Lords Sitting of 30 April 1863

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament—The Lord Dunmore, after the death of his Father.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Elections during Recess (No. 84); Bakehouses Regulation (No. 85).
Second Reading—Corrupt Practice at Elections (No. 62); Hares (Ireland) (No. 52); Inclosure (No. 59).
Third Reading—Drainage of Land (Ireland) (No. 33), and passed.

ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN (IRELAND) BILL—(No. 50.)
Returned from the Commons, with certain of the Amendments agreed to, and some disagreed to; together with their Reasons for such Disagreement: The said Reasons, and Bill, with the Amendments, to be printed. (Nos. 82 and 83)
DRAINAGE OF LAND (IRELAND) BILL.

  (No. 33.) THIRD READING.
  THE EARL OF BELMORE(in the absence of Viscount Lifford) moved. That the Bill be now read 3a.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he thought the Hill had bettor go on, as the Government had introduced a Bill that evening in another place, to effect the objects intended by what were known as Colonel Dickson's Clauses, which had been expunged from this Bill.
  Bill read 3a, and passed.

UNITED STATES—SEIZURE OF BRITISH SHIPS WITH MAIL-BAGS.

  EXPLANATION.
  EARL RUSSELL:—My Lords, as the question of the seizure of the Peterhoff the detention of Her Majesty's mails has been recently the subject of discussion in this House, it may be convenient to your Lordships that I should state the substance of the information 1 have received this day from Lord Lyons. In his despatches Lord Lyons states, that in answer to his application with respect to the Peterhoff and the mail-bags, Mr. Seward informed him, that with respect to the ship and cargo, the Executive Committee of America had decided not to release the vessel, but to send her before the prize court. As for the mails, the American Government had determined, in conformity with the letter of the 31st of October, to send them to their destination; and the same procedure is to be adopted in all similar cases. Mr.

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  Seward also expressed the hope that some satisfactory arrangement might be arrived at between the two Governments. The law of nations, he said, did not lay down any precise or clear rule with respect to the practice, which is somewhat novel, of sending mail-bags by private ships, and therefore he wished to make a communication to Her Majesty's Government on the subject. He did not state what the nature of that communication would be, and. of course, it will be matter for subsequent consideration.
  LORD CHELMSFORD:—Did I understand the noble Earl to intimate that in future the American Government will forward the mails to their destination without breaking the seals? I hope the communications which have passed on the subject, will be laid on the table as soon as possible.
  EARL RUSSELLsaid, the noble Lord had understood rightly. As to the production of the communications which had been received from America, Her Majesty's Government must first consider what answer they would give, and what proceedings they would take.

CORRUPT PRACTICES AT ELECTIONS BILL—(No. 62)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a: (Earl Russell.)
  LORD REDESDALEdoubted the expediency of giving the House of Commons so much power as this Bill conferred, of interfering with the constitutional right of elections by suspending the issue of writs. By Clause 10 there was a provision enabling the House of Commons, by its own Act, to suspend the issue of a writ for five years from the date of the Report. This he thought was unconstitutional.
  LORD LYVEDENobjected to the clause (Clause 11) which threw on any county or borough where bribery occurred the cost of the Commission of Inquiry, and which seemed to proceed on the absurd principle that the respectable part of the community could control, and were responsible for, the doings of the rascally part. It was a pity that the clause disqualifying attorneys and agents from voting, which was originally in the Bill, should have been struck out. Those men were the only licensed class of bribees, and it was a com-
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  mon tiling to engage a great many of them at an election for the sake of their votes. The fact was, this Bill was intended as a salve to the conscience of the Legislature, and to make it appear to be doing something which it was leaving undone. At present there was no strong public feeling against bribery, and until such a feeling was called forth it would not be extinguished by any number of Acts of Parliament. There was no one to prosecute for bribery except the defeated candidate, and it was not likely that he would take proceedings, when, if he succeeded, he would only unseat his opponent, without seating himself. A Member of Parliament suffered no loss of social position from bribing. If there were any sincere desire to put down bribery, it could easily be done; but there was no such sincerity. In his own case, he sat for a constituency for twenty-five years, and paid £4,000 on his first return, and £400 in his last. That reduction was entirely due to the zeal and exertions of his committee and constituents.
  THE EARL OF VERULAMobserved, that such a measure as this could only be effectual when supported by public opinion.
  EARL GREYsaid, this was one of the most absurd pieces of legislation ever presented to Parliament. He did not know how any man could believe that a Bill of this sort could have the least effect in stopping bribery. He quite agreed in the observation, that if there had been a sincere desire to abolish corruption, on clause would have been more effectual than that disqualifying attorneys and agents. It was perfectly notorious that it was a common mode of bribery to retain a large number of agents and messengers nominally for their services, but really for their votes. It had often been shown, before Election Committees, that that was a most effectual mode of bribery. Yet the clause, which would have prevented that, was struck out and another inserted, throwing the cost of the Commission of Inquiry on the place where bribery was committed. The latter provision was manifestly unjust. He hoped that the expenses of the Commission would be made to fall only on those who had votes, and who might possibly be guilty, and not on their Lordships and others who had no votes to dispose of. He did not believe that bribery was to be put down by any legislative measure. If one set of men were anxious to give and another set to

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  take bribes, no amount of ingenuity on the part of Parliament could track out or defeat all the various devices by which that object might be accomplished. In order to carry out the principle, it should be made penal for a landlord to let a farm somewhat under the usual rent, and so on. If they once entered on such a course of legislation, there was no saying where they were to stop. The only way to put down bribery, was to enlist public opinion against it, and to make such arrangements as should diminish, as much as possible, the opportunities for practising it. The present Bill would be useless and nugatory, and was only a piece of solemn hypocrisy, because it attempted to put down an evil by means which were well known to be ineffectual.
  EARL RUSSELLsaid, that as the Bill consisted of detached clauses, he thought it would be better to defer the discussion until the Committee. It was, of course, difficult, if not impossible, to put a stop entirely to bribery, but legislation might, at least, impose some check on it; and the proceedings of some of the Committees of the House of Commons, had succeeded in putting a stop to bribery in some places. When a man spent several thousand pounds in getting returned to Parliament, and then was unseated, he was made to see that bribery was unprofitable. As to the clause alluded to, as having been struck out, which provided that agents should be disqualified, nothing could be easier than to evade it.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

THE FORTS AT SPITHEAD.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF HARDWICKErose to put a Question with regard to the Continuation of the Works on the Forts at Spithead. He said, that in the Session of Parliament of 1861, a very considerable sum of money was placed at the disposal of the Crown for the purpose of strengthening the fortifications and defences of the United Kingdom; and last year the Government began works of very considerable importance for this purpose. Among these works was one of great cost at Spithead; but after the expenditure of a very large sum of money, and when the foundation was nearly completed, a great difference
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  of opinion arose in the public mind in respect to the expediency of carrying on the work, and the progress of the work was suspended. There was sunk under the water a very considerable sum of money —perhaps about £100,000, though he did not exactly know the amount—and the work was bang acted on by time. Should it be suspended much longer, the public money expended on it would certainly be lost. Recently there had taken place on the other side of the Atlantic, in the port of Charleston, an occurrence which had awakened public attention, and induced him to take the opportunity of pressing the Government for a declaration as to their intentions in reference to the future progress of the work he had alluded to. A fortress had always had, from the most ancient times, the advantage over ships. He could cite an immense number of cases showing that from the beginning to the end fixed artillery and a fortress had the advantage over ships. For instance, in 1805, no less a person than Sir Sidney Smith attacked a single gun in a Martello tower with an 80 gun ship. After cannonading it for an hour, his first lieutenant went to Sir Sidney who was sitting in his cabin writing a despatch, and told him that (though there were a great many splinters round the Admiral) the fire had not been able to do the town any harm. Sir Sidney said, that under those circumstances, they had better go away; and so the ship was beaten off by a single gun. Other cases of a similar kind might be mentioned where two or three fixed guns were employed against heavy ships. At the battle of Copenhagen the victory was certainly with the English, but not in consequence of their artillery having an advantage over that of the Danes; but, in consideration for the population of that capital, it was thought proper to treat with the English rather than cause the town to be destroyed. At Algiers the case was different. No question arose there of a feeling for the population, but the battle was fought out; and so thoroughly were the English beaten that they cut their cables and got out of range, with the land wind. Afterwards the question was settled by the ingenuity and clever manner in. which Lord Exmouth conducted the affair; but the ships went out of action with the loss of a thousand men, and with no means of renewing the action again. Then, again, in the Black Sea, the result of the attack of our fleet on the forts of Sebastapol was

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  well known to their Lordships, and in the Baltic they only attempted the process of shelling a fort at long ranges. No doubt, in former times these operations were conducted by means of sailing vessels, which were exposed to the danger of their masts being shot away, or the wind falling off— inconveniences which were now obviated by the use of steam. Nevertheless, he maintained that fortresses and ships stood yet in the same comparative position as formerly; and not with standing the advantage given to ships by armour plating, the fixed gun and the fortress, in consequence of the improvements made in artillery, were still superior to ships. They had a proof of this in what occurred the other day in America. Whether the attack on Charleston was a real attack or not he could not pretend to say, and what was the true history of the attack and of the defence they none of them as yet exactly knew; but one or two points were unquestionable—namely, that nine iron-plated ships, very heavily armed had been beaten off and obliged to retreat, one vessel being sunk, and several others being seriously injured; and that this was done while the Federal squadron was advancing up a channel very much resembling that which the channel at Spithead would be if the proposed forts were built. Under these circumstances, he ventured to bring under the notice of the Government the position in which the question now stood with regard to the forts at Spithead. Both past and present events proved that the fortress was the master of the ship, and he therefore begged to ask whether it was the intention of the Government to proceed with the plans previously arranged, or with any others, in regard to the fortifications of Portsmouth. A large sum of public money had been expended; and if the work remained untouched for another year, a very great loss would be the result. He would give no opinion with respect to the mode of constructing the forts; but the whole of the inland waters near Portsmouth formed a great basin for the protection of vessels; and if it was determined to carry out the work, he thought that one fortress should be erected on the Brambles, which constituted a central position, whence the guns could reach the shore on all sides.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, a Bill passed through Parliament last Session, by virtue of which certain works specified in the schedule, and no others, were authorized to be carried on. After a good deal
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  of discussion in the House of Commons it was agreed that the construction of the forts at Spithead were to be not entirely abandoned, but suspended for a time. It was stated by the Government on that occasion, that as there were many works connected with the defences to be carried on, and as there was a doubt about the special advantage of the forts at Spithead, it might be as well to go on with the other works, and leave these for further consideration. A sum of £900,000 had been expended altogether, of which the expenditure on Spithead, up to July 1862, was only £15,000. A certain amount had been subsequently spent, owing to the engagement with the contractors, but the whole sum was not so large as the noble Earl seemed to think. In regard to what had occurred at Charleston, it was remarkable, that if the American Government had intended to carry out an experiment for our benefit in connection with this subject, they could not have done anything more to the point. The distance between our forts on the mainland and the sandbank was exactly 2,000 yards; and measuring on the charts the distance between Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, it would be found to be 2,000 yards also. In both cases there was a strong current, and in both cases similar facilities in approaching to within a certain distance of the forts. In both cases the same means of obstructing the attack, by means of fishing nets and other similar contrivances for fowling the screws and impeding the vessels, were talked of. Therefore, if we had asked them to try the experiment, they could not have selected a place more suitable than Charleston for that purpose. With regard to the vessels employed in the attack, he must admit that the experiment had not been equally satisfactory. It might be remembered that fourteen months ago we were told, by the American shipbuilders, that they had built the Monitor by way of warning to the British Admiralty. It certainly was a warning, for the first moment she met with a gale she went to the bottom. They built more Monitors, and these had failed in the first experiment of an action against forts. Had they built them more strongly and of a better class, we should have had a more interesting experiment, and should have known better what iron plated vessels could do against forts. The experiment, therefore, was not quite satisfactory. We did not know the description of guns that

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  were employed, mid the kind of shot and quantities of powder that were used, and many other particulars that were important to enable us to form an opinion upon that experiment. It was quite clear, however, that those vessels were completely defeated, and that another Monitor was sunk. So far it had been very decidedly in favour of the forts. With regard to Spithead, no money could he spent on the forts there at present. But it would be shortly necessary to come to Parliament for a grant of money, and that made it desirable that this question of the Spithead forts should be settled this year. If anything was to be done, the summer months ought not to be allowed to be lost. He hoped in a short time the Government would be able to bring the subject under the consideration of Parliament.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, he understood the noble Duke to say that the circumstances at Charleston and Spithead were precisely similar, and to speak of the distance as 2,000 yards. But he (the Earl of Derby) thought the injury which had been inflicted on the iron plated vessels was inflicted after they entered the harbour, and had thus exposed themselves to a concentric fire from the batteries at a distance of from 300 to 500 yards. That was an important element in considering the subject.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, as far as the charts went, and as far as he could make out, the vessels at the nearest point must have been very nearly 600 yards from Fort Sumter, and the other forts must have been at a much greater distance. When he spoke of 2,000 yards, he meant the distance from one fort to another.
  EARL GREYsaid, he believed the iron-plated ships employed at Charleston were by all accounts inferior vessels, and yet they so far protected the men that scarcely any one on board was injured by the tremendous fire. Was not that the case? Was it not true that Charleston was six or seven miles from the place where the action took place; and, if the iron-plated vessels had been at Portsmouth instead of Charleston, would they not have been quite within range of the dockyard, so as to shell it, while allowing the forts to play on them?
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, he did not know exactly the amount of damage that had been done. His impression was, that the ships were too far from the town to enable them to do much harm. Any one who looked at the chart would see that
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  the town was six or seven miles distant. The position of the ships with regard to the forts would, he thought, make it very disagreeable for any vessels to have strayed to shell the town.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.