Lords Sitting of 26 June 1857

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—la Oaths; Charitable Uses.
2a Court of Exchequer (Ireland).
3a Ministers' Money (Ireland).
ROYAL ASSENT.—Princess Royal's Annuity; Cinque Ports Act Amendment; Transportation and Penal Servitude.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE VICTORIA CROSS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREsaid, that having seen a notification that tickets for admission to places to witness the ceremony of distributing the Cross of Valour could be obtained by application to the Quartermaster General's Department, he had applied, but had not received an answer—no doubt because the number of tickets was exhausted; but he thought it rather hard that as 6,000 or 7,000 persons had been admitted to places, a Member of their Lordships' House was unable to obtain one.
  LORD PANMUREsaid, no doubt there was a general understanding that tickets of admission could be obtained on application to the Quartermaster General, and many Members of both Houses of Parliament having applied got tickets. He hoped the noble Earl would make some allowance for what had occurred, when he stated that 20,000 applications for tickets had been received, and Sir Richard Airey had been obliged to apologize by advertisement for not answering all the letters he had received.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he had had the advantage of possessing a ticket, and had enjoyed every possible convenience, so that on personal

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  grounds he had no reason to complain; but he thought it an error that in cases of this sort Members of that House should have to apply for tickets to a subordinate officer. He did not make any complaint against Sir Richard Airey, but he thought on occasions like these Peers and Members of the House of Commons ought always to have accommodation provided for them in their collective capacity. It had always been the practice to do so; it was so at Lord Nelson's funeral; it was so at the Duke of Wellington's funeral; and he thought it was not a very dignified course for their Lordships and Members of the other House to be applying, as a matter of individual favour, for that which ought to be granted as of course to Members of both Houses of Parliament.
  LORD VIVIANsaid, that less mindful than many Members of the House of Commons, he had not applied to the Quartermaster General, and at the last hour he was obliged to get a ticket from another quarter; and he could say that it was impossible that any arrangements on the ground could have been better than those which had been made.

PROSELYTISM IN IRELAND—THE KILKENNY MAGISTRATES.

  SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNON VISCOUNT DUNGANNON rose to call the attention of the House to the Conduct of certain Justices acting in the City of Kilkenny, and to move for a Select Committee to inquire into and report upon the same. The noble Viscount said that he was fully aware of the invidious nature of the task which he had undertaken, and nothing but a strong sense of duty had led him to undertake it; because, although it was never a pleasing thing to become the accuser of any class of persons, it was especially disagreeable when those persons were public functionaries. Therefore, in bringing the subject before their Lordships, he should avoid as much as possible going into details. In the month of January, 1856, several Scripture readers were assaulted and very much injured in the streets of Kilkenny by a mob of Roman Catholics. The case was brought before the justices of Kilkenny. Those justices were the mayor, Mr. E. Smithwick, Mr. Potter, Mr. Marshall, and Mr. Cullen, all Roman Catholics; Mr. Greene, the stipendiary magistrate, his brother, Mr. Newport Greene, and Lord James Butler, Pro-
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  testants. In the course of the case Mr. Smithwick took a very decided course against the Scripture readers. That gentleman appeared more in the character of an advocate than of one of the justices; and he endeavoured to make out that the Scripture readers had posted upon the walls of the town offensive placards against the Roman Catholic religion. He inquired of Mr. Curtis, the superintendent of police, whether he had sent out Roman Catholic police to take part in the matter in which the Scripture readers were concerned. The answer of Mr. Curtis was, that he had sent out the police in their proper turn, without reference to their religious creed. Upon that Mr. Smithwick observed that it was a most improper thing to do; and that he, being a Roman Catholic, would have disobeyed the order—he considered that any Roman Catholic constable was justified in disobeying such an order. He (Viscount Dungannon) asked whether any magistrate was justified in making use of such, an expression? It was true that he modified the observation on a subsequent day, but in his opinion that modification amounted to a distinction without a difference. During the examination of a Mr. M'Neill, one of the witnesses, Mr. Wynne, a Roman Catholic attorney, said to him, without being checked by any of the justices except Lord James Butler, "Go down, sir; I should be very sorry to be near you with any money in my pocket. "The inquiry was afterwards adjourned to the 20th of the same month, when the case was dismissed upon the ground that the magistrates were indisposed to believe what the Scripture readers had stated. Lord James Butler, however, declared that, in his opinion, the cases of assault had been fully established. Mr. Smithwick upon this occasion stated, in explanation, he did not mean to say the constables should have disobeyed the order, but that he thought it very wrong to send out Roman Catholic constables to protect those who were the enemies of their faith, and to hear things which would be insulting to their religion. No proof had been afforded that anything insulting to the religion of the Roman Catholics had been uttered by the Scripture readers. He would not enter upon the question how far it was advisable or otherwise to send forth those Scripture readers among the Roman Catholics, but their vocation was a lawful one, and so long as they kept within the bounds of the law they were entitled to protection. Here he could not

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  help calling attention to the social position of some of these persons, who had been entrusted with commissions of the peace. Two of them kept small shops, in which they sold drams and whisky. The mayor also kept a small grocery shop in which whisky was sold. Mr. Smithwick was a brewer, and in a better position of life, but still, like his brother magistrates, not fitted by education to discharge the duties of a magistrate. He did not mean to say that the Roman Catholics must necessarily be wrong, and the Protestants right; but he could not help looking with more confidence to such men as Lord James Butler and Messrs. Greene, than to persons of such station as those to whom he had been referring. He wished he could have done with Mr. Smithwick here, but he should have to bring that gentleman before them in a still more objectionable light. In January of the present year two boys, twelve and thirteen years of age, while going about distributing tracts, were cruelly and severely beaten with a whip by a man named James Ryan, in the employ of Mr. Smithwick. He was brought before the bench on a charge of assaulting them. Mr. Smithwick gave evidence to the effect that he believed the man was utterly incapable of the act imputed to him, and then sat upon the bench and adjudicated upon the matter. A letter was afterwards written to a newspaper by Mr. Newport Greene, the stipendiary magistrate, saying that the decision was directly contrary to the evidence. He appealed to noble Lords whether, if such an act had been committed by any magistrate in this country as that of adjudicating upon a case in which he was directly or indirectly interested, he would not merely be cautioned and reprimanded, but struck off from the commission of the peace? There was also another charge of assault against several parties, and although evidence was given by the police of the extreme ill-usage which the prosecutors received, all of them were acquitted except one, who admitted that he had struck and tripped up one of the complainants. That person was convicted, but only fined 6d. Those three cases showed, at least, a disregard of the rules of justice, which would fully warrant the inquiry for which he intended to move. The impartial administration of justice was everywhere most essential, but more especially was it essential in that country where, lamentable as might be the fact, party feeling of a religious character
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  prevailed, and nothing would tend more to lower the courts of petty session in the estimation of the public, than the idea that in any case pending between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant, the result must depend on whether a majority of justices of one persuasion or the other might chance to sit on the bench at the time. He asked for even-handed justice to all classes, of whatever religious persuasion they might be.
  Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report on the Conduct of certain Justices acting in the City of Kilkenny."
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he need scarcely assure their Lordships that his noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was as anxious to extend even-handed justice to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects in that country as the noble Viscount himself could be, and he believed no departure from that principle had taken place in the cases to which the noble Lord had called attention. The statement made by the noble Lord in reference to the charge against Mr. Smithwick was substantially the same as the report which appeared at the time in The Kilkenny Moderator. The Lord Lieutenant having had his attention directed to that report, called upon Mr. Smithwick for an explanation; whereupon that gentleman wrote a letter stating that the report of what he had said on the 12th was quite incorrect, and what he had said on the 19th was much misrepresented; that a great deal of what he said was omitted, and much more misrepresented, and that the expressions attributed to him by the reporter he had never used. This explanation was accepted by the Lord Lieutenant as satisfactory; but he wrote at the same time to say that had it not been so he should have taken other steps. It would be a great mistake to interfere with the administration of justice by the local authorities without sufficient grounds. In the other case a trivial assault was committed; it was disposed of by the magistrates, and no complaint was made to the Government by the party who might be supposed to be aggrieved by the decision; but at a subsequent period a body of gentlemen calling themselves the Protestant Association, but whom the Protestants of Ireland repudiated as representing them, took up the matter and made this charge against the magistrates. That being the case, the

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  Government did not consider there was any ground for inquiry. With regard to the Scripture readers, he thought it was a point worthy the consideration of those excellent men who desired to propagate the true faith of the Protestant religion amongst the Roman Catholics of Ireland, that they should pay some attention to the manner in which some of the persons they employed endeavoured to carry out the holy cause in which they were engaged. He (Earl Granville) had letters in his possession from chief constables and other functionaries, showing that the Scripture readers were in the habit of stopping Roman Catholics in the public thoroughfares, denouncing and ridiculing the peculiar tenets of the religion which their listeners professed, and thrusting their tracts upon unwilling passers by, interlarding their discourse generally with attacks on Her Majesty's Government. Their Lordships, he thought, would agree with him, that this was not the mode of propagating the Protestant faith amongst the Irish Roman Catholics, but that, on the contrary, it was the most likely means of exciting the public mind, and occasioning breaches of the public peace. To hold out the slightest encouragement of protection to persons engaged in proceedings of this character would therefore be most imprudent, and he would advise those who felt an interest in the progress of our religion to watch narrowly the conduct of these persons, and to cheek this excess of zeal. It was a very difficult matter for Government to afford protection to such persons, because the very fact of such protection enabled and encouraged them to persevere in offensive denunciations of the religion of their auditory. The one charge referred to by the noble Lord it appears was founded in error, and the other having been disposed of by the magistrate, and no complaint having been made by the parties themselves, he submitted that there was no case for interference on the part of the Government or of their Lordships. It must not be supposed that in these cases the Roman Catholic magistrates were always wrong and the Protestants always right, even were it possible for the Government to make any distinction either upon religious or personal grounds. They could not place more reliance on one magistrate than another because he happened to be a Protestant, or because he happened to belong to a high and wealthy family. He trusted that their Lordships would agree with him
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  that no ground for an inquiry had been made out.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, that the noble Earl had failed in meeting the allegations of his noble Friend. The charges did not appear to be of a very grave nature; but two cases had been brought forward which, supposing the facts stated by his noble Friend to be correct, showed gross partiality on the part of a certain magistrate; and admitting that the superior credibility of one magistrate over another was a question that the Government could not entertain, much less a Committee of that House, still he thought the statement of his noble Friend demanded some more explicit answer than it had received. Mr. Smithwick, having been called upon to explain the language he used, it appeared contented himself with saying that the report was incorrect, and that what he said had been misrepresented by the newspaper; but it would have been more satisfactory if he had gone a little further and stated what he did say, and left others to judge of their effect. The important fact that he came forward and gave a character to the accused, and then as a magistrate gave his casting vote in his favour, was not denied; and supposing that such a circumstance actually took place, he must say it was one that was calculated to cast suspicion on the due administration of justice by the local tribunals of Ireland. It appeared to him that the subject was one that demanded more investigation than it had received; but he was not prepared to say that questions of this kind ought to be inquired into by Committees of that or the other House of Parliament. The proper course of proceeding was by reference to the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland, and he was surprised that that course had not been adopted. One of the faults of the administration of justice in Ireland was that in every case of doubt or difference the Government was appealed to, and the impression generally prevailing that the result of such appeals depended upon the political feeling of those in high office. This was a great evil, and went far to destroy the independence of the local judicial authorities. He presumed his noble Friend did not intend to press his Motion for a Committee, which was one he (the Earl of Derby) could not support; but he thought his noble Friend was fully justified in bringing the case under their Lordships' attention, as one that demanded searching

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  investigation on the part of the Government.
  THE MARQUESS OF WESTMEATHsaid, that the practice of resorting to the Executive in Ireland as a court of redress in cases where the administration of justice was concerned had grown into an enormous evil. The principle of the Government ought to be to discourage such appeals, and to throw the full weight of their proper responsibilities upon the magistracy of the country. Perhaps, if that was done, a little less anxiety would be shown for the attainment of the commission of the peace and a greater ambition to become acquainted with the duties of magistrates. Cases like that brought forward by the noble Viscount that evening had been of late years of very frequent occurrence in Ireland, and he thought he was justified in saying that, primâ facie, they invariably put the Roman Catholic clergy in the wrong. For these Scripture readers were men whose characters had been closely scrutinized before their appointment to office; and, as far as his experience went, he must say they performed their duties in an inoffensive manner. On the other hand, they were habitually subjected to every species of malicious usage; as, for example, to having their garments covered with spittle. He mentioned that for the sake of justifying the missionaries, and to prove that where disturbances arose they could not fairly be attributed to them.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNON,in reply, said he did not think that the noble Earl opposite had sufficiently met his statement, for he had made no reply whatever to the graver charge against Mr. Smithwick of having adjudicated in a case where his own servant was defendant. Still he would not press his Motion to a division, but content himself with expressing a hope that what occurred that evening in their Lordships' House would not be without its proper effect upon the country.
  Motion (by Leave of the House) withdrawn.

  ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN INDIA—PETITIONS.
  THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE rose to present three petitions from the inhabitants of Calcutta; of British residents in Calcutta and the Mofussil districts of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, and not in the service of the East India Company; and landed proprietors, Indigo plan-
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  ters and merchants and traders in Calcutta, and the lower provinces of Bengal; against the abolition of Her Majesty's Supreme Court of Calcutta. The prayers of those petitions were in some degree different, but they all concurred in condemning those changes in the criminal law of India which were understood to be in contemplation, and which were recommended by the Indian Law Commissioners. Those changes would affect nearly every principle to which the people of this country attached importance. They would affect the implied conditions upon which British subjects had been induced to invest their capital in India, and would, if carried out, have the effect of driving most of the wealthy capitalists from the country. The petitioners were active, intelligent men, by whose exertions the resources and wealth of India had been developed, who sent annually £13,000,000 worth of produce to this country, besides £7,000,000 in one article—opium—to China. Upon that article they paid taxes which realized £3,500,000 a year, and without which the Indian Government would be reduced to a state of complete bankruptcy, its normal condition being a deficit of £2,000,000 annually. The petitioners complained of two sets of measures; one was actually under the consideration of the Legislative Council of India—the creation of a new procedure. To that the petitioners offered no objection, believing that any procedure must be an improvement upon the discreditable state of anarchy in which the courts of that country had been for nearly a century. They did, however, object that a new class of magistrates was to be created, and that British residents would be deprived of the protection of the laws of their country, if the functions of the Supreme Court were to be handed over to the magistrates and police of the Mofussil or Provincial Courts. The petitioners objected to the amalgamation of the Supreme Court and the Sudder Courts—that was of the Queen's and the Company's Courts—believing that the effect of that amalgamation would be not to raise the Sudder Courts to the estimation of the Supreme Court, but to lower the condition of the British residents in India to the miserable condition in which the Natives were now placed. The petitioners further objected to being deprived of the writ of Habeas Corpus and of trial by jury, as recommended by the Commissioners. The petitioners claimed, as heretofore, an exemption from

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  the criminal jurisdiction of the country courts, until those courts should he presided over by competent and professionally qualified judges. After the comments which had already been made upon the report of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, it was unnecessary to quote much evidence; but, in order to show the unanimity which prevailed upon this subject, he (the Earl of Albemarle) would just read an extract from one of the petitions:—
  "The criminal courts of the East India Company have been the dread and terror of the people. They are used as instruments of outrage and persecution. Convictions in them are regarded as evidence as much of misfortune as of guilt."
  These courts gave immunity to the gang robber, and were terrible only to the innocent. The gang robber knew, to borrow the words of the Lieutenant Governor, that "the administration of criminal justice in India is considered a mere lottery, in which the prizes are in favour of the guilty." That fact was also known to his unhappy victim. Although proverbially disposed to litigation and little inclined to show mercy to those who had injured them, the Bengalese could hardly ever be persuaded to prosecute for robbery, "from the full conviction," to borrow again the words of the Lieutenant Governor, "that the guilty men will be acquitted in the teeth of the clearest evidence." Mr. Halliday stated that very few of the heinous offenders were brought to justice at all. Of every 4,000 persons charged with heavy crimes one-half eventually escaped. That was not owing to the want of evidence, for evidence was too easily procurable; but because the magistrates and judges were perfectly conversant with the manner in which the evidence was obtained, knowing the torture that was inflicted upon the prisoner and the witness. He would give one example of the mode in which evidence was got up as stated by Mr. Kenny, an indigo planter, at a great public meeting held to petition against the "Black Act," as the measure with which the British subjects were threatened was universally called in India. Mr. Kenny related that in the village in which he resided, the body of a boy was found hanging to a tree. The circumstance was reported to the superintendent of police, and by him was brought under the notice of the magistrate. The latter took it into his head that the boy had been murdered, and told the superintendent that he was to bring the murderer before him within seven or eight days or to resign his office. The superintendent re-
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  turned to the village and selected the master of the boy as the murderer. The man denied it. He was put to the torture, but persisted in declaring his innocence. The superintendent then seized upon an old woman in the neighbourhood. She was tied down; fire was applied to her nostrils and other tortures were resorted to which he could not describe to their Lordships unless they ordered the reporters to withdraw. The superintendent gained his object; the woman criminated the man, and both were brought before the magistrate. The woman then stated, that all she had said was under the influence of torture, and the magistrate dismissed the case, with a slight reprimand to the superintendent, telling him to be more cautious for the future. Plenty of similar cases might be brought before their Lordships; and it was with such administrators of the law that the British inhabitants of India were now threatened. Having now described the evil, he would proceed respectfully to suggest the remedy. He would suggest that the law should be administered by professional lawyers, and that there should be courts in proportion to the population and the area, including Benares, Patna, and other great commercial towns. He should also like to see unpaid magistrates, Native and European, wherever procurable; and he believed that if the courts were presided over by professional Judges, there would be no difficulty in finding an unpaid magistracy. He wished it to be distinctly understood that these courts should be open, entirely independent, and placed on the same footing as the Supreme Courts of our own country. He had high authority for stating that the lex loci should be the law of England. This was no new experiment. The law of England had been tried in four different countries. Persons of every religion, and of almost every nationality, had come under its influence, and it had given universal satisfaction from the security it offered to liberty and property, and the readiness with which it might be adapted to native laws and customs. But, it might be asked, how did he propose to pay the expenses of these works? The answer was a simple and obvious one—namely, that the same remuneration which was given to the incapable and incompetent boy-judges who now administered injustice should be continued to the professional lawyers. We now sent a young man of twenty out to India—a paid covenanted servant—for judicial employment. Till he

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  reached the age of thirty, he could not properly be placed upon the bench. After twelve years more he was entitled to a retiring pension, so that while we paid him for twenty-two years' service he did only twelve years' work. The professional lawyer, on the other hand, educated himself; and he had reason to believe, from inquiries which he had made, that there were many gentlemen belonging to the English, Scotch, and Irish bars who would be perfectly ready to go out, provided they received the same salaries and retiring pensions that were now enjoyed by the servants of the East India Company. With these remarks, in the full conviction that the importance of the subject was recognised by Her Majesty's Ministers, he would lay the petitions on the table, unaccompanied by any Motion, hoping that the hands of the Legislative Council would be stayed until the question had been brought before their Lordships by one more competent to deal with it than himself.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEregretted to be obliged to infer from the silence of the Government that no progress was really being made in the decision of what he would venture to call the most important branch of the great Indian question. The state of India now was such that British capital, enterprise, and skill could alone be expected to develope its resources, restore its finance, and make it a valuable possession, instead of a burden upon this country. The advice given the other day by the Chairman of the Court of Directors to the merchants and manufacturers of Manchester—that they ought themselves to extract a supply of cotton from the soil of India—was very sound and judicious; but the great impediment to the establishment in India of indigo planters and cotton speculators was the maladministration of justice. British people would not venture their persons or embark their property where they had not the protection of good laws. He differed from the petitioners upon one important point. They prayed that no alteration should be made in the Supreme Court. He thought the Supreme Court ought to be amalgamated with the Sudder Courts. The Supreme Court gave universal satisfaction to Europeans and Natives, and it was as good as the Company's Courts were bad. He wanted to know why, after the amalgamation had been announced by Sir Charles Wood, years ago, it had not taken place? It was said that it was necessary
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  to refer the matter to the Legislative Council in India. From that opinion he dissented, and he reminded the noble Earl (the Earl of Ellenborough) who on a former occasion had expressed his concurrence in it, that in 1833 he entertained a different view. Upon the ground of retaining the independent character of the Supreme Court, which had greatly contributed to raise it in public estimation, he thought that Parliament was the place where such legislative acts ought to be done. He doubted, indeed, whether, legally, the Governor General and Legislative Council had power to touch the Supreme Court. A clause in the Act of 1833 provided that the Governor General should not have the power of making any laws or regulations which should in any degree affect any prerogative of the Crown or the authority of Parliament, and another clause provided that the Governor General should not abolish any of the courts of justice established by Royal charter. The Supreme Court was established by charter, and, therefore, the Governor General and Legislative Council had no power to abolish it. But if it were contrary to Statute Law to refer the power of amalgamation to the Governor. General and Legislative Council in India he submitted that the only proper course was to legislate here. The Judges of the Company's Courts, it should be remembered, were civil servants, who had received no previous legal training. The present system was one, therefore, which, in his opinion, required alteration. He saw no reason why a man should be sent out to discharge the duties of a magistrate in India simply because he had been called to the bar in this country; and there were, he thought, various modes by which a person's practical knowledge of the administration of the law might be tested before he received any such appointment. The noble Duke the Postmaster General had, upon a former occasion, stated that lawyers in this country got no regular professional education. That might be the case; but such men were never made Judges; and he might add that the magistrates in India disposed of cases of life and death without possessing the same competence to the discharge of their important functions which existed in the case of those who performed similar duties in this country, and without being exposed to the exercise of the same degree of watchfulness upon the part of the public. We sent out our civil servants to be collectors of revenue, and if it was found that they

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  were not sharp enough for that position they were made magistrates, and even Judges after the lapse of a certain time. The system was, in fact, one of the most objectionable character, and he was only surprised that it could have lasted for so long a period. There were in our Revenue and Customs Departments in England men who discharged their duties in a manner the most admirable, but who, he should like to know, had ever thought for a moment of allowing them to preside at the Old Bailey or in the Court of Common Pleas? It was no wonder that petitions were submitted to their Lordships praying for some modification of a state of things which operated as a great grievance in India, and he trusted the petitioners would receive at their hands that redress to which they were entitled. He would conclude by asking whether it was within the competency of the Legislative Council at Calcutta to repeal, alter, or nullify an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and to assume the powers of a perfectly independent Legislature, by rejecting Bills laid before them in pursuance of announcements made to Parliament by the Ministers of the Crown.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLdeprecated these repeatedly recurring discussions on the subject of India. The question raised by these petitions was whether Parliament should act upon the recommendation of the Indian Law Commissioners as to the amalgamating of these courts; but, surely, Her Majesty's Government were not open to censure for not acting on that recommendation without due consideration. There was not that concurrence of opinion on the subject that the noble Marquess seemed to suppose. He had had sent to him a pamphlet which emanated from a gentleman who represented the interests of the Europeans residing in Bengal. It was stated that the Queen's Judges, the Company's Judges, as well as the Members of the Council, together with the writer himself, who represented himself as a lawyer and a law reformer, regarded the plan recommended by the Commissioners, as a whole, as crude and impracticable. If the Government in India were not competent to hit upon a plan for the formation of a new court, then it would be for the Imperial Legislature to take proceedings in the matter; but there was, he thought, good reason why Her Majesty's Ministers should suspend their judgment until they had received the Report of the Indian Government, His noble Friend asked whether it was within
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  the competency of the Legislative Council at Calcutta to alter or nullify any Act of the Imperial Parliament. Of course it was not; but he (the Duke of Argyll) apprehended that there was nothing in any Imperial statute to prevent the Indian Government from making such changes in the Supreme Court as might seem to them to be expedient. They could not, indeed, abolish that court; but they might modify its constitution, or alter its jurisdiction. It had been enacted that it should not be lawful for the Governor General in Council, without the previous sanction of the Court of Directors, to create any new court with power of life or death over the subjects of Her Majesty. It was clear, therefore, that the Legislature had contemplated conferring upon the Indian Legislature, when acting with the consent of the Court of Directors, power to establish a new court which might deal with questions of life and death, and since the period to which he had referred a new Act had been passed greatly improving the constitution and character of the Indian Legislative Council; and, as no power granted by the former Act was repealed, it was plain that the intention of the Legislature had been that the Indian Legislature should have ample power of dealing with the subject. He would not enter into the difficult question as to how far it might be prudent to bring the European subjects of the Queen with in the jurisdiction of the Native Courts. He believed that it was most expedient that in those courts great reforms should take place, and it might be doubted whether bringing the European subjects of the Queen within their jurisdiction might not tend, from the additional publicity which would be given to their proceedings, to improve the administration of justice in them. The great difficulty in the administration of justice in those courts arose not so much from the character of the Judges as from the character of the suitors with whom they had to deal. It was admitted in all the petitions which had been presented against these courts that the great evil which existed arose from the facility with which false evidence might be adduced in them, and it did not appear by any means certain that that facility might not be removed by the introduction of English subjects of the Queen as suitors. The question, however, was one of considerable difficulty, and one with regard to which a great difference of opinion prevailed among persons best informed upon the subject. He would not express on the present occasion any opinion upon the sub-

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  ject; but he must say that he thought that it would have been very imprudent for the Home Government to have legislated without referring the subject to the consideration of the Indian Legislature, and he had seen letters from Lord Canning, in which that nobleman expressed a distinct opinion that it would have been disrespectful to the new Legislature of India if the Home Government had proceeded to legislate without consulting them.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I do not pretend to say that I have made myself master of the contents of the 500 pages of printed foolscap which contain the new code prepared by English lawyers for adoption by the Government of India, and I must confess that I have not the smallest intention of undertaking that labour; but I cannot imagine that any gentleman who prepared that code could ever have suggested the abolition of the Supreme Court in India. I cannot imagine that he can have done so, because the Legislative Council has not the slightest power of doing so. It has the power of altering the forms of proceeding in the Supreme Courts and their jurisdiction—a power conferred upon it by special provisions, but it has not the slightest power of abolishing them, and I cannot believe that the legal gentleman who prepared this new code can have thought that it was not intended by the Acts which have been passed upon the subject, to maintain, as courts of original jurisdiction in the capitals of the different Presidencies, the Supreme Courts. The most important questions which come before those courts are questions affecting the interests of the East India Company, and of gentlemen in their service; and, strange to say, whether it be from the badness of the advocates they employ, or from some other cause, the Government are almost invariably beaten. What the result might be if four or five gentlemen in the service of the East India Company were associated with the Judges of these courts, I cannot pretend to say. With regard to the general question, I believe the case to be, that there is no power of compelling the Legislative Council of India to pass any law whatever. Parliament has reserved to itself the right of directing the officers of the East India Company, under penalty of being guilty of a misdemeanour, to do what they are ordered to do; yet I do not think, looking to the whole of the Acts of Parliament, that there is any power of compelling the servants of the Company to do anything in a legislative capacity.
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  By the new constitution of the Legislative Assembly, it contains members who are not servants of the Company. There are two Judges, and there is the legal Member, who is appointed by the Crown, and it is especially enacted that no measure shall be passed in the absence of those gentlemen, so that a mere abstinence from attendance upon the part of those gentlemen would be sufficient to impede legislation. As regards the question of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Clanricarde) I can only say, what does the Government of India know of any Minister of the Crown? It knows nothing of the President of the Board of Control; it knows nothing of Queen, Lords, or Commons, unless they speak through an Act of Parliament. In fact, it knows nothing but the orders of the Court of Directors. No doubt, the Court of Directors act under a Minister of the Crown; but no one knows what he puts into their letters, or what he strikes out. Many things, no doubt, which have been viewed with considerable favour have emanated from him; but, on the other hand, with him may also have originated many things which have brought great unpopularity upon the Court of Directors, and which have arisen from the economical views of the Queen's Government; and we may, therefore, fairly lay down the rule that the Minister of the Crown is entirely unknown in India. I will not say anything more, except a few words, with regard to one topic which has been adverted to by the noble Duke. I fancied that the closing observations of the noble Duke indicated a disposition to concur with the proposal for placing Her Majesty's English subjects under the jurisdiction of the Native Courts, and I earnestly recommend him, and I recommend the Government, and I recommend Parliament, to use the most extreme caution before adopting any measure with a view to that object. We are a small number of persons in the midst of an immense population, and we cannot submit to any change which may, in the slightest degree, impair the ascendancy and supremacy of England. I do not give utterance to my own views alone, for I have heard similar views expressed in stronger language by the late Duke of Wellington, and I would farther press upon the consideration of the noble Duke the question, whether he believes that justice would be obtained in those courts. I do not. I incline to think no Native Judge, who had probably risen from nothing, and might return to nothing, would dare

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  to decide against an Englishman going to his court with all the authority of his nation and of his energy of character; but, be that as it may, I trust that no step will be taken without the most careful consideration.
  LORD CAMPBELLsaid, that the present state of the administration of justice in India, both as regarded Europeans and Natives, was most unsatisfactory. Europeans in the most remote provinces were amenable to no courts but those at the chief towns of the Presidencies, and while this was a great hardship to any of them who were prosecuted, it was a still greater hardship to those who had to prosecute them. In point of fact, if an European committed an offence at a distance from the seat of Government, there was no practical remedy whatsoever. It was now proposed that they should be subjected to the local courts. That was a most desirable measure if the local courts could be made competent to administer justice. The problem which had to be solved was the reformation of the local courts. Years, however, had passed away, and nothing had been done; and he was afraid that if this delay continued, the safety of our Indian empire might be compromised. Therefore, supporting the prayer of petitions which he had himself presented, he most earnestly implored Her Majesty's Government to take effectual measures for removing the grounds of these complaints.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that he saw no objection to the establishment of circuits of European Judges. On the contrary, he thought that much good would result from the adoption of such a measure; but he thought that practically there would be much difficulty in obtaining substantial justice if resident planters had to go before their neighbours.
  Petitions read, and ordered to lie on the table.

MINISTERS' MONEY (IRELAND) BILL.

  THIRD READING.
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.
  THE EARL OF CLANCARTY: * My Lords, in rising, as I gave notice, to move that the third reading of this Bill be deferred to this day six months, I am sensible of the great disadvantage under which I labour, in consequence of the declaration of the noble Earl, who is the acknowledged leader
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  of the Conservative party in this House, that he would offer no further opposition to the Bill. The state of the House sufficiently indicates the influence which the noble Earl exercises over those that commonly act with him, an influence to which I am myself by no means insensible, arising, as it does, from his high character, combined with eminent abilities—and it is never without great hesitation and reluctance that I venture to separate from the noble Earl in the treatment of any political question; but deference to the opinion of another must have a limit; and, having maturely considered the case as it now stands of the Bill before the House, and my duty with regard to it, I feel that I should do injustice, no less to the force of my noble Friend's arguments against the Bill than to my own convictions, if I did not go on with that opposition to it which, as an hereditary counsellor of the Crown, it is my duty to offer to any measure that ought not to receive the Royal Assent. I certainly understood the noble Earl to say, when he addressed your Lordships on the second reading, that his opposition to the Bill would be uncompromising, and the very full House that heard him expressed by their votes their cordial approval of such opposition. Great indeed, then, was my surprise when, on the question of the Bill being committed, my noble Friend, almost in the same breath that he reiterated his objections to the measure, declared that he would not oppose its further progress. I deplore this decision, involving, as the Bill does, the most objectionable principles, and fraught as it is with wrong and injustice, it ought to have been opposed to the last, even if the deliberative voice of the House had been less unequivocally expressed in reprobation of it than it was upon the second reading. The noble Earl despaired of being able successfully to oppose the Bill; but I am quite sure that the more it received consideration, the less would be the support of it, and the greater the number of its opponents. But upon one point my noble Friend was certainly in error, when he said, when withdrawing his opposition, that he threw the responsibility of the Bill upon the Government. My Lords, you cannot shrink from the duty of rejecting the Bill, without involving yourselves in the responsibility of advising its enactment, and in that responsibility every noble Lord will be included who either votes for it or withholds from voting against it. The Government has, no doubt, much to answer for in

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  having submitted such a measure to Parliament; but from the moment that it passes this House the responsibility of it will be upon your Lordships, and not upon the Government. Nor do I think the noble Earl was in a position to say when he withdrew from opposing the Bill, Liberavi animam meam. The great influence the noble Earl exercises in the deliberations of the House pointed him out as the only Member under whose leadership the House could be saved from the discreditable act of passing this Bill; when, therefore, he withdrew, his mission was yet unfulfilled. In the House of Commons, so recently elected by constituencies favourable to the Government, the ready acceptance of the Bill as a Government measure was no matter of surprise; but its acceptance by your Lordships, by whom its principle and provisions could be and were more carefully and fully considered, and whose bounden duty it is to prevent any wrongful measure from being submitted for the Royal Assent, will grievously disappoint public expectation, and especially those who have been wont to look with confidence to this branch of the Legislature as Conservative of the great Protestant institutions of the country. If your opposition to the Bill was to have been limited to a mere exposure of its deformities, and you were to have acquiesced in its adoption directly you had shown it to be one that you ought not to sanction, far better would it have been from the beginning not to have opposed it at all; better would it have been to have spared the Government the exposure of the weak and unstatesmanlike grounds upon which they recommended it, and to have kept out of view the true character of a measure so calculated to imperil the Protestant establishment, and to bring the law into contempt; far better would it have been simply to have passed it as a Bill of indemnity in behalf of a Government that had been unfaithful to the first of its duties, that of causing the law to be impartially and firmly administered; but the House—those I mean who attended in their places—having gone fully into the merits of the Bill and heard all that could be said in its favour, voted against having anything further to do with it; they declined giving the Government an act of indemnity—they told them it was their duty to uphold and vindicate the law, and, if necessary, to have it strengthened; they declined being a party to abstracting from the funds in the hands of
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  the Ecclesiastical Commissioners the pittance by which the incomes of clergymen of less than £100 a year might be assisted; they refused to offer reward to those who disobeyed or resisted the law; they rejected the measure as one utterly unworthy to be entertained in this House. Having done all this, though your decision was overruled by the votes of thirty-six absent Peers, whose proxies were in the hands of the Government, your Lordships ought to have persevered in opposing the Bill. With reference to the use made of the proxies upon the occasion, I ventured, on the question of going into Committee on the Bill, to point out as a reason for not proceeding with it, that the form of the preamble was not in consistency with fact; that supposing the Bill to receive the Royal Assent, it could not truly be said to be "enacted by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled," for this simple reason, that the Lords Spiritual and Temporal so assembled neither advised nor consented to, but, on the contrary, in a very full House by a majority of six rejected the Bill. Their decision was reversed, as I have already mentioned, by the proxies of thirty-six absent Peers, who may have known nothing about the measure that had been discussed, and who probably little thought that their unenlightened votes had been employed to set aside the result of the deliberations of the House, numbering 230 Peers present, and that the Crown was to be thus deprived in a most important act of legislation of the advice of the assembled Lords of Parliament. My Lords, I received no answer or explanation upon the point I had felt it my duty to submit for consideration. The Government, who, by calling for proxies after the assembled Peers had rejected the Bill, created the anomaly I complain of, may have wished it to pass unnoticed; but public opinion will not tolerate in the making of the laws by which this great country is to be governed, such an abuse of the privileges of the Peerage. I will not, my Lords, after the very full consideration that the provisions of this Bill have already undergone, trouble your Lordships by discussing them anew; but before I sit down I must advert to one argument, upon which reliance was chiefly placed by the Government in favour of the Bill. It was represented as a measure for the removal of a grievance from the Roman Catholics of Ireland. My Lords, I ask, does the Government admit it to be a grievance for a

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  Roman Catholic to be called upon to pay a demand subject to which he purchased his property, simply because the payment would be applied to the support of the Established religion? If this is to be considered a grievance from which relief may be claimed, what Roman Catholic owner of a bishop's lease, or what occupier of lands belonging to our Protestant collegiate institutions may not, with equal reason, claim to be relieved from the payment of the reserved rent? or, to take a case more exactly analogous to that under consideration, what payer of the tithe rentcharge is there that might not, with the encouragement held out to him by this Bill, refuse to pay? It is said that Mr. S. Herbert will derive great pecuniary benefit from this Bill. Is he an aggrieved Roman Catholic? Has he petitioned your Lordships for relief? Is there any evidence upon your table that the payment of ministers' money is regarded as a grievance? Has there been a single petition presented to your Lordships in favour of the Bill? No, my Lords, there lie upon the table no less than 108 petitions from different parts of Ireland, including some from members of the Presbyterian body, against the Bill, but not one in its favour. The only petitioners to your Lordships are Her Majesty's Ministers. They pray you to exonerate them from the grievance of having to enforce a collection that they have very improperly allowed to get into arrear; they pray you to absolve them from the responsibility they have thus incurred. They pray you to sanction them in laying hands upon a fund which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are entrusted with for the building and repairing of churches and other important objects connected with the Protestant Establishment; and they pray you to sanction this monstrous injustice, not for any public object—not on account of any proved necessity—not on any ground that they have put forward, but to enable them to distribute to the constituencies of eight corporate towns, returning each one or more Members to Parliament, a sum of from £12,000 to £13,000 a year, abstracted from the revenues of the Established Church. Such at least, and no other, will be the practical effect of the Bill if it should become law. I do not think the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would desire the meed of the unjust steward which the passing of this Bill would obtain for him. Its supporters will, no doubt, be gratified by being
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  called "liberal Protestants," and the Government receive from that party in Ireland, which is returned to Parliament under the designation of the "independent opposition," whose avowed and primary object is the destruction of the Protestant Establishment, a large amount of Parliamentary support, for which, all unconsciously I would hope, they are paying so heavy a price. The Bill is one for the partial disendowment of the Established Church, and as such it will be gratefully acknowledged as an earnest of what may be farther effected by resistance to the law. There is at present very little of agitation in Ireland, no more, in fact, than might reasonably be expected in a free country, where it is the right of every man—a right that I hope will always be freely exercised—to canvass the reasons and principles of the laws and institutions under which he lives. But by this Bill a stimulus will be given to agitation of a very different character: it will afford at once a precedent and encouragement to a systematic attack upon the temporalities of the Church, and thence upon the rights of property generally, and your power, and the power of the Government in meeting it, will be seriously impaired by the policy to which you will have committed yourselves upon this occasion. My Lords, I will not further detain you; I regret that the defence of the temporalities of the Church against this wanton act of aggression should have devolved upon one so weak and uninfluential as the individual who now addresses you. Circumstanced as I am in the opposition I am offering to the Bill, I apprehend that the Vote I purpose recording upon the present occasion will only serve as a personal vindication, a kind of protest against having any part or share in the perpetration of a great legislative wrong; that others, however, may have the like opportunity, I beg to move that the third reading of this Bill be deferred for six months.
  Amendment moved, to leave out "now," and insert "this day six months."
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, that he should briefly state the course he meant to pursue; but he neither intended to repeat his speech against the Bill, nor, on the other hand, to defend it, as the noble Earl appeared to imagine. Neither should he repeat the reasons he had given on a former occasion for relinquishing any further opposition to the Bill; but he begged

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  to state that those reasons had received, in writing, the approbation of the most rev. Primate of all Ireland (the Archbishop of Dublin) to whom the noble Earl had referred on a former occasion, and who had approved of the course which he (the Earl of Derby) had taken, as the only course, in fact, which could be adopted. The noble Earl had spoken of the influence which he (the Earl of Derby) was supposed to possess as having prevented a greater attendance of Peers to oppose the Bill. Now, he had to assure the noble Earl that he had said nothing, except those few words which he had on a former occasion spoken in that House, to induce noble Lords to withdraw further opposition; and from the state of their Lordships' benches on his (the Earl of Derby's) side, the noble Earl could judge what proportion of the Peers who sat on that side had approved of his (the Earl of Derby's) opinion, and what proportion of them had adopted the views of the noble Earl. He should be sorry to have it supposed that he at all relaxed in his opposition to the Bill; he retained all his objections to it upon principle, and he found himself placed in this difficult position—that he could not possibly vote in favour of the Bill; while, on the other hand, he had given an assurance to the Government that he should not offer any further opposition to it, and the state of the House showed the reliance which Her Majesty's Ministers had placed upon his good faith. Under these circumstances he should not give them any reason to cast any reflection upon his good faith; and, therefore, he should not vote at all upon this occasion.
  THE EARL OF WICKLOWsaid, it would be in the recollection of the House, that previous to going into Committee on this Bill he moved, on the part of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, that their petition to be heard by counsel at the bar against the measure should be complied with. In making that proposition he took occasion to refer to a statement made in the other House of Parliament by the late Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Horsman), as containing at exaggerated account of the funds in the hands of the Commissioners, and he intimated that possibly the majority obtained in the House of Commons had been very materially influenced by such a statement coming from so high an authority as the late Secretary for Ireland. In making those remarks, he at the same time observed that he did not mean to impeach in
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  the slightest degree the integrity of the right hon. Gentleman, as he believed that he considered the documents on which he based his statement to be perfectly authentic; but this expression of his confidence in the right hon. Gentleman's integrity did not appear in the published reports of his speech. Mr. Horsman, on seeing his observations in the papers, wrote to him on the subject, and a correspondence took place which ended in his (the Earl of Wicklow) seeing the accounts and documents on which the right hon. Gentleman made his statement in the House of Commons; and he was, after seeing them, perfectly convinced that there was nothing in the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman which was not taken directly from the public accounts before him. To explain the manner in which these accounts came into his hands, Mr. Horsman sent him a letter which he would take the liberty to read to the House. [The noble Earl here read a letter from Mr. Horsman. It stated, in effect, that an important circumstance had been kept from the knowledge of his Lordship, that on the 29th of May, when the House of Commons went into Committee on the Bill, Mr. Hamilton, one of the Members for the University of Dublin, took him aside in the course of the evening, and, showing him papers with which he had been furnished by the Commissioners to make an explanatory statement said, it would be more agreeable to the Commissioners if that statement was made by him (Mr. Horsman); that in this request he acquiesced, and wrote down from Mr. Hamilton's dictation the statement he was to make on the part of the Commissioners to the House; that Mr. Hamilton assured him this course would be perfectly satisfactory to the Commissioners if he would undertake it, and that on this assurance he made the statement on behalf of the Commissioners to the surprise of many of his friends; that he was much surprised when he saw that the Earl of Wicklow had alluded to the subject in the House of Lords, as he could not bring himself to believe that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, on whose behalf his Lordship spoke, were capable of so gross a breach of faith after the assurance he had received that his statement would be perfectly satisfactory to them.] Now, he had appeared before their Lordships the other evening, and made use of documents, at the instance of the Commissioners, and to him it was perfectly incomprehensible,

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  after reading the papers which he held in his hand, how the Commissioners could have thought of renewing the attack, or of asking him to do so. Mr. Horsman expressed his surprise, but his surprise was not greater than his own, for he need hardly say, that if he had known of such an arrangement as had been entered into with the right hon. Gentleman, he would not have taken the part which he did the other evening. He could assure their Lordships that it would be a long time before he took charge of a case again.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, nothing could be more fair or straightforward than the statement just made by his noble Friend. He was certainly very much annoyed at the accusations made against Mr. Horsman the other evening; and it was his intention to make some reply on the third reading, after having ascertained the facts, until he found that Mr. Horsman had wisely put himself in communication with the noble Earl. In the name of Mr. Horsman he thanked the noble Earl for the fair and honourable course which he had now pursued. The noble Earl who had just quitted the House (the Earl of Derby) had left to Her Majesty's Government the further defence of the Bill. He knew that the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Clancarty) was not a man to be convinced by arguments. In this case, indeed, he did not wish to convince him. He had announced that it was his intention to divide the House on the third reading, and, wishing that the Bill might go forth so as to meet with general approbation in Ireland, he was glad that the division would be taken under circumstances which would be favourable to that result.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNONrepeated that he considered this so flagrant an act of spoliation of the Established Church, and as establishing so dangerous a precedent, that, however small might be the minority, he felt bound for the last time to record his vote against it.
  THE MARQUESS Of WESTMEATHrecommended the noble Viscount to withdraw his opposition, and leave the responsibility on the Government. All he proposed to do might be effected by a protest.
  After a few words from the Earl of CLANCARTY,
  On Question, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion? their Lordships divided:—Contents 23; Not-Contents 7: Majority 16.
  Resolved in the Affirmative: Bill read 3a accordingly: Amendments moved, and negatived; and Bill passed.

  CONTENTS.

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

  Oriel, L. (V.Massereene.)

  Ailesbury, M.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.) [Teller.]

  Albemarle, E.

  Clarendon, E.

  Rivers, L.

  Granville, E.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Harrowby, E.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Sydney, V.

  Stuart de Decies, L.

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Carew, L.

  Churchill, L.

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Congleton, L.

  Wrottesley, L.

  Dartrey, L. (L. Cremorne.)

  Wycombe, L. (E. Shelburne.)

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Desart, E.

  Dungannon, V. [Teller.]

  Mayo, E.

  Berners, L.

  Clancarty, V. (E. Clancarly.) [Teller.]

  Castlemaine, L.

  Denman, L.

  MINISTERS' MONEY (IRELAND) BILL.
  Die Veneris, 26o Junii, 1857.

  PROTEST.
  Against the Third Reading.
  DISSENTIENT—1. "Because the Act 17 & 18 Chas. II. c. 7, for the Kingdom of Ireland, was applicable to every city and corporate town in Ireland, and created a moderate charge on the houses of all Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. Subject to which charges ever since the passing of the said Act all such, property has been dealt with and valued, and it would have been better again to change the collectors and mode of collection by Act of Parliament, providing for a redemption of the said tax than to put the law into operation and then suspend all proceedings against defaulters, who are more favoured by an exemption from this tax than those who have obeyed the law.
  2. "Because the withdrawal of this payment will render it more difficult to obtain the consent of Protestants to any future payment by the State of Roman Catholic priests (if such a measure should be hereafter contemplated), and may tend to strengthen the opposition to the Maynooth Grant, and thereby greatly retard the enlightenment of such priests, whose conduct at elections and whose influence as to scripture readers is such, as better-educated men probably would not exhibit, and which conduct and influence ought not to be encouraged and increased by concessions as a direct reward for disobedience to the law.
  3. "Because this Act was passed in a House consisting of fewer Members thereof than are together usually elsewhere considered sufficient

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  to constitute a deliberative assembly, and, therefore, it fails to establish the full evidence of hearty goodwill to the Irish people, which should accompany every measure relating to them.
  "DENMAN."
  House adjourned at half past Eight o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.