Commons Sitting of 17 June 1879

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee —Resolutions [June 16] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS — Second Reading — Linen and Hempen Manufactures (Ireland)* [202].
Committee—Army Discipline and Regulation [88]—R.P.
Third Reading—Bills of Sale (Ireland) * [45],and passed.
The House met at Two of the clock.

QUESTIONS.
  NEWCASTLE—THE WEAVERS TOWER.

    QUESTION.
    MR. PERCY WYNDHAMasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether in the matter of the threatened destruction of the Weavers Tower at Newcastle, the Lords of the Treasury had stated their opinion that its destruction ought not to take place except upon the decision of a clear majority of the whole number of the Council; whether he was aware that its destruction had been carried by a majority of one of the whole number of the Council; and, whether under the circumstances the Lords of the Treasury would not again interfere?
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON: Sir, the Lords of the Treasury did express an opinion that the destruction of the building should not occur, except upon the decision of a clear majority of the whole number of the Town Council. I am informed by the Town Clerk that the Council when fully constituted consists of 64 members. When the discussion was held about the Weavers Tower there were two vacancies, reducing the numbers to 62. Of these, 48 were present at the meeting, 32 voted for the destruction, 6 against, and 10 declined to vote. The Treasury has no power to interfere further in the matter, as it has already signified its assent to the scheme for the free library, subject to a recommendation that the question of preserving the tower should be decided only by a clear majority of the Council. As only six members out of 62 were found to vote for the preservation, the division must be regarded as a decisive expression of local opinion, and I believe I may
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    say that the leader of the former opposition to the proposal was not prepared to object to the decision come to at the last meeting.

  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1875—COUNTY OF DONEGAL.

    QUESTIONS.
    THE MARQUESS OF HAMILTONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether, having regard to the peaceable state of the county of Donegal, the Government have any intention of withdrawing the extra Police Force which has been stationed in Fannet consequent upon the murder of the late Lord Leitrim?
    MR. J. LOWTHER,in reply, said, he must remind the noble Lord of what really took place in Donegal. There was a murder, to which it was not necessary to refer further than to call attention to the fact that three persons, including the late Lord Leitrim, were deliberately murdered under circumstances which could not leave any reasonable doubt in the mind of any candid observer that the facts connected with it were matters of notoriety in the county. Notwithstanding the offer of a very substantial, he might say, in fact, almost unprecedented, reward, no evidence whatever was forthcoming. Certain persons against whom there was primâ facie evidence were arrested on suspicion; but the evidence was not sufficient to justify the Government in putting them on their trial, and when released they were received with something in the nature of a popular ovation. Under these circumstances, it appeared to him that the neighbourhood was very justly charged with the cost of maintaining the police force which was considered necessary for the security of the district. It also appeared that persons who had no right whatever upon certain lands had, contrary to law, returned to those lands, which it seemed they had formerly occupied, and that otherwise resistance had been made to the execution of the law. The Government did not, therefore, think they would be justified in reducing the police force of the district. With regard to the contribution of the inhabitants towards the cost of maintaining the police, the Government did not intend to enforce payment of the tax now becoming due, provided any further

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    attempt to resist the authorities was abandoned. If peace was restored in the district, no further contribution would be levied; but if any further attempt should be made to resist the law, the tax would be enforced.
    MR. SULLIVAN: Might I be allowed to ask the right hon. Gentleman, when he says that persons re-entered on the lands contrary to law, Whether there is any other case except that of a respected Presbyterian lady, the Widow Algoe, and if so, what are the other cases; and, also, I wish to ask, why the persons against whom there was not sufficient evidence were not brought to trial; and, furthermore, when the innocent men who so long suffered in prison were released, if any recompense were made to them?
    MR. PARNELL: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the Question, I would ask him, Whether any contribution has as yet been levied or collected for the maintenance of this extra police?
    MR. J. LOWTHER: A contribution has been levied, and partially collected. As to the Question of the hon. and learned Member for Louth, I cannot, of course, without notice, give details; but the information we have received is to the effect that there have been several such cases. As to the reasons why those persons to whom he refers were not brought to trial, I stated that there was sufficient primâ facie evidence to justify their committal; but we could go no further. Conviction is a very different matter.
    MR. SULLIVAN: Then may I understand that these men have been discharged, there being no case to warrant their being put on their trial; and, if so, are they not innocent persons in the eyes of the law?
    MR. J. LOWTHER: Sir, I must really refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the Law Officers of the Grown, if he wishes to know precisely the law on the subject; but what has taken place is this—those persons were committed for trial; they were not put on trial, but they were not discharged.

    SOUTH AFRICA—THE ZULU WAR—FLOGGING.—QUESTIONS.
    MR. O'DONNELLasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his at-
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    tention has been directed to the statement of the Special Correspondent of the "Cape Times" published in the "Echo" of June the 12th, who writes from the Lower Tugela that—
    "There has been a good deal of flogging in the camp and on the march since the reinforcements were landed in Natal. Three of the Buff's were tied up on Tuesday morning, and the 88th, I hear, have had quite a festival of cats on the banks of the Tugela?"
    COLONEL STANLEY,in reply, said, that beyond the statements which had appeared in the newspapers, to which the hon. Member referred, he had received no information on the subject. He would, however, direct inquiries to be made with reference to it.
    MR. CALLANasked, if information in regard to such allegations would not be sent as a matter of course to the Horse Guards, with directions to make inquiry?
    COLONEL STANLEY: I can only repeat that I have no information on the matter.

    REPRODUCTIVE LOANS FUND (IRELAND) ACT —LOANS TO IRISH FISHERIES.—QUESTIONS.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWERasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, When the loans recommended, under the Irish Re-productive Loans Fund Act, by the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries, will be made in the district of Mulranny, County Mayo; and, whether he can give an assurance that loans of this description will be issued by the Board of Works without unnecessary delay, in all cases where the required guarantees have been given?
    MR. J. LOWTHER: Sir, as soon as the legal formalities have been gone through these loans will be made; but with regard to the particular case of Mulranny in the County Mayo, the Report of the Inspectors was made on the 6th of this month, and the matter is in course of being arranged.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWER: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman answers the latter part of the Question, and I may remark his answer gives no light as to the probable date when the loans may be expected. The Board of Works, no doubt, will do so, when these formalities have been complied with; but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will say at what time.
    MR. J. LOWTHER: What I stated was, that in the case of the particular loans referred to, the Report of the Inspectors approving of them was delivered on the 6th of the month. Therefore, in this case, no unnecessary delay has occurred; and I hope in a very few days the matter will be arranged. As regards the general question of unnecessary delay, I am assured it is the intention of the Board to avoid any delay, necessary or unnecessary, as soon as the formalities have been complied with.

  ARMY—RELATIVES OF MARRIED SOLDIERS PENSIONS.

    QUESTION.
    COLONEL COLTHURSTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will consider the desirability of allowing a pension to the widows and orphans of soldiers married with leave, and who have re-engaged after completion of twelve years' service?
    COLONEL STANLEY: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman means to ask whether I have prepared any scheme for allowing the pensions to which he refers, I cannot say that that is the case. Of course, the question of the desirableness of allowing such pensions has often been considered; but they have never been granted generally, and I fear that the enormous cost and difficulty of their payment would prove a very great bar to the adoption of any such scheme.

    HYPOTHEC ABOLITION (SCOTLAND) BILL.—QUESTION.
    MR. VANS AGNEWasked the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire, Whether, considering that the Members representing Scottish constituencies have in this Session voted in favour of the Second Reading of the Hypothec Abolition (Scotland) Bill in the proportion of forty-seven to two, ho will now withdraw his notice, which blocks that Bill, and prevents its being considered on Report, as amended in Committee, after half-past Twelve o'clock?
    LORD ELCHO,in reply, said, he intended to allow his Notice of opposition to remain upon the Paper, in order to give Her Majesty's Government an opportunity of re-considering their view with regard to it. This was the more necessary as in the Division on Hypothec
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    nine Members of the Government had voted with him for its maintenance, and only four had voted for its abolition. And, subsequently, the Government had resisted a Motion for the abolition of the Law of Distress in England and Ireland, which was a less "mild and limited" law than that of Hypothec; and he found that 26 Conservative Members who had voted for the abolition of hypothec voted for the maintenance of distress.
    MR. VANS AGNEWsaid, that, in those circumstances, he should on Thursday next ask Mr. Chancellor of Exchequer, Whether, considering that the Lord Advocate had supported the measure, and that hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies had in this Session voted in favour of the second reading in the proportion of forty-seven to two, he would undertake, on the part of the Government, to give facilities for the progress of the measure.

  SOUTH AFRICA —THE ZULU WAR — PLUNDERING OF ZULU VILLAGES.

    QUESTION.
    MR. O'DONNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention has been called to the "Graphic" of this week, in which a number of the Native Contingent of the British Forces in South Africa are depicted as plundering a Zulu village; whether it is true that several hundreds of Native villages have been plundered and destroyed since the rising of the Galekas down to the present time, and that the practice is still continued; whether his attention has been directed to the remarks of Colonel Bellairs to General Sir Arthur Conynghame (South African Correspondence C. 2079 of 1878) on the results to the non-combatant population of the destruction of villages and the plundering of the village stores of provisions—
    "I desire to point out that the condition of the Gaika women and children has become most deplorable.… Their habitations burnt, their meal-pits destroyed, their cattle captured.… Wherever our patrols go they seem to meet with these helpless creatures;"
    whether his attention has been called to the statements in the South African correspondence of the "Standard" and "Daily News" of the 16th instant,

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    that great indignation has been caused by the imprisonment of the Zulu King's messengers, and that the Basuto insurgents are being driven out of their caves by smoke and dynamite; and, whether, during or since the year 1878, besides asking for information, he has sent any specific instructions to the British authorities in South Africa on the subject of burning and plundering Native villages, smoking out refugee insurgents, and similar alleged practices?
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, I have not seen The Graphic; but, whatever the merits of the illustrations to which the hon. Member refers may be, I do not think an illustration in a newspaper is quite of sufficient importance to base an opinion upon as to what is occurring in South Africa. I do not know that it is true that several hundreds of Native villages have been plundered and destroyed since the rising of the Gaikas down to the present time, nor do I believe there is any practice of the kind going on now. No doubt, in the war, many of these villages may have been destroyed as a necessary part of military operations; but I do not believe that in any case they have been destroyed where it has not been necessary for that reason to do so. The quotation the hon. Member has made from the remarks of Colonel Bellairs, I think, to a great extent, proves this; and it also proves the humanity with which these operations, as far as possible, have been conducted. I will, with the permission of the House, read the whole quotation, because the hon. Member has omitted some parts from his Question, which show that the condition of these women and children is due to other causes besides the destruction of villages, and that they were humanely treated afterwards. The full quotation, which refers to events that occurred in 1877 and the beginning of 1878, is this—
    "I desire to point out that the condition of the Gaika women and children has become most deplorable. Left by the rebels to shift for themselves, their habitations burnt, their meal-pits destroyed, their cattle captured, and with a drought prevailing over the land, the}' are reported to me during the past fortnight as frequently passing our outposts in bands of 50 or 60 strong, pathetically replying, when questioned—' We have no food, and are going in search of work.' Wherever our patrols go, they seem to meet with these helpless creatures."
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    Then Colonel Bellairs goes on to say— "Humanity requires that they should be immediately cared for." In his work, Sir Arthur Cunynghame says—" I immediately placed this humane suggestion before the Government; " and I have information from South Africa to the effect that the result of this suggestion was that the Colonial Government spent thousands of pounds in succouring these unfortunate women and children. I have seen the statements in the South African correspondence of The Standard and Daily News; but I have no information of my own with regard to them. As far as I am able to judge from the telegram, the purport of which I read to the House the other day in reply to the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), I do not think the last messengers from Cetewayo were detained, far less imprisoned. It appears they were sent back by Lord Chelmsford with a message to Cetewayo. As to the mode in which the Basuto insurgents are dealt with, I know nothing; but, however painful it may be to drive the insurgents out of caves and mountain fastnesses, where they had not exactly " taken refuge," but where they were maintaining themselves in rebellion, and from whence it was found impossible to dislodge them—however painful it may be to drive them out by smoke, yet I will venture to say that that is a more humane process than driving them out by starvation. Even if these telegrams be true, at any rate, it would appear that the surrender of these insurgents was secured with very little loss of life, whatever operations may have taken place. As to the last part of the Question of the hon. Member, I really must say it seems to me to contain insinuations as to the action of the British authorities in South Africa which ought not to have been made; and I trust the House will deem me justified in declining to answer them.
    MR. O'DONNELLgave Notice that on another day he would ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether the phrase "left to shift for themselves" did not refer to a period when their male relatives had been driven away? He should also take an early opportunity of stating to the House, from the Blue Books, all the Native villages which had been destroyed in South Africa since 1877 down to the present time.

    BOILER EXPLOSION AT STONE CLOUGH.—QUESTION.
    MR. J. COWENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has had his attention called to the serious boiler explosion that occurred at Stone Clough, near Bolton, on the 15th instant, and if he will order an independent inquiry into the circumstances in accordance with the promise made during the recent discussion on Boiler Explosions?
    MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, that a barrister had been ordered to attend, on behalf of the Home Office, the inquiry into the causes of the explosion referred to; but that he had given no promise to institute an independent inquiry with regard to it.

    SOUTH AFRICA—THE ZULU WAR— THE IRREGULARS.—QUESTION.
    MR. PARNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he has received information that, in addition to the Regular Troops and Native Contingent, considerable forces of Irregulars and Volunteers are employed in South Africa, recruited from the floating population of the Colonies and Diamond Fields; whether he has seen the statements in the last Mail News from South Africa that parties of these men, known as "Lonsdale's Horse," have taken to highway robbery in the neighbourhood of Durban; and, whether he is aware that Sir Arthur Conynghame, lately commanding in South Africa, has described these Volunteers as enlisting for the purpose of plundering, "fighting, not for Country, but cattle?"
    SIB MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, it is the case that considerable Forces of Irregulars and Volunteers are employed in South Africa, and they have done excellent service. I have not seen the statements in the last Mail News from South Africa quoted by the hon. Member; he has not stated where they are to be found. I have heard nothing at all confirming them; but if any members of "Lonsdale's Horse" had been guilty of highway robbery, which I cannot believe, they could, of course, be made amenable by the civil and military authorities; and I am sure that that efficient and gallant officer, Commandant Lonsdale himself, would be the first to take steps for the purpose. Sir Arthur Cunynghame never, so far as I know,
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    described the Volunteers as enlisting for the purpose of plundering, " fighting, not for country, but cattle." He quotes, in his book, an opinion expressed by a speaker in South Africa to that effect; but he prefaces the quotation by saying that he had always had a high opinion of the Volunteers, and does not altogether agree with it.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, the statement was made by the correspondent of the Eastern Province Herald of Durban, who spoke of the Lonsdale Horse as a desperate set of roughs, who had committed open robbery in public, and defied everybody, including the police. On one night, after having received a month's pay, 20 of them were taken to the station for drunkenness, and three "run in" for theft.

  PUBLIC BUSINESS.

    NOTICE OF MOTION—STATE OF THE COUNTRY—COMMERCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.—QUESTIONS.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I wish to make an appeal to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver), who has given Notice of his intention to call the attention of the House on Friday next to the condition both of commerce and of agriculture, and to move for a Royal Commission to inquire into the subject. The hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) has also given Notice of a similar Resolution. I would ask the hon. Member for Birkenhead whether, in these circumstances, he has any objection to postponing the Motion of which he has given Notice, seeing, as I have already privately informed him, that the state of Public Business would render it more convenient that it should not be brought on during the present week?
    MR. MAC IVERfelt that it was impossible that the very important questions which his Motion would raise could be properly discussed unless they could be brought on at a time convenient both to the House and the Government; and, therefore, he had much pleasure in withdrawing his Notice, on the understanding that he should propose to move, as an Amendment to the Motion of the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire, that the inquiry he suggested should be extended to both commerce and agriculture.
    MR. NEWDEGATEinquired. Whether Her Majesty's Government were prepared to give facilities to the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire for bringing forward his Motion?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, having expressed his obligation to the hon. Member for Birkenhead for giving way, said, that while her Majesty's Government were anxious that the important subjects which the Motion of the hon. Member for Mid-Lincolnshire would raise should be fully discussed, he was unable at that moment to fix any time for bringing it on. If arranged in that way, there would be a Morning Sitting next Friday; but not on Friday, the 4th of July.

  ORDER OF THE DAY.

    ARMY DISCIPLINE AND REGULATION BILL.— [BILL 88.]
    (Mr. Secretary Stanley, Mr. Secretary Cross, Mr. William Henry Smith, The Judge Advocate General.)
    COMMITTEE. [Progress 10 th June.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)

    Punishments.
    Clause 44 (Scale of punishments by courts martial).
    Amendment proposed, in page 19, line 27, to leave out the word "fifty," in order to insert the word "six."— {Mr. Hopwood.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'fifty' stand part of the Clause."
    MR. HOPWOODsaid, he was not going to detain the Committee at any length; but it was fitting that the position of matters, when the Committee last parted from the consideration of his Amendment, should be recalled. The Amendment was to insert the word " six," instead of " fifty," as the number of lashes to be inflicted in certain cases. The object of his Amendment might appear, as was suggested by the Secretary of State for War, inconsistent with the later Amendments standing in his name; but he felt sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would know, from his own experience, how necessary it was to try every possible means and suggestion when anything was to be attained. He
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    had only suggested the word "six," because it was admitted on all hands that the instrument of torture with which this punishment was inflicted caused nine stripes or weals at each blow; and, therefore, he wished that the House would not submit any longer to the hypocrisy of allowing the number to appear in the Bill as 50 lashes, when, in fact, it was 450. Therefore, he suggested that as six times nine made 54, by adopting his Amendment the charge of hypocrisy would be done away with, and Her Majesty's Government would get into the bargain four additional lashes. He had urged, on a former occasion, some of his hon. and gallant Friends to stand up and say why, in their judgment, it was necessary that this punishment should be maintained for the government of the Army. He still persisted in his Amendment, because he found that the more he persisted the more progress was made inside and outside the House; and rumours had reached him that many hon. Members were changing their views as they saw how little could be said for the punishment except vague generalities. He had heard, also, that there were those who began to think that a smaller number of lashes than that named in the Bill might be introduced. All these were matters of very encouraging import to those who were fighting this battle against corporal punishment. They did not believe in it. If they thought its abolition would in any way impair the efficiency of the National Army, they would be ready to join with hon. and gallant Members on both sides of the House in maintaining it. But they did not think so, and, therefore, they had a right to set their opinion against those who did. Hon. and gallant Members would say—"We have professional experience;" to which he replied—"We, too, know something of the government of men, and have seen this punishment applied over and over again; it has fallen into disrepute with every man who has any idea of the art of governing his fellow-creatures, and we cannot conceive why an exception should be made with regard to the government of the Army." He supposed the right hon. and gallant Gentleman liked the punishment as little as anybody, but was pressed forward and urged into the position which he occupied with regard to it by the officialism which

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    existed. He believed this punishment to be founded upon the force of officialism which, whenever it took root, could only be removed as an agent in the government of men in the Military or Civil Departments of the State by constant threshing out in the House of Commons; and that not until people had heard enough of it, and had been cruelly undeceived, in spite of themselves. It was astonishing how, in public matters, the progress of a cause was furthered by repetition. It seemed that men would not listen until they were forced to do so; therefore, he concluded that a matter like the present would force itself by persistence upon the conviction of the Members of the House of Commons. Every day gave some fresh confirmation of the necessity of getting rid of the punishment of flogging in the Army. The other day there was the question of flogging on board ship; and now it was stated that the same unfortunate regiment had again suffered in the persons of several of its soldiers in this respect, and it was stated, he believed, that the 88th had undergone this punishment. The Secretary of State for War said, with regard to the last case, that he had heard nothing of it; but he (Mr. Hopwood) wished the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would tell the Committee whether it was not the duty of somebody to let him know, and to let the Commander-in-Chief know of every case of flogging which occurred; otherwise it would come to this—that persons invested with a little authority might inflict the punishment to too great an extent, and then even the General commanding in the field, and, perhaps, the authorities at home, might hear of it. He wished the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had gone a little further in his answer to the Question put that day by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) with reference to the flogging at the Cape; the answer would have been more sufficient had he said that he "must hear and was determined that he would hear" of these cases of flogging. But no such answer had been given, and it was quite certain that the punishment was going on to a great extent. He should, therefore, stand by his Amendment, and trusted that the Committee would adopt it.
    MR. J. HOLMSrose with much pleasure to support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Hopwood). He had never yet voted in any
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    Division on the general question of Hogging, because he had not been able clearly to understand whether it was essentially necessary for the maintenance of order in the Army that this punishment should be retained in time of war. He had waited patiently to hear from the Secretary of State for War, or the Judge Advocate General, some reasons in favour of retaining this punishment; and he had come to the conclusion that the main argument in favour of its retention was that as it was impossible, when on the field against an enemy, to deal with men having committed certain crimes by imprisonment, it was necessary to flog or shoot them. He entirely agreed that this punishment was of less severity than that of death; but he would remark that a man of high courage would rather be shot than flogged. Prisoners of war were subjected to neither of these punishments; but were sent, somehow or other, into confinement. Was the Committee to be told that the trifling number of men flogged in time of war was to be compared with the number of prisoners of war? They were often reminded of the more severe punishments inflicted in the Armies of Europe; but was there no other Army in the world besides these with which our Army could be compared? There was the Army of the United States of America in which flogging was not practised. He should support henceforward every Motion tending to the entire abolition of flogging in the Army.
    MR. MUNTZsupposed no man in the House would wish to retain the punishment of flogging if any proper substitute could be found. He thought his hon. Friend who had just spoken could hardly have read the Articles of War of the United States. The Americans, it was true, had abolished flogging in time of peace; but they retained corporal punishment in time of peace and war. Then they were told that there was no corporal punishment in the Armies of the great European Powers, and that even Russia had entirely abolished it. But he knew that recently a captain of a company in the Austrian Army could order 25 lashes without court martial. He pointed out to the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. J. Holms), in reply to the argument made use of by him for getting rid of soldiers in the same way as prisoners of war

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    were dealt with by sending them to the rear, that it was impossible that all the soldiers could be treated in that way. He (Mr. Muntz) should not be in favour of the retention of the punishment if he thought discipline could be maintained without it; but he thought we must come at last to the alternative of flogging or death. There was no getting out of the fact that there must be corporal punishment of some kind, without which discipline could not be maintained. If any efficient substitute for it could be devised, he should be very glad to see it. Coming to another point, he knew that cases of gross tyranny had occurred in cases where flogging was ordered by the provost marshal. He had always objected to that practice, and should have much pleasure in supporting the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), the object of which was to prevent the infliction of the punishment except by order of court martial. He had witnessed great tyranny on the part of provost marshals, and that would always occur where men of violent temper had absolute control of their fellow-creatures. If the hon. and learned Member for Stockport moved to reduce the number of lashes to 30, he should vote with him.
    MR. RYLANDSdid not intend to go into the general question of flogging, because it had been discussed on a former occasion; nor did he think that any sufficient argument had been advanced to justify the Committee in believing that the existing system of punishment by flogging should be maintained. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport had proposed this Amendment, not because he liked flogging in any degree, but in order to see whether Government could not be induced to go some way to meet the views of those who were altogether opposed to the punishment. He (Mr. Rylands) felt sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was aware that a very strong feeling existed upon this question both inside and outside the House, and he referred to the fact that the opinions expressed in the House two years ago were very considerably in this direction. When the old Mutiny Bill was under discussion the opinion of the House was very strong that they had been in the habit of passing from year to year,
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    without alteration, Mutiny Bills based upon the judgment and on the idea of punishment which belonged to an age by no means so humane as our own; and it was contended that the time had come when the Mutiny Bill should be dealt with in a broad spirit, with a view to see if a number of clauses unsuitable to the characteristics of the present day could not be got rid of. Her Majesty's Government met the objections which were urged in the House against the general provisions of the Mutiny Bill, in a debate which lasted a long time, by saying that they would refer the whole question to a Select Committee. But the result of that Committee had been very disappointing; for, instead of dealing with the question on broad lines, and in the spirit indicated by the discussions which had taken place in the House two years ago, the Government had taken the most extraordinary course of laying before that Select Committee a Bill which systematized all the characteristics of the Mutiny Act and Articles of War which had been in existence for years. The Committee did not, however, much approve of the position in which they had been placed, for he observed they said—
    "Your Committee have mainly directed their inquiries to the examination of the schemes of Military Law submitted by the Secretary of State for War, and to the explanation of them by Sir Henry Thring, a course which, though somewhat unusual, appeared the most convenient."
    The hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) was fettered by the course taken by the Government in bringing to the Committee a form of Bill which practically crystallized the Articles of War and the Mutiny Act of former years, and which, instead of making the law more lenient, made it harsher. Hon. Members on both sides of the House had stated very positively that the Bill had been drawn on wrong lines, and that its effect would be to increase the harshness rather than the leniency of legislation. He wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, if he would do him the favour to attend for one moment, that the difficulty in transacting Public Business was very much increased by this Bill having been laid upon the Table. The Bill had resulted from a Select Committee appointed with a very different expectation, and received cor-

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    dial support neither on the one side of the House nor the other. Moreover, he had observed that opinion out-of-doors was going against the Bill; and the leading journal, after supporting it for some time, expressed an opinion, two or three days ago, that it would be much better, and would save the time of the House, if the Government were to pass a provisional Bill this Session, with a view to the introduction of a more mature measure next year. He should be prepared to support any Amendment, the effect of which was to reduce the application of corporal punishment in the Army to a minimum, which he held had not been proved to be necessary either for its efficiency or discipline. The hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz), whose good sense was always manifest in his speeches, had given his authority, which he (Mr. Rylands) looked upon as worthy of great respect, in favour of maintaining a portion of this punishment —for even he had indicated a very important modification—but his hon. Friend ought to have borne in mind that the same arguments as his were used in the House of Commons 20 years ago to maintain an extreme of corporal punishment which would at the present day be shrunk from as perfectly disgraceful. And yet there were Gentlemen in those days, of high spirit and great judgment, who maintained that this punishment must be continued. He did not for a moment charge any hon. Member with inhumanity in supporting the punishment at the present time; on the contrary, he could believe him to be quite as humane as any of those who opposed it, and wished it to be excluded from the Bill altogether. He admitted that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had conducted the Bill with great courtesy; but was obliged to refer to the circumstance that on a former occasion, in allusion to the Amendment under discussion, he had gone out of his way to say that he would oppose all the other Amendments on the Paper in the name of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood). [Colonel STANLEY dissented.] He was glad to see that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman shook his head, because he must have been misunderstood. But he would submit to the Secretary of State for War, in view of the number of Amendments to the Bill
    40
    of which Notice had been given, that the progress of the measure might probably be promoted, if the Government were prepared to meet the views of hon. Members on some material point, and say that they were willing to reduce the infliction of this degrading punishment, and surround it with certain limitations.
    MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, it was rather too much to expect the House to consider this as an agreeable subject; at the same time, he believed it had too strong a sense of duty to agree to anything which might tend to render exaggerated punishment necessary, and to substitute the punishment of death for that of flogging; or that the majority would do anything that might tend to the disorganization of Her Majesty's Forces in the field. He must recall to the Secretary of State for War that Questions had been put in that House reflecting very grossly and very unjustly on Her Majesty's Forces in South Africa. It would be in the recollection of the Committee that day after day attempts had been made to impute to Her Majesty's Forces, and to the highest officers in the employ of Her Majesty, acts of the most disgraceful barbarism. Reflections had also been thrown upon the Contingent Forces in South Africa; and almost immediately some hon. Members, actuated by humanitarian motives, had risen to propose alterations which would deprive the officers of those corps of the means of enforcing discipline amongst them. He felt sure the Committee would see the utter inconsistency of such proceedings. The proposals of hon. Gentlemen opposite were the more extraordinary because the Bill before the Committee proposed to reduce this punishment to a minimum. He was sure that Her Majesty's Government ought to guard themselves against being induced unduly to relax the means of maintaining discipline, as also against giving any countenance by such relaxation to the gross charges of want of discipline, plundering, and the like, which, truly or falsely, were reiterated in that House.
    MR. J. BROWNwas one of those who had supported the Government all through in the matter of flogging, because he did not believe it could be dispensed with; but he trusted that some understanding might be arrived at and an end put to the discussion, which had lasted a long time, by the substitution

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    of a less number of lashes than that named in the Bill. Remarks had been made with regard to the discipline in the Army of the United States, in which it was said there was no flogging; and it was true that in the war between the North and South there was very little. But, as most of his schoolfellows had been in. the Army in America, he was in a position to state that the cruelty used as a substitute was something beyond belief, people being strung up in trees, and suffering other varieties of cruelty, instead of flogging. He made these remarks for the purpose of showing that in our Army flogging could not be done away with; but he thought that an understanding might be come to that 25 lashes should be the limit; and the fact that it was considered sufficient that not exceeding 25 lashes were to be inflicted in prison led him to hope that the same number might be introduced into this clause, instead of 50. He ventured to appeal to the Government to consider this suggestion, with a view to shortening the discussion; as also to the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), who would, perhaps, accede to the proposal, inasmuch as it went in the direction in which he and his hon. Friends desired to go.
    COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he quite appreciated the spirit in which the hon. Member who had last spoken had made his suggestion; at the same time, he was obliged to say that it was one which the Government could not accept. The Committee should not lose sight of the fact which, with his strong common sense, the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) had brought out, that if they were to abandon this punishment they would, in certain circumstances, in order to maintain discipline, inevitably be driven back to the repression of crime by other and more severe means. Flogging was the punishment which, by custom, had been adopted in the British Army in preference to picketing — making a man stand with his heel upon the small point of a picket—or such punishment as riding a wooden horse. He firmly believed that if they were to at-tempt to make the punishment too slight in cases where severe discipline was necessary, they would run the risk either of forcing the authorities, now obliged, in some cases, to keep down crimes with an iron hand, to inflict capital punishment
    42
    in cases where they were now able to flog, or to resort to other means which might be of far greater cruelty. Of course, corporal punishment was severe, and he was not for a moment going to say it was not; but the crimes committed on active service for which it was inflicted were of a very serious character, and it had been well pointed out by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) that, on the one hand, the authorities were accused of allowing a state of loose discipline to exist; and, on the other, that the Committee were asked to deprive those authorities of the means of enforcing discipline. There was not, so far as he was aware, that sense of degradation felt by soldiers at being flogged which some hon. Members supposed. Of course, he did not suppose that soldiers upon whom this punishment had been inflicted would come forward and say so; but the other day he was informed of the case of a private soldier who, having been flogged by the provost marshal, was willing to bear another punishment from his commanding officer rather than say he had fallen into the hands of the provost marshal. The man took the punishment of flogging; but it was obviously of so light a character that he was perfectly able to go about his duty in the ordinary way. What he said in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) had been misunderstood. The hon. and learned Member had several Amendments to Clause 44; these Amendments all hung together, and he said he could not accept any of them. But he was far from saying that he could not take into consideration other Amendments. The hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) had really gone to the root of the whole matter. If they wished to support discipline they must retain summary punishment, and if they did not have such a summary punishment as flogging, they would probably have to take to summary punishments quite as severe, though more irregular, than flogging. Either the latter or capital punishment would have to be adopted for the cases in which it was proposed to inflict flogging. He did not feel it consistent with his duty, occupying the position he did, to recommend to the Committee that the maximum of lashes should be reduced below 50, particularly as it was within the discretion of the

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    court to inflict what number of lashes below 50 that it pleased.
    MR. SHERIDANsaid, that there were two points to which he wished to refer. It had been stated by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that no common soldier had expressed his disapproval of this mode of punishment, and that had been offered as a reason for its retention. He should like to know what opportunity any common soldier had of expressing his approval or disapproval of the punishment? They were there as one class, legislating for another, and inflicting punishment upon another. One class was in the ascendancy, and what opportunity was there for that class to know the wishes of the other class in connection with the administration of the Army, or as to the infliction of the punishments which, it was said, must be resorted to? That House was composed of the class from which officers were taken; they had Gentlemen there holding commissions as officers in the Army, and they had Gentlemen whose fathers, or brothers, or sons, were officers in the Army; but what representation had the common soldiers? None. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had challenged them upon this question. He stated that no common soldier objected to this kind of punishment; but he did not state who represented the common soldier in that House. They had one or two hon. Members representing the mining interest; but they had no hon. Members representing directly the working classes, nor did any hon. Member represent the common soldier, or sailor before the mast. They were then enacting class legislation for the maintenance of peculiar privileges against another class, which had no opportunity of lifting its voice, or protesting, or explaining its views with respect to this peculiar description of punishment. It was said, further, that this punishment was not looked upon as an indignity. He remembered having heard from a man who was employed in the American Mercantile Marine that he was once pressed into an English man-of-war. He protested at the time that he was serving in the American Marine. That was before the war in 1830 broke out; but no attention was paid to his protest that he was serving under the American flag. He was compelled to serve in the British Navy.
    THE CHAIRMANpointed out to the hon. Member that the question he was going into was not the subject raised by this Amendment. The Amendment was with reference to the number of stripes to be inflicted in the Army, and not as to the principle of flogging.
    MR. SHERIDANwas surprised that the Chairman of Ways and Means should make such an observation as that, for he was only giving this case as an illustration of his arguments in the matter. He had no wish to detain the Committee at any length with regard to the subject; but when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman told them that no common soldier had made any protest against the infliction of this punishment, he wished to urge upon the Committee that it should not take that for granted, but should remember that soldiers and sailors were not represented in that House; and that, in reality, this punishment might be felt by them as a great indignity, and might be very prejudicial to the Service of the country.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWERrose to Order. He submitted that an hon. Member in discussing a clause of the Bill might illustrate his views by referring to a subject which had not been debated upon the second reading. Ho thought that his hon. Friend was perfectly in Order in the remarks he had made.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the question raised at that moment was rather one of the authority of the Chairman than of anything else. ["No, no!"] Perhaps he might be wrong; but he understood the hon. Gentleman to be challenging the decision of the Chair.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must point out that the question raised by the Amendment was as to the number of lashes that might be inflicted under sentence of court martial in the Army. That was the subject before the Committee, and as he was responsible to the House, it would be wrong if he were to allow the discussion to stray into a question of side-issues. Although, as the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) had observed, the question of principle had not been raised on the second reading, he must point out that it had already been decided in discussions on earlier clauses of the Bill.
    MR. SHERIDANsaid, that the Committee could not give too much attention to this question of corporal punishment. The Committee was asked to sanction the reduction of the power to inflict torture upon certain classes of the Army. They were asked, in the spirit which animated their forefathers in inflicting this punishment, to continue it when, by the spread of civilization and education, it was no longer necessary. They were asked to continue a power in the hands of a class, which, though in former days it was thought nothing of, was now resented. In former times, it was not thought too great a punishment to administer 1,000 lashes to a soldier for a small offence. Such a punishment as that would not now he continued; but it gave them some idea of the views which were then taken as to the infliction of this torture. It had been proved to demonstration that the views of the class which insisted upon this punishment were wrong. It had been admitted that they were wrong in desiring to retain a power to inflict 1,000 lashes; but still they asked for power to inflict 50 lashes, which would amount to 450 stripes. He would ask whether they could not do away with this antiquated punishment altogether? The spread of education and the system of short service ought to enable them at first to diminish this punishment, and then to abolish it. In these days, it was a confession of weakness on the part of any civilized nation to continue the practice of corporal punishment.
    MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that up to that period he had not taken the slightest part in the discussion of this Bill; he trusted, therefore, that he might be allowed to make a few observations with regard to it. He was one of those who believed that the punishment of flogging was unnecessary in itself, and immoral and wrong altogether. The opponents of flogging found a very considerable difficulty in voting for an Amendment which proposed to inflict that punishment, although diminishing the number of lashes. All their objections to the administration of the punishment of flogging applied whether the number of lashes given was six or whether it was GO. He understood that his hon. Friend was, however, making one, of what he hoped would be many protests,
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    against a system which justified, in his opinion, the most determined opposition. It might be said that such opposition as that amounted to obstruction. He thought that there was only one thing which justified such persistent opposition as was now offered—namely, the persistent obstinacy on the part of Her Majesty's Government to give way to the views expressed on that side of the House. The refusal on the part of those who had the conduct of this Bill to meet in any way the strong feelings which had been expressed on that side of the House justified any opposition to the Bill. He was convinced that, so long as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War met their objections with " no surrender," the progress of the Bill would not be facilitated. He wondered that the Government had not accepted the Amendment of the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. J. Brown). He objected to this punishment, not merely because it was degrading and brutal, and unworthy of our civilization, but because he was convinced that it was injurious to the discipline and character of the Army. He was aware that it might be said that he knew nothing about the Army; but he did know a great deal about the classes from which the Army was taken, and he had heard a great many men amongst the working classes complain of the punishments to which they would be subjected if they enlisted, and give that as a reason for their refusing to enlist; although, if that objection did not exist, other circumstances were such that they might have accepted the terms offered on behalf of Her Majesty. It had been stated by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that the private soldier did not feel that flogging was any indignity; but the illustration which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had given proved the contrary, for he told them of the case of a man who submitted himself to further punishment rather than confess that he had undergone the degrading infliction But that only proved the degrading and debasing nature of the punishment, and he knew that the horror of this punishment on the part of the great number of the working class was very great indeed. The general effect was to lower the status of the Army, for it prevented the best men from going into the ranks.

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    The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had alleged that this punishment was only inflicted for very serious offences, and that, if it was not inflicted for such crimes, death must take its place. But one of the very gravest objections which he had to the punishment was that it was inflicted for very slight offences indeed. It could not be denied that flogging could be inflicted for very slight offences. He did not doubt that a good commanding officer—a thoroughly good man—would not inflict it upon those under his command for slight matters; but there were bad men as well as good men in the Service, and this clause would put it in the power of bad commanding officers to inflict the punishment of flogging for very trifling offences. Further, it had been said by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that a decent working man would have no fear of being flogged, for he was not likely to commit those disgraceful and serious offences for which flogging was to be employed. He would ask, what were those grave and serious offences for which flogging was to be inflicted? He found that flogging might be inflicted, under the clause they were discussing, for every offence for which the punishment of imprisonment was provided, or for which a greater punishment than imprisonment might be inflicted. He found that there were no less than 79 categories of offences for which imprisonment might be inflicted, and, probably, there would be another large class of offences for which the greater punishment of death was inflicted. Then there were more than 100 distinct classes of offences for which, under the circumstances mentioned in the Bill, flogging might be inflicted. In Clause 11, any person subject to military law—
    "Neglecting to obey any general garrison order, or other order, was, on conviction by court martial, if a soldier, liable to suffer imprisonment, or such less punishment,"
    as was in that Act mentioned. Therefore, for that offence, a soldier might be flogged. Any soldier neglecting to obey any order! Was it possible for a clause to be framed which should contain a greater number of possible indefinite trivial offences than this? Then, again, in Clause 15, any soldier who, without leave from his commanding officer, ab-
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    sented himself from any school when duly ordered to attend there, was liable to suffer imprisonment, and, therefore, flogging. No doubt, it was ridiculous to suppose that any commanding officer would inflict the punishment of flogging for such an offence as that; but still it was not right to provide such a punishment for a soldier who could not be considered a criminal of the deepest dye. Then, again, any man who, after signing any document relating to pay, arms, ammunition, equipments, clothing, regimental necessaries, provisions, furniture, bedding, blankets, sheets, utensils, forage, or stores, left in blank any material part for which his signature was a voucher, or refused, or by culpable neglect omitted to make or send a report or return which it was his duty to make or send, was liable, if on active service, to be flogged. An instance had been adduced by his hon. Colleague the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) of the severity of the American martial law, in that they flogged even for the offence of drunkenness. But, under this Bill, they were going to inflict the punishment of flogging for quite as slight an offence as that of drunkenness, and many more trivial offences. Under Clause 19, any man drunk, either on duty or off duty, was liable to suffer imprisonment, and was, therefore, on active service, subject to be flogged. He would remind the Committee that, under Clause 44, the punishment of flogging might be inflicted for any offence punishable under the Act with imprisonment, or a greater punishment on soldiers while on active service, or on board any ship not commissioned by Her Majesty. Therefore, under those circumstances, drunkenness, although it had taken place off duty, and not in the slightest degree affecting the security of the troops, might render a man liable to the punishment which, at home, would be imprisonment; but which, being in the field, might be flogging. But that was not all, for, in Clause 40, other conduct to the prejudice of military discipline was dealt with. The gentleman who drew up the Act was so afraid that he might omit something that he provided, in Clause 40, that every person subject to military law, who committed any of the following offences— that was to say, was guilty of any act, conduct disorder, or neglect, to the pre-

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    judice of order and military discipline, though not in this Act otherwise specified, should, if a soldier, be liable to suffer imprisonment or some less punishment. He challenged the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to say how, in the face of the clauses which he had quoted, he could get up in his place and say that any decent working man could enter the Army without the slightest fear that he would be exposed to the punishment of flogging except for the most serious and grave offences? He thought he had shown, by reference to the Act, that a soldier rendered himself liable to be flogged for the most trivial offences when on active service, or on board ship, not being a ship of war. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman could show the sincerity of his convictions by agreeing to an Amendment to the effect that corporal punishment was only to be inflicted for offences to be specified in a Schedule. If the Government would put in a Schedule specifying the offences which, upon active service, would render a man liable to be flogged, then he would venture to say that a great deal of the opposition to the punishment would be disposed of, and they would make considerable progress with the measure. Unless the Government would do that, he maintained that they would be justified in resisting by all the means in their power the retention of the punishment of flogging.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTthought that the arguments which had been addressed to the Committee by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) were well worthy of attention. Flogging ought not to be inflicted, in his opinion, when on active service, and in the presence of the enemy, except for the gravest offences. When the Committee came to a decision on this subject, they thought that sentiment would be raised as much on the side of flogging as against it. Suppose a soldier, in the course of a war with France, was guilty of ravishing women, or doing any odious offence of that kind, they must have some severe restrictions in order to meet the evil. For, however high their opinion might be of soldiers, they knew that under temptation, and under the spirit of war, such offences as he had mentioned were sometimes committed. He could not come to the conclusion that
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    this method of violent restraint was capable of being dispensed with altogether. He thought that the argument of his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham was a very strong one; for he had shown that this Bill did allow the infliction of corporal punishment in a great many eases for trivial offences. This had not arisen, he believed, from the intention of the framers of the Bill, or from the views of the Government; but was rather a question of drafting. It had been said that everybody who was liable to imprisonment should also be liable, when on active service and on board ship, to be flogged. He thought it clear that they would not desire to flog, under these circumstances, for all offences for which a man, when at home, would be liable to imprisonment. He did think that if the Government gave an assurance that there should be some attempt to define and specify the offences for which flogging was to be inflicted, all reasonable objection would be met. He did not say that they should specify every offence for which flogging was to be inflicted, but that they should give some definition in the Bill of the class of offences to which the punishment was applicable. If that were done, he agreed that a great deal of the opposition to the punishment would be removed. It did not seem to him that that could be done at that moment, for it would require a great deal of time to consider how far the definition should be given. He was, therefore, willing to support the modification suggested by the hon. Member for Birmingham. With respect to the number of lashes, he thought that the proposal of the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. J. Brown) was deserving of the attention of the Government. He thought that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would give the Committee an assurance that there would be an attempt in the Bill to make an accurate specification of the cases in which flogging was to be inflicted under the Act, a very substantial benefit would result.
    COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that he could not undertake to give off-hand any such promise as was asked; but if he were in Order, he would say that he agreed in principle with what had been stated by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt). An Amendment had been put down by the

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    hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), and he had conferred with him with regard to it. He was willing to adopt that Amendment, by which on board ship corporal punishment was to be limited to a certain specified class of cases. If he went any further in the direction in which the hon. and learned Gentleman had indicated, he thought that it must be not by the limitation of punishment as proposed, but by the limitation of the crime in respect to which the punishment was to be inflicted. In saying that he accepted the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, he would state that his own convictions were in favour of limiting this punishment; but he could not give any promise with regard to the matter, for he might be misleading the Committee. Still, he would state that if any change could be made, he thought it should be in the direction which had been suggested.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman could hardly expect those who were opposed to the punishment of flogging, except in extreme cases, to support Her Majesty's Government. Nor could they expect any support from those who were opposed to the infliction of the punishment even in time of war, or when troops went on board ships not belonging to the Royal Navy. He thought that the proper course to take would be to postpone the consideration of tills clause, in order to enable the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to consult those who had framed the Bill. [" Hear, hear ! "] If that wore done, he thought he had gathered from the cheers with which the suggestion had been received that the progress of the Bill would be facilitated, and that everything would be done to resume the discussion in a fair spirit. He thought that he had some right to appeal to Her Majesty's Government on this occasion, for he had stood very much alone in supporting the Government in its demands for the power to maintain the right to flog when troops were in the field or on board ship. In doing that, he believed that flogging would be inflicted only for really dangerous or grave offences. He was asked by other hon. Members for what kind of offences flogging would be inflicted? The kind
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    of offences which he had in his mind were such as two or three men might commit in endangering the lives of all on board a ship by breaking into the spirit store. Under the circumstances, he thought it only right that summary punishment should be visited on those men by the commanding officer of the regiment. To that extent, he was prepared to support Her Majesty's Government. He had since had an opportunity of consulting a gallant officer who had seen much service in various parts of the world. He had asked him as to the cases in which flogging was inflicted in time of war. He replied that the flogging which was to be objected to was that inflicted by the provost marshal. He said that the provost marshal was an officer, usually a subaltern or some junior officer, who kept up the discipline of the regiment on the march, and that he could inflict the punishment of flogging whenever he chose. He said to him—" But surely he does not flog except for very serious offences? "The officer replied—" Ah! but he does."
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must point out to the hon. Member that the clause before the Committee related only to flogging by court martial, and that there was another clause in the Bill which related to punishment by a provost marshal.
    MR. PARNELLwould ask the Chairman of Ways and Means to re-consider his decision, for it was a most important matter. The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport went to the principle of the measure. If ho succeeded in limiting the number of lashes that were to be inflicted, that restriction would apply as well to the provost marshal as to the court martial. If they succeeded now in limiting the number of lashes to be inflicted by the court martial, surely the provost marshal could not inflict more.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, he did not think that that was the accurate view. The clause which was now before the Committee related only to punishment by court martial, and had nothing whatever to do with the punishment by the provost marshal.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, that the decision of the Chairman made it thus more important that they should agree to the Amendment which had been

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    proposed with a view to limiting the number of lashes to be inflicted by a court martial. There was no possible reason why the Government could not consent to put in a Schedule the offences for which the punishment was to be inflicted. It might be said that flogging was to be inflicted in an emergency by some particular person for keeping up discipline; but now they had been told that flogging was to be inflicted by a court martial as well. A court martial was composed of several officers, and required time to assemble. It was a serious investigation, and there was plenty of time for deliberation. Of the flogging inflicted by court martial a record was kept; but of the flogging which went on under the orders of the provost marshal there was no record at all. He trusted that Her Majesty's Government would agree to postpone this clause until it had made up its mind as to the course which it should take, and as to what ought to be done in the interests of the soldier, and in pursuance of the feelings of the House and the country in relation to the punishment.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEconsidered that the Government ought to accept the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt). There could be no doubt that if they did not do so, looking to the strong feeling on the subject on that side of the House, they would waste a great deal of time. It was not only those who objected to the punishment of flogging who were against them, but also those who did not object to flogging altogether; but who, nevertheless, maintained that corporal punishment should not be inflicted for offences which the House had not defined, and of which they knew nothing. The hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) had laid before the Committee a large number of offences drawn from the clauses of the Bill, for which he maintained the punishment of flogging could be inflicted. In Clause 6, there was an offence defined, of which no hon. Member, so far as he could find, could give any explanation. It was the military offence of forcing a safeguard. For that offence a soldier, if on active service, was liable to suffer death; and if the offence was not thought worthy of that punishment, then flogging. Under the Bill a soldier might be flogged for being drunk when on active service; but when
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    off duty, although he might be a considerable distance from the enemy, and in a place where nobody would be endangered by his crime, surely, it could not be the intention of those who supported flogging as a punishment that it should be inflicted for an offence of that kind? With regard to the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon), which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had expressed his intention to accept, that Amendment, he would point out, was limited by the words "on board ship;" but if the Government did not define the offences for which flogging was to be inflicted, they could raise the whole question by proposing to omit from the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member the words "on board ship." That would enable the matter to be raised in the most definite form. He did not think there were many civilians who had seen so much of war as he had done. He went all through the Franco-German War, and was part of the time with the French and part with the German Army. In no case but one did he ever see any painful corporal punishment inflicted. One case which he saw was that of a Prussian soldier, who was tied to a tree; but no other torture was inflicted upon him. So far as he could make out, the man had been caught committing some disgraceful offence, and a disgraceful punishment was accordingly inflicted upon him. Every hon. Member of that House was well aware that flogging did not exist either in the French or the German Army. He did not believe that it existed in any European Army—it had certainly been abolished in the Russian Army —although, not being acquainted with the Austrian Army, he could not speak of that. Surely, it was not a good thing for any Army that they should remain behind in this matter. The infliction of this punishment must have a very injurious effect upon recruiting; no man could prove exactly whether it had an effect upon recruiting or not; but all they could do was to gather a certain amount of evidence from conversation with the classes from which the Army was drawn. Hon. Gentlemen that had done so were absolutely convinced that flogging had a prejudicial effect upon recruiting. But, having shown that a

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    considerable amount of doubt existed upon the subject, surely it was most important that they should look into the matter and thoroughly investigate it. They were now making a Bill for all time, or for, at least, a very considerable number of years; and whenever that House enacted the punishment of flogging —a punishment which had been disapproved of by all foreign nations for a long time—the Government ought really to know the whole facts of the matter, and to postpone the consideration of the clause in order to make up their minds.
    SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that a great deal of discussion had taken place upon this Bill, in which he had borne no part. From what had taken place, it was evident that, unless the Government would give some assurance that they would accept the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford, no progress could be made with the Bill. The hon. Member for Birmingham had entirely upset the calculations of the Government, and his speech must have impressed everyone who listened to it. By way of parenthesis, he might say that he heard from all sides that the Bill was a bad one. The hon. Member for Birmingham had come forward and made a statement, which had been uncontradicted, that every person who was subjected to imprisonment by the Bill would be liable to be flogged on active service, or on board ship, and the hon. Member had drawn attention to the vast number of clauses of the Bill which thus enacted flogging. He thought that it was most important for the Government to pay some attention to those observations of the hon. Member for Birmingham, although they could not, as the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) had very truly said, expect the Government at a moment's notice to specify all the offences for which flogging was to be inflicted. Still, the answer of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to the proposal was not satisfactory, for all he said was that he had adopted the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Aberdeenshire—an Amendment which dealt entirely with soldiers on board ship, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said that he could give no pledge to entertain the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for
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    Oxford to specify in a Schedule of the Bill all the offences for which the punishment of flogging was to be inflicted. They were wasting time by considering the question in that state of affairs; the Government could not be allowed to proceed in this matter until they had given an assurance that they would accept the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford, based upon the proposal of the hon. Member for Birmingham, and that they would as soon as they could submit to the House a Schedule containing the offences for which flogging could be inflicted. Until they had done that, he did not think the Government should be allowed to proceed.
    SIR HENRY HAVELOCKthought the suggestion of the hon. Member for Birmingham was a reasonable one, although he had no hesitation in expressing his opinion that the punishment of flogging should be greatly restricted, but should be maintained. That was the position which he had always maintained upon this question, and he did not now recede from it; his contention being that, wherever necessary, flogging should be inflicted. Still, he did think that the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Birmingham was a perfectly reasonable and fair one. All that he asked for was that a Schedule should be prepared containing the offences for which, in extreme cases, a soldier should be liable to corporal punishment. To prepare such a Schedule would be a work of no difficulty to anyone who was practically acquainted with the infliction of punishment in the Army. Such a Schedule would leave no doubt as to the crime for which punishment was to be inflicted, and would, moreover, enable the good soldier to feel conscious that he was not liable to corporal punishment. It would have the effect of abolishing the fear of corporal punishment, which now acted as a strong deterrent to a large class of men, and prevented them from enlisting. The Schedule would not only render it impossible for a good soldier to be flogged, but it would tend to dissipate the delusion that there was any desire on the part of officers to abuse the powers that were placed in their hands.
    DR. KENEALYthought it was very much to be regretted that Her Majesty's Government had not accepted the proposal of the hon. and learned Member

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    for Oxford. So far as he could understand, the population of this country had a strong repugnance to flogging in the Army. The proposal which had been made seemed to him to be a most reasonable one, if the Committee would bear in mind that in all enactments with reference to those who had broken the laws of the country the House had been most particular to enumerate the particular offences for which flogging was to be inflicted. Even Her Majesty's Judges, in administering the laws of the land, were tied down by very stringent limitations in the infliction of corporal punishment. In all enactments dealing with criminal matters, the House had decided and enacted by law the actual offences for which corporal punishment could be inflicted. He did not say that the same restrictions as regarded corporal punishment could be applied in reference to soldiers as to civilians. But it seemed to him that it was absolutely necessary to specify some offences. There was this additional reason for doing it in the case of military offenders. Courts martial were sometimes composed of very young officers, who might not all be possessed of very good judgment; and it was undesirable that the power of inflicting corporal punishment should be placed in the hands of any men, unless there were some assurance that it would not be exercised until the expediency of exercising it had been carefully considered. He thought that in the present case the difficulty would be met by giving the power to inflict corporal punishment for particular and grave offences.
    COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that he had had a great many observations addressed to him from various parts of the House, urging him to put certain limitations upon corporal punishment. He had always expressed himself as being only an advocate for corporal punishment where absolutely necessary, and with a view to preventing a more serious punishment. He had been asked whether he could reduce the number of lashes; but he did not feel it to be consistent with his duty to do so, because the punishment, if inflicted at all, ought to be severe. The junior Member for Birmingham had pressed upon the attention of the Committee the fact that there were many crimes for which, even inferentially, a soldier might be liable to corporal punishment. That might be
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    so; but no one would ever suppose that flogging would be inflicted for some of the matters mentioned by the hon. Member. He freely admitted, however, that it was quite right to limit a severe punishment of this kind, and to fence it round in every way in which it could be done without destroying discipline. He had been asked whether he could give an undertaking that a Schedule of the crimes should be framed for which alone corporal punishment could be inflicted. In answer to that request, he had said that in principle he was in no way opposed to that; but that the matter was one of drafting and one of considerable difficulty, although it might appear to be simple enough, and he did not like to give a promise which he might not be able to fully carry out. So far as his own convictions went, they pointed very much to limiting the class of crimes rather than altering the nature of the punishment. He apprehended, also, that he would not be in Order in postponing this clause, even if they wished to do it, for it had been already amended. They were in a position of some difficulty. All that he could undertake to do, under the circumstances, and what he was perfectly ready to do, was to lay before the Committee a Schedule. That, he understood, was the only demand which had been made upon him on the part of the Committee; and it was all which, in view of the previous decision of the Committee that corporal punishment should be inflicted, he felt it consistent with his duty to do. He did not see that much good would be effected by leaving out the words "on board ship" from the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Aberdeenshire. It did not seem to him that the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend would meet all the cases on active service. Probably, it would be better to deal with both of these Amendments in connection with Schedules specifying the offences for which corporal punishment could be inflicted on board ship and also on active service. The House would then have clearly before it the offences for which that punishment could be inflicted. Of course, the Committee would be aware that the difficulty he felt was a matter of drafting; it was an important subject, and he was placed in a position of doubt, without time for consideration. How-

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    ever, he thought he should be taking up the time of the Committee in asking them to postpone the clause, after the explanation which he had given, and which he trusted would be satisfactory. He hoped that, the matter having been discussed very fully, they would be now allowed to proceed to a decision.
    MAJOR NOLANwished to point out that there was no difficulty about the Schedule at all, for the Amendment which he had put upon the Paper to substitute for the word "imprisonment" the word "death" would do all that was wanted. By simply making that alteration, they had their Schedule made for them. He wished, also, with the permission of the Chair, to speak for a moment to the point of Order. The Chairman seemed to consider that the number of lashes in Clause 44 did not affect the position of the provost marshal. What ho wanted to point out was, that in the Peninsular War the provost marshal frequently gave 100 or 200 lashes, when he would not now have dared to give more than 40 or 50. The reason for that was, that in Clause 22 of the present Mutiny Act it was provided that no sentence of corporal punishment should exceed 50 lashes. That clause was put in about 30 years ago, and that clause prevented the provost marshal from giving more than 50 lashes. That was not a matter of contention, because the Government had put opposite this very line in the Bill — "Mutiny Act, Clause 22," referring to this clause. This clearly proved that the old Mutiny Act governed the number of lashes the provost marshal could inflict; and, therefore, that this clause fixed the number of lashes that the provost marshal could give—in fact, there was no other reference to him in the Bill than that contained in this clause. There was, also, another line of argument. Clause 22 declared that the powers of the provost marshal should be regulated by the rules of the Service, and that was exactly the point which they were now discussing. As the provost marshal chiefly dealt with flogging, this was a very important rule of the Service. He thought, upon consideration of these points, which could not have been known to him previously, that the Chairman might be fairly asked to consider his ruling, and not prevent them from discussing the powers of the provost marshal under this clause.
    MR. PARNELL, before the Chairman gave his decision, wished to point out, in addition to what had been said, that there was no limitation in Clause 72, either as to the nature or the extent of the punishment inflicted by the provost marshal; and, therefore, if it was not limited by this clause, it would not be limited at all, and the General in command might order any extent of flogging that he chose.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, that it was not for him to pronounce any opinion as to the construction put upon the old Mutiny Act by the provost marshals. He could only give the Committee the benefit of the conclusion at which he had arrived as to the construction of the Bill before it. It appeared to him very clear that this clause defined the crimes for punishment as those crimes under the cognizance of courts martial. By Clause 72, the powers and jurisdiction of the provost marshal were indicated. Those powers were stated to be regulated, as the hon. and gallant Member for Gal-way (Major Nolan) had said, by the rules of war and the usages of the Service. The first part of the clause made provision that—
    "The general or other officer commanding the forces on active service shall cause the provost marshals to exercise the powers entrusted to them in such manner and under such circumstances as he may consider to he best calculated to prevent and instantly to repress offences injurious to the discipline of the forces under his command and to the public service. The duties of provost marshals shall he to take charge of persons confined for offences punishable under this Act, to preserve good order and discipline, to prevent the commission of offences by persons subject to military law belonging to the said forces, and to punish on the spot, or on the same day, those whom they may detect in the actual commission of any offence punishable under this Act which they may be instructed to repress."
    It was quite true there was no express limitation of these powers, and it would be quite open to hon. Members, when they came to Clause 72, to propose to insert some limitation. But the present was not the time at which to propose a limit to the power of the provost marshal. If it was made at all, it ought to be made during the discussion of Clause 72.
    MR.CHAMBERLAINsaid, of course, every hon. Member would feel that the statement of the hon. Gentleman opposite was thoroughly satisfactory as far as

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    his own personal inclination went; but, at the same time, the Committee would make a mistake, if it adopted the solution which was now proposed as an acceptable one. In fact, it would land them in very considerable difficulty hereafter. According to what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had proposed, it was to be left to him to see if he could, on a subsequent stage of the Bill, bring up such a Schedule of offences as had been suggested by himself and had been recommended by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt). It must he remembered, however, that upon the Report the House would not have the opportunity which it enjoyed in Committee of examining the details of such a Schedule; and if this debate had taught them nothing else, it had certainly taught them the necessity and importance of considering a measure of this intricate character with all possible care. He was quite sure that the time which had been spent in discussing the offences for which flogging was to be inflicted would not be found to be wasted.
    COLONEL STANLEYbegged pardon for interrupting. He had used a wrong term. He, of course, did not mean to use the word " Report." The Schedule would be discussed when they came to the Schedule of the Bill.
    MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that was what he was going to propose; and if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would agree to that, and would allow, in Sub-section 6 of Clause 44, after the word " lashes," the insertion of the words " and shall be subject to the provisions hereinafter mentioned," he would have done all that was necessary to meet the present difficulty and to satisfy the Committee. The conditions under which flogging should be inflicted would be more particularly discussed at another stage of the Bill.
    COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he was afraid he was out of Order in proposing it; but what he would suggest would be that after the word "circumstances," in line 34, they should insert these words, " or for any other crimes than those specified in the Schedules." He thought that would meet the difficulty.
    SIR ALEXANDER GORDONwas anxious to point out that if Her Majesty's Government could see their way to accept the Amendment of the hon.
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    and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), which occourred a few lines further down in the Paper, it would meet the views of hon. Members. ["No, no!"] Well, it would, at any rate, meet the views of a very large number of hon. Members on that side of the House. If the punishment of flogging were restricted for those offences for which death could be inflicted, it would obviate the necessity of a list of offences, and would confine the punishment to the most serious crimes. The provost marshal could not flog a soldier when he was under his own officers. It was only when he was straggling away from the Army and from military control—it was only when he was a camp-follower, in fact, that the provost marshal had the right to punish. ["No, no!"] Well, at any rate, he had no doubt he was correct in that statement, and the Committee ought not to run away with the idea that the soldier could be flogged by a provost marshal whenever he thought fit.
    MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that his right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for War had now said that he would specify in the Schedules those crimes for which flogging ought to be inflicted. What more did the Committee want? By inserting the words proposed after the word " circumstances," they had practically assured the result they desired.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTthought the assurance given was perfectly satisfactory. When they came to Sub-section 7, however, it should be made to read thus—
    "Corporal punishment, in pursuance of this Act, may he inflicted on active service, or on board any ship not commissioned by Her Majesty under the conditions stated in the Schedule to this Act,"
    leaving out the words " which punishment, or a greater punishment."
    MR. O'CONNOR POWERthought, as they were to be called upon to divide before very long, it was necessary they should really know what they were going to divide about. The original proposition before the Committee was that moved by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), which restricted the number of lashes to be inflicted. He wished to point out to the Committee, notwithstanding the many appeals which had been made to the

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    Secretary of State for War, that he had made no promise which indicated his willingness to make the slightest concession. It had been properly forced on his attention that if he could not consent to the restriction of the lashes to six, he might, at least, consent to their reduction to 25. When that suggestion was made, there was to all appearance a strong disposition among hon. Members below the Gangway not to vote for the original Motion, but to accept 25 lashes as a partial settlement of the question, and to regard that as a very fair triumph for the time. But, instead of having such a promise, they had a promise given them of a totally different character, and of a very ambiguous nature. Instead of being told that the number of lashes should be reduced, they were told that the infliction of them should be limited to offences specified in the Schedule. They did not know what offences those were. And as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had not told them what would be the limitation, or what would be the character of the Schedule, they were entirely in his hands. While he would strongly advise the withdrawal of the Amendment in favour of one reducing the lashes to 25, he submitted that it would be impossible for the hon. and learned Member for Stockport to enter into any agreement on terms of the kind now proposed, for they were very indefinite, and did not touch the real proposition at all. He, for one, saw no remedy for the condition in which they were now than to adjourn the whole subject until the right hon. and gallant Gentleman could come down and make a clear and definite statement on the whole matter. The further they went, the more they discovered their inability to discuss these clauses by themselves, because they were all so mixed up one with the other that each affected the other. He would respectfully suggest, in view of the different opinions expressed, and the different interpretations put upon this clause, that it would be better to withdraw it from the consideration of the Committee until the Government could come down with a clear Schedule.
    MR. ASSHETON CROSShoped the Committee would come to a decision. The vast majority of the House accepted with entire approval the proposition of
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    his right hon. and gallant Friend. No one, of course, would ask the hon. and learned Member for Stockport to withdraw his Amendment, and he had never intended to suggest anything of the sort. What he wanted to suggest was that, the question having now been fully discussed, they should, at all events, take a Division on the maximum number of lashes. Those persons who had taken an interest in the discussion of the other question were quite content provided this Schedule were produced before the Bill left the Committee.
    MR. J. BROWNthought it would be much better they should divide at once on the number of lashes, as it was absurd to keep on talking in this way about the subject. The question whether it was to be a maximum of 25 was a much better issue to put before the Committee than six, the number proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport.
    MR. HOPWOODthought the House would give him credit, although ho had spoken several times, for having also held his tongue a good deal. They were now in this position—that this was the third day they had devoted to discussing this question of corporal punishment, and it was evidently one which moved the House greatly. As the debate proceeded the ranks of those who supported him had thickened, and in that fact ho found a justification for the extent to which he had dwelt upon this important question. He had moved to reduce the number of these lashes, because really they were guilty of hypocrisy in talking of inflicting 50 lashes upon the soldier when the number really was in fact 450. As, therefore, the Government had declared that 50 lashes were sufficient for the purpose, he thought the}'' should let the number really be 50 lashes. The present instrument of torture, the use of which they were again called upon to sanction that day, had nine tails, which, multiplied by six, gave 54 lashes. He submitted it was most hypocritical to pretend to be more merciful than they really were. It had been suggested to him, however, that he should remove his Amendment in order to take that suggested by his hon. Friend (Mr. J. Brown). He did not like the use of corporal punishment at all in the Army; but still he was ready to give way, if his hon. Friend would undertake to press his

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    Amendment to a division—of course, on the understanding that he should be at liberty to press the other Amendments of which he had given Notice.
    MR. JOHN BRIGHT: I have not taken any part in the discussion to this point, and I rise only to make an observation upon the course which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Stanley) has taken upon the question of 50 or 25 lashes. I have always supposed that the punishment which a man suffers is not merely the bodily pain and anguish to which he is put, but that part of it is the discredit which is thrown upon him by the infliction of the punishment. Well, it is obvious that the infliction of 25 lashes will bring just as much discredit upon a man, and be to him as great a disgrace, as the infliction of 50 lashes. Then, we come to the question of pain. I believe there is no Member in this House who has undergone the punishment, although some hon. Members have been in prison. I believe I cannot appeal to anybody in the House as to his personal knowledge of this indignity; but I think it is always understood that it is the first few lashes that cause the greatest pain, and that after a certain, or rather an uncertain number, according to the nervous temperament and constitution of the prisoner, that the punishment becomes, so far as feeling goes, almost nil. If that be so, if you have a sufficient amount of odium cast upon a man by 25 lashes, and you give him the proportion of pain which 50 lashes would give him, surely it may fairly be argued that 25 lashes would be just as influential in the field, or anywhere else, to restrain men by the fear of it, or to punish them if they be guilty, as any larger number. We see that the barbarism of past times has been condemned. Fifty years ago—I think it was in the year 1832—-the limitation of 50 lashes was introduced. May not we now go further, and limit still more the barbarism even of 50 years ago? I am not, happily for myself, connected with military affairs at all, except, indeed, so far as helping to pay a great deal of taxes; but, if I were a soldier, I should speak, I think, much more strongly than I do now, in condemnation of this punishment. It is, no doubt, wholly out of accord with our times. War itself is barbarous enough, but even Armies are less barbarous than they were
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    in times past; and surely a legislative and popular Assembly like this, feeling, as we must feel, that we should speak the sentiment and the feeling of the vast majority outside this House, must prevail upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to accept the Amendment of 25 lashes. If he should not consent, I hope the House will put a conclusive pressure upon him, and that he will find himself in a minority in the Lobby on the division. I shall vote most certainly and most anxiously in favour of the limitation which has been proposed.
    MR. MACDONALDhad listened to the debate with very great interest, because he was himself well acquainted with the effects of corporal punishment. They were asked to continue by this Bill in the hands of officers a power which they had held for centuries. They were to confer on persons of a certain class the same powers which their predecessors had held. The power, he would assert, had neither been used wisely or well, but positively in a brutal and unmanly manner. They, therefore, ought not to be intrusted with the power of flaying their fellow-men. A case in point came before his mind most forcibly. His father served in Her Majesty's Fleet, and distinguished himself at the taking of no less than seven Islands in the West Indies; but a drunken captain, in a moment of caprice, at 2 o'clock in the morning, because he was drunk, thought that his father had let the tiller fall upon his head. The hands were ordered up for punishment, although it was 2 o'clock in the morning; his father received seven dozen lashes on his back, and, to the hour of his death, the weals stood up thicker than his fingers. He did protest against this power being placed in the hands of any man. He protested against even 25 lashes; that number represented 225 cuts, and a skilful man could bring his lash to bear with such precision that every single cut told with unerring certainty. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had told them that a soldier liked this, and had produced a miserable instance of a single soldier who had preferred flogging to another sort of punishment. He ventured to say that no Minister had ever offered such a defence for so abominable and degrading a punishment. They were told that soldiers liked it. No doubt, as eels liked skinning. What

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    opportunity had the soldiers had of telling them their views about it. If they had met in their barracks, or out of them, to tell the House their views and to protest against the punishment, they would have got a dose of "cat" that would have kept them lively for weeks, and made them, if not wiser, at any rate suffering men. Had they met to vote for the lash in the Colonies, in the Settlements—in any of the great military depôts? the theory was too monstrous to conceive. It did not do credit to the head, the heart, or the humanity of the Secretary of State for "War to make a statement of the kind. The punishment was a degrading one, and the power of inflicting it should never be placed in the hands of any man.
    MR. O'DONNELLwas especially glad that a Member of the House, who was, in so practical a sense, a representative of the mass from whom the Army was recruited, had spoken, and spoken, too, in a manner so worthy of the obligation which he owed to his constituents. He, himself, was opposed, root and branch, to the infliction of flogging in the Army, whether inflicted by the provost marshal or by a court martial. He looked forward with hope to the time when the Army would be really a respectable Army; when men would not consider it a slur to have served Her Majesty in the ranks; and he believed that every limitation which the Committee placed upon the use of barbarous punishments would tend to force the authorities at the War Office so to improve the conditions of the Service as really to make the Army an Army of respectable citizens. At present, he would only refer to two points under discussion. He might say, in the first place, that, from personal information received from most trustworthy authorities, there was never a thing done or spoken in that House which would produce so evil an effect, or so rankling an effect, in Ireland, as the news that there had been constant flogging in the Con-naught Hangers. Certainly he desired most strongly to support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport, when he protested against the composition of the British lash. On this subject he had received a letter that morning which, with the permission of the Committee, he would read. He did not know the writer; but
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    still, he believed the letter was one which ought to be laid before the House. It was as follows:—
    "Sir, seeing that Members of the House of Commons doubt the statements made as to the effects of the punishment of the lash, I will give you my experience of it. Thirty-five years ago I belonged to the 7th [Queen's Own] Hussars, and at the time I bore a good character."
    Now, that statement must impress upon hon. Members the demoralization that was produced by the lash once inflicted even in the lightest possible manner.
    "My crime was calling out 'hullo' in answer to a sergeant who called my name. I was warned for a court martial, tried, sentenced, punished, and in hospital in less than two hours."
    The name of the colonel was given in this letter, but he (Mr. O'Donnell) did not think it was necessary to state it in that House; for, clearly, the colonel was one of those martinets who were daily becoming more scarce in the Army as civilization proceeded. This man was sentenced by his colonel, who was at once judge and prosecutor, to 100 lashes —that being, as the hon. and learned Member for Stockport had correctly pointed out, not 100, but 900 lashes. This happened in the year 1846, and the writer, detailing what had occurred, continued—
    "My boots were filled with blood. The marks are still to be seen on my back and neck. My back is often aching, and where the cords of the eat cut I can get no rest; so that I have been, in reality, punished for 33 years by a bad tempered colonel, and that for no crime. I am now nearly 60 years, and I suppose I shall suffer to my death."
    The writer had given him (Mr. O'Donnell) his name, but he did not think it necessary to repeat it. The man served in the C troop of the Queen's Hussars, and the letter was open privately to the inspection of any Member of the Committee who desired to see it. The hon. and learned Member for Stockport had, indeed, done good service, when he pointed out the cruel mockery of taking the 50 lashes inflicted as 50 lashes only, when really there were nine cuts inflicted by every blow of the lash.
    MR. BIGGARwas of opinion that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport had made a mistake in withdrawing his Motion to reduce the number of lashes to six, merely for the sake of getting a rather larger ma-

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    jority in favour of the Motion to reduce the number of lashes to 25. In his opinion, he would have done much better to have stood by his first proposal; for, even as a matter of tactics, it was injudicious to withdraw the Amendment. After all, the final authority which must decide this question was not the House of Commons, but the people of England; and the question they had to consider was, whether or not they would submit to return Members who had voted in favour of this outrageous and degrading punishment. The Army was drawn from a class of people from whom a large proportion of the electors was also drawn, and to them must be left the decision of the question. They had certainly not had the advantage of very much argument in favour of this proposition. So far as be could recollect, the front Government Bench had not contributed anything in the shape of argument in support of the principle of flogging, but simply stated, in general terms, that they believed it was advisable that the system should continue. But if they had heard nothing of argument from the front Treasury Bench, they had listened to some arguments from independent Members; and, certainly, from one of them he should never have expected to have heard a word in support of such a system—he meant the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). That hon. Gentleman argued very strongly in favour of flogging; but the illustration he quoted was a most unfortunate one. The troops in South Africa, they had already heard, were killing the wounded in the field, and smoking the savages out of caves; but the hon. Gentleman seemed to forget that the men who did this were under the control and protection of their officers—the same men who, were they on a court martial, would be parties to inflicting the punishment of flogging upon them. If, then, this punishment was to be continued, he should be disposed to argue that the officers, equally with the men, should be liable to it. The correspondent of The Evening Standard at the Cape had made a long statement as to the flogging which was going on there, from which it appeared that it was even inflicted for offences arising out of drunkenness, if not for drunkenness itself. The hon. and gallant Member for Sunderland (Sir Henry
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    Havelock) had twitted the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) with his ignorance on this subject, and had declared that this punishment, which was exceedingly rare, could only be inflicted by a court martial. As a matter of fact, it was quite the other way; they had the testimony of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), that this punishment was very often inflicted for the most trivial offences.
    MR. MONKwished to say a word or two before the Amendment was withdrawn. The hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. J. Brown) had suggested 25 lashes instead of six, as proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport; but he was afraid, from the language used by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, that he would not accept the Amendment. At any rate, there was no intimation on the part of the Government that they would accept any lower number of lashes than 50. That being so, it would be very undesirable that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport should withdraw his Amendment. There were many Members on that side of the House who considered this punishment of flogging was utterly repugnant and utterly unworthy of the British Army. Therefore, he hoped he would not withdraw his Amendment, and that he would do his best to limit the number of lashes. Unless they heard from the Treasury Bench that the Government were willing to reduce the number from 50 to 25, he hoped his hon. and learned Friend would not withdraw.
    MR. SHERIDANthought, if the Government would adopt 25 instead of 50 lashes that some progress might be made; as he gathered from what had been said by his hon. Friends sitting round him that such an Amendment would be accepted on that side of the House as a settlement of the question for this Session. In the event, however, of that Amendment not being accepted, he understood his hon. and learned Friend would not be satisfied by merely taking one division on the subject.
    MR. CALLANsaid, some few days ago the Home Secretary imformed them that he had placed in the Library, for the information of Members, some specimens of diseased salmon. It would tend very much to the elucidation of this serious

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    calculation about nine times six, if the War Office would place in the Library some specimens of this cat with nine tails. It was very unfair, as he thought, to ask Members to withdraw a Motion as to flogging until they had before them some specimens of the cat. There was a Society in England, of which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr.Newdegate) was a distinguished ornament — the Protestant Alliance — and the other morning he received from it a series of illustrations of the implements of torture employed by the Jesuits, and among them was a cat for flogging. That, however, was a cat with only three tails.
    MR. NEWDEGATEbegged pardon for interrupting; but he wished to inform the hon. Member that he did not belong to the Protestant Alliance.
    MR. CALLANreplied, that if the hon. Member was not a member of that Society he ought to be, for it was a highly respectable body, composed of persons of extreme views. The cat, shown in those woodcuts he had referred to, had three tails, with a number of pellets on each, and it was said to be used in the unfortunate monastic institutions of this country. He, for one, would not consent to the withdrawal of the Amendment. He objected to lay a single lash on the back of the British soldier. They did not flog men for beating their wives, and yet they proposed to submit a soldier, at the decision of a military tribunal, to this degrading punishment.
    MR. HOPWOOD,in asking the permission of the Committee to withdraw his Amendment, wished to read again the letter quoted by his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Donnell), in order to make a correction of the letter. This punishment was given in 1846, and the man now wrote—
    "My boots were filled with blood. The marks are still to be seen on my back and neck. My back is all breaking out where the knots of the cat cut, and I can get no rest; so that I have been punished for 33 years by a hot-tempered colonel, and that for no crime."
    The time was past for an act so arbitrary as that. He wished to withdraw his Amendment, in deference to the proposition pressed upon him by a number of his Friends. He would ask those who had been supporting him to yield. He urged the hon. Member for Gloucester
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    and other hon. Members to let him do so, because he had still other Amendments upon which this struggle could be renewed. They had fought this battle together, and he asked them now to let him withdraw his Amendment, on the understanding that he would proceed with his other Amendments, and ask them to assist him in fighting them.
    MR. SULLIVANearnestly appealed to the Government not to press the matter on without taking notice of the feeling which had been expressed by hon. Members. He shared with the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) his sentiment of horror and aversion for this brutality; and he put it, upon those strong observations made by the hon. Member, that the Government ought to see that there existed a deep and conscientious horror at this punishment. In the matter of the lash they were dealing with no ordinary question of legislation, but with a matter which touched every man of conscience. He put it to the hon. Member for Gloucester to defer to the discretion and guidance of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport, who, he believed, had that day gained a great victory for humanity. He (Mr. Sullivan) had the honour of standing opposed to this punishment when friends were few, and when endeavours to do away with it were characterized as obstruction. But they were vindicated that day by many hon. Gentlemen who, to their credit be it told, had said there had been a great grievance. He had a strong aversion to any number of lashes whatever; but he asked his hon. Friends to offer no opposition to the withdrawal of the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), whose work that day would long be remembered by his countrymen.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. J. BROWNmoved, in page 19, line 27, to leave out "fifty," and insert " twenty-five."
    MR. SULLIVANcould not agree that the right hon. Gentlemen whom he saw before him would allow officialism to make torpid their high personal sense of responsibility. He appealed to them, as individuals, not to allow their official character to blind them to the position in which they stood with regard to this question. The Committee had listened to the words of the right hon, Gentle-

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    man the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), who had advanced to the Table a short time ago. If he (Mr. Sullivan) might say anything in the nature of a compliment to him after his long years of service to his country, he would say that he never interposed in a public debate more creditably to his public character than upon that occasion. Twenty-five lashes were surely enough; what defence could possibly be made for retaining 50 as against 25? The defence that would be attempted was, he supposed, that they could not do without that number. That had been the defence used for 1,000 lashes, and for 500 lashes; and it was, moreover, the defence which had obstructed the humane efforts of the man who brought the number down to 50. He felt it would be less than human not to make an effort to push still further this reform. He appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and said, upon this matter of 25 lashes, that, as it was to the credit of this Government to bring the punishment down from 100 lashes to 50, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be the man to push that great reform still further in the direction of humanity, and say that 25 lashes would be amply sufficient to preserve discipline.
    COLONEL MUREthought the Government should agree to the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. J. Brown). Fifty lashes were, in his opinion, too many, and were apt to make a man ill. He did not think that flogging could be done away with entirely; but the time had, in his opinion, arrived for its further reduction.
    THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I venture, also, to appeal to the Government. I would ask them very seriously to consider the position in which they stand, and will stand, if they resolve to reject this Amendment. During a great part of the discussion I admit I have not been present, and I, therefore, have no intention of entering again into arguments which have formerly been stated upon one side and the other as to the maximum number of lashes which is necessary to be given. But I say, first, that I have been, in common with a very large number of Members on both sides of the House, very much struck with what has fallen from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). No
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    one of us can doubt that, as to the degradation of punishment, it exists to the same extent, whether the number is 25 or 50. As to the pain, also, there can be but very little difference. What I wish the Government to consider is, how they stand in relation to the progress of this Bill by adhering to the number of 50 lashes, which it specifies. This question has been discussed at very great length; and it must be evident to the Government that if they refuse to take the compromise that is now suggested, the matter will not be disposed of at this Sitting. Now, I should be the very last to ask the Government to give way to any proposition based upon any unworthy motive, or instituted simply for the purpose of retarding or obstructing the Public Business; but the Government must very clearly see by this time that there does exist amongst the Members of the House a very strong, vehement, and honest feeling that the number of lashes inflicted in corporal punishment should not be so great as is proposed by the clause. The Government, I think, would be wise not to disregard that strong feeling, considering how it has been manifested, and to accept the proposed Amendment which, I believe, offers the only chance they will have of making the progress with this measure which we all desire. I hope they will not determine to persevere in a course which is unnecessary, and which must cause great delay in the progress of the Bill.
    MR. MILBANKwas old enough to remember men getting 100, 200, and 300 lashes, and had himself seen their backs cut to a jelly:—he had seen, not only the blood but the flesh fly off their backs. It was the practice in the Army to exercise 10 or 12 drummer-boys in the art of drumming for two days before the flogging took place; this could not but be degrading to the Army. In the Cavalry regiments the farrier majors did the flogging. He had seen 100 lashes given to a man, who took them without wincing; another man would faint very soon, and water would be given him from a sponge, for he would have no power to drink. He thought that flogging in the Army ought to be done away with.
    MR. HERMONrose for the purpose of adding his voice in favour of the appeal made to the Government. He could not help thinking that the extreme

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    punishment of 25 lashes would never be administered. At the same time, it appeared to him that that number would be sufficient for the enforcement of discipline. After the appeal which had been made from both sides of the House, he trusted the Government would give way. He did not urge this upon the score of saving time, but upon a principle of humanity, for he felt quite certain that flogging was sufficient to ruin a man for life.
    COLONEL ALEXANDERdesired, also, to join in the appeal to the Government to assent to the proposed Amendment. He agreed with the view expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) that 25 lashes were really quite sufficient, for when a soldier was on service he was disqualified for duty by receiving 50 lashes. Even taking it upon that low ground, it was very important that the number should be reduced. With regard to the severity of the punishment, there was very little feeling or sense after the first few lashes.
    COLONEL STANLEYtrusted the Committee would allow him, very briefly, to interpose. He could not help feeling that the position in which he was placed was one of some difficulty. On one side, he stood with very little experience, as the Representative of a Department over which he had the honour to preside, in a matter which concerned the interest of a Service spread over all parts of the globe, under circumstances of discipline which were not analogous to those in any other country. On the other hand, he did not wish to shelter himself behind the opinions of anyone. But he was bound, nevertheless, to consider and weigh the opinions of those who, from their position, authority, or experience, were cognizant of the necessities of the Army, and were best able to give advice in matters of discipline. Owing to the consideration of which he had spoken, he had hesitated long to assent to any alteration in this punishment, because he felt that the only alternative for the maintenance of discipline would be to fall back upon the severer systems known to other countries; but when officers, like the hon. and gallant Members for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure) and Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander), who had served in various countries in the world, declared that 25 lashes would be as
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    effectual as the 50 proposed in the clause, he could not but feel that, supported by their opinion, there was room for the exercise of further judgment and consideration. He had never been one of those who had left out of sight that the military law of this country, though in some respects based upon usage, had, in later years, as had been distinctly pointed out, been held to be guided by statutory powers. He did not think, having said this much, that it would be right on his part to avoid noticing the evident pre-disposition of the House in favour of a reduction of this punishment. He hoped the House would understand that it was not a personal matter. He had briefly stated why he' considered it his duty not lightly to give way to an Amendment which, to his mind, would perhaps in some cases make the punishment of so little effect as to render it necessary to substitute another of greater severity; but he felt, after the discussion which had taken place, after considering the quarters from which opposition had arrived, and being greatly influenced by the opinion of the hon. and gallant Member for Ayrshire—who, he believed, was not alone on his side of the House in the view which he took of the question—that he ought to assent, however tardily, to the evident judgment of the Committee. Therefore, without asking the Committee to go to the trouble of a division, he would assent to the reduction of the number of lashes to 25.
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. HOPWOODsaid, the Committee would remember that in agreeing to the withdrawal of his last Amendment he had carefully guarded himself against being supposed to retreat from the position which he had assumed with regard to this matter; because he felt that this was due to those around him who entertained with him an absolute, determined, and resolute hatred to this punishment in every shape and form. He still wanted that which he called the hypocrisy of the clause done away with. When the Committee said 25 lashes, it did not mean nine times 25 stripes. If any hon. Member would calculate the number of stripes that would be given by 25 lashes of the cat, he would see for himself that it was a gross and excessive punishment. He would therefore move, in

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    page 19, line 28, to leave out the word "lashes," and insert the word "stripes."
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 19, line 28, to leave out the word "lashes," and insert the word "stripes."—(Mr. Hopwood.)
    Question put, "That the word 'lashes' stand part of the Clause."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 219; Noes 102: Majority 117.—(Div. List, No. 121.)
    MR. HOPWOODsaid, the Committee would not be surprised to find that he proposed to proceed with the next Amendment standing in his name—to insert, in page 19, line 28, after the word "lashes," as now confirmed by the House, the words—
    "With an instrument or whip of not more than one thong or tail, of a pattern to he submitted to Parliament."
    He wanted still to urge upon the Committee that they ought to do away with the hypocrisy of saying they wanted 225 lashes, when they meant only 25. He could not too often impress upon the Committee that such hypocrisy amounted to falsehood in law, and that a falsehood would be put through our Statute Book unless his Amendment was adopted. He had been reminded the other day by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that one might make a whip of one thong or tail so cruelly brutal in its effects as to deceive and disappoint his (Mr. Hopwood's) expectations after the passing of a law which defined the lashes to be inflicted by "a whip of one thong or tail." It was perfectly true that a whip might be made —as was the case in the Island of Jamaica — of pianoforte wire; but when once they entered upon this path of endeavouring to repress crime by cruelty, there was no limit to the demands which were made upon their ingenuity. There was, although the right hon. and gallant Gentleman might not be aware of the fact, a precedent for the suggestion of having a sealed pattern of the instrument of torture submitted to Parliament, which occurred in the Naval Department under the late First Lord of the Admiralty, where it now remained, for the prevention of the vagaries of private cruelty in the manufacture of the instrument of severity. He, therefore, moved his Amendment; and if there was any difficulty as to the manner in which the
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    instrument should be submitted to Parliament, it could be settled later on; but the Committee, he thought, should at least pass the words directed against the ingenious inventions of cruelly-disposed persons.
    Amendment proposed,
    After the word "lashes," to insert the words "with instrument or whip of not more than one thong or tail, of a pattern to he submitted to Parliament."—(Mr. Hopwood.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he had already explained that the words proposed to be added were entirely unnecessary, and might lead to a misapprehension which would entirely defeat the object of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport. He had communicated with the Home Office and with the Admiralty on this subject, and understood that, in regard to the instrument of discipline which was used in prisons and on board ship, there were sealed patterns. He had himself in the same manner offered to seal a pattern, but did not propose to place it anywhere in the House.
    MR. A. H. BROWNhoped the hon. and learned Member would not press his Amendment, and suggested that the effect of an instrument which would concentrate the force now spread over nine lashes into one would be far more painful, and certainly more dangerous.
    LORD ELCHOsaid, he had listened very carefully to the discussion which had taken place on that occasion. His sympathies were strongly in favour of the speech made by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) who, he was very glad, had succeeded in inducing the Government to schedule the crimes for which this punishment might be inflicted. He was also glad that the Government had yielded to the evidently strong feeling which existed in the House in favour of reducing the number of lashes to 25; but the Amendment now proposed to the Committee by the hon. and learned Member, who in this matter of reducing the punishment had the House really with him, was, he could not help feeling, a reductio ad absurdum. The hon. and learned Member for Stockport would, in his opinion, do well to be content with his victory, and not throw away its fruits, as he was in a great mea-

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    sure doing. Let him, if he chose, on another occasion, try to improve his victory by proposing the entire abolition of the punishment of flogging; but, in following up his present line, he was making the whole thing ridiculous; and he (Lord Elcho) would suggest that the hon. and learned Gentleman, in order to carry out his view of what the kind of "cat" ought to be, should get the word ''Manx'' inserted before "cat," because Manx cats, it was notorious, had no tails at all.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, the Amendment was not so much a reductio ad absurdum as the noble Lord (Lord Elcho) seemed to think. The reason why the First Lord of the Admiralty bad promised that a sealed pattern of the "cat" should be kept in his Department was, that it bad been pointed out to him by the noble Lord the Member for Clare (Lord Francis Conyngham), who had been at sea, that two descriptions of cats were in use in the Navy, and that one of these was of a very severe nature, indeed. The other "cat" was much less severe in its effects. He would like to know what description of "cat" had been adopted by the Admiralty and the Home Office? The Committee bad a right to know what pattern the Secretary of State for War proposed to adopt, because he might select a very severe instrument in ignorance. There was a great point in this; as punishment might be made very much more severe by adopting the "cat" now used for flogging thieves and men convicted of disgraceful offences.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, his hon. Friend (Mr. Parnell) was quite right in asking whether the "cat" to be used in the Army was the same as that employed in the civil prisons and in the Navy? The House and the country were entitled to know if that was so or not. The cat consisted really of three elements —first, there was the handle. ["Oh,oh!"] Who said "Oh?" [An hon. MEMBER: I did.] He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) wished the hon. Member who said "Oh!" bad something to say "Oh!" for. The cat consisted of the handle, the lashes, and the knots upon the lashes. According to the length of the handle, the material or lashes, and the number of knots, was the severity of the punishment to be measured. A much more severe punishment could be inflicted by a cat of a greater length than that which was in ordinary use. He believed that in the
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    prisons of this country there was a standard laid down. The handle bad to be of a certain length, the lashes made of a certain material, and to have upon them a certain number of knots. It might seem to hon. Members rather an absurd thing to enter into these details; but when the Jamaica Mutiny was put down a few years ago what was the cat that was used there? It was recorded in the Blue Books of the House that the cat used there was made of piano wires. Could the Government suppose that when they were settling this painful subject once for all it was to be left entirely at the option of the colonel of a regiment to select any kind of cat he pleased? The cat employed in the civil prisons of this country had frequently been described in recent years by the reporters of the principal newspapers who had witnessed the punishment of garotters; and the details, though disagreeable enough, were not of a character that seemed to show that the punishment was more severe than it ought to be, if it was to be retained at all. He apprehended that they would all be satisfied if the Secretary of State for War would give them an assurance that the instrument to be employed would be similar to that in use in the civil prisons of the country.
    THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, it was not desirable that the House should too much usurp the functions of the Executive Government by attempting to regulate such details as they were now asked to consider. He hoped it would not go forth to the country that the sympathies of the House were entirely on the side of criminals in the Army. If the Committee could not trust the Government to regulate the form and size of the "cat-o'-nine tails," how were they to be trusted to provide for the clothing and arming of our troops, and for the health and comfort of men who had committed no offence at all? It would be just as reasonable to ask for sealed patterns of ever thing in use in the Army. It appeared to him that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had done all that it was in his power to do. He bad promised that there should be a sealed pattern; and it would not be fair to presume that the authorities at the War Office would make that one of unnecessary severity. If it should be so, the pattern would be accessible to inspection, and the fact con-

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    corning it could be easily ascertained; and he, therefore, suggested that the proper time to bring the subject forward was on the Army Estimates, and not at the present time.
    MR. HOPWOODsaid, that anything which fell from the noble Marquess would always have great weight with him; but he could not help thinking that on the present occasion the noble Lord had misconceived the precise bearing of the question and the meaning of his (Mr. Hopwood's) remarks upon it. He did not care so much for the submission of the thing to Parliament; so that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would agree that the instrument to be used for flogging purposes should only have one thong, and be made according to a sealed pattern, he would withdraw his Amendment; but he objected to the number of lashes to which a man was sentenced being multiplied by nine, or any other number of thongs, which might be attached to the handle of the whip. It was not possible to let this proposal pass in its present abominable shape— a shape which embodied a lie promulgated by the Parliament of this country, and inflicting upon its gallant Army the liability to a shameful punishment.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, it was perfectly true, as had been stated, that this was a question of detail; but it was not fair to object to the course which had been taken on that ground, because the Committee had been fighting on a point of detail during the whole day, and had just changed the intentions of Her Majesty's Government. It was not sufficient to leave these matters in the hands of the Executive Government; because it was one of the essential functions of the whole House and of its Committees to criticize the actions of the Executive, and to see that such Government conformed to the intentions of the Legislature. The detail now before the Committee was as to the nature of the instrument to be employed in flogging the soldiers forming the British Army; and, as far as he was personally concerned, he should be glad to get rid of the questions of detail by getting rid of the flogging altogether; for, in his view, no man who was capable of an offence justifying so degrading a punishment was fit to carry arms in the Forces of Her Majesty. There ought to be no
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    flogees in the Army; but as long as there were, he should maintain his right to discuss questions of detail as to the nature of the instrument to be used, and further to be informed on the point. The remarkable letter which he read a little time back also referred to a matter of detail; but it was a matter of the utmost importance to the writer of the letter, a soldier 60 years of age, who stated that during 33 years he bore, in a shattered constitution and aching frame, the consequences of a ruthless flogging inflicted upon him for one crime; and he laid especial stress upon the point that the knots on the cat-o'-nine-tails had so eaten into his flesh that his back was continually breaking out at the places where the knots had hit him. He therefore ventured to submit that a lash with knots upon it was not a bonâ fide lash, but an instrument calculated to inflict not only stripes, but punctured wounds in addition. If it was not beneath the dignity of the House to consider the question of flogging the defenders of the country, it could not be beneath its dignity to consider the character of the instrument with which the discipline was to be inflicted.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he hoped the Committee would agree to divide at once upon this question, which had been very fully discussed. He was unwilling to believe there was any intention to talk out the matter. One important point in connection with the Bill had been settled to the general satisfaction of the Committee; and if this question was settled also, some progress, though not much, would have been made with the measure.
    MR. PARNELLhoped it would not be necessary for the Committee to divide at all, as he thought the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had misunderstood the nature of the Amendment, which had only been proposed for the purpose of eliciting information as to whether in future the cat at present in use was to be used. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did not know let him say so, and the question could be brought up again on the Army Estimates.
    COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he did not know whether the Army cat was more severe in its punishment than that used in prisons; but he did know that the same cat was used generally in the

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    Army, and he proposed to leave the matter in its present state.
    MR. BIGGARcould not accept the suggestion of the noble Lord the Member for the Radnor Burghs (the Marquess of Hartington), that this was a matter which could be well left in the hands of the Executive Government. The House, having been unfortunate in leaving several important matters connected with prison discipline in the hands of the Executive, had a right to give instructions as to what should be done as far as this matter was concerned.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 54; Noes 164: Majority 110.—(Div. List, No. 122.)
    And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.
    The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.
    The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

MOTION.
  COUNCIL OF INDIA.

    MOTION FOR PAPERS.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in rising to call attention to the manner in which the design of Parliament in providing a Council both in India and in England, composed of men of experience in Indian affairs as advisers and checks upon the Executive, particularly in matters of finance, has been evaded and defeated by the action of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State; and to move—
    " An Address for Copies of the Minute by Members of the Council of the Governor General of India on the Despatch of the Secretary of State, dated the 11th. day of November 1875, and referred to in the Despatch of the Government of India, dated the 17th day of March 1876; and, of all communications which have passed between the Secretary of State for India and the Government of India, or the Governor General, relating to the repeal of the Cotton Duties (in continuation of the Papers presented to Parliament in 1876); "
    said, that the Government of India was, perforce, a despotic Government. That
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    was a fact which we might regret, but which we were obliged to accept. We had been unable to give to India the inestimable boon of self-government and representative institutions; but if our government of that country should ever result in our being able to give its people that boon, our government would reach its legitimate end. Meanwhile, there was no doubt whatever that the central authority which governed India must be supreme, and he should not, in his observations, therefore, say anything which would contravene that position. It was indispensable that the English government of India should be an absolute government; but it would not, he thought, be consistent with the sentiments, the sympathies, and the traditions of the English people or Parliament, if they were to allow that absolute government to be unrestricted and uncontrolled. No man had as yet been created who was fit to exercise uncontrolled power over 200,000,000 of his fellow-creatures. That being so, England had to solve the great problem of reconciling the necessity of a supreme power with such checks as should restrain the faults which must always gather round a despotism. England had, consequently, given to India a Constitution which, though much inferior to our own, would, if fairly worked, present checks against the abuse of the supreme authority of the central power. What he wanted to ask the House was, whether the restraints provided by the Constitution upon the absolute despotic government of India had been fairly dealt with and honestly accepted? He was sorry to say that public opinion had failed to exercise much control over the supreme central authority in India. The English Parliament had, up to a recent date, been too much occupied with other matters, which were not, perhaps, of the same magnitude as the government of India. He felt bound to say that the history of Parliament in reference to its duties to India was not creditable to the Legislature. The object of the English people was that the blast of despotism should be tempered to the shorn lamb of the subject-race; and during the time of the old East India Company, Parliament had a sufficient guarantee that that would take place. The Charters of that Company had to be renewed at intervals, and, on such occasions, opportunities were afforded to de-

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    cide whether India was being properly governed; but since the government of India had passed into the hands of the Crown, the set opportunities which previously existed for reviewing the nature of our Indian responsibilities had unhappily disappeared, and we had now to depend entirely on public opinion as expressed in the House, and according to the chance opportunity which might be afforded. He thought, however, that now there were indications that Parliament had shaken off its lethargy with respect to the affairs of our Eastern Empire. He could not forbear at this point of his remarks from paying a tribute of praise to his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), who, triumphing over natural infirmities, had, by his indefatigable industry and noble tenacity, induced public opinion at last to concern itself with India. Notwithstanding the exertions of his hon. Friend, however, he feared there was a growing tendency to set aside the checks placed upon the increasing despotism of England in the government of India. He had put upon the Paper no Party Motion—no censure upon Her Majesty's Government. The issues were far too important to be made the sport of a Party debate. He would, therefore, accept from them any reply they chose to make to it, except the tu quoque argument. If Liberal Viceroys had transgressed, let them be condemned as well as Conservative Viceroys, and let them do that, rather than allow the principles of the Indian Constitution to go by the board. What, he would ask, was the Constitution of India? It was this—the Secretary of State was the final depository of power over India. That must be so, and it ought to be so. If they desired that the English Parliament should have the supreme rule over India, the responsible Minister for that rule must sit in Parliament, or otherwise he could not be controlled by Parliament. But the House of Commons had neither the time nor the knowledge to exercise the control which was desired, and from time to time they had new men undertaking the work. When Lord Cran-brook, for whom he had the greatest respect, for instance, became Secretary of State for India, he knew just as much about our Indian Empire as any other well-educated English gentleman knew about it. The Governor General of India was in precisely the same position, and
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    the Secretary of State was expected to act as a brake or check upon the Government of India. Therefore it was that Parliament most wisely established, as a control upon the Secretary of State in England, the Council of India—a body of intelligent, impartial, and experienced men, of about the same number as the ordinary Cabinet of England. That number—15—could not be said to be too large, when they considered the variety of interests there were to deal with. Practically speaking, the Secretary of State for India was obliged, in every communication which he made to India, to submit it to the Council, or lay the communication open for their perusal; but he was not bound by their opinion, even if it were that of the majority; in which case his opinion for differing from them must be recorded, except in the case of inquiry, when he need not wait for their opinion to be reconsidered. In all other matters, he was bound to communicate what he sent to India to his Council, and they had the right to make their Minutes on those communications, and, in that manner, be a check on the action of the Secretary of State for India. There was, however, one exception from that rule—and it had reference to matters which used to go through what was called "the Secret Committee." Such matters were not submitted to the Council; but, by the Act of 1858, they were limited to the levying of war, the making of peace, the entering into engagements with the Native Princes, and other matters of urgent and Imperial concern. He knew that there were persons who carried the authority of the Council higher than that, and held that it had an absolute veto on the whole action of the Secretary of State, and they were the principal Members of Her Majesty's present Administration. They had the high authority of the present Lord Derby, in words which he uttered when Lord Stanley, for the opinion that if, in any other matters, the Secretary of State acted solely upon his own authority, he would be guilty of a gross violation of the meaning and intention of the Act. Clause 41 of the Act of 1858 distinctly laid it down, that the Secretary of State for India should not do any act involving expenditure without the concurrence of a majority of his Council. When the question came under discussion in 1869, Lord Salisbury

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    expressed it as his opinion that the Secretary of State had no power to oblige the Government of India to spend a farthing without the sanction of a majority of his Council; and Lord Cairns, who took a similar view, when asked by the Duke of Argyll, as a test question, "Do you mean to say the Secretary of State could not order a war in Afghanistan without the consent of his Council?" replied, "Certainly not." Without going so far as Lord Salisbury or Lord Cairns, he (Sir William Harcourt) contended that the Council ought to have a power of protest, or remonstrance— not a mere legal veto, but a moral influence, on the actions of the Secretary of State, which was not to be easily stifled by that official. It was only in that way they could call the attention of Parliament to what they might regard as a mischievous policy; and he ventured to say, in the words of Lord Stanley, who introduced the Act of 1858, that any Secretary of State or any Viceroy who evaded or defeated the checks established by that Act abused the power intrusted to him and violated the spirit of the Constitution of 1858. That important personage might overrule the Council in ordinary affairs; but if he did, his conduct would have to be judged by Parliament, who had a right to call for the opinions of his Council on those questions, and to the protest of the Council calling the attention of the Parliament to the seriousness of the question. He contended that the Secretary of State could take, in fact, no action in communicating to the Government of India, which was to have a practical effect, unless he first brought the fact to the knowledge of his Council for their opinion. He was aware that Papers had been laid on the Table, which were intended to introduce the tu quoque argument in regard to the Duke of Argyll; but, in the first place, he was not bound by the acts of the noble Duke; and, in the second place, he was very careful that he did not interfere with the final decision. It was perfectly clear, from the words of the statute, that every order should be submitted to the Council, or deposited in the Council Chamber for at least seven days. That check had been disturbed by the Secretary of State for India in England. The power of the Governor General was even more limited, for it had a double check. The English
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    Parliament constituted him an English statesman, and never intended him to be an Eastern Satrap, surrounded by janissaries and advised by eunuchs. There was, in fact, no such person known to the law as an absolute Governor General; the proper title of the Governor General, so far as he had any authority to do anything in India under the Queen, was the "Governor General in Council." Now, that being so, he wished to know how it came that in the Afghan Papers there were occasional despatches addressed to the " Governor General," as distinct, apparently, from the '' Governor General in Council?" With regard to the action of the Governor General in India, in all matters of foreign policy, as well as domestic policy, he acted with his Council; he had no general power to pass over the opinion of his Council. Any Member who dissented might record his dissent; and if the majority dissented, he was obliged, under the Act of 1870, to overrule his Council. Now, the overruling of his Council was a serious act on the part of the Governor General. This power originated in the time of Lord Cornwallis, who desired to exercise it under certain circumstances. There was a later Act, the language of which was more condensed, but the object and intention of which were precisely the same. The 5th clause of the Act of 1870 provided that, when the safety and tranquillity of the British Possessions were essentially affected, the Governor General might overrule his Council. That was a just and necessary power, to be used only in exceptional eases, as everything depended upon the manner in which the power was exercised; and Lord Stanley had pointed out that if it were abused the spirit of the Constitution would be violated. Besides the Executive, there was the Legislative Council, which was a larger body; and it had been carefully provided that a number of non-official Members, more or less representing independent Indian opinion, should be placed on the Legislative Council. It was important to observe that there was one principle admitted by, he believed, every Secretary of State and assented to by Lord Salisbury in 1876, and it was that, as a general and almost unvarying rule, the initiative in Indian measures, and particularly measures of finance, should belong to the Indian Council and the

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    Governors General in Council; that they should not be dictated from the outside, but that they should come from those who were most likely to be informed about the interests of India. This was necessary for two purposes—to maintain the authority of the Government of India in India, and to maintain the confidence of the people in that Government. In 1874, Lord Salisbury modified the rule by requiring the Government of India to communicate its measures to the Government at home before they were passed and completed; and to that he (Sir "William Harcourt) made no objection as far as it went; but, in 1875, measures were taken which, rightly or wrongly, in the opinion of both the Legislative and the Executive Councils, assumed the form of dictation as to the course they were to pursue and the measures they were to pass, and the despatch of the 11th of November, 1875, for which he moved, expressed the sentiments of the Governor General in Council on the subject of that interference. The Constitution of India was one which, while it reserved the force of the central authority, provided checks that were to be fairly worked; and if those checks were set aside, nothing was left but the purest and most undiluted despotism. The practical question for the House and the Government was— Had those checks been fairly worked? If the Government, with more complete information than he could have, could establish the affirmative, no one would be more pleased than himself; but he had come to the conclusion that these checks had been set aside, and were being more and more set aside every day. There were three principal examples which affected the whole framework of Indian government in every Department of Government—namely, the Afghan War, the Vernacular Press Act, and the remission of the Cotton Duties. As regarded the first, it was strange that the Afghan War was made without consulting the Council of India at all, or letting them know anything about it, and made by a Government, two principal Members of which were Lord Cairns and Lord Salisbury. If those noble Lords were right in 1869, they did an act in 1877 and 1878 which, in their opinion, was absolutely illegal. He would admit that the Afghan question came within the
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    Secret Committee clause; it was an affair of high foreign policy, and the Secretary of State was justified in removing it from the consideration of the Council of India in England. Why he did so was much more difficult to understand. One would have thought that in embarking upon a policy of that kind he would have desired all the assistance and support he could obtain. There was, however, no right to withdraw the matter from the Governor General in Council in India. The last despatch preceding the adoption of the new policy was a despatch from the Government of India under Lord Northbrook, dated January, 1876, objecting to that policy. When Lord Lytton went out he received instructions from the Government as to the policy he was to pursue in a despatch of the 28th of February, 1876, which was addressed, not to the Governor General in Council, but to the Governor General. There was no answer to the despatch from Lord Northbrook. The despatch to Lord Lytton was not laid before the Council. He recommended the new policy and they opposed it; and it was not until direct authority from the Secretary of State at home was laid before them that they would entertain it at all. Ultimately, as he was informed, after considerable delay, the instructions of the Secretary of State were produced to the Council. The Secretary of State never had any right to instruct the Governor General of India, apart from his Council, and to do so was contrary to the Constitution of India. How was the Council dealt with afterwards? It was now perfectly well known that three Members of the Council dissented from the new policy; and under the Indian Constitution had a right to record their dissents, and their recorded dissents ought to have been sent home to the Secretary of State. But these dissents were never recorded. Although the instructions as to the new policy were dated the 28th of February, 1876, no Report—of which Parliament had any cognizance—of these protracted discussions came home until the 10th of May, 1877. Did anybody believe that was the first intimation conveyed to the Secretary of State? Did not everybody know that communications were taking place by every mail, but that they were private communications? An important stage in the Afghanistan affairs was when the Instruc-

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    tions were given to Sir Lewis Pelly for the Conference at Peshawur and for the Treaty he was to submit, as an ultimatum to Shere Ali. The Council ought, of course, to have been consulted on that Treaty, and on those Instructions; a despatch should have come to the Secretary of State containing a Minute of the dissent of the three Members of the Council; and such despatch would have been available to Parliament. It was utterly impossible now to look at those Instructions without identifying the date at which the first formal and official Report as to the adoption by the Indian Council of the new policy with the circumstances of the three dissenting Members of the Council having by that time ceased to be Members. With regard to the next point, the Vernacular Press Act, the objection was to the manner in which the Council in England was dealt with. A telegram was sent by the Viceroy on the 13th of March submitting a proposal to introduce the Act. The usual course would have been to have waited until the Act was passed, and then to have considered it in England, and to have approved or rejected it. The Secretary of State, without consulting his Council or allowing them to express any opinion on the subject, telegraphed back the same day his assent substantially to the principle of the Act. This was to defeat altogether the operation of the Council in England as a check upon the action of the Secretary of State, by depriving it of all opportunity of criticism and remonstrance. Under all the circumstances of the case, the House would, he thought, be of opinion that, as far as the Indian Vernacular Press Act was concerned, the practices of the Constitution had not been fairly complied with. He came next to the third and last point with which he had to deal, and that was the repeal of the cotton duties. He did not now propose to raise in any way the question of the policy of that repeal, but he would refer to the way in which it was done. He would even assume that it was a right policy; but if it was sought to break through the checks which the Constitution imposed, there was no more insidious or dangerous way of doing so than by adopting a course which happened to be popular for the moment. The repeal of the cotton duties was, he believed, inaugurated by a speech which had been made by the Secretary of State
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    for India at the time in Manchester in 1875, admitting that when the Revenue exhibited a small surplus the thing could not be done. The matter, therefore, was abandoned for some considerable time, and the necessity for doing the thing, per fas aut per nefas, did not arise until there was a deficit, when the Governor General in Council used the exceptional powers to which he had already referred, not in any great case of sudden emergency, but in a case of ordinary finance, to overrule the Council of India. He should like to know whether any other example could be furnished of the overruling power of the Governor General having been exercised in such circumstances? The Customs duties on cotton had been imposed by a Legislative Act, and one would suppose that the natural and legitimate way to get rid of them would have been by the passing of a Legislative Act. The Governor General, however, knew that he could not pass such an Act, because the opinion of his Council was almost unanimously against him; and he, consequently, ferreted out a section in the Customs Act under which, apparently, there was power to suspend Customs' duties. If such things as this were done, he ventured to say that their Indian Constitution would break down. The legal Member of the Council felt himself obliged to state that if such things went on the Government of India would be impossible, for it was a fraud, as to which there was no Court of Equity in India which could relieve them; and he strongly objected to the way in which the proposed change in the law was to be effected. In his (Sir William Harcourt's) opinion the only one point in which Mr. Stokes was mistaken was in saying that there was no Court of Equity to relieve the people of India. There was such a Court, and that was the Court which he had now the honour to address. The Parliament of England had the power and authority to vindicate the people of India against such outrages on the Constitution. Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, a Member of the Council of India, in dealing with the question, said there could be no doubt that the people of that country attributed the action which had been taken by the Government with respect to it to the influence of persons who were interested in the cotton trade—in other words, to the in-

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    fluence of the manufacturers of Lancashire; and expressed it to he his conviction that he was not overstating the case, when he declared it to be his belief that there were no officials in India who did not regard the step which had been taken as having been adopted not in the interests of India, or, even, of England, but in the supposed interests of a political Party. Sir Alexander Arbuthnot went on to say that nothing would have induced him to be a party to the imposition of restrictions on the Native Press, had he known that within a year the Government of India would have embarked on a course which, in his opinion, was so unwise and so destructive of that reputation for justice on which the rule of England in India so greatly depended. If the language of Sir Alexander Arbuthnot with reference to the operation of the Vernacular Press Act was not justifiable, he wanted to know why Her Majesty's Government did not prosecute him for using language which was injurious to the Government of India? That was what had been done in India in the matter. What had been done in England? Under a clause of the Act, if the Governor General overruled his Council, he was obliged immediately to communicate with the Secretary of State. He (Sir William Harcourt) wanted to know if the Secretary of State had received such a communication, and what he had done with regard to it? Two months ago he received a communication from the Governor General. Had he answered it? Had he approved it? Did he suggest it? In any of those cases had he submitted those communications, as he was bound to do under the Act, to the Council of India? Now happened one of the gravest things that could occur—the overruling of the Council of India by the Governor General. A communication on the subject was sent home to the Secretary of State. It was on a matter of finance, which we were told by Lord Derby must always come before the Council of India. He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, some weeks ago, whether a communication on this subject had been submitted to the Council in India; but the right hon. Gentleman, in a light and airy way, said ''Oh, no, they received no communication because their responsibility is not engaged in the matter." But Parlia-
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    ment meant that their responsibility should be engaged. These were not interlocutory communications, but final and conclusive. He might be misinformed on this matter. If the statements he had made were not accurate, the Under Secretary would set him right; but if those statements were well founded, it seemed to him that some explanation was due from the Government to the House. If, by the conduct of the Indian Government, a bitter impression had been produced upon the minds of men who, by their position and their habits, were naturally addicted to our government, what would be the impression upon the minds of men who were not naturally addicted to our government? What would be the effect produced by the manner in which the Council of India had been treated? If on such matters as the Afghan War, the Vernacular Press, and the finance of India, the Secretary of State did not think it worth while to communicate with the Council of India, the Government had better begin by saving the salaries of both Councils. He thought he had, at any rate, made out a case for inquiry. In this case, every check had been set aside. They had set a side, in this case, the legislative check, and the Executive check in India, and the English check. He had brought forward this subject, not for the purpose of taking a Party division, but of raising a discussion on the question of the Indian Constitution, and how far that Constitution had, or had not, been observed. He thought the facts which he had stated would show that the subject was not of a frivolous description; that his misgivings were natural; and that his apprehensions were well-founded. For his own part, he had been brought up in Whig principles—principles which, he hoped, he would always maintain. He had a great respect for the Limited Monarchy of England; and he should always desire to protect its privileges; but he was equally anxious to maintain the principle of the limitation of the Imperialism of England. No policy, however excellent its objects, could ever be successful which sought to evade or to defeat the right of legitimate discussion, or of Constitutional control. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving the Address of which he had given Notice.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Copies of the Minute by Members of the Council of the Governor General of India on the Despatch of the Secretary of State, dated the 11th day of November 1875, and referred to in the Despatch of the Government of India, dated the 17th day of March 1876:
    And, of all Communications which have passed between the Secretary of State for India and the Government of India, or the Governor General, relating to the repeal of the Cotton Duties (in continuation of the Papers presented to Parliament in 1876.)"—(Sir William Harcourt.)
    MR. E. STANHOPEdesired, in the first place, to offer his thanks to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Oxford for the courtesy with which he had communicated to him personally the subjects to which he desired to call the attention of the House. It was no more than he should expect from the hon. and learned Gentleman. He confessed, when he first observed the Notice of Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he was filled with some little apprehension; but it was some satisfaction to find, after some weeks of preparation, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had produced no more than a Motion for Papers. The hon. and learned Gentleman said he hoped he (Mr. E. Stanhope) would not make use of any tu quoque arguments. He thought the hon. and learned Gentleman showed some caution in that observation, because if he had investigated the matter a little more than he had done, he would have seen that his remarks could not be limited to the last few years only. The hon. and learned Gentleman had called the attention of the House to a great number of technical points which had arisen in the course of the very difficult matters which had engaged the attention of the Government during the past few years; and although the hon. and learned Member did not venture to say that any one act connected with those negotiations was illegal, or that he could visit it with the censure of the House, yet he asked the House, looking at all these isolated matters with a sort of kaleidoscopic effect, to come to the conclusion that there was a deliberate attempt on the part of Her Majesty's Government to set aside the checks instituted by Parliament and
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    establish a sort of despotism. He ventured to say there was not the least foundation for such a charge. He denied that there had been any change whatever; and he maintained that the procedure in England and India, in reference to the Councils in England and in India, was precisely the same under the present Government as it was under their Predecessors. That was a statement he made with the utmost possible confidence, and one which he did not think anyone would venture to deny. Both the Secretary of State and the Viceroy might have committed errors of policy; but he was perfectly satisfied that his noble Friends had adopted the old procedure both in England and India, and had not departed from that procedure in the smallest possible degree. Then the hon. and learned Member suggested that there ought to be great dissatisfaction in the Council of the Secretary of State at the manner in which they had been treated. He had the advantage of living on terms of the greatest intimacy with the Members of that Council, and he thought if there had been grave dissatisfaction he should have heard of it. He fully believed that the Members of that Council, taken as a whole, were satisfied that the Secretary of State had acted with respect to them in as fair a manner as any previous Secretary of State had acted. In fact, in some respects he might say that Lord Salisbury and Lord Cranbrook presented a marked contrast, in their communications to the Council, to the Duke of Argyll, who communicated as little as possible to his Council. He should now deal with the cases mentioned by the hon. and learned Member separately. As he understood the hon. and learned Member, he referred, first, to the relations between the Secretary of State for India and his Council in England; next to the relations between the Governor General of India and his Council in India; and, thirdly, the hon. and learned Member dealt with the relations between the Secretary of State, as being a Member of the Government, and the Governor General of India and the Council. For the first three-quarters of an hour of the speech of the hon. and learned Member, he fancied that they were all to be a happy family, and that he would be able to say he agreed with the propositions

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    which he laid before the House. But the hon. and learned Member proceeded, and he pointed out, under the clauses of the Act for the better government of India, that every order or communication to be sent to India had to be signed by the Secretary of State and submitted to the Council before it was sent to India, except in certain cases. The hon. and learned Member gave the House one of those cases—when the communication related to a question of peace or war, or negotiations with a Native State or Province; but to the second of the exceptions the hon. and learned Member made no reference. The hon. and learned Member made no allusion to the case of urgency. In the case of urgency the Secretary of State might send an order to India; but he was bound to put before the Council the reasons why he had sent the order.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, ho had mentioned the exception in the case of urgency.
    MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, he begged the hon. and learned Member's pardon; in that case, he had nothing more to say on that point. There was one thing most essential for the proper government of India, and that was a complete understanding between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. If they were to be confined to communications which passed through a great many hands, it would be very difficult for the Governor General and the Secretary of State, at such a distance and under difficult circumstances, to understand each other. Therefore, from the earliest establishment of the Government of India by Her Majesty, the system had been adopted of communication by means of private letters and telegrams between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. The question as to the legality of personal telegrams had been settled by Papers the production of which had been moved for by the Duke of Argyll; and he did not think it necessary to say a word more in defence of them. The first question which they had to consider was, had the provisions of the Government of India Act been evaded? The first instance which the hon. and learned Gentleman had brought forward in favour of the assertion was the Vernacular Press Act; but the way in which that matter was dealt with might still be in the recollection of the House.
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    A telegram, setting forth the reasons for desiring to pass the Act, was sent by the Viceroy to the Secretary of State, who replied giving his sanction to the passing of the Act, but reserving his opinion as to the details which, in compliance with the statute, he would discuss with the Council; and in accordance with the Act of Parliament he had laid before his Council the reasons why he had treated that matter as "urgent." But, then, the hon. and learned Gentleman said the matter was not urgent; but upon that part of the subject he would prefer to take the opinion of Lord Lytton. The hon. and learned Gentleman was good enough to say that in regard to the Afghan War he thought that all the Secretary of State had done was perfectly legal. [An hon Member: Legal or venal?] He only wished that some of the hon. and learned Member's Colleagues had found that out sooner, for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) had insinuated a doubt, during the discussions in December last, whether there was a legal justification for the course that was pursued. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Oxford had made great capital out of the course which had been taken by the Government of India in reference to the cotton duties, and had, in support of the case which he set up, urged that no telegraphic communications should have passed between the Home and Indian Governments; but he would ask how the government of India could be carried on unless the Home Government were able from time to time to give, by means of the telegraph, opinions and advice in difficult circumstances? The Indian Executive had occasionally to meet the criticisms of the Home Parliament, and how could they possibly do this effectually, unless they had the means of communicating easily and swiftly with Her Majesty's Ministers in London by means of the telegraph? But if it was said that to address an inquiry to the Secretary of State was an evasion of the Act, suppose he addressed it to the Prime Minister, could it be said that that was an evasion of the Act?
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: It would be an evasion of the grossest kind.
    MR. E. STANHOPE,continuing, asked whether it could for a moment be supposed that the government of India had been carried on for the years which it had without some points being submitted to the Cabinet, and their opinion obtained, without its having first been submitted to the Council? And it would be remembered that even if such points were submitted to the Council, it was very likely that they would be unable to answer them. It had been done over and over again without being called an evasion of the Act; in fact, it would be utterly impossible to carry on the government of India unless some such system was adopted. And he should like to ask how the Indian Council was the worse off for what had taken place in the case of the cotton duties? Suppose it had not been submitted to the Cabinet, it would have been done by the Viceroy on his own responsibility, and would have been only reported home in the next Budget Statement, which would have to be submitted to the Secretary of State in Council. Coming next to the second part of the question—the relations between the Viceroy of India and his own Council— the hon. and learned Gentleman had pointed out that letters had been addressed, not to the Governor General in Council, but to the Governor General himself. So far as he had been able to discover, that practice was instituted by the late Mr. Kay in the Political Department of the India Office; but it had been now abandoned, and all despatches were addressed to the Governor General in Council. Then they heard that certain dissents of members of the Viceroy's Council, in regard to his Afghan policy, were not sent home. He would not go at length into that question, because, in the first place, it was not necessary for the purposes of the debate to do so; and because, in the second, it would involve a personal and painful question; but he would simply say that at the outset of the negotiations with the Ameer certain instructions were sent to Sir Richard Pollock at Peshawur. Notes upon these instructions were written by several members of Council; but the Viceroy pointed out that that was not the proper time to record them, but that they should be reserved until the result of the negotiations was reported home. A meeting eventually
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    took place between the Representative of Her Majesty's Government and the Minister of the Ameer of Cabul in January, 1877, and the result of the meeting was communicated to the Government of India on the 26th of March. In the opinion of the Government of India, there existed no reason for sending any Report until the conclusion of the negotiations. Some people might say that to omit to report proceedings of that kind, from time to time, would not be in conformity with the usual practice in England. Well, the Government of India thought it necessary to do so, and so in such cases had the Secretary of State-frequently acted. Anyone who had studied the Blue Books would have seen that during the whole time of the Afghan negotiations in 1873 not a single despatch was written by the Duke of Argyll, the then Secretary of State. Lord North-brook wrote one or two despatches of a meagre character; but the Duke of Argyll had not even sent any answer to the despatch of Lord Northbrook reporting the result of the negotiations which were held with the Ameer in 1873—negotiations which were, at least, of equal importance with the negotiations of 1877. After the communications received on the 26th of March, Lord Lytton and his Council immediately set to work to prepare a despatch. The documents that had reached them were excessively voluminous. A despatch was drafted, but was not ready for signature until May 10, the date on which it was sent over to England. At that time the three dissentient members had left India, so that it was impossible for their dissents to be appended to the despatch. If there had been on record any demand by those gentlemen that their notes should be turned into formal minutes, Lord Lytton would undoubtedly have given his consent to that proceeding. As it had been suggested last December that Lord Lytton kept back that despatch with the object of preventing those three gentlemen from recording their dissents, he would ask leave to read the opinion of one whose authority would be readily bowed to. He referred to Lord North-brook, who said in the House of Lords—
    "I do not blame Lord Lytton for detaining the despatch, for I do not know his reasons; and I must add that I do not think it was done for the purpose of preventing the dissents from being recorded." — [3 Hansard, ccxliii. 494.]

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    Returning for a moment to the subject of the cotton duties, and to the mode in which their partial remission had been accomplished in India, he thought he was right in assuming that the hon. and learned Member opposite, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich, was strongly of opinion that those duties ought not to have been repealed. Lord Lytton on the question of the cotton duties had, undoubtedly, overruled the majority of the members of his Council. He did not, however, understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman was of opinion that Lord Lytton had not the legal power to do so.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTexplained, that he believed that in a financial question like that of the cotton duties Lord Lytton's action was an abuse of the overruling power.
    MR. E. STANHOPE said,he did not think it could be denied, at any rate, that under the terms of the Act of 1870 the Viceroy had the power of overruling the majority of his Council, and it had not been shown that he had exercised that power in any undue manner. It was not only a valuable power, but it was essential to the proper government of India. The Council, knowing that the Viceroy had the power of overruling them, acted accordingly, and, owing to the existence of that power, minorities often withdrew their opposition to propositions which had the support of the Viceroy and a strong section of the Council. That opinion was borne out by Lord Macaulay, who was himself the legal member of the Viceroy's Council, and who said in his essay upon Warren Hastings—
    "The English Council which represented the Company at Calcutta was constituted on a very different plan from that which has since been adopted. At present the Governor is, as to all executive measures, absolute. He can declare war, conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove them in opposition to the unanimous sense of those who sit with him in Council. They are, indeed, entitled to know all that is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, to remonstrate, to send protests to England; but it is with the Governor the supreme power resides, and on him that the whole responsibility rests. This system they believed to be, on the whole, the best that was ever devised for the government of a country where no materials could be found for a representative Constitution. In the time of Hastings, the Governor had only one vote in Council, and, in case of an equal division, a casting vote. It therefore happened, not unfrequently, that he was overruled on the gravest questions, and it was possible that he might be
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    wholly excluded for years together from the real direction of public affairs."
    Well, if the House looked to the history of the period when Lord Lawrence was Governor General, they would find that that Governor General, as he had a perfect right to do, overruled the decision of his Council. On that occasion the question involved was of much less importance than the present. It related only to the reserve fund which ought to be maintained for the purposes of the opium revenue. The Governor General was supported only by th6 opinion of the Finance Minister, and the rest of his Council was against him. It was a very strong Council, including Sir Henry Maine, Sir Henry Durand, Sir William Mansfield, and Mr. J. Strachey. But Lord Lawrence, under the power now complained of, overruled this majority, and passed the measure in question. Then it had been said that discretion ought to have been left to the Government of India, and that the Secretary of State had no right in any case to prescribe the form of any particular measure. Well, that had been done over and over again. There was a very interesting passage in a despatch by the Duke of Argyll bearing on this point. The Duke of Argyll said—
    "You will receive the measure from me in the shape in which I think it desirable it should he passed into law."
    No discretion whatever was left to the Government of India. If, on the other hand, the contention of the hon. and learned Gentleman was correct, no power would be left to the Secretary of State in England except a power of veto, and it was easy to conceive that much mischief might thus arise. For instance, supposing the Secretary of State had before him a Bill, the general principle of which he approved, but to certain clauses of which he objected, he would be obliged to veto the Bill as a whole. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT said, he referred to the initiation of certain measures.] Well, the Secretary of State in Council undoubtedly possessed the right of sending out instructions to the Governor General in Council for the passing of certain measures. There formerly existed in England a body called the Indian Law Commission, whose business it was to suggest certain measures for India. On these being transmitted by the Secre-

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    tary of State to India, the Governor General had no option but to pass them; and the statute by virtue of which measures were so sent to India to be passed was still unrepealed. So, again, Sir Charles Wood directed the Government of India to pass the Bill for the abolition of the Grand Juries of Presidency towns, and they had to do it. Of course, such a power ought to be recklessly exercised, but that it should exist was only in accordance with common sense. It was not conceivable that the Governor General should have the power of passing Acts of his own free will, in opposition, it might be, to the feeling of Parliament and of the Government of this country, and subject to no controlling influence except that of his recall. With regard to the hon. and learned Gentleman's request for Papers in connection with the cotton duties, he could only say he had already undertaken to produce them at the request of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kincardineshire (Sir George Balfour). The Minute of the 11th of November, 1875, was a somewhat different matter. It was objectionable both in form and in substance, and no notice whatever was taken of it by either the Secretary of State or his Council. But the Government would have no objection to produce it, on condition that a Memorandum written upon it by Sir Henry Maine, a gentleman of the highest authority on questions of the kind, should be produced also. He hoped he had now dealt sufficiently with the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman. If he had passed over any point, he could assure the House he had done so inadvertently, and not because he was afraid to meet the hon. and learned Gentleman on the ground he had chosen. The Government did not desire to evade the discussion of any one of these questions, and they believed it would be found that what had been done was entirely and completely justified by the letter and spirit of the law.
    MR. LAINGpointed out that the question involved in the Motion they were discussing was one of danger to the magnificent Empire founded by so many soldiers and statesmen. He regretted that, in spite of the appeal made by the hon. and. learned Member for Oxford, the answer made on behalf of the Government had been almost en-
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    tirely an appeal to the tu quoque argument. But if the interests of India were imperilled, it was no consolation to quote precedents by the Duke of Argyll and Lord Lawrence. But there was no analogy between what had been done now, and what was done by Lord Lawrence in a matter of account which nobody in India cared about. It was singularly unfortunate to quote as a precedent the former Afghan War, which we were involved in by a Governor General away from his Council, and unduly led by military officers eager for action. As regarded the remission of the cotton duties, a case in point would have been the reduction of the import duties, in the time of the Viceroyalty of Lord Canning, from 10 to 5 per cent, which it was his (Mr. Laing's) duty as Finance Minister to propose to the Council of which Sir Bartle Frere was then a Member, which was most exhaustively debated, and as to which Lord Canning's judgment was, up to the last moment, in suspense. If it had not been proved in the course of the debate that the measure was acceptable, it would have been withdrawn. The reduction was made because there was a bonâ fide surplus. But now, as had been shown by the Under Secretary, the public Debt of India had been increased within the last few years by £51,000,000, and, making allowance for re-payments and assets, a deficit of £40,000,000 had been incurred. At that moment, there was a deficiency of £7,500,000 on the Budget of the year. Even now there was a deficit of between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000; and yet, in the face of this, it was proposed to take £200,000 a-year of certain revenue. Was ever such a thing as reduction of taxation in such circumstances heard of in any other country? The reason why it had been done was known to everybody. A General Election was impending, and the Government was afraid it might lose some seats in Lancashire. But were these things to be done without any opportunity to the experienced Indian Councillors, who surrounded the Viceroy in India, and the Secretary of State here, to express and publish their opinions? Such conduct endangered the stability of our Indian Empire. They had to deal with a fast-growing public opinion in India, and if they shook confidence in the truth, justice, and sin-

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    cerity of the Government, they would find increasing difficulty in reconciling India to English rule. Unfortunately, that was the result of many of the proceedings taken by the Government during the last few years.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, there was nothing to show that in the course which had been taken by the Duke of Argyll he had done anything which was at all parallel to that which had been done by the present Government, whom he charged with having acted illegally in having communicated with the Viceroy of India without the knowledge of the Council at home in the case of the repeal of the cotton duties, and having thus overridden the authority which was given them by Act of Parliament. It seemed to him that the Under Secretary of State for India had not met with his usual explicitness the case submitted by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford. The answer of the Under Secretary of State for India, in fact, was somewhat contradictory. First, he told the House there were matters which were not sufficiently important to be brought under the Act before the Council, and then he used an infinitely more dangerous argument—namely, that some matters might be so important that it would be necessary to exclude the Council and refer them to the Cabinet. He even suggested that both Councils, and even the Secretary of State for India, might be excluded by the Viceroy, and communications be made by him to the Prime Minister. No answer had been given, nor could be given, to the plain law of the case; the conduct of Her Majesty's Government could not be justified. As to the Viceroy and his Council, he had no doubt the Under Secretary of State for India was correct in saying the Governor General had the power of deciding whether a question was essential to the interests of the British possessions in India; but the Governor General was bound, under the Act, to decide a question of that kind, as it were judicially, and honestly to deal with the question of essential interests, which no one could say to be really involved in a reduction of the cotton duties. If Parliament thought right to abolish the Councils at home and in India appointed to aid in the government of that Dependency, let it be so. Parliament and the country would
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    know who were responsible for the government of India; but Parliament ought not to allow them to continue to exist merely as shams.
    MR. E. STANHOPEhoped the hon. and learned Member (Sir William Harcourt) would withdraw his Question, and put it in another form. He had already explained what the Government could give, and what it could not give; and the hon. and learned Gentleman could scarcely expect the Motion to be accepted in its present form.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTdid not quite understand the hon. Gentleman. fie thought he expressed himself willing to grant the Papers.
    MR. E. STANHOPEreplied that he only accepted the first part.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTthought the hon. Gentleman only desired to add something to the Motion.
    MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, he objected to the last paragraph of the Motion, as the Papers there asked for were already granted in another form on the Motion of the hon. and gallant General opposite (Sir George Balfour). He had no objection to the first part of the Motion, if the hon. and learned Member would add a copy of the Memorandum of Sir Henry Maine.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTcould not see the object of the refusal. If the Under Secretary of State for India was going to give exactly the same Papers in another form, he did not understand why they should not be given on this Motion.
    MR. E. STANHOPEpointed out that, as a result, they would be given twice over.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTasked if there was a Motion for the Papers already on the Order Book? If there was not, he did not see why the Motion should not be accepted.
    MR. FAWCETTthought they were getting into quite an unnecessary difficulty, and that there really was no reason why the Motion should not be amended as suggested.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, there was not the least objection to lay before the House the whole of the Correspondence with reference to the cotton duties; but the Under Secretary of State for India did not think it convenient to give those Papers as a separate Return. His hon. Friend

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    had already undertaken to lay these communications, with others, before the House on the Motion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kincardineshire (Sir George Balfour), in order to afford a complete review of what had taken place with regard to the tariff. At the same time, his hon. Friend would give all the Papers asked for in the first part of the Motion, with the addition of the Memorandum of Sir Henry Maine. He would, therefore, propose that the Motion be amended in that sense.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the words "of all Communications," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "of the Memorandum of Sir Henry Sumner Maine, dated the 25th day of April 1876,"—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, at present, there was no Motion on the Order Book for Papers, or if there was one, he should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would refer to it. He had made a distinct request for Papers, and it was refused, because it was said they were to be given at some future time. Did the "Under Secretary of State for India refuse to give these Papers because he (Sir William Harcourt) had moved for them? If that was so, why were they to be given at some future time to somebody else? He did not understand the proceeding, for the Papers might never be moved for at all, and, of course, they were important to the consideration of the subject.
    MR. E. STANHOPEreplied, that he simply wanted to keep all the Papers relating to one thing together. The hon. and gallant Member (Sir George Balfour) had conferred with him as to these Papers—he had seen them—and, as soon as the hon. and gallant Gentleman had sufficiently recovered from the illness of which he was, unfortunately, suffering, he would move for them, and they would be at once produced. His object was that the Papers should be given as a whole, and if there was any delay in the hon. and gallant Gentleman moving for them, he would himself move for them at once.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTpointed out that an entirely different course was taken in 1876. A question, exactly similar in character, was then raised, and a Return was made of Papers, showing the particular action of the Government on that subject. It would be almost impossible to unbury the particular documents he wanted from a great mass of Correspondence.
    MR. FAWCETTobserved, that the Papers with regard to the cotton duties were very important, and when they had read them, it was very possible that someone holding a responsible position might consider it his duty to propose a very different Motion from that now before the House. He did not think the Under Secretary had answered the very serious and grave charges brought forward by the hon. and learned Member (Sir William Harcourt); but he had not himself intervened in the debate because he wanted to see these Papers. If they did not give a better answer than that of the Under Secretary to the charge that all Parliamentary checks had been removed, and that the Government of India was now a pure despotism, it was obvious that a very different Motion from that now before them must be proposed. If these Papers were lumped together instead of being published in two lots, would that cause any delay?
    MR. ONSLOWbelieved that the Government would produce the Papers with as little delay as possible, as they clearly had no objection to give them; and he thought the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer a very satisfactory settlement of the question.
    MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, he would undertake, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not in his place within a very short period, to move for those Papers himself. There should be no delay in presenting them.
    MR. FAWCETTrepeated his question, whether any delay would be caused by following the course suggested by the Government?
    MR. E. STANHOPEthought not; or, at any rate, not more than a day or two.
    MR. COURTNEYasked, if it would not be rather inconvenient if the two sets of Papers were mixed together? They wanted Papers on the Constitutional question, while those his hon.

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    and gallant Friend (Sir George Balfour) was to move for referred to the financial question. Of course, totally different opinions might be formed on the two subjects, and it would be inconvenient if they got a bundle of Papers dealing with one question, and referring incidentally to the other.
    MR. E. STANHOPEundertook that the Papers should be furnished without any delay.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Words added.
    Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
    Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Copies of the Minute by Members of the Council of the Governor General of India on the Despatch of the Secretary of State, dated the 11th day of November 1875, and referred to in the Despatch of the Government of India, dated the 17th day of March 1876:
    And, of the Memorandum of Sir Henry Sumner Maine, dated the 25th day of April 1876.
    To be presented by Privy Councillors.
    House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before One o'clock.