Sitting of 5 February 1850

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1o Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh; Irish Fisheries; Bankrupt and Insolvent Members; County Rates and Expenditure; Life Policies of Assurance; Small Tenements Rating; County Cess (Ireland); Real Property Transfer; Benefices in Plurality.

THE POOR LAWS.
MR. DISRAELI, seeing the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Poor Law Board in his place, wished to inquire when the report of the Commissioners on the operation of the law of settlement would be laid upon the table of the House?
MR. BAINESsaid, that the report was in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, and would, he believed, be laid upon the table either to-night or to-morrow.
CAPTAIN PELHAMwished to put the following questions to the Secretary of State for the Home Department: whether Her Majesty's Government had any intention of bringing in any measures for abolishing or altering the laws of settlement and removability, and the treatment of vagrants; for altering the rating for the support of the poor, either in reference to the area of chargeability, or the property to be assessed; or for transferring any of the charges now levied upon the poor-rate to other funds? His second question was, whether Her Majesty's Government will bring in any measure for facilitating the borrowing of money from the State, or private capitalists, by landowners in England and Wales, for the purpose of improving the condition of estates? The last question was, whether Her Majesty's Government intended to bring in any measure for facilitating the sale or exchange of landed property in England and Wales, in settlement, with a view to the relief or mutual improvement of estates, and the better cultivation of the soil?
SIR G. GREYsaid, that the first question put to him by the hon. and gallant Member was one to which it was difficult to give a very explicit and categorical answer, without being subject to some misconception. The question of the law of settlement had occupied much of the attention of the President of the Poor Law Board, and in a very few days the information to which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had just referred, and which had been collected by his right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board, would be in the hands of hon. Members. The

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annual reports of the Poor Law Board, which had already been laid upon the table, would also very shortly be in the hands of Members, and would be found to contain some satisfactory information with regard to vagrancy. He could only state at present that the Government had no immediate intention of proposing to Parliament a measure on the subject of settlement, but they reserved to themselves the power of doing so if they should deem such a course expedient. The latter part of the question included a very wide field of inquiry. Three notices had already been given by Members upon subjects connected with the law of rating for the support of the poor, and as he would have an opportunity of expressing the views of the Government on the question at a future time, he must decline entering into the matter now. With regard to his hon. Friend's second question, he must remind him that by Acts already in existence, authority had been given for the issue of a sum of 2,000,000 l. in Great Britain, for the improvement of land by drainage. The whole of that money had been appropriated by the Enclosure Commissioners, to whom the distribution was committed, and a considerable portion of the amount had been issued and expended. He was bound to state that very many applications for further advances had been made and refused, not because the parties did not come within the regulations prescribed by Parliament, but because the sum at the disposal of the commissioners had been wholly appropriated among previous applicants. The Government, however, would reserve for future consideration the question whether any further advances for this object should be proposed. With regard to the third question, by the laws for the settlement of landed property, powers of sale and exchange were already conferred; and by the Enclosure Act, 9 Victoria, c. 118, see. 147, through the agency of the Enclosure Commissioners, very extensive powers of sale and exchange were given for lands which were to be the subject of enclosure. If further powers were considered necessary, the Government would be prepared to entertain any application which might be made to them on the subject; but he had not received any intimation which led him to suppose that it would be necessary to propose to Parliament any further measure. He had omitted to refer to one point in the second question—whether the Government contemplated any measure for
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facilitating the borrowing of money by landowners from private capitalists. He might remind his hon. and gallant Friend that the Act 12 & 13 Victoria, c. 100, had been passed to promote the advance of public money for the drainage of land in Great Britain and Ireland, and no representations had been made to the Government, which led him to suppose that that Act was inadequate to the purpose.

KILRUSH UNION.
MR. P. SCROPEwished to put a question to the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland relative to the recent administration of the poor-laws in the Kilrush union. He wanted to know what truth there was in the statements which he found made by local journals, that in that union all outdoor relief had been stopped on the 8th of December last? Several coroners' inquests having been held on persons who had died of starvation, it was resumed; but on the 19th of January it was again stopped, 12,500 persons having been in receipt of it. Deaths from starvation again occurred on the second stoppage of outdoor relief, and it was subsequently resumed, showing that, in the opinions of the guardians, it was absolutely necessary. He wished also to ask whether it was true that the guardians of the Kilrush union had altered the dietary of the inmates of the workhouse, and had fed them on turnips with half rations of milk? He had seen a statement, that, owing to the alteration in the dietary, the deaths had risen from four to ninty-five in the three weeks ending the 13th of January, and that, at the same time, the number of paupers in the infirmary had increased in an equal proportion. He wished to ask, lastly, whether, considering this mode of administering the poor-law, the Poor Law Board did intend to relieve the guardians of the Kilrush union from the responsibilities of that office?
SIR W. SOMERVILLEwas happy that it was in his power to give his hon. Friend's question an answer as satisfactory as, perhaps, he expected, and as it certainly was his desire on all occasions to afford to hon. Members; but it was impossible for him, at twenty-four hours' notice, and not having access here to papers which would have afforded more satisfactory details, to give precise information on the points which had been ennumerated with such remarkable minuteness by his hon. Friend. It was quite true that in December

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last a large number of persons who were in the receipt of a daily outdoor allowance ceased to receive that allowance in the Kilrush union. This was caused by the want of means on the part of the guardians, the contractors having refused to supply them on credit with the necessary food for those receiving outdoor relief. Through the same cause it was certainly true, that, for a very short time, the necessity was forced upon the guardians of altering the dietary within the walls of the workhouse. During the time for which the daily allowance of meat ceased to be distributed, there was room for several hundred persons within the walls of the workhouse; but there was not the slightest reason to believe that the dietary, though altered, was not perfectly sufficient. He was speaking from memory, and could not exactly say whether or not any inquests were held during the period of the cessation of outdoor relief; but he knew that four or five inquests on persons had been held, the verdict in the third of which was death by starvation. Whether that verdict was borne out by the evidence, he could not say—he had his own opinion on that point; but he remembered perfectly well, that on one of the men who were said to have died of starvation one shilling and sixpence in money was found. His hon. Friend next asked him, whether the number of deaths had not increased during the period for which the dietary had been changed? As far as his recollection went, he should say certainly not. Previous to that time, and during that time, the mortality in the Kilrush workhouse did not exceed, if it was not below, the average mortality in Irish workhouses; but since that period there certainly had been a very considerable increase—he thought nearly double the usual average. He had received no official account whatsoever as to the second stoppage of outdoor relief. The guardians had provided lately a considerable increase to the workhouse accommodation, and he thought it probable that the stoppage had been occasioned in order to alter the workhouse, with a view to the adopting the workhouse test, and thus ascertaining whether the recipients of outdoor relief were fairly entitled to it or not. The last question related to the dissolution of the board of guardians. That board had had very great difficulties to contend with; notwithstanding the liberal advances which were made to them from the rate in aid, a very large debt was left
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to them by their predecessors on retiring from office. The Commissioners had had reason to complain of the tardiness with which the guardians struck the rates, and perhaps that was the cause of the deficiency in their funds; but, considering that they only acceded to office on the 1st November, and the difficulties they had had to contend with, the Commissioners had not been of opinion that a sufficient cause was made out for depriving them of the management of the affairs of the union.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.
MR. HORSMANrose for the purpose of bringing forward the Motion of which he had given notice; affirming the expediency of appointing paid Commissioners for the management of the property under the Ecclesiastical Commission. He had to express his sincere regret that the hopes which he had entertained that the labours of the last Committee would have resulted in a settlement of this question, had ended in disappointment. Though every succeeding day tended to confirm him more and more in his conviction of the necessity of improving the Commission and placing the temporalities of the Church in safer hands; it appeared that the probability of giving effect to that proposition was now more remote than ever, and he was, therefore, reluctantly obliged to call the attention of the House again to the subject. They were all familiar both with the character of the Commission and with its proceedings. They knew it to be a very potent, powerful, and irresponsible body; that it was charged with very important functions, and entrusted with the administration of immense funds. They knew that there was hardly a county in England in which it did not exercise some control over considerable estates, or a parish in England in which its intervention might not affect existing interests. In short, whether the temporalities of the Church, or the most sacred spiritual interests of the people, were taken into account, the Commission held a power more vast, more important, and more irresponsible than had been known in this country since the Reformation. Well, therefore, did it become Parliament to keep an eye upon that power—to define its character, to limit its operation, to regulate its use, and take every precaution against possible abuse; and the more so because it was obvious that from the present composition of that Commission, great abuses of one kind or another must arise. It could not

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be denied but that the duties of the Commission were of vast importance. The Church was beginning every day to feel more and more strongly that the spiritual duties of her mission were sufficient to occupy the whole time and the whole attention of her dignitaries. When, therefore, they proceeded to load themselves with another Bet of duties of an entirely opposite character, it was manifest that a portion, at least, of the labours imposed upon them must be neglected; and, consequently, as it became a matter of necessity that a choice must be made between these two incompatible duties, the people were persuaded that the more the ecclesiastical dignitaries confined themselves to the spiritual duties of the Church, and the less they meddled with secular concerns, the better. This conviction was daily becoming more mature among all ecclesiastical parties, and on very cogent grounds. There was one party in the Church extremely anxious to increase the number of the bishops. They said that the duties to be discharged were beyond the strength of the existing prelates. But these parties, earnest as they were, and most laudably alive to the advancement of the Church, were beginning to perceive how utterly shallow and insincere their arguments must appear, when at the very time that they were complaining of the duties being unsatisfactorily discharged in consequence of the smallness of the number of bishops, it could be shown that the prelates were absenting themselves from their dioceses, and giving their attention to secular affairs elsewhere, which laymen could administer for them, and administer far better. The great ground of complaint, therefore, seemed to be not that we had not bishops enough, but that those we had were not labouring in their right vocation—that they were in London when they ought to be in their own provinces—devoting themselves to temporalities in Whitehall, to the manifest neglect of spiritualities in their more legitimate sphere. It was obvious that a deficiency which arose not so much from an excess as from a neglect of spiritual duties, would never be accepted by Parliament as an argument for supplying the deficiency by an increased number of bishops. There was another party, to which he owned that he himself belonged, who considered that, whether the duties were too onerous or too light, still that the pecuniary concerns of the Church Establishment, its vast financial operations, and the management of its
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estates throughout England, were altogether alien to the functions of ecclesiastics—that it was not a duty, or a seemly office for an ecclesiastic to fill—that he should leave to other men the grosser cares and intricacies of worldly business—that a prelate should confine himself to the chosen field of his spiritual labour, and place himself in close and intimate relationship with his clergy and flock—conscious of the responsibilities of his high office, and devoted to its duties alone—that it was for him to be familiar with the concerns of every parish under his care, cognisant of the character of every clergyman within his diocese, supplying all wants by his energy, controlling all abuses by his vigilance, and encouraging all that was good by his example—that it was for him to live as a father among his people, spreading around him the atmosphere of love, of reverence, and of religion. Such, in its early days, were the Church's notions of what a Christian bishop ought to be. Such they had been in former times; such all should wish to see them again, and to such it should be the earnest desire of every true Christian to endeavour to restore them. But there was a third party, perhaps more numerous than the other two, who, agreeing and concurring with the others in the abstract, yet, fortified by the conclusions of their daily experience, maintained that there was a proved incompetence to the duties which they had undertaken on the part of the Commission, to the enormous injury of the Church finances from mismanagement, and to the scandal of the Church itself from the proceedings of its dignitaries on that board; and that, whether from regard to the spiritual or the temporal interests of the Church, they protest against a continuance of the existing system. They hold that the pecuniary loss to the Church, great as it was, was of very slight value compared with the unfavourable light in which this board placed her hierarchy before the people. When the episcopal funds were first established by Act of Parliament, they were placed under an episcopal board, under the impression that thereby more confidence would be imparted in the Church. It was thought that, under their conscientious keeping, every talent entrusted to them would bring forth ten for the service of the Church and the advancement of religion; but that delusion had long since vanished, and it became apparent that, instead of these treasures of the Church having been entrusted

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to the safest keeping, it was manifestly in the most insecure custody. Instead of confidence being reposed in the prelates, it appeared manifest that all confidence was destroyed in them; and there were now no men throughout England more anxious that the whole of the episcopal bench should retire from the Ecclesiastical Commission than the great body of the English clergy, who had become unhappily conscious that the appointment of the present dignitaries had resulted neither in the promotion of the interests of the Church, nor of their own credit. Such being the general opinion, he should have thought that there could be no difficulty or hesitation in giving effect to it, especially when supported by the recommendation of the Committee to which he had already referred. But it seemed to have been ordered otherwise; it seemed that the hearts of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were still hardened—that they were still determined, not without a struggle, to let go their grasp on the Church's funds. But he was ready to appeal to justice, and to the sense of public duty entertained by that House, while he asked them to give him their attention, for a short time, while he proceeded to show, from the statements of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners themselves, what the system was which they carried on, how far they had justified the confidence reposed in them, and how unreasonable, how indefensible—he would not use a stronger term—and how unwarrantable were the claims which they now put forward to still further abuse both the interests and the patience of the public. The Ecclesiastical Commission had its origin in 1836—that is, previous commissions of inquiry had been issued in 1835—which had made reports, and submited certain recommendations on the question of the ecclesiastical establishments; and, in 1836, the same Commission was continued, with instructions to give effect to, and carry out, their own recommendations. That was the origin of the present Commission. It consisted originally of thirteen Members, but the smallness of that number gave great dissatisfaction in certain quarters. The Bishop of London, who was a witness before the Committee, and who had certainly shown no disposition to expose the frailties of his brethren, assigned a very vague cause indeed for that dissatisfaction. He stated that only five of the members of the episcopal bench were on the Commission,
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and that that was not considered to be an adequate representation of the Church. But the popular version of this dissatisfaction was more ample and more communicative. It pointed to the nature of the Ecclesiastical Commission—how great were its powers, how very convenient, in many respects were its opportunities. These Commissioners were charged with great powers, not only as affecting in great matters the interests of the Church at large, but, in many small matters, the interests of bishops in particular. All matters of allowance, or compensation, or loans, and other points affecting the interests of existing bishops, were ruled by them. They had to decide what future bishops were to pay money to the Ecclesiastical Commission, what they were to receive, and in each case how much; also, they were to say what prelates were to be permitted to sell estates, who were to build palaces, and how much of the Church's money was to be given for these purposes. In short, various things, affecting the Commissioners themselves, were to he ruled absolutely by that board, and a seat at its councils thus came to be looked upon as an important thing. The excluded prelates were not prepared to say why a small portion of the number should monopolise all the prizes, and an agitation commenced for an extension of the Commission. Whether this account of the matter, generally circulated and accepted at the time, were in all respects correct or not, of this at all events there could be no doubt, that an agitation had been got up which waxed very fierce and very formidable, so that at last the minority were compelled to give way—the doors of No. 5, Whitehall-place, were thrown open, when the whole episcopal bench rushed in, and the wonder was, why the deans and other dignitaries did not also contrive to gain admission. As it happened, only three deans got appointed; but the constitution of the Commission became greatly altered in consequence of those changes. Formerly it consisted of eight laymen and five ecclesiastics; it was now constituted of twenty-nine ecclesiastics and twenty laymen. In fact, it became practically an ecclesiastical board—and the worst of all ecclesiastical boards—namely, one composed of only one order of ecclesiastics. The parochial clergy and their congregations were not at all represented on the board, and the result was seen in the proceedings which had taken place. The poorer pastors were left half starved, and

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their congregations untaught; whilst vast sums of the church treasure were squandered on the luxuries and palaces of their mitred rulers. The transaction of business was not facilitated by this enlargement of the board; and, as if to make confusion worse confounded, it was provided that there should be no permanent chairman at the meetings of the board, the rule being that the Commissioner highest in rank present should always occupy the chair, but only until one of a higher rank came in; so that the Commission was formed under a junior bishop, who was hardly warm in his seat before a senior bishop came in and deprived him of it, who had again to leave it when an older bishop entered; so that there could be nothing like permanency in the proceedings until the Archbishop of Canterbury came in and took precedence of all others. Now, he should like to know how the business of that House could be carried on if the rule were that the oldest Member present should always occupy the chair, and if their president were to be altered every ten minutes, and no fixity of tenure allowed until the father of the House came in? And yet this system of conducting business was considered so wise as not only to be sanctioned as a rule of the board, but actually to be made the law of the land. It was found extremely inconvenient under such a system to carry on matters of detail with so large a hoard, and, accordingly, in order to expedite business, they determined to refer particular subjects to Select Committees. But how was this carried into effect? In that House, Select Committees usually consisted of a very limited number of Members, while all persons having a personal or pecuniary interest in the inquiry were excluded. But the system of the Ecclesiastical Commission was in every respect the reverse of this. He found, by returns in the tables of the appendix to the report, that the average attendance of the board was ten, and yet the first Committee appointed by them consisted, not of less than ten members, but actually of twenty-three. The Estates Committee had twenty-three members; the Districts Committee, which was next appointed, had twenty members; the Episcopal Incomes Committee fourteen members; and the Finance Committee thirteen members. In short, there was not one of the committees that had not a greater number of members than the average attendance on the board, the largeness of which they were intended to
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correct. But, in addition to this, the board had no idea of adopting such an innovation as that of excluding persons who had individual interests in the cases investigated. On the contrary, when business affecting any one bishop was to be carried on, he was especially favoured with a summons to attend, and he was allowed to speak and vote at the deliberations exactly as if he were a member of the committee. Not only that, but any member of the episcopal bench could attend any committee, even though not a member of it, and vote and act as the regular members; so that the committee could at any time be swamped and outvoted by persons who were not nominated on it at all. After some months of consideration on the subject—and at the risk of being considered dull and thickheaded—he had not been able to realise to himself what the value of these committees was. The Bishop of St. Asaph had told them that it enabled a bishop familiar with any subject to guide the deliberations and decision of the committee; and the Secretary to the Commission stated that it was a matter of arrangement among themselves, that when any bishop took up a particular question, he, as the secretary expressed it, "worked it through the committee." And there could be no doubt but that where the interests of any bishop were concerned, he had, in some instances, "worked it through "in a most peculiar manner. He did not know whether, in the most palmy days of Toryism, the "working-through" system had been better understood or more vigorously carried out than on the Ecclesiastical Commission. The House would no doubt imagine, after what he had described, that the business of the Commission was not well carried out, but they could not possibly be prepared for such a picture of carelessness, incompetence, and waste, as the revelations of its own witnesses exhibited by the regular valuator of the Commission! What did the House think of large church estates being sold without any valuation having been taken? What did they think of large estates having been bought without the common precaution of a survey? What did they think of works being executed without the Commissioners' own architect giving any estimate of the expense? or what did they think of surveyors, architects, and other officers, being employed under the Commission for years without any

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arrangement whatever being made with them as to the remuneration which they were to receive? Accordingly their charges, when made, were disputed. Payment was delayed; and from the time of their appointment down to the period when the committee made their report, no settlements of the accounts had taken place. And though a great effort was made to accomplish something that might he called a settlement before the report of the Commission came out, there was no evidence to show that even this was not accomplished by a further sacrifice of the Church's money, in satisfaction of what had been already deemed unreasonable demands. Now, considering the sacred purposes for which the funds were destined, such manifestly unfaithful guardianship was highly reprehensible. It should be remembered that it was the treasury of the poor that these Ecclesiastical Commissioners had squandered and exhausted. Nor was it necessary that he should bring home to them any intentional mal-administration or mal-appropriation of funds. He would say nothing on that head, either of condemnation or acquittal. It was sufficient for him to show that the attendance of the bishops at the board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners so constantly and regularly as to obtain a proper knowledge of the business of the board, was wholly incompatible with the discharge of their ecclesiastical duties. It had been said that they attended only when something relating especially to themselves was going on. To a certain extent that was true—the majority of the bench could only give an occasional attendance, and it became, not unnaturally, an interested one. The board met only once a week, and business was then gone through sufficient for a month. It was impossible for the Commissioners under such circumstances to understand the business. The Bishop of London said, that there was only one person perfectly and sufficiently acquainted with the business of the Commission; and that one person was the Secretary, who became practically the whole Commission. He (Mr. Horsman) felt that he owed some apology to the House for having dwelt so long upon the composition and management of the Commission, without having before alluded to its most important functionary, the Secretary. Now, however, it was necessary that he should inform the House that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had a secretary, or rather that the secretary had a board of commissioners;
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for he was the sun round whom the whole system revolved. It was with him not Ego et Rex meus, but Ego et Episcopi mei. He had been from the commencement in head—in heart—in authority and in action the whole Commission. Everything was done by him. Did any one want to see the Commissioners? He could only have an interview with the secretary. Did any one want to write to the Commissioners? The letter went through the secretary. Did any one send a communication to the board? It was opened by the secretary, who made it known as he thought fit. He arranged the business—he framed the orders in council—he drew the Acts of Parliament—he selected the subordinate functionaries and employes. He was omniscient, omnipresent, and peripatetic. Nothing could be done without him. Did a prelate wish to sell an estate? He managed the order in council. Was another to build a palace? He found the cash. Had the Commission got into a scrape by what is vulgarly temed a job? The secretry "made things pleasant." Was Parliament to be mystified as to episcopal incomes? The secretary "cooked the ac-counts." Was there a debate in the Lords? The secretary culled the facts for the archbishop. Was an awkward question to be asked in the Commons? He prompted the Prime Minister. He never gave notice of any question which he was about to put to the Minister in the House, but he saw on the following morning the usual paragraph in the newspapers, under the head of Court Circular—" The Secretary to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had an interview yesterday with the First Minister at his official residence in Downing-street." He wished to speak of the secretaryship, as it had an inevitable tendency to become, under the trials and temptations of such an office, so circumstanced, rather than of the individual in his individual capacity who lately filled it. It had been said, that the history of nations was the history of the celebrated men whom they produced. And of the Ecclesiastical Commission it might in like manner be said, that its history was the history of its first and hitherto only secretary. He was the whole Commissioner, and now he would show what a dignified body it had been, or rather what an undignified body—what a caricature it had been of imbecility and helplessness, in the hands of its own subordinate. As he had before said, the Ecclesiastical Commission had property in every

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diocese in England. It bad a great deal of business necessarily connected with that property, and especially of legal business. And the responsibility of all this business devolved upon the secretary. And he was Vested with a large discretion in the appointment of gentlemen to fill the important and lucrative offices of solicitor and counsel to the Commission; and the first proof of undoubted genius which he gave was in filling all these posts with his own relations. The hon. Member for Malton was the first who found out and called attention to the fact, that he was on one occasion plunging the Commission unnecessarily into litigation; and he imagined that he discovered a family interest in the excitement to litigation, for when the case came to be considered, there was a gathering of the whole clan Murray. There was, first, Mr. Charles Knight Murray, who, representing the Commission, appeared as promoter, and really plaintiff in the cause. Then there was Mr. Murray secundus, attorney or solicitor; and then there was Mr. Murray tertius, who made his appearance in wig and gown as counsel. Now, seeing that the disputes in such a business as the Commission must be numerous, and the wear and tear on the secretary most cruel, they could not be surprised at his calling in, to share the responsibility and the emolument of the office, those on whom his heart could best rely. He exhibited in that respect only a weakness which had possessed many great men in all times and countries. But the question for the House to ask was this—was there or was there not any truth in the suspicion that the secretary of the Commission plunged it into litigation for the purpose of aiding his own relations? That question was not fairly investigated. No one could doubt that it was not properly investigated before the Commission. But the secretary was a very fortunate as well as a very active man. He found friends where he did not know them, and his virtue was rewarded where he least expected it. A most remarkable instance of this occurred with regard to the tenure of his own office. In the year 1836 he was appointed secretary; but when he came before the Committee of that House two years ago, he astonished the Members with the announcement that he was not the servant of the public, holding his office at the public pleasure, but that he held it by Act of Parliament during his life. It then appeared, that in an Act that was passed in 1840, to carry out the fourth
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report of the Commissioners of Church Inquiry with regard to cathedrals and collegiate churches, and which had no more to do with the secretaryship of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners than with the beard of the Great Mogul, a clause had been inserted, by which he was appointed treasurer and secretary, and his tenure of office changed from being "during pleasure" to "during life." How that extraordinary change happened, no one had the least idea or means of telling. The Bishop of London, who was next in authority and omniscience to the secretary, knew nothing about it. The secretary himself was as innocent as one of his own babes. The idea of converting his terminable appointment into a perpetuity, had never been mooted at the board, or apparently entered the mind of a single Commissioner; yet so it was. Words had been slipped into the Act, in one of its very latest stages in the House of Lords, which conferred the office of secretary for life; but bow it came there, or by whom inserted, remained as much a mystery to the secretary as to the Committee and to the world; and to the present moment that gentleman was in a painful state of ignorance as to the identity of his unknown benefactor. This was another instance of the business-like capacity and vigilance of the episcopal board; but it was trifling in comparison with what he had now to tell. He begged to call the attention of the hon. Member for Montrose to what he was now about to say; and if it did not make every hair on his head stand on end, he was no longer the man he used to be. What would the House and the hon. Member for Montrose think when he told them that this board of episcopal trustees, charged with the administration of large funds—of enormous funds—which were destined to be applied to the most sacred of purposes, took no cognisance whatever of the receipt or disbursement of those immense sums of which they stood charged as the recipients? Yet such was the fact. From 1836 to 1845 they kept no accounts. They had no knowledge. They exercised no supervision. They asked no questions. They instituted no control. They had no audit of the immense sums of money that went into or were taken out of the funds entrusted to their charge. Such was actually the fact from 1836 to 1845. He saw a right hon. Commissioner opposite shake his head. But on what authority was he making the statement? On the evidence taken before the Committee of

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the House. He took the fact from the evidence of the omniscient secretary himself, given before the Committee. He said before the Committee, that during the whole period he had mentioned, all the moneys received were paid into his bankers to his private account; and all the moneys paid out by the Commissioners were paid by his own private cheques. And having in that manner received all the proceeds into his own hands, and paid all disbursements by his own cheques, and all this without any supervision, control, or questioning whatsoever by any party, the balance remaining, if any did remain, which could be known only to the secretary, was paid into the account of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the Bank of England. But of course, under such a system, the balance was likely to be small. It turned out that there was none worth mentioning. The extravagance of the Commissioners and the dexterity of the secretary took care of that. So that during the whole of the time that he had mentioned, all the monies of the Ecclesiastical Commission were left entirely at the disposal of the secretary to do what he pleased with; and the sums which passed thus through his hands during those nine years, for one purpose or another, could not amount in the aggregate to much, if at all, less than 1,000,000 l. Such was the system till 1845. No thanks to the Commissioners that the same system did not remain in operation until the year 1850. But in 1845 the secretary said that a new system had been established. It was owing to an accident that that new system was founded. It turned out that the reason was this: the hon. Member for Paisley asked, in the year 1845, for a return of all parties subscribing to railway companies for sums above 2,000 l., and amongst the parties so returned, the secretary to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners figured for no less a sum than 580,000 l. That extraordinary fact was brought under the notice of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and they then seemed for the first time to become aware of the extraordinary and unlimited power which the secretary had over their funds; and then it was that another mode of making and receiving payments was adopted. But it was only in consequence of that accidental discovery that the new mode was adopted, if indeed it were adopted at all. He said if it were adopted, because if in the carrying out of the new system of check or audit, the exercise of the check
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upon himself were confided to the secretary's own hands, it was quite clear that its object was entirely defeated, and its establishment was altogether delusive. But now he begged the House to pause and reflect for a moment on the danger and the immense injury to the Church which that system, so long and uninterruptedly pursued, invited. Only let them consider what that fund was, and what was the object for which it was created. It was a great national provision for the purest of all national purposes. Parliament had been suddenly aroused to the conviction that it had been long and lamentably negligent of the spiritual instruction of the people, and in the uncultured state of its wild and untaught masses it saw at once a peril and a reproach. The conscience of the community had been awakened, and the necessity of an effort being made to reclaim their neglected millions from infidelity and turn them to Christianity, had been recognised and acknowledged. The darkness of vast heathen localities had become the theme of many a meeting, and the burden of many a pulpit, and Christians of all denominations girded themselves to the new and holy enterprise. The never-tiring zeal of the Dissenters spurred the activity of the Establishment. Our laymen stimulated one another. Our busiest merchants gave their time and their money, and many members of their families rejoiced in the occasion to devote themselves to that lofty and laborious work. The clergy toiled with redoubled vigour, presenting a happy contrast between the present generation and the last. The bishops themselves handed round the begging-box, and stimulated the laity by their alms and exhortations. The effect was incredible. Since that Act had passed that House fifteen years ago, at the commencement of Church reform, more had been done for the spiritual advancement of the people than had been done during a century before. Churches had been built, and congregations had sprung up as if out of the ground—the character of whole localities was changed—peace and tranquillity took the place of riot and sedition; and the accents of prayer and thanksgiving had been heard where all before had been blasphemy and profaneness. The work was blessed. But the fountain-head, as far as material means could go, of all its blessedness as a great social and spiritual revolution, was intended to be that great reservoir of wealth, of which the Legislature had made the dignitaries of the Church

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the guardians in Whitehall. There was the spring—the stay—the strength of all these isolated and self-directed efforts. Every individual exertion was to be met by a proportionate grant from the parent institution. Every local movement was to be sustained by that arm. There was to be the life of every enterprise—the centre of every organistion—all for that object which possessed the minds of so many good men. For the furtherance of that single prayer, that its own poor might have the gospel preached to them, there was, in the creation of that national fund, well guarded and well distributed, a source of usefulness more inexhaustible and more blessed than any that human agency could decree. With the full knowledge of all this, Parliament deliberately, advisedly, and solemnly placed the administration of those ecclesiastical funds in the hands of the highest dignitaries of the Church. With the full knowledge of the solemn duties attached, these dignitaries not only accepted but claimed the guardianship of these funds. They claimed it as in accordance with the nature of their high office. They claimed it as a fund so precious that only in the hands of the dignitaries of the Church could it be safe. A part even of the episcopal bench was not considered good security—the whole body was admitted to share in that holy guardianship. Laymen were not to be trusted. Laymen of the highest character, selected with the greatest care by the Ministers, and surrounded by all those guards and securities which experience has rendered efficient in our public offices—even such a board is, at this moment, scouted by the dignitaries of the Church. And yet they, having by this excess of zeal got the fund into their hands, carelessly and unscrupulously cast it, as if the souls' welfare of a whole people were of no more account with them than so much dirt, not to a board of selected laymen, but to a single layman—a man of no public standing—a subordinate in their own office, and without a single one of the precautions against fraud or injury which any man of common sense, or common feeling, or conscience, would be ashamed to dispense with in the affairs of his humblest neighbour, who had entrusted his interests to his keeping. And the House would not be surprised to find that from such a system, or rather from such an absence of all system, from such a mode of carrying on business, the usual consequence had followed. His history
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of the Ecclesiastical Commission was happily drawing to a close. It was not a very grateful subject for a churchman to dwell upon—it was rather a humiliating one. He had only now to state these two additional facts, which completed the catastrophe which every practical and experienced man in the House must have anticipated as the natural result of business ill administered, and confidence much misplaced. The two facts were these:—About three years ago it was intimated to the public that the Ecclesiastical Commission was bankrupt; and about three months ago it was notified to the First Minister of the Crown that the secretary had run away with all the money he could lay his hands on. Now, that catastrophe appeared to him as much a matter of course, and as inevitable, as the happy conclusion which usually winds up a novel. The two matters—the bankruptcy of the Commission and the running away of the secretary—need not astonish any one who knew the world, or knew the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. But he believed that the latter untoward event, the elopement of the beloved secretary, had thrown his episcopal friends into a state of great consternation, and the shock had been even felt over the way, in Downing-street. But of the circumstances connected with the last occurrence, the public had as yet very little knowledge. The circumstance of the elopement of the secretary had been kept secret, most secret. No successor had been appointed as yet, and not even a vacancy declared; but the public had learnt, through the usual vehicles of public intelligence that a large sum of money had disappeared, and that the secretary and treasurer of the Ecclesiastical Commission had disappeared along with it. He would take that opportunity of asking the noble Lord at the head of the Government, or perhaps the right hon. Gentleman who usually took the management of ecclesiastical affairs in the House would inform him, whether it were true that the late secretary and treasurer of the Ecclesiastical Commission had left the country? Whether or not he had created defalcations in the funds of the Commission? What was the amount of those defalcations? Whether any steps had been taken to recover the money from the late secretary, or from any other parties? And, if recovery from him were hopeless, whether the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had asked to be allowed to

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make up the loss out of their own pockets? The circumstances which he had stated, except the last, which was of very recent occurrence, he had taken from the evidence given by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners themselves, or their subordinates, before the Committee of the House of Commons; and he begged now to draw the attention of the House to the character and proceedings of that Committee, for they were extremely important. That Committee was nominated, by an arrangement, as he had been given to understand, between the hon. Gentleman the Member for Malton, who moved for it, the Government, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. And when it was first appointed, it was granted, as he had been informed, upon two conditions. That, however, he was not competent to assert positively, as of his own knowledge. He merely said that he had been so informed, and he spoke in the presence of those who could correct him if he were wrong. He was told that at the time of its appointment, it was understood that it was granted upon these two conditions. In the first place, it was to be taken without discussion; and in the next, the names of the members appointed to form it should be submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and were to be approved of by him. As to the first of these conditions, he was in great doubt. As to the second, he believed he was correctly informed. [Mr. J. E. DENI-SON expressed dissent.] Did the hon. Member for Malton mean to say he was wrong in both? The first condition was immaterial; but as to the second, unless he heard a distinct contradiction to the fact that night in the House, he should say that he had fair grounds for believing it. And he was much surprised to hear the hon. Member for Malton cast any doubt upon it. But, at all events, he spoke under correction. He could have no knowledge of the facts himself. But he believed, to the present moment, that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or parties acting on their behalf, had the names of the Committee submitted to them, and were parties to their appointment upon it. But of this fact, at all events, there could be no doubt, that every Ecclesiastical Commissioner in the House was placed upon the Committee. Charges were made against the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. A Committee was appointed to investigate those charges; and five Ecclesiastical Commissioners were named upon the Committee, as judges, to conduct the inquiry into their own proceedings.
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He stated that fact as a most important one. He was not complaining of the fact—he was stating it for reasons which the House would immediately perceive. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford was on the Committee. The noble Lord the Member for Hertford was also a member. Two Cabinet Ministers were members of it; and its chairman, who drew up the report, was the brother of a prelate. In short, that Committee (and that was what he was anxious to show) was composed of gentlemen of high standing, great experience, and established character and influence in the House. It was also composed of Gentlemen whom no one could possibly accuse of being unfairly disposed towards the Commissioners. If any one could accuse them of views of any particular tendency or bias, it must be of bias to the side of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and not against them. Well, then, the Committee so constituted conducted the inquiry through two Sessions. They then come to a unanimous resolution condemning the management of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and recommending the appointment of paid commissioners to take charge of the temporalities under its control. That was the unanimous report of the Committee. There was another question respecting the number of paid commissioners, about which they were not quite so unanimous. They were unanimous as to the payment of the commissioners, but their number was a subject of some difference in the Committee. He was present and took part in the discussion, and he believed the feeling of the Committee was nearly unanimous, even for the resolution. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for the University of Oxford, and the hon. Member for Huddersfield, differed as to the proper number of paid commissioners. Five Ecclesiastical Commissioners were present; they gave strength to the unanimity of the Committee as to the propriety of appointing paid commissioners. Two of them were also Cabinet Ministers; and on a subsequent day one of those Cabinet Ministers voted for the appointment of three paid commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman who was more directly engaged in the carrying through of Ecclesiastical Bills was not present; but as he had voted for the first part, namely, the recommendation of paid commissioners, he (Mr. Horsman) presumed if he had been present, he would have voted for the second arrangement. However, the

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Committee agreed as a whole upon the appointment of three paid commissioners, in whose hands the management of the temporalities of the Church should be placed. And this was the point of difference between the Committee and the episcopal bench. The Bishop of London had always wished to have one paid commissioner appointed by the Government, to be added to the unpaid commissioners. The Committee wished to have three. He (Mr. Hors-man) felt very strongly that the Bishop of London would have more power given to the bench of bishops by his proposition than they had at present; for all the power which now exists would then be left in the hands of the bishops, but all the responsibility would be thrown upon the one paid individual. If, on the other hand, there were a board of three paid commissioners, they would supersede altogether the commissioners of the episcopal board; and there would be also the very important improvement that, instead of having only one board day in the week, and persons calling upon any other day finding none but subordinates to give them any information, there would be principals always present, and any person could communicate at once with the responsible persons, as in all the other departments of the State. This was, therefore, the difference between the resolution which he had moved, and that proposed by the members of the episcopal bench. They wished to retain the power in their own hands, but to have an additional functionary added, on whom the responsibility should be thrown; while he and those who thought with him wished to supersede them in their power, as regarded the pecuniary affairs of the commission, by the appointment of three paid commissioners. That being his object, he brought forward his present Motion for this reason; because the view which he had taken being the view of the Committee and of Government—being at least the view which was voted for by one Member of the Cabinet, and approved of, as he supposed, by the others—it being also obvious that there was another party attempting to defeat the recommendations of the Committee—he had been fearful lest the Bill which had been last year introduced should make its appearance again. He would, therefore, state the position in which they would find themselves should that contingency take place. It had been already agreed that three paid commissioners should be appointed, one to be nominated
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by the Archbishsp of Canterbury. To that arrangement, he, acting with the other members of the Committee, had agreed; but his agreeing that one of the three commissioners should be nominated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was quite different from the archbishop nominating one out of two; and yet, when the Bill came into the House, it appeared that such was to be the privilege of the archbishop. The promoters of this arrangement affected to take the management of the estates out of the hands of the Commissioners by means of an Estates Committee. Now, what was the composition of that Committee? It consisted of eight members—four of them nominal and irresponsible, and four working members. Of the first class were the two Cabinet Ministers, who could not of course be expected to attend to the duties of such business, and two unpaid laymen, who were not likely, as universal experience had proved, to devote much of their time to the duties of this office. Four working members were therefore left. Who were they? Why, two paid commissioners, one of them appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and two bishops. This, then, was the actual board. The two bishops, selected by the bench of bishops, were likely to give a pretty close attendance, and from the archbishop's commissioner a pretty sedulous attendance would be expected likewise. Therefore, there were the two bishops and the archbishop's commissioner against the Government commissioner. How was it possible for any Bill to be introduced to the House more at variance with the object of the recommendation of the Committee, and more wisely devised to give more power to the prelates than they had before? He had been anxious, therefore, not having heard of any measure to be introduced, to secure a declaration on the part of the House as to whether they were prepared to support the recommendations of the Committee, and he asked them to consider in what form the question came before them. This Commission had not exercised efficiently one single duty. As trustees of public monies, the trust had at one time kept no accounts—had no checks, and no audit. As guardians of church estates, they had trifled with the responsibilities of guardianship, selling lands without any authorised valuation, buying large estates without any previous survey, and employing agents and subordinates without any stipulation or agreement as to terms of remuneration.

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Their orders in council were framed upon incorrect statements. Into their Acts of Parliament provisions were smuggled of which they had no knowledge. They had given great dissatisfaction to the clergy—they had inflicted great loss and injury on the Church. Places of worship had been built in many populous districts in reliance upon their aid; but they were bankrupt, and could not fulfil their obligations. Their chancellor of the exchequer had run away with the money; and, to sum up all, a Parliamentary Committee, composed of their own friends, and examining their own witnesses, had not had one word to say in their favour; but, passing a vote of censure on their proceedings, had unanimously recommended a change in their administration as indispensable to the interests both of the Church and of the public. He would not weaken the effect of these facts by any comment of his own. He knew not what official answer they might receive, but he believed that the duty of every man in that House was very plain, and not to be mistaken; and that whatever might be the character in which they professed to act here, whether as guardians of the public interests, as protectors of the poor, as upholders of our ecclesiastical institutions, or as friends of Christianity, and of all which could advance its blessed progress—they were called on, promptly and efficiently, by a declaration of opinion which could not be mistaken, to put an end to a state of things alike discreditable to the Church, and injurious to the interests of true religion.
Motion made, and Question proposed—
"That a Committee of this House, to which was entrusted an inquiry into the composition and management of the Ecclesiastical Commission, having recommended the appointment of three paid Commissioners for the management of the property under the Commission, it is expedient that effect be given to that recommendation."
SIR G. GREYsaid, that he would not follow the hon. Gentleman through the history of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which he had stated this evening with greater accuracy than on former occasions. The original Commission was, as the hon. Gentleman had clearly stated to-night, a Commission simply of inquiry, and limited to a small number of members. To the present Commission was confided the duty, not of inquiry, but of the administration of funds in accordance with rules laid down by Act of Parliament. Now as to the composition of the Commission,
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he (Sir G. Grey) had expressed his opinion in this House, and he was prepared to repeat the expression of that opinion in the terms used in the report of the Committee—a report in which he, as a member, concurred—that the number of members composing the Commission was too large for the convenient transaction of much of the business entrusted to it; that though the breaking up of the original body had involved a great improvement upon the early practice of the Commission, still that there was a want of regular and systematic attention to business, which a more direct responsibility pressing upon the members would naturally tend to secure. The Committee thus pointed out the defects which they conceived to exist in the constitution of the Commission; and he concurred in the recommendations of that Committee—recommendations, however, which the hon. Gentleman had not quite correctly described. In his (Sir G. Grey's) opinion, the larger was the body of which a commission consisted, the more irresponsible was each individual member. The composition of the Commission had, he thought, an inevitable tendency to throw into the hands of the secretary a greater share in the transaction of business, without imposing upon him a corresponding share of responsibility, than was warranted by the nature and importance of the affairs to be transacted. He had, therefore, been prepared to concur in a proposition for the alteration in the Commission. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, had alluded to a Bill introduced into the House in 1847, the object of which was, by the appointment of a paid commissioner, who should be a Member of the Estates Committee, and whose concurrence should be necessary to make valid any act of that body, to concentrate the responsibility in the hands of such commissioner, and to withdraw the business connected with property to a great extent from the general commission. There was a great deal of business then before Parliament, and it was obvious that the Bill would be strongly opposed. It was then that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Malton gave notice of a Motion for the appointment of a Committe to inquire into the constitution of the Ecclesiastical Commission. His (Sir G. Grey's) noble Friend near him stated, that in abandoning the Bill for the Session, he would accede to the Motion for a Committee of Inquiry; and that Committee was appointed. And

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now, having alluded to that Committee, he (Sir G. Grey) would give the most direct and unqualified contradiction to two assertions which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cockermouth had made. The hon. Gentleman had stated that the Committee was granted upon two conditions—the one being that no discussion should take place in the House on the matter, and the second being that the names of the Members of the Committee should be approved of by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, this was the first time that he (Sir G. Grey) had ever heard of such conditions. He had never before heard of either of them, and he utterly disbelieved that they had any existence whatever, except in the fertile imagination of the hon. Gentleman. As to the appointment of the Committee, he (Sir G. Grey) had hardly thought of it from that time to this; but his rceollection of what took place was confirmed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Malton behind him. No discussion took place simply to facilitate the immediate appointment of the Committee, the notice for which stood after other notices on the paper, and could not, therefore, have been at once brought on in any other way. The object of so nominating the Committee was merely to prevent the subject from being postponed to a future and a very indefinite day; and it was on that account, and on that account alone, that his hon. Friend had consented to the appointment of the Committee without discussion. So far from the want of discussion being made a condition to the granting of the Motion, the question was not discussed in order that the appointment of the Committee might not be indefinitely postponed. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Cockermouth did not then state one word of objection to the arrangement. It was an unworthy suggestion for the hon. Gentleman to have now made—[Mr. HORSMAN: Hear, hear!]—and an unworthy one for the hon. Gentleman now to repeat, as by his cheer he appeared to do. He (Sir G. Grey) was not prepared to follow the hon. Gentleman through all the charges which he had made against the administration of the Ecclesiastical Commission. Should an answer be deemed necessary for the vindication of these Commissioners, there were others in the House more conversant than he was with the details of the administration in question, and who could, therefore, state what they thought necessary for the vindication of the character of the Commissioners.
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He knew that the composition of the Commission was inconvenient, leading to irregularity in the discharge of business, and to an undue share of confidence being placed in the secretary—a confidence which had certainly been abused, the secretary being guilty of a defalcation to the amount of 6,000 l. or 7,000 l. He was glad of an opportunity of stating the amount, because very exaggerated reports existed with regard to it. He had been asked whether it did not amount to 70,000 l. He could only reply, that the sum was under 7,000 l., he believed about 6,500 l. The hon. Gentleman stated, that the greatest secrecy had been observed respecting these transactions. Now, he (Sir G. Grey) was not aware that any steps had been taken to preserve secrecy in the matter. A committee had been appointed by the Commissioners to investigate the affair, and immediate measures were taken to secure whatever property of the secretary could be made available to diminish the loss. For this purpose the services of the solicitors to the Treasury were placed at the disposal of the Commissioners. The hon. Gentleman had stated, that no declaration of vacancy in the secretaryship had been made. He was not aware that any such declaration was necessary. No new appointment had taken place, because it was not intended—and in this determination the Government quite coincided with the Commission—it was not intended to fill up the joint office of secretary and treasurer. A Bill was now before Parliament, providing for the repeal of the clause unadvisedly passed sanctioning this junction of offices; and, until Parliament should have had an opportunity of considering whether that clause ought to be repealed, no new appointment would take place. No step would be taken by the Commissioners which could fetter the free discussion of the question. Concurring, as he did, with much of what had been said by the hon. Gentleman as to the inexpediency of the constitution of the Commission, he did so without concurring in the sarcasms against the credit of members of the Commission which the hon. Gentleman had seen fit to indulge in. He hoped, on the contrary, that the good taste of the hon. Gentleman himself would convince him, on reflection, that he had acted ungenerously in talking about the bishops having sent round the begging-box, and sought for subscriptions to which they contributed nothing themselves. With respect

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to some of these right rev. prelates, and he particularly alluded to the late Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, they had contributed, and that most munificently, to the erection of churches, and other objects for which subscriptions were set on foot. With regard, also, to the appropriation of the funds placed in the hands of the Commission, the hon. Gentleman dealt rather in romance than reality. The object for which these funds were applied was the augmentation of small benefices; and he believed that, in fulfilment of that object, the Commission had been productive of an immense degree of good. Returns of the appropriation of these funds, and of the number of these augmented benefices, were before the House. It was unnecessary for him, therefore, to state the amount of these augmentations, and the number of clergymen now, through the agency of the Commission, labouring in populous districts and remote parts of the country formerly inadequately supplied with the means of spiritual instruction. That there was still room for improvement in the proceedings of the Commission, he admitted. Every precaution ought to be taken to ensure the best possible administration of the funds entrusted to their charge. As to the proceedings of the Committee, he must be allowed to correct one misstatement of the hon. Gentleman. He had begun by alluding to the alleged conditions under which the appointment of the Committee was said to have taken place; and the whole tone of the hon. Gentleman's speech went to impugn the fairness and impartiality of the Committee. He stated that it comprised five Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and two Cabinet Ministers. He (Sir G. Grey) could find only four Ecclesiatical Commissioners, two of them being Cabinet Ministers, who, indeed, the hon. Gentleman seemed to think, were placed upon the Ecclesiastical Commission more for ornament than use. Now, as regarded the ordinary transaction of business, he (Sir G. Grey) admitted that it was impossible that either his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer or himself could attend to the ordinary details of the business of the Commission of which they were ex-officio members, although, of course, they were ready to give their opinions upon any question of importance. But he hoped that the House would not run away with the idea that there were on the Committee five Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
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and two Cabinet Ministers in addition. [Mr. HORSMAN: There was also Mr. Nichol.] He admitted that he had overlooked the right hon. and learned Gentleman. But, after all, there were only five, and not seven, out of the fifteen Members of the Committee; and of these, the hon. Gentleman was aware, there were some who had expressed their disapproval of the constitution of the Commission. How could he then argue that they would enter on the inquiry determined to support the Commission? Again, he said, there was one Member of the Committee, the chairman, who was the brother of a prelate, and who might, therefore, it was contended, be acting under the influence of the Ecclesiastical Commission. Now, the hon. Gentleman, in making these insinuations, had omitted to state, that, during the first year when the Committee sat, when it was engaged in taking the greater part of the evidence which it collected, the chairman was the noble Lord the Member for Totness.
MR. HORSMAN: The chairman who drew up the report was the hon. Member for Malton.
SIR G. GREY: But the hon. Gentleman did not dissent from the report, or express, until now, any doubt of its impartiality. Well, but the hon. Gentleman stated that this Committee recommended the appointment of a separate and distinct board, to be composed of three paid commissioners, to whom should be referred all business connected with the estates. Now, that was not the interpretation which he (Sir G. Grey) put upon the recommendation of the Committee. No doubt the Committee recommended a change in the composition of the Commission; that a considerable division of duty should take place; that business of a more purely ecclesiastical nature should be separated from the management of the property; but that to the united body should be referred the ultimate decision of all questions—the small committee managing in all its branches the property of the Commission, but still as a committee. To show that this was intended to be a committee of the Commission, and not an independent body, he need only call the attention of the House to one of the paragraphs of the report. It was as follows:—
"That three paid commissioners should be appointed, two to be nominated by the Crown, and one by the Archbiship of Canterbury. That in order to constitute a quorum of the board, or of

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the Committee for managing property, the presence of one of the paid Members shall be necessary."
Therefore, he contended that the intentions of the Committee of the House of Commons were, that there should be formed a Committee of the Commission, and that to form a quorum of this Committee the presence of one of the paid members should be necessary. It was not intended to supersede the Commission, but to insure the better management of the estates by the presence at the board of men devoting their time and attention to the subject, and acting under the responsibility attaching to them as paid members of it. The hon. Member for Cocker-mouth had stated that he (Sir G. Grey) had concurred in these recommendations. He had done so—he did so still——and the Bill introduced last year was founded substantially on the report of the Committee. But of that Bill the hon. Gentleman had not given a correct version. The Bill authorised the appointment of three Church Estate Commissioners—two to be appointed by the Crown, and one by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, he (Sir G. Grey) admitted that he thought that the Bill was defective in making the Committee too large. He thought it desirable to concentrate responsibility, and that, therefore, the Estate Committee should be a small body, who would give their entire attention to the subject. On further consideration, therefore, the Bill became the subject of modification, and his noble Friend near him had moved that the Bill be committed pro forma, in order to introduce alterations, which, it was thought, would improve the character of the measure: one of these alterations being intended to remedy the defect to which he had just alluded, and to reduce the number of the Estate Committee, and to provide that none of its acts should be valid unless concurred in by the paid Commissioner appointed by the Crown. It was also proposed in the original Bill that no report of the committee should be considered at the general board, unless in the presence of the paid Commissioner. In the Bill, as amended, it was proposed that no business of any kind should be transacted at the board unless in his presence. With regard to the resolution moved by the hon. Gentleman, he hoped the House would not take such an unusual step as to fetter themselves by the adoption of a resolution in reference to
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the subject-matter of a Bill before the other House of Parliament, and which would, probably soon, come before this House. He thought that it would be inexpedient to anticipate the decision upon a point which would properly be considered in Committee on the Bill. When the Bill came before them, the hon. Gentleman would have an opportunity of taking the sense of the House, both on the principle and details of the measure. All he asked was, that the House should not come to any premature expression of opinion. He had now said all he felt necessary to say upon the Motion before the House; but he felt that he must add a word on a matter personal to himself. He was almost ashamed to allude to a letter which the hon. Gentleman had written to his constituents at Cockermouth. He was glad, for the sake of the hon. Gentleman, that he did not deem it expedient or right to reiterate in that House, and in his presence, the charges which he thought it not unbecoming to bring against him, in a letter published in a newspaper—charges of gross dishonesty and of wilful fraud in the conduct of the Bill of last Session. As the hon. Gentleman had not ventured to repeat that charge, he would not condescend to reply to it. But if he abstained from doing so, it was because he should not feel himself justified in entering into charges published only in the columns of a newspaper. He felt also that any hon. Member of experience in that House knew that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cockermouth must have drawn largely on his imagination in describing a scene which never could have taken place in passing the Bill, pro formâ, through Committee.
MR. HUMEthought the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had confined his reply to mere trifling, which was not worth noticing, passing over altogether those abuses which were charged, and ought long since to have been redressed. No less a sum than 128,000 l. had been applied by this Commission to the benefit of the bishops, and only 93,000 l. for the use of the poor clergy and the augmentation of small livings; though it had been shown in that House that there were 20,000 working curates whose incomes were only 80 l. a year each. What he contended was, that this fund ought to be placed in the hands of laymen, who should be responsible to the Treasury, and not to the bishops, who were interested parties. The House

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had resolved that the Bishop of Durham should have an income of 8,000 l. a year; but it was reported that he received twice that amount, and it was the same with other prelates. If men in ordinary life appropriated to themselves property belonging to others, they would be brought before the courts of justice; but when bishops were guilty of such conduct, they found men on all sides ready to get up and defend them. The right hon. Baronet, however, did not attempt to defend them; he admitted the present administration of the fund was wrong. He hoped Ministers would be more successful this year in passing their Bill, than they had been in former years. For his own part, he felt obliged to his hon. Friend the Member for Cocker-mouth, and so, he was sure, did the country, for the manner in which he had followed up this subject, and made himself master of it; and he hoped he would persevere until he succeeded in putting an end to the abuses which existed. Twenty-five years ago, when he (Mr. Hume) attempted to overhaul the Church, and see justice done, he well remembered what an outcry was raised against him. He was proclaimed by the clergy as an atheist, and as a man unworthy to be recognised in society, and all this was done to cloak and cover over their own abuses. These denunciations had no effect on him, and he hoped his hon. Friend would treat them with equal contempt, and consider that abuse from such quarters was praise. They had abolished sinecures in the Army and the Navy: why should they be permitted in the Church?—why should not the funds set apart for religious purposes be applied to those purposes, and not to the enriching of bishops and clerical sinecurists?
MR. AGLIONBYpromised to give full expression to his views on this most important subject when the Bill introduced into the House of Lords should have come down for the consideration of hon. Members of that House. He contended that the public were much indebted to the hon. Member for Cockermouth for having brought this question forward on the present and former occasions, because it was impossible that too much attention could be paid to the management of a large amount of property vested in the hands of the Commissioners, of which very little was publicly known, and probably much less would have been known, either as to the property itself or the mode of its management, had it not been for the hon.
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Member for Cockermouth and other hon. Members, who had moved for inquiries in that House. It was, however, matter of regret that there should have been anything like personal matter imported into the debate, and that the manner of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department should have indicated a little soreness at something which had appeared in a letter written by his (Mr. Aglionby's) hon. Colleague, that had appeared in the newspaper, and in which, it was fairly to be presumed, that hon. Gentleman had stated facts, knowing the consequences, and believing what he published to be true. His hon. Colleague was perfectly able to defend himself, and doubtless he would do so; but in the meantime it was to be regretted that the right hon. Baronet had, in alluding to the subject, used expressions for which in all probability he would himself feel sorry.
LORD J. RUSSELL: A Cabinet Minisister cannot be sorry for his expressions.
MR. AGLIONBYsaid, he did not know for what a Cabinet Minister felt sorrow; but if ever it was felt by a right hon. Gentleman holding that office, this was the occasion for him to evince it. The expression used by the right hon. Baronet was a strong one. It was, that the hon. Member for Cockermouth had drawn upon his fertile imagination for some of his statements. Now, the allegation of his hon. Colleague was this: that the Committee had been granted on two conditions: first, that there should be no discussion at the time of appointing it; and, next, that the name of the Committee should be submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury for approval. The right hon. Baronet had admitted, with reference to the former, that the Committee were appointed without any discussion, in consequence of the lateness of the Session, and that it was intended they should be appointed without any discussion; and, therefore, as far as that point was concerned, his hon. Colleague had not drawn upon his fertile imagination for his facts. The right hon. Baronet, with reference to the second point, had said, not that the names were not submitted, but that he did not know of their being submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was manifest from some portions of the speech of the right hon. Baronet, that he had misunderstood the hon. Member for Cockermouth, for that hon. Member had not intended by any of his observations to represent the Committee as an unfair Committee.

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He had stated its constitution, its numbers, and how many of its Members were connected, eitheir directly or by feeling, with the Church; and he argued that the very circumstance of so many Members having no bias against the Church, and being still unanimously in favour of the report they adopted, imparted to that report a consideration and a weight with the country, which it would not have possessed had it emanated from a Committee hostile to the Church. Again, the right hon. Baronet was wrong when he said that his hon. Colleague had cast an unjustifiable slur upon the bishops of the Church in describing them as bishops going about with the begging-box. For what was the evidence of the Bishop of St. Asaph? By question 1,104, the Bishop of St. Asaph was asked—
"Considering the purposes for which the Ecclesiatical Commission was appointed, and the desire to increase the efficiency of the Church, would it not be desirable that all the revenues of the Church should be thrown into one common fund?
—I do not think it would; for there had been a greater increase in the staff of bishops than in any other department of the Church.
"Do you think that an increase of bishops would tend to the diffusion of more spiritual instruction to the people?—Yes.
"More than adding to the small clergy?—Yes; my opinion is that if there were more bishops, we should get a charitable fund for the poor clergy.
"How do you expect to attain that object?—By our calling on the laity to subscribe funds for the purpose."
So that, although his hon. Friend's mode of speech might be figurative, the substance of it was not so far wrong. [Sir GREY: The bishops did not withhold their subscriptions.] He had not said that they had. The right hon. Gentleman had contended, however, that this Motion was ill-timed, as there was at this moment a Bill on the subject before the other House of Parliament.
SIR G. GREY: What I said was, that, considering the matter to be one of detail, I thought it would be more in accordance with Parliamentary use to wait until the Bill before the other House of Parliament should come down to this.
MR. AGLIONBYsaid, that his hon. Colleague had placed his notice of Motion on the books before he was aware that a Bill had been introduced into the other House, and before it was even known that it would be brought forward there. The more the question was discussed, the better. The probability was, that had his hon. Colleague agitated it when the Commission
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was instituted, the feelings in the country would have been such that there would have been no Commission at all—that the large amount of church property would never have been invested in their hands, because anything more perilous and unfortunate than to lock up such a quantity of property in the hands of any Ecclesiastical Commission could not be conceived. If it were the best constituted Commission in the world, it would be monstrous folly ever to put them in possession of property so extensive. The value of that property was at present about 1,000,000 l., and for aught that was known, it might increase to 9,000,000 l. or 10,000,000 l.; therefore it was too vast and important to be managed by any Commission.
SIR H. WILLOUGHBYhoped the hon. Gentleman would withdraw his Motion. He would remind his hon. Friend the Member for Malton, that in respect to the appointment of the Committee, he, at the time, thought its composition was dangerous. He did not wish to undervalue the labours of that Committee, but the result had shown the dangerous course of the system which had been pursued. There was the case of the secretary, who was afterwards found to be connected with railway speculations to a large amount. He was connected by family ties with the solicitor of the Commission; and it came out that the secretary was irremovable. It was not right that a Commission entrusted with the administration of so large an amount of real property should be so constituted.
SIR R. H. INGLISobserved, that one of the hon. Members for Cockermouth had come to the rescue of the other. The hon. Member for that borough who had last spoken, had said that such was the management—he had afterwards wittily said mismanagement—of the Ecclesiastical Commission, that it might be expected ultimately to get control of property to the amount of 9,000,000 l. or 10,000,000 l. Now he (Sir R. H. Inglis) apprehended that if the whole ecclesiastical revenues of England, in the hands of churchmen, laymen, or corporations, were invested at one moment in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, they would not amount to one-third of the sum the hon. Member had named. He was not there to defend the Ecclesiastical Commission; ever since its institution he had opposed it. He had always regretted it as a great violation of the rights of property vested in the episcopal body, and in chapters and other

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corporations, by the liberality, not of the State, or of kings, but of private individuals. He had not been the defender of the Commissioners or the Commission; but he should be ashamed to hear language such as that which had been addressed to the House by the hon. Member for Cockermouth—language which he believed to be utterly unsubstantiated in fact, without rising and giving it an indignant denial. The Church had as much right to its property as any lay corporation had to theirs; and the duties towards the poor were as much the duties of each individual of society, as of the Church. But the hon. Member for Cockermouth said, that the bishops had squandered and exhausted the treasures of the poor. [Mr. HORSMAN: Yes.] He (Sir R. H. Inglis) denied the assertion as emphatically as the hon. Member repeated it. The treasures of the poor had not been entrusted to the bishops of the Church, and they could not, therefore, have either exhausted or squandered them. The hon. Member also said, that the bishops had given out their exhortations for contributions. Did the hon. Member mean to say that they had given nothing but their exhortations? If he did not mean that, his statement had no point: if he did mean that—if he did mean that the bishops exhorted others to give, and themselves gave nothing, his statement had no correctness. He (Sir R. H. Inglis) was now speaking in the presence of some of the members of the Ecclesiastical Commission; and he was prepared to state his personal belief in the fact, that in order to institute the bishopric of Manchester—whether, in the estimation of the hon. Member for Manchester, that was a large or a little boon, he could not say—in order to institute that bishopric sooner than the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of their own powers were able to do, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the present Bishop of London, and, he believed, the late Archbishop of York, had contributed a sum of money each which amounted in the aggregate to 2,500 l. a year. The hon. Member for Cockermouth had been pleased to contrast the life of the primitive bishop with that of the bishop of the present generation. Perhaps he would draw a similar contrast between the life of a primitive and a present layman. And if they went back to the apostolic ages, the primitive Christians in the lowest rank of life set an example which he believed every one would do well to follow. The hon.
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Member, however, forgot the altered constitution of society in the present day—that in the state of things which existed in England there were different ranks of society and different duties enjoined; but he defied the hon. Member for Cockermouth, as he had defied others before him, to point to a single period in the history of England since the country had enjoyed the first outlines of her existing constitution, in which the bishops had not held a prominent position as the first estate of the realm, and in which they had not as of right enjoyed their own property, as much as any layman in the land. His objection to the working of the Commission had been its tendency to convert the hierarchy of England, and, indeed, all the humbler members of the Establishment, into stipendiaries. Such was the professed object of the hon. Member for Montrose, and such the object, he believed, of the hon. Member for Cockermouth. Arcades ambo! The hon. Member for Montrose had said to-night, that twenty-five years ago he was the only Church reformer. [Mr. HUME; Not the only one.] He (Sir R. H. Inglis) protested against the arguments which the hon. Member for Cockermouth had directed against the institutions of the Church, and the individuals composing it. He had taken the hon. Member's words down at the time, and he found they were, "that the bishops will not withdraw their grasp from the property of the Church." Did the hon. Member mean to say that the bishops had not a legal right to their own property—that they had not a statutable right to the property confided to them as bishops? and did he mean that they should be made to withdraw their "grasp" from their own property? Whose property was it, if it were not theirs? He protested against this language, as also against the tendency of some legislative measures with respect to the Church; and he hoped that Her Majesty's Government, with, he trusted, the assistance of the House, were prepared to resist the present Motion. He nevertheless felt, with the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, that this Motion would not merit the support of a single vote in that House for, according to the usages of Parliament, if a Bill on a particular subject were before one House, legislation on it was suspended until the measure had come before the other. If the Motion were persevered in, he trusted it would be resisted; but he hoped the hon. Member would adopt the

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suggestion thrown out, and withdraw his Motion altogether.
MR. J. E. DENISONsaid, as the House had done him the honour, on his Motion, to grant a Committee to inquire into the composition and management of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and as the Committee did him the honour to desire him to draw up the report, he felt that perhaps he had in some degree stopped short of his duty in not taking an opportunity to bring the whole matter before the House. But it was a case of difficulty, of great magnitude and importance; and as the Government had consented to take the matter into their own hands, and adopt the recommendation of the Committee, he felt he should best accomplish the object he had in view, and best discharge his duty both to the Committee and the House, by leaving the Government, which was really the proper medium for doing so, to carry the measure through the House. He endeavoured in that Committee to conduct the inquiry to the best of his ability—searching for the truth, at the same time desirous of not creating unnecessary personal annoyance to any one. As something had been said in the course of the debate, of the members of the Committee, he wished to say that he felt he owed a great obligation to the two right hon. Gentlemen opposite for the fairness and candour with which they entered into the inquiry, and the great services which they performed on the Committee. If he had erred in not bringing this matter forward, he had erred from an anxious wish to save the time of the House, of which he was at all times a zealous economist. It was entirely contrary to his habits to make a speech, merely for the sake of speaking. He believed that everything that was necessary would be done by the Government. Some questions had been addressed to him by the two hon. Members for Cockermouth. The hon. Gentleman who introduced the subject asked him whether, as regarded the composition of the Committee, a sort of bargain had been made that the subject should be introduced without discussion; and he also asked him whether it was not another bargain that the names of the Committee should be submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury? The right hon. Baronet has, I trust, explained to the satisfaction of the House, the real interpretation of the bargain. The only bargain I made was this—" If you will give me the Committee as an unopposed
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Motion, and grant it to me to-day—as under other circumstances I should not be able to bring it on—I will not make any speech." As to the second question, he should have answered it by giving it the most straightforward contradiction. But the hon. Member for Cockermouth had come to him from his place, and asked him whether he did not remember something that took place in the lobby of the House that led him to make the statement that the names of the Committee were to be referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury. As the hon. Gentleman stated that something of that kind had occurred, all he (Mr. Denison) could say was, that he would not speak positively, but only to the best of his recollection that nothing of the sort had occurred. He had asked his noble Friend at the head of the Government if he would be so kind as to refresh his recollection as to whether any reference of the names of the Committee was to be made to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He could state positively that he had no direct communication with the archbishop in regard to this Committee himself. His noble Friend said, he had positively no communication with the archbishop with regard to the names; and therefore what the channel of communication with the archbishop was, if such communication took place, he could not tell. He must say, that he should have thought he was not acting fairly by hon. Members if he had asked any Gentleman to enter into a Committee of Inquiry which was to be bound by any restrictions whatever. He asked that House whether, in the course of the time he had had a seat in it, there was anything in his conduct that could lead them to suppose he was capable of acting in such a manner? He would go a step further. It had been said, that the Gentleman who was chairman of the Committee was the brother of a prelate. He would ask, if any Gentleman in that House had observed anything in his conduct that could justify an imputation that any private or personal considerations would divert him from the straight path of duty? It had also been said, that several members of the Ecclesiastical Commission had seats in the Committee. Now, in selecting the members of that Committee, he wished to have Gentlemen upon it who were cognisant of the subject, and he was anxious that Gentlemen connected with the Ecclesiastical Commission should take part in the inquiry. He had confidence in the strength

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of his case; and he would ask if it was not a great deal more satisfactory to that House, and to the country, that the report should emanate unanimously from a Committee composed of all sides, and some of them members of the Commission, than if it had come from a Committee differently constituted. With regard to the subject which had been introduced to the notice of the House, he would pursue the course taken by others, and refrain from entering upon a discussion of it. He must state, however, that any Gentleman who diligently read the inquiry would find many painful facts—many things that must excite regret. It would be necessary to have a full discussion of the details of the Bill introduced into the other House when it came before them. He would, however, observe, that since the Committee sat, and since the report was made, two circumstances of some importance had occurred. One had been referred to—the defalcation of the secretary. The Commission was so jealous of the funds committed to their charge, so scrupulous of the expenditure of every farthing, that they would not consent to have a Commissioner whose salary should be paid from the funds of the Church. He could not doubt that such a Commission intrusting large sums of money to an individual, would have taken those precautions to procure that proper amount of security which was always expected from any persons into whose hands money was placed. He hoped, that this money of the Church would not be lost. There was another point to which he would refer. A Commission had been issued to inquire into and report on the better management of church property. He was given to understand that the report of that Commission would be laid on the table of the House that evening. He would for a moment assume that for the better conduct of these matters—for the proper management of the affairs of the Church—some central board, to act as an arbitrator and an umpire between the Church and the lessees, would be required. He would ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government, whether it was possible that the Ecclesiastical Commission, as now constituted, could be that board of reference? He had no hesitation in saying that it was impossible. He must frankly tell the noble Lord, that if he proposed to have two Commissioners instead of three, though he would, of course, be ready to hear all the arguments
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that might be urged, his impression was, that it was absolutely necessary they should have that full number of Commissioners; that there should be three, and no fewer. He trusted that, after what had occurred on both sides of the House, the hon. Gentleman would not think it necessary to ask the House to divide upon his Motion.
MR. MANGLESsaid, that having been frequently consulted by the hon. Member for Cockermouth with regard to this question, and knowing and appreciating the motives which actuated the hon. Member in the course he had taken, and feeling also that the hon. Member had not had fair quarter extended to him, he felt it incumbent on him to address a few observations to the House. He had understood the hon. Member for Cockermouth distinctly to speak of the constitution of the Committee, not as disparaging it, but rather as an argument à fortiori in support of the recommendations of its report. His hon. Friend had said, here was a Committee composed of a certain number of members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, containing also some Ministers of State, with the chairman himself the brother of a right rev. prelate; and if such a body had any prejudices at all, they must fairly be supposed to have leanings towards the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Commission. And if such a Committee had come to the conclusion that it was absolutely necessary that three paid Commissioners should be added to the Ecclesiastical Commission, on whom the labour and responsibility should mainly depend, with regard to the administration of the property of the Church, it was surely a strong argument that any legislation contemplated by the Government should be based on such a recommendation. The hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford also had dealt rather hardly with the hon. Member for Cockermouth. The hon. Baronet, zealous friend as he was of the Established Church, could not be a warmer one than the hon. Member for Cockermouth, although they might differ with each other as to the best means of carrying out their common object. The views of the hon. Member for Cockermouth would increase the power, the means, and the efficiency of the working clergy of the Church; and he (Mr. Mangles) was sure that in these views he had the support not only of the working clergy themselves, but also the good opinion and confidence of a very large majority of the laymen of the Establishment.
MR. HORSMANwished to offer a very few words in explanation. He had been asked by the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford, if the bishops are not the proprietors of the property entrusted to their hands, who then are its proprietors? He (Mr. Horsman's) answer was, that they were not proprietors, but trustees—it was not the property of the bishops, but of the Church, meaning by that term the congregation of the people at large. The difference between the hon. Baronet and himself was simply this—the hon. Baronet considered the bishops the masters of the Church; he (Mr. Horsman) considered them its servants. Now, he must say, that the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Malton also, had shown considerable adroitness in endeavouring to lead the House away from the really important point before them. The right hon. Gentleman had noticed two points, which were both quite immaterial, and had misrepresented his (Mr. Horsman's) remarks. He said that he (Mr. Horsman) had impugned the character of the Members of the Committee, and stated that they went into the Committee with the intention not to do justice. Now, he must reply that he had said nothing of the sort. When he called upon the House to look at the recommendations of the Committee, he desired them to observe, at the same time, how that Committee was composed. It could not be said that it was a partial Committee, chosen from one party, and therefore not carrying the weight which a Committee of higher character would have done. What he said was, that the Committee was composed of Gentlemen of the highest character, of the greatest experience, and of the most established influence in Parliament; and that for those reasons its recommendations were entitled to more weight, because such a Committee could not be supposed to be hostile to the Commission. If he had not before expressed himself correctly, he begged now to say that it would have been impossible to select Gentlemen against whom it would be more difficult to found a charge. There was only another subject on which he would say a word, and it was in reply to what the right hon. Gentleman said as to a letter of his (Mr. Horsman's). Now there was one very good reason why he (Mr. Horsman) should not in his opening speech have noticed that letter. He had a public question to submit to the House, and he did not think those bringing it forward
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were justified in mixing up personal matters with it. But the right hon. Gentleman rather seemed to say that he (Mr. Horsman) shrunk in that House from standing by what he said or wrote elsewhere. He had been in that House fifteen years; and a man must have been there to very little purpose indeed if he did not know that, sitting down deliberately to make such a statement as he had done, he was doing that which might be attended with very serious consequences. He well knew that, and that he placed himself in a position of great responsibility and of no small peril. He knew that the very publication of such a statement as he had made was very dangerous, and very hurtful to himself in the first instance, because it must prejudice every impartial person against the man who made the accusation, and must enlist the sympathy of every right-minded individual in favour of the men in high position, so accused. Notwithstanding all this, and with a knowledge of its responsibilities and its perils, he deliberately wrote his letter, and on the first day on which Parliament met he gave his notice of the present Motion, and thus afforded an opportunity for those who were affected by his charges to give an answer to them. As the right hon. Baronet had not thought proper to go into the subject, he would not do so. He had not another word to say upon it, but he wished nothing to be insinuated in that House that he shrank when there from standing by anything that he expressed out of doors. With regard to the Motion he had brought before the House, since he had given notice of it, a Bill had been introduced into the other House, which would shortly come down there; and as that was a fair Parliamentary ground for opposing his Motion, he would not trouble the House at present by pressing it.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.
SIR R. H. INGLISbegged to move for copies of any reports or statements from the officers employed in the Arctic expeditions, or from any other persons, which have been laid before the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in respect to the resumption of the search for Sir John Franklin's expedition. It was not necessary, in making this Motion, that he should quote any precedent in its support. It was one in respect to which he hoped he should have the same cordial concurrence

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of the House as he experienced in respect to the last Motion he made on the subject. At the same time, though he was aware that there was not, technically, any opposition to the production of the papers, yet he would not conceal from the House that his object was not simply to obtain those papers, but to induce the House to express the same sympathy with the same object to which the papers adverted, as had been done on a former occasion. He was desirous of eliciting from the House a manifestation of sympathy with those of their fellow-countrymen who were now passing their fifth year—if God should have spared their lives—amid the horrors of an arctic winter. He would earnestly urge upon Her Majesty's Ministers to take such further measures for the relief of those brave and disinterested men as their own zeal and as the science of those by whom they were surrounded might teach them to be the most applicable for the purpose—that of rescuing Sir John Franklin and those who were associated with him; that they would, in fact, do what they had on a former occasion done in sending forth an expedition to resume and complete the unfinished search after that gallant officer and his gallant crew. The Government would have a right to complain of any person who could move for even a slip of paper in reference to future proceedings, who did not at the same time acknowledge what they had already done upon the subject. At the same time he was bound to urge upon them not to lose a month, a week, a day, or even an hour, in seeking to release those gallant men from their perilous position; for every former expedition had failed, if not entirely, or principally, yet in great measure at least, from not having been sent forth from this country at an earlier period. He believed that during last month all the crews of the whalers were engaged for the ensuing season; and that hardly any whalers would remain in this country by the end of March. He had learnt from one of the most experienced authorities on the subject, that, in order that the search might be effectual, it ought to commence in Baffin's Bay at the end of May, or the beginning of June, so that it might take advantage of the first opening in July. He ventured to hope—without wishing to disparage any other mode of search—that Her Majesty's Government and the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty would take into consideration the expediency of applying steam navigation directly and primarily in
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the search. It was not the suggestion of Sir James Clarke Ross, but of his predecessor Sir John Ross, that steam paddles might be used with unmixed advantage, provided they could be raised above the vessels on the approach of any probable collision in the ice. He (Sir R. Inglis) had learned from high authority that the measure was not only practicable but might be easily adapted and applied most usefully in such an enterprise. He would also suggest that instead of two vessels being employed, the same amount of tonnage should be distributed among four vessels. The object was not so much to go from one given point to another equally known, as to make a search in all directions. It was like sending out four policemen instead of one. Supposing four vessels should go out, he would suggest that each vessel should be independent of the others. A stimulant would thus be given to the energy of each, and greater results would probably follow, than could be secured by any other mode. He had not said a word on the subject as being one connected with national honour, or with science; but the cause of humanity ought to compel them, and a feeling of national honour ought to induce them to do what he now urged upon Her Majesty's Government, without a word being said about science. For what did they hear at the close of the last Session? That the Governments of two other States were engaged in making preparations for rescuing our own countrymen. He believed there was no precedent in history of one nation sending forth an expedition to rescue the lives of the subjects of another nation. He did not know whether, either in the case of Russia or of the United States, these hopes had been realised, and whether any actual efforts had already been made by those Governments for this object; but the honour of England required that efforts should be made by England herself to rescue her own countrymen. It had been suggested that the use of small balloons would facilitate the search. He gave no opinion upon the subject, but he understood that such a mode might be made subsidiary to the other means employed: the balloon being attached by ropes to the ship or point from which it might be sent up. This was not a private question; he would not, therefore, introduce private considerations; but when he reflected on the remarkable and most memorable conduct of the wife of Sir John Franklin, of her self-denying efforts in the cause of her husband and of

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his companions; when he considered the hundreds of persons who were interested in the fate of the husbands and brothers now engaged in that expedition, he thought he did not unreasonably prefer his suit to the First Lord of the Admiralty when he ex pressed a hope that he would take the subject into immediate consideration, not merely from a sense of humanity towards those who were missing, or from a sense of national honour, or from a consideration for the cause of science, but also from a sym pathy for the anguish and suspense that had been felt by so many of those who, though breathing the same genial air with ourselves at home, were suffering for those who were now separated from them, and were existing in the regions of an ice-bound zone. He had reason to hope that his right hon. Friend was not only prepared to concede the papers he had asked for, but to indicate to the House at once that it was the firm intention of the Government to comply with the suggestions that had been made. He should conclude by moving for—
"Copies of any Reports or Statements from the officers employed in the Arctic Expeditions, or from any other persons, which have been laid be-fore the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in I repect to the resumption of the search for Sir John Franklin's Expedition:
"Of any plan or plans of search, whether by ships or boats, up to the present date:
"Copy or Extracts from any Correspondence or Proceedings of the Board of Admtralty, in relation: to the Arctic Expeditions (since the date of the last Return to this House in 1849):
"Copies of the Orders issued by the Board of Admiralty to the Captains Collinson, Kellett, and Moore, and to Lieutenant Pullen; and also Copy of the Instructions given to Dr. Rae, through the Hudson's Bay Company:
"Of any Reports made by any officer or officers employed in the late Expeditions, and addressed to the Board of Admiralty:
"And, of the latest chart of the Polar Sea compiled by order of the Board of Admiralty (in continuation of Parliamentary Papers Nos. 204 and 386, of Session 1848, and of Nos. 188 and 387, of Session 1849)."
MR. C. ANSTEY, in seconding the Motion, begged to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty to the proposal of Mr. M'Cormick, surgeon of the Erebus. That gentleman proposed that, whatever other expeditions might be set on foot, a number of boats should be employed to examine Smith's Sound and Jones's Sound, ending with the Wellington Channel. From the long period which had elapsed since the last tidings of the missing expedition had been received, there could be very little doubt
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that if the officers and men were in existence, they had been arrested at some point between which and the known or habitable regions of the globe there was no communication, and consequently it was more than probable they would be found to the northward of Parry's Islands. Jones's Sound and Smith's Sound had not yet been surveyed, but were considered points of communication with the Arctic Sea, and, therefore, with Wellington Channel itself. Mr. M'Cormick had volunteered to take command of the boats to be employed in this hazardous enterprise, and asked for no outlay beyond that which would enable him to reach the place indicated on hoard some whaler, which might afterwards be employed in the investigation. In addition to the rewards offered last year to those who might afford relief to the expedition, he would suggest the propriety of offering some reward to such persons as might bring indubitable proofs of the traces of the vessels or of the men, who might, perhaps, have abandoned the ships.
Sir F. T. BARINGsaid, it had been his intention to take the earliest opportunity of stating the course the Government intended to pursue in this matter. As time pressed, and it was necessary that Government should decide, the Admiralty took upon itself to despatch an expedition by Behring's Straits; and it was the intention of Government to send an expedition in search of Sir John Franklin to proceed from the eastward by Lancaster Sound. He thought it would be better for him to defer entering into the details of the course Government would adopt, and that he should state it in a paper to he laid before the House, because the details were not fixed. But he assured hon. Gentlemen that a good many of these propositions had been submitted to the Government, who had paid every attention to them. Of course, on a subject like this every one had his own project; but it would be the endeavour of the Admiralty to adopt that which they really believed would be most efficient for the purpose. He thought it right to state that in an expedition of this nature the pecuniary cost would not be a consideration in the slightest degree. Of course the time might unfortunately come when they would no longer have a right to risk the lives of men in such a search. That had been to him a subject of consideration; but from the opinion of those who were best able to form an opinion, he trusted there still was such a hope as justified the Government in taking every

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measure which they fairly and properly could take, to render assistance, if possible—at any rate, to ascertain the fate of their unfortunate fellow-countrymen. It was not for the purpose of nautical science, or for the extension of geographical knowledge, the importance of which he hoped he did not underrate, but solely for the purpose of saving life, that this expedition was about to be undertaken. As soon as possible, the papers giving the details of the proposed expedition would be laid on the table of the House. Allusion had been made to the assistance rendered by foreign Governments; he ought to add that his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia had most kindly and cordially given every assistance in his power, and had acceded to every request which had been made to him by this Government. He was also bound to state that the Hudson's Bay Company had not only acceded to the representations which had been made to them by the Admiralty, but had voluntarily undertaken whatever they thought could by possibility tend to throw light on the missing expedition. As to the papers now moved for, a certain discretion must be allowed to the Admiralty as to the time and mode of presenting them; and he had no doubt that, in exercising that discretion, they should meet, the wishes of the House and of the hon. Mover.
MR. WYLDalluded to the large sums which had been expended in these exploring expeditions, and said that they had always gone on an erroneous principle, by proceeding from the east westward. This was but carrying out an old tradition which had existed some time in the Admiralty Office, about the discovery of a north-west passage. All who had studied the matter either theoretically or practically, knew full well that as the currents always set from west to east, the expeditions sent from this country had to encounter not only the perils of the season, but large aggregations of ice which had been partially broken up, and were drifted from west to east by the continuous flow of the current. He entertained a confident hope, in common with most who had studied the subject, that the expedition under Sir John Franklin was at this moment existing; and looking at what the course of the expedition had been, he must say, that the principal point had never yet been explored. Those who had looked at the subject, had a very firm assurance that the expedition was now existing on the southern point of
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Melville Island. If the expedition now to be sent out were to go from east to west, he did not think it would accomplish its object so well and so easily as by another course of action. With the ready means which existed for obtaining large supplies from the northern coast of America, and the Hudson's Bay Company, he thought the best course would be to start from the mouth of the Coppermine river, the boats being carried over the ice; and thus the whole of that portion of the coast, where there was any likelihood of Sir John Franklin and his companions existing, might be explored at one-fourth the cost which would otherwise be incurred. He hoped the Government would take into consideration the large sums of money which had been hitherto expended uselessly and fruitlessly. If the expedition was to be carried out with success, he thought it ought to be more from the land side than the sea side. He did not quite agree in the propriety of employing steam vessels; he did not think they would be applicable in those latitudes, and that peculiar climate.
MR. HUMEsaid, the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty had mentioned the Russian Government; he wished to ask, if efforts had not also been made by the Government of the United States?
SIR F. T. BARINGwas understood to say, that no official communication had taken place with the American Government on this subject. His statement only had reference to those quarters in which the Government had officially applied for assistance in promoting this object.
SIR R. H. INGLISsaid, he would not allow the Motion to be agreed to without expressing his gratitude to the right hon. Baronet and to the House, for having concurred so entirely in the suggestion of another expedition being sent out in search of Sir John Franklin.
Motion agreed to.

COUNTY RATES AND EXPENDITURE.
MR. M. GIBSONmoved for leave to bring in "a Bill to establish county financial boards for the assessing of county rates, and for the administration of county expenditure in England and Wales."
MR. FREWENseconded the Motion.
MR. DISRAELIsaid, before the Motion was put, he wished to ask a question of the right hon. Gentleman who had introduced the subject in a manner so suspiciously silent. Last year when he (Mr. Disraeli) brought before the House the

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question of local taxation, the right hon. Gentleman favoured the House with a very ingenious speech, the object of which was to prove that the occupiers of land who are rated, did not, in fact, pay the rates, but that the owners of the soil paid the rates. Now, he wished the right hon. Gentleman, with that candour which distinguished him, would answer the question he was about to put. In introducing this project of law, what was his real opinion upon this highly important and interesting subject? Was it his opinion that the occupiers of land really did pay these rates? He assumed that to be the right hon. Gentleman's present opinion, as he was now proposing a representative government, which could only be the consequence of that conviction. If it was the conviction of the right hon. Gentleman that the rates were paid by the occupiers, and not by the owners of the soil, as he maintained last year, he would take leave to remind the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, on an occasion which would soon offer, that they ought to support the proposition which he should have the honour of submitting to the House. Instead of allowing the matter to pass silently, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would rise and give a candid statement of his conviction on this important subject.
MR. M. GIBSONdid not think that was quite the time to enter into the discussion to which the hon. Gentleman invited him. But he might be permitted to say, if it were true—as he had often heard from the hon. Gentleman—that the interest of the landlord and the tenant-farmer was one and the same, he surely would not object to the tenant-farmer having a voice in controlling the expenditure of the counties. This also might be admitted, that whatever on theoretical principles might be clearly shown to be the ultimate settlement as between landlords and tenants, after the rates had existed some time, yet the tenant had, in the first instance, to find the money. He would not go into a full discussion of the principle; but undoubtedly, if a large building, as a lunatic asylum or a gaol, had unexpectedly to be erected within a short period, and the whole sum neeessary had to be raised on security of the county rates, and had to be repaid by instalments raised by those rates during the currency of leases, tenants having such leases would have rather a strong interest in controlling the original expenditure, because in any future bargain between landlord and tenant they could not get compensation
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in the shape of a reduction in rent, the money having all been paid, they having been called upon to find it all during the currency of their leases. Therefore, in that case, they had a clear and obvious interest in controlling the expenditure. He would not take up the time of the House further, believing that there was no opposition to the introduction of the Bill.
MR. NEWDEGATEthought the sums expended as county rates were so small, that it was not worth while disturbing the whole machinery of local government on that account. The erection of lunatic asylums and gaols was already controlled by the Home Office, as were all other large items of county expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman was proposing a large machinery for a most insignificant object.
MR. HUMEsaid, the ratepayers in counties had an equal right with those in boroughs to control the expenditure of their rates. At present, the magistrates only had the control of the county expenditure, which was 1,000,000 l. or 1,100,000 l.—no insignificant amount. These rates fell most heavily on the small occupiers; it was, therefore, very properly proposed to give them a representation such as was enjoyed by the ratepayers in boroughs.
SIR R. H. INGLISwould suggest to the Government not to suffer Bills to be introduced merely for the sake of being read a first and second time, of the impolicy of which they were persuaded, and the discussion of which would only waste the time of the House. He imagined this was a Bill to supersede the functions of Her Majesty's justices of the peace; he believed the Government was opposed to the project, and he hoped they would at once declare their views. If the Bill carried in it the seeds of dissolution, it would be the most merciful course to put an end to it at once. If the Government were opposed to the principle it involved, let them take the earliest opportunity of stating so.
SIR G. GREYsaid, that to a certain extent he agreed in the remark that had been made, that if the Bill was one which the Government clearly meant to oppose, it was the best way to state that opinion when leave was moved for to bring in the Bill, in order to save the time of the House. But there were many Bills, in reference to which, from the short description given of them in the notice of Motion, and the brief statement usually made on moving their introduction,

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the Government could not tell exactly what they were. Of this class was the one which stood next in the paper, to be moved for by the hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for Hertfordshire, under the title of "a Bill to amend the rating of small tenements." He did not know the object of this Bill; he should not oppose its being brought in; but when it came to be discussed, there might be objections taken to it. The present Bill was certainly not one of that class which he could say the Government would certainly oppose. He presumed it was similar to the Bill of last year, introduced on the Motion of the hon. Member for Montrose, to which he (Sir G. Grey) had expressed himself favourable. The question arose whether it was desirable to read that Bill a second time, and refer it to a Select Committee, or appoint a Committee on the subject before the Bill was read a second time. Any opinion he might entertain as to the course to be taken this year, he wished to reserve; but most certainly this was not a Bill which he should say the Government would decidedly oppose.
MR. STAFFORDsaid, that the question was whether the incidence of taxation fell upon the owner or the occupier of land; and with respect to this question, the right hon. Member for Manchester blew hot and cold. It was too much the habit of hon. Gentlemen opposite to announce what they called a great principle—to declare that they were determined to stand by it, and on the following evening to do that which would practically abrogate it. It was only last week the Mover of the Address told the House, that the incidence of property fell upon the owner of the land. Now, this great principle was qualified by the right hon. Member for Manchester and the hon. Member for Montrose. The principle was a vital one, and hon. Members must not be permitted to blow hot and cold with respect to it.
MR. AGLIONBYhad come to the conclusion that the whole of the interrogation on the opposite side of the House was a mere jest, because they had little to do that evening. He begged leave to inform the hon. Gentleman that they were not blowing any way but the one way. He did not care on whom the rate fell, but those on whom it fell should have a voice in the expenditure. He asked the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire whether he thought the magistrates or ratepayers could better administer the
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county rates? The magistrates were not elected, they were appointed by the lord lieutenant, and were irresponsible, in the usual acceptation of the term; yet they were the persons who made the rates. Was not that a mere farce, and should not those who paid the rates have a voice in distributing them? He thought the advice of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford was a salutary advice, and that Government should consider well before allowing any Gentleman to bring in a Bill when there was no probability of their giving it their support. It often happened that, after discussing a measure Wednesday after Wednesday, the proposer, who depended on the support of the Government, found he had only their good wishes and not their support. With regard to this particular Bill, he understood it to be, with some minor modifications, the same Bill as that introduced last Session; and he was fully prepared to vote for the introduction of the Bill, and to give his support as far as possible to the details of it.
SIR J. PAKINGTONwould willingly rest the question on the grounds upon which the hon. and learned Member had put it. He had maintained last year, and he maintained now, that it was the owner and not the occupier of land who paid the rates. The magistrates of England were the principal ratepayers, and nothing was more unfair than the distinction which hon. Gentlemen opposite wished to draw between ratepayers and magistrates. As the general disposition of the House seemed to be in favour of the introduction of the Bill, he should not oppose it, but should reserve to himself the right to take what course he thought fit with respect to it at a future stage.
MR. FREWENregretted that he was opposed in this matter by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire and his friends. He had last Session supported the Bill of the hon. Member for Montrose on this subject, and since then he had received several communications from that division of Sussex which he represented, and from several farmers' clubs, thanking him for the course he had taken. The ratepayers in that division thought they had great cause of complaint, as the county expenditure from 1832 to 1843 had more than doubled, and had since 1843 further increased. It was one of the principles of the constitution that taxation and representation should go together. In the

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division of Sussex which he represented, there was a strong feeling in favour of financial boards.
MR. DISRAELIsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex could not have been in the House when he addressed a few observations to it; therefore he begged to state to him that he did not say a single word in opposition to the measure introduced by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but merely asked the right hon. Gentleman for a clear explanation of the principle on which he introduced it.
MR. HENLEYobserved that the magistrates were responsible for the peace of the counties and the care of the gaols, and he hoped they might trust to the Government not to leave the responsibility of those matters in the hands of the magistrates, while they left the control of paying for them in other hands.
SIR G. GREYsaid, it was inconvenient to discuss this Bill without knowing exactly what it was. He did not intend to be inferred from anything he had said that he was favourable to the principle of excluding the magistracy from all interference in the assessment.
MR. HEYWOODremarked that it was intended to leave the magistrate a large share of the power by the Bill.
Motion agreed to. Leave given.
Bill read a first time.
The House adjourned at a quarter before Ten o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS,—1o Proceedings against Clergy.
2o Registrar's Office, Bankruptcy.

CASE OF LIEUTENANT GRAHAM AND MR. ELLIOT.
LORD BROUGHAMrose to put a question, which he would ask on another day if the Members of Her Majesty's Government, which had no representative of the Admiralty in that House, were not prepared to answer it at that moment. His question had relation to the case of Lieutenant Graham and Mr. Elliot, a master in the Navy, who had been brought before a court-martial last autumn for desertion and misconduct, had been dismissed the service in consequence, and, what was worse, had been declared incapable of serving Her Majesty in any capacity whatsoever. He had always been one of those who were of opinion that, as a general rule, no interference with the proceedings of any naval or military court-martial, or with any part of the discipline of the Army and the Navy, ought to be ever dreamt of by the Legislature; but still there were some exceptions to that rule, and the case of these young officers was one. These young officers bore an unimpeachable character—a circumstance which ought not to be overlooked in awarding punishment. A great error had been committed in the management of their case, they had been recommended to plead guilty of desertion—most unadvisedly, for they had given themselves up to the naval authorities after a short absence, and there was nothing like desertion meditated on their part. They had, however, been so goaded by the oppression and tyranny of their superior officer, Commander Pitman, that they left the vessel lest they should commit,

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in a moment of passion, some act of indiscipline and indiscretion. Nor was that without sufficient cause, for Commander Pitman had so far forgotten himself as to call Mr. Elliot a liar on the quarterdeck, and had since been tried by court-martial, and found guilty and dismissed the service, not only for oppression and tyranny, but also for having given in fictitious and false accounts. He was confident that if the dismissal of Commander Pitman from the service had taken place before the trial of these two young officers, they would never have been convicted, or certainly not stigmatised as incapable of serving Her Majesty. He now asked his noble Friend opposite whether there was any intention on the part of the Admiralty to extend mercy to these young officers, who bore an unimpeachable character, and were now undergoing their sentence in the Queen's Bench prison?
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE, in reply, said he had no official information himself upon the subject to which the noble and learned Lord had directed his attention; but he would take an early opportunity of making inquiries relative to it from his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty.

PROCEEDINGS AGAINST CLERGY BILL.
The BISHOP of LONDONmoved the first reading of a Bill to regulate proceedings against clergymen accused of holding heresy and false doctrine. This Bill contained a clause to which he wished to call the attention of all their Lordships, and particularly of the learned Lord on the woolsack, before it underwent a second reading. It related to the erection of a new court of appeal in all suits against clergymen for heresy and false doctrine. The ultimate appeal in such cases was formerly to the High Court of Delegates, but it was found to act inconveniently, as the delay and expense of the proceedings were very great; it was therefore thought fit to substitute for the Court of Delegates the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That tribunal, however, was not a proper one in questions of church discipline, and was evidently not within the contemplation of those who had constituted it. But it had been found that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, of which he desired to speak with the utmost respect, as now constituted, was not a suitable tribunal for the decision of such questions. With regard to appeals under
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the Clergy Discipline Act, no objection could be taken to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; but with respect to the discussion of questions affecting matters of religion, it was quite clear that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was not the most fitting tribunal. It was not a clergy tribunal; and at this moment a great number both of the clergy and the laity of the Church felt their consciences burdened by the fact of questions of heresy and false doctrine being ultimately referred to such a tribunal. In another Bill it was provided that no court of appeal, formed out of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, should be considered as properly constituted unless one bishop was a member of it. That provision introduced the Church into the tribunal as a member of it. With respect to the cases now brought by appeal from the Court of Arches to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, involving points of heresy and false doctrine, it was not provided that either one or more of the bench of bishops should be members of that tribunal; and not only was it not provided that any member of the episcopal bench should sit as a member of that Committee, but no care was even taken that the members of it should be members of the Church of England. It might happen that the majority of the members of that tribunal might be dissenters from the Church; and in that case, which he admitted was not very likely, they would have to decide whether the teaching of a clergyman was conformable to the doctrines of a church from which they themselves dissented. In the Bill now before their Lordships, and which had already been submitted on several occasions during the last three years, he had introduced a clause which he hoped would remedy all the defects of which he had complained. It provided a new tribunal for heresy and false doctrine, and had been framed, after most careful deliberation, by a Committee of their Lordships which sat last Session on the Clergy Proceedings Bill. He proposed only a slight alteration in the tribunal appointed to try these offences. He had always thought—and he still continued to think—that there should be an appeal to the bishop and archbishop, and that there the appeal should end. That would be a strictly church tribunal, and in such a case the conscience of a clergyman would not be wounded by the construction of the court. As far as the Church was concerned, there

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would be no objection to see the Court of Delegates restored, as that was originally a church tribunal. That would satisfy the Church; and if Her Majesty would allow the Convocation to assemble, to take this single point into consideration, it would create in the Church great satisfaction. He hoped that their Lordships would consider the clause which he had framed with great attention, for this one question—the constitution of the ultimate tribunal of appeal—involved, in a degree which they could hardly imagine, the safety and prosperity of the Church of England.
The ARCHBISHOP of CANTERBURYexpressed his concurrence in the observations which had fallen from his right rev. Friend the Bishop of London, and hoped that his proposition for a new tribunal would meet with the support of their Lordships, and trusted that the Bill for its erection would be carried into law during the present Session. The present state of the law on the doctrine and discipline of the Church was acknowledged to be excessively defective; and he must say that it was chiefly owing to the defective constitution of the court of appeal that the Church now stood in a position of some difficulty. It could never be satisfactory that questions relating to the doctrines and discipline of the Church should be submitted to a tribunal of laymen. They ought to be submitted to a tribunal of ecclesiastics, and such would be the constitution of the tribunal proposed by the present Bill.
LORD BROUGHAMapproved of the course which the right rev. Prelate had pursued on this subject. He had not been present at the arguments in the great case of "Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter;" but he had heard the echo of them at a distance. Anything which could relieve the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of such cases would be a great boon to its members, and would be generally beneficial; but whilst the law continued in its present condition, the members of that Committee must perform their duty. Referring to the observations of the right rev. Prelate in favour of the restoration of the High Court of Delegates, he pointed out the great anomalies and absurdities in its constitution, and declared that, in his opinion, it had very properly been abolished in a late reign. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was a great improvement upon it. He would give the proposition of the right rev. Prelate, when he saw it, his best consideration.
The LORD CHANCELLORobserved, that it was contrary to custom to discuss the principle of a Bill upon its first introduction. At present the House knew nothing, and could know nothing, of the Bill. When it was printed, he should pay the greatest attention to its provisions, and give his best assistance for his improvement.
The BISHOP of LONDONreminded their Lordships that he had earnestly implored them to give, every consideration to his clause when it was printed. His Lordship had previously remarked in a sort of "aside," that he had brought in his Bill at this early period of the Session, in order that it should precede the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in a case which had been recently before it.
Bill read 1a.

MARRIAGES IN SCOTLAND.
LORD CAMPBELL, after recounting the efforts which he had made during the last two Sessions to carry through Parliament a Bill improving the law on this subject, and having mentioned his success in that House, and his failure in the other, reminded the Earl of Aberdeen, who had strongly opposed all his efforts, that he had stated in the last Session of Parliament, that, so great were the evils of the present state of the law, if no one else proposed a measure competent to remove them, he would himself do so in the present Session. He therefore rose to ask the noble Earl when he proposed to lay that measure on the table of the House? To encourage the noble Earl in his attempts to improve the law, he would read to their Lordships a letter which he had that morning received from Berwick-upon-Tweed:—
"I have been here for some days on a visit to a friend. Hard by I saw advertised in large letters, upon a board, 'Marriages celebrated at Lam-berton-toll. For further particulars inquire within.' Yesterday I went to the toll to inquire about the particulars, and found that 300 couples had been married there last year. The ordinary fee was 8s. 6d., but sometimes a fee as low as 2s. 6d. was taken."
The letter writer then proceeded to state a fact with which he thought that the Duke of Wellington, as Commander in Chief of the Army, ought to be acquainted, and that was, that fifty soldiers of the 33rd Regiment of Foot, now in garrison at Berwick, had been wedded within the same time. It was also stated that in the last month five bodies of infants had been

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picked up on the banks of the Tweed. Such were the evils of this demoralising system. He hoped that the noble Earl would persevere in the plan which he seemed to have had some time ago under his consideration, and that their Lordships would soon find it embodied in a Bill, which he should have much pleasure in supporting.
The EARL of ABERDEENobserved that it was true that he had felt it to be his duty to oppose the Bill for the Registration of Marriages which the noble and learned Lord had introduced in the last two Sessions. In doing so, he had admitted the great extent of the evil to which the noble and learned Lord had adverted, and had stated his anxiety to support any measure which was calculated to correct it. But it was an evil arising from the desire of the natives of England to evade the law of their own country by going to Scotland; and to that extent he joined in supporting the Bill which attempted to put a stop to such a practice. He did not, however, wish the noble and learned Lord to improve the social condition of the people of Scotland with regard to marriage in the way which he had proposed. The people of Scotland were satisfied with their law of marriage—and no wonder—for it was preferable to the law of marriage in England, Last year he had said that he should be most happy, and was most desirous, to see one of the noble and learned Lords in that House introduce a Bill to amend that law, and had referred to a Bill which his noble Friend near him (Lord Brougham) had introduced in 1835, and again in 1846, as one with which he should be completely satisfied. In despair of seeing any of the noble and learned Lords introduce a Marriage Bill with that limited object, he did undoubtedly say that he would himself propose a new one. But he knew the weight and influence of the law Lords in that House so well that he would not introduce such a Bill until he had previously secured the support of the noble and learned Lord near him (Lord Brougham), and also of the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Campbell). He believed that he could already reckon upon the support of one of them; and if he could only be sure of the support of the other, he should not be unwilling to proceed.
LORD BROUGHAMthought that the limited measure alluded to by his noble Friend near him did not go far enough; if he would enlarge its provisions, he should be most happy to support it.

RAILWAY RETURNS AND RAILWAY AUDIT.
LORD MONTEAGLErose to move for some Railway Accounts, as well as to put a question to the Vice-President of the Board of Trade on a subject of no slight importance to the people of England, upon which it was fitting that their Lordships should well consider the course which they were about to pursue. In two successive Sessions their Lordships had adopted the principle that it was necessary to establish an improved railway audit, not only for the benefit of the public, but for the security of the shareholders. In the interval during which that principle had been under consideration, an enormous amount of railway property, consisting of 200,000,000 l. already invested, and of 143,000,000 l. more, which the shareholders might be called upon to pay up, had been subjected to great vicissitudes. No other description of property had, he believed, been subject to such great depreciation—the insecurity of this property and the want of confidence in their accounts had led their Lordships to make inquiries into the subject; and by the disclosures which had been made before the Select Committee and before Committees of investigation, they had gained some knowledge of the course which had been, in too many cases, pursued. It was proved that at one period directors of railway companies had not hesitated, in breach of the law, to raise their dividends by a misapplication of their capital. When that became impossible, owing to the exhaustion of the capital itself, other measures were adopted to avert for a time what could not permanently be prevented—the frightful and ruinous depreciation which ensued. If their Lordships would apply their observations to the cases which were most notorious, and would ask themselves whether the inconvenience to individuals, and the fraud on the public, which had occurred in those cases, could have occurred under a correct system of audit, he believed that such a question must be answered in the negative; candid inquirers would agree that such a vicious system would have acted both as a corrective and a preventive; and yet it had not pleased Parliament to afford a remedy for such dangerous frauds and such terrible losses. The misfortune of continuing so bad a system of railway finance was, that those who had honestly discharged their duty as railway directors, were involved in much of the obloquy

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and suspicion which had fallen upon those who had discharged their functions fraudulently. In the case of the Caledonian Railway a vast capital had been intrusted by Parliament for one specific purpose to certain individual directors charged with the functions created by their Incorporation Act; and yet they had illegally applied from 300,000 l. to 400,000 l. to other and quite different purposes. In that case, no imputation rested upon the honesty of any of the parties engaged in the direction. The fact was that they did as too many other directors were in the habit of doing—they took the course they thought was beneficial to the company, but in so doing they acted illegally, and violated every principle contained in their Act. He had introduced in the two last Sessions Bills upon this subject which had met their Lordships' concurrence. They were framed on different principles. His first Bill was only to come into operation on the application of a certain number of shareholders. When this Bill went down to the other House, it was objected to on the ground that the remedy was not a more general measure. It was said, "Make your audit generally applicable, and there will be no objection to pass it." Believing that there was some force in the objection taken, he introduced a general Bill last year, and then the same interest that had objected to his first Bill as special, objected to his second as general. That second Bill also passed their Lordships' House last year, but at a late period of the Session, the reason being there had been a protracted inquiry before one of their Committees, where every railway proprietor had an opportunity of being heard. Witness after witness proved the usefulness of, and indeed the absolute necessity for, a railway audit. Such being the case, his Bill passed almost with unanimity; it was sent down to the other House, where the late period of the Session, and the opposition with which it was menaced, compelled the Government, in whose hands it was placed, to consent to its withdrawal. The Government admitted the necessity of legislation on the subject, and they are reported to have declared that in case the directors of the railway companies did not prepare a measure themselves during the recess, and propose it early in the ensuing Session, Ministers would no longer shrink from the performance of a duty which, though invidious, was most necessary. He, therefore, wished to know whether such
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was still the intention of Her Majesty's Government? If they did not intend to fulfil their intention, the public might depend upon it that this important subject would not be allowed to rest as at present, without the proposal of some remedy. There was another point to which it was his duty to advert: during the recess it had been very sedulously circulated that a successful attempt had been made in the House of Lords to introduce, surreptitiously and unfairly, into two private Railway Bills clauses for the auditing of railway accounts, thereby seeking to entrap the House of Commons into an approbation of that principle. Now nothing could be more untrue than this suggestion. The intention to propose such clauses was open and undisguised. The clauses were made known to the parties, acquiesced in, and were both carried after some discussion. He denied that there could have been any intention to entrap the other House of Parliament; and the best proof of that assertion was that the clauses in question were taken out of a Bill which had been introduced and passed by the House of Commons, and which was afterwards sanctioned and passed by the House of Lords. Either by mistake, or with intent to delude the shareholders, great pains had been taken to misrepresent the Bill of last Session as a Bill intended to establish a Government audit. The object of the Bill was the institution of an independent rather than a Government audit, as he showed by reference to the Bill itself. Two auditors would have been named by the companies, one only by the Government; and the auditors would neither have possessed a power of surcharge or of disallowance. They were bound to report to the shareholders and directors themselves, who would thus have obtained an adequate security for the truth of the accounts annually made up. To say that it was intended to establish the superintendence and control of the Government, was contrary to facts and the evidence of truth. After moving for some other returns, he gave notice that on a future day he would call the attention of their Lordships to the fact that there were already sixty-one railways in the Private Bill Office, to which they would be invited to give their attention and assent; and upon the propriety of passing which, much, he begged to say, should depend on the character of the respective companies, and to the progress of the Railway Audit Bill. If it should appear

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that the passing of an Audit Bill were to be indefinitely postponed, he should propose that by a sessional order their Lordships should provide that ton days before any Railway Bill was read in that House a second time, there should be laid on the table the whole financial accounts of the company, together with an account of the amount of its traffic and of the scheme required by law to be made out before the declaration of a dividend; the specific enactment being that no dividend should be declared declaring the amount of the capital stock of the company. Such a regulation would not require from the railway companies any new account—it would only require the production of that account which they were already required by law to produce to their shareholders. If railway companies came to Parliament to obtain powers to raise additional capital, it was not only the right but it was also the bounden duty of their Lordships to inquire how they had expended the capital which they had already been permitted to raise, and how they had exercised the powers which they already enjoyed. He therefore concluded by moving—
"That the Railway Returns ordered to be laid before the House on the 3rd of May in the last Session, and which have not as yet been produced, be made forthwith."
EARL GRANVILLEhad no objection to produce the returns for which the noble Baron had moved, and showed that it was not owing to any fault of the Railway Commissioners that they had not been produced already. As to the question which the noble Baron had asked respecting the intention of Government to introduce a Railway Audit Bill this Session, he must be permitted to make a short statement before he gave any answer. As soon as the Government received information that the Railway Bill of last Session had passed the House of Lords, a deputation of railway directors waited on the First Lord of the Treasury, and announced that it was their intention to meet that Bill in the House of Commons with the most decided opposition. The deputation admitted, at the same time, that the system wanted improvement, and pledged themselves to consider, during the recess, the best mode of improvement. He believed that they had now abandoned their attempt as hopeless, and had determined to introduce a Bill for the same purpose during the present Session. The Government had been carefully considering the whole question during the recess, and
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would be glad to receive information upon it from any quarter. The Government had also provided itself with information as to all the details of the subject; at the same time it was of opinion that it would be more satisfactory to have a Bill introduced by the railway proprietors themselves. If such a Bill were not introduced by the railway proprietors, or if, when introduced, it should not prove satisfactory, he would then be prepared to state what course the Government proposed to pursue.
EARL FITZWILLIAMwas of opinion that neither the Government nor either House of Parliament seemed disposed to go far enough in the legislation which they intended to pursue on this subject. One of the most important considerations for Parliament to undertake, was the relation in which these railway companies and the House of Commons stood towards each other. He was afraid that there now existed in that House a power which that House was incapable to control. His noble Friend had alluded to the vast sums of money which were embarked in railway property, and said that it was the interest of the shareholders, who were so largely concerned in that class of investments, to exercise a strict control over the administration of their property. That was quite true; but certainly it was equally true that, considering the relation in which these companies stand to the country, the Government ought to have a greater control over them than they had hitherto possessed, not only over their financial arrangements, but also in respect to the way in which the public had been and were likely to be served. It was important to observe that numerous as were the railways of the country, they were in the hands of only a very few companies. His noble Friend had spoken also of the general depreciation of railway property, and, according to his mode of dealing with the subject, one would imagine that he conceived that that general depreciation was in a great measure, if not entirely, to be attributed to the malversation of the managers of particular companies. Now, it might be true that such had been the fact to a certain extent, but he apprehended 'that there were other reasons which operated along with it. The great cause of the depreciation he thought was due to the fact that the country had been saturated with railways; and the directors having, in consequence, been driven to economy, they had made the public service suffer by diminishing the number of trains. Railway property

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was depreciated, but not from malversation only, for there were some to which the term could not be applied. He begged to say, with reference to the directors of the North Western Railway, that he believed they were as much entitled to the reputation of honour and integrity as any body of men could be. It seemed to him that Government was afraid to exercise that control over railways generally which a due regard to the public interest demanded; but they might depend upon it, if they wished to see the country properly served with railways, they must exercise a much greater control than they had ever yet done. He had not the slightest objection to an Audit Bill; but he repeated that he was quite sure that if the Government wished to put the railways upon a proper footing, they must introduce a most efficient and stringent measure with regard to those in whose hands the means of communication in the country were at present placed.
The DUKE of RICHMOND, in reply to one observation made by the noble Lord opposite, as to the fact of the parties declining to rate a certain railway on the ground of its yielding no profit, said, if that principle were to be acted upon, it would be applicable to the farms of this country, for hardly one of them at present yielded to a profit.
LORD BEAUMONTwished to ask, whether it was the intention of the Government to introduce the Bill of last Session, which was to enable railway companies who had not been able to carry out their works for which they had obtained Bills, to wind up their affairs? This was a subject that created great interest at that moment amongst many persons, particularly amongst those who had their money locked up, and it would be desirable if the Government would satisfy the public mind on that head. The difficulty that stood in the way of the Bill of last Session passing, was the absence of a clause giving the right of pre-emption to the former owners of land, from whom the railway companies had purchased it. It would be also desirable if a clause were introduced giving a facility to such parties to purchase the land on either side of the intended railway at a fair and reasonable price.
EARL GRANVILLEwas understood to say that it was his intention to introduce such a Bill early in the ensuing week.
On Question, agreed to.
House adjourned to Thursday next.