Lords Sitting of 9 August 1860

MINUTES.
Took the Oath.—The Lord Archbishop of York.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a European Forces (India).
2a Eeclesiastical Commission, &c; Gunpowder, &c.
3a Local Government Act (1858) Amendment; Tenure and Improvement of Land (Ireland).

EUROPEAN FORCES (INDIA) BILL.

  FIRST READING.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLmoved, that the Bill be now read the first time.
  THE EARL, OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that although he was opposed to this measure as destructive of the prospects which we had of retaining our dominion in India, he was afraid that his opposition would be hopeless, and he would therefore suggest to the noble Duke one or two points in regard to which he thought the measure required amendment. He understood that officers were no longer to be appointed to local employment as in former times, but were to be placed upon a Staff corps, and that when they were placed upon that corps they were to vacate their commissions in Her Majesty's service. As the power of raising officers as well as men was by this Bill taken away it occurred to him that the employment of these officers, after they had resigned their commissions, would be as illegal as that of any other persons. If the officers retained their commissions when removed to the Staff corps, which, in his opinion, would be the better plan, this difficulty would not arise. It was also a very great question whether this Bill, by repealing the Acts under which the local army had been raised, would not extinguish that part of it which still remained in existence, and it might therefore be desirable to insert a proviso to prevent it having that effect.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he did not clearly apprehend the objections of the

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  noble Earl. He did not think there was the difficulty in the measure which the noble Earl suggested; but the subject could be carefully considered in Committee and, if necessary, amendments introduced. The appointment of staff officers was in the hands of the Governor General, and he trusted that the principle would ever be maintained that all appointments in India, both civil and military, should pass through the hands of the Governor General.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: But "quod facit per alium facit per se." The Governor General could only act by the authority given him by the Queen, and the appointments which he might make to the Staff corps would be as much the act of the Government at home as if they were made by the Secretary of State.
  Bill read 1a.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION BILL.

  RESOLUTION OF URGENCY. SECOND READING.
  EARL GRANVILLE moved to resolve,
  "That with regard to the Ecclesiastical Commission, &c, Bill, inasmuch as various Questions relating to the Management of Episcopal Estates and to the securing regular Incomes to the Bishops and an increasing Surplus to the Common Fund have been long under Consideration, and the final Settlement hitherto unavoidably delayed, whereby the Proceedings for the Enfranchisement of many Church Leaseholds have been already protracted to an Extent injurious to those concerned; and as these Matters are treated and determined in a Manner which has secured general Approval, the Circumstances which render Legislation on the Subject of the said Bill expedient are of such real Urgency as to render the immediate Consideration of the same necessary."
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, he did not wish to offer any opposition to the general principle of the Bill, in which indeed, he entirely concurred. The 11th Clause was not, however, in his opinion, in conformity with the main objects which it was proposed by the measure to secure, inasmuch as it provided that any Bishop might hand over the estates committed to his charge during his lifetime to the Commissioners, not for the purpose of having any alteration made in its case, but with a view to their being managed by them, thereby saving himself trouble. Under these circumstances, he thought it would be well that the clause should be postponed.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKsaid, that when he held the See of Durham, an arrangement was made by which the estates were handed over to the management of
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  the Commissioners. All the agreements and other arrangements were made in his name. It seemed to him a matter of indifference who acted as his agents, or whether the estate was managed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or any one else, so long as the holders of the See were not thereby exposed to any risk.
  THE EARL OF CHICHESTERsaid, the object of this clause was not to relieve the Prelates from any risk, but rather to relieve them from the onus of managing their landed estates. The point was very much considered, and several Prelates only consented to having estates at rack rents made over to them on condition that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or rather the Church Estates Commissioners, would undertake the management of the property. He hoped the House would allow him to enter into a short, but he hoped a clear, explanation on a subject connected generally with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and their proceedings. He alluded to the recent Order in Council for the augmentation of the Deanery of York, and he hoped the House would allow him to make this explanation, because unfortunately he was not in his place when the subject was discussed on a former evening. The augmentation of these deaneries rested on a section of the 3 & 4 Vict., c. 113, and which, after enacting that the separate estates of deaneries should be made over to the Ecclesiastical Commission, directed the Commissioners to make such additional provision for these deaneries as might appear to them just and proper. It had been always held that they were directed to augment these deaneries, if they thought the income insufficient, up to a certain amount. There was another section in the Act which limited the power of the Commissioners to augment certain other deaneries up to £1,000 a year and no more; and in 1845, when the Commission prepared a scheme for augmenting certain deaneries up to £1,500 a year, and the Deanery of York up to a larger amount, the opinion of the law officers of the Crown was taken, and they considered that the second section overrode the other, and that no deanery could be augmented to a higher rate than £1,000 a year. That opinion afterwards was overruled in the year 1858 by the law officers of two successive Governments, who came to the conclusion that the Commissioners were right in their law, and that the first section to which he had alluded was not controlled by

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  the other, with regard to these particular deaneries, and that they might be augmented to any amount which the Commissioners thought fit and proper In the interval—namely, in the year 1850—a Bill was brought in for amending the Acts relating to the Commission, and in the Bill a clause was introduced to remove any doubts. The first opinion of the law officers was at that time the Commissioners' rule, but the object of this clause in the Bill was to remove all doubts, and to enable the Commissioners to augment the income of the Deanery of York up to £2,000 a year, and three other deaneries up to £1,500 a year. The Bill with that clause in it passed their Lordships' House. In the other House of Parliament it was very much, discussed, but eventually was thrown out, and consequently the question of the deaneries remained as it was before. The next thing which took place in connection with this question was in the year 1858. He found on the records of the Commission that on the 22nd of April a scheme was proposed—the opinion of the law officers of the Crown having been previously taken, and being in favour of the augmentation. This scheme proposed to augment the Deanery of "Wells, and, he thought, the Deanery of Salisbury, up to £1,500 a year. There was a long discussion on the point at the Board, and several members of it, including himself, expressed an opinion that, although they did not object to the augmentation of these particular deaneries, the subject had been already discussed and decided in Parliament, and that, therefore, it was not right for the Commissioners to agree to such a scheme. This discussion and the subsequent division were not recorded on the Minutes, because at that time the custom was not to record them unless specially ordered. However, on the scheme being carried, and on its going to the Council Office, he felt it his duty, as Chief Commissioner of Estates, appointed by the Crown, to communicate to the Government information of any important question which came before the Commissioners; and he accordingly communicated with the Secretary of State for the Homo Department (Mr. Walpole) and with the Earl of Derby, who, on his informing him what had taken place, said he quite agreed with the view taken by the minority of the Commission, and that he should advise Her Majesty not to issue an Order in
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  Council to carry the scheme into effect. The next event that occurred was the death of the late Dean of York. Now, to show the House why the Commissioners originally considered that, under the section to which he had last alluded, they had full power, and were' almost bound to augment the Deanery of York, he should state that the late Dean of York was receiving an annuity of £2,500 a year. The revenue of the estates of the deanery, however, was considerably more. On the death of the late Dean, looking at the local circumstances which made it a very expensive residence, he (the Earl of Chichester) suggested to the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), who was then at the head of the Government, that since the Dean of York was in future only to have an income of £1,000 a year, it would be well to appoint some clergyman who had private property. He (the Earl of Chichester) was the more induced to do this because of a strong representation on the subject which had been made to him by the late Archbishop of York. At that time neither he nor the noble Earl opposite had any idea that the income of the deanery could be augmented beyond £1,000 a year, without an Act of Parliament. The present Dean, very soon after his appointment, very naturally and properly applied to the Commissioners for an augmentation, not beyond, but up to £1,000 a year, since his actual income was barely £700 a year. The matter was put off by the Commissioners from time to time, the majority of them wishing to make the income £2,000 a year. On the 29th of June, 1859, there was a special meeting, very largely attended, several Members of the present Government, Lord Palmerston, Earl Granville, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and Mr. Cardwell, being present as ex officio members of the Board. A Motion was made to adopt a scheme for augmenting the Deaneries of Wells and Salisbury to £1,500 a year, but the sum for the Deanery of York was left blank, to be filled up afterwards, and likewise for the Deanery of Hereford. After a discussion the Board divided, when the Members of Her Majesty's Government, and those of the Estates Committee, with himself (the Earl of Chichester), were left in a minority; the Board deciding that that scheme should be adopted. This decision, however, was not final, and in the autumn, on the Motion of Mr. Walpole, a Committee was appointed to consider the whole question of the deaneries.

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  That Committee in their Report expressed an opinion that the remedy for the evils complained of was to be sought in giving the Ecclesiastical Commissioners power to readjust the amounts at present received by the capitular bodies without trenching upon the Common Fund, yet they did not think it would be expedient to apply to Parliament for an Act to give such powers to the Ecclesiastical Commission by a separate Act, but that the Government should be requested to include such a clause in any Bill concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission which they might introduce into Parliament. With regard to the Deanery of York, the Committee recommended that an application be made to Her Majesty's Government urging them to take steps for raising the income of the deanery to a level with the other Metropolitan deaneries. He (the Earl of Chichester) did not agree in this last recommendation. The Report, however, was adopted by the Board, and a copy of it was sent to the Home Secretary, and a deputation of the Board directed to wait upon him. He (the Earl of Chichester) was a member of that deputation, and on that occasion warned the Secretary of State and the Lord President, who was present, that a scheme would probably be sent to them for augmenting the income of the Deanery of York up to £2,000 a year. In December and January the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had the matter under their consideration, and on the 2nd of February a scheme for augmenting the Deanery of York was sealed by them. He immediately informed the noble Earl (Earl Granville) of what had taken place; and had no further communication with the Government on the subject, until, on 'the 10th of May, the Order in Council was passed in the usual way. The reason which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners gave for passing this scheme was that it I would not be fair or just to the Deanery of York that the income should be only £1,000 a year. They considered that they were bound, as they certainly were bound, to augment the deanery, and the question was whether it should be £1,000 a year or more. On account of the local circumstances the Deanery of York required a larger income than other deaneries. Parliament had lately sanctioned an income of £3,000 a year for the Deanery of Durham; the Deans of Westminster, St. Paul's, Canterbury, and Lincoln, were endowed by Parliament with £2,000 a year each; and
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  it seemed to the Commissioners that the Deanery of York ought at all events to have as much. They felt that £2,000 a year was a just and proper income for York, and, if so, that it was their duty to insert that amount in the scheme. With regard to the Bill now before the House, it was framed on the same principles that had already been approved by this House in 1858, with a few changes only in favour of the local claims.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that when this Order was notified to him he was unable, from a domestic affliction, to attend to his official duties. It was referred, however, to the law advisers of the Privy Council to decide as to its legality. It was, of course, impossible for the Government to be responsible for all the acts done by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. All orders made by them were sent to the Privy Council officers, and there their legality was inquired into; but it was obviously impossible to do more without usurping the functions which Parliament had assigned to the Commission.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, that though the Bill fell short of what was to be desired as an Ecclesiastical Commission Bill, still, he thought it right that a large portion of it, at least, should be passed. Much of the unpopularity which was supposed to attach to the Ecclesiastical Commission arose from the mode in which our legislation in regard to that body had been conducted. Nearly all ecclesiastical legislation was brought forward at a period of the Session when it was totally impossible to give proper attention to such subjects, and too generally when the major part of the episcopal bench were obliged to be absent in their respective dioceses. The object of this Bill was to increase the powers of the Commission with regard to receiving certain portions of episcopal and other Church property. The centralization or non-centralization of the management of this property might be a matter of interest to the attorneys, agents, and valuers of land at-attached respectively to Whitehall Place, or to the various cathedral towns; but the only interest which the public took in the matter was that the property should be administered in such a manner as would best advance the interests of religion and the Church. But he did not find, either in this Bill or others which had preceded it on the same subject, that careful attention to the extension of the usefulness of the

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  Church which ought to characterize their legislation. What was the reason why all this clamour was raised when a pound more or less was given to the Dean of a cathedral? It was simply that Parliament had only fixed its attention on who was to manage their property, and not on the manner in which it could be usefully managed, so as to encourage the fulfilment of the duties which the office might be required to perform. It seemed to be supposed to be a question impossible to answer what was the use of cathedral Deans. If there was a doubt whether the office had sufficiently important duties, Parliament had two courses before it, either to abolish the office or to assign such duties to it as would make it really useful. But he could not find that any attempt to make these offices more useful had been made by the Legislature. One would suppose from the grudging spirit in which their salaries were attempted to be regulated, that no benefit was derived from the existence of Deans; and yet the Metropolitan deanery was held by a man second to none in literature and theological knowledge, while the Deanery of Westminster also was held by a man who was an ornament to the age in which we live. There was hardly any instance of a man being appointed to a deanery who was not deserving of some public testimony. Some had laboured hard in education, others had advanced the literature or science of the country, and others had done great service to the Church by a lengthened parochial experience. Yet, no sooner was it proposed that the Dean of a cathedral Church should have that which the law allowed him than a clamour was raised as if the interests of the Church were being sacrificed to some remarkable job. The fact in regard to this Deanery of York was that before it became vacant the question had been referred to the law officers of the Crown whether Sir John Jervis had not been mistaken in the opinion which he gave that these deaneries of the old foundation should be reduced to £1,000 a year. That question was referred to Sir FitzRoy Kelly and the present law officers as well; and he (the Bishop of London) believed that it was not till after Sir FitzRoy Kelly gave his opinion that the Deanery became vacant. While any doubt existed as to which the salary was to be, the late Prime Minister was justified in thinking it of importance in this particular case that the Dean should be a
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  man of private fortune, for, though it was all very well to say that £1,000 a year was a very good income, yet if great public expenses were put on a man with £1,000 a year it was not much better than poverty. He understood that it was not doubted that the present Dean of York had well sustained, and was likely, as long as he lived, well to sustain the dignity and honour of the office. But with the opinion of Sir FitzRoy Kelly, corroborated by the opinion of the present Attorney General and the law officers of the Crown, would it have been right for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to have made it impossible for all time to come to offer the Deanery of York to any man who had not a large private fortune? It would be much better to abolish the office altogether and sell the house, perhaps to some of those agents of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who grew rich as Deans grew poor, than to insist that for all time to come the high and important office of Dean of York should be held as the appanage of some noble and wealthy family, and that no man of ability should be appointed to it unless he happened to possess a largo private fortune. He was not, therefore, at all disposed to join in the sort of apologetic tone which the noble Earl had adopted; but on the contrary he maintained that it was the distinct duty of the Commissioners to give to the Deans for the time to come that to which two sets of the law officers said they were fully entitled, and which common sense and common reason approved as not at all too much for the office. If there had been any doubt that the office, under the present state of the law, was important, how very easy it would have been to have brought in a Bill by which proper duties should have been assigned to it. He regretted deeply that a Bill fixing all the salaries of the Deans throughout the kingdom had not been introduced at an early period of the Session, because, along with a proper arrangement of the salaries, they might also have arranged what the duties ought to be, and he believed that they would have found,—as matters at present stood,—that great injustice was being done to the holders of other deaneries. The cases of the Deans of Wells and Salisbury had been mentioned, in which it appeared that, under the erroneous impression that Sir John Jervis's opinion was correct, when it was proved to have been incorrect, the

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  salaries of those officers were reduced from the proper sum to £1,000 a year. He believed that those gentlemen had calls upon them as largo in degree and proportion as the Dean of York, and it surely could not be maintained that all deaneries of the old foundation ought to be reserved for wealthy men. There were one or two other matters upon which legislation was desirable. It would have been well if they could have taken a large and wise view as to the mode in which the spiritual wants of this great Metropolis could be best considered. There was some good in the Bill, in this respect, inasmuch as it recognized, to a certain extent, what were called local claims; but he understood that there were still doubts whether the word "place" which was retained in the Bill, was not as limited as "parish." They might, therefore, still see a mining population living a few yards out of a parish, not deemed entitled to have their spiritual wants supplied from the ecclesiastical wealth of that parish, or the miserable population in the Potteries of Kensington debarred from all claim because they happened to live 100 yards outside the parish of Paddington, from whence the Commissioners would probably soon derive an income of £10,000 a year. It would have been well also if some provision had been made with regard to the expenses of the Ecclesiastical Commission—if there had been some sort of schedule showing how much the various officers should receive. He did not mean to doubt that it was an erroneous impression, but there was an impression on the part of the clergy that it was a great pity when there were so many clergymen wanted to labour among the poor that there should be so large a staff of secretaries, undersecretaries, and clerks connected with the Commission, and that it would be better if fifty clerks were turned into fifty curates. The laity might object to the incomes allowed to Deans, but the clergy objected to the increase of secretaries and clerks more strongly than to keeping up the dig i-taries upon the ancient foundations of our cathedrals. Then again it would have been well if the Bill gave some indication of how long the Ecclesiastical Commission was to last. Their business was to get the ecclesiastical property as soon as possible into a good state, and when it was in a good state to hand it over to those to whom it belonged—not to administer the property to the end of time in an office in
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  Whitehall Place. It might be well if in some Bill, if not in this Bill, something like a period were fixed when the Ecclesiastical Commission should—not cease to exist, but—fall into its proper position, that of regulating changes with regard to property, without holding the whole property inits hands. When the property of the Finsbury stall fell in, it alone would bring them £60,000 a year, and no one could tell how many new secretaries and clerks would be required to manage that property. He believed that unless they settled the principle on which the Commission was to act a great outcry would soon be raised throughout the Church. He believed that the Commissioners administered their duties faithfully: he believed that the were exposed to that sort of unpopularity which necessarily arose when, through good report and evil report, men tried to do their duty; the blame rested with Parliament and not with the Commissioners. The Commissioners could only act as the law prescribed. It was well worth considering how far the existing regulations of the law were wisely devised, and how far the country and the Church was contented to leave them in the present state. The Commissioners would always be, to a certain extent, unpopular, because they had a limited sum to dispose of among a multitude of claimants. But there were other causes of unpopularity which arose from the present state of the law. The Bishops of the Church of England had personally no desire to have anything to do with the administration of this property;—they entertained a deep conviction that they had quite enough to do with the spiritual work of their office, but that, still, it was their duty not to allow a great institution like the Ecclesiastical Commission to go on without taking their part in its superintendence. No one could over-estimate the great importance of this Commission in Whitehall Place. It was becoming more and more the very centre of the establishment of the Church of England, and if occasion were taken to raise a clamour, and from interested motives to impute neglect of duty—if these things were allowed to sow dissension among the friends of the Church—the enemies of the Church would greatly rejoice. Nothing, in his opinion, was more likely to do harm to the Church Establishment than any sort of neglect of the great office of the Ecclesiastical Commission, or than leaving arrangements in the undefined and unsettled

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  state in which they were left by present legislation. He trusted to see, next Session some legislation, not any longer merely, with respect to accumulations of property, but as to the mode in which the Deans whose position and income had that evening been the subject of discussion, as well as other cathedral offices, could best be enabled to perform the important duties which the Church had no right to expect from them.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYwished to know whether the Ecclesiastical Commissioners could of their own authority raise the revenue of any dignitary of the Church upon the simple condition that their recommendation should receive the approval of an Order in Council, which was never refused. The salaries of the Deaneries of Canterbury, London, Westminster, and Lincoln were fixed by Act of Parliament; but it appeared that in the case of the Dean of York the salary had been raised without any solicitations upon his part, and after the assent of the noble Earl who had been at the head of the late Government had been refused to such an arrangement; while the mode in which the Commissioners had carried out their determination upon the subject, which was most distasteful to all the lay members of the Board, seemed to have been of a somewhat irregular character. It might be that the case of the Dean of York was exceptional; but if such a proceeding could take place under the existing law, he thought it would be well to introduce into the measure then under their Lordships' consideration a clause which should provide that the assent of the Council should not be given to any recommendation of the Commissioners for the augmentation of the revenues of any dignitary of the Church until after that recommendation should have been laid for a period of six weeks before Parliament. By such an arrangement public attention would be invited to each recommendation, and if it were a proper one no obstacle would be thrown in the way of its adoption. The right reverend Prelate had justified the appointment of Cathedral Deans by a reference to the two Metropolitan Deans, Milman and Trench, for whom none of their Lordships entertained greater respect than he did; but this was not a case of any such reward of great piety, great learning, or important services rendered to the Church. It was simply the appointment of a most estimable gentleman, who was
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  well qualified for the office to which he had been appointed, but who required no increase of salary, and whose elevation to that high position was not important to the Church. He would not now enter into any discussion as to the duties or uses of the Ecclesiastical Commission, but if he received any encouragement he should in Committee move the insertion of the clause which he had mentioned.
  THE EAEL OF CHICHESTERexplained that the course taken with regard to the Deanery of York was no exception to a rule in so far as this, that it was the course pointed out by the Act of Parliament.
  The EARL OF DERBYsaid, it appeared to him that a very material point had been omitted by the noble Earl opposite in his notice of this case. He told them that the Commissioners, in consequence of the opinion which they received from Sir John Jervis, believed in the first instance that they were precluded from raising the salary of a Dean beyond a certain amount, but that a subsequent opinion of the law advisers of the Crown informed them that their powers were not limited in the manner they had supposed. The noble Earl, however, forgot to state that in the meantime a very important step had been taken. The Commissioners had gone to Parliament, and had asked to be authorized to raise the salaries of two Deans to £1,500 a year; but Parliament had distinctly refused to accede to that request. It was therefore after Parliament had decided that the salaries of Deans ought not to exceed £1,000 a year that the Commissioners had taken the unfortunate step of raising the allowance of the Dean of York to £2,000 a year. Surely, when the Commissioners were informed that they had the power, which before they were informed they had not, it would have been advisable that before exercising it they should have obtained a declaratory Act, showing plainly that they had such authority. In that case no complaint could have been made that Parliament had not been fairly dealt with. Did he understand the noble Earl to state that this was not the exercise of an exceptional authority, but that with regard to every other deanery the Commissioners had the same power of increasing the revenue?
  THE EARL OF CHICHESTERreplied, that all the Deaneries mentioned in the Act which had been alluded to were under precisely the same circumstances as the

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  Deanery of York, and he presumed that if the majority of the Commissioners took the same view with respect to them they could augment the incomes in a similar way, though not to the same amount.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: Then it came to this, that Parliament having declared that the revenues of these deaneries should not be more than £1,000 a year, the Ecclesiastical Commission had an absolute and irresponsible power—because his noble Friend (Lord Stanley of Alderley) said that their recommendations were confirmed by Orders in Council as a matter of course—of raising them to an amount which Parliament had declared that they ought not to reach. If this was so, it was a state of things which required immediate and urgent attention; and, under the circumstances, he thought that the clause suggested by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley of Alderley) was well worthy of consideration.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Bill read 2a (according to Order) and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

TENURE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LAND (IRELAND) BILL.

  THIRD READING.
  Order of the Day for the Third Heading read.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a
  THE MARQUESS OF WESTMEATHsaid, that he should be neglecting his duty if he did not enter his solemn protest against the Bill being read the third time. He regarded it as an unprincipled interference with the rights of private property. The preamble of this Bill set out with an untruth, because it stated that it was expedient to create facilities for the improvement of landed property in Ireland. It was not expedient to do by legislation what the persons interested in land were perfectly willing and competent to do for themselves. The measure was intended for the coercion of Irish landlords, who had done their best to increase the quantity and improve the quality of the produce of the soil. They had encouraged the formation of societies to promote what the Bill designated "good husbandry," but priestly influence had been employed to defeat their efforts; and the tenants had been counselled to withhold their co-ope-
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  ration, on the ground that those institutions were only designed to increase rents. If an indifference to a proper system of cultivation existed in Ireland the fault did not lie with the landlords. One objection to this Bill was, that it did not define what was meant by "good husbandry." The measure had been brought forward at the suggestion of a party that would never be quiet as long as its unjust demands were listened to. Nothing could be more barbarous than the method of culture still pursued in Connaught, where the people began by burning the land, and were afterwards obliged to use enormous mallets for pulverizing the ground. All the disputes and murders occurring in that part of the country might be traced to the fact that the land was not properly divided, but was all held in common. The noble Marquess concluded by repeating his solemn protest against the iniquitous provisions of the Bill.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNONconsidered the Bill uncalled for in every sense of the word. It was a most uunecessary intervention between landlord and tenant, and it was his conviction that if acted on to any extent it would be productive of the worst possible feeling between the parties. The Bill would not promote the progress of improvement in landed estates in Ireland, but would place the landlord in the position of being compelled to negative improvements, and thence would cause matters to be sent to the law courts and for decision by incompetent tribunals. He believed the largest landed proprietors were against the measure, and he should not be doing his duty as a representative Peer if he did not express his conviction of its unsoundness and uncalled-for character, against which, in common with the noble Marquess, he must enter his protest.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 3a accordingly with the Amendments.
  LORD MONTEAGLEproposed a clause requiring that houses to be built under the Act should be constructed of stone or brick and well-seasoned timber, covered with slate, &c.
  EAKL GRANVILLEthought it undesirable to introduce such specifications in a permanent Act of Parliament. It would be quite enough to enact that the houses should be "well and substantially built."
  After a few words from the Earl of DONOUGHMORE,
  Clause added.
  Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

GUNPOWDER, &c, BILL.

  RESOLUTION OF URGENCY.—SECOND READING.
  EARL GRANVILLE moved to resolve—
  "That as regards the said Bill, inasmuch as the proposed Enactments therein relating to the Manufacture, Custody, and Conveyance of Gunpowder and other Combustibles are, in consequence of the Insufficiency of the existing Law and the increased Production of those Articles, necessary for the public Safety; the Circumstances which require Legislation on the Subject Matter of the said Bill are of such real Urgency as to render the immediate consideration of the same necessary."
  Resolution agreed to.
  Bill read 2a (according to Order) and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.
  House adjourned at a Quarter before Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, Half-past Ten o'clock.