Sitting of 15 March 1836

MINUTES.
Petitions presented. By Mr. T. DUNCOMBE from several Metropolitan Parishes, for an Alteration of the Reform of Parliament Act.—By Sir G. STRICKLAND, Colonel THOMPSON, Sir R. FERGUSON, Major BEAUCLERK, and Messrs. ROEBUCK, BOWRING, GROTE, BAINES, MARK PHILIPS, C. WOOD, BARNARD, P. H.HOWARD, KEMP, SCHOLEFIELD, HUME, AGLIONBY, EWART, POULETT THOMSON, and WAKLEY, from a very great Number of Places,—against the Stamp Duty on Newspapers.—By the LORD ADVOCATE, from Ayr and Irvine, against the Stamp Duty on Attornies Certificates.

NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
Sir John Hobhousebrought up the Report of the Committee for Inquiry into the Plans for building new Houses of Parliament, which was read as follows:—" Your Committee, after considering the Report of the Commissioners which has been referred to them by the House, and after personal communication with the Commissioners, as to the grounds on which their selection of certain plans was made, are of opinion that the plan of Mr. Barry, numbered 64, ought to be so far adopted as to be made the basis of immediate further inquiries in respect to the cost of the plan above mentioned, and to the best mode of carrying it into execution."
Sir John Hobhousedid not know whether it was necessary for him to preface his Motion by the statement of any details, or of the reasons which had induced the Committee to adopt the resolution now upon the table. He should however propose, in consequence of it, that a humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying that he would be pleased to direct inquiries to be made in conformity with the Report, and in such manner as his Majesty should deem most advisable. Me was ready to give any explanation that might be required, but it would be seen that the Report pledged the House to nothing, and merely declared that the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners had been adopted by the Committee. Should the House agree to the Report, the effect would merely be that proceedings would be taken to procure from Mr. Barry some statements of expense, without at all deciding that it ought to be incurred. The Report went no further, and the House would probably be of opinion, that under all the circumstances, due caution had been used in an important and somewhat delicate investigation. The
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Committee had judged it best to leave all inquiry into the details in the hands of Government; and, of course, the department to be selected for such a duty would be the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. They would obtain the best assistance that could be procured, and would proceed without any delay. He had reason to believe that if his Motion were adopted, an estimate would be presented to the House in a comparatively short time, upon which a final conclusion might be formed. The right hon. Baronet concluded by moving, "That an humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying that his Majesty would be graciously pleased to have an inquiry made as to the best mode of proceeding in conformity with the Report of the Commissioners in such manner as to his Majesty may seem most advisable."
Mr. Hawesthought the Motion so important that it ought to have been preceded by a notice; and he was somewhat astonished, after what had passed on a former occasion, that the House should thus have been taken by surprise upon the subject. It appeared that one plan had been finally agreed upon, and although the Committee had been sitting for some time, and had taken evidence, the Report was unaccompanied by evidence, and this circumstance seemed to indicate that it had been prepared too hastily. He did not say that he would take the sense of the House on the Motion of the right hon. Baronet, but he apprehended that before it was adopted the evidence ought to have been produced. According to his understanding of the Report, it amounted to a final selection of a particular plan, and he wished to know whether the other plans approved by the Commissioners would be exhibited. The public had been long looking for them, and he thought that they were entitled to see them.
Sir John Hobhousefelt bound to give an answer to his hon. Friend. Undoubtedly evidence had been taken, and the terms of the Report would show that the commissioners had been examined on the subject of the recommendation they had laid before his Majesty. As to the notice of the present Motion having been given, he could only say that it was not meant to take the House at all by surprise, and in fact the Report did not recommend any important or definitive step. All that had been decided was, that before any ultimate

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decision were come to upon plan No. 64, it was expedient that an estimate should be formed of the probable expense of carrying it into execution. If it were the general opinion of the House that it would be better to see the evidence, the Committee could have no possible objection that it should be produced. At present it had been considered that such a step would be rather premature, and that the evidence ought to be reserved for the final decision.
Sir Robert Peelsaid, that the course proposed to be pursued seemed to him calculated to lay before the House, at the earliest period, the information by which it was to be guided in its decision. The Motion of the right hon. Baronet was in conformity with the plan proposed in the Committee; and, as he had supported it there, he should give it his cordial support here. The House of Commons, naturally distrusting its own judgment on a matter of this kind, had recommended the Crown to select Commissioners to review the whole of the plans. They undertook the duty, of course, gratuitously, and had devoted a great portion of time and attention to the consideration of about eighty or ninety plans; they had weighed the merits of each, in conformity with the instructions they had received, and given the preference to four out of the whole number. That of Mr. Barry had received their chief approbation, both for exterior form and interior convenience. When the Committee came to discuss the subject, the members of it had not thought themselves justified in recommending the House to adopt the plan of Mr. Barry, which they preferred, without first taking some steps to ascertain the expense; and it appeared to them that under the Crown, the responsible executive department was infinitely better calculated to collect all the essential materials for a final determination, than a Committee of that House. If the House should be of the same opinion, it would amount to a prima facie case in favour of Mr. Barry's plan; and surely the Committee was entitled to select it, not as the plan finally to be adopted, but as the basis of further inquiry. Then came the question, by whom that inquiry was to be made? and it would extend not merely to the cost of the buildings, but to the comparative expense of erecting them of different materials, and their durability as affected by London smoke
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and London atmosphere. The Committee thought that this inquiry could be better conducted by the Ministers of the Crown; and he was decidedly in favour of the proposal of the right hon. Baronet, which was only to induce the House to call upon the Crown to make the inquiry. He could not think that the House had been taken at all by surprise, since the object only was to obtain all necessary information, before a single stone was laid. No pledge was given; and if the hon. Member for Lambeth chose to divide the House, he (Sir R. Peel) hoped that the Motion would be carried by a large majority.
Mr. Hallthought that all the plans were to be publicly exhibited before a final decision was formed. Mr. Barry's plan would not, he was afraid, be practicable on account of the expense.
Sir Robert Peel: If it should appear that Mr. Barry's plan—beautiful in its exterior, and convenient in its arrangement as it was—could only be carried into effect under an enormous and unjustifiable outlay, which would require too great a sacrifice of economy, the motion of the right hon. Baronet implied no pledge that it should be adopted by the House.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaw no difficulty, as far as the Government was concerned, in making the inquiry, and obtaining the information. The object certainly was, that the plan, whichever might be selected, should be executed with all due regard to economy. With regard to the exhibition of the rival plans, he had been informed that if it were done immediately, and the drawings thereby taken out of the hands of Mr. Barry, it might be attended with great inconvenience; but there would be no difficulty in giving the public the opportunity of seeing Mr. Barry's plan with the others, before the House of Commons came to any final determination. On a former occasion a question had been put to him either by the hon. Member for Middlesex or Southwark, to which he was not then prepared to give a distinct answer. The hon. Gentleman seemed to imagine that there had been some previous communication of Mr. Barry's plan to the Commissioners; but he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was now able, in the most distinct and precise manner, to assert, that up to the moment when the seals were broken, not one of the Commissioners was aware which was Mr. Barry's plan.
Mr. Humetrusted that at all events the evidence taken by the Committee would be laid before the House before they were called upon to consent to the expenditure of any portion of the public money.
The motion was agreed to.

THE UNSTAMPED PRESS.
Mr. Wakleywished to know from his Majesty's Attorney-General, under what Act of Parliament a man named Cleave had been convicted for selling unstamped newspapers; and under what Act of Parliament the officers were justified in seizing those papers which were in his possession: and, lastly, how were the magistrates justified in sentencing him, in addition to imprisonment, to the punishment of the silent system?
The Attorney-Generalhad inquired into the circumstances since the same question had been put to him before, and had ascertained that the man had been convicted under the 16th of Geo. 2nd, which provided, that any person carrying unstamped papers might be arrested, brought before a magistrate, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. On the 4th day of the present month he had been found in a cab with thirty-three quires of The Police Gazette, an unstamped newspaper; was arrested, brought before a magistrate, and under the Act to which he had referred, sentenced to three months' imprisonment. With respect to the treatment he had experienced in confinement, it had been very indulgent indeed; and so far from his being condemned to the punishment of the silent system, he had been appointed teacher of the boys in the prison. It only remained to answer the hon. Member's question as it regarded the seizure of the papers on his person. His (the Attorney-General's) notion was, that the law could never mean that these papers should be restored to the party upon whose person they might have been found, to be redistributed in direct opposition to the law. The law, he presumed, would recognise no property in these papers; and if the hon. Member thought it would, he might bring his action of trover for the recovery of the property, and thus take the decision of a jury and the opinion of a Court or the question.
Mr. Wakleyhad never advocated a violation of the laws, but 400 persons had been arrested for the sale of a newspaper, which the Court of Exchequer had decided not to be a newspaper.
Mr. Roebuckwished to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman another question relating to another transaction of the same nature. It appeared that a man named Reeve had been stopped by some police constables, with a bundle in his possession. He was asked what it contained, but refused to answer. It was then taken from him, and was found to contain legally stamped papers. He was brought before a magistrate, fined, and not paying the fine, was sent to confinement, stripped of his clothes, and the flannel next his skin taken off, to the very serious detriment of his health. Now he wished to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether this was in accordance with the feelings of the people at large, or consistent with the spirit of the English laws?
The Attorney-Generalwould not trouble the House with his opinion as to whether this conviction was in accordance with the feelings of the people at large; but as to its being consistent with the spirit of the English law, he should leave the House to judge from the facts of the case. From the information which he (the Attorney-General) had received, it appeared that the individual in question had been met by a constable, and asked what a bundle which was in his possession contained; his reply was, to knock the constable down. Such was the information he had received, and he believed it was correct. Under the 27th section of the 9th Geo. 4th he was brought before a magistrate, who fined him, as the Act authorised the magistrate, five pounds, and the fine not being paid, he was committed, according to the provisions of the Act, "either to the common gaol, or the house of correction;" in the present case, to the latter. Having been asked his opinion, he did not hesitate to say, that Reeve having been, under the Act, committed to the House of Correction, was subject to the discipline of the House of Correction. There was therefore, he apprehended, no ground for complaint, so far, at least, as the question of the hon. Member referred to a deviation from the law, in the course which had been adopted in this case.

SPAIN AND HER LATE COLONIES.
Lord Mahon, seeing the noble Lord, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in his place, wished to ask him a question relative to negotiations which had been some time

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since set on foot respecting the dispute between Spain and her South American colonies. It would be in the recollection of the House, that two Commissioners (Generals Soublette and O'Leary) had arrived in London on their way to Madrid, and had been most kindly received, and assisted with advice, by the Duke of Wellington, and had received every encouragement to effect the object of their mission. The last advices received in reference to this subject represented the negotiations as entirely broken off. This was a subject, he need hardly observe to the House, of the utmost importance to even our trade and commerce, and he had hoped that the noble Lord's assistance would have sufficed to have brought the negotiation to a satisfactory termination, He wished to ask the noble Lord if he had received any official information upon this subject, and if there was any prospect of a favourable result?
Viscount Palmerstoncould assure the noble Lord, that his Majesty's present advisers were quite as anxious that the negotiation referred to should be brought to a satisfactory termination as were the Government of which the noble Lord had been a Member. It was quite obvious that the termination of disputes between Spain and her colonies was most desirable for many reasons, besides that which affected the commerce carried on by and with these countries. It was quite true, as the noble Lord had stated, that Generals Soublette and O'Leary had arrived in London, and proceeded to Madrid, on the subject of the negotiation which had been referred to. General Santa-Maria had also arrived in London, and had gone to Madrid, to take part, on behalf of Mexico, in the negotiation; and as far as a Minister of Great Britain could take part in it, by the interposition of his friendly offices, Mr. Villiers had interfered; and in so doing, only acted in perfect conformity with the instruction of the Government he represented. The part he had taken, however, was necessarily unofficial—the interference of a friend of both parties. He had at present no reason to believe that the negotiation was broken off. It was in some degree connected with a communication made by the Government to the Cortes; for the Government, instead of concluding a treaty on the part of the Crown, preferred making this communication to the Cortes. The
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dissolution of that body had interrupted the progress of the negotiation; but he had good reason to hope that, when they re-assembled, it would be brought to a satisfactory termination.

CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN.
Sir Robert Peelhad seen in the public papers an account that either the wife or mother of Cabrera—an officer in the service of Don Carlos—had been shot by order of an officer in the pay and commission of the Spanish Government. He wished to ask the noble Lord opposite if he had any reason to know that this account was correct?
Viscount Palmerstonwas much afraid that the account was correct. He had no official information on the subject; but from an account contained in a private letter he had received, he feared there was too much reason to apprehend the account was correct. The account he had received of this diabolical atrocity represented it (so we understood the noble Lord) as a reprisal for Cabrera's having shot the wives of four officers of the Government army.
Lord F. Egertonwished to know if the noble Lord had received any information of this atrocity having been committed at the instigation of Mina?
Viscount Palmerstonsaid, that such was the rumour; which, however, might be quite false.

STAMP DUTIES—NEWSPAPERS.
Mr. Harveyhad a Petition to present on the subject of the Abolition of the Newspaper Stamp Duties, but could not consign it to that ignominious bourne from which no petition returns, without adverting to a rumour which had reached him that all these petitions, which were for a "total repeal" of the stamp duty, were to be thrown away. He had been told, for he had not attended the Downing-street Parliament, that the Government had resolved upon disregarding these petitions, by reducing, and not abolishing, the stamp duties. Such a conclusion, he apprehended, could only have been arrived at in the absence of all knowledge of public opinion upon this subject, and he, therefore, trusted, that after such a manifestation as had just been made, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be prepared to defer the consideration of this subject until he could bestow upon these petitions the attention to which they were entitled.
Mr. Wakleysaid, that in moving that the House do resolve itself into a Committee on the Stamp Bill, he should take the opportunity of expressing his perfect concurrence in what had fallen from his hon. Friend, and his hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, upon a little deliberation, be induced to do justice to the public, and consent not to take off a portion, but to abolish the entire of the stamp duty. Should the right hon. Gentleman, however, not do so, he should feel it his duty to press the House to a division. He would then move, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House on the Stamp Acts.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersuggested that it might be the most convenient course if the hon. Member for Finsbury would consent to allow him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) to state what were the intentions of the Government, and then take the discussion on his own motion when the subject of the Stamp Duty on Newspapers was regularly brought forward in the financial statement of the year. This he thought, would be a much more convenient course than that proposed by the hon. Member.
Mr. Wakleywould consent to adopt this course.
The House resolved itself into a Committee.
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid he would proceed to explain his views. He wished, however, the Committee to understand, that, although the proposition he was about to bring forward embraced the subject of the stamp-duties on newspapers, yet it was by no means confined to that one object. His proposition was of a much more enlarged kind, and, without wishing to undervalue the question as connected with the public press and with newspapers, he thought his proposition would be found to be deserving of the consideration of Parliament, even if there had not been any stamp-duties on newspapers at all. During the period which had elapsed since the close of the war, there had been very few proceedings of that House which had been more satisfactory than the steps which under various Governments had been taken for the simplification and consolidation of the laws, and there was a duty incumbent on the House, and which in times of peace and tranquillity it behoved the House to perform—it was, to make the laws clear and
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intelligible, and the more especially when those laws involved questions of interference with trade and commerce, restrictions on property, and penalties on the commission and omission of certain acts. The criminal law had already been consolidated to a very great extent. This most useful task had been undertaken by the right hon. Baronet, (not then in his place) the Member for Tamworth, and his example had since been zealously followed by others. He thought, that when he described to the House the state and condition in which the Stamp Acts stood, the House would agree with him, that they ought not to be allowed to remain without alteration and improvement. The laws relating to stamps existing on the Statute Book were 150 in number, some of them related only to England, others only to Scotland, some only to Ireland, and others to Great Britain, or to the empire at large. They were dispersed through the Statute Book, forming a complete farrago of legislation, and such contradictory provisions, that even the most subtle lawyers found themselves entangled in coming to decisions on them, and individuals became the victims subjected to penalties never intended to be inflicted on them. From the earliest statutes imposing Stamp Duties, passed in the reign of Charles 2nd to the present time, the legislation in respect to each had been such as greatly to add to the confusion he had adverted to, for it was necessary now to look not only to Acts professedly applying to Stamp Duties, but to others of a different class, but which contained enactments concerning this branch of revenue; and accordingly, he had found in the third Clause of an Enclosure Act a provision subjecting parties to penalties for an offence against the Stamp Acts. Indeed, one of the earliest of those statutes, the 10th of Queen Anne, was strangely characteristic of the style of legislation in those days. It imposed Stamp Duties and duties on coffee and candles, it afforded relief to a certain lady of the name of Barnwell, and regulated the duty on cocoa nuts brought from America. It would require some ingenuity now to account for the connexion. But there were at least 120 other statutes equally anomalous in their provisions. It was, therefore, his intention to propose, in the room of these existing statutes, one single statute, which should contain the whole of the Stamp Laws of

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the country, with two slight exceptions (for reasons he would hereafter state), namely, the laws relating to stage coaches, which had been consolidated within the last few years, and the law relating to hawkers and pedlars' licences, which had also been consolidated. With these two exceptions, he should repeal all the other Stamp Acts, and propose in their stead the Bill which the Government were inclined to recommend. The Bill he sought to introduce would, he was sorry to say, be very long, comprising no less than 330 sections, but those sections would be found in connexion one with the other, and with no contradiction amongst them. He must state at once that the reason he did not propose to interfere at present, with the existing law as to post-horse duties was at the request of the very respectable class of persons, the innkeepers engaged in the trade, and, moreover, he had it in contemplation this Session to put an end to the system of farming post-horse duties, that remnant of barbarism in legislation. The Stamp Duties formed a very difficult subject for consolidation, as the duties were in themselves extremely complicated, as hon. Members knew, and was indeed evident from the revenue they produced. The gross Stamp revenues for the year 1833 were 7,414,000 l., and in 1834, 7,461,000 l.; and when hon. Members looked, under the present scale of duty, at the variety of matters from which this revenue arose,—from letters of administration, probates of wills, admission of attornies, and to offices, advertisements, affidavits, agreements, appraisements, apprenticeships, bankers' notes, bills of exchange, bills of lading, bonds, commission, gold and silver plate, licences to newspapers, protests, and the remainder of the list, they must see that the task of consolidation in this case, imposed on any individual, was one of great perplexity and difficulty. Many hon. Members had already shown, either by their votes or speeches, that upon a number of those duties there existed a difference of opinion, and all that he would ask was, that the progress in the work of consolidation should not be impeded by the discussion of those separate questions. He did not ask hon. Members to abandon their opinions, but only to suspend them until the whole laws were brought into one statute; because it was evident, that in an Act of Parliament, which would contain 330 sec-
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tions, and would embrace all the subjects to which he had just now adverted, it would be impossible to proceed if the House should be called on to discuss every one of the points; the work of consolidation would be rendered impracticable, and no Minister could bring the matter to a satisfactory result. He therefore trusted he should not be thought unreasonable in expecting that some degree of assistance should so far be given to him by hon. Members. He should not, however, conclude hon. Members on subjects which he admitted to be important, and must be considered to have extensive relations. He would instance a matter frequently mentioned in the House by the hon. Member for Middlesex—the exemption from duties of landed property passing by will. That was a subject for discussion hereafter, and ought not to be taken as incidental to the work of consolidation. It would be competent for the hon. Member for Middlesex to bring forward that preposition in a distinct form, and he should feel that he acted most disingenuously if he held the hon. Member, by his assent to the principle of the consolidation of the law, to be precluded in any degree from having the full advantage of introducing it as a subject for separate consideration. With respect to the Stamp Duty on newspapers, he stood in a different position, because the hon. Member for Finsbury had, for the present, abandoned the motion of which he had given notice to-night that he might have an opportunity of stating his intentions on this point; and because the Petitions laid on the Table of the House to-night, proved that the subject must be discussed in the course of the present Session. He was, therefore, not at all disposed to debar the consideration of that question; but, with regard to further notices on other heads, he prayed hon. Gentlemen to forbear, pending the consolidation of the laws; because if they did not, a great public object, he was afraid, might be defeated or impeded. He could not approach the discussion of this subject without calling to mind debates which had taken place upon former occasions in this House, and he should necessarily be obliged to allude to them, because if he did not, it might be supposed that he was acting inconsistently in reference to some arguments which he had formerly advanced in reply to the arguments of the late Mr. Cobbett. That Gentleman

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had brought forward the question of the Stamp Duties with the great ingenuity he always possessed, but with that exaggeration also in which he was prone to indulge. On that occasion, it had fallen to his (Mr. Rice's) lot to reply to the hon. Gentleman, but he was so far from advocating the law as it then existed, that he had pledged himself, on the part of the then Chancellor of the' Exchequer, to bring in a bill for the remedy of the defects complained of. Such a measure would have been introduced shortly afterwards, but for the press of public business at that period. He was now prepared to redeem the pledge then given, not by meeting the exaggerated case stated on that occasion by the hon. Member for Oldham, but by meeting the case of real grievance, the existence of which must be proved to every man without any argument whatever, but by the slightest consideration of the Stamp Acts. He should avoid, in the statement he was now about to make taking an exaggerated view of the evils of the present Stamp Laws, by looking to the extreme points of the scale, but he would only consider the mean amount of duty payable, and the mean amount of the sums upon which it was payable. This was where the great difference lay between his own statements and those of the hon. Member for Oldham. This constituted the chief distinction between the lines of reasoning followed by them on that occasion. If he could show that in the present state of the law, as concerned the payment of duties leviable, there was a gross and crying injustice and inconsistency, he would ask hon. Gentlemen to go with him in applying an immediate and efficient remedy. He trusted that the House was aware, that according to the principle on which the Stamp Laws in force at the present moment were framed, a certain amount of duty was payable upon bills, mortgages, or bonds of any description from 50 l. to 100 l. value; another on those from 100 l. to 200 l.; another on those from 500 l. to 1,000 l., and so on by a fixed scale; thus applying the scale of duties to the scale of mean payments, and working out the computation accurately, it would be found that a lower amount of duty was charged upon bills for large sums than was payable on those of small value—that the smaller the bill the larger was the amount of per centage. On a mortgage there was a
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larger amount of duty payable when the sum was small than when it was great; and thus, in this proportion, though not to the extent stated by the hon. Member for Oldham, a larger tax was imposed upon transactions comparatively small in value, and consequently upon the poorer classes, than upon large transactions, which in most cases affected the wealthier classes. He would take the case of conveyances. In cases where the purchase or consideration money did not amount to 20 l. the mean amount of duty payable at present was 5l. per cent.; where it was from 20 l. to 50 l. the mean amount of duty would be 2l.. 17 s. 1d. per cent. But as the scale ascended anomalies still more striking presented themselves. For instance, upon a conveyance the consideration of which was from 4,000 l. to 5,000 l., the same proportion of duty was payable as upon one the value of which varied from 40,000 l. to 60,000 l. The same duty was levied upon all conveyances from 60,000 l. to 80,000 l., so that the identical duty was payable upon one of the value of 60,000 l. as was charged on one where the consideration was 79,900 l. The duties levied upon bonds were not less oppressive and unequal. The duty payable upon one of 250 l. was 14s.percent; upon one of 2,500 l. 5s. 10 d. per cent., and upon one of 12,500 l. only 2s. 4d. per cent. The scale stopped at 20,000 l. and a bond for 40,000 l. was subject to no more duty than one for 20,000 l. This was irreconcileable with the real principles by which taxation should be regulated, and nothing, he thought, could lead the House to continue the system he had described, except an impossibility to remedy it. The practical result was, that upon bonds of 40,000 l. value there was a duty of 1s. 3d. per cent.; upon those of 4,000 l. there was a duty of 4s. 2d. per cent., and upon those of 100 l. there was a duty of 1l. 10 s. per cent. He need scarcely enter into any further details to exemplify the principle of the present laws, because those who had attended to the subject of debate on a former occasion would see that these statements were perfectly in accordance with the whole of the arguments he had then brought forward, and because these results were derived, not from extreme views, but from a consideration of the mean amount of payments, which was the true way of viewing the subject. He would give an

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example of what he should propose as a remedy for this in the case of conveyances. He had shown that the duties varied upon similar sums, rising sometimes as high as 2l.. 13 s. per cent., and falling to 1l. 10 s., while between 1,000 l. and 2,000 l. they fell to 16 s., but the general average was 1l. He had taken the opinions of professional men on this subject, and he believed that the plan he should submit to the House would effectually remedy this inequality. He proposed one uniform scale of duties, that a tax of one per cent. should in all cases be imposed. In very few and trifling instances would this plan give the slightest additional increase to taxation. It would leave the revenue very much in the same condition as at present, while extensive relief would at once be afforded in all cases where similar conveyances were taxed unequally. An application of the ad valorem principle would run through great part of the Bill he should introduce, and hon. Members would perceive how very convenient this would practically be to men of business. There would no longer be room for doubt on any point. There could be no conflicting opinions, every one would instantly know how the case really stood, and could carry in his hand a simple formula, that would enable him at once to solve any question that could arise. This would apply also to the question of probates. He would call the attention of the House to the very great alteration he meant to propose in this part of the law. By the law as it stood, in cases of property passing by descent, the duty was calculated upon the gross value of that property. This subjected individuals to very considerable hardship and inconvenience, because the law was, that although they were charged upon the gross amount of the property, they were afterwards entitled to reclaim from Government a proportion of the duties they paid. This was a very complicated process, and a very unjust one on the part of the state, unless it were actually necessary to secure that which was the right of the state—the duty upon the net proceeds. The administrator or executor was required to advance the duty, as if the estate was altogether clear of incumbrance. Individuals, rather than go through the necessary forms and technicalities requisite to claim the whole amount of duty they would be entitled to from the Stamp-
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office, desisted from making their claim, and the consequence was, that the revenue received much to which it was not entitled. He would propose an alteration in the law in this respect, which, after communication with individuals most competent to give him advice on the subject, he believed he might say would afford considerable relief. Individuals would be required to pay the duty, not on the gross, but on the net amount of the estate. No one subject had been brought forward more prominently than this in all the discussions both at the Stamp-office and the Treasury. His right hon. Friend opposite, whom he saw taking notes, knew that no subject had given rise to more application than this, and that no part of the law bore harder upon the public generally. The tendency of it was to bring into the Exchequer a mass of property which the state was not entitled to receive, and he was bound to make an alteration in this state of things, if the evil could be remedied without introducing inconveniences still more formidable. With respect to another important branch of the law, he proposed to make a considerable change—he meant the duties upon bill stamps. The duties upon bills as they now existed might be divided into two classes—the duties on what might be termed foreign bills, and those on home or domestic bills. In the duty on foreign bills he would make no change. With regard to the duty generally on home bills, it appeared to him to bear with great injustice on bills drawn for small sums. He did not think it would be desirable to give undue encouragement to bills drawn for smaller sums as compared with those of a larger amount, but neither was it just that they should reverse the ordinary principles of fiscal regulation, and subject them to double and treble duty. All that he should propose would be, to adjust the bill scale as fairly as he could in reference to the amount, and to carry out the ad valorem principle as far as possible. Of late years there had existed a practice which, however reluctantly, he could not but characterize as an evasion of the duty upon bills. A custom had arisen of drawing, in place of bills, letters of credit, which were passed from hand to hand, and sometimes even negotiated by endorsement, though others, more prudent, refused to endorse such documents. The letters of credit, even

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quite unendorsed, bad been often made to supply the place of bills. Unquestionably this practice was an evasion of the law, but he believed that one cause of it was the high rate of duty charged on bill stamps. Hon. Gentlemen would observe that these letters of credit could never be employed for the purposes of bills of a long date, or of great amount. They could not be used to any great extent as a means of postponing payment of a sum, or of obtaining an advance of capital. It was his intention now to introduce a scale of duties on bills drawn at a period not exceeding seven days from the date, calculated not to admit postponement of payment, nor to allow the raising of money upon them. On this class of bills he meant to propose a very slight duty—scarcely more than a nominal rate. He could not but regard the negotiation of letters of credit as a practice of very questionable legality, and it would be rendered still more so by the proposition he should make. In point of fact, the convenience of a bill of exchange payable to order, valid in point of law, would be of the greatest possible advantage to the commercial interests and the public generally, and would be used largely as a substitute for the present system of letters of credit. He had had much intercourse with parties who were well acquainted with that system, and their opinion was that his proposition would give great facility in mercantile transactions. He knew how very dull and uninteresting these details were, but he trusted that the House would bear with him if he ventured still further to solicit its attention; and they might be regarded as less necessary, as the House was not now to be called on to agree to these measures; but he should not have done justice to the Government nor to himself, if he had caused the schedules to be printed without offering some explanations to the House. There were several other alterations which he intended to propose, and among these one very much called for by the humbler classes of the community—the reduction of the tax leviable upon apprentices' indentures. He meant to propose a large reduction in this tax. At present, where there was no premium, or where it was under 10 l., a duty was imposed of 20 s. He was not called on then to discuss the policy of the laws relating to apprenticeship, but as long as they remained on the statute book
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it was unjust by fiscal regulations to deprive parties of the means of executing contracts into which they were willing to enter. He proposed to reduce this tax from 20 s. to 10 s. upon the lowest class of indentures. The tax on bills of lading he proposed to reduce from 3s. to 6d., and to reduce that on charter parties from 35 s. to 5s. With regard to leases, he meant to propose a great alteration, which he hoped would be felt as a very considerable relief by the agricultural interest in the northern and western parts of England, in which chiefly the leasing system existed. The present rate of duty upon leases was felt to be extremely oppressive. Where the rent was 20 l. or under, the duty was now 20 s. He would propose that this should be reduced to 2s. 6d.. Where the rent was 300 l., and the duty now levied 3l., he should propose a reduction to 1l. Where the rent was 600 l. he should propose a reduction of duty from 4l. to 3l. He anticipated that the loss of revenue from this reduction would be amply compensated by putting an end to the exemptions from the duty at present existing, in favour of leases for the term of three lives and ecclesiastical leases. These cases would come under the general provisions of the law, subject to the reductions he should propose, and the ad valorem principle would come into operation as regarded them. In several additional instances, he proposed to carry reduction still further. On administration-bonds under 1,000 l., the duty was 20 s.—he should propose to lower it to 5s., and he did not think, the revenue would lose anything by the change. He wished to call the attention of the House to this fact. The large amount of the Stamp-duty charged upon these transactions had the effect, not of bringing in revenue, but of prohibiting those transactions which would augment it; and when he came to think, that on the legal execution of the contract requiring a stamp, might depend property to a great amount, he was unwilling, by fiscal regulations, to deprive any individual of that which was justly his due, or to prevent him from asserting his rights. He believed, that by these reductions no very material loss to the revenue would be incurred. He expected, also, to obtain some saving to the public by remitting the amount of discounts allowed. In particular cases, as in the case of administration-bonds, discounts were allowed, which generally

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went into the pockets of professional persons, and by putting an end to allowances of this kind, he calculated on a saving of 10,000 l. or 12,000 l. a-year. He intended, also, to follow out the principle which had been applied by Lord Althorpe, when Chancellor of the Exchequer. That noble Lord had lowered the Stamp-duty on insurance for farming-stock, and he meant to carry this reduction further, and apply it to farming buildings. Frequent applications had been made to him on this subject, and he saw no reason to continue the duty. He knew that, with respect to this and other trifling matters, before the reduction was carried into effect, they were the subject of great vituperation; but the very moment the concession was made, the tables were generally turned against the parties who had so freely censured it. These changes were made in good faith, and were meant to give relief to particular classes of persons; and he hoped those now proposed would not be attributed to any wish to give rise to false expectations, or excite any delusion in the minds of the people. He noticed this, because he always stood in terror of being taunted with the relief they had once given to taxed-carts and shepherds' dogs. There was no subject on which they had been more taunted than on that. The right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge had called the attention of Government to the tile duty, and had told them that this was a tax bearing in a manner practically injurious upon labour. Well, no sooner had they taken off that duty, than they were assailed with vituperation. The budget, in which these reductions were announced, was called the taxed-cart budget, the shepherd's-dog budget, and the tile budget; and a change which was effected in a good spirit and with the best intentions, was made the matter of much obloquy and reproach. But, in spite of this vituperation and ridicule, Ministers were always happy when they had an opportunity of making any reduction, however small; and if he could find out any other matters of the same kind, where an alteration would be beneficial, he would rather give the relief, and bear the censure that might follow, than suffer the hardship to continue. In the propositions he was about to make, the House need not be very much alarmed at the introduction of any new subject of taxation,
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When they looked through the schedule, they would not find any probability of an increased taxation arising on any one head, except in so far as the arrangements of the plan now proposed would be likely to insure an increase of revenue, by the relief which they would give to many interests now labouring under depression from the weight of the duties. For instance, if the reduction of duty on leases increased the amount of revenue derived from them, he thought that neither the House nor the public had any right to quarrel with such an augmentation. The operation of the ad valorem principle might, indeed, create a temporary pressure at some parts of the scale, but the application of the principle, in a plain and intelligible manner, would be more than a compensation for the increase of charge which might thus result, while the pressure at one end would be counterbalanced by the relief at the other, where it was most wanted. He would proceed next to the question which he had touched on in the early part of his remarks—that of the Stamp-duty on Newspapers. But, before he entered on that subject, he wished to state distinctly the course he intended to pursue on the present occasion. He meant to report the schedule, with the consent of the House, to obtain leave to introduce a Bill embracing the topics which he had enumerated, to circulate that Bill, along with the schedule, among hon. Members, till a day to be fixed after Easter, and then finally to take the opinion of the House as to his proposition. Undoubtedly, this course would be open to objection, if there were in the House any hon. Gentleman disposed to move an increase of those duties; because, though it was competent for any one to move a diminution in the Committee on the Bill, he could not move an increase of the duty without recommitting the schedule. He did not imagine there would be many Gentlemen in the House anxious to move an increase; but if any hon. Member should happen to be so extremely desirous to signalize himself in this way, he was ready to enter into a compact with him, and to recommit the schedule for his special convenience. He remembered the ground he had formerly taken with reference to the motion of the hon. Member for Exeter, and from the opinion he then expressed, he was not now disposed to depart. He then said, it was just and right that the whole ques-

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tion of the finances of this country should be considered, not bit by bit, but as a connected whole. The claims of the respective parties should be compared, and relief should not be voted to one class, whether licensed victuallers on the one hand, or gentlemen representing the great soap and tallow interests on the other, without due consideration. The House should not be called on to vote in matters of taxation in detail; but the state of the whole finances should be considered at once, and if there were a disposable surplus, then Parliament should consider how that was to be applied. He should not have introduced the subject of the Stamps upon the present occasion, but involving, as it did, the great interests of commerce and law, and all the obligations which passed under the name of contract, he felt that he should not be warranted in introducing a Bill for the consolidation of the Stamp-duties, if not only the metropolis, not only England, but Scotland and Ireland, were not to be made acquainted, in good time, with the alterations he proposed to effect. But, consistent with the principles he had followed on a former occasion, and with those arguments that had satisfied a majority of the House that his hon. Friend, the Member for Exeter, was premature in bringing forward his motion at the period he had selected, he should not ask the House to pledge itself to any principle till that time when he brought forward the budget. Upon the subject of Newspaper Stamps, therefore, it was not his intention to ask the House to pledge itself, but he thought it but fair, frank, and just, to those who advocated the opinions advanced in the petitions presented to-night to the House, and but fair to those who opposed them, candidly to state what he should propose to do in April on this subject. He did not mean to argue the question; that he should be prepared to do when he took the sense of the House upon it. He wished merely to communicate the fact, that Gentlemen might have a full opportunity of carefully weighing the project before they made up their minds. He could not hold out to the hon. Member for Finsbury, notwithstanding that respect which he bore to the petitions of the people—a respect as deep as that hon. Member's could be—any disposition or intention of moving the total repeal of these duties. He could not make such a proposition to the House,
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and he did not think that, if he were to make it, the House would acquiesce in it. Certainly, that would be no reason why he should refrain from submitting it to the House, if it were in conformity with his own opinions. If he were bound to submit it to the House by his sense of public duty, make it he would, and let the House decide on it. But he did not think it would be just on financial grounds. The House was aware that the duty now amounted to 4d. minus the discount; in return for this, the State undertook the duty of conveying the newspaper by post; and thus a certain proportion of this duty was rather to be regarded in the light of a payment for a service performed, than in the light of a tax for which no service whatever was rendered. Indeed, this part of the subject had impressed itself so deeply on the attention of some Gentlemen, that many were disposed to recommend the substitution of a postage duty of 1d. instead of the present tax. He believed, after the fullest consideration he had been able to give the proposal, that it had one slight objection, that of being totally and entirely impracticable. He believed, that if the burden of levying the whole of this duty as a postage were to be thrown on the Post-office, there would be great difficulty in carrying on the ordinary duties of the office, and the general correspondence of the empire. He viewed the duty partly as a payment to the state for services, and partly as a tax. The postage scheme would operate most unjustly. Why should they adopt a principle in itself so unequal? They wished to diffuse knowledge in the remote parts of the empire; but the imposition of a postage would make the possession of it much dearer to the population of those counties, than to that of the metropolis and the adjacent country. The proposition which he should be disposed to make to the House hereafter, would be the substitution of a tax of 1d. for the tax now levied. He should be prepared to argue this question—to argue it financially, politically, and in all its bearings, both against those who wished that nothing should be done in the matter, and those who wished that a great deal more should be done. He should make the best case he could against these extreme views of the subject, and he trusted the House would go with him in applying a practical remedy to that which he admitted to be a considerable grievance.

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He could not help adverting to what had fallen from his hon. Friend on the present state of the law, as bearing upon personal liberty. He had stated last year to the House, that so long as the law remained in its present condition, no effort of his should be neglected for its administration, and for the protection of those persons who had invested their property in this particular department. The hon. Member for Finsbury had said, that he, for one, would never support, either in the House or out of it, the violation of the law as it stood. It was his bounden duty, and it was his determination to enforce the law, and to prevent loss or detriment to any individual by transgressing it. He had already been, in consequence of that determination, exposed to frequent abuse; but he was convinced, that so long as they let the present high duty remain, the violation of the law would be continued, and that it could not be put down until the cause of it was removed. His hon. Friend, the Member for Lincoln, had, last Session, brought forward the proposition he now submitted to the House. He had then urged, that in the existing state of the finances, it would not be prudent to make so large a reduction. If he could show the House, in April, that, adhering to the opinions he then held, they were now in a condition to make that reduction without any very great sacrifice, he would, under those circumstances, ask them to support him in his proposition. He would say a few words more with respect to the Stamp-duties. Having stated, generally, that no new duties would be introduced, there was one which he could not suffer to be voted, even pro formâ, in Committee, without calling the attention of the House to it. The right hon. Gentleman near him had just asked if the ad valorem principle would be applied to probates and legacies. Undoubtedly it would; but the great relief on this point, he considered, would be the payment of the duty, not on the gross, but on the net proceeds of the estate. He would revert to the subject from which the question of the right hon. Gentleman had diverted him. By the law, as it stood, an ad valorem duty was chargeable on the amount of consideration for the transfer of shares in Joint-stock Companies—such as railroad, canal, and banking shares. With this he did not mean to meddle, but he intended to superadd a small tax upon the first issue
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of those shares. It was far from him to wish to interfere with or discourage the application of capital to great national objects, and therefore the amount proposed would be very small indeed. It would not, in the slightest degree, operate to the disadvantage of any bonâ fide undertaking, but it would check transactions of a different kind—insecure and dangerous speculations, the very worst species of gambling. It would also operate beneficially in this way, that Government would know the project in which the shares originated, and the number brought into the market. A kind of registry of them would thus be formed, as had been proposed some years since, with reference to the Joint-stock Companies then created. He wished not to fetter, but to preserve and secure capital, and he could not see why, when there was a tax on the transfer of shares, a duty on the original issue should be considered objectionable. With regard to the Stamp-duties in Ireland, he could scarcely give an explanation without going into the whole subject; but he should not be acting candidly if he did not say, that generally they were very much lower than in England. The English Stamp-duties were, in proportion, nearly double the Stamp-duties in Ireland, and he proposed in the application of the Bill to Ireland, to adhere strictly to this proportion throughout, except in the case of the Newspaper Stamps, where one uniform duty would be established. He could not close this address without thanking the House for their indulgence. He knew that the exposition made was necessarily imperfect, and he should have felt it his duty to go with more fulness and precision into the whole question, if he had not known that he should have another opportunity of recurring to it. He should forget his duty if he did not acknowledge the obligations he was under to Gentlemen opposite, who had preceded him in that department of administration confided to him, and to the memorials left in the Treasury by the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge. He was also much indebted for the assistance rendered by the gentlemen of the Stamp-office, and especially to Mr. Tyrwhitt, for the industry and ability which he had brought to assist him. It had fallen to him to make this experiment; he was well aware of the complicated difficulties that surrounded

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it, and of the various conflicting interests he should have to appease; but he trusted that the measure would prove satisfactory to the public, and afford, on many minor points, considerable relief. He could not sit down without expressing his gratitude to a gentleman near him (the hon. Member for Newport), a personal friend, for the efficient assistance he had rendered in completing the details of this measure when he was much engrossed with other matters, and unable to give them that they demanded. His hon. Friend had directed his attention to the subject with great credit to himself and advantage to the country. He owed it to the hon. Member for Newport to say how much he was indebted to him for the completion of the measure. He hoped the House would put him in a condition to have the Bill circulated, that the country might obtain the fullest information with respect to it. He wished that it should stand over, and the discussion taken hereafter. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the first Resolution, "That the several Stamp-duties, Allowances, and Drawbacks now in force, be repealed, and that, in lieu thereof, the several Stamp-duties hereinafter mentioned be enacted."
Mr. Goulburnconcurred with his right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the advantages to be derived from pursuing that consolidation of the statutes which was begun by his right hon. Friend, the Member for Tamworth, on the subject of the Criminal Law, which was followed up by his right hon. Friend, the Member for Harwich, on the subject of the Customs and Excise, and which he had himself meditated to accomplish on this very subject of the Stamp Duties when he was in office in the year 1830. His right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had only done justice to his predecessors in office, when he said that a measure of the same kind with that which he had that night so clearly developed to the House had engaged their deep consideration. When he (Mr. Goulburn) was in office, in 1830, he had completed the consolidation of the laws relating to the stamp duties—which then were only 161 in number, though they now reached the larger sum which his right hon. Friend had mentioned—and had introduced into the House in the early part of the Session of that year a new schedule of duties upon various articles. That schedule was dif-
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ferent, he admitted, in many respects from the schedule which had been introduced that evening by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His right hon. Friend, owing to the longer continuance of peace, and to the expansion which that prolonged continuance of peace had given to all the springs of productive industry, had been fortunate enough to have larger funds at his disposal than had fallen to his (Mr. Goulburn's) lot, and had, therefore, been able to make larger reductions than he could afford to the country with a due regard to public credit. Unfortunately, when he was in office, it was necessary for him to make some increase in some of the stamp duties, in order to meet the deficiency in the revenue, which he anticipated would arise from the reduction of taxes which he had proposed on some articles of general consumption. He admitted, likewise, that his plan of consolidation differed in some respects from that of his right hon. Friend, and if he (Mr. Goulburn) preferred his own plan, he hoped that the House would believe that it was not from any foolish attachment to it because it was his own, but from a deep impression on his mind that the course which he had himself struck out would be more convenient to the public than that which was recommended by his right hon. Friend. His right hon. Friend proposed to consolidate all the existing Stamp Acts into one Act, containing 330 clauses. His own intention was to have consolidated them into several Acts, classifying the duties under the several articles to which they were to apply. With a view to the simplification of the law, with a view to its being more easily understood, and with a view to its future alteration and amendment, which must be expected in laws relating to the revenue more than in any other class of laws, he thought that his course would be at once more efficient and more satisfactory. It was his intention to have brought in one general law applicable to all descriptions of stamps, and to have followed it up with ten particular statutes, each applying to a particular description of stamps. The first would have related to the stamp duties on deeds and law-proceedings in England; the second, to the stamp duties on bills of exchange and on promissory notes; the third, to the stamp duties on probates of wills and on letters of administration; the fourth, to the stamp duties on news-

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papers; the fifth, to the duties on cards and dice; the sixth, to the duties on hawkers' and pedlars' licences; the seventh, to the duties on plate; the eighth, to the duties on stage-coaches and post horses; the ninth, to the duties on the proceedings in the courts of law and equity in Ireland; and the tenth, to the duties on game certificates. He thought that it would be easier for any person to refer to any one of those ten bills for any information which he wanted, than to wade for it through one long and voluminous statute with no less than 330 clauses. He hoped that before his right hon. Friend brought in the Bill, of which he had just stated the substance to the House, he would consider whether he would not be likely to consolidate the existing statutes better by placing the different stamp duties under different heads, than by placing them all together indiscriminately in one Bill. He thought that such a consolidation as that which his right hon. Friend was now proposing would rather serve to increase than diminish, the bulk of the laws affecting the stamp duties. It would be something like an abridgement of Blackstone's Commentaries, made by a young friend of his, on commencing the study of the law. Blackstone was in four volumes, octavo, and his friend's Abridgement extended to not more than twenty volumes, folio. He would now proceed to make a few remarks on the expediency of the course adopted by his right hon. Friend, in bringing forward this new schedule of duties on the present occasion. The House would, perhaps, recollect that, on a former evening, he had expressed great pleasure in being able to support his right hon. Friend in his opposition to the repeal of the Spirit Licences, which he had rested on this principle—that, before the House pledged itself to the repeal of any tax, it ought to have before it the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the financial condition of the country, on account of the surplus revenue which was at his disposal, and an explanation of the claims of the different interests in the community to relief. Concurring with his right hon. Friend in that principle, he thought that his right hon. Friend would have been acting more consistently if, before he introduced a new schedule of stamp duties, involving a reduction on one particular article, if not on more, he had followed the example set
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by him (Mr. Goulburn) in 1830, and had laid before the House an account of the revenue, in which his consolidation must, of necessity, make some alteration. In May, 1830, he (Mr. Goulburn) had felt it to be his duty, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to detail to the House the amount of our income and expenditure, and the probable surplus of income over expenditure; and after finishing that detail, he had stated the consolidation which he called upon the House to make. He contended that that was the most expedient course to take, and called the attention of the House to the great inconvenience to which his right hon. Friend had exposed himself by acting upon a contrary principle. In spite of the principle which his right hon. Friend had asserted on a former evening, that it was not expedient for the Finance Minister to pledge himself to the repeal of a tax before he was prepared to make a statement of the financial condition of the country for the year, he had pledged himself to one particular interest connected with the newspapers, to reduce the stamp duty on newspapers from 4d. deducting the discount, to 1d. Professing to keep the question of the repeal of taxation open, his right hon. Friend, whilst the House was yet ignorant of the amount of the revenue, and the surplus of that revenue over our expenditure, and of the claims of different interests to relief, had come to an understanding with certain parties that he would deal with an income of 400,000 l. by reducing a duty of 3d. to 1d. He (Mr. Goulburn) did not mean to say what diminution in the revenue would be occasioned by this reduction of taxation; but he did mean to say this—that before his right hon. Friend acceded to that reduction he ought to have explained to the House the financial situation of the country. Supposing that the present stamp duties were a grievance to the proprietors of newspapers, were not the spirit licences also a grievance to the owners and occupiers of public-houses? And yet his right hon. Friend, who had refused to give a pledge to reduce the taxation of which they complained to one of those parties, had pledged himself on the same point to the other party. He thought that this was not acting with the candour which he had a right to expect from his right hon. Friend. He must say a word or two as to the alterations which his right hon. Friend proposed to make in the scale

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of duties; and here he must remark that there was one singular deficiency in the speech of his right hon. Friend. His right hon. Friend had told the House of the great alterations which he intended to make in these duties, but he had not said one word to it respecting the probable gain or loss which the revenue would sustain in consequence of those alterations. For his own part, he must confess that where the scale of duties was altogether varied, he could not make a calculation on the moment as to the amount of reduction in the revenue which the variation would produce. With respect to the alteration which his right hon. Friend proposed to make in the stamp duties affecting leases, he thought that, by reducing the amount of duty on the smaller transactions, and by increasing it on the higher, the revenue must sustain a loss. For it was the duty bearing on the greatest number of transactions which created the mass of the revenue, and not the duty falling on the higher, and, therefore, the least numerous class of transactions. If, therefore, he was not mistaken, this alteration would certainly lead to a diminution of the national income. The main alteration, however, which his right hon. Friend proposed was an equal per centage on all those duties which had hitherto been levied by a graduating scale, and that the per centage was to be a lower duty than that which was in force at present. He should like to have heard from his right hon. Friend the calculation which he had made of loss or gain from this alteration upon the data before him. With respect to the stamp duties on probates of wills and letters of administration, every person who had filled the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer knew the great difficulty of regulating those duties. To calculate the duty and to enforce the payment of it upon the whole amount of the personal property belonging to the deceased, and then to remit such a portion of it as covered the amount of the debts due to him, appeared at first sight a harsh measure; but the principle on which that amount of duty was levied was nothing else but the impossibility of getting the full amount of duty in any other manner. It would have been most satisfactory to him had his right, hon. Friend stated to the House the means by which he expected to obtain the knowledge of the net amount of the testator's property—that amount which was
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now only obtained with difficulty, by means which he had condemned as unjust. Upon that part of the subject his right hon. Friend had been perfectly silent; and yet it would have been most satisfactory had he told the House how he intended to guard against the frauds which had been so often practised to evade the revenue laws on this head. His right hon. Friend, it appeared, did not intend during this Session to impose a new tax on more than one article, and that was to be imposed on the share which any individual might have in a joint-stock transaction. Now, he contended that this was introducing a new principle altogether into our system of legislation. There had always been a duty on the transfer of shares, but that duty was not imposed upon the share because it was property, but upon the deed which made it a conveyance of property, and which, therefore, rendered it liable to the duty. But his right hon. Friend now proposed to place a duty upon the share itself. If the duty were a moderate duty, and if it were intended to facilitate our knowledge of the parties who really held shares, he saw no objection on principle to the imposition of such a duty; but if the duty were carried beyond a moderate limit, it would be an obstacle to industry and a bar to enterprise. His objection would, therefore, depend on the amount of the duty, which his right hon. Friend had plainly stated that he would not declare until a future period. There was another point to which he must advert, at the risk of exposing himself again, as he had exposed himself before, to considerable obloquy, by the expression of his opinions upon it. It would, perhaps, be remembered by the House that, when in 1830, he submitted his schedule of stamp duties to Parliament, he had proposed to make an equalization of those duties throughout the empire—in other words, to make the stamp duties in Ireland the same as in England. He had made that proposition, because he saw no reason why two parts of the United Kingdom, now that they were united, should be liable to the payment of different duties. In point of fact, there could be no reason why a great landholder in Ireland should not pay the same amount of probate duty and legacy duty, and the same amount of stamp duty on his conveyances as an English landholder; and after the discussions which they had recently heard on the propriety

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of assimilating the laws passed for Ireland to those passed for England, he certainly did expect to hear his right hon. Friend opposite, and all those who clamoured for justice for Ireland, join in calling for that equalization. He did expect to hear them sing out in one grand chorus—"Do not degrade Ireland, by giving her a different stamp act from that which you have yourselves. We are not so poor and so wretched as to be unable to pay the same amount of duties that you pay. Assimilate your laws in both countries, and in taxation, as well as in other matters, give us the full benefit of the British constitution." But no; his right hon. Friend, and the friends of Ireland who sat around him, forgot upon this point their own principle: they did not wish the law of Ireland to be assimilated to that of England; and they were very well content that Ireland should only pay half the amount of stamp duties collected in England. If the House should be inclined to go along with his right hon. Friend in that proposition, it would undoubtedly be granting to Ireland a large and liberal relief; but before the House granted that relief, it ought to have had a statement laid before it of the revenue and expenditure of the country, and it ought to have seen whether, with a due regard to existing obligations, it could afford to give this reduction of duty to the newspapers, and to make this reduction in the amount of Irish stamps. He hoped that his right hon. Friend would follow the example which he had set him when in office, in 1830, and would lay upon the Table a statement in two parallel columns of the rates of duties now paid, and of the rates to be substituted in lieu of them by this schedule, in all the different parts of the empire. There was another topic in the plan of his right hon. Friend to which he must also briefly advert, and that was the duty which his right hon. Friend intended to propose upon bills of exchange. No man could fill the situation of Chancellor of the Exchequer without knowing how liable to evasion the law was on bills of exchange. If the alteration which his right hon. Friend intended to introduce upon this point should have a tendency to facilitate the transactions of trade, and to guard against evasions of the law, no man would be more glad of it than he should. His right hon. Friend had told them that he intended to reduce the duty
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on the smaller bills of exchange, but he had not told them what he intended to do with respect to promissory notes. Now, if the House did not deal with promissory notes as it was now recommended to deal with bills of exchange, the bankers would be compelled to make small bills of exchange, instead of small promissory notes, which they circulated at present, and it might be worth while to consider what effect that would produce on the circulation of the country. If, then, his right hon. Friend intended to deal with small bills of exchange, he must be prepared to deal exactly in the same way with promissory notes. His right hon. Friend had also informed the House of several small remissions of taxation which he intended to make, and which he considered as likely to be highly beneficial to the classes to which they would apply. He was not unwilling to receive even a small remission of taxation from the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; on the contrary, he received it with joy and thankfulness; and that brought him to remark that his right hon. Friend had done injustice to hon. Gentlemen on his (Mr. Goulburn's) side of the House, when he taxed them with receiving his proposal to repeal the taxes on shepherds' dogs, on tiles, and on taxed carts, not with gratitude, but with ridicule and shouts of laughter. The reason why they had indulged in that laughter was, that his right hon. Friend had promulgated the repeal of those taxes as calculated to give great relief to the agricultural interest, then in a state of great distress. The ridicule was not applied to the reduction of the tax, but to the pompous and inflated style in which that reduction was proposed. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by expressing his entire concurrence in the suggestion of his right hon. Friend, that they ought not to avail themselves of their right to raise a discussion, which would be interminable, on each item in the schedule, but that they should confine themselves to the discussion of those items in which any alteration either had been made or ought to be effected.
Mr. Edward L. Bulwerhad but a few remarks to make upon the important subject under the attention of the House. He should very certainly refrain from attempting to follow the right hon. Gentleman opposite, through the details of the many wonderful things which he set forth as

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having been within his intention to bless the nation with. Upon the right hon. Gentleman's speech he would only observe that it was quite in keeping with all the acts of his former public life, that though he had been ever opposed to the idea of giving to the Irish people an equality of British advantages, he was now most anxious to bestow upon them a full equality in British hardships. Nor was it his intention to follow the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer through the details of his admirable, eloquent, and comprehensive speech; he merely rose for the purpose of saying a few words upon a subject in which he had himself been more particularly interested. He had been much blamed out of the House, and a little in it, for not pressing the House to a division on the last occasion that he had the honour of bringing forward the subject of the stamp duties on newspapers. His decision upon that occasion had been founded upon his conviction, from the assurance then given by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that his object would be as fully satisfied without going to a division, as if it went successfully through that or several other divisions, and in all probability more speedily. As to the proposed reduction of the newspaper stamp duties to 1d. he was still distinctly of opinion that the entire abolition of them was far more desirable than any reduction however large and liberal. But at the same time, as he knew and acknowledged that every liberal measure was the result of compromise, he should not think of rejecting the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, which, under the circumstances, he considered to be the best compromise which could be offered. He, however, should reserve to himself the full right of speaking further upon this subject, and of voting in a division as he should think fit.
Mr. William Ordbegged to offer the hon. Gentleman who spoke last his congratulations upon the near approximation which was proposed to be made to the object which that hon. Gentleman had so eloquently advocated when in a small minority upon the point. With reference to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, his proposal of placing in parallel columns the existing stamp duties and those proposed to be substituted, it would be impossible to act upon in the present case, from the nature of the sections. As to
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the right hon. Gentleman's joke about the abridgment of Blackstone in twenty folio volumes, it applied much more aptly to the right hon. Gentleman's own consolidation schedule than to the one now proposed. The schedule now proposed contained but 330 sections, while that of the right hon. Member extended to 456 sections, being thus more bulky by 126 sections than the present one. The right hon. Gentleman complained, that his right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of Exchequer, had anticipated his budget, but the same course had been pursued on former occasions.
Mr. Thomas Duncomberose to order. He wished to ask whether this discussion was proceeding in the spirit in which it was stated by the right hon. Gentleman that it should. If the Government were to have leave to bring on the Government orders to the exclusion of motions, and long discussions were to ensue upon them, it would be impossible for Gentlemen who had motions to make ever to bring them forward. He did not say this with the least wish to press his motion on the House; he knew it would be defeated by a large majority; nevertheless he would press it to a division—but he asked the question with reference to other motions, and amongst them that of his hon. colleague, who had a motion on the paper for the total repeal of the stamp duty on newspapers. He was also favourable to the total repeal of that duty. The motion of his hon. colleague was made to give way, that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer might make his statement, and the understanding was, that no discussion should take place. They could not prevent hon. Gentlemen opposite from discussing the question if they pleased, it was a matter of taste for their consideration, and the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the University of Cambridge, had gone into the question in a manner that rendered it impossible the debate could be put a stop to now unless he could prove that the spirit in which the subject was entered into had been violated by the right hon. Gentleman, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by the hon. Gentleman who was one of the Lords of the Treasury.
Mr. Ordwould save the House the trouble of debating the question of order-by resting on the statement of his right hon. Friend to answer the objections

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which had been urged against it. He would merely beg leave to acknowledge the compliment, which in so gratifying a manner had been paid to him by his right hon. Friend.
Mr. Humeexpressed himself satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, as far as it went; but he still entertained a hope, that, at no very distant period, a new light would break in upon the right hon. Gentleman, and that he would become favourable to the entire repeal of the newspaper tax.
Mr. Wakleywas not satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, nor would his constituents be. He should certainly take an opportunity of dividing the House on the question as to the total repeal of the newspaper stamp duty. That impost was proposed originally by the 10th of queen Anne, for the purpose of putting down publications that were obnoxious to the Government. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman, that the general impression out of doors was, that the stamp tax was imposed in order that the newspapers might not give political information. The people thought that the goings in this House were such that the tax was imposed to prevent the people from coming to a knowledge of them. The people required information, and why was it to be denied to them? The hon. Gentleman then referred to the case of Cleave, who was confined in Tothill-fields prison for an alleged infraction of the Stamp Act. He never saw a more revolting sight than he witnessed last Friday, when he went to visit Cleave in prison. The 16th George II. provided for the punishment of the "venders" of unstamped newspapers. Mr. Cleave, when he was seized, had the papers in his bag in a cab. He was asked what he had in his possession, and he replied, "newspapers;" he was not "vending" them. Who could say what description of paper came legally under that definition. What was news? People had no right to publish the debates of the House. Could they be called news? Lord Tenterden had decided, that it was illegal to publish police reports. Could they, then, be called news? He thought these matters were subjects to which Ministers ought to give their most serious consideration.
Resolution agreed to.

EXCISE DUTY ON SOAP.
Mr. Hand- ley, Sir, in rising to bring forward the Motion of which I have given notice. I regret that I cannot adopt the suggestions of my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, even if no other circumstances impelled me, the right hon. Gentleman had himself certainly furnished an important reason why the question of the Soap Duties should without delay be brought under the notice of the House, by pledging himself to the disposal of a large portion of the revenue in a manner which I can assure him will not meet with the approbation of those whom I have the honour to represent, and who complained, not without reason, that they have unfortunately been always excluded from the financial arrangements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, through whatever side of the House he might come. It will be in the recollection of the House that, at the opening of the present Session, his Majesty, in his speech from the Throne, called upon the House, to direct their special attention to any measure that might tend to alleviate the distress prevalent in agricultural districts. Of that character will be found the motion which I am about to introduce to the attention of the House; but it is also connected with a circumstance I think will be considered no slight recommendation. Much as I wish, and ever have sought, that the agricultural districts should receive that protection to which they are entitled, I confess, Sir, that I should not now, or on any occasions claim relief for them, at the expense of other portions of the community. And it will form therefore matter of recommendation to this motion, that, while it comprises some portion of relief to agriculture, it will benefit all classes of the community, and give encouragement to a most important and declining branch of British manufacture. It is unnecessary, Sir, to dwell upon the subject of agricultural distress; it is universally known and deplored. But I may be permitted to observe that last year it was not of a more mitigated character than at any preceding period. But as no evil is without its concomitant good, so there is some consolation, I am inclined to think, even in this state of things. I speak from many communications I have received as well as from my own experience when I say that the different classes. operatives in this country are beginning to feel sympathy for their agricultural

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brethren in distress. I believe that the manufacturers have discovered that they are interested in our success, and that the operatives are at last convinced that even the price of the necessaries of life may be too low when accompanied with agricultural distress. Sir, tallow is entirely an article of agricultural produce; it is furnished by almost every class of agriculturists; there is scarcely a small farmer who does not keep his flock of sheep; and it is to be observed, that the grower of grain can change his produce for some article bearing a higher rate of profit, as he pleases; the farmer who produces meat; (whether beef or tallow) must necessarily produce tallow, which of all articles of agricultural produce is the most expensive and the least remunerating. From 1810 to 1820, the price of tallow was 73 s. per cwt., from 1820 to 1830, it fell from 73 s. to 42 s. per cwt. I beg the House also to remember, that the duty on Russian tallow is only 31. 4s. per ton, and I should have thought that hon. Gentlemen, and particularly my right hon. Friend, would have had too much jealousy of the Russian Chancellor of the Exchequer to have allowed that country thus to come into competition with British commercial interests. Last year, Sir, the duty on lamp-oils was reduced one-half the consumption has in; consequence, I am assured, nearly doubled. I will grant that the principle is so good that, at no very distant day, I hope to see it extended to malt but my object in mentioning it was only to remark that lamp-oils had, since the reduction of duty, come seriously into competition with tallow. But these, Sir, are after all, but mere minor complaints, compared with that which I am now about to submit to the consideration of the House. Independently of having to contend against the low duty on foreign tallow, and the competition of cheap lamp-oil, the best customer for British tallow, the soap manufacturer, has to contend against a system of excise, so odious, so anomalous, that nothing but absolute necessity can justify it. What will the House suppose when I tell them, that notwithstanding the manufacture of soap is one most dependent on science, and especially on chemistry, and notwithstanding that large sums are daily expended for gaining such information as may be advantageous to the improvement of the process; what will
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the House think when I tell them, that the soap manufacturer is unable to avail himself of those improvements suggested from time to time by the restrictions imposed on him by the excise system, a system which confines him to the use of the same machinery, and the adoption of the same processes, to which he was restricted in the reign of Queen Anne? What has been the consequence? Why, the home produce—there being no export trade,—is unable to compete with the foreign; and smuggling has increased to an extent really alarming—particularly in Ireland, where there is no duty, so much so indeed as to have been brought under the attention of the Commissioners of seh thed I am glad I have had an opportunity of inspecting their Report before bringing on my motion; and I call the attention of the Irish Members to the "Pandora's box" which I am about to open for Ireland. At present there is no duty on soap in that country; and one of the first recommendations of the Commissioners in their Report is that the duty should be extended to Ireland, and that both the countries should be placed under the same regulations. I congratulate the Irish Members on the cheering prospect of "equal justice" about to be dealt out to Ireland. I wish the hon. and learned Member for Dublin joy of it. But let him bear in mind that if he does not vote with me his fair land will soon be trodden by the unhallowed footsteps of a phalanx of soap duty collecting excisemen. Another recommendation of the Report is, that the duty on soft soap shall be reduced to 1s. 3d. per pound. There are eleven millions of pounds manufactured of that article (of which nine or ten million are consumed in manfactures); yet such a system of fraud and collusion is the present system of draw backs that of that eleven millions of pounds, on seven only is there a drawback the remainder being returned as hard soap. Now, Sir, the Commissioners of Excise (distrusting their own judgment,) have called to their aid that great professor of the science of political ecomony, Mr. Mac Culloch. He is asked a question, whether there was any objection to repealing the duty on soap and imposing an import duty on foreign tallow? His first objection (although I believe I could prove that he held at one one time very different opinions upon the subject), his first objection was that it

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would raise the price of tallow; I believe Sir, however, that when duly considered the disadvantage would be more than counter balanced by the advantages of the proposition. He calls in aid of his opinion, a portion of the manufacturing community, who use a large quantity of tallow in the dressing of leather:—viz. the curriers; what quantity of tallow they use, I am unable to say; but this I know that in many intances they gather tallow by pressing it from the skins, which they are manufacturing into leather; and, though the greasing of machinery must consume a considerable quantity, they have now completely superseded tallow by the cheaper article of lamp-oil. Mr. Mac Culloch comes then to that which I dare say will be pressed on me to night with the greatest force—viz. that it is contrary to the principles of political economy to impose a tax upon a raw material. No rule, Sir, however, is without an exception; and, in the present instance, the exception has been justified by two of the aptest scholars of Mr. Mac Culloch, Lord Spencer, (then Lord Althorp) and Mr. P. Thomson (the present President of the Board of Trade). The first of these advocated the same principle as that for which I am contending when he proposed to reduce the duty on wax candles, and to impose a duty on foreign wax; the other, when he brought forward a proposition for repealing the tax on printed calicoes and imposing a duty on the raw material. But Mr. Mac Culloch gave it as his opinion that to impose heavier duties on foreign tallow would create dangerous dissatisfaction in Russia and probably provoke proceedings against our trade with that country. Sir, I have yet to learn what there is so congenial in Russian policy, so important in Russian interests, as to induce the Government of this country to sacrifice at its shrine the interests of British trade, or of any portion of the British population. I am of the same opinion, Sir, on this subject as the hon. Member for Middlesex, and I beg leave to refer to his authority. On another occasion he said, "To Russia we owe nothing? England takes three times the amount in value from Russia of what she takes from us; and why should this country take timber to the amount of 800,000 l. a-year from Russia, why should Russian tallow be admitted at a low duty, when she
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has lately imposed a duty of 12½ per cent on all British imports, and excluded our refined sugars entirely from her ports? The right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has just bespoken a large portion of surplus revenue for a purpose which, is, I think, not very congenial with the wishes of the rural portion of the community Hear, hear], unquestionably not calculated to raise the price of wheat, or relieve, according to the recommendations of the agricultural Committee, any of the burthens pressing peculiarly upon land, peculiarly noticed in his Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne, I do feel, that the interest which I have undertaken to advocate will be placed in a most disadvantageous position if the House do not enable me, by a strong recommendation, to urge the matter upon the favourable attention of the right hon. Gentleman. Sir, the plan which I propose is this: to repeal the duty on soap, amounting to 600,000 l. per annum; and raise the duty on importation of tallow to 10 l. a ton, which will raise a revenue of 320,000 l., leaving 280,000 l. to come out of that surplus, which from the liberality with which the right hon. Gentleman deals with it already, I have reason to hope will be announced to us. Yet, as the price of tallow in Russia is, I believe, far more than remunerating, we may assume that the benefit of the 320,000 l. will be principally divided by the producers and consumers at home; but as the quantity imported is but fifty tons, and the quantity produced at home is 500 tons, I have a right to calculate that the benefit to the agriculturists will not be more than about a halfpenny per lb. in the price of tallow, or 32,000 l. in the whole. Sir, it is true this may have the effect of raising the price of candles, and that is the only objection which can, with propriety, be urged against the proposition. But a penny a-pound has recently been taken off candles, and this plan will only impose a halfpenny a-pound on that article, while the consumer of candles and soap being the same, the diminution of the tax on the latter being four times the amount of the imposition on candles, the bargain will still greatly preponderate in favour of the public. They will gain the difference between the 320,000 l. to be imposed, and the 600,000 l. to be taken off. I should observe, that at no period could there be less apprehension

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entertained by Members representing the commercial interest as to the effect of any demonstration of opinion in this House. No detriment could arise to trade from any such expressions as the shipments from Russia take place between July and August. Sir, I therefore hope, that the House will affirm the abstract principle on which my Motion is founded, and with that view I beg to move, that the "House do now resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House on the Excise and Customs Duties, to consider the expediency of repealing the Excise Duty on Soap, and augmenting the Customs Duties on foreign Tallow."
Mr. Halford: Sir, I rise to second this motion in the discharge of that duty which I owe to my constituents, in common with the whole agricultural body. I wish their interests had fallen into abler hands; but, Sir, after the clear elucidation of my hon. Friend, I have little more to do than to repeat the appeal he has made for protection and relief to the agricultural portion of the country. The proposal of the hon. Gentleman, in my opinion, is calculated to benefit the agricultural interests, and not only their interests, but that of every other class of the community. I know very well that we should hear of the impolicy of imposing a tax upon the raw material. I think that such an argument would serve to show the injustice which would be inflicted on the agriculturists, if, under the present circumstances, we were to admit foreign articles of common necessity to the home market, while there is also a scale of duties which affords no protection to the British producers, and robs them of that fair remuneration to which they are entitled. It is my opinion, that the doctrines of free trade and political economy, however expedient they may be in other departments, are inapplicable to agriculture; an interest, the importance of which I cannot exaggerate; and which is now burthened far more than is consistent with sound policy. Unless protection is afforded to the commodity in question, it will be impossible for it to compete with foreign produce; and if we can transfer from the Russian Exchequer to the pockets of the British agriculturists, some portion of the duty now enjoyed by that country, I think we are bound so to do. I have no doubt that the small increase of duty which is now sought for on the foreign article would increase the value of land about 30 s.
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per acre—there will be an advance in the price to that amount. But no man is more convinced than I am of the futility of any measure intended to relieve the agriculturists by depressing another portion of the community. I will say for myself that I am bound up with the manufacturing interest, and am the representative of a manufacturing as well as an agricultural district. It is clear that any injury done to the manufacturers would immediately be recoiled upon the land. In the district I represent this is felt to be the case. In Leicestershire the whole burthen of the support of the manufacturing population devolves exclusively upon the land. My meaning will be understood when I say, that in that county, which is a manufacturing county—a county in which the manufacturing exceeds the agricultural population—there 139,303 l. 6s. was levied in one year for poor and county rates, and in that the contribution paid by mills and factories, liable to the assessments, was but 783 l. The cost of the candle which gives light in the cottage of the Leicestershire weaver is to be deducted from his scanty weekly earnings. Such an individual will certainly feel the increased cost; but the proposal of my hon. Friend comprises a reduction in an article which is equally necessary; and I support that proposition, because I am convinced that the labouring population will be gainers in point of comfort and saving of expense by its success; that is an object of great importance, and I am prepared to give to the motion of my hon. Friend my warmest and most cordial support. On the financial part of the subject I have very little to say, but if I were competent to discuss this point, I would ask whether you will hesitate to choose between cheap newspapers and cheap soap? which is most conducive to the comfort of the labouring part of the community?
Mr. Poulett Thomsonstated, that it was not upon the relative merits of his hon. Friend's proposition, as compared with the repeal of the tax upon newspapers, that he should wish to argue this question; but upon the simple proposition of his hon. Friend, and to say, that if the revenue were in a condition to spare the amount which his hon. Friend proposed to reduce, this was not the mode in which he should be inclined to appropriate it; because he believed that the proposition of his hon. Friend would not be conducive either

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to the general advantage of the country, or to the particular advantage of the class whose interests his hon. Friend advocated; and because, above all, he was satisfied that it was entirely opposed to the whole course of legislation which had been followed up for years by successive Governments, beginning with the Government, in 1820, under Lord Liverpool; by the Government of the Duke of Wellington; by the Government of Lord Grey; by the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and by the Government at present existing. He did not believe that the proposition of his hon. Friend had been correctly explained to the House. His hon. Friend, so far as he understood him, proposed to transfer the duty on tallow to this extent; he wished to get rid of the excise duty, and he proposed to make up for the loss of this duty, by the imposition of a fresh custom-tax; or a duty of 10 l. per ton. His hon. Friend stated, as the result, a loss of 250,000 l. to the revenue; and, as he understood his hon. Friend, the gain to the consumer would be 300,000 l. Now, if the House would indulge him for a few minutes, he would, from his calculations, undertake to show, that the consumer would not be benefitted, that the landed proprietor would not be benefited, and that the country generally would lose a great deal. The consumption of tallow in this country was 155,000 tons; of these 55,000 tons were foreign tallow imported, and there were 100,000 tons of home produce. Take then the revenue on the plan of his hon. Friend, supposing his plan to be carried into effect, and that 55,000 tons was the quantity at present imported; suppose that so much should continue to be imported (and he should afterwards be prepared to show that such would not be the case), but supposing the same quantity should still come into the home-market, the duty upon that would be 550,000 l. From that they must deduct the amount of the duty at present imposed, 171,000 l. and there remained then the sum of 379,000 l. as the probable increase of the revenue from this source. His hon. Friend had proposed the repeal of the soap duty, which he said was about 600,000 l. That was the duty in 1834; but the net amount of the duty, deducting the drawback, was 736,000 l. His hon. Friend had added a charge for collection; but they all knew, from experience, that where the excise existed for certain pur-
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poses, the reduction of officers would be nothing like the large amount, or equal to the difference which his hon. Friend had stated. Deducting then 379,000 l. from 736,000 l., the loss to the revenue would be 357,000 l. according to his hon. Friend's plan. But, according to that statement, his hon. Friend supposed that there would be no falling-off in the import of the article; and he was not right in-assuming that. On the contrary, the natural result of imposing, where there was already 3l. a ton duty, an additional 7l. a ton, would be to add to the price of the article 20 per cent. There was every reason for calculating, when that was done, that there would be a falling-off of 15,000 or 20,000 tons. That would reduce the revenue still further—making the loss, as stated by his hon. Friend, not 250,000 l., but 357,000 l. Indeed, he believed the loss to the revenue would be very little short of 500,000 l. But the question of loss to the revenue formed but a small portion of the subject as he should view it. He now came to another part of his hon. Friend's statement—namely the gain to consumers, which his hon. Friend stated would be 300,000 l. His hon. Friend did, indeed, admit that some disadvantage might perhaps arise from an increase of duty upon candles, and from the increased price to be paid by the consumer on tallow used in machinery. But that his hon. Friend should have passed over that part of the subject so very lightly did certainly astonish him. He had already stated that the home produce of tallow amounted to 100,000 tons; that of foreign importation to 55,000 tons. Now, how was that whole quantity distributed when it came into consumption? According to the best calculations made, it appeared that the amount of tallow consumed in soap was about 25,000 tons. It was supposed that about 115,000 tons were used for making candles. The amount used by machinery, hides, and other purposes was 15,000 tons. Thus they had 130,000 tons upon which his hon. Friend proposed to raise the duty, and 25,000 tons upon which he proposed to take it off. Now, these 130,000 tons upon which his hon. Friend proposed to increase the duty by the amount of 6l. 16 s. (which, together with the present duty of 3l. 4s., made 10 l.), according to that increase, would produce 884,000 l. He then added, of course, the proposed amount of duty on the 25,000 tons of tallow used in soap,

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being 250,000 l., from which he deducted the present amount of duty, 170,000 l., making a total of 1,064,000 l. Now, he took his estimate of the soap duty at 736,000 l., which being deducted from the previous sum of 1,064,000 l. produced a balance of about 330,000 l., which sum was lost to the consumer, instead of his gaining, as staled by his hon. Friend, 300,000 l. Then if the revenue were to submit to this loss of 330,000 l., the loss, as he had shown, would be to the consumer. If, to make up this difference, his hon. Friend should propose to raise the duty from 10 l. to 16 l. a-ton, even supposing the amount imported to be as it was at present, instead of any falling-off taking place, that increase would scarcely be sufficient to secure the revenue from loss; they would even be obliged to go beyond it, and raise the duty to 20 l. a-ton, in order to have any chance of preserving the revenue from loss. His hon. Friend had said, that according to their own principles, he could show that they had acted in a manner similar to what he now proposed, and gave as an instance the article of wax. His hon. Friend, with his acuteness, should have seen the difference between the two subjects. It had been said, "there is a river in Macedon and a river in Monmouth," and there was no more analogy between the two questions, than between those two points. There was but a small quantity of foreign wax imported; and when the excise duty upon candles was wholly repealed, it was not considered advisable to continue all the labour, trouble, and vexation of inspecting the import of such articles for a duty which was trifling in amount. He- came next to the article of cottons, to which his hon. Friend had alluded. The duty was calculated at 2,000,000 l. sterling; but there was received from it at the Exchequer only 500,000 l., all the rest went in drawbacks; and under all these considerations they came to this—whether for 500,000 l. they would undergo all the annoyance and trouble imposed, as well as placing impediments in the way of trade, and that for collecting the excise duty on an article calculated to bring to the Exchequer 2,000,000 l., but of which the real amount was only 500,000 l. What was then the duty of the House? It was some indication of what was likely to be the consequence of his hon. Friend's, motion, that to induce the House to agree
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to it, his hon. Friend had expressly and distinctly stated, that it could be but temporary. The tax upon raw cotton was admitted to be a bad one. Two years afterwards it was found to be so bad, that his noble Friend and himself had the satisfaction of coming down to that House and declaring that they would get rid of the obnoxious tax—and they now felt the full advantage of its certain repeal. Such, too, would be the case with any tax they might add to the tax on foreign tallow. What benefit then for the agriculturists did his hon. Friend propose by the imposition of a duty of 10 l. upon foreign tallow for a year or two? It would only raise expectations, which could not be realised. It would be exceedingly unwise to create new hopes—inducing the agriculturists to turn their attention to other modes of cultivation; it would force produce—and the produce would be nothing but forced—because it would de-depend upon the continuance of a high duty, which the Legislature at some time or other must repeal. Nothing could be more unwise than thus forcing industry, and encouraging a manufacture by a bounty which could not last. But did his hon. Friend suppose that the manufacturers would be willing to pay the increased price upon tallow? that they would not, in their turn, at a time when chemistry was so far advanced, turn their attention to the use of oils, and the possibility of substituting them for tallow? Unless, then, his hon. Friend imposed an additional duty upon oils, his object would be defeated. An hon. Gentleman opposite said, that doctrines of political economy were not applicable to agriculture, and not applicable to the question of soap! Political economy had much to do with this question; and to impose a heavy duty upon the raw material of an article afterwards to be exported, was one of the most extraordinary propositions he ever heard. The effect of the proposition of his hon. Friend would be this—to raise the duty on exported soap to 10 l., when at present it is well known it can be scarcely exported, although only subject to a duty of 3l. Upon all these grounds,—that the proposal would cause a loss, a positive loss to the consumer, and that it would not be a relief to the agriculturists,—he should oppose the motion of his hon. Friend. He was satisfied that the permanent relief would be none, and temporary relief little. He would entreat the House not to be in-

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duced, under the pretence of transferring the burden of one tax to another commodity, to break in upon the system which had been matured and acted upon with such good effect for a long series of years. As to the duty on soap, he would remind the House that that had already been reduced by one-half, a circumstance which, he thought, gave it the less claim to immediate consideration with a view to further reduction; and for his own part, he was inclined to believe the amount proposed to be remitted might be better applied to the relief of the agriculturists, than by a remission of this particular tax. It was on these grounds that he was prepared to resist the proposal of his hon. Friend, a course in which he trusted he should be supported by the House.
Colonel Sibthorphad not heard a single observation fall from the right hon. the President of the Board of Trade which could be called an argument against the proposal of his hon. Friend, who, he only complained, had not gone so far as he (Colonel Sibthorp) was inclined to go. He was prepared to show, by means of stubborn facts, that if this proposal were acted upon, not only would the large body of the agriculturists of the country be considerably benefited, but the revenue itself would be increased. The right hon. Gentleman had put this subject in comparison with the trumpery tax upon newspapers, but he (Colonel Sibthorp) would venture to say that the labourer would gladly throw aside his book, and his newspaper too, if he could see a good sirloin of beef on his table. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by observing that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought on his budget he should again urge the claims of the agriculturists.
Mr. Hawesrose to offer a few words in support of the motion. He believed he could show that this question presented a case of sound special exception to a very good general rule, which had been well enforced by his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. At the same time, however, he must say that his right hon. Friend had betrayed a very singular want of acquaintance with the practical part of this manufacture. His right hon. Friend argued that an increased duty on raw material could not be imposed without proving injurious to the export trade in the manufactured article. But the case of soap was an exception to this principle; the fact being that the chief
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export trade in soap was supplied from other raw material than tallow, the greater part of exported soap being made from colonial oil. Putting an increased duty upon the imported tallow, therefore, could not affect the export trade in soap. His right hon. Friend had next gone on to show that the consumer could not be benefitted by adopting the present proposal. He was not prepared to say that the consumer would in every case be benefitted. In the case of candles he admitted that an increased duty on tallow must cause an increase in price to the consumer. By reducing the duty on soap, however, he contended the advantage must be considerable to the consumer; although the total amount of duty levied on soap was 1,076,000 l., the amount which reached the treasury, after all the various expences of collection had been paid, was only about 638,000 l. He maintained, therefore, that the same argument which his right hon. Friend had used some years ago, when reducing the duty upon printed cottons, would apply to the present case, when it appeared that a very large amount of tax was levied upon the consumer, of which a very inconsiderable portion was available to the support of the state. Now, whilst this was the state of the case in regard to the revenue, the operation of the present system upon the manufacture of this very useful article of soap was equally remarkable. The trade having been almost at a stand-still for a considerable time of late years, not with standing the vast increase of population, and the increased consumption in other articles of general use, and notwithstanding the enormous fall which had taken place in the price of the raw material—notwithstanding all these circumstances, it would be found that the receipts upon the soap duties had been almost stationary since the year 1833–34. He had only one word to say with regard to smuggling, and that was, that that practice had not been diminished by the reduction of the duty upon soap. He believed it would be found on a careful inquiry, that the amount of soap actually made in England was nearly double what was charged for.
Mr. Francis Baringrose to offer a very few observations on the present question. To begin with the remark of the hon. Member for Lambeth, that soap for exportation was chiefly manufactured from colonial oil and not from tallow, that was an argument which went against himself.

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It had been said, that the reduction of the duty on soap had been of no advantage, inasmuch as the consumption had been mostly stationary for a series of years. He trusted that no expression would ever he used by him which would manifest an indifference to the interest of that trade. He had only to refer to the reduction of the duty and the Report of the Commissioners who sat upon this subject, to prove that neither he nor his colleagues had been at all neglectful of that interest. In order to show how unfounded the assertion was, that the consumption of soap had not increased on the lowering of the duty, he would only state the opinion of a respectable witness who was examined before the Commission, and who alleged "that a much better and more economical kind of soap had of late been used, and consequently a much larger quantity of real soap consumed. This witness also stated, that half as much soap again would be consumed if there were no excise. For the purpose of clearing up all doubt upon this matter, he would just mention the average consumption of the years 1828, 1829, and 1830, compared with that of the years 1831, 1832, and 1833, was 17,000,000lbs.of hard soap, and 9,000,000lbs of soft soap; whilst, if the consumption of the year 1834 was compared with the average consumption of the years 1828, 1829, and 1830, it would be found to amount to nearly 20,000,000lbs. of hard soap, and 10,000,000lbs of soft soap. He begged of the hon. Gentlemen connected with Ireland to reflect how the proposed measure would affect them. The argument addressed to the representatives of England was, that they would have an equivalent for raising the price of candles on the reduced price of soap. Now Ireland paid a duty neither on soap nor tallow; and the consequence of the change proposed would be, to impose a duty on both those articles in that country.
Mr. Warburton;Sir, this proposition involves two distinct questions; first, the remission of the excise duty on soap; and next, the imposition of an additional duty on tallow for the protection and benefit of English agriculturists. In the beginning of this Session I was marvelling what measures they were that would be proposed to the House to give relief to the agriculturists without their putting their hands into the pockets of the general consumer. Sir, I see that now the problem is solved; here is a measure
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for imposing an additional tax upon tallow imported from a foreign country, the effect of which will be to raise the price of all tallow generally 7l. a ton, it being notorious that two thirds of the tallow consumed in this country is of home and only one third of foreign production. And thus the agriculturists will be relieved to the extent of 700,000 l., whilst the Government will receive by the imposing of the duty on foreign tallow only 380,000 l. This I own is consistent with the views expressed at the beginning of the Session as to the manner in which the agriculturists would obtain relief, as well as with my own suspicion at the time that their plan for attaining that object would be by taxing the rest of the community. So long as the policy of the corn-laws is kept up, so long as any measure is proposed for the relief of the agriculturists by taxing the rest of the community, I will not cease to hold up my voice against them. It is an act of injustice to the rest of the community; it is coming forward to raise a flimsy veil before our eyes, while you are at the same time going to put on a tax for your own relief, bolstering it up by the pretence of taking off the excise duty on soap. Let a proposition be made for changing or taking off the excise duty on soap, and I will not say that I will not vote with you. But whilst I find that question mixed with that of imposing a duty on tallow I feel bound to resist the present motion. I must vote against the two motions because they are mixed inseparably together. With regard to agricultural distress what part of the agricultural body is most in want of relief? which has suffered most during that distress? not the stock-grazier, for the price of wool and meat remains high while other articles have been depressed? It is the wheat-growers who are the most distressed class, and they are just the class who will not be relieved by the present motion? Away then with this flimsy disguise; it is nothing more nor less than this, the putting into the excise 380,000 l. a-year while you are putting into your own pockets 700,000 l. a year; so long as such measures are brought into this House so long will I raise my voice and vote against them.
Viscount Sandonhoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would remember the beneficial effect of the former reduction of duty, and not persist in refusing the further reduction of the soap duties, which was demanded of him.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerbegged to recall the attention of the House to the facts alluded to in the beginning of the debate, the effect of which he, however unintentionally to influence the division, had not, as might be supposed from the observations of those in favour of this motion, called on the House to come to a division on the question of the stamp duty; but, on the contrary, plainly and distinctly stated, that all discussion on the question should be postponed. He, however, felt bound to express his views on such a subject, because he considered it of importance that the opinions of the Government on a measure of so peculiar a nature should be circulated throughout the country, and carefully considered by the House. These were objects which could not be attained by any other than the course which he had taken. But so anxious and so cautious was he to avoid calling on the House for any decision on the question, that in the schedule moved for in Committee to-night, the duties now in force were proposed to be continued. He had said that he was unwilling to have the opinion of the House taken on the question of stamps until the period when, on a review of the whole of the interests of the country, it could be determined what was best to be done; and if he could have abstained altogether from disclosing his opinions on the stamp duty it would have been more acceptable to himself, and more consistent with the principles which he had laid down for the fulfilment of his duty. On the same principles he was anxious that the question of the reduction of the duty on soap should be left perfectly open to be considered when the general proposition as to the manner in which the revenue of the country should be made up, was submitted. When it was said, that such and such a measure would involve no sacrifice of revenue, he said, "Wait till you hear my propositions, and see if I make out a case; and I will hear your propositions, and adopt them if I can." The questions were open, and he was ready to argue them when the proper time came. With respect to the proposition before the House, there was one circumstance which had not been adverted to, but which had considerable weight. The only possible ground on which it could be proposed (though he dissented from the proposition) was, that it was a measure of relief to the agricultural interest. But were Gentlemen anxious to anticipate the decision of the Committee now sitting on the subject? Did they wish to overturn the
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authority of that Committee? Surely they ought to wait till they had the Report of the Committee. And with respect to agricultural distress, the growers of wheat were the parties distressed, not the raisers of tallow. The effect of the proposed measure would be, not to raise the price of foreign tallow only, but of all tallow, and to take, 2s. or 3s. out of the pockets of the people, while it would give only 1s. to the revenue. And this single interest had, a few years ago, been relieved of the whole duty on candles, and half the duty on soap. For that interest he felt respect and sympathy, but he must look to the welfare of the whole country, and he thought it was not to the advantage of that interest, in the eyes of the country, to come forward with a proposition by which they alone would be the gainers. The noble Lord had said, that the measure would act as a remission of rent to the extent of 10 per cent. to the occupiers of land. Either the occupiers of land were entitled to that abatement or not. If they were entitled to it, this would be so much in the landlord's pocket; and if not, the landlords would get it; so that the whole effect of the measure would be to add to the rental of certain landlords. He admitted the objection to the excise regulations, and when opportunities offered to remove them, he had always been ready to do that. He was desirous that this question, not of duty on foreign tallow, but of the remission of the duty on soap—should be reserved until he made his general statement, when, if a case were made out in accordance with the view of the hon. Mover, he should not hesitate to adopt it. But at present he could not consent to the adoption of a motion which would tend to a great violation of principle, and which must entail great injustice on the consumer. Not wishing then to prejudge the question of the duty on soap, and not desiring that it should be identified with another question which he felt bound to resist, he deemed it but fair, just, and reasonable, that the subject should be reserved for future consideration.
Sir Robert Peelsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had not understood the precise nature of the complaint which had been made against the course he had pursued in respect to the stamp-duty. The noble Lord had not charged the Chancellor of the Exchequer with having given a pledge on that subject on the part of the House. It was quite unnecessary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to vindicate himself from that

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charge, for it was a charge that had never been brought, and by no man of common understanding could it have been brought. Every Member must be quite aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not, on the part of that House, give any pledge whatever. But the complaint was, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pledged the Government—that he had pledged himself and the Government, in respect to a reduction of a single class of duty, and it was considered unfair and impolitic to give any such pledge before they were in a condition to know the amount of available surplus, or whether there would be any surplus at all. It was matter of complaint that he should give a pledge to one class without considering the claims of other classes. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Don't prejudge the question; don't let us have a premature discussion." Why, what had the right hon. Gentleman done? Had he not prejudged the question? As far as it was possible the Chancellor of the Exchequer had entered on a premature discussion. Not only so, but, as far as he and the Government were concerned, he had given a pledge for the reduction of the stamp-duty on newspapers; the hon. Member for Lincoln said, he was so satisfied with the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that though he desired a total abolition of the duty, he was content with the promise he had received as to this one particular class of taxation, and being ready to listen to a reasonable compromise, he would not press his own view of the subject. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been pressed on the subject of the spirit duty, what had been his course? He had declined to express an opinion with reference to that duty. At any rate it was not fair that one particular class should have a pledge in favour of a reduction of taxation till the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought the whole subject of taxation before the House, and the Government should remain unpledged equally with the House, in order that it might consider impartially the claims of all. This was the nature of the charge which had been brought against the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from that charge he was in no degree relieved. The right hon. Gentleman said it was necessary he should bring before the country his project in respect to the stamps, though in his project he had retained the whole amount of the duty; there was the old schedule without any alteration. But the
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Chancellor of the Exchequer was just as much pledged to reduce the stamp duty as if the schedule had contained the new duty. If there had been a prima facie case in favour of the proposition of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Handley), he was entitled to bring it forward. Though it was dealing in a partial manner to make engagements for reduction of taxation before it was ascertained whether there would be any surplus at all, yet if he could make out a prima facie case, he was justified in pressing for relief. But, at the same time, although the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pledged himself to one alteration, the principle was so open to public inconvenience, that he (sir R. Peel) could not consent to make an exception in favour of this proposition. He adhered to the example of the right hon. Gentleman on former occasions, and he condemned his departure from it; and although he thought that all the interests of the country had a fair and equal right to the consideration of the House, without any positive pledge of relief being given to any one in particular, he should not vote for the principle of this question, because he thought the whole subject should be considered comprehensively, and the hon. Member had not shown a prima facie case. He saw no sufficient peculiar case of hardship—no case so strong as to justify a departure from the course which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pursued on former occasions. He would not consent to increase the duty on tallow, in the present condition of this country, for many reasons. How could they expect that the portion of our manufactures which depended for success on a foreign market could thrive, if they did not permit a reciprocity of commerce; and if on the contrary we increased the duty on the raw material in which they were able to pay us? He was not able to perceive any sufficient cause which operated to warrant an exception in the case of Russian tallow to the general rule. The case of soap was a distinct one, and the arguments applying to it were altogether inapplicable to the other half of the question to which he directed the attention of the House. The relative position in which Russia stood to this country ought to receive particular attention. It came very little into competition with our commerce; it did not interfere with our manufactures in foreign markets. It sent us raw material, and took our manufactured articles in return. And unless the proposition extended to foreign

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oil as well as tallow the expected advantages would not result to the agricultural interest, and if that article were also saddled with a protecting duty it would have a serious effect on a branch of our manufactures that could badly endure it. Candles would inevitably rise in price, and were it considered how much this would interfere with the means, and comforts, and remuneration of the handloom weavers, who worked so many hours by candle-light, they would pause before they created such an additional embarrassment to the extensive branch of manufactures carried on by its assistance. By acceding to this measure, it was obvious that we should interrupt the course of commerce which now happily existed between this country and Russia, would interfere with the market it afforded for our present manufactured produce, as well as with the raw material, which supplies an important article for our manufacture, and would also increase the expense of candle-light, so necessary for our manufacturing purposes; consequences which would not at all repay us for any possible benefit that might immediately result to the agricultural interest; and which, looking to its intimate connection with our commercial and manufacturing interest, he did not expect would ultimately be for its benefit either. On these combined considerations he could not give his vote for the measure before the House.
Mr. Charles Anderson Pelhamexpressed his regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not prepared with something for the relief of the agricultural interest. He could assure the hon. Member for Bridport, that the agriculturists were not a selfish body; and though they did not wish to take a benefit to themselves at the expense of the community, they were anxious for relief, and would seek it in every constitutional way.
Mr. Curteissaid, he should vote against the proposition of the hon. Member for Lincolnshire. The agricultural interest, to which he was attached, would not have the country with them in it, and therefore he hoped the hon. Member would not press his motion.
Mr. Hundley: The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished him to wait for the Report of the Agricultural Distress Committee. Now certainly he (Mr. Handley) should not he induced to bring forward his motion the more because they had received that report, inasmuch as he only asked his right
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hon. Friend to do what he had already done with respect to the stamp duties, viz. to affirm the expediency of this measure: the hon. Member for Bridport and (also the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had remarked that the motion was for the relief of the agriculturists, why assuredly he would not for one moment have affected to bring forward such a motion, if it had not been with the hope of affording some relief to the agriculturists. He candidly confessed, it was with the view of giving relief to that interest to the extent of the halfpenny a lb. advance on tallow, but he considered the increase in the price of candles would be more than counterbalanced by the reduction in that of soap, and the getting rid of the excise. He considered that the agriculturists had a right to look for some relief after the speech from the throne; he considered it could be granted in no way with less expense to the public generally than in the mode proposed, and his right hon. Friend having already made one step towards the budget, he hoped the House would support him in taking one step further. He begged leave to take the sense of the House on his motion.
The House divided—Ayes 125; Noes 195,—Majority against it 70.

List of the AYES.

Agnew, Sir A.

Cole, Hon. A; H.

Alsager, R.

Compton, H. C.

Alston, R.

Crawley, S.

Angerstein, J.

Crompton, S.

Arbuthnot, Hon. H.

Dalbiac, Sir C.

Archdall, M.

Darlington, Lord

Ashley, Hon. H.

Dugdale, D. S.

Astley, Sir J.

Dunbar, G.

Attwood, T.

Duncombe, Hon. W.

Bagot, Hon. W.

Eastnor, Viscount.

Bailey, J.

Eaton, R. J.

Balfour, T.

Elley, Sir J.

Barneby, J.

Ferguson, G.

Bell, M.

Finch, George

Bennett, J.

Fleming, John

Bentinck, Lord G.

Folkes, Sir W.

Blackburne, J.

Forbes, William

Blackstone, W. S.

Forester, hn. G. C. W.

Blamire, W.

Gaskell, J. M.

Boldero, H. G.

Gladstone, William E.

Bonham, F. R.

Gordon, Robert

Bowes, J.

Gore, Wm. Ormsby

Bramston, T. W.

Goring, Harry Dent

Brownrigg, J. S.

Grimston, hon. E. H.

Bruen, F.

Hawes, Benjamin

Buller, Sir J.

Hay, Sir J., Bart.

Cayley, E. S.

Heathcote, G. J.

Chandos, Lord

Henniker, Lord

Chisholm, A.

Hope, Henry T.

Clive, Hon. R. H.

Hotham, Lord

Codrington, C. W.

Houldsworth, T.

383

Hoy, James Barlow

Pringle, A.

Jermyn, Earl of

Pusey, Philip

Inglis, Sir R. H. Bart.

Rickford, W.

Jones, Wilson

Hooper. J. Bonfoy

Irton, Samuel

Rushbrooke, R.

Knatchbull, Sir E.

Sandon, Lord

Lawson, Andrew

Scarlett, hon. R.

Lefroy, A.

Scott, Sir E. D.

Lefroy, Thomas

Scourfield, W. H.

Lewis, David

Shaw, Frederick

Lincoln, Earl of

Sheldon, E.

Long, Walter

Sibthorp, Colonel

Maclean, Donald

Smyth, Sir G. H. Bt.

Macleod, R.

Stanley, Edward

Manners, Lord C.

Stormont, Lord

Maunsell, T. P.

Stuart, Lord D.

Miles, William

Trelawney, Sir W. L.

Miles, Philip J.

Trevor, hon. Arthur

Mosley, Sir O.

Turner, Wm.

Neeld, J.

Vere, Sir C. Bart.

Norreys, Lord

Vesey, hon. Thomas

North, Frederick

Wason, R.

O'Neill, General

Welby, G. E.

Packe, C. W.

Weyland, Richard

Palmer, Robert

Wilbraham, hon. R.

Parker, M. E.

Wilks, John

Peel, Rt. hon. W. Y.

Wilson, H.

Pelham, hon. C.

Wodehouse, E,

Perceval, Col.

Yorke, E. T.

Plumptre, J. P.

Young, Sir W. L.

Pollington, Viscount

TELLERS.

Powell, Colonel

Handley, H.

Price, S. G.

Halford, H.

List of the NOES.

Adam, Admiral

Cavendish, hon. C. C.

Aglionby, H.

Cavendish, hon. G. H.

Anson, G.

Chalmers, B.

Bagshaw, J.

Chapman, A.

Baines, E.

Clay, W.

Ball, N.

Clive, Edward Bolton

Bannerman, Alex.

Collier, John

Barclay, David

Conolly, E. M.

Baring, F.

Copeland, W. T.

Barron, Henry W.

Crawford, W. S.

Barry, G. S.

Curteis, Herbert B.

Beckett, Sir J.

D'Eyncourt, C. T.

Berkeley, hon. C. C.

Dilwyn, L. W.

Bethell, Richard

Divett, E.

Bewes, T.

Duncombe, T. S.

Biddulph, R.

Dundas, hon. T.

Blake, M. J.

Ebrington, Lord

Boiling, William

Egerton, Lord Francis

Bowring, Dr.

Elphinstone, H.

Brady, D. C.

Etwall, R.

Bridgeman, H.

Evans, G.

Brocklehurst, J.

Ewart, W.

Brodie, W. B.

Fielden, W.

Brotherton, J.

Fergus, John

Browne, Rt. hon. D.

Ferguson, Sir R.

Buckingham, J. S.

Ferguson, R. C.

Buller, Charles

Finn, F.

Buller, E.

Fitzsimon, Chris.

Burrell, Sir C. M. Bt,

Forster, Charles S.

Butler, hon. Col.

French, F.

Campbell, Sir J.

Gordon, Robert

Campbell, W. F.

Graham, Sir J.

384

Grattan, J.

Pease, J.

Greene, Thomas

Peel, Sir R.

Grote, G.

Peel, Colonel

Guest, J.

Pendarves, E. W.

Hall, B.

Philips, Mark

Hanmer, Sir J., Bart.

Philips, G. R.

Harcourt, G.

Phillipps, C. M.

Hardy, John

Pigott, Robert

Harland, W. Charles

Pinnely Wiliam,

Hawkins, J. H.

Potter, R.

Hay, Sir A.

Poyntz, W.

Hector, C. J.

Price, Sir Robert, Bt.

Hindley, Charles

Rice, right hon. T. S.

Hobhouse, Sir J. C.

Ridley, Sir M.

Hogg, James Weir

Roche, Wm.

Holland, Edward

Rolfe, Sir Robert

Horsman,

Rundle, J.

Howard, hon. E. G.

Russell, Lord J.

Howard, P. H.

Ruthven, E.

Howick, Lord

Ryle, John

Hume, J.

Sanford, E.

Hurst, R. H.

Scholefield J.

Hutt, W.

Seymour, Lord

Jephson, C D. O.

Sheppard, T.

Johnson, Andrew

Sinclair, Sir George

Kemp, T. R.

Smith, R. V.

Kirke, Peter

Smith, B.

Knight, H. G.

Stanley, Lord

Labouchere, Henry

Stewart, Sir M.

Leader, J. T.

Stewart, P. Maxwell

Lefevre, Charles S.

Strutt, E.

Leonard, T. B.

Stuart, Lord James

Lennox, Lord A.

Stuart, W. V.

Lennox, Lord G.

Sturt, Henry Charles

Lister, E. C.

Talbot, J. H.

Loch, James

Tennent, J. E.

Lushington, Charles

Thomson, C. P.

Lynch, A. H.

Thompson, William

Mackenzie, J.

Thompson, Col. T. P.

Macnamara, Major

Thornley, T.

Maher, J.

Tooke, W.

Marjoribanks, S.

Troubridge, Sir T.

Marshall, William

Tynte, Charles K. K.

Marsland, H.

Vernon, Granville H.

Martin, T.

Villiers, C.

Maule, hon. F.

Vivian, Major

Morpeth, Lord

Vyvyan, Sir R. R.

Morrison, J.

Wakley, T.

Murray, Rt. Hon. J.

Wallace, R.

Musgrave, Sir R.

Walter, John

O'Brien, W.

Warburton, H.

O'Connell Daniel

Ward, H.

O'Connell, J.

Westenra, H. R.

O'Connell, M.

Wigney, Isaac N.

O'Connell, M. J.

Wilbraham, G.

O'Connell, Morgan

Wilkins, W.

O'Ferrall, R.

Williams, W.

Oliphant, Lawrence

Williams, W. A.

O'Loghlen, M.

Williamson, Sir H.

Ord, W. H.

Wood, C.

Ord, W.

Wrightson, J.

Oswald, J.

Wyse, T.

Palmerston, Lord

Young, G. F.

Parker, J.

Younge, J.

Parnell, Sir H.

TELLERS.

Parrott, J.

Stanley, E. J.

Pattison, J.

Steuart, R.

MINUTES.
Petitions presented. By the Earl of RADNOR, from Warcham and Mattock, for Relief to the Dissenters; from the Parochial Union of Cookham, for Extending the time for the Repayment of the Sums borrowed for the Building of Workhouses under the Poor-Law Amendment Act.—By Lord TEMPLEMORE, from Taghmon, against Tithes in Ireland.—By the Duke of WELLINGTON, from Salisbury, for Poor-Laws to Ireland.—By the Earls of RIPON and RADNOR, and Lords HATHERTON and ELLEN. BOROUGH, from a Number of Places,—for Alterations in the Ecclesiastical Courts' Bill.

EDUCATION (IRELAND).
The Bishop of Exeterpresented a Petition from the Inhabitants of the town of Derby, complaining of the inadequacy of the sys-tem of Education established in Ireland, and praying their Lordships not to sanction any further grant to Maynooth, or any similar establishment; and spoke to the following effect:*—My Lords, in presenting myself to the notice of the House, I beg leave to assure your Lordships, and especially the noble Lords near me, (his Majesty's Ministers), that I rise, not for the purpose of proposing any motion in
*From a corrected edition, published by Murray, with notes, by the Right Reverend Prelate.

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a spirit of hostility to them, or to awaken any angry discussion on the subject to which my motion refers; on the contrary, my intention is—and I trust I shall be found to have realized that intention—so to deal with the subject as to satisfy the noble Viscount himself, that I have no other feeling than that which his Majesty's Government must have in common with me—I mean, a feeling for the real good of the mass of the population of Ireland, so far as their real good may be affected by the influence of education. In moving, as I shall do, for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the practical results of the operations of the Board of Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, I do that which by no means implies the slightest censure on the Government, though I admit it implies some suspicion that the Commissioners have not conducted this great undertaking in a manner in which it was desirable it should be conducted. Still, my Lords, as his Majesty's Ministers cannot be held responsible for Commissioners acting under the authority of the Crown, more than can any other noble Lords of this House, they need not consider a motion of inquiry into the conduct of such Commissioners as in any degree directed against themselves. They are bound, most undoubtedly—and I know they will feel themselves called upon to act accordingly—they are bound to defend all officers acting under the authority of the Crown when they are attacked, if they think the attack unfair, or if there be not such a primâ facie case made out as calls on the accused party to answer it.
My Lords, if the charges I am about to make, and if the doubts I am about to express, of the fitness and propriety of the continuance of the system in its present state, shall be found to be frivolous and vexatious, then, I entreat your Lordships to dismiss it at once. If, on the other hand, it shall appear that I have a grave case of complaint, and that I tender sufficient evidence to support it, I trust, under those circumstances, his Majesty's Government will consider that they, above all the Members of this House, are especially called upon to promote this inquiry. My Lords, I have no right to doubt that such are the intentions of his Majesty's Government; I have no right to doubt that they wish to give all possible publicity to the working of this system. They have always
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consented to the production of all Returns that have been asked relating to it, (with one exception, indeed, when they objected to a Return of the comparative number of Protestant and Roman Catholic children attending these schools; they have always expressed their wish and desire to assist in the development of all its operations; and, believing them to be sincere in the desires and views which they have often expressed on this subject, I will say, in the outset, that I will not call upon your Lordships for a vote against the Government, if, after I have entered into this inquiry, they disapprove of my motion. I trust this declaration, on my part, will satisfy your Lordships, that I entertain no views hostile to his Majesty's Government, in bringing forward this subject—that I present myself to you on the present occasion, only because I am convinced that in doing so I am discharging my duty as a humble minister of that religion, which it is my bounden duty to advance as far as my poor ability will permit.
In order that noble Lords may see that it is not my wish or intention to proceed hostilely, I will beg leave to read the terms of the motion with which I shall conclude. They are these:—"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire what progress the new system of education in Ireland has made towards effecting the main purpose for which it was established—namely, 'the combined education of the poorer classes of the community in that country, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, resting upon religious instruction;' to inquire whether the funds intrusted to the Commissioners have been judiciously administered for the attainment of that object; and whether experience of the practical result of their labours has rendered it safe and advisable to adopt the recommendations contained in their Second Report, for the great extension of the system there in contemplated."
Your Lordships will perceive, that in the first part of my motion I have stated the purpose for which this system was established—namely, the combined education of the poorer classes of the community, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, resting on religious instruction. I have done so on the authority of the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons of 1828, which Report is expressly stated in Lord Stanley's letter to be the authority on which the present

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plan is based. It concludes by saying,—
"It has been the object of your Committee to discover a mode in which the combined education of Protestant and Roman Catholic may be carried on, resting upon religious instruction, but free from the suspicion of proselytism."
This then, I say, has been the object which has always been avowed; and I think that it will hardly be denied that the time is now arrived for endeavouring to ascertain how far this object has been accomplished. My Lords, when the system was first set on foot, it was avowed, on all sides, to be an experiment; such was the judgment of it, expressed both in this and in the other House of Parliament, and such was the language used, and the opinion stated, by one of the most influential and most distinguished Members of the Commission—I mean the Archbishop of Dublin. That most reverend Prelate always admitted that the system was an experiment, and he did not hesitate to avow his suspicion that the experiment would not succeed. Well, then, my Lords, there having been no inquiry into the result of this experiment up to the present day, this consideration alone would justify my present motion. But independently of this, I think I shall be enabled to state grounds sufficient, why that inquiry should now take place.
The Second Report of the Commission, which I hold in my hand, and which was' laid on your Lordships' Table at the end of the last Session, and printed, I believe, during the recess, contemplates such an enormous extension, both of the means and the sphere of action of the Commissioners, that it really becomes the bounden duty of your Lordships, and of all who are concerned in giving effect to the recommendation, to pause and weigh well the grounds on which you are called upon to proceed, and the extent to which you are invited to go. It can hardly be necessary for me to remind your Lordships of the enormous extent of the demands made by these Commissioners; they require very large sums of money for nine successive years, and then a perpetual allowance of 200,000 l. per annum. I do not mean to say, this is not the place in which any man would say that the expenditure of that or any other sum would be too large, if it should have the effect of giving religious peace to the people of Ireland, and afford the mass of the popu-
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lation of that country sound religious education. It is because I think that religious peace cannot be obtained,—that sound religious education cannot be afforded,—by a continuance of the system on which the Commissioners have hitherto acted, that I feel it to be my duty, before you come to consider the vote which is to be proposed for carrying on this system, to call upon your Lordships to take a view of the whole case, and by a Select Committee to consider the course which you may deem it necessary to pursue.
Your Lordships are aware that while the Commissioners demand this large sum of money, they avow that their purpose is to take upon themselves the education of the great mass of the population of Ireland. They expressly say—
"We think that the new system may be gradually extended through the agency of such teachers as we have contemplated, until its benefits are enjoyed by the great mass of the population."
Now, my Lords, I must, in the first place, say that I think it hardly possible—although the Report bears the signatures of every member of the Commission—that it could have been unanimously agreed to. It appears to me hardly possible, for instance, that the most reverend Prelate (the Archbishop of Dublin) could have assented to that recommendation. And why do I say this? My Lords, it may be in the recollection of your Lordships, that when the system was first proposed, it excited feelings of great apprehension and alarm in the minds of most of the clergy of Ireland, and especially of the clergy of the diocese of Dublin, who addressed their diocesan in terms of respectful but strong remonstrance against it. To this address the most reverend Prelate, with firmness and with dignity—but with the most entire disposition to conciliate every feeling of distrust that might have arisen in their minds,—returned an answer on the 7th of March, 1832, in which he said—
"From all that I have been able to learn, I have been convinced that no one description of school can be the best adapted to all parishes alike."
The most reverend Prelate was here addressing himself to the subject of the different circumstances and character of these parishes, and the different religious persuasions of their population. He then goes on to say—
"The rector of each parish must be left

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to judge what system is best suited to his own; and I am very far from wishing that a more imperfect system should be introduced in any place where one intrinsically better can be made available."
The most reverend Prelate considered that in all cases, where it was possible, they ought to afford religious instruction: on the principles of the Church of England; on which subject some doubts appear to have been entertained respecting his views; and he goes on to explain himself thus:—
"I never understood that it was intended to substitute such (national) schools for those on a more perfect system in any place where such should have been introduced and found to succeed, but to rescue from hopeless ignorance those who (whether by their own fault or otherwise) could not be brought to avail themselves of any better plan."*
That was a very modest expression of opinion in favour of the new system on the part of the most reverend Prelate, and I have no doubt he was quite sincere in giving it; I have, also, no doubt he would at that time have been astonished if he had been told that, within a short period, Parliament would be called upon, in part on his authority, to come forward and adopt this as an universal system. I am sure the most reverend Prelate would have so felt. Still, however, I admit that if it has been found, by the experience of the last four years, that the system has worked so well as to prove it to be the best plan which can be adopted, then, indeed, there has been no inconsistency in the conduct of the most reverend Prelate, even if he has cordially joined in the recent Report. But the question of the success of the system is that which is at issue.
The Report states that there shall be 6,00.0 schools, and as many teachers, in Ireland—that this number is required for
*The following passage (p. 23) is still more remarkable:—"Where schools on the Kildare-place plan, or on one intrinsically better, are found to work well, and to embrace the great mass of the population, I should be truly sorry to see an inferior one substituted. But in the many districts where the case is otherwise, it does seem to me highly desirable, that at least an attempt should be made to impart some useful knowledge to those who would otherwise either be left in hopeless ignorance, or would learn more evil than good, from, perhaps, some hedge-schoolmasters, who may be secretaries to a band of incendiaries,"
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the purpose of affording education to the great mass of the population. Now, my Lords, let the House recollect that the establishment of a system of education, resting on religious instruction, is that for which the Board was appointed—that religious instruction was declared to be the very foundation and basis of the whole plan; and, therefore, if it has failed in that, it has failed at the very root. I entreat your Lordships, then, to observe how the Commissioners have provided for religious instruction in these schools, to be established throughout Ireland. There are to be, as I have said, 5,000 teachers, and these teachers are to receive a very advanced species of education. I will beg leave to read to your Lordships in what manner, and on what subjects, these schoolmasters are to be instructed:—
"In order to secure teachers of skill and intelligence, we propose establishing five professorships in our training institution:—1. Of the Art of Teaching and Conducting Schools. 2. Of Composition, English Literature, History, Geography, and Political Economy. 3 Of Natural History, in all its branches. 4. Of Mathematics and Mathematical Science. 5. Of Mental Philosophy, including the elements of Logic and Rhetoric."
My Lords, these are most important subjects, certainly, and cannot be too much encouraged in their proper order. I quarrel not now with the attempt to give this wide circle of knowledge to the schoolmasters of Ireland. I only contend that the main object is not provided for, and that the plan of the Commissioners is not likely to attain that object. For it must be observed, that in the Report of the Commissioners, when speaking of the qualification of schoolmasters, there is a total absence of anything like a reference to religion; for anything that appears to the contrary they may be atheists. No mode is pointed out by which the slightest particle of religious knowledge can be obtained by them. It may, perhaps, be said that they will partake of the general means of religious instruction given by the Board, in all the schools under their control; but if this be said, I must lake leave to deny the correctness of the statement. The only principle on which the Board rests its expectation of adequate religious instruction being given in its schools, is the duty of the several pastors of congregations in the different parishes to attend,

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to the teaching of their respective flocks. But how can such pastors contrive to instruct those who were formerly under their charge, when they are removed to the normal school of Dublin, or of some other great city, or county-town in Ireland? My Lords, it is impossible. These 5,000 schoolmasters will be left to pick up their religion as they can; and I must say, this is the first time that the people of this country were ever asked to believe, that children can be taught the only truths, which it is really essential for them to know,—true morality, and true religion,—by those who are not deeply imbued with the principles of religion themselves.
But these teachers are not merely to benefit the people of Ireland "through the schools committed to their charge. Identified in interest with the state, and therefore anxious to promote a spirit of obedience to lawful authority, we are confident, (says the Report), that they would prove a body of the utmost value and importance in promoting civilization and peace."
My Lords, a higher authority than these Commissioners has commanded a different course to be pursued in training men to loyalty. "Fear God, and honour the King," says a book which, whatever the Commissioners may think of it, your Lordships are not so liberal as to discard. My Lords, the "Fear of God" must go first, for no man will honour the King, no man will be loyal or faithful to his earthly governors, who does not fear God,—who does not honour the King because he fears God? And yet there is not the slightest care taken, I repeat, to teach these teachers their only true lesson of wisdom—nay, there is not the slightest security taken against the appointment of the most godless youths in Ireland to be teachers in these schools.
It is singular enough, but it does so happen, that about the time when the Report of the Commissioners was presented to this House, the Minister of Public Instruction in France directed a circular letter to be addressed to the rectors of the academies in that country; and it is not a little mortifying to observe, how much more importance the French Minister attaches to religion, as an essential part of education, than has been ascribed to it by these Commissioners. Yet this was not wont to be the case. This country was not wont to be inferior to France in reverence for religion, nor in zeal for the
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promotion of its sacred cause. My Lords, M. Guizot says—
"It has been sometimes thought, that to succeed in securing to families of different creeds the reality and the freedom of religious instruction, it was sufficient to substitute for the special lessons and practices of the several religious denominations, some lessons and practices susceptible in appearance of being applied to all religions. Such measures would not answer the real wish either of families or of the law. They would tend to banish all positive and effective religious instruction from the schools, in order to substitute one that is merely vague and abstract."
Such are the observations of M. Guizot on the subject of a generalized religious instruction in schools. But then follows a passage of greater importance, tending to show the feeling which the French minister entertains, as to the absolute necessity of giving a sound religious education to those whose duty it will be to instruct others,—a point upon which the Commissioners, I grieve to say, are altogether silent. The passage runs thus—
"If the reality and the freedom of the religious instruction of the children ought to be thus secured, in all schools, and for all creeds, with still stronger reason ought the same care to be taken for the religious instruction of the teachers themselves, who are to be placed at the head of these schools."
My Lords, I should be glad to hear any noble Lord get up, and say, he has found a passage like this in any part of the Report of these Commissioners. Alas! there is not a single syllable in it of the kind. I am sure, therefore, that your Lordships will feel that the recommendation of these Commissioners, as far as concerns one great and essential particular, the religious instruction of the teachers, is not only defective, (that would be to say little), but positively vicious. Without religion, all other knowledge can only lead, as it always has led, the corrupt nature of man to a more frightful excess of wickedness. In short, my Lords, by omitting to provide for the effective religious instruction of the teachers, the Commissioners have neglected their first and most obvious duty.
On looking to the grounds on which the Commissioners rest their demands for an accession to their funds, and the extension of their place, I find them declaring—

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"That the system has already been very generally adopted under the auspices both of Protestant and Roman Catholic clergymen, and of Protestant and Roman Catholic laymen…..That it has proved generally beneficial and acceptable to Protestants and Roman Catholics according to their respective wants."
They state, in particular, that no fewer than 140 clergymen of the Established Church, 180 of the Presbyterian persuasion, and 1,397 Roman Catholic clergymen, have been among the applicants for their aid in the establishment of new schools. Now I have taken the trouble to investigate this matter, and I find by the Returns which have been laid before the House, that with respect to the 140 persons described as clergymen of the Established Church who have given in their adhesion to the plan of the Commissioners, there are, in fact, only 80.* If your Lordships look to the Return, which was obtained, with great difficulty, at the end of the last Session, and then only so obtained in consequence of something very like a threat, which was held out by a Noble Baron, not now in this country,—that it would be necessary to make the authority of this House felt, if the Return was any longer withheld—your Lordships will find, that instead of there being 140 applicants from among clergymen of the Established Church, there are in fact only 80. The same persons are registered over and over again, in consequence of their having applied for more than one school. There are two clergymen (I do not mention the fact to their disparagement, for I have no right to suppose them to be not sincere and zealous in the cause), but there are two clergymen belonging to a parish in the diocese of Derry, who have applied for so many schools, that their names are reckoned as thirteen—nearly a tenth of the whole number! And these individuals are the rector and curate of a parish in which there is by no means a large Protestant population. I wish most heartily that the case stopped here, but it does not. I am quite sure that there will be in this House no special pleading in justification of the statement of the Commissioners, on the ground of their speaking of 140 sig-
* Eighty-eight names are given in the return. But eight of these do not apply to any of the schools specified in the other return previously made, and are, all of them, open to objection.
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natures, and of their being, in fact, 140 signatures of clergymen, though not of 140 clergymen. I am quite sure, I repeat, that such a subterfuge would be spurned by every one of your Lordships. I am quite sure the noble Duke at the head of the Commission would not wish that such an answer should be made to the charge; but if it be made, I can then, in reply, refer to another part of the very same Report. My Lords, if you will turn to the Abstract of the Table, No. 1, at the end of the Report, you will find a statement of the number of persons, clerical and lay, who have signed applications for aid in founding those schools. Out of the applicants for 1,106 schools at present in operation, it is expressly and in terms stated, that there are 117 clergymen of the Established Church; and that for the 191 not yet in operation, but building, twenty-three of the applicants are clergymen of the Established Church. Now, these numbers of 117 and twenty-three, make up exactly 140. This, then, is the number of clerical applicants stated by the Board, though there are in truth only eighty, the signatures of the same persons, in many instances, being counted over and over again. I repeat, therefore, that this statement by the Commissioners, of the number of Protestant clergymen under whose auspices the system is said to have been adopted, is not only not true, but contrary to the truth.
But, my Lords, even here the "matter does not rest. I have something still to say, which I think your Lordships will consider far more surprising. Your Lordships, I am sure, will bear in mind what took place when this system was originally introduced. I hold in my hand Lord Stanley's letter, which was the foundation of the system, and which contains the principles laid down for the guidance of the Commissioners. That noble Lord says:—
"As one of the main objects must be to unite in one system children of different creeds, and as much must depend upon the co-operation of the resident clergy, the Board will probably look with peculiar favour upon applications proceeding either from—1st. The Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy of the Parish; or 2nd. One of the clergymen, and a certain number of parishioners professing the opposite creed; or 3rd. Parishioners of both denominations."

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Now, these are three different classes, and, as the Commissioners present three classes of applicants in their Report, we are bound to suppose that they intend their classes to be the same as Lord Stanley's—strictly the same; the first class being of schools for which application was made by the resident parochial clergymen of the different denominations. The Commissioners state that the number of applicants of the first class is 140; I have reduced them to eighty, and I shall now proceed to reduce them a little more.
My Lords, circumstances occurred which excited in my mind a strong suspicion of the inaccuracy of the Board in this particular, and I was induced to take some pains in corresponding not only with friends in Ireland, but also with other most respectable individuals to whom I was before a stranger, in order to ascertain the real facts of the case. The results of that investigation I will now take the liberty of stating to your Lordships.
I find that several of the clergymen stated, in the Report of the 25th of March of last year, to be applicants to the Board, have been dead these two or three years,—that several others have withdrawn,—that several others have ceased to have any connexion with the parishes with which they were concerned when the schools were established,—that many had never any connexion with the parishes at all,—and that of the existence of at least one no traces can be found;—in short, I pledge myself, if your Lordships will grant me this Committee, to show, by incontrovertible evidence, that the number of 140 will dwindle down to 40 at most. From one clergyman I have received a letter, stating that, on seeing the name of an individual printed among the applicants for a school in the parish of which the writer was rector, he wrote to him, inquiring how he came to apply for the erection of a school in a parish with which he had nothing whatever to do. The answer was,—
"I happened to be visiting in your parish, and put my name to the application on being told that my doing so did not imply any connexion with the place, or impose any future responsibility. I signed it merely as an individual, and not as the clergyman of, or belonging to, the parish."
This shows the sort of artifices to which recourse has been had, not by the Commissioners, but by partisans of the system.
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I will not weary your Lordships by going into many cases in remote parts of the country of which there is a great variety, and some of which are very extraordinary. In one instance, the individual described as a clergyman bad discarded not only the dress, but the address, of a clergyman; he registered his vote for the county as an esquire, and lost his vote for the false description. My Lords, this worthy applicant to the Board is counted three times, having applied for three schools. He is three of the 140. Noble Lords may testify surprise; but if the noble Viscount will grant me the Committee, I will prove everything I have stated. Meanwhile I will say, that I find this person, once a clergyman, now a layman, styled an esquire in the Report of the Commission for inquiring into the State of the Poor of Ireland in the last year. I do not wish to mention the name of this person publicly, but if the noble Viscount asks me for it I will give it him, whether he grants me the Committee or not.—There is another person in the Return, who I will not say lost his gown, but who had been removed from his cure, twenty years ago, for some act of great misconduct, and afterwards, on endeavouring to thrust himself into active ministry, was removed by the Bishop. That person has applied for two schools, and he is two of the 140. In some other cases the names put down are gross forgeries.
But, my Lords, there is one case peculiarly worthy of remark. For where did it occur? In a remote part of Ireland? No, my Lords, in the city of Dublin itself. The name of Robertson, a supposed clergyman, is given in an application of the first class for the establishment of a school in the parish of St. Peter's, which is part of the corps of the archdeaconry of Dublin. Now, the archdeacon himself has written to me, stating not only that there is no such clergyman among his curates, or connected with him, but that he absolutely does not know the name—and another friend informs me, that he has inquired diligently, but inquired in vain—-for no one knows of the existence of such a person. Can this have been a mistake on the part of the Commissioners? I have no doubt they thought this person belonged to Dublin-—but did they believe he was a resident clergyman in the parish for which he applied? The very circumstance of their not having ascertained the fact is, to my mind, a clear and. manifest proof that they

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do not take the trouble to make the inquiries which they ought to deem necessary. Their not having done so in this case, in which the proofs lay at their own door, shows that they have not considered it to be a part of their duty to do so at all;—in short, my Lords, I say, confidently, that as the Commissioners have not thought proper to ascertain the authenticity of the signatures to these applications, they have neglected their most obvious duty—nay, they have pursued a course which was manifestly likely to provoke, and has, in fact, provoked, very disgusting fraud.
My Lords, the case which I have just mentioned occurred, I repeat, within the city of Dublin, within the jurisdiction, therefore, and under the eye, of one of the Commissioners—the Archbishop of Dublin—who had it in his power most easily, by merely looking into his Diocese Book, to ascertain,—and I should have thought he would have felt it to be his duty to ascertain—whether the application for this school in Dublin, professing to be made by a clergyman of the Church of England, was really made by the clergyman of the parish, before he permitted his own name to be affixed to this Report; much more, before he came to Parliament, claiming increased means for the extension of the system, and founding his claim on the alleged number of clergymen of the Church of England who support it.
But this has not been confined to the city of Dublin. Within the very same diocese, in a parish very near the country residence of a noble and learned Lord (Lord Plunket), the parish of Delgany, a similar case has occurred. Two clergymen of the Church of England are stated as applicants for a national school there. My Lords, I have the happiness of being acquainted with the clergyman of that parish (the reverend Mr. Cleaver), and believing that he was ardently opposed to this unscriptural plan of education, I requested a common friend to inquire of him how it happened that two of his curates had applied for a national school to be established in his parish. "Two of my curates!" said this gentleman, "it is impossible. I know nothing of any such school." and then came an explanation. The names of those two applicants were Colbourne and Morrison. Mr. Cleaver assured my friend that they had nothing
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whatever to do with his parish. One of them, indeed, had no pastoral connexion with any parish at all, and the other was resident on his living in a distant part of Ireland, coming to the neighbourhood of Delgany only as an occasional visitor. But the case does not end here. Mr. Morrison, finding that his name had been put forth as one of the applicants for this school, immediately wrote to Mr. Cleaver, assuring him that he never had signed any such application, and that he wondered who it was that had had the audacity to put his name to such a document. The other gentleman is now in Italy, and, therefore, whether his name was forged or not cannot be ascertained. Be this as it may, it is enough for my argument that neither he nor Mr. Morrison had any connexion with the parish of Delgany. Yet their names are made to swell the list of clerical applicants to the Board, and that, too, on account of a parish in the diocese of Dublin, though the Archbishop of Dublin must have known that they had nothing whatever to do either with the parish or with the diocese, and had no right whatever, therefore, to appear as applicants of the first class in this Report.
So much for the clerical applicants of the Established Church. The number of Presbyterian clergymen stated to be applicants is 180. My Lords, I have taken the trouble of examining, and I find that though the number of applications is 180, the number of applicants is about 90. But this is not all. I wrote to a distinguished minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland—a man of very high character; and from him I have received a report, by which it appears that many of these names are of persons not Presbyterians—in short, he reduced the number to about seventy. Without, however, taking this into account, and without any evidence in Committee, but upon the mere showing of these Returns, instead of 180 clerical applicants of the Presbyterian Church, there are, in truth, only ninety. Now, these misstatements—this, at least, will not be deemed too strong a term to apply to them,;—are not merely otiose and inoperative declarations; for the Commissioners who make them say, that it is because they have 140 applicants, who are clergymen of the Church of England; and because they have 180 applicants, who are clergymen of the Presbyterian

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Church in Ireland, that they are justified in saying that their system has been "very generally adopted under the auspices of Protestant as well as Roman Catholic clergymen;" nay, to "have been found generally beneficial and acceptable to Protestants and Roman Catholics, according to their respective wants." Will your Lordships allow them any longer to claim this as a ground upon which to rest their demand for an enormous increase of their funds, and an unlimited extension of their operations? before you do so, I am quite persuaded that when you are solemnly assured, that in Committee I shall be able to prove the facts, I have now stated, you will not refuse the inquiry which I ask.
My Lords, I will now trespass upon your Lordships with some statements on another part of the subject,—I will endeavour to show to you from the disbursement of the funds of the Board, what has been their success in satisfying the people of Ireland, of both Churches alike—Protestant and Roman Catholics.
There were, at the time this Report was made, 1,106 schools in operation; and your Lordships are told by the Commissioners, that these schools are "found to be generally beneficial and acceptable to the members of the different religious communions in Ireland, according to their respective wants." Now, it appears that of these 1,106 schools, 713 have been applied for by Roman Catholic priests alone, without any other clerical applicants whatever. The clergy of the Church of England, alone, have applied for nineteen but of these, nine only are applied for by those who are resident parochial clergy of the parish. Your Lordships will therefore perceive that as 713 to nine such is the comparative approbation of the Roman Catholic priests and clergy of the Church of England of this system. The Roman Catholic priests have received 5,525 1.18 s. 3½d. for building; the resident parochial clergy of the Church of England have received, under this head, nothing. The Roman Catholic Clergy have received for fittings-up 4,571 l. 0s. 3d.; those of the Church of England 29 l. 5s. l0 d. The Roman Catholic priests have received in salaries to teachers 6,587 1.; the parochial resident clergy of the Church of England have received only 66 l. The Roman Catholic priests have received for school requisites 2,586 l. the parochial
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resident clergy of the Church of England, 26 1. the Presbyterian clergy alone have applied for 36 schools, and have obtained 145 l. for building, 155 l. 8s. for fittings-up, and 292 l. for salaries.
But it does appear that in some instances the clergy of the Church of England have applied in conjunction with the Roman Catholic priests. There are 124 schools for which the clergy of the two churches have joined in their applications. These have received 811 l. for building; 502 l. for fittings-up; 1,286 l. for salaries; and 334 l. for school-requisites. But of these, fifty-six only have been applied for by the resident parochial clergy of the Church—those whose co-operation is deemed, in Lord Stanley's letter, necessary for the perfect carrying on of the system these have received for building 206 l., for fittings-up 336 l., for salaries 719 l., and something for school-requisites.—There are, 110 schools, for which Presbyterian clergymen have joined in application with Roman Catholic priests; receiving for building 725 l. 19 s. 2d., for fittings-up 624 l. 10 s. From these, however, deductions should be made on account of those who have withdrawn from connexion with the Board, or who are not really Presbyterian clergymen; the exact number of these is not known.—There are fifty-seven, schools in operation, for which Roman Catholic priests have been joined by Roman Catholic laymen only; receiving for building 220 l., for fittings-up 384 l. 4s. lid.—There are twenty-four schools under the superintendence of nunneries, monasteries, or religious houses; receiving for building 517 l., for fittings-up 389 l. 6s. l0 d.
So much for the schools already in operation. But there are 191 cases of schools now building, and not yet in operation, in which the difference in favour of the Roman Catholics is far more inordinate than in the others. The applicants for these 191 schools have received for building 18,343 l. 15 s. 5d.; 132 have been applied for by Roman Catholic priests without any other clerical applicants, and have received for building-13,341 l. 8s. 4d., two have been applied for by clergymen of the church without other clerical applicants, and have received for building 199 l.; in neither case was the applicants the resident Minister of the parish. Three have been applied for by Presbyterian clergymen without other

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clerical applicants, and have received for building 56 1.13 s. 4d. There are eighteen for which clergymen of the Church have joined Roman Catholic priests, and received for building 1,227 1. 7s.; of these, ten only have been applied for by the resident parochial ministers, and have received for building 707 1. 7s. There are thirteen for which Presbyterian clergymen have joined with Roman Catholic priests, and received for building 1,214 1. 2s. 6d. There are fifteen for which Presbyterian and Roman Catholic laymen have applied and received for building 1,558 1. 7s. 6d.; there have been three applied for by Protestant laymen alone, and have received for building 212 l. 18 s. 8d.; there have been five applied for by Roman Catholic laymen alone, and have received for building 544 1. 1s. 8d.
So much for the distribution of the funds of the Board—so much for the proof thence derived of the system being generally beneficial, and acceptable to Protestants and Roman Catholics alike, in proportion to their respective numbers and wants.
But I must not rest this part of my case here. It may be said, that this is only a proof that the clergy of one persuasion are well disposed towards the system, while those of the other persuasion are determined against it. [The Duke of Leinster—Hear, hear!] I am not surprised to hear that cheer; it is very natural, coming from the noble Duke; but I must state that the scheme was not originally introduced merely as suiting the inclinations of one party in preference to those of the other; but, it was avowedly introduced as a scheme intended and designed to be equally beneficial and equally satisfactory to both. My Lords, this it is which makes the acceptance of the scheme by the different parties to be the fair test of its success. A scheme set on foot professedly favourable to persons of one religious persuasion, will, of course, have applicants only or chiefly on that one side, and that in proportion to the degree in which the persons of that persuasion consider it to be favourable to them. But this system of education in Ireland professes to be a national system; it is maintained by the national purse, and undertakes to meet the wants and the wishes of a whole nation. When, therefore, it is repudiated by one great section of that nation, it is manifest that the scheme has failed.
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It may, however, be said that there is a violent and unreasonable prejudice against it on the part of the Protestant clergy. Nay, the noble Viscount at the head of his Majesty's Government, the other night, expressly charged the Protestant clergy with bigotry or fanaticism for rejecting the system. "If the bigotry or fanaticism of one party," said the noble Lord, "made them refuse to avail themselves of the scheme offered to them, that was no reason why the benefit of it should not be extended to others." But, in order to enable the noble Viscount to make that statement, he must show, first, that the real tendency of the system is beneficial to both—fair and equal to both. Now, my Lords, it is notorious that this scheme, in its very outset, started with a declaration that the Bible must be excluded from the schools at the time of united instruction. Why? Because the Roman Catholic clergy did not like it; because, on conscientious grounds, they objected to a scriptural education being attempted to be given to Roman Catholic children. This was expressly called "a vital defect" in the former systems of instruction, supported by the public funds. But, my Lords, is it not very conceivable, that conscientious men on the other side may entertain objections—and I am bigot and fanatic enough to avow that they appear to me very reasonable objections—to the system actually set on foot, because the Bible is not included? Surely, it is a little hard for them to be condemned and branded with the reproach of bigotry and fanaticism,—very awkward and unpopular phrases, in these times especially,—for adhering to their consciences, in spite, I will say, of a degree of temptation to the contrary, which has rarely been met with equal resistance. For, allow me, my Lords, to ask the noble Viscount, what but conscience could have induced the Protestant clergy of Ireland to abstain from gratifying, at once, the Government and the Roman Catholic people, and sparing their own miserably impoverished purse, by applying to the National Board for assistance in support of their schools? My Lords, it is quite notorious that this was a sure and adequate means to obtain the favour of Government in Ireland. When, therefore, persecution in the fiercest form was directed against the clergy of that country, and when they did not take this easy and gainful course to check it in its full career,

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it is impossible that anything but the most exemplary and conscientious adherence to their own sense of their own duty could have influenced them. My Lords, I honour that venerable body, the clergy of Ireland, more than I can express; but scarcely for anything do I honour them more, than for their conscientious adherence to what they believe, whether rightly or not, to be sound religious objections to this system. But I return to my proper subject.
My Lords, in looking to the operations of the Board, I find one class of cases to which I request your particular attention. It appears, by the return made to your Lordships, that of the number of schools in operation, twenty-four are under the superintendence of nunneries, monasteries, or other religious bodies, and that these schools have received more aid from the Board than all the aid given to the applications from the parochial clergy of the Established Church alone. Now, I will venture to put this matter to the candour of the noble Viscount and his friends—for I am perfectly sure that their liberality does not go so far, as to expect the clergy of the Established Church, or the laity of that church, to send Protestant children to be taught by monks and nuns in these schools—I am quite sure that they must see that the very circumstance of these schools being under such managers, is, in effect, an exclusion of Protestant children from them. I put it, therefore, to their candour, whether a single instance of this sort would not be a violation of the principle upon which this system professes to proceed; yet we have seen that the Board admits no fewer than twenty-four such instances; and I here promise, if the noble Duke who cheered me a little while ago, will prevail upon his noble Friend to grant this Committee, that I will undertake to double the number of those twenty-four exhibited in the Return. My Lords, I am ready to produce an individual of high character, integrity, and accurate observation, who has himself ascertained the existence of nine others not included in the Return, and is willing to testify to that effect, on his oath, before any Committee which your Lordships may appoint. Nor is this a solitary instance. I will produce other witnesses ready to prove other cases of the same kind. I also pledge myself to prove, by the sworn testimony of several persons of the highest respectability, who
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may defy contradiction, that in those schools under the direction of religious communities, into which two or three stray Protestant children may find their way, there is exhibited to their view that which Protestants are taught to consider—and on the soundest principles consider—the grossest idolatry.
If the Committee shall be granted, I am prepared with evidence to show, that in one of the schools under the superintendence of a monk, there has been erected an altar; that for more than two years the service of the mass has been performed there during school-hours, and in the presence of the half-dozen Protestant children who may have been induced to attend the school. The clergyman of the parish in which this took place brought it to the attention of one of the commissioners of Public Instruction, who undertook to represent it to the Board. No doubt that gentleman fulfilled his undertaking, for subsequently an order came down from the Board to remove this altar. But, my Lords, it is necessary for me to state, that before this representation was made to the board, one or other of the inspectors had been frequently there; and, if he had inspected anything, he must have seen this altar, and, if he had inquired about anything he must have been informed of its use. Be this as it may, after the representation to the commissioners of Public Instruction, an order came down for the removal of this altar; but some time afterwards the curate of the parish, to his utter surprise, saw the altar still continue, notwithstanding its prohibition, and on asking the superintendent "How comes this?" he was told by the leading monk, that he had got the special permission of the board to keep the altar in the school till the new Roman Catholic chapel, then building in the same parish, should be ready to receive it, the outer walls of which were only at this time erected.
I can produce another casein which, on the Board having granted a considerable sum for the fitting up of a national school for boys, under the management of a monastic establishment, the money had been applied in discharge of the expenses of building a nunnery; and, in another instance, I can prove, on the testimony of Commissioners of Public Instruction—of those who are thought worthy of the confidence of his Majesty's Ministers—and

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that, too in a case, in which a Roman Catholic Bishop was concerned—that the sum of 100 l., granted by the Board for the purposes of a school, was abstracted from the uses for which it had been granted, and applied towards the building of a Roman Catholic chapel.
My Lords, your Lordships will not imagine that I mention these facts, now, as instances of the carelessness of the Board in dispensing the money intrusted to their care. The money-consideration is the smallest part of the case; for let it be remembered, that money cannot be misapplied in this case without leading to far worse consequences than mere waste.
But these schools have not only been instruments of extorting funds for promoting the purposes of the Roman Catholic religion, but they have also been made the theatres of the coarsest and fiercest Roman Catholic agitation. I can prove, that, in one of these places, a dinner was given to a person whose very presence implies agitation—to Mr. O'Connell. In another of these schools a dinner was given to the arch-agitator of the West—I mean the so-called Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. M'Hale. In another parish, the master of the national school went forth at the head of an organized body—organized by him—in honour of this same Dr. M'Hale, and met him with banners, on which were inscribed the words "Liberty and Religion." Your Lordships will understand what was meant by the word—"Liberty," when you bear in mind that this took place immediately after Dr. M'Hale came fresh—I had almost said reeking—from the dinner of agitation at Tuam, adinner at which speeches were delivered, which in other times, I will leave to your Lordships to say whether better times, would have excited some curiosity on the part of his Majesty's Attorney-General.
My Lords, a clergyman residing in the parish, where the procession took place under the direction of the national schoolmaster, felt it his duty to make a representation on the subject to the Board; and he received an assurance that the matter should be inquired into. No inquiry, however, having been instituted, after an interval of several weeks, this gentleman renewed his remonstrance. After this second application, the Board, without the slightest notice to the clergyman, sent down an inspector; but unhappily, for want of notice, no witnesses were forth-
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coming—those who could have proved the case were absent, and so off went the inspector, and no further notice was taken of the affair. Another complaint, on account of another act of misconduct; was made against the same schoolmaster; in reference to which the clergyman received from the Board a simple intimation, that there had been an inquiry by their inspector, and that they were satisfied. The clergyman did that which he felt due to himself and to common justice—he requested that he might see the Report made to them by the inspector; but the Commissioners refused to comply with this very reasonable demand. My Lords, on this case I must add one further particular. The complaint stated to the Board, that the schoolmaster charged with these offences was a man who had been dismissed from another employment for using treasonable, or at least seditious language to the coast-guards. He referred them to proof of this fact also; but to this they thought proper to pay no attention whatsoever.
I now proceed to a case which I am sure will appear to the House to be of a grave character, and one which makes me confident that I shall obtain the assistance of the noble Marquess near me (the Marquess of Lansdowne) in obtaining this Committee which I ask. I am assured, and I believe I can prove the fact, that in a national school built on the property of that noble Marquess, and under the patronage of the noble Marquess's agent, the boys, just after the execution of certain persons who had been tried and condemned by the special commission in Queen's County, were found writing these words as their copy—of course set them by the master—"God be with the poor fellows that were hanged at Mary borough." [A Noble Lord:—This might be a charitable wish.] My Lords, I hear that this might have been only a kind and charitable wish. Now, will the noble Lord who so loudly whispers this, or will any one of your Lordships gravely get up in his place and tell me, with a firm countenance, that he thinks it was so intended? Is there any one of your Lordships who is not sure that those words were put before those children to imbue their infant minds with feelings of disaffection to the law, to make them honour the men, who had justly suffered for their crimes, as martyrs; to teach them, from their earliest infancy,

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to side with the violators of the law, to sympathize with them, and to regard the law itself as a system of tyranny and oppression.
My Lords, I will not trespass on your patience with any more particular cases, though many more I have, which I reserve for the Committee. The main point, after all, is this,—whether this system carries into effect the principle on which it professes to be founded,—whether, as is the declared object in the Report of the Committee of 1828, which Lord Stanley's letter directs the Commissioners to follow up,—the main question, I say, is, whether these schools give to the children of Ireland a combined education of Roman Catholics and Protestants, resting on religious instruction? My Lords, in proof of the affirmative, it is stated that certain lessons, extracted from the Scriptures, are constantly used in the schools. On a former occasion, I, and those who view this matter as I do, were reproached for not ascribing sufficient importance to these Scripture extracts, as part of the instruction of the Board's schools; but, my Lords, be the value of these extracts what it may (of that I shall say something presently), they are not commanded, but merely recommended to be used. And how far this recommendation is likely to avail, may be guessed from the declared opinion of Roman Catholic Prelates respecting Scriptural education. I recollect that Dr. Doyle declared to Parliament, that the use of Scripture in the instruction of children is radically wrong, and mischievous in itself. The united judgment of the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, proclaimed to Parliament in their petition of 1824, is to the same effect. After this, your Lordships will judge whether it is probable that Dr. Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, will very earnestly, or very sincerely recommend the use of these Scripture extracts. So far from being constantly used, the truth is, that in a large proportion of the country they are not used at all. They are kept to be shown to such strangers as may manifest any curiosity about the matter; but those who have examined them will tell you, that the very appearance of the books is a proof that in many instances they are not used. In Dublin, at one of the national schools, a monk, who was the manager, told a very respectable individual whom I am ready to pro-
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duce, that they rejected these extracts with scorn. Nay, I go further: I am ready to show, that in schools under the immediate patronage of Dr. Murray, who professes to join in this recommendation, the Scripture lessons are not used.
And here, my Lords, I am reminded, that a few weeks ago, a noble and learned Lord (Lord Plunkett) was pleased to reproach me with being a false prophet, because, at the commencement of the Board's proceedings, I ventured to predict that no Scripture extracts would be ever used in these schools. My Lords, I plead guilty to the noble and learned Lord's charge. I certainly did make the prediction with which he now taunts me; but for making it I am not altogether without what the noble and learned Lord, at least, may consider something of an excuse. I ventured upon that prediction on the authority of the noble and learned Lord himself.
My Lords, I well remember, and your Lordships in general will not have forgotten, the eloquent and triumphant speech in which, some years ago, the noble and learned Lord called on this House, more especially on the reverend Prelates, who were seated on this Bench, to have confidence in Roman Catholics, so far at least to have confidence in them, as to believe them on their oaths. Now, when I ventured on that prediction, with the falsehood of which the noble and learned Lord reproaches me, I did what he called on your Lordships to do—I believed the declaration of a Roman Catholic Archbishop made upon his oath. In doing so, I own that I was wrong; I own that I have justly subjected myself to the taunt of the noble and learned Lord, and I promise him that I never again will offend in like manner. But true it is, my Lords, that I said, in 1832, that no Scripture extracts could be agreed upon by the different members of the Board. I said this, because I was sure that the Protestant Commissioners could not consent wholly to abandon the Protestant version of the Scripture, and adopt the Douay version in its place. On the other hand, I believed that the Roman Catholic Commissioners would admit of nothing but the. Douay version; therefore I said that no Scripture extracts could be agreed upon. I believed this, and ventured to predict t accordingly, because I knew, (I forget whether I then, stated such to be the

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ground of my belief,) that Dr. Murray had so sworn before the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry in the year 1824. I have the Report of these Commissioners before me, and will read an extract from the evidence of Dr. Murray upon which I founded my prediction. He was asked,
"Supposing that portions of Scripture should be extracted in the words of the Protestant authorized version, for instance, would there be any objection to their being used equally by Protestant and Roman Catholic children?"
Dr. Murray's answer upon his oath was this:—
"I think that if any words attributed to our Saviour were given in any other form than that which is set down in the Douay version, an objection would he against it. As to extracts, if they are given as Scripture, it must be remembered that we have all along said we could not propose to the children anything as Scripture except what is taken from our own version."
When Dr. Murray made this declaration, the Commissioners reminded him that, on a former occasion, he had spoken somewhat differently, that he had staled that no difficulty would arise in the arranging of a harmony on the part of the Roman Catholic clergy, and the Commissioners wished to know whether the making it a sine qua non that the harmony should be compiled from the Douay version in omnibus, appeared to be in accordance with that statement? Dr. Murray's answer was:—
"I expressed that as my opinion, without foreseeing all the difficulties which have since arisen."
Your Lordships will perceive that Dr. Murray here has positively sworn that after the difficulty had been brought to the attention of himself and the other Roman Catholic Bishops, they felt that they could not adopt the course proposed, because they could not permit anything to be exhibited as Scripture, except in the form in which it appeared in their own version. This, I repeat, he solemnly swore: he swore to the same effect, again and again; and because he did so, I believed that he would not and could not concur in any sort of Scripture extracts in these schools.
It will not be said that these Scripture extracts do not purport to be Scripture. The volume I hold in my hand is declared to contain the whole Gospel by St. Luke, accompanied by passages from other parts of Scripture.
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And here, my Lords, I am compelled to make some remarks on these Scripture extracts, which do not apply to the Roman Catholic Commissioners alone.
My Lords, I repeat, and your Lordships will find it worthy of your notice, that the preface declares that this volume contains the whole Gospel of St. Luke. And yet, my Lords, I had not gone through three pages before I found a very considerable chasm, not in size but in importance, extending to ten verses only, I admit,—to ten verses of the 1st chapter of St. Luke, the 28th to the 37th inclusive. But this is a passage of the greatest importance in the estimation of all Christians—aye, my Lords, in the estimation of all who call themselves Christians. Even those persons who thought fit to set forth a book, some years ago, which they facetiously entitled, "An improved version of the New Testament," even they felt the importance of this passage very strongly, and they showed how strongly they felt it, by leaving it out altogether. They left out the whole of the 1st and 2nd chapters of St. Luke, and the 1st and 2nd chapters of St. Matthew, because they thought proper to disbelieve the great doctrine contained in them. Now, my Lords, £ have no hesitation in saying that this part of the 1st chapter of St. Luke, which the Commissioners have left out, is one of the most important passages—perhaps I might say the most important passage—in the Gospel of that Evangelist. It is so in the estimation of our Church, because it gives more fully than is elsewhere given in the Gospels, the account of the incarnation of our blessed Lord. I have already shown, that it is most important in the judgment of the Unitarians also. My Lords, we are told that one of the Commissioners is an Unitarian, and it has been suggested, that this was a concession to his peculiar feelings, which perhaps coincided with those of the authors of the improved translation. For one, I do not believe it. I do not believe that that gentleman sought or wished such a concession. I will not believe that the Unitarian Commissioner is one who maintains all the absurdities and wickedness which some other Unitarians may maintain. But this having been suggested as a probable reason for the omission, I notice it merely in order to declare that I do not believe it. To the Roman Catholics it is a passage, of all others, the most venerated. It is a pas-

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sage on which they found, and by which they justify, the worship offered up by them to the Virgin Mary, which worship is set forth in the books sanctioned by the Roman Catholic members of the Board, in terms, I need not say, of the highest and most solemn import. In short, my Lords, it is certain, and undeniable, that, in the eyes of all these Commissioners, this is a most important passage, and yet they left it out. Why was this? My Lords, the reason is not very difficult to be discovered. It is simply and merely, because it was impossible for the Protestant and Roman Catholic Commissioners to agree in translating one leading word in the passage;—the word addressed by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, which the Roman Catholics render "full of grace," and found upon it, I repeat, that worship of the Virgin which we deem idolatrous. The Protestants, on the other hand, reject that translation; both because it is not faithful to the original, and also because the phrase "full of grace" is applied in Scripture only to our Lord himself. They could not, therefore, adopt it instead of their own literal version of the word, "highly-favoured." And as neither party could give way, the difficulty was got rid of by the very obvious, though, considering the declaration in the preface, the not very honest, expedient, of striking out the whole passage, and substituting an unauthorized summary of four lines in its place.
My Lords, I need not trouble your Lordships or myself with any argument to prove, that the omission of this passage amounts to a mutilation of the Scriptures; but if I required authority for such a judgment, I should find it in the emphatic words of one of the Commissioners themselves, in the answer of the most reverend Prelate, the Archbishop of Dublin, to an address of the clergy of his diocese in the year 1832, in which they had deemed it necessary to remonstrate with him on the proposed Scriptural extracts, then much the subject of discussion as mutilations of Scripture. The passage of the answer to which I refer is in these words:—
"A mutilated book means, according to all the usage of language hitherto, one which professes to be entire when it is not; as for instance, when any one strikes out as spurious (which some have done) the opening chapters of Matthew or Luke, and then presents the book to us as the New Testament, we should rightly term this a mutilation."
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My Lords, I willingly adopt this very accurate definition, with the happy illustration which accompanies it, and now, I leave it to your Lordships to decide whether this little volume which I hold in ray hands, the whole Gospel of St. Luke, according to the Commissioners, be, or be not, a mutilation of Scripture?*
*It is proper to remark—and I hope the remark may call forth some explanation—that the Archbishop of Dublin, in an elaborate speech which he delivered in the House of Lords on Tuesday, March 19, 1833, in justification of himself and his Brother-Commissioners, not only repeated the definition which I have cited above, saying "As to a mutilation of the Scriptures, I have always understood that to be, the publication of what professed to be a book, which it is not," but actually referred in the following terms to this, "2nd number of Scriptural Lessons, taken from the New Testament, which is not yet published, though the whole is now completed (March 1833) with the exception of half of one sheet. This number contains the whole of the Gospel of St. Luke—that 'mutilated' portion of the Scriptures, The entire Gospel of St. Luke!'—MIRROR OF PARL. 1833.
When the most reverend Prelate made this declaration, and made it in so exulting a tone, he was either cognizant of the "mutilation'' which has been here exposed, or not cognizant. If cognizant, he will admit that those whom he thus addressed have a right to ask for some explanation. If he was not cognizant of it—if the thing was done without his consent, and even without his knowledge—he will probably consider it due to himself—it certainly is due to the country—that so extraordinary au occurrence should be traced to its proper source.
The mention of explanation suggests the fitness of another inquiry.
One of the most unhappy particulars in the History of the Board was its abandoning the regulation originally laid down, that copies of the New Testament should be supplied to all the schools, to be read by all the children, at the times of separate religious instruction,—the authorized Version for the Protestant scholars, and the Douay Version, an edition of which had been prepared expressly for this purpose, on the requisition of the Commissioners of 1824, by the Roman Catholic Prelates, for the children of that communion. This regulation, which had been first made by the Commissioners of 1824, was adopted by the Committee of the House of Commons in 1828,—in deference to that great principle, which no true Protestant can ever relinquish, that the Word of God being the foundation of all true religion, access to it is the indefeasible right, and acquaintance with it the indispensable duty, of every Christian. Accordingly, when it was known that this important regulation had been abandoned, no one doubted

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My Lords, I will not, on the present occasion, enter into further minute examination of these Scripture extracts, because I feel that your Lordships' House is not the proper place for a discussion of that nature, a Committee being, in my judgment, much more suitable to such a purpose. There are one or two observations, however, which I cannot refrain from making. It will, probably, be recollected, that the noble and learned Lord, the last time this subject was before the House, defied me to lay my hands upon any passage of the books in question, to which exception could fairly be taken. To that challenge I now reply, that I am perfectly ready and anxious to go into a Committee with the noble and learned Lord, and that I undertake to prove, if your Lordships will give me an opportunity, several gross corruptions of the truth in that volume, which professes to form the scriptural part of the education of the people of Ireland—all those corruptions tending to favour the erroneous doctrines of the Church of
that this had been done in concession to the Roman Catholics. But a paper, laid before Parliament last year, entitled "Extract of Correspondence between Sir Henry Hardinge and the Board of Education in Ireland, dated January, 1835," has thrown a new light on the subject. It is there stated, that the Protestant, not the Roman Catholic, Commissioners were the authors of this lamented change—a change, which has done more to give a Popish character to the whole system, than anything, or everything besides. The following is the account of it:—
"It may be right here to observe, that this Committee of the House of Commons recommended" (rather, it was a main part of the system of this Committee, as it had been a main part of the system of the Commissioners of 1824) "that copies of the New Testament according to the Protestant authorized version should be supplied to the different schools for Protestants, and according to the Roman Catholic version, to which notes are appended, for the Roman Catholics. But when Mr. Stanley communicated with the intended members of the present Board, before it was finally instituted, difficulties were expressed by the Protestant Ecclesiastics as to their circulating the Roman Catholic version of the New Testament." The paper proceeds to state, that this scruple was suffered to prevail, and that the regulation was given up.
The Archbishop of Dublin here says, that he had felt and "expressed difficulties, as to circulating the Roman Catholic version"—in other words, as to putting that version into the hands of the Roman Catholic children, although the alternative manifestly was, that
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Rome. Indeed, in the Committee I could prove, that almost all the proceedings of the Board, under this system, have a tendency to promote the Roman Catholic faith at the expense of what Protestants believe to be the true religion.
My Lords, I make no further observations at present on these boasted Scripture extracts. But there are other books used in these schools at the time of the separate religious instruction of Roman Catholics, and recommended by the Commissioners, which would warrant some remarks, if I were not afraid of abusing your Lordships' patience. Let me only state, that in one of them the children are taught, that the worship of God in the Protestant Church is rejected by Him as impious and sacrilegious, that our translation of the Word of God is false and corrupt, and that the state of the Protestant people in Ireland is most dangerous and deplorable; because they have put into their hands, instead of the Word of God, only corrupt translations, which present them with a mortal poison instead of the food of life.
those children should have no version of the Scriptures whatsoever—nay, that the New Testament, in every version, should cease to be a necessary school-book, under this national system of education, even at the time of separate religious instruction, whether for Protestants or for Roman Catholics. The reasons must have been cogent which compelled a Protestant Archbishop to insist on an objection leading, of necessity, to such a result—still more, which prevailed with him, to continue the sanction of his high authority and co-operation to a system which could not be carried on without a sacrifice so distressing to his feelings, and so much at variance with his principles. Be this as it may, I have too much respect for a conscientious scruple, especially a religious scruple, to inquire very rigidly into its reasonableness—I ask not, therefore, what were the reasons for the scruple;—I only ask how the scruple itself can be reconciled with the following passage of an answer, written about the same lime, to a remonstrance of his clergy against the use of the intended Scripture extracts, "because such a volume, to be acceptable to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, must be in the language of the Douay and Rheims Version of the Scriptures.''
"The Douay Version," says the Archbishop, "is permitted to be used under the Kildare-place system"—"and I agree with them" (the promoters of the Kildare-place schools) "in thinking, that there is no translation of the Bible extant, which is not better than none, when that is the alternative?—REPLY OF ABP, OF DUBLIN, p. 21.

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But I will not say more. I hope I have already laid sufficient ground to justify me in asking for this inquiry. I hope, too, that your Lordships are of this opinion-still more I hope, that the noble Lords near me will feel it to be their especial duty to permit a Committee to be appointed. I say their especial duty, for most undoubtedly, I have made out a primâ facie case, charging great culpability on the Commissioners; and if the Ministers of the Crown screen them from the inquiry which is demanded, I shall then think that Ministers are—what I do not now consider them to be—responsible for the misconduct of those Commissioners. But, my Lords, if there are among your Lordships any who have friends among the Commissioners, to them, above all, I confidently address myself: they will, I am sure, do what the Commissioners themselves, if they were present,—and what the noble Duke who is present (the Duke of Leinster), must be anxious to do—they will earnestly join me in conjuring your Lordships to permit this inquiry.
In seeking a Committee, I can assure your Lordships that I have no intention of proposing the destruction of the (so called) national system of education. I never disguised my opinion of that system in its origin, and I never will. But it is a very different thing to look at a system before it is established and afterwards. I do not think it right to make away with established institutions, even if they are dangerous or mischievous, provided that they can be made tolerable; and this system, I think, may be made at least tolerable, by introducing into it two easy, but important, temperaments. I will state to your Lordships the two particulars which, in my opinion, would go very far indeed to remove the objections to the system; and, then, all that would be necessary would be, that the system, so amended, should be fairly and firmly carried into execution.
One change which I would suggest is founded upon the demand made by the Synod of Ulster, to which Lord Grey assented,—namely, that during school hours there should be a regular Scripture lesson every day—that the children should then read from the Holy Scriptures themselves for a time; at which lesson, however, it should not be necessary that all the children should attend, or that any child should attend Whose parents objected to it.
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Another great point, and one which, in my opinion, it is the bounden duty of the British Legislature to secure, is—the protection of the Roman Catholics of Ireland from the tyranny of their priesthood, by insisting that that priesthood shall not do that which all of your Lordships must feel to be in absolute defiance of God's Word, and an act of most unjustifiable tyranny,—I mean, that they should no longer be permitted to exclude their people from access to the word of God. My Lords, in order to effect this great, this paramount object, I would propose nothing of which the Roman Catholic priests themselves could justly complain—I would be satisfied with requiring that to which Dr. Murray said there could be no possible objection.
The Commissioners, in 1824 and 1825, feeling the absolute necessity of insisting on an adequate exhibition of the Word of God to all the children who were going through a course of Christian education, under the sanction and at the charge of a Christian government, required the Roman Catholic Bishops to produce a translation of the New Testament, with such notes as they might think fit to put into the hands of Roman Catholic children in all the schools which the State should support. Having done this, and having obtained from the prelates such a Testament, they asked Dr. Murray whether there would be any objection to the Protestant and Roman Catholic children reading the New Testament in the same class, at the time of united instruction, each out of their own version? To this Dr. Murray observed, that serious difficulties would exist in the way of such an arrangement; and in lieu of it, proposed that a harmony of the Gospels should be used in the common education of Roman Catholic and Protestant children, and that the Holy Scriptures themselves should be used only at the time of separate religious instruction; at which time, he said, there could be no possible objection to the Roman Catholic children reading out of the Sacred Volume, the Gospels, and Epistles of the week. These, in the Roman Breviary, are far more numerous than in our Prayer-book, and include a large portion of the New Testament.
My Lords, I hope and believe, that if this and the other suggestion, which I have made, were adopted, they would go very far to remedy the great evils of this

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system, at present complained of by so many of the best Protestants of all denominations in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland. Surely this is not asking much: it is asking only, on the one hand, for the observance of that rule which the Commissioners themselves have said might be properly adopted; and, on the other, it is asking only that that should be insisted upon, which Dr. Murray himself proposed, and to which he said there could be no objection. On the authority, then, of Dr. Murray, I ask this from your Lordships—I ask, that you will give the children of Ireland access to the Holy Volume, for the reading of those portions, at least, of the Scripture, which Dr. Murray said might be read with propriety. The great mischief of all in Ireland is, that the mass of the people in that country do not really know what the Holy Volume is. They never see it; they know nothing of it. That which we, as Protestants, are most anxious to obtain is, that the Roman Catholics should be allowed to see the Holy Volume,—that they should become familiar with it,—that they should be taught to know that it contains the Word of God and of truth.
My Lords, I have done; I hope that I have avoided, as I have sincerely intended to avoid, even the appearance of pressing this motion in any way that should give to it the character of hostility to the Government. I assure his Majesty's Ministers, that I do not look upon this question as one of party feeling. Far from it—it is a matter which interests all, infinitely more than the most important party question that ever was proposed. My Lords, I say this from the regard which is due to your feelings, no less than to my own. I am sine, that every one whom I address must feel, that a question which involves the religious principles, the most solemn duties, the everlasting interests, of all the poorer classes of our fellow-subjects in Ireland, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, is one which, more imperatively than any other, demands that in the discussion of it every thing like party feeling should be cast aside. I assure your Lordships, that I should, with much greater pleasure, have risen to express my confidence in the continued well-doing of the system which has been established, if I could have done so with truth; and I deeply regret that a most imperative sense of duty has compelled me to avow before
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your Lordships my utter distrust of it. My Lords, I shall sit down entreating his Majesty's Ministers, if they think that I have made out a case for further inquiry, to grant the Committee, for the appointment of which I shall conclude by moving. In their hands, after the statement I have made, I leave the whole question. I will not ask your Lordships to divide with me, if his Majesty's Ministers state that they will not oppose my motion. My Lords, I move, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the progress which the new system of education in Ireland has made in effecting the main purpose for which it was established,—namely, the combined education of the poorer classes of the community of that country, Protestant as well as Catholic, resting upon religious instruction; to inquire whether the funds intrusted to the Commissioners have been judiciously administered towards the attainment of that object; and whether experience of the practical result of their labours renders it safe and advisable to adopt the recommendations contained in their Second Report, for the great extension of the system therein contemplated."
Viscount Melbourne felt that he owed an apology to their Lordships for venturing to present himself to their attention immediately after the very long and very able speech of the right reverend Prelate who had just sat down—a speech of great minutiæ and great detail—em-bracing many particulars, taking notice of the conduct of particular schools, and entering into a minute examination of the publications which had been put forth by the Commissioners for the use of schools in Ireland—matters with which he could not at the moment be expected to display a very familiar acquaintance, and with respect to which, therefore, he was utterly unable to enter into a controversy with the right reverend Prelate. But he thought he owed it to their Lordships to state generally the grounds on which he felt it would be out of his power to comply with the motion which the right reverend Prelate had made. The principal grounds were briefly these; that the appointment of a Committee would tend to no good, but to much evil—to disturb the system of education satisfactorily (as he believed) established in Ireland—to revive religious animosities and dissensions, and to interrupt a plan of j proceeding which had received the sanction (he believed) of every public man in

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the country, and been adopted by every Government which had existed during the period of the last five years. The right reverend Prelate had stated with great truth, that it was a very different thing to oppose a system at the beginning and to interfere with a system after it was established and in actual operation; and that those who might be anxious to oppose a system at the commencement, might very possibly not be desirous of intermeddling or interfering with its progress after it had once been established. But their Lordships must consider the quarter whence this proposition came, and the effects which would be produced upon the public mind in Ireland when it was seen that a Committee of Inquiry, whose labours were to be devoted to the improvement of the existing system of education, was appointed at the suggestion of one of those who were the strongest and most vehement opponents of the system when it was first proposed. On that ground alone he thought it would be highly impolitic in their Lordships to accede to the motion. The right reverend Prelate stated, in the first place, that the Archbishop of Dublin, in answer to one of the addresses which had been presented to him, admitted that the experiment was likely to fail. But the right reverend Prelate omitted to state the reason which induced the Archbishop of Dublin to think it likely that the experiment might fail. He omitted to mention that the apprehension of failure in the Archbishop's mind arose from the anticipated opposition of the Roman Catholic population. That certainly was not the ground of failure alleged against the system by the right reverend Prelate (the Bishop of Exeter) on the present occasion. The right reverend Prelate subsequently made what he (Lord Melbourne) must admit to be a very fair defence of his most reverend Friend the Archbishop of Dublin, when he stated that the experience of the last four years of the working of the system had convinced him (the Archbishop of Dublin) of the advantages attending it—that he regarded it no longer as an experiment, and that he was anxious for its further extension. That, indeed, was a correct statement of the fact—the Archbishop of Dublin did consider the plan to have succeeded—did consider it as in the course and progress of success, as conciliatory to the minds of the people of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, and as ex-
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tending the benefits of a sound education, the acquirement of scriptural knowledge, and an acquaintance with the precepts of true religion to all classes of the community in that country. Upon these grounds he thought it would be unwise and imprudent in their Lordships to interfere with the operation of the system, or in any degree to interrupt or prevent its progress. The right reverend Prelate relied very much upon the Second Report of the commissioners, from which he had read extracts, and which undoubtedly opened very large topics of discussion. The Commissioners in that Report certainly took very extensive views of further proceedings upon the subject. But he (Lord Melbourne) had already stated that the Government were not pledged to the recommendations contained in the Report. Their intention in the present year undoubtedly was, to propose a larger vote for this service than was proposed last year; but if they were going to adopt the system to the extent recommended in the Second Report of the Commissioners, he did not pretend to say that some further inquiry—-some closer examination and investigation would not be necessary. The right reverend Prelate complained that the Report afforded no security for the religion of those who were to be the instructors of the school-masters. He (Lord Melbourne) should think that the offer of any security upon that point would be utterly superfluous; for, could it be supposed that a Board so constituted as the Board of Education in Ireland was, in appointing officers of such importance, would not take proper means to secure their being persons of right religious feeling, and of sufficient religious knowledge. He must here allude to what he could not help calling the rather disingenuous parallel which the right reverend Prelate had drawn between the Commissioners and the Minister of Public Instruction in France; but there was a vast difference in the situation of the Minister of Public Instruction in France and the Commissioners of Education in Ireland, inasmuch as that the former addressed himself to a country where a great proportion of the population were Roman Catholic, and where the Roman Catholic was the established religion, whilst the latter, on the contrary, were dealing with a country where a great majority of the population, it was true, were Roman Catholics, but where the Roman Catholic

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was not the established religion. In France, too, it was to be remembered that the Protestants as well as the Catholics were much more under the regulation of the Government as to education, than were either Catholics or Protestants in Ireland. But the fact, that the established religion of Ireland was the Protestant, while the mass of the population were Catholics, was the root of the whole difficulty; this it was that forced them to the adoption of so many expedients. It was not wonderful that the new system of education should, in the first instance, have excited some doubt in the mind of the Archbishop of Dublin and others. Four years' experience, however, satisfied him, that it had succeeded in a manner which was beyond all disputation. He did not see that the right reverend Prelate (the Bishop of Exeter) notwithstanding the various statements into which he had entered, had laid any good grounds for the appointment of a Committee. All that the right reverend Prelate had stated of the misconduct of school-roasters; all that he had stated of the improper behaviour of individuals; all that he had stated of the wrong use that had been made of school-rooms, admitted of a sufficient remedy by application to the Board itself. If, after an application to the Board, it were found that a proper remedy was not obtained, it would then be for the right rev. Prelate to come down to Parliament, and to ask for the adoption of such an extreme measure as that which he proposed on the present occasion. The right rev. Prelate had adverted to the statement made by his noble Friend who opened this question in the other House of Parliament, in which his noble Friend stated that the Protestant clergy should, in the first instance, be attended to in founding the new schools, and then the right reverend Prelate proceeded with considerable force to point out the much greater number of schools which had fallen into the hands of Roman Catholics compared with those which had been given to Protestant ministers. But their Lordships must recollect the circumstances under which the new project of education was established. When his noble Friend in the other House of Parliament stated that he wished on that occasion to act in concert with the clergy of the Established Church, he stated no more than the truth; but he did not at that time anticipate the bitter and deter-
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mined opposition with which the plan was ultimately received by the Protestant clergy; he did not anticipate an address, signed by seventeen of the prelates of Ireland, condemning the plan, and calling upon the clergy of the Establishment not to act upon it. The most reverend Prelate, at the head of the Irish Church, had stated on a former occasion that the Bishops had much greater difficulty in restraining the clergy than in exciting them to opposition. He thought that that was very likely—and the most reverend Prelate having stated it as a fact, he felt convinced of its truth; but, at the same time, it proved how great had been the hostility on the part of the clergy of the Establishment, and how little wonderful it must therefore be considered that the result stated by the right Reverend Prelate should have followed such a commencement. He believed that the original hostility of the clergy was fast fading away—that the original difficulties were likely soon to be got over—that the feelings of jealousy and irritation which at first existed were rapidly passing away. Would their Lordships consent to revive them—would they stir the question again—would they call again into action all those polemical and theological points of difference which had been referred to by the right reverend Prelate? He felt satisfied that they would not, and he felt therefore satisfied that they would resist the motion for the Committee. Everybody who knew anything of Ireland must be aware—looking to the state of the population in that country, looking at the great preponderance of the Roman Catholic faith in many particular parts of it—that in the application of any general system of education many of the schools must be entirely Roman Catholic. The right reverend Prelate had well stated that the object of the new system was to give an united plan of education to Catholics and Protestants. The very strong feeling which prevailed upon the subject prevented the plan from being so successful as it might have been at the commencement; but the best hopes of its success at present prevailed, and those hopes he trusted their Lordships would not interrupt by acceding to such a motion as that proposed by the right reverend Prelate. The right reverend Prelate had mentioned certain schools which were held in connexion with nunneries, or within the walls of nunneries. He (Lord Melbourne) held in his hand a

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letter from one of the Commissioners, Mr. Carlisle, upon the subject, which, as allusion had been made to the matter, he would trouble their Lordships by reading. The letter stated, that soon after the Board was established, applications were made in behalf of schools conducted by nunneries, and by lay confraternities of Roman Catholics, that the Board was in doubt as to the views of Government with respect to those schools, and that in consequence a communication was had with Lord (then Mr.) Stanley, as to the mode in which these applications should be treated; that after a careful consideration of the subject, seeing that the class of schools in question was most favourably reported of by the Commissioners of 1826—considering that they came under the rule of national schools, and considering also that if their application were acceded to they would come within the control of the Board, whereas, if it were refused, they would remain entirely independent of it, the Commissioners agreed unanimously that the application for these schools should be received. The letter concluded by stating that the number of these schools was not great. That, in his opinion, was a sufficient explanation of the circumstances to which the right reverend Prelate had referred. In conclusion, he would only repeat, that the principle of the existing system of education in Ireland was one which had been approved of by every Government which had existed in this country for many years back, and the present system had been approved of by every successive Government since it was established. It was introduced by his noble Friend in the other House, who was certainly and unquestionably a decided friend of the Protestant religion and the Church Establishment—it received the hearty support of Earl Grey's Ministry—it was adopted by the late Government, who placed that estimate upon the table which their Lordships voted last year for the support and maintenance of these schools—it was entirely approved of by the present Government, and he thought their Lordships would act most unwisely if they were to interfere with its further progress by adopting the present motion.
The Earl of Harrowbybegged their Lordships to recollect a little how this question came before them. After a great number of different Commissions—sitting for a great number of years, and proposing
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a great number of different plans for the education of the people of Ireland—had been appointed, Parliament, about four years ago, adopted the plan which had since been in operation. That plan (taking the words from the mouths of its proposers and strongest supporters) was confessedly a mere experiment, of the success of which they expressed no inconsiderable doubt. The measure having now been in operation for about four years, could anything be more obvious, could anything apparently be so little liable to objection, as that Parliament, after having decided on making the experiment, should now employ itself in an inquiry as to how that experiment had been made, and with what success? When the right rev. Prelate first gave notice of his intention to bring forward this motion, he (Lord Harrowby) did not anticipate that it was likely any objection would be made to it. Many of the plain and simple facts brought forward by the right rev. Prelate in support of his motion, had received no answer from the noble Viscount. They had been told that in many points the money voted by Parliament for the purposes of education had not been properly applied, and that the school-rooms had been appropriated to purposes most directly opposed to their legitimate object. These he should conceive to be strong additional grounds for inducing their Lordships to ascertain fully whether these facts were correct or not. These certainly were reasons which led him to think that the present was not an improper time for directing such an inquiry. The Commissioners were applying for a very great extension of the system; and before they consented to extend, or even to continue the system, it would be right that they should satisfy their minds as to whether it was working well or not. The noble Viscount seemed to feel that himself; for he gave the House reason to expect that before any proposal was made to Parliament for carrying out this system to a greater extent, Parliament should be permitted to inform itself, not only whether it were fit that the system should be extended, but whether it might be fit that it should be continued. He (Lord Harrowby) confessed that that statement of the noble Viscount had in some degree diminished the feeling which he at first entertained that it would be the imperative duty of the House to direct an inquiry of such a nature as that pointed out by the

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right rev. Prelate. After the noble Viscount's statement, he thought the right rev. Prelate should be satisfied by placing the whole of the responsibility on the head of the Government. At the same time he thought the House and the country were under a great obligation to the right rev. Prelate for directing the attention of the Government and of the Legislature to the subject. There was another reason why he thought he might remain satisfied without going to a vote on the right rev. Prelate's motion. After the refusal of this Committee, it was utterly impossible for the Government to propose that anything should be given from any fund, much less from the funds of the Protestant Church in Ireland, to support a system of education into which they had not dared to allow Parliament to inquire.
Lord Plunketrejoiced exceedingly that the right rev. Prelate, either at the suggestions of his own good sense, or of some good Friend, on this occasion, had abstained from discussing this subject, on those old grounds on which it had been so often discussed before. At the same time, he could not help apprehending—looking at the general tenor of the right rev. Prelate's speech, and looking also at what had fallen from the noble Earl who had just sat down—that the real object of the motion now made was to get rid of the existing system of public education. He wished to know whether the motion were not intended as an arraignment of the whole system, or whether (as it professed to be) it was merely founded on some supposed abuses of the system, for which amendment or correction was necessary. Education in Ireland had been matter of lengthened Parliamentary inquiry for nearly thirty years; and the Report which was made upon the subject so long ago as the year 1812, was well worthy of their Lordships' attention. The names of the Commissioners by whom that Report was made were familiar to their Lordships. They were all attached by early feelings to the Protestant Church in Ireland. There was the Primate of Ireland, the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr. Elrington (the head of the Protestant University in Dublin), Mr. Leslie Foster, and two or three other gentlemen, all of whom had deeply at heart the welfare of the Protestant Establishment; and they stated in their Report principles well worthy of the perpetual recollection of every person who felt
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anxious for the welfare and well being of Ireland. They stated that there was a thirst for learning on the part of the people of Ireland. They stated, with respect to education, what Sir John Davies had long ago said with respect to law—"Never was a people," said Sir John, "so anxious for the benefit of equal laws." "Never was a people," said the Commissioners of 1812, "so anxious for the benefit of general education." These two natural wishes of the People of Ireland, notwithstanding all the difficulties which had hitherto stood in the way, he felt were now likely to be realized, if the harvest were not blighted by some untimely proceedings like the present motion. With respect to the system of education, an experiment, it had been called, the present result was, after four years' trial, that 180,000 children were receiving the benefit of sound instruction. He, therefore, thanked his noble Friend at the head of the Government for these results, and for having determined, on the present occasion, not to yield to an application, which, if acceded to, might stop the progress of the system, and cause the loss of much of the good which had been already obtained. The question which the Commissioners had to consider was this: was it possible in Ireland to unite moral and religious education? It was agreed that they could not separate them. Was it possible, then, that they could unite them? That question occupied the attention of Parliament thirty years ago, and had been a matter of frequent discussion since. The great difficulty from the first had been whether the Bible was or was not to be used as a book of education? That question was decided in 1812, by the Commissioners to whom he had alluded. It was reconsidered by the new Commissioners appointed in 1824, who came to the same decision; and the decision of the Commissioners of 1812 was again admitted to be correct by the Committee of the House of Commons whose Report was made in 1828. These things had taken place under a variety of successive Governments, under a variety of successive Sovereigns, under a variety of Administrations; and all the great men who had been consulted, or whose attention had been directed to this momentous question, had agreed on this point, that there might be a system of joint religious and moral education proceeding upon this principle—the use, not of the Scriptures at

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large, but of certain passages extracted from the Scriptures, which might be applicable to Protestants as well as Roman Catholics, and conceding always that the children of either class should be allowed the benefit of separate instruction by their own ministers according to their own respective creeds. Now, how was he to understand what had fallen from the right rev. Prelate in the course of the present debate? The right rev. Prelate had stated that there were certain parts of the Scriptures in which it was impossible that Roman Catholics and Protestants could conscientiously agree; and with great accuracy, and, as usual, with equal ability, the right rev. Prelate had pointed out particular passages and points upon which, as he stated, the two religions were directly opposed to each other. But the conclusion which the right rev. Prelate drew from this statement—if it had any meaning whatever—was, no doubt, very acute, very ingenious, very clever; but if it had any sense or meaning, it was this—that the Scriptures could not be introduced as a book in schools without becoming a subject of religious controversy. Then he (Lord Plunket) could not help saying, that he feared the real object of the right rev. Prelate in bringing forward this motion, was not so much to obtain an inquiry into the working of the system, as to arraign the principle on which the system was established. Nothing could be more alarming to the people of Ireland—nothing more likely to arrest the beneficial progress of the system now in operation, than to hold out an idea that a change might be the consequence of the adoption of a motion of this description. He was strengthened in this opinion by what fell from the noble Earl (Harrowby), who seemed to think that the inquiries of a Committee might lead to a change in the system; that was one of the grounds on which he objected to this Committee. He was apprehensive of the consequences of any change in the system in the present excited state of Ireland. The right rev. Prelate had said, that his noble Friend at the head of the Administration was answerable for the mutilated Scriptures which were used in these schools. So was a noble Lord, a member of an Administration of which the right rev. Prelate was a warm supporter. The right rev. Prelate, as also some noble Lords, including the noble Earl (Roden) on the other side, whatever might have
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been their hatred of the offence, had not treated all the offenders with the same degree of punishment. They had not flourished the cat-o'-nine tails with the same alacrity in the one case as in the other. They had not administered the torture of their censure with the same good-will in the case of the late as they did in that of the present Administration. It was due to the Administration of the noble Duke (of Wellington), and that of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel), to say, that their cordial approbation was given to the system, as well as to the mode in which that system was carried on. The estimate of 35,000 l. voted in support of the system, in July, 1835, was prepared in April, when Sir Henry Hardinge was in the Irish Administration. It was but justice to that gallant officer to say, that in the debate on the estimate in July, he expressed his approbation of the system, and said it was his opinion that the result of the system could not be otherwise than beneficial. He certainly added, that if the facts stated by the hon. Members of the House to which the right hon. Baronet belonged, who opposed the estimate, were borne out, and that the Protestants of Ireland were treated as they described, his mind would be changed, and it would be his decided opinion that some other course should be adopted. The objections, however, of the right rev. Prelate and those made in the House of Commons were quite as different from each other as the arguments of the right rev. Prelate at present were different from those which the right rev. Prelate had formerly used on the subject. Five different cases of abuse, on the part of persons acting under the direction of the Board, were alleged in the House of Commons. These cases were inquired into by the Board itself, and he took it on himself to say were found to be frivolous and unfounded. Those who made these charges were told that if they sent to the Board every investigation would take place; but from that hour, the 15th July, up to the present moment no attempt was made to verify them. If the right rev. Prelate made out the cases he stated the Board would give every possible means of redress. At the same time, when his noble Friend, at the head of the Government, refused that night to accede to the proposition of the right rev. Prelate, he did not understand his noble Friend to say, that if any particular case of abuse should be made to appear

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that Parliamentary inquiry was necessary, such an inquiry should not be granted. But he felt the necessity and prudence of the course which his noble Friend had adopted, of not permitting, under the mask (he did not mean to use the word in an offensive sense) of inquiring into abuses, a notion to get abroad that the principle of the present system was to be departed from. It had been stated that the most rev. the Archbishop of Dublin had considered this measure as a mere experiment—that he was not sanguine in his expectations of its success—but that he thought it ought at all events to have a fair trial. Might he (Lord Plunket) be permitted to ask whether the plan had had a fair trial? It had not for one single day had a fair trial. The noble Viscount had already stated the active, and he had no doubt the conscientious, part which fourteen or fifteen Prelates of Ireland thought it necessary to adopt when it was first proposed to carry the system into operation. Notwithstanding the active part taken by these reverend Prelates, he was still sincerely of opinion that a great proportion not only of the lay Protestants of Ireland, but of the Protestant clergy of that country, were favourable to the progress of this measure. The right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Exeter) had criticised the statement made by the Board of Commissioners, that 140 members of the Protestant Established Church had addressed applications to them in favour of this measure. The Board never stated any such thing. The right rev. Prelate was perfectly aware of what was stated; he knew perfectly well that what the Board stated was this; that, amongst the applications which had been made to them for assistance under this system, there were the signatures of 140 clergymen of the Established Church. So there were; that statement of the Board was not only substantially but literally true, because although the names of some of those clergymen were repeated three and even four times over, yet in every instance the duplicate signature had been to a separate and distinct application. If they had described the number of the Protestant clergy in favour of the proposition as greater than it actually had been, they had done the same thing with respect to the other denominations of clergy; so that the proportion remained the same, and the question was not substantially affected. At any rate, he hoped the right
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rev. Prelate did not mean to insinuate that the Commissioners did anything which they had done for the purpose of imposition. He hoped the right rev. Prelate did not believe that any one member of the Commission would be guilty of such an act. But, even if an individual member could be guilty of such baseness, it was surely impossible that seven colleagues, men of character, and filling high stations in society, should combine for so unworthy a purpose. There was no ground, therefore, for believing that in this respect there had been the slightest exaggeration in the Report. It was necessary for him to advert to some other circumstances, in order to show whether the Board had fair play. It was a matter of public notoriety, that there had been meetings in the north of Ireland, consisting of many thousands of persons, who were told that the sacred word of God had been mutilated, and that attempts were making by the Board to deprive them of their Bible. Was that fair play? Under such circumstances could it be said that the experiment had been fairly tried. The noble Earl opposite (who was not so hostile to the existing system when his noble Friends were in office, as he was at present) had addressed some of these meetings, the very persons composing which had their Bibles in their hands and they were exhorted
"To put their trust in providence,
And keep their powder dry."
At a numerous and respectable meeting of Orangemen, in the county of Tyrone, Mr. Grier in the chair, the following resolution was unanimously agreed to:—"That as Protestants, reprobating the new system of national education, we will not (he begged the House to observe the candour and piety of the declaration) listen to any clergyman who supports it." So the dissenting clergy in the north of Ireland, who depended on their congregations for subsistence, were told that they would not be listened to in their pulpits if they supported the new system. Again, he asked, therefore, if the system could be said to have had fair play. Their Lordships were aware of the system which had been formed by the Kildarestreet society. Of that society, Mr. Jackson, an eminent lawyer, was the secretary. Mr. Jackson was examined before the Commissioners of Education in 1826. The same question was then raised as had

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been just raised by the right rev. Prelate. Mr. Jackson had been asked as to the religion of the masters and mistresses of the schools and as to the religion of the scholars. He had argued, on former occasions, that it was no part of the duty of the Commissioners to require answers to such questions. In his reply Mr. Jackson stated that he ought to mention as a reason for not being better informed on the subject, that the society never regarded the religion of any individual in making an appointment to an office in the capital; although there were circumstances which rendered it necessary that the religion of masters and mistresses of schools in the country should be known; and to the question from the Commissioners—" Are we to understand that you are equally without data to enable you to ascertain the comparative number of Catholic and Protestant scholars in the schools?" Mr. Jackson replied, "It would be a violation of our fundamental rule if we were to take measures to ascertain that fact." He hoped, therefore, that the right rev. Prelate would have the candour to acknowledge that he was not justified in drawing any inference against the existing Board from what he had stated. The Board had no right to make the inquiry, and no inference therefore could be drawn against them for their not having done so: nay more, they would not have been justified if they had so acted. Let it be recollected that by the existing system above 180,000 young persons were rescued from the grasp of ignorance and vice, and were receiving the benefits of a sound education. Surely no good man could seriously wish to stop the progress of such a system. Before he sat down he wished to say one word in vindication of the Roman Catholics from the charge made against them by the right rev. Prelate with respect to the Holy Scriptures. What the right rev. Prelate had said, meant that the Roman Catholics denied the authority of the Holy Scriptures, or it meant nothing. Now of this he (Lord Plunket) was sure, that no Roman Catholic, either in Ireland or any where else, would deny the authority of the Holy Scriptures. On the contrary, they held them to be the very essence of Christianity; the revealed word of God. It was true that for their explanation they called in aid from other sources; and in that consisted all that was imputed to
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them, which amounted to this—that they did not consider that the Holy Scriptures, without any comment or explanation, were fit to be put in the hands of the people.
The Earl of Rodenassured their Lordships, that having so often addressed them upon this subject, it was not his intention to have done so on this occasion, had not certain observations dropped from the noble and learned Lord who had just sat down, to which he felt it his duty to make some reply. It was impossible for him to hear those insinuations which the noble and learned Lord had thrown out against him, and particularly the first charge which he had made, without taking the earliest opportunity of expressing himself upon the motives which had actuated his conduct in that House. The noble Lord had said, that when other noble persons, now on the opposition side of the House were in office, he (the Earl of Roden) did not seem to have the same anxiety then upon this subject, as now other noble Lords were in office. That was an imputation which he must beg leave to throw back upon the noble and learned Lord. He would venture to state the circumstances of the case in his own justification, in order to prove to their Lordships that he was not actuated by any such feeling as that which had been falsely imputed to him by the noble and learned Lord. It would be in their Lordships' recollection, that when an answer was given in another place by the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, to a question put by another noble Lord there, as to whether it was the intention of the Government to continue the same system of education in Ireland, on the very next day he (the Earl of Roden) came down to that House and gave notice of his intention to put a similar question to that which had been put in the House of Commons; and having received a reply which was most unsatisfactory to his mind, he then took an opportunity to move for some papers on the subject, in order to bring the question in a tangible form before their Lordships. That, however, he could not do because those papers were not produced until a day or two before the end of the Session. The noble and learned Lord, then, had no authority for making that charge against him. The noble and learned Lord had accused him of holding forth to meetings of Protestants, and telling them

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that this system had for its object the mutilation of the Scriptures. Why, if he were to attend a meeting of Protestants to-morrow on the same subject, he would state the same thing, and he should he able to do so with the greater effect, because he could refer to the speech of the right rev. Prelate for some of the strongest proof's of it. The right rev. Prelate had read statements to the House which showed that the very ground of the system was the mutilation of the Scriptures: for instance, it appeared that ten of the most important verses in the Gospel according to St. Luke had been omitted. Therefore, if he were to meet his Protestant brethren again, he should make exactly the same statements again. The noble and learned Lord must know very little of the Protestants of Ireland, if he thought they had but little anxiety about the scriptural education of their children, or if he thought any delusion was necessary to be used to draw them together and excite their attention to this important subject. He would tell the noble and learned Lord, that knowing as he well did the character of the Protestants of Ireland, especially in the province of Ulster, there was no subject in which they were so much interested as that of scriptural education, and the diffusion of the scriptures without note or comment, or any mutilation whatever. So far from their being indifferent to the question, it was one of the brightest traits in their character that they were extremely anxious to have their children educated in the Scriptures. The noble and learned Lord had alluded to a meeting at which a Mr. Grier, presided. Now he knew nothing of the meeting, nor of Mr. Grier, whom the noble Lord charged with telling the Protestants that they ought not to encourage this system of education. Was that a crime? If so, it was one of which every Protestant in Ireland was guilty, and one which he hoped they would continue to commit as long as the system was continued, for it was a system which never could be adopted by them. The noble and learned Lord had read some evidence given by Mr. Jackson before the Commissioners of the Board of Education, to the effect, that when he was asked, respecting the Kildare-place Society, what was the number of the scholars and teachers, he replied that the return could not be made because it was contrary to a fundamental
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rule of the society. But what was the fact? That was the answer of Mr. Jackson, but the rejoinder of the Board was—"You must make the return." The Kildare-place Society did make the return, but the noble and learned Lord had not told the House that. The noble and learned Lord had undertaken to vindicate the conduct of the Roman Catholics with respect to their use of the Scriptures. He did not wish, on the present occasion, to go into any question with respect to the use of the Scriptures by the Roman Catholics, or how far it was allowed by their church; all he knew was, that the children of the people of Ireland were denied the reading of the Scriptures in these schools. Any noble Lord who had paid attention to the schools in Ireland must be aware of this fact. With regard to the question brought before the House, he did not think the noble and learned Lord or the noble Viscount had answered the case made out by the right rev. Prelate. If ever a case had been brought before Parliament which was deserving of inquiry it was that which had now been presented by the right rev. Prelate; and he was certain that when the account of what took place in that House appeared before the public, if such a thing should happen, the impression would be, that the Government was afraid to meet the question—that it was afraid to meet the question and afraid of inquiry. The noble and learned Lord had insinuated that it was not surprising that Protestant clergymen in Ireland should declare their disapprobation of the existing system of education, when so many Bishops were urging them to do so. He (Lord Roden) did not at that time of day, think it necessary to stand up for the independence of the Protestant clergy in Ireland. They stood in no need of his eulogium. He firmly believed that the great majority of the Protestant clergy in Ireland were inimical to the existing system. Inquiry was necessary, to show that the object which the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, now Lord Stanley, had in view in proposing the system, had not been carried into effect. He regretted extremely that the right rev. Prelate had consented not to press his motion; because, in so grave and important a matter, he should like their Lordships to show, by a division, that the majority of them really meant to support Protestant interests.
Lord Plunket, in explanation, denied that he had attributed any improper motives to the noble Earl. All that he had said was, the noble Earl did not attribute to the late Government the purposes which he attributed to the present.
The Earl of Winchilseamust say, in justice to his noble Friend, that he expressed himself with equal warmth against the existing system of national education in Ireland when carried on under the late Government as at present. The right rev. Prelate had been wholly unanswered by the noble Viscount and the noble and learned Lord. If he (Lord Winchilsea) wished for another ground in favour of the inquiry, it would be the disinclination manifested by his Majesty's Government to give information which the people had a right to receive. It was one of the highest privileges of the people to have full and fair information with respect to the application of money raised by any tax. He (Lord Winchilsea) was not aware until that evening that the grant of 37,000 l. to the Irish Board of Education had been increased to 50,000 l. In the Report of the Commissioners they recommended the extension of the grant to a sum nearer 300,000 l. than 200,000 l. for the first nine years, and the fixing of it afterwards at 200,000 l. He thought that the Protestants of this country had a fair right to demand inquiry before they were called upon to contribute any tax for a system of education of a mixed character, and respecting the expediency or working of which they entertained strong doubts. The right rev. Prelate had made a most clear and able statement, which had been totally uncontradicted by the noble Lords who had spoken on this question, showing that considerable abuses did exist; and he should sit down satisfied that the discussion within the walls of this House was well calculated to open the eyes of the great body of the Protestants of this country to the fact that the measures pursued tended to the destruction of Protestantism. He boldly charged the noble Viscount with having made certain conditions with the individual, by whose support alone Ministers obtained their places. There were three conditions—the first was the surrender of the Protestant Church; the second was the adoption of a system of national education, in order to make the whole of the Protestants members of the Roman Catholic Church; and the
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third was the surrender of the whole police and magistracy of the country into the hands of the agitator. He was convinced that he should be borne out upon all these points. Upon the subject of upholding a national religion, Mr. Burke said—" If the Legislature intends to uphold religion, it must specifically state what the religion is. If you will have a religion publicly practised and taught, you must say what that religion shall be which you will protect and encourage, and distinguish it by such marks and characteristics as you in your wisdom may think fit. Your determination may be unwise, but it cannot be unjust, hard, or oppressive, or contrary to the liberty of mankind." In those sentiments he cordially agreed. It was an absurdity to suppose that a system of religion could be established where errors were not to be pointed out. He was one of the first who opposed this system of education, being convinced that no such system of education could be established without a mutilation of the Scriptures, or keeping all the essential points out of view. If he stood alone he would oppose the grant when it came up from the House of Commons, until he was satisfied how the system of education had worked.
Viscount Melbourneobserved, that the noble Earl had been pleased to state that three conditions had been imposed upon him. He begged leave most distinctly to deny that either of those three conditions were made, or any one of them, or any other conditions or stipulations whatever. He begged leave to tell the noble Earl that his information upon the subject was totally erroneous, and without any foundation whatsoever.
The Bishop of Exeterexpressed himself gratified with the statement of the noble Viscount at the head of his Majesty's Government. It was to him a matter of the greatest pride to know that he had given the noble Viscount an opportunity of making the declaration that he would not propose an extension of the grant without inquiry—a declaration which he was quite sure would give unbounded delight to every Protestant in this country. It was the most satisfactory declaration that the House had received for a very long time, and would afford more benefit to the Protestants than he could venture to express. He sincerely thanked the noble Viscount for what he had said.
The Motion was then withdrawn.