Lords Sitting of 6 May 1886

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) * (84); Infants * (86); Metropolitan Police Stations * (87); Hyde Park Corner (New Streets) * (88).
Second Reading—Drowned Persons (Discovery and Interment) (77).

THE LATE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEES OF THIS HOUSE).

  OBITUARY NOTICE.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Earl GRANVILLE): Your Lordships will bear with me while I say a few words respecting the loss which we have sustained during the
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  Recess. Lord Redesdale has passed away in a ripe and honoured old age. He sat in this House 56 years; I believe that he, with another of the most respected Members of this Assembly, Lord Chichester, was the last who sat here during the Reign of George IV. Lord Redesdale was one of my oldest personal friends, and I am one of now a small number who saw him unanimously chosen as the Chairman of your Lordships' Committees, an Office the duties of which he has discharged for 35 years with distinction, judgment, and decision, and in a manner most advantageous to your Lordships' House and to the public. Lord Redesdale was a keen politician; he at one time held a confidential Office in this Assembly, to which no strictly official title belongs, but which implies the full confidence of the Leaders of a Party in the Peer who holds it. He resigned this post in consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws under the Government of Sir Robert Peel. It is, perhaps, odd for me to say so, but I could not help feeling strong admiration for the genuine Conservatism with which Lord Redesdale regarded all questions, whether great or small. There were few things which he did not consider to be better as they were rather than as they might be after alteration. Yet I do not remember any instance in which these strong political prepossessions influenced at all his conduct in the Chair. He was a strong, just, shrewd, and kind man. He was afraid of no one in or out of the House. He could say "No," and even a disagreeable "No," when the need arose; yet such was the simplicity and straightforwardness of his character, and the absence of all personal vanity from his disposition, that he never gave offence. The void created by his death will be difficult to fill, and it will be long before we cease to miss his respected and familiar presence in this place.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Your Lordships will have listened with feelings of admiration and of regret to the touching language and judicious criticism that have fallen from the lips of the noble Earl who leads this House. He has in no way exaggerated the high qualities that distinguished Lord Redesdale, or the void which we shall have to fill when his place must be occupied again. The House will seem strange without that familiar figure, for he has

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  played not only a long but a great part in the deliberations of this House. He governed the disposal of our Private Business at a time when Private Business was very different from what it is now, at a time when on the judgment and honesty and resolution of the noble Lord who occupied that Chair it depended whether our proceedings should or should not be made an instrument for the perpetration of much that was oppressive and even fraudulent. By his great courage and his discernment he has given a great power to the deliberations of this House in connection with matters of Private Business, a power which I trust we shall not speedily lose. His power was so great that his dictatorship had become proverbial, and yet that dictatorship was exercised, not by reason of any transcendent talents, but simply on account of the sterling and pellucid honesty of the man who exercised those powers. Nothing but that honesty could have procured for him, with so imperious an action, the respect which he uniformly secured. The noble Earl has alluded to the strength of his political opinions. There is no doubt that he was a very strong partizan; but I never knew him in all the strength of his partizanship stoop to wrest an argument or ignore a fact, and he possessed this quality, precious above all others and diminishing in these days—he had the courage of his individual opinions. He was not afraid to act upon what he individually believed to be right, and he was not deterred by any prevalence of public feeling against him from expressing his opinions courageously to the whole world. My Lords, he enjoyed the universal deference and respect of all Peers, not only of those who shared his own political opinions, but on both sides of the House. We may easily put into that Chair a man who shall be his equal in ability; I doubt whether we shall ever put into it one who will exceed him in the sterling honesty and clearness of his decisions, or in the universal respect and unanimity which those decisions commanded.
  THE EARL OF CORKsaid, though he could not claim the gift of eloquence manifested by the two preceding speakers, yet, as one who had, perhaps, been more intimately associated with the late Lord Redesdale in the management of the Business of the House than any other
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  Peer, he begged to be allowed to say how deeply he deplored his death, and to add his humble testimony to the great fairness, straightforwardness, and judiciousness which his late Friend brought to bear upon his work. In his decisions he did justice to everyone. Those among their Lordships who had served upon Committees with the noble Earl had never failed to be struck with the clearness and readiness of his decisions upon difficult and complicated points. Having been brought into constant contact with the noble Earl he was in a position to know how great a loss the House had sustained. They must derive what consolation they could from the fact that among the noble Lords who bad taken part in the Private Business of the House many could be found actuated by as high a regard for justice as that which distinguished their noble Friend.
  EARL GRANVILLE: Your Lordships will readily understand why I do not propose to take any action in the matter this evening. I will merely give Notice that I intend to place on the Paper the terms of a Motion for Monday next.

  DROWNED PERSONS (DISCOVERY AND INTERMENT) BILL.—(No. 77.)
  (The Earl Stanhope.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  EARL STANHOPE, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the effect of it was to extend the provisions of a former Act of Parliament—namely, an Act 48 Geo. III c. 75. That Act enabled churchwardens or overseers to order the interment of bodies cast on shore from the sea to be buried, and the cost to be borne by the rates of the particular parish in which the bodies were found. The Bill extended this power by inserting the words "cast on shore from any tidal or navigable waters." Such an extension was really required, as the House would remember that lamentable difficulties arose in the case of the wreck of the Princess Alice, various parishes refusing to pay the cost of interment. The Bill had passed the House of Commons, with the approval of the Government and of both sides of the House, and he

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  hoped it would be accepted by their Lordships.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl Stanhope.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

  POOR LAW (ENGLAND AND WALES)—DEATH OF A CHILD IN TOTNES WORKHOUSE.—QUESTION.
  VISCOUNT BARRINGTONasked Her Majesty's Government, Whether the inquiry having reference to the death of an infant in Totnes Workhouse, arising from overfeeding, has taken place; and, whether Her Majesty's Government can now give the results of that inquiry?
  LORD SUDELEY (for the Local Government Board), in reply, said, that the Local Government Board had made inquiries into the matter, and had been furnished with copies of the depositions taken before the Coroner and with a copy of a report of a committee of the Totnes Guardians appointed to investigate the circumstances. The Board found that the medical officer of the workhouse gave directions that the child, who was ailing, should receive a pint of milk daily, and no other food. The matron of the workhouse was unaware of these directions, and allowed the pauper attendant in care of the child, who was aware of the doctor's directions, but did not inform the matron of them, to give it baked flour, which it appeared to have been unable to digest. The dietary tables approved by the Board expressly provided that infants under two years of age should be dieted as directed by the medical officer, and the orders of the Board imposed on the matron the duty of consulting the medical officer in reference to the dietary of such children. The Board had, therefore, been obliged to say that they thought the action of the matron deserving of serious censure. As, however, the committee of the Guardians had expressed the opinion that the matron believed she was acting for the best, and had warned her to observe strictly the regulations of the Board, the Board had not taken any further action in the matter, beyond cautioning the matron to be more careful in the future.

  DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LANDS (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2.) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders under the Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Act, 1863, and the Acts amending the same, relating to the Upper Nanny River Drainage District in the county of Meath, and the Greanagh River Drainage District in the county of Limerick—Was presented by The Lord Thurlow; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 84.)
  House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.