Lords Sitting of 13 July 1874

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—General School of Law * (170); Slaughterhouses, &c. * (172).
Committee—Working Men's Dwellings (135–171).
Committee—Report—Foyle College * (159).
Report—Local Government Board (Ireland) Provisional Order Confirmation * (76).

LEONARD EDMUNDS, ESQUIRE.

  PETITION.
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERYrose to move that the Petition of Leonard Edmunds, Esquire, presented to the House on the 2nd of July instant, be referred

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  to the Select Committee on the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Office of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod. The noble Earl said that it would be necessary to the understanding of his Motion that he should lay before their Lordships a brief statement of the case. Mr. Edmunds had been 34 years in the public service. For 17 years he had been Reading Clerk and Clerk of Out-Door Committees to their Lordships' House; and in 1833 had been appointed to the office of Clerk of the Patents, from which he retired, with a pension, in 1865. The charges against Mr. Edmunds, and on which he was deprived of the pension granted to him on his retirement, arose out of his having for over 30 years filled the office of Clerk of the Patents. That office was regulated by the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 84, so that at the time of Mr. Edmunds' appointment it was practically a new office, and Mr. Edmunds had to start in it without guide or compass. While by the statute the salary of the office was cut down by one-third, the expenses of the office still fell upon the Clerk, and though the duties went on increasing, no additional remuneration was given to him. The extent of the duties of the office might be inferred from the fact that during Mr. Edmunds' tenure of it no fewer than 33,945 patents had been issued, and the sums issued and disbursed amounted to more than £1,500,000. Then, he was refused that which ought to be granted to every public servant—an audit of his accounts. He alleged in his Petition that his public accounts of receipts of "Revenue, fees of office, and payments of imprested moneys, grants of Parliaments running over 31 years, from 1833 to 1864, and amounting, in over 400,000 items of account, to the sum of £1,516,888," were taken from him by the Treasury in 1864, and by them impounded and placed entirely out of his reach. In consequence of some complaints of certain transactions arising from Mr. Edmunds' conduct as Clerk of the Patents, doubts arose as to the propriety of the Pension that had been granted. The Treasury consequently ordered an inquiry, which was committed to two eminent members of the Bar, Mr. Hindmarch and Mr. Greenwood, upon whose finding, certain Reports were drawn up. Their Lordships then de-
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  termined to appoint a Committee, but the only evidence brought forward consisted of the Reports of the Treasury to which he had referred. The decision of their Lordships' Committee was adverse to Mr. Edmunds and the order for his Pension was rescinded. The noble Lord, the Chairman of Committees brought forward the case of Mr. Edmunds last Session, when he was met by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Selborne) who then sat on the Woolsack, who referred to the inquiry by the Treasury, and to the decision of their Lordships' Committee. The decision of that Committee was entitled to consideration because of the distinguished Beers who served on it; but he thought it must be admitted that it was not the best tribunal for the investigation of a criminal charge against an individual. The Petition presented to their Lordships on the 2nd July, and to which his Motion referred, set forth various representations upon which he prayed for a rehearing and further inquiry. One of these was, that the only evidence before their Lordships' Committee in support of the accusations of "fraud and felony" were the bare allegations contained in a certain Treasury Report of the 31st January, 1865, which Report was composed behind his back, printed, and secretly circulated. He had to deal with a vast range of items without professional assistance. Now there was hardly any one that might not be convicted under such circumstances. In January, 1866, after persevering demands on the part of Mr. Edmunds, the Treasury directed proceedings to be taken against him in Chancery, for the express purpose of taking the whole of his accounts. At that time, he should remind their Lordships the Exchequer and Audit Act had not been passed. Mr. Edmunds denied his liability to account at all in Chancery, but the point was decided against him, and a decree for an account was made by Lord Justice Giffard. This decree amounted to a complete discharge subject to the payment of whatever sums might be found due by him. The whole of the accounts would have been taken by the Court of Chancery; but so great would have been the difficulties attending that mode of proceeding that the inquiry was referred to Arbitrators, whose report made to the Court of Chancery, and made a decree of that Court, would have been equally

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  binding. The result was that the Arbitrators found that there were due from Mr. Edmunds two sums of £7,872 and £5,000, together exceeding £12,000. It was impossible to say that the decision of the Arbitrators was not technically a legal one; but the reference under which the arbitration proceeded directed an examination of accounts which was never made; testimony which Mr. Edmunds offered was not taken, and the Arbitrators declined to supply him with information as to the details or grounds of their award. They gave no opinion on the claim of Mr. Edmunds to an audit—and it must be borne in mind that they were Arbitrators and not auditors. In spite of all that, there was no rigour which had not been exercised against the unfortunate subject of the Motion now before their Lordships. His pension was taken from him, his name was tainted, and he was thrown into prison for eight months. Against the moral character of Mr. Edmunds—except so far as certain charges which the Committee of their Lordships' House considered not to have been proved—there was no accusation. After hearing the information against Mr. Edmunds, Lord Justice Giffard used this language—
  "In one respect, I am happy to say that the arguments and the evidences adduced on behalf of Mr. Edmunds have been successful in clearing his character from all imputation. They have satisfied me that his liability, whatever it may he, is a liability from mistake—mistake under circumstances of very considerable difficulty, brought about, in some respects, because he could not obtain the audits which he asked for, and brought about also by what is a most unfortunate Act of Parliament, which was passed with reference to a given state of circumstances, when, in point of fact, these circumstances changed very materially afterwards. It is with regret that I find myself compelled by the terms of the Act of Parliament to make that last declaration" (meaning for an account of the sums of 12 s. 10 d.). "I repeat, as I said at the outset, that the defendant's evidence has removed any imputations that can be justly or fairly cast upon his character, and having regard to all the circumstances, the very difficult position in which he was placed, and the facts of the audits being-refused, I certainly shall not make him pay any costs."
  He knew it was attempted last year to discredit that statement by a representation that Lord Justice Giffard, when using it, had not the materials before him which would have enabled him to see the case in its right light. But the Parliamentary Blue-Book in which all the facts were set out was in his
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  hands, and had been constantly referred to in the course of the argument, and consequently he was in full knowledge of its contents:—and was it not insulting to the Judicial Bench to say that Lord Justice Giffard would have given such an opinion, while there was still evidence in reserve which would have forced him to arrive at another conclusion? Then as to the Arbitration—it was impossible to say that the Arbitrators were not impartial judges; but in the first place they awarded a lump sum without giving reason for the award, so that Mr. Edmunds was unable to understand the principle on which they proceeded, and in the next place they took no account whatever of his claims against the Government. They were Arbitrators and not auditors. Last year the noble and learned Lord (Lord Selborne) asked their Lordships not to lay down a dangerous precedent. A fresh inquiry in this case could not be a precedent, because it could not happen again that public servants would not have their accounts audited. But would it not be a dangerous precedent to let a public servant go about complaining that he had never received what was his due? Every servant of the Crown having to do with public accounts would seem to to be entitled to an audit of his accounts. This was what Mr. Leonard Edmunds had long asked for, and what he asked for now. If on such an audit he was shown to be guilty of fraud, let a prosecution be instituted against him. Why was there no prosecution, and why was there no audit? Had Mr. Leonard Edmunds shrunk from an inquiry? No, he asked for it; and was it just or generous to say that by the arbitration the case was closed against him, and to refuse him an audit on a merely technical ground? Seeing that a noble Lord of the experience of the Chairman of Committees had brought this case frequently before the House, he hoped their Lordships would accede to the Motion. Redress they could not give Mr. Edmunds for the nine years of misery he had endured, the eight months' imprisonment he had suffered, and the reflection that had been cast upon his name; but he did hope that in their wisdom and mercy their Lordships might be pleased to order an inquiry which would show whether Mr. Edmunds was a fraudulent defaulter or an aggrieved public servant.
  Moved that the petition of Leonard Edmunds, Esquire, presented to the House on the 2nd of July instant, he referred to the Select Committee on the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and Office of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.—(The Earl of Rosebery.)
  LORD SELBORNEsaid, that on the 2nd of July he received from Mr. Edmunds a notice that the Petition now before their Lordships had been presented after the other had been withdrawn. This was the notice—
  "174, Sloane Street, July 2.
  "My Lord,—Having no reply to my Petition to the House of Lords of the 8th ult., your Lordship has thought fit to take shelter under the very doubtful Parliamentary privilege of impunity of slander. I enclose for your Lordship's perusal and consideration a print of a reformed Petition presented this day with notice for Monday next, the 6th instant.
  "I have the honour to remain, your Lordship's obedient servant,
  "LEONARD EDMUNDS.
  "The Lord Selborne."
  The slander of which Mr. Edmunds thought it becoming to accuse a Member of their Lordships' House was a statement made by him last year in the discharge of a duty imposed on him when filling the office now held by his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack. This statement he made in such a manner that no noble Lord then lifted up his voice to support a Motion very similar to that now before them, although it had been introduced to their Lordships by a noble Lord who occupied a position of of the highest authority in this House. He did not volunteer that statement; but in the position he then occupied, and being responsible for matters connected with public justice, he made his answer to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees as part of the duties of his office. It appeared, however, that nothing could ever be said in this case, however satisfactory to their Lordships, which would prevent an annual Motion of this kind from recurring in the dog-days, when every Member of their Lordships' House and every Judge or other person who in the discharge of his duty spoke the truth of Mr. Edmunds was exposed to imputations such as that made against him in the letter from Mr. Edmunds, which he had read to their Lordships. Those imputations were not echoed in the temperate and able speech of the noble Earl who moved the Motion; for, as usual, the noble Earl had shown a discretion which characterized a career
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  of great promise, and he hoped of future eminence and distinction. But unfortunately a continuation of the annual appeal on behalf of Mr. Edmunds threw on those who were acquainted with the case, and who had had something to do with it officially, the burden of again going over the facts and repeating statements already more than once made in their Lordships' House. On taking up the Petition presented to their Lordships' House on behalf of Mr. Edmunds he found that, on the first page, it contained these statements—
  "On his retirement in 1865 a pension of £800 per annum was granted to your petitioner by your Lordships' House; but, on the hereinafter mentioned charges being brought against him, in respect of the office of Clerk of the Patents then held by him, a Committee of your Lordships' House was appointed, and, on the Report of such Committee, the pension was taken from him. The 12 several specified charges of 'fraud, felony, larceny, peculation, embezzlement of public money and stealing from Her Majesty,' of enormous sums of public money in the said office of Clerk of the Patents, so alleged against your Petitioner, amounted altogether to the sum of £93,902 2s. 10 d. The only evidence before the aforesaid Committee, in support of these accusations of 'fraud and felony,' were the bare allegations contained in a certain Treasury Report of the 31st of January, 1865, composed by the Treasury and laid by them before the said Committee."
  Now, as showing the character and accuracy of Mr. Edmunds' statements, he might remind their Lordships that instead of a sum of £93,902 2s. 10 d. having been alleged as due from him, the greatest sum ever suggested was £9,716 15 s. 4d., which, on further examination, was subsequently reduced to a sum of over £7,000. Again, what Mr. Edmunds called a "Treasury Report," was a Report made as the result of an inquiry asked for by himself. It was only a Treasury inquiry in so far as the Treasury consented to the expense being incurred. Certain differences had arisen, not involving at that time any question relative to Mr. Edmunds' accounts, between Mr. Edmunds as Clerk to the Commissioners of Patents and some of the subordinate officers in that department; and, in consequence of these disagreements, in a letter to the Commissioners of Patents, dated 10th March, 1864, Mr. Edmunds had asked "that the Commissioners of Patents may be pleased to appoint some competent gentleman at the Bar, of standing and character, to make full inquiry into the office." On the 3rd of May, in the same year,

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  the Commissioners issued their instructions for an inquiry, which was confided to two Queen's counsel—Messrs. Greenwood and Hindmarch—against whom personal motives had never been alleged even by Mr. Edmunds. This gentleman had now the audacity to say that the Committee of their Lordships' House had no other evidence before it of the "accusations of fraud and felony" except "the bare allegations contained in a certain Treasury Report of 1865." The inquiry by Messrs. Greenwood and Hindmarch, on which their preliminary Report was founded, lasted 11 days;—and so far from its being held behind his back, Mr. Edmunds was present the whole time. His statement was taken, as were also the statements of Mr. Ruscoe, of the Patent Office, and Mr. Woodcroft, in his presence. The gentlemen conducting that inquiry had before them Mr. Edmunds' pass-book; and on the 12th of July, 1864, they made their preliminary Report, which occupied 125 pages of small print. Mr. Edmunds, having probably received some notice of the nature of that Report, had, in the meantime, communicated with the Lord Chancellor on the 27th of June, 1864, and offered to resign the office which he held under the Commissioners; but, when the Report came in, it was thought necessary that a different course should be pursued. Charges were drawn up against him, and he was called on to show cause before the Lord Chancellor and Vice Chancellors Wood and Kindersley, why he should not be removed from that office. The time for his answer was extended to the 30th of September. On the 20th of September he sent in some remarks on the preliminary Report. He was at that time advised by a solicitor and assisted by an accountant. Before the day appointed for the hearing he lodged to the credit of the Treasury a sum of £7,872 5s. 6d.—being part of the sum found due from him by Messrs. Greenwood and Hindmarch, and his resignation was then accepted. Messrs. Greenwood and Hindmarch drew up some comments on his answer; and Lords Kingsdown and Cranworth having been consulted, they were clearly of opinion that unless those matters were cleared up satisfactorily Mr. Edmunds ought not to continue an officer of their Lordships' House. On the 14th of February, 1865, the then Lord Chancellor presented a Petition from Mr. Edmunds
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  for leave to retire from the office of Clerk at their Lordships' Table, and to be allowed a pension. Lord Westbury, on grounds which subsequently their Lordships did not endorse, abstained from making any opposition to the prayer of that Petition, which was referred to the Standing Committee on the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments: and, on the Report of that Committee, the facts not being before the House, their Lordships passed a Resolution, allowing Mr. Edmunds a pension of £800 a-year. As soon, however, as the facts got abroad, it appeared that a very great scandal was likely to arise, and on the 10th of March, 1865, a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the circumstances attending the resignation of the offices and the grant of the retiring pension. That Select Committee took oral evidence; Mr. Edmunds himself was examined at great length during part of four days, on the points into which an inquiry was now sought. His evidence on those points alone occupied 94 pages. Mr. Greenwood, Mr. Hindmarch, and several other witnesses were also examined—one of them being Mr. Hooper, an accountant whom Mr. Edmunds himself had employed. No one could read through the Report of the evidence taken by that Select Committee without seeing the untruth of the statement, that—
  "The only evidence before the aforesaid Committee in support of these accusations of 'fraud and felony' were the hare allegations contained in a certain Treasury Report of the 31st of January, 1865, composed by the Treasury and laid by them before the said Committee.
  Nothing could be more remote from the truth; as might be seen in the Report of the Committee, which occupied, with the evidence taken, 318 closely printed pages. The Report stated that Mr. Edmunds had retained in his own hands, during a period extending over 10 years, large sums which he ought to have paid into the Exchequer to the credit of tire Crown. That was a finding on a charge which had nothing whatever to do with audit or non-audit. It had also been shown that with public money Mr. Edmunds had purchased stamps at a lower price and sold them at a higher price to patentees. The Committee said that, as far as related to the mere buying of stamps at the lower price and selling them at the higher price, such a practice was stated to have prevailed in other offices; but the ques-

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  tion in this case was, whether this had been clone with public money? He would not now go into the question whether, even where the purchase was made with the private money of the public officer, that practice could be defended; for the present purpose that question might be ruled in the affirmative, and still Mr. Edmunds would not be clear, because what he did—as the Committee found to be clearly established—was not to buy those stamps with his own private money, but to buy them with the public money; and surely nothing could be said for that. On the Report of that Select Committee, his noble Friend behind him (Earl Granville) moved the rescission of the Resolution granting the pension, and that Motion was agreed to nemine contradicente—except that perhaps his noble Friend the Chairman of Committees might have dissented. But now, nine years after the subject had ceased to excite great public attention and great public interest, and although inquiries had been made when the facts were recent, such as those he had described to their Lordships—after full and fair inquiry and examination—after conclusions judicially arrived at and acted upon—they were asked to send the case to be again inquired into by the same Standing Committee which, through a former miscarriage in the matter, had made that recommendation of a pension, the inadvertent adoption of which was rectified by the Report of the Select Committee and the subsequent vote of the House. Whatever compassion they might feel for this unfortunate gentleman, their Lordships ought never to forget their responsibility to the public for maintaining with a high hand the duty of all public officers to be scrupulously honest and faithful in their dealings with the the public money. But when a public inquiry had shown that a public officer had failed in the discharge of this duty, even though there might be some ground for hoping that he might have done so from a misconstruction of his duty, it would be setting a bad example for their Lordships to endeavour to reverse a decision which they had previously arrived at after careful consideration of the result of a full and complete inquiry. He now came to the allegations of Mr. Edmunds with reference to the Chancery suit, which followed. Mr. Edmunds, in his Petition, complained that certain matters which he wished to have brought out
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  were not laid before the Court by the Crown; but in doing so he ignored two facts. In the first place, the Reports of Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Hindmarch could not have been made evidence against Mr. Edmunds in that suit; and in the second, the Crown was only required to set forth as much as was necessary to make out a primâ facie case for asking the Court to grant a decree for accounts. Mr. Edmunds seemed to be under the impression that the Reports of those gentlemen, and also the proceedings before the Select Committee of their Lordships' House, were nevertheless judicially before the Vice Chancellor, because he himself, in some parts of his own evidence, had referred to parts of those Reports, not, however, for the purpose of admitting, but for that of contradicting and denying their truth. But no reference of this kind to these documents, which were not even mentioned in the pleadings or evidence of the Crown, could entitle the Court so much as to look at them, for any other purpose than that of merely following and understanding Mr. Edmunds' own affidavits. Again, Mr. Edmunds stated that he was forced into an arbitration in spite of his vehement protest to the contrary. But what were the facts? The fact was that Mr. Edmunds wrote to Mr. Disraeli, the then Prime Minister, a letter in which he appealed to him to direct that, for the sake of saving litigation, all questions contained in the Information and in his answer should be submitted to the arbitration of two or three gentlemen, and promising that, if all those matters were referred to arbitration, he would not proceed with a then pending action, which he had brought against Mr. Greenwood. On the 16th of October, 1868, Mr. Edmunds received a reply from Mr. Sclater-Booth, in which it was stated that the Lords of the Treasury had no objection to entertain Mr. Edmunds' proposal; and it was added that while the law should be taken to have been correctly laid down by the Vice Chancellor, the Arbitrators would be at liberty to consider whether there were any moral grounds for recommending that Mr. Edmunds should be relieved from the payment of all or any part of the sum, if any, they might find to be due by him, and he was to be at liberty to submit to the Arbitrators any counter-claim he might have against the Crown. In October, 1868, Mr. Edmunds wrote to Sir John Karslake—

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  "As Her Majesty's advisers have now acceded to my request for an arbitration, I hope you will be so good as to give my proposed Minutes of Order your earliest attention."
  Some delay occurred, owing to differences as to the precise terms in which the submission to arbitration should be expressed; and on the 26th of June, 1869, the action of "Edmunds v. Greenwood" came on to be heard, when, by consent of Mr. Digby Seymour, Mr. Edmunds' counsel, Chief Justice Bovill, made an order of reference to arbitration—the reference to be on the footing of Mr. Sclater-Booth's letter, subject to a variation in one paragraph of it, favourable, so far as it went, to Mr. Edmunds, which was embodied in the Order. The Arbitrators appointed were the present Mr. Justice Denman, nominated by the Crown, and the present Baron Pollock, nominated by Mr. Edmunds—men against whose character for justice, integrity, and learning no whisper had ever been breathed—he hoped not even by Mr. Edmunds. The Arbitrators held 11 days' sittings in open Court. They examined Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Greenwood, and other witnesses. Mr. Edmunds was represented by able counsel—Mr. Higgins, of the Chancery Bar—and the Arbitrators, without differing, and without the necessity of calling in the Umpire, found as followed, on the 27th of November, 1869:—
  "1. We award and adjudge, that, on the taking of the accounts of the said order referred to, there is due by the said L. Edmunds the sum of £8,544 18 s., including the sum of £3,033 16 s. due from him on account of fees and emoluments received by him in respect of the parchments account. 2. That there are, having regard to all the circumstances, moral grounds for recommending the Government to relieve the said L. Edmunds from a part of the moneys due from him on account of the said fees and emoluments received by him in respect of the said parchments account—viz., to the extent of £1,402 5s. 3. That the said L. Edmunds do pay to Her Majesty £7,142 13 s., being the amount remaining due after deducting the said sum of £1,402 5s. 4. And as to the said substantive claims brought before us by the said L. Edmunds against the Grown, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, we make no recommendation to the Government in relation to any of such claims. 5. Neither party has any claim against the other in respect of any matters in question in the Chancery suit not concluded by the decree or by this award."
  If there was anything wrong in that award, an application might have been made to the Court to set it aside or to refer it back to the Arbitrators. No
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  such application was ever made; and not a shilling of the sum awarded to be paid by Mr. Edmunds had been paid to the present day. What further, he asked, remained to be inquired about? How, supposing their Lordships were to set aside all that had been done, could a Committee proceed to decide on any case that might be brought before it? Were the members of the Committee of 1865 to appear before a Committee of 1874 and justify themselves? Were the Arbitrators to attend before a tribunal that had not appointed them, and give an account of their proceedings? Such a proposal as the present had never been heard of—except perhaps in the days of the Long Parliament—and he trusted that their Lordships would decline to give their sanction to it.
  LORD REDESDALEobserved that there was one thing the Committee, if the Petition were referred to them, might do, and that was to direct a public audit of Mr. Edmunds' accounts. No such audit had ever been allowed, and he thought it would be satisfactory if it were ordered, and a Committee might probably think it their duty to order it at once. The accounts involved sums amounting together to more than £1,500,000, and extended over 30 years, and Mr. Edmunds could scarcely be expected to give a satisfactory answer on the spur of the moment to every question put by the Committee to him in reference to those accounts. As to the course pursued by the former Committee, it was most unsatisfactory, and he said so at the time. The accusation made against Mr. Edmunds was that his accounts were false—and what the Committee did was, they examined the man instead of examining the accounts. The very first thing the Committee should have done was to order an audit of the accounts by the Public Auditor. Mr. Edmunds at the outset, asked to be allowed the assistance of counsel—the Committee allowed it—but on the condition that the counsel should neither address them nor examine witnesses. There was only one way in which these accounts could have been properly investigated, and that was by referring the whole of them to some persons accustomed to investigate accounts. It could not be pretended that the Arbitrators in this case had carried out to the full what was required of them.
  LORD SELBORNE: I asserted that they had done so.
  LORD REDESDALEmaintained that the Arbitrators had not investigated the whole of Mr. Edmunds' accounts, inasmuch as they were lawyers and not persons accustomed to deal with accounts. How was it possible that these two legal gentlemen could have investigated in eight days these multitudinous accounts, involving such immense sums of money? He was anxious that the House should act justly towards one of its old servants, and in order that it should act justly it must demand that Mr. Edmunds' accounts should be fully and fairly investigated. The Committee mentioned in the Petition was unquestionably a perfectly impartial one, and no doubt the first step would be to refer all Mr. Edmunds' accounts to the Public Accountants under the Act of Parliament. That would be satisfactory to everyone. In his opinion, Mr. Edmunds had not been guilty of any transaction which affected his honour as a gentleman, and had not acted in a way that ought to subject him to the displeasure or condemnation of that House; and he fully believed that a full investigation into the accounts would justify him in that statement. Under these circumstances, he thought the House would be merely doing right in acceeding to the Motion of his noble Friend.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that it would be quite superfluous for him to enter into any lengthened narrative of the facts of this case after the exhaustive statement that had been made by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Selborne). It had been his duty more than once to look into this question, and his only feeling towards Mr. Edmunds had been one of compassion and regret that a public servant who had passed so many years of his life in the service of their Lordships' House and in other public employment should have been in the position of having such grave charges brought against him. Upon the facts of the case, however, he had never entertained the slightest doubt; and his feeling and regret towards Mr. Edmunds was much weakened when he found him presenting a Petition to the House couched in terms that had rendered it necessary that it should be withdrawn from their Lordships' Table, and then repeating the offence in a letter addressed to the noble and learned
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  Lord (Lord Selborne). Anything more improper than the statements in the letter he had never heard—and if anything could add to the impropriety of them, it was that the letter came from a man of education, and from one who, by his former position in that House, ought to know how improper it was so to address a Member of their Lordships' House. He would not dwell further upon that communication—especially as the noble and learned Lord did not propose to ask their Lordships, as he might well have done, to take any steps with regard to it. With regard to the objection taken by the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees, that Mr. Edmunds' accounts had never been audited—he was greatly surprised at the statement. There was no magic in the word "audited "—they had not been audited by the Public Auditors, but they had been fully and thoroughly audited by two eminent lawyers—the two gentlemen to whose appointment as Arbitrators Mr. Edmunds had himself been a party. These Arbitrators, after full and careful inquiry, had declared what sum was due from Mr. Edmunds to the Exchequer—and if the award thus made was not an audit and Quietus, he did not know what was. He believed the proceedings of the Committee which had investigated this subject in 1865 had been conducted in a satisfactory manner, and that the proceedings in Chancery had been conclusive against Mr. Edmunds. If the noble Lord were right, Baron Pollock and Mr. Justice Denman, the Arbitrators in the case, had not only misapprehended their duty, but they had positively failed in it.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he founded his charge upon the fact that the accounts extended over 30 years, and related to £1,500,000, and that the papers were not before the Arbitrators.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Upon whose authority was that statement made? Of course, upon Mr. Edmunds'. But the award on the face of it declared the fact that they had taken the accounts, and he demurred to the right of his noble Friend to challenge facts stated upon the award. It was not necessary, in investigating the accounts of Mr. Edmunds before a Court of Justice, to investigate them item by item, it was only necessary to examine those to which he took exception and disputed. He ventured to hope that was the last time

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  their Lordships would hear of these allegations founded upon statements made outside the House.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHsaid, their Lordships had not before them any evidence to preclude them from assenting to the prayer of Mr. Edmunds' Petition to have his case considered by a Select Committee, with a view to the restoration of his pension. From what he (the Marquess of Bath) could gather from the remarks made on this case, Mr. Edmunds had paid into the Treasury after he had retired from his office a sum of £7,800, and considering that in the years in which he had held office, £1,500,000 had passed through his hands of the public money, and that a deficiency in his accounts amounted to only £7,000 or £8,000, and that that deficiency might have resulted from the discounts, which he might suppose to be the perquisites of his office. The question was, not whether the accounts were correct or not, so as to show Mr. Edmunds liable to refund to the Exchequer or otherwise, but whether he had been guilty of any moral offence in regard to his conduct, so that the House should be justified in refusing to continue to him the pension which had been assigned to him as a retiring officer of the House by the Committee on the office of Clerk of the Parliaments on a former occasion.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, that the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Bath) seemed to think that the only question involved in the Motion was whether or not the pension which had formerly been granted to Mr. Edmunds, and afterwards withhold, should be restored to him, and that his noble Friend thought could be done by the agency of the reference to the Committee on the Office of Clerk of the Parliaments now proposed; but his noble Friend ignored everything that had passed, and omitted to notice the fact that there was a sum of money due by Mr. Edmunds to the Government of the country. His noble Friend did not touch that part of the case; and he therefore assumed that the statement of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Selborne) was correct—that there was due from Mr. Edmunds to the public a sum of over £7,000. It was perfectly clear that under such circumstances he could not receive a pension for services rendered as an officer of that House, and that if the Petition were entertained,
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  everything that had taken place in connection with Mr. Edmunds' case within the last nine years would have to be opened up.
  LORD HATHERLEYbelieved it would be impossible in any case to consider the question of restoring Mr. Edmunds' pension without going very fully into the whole of the circumstances of the case, and he did not think their Lordships should assent to a course which would re-open questions which had been decided over and over again. When the statement was originally made by Messrs. Hindmarch and Greenwood, under which Mr. Edmunds was shown to owe nearly £9,000 to the country, he anticipated that Mr. Edmunds would be able to offer a strong answer to the statement. To his surprise, however, Mr. Edmunds paid £7,000 without demur, and disputed only the other £2,000. The Arbitrators, who were appointed in the usual way, subsequently found that Mr. Edmunds was indebted to the country to the extent of another £8,000, and in making a Report to that effect, they were absolutely silent on the subject of moral responsibility, though they had the power of pronouncing upon it. When, then, Mr. Edmunds, in anticipation of an award against him, admitted an indebtedness to the extent of £8,000, and the Arbitrators afterwards awarded a further sum of £5,000, his opinion on the whole case was altered. He thought, therefore, it was quite impossible that their Lordships should enter upon any inquiry with regard to the pension.
  On Question? Resolved in the Negative.

WORKING MEN'S DWELLINGS BILL.
(The Earl of Shaftesbury.)
WORKING MEN'S DWELLINGS BILL.

  (NOS. 135–171.) COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to Order).
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYmoved certain Amendments to meet the objections raised on the second reading. He now proposed that the Corporations, instead of conveying their land in fee-simple for workmen's dwellings, should let it on long leases.
  After a short discussion,
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsuggested that, as the Bill, by these Amendments, became almost a new measure, it should be reprinted with the Amendments.
  Bill passed.

  GENERAL SCHOOL OF LAW BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to establish a General School of Law in England—Was presented by The Lord SELBORNE; read 1a. (No. 170.)
  House adjourned at half past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.