Lords Sitting of 16 April 1878

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Committee—Report—Railway Returns (Continuous Brakes) (75).
Royal Assent—Mutiny [41 Vict. c. 10]; Marine Mutiny [41 Vict. c. 11]; Threshing Machines [41 Vict. c. 12]; Bills of Exchange (Acceptance) [41 Vict. c. 13]; Local Government Provisional Orders (Bristol, &c.) [41 Vict. c. viii].

CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES.
Moved, That the Lord Steward be appointed to take the Chair in the Committees of the Whole House in the absence of the Lord Redesdale: Agreed to.
RAILWAY RETURNS (CONTINUOUS BRAKES) BILL— [Lords.]—(No. 75.)
(The Lord Hartismere.)

COMMITTEE.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
EARL DE LA WARR EARL DE LA WARR moved, as an Amendment, in Schedule, page 3, column 2, to add "and on lines in connection with them."
LORD HENNIKERsaid, he could not consent to the Motion of his noble Friend, and he thought he would hardly wish to press it, when he (Lord Henniker) had stated his reasons for objecting. In the first place, he thought the information required could be obtained without difficulty by the Returns already provided for by the Bill; and, secondly, it would not beat all convenient, or right, to require one Railway Company to make a Return relating to another Railway Company. On these grounds, he could not consent to his noble Friend's Motion.
Amendment (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
Bill reported, without Amendment; and to be read 3a on Monday, the 13 th of May next.

EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY FOR INJURIES TO SERVANTS.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  EARL DE LA WARR EARL DE LA WARR rose to call atteention to the Report from the Select Committee on Employers' Liability for Injuries to their Servants—communicated from the Commons to the Lords; but said he would now confine himself to asking, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to propose any amendment of the law as recommended in that Report?
  EARL BEAUCHAMP, in reply, said, that the Attorney General announced last week to the House of Commons that it was his intention to introduce in the present Session a Bill on the subject. How far that Bill would be on all fours with the recommendations of the Select Committee, he was not prepared to say. Besides, such a statement would be premature before the introduction of the Bill. The more convenient course would be to wait for the Bill.

THE EASTERN QUESTION—THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY— SPEECH OF THE EARL OF DERBY.

  EXPLANATION.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, before the House separates for the Recess I have to make a short statement, which I should much rather not have to make, but which I cannot properly abstain from laying before your Lordships. Shortly before I came down to the House this afternoon I saw the Austrian Ambassador, who represented to me that words used by my noble Friend Lord Derby, a week ago, have caused so much pain to persons of high authority in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and especially to the officers of the Army of that Monarchy, that he thought some words uttered by me in this House, before the House separated, would be pleasing to those to whom the observations that were used apply, and would, on general grounds, also be desirable. My Lords, if I had had an opportunity, I should have been glad to have spoken to my noble Friend Lord Derby before making such reference, but the time that remained would not allow it. My noble Friend is reported to have said, that a portion of the Austrian Army, distinguished by its Slav nationality, could not be trusted to fight against the Russians. I have no recollection that my noble Friend said that; but it is imputed to him in some reports, and the reports differ on the subject. But, whether he said it or not—if he said it at all—whatever observations he made with respect to the Austro-Hungarian Army, or the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, were made on his own responsibility alone. As far as I can make out, there is nothing in the Foreign Office on which such observations could have been founded. They were his own

  1363
  expressions as an individual Member of Parliament, and in no way bore any reflection from his recent official position. And they are sentiments—and I may apply the same observations to what was said of the French Government—which are in no way shared by Her Majesty's Government.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My Lords, I listened to Lord Derby's speech the other night very attentively, and I certainly did not understand him to say that the Austro-Hungarian Army would never fight.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Only a part of it.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: Or only a part of it. What I understood him to argue was, that there were circumstances which made it improbable that Austria would take an armed part against Russia.
  LORD DENMANrecollected that the late Foreign Secretary, in his speech, expressed an opinion that any reliance on Austra would be very little trustworthy, and he (Lord Denman) referred to the intercourse of Sir Robert Murray Keith, as Ambassador at Vienna; he also referred to the year 1762, when, in a case which reminded him of the present state of Constantinople, that distinguished man—in an interview with Count Shouwaloff, Chancellor of the Russian Empire—who had believed it possible for the Czarina to conquer and retain Prussia—said that their keeping that Province would be a perpetual object of jealousy to other Powers, and a source of troubles in Europe, as there was not a single Power in it but had an essential interest in preventing it; or if, by some great fatality, it could not at present be hindered, to join with the rest in laying hold of the first opportunity of wresting it out of their hands. Monsieur Shouwaloff could not see that the possession of so small a Province should give jealousy to the rest of Europe, ending with this—that it might, at least, be left in their hands, as a deposit, till other means of indemnification could be found. Sir Robert Murray Keith replied, that neither keeping it in possession or deposit was even to be thought of; and, that if either of them were ever seriously proposed, it would give cause of much jealousy to all the world, as it would indicate clearly a design in Russia to make herself mistress of the naviga-
  1364
  tion of the Baltic, and, consequently, to engross to herself the whole commerce of the North. He (Lord Denman) reminded their Lordships that Russia wished to be Depositary of the Principalities in 1853. He had alluded, on almost the last day of last Session, to a despatch issued on that morning, in which an Ambassador or Minister had agreed with the Earl of Derby that the occupation of Constantinople could not be viewed with indifference. He (Lord Denman) also said, on that occasion, that he might apply to fanatical wars the words of Cowper—
  "Let active laws supply the needful curb,
  To guard the peace which riot would disturb."
  In these days, when collisions of steamers sent two vessels at once to the bottom, and when conflicts were like a duel across a pocket-handkerchief—only on a large scale—he hoped that war might be avoided; but Treaties must be well considered, and, either with or without modification, be observed.

  THE EASTER RECESS—ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.
  Then, on the Motion of the Earl of BEACONSFIELD—
  House adjourned at half past Four o'clock, to Monday the 13th of May next, a quarter before Five o'clock.