Commons Sitting of 12 May 1882

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—ARMY ESTIMATES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4)* [159]; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 5)* [160].
First Reading—Copyright (Musical Compositions)* [161].
Committee—Metropolis Management and Building Acts Amendment [107] [House counted out].
Report—Inclosure (Arkleside) Provisional Order* [128]; Inclosure (Bettws Disserth) Provisional Order* [127]; Inclosure (Cefn Drawen) Provisional Order* [126]; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order* [138]; Gas Provisional Orders* [136]; Water Provisional Orders* [135].

MOTIONS.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO. 4) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HIBBERT, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the Rural Sanitary District of the Billericay Union, the City and County of Bristol, the Local Government District of Compton Gifford, the Rural Sanitary
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  District of the Farnham Union, the Local Government Districts of Hendon and Madron, the Borough of Nottingham, the Local Government Districts of Rusholme and Torquay, the Borough of Walsall, the Improvement Act District of West Bromwich, and the Local Government District of Worthing, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HIBBERT and Mr. DODSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 159.]

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO. 5) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HIBBERT, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the Borough of Bury (two), the Local Government District of Finchley, the Godalming Main Sewerage District, and the Local Government Districts of Marsden and Northwich, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HIBBERT and Mr. DODSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 160.]

QUESTIONS.

  IRELAND—MARKET TOLLS AT CASTLEWELLAN, CO. DOWN.
  MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is true, as reported in the public papers, that the farmers of County Down are obliged to pay toll to Earl Annesley on taking their produce into the town of Castlewellan; and, if so, under what Statute or Common Law this toll is exacted, and if the Government will relieve the farmers from this impost?
  THE ATTORNRY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON), in reply, said, that Lord Annesley was by patent entitled to the tolls in question. This right was several centuries old, and, of course, the Government could not interfere.

  LAW AND POLICE (IRELAND)— BONFIRES.
  MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is true that Hugh Cunningham, and thirteen other inhabitants, of Castlewellan, in the county of Down, were at Castlewellan Petty Sessions, on the 2nd day of May instant, fined for lighting bonfires in honour of the release of Mr. Parnell on parole; and, if bonfires were lighted on the same places to celebrate the return of Lord Castlereagh at the late election for County Down, and why it was that no prosecution at suit of the police was then instituted?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Sir,

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  it is a fact that several persons, who are, I understand, inhabitants of Castlewellan, were fined 2s. 6d. a piece under the Summary Jurisdiction Act for lighting bonfires on the public street. I am informed that no bonfires were lighted there on the occasion of the last election. The Constabulary, as was their duty in the case of ordinary offences of this description, undertook the prosecutions on their own responsibility.

  EGYPT (POLITICAL AFFAIRS).
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government, in view of the critical state of affairs in Egypt, to maintain our influence in that Country; and, whether, if no negotiations are now going on with Foreign Governments in regard to an eventual intervention, either collectively by the Great Powers, or by us in conjunction with France, or by us alone, he will lay upon the Table of the House all Papers connected with previous negotiations on the subject?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, Her Majesty's Government have been and are in communication with France and with other Governments on the subject of this Question; but it would not be advisable at present to state the nature of these communications, or to lay any further Papers on the Table. Any further remarks I reserve for the reply which I shall give on Monday to the Question of the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote), if he will be good enough to postpone his Question till that day, when I shall be prepared to make as full a statement on the subject as the Government think can be made under the circumstances.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: As I understand from the answer of the hon. Gentleman that it would be inconvenient if I were to put my Question to-night, I will put it off till Monday.
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I would also ask the Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) whether, under these circumstances, he will not postpone the Motion on this subject of which he has given Notice on going into Committee of Supply?
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, that, under the circumstances, he did not desire to proceed with his Motion to-night; but he must say that he hoped Her Majesty's Government would not
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  persist in their attacks upon the rights of Turkey, which would only produce war.
  Subsequently,
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he wished to ask a Question of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and he should like to say that he would be satisfied with a simple answer of "Yes" or "No." It was, Whether his attention had been called to the very serious speech delivered yesterday by the Prime Minister of France, in which he stated that the French Government had determined to maintain the particular and privileged position and preponderating influence which France enjoyed in Egypt?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Of course, Sir, it would be most improper for me to make any statement in this House. As I have on many occasions said, in reply to similar Questions, I decline to make any remarks on speeches made by Ministers of foreign countries. But I may say that the words "preponderating influence" have been used in despatches laid before this House. It has always been admitted by all the European Powers that England and France together, or, as the phrase is, the Western Powers, have, or should have, preponderating influence in Egyptian affairs.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Is the hon. Member aware that the quotation to which I referred speaks of the preponderating influence of France only?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: The hon. Member must excuse me if I give him no further answer.

  WEST COAST OF AFRICA (NATIVE WARS).
  MR. SLAGGasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What steps, if any, have been taken by Her Majesty's Government to protect British property and commerce during the war between the Chiefs of Bonny and New Calabar, in the absence of Her Majesty's Consul from the Bight of Benin?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, Mr. Hewett, Her Majesty's Consul, is on the point of returning to his post, and in the meantime a ship of war has been ordered to the spot.

  THE NEW COURTS OF JUSTICE—THE TEMPLE SUBWAY.
  MR. MELLORasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether the ori-

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  ginal plans for the new Law Courts did not show a communication between the Temple and the Courts by means of a subway; whether his attention has been called to the great difficulty of crossing Fleet Street, owing to the amount of traffic opposite to the Temple; and, whether he is disposed to afford facilities to enable such a communication to be made?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE, in reply, said, the proposal referred to was not entertained by the Government of the day. He had no doubt it would be exceedingly convenient to the Temple that there should be a subway, and he would be prepared to entertain any proposal of the kind if made by responsible bodies, such as the Inns of Court. He could not hold out any hope that the Government would incur the expense of such a work.

  RIVER FLOODS PREVENTION—THE OUSE AND THE DERWENT—LEGISLATION.
  MR. LEEMANasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the immense loss which has lately been caused by the flooding of the Rivers Ouse and Derwent (Yorkshire); and, whether the Government are prepared to pass the Rivers Conservancy Bill into Law this Session?
  MR. DODSON, in reply, said, that the attention of Her Majesty's Government had not been officially called to the damage done by the recent floods. But he was well aware of the liability of those rivers to floods, and the serious damage occasioned thereby. Her Majesty's Government were as desirous as ever to pass the Rivers Conservancy Bill this Session, and they hoped to do so.

  IRELAND—ASSASSINATION OF MR. BURKE, THE LATE UNDER SECRETARY.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government have considered or will consider the desirability of making some provision from public sources for Miss Burke, sister of the late Under Secretary for Ireland? I make this suggestion without having had any communication with the family of Mr. Burke, and I make it upon public
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  grounds, because I feel that this is one of those cases when it would be right and in accordance with the general sentiment that some such course should be taken.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, the subject of the Question of the right hon. Gentleman was brought to my notice to-day for the first time. I do not know, however, that it might not have been brought to my notice yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, had I not been out of town. I had not before this afternoon, on arriving from Chatsworth, learned the particulars of the case, though I had reason to suppose that it might deserve inquiry; but the subject shall have my immediate attention?

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Will the Government be able to tell us what Business will be taken on Monday?
  MR. GLADSTONE: On Monday, Sir, we propose to go forward with the Corrupt Practices Bill and the Ballot Act (Continuance) Bill. I hope, also, to be able to introduce on Monday a Bill dealing with the question of arrears in Ireland. This would be done by my right hon. Friend the newly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, should he be in his place; but I am not aware that he can be back in his place so soon, and in his absence it will be done by myself or some other Member of the Government. No one, I take it, will wish to obstruct the Bill in its initial stage, and, indeed, I hope, in none of its stages. At any rate, the field of the subject not being very large, the statement of particulars will not be a lengthened statement, and, therefore, I should hope to bring the Bill in on Monday night, after the House has disposed of the principal Orders of the Day.
  MR. CHAPLINasked what the right hon. Gentleman proposed to do with the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill and the Procedure Rules? Would either of these be taken in the course of next week?
  MR. GLADSTONE: With respect to the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, and to the Resolution relating to Parliamentary Procedure, I consider that both of them are for the moment displaced by

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  the urgency of Irish Business. Neither of those subjects will be taken in the course of next week; but I will then endeavour to give the House some further information as to the course which we intend to follow.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: When will the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Bill be printed and circulated among hon. Members?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is not in his place at this moment, was most anxious that the Bill should be circulated to-morrow, and he hoped that it would be. My information is not absolutely original, but I understand that the circulation of the Bill may be as late as Monday.

  IRELAND—THE ASSASSINATIONS IN THE PHŒNIX PARK, DUBLIN.
  MR. MACFARLANEasked whether there was any truth in the report of the capture of the assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): No, Sir, I regret to say that no information on the subject had reached the Irish Office when I left this afternoon.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

  GRAND JURY SYSTEM (IRELAND).

    RESOLUTION.
    MR. HEALY, in rising to call attention to the Grand Jury system in Ireland; and to move, "That, in the opinion of this House, immediate reform is required," said, the subject of Grand Jury reform had occupied the attention of the House for a considerable period. In 1842 a Royal Commission inquired into and reported upon the working of the system; in 1868 a Select Committee of the House of Commons, consisting of 16 Members, all of them belonging to the landlord class, reported in favour of its reform. Founded upon the Report of that Committee, the Government of the day brought in numerous Bills in 1872, 1873, 1876, and 1878. The neces-
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    sity for reform being so urgently felt, a promise was made in Her Majesty's Speech at the beginning of last Session that the question of Local Government would be dealt with. But while the Government passed two Coercion Acts, which had worked badly, and one Land Act, which had worked likewise, the subject of Grand Jury reform was left untouched. In the Queen's Speech this Session no allusion was made to the subject, or, indeed, to any other Irish measure of concern. The House must be aware of the anomalies of the system. Grand Juries practically consisted of landlords, because all the Irish magistrates were landlords. These magistrates were selected as Grand Jurors by the Sheriff, who was himself appointed by the Government. The associated cesspayers were balloted for by the magistrates out of the highest rated occupiers in the district; but they were not compelled to attend, and there was no security for the proper representation of the people, so that the entire fiscal arrangements of the country were dealt with by a class which had no community of feeling with the people. To give an idea of the extent of this power, he might mention that last year the Grand Juries throughout Ireland expended £1,240,000—that was to say, a number of gentlemen, simply because they had been called by the Lord Lieutenant to be justices of the peace, mulcted the people to the extent of £1,240,000, without those people having any popular representation to check it. He had several times called attention to the manner in which Grand Juries presented compensation for malicious injuries. Their duties at present were of a very multifarious nature. They had the making of bridges and roads, and, until recently, the building of courthouses and county gaols. Now, there were two Bills before the House by which it was proposed to extend their powers still further. He referred to the Corrupt Practices Bill, which proposed to give them power of levying money to defray the expenses of Election Petitions where the Judges thought fit; and the coercion measure introduced last night by the Home Secretary, which proposed that in the cases of murder or malicious injuries to human beings, the Grand Juries should have the same power of presenting compensation as in the case of injury to property. He saw

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    no reason why, if compensation were given for malicious injuries to property, compensation should not also he allowed in cases of murder and malicious personal injury, and would not object to the powers to be conferred by those Bills if the tribunal to present the compensation was a fair one, impartially selected, and that it represented the people. He would give a few examples of how they discharged their fiscal duties. The Cork Daily Herald of March 17th reported the case of a man named Hayes, who claimed compensation for malicious injury to what he called a valuable mare. The Presentment Sessions allowed £10. Before the Grand Jury Hayes claimed £80; and a dialogue took place between some Grand Jurors and the solicitor for the taxpayers, during which Captain Somerville stated to the solicitor—"If you interfere any further we will make it £80." The solicitor replied that if the Grand Jury held out such a threat they could do what they liked, and he would retire from the case. The Grand Jury then passed £54 compensation. The veterinary surgeon proved that the valuable mare was alive and well, and had sustained no injury whatever. The hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) was recently refused a Select Committee to inquire into a case in which the Grand Jury of Galway levied an assessment so as to exclude all their own property, and to throw it exclusively on the tenants of the hon. and gallant Member. Enormous sums were also given by the Cork Grand Jury at the last Assizes to several persons. These cases came on appeal before Mr. Baron Dowse, who, perhaps, commanded the utmost amount of public confidence, and he, in several cases, considerably reduced the amount. In one case, where £300 was given to a man named Copithorne, from Skibbereen, the learned Judge reduced the amount one-half, remarking that he was not sure but that even this was too much compensation. It was clear that, wherever the Grand Jury considered they might inflict a fine upon persons having popular sympathies, they invariably did so in a merciless manner, and resorted to many methods of excluding themselves and their friends. But when a man who was a Land Leaguer claimed compensation for malicious injury, inflicted, perhaps, by landlords or by Emergency
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    men—and several cases of this kind had occurred—the claim was rejected. James Brown, of Birr, a man of popular opinions, sought compensation for the malicious burning of a hayrick, and, notwithstanding clear evidence of malice, the Grand Jury absolutely quashed the presentment. His contention was that, whether the Grand Jury system worked fairly or unfairly, being an anomalous system, it ought to be abolished. It was too much for the House to say that in the 19th century, when popular representation had come into play in all other bodies having the disposal of public money and the taxation of the people, the Grand Jury system, which represented nobody but the landlords, was to be maintained. He believed that no subject in Ireland excited the popular feeling more than the action of the Grand Juries at the Assizes. He did not impeach their conduct so far as concerned the bringing in of true bills, but the exercise of their fiscal powers with regard to the management of local affairs. The matter had been investigated by Royal Commission and by Select Committee; but the time of the House was taken up in passing Coercion Bills, and an important subject like this the Government did not think it worth their while to deal with. Virtually, the Grand Jurors of Ireland consisted of the magistrates, and no one else; and particularly in such matters as giving compensation for malicious injury and the making of roads, the rates they imposed should fall equally upon all classes. Under such circumstances, they would not have the same ground of complaint; but here Grand Jurors had not merely the power of enforced compensation in the country over which they had jurisdiction, but they had positively the power to pick out certain districts to allot the whole amount upon certain parishes. They were told by the Home Secretary that the Bill introduced on Thursday night was to be retrospective; and, therefore, if the relatives of the noble Lord claimed compensation for his dreadful murder, the inhabitants of Phœnix Park, the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary, would be mulcted in the amount. This was one of the extraordinary outcomes of the Bill of Thursday night. He would not oppose the granting of compensation for malicious injury to persons any more than he would for damage to property,

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    so long as the body giving the compensation was a representative body. He should certainly offer the greatest opposition to any proposal for handing over such increased power to a body which simply represented the landlord class—a class described by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) as the "residuum of Cromwellism." What he complained of was that, whereas the Government and the Conservative Administration admitted the necessity of local self-government, and that the powers of Grand Juries ought to be restricted, the Government, by the Bill which they introduced last night, actually proposed to enlarge the area of the operation of the Grand Jury system in Ireland. The Grand Jury question was one upon which the Irish people felt very keenly; and whilst they welcomed an Arrears Bill to deal with their temporary necessities, they felt that the standing requirement of the country was good government. The re-modelling of the Grand Jury system and the establishment of County Boards he took to be a necessary foundation of law and order in that country. The best way to train the people to habits of law and order was to enable them to govern themselves, to infuse into them a feeling of responsibility, to make them feel they were a part of the body politic, that they were within the pale of the law, and that if they were taxed they were represented. The subject was one on which the Government admitted its responsibility; and what he wanted to place on the Books of the House was a Resolution that a reform was not only needed, but was urgent. He trusted that before long they would have vigorous legislation on the subject. He felt regret that while beneficent pledges put into the mouth of Her Majesty by the Government at the opening of Parliament should so frequently be disappointed, pledges of Coercion Bills were always kept. It was a bad thing to teach the people of Ireland that the demands of the Tories, who had no sympathies with the people, and who regarded them as simple machines for grinding out rents, would be listened to by the Government, and that there would be no hesitation in bringing forward repressive legislation; while, at the same time, the Government paltered with its pledges to introduce beneficent measures such as he now demonstrated
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    to be necessary and urgent. In conclusion, he begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    MR. O'DONNELL, in seconding the Motion, said, that reform in the Grand Jury system was more imperative than ever since the Government proposed by their new Bill to confer very important additional powers on the Grand Juries of Ireland. Such reform lay at the very basis of the restoration of confidence amongst the people of Ireland. The grievance had been admitted. A couple of years ago the present Government undertook to deal with the question of County Government in Ireland; but they abandoned their design in order to bring in the Bill which afterwards became the Coercion Act, and which had proved so disastrous to Ireland. There was no one who had any knowledge of the relations between the Grand Jurors and the cesspayers, between the landlords and the mass of the people of Ireland, but had his memory stored with cases of the most scandalous injustice and of the most gross partiality on the part of the Grand Jurors whenever they had the opportunity of showing their partiality at the expense of the people. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had done good service to the cause of the people of Ireland, and to the cause of order, in drawing attention to the defectiveness and shortcomings of the Grand Jury system of Ireland, especially in connection with the new Coercion Act. Most important powers under the Bill were proposed to be conferred on Grand Jurors, and they might be perfectly sure that these powers would be exercised, especially at the present crisis, in entire accord with the injustice which had become traditional. If there was any way in which the Grand Jury system could be made more effectual in stirring up class hatred that would be by the proposed working of the Compensation Clauses of the new Coercion Act. Many instances could be adduced of the way the Grand Juries gratified, in the most despicable and cruel manner, a party grudge. He referred particularly to a resolution of a Grand Jury in Galway, which exempted every part of the county except the land owned by the Liberal and Home Rule Member for the county (Colonel Nolan) from an imposition of a rate of 8s. or 9s. in the pound for compensation for some alleged malicious act. This, when first mentioned to the

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    House, was thought by some to be an unaccountable freak of Grand Jury caprice; but when it became known that the tenantry on whom this imposition was made was that of the man who had shown the first great example of justice to the peasants in the West, everyone knew that the hon. and gallant Member was being struck at through his tenantry. It was the conviction of very many persons that the rick-burnings, the maiming and mutilation of cattle, and other instances of malice and brutality paraded in the newspapers, were stimulated and encouraged by the way in which compensations were assessed. When these took place on the land of the landowning class, they were sure to receive, not only compensation, but an amount far above the market value. In County Wicklow a rick of hay, the property of Mr. Gordon Tombs, was found to be on fire. It was not known whether it caught fire accidentally or was the work of an incendiary; but the whole population of the district turned out to extinguish the flames. Nevertheless, the Wicklow Grand Jury persisted in regarding the fire as malicious, and saddled the population of the district with the payment of £300 compensation. No doubt, many a landowner in the district must have reflected that compensation for malicious injury was a more profitable line of business than disposing by sale of ricks of hay in the open market. On the other hand, nothing could induce a Grand Jury to grant compensation for the malicious destruction of the property of those known to be in sympathy with the popular Party. In the North of Ireland, a couple of months ago, a case occurred of scandalous partiality. The lady occupying the Roddy Hotel allowed posting horses to be hired by a Land Leaguer in Donegal, and although it was proved beyond doubt that one of the horses was poisoned with arsenic, the Grand Jury refused compensation. There was no honesty, no respect for justice, and no sense of decency—no regard for public opinion in these bodies, and to increase their powers would be the more effectual means of making worse the present condition of things. Unless they were deprived of their powers of partizan decisions and unjust taxation and corrupt jobbery, it would be impossible to instil into the minds of the people of Ireland
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    confidence in the administration of public business. There was not a county in Ireland in which they could not collect 50 tales of jobbery and partiality of a scandalous nature on the part of Grand Juries.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that the Grand Jury system in Ireland should be immediately reformed,"—(Mr. Healy,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he could not support the Motion of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) if it went to a division, because it was evidently impossible for the Government to deal with that question this Session. His own opinion, however, of the demerits of the Irish Grand Jury system, taking it in its fiscal capacity, was as strong as that of the hon. Member for Wexford. He believed that one of the reforms that were most needed in Ireland was the establishment of County Boards. Had it not been for the circumstances in which they found themselves at the present moment, he should not have taken part in the debate; but they knew that by the new measure the Government had introduced it was contemplated to give very large powers to Grand Juries in the way of levying compensation for murder or malicious injury, and of applotting the amount on certain districts. He did not say a word now on the principle of levying those fines; but he maintained that, if they were to be levied, the Grand Jury was not the body which should either levy or applot them. To require them to do so would be putting on them an invidious task, and one of which they could not acquit themselves with satisfaction to the community. The initiative rested with the presentment sessions, by whom the most ridiculous things were passed, and afterwards passed again by the Grand Juries. If the Government must bring in the clause for giving the compensation to which he had referred, he hoped that they would consider whether they ought not to take the matter entirely away either from the presentment sessions or the Grand Juries, and leave the Executive

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    to deal with it, as in the case of the proposal in regard to the police.
    SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid, that having served for 40 years on Grand Juries in Ireland, he could not pass unnoticed the ferocious attack made, not on the Grand Jury system itself, but on the persons connected with it by two hon. Members who had spoken from below the Gangway on his side of the House. If the description given by the hon. Members was taken as correct, one would imagine that the Irish Grand Juries were the most corrupt set of people in the world. He flung back that imputation with scorn. In no country in the world would there be found country gentlemen who were performing their duties under more difficult circumstances than the country gentlemen of Ireland now experienced; and they were still determined, as far as they were permitted, while their lives were spared, to continue the performance of their duties in that country where Providence had placed them in some way to guard the interest of their poorer neighbours. The statements made by the hon. Member who introduced the Motion were without foundation, because he omitted altogether to mention a most important portion in the system. No presentment could be made unless it had been before the magistrates in Quarter Sessions, who had with them the associated cesspayers of the district. It rested with the Grand Jury to applot the amount of damage, and say where it was to be placed; but it rested with the cesspayers in session first to say whether the injury was malicious or not. In reply to the charge that paid juries refused to grant roads to Roman Catholic chapels, he would say, coming himself from a district which was mainly Protestant, that the Grand Jury had been most scrupulously regardful of the wants of their Roman Catholic neighbours, and had stretched a point on many occasions to give them accommodation to reach their places of worship. When his own house was burnt the Grand Jury of his county refused to give him any compensation; whereas they might have done otherwise if they only wished to support the landlords of Ireland, as had been unjustly imputed to them. Those gentlemen had endeavoured to do their duty faithfully under the system which existed. Whether it was the best sys-
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    tem he did not say. When a Bill on the subject was brought in he would express his opinion upon it. But he now personally hurled back with indignation the foul aspersions which had been cast on the gentlemen of his native country.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOE IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he believed that there was no section in the House, and he doubted whether there was any individual Member, who did not agree in the abstract Resolution now presented for consideration by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). From every part of the House sympathy with the object of the Resolution had, at some time or other, proceeded, and Bills had been brought forward on that subject, which, owing to circumstances over which those having charge of them had no control, had not hitherto resulted in legislation. He, on the part of the Government, entirely sympathized with the Resolution, but took exception to the word "immediate," which, if adopted, would make it imperative on the Government to deal with the matter at once, a task beyond their power, having regard to the business to be done in dealing with a subject of this kind. He thought, with the hon. Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce), that they should not mix up objections to the system with individual miscarriage. Everyone who knew Ireland—and that was an expression which he was obliged to use frequently—knew that in that country a most unhappy propensity for jobbing prevailed. It was not confined to any class or to any profession. In his long and varied experience he had found that one of the main objects of one body or class in Ireland was to correct the jobbing propensity of some other class or body. He did not think, therefore, that the Grand Juries should be singled out as a class which, above others, were persistent and consistent jobbers. There was one matter in which Ireland could compare favourably with any other part of the United Kingdom, and that was with regard to public roads. The roads were entirely under the control of the Grand Juries of Ireland. [Mr. HEALY: Who pays for them?] The Irish people paid nothing in the shape of turnpike; they paid county cess. Up to the passing of the Land Act of 1870 Grand Jurors did not, as a general rule, pay the county

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    cess for any land except that in their own occupation; but that Act altered the incidence of the cess on landlord and tenant as to all lettings subsequent to that Act in which it was not excluded by express agreement, so that it was borne as to one half by the person who received the rent, and as to the other half by the person who paid the rent. Grand Jurors were not exempted from the Land Act of 1870, so that they did not at present constitute a body which did not pay part of the taxes they disbursed. The broad ground that the Government and also the Opposition recognized was that representation should always accompany taxation. That was the principle that governed the Poor Law, and it worked well; and, beyond all doubt, at the earliest moment of public time that was at the disposal of the Government, there was no matter relating to Ireland which demanded, and would receive, more immediate attention than this. He could not agree with the hon. Member for Wexford that Ireland had not received at the hands of Parliament her proper share of attention.
    MR. HEALY: I beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. I said "except as regards the Coercion Acts."
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, that this Session, at any rate, there had been no Coercion Acts. Speaking from painful personal experience, having had to be in the House from half-past 4 in the day till all hours at night and the small hours of the morning, he protested that three-fourths of the time of the Session had been occupied, in one way or another, with Business connected with Ireland. The hon. Member said a Coercion Bill was going to be introduced. Would not the hon. Member support a measure for sustaining and increasing the powers of the ordinary law in order to bring criminals to justice, and not allow the country to be stained so foully as it was last week? The hon. Member misconceived the Bill which would be laid before the House in assuming that the provisions of the Irish Grand Jury Act would be embodied in the measure. The Bill was intended to strengthen the hands of the Administration, and any powers relating to compensation contained in it would be placed entirely in the hands of the Executive.
    570
    If the Executive were unable to deal fairly and justly in the matter, that would not be a reason for opposing the Bill itself, but rather for displacing the Executive. With reference to the distinguished nobleman who was at present administering affairs in Ireland, he thought no one would deny his honesty of purpose and desire for fair play. In malicious injury cases, any party discontented with the finding of the Grand Jury was at liberty to have it reviewed by a Judge and jury. The question ought not to be run away with simply because the hon. Member was able to lay his finger on one or two isolated cases. He was sorry to say that he was old enough to have acquired by experience the lesson which he had asked the House to apply—not to judge a question without hearing both sides. He was not acquainted with the facts of the particular cases mentioned, and he would ask the House to suspend its judgment in the matter till it had heard both sides; but he had made inquiry into one of these cases which was the subject of a Question—namely, Hayes's case—and in that case he thought a gross act of injustice was done to Hayes at the presentment sessions.
    MR. HEALY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Judge actually reduced the Grand Jury's presentment?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Yes; but how much did he reduce it? Hayes was what we call a "Boycotted" farmer, who had an exceedingly well-bred filly. This filly was stabbed. There was no question of accident in the matter. It was clear and distinct malicious injury done to a man who fell under the popular ban. Could anyone say it was not a grossly inhuman and savage thing to wreak personal spite on the poor beast? The mare was stabbed, and thus the man's pocket was injured. She was worth about £35 or £45, but the presentment session gave him £10 and kicked him out of Court with insult. The Grand Jury gave him substantial damages, which were traversed before the Judge and a Petty Jury and reduced. That showed that if the system was wrong in principle it did not always work with injustice. He must ask the House not to run away with the notion that because a system was bad in principle—which he thought the whole

    571
    House accepted—that therefore it was wrong to all intents and purposes. Practically the system did not work badly as a general rule; theoretically it was entirely wrong; politically the Government were most anxious, and, indeed, were pledged, as far as he recollected, by the Queen's Speech, as were the Opposition by their action, to revise the system at as early an opportunity as possible, and in doing that to carry out the canon that representation should accompany and control taxation. Of course those who did not succeed were apt to smart under a sense of injury and, in the belief that they had been grossly wronged, to express themselves in language almost as sweeping as that used by hon. Members opposite below the Gangway; but he put it those hon. Members whether it was not of greater importance now to relieve the immediate necessities of the tenants, to try and restore harmony between the estranged classes in Ireland by the proposed Bill with regard to arrears, than to attempt to deal with the requirements of the Grand Jury system? Was it not also more necessary that the arm of the law should be immediately strengthened, so as to be able to bring criminals to justice, than that county government should be reformed? The reform demanded by the Resolution was rendered impossible this Session by the state of Public Business; and the Government, therefore, while they sympathized with those who desired to reform the Grand Jury system, could not accept a Resolution pledging them to immediate legislation on this subject. He trusted, therefore, that the matter would not be pressed further; but that the Government might have their opposition to the Motion obviated by its withdrawal.
    MR. PLUNKETsaid, he did not rise to continue the debate, but to make an appeal to the hon. Members representing Irish constituencies. He agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite that it was impossible for obvious reasons to give practical effect to the Resolution. The subject was a very large and technical one, and he did not propose to discuss it; but he wished to appeal to hon. Members below the Gangway not to proceed with the debate in the tone adopted by the first two speakers. How could they ever arrive at a satisfactory solution of any question in Ire-
    572
    land if speeches were to be made in which such sentiments were expressed? He had been perfectly amazed to hear one hon. Member declare that the Grand Juries had "no honesty, no decency, no respect for public opinion," and that "there was not a county in which you could not find many cases of oppression." It was not wonderful that the hon. Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce) should have made a strong protest, which, for his own part, he heartily endorsed, against such wholesale charges. Those charges were almost always indefinite, and there was, therefore, no chance of specifically refuting them. By way of testing their general accuracy he might mention that the whole matter had been considered by a Select Committee in the year 1868, which was composed, among others, of the following Gentlemen, all of them good specimens of loyal and patriotic Irishmen—Lord Mayo, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Maguire, Mr. Blake, Sir William Gregory, Sir Colman O'Loghlen, and Colonel French. The Report was unanimously adopted; and in answer to the charge as to the honesty and the decency of Grand Juries, he would quote this passage—
    "Such are the principal objections to the existing system; and having carefully considered the whole of the evidence, your Committee have come to the conclusion that, however open to objection certain portions of the Grand Jury system may be, its administration is generally pure and economical."
    That was the opinion of the Committee. There had been, no doubt, grave charges made against individual members of the landed classes in Ireland; but it had been almost universally admitted that the landlords who held great estates and were prominent in their counties were as good landlords as could be found anywhere, and those were the men of whom the Grand Juries were usually composed. He did not wish to say anything in recrimination; but he did appeal to hon. Members, if they wished to carry the debate on, not to indulge in language or make indefinite charges which could have no other effect than to stir up fierce antagonism between the various classes which had to live together and who ought to live in harmony in Ireland.
    MR. BLAKEsaid, that, as the last surviving Member in that House of the Select Committee of 17, to which refer-

    573
    ence had been made, he desired to offer a few words on the subject. He wished that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had quoted more extensively from the Report; for, had he done so, he would have found that the Committee was unanimous in favour of some reform of the system. No doubt some very unjust charges had been made against the Grand Juries; but he believed there was much of which the ratepaying community might fairly complain. There was taxation without the power of properly controlling expenditure, as the cesspayers were not fairly represented. The Grand Jury were the nominees of the Sheriff, and they nominated the associated ratepapers. In his own county (Waterford), the Duke of Devonshire and the Marquess of Waterford were the largest landowners, and in that capacity he desired to allude to them with every respect. The Duke of Devonshire, though a good landlord, was an absentee; and, notwithstanding that he drew £40,000 a-year out of Ireland, the only property for which he was assessed was Lismore Castle, and the cess for it must be under £25. The Marquess of Waterford drew £30,000 from the county; and as there had been very few tenancies created on his estate since 1870, his case formed an instance in which nearly all the county cess was paid by the tenants. This arose from the fact that on his estate, as well as that of the Duke of Devonshire, there were very few evictions, and consequently few re-lettings, since 1870, so that hardly any of the tenants on either estates came under the benefit of the Act enacting that in all lettings since 1870 the cess should be divided between landlord and tenant. It was so also with numerous tenants throughout Ireland. Another very great grievance the ratepayers suffered under was that they had to bear all the cost of the lunatic poor, which, he was sorry to say, were increasing. In the City of Waterford they had only to walk from the workhouse, which was supported equally by landlord and tenant, across the road to another institution, the lunatic asylum, for which the tenants were solely taxed, while they had no voice in the election of the Board of Governors. Though the subject of Grand Jury reform had been before the House close upon 18 years, no step had been taken to carry out the important recommendations
    574
    of the Select Committee. He fully agreed with the Attorney General for Ireland that there were more pressing subjects to be disposed of; but when that was done, he earnestly hoped that this long-standing grievance would form part of the Government programme next Session.
    MR. GIVAN, as one who had expressed very strong opinions on this subject from time to time, desired to say a few words now. He believed that next to the demand for Irish remedial legislation in respect of the Land Law, there was no question of more importance than that now before the House. The whole Grand Jury system of Ireland, from top to bottom, tended to jobbery and corruption. Yet, if there were one branch of this system of jurisdiction which he would continue to repose in Grand Juries, it was that of adjudicating upon cases of malicious injuries, and of any assessments in connection with them. The greatest protection that men had from crime in Ireland was the power of Grand Juries to compensate them out of their own pockets and out of the pockets of their neighbours. Though the Grand Juries had not been economical or altogether fair in the expenditure of public money, he must say, from his own experience in the North of Ireland, that they had always exercised a wise, careful, and conscientious jurisdiction in connection with the assessments for malicious injuries. He could not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) that the Grand Juries were mainly composed of the great landowners of the country. If that were so, they would have a better state of things. In the county of Tyrone, where there were such great landlords as the Duke of Abercorn, Lord Belmore, and others, he ventured to say that for the last 20 years not one of them had acted as a Grand Juror. They were represented by agents, who had no land in the county, and were often entire strangers. The same was the case in the county of Monaghan, where there were such great landowners as Mr. Shirley, Lord Clonmell, the Marquess of Bath, and Lord Dartrey. The whole Grand Jury system required to be re-modelled. The people must have representation, and until they got it there would be amongst them irritation and excitement. There being no second opinion as to the necessity for reforming

    575
    the system, he hardly knew the object for bringing forward the present Motion.
    MR. O'SULLIVAN, in supporting the Motion, observed that this was not a question of individual representation on Grand Juries. It was a question of system. There were many systems in Ireland which needed reformation, but none of them more so than that of Grand Juries. The great complaint was that under the Grand Jury system in Ireland there was a power of taxation without representation. Outside a certain number of families in the counties, no one ever saw a Grand Juror selected from year's end to year's end. It should be remembered that, while the Grand Jurors had the power of taxation, many of them never paid 1s. themselves. None but the immediate relatives of Grand Jurors were appointed collectors of county cess, and these gentlemen were paid 9d. in the pound, while the Guardians of the Poor paid only from 4d. to 6d. for collecting a rate, which was much more troublesome. He had known many instances in which respectable and solvent men had offered to collect the county cess for 5d. in the pound, and others were preferred and paid 9d. in the pound. In his own town, within the last few years, the Grand Jury took a site for a court-house from the brother of a Grand Juror; they laid out £300 or £400 upon it; and when the court-house was built and the contractor paid, it was then discovered that the man had no title. Certainly a compact had since been entered into, and they had taken possession; but the system remained the same. In the payment of claims they were equally careless. They were not directly elected from the cesspayers, but were simply the nominees of the High Sheriffs. The Attorney General for Ireland said Grand Juries were not the only bodies in Ireland who practised jobbery. Very true; but in every other case the people had the power of putting aside the jobbers at the elections. They had no such power with the Grand Jury. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also told the House that since 1870 in all lettings the county cess was divided between landlord and tenant. But the fact was, that in nine cases out of ten, the landlord or agent had written the tenant out of his right. At all events, in seven cases out of eight which
    576
    had come within his own knowledge, that had been done.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)explained that in the case mentioned by the hon. Member, the Grand Jury were not in fault. The case turned upon the construction of a document.
    MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, the necessity for reform in regard to the Grand Jury system in Ireland was generally admitted, and the only question before the House was the time at which reform could be effected. It was evident nothing could be done this Session; but he hoped that next Session it would be one of the first measures taken in hand by the Government of the day. It had been said that the great object of the Grand Juries was to protect the interests of their poorer neighbours. Certainly in Londonderry their poorer neighbours did not give the Grand Juries much credit for doing so. Personally he had had but little experience in serving on Grand Juries, because being a Liberal in politics he was probably ineligible to be chosen. Notwithstanding that, he paid more county cess than half the others on the list. Those who served were usually hangers-on and agents without property. The money expended by the Grand Juries amounted to £1,500,000, and the cesspayers had no voice in connection with that expenditure. They might be told that although the cesspayers had no direct voice or vote in the expenditure of the public money, the control was in the hands of the associated cesspayers, together with the magistrates. But these were in the first place chosen by the Grand Juries, who, of course, were careful to select men who were not obnoxious to them. Thus the cesspayers could not be said to represent the people. The question had been trifled with for 15 years by both the great Parties in the State. He did not regret the delay which had taken place, for he believed that in the coming Session of Parliament, or very soon at all events, the question must be dealt with, not only for Ireland, but for England as well, in a broad and comprehensive spirit, and they should yet have in Ireland a proper and thorough system of Local County Government.
    MR. SYNANsaid, he supposed that the only useful object of the Motion was

    577
    to ascertain the views of the Government, and when they proposed to deal with the matter. This was not a question of who was or who was not selected to serve on Grand Juries. It was a broad question of the right of taxing the occupiers of land in Ireland without permitting them to be represented in the taxing body. It was a most serious thing for people to be taxed by those who did not represent them, and this it was that made the Grand Jury system more objectionable than anything else they could imagine. In no other part of the world did they find such a system as that which existed in Ireland. Why should matters have been left, not for 15 years, but for 30 years, in such an objectionable state? He could only account for it upon the principle that in everything Ireland was to be left behind, and that everything which concerned Ireland was to be shelved. He could not complain that Ireland had not occupied a great deal of the time of the House during the last two years, for it certainly had; but he could not understand why the Government should have ignored this question for 14 years previous to that. When it was dealt with, he hoped it would be included in a broad measure of local government for Ireland, and that the Act of 1870 would no longer be disregarded as a dead letter. He hoped that, short as this Resolution was, and short as the discussion would be, they would have the effect of inducing the Government to bring forward the question and deal with it on the first opportunity.
    MR. FINDLATERsaid, there could be no doubt that very serious abuses had arisen under the present Grand Jury system. Large sums were expended out of the cesspayers' money by Grand Juries in building handsome banquetting halls and other rooms for their own exclusive luxury and comfort. This required correction. A year or two ago a leading Dublin journal published a series of articles on the subject; and from a perusal of these articles he was very much surprised to find how widely diffused those abuses were amongst the Grand Juries in the different counties in Ireland. As the matter was now thoroughly ventilated, and the great majority of the House were satisfied that the system required amendment, although not disposed to deal with it at present, he hoped that the
    578
    hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) would not press his Resolution to a division; for if it was an adverse division, he felt that it would be most injurious to the cause. The best service the hon. Member could render the interests he had advocated was to withdraw his Resolution.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not agree with the hon. Member, for his experience went to show that the largeness or the smallness of a majority or minority had very little to do with the final settlement of a question in that House. He remembered the case of the Malt Tax. The minority supporting the appeal was 18; but, in spite of the smallness of the minority, one of the first taxes repealed by the Government was that very tax. The whole question resolved itself into what suited the convenience or the supposed interests of the Government for the time being. Nor could he agree with the hon. Member for the County Limerick that they were flogging a dead horse. Altogether they had succeeded in extracting from the Government a more or less pathetic reply that at a period more or less remote they would take up the question. They acknowledged the necessity of a settlement of the question, and that question cried loudly for reform. The only way to get that reform was to keep bringing the matter under the notice of the Government. That taxation and representation should go together there could be no difference of opinion; but this Grand Jury system went a great deal further than even taxation and representation. The hon. Baronet the Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce) gave a very warm character to the jurors of the county of Derry; but Derry was differently situated, in some respects, from any other county in Ireland. A very large proportion of the land of the county was in the hands of Companies who had no representation from their properties on the Grand Juries; and the result was that there was in the county of Derry a comparative scarcity of suitable persons for grand jurors. From time to time, traders of the City of Derry had got on Grand Juries for the county of Derry, and had also held the position of High Sheriff; and he thought the county of Derry did not fairly represent the system pursued in the various counties of Ireland, and that it was not an instance which could be quoted. With regard to the question

    579
    of taxation and representation, the hon. Baronet also said that these grand jurors were very careful of the interests of their poor neighbours. That might be the case in the county of Derry; but certainly, in his experience in some counties with which he was more or less acquainted, it was not so. The sort of men who usually got the position of high constable were men who were political supporters of the dominant Party in the county; and he thought it a reprehensible system for a Grand Jury, which had the power of taxation in the county, to use that power to further the interests of political Parties by giving situations to their hangers-on at a higher rate than was given to others. Grand Juries were not entitled to the very warm praise with which one or two Members of the House had spoken of them. Grand Juries gave the county printing to Conservative newspapers for the purpose of giving them a partizan support. That was done at the expense of the ratepayers, to his knowledge, so far as concerned the county of Antrim, for in that county the Grand Jury refused to give the county printing to a printing establishment, which was quite as respectable as the Conservative newspaper which the Grand Jury patronized, although the printing establishment whose offer was declined would have done the work for several hundred pounds less. The Government urged that there were matters of a more urgent nature than this question of the Grand Jury system. He knew the Government were bound to satisfy the prejudices of a certain class of Englishmen by bringing forward a Coercion Bill; but he believed the second most urgent question in Ireland was the question of county government. He never heard a farmer speak of the system who did not say that the system of Grand Jury government was one of an urgent nature. He thought, in dealing with the matter, they ought to refer to individual cases, and then draw inferences from these individual cases. With regard to the general principles of the question, the hon. Member for Wexford mentioned a case in the South of Ireland in which a large award was made by a Grand Jury; and he thought such cases showed the partizan spirit of the Grand Juries. It was pointed out by the Attorney General that the parties aggrieved could appeal from one Court
    580
    to the other; but that meant a further burden of law costs upon the unfortunate sufferers. Grand jurors were selected from a certain particular ring in county society, and they kept all the patronage within their own circle. As to the division of the county cess between landlord and tenant, that only happened in cases where there had been an alteration in the rent or tenancy; and, therefore, the argument of the Attorney General came to the ground on that, as well as on all other points in the controversy. The whole case against the Grand Juries was too strong to need argument; but he hoped that the hon. Member for Wexford would press his Resolution to a division.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 118; Noes 24: Majority 94.—(Div. List, No. 78.)
    Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

  VAGRANCY (ENGLAND AND WALES).

    OBSERVATIONS.
    SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTON, in rising to call the attention of the House to the great increase of Vagrancy, said, had the Rules of the House permitted, he should have moved—
    "That the increase of Vagrancy, together with the causes and remedies for the same, require the early attention of the Government."
    His object was to obtain information on this subject, which it was impossible for private Members to do without the aid of the Local Government Board. The subject was one of great importance, many Unions having brought the enormous increase which had taken place in vagrancy before the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board. The Local Government Board did not give sufficient or immediate attention to these representations; it was now nearly six months since their attention had been called to the matter; whereas, in such a case, their own Inspector should have done so. Notwithstanding the regulations of the Board dealing with the relief which was to be given to vagrants, during the last 20 years there had been a great, he might say an alarming and continuous, increase in their numbers. What made it more serious was the terrorism which they began to exercise over orderly and respectable per-

    581
    sons; some roads being so infected by them as to be inconvenient, if not unsafe to travel upon. In 1869 and 1870 the numbers decreased, owing to the great amendment that then took place in Poor Law administration; but while in 1873 the numbers were 1,900, in 1880 they were 7,000. That showed great fluctuation; but, at the same time, a very serious increase. The present vagrant army sleeping in workhouses was between 6,000 and 7,000; about three times as many more were known to the police as vagrants—say, 20,000—half of whom were more or less wayfarers, and half of whom were undistinguishable from the workhouse tramp, making the vagrant body about 16,000 or 17,000, at least. Now, the fluctuations of the number of the workhouse tramps were very remarkable. Without giving each year, and taking the rise and fall since 1861, there were, according to the Return, of those sleeping on January 1st in workhouse wards—1861, 1,179; 1867, 3,566; 1868, 6,053; 1870, 4,147; 1873, 1,987; 1880, 7,041. Then, as regards separate Unions, he had obtained Returns from about 20, showing the increase since 1876 for the half-year. These were 10 typical ones—

    1876.

    1881.

    Atcham

    450

    1,880

    Tenbury

    350

    1,118

    Langport

    160

    410

    Hatfield

    550

    2,133

    South Molton

    110

    312

    Burton-on-Trent

    592

    6,986

    Stafford

    1,838

    3,041

    Tamworth

    740

    2,430

    Uttoxeter

    929

    1,327

    Seisdon

    118

    369

    Showing an increase amounting to 300 per cent in the five years. By Returns obtained over a month or two in one Union he found that one-fifth of the vagrants were short-service soldiers, and of these one quarter, or thereabouts, were actually Reserve men. So that out of every 1,000 tramps about 200 were discharged soldiers, and 50 of them actually Reserve men—that was, if the proportion of other Unions fairly tallied with his own. Now, what were the causes of that increase? It was not easy exactly to define them; but two or three were apparent. Depression of trade was no doubt one; stricter or laxer administration might be another and a local cause. The short-service Army system might have something to do with it, in de-industrializing young
    582
    men, and afterwards giving them just enough to be idle upon; and, possibly, the want of industrial training in their school children might have something to answer for. But the danger of the matter seemed to be that it was growing; and those who took to that life did not return to regular and industrial habits. It seemed to him difficult to imagine a more certain way of inculcating idle habits and vagabond life than taking a young man of 18 or 20, keeping him for six years, when he might be learning some trade, in a somewhat idle profession, and then turning him loose, with just sufficient to live a roving life, living in tramp wards and on what could be begged; and if that was so, the short-service system might have to answer not only for destroying the efficiency and solidarity of their regiments, but also for de-industrializing the young men who were enlisted, and forming a pauper Reserve, or proletariat reservoir. Without now going into the question, it appeared to him that if the Reserve could be formed out of the men enlisted for a shorter term—say, one or three years—and then passed to the Militia, who might be retained for half the present amount, and the Regular Army maintained out of a longer service or re-engagements, it would be a far sounder system; and that was the opinion of many experienced military men, altogether apart from the question of these men being in workhouses. Then, as regarded remedies, he was not prepared to offer any complete remedy or suggest any panacea; but he held that those who brought forward questions of that kind, or of any other kind, in Parliament, should at least attempt to offer some suggestion or alternative, whether it was for a domestic matter like that, a homely—he might say a homeless—question such as that, or a subject of high policy, and foreign affairs, and therefore he would frankly say what he advised. First, information as to what the most successful Unions had done in this matter, which the Local Government Board could collect and disseminate; and that was the most important matter. There was the Vagrancy Bill of the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), which it would be out of Order to discuss to-night, with its power of detention. That might do something, but not all. There was what was known as the Berkshire system, which was a system

    583
    of tickets and bread at certain stations, together with a strict prosecution of those found begging, and a sterner sentence for those who threatened. There was much in that, perhaps; but it had not been always successful, and it had to be maintained by a voluntary subscription at present. That the Local Government Board could obviate, without coming to Parliament for new powers, if it were thought advisable. But his main object that night in calling attention to the subject was to ventilate the question in that House, and throughout the country; to get the Local Government Board to take up the matter, and to afford the House all the information in its possession regarding it. He hoped, also, that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would see his way to institute searching inquiries into the bearings and facts in connection with the subject, and do something in connection with the Army Reserve, which might in some degree mitigate the evil.
    MR. SALTsaid, he felt himself unable to suggest any definite or radical cure for the long-established evil of vagrancy. The question, however, was one of great interest and importance to the community; and thanks were due to his hon. Friend for bringing it forward. A few years ago, he himself had an opportunity of giving some attention to, and gaining a certain amount of information on, that subject at the very time when the causes of the increase of vagrancy were especially in operation. It was very difficult to speak positively on a subject of that kind; but he believed that the recent increase of vagrancy was very much due to the bad state of trade for a period of two or three years some few years since. He had noticed that matter during the years 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879, culminating, as it did, in the year 1880. He had observed this very remarkable feature in respect to vagrancy throughout the country—that if they kept their attention fixed upon some particular district—for instance, on some great centre of the iron industry—they would find that a year or so after the adverse circumstances of trade commenced vagrancies spread gradually from that particular point throughout the Kingdom. What happened was this. Men who were thrown out of employment from the bad times held to their homes as long as they could, hoping for a return of better trade; but at last
    584
    they left their homes, and started on a journey, sometimes in search of work. They went a certain distance; some of them got work; others did not. When they did not get work, they began to go further and further throughout the country; and he believed that the Poor Law Returns of the time would show that, year after year, the increase of vagrancy spread from the great centres of trade further and further into the country as those persons who were in want of work went further to obtain their object. What was the effect of that process on the men themselves who were wandering in search of employment? Many of them gradually found that a wandering life was easier, more profitable, and more pleasant than an industrious life; and the result had been that, in consequence of the bad times of 1877 and 1878, the wanderers from the great centres of manufactures, not having found work, and having got accustomed to sleeping in the unions at night, and begging their way during the day, had become confirmed and habitual vagrants. One of the first things they had to do was to appreciate the distinction between men who, from bad habits and education, habitually adopted the character of vicious vagrants and men who were honestly wandering about in search of work. He was in the habit of conversing with vagrants whom he chanced to meet, and his conversation with them had confirmed the impression he already entertained—namely, that there were a class of men who became vagrants by choice. Now, that class of men ought to be repressed; they were a dangerous class, and the cause of great trouble and annoyance to cottages at which they persistently begged, and whose occupants they threatened if their demands were not satisfied. They were men who went from bad to worse, and who ultimately generally joined the criminal classes. He did not now suggest any solution of the difficulty; but he wished to impress upon the Government the difference between the two classes. Some persons had suggested that the detention of these men in the workhouse for one night only was insufficient, and certainly it was open to grave objection. The ordinary vagrant who was taken in and sheltered at night received his breakfast, and had to do his task in the morning of picking oakum, or whatever it might be, and after that was discharged. The con-

    585
    sequence was that he wandered about all day begging, or spending his time in some similar occupation until the evening, when he again obtained shelter in the same way. Perhaps such men might with advantage be detained for more than one night. On the other hand, when a man honestly started from his home in search of work, which he could not obtain in his own part of the country, it would be a great advantage to him if he could obtain tickets which would carry him through the country until he obtained the occupation he sought. And, more than this, the Poor Law Board ought to have some enlarged powers intrusted to them of enabling men who were honestly unable to obtain suitable employment to emigrate, not at the expense of the parish or Union, but of some larger area. There were many methods by which the vicious vagrant might be distinguished from the workman thrown out of employment. The use of the police had been tried with success, and was certainly worthy of the attention of the House. He did not propose to follow the hon. Baronet in his remarks on the effect of the short-service system generally, as he did not think a consideration of that subject would tend to aid their discussion on the present occasion. But he was not surprised to find that a certain number of men who had been in the Army had become vagrants. It must be obvious that a man who had spent six years of his life in military service would have great difficulty in making his way into the first class of artizans. It was quite clear, also, that as soon as any depression in trade made itself felt, the second-class workman would be the first to suffer. He urged on the Government, however, to spare no pains to distinguish between those who were compelled against their will to leave their own homes in search of work and those who wandered about from idle habits. The former should receive the sympathy of all, the latter were an idle and vicious class, who deserved no consideration, and which it should be the aim of the Government to abolish.
    MR. CHILDERSsaid, that, until the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) rose, he (Mr. Childers) had not anticipated that the Army Reserve would be mentioned in connection with vagrancy, and, consequently, was not prepared with any statistics on the
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    subject. He might say, however, that although the Unions generally were by no means backward in complaining of matters of this kind, yet he had been able to ascertain that neither the War Office nor the Local Government Board had received any complaints from them as to Army Reserve men becoming vagrants; unless, possibly, the latter Department had heard from the Union of the district with which the hon. Baronet (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) was connected; and the information at the disposal of the Government did not, therefore, support the suggestion of the hon. Baronet that the evil was one which occasioned any very great public interest. Speaking of a particular Union, the hon. Baronet said that one-fifth of the vagrants were men who had been in the Army, and of these one-fourth were from the Army Reserve, the argument being that the Army Reserve contributed one-twentieth of the total number of vagrants. If so, on the hon. Baronet's own figures, the Army Reserve contributed a smaller percentage by far than old pensioners, the latter numbering some 80,000. There was, in fact, no evidence to show that of the Army Reserve men—the short-service men—any large proportion fell into penury. The question was tested on the last occasion, when a certain number of Army Reserve men were invited to return to the Colours. When that step was taken various results were predicted; on the one hand, that the number of those who would be glad to return would be very large; on the other, that the men, as a rule, were in good employment, which few of them would be willing to quit. The event showed the correctness of this latter view, as only 900 men returned; and of these he had reason to know that a large proportion did come from employments in which they were receiving good wages, and only a small number came back to the Colours because they were in distress. Therefore, bearing these facts in mind, and in the absence of complaints from the Unions, he did not believe that the increase of the number of vagrants was at all due to the establishment of the Army Reserve. He was bound to say, also, that it was not in harmony with experience that military work demoralized or de-industrialized—to use the hon. Baronet's word—the men. Indeed, if this question of vagrancy was

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    the hon. Baronet's sole objection to the short-service system, it was a very small one. Under the old system they could not get enough men, while under the new system they were getting a very satisfactory number of recruits.
    SIR HENRY FLETCHERsaid, he wished to make a few remarks in reference to what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War. He did not pretend to enter into the question of the comparative merits of long and short service in the Army; but the right hon. Gentleman knew that it was a question upon which he (Sir Henry Fletcher) did not agree with him. In the few words he had to say, he wished to speak, not as an old soldier, but as a Chairman of a Board of Guardians of many years' experience. Gentlemen filling such positions had greater knowledge of facts connected with vagrancy than ever reached the War Office. How, indeed, should that knowledge reach the War Office? These tramps and vagrants only came into the workhouse for one night; they received their bed and their breakfast, and for this they were required to do a certain amount of work. He could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, as he knew that there were a large proportion of short-service men who did take advantage of workhouses in this way, and tramp about as his hon. Friend near him (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) described. He never said anything in the House that he was not able to prove, and on subjects with which he was not fully acquainted; but he could say most distinctly that for some years past he had had occasion to pay attention to this vagrancy system, and he knew it to be the curse of England. He could prove that since the institution of the short-service system vagrancy had increased. He had, in his own Union in the county of Sussex, taken pains to ascertain the number of tramps who had been short-service men, and he was sure that his hon. Friend had under-estimated rather than exaggerated the number. The Secretary of State for War said that with the short-service system there was no inducement for men to be out of work; but, with all respect, the contrary proposition could not be denied. Without going into the general question of short service, he might briefly state that what happened was this. A man enlisted as
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    a soldier at the age of 18 or 19, he served for a period which up to now had been seven years, and at the end of that time he received his discharge and returned to his village, his town, or his parish. He went to his old master, and asked to come back to his former employment; but the master replied—"I have filled up the place, and I have nothing more for you to do." The man, during his soldier life with the Colours, had contracted a restless mode of life, and, finding he could not get employment in his own parish, he started off and wandered over the country, living a restless, unprofitable existence. In the Southern shires there was a regular track for these vagrants, which they followed week after week, and month after month. Starting from London, they went down to the South-Eastern part of England, to Dover, say. They walked along to Brighton and Southampton, and so passed along to Plymouth and into Wales. They went by the Southernmost road, and they returned by a road a little further inland. Day after day, week after week, he had seen these men tramping along the roads, being nothing but a nuisance to the labouring classes, whom they jeered at as they passed and chaffed them, asking why should they work when bed and board could be had for nothing? The bread ticket system had been mentioned, and this they had tried in West Sussex, the Dorsetshire system, as it was called, and the result had been an utter failure. For two years it was tried; but it was found that the men got more bread than they could eat from charitable persons, and they had been seen to go into public-houses and exchange bread for tobacco and beer. It was found impossible to continue the bread ticket system after a trial of two years. Another matter had been alluded to by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Salt), which. was keeping the vagrants longer at the workhouse. That he could not approve of. He had tried it in his own workhouse, keeping them from the Saturday until the Monday; but the men who were thus detained amused themselves all Sunday in their cells by ringing the bells for the porter and assistant porter, and remained in their cells laughing at the workhouse authority. It was now for the Local Government Board to suggest some means of suppressing va-

    589
    grancy. Magistrates and Guardians had tried all in their power, but without success. During the 11 years he had been Chairman, various systems of work had been tried for these men—oakum-picking, stone-breaking, and there was one thing that the men did not like at all, and which might be recommended to other Guardians as a deterrent, and that was stone pounding—pounding stone into minute particles by means of an iron hammer, 60 lbs. or 65 lbs. being required of a man before he left the workhouse. There was another deterrent which, however, had not received the sanction of the Local Government Board, and that was the crank-pump. The tramps did not like that at all. He (Sir Henry Fletcher) thought that anything of that description that possibly could be ought to be imposed on the tramp, who was a worthless fellow, a perfect nuisance, and a pest. When not engaged in his Parliamentary duties, he (Sir Henry Fletcher) was, as a rule, in daily communication with the authorities at the workhouse in his district. Every day he saw tramps on the road; indeed, he could not go out of his house without meeting gangs of them, and he knew how the poor cottagers by the roadside suffered from them. These men went to the door, under pretence of asking for a glass of water or a piece of bread; but, in reality, they intimidated the poor women to such an extent that, being in constant danger of their lives, the tramps were absolutely a perfect misery to them. In his division of the county they had Petty Sessions once a fortnight; but there was hardly a week passed in which he was not called upon by the police to go across to the Petty Sessional town to dispose of these cases. The magistrates, too, used their best endeavours in trying to put down the evil by giving a uniform system of punishment. They had been asked for and supplied policemen for additional service at the most frequented places; but the system of vagrancy had assumed such enormous proportions during the last few years that it was evident, unless the authorities or Government interposed, the people would continue to suffer still more than they did now from their visits. He did not wish to put forward any measure or suggestion; but he most earnestly asked the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Local Govern-
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    ment Board to give the matter his best and most earnest attention, in order that this vagrancy, which was neither more nor less than a curse and a disgrace to the community, should be diminished and repressed.
    MR. DODSONsaid, he could assure the hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Fletcher) that the officers of the Local Government Board, including himself, were deeply sensible of the evils of vagrancy, and were sincerely desirous of putting as much restriction as possible upon those evils. There could be no doubt that during a period of some years, and particularly between the years 1875 to 1880, the mischief of vagrancy had been on the increase; but that increase had, he believed, been felt more in particular localities than in the country as a whole, and it must not be assumed that because some districts suffered very much from it that there was a serious increase in this mischief all over the country. The hon. Baronet the Member for South Shropshire (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) attributed that increase to three causes—namely, the depression in trade, the short-service system, and the non-industrial education of boys in modern times. He (Mr. Dodson) was of opinion that the second of those allegations was not sustained. He would remind the hon. Baronet that there was no record kept at the workhouses as to the calling of those that received relief; and, therefore, there was no proof that they were short-service men. This branch of the question, however, had been dealt with exhaustively by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Childers); notwithstanding that, he (Mr. Dodson) might say that he had received a record from a gentleman connected with the county of Northumberland, which was confirmatory of the opinion of his right hon. Friend, and which would give some indication as to the short-service men. This gentleman had ascertained that in the course of one week 61 men came to the workhouses in Northumberland who had served in the Army. Of these 50 had served seven years and more, and only 11 had served less than seven; and, judging from the ages of the men, it would appear that not more than three or four were short-service men. That gave some idea as to the number of short-service men relieved.
    SIR HENRY FLETCHERsaid, that they might have served seven years, and still be short-service men.
    MR. DODSONsaid, that was so now; but, at all events, of the 61, not less than 50 had served more than seven years. As regarded the non-industrial education of the boys of the present day, that was an allegation somewhat difficult to prove. It proceeded upon a theory he thought they would not undertake to discuss. If he were asked to assign the causes accounting for the increase of vagrancy, such as it had been in recent years, he should say, first, the depression in trade to which the hon. Baronet had alluded. It was a fact that the years between 1875 and 1880 were the years when depression of trade was greatest, and vagrancy correspondingly increased, while the years of improvement corresponded with the years of diminished vagrancy. In 1881 there was a diminution as compared with 1880; and he was glad to say that, in 1882, so far as it had gone, there was again a diminution as compared with the previous year. The second cause which added to the recorded number of vagrants was the increased accommodation through the multiplication of wards in the workhouses, which had drawn to them a number of men, who would, perhaps, have gone to lodgings or have slept under a hedge. In this way the Act passed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) had tended to swell the Returns. A third cause was the growth of population. Again, the total number often given was a fallacious one; and, with reference to this point, hon. Members must bear in mind that the workhouse records gave the number of cases relieved, and not the actual number of vagrants in the country. Of course, if there were 100 more vagrants this year than last, and they each visited 100 workhouses, that would make a nominal increase of 10,000.
    SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTONsaid, that the figures he had quoted showed no decrease in the last year, but a steady increase.
    MR. DODSONsaid, he was not disputing the hon. Baronet's figures. He merely gave that instance to show how easily a miscalculation had often been made. He would then give them a few statistics. In 1879 the mean number relieved in the wards was 5,567; in
    592
    1880, 6,194; and in 1881, 5,912. On the 1st of January of those years the numbers were 5,347, 5,848, and 5,466 respectively. That showed that the tide had turned, and he hoped that it would continue to ebb so. He should like to go back to a former period, in order to ascertain whether vagrancy was permanently and continuously on the increase. Up to 1868, the Home Office used to have the number of vagrants showed among other criminal statistics in the Police Returns. They gave the total number of vagrants known to the police; and, in 1868, the number of vagrants known to the police was 36,000; and the vagrants relieved by the Guardians on the 1st of January, 1868, were, in rough numbers, 6,000. The number relieved on the 1st January, 1882, was, as he had stated, 5,466. The mean number of vagrants "in and out" on 1st January, 1868, was 6,129, and on 1st January, 1881, 6,338, showing an increase of vagrants relieved in and out of the workhouses of only 209. It amounted to this—that the total number of vagrants relieved by Guardians, notwithstanding the increase of population, was not now greater than in 1868. It must be borne in mind that, owing to the fluctuations of particular trades at particular times, there were in particular localities more vagrants than at other times. Therefore, we must not lay too much stress on our own experience of a particular neighbourhood or a particular time. If we wished to have a correct impression as to the progress or otherwise of vagrancy, we must look at the matter as a whole. Some remedies had been suggested to obviate this increase; and amongst them were bread-tickets, stricter treatment, longer de-tention, crank labour, and other correctives of that kind. These remedies were all under the consideration of the Local Government Board. Communications on the subject had also been addressed by various Unions to the Local Government Board, who had paid the greatest attention to them. He would not enter into a discussion of the plans which might be devised for a better management of vagrants, because in a day or two there would be discussed a Bill which had been brought into the House by an hon. Gentleman who had very great experience upon these matters. On the second reading of that Bill there

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    would be a legitimate opportunity for discussing the remedies suggested on the subject.
    MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, that, with reference to the closing remark of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Dodson), he hoped the subject would receive the attention it deserved when the Motion with reference to it was brought forward on Wednesday next. In his (Mr. J. G. Talbot's) capacity as Chairman of the Vagrancy Committee in the county of Kent, it had been his duty to watch the alarming increase of this great evil. It was not only an evil, in so far as it was a disgrace to the community that a large number of persons should be wandering about without visible means of support; but it was also an evil because vagrants were usually persons who preyed in some way upon society. It might be that the distinction drawn by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Salt) between good vagrants and bad vagrants was correct; but he could not help thinking that poor persons who were really anxious to obtain work would not, in any great numbers, find their way to the casual wards of workhouses. At least one-half of the vagrants frequenting the casual wards belonged to the criminal or the semi-criminal population. The best plan was to divide vagrants into the two categories of paupers and criminals. So far as vagrants really deserved the assistance of the State, he thought that they ought to be treated like other paupers. That was the principle which the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) had developed in his Bill. He thought they had made a mistake in the treatment of vagrants. They had at once been too stern and too indulgent, for too much indulgence had been shown to these people, because they were allowed to receive gratis board, lodging, and necessary clothing; but, on the other hand, a want of feeling was shown towards them, because they were kept by themselves and treated differently from other paupers. Moreover, there was no attempt to bring them under humanizing influences, for no Chaplain or Board of Guardians ever came near them. That exceptional severity should be removed, and they should receive the same treatment as other paupers. Then, again, if they were not criminals in act, or not detected criminals, they were
    594
    often criminals in will, ready to lay their hands upon anything that might come in their way. They were persons from whom a great deal of the crime of the country proceeded; and, when convicted of begging, it had been found by experience that their imprisonment had a striking effect upon the class. Magistrates were often too lax in their treatment of them; they should put in power the force which the law gave them. He was glad to hear from his right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board that there had been a diminution of the number of vagrants this year; but that was probably due to the exceptionally mild winter. He was struck by the remarkable circumstance stated by the right hon. Gentleman that on a given day there were 36,000 vagrants known to the police, whilst on the same day there were only 5,000 or 6,000 in the casual wards. Those were the people who received encouragement through the lax administration of the law. If the present Motion led to a more stringent administration, his hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Sir Baldwyn Leigh-ton) would have not laboured in vain. He had also done no little service to the country by having drawn attention to the mode in which the Army short-service system had been abused. He hoped the House would arrive at the conclusion that this was a subject which deserved the serious attention of Parliament and of the country. No slight amount of evil arose from people living a life of idleness, and preying on the earnings won by others in honest toil.

  PATENT MEDICINES.—OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. WARTON, who had the following Notice upon the Paper:—
  "To call attention to the subject of the sale of Patent Medicines; and to move, That it is desirable that restrictions should be placed on the sale of Patent Medicines of a poisonous character,"
  said, that, before entering upon the subject, he desired to mention that when the clôture debate was resumed—if it ever should be—and the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) was in his place, he intended to refer to a statement made by the noble Marquess to the effect that he (Mr. Warton) was one of four Members of the House who had made the

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  cloôure necessary. With regard to the subject of patent medicines, the word "patent" arose, as the House was probably aware, from the fact that in ancient times letters "patent"—that was, open letters—were granted to certain persons with the monopoly of vending certain articles. He believed the earliest patent medicine on record was Dr. Stoughton's Stomachic Elixir, though he could not inform the House what the ingredients were. Abuses having arisen through the granting of these monopolies, Parliament soon interposed with restrictions. The patents were limited to a certain term of years, and a specification or definition of their character was also required. Those specifications were often of a very vague description; and the inventors of those medicines found that they could do better without a patent than with one. An Act of the 52nd of George III. was passed on that subject. It was provided that inventors of those medicines should no longer be obliged to take out patents, but that they should be required to pay Stamp Duties. Every kind of appeal was made; there were English pills and Scotch pills, pills with grand Latin names, and pills with grand Greek names, in order to impress the mind of the vulgar with the good of these patent medicines. All this showed how these quacks were in the habit of giving their nostrums the most high-sounding and quasi-classical names, the better to impose upon the public. The first point to which he wished to direct the attention of the Government was that a good deal of quackery was promoted by the Government stamp now levied on these medicines, the price of which was often advertised as 1s. 1½d. with the Government stamp. An apparent sanction, which he strongly disapproved, was thus given by the Government to these medicines; and he suggested that, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer still thought fit to levy those duties, there ought, at least, to be some restriction placed on the use of the words on the label which referred to the Government stamp. Words to this effect might be used—"This duty is levied for fiscal purposes, and there is no Government guarantee of the goodness of the medicine." The Government, he held, ought not to be supposed to profit from the evil which resulted to the public through the sale of
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  those medicines. The next point which he urged was that, at present, although restrictions were placed by the Pharmacy Act of 1868 on the sale of poisons, properly so called, and although no one, unless he were a medical man, could get certain poisons without very great difficulty, yet it was open to any patent medicine vendor to sell those medicines, although they might contain any quantity of poison. The 16th section of the Pharmacy Act seemed to reserve the rights of persons making or dealing in patent medicines. He wished to see vested interests properly respected; but they ought to be jealous of vested interests affecting the public health, and he wondered how it was that the quack medicine interest was so strong in 1868 as to obtain the insertion in the Act of that year of words of special exemption in its favour. The 17th section, no doubt, said that it should be unlawful to sell any poison, wholesale or retail, unless the bottle or packet containing it was distinctly labelled "poison;" but he doubted whether those words overrode the special exemption in the 16th clause as to patent medicines. In illustration of this anomaly, he would call the attention of the House to a case which occurred in the High Street, Kensington, in January last, in which a chemist was charged with selling a bottle of Hunter's Solution of Chloral without attaching a label bearing the word "poison" to the bottle. He referred to that case to show what amount of poison there might be in a patent medicine. Counsel explained that the solution contained 264 grains in a large bottle and 88 grains in a small bottle; it was undoubtedly a poison, and 30 grains of it might prove fatal. He merely mentioned this to show what a terrible thing it was to have poison sold in this way. Chlorodyne, again, was one of the quack medicines most frequently sold, and was a most dangerous compound. A case had also occurred of a lady in the West of England who had been in the habit of taking this dreadful remedy, and who had obtained, unknown to her husband, between the 19th of October and the 8th of November, above £3 worth of chlorodyne, and she had so injured her brain and nervous system that she was now the inmate of a lunatic asylum. It was well known, also, that the manner of advertising patent medicines produced a world of harm, because

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  when persons were ill they took something, and after they had taken something, if they did not die, they recovered, and advertised their recovery as the result of taking the medicine. An unfortunate Norfolk clergyman, with whom he (Mr. Warton) was acquainted, had taken some patent medicine, and, on the principle of post hoc propter hoc, had written a letter to the vendor attributing his recovery to the patent medicine, and said he would be glad to answer any inquiries. In the first week after the vendor published the letter the clergyman received 800 letters; and, as he was a man of his word, he answered them all, the stamps, paper, and envelopes, almost amounting to his small income. That showed what a hold these medicines had upon the public; and it also proved how many fools there were in the world, and the necessity of something being done in the direction he had indicated. Every trifling incident was turned into an advertisement, even such an incident as a traveller giving a pill to an Arab Chief. The advertisers appealed to the Government stamp, and the public thought that was a guarantee. Why should it not be made obligatory to state that the stamp did not involve any guarantee? And when the patent medicines contained poisons, why should not the vendors be compelled to state the fact, just as much as when they sold poisons by themselves? The sale of coffee adulterated with chicory was a trifling matter compared with the sale of medicines containing poison. He hoped he should be forgiven for having occupied 26 minutes in bringing forward this interesting and important subject.
  DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, he must congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) on the fact that this Motion, which had been hanging over their heads so long, had at length been brought freely and openly before the House; and he would, at the same time, acknowledge that the hon. and learned Gentleman had rendered good service by bringing it forward. It had attracted a good deal of attention in medical circles, because there was no doubt there had been a great deal of looseness in the sale of poisons through these patent medicines; and many deplorable results, ending in death, had taken place from poisons having been freely taken under the name of patent
  598
  medicines. It was quite true that under the 16th section of the Pharmacy Act, patent medicines were excluded from the operation of that Act; but in Section 17 it was necessary to label everything containing poison. This provision, however, had been very much neglected in the case of patent medicines, because the popular impression was that under Section 16 these medicines were still exempt. Chlorodyne contained four or five virulent poisons, though several were antagonistic, and neutralized the other. Hunter's Solution of Chloral contained a very strong dose of chloral indeed; but perhaps one of the most dangerous of all, from which many painful cases had resulted, was Kaye's Compound Essence of Linseed, which was labelled as a marvellous cure for coughs, colds, and asthma. It contained a large quantity of morphia, and there was not the slightest indication that any poisonous substance was contained it. Only the other day a serious case of poisoning occurred to a child, by taking this remedy, which bore the Government stamp, and which could be sold by anyone who had a 5s. licence. Any grocer, bookseller, or co-operative store who sold these drugs lost nothing in reputation if a fatal case occurred, whereas a chemist lost very largely indeed. To illustrate the absurdity of this, he stated that the Pharmacopœal Society's Solution of Chloral could not be sold except by a registered chemist; but Mr. Hunter put a patent medicine stamp upon his solution, which was double the strength of the other, and it was sold with impunity by grocers, stationers, and co-operative stores. At one of those stores a Yorkshire lady had obtained a chloral prescription, which the local chemists had refused to make up, with the result that a few days afterwards she was found dead in bed. It was a question whether it might not be well to do away with patent medicine licences altogether; but he would not dwell upon the question further, as he knew the subject had been recently undergoing the careful consideration of the Legislature, and he was sure it might be safely left in the hands of the experienced officials at the Home Office.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, he was also glad the question had been at last brought to maturity; and though the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. War-

  599
  ton) had rather been open to ridicule in consequence of the Motion being upon the Notice Paper so long, he must say that the hon. and learned. Gentleman had shown that there was more in the question than many people imagined. The principal point to which he had drawn attention was one worthy of the attention of the Government. There was no doubt the practice complained of came into vogue as one of the many means of raising money when they wanted money to carry on the French War, and he believed it had continued from that time to the present. He was not prepared, however, to give a decided opinion as to whether it was desirable to continue the present system, still he must say it was a question well worthy of consideration of the Government whether they should continue to allow medicines over which they had no control, and had no means of ascertaining what the ingredients were, to be sold with the Government stamp upon them, and thus appear to give a guarantee that the ingredients were fit and suitable for public use. The hon. and learned Member had done good service in pressing that point; and if the labels were to be continued, he should be glad, personally, if something could be added to show that there was no guarantee, and that the duty represented by the stamp was imposed purely for fiscal purposes. He should also like to see the question carried still further, for he was doubtful whether it was right to allow mixtures of this kind, containing poisons, to be sold as medicines, without being labelled in the same way as poisons were required to be labelled, so as to indicate, at least, the extent to which they were poisonous. Upon these two points he was quite in sympathy with the speech of his hon. and learned Friend opposite. He could not, however, make any promise as to what the Government would do, and could only express a hope that the matter would be fully considered by them, and that some better system would be adopted than that which was now in force.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

  SUPPLY—ARMY ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  (1.) £53,800, Divine Service.
  (2.) £37,200, Administration of Military Law.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War whether he had not received any representations from certain military prisons, or from the medical officers attached to them, respecting the evil effects of oakum picking, to which the soldiers were subjected; and also whether, in one prison, the roof was so bad that the rain came through?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, the military prison referred to was being repaired. He had not received any complaints regarding oakum picking; but he would inquire into the matter.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that, on the last occasion that the Estimates were before them, he referred to a matter which was of some interest, and in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War did not vouchsafe an answer—he meant the difference in the Estimates with regard to Appropriations in Aid and Exchequer Extra Receipts. In former years Exchequer Extra Receipts were paid into the Exchequer; but hereafter they would be appropriated in aid of the Vote. The Committee would understand the difference in the Estimate if he instanced a round sum, say £100. In former years, if a Vote was for £100, and the Exchequer Extra Receipts were expected to amount to £5, the £5 was paid into the Exchequer, and the Vote was limited to the £100. If more than £5 was realized, the larger sum so realized, whatever it might be, was also paid into the Exchequer; but, under the present system, if the amount realized by Exchequer Extra Receipts should exceed the Estimate in the first instance, the amount placed at the disposal of the Department would be greater than was sanctioned by Parliament. If on an examination of the accounts it was found that the money had gone, it could not be refunded. What he had stated as a possible case—namely, an excess over the anticipated receipts, was very likely to turn out, in point of fact, the rule, because, in almost every year, the amount realized by Exchequer Receipts was very much greater than was at first anticipated. For instance, the Appropriation Account for 1880–1 showed that the Appropriation in Aid exceeded the

  601
  Estimates by £113,000. The Appropriation Account for the year previous—namely, 1879–80, showed that the Appropriations in Aid brought in £189,000 in excess of the Estimates. In 1878–9 the Appropriations in Aid realized £271,495 more than they were estimated to bring in. He believed it was proposed to extend the system. At present the consent of the Treasury was required to appropriate, in aid of the Vote which had been exceeded, any surplus which there might be; but hereafter it would not be necessary for the Department to apply to the Treasury for its consent to appropriate to the Vote a very much larger sum than was submitted to Parliament in the first instance. Well, of course, that arrangement would suit the Department very well, because it placed at its disposal a larger sum than Parliament voted; but it did not suit their established ideas with regard to the check Parliament ought to have on Departmental expenditure. One of the results of the alteration was that the Department would be tempted to under-estimate, and the temptation was one which it would be very difficult to resist. The Department would be tempted to under-estimate the amount realizable under Exchequer Extra Receipts, and, by thus underestimating, it would certainly have at its disposal very much larger sums than it represented to Parliament would be necessary. Then, again, there would be a danger if the Department would anticipate its possible receipts by getting rid of the stores before the date which, under other circumstances, it would sell them. He did not think the Committee ought to consent to the change of system until it was assured that some steps would be taken to guard against the material being reduced in order to increase the available cash. He might mention the fact that in one of the Military Yards it was discovered that £6,000 worth of coal had been lying there for a long time, and had not been included in the stock-taking. If the new system was good for the Army and the Navy he supposed it would be also good for the Civil Service; but, as a matter of fact, it was not applied to the Civil Service, and the Government had not explained to them why they proposed to adopt one system to one class of Estimates and another system to another class of Estimates.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he thought that the new system would be found most advantageous. As the hon. Member had correctly explained, the extra receipts would be taken in aid of the Votes, so that the Votes would be very much less under certain heads than they were under the former system, and he ventured to believe that greater economy would be pursued. The subject had been well considered, not only by the Government and the Auditor General, but by the Committee on Public Accounts; and it had been arranged that when the extra receipts on any particular Vote exceeded the estimated extra receipts, the excess should be paid into the Exchequer. He thought the system would be found to work satisfactorily.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, there were every year a large number of fraudulent enlistments which had never been found out. That was one of the serious offences which he had often mentioned in the House. He had pressed very strongly upon the right hon. Gentleman the necessity for taking some steps to prevent it. They knew perfectly well that marking in any shape was very repugnant to the feelings of many people; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider whether it ought not to be resorted to in the case of a crime which was so detrimental to the interests of the Army.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he believed that the steps now being taken would do much to prevent fraudulent enlistment. They must look to the improved character of the soldier and to his good treatment as additional safeguards against fraud in this respect. Already there was a diminution in the number of fraudulent enlistments.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the right hon. Gentleman would find, on reference to the Report of the Inspector General of Military Prisons, that there was a most extraordinary discrepancy in the rates of mortality among the prisoners. In Limerick, for instance, the death rate was 4·08; in Dublin it was 8·09; in Millbank it was 11·03; in Cork it was 16·09; in Gleneorse it was 18·00; and in Gosport it rose to 23·09, or five times higher than that in the Limerick Prison. When they came to inquire into the case of Gosport, they found that the conveniences and the arrangements were

  603
  very different to those in other military-prisons. The medical officer had suggested that the low temperature of the cells during winter was conducive to illness, and that the punishment awarded to military prisoners was not judicious. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) hoped the right hon. Gentleman would consider whether oakum picking could not be abolished.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, they were adopting the system of centralization with respect to military prisoners, and he hoped they would be able to avoid complaint in future.
  COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, it was the practice in military prisons to accept contracts from outsiders when any work was required to be done. He could not see why the work could not be done by the prisoners themselves.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he thought it would be better to employ the prisoners, where possible, in preference to contracts. He would look into the matter.
  Vote agreed to.
  (3.) £300,800, Medical Establishment.
  DR. FARQUHARSONasked whether it was not in contemplation to abolish the useless office of Governor and Commandant of Netley Hospital, and thereby relieve the Army Medical Department of a longstanding grievance? The existence of the office had long been the cause of a great deal of friction and discontent, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to its abolition.
  SIR ROBERT LOYD LINDSAYsaid he wished to make a remark or two in reference to the Army Hospital Corps. He was afraid that the Army Hospital Corps was not working as satisfactorily as they could desire. Last year he expressed some doubts whether this branch of the Service would work satistorily; and he asked his right hon. Friend to consider whether it would not be possible, although in the main he approved of the short-service system in regard to other branches of the Service, to adopt a different principle in regard to this Corps. He had felt it his duty to suggest certain doubts, and he must say that those doubts were still strongly impressed upon his mind. The duties which were required from the Army Hospital Corps were of so peculiar a character that he thought they took this branch of the Service out of the character which applied to other branches of the
  604
  Army. He also, he thought, made a remark upon the fact that the Army Hospital Corps were now under the command of medical officers, instead of being under the command of their own officers; and he was afraid that that system was not working quite as satisfactorily as it had been hoped it would. He held in his hands letters of a confidential nature, which contained the most serious charges against the members of the Army Hospital Corps in connection with the recent war in South Africa. They charged upon these men the most tyrannical behaviour, and accused them of the most absolute indifference to the care of the sick intrusted to them, and the charges were substantiated by evidence in regard to the perfectly genuine character of which he could not for a moment entertain a doubt. He wished to put a question to his right hon. Friend in regard to this matter, and to ask him if he was in possession of the Report of an inquiry instituted by General Leicester Smyth, commanding at Natal, into the conduct of the Army Hospital Corps while serving in the field? If he was, he (Sir Robert Loyd Lindsay) would ask him to lay it before the House and to look into the question. He would not ask him to lay it before the House, but would ask him to inquire into the nature of the charges which had been brought against the Army Hospital Corps; and he was quite satisfied, if the right hon. Gentleman had the matter brought under his notice, that he would take proper steps for remedying the evils complained of. He would suggest to his right hon. Friend that a larger number of female nurses should be employed, both in the hospitals at home and abroad. He was quite aware that lady nurses were not popular with medical men; that they were sometimes difficult to manage, and that it was said they were quarrelsome. He was speaking of female nurses who were ladies in social position. He thought they always ought to be ladies; and although the employment of female nurses occupying that position were not popular with the medical officers, it should, nevertheless, be remembered that their sympathies were always on the right side. They were always with the poor, weak, and sick soldier; and although there might be certain disadvantages in employing them, yet, on a full consideration of the case, he felt

  605
  quite satisfied that those disadvantages were more than compensated by the great advantages which would be gained by the soldier in having a larger number of female nurses employed both at home and abroad. As his right hon. Friend knew, the National Aid Society was quite willing to place itself in cooperation with the War Office in the training of nurses, and there still remained a large surplus of the fund raised during the Franco-German War. A large portion of that surplus income was being devoted to the training of nurses, and this year the Society would be able to send out nurses who had been thoroughly trained at Woolwich and other hospitals, many of them having had three years' complete training. These nurses were all available, and could be utilized in the military hospitals if it were the pleasure of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War so to determine. He believed that their employment would be greatly to the advantage of the soldier, and he hoped the subject would receive the attention of his right hon. Friend.
  SIR HENRY FLETCHERsaid, he would not press for an answer at the present moment; but he should like, before the Army Estimates were disposed of, to be informed whether it was not possible to place the captains and lieutenants of the Army Hospital Corps on a footing of equality in reference to increase of pay?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he would answer first the question which had been put to him by the hon. Member sitting behind him (Dr. Farquharson). The hon. Gentleman had correctly stated what he (Mr. Childers) had done at the Admiralty as to the management of naval hospitals. Netley, however, was not only a hospital, but a depôt for time-expired men from abroad, and the arrangements as to the latter were under consideration. He did not think the Committee would expect him to say more at present. In regard to the charges against the Army Hospital Corps, referred to by his hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Sir Robert Loyd Lindsay), he was aware of the inquiry conducted by General Leicester Smyth in South Africa; but it had not yet been brought formally under his notice. He (Mr. Childers) was sorry to say that he had received complaints as to
  606
  the state of the Medical Department during the last few months of the South African War, which, as far as they went, were primâ facie evidence of a state of things not entirely satisfactory. But he had purposely abstained from taking any steps in the matter until the new Director General—Dr. Crauford—was thoroughly in his seat, and able to deal with the question. That officer, whose ability was well known, would, no doubt, act with decision in the matter. It was his (Mr. Childers's) intention to consult Dr. Crauford, both in respect to what had actually taken place in South Africa, and also as to the manner in which the evidence from South Africa bore upon the general question of the arrangements of the Army Hospital Corps, especially in reference to the points to which his hon. and gallant Friend had alluded, and the services of the persons who had been employed. He did not think that any evidence pointed at present to a reversal of the arrangements for which his right hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Colonel Stanley) was responsible; but if the result of fuller investigation satisfied him that a change was necessary, he should be prepared, after consultation with the Commander-in-Chief, to carry it out. He entirely concurred with what his hon. and gallant Friend had said as to the valuable services rendered by female nurses; but while he admitted the extremely valuable assistance rendered by lady nurses, there might be circumstances under which the arrangements for nurses in field hospitals were not always so easily carried out as they would be in the case of stationary hospitals, where the duties of the doctors and their subordinates were clearly defined and well known. Even there, however, where the respective duties were well known, it was sometimes difficult to adjust those of the medical officers and the nurses. He need only refer to the controversies which had recently raged in reference to hospital management in London; and if such difficulties arose in connection with the hospitals of a great town, they were likely to be much greater in the case of military hospitals in the field. The subject was one full of interest, and his own mind was thoroughly impartial on the question.
  Vote agreed to.
  (4.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £492,000, he granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge for the Pay and Allowances of a Force of Militia, not exceeding 138,274, including 28,000 Militia Reserve, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883."
  EARL PERCYsaid, the first point he wished to call the attention of the Committee to, in connection with this Vote, was a question upon which he had already been in correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Childers)—namely, the Order which was issued last year with regard to retired Militia officers, and the decision not to give them a step in honorary rank. Returns had been laid on the Table of the House showing the number of Militia officers who had been compulsorily retired according to the Order to which he referred. Under the old system it was the rule that Captains of Militia—and it was of the Captains that he specially wished to speak—were retired at the age of 60, unless they were specially recommended by their commanding officers for an extension of service. It was, therefore, with some surprise that Militia officers saw an Order suddenly issued from the War Office making it compulsory upon them to retire at the age of 50, without permitting them to obtain a step of honorary rank unless they had served for 20 years. Under the old Regulations these officers had every prospect of being allowed to serve for two or three or four years, in order to complete the 20 years necessary to enable them to secure honorary rank. By this compulsory retirement they were absolutely deprived of that privilege. They were sometimes told that when this sort of case was brought to the notice of the Government they would involve too large a disturbance of the existing system to be entertained. He therefore desired to point out to the Committee that the only officers who were affected by the new Regulation would be six Captains and perhaps some six Majors. It was, however, to the Captains that he specially wished to refer, because he did not think that the Majors would be retired under the same disadvantageous circumstances. Six Captains of Militia would be entirely deprived of what they were otherwise entitled to have; and he wished to ask the right hon. Gen-
  608
  tleman the Secretary of State for War to inform the Committee what was the reason why the War Office could not extend to these six gentlemen the rank and privileges they wished to obtain? In some cases the Order would work with extreme harshness. In one instance, in connection with the 3rd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, the total service of the Captain had been 19 years and nine months, so that he would only have lost his right of obtaining honorary rank by three months. In another case the officer had served 18 years and six months, and in another 18 years and eight months. Those Captains would undoubtedly, but for the new Regulation, have acquired their honorary rank; and he could not understand why the War Office should refuse to consent to the proposal he had had the honour to bring forward, giving them the small boon they asked for. He did not wish to trouble the Committee by going into the policy of the retirement of these officers. At the same time, it certainly seemed to him to be of a very doubtful character. These Militia officers, except in the contingency of a great emergency—to which he scarcely desired to look forward—were capable of rendering very efficient service, and their age would by no means unfit them for the services they were required to perform. But without having regard to the policy of the Regulation, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War to tell the Committee why it was that the War Office refused to give the boon for which these officers asked. There was another branch of the scheme of compulsory retirement of the right hon. Gentleman to which he wished to call attention. By the same Warrant to which he had referred Lieutenant Colonels above 62 years of age were retired; but in their case an exception was made, and it was an exception in favour of those who, on the 1st of September last year, were above 60. Officers in that position were allowed to serve until they reached the age of 67; and the result would be that the next in command of a Militia regiment would, in some cases, lose the promotion which otherwise he would have every reason to expect he would obtain. He might mention the case of a Lieutenant Colonel of the 4th Battalion of the 56th Regiment, who could never become com-

  609
  mander of the regiment, as the Colonel now commanding was 61, and before he became 67 the officer in question would have to retire under the Warrant. It was felt to be a hardship that while, on the one hand, certain officers were retired just as they were becoming entitled to a step in honorary rank, on the other, officers should be deprived of all hope of promotion by the relaxation of the rule in favour of other officers. There was one other point in regard to double battalions which he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would give some hope of receiving revision—namely, the necessity which existed of allowing an Adjutant to each battalion. In many cases only one Adjutant was allowed, and one battalion was compelled, during the non-training period, to do without the services of an officer holding that rank, being required to do duty under the command of the Colonel belonging to another regiment. Certainly the system did not tend to bring about a good understanding between the two Colonels and the Staff placed under the command of a particular Adjutant and Colonel. As the new system of bringing officers from the Army into the Militia as Adjutants, and of changing them every five years, was principally justified on the ground that it would give promotion to officers in the Regular regiments of the Line, he confessed he could not see why the principle should not be extended a little more, and each battalion be placed upon the same footing. All who were acquainted with military matters would, he thought, agree with him that the only satisfactory principle upon which double battalions could be worked was that the Lieutenant Colonel of each should be responsible for the officers of his own regiment. There was another matter to which he had often called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, and which he could not help referring to at the present moment—namely, the hardship which had been occasioned to Militia officers by the change of uniform. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give the Committee some satisfactory assurance upon the subject. Personally, he must avail himself of the opportunity of protesting against giving the allowance in a most arbitrary way to some regiments, while refusing it entirely to
  610
  others. He had objected altogether to the change of uniform, and he had been met by the reply that it had been done at the wish of the Militia officers. All he could say was that, from what he had heard from many parts of the country, the wish must have been expressed by officers who were in a decided minority. Whether a few might desire a change or not, the general feeling of Militia officers was very strongly against it. The right hon. Gentleman had given an allowance to the officers of certain regiments who had changed their uniforms from green to red, or from red to green; and he believed the right hon. Gentleman had also given it to officers who had changed to kilted regiments. But the right hon. Gentleman ought to remember that in the case of many other regiments the uniform was quite as expensive as in those to which the allowance had been given. For instance, in the Artillery regiments it was notorious that the uniform was quite as expensive as the uniform in any other branch of the Service. He was informed that a Captain of Artillery could not make the change under an outlay of £40. Certainly that was the case in the Militia regiment he had the honour to command. It had been changed from a light Infantry regiment into a Fusilier regiment, and the officers had been compelled to change everything except the mere cloth which composed the tunic. They had changed their lace, their facings, their horse furniture, and, besides that, they had changed their head dress from the ordinary helmet to the Fusilier bearskin, a most expensive kind of head dress. Uniforms did not wear out all at once, and it was a hardship to call upon officers to make the sweeping changes he had alluded to without receiving an allowance for the heavy additional cost thrown upon them. He thought it was a very serious grievance, and one which he knew had had the effect of inducing more than one officer to leave the Militia. At any rate, it was one which was certainly not calculated to make the Service popular. A change had lately been made in the recruiting of the Militia, and he should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman some account of the effect it had had upon the Service. It was rather disappointing to find in the Estimates, after so much had been done to promote re-

  611
  cruiting, that the results had not been more satisfactory. While the establishment of the Militia numbered 131,000, the number in training in 1881 was only 87,000. He must therefore say that, in view of the very serious changes which had been made during the past year in the Regulations for the recruiting of the Militia, it ought to be satisfactorily shown what grounds the Government had for hoping that this last change would be beneficial. As the period for recruiting this year had practically expired, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be able to tell the Committee what the result had been. No money was now paid on enrolment, as used to be the case; but the recruits were drilled at once for two months together with the Line recruits in the regimental districts, and at the end of those two months the recruit received £1 if a full month had elapsed before the date of his discharge. If he went through the full training, he received £2 instead of £1, but he got nothing upon enrolment; and if he enlisted within the period of training, so as to do his recruit drill after the training, he received nothing additional, as he did under the old Regulations. The new system was certainly a very curious one, and one which he confessed he was unable to see the reason for. He was, therefore, extremely anxious to learn whether it had answered. He was sorry to have detained the Committee at such great length; but he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give an answer to the questions he had put, because this was the only opportunity the Committee would have of learning what the views of the War Office really were.
  MR. DIXON-HARTLANDsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would be able to give the Committee some assurance in regard to one of the points brought forward by the noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland (Earl Percy)—namely, in regard to the case of the Captains who had been obliged to retire from the Militia without obtaining a step of honorary rank. One of the cases instanced by the noble Lord was a case of extreme hardship—that of an officer in the West Yorkshire Regiment, who had not only completed his 20 years of service within three months, but had actually completed his 20 periods of
  612
  training. He had, therefore, practically rendered all the service the country required him to render, and if he lost his honorary rank it would be solely in consequence of the accident that three months had not expired of the period that was necessary to complete 20 years' service. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give an assurance that something would be done to prevent the extreme injustice which in the case of these officers would be perpetrated by depriving them of their claim to honorary rank.
  LORD ALGERNON PERCYsaid, he hoped the Committee would grant him their indulgence for a few moments while he endeavoured to bring forward as shortly as possible some of the grievances which pressed upon the non-commissioned officers of the Militia. They performed the same duties as the noncommissioned officers of the Line at the Depôt; but, nevertheless, they found themselves in a much inferior position in reference to pay and allowances. The Militia Sergeant Major was subordinate in every respect to the Depôt Sergeant Major, and yet the duties performed by each were in every respect the same. They had been soldiers in the same regiment; perhaps they had served in the same battalion, and they did duty together. The Sergeant Major of Militia must originally have been a senior noncommissioned officer; and now he found himself in a subordinate position, as to pay and allowances, to a man who might have served in the same regiment with him as a private when he was a Sergeant. He thought all the officers connected with this branch of the Service would agree with him that the Sergeant Major of the regiment had great and difficult duties to perform, and that those duties were far more arduous than those of the Sergeant Major of the Brigade Depôt. But in the amount of pay there was a very marked difference between the two. The Militia Sergeant Major received 3s. 2d. per diem, with no rations, and fuel allowance the same as a private; whereas the Depôt Sergeant Major received 3s. 9d. per day, free rations, and the fuel of Staff Sergeants—equal to twice that of a private. Since July, 1881, the Depôt Sergeant Major had become a Warrant Officer, and received a pay of 5s. a-day, with free rations, and fuel equal to three times

  613
  that of a private. The Sergeants of Militia did exactly the same duty as the Depôt Sergeants, such as guards and pickets, and drilling the recruits four hours daily all the year round—a most fatiguing and arduous duty. They were also required to clean the arms and accoutrements belonging to the Militia, and their pay was inferior to that of the Sergeants of the Line. In the Militia these non-commissioned officers received 1s. 9d. per diem, and 3d. a-day in lieu of rations, making a total of 2s. a-day; and if they were doing duty with the depôt they received 3d. a-day more, making 2s. 3d. per diem. The case of the single Sergeant was much worse, because he was compelled to join the Sergeants' mess. He only received the 1s. 9d. a-day and 3d. in lieu of rations he had just mentioned, and he had to pay 8d. to the mess for ration commissariat, and 6d. per diem for extras, leaving only a balance of 10 d. or, if doing duty with the Brigade Depôt, 1s. 1d.; whereas the Line Sergeant received 2s. 4d. per diem as pay, and free rations and 6d. a-day extra, leaving 1s. 1d. Thus the Militia Sergeant was always 9d. a-day worse off than the Line Sergeant, who was associated with him in duty, but actually had a less amount of duty to perform. With regard to the Colour Sergeant, he also was placed in a much worse position than he was before. He was allowed to draw 6d. a-day during preliminary drill and training; but he now lost that sum, except during the time of actual training. He (Lord Algernon Percy) wished, also, to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that during the whole of the year the Colour Sergeant was responsible for the accoutrements and clothing of the men quite as much as during the preliminary drill. He also lost, by the new system of drilling recruits, the free rations he was formerly allowed during the 56 days' preliminary drill, as he was now only allowed to draw them during the period of training. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman might be in a position to inform the Committee that some steps would be taken to lessen these grievances. He would submit that these non-commissioned officers were those with whom the recruits on first joining were most brought into contact; and any discontent and dissatisfaction among them must have a bad effect upon the recruits, and a bad
  614
  effect also upon the recruiting in the Militia itself.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTventured to express a hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War would pay some attention to the Memorial which had been sent to him with regard to giving a step in honorary rank to the Captains of Militia who had been compulsorily retired. In one case to which reference had already been made, a Captain in the 3rd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment had served 19 years and nine months. Surely, when an officer had served for such a length of time, the least he could be allowed to do was to remain with the regiment three months longer, in order that he might be entitled to receive that honorary rank which these gentlemen so much prized. He trusted that the case would receive the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. He had been carefully studying the Returns, and he found that last year there were only 87,346 men in England and Scotland out with the Militia last year for training, although the proper number of the English and Scotch Militia was 99,970, exclusive of 30,828 Irish Militia, which had not been called out. The total number liable to be called out was 130,000; and instead of that number, only 87,346 had actually been called out, including 28,000 Militia Reserves, leaving 59,346 absolutely belonging to the Militia who were not called upon to serve in the Reserve. He mentioned this fact, because he believed that the right hon. Gentleman was doing all he could to unite the Militia and the Line together. The right hon. Gentleman had altered the system of Militia recruits. They were now called out for their 60 days' training at their regimental districts and drilled with the regimental depôts of the regiments to which they formed the third and fourth battalions, and he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) believed that that system was doing good work. He believed that it was rendering the Militia recruits more likely to enlist into the Army, and more fond of soldiering than they had been. On the whole, he believed the plan was working well; but if it worked well, and they had 28,000 men in the Militia Reserve, and they wished to unite the Force as far as possible with the Line Battalions, they might depend upon it, as he

  615
  had said in that House and in the Committee over and over again, the best thing they could do was to make the whole of the Militia the Reserve for the Army. He ventured to think that the question was one of those which deserved the serious attention of the right hon. Gentleman. If any case of necessity arose, he would find that the best source from which to fill up the ranks of the Army.
  MR. DALRYMPLEsaid, that, as alterations were proposed to be made in the uniforms of some of the Militia regiments, in consequence of their forming battalions of territorial regiments, he desired to say a few words on the subject. The noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland (Earl Percy) had already drawn attention to the unpopularity and expensive character of the proposed alterations, and he wished to add some remarks upon the inappropriateness of some of them. He was not one of those who were in the habit of saying that all changes made in respect of the Militia were bad; nor did he start with the statement that they were made without reason, although he was bound to say that the reason for them was sometimes difficult of discovery. Some of the Scotch Militia regiments, which had no posssible connection with the Highlands, were suddenly called upon to wear trews. There might be nothing startling in that announcement to some minds; but with regard to the regiment to which he belonged, he was certain that at one time, if anyone had appeared in trews he would have run the risk of being hanged. The prospect of having to wear so fantastic a garment at an advanced period of life caused him, he confessed, considerable uneasiness; but he should even now be reconciled to this change, if he could hear any good reason for it, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be able to furnish this. The noble Lord the Member for Westminster (Lord Algernon Percy) had done good service in bringing forward the question relating to non-commissioned officers; and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman, who, he knew, was always ready to do justice to this class of officers, would turn his attention to the case which had been referred to by the noble Lord.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLdesired to call the attention of the right hon. Gen-
  616
  tleman the Secretary of State for War to the position of the few surviving Adjutants, who, in 1875, were offered, and declined, a scale of retirement which was accepted willingly by a large majority of officers under the old system. Retirement was offered at the rate of 10 s. a-day after 15 years' service. Now, those Adjutants who at the time did not accept the scale would, if they retired now, only receive 7s. a-day. He wished to urge on the right hon. Gentleman that it would be in the interest of the Service, in the interest of the public, and in the interest of the comparatively few officers to whom he referred, if they were allowed to retire at the present time upon the scale of 1875; and he was prepared to show that if that course were followed there would be no additional expense to the country, because, under the existing system, the old Militia Adjutants were not available, under the terms of their appointments, for the duties of brigade depôts, and, therefore, the double appointment of Militia Regimental Adjutant and Brigade Adjutant would be saved by allowing these officers to retire under the terms of the Royal Warrant of 1875, and appointing Line Captains on the five years term, who would be available for both duties. In each of these cases the following daily saving would be effected to the public:—Adjutant's forage allowance, 1s. 9d.; stabling, 9d.; and lodgings, 2s. 3d.—in all, 4s. 9d. per day; from which, if the extra pension of 3s. per day under the Warrant of 1875 were deducted, there would result a net saving of 1s. 9d. per day. That, as he had before pointed out, would apply to the case of each of the officers he had referred to. It was not solely for the purpose of urging the desirability of effecting this small saving that he ventured to call the attention of the right hon. Gentlemen to this subject, but because he regarded the alteration suggested by him as conducive to the interests of the Service which he had so much at heart. He believed it was not in the interest of the Service that these offices should be retained any longer unwillingly at a time when they had new duties thrust upon them. On the other hand, he believed that great benefit would accrue to the Service if younger officers were appointed under more general terms.
  MR. CHILDERS: I will first endeavour to answer the question put to me

  617
  by the noble Earl (Earl Percy) with reference to the arrangements in connection with the retirement of Militia officers. The noble Earl did not assume that the Government could have left things as they were formerly, because it has obviously become necessary to lay down a clear rule as to the age at which Militia officers should be compelled to retire. The noble Earl considered that an officer who is compelled to retire at the age of 60 ought to be allowed a step of honorary rank on retirement, when he had so nearly served the necessary 20 years. As a matter of good nature and good feeling, I must say I should be glad, in the case of a gentleman who had served within two or three months of the prescribed time, to recommend him for a step of honorary rank. The case in question has some remarkable circumstances connected with it; but would it be safe to relax the rule? We have laid down for the whole of the Auxiliary Forces the rule that a step of honorary rank cannot be granted, unless for 20 years' service. But, supposing it was held that because some gentlemen of 17, 18, or 19 years' service were good officers, they should be made exceptions to the rule, was that to be applied to the whole of the Auxiliary Forces, and was it to rest with the Secretary of State for War to decide whether in each case the exception should be made? I am bound to say that this would be a discretion which I do not think could be accepted by the Secretary of State. I will, however, look into the cases of the officers alluded to by the noble Earl. I believe there have been cases in which the end of the next training has been taken as the time for concluding an officer's service, and that might be the case in the present instance. However, I cannot pledge myself in any way, because I know nothing of the circumstances. As to the proper age for these retirements, we have had to deal with these officers under two distinct categories—namely, those who have already attained the intended maximum age, and those who have not, the former being supposed to have a certain vested interest. It was always customary to make some distinction of that kind, and I do not think it at all an unfair one. With regard to the changes of uniform and the allowances in connection with them which have been suggested, I would point out to the noble Earl that in former years there have been
  618
  many cases of change in the uniforms of Militia regiments of a far more expensive character than those which are now intended, for which no allowance whatever has been made. We have, however, laid down, after full consideration, that certain allowance should be made in cases where the change is of an expensive kind, and, having applied that rule to the whole Service, I do not feel we should be justified now in making any alteration. I am aware that it is the case that some commanding officers have encouraged their officers to alter their uniforms at once, notwithstanding that the instructions from the War Office were that the change should not take place until the uniforms were worn out. The position is this—that no allowance will be made unless the changes are compulsory, and they will not be compulsory until it becomes necessary to have new uniforms. I am, therefore, in this matter obliged to adhere to the decision already arrived at. I was glad to receive from the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) his approbation of the arrangements we have made for training the Militia recruits in their own districts, and I can assure him that I am extremely anxious to do all in my power to bind together the Militia and Line battalions. The hon. Member for Wigton (Sir Herbert Maxwell) has drawn my attention to the present position of Adjutants who did not accept the terms of retirement offered to them in 1875. We are looking forward to the carrying out to the full of the system under which the Adjutants of Militia regiments will be in the same position with regard to term of service as officers of this rank are in the Line regiments with which the Militia battalions are connected. I shall be glad, therefore, to see the time when the old Adjutants of Militia have been worked out, and the whole Force placed upon the same footing; but in the cases to which the hon. Member has alluded, I must say that we cannot re-open the offer made to officers in 1875. They had at that time a fair opportunity of taking the rate of retirement offered to them; but they elected not to do so, and it would be extremely inconvenient that, this election having been offered and refused, this matter should be re-opened some years afterwards on the ground that better terms had been since offered to others. I was also asked by the

  619
  noble Lord the Member for Westminster (Lord Algernon Percy) a question with regard to the pay of Sergeant Majors and other non-commissioned officers, as compared with the rate of pay of similar ranks in the Line regiments employed in regimental depôts. To that question the answer is plain. Where the non-commissioned officer is serving on a Line engagement the rate of pay is the same; where he is not serving on a Line engagement, but merely happens to have been a private or non-commissioned officer of a Line regiment, his pay would be the Militia rate of pay, and not the Army rate. That has been the case always; and I think a great injustice would follow if a non-commissioned officer of the Militia, not serving on a Line engagement, and not having the same experience as noncommissioned officers of the Line, were not to receive the same pay as men of the corresponding rank in the Line. There are, doubtless, one or two adjustments which it may be possible to make as to the pay of non-commissioned officers of Militia. I think the case to which the noble Lord has called attention deserves consideration; but I cannot depart from the general rule, and in that respect I regret my inability to agree to the noble Lord's proposal. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Bartellot) says he would like to see Militia regiments consisting entirely of Militia Reserve men. That, as the hon. and gallant Member has said, is indeed a large question. In principle I confess I should not be sorry to see something like it carried into effect; but we have of late already made such large changes, that I should hesitate to adopt at once a plan of such magnitude, and which would require for its development a considerable change in the Constitutional character of the Militia, who would then always be liable to serve abroad. Still I am of opinion that the nearer you bind the Militia and the Line together, and the more you cause the Militia to believe that they are the support and reserve of the Line, the better. The hon. Member for Bute (Mr. Dalrymple) has referred to his advanced age, and objected to wear trews. I have never heard until now that the hon. Gentleman classed himself amongst the senior Members of the House, nor do I think that anyone looking at him would be inclined to
  620
  do so; but I think it would be a misfortune if we were to go back from the principle that the Militia battalions of territorial regiments should wear the same uniform as the regiments of the Line with which they are connected. Of course, when we laid down that principle, we were aware that in some cases there would be objections; but these objections, I think, have to be weighed against the advantages of the system and the satisfaction which has been felt by the great body of Militia officers at the assimilation of dress. I hope, therefore, the hon. Member will regard this as a sufficient reason for the change; that he will long remain connected with his regiment, and that he will no longer feel the inappropriateness of wearing trews. I believe I have now replied to all the questions which have been put to me, and I trust that my answers have been satisfactory to hon. Members.
  COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he could entirely endorse what had fallen from his right hon. Friend opposite as to the expediency of uniting, as far as possible, the general character of the uniforms as worn by men of the different battalions comprising one territorial regiment. If he ventured again to refer to this point, it was because this change had been spoken of as one which the authorities had proposed merely for the sake of the change, without any sufficient or sound reason. That, however, was not the case; for in 1876 the Committee, over which he had the honour to preside, amongst other recommendations, recommended that the uniforms of the battalions of territorial regiments should be, as far as possible, assimilated. In making that recommendation, the Committee proceeded mainly on this consideration. It was felt to be desirable to draw together the Militia and Line battalions of the regiment, or brigade, as it was then called, so that the Militia Reserve men, with as little delay and inconvenience as possible, in the event of their being called out, should be able to take their places in the Line, and be at once embodied in the depôt of their regiments. The Committee foresaw in 1876, and pointed out, what would be the inconvenience of a Militia regiment wearing, say, a green uniform, having to go as reserve to a Line regiment dressed in red. The confusion, under such circumstances, would undoubtedly be very great, as was pointed

  621
  out by the Committee; and two years afterwards all the difficulties apprehended were found to take place in actual practice. Therefore, he thought his right hon. Friend was right in pressing forward a change which underlay, to a great extent, the whole principle of organization, that Reserve men should, as far as possible, be able to go at once to the Line battalions of which, on paper, they formed the reserve at the time he had mentioned. Although as everyone, and nobody more readily than the Secretary of State for War, would admit, there were inconveniences connected with the alteration of uniform, these were, as he ventured to think, minor considerations as compared with the great object of drawing together the Militia and Line regiments, and making Militia regiments, in greater or less degree, an efficient reserve to the Line regiments to which they were attached. He believed it to be the general feeling that the closer the connection between these two branches of the Service could be drawn the better; but, at the same time, it was obvious that, in a voluntary system of service in the Line and in the Militia, it would be desirable to feel the way, so to speak, and not to make violent changes. The changes indicated by the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) were of a kind that, under a voluntary system like ours, must, he thought, be proceeded with very carefully and tentatively. They must also be considered with relation to the large increase of the Standing Army which would result from them; and upon that point he was bound to express his opinion that the House would not be likely to disregard certain principles which had weight with the great body of Members. With regard to the suggestion which had been so well urged by the noble Lord the Member for Westminster (Lord Algernon Percy) and by other hon. Members, for remedying the discrepancies which existed in the scale of allowances to the various members of the Militia Staff, he thought if the right hon. Gentleman could regard these with favour, he would be doing a great deal to bring about that uniformity in the two branches of the Service which was so very desirable. He frankly admitted that economical and other reasons prevented the change being made during the time he had the honour to fill the Office now held by the
  622
  right hon. Gentleman; but, at the same time, the principle was never lost sight of, that though it might be wise at present to recognize the two systems of what he might call the old Militia engagement and the new Line engagement, it was, nevertheless, desirable as far as possible, to press forward the time when, speaking as a general principle, those who were side by side and performed similar duties should receive similar pay and allowances. It was only a question of time. They could not suddenly place upon the older men all these new duties, nor was it right that the older men should receive the same pay as those who were called upon to do more extensive work. All these changes must be effected by degrees. He hoped that this Committee and subsequent Committees in other years, would always approach the Vote on the general principle that it was desirable to draw together the bonds that united the Militia and the Line. It would be to the advantage of both arms of the Service that they should approach the Vote in this spirit. In the Militia they might have a thoroughly good and trusty Reserve of the Line battalions of the Army, by drawing together the lines that united the two bodies; and this would be found to conduce to that harmony which it was the intention of Viscount Cardwell to bring about in his scheme of 1870 and 1871.
  EARL PERCYsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had mistaken the scope of his (Earl Percy's) remarks as to change of uniform. He had not referred to the change of uniform of the men, as he was aware that there were cogent reasons for that change; but what he had alluded to was the change in the uniform of the officers, which stood on different grounds. He did not wish to say anything more on the subject, as he knew it was useless; and he would merely ask what change of uniform as expensive, or more expensive than that, had occurred in recent times in the Militia? He had been in the Militia for nearly 20 years, and during the whole of that period no change so expensive to the officers had been made. No doubt, there had been changes in the head dress or in the coat; but he had never known anything like this. The only change approaching it was the silver lace uniform

  623
  for Court dress; but that change was not compulsory. The right hon. Gentleman had said he understood he (Earl Percy) did not take any exception, as a matter of policy, to the retirement of Captains. He did not think he had said that. He had said his belief was that an elastic system, whereby they could keep a Captain beyond the specified time if he was sufficiently recommended, was better than drawing a hard-and-fast line. Some men were far more fit for service at 55 or 60 than many at a much younger age. But he did not wish to raise the question of the policy of the proposal at the present time, and he only said this to guard himself from misunderstanding. The right hon. Gentleman had said the instance he (Earl Percy) had mentioned must have been an exceptional one, as the Captains he had referred to must have entered the Service at the age of 41. He had just been going over the evidence, and, so far from its being an exceptional case, he had found other cases where officers had joined the Militia at the ages of 47, 49, and 53. He, therefore, hardly thought the right hon. Gentleman was correct when he said the case was an exceptional one. When the right hon. Gentleman said he thought it expedient that the War Office should have a discretionary power, he rather mistook what he (Earl Percy) was pleading for, and what these officers asked. He was not asking that in the future any exception should be made. He asked that those who were over the age for retirement when the Order came out—and they might be counted on one's fingers—might receive that step in honorary rank which they would have been able to obtain if it had not been for this sudden cutting-off of their hopes of promotion. He wished this to be retrospective. He should like the right hon. Gentleman to say what the reason was that induced the Government to make that change in the bounty which was offered to the Militia—why, in certain cases 30 s. was given to a Militiaman, and in others £2 was given to him, although he had performed exactly the same amount of service?
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he just wished to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to a subject he had promised last year to take into his very serious consideration, and that was
  624
  the very important subject of the punishment of the Militia. At present there were no cells at the depôt centres where Militiamen under punishment could be placed, or certainly not enough, and the men were accordingly sent to prison. This practice ought to be stopped, and cells should be provided at the depôt centres for the confinement of Militiamen. The right hon. Gentleman, as he had stated, had promised last year that he would take the subject into his serious consideration. No doubt it would cause expense to provide these cells; but such expense would be worth incurring for the good of the Service.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, that before the right hon. Gentleman answered on the question of retirement, he should like to make a suggestion to him, founded on the discussions which had occurred in reference to retirement in the Navy. A boon had been granted to Foot Guards' Captains, with regard to whose position they had had discussions in the House 20 years ago. The rule which had been adopted had been this—that officers who had served a certain time had, on retirement, received a step in rank without any increase of pay. Such a system would be of great advantage in the Militia, and it would be a source of satisfaction to the officers concerned and their friends, without involving any additional cost to the country. It was true that some years ago, when there were no Volunteers, it was a question whether a person who had fairly obtained his rank, partly by purchase and partly by other means, should be allowed a step on retirement; but now the case was different. Every man who was discontented was a bad recruiting officer in his own district; and it was essential, where they wanted to induce men to enter the Service, that there should be no centres of disaffection, as there would be if they allowed men on retirement to remain Captains when they should be Majors. It would cost nothing to make a retiring Captain a Major, and it would give a great deal of satisfaction. The officer who, in his own district, was called upon at a dinner to return thanks for the Army, would be much better satisfied to hear himself called "Major Smith" than merely "Captain Smith." If the Regulations were made more elastic in this respect, it would be an advantage; and it would

  625
  not only give satisfaction to the individuals concerned and their friends, but would give encouragement to others, to whom these officers were known, to join the Reserve Forces or the Line. There was one other question to which he wished to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, which touched him (Sir John Hay) himself excessively. He did not wear them, but his hon. and gallant Friends the Members for Bute (Mr. Dalrymple) and Wigton (Sir Herbert Maxwell) were both Captains in Militia regiments which had been condemned to wear the trews. He must say he viewed that change with the greatest alarm. It had not only injured his hon. and gallant Friends, but had created a considerable amount of discontent in the South-Western counties of Scotland, where the inhabitants were generally most loyal. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the necessity for this change was in consequence of the fact—which he fully recognized—that it was necessary that the battalions to which his hon. and gallant Friends belonged should be assimilated to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions of that distinguished regiment which belonged to their part of Scotland. A battalion of that regiment a few years ago embarked on board a line-of-battle ship he had had the honour of commanding—the Hannibal—in the Black Sea. The men did not at that time wear the trews, but black or dark coloured continuations, which he was sure would be satisfactory to his hon. and gallant Friends. What was required was that the 1st and 2nd Battalions—which were the distinguished battalions of the old 21st Regiment, now the Royal Scots—should go back to the "continuation," which, it was considered, would be more becoming to all four battalions. They had had nothing to do with the kilt, and the trews, so far as he knew, were only a modest continuation of that dress. In that part of Scotland they knew nothing but the black and white plaid. He trusted that his hon. and gallant Friends would soon find themselves dressed in a garment which would be much more becoming and much more satisfactory.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLsaid, he wished to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a point of more importance than the question of the particular pattern selected for the nether garments of the regiment he served in.
  626
  It was a question to which he had drawn the right hon. Gentleman's attention last year—namely, the subject of musketry instruction in the Militia. It was a subject which must be considered of preeminent importance, because no Force in these days of arms of precision was of the slightest use without, in some degree more or less perfect, being able to use those arms. He had ventured last year to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman three courses, or modes, by which he thought the present system might be improved. One was to discontinue musketry instruction to disembodied Militia altogether; the second was to have alternative trainings devoted to musketry instruction and field exercises; and the third was to have seperate companies of Militia during the non-training seasons under instruction in musketry at the regimental headquarters. The right hon. Gentleman had said these three courses were under the consideration of the Commission appointed to inquire into the system of musketry instruction. He (Sir Herbert Maxwell) trusted, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give the Committee information as to the recommendations of the Commission with reference to some amelioration of the present system. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman, having been 17 years in the Militia, that the money spent at present in instructing Militiamen in musketry was absolutely thrown away. The system of musketry instruction was a farce. There were two minor points on which he would venture to ask information—one was, why the Channel Islands Militia was this year, for the first time, included in the Establishment; and the other was, why the Militia Reserve did not appear, with regard to numbers in training, as they did in 1881? The right hon. Gentleman would pardon him for asking so many questions, perhaps; but it must not be forgotten that this was the only opportunity those who were interested in the Service had of bringing them on.
  SIR HENRY FLETCHERsaid, he rose, though not as a Militiaman, to supplement the appeal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Wigton (Sir Herbert Maxwell) with regard to musketry instruction, not only in the Militia, but in the Regular Army also. This appeared to him to be a great and

  627
  a very grave question. The only musketry instruction the men had was in firing a certain number of rounds per annum; and he, as one who for years had taken the deepest interest in everything connected with the Service, certainly thought that musketry instruction should be given in a manner very different to that which had been adopted up to the present moment. He would carry the Committee back 28 years, if they would allow him, when the regiment in which he had the honour to serve was supplied with the old Brown Bess, which only carried, perhaps, 100 yards. Since then many changes had been made, and many advantages had accrued to the Service. He would, however, impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the necessity of allowing a much larger percentage of rounds to be handed over to the various regiments, in order that they might render themselves more perfect in musketry practice than they were able to do at the present moment. He thought as much ammunition as possible should be allowed to Colonels of regiments for the use of their men.
  MR. ROUNDsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had stated just now, in reply to a noble Lord (Lord Algernon Percy), that he intended to consider the question of allowances in respect of non-commissioned officers in the Militia. He (Mr. Round) did not know whether the allowances alluded to were lodging allowances or not; but he should like to hear this, as no greater lodging allowance was now made to a sergeant major than to a drummer boy, and he thought this should be remedied. A new system of drilling Militia recruits had just come into force, and the old plan of bringing up all the recruits together for two months' training before the assembling of the regiment had been abolished. As to the present mode, he did not wish to cast doubts upon its success; but he had had some years' experience of the old one, and he was bound to say he thought it preferable to the new plan. Till now recruits commenced drill under their own officers and non-commissioned officers; they knew each other, and got accustomed to drilling together. It was of great advantage to all concerned when the regiment came up for drill, if the recruits were familiar with their non-commissioned officers. He hoped, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman would
  628
  not be afraid of going back to the old system if it was found that the new one was not a success. The next point he wished to mention was the small number of non-commissioned officers who were present at drill during the annual training of their regiments. There was often no more than two non-commissioned officers to every 40 rank and file; the deductions made in respect of canteen duty, guard duty, hospital duty, and other special services, left a very small number indeed to go out for drill. Sometimes there was only one non-commissioned officer of the permanent staff to a company of 80 men. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would give some attention to this point, for he assured him that if he could add to the number of non-commissioned officers attending the training it would be greatly to the advantage of the Militia.
  MR. CHILDERSwas greatly obliged to hon. and gallant Members who had had experience in the Militia for the suggestions they had made. He was not aware that there was a paucity in the number of non-commissioned officers in any battalion; but he would take care to inquire into the matter. As to the rates of allowance he had spoken of, he wished to say that many of them were very antiquated; but they were revising all these rates. He agreed with his hon. and gallant Friends opposite that it would be desirable to expedite, as far as they could, the time when the Militia would have all their non-commissioned officers taken on their Line engagements, and when the non-commissioned officers of the Line and Militia would be on the same footing. Of course, it would be rash for them to put the whole of the non-commissioned officers of the Militia not serving on Line engagements on the same footing as noncommissioned officers of the Line. The noble Earl opposite (Earl Percy) had asked him whether he remembered a change of uniform having occurred lately where no allowance was made.
  EARL PERCY: More expensive than the present, I said.
  MR. CHILDERS: Yes. He could inform the noble Earl of several cases; he had mentioned them, but could give each individual case if necessary. He had mentioned the case of change from the ordinary uniform to the Highland dress, and there had been changes in

  629
  regard to the Artillery dress far more expensive than that the noble Earl referred to. He was not aware—although he had made inquiries to ascertain whether such had taken place—that any applications for allowances had been made in these cases.
  EARL PERCYsaid, the changes referred to had not affected the whole Militia Force.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that, undoubtedly, that was the case in several instances. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Sir John Hay) had referred to the question of trews, and had spoken of it as not only affecting the comfort and convenience of such officers as the hon. and gallant Members for Wigton (Sir Herbert Maxwell) and Bute (Mr. Dalrymple), but as having become really an alarming matter. Well, he had never been under the impression that the 21st Regiment, which, he believed, had always had pipers, wished to disown their connection with the kilt. The change had been made, and, it seemed to him, with good reason; and what had been suggested to-night with regard to disloyalty he could never imagine as existing in Scotland at all. As to the question of providing cells for the punishment of Militiamen at the depôts, the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was quite right. The matter had been mentioned last year, and at this very moment an investigation into the circumstances was proceeding. It was undoubtedly desirable that these cells should be provided at some depôts. The hon. and gallant Member for Wigton (Sir Herbert Maxwell) had asked him why the Militia of Jersey and Guernsey were included. If the hon. and gallant Member would look at the Votes he would see that the item formerly came under Vote 15, and that it had been merely transferred from there to the present Vote, to which it more properly belonged than to the head of "Miscellaneous" items. The hon. and gallant Member had also asked what it was proposed to do to improve musketry instruction; and this question had also been pressed upon them by hon. Members in other quarters. He had already stated that they had not yet completed all the arrangements it was proposed to carry out to improve the musketry instruction of the Army. The matter had been reported
  630
  upon by a Departmental Committee, whose Report was now under the consideration of the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff. He might say that a very large increase in the number of rounds to be fired in the Line and in the Militia would undoubtedly be one of the changes carried out. In the present Estimates a sufficient sum for the increase had been provided; but the precise details had not yet been settled.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he wished to call attention to the Antrim Militia. The right hon. Gentleman would remember that on a former occasion attention had been called to the want of discipline in that regiment, and to the fact that material changes had been brought about by the retirement of the Colonel. The want of discipline was not confined to the Colonel alone, and the effect of his retirement had been that all the other officers had had a step of promotion. He had asked the right hon. Gentleman a question as to the discipline of this regiment last year, and had received an answer to the effect that the discipline was all that could be desired. It was very strange that at the time when the discipline of this regiment was alleged to be so perfect the regiment had no practical existence; and, if he was rightly informed, 50 or 60 members of the force had substantial stoppages made from their pay as a punishment for drunkenness; and there were more courts martial in the year 1880–1, when the regiment was embodied, than the average number. He was also informed that the gentleman who was made Colonel of the regiment was an Englishman, and had not a very high idea of strict discipline. It was alleged in the newspapers that in June, 1880, he had acted contrary to the proper rules of the Service; and instead of his being promoted, he ought to been reprimanded. Then, again, Major Johnstone, who had got the second position in the regiment, was alleged to have sent recommendations to the Commander-in-Chief in Dublin, recommending certain officers for promotion without having consulted his commanding officer. On these subjects he should be glad of information. He would like to know whether the statement that this regiment, which had been embodied within the last two years, was in a satisfactory state, and whether the right hon. Gentleman would allow a certain proportion of its present officers to fill up

  631
  their places with men against whom no such charges could be made?
  SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he happened to live in the county of which the hon. Member spoke; and he must say, as an officer, that he had never heard anything more unjust or unfair than the statements which the hon. Member had made on the strength of newspaper reports. The hon. Member said somebody said so and so; and by name he mentioned, and tried to take away the character of a body of honourable officers in Her Majesty's Service. He did not think it was fair to make such charges without a tittle of evidence; and if the hon. Member had anything to say against those officers, he ought to prove his statements, and not go to newspaper correspondents. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give an answer commensurate with the charges made.
  MR. HEALYsaid, he thought it was quite as justifiable for his hon. Friend to make charges on the strength of newspaper reports as for the hon. and gallant Member to reprove him on a matter that he knew nothing about. Why should not Irish Members be as competent to judge of matters brought under their notice as any newspaper editor? Why should the House of Commons be supposed to be sacred to criminals and offenders, while every newspaper editor considered himself competent to comment upon every matter from whatever source his information came? The statements which his hon. Friend quoted were not denied, and it was his duty to bring them forward; but the hon. and gallant Baronet seemed to think it his duty to get up and denounce the hon. Member for doing what every editor believed himself competent to do. The Irish Members, if the necessity arose, were entitled, in their capacity as Members, to comment upon these matters, and he did not think his hon. Friend had done anything beyond what any hon. Member might do; and he protested against Irish Members, who were in the exercise of their functions and called attention to the Militia or other branches of the Service being attacked, and even insulted, by other Members who had no concern in the matter.
  THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN)said, that the proceedings of all these courts martial came before him; but this was the first
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  time he had ever heard of any such proceedings as those to which the hon. Member had alluded, and until he had better authority to go on than newspaper reports he should respectfully decline to believe what had been stated.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLrepeated his question as to the number of the Militia Reserve last year.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he had stated that the discipline of the Antrim Militia was practically in a vicious state. The Colonel of the regiment had retired, and other officers who were mixed up in the matters on account of which the Colonel retired had been promoted. The Department, instead of giving promotion to gentlemen who were notoriously ill-conducted, should have reprimanded them for their conduct; and he reminded the House that last year, in reply to a question, the right hon. Gentleman had stated that the discipline was satisfactory, although, as a matter of fact, the regiment had not been then embodied. He thought he was fully entitled to act as he had acted, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Judge Advocate General knew nothing whatever about the subject, and an answer from him was not entitled to any consideration.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, the hon. Member for Cavan had brought that question forward the year before last, and also last year. He himself had made full inquiry into the matter, and he told the House distinctly what were the cases in which the Department had not been satisfied with regard to the Antrim Militia. Since then, the condition of the regiment had been satisfactory; and when the hon. Member for Cavan said that it was notoriously in an unsatisfactory state, he must, with all deference, distinctly contradict him. The promotions which had been referred to had taken place only after due and proper inquiry had been made by the military authorities.
  MR. HEALYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would have any objection to issuing a Return with regard to the Militia and the Yeomanry regiments called out in Ireland since 1880, showing the number of men and the amounts of money paid since that year, which was the year when the Liberal Government took Office? He should be glad to know what trust the Government put in Militia regiments in Ireland.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he presumed the hon. Member was aware that in 1881–2 the Militia in Ireland had not been called out. He had stated that in moving his Estimates in both years.
  MR. BIGGARreferred again to the Antrim Militia, and stated that although the right hon. Gentleman said the condition of that regiment was satisfactory, he found that upwards of 50 soldiers had had stoppages made in their pay for drunkenness during training. That gave a very different idea from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman; and he was perfectly convinced that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong absolutely in his information, and that his own statements as to the condition of the men and the officers was correct.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he thought it was possible that some of the men had in the year 1880 taken too much whiskey; but that did not prove that the Antrim Militia was not in a satisfactory state. He could only repeat his statement that the Militia was in a satisfactory condition.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would consider the question of continuing the Staff of the Irish Militia on its present footing; and whether he had decided to call out the Militia for training during the period when the Coercion Bill just brought in would be in force in Ireland?
  MR. CHILDERSreplied, that the Militia would not be called out this year for training; and what would happen next year would have to be considered at the proper time.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he had received a letter with regard to the Militia Staff in Armagh, which stated that at the depôt centre there were two sets of officers, one connected with the Line, and another with the Militia. Seeing that there was no embodied Militia in Ireland, he thought it was preposterous that a full Staff of Militia should continue to be kept up when their services were perfectly useless. The letter stated that the Adjutant of Militia at the head-quarters drew full pay, and that another officer was getting extra allowances. If that was so, it seemed to him that there was a waste of power at the depôt centres; and he thought some means ought to be adopted for sending the Sergeants and other officers connected with the Militia to the regiments.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that if any reduction was necessary it would have to be in the Staff of the Militia; and he was not disposed, without further inquiry, to discharge a part of the Militia, when it was hoped, very shortly, that the Militia might be again called out in Ireland.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, the suggestion his correspondent made was that the Militia officers should be kept at the depôt centre, and that the others should be sent to their regiments. He did not think there was the slightest use in keeping up a permanent Staff in connection with the Militia. It would be easy to form a new Staff if it was at any time considered desirable to have Militia regiments in Ireland; but, so far as he could see, the Militia caused an entire waste of money. They had not the slightest appearance of soldiers, and the time they had for drill was so short that it was impossible they could get any benefit from being embodied as they at present were in Ireland.
  MR. DE LA POER BERESFORDsaid, he lived in Armagh, and he knew something about the Militia; but it struck him that neither the hon. Member nor his correspondent knew what they were talking about. The Armagh regiment was one of the best and strongest regiments in the Irish Militia. The men were essentially fine men, and well officered; and one of the regiments last year was nearly 400 strong. That regiment was effective, and fully equal to any regiment of Militia in Her Majesty's Service.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  (5.) £69,000, Yeomanry Cavalry.
  MR. ACLANDinquired whether the right hon. Gentleman had considered the desirability of making some arrangement in succeeding years by which Yeomanry Cavalry should receive some small allowance by way of payment for the extra drills, of which there were about three that were compulsory? The ordinary payment for a Yeoman on duty was 7s. a-day. The great difficulty was to get men to come up for these extra drills; and in 1879, when there was no permanent duty, some few drills were paid for by the Government, and then there was no difficulty of that kind. All those extra drills were attended; and he wished to ask whether, in future

  635
  years, the Yeomanry might hope for some small allowance to Yeomen for attendance at these extra drills? This year the charge for the payment of Yeomanry was £5,000 less than last year; and he was sure a very much less sum than that would be of great value in enabling the Yeomanry officers to get their men together for the purposes of the Service.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he rejoiced that his hon. Friend, whose reputation as a Yeomanry officer was so well known, had taken part in this debate; and any suggestion from him should receive the best consideration. The position of the Department in respect to the Yeomanry was that there had not been, for a good many years, any inquiry affecting the Yeomanry, and various points for consideration had accumulated; but the Adjutant General and other officers were at present making an inquiry into the several questions affecting the Yeomanry; but he could not state details, because no conclusion had been arrived at. Among the various questions, he would take care that the suggestion of his hon. Friend was considered.
  Vote agreed to.
  Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next;
  Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg, Admiral Sir John Hay, Sir Andrew Lusk.)
  METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT AND BUILDING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.

    [BILL 107.] COMMITTEE.
    [Progress 2nd May.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 6 agreed to.
    Clause 7 (Provisions as to new streets).
    MR. WARTONsaid, he had several Amendments to propose upon this clause. The clause contained the words "with such particulars in relation thereto as may be required by the Board." He thought these words were hardly fair, because nobody could tell what the Board might require, or when or how often they might change their requirements. It seemed to him that, with these words, if any question arose between the Board and the person injured
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    it would be very difficult to determine what was necessary. Therefore, what he would suggest was to omit the word "such" and to substitute the words "all necessary particulars in relation thereto;" and he should also propose to strike out the words "as required by the Board."
    Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 8, to leave out the word "such," in order to insert the words "all necessary."—(Mr. Warton.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'such' stand part of the Clause."
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he did not quite catch the meaning of the hon. and learned Member; but if he would allow this clause to pass now and then explain what he meant, he would endeavour to give effect to it on Report.
    MR. WARTON: That will not do.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, the line to which the hon. and learned Member referred was not the only one open to objection. Here was a Board, which was not a representative Board, proposing to impose such conditions as they might think fit, and that proposal appeared in line 8, line 13, and line 19, and the whole basis of the section consisted in the words "such conditions as they may think proper to prescribe." There were cases in which the Board had thought proper to prescribe that buildings should not be erected on a given line and in a certain way unless some compensation was agreed to. Their consent had been given in that way, and he thought this was a power that ought not to be given to the Board.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, a man in the suburbs might wish to lay out streets, but there might be great difficulty in getting them laid out for the benefit of the public, and this clause was proposed simply to remedy difficulties which frequently occurred. It had nothing to do with the buildings themselves, but simply with the laying out of new streets.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, this clause had to do with laying out streets; but the next clause related to buildings. No additional jurisdiction ought to be given to the Board of Works.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, the present powers of the Board of Works were inadequate in regard to

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    the laying out of streets, and they were only asking the House to give them the power that was necessary.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, he had frequently been engaged in cases affecting the Board of Works, and it was with knowledge so obtained that he made his statement.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 42; Noes 8: Majority 34.—(Div. List, No. 79.)
    MR. WARTONsaid, he proposed to strike out the words "think proper to," in page 3, line 14, and also at the beginning of line 19. They had not to do with what the thoughts and intentions of this body were. They might be the most proper people in the world, and they might not. The question was really an important one, and he hoped the hon. and learned Solicitor General would give the Committee an opinion upon it. On the last occasion he had refused to give an opinion, and had only given a Governmental vote; but it was to be hoped on this occasion he would rise and say something.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. BOORDsaid, he had an Amendment to propose at the end of the clause.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he had an Amendment before that in line 25. He wished to insert the word "such" before "conditions."
    MR. FIRTHsaid, he only wished to say that, after the very conclusive division they had had, he hoped the hon. and learned Member would not divide on this matter. Having seen this clause in actual working, and knowing something of the Metropolitan Board of Works, he could only say these were not powers which should be given to that body.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he was prepared to accept the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. BOORDsaid, he wished to move the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Grantham).
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 3, line 33, insert "Provided always, That in case the said person so intending to form or lay out any road, passage, or way, as aforesaid, considers that any of the conditions fixed or annexed by the Board are unreason-
    638
    able, then the said person so objecting to the said conditions may appeal to the police magistrate for the district in which the said road, passage, or way is situate, and his decision shall be final upon the question."—(Mr. Boord.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. WARTONsaid, he was in favour of the Amendment; but there were some ugly words in it—namely, as to conditions "fixed or annexed." As they had accepted the word "prescribed" already, he would propose that they should substitute it for the objectionable words.
    THE CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. and learned Member propose this as an Amendment?
    MR. WARTON: Yes; as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment.
    MR. BOORDsaid, he had no objection to it.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment and original Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 8 (Provisions restricting in certain cases the laying out of streets for foot traffic only).
    MR. WARTONsaid, that in this clause, on page 4, line 3, they had the words "think proper to" again. He would propose to strike them out.
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. WARTONmoved, after the word "to," in line 14, to insert the word "such."
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. BOORDsaid, he wished to add the same provision at the end of this clause, as he had added at the end of Clause 7. It would only be necessary to insert the same power of appeal as in the last section; and as the Metropolitan Board of Works proposed that they should prescribe conditions, it seemed to him that his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg) should not object to the insertion of the words. He would not trouble the Committee with any remarks on the Amendment, and trusted the hon. and gallant Member would either accept it or give a reason why he could not do so.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 22, insert "same power of appeal as in last section."—(Mr. Boord.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would not press the Amendment, and pointed out that the evil which the provision was to remedy existed, not only in London, but in many large cities. The poor in many thickly-populated towns lived in narrow, dreadful places, and the object of the Artizans' Dwellings Act was to remove all these. In Liverpool and elsewhere, under the Act, large sums had been spent in this way. Well, people should not be allowed to build these objectionable dwellings; otherwise, those who came after hon. Members would have imposed on them the duty of removing them.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, that unless this Amendment were adopted the Bill would hardly run on all fours. The hon. and gallant Member had already conceded a power of appeal in the case of roads, but now declined to concede it in the case of footpaths. It was hard to discover on what principle he was acting. He should either refuse the appeal in the case of roads, or concede it in the case of footpaths.
    MR. FIRTHhoped the Amendment would be adopted. If the regulations were laid down in bye-laws, the state of the case would be different; but the Board would be guided by their surveyor, who might be influenced by a variety of considerations—into which it was now needless to enter—in recommending the conditions which should be imposed.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he was willing to accept the Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 9 (Board may annex and enforce conditions as to space to be left open where building is erected beyond the general or regular line of building).
    MR. BOORDsaid, he had a small addition to make to this clause for the protection, by way of compensation, to those persons who proposed to build on the forecourts or gardens of their houses; and this Amendment, he trusted, would meet with the approval of the Committee. It would be observed that a freeholder proposing to erect a building on the space of ground in front of
    640
    his house would be obliged to accept any conditions which the Metropolitan Board of Works might think proper to impose on giving their consent as to the area of land in front of the building to be erected. That was to say, that the Metropolitan Board of Works had power to confiscate for the use of the public a portion of the freeholder's property; and the object of his Amendment was to compensate him for the loss sustained in consequence.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 27, after the word "may," to insert "subject to compensation."—(Mr. Boord.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. FIRTHpointed out that cases had arisen in which the Metropolitan Board of Works had not given their consent to the erection of houses in forecourts, except on the condition that a certain portion of land should be surrendered for the public use, without any sort of compensation. He regarded that as unjust in itself, and he did not think hon. Members would expect that such a condition would come within the meaning of the section. Cases of this kind having actually occurred already, he trusted the hon. and gallant Gentleman in charge of the Bill would be able to accept the Amendment.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)remarked, that there was no provision in the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite that payment of compensation should be made at the expense of the Metropolitan Board of Works—in fact, there was no indication by whom or to whom it was to be paid. The position of the matter, as he understood it, was this. As the law stood at present, the Metropolitan Board of Works had power to prohibit the erection of any building which would go beyond the general line of the street. But the clause before the Committee only provided that the Metropolitan Board of Works, who could thus refuse their consent altogether, might give a qualified consent upon such conditions as they might think fit. If, therefore, they could refuse consent altogether without compensation, it appeared to him there was no reason why, if they gave a qualified consent, that consent should carry with it compensation. It was difficult to see on what ground the owner could found his

    641
    claim to compensation. He pointed out also that the Amendment, even if it were considered by the Committee, could not be accepted in its present form.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he wished to explain to the Committee the practice of the Metropolitan Board of Works with regard to the erection of buildings under the circumstances referred to. When persons came to them who wanted to bring their frontages forward, and it was pointed out that the street was crowded and required rectification, the Board would say—"If you can arrange with other persons and give up a little bit of land, you may bring your buildings forward." But they had found after the promise had been given, and the applicants had brought their buildings forward, that when the Board asked for a redemption of the promise, this was absolutely declined, and, at the same time, it was said that the powers of the Board had been exceeded. He thought, with regard to the Amendment, that it was very hard to be asked for compensation by persons who were receiving a benefit which, in point of value, was as great as the land they were asked to give up.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the argument of the hon. and learned Solicitor General amounted to this. Because, under the law as it at present stood, the Metropolitan Board of Works had power to prevent altogether the erection of certain buildings on freehold land, the owner was not entitled to compensation, and it was, therefore, unnecessary to introduce into this clause any provision for giving compensation. But he (Mr. Balfour) objected to the practice of the Metropolitan Board of Works, as admitted by the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg), as to the making of conditions with persons desirous of building on their own land, inasmuch as it appeared that the powers of the Board to prevent a man building on his freehold were applied for the purpose of screwing out of him something for the public use. Either it was against the public interest that a man should build in the manner indicated, or it was not. If it was not in the public interest that he should do so, he contended that the Metropolitan Board of Works ought not to make the power which they had of preventing him an instrument of torture for ex-
    642
    tracting some concession from him. If it was not contrary to the public interest, he was entitled to use his rights as proprietor, and if he was not allowed to do this he ought to get compensation, as suggested by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Boord).
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)said, there appeared to be some little confusion as to the position of the Metropolitan Board of Works in relation to this matter. The Board already had full discretion as to whether they would or would not give their consent to the erection of certain buildings. The present proposal was to enable them to consent on certain conditions, if they thought fit to do so in the public interest. One could not see, under these circumstances, for what the owner was to get compensation. If the Metropolitan Board of Works agreed to a man's proposal to build in the way contemplated by the clause, they were then consenting to enable him to do something which he could not do before. Why, then, should he be compensated?
    MR. A. J. BALFOURpointed out that his object in supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Greenwich was to prevent the Metropolitan Board of Works gratuitously and arbitrarily preventing a man doing what he would otherwise be able to do, unless they got something out of him. He held that the clause, as it stood, amounted to an encouragement to the Metropolitan Board of Works to exercise the arbitrary power of forbidding, in order to get out of the owner of the property something for the benefit of the public.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, it was the duty of the Metropolitan Board of Works to look to the interest of the public; they had no other interest in the matter; which, so far as the public interest was concerned, was one of give-and-take. An applicant came forward, wanting to build, and his proposal was agreed to on conditions which were necessary for the public interest.
    MR. FIRTHasked on what terms the consent of the Board was given at that time?
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, the terms varied according to the circumstances of the case.
    MR. BOORDsaid, he was under the impression that a case had been granted by one of the Metropolitan Police Magis-

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    trates, although, not having the particulars in his possession, he was unable to refer to it in detail. He believed that the right of the Metropolitan Board of Works to affix conditions to their consent had been the subject of dispute before a magistrate, who had granted a case. Now, it was while the decision of that case was pending that the present Bill had been introduced; and, if he was not wrong in his supposition, it was intended to forestall the decision on the point which some day might be expected. It was for this reason that he proposed the Amendment now before the Committee.
    MR. WARTONremarked, that the hon. and learned Solicitor General had made two speeches in the course of the discussion upon the Amendment before the Committee. His argument in the first speech in answer to the proposal to compensate the owner of land for the conditions imposed on him by the Metropolitan Board of Works amounted to this—that persons who were entitled to compensation were not to get it, because there was nothing in the Amendment as to the form or mode of compensation. It was too nice an argument to say that because the whole plan and method of compensation was not described the subject was to be dismissed altogether; and he entirely dissented from this view of the matter. The clause they were asked to pass, in its present form, involved a very important principle; and it must not be forgotten that the Bill, from its first introduction, had been hurried along at a great pace. Under these circumstances, he thought it well that owners of property on both sides of the House should bestow a due amount of consideration upon what was taking place. The Metropolitan Board of Works was, probably, not different in its character and objects from other Boards of Works, and a few years ago he received a notice which gave some idea of what those objects were. "The object of all Boards of Works"—so ran the document—"is to widen roads, regardless of the rights of property." They cared nothing for the rights of anybody at all, and they flourished on the property of others. With regard to the widening of roads, it was often the case that the roads contained two sorts of houses, with forecourts varying, perhaps, from 20 to 100 feet. He asked whether the
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    rights of property were to be dependent on the line which the Surveyor to the Metropolitan Board of Works chose to call the general line? Again, in his second speech, the hon. and learned Solicitor General asked what the owner was to be compensated for? The answer to that was quite clear. The Metropolitan Board of Works said to the owner—"You can only go a certain distance, because it is our pleasure, and you must give up a piece of your land if we allow you to go farther." It was on that ground that compensation was claimed; and because he considered the owner entitled to compensation he felt it his duty to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Greenwich.
    MR. WHITLEYsaid, he wished to point out to the Committee that the clause now before them was to be found in every Municipal Act of Parliament of a kindred nature to this Bill. Every Municipality, in other words, was charged with powers similar to that provided for by the clause. It must be borne in mind that in various provincial localities the owners of property themselves had fixed the line of the streets, and that line it was necessary to preserve in the interest of all. A person by improperly bringing forward his frontage might injuriously affect the interest of every other owner of property in the street; and the Board of Works was the only body that could, by the exercise of the power vested in them, prevent gross injustice and damage being done to the property generally. He was convinced that it was right, in the interest of owners of property, that the powers of the clause should be conferred upon the Metropolitan Board of Works for the purpose of preventing one or two persons injuring all the property in a street by improperly bringing forward their frontages; and for that reason he trusted the clause would be allowed to pass in its present form.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, he had listened attentively to the remarks of the hon. Member who had just sat down, which, he was bound to say, had not even touched the question raised by the Amendment before the Committee. Supposing the interests of property were affected in the manner indicated by the hon. Member, a provincial public body would, of course, refuse their consent. But, with respect to this matter, the position in

    645
    London was different to that in the Provinces, inasmuch as in London the line of the street was constantly changing, and property was not affected in the way described by the hon. Member. He should be glad to receive an answer to this question—Why should a man be compelled to give up his garden for the purpose of widening a street without being paid for it?
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, there was no compulsion whatever in the case. It was simply a matter of favour to a person who came forward and asked to be allowed to do a certain thing for the Board to give their consent on certain conditions. As he had before pointed out, owners sometimes departed from the promises given by them and accepted by the Board as a condition of their being allowed to bring forward their frontages. He trusted the clause would be allowed to pass without alteration.
    Amendment negatived.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 27, to leave ont the words, "if they think fit."—(Mr. Onslow.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. WARTONpointed out that the penalties referred to in the Proviso at the end of this clause related to a state of things entirely different from those to which penalties were applied in other portions of the Bill. To make the matter clear, he proposed to add some words, which he believed the Committee would see the propriety of agreeing to.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 41, after the word "penalty," insert "under this section."—(Mr. Warton.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 42, to leave out the words "if they think proper."—(Mr. Onslow.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, he wished to ask a question bearing upon the recent observations of the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg). Many streets in London had houses in front of which were forecourts or gardens. Supposing he took, for the purpose of illustration, a street which had on one side of it 20 houses, 15 of which
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    were brought forward. What would be the general or regular line? If it were that of the 15 houses, on what principle was it proposed to prevent the other five houses being brought into that line without the owners gave up their forecourts?
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he should like to have an opportunity of looking into the matter before replying to the question of the hon. Member.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, in that case it was clear that his hon. and gallant Friend was asking for legislation without knowing upon what it was based.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, he was quite sure, in a case of the kind mentioned by the hon. Member, that the architect would see that proper attention was given to the circumstances.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he had not been quite convinced by the argument which the hon. and learned Solicitor General had used against the proposal of his hon. Friend (Mr. Boord) to give compensation to owners compelled to give up portions of their property by the Board of Works. On the whole, he thought the best plan would be to strike the clause out of the Bill. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Whitley) seemed to think that if the clause were omitted it would be easier for the owner of a single house to do harm to the neighbouring property by thrusting it beyond the line of the street. But he would point out to the hon. Member that the evil was made easier by the adoption of the clause. The Board of Works had at present power to prevent this, and had, moreover, every motive to do so; but if the clause passed it was conceivable that it might be to the interest of the Board to allow an individual to injure the neighbouring property, because in exchange for their consent they would be enabled to extract from the owner of the peccant house, so to speak, some benefit in favour of the public. In order that the whole question might be reconsidered, and that the point as to who should pay compensation, and upon what terms it should be awarded, might receive the attention of his hon. and gallant Friend, he proposed to omit the clause from the Bill.
    Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 20; Noes 6: Majority 14.—(Div. List, No. 80.)
    And it appearing on the Division that 40 Members were not present in the Committee:
    Mr. Speaker resumed the Chair:—House counted, and 40 Members not being present:
    House adjourned at half after One o'clock till Monday next.