Commons Sitting of 25 July 1879

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—Class VI.—SUPERANNUATION AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES, AND GRATUITIES FOR CHARITABLE AND OTHER PURPOSES—Committee—R.P.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions [July 24] reported—Ordered—First Reading—Public Works Loans (No. 2) * [260].
Ordered—First Reading—Shipping Casualties Investigations Re-hearing* [262].
Second Reading—East India Loan (Consolidated Fund) [201].
Committee—East India Loan (£5,000,000) [197], debate adjourned.
Committee—Report—Knightsbridge and other Crown Lands (re-comm.) * [258].
Third Reading—Lord Clerk Register (Scotland)* [196], and passed.
The House met at Two of the clock.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  THAMES RIVER (PREVENTION OF FLOODS) BILL (by Order.)

    CONSIDERATION OF LORDS' AMENDMENTS.
    Order for Consideration of Lords' Amendments, read.
    Clause 16a (Provision as to Dock Companies).
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he would not detain the House for more than a few minutes by the remarks he wished to make in reference to this clause; but he should not like to see the clause inserted in the Bill, under the circumstances in which it had been placed in the Bill, without saying a few words on the subject. The Bill was one which was introduced by the Metropolitan Board of Works for the purpose of dealing with the prevention of floods, and the present clause was inserted by the Committee of the House of Lords after the Bill left the House of Commons. In the Committee of the House of Commons, of which he was a Member, the Bill was carefully considered, and the Metropolitan Board were successful in keeping the Bill intact, so far as all its main provisions were concerned, and especially in regard to the area of taxation, upon which the great fight took place. There were, however, secondary questions raised, and among them was the question of arbitration. The Bill was opposed by the Corporation of London, by the Conservators of the River Thames, and by various public Bodies—Vestries and wharfingers, and local individuals, who had frontages upon the River. A very large number of counsel made speeches to the Committee, in which they touched upon the question of arbitration raised by the present clause, and the line taken by the Metropolitan Board of Works as promoters of the Bill was that of opposition to all proposals of the kind. They said that they were perfectly competent to undertake all the duties themselves, and the Committee maintained them in that view. He thought that both the opponents of the Bill, as regarded the principle of taxation and the promoters of
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    the measure, were unanimous in resisting the concession of arbitration from the outside, and the Metropolitan Board strongly contended that they, as a public Body, ought to be competent to discharge the duty. But he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) now discovered that, at that very time, the Metropolitan Board had agreed with one set of the opponents represented by counsel—namely, the Dock Companies—to introduce an arbitration clause for their benefit, and that clause was accordingly introduced in the House of Lords, the Committee of the House of Commons not having been informed that such an arrangement was in contemplation. He certainly thought, from what he knew of the opinion of the Committee upstairs, that many Members of that Committee, if not the majority of the Members of it, would have wished to raise the question of arbitration as regarded other public Bodies and individuals, if they had known that the Metropolitan Board of Works were going to give way at all. If the principle was to be introduced into the Bill at all, it ought, at all events, to be considered in the case of every person having a river frontage, and not in the case of the Dock Companies only, who were rich, and fully able to take care of themselves. The persons for whom provision ought to have been made, if it was to be made at all, were not the wealthy corporate Bodies, such as the Dock Companies, but Vestries, Local Boards, and other public Bodies, who had frontages the same as the Dock Companies, but no engineers, in the comfortable position of the engineers of the Dock Companies and the Metropolitan Board. Not only did the Metropolitan Board give way when the clause was before the House of Lords, but he was told that they had absolutely put forth a Whip in favour of it that morning, so that they had not only the Dock Companies who opposed the Bill, but the promoters of the measure itself supporting the clause which had been introduced into the Bill as a matter of arrangement in the House of Lords. He complained of the manner in which the Committee of the House of Commons had been treated in the matter. The Members of the Committee were asked to support the Metropolitan Board in resisting arbitration, when all the time the Metropolitan Board had decided that,

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    so far as the Dock Companies were concerned, arbitration should be introduced. His own view was, that the Metropolitan Board were competent to perform all the necessary works for themselves, as a public representative Body, to the satisfaction of the general public; but if the principle of outside arbitration was to be observed it should be observed in every case. For that reason, he had placed a Notice on the Paper of his intention to move that the House should disagree with the Lords in regard to this particular clause which they had inserted. At the same time, he was informed that the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Raikes) had made up his mind to support the clause, and if that was the case, it would be perfectly useless, as everyone knew, to put the House to the trouble of a Division; and, having stated his objection to the clause, he should not move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    MR. RAIKESsaid, the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Charles W. Dilke) went somewhat further than he was entitled to go in assuming that he (Mr. Raikes) had made up his mind to accept this clause. One circumstance weighed with him very much before arriving at any positive conclusion on the subject, and lie had thought there was a possibility of that circumstance coming o\it in the course of the debate. If the right hon. Gentleman who was Chairman of the Select Committee to which the Bill was referred had been present in the House, and had risen to support the Motion of which the hon. Baronet had given Notice, he should think that, on the whole, he should have been disposed to advise the House, at all events, to leave open the question for further consideration, because he thought it was a matter in. which the House would be inclined to stand by its own Committee. That appeared to him to be a very valuable principle to adopt as a general rule, and if the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Committee had recommended that course, he (Mr. Raikes) did not think he could, under the circumstances, have dissented from that view; but he was bound to say that, under any other circumstances, it appeared to him that they would not be warranted in acting in the spirit of the statement just made by the hon. Baronet, and in disagreeing to the Amend-
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    ment introduced by the House of Lords. Perhaps he might be allowed to point out one matter which appeared to have escaped the hon. Baronet, whose statement, as any statement made by the hon. Baronet always was, was generally fair and candid in regard to the whole matter. But there was one point which the hon. Baronet omitted to notice. He stated that the Amendment which had been introduced by the House of Lords was not considered by the Committee of the House of Commons, and that, if it had been, it would probably have been also considered in regard to other opponents who equally desired to have the privilege of arbitration. Now, he (Mr. Raikes) must point out that if the opponents of a Private Bill opposed a Bill on its merits generally in the House of Commons before a Select Committee, they did not usually carry their opposition further, for if they did, they were excluded by the other House from opposing the Preamble of the Bill. This was an important matter in this case, because the Dock Companies could have gone into this clause in the House of Commons if they had not wished to reserve to themselves the right of opposing the Bill in the other House of Parliament. That, he thought, made a material difference in the question. Then, as regarded the Amendment itself, he was bound to say that it seemed to him to be a reasonable Amendment, and, as far as he could judge, it was approved of by both sides. He did not find that there was any objection to the Amendment introduced into the Bill by the House of Lords per se—it was merely argued that other parties ought to have the same advantage extended to them. They had now reached a period in the progress of the Bill when it became impossible for these parties to obtain that advantage; and if the clause was struck out of the Bill it would not help the other frontagers to an opportunity of obtaining the same advantage. If they were able to re-open the question altogether, possibly it might assume larger dimensions, and he was not prepared to say that it might not be well to give arbitration to the frontagers generally. But it was too late to take that course now; and, in the absence of any suggestion from the Select Committee, it would be taking an extreme course if they were now, because certain persons had been disap-

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    pointed in obtaining from Parliament that principle of arbitration which they desired to obtain, to exclude others who, on their own merits, were certainly entitled to it. Before he concluded, he should like to say one word upon the question involved in the clause. These Dock Companies represented a capital of something like £17,000,000. They were incorporated public Bodies, and they employed the most competent engineering skill they could obtain. That being so, they would certainly be exceedingly well advised as to the works it was desirable to carry out on the river so far as their own interests were concerned, and much better advised than individual frontagers and others who had not such engineering talent at their command. It was quite possible that public Companies like these, with a large capital and able engineers to advise them, would have a plan of their own for the construction of works which might be of the greatest possible importance to them, and which they did not wish to have over-ridden by the mere ipse dixit of the Metropolitan Board of Works. That being so, it did not appear to him astonishing that the House of Lords should have attached importance to this clause. It must be borne in mind that a clause similar in effect was accepted by the Metropolitan Board of Works at the time they brought in their Bill in 1877, and was inserted in the measure. That course was not taken on the present occasion. He was not in a position to give an explanation of the reason; but it might be, as a matter of policy, that the Engineer of the Metropolitan Board was not inclined to accept the principle of arbitration if all the frontagers were to have it. But he thought the fact that the principle was not conceded generally ought not to prejudice the right of the Dock Companies. He hoped what he had said would guard him against the imputation of having formed a prejudiced view of the matter; but he did not think the House would be acting in the interests of the frontagers if, on the present occasion, they were to strike out this clause. Under all the circumstances, he hoped the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea would not press the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGG,as Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of
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    Works, was anxious to say a word or two before the House came to a decision upon, the matter. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Charles W. Dilke) had already been set right as to the view of the Chairman of Committees; but there was one other point on which he wished to correct the hon. Member. He was not in the least aware of any arrangement with the Dock Companies of any sort or kind to insert a clause when the Bill went to the House of Lords. So far as the feeling of the Metropolitan Board went, they would much rather have the entire responsibility cast upon them. Their engineer was fully competent in every shape and form to indicate what steps ought to be taken to prevent the flooding of the River, and the Board were very sorry to have any arbitration at all. But having accepted this clause in the House of Lords, they felt bound, as men of honour, to carry out the understanding embodied in the compromise between the Dock Companies and. themselves. At the same time, he must point out to the House that, in regard to this matter, the Dock Companies stood on a very different footing from other people. All they did was under an Act of Parliament—everything they were entitled to carry out must be done in accordance with the provisions of their Act of Parliament. They were, therefore, usually exempted from outside interference. Take, for instance, the Thames Conservancy Bill, brought in during the present year. In the 49th clause of that Bill, Sections 4 and 7, it would be found that the Dock Companies were specially, in consideration of their being under an Act of Parliament, exempted from the operation of the Act. It was the same in regard to other Acts relating to the conservancy of the River. He quite endorsed what his hon. Friend the Member for Chester (Mr. Raikes) had said in regard to the Bill brought in by the Metropolitan Board in 1877. The Board, no doubt, did agree to insert a clause of this nature in that Bill; but they had not done so in the present measure, because they did not approve of it. But they found it necessary, in. this instance, to come to a compromise with the Dock Companies. Upon that compromise, which was made when the Bill was in the House of Lords, the Dock Companies withdrew their opposition; and he certainly did not think that,

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    considering the extent of their capital, and all the interests involved, the Dock Companies could be placed in the same position as the rest of the frontagers, who had a very small interest indeed in the matter. He was glad that his hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees had announced his intention of abiding by the Amendments of the House of Lords. As Chairman of the Metropolitan Board, he had considered it desirable to say a few words by way of vindicating the action of the Board in the matter.
    Lords' Amendments agreed to.

QUESTIONS.
  THE LATE PRINCE IMPERIAL.

    QUESTION.
    SIR FREDERICK PERKINSasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether there was not time for General Wood, after hearing of the disaster to the Prince Imperial, to have sent out on the evening of the same day, and at once, a force to discover his whereabouts, instead of waiting until the following morning?
    COLONEL LOYD LINDSAY,in reply, said, that the Question was one rather for the Cape authorities than for the Government at home; but that, as it was decided on the evening in question that no immediate steps should be taken, it was probable there was good reason for the decision.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE CAPE COLONY— IMPRISONMENT OF GRIQUAS.

    QUESTION.
    MR. W. H. JAMESasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, With reference to his statement that the Griquas imprisoned at Cape Town are treated as prisoners of war, if he can contradict the statement that many of them were brought in chains from Griqualand to Durban, and from there to Cape Town?
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, my statement the other day was that these Griquas were treated as prisoners of war at Cape Town. So far as I can recollect, I had heard nothing, until the hon. Member gave Notice of this Question, of the way in which they might have been brought there from Griqualand. But it must be remembered
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    that their outbreak was accompanied by murder, by the plunder of property, and by threats of great violence to White women and children, which could not but cause great alarm to the few White residents in their country; and that, being a race of half-breeds, the excuses which might be made for ignorant Natives are scarcely applicable to their conduct. Therefore, it is very conceivable that it may have been thought necessary to place them during their journey under the same restraint as that to which they would certainly have been liable if they had been arrested as criminals. I may add that the wives of these prisoners were left in the occupation of their farms, and have reaped the crops.

  GAME LAWS AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.—QUESTION.
  SIR DAVID WEDDERBURNasked the Lord Advocate, Whether it is his intention to proceed, during this Session, with the Game Laws Amendment (Scotland) Bill; and why this Bill, which is unopposed, has not been proceeded with since the 5th of May?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. WATSON),in reply, said, he did intend to proceed with the Bill referred to, and he had put some Amendments on the Paper, which would probably furnish an answer to the hon. Member's Question in accounting for the delay in proceeding with the Bill.

  PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS.

    QUESTION.
    MR. CHILDERSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he was in a position to give the House further information as to the course of Public Business next week?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,in reply, said, that at this time of the year it was always very difficult to give any precise and final information as to the arrangements for Business; so much depended on the progress made on particular days. He had, however, already informed the House that he would proceed with the Irish Estimates on Monday, and, as regarded the other Business of the Government, something would depend on the rate of progress they were able to make with the Estimates. There was one point, which was

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    probably in the mind of his right hon. Friend, and which he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had also to bear in mind. Some time ago, he stated that he should be prepared to lay on the Table the Estimates for the South African War, and the Vote of Credit, probably before the end of this month, and Thursday would be the end of the month. Now, the news they had received recently from the Cape enabled them to prepare that Estimate with greater confidence than would have been the case a few weeks ago; and he, therefore, hoped to be in a position to redeem his pledge, and to bring that matter before the House in a form which, he might present with some confidence. There were also one or two other matters, more or less in connection with the financial arrangements of the year, which would have to be borne in mind. They had, as the House was aware, to make provision for the payment of certain Exchequer Bonds which fell due in August and September. It would be necessary to take a Vote in Supply, in order to provide the means for paying off those Bonds; and if the House agreed to the Bill now about to be proposed for a loan to India, some provision would have to be made in order to raise the money that would be required for the purpose. He should, probably, on Tuesday, in Committee of Supply, propose a Vote for that purpose, and then on Thursday, in Committee of Ways and Means, as the First Order of the Day, he should propose the steps necessary to provide for the bills which had to be paid off, and also the Estimate that would be necessary for a Vote of Credit. The Government were further anxious to go on with the Navy Estimates on Thursday, if the preliminary statement he had to make would allow sufficient time. If not, of course, it would be necessary to put it off until a later day. So much, however, depended on the progress made with other Business which should have precedence, that he was not able to give more precise information as to what would be taken on particular days.

  PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL.

    QUESTION.
    MR. RYLANDSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, What his intentions were in regard to the Public Works
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    Loans Bill? He was aware that the right hon. Gentleman considered himself absolved from the promise which he had given in regard to it; but he trusted he would place it in such a position on the Orders as to insure that it might be fairly discussed.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERthought that, as regarded the pledge that had been given to a particular Member, he had sufficiently redeemed it on Wednesday, when he was prevented from giving effect to it by the course taken by the hon. Member (Mr. Rylands) himself. That, however, was a matter on which he did not wish again to express his opinion, though he thought the step then taken might have been taken equally well three or four months before. Still, he felt his duty to the House required him to see that a full opportunity was given for discussing the Bill.

  EGYPTIAN AFFAIRS.—QUESTIONS.
  SIR JULIAN GOLDSMIDasked, Whether an opportunity would be given for the discussion on the interference of the Government in Egyptian affairs?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERthought, considering the great pressure of Public Business upon them, that the hon. Gentleman should find an opportunity himself for bringing the question forward. There would probably be plenty of opportunities between that day and the close of the Session for introducing a discussion on Egyptian affairs.
  MR. GOSCHENasked, Whether any other Business than the Vote in Supply referred to would be brought forward on Tuesday?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would repeat that he would take ordinary Supply on Tuesday, and perhaps the Public Works Loans Bill.
  SIR JULIAN GOLDSMIDreminded the right hon. Gentleman that he had promised to give an opportunity for discussing the Egyptian question, if private Members wished for it.
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, the hon. Baronet might find an easy opportunity on the Appropriation Bill.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVREremarked, that the Navy Estimates had never, during his recollection, been postponed to so late a period of the Session. They were generally brought on earlier.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  EAST INDIA LOAN (CONSOLIDATED FUND) BILL— [BILL 201.]
  (Mr. Raikes, Mr. Edward Stanhope, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  EAST INDIA LOAN (CONSOLIDATED FUND) BILL— [BILL 201.]

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I apprehend that it is now my duty to move that the Bill be now read a second time, and in doing so I will not detain the House by making a long statement on the subject. If any question is raised in the course of the discussion, my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State will be able to give further explanations, and the House will have an opportunity of considering the Amendments which have been placed on the Paper. All I wish now to say is this—we cannot in this country hold ourselves indifferent to the position of Indian finance, although we cannot undertake to control or direct it from this country. As a general rule, the principle upon which we act in regard to India is that she should, to use a familiar expression, "stand upon her own bottom." That is to say, we recognize that, as far as possible, India should be responsible for her own expenditure, and for the means taken to meet it; and that, although her proceedings are, from time to time, brought under the notice of this House, and very properly so, we should interfere with her affairs as little as possible. We must bear in mind, however, that although India is, in a certain sense, self-supporting, there are some qualifications to that position. When we say that a country should be entirely self-supporting, it seems to me to be a natural condition that she should be altogether self-governing; because, if a State provides her own revenues, it is, of course, desirable and fair that she should have the direction of her own policy, so as to be able to accommodate her expenditure to her means. With regard to the relations between England and India, we cannot say that that is exactly the position of India. The government of India is, in the first place, directed by officers appointed by the United Kingdom; and, in the second place, not only is the administration of Indian affairs in the hands of Europeans, but, to a certain
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    extent, public opinion in England and the action of the English Parliament do influence the expenditure of that country, both in civil and also in military matters. We call upon the Indian Government to undertake great public works, to introduce improvements in education, and in the promotion of sanitary matters in that country, and to undertake other matters which are very excellent in their way. Similarly, the engagements of this country, from time to time, and the entanglements of its foreign policy, affect Indian finance, although we keep it as distinct as possible from English finance, in a way which we cannot view with indifference, and involve India in expense which she would not have incurred if she had been entirely separate from us. It therefore becomes necessary, from time to time, that we should see whether or not we are under any obligation to give assistance to that country. Now, on the present occasion there is, as the House is aware, a state of affairs in India which renders it difficult for the Indian Government to meet all the demands upon it without imposing upon the country burdens which it is undesirable to impose, and which it would be unnecessary to impose, if temporary relief can be given. In these circumstances, the proposal has been made to the Imperial Government that they should come to the temporary assistance of the Indian Exchequer by an advance of money for a limited time to assist her in her financial difficulties. Hon. Members are aware, from the discussions that have already been held, what the condition of the Indian Exchequer is. They know what exertions are being made to reduce the expenditure of the country; and they know, also, the two events which have mainly contributed to derange the Indian Exchequer. One is the war which took place on the North West Frontier last year and the beginning of this year, and which is now, happily, ended; and another, which is also of a temporary character, I hope, is the derangement caused by the peculiar state of the exchanges, consequent on the fall in silver. Well, in these circumstances, the Indian Exchequer has applied for assistance to the English Exchequer, and we have intimated our willingness to propose to Parliament that we should go to the aid of the Indian Exchequer by a temporary loan. The loan is one of

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    £2,000,000, and it is proposed that it shall be made without interest, repayable within seven years by annual instalments. There have been many transactions of a similar kind from the early days of the last century; but in those cases it not unfrequently happened that the loans were made to England by the East India Company, though they were, perhaps, to be regarded rather as payments for the advantages of the renewal of the Charter and the other facilities which the Company obtained. Thus, in 1708, a loan was made by India to England of £1,200,000, without interest. On other occasions loans were made to India by England. In 1773, there was a loan of £1,400,000. In 1810, there was a loan of £1,500,000; while in 1812, there was what was, practically, a loan of £2,500,000—for funded Debt to that amount was raised under the guarantee of the English Government. In addition to these, there have been a great many cases in which money has been advanced by the English Exchequer on account to India, and delay granted for repaying the same, without any charge being made for interest in respect of that delay. But I do not rest this Bill upon any exact precedent; I rest it upon the circumstances of the case; and I think the proposal on behalf of Her Majesty's Government will be considered fair and reasonable on the part of the House. I observe that in one of the Notices of Amendment given upon this Bill it is assumed that the £2,000,000 are a contribution to be made by this country to India on account of the expenses of the Afghan War, and that it represents the share which England takes in the burden of that war. Now, I have never taken that view of the subject, for I shall be glad to remind the House what it was I said at the beginning of the Session, now so far back as the month of December last, for the House has been sitting since December. I said at that time, when we were discussing the operations in Afghanistan, that it was right to consider what the position of India would be with regard to wars beyond, or within, her own Borders. With regard to wars within her own Borders, I assume that India ought to bear the expense; but with regard to wars altogether beyond her own Frontier—wars in distant countries—it was not the
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    duty, or, at all events, it was not consistent with the practice of Parliament, to lay on India any expense in connection with such wars. It had been done in some instances in former times; but it was generally considered that it ought not to be done, and that if Indian troops and resources were used for such wars it should be at the expense of England. But when we come to the case of Border wars, and have to consider wars within what may be called the Indian circle—the regions bounding India—and wars that are undertaken for what may be regarded as Indian objects, it is a matter for adjustment and consideration on each occasion where the burden shall fall. Now, I regard the war which was recently carried on on the North West Frontier of India as being strictly and properly an Indian war. It was as much an Indian war as any other of the Border wars in which India has from time to time been engaged. To a certain extent, it is true that the war may have been precipitated by the action of an European Government, and the possible action of the English Government may have been more or less precipitated by circumstances that have occurred in Europe and other parts; but, speaking directly with regard to the circumstances which led to that war, they were of a purely Indian character. It was of importance to India that she should have a quiet Frontier on the North West, and that she should live on good and satisfactory terms with her neighbours in Afghanistan. In order to attain that end, the object at which the Indian Government aimed was to establish and maintain satisfactory relations with the Ruler of Afghanistan, and, at the same time, to safeguard our interests by preventing his entering into cordial and diplomatic relations with any other Power. Well, when circumstances arose which seemed to show that the Ruler of Cabul was receiving Envoys from another Power, and not from England, it was thought necessary on the part of the Indian Government to take steps to right ourselves, and make it clear to everyone that Russian influence was not to supersede English influence in Afghanistan. The same feeling prevailed in India, that it would be of serious detriment to the peace of India; and, therefore, it became necessary that steps should be taken to counteract the action of Russia. The step we took to insure that was of a very simple and

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    harmless character—namely, to send a corresponding Mission to the Ameer, with a request that it might be received. That mission was not received. It was repulsed under circumstances to which I need not now refer, but, undoubtedly, in a manner which would have tended very much to diminish the authority and influence of the Indian Government on the Borders of the Empire, if such a rebuff had been allowed to pass unnoticed. It was consequently felt necessary by the Government of India to take steps to compel the Ameer of Afghanistan to admit that Mission, and to come to terms with the Government of India. The result was that, after a brief and very brilliant campaign, its object was obtained. A satisfactory peace has, we trust, been concluded with the Ameer; and I hope that the relations now being established between India and her neighbour will be conducive to the peace, prosperity, and tranquillity of India. In these circumstances, it was our duty to consider to what extent, if any, the English Treasury should come in aid of the Indian Treasury in respect of the cost of the war. I have already stated that if it was to be regarded merely as a Border war I thought India might very well bear the expense; but that if it should become complicated by European intrusion into it and should take a wider range, and assume anything of the character of a European and Imperial war, then that it might be a matter in which the Forces of the whole Empire would be called into play, and that in that case we should come largely to the aid of India. Well, Sir, that did not happen. There was no such complication, and, in the circumstances, I think we are doing all that we are called upon to do in making the proposal I have now to submit to the House. We now ask for power to issue this sum, out of the Consolidated Fund, by way of loan to the Secretary of State for India. If that authority is given, our intention is to raise the amount by borrowing it on some proper security; and, in point of fact, I may at once say that it will be advanced to us out of the funds at the disposal of the National Debt Commissioners. We shall borrow from them, and not in the open market. I may also add that repayment will be made annually in equal amounts over a period of seven years. The transaction is of a simple character and capable of being
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    easily understood, and, under the circumstances, I beg to move the second reading of the Bill.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
    MR. FAWCETT,having presented Petitions from influential inhabitants of Bombay and Madras, Native and European, against the proposal of the Bill, as entailing a disproportionately heavy charge on India, proceeded to move, as an Amendment—
    "That, considering that it has been officially stated that the Afghan War was undertaken in the interests of England and India jointly, this House is of opinion that it is unjust to make India pay towards the expense of the war more than seven times as much as will he contributed by England."
    The hon. Member said, the principles involved in the Bill were of a most important character. As was evident from the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it divided itself into two portions—first, the form in which it was proposed to make this contribution; and, secondly, the amount of the contribution. These two questions ought to be kept perfectly distinct. To the question as to the form he would very briefly refer, as it could be raised, if necessary, at a future stage of the Bill; but he would remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) had stated that rather than there should be a loan made to India without interest an adequate sum ought to be paid down once and for all. That opinion had been greatly strengthened by the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He (Mr. Fawcett) wished emphatically to endorse the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that India was bound, as he expressed it, to "stand on her own bottom," and should not look to this country for grants-in-aid, or subventions. What were the precedents as to this question? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that loans were formerly made by India to England. When was that? Just at the time the East India Company were seeking a renewal of their Charter. Could any worse precedent have been adduced? The proposed contribution was either a gift or subvention; or it was given in discharge of a legal and equitable obliga-

    1307
    tion. If it were a gift, he would be the last to object to its adequacy; but rather than have that fatal gift accepted he would be in favour of imposing increased taxation upon India. If India was to be encouraged to look to this country for grants-in-aid and subventions, the day of sound financial administration was gone for ever. Once proceed on that footing, and there would be no kind of wild enterprize on which India might not enter, and come to England for re-payment. Every guarantee for economy and thrift would be swept away, and full scope given to a career of extravagance. If the question was to be argued as one of gift, he would oppose the Bill in toto, and say that India ought not to receive one penny as a gift. For his part, the motive that had influenced him was that if there was not greater economy the day would come when India would not be able to stand on her own bottom, but would come to England for grants-in-aid. He did not believe that day had come. He did not take so gloomy a view as that. Knowing what could be done by wise financial administration, he thought that India, well-administered, could stand alone, and need not undergo the humiliation of being a suppliant to that House for grants-in-aid. He wished to regard the question as one of legality and equity, and did not want India to receive one halfpenny more than she was entitled to according to the strictest justice; for were she to receive more than she was entitled to it would only be a damnosa hœreditas. He thought there could be no doubt as to the legal position of the matter. Lord Derby, in introducing the Government of India Act of 1858—the Act under which India was governed at the present time—said, in reference to the 55th clause, that its object was to protect the financial interests of India, and that it accordingly laid down the principle that if Indian troops should be employed beyond the Indian Frontier in Imperial warfare the cost should be paid by England; but if in Indian warfare, then by India. Lord Derby added that it would be the duty of the House of Commons to see whether such warfare as the clause related to was an Imperial or an Indian enterprize. Now, could there be any doubt as to the character of the recent Afghan War? When it was sought to support the policy of the war
    1308
    the Government taunted their opponents again and again by saying—"You are such parochial-minded politicians that you do not understand the nature of the great Imperial enterprize upon which we are embarking." Such was the language employed by the supporters of the Government inside and outside the House. Now, however, the Chancellor of the Exchequer entirely altered his tone, saying—"Oh, this is purely an Indian war; purely a little Frontier war, or Border dispute; and, consequently, India ought to bear the larger portion of the expense." He would prove that this argument put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was adduced for that particular and special occasion. If there were two men in the world who ought to know what was the real character of the Afghan War better than anybody else they were Lord Lytton, who was responsible in India for the war, and Lord Beaconsfield, who was responsible in England. Well, the former said—
    "After several personal interviews with Lord Salisbury (who was then Secretary of State for India) I went to India determined to treat our Frontier relations as indivisible parts of a great Imperial question, mainly depending for its solution upon the foreign policy of the Government."
    Lord Beaconsfield, too, amid the cheers of the assembled Peers of England, when it was a question of magnifying the importance of the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and not a question of paying the bill, said—
    "It is a mere question of the Khyber Pass, or of some small cantonment at Dacca or Jellalabad. It is a question which concerns the character and the influence of England in Europe."—[3 Hansard, ccxliii. 519.]
    And yet, when the Bill became due, the war was reduced by Her Majesty's Government to the dimensions of a miserable Border dispute. Now that he had read these extracts he thought the House would scarcely sanction this plan of blowing hot and cold—of treating the war at one time as a great Imperial enterprize, and reducing it at another to the proportion of a mere Border dispute. He would now consider what, according to the statements of the Government, would be the exact amount of the contributions made towards the war by England and India respectively. The expenses of the war were officially stated to be £2,600,000. Towards

    1309
    these expenses England was to contribute £2,000,000 free of interest. This capital was to be re-paid in seven years, the first re-payment being made at the end of next year. Now, what was the exact amount which England would lose by this surrender of interest on £2,000,000 for seven years? Reckoning compound interest, he found that the amount of England's contribution would be less than £320,000. India, however, would contribute £2,280,000 towards the expenses of this "great Imperial enterprize undertaken for the maintenance of the influence and character of England." In other words, wealthy England would contribute £1 for every £7 contributed by India on a great Imperial question. Besides that, £60,000 per annum was to be devoted to the new Ameer, and India would have to pay every shilling of that sum. Confining himself, however, to the actual financial estimate of the direct cost of the war, he found that the Bill of the Government would virtually cause the House of Commons to sanction this principle—that for every £1 contributed by England £7 should be contributed by India. He did not seek to enforce his case by appeals to generosity and sympathy. What he had done was to argue it on the basis of strict justice and pure legality. This was a consideration that ought to be presented to the House when the question arose as to the proportion in which the cost should be divided between England and India. If there were any doubt upon the matter, the benefit of the doubt should be given to India, and not to England. As it was, however, India would have to pay for the war, whether she liked it or not. The Indian population had no choice in the matter, in that they were not self-governed, as were the English people, who, if the war had concerned them directly, as it did the people of India, would have been able through the agency of Parliament to bring public opinion to bear upon the question. He held, therefore, that those who supported the Government in commencing the war ought also to support him in the Motion which he was about to make, because they held that the war was of an Imperial character and not a mere Indian Frontier war, and ought, therefore, to be willing to put upon the Imperial Exchequer a far larger proportion of the costs than was proposed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer once said
    1310
    that what we required to maintain our rule in. India was to be just, as well as strong. Could it be just to impose on poor impoverished India seven times as much as England for a war that was undertaken, he would repeat, not for India, but to maintain the influence and character of England in Europe? He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "considering that it has been officially stated that the Afghan War was undertaken in the interests of England and India jointly, this House is of opinion that it is unjust to make India pay towards the expenses of that war more than seven times as much as will be contributed by England,"—(Mr. Fawcett,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, he did not deny that the Afghan War was undertaken in what were supposed to be the interests of the whole British Empire, thereby understanding those of England and of India jointly; but with the deduction drawn by his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) he was unable to agree. Indeed, if the principles on which Imperial expenditure ought fairly to be divided between the different parts of the Empire were to be revised, he was satisfied that India would be called on for a much larger contribution than she now paid. It was hardly going too far to say that while India, the Colonies, and the Mother Country, each bore its own special expenditure, the whole burden of Imperial expenditure fell exclusively on the Mother Country. The amount which thus pressed on the tax-payer of these Islands was enormous. Last year, for instance, not only was our military expenditure very heavy on account of the unsettled state of the East, but there was a special Vote of Credit of £6,000,000, of which, however, India was not called on to pay one penny. It would be remembered, moreover, that our Mahommedan fellow-countrymen in India called on us to interfere for the protection of the Sultan of Turkey; and though Her Majesty's Government did not actually go to war for Turkey, they put our Army and Navy in such a position as they thought would increase their weight and influ-

    1311
    ence in European Councils, and especially with Russia. The whole of the expense, however, fell on us. Nay, so scrupulous were we that, when Indian troops were brought to Malta, we bore the expense ourselves. Yet our interest in the Eastern Question mainly arose from our Indian and Australian possessions. But for them, we should be no more concerned in it than Germany or France; and he contended, therefore, that it was not unjust to ask India to pay a portion of the expenses incurred for the protection of that country. Moreover, when his hon. Friend complained that this country was, under the Bill, bearing only one-seventh of the cost of the Afghan War, he must remember that the population of India was five times as great as that of these Islands, and if, from British energy and industry, Englishmen were individually richer, they might not unfairly object to bear extra taxation on account of their own industry, though he should not be disposed to press that argument to its logical conclusion. He rejoiced at the successful termination to which the skill and bravery of our soldiers had brought this war in Afghanistan; but, considering the terms of peace, he could but ask himself what would have happened if we had not been successful? Let hon. Members consider the actual arrangements that had been made. First, we were to have an English, instead of a Native, Resident in Afghanistan—and that did not seem to him a very important matter either way; next, certain districts were "assigned" to us; we had not annexed them. Now, "assigning was a new term, which, as far as he could make out, meant that we were to pay the expenses, and hand the revenues over to Afghanistan; thirdly, we were to keep the Hill Tribes in order; fourthly, we guaranteed the Ameer against an attack by Russia; and, lastly, we consented to pay him an annual tribute of £60,000. And that was the result of a war in which we had been triumphantly successful. But he would not pursue that subject. The immediate question was the mode in which the expenses was to be met. He had already objected to that mode, and would not repeat what he then said, further than to point out that one great objection he had to the Bill was with respect to the mode in which it was proposed to raise the money, because it would introduce additional confusion into the ac-
    1312
    counts of both countries, and render it more difficult for the people of India to perceive the additional burden thrown upon them by the policy of Her Majesty's Government. But, while disapproving the Bill, he could not support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, because the question must be considered not only with reference to this particular item, but in reference to the general relations between England and India; and, as he had already said, he believed that if the principles on which expenditure was distributed as between India and the British Isles were to be revised it seemed to him that we should be very great gainers. The Expenditure of this country fell under three great heads—Civil, Military, and the service of Debt. Even with regard to our Civil Service Estimates there were some items of which India and the Colonies ought in equity to bear a share. The service of Debt cost £28,000,000 a-year; and, of course, much of our Debt was incurred for purposes in which India and the Colonies had no concern; still there was a large part in which they were interested. Passing, however, over these two items, he came to our Military and Naval expenditure, which last year amounted to £32,000,000. For the mere defence of England probably £10,000,000 would amply suffice, and the rest was required, or supposed to be required, for the maintenance of the Empire; but out of 200,000,000—which was the total number of Her Majesty's subjects—only 34,000,000 contributed to it. Then let them consider our Navy, for instance. Last year it cost £12,000,000, while India for naval purposes only spent £70,000, and the Colonies practically nothing. Our Mediterranean stations were required to keep up our communication with India; but the whole expense, amounting to about £750,000, was borne by us. If, then, the expenses of the Empire were to be revised and equitably distributed, it was clear that India would have to make a very large contribution. That, of course, was not now contemplated. The hon. Member for Hackney complained that India was paying towards the cost of the Afghan War seven times more than England; but, after all, the Frontier question was mainly an Indian question, and the population of India was five times greater than that of these

    1313
    Islands. He did not think that his hon. Friend took a sufficiently wide view of this question. The Afghan War was merely one episode of the Eastern Question; and, taking that Question as a whole, England would have spent at least £10,000,000, as against £1,500,000 paid by India. It seemed to him, therefore, that England was bearing even more than its fair share of the burden; and, in these circumstances, while anxious to treat India not only with fairness, but even with liberality, he was unable to support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney. He must, however, say that, although he was precluded from supporting it, he, and he thought hon. Members generally, would agree, to a great extent, in the speech with which the hon. Member had moved it.
    MR. LAINGsaid, that if the hon. Baronet the Member for Maidstone (Sir John Lubbock) was as practically conversant with Indian finance as he was with financial matters nearer home, he would have hesitated before making the observation that, as regarded financial arrangements between the two countries, England had to complain of India. He (Mr. Laing) would assert, without fear of contradiction, that owing to the policy forced on India against the advice of her best statesmen, and to the Army organization scheme, which went entirely beyond Indian wants, India was paying at least from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 a-year more than would be necessary if her own local authorities and Governors General had been allowed to organize her Army in her own interests. With regard to the Mahomedans in India, and the pressure they could bring to bear on public opinion there, did not the hon. Baronet know that they formed but a minority of the population? A subscription had been started in India in support of the Sultan during the late war, and, with a Mahomedan population of 60,000,000 or 80,000,000, the whole amount contributed was under £6,000, and he was informed that £2,000 of that sum was given by two large Mahomedan houses. But the question the House had practically to consider now was, whether the proposal of the Government was a fair apportionment of the expenses of the Afghan War as between England and India? The principle had been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in cases of this kind
    1314
    there should be a joint contribution. In purely local wars the right hon. Gentleman said that India ought to pay the whole cost; in wars distant from India, England should pay the whole. Now, in considering whether what was proposed was fair, they should also consider the position of India and her ability to bear the whole cost. The war was stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have been undertaken almost exclusively for an Indian object. But that was at variance with the statement of Lord Beaconsfield, that the war concerned the character and interest of England in Europe. It was because England had assumed a particular line of policy that the Russian Embassy was sent to Cabul, and so the war originated. In the financial position in which India was, who would have thought of precipitating her into a war for remote and contingent dangers? If either Lord Canning, Lord Lawrence, Lord Mayo,—he quoted his name the more readily because he was an excellent Governor General and a Conservative—or Lord Northbrook had been Viceroy, that war would have been impossible. Neither of those noblemen, being opposed to any idea of the extension of our North Western Frontier, would have undertaken it, which was a conclusive proof that it was unnecessary, and, therefore, unwise. Yet, in the face of all that, we were told that this was a mere Frontier war undertaken for Indian purposes. And now as to the capability of India to pay for the war. The cost of the war stood on the Estimates at £2,670,000. He accepted that estimate, but with considerable misgiving, and. he must confess that it would be a most agreeable surprise to him if it should turn out that it was no more. But supposing the expense of the war to be covered by £2,670,000, that was an insignificant part of the cost. We should look to the permanent expense entailed by that extension of the Frontier. His (Mr. Laing's) prediction that the new scientific Frontier would render necessary an increase in the military expenditure of India had been more than realized; for Sir Henry Durand had estimated a permanent addition to the Army of India of 10,000 troops, and to the military expenditure of at least £1,000,000 a-year, as the consequence of exchanging a secure Frontier at one side of the mountains for a scientific Frontier beyond. An

    1315
    expenditure of that sort in the present financial condition of India was a matter of the most grave importance. He had but one complaint to make of the speech which the Under Secretary of State for India lately made on the financial condition of India; it was so candid a statement, it was so agreeable a surprise, that the Government at last realized the necessity of economy, that criticism was turned into compliment, and many thought the financial difficulties of India were nearly at an end. That was very far from being the case. The Debt of India had increased from £107,000,000 in 1874 to £139,000,000 in 1879, or an annual average increase of £6,000,000 a-year, and the extent of the expenditure by the extension of their territory into Afghanistan had not yet been seen. There was now a net total income of £21,000,000, and an expenditure of £24,000,000, which was an expenditure in excess of income, when, as Lord Beaconsfield said, in order to maintain English influence in India they rushed into the Afghan War. It was only by largely extended economies and a great reduction of military expenditure that India could be saved from bankruptcy, or this country from crushing taxation. Our acquisition of the new "scientific Frontier" of India was to have produced a greater feeling of security, and a more settled state of affairs between England and Russia. This was the contention of Her Majesty's Government and their supporters; but there were other persons who had all along pointed out that the idea was delusive, and he was very much afraid we had not yet seen the end of our military expenditure in Afghanistan. All the distinguished military authorities who had discussed the subject were of opinion that if we extended our Frontier into Central Asia, although we might easily conquer the Natives, the greater would be our feeling of insecurity, the greater would be our actual insecurity, and the greater would be our expenses. Not only that, but we should be very likely to involve ourselves in the shifting quicksands of Afghan policy, and every step we took would only render us more sensitive and nervous as we approached the Russian Frontier. These prophecies were already being fulfilled; for the Russians, alarmed and jealous, no doubt, in consequence of our conquest of part of Afghanistan, were at that moment carrying out an expedition
    1316
    further into Central Asia, and the British Government was all in a fidget lest the expedition should attempt to advance on Merv. No doubt it was said Merv would not be occupied by Russia; but expeditions undertaken by civilized nations against predatory hordes must be followed up, and sooner or later the place would probably be occupied by Russia. Instead, therefore, of being diminished, we should be obliged largely to increase our expenditure on our new Frontier, stationing there more troops to counteract the moves of Russia. Our scientific Frontier would, therefore, cost us more than £1,000,000 a-year. The condition of India with the present deficit was critical and dangerous. The danger to our rule in India lay, not outside that country, but inside it, for the teeming millions of its Native population required more constant care, and were capable of being a more terrible FOR than Russia. Let them be treated fairly, justly, and kindly in matters of expenditure and everything else, and our rule over them was safe; but let them be treated in a contrary manner, and our rule over them could not be maintained. Whatever we might think was the effect of our military achievements, the Hindoos placed one quality much higher, and that was our sense of justice. It was simply because our Governors General, and their subordinates, had been more just than the Native Princes that we had gained such a great hold over India; and he trusted that neither a mad determination to keep up a great military expenditure, nor anything else, would cause Englishmen to lose their reputation for justice. The main, indeed he might say the only, chance of saving India, he would not say from bankruptcy, but from depending directly on the British taxpayer, was to get England to endorse and sustain her credit, and by a very large reduction of military and other expenditure. He was afraid, however, that the conclusion of the Treaty with Yakoob Khan rendered that more difficult than before. Indeed, he very much feared that in a short time we should be forced to go to the rescue of Indian finances; and, in his opinion, it would be far better not to pass this Bill. His hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) deprecated any part of the Indian charges being thrown on the taxation of England; but lie (Mr. Laing) did not agree

    1317
    with him. It was only through the English taxpayer feeling that he must ultimately bear the burden of Indian extravagance in increased taxation that any hope could be entertained of finding a remedy for the present state of things. He believed that temporary loans would have a pernicious rather than a beneficial effect by encouraging extravagance, and that the true policy was to let India, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, "stand on her own bottom." But there was another matter equally deserving attention, and that was the manner in which Indian public opinion had, on more than one recent occasion, been outraged. What, for instance, could have been more damaging to the reputation of England for justice and straightforwardness than the application to alien purposes of the Famine Insurance Fund, the reduction of the cotton import duties—not for the benefit of India, but in obedience to political considerations at home—and, lastly, the gagging of the Native Press? It might be the desire of Her Majesty's Government to govern India for the good of India; but their policy during the past few years, it appeared to him, strangely belied their professions. He very much feared that many persons in this country regarded the Hindoos as people who could be dealt with exactly as their Rulers pleased; but such an idea was a great mistake. There was in India an intelligent and growing public opinion, which could understand and condemn, as distinctly as our own people, any act which violated the principles of justice, and that opinion would, he was convinced, condemn the proceedings of the present Government.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he had placed on the Paper the following Amendment, which the Rules of the House did not permit him to move, but which he would read as the text of his speech, seeing that it entirely set forth his views on the subject:—
    "That there is no reason for departing from the ordinary rule which places the obligations of India on the credit of India, and not on that of the United Kingdom; but any assistance given to India in respect of the Afghan War should lie given from the revenues of the United Kingdom, and not as a loan."
    We had, in what had been considered the interests of India, taken means to secure her against the approaches of other Powers; he, there-
    1318
    fore, thought that she should be called upon to contribute towards the cost. England bore the major part; it was only proposed to require India to pay the minor portion, and, holding the views he did, he regretted that he could not altogether, on this occasion, agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett). He did not take what might be called the sentimental view of our connection with India; and when he came to consider whether the money at present under consideration should be paid by his constituents in Kirkcaldy, or by the people of India, he was inclined to think that a great part should be paid by India. Those who argued to the contrary, on the ground of British entanglement in Eastern complications, must take those complications as a whole, and not in detail; and they would see that, whether right or wrong in being jealous of Russia, we were jealous in consequence of our possession of India. The major portion of the expenditure had already fallen upon England, out of whose Exchequer, of course, the Vote of Credit for £6,000,000 had to be met. He would admit that the people of India were very poor; but he altogether denied that we had imposed a grinding taxation upon them; on the contrary, we had relieved them from many burdens which they bore in earlier times, the only serious burden imposed upon them being the salt tax. If we had not dealt generously with them, we had, at least, done fairly by them. True, we had recently put upon them the licence tax, which was of a somewhat grinding description; but that was not a conclusive proof that the taxation was really so grinding as it was sometimes supposed to be, because he did not think the present Governor of India superlatively wise. He did not take the chivalric view that we were to be unjust to ourselves in order that we might be generous to India, which we had governed for the benefit of its people. He did not so much object to the amount of the assistance that it was proposed to render to India as to the form in which it was to be rendered; and that objection was expressed in the Amendment of which he had given Notice, but which he could not now move. The effect of the course taken by the Government was to shirk the whole question of this obligation, for it was not faced either by India or England. India did not admit that she

    1319
    was obliged to borrow money, and the British. Government did not boldly take it from the taxpayers. The forgotten precedents cited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer were outweighed by the fact that, in the present century, in great financial difficulties India had stood alone, even when loans had to be raised at 5½ per cent. The arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been just as valid in support of a proposal to pledge the credit of England for the whole Debt of India, or in support of a much larger loan by India for the expenses of the Afghan War; but he entirely failed to show that there was any particular reason why this particular sum should be raised on the credit of England. There was no such financial stress as should induce the Government to depart from the ordinary rule. He was driven to the conclusion that it was thought better to postpone facing the charge than to put it upon either India or England—to put it aside for the present, and to leave it to be dealt with by the taxpayers of another generation. How far were we to go in this imprudent course? A man would rather give £5 than put his name to a bill for £50, which would probably be followed by another bill for a larger amount. Surely the credit of that country was good enough, without resort being had to the credit of this. If the policy of Her Majesty's Government were accepted by the House, and this bill were backed by England, in all probability other bills would be forthcoming from the Government of India. With regard to the Afghan War, he was surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have taken the opportunity of pronouncing a eulogy on the operations in that campaign, and thus have challenged discussion on that subject. He, for one, did not share the belief that the Treaty concluded with Yakoob Khan would put an end to all the difficulties connected with the Afghan policy. In this case, the Afghan operations must be followed by increased expenditure, for it was admitted that eight regiments would form the garrison of the Khyber Pass, while as many, or more, would be required at other posts, so that from 16 to 20 regiments would be occupied in holding the newly-acquired territory, while all history rendered it probable that we should be involved in many Frontier troubles with tribes whose trade was plunder.
    1320
    We should be obliged to make endless expeditions, and incur endless expense, before the Native tribes were reduced to submission. With respect to the Treaty entered into by the Government of India with Yakoob Khan, if the Ameer were able to carry it out he would find no fault with it; but no one who knew anything of Afghanistan could doubt that the Treaty could not be carried out without renewed trouble and great expense. With respect to the question more immediately before them, he feared that Her Majesty's Government had entered upon a very dangerous path and asked the House to agree to a very doubtful principle, and he should, therefore, give his vote against it. With reference to the means to be adopted in reducing Indian expenditure, he quite agreed in the propriety of providing that the Natives should be promoted to higher offices and employment in the Government, as they were paid less than Europeans. They were becoming more fitted for such promotion every day, and it would be not only an act of justice to them, but an act of sound financial policy; further, the Government must be firm in reducing the Army.
    MR. GRANTDUFFsaid, that he rose chiefly for the purpose of deprecating a discussion of the details of the Afghan Treaty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was, no doubt, a little in fault in leading hon. Members on to that track; but it was clear that no advantage could accrue to the Government, or to the Opposition, from the discussion of that subject at present. They had not, in fact, the materials for that discussion. The Treaty could not be understood without the fullest explanation. As it stood at present, it was a most unintelligible document; but as far as he could make it out, if the despatches to be laid before the House did not put a different face on the Treaty, it seemed likely to prove a calamity to us. He, therefore, hoped the Government would lose no time in the preparation and production of the Papers in reference to it, as he (Mr. Grant Duff) could assure them that nothing was further from the intention of the Opposition than to allow the Treaty to pass without the fullest discussion directly after the despatches relating to it were laid on the Table. With respect to the Bill before the House, looking at it with Indian spectacles, he could not but think that his

    1321
    hon. Friend the Member for Orkney (Mr. Laing) was too severe in the observations he had made in criticizing the speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Maidstone (Sir John Lubbock). It was his (Mr. Grant Duff's) duty for a period of years to watch the financial relations between England and India; and it was his firm impression that they were very far indeed from deserving the strictures which the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) had passed upon them. In fact, if those relations could be tried before some impartial arbitrator, he was not quite sure that the judgment would not be that something was owing by India to this country, and that she ought to pay more than she now paid. That view was held by some persons who had given the longest and the most anxious attention to the subject. He agreed entirely with the first part of the Amendment which had been placed on the Paper by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), and regretted that it could not be moved. With regard to the Bill itself, he was bound to say that he viewed this £2,000,000 to be handed over to India as a mere benevolence, but a benevolence given in the worst possible way. It would form a very vicious and bad precedent, and was one as to which it would be better for India that it never was given at all.
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURopposed the Bill, having placed the following Amendment on the Notice Paper:—
    "That it is alike dangerous to the finances of India as of England to make loans to India out of the taxes of the United Kingdom; that it is unnecessary to aid India by loans of this kind if proper economies were enforced, and Indian expenditure restricted to that which ought justly to be charged on Indian revenues; that the expenditure in England, Civil and Military, now chargeable on Indian revenues, but under the control of the Government of England, is susceptible of large reductions to an extent far in excess of the sum which is needed to pay for the interest on two millions; and that the costly organization of the Imperial troops now forced on India by the Government of England is capable of being so modified as to ensure a diminution of expenditure, without diminishing efficiency, as would amount to a sum far in excess of many borrowed millions."
    The hon. and gallant Gentleman said, that no one could consider the precedents which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had quoted in favour of the present measure of aiding the finances of India by temporary loans from the
    1322
    Imperial Government without looking forward to the like evils to India that flowed out of the former loans. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had even referred to loans which had been made to the Imperial Government, more especially those which related to the renewal of the Charters of the Bank of England and of the East India Company, without a feeling of shame for the manner in which the public and India had been treated by this country. At one time the whole capital of the Bank of England had been loaned to the Imperial Government, and even at present nearly the whole was so lent to the injury of commerce. And in bygone years large sums were also lent or given by the East India Company in order to induce Government to grant a monopoly of commerce. He regretted that it was now proposed to follow the evil example set in former days, for he feared that the result would be to check economy and to encourage extravagance. If any Member would search the financial record prepared by Mr. Chisholm, and laid before Parliament on the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich, he would there find conclusive evidence of the way in which India was supplied with loans by the Imperial Government in the form of depreciated Exchequer Bills, and repaid by India at nearly their full nominal value. No doubt, the plea was put forward, both formerly and at present, that England provided India with military establishments; but that attempt to manage the affairs of India, instead of allowing India to take care of her own matters, was a great evil, both as respected the costly nature of the management and its bad results. He contended that they were not getting either efficiency or the worth of the money that had been spent on the Indian Army. An hon. Member who preceded him had implied that the work was well done. In answer to that, he wished to state one fact. There was now one battalion under orders for India, which would embark within two months. In that battalion there were 340 soldiers of less than one year's service, and 370 who were under 20 years of age. Would anyone say that those men were qualified, and capable to stand in the ranks of the Indian Army? He considered that they were endangering the reputation and the honour of the British Army by sending such soldiers into the field

    1323
    After reminding the House of the way in which India was treated after the China and Abyssinian Wars, and the acquiring of Ceylon and Mauritius, he would impress upon hon. Members that the steps taken in India with a view to economy were likely to have a contrary effect—when
    MR. SPEAKERdrew the hon. and gallant Member's attention to the fact that the Question before the House was the East India Loan (Consolidated Fund) BILL.
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURremarked, that his object in mentioning the details of bad management was to bear out the statement in the Amendment that if India could be allowed to manage her own affairs that economy and efficiency would certainly be secured.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, he wished to put a question to the Under Secretary of State for India. He would be glad if that hon. Gentleman would state to the House what were the present financial relations between India and this country, as regarded the balance of Debt? Supposing that the House should vote the £2,000,000, would that go in diminution of the annual drawings, or would the £2,000,000 be in addition to the present Debt of India? This point, if cleared up, he held, could not fail to have a very important bearing upon the future financial transactions of the Government with India. He wished also to express his opinion that the proposal of the Government to raise these £2,000,000 by way of loan to India was alike shabby and unsatisfactory. It seemed to him that there must either exist, on the part of the Government, a sense that they ought to contribute towards the war—in which case the cost should be treated as expenditure—or a sense that the war was purely an Indian affair, in which case their proposal was, as had been well said by the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs (Mr. Grant Duff), pure benevolence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not, however, said that the finances of India were reduced to such a position that it was absolutely necessary that we should make her a charitable contribution of £70,000 a-year, the interest upon £2,000,000. Why, then, was that loan proposed? From the consciousness that the war was not purely an Indian war, and that the Empire ought, consequently, to be called upon to make this contribu-
    1324
    tion. If he was right in that conjecture, he objected altogether to the contribution taking the shabby form of this loan; and the proposal was not only wrong, inconsistent, and shabby, but most dangerous as a precedent for the future. Let expenditure be borne where expenditure had been incurred; let that expenditure appear either in the Indian or the English Budget; but do not let the House indulge in a kind of jugglery in order to ease off a transaction which might not be satisfactory to either country.
    MR. E. STANHOPEwished to make an appeal to the House whether, considering the ample discussion that had taken place, and the late period of the Session that had been reached, they were not in a position to decide the point that had been submitted to them? The subject had been debated very fully and with great ability on both sides of the question. There had been the able speech of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), and that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, representing one view of the question; and the speech of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Sir John Lubbock), together with the speeches of other hon. Members, representing another view of it. With reference to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Goschen), he (Mr. E. Stanhope) could assure the House that the proposal before it had not been made in the belief that the war was not a purely Indian war. On the contrary, it was made in the full belief that this was a purely Indian war. The tone of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the commencement of the war, was precisely the same as it was now. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking when the war began, said—
    "We must wait and see what will happen. If this war assumes a wider development, then we must re-consider the whole matter; but if it remains a mere Frontier war, there can he no reason why England should go to the aid of India."
    The war was now over; the cost was comparatively small, and it had retained what he might call a local character. The Government, therefore, put their proposal forward on the distinct understanding that the war was almost entirely a purely Indian war. The reason they made the proposal was this. The Government of India applied to the Government at home to make the advance

    1325
    upon this ground: they said—" We have had this war upon our hands; we have to meet its expense at a time when the remittances which we have to make to England are larger than ever they were before; and, looking to the rate of exchange being so high, it will be hard upon us to make those remittances. Grant us this loan, which will not only enable us to meet the cost of the war, but assist us in the matter of the remittances." It was in direct expectation of this loan being granted that the Government of India estimated at £15,000,000 the amount which they would have to remit to this country in the present year, the estimate being based upon a calculation of the probable rates of exchange. Allusion had also been made to the cost which might be entailed upon India in the future, in consequence of the new Frontier arrangements recently effected in Afghanistan. He was not yet in a position to go into details on the matter; but he might inform hon. Members—and there were some hon. Gentlemen present whose prophecies as to the cost of the war itself had been completely disappointed—that, in his opinion, the extra expense which these arrangements would necessitate would not be anything considerable. Reference had likewise been made to the subject of keeping up large garrisons in Afghanistan. A question on this subject had been put to him the other day. The arrangements which he then sketched out with regard to the Khyber Pass were essentially provisional; but, even if it were necessary to continue such an arrangement as he had indicated, there would not necessarily be an addition to our military Force, but simply a re-distribution of it. He would not go into the question of the general state of Indian finances; but he might say that, looking at them now with the added experience of two months, and the more perfect knowledge of what they had before them, he believed that if he had to make his statement now, instead of two months ago, he should be able to give a much more favourable impression than he had then done. He believed that the pledges they then gave, that if circumstances were favourable they would be able to put their finances upon a sound footing, would be amply redeemed.
    MR. CHILDERSobserved, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had described the war in
    1326
    which this country had been engaged in Afghanistan as a Frontier war, and, therefore, one the cost of which ought to be defrayed by India. But while the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer omitted to explain why the loan to India had been proposed, the Under Secretary of State for India explained that it was proposed chiefly in order to bring the balances as between India and England into a more satisfactory position. If that was so, he (Mr. Childers) should like to know how the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the war was a mere Frontier affair, the cost of which ought to be borne by the Indian population, was to be reconciled with the statement of the Under Secretary of State that this loan was to be made on account of the war? But the advantage which would be derived, in the most favourable circumstances, by India was so small—being, in a financial point of view, as between English credit and Indian credit, only £52,500—that he could not conceive any sufficient ground for the proposal which had been made, and had provoked so much feeling in Parliament and in the country. Neither could he conceive it right, for such an object as that, to disturb the whole rules of finance. There had been no shadow or pretence of justification in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the proposal to make a large gift from the English Exchequer to the Revenues of India, no record of which would ever be found in the accounts laid before Parliament in such a form as that it could be discussed in Parliament. He hoped, if the House gave a second reading to the Bill, that it would be so amended as to remove some of the objectionable features.
    MR. J. G. HUBBARDsaid, it was not a pleasant thing to criticize the acts of one's friends; but he would not be dealing honestly if he did not say that he was deeply distressed by this act of the Government. It was at variance with the ordinary system of finance; for in this proposal the Government had introduced something which, in finance, was utterly unknown. It was, in fact, a financial monster, the production of which he could not account for; for a loan bearing no interest was not a loan only, but a gift to the extent of the interest which was forborne. Either the English taxpayers were bound to contribute to the cost of the recent Afghan

    1327
    War, or they were not. If they were not, where was the object of the Bill? If they were, let them estimate their share of the responsibility and of the contingent gain, and pay accordingly. His hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India had explained that this loan was asked for by India; but he (Mr. Hubbard) should like to know whether it was asked for without interest? [Mr. E. STANHOPE: Yes.] If that was so, the Indian people were very ingenious, and he was afraid had set an example likely to be largely followed. But strange as was the proposal, the reason given for it was even more strange. The Indian Government complained of the loss by exchange upon their remittances to this country, and they desired a loan to mitigate the immediate pressure; and now see how the proposed arrangement would work—of a loan of £2,000,000 without interest, and repayable in seven years by instalments each of nearly £300,000. The interest of the loan, if contracted by England, would be £60,000 a-year; if by India, £80,000. Therefore, instead of paying £60,000 or £80,000 a-year, India was now to pay £300,000 a-year. Obviously, the only reason given in support of the Bill told the other way—it was an aggravation of the exchange difficulty, not a mitigation of it. This loan was intended to be an act of grace to India. Was it not possible to make this act of grace still more gracious? He thought he saw how that could be done. In the stipulations of the Treaty with Yakoob Khan we undertook to pay him £60,000 a-year as a subsidy. That was precisely the amount which this country would have to pay as interest on the loan. Well, then, let the subsidy be an English investment; and, instead of this loan of £2,000,000, let us give India the £60,000 a-year outright. He could vote neither for the Bill nor for the Amendment before the House; but he would readily vote for the proposal of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), if he were able to take the decision of the House upon it.
    SIR ARTHUR HAYTERsaid, he had no doubt whatever as to the vote he should give on the present occasion. He maintained, in opposition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the Afghan War was essentially an English, and, therefore, an Imperial, and not an Indian war; and he would refer hon. Members
    1328
    to the letters from The Times' Correspondent, in which the writer went on to show that it had shattered one of the finest of our Cavalry regiments, and had played havoc with some of the best Infantry, as well as Native regiments. These had been shattered not by the swords of the enemy, but by the disease which they encountered in the Khyber and other Passes. Such had been the result of this short campaign, which was rather a mere military promenade than anything else, and it was one of the most expensive results that could be obtained. The question of the military expenditure of India was especially forcing itself on the attention of the people of England. Three years ago the expense of the entire Army, Native and European, was £16,639,000; last year it was £17,010,000; and this year it was £18,225,000, of which £2,000,000 were due to the Afghan campaign. If these £2,000,000 were deducted, the cost would be nearly the same as it was three years ago. According to the Commission which sat in 1859, the amount and distribution of the permanent Forces necessary to be maintained in India must be always affected by the political necessities of the country, the railways opened, the military roads, and other similar considerations. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Laing) had told the House that railroads had sprung up over India, and yet we had not reduced our military expenditure. The proportion of Europeans to Natives in the Army of India was, before the Mutiny, as one to three; after the Mutiny it was one to two. His hon. Friend ought to impress upon the Commission now sitting in India that Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House would not be satisfied until they saw very large reductions in the garrisons of India. An Army of 100,000 Natives and 50,000 Europeans would at once create a reduction of 40,000 men.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he must say the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken (Sir Arthur Hayter) had carried them over a rather wide field of discussion, into which he did not propose to follow him. The question of the military situation in India was, no doubt, a very important one, which would have to be discussed on a proper occasion. Again, how far he was correct in describing the late operations of the Afghan War as a

    1329
    military promenade was a question upon which he would not then enter, nor would he stay to contrast the views to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had now given utterance with those expressed by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite some months ago, when they said, that the campaign would comprise some of the most formidable operations in which England ever was engaged, and that they could only look forward to the most frightful dangers and disasters. All this was beside the question. They must proceed on the data which were before them. The real question was that the Indian Government, finding that in balancing their accounts for the current financial year they were in a position of deficit, caused to a great extent by the operations in Afghanistan, had to consider how that deficit could be met. It might be met by an addition to taxation; but, for reasons already stated in the House, the Government of India considered that would not be an expedient course. It would have involved great pressure on the people of India for a temporary purpose. That being the case, it was necessary, in some way or other, to raise money by way of loan. Then there came the question how best that money should be raised; and, under all the circumstances of the case, the Indian Government made an appeal to Her Majesty's Government to advance a certain sum—£2,000,000—to carry them over the difficulty at the moment, the Indian Government undertaking to provide for its re-payment in seven years, repaying it without an addition to their taxation. His right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) said the loan they proposed to make without interest was "a monster"—he had never heard of a loan without interest; it was a monster so terrible in its shape and form, that he earnestly protested against it. His right hon. Friend said whatever assistance we were bound in justice to give to India should not be given in this way. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) confessed he had some difficulty in following the argument of his right hon. Friend. He could quite understand the argument of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), when he said we had more share in these transactions in India than we were willing to admit, and we ought to bear a greater portion of the burden; he could understand the
    1330
    argument of others who said this was a purely Indian difficulty and India should be left to get out of it as she best could; he could understand, also, the argument of those who said we ought to make this as a gift; but, assuming that this was a proper measure, he could not see the force of the argument against the particular form of the loan. Why was a loan without interest a monster, and why was it not a loan? He confessed, for his own part, he could not see it. Would a loan made below the current rate of interest be a monster? Perhaps his right hon. Friend would say it was. [Mr. J. G. HUBBARD: So it is, in its degree.] In that case, a loan at 2 per cent would be a little monster. In fact, the monster would get larger as the proportion of interest decreased. He confessed he was unable to go into this elaborate study of natural history, and it appeared to him that a loan at 2 per cent, or 1 per cent, or ½ per cent, was still a loan; and a loan did not become a monster merely because it was under the current rate of interest. It also occurred to him that the Government were at perfect liberty to take the step which they had taken without incurring the censure which his right hon. Friend endeavoured to cast upon them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) said this was done in a way to conceal, from those who studied these accounts, the assistance which England was giving to India year by year. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) did not think that would be the case. Year by year they made loans, under the Public Works Loan Commission, to public bodies, at a lower rate of interest than they could borrow them for themselves. The money for this advance to India would be borrowed from the National Debt Commissioners; but it would be placed in an account which would show to everyone the nature of the transaction, and the amount of our contributions during each of these seven years. The 4th clause required that a full account of all receipts, payments, and transactions under the Act should be made up every year and audited by the Treasury. He had formerly explained the course proposed to be taken, and there would be no difficulty in exactly tracing what the nature of the transaction was. It was merely a question of book-keeping, and, therefore, not insoluble. He hoped the

    1331
    House would feel that, in making this proposal, the Government were not making such, a tremendous attack upon national morality as had been supposed. He could not see, when once they admitted the principle that England ought to come to the assistance of India, that there was any difficulty in the matter.
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was not surprised that the Under Secretary of State for India was anxious to bring the debate to a close, considering that it was rather a remarkable fact that hardly anybody seemed cordially to support the principle of the Bill under discussion. Objectors approached the Bill from directly opposite points; but they all agreed that the Bill was not one that ought to be adopted. Looking at the number of financial and Indian authorities in the House, it would have been satisfactory if a "stray" Member could have been induced to rise and say that the Bill was, from some point of view, a consistent application of a sound principle in connection with Indian finance. That, however, remained to be proved. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not answered the main point of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) as to the burden that the exchanges would throw on India in making remittances to England. The Government, in fact, had sought to justify the measure by its operation on the present state of the Indian exchange. Let them try it by this test. Every year, up to seven, the Government were going to burden the exchange by the necessity of India remitting home about £300,000; whereas had they left her to raise the loan in the open market, her remittances would not have been £300,000 yearly in respect of this loan, but would have been £70,000. As to the Indian exchange, he did not pretend to say what would be the rate of that exchange 20 or 15 years hence; but, certainly, no person could regard as permanent the state of affairs which now existed. With respect, then, to the proposed limit of seven years, it appeared to him that the proposals of the difficulty already existing in the matter of exchange; and when they looked at the question from a point purely of figures, it seemed to him that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had altogether failed to answer the arguments of his right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract. His
    1332
    right hon. Friend pointed out that, by the proposal of the Government, they were to give a pecuniary benefit to India amounting to the difference between the rate at which we could borrow and she could borrow—an amount somewhere about £50,000—but, at the same time, they were asking the people of England practically to make a present of something like £300,000 to India. On that ground alone, as a mere matter of finance, this was an extraordinary operation; nor was the description of it as a monster so extraordinary, although it had been criticized very ingeniously by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it had been the established practice to make use of illustrations from natural history within the region of the stock market; and so the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) was perfectly justified in placing that department of science under contribution for the purpose of illustrating his argument. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not accurately understood the point that they were by this transaction going to lay out between £200,000 and £300,000 yearly of the money of the people of England, and that outlay would never appear in the public accounts, where it ought to appear as part of the public expenditure. No doubt the re-payment of the instalments would be duly recorded, but the expenditure would not appear as such. An important question involved was the surrender of the important principle of the independence of the two Exchequers. He admitted that, as a rule, the cost of an Indian war ought to be borne by India; but the war in question was an Imperial war, due to Imperial policy, and had reference, not to Asiatic Powers, but, above all, to one great European Power. The Government ought, therefore, to have boldly and manfully assumed the responsibility for England. He was prepared to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney, although he did not think he could do so on the Main Question, because there were other Motions upon the Paper which might be more acceptable. The position of the Government was this—the Chancellor of the Exchequer had laid down, in the most distinct manner, the principle that the Afghan War was an Indian war; that it belonged to that class of wars the cost of which ought to be borne by the Indian

    1333
    Exchequer, and not to that class the cost of which ought to be borne by a mixed contribution.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Not entirely. I said that this had been something rather more than a Frontier war, and therefore there was a certain obligation, but only a small obligation, upon England; but if it had gone to a much larger extent, and a European Power had come in, we should have recognized a much greater liability on the part of England.
    MR. GLADSTONErejoined, that that was not the impression which the right hon. Gentleman had left on those who had heard him. The Chancellor of the Exchequer now said this was not in the first class of wars, but in the second class, to be met by a mixed contribution, though, in his view, it ought to be confined in very narrow limits. But he (Mr. Gladstone) ventured to think they ought not, for any trifling sum such as the difference between the rates of interest at which the Indian and the English Governments could raise money, or the differences on exchange, to depart from the principle of the independence of the Exchequers. A graver financial question could, not possibly be presented to the mind of the British Parliament than the assumption of responsibility by England for Indian expenditure. Whatever was done in that way should be from serious cause, and not merely for securing to India the trifling benefit of getting any of the sums now at issue. He was entirely at a loss to know, when once the Government admitted that England ought to bear some portion of the cost of this war, by what consideration it was that they arrived at the conclusion that it should be limited to one-seventh of the cost. He could not conceive, if this were a war having reference, as was admitted, to a policy involving questions of the general balance of power, by what argument the liability of India was fixed at six-sevenths, and that of England at one-seventh. In the points that were now mainly raised with reference to the financial operation of the loan, and the effect on the exchanges, adding to that the argument of his right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, that every operation of the public expenditure should be represented in our accounts as expenditure, Her Majesty's Government had entirely failed to make good any argu-
    1334
    ment for the presentation of a Bill which they admitted themselves had reference to a state of the Indian finance which the Under Secretary of State assured them was now passed away. The finances were, the hon. Gentleman had said, much improved; and, that being so, there could be no justification for the present measure.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 137; Noes 125: Majority 12.—(Div. List, No. 194.)
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  EAST INDIA LOAN (£5,000,000) BILL.
  (Mr. Raikes, Mr. Edward Stanhope, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  EAST INDIA LOAN (£5,000,000) BILL.

    [BILL 197.] COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. E. Stanhope.)
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLrose to object to the Bill, and contended that it could not be sufficiently considered at that stage of the Sitting. There had been no discussion of it, and he wanted some explanation of it. [Cries of "Agreed!"] He was not prepared to agree to a Bill involving millions without some discussion. His opinion was expressed by the Amendment which he had placed upon the Paper; and which, if he had the opportunity, he would submit to the consideration of the House—namely,
    "That in view of the difficulties caused by excessive changes in the relative value of gold and silver, advantage should be taken of the proposal of the United States to settle a standard calculated to steady the value of the precious metals, the Government of India undertaking to continue the free coinage of silver if the United States will do likewise."
    He admitted that, up to a certain point, the abundance of silver was not in all respects an evil to India; that so long as the rupee did not fall below 1s. 8d. or 1s. 6d. in price the Government of India ought not to embark in heroic measures; but it might be wise, in the event of its falling still lower, to limit the coinage of silver, and so artificially enhance the price of the rupee. India was literally the only country where there was now a free coinage of silver. In America there was a limited coinage of silver; and as England and

    1335
    America were alike interested in pre venting an excessive fall in the value of that metal, he urged that terms should be come to between the two countries—namely, India and America—on the subject. The hon. Member was continuing, when—
    It being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till this day.
    The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.
    The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

  CRIMINAL LAW—THE CASE OF EDMUND GALLEY.

    MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
    SIR EARDLEY WILMOTrose to call attention to the case of Edmund Galley, and to move—
    "That the innocence of Edmund Galley of the crime of which he was convicted at Exeter in 1836 has been established beyond all reasonable doubts; and that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty graciously to grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley."
    The hon. Baronet said, the case had excited considerable interest, and he regretted that the Home Secretary had not thought fit to yield to the general expression of public opinion and the representations of the Lord Chief Justice of England with regard to it. No doubt, a long period had elapsed since the murder of Mr. May; but he (Sir Eardley Wilmot) had yet to learn that time sanctioned injustice and wrong, seeing that, in addition to the testimony of the Lord Chief Justice, they had the opinion of other eminent men that the accused had established an alibi, and that he had been improperly convicted. The facts of the case were these:—On the 16th of July, 1835, there was a fair held in the town of Moretonhampstead, situated some 12 or 14 miles from Exeter, and half-way between the latter city and a small village called Dunsford. That fair was attended by a substantial yeoman or
    1336
    farmer named May, who rode into Moretonhampstead, and who, having received various sums of money, set out at night from a public-house on his way home. Just outside the town there was a gate kept by a man named Nosworthy, and this man saw the farmer ride through the gate, perfectly sober. Between 12 and 1 o'clock in the morning two other persons, returning from the fair, saw, a little way up the road, a horse without a rider, and, subsequently, the farmer was discovered unconscious and insensible. He died. At first, suspicion rested on a man named Avery and a woman named Harris; but there was not sufficient evidence to fix the crime upon them, and the latter was eventually discharged, Avery being detained in custody for another offence. Subsequently, statements were made implicating a man named Oliver, who went under the name of "Buckingham Joe," and the man Galley, who at that time was in custody in Coldbath Fields Prison, and who was arrested in consequence of his having lost a tooth, and of his having answered to a description given by the woman Harris. They were apprehended, and tried before Mr. Justice Williams, at Exeter, in July, 1836. Oliver was defended by Mr. (now Sir Montague) Smith; while the case of Galley, who was a poor man, was taken up by Mr. Cockburn, the present distinguished Lord Chief Justice of England. During the trial Edmund Galley protested his innocence, and more than once was heard to say to his fellow prisoner, Joseph Oliver—"You know I was not there, and I don't know you." It appeared that the principal witness for the prosecution was a woman named Harris, who at the time was living with a man named Avery. She swore to meeting Oliver and Galley on the night of the murder near the place where, and about the hour when, it was committed, and recognized the prisoners as the men who jumped from a hedge, and murdered the man May. There was also some other evidence tending in the same direction. Charlotte Clarke, however, swore that Galley was not the "Dick Turpin" who was supposed, with Oliver, to have committed the murder. Galley was not defended; but a witness named Avery swore that Harris could not have seen the murder committed, because she was in Exeter with him at the time, and the murder was committed several miles

    1337
    outside that city. Both, prisoners were, however, found guilty, and then Oliver, who had not said a word before in regard to Galley, addressing the Judge, said—"My Lord, you are surely not going to send this innocent man to the scaffold. He was not there, and I never saw him before until we were in gaol together." The strong protest of Galley, and the declaration of Oliver, made such an impression upon the counsel and one or two gentlemen who heard the case, that an effort was made at once to obtain a respite. Only 48 hours elapsed between the verdict and the time of execution; but a reprieve was obtained for Galley, and a Mr. Cherer, the shorthand writer, who took all the notes of the evidence in the case, got up every incident that could be obtained to prove an alibi, came up to London, and had an interview with the late Earl Russell, then Secretary of State for the Home Department, who deputed Sir Frederick Roe, then Chief Magistrate at Bow Street, to inquire into the alibi of the prisoner. Sir Montague Smith had stated that he felt such an interest in the matter at the time that he went down with Sir Frederick Roe to examine into the truth of the alibi, and he returned to London perfectly satisfied that the alibi was made out. In fact, he had written to say—
    "I am certainly of opinion, rightly or wrongly, that Galley's case was one of mistaken identity, and that he was wrongly convicted."
    A magistrate saw Galley at the gaol, and the prisoner told him that on the day of the murder he was at Dartford in company with two men. Afterwards, Galley said he had recollected that there was a third man. There had been no time to communicate with Dartford; and, in the meantime, a letter came from Dartford stating that Galley, on the day in question, was at that place in company with three men. The evidence had satisfied the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Montague Smith, and others, that the alibi was distinctly made out. It had been suggested that Galley was committing a burglary on the night of the murder; and he (Sir Eardley Wilmot) had inquired if that were so, and found that there was no proof of the fact. The result, however, was, that the sentence of death was not carried out, being commuted to transportation for life—Oliver, in the meantime, having been exe-
    1338
    cuted—and he (Sir Eardley Wilmot) exceedingly regretted that, in the 19th century, he was obliged to ask pardon for an offence which had never been committed. He had hoped the Criminal Code (Indictable Offences) Bill would have been passed this Session. That measure provided for a Court of Appeal, which had long been due to justice, and, when once established, an innocent man would not have to go, hat in hand, to ask for pardon. After being two years in the hulks, Galley was, in 1839, sent to New South. Wales, where he had passed his life as a convict. He bore his infliction till 1877, when a letter appeared from him, written to the prosecuting solicitor, pointing out that a man named John Longley had confessed on his death-bed that he was really the man who, along with Oliver, had committed the murder, and asking that something should be done to withdraw from him the stigma of being a murderer. The letter was published in an Exeter newspaper, and the result of it was the memorable and noble letter of the Lord Chief Justice, which had appeared in the public Press. He hoped that no mere adherence to precedent would prevent this case from being re-opened, for he thought his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department ought to feel proud to do an act such as that which was now asked. At all events, he hoped this House would see that a gross act of injustice was no longer allowed to remain without reparation; for, in his opinion, it was inconsistent with what was right that the man should, after all that had occurred, be obliged to have recourse to the Secretary of State for pardon, when, in justice, he was entitled to complete vindication. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
    MR. BULWER,in seconding the Motion, said, he had not intended to take part in the discussion, for he was not aware until a short time before he entered the House that the subject was to be brought forward. He would not go over again, either briefly or at length, the facts which had been so well placed before the House by his hon. Friend, but would content himself with a reference to the letter of the Lord Chief Justice, in which he referred to the evidence as excluding all reasonable doubt of the man's innocence, and he hoped the House would, set some value

    1339
    on the opinion of so distinguished a man as the Lord Chief Justice. But that opinion did not rest there. It was corroborated entirely by that of Mr. Justice Montague Smith. He could hardly imagine that any Member of the House who had read the case, and had read the letter of the Lord Chief Justice, could entertain any doubt that a very gross wrong had been inflicted. Unfortunately, the mode adopted by his hon. Friend was the only one that presented itself to have this wrong set right; but he trusted that his hon. Friend would be successful, for he felt sure that every Member would recognize the true character of the Home Secretary in the concluding words of the Lord Chief Justice when he said—
    "I commend this case to that high sense of justice and humanity for which your administration of office has been distinguished."
    Of course, the Home Secretary had given his anxious and earnest consideration to the case; but the grounds upon which the right hon. Gentleman grounded his refusal to interfere in the case appeared to be these:—All the facts, he said, before him, and upon which the recommendation of his Lordship was based, were, while fresh, and while Galley was under sentence of death, brought before Lord John Russell and Lord Denman, the Chief Justice of the day; and he said the question for him to decide was not so much whether he being in Lord Russell's position would have arrived at the same conclusion, as whether at this period of time, and so long after the case, he should on the same facts overrule the solemn decision to which the then Secretary of State, acting under advice, came to. The matter had also been brought before his Predecessors, Lord Aberdare and Mr. Lowe, who had declined to interfere, and he must decline to over-rule their decision. Such were the reasons given by the Home Secretary; and he (Mr. Bulwer) thought the right hon. Gentleman had not, in his own justification, placed the case so high as he might have done, because in the letter of the Lord Chief Justice it would be found that he said—" The scene created a sensation difficult to describe, and left an impression never to be effaced." The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, might not unreasonably have supposed, after reading that letter, that the Lord Chief Justice had himself also, when in office as Attorney General,
    1340
    urged upon the Government of the day, but in vain, the duty of redressing this great wrong. Without trespassing longer on the time of the House he hoped that if the Secretary of State for the Home Department felt disinclined to over-rule the decisions of his Predecessors, the House of Commons, with an unanimous voice, would say to the right hon. Gentleman—"We will in this case relieve you from the responsibility."
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the innocence of Edmund Galley of the crime of which he was convicted at Exeter in 1836 has been established beyond all reasonable doubts; and that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty graciously to grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley,"—(Sir Eardley Wilmot,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he quite concurred in the opinion expressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last (Mr. Bulwer), that there could hardly be a doubt but that there had been a miscarriage of justice in this case. After the strong opinion given by the Lord Chief Justice and Sir Montague Smith—and the facts of the case were such as we could all form an opinion upon—he would ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he could feel himself justified in adhering to the determination to which he regretted to hear his right hon. Friend had arrived? The only possible ground on which his right hon. Friend could refuse the appeal of the Lord Chief Justice was that he was bound by the decision at which former Secretaries of State had arrived. He hoped his right hon. Friend would exercise his own clear judgment in the matter; and, if he did so, he would add to the high reputation which he had acquired during his tenure of his present office.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, there had been no contradiction of the statement of facts which had been published on Galley's behalf. That statement had taken, in his (Sir Joseph M'Kenna's) opinion, the case clearly out of all rules based on precedent or official etiquette, confirmed as it was by the testimony of

    1341
    one who was now Lord Chief Justice; and he could not understand on what ground the Secretary of State for the Home Department could refuse a recognition of Galley's innocence. He ventured to say that there was not a Member of the House who had paid attention to the facts of the case who was not convinced that Edmund Galley was an innocent and a wronged man.
    MR. A. MILLSsaid, a largely-signed Memorial was sent to the Home Office from his constituents of Exeter in favour of a cancellation of the sentence of Edmund Galley. That Memorial was signed by leading men of all parties in politics, including the Bishop and the Dean of Exeter. He awaited with interest the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Possibly, they would be told that the House of Commons was not the place to canvass judicial decisions. He (Mr. A. Mills) agreed with that as a general rule; but there were exceptions, and he thought there were exceptional circumstances in this case which should lead them to take it up. When the Lord Chief Justice thought it right to join in the public expression of opinion in reference to this matter, he did not think it could be said that the House of Commons was debarred from taking notice of the case because successive Secretaries of State had declined to re-open the matter. An error had been committed in this case, as there had been in the case of a man named Barber, who was wrongly convicted of having forged a will. Upon a full consideration of Barber's case, compensation was given to him out of the public funds. This matter had been brought before Parliament very fairly and properly; and, though so long a time had passed since Galley's conviction, he saw no reason why justice should not be done. The question here was, whether or not such facts had not come to the knowledge of the Court and the public after the man's trial as led to a change in his sentence, that required further investigation should take place? The advocates of the abolition of capital punishment would find a strong argument in support of their view, if it were to be held that a case of this kind once decided could not be re-opened.
    MR. MUNTZsaid, they were now called upon, upon mere hearsay evidence, to reverse the proceedings of a Court of
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    Justice 44 years ago, and if the Motion were successful he trusted that it would not be made a precedent, because the Lord Chief Justice of England had written a letter expressing disapproval of the conviction. What would be the result of the House of Commons taking up all such cases? It was peculiarly the duty of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, after consultation with the Judges, to inquire into these cases, and advise the Crown as to the exercise of the Prerogative of mercy, and they should leave it to him. They were asked to set up a dangerous precedent; and unless he heard something more forcible and argumentative than had already reached him he should certainly vote against the Resolution.
    MR. ALDERMAN COTTONhoped that, although so long a time had elapsed since Galley's sentence, the House would not think that its time had been wasted if, by this Motion, justice should be done to that unfortunate man, who was most unjustly punished many years ago. Galley had clearly proved an alibi, and he asked that the sentence upon him should be reversed, and that his character should be restored to him. If the same facts appertaining to this case were today laid before the Home Secretary with reference to a case of recent occurrence there could be but one opinion as to how he would act. Having regard to the old age of the man and his character, he trusted that justice would be done, and that there would be no hesitation in accepting the Motion.
    MR. LOWEsaid, that the judicial theory upon which the House was proceeding was a very singular one. They were asked to consider what was done many years ago upon the evidence then produced, and on which a conclusion was arrived at. They were bound in judicial matters, when considering the guilt of prisoners, to get the best assistance which the study of a life in a laborious profession could give, to hear patiently what could be said, to turn matters every way, and only to decide on the best evidence that could be produced. But what was the course the House of Commons was asked to adopt? The House was now asked to reverse all that was done. An hon. Member rose and narrated what he believed to be the facts; a number of hon. Gentlemen came down obviously with minds made up—[Cries of "No,no!"]—Hon. Gentlemen

    1343
    who cried "No!" might answer for themselves, but not for those who remained silent. [An hon. MEMBER: How can you answer for them?] He answered for them, because before a quarter of the case had been stated they had loudly cheered. They could not have decided upon what they had heard, but must have decided upon consideration beforehand. That was not the way justice could be done. It was no slight matter to overrule the decisions of illustrious Judges upon a narrative which they had never given themselves the trouble to verify. These cases ought not to be decided upon the opinions of any Member of Parliament. That was not the way in which justice ought to be administered. If the House of Commons should be called upon to administer justice, there would be great danger that injustice would be committed. The case was tried before Mr. Justice Williams, a most distinguished Judge, and the verdict of guilty was confirmed by Lord John Russell—no mean authority—after consultation with Lord Denman, Lord Chief Justice of England. They came to the conclusion that there was a doubt which justified the remission of the capital sentence; but was not sufficient to enable them to recommend that the man should be pardoned. Upon that ground the case had stood for 43 years. The prisoner had long since exhausted his sentence; and the question now was, whether it was wise to overthrow the decision of those eminent authorities, not for the purpose of relieving this man from punishment—because he no longer suffered any—but merely for the purpose of allowing him to come to England in order to make it as clear as possible that he had been wrongfully convicted? The question deserved more reflection than it seemed to have received. It was whether the House of Commons would undertake, on the single statement of an hon. Member, and without a particle of evidence, to overthrow the decision of two eminent Judges, given under a sense of the deepest responsibility? It was no pleasure to him to say anything in disparagement of Galley; but the truth was that he belonged to the criminal class. He might or might not have been innocent of the crime of which he was accused; but if he was charged with it, it was because he was a man who belonged to those classes amongst whom they looked for crime. ["Oh,
    1344
    oh!"] The Lord Chief Justice, in his letter, said that the man was a rogue and vagabond, possibly a petty thief, and, besides that, a card-sharper. Even supposing these statements to be true, they furnished no reason why he should have been found guilty of this great crime; but, on the other hand, they supplied a reason why there should not be so much sentimentality on the subject. If Galley had been wrongly convicted, he certainly had assisted very much in his own conviction by the irregular and improper life which he led. ["Oh, oh!"] Everybody knew that when a man was charged with a crime his previous life was looked into; and if it was found to have been an irregular and a wicked life, he was on that account convicted on less evidence than another man would be who had not led such a life. It was something like contributory negligence on his part. Yet now, when the Judge who tried the case had been dead for many years, when most of the witnesses had also disappeared from the world, and when it would be impossible to have a thorough investigation of the circumstances, the House was called upon to reverse the decision which had been arrived at. This was not the way in which justice ought to be administered; and he (Mr. Lowe) deliberately maintained that it was better that Galley should be precluded for the remainder of his life from returning to England than that the House should, in this violent way, overrule the decision of those who gave the most solemn consideration to the case. In his judgment, although clearly in its power, the House would be ill-advised to do anything of the kind. ["Oh!"] He was aware that he was speaking to an audience, nearly every man of which was opposed to him, but that would not deter him from speaking, his mind. Still, he thought that by assuming this sort of power in a hap-hazard way they would be doing much to undermine the respect for evidence which was the foundation of all real justice. For some little time he (Mr. Lowe) himself held the office of Home Secretary. He was then asked to go into this case, but he refused to do so. ["Hear, hear!"] He refused because, even if he had come to a decision contrary to that arrived at by Lord John Russell and Lord Chief Justice Denman, he should not have deemed it his duty to interfere after the

    1345
    lapse of so long a period of time, and therefore he declined to go into the question at all. [Laughter.] If hon. Members thought that it was the right and the duty of a Secretary of State, who only held office for a short period, to overthrow the decision of the most respected and most honoured men who had lived in this country, they would be adopting a principle which would render the continuity of administration of justice in this country impossible. Interest reipublicœ ut sit finis litis. If, under these circumstances, persons like himself, who had no claim whatever to any legal acumen, were allowed to overthrow the decisions of great lawyers, they would be vested with, a power which they ought not to possess. He should be no party to anything of the kind. Knowing that hon. Gentlemen generally were utterly opposed to everything he had said, he thanked them for permitting him to express his opinion. He could not allow the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department to fight this battle without saying that his refusal to re-open this matter was entirely in accordance with the precedents and the usage of the Home Office, and did the right hon. Gentleman great credit.
    MR. A. MARTENsaid, he approached the consideration of this question with great anxiety, for everyone would desire to be on the side of mercy when practicable, and still more to give his voice for correcting a wrong, if wrong had been done. But he felt bound to point out that hon. Members were asked to affirm, without preliminary investigation, that the innocence of this man had been entirely established. They were asked to address the Crown in that sense; but it appeared to him that they ought to pause before they entertained such an application. On the present occasion, they were asked to sit practically as a jury to listen to a merely ex parte statement, made after the lapse of many years, and to express, on a sudden, a decision adverse to that which had been arrived at by those who were charged by law to investigate the subject. Alarming consequences might follow from the adoption of such a course, and the injustice that would be perpetrated by means of it would be far beyond any mischief that could be incurred by a wrong decision of the proper tribunal. [Continued cries of "Divide!"]
    1346
    He ventured to hope that hon. Members would not press for an instant Division, but would allow him to state his views, for he was arguing strictly to the point, and he would promise to trespass very little on the time of the House. It was absolutely necessary that they should consider the character of the Motion, and the dangerous precedent which would be set if it were acceded to. One very great merit of that House was, that they had always most carefully distinguished between the legislative functions with which they were charged and the administrative functions which they intrusted to the Ministers. The responsibility which fell on the Ministers must be discharged by them, and could not be shaken off from their shoulders by anything which occurred in that House. Although, on the present occasion, the application was one for mercy, such applications could not be expected to always be onesided; and it by no means followed that the next application made to the House might not be an application to reverse, on the ground of undue leniency, the decision of a Home Secretary, and to insist on a more severe judgment being come to. This supposition was by no means extravagant, for the mind of the public, or of sections of the public, was at times as strongly moved towards severity as ever it was towards mercy in the case of a criminal or supposed criminal. In this case, it had been assumed that Galley was either guilty of murder, or that he was absolutely innocent. There was another view of the case, however, which might have been taken by the eminent persons who were charged with the duty of determining what should be done, and which was entirely consistent with the decision they expressed. An alibi was a most excellent defence, but one which it was most difficult to prove, and also one which was absolutely fatal, if it failed to be established. His conclusion was that Lord Denman and Lord John Russell were satisfied, from the facts before them, that the alibi in this case was not established. The chief magistrate of Bow Street at the time was expressly sent down to arrive at the truth of the matter and to inform the Secretary of State upon it; and although they had not that gentleman's report its effect must have been that the alibi

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    was not established. No doubt, the conclusion of Lord Denman and the then Secretary of State was that Galley, although implicated in the crime, was not the man who struck the fatal blow; and, therefore, they adopted the intermediate course of recommending that his life should be spared. If the authority of the present Lord Chief Justice—and nobody would deny its great weight—was appealed to in this case, on the other hand, the very high authority of the Lord Chief Justice for the time being, who was charged with the responsibility of investigating this very matter, could also be cited. The hon. Baronet who had brought forward this question said that if they had had the Criminal Code they would have had a Court of Criminal Appeal, and the case would have been determined in that way. But if they had had a Court of Criminal Appeal, its decision would have been absolute and final; and, in this instance, they had had a substitute for such a tribunal in Lord Denman and the Secretary of State, who had reviewed the matter at the time. On those grounds, and thanking the House for their patience in hearing him, he hoped that the House would pause before it came to the decision, without any preliminary inquiry, that the innocence of Edmund Galley had been established.
    MR. JOHN BRIGHT: Sir, I shall say very little about this case; but there are one or two facts with which I am struck. My right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) said the discussion was all on one side. It was all on one side, I presume, because hon. Gentlemen present had heard the conclusive statement made by the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Eardley Wilmot). I am not sure we are competent to decide, or even to call upon the House to decide, whether this man was innocent or guilty. We must, however, recollect that this man Galley was a very poor man. My right hon. Friend says that the Lord Chief Justice declares that he was a card-sharper. Card-sharpers are not usually poor men, I dare say; but it is also said that he was a man of the criminal class. It seems to me that is very much in his favour, because I am quite sure, unless the Lord Chief Justice had the very strongest conviction in favour of the view he took, he would not ask the attention of the Home Se-
    1348
    cretary to a man who was a criminal and a card-sharper. Galley was a very poor man, and he was tried in barbarous times, at a time when counsel was not allowed to address the jury, and at a time when he had no counsel to defend him; at a time when we had only just passed the practice of putting men to death within 48 hours alter the sentence was pronounced. The main witness against him was a woman named Harris—a woman of a very abandoned character. She was then a convict under sentence, and, as I understand, she had a free pardon given to her in the Court in order that she might be able to give evidence. That, I think, does not add to the value of her testimony, but rather tends in the opposite direction. At the time when she says she saw the man it was very late at night, nearly midnight. It must have been dark, and her evidence was not given for many months afterwards. The rest of the evidence, I understand, consisted very much of the testimony of persons of a similar character. Now, what happened immediately after the trial? Doubts have not now arisen for the first time, 40 years afterwards; doubts arose on the very evening of the trial, and the almost universal opinion was that there had been a miscarriage of justice, and that the man Galley was not the murderer. We are told that nobody ought to interfere, and my right hon. Friend spoke of illustrious Judges. Of course, all Judges are illustrious, and I know nothing to the contrary of the Judge who tried this case. I do not even know his name, therefore I do not say a word against him in particular. But the verdict of the jury was rejected by the Home Secretary of that day, because he would not have commuted the sentence of the Judge if he had concurred in it. It therefore can hardly be wrong that a Home Secretary of this day, or the House of Commons, should come to a decision which will be consistent with the honour of Parliament, with the mercy that rests in the Crown, and with the consideration there is in this country for justice rightly administered. We are told that all the facts have been before Lord John Russell when he was Home Secretary. I do not wish to say one word deprecatory of the character of Lord John Russell, or any other Home Secretary; but I say the Office of Secre-

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    tary of State for the Home Department is greatly over-worked, and there are many cases which come before it which cannot be sufficiently investigated. I have known such cases myself, and I have the greatest sympathy for a Home Secretary, and I wonder there should he any man to undertake the Office, with the vast responsibilities upon him of deciding cases of life and death. What has happened within the last 12 months? Four prisoners were sentenced to death on one evening, and I have heard one of the most eminent lawyers of this House say there was not a particle of evidence against one of the prisoners, and there was doubt whether a murder had been committed at all. The same Judge sentenced a man to death who has since been released. I can mention another case of a man who had recently been convicted of murder at Manchester. That man had been sentenced to be hanged; but his punishment was commuted by the Home Secretary, and it was subsequently discovered that he was innocent of the crime of which he had been convicted. [Mr. LOWE: Hear, hear!] Those are matters which ought to make us very careful. My right hon. Friend says "Hear, hear!" and for a very good reason; he has stood upon the dignity of his Office, and has not gone into the case at all after Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and possibly, also, Lord Aberdare had refused to re-open it. But if I wanted anything to convince me of the force of the case brought before us it would be the speech which he has delivered. My right hon. Friend has said that the man is now suffering no punishment, except that he cannot return to England. But surely, if he cannot return to England, because he has the mark of Cain on him and the brand of a murderer, it is a punishment which if we can relieve him of we ought to do so. The man himself apparently felt that he was a marked man, and had not even allowed himself to marry till the letter of the Lord Chief Justice had, as it were, purged his character. Hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite, and my right hon. Friend, may talk of precedents and of the danger resulting from the interference of the House in a case of this kind; but it is the case of a poor man who has always denied his guilt, and for whose ignorance all due allowance ought to be made. Besides, the hon. Baronet the Member for South
    1350
    Warwickshire has conclusively shown that there is a great probability that justice has miscarried. I ask the House what they intend to do? The lapse of time makes the weight of Galley's unjust punishment all the more excessive, and the House ought to encourage the Home Secretary to recommend the Crown not to bring this man back to England, not to take him out of slavery, but to say there has been a miscarriage of justice, and that for the rest of his life there will be taken off from him the dark spot which has so long rested upon him. In that way proof will be given to the world that, whatever may be the failings of our Judicature—and it has many failings, as Courts of Justice in all countries have—whenever its errors are discovered, the Parliament of England, even at the last hour, will do its best to remedy the damage which has been occasioned, and to do justice to an unfortunate, poor, and long-absent man.
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he was able to assure the House that this was a case that he had considered with the greatest possible care; and he could also assure his hon. Friend (Sir Eardley Wilmot) that he fully appreciated the motives that had led him to bring it forward. He knew that the general feeling of the House would be that if any substantial injustice had been done it should be remedied as quickly as possible. With that feeling he fully agreed. He should regret as much as anyone a miscarriage of justice, if such a case were proved; and whether it had happened recently, or 40 or 50 years ago, he should be the first to come forward and endeavour to have it remedied. But, of course, in all such cases the House, instead of being carried away by feeling, ought to act as a Judicial Court. His faith in the House, however, as a High Court was somewhat shaken when he heard cries of "Divide!" after a two hours' discussion of this case. Hon. Members must remember that this was a case in which a man had been tried for murder, and murder of the gravest kind, and the case had probably occupied days before the committing magistrates, and certainly occupied the Assize Court more than one day; and yet, when an hon. Member, after a two hours' debate, was urging reasons why the favour of the Crown should not be shown, there were cries of "Divide!" [Mr. JOHN BRIGHT said, that hon. Mem-

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    bers were objecting to a waste of time.] Waste of time ! But the speaker was simply trying to put before the House what had occurred. That was not the temper in which the High Court of Parliament should discuss—if it was going to discuss—questions of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. John Bright) had made a great deal of the fact that Galley was a poor man, and that, consequently, he could not procure witnesses or counsel; but he was tried before Judges, as many others had been, and he had received every possible leniency and liberty which he could have from the Home Secretaries. He was prepared to say that this man had not suffered one iota from the fact that he was poor. That he was tried when he could not have counsel was his fate in common with many other people; but the fact that the law had been changed since was no reason why they should interfere in this particular case. Galley was tried with a man called Oliver, who was afterwards executed; but this man throughout protested not only the innocence of Galley, but his own innocence as well; and in the end, the innocence of Galley having been so frequently asserted, the Judge who tried the case, a most eminent man, thought it right to recommend the Secretary of State to make inquiry into the matter, and it was in consequence of that recommendation that the sentence was respited in order that the inquiries might be made. He (Mr. Assheton Cross) deeply regretted that the name of the Judge had been mentioned in the way in which it had been. The hon. Baronet (Sir Eardley Wilmot) had said—
    SIR EARDLEY WILMOTsaid, he had said that Mr. Justice Williams was appointed by Lord Brougham, and had been the junior counsel in Queen Caroline's case.
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the object of making that statement must have been to disparage the Judge. ["No!"]
    SIR EARDLEY WILMOTrose to explain, but Mr. ASSHETON CROSS refused to give way, notwithstanding that there were loud cries of "Explain!"
    MR. SPEAKERpointed out that the hon. Member could explain, if he desired to do so, after the right hon. Gentleman had concluded his observations.
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSdid not wish, to pursue the subject. The hon.
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    Baronet had made a point of this respite, and had argued that because he was kept alive there was a doubt about the matter; but the respite was in accordance with a well-established rule of the Home Office which existed at the time. That rule was a very humane one, and it was, that once a sentence was respited it was never carried out, because it was thought to be altogether wrong to keep such a fate hanging indefinitely over a man's head, pending the inquiries; and even if the Secretary of State were perfectly satisfied that a prisoner was guilty of murder, that prisoner so respited was still transported for life. Therefore, Lord John Russell did not depart from the usual practice, and the fact of transportation did not prove that there was any doubt. If the man had been hanged, it would have been contrary to all precedent, and the country would not have tolerated it. It, therefore, must not be inferred that Lord John Russell had any doubt in the matter simply because the man was transported. It was the misfortune of the man that he was a thimble-rigger, and he tried to prove that he was at a fair in Kent at the time he was supposed to have committed the murder at a place which he could not have been at. There could be no doubt that the trial excited a good deal of interest in Exeter at the time. But although that was so, still he was bound to say that he did not think the House was the proper place to argue a criminal case. The House was constituted in a totally different manner at that moment to what it was when the hon. Baronet was speaking, and it was impossible that a body composed of various persons at various times could form a judicial opinion on such a matter. The result, however, of that excitement was that a gentleman went down and collected a large amount of evidence, which was thought to be in favour of the prisoner. That was submitted to Mr. Justice Williams, who considered it very carefully. The Secretary of State at the time was Lord John Russell, and he took the course which he (Mr. Assheton Cross) thought all sensible Secretaries of State would have done. Having no more interest in maintaining the conviction of this unfortunate man than he (Mr. Assheton Cross) had, the noble Lord sent the whole case, with the evidence, to Lord Denman, who went into the whole case, and Sir Frederick

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    Roe was afterwards sent down to examine the witnesses. Sir Frederick Roe reported to the Home Office that the evidence was not entirely substantiated. Sir Frederick Roe expressed no opinion, one way or the other, to the Home Secretary as to what he thought about the case. What more could Lord John Russell have done? He consulted the highest Official on the Bench, who went into the case most thoroughly, and reported that, in his opinion, the verdict was right. Lord John Russell, therefore, refused to interfere. Mr. Aglionby, who was a Member of Parliament, brought the case, in 1838, he thought, before Lord John Russell, who again went into it, and again consulted Lord Denman, who again considered the case, and was of opinion that the verdict was right. No Secretary of State could act against circumstances like that. The man was not sent abroad till 1839, and in 1839 the matter was brought before Lord John Russell again by Mr. Cherer. After giving much attention to the case, Lord John Russell said it did not present any reasonable ground to justify him in recommending a commutation of the sentence of transportation. He (Mr. Assheton Cross) had, he thought, shown that Lord John Russell had taken every possible pains to consider the question, he had consulted everybody he could—the Judge who tried the case, the Chief Justice, and Sir Frederick Eoe—and, having done that, he had come to the conclusion which he had stated to the House. That being so, no evidence whatever had been brought before himself (Mr. Assheton Cross) which could tend to prove that there was any change in the circumstances of the case as it had been submitted to Lord John Russell. No new facts of any description had been brought under his notice, or of any of his Predecessors, which it could fairly be said ought to have any effect in altering the decision which had been in the first instance arrived at. He would, therefore, ask the House to consider for a moment the position in which he was placed. He would say at once that, notwithstanding the respect which he entertained for his Predecessors, if any new facts had been brought before him he should not have had the slightest hesitation in giving them their due weight. If he thought an injustice had been done, he would, he hoped, have
    1354
    been one of the fist persons in that House to seek to remedy it. But no new facts had been brought under his notice, nor, so far as he was aware, under the notice of Lord Aberdare, or of his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Lowe). What, under those circumstances, was he to do? Had he a better means of forming an opinion on the matter than Lord John Russell had then? Mr. Justice Williams, Lord Denman, Sir Frederick Roe, and most of the witnesses were dead. Where was he to get his information? Or was it to be supposed that the Lord Chief Justice of the present day had a better opportunity of forming a judgment on this case than had the Lord Chief Justice for the time being? Was there any Judge to whom he could refer who knew the facts of the case so well as the Judge by whom it had been tried? Where was he to obtain the knowledge which would justify him in saying that Lord John Russell had come to a wrong decision? He might add that when Lord John Russell had to deal with the question, he had to consider a very different point from that which was now laid before him, and the noble Lord came to the conclusion that there was no reasonable ground for doubting the justice of the verdict. What he, however, was now asked to do was to give Galley a free pardon, on the ground that his innocence had been undoubtedly proved. But although he sympathized very deeply with the man when he asked that the stigma might be removed from him before he died, he could not, by agreeing to the Motion, endorse the view that the whole proceedings at the trial had been wrong from beginning to end, and that the innocence of the prisoner had been completely established. He could not say that he believed the Judge who tried the man, that the Chief Justice who advised on the case, and the Secretaries of State who pronounced a decision upon it, were all in error. When the case came before him on the letter of the Lord Chief Justice he felt bound to go into the case himself; he had read through every single paper over and over again, and he did not feel justified in advising the Queen to take the course which the Motion proposed. There was no man for whom he had a higher admiration than he had for the present Lord Chief Justice; but he had also a very high opinion of Lord Denman, than

    1355
    whom no man was more careful of the interests and liberty of the subject, and who, if he had entertained any reasonable doubt on the subject, would have advised the Secretary of State accordingly. The present Lord Chief Justice did not speak of this case as a case which had been brought before him as Lord Chief Justice; he spoke of it as one which he had heard when a young man at the Bar, and which he said had made a great impression upon him. The Lord Chief Justice, some 30 years ago, made one of the most brilliant speeches in that House—a speech which raised him to the post of Attorney General. He held that post for some years, and had every possible opportunity of expressing his views to the Government of the day. ["Oh!"] Yes, he had. His hon. Friend who had spoken earlier in the debate said he had not the smallest doubt that the Lord Chief Justice had availed himself of that opportunity when Law Officer of the Crown and had pressed it on the Secretary of State. With regard to that, he had held, and most worthily filled, the office of Lord Chief Justice for many years; but there was not a line to any Secretaries of State which showed that he had brought the case before them, either when Lord Chief Justice or Law Officer of the Crown. Now, if the Lord Chief Justice had such a strong conviction with respect to the case, it was marvellous that he had not brought it before the Government of the day. The Lord Chief Justice said, in his letter, that he was present at the trial, and it would have been impertinence on his part, then a very young barrister, to interfere in a matter with which he had no professional or personal concern. He (Mr. Assheton Cross) said it was as much his duty then, when the matter was still sub judice, to have applied to the Secretary of State, and not to have waited for 43 years, when no inquiry could be made. He had had an opportunity of conversing with barristers who were present, and one of whom was a distinguished Officer of the House, and that gentleman assured him that among a large Bar the opinion prevailed that this man was just as guilty as the other. Well, that being so, and the question having been decided 43 years ago, he did not think he had it in his power to do what the hon. Baronet asked. The Lord Chief Justice said that the man
    1356
    was wholly guilty or wholly innocent; that the evidence of an alibi brought forward at the trial, if it only created a reasonable doubt of the prisoner's guilt, would, in our more merciful administration of the law, procure his acquittal. Now, if they were in that House to discuss the alibi which it might take a week to try in a Court of Justice, he was bound to say that the whole question of an alibi could never be investigated properly unless in the presence of the witnesses. In point of fact, the alibi never was tried. The test of the alibi was in the cross-examination, rather than in the examination-in-chief; and if they, sitting in that House, in 1879, without any power of cross-examination and without seeing the demeanour of the witnesses, could, 43 years after the trial, determine that the evidence on which the verdict of the jury preceeded was wrong, he was bound to say they would inflict a blow on the administration of criminal justice in this country from which it would not soon recover. He had no new facts before him; he had no better opportunity of forming an opinion than those who had preceded him in Office; he had come to the same conclusion as Lord John Russell, and he could not advise the House to accept the Motion.
    SIR HENRY JAMEShoped that it was unnecessary for him to make any protestations to the House that he was not going to answer the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department in any spirit of Party criticism. They were asking him to review a decision which, in no sense, could be considered his, but was rather that of his noble Friend, Lord Aberdare. He thought that that was sufficient guarantee that the supporters of the Motion were in no way actuated by Party motives. He had listened to the speeches of his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) and of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department with considerable bewilderment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London had said it was not the duty of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to consider the facts of the case at all. Though regretting the possibility of a fallible decision by a previous Secretary of State, yet he did not think it the duty of the present Secretary of

    1357
    State to make any inquiry into the case at all. From that opinion the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department entirely differed, saying it was his duty—and he (Sir Henry James) was sure he had conscientiously discharged that duty—to make every inquiry into the facts of the case. But the right hon. Gentleman left the matter there, and asserted that it was not within the province of the House to enter into a judicial inquiry, and that it was impossible for the House to determine whether a man was innocent or guilty. But though he took that course and deprecated discussion, yet, with singular power and great ability, which made him bound to recollect his early training in the Profession to which he (Sir Henry James) belonged, the right hon. Gentleman stated every fact in support of the guilt of the man. While one view of the case had been that stated by the right hon. Gentleman, he trusted the House would forgive him if he (Sir Henry James) stated the view he took of the matter. He quite agreed that it was impossible to demonstrate with absolute certainty the innocence of any man. Then, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Motion asserted the innocence of Edmund Galley as established; he, however, then went behind the words of the Motion, and alleged that his innocence was not established. But might they not say that there were grave doubts as to the guilt of the man, and, therefore, they might take the matter into consideration. If that would meet the views of the right hon. Gentleman, he hoped that the hon. Baronet the Member for South Warwickshire (Sir Eardley Wilmot) would be willing to amend his Motion in that manner. With the permission of the House, he would make one or two observations with respect to the guilt of the man Galley. The charge was made against him under most peculiar circumstances. A man made a communication to a fellow-prisoner, to the effect that he had committed the murder together with a person named Galley. The police, without seeking for a person answering to the description of the other murderer, found a man by the name of Galley and placed him in the dock. A woman of bad character, and a confederate of the first prisoner, identified him, though it was said he was much altered. Upon that evidence the two prisoners were
    1358
    tried together; and it was well-known that if two prisoners, one innocent and the other guilty, were tried together, their cases were considered by the jury as a whole. At all events, the jury did not discriminate the evidence against each prisoner, but convicted them both. Edmund Galley, at the time, stated that he had been brought from a distant part of England and knew nothing of the matter. The other prisoner confessed at the last moment, and said "I am guilty, but this man convicted with me was innocent." Everyone, except the unknown gentleman whose name had never been disclosed, who witnessed that trial, had expressed his belief in the innocence of Galley. A Petition in his favour was signed by thousands of persons. Again, the present Lord Chief Justice, then a young man, was present in Court, and was convinced from what took place at the trial, and subsequently, that the man was innocent. What reply did the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department make to that? He said that they should not set aside the judgment of the committing magistrate. But that had been set aside by his own confession. The committing magistrate now asserted his belief in the innocence of Galley. The right hon. Gentleman said that if any new circumstances could be established which should prove the decision of the previous Secretaries of State to be wrong, then he would reverse that decision. Was he aware of the fact that Sir Frederick Roe, a magistrate of great experience, had expressed himself entirely in favour of the innocence of Galley? Sir Frederick Roe was sent down by the Home Office, not to express an opinion on the case, but to act as a mere scribe and take down the evidence of the witnesses. It was his duty merely to send their depositions to the Home Office. That accounted for Sir Frederick Roe not reporting to the Home Office in favour of the convict. But the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that Sir Frederick Roe expressed his decided opinion to Sir Montague Smith that the guilt of the man was not established. Sir Frederick Roe had merely to examine the evidence, and he was as impartial as could be desired; but he did express to Sir Montague Smith—who gave the Lord Chief Justice authority to make the statement public—his opinion of the truth of the evidence proving the man

    1359
    to be innocent. What answer did the right hon. Gentleman make to those new facts? The right hon. Gentleman said he was bound to listen to the decision of the Judge who tried the case. He (Sir Henry James) wished to speak with all respect of that learned Judge; but he might say that his chief reputation in the Profession was that of being the most comic Judge that ever sat upon the Bench. But he must protest against the doctrine of the infallibility of Judges. The Lord Chief Justice of England, who was most jealous of the privileges of his order, yet did not hesitate to come forward against the decision of one of his body, when he thought that injustice had been done. But, then, the right hon. Gentleman relied on the concurrence of Lord Denman in the verdict after reading the statements of witnesses he had never seen, and he put that judgment against the opinion of Sir Frederick Roe, who had heard and examined the witnesses. Again, the present Lord Chief Justice did hear the testimony of the witnesses upon the trial, and saw the demeanour of the prisoner, and heard the confession that fell from his fellow-prisoner. He was moved by what he saw and heard, and his opinion, supported by that of Sir Frederick Roe, who heard all the witnesses, must have far greater weight than the mere concurrence of Lord Denman in the verdict. He could not help feeling that. Lord Denman was asked to review the judgment of a Colleague, and that it was a delicate matter for one Judge to condemn the view held by another. But what did the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department say with regard to the Lord Chief Justice? He was not going to defend the Lord Chief Justice from criticism; it was unnecessary. But the right hon. Gentleman said, why did the Lord Chief Justice not make application to the Government before? He (Sir Henry James) must protest against that doctrine. It was not the duty of an unknown barrister to make representations to the Government. There were about 120 barristers upon the Western Circuit at that time, and he would undertake to say that 115 of them believed Galley to be innocent. But it was said the Lord Chief Justice had brought his mature judgment to bear upon the question, and had neglected at the time to call the attention of the Government
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    to the case. At that time the Lord Chief Justice had no position, and it was not his duty to interfere in the matter, and his opinions now ought not to be criticized because he did not write that letter when he was 35 years of age. There was a great deal more that might be said upon this subject; but he did not wish to detain the House further. They had been told that the House should not enter into a consideration of that question in a judicial spirit. He, however, hoped that hon. Members would look at that matter in a judicial light, and vote according to their convictions, and not from any Party stand-point. Let them consider the position of the unfortunate convict. He was asking for something more than money—he was asking for the opinion of the House that there was so much doubt as to his guilt that he was entitled to- be relieved from the odium under which he had been so long suffering. By establishing the innocence of Galley no injury would be done to the reputation of any Minister, nor to society; and he hoped that the House would, at last, do justice to a man who had so long suffered from a grievous miscarriage of justice.
    SIR LAWRENCE PALKsaid, with regard to this matter, he could, perhaps, give more evidence than any other Member of the House, the man who lost his life having been one of his father's tenants. He was returning from Moretonhampstead fair to Dunsford when the supposed murder was committed. He (Sir Lawrence Palk), being at that time very young, could, therefore, speak with no more certainty than belonged to hearsay; but the report at the time was that the man was not knocked from his horse, but fell from it, and was afterwards plundered of the money in his possession. It was true that there was the evidence of a woman of very bad character, who said she saw the murder committed; but, from his personal knowledge, although the present features of the locality might not be exactly the same as they were formerly, he ventured to say that it would be almost impossible for a person to have lain hidden from observation, and yet to have seen the murder committed, for this reason—that at the spot where the supposed murder took place there was a dense copse on both sides of the road. His right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department had said that

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    the reason why Galley was respited and transported was that there was a certain doubt as to his guilt, and that having been once respited he could not be executed. But he (Sir Lawrence Palk) believed that the reason of his transportation was, that in the minds of almost all the public in those days—and it was to be remembered that they were talking of circumstances which occurred many years ago—there existed very great doubt as to whether or not the man Galley was present. Such, at all events, was the impression which he knew to have always prevailed in the county. But he wished to say a little more than this. When the man Galley was asked if he had anything to ask the witnesses—and reading it now with a thorough knowledge, or rather recollection, of what had taken place, he was the more forcibly struck by its significance, he replied—
    "My Lord, what questions can I ask them? I know nothing of the matter; I know nothing of the people; I never was down in these parts in my life; how should I know what questions to put to them?"
    Of course, he could not know what questions to ask. The part of the country in question was extremely hilly and woody, and this would render it impossible for a stranger to ask a single question as to the locality in which the murder was supposed to have been committed. Passing to the statement of the man convicted, it was very much in favour of Galley. He said—"My Lord, you are not going to send an innocent man to death?" and then added, looking down, as he (Sir Lawrence Palk) well remembered, as if in pity and scorn at the little man opposite—
    "My Lord, do you think when I was going out to do a deed like this that I should have a weak little fellow like this for my companion?"
    Galley, as far as his information went, was utterly incapable of knocking from his horse a man like May. No doubt, two men sprung from the side of the road, but it was, in his opinion, very doubtful whether any blow was inflicted that caused his death; on the contrary, he believed that the man fell from his horse, that he was rendered insensible, and afterwards plundered. On that part of the matter there was, he thought, no doubt. But, rightly or wrongly, the man Galley had suffered a very
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    severe punishment; and although he could not agree in any censure being passed upon the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, or his Predecessors; although he believed that the man had had every consideration paid to him; and notwithstanding his firm belief that justice had been done, yet he (Sir Lawrence Palk) thought there was a doubt as to the fact of his guilt. If that doubt did exist, he urged the House to step forward, in the character of mercy, and forgive this man. The House, he thought, could hardly be asked to vote—
    "That the innocence of Edmund Galley of the crime of which he was convicted at Exeter, in 1836, has been established beyond all reasonable doubts,"
    because it was utterly impossible for any man to say that; but it might very properly agree—
    "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty's gracious pardon for Edmund Galley."
    SIR EARDLEY WILMOTsaid, he could assure the House that he exceedingly regretted that anything which he had said in the course of the narrative of facts in this case should have been looked upon as reflecting upon Mr. Justice Williams. He had purposely avoided making any mention whatever of the learned Judge who administered justice in the case. With regard to the suggestion of the hon. Baronet the Member for East Devon (Sir Lawrence Palk), he was willing, with the permission of the House, to amend his Motion by substituting, instead of it, the words—
    "That as reasonable doubt exists as to the guilt of Edmund Galley of the crime of which he was convicted at Exeter, in 1836, an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty graciously to grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley."
    He would, if the House would allow him, move that Amendment.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, my hon. Friend (Sir Eardley Wilmot) places the House in some difficulty by proposing, at this period of the evening, to change the Motion which he has submitted to the House. I cannot think the House will accept the change which he proposes, and before the House comes to a Division upon the Motion actually before it I wish to gay, without attempting to go

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    into the merits or details of this particular case, that what we are now called upon to do is to take upon ourselves the responsibility of re-trying this man. We are asked voluntarily, and of our own accord, to do that which the House of Commons has never been called upon to do before. We have no evidence before us upon which we can form an opinion for ourselves; and we have, therefore, no opportunity of cross-examining witnesses. We have not even the advantage of being a Court which has sat continuously during this discussion; because, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department has reminded us, many of us who are present now were not present during the entire period of this discussion. But does not that fact show how impossible it is for a Court like the House of Commons to undertake the review and reconsideration of a case like the present? In these circumstances, I feel that the House will not come to a decision with a full sense of the responsibility attaching to them.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYfelt the extreme difficulty of the House of Commons sitting as a Court of Appeal to decide the guilt or innocence of persons convicted in the Criminal Courts. But he had been very much struck with the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James), that Sir Frederick Roe, who was sent down to take evidence, was impressed with a conviction of the truth of the alibi which he was sent to investigate. He could not believe that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had been aware of that fact, or he would not have put before the House the statement which he made. But in the case of his not having been aware of the circumstance, he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) maintained that these were grounds for asking him to come forward spontaneously, and state to the House that facts of which he was before ignorant having come to his knowledge, if this Motion were withdrawn, he would take the matter into consideration. If that were done, he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) should certainly not vote for the Motion of the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Eardley Wilmot), because he felt strongly that the House was not competent to say whether or not the man Galley was guilty. If it was desirable to ascertain
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    that point, surely the proper way would be for the Secretary of State to refer to some of the Judges, or other persons, who, by their experience in such matters, could advise him if he were in. doubt. But he thought it was impossible to abstain from voting on this question as long as the right hon. Gentleman said he would take up his position without knowing anything of the facts, and that he would not move.
    SIR HENRY JAMESsaid, the statement he had made was that Sir Frederick Roe, who was accompanied by Sir Montague Smith, inquired into the truth of Galley's statement. He had authority for saying that both he and Sir Montague Smith were satisfied of the truth of Galley's statement, and that the alibi was true.
    SIR JULIAN GOLDSMIDappealed to the Government to allow the hon. Baronet (Sir Eardley Wilmot) to amend his Motion, as a matter of common fairness. He used the term common fairness, because, as the Motion then stood, the House was asked to express a quasi-judicial opinion that this man was innocent. Now, there were many hon. Members who entertained the opinion that they could not fairly do that, but who could say with safety that they believed there was more than great doubt in this matter, and that the time had come when the Home Office should consider that mercy might well be exercised. He therefore hoped the Government would not stand in the way of the hon. Baronet, but allow him to amend his Motion so as to meet the wishes of the majority of the House.
    MR. LOWTHIAN BELLsaid, there was no doubt that by adopting the Motion of the hon. Baronet as it stood the House would be constituting itself a Court of Appeal, and that, in his opinion, was a position which the House would not wish to occupy. He could not, therefore, support the principle involved in the Motion; but would suggest that, as doubt appeared to exist as to the guilt of Edmund Galley of the crime of which he was convicted at Exeter in 1836, an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty graciously to direct that further inquiry be made into the case of Edmund Galley.
    MR. J. S. GATHORNE-HARDYsaid, it would be more than unfair towards hon. Members of the House, by

    1365
    any technical objection to the wording of an Amendment, to prevent them coming to a fair and distinct opinion upon the question before them. He earnestly hoped that no advantage would be taken upon the mere wording of the Amendment to evade discussion.
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the only Petition which had been presented to him. from this man, who was, as far as his information went, at that moment perfectly happy, and undergoing no punishment whatever, asked that he might have a declaration of absolute innocence. That was also the Motion of his hon. Friend (Sir Eardley Wilmot); but to that Petition and that Motion he could not assent, inasmuch as by doing so it would be declared that the whole of the proceedings which had taken place had been wrong ab initio.
    MR. BIRLEYwould suggest that the first sentence of the Resolution should be withdrawn, and that the House should confine itself to declaring—
    "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty graciously to grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley."
    MR. CALLANhoped the suggestion of the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Birley) would recommend itself to the favourable consideration of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Upon the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, "that Galley was living in perfect happiness," he (Mr. Callan) would remind the House that the Lord Chief Justice, in his letter, stated that "the man had worked for many long years as a slave upon the public roads." His present position would, therefore, seem to be a change from, public to private slavery.
    SIR EARDLEY WILMOTsaid, he was willing to accept the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Birley) to drop the first part of his Motion, and. simply ask that a free pardon be granted.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Baronet was, doubtless, aware that no portion of the Motion could be withdrawn without the consent of the House.
    SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, the House had got into a muddle by being asked to express an opinion as to the innocence of the person in question, and would stultify itself still further by adopting the course now suggested. The hon. Baronet had better be advised
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    by him, and move the adjournment of the debate. If not, he (Sir Edward Colebroke) would propose to withdraw a Resolution which, in his opinion, would throw discredit upon the whole of these proceedings.
    MR. HALLsaid, it seemed to him that the proposed Amendment to the Motion of his hon. Friend (Sir Eardley Wilmot) might very readily be accepted. All that was wanted was that the man should get a free pardon. The House did not want to express any reason why the pardon was granted, because they desired to guard themselves against interference with the decision of a Court of Law.
    SIR EARDLEY WILMOTasked leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Question proposed, "That the Amendment, by leave, be withdrawn."
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSwanted to have the matter quite clearly understood both by the House and the country. The hon. Baronet the Member for South Warwickshire (Sir Eardley Wilmot) had had his Motion upon the Paper for a long time, and it contained an absolute assertion of the innocence of this man. That was the only way in which the case had ever been presented to him, either by Petition from Galley himself, or his friends. He desired it to be quite clear that if the Address were assented to the assertion of innocence was withdrawn. He must have certain assurance on that point. He asked the House not to come by a round-about way to the conclusion they did not mean to arrive at. The hon. Baronet had moved that it was clearly proved that the man was innocent. He (Mr. Assheton Cross) said it was not, and that it was wrong to come to that conclusion.
    MR. SPEAKER: I wish to point out to the House that the Question before it is, whether this Amendment shall, by leave, be withdrawn? The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department has been allowed to make an explanation on that point; but a second speech on the Question is certainly not in Order. Is it your pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?
    MR. COURTNEYthought it was very much to be desired that they should come to a clear conclusion on this matter. The hon. Member opposite (Sir Eardley

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    Wilmot) had withdrawn the opinion expressed in the first part of the Resolution; and it was, surely, unnecessary that they, as a body, should express any opinion on that subject. That was a thing from which they shrank as a body; but, of course, each Member of the House was at liberty to retain his own opinion, and the hon. Member (Sir Eardley Wilmot), amongst others, to retain his. The Secretary of State for the Home Department did claim that this Motion was not to be made the foundation for any claim on the part of Galley himself; but that man, from the first, had protested his innocence, and he, surely, must be allowed to remain in the same belief. All that was now asked of Her Majesty's Government was, that it would permit the House of Commons, acting from many different motives, to agree to this Resolution, "That the Royal Prerogative of the Crown should be exercised," an opinion in regard to which a vast majority of the House were clearly of one opinion. Therefore, he hoped that Her Majesty's Government would allow the hon. Member (Sir Eardley Wilmot) to withdraw his Amendment and propose the latter half of it. He did not wish to add any more; but if Her Majesty's Government persisted in refusing to allow it to be withdrawn, they could then act upon the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Birley). They could, on their own Motion, negative the Motion to go into Committee of Supply, and then alter the proposal of his hon. Friend as they chose. He hoped, however, they would not be driven to that necessity.
    MR. MELDONwished to say just one word, in order that they might not be led astray by the statement of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The issue the right hon. Gentleman seemed to raise between the House and himself was that what they were about to do was to make a declaration of the innocence of this man, while what they really sought to do was to have this man put in the same position as if there had been a verdict of acquittal by the jury. It was unnecessary to prove his innocence to entitle him to that acquittal. If a reasonable doubt was raised in the mind of the jury as to the proof, the onus of which was on the prosecution, he was entitled to an acquittal, no matter how
    1368
    suspicious the case might be, and though he might fail altogether to prove his entire innocence. What they wanted to do was to deal with this question of his innocence exactly now as if no such verdict had been given. It was admitted now that the respite was granted because there were not only reasonable doubts, but very substantial doubts, thrown upon the conviction at the time. What was sought to be done was really to give proper effect to the respite, and they could do that by giving the man a free pardon, without going into the question of whether his absolute innocence had been proved or not. He hoped they would not be led astray by the false issue raised by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that she will be graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley,"—(Sir Eardley Wilmot,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had no objection to this part of the Amendment. ["Order, order!"] The conduct of hon. Members in thus interrupting did not say much for the judicial spirit of the House of Commons. He assented to this Motion only on this distinct ground that the House had declined to express an opinion as to the man's innocence. ["No, no !"] He did not wish to interfere with the private feelings of any hon. Members; but the House had declined to express an opinion. ["No!"] The feeling of the House was, though not expressed in a judicial spirit, that having compassion for this old man—["No, no !"]—well, at any rate, it was true—that the House feeling very much compassion for this old man—he did not know what the feeling of the old man might be; but that was the feeling of the House generally. Hon. Members might vote as they liked; but that was how he should accept the Amendment for himself. The question now presented had never been presented

    1369
    to him before. No Petition had ever been presented to him for mercy; but the man had declared his innocence, and, as he understood, the House had declined to express that opinion. He was now prepared, therefore, as far as that was concerned, simply as a matter of mercy to recommend this old man to a pardon.
    MR. JOHN BRIGHT: The matter stands a little differently from the view in which the right hon. Gentleman puts it. I am not going, in the least degree, to find fault with anything he has said; but it seems to me, after the declaration he made, that he himself, looking over the Papers, could not affirm that Galley was innocent, he was quite right in saying that it was out of his power to recommend to the Crown that a free pardon should be granted to the man on the ground of his innocence. If he had come to that opinion, it is quite clear he could not take any other course, and it is also quite clear that the House could not compel him to take that course without consequences that his Friends around him would be very sorry to see. But I must say that it would not be true to say that the great preponderance of opinion was not in favour of the hon. Gentleman who introduced this case (Sir Eardley Wilmot) that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Many hon. Members did not hear that statement; but I confess I was never more impressed by any statement I heard in this House, and I think it would be a great misfortune, and something like cruelty, if a miscarriage of mercy should go to this man in his far-off home, accompanied by an expression that, after all, the House did not believe he was innocent. I think the preponderance of opinion of the House is that he was innocent, and that the doubts that were raised at the time of the conviction show that it should not have taken place. Let us, indeed, if we are going to recommend this act of mercy, let us not send it across the sea under conditions which shall strike out of it all that is merciful, and leave the idea that we are really doing it for an old man, and that it does not matter very much what becomes of him. The right hon. Gentleman has taken a very wise course in accepting this Motion, and I hope none of us can say anything to make it appear that we wish to continue the charge and the
    1370
    bonds by which the soul of this man for 45 years has been troubled.
    LORD HENRY SCOTTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bright) had declared that the preponderance of opinion was in favour of the innocence of this man. If that was so, why had the Motion been withdrawn? He must say, he thought the Secretary of State for the Home Department had been treated with very little generosity in this matter. Everyone who had heard his speech must have seen the manner in which his heart was moved in regard to this man; but his strong sense of justice and the patient inquiry he had made had forced him plainly to the conviction he had declared. He had listened without prejudice to the statements on both sides of the House, and when the right hon. Gentleman declared his readiness to accept the Motion for mercy, and stated at the same time that he could not say he was convinced of the man's innocence, it was treating him with very scant courtesy to behave towards him in the way they were now doing. In his opinion, nothing could be worse than for the House of Commons to constitute itself a Court of Law, and to pass an opinion upon facts not existent at the present moment, but facts which existed upwards of 40 years ago. Besides, he did not like the practice of bringing forward a Motion and not putting it to the test of a Division, and then afterwards declaring that it expressed the opinion of the preponderance of the majority of the House. It was not generous to appeal to his right hon. Friend for mercy, and, when he gave it, to turn round on him in this manner and throw it back in his face.
    MR. SULLIVANwas of opinion that it was very undesirable to misrepresent intentionally, or unintentionally, the motives which had actuated the House to ask for the withdrawal of the Motion. He took it that they were acting on very intelligible grounds. They did not think it was well to declare this man innocent, as if they had been a Court of Appeal, and they were substantially satisfied that justice would be met by a free pardon. He appealed to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who on every occasion when life, death, or liberty had been in issue had shown a most kindly and careful spirit to do this act as graciously as possible, and not to

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    wound the feelings of an old man by saying he acted merely as a matter of compassion. The time was past when they could remit anything from this man's sentence, and what he wanted really was a reparation to his conscience, and that he hoped would be given as graciously as possible.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I hope this conversation, for it is really only a conversation, will not be prolonged, and especially that it will not become of an acrimonious character. I shall just make this remark. A Resolution of this House, and especially a Resolution implying an Address to the Crown, is always a matter of gravity; and it must be taken to express on the part of the House something which the House agrees to express, and that something must be indicated in the language of the Resolution, and not by what may be in the minds of hon. Members. Now, Sir, the first Resolution proposed was one which would have made an affirmation which my right hon. Friend, after giving careful consideration to the case, declared it was impossible for the House to accept. Under those circumstances, it lay with the House, if it chose, to persevere with that Resolution, and to put it to the test of a Division, in spite of the declaration of my right hon. Friend that he could not accept it. For whatever reason we need not now inquire, the hon. Baronet the Mover of the Resolution proposed to withdraw it, and the House unanimously agreed to its being withdrawn. Therefore, that has put an end to it. In place of it is substituted an Address, which my right hon. Friend is ready to concur in adopting. That Address is an Address praying the Crown to grant a free pardon to this person; and my right hon. Friend is perfectly prepared to be a party to the House passing that Address, and, no doubt, such an Address will receive proper consideration. I understand that, in the event of anything being done upon that Address in the nature of a free pardon, a free pardon will be granted, not accompanied by conditions such as appear to be contemplated or suggested by the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Birmingham. [Mr. JOHN BRIGHT: No, no!] Well, then, I will say such as were protested against by the right hon. Gentleman opposite.
    MR. JOHN BRIGHT: I was only hoping that it would be an exact description of the feeling of the House. I presume that the pardon will go in the ordinary form.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The pardon will go in the ordinary course, no doubt, and it will be one which I have little doubt will be in accordance with the feelings and wishes of the House. But I think we should be pursuing an entirely mistaken course, if we were to carry on a conversation which is very painful, on a matter which, I hope, has been closed by the statement of my right hon. Friend.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Words added.>
    Main Question, as amended, put.
    Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty that She "will be graciously pleased to grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley.
    To be presented by Privy Councillors.

  SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONasked the House to resolve itself into a Committee of Supply, in order that some small progress might be made in the Estimates. He believed the Notices on the Paper did not lead to any contentious matter; and he would remind the House that, at that time of the year, it was almost absolutely necessary, in the interests of the Public Service, that they should lose no opportunity they could possibly obtain of advancing Supply.
  IRELAND—REPORTED APPEARANCE OF THE COLORADO BEETLE.

    QUESTION.
    MAJOR NOLANsaid, he had a Question he ought to have put to the Chief Secretary for Ireland. There was a report in the "Morning Post" that the Colorado beetle had appeared in the County of Cork, and he wished to know if the report were true? The right hon. Gentleman must be informed by this time if the report were true, and he should be glad to know what steps had been taken for the destruction of this insect?
    MR. J. LOWTHER: Sir, I do not happen to have seen the newspaper report to which the hon. and gallant Gen-

    1373
    tleman refers. When he kindly gave me Notice of his Question to-day I telegraphed over to Dublin to know if anything had been heard of the matter, and the reply I got was to the effect that no information other than that obtained through the ordinary channels of information had reached Her Majesty's Government; but that steps had been taken to insure these insects being examined to discover whether it was the formidable insect to which reference had been made. I will take care to inform him of the result of these inquiries, and I hope it will turn out there is no truth in it.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLhoped the Government would undertake that the next Order of the Day (the Indian Loans Bill) would not be proceeded with.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Certainly not.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee of Supply."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION (IRELAND).—OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he did not propose, at that late hour, to go on with the Motion which stood in his name; but he desired to correct an impression which was current in this country. He had proposed to call attention to the severe agricultural distress now existing in Ireland, and to move—
  "That the power of landlords to exact by eviction in times of scarcity the rents imposed upon tenants in prosperous times is a fertile source of discontent and dissatisfaction, and a gross violation of natural justice and equity."
  County after county in Ireland had placed on record, by great public meetings, its sense of the imminence and seriousness of the crisis; and, accompanying these protests, had been declarations in favour of a reduction in rents. It had been represented in this country that the demand of these meetings was in favour of the abolition of rents and the non-payment of rents. He was not going into the question; he only wished to place on record his emphatic testimony—which was also the emphatic testimony of many Irish Members—that
  1374
  no such cry was being raised in Ireland. In England, reductions of rent, to the honour of landlords, were taking place, while in Ireland that was only happening to a very limited extent. An idea was abroad that Communism was prevalent in Ireland. He only wished to say again that no such thing had been mentioned at public meetings, and that all the tenant farmers asked and pleaded for was a just reduction of rents in some proportion to the severe and exceptional crisis.
  MR. P. MARTINsaid, he wished to correct a misapprehension which appeared to exist as to the extent and nature of the demand made by Irish tenants for fixity of tenure. If Englishmen moved amongst the farming class in Ireland and attended their meetings, as he had done, they would find no desire existed amongst the farmers as a class to become the possessors of property by unfair means. They simply claimed legal protection and safety of tenure in their holdings, and an adjustment of rents on fair and equitable terms. Various causes peculiar to Ireland rendered it necessary that legislative protection should be given against capricious or arbitrary rent-raising by giving the tenant the power of appeal in the matter of rent to some important tribunal. The justice and expediency of this had been conceded in principle by many Members who, though opponents of the measure brought in by the Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) had themselves, in this very Session, introduced Bills which professed to prevent the landlord from arbitrarily imposing on a tenant such conditions in respect to his holding as the landlord thought fit to impose. It was idle to attempt to represent the claim thus made as communistic in its character. It was but too true that strong and uncalled-for expressions had been used by the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but he (Mr. P. Martin) could not believe that the sentiments of the Chief Secretary had the assent of the Government, and they were certainly at variance with the expressed opinions of many Members who sat on his own side. Indeed, so far as related to the Land Question in the Province of Ulster, there had been presented already by Conservative Members, obedient to the command of those who occupied the Ministerial Benches, a succession of

  1375
  Tenant Eight Bills, which, if they meant anything, were Bills to settle, on equitable bases, the grievances under which the tenant farmers suffered. Actual support was given by the Government to a Bill to create tenant right in the Northern Province at the expiration of, and notwithstanding the contract created by, lease. It was high time for the House to give a fair consideration to the demands made by the tenantry in the other Provinces in Ireland. If it was imagined that there was a general outcry for the abolition of rents in Ireland, the House was utterly deceived, and any man who asserted it was giving false information. What the farmers had asked in their meetings was the same thing as that stated over and over again in that House. What they wanted in the other parts of Ireland was the extension of the Ulster custom in its pristine integrity. In Ireland a totally different state of things existed, as compared with England. In Ireland they had not a resident gentry to aid their tenants in times of difficulty; but in too many instances they had completely absentee proprietors, who looked only to the amount of the rent-roll. The tenants, he admitted, had prejudiced their interests by over-bidding for land; but how could that be helped, when the land was the only resource to which they could look? In Ireland they had no manufacturing pursuits, and so they were compelled to over-bid for land. It was all very well to praise freedom of contract in the abstract. But the question was, having regard to the circumstances and past history of Ireland, and the tenure of land in that country, was that principle to be permitted uncontrolled power in regulating dealings in land? On the contrary, over and over again, it had asserted that it could not. He heartily believed that if the House would carefully and diligently search out an equitable adjustment of this difficulty, the great number of those speeches preaching disaffection to British rule would be at an end, and the Irish people would see that Parliament was anxious to arrive at the true solution of the difficulty. Tenant right had created the prosperity of the North. Why not, then, boldly extend it to the rest of Ireland? Was it likely to spread content that the Government should sanction a Bill which caused in the Northern part
  1376
  of the Island tenant right to spring into existence, despite contract, and to leave in the other parts of Ireland the tenant at the mercy of the landlord? Why, then, should not one law be applied to the whole country? Let similar principles in respect to tenant right prevail over the entire country. The Bill of the noble Lord the Member for the County Down (Lord Arthur Hill-Trevor) gave a convincing proof of the esteem in which the Ulster custom was held; and he trusted the Government would extend, perpetuate, and strengthen that custom, not merely in the North, but over the entire country.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

    CLASS VI.—SUPERANNUATION AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES, AND GRATUITIES FOR CHARITABLE AND OTHER PURPOSES.
    (1.) £22,150, to complete the sum for Merchant Seamen's Fund, Pensions, &c.
    (2.) £23,100, to complete the sum for Relief of Distressed British Seamen Abroad.
    (3.) £395,000, Pauper Lunatics, England.
    MR. RAMSAYcalled attention to the annual increase in this Vote. He had suggested to the Secretary to the Treasury, on a previous occasion, that any further increase in this Vote should not be allowed, and that a fixed sum should be paid, averaged on the payments of the last three years. Unless the Government would determine to stop this increase, he should consider it right to make a strong objection to the grant, and to obstruct the Vote.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he could not give the definite pledge asked for by the hon. Gentleman. So long as the principle was maintained that the rate per head should be contributed by the Government, so long, he thought, it would be fair to ask for this Vote. He was quite aware there was a possibility that cases might be brought into the asylums which would not be there but for this Vote. [Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH: No, no!]

    1377
    His right hon. Friend said that was not the case, and that the grant was not treated in that way; and he could only conclude, therefore, that the increase was a proof that lunacy was on the increase in the country. He thought it was only fair that the Government should assist the localities in keeping up these asylums; and, under these circumstances, he trusted the Committee would accept the Vote.
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, the hon. Gentleman was labouring under a mistake in assuming that the number of lunatics was on the increase. He denied that there was any foundation for such a statement. This increase was caused by the introduction of persons who properly should not be the recipients of curative treatment. Only such persons as there was a prospect of curing should be in the asylums. His opinion was borne out by the whole of the evidence taken before the Select Committee which sat upstairs; and if that were so, what justification could there be for permitting the annual increase of this grant? It was quite true that Parliament had sanctioned this grant per head; but that was no reason why it should be made permanent, and it was to its permanence and unnecessary increase that he objected. There should not be this annual increase without some corresponding advantage to the community. He admitted that it was the will of Parliament that it should be so; but he thought the principle was unsound on which the contribution was based.
    MR. SOLATER-BOOTHcould not admit for a moment that the state of these lunatics was not the subject of constant and earnest attention on the part of himself and his officials. So far as his observation and judgment went, it was not the fact that lunatics were detained in public asylums who ought not, by law, to be so. In the opinion and judgment of some hon. Members, there were many persons who would be better elsewhere; but according to the law and practice of England, on which the lunatic asylums were established, these persons had a right to be there, and they could not be removed without a change in the law. They were sent to the asylums by the authority of the magistrates, and there was not the slightest reason to suppose that any collusion or malpractices prevailed.
    MR. WHITWELLsaid, the number of lunatics was clearly increasing, and in Scotland, especially, there was a constant increase. This year, the increase was 1,500. He hoped it would not be the case next year, too; but if it were, right hon. Gentlemen ought to feel it almost absolutely necessary to make some special Report on the matter. It was most unfortunate this large Vote was to be taken and passed at 2 o'clock in the morning, on a subject which required great consideration. But he was afraid, under the circumstances, they could not do otherwise than pass it.
    MAJOR NOLANthought this contribution by Government to the cost of asylums most admirable, and he had very little doubt that the whole of the Irish Members would always support such a Vote. He did not believe there was an increase in the number of lunatics in the country. The apparent increase was due to the fact that the lunatics went from the cottages to the asylums, which was a very good thing. They were very much out of place in the poor dwellings of their relatives. They were much happier in the asylums, and it was much pleasanter for their friends.
    MR. A. MOOREsaid, he had no doubt that this was the true explanation of the increase in the numbers. These poor creatures were taken from their own homes, where they could not possibly be attended to, and placed in proper institutions. He demurred entirely to the statement that only cases which could be cured should be placed in asylums. What was, then, to be done with incurable lunatics? He might point out that while there had been a positive decrease in the number in Ireland, and only a small increase in the number in England, there had been an increase of eight times the number in Scotland.
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, all these statements justified his belief that there was no absolute increase in the number of lunatics, but that people were getting their patients off their hands by sending them to these institutions, where they were locked up. He did not confine his remarks to England, but made the same complaint as to Scotland. The same causes were in operation there. As long as this system was permitted to continue, so long would they find this

    1379
    grant increase. Whatever hon. Members might say, he believed that incurable lunatics were much better in private houses than when confined in asylums.
    Vote agreed to.
    (4.) £71,760, Pauper Lunatics, Scotland.
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, he had some remarks to make on this Vote. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but he believed they laughed simply because of their ignorance of the importance of the subject; and he said that with the greatest respect for those who took an interest in this matter. He maintained that the great increase in Scotland showed that there was something wrong in this Vote. ["Agreed, agreed!"] Indeed, he was by no means agreed, and if he were troubled with these remarks of impatience he should take the first opportunity of moving to report Progress.
    MR. P. MARTINsaid, he admired the adroitness with which Scotch Members appropriated so large a portion, of public money and took care to be the first to complain when they thought they could be with justice assailed. Therefore, no doubt, his hon. Friend the Member for the Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ramsay) knowing well that a long standing Irish wrong existed which had been inflicted by the authorities in Scotland in sending over to Ireland each year Irish-born pauper lunatics, often dangerous, and obliged to be kept in chains during the passage, was wisely the first to criticize this Vote. The cruelty and illegality of this practice on the part of the Poor Law authorities in Scotland had been condemned over and over again in the Reports of the Irish Local Government Board. He trusted the remonstrances made would not be without effect. If any further instances of these illegal and cruel deportations come to his knowledge he would next year move to reduce the Vote.
    Vote agreed to.
    (5.) £22,095, to complete the sum for Pauper Lunatics, Ireland.
    MAJOR NOLANasked whether any Bill was to be brought in to deal with the appointment of governors? Four years ago it was complained that the system
    1380
    was unsatisfactory by which the Lord Lieutenant appointed to these offices. That was hardly a good system; and though he knew it could not be done this Session he hoped if there was another Session the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would bring in a separate Bill proposing some other arrangement.
    MR. J. LOWTHERwas understood to say that either a separate Bill would be brought in, or the matter would be dealt with in the Grand Juries Bill.
    Vote agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £11,647, 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 1880, for the support of certain Hospitals and Infirmaries in Ireland."
    MR. A. MOOREsaid, the Vote was for hospitals and infirmaries under the control of the Board of Superintendence; but one portion of the money was entirely outside the control of that body. It was the last item—£500, for the Female Orphan House. He wanted to know why the Vote was placed before Parliament in a manner which was not candid and not straightforward. He was not speaking of the present Administration, for the Vote had gone on for many years; but he wished to point out, however, that this money was voted as being administered under the Board of Superintendence, whereas this institution was not under the control of that Board.
    MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, this contribution had been made ever since the Act of Union, and he hardly thought the hon. Gentleman would like to disturb the arrangement. This formed a separate Vote at one time; but many years ago it was added to this Vote. He believed the institution thoroughly deserved support.
    MR. A. MOOREsaid, the right hon. Gentleman could not mean to say he was going to laugh out the question in a manner like that. This Vote was placed before the country as being under the authority of the Board of Superintendence, whereas it was not so.
    MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he would inquire into the matter.
    MR. GRAYasked some Member of the Government to tell him where this House was, and what it was?
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, the House was in the Circular Road, Dublin. It was supposed to hold about 200; but the number had since been limited to a smaller number. The Vote was begun in 1800, and had gone on ever since.
    MR. GRAYasked, whether the institution was devoted to any exclusive denomination? He knew most of the charitable institutions of Dublin, but could not recall this one to his recollection. The only one he remembered was one in South Richmond Street, outside which were most offensive placards with regard to the Catholic religion. That could not be the institution referred to. Was there any distinction on account of creed made at this House?
    MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, the only distinction he knew of was that males were not admitted.
    MR. P. MARTINsaid, they were not to be cajoled in that way. His hon. Friend (Mr. A. Moore) had clearly hit a blot, and from this great reticence of the Government a suspicion was springing up in his mind that there was something wrong about this Vote. He should require some further information, or he would move to reduce the Vote by that amount.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, perhaps he did not give the Committee so much information as he might have done; but, at any rate, he gave it all the information he possessed. This Female Orphan House was established by the Latouche family in 1790, and it was incorporated by Statute in 1800. The original buildings were erected by private subscription, and there were Votes to it from various grants from Parliament between 1815 and 1817. Very nearly £4,000 was voted for alterations. The House was situated in Circular Road, Dublin, and originally held 200; but the Government limited the number to 160. But the number in the House in March, 1878, was only 71. The children were instructed in reading, writing, the simple rules of arithmetic, geography, history, plain and fancy needlework, laundry work, and other things, for the purpose of fitting them for situations as servants, in which capacity they were always apprenticed.
    1382
    The income consisted of the interest on securities, £380; the nation's subscription, £200; annuities, £117; church collections, £240; and sundries, £30; making in all, £967. In the annual grant-in-aid of £500, the Vote was £1,675 till up to the years 1834–5; from then till 1848–9 it was £1,000; and after that date it sunk to £500, at which it had remained ever since. This Vote was then a Vote by Committees up till 1856–7; afterwards it was placed on the Estimates, where it remained until the formation of the general Estimate now under consideration, and it was then put among the other hospitals and charities.
    MR. A. MOOREthought it would be a pity to divide; but he had no doubt this was a very old and respectable job, and it was time it was looked into. He was not prepared to charge the people who received this money with proselytism; but he did know this Vote was strictly sectarian, and that only children of one religion were admitted. If the Government would undertake to bring this institution under proper inspection, so that they might have security that the money was not being wasted, he would be satisfied; but without some such assurance as that he should certainly divide.
    MR. GRAYsaid, the Vote could not be passed in its present form, for this institution was assuredly neither an hospital nor an infirmary. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had probably overlooked the question whether this institution was confined to members of any particular religion. He was curious to know whether the Charter confined it to any particular denomination. He tolerably well understood now what sort of place this was, from the description, given.
    MR. CALLANsaid, the statement in Thom's Directory was, that this was a Female Orphan House for destitute female children. It accommodated 120 children. Orphans from any part of Ireland were eligible. Besides being lodged, clothed, and maintained, they were provided with religious instruction. He would like to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland the nature of that religious instruction—whether it was exclusively sectarian, and whether the place had proselytizing tendencies?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (MR. GIBSON)said, he did not think it was any part of the duties of the Attorney General to know the teaching of every orphan school in Ireland. If, however, the chaplain was the Rev. Digby Cook, whom he knew to be a Protestant clergyman of high character, he assumed that it was mainly a Protestant institution. He did not know whether, by its constitution, it was confined exclusively to the children of Protestants; but he believed it was very well managed, and he was not aware it had ever been mixed up with proselytizing tendencies.
    MR. CALLANasked, whether any similar institution of strictly denominational character received a public grant of money? They had heard a good deal about giving money to public institutions not subject to inspection; and he thought it would be far better that this Vote should be postponed till the ordinary Irish Estimates next week, in order that this might be inquired into. He himself was under the impression that the Irish Votes were not to be taken till next week.
    MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that had never been stated from that Bench.
    MR. CALLANthought he had heard something to that effect.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONwas in the recollection of hon. Members that he distinctly said he would take non-contentious Votes, and that Irish Votes would be taken on Monday. He maintained that the Government had given very full and distinct information about this Vote, and there could be no mistake from its being put under this head. It was the object of the Treasury in preparing Estimates to get them into distinct classes, and it would be hardly worth the trouble to treat this one sum as a separate Estimate.
    MR. RAMSAYthought the suggestion that this orphanage should be under inspection in some way was worthy attention. He, however, thought, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that this might be an excellent institution and very well managed. He begged to point out that while all this money was given to Ireland no corresponding grant was made to Scotland. That statement would relieve some of his hon. Friends of the feeling that Scotland was seeking what she was not willing to give to Ireland.
    MAJOR NOLANobserved, that his hon. Friend was wrong. This grant was guaranteed under the act of Union, and Scotland enjoyed similar grants under her Act, although they did not run in the same way.
    MR. J. LOWTHERcould not admit that by placing this Vote in this place there had been any attempt to mislead the Committee; but he would promise to look into the matter, and, if necessary, to remove the Vote to another place.
    MR. A. MOOREsaid, the Committee had been misled, because it was represented that this money passed through the Board of Superintendence when it did not. This being an institution for children, it could not be called an hospital or an infirmary; but it might be put under the head of "Industrial Schools." However, as the Government had promised to look into the matter, they might very well let the Vote pass.
    MR. GRAYcould not understand how a school could properly be described as an hospital. [An hon. MEMBER: Christ's.] The title was misleading; and it was also a mistake to set this Vote forth as subject to the Board of Superintendence.
    MR. P. MARTINpointed out that this Vote was stated as an entailed application of monies to be expended and accounted for under, and pursuant to, the provisions of the 19 & 20 Vict. c. 110, s. 16. But it was now plain this was a mistake. The institution was not one of those contemplated by the Statute, or under the control of the Board thereby appointed. It was established and maintained for the reception and education, apparently, only of those orphans willing to be brought up and trained as Protestants. The Committee had been given no valid reason why this exclusively denominational grant should be continued. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in fairness, he could proceed with this Vote or whether he would not postpone it till they had more full information about it?
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, this all seemed to him very much like a storm in a tea-cup. What were the real facts? By a clause in the Act of Union, the United Kingdom was bound to provide a sum which had formerly been granted by the Parliament of Ireland. Amongst the institutions which the Parliament of Ireland handed over on this condition to the Estimates

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    was this Female Orphan House. When, as far back as 1866, these Votes, which in the old days appeared separately, were collected together in one particular Estimate, and that, he ventured to say, was as fair a way as any that could be suggested. The description of each particular Vote clearly showed to any impartial man that the total was absolutely expressed in each one of the sub-heads, and the Vote was very fully explained.
    MR. RAMSAYbegged to point out, with regard to the remarks of his hon. and gallant Friend (Major Nolan), that the amount given to the Colleges and Universities of Scotland under the Act of Union was paid in consideration of property which those institutions possessed, and which was taken from them.
    MR. BIGGARmoved to report Progress. They were promised that no contentious Votes should be taken, and this was a very contentious Vote. The only thing they could do was to go home. It was very irregular to vote large sums of money at that time in the morning.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Biggar.)
    MR. CALLANsaid, he found that this was an estimate of the amount required in the year ending 31st March, 1880, for charges connected with hospitals and infirmaries in Ireland under Act 19 & 20 Vict. c. 110, s. 16. He apprehended they were bound by that previous Vote. Now, on referring to the Act named, he found it was an Act for the better regulation of houses of industry, hospitals, and other places in Dublin supported wholly or in part by Parliamentary grants, and he found that Section 17, by which this Vote was legalized, was to the following effect:—
    "In case the Board of Superintendence shall neglect to make such General Rules for the space of three months after being required to do so by the Lord Lieutenant, it shall be lawful for the Lord Lieutenant, by writing under the hand of the Chief or Under Secretary for Ireland for the time being, to make such General Rules, and from time to time to repeal, alter, or add to the same."
    Where in all this was there any authority for the Vote to the orphanage? Either this Vote had been placed where it was in ignorance, or it had been placed there by the assistants who had prepared it, for the purpose of misleading
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    the House. It must be one of these two things. It was either then through ignorance, or for a worse purpose. However, he would only say, as far as these secretaries were concerned, and he would protect himself under no privilege in stating it, that he believed nothing was beyond their capability. He would certainly support the Motion to report Progress, for he thought it was only respectful to Parliament that the Chief Secretary should make some further inquiries.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, assuming this orphanage to come under the description of a hospital, the section was clearly wide enough to include it. It was a question of fact whether or not this particular orphanage was under the control of the Board. [Mr. A. MOORE: It is not.] Did the hon. Member speak of his own knowledge? [Mr. A. MOORE: There is a Parliamentary Paper on the subject.] He would put this Vote on broad grounds. It was obliged to be on the Estimates in consequence of a usage handed down to them from old times, beginning at or before the Act of Union. The institution was well managed, and was not in the slightest degree proselytizing, and if any further information were wanted it should be forthcoming frankly and freely.
    MR. GRAYpointed out that the specific direction that all these hospitals should be placed under the Board of Superintendence was not complied with. Section 18 also directed that the Board should make a special Report upon each charity, which should be submitted to Parliament. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL, for IRELAND (Mr. Gibson): Except when the Charter is inconsistent.] Clearly, at any rate, the Act was not complied with.
    MR. A. MOOREsaid, he had spoken to a member of the Dublin Hospital Board, and asked him why they did not report on this institution, and the reply was that they knew nothing about it. The money did not go through their Office, and that they had, therefore, nothing to report upon.
    MR. MELDONasked for the ruling of the Chairman on a point of Order. It was stated that this Vote was asked for under the authority of an Act of Parliament, and the Committee had no power to vote a single farthing unless it was to be spent under that Act. The Act which had been read provided that

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    certain money which, had been granted should be spent upon certain institutions under the control of the Board of Superintendence. Assuming that this was a hospital, and assuming everything else, except the one point which had been proved that this hospital was not under the control of the Board of Super-intendance, he would ask, whether it was in the power of the Committee to vote this money? He certainly submitted it was not.
    THE CHAIRMAN (Mr. SALT): There is no question before the Committee as to the legality of the Vote. It has been put in this way for many years, founded upon an Act of Parliament and custom, and I can see that it is perfectly legitimate that the Vote should be put before the Committee as it is drawn up in the Estimates.
    MR. MELDONsaid, it had only now been pointed out, for the first time, that this Vote did not come under the Act of Parliament, and that this money was not under the control of the Board.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, assuming that this institution was covered by the definition of an hospital, and assuming that it got the money appropriated by Parliament, it would certainly come within the terms of this Act. It was another question whether the provisions of the Act were complied with; but that would not, in the slightest degree, impair the accuracy of the description at the head of the Vote. He would suggest to hon. Members that it was only reasonable they should allow this Vote to pass now, and on the Report either he or the Chief Secretary would be prepared to state exactly how the Vote stood.
    MR. RAMSAYwas going to make the same suggestion in order to facilitate Business.
    MR. O'DONNELLhad no objection to this Vote in consequence of its denominational character; for he did not see how an institution could be properly called educational, if religion were excluded. He did not, therefore, at all object to the item on that ground, even although there was no corresponding institution for Catholics; but he quite agreed that they should know whether the money was expended properly and under proper control.
    MR. P. MARTINsaid, that was the real point. Was this Vote under the
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    control of the Board, or was it not? It was conceded now it was not. He did not consider the Committee had been given the information they were entitled to demand. If the Vote was not postponed, he trusted the Motion would not be abandoned.
    MR. J. LOWTHERthought that it was better to postpone the Vote for the present.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £123,944, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1880, to make good the sum by which the interest accrued in the year ended 20th November 1878, from Securities held by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, on account of 'The Fund for the Banks for Saving' and 'The Fund for Friendly Societies,' is insufficient to meet the interest which the said Commissioners are obliged by Statute to pay and credit, during such latter mentioned year to the trustees of Savings Banks, and to Friendly Societies respectively."
    MR. E. W. HARCOURT: Sir, before this Vote is allowed, I think it should be considered from what source the money which is asked for comes, and whether the transfer of this money is for the benefit of the people. I think this question is a social question of great importance, and social questions are apt to be put too much out of sight at present. All questions of this sort, which involve the well-being of great masses of the people, must be of great interest to every one of us. I will, therefore, ask the Committee to bear with me for a short time, while I attempt to lay the present position of Post Office Savings Banks briefly before them; and if that indulgence is granted, my grateful thanks will be due to the Committee, as I am aware the subject is a very dry one. All those who take any interest in encouraging thrift amongst the working classes must thankfully acknowledge that the Post Office Savings Banks are doing a great work in the country. What we wish to argue is that that work is capable of great extension. The Post Office authorities have laid down that Post Office Savings Banks can only be established where Money Order Offices exist. The consequence is that many places are permanently excluded from the benefit

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    of Post Office Savings Banks. It would be impossible now to enter into any general statistics; but I will take the example of Cambridgeshire, which represents a fair average of the counties in England. In this county, we find that there is a Post Office in every 7 square miles, and a Post Office Savings Bank in every 22 square miles; that the places where there are Post Offices and no Post Office Savings Banks are as 81 to 38, rather less than two to one—that is to say, that one-third of the population are without Post Office Savings Banks. In 51 places there are no Post Offices, and the ratio of persons enjoying the advantages of Post Office Savings Banks are 11 to 7. 117,095 persons have Post Offices and Post Office Savings Banks; 58,388 have Post Offices, but are from 1 to 6 miles from a Post Office Savings Bank; 16,600 have no Post Offices, and are from 1 to 6 miles from Post Office Savings Banks. The sizes of places having Post Offices but no Post Office Savings Banks vary very much; and 2 may be named which, having populations each of over 2,000 people, are 4 and 6 miles respectively from Post Office Savings Banks. Many places, also, with Post Offices are smaller than those without them. Now, it is quite true that individual benevolence and individual energy often supply the wants that are created by the Post Office. I say created, because I think that sins of omission are as great as sins of commission. My contention is, that to depend upon individuals is not satisfactory. I could, if there were time, give instances of cases where the best intentions have been thwarted by want of capacity, want of order, want of business habits, and untrustworthiness of agents. I know of one collector who received 2s. 6d. on each subscription. The consequence was that, when £1 was offered him, he requested the donor to give him 5s. at a time, so that he might receive 2s. 6d. on each 5s. Another collector, who was parted with because it was supposed that he collected more than was required, set up for himself, no doubt, very much to his own advantage. I am well aware that the objection taken by the Post Office is a financial objection, and they say they are perfectly satisfied with the supplementary work which is being done for them by the public. It is very certain
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    that where no Money Order Offices exist a different class of Postmasters can be employed; and, of course, any alteration would involve the payment of higher salaries. It is quite true that an old woman with 50 s. per annum, and of average honesty, may be quite competent to pack letters and sell stamps, although she would not befit to manage the affairs of a Post Office Savings Bank. In passing, I may remark that even officers employed by the Government to superintend the Post Office Savings Banks are often very much underpaid, and the consequence is they sometimes shift for themselves. They lend to the poor at a higher interest than is given by the Post Office Savings Banks, and cases of repudiation are not unknown, whereby great discredit is brought upon the whole system. It ought to be a rule that all such traffickers should be dismissed at once and for ever from the Public Service. The remedy, I take it, for the financial difficulty is to be found in the employment of peripatetic officials. An office where a Post Office Savings Bank exists might send out to villages within a certain radius, one evening in the week, a clerk, at a small additional pay, to conduct the Savings Bank work for a couple of hours; and, I think, in localities where the want of such a convenience is felt, persons might be found who would be willing to guarantee any extra expense for the first year or two. If the principle is accepted, it might be worked out progressively, according to the experience of the Postmaster General, and I think there need be no displacement of those old ladies at 50s. per annum, who seem so dear to the Post Office. I do not think, either, that it is unfair to suppose that, as the Post Office is now making a profit of £150,000 per annum out of the Post Office Savings Bank, simply by the difference of interest given and received, and through not giving interest upon sums below £1, that an extension of business would bring an increase of profits. I know I shall be told that the Post Office has already tried the experiment of peripatetic officials; but I contend that their experiment was no fair test—it was only made for a short time upon a shifting population of navvies, and we all knew that habits of thrift take time to grow, and I think the experiment was worth-

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    less. Well, now, what is done with the profit of £150,000 per annum which is made upon Post Office Savings Banks? Why, it is used to bolster up the Old Savings Banks, and to enable them to pay a higher interest than they can afford; and it is also employed as a means of pensioning the old actuaries. I hold this to be a very unsound proceeding. I know that the Post Office cannot escape at once from its liabilities respecting the Old Savings Banks; but if the Post Office Savings Banks are encouraged, and if they are established wherever Post Offices exist, the Old Savings Banks would in time be absorbed by them; for even now difficulty is found in obtaining fresh trustees as the old ones die out. Where the object is to encourage thrift the means must be taken to the very doors. Those who know anything about it know that the poor will not trudge three, four, five, or six miles after it, particularly when that very attractive mode of investment, the public-house, is close at hand. Sir, I do not think it is Utopian to hope that a great Department, making large profits, should either of its own energy, or by the force of public opinion, be induced to enlarge its border, and to embrace under its operations a large and important part of the community which at present it professedly ignores. Sir, it is not enough for a Public Department, which has the power, if it has the will, to fold its arms and to say that sufficient good is being done privately. I have already contended that private enter-prize is not satisfactory. The Post Office may rejoice over the labours of others, but it cannot claim it as its own work. Such supineness is not creditable, and will not be treated with either respect or patience by the public. The Post Office can and ought to open a Post Office Savings Bank wherever a Post Office exists. It cannot shove off its own responsibilities on to the shoulders of others. The assistance to local penny banks given by the Post Office can only be looked upon as a makeshift; such is the system of registered letters, whereby sums may be transmitted to distant Post Office Savings Banks. This does nothing to improve the security, and I hold that the Post Office is bound to give to investors that security which no private enterprize can offer. The issue of invitations to invest by the Post Office
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    is well intended; but the fact is that villagers seldom read such documents, and still less seldom are influenced by them. It is impossible for me now to open the whole question of Post Office Savings Banks. Many improvements are urgently required; but at present I shall content myself with urging the one point respecting the opening of Post Office Savings Banks wherever Post Offices exist. I am well convinced of the possibility and expediency of this measure, and if I do not now succeed in convincing the Postmaster General, I do not despair of doing so at some future time; at any rate, my efforts will not cease until I have obtained my object, and with a view of bringing on a discussion on the subject, I now move, Sir, that the Vote before the Committee be reduced by a sum of £10,000.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, as his hon. Friend (Mr. Harcourt) was anxious to have a discussion, and, looking at the hour of the night, he would move to report Progress. ["Go on, go on!"]
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
    MR. BRUENhoped the Committee would take notice of the fact that the hon. Member who moved the count had himself gone out.
    MR. CALLANwished, as a matter of fact—["Order, order!"] He was rather anxious to call attention to a remark which had just been made. Surely, it was most unjust to object to the fact that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), after moving a count, should leave the House. Of course, to leave the House would be one of the modes of obtaining the object he had in view, and it was most unjust to try and make a marked man of him in that way.
    MR. MELDONsuggested that the Vote should be withdrawn, and that they should go on with the rest.
    MR. GRAYsaid, there was no desire on the part of the Irish Members to discuss the other Votes; and, therefore, if this one was postponed, the Committee

    1393
    would get through, the others in a few minutes and save time.
    MR. MONKthought they ought to support Her Majesty's Government in the Motion just made. It was rather too late to go on voting money.
    MR. WHITWELLalso hoped they would report Progress. The hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Harcourt) had brought up a very important and interesting subject, and the Vote was nearly £130,000. There was no one on that side of the House to support it.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 6; Noes 40: Majority 34.—(Div. List, No. 195.)
    Original Question again proposed.
    MAJOR O'GORMAN,addressing the Chair from his seat, and covered, said, the hon. Baronet who moved that Progress should be reported voted with the Noes, and therefore voted against his own Motion. It was quite true; he would ask the Chairman for his decision upon it, if he pleased.
    THE CHAIRMAN (Mr. SALT): I do not understand the hon. Baronet to challenge the decision.
    MAJOR O'GORMAN: The hon. Baronet moved that you report Progress, and then voted against the Motion himself.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Not when the Question was put.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON: When the Question was put from the Chair, before the Division, I did not challenge it.
    MR. CALLAN: It is the rule that when a hon. Member moves any Motion that he shall vote for that Motion, and especial notice has been taken of Members of this House which Members have voted against a Motion which they have themselves proposed.
    MR. MELDON: I understand, Sir, you have given your decision on the point of Order.
    MR. BIGGAR: I do not know what the Government mean to do. They do not know their mind on any subject. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed just now about to rise, and then he changed his mind and did not do it. I do not know whether the Government intend that
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    we should report Progress after moving it themselves.
    MAJOR O'GORMAN: I beg, most respectfully, Sir, to suggest that you do your duty.
    MR. MELDON: I think the hon. and gallant Member is out of Order in moving that you do leave the Chair with no Question before the House. The proper course is to put the next Vote, when it will be open to the hon. and gallant Member, if he should think fit, to move it.
    THE CHAIRMAN (Mr. SALT): There is a Question before the House which is a Motion for a Vote, upon which some discussion has already taken place, and during which discussion a Motion was made to report Progress. I did not understand the hon. and gallant Member to move that I do leave the Chair.
    MAJOR O'GORMAN: Will you have the goodness to understand it now, Sir? ["Order, order!"]
    MR. CALLANbegged to second the Motion on these grounds. The Government, through the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, had moved that Progress be reported, and then, in consequence of some inexplicable reason—unprecedented during his (Mr. Callan's) previous experience—they did not ask leave to withdraw the Motion, but they absolutely voted against it.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."—(Major O'Gorman.)
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: There can be no doubt that the hon. and gallant Member is perfectly in his right in his Motion. With reference to what has just passed, I will point out what the real facts are. There seemed to be, or, at any rate, the Government were under the impression, that there was a desire on the part of the Committee to go on. We were not at all desirous to keep the Committee sitting against the wish of the majority of hon. Members, and, accordingly, my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury moved that the Chairman do report Progress. When that Question had been once put there was no power to withdraw it, and it had necessarily to be decided. But there happened, what so often happens. It appeared from the general conversation, and especially from observations made by the hon. and learned Member oppo-

    1395
    site (Mr. Meldon), and the hon. Member near him (Mr. Gray), and some others, that it was the desire of the large number of Members to make some Progress. Of course, we are quite ready to sit, and we thought it was the wish of others to do so; but the course proposed is that we should postpone the Vote, and then, if the Committee are willing to take the next two Votes, we should be glad to do so. Perhaps, the hon. and gallant Gentleman will withdraw his Motion.
    MR. CALLANsaid, that at 20 minutes to 4 he thought they ought not to raise an important discussion, and, therefore, he did object to take these Votes. Personally, he should be very glad to facilitate Business; but on the next Vote he wanted to raise a discussion he could not raise at that hour.
    MR. MONKsaid, he was not at all aware why he had been called upon as one of the Tellers for the Ayes. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury had been guilty of a great irregularity; and they had had, in consequence, a very disagreeable scene in the Committee. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Harcourt) was in possession of the Committee, when the Secretary to the Treasury rose, and interrupted him by moving to report Progress; he was entirely out of Order in so doing. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire, when it was decided that there was a full Committee, was in possession of the Committee; and, therefore, it was irregular for the hon. Baronet to move that Progress be reported. But having made that Motion, and given his voice in favour of adjournment, it was certainly a great irregularity on his part to vote against his own Motion. The Leader of the House had certainly not in any way mended the matter by the explanation he had just given. He (Mr. Monk) and his hon. Friend the Member for Kendal voted against going on with the Committee, because they did not think Votes of this amount and of this nature ought to be brought on at half-past 3 in the morning.
    MR. GRAYsaid, there was a very decided and unanimous expression of opinion that two Votes, which would involve no discussion, might be taken, and it was entirely due to the suggestions made by himself and his hon. Friends that confusion had arisen. Especially, he was concerned to be a party
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    to making the suggestion, and he was very sorry it had involved the confusion whitch had arisen.
    MAJOR O'GORMANbegged to withdraw his Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question, by leave, withdrawn.
    House resumed.
    Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next;
    Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  PUBLIC WORKS LOANS (NO. 2) BILL.
  Resolutions [July 24] reported, and agreed to:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER and Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 260.]

  BURGHS (SCOTLAND).
  Address for "Return showing the rental of each of the Royal Burghs of Scotland according to the Lands Valuation Act for the year from Whitsunday 1878 to "Whitsunday 1879 within the boundaries of the royalty of each Burgh as such boundaries existed before the passing of the Act 3 and 4 Will. 4, c. 77, and in which the Magistrates and Town Councils had the power of levying stent or Land Tax."—(Mr. M'Laren.)

  SHIPPING CASUALTIES INVESTIGATIONS RE-HEARING BILL.
  On Motion of Viscount SANDON, Bill to provide for the Re-hearing of Investigations into Shipping Casualties, and to amend the Rules as to the mode of holding and procedure at such Investigations, ordered to be brought in by Viscount SANDON and Mr. J. G. TALBOT.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 262.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before Four o'clock in the morning till Monday next.