HC Deb 28 May 1889 vol 336 cc1309-24

Question again proposed, "That the House do agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

* MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)

Before this vote is agreed to, I feel bound to call attention to the accounts which have reached this country of the cruelties and oppressions which have been recently committed in Armenia; and to the unsatisfactory character of the answers which have been given by Her Majesty's Government to the questions which have been put to them on the subject. I have, therefore, risen to state very shortly to the House the essential facts of the case. The House is doubtless aware that for a long time before the war of 1877, there had been great oppression practised by the Turks, and great suffering among the Christian population of Asiatic Turkey. The Treaty of San Stefano contained a promise of reform made by the Porte to Russia, and when the Treaty of San Stefano was superseded by the Treaty of Berlin, Article 61 was inserted in the latter instrument, by which Turkey became bound to the six signatory Powers to protect the Armenian population against the Kurds and Circassians, and to carry out reforms in its Asiatic provinces. The same obligation, in a slightly different form, was undertaken by the Porte to this country, in the so-called Anglo-Turkish Convention of 1878, whereby a separate promise was made to Great Britain, in return for which we undertook to protect the Asiatic frontier of Turkey. We have thus a double right, and a double moral obligation to the Christians of the East. Consuls were sent out by the then Government to examine into the condition of the provinces, and study the frontier, and their reports form an interesting, but at the same time a melancholy, record, to which I would refer any hon. Member who may feel inclined to doubt the accuracy of the facts I am about to state. Several blue books were published, and a summary of their contents will be found in the dispatches of Sir Henry Layard and Mr. Goschen. Sir Henry Layard was no, enemy of the Turks, but rather be inclined to say the best he could for them, and to shield their misdeeds from the censure of Western Europe. He had, however, described Turkish. misgovernment and apathy in language so clear and decided as to leave no doubt on any fair mind. The reports of the Consuls continued to be published down to the year 1881, and the last report from any Consul appeared in the month of February, in that year. I call attention to that date because from that date there has been no report at all from any of our Consuls as to the condition of Armenia or Asia Minor. Some of the Consuls have been withdrawn, but a certain number are still there, and they are amply sufficient, with the knowledge they have acquired of the country, to furnish us with reports which would be highly instructive and to examine into the accounts of atrocities which from time to time reach us. In 1880, when the right hon. Gentleman the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was sent as special envoy to Constantinople, efforts were-made to induce the Porte to undertake reform, and these efforts were renewed by Lord Dufferin down to 1882; but from that time until now we have had no information at all as to what has been done by any Government in the way of remonstrating with the Turks for unquestionable instances of cruelty, nor have we received any official account of the state of the country and the action of the Consuls. A strong remonstrance is understood to have been addressed to the Sultan in 1886, but the dispatch which contained it has never been presented to Parliament. But although the Government have obstinately refused all information, everybody knows that nothing has been done by the Turkish Government to carry out any of the promised reforms. The present condition of the country is quite as bad as it has ever been at any time within living memory. Numbers of persons have been thrown into prison, and some of these subjected to torture by the Turkish officials. Others have been sent to languish in exile. These things are done, sometimes at the caprice of a tyrannical governor or as a means of extortion; sometimes on groundless suspicions of conspiracies, and the victims have not even the consolation of knowing that an account of their sufferings had reached the ears of Western Europe through those very British Consuls whom they had looked to as sent out to protect them. Even worse than the cruelties perpetrated by the Turkish officials are those which the Turkish Government either connives at or is unable to restrain. I mean those which are wrought by the local Mussulman magistrates and the nomad Kurds. The House may remember that during the last few weeks there have been repeated telegrams announcing that fresh outrages have been perpetrated by the Kurdish tribes. One case reported is that a Kurdish chief a few weeks ago seized the head man of an Armenian village, against whom he had a grudge, bound hint on a pile of wood, poured petroleum over his body, and then set the faggots on fire. Moussa Bey, who did this, is a friend of the Turkish Governor of the district, and though the Turkish Government now pretend that they wish to arrest and punish him, it is notorious that the Governor made no attempt to interfere with his barbarities. In another case, a Christian village was attacked and plundered, the inhabitants were driven in when they tried to escape, and, when the outlets had been blocked, the place was set on fire. I might recount hundreds of cases in which innocent people have been murdered; in which Christian girls have been carried off by force from their parents and consigned to a harem, on the pretext that they had embraced Mohamedanism; in which churches have been despoiled or defiled, and all without any effort, or apparently any wish on the part of the Government to punish the guilty persons. One instance may show how brutal is the behaviour of the Government itself. About a year ago a schoolboy of 17, named Sumpad, had written for his own pleasure, and with no ulterior object, some verses in which there were one or two patriotic expressions. These verses were shown to the schoolmaster, who reprimanded him for referring to politics, and told him to destroy them. The poor boy had no idea of publishing his exercise, but he unfortunately kept a copy of it, and the Turkish Officials having somehow found the verses in his possession, he was arrested for having written them, thrown into prison and treated so cruelly that he died, and the schoolmaster though he had bidden the lad to destroy the verses was imprisoned also, and so far as I can learn is in prison still. In Erzeroum there has been a panic, and it would seem a perfectly groundless panic among the Turkish authorities; a great number of respectable Christian inhabitants have been thrown into prison on mere suspicion and are kept without trial. I would ask hon. Members to read the Blue Books of 1880 and 1881 and compare the accounts given there with those contained in the recent telegrams, and they will find that the state of things is precisely the same as that which was described by Sir Henry Layard in 1880. Not only has the Turkish Government made no efforts to put down the evils which exist, or to check the proceedings of the Kurds, it aggravates the disorders by depriving the Armenian people of weapons, while their persecutors are well armed. Colonies of Circassians are brought into the country, and the whole policy of the Turkish Government would make one believe that they were following out the principle laid down by a Turkish Prime Minister some years ago, when he said that the way to get rid of the Armenian question was to get rid of the Armenians. If this be a true statement of the present condition of the country, I shall be asked for what particular purpose I bring the matter before the House. My object, in the first place, is to make the House acquainted with the reported facts, so that there may be a proper inquiry into the statements that reach us, and that it may be ascertained how far the reports in the newspapers are true. If the facts are true, then I ask Her Majesty's Government to address to the Turkish Government those remonstrances which they are not only bound by common humanity, but by Treaty obligations to address. I know from sad experience what is the kind of answer I may expect from the right hon. Gentleman opposite in regard to these statements. He will say that they are exaggerated. That was said not long ago by the Prime Minister. I think it throws some light on Lord Salisbury's state of mind when we find him quoting, as a witness of the good order in the country, the Turkish Ambassador. He might have remembered what took place in 1876. Several months elapsed before we succeeded in extracting the horrible truths concerning the Bulgarian atrocities, at which the conscience of Europe stood aghast, and the Turkish Government unblushingly denied the whole hideous story. What reason is there to believe any statement of the Turkish Ambassador? He is sent hereby his Government to attempt to deceive and mislead us. And as an instance of the value of his statements, I may observe that the excuse which he made to Lord Salisbury, and which Lord Salisbury was not ashamed to repeat in another place, viz. that the Kurds could not be restrained, because they came across the frontier from Persia, cannot possibly apply to these outrages by Moussa Bey, because Moussa Bey's quarters are thirteen days' journey from the Persian frontier, and the plain of Mush, where these outrages occurred, is at least 130 miles, as the crow flies, from that frontier. I cannot help adverting to an incident which happened here in London, which shows the temper and spirit in which Lord Salisbury approaches the question, and that is the domiciliary visits paid under the auspices of Lord Salisbury and the Home Secretary to a house in Bayswater which was inhabited by two gentlemen who were conducting an Armenian journal, conducting it with moderation, and with no attempt to stir up disaffection among the unfortunate subjects of the Sultan, however natural disaffection may be, but simply to give a true and faithful account of what goes on daily in Asiatic Turkey. This journal had excited the displeasure of the Turkish Government, and they asked Her Majesty's Government to suppress it. Lord Salisbury answered, probably with regret, that he had no legal power to suppress it, but he and the Home Secretary despatched two policemen belonging to the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard to the lodgings occupied by the conductors of the journal to make inquiries regarding their mode of life, the names of the persons who visited them, the publication of their journal, and so forth; and these officers cross-examined the owner of the house, and procured from him a copy of the journal. The times have been when this would have been considered an act entirely inconsistent with the principles of freedom which we have been accustomed in this country to respect. That our police should make domiciliary visits, and conduct inquisitorial examinations at the instance of a Foreign power is, I think, and would have been considered, till the days of the present Government, a gross scandal. Such acts are doubly a scandal when they are done at the instance of a Power which has disregarded all legitimate representations we have made, which oppresses and maltreats its own subjects, and which takes umbrage at the publication in this free country of a journal which contains nothing but a fair and honest statement of the facts which daily occur in the dominions of the Sultan. Now I know the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary, will say that to address any remonstrances to the Turkish Government, or to make any inquiries on the spot or even to publish the Consular Reports and despatches for which we ask will only have the effect of further irritating the Turks. He will probably, say also that the papers were not published from 1881 to 1885, and again in 1886, when a Liberal Government was for a few months in office. But I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that there were reasons existing in 1883 and 1884, and even in 1886 for the non-publication of the papers up to those dates which do not exist now. If he says that to produce these papers or to address remonstrances to the Porte would only have the effect of further irritating the Turks, and aggravating the sufferings of the Eastern Christians, I entirely differ from him. There is not the slightest evidence that the Turks have ever behaved the least bit better when we have abstained from remonstrating, or that they have ever behaved substantially worse when we have remonstrated. I believe, on the contrary, that the best chance—it is, perhaps, a slight one—of procuring some amelioration in the condition of the Christian people of Asiatic Turkey is to endeavour to convey to the Turkish Government the sense of shame and indignation which we feel when we read of the occurrences in Armenia. I think that if Her Majesty's Government were to insist upon the fulfilment by Turkey of her obligations, if they were to put it to the Turkish Government that any such sympathies for the Sultan as remain in this country—they, no doubt, are very slight—are being alienated, that it is becoming daily less and less possible to defend the Sultan's Government or to justify its continued existence, they might have some chance of producing an effect upon the Sultan's mind. They might point out to the Turkish Government that it is repeating in Asia the self-destructive course of policy which it pursued long ago in Europe. It lost Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, because it refused to reform the administration of those regions. It created disaffection, justified insurrection, and made foreign intervention necessary. The same train of events seems likely to recur in Asia; and nothing but a change of policy can save the Sultanate from extinction. If the Government were to say frankly that they think it is no use making any remonstrances, that the Turks are determined to disregard any remonstrances, and to rush on their own destruction, I own I do not know what more I can say, unless I am prepared to propose some act of positive intervention. That is a point I do not raise. But Her Majesty's Government never have said that remonstrances are useless, and I do not believe they would be wholly useless, if they were made with proper vigour. The Government have always answered that when they see an appropriate occasion they,will address remonstrances, though they have never told us whether they do remonstrate, and how the remonstrance is received, and what effect it produces. They keep us altogether in the dark. I think we are fully entitled to ask the Government what they are doing and what they mean to do; to ask them whether it would not be right to direct our Consuls to inquire into the truth of the allegations, whether it would not be right to invite the representatives of other Powers to hold an inquiry. Eleven years have passed since the obligation of putting an end to their disorders and oppres- sions was undertaken under the Treaty of Berlin. The time surely has come when the Powers may take stock of the position, and endeavour to ascertain. whether anything has been done, or is likely to be done, to carry out the engagements of 1878. On these grounds I venture once more to submit that we are entitled to have some declaration of policy from the Government, and I warn the Government that the continued neglect of this question tarnishes the fair fame of England, and may result in consequences which all would deplore.

SIR J. KENNAWAY (Devon, Honiton)

On previous occasions I have had the honour of helping my hon. Friend to bring this matter before the House. I have always felt that this is a question which ought to be. removed from Party politics, and one on which both sides of the House could unite. I regret that on this occasion my hon. Friend, carried away by his argument, has abandoned his usual impartiality, and sought to make a serious attack upon Her Majesty's Government, which I do not think is altogether deserved. What I desire to particularly point out is that, being responsible as we are for the Treaty of Berlin, we have very great obligations, as a nation, in regard to the Armenian, people. It was owing to our action that Turkey was able to escape from the grip of Russia at a time when she was practically at the mercy of that Power. Russia has always been ready to come forward as the friend of the Armenians, and they have had great temptation to throw themselves into the arms of Russia. It was considered very desirable that that should be checked. They were checked by us, and therefore Great Britain has incurred great responsibilities. I recognize the extreme difficulty of the situation. I recognize what was emphasized by Lord Salisbury, the impossibility of making remonstrances if we have not the power or the determination to back up to those remonstrances by force of arms. Things are different to what they were when Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's word was law, to a great extent, at Constantinople. The English people are bound to show their sympathy with the Armenians in every way, and the Government ought to use its moral influence in their behalf Further, the House should be informer of the real state of affairs, which car only be obtained from the Consular Reports. I will merely add my request to the one already made that the Government should look into the matter.

* SIR J. FERGUSSON

I should be sorry if it were imagined that I do not share the sympathy which the hon, Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Bryce) has expressed for the unhappy people of Armenia. It has been admitted by officials of all parties that there is in Asia Minor a state of things exceedingly lamentable, a weakness of government, a want of authority, a recurrence of outrages and consequent severe suffering to innocent people as well as the fertile dangers arising from religious jealousies. I hope that things are not so bad as they have been, and that there is a greater desire and more earnest effort on the part of the Ottoman Government to protect the Armenians, to choose better administrators, and to withdraw and disgrace Governors who are unworthy of their trusts, to improve the police, and generally to remove the blots that have rested on the Government of the country in past times. I believe that this has been the desire of the Sultan himself; but I should be deceiving the House if I were to say that the efforts have been successful to the desired extent, and that there remain no signs of misgovernment and its miserable consequences. That good order which it is desirable to see established in Asia Minor is still a long way off. At the same time, it would be surprising if particular events had not been greatly exaggerated. Hon. Members may have read in the newspapers of a certain outrage committed by Kurdish marauders in an Armenian village—namely, the boiling alive of a bride. I have reason to believe that such an incident did not take place; but that there have been raids, outrages, maraudings, and cruelties from time to time I am afraid is the case. The hon. Member for Aberdeen has complained that he has no recent information. Of course, Her Majesty's representatives report from time to time, and the Government is served in Asia Minor and Armenia by officers who are well able to distinguish truth from falsehood. But the present Government is not responsible for the non-publication of reports for the whole of the period since 1881. The reports were not published between 1881 and 1885, and have not been for three years since. I am quite sure that the Government in which the hon. Member for Aberdeen served had good grounds for not publishing the reports during their term of office; and there may be reasons existing at the present time equally valid. For example, it is not desirable to gibbet the officials of the Turkish Empire by publishing broadcast to the world all the stories which reach Her Majesty's Government of the sad defects of government in Asia Minor. I am of opinion that more may be done by remonstrance and representation to the Porte than by holding the Government up to the eyes of the world as wicked and incapable. Representations are made from time to time when sufficient ground for them appears, and they are not always without effect. With regard to the recent occurrences, Sir William White has been instructed to make representations to the Porte as soon as he receives full particulars. I can assure the House that in view of the position which Great Britain holds towards Turkey, it has always been considered by the Foreign Office during the time I have had any connection with that office, the duty of Her Majesty's Government to offer counsel and remonstrance to the Sultan's Government when there was fitting occasion; but the counsel or remonstrance should be offered in such a way as to produce compliance and not resistance. Care especially should be taken that they are made in a manner that is not calculated to offend or insult the high officials of the Ottoman Empire. No greater mistake could be made in dealing with an Oriental Power than to humiliate the Sovereign in the face of the world. It is suggested that this country should invite the Powers to join in a common inquiry into the matter of the Armenians. The obligations of Great Britain under the Treaty of Berlin are joint obligations, and Her Ma- jesty's Government have no right under that Treaty to intervene separately i[...] the affairs of the Turkish Empire. The hon. Member for Aberdeen knows how difficult a thing it is to obtain the joint action of the Powers of Europe in such a matter as that under discussion. The various Powers have, more or less, objects of their own ends to serve, and, therefore, no thing is more difficult to obtain than united action. To resort to united action of the Powers without absolute necessity would really tend to weaken the Ottoman Government by that process of humiliation which I have indicated as being most desirable to avoid, and perhaps also to loosen still more the props of its authority. I venture to think that such a course should only be resorted to in the last extremity. In such a situation as the Armenians now are, it cannot possibly be hoped that in a short time they should enjoy the blessings of civilization. What is the state of things? It is not that there is a province inhabited by a particular race called Armenians, but there are many Armenians scattered up and down over a great area, mixed with other populations and other religions of varying degrees of civilization or barbarism; and the near neighbourhood of the Persian frontier also makes it easy for tribes more or less nomadic, to descend upon villages and enrich themselves by despoiling their neighbours, committing outrages of greater or less cruelty, according to their nature. And when we remember how comparatively short a time since even in our own island raids by Highland or Border clans were not unknown—how religious antipathies exist even to this day in the sister island, although they are controlled by all the resources of civilization, and also what painful incidents and outrages sometimes occur there, I do not think we, in civilization, should be too keen to mark what is done amiss in a country which is so much less advanced than our own. I can assure the House Her Majesty's Government are well aware of evils existing, and are not, and have not, been unmindful of the responsibilities we have assumed towards that region. We have not been remiss when opportunity offered and duty seemed to require it, to bring under the notice of the Government of the Sultan, in his own interest and the interest of his Empire, the necessity of checking these disorders, and urge the need of better Government. I believe that our remonstrances have been equal to our duty, and that if we were to resort to the means which the hon. Member recommends they would do more harm than good.

MR. GLADSTONE

I know the great difficulties the Government have to contend with in every question of this kind. I make no doubt of them at all, and consequently there is nothing in the shape of positive obsection that I am prepared to take to the proceedings of the Government, with one exception, with the knowledge that would justify such criticism. The exception is a matter referred to by my hon. Friend near me, and as to which we have some knowledge of the facts, and that is the raid, as I may call it, by the police upon an Armenian newspaper. Now I say an Armenian newspaper instead of being regarded by the Government as an object of suspicion ought to be viewed with favour by us. Everything that tends to check outrages ought to be regarded with favour The facts are not known to us. I am not making that the matter of complaint, but we ought to consider that an organ which is intended to give the public knowledge on these subjects is deserving of encouragement rather than of discountenance. Instead of that, however, we find that the agency of Her Majesty's Government was used to supply the Turkish Government with information as to the conductors of that newspaper; and I ask whether there is anything in the conduct of the Turkish Government in respect to Armenia which entitles them to this favour? No doubt the moral effect produced by that act was that the conductors of that paper were regarded at least as persons in a suspected position and engaged in an enterprise which justified such suspicion. Apart from the proceedings of the Government, on which I am not prepared to found any charge, because I have no justification for doing so, there was one portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman which I heard with profound regret. The right hon. Gentleman has just made a speech than which, in my opinion, none more discouraging to the friends of humanity has ever been delivered in this House. The right hon. Gentleman said he anticipated great good from remonstrances addressed to the Turkish Government, provided they were made in a form that would not offend. No good ever came from any remonstrance with the Turkish Government if it was made in terms that did not offend. The man who really made remonstrances with the Turkish Government effective—I am making no reflection or comparison to the depreciation of the present representative of Her Majesty at Constantinople, for whom I have the highest respect, but the man who was historically successful in obtaining results from the Turkish Government was Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; but it was not his distinction that he made his remonstrances in terms that did not offend. He made his remonstrances in terms that were intelligible, and intelligibility in dealing with the Turkish Government means pointing to painful results. The right hon. Gentleman as a humane man deeply regretted the state of things in Armenia, but he said there had been exaggeration. Referring to the particular case of a person who was stated to have been burned to death, the right hon. Gentleman said he believed that the occurrence did not take place.

* SIR JAMES FERGUSSON

The case to which I alluded was that in which a girl was said to have been boiled to death.

MR. GLADSTONE

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his correction. Yes, the cause of death was the application of heat in a liquid form. I observe that in no single case was the right hon. Gentleman able to give his authority for saying an outrage did not take place. I know not whether his authority was the Turkish Ambassador. I have not a word to say against the Turkish Ambassanor; it is the duty of the Turkish Ambassador to receive as true the reports furnished to him by his Government; but I will not hesitate to say that in 1876 reports that were most grossly and abominably false were sent to Musurus Pasha by the Turkish Government, and were treated by him as true, for which I find no fault with that most amiable and, in many points, respected personage; it was his duty to receive the reports as true. But my hon. Friend has mentioned the case of a village inhabited by Armenians, where the people were absolutely compressed into the village and confined there in order that when fire was applied to the place they might be all destroyed in a mass, and that fire was so applied with that result. That statement of my hon. Friend the right hon. Gentleman has not contradicted. The right hon. Gentleman said there is improvement in the condition of Armenia, but he has given no single indication of what that improvement is. Why has he not pointed to some acts of the Turkish Executive Government, to some laws and some practical measures taken to make those laws operative? I have no doubt had it been in his power the right hon. Gentleman would have done so, as it would have been his duty to do. But his optimistic impression of the condition of things in Armenia has not been supported by a single verifying detail. It is eleven years since we made a convention with Turkey binding the Sultan in the most solemn form to introduce effectual reforms in the administration of Armenia, but not one single point is alleged in which he has fulfilled his engagement. Under the circumstances if we cannot be informed that this improvement, that improvement, and the other improvement has been made, to talk of improvement in general and to say that things are better than they were before, is offering us husks instead of food, and paltering with the interests involved in a great and most important subject. I sympathize with the right hon. Gentleman up to a certain point in the matter of these remonstrances. I consider Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was possessed of extraordinary gifts by which he contrived to do good without resort to actual force, but I conceive that every Government is in this position, that if it remonstrates in mild terms its remonstrances are idle words, waste of breath. If you remonstrate in strong terms there is another difficulty, because if the strong terms are not effectual, and come to be repeated again and again, a series of such remonstrances is incompatible with the dignity of the country, making them useless unless it is prepared to resort to some act of forcible intervention. Therefore, I do not disguise the difficulty. I do not presume to censure Her Majesty's Government; but I do lament the attempt of the right hon. Gentleman to set up his optimising doctrines where we have not the smallest solid ground afforded us for his comforting assurances. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the fact that the Reports of the Consuls ceased to be furnished in or about the year 1881. I am at a loss to know why, and I have some difficulty in imagining that the publication of Consular Reports has ceased for all time, or that there could be any justification for withholding them. Consuls are supposed to keep their eyes open and to report facts regarding the people among whom they live, and it is altogether a new idea that their Reports are to be regarded as confidential documents. If they are to be so, that is simply condemning the Consuls' Reports to perpetual barrenness and absolute inutility. Why are not Consular Reports to be made, and, being made, why are they not to be printed? If in this respect I am personally, or any one associated with me, is open to censure, let the facts be brought out; but do not let a particular act at a particular time be confounded with the adoption of the principle of eternal silence about the horrors that prevail in Armenia. Public opinion must be brought to bear upon this case. It is a great power, and I am afraid that public opinion and that other power of threat of force which we are not in a condition to appeal to are the only powers likely to produce any sensible improvement in the condition of the people of Armenia. But there is one thing not without importance. In the Cyprus Convention we have an instrument of some force in our dealings with the Government of Turkey. On the one hand the Sultan is bound to introduce reforms into Armenia, and if he does the British Government are bound to assist him in maintaining his sovereignty over that country. It is in our power to warn the Sultan that the non-introduction of reforms will utterly destroy his title to British aid. A warning has been given many years ago; it ought to be repeated, and he should be given plainly, to understand that under no circumstances will misdeeds in Armenia be tolerated; but I am afraid that the countenance that has been given to misdeeds in Armenia had been fatal to the happiness of the people of that unfortunate country. Our power has been used, it ought to be used, and I trust it will be used again. We are under obligation to my hon. Friend who introduced the subject and to the right hon. Baronet who followed him, whose sincerity I do not question. but it is necessary that he should brace himself to a somewhat more energetic conception of the subject and method of proceeding than that of which he has given a specimen in some portion of his speech.

MR. ILLINGWORTH (Bradford, W.)

Before this discussion closes I think there is another question which probably we shall not have another opportunity of raising. At this moment the condition of Europe is admitted on all hands to be critical, and I do not remember a time when so little information has been given to the House respecting our foreign relations.

It being ten minutes to seven of the clock, Mr. Speaker rose to interrupt the business.

Whereupon Mr. William Henry Smith rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes 224, Noes 126. (Div. List, No. 130.)

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put acccordingly, and agreed to.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

The House was adjourned at five minutes after Nine o'clock.