Sitting of 8 March 1844

MINUTES.
BILLS. Private.—1°. Haltwhistle Inclosure; British Iron Company; York United Gas; Birmingham Corporation; Whitehaven and Maryport Railway; Salford Improvement; Northern and Eastern Railway (Newport Deviations); Newport Dock; Eastern Counties Extension; Mariners' and General Life Assurance Company; Globe Insurance Company; Coventry Waterworks; Coventry Improvement; Westminster and Lambeth Suspension Bridge; New British Iron Company.
2°. Newbury and Great Western Railway; Slamannan Junction Railway; North British Railway; Newbury, etc. Railway; Sheffield, etc. Railway.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Chester, against Alteration in Postage.—From Chester, against Poor Law Amendment Bill.—By Mr. S. Crawford, from Galashiels, Darlington, Aberdeen (2), and Bridport, for Withholding the Supplies.

COMMITTEE ON RAILWAYS.
Mr. Hindleyrose to move,
"That any Member whose constituents are locally interested in any competing lines of railway, may be permitted to sit upon the Committee appointed to decide upon their respective merits, though without being allowed to Vote upon any question arising thereon,"

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He considered that the Members of the House of Commons, by its late Resolutions, had given up the power of representing their constituents altogether. As long as private business was delegated to the House of Commons, every Member had a right to represent the local interests of his constituents. Personal interest, indeed, stood upon a different footing. Where a Member of the House had a personal interest in a particular line, he ought not to vote in the Committee upon it, because he might at least be suspected of being influenced by his own objects; and the result would be to weaken the effect of the decision. He had himself acted upon this principle when he held a number of shares in the Sheffield and Manchester Railway. On going down to the borough which he had the honour to represent, he found that there was a very considerable feeling in favour of another line. He himself then thought that the public interest would require both lines; and, in order that he might be an unprejudiced and unsuspected judge, he gave directions to his broker to sell his shares, and they were sold at a sacrifice of 1,000 l. It was a fact that the shares fetched 800 l. less than they would at the present day. Therefore, as to personal interests, he quite agreed in the propriety of the Resolution; but the local interests of constituents he regarded in a totally different light. To whom were the constituencies to look for the defence of their local interests, if not to the Gentlemen who were sent to represent them in that House? And were the Members of the House of Commons sunk so low in public estimation as to make it necessary to affirm that they had not sufficient sense of justice, or sufficient knowledge of what was due to themselves, to their constituents, and the country, to be enabled to give a fair and honest vote. He believed the fact to be, that many Members had not the moral courage, when there were two parties among their constituents, taking different views, to run the risk of offending one of them by declaring in favour of what they conceived to be most for the public interest. For his own part, he should never shrink from advocating what he believed to be for the public good, without reference to any party whatever. As the rule of the House stood originally, he asked, would any Member have been permitted by his constituents to absent himself from a Committee in which their interests were af-
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fected? If a Member said, "Gentlemen, I cannot vote for either of you;—both sides have great claims to attention, but I cannot favour either: I am interested for you;—I understand your case, no man better; but if I vote for either, every one will think I have been biassed, and, therefore I shell leave the matter to be disposed of by others who know nothing at all about it"—his constituents would have told him, that he was sent to that House to represent them, and that if he did not attend to their interests, the sooner he took himself away from the House of Commons the better. If, indeed, the duties of Members of that House were merely of a judicial character, he could understand that argument. If the interest of particular localities were to be decided by the learned Judges and twelve impartial Jurors, after hearing arguments of counsel well and good, but let not the House have any responsibility at all with respect to private business. Let all such business go to the Courts of Law, and then that House would be rid of a great deal of trouble. What was now done openly and publicly, would be liable, hereafter, to be done secretly. At present, if a Member took one side or the other, his whole conduct was before the eyes of his constituents, and if he acted unjustly, the public opinion of his constituents would punish him; but here were five Gentlemen—and who would tell him that some influence might not be used to impress them with a particular view, by arguments which had nothing to do with the justice of the case, by party influence, or other such means? Who was to tell him that this sort of back stair influence might not prevail, and that an individual whose conduct was not before all, might not act in a way which he would not have dared to do when he was open to the judgment of public opinion? He thought the House was departing from a truly English principle by adopting these Resolutions. He liked the principle, that a man who adopted a particular course, should be responsible to public opinion with respect to that course. If his constituents did not approve of it, they had a remedy in their own hands at the next election, but here the Committee acted in private and were not under the check of public supervision. He thought there was in that House a love of property and a love for the defence of persons who had property, an esprit de corps, and that, therefore, those who were not represented

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in that House, the great body of the people, had but little chance of any of their interests being brought before a private Committee. He should not detain the House longer, but he urged them to pause before they went too far with these Resolutions. If Gentlemen would look at this proposition, they would see that it was not to rescind the proposition adopted on Monday evening. He did not go so far as that. He did not ask that Members, whose constituents were locally interested, should sit and vote in the Committee, but what he asked was, that those whose constituents were so interested, should not be deprived of the opportunity of sitting in the Committee, hearing the arguments that might be adduced, asking questions of the witnesses, and then leaving it to the five impartial Gentlemen chosen by the Committee of Selection to decide how far those arguments possessed any real weight. He thought that this was due to the constituency—he trusted it would be allowed, and without further detaining the House, he moved the Resolution which he had put into the Speaker's hand.
Mr. Gladstonesaid, that having on the part of the Railway Committee moved a series of Resolutions on the subject to which this matter related, he must beg to say a very few words with respect to the Motion before the House. The hon. Gentleman had taken a good deal of credit to himself for not proposing on Friday a vote which should rescind the Resolutions agreed to on the previous Monday evening, notwithstanding that those Resolutions had been passed under every advantage which any discussion could possess, except, singly, the presence of the hon. Gentleman. With regard to the present Resolution he must observe that in the first place it was entirely superfluous, and in the second place would be extremely inconvenient. His belief was, that the hon. Gentleman was entirely mistaken in the impression that there was anything in the Resolutions which would deprive constituencies of the benefit of the presence and services of their representatives. He believed there was nothing in them to prevent any Member whose constituents were locally interested from using the privilege which, as a Member of that House, he possessed, and appearing in the Committee, and making any statement he might choose—not, indeed, being recognised as a Member of the Committee, and in fact appearing in
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no other capacity than that of a Member of Parliament; but the powers which he possessed as a Member of Parliament would be amply sufficient for any useful purpose, and would enable him to represent any claim on the part of his constituents. As such was the case, he thought great inconvenience would result from investing Members of that House, who were not Members of the Committee, with a recognised authority to appear as advocates or nominees sitting in the Committee, and possessing every authority except that of voting, but taking part in the discussions equally with the Members of the Committee. He thought to adopt such an arrangement, while it was totally unnecessary as aiming at supplying a defect which did not exist, would be exceedingly mischievous, because it would impair the authority which belonged to the Committee, and would constitute a number of Members of the Committee, who would be swayed by different interests, and must render the tribunal less competent to conduct the proceedings in such a manner as would be conducive to the interests of the public; and, therefore, as well as because it was utterly unnecessary, he trusted the House would have no hesitation in negativing the motion.
Mr. W. Pattenwas extremely glad to hear what had fallen from his right hon. Friend. There had been a great difference in Committee as to whether Members were to be allowed to attend and represent the interests of their constituents. He thought that if it had been known, at the time when the measure was introduced, that Members would have the power of stating the case of their constituents, who were not able to appear by Counsel, many who supported the measure would have voted against it on that express ground.
Mr. Labouchereagreed in substance with what had been stated by the President of the Board of Trade. He was aware that any Member had the right to be present at a Committee, but he was not aware that he had a right to address the Committee. He spoke under correction, when he said so, but his impression was, that a Member had no right to address a Committee unless he was a Member of it. Whether it were so or not, he would vote against his hon. Friend the Member for Ashton, who had brought forward his Motion against a Resolution carried upon the other side by a large

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majority. The effect of the Motion would only be to protract the proceedings and increase the difficulties of those coming before the Committee. On the point which he had raised he trusted that the Speaker would state what was the law and practice of Parliament.
Mr. Gladstonesaid, he had not meant to state that any Member had an absolute right to address the Committee; all he had meant to say was, that, practically, no objection was felt to the making of a statement.
The Speakerwished to observe, in reply to the question of the right hon. Gentleman, that no Member who was not a Member of the Committee had any right to interfere with the proceedings. He had no right to examine witnesses, though he might he present in the room.
Dr. Bowringhad received several communications, stating that out of doors great satisfaction was felt at the adoption of the Resolutions, and a desire was expressed by many that the same principle should be established, not only with respect to Railroads but on every Private Bill.
Mr. H. Hindethought that, as the House had decided by the former Resolutions not to admit the representation of Local Interests, they would not be disposed to adopt the very imperfect remedy proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite. He wished to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade on this subject. He understood it had been stated that it was not the intention of the Committee to whom it had been referred to decide what were competing lines, to report the evidence taken by them to the House. He wished to know whether there would be any objection to communicate that evidenee?
Mr. Hindleyobserved that if any measure affecting the interests of his constituents were referred to a Select Committee, he should apply to that Committee, as matter of courtesy, to receive his suggestions.
Mr. Hawesthought it ought to be clearly understood what was the law and practice on this point. If he were a Member of the Committee, and any Member of the House who was not on the Committee endeavoured to influence the proceedings, he should exercise what he considered to be his undoubted privi-
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lege, and request the Gentleman to abstain.
The Speakerbegged to repeat that no Member who was not a Member of the Committee had any right whatever to attend for the purpose of addressing the Committee, or of putting questions to the witnesses, or interfering in any way whatever in the proceedings.
Motion withdrawn.

GIWALIOR—PROCLAMATION OF LORD ELLENBOROUGH.
Mr. Macaulaywished to put that day again the question he had put the day preceding. The question itself, he perceived, had been misunderstood. He had been represented as saying that the late operations in Gwalior were recited in the Proclamation of the Governor General to have taken place in consequence of the Treaty of 1805, whilst what he had said was, that they were there declared to have taken place in consequence of a Treaty which he affirmed was notoriously annulled in 1805. He wished now to know if the right hon. Baronet was prepared to lay on the Table of the House a copy of the Proclamation?
Sir R. Peelreplied, that the Indian mail had arrived in the course of that day. He presumed, that the Proclamation as published was perfectly correct, and he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would not ask him for a more particular answer at that moment. The despatch conveyed ninety-seven inclosures, and there was not as yet time to examine them particularly. He could not doubt, however, that the Proclamation was amongst them, and there could be no objection to lay it on the Table of the House. The right hon. Gentleman, on his own authority, had affirmed that the Treaty of 1804 was notoriously annulled in 1805. There were three treaties between the Government of India and Scinde—a Treaty in 1803, in 1804, and in 1805. The Treaty of 1803 was a general Treaty of Peace. The Treaty of 1804 was a Treaty of Alliance, offensive and defensive, and stipulating that the Maharajah should have a right to call upon the Government of India for assistance in case of turbulence in his territory. That was the effect of the Treaty of 1804; and there was another Treaty which removed some doubts that had arisen with respect to the Treaty of 1803, but had no reference to the Treaty of 1804. The question was, whether the Treaty of 1804 had

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been superseded: it could not, he thought, be said to have been notoriously annulled by the subsequent Treaty. These, he believed, were the facts with respect to these treaties.
Mr. Macaulaydid not mean now to enter into the discussion. The right hon. Gentleman, he understood, would lay copies of the Treaties before the House; and he, therefore, should not at present give any decided opinion on the matter.

CONSUMPTION OF SUGAR.
Mr. Milner Gibsontook that opportunity of asking the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, a question in reference to a statement that had fallen from him in the debate on the preceding night, with respect to the Sugar monopoly. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to affirm, that the consumption of Sugar during the year 1844 had been greater than at any former period [Cries of "No, No."] He understood the right hon. Gentleman to declare, that the consumption of Sugar in the year, ending the 1st of January, 1844, was greater than at any former period with one exception. Now, having taken some trouble to look at Parliamentary Papers, and to make calculations, upon proper authority, with reference to the amount of Sugar that had been taken into consumption in past years, he found, by his calculations, that in the years 1830, 1831, 1835, and 1837, the quantity of Sugar consumed was greater than in the year ending the 1st of January 1844. He was anxious, therefore, to ask the right hon. Gentleman this, not whether the consumption of Sugar, for the year ending the 1st of January, 1844, was actually greater than in previous years, but were they to take as the basis of future argument, that the consumption of Sugar during the year ending the 1st of January, 1844, had been greater than in any former year, with one single exception?
Sir Robert Peelreplied, that if he had made a misstatement there were surely the means of correcting it. He had spoken at the time from documents that he held in his hand. These were returns for the last ten or twelve years, he thought for the last ten years. He spoke from Papers, and he stated that the consumption of Sugar in the last year was greater than in any former year, with one exception, the year 1841: in the year 1841, 4,065,724 cwts., and last year, 4,045,105
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cwts. If be had made any misstatement he would willingly acquiesce in its correction.

TREATY WITH THE BRAZILS.
Mr. Ewartwished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury a question with respect to the Treaty with the Brazils. He understood, from the right hon. Gentleman, that the Brazilian government had proposed, that on our manufactures there should be a duty of from 40 to 60 per cent. on the value. Now, he begged to ask the right hon. Baronet whether the duty which the Brazilian government were willing to submit to on Brazilian sugar was not 150 per cent. on the value? He only asked the right hon. Baronet to give them what was the reciprocal duty on the value of the manufactures imported into Brazil, and the duty on the value of Brazilian produce imported into this country.
Sir R. Peelsaid, with respect to the calculation whether a certain amount of duty would be 150 per cent. on the value of the article, he thought the hon. Member was quite competent to make that calculation himself. The proposition made by the Brazilian government was, that its sugar should be admitted into this country at the same rate of duty as colonial Sugar. There was subsequently a relaxation of that condition; and the Brazilian government offered, that whatever might he the amount of duty on colonial Sugar, the duty on Brazilian Sugar should not exceed that by more than one-tenth—that was to say, if 10 s. was the duty on colonial produce, the duty on Brazilian produce should not exceed 11 s. With respect to manufactured produce, the proposal of the Brazilian government was, that the duty on cotton wool should be 40 per cent. ad valorem; that the duty on woollen goods should be 30 per cent. ad valorem; on other articles there was to be no restriction.
Mr. Warburtonsaid, the question was simply an arithmetical one; it was whether 27 s. 6d.—that was 25 s., plus 2s. 6d.—was not ad valorem a duty at the rate of 158 per cent. His hon. Friend wished to draw a contrast between the rate of duty the Brazilians wished to put on our produce, and the rate of duty they were prepared to submit to from us, that was 40 or 50 per cent. on their side, on our goods, against 158 per cent, on our side, on their Sugar.

EMPLOYMENT OF SHIPS TO COLLECT RATES (IRELAND).
Captain Pechellrose to explain a statement which he had made on Friday last on the subject of the employment of the Navy to enforce the payment of Poor-rates in Ireland. The right hon. Baronet opposite, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, had stated that he was not aware of the existence of such a practice; and he had quoted from an Irish county paper a statement that the Earl of Lucan had, at a meeting of the Castlebar Union, declared his determination rather to encourage resistance to the poor-rate collectors, than to submit to the imposition of a new rate, while so large a portion of the first rate remained uncollected. In reply to the Earl of Lucan, Captain Blake was reported to have said that naval forces were coming round to the coast; and the Earl of Lucan was reported to have replied that he had no doubt but that the Government would send forces to enforce the collection of the rates. He had since received a communication from the Earl of Lucan denying that he had ever made such a statement, and he thought it his duty to state that fact to the House. At the same time, he begged to state that he had only quoted the statement as he had found it in the Mayo Telegraph, published in the noble Earl's own county.

REDUCTION OF THE THREE-AND-A-HALF PER CENT. STOCKS.
House a Committee on the Three-and-a-Half per Cent. Annuities Acts.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer: The subject, Sir, which it is my duty to submit to the House is one which will be acknowledged by every one to be of very considerable importance. It involves the dealing with a large amount of the public debt. It is calculated to produce a great annual saving of the charge which the public incur on account of that debt; and if the House should be pleased to agree to the Measure which I shall submit to it, that Measure will tend, in my opinion, to raise the character and the power of this country by evincing the fact of her great resources, combined with a strict application of honour in the discharge of her national engagements. If I were for the first time calling upon the House to deal with a subject of this importance, I might think it necessary to enlarge upon the motives which justify
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me in making such a proposal as that which I am about to submit to the House. But I am not the first financial Minister of this country who has had to perform the pleasing task of recommending a similar arrangement to the House, and the principle upon which this arrangement proceeds is one so universally acknowledged by Statesmen of the greatest financial ability, and by men of every shade of political opinion—it has been so frequently recommended by Committees of this House, and so frequently acknowledged and confirmed by Parliament, that I feel myself relieved from the necessity which, upon such an occasion, might otherwise be imposed upon me of showing to the House the correctness of the principle upon which I ask it to proceed. My task is of a different nature. The propriety of thus affording relief to the public being acknowledged, the duty that devolves upon me is to satisfy the House that the time has arrived, and that the circumstances are favourable for accomplishing a reduction of the interest on the National Debt, which will produce a great public annual saving. It is in the discharge of that duty, then, that I now present myself to the House, and I beg their attention for a short period while I state to them the grounds upon which I conceive it to be trig duty to propose, and upon which I trust the House will think it their duty to concur in, the Measure which I shall submit to them. The proceeding I am about to recommend to the House, is to deal with a very large amount of debt—an amount of debt absolutely larger than any with which Parliament has ever been called upon to deal. It is a sum amounting to little less than 250,000,000 l. of the National Debt. If it be considered relatively in its proportion to the whole amount of the debt, I cannot say that in that respect the amount is unprecedented, because when I look back to the first occasion on which a reduction of the annual interest was proposed to the House of Commons, by Mr. Pelham in the year 1749, I find that that Minister had to deal with a sum inferior in amount to the present, but with a sum which, compared with the existing debt of the country at the time, amounted to more than one-third of the whole amount of the then debt of the country. But, even at that early period, that able Minister, relying urn) the character and credit of

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the country, and upon the disposition of all its inhabitants to contribute to its true welfare, carried his arrangement into effect, without any difficulty, and with universal applause. I have alluded to the magnitude of the present operation, because I think that upon an occasion of this sort it is fitting that the House should have the whole case fully before them, and that in considering the circumstances under which the arrangement is to be made, they should be fully aware of the interests which are at stake, and which must form, in the eyes of every reflecting person, a main element in the consideration of the subject. I say, Sir, that the time has arrived in which this operation can be effected with safety and security to the public, and I think I may add, with every reasonable chance of success. In the first place I may, in proof of the reasonableness of that belief, allude to the general opinion of the country for some time past, that it is now the duty of the Government to undertake some operation of this kind. No man can have paid any attention to the organs of public opinion without seeing, in the midst of very varying views as to the course that ought to be pursued, one uniform expression of opinion that the time was not distant at which the interest on the debt would be susceptible of reduction. And that opinion thus generally expressed is confirmed by an attentive consideration of the present state of the money market of this country. I believe that there never was a period in the history of this country at which the amount of capital seeking employment was greater than it is at the present moment. That abundance of capital has resulted from various causes. It has been in a great degree the result of the large amount of capital which the industry of individuals in this country has in a series of years accumulated, and which has created an amount of wealth greater than prevails in any other country in the world. It is also owing, in a great degree, to that general discredit of foreign securities, and that uncertainty which has attended the payment of interest upon those securities, which has made British capitalists unwilling to invest their money in that way. It has been increased also by that confidence in the firmness of our securities, which has brought to this country not only the capital of her own children,
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produced on her own soil, but which has drawn to this great city the capital of other nations, seeking for that capital a safe investment. The evidence, indeed, of that abundance of capital is to be found in the prices which our securities bring at this moment, and in the interest which those securities afford to those who have invested their money in them. At the present moment Consols bear an interest of a little more than 3l. 1s. per cent., and Exchequer Bills produce the owner an interest scarcely exceeding 2l. 4s. per cent. And although if we look to private securities it must be admitted that the rate of interest to be derived from them is greater, as it naturally must be, than that derived from the public securities, yet having to deal with public securities, we are justified in referring rather to the value of those securities in the market than to the value of loans made by private individuals. But notwithstanding this favourable state of the money market at the present moment, it may, perhaps be said, that there are circumstances which should lead us to think that this abundance of money, and this facility of acquiring loans, are likely to be of a temporary character. But, Sir, when I look around me, and see the good understanding which prevails between this country and all Foreign Powers—when I see the continued influx into this country day by clay of capital from other countries, when I observe the revival of trade, of industry and of commerce in all parts of the world, when I see that the disturbing causes of war and tumult which had existed in distant countries are now effectually removed—and when above all, I recollect the energy and the industry of my countrymen in improving the opportunities which this altered state of circumstances affords—I cannot anticipate any reduction in the amount of capital to be employed at home, which should forbid the attempt, which I call upon the House to make, of relieving ourselves from a great annual charge. Sir, there is another essential element in the consideration of the period at which it may be proper to make changes like the present, and that is the state of the Revenue and the Expenditure of the country. I feel, Sir, what I am sure every Member who has turned his attention to this subject must feel, that a state which has not means adequate to defray its current expenditure by the resources it raises within the year, is not in a condition satisfactorily to deal

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with the debt which it may have to discharge. Its powers of dealing with any such subject are necessarily curtailed by the necessity of providing for the daily or the yearly service; and it must be compelled to forego advantages which, under a different state of things, it might be right and expedient that it should claim. I am happy to say, Sir,—and in saying it I am aware that I pay the highest tribute to the energy and the vigour of the House of Commons which I am now addressing—I am happy to say that by their exertions in the year 1842, and the determination which they evinced to place the Revenue of the country on a footing adequate to meet every exigency of the public service, they have placed themselves in a situation in which they may congratulate themselves that the Revenue of the country does somewhat more than equal its annual Expenditure. And they have thereby reaped the advantages which a firm adherence to the principle upon which they have acted is sure to give; that is, the effecting not a temporary reduction of the annual expenditure but a permanent reduction of that charge which bears most heavily upon the country. Sir, I have said that the income of the present year will, so far as I am at present enabled to calculate, more than suffice to meet the charges of the year. So far as we have had experience of the two last quarters this has been shown by documents already before the House; and the House will observe, moreover, in those documents this additional circumstance of congratulation, that not only have we before us the prospect of meeting every current expense but it will be found on a reference to that Paper I have a short time since had the honour to lay on the Table of the House, that whereas at the commencement of the year the balance in the Exchequer was about 1,400,000 l., that balance was raised at the end of the last quarter to 4,700,000 l. And every one must be conscious what great facilities for any important financial operation must be derived from that improvement in our situation, which, although far from making the Exchequer altogether independent of advances from other quarters, has, nevertheless, a direct operation on the amount of those advances and by diminishing interest on them gives greater energy and power to those to whom the Administration of the Financial Affairs of the country is confided.
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I am happy to be also enabled to state to the House, that speaking from the information which I now possess, there are no Deficiency Bills of the Bank unsatisfied. We are at this period of the quarter free from the incumbrance of those advances which have on former occasions been made by the Bank of England for the purpose of enabling the Government to meet the demands of the public service. I can state further to the House, that since the 5th of April last it has not been necessary on any one occasion to apply to the Bank for advances in anticipation of the Supplies voted by Parliament—a proceeding authorised by a Resolution of the Committee of Ways and Means, and which has under less favourable circumstances been essential to the carrying on of the business of the country. So far, therefore, as these floating incumbrances are concerned, which, however useful and advantageous in themselves, cripple the efforts of a Government in undertaking arrangements like the present, I can assure the House that from these incumbrances we are at the present moment free. I would also point the attention of the House to this circumstance, that the amount of the Unfunded Debt is one which, considering the great resources of this country, is of a very limited description—less, indeed, than on many antecedent occasions. After deducting the Exchequer Bills which are to be defrayed from the money to be derived from the Chinese contributions, the amount of the Exchequer Bills in circulation is between 18,000,000 l. and 19,000,000 l. only; they bear an interest, as I said before, not exceeding 2l. 4s. per cent.; and they are on this day at a premium in the market of 3l. 13 s. per cent. Looking, therefore, at the whole state of our financial position—considering the wealth, the growing wealth, of this country, and its consequent accumulation of capital—considering that there is every prospect, humanly speaking, of a continuance of friendly relations between this country and Foreign Powers—considering that the Revenue has recovered from that temporary difficulty under which it had so long laboured—considering that we are free from those incumbrances of the unfunded or floating debt, which on former occasions had embarrassed the country, I think I have made out a case to the House which shows that the time has arrived at which it is the duty of those

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who have charge of the financial affairs of the country to make an attempt to reduce the interest upon the National Debt; and that moreover this is a time at which every reasonable man will admit that an attempt of the kind may be made with the greatest prospect of success. Sir, the debt with which we have to deal on this occasion amounts, as I before stated, to nearly 250,000,000 l., and consists of four several kinds of stock. In the first place the stock of Three-and-a-Half per cent. originally created in 1818, was the foundation of the stock of this description amounting to 10,000,000. The next head of stock is the Reduced Three-and-a-Half per Cents, being the stock first established in the year 1760, and originally a Four per cent, stock, subsequently increased at different periods by several other loans and the funding of Exchequer Bills, but reduced in the year 1824, when the Earl of Ripon was Chancellor of the Exchequer, to Three-and-a-Half per Cent.; that debt amounts to 67,500,000 l. The next stock is the New Three-and-a-Half per Cents. being the stock originally funded in the year 1784 at Five per cent., but which has, from the gradual progress of the growth of capital in this country, and the confidence entertained in its resources, undergone two several reductions; one in the year 1822, when Mr. Vansittart was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the other in 1830, when I had the honour to hold the office I now fill, when it was reduced to Three-and-a-Half at which it has ever since remained. This stock amounts to 157,000,000 l. The last stock is the one called the Old Three-and-a-Half per Cent. Stock, originally an Irish Stock, created in 1787, under various Acts of the Irish Parliament, from time to time augmented by additional sums that were added, making it amount to 14,600,000 l. The amount of all these Stocks is 249,600,000 l., or, in round numbers, nearly 250,000,000 l., as I at first stated. It might certainly have been legally correct to have dealt separately with these several branches of Three-and-a-Half per Cent. Stock; but I conceive that principle, in itself legally correct, would have been in itself essentially unjust. I did not think it becoming in a great country like this to take advantage of one or two particular branches of Stock of smaller amount, and call on the proprietors who had invested their money in those funds to submit to a
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reduction which, from the smallness of the Stock, might more easily have been effected than on the whole. I, therefore, felt it my duty to bring a measure before the House, recommending, that the same rule should be applied to the whole, and that the reduction of interest should be made at once on all. With respect to these Stocks which I have enumerated, there is some difference in the circumstances in which they stand. With respect to three of them, they are absolutely at the disposal of Parliament; there is no guarantee existing to prevent Parliament from paying them off, or from offering a reduction of interest; no conditions which interfere with dealing with them in any way most expedient for the public. But there is one head of this Stock—namely, the Three-and-a-Half per Cents. of 1818, which stands in a somewhat different situation. When that Stock was created, the condition on which the holders of it advanced their money to the public was that they should have three benefits given them—first, a guarantee of interest up to April, 1829, a guarantee which, having been fulfilled, does not enter now into the consideration; another, that they should have six months' notice before any reduction or redemption of Stock; thirdly, that they should not be paid off in sums of less than 500,000 l. at a time. In any arrangement, therefore, which I may submit to the House on this subject I am sure I shall carry the House along with me in adhering, to the letter, to the engagement then given, and in dealing with this stock in some way so as to produce a deduction in the annual interest, yet, in effecting that diminution, observing strictly, and to the letter, every existing engagement. Sir, if I look to the precedents for conducting operations of this description, I shall find at different times various modes of proceeding adopted. Advantages have been given to holders of a higher stock to induce them to accept a certain amount in a lower stock in many different forms. Sometimes these advantages were immediate, sometimes deferred; sometimes they were given in the shape of a pecuniary bonus, augmenting the capital of the debt; sometimes in augmenting the interest for a limited period; or sometimes—very frequently—nay, I may almost say the general advantage given has been by a guarantee against a further reduction for a cer-

737
tain period after the reduction has taken place. Many plans, as the House, no doubt, is well aware, have been put forward in the organs which inform the public as to the best mode of effecting the present reduction; but I think the House will agree with me in thinking that they have only three courses open to them of dealing with stock of this description with a view to reduction. The first would be to give to every holder of 100 l. in the Three-and-a-half per Cent. Stock an equivalent amount of Stock in the Three per Cents., adding thereby to the capital of the Stock created. Another plan very much entertained by the public, and on which much has been said in favour, is to create a Two-and-a-Half per Cent. Stock, and give the holder of every 100 l. in the Three-and-a-Half per Cents. such an amount of the Two-and-Half Stock as shall produce an interest of 3l. per cent. per annum. The third plan agitated was to reduce them to a Three per cent. Stock through the medium of a Three-and-a-Quarter per cent. Stock, the object of all being to reduce the interest of Three-and-a-Half per cent. to Three per cent., the advantage in point of interest to the public being intended to be the same, but the mode by which it is to be effected being different according to the different Stock in which the change is to be made. It is impossible to deny that in each of these plans some advantages are to be found, and I doubt not that there will be found advocates of all these plans among those who will discuss the proposition which I am about to make. I think that before I state the plan which I wish the House to adopt, it would be right I should lay down the principles on which in reviewing these several plans, my decision had been guided. I think it my duty, as agent for the public debtor, to endeavour to secure to the public the greatest possible advantage which can be secured consistently with that due regard for the creditor which fairness and a sense of justice require. My first duty is undoubtedly to the public, whose servant I am; but I feel it is perfectly possible to reconcile that duty with the regard due to the interests of the individuals who have lent their money to the public. Another principle on which I am determined to act is this, that I do not think it would be just to purchase great present advantages to the country at the expense of burthens
738
to be sustained by those who come after. I think with respect to debts incurred in cases of war, it is quite legitimate that posterity should bear their share of those burthens by which the Empire has been extended, or the liberties of the country, which they are hereafter to enjoy, preserved; but to incur additional debt in times of peace, and thus burthen those who are to come after us, with a view of obtaining a greater immediate relief for ourselves, is a course which I do say I myself reprobate, and I am sure, when I mention it, that I shall meet the general concurrence of those who hear me. Such being the principles on which I propose to act, and in which, I trust, the House will concur, I have to apply them to the plans which I have mentioned. It must be obvious to the House that if the Three-and-a-Half per Cents. are to be reduced to Three per cent., by giving an amount of Consols, it would be essentially necessary in that operation, as was done in 1822, to give a certain bonus in the Three per Cents, for the purpose of ensuring the conversion. Considering the present price of the funds and the necessity of endeavouring to secure the conversion, the country would have been obliged thereby to create an additional capital debt of from 10,000,000 l. to 12,000,000 l., the immediate result of which, to the public, would have been a saving of between 800,000 l. and 900,000 l. a-year. With respect to the second plan, to create a Two-and-a-Half per Cent. Stock, and give an equivalent in that so as to make it produce Three per cent, per annum, the augmentation of the capital of the debt must have been increased by such a plan not by 10,000,000 l. but by 50,000,000 l., and although the saving by that arrangement to the public would have been 1,200,000 l. a year, yet on the principle which I have laid down, I do not think that saving would justify or compensate for an addition to the mass of our debt by a capital of 50,000,000 l. to be paid hereafter; for, however, at the present moment, it may, in the opinion of some gentlemen, be a matter of utter indifference what may be the amount of a debt which already amounts 700,000,000 l., and with respect to which persons may entertain very little prospect of ever paying it off, yet when we come to consider that a great nation like this may hereafter be engaged in wars and beset with difficulties, and under a

739
necessity which might oblige it to recur to the money market of the country for the means of supporting those wars without ruin to the people, and to secure the preservation of the State, if we then weigh what would be the effect of 50,000,000 l. or 60,000,000 l. additional debt at such a moment, whatever may be their desire to effect an actual immediate saving of expense to the public, we shall see that to march on in such a course would be fatal to the permanent interest of the country. I, therefore, think it my duty altogether to discard these plans for procuring a large annual saving to the public by increasing the capital of the debt. The other plan then remains to be considered, which is to reduce the Three-and-a-Half per Cents. to Three per Cents., through the medium of a Three-and-a-quarter per cent. Stock. The result of that arrangement in the first instance, will, undoubtedly, be a diminished annual saving to the public; but against that is to be set the consideration that no increase of capital debt will be created, with this additional advantage, that there will be a future further reduction of the debt, which will secure, in due time, an increased advantage in point of annual revenue, an increased advantage so much the more valuable, because although it may not be brought to apply so immediately to the resources of the country, yet the country will receive the full value of the reduction, without any countervailing disadvantage. The plan which I shall propose to the House is, that every holder of Three-and-a-half per cent. Stock, shall receive a like amount of Three-and-a-quarter per cent. Stock, on which interest at the rate of Three-and-a-quarter per cent. per annum shall be paid until the 10th of October 1854, giving ten years during which Three-and-a-quarter will be payable on the Stock in question. I further propose, from and after that date, that the interest to be paid shall be at the rate of Three per cent. only, and that this Stock so being at Three per cent. shall be guaranteed against any further reduction for twenty years from and after that period, and the Stock, therefore, will remain at Three-and-a-quarter per cent. until October 1854, and from that date until the year 1874 at Three per cent. per annum, whatever may be the improvement in the market or whatever reductions may be applied to other portions of the National
740
Debt. [Interruption, occasioned by many Members leaving the House.] I can hardly expect further attention at the hands of the House. The arrangements will be made in the mode in which similar arrangements have been made before, by allowing all persons, for a limited time, to express their dissent from the terms offered. With respect to that branch of Stock to which I have before alluded—namely, that of 1818, the proceedings will be different. I shall call on the House to resolve that that Stock shall be paid off at the date at which it is now legally liable to be paid off, unless the proprietors of the stock shall consent to accept the terms offered. The periods fixed will be those which have been fixed in analagous cases of reduction. In the instance of the three greater Stocks, the time allowed for dissent will be to the 23rd of March for England; for Europe to the 22nd of June: and out of Europe, to the the 1st of February, 1845. Under these arrangements, if I should succeed in carrying them into effect, the immediate saving to the public, beginning the 10th of next October, will be a sum of 625,000 l. a-year; and in the year 1854, when the other reduction comes into operation, the public will farther have the benefit of a saving of 625,000 l. a-year more, making a total saving of 1,250,000 l. a-year, without any disturbance of the public interests or any augmentation of capital, and without resorting to any of those expedients which ought not, and which would not be justified by the situation of the country, and moreover, without throwing the bur-then on those who may come hereafter. I trust I have clearly explained to the House, the principles on which I intend to act. There is another important point connected with these arrangements which I think it necessary to state to the House, It is well known to those who have paid any attention to the finances of the country, that hitherto there has been considerable inconvenience experienced, an inconvenience affecting both the currency and credit of the country, from the great inequality of the payment of the interest of the debt which takes place at the different quarters of the year. At the present moment the amount of debt on which interest is paid in January and July amounts to nearly 534,000,000 l., while the amount of the debt on which interest is paid in April and October is

741
only 215,000,000 l.; and this inequality necessarily produces great fluctuations in the issues of notes as the means of effect-Mg the payments. It is an inconvenience to the public interest and affects all the monetary transactions of the country. I have, therefore, thought it my duty in making the arrangements with respect to the general interest of this debt, to take the opportunity of equalising the payment so as to make them of nearly the same amount at the different quarters of the year, and I propose, for this reason, that the new Stock, part of which is now paid in January and July, and part in April and October, should, on and after this arrangement, be paid only in April and October, the parties whose dividends become due in July receiving a quarter's dividend in October; so that the whole debt, under the new arrangement, may start on the 10th of October. The consequence of the arrangement will be, that in the January and July quarters in future, the amount. of the debt on which the interest is paid will be 373,000,000 l., and in April and October 376,000,000 l., making as equal a division as, under the circumstances, can be accomplished, and thereby tending I believe sincerely, most materially to benefit the general interests of the country by equalising throughout the year the different payments and receipts. Sir, I know not that it is necessary for me to make any further explanation to the House of the objects which the resolutions which I shall put into your hands are calculated to carry into effect. I, therefore, in conclusion, can only say, that if it shall be my good fortune to carry through with success this measure of relief to the public from a great present burthen and from a future burthen equally onerous at the expiration of ten years, it will be to myself the most gratifying circumstance of my life that I have been enabled on two several occasions, in the year 1830 and in the present year—to recommend to Parliament measures with respect to reductions of the national debt, which meeting their approbation, and approved of by them, will, I believe, meet with the general approbation of the country. However I may feel a personal gratification with regard to this question, it is still more satisfactory to believe that this House will he the instrument for procuring for the country the great advantage of that reduction of the annual charge which is the contemplated result of the
742
arrangements now before the House. But, great as this gratification will be, there is one still higher, which I feel, both as a Minister of the Crown and as an Englishman, and it is this—it will give an irrefragable proof of the extent of the resources of this country, and furnish to other nations an example of the benefits which result from a strict adherence to national faith, and the maintenance of the public credit, with the full knowledge that such an adherence will never fail to reap its reward. We in this country have had to struggle with great difficulties. We have been engaged in arduous contests. There have been moments when the minds of the bravest among us have quailed, and given way to little shout of despondency, reflecting on the difficulty of upholding the interests of the country, agitated by the pressure of taxation on those around us. But in times like these, we may well thank God that it never entered into the breast of Parliament to abandon the sacred principle of national faith. If we bore our burthens—heavy and sore as they were—it was under the confidence that honesty is the best policy. And now at a returning period of peace and tranquillity, we feel and we give to the world an example from which they may learn, that if in times of difficulty and danger they will look upon the maintenance of the public credit to be, as it is, the power and the strength of a country, the time may come when with universal approbation they may be enabled to afford real relief to their subjects, and to stand high among the nations of the earth. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the following resolutions:

"1. Resolved, That all and every person and persons, bodies politic and corporate, who now is or are or hereafter may be interested in or entitled unto any part of the National Debt, redeemable by law, which now carries an interest after the rate of 3l. 10 s. per centum per annum, and known in Ireland by the several names of 3l. 10 s. per Centum Old Stock and Government Debentures, Irish 3l. 10 s. per Centum Reduced Annuities, and New 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities and Government Debentures, and known in Great Britain by the several names of 3l. 10 s. per Centum Reduced Annuities, and New 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, the dividends of which are paid either at the Bank of England or at the Bank of Ireland respectively, and who shall not signify his, her, or their dissent in the manner hereinafter mentioned, shall for every 100 l. of such 3l. 10 s. per Genuine Annuities, or Government De-

743
bentures, receive for every 100 l. of such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities or Government Debentures, 100 l., in a new Stock, to be called '3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities,' which said Annuities shall continue to be paid at the rate of 3l. 5s. per centum per annum until the 10th day of October 1854; and from and after that date the said Annuities shall carry interest at the rate of 3l. per centum per annum, which said last-mentioned Annuities shall not be subject to reduction until from and after the 10th day of October 1874; and the dividends or interest of the said '3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities,' and 'New 3l. per Centum Annuities,' shall be paid and payable at the Bank of England, or at the Bank of Ireland, on the 5th day of April and the 10th day of October in each and every year; the first half yearly dividend on the said '3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities' shall be payable on the 5th day of April 1845; and that the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities,' and the 'New 3l. per Centum Annuities,' respectively, shall be free from all taxes, charges, and impositions, in the like manner as the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities.

" 2. Resolved, That the Interest and Dividends payable in respect of the said '3l. 5 s. per Centum Annuities,' and New 3l. per Centum Annuities,' shall be charged and chargeable upon the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

" 3. Resolved, That all and every person and persons, bodies politic or corporate, who shall not, within the period commencing on Monday the 11th day of March 1844, and ending on Saturday the 23rd day of March 1844, both days inclusive, signify his, her, or their dissent from accepting and receiving a share in the said '3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities,' and 'New 3l. per Centum Annuities,' in lieu of his, her, or their respective shares in the before-mentioned 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities or Government Debentures; in the manner hereinafter directed, shall be deemed and taken to have consented to accept and receive the same; Provided always, That if any proprietor or proprietors of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities shall not be within the limits of the United Kingdom at any time between Monday the 11th day of March 1844 and Saturday the 23rd day of March 1844, both days inclusive, but shall be in any other part of Europe, it shall be lawful for such proprietor or proprietors to signify such dissent at any time before the 2nd day of June 1844; and if any such proprietor or proprietors shall inn, at any time between the 11th day of March 1844 and the 2nd day of June 1844, be within any part of Europe, it shall be lawful for him, her or them to signify such dissent at any time before the 1st day of February 1845, such proprietor or proprietors proving to the satisfaction of the Governor or Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, or to the Governor or Deputy Governor of the Bank of
744
Ireland, according to the Bank in which his Annuities of 3l. 10 s. per centum may be placed end the Dividends and Interest payable, his, tier, or their absence from the United Kingdom or out of Europe, as above specified, and that his, her, or their share or shares of such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities stood in his, her, or their name or names respectively on the 23rd day of March 1844, in the books of the Governor and Company of the Bank to which he shall signify his dissent; Provided, that such proprietor or proprietors, so absent from the United Kingdom or out of Europe, shall signify such his, her, or their dissent within ten days after his, her, or their return to the United Kingdom.

"4. Resolved, That provision shall be made for paying off such proprietor or proprietors of any of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities before mentioned as shall signify his, her, or their dissent from accepting and receiving any share in the said '3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities,' and New 3l. per Centum Annuities,' in lieu thereof.

" 5. Resolved, That all persons, bodies politic and corporate, possessed of any part of the before mentioned 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, and who shall desire to signify such dissent as aforesaid, shall, between the 11th day of March 1844, and the 23rd day of March 1844 both inclusive, by themselves, or some agent or agents for that purpose duly authorised, signify to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, or to the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland respectively, in which their Capital Stock of 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities may be placed, such dissent in writing, under his, her, or their hand or hands, together with the amount of his, her, or their respective shares in the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, and which said dissent shall be entered in a book or books, to be opened and kept by the said Governor and, Company of each of the said Banks for that purpose, and numbered in the order in which his, her, or their dissent shall be receive by the said Governor and Company of either of the said Banks; and in case of any transfer of such shares, or any part or parts thereof, after such dissent, the part or parts so transferred shall be entered in the said books under the same numbers as were fixed to such shares when the dissent was so signified; and every such dissentient proprietor or proprietors, or his, her, or their assigns, under such transfer, shall be paid off in such order and at such periods and in such manner as Parliament may direct.

"6. Resolved, That every proprietor or proprietors of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, the Dividends and Interest on which are payable the 5th day of April and the 10th day of October, shall receive the Dividends due thereupon for the half year up to the 10th day of October 1844, and no longer; and every proprietor or proprietors of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, the Dividends and Interest on which are payable on the 5th

745
day of January and the alt day of July shall receive the Dividend due thereupon for the half year up to the 5th day of July 1844, and shall also receive one quarter's Dividend thereon up to the 10th day of October 1844, and no longer; and the several before mentioned 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities shall be paid off or converted into 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities, and New 3l. per Centum Annuities in manner aforesaid, from and after the 10th day of October 1844; and no transfer of any of the before mentioned 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities to or from the books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, or to or from the books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland shall take place from and after the 6th day of March 1844.

"7. Resolved, That all executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees, may signify such dissent in respect of such shares of any of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, for the holding of which their names are made use of respectively; and all executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees, not signifying such dissent, shall be deemed to have assented as aforesaid, and shall be indemnified in respect thereof.

"8. Resolved, That all and every person and persons, bodies politic and corporate, who now is or are or hereafter may be interested in, or entitled unto any part of the National Debt redeemable by Law, which now carries an Interest after the rate of 3l. 10 s. per Centum per Annum, and is usually known. by the name of 3l. 10 s. per Ceinum Anunities 1818,' the Dividends on which are payable at the Bank of England on the 5th day of April and 10th day of October in each year and who shall not signify his, tier, or their assent to accept 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities, and New 3l. per Centum Annuities, upon the terms and in the manner hereinafter mentioned, shall on the 10th day of October 1844 receive the sum of 100 l. for every 100 l. of such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities, 1818, which may be then standing in his, her, or their name or names, and the said amount of capital of such Annuities shall from the said 10th day of October 1844, be considered as cancelled and paid off, and no interest shall from thenceforth accrue, or become payable thereon.

"9. Resolved, That provision shall be made by this House for paying off such proprietor or proprietors of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, as shall not signify his, her, or their assent to accept and receive a share in 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities and New 3l. per Centum Annuities in lieu thereof.

" 10. Resolved, That all and every person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, who shall hold or be possessed of any such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, and who shall, on or before Saturday the 20th day of April 1844, signify in the manner hereafter directed his, her, or their assent to accept and receive 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities, in lieu of his,
746
her, or their respective share or shares in the said:3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1318, shall, for every tool, of such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, receive 100 l. in a New Stock to be called '3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities,' which said Annuities shall continue to be paid at the rate of 3l. 5s. per centum per annum, until the 10th day of October 1854, and from and after that date the said Annuities shall carry interest at the rate of 3l. per centum per annum, and shall be called New 3l. per Centum Annuities, which said last-mentioned Annuities shall not be subject to reduction until from and after the 10th day of October 1874; and the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities, and the New 3l. per Centum Annuities, respectively, shall be free from all taxes, charges, and impositions, in the like manner as the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818; and the Dividends or Interest of the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities, and New 3l. per Centum Annuities, shall be paid and payable at the Bank of England, or at the Bank of Ireland, on the 5th day of April and 10th day of October in each and every year: and the first half-yearly Dividend on the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities shall be payable on the 5th day of April 1845,

" 11. Resolved, That all and every person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, possessed of any part of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, and who shall desire to signify his, her, or their assent to receive the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities and New 3l. per Centum Annuities, in lieu thereof, shall on or before the 20th day of April 1844, but within the usual hours of transacting business at the Bank of England, by themselves or some agent or agents for that purpose duly authorised, signify to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England such assent in writing under his, her, or their hand or hands, or the hand or hands of his, her, or their agent or agents, together with the amount of his, her, or their respective share or shares in the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, and which said assent shall be entered in a book or books to be opened and kept by the said Governor and Company for that purpose; and in case of any transfer of such share or shares of such Annuities, or any part or parts thereof, after such assent, the part or parts of such Annuities so transferred shall be entered in the said book or books of the said Governor and Company separately from the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, in respect of which no such assent shall be signified, and every such person or persons so assenting, or his, her, or their assigns, or the executors or administrators of such assigns, under any such transfer, shall, from the 10th day of October 1844, be entitled to 100 l. of such 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities and New 3l. per Centum Annuities, in lieu of every 100 l. of their said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818 Capital Stock: Provided always, that if any person or persons holding any such 3l. 10 s.

747
per Centum Annuities 1818, shall not be within the limits of the United Kingdom at any time between the 11th and 23rd day of March 1844, both inclusive, but shall be in any other part of Europe, it shall be lawful for such person or persons to signify such assent at any time before the 1st day of July 1844; and if any such person or persons shall not at any time between the 11th day of March 1844, and the 1st day of July 1844, be within any part of Europe, it shall be lawful for him, her, or them to signify such assent at any time before the 1st day of February 1845, such person or persons proving to the satisfaction of the Governor or Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, his, her, or their absence from the United Kingdom, or out of Europe, as above specified, and that his, her, or their share or shares of such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818 stood in his, her, or their name or names respectively, or in the name or names of any one or more trustee or trustees, on his, her, or their behalf in the hooks of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, on the 23d day of March 1844; Provided also, that such person or persons so absent from the United Kingdom, or out of Europe, shall signify such his, her, or their assent, within ten days after his, her, or their return to the United Kingdom.

"12. Resolved, That the Interest and Dividends payable in respect of the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities and New 3l. per Centum Annuities shall be charged and chargeable upon, and shall be issued and paid out of, the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on the 5th day of April and the 10th day of October in every year.

" 13. Resolved, That every proprietor or proprietors of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, shall receive the Dividends of the said Annuities due thereon on the 10th day of October 1844, and no longer.

"14. Resolved, That it shall be lawful for the Accountant General of the Courts of Chancery in England and Ireland respectively, and also for the Accountant General of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, and for the Accountant in Bankruptcy in England, at any time before the 8th day of July 1844, to signify to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, on behalf of any suitor or suitors, or others interested in any such 3l. 10 s. per Centom Annuities 1818, standing in the names of such Accountants General and Accountant respectively, their assent to accept and receive shares in the said 3l. 5s. per Centum Annuities, and New 3l. per Centum Annuities, in lieu of all such 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, standing in their names respectively; and the said Accountants General and Accountant respectively shall be fully indemnified against all actions, suits, and proceedings for and in respect of any action, matter, or thing done by them respectively in pursuance thereof.

748

" 15. Resolved, That all executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees, may signify such assent at any time before the 20th day of April 1844, in respect of such shares of any of the said 3l. 10 s. per Centum Annuities 1818, for the holding of which their names shall be made use of respectively, and shall be indemnified for giving such assent in respect thereof; and all executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees not signifying such assent, shall he deemed not to have assented as aforesaid, and shall be paid off accordingly."

Mr. F. T. Baringwould trouble the Committee with but a very few words in reference to the resolutions which had just been submitted. To the various matters introduced very properly by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer into the early part of his speech, he did not on that occasion think it necessary to turn his attention; he would, therefore, confine his observations to the proposal itself, and it was most gratifying to him to be enabled to say that he had heard that proposal stated with very great satisfaction. He should be sorry if in a question so important and so intimately connected with the public faith, the mere fact of their sitting on different sides of the House should occasion the slightest difference of opinion between himself and the right hon. Gentleman. Of course he confined his observations on that occasion to the principle upon which the right hon. Gentleman's plan proceeded. Whether the terms in which he proposed to carry out the scheme were inadequate to the performance of its duties or not, the holders of the stock would be the best judges, and must decide. The plan, so far as its principle went, and as it had been explained by the right hon. Gentleman, he was bound to say was in many respects most beneficial. The first great advantage of the plan was—that which had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman—that it did not create any additional debt. That in itself was a great public advantage. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not stated, but it was only fair that he should state it, that the course which the right hon. Gentleman had taken was a very honest one for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to adopt, because he lost that advantage he might have obtained if he had made the reduction of the annual decrease take place immediately. He had however postponed it, though the contrary course would have been most convenient to the right hon. Gentleman—he had postponed the operation of his plan on conside-

749
ration of public faith and public interests. The right hon. Gentleman had not referred to this circumstance, but he felt bound to do so in justice to the right hon. Gentleman. Another advantage was the manner in which the plan would operate on private individuals, who were holders of the stock with which it was proposed to deal. It would come rather sharp upon them if the full reduction of one half per cent. were made at once; but by reducing the interest one quarter per cent. in the first instance and another quarter in ten years hence, they reduced the incomes of private holders in the most convenient mode to them. There was one circumstance connected with this proceeding which had been referred to by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in regard to which he could not forbear the expression of the entire satisfaction and pleasure he felt, viz., that it would hold out not only to ourselves, but to other nations, a great practical lesson, that honesty and good faith, even under the greatest difficulties, had their pecuniary advantages as well as the more important and solid advantages resulting from the operation which such a course must necessarily have upon the good opinion and good feelings of the world. On the detailed plan of the right hon. Gentleman, he could not then, of course, give any opinion; he could only say that he most heartily wished him success.
Sir J. Rae Reidwas gratified at the tone in which the question was discussed, and felt that he should not do his duty towards the right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) if he did not congratulate him on the very handsome and liberal manner in which he had expressed his approval of the Government scheme, and he flattered himself that that feeling would be general. He was sure the holders of the Three-and-a-Half per Cents. would be gratified when they were informed of the manner in which the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to deal with the subject. The plan, under all the circumstances, was, he thought, the most convenient that could be proposed, and he believed it would give almost universal satisfaction. He had once been accused of being a most sanguine individual. He had been accused of making use of a metaphor in speaking of the commercial and manufacturing distress which prevailed two years ago. He had said, that that distress was a mere
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passing cloud, and that the sunshine of prosperity would soon return. And now what was the state of the case? The bright star of hope was before them, and he was satisfied that ere long the country would arrive at prosperity and success.
Mr. P. M. Stewartexpressed his approbation of the manner in which the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been made. In the plan proposed, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had exercised not only a sound judgment, but a self-denial, which was highly creditable to him, in not taking advantages which he might have been expected to take. There was, however, one topic in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman which ought not to be passed over without some words of caution. He alluded to that portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech in which he referred to the prospects of returning prosperity. The right hon. Gentleman could scarcely have forgotten the embarrassments which had followed the prosperity of 1824, and the disappointment of the sanguine expectations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day, who, from talking so much about prospects of prosperity which were never realised, but utterly dispelled by the events of 1826, obtained for himself the Millie of "Prosperity Robinson." He hoped the present Chancellor of the Exchequer would nut allow himself to he misled in a similar way by appearances which might be equally deceptive. The circumstances which had enabled the right hon. Gentleman to propose an arrangement so beneficial to the public creditor, afforded no proof of the prosperous condition of the country to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded. On the contrary, the present condition of the money market, he thought, was a proof of the falling off of our domestic and foreign trade, by which capitalists were induced to invest their money in the public funds. This it was that had increased the price of funds to such an amount as had enabled the Chancellor of the Exchequer to propose the arrangements behind submitted to.
Sir John Easthopemust apologise to the house for venturing to address to it any opinion of his upon such a question; but he could not refrain from expressing his approbation of the plan which the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exche-

751
quer had propounded, and his cordial satisfaction at the unanimity with which it had been received; though he could not participate in the opinion of the hon. Member for Dover (Sir J. R. Reid), that the proposal would be accepted with delight by the holders of the stock. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in having proposed a plan which was at once most just, simple, and certain of success. Whether he referred to its justice—looking at the present state of the money market, and the circumstances of the country; to its clearness and simplicity, by being divested of all complexity in the manner in which it was to be carried into effect; or whether in regard to the acceptance which it was, from those circumstances, almost certain to receive in all quarters, he could not doubt that the plan would be perfectly successful. He therefore begged to congratulate the House and the right hon. Gentleman, independently of all party considerations, on his having devised a scheme so just and effective.
Mr. W. Williamsthought, that in the present condition of the money market, the terms proposed by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer were as liberal as could be expected; but his chief ground for approving of the scheme was, that it made no addition to the capital of the debt. On former occasions, when the interest on the public funds had been reduced, it had been usual to give a bonus to the holders, thus increasing the funded debt. This was a most objectionable proceeding; and he was glad it was not adopted in the present instance. From the commencement of the American war, in 1775, to the close of the French war in 1815, 589,000,000 l. had been added to the capital of the debt. He would not make any comment on the course of the Government in bringing up Stock to its present rate, for he did not wish to say anything to disturb the unanimity which prevailed; but he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer might propose another operation in finance, one which he (Mr. W. Williams) recommended some years ago, which would be attended with great public benefit, viz., a further reduction of the interest on Exchequer-bills, from 1½d. to 1¼d. a-day. At no former time had the premium on Exchequer-bills been higher
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than it was at present, in proportion to the rate of interest, and there could be no more appropriate time for making the reduction. He must join with the hon. Member who had last spoken, in cautioning the Chancellor of the Exchequer against indulging too far in the opinion that the existing indications of returning prosperity were likely to be permanent. The large quantity of gold in the Bank coffers, as compared with former years, was the consequence, not of the prosperity of the country, but of the recent operations in the gold coinage.
Mr. Alderman Thompsonsaid, all the great interests of the country were prospering. The trade of the country, both domestic and foreign, was improving in all directions, and the great accumulation of capital in the country he attributed not to the falling off in trade and commerce, so much as to the discredit with which the British public looked upon foreign securities; especially on North American stock, which for many years had been a favourite investment. He thought, too, that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. Williams) was mistaken as to the cause of there being so much bullion at the Bank; for it must be remembered that the ten millions of light sovereigns which had found their way to the Bank had been replaced by others of full weight and value. The large amount of capital, therefore, in the country, was in his opinion a consequence of the prosperity of our foreign trade. With regard to the proposition of the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he must be permitted to tender his humble acknowledgment of its fairness, so far as regarded the stockholders; and fair also, as regarded the public debtor. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had acted most wisely when he saw the large amount of capital in the country, and the high rate at which the three-and-a-half stock stood, to reduce the interest, and that he had exercised a sound discretion in reducing the Three-and-a-half per cents. to three-and-a-quarter per cent., in the first instance, and to three per cent. at a future period, for if the full reduction were made at once, it would, without doubt, create some discontent and much confusion.
Mr. B. Hawessaid, the first question to be considered in reference to the proposal to reduce the interest on those securities, was whether it were made with justice to, and would meet with the perfect concur-

753
rence of the parties concerned. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had vindicated his plan so far as its justice was concerned. The next question was whether it were a politic measure, and of that he thought there could be but little doubt. There was another part of the scheme which had not been adverted to by those hon. Gentlemen who had gone before him, viz., the arrangement proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the equalization of the dividends, which he considered of great value. He was addressing many hon. Gentlemen who were intimately connected with monetary transactions, and, he believed they would agree with him that that part of the measure, if proposed by itself, would have been accepted as a measure of great and peculiar advantage. The right hon. Gentleman, then, in introducing his measure had accompanied it by an arrangement which would confer an important and beneficial alteration in the system of apportioning the periodical payments. He fully concurred with what had fallen from the right hon. Member for Portsmouth; and he was quite sure the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer would feel, after the manner in which this proposal had been met on that (the Opposition) side of the House, that whatever discussion might take place, he would be governed by a reference to the public interests only, and not by any wish to throw difficulties in the way of the Government; and he hoped the course now adopted would encourage the Chancellor of the Exchequer to believe that when he should have great and beneficial measures to propose, sound in principle and consistent with justice, no party or factious opposition would be found. Though he prided himself on being a party man, knowing that by combining with a party only could he hope to be of use to his country in that House, still, on matters relating to trade and commerce, or any other subject, when the Government propounded sound principles and acted on true policy, however strong his opinions might be on certain party questions, and however strong his predelictions in favour of the party with which he was connected, he trusted those opinions and predelictions would never operate to induce him to throw any difficulties in the way.
Mr. Warburtonjoined in the congratulations which had been expressed at the turn the debate had taken, and at the
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saving which would result from the proposal when carried into effect. But while they were congratulating themselves that the money market was in a position to enable the Government to effect this operation, it ought to be recollected, that it was by the low rate of interest, which showed the low rate of profit obtained in trading and commercial transactions, which enabled the Chancellor of the Exchequer to succeed—
"—medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid."
Mr. Blewittwas surprised the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not stated how he proposed to pay off the dissentient holders.
Mr. Ricardotrusted the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to pay off the Dissentients, should there be any. He approved of the plan the right hon. Gentleman had propounded, but it was possible that there might be some objection on the part of the holders, as the terms offered to them were not so favourable as they had been led to expect. He hoped, however, the right hon. Gentleman would be enabled to carry out the plan as he had proposed it. He wished to know how it was intended to levy the Income Tax on these annuities for the next ten years previous to the final reduction—whether it was to be taken as a permanent annuity, or a terminable one?
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, with regard to the Income Tax, it would apply as at present to the whole incomes of the holders; and those who derived their incomes from an interest of Three-and-a-Half Per Cent., would pay on what they received only as they did now on the Three-and-a-Half per Cent. He could not sit down without expressing his strong feeling of the great kindness with which the proposition had been received by the House. At the same time he was bound to say that it was nothing more than he had anticipated. For whatever the party warfare in which they had been engaged—as he hoped and believed for the benefit of the country—he must say that on all occasions where practical measures of this kind were proposed by the Government, the House was always disposed to receive them favourably and to consider them with fairness and attention. He again thanked the House for its unanimity, of which he was the mere sensible when

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he considered that that unanimity would secure to the public the advantages of the proposition.
Resolutions agreed to. House resumed.
On the Order of the Day for going into Committee of Supply, having been moved,
Mr. Sharman Crawfordpresented a petition from Aberdeen, praying that the House, before going into Committee of Supply, should take measures for redressing the grievances of the people, and particularly for securing a full and fair representation of the people at large. The hon. Gentleman then presented similar petitions from Bridport, Darlington, and Galashiels.

BLOCKADE OF THE RIVER PLATA.
Mr. Ewartrose to make such inquiry as he trusted would not be unbecoming on his part in reference to our relations with Rio de la Plata, and particularly as to the war between the States of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video. He could conceive scarcely any part of the world of so much interest to our commerce as the Southern States of the Southern Continent of America. There was scarcely any part of the world yet unexplored by our commerce, capable of increasing it to so large an extent. As far as river communication was concerned, there was hardly any country so favourable for commerce as those vast provinces watered by the Plata, the Parana, and the Paraguay. The commerce of these States was of the greatest importance to this country. He need not refer to the article of hides, but he believed that the country in question had also the means of extending the cultivation of cotton. Indigo, too, might be produced there, and they had recent experience that wool—before almost unknown as coming from that part of the world—now formed one of the largest articles it sent into our markets. South America now stood third in the list of our sources of supply of that article. But the cotton trade claimed a still greater share of the consideration of this country. Our exports in 1841 to Rio de la Plata amounted to 1,000,000 l. One half of this amount consisted of cotton goods. The amount of woollen goods was 200,000 l. There was also a considerable export of linen goods, and looking to the elements of demand for our manufactures, he thought that there were few regions claiming our
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attention as much as those of the Rio de la Plata. Turning to the imports from thence into this country, he found, that of late years, they had very considerably increased. He had already alluded to the article of wool. In 1830, we only imported 30,000 lbs. of wool, while we now imported 5,000,000 lbs., and that was the species of wool on which the wool duty was most onorously felt. He would next touch on what might be called the diplomatic part of the question. He had heard complaints of various sorts upon this part of the subject. It was hoped by people engaged in the trade, that the suspension of commerce which had taken place, would be put an end to by the joint interference of the French and English Governments. Our own commerce with Rio de la Plata was almost paralysed by the unfortunate war now waging. He knew that a great many of the persons who were in the habit of supplying returns for our manufactured goods, were forced to serve in the ranks of the conflicting par. ties, particularly by General Rosas. He had heard also that there did not exist a feeling of harmony between the English and French Commanders on the coast. Complaints had also been made of the conduct of our Minister at Buenos Ayres, and it had been stated, that he showed himself more favourable to the Buenos Ayrean than to the Monte Videan party; while the Commander on the coast was accused of being more favourable to the Monte Videan than the Buenos Ayrean party. In the hope that some course would be adopted which would have the effect of bringing about a general harmony in the proceedings of Government, and their officials, and of putting an end to this foolish war, he now appealed to the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government. It was expected by the merchants of Liverpool, and the manufacturers of Manchester, that the combined operation of the French and English Governments would have put an end to the war. Such, however, had nut been the case. He had recently seen it stated that a French vessel had sailed from Rio Janeiro to the mouth of the Plate, and it was thought to have been the bearer of some common resolution on the part of both Governments, with the view of putting an end to the petty animosities of the discordant states. He would not say whether justice was on the side of Rosas

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or Rivera; his object was the extension of our commerce and manufactures, and the general interests of this country and the world. He was convinced that the general policy of the right hon. Baronet, was a peaceful policy; and so far as was consistent with his duties as an independent Member of Parliament, he would support him or any other Minister in that policy; but he trusted that he would be enabled, along with that great man at the head of the French Government, to consult the interests of this country and of humanity, by maintaining, without dishonour to either nation, the peace of the world. It was in the hope that some common understanding might become to by the Governments of France and England, that he asked the right hon. Gentleman to state whether he could give them any hopes of the probable conclusion of this unfortunate warfare. France was, as well as this country, deeply concerned in its concluclusion; and where there was a common interest, there might be a common combination; and it might not be impossible that the Government of this country, and that of France, might be successful in putting down a war, in the termination of which they were mutually interested.
Sir Robert Peelhad heard with great satisfaction the observations which the hon. Gentleman had made towards the conclusion of his speech, with respect to his determination, as an independent Member of Parliament, to place a liberal construction on every Act of the Executive Government in this country, which had for its object the maintenance of amicable relations with France consistently with the honour and interests of this country. The hon. Gentleman might depend upon it, that no compromise of the mutual interests of the country, or the honour of the country, would take place; but the hon. Gentleman, and those who concurred with him in politics, were strengthening the hands of the Government, and facilitating the grand object of the maintenance of peace, by the avowal of their determination not to look out for subjects for party advantages, while (the Government) was labouring honestly for the maintenance of peace, by throwing out imputations that they were acting in subservance to France. He wished that the great man at the head of the Ministry, in that country, who was now pursuing, from the purest and most
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honourable motives, a course perfectly consistent with the honour of his country—a course of which the grand aim was to maintain peace—he wished that that great and good Minister had not such obstructions thrown in his way, for party purposes, which he (Sir Robert Peel) was proud to say, were not thrown in the way of his own Government. He believed that the Prime Minister of France was influenced by precisely the same motives by which the Ministers of this country were influenced; he believed that M. Guizot was convinced that for the interest of both countries, for the general interests of commerce and civilisation, that it was of the utmost importance that a good understanding should be maintained, consistently with their mutual honour, between the two nations. But that Minister was determined to purchase that good understanding by no concession injurious to the interests or to the honour of France, and he could justly hear that testimony to his character and conduct. He had found that that was always the principle by which M. Guizot was governed, and he hoped that the liberal and enlightened public opinion of France would support hint against those violent party attacks with which he had to contend. He (Sir Robert Peel) quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman as to the importance of our commercial relations with South America. He also agreed with him as to the lamentable consequences of this most foolish war. He did not look merely to the importance of Buenos Ayres, or of Monte Video, but he looked upon the river Plata as the great natural inlet for our commerce with that portion of the South American continent. It was the channel by which the productions of that country would naturally be conveyed to this country, and by means of which, also, our manufactures were to be conveyed into the interior; and, therefore, he concurred with the hon. Gentleman that nothing could be more injurious to the commerce not only of this country, but to that of South America, than the continuance of this war. The conflict, however, was by no means of an ordinary character. It was the rivalry of personal interests, carried on at the expense of the happiness and industrial prosperity of the country. But the hon. Gentleman must recollect that he should forfeit his claims to the bon, Gentleman's confidence as a minister

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of peace, if he undertook to control the discretion of these independent states by too forcible an application of power. The Government had already resorted to every means short of actual armed intervention for the purpose of terminating the war. They first offered singly the mediation of England at an early period of the war. They afterwards offered, in connection with France, the joint mediation of the two countries. That mediation was accepted by Monte Video, but was rejected by Buenos Ayres. No effort had been left untried for the purpose of terminating the war; and he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would agree with him in thinking that it would not be wise for this country to interfere, by force of arms, to compel the restoration of peace. Indeed, he doubted whether tranquillity, obtained by such forcible means, would be likely to last. At all events, it would be necessary, in the event of such a measure being adopted, that the armed force which had been employed in restoring temporary calm should remain there to enforce the peaceful arrangements. Whether it would be possible for the Brazils, France, and England united to put a stop to hostilities by force, he would not say; but it was quite clear, that if any armed intervention could be justified, it could only be so by the concurrence in it of the three Powers most deeply interested in the termination of the war—Britain, France, and the Brazils. With respect to the conduct of the diplomatic agents and the naval officers, he would remark that they being on the spot, and lamenting the continuance of hostilities, had laboured most zealously to terminate them. It was possible, that in their zeal they might have stepped rather beyond the strict line of their instructions; but if they have done so, they had been influenced by the best motives and the sincerest desire to restore tranquillity. By recent accounts which he had received, he thought it likely that the war would soon be brought to a termination. However, it was difficult to say. Nothing could be more complicated than the condition of the parties engaged in it. It was not properly a conflict between Monte Video and Buenos Ayres. In fact, there was a strong Buenos Ayrean party in Monte Video. There was a Federal party and an Unitarian party—not, of course, having any relation to the Unitarians of this country—in Buenos Ayres,
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and, therefore, the war might be considered as rather between different parties in Buenos Ayres than between Buenos Ayres and Monte Video. There was also mixed up with the contest the personal rivalry of General Rivera and General Rosas, a rivalry carried on with fierceness and acrimony which it was almost impossible for the people here to form an idea of. But he repeated that the last accounts which he had received, gave him reason to think that there was a probability that peace would be restored, in consequence of the reverses sustained by one of the conflicting parties. He thought that Buenos Ayres would probably prevail, but he trusted that upon peace being restored, the party which might have the ultimate triumph would adopt the policy of healing the wounds so wantonly inflicted on the two countries, by taking measures for the restoration of commerce and peaceable industry, and by cementing the good understanding between them by mutual commercial relations with this country.
Order of the Day read.

PUBLIC GRIEVANCES—STOPPING THE SUPPLIES.
On the Motion that the Speaker do now leave the Chair,
Mr. S. Crawfordsaid, that he had persevered for a considerable time in trying to induce the House to consider the Grievances of the people before they entered into a Committee of Supply. He wished it to be understood that while he would cease to persevere in this course, he did not give up his protest against the competency of this House to make laws or impose taxes, so long as the great body of the people remained unrepresented within its walls. He would add, however, that whenever the expression of the public voice became strong enough to justify the course, he would use every means allowed by the forms of the House to obstruct the voting away of the public money in the present constitution of the House.

SUPPLY—ARMY ESTIMATES—DUELLING.
The House in Committee of Supply.
Several sums were voted on account of the Army Estimates.
On the vote of 141,610 l., for defraying the expenses of the widows of officers,
Viscount Howickthought this a good opportunity to ask an explanation as to

761
the fact of a pension being refused to the widow of the late Colonel Fawcett, on the ground that her husband had fallen in a duel. He wished the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to explain the grounds of the decision to which the Government had come; and also whether, having taken the step he had alluded to in this case, it was his intention to introduce some more general measure for the discouragement of duelling, both in the army and elsewhere, in order to carry into effect what appeared to be the object in view in the refusal of this pension.
Sir H. Hardingethought he saw in his place an hon. and gallant Officer who had a Motion on this subject fixed for this evening. He thought that gallant Officer informed him it was his intention to postpone his Motion until Monday. He thought it would be inconvenient to give an explanation on these two occasions, though, if the House wished, he was perfectly ready to go on with his statement. Was he to understand, then, that the gallant Officer consented to take the discussion now. [Captain Bernal: "No."] After that answer, he thought he should do best by confining his explanation to the statement that the grounds on which he refused the widow of the late Colonel Fawcett a pension, were such as, in his discretion, did riot justify him in recommending her to the favour of Her Majesty. Upon that being stated to his right hon. Friend (Sir Robert Peel), the right hon. Gentleman confirmed the view of the case which he (Sir H. Hardinge) had taken. As the gallant Officer still intended to bring forward the Motion of which he had given notice, he thought the noble Lord would see it was better not to persist in discussing the subject now.
Viscount Howicksaid, it might be very well for the gallant Officer and the right hon. Baronet and gallant Gentlemen opposite to take this course, but he confessed he did not think the House ought to agree to this Vote without further expression of opinion on the point to which he had alluded. He knew perfectly well when a Motion was brought forward, on the question being put for the Speaker to leave the Chair, in order to go into Committee of Supply, they were always met with the objection that they were interfering with the progress of the public business, and most justly so. He for one, whether sitting on that or on the other side of the House, had
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invariably set his face against discussions on the question for reading the Order of the Day, unless on occasions of so pressing a nature as not to admit of delay. To bring Motions forward for redress in going into Committee of Supply, was, he thought, continuing the soundest and best Parliamentary practice. But that was a case quite different in its nature from the present. Fie believed, if they were not prepared to take the strong step of moving an address to the Crown on this subject, for which he confessed heat least was not prepared, the proper and Parliamentary opportunity of raising a discussion on it was that which was now offered to the House, on the Vote being proposed for a sum to grant pensions to widows of deceased officers. He had expressed to the gallant Officer behind him a strong opinion to this effect—he had no wish to take the discussion on himself—he should have much preferred, that the gallant Officer should have brought the matter forward, as he had given notice of it, but, seeing that notice of it had been given for to-night; having himself come down, as others had done, exclusively on this account, and no notice of postponement having been given, he had urged the gallant Officer strongly to bring it forward. As the gallant Officer had not done so, he should take the liberty of now offering the very few remarks he was anxious to make. With respect to the refusal of the pension, all he had to say was, that if Her Majesty's Government were seriously prepared to take up this most important question of duelling, if they were prepared to do all in their power to discourage and put down this, as he must call it, most unchristian and sinful practice, then he should acquiesce in the necessity, however painful that necessity might be, of refusing to the unfortunate widow of the late Colonel Fawcett the pension to which, under the circumstances, she would be entitled. But if Her Majesty's Government were not prepared to do this—if they meant to leave the subject in its present most unsatisfactory condition—if they meant to take no effectual means for putting down the practice of duelling, then he did say that the step they had taken with respect to Mrs. Fawcett was a step not only of great hardship and great cruelty, but of great injustice. He said, unless they made a great change in their practice, they had no right to do this. If he was not greatly misinformed, it had been the practice, up to the most recent period,

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to put on officers of the army the absolute necessity, under some circumstances, of fighting a duel. If he was not mistaken, not more than a year ago, an officer had been sentenced to suspension from his rank and pay, by the finding of a court-martial, for not having taken steps to obtain an immediate and legitimate redress for a gross outrage. Now, he knew perfectly well what the answer to this was. When the charge was offered in this shape, when an officer was accused of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman for not taking steps to obtain redress for an outrage offered to him, the answer was, that the redress which he ought to have sought for was that which would have been obtained from the Horse Guards. But he said boldly, that this was a mere evasion. They all knew that the real redress an officer under such circumstances was expected to ask for was that which was now called demanding satisfaction from his adversary. He would go further, he would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, the Judge Advocate General, whether, even since that right hon. Gentleman had been in office, the sentence of a court-martial had not been submitted to him, in which the ordinary forms of evasion had been neglected, and in which the officer was, under this form, sentenced for having declined to fight a duel. His information might be incorrect, but undoubtedly he had heard it, and that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had found that the sentence in that shape was one which was decidedly illegal, and could not be allowed to pass. But the very fact that the charge might be submitted to the court-martial in that form—if he was correctly informed that such was the case—did prove that what was really expected from an officer under such circumstances, was not that he should appeal to the Horse Guards, but that he should take redress into his own hands. Now, he said, if this had been allowed to go on in the Army, if much more efficient means than had been hitherto adopted to put down this system of duelling were not taken, it would be the very height of injustice to refuse to the widow of an officer who had fallen in a duel, the pension to which she would otherwise have been entitled. Ministers told the House that there was difficulty in legislating on the subject, and he admitted that there was. But with respect to the Army, he maintained that Her Majesty's Government, without legislating, had it in their power, most completely and entirely,
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if they were inclined to exercise it, to put down the practice of duelling. What could be the difficulty of taking this course, to make it known in an authoritative manner to officers, that Her Majesty's Government would not permit this practice to go on, to call on all officers who might receive an insult, to submit their case to a superior authority, by means of a Court of Inquiry, if legal difficulties stood in the way of appealing to a court-martial? By means of a Court of Inquiry, the character of each case might be ascertained, and the prerogative of the Crown in the power of dismissing a guilty party, on the report of a Court of Inquiry, would give ample means of discovering persons guilty of an insult, which, in the ordinary course, would lead to a duel. If Her Majesty's Government were to take this course—to offer redress in this manner to those who were insulted; and, at the same time, to give notice that every party, principal or second, engaged in a duel, would instantly and summarily be dismissed from Her Majesty's service—no man could doubt that the practice of duelling would be very speedily put down. They might even go further. He thought the practice of duelling was so great an evil—so contrary to what every man in private felt to be right and consistent with a man's duty, that not only as regarded the military and naval services, but the community at large, Government ought to take some means to suppress the practice. That task he did not believe to be impossible. In his opinion, what was required was, simply to modify the severity of the existing law. He believed, that what now defeated the law, in nine cases out of ten, was, that its undue severity ran counter to the common feeling of justice in men's breasts. The offence of killing a man in a duel was, technically and legally, murder; but surely it was felt by all that, although a great crime, it was still one of a very different character, and deserving a different measure of punishment from that of deliberate and wilful murder. He thought that the offence ought to be taken out of that class, and that special provisions, with a moderate amount of punishment, ought to be appointed for cases of duel. Having thus modified the law, Government should take care that the law, so altered, was uniformly and impartially administered. Besides this, another step might be taken which would do much to prevent what was considered the necessity of duelling, and

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that was to afford parties receiving insults, and who are at present the parties who fight duels, some means of obtaining from the legal tribunals of the country a redress in proportion to the offence. He did not think there was any insuperable difficulty in forming some law which would enable persons aggrieved and insulted to obtain redress proportioned to the offence from one of the courts of law. There were two courses open to Her Majesty's Government with reference to this pension. Either they might allow things to remain as they now were; and if they did, if they shut their eyes to the practice of duelling, if they would do nothing but connive at its existence as hitherto, then he must say they ought to grant Mrs. Fawcett the pension of which she had been deprived. The other course was, that they should set themselves seriously to work to put down the practice altogether, and that they should not look in any case to see who were the parties concerned. No one could help remarking, that in a case which occurred very lately, a person in a very high and distinguished situation which made the offence in him infinitely more serious and aggravated than it could be in any military officer—in that most remarkable case in which be thought the high authorities in whose presence the offence was committed had grievously failed in their duty to the country and to the court in which they presided, Her Majesty's Government had passed over the offence as if it were one of a most venal and trivial description. He said there was no consistency in this conduct; one line or the other ought to be adopted. They ought to strive to put down duelling on principle, to act impartially and generally against all offenders, or if this they would not do, they ought not to be guilty of what he must consider the cruelty and injustice of refusing to the widow of one of the unfortunate victims of this most unhappy system a pension which very possibly her circumstances might render particularly necessary to her.
Captain Bernalsaid, perhaps it might be satisfactory to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman after what had fallen from the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland, to know that he did not acknowledge that he had fairly laid himself open to the lecture which the noble Lord had read him on constitutional law. He had consulted several Members of equal standing with the noble Lord in the House as to the course which it would be proper to take
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on this question. Nothing had fallen from the noble Lord which would stop him from bringing forward on the Order of the Day for going into Committee of Supply the Motion of which he had given notice.
Sir Hardingecertainly thought that the speech of the noble Lord was not characterized by the usual fairness which marked his conduct in that House. The present case was to come forward on Monday next, and yet with that knowledge the noble Lord had taken this opportunity of discussing the whole discipline of the Army relating to duelling on an occasion when he must know that the Mutiny Act, and other opportunities, would enable him to bring forward this subject more conveniently than at present. Seeing that this question was to come forward on Monday, and that the gallant Officer (Captain Bernal) took a different view of it from him (Sir H. Hardinge) he thought it would have been more fair if the noble Lord had consented to postpone his observations till that occasion. Having already given the noble Lord all the explanation which he thought necessary on the subject of the soldiers' pension, he must decline entering into any further statement at present. With respect to the other part of the noble Lord's speech, whether the officers of the Army were expected to find their way out of every dispute into which they might get by duelling, and that this was connived at, as the noble Lord said, by individuals at the head of the Army—he must confess he was surprised that the noble Lord should bring forward such erroneous notions, notwithstanding the high office which he had held for several years as Secretary at War—he must give this part of the noble Lord's speech the strongest contradiction in his power. He did not believe that the statement of the noble Lord was borne out by facts. He was confident the noble Lord could not produce any instance in which officers had been brought to a court-martial and cashiered for not having fought a duel in consequence of having had an insult offered to them. He must observe, that there appeared to be in the mind of the noble Lord, as well as of other individuals, a great misunderstanding on this question. By the Articles of War, an officer was liable to be cashiered for fighting a duel, and it was stated, "that whoever should give, send, convey, or promote a challenge, or should upbraid an officer for refusing a challenge, should, if convicted thereof, be cashiered." Another

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Article said, "If any officer shall behave in a scandalous and infamous manner, unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, he shall also be liable to be cashiered." Another Article said, "We do hereby acquit officers of any disgrace or opinion of disadvantage, which may arise from their refusing to accept a challenge, as they will only have acted in obedience to our own orders, and done their duty as good soldiers, who subject themselves to discipline." Having shown to the House what the Articles of War prescribed on this subject, he asked the noble Lord how it was possible that twelve or thirteen officers, men of education, put upon their oaths to judge in a case, and with this book the Articles of War open before them, could punish a man for declining a challenge? Officers were told they were not to accept one—that there was no disgrace in refusing it—but, according to the noble Lord's version of the discipline of the Army, an officer would be tried for scandalous and infamous conduct, unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and might be cashiered, if the fact were proved, for refusing to fight a duel. Why, it would be a violation of their oaths in the members of any court to come to such a conclusion; it would be a violation of all decency and common sense. The noble Lord had had great opportunities, having been five or six years at the War Office, of proving the truth of this view of the subject; and if there were any defect in the Articles, it was the noble Lord's duty, when he filled that office, to recommend to Her Majesty any alterations which he might consider necessary to render them better adapted to the service. Under these circumstances, when the noble Lord told the Government of the present day, that they had it in their power to put down duelling, and that it ought to be put down in the Army, he was induced to ask what the noble Lord had been about during the five years of which he had spoken? Why did not the noble Lord put it down during that period? Why did he not take those steps which he found fault with the Government of the present day for not taking, when he had the Articles of War before him? He could assure the noble Lord that the subject had not escaped the attention of the present Commander-in-Chief and the Government, and though it did not become him to enter at length into this subject, because certain alterations in the forms of procedure had
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not yet received the sanction of Her Majesty, he would say that the question was under the consideration of the Government. With respect to the noble Lord's observations that officers were cashiered for not fighting duels, he would refer to the case mentioned, he believed the other day, by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Captain Bernal), namely, that the very last mail from the West Indies had brought the case of an officer who had been tried for having submitted to an insult, because he would not fight a duel, and the opinion was that he would be cashiered. Whether he was or not, he really could not answer, but he would read the charge brought against an officer as late as 1843, without mentioning names. It was—
"For scandalous and infamous conduct, highly unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman, in submitting to be repeatedly charged with ungentlemanly and blackguard conduct without further replying to said charges and language used to him, or reporting it to his commanding officer, or taking any measures for exculpating himself from charges so derogatory to his character."
Now this officer was brought to trial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and he (Sir H. Hardinge) maintained that when this occurred this officer ought to have gone before his brother officers and his commanding officer, and said, "Try me, I am ready to exculpate myself and disprove the charge brought against me." But, according to the erroneous version of the noble Lord, it would follow that twelve or thirteen gentlemen, sitting in a court with the Articles of War before them, were to suppose that this individual ought to have fought a duel, and ought not to have exculpated his character from these defamatory charges. He (Sir H. Hardinge) would only say he had been forty years in the Army, and he had never known one case at all approaching to such a result as the noble Lord had stated. He knew what the circumstances of the case he had alluded to were. The individual had acted in so dishonourable a manner, that he did not dare to demand an inquiry to exculpate himself, and his brother officers, therefore, forced him before a court-martial under the clause he had read which enacted that an officer might be brought to trial for scandalous and infamous conduct, unbecoming an officer and gentleman, and if convicted might be cashiered. It was said that an individual thus tried was brought to a court-martial for not fighting

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a duel; he contended that it was because he did not dare to attempt to vindicate himself, and was afraid to have his conduct inquired into. Could it be supposed that twelve or thirteen gentlemen, with the book from which he had quoted open before them, would be so lost to all sense of their duty as men and Christians, and to all regard for their oaths as to convict a man for refusing a challenge? He said, no such thing was ever done. In the same year (1843)—he took the most recent cases, because the noble Lord said the system was still being acted upon at the present day, and that officers were driven to the unchristian and unreasonable act of fighting a duel, when they ought to have a court of inquiry—in April, 1843, an officer was tried for scandalous and infamous conduct, in having submitted to be stigmatised as a liar and a scoundrel, and other opprobrious epithets, by another individual, for which the court found hint guilty, and, of course, the individual was cashiered. When he (Sir H. Hardinge) made inquiries, what did he find? That that individual had conducted himself in such a disgraceful manner, that he did not dare to face a court of inquiry composed of his brother officers, and they had, therefore, brought him to a court-martial to exclude him from the regiment. How these cases could be construed into the view the noble Lord had taken of them, he could not understand. He could understand, if an officer had insulted another, and by his slackness in resenting insult, had exposed himself to odium, he might be sent to Coventry by his brother officers, and under such circumstance he might find his position so extremely unpleasant that he would be obliged to leave the regiment. He knew an instance in which a field officer, having a high sense of religion, and being a man of very conscientious mind, declined to fight a duel, because he would not sin against the command of God. The officers of the regiment knowing the inconvenience to which they were exposed by having a member of the regiment liable to such imputations, felt highly aggrieved. What was the consequence? The present Commander-in-Chief protected that individual to the full extent which the good of the service required; he caused an inquiry to be made respecting the transaction which had been the cause of quarrel between these parties, and the blamelessness of that officer's conduct having been fully established, the objection against him was withdrawn by
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his brother officers, and the gentleman, acting on the noble Lord's principle, of refusing to fight when he could not reconcile it, to his conscience, was now in the service, a highly respected field-officer. He believed this course had been pursued in almost every instance; wherever an opportunity of discouraging duelling had offered itself, it had been discouraged. He could show by an extract what was the opinion of Sir Charles Morgan, who was Judge Advocate General several years ago. When he suspected that the wording of a charge which was brought against an officer, might be construed into an accusation for not fighting a duel, he caused the officers to be written to. The case occurred in 1804: the party was charged with "associating and being in habits of intimacy, at different periods since the 13th December, with Assistant-surgeon such-a-one, notwithstanding that he had been collared and struck by the Assistant-surgeon on the evening of the day previous, and for thus behaving himself, &c." The officer was struck and took no notice of it; he was brought to a court-martial; and Sir C. Morgan, thinking it possible there might have been some intention to punish him for not fighting, wrote this note—"the investigation of the second charge against Lieutenant—having ended in an acquittal, it is necessary to observe, that had I been aware of this previous to the trial, I should not have referred the case to a court-martial, as it appears to me that in substance, though not in direct terms, this charge comes little short of imputing to him as a crime that he did not challenge or fight a duel with the Assistant-surgeon." The Lieutenant was acquitted. There was no such intention on the part of the Court towards this officer, but merely because there was that suspicion of such an imputation, the Judge Advocate had entered this opinion. He could only assure the noble Lord that, in every case which had come before him having made every possible inquiry, both at the Horse-Guards and from his right hon. Friend near him, the Judge Advocate General since the hon. Member for Wycombe gave notice of his motion, he could not find a single instance in which any officer of the army had been brought to a court-martial because he had been wanting in courage to fight a duel. On the contrary, the cases in which trials growing out of transactions of this kind had occurred, were cases in which the per-

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sons brought to trial had stooped to disgraceful conduct, and did not dare to vindicate himself. He must withhold from the noble Lord any further statement as to the pension to the widow of Col. Fawcett; but he trusted that he should be able to satisfy the House, when the matter was brought before it, that he had acted as his duty required. He was the person responsible for the step that had been taken and he hoped he should be able to show that the discretion he had exercised had been a proper one.
Colonel Foxsaid, he would grant, that officers were seldom brought to a court-martial for not fighting duels, but he would ask if instances were not well known in which the Sovereign had dislensed with the services of officers for the only reason being that they had been put into Coventry for not fighting a duel? That was the manner in which the case was disposed of, and all who were acquainted with the subject knew it well.
Sir H. Hardingesaid, the gallant officer, whose conduct in that House was always very fair, had made a statement which quite astonished him, when he declared that the Sovereign of the country was a party indirectly to punishing officers who refused to fight a duel, by telling them that their services were dispensed with. He knew no instances of that description; he had known instances in which quarrels had taken place, in which duels had been fought, and where it was necessary for the harmony of the regiment that certain officers should be removed from it. But he would tell the noble Lord and the gallant officer that if they persisted in pushing the question to this extremity, if they wished to assume that restrictions and restraints were to be imposed on officers of the army to which other members of the community were not to be subject, no legislation of so unjust a character would satisfy the Army. Instead of extirpating the evil of which all complained, he was convinced the noble Lord would aggravate it. All you could do until the general voice of the community agreed with the noble Lord—and he (Sir Henry Hardinge). for his part fully adopted the noble Lord's views, that duelling ought to be put down—all you could do was to modify the evil. When you had done that, the country would go with you. He would say that he did not believe there was more duelling in the army than among other portions of the community. He would
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instance the noble corps of the Royal Artillery, at Woolwich, in which he believed for a period of twenty years, with sixty or seventy officers sitting down to dinner every day at the mess, not a single duel had occurred. Government were anxious to take every possible step to discourage and suppress the practice of duelling in the Army; and when such unhappy cases as those of Lieutenant Munro and Colonel Fawcett occurred, it was their duty to watch and see whether they could take any course to correct the propensity to have recourse to this mode of adjusting disputes. But as to the noble Lord's statement, he might say he had never heard from any hon. Member of that House remarks which contained a greater portion of exaggeration.
Sir A. L. Haywould not enter upon the subject of the pension. There were courts of honour attached to every regiment, to which appeals ought to be made in such cases. Was the stigma to be removed by the person going before a Court-martial, and shielding himself under that court? He denied the fact. The question was beset with difficulties. It was asserted that there were more duels in the army than in civil society. He did not think that such was the case. This was a question which ought not to be taken up lightly. It must not be forgotten that there were connected with this matter circumstances allied with the best interests of the State, upon which it was not so easy to legislate; and it was under these circumstances that he believed the Army might be placed on a different footing, and that duelling might be done away with.
Mr. Bernalwished to know whether the subject of duelling was now to be discussed, or whether it was to be postponed until Monday, when his hon. relative had given notice of his intention to submit a Motion to the House. A wide field had been to-night opened by the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland; but if this discussion was not to terminate to-night, it would be better that not one word more should be said about it. The question was one which not merely affected officers in the military service of the country, but it was one which affected the country at large. There were upon the Statute-book laws which pronounced the offence of duelling to be murder; but juries evaded the law, and Judges gave the go-by to it. The subject was much too large to be discussed upon one vote of the Army Esti-

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mates. The question of duelling ought, in his judgment, to form a substantive Motion, and ought not to be discussed, on the vote of an amount of money for Widows' Pensions. He hoped, therefore, any further discussion on the question would now be waved.
Dr. Nichollsaid, that having been appealed to by the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland, he begged to state that in the case mentioned by the noble Lord he (Dr. Nicholl) had found fault with the finding of the Court-martial, because the offence charged was that of not reporting the matter to the Commanding-officer (which was a military offence), and on that ground he, as Judge Advocate, had le-commended the proceedings to be revised.
Mr. P. Borthwickthought, that as at present advised, it was most unjustifiable to visit upon the widow of Colonel Fawcett the punishment of withholding her pension. That unfortunate lady was the last person in the world who ought to suffer for the faults of others.
Viscount Howickbriefly replied. He could not but complain of the miserable spirit of personality in which the right hon. and gallant Officer the Secretary-at-War had indulged. The right hon. and gallant Officer had given no answer to the arguments he had submitted to the Committee on the present occasion. The right hon. and gallant Officer had turned to the Mutiny Act and asked him, why, if it was not sufficient to put down duelling, he had not altered it? If the right hon. and gallant Officer thought it right and becoming to raise that question, he (Lord Howick) would at once give his answer. During the time he had the honour to fill the office of Secretary-at-War he had never been called upon to consider the case of the widow of an officer who had fallen in a duel, but if the exercise of that painful discretion had devolved upon him, he would not have advised the suspension of the pension to the widow, unless he had been at the same time prepared to put down duelling in the Army. At present an officer had the alternative of being sent to Coventry or becoming involved in a duel; one course or other ought to be adopted by the Government.
Captain Bernalhoped the right hon. and gallant Officer the Secretary at War, would not be tempted to-night to enter upon the discussion of a question of such
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vast interest. He could not but think that the attack made by the noble Lord upon the right hon. and gallant Officer the Secretary at War was most unfair. He hoped the right hon. and gallant Officer would maintain a judicious silence. The question was one upon which four or five of the oldest and most experienced Members of the House were anxious to declare their sentiments, and as the subject would on Monday regularly come on for discussion, he thought the tight hon. and gallant. Officer was justified in giving no answer to the attack made upon him by the noble Lord the Member for Sunderland.
Sir H. Hardingeobserved, that the noble Lord opposite had talked of miserable personalities. Now, he appealed to every hon. Member who heard him, whether the whole amount of his attack upon the noble Lord was not confined to this—that you, who were five years in office, did not rectify errors which you expect those who have been only two years and a quarter in power and authority to have corrected. The noble Lord had exhibited a degree of ill-temper which was not justified by the circumstances.
Lord J. Mannersentertained a strong conviction, that any attempt to establish a Court of Honour must fail. He was sure that it would be in vain to look to legislation for a remedy for this evil, which could only be put an end to by popular feeling.
Vote agreed to, as were several other Votes.

SUPPLY—ORDNANCE ESTIMATES.
Captain Boldero,in bringing forward the Ordnance Estimates, wished to offer a few words in explanation of the Votes he should propose. The fourth Vote was for the salaries of Barrack-masters at home and abroad. It was a Vote which from its nature could nut vary much from year to year, but there was a small diminution this year above the last of 168 l. That would have been increased to 571 l., but for the necessity of sending out a barrack establishment to China. The fifth Vote was for Ordnance works and repairs in the United Kingdom and Colonies, the building and repair of barracks, barrack-masters' expenditure and allowances, and other matters of the like nature, 624,615 l. He admitted the expenditure was heavy under this head, but the great amount of the Vote arose from circumstances over which the Ordnance

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Department had no control. Last summer the West Indies had been visited by a severe earthquake, which had fallen particularly heavy on the island of Antigua, where buildings of every kind had been overthrown, and, among the rest, the Ordnance buildings. Similar circumstances had occurred in the island of Zante, where the military hospital had been destroyed. Then at the Cape of Good Hope a battery, standing on the sea shore, of very great importance, as it commanded Cape Town, had had one flank injured by the sea. Another unfortunate occurrence was the fire at Norwich barracks, one wing of which had been totally destroyed. This was the effect of mere accident; some children had been playing with lucifer matches, and, though it was in the middle of the day, a great part of the building was burnt down before the fire could be put a stop to. During last year, also, the Ordnance powder establishment at Waltham was much injured by an explosion, in consequence of which not only much property was destroyed, but, he regretted to say, seven lives were lost. The expense of adapting three or four houses to the purposes of the establishment had been estimated, and the necessary expenditure, he had ascertained by a visit, would, in all probability, be 8,000 l. or 10,000 l. At Chatham, the Medway had undermined a gun-wharf, which would render necessary an outlay of 6,000 l. or 7,000 l. Another of the extraordinary circumstances which rendered this vote necessary was the fire at the Tower, which consumed 60,000 square feet of flooring in the armoury there. Then all the military stores in Tooley-street had been removed a few years ago to the Tower, but in consequence of the fire additional storeroom became requisite—the stores could not be classified—they could not be properly preserved—they could not classify—a remedy for the evil was indispensable. It was proposed to pull down the Tower barracks which were in a dilapidated state, and to convert other parts of them into storehouses. On the highest ground within the Tower it was intended to construct barracks with the entire approbation of the Duke of Wellington. There was only one work more of any importance that was proposed for the ensuing year—viz. the construction of barracks in the Isle of France. They paid annually 5,000 l. to keep those barracks in order. It was intended to convert 4,000 l. of that sum to this purpose this year, which would reduce the expense of the building to 10,000 l.
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The sixth Vote was for Military and Civil Contingencies, and in it was a large reduction of 64,000 l. on last year's estimate, although an amount of 34,639 l. had been transferred to the Ordnance by Treasury Minutes in the latter end of last year, which had formerly belonged to the Commissariat Department. On the tenth Vote, for Commissariat Supplies, on which there had been a great reduction, he would say with respect to the case of married officers, who lived out of barracks of their own free will, and not because there was not accommodation for them in the barracks—with regard to whom it had been made a matter of complaint, that they did not receive the same allowances of fuel and light, as those officers did who were obliged to live out of barracks when there was not room for them—that a decision (he was happy to state) had been arrived at which would afford another proof that the Duke of Wellington and the Master General of the Ordnance took an interest in all that was connected with the comfort of the officers in the service. In future no stores of any kind would be delivered without the barracks. It was intended to substitute a commuted allowance, and that all officers, whether their residence without the barracks was forced or voluntary, being married, should be put on the same footing. He would only add, that the reduction in the expense of the Ordnance Department since the present Government had come in was no less than 303,483 l.
On the first Vote, that 127,043 l. be granted to Her Majesty to defray the charge for Salaries to the Office of Ordnance,
Dr. Bowringregretted that one general rule was not observed in drawing up the Public Estimates. He thought the Colonies ought to pay the expense of their own defence. The Ionian Islands were the only colonies which contributed from their public revenue for this object. He believed that if they put into the hands of the colonists a little more self-government they would be disposed to pay more of their own expenses.
Sir H. Douglassaid, he appealed for relief from this contribution in favour of an interesting and peculiar people, thrown back at this time of day, by the remarkable vicissitudes in their history, for regeneration, in their social, moral, and political condition, and to whom we had solemnly pledged a peculiar and paternal solicitude. Placed on the confines of civilisation, these interesting

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Islands presented a wide and noble field for improvement, when they came under the dominion of a Christian power. But it would ever be considered a stain in the history of Venice, and he must say in that of other Christian States, that whilst the Ionian Islands were used for maritime and military, and even for spiritual purposes, as the bulwarks of Christianity against the Infidels, no monument should have been raised, to commemorate the possession which the Venetian Government so long held, of those Islands, by any act which could show that, with real Christian spirit, they attended paternally to the moral and physical well-being of the people, and the general amelioration of those most interesting Islands. This was a duty which had devolved upon this great country. The glory and honour of our beloved Sovereign, the credit of the Government, the character of the country were at stake. We had under our protecting wing an interesting, a peculiar people, inhabiting a fair and classical region. All the sympathies and associations—classical, historical, ancient and modern, which we imbibed in our youth, and should carry with us to our graves—taught us to regard with deep interest, that peculiar people, whose destinies we hold in trust for good or for evil—for our glory, or to our shame. He should startle the House, shock the country, and wound the character of any British Government, were he to tell of the sacrifices and privations which were endured to enable the Ionian Government to liquidate the fixed tribute which they were bound to pay, and the manner and extent to which the exaction of this bond, retarded amelioration in the general condition of the Ionian Islands. [Lord Stanley here said, "It is done.] Done! when done? why was he not told of it? He appealed to the Committee whether he (Sir H. Douglas) having represented the case of the Ionian Islands, as now briefly stated, in 1838 to Lord Glenelg, in 1838 to Lord Normanby, and in 1839, 1840, and 1841, to Lord J. Russell, and in 1842 to his noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Stanley—having, too, on his request, not called for the production of Papers which, by an order of the last session, were forthcoming, he (Sir H. Douglas) appealed to the Committee, whether the noble Lord had treated him either as a supporter of Her Majesty's Government, or as a friend of the noble Lord's, as he ought to have done; and therefore, he (Sir H. Douglas) would go through the case he had in hand, without
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now heeding what the noble Lord had said. No one who was thoroughly acquainted with the Ionian Islands could, for a moment, doubt that the peculiar circumstances, and anomalous condition of those Islands, and the wants and necessities of the Ionian people, had not been considered as they ought to have been. Those Islands are not, as the hon. and learned Member for Bolton has inadvertently said, colonies. They are placed in a middle state, between the colonial and perfectly free independent state, without having, in some important respects, the advantages of either. Their productions are treated as foreign productions, although their ships are admitted to all the privileges of British vessels. An enormous duty, no less than 19½ per cent. is imposed on the export of those productions, to enable the Ionian Government to meet its obligations. That source of revenue has failed, by the diminution in price from about 74 dollars to about 18 per 1000 lbs., whilst the duty levied on the import of those productions into the United Kingdom, is upwards of 130 per cent on their prime cost. The progress of improvement of every description in the Ionian Islands is vastly retarded, and in some cases thrown back, by the exaction of this bond. The appropriations for public instruction are diminished; the public roads are falling into dilapidation and decay. There is no prison in Corfu; for want of that most essential institution, an old fort is used as a receptacle for offenders, convicts, and criminals of every age and description, without the possibility of classification or discipline. Lunatics were the inmates of prisons, associated with criminals and felons, for want of a lunatic asylum, until he (Sir H. Douglas) converted another old fort into a receptacle for those unhappy beings; and nothing has yet been done, from want of means, to provide a suitable building and establishment, in lieu of those temporary expedients. Every practicable exertion had been made by the Ionian Government to reduce the expenditure, and to increase the revenue, to enable the Ionian States to pay this enormous fixed tribute, and the other charges for British protection. He objected to this, not only in amount, but in principle. It was the worst of all principles to make the governed t he debtors of the government. He (Sir H. Douglas) must advert to another sad part of this case. To give effect to an act passed in the time of his predecessor, Lord Nugent, he (Sir H. Douglas) had insti-

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toted a poorhouse and house-of-industry at Corfu, for the reception of mendicants, so numerous in the Islands, and ether destitute persons. That establishment had been abolished, since his (Sir H. Douglas's) departure, although it contained three paupers upwards of ninety years of age, six upwards of eighty, and many other destitute persons, far advanced in life. He (Sir H. Douglas) did not mean to assert, that the noble Lord had expressly ordered this to be done; but he did mean to say, that the instructions to pay up the contribution—to insist upon our bond, were so stringent, as to render this, and other sacrifices necessary. On these grounds, he (Sir H. Douglas) would appeal to the Committee, to the Government, and to the country, for some abatement and mitigation of these rates and terms. He advised and implored Her Majesty's Government to extend relief to the Ionian Islands before it became too late. The present, certainly, were not times of danger, but times of danger might come; and it was, therefore, to be hoped that Ministers would adopt the course he recommended, as likely to prove most creditable to themselves, beneficial to the Ionian Islands, and which would ensure to this country, the everlasting gratitude of the Ionian people.
Mr. W. Williamsobserved, that the Estimates of the present year were less by a sum of 9,000 l. than those of last year, and that, at least, might be said to form a just ground of congratulation, even small as the amount of the saving was; for 9,000 l. certainly was but a small sum compared with 1,800,000 l. He regretted to see that more new barracks were to be built. Thus there was a sum of 117,000 l. for new barracks at Manchester, and 26,000 l. for new barracks at Newport, and there were to be new buildings at Liverpool, for the expense of which no sum was mentioned, but of course the buildings would cost something.
Captain Bolderosaid, it had been thought desirable to enlarge certain docks at Liverpool, and that the use of a battery belonging to the Government was found necessary for that purpose. The parties interested in the docks proposed to take the battery from the Government, and build another in lieu of it, and thus the public would riot be put to any expense.
Captain Pechellsaid, that as they were upon the subject of barracks, he should mention an outrage which had been committed by certain of the soldiers who were
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quartered at barracks in the town which he had the honour to represent. He should not say anything about the decision of the Court of Law to which the subject had been submitted, beyond observing, that the parties had been subjected to severe punishment. It would be in the recollection of the House, that when a statement was first made on the matter, it was intimated that the suffering parties would be recompensed by the comrades of the persons who had inflicted this grievous injury upon them. He understood that 50 l. or 60 l. would hardly repair the damage which had been done. The poor man who had been attacked had had his goods destroyed—his lodgers would no longer remain with him, and the injuries which he had received disabled him from the performance of his usual duties. It was said that recompense would be made, and that statement no doubt had its weight with the chairman of the Quarter Sessions when sentence was passed upon the parties accused. They had been sentenced to ten months' imprisonment and hard labour—that was a severe sentence, but the crime which they had committed was a great crime, and the parties injured were now severe sufferers. He hoped, that under these circumstances, something would be done for them.
Sir H. Hardingesaid, that several of the soldiers of the regiment in question had considered the conduct of their comrades in this case highly reprehensible, and had intended to raise a subscription with the view of compensating the injured parties. The attorney who had been employed by those parties had sought for and obtained a remedy by means of the Criminal Law. He pursued that sort of remedy to the utmost extent of the law; and now there was reason to believe, that three of the parties tried, found guilty, and sentenced, had nothing whatever to do with the riot. The House must see that no one could force the regiment to carry out their original intention of setting on foot a subscription.
Mr. Aglionbywas sorry to hear the right hon. and gallant Member say, that three of the parties were innocent. It was a statement calculated to do much injury. He hoped that neither that nor the conduct of the attorney would have the effect of preventing the soldiers doing what they in the first instance had intended.
Sir H. Hardingereplied, that the attor-

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ney had conducted himself towards the commanding officer in a very offensive manner, and that his conduct was most improper; but he never meant to say that those circumstances would at all influence the conduct of the regiment towards the parties injured.
Mr. Aglionbywould thus appeal to the regiment from his place in Parliament on behalf of men who were foreigners, who knew nothing of the laws of this country, and who placed their case in the hands of an attorney, who took proceedings under the Criminal Law. It was his opinion, that the officers, for the sake of the character of the regiment, ought to join in the subscription, and fully compensate the suffering parties.
Vote agreed to, as were several other Votes.
House resumed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes past eleven o'clock.

MINUTES.
BILLS. Public.—2°. Privy Council Appellate Jurisdiction.
Private.—Reported.—Marianski's Naturalization.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Lord Brougham, from Antrim, and Ulster, in favour of Dissenters' Chapels Bill.—From Dunbar, respecting Schoolmasters (Scotland).—By the Earl of Haddington, from Haddington and Berwick, against Alteration of the Corn Laws.—From Haltwhistle, for Protection of the Agricultural Interest.

EXPENSE OF PROSECUTIONS AT PETTY SESSIONS.
The Marquess of Lansdownerose to move for a return of the Fees to Clerks at Petty Sessions, similar to that which had been already agreed to in the other House of Parliament. It had been his intention to have included in that return an account of the Fees paid to the Clerks of the Peace, but, upon consideration, and as that return had not yet been called for in the other House of Parliament, he did not mean on the present occasion to extend the return to Clerks of the Peace; and he should, therefore, confine it to Clerks of Petty Sessions. The returns which he was about to move for had reference to a subject of very great importance to the poorer classes of the community, for he believed that nothing bore more heavily and with greater severity upon the poorer classes, than those demands for fees. He did not mean to say that those who obtained such fees made an unjust demand, or one that they were not entitled to make; but this he could say, that the result of those demands for fees, was, its many cases, an absolute denial of justice to a great number of persons in this country. He could state to their Lordships, from numerous examples of the severity with which these demands pressed on the poor, an instance which happened in his own neighbourhood. A person was committed on a charge of fe-

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lony, and it turned out, upon investigation, that he had not committed felony at all; but the consequence of his being charged with felony was, that his mother, a poor woman, had been put to an expense of 14 l., although her son was acquitted. Another case occurred recently in Buckinghamshire, which forcibly illustrated the effect those demads produced as regarded the poorer classes. Two persons prosecuted for an assault of an atrocious nature; that assault was proved, and the result was a trifling fine upon the person convicted of this aggravated assault, whilst large costs were demanded and obtained from the persons who had the virtue—for it was in that case a virtue—of prosecuting the person who committed the assault. It would have been better for them if they had not prosecuted the man for the assault, but had assaulted him in return, as it cost them so much to prosecute him. Costs, which to their Lordships might appear trifling, were of the greatest importance to the poor who have such insufficient means of paying them. In Gloucestershire, another case of a similar nature happened. A young woman was charged with an assault by a man, but it turned out that he was the offender, and the girl was desired to prosecute him. She did so, and the result was, that in addition to the grievance she had already endured, she was obliged to pay a large sum in costs. The costs, in consequence of obtaining a conviction for the very smallest penalties, were sometimes very large, amounting to sums that never could have been intended by the Magistrates who adjudged those penalties. The noble Marquess concluded by moving for a return from the Clerk of each Petty Session of the Amount of Fees received by him for the last three years; a return of the Convictions during the same period, specifying the Amount of Fine or Penalty and of Costs in each case, the purpose to which the Fine was applied, or term of Imprisonment, and Expense of Imprisonment.—Ordered.

PRIVY COUNCIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION.
Lord Broughamsaid, that in moving the Second Reading of the Bill relative to the Appellate Jurisdiction of the Privy Council, which he had introduced a few days ago, he should address their Lordships as shortly as the nature of the subject and its great importance would permit. His observations would come un-
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der two heads,—first, with respect to the constitution of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and next with reference to the object of the Bill then before their Lordships. It was perfectly true, that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had given general satisfaction to the suitors, and it was admitted that it was exceedingly well adapted to meet the objects for which it was originally formed. He should first observe upon the constitution of the Committee. It consisted of a certain proportion of Judges, of the present Lord Chancellor, and others who had been Chancellors, of the Chief Justices of the three Courts of Common Law, of the Vice Chancellor, and several other learned Judges, as well as of the Judges of the Admiralty and Arches Court, and they had a power of calling in as assessors certain Judges who had belonged to the East India Bench. That Court had been found to work well, and had been productive of great public advantage in hearing the numerous questions which came before it—questions of very different natures, and often embracing various interests of vast magnitude. In dealing with these various questions the Court was called on, not only to administer the law in Admiralty cases, and cases which came under the law of the Ecclesiastical Courts, but it had also to administer at one time Dutch law, at another time French law, at another time the Roman law, at another time a mixture of those laws, at another the laws and customs of India, and they were called on to do this in cases, such as in our colonies or possessions abroad, where the interests affected were very important. The range of their Jurisdiction was most extensive. Before them came cases connected with the Admiralty Court, the Ecclesiastical Courts, the Equity Courts, and the Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction. Before them were brought affairs of life and of property between man and man. But in every instance they were enabled to consult and to take the opinion of those Judges who presided over these different branches of Jurisprudence. But, independent of causes arising in this country, when it was considered that we had twenty-nine colonies (with their hundreds of thousands of subjects), from which various legal questions were brought on appeal to the Judicial Committee, added to which there was India, with a population which we did not count by hundreds of thousands but by millions, and when it was borne in mind that not only ques-

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tions as to the right of territory of villages but of a whole Zeimandary, with an extent of territory almost amounting to a kingdom—when these things were considered, it was natural to suppose that questions of vast importance and no small difficulty were continually under the consideration of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He recollected it to have been his duty to give judgment in a case where property to the amount of 800,000 l. or 1,000,000 l. was at stake. Where interests so great were submitted to their decision, they ought assuredly to render the tribunal as perfect as possible. Now admirably constituted as this tribunal was for great causes by its powers of adaptation, of calling in the aid of any judges most conversant with the subject matter, it was ill-adapted to despatch ordinary business by the way of judges constantly sitting. It was like Addison, who said, he had not a shilling in his pocket though he could draw for a hundred pounds, alluding to his want of conversation on ordinary topics. The noble and learned Lord then referred to tine nature of the Bill. It was, he said, calculated to give to the Court a permanent President; but it was calculated to do what was of still greater importance—to supply a deficiency, which he was sure the country would not object to do, and which had arisen in this manner:—When the Court was originally constituted, two Common Law Judges were placed upon the Privy Council and made Members of the Judicial Committee, viz., Mr. Baron Parke, who, in consequence of the present state of business in the Common Law Courts, was unable to attend, and Mr. Justice Bosanquet, who had retired from the Bench, after a most distinguished professional career. The consequence was, that the Committee were thrown upon the assistance of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Campbell) and his right hon. Friend Mr. Pemberton Leigh. Their assistance was entirely voluntary and gratuitous, and to demand it the public had no manner of right whatever. This was a deficiency which ought to be supplied, and which he thought might be done by adding to the Court two Puisne Judges, who could, of course, be moderately paid. Into the details of this part of the case he would not now enter, particularly as the subject would be more properly one for the consideration of the Select Committee. He now came to deal with a most important part of the statement which he had to make to their Lordships. He should say nothing about the
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addition to the powers of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in matters of Patent. The Patent Jurisdiction which had been conferred on the Committee of Privy Council in 1835 had worked well, and all agreed thas it might be advantageously extended in the way mentioned on the discussion of Lord Dundonald's petition the other day. But that was not the only matter being both legislative and judicial in some sort, which could properly be referred to the Judicial Committee. He considered that divorces might, with very great advantage to all parties, and to the public at large, be referred to the Judicial Committee. Their Lordships were aware that at present that Committee formed the last appeal in cases of divorce à mensa et thoro; he wished that it should be the tribunal in which cases of divorce à vinculo matrimonii should be adjudicated. Divorce was a matter altogether judicial in its character; and though Divorce Bills were called Acts of Parliament, they were by no means like measures of a legislative kind, and should therefore be referred to a Judicial Tribunal. This transfer of the Jurisdiction, under proper regulations, would have the effect of saving a vast proportion of the expellee, which now attended the separate legislation necessary for every divorce à vinculo, and removing most of the other difficulties, inconveniences, and vexations thrown in the way of an injured husband seeking to relieve himself of an adulterous wife. The Law of England said, that marriage was not to be dissolved, and the remedy at present afforded in cases of adultery was not at all inconsistent with that principle which required a new law to be passed in particular cases and in particular circumstances. But the remedy was at present exclusively confined to the rich; no poor man, no man even of moderate fortune could avail himself of it. England was, in this respect an exception to all other Protestant countries. In Popish countries the whole question stood upon a different footing—the Church allowing of no divorce, because it regards marriage as a sacrament which we do not. Whether in those countries there was less adultery or not he could not say. But of Protestant countries this was the only one where so extraordinary a state of the law existed. In foreign countries where marriage was held to be (as here) no sacrament, and where further it was not held, as it was here, to be indissoluble, the punishment of the adulterous party, and the relief of the injured person, by full divorce, was,

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upon sufficient proof, available without any great difficulty; and such was the case, also, in Scotland. How stood the case in this country as to full divorces? For 135 years preceding the year 1835, the number of Divorce Bills passed was only 170, an average of only about 1¼ per annum, or five in four years. In the last five years, the number had been much higher, there having been on an average nine every year. Now, if these one and a quarter Divorce Bills, or even these nine Divorce Bills per annum, represented the actual number of cases in which divorce was called for by adultery, the fact would be one of the most gratifying description, and we might well pride ourselves upon the unexampled morality of the English people—but he greatly doubted whether such was the fact. When he looked at Scotland, with a population of only one-eighth that of England, and with a standard of morality certainly not inferior to ours, he found that the average of divorces there, in the last five years, had been seventeen instead of one and a quarter, or fourteen times more than those in England; but did this prove that the people of Scotland were less moral, chaste, and religious than those of England? By no means; it only showed that the expence in the one country was very different from what it was in the other. In Scotland, a divorce à vinculo, where the parties resided in Edinburgh, might be obtained for 25 l.; where the witnesses had to come from the country, it was 35 l., or thereabouts. Here in England, such a divorce, when the suit was not opposed, cost from 500 l. to 600 l., or 700 l.; when opposed, it cost from 1,000 l. to 1,500 l., or 2,000 l. Now, was this a remedy open alike to the rich and the poor, or was it not rather a remedy from which all but the rich were excluded? As to the previous proceedings in Doctors' Commons, he (Lord Brougham) altogether objected to them as futile and expensive. The interrogatories there were no check to collusion, no sifting of the true merits of the cases, no evisceration of evidence, no security against fraud. As a practical illustration of the gross defects and injustice of the present system, he would mention the case of a professional gentleman who, having the misfortune of an unchaste wife, had first proceeded against the adulterer, and obtained a verdict, and then against his wife, and obtained a decree of divorce â mensa et thoro. Every step of the proceeding was attended with difficulty, and vexation, and fearful expence. His
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expence began with a bill to his own proctor; she, under the advice throughout of her paramour, a professional man, met this by an opposition which run him up another bill, the heavy expense of which had to be defrayed, not by her or her paramour, but by the injured husband, who had to pay the costs both of his own and his wife's proceedings—for such is the law. He succeeded in this stage. The wife then appealed to the Dean of the Arches, at the expense, as before, of the husband, and the husband had to pay the expenses of that appeal—the tables being turned, he being made the defendant, and having here as before to pay both bills. Well; but he succeeds a second time. Then they appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; the Court of Delegates and the Commission of Review having been abolished, that Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had become the Supreme Court in such cases. It already possessed an appellate jurisdiction à mensa et thoro, but he proposed to transfer to it an original jurisdiction à vinculo matrimonii. But, to go on with the case. The husband succeeded again in obtaining a confirmation of the sentence of divorce à mensa et thoro, and had to pay for his wife's appeal and his own resistance to it; but by this time his means were so exhausted that he had not the money necessary for coming before their Lordships for that remedy which his wrongs demanded—a full and complete divorce à vinculo matrimonii, from a brazen, worthless woman. Nor was this all. During the whole proceeding (and the wife and her paramour had managed, by the aid of the law, to protract it over no less than five years), the same law had compelled the unhappy husband to allow alimony to his wife and her paramour—not to her paramour, certainly, but he, of course, participated—it was, of course, that the husband should allow alimony, so that all the time the guilty parties were actually living upon the means of the man they had so injured. He got rid of this expense, of course, at last, but then he had no 1,000 l. or 2,000 l. to prosecute his case before the House of Lords, opposed as it would have been by the other parties, nor even the 500 l. or 600 l. which a divorce, even if unopposed, would have cost him. And, accordingly, up to the present time, he was not sure at any moment but that some butcher's or baker's bill might be brought in for "necessaries" supplied to his wife, for such she still was; and though the decision he had obtained

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would ultimately be a bar to such a demand, yet he might be greatly annoyed in this way. There was another thing to be observed. Suppose—and the supposition was very probable—that an estate in fee simple or fee tail say of 3,000 l. a year should devolve upon him, and he were to the before he had procured a divorce à vinculo, which proceeding would require the best part of a year, in that case, dowry not being barred by a divorce à mensa et thoro, the abandoned wife might become entitled to 1,000 l. a year to spend with her paramour. It was impossible to conceive a more unsatisfactory state of the law than this, one running more counter to all rational principles, sinning more grossly against all justice, more frequently violating every principle of equity which the law ought immovably to adhere to, departing more utterly from that equal justice which should be dealt out between man and man, and equally to all the different classes of the community: more unfair and oppressive towards the poor man, because he is poor; more calculated to shelter the rich man, merely because he is rich. What more certain means of encouraging immorality could be devised than that of sheltering criminals from the consequences of their crimes, and tormenting the innocent sufferer because be has not money enough to purchase the whole remedy which the Legislature would otherwise dole out to him? The very delay, the very waiting for the progress and termination of litigation, was the sure means of perpetuating and propagating the offence, as in the instance of that profligate woman, whom he had mentioned without naming her, who flew in the face of all decency and all truth, and appealed to the Dean of the Arches. What did such persons say when thus attempting to palliate their crime, and to set traps perhaps to get money from the victim of their conspiracy? Upon what did they make their calculations and build their hopes? "Oh! he can't proceed against us—he is not a my Lord This, or a Sir William This, or a Mr. That; he is not a man of 5,000 l. a-year; he cannot go into Doctors' Commons, or to the Houses of Parliament, and pay away thousands for a divorce Bill. Therefore we can do as we like: and if he proceed we shall get our alimony for five years. It will cost him perhaps 5,000 l., and after all he may be foiled in the end." And this was the inevitable consequence of the present system. But to go back to Scotland. Did any mortal man believe that
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there was more adultery in Scotland than in England and Ireland? It was ridiculous to suppose that. The fact was notoriously the contrary. The crime hardly existed there at all. Yet, with a population of only two-and-a-half millions of people, there were seventeen divorce Bills in one year, and only nine for the rest of the Empire; that was fifteen times more divorce Bills in the one country than in the other. He had consulted with eminent Scotch lawyers, of great practice, and they had assured him that the crime of adultery was of very rare occurrence, and they asserted that there was hardly known such a tiling as adultery not visited by a judicial sentence and by the divorce of the woman; an object which in England, except in rich cases, was scarcely to be obtained. Did their Lordships, the Corinthian capital of society, the choice Aristocracy of the land, the Patrician order of Great Britain, think so meanly of themselves and their morals, as to suppose that adultery was confined to their own class? If so, they were unhappily most mistaken in their self-abasement. Constantly were applications made to the legal profession, by persons in the poorer classes, who complained of the infidelity of their partners, often under most aggravated circumstances; but all such were effectually precluded from obtaining justice by the present most unequal state of the law. Why, then, commit the worst of all errors, and carry candour to so ridiculous an extreme as to pretend—for it would be only pretence—that their Lordships and their families were morally more impure in respect to this matter than those who were far inferior to them in society? The case of the poor man was peculiarly hard. Their Lordships could watch over the education and moral training of their families; they could command both the leisure and the means of so doing; but the tradesman, who was compelled to go to his shop, or the artizan, who must attend to his work, was forced to leave the children of his marriage with the woman who had dishonoured his bed, or to strangers and servants, or peradventure, to the care of the parish. Now, the object of the Bill he was introducing was to relieve all those parties who suffered injustice under the existing law; but those parties were not the only parties who ought to complain of the present state of the law. He proposed to transfer the jurisdiction in cases of divorce à vinculo nuttrimonii to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but still to maintain the prerogative of

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their Lordships' House. The party would be required to present a petition to that House, a petition which would cost nothing, praying the House, with the consent of the Crown, to refer the case to the Judicial Committee. But, he said, their Lordships had a right to complain of the state of the law as well as other parties, for anything more unsatisfactory than the manner in which business of this kind was conducted he could not recollect. In another House the expense was quite as great, but the business was a mere mockery; nobody attended to it. He was told that since he had left that House they had ceased to examine the witnesses as before; a copy of the evidence before their Lordships' House was merely sent in, and it was all a mockery together. If, however, the proceedings were carried on by the Judicial Committee, as he proposed, the effect would be a more close and satisfactory sifting of the evidence, and a greater security against collusion, and perjury, and fraud. That Committee would also have the assistance of the Consistorial Judges, who would discuss the inferior and trifling matter of divorce à mensa et thoro, and examine the witnesses viva voce, in the presence and through the instrumentality of the counsel for the parties. It would be seen, hereafter in Committee, whether they would require that which he considered as worthless, the divorce mensa et thoro in Doctors' Commons. Therefore he had said nothing of it in the Bill, leaving the Judicial Committee to call for that sentence and evidence in the Court there, as their Lordships did, generally speaking, though not compelled to do it. There were other provisions in the Bill. Divorce Bills, in adultery cases, were not the only judicial matters arising out of the present system of legislation. Estate Bills and Naturalization Bills might also be referred to the Judicial Committee with advantage. Therefore there was a general provision to enable either House of Parliament to send to the Judicial Committee any matter they thought fit, with the consent of the Crown, to be obtained by an Address. Undoubtedly, the effect of all this would be a great increase of business in the Committee; but if he was right in holding that the remedy of divorce at present was inaccessible, on account of the expense, and the delay, and the difficulty, then they ought to rejoice in the prospect of entirely altering that state of things, and rendering remedial measures in the cases mentioned easily attainable, and the increase of divorce Bills would be a
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great benefit as showing that a needful remedy had hitherto been withheld and now was granted to the subject. There were several additional clauses suggested by practitioners which might make improvements in the practice of the Judicial Committee; but he should leave details to be dealt with in Committee. He thanked their Lordships for their attention to his address, and would conclude by asking them to agree to the second reading of the Bill.
Lord Cottenhamobserved, that he should like to hear the opinion of his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack before be proceeded to offer any observations to the House.
The Lord Chancellorsaid, that after the appeal just made to him by his noble and learned Friend he would shortly state his view of the subject, but in doing so he wished it to be understood, that by assenting to the Motion to refer this Bill to a Select Committee, it was not by any means his intention to pledge himself to the support of the principles involved in it. He would first state his views with respect to the machinery—if he might so term it—of the Bill for the remodelling the construction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Whenever the subject had come before the House, either when he was in or out of office, he had always stated his opinion to be, that there should be a fixed head to this tribunal; he therefore thought that it would be desirable, that this Measure should be sent to a Committee up stairs, with the view of considering whether such an arrangement should take place, and if so, what provisions should be made. He repeated that he retained his former opinion, that in every tribunal for the administration of justice, there should be a fixed president; and emphatically so in this case, for in this tribunal, where so many systems of law were administered, it was most desirable that a person should preside, who would devote his whole time to making himself master of the various systems of law that came under consideration. At present it was merely a voluntary Court, and the Judges, though summoned, might attend or not, at their pleasure. His noble and learned Friend, who attended that tribunal in a judicial capacity, attended most constantly and zealously to the business brought before them; but it did not follow that this would always be the case, and the time might come when it would

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become necessary to ask for the appointment of regular Judges in this Court. He, therefore, thought it proper, with regard to this subject, that the Bill should be read a second time and submitted to a Select Committee. As for the question of extending the duration of Patents, he confessed that he had not made up his mind on the subject; and he conceived that the point might well be considered in Committee up stairs. The jurisdiction at present given to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with regard to Patents had worked extremely well, and it was well worthy of consideration whether it could not be enlarged with advantage. As for the other and very important question of Divorce, he must say, that it was as important a question as could come before Parliament; and he did not wish to be called upon to express an opinion on the sudden on the subject, as the question was one attended with so many difficulties, that he was most anxious not to go into the subject without having had an opportunity of considering the matter. His noble and learned Friend, however, should recollect, that by assenting to this proposition to refer the Bill to a Committee, he did not hind himself to its support at any future period. The observations of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) on the subject of Divorce, were entitled to the fullest attention; but till he saw and examined the details of the proposed plan, and had considered how it was to work, and had compared the proposed new system with the actual system, he could not express an opinion on a measure of such vast importance; therefore, as a member of Her Majesty's Government, he was willing to agree to the second reading, and to referring it to a Select Committee, always reserving to himself, and not being fettered by what then took place, as to his future opinion on this important subject. He, however, would caution their Lordships not, on any ground, to part with the judicial authority which they now possessed, or to consent to transfer it to another tribunal, for, if they did, they might depend upon it that their political authority would soon follow in the same way.
Lord Cottenhamfelt glad that he had given way to his noble and learned Friend who had just addressed the House, for after what had fallen from him he considered it would be unnecessary to address the House at length- Although his noble and
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learned Friend had not stated his opinion very fully on some parts of the Bill, yet with respect to other parts, after what had fallen from his noble Friend, he thought that there was no great danger that this would become part of the law of the land. He cautioned the House on one point of immense importance, namely, the delegating the Judicial Powers of that House to the Privy Council; but he did not touch on one important clause in the Bill by which any question, and almost any matter, might be taken from the, jurisdiction of that House and transferred to the Privy Council. By the 9th clause it was proposed
"That as often as either House of Parliament shall think fit to refer any matter or thing for inquiry before the said Judicial Committee, it shall he lawful for such House of Parliament to present an Address to tier Majesty, setting forth the subject matter so directed to be referred, praying Her Majesty to refer such matter to the Judicial Committee, and being by Her Majesty referred to the said Judicial Committee, shall be inquired of and tried according to the course of the said Committee, and according to any rules and regulations made or under the power hereafter contained to be made by such Committee, and its report on being made to tier Majesty shall be laid before the House of Parliament which had presented the Address aforesaid, and be then and there dealt with as to the said House shall seem meet."
There was no limit whatever to the business thus to be transferred; and although his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) had not stated this to be his opinion, yet he could not help recollecting that his noble and learned Friend proposed something like this in the House on a former occasion. The importance of making such a change might still rest on his mind; and if this Clause should become the law of the land, this House might soon find itself stripped of its Judicial Powers altogether. He would not say more, however, on this point after what had fallen from his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, who had so forcibly expressed his opinion as to the effects that would result from giving such a power as was invested in this Clause. There were two points of the Bill which he confessed appeared to him to be proper subjects of inquiry. In the first place with regard to Divorce, he admitted that the law of Divorce as it now existed, or rather the rules acted upon by that House were far from satisfactory. He did not think that an important matter of this kind should be left as it was, and that there should not be

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a mode of special jurisdiction for every case, by means of a general law, and that parties should then be able to obtain redress without delay, and unattended with its present enormous expense. But, however important it might be to provide a remedy for parties who were suitors in cases of this kind, yet it was perfectly clear to him that, if they provided the remedy which was proposed in this Bill, no redress whatever would be furnished. The objection was not that Divorce was applied by Act of Parliament, but, as was said by his noble and learned Friend, that the expense was so great to obtain redress, that the law was only for the rich, and that the poor were entirely excluded from it. What was proposed in this Bill was, that what was done in that House on questions of Divorce should be done before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. [Lord Brougham: What was done before this and the other House in every Divorce case.] Yes. The change which his noble and learned Friend proposes in this Bill was with a view to save expenses. Now, was his noble and learned Friend aware of the expenses of proceeding before the Committee of the Privy Council? He (Lord Cottenham) was satisfied, from inquiries which he had made, that the expenses of proceedings in that Court were much greater than was generally admitted, and than the subject required. But what would be the effect of the expenses after the adoption of the Address of both Houses? It must be recollected that there would be the expenses of agents, attorneys, counsel, and witnesses in that and the other House, as well as before the Privy Council; for it was proposed that the proceedings should originate in Parliament. He was not aware whether there were any fees payable in the proceedings before the Privy Council; but there were fees payable on these proceedings in that House. With the exception of fees payable to a very few individuals in that House, the great body of the fees of the House, in Divorce and other cases of Private Bills, did not go to individuals, but to the Fee Fund. Under these circumstances, if the fees were found to be oppressive, and that it appeared that public benefit would result from their reduction, the obvious course to pursue would be to reduce the fees and not transfer the jurisdiction. If the Bill passed in its present shape, and there was to be a double jurisdiction, the expenses of parties would be increased; and above all, if there were many witnesses to be examined. He, therefore, thought that
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they should not look merely to the expense attending the amount of the fees of parties coming to that House for a Divorce, à vinculo matrimonii. He did not dispute that it would be well, in cases of Divorce, to have some general jurisdiction, acting on known rules and adjudicating on fixed principles in all cases of persons coming for Divorces. Unfortunately there was no general law on the subject of Divorce, but for each individual case they had to make a separate law, and Parliament was called upon to pass a separate law in every case of Divorce à vinculo matrimonii. If they had a new tribunal for this description of cases, they might in the first instance make rules and orders for the regulation of the proceedings, and ultimately be enabled to frame a code of laws which would be applicable to the subject. At present they had no rules, law, or code on the subject, but they had merely for their guidance some regulations or forms of proceedings to be observed in Divorce Bills coming under the attention of that House. There could be no doubt but that the present evils attending these Bills were so great that it was a very proper subject for inquiry with a view to future legislation. It was to be hoped that the time was not distant when they would be enabled to adopt some general measure, and thus remove the objections which at present existed to the mode of proceeding in cases of Divorce; it was, therefore, not to inquiry into this part of the Bill, or to that relative to the extensisn of the duration of Patents that he objected. The question of the extension of the period of Patents was one which, from its nature, might require continued alteration, as the ingenuity of mankind was constantly being exercised in inventions and improvements, and therefore it might be requisite to adopt new regulations from time to time. He was surprised that his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack had given his unqualified sanction to another matter involved in this Bill, and which it was not clear to him was a subject that was open to or called for inquiry; he alluded to the part of it relative to the appointment of a permanent head of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The Lord Chancellorremarked that he had not expressed his entire approbation of the Clause in question, but only to the principle of appointing a permanent President of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Lord Cottenhamtrusted he might indulge in the hope that, after the objections which

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his noble and learned Friend entertained to other parts of this Bill, that this portion also, to which he had just alluded, would not become the law of the land. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) was mistaken in supposing that he (Lord Cottenham) had formerly proposed that there should be a permanent head of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that he had subsequently altered his opinion on the subject. He had certainly thought it would be better to have a permanent head of the Judicial Committee, but he never meant such an appointment as was proposed in the Clause in this Bill. It was proposed in this Clause that they should have three Judges to sit constantly in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Now, what he proposed was this, that a Judge presiding in another Court should be called upon to preside in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Now, when he came into the profession, and he believed for a very long period previously, the Privy Council had an appellate jurisdiction, as at present, in judicial cases from the Colonies and the East Indies, and the Privy Council on such occasions was presided over by the Master of the Rolls. The question then was, as to whether the judicial business of the Privy Council was then carried on in a way to give satisfaction to the public. He would ask, did not the decisions of Sir William Grant and Lord Alvanley in the Privy Council give satisfaction to the public? He assorted, that in the early part of their professional career, Sir William Grant and Lord Alvanley as constantly presided in the Privy Council as in the Rolls Court. [Lord Brougham remarked that Sir William Grant did not hold many sittings in the Rolls Court.] He was aware of that, but he wished to explain as to what he had formerly said respecting the appointment of a permanent head of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He had proposed to the House to make an alteration in the establishment of the Court of Chancery, when his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack strongly expressed his opinion that the then Government proposed to give a much greater increase to the Court of Chancery than was necessary, and objected to the addition of two Vice Chancellors to the Court of Chancery; but subsequently his noble and learned Friend was induced to agree to the proposal. His noble and learned Friend in the centre of the Woolsack [Lord Brougham was at the moment
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sitting on the left hand of the Lord Chaneellor, on the Woolsack], then objected to this measure as unnecessary, but suggested that there should be only one additional Vice Chancellor instead of two. The arrangement, however, which he (Lord Cottenham) had recommended was adopted, and under it there had not been such an increase of the business of the Court of Chancery as was anticipated by some, or was of such an extent as to prevent them getting through the business of the several Courts. He believed, as he had stated he had every reason to believe would be the case when he proposed this plan of extending the establishment to the Court of Chancery, that the new arrangement had been such as to allow the Master of the Rolls to sit constantly as the President of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and if this suggestion was adopted, they would have the judicial business of the Privy Council presided over by one who, from the nature of his office, must be a Judge of great eminence and of high professional attainments, and who was in the constant exercise of judicial functions. The extent and nature of the active employment which would be thrown on him by presiding over the Committee of the Privy Council would not be such as to interfere in any way with the Judge sitting in his own court. The great objection that he entertained to the creation of a new appointment as President of the Judicial Committee was, that they would make a new and permanent office for a court which did not sit for more than a few days in the year. He intended to have moved a few clays ago for a return of the number of days in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had sat during the last three years, and showing how much business actually came before that tribunal; but he would do so on a future occasion. His noble and learned Friend had observed, that they could not judge by the past as to what would be the future business of the Committee of the Privy Council, if they had the additional jurisdiction which was proposed in this Bill. There was a recent return on the Table of the House of the number of cases which remained for judgment before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and from that he thought that they could form a tolerably good criterion as to whether it was expedient or not to have three permanent judges, with salaries, added to the constitution of this tribunal, in consequence

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of the probable increase of business before it. If reference was made to the return to which he had just adverted, it would appear, that in the order for the number of cases waiting for judgment before the Committee of the Privy Council, the answer was the word "Nil." Therefore, if they appointed these three permanent judges to form the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, they would have to sit until some causes became ripe for them to hear and adjudicate upon. His noble and learned Friend said, that it was to be hoped, that under the extended jurisdiction a great number of causes would be sent before it; the question, however, was, whether it was probable from past experience, that such an extent of business was likely to occur before this tribunal, as to justify their creating this permanent change. But there was not only this objection to the proposed new arrangement; they were called upon to appoint three judges to a tribunal, by which it was admitted, on all hands, the judicial business had hitherto been satisfactorily performed. The return, as well as the admission of his noble and learned Friend, showed that the business of their Committee of the Privy Council had been satisfactorily performed; what necessity was there for this change? Was there not then some danger, that if they appointed these three judges to this tribunal, the administration of the judicial business of the Committee of the Privy Council would be left entirely to these three judges, as the other Members named on the Committee would not attend? This, he believed, would be the natural and inevitable consequence of making this change in the constitution of this tribunal. Taking it altogether, there had hitherto been an ample attendance of the Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at the hearing of cases that came before that tribunal. His noble and learned Friend had stated, that he (Lord Cottenham) did not give attendance at the meetings of this Committee. Now, he would give a very good reason for not doing so. It was, that there was plenty of attendance at the sittings of the Committee without him, and not having any particular love for the thing, and finding that others gave a more regular attendance, he thought he would not interfere with their pleasures; but he had never failed to attend when it had been suggested to him that his presence would be desirable. The same was the case with respect to his attending at
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the hearing of Appeals in that House. He always made it a point to attend when he thought that his presence could be attended with the slightest public advantage; and he should appeal to his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, whether he had not always attended when it had been suggested to him. Indeed, during the present and the last Session he had attended to hear Appeals in that House twice a week when his noble and learned Friend was engaged in the Court of Chancery; and also when any subject came under attention in which his opinion was required. He admitted, that in consequence of the Judicial Committee being very well manned, he felt that it was useless to attend these meetings of the Privy Council, unless his presence was required. He did not think that any thing had occurred which could justify the House in arriving at the conclusion that there was likely to be any difficulty in obtaining a sufficient attendance of competent Members of that tribunal, under its present constitution, so as to justify them in adopting the plan proposed by his noble and learned Friend. Under these circumstances, then, was it not a most extraordinary proposition to ask the House to appoint three Judges with salaries to this tribunal, which would become, if the Bill passed in its present shape, the highest appellate Court of Jurisdiction in this country, for the judicial functions of the House would cease? It was proposed in this Bill that the chief Judge, as permanent head of this tribunal should receive 2,000 l. a-year, the second Judge 1,500 l. a-year, and the third 1,200 l. a-year as salaries. Now, it was obvious, that from the amount of salaries proposed to be paid to these Judges, and also from the station and professional acquirements which it would be absolutely necessary that those holding such offices, and being called upon to discharge such functions, should possess, that they could not induce persons in high professional practice to accept such appointments; that therefore these offices were to be filled by persons who had retired from high judicial situations, and who were to receive their salaries in addition to their retired allowances. It was obvious that they could not get efficient Judges for this tribunal, if they were only to receive the small sums proposed in this Bill. Of course, he was aware that the insertion of the money clause in this Bill was only a preliminary matter, and that it must be erased previously to sending the

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Bill to the other House; but it was obviously inserted to show what was proposed to be done, and he, therefore, was fully justified in making the observations which he had respecting it. His noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack said, that he had only given his opinion as to the advantages of having a permanent head of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, although he gave some sort of intimation that in Committee he should propose some other plan for such appointment than was in the Bill. He could not help calling the attention of his noble and learned Friend to the very extraordinary situation in which this tribunal would be placed by the appointment of such a permanent head with a salary. The Judges of this tribunal had not hitherto been permanently appointed to those offices, for at present they must be Members of the Privy Council; and of necessity their being so, and their consequent exercising their judicial functions at this tribunal, must be dependent on the will of the Crown. It was true that the same objection, to a certain extent, might be raised to the appointment of the Master of the Rolls, or any other great judicial officer, to preside as permanent head of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It was true that the Master of the Rolls could be deprived of his seat at the Privy Council, but he could not be deprived of his seat in his own Court; and this officer, therefore, could perform judicial functions in the Privy Council, without salary, incidental to the other judicial appointment which he held. This was an advantage which could not be obtained by any means of the arrangement proposed in this Bill. As long as a jurisdiction vested in the Privy Council, any Member of the Judicial Committee might cease to be competent to act as a Judge of that tribunal, as he was liable to be deprived of his seat as a Privy Councillor by the act of the Crown. Therefore, they must say whether they would put a Judge at the head of this tribunal, with other judicial duties to perform, or an individual, the exercise of whose functions as a Judge would entirely depend on the will of the Crown. In the latter case, it was clear that the appointment of the Judge was not independent of the Crown, for he could at any time be deprived of the power of discharging his judicial duties. In this state of things, when the returns which he intended to move for were produced, a slate of facts would be shown which would give
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a full statement to the House as to whether this tribunal, as at present constituted, was competent to discharge all the duties which were entrusted to it; and, as there was no accumulation of business, whether there was likely, under any extension of its functions, to be such an increase of business as to call for a reconstitution of the tribunal. For his own part, he did not think that in the principle involved in this part of the subject there was matter which was necessary to refer to a Committee up stairs. He thought that the point involved regarded a matter, respecting which it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to make up their minds one way or the other, and if they made up their minds, they should pronounce theirs opinion without going to a Committee. He conceived that the question involved a matter of great importance, which could not be elucidated by inquiry, and, therefore, that it was altogether unnecessary to make it a subject of reference to a select Committee. Those two parts of the Bill which took from and transferred the jurisdiction exercised by that House—excepting that regarding Divorce cases, and respecting which be did not object to inquiry—and also, so fur as it proposed to appoint three salaried Judges to sit constantly in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he conceived that Her Majesty's Government ought to make up their minds and not to allow inquiry. If they resorted to a Select Committee they could not acquire any information on these points, and he therefore could not see the least advantage that could be gained by doing so. The only cases in which it was advantageous to resort to a Select Committee was, first, when all the facts upon which they were called upon to legislate had not been fully elicited, and when, therefore, Parliament should proceed to obtain as full a knowledge as possible on the subject; and the other ground was, when the Government, had made up their minds in favour of a measure on evidence which was before them, but which might not be sufficient, without further elucidation, to satisfy others. But on a subject with respect to which Her Majesty's Government had formed opinions, and made up their minds, he conceived that it was a dangerous course to resort to, to send a matter to a Committee, with respect to which they raised expectations, cord formed hopes which never could be realised, and thus weakened the confidence in established institutions, on the ground that the House and the Govern-

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ment was willing to alter them. He would not give further trouble on this subject, beyond repeating that he did not concur in any part of the propositions that were involved in this Bill, with the exception of that for instituting an inquiry into the propriety of extending the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in cases of Divorce, and also of giving them increased powers for the extension of the duration of Patents.
Lord Campbellsaid, that as subsequent opportunities would arise of discussing at length the various propositions involved in the Bill, he would content himself with making a very few observations. The Bill involved many subjects which he had long considered, and with respect to which he had formed opinions, which, however, he would not trouble the House with on that occasion; but he must at once declare, that he would be the last man, in or out of that House, to part with the functions which properly belonged to them, whether they were judicial or legislative. Whatever property belonged to that House, as the first tribunal of the kingdom, he would advise their Lordships to keep in their own hands. Their Lordships were a Court of Justice, not of original, but of appellate jurisdiction. With regard to Divorce Bills, they did not come before their Lordships properly, either as a branch of the Legislature, or as a Court of Appeal. His noble and learned Friend, the author of the Bill, had stated what it was impossible to contradict, that the dissolution of the marriage contract ought to be a judicial proceeding. It was so in every other country in the world, and he hoped it would be so before long in England, provided no facility were given to Divorce in any case where there was not clear proof of adultery on the part of the wife, and where the husband was not freed from all suspicion of collusion. If, however, the adultery of the wife was clearly proved, and the husband was free from such an imputation as he had referred to, it was the doctrine of Scripture, and it was the dictate of reason, that the marriage ought to be dissolved. And this was practically the law of England. In every case where adultery was proved satisfactorily, and the conduct of the husband was unimpeached, he obtained the remedy of divorce, if he was able to defray the expense of pursuing it. The question, therefore, was,
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by what means that law should be administered. Should it be by an Act of the Legislature, or by a decree of a judicial tribunal? There was no doubt that our present system of Divorce Bills had brought great scandal upon the administration of the law of this country. Foreigners looked upon it with amazement. He had conversed with many of them on the subject, and had been utterly at a loss to find any argument by which the practice could be at all palliated. It was also a serious inconvenience to that House last Session of Parliament—the business of the House was interrupted for several weeks in examining witnesses at the Bar upon Divorce Bills; and notwithstanding all the care of his noble and learned Friend on the centre of the Woolsack—and he was extremely solicitous on the subject—there was great difficulty in guarding against fraud, and such matters would be much better disposed of before a Judicial tribunal than in that House. He had come more recently from the other Chamber of Legislature than any of their Lordships, and the impression on his mind of the manner in which these Bills were treated there, was still most lively, and he confessed that he was quite ashamed to think of the scenes he had witnessed there. When a Divorce Bill was called, there was either a noise or a titter, and unless there was some piece of evidence, that some old gentleman was desirous of listening to, not the slightest attention was paid to the proceeding—no oath could be administered, and in short, it was a mere burlesque upon judicial proceedings. Suppose there was a foreigner under the gallery on such an occasion, he must be at a loss to understand what was going on; and he was sure that any Member of that House, or any citizen of this country, would be ashamed to explain it to him. Then the expense was so very great, that it was not a remedy for the poor or the middle classes; and he could not help thinking, notwithstanding what had fallen from his noble and learned Friend behind him (Lord Cottenham) for whose opinions he entertained the greatest respect, that before the Judicial Committee, there might be a remedy just as cheap as before the Court of Session in Scotland, where for a sum of 25 l., a Divorce à vinculo matrimonii might be procured. But he could not at all concur in the mode proposed by his noble and learned Friend—he thought the Judicial Committee of

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the Privy Council might be made an excellent Tribunal for this purpose. It could have the advantage of the presence of Equity, Consistorial, and Common Law Judges. The case might be gone into, and the witnesses examined more conveniently there, than at the Bar of that House, and he did not think any tribunal could be better constituted for the purpose of taking cognizance of the subject of Divorce. But what his noble and learned Friend proposed by this Bill was, not that there should be a reference at once to the Judicial Committee. There was first. to be a Petition to that House. Their Lordships had no proper jurisdiction on the subject—it did not belong to them as a branch of the Legislature, as a Court of Justice, or a Court of Appeal; but still the unhappy husband was condemned first to petition their Lordships: then their Lordships were to address the Crown; then the Crown was to make a reference of the matter to the Judicial Committee; then the Committee was to examine witnesses and ascertain the fact; and what next? Why, the decision of the Committee was to be laid before the two Houses of Parliament, who were to judge whether the Committee had done right or wrong in pronouncing their judgment. Was it again to be argued by Counsel at the Bar of the House? Were they to sit in Committee, and again take the depositions? That would be the consequence of the plan proposed by his noble and learned Friend; but, of course, this might be reformed in Committee. His opinion was, that it should be open to any injured husband at once to apply to the Judicial Committee, and they should examine the case and deliver a judgment which should be final between the parties. With regard to the power of extending Patents, that was a matter which did not properly belong to their Lordships—Patents were originally granted by the Attorney General. His noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack had granted many; it was properly the business of an Officer of the Crown or some judicial tribunal, and to that branch of the Bill no objection, he thought, could be made. But with regard to the general power of carrying all the business of that House to the Judicial Committee, he must certainly oppose it. He felt quite incompetent as a Member of that tribunal to take such functions upon him, and he
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should be obliged to call on his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham), who was ready at all times, at whatever cost and inconvenience it might occasion him, to take his (Lord Campbell's) place. If such a Bill as this were to pass, he certainly should require him to come from his retreat and to take his (Lord Campbell's) place at the Judicial Committee. But he apprehended that this was a clause that could not be introduced into the Bill as it was then framed, and that it was only specific powers which could be invested in that or any such tribunal. Now, he would come to the other point, respecting the constitution of the Court. He thought they might get on very well with the aid of his noble and learned Friend who had himself made out a very good case for him (Lord Campbell). He was rather surprised at finding him pushing his advantage (so far in showing that things had gone on excellently well as they were. He (Lord Brougham) said, truly that the business had been done, and he said also that it had been well done, and that there had been great satisfaction, If he could have shown that some great change would take place in the jurisdiction of the tribunal, unless not only Divorce Bills, but Estate, Inclosure Bills, Railway Bills, and other Bills of a public nature would be referred to the Judicial Committee, it might go on very well as it had hitherto done. It had given satisfaction, and he trusted would continue to do so. Now, for nearly three years he had himself, as the Lord President knew, assiduously attended. And he should still be willing to snake an effort to be of some small service to his country. But whether there was to be a head or not, he could not conceive that it was necessary for there to be a head of the Court, such as was described in the Bill. He knew nothing of the individual—they might form their conjecture on this subject—but he discovered from the Bill that the new head was to be of high rank in the Court and out of the Court—he was to take precedence of all the Dukes of the land in that House at Coronations, and on every solemn occasion. He certainly must look with great respect on the tribunal of which he happened to be an unworthy member, but he could not conceive that its dignity or efficiency could depend on any individual having such extraordinary and unnecessary distinction. But as these matters would be more fully considered

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before a Committee, he would not then detain their Lordships longer. He thought, however, it was his duty to state to their Lordships with brevity the general view he took of the Bill. He had no objection to its being read a second time and going into Committee; but unless it was most materially altered he should not give his assent to it.
The Bishop of Exeterwas sure that he should be forgiven for trespassing upon the time of the House when he conceived the spiritual interests of the country to be concerned; at the same time, he regretted that it should have fallen to his lot to speak upon this subject, when it might have been so much more ably performed by more distinguished Members of the Bench upon which he had the honour of a seat. The first objection which he should venture to make to this Bill, which, upon the whole, he doubted not, was calculated to promote the interests and to forward the justice of the country, was, that in extending the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee it had not been sufficiently considered whether it might not be wise to diminish its jurisdiction. That Committee was at present the ultimate Court of Appeal on all spiritual cases whatsoever. He felt confident that the practical result of the Act delegating this power to the Judicial Committee was not considered at the time of its passing. The measure as their Lordships were all aware, was intended to supersede the old Courts of Appeal with respect to scriptural causes, which were found to be full of inconvenience. It was agreed to in consesequence of the recommendation of a Commission appointed in 1830, who made a special report upon the subject, advising that in future such cases should be transferred to the Privy Council. But what reason did they urge for such a step? Simply the structure of the Privy Council. They said—"There are lords spiritual and temporal, as well as lawyers of every court, in that Council, consequently that is the best possible place where such appeals should be decided." What followed? Soon after the adoption of that recommendation another measure was adopted transferring the jurisdiction of the Privy Council to the Judicial Committee, and that Judicial Committee was so constituted that it should practically, and, he (the Bishop of Exeter) believed necessarily, consist almost entirely of law Lords. Now, it was very
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desirable that the Members of the Church should not be mixed up with any deliberations of a judicial character, except such as were measures of a scriptural character, but the result of transferring the jurisdiction of the Privy Council to the Judicial Committee was, in point of fact, to remove from the Church, the ultimate decision of all matters connected even with the very doctrines of the Church. That he (the Bishop of Exeter) was sure could never have been intended, yet so it was: for at this hour, if a suit were brought against any of their Lordships for heresy, the Court of Appeal which would have to decide whether such person was a heretic or not would be this Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He was quite certain that this was a matter which, at the time, must have been overlooked-he was sure it was a cases omissus. Take even the case of a bishop or of a clergyman brought to answer for any misconduct. In such a case one of the Bishops, who was a Member of the Privy Council, might sit on the Judicial Committee. That was a provision, but it did not go very far. The case would be an appeal from the Court of Arches; that would, of course, at once exclude the most Rev. Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury from sitting, in consequence of its being an appeal from his own Court. Then, if the case happened to have been heard in the Consistory Court of the right Rev. Prelate the Bishop of London, and the right Rev. Prelate were to avail himself of the very reasonable power of applying by Letter of Request to the Arches Court, then both the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury would be excluded. The only Member left would be the Archbishop of York, and he, as their Lordships well knew, laboured under the weight of nearly ninety years. He submitted that such was not the Court of Appeal to which cases should be submitted for decision that were of the utmost importance to the interests of the Church of this country. He did not think any Committee of the Privy Council could be made an adequate Court of Appeal for deciding upon Church matters. It had been said, that the Judicial Committee as constituted by the measure of 1833 had been found to work beneficially and satisfactorily to the country. But he must be forgiven if he said that there was one important exception—it had not given satisfaction to the

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Church of this country. He abstained from going into particulars, but he thought it unjust to the Church that there should not be some Court on which the Church might rely for its entire sufficiency to decide upon all matters that might be brought before them; and it was also unjust to the individuals who were placed in the high situation of the last appellate jurisdiction in this country, that matters should be brought before them on which it was utterly impossible for them to decide. There was a matter of great importance which would shortly come before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, on which they would have to pronounce judgment, which excited the greatest interest in the country, and affected a large class of persons—a matter on which, he was sure, the Members of that Committee would feel most strange, and totally foreign from all their study, and from which wisdom should make them recoil—yet, if this Bill before the House were carried into effect, that matter and others like it would be forced upon that Court, notwithstanding that that Bill was denominated a Bill to provide for the better Administration of Justice by Her Majesty's Privy Council, and to settle all that was deficient before. He (the Bishop of Exeter) rejoiced to hear that the Bill was likely to be sent to a Select Committee, because he thought the subject to which he had referred especially demanded the attention of that Committee. To deal frankly with the case, he must say, that he thought to provide an adequate Court of Appeal in scriptural cases could hardly be made a part of the Bill. It ought to be a distinct and separate power. He (the Bishop of Exeter) lamented to hear the noble Lord who had introduced this Bill speak of divorce à mensa et thoro as a trifling thing. A divorce à mensa et thoro was, in fact, a divorcing of the married parties. The Act of the Legislature, though called so, was not, in fact, an Act of divorce, its real nature being to enable those who were judicially divorced before by the sentence of divorce à mensa et thoro to contract matrimony, which, otherwise, by the defective state of the law, they could not do. For that reason he (the Bishop of Exeter) rejoiced that a Measure was to be introduced which would give to people divorced à mensa et thoro the power of marrying again with out an Act of the Legislature. The ques-
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tion as to the power of releasing patties from the obligation of marriage à mensa et thoro was one which he was unwilling to approach, because he could not do so satisfactorily. But if this Bill passed, it would give to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council the power of awarding a total divorce with the ability of marrying afterwards, which would be giving a power unprecedented in the history of the legislation of this country. In no other case could a cause be decided in the Court in which it was first brought without an ultimate appeal. The Court was objectionable because there was no appeal from it, which there ought to be.
Lord Broughamsaid, the observations of the right Rev. Prelate deserved very great consideration, coming as they did from a Father of the Church. The right Rev. Prelate complained of the sort of persons who now exercised Spiritual Jurisdiction in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and said that they had not given as much satisfaction as was desirable to the Church in general; but the constitution of the Court of Delegates was formerly just as liable to the same objection. That Court was composed of Civilians and of Common Law Judges. In Escott's case—the Lay Baptism case—he had pronounced the judgment of the Court, and one of the Members of the Judicial Committee by whom they were on that occasion assisted was a Consistorial Judge, and they had affirmed the judgment of the Archbishop's Judge—namely, the Dean of the Arches. If, therefore, they had erred they had done so in company with the ecclesiastical authorities singled out to decide such cases, and appointed by the Bishops themselves. The quorum of the Court of Delegates had been composed of Doctors who had no practice, because if they had they were sure to be engaged in the cause; and who got only a guinea a day for their judicial services; there were four Doctors, and three Common Law Judges. As to the point alluded to by his noble and learned Friend as to precedence, it was only meant that they should take precedence in the Court; it was never anticipated that they would take precedence in the Drawing-rooms, about which no one cared a rush, at least no rational man. With respect to the importance of having a better staff of Judges, after all that he had heard, he certainly retained his opinion. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Cottenham) asked, what was the

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use of having three Judges? and he retorted on him some of the vituperation with which he (Lord Brougham) had assailed his noble and learned Friend's measure, and he seemed very much to enjoy himself in doing so. His noble and learned Friend had found his two Vice-Chancellors too many; he said that two were too many, but one was not sufficient, and so he supposed his noble and learned Friend meant that one and a half, and one and one quarter would just do; and he seemed to rejoice when he thought he had found him (Lord Brougham) falling into the same error as to the three Judges. But Ids answer was, that they had no right to count on those they had now; they had not got three Judges. There was not one permanent Judge; and if they went into Committee, his noble and learned Friend would find that they had often found extreme difficulty in getting Judges, and had indeed been obliged to reduce the quorum of the Judicial Committee from four to three on that account, in certain cases by a Bill of Ids (Lord Brougham's) passed last Session. He had heard his noble and learned Friend say a dozen times that be considered voluntary Judges to be totally out of the question for any Court. One ground of opposition to the Bill was, that that House would strip itself of jurisdiction. There was no necessity for the House to do that. So far from taking away the jurisdiction of Parliament, the Bill sought nothing of the kind; it merely allowed the Parliament to call to itself the aid of an ancillary body. He was astonished to hear it stated that in cases of Divorce, this Bill would effect no relief by providing that these cases should be tried before the Judicial Committee, and that there would be no difference in expence between the proposed plan, and a Bill in Parliament. Why, the last Divorce Bill, which had been slightly opposed, cost 940 l.; a previous one, which was unopposed, had cost 500 l. He should be able to prove before the Committee that the cost of a Divorce before the Judicial Committee would not necessarily be above 25 l. The fees of the Judicial Committee might be greatly reduced; and he had no doubt but that a Divorce might be obtained at the same expense before the Judicial Committee as before the Court of Session in Scotland. For a mere Divorce à mensa et thoro the only benefit obtained was, that if the party should marry again it was not felony. With a Divorce
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only to that extent the parties were still married, and might put an end to their separation at any time by consent. The proof that the matrimonial tie was not dissolved was, that in law with a divorce à mensa et thoro the widow was dowable of her husband's landed estate, and the husband was entitled to his tenancy by the courtesy of the wife's landed estate after their separation, but this form of Divorce was obliged to be used, because their Lordships required it as a preliminary.
Lord Campbellsaid, the Bishop of London had attended the Judicial Committee on all Ecclesiastical occasions of its sitting, and had concured in its decisions.
The Bishop of Exetersaid, the Bishop of London only attended in the decision of cases of Church discipline. There were, however, other cases in which questions of Church doctrine were to be decided.
The Lord Chancellorwould put it to the noble and learned Lord, whether it would not be better to divide his Bill into two parts? The Divorce part of the Bill was one of so much importance, that it might be a consideration whether it ought not to be a separate Bill.
Lord Brougham: That may be an instruction to the Committee.
The Lord Chancellor: Very well; I have no objection.
Bill read a second time, and referred to a Select Committee, with power to divide it into two parts, if they should so think fit.
House adjourned.