temporary Court was a thing to be avoided, and he had endeavoured to move an Amendment embodying that view, but the Chairman ruled that the Question could not be put at that time. But with respect to whether our judicial staff should be diminished or not, he adhered firmly to the views he had before expressed on the subject. It had been placed before the House by his right hen. Friend that if they wished to see the present number of Judges maintained they would be adding to the charges of the country. They would be doing no such thing; they would be simply maintaining the charges as they existed at present and had for years existed, and the question was whether they were to effect an economy of £15,000 a-year at the risk of the administration of justice? He admitted there were grounds on which he should wish to see the number of Judges diminished if it could be safely done. It added to the dignity of the office to have few Judges instead of many, and to the probability of obtaining men highly capable of performing the duties. But when he was asked to diminish the number of Judges because on an expenditure of £73,000,000 or £74,000,000

  1601
  we might save £15,000 a-year, the reason seemed insufficient. He would not deal a blow at the proper administration of justice in order to effect that economy. In 1830 we had 16 Judges. In the 45 years which had since elapsed there had been a great increase in the demand made upon the performance of judicial duties. The number of causes had increased. In the Court of Chancery it had been found absolutely necessary to add two Vice Chancellors since 1830. In our Common Law Courts the necessity was made apparent; and, notwithstanding the addition to the number of the Judges, many of the suitors could not obtain justice. When, in 1873, it was proposed that the number should be diminished, he protested against it until it could be proved by the alteration in the law that it could be safely done. It had been said that the Judicature Act would be no reform at all unless we obtained a better administration of justice with greater economy. But that was not the object of Legal Reform. The object was to correct certain evils which existed in our Courts—evils which drove suitors away, and obliged them to make a sacrifice of their rights because they could not obtain the determination of them. The scandal involved in the denial of justice by the postponement of trials was greater than any scandal which could arise from keeping a charge of £15,000 on the Estimates. His right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich declined to discuss the number of causes that were awaiting trial or of suitors who were failing to obtain justice; he declined to look at what was going on within the Courts of Law, and he would consider nothing but the charge on the Estimates. But the whole question turned upon what was going on in our Courts of Law, and not upon broad and theoretic views such as might be expounded in a paper read at the Social Science Congress at Leeds; it depended entirely on the result of experience as to whether there were or were not sufficient Judges to perform properly the judicial work of the country, as to whether gaols could be delivered and causes tried. The hon. and learned Member for the City of Oxford said there ought to be continuous sittings and nobody ought to have a holiday, and he recollected the thrill of horror with which he heard his hon. and
  1602
  learned Friend make the suggestion, and, like a willing martyr, offer to give up the Long Vacation in order to secure the administration of justice in our Courts. How would his hon. and learned Friend secure continuous sittings and save £15,000 a-year? He would not have Circuits; but we must accept the fact that at present we had Circuits, and that if there were a further division of the Northern Circuit we should require 14 Judges to travel, one must remain to dispose of business in Chambers, and in that way the whole number of 15 Judges would be disposed of. In the absence of any legislation dealing with the Circuits their existence and requirements must be recognized. It was of no use talking about promises made on Law Reforms being effected; we must consider with what safety we could proceed to diminish the judicial strength. Therefore, while he accepted in good humour the pleasant references that had been made to the legal profession, he maintained that the interests of the public as well as of the Judges required that the present number of Judges should be maintained. It might be that actual experience of the working of the Judicature Act would show that the number of Judges could be safely reduced; but the number ought not to be diminished on speculation, and certainly not until the arrears of the present system had been worked off, and until we had framed, tried, and tested the forms of procedure under the new system, the introduction of which was in itself a special reason for maintaining such a judicial strength as would secure the new system a fair trial. Reference had been made to the recently-closed sittings in London of the only Courts available for the trial of causes in which foreigners were concerned. They sat three times a-year, and 12 days at each sitting. The last sittings began with 94 cases for trial, of which 86 were remanets; of these 20 had been tried, 2 had been partly heard, and 50 withdrawn, because suitors would not wait for trial any longer; and the remaining cases were put off to be tried under the new system. It would, perhaps, be two years hence before some of them were reached. One action was a claim by a merchant resident in Russia against an insurance company, and, after the case had occupied four days, it was found impossible

  1603
  to finish it, and the merchant and the captain of a trading vessel who was a witness were told that it would probably come on again in December. That was a sample of what was going on because there were not Judges enough to do the work. Under these circumstances, it was false economy to diminish the number of Judges, and there was very good reason for the conclusion which was come to last Monday week, with the unanimous concurrence of both commercial and legal Members, that the number of Judges could not be safely reduced.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he desired to recall the attention of the House to the question on which it had to express an opinion, and it was a very simple one; he had moved that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair, in order that, when the House was in Committee, he might move a Resolution sanctioning the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, of any additional expense that might be occasioned by continuing the number of Common Law Judges at 18 instead of reducing them 15, as had been provided by the Judicature Act of 1873. As the House was aware, the necessary Amendment in Clause 3 of the Bill could not be made, nor indeed, in strict propriety, discussed, until such a Resolution had been passed. His hen. and learned Friend, the Member for the City of Oxford, had complained that he did not know what Resolution it was proposed to pass when the House got into Committee; but he must remind his hon. and learned Friend that the terms of the Resolution, which he (the Attorney General) was about to move, had been placed on the Notice Paper and delivered to hen. Members with the other Parliamentary Papers, four or five days ago, and they simply authorized the expenditure which might follow from the repeal of that part of the Act of 1873, which limited the number of Puisne Judges to 12. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich and the hon. and learned Member for the City of Oxford were not present on a recent occasion when the subject of such repeal was fully discussed, and when, in deference to the unanimous opinion of commercial and legal Members on both sides, it was agreed that the present number of Judges should be maintained. I would
  1604
  be in the recollection of many hon. Members that, when the Bill of 1873 was in Committee, he (the Attorney General) with others, resisted the proposal to reduce the number of Pusine Judges from 15 to 12; and last year, when the question was raised, the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) spoke to the same effect as he spoke last week and on this occasion, and the clause was passed over in Committee that another might be brought up on the Report. Therefore, it was incorrect to say that the proceedings of Parliament last year confirmed the legislation of 1873; what was done last year was in the direction of what was now proposed. Not a single fact had been mentioned, in the course of the present discussion, which contravened the facts on which the House founded its decision last week, and it was therefore unnecessary to re-enter upon the consideration of those facts; but he could not understand how the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich could affect to ignore the facts and to look upon the question as one of expenditure only; it appeared to him (the Attorney General) that the facts, which were so slightingly treated by the right hon. Gentleman, were deserving of the most careful consideration, for that, which it was, above all things, important to secure, was the efficient conduct of the judicial business of the country, and any saving, which would endanger such efficiency, would be a false economy. In the course of the present year he had received communications from all parts of the country—from Judges, barristers, legal societies in London and the Provinces, large commercial constituencies, and Chambers of Commerce, all urging upon him to maintain the full number of Judges, on the ground that the judicial business of the country required their services. Under these circumstances, he appealed, with some confidence, to hon. Members to allow the House to go into Committee, that it might pass the necessary Resolution for authorizing the expenditure that would be incurred by maintaining the full number of Judges.
  MR. NORWOODsaid, he would not have interposed had it not been for some remarks of the right hen. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich objecting to the maintenance of the present number

  1605
  of Common Law Judges. He should be failing in his duty if he did not, on behalf of the commercial community, express his approval of the decision of the Government, and vindicate the course pursued in this matter by those Members of the Bar who, he believed, were actuated solely by public considerations. The right hon. Member for Greenwich did not make sufficient allowance for the increase of the population and commerce of the country, which necessitated an increase of judicial power, just as the expansion of the London and North Western Railway system involved the increase of its staff. The mercantile community were dissatisfied with the injustice to which they were exposed from causes being frequently postponed or referred on account of the impossibility of getting them tried. The present condition of things was a perfect disgrace. It would be true economy to afford the means of obtaining justice promptly, instead of exposing the community to the annoyance and loss now suffered, and he was quite prepared to accept his share of the responsibility if the number of Judges were increased as proposed in order to ensure continuous sittings for the trial of the important mercantile causes constantly arising in the metropolis.
  Resolution considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund, of any charge for Salaries, Allowances, and Pensions which may arise in consequence of the repeal, by any Act of the present Session, of such part of section five of "The Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873," as limits to twelve the number of Puisne Justices and Junior Barons to be appointed Judges of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice.
  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

SUPPLY—REPORT. ACTIONS AGAINST MAGISTRATES.
Resolutions [July 15th] reported.
(3.) "That a sum, not exceeding £58,653, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1876, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland."
First Two Resolutions agreed to.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Third Resolution be now read a second time,"
CAPTAIN NOLANproposed to reduce the Vote by the sum of £100, estimated for—
"Expenses of Actions taken against Resident Magistrates, Divisional and other Justices, and the Constabulary for acts done by them in the execution of their duty."
He said, that by giving a special subhead to this Vote the Government had drawn attention to it, so that if it were passed without observation no complaint could be made against them. Although the amount was small, the principle involved was important; for this was the first time such a Vote had been taken. He did not assert that there were not cases in which magistrates ought to be re-imbursed their expenses in defending actions brought against them for what they had done in the discharge of their duty; but he objected to an Estimate being taken in advance, because it might afford an excuse for an unscrupulous Minister to support a subordinate in a wrong course; and, further, because the existence of the item on the Estimates would be followed by an increase in future years which would still further encourage abuse. He did not object to generosity towards magistrates, but the generosity should be exercised by the House of Commons in respect of any case brought before it.
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, that the Vote appeared upon the Estimates in pursuance of an undertaking which he gave last year. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) then complained that money had been paid for defending actions against the magistrates and constabulary for acts done by them in the execution of their duty. He told the hon. and learned Member that if the Government undertook to defend these actions it ought to do so openly and by a Vote of the House of Commons. He accordingly asked his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury to put down a small sum in the Estimates for this purpose. These expenses might exceed the sum of £100, but, on the other hand, they might fall below it.
MR. RONAYNEsaid, that as the time for suspending the sitting was close at hand, he would move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to.
Debate adjourned till To-morrow,
And it being now Seven of the clock, the House suspended its sitting.
The House resumed its sitting at Nine of the clock.

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

SHANNON NAVIGATION ACT.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE O'CONOR DON, in rising to call the attention of the House to the evidence given before the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, at the recent inquiries held under the provisions of the Shannon Navigation Act, 1874, said, he did not wish to weary the House by going into details upon the past history of this subject; but, at the same time, it was necessary that he should state a few facts as to the efforts which had been made for a series of years by successive Governments for the improvement of the navigation and the drainage o£ the lands watered by the Shannon. The question was one which interested not only the private proprietors along the river, but the public, and it had, some 40 years ago, attracted the attention of Parliament and the Government. In consequence, a sum of nearly £600,000 had been expended upon improvements, chiefly directed towards the better navigation of the river, and more than one-half of the amount expended had been repaid by the counties adjacent to the river. That money was expended by the Commissioners without the proprietors of the lands affected having the slightest voice in the matter, and the result was that, although the navigation of the river was undoubtedly greatly improved, the lands were not freed from liability to disastrous floods. Several of the chief proprietors of the riparian lands met after the disastrous floods of 1861, and agreed to present a Memorial to Parliament, praying that they might be permitted to make the necessary improvements at their own expense, for the river was not private but public property, and could not be touched by any private individual without the permission of the Legislature. That was the first step in the more
  1608
  modern agitation with respect to the River Shannon. The prayer of the Memorial was not granted; the Government refusing to allow the memorialists to make these improvements at their own expense. But those periodical overflows, and the loss of crops and other damage thereby done to the proprietors and tenants, induced the Government to institute an inquiry, and they appointed a most eminent engineer, Mr. Bateman, to carry on the investigation, whilst the proprietors, on their side, appointed another engineer, Mr. Lynam, and each of those gentlemen had made Reports on the subject. The result was, that after considering these Reports, the Treasury agreed to adopt the plan submitted to them by Mr. Bateman, and to carry it out at an estimated cost of £200,000, one-half of which was to be borne by the proprietors and the other to be a free gift from the Treasury. The Bill in which this proposal was embodied, for reasons to which he need not allude, failed to pass the House, and so the matter stood when the present Government came into office. He wished to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had, on his accession to office, visited the whole of the district, made himself acquainted with all the facts, and had shown an earnest anxiety to promote the object in view. After the investigation made by the right hon. Baronet, a Bill was introduced last Session in reference to the improvement of the Shannon, and he believed that it was brought in and passed into law with a sincere desire on the part of Her Majesty's Government that it might be the means of effecting a great public good; but it was, in fact, one of the very worst that had ever been proposed in connection with the River Shannon, because it was utterly impracticable. Under its provisions a free grant was to be made from the Exchequer of £150,000 for the carrying out of the necessary works, on the condition that the proprietors of the lands to be benefited would charge their estates to a like extent. This, at first sight, might seem a very generous offer, and one that the proprietors should gladly accept. The late Government had proposed to give a public grant towards the improvement of the river of only £100,000, and when the present

  1609
  Government offered £150,000, it might seem very unreasonable on the part of the proprietors to object; but it must be recollected that the increased public grant was to be dependent on an increased charge on the lands, and that whereas under the Bill of the late Government the lands were to be charged with £100,000, under the present Act they were to be charged with £150,000.
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present.
  THE O'CONOR DONresumed: The question, therefore, with the proprietors, was whether the benefit to be conferred upon their estates would be equal to the charge to be imposed upon them, and they were unanimously of opinion that it would not. They, therefore, objected to the carrying out of the plans. They would be charged at the rate of £7,500 a-year, while the utmost estimated improved value was not put higher than £5,000 a-year. The evidence given before the Public Works Commissioners on the subject by both owners and occupiers bore out this fact, and the Commissioners themselves showed in their remarks that they did not dispute it. [The hon. Member then quoted from the statements of the Commissioners showing that they did not dispute the contention of the proprietors that the proposed annual charge was excessive.] The evidence also clearly showed that it was not the entire removal, but the regulation of the waters that was sought after. The proprietors did not desire that the ordinary winter floods should be altogether removed, except where they were injurious; but, of course, they wished that the summer and autumn floods should be entirely done away with. He freely admitted that the opinion as to the retention of the ordinary and non-injurious floods was more strongly expressed in this inquiry, both by landlords and tenants, than it had ever been before; but this was not a new idea as the Commissioners seemed to think. So long ago as 1838, Mr. Nicholson, an engineer appointed by the Government, reported that the retention of the winter floods would add considerably to the value of the lands, and in the late engineering investigation, Mr. Lynam, according to his statements before the Commissioners, calculated upon retain-
  1610
  ing these floods, and no scheme would ever be accepted or approved by the proprietors which did not provide for their retention. Before the introduction of the Bill of the late Government a valuation of the lands was made by joint valuators, one appointed by the Government and the other by the proprietors, and the charges which they thought could safely be placed on the lands, in consequence of the proposed improvement, were increased 50 per cent in the present Act. If, then, it were proved and tacitly admitted by the Commissioners themselves that the lands would not be benefited to the extent of the annual charge, could the landlords be expected to approve of this unless they were devoid of common sense? He might be told that he was premature in bringing forward the subject now, because until November the assents and dissents would not have been all sent in under the Act. It was, however, well known that the population had dissented, and he therefore saw no reason why the matter should be allowed to rest for another six months. The proprietors had refused to accept the scheme of 1874, chiefly on the ground that the charge upon their land was excessive; but they had expressed their readiness to approve of a scheme which would charge their land up to the full extent of any value derived from the execution of the works. As this point had been disputed, he wished particularly to refer to the evidence regarding it. In page 58 of the Blue Book, Mr. O'Ferrall, on the part of the Marquess of Clanricarde, Lord Dunsandle, and other chief proprietors of the county of Galway, said—
  "I beg to say that they are quite willing to pay to the extent of the improvements done to the lands, but they object to pay any more."
  Again, Mr. Fair, on behalf of the chief proprietors in Roscommon, made a similar statement, whilst numbers of individual proprietors such as Mr. Kyle, Mr. Kelly, and others corroborated this view. He urged the Chief Secretary for Ireland to give his attention to this subject during the Recess, and hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to introduce a Bill next Session for the purpose of amending the Act of 1874. That Act had been tried and found wanting, and it was impossible to expect the proprietors to work under it. It was possible to amend it in such a way that

  1611
  by a much smaller expenditure equally good results might be accomplished. In the reach of the river between Castle-connell and Killaloe a very large expenditure of money was estimated. The extent of the land in that reach was only about 600 acres, and he believed the estimated cost per acre for improving the land in that district would be something like £30, or more than the fee-simple of the land. The proprietors there had expressed a desire to remain as they were; and, as the expenditure in that part would be very heavy, he suggested to the Government whether that part of the scheme might not be left out altogether. He would also suggest, as a system of regulating weirs must form part of any scheme which might be adopted, that this should be tried first before any expensive excavating works were undertaken. Many of the proprietors believed that this would be suffcient, and they were supported, to a certain extent, by engineering reports, and, beyond doubt, the substitution of regulating weirs in place of the fixed immovable stone-dams now placed across the river would accomplish much good. He would conclude by again expressing the hope that the Government would consider the question during the Recess, with a view of proposing a scheme which would be acceptable generally.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENalso impressed upon the Government the necessity of amending the Act of 1874, and contended that the evidence given before the Public Works Commissioners in Ireland went to show that on utilitarian grounds the scheme would be ineffective. In the evidence taken before the Commission a scheme was disclosed, which, at one-half the cost to the ratepayers, was likely to effect all that was desired.
  CAPTAIN NOLAN, as representing the county which would be the most largely taxed under the Act, pointed out that the Government had taken the whole responsibility upon themselves, because they had refused to listen to the Amendments which the Irish Members at the time desired to propose, and had incited them to dissension among themselves. Clever as was the manœuvre of the Chief Secretary, however, it had completely failed. A dam was built without any sluices, and the engineer-
  1612
  ing evidence went to show that when there was a heavy rainfall, the water overflowed the dams and flooded the surrounding country. The Government had made a huge engineering blunder, by building dams across the river without sluices, and he thought that the Government might therefore be fairly asked to solve the problem out of the Imperial Exchequer solely. The probable cost would not be more than £30,000. There was, he might add, a second plan which might be adopted, and that was that they would undertake to carry out the necessary works and not charge any of the proprietors, of whose acceptance of the present scheme there was not the slightest chance, for a larger annual value than that in which he was benefited by those works.
  MR. FAYexpressed his surprise at the absence of the Irish Members who sat on the Ministerial Benches from a discussion to which they certainly could not object as having no practical bearing on the interests of Ireland.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the hon. Member who had last spoken (Mr. Fay) had brought an indictment against hon. Members representing constituencies in the North of Ireland for not being present on the discussion of a question which did not greatly affect them; but he thought it right to remind the hon. Member that he had heard com-plaints of the too frequent absence of hon. Members who professed the same opinions as his own when subjects of great national importance were discussed. As to the question now under consideration, he must say he was somewhat surprised that the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan), while he had spoken of many Governments as having been in error with respect to it, should have charged the present Government with the final iniquity of having proposed to Parliament a scheme fair-seeming, but inadequate to carry out the purpose which they professed to have in view, and having endeavoured to carry that scheme by exciting divisions among hon. Gentlemen representing Ireland. The hon. and gallant Member was, he could not help thinking, a little too suspicious, for the whole basis of the Act of last Session, which contained within itself very large concessions from the Imperial Exchequer on behalf of Irish interests was, that those locally interested should

  1613
  first consent to tax themselves to a certain extent in order to carry out a work by which they would be principally benefited. He did not complain that the subject had been introduced to the notice of the House by the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don). Although it could hardly yet be said that the Act of last Session had proved a failure, he fully admitted, from the number of objections raised to it, that hon. Members were quite justified in bringing the matter before Parliament. With regard to the drainage of the Shannon Valley, the statement of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway was scarcely accurate. Unquestionably it was originally contemplated that the drainage of the Shannon Valley, as well as the navigation of the river, should be improved; but that was quite a secondary object, and it was, to a great extent, effected. It was because the Government felt that the question was of national importance, and that the works were of such magnitude that they could not be entirely executed by local resources, that they proposed the Act of last Session by which they undertook to meet one half of the cost. Prom the time the subject was first brought before Parliament, in 1861, it was understood that not only the summer, but also the winter floods were to be guarded against; but no sooner was the assessment made for the works than the landowners suddenly discovered that, so far from the winter floods being disastrous, they were really beneficial, and that, instead of paying anything to the Treasury, they themselves ought rather to be compensated for the injury done them by good drainage. In fact, some of the proprietors protested against the Act altogether irrespective of the amount to be charged upon their lands. He found it stated generally that the proprietors at the upper end preferred to remain as they were, as the proposed works would do them harm. Others complained that the assessment was far beyond the value of any improvement that their lands could possibly derive from the undertaking. They had in the evidence the statement of one landowner that land which now brought him from £7 to £8 per acre would be reduced to 30 s. or 35 s. per acre if the winter floods were drained off; and one proprietor of the same
  1614
  name as the hon. and gallant Member for Galway told them point blank that he ought to be paid compensation for the drainage works. Of course, if the winter floods were really a benefit and not an injury to the Shannon Valley, it was easy to understand those statements; but it was very unfortunate that this distinction between summer and winter floods had hardly been ever mentioned until an Act had been passed to remedy the grievance which had been complained of for many years. As it was, the position was somewhat discouraging. No doubt, it was asserted by the proprietors' agents that the Shannon waters could be regulated so as to improve the neighbouring lands at a cost of £150,000, instead of £300,000. On the other hand, the opinions of the experienced engineers of the Board of Works and also of Mr. Bateman pointed in an entirely opposite direction. All those gentlemen said that the mere regulation of the floods, which had been suggested by one or more speakers that night, would be wholly insufficient to remedy the evil. That question was referred years ago to Mr. Bateman, one of the foremost engineers who had devoted themselves to that class of works; and he did not think, looking to the largo amount of public money that was involved, that the Government would be justified in preferring Mr. Lynam's opinion to that of Mr. Bateman. It might be that what was necessary to regulate the summer and autumn floods might be obtained without incurring the entire expense proposed by the existing Act of Parliament. That was a question which might be inquired into, and certainly the existing Act would give the Government ample power to effect that object, because the Act did not compel them to expend £300,000, but only fixed that limit to the expenditure, and provided that half of the sum spent should be paid by the owners of the land that was benefited. If it could be satisfactorily proved that by the adoption of a modified scheme all the benefit that was really required by the landowners and tenants of that valley could be effected for less than the £300,000 which Mr. Bateman last year calculated would be the probable cost of the plan, then all that was necessary might be secured without any alteration

  1615
  of the law; and he hoped, judging from what they had heard that evening, that such a solution might be feasible. But what he would suggest to those who took an interest in that matter was that he hoped neither they nor the landowners in the Shannon Valley would be carried away by the idea that it would be right and proper that the Government should bear the whole cost of that work. If no local benefit was to be derived from the scheme, there was no reason for the expenditure of the public money. If local benefit was to be derived, it was right that the landowners and others interested should bear their share of the expense, and he could hold out no hope of a larger proportion being advanced by Parliament to carry out that work than was proposed by the Act of last Session.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, the condition of things arising from the floods had existed for many years, and the question was what could be done to remedy it? From a letter written by Major Trench, the Predecessor of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway it appeared that when the river overflowed its banks the villages were in a miserable condition, nearly all the houses were surrounded with water, boats being anchored at the doors, and in many instances, where the doors would admit them, the boats remained stationary under the beds, ready to be used by the inmates for their escape. A repetition of that state of things might be expected at the present season, and it must periodically recur in a district of from 120 to 130 miles in extent, unless some remedy for the evil was provided. The present Government were entitled to credit for the promptitude with which, on taking office, they had taken action in the matter, and for their honest endeavours to set it right; but they laboured under the same difficulty that many previous Governments had experienced through receiving their advice from a Department which was in favour of an enormous outlay of public money. The engineers, on whom the Government relied, had never, until 1872, gone abroad to inspect the barrage works and sluice system of foreign countries, from which they might have gathered valuable lessons. The Board of Works in Ireland was greatly over-weighted, and,
  1616
  therefore, when they wished to know how the Shannon could be improved, they employed Mr. Bateman, an English engineer—no doubt, of the greatest eminence—but one whose works were remarkable, not only for their completeness, but also for their cost. What they required was not great and expensive works of the kind planned by Mr. Bateman, but that the Government should put their own engineering works in reasonable condition. It was a mistake to suppose that the landowners on the Shannon were unwilling to bear their share of the expense of improving the navigation of the river. What they were naturally unwilling to pay for was for works which they believed to be unnecessary. He believed, if the Government would instruct some engineer who was well acquainted with the system adopted in foreign countries to make a tour of the Shannon, and confer with those interested in the question, that some easy solution of the difficulty might be found in the direction of
  MR. BUTTascribed the failure of the Act of last year to the usual faults in Irish legislation and Irish administration. When the measure was before the House he wished to propose an Amendment, but was told that if he insisted upon any change the scheme would be withdrawn, and Ireland would be left without the boon intended for her, and the same thing occurred to other hon. Members. Was it likely such a thing would have happened, if the river had been the Severn instead of the Shannon? The work contemplated by the Act was in trusted to a body of Commissioners, and this was the fatal defect which he had desired by his Amendment to remedy. He had heard the opinion frequently expressed that the Irish Board of Works should be described as a Board to obstruct improvements in Ireland. Such was the nature of the relations between the Board and the authorities at Dublin Castle that it was impossible to fix the responsibility for any mismanagement, and this was the fault in Irish administration to which he ascribed, in part, the failure of the Shannon Navigation Act. There ought to be an Irish Minister, with a seat in that House, responsible for matters of this kind and amenable to the opinion

  1617
  of Parliament. The right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland could exercise no real control whatever over the Board of Works. It was admitted that there was an evil connected with the Shannon which called for remedy. Government had brought in a Bill to remedy the defect, but the measure had failed. These were patent facts. It was not enough to say that it was the fault of the landed proprietors, for surely it was the business of statesmen and legislators to adapt measures to the men with whom they had to deal.

ARMY—MEDICAL OFFICERS OF THE ARMY.—RESOLUTION.
DR. LUSH, in rising to move,
"That, in the opinion of this House, the positions of the Medical Officers of the Army with respect to their honours, pay, and relative rank, is not in a satisfactory state, and that a revision thereof is desirable,"
said: Mr. Speaker, in rising to call the attention of the House to the subject of which I have given Notice, I feel that I have considerable difficulty to contend with. First, from the natural dislike of hon. Members—in which I myself share—to listen to the details of any grievance at all; and, secondly, from my own want of a personal claim to be listened to as a medical officer of the Army. But if the House will bear with me for a short time, I think I shall be enabled to show that the condition of the Army in respect of its medical Staff is not sound, and that whatever may be the personal desire of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the War Office to effect a satisfactory reform, he will be comparatively powerless unless aided by a Resolution of this House, that such a reform is needed. And at the outset let me say that nothing is farther from my intention than to do, or to ask for, anything tending to deteriorate the discipline of the Army, or to encourage the parade in this House of grievances inalienable from military service, and which are always to be taken into account when gentlemen accept commissions either as scientific or as combatant officers of Her Majesty's Army. But the matters to which I have to refer cannot be said to arise naturally from the Service, and the complaints of the medical officers are that a systematic and unexpected deviation from the Regulations, and a practical repudiation of Royal Warrants have
1618
resulted to the prejudice of one branch of the Service, without any great or striking advantage to the other, except in the matter of honours and decorations. And if it may be considered that some of these results are more of a sentimental than solid injury, I would remind the House that the medical profession is a peculiarly sensitive one, and that much of their influence for the good of the Army and of the nation depends upon the position they assert, and the estimation they hold in public opinion. When, therefore—though habits of discipline keep them silent—they find themselves, as it were, treated as a separate class, and in the large majority of cases placed in a position subordinate to the combatant officers, they feel themselves, and I feel also, that with the great reluctance of the War Office to relieve them from their irksome position hitherto evinced, they have a reasonable justification for coming to this honourable House. And, Sir, the matter is, for another reason, become a pressing and growing one. An important deputation of teachers from the licensing bodies of Dublin which lately waited upon the right hon. Gentleman, authoritatively assured him that the supply of candidates for the future medical service of the British Army is decreasing, and the probable quality deteriorating, solely from the unpopularity engendered by the official treatment of the gentlemen who now hold commissions. I shall not attempt to weary the House by reciting all the vexations that have been communicated to me; but will in a few words endeavour succinctly to state the salient points, just premising that by Royal Warrant of 1873, the old system of regimental medical officers was superseded, and the whole body converted into a medical Staff. Though it struck a vital blow at the old regimental system described by Lord Herbert as the backbone of the British Army, which had the advantage of permanently associating the medical officer with his patients; yet it has passed into history, and the medical officers, as a whole, are content with the change; their real complaint being that the terms of the Warrant are either evaded or not complied with; and that by a caprice of the War Office, all that they have been led to consider the securities of their rank and position, may at any moment

1619
be cut from under them. Take the matter of pay—and this is the least of their grievances. Though the pay of an Army surgeon commences only at the same rate as in 1793—namely, 10 s. per day, yet the rise of 2s. 6d. per day every five years to 17 s. 6d. per day would not be unsatisfactory, if the promotion to a higher grade could be relied upon; but for want of a good system of retirement there is a block of promotion steadily increasing, so that though in 1859 the average service in the junior rank was seven years, in 1875 it exceeds 15 years. This stagnation naturally sours the Service, and is a fruitful source of discontent. I am assured also that although there is under the new system an apparent increase of a little over £30 a-year in the pay of the surgeon, his liability to be removed suddenly from one station to another, often with a family, really renders this addition an illusory boon. There is the vexed question of forage. The Royal Warrant places surgeon majors in the position of field officers, and as a consequence they wear spurs, and have the rank of such officers, but by a refinement of absurdity the War Office denies them forage for their horses! So with regard to absence and sick leave, a combatant officer gets leave of absence free of charge or responsibility, the doctor must provide a substitute at his own cost! And if sick leave is granted to him, after six months from India he is put upon half-pay. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite says that adjutants are in a similiar position with respect to substitutes; but an adjutancy is an appointment paid for in addition to his status as a regimental combatant officer. No doubt the value thus set upon the personal service of the medical officer is complimentary to the profession; but it is a heavy premium to have to pay for a doubtful compliment. It should be considered, also, that even before Purchase was abolished and now, the medical officer enters the service as a means of livelihood by the exercise of his skill. He has not the Peerage—glory, and possibly Westminster Abbey, in view. The highest position he can attain in the Service gives him only £3,000 a-year, while an ordinary general of division gets £4,000 a-year. These higher things are limited to combatant officers; and one of them, the distinguished Sir James Outram, on his death
1620
bed, is reported to have said—"It pains me to think that the services rendered by medical officers to the public have been so ill-requited, and that my efforts to obtain justice for them have been attended with so little effect." I trust these emphatic words of the dying hero may sink deeply into the minds of hon. Members. That distinguished officer, Sir Garnet Wolseley, also, at the Mansion House, said with regard to the Ashantee Campaign, "that the services of the medical Staff were beyond all praise." So in the matter of pensions. A medical officer on the Indian Staff informs me that after 28 years' full service he retired with the rank of major-general with 20 s. per diem. The combatant officer in the same rank getting £500 a-year, with the possible chance of re-appointment on full pay—but the doctor is shelved for life. The right to exchange, and the losses sustained by the medical officers, are matters on which I do not like to dwell; the only point I would insist upon is, that an exchange should be bonâ fide, as promised in the other branch, and should be placed upon solid and unmistakable grounds. At present this is not so—and medical officers who have given quite £600 for their position have never been recouped one penny. A more grievous complaint is with regard to the honours bestowed upon the medical officers. Anticipating a recent brevet of honours, I ventured to ask a Question of the right hon. Gentleman in this House, whether in any future general distribution of Army honours, the medical service would be more equitably considered? Indisposition kept the right hon. Gentleman from his place. If he had been present, I do not think I should have got the curt and somewhat flippant answer that I did from the hon. and gallant Captain by his side (Captain Stanley)—
"It is considered that the medical officers engaged in the Ashantee Expedition have received their full proportion of the honours and rewards bestowed on that occasion."—[3 Hansard, ccxxiii. 1509.]
But in that campaign out of 230 combatant officers, many of whom stayed on board ship, 78 were either promoted or decorated, and out of 81 medical officers only 9 got the same reward meted out to them. The volunteers to the Gold Coast were not sufficient; so

1621
that the medical officers on the rota went in the ordinary course of duty, and so much the more were entitled to a higher share of the rewards. As the Ashantee Expedition was more a war against climate than any other force, I venture to suggest that its success was in no slight degree owing to the science of the medical officers. If, therefore, in such a war, the relation of honours bestowed in one case is as 1 in 3, and in the other as 1 in 9, what hope is there for medical officers that in any future campaigns, without, possibly, the special conditions of the West Coast of Africa, they may escape the disdain that appears to actuate the Advisers of the Crown? Sir, as if to quench for ever any hope that the agitation of this question may have given rise to, a Birthday distribution of the honours of the Bath has since taken place, and amongst a wholesale creation of G.C.B.s, K.C.B.s, and C.B.s, amongst generals, colonels, majors, and captains, amounting to 80 or 90 in all, only one medical officer of the Army was allowed to creep in, who, though a very distinguished officer, had no special claims above numbers of his brethren. Sir, the medical officers naturally ponder upon these inequalities; they do not, in their private relations, hesitate to speak of them, and the result will be fatal to the future sanitary condition of the Army, if the right hon. Gentleman hesitates at once to take the matter in hand. The problem of future rapid military movements practically devolves upon the medical Staff for very much of its solution; and this is the time considered by the War Office suitable for a general snubbing of this important branch of the Service of Her Majesty, I venture to ask the House to take a different view, and that this course of injustice will no longer be tolerated. Sir, the third point referred to in the Resolution I propose to move relates to relative rank. It is one of much importance to the comfort and dignity of the medical profession, which is a branch, let the House recollect, of a profession in which honour is punctilious, and necessarily so. The right. hon. Gentleman at the War Office and in this House denied the grievances and also scarcity of applicants. His statement that there was no lack of medical officers is to be explained by wholesale reductions, so as to keep demand and supply
1622
equal. Isolated cases of numbers of marks do not disprove the fact that the Indian Service does really get all the best students. And there is no doubt the discontent in the Army discourages the admission to Her Majesty's Service of the alumni of some of the best medical schools in the world. I have purposely avoided obtruding my own advice in the various matters complained of. I think the relief sought for should spontaneously be afforded by the Administration, and not in its details be forced upon it. Respect to Her Majesty's Prerogative and the discipline of the Army forbid any other course. What the medical officers desire is that relative rank should be a reality and not a sham, and that it should date from The Gazette. That it should hold in hospitals and barracks, as well as in a regiment, and that none of its advantages should be withheld from the profession. The subordination of the medical to the combatant branch in hospitals is, upon the face of it, a peculiar injustice. A distinguished medical officer formerly at Netley told me, that if, on entering one of the wards of that noble monument of Sidney Herbert, he found the atmosphere impure, he was not entitled to order a window to be opened, but had to send a hospital orderly to the captain of the orderlies for his authority to do so! The House will see by this example how sedulously the doctor, even in his own peculiar sphere, is taught to humble himself and to be humbled, whenever there is an opportunity. In the United Kingdom it may be that the disadvantages resulting to the medical officers are comparatively slight and limited to choice of quarters, as the right hon. Gentleman asserted lately: but abroad it is a serious matter. In India the question of relative rank is stereotyped on the official mind and pervades society. A ease is known to me where at an official reception, a young civilian, just after getting relative rank of lieutenant-colonel, took precedence of a surgeon-major after 27 years' service. The medical officers serving in India in 1873 were ignominiously turned out of their regiments, and ever since no surgeon can be really considered as belonging to any mess. He is simply tolerated—that is all. True they have been allowed to wear out their old regimental uniforms; and the anomaly may be witnessed of, for instance, a medical

1623
officer attached to an Infantry regiment wearing the uniform of the Royal Horse Artillery. The injustice of placing a medical officer on half-pay, after a short sick leave, is manifest. If restored on recovery to full-pay he finds that his juniors have in the meanwhile passed over his head; and more than one of such cases have been certified to me. In fact, the system is gradually separating the medical branch of the Service from their brother officers, and it is felt, and strongly felt too, that though liable to mess charges, they no longer belong to the regimental fellowship, and the effect, though possibly slow in its operation, by reason of the past associations, cannot fail to be permanently injurious to Her Majesty's service. It should be recollected, also, that the two classes of officers start already clearly handicapped by the difference of age and education. An officer may enter the Service at 16. The medical officer, only at full manhood, after years of study, and a considerable outlay, can receive his commission, and then finds that he is classed and treated permanently as of an inferior grade, his age, instead of ensuring a certain respect, actually in the race for promotion and rank, telling against him. Sir, I do not feel myself justified in further trespassing upon the time of the House. I have endeavoured, though very imperfectly, to give expression to the sense of injustice pervading the entire executive branch of the medical Service. The administrative officers, so far as I can gather, have less reason to be dissatisfied, and are indeed somewhat favourably treated in comparison with the other class whom they elbow out in a measure; and I assure the House that I have purposely understated my case, in order not to be compelled to introduce cases of individual hardship. I shall be glad if what I have said may have the effect of convincing the House that the case of the medical officers of the Army is not an imaginary grievance, but one of reality and importance, not only to themselves, but to the Army and to the country, and that a full and generous consideration of their claims is imperatively demanded of the right hon. Gentleman and the Government. Sir, I wish very strongly to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the urgency of the case and the necessity of immediate action in
1624
the matter, and beg to move the Resolution of which I have given Notice.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the position of the Medical Officers of the Army with respect to their honours, pay, and relative rank is not in a satisfactory state, and that a revision thereof is desirable,"—(Dr. Lush,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
SIR WALTER BARTTELOTexpressed his satisfaction that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Dr. Lush) had brought forward that subject in behalf of a most deserving body of men, who had always done their duty. Still, had the hon. Member known the position of those gentlemen when he (Sir Walter Barttelot) entered the Service he would have had a very different tale to tell, for there was no body of men who in that respect had been more cared for of late years than the surgeons of the Army, seeing that a physician-general now ranked with a major-general, and a surgeon-general ranked with a colonel. Upon that score, therefore, he did not think that they had much to complain of, while great injury had, he believed, been done them, so far as the position which they held in their regiments was concerned. The aspiration of the medical officers was that they should be considered part and parcel of the regiment, and that the regiment should be their home; but the regiment was their home no longer. Surely it was a monstrous thing that a man should be called upon to find regimentals for a particular regiment and then be transferred nobody knew when and nobody knew where. That was not so in former times; and he was of opinion that the hon. Gentleman had made out that part of his case, and it was a point which should be impressed upon the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War.
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, having had some degree of responsibility in the issue of the Royal Warrant of 1873, which had been so much referred to by his hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Dr. Lush), desired to say

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a few words in explanation of its object and intention. That Warrant was not issued without full inquiry into the subject. A Committee had sat upon the whole question of medical organization in the Army, and that Committee consisted of officers specially competent to deal with the question. Sir Henry Storks and Sir Garnet Wolseley, two distinguished officers who had both had a peculiar degree of experience in the working of the medical service, were on the Committee; so was Sir Galbraith Logan, at that time Director General of the Army Medical Department; and the very able officer who now filled that position, Sir William Muir, either was a member of the Committee, or, at least, was constantly consulted by its Members, and entirely agreed in their Report. The principal recommendation which the Committee made was the unification of the department, and the establishment of a consolidated Staff service instead of the regimental service which had up to that time prevailed. The House would bear in mind that, while it was very necessary to consider the interests of the medical officers—and he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) would yield to no one in his desire to do so—it was still more necessary to consult the interests of the Army itself, and to secure for it the services of efficient medical officers. Now, they might have stringent entrance examinations and thus provide that when he joined the service, an officer should be well qualified; but if that officer was confined to a particular regiment, the experience gained in the course of his service must be small, he would see no variety of disease, his acquaintance with the higher branches of his duty must be limited, and it was found that he was very apt to grow rusty, and to fail to keep abreast of the progress of medical science. One advantage of the unified system was that it gave medical officers the wider experience which they thus required, and the House would see, notwithstanding what had been said in favour of the strict regimental system, that that was a good reason for abandoning it. Another very important advantage was, that the consolidation of the service enabled them to have, as was so desirable, the same system in peace that they should be obliged to have in war. The system, therefore, introduced by the Warrant was that a medical officer should
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not be appointed to a regiment, but should be attached to it for five years; and it was not intended that their change from one regiment to another should involve any expense for regimentals, as it was proposed that there should be one uniform for all medical officers. His hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Dr. Lush) had made a complaint that officers removed, under the Warrant, from regiments had received no compensation for the payments they had made for their appointments, at a time when combatant officers were receiving such large compensation on the abolition of purchase. But the cases were entirely different. The combatant officer had paid a certain sum under regulation; and his over-regulation payments had been inquired into by a Royal Commission, which decided that though illegal, they could not be ignored; Parliament, therefore, could not avoid acknowledging those claims. But if any payments were made by medical officers they were unknown to the military authorities, and they were quite beyond the cognizance of the War Department. It might be that in carrying out this great change hardships had been unintentionally inflicted upon individual officers, but he hoped these would be mitigated as much as possible. The other great object of the Warrant was to facilitate promotion. Owing to the large increase made to the department at the time of the Crimean and Indian Wars there existed, two years ago, the near and certain prospect of an absolute block in the lower ranks. The medical officers then desired, and he believed this was still one of their proposals, that promotion from surgeon to surgeon major should of necessity occur after a fixed period of service. His noble Friend, however, the late Secretary of State, was very averse from fixing by Royal Warrant any positive period for promotion, being aware how unfortunately such an arrangement had worked in other cases; but he thought it would meet the case, and satisfy the officers, if he stated that it was the intention of the Secretary of State that promotion should, on the average, be made after a certain period, without laying it down in explicit terms that that should in all cases occur. He (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had not followed the course of events for the last year, but he presumed that the standard of promotion was still not far

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from from that which the medical officers wished.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANresumed: There was every desire on the part of the late Government to meet the wishes of the medical officers, and they were under the impression, and, indeed, had good reason to believe, at the time the Warrant was issued, that its general principle was agreeable to the department. If there were any minor points, such as relative rank, choice of quarters, and others, in which the medical officers felt themselves aggrieved, he had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman opposite would as far as was in his power relieve them of any just grievance of which they complained.
DR. WARD, in supporting the Motion, said, he had no doubt great discontent was felt upon this subject, and that the most prominent grievance amongst the older members of the Army medical officers was the removing them from their regiments, and placing them on the staff by the late Government in a very harassing fashion indeed. This, however, was a wise measure so far as the Army was concerned, because it kept up a knowledge of the profession. But the most important of all their grievances was in connection with promotion. In Lord Herbert's time a medical officer was sure of promotion after serving seven years; now he must serve 15 years. That was a great hardship, and there was only one remedy for it, by providing a compulsory retirement for the older officers after they reached a certain age. After all, the slowness of promotion was the great grievance, and he strongly urged the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hardy) to lessen that evil by fixing the age of retirement at 60 instead of 65, as was the case in the Navy. A medical officer had to look mainly to his pay, and on a comparison of years he received less money now, when everything was dearer, than he did 15 or 20 years ago.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Dr. Lush) and the hon. Member who had just spoken had taken up very different positions, the one dealing with the sentimental and the other with the pecuniary
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aspect of the question. He (Mr. Hardy) would be the last man to deny the great merits of the Medical department of the Army, and their title to share in the honour and dignity which naturally accrued to men who served their country under circumstances of great danger, but the honour he was called upon to give to the medical officers of the Army did not emanate from him, but from the military authorities. On the whole, the medical officers of the Army had not much to complain of. Their relative rank had become very high, and with regard to soldiers in hospital it was necessary to maintain discipline, which could only be effected by the combatant officers, who, however, never interfered with the medical officers in the discharge of their professional duties. Moreover, it would disturb the sound rule which had always existed, that the military authority should deal with the discipline, and the medical authority with the health of the Army. As for the proposal to make retirement at 60 compulsory, he believed the great evil was the dearth of medical men for the Army, both with regard to the Army and Navy, as well as the other public Departments, but he had no doubt it would remedy itself before long. He had had the question of rapidity of promotion examined into and actuarial calculations made in reference to it; and if adopted, a greater injustice might be inflicted by it than was now the case under the present system. Before changes like those proposed were adopted they required to be very carefully looked into, and before any alteration was made, he desired that it should be one that would be likely to last. All those matters had to be carefully considered, and he could assure the hon. Member for Salisbury that he was not losing sight of the subject. It was the fact, he believed, that promotion was slowest in some of the best regiments in the country, and practically, he might add, medical officers had become now staff officers, would be treated as such, and would have their own uniform. As to relative rank he could assure the hon. Member that, although there were great difficulties in the way of altering the position which they had always held as juniors of their rank, yet that, believing it to be of the greatest importance that they should have suitable quarters, he had directed

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that such quarters should, as far as practicable, be assigned to them. He hoped under the circumstances the hon. Gentleman would not deem it to be his duty to press his Motion to a division, but would rest satisfied with the assurance that he was looking into the question in the same temperate spirit as that in which it had been brought under his notice. We must have medical officers, and good medical officers, and if we could not get them without change that change should be made.
DR. C. CAMERONthought the statement of the right hon. Gentleman would give considerable satisfaction to those to whom it related. He might add that the death rate among medical officers was very-high—30 per 1,000—while that in the case of the combatant officers was only 15 per 1,000; and would suggest that a thorough alteration should be made in the present system with regard to granting sick leave. The loss of forage was also a practical grievance, involving a pecuniary loss of £30 a-year.
DR. LUSHsaid, that after the very courteous statement of the right hon. Gentleman he should not press the Motion. He hoped, however, that the changes to which the Secretary for War had alluded would speedily be carried into effect.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

ARMY—CAPTAIN J. BALAIR CHATTERTON.

  MOTION FOR INQUIRY.
  SIR THOMAS CHAMBERS, in rising to call attention to the case of Captain J. Balair Chatterton, and to move for an inquiry, said that gallant officer, having been engaged in the Indian Mutiny, had been rendered incapable of service by rheumatism, and not being able, in consequence, to perform his duties, had been charged with "malingering."
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock till Monday next.