Commons Sitting of 12 April 1883

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Criminal Code (Indictable Offences Procedure [8], debate adjourned; Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act (1882) (Audience of Solicitors)* [61].
Committee—Report—Glebe Loans (Ireland) Acts Amendment* [136].
Report—Oyster and Mussel Fisheries Orders Confirmation* [87].
Withdrawn—Glebe Loans (Ireland) Acts Amendment (No. 2)* [138].

QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICA—NATAL—CHANGES IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Natal is about to receive a new Constitution, under which the number of elected members is to be increased, and the members nominated by the Crown will be a small minority; whether, at the same time, the franchise is to be liberalised and natives are to be admitted to it instead of being almost

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  wholly excluded as at present, or whether all questions of taxation, &c. affecting the great native population are still to be determined by the representatives of a handful of Colonists exercising a very restrictive franchise; whether the disposal of the Crown lands is made over to the Natal Legislature; and, who is responsible for the recent change by which Crown lands hitherto reserved have been opened for sale and sold as waste over the heads of the natives occupying them, as shown in Sir H. Bulwer's report of 25th August 1882, paragraph 61?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, the change in question cannot be termed a new Constitution. It is only a modification of the pre-existing state of things. As to the first head—namely, the composition of the Legislative Council, the total number of Members is increased from 20 to 30—the elected Members to number 23, the nominated Members 7. As hitherto the elected were 15 and the nominated 5, there is no vital change in the proportion. As to the second head—namely, the franchise, it has been liberalized by extension to male inhabitants who have resided three years in the Colony, who have an income of £96 a-year at least, and who are British subjects or naturalized aliens. Hitherto the franchise has been confined to holders of real property worth £50, or payers of £10 a-year rental. This modification will somewhat increase the facilities for Natives being admitted to the franchise; but an education test is demanded from thorn. There has been no change made in respect to the other two points asked about. By the Charter of 1856 the disposal of the Crown lands is a subject of legislation vested in the Legislative Council. The Governor was, and remains, empowered to make grants, provided he conforms to any law in force relating to the subject-matter of his grant. As to the last part of the Question, we have no further information than is given in the paragraph referred to. It would, however, appear that some Natives wore in unauthorized occupation of certain Crown lands.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Am I to understand that the Natives are eligible for the franchise in the same way as Her Majesty's British subjects?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: They have been held to be eligible to the franchise
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  if they removed themselves from under the operation of the Native law, and conformed to the ordinary law of the Colony, as well as to the education test.

  SCOTLAND—THE DISTRESS IN THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS.
  MR. BUCHANANasked the Lord Advocate, Whether he can give any further information to the House as to the destitution in the Western Highlands, and as to the adequacy of the means at present available for its relief?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR): Sir, the Reports of the General Inspectors of the Board of Supervision have now been received, and I regret to say that they disclose a great amount of suffering among the population of the Hebrides, owing to the failure of the potato and grain crops and a bad fishing season. In most places the destitution does not amount to actual want of food, and there has not been any unusual pressure on the parochial rates; but the people have no means of providing themselves with seed potatoes or corn, so that, if no assistance were given to them, there would be a prospect of a famine next year. I am glad to say that, in most districts, the proprietors are supplying the people with the seed potatoes required. In one district, however, the Island of Lewis, the condition of the population is so bad that there would be actual want, but for the operations of a Relief Committee, and the Inspector reports that unless the funds at their disposal, now almost exhausted, are immediately and largely supplemented, much suffering must ensue. We propose to print these Reports for the information of Parliament.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL—SUPPLY OF ARMS AND AMMUNITION.
  MR. CROPPERasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether there is any law preventing the supply of arms or ammunition to the Transvaal Government or the Boers by traders from the Cape Colony or from Natal; whether arms and ammunition mainly reach the Transvaal from Natal; whether it is not in the power of the British Government to prevent such supply from Natal; whether, when stating that ammunition, though denied to the Natives as an open transaction, could "be ob-

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  tained by them in ordinary trade," he was aware that the penalties on traders thus supplying Natives are very heavy; and, whether he can inform the House what those penalties were?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, there is no law such as the one described; but the trade in both Colonies can only be conducted under licence. I am quite unable to say whether arms and ammunition mainly reach the Transvaal from Natal; but no doubt some does. The laws connected with this matter are somewhat complicated; but, as far as I can make out, the Government could only stop such supply by an arbitrary Act, stopping all export altogether; but, in the case of gunpowder, there is a statutory power given in Act 22, 1872. Every Resident Magistrate is empowered by this Act to give to any White person residing in the Orange Free State, the Transvaal, or the Cape Colony a permit to buy powder. But Section 5 says the Lieutenant Governor shall have—
  "Power, on due and sufficient cause to him appearing, and with the advice of his Executive Council, to suspend by proclamation in the Government Gazette the power of granting permits under the provisions of this law to the resident magistrates for such time as he shall deem necessary."
  It does not, however, appear to the Government that duo and sufficient cause has yet been shown for so very serious a proceeding, although circumstances may arise which would justify it. But to be at all effective, it would have to be extended to all persons, whether living in the Orange Free State or the Cape Colony, as well as the Transvaal. When I said that Natives could obtain supplies by "ordinary trade," I meant in the ordinary way they have hitherto obtained them, without any relaxation of the Colonial laws; and that they do obtain supplies is corroborated by an extract I will read to the House from a narrative handed to Sir Hercules Robinson by a Mr. Johnston, who had just returned from a stay of some duration at Montsioa's lager. The covering despatch from Sir Hercules Robinson is dated Cape Town, February 23. The words of Mr. Johnston are as follows:—
  "The Natives are well armed; most of those who were fairly armed carrying breech-loaders, and there seemed to be no scarcity of ammunition. Many have learnt to reload Wortley-Riehards and Martini rifles."

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT—CARRIGALLEN.
  COLONEL O'BEIRNEasked the Postmaster General, If a Memorial signed by the inhabitants of Carrigallen and neighbourhood, in the county Leitrim, has been forwarded to the Post Office authorities, requesting that a telegraph office may be established in the town of Carrigallen, and thereby place it and the neighbourhood on an equality with other towns of the county Leitrim that had less claims as regards trade and population to telegraphic communication?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, such a Memorial as my hon. Friend describes has been sent to me, and it was also supported by a letter from his hon. Colleague (Mr. Tottenham). I have sent an answer, stating that it is estimated that a telegraph office at Carrigallen would not be remunerative, and expressing my regret that, under the rules now in force, unless the residents will guarantee the Post Office against loss, it will not be in my power to recommend to the Treasury that the telegraphs be extended to Carrigallen.

  LAW AND POLICE—THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT.
  MR. M'LARENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has observed a paragraph in the "Daily News" and other papers, on the authority of the Press Association, in which the following is stated:—
  "It has been deemed advisable by Her Majesty's Government, after consultation with the police authorities, to add a section to the Criminal Investigation Department, the functions appertaining to which are to be strictly political. … It is understood that strong effort will be made to place our political police system on as firm a basis of efficiency as that which characterises the Parisian and Berlin police;"
  and, whether the above statement is true?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: No, Sir; there is no foundation for the statement as made in the passage referred to by the hon. Member. What has been done in the matter was, in my opinion, not only advisable, but most necessary should be done, and I may, happily, say it has been attended with signal success. It is this. We have set apart a certain number of intelligent officers, whoso special business it will be

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  to track out and arrest persons engaged in conspiracies to murder, burn, and destroy. I hope that I may be allowed to say that there can be no more dangerous or mischievous fallacy than to describe such conspiracies as political offences. Whatever may be the motives of those who commit them, these are comes of the most nefarious character, and those who participate in them should be treated as ordinary criminals, both in regard to their detection and punishment.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—THE MAGISTRACY—THE LLANGOLLEN MAGISTRATES.
  MR. P. A. TAYLORasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to a sentence passed upon seven men by the Llangollen bench of magistrates, last week, of imprisonment, with hard labour, for one month, for sleeping in an empty kiln, by permission, as the men alleged, of the watchman; and, if he will cause inquiry to be made into the circumstances?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, that correspondence was now going on in reference to the subject, and he therefore trusted that the hon. Member would postpone his Question for a short time.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—THE WORK-HOUSE TEST.
  COLONEL COLTHURSTasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to a letter in the "Freeman" of Saturday, from Mrs. Poner Lalor, a lady engaged in relieving the distress in certain portions of Donegal; and, if so, whether the Government are still determined not to relax the Workhouse test?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Yes, Sir. My attention has been called to the letter referred to. It has been, from the moment that it appeared, the subject of special inquiry; and, so far, the results have not been such as would afford any ground for an alteration of the policy adopted by Her Majesty's Government in regard to the relief of distress. My hon and gallant Friend does not quote the letter in his Question, so I will not enter into the information which has been received with regard to the allegations which it contains.

  POST OFFICE (CONTRACTS)—THE IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. MAURICE BROOKSasked the Postmaster General, If he could state how often during the past twelve months have the English mails viâ Holyhead and Kingstown been late for the morning mail train leaving Kingsbridge at 9 a.m.; and, what has been the cause assigned to the Post Office for the delay?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to my hon. Friend, I may state that, during the past 12 months, the English mails, viâ Holyhead and Kingstown, have been late for the morning mail train leaving Kingsbridge at 9 a.m. only eight times. Storm has been assigned on six occasions a3 the cause of delay; fog on one occasion; and a train accident on another.

  SOUTH AFRICA—BECHUANALAND—REPORT OF CAPTAIN HARREL.
  MR. A. M'ARTHURasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he is aware that, although a special Report, addressed by Captain Harrel, late of the 89th Regiment, to the Administrator of Griqualand West, on the affairs of Bechuanaland, was laid before the Cape Assembly in July 1880, it has not been published in this Country; and, whether he will issue it for the information of Parliament?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Yes, Sir, the Report will be laid upon the Table of the House.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE PARLIAMENTARY OATHS ACT (1866) AMENDMENT BILL.
  MR. M'LAGANasked Mr. Attorney General, When it is intended to move the Second Reading of the Affirmation Bill; and, whether, before that Motion is made, the Government will consider the desirability of so amending the Bill that it shall not be retrospective in its operation?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir Henry James): Sir, I am not in a position, myself, to answer the first part of the Question, as to when the Affirmation Bill will be taken. That is a Question in relation to the conduct of the Business of the House, and my hon. Friend will doubtless obtain the infor-

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  mation he seeks from any statement the Prime Minister may make in relation to that Business. As to the second part of my hon. Friend's Question, I can say that the Government have already given to that subject the full consideration that its importance deserves. I think the House will agree with me that, in answering this Question, it would not be right for me to refer to the considerations that affected the judgment of the Government in coming to the conclusion at which they have arrived; but I would say, apart from any question of principle in relation to a subject which has been so acutely discussed, and which has attracted so much public attention, the Government have thought it right to be guided as much as possible by precedent, and I think it will be found that the precedent most applicable to the question in relation to the operation of this Bill will be found in the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829. It will be recollected that the principle of that Bill had been fully discussed, and had been before the constituencies for years; and when it was thought right to afford relief, and to change the Oath—so that Members should not take the Oath of Supremacy and Abjuration as then existing—that relief was only afforded to Members who were elected after that Act came into operation; and while I repeat that this is not the time to enter upon details of the considerations which have affected the Government's judgment, I have to say that when the Bill is in Committee the Government will be willing to introduce words into it similar to those in the Act of 1829, which will limit its effect to Members who shall be elected after the measure has become law.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Will the House have the full opportunity of deciding by vote whether that principle shall be introduced or not?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES): Certainly.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACTS—THE NORTH SURREY DISTRICT SCHOOLS.
  MR. GRANTHAMasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether there is any intention on the part of the Board to compel the Croydon Union, against the wish of the union, to separate from the North Surrey District Schools, situate at Anerley within the limits of the union; and, if so, by what
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  power they can be compelled to separate against their wish, and to incur the very serious expense of purchasing land and building new schools when there is ample land at Anerley for any necessary enlargement of the existing schools?
  MR. HIBBERT: Sir, the North Surrey School District comprises three Unions—Wandsworth and Clapham, Lewisham, and Croydon. The population of these Unions has been, and still is, rapidly increasing, and the existing school, which provides accommodation for between 800 and 900 children, has become quite inadequate for the requirements of the district. It has been suggested by the managers of the school district that, under these circumstances, one of the Unions now included in the district should be separated from it. The Local Government Board have been considering whether the difficulty can be met by any other means; but have not yet arrived at a decision on the recommendation of the managers. The Board are empowered by the 7 & 8 Vict. Chap. 101, Section 43, and 30 & 31 Vict. Chap. 106, Section 16, to alter a school district by taking any Union there from. A Union, on its separation from a school district, is entitled to receive from the district the amount of its interest in the property of the district. As regards the suggestion that there is ample land at Anerley for the necessary enlargement of the existing school, the Board consider that it is undesirable to enlarge a school which already provides for between 800 and 900 children.

  ARMY (INDIA)—THE LATE INDIAN ARTILLERY.
  SIR TREYOR LAWRENCEasked the Secretary of State for War, When he proposes to issue a Warrant placing Lieutenant Colonels of the late Indian Artillery, who were promoted after September 30th 1877, on the same footing, as regards tenure of command, &c. as officers of a similar rank of the old Royal Artillery List; and, whether he will be able promptly to put an end to the existing uncertainty as to these matters?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, the officers referred to come within the provisions of what is usually known as the "Henley Clause" of the Act for the better government of India, by which they have a Parliamentary guarantee for the preservation of rights in the

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  matter of service and promotion. Under that clause it is held that they are not subject to the articles of the Royal Warrant, which provide for removal from regiments after certain periods of command. Every effort has been made by the offer of liberal voluntary retirement—-which offer is still open—to maintain the proper flow of promotion. So successful has this been that, at present, the senior majors on each of the Indian Lists are of shorter total service than those on the Royal List.

  INLAND REVENUE—COLLECTION OF INCOME TAX.
  MR. ALDERMAN COTTONasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the contemplated change in the collection of the Income Tax should not be postponed, it being similar to that proposed by the Inland Revenue Board in the Customs and Inland Revenue Bills of 1866 and 1879, both of which were withdrawn when it was ascertained, from a deputation of collectors, that the Clause had been introduced without their having been heard; and, whether in justice to the collectors, more time and consideration should not be given to this matter before so many persons are deprived of their means of livelihood, and whose services have been so much esteemed by the taxpayers, and who are not aware that, up to this time, anything but satisfaction has been expressed with the present mode of collecting the Income Tax?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): Sir, with reference to this Question, I should prefer to give full explanations of our proposals when the clauses carrying them out are discussed in Committee on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill; but I may say, generally now, that these proposals differ widely from those that were made in 1864 and in 1879, the former of which would have transferred to the Board of Inland Revenue the collection under all the Schedules, whereas we only deal with Schedules D and E, and the latter proposal—that of 1879—made inadequate provision for the equitable claims of the present collectors to compensation. The plan we propose works admirably in Ireland and Scotland and in many large English towns, the collections being more prompt and satisfactory in every respect. So far as the public are
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  concerned, there can be no question that the collection by officers of the Board is much preferred to the old system, where that system has been discontinued. As to the collectors being deprived of their means of livelihood, I have already pointed out that they will retain the collection of Income Tax under the other Schedules and will receive compensation for their losses under Schedules D and E. If the Income Tax had been repealed, as proposed in 1874, they would have received no compensation whatever.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: What is the difference in the arrangements made in 1874 and those made this year?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): Sir, if my right hon. Friend has so far forgotten his history, I shall be glad to recite it to him again. He must remember that the present Prime Minister expressly proposed at the Election in 1874 to repeal the Income Tax.

  THE DANUBIAN CONFERENCE—ADMISSION OF ROUMANIA.
  MR. O'DONNELLasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If the British Representative at the recent Danubian Conference voted for the admission of the Roumanian Plenipotentiary with full powers to vote and speak on the questions under deliberation?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, there was no formal vote or division upon any of the questions which came before the Conference. If the hon. Member will refer to the Papers which have been laid on the Table, he will see, at page 19 of Danube No. 1, the circular-despatch in which Lord Granville proposed to admit Roumania to the Conference, on the same footing as the Powers signatories of the Treaty of Berlin; and, at page 11 of Danube No. 2, he will see the speech of Earl Granville on the same subject, expressing the same views.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—GREEN STREET COURTHOUSE, DUBLIN.
  MR. MAYNEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the case that the right of issuing tickets of admission to the Green Street Courthouse, during the present Commission, has been taken out of the

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  hands of the high sheriff of the city of Dublin by Mr. Jenkinson, of the Criminal Investigation Department, Dublin Castle; whether it is the fact that the Green Street Courthouse has been built and maintained by the Dublin Corporation, on whose; nomination the high sheriff was appointed; and, under what power an officer of police in Dublin Castle can set aside the privilege of a high sheriff to regulate admissions to the court of which he is the chief officer?
  MR. TREVELTAN: Sir, all the arrangements in this matter have been placed in the hands of the Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, Mr. Harrel. This was done with the full concurrence of the Sheriffs, who were previously communicated with. The Green Street Court-house was built and has been maintained by the Dublin Corporation.
  MR. O'BRIEN: Does the right hon. Gentleman know whether the City High Sheriff had arrangements actually made, and tickets actually printed for admission, and was obliged to cancel them on being summoned to Dublin Castle before Mr. Jenkinson?
  MR. TREVELTAN: I am not aware of that. The answer I have got is, that the arrangements were made with the concurrence of the Sheriffs. If the hon. Member will put that as a further Question, I will make inquiries.

  NEW FOREST HIGHWAYS BILL—CROWN CONTRIBUTIONS IN LIEIT OF HIGHWAY RATE.
  MR. COMPTONasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, after the passing of the New Forest Highways Bill, the Crown will contribute towards the maintenance of the highways taken over under the Act by the highway authorities?
  MR. COURTNEY: Yes, Sir; I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Crown will make a contribution in lieu of highway rate, based on the same principles as the contributions now paid in lieu of other rates.

  MERCANTILE MARINE—SIGNALLING AT SEA.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked the President of the Board of Trade, If his attention has been called to a simple and inexpensive system of signalling introduced
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  by Captain W. B. Barker, of the United States Merchant Navy, to be used by vessels approaching at sea (especially in dark or thick weather), so as to enable each vessel at once to know the course steered by the other, and thus considerably reduce the danger of collision at sea; and, if this plan has been submitted to him, whether he will refer it for consideration, not only to the nautical advisers of the Board of Trade, but also to the Trinity House and Admiralty? The right hon. and gallant Member wished to say, in explanation, that collisions at sea happened now at the rate of about one every four hours. The system to which his Question referred had been investigated by the Royal United Service Institution as a means of avoiding collisions.
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Sir, my attention has been called to the invention of Captain Barker for the prevention of collisions at sea. It is one of 50 similar inventions, or, I should rather say, of inventions having a similar object, and the whole of those inventions have already been submitted to a Committee, consisting of Representatives of the Board of Trade, the Admiralty, and Trinity House. The first question to be decided is as to whether any alteration in sound signals is desirable or necessary. That is a very important question, because, if it is decided in the affirmative, it will have to be brought into operation by legislation, and the arrangements now in force in the case of every maritime nation will have to be revised. It is an international question, and it does not concern this country alone. If the Committee should be of opinion that such an alteration has become necessary, Captain Barker's invention will be submitted to detailed examination together with the others to which I have referred.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—THE LAW ADVISER OF THE CROWN.
  MR. P. MARTINasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, When and under what circumstances was the office of Law Adviser in Ireland created; what were the duties imposed on that officer, and were same regulated by any Minute, or how otherwise; have any, and, if so, what, alterations been made in the nature of these duties; and by whom are such

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  duties at present discharged; and, what arrangements have the Government made for their future discharge?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I regret I am unable at present to give the hon. Member the information he asks for, as to when, and under what circumstances, the Office of Law Adviser was created, and the nature of the duties originally imposed upon that officer. Upon receipt of Notice of this Question yesterday, a search was instituted and is still being continued among the ancient records and official papers of the Irish Office in London and Dublin, which might throw light on the subject. I may mention that the salary first appeared in the Estimates for the year 1849–50; but the Office existed prior to that time. No alterations have as yet been made by the present Government with regard to the duties of the Office, which are at present discharged by one of the Law Officers at Dublin; but, as I stated a few days ago, in reply to a Question put by the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), the Government have under consideration the question of the re-organization of the legal assistance which is necessary at Dublin Castle.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked, whether one of the duties of the Law Adviser is not to advise magistrates in the exercise of their judicial functions?
  MR. TREVELYAN,in reply, said, that undoubtedly that had hitherto been rather an important part of the duties; but the Government, considering it a very questionable part, had instituted a close inquiry whether that practice ought to be continued.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I should like to ask, whether communications between the magistrates and the Law Adviser have not been more frequent and more intimate during the period of Office of the present Administration than that of any other previous Administration?
  [No reply.]

  LAW AND JUSTICE—APPELLATE JURISDICTION OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS—LAY PEERS.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, "Whether his attention has been called to the report in the "Times" of the
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  case of Bradlaugh v. Clarke, on which judgment was given by the House of Lords, sitting as a Court of Appeal on Monday last, when, according to the said report,
  "Lord Denman, who had heard the arguments, expressed his concurrence in the judgment of Lord Blackburn;"
  whether, considering that Lord Denman is not a Law Lord, and that, in the case of the appeal of Mr. O'Connell to the House of Lords, all Lords, not being Law Lords, wore induced to withdraw because, although their abstract right to sit and vote could not be denied, it was held, on the ground of long practice, that the exercise of appellate jurisdiction was confined to Law Lords; and, whether it is his intention to take legislative steps to make such long practice Law, and thus prevent any Peer, not being a Law Lord, from sitting and voting upon Appeal cases which are submitted to the House of Lords?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I have received a letter from the Lord Chancellor on this subject, and I will answer the Question of my hon. Friend in the words of that letter. He says that—
  "As legislation took place in 1876, on the subject of Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and as the Act contains no provision to exclude by law any Peers other than the Law Lords from taking part in appeals, it was competent for the Peer in question to attend, as he did, throughout the hearing of the case. If it had been known that any opinion which that Peer might express would affect the result, a remonstrance would have been made to him, as in O'Connell's case; but it must be presumed that, under the circumstances, this was not thought necessary."

  EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION)—THE ARMY PAY DEPARTMENT—REWARD FOR SERVICES.
  MR. WHITLEYasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is true, as asserted in the "Army and Navy Gazette" of the 17th March, on the authority of an official statement, regarding the treatment of the Army Pay Department in Egypt, that various Departmental officers who were never under fire had displayed qualities which were rewarded by decorations and promotions; and, whether he could explain why none of the officers of the Army Pay Department who had been recommended by the head of their Department in that

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  Country for their services under similar circumstances, had not been decorated or promoted?
  SIR ABTHUB HAYTEE: Sir, my attention has been drawn to the article in The Army and Navy Gazette to which the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Whitley) refers, and I find various inaccuracies in it. The grant of decorations for service in time of war is generally limited either to those who have been actively engaged under fire, or who have performed duties of special responsibility during the campaign. Of the officers of the Commissariat and Store Departments who received decorations, the whole number, with one exception in each Department, served at the front and accompanied the advance to Tel-el-Kebir. Of the two excepted, the Commissariat officer was in chief charge at Ismailia, and the Store officer was in chief charge at Alexandria, where their duties were exceptionally heavy and responsible. The paymasters were all, or almost all, at the base of operations at Ismailia, and their duties were not of a specially responsible character, excepting those of the Chief Paymaster, Colonel Oliver, who received both a decoration and a C.B.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—ELECTION OF GUARDIANS FOR THE CORK UNION.
  MR. W. O'BEIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the case that, at the recent election of Guardians for the Cork Union the returning officer after fixing a day for discussing a number of disputed votes refused to hear a solicitor employed for one of the candidates, argue the legal points in dispute, and announced that he would only hear the candidates themselves; whether, if this be so, the gentleman referred to was acting legally in so doing, or if he had a discretion in the matter; whether the Local Government Board would approve of the practice of excluding solicitors under such circumstances; whether it is the case that solicitors have frequently been heard before under similar circumstances by the returning officer in the same union; and, if so, whether there were any exceptional reasons for the returning officer's decision in this case; whether he is aware that it is the invariable practice for the returning officers at Parliamentary and other elections to
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  hear any legal questions which may arise discussed by legal practitioners, and that the Acts regulating the Poor Law franchise are frequently confused and ambiguous so that questions of extreme difficulty and the determination of which requires much legal skill, often arise in construing them; and, whether, if the returning officer in question was justified by the present Law in the action he took, the Government propose to amend the Law in this respect in their promised measure dealing with Poor Law elections?
  MR. TREVELYAN,in reply, said, the Local Government Board had informed him that the Returning Officer stated that the question at issue in the case was the right of a landlord to vote for a candidate, and was one of fact, and not of law. Proofs had been promised, which were not forthcoming; and the solicitor desired to enter into a question of law which was not involved in the case the Returning Officer declined to hear him; and, in so doing, acted entirely within his legal rights. The Local Government Board saw no reason to deprive him of the exercise of his discretion in the matter. The predecessors of this officer had on no occasion heard solicitors, for this was the only occasion in which a solicitor had ever attended at the election of Guardians for the Cork Union. The explanations given in the case did not appear to call for legislative interference; for the whole point turned on whether the question was a matter of fact or of law which was brought before the Returning Officer, and the statements were very definite on that score.

  SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) B1LL—THE PETITION OF THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN.
  MR. BLAKEasked the Eight honour-able the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Member for Carlow Borough, whether, of the 25 Members of the Town Council of the City of Dublin who voted in favour of the Petition to Parliament against the Sunday Closing of Public Houses, which he presented on Tuesday, a majority of that number were actually engaged in the whiskey trade; whether, during the debate that took place on the occasion of the Petition being adopted, his

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  Lordship's attention was called to the Law,
  "That no member of the Council having a pecuniary interest in any matter brought before he Council should vote thereon;"
  if the town clerk advised that, in his opinion, the votes of those engaged in the spirit trade on a matter closely affecting their interests came within the section of the Act which was quoted; whether his Lordship, acting on the advice of the town clerk, warned the Members affected that, although their votes would be recorded, they voted at their peril; and, whether, had the votes of the Town Councillors interested in the spirit trade not been recorded, the majority would have been against the Petition?
  MR. DAWSON: Sir, I beg to say, in answer to the first paragraph of the Question, that it is not the case that the majority of the 25 members of the Town Council who voted in favour of a Petition to Parliament against Sunday Closing were actually engaged in the trade referred to. Only 10 out of the 25 who voted were actually engaged in the trade, and took part in the debate. During the debate, my attention was called to the fact that some members had a pecuniary interest in the matter brought before the Council, and had not a right to vote thereon. The Town Clerk did not advise me that these votes could not be taken; but, on my own motion, I read the section of the Act of Parliament relating to the question, and I left it to the members themselves to act on their responsibility, and abide by the consequences. It is not correct to say that the majority of the Council in the last division were directly engaged in the whiskey trade. Deducting the members engaged in the trade, the numbers for and against were even, 13 against 13.

  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—SECTION 1—ARREST OF MR. JAMES O'CONNOR.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been directed to the treatment of Mr. James O'Connor, Hon. Secretary of the Liberal Registration Association of Cork, who, on the 31st ult., was arrested on alighting from a train in which he journeyed from Tralee with
  72
  several highly respected citizens taken to the police station, questioned as to his movements for several weeks past, subjected to personal examination, and then released, after having been detained for the greater part of two hours, without the least apology or explanation; and, whether he will state upon what authority this was done, and whether he approves of the treatment to which Mr. O'Connor was subjected?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, having had only one day's Notice of this Question, I have not had time to receive a written report, but I have received a telegram, from which it appears that the arrest and search of Mr. O'Connor took place under the authority of Section 1 of the Peace Preservation Act, 1881, and that he was not detained longer than was necessary to enable the police to comply with the Act by sending to the magistrate before whom he was to be brought. I should like to have a written Report on the matter before I answer the Question more explicitly.

  ARMY—THE EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION—IMPRISONMENT OF A SOLDIER.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTEYasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether a private soldier was discharged from the Brixton Military Prison on Tuesday, April 10th, after suffering six months imprisonment for an offence committed in Egypt; whether his period of military service terminated two months after his lodgment in the prison; whether he was guilty of any more serious offence than impatiently using a rude word to a sergeant, without any further display of insubordination; and, whether in that case the man's imprisonment for four months beyond the period at which he would be entitled to his discharge from the service was a necessary exercise of military discipline?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have ascertained from the Governor of the Brixton Military Prison that no soldier was discharged from that prison on the 10th of April, whose imprisonment was for an offence committed in Egypt. The case of the soldier referred to in the hon. Member's Question cannot, therefore, be identified. If he will furnish me with further information "I will endeavour to have the case identified and inquired into.

  DUCHY OF LANCASTER—SOUTHPORT FORESHORE.
  MR. SUMMEESasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Whether it be the fact that a certain portion of the foreshore of Lancashire in the estuary of the Ribble has been sold to the lords of the manor; when their offer was received, and when accepted, and what was its amount; whether for some months previously the same foreshore was under offer to the Corporation of Southport being considered by them highly necessary for the proper sanitation of the town; whether they offered a larger price than the lords of the manor, and for what reason their offer was disregarded, and, without notice to the Corporation, the other offer preferred; and, whether, if the facts be as stated, he will not suspend further action in the matter?
  MR. DODSON: Sir, my answer to the first part of the Question is yes. The interest of the Duchy in this foreshore, the right to which was in dispute between the Duchy and the lords of the manor, has been sold to them. Their offer was received last Monday morning, previously to an offer made later in the day by the Corporation of Southport. It was accepted with some modification on Tuesday afternoon. The amount was £15,000. My answer to the third part of the Question is no. There had been negotiations with the Corporation in 1881; but these had practically come to an end long ago, and there was no offer whatever pending. My answer to the fourth part is this. There was no material difference between the offers; but, on the whole, we considered the offer of the lords of the manor the better. The offer made by the Corporation on Monday last was not disregarded; it was carefully considered. With regard to the fifth part, I am unable to suspend action in this matter, especially as a binding contract has been made from which neither the lords nor the Duchy can recede.

  PARLIAMENT—THE BOARD OF WORKS (IRELAND)—LEGISLATION.
  MR. P. MARTINasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Is he not aware he will receive all reasonable co-operation from Irish Members in passing such Bills as may be introduced to con-
  74
  solid ate, simplify, and amend the laws relating to the functions of the Board, of Works and Drainage in Ireland; and, when does he propose to bring in these Bills?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, these Bills have been drafted in a first edition; and I expect the observations of the Board of Works upon those drafts to-morrow. I will deal with the subject as soon as possible; but fear I cannot at present name a day for the introduction of the Bills.

  ARMY—SECONDING OF OFFICERS APPOINTED TO SERVE IN THE EGYPTIAN ARMY.
  MR. AETHUR O'CONNORasked the Secretary of State for War, If he will state what are the intentions with regard to the seconding of the Officers recently appointed to serve with the Egyptian Army?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, officers permitted to serve with the Egyptian Army will, after three months of such service, be seconded in their regiments under the usual seconding regulation.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF PAUPER CHILDREN IN MOUNT MELLICK WORKHOUSE—DR. BOURKE'S INQUIRY.
  MR. AETHUE O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he will state the result of the inquiry on the 4th instant by Dr. Bourke, Local Government Board Inspector, regarding the industrial teaching of the pauper children in the Mountmellick Workhouse?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the result of the inquiry is, that the Local Government Board have consented to the appointment of one of the two women whose selection as teachers was originally objected to. In the case of the other, the Inspector's Report has not enabled the Board to alter their previous decision, as the woman has three children, who it is proposed should remain as paupers in the workhouse. The Board considered that it would be detrimental to the good order and discipline of a workhouse, if the children of its officers resided in the house as pauper inmates.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked, whether the right hop. Gentleman was

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  not aware that the Board of Guardians found it practically impossible to find any other person to give the children industrial teaching?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, it was for that reason that the appointment of one of the two women was sanctioned.

  ARMY—CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTANCE OF RECRUITS.
  COLONEL MAKINSasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether any, and, if any, what, modifications have been made in the conditions for accepting recruits for the Army; and, if a confidential Circular has been sent to Officers Commanding Districts on the subject?
  THE MARQUESS OF HAETINGTON: Sir, the modifications which have been made are those explained in my speech in introducing the Army Estimates. The Circular referred to gives discretionary power to officers commanding districts to finally approve recruits who, in their opinion, as well as in that of the medical officers, are, though slightly tinder the minimum standard, likely to become efficient soldiers.
  In reply to Sir WALTER B. BARTTELOT,
  THE MARQUESS OF HAETINGTONsaid, that it was not possible yet to state what effect the Easter Manœuvres had had in the obtaining of recruits.

  POST OFFICE—TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT—PORTERAGE OF TELEGRAMS.
  MR. DALRYMPLEasked the Postmaster General, Whether, in view of the proposed cheapening of telegrams, he will consider the possibility of reducing the heavy charge of one shilling a mile for delivery at long distances, a charge which in remote country places, where the need of the telegrap his greatly-felt, puts it beyond the reach of all but the wealthy?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I may state that the charge of 1s. per mile is for the delivery of telegrams by mounted messengers at distances of three or more miles. The whole charge is paid over to the messenger, and the Post Office makes no profit out of it. In Ireland, where mounted messengers can generally be procured at 8d. a-mile, that is all that is charged. It is only the actual cost of delivery that the public are required to pay in any
  76
  case, and if a message can be sent by a foot messenger, instead of a mounted messenger at a cheaper rate, no objection is made to this being done.

  PARLIAMENT—MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE.
  SIR MASSEY LOPESasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he has now completed the arrangements for giving effect to the Resolution of 13th May 1881, with reference to the appointment of a Minister of Agriculture and Commerce; and, if so, whether he would explain to the House the nature of the changes that have been made in the several Departments concerned?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I stated some time ago that the Government were prepared with a plan for giving effect to the pledge that they gave the House now a considerable time ago. I also stated that we should take care that the House should be put in possession of the particulars of the plan, and that the matter should be brought before the House at a period perfectly convenient for its consideration. I cannot now name a day on which I could propose to enter on the subject owing to the state of Business; but I reiterate the pledge, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with that statement.

  CIVIL SERVICE COMPETITION—CLASS I.—CLERKSHIPS.
  BARON HENEY DE WOEMSasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is true, as stated in the "Civil Service Gazette," that a competition has lately been held for Class I. clerkships in the Civil Service, and that sixteen candidates have been selected for appointments to various Departments, although there are numerous "redundant" clerks, with from fifteen to twenty-five years' official experience in various branches of the Service waiting to be absorbed in the higher division?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, a competition for superior clerkships in the Civil Service has recently taken place. It is also the fact that, in some Departments, there are certain clerks outside the proper organization of the office, who have a claim, if qualified, to be included in the upper division of their Department as soon as vacancies occur in it. But there are no such redundants in the

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  Departments to which appointments will be made from the recent competition; and there are -very great difficulties in transferring redundant clerks, possessing such experience as is described in the Question, from one Department to another, although the advantages of such a course is not lost sight of.

  THE TRANSVAAL GOVERNMENT—DR. JORISSEN.
  MR. ONSLOWasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the object of Dr. Jorissen's visit to this Country is to induce Her Majesty's Government to consent to an alteration in the boundary line fixed by the recent Transvaal Commission; or to assure Her Majesty's Government that the Boer Government would take more determined steps than heretofore to prevent subjects of the Transvaal and others from making raids into Native territory adjoining that country; or to prevail upon Her Majesty's Government to modify any portion of the Convention; and, if not for any of these reasons, if he could inform the House of the precise object of the recent interview between Dr. Jorissen and Her Majesty's Government?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I have made inquiry at the Colonial Office, and I find the state of the case is this. Dr. Jorissen is, properly speaking, on a visit of an unofficial and personal character, not to this country, but to Holland. He has come here upon his way, and is, likewise, I understand, to return here and stay for a short time. He has had an interview with Lord Derby, in which he entered generally upon the question relating to the state of things in Bechuana-land, and in which Lord Derby understood him to state that the Chiefs had made peace amongst themselves, and that quiet was being established. This I am not giving officially; I only mention it as a fact of interest reported to me, on which we have no official information. Dr. Jorissen also said he proposed, on his return, to explain fully his views upon the position of things in the Transvaal, which Lord Derby would be very glad to hear. Dr. Jorissen has no mission from the Transvaal Government, and, as had been intimated to the hon. Member on a previous occasion, if he had, it would have been his duty, in the first place, to refer it to the High Commissioner, who is expected in this coun-
  78
  try shortly, and who will have an opportunity of advising the Government on anything which Dr. Jorissen may express. The hon. Member will see that I have no power of describing the object of the visit, nor am I in a position to afford more definite information as regards it.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, are we to understand that Dr. Jorissen will not enter into communication with the Dutch or any other foreign Government?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I cannot say that. He is here upon his own private affairs, and I do not think we have any title to expect from him an engagement upon that subject. I understood it to be an unofficial private visit to Europe, with no official mission of any kind to any Government.
  MR. ONSLOWsaid, he wished to remind the Prime Minister that, in January last, Lord Derby laid it down most distinctly that if the Boer Government wished to make any change in the Transvaal Convention, they must make their application through the Resident.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, that is not inconsistent with what I said, because it might be expedient that any application should come through the Resident. What is strictly laid down in the Convention is that, in regard to communications with foreign Powers, the Transvaal State will correspond with Her Majesty's Government, through the British Resident or the High Commissioner; so that it does not touch any question of communication with the British Government.

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—THE TINAHELY POSTMASTERSHIP.
  MR. M'COANasked the Postmaster General, Whether he will place upon the Table Copies of any Correspondence which has passed between the Post Office authorities in Dublin or London and persons objecting to the appointment, in February last, of Mr. Peter Murphy to the postmastership at Tinahely; whether the rule with regard to such appointments is not that, when once made, they are seldom or never disturbed except on the ground of misconduct on the part of the nominee, or of the unfitness of his premises for postal service; and, whether he will state to

  79
  the House the specific grounds on which the appointment of Mr. Murphy has now, in April, been cancelled?
  MR. FAWCETT,in reply, said, it was not usual to publish the correspondence which took place between the Post Office and private individuals. When a person was nominated by the Treasury to a sub-postmastership, his appointment was not confirmed unless the Postmaster General had ascertained that the person was in every respect qualified for the discharge of the duties. He might say that, with regard to the appointment of Mr. Peter Murphy to the postmastership of Tinahely, his nomination had not been cancelled, and the question as to whether he should be appointed was still under consideration.

  POST OFFICE—BUILDINGS—THE EXETER POST OFFICE.
  MR. H. S. NORTHCOTEasked the First Commissioner of Works, Why builders desirous to tender for the erection of the new Post Office at Exeter are required to attend at the office of works Bristol to inspect required drawings and specifications for the building; if he is aware that, with regard to the Post Office proposed to be built at Lincoln, a much less populous town than Exeter, arrangements have been made whereby drawings and specifications for the proposed new office can be inspected at Lincoln; and, if he will arrange that Exeter builders desirous to tender for the erection of the new Post Office shall have an opportunity of seeing the required specifications and drawings at Exeter?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, with regard to the circumstances referred to, it was too late, if it were desirable, to make any change, as the tenders had to be sent in by next Monday. The competition was an open one.

  IRELAND—ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS—THE CONSTABULAEY REPORTS.
  MR. CALLANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he will lay upon the Table of the House copies of the reports made to the Judges at the late Assizes in Ireland by the county inspectors of Royal Irish Constabulary, or copies of such portions
  80
  of those reports as relate to arrests for drunkenness?
  MR. TREVELYAN,in reply, said, that the Returns as to the number of arrests for drunkenness that took place in Ireland were laid on the Table two or three days ago. They were, practically, the same that were laid before the Judges. If the hon. Member would communicate with him privately, he dared say he would be able to give him the information he required.

  POST OFFICE (CONTEACTS)—THE IRISH MAIL SERVICE—THE PAPERS.
  MR. DAWSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, considering that a deputation on the Mail Contract between England and Ireland are to wait upon the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday, he will lay all the Correspondence and Papers on the subject at once upon the Table to enable honourable Members to become acquainted with the facts?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for having postponed this Question from yesterday, when I could not conveniently answer it. The Government will take care that the House will be fully informed of the facts of this case before they are called upon to give a decision on the subject; and they are pledged to present the Correspondence as soon as it is complete. But I would observe that tomorrow the deputation intend to address the Government, and not this House; and I therefore think that it would not be respectful to the House to present the Correspondence for this reason. I cannot but suppose that the Gentlemen who will wait on the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have already sufficiently acquainted themselves with the facts of this matter.
  MR. DAWSON: The facts that I refer to are in the Correspondence that passed between the Government and the Companies; and, until the Correspondence is laid on the Table, how can we be aware of them?
  MR. COURTNEY: I suppose the hon. Members who intend to wait on the Prime Minister have made up their minds on the matter, and must fall back upon the materials before them?
  MR. GRAY: It is impossible for people to make up their minds on figures that are not before them. What we want

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  to know is, will the figures of this contract be placed on the Table this evening?
  MR. COURTNEY: I will take care that those figures will be laid before the House in sufficient time; but, at present, it is not quite convenient to do it.

  EAST INDIA—CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AMENDMENT BILL.
  MR. O'DONNELLasked the First Lord of the Treasury, "Whether his attention has been drawn to statements made by the opponents of the Indian Criminal Code Amendment Bill, that said Bill is not desired by the Native opinion; whether, on the contrary, practical unanimity exists in the native Press upon the subject; whether a joint memorial from the British Indian Association, the Indian Association, the Mahomedan Literary Society, the National Mahomedan Association, the East Bengal Association, and the Vakils' Association of Calcutta, has been presented to the Viceroy, expressing—
  "Feelings of deep satisfaction and thankfulness for the introduction into the Viceregal Council of the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Bill with the view to removing judicial qualification of race in the trial of European British subjects in criminal cases as a step towards establishing equality in the eye of the Law, without invidious distinction of country, race, or religion;"
  and, whether Government will take any steps to supply Parliament with authentic information upon the wants and wishes of the Native people of India upon the question of establishing equality before the Law between all subjects of the Crown in India?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, it is not in our power to give the particular information to which the hon. Member's inquiry refers, and which probably he has obtained from the public journals; but our impression is very much to the effect that the hon. Member appears to desire to convey through the Question—that is, that the Indian vernacular Press, speaking generally, is very much united in approval of the measure which has been introduced by Lord Ripon and his Government. A Native Member of the Council, it is said, was opposed to the measure; but it is also stated that he was severely taken to task by those who considered themselves his constituents for adopting that course. Her Majesty's
  82
  Government has not any means of ascertaining in an official and completely authentic manner the sentiments of the Native population, and can only learn them from the Native Press, and from those with whom the Natives communicate.
  MR. MACFARLANEasked, whether the Bill preceded the Memorial, or the Memorial the Bill?
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, that the Bill was introduced antecedently to the Memorial, and the Memorial was in support of the Bill.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—PARLIAMENTARY OATHS ACT (1866) AMENDMENT BILL.
  SIR STAFFORD NOETHCOTEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, having regard to the several decisions of the Courts of Law, to the effect, on the one hand, that a Member of this House, not belonging to one of the religious denominations who are permitted by statute to make an affirmation instead of taking an oath, commits an illegal act, subjects himself to penalties, and makes void his election by sitting and voting in this House without having taken the oath required by Law, and on the other hand that such a Member can only be proceeded against by Her Majesty's Attorney General, he proposes to repeal the Standing Order 22a, of the 1st July 1880, permitting Members to make a solemn affirmation instead of taking an oath, subject to any liability under statute; or whether he would undertake that, in the event of any Member so rendering himself liable, the Attorney General shall institute the proceedings necessary to maintain and enforce the Law?
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Sir, before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question, I wish to ask, Whether, having regard to the fact that the Lord. Chancellor in his judgment on Monday, in the case of Bradlaugh v. Clarke, stated that Mr. Bradlaugh is not entitled to affirm, but is bound to swear his allegiance, the Executive intends to take steps to protect Mr. Bradlaugh from interference in fulfilling, not only what he is legally entitled to do, but what the Lord Chancellor has, in the highest Appeal Court, stated it is his bounden duty to do; and, whether, in the event of the right hon.

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  Gentleman replying in the affirmative, he will give the House the assurance that the Government will not support any Bill sent down from the House of Lords, relieving Peers from pecuinary liability for sitting and voting before taking the Oath of Allegiance—two such Bills, one, I believe, in the case of a Bishop, having been passed with the concurrence of the Government in the present Parliament?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, perhaps it would be more convenient that I should refer first to the Question which has just been put by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). With regard to the inquiry founded upon the declaration of the Lord Chancellor, as I only received a quarter of an hour ago an intimation that this declaration had been made, I am quite ignorant of the terms and circumstances to which reference has been made. I think, therefore, I had better not make any answer upon that declaration without particulars, and without consultation with the Lord Chancellor before I make an answer. With regard to the second Question, I am not prepared to give any pledge upon the subject of Bills which may appear at a future time for relieving noble Lords from penalties in consequence of certain omissions on their part, because the course we may take upon those Bills would depend in a great measure on the circumstances under which the omission had taken place. I am afraid that I cannot give any positive answer upon either point. With regard to the Question of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford Northcote), I am much obliged to him for having placed this Question before me. The Question begins by reciting two judgments which have taken place—one of them a judgment which put a negative upon any right to merely optional declaration in this House, that was given in relation to the case of Mr. Bradlaugh; and the other, the judgment which has determined that what is called the "common informer" cannot prosecute, and that there can only be a prosecution by the Attorney General. Under those circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman asks, whether we are prepared to move the repeal of the Standing Order which allowed Mr. Bradlaugh to declare, sub-
  84
  ject to liability in a Court of Justice; or, if we are not prepared to move that repeal, we will undertake that, in the event of any Member so rendering himself liable, the Attorney General shall institute the proceedings necessary to maintain and enforce the law. With regard to the repeal of the Standing Order, what we think is that we had better reserve consideration of that subject until the House has determined the course they think fit to take with regard to the Affirmation Bill. With regard to the other question, whether the Attorney General will undertake, on behalf of the Government, to institute proceedings in the event of what would now be a breach of the law in a Member tendering himself to declare, in face of the judgment of the Courts, I have to say that undoubtedly we do undertake that the Attorney General will think it his duty to institute the proceedings necessary in the case.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Prime Minister, Whether the Cabinet, before proposing the Resolution of the 1st of July, 1880, for the acceptance of the House, consulted the Law Officers of the Crown, the Lord Chancellor, or the Judges of the Appellate Court, as to the opinion subsequently expressed by the Solicitor General in the course of the debate as to the competency of a Court of Law to decide the question, when—
  "He asserted, with the utmost confidence if he (Mr. Bradlaugh) was sued for penalties, no Resolution of that House would for a moment stand in the way of the proceeding?"
  MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Gentleman has put to me rather a difficult and complicated Question; but, speaking from recollection, I am not aware that the Cabinet have entered upon the consideration of the matter to which the hon. Member refers. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General did, in the exercise of his duty, in this House give a certain opinion, and I believe that opinion was fully confirmed and corroborated by the judgment of the Court of Appeal. If the hon. Gentleman thinks it desirable that I should make further inquiry into the matter, perhaps he will give Notice of the Question.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFgave Notice that he would repeat his Question on Monday.

  PARLIAMENT—GRAND COMMITTEES—REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES.
  MR. SHEIL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is aware that in the Standing Committee Boom E. there is not space for more than some fifteen person in the part reserved for the Members of the House who are not Members of the Committee; how Members of the House are to obtain an authoritative knowledge of the proceedings and speeches in the Standing Committees; and, whether since the reports of debates in this House which appear in the newspapers frequently differ, and that an official reporter attends on Select Committees, whose reports of the proceedings of such Committees are sent to every Member of the House, if he would consider whether an official report of the proceedings and speeches in the Standing Committees should not be made? I wish to say that the last part of the Question does not appear on the Paper in the form in which I gave the Notice.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I can only answer the Question as it stands upon the Paper; and, in doing so, I must refer the hon. Member to the explanation I have already given to him, when he put the Question tome the other day. Of course, the hon. Member is aware that I have no authority to settle the accommodation provided in the Grand Committee Rooms; but I understand the Question to be an appeal to me in regard to a complaint as to a certain state of things which is alleged to exist in connection with the now Grand Committee Rooms. If that is so, I am bound to say I think it would be a mistake, at this moment, at the very commencement of the trial of an interesting and important experiment, if a very large provision were made, on the assumption that there would always be a great number of the Members of this House in attendance upon the proceedings of these Grand Committees. As far as I am able to judge, I believe that the space allotted to Members of the House who are not Members of the Committees is sufficient. Then, with regard to obtaining authoritative knowledge of the proceedings of these Committees, as the hon. Gentleman knows, he has the different journals
  86
  to refer to, and he has, in addition, the power of personal attendance, in which he is not likely to be obstructed; and, finally, he has the power of referring to the Report of the proceedings of the Committees, which is supplied from day to day to this House. With regard to the hon. Member's final interrogatory, whether, as an official reporter attends on Select Committees, whose reports of the proceedings of such Committees are sent to every Member of the House, I would consider whether an official report of the proceedings and speeches of the Standing Committees should not be made, I may say that the case, with regard to the Select Committees, is this—the Questions and Answers are reported in full, and in shorthand, and they appear afterwards as official reports of the evidence; but there is no official report of the proceedings of a Select Committee as far as the speeches are concerned neither in shorthand nor in full. All that is given is the proceedings in the same sense as the record of the proceeding of this House. The reporting of speeches in Select Committees has never been thought of. I have already said, and I must adhere to the opinion I have expressed, that it would be premature and inconvenient in the present position of the subject to consider the question of official reports of speeches in connection with the sittings of the Grand Committees.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE TRANSVAAL DEBATE.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, considering that his first Amendment upon the Transvaal Debate contained the statement that the Transvaal Government were unable to restrain certain destructive agencies in Bechuana-land, and that he has now withdrawn the distinct assertion, which for more than three weeks formed an essential part of the Government statement of fact upon which they relied for a Vote of Confidence from the House, he will place the House, before the Debate is resumed, in possession of the now facts which have caused the Government to change their opinions during the last three weeks on the vital question of the good faith of the Boer Government?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, this Question of the noble Lord has, I think,

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  been put in some misapprehension of the facts of the case. As I understand them, there is no change of opinion whatever on the part of the Government respecting the good faith of the Transvaal Government; but, as it has been represented to me that the words used in the Motion tended to imply an opinion of the good faith of that Government, it would be better, perhaps, that that subject should not be introduced at all. It is no part of the case before us, as we view it, to make any charge against the good faith of the Transvaal Government. I do not think we have evidence warranting the discussion of the question, and therefore we shall not do it, if we make the suggested change in the Motion, the question at issue not being affected in any way by this change. In the opinion of the Government, the Motion referred to by the noble Lord is no Vote of Confidence in the slightest degree, but rather in the nature of an indication of the desire of the House, and in the nature of a direction from the House to the Government. It is no Vote of Confidence; it implies no approbation, and says nothing which can be so construed.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies a Question, of which he had given him private Notice, As to what interpretation the Government put upon the words of the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as to the making of adequate provision for the Bechuana Chiefs?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEYsaid, he could only refer the right hon. Gentleman to an answer which he gave quite recently on the subject to the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Cropper). To that answer he could add nothing.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Was it the fact that adequate provision was to be made for the Chiefs alone, and not for the people?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY,in reply, said, the only communication they had sent had reference to the Chiefs, and their immediate followers.
  MR. CROPPERasked, what were the penalties incurred for the sale and transport of powder from the Colonies to Bechuanaland?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY,in reply, said, the maximum penalty was £500, or five years' penal servitude.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he desired to qualify a portion of the answer he gave to the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) with reference to the Transvaal. He implied the opinion that if Dr. Jorissen had come as representing the Transvaal Government, he could not have made his application direct, but through the High Commissioner. He wished to withdraw that assertion, and to express no opinion upon it.

  PARLIAMENT—PARLIAMENTARY OATH (MR. BRADLAUGH).
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLasked the Prime Minister, Whether, in consequence of the ground on which recent judgment of the House of Lords proceeded, it was intended that the Attorney General should now institute proceedings against Mr. Bradlaugh for sitting and voting in Parliament without having taking the Oath prescribed by law?
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, that the Government had no such intention, because the circumstances in which Mr. Bradlaugh had sat and voted were wholly different from the prospective case contemplated by the hon. Baronet, and were such as would not justify any such action being taken.

  PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Perhaps it would be convenient that I should now state the course of Public Business during the next week. This evening will probably be occupied with the second reading of the Criminal Code Bill, and we are not without hope that the debate will be brought to a conclusion this evening, and the Bill referred to a Standing Committee. Upon that assumption, I look a little forward, and wish to state that, in my opinion, the time has now come when the Message may be brought down from the Crown relating to our intention to propose a grant of certain annuities to Lord Wolseley and Lord Alcester, in recognition of their services in Egypt. In that case the regular course would be that it should be taken into consideration on Monday, when it would form the first Business. After that we propose to proceed with the Patents Bill, and if any part of the evening remains available, we shall go to the Business of Supply.
  MR. A. F. EGERTONasked, when the Navy Estimates would be taken?
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, he could not make any further declaration as to the course of Business until the Criminal Code Bill was read a second time.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he intended to proceed with the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): Not to-night, nor to-morrow; but I may be able then to say when I shall.
  MR. BERESFORD-HOPEasked, when the next stage of the Ballot Act Continuance and Amendment Bill would be taken?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,in reply, said, that when the Bill next came on, and the Speaker left the Chair, he would not take the Hours of Polling Clause. He should not move that the Speaker do leave the Chair after 11 o'clock that night.
  MR. ONSLOWasked, whether, if the debate on the Transvaal should not be finished to-morrow, it should be adjourned until the Tuesday or Friday following?
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, that to-morrow they should see what might be done.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to give Notice that I shall oppose the grants of money to Lord Wolseley and Lord Alcester.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Considering the nature of the proposal, and that it would arise on that of a Message from the Crown, is it not much better that my hon. Friend should be satisfied to oppose it when we introduce it in a Bill, when it would come forward regularly as an Order of the Day?
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Certainly.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: I beg to give Notice that on the Votes for the grants to Lord Wolseley and Lord Alcester, I shall support the grant to Lord Wolseley, he having saved our money and lives; but I shall oppose the grant to Lord Alcester, on the ground that he only did his duty.
  Subsequently,
  MR. GLADSTONEstated that, in order not to keep hon. Members in uncertainty, he would now say that the Government would restrict themselves to Bills on Monday.

ORDER OF THE DAY.
  CRIMINAL CODE (INDICTABLE OFFENCES PROCEDURE) BILL.
  (Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  CRIMINAL CODE (INDICTABLE OFFENCES PROCEDURE) BILL.

    [BILL 8.] SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
    MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: I rise, Sir, to a point of Order. I wish to call your attention to the fact that Part VIII. of the Bill, which we are now asked to read a second time, is the same in substance as the Bill the second reading of which was resolved in the affirmative on Monday last. I presume that you. Sir, take official cognizance of the contents of that Bill. Its object and its title is "To Establish a Court of Appeal in Criminal Cases." Part VIII. of this Bill also proposes to do the same thing by providing that any five Judges of the High Court shall be a Court of Appeal in criminal cases. And it is further proposed that that Court, when constituted, shall deal with the same subject-matters as those which are included in the Bill already referred to the Grand Committee—that is to say, the constitution, jurisdiction, and evidence which appertain to a Criminal Appeal Court. Now, I wish to call your attention to the law of Parliament on this matter, as stated in the book to which we all refer. I find that in page 305 of Sir Erskine May's book, it is said—
    "It is a rule, in both Houses, not to permit any question or bill to be offered, which is substantially the same as one on which their judgment has been expressed in the current session. This is necessary, in order to avoid contradictory decisions, to prevent surprises, and to afford proper opportunities for determining the several questions as they arise. If the same question could be proposed again and again, a session would have no end, or only one question could be determined; and it would be resolved first in the affirmative, and then in the negative, according to the accidents to which all voting is liable, and a mere alteration of the words of a question, without any substantial change in its object, will not be sufficient to evade this rule."
    And then, Sir Erskine May proceeds to quote precedents—

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    "On the 7th July, IS 10, Mr. Speaker called I attention to a motion for a hill to relieve I Dissenters from the payment of Church rates before he proposed the question from the Chair. Its form and words were different from those of a previous motion, but its object was substantially the same, and the House agreed that it was irregular, and ought not to be proposed from the Chair. Again, on the 15th of May, 1860, the order for the second reading of the Charity Trustees Bill was withdrawn, as it was discovered to be substantially the same as the Endowed Schools Bill, which the House had already put off for sis months."
    Now, the Charity Trusts Bill and the Endowed Schools Bill, are precisely on all fours with the case before us the former simply provided that persons of any religious denomination might be trustees of a charity. The latter dealt with the government of endowed schools, with the masters, scholars, parents, course of teaching, &c. But because the two Bills happened to coincide in admitting to trusteeship persons of any religious denomination, the Speaker declared their objects substantially the same, and declared the rule in these words—
    "That a question being once made and carried in the affirmative or negative cannot be questioned again, but must stand as the judgment of the House."
    You will see, Sir, that affirmation and negation in this case are convertible terms, and that it does not matter whether the former Bill has been affirmed or negatived. You will also notice that the question must be decided by the Speaker, and not by the majority of the House. Now, in order to test whether Part VIII. of the present Bill is not identical with the Criminal Appeal Bill, I may call attention to the fact that there is an Amendment upon the Paper, which was suggested by the speech and Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) on the former Bill. That Amendment is to the effect—
    "That no Bill on Criminal Procedure will be satisfactory to this House which diminishes the responsibility of the jury by giving an appeal against their verdict."
    Now, that is an Amendment which would have been fatal to the first Bill; and I ask whether every speech made for and against the Criminal Appeal Bill, would not, when we discuss this Amendment, be pertinent to the Bill now proposed? This, therefore, is a second Bill
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    on the same subject, and if the Government should persevere in the course they have taken, may they not bring in a third Bill, and may not every one of the 600 Members of this House bring in a Criminal Appeal Bill sandwiched in this way between the clauses of another Bill? If that is done, that which Sir Erskine May so clearly prophesied, will inevitably take place. The Session will have no end, and the only possible result can be the passing of one Bill. In point of fact, if we accept the Amendment I have read to you, we shall come to a contradictory conclusion on the same matter, in the same Session; and the object aimed at in this rule is to prevent the possibility of such a thing occurring. I would also suggest this further test—supposing the first Bill had been rejected, would it then have been possible, in that case, for the Government to have brought in this second Bill, containing, as it does, a number of clauses to secure an object which had been already rejected by the House? I have pointed out to you, Sir, that, according to precedent, whether a Bill is affirmed or rejected, the rule which forbids its re-discussion is precisely the same. All I ask you now is, whether Part VIII. of the Bill now before us is not substantially the same as the Criminal Appeal Bill. If you declare it to be the same, then, I presume, the House will accept your ruling, and not proceed with the second reading of the present Bill? I may also add that the hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill has already admitted that the two measures with regard to Criminal Appeal are practically the same in principle, and that it is only in matters of detail that they differ.
    MR. SPEAKER: I have examined the two Bills to which the hon. Member refers. The scope of the one is limited to providing a Court of Appeal; the other has a much wider scope. Now, these are both measures for the consideration of the House; and, as the House is well aware, it very often has before it several Bills for effecting the same object. No doubt, if one of these Bills were rejected by this House, and it were proposed then to proceed with another Bill substantially the same, it would be irregular. But no Bill has been yet rejected by this House on this matter; and I see no ground for interposing between the hon.

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    and learned Gentleman and the House with respect to the Bill now before the House. With regard, to the quotation which the hon. Gentleman has cited, it does not apply, because that quotation does not refer to Bills under the consideration of this House. These two Bills are now under the consideration of the House, and it is open to the House to take whichever Bill it prefers, or to consolidate them if it thinks it necessary to do so.
    MR. MORGAN LLOYD,in rising to move, as an Amendment to the Motion—
    "That, in the opinion of this House, no Bill is satisfactory which, in a trial for criminal offence, directly or indirectly compels the accused person or his or her wife or husband to submit to cross-examination,"
    said, he wished to support the Bill, and not to throw any difficulty in the way of its second reading. But he thought there were some provisions in the Bill which ought to be discussed in the House, and not left to be disposed of in the Grand Committee. Those were provisions which involved a fundamental change in some of the most cherished principles upon which the administration of our Criminal Law was founded. It had always been a recognized principle of our law that no man was bound to criminate himself, and persons accused of crime were, therefore, incapable of giving evidence either for or against themselves. Now, the present Bill proposed to depart from those principles, and to make prisoners admissible witnesses and liable to cross-examination. In other words, it proposed to substitute the Continental for the English system. It would be said, no doubt, that prisoners were only made admissible witnesses on their own behalf, and were not compelled to give evidence for the prosecution; but would anyone say that if a prisoner was by law an admissible witness for the defence, he would not be morally compelled to give evidence? If he did not tender himself as a witness, his silence would be taken as an admission of guilt. To enable him to give evidence was, therefore, to compel him to do so. The change was proposed in favour of the accused; but would he be benefited by the change? He could now make a statement not upon oath, if not defended by counsel, and many Judges had allowed him to do so even
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    when so defended. Would his statement obtain greater credence if given on oath? At present, the Judge hold the balance fairly between the prisoner and his accuser; but if the proposed change were made, the Judge might come into conflict with the prisoner, and there was danger that at English criminal trials such scenes as had been seen in Continental countries might occasionally be witnessed. Another objection to the change was that it would lead to perjury. If a prisoner gave evidence, he would be bound in self-defence to deny his guilt. If convicted of the crime charged, he would therefore be virtually convicted of perjury. Was he to be tried and punished for the perjury? And, if not, what a spectacle would be presented to the country of perjury going unpunished. He thought the proposed change most dangerous, and trusted it would not be adopted by the House. He begged to move the Amendment which stood upon the Paper in his name.
    There being no Seconder, the Question was not put.
    MR. INDERWICK,who had given Notice of the following Amendment:—
    "That no reform of the Procedure in Criminal Cases will be satisfactory which does not provide that the evidence of persons charged with crimes and offences shall be taken in all respects as if they were defendants in civil causes,"
    said, that, in dealing with the question, they ought to adopt some general and comprehensive principle, and not proceed in the partial way they were then doing; and the best system to adopt in our criminal legislation was that which would so conduct the investigation as most certainly to elicit the truth. In recent times the tendency of legislation had been, not only to permit plaintiffs and defendants to give evidence on their own behalf in civil cases, but actually to compel defendants to give evidence against themselves. This remark would also apply to certain offences under the Licensing and other Acts, and to proceedings to be taken under the recently and rapidly-passed Explosives Act; and it was further extended in bankruptcy cases, where bankrupts were compelled to answer questions as to the disposal of their property, whether those questions tended to convict them of a criminal offence or not. As an instance of the impolicy of the rule which enabled par-

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    ties to avoid asking questions tending to criminate, he might refer to the sale of commissions in the Army. There were questions constantly arising upon the payment of over-regulation prices, and Messrs. Cox, the Army Agents, were examined over and over again, but declined to answer, as they were not bound to criminate themselves. Now, such a system could never have arisen but from the fact that the evidence of what really took place could never be obtained. Thus the House had to regard those illegal sales as an established practice, and the country had to pay accordingly. Another privilege of defendants was, that their husbands or wives, as the case might be, could not give evidence against them during the continuance of the marriage. The Bill had adopted the principle that defendants should be competent to give evidence in trials for indictable offences, if they thought proper. But the Commissioners had not had the courage to follow out the principle to its full logical extent. Undoubtedly, the great majority of the people of this country, and probably of that House, recognized that it would only be just and right to allow prisoners to give evidence. He hoped, therefore, that when the Bill wont before the Grand Committee, that Committee would take into its consideration that such was the case. He might quote on that side the opinion of Mr. Russell Gurney, than whom, from the great amount of his experience as a Criminal Judge, there could be no greater authority on the subject, given in speaking on the Bill of 1878, which was introduced by the hon. Gentleman the present Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Evelyn Ashley). Mr. Gurney said that the whole object was the ascertainment of the truth, and that the proposals of the Bill took away a great burden from his mind; for he could not bear that any jury should convict a fellow-man until all the evidence that it was possible to obtain had been thoroughly sifted. Mr. Justice Stephen, too, in his book, stated that the power of giving evidence would be a positive assistance to the innocent, and no hardship to the guilty. The old law had been altered in respect of matrimonial offences, and the new law was found to work well. He (Mr. Inderwick) had had especial experience of the working
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    of the system, and never heard any objection raised against it. His hon. Friend who had just sat down had objected to the Amendment on the ground that it was un-English. That might be so, at the present time, in the sense that it was not part of the English law; but it had not always been so. It was formerly the law of this country that accused persons might be examined by the Judge, and the questions put by the presiding Judge to the prisoner were generally found to assist the innocent. It was so in the earliest State trials, in which many instances might be found of questions addressed to prisoners. It was, however, said that an innocent man might, by his nervousness or timidity, give the impression of guilt, and that an ignorant man might, in his ignorance, say something which might incriminate himself. If he thought so, he should not introduce such an Amendment; but, from his own experience, he believed that cross-examination would be in favour of an innocent person, for during its course it would be able to set right any mistake he might have made in his direct examination. After all, the thing to be considered was the best way of arriving at the truth. There was, no doubt, a good deal of cross-swearing in civil actions, the plaintiff stating one thing and the defendant another; but, on the whole, justice was done and the truth ascertained. He would place the defendant in a criminal action, that was, the accused person, in the same position as the defendant in a civil suit, and allow him to tell his own story. The questioning of a prisoner by the Judge, so as to give him an opportunity of making his statement on any point with regard to which explanation was required, was a kind of questioning that would be directly in favour of the prisoner, if he were innocent. To put the prisoner in a criminal suit in precisely the same position as a defendant in a civil suit would, in the first place, have the effect of relieving many innocent persons from grave suspicion. The prisoner would have the benefit of his cross-examination, if he were innocent; and, on the other hand, the country would have the benefit of it, if the result of the examination should terminate in the demonstration of his guilt. His view was that the prisoner should be put on his oath, and examined and cross-examined, when he

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    came up for trial, either before a magistrate or a Judge of Assize. He would place the man in the witness-box, and not in the dock. He desired to draw attention to this circumstance. The Bill, in its present shape, provided that the accused might be a competent witness for himself on his trial. He would not, however, delay that step so long, for, in his opinion, the time when it was most important that a man should be a competent witness on his own behalf was when the charge was first brought against him. He would, therefore, allow a person charged with a criminal offence to give evidence, and make any explanation he might have, at the earliest opportunity—namely, before the magistrates, and before he had time to concoct a story to explain away any suspicions which might attach to him. Thus the prisoner would have a good chance of escaping the imprisonment preliminary to a trial; for if, on inquiry, his statements were found to be true, and he could show his innocence, he would, of course, be set a liberty at once; while, if he were guilty, the power of the prosecuting counsel to question him would often have the effect of preventing him from setting up one of those false alibis which were a scandal to the administration of the law at the present day.
    MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON,in rising to move, as an Amendment—
    "That no Bill on Criminal Procedure will be satisfactory to this House which does not provide for the return of the verdict by a majority of the jurors; the public interrogation of the accused before committal and before conviction; and the assignment of counsel to prisoners,"
    said, he regretted the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had not thought it worth while to explain what alterations in the present system Her Majesty's Government were prepared to accept; for, in his (Mr. Leighton's) opinion, a subject of this sort ought to be brought to the touch of public opinion, and not kept wholly in the hands of Judges and lawyers. Our laws should be brought into harmony with common sense. English law was founded not in reason, but on precedent. Lawyers were not jurists. Many Judges, like Mr. Justice Lush and Mr. Justice Blackburn, who were on the Commission for the Codification of the Law, had probably never gone into a Criminal Court before they were raised to the Judicial Bench;
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    Few lawyers had ever been present at the proceedings before the committing magistrates; still fewer had ever been inside a gaol; and, consequently, they were unable to realize how helpless the position of a prisoner was before he was brought to trial. Mr. Justice Stephen, whose opinions were in many instances overruled, was the only one of the Commissioners who was a jurist and criminal lawyer. Many of the defects of the present system were stereotyped in the Bill—for instance, no real attempt was made to amalgamate the Scotch and the English Criminal Codes. The subject of bail, again, was one which required attention, as, under the existing law, it was possible for a prosecutor to be imprisoned while a prisoner escaped. It had happened that the captain of a Russian vessel, robbed of his watch the day before his vessel should sail, declined to be bound over to prosecute, and was therefore detained in prison, while the accused was admitted to bail, and absconded; so that when the day for the trial came the prosecutor, who had lost his watch, had been imprisoned a fortnight, and the thief escaped scot free. Injustice was also done by the exclusion of the evidence of those who did not understand or acknowledge the nature of an oath. A minister had been waylaid and robbed by two members of his congregation, and the only witness was a little girl, who, as she was attending a board school, did not understand the nature of an oath. The result was that the case was dismissed for want of evidence. The question of keeping up the distinction between felony and misdemeanour was one which required to be carefully considered. This Bill defined the evidence requisite for a committal as evidence sufficient to put a man upon his trial. Now, clearly this was no definition at all; the true test should be whether, in the opinion of the magistrates, there was evidence sufficient to procure a conviction. Among the omissions from the Bill was the absence of a provision for the summary punishment for false swearing, which would enable that offence to be as promptly dealt with as a contempt of Court, which was the system in Scotland. He now addressed himself to the special points of his Amendment. This country was quite singular in requiring unanimity on the part of a jury. Elsewhere

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    verdicts were taken of 11 to 1, 8 to 7, 8 to 4, 6 to 3, and of a bare majority. Scotland, France, India, our other Crown Colonies—everywhere, in fact, where trial by jury existed—the verdict of the majority was accepted except in England. The unreasonableness of one man on a jury was able to control the reason of 11. Bentham said we obtained unanimity by torture, and a verdict was a compromise. Hallam said the law requiring unanimity was a relic of barbarism; and the verdict of a majority was supported by lawyers of the highest eminence. There was no reason why the practice in English Courts of Justice should be different to that in other Courts of Justice, or to that of public Assemblies, or a Bench of Judges, where all questions were decided by a majority. The Commission appointed by the House in 1835 had reported in favour of a change in this respect; and one, at least, of the learned Judges who had sat on the Commission had also thought it necessary. The present system was founded on a misunderstanding of the origin of English juries, who were witnesses of the facts rather than judges of the evidence in early times. Neither in Anglo-Saxon nor in feudal times was unanimity essential. The system of interrogating prisoners worked well in Scotland; until recently, it had been practised in England also. The fact was that the modern plan of allowing counsel to prisoners had virtually closed their mouths. This privilege was only permitted as late as 1836. When a prisoner was obliged to defend himself, he was virtually bound to answer the evidence brought against him, which was a very different thing from being defended by counsel, with his own mouth conveniently closed. Our present system was very unfavourable to poor, illiterate, and undefended prisoners. He desired, therefore, to permit the interrogation of prisoners, but not without the safeguards provided by the Scotch law. Then, again, the prisoner ought to have a right to see the depositions without paying for them. If the public examination of the prisoner appeared on the depositions, then the Judge at the trial would be able to understand what was the line of his defence, and assist him in it. The law as it stood now was strongly in favour of the rich, the educated, and, it must be added, the guilty: and he cordially
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    shared the opinion of Mr. Justice Stephen, that the interrogation of prisoners ought to be permitted, as giving them the opportunity of establishing their innocence, or providing the means of proving their guilt. The last part of the Amendment related to the assignment of counsel to the accused in every case, which, he contended, ought to be the invariable rule, and should not be done only in cases which involved issues of life and death. Precisely the same care to secure a right verdict should be taken in every case; and if the Government and the country were too stingy to provide for the payment of counsel, counsel should be assigned without payment. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he would second the Amendment, because he thought the hon. Member (Mr. Leighton) had got the right sow by the ear, or, he might say, had got several right sows by the ear. At the same time, he hoped the hon. Member would not press the Amendment too far, because he (Sir George Campbell) very much hoped that this Bill would be read a second time; and the effect of the Amendment, if carried, would be to defeat the second reading, and thus destroy the Bill, the only defect in which was that it did not go far enough.
    THE SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member second the Amendment?
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL,in reply, said, that he would second the Amendment as a matter of principle. From the Queen's Speech, they were led to believe that they should have to deal with the codification of the Criminal Law; but, after that, it was altered to a Bill dealing with criminal procedure; and now, when it was absolutely introduced, they found it only dealt with a fragment of that procedure as regarded indictable offences, while there were many things connected with that subject which were of the utmost importance, and which it did not touch. He might mention, as examples, the constitution of the Courts, and of common juries; whether the verdict of the jury was to be unanimous, or by a bare majority, or by what majority; how witnesses were to be examined; the subject of oaths, and so on. In almost all other countries it was not considered necessary that 12 jurors

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    should agree. His hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Inderwick) thought that the defendant ought to be examined, as in civil cases. For his own part, he (Sir George Campbell) would very much prefer a public examination of the accused before committal and before conviction. In regard to the interrogation of the accused, when he was apprehended, and in several other respects, the Criminal Law of Scotland, as was admitted by all who had had any experience of its working, was much superior to the English law; and in England it might be of great advantage to draw instruction and example from the Scotch law. He had spent most of his life in India, under a system in which the interrogation of the accused occupied a most important place, and had acted as an Appellate Criminal Judge. He almost invariably found that, in order to come to an opinion as to the nature of a case, about the first thing that was asked was—what did the accused say? He could testify to the fact that, in the interests of the innocent man, much more than in the interests of the prosecution, it was essential that an opportunity should be given to the accused of stating his case. In former days, while the English criminal procedure prevailed in Calcutta, he, as Judge of the High Court, tried a case of serious robbery of which two persons were accused, one or other of whom was guilty. One happened to be rich, and employed counsel, who defended him ably. The other was undefended, and apparently totally unable to conduct his own defence. To the surprise of the clerk he told the interpreter to ask the man to state what he had got to say, and he burst into so eloquent a defence that he was acquitted and the other was found guilty. Though he should not like to see the accused examined on oath, he certainly thought he ought to be judicially interrogated, so that he could give an explanation of his case; and he hoped that matter would be fully considered in detail when the Bill was sent to the Grand Committee.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "no Bill on Criminal Procedure will be satisfactory to this House which does not provide for the return of the verdict by a majority of the jurors; the public interrogation of the ac-
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    cused before committal and before conviction; and the assignment of counsel to prisoners,"—(Sir. Stanley Leighton,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
    Main Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. A. ELLIOTsaid, he thought the Bill under Notice was an important measure which might be considered in two lights; either in the light of a measure to codify the law, or in the light of a measure introducing some proposals not very numerous, but of a very important character. As to the codification part of the Bill, he shared the regret of his hon. Friend (Sir George Campbell) that it did not go further; and he very much regretted the Government had not introduced the very complete measure to which had been devoted an enormous amount of time and trouble on the part of some of the ablest lawyers. It seemed to him a somewhat strange thing that when English lawyers met together to consider criminal procedure, it did not strike them, as it struck everyone acquainted with other systems, that it was the enormous cumbersomeness of the English system that was so trying—the enormous amount of trouble that was taken, and with so very little result. What happened in the case of murder committed in England? Why, first of all, there was an inquiry before a Coroner and 12 jurors, then the case was investigated by a magistrate, afterwards by the Grand Jury, consisting generally of 23 gentlemen, and, finally, by a Judge and jury; so that they had, at least, something like 50 persons altogether inquiring into the one case. In such a case in Scotland the preliminary inquiry would be by the Public Prosecutor, who would go to the scene of the murder, and make his own inquiries and examine witnesses on the spot, and ask questions of the prisoner himself; and after that the case would be ripe and ready for the final tribunal—a Judge and 15 jurymen. The question of the advisability of Coroners' inquiries into such cases had often been considered; and at Liverpool, some years ago, the Solicitor General recommended the total abolition of such inquiries, and he (Mr. Elliot) would even go further and say that the Grand

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    Juries as a system might be dispensed with. The inconvenience caused to jurymen by attendance at Quarter Sessions, which were held in boroughs every six weeks, was very great. It was, therefore, desirable to consider whether some change in the system requiring their attendance ought not to be effected. He should be sorry to say anything about the Scottish system which would seem to suppose that it could be brought wholesale into England; but with respect to the question of public prosecutions, it should be remembered that had been recommended by some of the greatest of the English Judges; and, in 1874, the Judicature Commission reported in favour of the system which placed every criminal case from the very commencement in the hands of Public Prosecutors. There were many important changes that required making—for instance, with regard to the examination of prisoners, he thought it was desirable not merely that the prisoner should be examined before the trial, but that he should be examined, with proper safeguards, when he was before the Judge. Another desirable change which had not been adverted to in the Bill was the simplification of indictments.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. A. ELLIOT,continuing, said, that another matter that required careful consideration, though of minor importance, was the question of dealing with special juries in criminal cases, as it would be extremely undesirable that there should be the appearance of having class juries. There were certain cases where crimes were committed that required close attention on the part of the juries, the cases, such as frauds, being of a complex and intricate nature. Still, he did not approve of the proposals that were made in the Bill, as he thought it should be provided that only in cases of complexity should special juries be granted. In this matter, also, they might again look across the Border and see what was done there. In Scotland there were no special juries, but they had a mixture of special jurymen on every panel, which insured certain men being upon each jury who were capable of thoroughly understanding the case.
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    Those were all the remarks that he would now trouble the House with upon the Bill; but he must say he was surprised at the little interest that was taken in such an important subject beyond the interest taken in it by legal Gentlemen, especially when it was remembered that it was a Bill that effected important changes, and touched all classes.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, there were very serious changes contemplated by that Bill in the administration of the Criminal Law—many of them, he thought, very great improvements. For instance, he had always thought that the Statute limiting the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions was a very wise measure; but he agreed that the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions required alteration, and he had not the smallest doubt that when the Bill came back from the Grand Committee the clauses bearing on this point would be very much improved. It had always seemed to him that the existing law on the subject drew a line which satisfied nobody; because, whilst, on the one hand, Quarter Sessions had some very difficult cases to deal with, on the other hand these powers were circumscribed in much more trivial matters. There was a new provision in the Bill on which he should like to make a remark. It was one which, although it was contained in the Explosive Substances Bill passed the other day, would require consideration—namely, the power to examine into a suspected offence before any person was charged at all. That, he thought, in many cases might be a very proper proceeding to be exercised. At the present moment he had forgotten what the practice in Scotland was in that respect; but his impression was it was the universal practice. He did not agree with a remark recently made by the hon. Member opposite (Sir Georgo Campbell), to the effect that the Criminal Law of Scotland was very much better than that of England; in some respects it was still, if he might say so, in a very barbarous state, especially the long examinations sometimes held in the absence of the accused person. That, in this country, we should not stand at all. He was not quite certain whether, as a matter of justice, it might not be necessary to introduce some safeguards into the preliminary inquiry, in order to protect the interests of those who might be suspected, but who

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    were practically innocent. First, with, regard to the provision respecting Special Juries, he would admit that, in some cases, it was necessary to have Special Juries; but, on the whole, this proposal should be watched with the greatest care. No man, simply because he had more money than another, ought to have the right to be tried by a Special Jury; and he should be sorry that the notion should get abroad that such a man could be tried by a different class of people. As to the form of the indictment, nothing could be more absurd than some of the present indictments laid before Courts of Justice; and he was of opinion that the simpler the indictment, the better for all parties, and especially the prisoner, who had a right to know, in as simple and clear a manner as possible, what he was going to be tried for. As far as the evidence of the prisoner was concerned, he was bound to say, after great consideration, that he had last year entirely come round to the feeling that it was wise, under all the circumstances, that the prisoner should be examined if he chose. He was quite aware there was this objection to adopting the practice—that if the prisoner said he would rather not be examined, it would raise a presumption against him; but, on the whole, he thought that no one who had had much experience in criminal trials could fail to be of opinion that it would be for the ends of justice that a prisoner should be allowed, if he chose, to go into the witness box and tell his own story as a matter of course. On the whole, he believed the practice, in so far as innocent prisoners were concerned, would be beneficial. There was one question only that he wanted to ask, and it had reference to criminal appeals. In this Code there was a provision giving to the Secretary of State a right, on an application made to him, practically to exercise the Prerogative of the Crown, and order a new trial. He must say, from his own experience at the Home Office, that he was afraid that it was a growing practice, in connection with criminal trials, to keep back evidence, instead of allowing it to be sifted in Court, with the view of sending it to the Secretary of State afterwards, in the hope that it might have weight with him. That was a very dangerous practice to be allowed to arise, because, unless witnesses were subjected
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    to severe cross-examination in public trials, you really would not know where the truth lay. He hoped the clause would be struck out; and he was glad to see that such a clause did not appear in the Court of Criminal Appeal Bill, which had been introduced the other day by the hon. and learned Attorney General. Such a provision would expose the Secretary of State to a pressure which it would be absolutely impossible for him to resist. The Bill was going before one of the Grand Committees upstairs, and he hoped that after it was there revised and overhauled it might become law in the course of the present Session. It was quite clear that the Bill, as a whole, was a stop in the right direction; and he hoped it would be followed up in future Sessions by other steps, so that they would have the great Code brought forward by the late Sir John Holker treated by degrees, and passed, Session by Session, into law. He hoped that a small Act would then be passed to say that the four Acts should all be treated as one, in order that the whole might be embodied in one Statute, which anybody might be able to see, and which, when they saw it, they would be able to understand. They would then have made an enormous stride, which would be of the greatest benefit, not only for criminals, but the cause of justice.
    MR. EDWARD CLARKEsaid, he wished he could feel as sanguine with regard to the future of the Bill and the other parts of the Code of the late Sir John Holker as the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Sir R. Assheton Cross). He wished he could think that the almost absolute indifference with which the House had treated this question of Law Reform was an augury that these measures were likely soon to pass into law. He was afraid it simply meant a resolution of the House to delegate to the Grand Committee the consideration of all questions, not only of detail but of principle, connected with the Bill. The way in which the House had dealt with the question of Law Reform was a little disheartening. In the case of the Criminal Court of Appeal Bill, Members of the Legal Profession only took part in the debate, and they were rewarded by hearing a Member say that no one but lawyers had been allowed to speak. On the present occasion, the lawyers seemed to have taken

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    the hint; and he supposed they would be told that nobody, not even the lawyers, took any interest in Criminal Law Reform. He hoped the Bill would be passed into law that Session; but, at the same time, there were two or three matters in it deserving of serious consideration. The clause, providing for a magisterial inquiry into crime before any person was accused, was a clause of a remarkable and valuable character; but it was a curious thing it should be allowed to pass through the House on second reading practically without any discussion at all. He agreed with his right hon. Friend that the clause with respect to the powers of the Secretary of State to order a new trial should be expunged altogether, on the ground that the Secretary of State ought not to be constituted a judicial officer. If, however, it was allowed to stand, he would much rather see the power of ordering a new trial vested in the Attorney General than in the Secretary of State. He should not have risen, however, had he not been anxious to state the satisfaction with which he had listened to the practically unanimous opinion of the House that a prisoner in a Criminal Court should be examined. With one exception, all the speeches made in the present debate had been in favour of the examination of the prisoner; and now that the principle had been supported by the two Front Benches there was every hope that this clause would be passed into law. He believed there was no matter in which the public took more interest than that; and it seemed to him that it was the grossest wrong to an innocent man, charged with a crime, to treat him in the manner in which he was treated in this country, by preventing him from giving the evidence which might bring about his acquittal. Now, when an offence was committed, the ministers of justice looked about for the person who probably committed it; they arrested someone upon whom suspicion rested by reason of his profiting by the crime, or having been in the neighbourhood when it was committed; and the moment he was arrested his mouth was practically closed, and he was not allowed to give the evidence which might clear himself from the charge, and help to bring it home to the guilty person. He had, in the course of his experience, seen numerous hard
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    cases of this sort. He hoped that that was the last time on which that subject might be dealt with controversially; and, if for that reason only, he trusted that the present Bill might be added to the Statute Book.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, it was quite plain that, although the Bill had received the sanction of the Criminal Code authorities, it would require considerable attention on the part of the Standing Committee. Before the Bill was read a second time, he should like the hon. and learned Attorney General to give his views on Part VIII., which dealt with appeals. It contained an entirely independent Code, and was wholly inconsistent with the Bill relating to Criminal Appeals. He should like his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General to state whether it was the intention of the Government to drop all the clauses in that part, and satisfy themselves in that respect with the Bill now before the Committee upstairs. Otherwise, he thought the position they took up in the matter was somewhat inconsistent. He wished also to ask him to clear up any misunderstanding or uncertainty that might exist in the minds of hon. Members as to what were the intentions of the Government in regard to Clause 122, which gave power to the Secretary of State to order a new trial. With regard to it, he must say that he agreed with his right hon. Friend (Sir R. Assheton Cross) in hoping that that section would be abandoned. The Bill, however, contained some very important proposals; and he felt bound to congratulate the Government on presenting an intelligible series of provisions regulating the appointment of special juries in criminal cases and a change of venue. He could not conclude without saying a word on the point of receiving the evidence of the accused. He had been for a long time in favour of that reform, and he believed that public opinion was quite ripe for the change, and that it would be productive of great advantage. He was glad to find that the Bill had not encountered any substantial hostile criticism, and he trusted that it might be tested upstairs, and passed into law before the end of the present Session.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, the question had been asked by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Inder-

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    wick) why the Government had not introduced the Code as a whole? In answer to the question, he (the Attorney General) must say that his view was that it would be useless to do so, with any hopes of passing it through in one Session, or, indeed, to pass it through the Standing Committee. It contained something like 550 clauses, dealing with a vast number of subjects of the greatest importance, in which deep interest was taken, and on which much debate was to be expected. On the other hand, he had found that there was a general consent to the introduction of the Code in parts. That being granted, he thought it much better to take the procedure part first, for it stood more apart from the other sections of the Code than any other one section, and that was the reason why the present Bill was brought forward. His right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had referred to the work which would have to be done by the Committee upstairs. There was, no doubt, much to be done; but the amount of work which would have to be done in dealing with the whole Code was much greater than any hon. Member was aware of. He wished to draw attention to several matters which had been referred to. He found that from the Press and other quarters he was receiving nothing but condemnation for his arrogance in proposing to make any alterations in the proposals of the Commission. He therefore thought it best to lay before the House the work of the Judges, endorsed as that work was by his late lamented Friend Sir John Holker. But he felt sure that the Grand Committee would have to spend great labour in bringing the Bill into its final form. He adhered, as loyally as he could, to the form of the Bill as it left the Commission, especially as it was a legacy from the late Government. He hoped, considering the spirit in which he felt sure the Committee would approach the consideration of the Bill, that a great advance would speedily be made in the way of codification. When, however, the details were considered, it would, no doubt, be found necessary to make many alterations; but, great as was the labour he saw before them, he did not think there was any reason for despairing that they would be able to pass it into law. With respect to the observations of the right
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    hon. Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir B. Assheton Cross) and the right hon. and learned Member for Dublin University (Mr. Gibson) with regard to the Court of Criminal Appeal Bill, he would observe that he had always hoped that the provisions of that Bill might form part of a Criminal Code. But he had found it impracticable to incorporate it in the Bill for the establishment of that Code; and therefore it was that he thought he would have been blame able if he had not put to the House itself the Court of Criminal Appeal Bill. It established a principle—that of an appeal of right—upon which the House was entitled to express an opinion. That was why the two Bills had been brought forward. But he hopped it would be possible to deal with both Bills together in Committee; and when the latter Bill had been settled in Committee, he should propose, if it were practicable, to incorporate it with the Bill under discussion. If, however, for any reason that were not possible, he should, of course, reserve the right to deal with the Appeal Bill separately, and not incorporate it in the Code Bill. To the suggestion that the question whether an appeal should be allowed should be left to the Secretary of State and the officials at the Home Office, he thought there were many objections. It might be said that the discretion would be exercised for political purposes; then, again, the duties of the Home Office were already so heavy that it was most undesirable to lay such a burden upon it. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaumaris (Mr. Morgan Lloyd) objected to the accused being asked to give evidence. But that question was virtually settled by the almost unanimous opinion which had been expressed in favour of the principle. It was a more difficult matter to decide whether the evidence of the accused should be received at the magistrate's inquiry, or at a later stage of the proceedings. That, however, was a matter for the Committee. In Scotland, the examination took place at the preliminary investigation. But it should not be forgotten that there the magistrates were all trained lawyers. In this country, before unpaid lay magistrates, the greater part of whom were with, little, if any, knowledge of the rules of evidence, considerable danger might attend the practice. He did not think the

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    suggestion of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Leighton) to incorporate English and Scotch law in one Code was feasible, as they were two entirely different systems of law; and such an operation could not be carried out until they were somewhat more assimilated than was the case at present. As to the question whether the verdict of the jury should be unanimous or by a majority, he was inclined to think that the time had not yet come for departing from the principle of a unanimous verdict. The feeling of this country still seemed to be in favour of requiring the unanimity of a jury for the conviction of a prisoner, though much might be said in favour of the verdict of the majority. With Judges of such high character as we possessed, and with the tendency to show the utmost fairness to the accused shown by the almost invariable assignment of counsel, no fear need be entertained of the working of the Bill, which, he hoped, would be moulded into an effectual and intelligible measure by the labours of the Committee.
    MR. O'DONNELLcontended that the effect of referring this and other Bills to Grand Committees was to prevent anything like full discussion on the second reading. The House was not even to be provided with an adequate view of the Government policy, because it appeared that the Ministry would only bind themselves to what was accepted by the majority of a Grand Committee. Even the rooms in which the Grand Committees met provided for the exclusion of the majority of the House, for not more than 20 Gentlemen who were not Members of the Committees could find accommodation in them. These facts presented a state of affairs both unfair to the House and dangerous to the interests of the country. It was understood, on the adoption of the Grand Committee system, that the House would be favoured with a full exposition of the policy of the Government in reference to a Bill that was to be so referred; and this Bill was not second in importance to any that was to be so dealt with. Of course, the House would have to discuss afterwards many points that would be supposed to be settled in a small room from which the majority were excluded. Standing as he was on the banks of the Thames, where so many undiscovered
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    crimes remained unavenged, he was not likely to place any obstacle in the way of perfecting the instruments of justice; but he considered that many of the changes made by the Bill demanded the attention of every lover of fair play and liberty. He was in favour of an improved system of discovering and punishing real crime; but that was a different thing from investing officials with such powers of inquisition and torture as might, under the Bill, be inflicted upon a witness suspected by a magisterial official. The Bill included some of the most dangerous provisions passed for a limited period in exceptional circumstances in a Coercion Bill for Ireland. Before such formidable possibilities of grinding tyranny and oppression to be exercised by irresponsible officials upon the humblest and most defenceless class of the community became law, they demanded the most careful scrutiny, for a self-governing country like Great Britain, and still more for Ireland, where public opinion was powerless to restrain excess of authority, and appeal to England was of little avail. With the wholesale powers of arrest given by the Bill, the entire area of a country might be enmeshed within the hasty suspicions of a magistrate or of a police official; and if such a system were aided by the stimulus of police rewards, and the manufactured evidence of informers, there was the most formidable prospect of the worst kind of tyranny. The proposal to allow accused persons to give evidence might be a very wise innovation, and one that might be permitted as far as their own cases were concerned; but when so novel a principle was introduced as the power of undefined and irresponsible inquisition, none, however unacquainted with the working of the system in foreign countries, could fail to perceive the dangers that might arise from it. In France at this moment there was a general outcry against the laxity of juries, and their tendency either to acquit or to find extenuating circumstances—a tendency produced mainly by the feeling in the French mind against the inquisitorial processes which were virtually now to be introduced into England. He trusted that English law would not be deprived of any of its proverbial fair play; but the Bill seemed likely to destroy the ancient spirit of justice that had flourished

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    for 40 generations hitherto, for the sake of imitating the despotic Continental system; and, how would the Bill work in Ireland, where the people had already no confidence in the just administration of the law? Given an unscrupulous Public Prosecutor, policemen eager for rewards, a packed jury, and an Attorney General recently promoted to the Bench, all the materials were present for a judicial murder which must inevitably enlist the whole moral consciousness of the country against the administration of the law. Surely it would be better to let 99 guilty persons escape, than to convict one really innocent person in cases where the evidence was not clear and conclusive. He did not wish to deal with current events; but, at the time of the Fenian trials in 1867, the accused Fenians, who, except that they took illegal measures to overthrow the Government of England, were men in every respect of the utmost morality, honour, and probity, men of character as unstained as those of the knights of romance, stigmatized the evidence of the Grown witnesses as horrible and unscrupulous perjury. Witnesses might come in the night and whisper in the ear of the Inspector of police their suspicions against Irish politicians, whoso honourable opposition to the Government had singled them out for official hostility. Under the Bill, the Inspector might set on foot inquisitorial proceedings, and might cause not only the accused man to be arrested, but others also; and when they declared they had no evidence to give, might sentence them to week after week and month after month of imprisonment, till the dark cell, as real and as cruel as any mediæval torture, enfeebled the power, the will, and the constitution of the victims, and forced from them the very evidence which the prosecutors wished, whether it were true or false. The course taken by the Government in respect to this Bill, in excluding it from the general consideration of the House and referring it to a Grand Committee was such as to render it necessary for a combination of Members to be formed to consider the Bill carefully on those points which were dangerous to public and private liberty, and those points would be so considered seriatim at another stage. That consideration of the Law Officers of the Crown, in his opinion, had failed to
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    bestow upon it. Under the Bill the system of judicial procedure would be assimilated to that of the most despotic countries; and the House ought to have heard from Her Majesty's Government some statement with regard to safeguards to be provided against such an infringement of the liberty of the subject. He therefore protested against a measure of the kind becoming the law of the land.
    MR. HINDE PALMERsaid, that, in his opinion, the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had strangely misrepresented the provisions of the Bill, and conjured up imaginary evils which were likely to result from its enactment, but which had no foundation in fact. For instance, he (Mr. Hinde Palmer) could not find, from one end of the Bill to the other, anything which resembled the examination of a prisoner by a Juge d' Instruction in France. He would have opposed the Bill as strenuously as the hon. Member for Dungarvan was inclined to do, if he thought that any of the evils alluded to were likely to arise under it. On the contrary, however, he found in it provisions as favourable to persons charged with criminal offences as it was possible to devise. With regard to the power of examining a prisoner, it must be remembered that this was optional; and considering the high authority, such as that of Sir James Stephen and others, which supported the proposal, he could not anticipate any evil results. On the contrary, he believed that the provision which allowed an accused person; to be examined, if he so desired, would be as much to the advantage of the accused as to the benefit of the prosecution. Again, he did not think it possible for the House to consider the details of such a Bill as the present with any good result. Indeed, he had always regarded the House as a very inefficient instrument for criticism of that character, and he believed its reference to the Grand Committee would have a good result. It would, in his opinion, tend to make it a perfect and complete measure; and when the Bill came down from that Committee, should it be found to contain any vital and fundamental principles which offended against public or private liberty, or that it tended in any degree to interfere with the fair trial of a prisoner, it could be reconsidered on

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    Report, and Amendments introduced. He hoped, therefore, that the second reading of the Bill would receive the support of the House, and that it would be sent to the Grand Committee. He considered the Bill a most earnest attempt on the part of the Government to consolidate and amend a portion of the Criminal Law, and he should vote in support of the second reading.
    MR. MAYNEsaid, he could not help giving expression to the greatest feeling of surprise he had experienced, during the short time he had been in that House, at its emptiness, when a Bill so important both to Irish and English Members was under consideration. It was a measure which dealt with the liberties of the people in a fashion they had not been dealt with for centuries; and it was no use for hon. Members to shirk the responsibility of dealing with its obnoxious principles by referring it to a Grand Committee, on which a large number of them had no seat. A questionable portion of the measure was that which made persons not accused of anything more serious than of being possible witnesses, liable to be committed to prison from week to week without, as it seemed, any limit whatever. Another innovation was that against which the Amendment he had placed upon the Paper was directed—namely, the system of packing of juries. His experience of judicial proceedings in Ireland had led him to propose that Amendment, for he had seen respectable jurors ordered to stand aside by a minor Government official in a very inconsiderate manner. That course of proceeding had given very grave dissatisfaction in Ireland, and particularly in Dublin, especially as it was done on no other ground, apparently, than that of religious belief. It was only recently that the system had become objectionable; because it was unnecessary, so long as jury packing was possible under the law existing up to 1871. Up to that time jury packing had been elevated almost to the dignity of a science; it had, indeed, come to such a state that the Government of the country could not fail to see that the confidence of the public in Ireland was completely alienated. Consequently, in 1871, Lord O'Hagan introduced a Bill on the subject, and, in doing so, said—
    "On one of those unfortunate party trials which occasionally occurred in Ireland, there
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    was a challenge to the array, which succeeded, on the ground that the first 70 named on the panel were Protestants, and that, while the panel consisted of 250 names, 202 were Protestants, and only 48 Roman Catholics."
    He also said that—
    "Such a state of things was monstrous and inconsistent with decent administration of justice."
    And added that—
    "If the objects of the Bill introduced were gained, he was persuaded that the Government would thereby inspire the people of Ireland with a confidence in the administration of justice in that country."—(3 Hansard, [206] 1033–4.)
    The Bill, which he might remind the House was supported or introduced by almost the same Government as was now in Office, was passed, and it did inspire the people with confidence in the administration of justice. Jury packing was stopped for a time; but they now had evidence that it might be brought about and practised in other ways than that which was stopped by the Bill of Lord O'Hagan. Recently, owing to a difficulty in criminal cases, a new system of tactics had been adopted. The difficulty was, not to get juries ready to convict, but to procure evidence of a sufficiently satisfactory character to satisfy a conscientious jury. And the difficulty had been overcome in some cases, apparently, by such a system of selection as succeeded in placing 12 men in the jury box that were supposed, in the matter of evidence, to be easily satisfied. It was a mere restoration of the old system of jury manipulation; a system which ordered a respectable gentleman like Mr. Leetch to stand aside—a gentleman whom the Government made a magistrate, while their minor official ordered him, as a juror, to stand aside in Green Street. It would have been better to have abolished trial by jury altogether in political cases; better, as the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had said, to let 99 guilty escape than to convict an innocent person in cases where the evidence was not clear. In seven cases recently tried in Dublin, 56 jurors were necessary; and, of these 56, 47 were Protestants, and only nine Roman Catholics. The first jury was composed of Protestants entirely; the second, of 11 Protestants and one Jew; the third, fourth, and fifth, of all Protestants, and so on. The result was a state of things almost

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    worse than that condemned by Lord O'Hagan; there had been an outcry from all classes of society, especially in Dublin, against it, and at no time had public confidence in the carrying on of judicial proceedings at Green Street been so estranged and alienated as at the present. They might well omit from the Bill a power which had been so greatly abused, and it would still have the purpose and effect intended. There was a provision in the Bill by which these juries were to be drawn by ballot; and it was clear that the arrangement by which jurors were to be drawn out of a box, having their names written on a piece of card-board, was made in order that a jury might be obtained in that way who would be perfectly indifferent between the prosecutor and the accused. But that power of balloting would be neutralized if the power of selecting after the ballot was retained in the Bill. If he were in Order, he desired to move, by way of Amendment—
    "That it is inexpedient to include in any measure for the reform of criminal procedure any provision enabling a prosecutor in a criminal case to order a Juror brought to the Book to stand aside."
    MR. SPEAKER: I must inform the hon. Member for Tipperary that he cannot move his Amendment, the House having already negatived the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Leighton). Therefore the only Question before the House is the Motion that the Bill be now read a second time.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, that, in his opinion, it would be the duty of every Irish Member, at every stage in the Bill, to register his protest against a Bill which they regarded as being simply a Coercion Bill under a dishonest disguise, and, moreover, a Coercion Bill in perpetuity. He could see nothing in the Bill in the direction of Legal Reform, nothing that anybody would think worth doing, except, perhaps, the Proviso for admitting a prisoner to speak for himself. It proposed to invest every police magistrate with powers that in old times would not have been intrusted to a King. He might summon any man whom a malicious constable might choose to suspect that evidence could be squeezed out—summon him without any information in writing or upon oath, and he might have a witness locked up in prison, if
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    he was considered unlikely to turn up to give evidence, and he could find no provision for allowing legal assistance to a witness arrested and crosshackled in that way, though the object of his examination was to inveigle him into statements upon which a charge affecting, perhaps, his life, might afterwards be founded, and he might be locked up until "he did what he was required to do." What was there in the secrecy of the Star Chamber more odious than? Such things might appear convenient and acceptable just now, because they would be used only against Ireland and Irishmen in England.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)interposing, said, he was sure the hon. Member did not wish to misrepresent the law; but he must remind him that the clause referring to the detention of a witness provided for the remand of a prisoner in the particular case of refusal to produce certain documents.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, the clause was entitled, "Witness refusing to be examined," and that was the penalty therein prescribed for non-compliance. As long as inquiries such as they had had in Dublin Castle continued to produce informers and victims, at a time when the public temper was whetted for such things, he supposed there was not much use in asking whether the end justified the means. If the Bill succeeded in putting obnoxious Irishmen within the grasp of the law by fair means or by foul, if it patched up against them anything like a decent presumption, few people would look into the machinery by which the Act was worked. But it was this very state of the public mind—this eagerness to break down conspiracy by book or crook—which made this the most inopportune of all moments to introduce into the law of England changes of the most violent and revolutionary character. But the proceedings before a justice were only the preliminaries to the work of breaking down, destroying, and infringing a man's right of trial before his peers. There was scarcely a clause in the Bill, from the 1st to the 5th, that did not strike at one or other of the rights of the people. It was a matter of remote interest to Englishmen, whether an Attorney General should, or should not, have a right of instituting a prosecution at Bar before the Court of

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    Queen's Bench, or whether a person committed for trial in some distant part of England should be brought up hero to be tried. But, as far as Ireland was concerned, the Bill meant that any man who was formidable to the Government was first to be bullied and threatened at one of those secret inquiries before an under servant of the Grown, and then be sent for trial before one of the tribunals which the Crown could always pack to carry out its wishes. The Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland was always kept packed with the promoted prosecutors and political allies of the Government; and a Dublin Special Jury of landlords and Castle tradesmen would be more or loss than human if they were not obsequious servants of the Crown. Perhaps the very worst clause in the Bill was the 72nd, which provided that, if several persons combined with a common intention to prosecute any unlawful purpose, and to assist each other therein, each of them should be hold to be a party in the prosecution of such common purpose to any offence, the commission of which was or ought to have been known as a probable consequence of such combination. The Crown thought the purpose of the Land League was unlawful; and, in 18S0, prosecuted the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) for conspiracy on account of his connection with it, although, 18 months afterwards, a responsible Minister of the Crown declared that the Land League was a most useful and lawful organization. The jury disagreed with the Crown on that occasion; but, struck as juries would be in Ireland under this Bill and under the Crimes Act, what course could an Irish Nationalist pursue which they would not declare unlawful at the dictation of the Crown. If the Bill passed, it seemed to him that every public man in Ireland had only the choice of withdrawing altogether from public life, or doing what possibly some hot-headed persons might do, taking refuge in the safer secret organizations. Again, some furtive little words in another clause proposed to embody, for the first time in a British Statute, the monstrous Judge-made doctrine laid down in the case of "The Queen v. Duffy," that, no matter how scandalous the conduct of a servant of the Crown, if he gave the criticism of his conduct the nickname of "seditious libel," the
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    man who commented on it was precluded from proving the truth of the libel, though he would be perfectly free to do so in the case of any individual who was not salaried by the Crown. There was one class of Nationalists who held that such Bills as this were of the greatest service to the Irish cause, because they increased the determination of the people to make England let go her grip. But, however that might be, the Irish people were not likely to be particularly terrified, whether schemes of coercion were laid for three years or 300. English rule in Ireland had been one unbroken Coercion Act. [" Hear, hear!"] He hoped hon. Gentlemen thought the results satisfactory. What he wanted the House to understand was that, in passing this Bill, they laid down the principle, and avowed it to the world, that as long as England ruled Ireland, she would rule it by a power more detested than the sword, by the official's secret and malicious whisper, and by the swearer's oath. They would also imprint in the Statute Book principles of law that were new to it, and which they would rather cut off their right hand than pass, if they thought they would be used against Englishmen, as, perhaps, they were willing enough that they should be used against Irishmen.
    MR. M'COANsaid, that he had not heard the whole of the speech of the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. O'Brien); but from what he had heard he thought a good deal of it was irrelevant. The hon. Member apparently had forgotten the fact that the Bill had for its object, not so much the making of new law, as the codification and simplification of the existing law. Besides, he seemed also to forget that this was a Bill for the United Kingdom; and therefore English and Scotch Members would have as good reason to take exception, if there was anything objectionable in it, as Irish Members. The hon. Member discovered a new grievance in Clause 72; but if he would read it, he would find there was nothing new in it, and that it was simply a reproduction of the present Law of Conspiracy, for if persons combined for a common purpose and committed an illegal offence, each of them was guilty of the offence committed by the other. Similarly, Clause 78 only reproduced the old existing law, as stated in the case of "The Queen v. Duffy." The

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    only thing that appeared to be new in the Bill was that part proposing to give a prisoner the opportunity of stating his own case, and the greatest of the authorities were in favour of such a proposal as that; and, for his own part, he (Mr. M'Coan) considered it an improvement,
    MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, that the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. M'Coan), in reading Clause 78—the Conspiracy Clause—had made a deliberate and a most significant omission. He referred, indeed, to that part of it which said that, if several persons combined with common intention to prosecute any unlawful purpose, and assist each other therein, each of them was a party to any offence committed in the prosecution of such unlawful purpose. But the hon. Member omitted that part of the clause which said'—
    "The commission of which offence was, or ought to have been known, as a probable consequence of such combination."
    That was something new in the law of England and Ireland, because a person under the clause might be innocent of a criminal intention; but, unless he was a prophet, and gifted with Divine inspiration, he might find himself within its provisions. Was it honest, then—was it fair—that the hon. Member should have suppressed that portion of the clause?
    MR. M'COAN: That is a charge of bad faith. I did not read the last part of the clause, because it is sufficiently plain that it is not new law. It is simply the re-enactment of that already in existence. It assumes that a man is—
    MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: A prophet. A man would, no doubt, be aware of the probable consequences of his act if he fired a shot at a man; but here the proposal was to fix him with liability for the language and acts of other people. He wondered that Englishmen should, even in the time of panic, pass such legislation; but, in their hope of crushing out Irish nationality, they were ready to destroy public liberty and public right. But the fact was that England would not be able to keep Ireland in slavery without suffering for it terribly herself. He looked upon the Bill as another illustration of the decadence in England of that love of public freedom which had been for so long the boast and glory of the country.
    MR. BRYCEsaid, that, in his opinion, those who had looked so long for Law
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    Reform might congratulate themselves on seeing the great work of codification at last taken in hand. He hoped that, by the end of the Session, the Bill would become law, and that the Government would to able to have the satisfaction of seeing the first step in so great a task completed. He wished to remind the House of the debt which was owed in this matter to the Attorney General of the late Government. If there was one man more than another who cared about improving the law of this country, making it just, intelligible, and accessible, it was the late Lord Justice Holker, of whom, having had the privilege of a long and intimate friendship, he might truly say that his great legal acumen was not more remarkable than his ardent love of justice. There were two points to which he (Mr. Bryce) wished to draw the attention of the House. The first related to the scope of the Bill. It dealt with indictable offences only. He would suggest that it be extended to offences dealt with summarily, in order that the procedure in both cases might be identical. Otherwise great perplexity would ensue, for if the Bill passed as it stood, Quarter Sessions would be acting sometimes under the new law, and sometimes under the old law. The other point was as to the examination of the prisoner; and, as regarded it, he thought it would be desirable that an examination of accused persons should take place before they were committed for trial. Where, as in Scotland, an opportunity was in this way always afforded to a prisoner to clear himself of the charge against him if he could, the prosecution of an innocent man would be often avoided. He also thought it would be an advantage, if the prisoner could be called as a witness by the prosecution, instead of being only examined for the defence, a provision being, of course, inserted that he was entitled not to answer questions put by the prosecutor unless he liked. The process of a preliminary examination of a prisoner before the Sheriff had never been abused in Scotland; and he thought it would be a desirable feature to import into the English procedure, because it was not only a valuable means for the discovery of guilt, but also one by which an innocent man might free himself of a charge. At all events, that part of the Scotch procedure well deserved the consideration of the House. The proposal

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    as to this examination ought to be considered in the light of the experience of Scotland rather than in that of France, where it was well known that the power of repeatedly and severely cross-examining the accused permitted to the Juge d' Instruction was sometimes abused.
    MR. GORSTsaid, he thought it was hard that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General should bear the brunt of the accusation, made from a certain quarter of the House, that the Bill was conceived in such a spirit as if it were some deep-laid plot on the part of the Government to undermine the liberties of the Irish or the English people. As a matter of fact, it was originally drawn in 1878, long before the recent arrests which had taken place in Ireland had caused the present state of feeling there. It was then, in 1879, considered by a Commission of Judges, and substantially the present measure was settled by that Committee. He (Mr. Gorst) had enjoyed the friendship and confidence of the late Lord Justice Holker, than whom no man could be more jealous to preserve the liberties of all his fellow-subjects, and more anxious to prevent injustice being inflicted upon any human being. He did not deny that some of the clauses were open to criticism, and he should give his best efforts in Committee to amend them. He would further say that, if there were any elements which required amendment on account of their possibly working injustice to either Englishmen or Irishmen, they were present through inadvertence and not of design, and he was sure the Committee would do their best to eliminate them from the Bill. For his own part, he shared the view already expressed by several hon. Members that it was the amendment of procedure anterior to the trial which was especially required, and in that respect the Criminal Law of England was inferior to the law of all other European countries. With respect to it, he agreed with the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) that we might with advantage borrow from the Scotch criminal system. He did not, however, agree altogether with the hon. Member's remarks about French procedure. The preliminary investigation anterior to the trial was, in France, conducted with fairness and consideration to the prisoner. It was only in the proceedings at the trial that
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    the French system was open to the animadversions which had been passed on it. He thought the method employed in Germany for the investigation of criminal offences would avoid all the errors of the Scotch and French systems, and be more in accordance with English notions of justice to the accused. In Germany, at the preliminary examination, which was undertaken by a Judge, for the purpose of investigating the truth of the case, the accused was invited to make any defence or explanation which he might desire to submit; and it was the duty of the Judge not only to call for evidence for the prosecution, but also to summon before him and examine every witness who, in his opinion, would prove the innocence of the prisoner. Those points, he thought, we might with advantage imitate. He trusted that the Representatives of Irish constituencies would believe that there was no desire in the framers or supporters of the Bill to interfere in any way with their rights and liberties.
    DR. COMMINSsaid, he fully agreed in the concluding observation of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Gorst), that there was no deep-laid plot against either English or Irish liberties in the Bill, although he could not see in it an object at all worthy of the admiration which the hon. and learned Member, as one of its authors, naturally entertained towards it. He could not help entertaining the thought that it hardly realized the deep and earnest expectations which had been so prominently entertained of it, more especially when consideration was given to the high authorities on the Commission to which it was referred, for care had not been taken to get rid of errors of procedure that often led to great injustice. For instance, prisoners were not protected against examination by policemen, whose eagerness to obtain admissions of guilt was in proportion to the weakness of a case; and nothing was done to mitigate the harshness with which untried prisoners were treated. They were treated as guilty before they were tried; and it would be necessary to introduce something into the Bill to remedy the unjust state of things which now existed in that respect. Then, again, juries were paid for trying trivial cases in Civil Courts; but no compensation was given to jurors who tried cri-

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    minal cases. Further than that, as to the trial itself, very glaring errors remained; and he had looked in vain throughout the Bill in order to find out whether there was any adequate provision made for recording criminal trials, so as to facilitate any proceedings that might be desired to be taken on appeal. In the French and Scotch procedure every word was recorded, and could be referred to whenever it was necessary. In the present Bill, it was true, there was to be a "Crown Book," in which the substance of the proceedings was to be entered; but, for all practical purposes, there might as well be no record at all. Again, a man might be put on his trial and punished, and then it might be discovered that he had been the victim of a conspiracy or a mistake; and yet, for all the sufferings which might be inflicted on a man, he was not entitled to one farthing damages. Take the case of Edmund Galley, or of Habron, who were condemned to death, and, after the commutation of the sentence, had to undergo penal servitude. Surely that might now be amended, and some provision made whereby a solatium might be given in such cases. The Proviso that prisoners should be allowed to make a statement in their own defence would expose them to a vindictive cross-examination, and might prove a very doubtful boon, for nothing would prevent a police officer in secret subjecting an untried person to an examination, which would vary according to the character of the officer. There was one thing about the Bill that he did not like—namely, that there seemed to run through it a kind of inquisitorial spirit, bringing into the English law, for the first time, the principles of the Inquisition—a determination, per fas et nefas, to obtain a verdict. There seemed a straining to get rid of those forms of the law which were the greatest bulwarks of innocence against malicious and unfounded prosecutions, and to get rid of them in those cases where the preservation of the forms might be serviceable to the accused person. The unlimited discretion proposed to be given to the Attorney General to change the venue he also thought would sometimes be cruel and oppressive in its operation.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, he must point out to the hon. Member that his obser-
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    vations would be more appropriate to the Committee stage of the Bill than to that of the second reading.
    DR. COMMINS,while bowing to the correction of the Chair, said, that he took the course he had for the purpose of showing that the measure was an ill-drawn one, which would by no means improve our present Criminal Law. If it passed into law as it was, untried prisoners would be subjected to the most disgraceful and scandalous treatment.
    MR. PUGHsaid, he hailed the Bill as one that would bring about a great improvement in the existing law. He had no doubt that it would be regarded as a great boon in the country; but he thought that the distinction should be clearly drawn and maintained between the magistrate and the policeman, and that the duties of the former should not be made more difficult by requiring them to conduct preliminary inquiries into supposed offences before any complaint had been laid before them. In that view of the case, he maintained that the preliminary inquiry provided by Clause 12 was essentially a police duty. If they threw upon the magistrate the duty of getting up the case, it would be impossible that the same magistrate could form an unbiassed opinion upon the evidence. In the Indian Criminal Procedure Code of last year the duty of carrying on similar police duties had been thrown upon the magistrate; but the performance of such work by the Judge who afterwards had to try the case caused much dissatisfaction amongst the people, and had been very justly denounced from the Bench. This, however, was a matter which the Grand Committee would be able to deal with; and he had no doubt they would give to this and other points all the attention required to make the measure a very valuable one.
    MR. BROADHURSTsaid, he very much feared that Clause 72 of the Bill might be applied to trades unions; and, if so, it would go a long way towards depriving them of the Charter of their liberties and rights, which they had obtained within recent years. He referred especially to sub-section (C) of Clause 72; but, indeed, the whole of that clause was a matter for grave consideration; and he certainly should not feel inclined to support the Bill with that clause in it, unless he had some dis-

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    tinct undertaking from those who were in charge of the measure that the clause would be materially amended before the Bill was ultimately passed. What he had risen specially to say was that, when a similar Code was proposed some years back by the late Government, similar objections were taken to parts of that Code; and he remembered bringing the subject, by means of a strong deputation, under the notice of the Government. It was suggested, at that time, that the Labour Laws—tho Trades Unions Act of 1871; the Labour Laws of 1875, and the amended Trades Unions Act of 1876—might very well remain a Code of themselves, for the regulation of labour disputes and difficulties, and that in any subsequent Criminal Code that might be passed care should be taken to safeguard the liberties of trades unions, by expressly setting forth that no other law would Le made to apply to matters of trades' dispute he hoped the ton and learned Gentleman the Attorney General would be good enough to bear in mind those few observations, and that he would be able, before the close of the debate, to give a promise that the laws which were passed at the dates he (Mr. Broadhurst) had referred to, and which were the result of nearly half-a-century of agitation, would be protected under the present Bill, and that care would be taken that the measure should in no way whatever interfere with the laws to which he had referred. On that condition only could he for a moment consent to the second reading of the Bill.
    MR. DALYsaid, the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Broadhurst) was anxious to protect the trades unions from the imposition of new legislation. He (Mr. Daly) wished to draw attention to several other clauses of the Bill, and especially to Clause 12, which he was glad to see had been the subject of comment by the hon. and learned Member for Cardiganshire (Mr. Pugh), who preceded the hon. Member for Stoke. That clause recited these words—"Every Justice who has reason to believe." Now, in the first place, the word "Justice" was defined in the Interpretation Clause to mean every kind of Justice, and the Justices of Ireland were essentially different from Justices in England, because Justices in England lived in harmony with the classes below them, while a Justice in Ireland was in
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    direct antagonism with the classes below him. The section stated—"Every Justice who has reason to believe." Now, what Justice in Ireland could have reason to believe of himself? He had no cognizance of what was going on around him, and his information was always supplied to him by a policeman. It was impossible for any hon. Member who had not resided in Ireland to realize the hardships, oppression, and affliction which the Irish people had to suffer at the hands of the policeman. Only the other day, in the City of Cork, a respectable tradesman, who might even call himself a merchant, and who was in the habit of exporting to different parts of the United Kingdom hundreds and thousands of tons of potatoes per week, was arrested on the platform of the Great Southern and Western Railway Station, on the supposition that he was engaged in treasonable practices. He was detained in custody for three or four hours, and then discharged, without a word of explanation or apology. When such things could take place, and when they had such experiences in Ireland, he thought they were justified in viewing with alarm what might happen if a magistrate's "reason to believe," promoted by police whispers, was to form sufficient justification for arrest and detention of Her Majesty's subjects. Upon such a whisper the magistrate would have power to summon to a police court, or any other place whore a petty sessions was held, any person within his jurisdiction, whom he had "reason to believe to be capable of giving material evidence concerning such offence." Was it not in accordance with human nature that a policeman, having set a matter of this kind on foot, would give the magistrate reason to believe that there wore a great many persons capable of giving evidence, but who might be inclined to be indifferent in the matter? Could any man realize the hardships which might be imposed on a number of persons in being drawn from their lawful business at the beck of the magistrate, induced by the whispers of a policeman? There was no analogy at all in these matters between England and Ireland. The two countries were so essentially different that any person who had not resided in Ireland could not appreciate the difference. He found, when he went further into the Bill, that under Section

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    25—"If the Justice is satisfied by evidence upon oath." There, again, it was the oath of the policeman, and there was abundant evidence that the statements made by policemen were afterwards constantly disproved. Nevertheless, they found that—
    "If the justice is satisfied by evidence upon oath any person within his jurisdiction likely to give material evidence will not attend to give evidence,"
    such a person was liable to be arrested. The word "likely" had a very broad meaning, and the policeman, in his desire to procure convictions, would not spare any person whom he considered "likely" to give evidence; and when he made a statement on oath that such a person was likely to give evidence, what became of the liberty of a subject, seeing that behind that person's back the magistrate could issue a warrant in the first instance? This clause did not even give the person a chance of responding to the summons; but the magistrate could, in the first instance, issued a warrant. If such things were enacted in regard to England as were imposed upon Irishmen by this Act, he believed they would almost lead to a revolution. He now came to Section 27, from which he found that when this unfortunate person was brought forward, "if he refused or neglected to produce any documents which he was required to produce," he was to be punished by imprisonment. Now, how could the magistrate have any cognizance of the witness having such documents at all? How was he able to understand that such documents existed, except upon the whispers of a policeman? How was the magistrate, under this extraordinary power, to have an opportunity of proving the statement made to him that such documents did exist without verification? Let the House look at the magistrate's powers. He had power to adjourn the proceedings for any period not exceeding eight clear days, and he might commit the person refusing to gaol unless he was willing to do what was required by him. But what if it was impossible for him to comply with the provision of the Act, and to do what he was called upon to do? How would he be affected if the documents did not exist at all? Could there possibly be a greater infringement of the liberty of the subject? The clause went on to say—
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    "If such person, upon being brought up on such adjourned hearing, again refuses to do what is so required of him, such justice, if he sees fit, may again adjourn the proceedings, and commit him for the like period, and so again, from time to time, until such person consents to do what is required of him."
    Would any honest man ever think of putting into the hands of Irish justices such tremendous power—power which amounted to the punishment of a man who was required to do what it was impossible for him to do? He granted that there might be some cases in which there might be contumacy; but he knew, from his own experience of the way in which justice was administered by the magistrates in Ireland, that under Section 27 of this Bill the most tremendous hardships would be inflicted on innocent people. Turning from the witness to the accused, he found in Sub-section D of Clause 28, that the justices—it was still a mere justice, selected from a class antagonistic to the persons who were brought under the operation of the law—he found that these justices might—
    "Order that no person other than the accused, his counsel and solicitor, shall have access to or remain in the room or building in which the inquiry is held (which shall not be deemed an open court), if it appears to him that the ends of justice will be best answered by so doing."
    There was an old adage in the English law, that it was better for 99 guilty persons to escape than for one innocent person to suffer. But that adage appeared to be reversed in Ireland. [Cries of "Agreed!"]Hon. Members opposite were impatient; but he (Mr. Daly) was an Irishman, and he looked at this question from a very different point of view. Let him take one of these cases, which might be initiated by the policeman, and then placed by the magistrate under Section 28, by which means the accused was deprived of the liberty of having the case against him made known to the persons who were most familiar with his social surroundings. Under Subsection D, a man might be brought up in camera before the justices, and an accusation that was entirely false might be made against him, that he was in a certain place at a certain time. There might be 50 responsible persons who had met him in an open fair, or market, or some other public place, at the time mentioned in the accusation against him; but they would be deprived of the liberty of vindicating that man's innocence simply because the exact facts of the accusation did

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    not reach them. He certainly considered that this was the moat objectionable provision of the Bill. Of course, he was speaking in utter ignorance as to whether this was a simple quotation of the existing law or not; but this he did say—that whether it was the law as it stood at present on the Statute Book or not, it was a law at complete variance with the liberty of every man who claimed to act in a Constitutional manner. He could conceive no greater injury done to a man than this sort of Star Chamber examination, where a policeman could make any kind of false charge, without the chance of being detected. It was further well known that the charges made by the police would be well received by the magistrates, and the policeman himself knew that his only road to promotion lay in pleasing the justices. It must be borne in mind that all these powers were not powers intrusted to a responsible tribunal, but that they were powers entrusted to the ordinary justices. He believed if they had in these tribunals the most eminent and learned Law Lords in the United Kingdom, any man anxious to secure the liberties of the people would hesitate to exercise these arbitrary powers. But they were intrusting them in Ireland to men who were embittered by long struggles with the classes against whom the powers wore to operate, and who it was not unfair to say governed more by their passions and prejudices than by their reason. He entertained a very strong opinion that if Sub-sections B and C were on the Statute Book at present they ought at least to be removed at once. In regard to Clause 72 be also desired to say a word. He did not know anything about the Law of Conspiracy; but he did think that in any free country the words—
    "If several persons form a common intention to prosecute any unlawful purpose, and to assist each other therein, each of them is a party to every offence committed by any one of them in the prosecution of such common purpose, the commission of which offence was or ought to have been known to be a probable consequence of the prosecution of such common purpose."
    went too far. Now, supposing that four or five men agreed, as was common in Ireland, to take part in a faction fight; suppose that in some part of Ireland, such as New Pallas, such a party agreed to go to a fair in order to meet some of their opponents. [Laughter.] He had really no means of appealing to the reason of
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    hon. Gentlemen opposite, and, therefore, he was obliged to appeal to their imagination. He wished to base an argumen upon this clause dealing with alleged conspiracy for a common purpose. Suppose, then, that four or five men went to New Pallas, with the intention of meeting four or five other other men belonging to a hostile faction; suppose that two of them repented of their determination on their way to New Pallas, and went back; suppose that the other three proceeded and engaged in a faction fight with their opponents, and unfortunately beat a man to death, would it not be held, under the words of this section, that the two who had repented were liable to a charge of murder, because the offence was such that that ought to have been known to be the probable consequence of the prosecution of such a common purpose? [Laughter.] He was not speaking to the budding and briefless lawyers sitting below the Gangway on the other side of the House, who were indulging in a good deal of cachination of a certain post prandial kind. As an Irishman, he could make allowance for a good deal of their excitement. But what he said was this, that the words "probable consequence" were very dangerous words to introduce into any Bill which was subsequently to be made an Act of Parliament; and he believed that if this Bill were passed in its integrity, it would do a great deal to increase still further the bitter feelings which already existed in Ireland, and that it would intensify the conviction that at the hands of this English Parliament there could be little justice expected for Ireland.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he desired to say a few words before the Bill was referred to the Standing Committee. There were two modes of making a code. One was simply to state the existing law, as it was, in a clear and definite form; and the other was to combine with the existing law a great number of alterations and amendments of principle and practice. He would not say on which of those two modes they ought to proceed; but this he would say, and it was a matter upon which he had a considerable amount of feeling, that the present Bill went considerably towards the latter of these two plans, and contained a number of new questions of law and startling innovations in the existing

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    procedure which he did not think necessary at all. For instance, he would refer to the 100th clause of the Bill. That section really affected matters so important that when one talked of principles of law they could scarcely realize the effect of the change proposed to be introduced. For a long time it had been the custom of the country not to examine an accused person; and, in his opinion, there were very broad grounds why an accused person should not be examined. At any rate, the step now proposed was a retrogade one, and he did not think they ought to attempt to deal with a knotty point like that, by including it in a Bill which was to be referred as a whole to a Select Committee. He said nothing about the body to whom it was proposed to refer the Bill; but he took the Bill as it already stood, and, if it were allowed to pass, it would certainly introduce a great number of anomalies into the law of which he believed a great many hon. Members would disapprove. The proposal to examine an accused person raised a very important question, which took them back to the time of the Inquisition, and the Star Chamber. Nothing was more in accordance with the principles of our law than to give the accused a fair chance. He could not conceive any spectacle more hideous than that of calling upon an uninstructed man, who was a prisoner at the bar, ignorant, perhaps, of the very language of the indictment brought against him, probably with no counsel to defend him, who thought he was able to give an account of the circumstances of the charge against him, and then found himself suddenly cross-examined by an ingenious counsel. The very word used in ancient times to describe the torture of the rack was the "question;" and although in these days of humanity they would not establish a bodily rack, they were endeavouring to establish, by this Bill, a mental rack. Odious as the spectacle was, there was only one spectacle more odious, and that was the calling of the wife to say a word in favour of her husband. With the kindness and devotion which a woman always exhibited, she would be certain to come forward to say something in his behalf, but she would be probably ignorant of what the effect of her evidence was; and the result of his (Mr. Warton's) expe-
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    rience of the Law Courts was that ignorant and uninstructed persons were always disposed to rely upon some simple contradiction of the evidence, some insignificant point, such as this—the policemen declared that they saw a man in a particular situation at 4 o'clock, whereas it might have been 3 o'clock, and if the prisoner thought he could contradict that one particular point he would rely upon that more than anything else. Those who were in the habit of defending prisoners knew that in numberless instances they were pestered by prisoners and ignorant attornies to call witnesses to prove unimportant points. He had frequently of late seen counsel prosecuting for the Crown in numbers of cases against prisoners with all the eagerness proper only for civil causes. He had seen a prosecuting counsel urging forward a case with the same eagerness that he would have manifested if he had been defending the prisoner; and over and over again he had known a prosecuting attorney unduly press counsel to get a verdict, whether rightly or wrongly, and, in endeavouring to get that verdict, they not unfrequently conducted themselves as if they were baiting some wild animal. He contended that this proposal would add a new mode of unfairly obtaining convictions, and that if the prisoner in the dock was to be put upon this mental rack, it would be quite contrary to the principles of fair play which had hitherto animated our Courts of Justice. Her Majesty's Government expected to pass this Code after a very few hours of real debate. Their only object seemed to be to enable the Law Officers of the Crown to hurry the Bill through the House as rapidly as possible. He thought the principles they were tampering with were too sacred to justify the House in assenting to the course proposed. His own opinion was that the principle of examining accused persons in criminal cases was calculated to do an immense amount of injustice, and it ought not to have been introduced into a code. They knew how uninstructed a prisoner generally was; how often innocence was made to look like guilt; and that, through ignorance, many persons could never be brought to understand what the real facts were that affected them. That was only one matter out of many. This Bill converted the justices into policemen. By the 12th

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    section, every justice had the power of holding a preliminary inquiry. Now, it was the duty of a policeman to hunt out crime, and there was no reason whatever why a magistrate should be employed in discharging that duty. When crime was detected, and some person was charged with it, it was right to bring it before the magistrates. Magistrates should do justices' work, and policemen policemen's work. Last year they passed a Bill for Prevention of Crime in Ireland. At that time, no doubt, some such measure was necessary, and he supported the Government in the Bill they introduced under the peculiar circumstances in which Ireland was placed, because he knew there was an indisposition in that country to promote the ends of justice; that witnesses were kept out of the way and terrorized over; and that, therefore, there should be some means of investigating cases secretly, because it was not safe to have a witness examined openly. But he never dreamt that they were to take as a model for their future practice the Bill which was introduced in regard to the state of Ireland under most exceptional circumstances. And it ought to be a warning to the House how careful they should be in assenting to any measure under the pressure of the moment, if such a measure was to be made hereafter a pretext for introducing principles into the law which were entirely wrong. As to the investigation before the magistrate, the 27th section gave power to the magistrate to commit to prison any person who refused to answer any question that might be put to him. He thought the clause would require very careful consideration before its was inserted in the Bill. The clause stated that—
    "Whenever any person, appearing either in obedience to summons or subpoena, or by virtue of a warrant, or being present and being probably required by the justice to give evidence, refuses to be sworn, or having been sworn refuses to answer such questions as are put to him, or refuses or neglects to produce any document which he is required to produce, or refuses to sign his depositions without in any such case offering any just excuse for such refusal, such justice may adjourn the proceedings for any period not exceeding eight clear days, and may in the meantime, by warrant in form D (1) in the first Schedule thereto, or to the like effect, commit the person so refusing to gaol, unless he sooner consents to do what is required of him."
    It would be seen that no account was
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    taken of the fact that the witness was only refusing to answer a question which might tend to criminate himself, and it had always been held that a witness had a perfect right to refuse to answer upon that ground. He did not know if it was the object of the Government to destroy that safe-guard, or whether they intended in future to subject witnesses to interrogations utterly regardless of the consequences to the witnesses themselves. Under this clause, ordinary witnesses who were not prisoners were compelled to answer questions that might tend to criminate themselves, and he thought it ought to be distinctly stated that witnesses under such circumstances might refuse to answer. He could not agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Broadhurst) with regard to the 72nd clause of the Bill; because that section, as it now stood, had always been the law in regard to combinations acting together for a common purpose, and it had been one of the great safeguards for the preservation of order, that when persons conspired together, they should be all equally answerable. Indeed, in his judgment, it was a greater offence for persons to combine together to commit a crime, than for a man to commit a crime alone. It was wicked indeed for one man to do it; but it was far more wicked for a number of men to conspire to commit a crime in open defiance of the law, and to support each other in the wickedness they contemplated. Persons who gave each other mutual encouragement, and banded themselves together to violate the law, had always been designated conspirators, and were regarded as much worse than the man who committed a crime by himself. Therefore, he did not agree with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Broadhurst), which made the hon. Gentleman doubtful whether he would support the second reading of the Bill or not. There was a much greater objection than all these in regard to the construction of the Code, and that was the peculiar circumstance that there were practically before the House two Bills—namely, this Bill which contained among other things provisions for the establishment of a Court of Appeal, and another Bill which had already been sent up to the Grand Committee, and which was now undergoing investigation there. He thought it was an unheard of circum-

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    stance that, at the very same time, almost at the very same hour, and from the very lips of the very same Law Officer of the Government, they should have recommended to them two Bills that were totally different and inconsistent with each other. He had heard the statement made by the Speaker; and althought the right hon. Gentleman had overruled the objection which had been raised, he (Mr. Warton) must say that the overruling of that objection did not get rid of the inconvenience—he would not say the illegality, but the inconvenience—which arose from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General coming forward at the very same moment with two perfectly inconsistent proposals upon the same subject. He wished to know how the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to amalgamate the two Bills? He failed to see if the Court of Criminal Appeal Bill now before the Committee upstairs was seriously intended to be carried, how the appeal provided for in these measures could be made to apply. Certainly, a proposal to summarize the law, at the moment they were altering the law itself, seemed an eccentric and curious mode of procedure. He could quite understand the hon. and learned Attorney General saying—"Pass your Criminal Appeal Bill, and I will strike out of the Criminal Code Bill all the provisions relating to appeal, and only put into it the clauses which are calculated to make it a perfect Code of Procedure." That would be a reasonable process; but to ask the House to go on with this Bill, when another and a perfectly inconsistent Bill was being pushed on as quickly as possible, seemed to him to be a most extraordinary course. He thought it would be far better if the hon. and learned Attorney General would be willing to put off for some time the consideration of the present Bill. At the same time, he (Mr. Warton) did not intend to oppose the measure. He was only desirous of calling attention to the singular spectacle presented to the House, and he hoped the hon. and learned Attorney General, before they came to discuss the clause, would explain to the House—for up to the present moment he had said as little as possible—in what way the Government intended to deal with the two measures; whether they intended to stand by the Court of Criminal Appeal Bill, or whether they
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    meant to go on with both at the same time, and to place upon the Statute Book two Bills which differed very materially from each other?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he had explained the course he had intended to take most fully on introducing the Bill.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he had not heard the explanation. The hon. and learned Gentleman had certainly made no speech in moving the second reading of the Bill, and he thought it would have been much more respectful to the House if he had done so. The Bill was intended to qualify the existing law by introducing a number of new provisions into it, and it was scarcely respectful to the House to bring forward the second reading of so important a measure without a word of explanation. The proper time for that explanation was upon the second reading of the Bill, when hon. Members were present in their places, and not on the introduction of the measure, when a great many of them would be away. He feared the object was to hurry the Bill through the House in a way that was far from satisfactory; and, therefore, the explanation had been given at the wrong time. He hoped the explanation of the hon. and learned Attorney General would be satisfactory to the House, because the measure was one of great importance, introducing a great number of new principles, some of which did not amount to codification at all, while other parts of the measure altogether changed the law. He certainly hoped that such clauses would be omitted from a Bill which professed to be the Codification of the Law.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he reechoed the surprise and dismay of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), and sympathized with him in his feeling that such a Bill as the present, which dealt with the whole of the Criminal Procedure of the country, should be passing out of the hands of the House under the circumstances which had attended the debate of that evening. He would make two statements—first, that this Criminal Code introduced changes into procedure sanctioned for centuries in this country, which might be described as revolutionary; and, secondly, that this revolutionary measure had not been read, and was scarcely understood, by one out of 50 Members of

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    the House. He saw the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in his place; and, if it were not a breach, of Parliamentary etiquette, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would be disposed to press the question—Had the right hon. Gentleman himself read the Bill? How many non legal Members on the Treasury Bench and other Members of the House had read it, and how many of them knew that it proposed changes of the most startling nature in reference to every step in the Criminal Procedure of the country? It had been said that the majority of hon. Members sitting in the House did not expect to come within the operation of the Bill. He wished the Members on those Benches were able to feel the like security; and would say further, that if the Members of the Government were as unscrupulous as he would not suppose or assume, there was no hon. Member on those Benches who differed from the Government in speech that might not, if the Bill became law, be consigned to such term of imprisonment, or penal servitude, as the Judges and juries in Dublin passed upon him. The Prime Minister was credited by public rumour with the intention—incorrect, as he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) honestly and sincerely wished—of withdrawing from the House the great advantage of his genius and services. But the retirement of the right hon. Gentleman would be at a most inauspicious moment; because, as had been made clear from the debate of that evening, when he passed the Procedure Rules, he gave a great blow to the dignity of their proceedings. The House was free from all responsibility with regard to the details of this measure, which was to go to a Committee upstairs, and had discussed the Bill in a most perfunctory and half-hearted manner. Hon. Members who were engaged on the Grand Committee, before which the Bill would go, were not likely to come down there and double the work they had to do; and the consequence was, that a Bill like this could be smuggled through a sleepy House without discussion. Coming to the Bill itself, he said there was not a fundamental or characteristic principle of English Criminal Procedure which it did not interfere with. If there was one point more than another which, with its usual self-complacency, the Press in this country had congratulated the English people upon, it was that
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    prisoners in this country were treated in, a different manner to prisoners in foreign countries. They were told that in France the prisoner was cross-examined by the Judge, who acted rather as a prosecuting counsel than as a man holding the scales of justice; they were told that moral torture was inflicted by this system of cross-examination, which was carried out in the prisoner's cell with no one to protect him from unfair treatment. But there was not a single blot which the English journals used to point out and condemn in the criminal procedure of foreign countries, which the Bill before the House did not sanction. The prisoner could be cross-examined by the prosecuting counsel, and this examination could take place in his cell, because the magistrates were to have power to transfer the hearing of cases to any place they chose; it might be held in the cell, in the middle of the night, and the words of the Bill were that the public could be excluded from attendance at the examination. But that was not all; the magistrate could, in short, do what he liked in the matter, because the wording of the Bill was so vague. It was to the effect that the magistrate might regulate the course of the inquiry in any way which might appear to him desirable, and which was not inconsistent with the provisions of the Act. Now, those provisions assumed throughout the guilt of the prisoner, and the magistrate had a perfect right, on the assumption of guilt, to inflict moral torture on the prisoner. Again, as the Bill said that a magistrate might require anyone to appear before him, there was nothing to prevent a prisoner being taken into his parlour, with no one else present than a constable. When the last Coercion Bill was under discussion, the Prime Minister made a pitiful, but certainly eloquent, appeal to the House not to confer upon the police in Ireland the power of entering houses at night for the purpose of search; but the House, nevertheless, more coercionist than the Ministry, gave the power which the Prime Minister had not asked for. One of the clauses of this Criminial Procedure Bill gave power to the police to enter a house either by day or night; and, by another clause, any magistrate who happened to be harassing a particular district, need not proceed on the information of a constable or an in-

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    former, but could, of his own motion, summon anyone before him he might choose. And when that person came before him, what could he do? He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had said that probably not one hon. Member in 50 had road the clauses of the Bill; and he would like to ask now, how many hon. Members of the House were aware that a magistrate could bring a person before him at any time and place, and that if he refused to answer such questions as the magistrate choose to put to him, or if he refused to answer them in the manner desired by the magistrate, he could be sent to prison for eight days; that, at the end of that time, he could be brought up again and again sent to prison, if he still refused, and so on for any number of times until he did that which was required of him? This was moral torture—here was the Inquisition, sanctioned by words as plain and intelligible as any draftsman could frame them. He now came to the conduct of proceedings in the Superior Courts. He had always felt that one great defence of a prisoner was, that the charge against him should be definitely stated. But under the Bill, as it now stood, the charge against the prisoner could be stated with as much indefiniteness as possible, while the defence made by the prisoner must be stated with the utmost definiteness. The charge need not contain the name of a person assaulted, for instance, nor the name of the owner of property intended to be defrauded, nor need the actual words be stated where they gave rise to the charge against the prisoner—that was to say, that a person could be charged with using language of intimidation, without the words of intimidation being set forth. In fact, the Bill, when it became law, would contain a deliberate incitement and invitation to prosecutors, in place of being definite in the charges brought against prisoners, to be as indefinite as possible, because the more indefinite they were, the more chance there would be of obtaining a conviction. Another startling innovation was, that the deposition might be produced at the trial of a witness examined at the preliminary inquiry, although that witness might not be forthcoming; or, in other words, the Crown Prosecutor, who had put forward the evidence of an informer, might get him out of the way at the trial, if his cross-examination was likely
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    to shake the testimony he had given. But the most dangerous part of the Bill was contained in Clause 50 and onwards, which amounted to the permanent enactment in Ireland of the system of packing juries. In the first place, it was proposed that the Attorney General should not, as now, be required to get the assent of the Grand Jury to any indictment; then the Attorney General could demand, and, as he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) read the clause, the Court was compelled to grant trial at Bar. He thought the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, when he spoke on this question, might have been candid enough to inform the House that Clause 50 largely extended the jurisdiction of the Law Officers of the Crown with regard to trials at Bar, because that was really the effect of the clause. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said that the clause left the law exactly the same as it was; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) repeated that it made a most extraordinary and revolutionary alteration in the law. It enabled the Attorney General to get rid of the protection afforded by the Grand Jury, and to bring the accused before the Court of Queen's Bench when he liked. The third provision of the clause related to the empanelling of special jurors; and here he would invite the House to take Clause 50 with Clause 72, in order to see the scope of the proposal. Let them put those two clauses together. There might be a special jury in the case of a trial at Bar, and according to Clause 50—
    "Upon a trial at Bar, the jury shall, in England, be taken from the county of Middlesex, and in Ireland from the county of Dublin, or the county of the city of Dublin, as the order of the Queen's Bench Division may direct."
    That was to say, the Special Jury must be taken from a particular class of jurors in a certain portion of Ireland. Now, Clause 97 said—
    "No peremptory challenges shall be allowed in any cases in which a special jury has been struck in the manner herein before provided for."
    The matter ran in this way—First of all, the Attorney General could have his trial without a Grand Jury; secondly, the ease was heard at the Queen's Bench; thirdly, it was heard by a Special Jury in the City of Dublin; and, fourthly, the right of peremptory challenge was not allowed in the case in which a Special Jury had been struck;

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    or, in other words, jury packing was made a permanent institution in Ireland. What did the House think of such a thing as that? If it were possible for such a thing to occur, if this House could be suddenly transformed into a Palace of Truth—a thing which might be described by logicians as a metaphysical impossibility—hon. Members would open their mouths; and it would be a curious thing to hear how many would be obliged to admit that this statement of his disclosed a condition of affairs perfectly new to them in regard to the effect of the Bill. These clauses established the pre-eminence of jury packing in Ireland at the dictation of the Attorney General for the time being. Did hon. Members know the character of the Queen's Bench in Ireland? It was a sort of ante-room to Dublin Castle; in fact, he did not know whether he was quite right in describing it as even an ante-room, seeing that the Judges of the Queen's Bench wore, in nearly every case, Members of the Privy Council, and that, as such, they were a part of the Executive which had the direction of the policy of the country, which included the institution of political trials. In that way, the Judges were concerned in giving directions for trials which they subsequently had to preside at. They changed the venue of these cases from Dublin Castle to the Four Courts, and were themselves the very persons who had referred those prosecutions to Courts of which they sat as members of the administration. He maintained, therefore, that the Queen's Bench in Ireland was a Department of the State to all intents and purposes. Then, they had this fact to consider, that the Attorney General, who was also a Member of the Privy Council, appeared, at the suggestion of the Privy Council, to conduct prosecutions before Members of that Privy Council; and, more than that, the defendant was brought there before a Special Jury, from which he had no right to eliminate by peremptory challenge. Take a case of seditious libel—the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) knew something about that, as he had been charged with the offence at least once. What was seditious libel? It was, in fact, a statement against the Government which the Government did not like—any attack made upon the Government which met with their disapproval was a seditious libel. In the
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    face of that fact, would the House credit that it was now to be made a portion of the permanent law of the country, that no justification was to be allowed to be entered in reply to such a charge? In other words, any criticism on the action of the Government which the Government chose to prosecute meant conviction, because all they had to prove was the use of the words of which they complained. The Government had only to produce the papers which contained the words upon which the charge was founded. They need not prove the meaning or intention of the words, and, though justification was allowed to be pleaded in the case of any other libel, there was no such thing as justification permitted in the ease of seditious libel. [THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir Henry James): What clause is that in?] He was surprised to find that it was necessary for him to extend the area of ignorance which seem to exist upon this Bill, because he found when he came to the fact that no plea of justification was allowed to a defendant in a case of seditious libel, that not only were hon. Members generally unacquainted with the provisions of the Bill, but that even the hon. and learned Gentlemen the Attorney General and the Solicitor General themselves had to ask what part of the Bill such a thing appeared in. The Law Officers of the Crown, who were supposed to have been engaged in perfecting every line of this Bill for months, were not able to tell off-hand what portion of the Bill contained the important provision enacting that no justification should be allowed in cases of seditious libel.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES): I thought the hon. Member was speaking of some new enactment of the law. The provision he is referring to is no new law, but a portion of the existing law.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman knew very well that that was only law in the sense of being Judge-made law—law made by one single Judge. But whether it was Judge-made law or not, did the hon. and learned Gentleman put forward the fact that that was existing law, as an excuse for not knowing what portion of the measure that provision was in? The hon. and learned Member rose to correct a misapprehension which only existed in

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    his own mind. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) repeated that it was evident that the two Law Officers of the Crown did not know, and had to be informed, as to what portion of the Bill this important provision, disentitling a defendant to plead justification, in cases of seditious libel, was in; and that showed with what little wisdom the world was governed. Take the case of ordinary libel; the prosecutor's were not required to set forth the words that contained it, so that one man could charge another with libel, without being obliged to set forth the words which constituted the offence. But, mark this—that in definiteness being allowed to the prosecution, what was done in the case of the defence? If the defendant declared that he was obliged to state certain facts in the interest of the public peace, or for some other reason, he was required to set forth in writing the fact or facts which justified the plea, so that the prosecution had a detailed and definite statement of fact, to which the defendant was bound to adhere; whereas they themselves might reply in general terms. The prosecution might be general and vague in the original indictment, and when the defendant became definite and clear in giving the fact or facts, the prosecution might reply again generally. Vagueness was made the rule with the prosecution, and definiteness a necessity with the defence. He had spoken of the manner in which peremptory challenge was taken away, and perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General did not know the clause in which that challenge was contained. If he was as ignorant on that point as he was with regard to justification in the matter of seditious libel, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would inform him that the question of challenge was dealt with in Clause 97. How was it dealt with? In the first place, there was a right of priority given to the Crown. The prisoner had to speak first. There were several other provisions setting forth the grounds of challenge, and on these grounds, and on these grounds alone, could objection be taken to a person put forth as a juror. In the first place, a right of challenge was given where any juror's name did not appear in the jurors' book. Then, again, any number of challenges were given on the ground that a juror was not indiffe-
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    rent between the Queen and the accused; and they were given on the ground that a juror had been convicted of any offence for which he was sentenced to death or penal servitude, or to any term of imprisonment with hard labour, or exceeding 12 months. The clause went on to specify the following grounds, in addition to those he had quoted:—
    "That any juror is disqualified as an alien, under the law in force for the time being in England or Ireland; or in Ireland on the ground that any juror was returned to serve as a juryman contrary to the provisions for the time being in force for the returning of jurors in rotation."
    Then came the words—
    "No other ground of challenge than those above mentioned shall be allowed;"
    so that, in fact, they had to go into the question as to whether a juror had been convicted of any offence for which he had been sentenced to death or penal servitude, or to any term of imprisonment with hard labour, or exceeding 12 months, or whether he was disqualified as an alien, or whether he was returned to serve as a juryman contrary to the provisions for return of jurors in rotation. These grounds might be alleged, or it might be said that a juror was not indifferent between the Queen and the accused. That might be very plausible; but how could they find that a juror was indifferent between the Queen and the accused? The clause went on to say—
    "If any challenge was made, the Court might, in its discretion, require any party challenging to put his challenge in writing."
    What followed? Why the clause said—
    "The other party may deny that the ground of challenge was true."
    And then the Court could select two jurors, or, if no jurors had been sworn, then two persons present whom they might appoint for that purpose, to try whether the juror objected to stood indifferent between the Queen and the accused, or had been convicted as aforesaid, or was disqualified as an alien as the case might be. The selection of these two triers rested with the Crown, or, in other words, with the Member of the Executive, who was also the Judge in the Queen's Bench for the moment. That Judge might appoint two of his packed jurors to decide the question as to whether a juror, whose qualification was under consideration, was or was not indifferent between the

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    Queen and the accused. Well, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) considered he was justified in saying that, under these circumstances, this would be a permanent enactment of the very worst description. He now went to the Conspiracy Clause. ["Oh, oh!"] He could promise the hon. Member who seemed to object to his going into this matter, that he would state nothing that was not in the Bill, and that he would state some things which would give information to the hon. Member's mind. The clause was such that under it any member of a trades union—consisting, as some trades union might consist, of 20,000 or 30,000 members scattered all over the country—could be held responsible for any single act of every single individual connected with the body to which he belonged. To that matter he particularly wished to call the attention of the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Broadhurst). Suppose there was some bricklayers' organization, and that the hon. Member for Stoke was president of it; and supposing down at Stoke, or some other part of the country, a member of that organization rattened another member, the hon. Gentleman himself could be made amenable for the offence here in London. The Bill said, "they must have joined together for an unlawful purpose;" but the House must not forget what a partizan Judge and a packed jury might consider an "unlawful purpose." Of course, there would be no danger if all Judges were honest, and if all Attornies General and Solicitors General were scrupulous, or, at any rate, as ignorant of the clauses of the Bill as the hon. and learned Gentlemen sitting on the Front Bench opposite. They must face the fact that impartiality such as that of those two hon. and learned Members was not easily paralleled, and they must always bear in mind that they might, at any time, in Ireland, have better informed Law Officers than these. This Conspiracy Clause said, in Sub-section C of Clause 72, that a person was a party to, and guilty of, an indictable offence who—
    "Directly or indirectly counsels or procures any person to commit the offence, or to do or commit any such act as aforesaid."
    The clause went on to say—
    "If several persons form a common intention to prosecute any unlawful purpose, or to assist each other therein, each of them is a party to
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    every offence committed by any one of them in the prosecution of such common purpose, the commission of which offence was, or ought to have been, known to be a probable consequence of such common purpose."
    Therefore, it was not necessary that there should have been an association for an unlawful purpose—it was not necessary that the results of an association should have been the deliberate planning and perpretation of unlawful acts—but that the result of any act should have been such as the wisdom of any associate should have foreseen. Supposing a man made a speech, and three years afterwards a crime was committed which, in the opinion of the prosecution, could be indirectly traced to that speech, the party who had made it could be held guilty of the crime, notwithstanding that the speech might have been delivered for the very purpose of preventing such crime. There was not an association in the land that would be safe under this Bill, if the law were administered, as it was being administered just now in Ireland. The measure was virtually a permanent enactment of some of the worst features of the Prevention of Crime Act. Apparently, nothing would satisfy the Government but adding to everything that was bad in it, dispensing with that which was least offensive, and retaining everything that was evil. The Bill said, in Clause 130—
    "This Act shall not apply to or affect the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act, 1S82, and this Act and any proceeding there under may be earned into effect in the same manner and with the same consequences in all respects as if that Act had not been passed."
    So that the Government were not satisfied with one or the other measure alone, but they required the two. He regarded the Bill as most perilous to the liberty of the subject. It destroyed every one of the accepted principles sanctioned by tradition in this country. The practice and tradition had always been for the proceedings to take place in open Court; but, under the Bill, they could take place in secret. An old maxim was that every Englishman's house was his castle; but, under the Bill, every man's house would be liable to inspection by the police at any hour of the day or night. According to immemorial usage in this country, every man was assumed to be innocent until he was proved guilty; but the general effect of the Bill was to assume that every man was guilty until

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    he had proved himself to be innocent. The tradition and universal practice of the country had been that there should be definiteness in the indictment; but, for definiteness, this Bill would substitute vagueness in every part. These things could not be too strongly reprobated; but in England there were the safeguards of a free Press and an effective public opinion. In Ireland they had neither the one nor the other. The public opinion of Ireland was not effective with regard to the administration of the law or with regard to legal decisions. The more public opinion asked for anything, either from this House or from the Courts in Ireland, the more certain was it to be refused. The greater the unanimity of public opinion in Ireland on any question, the greater was the unanimity of English public opinion against concession to it. In Ireland, therefore, they had no protection in public opinion. They had no protection in the freedom of the Press, because there was no such thing as freedom of the Press in that country. There was no writer for the public Press who, if he dealt with political questions, could not be brought before a packed jury by an unscrupulous Attorney General, and convicted of seditious libel. In short, this Bill would take away the last safeguards of the liberty of the Irish people; and the Irish Members were therefore bound to meet it with a most obstinate and stubborn opposition.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he begged to move the adjournment of the debate.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Sexton.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he thought he need not express the hope that this Motion would not be accepted. Early in the evening hon. Members opposite had been absent, and had advanced no objection of any kind to it; but, having returned at a late hour, they raised objections, not to the second reading, but to clauses, innocent, he quite admitted, of the fact that they were repeating, over and over again, the arguments which had already been heard in the debate. The House had had to hear, over and over again, what had already been said, without a word of criticism on the principles of the Bill, and directed
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    only to clauses. He was sure the House would desire every possible discussion on the Bill; but it had been already discussed, and if hon. Members wished to discuss it further, all he could say was that the Government intended to meet this Motion for adjournment with strong opposition.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that, until within the last hour, the Liberal Benches had been almost empty. Irish Members had, in the course of the discussion, kept themselves in the background, while leading Members on both sides had expressed their opinions. According to the traditions of the Chair, if an Irish Member had risen in the first hour of the debate, he would not have been called upon in preference to those who had a right to sit on the two Front Benches; and the present crowded state of the House had given rise to the suspicion that it was due to a "Whip" which had been sent round the Clubs in order to bring about an untimely close of the debate. It would be impossible for the Government to conceal a confederacy of that description from the condemnation of the public.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must confine himself to the question of the adjournment of the debate.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he desired to speak on the details of the Bill. There were still some Amendments to be moved—for instance, the most important proposal that the Bill should be referred to a Standing Committee. The hon. and learned Attorney General, in introducing the Bill, had given but a very faint outline of its provisions; and one of the reasons why he (Mr. O'Donnell) had risen at all was that the hon. and learned Gentleman had made no clear statement in reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson), and several other hon. Members who had spoken, but had vaguely declared himself ready to abide by the decision of the majority of the Grand Committee, taking refuge behind a problematical sort of decision, instead of giving a clear statement of the policy of the Government.
    MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, the hon. and learned Attorney General had given as his reason for opposing this Motion some supposed conspiracy on the part of Irish Members; but many of the

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    Irish Members had had to attend a meeting of great importance to them, having no connection with this Bill. When they were free from that meeting, they had come back to the House, and had remained there as closely as they did on any other evening. When he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) came in, he found the late Secretary of State for the Home Department discussing the Bill in the presence of the Speaker and one other Member. What was to be done with this Bill after it left the House? This Bill affected the interests of the Irish people, and was it fair that Irish Members should have no opportunity of discussing its details? He had intended to take part in this debate, and he thought that he and others like himself were entitled to have a chance of doing so; and he hoped the House would not consent to the sudden closing of the debate.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, he thought the Government seemed to suppose that they had a Criminal Code for the House, as well as the Criminal Code they were proposing for this country and for Ireland. He certainly joined with his hon. Friends in considering that the Bill was one of much importance, which would have to be closely scrutinized before the Grand Committee, and again when it returned to the House. But the Government appeared to have the idea that a Bill of such enormous moment, and ranging over such wide questions, should be read a second time after the very partial discussion it had received to-night. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to be annoyed because he could not show some supposed absenteeism on the part of the Irish Members during the early hours of the debate. He (Mr. Parnell) himself was not able to be present in the early hours; but he knew that the Irish Members did not intend to show any discourtesy to the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. On the contrary, they waited in the House up to the last possible moment, consistently with not neglecting other important duties and interests which they were bound to attend to, in order to have the pleasure of hearing the hon. and learned Gentleman's exposition of the Bill. But the hon. and learned Gentleman had disappointed the expectations that had been formed of him, and had decided to move the second reading of the Bill without any explanation. It was, there-
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    fore, not in the power of his hon. Friends to pay that courteous attention to him which they would have desired to pay under other circumstances. The hon. and learned Gentleman would, therefore, see that he was not entitled to make that charge of deliberate absenteeism which he had made against the Irish Members. This was a most important Bill, and there were Amendments standing against it in the name of different Members, showing a great interest in the Bill. He had not before seen a Bill with so many Amendments against the second reading as there were against this Bill. It was a measure which excited unusual and unprecedented interest; and, considering that the House would be deprived of an opportunity of discussing it on the Committee stage, there ought to be a further discussion on the principles before the Bill went to the Grand Committee to which the Government had intimated their intention to send it. The attitude of the Government practically meant that the Irish Members were only to be entitled to speak on a Bill of this kind during the dinner hour, when it suited other parties not to be present. That was the only deduction he could draw from the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech, and therefore he maintained that Irish Members were entitled to press for a further discussion.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he had heard many charges brought against Irish Members, and now they were charged with having been absent from the House; but he had thought that the longer the Irish Members were absent, the better the House liked it. But if they were absent, it was for very good reasons; they had most important business to attend to, and no charge could lie against them on that account, especially considering that English Members were absent in the same way. He had seen the Liberal Benches absolutely empty while important questions were under consideration, and Irish Members were frequently in the House keeping important questions before the country, when the House was almost entirely deserted. They considered this Bill of great importance, and the reason why he supported the Motion for adjournment was that it was important both to England and Ireland. If it dealt only with English liberties, they would let

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    English Members take care of their own interests; but they were concerned with the liberties of the Irish people, and were of opinion that this measure had not been sufficiently discussed at this stage. English laws, however drastic, might in a large measure be trusted to English magistrates.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not now speaking to the Motion before the House.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he desired to support the Motion for adjournment on the ground that this was a Bill of exceedingly great importance, especially to Ireland, and there was a great deal that Irish Members desired to say upon it. For that reason he held that they had a good claim to ask for an adjournment of the discussion.
    MR. DAWSONsaid, it was with sorrow that he saw not only the liberties of his own country, but the liberties of this country passing away by a measure of this character. He was very much of the opinion of his hon. Friend that hon. Members ought to have time to read the Bill and understand it, and that the Government should not seek to close the debate which, to his mind, they had not taken sufficient part in. A measure of this nature ought not to be forced on at that very late hour. If hon. Members would get up and give them some intimation that they thoroughly understood the question, and would not be forced and hoodwinked into giving a decision at that late period, he should withdraw his opposition to the proposal of the Government to go on with the Bill; but he felt certain that if they went on with it now, the vast majority of Members would be hurried into a decision for which they would have reason, some day or other, to be sorry. One difficulty which would be experienced if the Bill was pushed on now, would be that when it went to the Members of the Grand Committee, if it was not thoroughly discussed on the second reading, the Members of that Committee would be making Amendments in it which, when it came back to the House, would have to be fully discussed on Report, as well as those matters which the Government would not allow time to go into now. Hon. Gentlemen had not read the Bill; therefore, to hurry it through now would be to seriously affect the legislation of the country. He
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    thought it had been clearly shown that the English Members did not rise to the necessities of the occasion. He thought that sufficient reason had been shown on the part of the Irish Members for wishing to delay the measure until it was better understood by hon. Members. Let the Government give the Irish Members a further opportunity to inform English Members, and opening their minds upon this matter. He fully intended to support the Motion for adjournment; and, in doing so, he wished to say that a great change had come over the House. In other years they would have been permitted, with all their powers as Members, to take part in a full discussion of this Bill in Committee of the Whole House. They were not to be allowed to do that, however; and he therefore asked, was it fair for the right hon. Gentleman to tell them—
    MR. SPEAKER: I must call the hon. Member's attention to the fact that he is not speaking to the Question before the House.
    MR. DAWSONsaid, he was about to speak of the innovations that crippled discussion, and which made hon. Members all the more entitled to have a full debate in that House while the principle of the Bill was before them. The Committee of the Whole House on this Bill had been taken away; and the result was, that he and other hon. Members, who were not on the Grand Committee, could not discuss the details, except on such an occasion as this. Was he not entitled to refer to that?
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member asks me for my direction, and I must therefore give it him. He is clearly not in Order in the observations he is making.
    MR. DAWSON: Then all I will say is that I wish to support the Motion.
    MR. LEAMYsaid, he could very well understand the anxiety of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General to have this Bill read a second time that night. It was, of course, very natural that, being in charge of the Bill, the hon. and learned Member should wish it to pass the House as rapidly as possible, so that it might go before the Standing Committee; but, at the same time, he (Mr. Leamy) could not help thinking that the reason of the hon. and learned Member's anxiety was that he feared

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    that if the measure were adequately discussed at that stage, it would be very likely to meet with a more strenuous opposition when it went upstairs than that which he now anticipated for it. He (Mr. Leamy) doubted very much whether the hon. and learned Member could point to any Bill of such great importance as this, or to any Bill dealing with the Criminal Procedure, or with Law Procedure, which, though it did not touch such vital questions as were dealt with in this measure, was passed through the House after one night's debate. This was a measure which certainly deserved the closest possible attention from the House. He did not wish to raise any question about how it would affect Ireland, or how it would affect England; but he took it as a legal Bill, which would effect very serious changes in the Criminal Law of the country; and he submitted that those things should not be dealt with lightly, and that the House should not commit itself to changes like these without having carefully examined them. No one knew better than the hon. and learned Member himself the serious character of the changes that would be effected by the Bill; and it was only natural that he should be anxious to get the measure through that House, and sent to the Standing Committee, where no publicity would be given to the discussion that took place upon the details. If the present attempt of the Government were successful, there would be no adequate discussion on the principles of the Bill, and nothing would be known of the discussion in its details. He was satisfied there were many English Members who did not understand the Bill, and who, therefore, were unable to take part in this debate, and if an adjournment were allowed they would be enabled to inform their minds upon the matter. If the debate wore adjourned, these English Members would join the Irish Members in opposing certain clauses of the Bill. The measure contained 131 clauses, some of which, as he had said, wore of the greatest possible importance. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had accused the Irish Members of repeating the same arguments over and over again; but, if that were so, was it not for the reason that the hon. and learned Gentleman had not attempted
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    to answer the arguments advanced? No attempt had been made to explain those points in the Bill upon which the Irish Members had put questions, and to which they had raised objections, and he (Mr. Leamy) submitted that they had a right to expect that the hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill would state whether or not the construction put upon the clauses by the Irish Members was a just and fair one. But to ask them to prolong the discussion at half-past 1 in the morning was really too much. It must be borne in mind that a considerable number of hon. Members had had to attend a meeting of the Grand Committee that day, which sat at 12 o'clock. It was to be presumed, as that Grand Committee in question was the one on Law and Legal Procedure, that it had occupied the attention of many legal Members of the House, who were consequently not in their places that night through having had to come down to Westminster at such an early hour that morning. He thought that to attempt to close the discussion on the Bill in the absence of these hon. and learned Gentlemen, who had been, serving on the Grand Committee because of their supposed special knowledge on the subject, was to attempt to pass the Bill through under circumstances of great disadvantage. He heartily supported the Motion for adjournment.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 19; Noes 128: Majority 109.—(Div. List, No. 56.)
    Main Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. KENNYsaid, he begged to move the adjournment of the House. He thought they had already given sufficient reasons why an adjournment should take place. The Irish Members had been accused of deliberately absenting themselves at the commencement of the debate; but that was not the fact. When the Irish Members returned to the House they found that the English Members were absent, and he thought it would be well—[Loud cries of "Divide, divide!"]—if an opportunity was afforded to further discuss this Bill. He protested against those interruptions, coming as they did, in some cases, from hon. Members who were not in the most

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    perfect state of self-possession. When he came back to the House, he found very few hon. Members present; and it was only at his (Mr. Kenny's) request that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had refrained from moving a "Count." He had missed the first portion of the debate; and he, therefore, desired to have an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the remarks which hon. Members had let fall during the discussion of the Bill on the second reading, by reading the speeches in the newspapers to-morrow before the debate closed. He was especially anxious to read in the papers to-morrow the introductory observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General. He thought that, considering the very late hour and the manifest unfitness of hon. Members to decide the great questions at issue, the hon. and learned Gentleman should now accede to the request of the Irish Members and consent to the adjournment.
    MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYseconded the Motion.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Kenny.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he thought the evident sense of the House was in favour of the Bill being read a second time. Hon. Members opposite asked for the adjournment of the debate on the ground that the Bill had not been sufficiently considered; but he would point out that a Bill in almost identical terms was read a second time in 1879. The Bill had, therefore, practically been before the country during four years. He had been challenged with the statement that a measure of great importance like this ought not to be passed through the stage of second reading in one night; but, in reply to that, he would point out that the Bill of 1879 was read in one night, so that there was nothing unusual in the proposal now before the House. He trusted the hon. Member (Mr. Kenny) would not press his Motion for adjournment. If the House were disposed to allow the second reading to be taken, he would not ask the House to decide that night upon the question of referring the Bill to the Standing Committee, which they would have a future opportunity of discussing.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he thought the course which their proceedings had taken recently was very instructive. Since the division, hon. Members, jubilant in the possession of the new powers placed in their hands, had proceeded on their return from the Lobbies to a lively manufacture of "evident sense," and their cries were so loud and well-sustained, that it had been almost impossible for the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny) to make himself heard. The moment the hon. and learned Gentleman rose, he referred to the "evident sense" of the House; but it was evident to him (Mr. Sexton) that something in the nature of a compact and arrangement had been entered into between the hon. and learned Gentleman and those hon. Gentlemen who not so prominently, but no less effectually, contributed to the proceedings of the House. It was asked by hon. Members on those Benches that further time should be allowed for the consideration of a great measure that was about to pass out of their hands, and be referred to a Grand Committee, on which Irish Members were but slightly represented. But the Government refused that indulgence; and all he (Mr. Sexton) could say was, that if they persisted in the extraordinary course they had taken—if they relied on the energy of their Supporters to force Irish Members into silence—they would find that the time of the House during the Session would not be thereby economized. Because, it was obvious that, if they were not allowed to discuss the measure at adequate length, and if they were met with delusive pleas in support of the refusal of the Government, they would have to discuss the Bill at considerable length in the Grand Committee, He said it was a delusive plea to put forward, that the question was not one of principle, but of clauses, for the Bill was such a monstrous innovation upon the liberty of the subject, that every clause of it contained some vindictive and sinister principle. It would, therefore, be necessary for them, in the Grand Committee, to take the Bill clause by clause, in order to assert as fully and adequately as possible the right of Irish Members to bring their views to bear upon public opinion in this country. He asked the hon. and learned Gentleman to consider whether it was likely, in the long run, to save the time of the

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    House, after one Sitting, to deprive them of the opportunity for further discussion? The hon. and learned Gentleman said that hon. Members on those Benches had simply repeated one another; but he (Mr. Sexton) had listened, for instance, to the speech of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), and the charge certainly did not apply in that case, for that hon. Member had brought forward two arguments, which produced some confusion in the minds of the Law Officers of the Crown. Those hon. and learned Gentleman were unable to refer to the clause which his hon. Friend was dealing with.
    MR. THOROLD ROGERSrose to Order. He asked, whether the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) was relevant to the Motion before the House in the observations he was making?
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is travelling somewhat wide of the Question, and I must ask him to confine himself to the Question before the House.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he claimed that the debate ought to be adjourned, in order that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General might, on Monday night, answer the speech of his (Mr. Sexton's) hon. Friend the Member for Galway. The only arguments, in the course of the debate, which had received any reply from the the hon. and learned Attorney General were the arguments which came from English Members. The arguments of Irish Members had been unanswered; and he (Mr. Sexton) said that to close the debate under such circumstances was nothing else than an injustice and a scandal.
    MR. O'DONNELLwished to say a few words on the reproaches which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General attempted to cast upon Irish Members for the manner in which they had intervened in this debate. He (Mr. O'Donnell) had taken pains to collect information as to the order in which hon. Members had spoken since Mr. Speaker left the House at the usual time, and he found that instead of being, as the hon. and learned Attorney General had suggested, in any way improper, the intervention of Irish Members in the debate had taken place at the only time at which they could intervene. He found that the argument of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) was justified, and
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    that there was an explanation due from the hon. and learned Gentleman.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member for Dungarvan appears to be reviewing the debate on the Question, "That this House do now adjourn." In so doing, the hon. Member is not in Order.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he only proposed to reply to the speech which the hon. and learned Attorney General made on the Motion, "That this House do now adjourn," and not to review the debate. He had no desire to trespass on the time of the House, and no idea of going against the ruling of the Chair; but he thought he was entitled to reply to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman upon the Motion for adjournment. The time of the House until the intervention of Irish Members in the debate had been taken up by the speeches of two official Members, who took precedence over Irish Members, and by the speeches of English Members who had Motions and Amendments to move to the Bill. It was quite evident that it would be impossible for any Irish Member to claim the attention of the House in the face of the official Members on the Front Benches, and of the three or four hon. Gentleman who had Amendments to the Motion actually upon the Paper. The explanation of the hon. and learned Attorney General had been made before 9 o'clock, and from the time when Irish Members began to object to the Bill, there had been no reply to their questions from the Treasury Bench; and he (Mr. O'Donnell) said that on the principle of privilege and courtesy to the House alone, they were entitled to an official answer. Of course, this official answer could not then be given, and it was for that reason that the House ought to adjourn. The manner in which the hon. and learned Attorney General had misrepresented the action of Irish Members would, he thought, be usefully brought before the bar of public opinion; and then it would be found that their resolution, by the brute force of numbers, to suppress the opinion of Irish Members, would not redound to the cause or popularity of the Government. Ever since the Government Party seemed to have become aware that they possessed the number required to close the mouths of the Irish Party, they had not even listened to them with courtesy or attention; and that was an

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    illustration of what they already knew by experience—namely, that when power was given to Liberals, they would use it in a brutal manner.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, that when the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General reminded the House that the Bill had practically been read four years ago, he seemed to have forgotten that since that time the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act had been passed. He (Mr. O'Brien) thought the attitude of the hon. and learned Attorney General, and the conduct of hon. Members opposite, were a bad return for the forbearance shown by hon. Members on those Benches in reference to the Explosives Bill. This was certainly the first time, that, in a single night, a perpetual Coercion Act had been forced through an important stage, and passed on to a Committee in which the voice of Ireland would be practically suppressed. Every constituency in Ireland expected, and had a reasonable right to expect, that its Representative should be heard in protest against a measure of this description, which was but another blow to public liberty in Ireland. Not more than eight Irish Members had been heard against the Bill, and to their arguments not a single reply had been attempted, except by way of interruption s, which had turned out rather disastrously for the interrupters. If this was an attempt, before the protest of Ireland had been heard, and before the House had realized the infamy of this measure—if that expression was un-Parliamentary it was perfectly true—to suppress the voice of Ireland that night, all he could say was, that he was not sorry that the new system of coercion which this Bill was to inaugurate should have been commenced upon Irish Representatives.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he understood the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General to say that if the House were disposed to read the Bill a second time that night, he would give hon. Members an opportunity of making any statement they had to make with regard to the Bill on the Question that it be referred to the Grand Committee. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) believed he was in the recollection of the House in saying that the exact words of the hon. and learned Gentleman were—
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    "A full opportunity of making any statement they may please on this Bill on the Question that it be referred to the Standing Committee."
    And, that being so, he thought it would be wise on the part of the minority to accept the suggestion made.
    THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he thought the hon. and gallant Member who had just spoken (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) somewhat extended the statement of his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General. His hon. and learned Friend's statement was, that if the House were disposed to decide the question of second reading that night, the Government would not ask the House also to decide, on the present occasion, the question of referring the Bill to the Standing Committee. His hon. and learned Friend also said that the House would have another opportunity of discussing that question; but it was not possible for him to decide what was or would not be in Order. The hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien), upon the subject of the adjournment of the House, said that every Member of the minority had not been heard. It was rather pushing the rights of minorities to excess to suppose that every Member of a minority could be heard against a measure to which objection was taken; and he (the Marquess of Hartington) asked the hon. Member to consider what would be the effect of that in the case of a measure opposed not by a small, but by a large minority. There was no intention whatever either to misrepresent the action of the Irish Members, or impute motives to them. All that was said was that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General waited for some time before he rose, and then only got up when he found that no one else showed a disposition to continue the debate. It was rather hard, therefore, to say that the hon. and learned Gentleman had not answered arguments addressed to the House. It was impossible for him to answer them, because they had not yet been made. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, he (the Marquess of Hartington) dared say, in anything he had to say, it might be alleged that he had not been present himself during a i great part of the debate. That was true, because he had had no intention of taking any part in the debate on the second reading, and had not, therefore, thought that his presence would be of any use. He had, however, heard some

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    of the speeches delivered that evening by hon. Gentlemen representing Irish constituencies; and he ventured to say that, having heard those speeches, he was of opinion that it was impossible that any of the questions raised in those speeches could be decided by an adjournment, or that any approach to a decision could be brought about by that means. So far as he had heard, hon. Members had dealt with matters of detail, which were subjects for discussion in Committee—either in the Grand Committee, or in Committee of the Whole House. Whether the details of such an important measure as this should be discussed in a Standing Committee or in a Committee of the Whole House was, no doubt, an important question; but the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had already intimated to the House that it was not the intention of the Government to ask them to go into that matter that night. Any arguments, therefore, which could be given why the details of the Bill should be considered in the Whole House rather than in the Standing Committee hon. Members would have an opportunity of stating. It seemed to him that nothing could be gained by continuing a discussion nominally on the second reading, but really on the details of the Bill.
    MR. LEAMYsaid, it would be impossible for the House to continue the discussion as to the desirability of referring this Bill to the Grand Committee that night; therefore, the suggestion of the noble Marquess was not a very valuable one. He (Mr. Leamy) did not think the hon. and learned Attorney General would persist in making his proposal at that hour of the morning, seeing that there was an Amendment to it. The noble Marquess had said that, so far as the Irish Members had taken part in the debate, it had been a discussion upon the details of the Bill. Well, to his (Mr. Leamy's) mind, it had been a second reading discussion. On many second readings he had heard speeches upon the details of Bills—in the case of the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act last year, for instance. He had heard very long speeches from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the details of the Bill I during the second reading; and he had heard speeches that night upon clauses of this Bill which were so important, that if it was thought desirable to incor-
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    porate them into the law of the land it should be done in separate Bills, and not in a measure of this kind. Was he to be told, for instance, that the question whether an accused person should be examined himself was not a question of sufficient importance to discuss on second reading?
    MR. THOROLD ROGERSrose to Order. He wished to know whether the hon. Member was speaking to the Motion for Adjournment or not?
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, he did not feel called upon to interfere.
    MR. LEAMYsaid, he merely wished to point out that though the noble Marquess had stated that they were dealing with the clauses, it must be borne in mind that those clauses, or some of them, were such as ought to be embodied in separate Bills. Under those circumstances, the clauses ought certainly to be discussed, to some extent, on the second reading. He doubted very much whether the hon. and learned Attorney General had ever expected that the Bill would go through in one night. The hon. and learned Member had informed them that the Bill was read a second time four years ago, and that certain Members were not in the House at that time. Well, probably a considerable number of those hon. Members who were now sitting behind the hon. and learned Member were not in the House then; and probably the Bill was as new to them as it was to many of the Irish Members. If the debate wore adjourned until Monday, it was probable that the second reading would be disposed of in a couple of hours, and that the rest of the evening could be devoted to the consideration of the question of referring the Bill to the Grand Committee. Let the Government assent to that proposal.
    MR. SHEILsaid, it appeared to him, from what had fallen from the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington), that if the Irish Members were driven to the necessity of putting the House to the trouble of a division, the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) would be bound to vote with them, as he had been under the impression that they could continue the present debate on the Motion to refer the Bill to the Grand Committee. The hon. and learned Attorney General had heard the hon. and gallant Member say

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    that he believed he (the Attorney General) and the noble Marquess had given the House to understand that the debate could be so continued, and the hon. and learned Attorney General had not dissented. However, the noble Marquess had rendered it perfectly clear later on, having clearly pointed out that no such hope could be entertained. Under the circumstances, it was hard to see how the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Sussex could withhold his vote from the Irish Party. In previous Sessions, when the Government sought to do what they wore attempting to do now, the Irish Members moved many Motions to prevent them, some of which were good, and some of which were frivolous. To his (Mr. Sheil's) mind, all of them now seemed to be good. He did not propose to repeat those Motions, but desired to let them go with the past, and to forget them; but he would put it to the House whether the state of the case now was similar to what it was in the old days? In the old days, the House might be kept up all night, until 9 or 10 o'clock next morning—as had happened within his own experience; but now a powerful engine was brought to bear on this line of proceeding—namely, the clôture, which, he was told, was threatened tonight. Was that, he asked, a fair opportunity at which, for the first time, to put the clôture in operation?
    MR. SPEAKER: I must point out to the hon. Member that he is not speaking to the Question before the House.
    MR. SHEILsaid, his reason for asking the House to agree to the adjournment was simply that the Bill had not been properly discussed so far as the Irish Members were concerned. The noble Marquess had told them that he had not been present to hear the whole of the debate, although he had been present long enough to hear all the Irish Members had to say on the principle of the Bill. He had said his reason for refusing to assent to the adjournment was that the Irish Members had not used arguments which the House should dwell on. Then, if that was so, they might be anxious to have an adjournment, so that they could advance arguments that the House could dwell on. Was it wise that the adjournment should be refused on the present occasion? The Bill was one of extreme importance; and although the speeches
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    which had come from the Ministerial side had been strongly in favour of the second reading, they served to show how excessively involved were the questions which arose in it.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 15; Noes 131: Majority 116.—(Div. List, No. 57.)
    Main Question put, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    The House divided:—Ayes 132; Noes 16: Majority 116.—(Div. List, No. 58.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor,)—put, and agreed to.
    Debate adjourned till Monday next.
    House adjourned at half after Two o'clock.