Lords Sitting of 25 March 1852

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Protection of Inventions Act, 1851 (Extension of Term); Consolidated Fund; District Courts of Bankruptcy Abolition.
2a Common Inclosure.

DISTRICT COURTS OF BANKRUPTCY ABOLITION BILL.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he was about to present a Bill to which he begged the attention of their Lordships. They were aware that last Session there was a Bill of his before them on the same subject, in which some progress was made, but which was postponed in order that its important provisions might be fully considered during the interval between that and the present Session, and especially by those persons who were occupied in the administration of the law of bankruptcy and insolvency in various parts of the country. By the County Courts system—improved as it would be, should the Bill pass which their Lordships had sent down to the other House of Parliament, and still further improved as it was sure to be afterwards by new legislative enactments resulting from greater expe-
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rience of its working—by this system of local jurisdiction inestimable benefits had been secured by bringing causes of small, he should rather say of moderate, amount within the means of suitors, without the expense and delay of having recourse to the superior courts. But this improvement applied only to cases of claims on solvent parties, or assumed to be solvent at the time of being sued. Where questions arose on an insolvent estate, in the cases of insolvent traders, there continued to be at this moment the same denial of justice as there had been in all others prior to the establishment of courts of local judicature. That was the necessary result of our having extended bankruptcy jurisdiction from the metropolis, where it had succeeded so well, to various parts of the country, by a measure introduced by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Lyndhurst), and passed in the year 1842, which undoubtedly had conferred advantages upon all creditors of insolvent traders. It happened, however, that that measure was extended to the country before the establishment of local courts. It was originally intended in his (Lord Brougham's) Bill of 1833, which never passed into law, that the local courts should have taken bankruptcy and insolvency, as well as ordinary debts; but as the Bill of 1842 for extending the new bankrupt system of 1832 to the country, was introduced some years before local courts were in existence, it was absolutely necessary to appoint local commissioners in bankruptcy in the different provinces. But the consequence was, that when in 1846 County Courts were established, there came to be two systems working at the same time, and both by local courts—the Bankruptcy Courts and the County Courts; and it was to see how far it was possible to amalgamate these two systems, that he introduced the Bill last Session to which he had referred. The difficulties he had never concealed—he was quite sensible of those difficulties—but he did not despair until the attempt had been tried and failed. One of the evils which had been pointed out by Lord Cottenham and others, was the great distance creditors had to travel to make proof of debts. Even in the London district the disadvantage was felt, and his proposed plan was then, and now by the Bill he was about to introduce, to greatly narrow that district. The grievance was yet greater in the provinces, where the distance was often a hundred miles from the creditor's residence to the court. The

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effect had been to render it impossible for small creditors to prove. In one case there was an estate amounting to 700 l. to be divided; only two creditors under 10 l. proved, and instead of paying 2s. 6d. or 3s. to the whole body of creditors, it went to pay 20 s. in the pound to the petitioning creditor and to the two others. There was another case in the county of Leicester. The distance from the place where the general body of the creditors resided, to the court, was 112 miles; there were eighteen creditors; not one proved, and the whole estate was distributed, if it could be called distribution, by paying the petitioning creditor. Thus to the small creditor there was still the same denial of justice in bankruptcy which there had been to all small creditors before the system of local judicature. The Bill which he had now to ask their Lordships to give a first reading, was intended to effect a consolidation of the two systems, so as to give the County Court Judges, in the manner proposed by his Bill of 1833, and approved by the Commissioners in 1841, for certain purposes, jurisdiction in bankruptcy and insolvency, that, going round the district from place to place, they might so work the different fiats near the residences of the different creditors. He refrained from entering further upon the subject, as it would no doubt be fully considered when the Bill reached another stage. The noble Lord then presented a Bill to limit the Jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Court of Bankruptcy, to abolish the Courts of Bankruptcy for the Country Districts, and to give to the Judges of the County Courts Jurisdiction in Matters of Arrangement and of Bankruptcy in certain Cases.
Bill read 1a.

INDIAN AFFAIRS—THE BURMESE WAR.
THE EARL OF DERBYrose for the purpose of making a request to the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Ellenborough) on the subject of the question of which he had given notice, namely, whether Her Majesty's Government were prepared to lay before the House any papers explanatory of the grounds of the war with Ava. The terms in which the noble Earl had worded his question were at any rate premature, for they related to the "war" with Ava. Unfortunately there had been a hostile collision between forces of the two countries on two different occasions; but no actual
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war had taken place, and no declaration of war had been issued up to the time when the last accounts were sent from India;* He therefore still hoped that such a misfortune might be averted. The first account of the proceedings in Ava reached the Government by the last mail, and only1 the day before the last mail to India started. The Board of Directors had^ therefore, only a hasty opportunity of stating their opinion on the course pursued by the Governor General in India. As to the second collision, the Government had received accounts of it from the Commodore at Rangoon, but, as yet, no accounts of it had reached the Court of Directors from the Governor General of India. Consequently we had only imperfect accounts of it, and no opinion given by the Governor General of India in Council upon it. He (the Earl of Derby) was in a position in which he could only lay before the House —he would not say "garbled," but—imperfect accounts of these transactions; and therefore he hoped that his noble Friend' would postpone the question of which he had given notice until the arrival of the next Indian mail, which probably, he had almost said certainly, would place us in full possession of the details of the case, and of the opinion formed upon them by the Governor General on the spot.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that under the circumstances it was impossible not to comply with the request of the noble Earl, although unfortunately he could not concur in the hopes he expressed, as he had not concurred when the same hopes were expressed by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Lansdowne) a month ago. It seemed that he (the Earl of Ellenborough) was correct, and the noble Marquess was incorrect, and he believed it would appear that he was still correct in his more gloomy anticipations. He was most anxious to call their Lordships' attention to the subject, not only with regard to what was past, but still more with regard to what was to come. Of course, he should now postpone his question, which he might convert into a Motion, in order to put the whole case before their Lordships. Would the noble Earl object to the 5th or 6th of April?
THE EARL OF DERBYhad no objection to the 5th of April.
THE EARL OF ELLEBOROUGH, whilst on this subject, wished to offer a suggestion to the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty, with reference to the position of

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the commanders of Her Majesty's ships in the course of the transactions now taking place. Inasmuch as the authorities in England and India had been without the smallest anticipation that the steps adopted at Rangoon would be followed by war, he thought, if possible, the Admiralty might have neglected to give instructions to the Commodore on the Indian station as to the course he was to pursue upon the occurrence of war. Their Lordships were aware that the Governor General of India had no power to give any instructions to the commanders of Her Majesty's fleets in that part of the world. The Admiral, in regard to the Governor General, stood in the position of the commander of an allied force—he could only offer suggestions—and it rested with the commander, at his discretion, to act upon those suggestions or not. He thought that was a position in which it was inexpedient for the public service that the commander of Her Majesty's ships should be placed. He did not think it fair that the officers of Her Majesty's ships should be placed in a position in which they could not receive positive orders to effect the purposes of the Government, which was practically the direct operation of leaving those orders to be sent only from England. It was not fair to leave the commander to act or not, according to his discretion; and he hoped the noble Duke would take care that by the next mail instructions would be given which would relieve our naval commanders from the anomalous position in which they were at present placed.
THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDsaid, that the commander of our squadron in those seas had acted upon a letter of instructions from the Governor General in Council, and those instructions had been faithfully adhered to, also by the Commodore on the station. It had been the custom, and it was now the case, that while the Commodore was at one part of the station, the Admiral was at the other. At present the Admiral was at Hong Kong, awl the Commodore was at Rangoon, under the instructions of the Governor General in Council, which were considered as orders, as it was impossible to wait for orders from this country, which must depend on transactions from day to day. He did not know whether it bad happened while his noble Friend opposite was in India, but it had been proposed that the Admiral should have a seat in the Council during the time of his command; but this was found to be inconvenient at a time when the Governor General
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was in the Upper Provinces. Certainly the Admiral could only fulfil his duties on that command by acting in accordance with the instructions of the Governor General in Council.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHfeared the noble Duke did not understand that the Governor General had no power to give instructions—he could only offer suggestions —and no doubt the Commodore had faithfully acted upon the suggestions, which the noble Duke called instructions; but he might not have done so if he had thought those instructions were not such as he ought to obey. What he (the Earl of Ellenborough) asked was that he should be directed to obey them, and be held safe; and not, if he acted improperly in obeying or in not attending to the suggestions, be liable perhaps to punishment, certainly to strong animadversion. For the safety of the officer, he ought to know distinctly his position. He (the noble Earl) had no doubts on this subject. When he was in the Upper Provinces upon one occasion, his colleagues at Calcutta did give instructions to the commander of one of Her Majesty's ships. The commander represented the matter to the Admiral. The Admiral very properly remonstrated. The Council referred to him (the Earl of Ellenborough), and he told them that the only thing they could do was to apologise; suggestions and requests they might, but orders they were not competent to give. It might be proper to abolish that monstrous job the Indian Navy, and have only Royal ships. When he proposed to do so, he could have effected a saving of 100,000 l. a year, and now he believed he could save from 150,000 l. to 200,000 l. a year. Until that was done, and until the officers could act under the instructions of the Governor General, they must be placed in an anomalous position.
THE EARL OF MINTOconsidered that the Admiral on the Indian station was in the same position as any of Her Majesty's commanders on any foreign station. They acted under the instructions of the Admiralty, and according to the desire of any of our foreign Ministers. To place the Admiral directly under the orders of the Governor General, might lead to great inconvenience, and he was not aware of any practical inconvenience arising from the present state of things.
LORD BROUGHTONconfirmed the correctness of what had fallen from the noble Earl. He could state, from a communica-

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tion which he had himself received before he left the Board of Control, that the Commodore at Rangoon had offered to act before ha received any instructions from the Governor General. He had also received a letter from the present Governor General of India, in his official capacity, in which he complained of the anomaly in which Her Majesty's naval officers in India were placed, and in which he expressed a hope that when the new Charter of the East India Company came under discussion, that anomaly would be taken into consideration and removed.

LAW OF WILLS AMENDMENT BILL.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving that the House go into Committee on this Bill, said that the first clause in it was the great object which he wished to carry at present. He should move in Committee that the second and third clauses should be struck out of the Bill; but he should afterwards introduce them in a separate Bill, upon which he should take the sense of their Lordships.
House in Committee.
Clause 1 read; Clauses 2 and 3 struck out.
LORD CRANWORTHsaid, he thought this clause, as now worded, would create as many evils as it was intended to correct—evils which he considered arose, not from the Wills Act (1 Vict. c. 26) itself, but from the construction put upon that Act by the Judges. The language of the Wills Act, as it appeared to him, was as clear and as capable of being understood by those who were not lawyers as any language which could be suggested. The object was to make it incumbent upon testators to sign their wills, which meant, to the ordinary understanding of mankind, to put their name at the bottom; and further, to put an end to this anomalous state of the law, that a will disposing of an acre of land must be attested by three witnesses, while the disposal of 100,000 l. of money might be collected from scraps of letters and papers, He well remembered Dr. Lushington saying that an endless number of disputes had come before him as counsel and Judge, in which wills were established, and where it was at least doubtful whether the Court was not making a will for a person instead of taking his own. By the Wills Act, the testator was required to sign his will in the presence of witnesses, to secure him from having a spurious instrument passed off as his will after his decease. The object was most legitimate;
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and here he would remark that he never could concede the principle alluded to on a former day by his noble and learned Friend (the Lord Chancellor), as to the necessity of providing for the wills of persons made in extremis, when certainly the body, and probably the mind, was not in a fit state to give attention to the subject. He did not say that a man in extremis should be prevented making a will; but wills so made should be the exception, and not the rule. They ought to adapt their legislation to those persons who sat down in health and strength to make their wills, with no forms which were unnecessary, but only such as were calculated to secure their object. Nothing could be more clear than the language of the present Act. It declared—
"That no will shall be valid unless it shall be in writing, and executed in manner hereinafter mentioned; (that is to say), it shall be signed at the foot or end thereof by the testator, or by some other person in his presence and by his direction; and such signature shall be made or acknowledged by the testator in the presence of two or more witnesses, present at the same time, and such witnesses shall attest and shall subscribe the will in the presence of the testator, but no form of attestation shall be necessary."
If they had endeavoured to get language more plain or intelligible to non-professional persons, they could not succeed. However, unfortunately, the Judges of the Ecclesiastical Courts had raised many questions, and placed many difficulties, in the construction of the Act. He did not believe the same thing could be justly affirmed of the Chancery or Common Law Judges. The Ecclesiastical Judges held, the clause required that the signature should be at the foot or end of the will; and they declared that where a blank was left, so that matter could be interpolated between the signature and the will, the instrument was invalid. Perhaps they might be justified in such a decision; for unless some such rule was adopted, a door would be opened for great fraud. However, the Ecclesiastical Judges had gone to much greater lengths, and it was high time for the Legislature to intervene, for much injustice and suffering had been occasioned by the doubt and uncertainty which now prevailed. By his noble and learned Friend (the Lord Chancellor's) Bill, every will would be deemed valid if the signature was so placed either after, or following, or under, or beside, or opposite to the end of the will, provided that it were apparent that the testator intended to give effect to the writing, as his will by such

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signature. The wording of the clause was most important, and he would therefore call their Lordships' special attention to it. (The Noble Lord then read the clause as above.) The object which his noble and learned Friend had, was to include all the cases which had come before the Courts for judgment; he had carefully gone through all the decisions which had been made, and he says in this clause that the will shall be valid notwithstanding all those cases in which the Courts have held them not to be so. He (Lord Cranworth) ventured to submit that this would have the effect of raising new future difficulties, supposing cases would arise not provided for specially, as those recited in the Bill. He would therefore suggest to the noble and learned Lord, whose great and preeminent ability he fully recognised, whether it would not he better to shape the clause in more general terms, so that a will should be declared valid if the signature should, without any fraudulent intention, be so placed as to make it apparent on the face of the document that the testator intended to give effect to the writing as his will?
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that as he had agreed to strike out the second and third clauses, the debate upon the principle involved in the measure came upon him by surprise. The noble and learned Lord was of opinion that the words of the clause whereby it was declared when a signature to a will should be deemed valid, would increase a hundredfold the difficulties which already existed, although it had been intended to remove them. All he could say was, if that were the case, he was a very bad draftsman indeed, and he would he glad if the noble and learned Lord would take the Bill into his own hands, and mould it into a better shape. But their Lordships might depend upon it that the language of the clause was perfectly correct as it stood. It declared that a will should be valid although the signature shall be upon a side, or page, or other portion of the paper or papers containing the will, and although there should appear to be sufficient space on or at the bottom of the preceding side or page upon which the will was written. The Bill declared wills valid notwithstanding the decisions of several of the Courts which had decided against their validity upon mere formal objections. Under this clause, therefore, that sort of objection
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would no longer prevail. His whole object had been to render wills, no matter how signed, valid against all technical objections—to render them indefeasible, provided it was apparent what had been the intention of the testator. If he were to adopt the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, every objection which had already arisen would still have weight and existence. The general enactment in his clause had the effect attributed to it by his noble and learned Friend; but if he were to adopt the Amendment proposed, and strike out what follows, he would leave the law exposed to the like construction as had been adopted under the existing Act. The few lines which were objected to did not restrict the operation of the general enactment, but precluded the Courts from acting upon the rules which they had applied to the existing Act. The clause had not been adopted hastily, nor until he had been perfect master of all the cases which had been subject of judicial decision.
LORD LYNDHURSTwas understood to approve of the phraseology of the Bill as it stood.
LORD CRANWORTHsaid, that his object in wishing to make the language of the Bill more general was, to meet the well-known axiom at law—Expressio unius exclusio est alterius. He felt that if certain cases were provided for, all those which were not would still be subject to the old interpretation of the Courts, and thus future difficulties might occur. If the language were more general, and special reference to exceptions were avoided, such instances could not be anticipated. He had merely thrown out the suggestion; it would be for the noble and learned Lord to consider it. He saw very well why the clause had been framed thus specially. The acute mind of the noble and learned Lord wished to deal with all the decisions of the Courts, and to guard against their repetition.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that it was extremely important that they should adopt a uniformity of language in the wording of this Bill, rendering it thus intelligible to all capacities. Now, he did not think that this uniformity of language was preserved. The Bill recited that a will should be valid although the signature should be placed among the words of the testimonium clause, or the clause of attestation, or shall follow or be after or under the clause of attestation, either with or

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without a blank space intervening, or should follow and be after or under or beside the names or one of the names of the subscribing witnesses. Now, to be beside or opposite meant two very different things. Noble Lords knew quite well that to sit beside or opposite each other meant widely opposite things. As this question had been raised, he would suggest that the best thing that could be done was, for the law Lords to meet in Committee, and settle the point among them, and whether the omission of any of those words would not tend to a uniformity as well as an intelligibility of expression.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the words "opposite" and "beside" meant to include cases which had come under judicial consideration. The word "beside" provided for the signature being in the margin, close to the body of the will; the word "opposite" provided for a signature, for example, on the third page of a sheet of letter paper, where the will ends on the second page. The Bill had not been got up in a hurry, although for the public interest it was desirable that it should receive a speedy assent from the Legislature. It so happened that he had published a work upon wills, and he had given the question great attention, and had gone through all the cases with great care. With that amount of knowledge he came prepared to remedy a great evil, and he did not, therefore, expect the opposition which the Bill had encountered. It was his deliberate opinion that the phraseology as it stood was necessary to attain the objects which everybody admitted were most desirable.
LORD BROUGHAMdeclared himself in favour of the clause as it then stood. His noble and learned Friend felt indebted for the suggestions made, and would no doubt give them his consideration before the Bill came again under discussion. The words "opposite" and "beside," in his mind, were quite necessary to meet some cases which had been already decided. He deprecated earnestly any reference to a Select Committee, because the result of that would be great delay, and he did not think the slightest good would result from a reference to the Committee which had been proposed. He also deprecated delay as occasioning much and grievous injury to the large class of persons interested by the Bill.
Amendments made.
Clauses 2 and 3, as to acknowledgment and signature of will by the testator and attestation of the witnesses, struck out.
Bill to be reported To-morrow.

CONSOLIDATED ANNUITIES (IRELAND).
LORD MONTEAGLE, having presented petitions from the Guardians of 'the Castlebar, Castlederg, and other Unions, praying for inquiry into the advances made in relief of the late famine in Ireland, moved for a Select Committee to which should be referred the Treasury Minutes providing for the debts due from counties and unions in Ireland, by the imposition of a consolidated annuity for a period not exceeding forty years. The noble Lord said the subject was one of the most important financial questions that could affect the sister kingdom. But he must guard against one misconception, before addressing himself to his argument. It was true that he considered the arrangments proposed by the Treasury for the repayment of these debts to be unwise and oppressive. He was not on that account forgetful of, or still less was he indifferent to, the noble efforts made by the people of England to relieve the calamity which had afflicted Ireland; he believed their efforts were unparalleled in the history of mankind; but he feared that our legislative measures were not characterised by as much prudence as the acts of private persons had been. The country and both Houses of Parliament were animated, he was convinced, by a sincere desire to relieve the most distressing calamity that had occurred in modern times to a civilised country; and he must not be charged as urging anything in the nature of an unreasonable complaint if he hinted that the interposition of the Legislature did not exhibit all the sagacity that might have been shown by Parliament on such an occasion. Our statutable interpretation was not quite so wise as it might have been, and the remedies adopted for the evils which afflicted Ireland, so far from working a cure, had too often been productive of great and lasting calamities. Grievous misrepresentation had taken place both in Parliament and in print. It had been said that all loans to Ireland assumed, before long, the form of gifts; and that those who sued for aid were, after a short time, found to repudiate that part of the obligation of a debt, which consisted in the duty of repaying it. Such a statement was a misrepresentation of the Irish character, and was at variance with the facts; he

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should have hardly thought it necessary to say a word upon it, in their Lordships' House, were it not that it was one of those fallacies which had been repeated and reiterated so often, that it had tended to exasperate parties on both sides of the Channel, creating a mutual estrangement which a knowledge of the truth would, he trusted, be calculated to dispel. With that object, he would submit a few facts to their Lordships, which, he believed, would be new to some among them, and which having himself verified, he could assure the House would be found correct. During the depressed condition of Ireland, from 1837 to 1852, very considerable sums had been advanced by way of loan to Ireland; and what was the result? Was it true that Ireland had shown any desire to cheat, to defraud, to evade the payment of what had been advanced, or to shrink from her engagements? On the contrary, there had been shown the most anxious desire and the most strenuous effort to meet them, even at a time when the people were overwhelmed with affliction, and were the victims of plague and pestilence. He would call their Lordships' attention to the fact, that the amount of the repayments which had been made by Ireland to the Exchequer, from May, 1837, to January, 1852, had not been less than 6,065,079 l. There had been a repayment of the whole sum advanced on the credit of the rate-in-aid; 150,000 l. had reached the Exchequer, an amount which might be found to exceed the debt. There had been an advance for improving the Shannon navigation of 313,000 l.: of this sum 269,000 l. had already been repaid; there had been further repayments of 180,000 l. under the Temporary Relief Act, administered under the wise and benevolent management of his admirable friend, General Sir J. Burgoyne. There had also been repaid of the most questionable of all these advances, the Labour Rate, 285,000 l. under the 9 & 10 Vict., ch. 107; and 99,000 l. under the 9 Vict., ch. 1; making in these two sums a total of 384,000 l. But much more than this had been done. Concurrently with these repayments, there had been collected in Poor Rate in Ireland between 1838 and 1849 above 7,000,000 l. which sum could not be less at the present time than 9,000,000 l. This sum had bean raised by Ireland to meet the burden of her destitution in a comparatively short period, under Act of Parliament. This rate too, it should always be remembered, was a new tax. He begged to call the atten-
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tion of their Lordships, more especially as being acquainted with the collection of rates in England, to one fact connected with this part of the Poor Law administration in Ireland, which presented a peculiarity not unworthy of notice. Of the total sum of upwards of 7,000,000 l. assessed, 94 per cent had been collected and paid, and 4 per cent was carried on, and included in the current rate, so that on the whole 7,000,000 l. 2 per cent only was lost on the total amount of the rates. This was at the very time the country was suffering the calamity of famine, when her valued income had fallen off one million and a half, and her population had declined 1,659,000 in about six years. It was but doing justice to the efforts made by Ireland for her destitute population to state these facts. It would be but wisdom on the part of England to remember and acknowledge them. The same efforts were made with respect to the rate-in-aid, a tax most justly unpopular in itself, which had no warrant in experience, and which could only be justified by the exceptional nature of the case. The amount assessed was 421,990 l, and of this amount 384,295 l. had been received up to December, 1851, leaving only 37,600 l. outstanding at the close of last year, which it was probable was paid off in full at the present moment. He stated these facts to show that Ireland had some claim on the respect as well as on the sympathy of this country, and with a view to remove the difficulty created by false impressions in respect to the exertions made by the Irish people to repay what was lent to them. After the facts he had stated, he did not consider that the Irish, then, were suing as fraudulent bankrupts. Had that been so, and had he (Lord Mont-eagle) been about to ask their Lordships to assist Ireland in rejecting the obligations of a just debt, he could not expect a dispassionate hearing; he could hardly expect that they would consider the object as fit to be inquired into; but unless it was clear the debt was due equitably and fairly, and that it ought to be enforced, that House would, he was sure, agree with him that it was necessary to give the subject a full discussion and their candid consideration. It must be admitted that the calamity of the famine pressed with peculiar severity on Ireland, in consequence of its being almost exclusively an agricultural country. Her resources had been diminished by the very circumstances which augmented the demand upon them. It

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was far worse in Ireland than such a calamity would have been in England—a country possessing vast commercial resources, and great manufacturing wealth; while in Ireland the whole property of the country was agricultural, with the exception of some favoured districts in the north: the destruction of the national resources had, therefore, been almost universal. The loss in a single year in the potato and oat crop had been estimated by a high authority in that House (the Marquess of Lansdowne, Jan. 25, 1847) at 16.000.000 l.; or from 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 tons of food, the produce of 1,500,000 acres of arable land. He would prove what effect the famine had in depreciating the value of land from the altered valuation for the poor-law. In 1848 the land of Ireland was valued to the poor-law at 13,076,000 l., in 1851 it was valued at 11,580,000 l.; thus showing a reduction in that short time of about 1,500,000 l. sterling, or more than 10 per cent on the wealth of the whole country; this falling off was the more striking as it took place some years subsequent to the legislative measures of Sir Robert Peel, facilitating the introduction of foreign produce. The reduction was about ten per cent on the whole of Ireland; but it had, in fact, been infinitely greater in particular districts, for the calamity had not been uniformly felt, but it had fallen with much more severity on Munster and Connaught than on Ulster, which had stood its ground bravely, and on Leinster, which had not suffered to the same extent. From 1848 to 1851 the rental of Munster and Connaught had sustained a loss of 1,026,000 l. on a valuation of 5,199,000 l., which was of about twenty per cent, or nearly double the general loss on the whole of Ireland. This would be still more felt in considering lesser districts. Clifden Union had fallen in value from 20,400 l. to 13,600 l.; Loughrea from 83,000 l. to 57,0002.; Tuam from 71,000 l. to 57,983 l.; and the depreciation would be still greater, as he believed, in the electoral divisions. There was, again, another and a more painful criterion of the results of famine, afforded by a comparison between the census of 1841 and that of 1851. This admitted of no mistake. The population, which had increased at the rate of 14 per cent between 1821 and 1831, and at the rate of 5 per cent between 1831 and 1841, had fallen twenty per cent between 1841 and 1851. There were now 1,600,000 fewer living persons in Ireland,
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than there had been in 1841; and the existing population was actually less than it was thirty years ago. He admitted that much of this decrease had been caused by emigration: this was not altogether a healthy emigration. In too many instances a prejudicial emigration had lately taken place from Ireland. There were numerous cases in which emigration might be an advantage both to the country from which it proceeded, and to that to which it set. But when the emigrants removed from their native country a larger portion of capital than was retained by the population as compared with the numbers taken, and left, it was evident that such an emigration must be prejudicial; if emigration removed more in numbers than it withdrew of capital, the case was reversed. Now, the class that had left Ireland were often the class she ought to retain, and they went to a country which did not require the introduction of capital so much as the introduction of labour. The people of Ireland had gone out to a considerable extent, and they had taken with them more than their proportionate amount of capital, enterprise, and industry. The depopulation, like the depreciation of value, was most unequal. In Connaught, it showed a decrease of 28 per cent; in Leinster, of no more than 15. He would now return to the debt, having proved the reduced resources of the country. An Act, the 13 Vict., c. 14, was passed, granting a sum of 300,000 l. to relieve the most distressed unions in Ireland from the demands of the contractors, and to secure the repayment of the advances so made. This was consolidated with the other demands, and was dealt with by the 13 Vict., c. 14, the Act to which he now called their attention. This consolidated debt consisted of the following sums:—

1. Workhouse Building Leases

£1,122,706

2. Temporary Relief Act.

783,128

3. Labour Rate Act.

2,046,785

4. Advances for Public Works

170,232

5. Contractors' Debts

300,000

Total Debt.

£4,422,851

This is proposed to be repaid by an annuity of 245,061 l., for terms extending to forty years, interest being charged at 3½ per cent, increasing the sum to be paid from upwards of 4,000,000 l. to 7,000,000 l. The statute under which these annuities are created gave power to the Treasury of a most extraordinary kind. At the end of every clause, and repeated sometimes three or four times in one clause, there was a

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provision that the matter should he settled as the Lords of the Treasury should see It. There was no power reserved for Parliamentary revision, and no appeal. The Act of 1850 was objected to by many noble Lords during its progress through their Lordships' House; but being a Money Bill, they had no means of proposing any amendments; and if they had stopped the Bill altogether, they would have deprived the people of Ireland of the relief they were fairly entitled to expect, and which was included with the other clauses. The first Treasury Minute was founded on the laborious calculations of very able men: it required the respective sums to be repaid, in some cases in forty, some in twenty, some in fifteen, and some in ten years. That Minute was directed to be carried into effect at various times in the last year, and sealed orders were sent to the different boards of guardians, imposing heavy and most unequal annuities on the unions, electoral divisions, and even on the separate townlands. Those orders were received like a thunderstroke. The boards of guardians preferred the reasonable request that they should be informed of the particulars of the debt claimed. The least that in reason could be expected was, that the party making the claim should inform the party required to satisfy it what were the purposes to which the money had been applied. This information, however, had not been fully afforded, and even gross imputations had been thrown upon the Boards of Guardians in Ireland, as if they had refused to pay their just debts, because they had respectfully asked to be informed of what items the sums demanded of them consisted. He (Lord Mont-eagle) thought that the Treasury had made a serious mistake in issuing those orders without having first carefully ascertained not only the arithmetical correctness of their award, but their power of enforcing it; or, in other words, the equity of the claims, and the power of the distressed unions to pay. This was neglected. Many different Boards vehemently protested against the Minute, and some of them went further in their language than he could himself have recommended, or was disposed to justify. These awards and sealed orders were necessarily reconsidered in Whitehall. The result was that the Treasury, finding upon inquiry that the charges were too great to be enforced, were obliged to issue a new Minute, dated the 21st of October last, which altered the whole principle of their previous awards. It involved
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an abandonment of that principle in 860 electoral divisions. The principle of this second award was, that when the union expenditure had amounted to 4s. in the pound, the claim for the annuity ceased altogether; and in other cases the claim was reduced, so as to bring the rates within the 4s. in the pound. This had certainly given relief to many of those districts of Ireland which were the most distressed; and he presumed that though limited to only one year, the principle was necessarily applicable to future years. It was open, however, to a manifest objection: in unions where the law was administered by the owners of the property, there was a temptation held out that, by raising their rates beyond 4s. in the pound, they might escape the payment of the annuity. He had hitherto dealt with this debt generally. He now came to the main point—he meant the question of the advances which had been made under the Labour Rate Acts. The sum that was claimed as the balance of this debt was 2,456,785 l. That sum was so excessive, that no individual in his senses could ever have dreamt of enforcing the repayment of the whole amount originally advanced. The proposal to take repayment by annuity was therefore made for the benefit of the lender, not the borrower, who in his equivalent annuity is loaded with interest for forty years at 3½ per cent. While they were not unmindful of the concession which had been made, these debts, their Lordships should be reminded, were not contracted by local authorities, but by officers appointed by the Government; and when landowners and occupiers felt it necessary to call the attention of the public officers to abuses prevailing under the system, so far were they from receiving such representations with candour or courtesy, that they were told to mind their own business, and were reminded that the officers of the Government were alone responsible. It had been alleged that the country gentlemen of Ireland had sought to direct the operations of the public works' system to their own benefit; but so far from that being the case, works had been forced upon the country contrary to the desire of the owners and occupiers of land—works which were entirely the acts of the Government. These works were, in many cases, began and continued at the desire and under the authority oft officers of the Government. Their Lordships would be surprised to hear the manner in which in some instances the system was made to work. To his own knowledge

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a special session was on one occasion called, as suggested by the officer representing the Board of Public Works; an additional charge upon the county was recommended solely for the purpose of completing certain works already in progress. The necessary order was made by the session; but what was the fact? The board never completed the works in question, the whole money raised under the order being applied to the squaring of accounts relating to former undertakings. In making this statement he did not intend to cast any imputation upon the gentlemen who were at the head of the Board of Public Works. He attacked the system. It was impossible, with so unmanageable an establishment, having 15,000 officers employed under them, and there being no less than 750,000 labourers subject to their authority, that the system could be worked without irregularity and abuse. Better men than the Commissioners did not exist. But they were called on to discharge functions infinitely beyond all human powers. Under these circumstances he (Lord Monteagle) thought he had said enough to prove to their Lordships that the subject was one worthy of inquiry. The noble Lord then moved the appointment of a Select Committee.
THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, it is not my intention to enter into any discussion with regard to the details into which the noble Lord has just now so fully gone. He has stated very fairly the different circumstances and the different charges which made up the sum of these annuities, and I am ready to agree with him, in the first place, that he has laid down a sufficient ground for an inquiry, at all events into the question of the propriety of the enactment, or of that portion of it, at least, which appears to give encouragement to an extravagant expenditure, for the purpose of evading the just payment of debts due—I mean that portion of the enactment by which it is provided that annuities shall cease to be paid, not in that particular union, but in any electoral division of a union where the annual amount of expenditure shall reach to a certain height. I think that this is a question which certainly deserves consideration; and, on the other hand, I think it deserves consideration whether there may not be some allowance made on this occasion, and particularly in cases relating to that class of charges which have mainly been incurred, as the noble Lord stated, by extravagant
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expenditure. Undoubtedly there has been, perhaps unavoidably, a considerable waste; it may be true, also, that these works have not been so beneficial to Ireland as they might have been, and. that they have not been conducted under the control, of local authorities; but, at the same time, it must be recollected that these works undoubtedly were undertaken for the purpose of maintaining and keeping alive the people of Ireland, who, had they not been undertaken, must either have been maintained in idleness, or left without subsistence. I entirely concur with the noble Lord to the full extent, that it is right that parties should have full particulars of the amounts, the repayment of which is demanded from them. I have myself made some inquiries with regard to a portion of those charges, and though I experienced no difficulty in obtaining a statement which fully satisfied me, yet I think there may be some difficulty in obtaining such a statement as the noble Lord requires. This, however, is a point for the consideration of a Committee which should fairly and impartially examine into the case. On the one side, I am glad to hear my noble Friend declare that he has no intention, upon the part of Ireland, to ask for a remission of the debts justly due from the people of that country, for which they have not only had value received, but from the original expenditure of which the country itself has greatly benefited; and, on the other hand, I am quite sure that your Lordships are prepared to give a deliberate and fair consideration to the claim arising out of the expenditure of sums over which the population of Ireland have exercised no control, more especially if, on the inquiry of a Committee, it should be proved that great abuses prevailed in the expenditure of that money. At the same time, I must beg your Lordships and my noble Friend to bear in mind, that if there have been abuses in the expenditure, there have been, on the other hand, large sums gratuitously conferred upon the people of Ireland, which ought, at any rate, to fee taken as a kind of set-off against a portion of those sums, in the management of which my noble Friend contends there have been abuses. It does not follow that, because you may prove a certain amount of abuse, you are, therefore, to claim on the part of Ireland an allowance proportionate to the full extent of that abuse. Undoubtedly, on the one side, the involuntary and compulsory nature of those

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charges ought with fairness to be taken into consideration; but, on the other hand, we ought to take into consideration with equal fairness the amount of assistance which Ireland, in her utmost need, has received from the liberality and generosity of this portion of the country. I think it would be the duty of a Committee to examine into and to sift these accounts, to strike a balance fairly and justly, and then to report to Parliament the result of their deliberations, with a view to take such further measures as the equity of the case shall seem to require. Under these circumstances I shall offer no opposition to the Motion of my noble Friend: on the contrary, I think the subject is one upon which an inquiry will be most fitting and advantageous.
THE EARL OF GLENGALLsaid, he thought the appointment of a Committee would be received with satisfaction in Ireland. The question which the House had to consider was this. Here were four millions and a half of money to be paid by the Irish people, but seven millions and a half were charged, including the interest —so that by some means or other the four millions and a half had been swollen up to seven millions—rather a Jewish rate of interest—and he thought it fortunate for those who attempted to put the claim in force that the usury law had been repealed. Last year not less than 1,100,000 l. was raised by poor-rates in Ireland, besides which these advances and rates-in-aid had to be paid; and he looked upon it that it was morally and totally impossible for those unions and districts—he might call them counties—which were charged 5s., 6s., 7s., and 8s. in the pound, to stand against the pressure of such an enormous amount of taxation as that—5s., 6s., or 7s. in the pound? Why, where was the pound? In his opinion the pound was not there at all, because the lands were completely devastated, and whole tracts of country were, in consequence of the weight of taxation, left without either a beast or a blade of corn. In the west of Ireland (especially in a great part of Munster) the land was in a condition of absolute waste; and so long as the crops and stock were liable to be seized at any moment for the poor-rate, the county cess, the rate-in-aid, or the tithe, so long, he feared, would that waste continue. Men talked of 5s. in the pound as if that was not very much after all; but the reason no more was imposed:
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was, because the Irish unions were able to pay no more. To maintain their poor, indeed, they required 25 s. and 30 s. to the pound. The consequence was, that they could not support their poor, and thus the country became a vast waste, and nobody would buy the properties in those parts. True, the Encumbered Estates Courts were invented for the purpose of introducing new settlers into the west of Ireland; but it was an indisputable fact, that that was the very district to which new settlers did not go. At one time a plantation in the west of Ireland was talked of, and certainly in carrying out such a scheme the difficulty of supplanting the old population would not have to be encountered; for the old population were dead, or gone to America, and not a beast was to be seen in the country, nor a human being for miles together. In such a state of things, therefore, the actual amount of rates which were levied was no test whatever with regard to the wants and requirements of the poor. Last year there were 780,000 persons in the Irish workhouses —a greater number than they contained I in the year 1841. Thus pauperism in Ireland might be said to be increasing. And why was that? Simply because there was no employment for labour in that country. Nobody wanted labourers now that the cultivation of corn and grain had been given up. The people were, therefore, compelled to go into the workhouses, and there, fed upon Indian meal, which produced dysentery, they died at the rate of a thousand a week! That was the result of what was called the system of supporting the poor, introduced by Mr. Nicholls, which had been lauded as such an admirable system. The reason of this want of employment had been thus described by Sir Robert Peel: "I do not believe," said he, "that so large a number can be reduced from comparative comfort to indigence and destitution from any other cause than by the displacement of so large a quantity of labour employed in the cultivation of wheat." Now, in 1850, there were 139,000 Irish acres of wheat under cultivation in Ireland less than in the year 1847, and the value of that was 1,300,000 l From 1841 to 1845, of grain generally, there were exported from Ireland into England 14,600,0000 quarters; but from 1846 to 1850 there were only 7,500,000 quarters, or exactly one-half the quantity exported in the preceding period. Of wheaten flour Ireland exported to this

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country 779,000 quarters in 1845; but in 1850 the quantity had fallen so low as to be only 168,000 quarters. Again, coming to the great trade in bacon and salt pork, in 1847, Ireland exported to England 480,000 pigs; but in 1850 the number was 109,000 only. So that, in these three items alone, they had sustained an absolute loss that might be estimated at 3,000,000 l. or 4,000,000 l. annually. In such circumstances as these, it was utterly impossible to go on. In fact, the country was in a state of ruin and depression, which it was perfectly awful to contemplate. Then there was the salt beef and provision trade, in which hundreds of thousands of pounds were at one time annually spent for the Navy contracts. But all was now gone; and why? Because, following out the principles of free trade, the late Board of Admiralty preferred sending to Galatz, in Wallachia, for their beef, instead of to the city of Cork. He trusted, however, that the new First Lord of the Admiralty, who was a Protectionist, would have the kindness in future to deal with the city of Cork. The fact was, that in Ireland they had been endeavouring to accomplish an impossibility by making the poor support the poor; and in the attempt they had reduced all classes to pretty much the same level. It was said that the property ought to support the poverty of the land; but, unfortunately, they had destroyed the property and left only the poverty. Take the principal towns in the United Kingdom—take even London itself—there had been as many failures within the last three months as had ever occurred before in the most disastrous periods of their commercial history. In the main streets of the principal towns numberless shops were closed. He was speaking recently to a Leeds manufacturer, who was one of the largest woollen merchants in the world, and he told him (the Earl of Glengall) that there was not a single place to which he went in the way of his business that he did not find the one general cry of great distress. Everywhere he found shops closed which had once carried on a most flourishing trade. Now this was as much an English question as an Irish one, and he wished their Lordships would look at it in that sense. Before free trade was made the policy of this country, the people of Ireland used to export to England about 10,000,000 l. worth of produce, and received in return between 10,000,000 l. and 11,000,000 l. of English manufactures—in
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fact, about 1,000,000 l. was the balance of trade between the two countries. The Chambers of Commerce in the seaports of Ireland had lately published a report in which it was stated that there was a falling-off during the last few years of English manufactures sent to Ireland of over 4,000,000 l. It might seem a singular fact, but so it was, that there was not a single manufacture consumed and used in Ireland, with the exception of the linen trade in the north, that did not come from England. Every article that they could name, from the steam-engine to the commonest nail that was put into a man's shoe, came from England into Ireland. It was idle to say that the landlords had done all this mischief by compelling the people to run away from the country. It was the policy of the last few years that destroyed the Irish market, and the free-traders themselves were the losers by it. Now it was impossible for them to go on any longer in this way. The more Ireland was distressed, the more they seemed disposed to tax her. The system of Dr. Sangrado was considered the best for Ireland; he bled and bled until the patient died, and then he said that the patient died because he did not bleed him enough. So with Ireland—the more distressed she was the more they thought they ought to bleed her. When he saw the bone and sinew of the country leaving her, and when he reflected upon the misery that prevailed, he felt quite disgusted at this state of things.
Motion agreed to. Committee named: Petition referred to the said Select Committee.
House adjourned till To-morrow.