Lords Sitting of 21 April 1879

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Assessed Rates Act Amendment* (55); General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Provisional Order (Inverness)* (56); General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Provisional Order (Paisley)* (57).
Committee—Report—Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order Confirmation (Downpatrick)* (21); Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders Confirmation (Cashel, &c.)* (22).
Third Reading—Bankers' Books (Evidence)* (24), and passed.

AFGHANISTAN (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—ADVANCE ON CABUL.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, as great anxiety prevails in the public mind, owing to the reports which are almost daily made of the advance of our troops towards Cabul, I wish to put a Question to the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for India on the subject. I understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week, in "another place," gave a re-assuring explanation on the subject; but I think it will be convenient if the noble Viscount will favour your Lordships with the latest information which the Government have with reference to the reported advance?
  VISCOUNT CRANBROOK: My Lords, no advance on Cabul, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the other House on the occasion referred to, can take place without previous application to Her Majesty's Government, and no such application has been made.

BURIALS—OVERCROWDING IN CHURCHYARDS.—OBSERVATIONS.
LORD DENMANcalled the attention of their Lordships to a Correspondence with the Home Office, beginning in 1867, relative to the overcrowding of a churchyard in Derbyshire. The noble Lord, having described the insanitary condition of the burial ground of this parish, said, he believed that the state of things disclosed in that Correspondence would have become impossible if

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the Burial Bill introduced by Her Majesty's Government in 1877 had passed through Parliament; and he could not but think that the two Houses might easily come to an arrangement which would lead to the passing of a good Burial Bill and to a discontinuance of such scandals as now existed in connection with some of our churchyards.
EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid, he quite concurred with the noble Lord in the regret he had expressed as to the measure of 1877 not having become law. With regard to the Correspondence, the earlier portion of it was not forthcoming; but he was able to assure the noble Lord that steps had been taken to mitigate the evil in respect of the Derbyshire churchyard to which he had called attention.
House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.