Lords Sitting of 19 May 1856

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a National Gallery; Married Women's Reversionary Interest.
2a Procedure before Justices (Scotland); Bankers' Composition.

CENTRAL AMERICA.
THE EARL OF ELGINsaid, there had appeared in the newspapers of this country a letter, copied from the American journals, purporting to bear the signature of Mr. Hammond, the under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and to be addressed to the representative of the Government of Costa Rica in this country, in reply to an application for a supply of arms. As considerable importance attached at the present moment to any proceedings on the part of the Government of this country with regard to Central America, he wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether that letter was a genuine document, and, if his reply should be in the affirmative, whether he had any intention to lay on the table of the House the letter of the 12th of January, to which it purported to be a reply?
THE EARL OF CLARENDONsaid, he had no hesitation, in answer to the question of the noble Earl, in stating that the letter of Mr. Hammond published in the papers was a genuine letter, and that it arose from the following circumstances:—The agent of the Costa Rican Government in this country, and the agents of other South American States, ever since the attack made by Walker on the Government of Nicaragua, have applied to this country to assist them to defend themselves. A great variety of proposals had been laid before the British Government for accepting the protectorate of these countries, and for giving them assistance. To all those proposals the British Government had invariably replied in the negative. The British Government said that they had nothing to do with the affairs of Central America, though they were sorry for the attacks made on Nicaragua. They also said that they had the more reason to deplore those attacks because the property of British subjects had been not only endangered but sacrificed by Walker, and therefore, they should be very glad that his bucaneering enterprise should not be carried further; but with respect to any interference with the affairs of Central

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America they were determined to have nothing whatever to do, and that all their action would be limited to sending just such a naval force to the coast of South America as would be sufficient to protect British interests and British property. The representative of Costa Rica in this country, Mr. Wallerstein was greatly disappointed at the view taken by Her Majesty's Government on this question. Allusion was also made to the interest shown by the British Government for Central America, and the bad return made by the Governments there for what had been done for them. An exception, however, must be made in this respect in favour of the Government at Costa Rica, which was a regular Government, and had always kept its engagements with the British Government. Mr. Wallerstein then replied that there was a great quantity of British property accumulated in Costa Rica, which might be protected by a naval force, and added that the Costa Ricans were determined to make a stand against the invasion of their country by Walker; but he said that they had not the means of repelling the aggression they apprehended, and inquired whether the British War Department would not give them a few arms for the purpose. He (the Earl of Clarendon) stated that he could not give an answer until inquiries were made of the War Department, and when the answer was received the substance was communicated in Mr. Hammond's letter. The fact was, however, that Mr. Wallerstein did not consider himself entitled to accept the offer, and he had since died; so that no interference, even in that indirect way, had taken place in the affairs of Costa Rica. Some time since Walker took possession of Nicaragua and British property there; he (the Earl of Clarendon) communicated with the Government of the United States, and Mr. Crampton, in a despatch, reported a conversation he had on the 15th of March with Mr. Marcy, there being no disguise with the Government of the United States as to what the British Government were doing, their only wish being to protect British property. Mr. Marcy then said that the Government of the United States entirely disapproved and regretted the existing state of things in Nicaragua, which they thought dangerous and calculated to cast a shade on the reputation of the United States; that they were as anxious as the British Government
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to see the Government of Walker rooted up, and were determined to take measures for the redress of injuries inflicted on citizens of the United States. Under these circumstances, he (the Earl of Clarendon) intimated that there could be no better plan than for the Government of the United States and the British Government to combine together for the protection of the property of the citizens of both countries. There could be no objection to lay the correspondence referred to on the table.

CIRCASSIA—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYwished to ask the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary whether it was true that the Circassians had made a representation or presented some diplomatic paper to the Porte, asking for the interference of the Allies in favour of their independence, and also for protection against Russian aggression? He would also inquire whether the British Government had received any paper to that effect; and, if so, whether there would be any objection to laying a copy on the table of the House? He likewise desired to know whether the Foreign Secretary had any objection to lay on the table the notes presented to the English and French Governments by the Sardinian Government, and which he believed had been laid before the Sardinian Parliament?
THE EARL OF CLARENDONreplied, that it would have been more convenient if his noble Friend had given him notice of such questions as the present; to which, however, he would give an immediate answer. It was true that a deputation had come from Circassia to the Porte; but that deputation had not been received by Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. A letter had been addressed by the Circassian chiefs, not to the British Government, but to the Queen, asking (as he believed) that their independence might be secured. That was not in consequence of the Conferences being then in progress, but occurred after the peace had been signed. The individual at the head of the deputation, and the spokesman for the Circassians, was Zafir Pasha, who was not himself a Circassian, and from whom during the two years the war lasted no favour was received by the Allies, he being anything but friendly to them. This person promised the Allies that a great number of Circassians should be ready to assist in the field, which promise he had not kept;

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he had moreover mainly prevented the fortifications of Anapa from being destroyed; and Mr. Longworth declared he was one of the greatest enemies the Western Powers had. Under these circumstances, he did not think that these persons had any claim whatever on the British Government. He had no objection to the production of the notes asked for from the Sardinian Government to the Governments of France and England.

INDIA.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE rose to move the appointment of a Select Committee on the Government of our Indian territories. A Committee on the same subject sat in 1853, but since then, for some reason he was not aware of, its services had not been called into requisition. The professed object of that Committee was to inquire into the working of the India Act of 1833. At the end of the Session of 1833 the Speech from the Throne expressed the confident expectation that the system of Government established by that Act would prove to have been wisely framed for the happiness and welfare of the people of India. That, then, was the subject the Committee of 1853 had to inquire into. But what did the Committee do? It occupied itself in inquiring into all that related to place, patronage, and power; but on all subjects relating to the material and social condition of the people of India, and on all points relating to their happiness or misery, there was not a shadow of investigation; therefore, if there were no other reason, that would be a sufficient ground for the resumption of the labours of the Committee. Her Majesty's Ministers intimated their intention of bringing in a Bill in 1853, without having completed the inquiry, without indeed having examined into more than three at most of the eight heads into which the Government by their programme had pledged them to inquire. Such a course was a violation of all former precedent. The consequence was, that a Bill had been carried, which had been very well characterised by a petition from India, as containing no provision calculated to improve the condition of the people nor any definite promise to redress the grievances of which they had complained. What was the plea for rushing thus precipitately, and because precipitately, thus ignorantly, into legislation? There had been whispers of a letter from the Governor General of India, declaring
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that inquiry would endanger British rule in India. So that the power which had overthrown Hyder and Tippoo, which had hurled the Great Mogul from his throne, which had sustained the loss of a whole army in a foolhardy expedition against a warlike neighbour, was to be endangered by an inquiry carried on 10,000 miles from India, and conducted by those most interested in preserving our sway in that country. The plea was however admitted, and Parliament passed the crude and ill-considered Bill of 1853, by which the East India Company were re-invested with irresponsible power. Parliament had legislated without inquiry, and had, at the same moment, burked inquiry, and yet there were subjects well worthy of Parliamentary investigation. Their Lordships' table had groaned with petitions from all parts of India, complaining of the excessive amount of taxation, of the barbarous mode of assessment of the revenue, of the cruelty with which the collection was made, of the absence of due provision for the education of the people, of the disgraceful condition of the local courts of justice arising from delay, expense, and inefficiency, of the neglect of public works, such as canals, roads, bridges, and waterworks. What had Parliament gained by burking inquiry? It put off for a time the evil day of inquiry, but it was afterwards discovered, not by any inquiry set on foot by the Government, but by the casual visit of a private traveller that there existed in India a system of torture by Government officers for Government purposes, and there also transpired the appalling fact that it had existed for these last fifty years, and that its existence was known to the East India Company and to the covenanted servants of the Company, but had been concealed, not only from Parliament and from the people of this country, but also from the Governor General, from the governors of the provinces, and from Her Majesty's responsible advisers, who, but for the juggle of a double government, would have been responsible for the atrocities in question—if, indeed, such atrocities could have existed under a responsible Government. This discovery had brought much obloquy upon this country, and the eyes of the whole civilised world were upon us. One foreign author, who had visited India, said that from one end of the country to the other he had never heard but one word—" Revenue!—Revenue!—Revenue!" Let their Lordships have

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an inquiry whether this word "revenue" might not have something to do with the horrible system of torture. He trusted that they would not be content with the apology and extenuation that torture existed in India because it had been customary. The Court of Directors, in a despatch dated the 12th of September, 1855, said that torture existed because it had been handed down from the less civilised and less humane nations that preceded us. Is such a miserable plea to be admitted in the Government of a country which has been upwards of half a century in our possession. If our Indian Government had been based upon an European model, these disgraceful acts could not have been committed. But our rule was founded upon the principle of Asiatic despotism, which meddled with everything, and extracted nineteen-twentieths of the produce of the soil. That the Turks, Arabs, and Affghans had resorted to such practices for the collection of revenue was no excuse for us. But he doubted whether these barbarians were so black as the Directors had painted them. Take, for example, the worst of them, Tamerlane or Timour the Lame, "the scourge of God," as he had been called. By reference to his "Institutes" it will be found that he had ordained that the collection of taxes should be enforced, when necessary, by menaces and threats, but never by whips and scourges. Timour also ordained that taxes should not be levied in a manner productive of ruin to the subjects or depopulation to the country. If a Committee were appointed, one subject of their inquiry would be the condition of the public works. It would be found, notwithstanding the improvements lately so ostentatiously set forth that the roads were in nearly the same disgraceful condition, and that the people were in the same state of despondency for want of a market, in consequence of the neglect of the roads in 1856, as they were in the year 1846. There is as little protection from famine, for want of irrigation, to the great majority of the people in 1856 as in 1846. Of the necessity of such works as these he presumed none of their Lordships were ignorant. Millions of the inhabitants of Asia depended upon works of irrigation alone. Our more wise predecessors in India were well aware of the necessity of those works; but for three-quarters of a century they had been neglected. Since the accession of the able nobleman who had lately left
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the government of India (the Marquess of Dalhousie), something had been done; but what was that something? There were one or two, or perhaps more, great works of irrigation in the Punjab; there was the great Scinde Canal, the great Ganges Canal in the province of Agra, and there was the Eastern Coast Canal in Madras; there were the extensive works of navigation and irrigation in the three great southern rivers of India—the Godavery, the Kistnah, and the Cauvery. But what did all this amount to? Here were seven localities, affecting, at the very most, twenty out of the 120 provinces into which India was divided. Seven localities benefited in a territory more than twelve times as large as great Britain; and those seven localities had been improved at the expense of the whole community. For the very little that had been done he did not hold the noble and distinguished Marquess responsible. He was sent out to India to administer a system sanctioned by the Government and by Parliament, but which was not the less a system at variance with every principle of political science. All that zeal, enterprise, and energy could do that noble Lord had done; but he (the Earl of Albemarle) contended that it was a system under which no country ever did, or ever could, prosper. The construction of public works formed no part of a wholesome and well-regulated Government. Such works came within the province of private enterprise and private capital. But in a country where the Government was despotic and extortionate, in a country where the taxes were very variable, arbitrary, multitudinous, and excessive, where nineteen shillings out of every pound of the whole revenue of the country were taken by the Government, where the Government appropriated to itself everything it could get, and where the administration of justice was in a most miserable condition—in such a country no monied man in his senses would possibly embark in those works. There was one more point connected with this subject—no public works alone could possibly have any effect unless accompanied by measures of such a nature as he believed impossible to be established under the existing form of government. There could be no greater proof of this than was afforded by the districts in the immediate vicinity where these works were taking place. Take, for instance, Tanjore, where most extensive works of irrigation were carrying on; and by referring to the

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Torture Report it will be found that in that district the most atrocious acts of cruelty are perpetrated both for the extortion of confession and the collection of revenue. With regard to the administration of justice he would now speak, because that would properly form the subject of discussion when he brought forward another Motion, the terms of which he had already placed on the table. But he would simply refer their Lordships to an observation which had been made by men well conversant with the subject, that the administration could not be satisfactorily conducted in consequence of the paucity of the officers. There were only seventy-four officers in the Presidency of Madras, which contained 22,000,000 people. It was the opinion of Mr. Elliot, one of the members of the Government, that the present system of Government was such that an increase of officers was impossible; and yet, without such an increase, he believed that the abolition of torture could not be effected. He felt that he had now stated sufficient to justify him in asking their Lordships to appoint a Committee to resume their labour just where the Committee of 1853 left it. The noble Earl concluded by moving the appointment of a Select Committee on the Government of Indian territories.
Moved—"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation of the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 85, for the better government of Her Majesty's Indian Territories."
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that he did not suppose that it was the intention of the noble Lord to press his Motion upon their Lordships, but that he had taken a legitimate mode of giving their Lordships a statement of his views connected with the government of India—a question in which the noble Earl took a very great interest. It did not appear to him (Earl Granville) that the noble Earl had sufficiently made out a case for adopting the course he now proposed. The noble Earl had complained of what he called the hasty manner in which the present Act for the government of India was passed, it having become the law before the Government had had sufficient time to conclude the investigation which the state of India demanded. Their Lordships were, however, aware that the subject of the government of India had been inquired into by two Committees of Parliament, which Committees sat during two Sessions of Parliament and went deeply and widely into the subjects brought before them. The noble Earl
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had also stated that he understood the Government were much influenced by a letter received from Lord Dalhousie, in which that noble Lord strongly expressed his opinion that great inconvenience would arise from any greater delay taking place and the whole of the people of India being left under a Government of an unstable character and only of a provisional kind. He did not think that a reference to that letter was a very happy illustration of the Motion by the noble Earl—by which, soon after the passing of that Act, he proposed that their Lordships should appoint a Committee to do exactly that which Lord Dalhousie deprecated—namely, creating in the minds of the people of India a belief that there was an intention on the part of Parliament to make some great and immediate changes in regard to the government of that country. The chief ground on which the noble Earl based his Motion was with regard to public works. He (Earl Granville) was not fully possessed of a knowledge of all the details in reference to that subject, but he believed that the only question under the able and energetic management of the late Governor General was, whether we should push on these works by means of borrowed money, instead of allowing it to be said that there had been the slightest delay or want of energy in carrying them on. The determination of Lord Dalhousie was to force on the works, and, accordingly, in every part of India, they were carried on by money borrowed at high interest. So far, therefore, from there having been any neglect in that respect, it was one of the brightest points connected with the administration of Lord Dalhousie. The noble Earl had again adverted to the question of torture; but the noble Earl had not ventured to say that since the fact of torture had been proved to exist the Government at home or in India had neglected any means in their power in the most searching manner to inquire into the practice, and to take all possible steps to put a stop to it. But with regard to the constitution of the Government of India this torture case did not appear to him to have any bearing at all. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Ellenborough) remarked the other day that he never heard during his administration of the government of India of any case of torture taking place in that country. The opinion held by those possessing the soundest knowledge was, that the government of India, to be carried on with effect, must be carried on in India itself; and it was a

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point not to be forgotten by their Lordships that whatever change they might be disposed to make in the Government of India, no change could be made in the great experiment now being made—that of admitting the civil servants by open competition—till the result of that experiment had been fully established. The noble Earl, while professing not to speak on the subject of judicial proceedings in India, had yet brought forward certain vague charges in connection with that subject. What the noble Earl ought to do was to bring forward some particular case of hardship, and to show that under the present state of things no efforts were being made likely to produce amendment. Believing, as he did, that it was a great evil to unsettle the minds of all India by Committees of Inquiry into charges of a vague and general character, the only effect of which would be to lead the Natives of that country to suppose that they were living under an unstable form of Government, he could not agree to the Motion of the noble Earl, and he trusted that he would not press it upon the acceptance of the House.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that he was quite ready, in the event of a Committee being proposed with a view to organic changes, to concur in the view just taken by the noble Earl; for there could be no doubt that to entertain questions of that kind would tend to unsettle the minds of the people of India. But he should be extremely sorry to suppose that their Lordships were precluded from making any inquiry into the internal administration of India because they declined to enter into a discussion of organic changes. He thought there might be occasionally great advantage in directing the eye of the public of this country to the internal administration of India, and he should be extremely sorry to preclude the possibility; of such, matters being investigated by Committees of that House. He had in his possession an official paper, laid before their Lordships the other day, purporting to contain an account of the finances of India, and he must say that in that paper alone he saw enough to justify a Committee of this kind. He found it stated, for example, that the cost of collection of the revenue, chiefly derived from land in the North-Western Provinces, was 9¼ per cent; in Bengal, 10 per cent; in Bombay, 13 per cent; in the Punjab, 14½ per cent; and in Madras, 17 per cent. Now, he really thought that, where there was so great a difference in the cost of collection
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as in one case, 9¼ per cent, and in another 17 per cent, there was a good case for inquiry. In the North-Western Provinces £95,000 of Customs was collected at a cost of £72,000, leaving £23,000 of net revenue. In Bengal, the receipts from the Customs were £768,000; in Bombay, £295,000; but the expense of collecting the small amount at Bombay was considerably greater than that of collecting the large amount in Bengal. Such things as these were matters for inquiry, and might be investigated without impairing in any way the respect and efficiency of the Government of India. He would most earnestly suggest, what he had done two years ago, the appointment of an independent audit for India. This was done by every country that desired to have its affairs conducted with propriety and honesty; and he would recommend the Government, without any delay, to bring in a Bill to establish a board of audit, having no dependence on the Government of India, to examine the accounts of that country, and to place before the House a clear and intelligible statement. In a few days he hoped to call the attention of the House to the mode in which the Directors carried out the Act of Parliament requiring them to lay on the table of Parliament an annual account of the charges of India. The paper which had been presented, and to which he had already referred, was not in accordance with the provisions of the Act; and he regarded this as one among other points which called for the strict vigilance of Parliament. The Governor General and the other Governors had private secretaries, and it was necessary that these should be either civil or military servants of the Company, because it was indispensable that they should speak the native languages. It was consequently impossible for a Governor General to have any English gentleman with fresh views of Indian affairs. Now he (the Earl of Ellen-borough) thought it to be very desirable that the Governor General should be assisted by a gentleman having the qualifications and holding something like the position of an Under-Secretary of State in England, and on whose knowledge the Governor General might very confidently rely. It was impossible that the Governor General could attend to everything, beginning business as he did two or three hours before English gentlemen were out of their beds, and finding it impossible to do more than just to finish the business which had arisen during the day. It was impossible

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for him ever to give two or three hours together for the consideration of one subject, and he was quite satisfied that he would be materially assisted by a gentleman such as he had alluded to. What was wanted was a clear, fresh unbiassed mind; it was prejudice which he wanted to get rid of. He did hope that it would not be understood that by not agreeing to this Motion they were not precluded from taking into consideration the internal Administration of India.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he quite agreed with the noble Earl. The paper referred to was not only incomplete, so that it was impossible for any person in England to form a clear idea of the affairs of India, but very great mistakes had been committed. On a late occasion, at the India House, the Chairman of the India Company went into an elaborate account of the state of the finances and of the deficit of the last two years. The Chairman endeavoured to show that the deficit was caused by the money expended for public works during that period, but he made the amount laid out on public works at variance with that given in the accounts placed on their Lordships' table. The returns made the total expended for that purpose during the year 1853–54, £621,413; but Colonel Sykes made the amount no less than £2,525,000. There was a great discrepancy also in the two statements with respect to the amount laid out in the year 1854–55, the return making the amount £1,648,460, and Colonel Sykes £2,997,500, and he thought that this was a matter which called for inquiry, for ever since the year 1784 the debt of India had gone on increasing steadily. The finances of India were administered in such a way as to lead to the unsatisfactory conclusion that sooner or later the taxpayers of the United Kingdom would have to pay the cost. He thought that these were matters for inquiry, but he could not agree with the noble Earl who last spoke, that a more extensive inquiry in reference to the foundations on which the Government in India rested was not desirable. That was a most serious question, for the Government in India certainly did not rest on the affections of the people, and unless some step were taken to improve that Government, in accordance with every principle that history, theory, and experience pointed out as the only solid foundation of government, British rule in India could not
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last longer than it could be maintained by force of arms. There was this peculiar circumstance to be borne in mind, that by the education and information afforded to the Natives principles of the most liberal and, he might also say, republican nature were instilled into their minds; and therefore it was impossible that the present state of things could last long. The Natives of India must be brought into the Government, or the Government never could be safe. Every year petitions were presented, detailing the grievances of the people of India. They held public meetings and had a free press, and it was, therefore, impossible that the present state of things should go on. The only effectual means of reducing the expenditure of the Indian administration was by employing the Natives instead of the more expensive Europeans. Many high authorities—including the Duke of Wellington—had borne testimony to their administrative powers, and there could be no doubt they were capable of filling many offices, the duties of which they would be glad to discharge. Why should not the Natives be allowed to administer justice in its higher branches, which many of them were well qualified by their learning to do? The Europeans, however, had a monopoly of everything that was good. As soon as the people of this country could be made to see that it was their money of which the Court of Directors were disposing, they would demand a reform in the administration of that country. The income of India was really the income of the Crown, and upon the people of this country might devolve the duty of discharging the debt of India.
Resolved in the negative.

MARRIAGE LAW AMENDMENT BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into a Committee.
LORD BROUGHAM,in moving that the House should go into Committee on this Bill, said that he intended to withdraw the clauses relating to divorce and legitimacy, finding, unfortunately, that he had no chance of carrying them on the present occasion. The Bill would, therefore, be reduced to one single but most important object. It would not alter the marriage law of Scotland at all, but it would give protection to the marriage law of England by preventing that gross evasion of it which the conflict of the laws of the two countries occasioned. He might mention, as an example of the evils of the present

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system, that in one border parish, the population of which during the last half century had increased in the proportion of three to four, the number of marriages during the same period had decreased from eighty to thirty. He had been furnished with a return, from which he found that the number of Gretna-green marriages in the year 1855 amounted to 747. He had also seen a statement signed by nineteen reverend clergymen of the Church of England, of the Roman Catholic Church, and of the Church of Scotland at Berwick-upon-Tweed, affirming that the evils to which the morals of the people were subject by this practice of border marriage were such, that it was impossible to describe to what degree bigamy, seduction, and bastardy were encouraged in that district. He held that the Scotch law, even for Scotchmen and Scotchwomen, was in a state exceedingly unsatisfactory; but there appeared to be a fixed and rooted opinion to the contrary in Scotland, and therefore he did not propose to deal with that question in the present measure. His impression was, that their Lordships would do a wise thing by confining themselves, for the present, to the improvements to be effected by this measure—acting upon the principle, which was not confined to Scotland, of getting what you could and keeping what you got. In France there was also this maxim—"If you cannot get what you like, like what you can get." Upon this principle he had limited his endeavour upon the present occasion to protecting the law and the people of England; the Bill, therefore, would be confined to irregular marriages, striking out those clauses which related to divorce and legitimacy. It was, he felt, a grievous thing to leave the law of divorce in such a state of conflict, and the courts in such a condition as made it an impossibility to administer the law satisfactorily. This, he felt, was the consequence of his being obliged to limit the Bill to the single point of marriages in fraud of the English law. There were cases nearly connected with their Lordships' House in which the uncertainty of the legality of the marriage of the parties might by no remote possibility arise. It was not quite certain that even a Scotch judgment of legitimacy would not be reversed when it came up to their Lordships' House by way of appeal. The Scotch law held that the parties to an English marriage were entitled to marry again after a Scotch divorce. But, if after such a divorce one
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of the parties married again in England, he would be liable to be prosecuted for felony, and, as Solly was, to be convicted and pass twelve months in the hulks because he had been so ill-advised as to contract the second marriage in England, and not in Scotland. In England the issue of such a marriage would be considered bastards. Having failed himself in his endeavours to remove this conflict by the Bills presented in 1835, and by the present Bill as originally framed, he hoped and trusted that the exertions of some one else would be attended with better fortune—he should be satisfied if by the present Bill he could effectually protect the law of England from constant evasion. This was the object of the petition which he had presented from the Cumberland magistrates. That county and Northumberland suffered most from the conflict of the marriage laws. But its evil effects were experienced generally.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into a Committee upon the said Bill.
LORD CAMPBELLthought the Bill would not add to the lustre of the name of his noble and learned Friend, because it would not accomplish what it professed to do. His noble and learned Friend proposed that those marriages which he called irregular marriages should not be legal unless the parties had been domiciled for three weeks in Scotland. He (Lord Campbell) believed that this would be no remedy at all, but would be the cause of a great deal of fresh doubt upon the subject. His noble and learned Friend had introduced a new element of doubt as to regular and irregular marriages. What was an irregular marriage? If an Episcopalian bishop performed a marriage in Scotland, that he believed would be an irregular marriage. Marriages could not be legally performed by an Episcopalian within the realm of Scotland. All such marriages were irregular, and any persons so married might be summoned before the Court of Session and be rebuked for living as man and wife without being regularly married. A marriage by a seceding minister would not be a legal marriage. Strictly speaking it must be a minister of the Established Church, after the due proclamation of bans. However, the whole marriage law of Scotland was involved in the utmost doubt and uncertainty, and he did not think his noble and learned Friend would effect any great remedy by this Bill, and that he would only introduce new difficulties into the question if he carried it. It

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would not operate in mitigation of the evils complained of, and he hoped, therefore, his noble and learned Friend would not press it.
THE EARL OF ABERDEENwould give the Bill his cordial support. Though he desired to preserve as it was the law of Scotland affecting marriage, he had not the least wish to throw any obstacle in the way of preventing evasion of the law of England, and he admitted that something ought to be done to correct the evil of border marriages. In his opinion the present Bill was well calculated to reduce the evil complained of, and in its amended form he would be quite ready to support it. With regard to marriages in Scotland, all were held irregular that were not solemnized after the proclamation of bans, and the contracting of an irregular marriage subjected the parties to ecclesisastical censure, and, he believed, to penalties, though it was valid in law; but, after the publication of bans a minister of any denomination could perform the marriage ceremony. He could not admit the accuracy of the description given by the noble and learned Lord, and he would only say that the marriage law in Scotland was in accordance with the wishes of a people at least as intellectual as themselves.
Motion agreed to; House in Committee accordingly; Amendments made; Report to be received on Thursday next.
House adjourned till To-morrow.