Sitting of 22 July 1853

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Metropolitan Building Act further Amendment.
3° Patronage Exchange; Colonial Bishops Act Extension; Thames Embankment; Turnpike Trusts.

TENANTS' COMPENSATION (IRELAND) BILL.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
SIR H. HERBERTsaid, he objected to the mode in which the Bill was being proceeded with. The right hon. Secretary for Ireland had informed the Irish Members that it would not come on again today, and colder that impression many of his hon. Friends had remained away from the House. It was with much surprise
636
that he now found the Bill standing first upon the Orders.
SIR JOHN YOUNGsaid, he was never more astonished in his life at any statement than he was at that which he had just heard from the hon. Member for Kerry. He had never stated that the Bill would not be resumed to-day. Certainly, nothing of the kind had ever escaped his lips. However, if any inconvenience had arisen in consequence, he was extremely sorry. He was most anxious that the Bill should come on to-day, and he had even gone to his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to ask him to allow it to take precedence of the Pilotage Bill, and, though his right hon. Friend was very anxious about that Bill, he kindly consented to allow this measure precedence.
MR. H. HERBERTsaid, his memory certainly differed from that of his right hon. Friend, for he distinctly remembered that he stated it could not come on till Monday. He believed his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portarlington could corroborate him in his impression. [Colonel DUNNE: Hear, hear!]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 10 (Recovery of compensation in cases of eviction).
MR. R. M. FOXsaid, he should wish to move the omission of certain words so as to give the tenant the right to compensation without the landlord proceeding to actual eviction.
MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, as the clause now stood the tenant could only recover compensation when he was evicted, or his tenancy terminated from the effluxion of time. Now he would suggest that the tenant should be entitled to compensation whenever the landlord required him to give up the tenancy.
MR. NAPIERsaid, he must admit the justice of the suggestion, and would promise to reconsider the clause before the bringing up of the Report.
COLONEL GRENVILLEsaid, he would now move to insert before the word "default," the word "wilful," with the view of enabling an evicted tenant, whose nonpayment of rent was not a wilful act, to claim compensation for any improvements which he might have effected.
Amendment proposed, in page 7, line 32, after the words "Act or," to insert "wilful."
MR. F. SCULLYsaid, he thought the clause, if passed in its present shape, would destroy a large class of tenants. He

637
saw no reason why parties evicted for nonpayment of rent should not receive compensation as well as others. Where the improvements were bonâ fide, they ought in all cases to be allowed for.
MR. DUNLOPsaid, he should vote for the Amendment, on the ground that the clause was one of forfeiture.
Question put, "That the word 'wilful' be there inserted."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 47; Noes 65: Majority 18.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 13 were also agreed to.
Clause 14 (Tenant to be entitled to Compensation for Improvements made before the passing of this Act, if evicted).
VISCOUNT MONCKsaid, he objected to the clause, as altogether opposed to all principles of legislation. Every kind of retrospective compensation was extremely questionable, but, if permitted, at all events the law should be so defined as that it should not lead to perpetual litigation. He thought the clause would prove so injurious in its effects, and would keep the country from one end to the other in such a state of ferment, that he believed the tenant would be no gainer by it if it passed. He would beg to move, therefore, as an Amendment, that the clause should be omitted, with the understanding that if the feeling of the Committee were in favour of retrospective compensation, the words recommended by the Select Committee should be inserted.
MR. GROGANsaid, he was inclined to agree with the noble Lord in his view of the anticipated effects of the clause, but would suggest whether his end would not be gained by limiting the period within which the eviction could take place to ten years from the date of the completion of the improvements. He would move an Amendment to that effect.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 9, line 40, after the words time being,' to insert the words any time before the expiration of ten years from the date of the completion of such Improvement.'"
MR. NAPIERsaid, he felt bound to defend the clause, which had been assimilated to the Poor Law Act, the Valuation Act, and the Scotch Act. If they permitted the principle of retrospective compensation at all, let them do it boldly and distinctly. If it were a good plan to give compensation for such improvements as were adjuncts to the land, it was good irrespective of any limitation of time.
VISCOUNT MONCKsaid, he could not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for the city of Dublin, and he should persist in moving, after that Amendment should be disposed of, the expunging of the clause.
The Committee divided:—Ayes 42; Noes 87: Majority 45.
LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, he now wished to propose an Amendment, the effect of which would be to limit the amount of compensation to four years' clearly letting value of the land improved. These words were in the Bill as adopted by the Select Committee; and, as he was opposed to the principle of retrospective compensation at all, he certainly thought some limit should be placed upon it.
Question put, "That these words be there inserted."
Amendment proposed—
"At the end of the Clause to add the following words, but not exceeding in the whole four years' clear yearly letting value of the lands improved, as hereinbefore mentioned."
Question put, "That those words be there added."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 52; Noes 77: Majority 25.
MR. GROGANsaid, he would now propose, as another Amendment, to add to the end of the clause the words—
"Provided always, that such tenant shall give notice to the landlord within one year from the passing of this Act of the improvements for which he intends to claim compensation."
MR. NAPIERsaid, he would have no objection to consider whether something, could not be done to have a register of improvements made, which would answer the same purpose.
VISCOUNT MONCKsaid, that in that case he would withdraw his Amendment, it being open to him to move the omission of the clause, if he saw fit, upon bringing up the Report.
MR. GROGANsaid, he was so anxious to have a register of the nature referred to by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that if he would give an undertaking to provide such a register, he also would withdraw his Amendment.
MR. NAPIERsaid, he would undertake that this should be done.
SIR JOHN WALSHsaid, he could not assent to the clause, notwithstanding any precautions with which it might be guarded and fenced. He objected to the principle, convinced that it would prove most unjust if they gave retrospective compensation,

639
and that it would lead to interminable lawsuits. He should therefore move for expunging the clause.
MR. ROCHEsaid, if the register were agreed to, the whole effect of the clause would be destroyed, because the moment a tenant gave notice to register, the landlord would give him notice to quit. It would therefore create bad feeling between landlord and tenant, and put a stop to all improvements.
MR. CONOLLYsaid, he was opposed to the clause, as tending directly against the rights of property in Ireland. He would not relinquish his rights for any temporary popularity; and he would ask, who would buy property in Ireland if it were subject to a clause of this nature?
MR. DRUMMONDsaid, he looked upon the clause as the very essence of the Bill. It was a bad measure for a bad state of things; but the state of things as they existed rendered it necessary; and it was, in his opinion, much more important to make it retrospective than prospective. Let them compensate for what had been done, and leave the future to the good sense of the persons concerned, as was the case in England.
SIR ARTHUR BROOKEwould suggest that the clause ought to be made to define more clearly what were improvements, and the person who was entitled to compensation for having made them—the tenant who held the farm, or the party who held the lease.
Question put, "That the clause stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 103; Noes 44: Majority 59.
Clause agreed to; as were Clauses 15 to 19.
Clause 20.
CAPTAIN ARCHDALLsaid, if this were such a very fair, proper, and just measure as had been represented, it would be extremely hard that the poor tenants of England and Scotland should be deprived of it. As this clause limited the Bill to Ireland only, he should move that the clause be omitted.
MR. NAPIERsaid, he must support the clause, on the ground of the different circumstances of the two countries.
MR. DUNLOPsaid, that Scotland did not require a Bill of this nature; and he congratulated the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite on the position to which at length this measure had attained.
MR. LUCASsaid, he also begged to
640
congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman upon the state at which this and the Landlord and Tenant Bill had arrived; and, on the part of the people of Ireland, he emphatically thanked the right hon. and learned Gentleman for having introduced these measures, and for the attention and care which he had bestowed upon them. With regard to the Motion, he could only say that he had discussed the Bill with reference to Ireland alone.
VISCOUNT GALWAYsaid, as a humble English Member, he must protest against the application of the Bill to England, where it was not required.
SIR JOHN WALSHsaid, as he did not regard the Bill as just or wise for Ireland, he certainly should not vote for its extension to England.
Amendment negatived; Clause agreed to.
MR. V. SCULLYsaid, he begged to propose the following clause:—
"Any judgment or decree obtained under this Act, in respect of Compensation for Improvements executed by any tenant who has been evicted from or put out of possession of his holding, shall be the first charge thereon; and, in default of payment within the time limited by the Court in that behalf, shall entitle the tenant to go forthwith into actual possession, or into receipt of the rents and profits of such holding as mortgagee thereof, and to continue in possession or receipt until fully paid oft with interest and costs."
Brought up, and read 1°.
Motion made, and Question put, "That the clause be read a Second Time."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 25; Noes 116: Majority 91.
House resumed.
Bill reported as amended.

PILOTAGE BILL.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
MR. CARDWELLstated the nature of the provision which he proposed with respect to the pensioning of the Cinque Port pilots, the object of which would be to place them in the same position as they now occupied. With this view their benevolent fund had been valued by actuaries with reference to their present and future liabilities, on account of allowances to superannuated members of the fellowship. Upon the assumption that these pilots would be entitled to be pensioned at the age of 65, the calculations of the actuaries to whom the matter had been referred, showed that there would be a deficiency in their present benevolent fund to pay those pensions, owing to the falling-off in the sum which had been re-

641
ceived by way of double pilotage since the introduction of reciprocity treaties. New countries had been continually coming into reciprocity, and the consequence had been a constant tendency for that fund to diminish, to such an extent, indeed, that there was 268 l. short of the sum necessary to meet the accustomed pensions The principle on which he now proposed to proceed was this, that as far as possible every advantage which everybody would have been entitled to, and would have obtained if the Bill had not passed, should be continued to them under the new arrangement. This he thought was the fair, equitable, right and liberal principle on which the House ought to proceed. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Sandwich (Mr. J. Macgregor had given notice of an Amendment base on this—that every heretofore pension an privilege which they had enjoyed should be continued, and, if there were not means enough elsewhere, that they should be furnished from the Consolidated Fund. But that, he thought, was carrying liberality beyond the bounds of justice and reason. All they were called upon to do was to give everybody as much as they would have had if this Bill had not passed; but they could not go beyond that, an find the means from the Consolidated Fun for giving the pilots advantages which the never could have enjoyed if the Legislature had not interfered. Then, upon the assumption of the actuaries, calculated on the diminished rate of pension which would have been necessary from the cause to which he had alluded, there would be, if the Committee would permit the whole of the money belonging to the Cinque Port pilots to be exhausted in the process, sufficient funds to put everybody in the position he had mentioned. It was his wish that the Court of Loadmanage, who had heretofore been the trustees of those persons, should, if they desired it, take the whole funds in their own management, and so administer them as might seem to them best. He had reason to believe, however, that neither the trustees nor the pilots desired that that administration of the funds should be adopted. In that event, he was willing make this offer, which he believed was reasonable and liberal—that if they thought proper that the trust should be transferred to the Trinity House to be administered, the Board of Trade would regulate the winding up of the fund between the Cinque Port pilots and the Trinity House. The then remained this further question. Of
642
Course, any prospective arrangement based upon the calculations of the actuaries was liable to contingencies. Those contingencies should not fall upon the poor persons who were the subjects of this arrangement, and the Trinity House should be called upon to take the risk of them. This would place the Trinity House in the double position of insuring that the calculations of the actuaries should be made good, while their funds for providing pensions to pilots would be burdened by the new pilots who, when the Cinque Port pilots should die out, would, by the. Bill, be appointed by the Trinity House to replace them. It was right, therefore, that some arrangement should be made whereby the Trinity House should be indemnified from loss. No great sum would be required for this purpose—probably from 5,000 l. to 10,000 l., which was a very small amount in the great importance of the settlement which would be made with regard to the Trinity House. All that the Committee, therefore, was called upon to sanction was, that the Trinity House should exercise what was now their legal right, the right of transferring from their own balance that moderate sum, to be calculated by the, actuaries, in order to indemnify them from the possibility of loss, and to put the Pilotage Fund upon a satisfactory basis. The result of the whole arrangement would be that the Cinque Port Pilots' Fund would be applied to their use, and they would be put in possession of the same advantages as if the Legislature had not interfered; and the Trinity House, out of their own balance, would apply to the Pilotage Fund the indemnity sum of about 10,000 l. The transfer of that sum required no legislative sanction, but only an expression of opinion by the Government, in which they would be guided by the opinion of the Committee.
MR. J. MACGREGORappealed to the right hon. Gentleman not to diminish the incomes of the Cinque Port pilots, the records of whose existence were perfect so far back as the year 1426. The custom always had been to give to superannuated Cinque Port pilots 50 l. a year till death. There were now fourteen receiving the annuity, and 130 active pilots. No doubt, under the Bill as proposed, the pilots would receive as much as under the strict letter of the law they would be entitled to if the Bill did not pass. He was pleading the cause, however, of a deserving body of men, whose privileges, as a fellowship, dated from time immemorial. The fourteen men

643
who were now superannuated averaged seventy years of age, and the services which they had rendered had been of an important character to the country. He should urge, upon the recommendation of an eminent actuary, that instead of capitalising the fund, the Trinity House should become responsible for the annual payments. The annual sum that would be required to continue the present income of these awed men would be 648 l., and that would be a yearly decreasing sum, because as deaths occurred they would not be replaced. The effect of the right hon. Gentleman's measure would be to reduce the income of these deserving men from 50 l. to 30 l. a year, and he should be sorry that such a proposition should be acted upon. He submitted this consideration to the President of the Board of Trade, believing it would be agreeable to the right hon. Gentleman to receive the pressure of the Committee in favour of these industrious, brave, and meritorious men.

DISMISSAL OF INDIAN SUDDER JUDGES.
MR. OTWAYrose to ask the President of the Board of Control, whether he was now in condition to inform the House as to the dismissal of two Judges of the Sadder Adawlut Court? A short time ago two Judges were suspended by the Bombay Government, it was generally understood, on charges brought against them by a member very high in the civil service in that Presidency. That gentleman, Mr. Luard, was himself suspended by the Bombay Government. Shortly afterwards one of the Judges was promoted to the office of Judge at Poonah—an office in nowise inferior to his former one. The other Judge was offered the office of Paymaster General, which he did not think proper to accept, and he returned to this country. Shortly after that, Mr. Luard was restored to his office. He now asked the President of the Board of Control, whether he was then in a condition to inform the House of the cause of the dismissal of two Judges of the Sadder Adawlut by the Bombay Government, and whether he had approved of that act; also, whether he approved of the suspension of Mr. Luard, and whether that suspension was in consequence of charges brought by that gentleman against those Judges; and further, whether the suspension of Mr. Luard had been withdrawn in consequence of orders from the Home Government?
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, that of
644
the Judges referred to, Mr. Legeyt, finding that he was indebted to one of the parties in a suit which was coming before him for adjudication, applied to his creditor, Mr. Sunkersett, to suggest somebody to whom the debt might be transferred, in order to avoid the imputation of being swayed in his decision by improper motives. The imputation made was, that the transaction was not real but fictitious; and, being called on to explain, he replied, that as regarded himself the transaction was bonâ fide; but whether, as between Sunkersett and the party to whom the debt was transferred, the tranfer of the debt was fictitious or not, he was not able to say. That was not such a denial as left him free from suspicion, and the Bombay Government thought it undesirable that a person in such a position should remain on the bench. In the case of Mr. Grant, it was stated that he was found to be pursuing a course of conduct which caused great scandal at Bombay. He (Sir C. Wood) did not mean to say that he entirely approved the conduct of the Government of Bombay. What he had to consider was, whether, in compliance with the desire of those two Judges, he should direct their restoration. After full consideration, but with great pain—for they were in other respects men of high character—he had come to a conclusion on the matter. He could not think it would raise the character of the Sudder Court if he directed the restoration of those two Judges. With respect to Mr. Luard, he had given great dissatisfaction in the performance of his duties of a collector of inland customs; and it was a question how far he ought to be continued in that office. He had also chosen to write a letter, in which he affirmed indirectly general charges of corruption against two other persons high in office at Bombay. There was nothing so indecent and improper as that persons in high office should bring general charges against other persons, unless those charges could be proved. The Bombay Government suspended Mr. Luard, referring the case home to this country; and Mr. Luard had been called upon to state whether he would put his charges in a distinct shape.

THE SITTINGS OF THE PARLIAMENT.
MR. DRUMMONDrequested attention to the inquiry which he had given notice of his intention to address to the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, whether an alteration might not take place

645
in the period to which the public account were made up, with a view to holding the Sessions of Parliament in winter, and no in summer; and whether some additional aid might not be given in the higher departments of the public service, in order to facilitate the performance of the public business in that House? In order to save the time of the House, he should rush a once in medias res, and state his conclusion before he gave any reasons. His object was twofold—first, to get Parliament to meet at a more convenient season; and in the second place, to shorten the duration of the Session. They were sitting all the year round, and it was, he believed generally admitted that if it were not for the shortness of the time for which money was voted, they would never be required to sit at all; and, but for that consideration no Minister and no Government in it senses would ever suffer Parliament to assemble. Parliament was obliged to meet simply because that House gave the Minister money only for a certain time. The time to which they entrusted the Government with money was but to next Easter Now, suppose they extended the time up to next Christmas twelvemonth; certainly they would not meet next February; and certainly they would meet six weeks or two months before that Christmas, namely in October. Suppose they changed the time at which the accounts were made up; it was evident Parliament would meet weeks or two months before the financial year ended. Could anybody tell why, when all of them individually, and every mercantile house in the world, made up their accounts at Christmas, and when many public accounts were also made up at Christmas, those public accounts to which his inquiry related were made up to Easter? There was, indeed, no uniform system of making up the public accounts, and he should refer to the opinion of the chief officer appointed to manage those matters, who had said to him that in former times the public accounts were made up for various periods, and often at the caprice of the accountant; that we were scarcely better off at the present day; that it was impossible to prepare a completely audited account of the whole receipt and expenditure of the kingdom, as in France; till one date had been fixed on for all accounts. The truth was, that in olden times the accounts were made up according to ecclesiastical, and not according to civil rule—the persons appointed to keep
646
the accounts being clerks, naturally made them up to the same period that the ecclesiastical accounts were made up. He should like to see the accounts made up to Christmas. Then Parliament would meet two months before—namely, on the 1st of November, and do what all other people did, live in towns in the cold weather, and in the country in hot weather; instead of which, like most irrational people, or like no other people, and not like themselves in past time, they spent the summer in London, and the winter in the country. There was another point to which he wished to call the attention of the House. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell), some two or three years ago, desired to appoint an extra Secretary of State, coupling with that measure the suppression of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. He (Mr. Drummond) objected to the suppression of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. The first reason for the suppression was, that of "the philosophers," who held that there was no great reason for state, and so forth; but questions of that kind ought to be determined more by the feelings of the people than by abstract doctrine. The noble Lord, however, stated at the time that the business of the country had so far increased that there was a demand for further aid to despatch it. A paper lately presented, with respect to letters in the different departments, afforded a tolerable criterion of the business done, showing an increase in the amount paid for postage for the public departments from 38,000 l. to 125,000 l. This showed that there were now at least four times as many letters to answer as there were in 1838; and it was in evidence before the Dockyard Committee, that there was hardly time to read the letters, and that the secretaries had to sign the answers as fast as they possibly could. There were departments where there was not time to enter the items seriatim, and they had to be numbered. The Government were themselves in fault, from the way in which they drew business on themselves. The reception of so many deputations must materially interfere with the business of Ministers of State. Then there was attendance on a vast number of Committees, besides all the ordinary business. A much greater number of accounts was called for by Parliament than formerly, and the number was increasing every year. It was impossible for any one who had not been in the position of the noble Lord the Member for the City of

647
London to say how a division of work was to be made. Moreover, an immense deal of time was taken up in that House in answering all sorts of odd questions. A Member read a paragraph in a newspaper, and asked a question on the subject—one about a dispute with a cabman, and another about the soldiers getting wet at the encampment at Chobham. There was a great loss of time in answering questions of that kind. He should not occupy the time of the House in replying to objections which might be taken to his proposal. In olden times it would have been said, "Oh, what will become of the fox-hunting!" but he did not believe there were many fox-hunters left in the House. In his opinion they ought to return to a commonsense view of the subject, and live in the country in pleasant weather, and in town in winter. The hon. Gentleman concluded by repeating the inquiry to which he called the attention of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London.

RUSSIA AND THE PORTE.
MR. LAYARD: Before the noble Lord answers the remarks made by the hon. Member for West Surrey, he will perhaps allow me to ask a question on a subject of great importance. It is now some days since the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston) requested me to postpone a Motion of which I had given notice, in consequence of negotiations being then in progress. It is understood that those negotiations consisted of a joint proposal from this country and France to the Government of Russia. I consented to the request of the noble Lord, and it will be in the recollection of the House that he promised to give me an early day for bringing the subject forward. I have since that time been given to understand that the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs (the Earl of Clarendon), it another place, has stated that he will be prepared in the course of a few days, whether these proposals have been accepted or not, to lay before Parliament all the papers connected with this subject. During the last fortnight events of very great importance have taken place in the East of Europe. I will venture to state that, in the whole history of the intercourse of nations, acts so unjustifiable, so outrageous, sc dangerous as those which have been committed within the last three months, have never before been committed in Europe, The Government of Russia has sent a
648
large body of troops into the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia; and not only have they taken military possession of those provinces, but they have assumed a great part of the civil administration of those provinces; and not only are they occupied in fortifying the principal towns, but even military stations on the Danube. Moreover, communications of a very insulting character have been addressed, not only to Turkey, but, I think this House will agree with me when I say, to this country also, and that those communications have been put forward in a manner totally unprecedented in diplomacy, and in a most offensive manner. A kind of crusade has been preached in Russia; and that event has been celebrated in the most public manner, not in Russia alone, because we learn that a crusade against a neighbouring Power, characterising it in the most offensive terms as "infidel," has been preached in the very provinces of that Power, and that the prince of one of those provinces has been required to attend a public ceremony to return thanks for this crusade against his own Sovereign and suzerain. What has been the consequence of these acts? The Power against which these proceedings have been taken, has been put to great expense. Not only have her resources been exhausted, but she has been obliged to call to her aid the very labourers from her fields, those on whom the population depend for subsistence. It is known from the best authorities that there is great danger of a general outbreak in Turkey, and that it may occur at any moment. I presume that the acts to which I have alluded, which outrage the public laws of Europe, which are calculated to put an end to all those treaties on which the system of Europe is founded, and by which its peace may be trampled under foot, merit the serious attention of the Government. I say advisedly that there is scarcely a weak State in Europe which does not contemplate with alarm the present course of events. That which has occurred to-day may happen again to-morrow; and, following the same course, any powerful State may, on the same terms, annex any neighbouring State weaker than itself. We are told, forsooth, that these outrageous acts are merely negotiations. I presume that Her Majesty's Government, although evincing a laudable desire to maintain the peace of Europe, and although ready to make every sacrifice for the preservation of that peace, have never-

649
theless made an unqualified and energetic protest against acts like these, and have taken means to prevent them being viewed as precedents in similar cases hereafter; and I think it would be but an act of justice to this country and to Europe at large, that these protests should be placed before the public, and that they may have the opportunity of judging whether they are adequate to the great importance of the subject, and are such as we as a nation ought to have made; and I must say that, if, unfortunately, such protests have not been made, those Members of this House who think as I do should have the opportunity of registering a solemn protest against a policy which would, in that case, be inconsistent with the dignity, the honour, and the interests of this country, and, moreover, I will venture to say, dangerous to the existence, not only of Turkey, but of every weak State on the continent of Europe. Every hour's delay at this time increases the opportunity of Russia. We know what has passed. We know how far we can rely on the assurance she has given us. We know how far we can rely on assurances which have been still more lately given, and which show us that Russia is not disinclined to take advantage of the propositions which have been submitted to her consideration. Let the House remember, that if these negotiations can only be prolonged for a few months, our fleets will be compelled either to violate a treaty, the violation of which Russia has declared would be a casus belli, or to return to their winter anchorage at Malta. We find that for several reasons Russia will not leave the principalities she has occupied. We are told by an organ that is not supposed to be altogether unconnected with the Russian Government, that Russia having made a nine months' contract for provisions will not leave the principalities, at all events, before the expiry of that period; and it has also been insinuated that she will not then quit the principalities until she has been paid the expenses of the invasion. Such a demand reminds me of the old eastern custom, where a great man, after compelling a village to furnish provisions, makes the inhabitants pay him a sum of money for the wear and tear of his teeth in chewing them. Under these circumstances, I think Her Majesty's Government ought to be prepared to lay on the table, in sufficient time before the close of the Session, those papers which may give the public an
650
opportunity of forming an accurate opinion on this question; and I must request the noble Lord to appoint a day—either this day week, or, if more convenient to him, Monday week, which will be a whole month from the time the subject was brought forward—or the discussion of this momentous question.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: Before I advert to the question put by the hon. Member for West Surrey, I will state what has been our course of proceeding with respect to that very interesting and important question to which the hon. Member for Aylesbury has invited the attention of the House. The House will recollect that at an early period, in answer to questions put to me on this subject, I stated that demands had been made by Prince Menschikoff upon the Government of Turkey, which in the opinion of that Government, and in the opinion of her allies, England and France—were inconsistent with the independence of Turkey. At a later period, I stated, in reply to another question, that Her Majesty's fleet had been ordered to leave Malta, and to proceed to Besika Bay, in the neighbourhood of the Straits of the Dardanelles. The hon. Gentleman speaks of negotiations. That proceeding hardly comes under the designation of a negotiation. It was intended as a proof, and is a proof, how much Her Majesty has at heart the independence and integrity of the Turkish dominions. But when the hon. Gentleman complains that papers have not been laid on the table, and that this House is not in a situation to express an opinion on the course of proceeding adopted by Her Majesty's Government, I must say that I think, of all preparations for war, the best is to exhaust every means to obtain peace—that it is not until all the means of negotiation have been tried and have failed, that any Ministers would be justified in placing at hazard that peace which has happily continued for so many years, and by which the prosperity, the wealth, the commerce, and the liberties of Europe have been so largely promoted. If this is the case, I think the House will agree at once that while these negotiations are carried on, they can be better carried on from Government to Government than by laying all the papers connected with such negotiations before a popular assembly, and exposing to popular debate the matters involved in them. In so saying I have no doubt I ask much from the indulgence of the House—I have asked much

651
from the confidence of the House. But I ask it on no party ground. I do not ask it of one party rather than the other; but I ask it in full reliance on the patriotism of this House, and on considerations which this House will always give to those persons who happen, at the moment, to be the Ministers of the Crown. I have only to add, that these negotiations, so far from having been brought to a close, have hardly had a commencement at St. Petersburg. Considering the distance—the necessity of applying at Constantinople to ascertain the opinions and the wishes of the Turkish Government—the communications that must necessarily take place between France and this country, and the distance, again, to be traversed in conveying communications to St. Petersburg—I think the House will not wonder that these negotiations are not in a state to be laid before the House. My noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs has declared elsewhere that as soon as his public duty will permit, he will lay all the necessary papers before Parliament. I know that there may be some disadvantage in not making known to the world the document that has been drawn up in protest or answer to papers which have been rather ostentatiously circulated throughout Europe. A despatch written by M. Drouyn de Lhuys has, however, appeared in print—a most able State paper, containing very convincing reasons, stating facts which undoubtedly weaken, if they do not altogether do away with, the assertions in the State paper to which it is an answer. Had it been the custom and usage in this country to give papers separately, the present Government would have been happy to produce at once the despatch of Lord Clarendon on the same subject, in which he has used a similar line of argument. But in conformity with the usage always adopted by Parliament, we think it right to reserve that paper until all the papers can be laid before Parliament. For my own part I entirely agree with what was stated at a time when I was absent from the House, by my noble Friend the Secretary for the Home Department. We are ready to rely upon the forbearance of this House, so long as forbearance can properly be given. If we were unhappily to find that these negotiations could not be terminated honourably and satisfactorily for peace, we should as confidently rely on the patriotism of this House, and its determination to support the honour and dignity of,' this country. I will only say further that the con-
652
duct of the Emperor of the French, and of his Government, has been entirely in accordance with that of Her Majesty, and of Her Majesty's Government, and that the two Powers are united to maintain the faith of treaties—to preserve, if possible, the peace of Europe—to preserve it with the honour of both countries unsullied—to preserve it with the view of maintaining the happiness of Europe and the peace of Europe.
MR. LAYARD: What, as to a day?
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I think after what I have stated, the hon. Gentleman cannot expect me to name any particular time. It is not my intention to enter into the question which has been raised by the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond), as to the propriety of our sitting in winter, and having our holiday in summer. For my own part, I am one of those who agree with him. But whenever the House has met in the autumn, as it did last year, I certainly think our sittings in summer have not been much shortened. I think it is possible that another year—I will not say next year—we may be able to finish our Session at the end of June or the beginning of July, and in that case we might, if necessary, make arrangements for an autumn Session.

AUSTRALIAN DIRECT STEAM NAVIGA- TION COMPANY.
LORD HOTHAMrose to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, of which he had given notice. The granting of charters, with limited liability, was a subject of great importance to large numbers of persons who had embarked their capital in steam navigation, and risked their fortunes in enterprises of various descriptions. The question had been frequently under the consideration of the House, and the subject, he believed, had occupied much of the attention of the President of the Board of Trade. He entertained a strong opinion against the propriety of granting these charters. He did not wish to make any complaint against the right hon. Gentleman for granting the charter to the Australian Direct Steam Navigation Company; but he wished to know if he had any objection to lay on the table of the House such information as would enable the public, and those interested in the question, to judge on what ground he had proceeded in granting that charter?
MR. CARDWELLwas glad to find, from the observations of the noble Lord,

653
that very great vigilance had been directed to the subject of granting charters of limited liability, and he had great satisfaction in giving the noble Lord an answer with respect to the grant of the charter in question. At an early period of the Session he stated, in answer to the hon. Member for North Lancashire, that an inquiry into the whole subject of limited liability would be instituted by the Government, and that in the meantime a guarded course would be pursued. He was quite ready to back that assurance by laying on the table any returns which he could produce on the subject. The charter was granted in conformity with precedent, and it could not have been refused without overruling the uniform system which had been acted upon in the case of the Royal Mail Company, the Pacific Steam Company, the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the Indian and Australian Mail Company, the General Screw Company, the South American Company, and several other companies. He trusted that before long the system would be placed on a better footing.
MR. CAIRNSsaid, that the subject of limited liability was one in which the trading interests of this country took a deep interest, and which required the exercise of the greatest vigilance on the part of the Government. He did not think that the precedents of the Board of Trade would be a sufficiently safe guide in the granting of charters with limited liability, as that body had granted charters to carry out the most trivial and useless objects.

NATIONAL EDUCATION—(IRELAND).
LORD STANLEYsaid, the question of which he had given notice relative to national education in Ireland, required one or two sentences to make it intelligible. It was well known that that system was a system of united secular instruction, together with separate religious instruction; but in order to supply a deficiency which was felt to exist in a system of that kind, a rule was framed, by which, in addition to that theological and that secular teaching, a joint instruction was given, partly of a moral and partly of a religious character, to all the children in the school. In order to guard against any possible abuse, it was provided that the works used for that joint instruction should be subject to the approbation of the Board, which was composed of some of the highest authorities, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. A further security was also provided against
654
any possible encroachment upon individual liberty of conscience, by the framing of a rule—the eighth—as to the construction of which some ambiguity existed, and which had been interpreted in different ways. It was understood by some persons that in the event of the parents of a child objecting to his receiving instruction from a particular book, that child should not be compelled to receive such instruction. By others it was construed to mean that if the parents of any single child objected to its being taught from a particular book, and objected to that book being used at the time of joint instruction, that book should, on the remonstrance of that one parent, be disused. Some decision had recently been arrived at, but of the exact nature of that decision no satisfactory information had been afforded, and statements the most contradictory had been made by persons professing to speak on the highest authority. He wished to ask whether the rule to which be had referred had been rescinded or affirmed; if affirmed, what interpretation had been put upon it; if rescinded, what regulation had been substituted for it? He also wished to know whether the statement was true, that in consequence of any step which had been taken by the Commissioners, Archbishop Whately had tendered his resignation at the Board?
SIR JOAN YOUNGsaid, the Commissioners had carefully considered the matter, and come to a decision upon it. He was not at present in a position to state the precise alteration which had been made in the rules by the Commissioners, and he confessed that, after reading the minutes as carefully as he could, and listening to parties upon either side, he was not surprised that different opinions should have been expressed in the other House on the subject, and that different conclusions should have been arrived at by noble Lords. The exact state of the case would be unintelligible without a long statement, and that statement he could not make until he had an opportunity of laying the decision of the Commissioners upon the table of the House. He, therefore, thought it would be better for the House to suspend its judgment until the papers were produced. With respect, however, to the nature of the education given under the National system in Ireland, there could be no doubt it was a separate religious and combined literary education. As the noble Lord had truly stated, it was intended that it should partake also of a moral and religious character, for he found it

655
stated in a letter published by Lord Stanley many years ago, that, in selecting books for the National schools, the principle upon which the Commissioners proceeded was, not only to choose such books as inculcated sound moral principles, but also to introduce into the schools books containing the most important parts of sacred history, the precepts of morality comprised in the Scriptures, and the examples by Which those precepts were illustrated and enforced. It appeared, however, that a great difficulty immediately arose, and that it was found quite impracticable to carry out the system proposed. At the same time there could be no doubt it was the wish of everybody acquainted with the subject of education, especially in Ireland, that, if at all practicable, a combined religious and moral education should be continued in that country. How far the recent alteration in the rules would effect that object, he could not at present undertake to say, and he hoped the House would suspend its judgment upon the subject until it had possession of the decision at which the Commissioners had arrived. It was quite clear, however, that neither the Commissioners nor any other extraneous authority could enforce compliance with a combined system of religious and moral education, where the parties chiefly interested harboured feelings of jealousy and dislike towards each other, and that the success of any system must mainly depend upon the exhibition of good temper, and the observance of mutual forbearance. With respect to the question as to whether Archbishop Whately had resigned or not, he regretted that, as the noble Lord had not stated specifically what his question was, he had not been able to make inquiries in the course of that day; but up to yesterday he certainly had not heard that the Archbishop had resigned, or had communicated to the Lord Lieutenant any intention to resign.
MR. NAPIERsaid, that the statements of the right hon. Baronet had embarrassed him even more than the debate in the other House. He understood that the noble Earl at the head of the Government had distinctly stated what was the ultimatum arrived at by the Commissioners. The statement of the noble Earl was to the effect that, whereas formerly the rule went to exclude the book and not to exempt the child, the alteration now made was to exempt the child and not exclude the book. The noble Earl had also stated, what he believed was correct, that the Board had expunged from
656
their list of school books two publications of the Archbishop of Dublin, which had previously been used with their sanction, and, indeed, by their express order, in the National schools. He held in his hand one of the books which had been so expunged—that entitled Scripture Lessons—and he had no hesitation in saying that a more admirable or a more useful book could not be submitted to the youth of Ireland. Yet the Board had struck it out of their list as unfit for either Protestants or Roman Catholics, though it had been published by themselves, and furnished to their schools for a number of years. If Parliament was to have any control over these Commissioners, and if such books were to be expunged as fit neither for Protestants nor Roman Catholics, he thought the House would be to blame if it did not take the matter up, and have a full discussion upon it at the earliest convenient moment.

THE PETERBOROUGH ELECTION.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he understood that in the course of the evening a Committee had been nominated, in pursuance of the Resolution adopted by the House last night, in the matter of the petition charging Earl Fitzwilliam with having interfered in various elections for Peterborough. It would be in the recollection of the House that, when he moved for the appointment of a Committee, he endeavoured to follow in all particulars, except in having reduced the number by two, the precedent of the Stamford case. He stated that his object in moving that the number of the Committee should be seven, was, that the General Committee of Selection might appoint five; that he should be chosen as another; and that some other Member of the House should be selected to watch the case for Earl Fitzwilliam. He understood that the House acceded to that view. He now found, however, that the General Committee had nominated seven members, and that he was not one of them, though there might, for anything he knew, be one of the friends of Earl Fitzwilliam upon the Committee. He was not aware that any of the Gentlemen who had been placed upon the Committee knew anything of the case; and if they did not, it would be necessary to have counsel, who were not the best parties to bring out the truth in such an inquiry, He should be very glad, personally, to be excused from serving upon the Committee; but having moved for its appointment upon the understanding that he should be chosen

657
one of its members, he did think that the course which had been taken by the General Committee of Selection was not that which the House intended, or which would best promote the ends of justice. He was not at the present moment certain what step to adopt with the view of reverting to the intention of the House; but he should consider, between that and Monday, what course he ought to pursue in the matter, and should then state his determination with regard to it.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL.
Order for Committee read. House in Committee.
Clause 32 (Subject to regulations all persons desirous of being admitted to Haileybury or Addiscombe, or appointed Assistant Surgeons to be admitted for examination).
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he would state to the Committee what course the Government now intended to pursue with regard to the appointments comprised in this clause. The original proposition of the Government had been that all the appointments to Haileybury should be thrown open to public competition. One hon. Gentleman had intimated his intention of moving as an Amendment to this proposal, that the system of appointments to Haileybury should remain by nomination as at present. Another hon. Gentleman, the Member for Montrose, had an Amendment on the paper, that only one-half the admissions to Haileybury should be open to public competition, the other moiety remaining the result of nomination as now. It was the intention of the Government on this point to adhere to its original proposition, and to throw all admissions to Haileybury open to public competition, the natives of India being admissible to that competition equally with Her Majesty's other subjects. With regard, however, to admissions to the military seminary at Addiscombe, the Government had seen reason to reconsider its original proposal. That proposal, as contained in Clause 33 of the Bill, was to render admissions to Addiscombe also matter of public competition, altogether abandoning the existing system of patronage in that particular. He had, however, since the Bill had been presented to the House, received many communications from Members of the Committee, Gentlemen who had thoroughly investigated the existing system, and who had intimate practical
658
knowledge of its working—all urging upon the Government the inexpediency of interfering with that system, and manifesting, from the evidence of all the military men who had been examined, that the result of the system had been to render the engineer and artillery services of the East India Company equal if not superior to the corresponding services of Her Majesty's army. It had been determined, therefore, to adopt the unanimous views of these competent judges of the matter, and to leave the system of admissions to Addiscombe as it now existed. He might add, in correction of a misapprehension which had gone abroad of his original statement of the measure, that the principle of public competition in admissions to Addiscombe had never been contemplated by the Government as applicable to other than the engineer and artillery services, that was to say, to the scientific departments of the East India army. With regard to appointments to assistant surgeonships in the East India Company's army, he intended to adhere to his original proposition, that these should be altogether open to public competition, the natives of India being equally admissible to candidateship with Her Majesty's other subjects.
MR. HUMEwas very glad to find the Government willing to avoid the mistake they had originally announced with regard to military appointments to the East India Company's service, and he was satisfied that the evidence before the Committee upstairs, and the opinions of the most competent authorities, would, were they equally accepted by the Government, equally induce them to reconsider their proposition with regard to admissions to Haileybury. He proposed to make the trial of throwing the admissions open to public competition by making that principle apply only to one-half, and if that trial should succeed it would be easy then for them to extend it to the whole. The manner in which the high offices in the civil service had been filled, and the general fitness of the civil servants appointed for their duties, was a proof of the success of the present system, and was a safeguard against any sudden change in the mode of conducting the business of the Government in India. He feared that to open the whole of the admissions to a public competition in the first instance, would be to run too great a risk. The trial was made in 1833, when the system of allowing each Director to nominate four

659
persons for each office, was introduced; but that plan was found objectionable in working, and it was altered afterwards by Act of Parliament. Mr. Tucker, who was a good authority on the subject, had given strong reasons against the adoption of the principle of general competition, and had shown that it was not those who were the brightest at college who were the most competent men of business in after life. He should move in line 5 to insert words confining the competition for admissions to Haileybury to one-half of the whole number.
Amendment proposed, in page 14, line 5, after the word "appoint," to insert the words "one-half the number of."
SIR HERBERT MADDOCKsaid, he could not agree with the Amendment of his hon. Friend who had just sat down, for he thought that it would lead to extraordinary confusion if they admitted one-half the students into a college who were nominated by their friends, and another half composed of persons who had gained that position by their individual attainments. He was of opinion that all these admissions should be open to public competition. If the plan was to be adopted of sending men to Haileybury who had passed a previous examination, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to limit the number so admitted; because, if not, it appeared to follow almost as a matter of necessity that, once admitted, they would be supported and sent out to India, so that on their first examination the future prospects of the young men would altogether depend. He imagined that it would be far better if the admission to this seminary, or to some other place of education suited to the purpose, were left entirely open to all who chose to enrol themselves as candidates, and who had passed a sufficiently satisfactory examination, but leaving their future appointment to competition before their departure to India. The Government of India was mainly carried on by 600 or 700 English gentlemen, who were sent out there for that purpose, and it was, of course peculiarly incumbent on the Legislature to take every precaution to render the administration of India as perfect as possible. Now, though there could be no doubt that the civil service had been highly distinguished, yet it must be evident that out of so many there must be some who ought never to have been admitted into it; and he thought, that, with the view of securing at all times the best ser-
660
vants, there should be a fair and open selection by competition. When once they should have thrown open the civil service to all the country, he could not conceive what necessity there would be for retaining Haileybury as a separate establishment. It was said that this clause would open Haileybury to all British subjects; and the right hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to anticipate that amongst those who would become competitors would be some of the Natives of India. He (Sir H. Maddock) rather doubted that, and he doubted whether it was desirable to encourage any plan which placed Natives and Europeans on precisely an equal footing in respect to the denomination of offices which they held. He felt himself bound to record his vote in favour of leaving the whole of these appointments open to competition.
MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, he differed from the hon. Gentleman in thinking that any difficulty would arise from admitting one set of persons by competition, and another by patronage. In his opinion the hon. Member for Montrose had taken a very reasonable course, and had made a most reasonable proposal. The object of this Bill was altogether experimental, and the Amendment was of a similar character. The hon. Member for Montrose said that instead of having only one mode of admission into Haileybury, they should have two, in order to see which succeeded best, and then adopt the one which was found to be most successful. This was a very grave and important question; they were about to interfere with the mode of admission into a service which had been found to be perhaps the best of which they had any experience, and therefore they should be very cautious as to how they altered it. The change now proposed evidently originated in the desire to carry out the great principle of competition, a principle excellent in itself, but not adapted to all circumstances. Some persons—as for instance the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), condemned those who were opposed to the principle of competition in this case, as though they favoured ignorance. He (Mr. V. Smith) did not think that that was a very just inference to draw; but he certainly was prepared to deny the assertion of the right hon. Gentleman, that academical distinction was the surest test of success in life. It was easy enough to quote particular instances; but, generally speaking, he did not think that academical distinction

661
was the best test of a man's future career, and particularly in that kind of success which was desired in the Indian service. If any person would look to the list of persons who had been with him at the University, instead of finding those who had been most successful there the most prominent in public life, he would find them, still scholars, indeed, and men of letters, but buried in remote parts of the country, and not the most prosperous in the struggle of life. Competition as regarded Haileybury College had been proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh in the last India Bill, and what was called the fourfold system had been the result, according to which every Director, instead of selecting one, was to nominate four persons, and to allow the successful candidate to be determined by competition. He did not know precisely why that plan was adopted, but he believed it was on account of the difficulty of finding persons who would enter into such competition, and the unwillingness of the Directors to make an invidious choice, which must result in disappointment to three of those nominated, to the injury of their subsequent chances of success in life. He (Mr. V. Smith) must say he believed that the fourfold system of competition was, on the whole, a better one than that now proposed. The President of the Board of Control said that his plan would at least do no harm; but it was, to say the least, doubtful whether it would not do harm by excluding persons who might be excellent public servants, but who would not submit to competition, for fear of incurring the stigma of rejection. There were many who had been most distinguished in after life who in youth were lively boys, averse to study and competition of this sort; and when they talked of great men who had distinguished themselves at a University, he could tell them of persons who had succeeded in the world without attaining distinction in those studies. Besides, the right hon. Gentleman had not told them what kind of competition he proposed to institute. It was quite possible that they might have a system from which a Charles Fox, when a boy, would have shrunk with disgust, and an Arthur Wellesley would have retired with defeat. But that was not the only view to take of this subject. He was perfectly ready to admit that there was a vulgar use of patronage, which was commonly called "jobbing," and which every one deprecated; but it must be remembered that there was also such a thing
662
as a noble use of patronage. Now the greatest enemies of the East India Company had not said that bad men had been introduced into the colleges; and, so far as his experience went., he must say that he had never seen a finer set of young men than he had at Addiscombe. They were now creating a Government for India, and he feared it must be owned that Her Majesty's Ministers were rather disposed to disparage the Government which they were about to establish. The First Lord of the Admiralty had certainly gone further than most of his colleagues, inasmuch as he had positively admitted the incapacity of the Court of Directors. But he (Mr. V. Smith) did hope that, if they really were to institute a fresh Government for India, they would not be so unwise as to strip it of every ornament, advantage, and privilege which the Directors had hitherto exercised, and which, he maintained, it was necessary for them to exercise. He begged the Committee to look at the effect of the present system of patronage on the Indian service. At present the servants of the Company always looked to the Directors for protection—as, in fact, the authors of their political being, and consequently were disposed to serve them with that fidelity which was expected from them. But it might be a very different thing if they owed their places to competition, and not to the governors whom they served. On all these grounds he was inclined to adopt the Amendment of the hon. Member for Montrose; and if he went to a division, he (Mr. V. Smith) should give him his support. The proposal of his hon. Friend was one of experiment on a Bill of experiment, and for that reason he should be glad to see it adopted.
LORD STANLEYsaid, he was not about to enter into the question of public education at Addiscombe; but the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, so far as they applied to the civil service, did appear to him to deserve as well as to require some answer. The right hon. Gentleman, in the first place, had contended that those who had taken academical honours, and had distinguished themselves in competition in early life, had not, in the majority of instances, become successful at a later period of life; and, on the other hand, that many of those who had not distinguished themselves in early life had attained great eminence afterwards. Now, be (Lord Stanley) ventured to differ from the right hon. Gentleman with respect to both the one and the

663
other of these points. As to the subsequent distinction obtained by those who had achieved academical honours, he must say that he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) was perfectly justified by the facts to which he had referred, as well as by the experience of both Universities in the mater. It was impossible, he thought, to look at the records of academical distinctions without seeing that, generally speaking, in the far greater number of instances persons had achieved honours at a later period of life very much in proportion to those they had obtained at an early period; and this was more and more the case in proportion as we came nearer to the present day—in proportion, he meant, as we came to deal with the educational system which was in operation at the present day, rather than with that which was in operation in former times. There was then a fair primâ facie ground for contending that this test of competition, as hitherto applied amongst them, had been so far successful as to justify them in trying it further. At the Universities, from the nature of those institutions, there was a tendency that not all of those who had been distinguished there should be afterwards engaged in the occupations of active life. The Universities themselves absorbed a very large number, and a great many occupied themselves in teaching, and were not, therefore, brought into competition in later life. That circumstance must be considered; but if amongst those who had distinguished themselves in the Universities, they should select those who had afterwards taken a part in active life, they would find that the proportion of those who distinguished themselves in the world was much greater than appeared at first sight. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. V. Smith) put the converse case, and asked them to consider how many distinguished men there had been in all professions who would fail in undergoing the test of early competition. His (Lord Stanley's) answer to that was, that so far as that was the case, he believed it was very much on account of the prevalence of the very ideas which the right hon. Gentleman was now supporting; that it was very much because, until within the last few years, until, indeed, the present generation, that a sufficient degree of importance had not been attached to the practice of public examination and competition in early life. The result was, perhaps, also due to another circumstance,
664
that until very recently the teaching in out Universities, however excellent for a particular purpose, was not such as to qualify men in the best manner for public life, These circumstances ought to be taken into consideration in discussing the question whether they ought to apply the test of competition. But there was one point upon which the President of the Board of Control had not given them sufficient or satisfactory information—he meant with respect to the period at which the competition was to be introduced. Now, every thing, in his opinion, turned upon that. He did not think that, on the whole, they could have a better or fairer test than that which was furnished by competition at the age at which academical degrees were usually granted—namely, at about 20 or 21 years of age; but it would be a different thing if the test were applied three or four years earlier, and if the competition was a competition between boys, and not between young men. He did not believe that the accidental distinction which one might obtain at the age of 17 or 18 was any great test of real ability, because, obviously, distinctions at that age depended more frequently on the effect of cramming and artificial training, than on the spontaneous efforts of the mind. He thought, then, that the principle of competition, as against the principle of nomination, was one which deserved the sanction of the House; but at the same time it was very important to see that the period of the competition was not fixed at too early a period of life. He confessed that he should not have been greatly dissatisfied if they had made examination the sole qualification for entrance into the civil service directly, without the interposition of a previous trial merely for matriculation on entering college. He believed that it would be an infinitely better plan if they were to say that such and such is the standard of qualification required for the civil service, and that those who had approached nearest to that standard, and those alone, should be admitted to the service. He believed that such a plan would in every respect be found to answer better than that of an examination at the entrance to college, which would necessarily take place at an early period of life. That was his principal objection to the scheme of the Government; but that did not affect the question at that moment before time Committee—namely, the question with regard to the principle of competition as against nomination; and, on that point, so far as it

665
applied to the civil service, he should certainly support the general principle of the clause.
MR. J. G. PHILLIMOREalso intended to support the clause as it stood, thinking it better that the admission should be by competition, than by the present plan of nomination. But at the same time he was not insensible to the evil of cramming to which the principle was exposed, and he admitted that this evil should not be lost sight of in considering the difference between the two principles. He certainly did not think that the panegyrics which had been uttered upon the present system of nomination could be justified, because it was apparent, from the clearest evidence, that the persons employed in the judicial department in India did not possess even an average amount of talent. The existing system of appointment had been condemned by Lord William Bentinck, who said—
"The bane of our system is not solely that the civil administration is entirely in the hands of foreigners, but that the holders of this monopoly, the patrons of these foreign agents, are those who exercise its directing power at home; that this directing power is exclusively paid by patronage, and that the value of this patronage depends exactly upon the degree in which all the honours and emoluments of the State are engrossed by their clients, to the exclusion of the natives. There exists, in consequence, on the part of the home authorities, an interest in the administration precisely similar to what formerly prevailed as to commerce, and directly opposed to the welfare of India."
It was because he (Mr. Phillimore) believed that the present system was directly opposed to the welfare of India, that he would give his vote in favour of the clause.
MR. ELLIOTobserved, that some of the most eminent officers in the Queen's service, who had held commands in India, including Lord Hardinge and Sir Charles Napier, had borne testimony to the admirable education afforded at Addiscombe, and had spoken in the highest terms of the efficiency of the artillery and engineer officers in the Company's service. He must say, with regard to the civil service, that he could not concur in the desire entertained in many quarters that it should be thrown open to competition. He believed that the mode in which the civil servants of the Company had hitherto been appointed, had tended very materially to promote the efficiency of the service. He had no doubt that, if persons were selected merely for their academical attainments,
666
they might get men more of one stamp than those who were appointed at present; but they required men of varied character for the Indian service, and some of those who were by no means remarkable at college for their learning had become celebrated for the energy and spirit which they had afterwards displayed. The Court of Directors had been blamed, not only for their selection of civil servants, but also for having promoted officers in that department who had been involved in some dilemmas; but he begged to inform the Committee, that when civil servants of the Company reached India, the Directors had no power with regard to their promotion. That promotion rested entirely with the Governors of the Presidencies to which they were appointed, or, if they were sent to Bengal, with the Governor General. He need scarcely remind the Committee that Sir Charles Metcalfe, who had been employed in the Indian service, was afterwards selected by Her Majesty's Government to fill the office of Governor of Jamaica when the affairs of that colony were in a critical state, and was eventually appointed Governor General of Canada; that Sir George Anderson had been Governor of the Mauritius, and was at present Governor of Ceylon; and that Sir George Clerk, an experienced servant of the Company, had been selected as Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. He believed that two out of the three Gentlemen he had named would not have obtained appointments in the civil service, if they had been subjected to the competition which it was now proposed to establish. He was sure Sir George Clerk would not be offended at his saying that he (Sir G. Clerk) was as little inclined to study, as a young man, as he (Mr. Elliot) was himself; but that Gentleman had, notwithstanding, attained the highest honours. Sir Charles Metcalfe, although not an excellent scholar, was, as a young man, a jolly, jovial, happy fellow; but he got employment in the East India Company's service, and the Committee knew what was the result; he (Mr. Elliot) doubted, however, whether, if the proposed system of competition had been in existence when Sir Charles Metcalfe was a young man, he would have passed the examination. It had been alleged that the Court of Directors had not dispensed a sufficient amount of their patronage among those who had served them in India; but he must say he thought they had always behaved with great fairness to that class.

667
If, however, the proposal of the Government should be adopted, he conceived that the Indian servants of the Company would be placed in a most disadvantageous position. It would, for instance, be impossible for the widow of any of the Company's officers, depending merely upon her pension, to give to two or three sons, until they attained the age of eighteen or nineteen, the education which would qualify them to become competitors for the chance of entering the Company's service. It was of advantage to the Indian service that a connexion between those who had retired from the service, and those who had just entered, should be kept up, for the sons of retired officers were received with respect and affection by those of the Natives who had known their father. He hoped means would be adopted for affording to the sons of civil and military servants of the Company a chance, at least, of obtaining some of the appointments in their gift.
MR. NEWDEGATEconsidered that the point raised by the hon. Gentleman deserved the consideration of the Committee. They were called upon to effect an important change, and to open what had been termed a close service; some hon. Gentlemen were so carried away by the theory of competition, that they forgot there were other qualifications required for the Indian service than those which could be tested by examination as to learning. It was necesary to insure, on the part of the servants of the Company, the very highest qualities—honour, honesty, and attachment to the Government whose interests they were required to maintain. Under the system which it was now proposed to establish, it would, however, be impossible that anything could be known of the connexions, the early education, the dispositions, or inclinations, of the persons who came forward as competitors for appointments. All that would be known would be, that they possessed a certain amount of literary acquirements. The House of Lords was not a useless body, but it was not appointed by competition. They were hereditary; and how were they fitted for their exalted position save by the education they received from childhood—an education in principles, not literary acquirements, with which a man might be crammed. The real test of an Indian servant was the way in which he applied himself to, and performed, his duties; and that test the covenanted service of India had for years most
668
honourably borne. He considered, also, that the adoption of this clause would deprive the East India Company of the opportunity of rewarding, in the most satisfactory manner, the faithful and honest services of those whom they employed in India, by enabling children to follow the same honourable course of life which had been pursued by their parents.
MR. J. D. FITZGERALDobserved, that when he became a Member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, he entertained some considerable prejudice against the Company and their servants; but his experience on the Committee had proved that that prejudice was, to a great extent, unfounded. He believed, however, that in adopting the principle of competition, in lieu of nomination, they secured an important test, if not the best test, of merit. The result of his experience, however, had been to show him, that, from whatever cause, the nominations had all flown in one channel; for whilst the Hibernian Celt was unknown in India, the Caledonian Celt was quite familiar. The hon. Member for Honiton (Sir J. W. Hogg) had stated last night that the claims of the Irish Bar with regard to Indian appointments had not been neglected, and he mentioned the names of Sir Francis M'Naghten, Sir J. Franks, and Mr. Strettel, as persons holding judicial appointments in India. He (Mr. Fitzgerald) had made some inquiries on the subject, and had ascertained that Sir F. M'Naghten was appointed in 1815; that Sir J. Franks had been appointed 28 years ago, and that Mr. Strettel never had held a judicial appointment.
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYfeared that competition would have the effect of excluding the sons and relatives of distinguished servants of the Company from the appointments which their friends had deserved. Not that he objected to competition, but he felt it was monstrous to discuss it without some scheme before them, to show how it was intended to work. He thought they were making a fearful experiment without adequate information to support them.
Question put, "That these words be there inserted."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 39; Noes 93: Majority 54.
MR. BLACKETThoped the President of the Board of Control would postpone the consideration of that portion of the clause which referred to the Addiscombe patronage, because it was contrary to the

669
understanding on which many Members had voted for the second reading. When the right hon. Gentleman announced his intention of restoring it to the Directors, there were but few Members present in the House.
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, it was not his fault that hon. Gentlemen did not attend in their places. He had declared his opinion, with respect to a particular course, during the ordinary routine of business, and he could not be held responsible for the number of persons present at the time.
MR. OTWAYsaw no reason why, in the course of time, the Natives should not be admitted into the military service, as they ought to be admitted at once into the civil service. He thought they might at once make them collectors—three or four to the district which was now done by one Englishman; and the consequence of that would be an improvement every way. He expressed his thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for the course he had taken as to admission to Addiscombe.
SIR HERBERT MADDOCKconsidered that some hon. Gentlemen had made a mistake with regard to the admission to Addiscombe, for the youths went there to the higher branches of education, in consequence of their success in public competition. It was proposed to continue upon the present footing all the rest of the cadets sent to India; for it appeared to him when the number of Directors would be reduced from 24 to 18, that absolutely and in reality there would be a greater amount of individual patronage than there was when the civil appointments were direct. It appeared to him that the Commander in Chief would be a good person to have a portion of the patronage, and that the Court of Directors in their corporate capacity, might be entrusted with a considerable amount of it.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, that as the right hon. Gentleman was departing from the arrangements which he had made to the house in his opening speech, by restoring to the Directors a portion of the patronage which he had originally proposed to take away from them, perhaps he would inform him whether he intended to add to the salaries of the Directors. The Bill did not fix the amount, and it appeared to him that it ought to be fixed. He should be glad to hear what the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman were on this point.
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he pro-
670
posed to bring in a clause to fix the rate of the salaries.
MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that the hon. Member was out of order. The proper time to ask the question respecting salaries would be when the clause relating to them should be before the Committee.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, that the proposition of the clause before the Committee was to restore the patronage of the Directors. The right hon. Gentleman had himself connected the question of patronage and salaries. Although he deferred to the Chairman (Mr. Bouverie), and would sit down, if wrong, yet he thought he was in order, and entitled to put the question.
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, the hon. Gentleman asked him a question, whether he intended to introduce a clause to fix the salaries of the Directors, and the answer he gave him was that it was his intention to bring in such a clause.
MR. BRIGHT: But as to the amount of the salary, the right hon. Gentleman said nothing.
SIR CHARLES WOOD: The hon. Member should confine himself to regular proceedings. When the question of disposing of the clause respecting salaries should be before the Committee, he would state what he intended doing.
MR. J. G. PHILLIMOREsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had taken credit for doing away with a large portion of the patronage of the Court of Directors, which he was now about to restore by this clause. He certainly had not supposed that the right hon. Gentleman would, without notice, have abandoned a part of his Bill. If it had been generally known, many hon. Members who had staid away from the House would have come down and voted upon the questions before the Committee.
MR. OTWAYsaid, that the question of salary and patronage had been so repeatedly discussed that it was no wonder that hon. Members should feel desirous of being informed upon the first point. The effect of the right hon. Gentleman's alteration would be to give to the Directors from 1,000 l. to 2,000 l. a year more in value to each Director. The additional appointments would amount to that. In reference to the remarks of the hon. Member for Manchester, he considered that the right hon. Gentleman ought to state to the Committee the additional salaries which he intended providing for the Directors, and which would come out of the pockets of the people of India.
MR. BLACKETTwished to ask whether the alteration proposed to be made in this clause in any degree affected the conclusion to which the right hon. Gentleman had arrived in his speech upon the first reading of the Bill, when he said he thought it only fair to increase the salaries of the Directors when he proposed to diminish their patronage?
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he had never connected the patronage with the salaries, and had all along repudiated the idea that the Directors received any personal benefit from the patronage. When on this subject he would take the opportunity of making a statement which he had been requested to make to the House. The hon. Member for Manchester had last night made a very strong statement to the House affecting the character and reputation of the Court of Directors. He had that day seen the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Court of Directors, and they requested him to make an announcement to the House to the following effect: They regretted exceedingly that charges of a general nature should be made in such a manner as was done last night by a Member of that House; that statements of that kind should have been made by an hon. Member in his place without at the same time imparting his authority. With regard to the charge so made, they felt that it was so general as to make it impossible for them to answer it except by expressing their disbelief that any member of their body had acted in any way whatever so as to warrant such a charge; but they stated that as on a former occasion, when charges such as these were brought forward, they appointed a committee to investigate those charges, and at the same time prosecuted to conviction certain persons who had been guilty of tampering with the sacred duties of the Directors, and succeeding in bringing them to merited punishment—so they were prepared to pursue on this occasion a similar course. They were anxious that this statement should be made in the face of the House and the country; and it was their earnest wish to have every accusation that could be brought against them investigated in the most searching manner. They called upon the hon. Member for Manchester—who must be anxious to see the Court of Directors, a body exercising important and responsible functions, able to refute these charges—they called upon him to produce the evidence on which he rested his charges, and they pledged them-
672
selves that they would spare neither time nor money, nor effort, to prosecute to a conviction any person who had been dealing in such a way as the hon. Member had represented with any appointment in the gift of the Directors; and at any rate if the evidence was insufficient to allow a conviction, to hold him up to the infamy which he so richly deserved.
MR. BRIGHT: I want the House to understand exactly what it was I said; and after that I shall leave the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Wilkinson) who is the authority for what I stated to the House, to confirm my statement. What I stated was this—that an hon. Member of the House told me that a near relation of his own had had offered to him by a person—a gentleman—so he was represented to me—an office or appointment in India; and that in the course of the conversation relating to it, intimations were held out as to what would be expected in such a case. The gentleman to whom the appointment was offered afterwards ascertained that it would be necessary for him to make a declaration or oath that he had not given, nor expected to be called upon to give, any compensation or payment for this appointment. When he ascertained that, he found that with his views upon the quession it was impossible for him to accede to the intimations that were held out to him, and at the same time conscientiously make the declaration required of him; the consequence was that he did not get the appointment, and I presume, if the appointment were given at all by this gentleman, he found some other person who was not so scrupulous as the gentleman to whom I have referred. That is the statement I made to the House—of course I do not again enter into the details of it; and I may now add that my hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth stated it to me in the course of conversation. Perhaps it was not desirable that, without consulting him, I should have stated it to the House. I can only say that I did not intend to state it before I rose to speak; but believing that similar cases on the part of the Directors were notorious, I did not conceive it would have roused such a feeling as it did last night. I said then that my authority was an hon. Member of this House. I did not state that he was then in the House, though I knew he was, because I was not aware that he was at liberty to give the name of the party. I did not wish to excite hon. Members of this House

673
to call upon him to rise and confirm it. But since last night the hon. Member has put himself in a somewhat different position, and therefore I have nothing further to say, but leave him to give an explanation.
MR. WILKINSON: I hope the House will believe that I was anxious last night, when I heard the hon. Member for Manchester so severely attacked, and knew that I was his informant, to rise and corroborate his statement. The reasons why I did not do so were twofold: first, my statement to the hon. Member was made in private conversation, and was made in illustration of the manner in which, according to common apprehension, the great patronage of the Company was administered. That may be altogether unjust, and I am bound to believe hon. Gentlemen who say that it is so; but I say that there is a strong impression existing in the public mind to that effect, and having mentioned it merely as such, I must say it took me somewhat by surprise when the hon. Member stated publicly what I had told him in private conversation. That was one reason. The other was, that as I was not then at liberty to give my authority for the statement, I thought it would not be productive of any advantage if I did rise, and I therefore remained silent. I have now to state that the person to whom this transaction occurred is my own brother; and that it occurred about last October twelvemonth, though I cannot be altogether sure with regard to the month. I have had a communication with my brother this morning, but he does not feel himself at liberty—having given his word of honour—to divulge the name of the party. The House must, therefore, take the facts on my own statement. The circumstances occurred substantially as the hon. Member for Manchester related them. My brother was desirous to send his son to India, and he made no secret of his desire. Soon after a gentleman came to him whom he had known many years, and said that he could get an appointment for him. My brother said he was much obliged to him; but a long time passed, and the appointment did not come. At last the gentleman came, and hinted something very much to the effect of what the hon. Member for Manchester mentioned to the House last night. My brother, who was not at all acquainted with the forms of the East India House, had no idea that there was any impropriety in what was suggested by this gentleman,
674
and never supposed that there was any illegality in an East India Director selling a piece of patronage of this sort. I mention this, because the hon. Baronet the Member for Honiton said last night, that the party who offered money was as base as the party who accepted it. I beg to say that my brother has as nice a sense of honour as the hon. Baronet himself. But when the gentleman proposed to my brother that he should give something for the office, I must say he was rather pleased than Otherwise, because he would be glad to give 300 l. or 400 l., in order to escape being under obligations to any one, by buying the appointment in the same way as a commission is bought in the Army. So matters remained, till a friend went to the India House, and showed my brother a copy of the documents that he would be required to sign on getting the appointment; and when he saw these declarations he certainly was startled. He went to the gentleman and explained to him that it was impossible he could sign this declaration when he knew that he had given a consideration for the appointment. The gentleman's answer was, "Oh, you do not understand these things, they are matters of mere form; I shall give you the appointment, and you will give something to a friend of mine, who is in indigent circumstances—that is all." My brother, however, could not swallow a piece of casuistry like this, and the affair came to an end. At the same time my brother pledged his word of honour that he would not divulge the name of this gentleman; and therefore he cannot give it up. I must say, however, that the gentleman in question is not one of the parties to whom the hon. Baronet the Member for Honiton alluded last night, as carrying on a traffic in these appointments without being able to sell them, because he holds such a position in the City of London that there could be no doubt whatever that if he had taken a consideration from my brother, he must have given what he had contracted to give. It may be possible that a Director had given the gentleman this piece of patronage, which he proposed to sell without the Director's knowledge; but that he did offer to sell it is certain.
VISCOUNT JOCELYN: Sir, this is one of the most painful things that has ever taken place in this House. That one Gentleman should have mentioned in public what he heard in private conversation affecting the character of a body of gentlemen entrusted with great power and patronage,

675
and who are sworn on their oaths not to use that power in an improper way—that such a thing should have taken place without further explanation, must leave a stigma on the whole of the members of the body to whom it applies. I think before the hon. Member (Mr. Bright) mentioned it, he ought to have ascertained who it was, and should have been prepared to give his name. If I were a Director I would call upon the House, end the honour of the House, to desire that the name should be divulged. Remember what it is we are doing. We are about entrusting body with the same great powers they have hitherto enjoyed, and without any additional checks. Is it right that these gentlemen, to whom we are entrusting these powers, should be left under the stigma of having made a corrupt use of their patronage, and that too in breach of their oaths? I think this is a question of honour that affects us all; and I call upon the hon. Gentleman, before another day passes, to come down to the House and let us know who is the guilty party. I think that the East India Directors have a right to claim that the name should be mentioned, and that the party should be placed on his trial. This I must say, that we have had before us, in the Committee upstairs, evidence on the question of patronage; and there is not, so far as I can remember, a single fact alleged affecting the honour and integrity of these gentlemen in the disposal of their patronage. Do not, then, let us send forth to the world this statement against the Directors on the authority of a single Gentleman, and be afraid to state the name of the guilty party.
SIR ROBERT H. INGLIS: Sir, I heard yesterday the statement of the hon. Member for Manchester with great pain, but I am bound to assert that he did not refer to any Director as the guilty party. That he left such an impression on the House is but too clear; but it might, on the other hand, be equally true that the whole negotiations took place not only without the guilty knowledge, but even without the suspicion, of any member of the Court of Directors. I honestly believe that that was the fact. I believe that not one member of the Court, so long and so ably represented by the hon. Member for Honiton, is at this moment open to the suspicion of being a party to such conduct; and if it can be made out that the hon. Member for Manchester charged—as I believe he did—no one individual Director with the cognisance of it, then I think the time of the House
676
may be better occupied in the discussion of the Bill before us, than in pursuing further this painful subject.
LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, he could not but regret that the hon. Member for Manchester should, with such information, have made a charge such as that which he had made last night against the Court of Directors. He ought to have considered that they were now about again to place in the hands of these Directors the government of a great empire, and that therefore they ought to be persons of high character, and that there ought not to rest upon them the least suspicion of being accustomed to dispose of their patronage on any but public considerations. It was of the utmost importance, on the other hand—though the hon. Member seemed to think light of it—that it should not go out to India that these Directors were persons of any one of whom it could be said that he had disposed of his patronage in any such improper manner; and it was evident that the character of the Directors would be seriously affected by such charges as these. The transaction, however, to which the hon. Member had referred was between two persons, neither of whom were Directors, and neither of whom, so far as it had appeared to the House throughout, had any authority from, or any connexion with, any one of that body. He really thought that the hon. Member for Manchester ought more seriously to consider matters of this kind before he brought them forward as charges against the Company. If it were possible, it was the bounden duty of the Directors, having got the cue, to inquire whether any person had made such an offer in the name of any one of the Directors. Such an inquiry might utterly fail; but he would say, for his own part, that notwithstanding this charge had been hazarded, he thought the character of the Court of Directors—apart from the question whether or not they ought to be entrusted with the Government of India—would stand as high as ever in the estimation of the public, as men fulfilling the duties of their position with a full sense of its honour and dignity.
SIR JAMES W. HOGGwished to point out that it was not only the Directors of the East India Company who were punishable for the sale, of patronage, but any third party who was guilty of a transaction so dishonourable could also be indicted and punished for it. He mentioned this because cases had occurred in which persons had pretended that they had the sale

677
of patronage, and that they could give appointments, who in reality had no appointments to give, and who get money for which they could give no consideration. The question then arose, if there were so many dupes, how could things go on? but that was readily explained by the fact that the person offering the money was as liable to be indicted and punished as he who received it. Those men, therefore, who, one after another, had been duped, and who had given 500 l., 1,000 l., and even 1,200 l. for appointments, and not one of whom had got anything in return, did not make the matter public, because they, having given money, were just as liable to be indicted and punished as those who received it. This trafficker in appointments, who had made such an offer to the brother of the hon. Member for Lambeth, was just as base, just as dishonourable, and just as liable to punishment, as if he had been the Director himself who had the appointment to give. It was obvious that, whatever might be that person's position in the City, in life, or in society, that "base" was not a harsh or uncalled-for expression to apply to his conduct., because, though the brother of the hon. Member—an honourable man—shrunk from being a party to such a transaction, the person who made him the offer evidently knew that it was dishonourable, since he had the audacity to propose to him the only way in which the law could be evaded. Whatever his position in life might be, he had boon guilty of a base, dishonourable action—doubly so, because it tended to implicate a body of honourable men. If it were consistent with the feelings of the hon. Gentleman—and he hoped it would be so—to give up the name of the gentleman to the Chairman of the Court of Directors, they had the means of tracing the matter, because a registry was kept of every appointment made, of the person to whom it was given, and at whose request. They could trace the matter to the bottom, and they could either show that there was some Director who had participation in this transaction—and, if so, they were prepared to indict and punish him—or they could show that this individual had been so dishonourable and base as to attempt to sell an appointment, but that he was more—that he was a swindler who had attempted to sell that which he did not possess. He hoped, for the sake of public morality—for the sake of public justice—
678
the hon. Member would endeavour to press upon his brother the necessity of bringing to justice this culprit, whom he had the misfortune to know, and with whom he had had the misfortune to have had communication.
MR. BLACKETTsaid, he thought the hon. Member for Honiton had indulged its much undeserved censure of the hon. Member for Manchester. Surely it could not be said that when his hon. Friend was placed in possession of information relative to a great public scandal, it was his business to be silent. He gave the House all the information in his power; and he thought the hon. Gentleman showed remarkable courage in refusing to retract an assertion which he believed to be perfectly correct; and also that he showed a just sense of honour in refusing to betray the confidence which the hon. Member for Lambeth had reposed in him.
MR. MANGLESquite agreed that the hon. Member for Manchester had shown considerable courage. In charging a gentleman in the City of London, not connected with the Direction, the object of the hon. Gentleman was to throw doubt and distrust on the Court of Directors. The hon. Gentleman had shown the animus throughout in justifying the proceeding, in saying that the practice was notorious. It was at least equally notorious that the Court of Directors had spared no pains to bring the parties who had been guilty of such practices to justice—that they had not even spared members of their own body, but had prosecuted every one whom the law could be made to reach; and if the hon. Member for Lambeth would, as he was bound to do, bring forward this charge, he would pledge the Court of Directors that they would prosecute to the utmost the guilty party.
MR. WILKINSON: I wish to state, in reply to the observations of the hon. Member for Guildford, that I did not say that the party in question was in communication with a Director, but that he professed himself to be in communication with a Director, or other person who could secure the appointment. I trust the Committee will bear in mind that it was not. I who made the public charge; and I may say that. I should not have made a public charge of this sort unless I had been at liberty to give up the names of the parties concerned. Whether my brother will consider himself justified, under all the cir-

679
cumstances, in disclosing the name, I cannot toll, but. I do not think it fair to call upon me to do so.
MR. J. G. PHILLIMOREreminded the Committee that the hon. Member for Manchester most carefully guarded himself against breathing any imputation against any Director; but, on the contrary, he repeatedly said that it was perfectly possible that the Director in question knew nothing about it.
MR. MASTERMANconsidered every individual who had risen to defend the hon. Member for Manchester only made the case worse. Any one who had listened to that hon. Member must be aware of the stigma he cast on the Directors; he made charges, and then had not the courage to state where or who was the delinquent. He would not trust himself to use the expression of indignation which rose to his lips. He considered it highly reprehensible, first to bring a charge of this nature against a body of honourable men, holding high position, and of unblemished character, and then to shrink from substantiating it. For himself, he was a Director; he had always held a fair character in the world, and he repelled the imputation. He looked at the indiscretion which the hon. Member had been guilty of, and he asked where was the man, after this, who would trust himself to hold a private conversation with the hon. Member for Manchester? Then, there was the hon. Member for Lambeth, who had just reason to complain, as having been made the means of libelling the honour of the Court of Directors; but he thought the hon. Member was bound, as a man of honour, to endeavour to get rid of the obligation which now kept him silent, and to afford to the Court of Directors an opportunity of tracing this disgraceful charge to its source. He had beard many circumstances stated abroad of the same sort, and he could only say he had always followed up the slanders whenever he had an opportunity. The hon. Member for Manchester resolved in his mind to throw out charges against the Court of Directors, and the first opportunity that presented itself out came this story. He was astonished that a man of so much ability should descend to throw out reflections against a body of men whose honour he held to be unassailable.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he trusted when the hon. Member for Surrey made another speech, charging that House with being a
680
mass of corruption, that at least the House would not laugh and cheer his statement after what had taken place to-night. Last night they were discussing a question of salary, whether it should be more or less, what was the inducement for men to take the office of East India Director. Questions of that nature and the sale of patronage had been spoken of constantly in that House. Now no one ever said that the Archbishop of Canterbury had patronage worth 20,000 l. a year, and that the Prime Minister had patronage worth 15,000 l. a year; but the invariable and constant phrase was that the patronage of an East India Director was worth 12,000 l. or 14,000 l. a year. He made a statement to the House—whether it was judicious or not, of course, every one would form his own opinion—but he should like to see the Member who had never done an injudicious act—he made a statement, and if no one believed it last night, they had all reason to believe it now. There was not an individual in that House who did not now believe that somebody who represented himself to be connected with a Director had offered to the brother of the hon. Member for Lambeth, to procure an appointment in India for a consideration. He did not charge the Directors with it; and the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford was quite right in saying that he guarded himself from anything of the kind his object was to show that there was truth in the phrase, that this patronage was worth something, and that by one mode or other it had passed from hand to hand in the market, and was made something valuable of. He did not for a moment suppose that the Directors of the East India Company generally, or commonly, made a traffic of their patronage;—but that the East India appointments were bought and sold, was, he believed, as undeniable as that the East India Company existed. He gave one case. It was not a case against the hon. Member for London, or the hon. Member for Honiton—
SIR J. W. HOGG: Against whom then?
MR. BRIGHTwas not saying it was a case against the hon. Baronet; he was saying it was a case where this patronage had been offered for a consideration, and that was the statement he made to the House, and that statement was confirmed by another Member of that House.
MR. MASTERMANrose to order.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he was in order. He was merely stating a fact. There was not a man in the world whom he would not sooner suspect than the hon. Member for the City of London, who was so goodnatured that he could not look vexed even when he got up to lecture him. But what he objected to was that he should be lectured by the hon. Member for Honiton, and two or three others, as if he had brought a charge against the hon. Member for Honiton or his co-Directors. If he had had a charge against them, he would have made it openly and directly; but his object was to show that these things were trafficked, and that he had shown; and he would go further and say that the mode in which the Government permitted this patronage to be distributed by twenty-four Directors, who were not directly responsible to any body, that that was a mode of distributing the patronage which actually encouraged the very practices which he believed the Government and the House would be anxious to prevent. In the course that he had taken with regard to the East India Company, he had endeavoured to fortify himself by authority that could not be disputed. He did not regret, so far as the Company was concerned, that he had mentioned the case of this person in the City, whoever he might be; but he had to apologise to his hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth that he did not ask his permission to repeat the story; but he confessed he had not thought of stating it until he was on his legs, and this question of patronage and the salary of the Directors was under discussion. He made the statement—he believed it to be true, and he believed it to be confirmed by the general impression out of doors. He defied any person in or out of the House to say, that he had sacrificed the public interest in any way by the statement that he had made on this question.
MR. OTWAYthen, referring to the clause, complained that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Wood) had acted disingenuously in having induced a number of Members to vote for the clause giving the salary, under the idea that the Directors would be deprived of the patronage, and then turning round and giving them the patronage.
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, the argument of the hon. Member would be good against any alteration being made in a Bill.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 33 (Enacting that, subject to
682
regulations, all persons desirous of being admitted to Haileybury or Addiscombe, or appointed assistant-surgeons, should be admitted for examination as candidates, the words relating to Addiscombe were expunged).
MR. RICHsaid, he had to propose an Amendment for the purpose of raising the question, whether or not the Natives were to be admitted to the Company's covenanted service: as regarded employment in the public service, the Natives were placed in a worse position by the present Bill than they were before. The intention of the Act of 1833 was to open the services to the Natives; and surely now, when our Indian Empire was more secure than it was at that time, it was not wise to deviate from such a line of policy. His object was, that all offices in India should be effectively open to Natives, and therefore he would not require them to come over to this country for examination, as such a condition would necessarily entail on Natives of India great expense, expose them to the risk of losing caste, and thereby operate as a bar against their obtaining the advantages held out to all other of Her Majesty's subjects. The course of education, through which the youth of India at present went at the established colleges in that country, afforded the most satisfactory proof of their efficiency for discharging the duties of office; yet, what was the reward of their ability? They were placed in the lowest places, if they even got them, and, after a service of ten or twenty years, they might have walked their hard course up to an appointment which a young civilian from England thought himself aggrieved if he were not promoted from after two or three years' residence in India. This was not just or wise, and would infallibly lead to a most dangerous agitation, by which, in a few years, that which would now be accepted as a boon would be wrested from the Legislature as a right. They had opened the commerce of India in spite of the croakers of the day—let them now open the posts of Government to the Natives, and they would have a more happy and contented people. He did not ask them to make the Natives councillors at once, but to establish some college where the Indians in India might have the same access to the public service as Englishmen had in England. When they considered the expense of coming over here, the rigours of our climate, and the risk of losing caste, it seemed harsh indeed to

683
make a Native come to England as the only way to get into the covenanted service; and besides, it would be many years before an Indian could get any high office, He would not urge this so strongly, if he was not supported by the opinion of the Government of 1830, of the House, and of the framers of this very clause, which, however, could not be carried into effect. He hoped the right hon. Baronet would accede to his proposition, and devise one of his own to carry out the same object. He would move, that after the word "Haileybury" there should be inserted the following words, "or such established college, seminaries, or universities, as shall be appointed for similar purposes in Her Majesty's territories in India."
Amendment negatived; Clause agreed to.
Clause 34 (Empowering the Board of Control to make regulations concerning the admissions, examinations, and appoint meats, at Haileybury and Addiscombe).
SIR JAMES W. HOGGsuggested that as the existing state of things would be altered by this Bill, the nominations to Haileybury should be made by the Court of Directors, subject to the control of the, Board of Commissioners.
SIR CHARLES WOODthought it would be better to leave the arrangement as they stood in the clause, and to give the power to the Commissioners.
MR. HUMEexpressed a hope that the regulations would be laid before parliament as soon as possible.
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYexpressed his concurrence in the view taken by the hon. Baronet the Member for Honiton.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 35 agreed to.
Clause 36 (Empowering the Board, by their regulations, to determine the age an, qualifications of persons to be appointed to the civil or military service in India, or a assistant surgeons, and to prescribe the subjects for examination).
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYinquired if there would be an examination as a certain test for fitness on leaving college. I was not so stated.
SIR CHARLES WOOD: Certainly There would be an examination, not only on entering but on leaving college. The latter would be conducted by independent professors, and would be the test of fitness.
MR. RICHinquired, would there be a examination in India? He complained that he had received no answer whatever
684
to his former proposal as to colleges in India. It was unusual for the Government to act in such a way, and give no answer. He had no doubt the right hon. Baronet thought his remarks beneath his notice; but the House would agree that the subject to which he had referred was certainly one of some importance.
SIR CHARLES WOODdisclaimed any intention of treating his hon. Friend's remarks with disrespect. It would be time to make regulations for the examination and admission of persons in India when colleges had been actually instituted there.
LORD STANLEYsaid, that the question of the establishment of the Indian colleges was about the most important that could be mooted. It was, in fact, whether or no Natives of India should be admissible to the Company's service; because, to suppose that Natives, in any considerable numbers, would encounter the danger and expense, and cut through their habits and prejudices so far as to come across to this country in order to submit to examination in the establishments here, was the greatest fallacy in the world. To refuse to institute such colleges, was in effect to exclude Natives of India from the service. In discussing the second reading, he understood that one ground on which merit was claimed for the Bill was, its tendency to give encouragement to the more extensive introduction of Natives into the higher grades of the service. So far as he had yet got into the Bill, he had found nothing for giving a Monopoly of education to the college of Haileybury; nor had he seen anything pledging the House to keep up such a monopoly. He could not refrain from expressing his conviction that, in refusing to carry on examinations in India as well as in England—a thing that was easily practicable—the Government were, in fact, negativing that which they declared to be one of the principal objects of their Bill, and confining the civil service, as heretofore, to Englishmen. That result was unjust, and he believed it would be most pernicious. If men of high ability were desired in any service, that service must be made, to a certain extent, a close service—that is to say, no one should be admitted into it without having passed through a regular examination to qualify him for admission. In a few years it would be found absolutely necessary to admit Natives to the higher grades of offices; and if proper I machinery for qualifying them were not provided in India., the service could continue

685
close no longer, and must suffer accordingly.
SIR CHARLES WOODdid not quite understand the argument of the noble Lord. He said it was necessary to keep the civil service in India a close service, which he (Sir C. Wood) understood to mean that it should be kept in the hands of Europeans; and yet in order to effect that object the noble Lord proposed to admit more largely the Natives into that service. It by no means seemed to him (Sir C. Wood) necessary that all persons employed in India should be members of the civil service. It was incorrect to say that the law of 1853 had been made a dead letter, for the report of last year showed that the number of Natives employed in the civil service had increased to a great extent. He knew of no reason why that increase should not go on. With regard to education, he thought the only place where an education could be acquired that would fit a person for employment in India was at Haileybury. He did not believe it could be gained in India.
Clause 36 agreed to; as were also Clauses 37 to 39.
Clause 40 struck out.
Clause 41 (the last clause) agreed to.
House resumed. Committee report progress.

INCUMBERED ESTATES (IRELAND) ACT CONTINUANCE BILL.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
MR. WHITESIDEsaid, by this Bill it was intended to renew, for a period of two years, the presentation of petitions for the sale of incumbered estates in Ireland. He was altogether opposed to this extension of the power of the Commissioners. There were already arrears of business before the Commission which could not be disposed of under five years, and he was decidedly opposed, therefore, to any renewal of their powers by which the Commission might add to that amount of arrears. He had no objection to giving the Commissioners power for five or ten years to wind up estates now in the Court, and wipe off arrears, and he believed it would require ten years to do so. But, after all, the Bill before the House applied only to a certain class of cases, for, in order to have the advantages of the Act, the estate must be incumbered to the extent of one-half; for if the estate was only incumbered to
686
the extent of one-fourth, the debtor must be sold out according to the ancient practice of the Court of Chancery. In wishing to prevent the continuance of the power in the Commissioners to receive petitions, he did not desire to prevent the cheap, easy, and expeditious transfer of land in Ireland; quite the contrary. Lord Chancellor Blackburne's principle had been to combine the short, inexpensive, summary process of the excellent Chancery Regulation Act of Sir John Romilly, with the cheap conveyance and simple Parliamentary title of the Incumbered Estates Act; and it was this principle which he (Mr. Whiteside) wished the House to adopt in preference to the renewal of the Incumbered Estates Court. What was the condition of that Court? It was an entire mistake to suppose that the proceedings in the Encumbered Estates Courts were either expeditious or inexpensive; they were quite the reverse. While those Courts, indeed, were dealing with the 900 old suits which had been inquired into, and of which all the facts and circumstances had already been ascertained by the Court of Chancery, they went on smoothly enough, and the exercise of their jurisdiction, though ruinous to many a fine old family, was productive of benefit to the public; but when after having disposed of these old Chancery suits, they became no longer useful supplements to Chancery, but Courts proceeding, from the outset, on their own account—when they came to deal with cases which they had to sift for themselves, their proceedings were slower and dearer than even those of Chancery had been. At first estates were sold in six months after the petitions were lodged; but now it required three months even to get a "posting;" then came the sale, and then the battle for the proceeds. He had documents in his hands—the return obtained by the hon. Member for Ennis among them—which proved that the proceedings in the cases before these wonderfully expeditious Courts lasted, from petition to posting, from posting to sale, from sale to payment of money into Court, and from payment of money into Court to the distribution of the money, not less than between four and five years. It might be asked how did it happen, notwithstanding this, that so much business was brought into the Court? One reason was this:—the Legislature had given power to the Court to make rules which should have the force of an Act of Parliament; and in

687
pursuance of that power the Court had framed a rule to the effect, that the attorney who first brought the petition into the Court should be paid all the costs of working up the case to a sale. The result was, that the attorney, for perhaps the fortieth creditor, although he had not the slightest chance of getting a farthing for his client, was induced by the temptation of getting costs for himself to file the petition and swell the business of the Court; and this he was enabled to do even in the face of the objections of all the prior creditors. That was one reason why so much business was plunged into the Court. Another result was, that other creditors, and even the owner himself, rushed into the Court in order to secure the carriage of the sale themselves. He had asked the Court to rescind that rule, and to adopt one he had himself carefully framed on the principle that the creditors should be paid their costs on the same principle that they were paid their debts, and that they should not be allowed costs at all unless the Commissioners were satisfied that the petition was presented with the bonâ fide intention of obtaining payment of the debt. But his application had been refused. The Encumbered Estates Court was an anomalous and exceptional tribunal, which ought not to exist except on the broad principle stated by Sir Robert Peel; that it was a desperate remedy to meet a desperate state of things. That state of things did not now prevail; and, he contended, a Court of this kind should not be continued a moment longer than necessity required. What was the use of continuing this Court after it had accomplished the special object for which it had been instituted? His proposition was, that the Court should forthwith proceed to wind up all the sales before it. There was a considerable number of sales in arrear; and, though the land market was now high, they had been stopped for the year. He was informed that there was in the hands of the Commissioners not less than 2,500,000 l. undistributed; and the loss of interest sustained by the delay in the distribution of the money in the hands of the Commissioners amounted to 75,000 l. a year. There were yet other estates waiting to be sold. Would it not then be much better that the Commissioners should proceed to wind up the business now before them, than that fresh business entailing further delay should be accumulated upon them? His complaint against the present Ministry was this—that if they
688
only had exercised one-tenth of the ability and energy in devising a remedy for the grievances of his country that they had employed in imposing fresh taxes upon it, things would not have been in their present unsatisfactory state. Why did they not adopt the measure which he had proposed, or something similar, for the reforming of the Court of Chancery, and enabling it to execute the duties which at present devolved upon the Encumbered Estates Court? They might be told the Court of Chancery was overwhelmed with business; but he had in his possession a letter from a most respectable solicitor, who stated that the petition for the sale of certain property was lodged on the 27th of April, but had not been filed in July; whereas if he had presented a petition in Chancery, under the 15th section of Sir John Romilly's Act, by this time probably the account would have been taken and the sale arranged, He (Mr. Whiteside) complained that when power had been given to three Commissioners to sell off, it might be, all the landed property of Ireland, the right of appeal had been denied to those who might consider themselves aggrieved by the decision of the Commissioners. It was true the Act provided that the Commissioners might grant an appeal if they chose; but they might also withhold an appeal whenever they liked. In this respect a principle was adopted with regard to Ireland which the law officers of the Crown dared not attempt to apply to England or to Scotland. But even if the Commissioners consented to grant an appeal, to whom was it taken? Was it to be carried to the Lord Chancellor or to the House of Lords? No; the appeal was to what was called the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Ireland. He objected to that tribunal, on the ground of its uncertainty, for he considered that all questions of property ought, for the sake of uniformity, to be determined by the same tribunal. If a sum of 10,000 l. was at stake in the Court of Chancery, the appeal was to the House of Lords; and if the same amount was at stake in the Encumbered Estates Court, why should not an appeal be afforded to the same tribunal? When he had been last in Ireland he had seen a document signed by members of the Bar, comprising Whigs, Tories, Radicals, Roman Catholics, and Protestants, stating their conviction that the Court was held in an improper place, out of the reach of the general Bar, of the public, of the proprietors, and of the cre-

689
ditors. The fact was, that this Court, which was appointed to deal with millions of property, was placed at one extremity of Dublin, while the other Courts were at the opposite extremity, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat in the Castle. He suggested that the Encumbered Estates Commissioners should have any time they pleased to wind up their business, and that power should be given to the Court of Chancery, by a short Act, to deal with all new cases. He would move that the Committee on this Bill be deferred for a week, in order that an opportunity might be afforded for considering another Bill on the paper relating to this subject, the Sale of Land (Ireland) Bill.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words this House will, upon Tuesday next, resolve itself into the said Committee'—instead thereof."
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. KEOGHsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated various reasons in favour of his own proposition, but not one why the House should not now go into Committee upon the present Bill. He confessed he was at a loss to know what was the object of the hon. and learned Gentleman in the speech which he had just addressed to the House—whether it was to attack the Encumbered Estates Act, or to praise it—whether it was to assail the Court of Chancery, or to eulogise it—whether it was to obtain some simple system for disposing of encumbered estates, or to have a variety of very complex systems. He was certain of this, however, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had led the House astray as to the most material facts and circumstances relating to the Encumbered Estates Court. That could easily be proved from papers on the table of the House. The first point to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred was the length of time it took to get a sale in the Encumbered Estates Court. The hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured to persuade the House that a long time elapsed before an order for the sale of an estate in the Encumbered Estates Court could be obtained. But what were the facts as they appeared from returns on the table of the House? The number of petitions for sales since the establishment of the Court was 2,692; and the number of petitions fiated by the Commissioners was 2,668. From another re-
690
turn, it appeared that a few had been dismissed, and that the number of petitions on which no order had been made, was 31. He thought that those figures showed that the hon. and learned Gentleman had not been quite correct in his statement. There was one remarkable fact with respect to the Encumbered Estates Court, which the hon. and learned Gentleman chose to forget. The Court was established in July, 1849; the period for receiving petitions was three years. The hon. and learned Gentleman was a high officer of the Crown last year, and the first act of the Government whose law officer he was, had been, to introduce a Bill to continue this much-condemned Court. But the hon. and learned Gentleman wished to entrust the Court of Chancery with the business of the Encumbered Estates Court. Now it appeared from a return that the number of suits over three and under five years in the Court of Chancery at the time the Encumbered Estates Act came into operation was 219; over 5 and under 10 years, 364; over 10 and under 15 years 167; over 15 and under 20 years, 89; over 20 and under 25 years, 46; over 25 and under 30 years, 31. Therefore they had all these suits, which had been in the Court of Chancery for this number of years, liberated by the Encumbered Estates Court within the space of three years. He had a return of the sales by that Court; the total amount of purchase money paid into the Court since its establishment was 8,790,000 l.; of this, 4,936,000 l. had been distributed; and there remained to the credit of purchasers, 1,245,000 l. The hon. and learned Gentleman complained that the carriage of the proceedings in the Court was left in the hands of the first petitioning creditor, no matter how small his claim on the estate might be. It was true that any creditor might present a petition, but the Commissioners had the power to transfer the carriage of the proceedings to any person they thought fit to appoint. The hon. and learned Gentleman said there was no instance of the Court exercising such power; but he (the Solicitor General) begged to remind him that it had been exercised in several cases—amongst others, in the sales of the estates of the Earl of Portarlington, of the Earl of Glengall, and of Mr. Martin. And it should be remembered that in the Court of Choncery, the moment an order was made for the sale of property, the costs relating to the sale were ordered to be borne out of the general fund, and not in the order of priority of the parties

691
demanding the sale. The hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured with boisterous rhetoric to persuade the House that practically there was no appeal from the decisions of the Commissioners; but he (the Solicitor General) begged to remind him that the Act provided an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and in practice, no appeals that were fit to be allowed had ever been refused by the Commissioners. He agreed with all that had been said by the hon. and learned Gentleman as to the necessity of Chancery reform; but Her Majesty's Government wished to prepare a Bill for the improvement of that Court before any additional business should be cast upon it. He trusted that no further obstruction would be thrown in the way of the present Bill.
MR. I. BUTTmoved the adjournment of the debate on the ground of the impossibility of discussing the subject at that late hour, two o'clock.
LORD JOHN RUSSELLintimated his wish that the House should come to a decision on the question that the Speaker should leave the chair, with the understanding that the Committee should then report progress.
MR. I. BUTTsaid, that even at that late hour he must ask for a short time the attention of the House. He was very unwilling to give a silent vote—the more unwilling as while he intended to support the proposal of the Government, he yet could not concur in all that had fallen from his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland. He believed now, as he had done at the time, that the institution of the Incumbered Estates Court was a grievous wrong. But, retaining that opinion, he must consider, and ask the House to consider, all that had occurred. In 1849 that Court had been established, not, it must be remembered, as a part of the regular judicial system of the country, but as an extraordinary remedy for an extraordinary emergency—to meet, in fact, the state of things alleged to exist in Ireland in the accumulation of incumbrances upon estates. He objected to it then, on the ground that it was in effect forcing a Hale of all incumbered property in Ireland at a time when the circumstances of the country made it utterly impossible to expect purchasers for such a vast mass of property at a fair price. This was the great evil it inflicted. Events had fully justified this objection. Estates had been sold at ten or twelve years' pur-
692
chase. Extraordinary powers also were conferred upon the Court, only excused even by those who proposed the measure by the nature of the circumstances it was designed to meet. By the original constitution of the Court the power of presenting petitions was limited to three years—the powers of the Court to sell estates and to distribute the proceeds were to continue for five years, The power of presenting petitions must cease in July 1852. Last year the Ministry, of which his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Whiteside) was a law officer, proposed to continue the right of petitioning the Court for one year. He (Mr. Butt) had resisted that proposal upon the ground that the Court, being exceptional in its character, ought not to be continued beyond the term of its original institution. He divided the House against the proposal of the late Government—he was opposed by his hon. Friend, and he had only seven Members to join him in opposing the renewal of those powers. He did not in the least regret the part he had then taken; but he could not disguise from himself the true meaning of that division. He must accept those divisions as an unequivocal decision of Parliament and the country, that it was right and expedient to maintain the Incumbered Estates Court until we had devised some new and improved mode of selling estates. After the course then taken by the Government, he believed it impossible to attempt to put an end to the Encumbered Estates Court without substituting something in its stead. The hon. Member for Enniskillen so treated the subject, and very fairly stated the real question before the House to be between the proposal of the Government and his own. He (Mr. Butt) had no hesitation in saying that he would consent to the renewal for one year, or even two years, of the powers of the Incumbered Estates Commissioners, in preference to the measure introduced by his hon. and learned Friend. That Bill purposed to give perpetually to the Court of Chancery the powers, which for temporary purposes had been given to the Commissioners for the Sale of Incumbered Estates. It gave them, he must say, to a tribunal unfitted by its whole constitution to administer them with advantage. It did not remove the objectionable principles of the former legislation, but it proposed to perpetuate these principles, and to aggravate there. He could, at that hour, do little more than hint at the objections. Let him take one instance. One of the most objectionable provisions of the Incum-

693
bered Estates Act was that which gave to a puisne creditor the right to sell an estate against the will of the prior incumbrancers, and without paying them off. By the ordinary law, the man who lent his money on the mortgage of an estate, had a right to retain his security, until he himself chose to sell the estate, or until he was paid off. No other person could sell the estate without first paying him off. The Incumbered Estates Bill gave any creditor for any amount, however small, the power of forcing the estate into the market at any time he thought proper. Whether such a power ought ever to have been given or not, it was plain that nothing could justify it but an extraordinary emergency. But what was proposed by his hon. and learned Friend? To make this very principle a perpetual part of the administration of justice in the Court of Chancery. They proposed to enact this as a perpetual and permanent principle of their law, that at any time hereafter, any man who would lend money on an Irish estate must lend it subject to this—that no matter what security he took, any person suing the owner of the estate for some small sum, and getting a judgment against him, could force the estate into the market., at any time, whether the first incumbrancer consented or not. If these extraordinary powers were to exist, it was infinitely better that they should be administered by extraordinary and special tribunals than by the ancient courts of justice. But this was not all. The hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to give to the Court of Chancery the power of conferring by its sale a Parliamentary title. Let the House reflect on what was meant by this. It meant that the Court was to take on itself the investigation of every title which it sold—that its decree should bind those who had never known of it; and, that if by mistake it sold one man's property for the debts of another, the right owner should be without redress. He would not now discuss the question of a Parliamentary title. It might be right or it might be wrong; but of this he was quite sure: however Commissioners, armed with extraordinary authority, and not bound by any judicial forms, might exercise such a power—it was one which the Court of Chancery could not, in its present constitution, exercise with safety. But certainly the step was a most important one; it was a power not possessed by the English Court of Chancery. Was this a step
694
in legislation to be taken in a Bill, thrown at this time of the Session upon the table of the House? He felt confident the House would never so lightly sanction a principle of such vast importance. Those who concurred in his original objections to the institution of the Incumbered Estates Court, would not, he trusted, be led away by the belief that they were voting against the policy of that Court by supporting the transfer of its jurisdiction to Chancery. Quite the reverse. Everything that was bad in its principle—everything; that was oppressive to the landed interest, was both perpetually enacted and aggravated by the Bill of his hon. Friend (Mr. Whiteside). He had heard with surprise his hon. Friend object to the proposal to continue the powers of the Incumbered Estates Court, that they only extended to estates which were incumbered to one-half their value, whereas his measure would bring all within its grasp. The restriction had been imposed by the House of Lords as a protection—and a wise protection—to the landed interests of Ireland. In the very Bill now before them, when introduced into the House of Lords, there was a clause repealing that restriction; at the instance of the advocates of the landed interest it had been rejected; he (Mr. Butt) thought most properly and wisely rejected, and now it was complained that all estates were not subject to these extraordinary powers. He still entertained all his objections to the policy which had originally instituted the Incumbered Estates Commission. At the same time he must say that the few improvements in the price of property in Ireland removed one strong objection which he had entertained to its continuance last year. Of the general objections to its powers, not one would be removed by the transfer to the Court of Chancery. He believed that Court utterly unsuited to administer the powers of the Commissioners; and, he believed, that attempting to convert it into an Incumbered Estates Court, they would only unfit it for its regular duties in deciding equities between man and man. The opinion of one ex-Chancellor had been quoted; he would be glad to hear from his hon. Friend if his measure had received the sanction of that great and eminent Judge who had lately held the great seal of England? He had certainly very much mistaken the opinion of that noble Lord, as recorded on the subject, if he had ever

695
approved of a measure for investing the Court of Chancery with the powers of a commission for the sale of incumbered estates. Believing that by such a transfer the discharge of its regular duties by the Court of Chancery would be injuriously interfered with, while the extraordinary powers conferred upon it would not be satisfactorily administered, and dangerous principles, only to be justified—if at all—as temporary expedients, would be engrafted on the permanent tribunals of the country, he was perfectly ready to take the responsibility of consenting to a temporary renewal of the powers of the Incumbered Estates Court in preference to entertaining the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend.
COLONEL DUNNEopposed the Motion, and said that he had not heard a single word to induce him to alter the unfavourable opinion which he had always entertained of the Incumbered Estates Court. The author of this Bill, the Master of the Rolls, admitted three years ago the utter failure of the objects which he had in view in introducing the measure; and his (Colonel Dunne's) opinion was, that no tribunal that had ever existed in Ireland had worked more iniquity or injustice to private individuals than this Incumbered Estates Court, which it was now proposed to perpetuate. Many private families had been ruined by its proceedings. What were the average prices of the land sold under the Court? The average price in Leinster was 7l. per acre, and in Connaught the fee-simple of the land actually sold for the sum of 30 s. per acre, or, in fact for a lower price than land fetched in New Zealand or in the backwoods of America. Although the prices had increased within the last few months, yet in no case had any estate sold under the Court fetched its true value. For these reasons he should second the Amendment before the House.
LORD NAASfelt bound to express dissent from certain statements which had been made in the House that evening. It had been said that the party with which he had the honour to act, had obstructed in every possible way the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act at the period of its first introduction. But what were the real facts of the case? Why, it appeared that no division had been taken against the measure until the third reading, and upon that occasion twelve Members only
696
had recorded their votes in opposition to it. That fact very clearly showed that no hostility to the Act had been manifested by any considerable party in the House. Again, it had been said that the late Government had proposed to continue for a year the Incumbered Estates Court. But it was only fair to add that they had made that proposal solely that they might have time to introduce a measure for a reform of the Court of Chancery; and to that reformed Court they had proposed to refer the business which had been entrusted to the Incumbered Estates Court. They had redeemed their pledge upon that point, and had actually prepared a Bill for the reform of the Court of Chancery. It was, therefore, uncandid to say that they had proposed to continue this Court in the same way as this Bill intended to do. He should add, that he believed the Irish people had become too sensible of the advantage of cheap justice, and of a Parliamentary title in cases involving landed property, to consent ever again to forfeit them; and all that remained to be effected in the matter was to obtain those advantages through the instrumentality of the ordinary and regular tribunals of the country. The present Bill, he thought, was unwise, as tending to prevent the reform of the Court of Chancery in Ireland.
MR. M'CANNbelieved that the Incumbered Estates Court had given great satisfaction to the people of Ireland, and he trusted that a measure so important as the present would not be delayed.
MR. MACARTNEYcomplained of the manner in which the Court administered its functions, and thought, before its powers were renewed, its proceedings should be greatly simplified. Of the whole number of the estates that had been sold, the accounts of one quarter of them had not yet been wound up, and great delay took place in distributing the produce of the sales.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill considered in Committee.
Committee report progress; to sit again on Monday next.
Notice taken, that forty Members were not present; House counted; and forty Members not being present, the House was adjourned at half after Two o'clock till Monday next.

Preamble
PUBLIC BILLS.—2a Succession Duty; Bankruptcy and Insolvency (Scotland).
3a Land Revenues; Coinage Offences (Colonies).

SHERIFF COURTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
LORD BROUGHAM presented a petition from the corporate body of Procurators of Glasgow, under their seal, and signed by their Dean of Faculty, against the Lord Advocate's Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Bill. His Lordship said that he greatly objected to this measure as wholly insufficient. Although there might be much difficulty as to the most effectual plan of abolishing the double Sheriffships, there could be none as to extending the small-debt jurisdiction, so as to put it on the footing of the English County Courts. The proposed extension of 8l. 6s. 8d. to 12 l. was a mere homœopathic remedy for the evil complained of. His noble Friend (Lord Aberdeen) was thus only taking a small step indeed, though in the right direction; but it was very much better than if he took a step in the retrograde direction, which he was thankful to him for not doing, as in the present state of parties he could carry that with equal ease. The present position of himself and his noble Friend (Lord Aberdeen) reminded him of what passed half a century ago between his predecessor, a great State physician, and an irregular practitioner—the late Mr. Addington and Mr. Horne Tooke. When Mr. Addington had carried a Motion for Mr. Tooke's exclusion from Parliament, the latter respectfully thanked him for not having moved to have him hanged on the lamp post in the lobby, as the Minister would have had the same majority for that Motion. In like manner, he (Lord Brougham) was thankful for the very small step in advance, as relieving him from all apprehension of a retrograde movement, if, indeed, his noble Friend was capable of such a thing, which he believed he was not.

SUCCESSION DUTY BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
The EARL of ABERDEENrose to move the Second Reading of the Bill, and said: My Lords, I rise to move the second reading of a Bill proposing to place a duty upon Successions. It is a Bill which has occupied the attention of the other House of Parliament for a considerable time past, whence, after having undergone great discussion, and having been minutely examined in all its parts, and having been fully and completely discussed, it has been sent up to your Lordships by a large majority of that House. My Lords, it is a measure which has been recommended to Her Majesty's Government by various considerations. In the first place, it enables us to relieve the industry of the country from burdens which have hitherto materially affected the employment of capital and labour; and the removal of those burdens will, I doubt not, operate most beneficially upon the industry and welfare of the country. This measure also enables Her Majesty's Government to make provision for that security which it was desirable to obtain for the means of dispensing with the income tax at the period which has been assigned for its continuance. In addition to this, the measure enables us to a certain degree to redress in equalities. Which have been complained of in the imposition of the income tax The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) and his friends have complained of the inequalities arising from the imposition of the tax, without any allowance being made for precarious incomes, or taking into account incomes derived from the exercise of intelligence and skill, and they have recommended the principle of differentiation in the imposition of that tax. My Lords, upon the present occasion her Majesty's Government have thought it right to tax property equally in all respects, without looking to the sources from which it is derived, or whether it bears more hardly upon the exercise of skill and intelligence than upon other classes. These have been the recommendations of the present measure in the eyes of Her Majesty's Government; but the greatest inducement to adopt the duty which I now propose to your Lordships, was that of remedying an injustice long complained of, and which, in fact, was gradually becoming intolerable to the country. Such was the sense of its injustice, that it could not much longer have been endured, and in a very short time it would have been impossible to avoid dealing with it. The injustice, indeed, is so manifest, that it is wonderful that it should have
588
Continued so long. Mr. Pitt, no doubt, made an attempt to remedy that which was an evil in his day, as great and as crying in its nature as in the present day; but he was defeated; and no Minister since his time has, I believe, made any attempt to do that which, although called for by the general voice of the country, the difficulties attending its execution were so great as to have deterred any Government from grappling with them. Now, however, I trust, that the country will feel that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has proved himself worthy of accomplishing the design of Mr. Pitt, and successfully he has done so; for, difficult as has been the task, he has grappled with and completed it. When I say that injustice has long prevailed in respect of the legacy duty, it is only necessary to state a single fact, and I cannot do it better than in the words of a writer held in great repute by noble Lords opposite, and to whose opinion they no doubt pay a due respect the writer says—
"The poor man who gets a legacy of 100 l. pays 10 l. direct to the Exchequer, and the executor, in addition, pays a heavy stamp on probate of the succession. But the great landowner succeeds to 100,000 l. a year without paying a shilling to the State. A creditor in Scotland who succeeds to a bond for 100,000 l. heritably secured pays nothing; if it is upon personal security he pays the full legacy duty of 10,000 l. This glaring inequality, the remnant of the days of feudal oppression, or a relic of times when the landowners had no money, and when taxes could be extracted from moveable property only, should forthwith be abolished. Successions of all kinds, whether in land, bonds heritably secured, or moveable funds, should be taxed at the same rate
My Lords, I think that is perfectly just, aad it is the opinion of Sir Archibald Alison, a writer held in the greatest esteem by noble Lords opposite. This injustice and inequality were so apparent that the noble Earl opposite seems to have contemplated some measure by which it was proposed to meet and remedy the evil—at least the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons, described this legacy duty as a system of injustice, and shadowed out some course of proceeding by which a remedy was to be provided, though what that course was, we were not permitted to know. My Lords, it is on the principle that every species of succession should be equally taxed, that we have proposed the measure which I now submit to the consideration of your Lordships. My Lords, this measure, although now only proposed to be read a second time, has occupied more

589
or less the attention of your Lordships upon different occasions. We have heard very strong denunciations of the injustice, oppression, and hardship, and great burdens which it would impose, and the grievous nature of the Bill which is now before That being the case, it is rather singular that that opinion does not seem to be shared by the country, for we have no petitions against the measure; although we have had petitions against every other species of burden that can be imagined. I thought when those eloquent and fervid declarations against the tyrannical and oppressive nature of this measure were so rife among us, that of course the table of the House would be loaded with petitions against it. I hold in my hand a very long list of petitions against every sort of tax, contained in the Report of the House of Commons on Public Petitions; but there be among them a single petition against the succession tax, although the Bill for imposing it has been before the House of Commons for not less than two months during which it has been actively debated, and this return is made up to the 15th of July. I believe that I might say the same for this House. I have been a constant attendant here, and I have heard of no petitions against this Bill, and I believe nonesuch have been presented, with the exception of one yesterday, presented by a noble Marquess, not now in his place, signed by four or five, I have no doubt very respectable, solicitors. That, my Lords, is the amount of the public disapprobation of this measure, so far as it has been signified by petitions to either House of Parliament. But, my Lords, as I understand that the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) does not intend to oppose the second reading of the Bill, it will not be necessary to detain your Lordships by going into any examination of the provisions of the Bill contained in its different clauses, as these may be better explained and discussed in a future stage of the measure. Nevertheless, I may venture, upon this occasion, to lay before your Lordships a general view of the objects and character of the measure we now propose for your adoption. My Lords, we propose that a duty shall be imposed upon every species of succession arising in consequence of death, or rather we propose to extend the present legacy duties to every succession of every description No other mode of transfer of property is taken into account—it is simply a duty on successions in consequence of
590
death. At present real property, whether settled or unsettled, as your Lordships are aware, pays no succession duty, and settled personalty pays no legacy duty. We propose to redress this anomaly, for there really seems no reasonable cause why settled personalty should not be dealt with in the same manner as unsettled personalty. We therefore propose to apply the same rule to every description of succession upon death. We propose to preserve the same scale of consanguinity in measuring the amount of duty as that which now exists, with the exception that whereas at present sons-in-law and daughters-in-law are treated is strangers, and pay 10 per cent upon inheritance, we propose to place them in the tame condition as sons and daughters. I know there is a great difference of opinion is to whether the existing scale might not be advantageously altered; but upon the whole, considering that it has existed so long, and that much difference of opinion prevails on the subject, I am of opinion hat it is better to retain the scale as it tow stands, with the single exception to which I have referred. In applying this principle to land, it was thought, from various causes, that it would be desirable; to give as much consideration, and to apply it as lightly as could reasonably be required. It is therefore proposed to estimate all successions to land according to the life interest of the person succeeding. Various modes are laid down in the Bill for estimating that life interest—but it will be estimated only on the life interest. Even upon less than a life interest, in vases where a less interest exists, persons succeeding will only pay upon that interest whatever may be its amount. It is also proposed, as was proposed by Mr. Pitt, to make the succession duty payable by eight half-yearly payments. The first, however, will only commence at the end of the first year, so that a period if four and a half years will be afforded or the discharge of the obligation. That appears to me to be as lenient an application of the imposition of the tax as can well be expected. To show the operation of the proposed measure, let us take a case n which a person succeeds to a landed; state, the capital value of which is 10,000 l. This will afford a rental of 300 l. a year. We will take the average age of succession a thirty-five years. That, I believe, is a fair estimate, and it is borne out by what ms been ascertained by taking the average age of succession of Members of this House,

591
which is found to be thirty-five years. The value of a life interest at 35 years of age would be 15½ years' purchase, taking the average length of life at 50½ years. The sum, therefore, upon which the duty would be charged would be somewhat less than hall the capital value of the estate, or 4,650 l. The person succeeding to the estate will be charged He on that sum. The duty which would be chargeable on that sum, and which would be payable in four years and a half, in eight half-yearly instalments, would be 46 l. 10 s.; or, if he preferred paying the amount immediately, a discount would be allowed him of 4l. 13 s., so that the whole amount of duty payable upon that succession would be 41 l. 17 s. My Lords, the produce of this tax is estimated at about 2,000,000 l. annually. I know it has been supposed by some that the amount will be much higher and I think the noble Earl opposite some time ago intimated such an opinion himself I can only say that, according to all the, best calculations to which I have had access that does not appear to be the case, and that, allowing for those uncertainties which must necessarily occur in calculations of this kind, a sum of 2,000,000 l. only can fairly be estimated as the produce of this tax. Considering also the amount of in come upon which the income tax is payable and which is considered to amount to 250,000,000 l. it does not appear that a higher sum than 2,000,000 l. Can safely hr relied upon as the produce of this tax. I am aware that it has been said, both in this House and elsewhere that this measure has been conceived in a spirit of hostility to the land. My Lords, I utterly deny that such is time case. We have endeavourer certainly in the financial measures we have proposed, to do our best to reduce inequalities, and in so doing we have no doubt imposed burdens on land from which it was formerly exempt, and we have thought this measure required by the claims of justice and expediency. I, for one, have never con tended that it is any advantage to the land that it should be placed upon a different footing from the rest of the property of the country. It has also been said, in a some what hasty manner, that the Government have resolved to lay a tax of 2,000,000 l. upon land. Such persons neglect altogether the nature of the tax itself, and the manner in which it is proposed to be levies My Lords, instead of 2,000,000 l. being imposed upon land, the fact is, that upon ever calculation which can be made, the utmost that can be expected to be derived, strictly
592
Speaking, from land, is only 400,000 l.—or not one-fourth of the amount of the tax proposed to be raised. That is, exclusive of houses and leaseholds, land, strictly speaking, will not contribute more than 400,000 l. Now, my Lords, having said thus much, and having stated the main objects of the Bill, and the principle on which it proceeds, I do not propose to go further into the provisions of the measure. The main object and principle of this Bill is, as I have already stated, to extend to all successions that duty which is now only confined to unsettled personal property. But I must make one observation on the course which I understand the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), proposes to take. I quite understand—and I make this observation with the utmost respect for the privileges of this House—I quite understand that if your Lordships receive a Tax Bill from the House of Commons which is oppressive and unjust in its nature—I say, I can quite understand your Lordships resisting such a measure, and refusing to entertain it. But I do not understand how, having adopted the principle of such a measure, your Lordships can enter upon the consideration of details, the practical consequence of which your Lordships must be very well aware of. If this measure be so unjust and so oppressive, I admit the right, and I do not quarrel with the expediency, of your Lordships rejecting it if the emergency be such as to require it. But, having assented to the principle of the measure, then to raise questions as to whether timber should be taxed in one way or another, or whether it should be taxed at all—I think that, considering the practical consequences of such a proceeding, if successful, these considerations are well worthy of your Lordships' attention. I only advert to this subject with the utmost respect and deference, but I earnestly entreat your Lordships to consider what may be the practical result of a course of this kind. I can only say that I have entire confidence in that good sense and moderation that have always been exhibited by this House upon such occasions. I believe that the course intended, as I understand, to be pursued and to be recommended to your Lordships, is such as has been very rarely practised in this House. My Lords, without further observations, I will now move the Second Reading of this Bill.
Moved—"That the Bill be now read 2a."
The EARL of DERBYsaid, that although he certainly thought the noble Earl, who

593
had just addressed their Lordships, had exhibited all his wonted prudence in abstaining from entering upon any discussion of the principles and provisions of this Bill, and in giving to their Lordships a very meagre sketch indeed of the scope and object of its enactments, yet he could not think the noble Earl had exercised the same prudence in showing what he had so often shown upon fernier occasions—namely, a disposition towards self-laudation—he meant the laudation of the noble Earl's Government—upon the unparalleled merits and the triumphant success of their financial policy. He thought that the noble Earl, to say the least of it, had chosen a very singular time for claiming a financial triumph, when he was introducing to their Lordships, as the basis of the financial proposals of the Government, a measure which the noble Earl had hesitated to characterise, but which he (the Earl of Derby) should take the liberty of describing to their Lordships. He confessed he entirely joined with the noble Earl in the high estimate which he had expressed of the consummate ability displayed in the course of the present Session by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, upon whom almost the whole burden of conducting the business of the Government in the other House of Parliament had fallen, and who certainly had with great skill and dexterity induced that House to assent to his financial proposals. But when the noble Earl claimed credit for the wonderful success of the right hon. Gentleman's financial operations, he must permit him to remind Jinn that the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman consisted of two propositions: one having reference to the conversion of the 3 per cents, which, if not admitted by the noble Earl himself, would, he thought, be admitted by every one else—although, in the first instance, a triumphant success had been claimed for that also—yet it would would now be admitted to be a signal and melancholy failure; and the other portion of the financial scheme of the Government was the Budget, of which this Bill was the corner stone and foundation, and without which it would be impossible to carry it into effect. Indeed the grounds upon which the noble Earl defended the introduction of this measure, so far as he had defended it at all, were the inability of the Government otherwise to carry into effect the remission of taxation upon the springs of industry, and the desire to compen-
594
sate to some extent for the inequalities of the income tax; and, in the next place, to redress the manifest injustice which the noble Earl considered to exist in the scale of taxation upon real as compared with personal property. Now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in carrying into effect the remission of taxation, was undoubtedly obliged to rely in a great measure upon the funds which he would derive from this measure. He certainly felt for the difficulty of the position in which the right hon. Gentleman and the Government were placed, when, shortly before the right hon. Gentleman assumed office, be laid it down as an axiom that no Chancellor of the Exchequer was worthy of his place who did not provide a permanent surplus of 600,000 l., and when, at the present moment, as the result of the triumphant financial scheme of the Government, the right hon. Gentleman ventured to holdout to the House of Commons a possible surplus of 100,000 l. provided Parliament gave him the 2,000,000 l. to be derived from this tax. It was by the merits of this Bill—by its justice, its policy, its practicability, and its expediency—that the financial merits of the present Administration were to be judged, and their scheme of financial policy to be appreciated. And if the present Bill were, as he believed it to be, essentially unjust, oppressive, and impracticable—if it led to interminable evasion and constant vexation—if it altered the whole character of the property of this country—if, retrospectively, it imposed obnoxious and heavy burdens upon all former settlements—then, whatever pecuniary advantages might be derived by other classes of the community from remissions of burdens purchased by the adoption of a system so unjust and oppressive, he, for one, did not envy the Government that proposed this measure, with all its injustice and oppression, and then claimed credit for having relieved other classes of the community from grievances by the instrumentality of such a measure. With regard to the diminution of the inequalities of the existing income tax, inasmuch as no alteration whatever had been made, he confessed he was at a loss to understand the meaning of the noble Earl; but he presumed his meaning was, that by imposing additional burdens on real property their Lordships would compensate, to a certain extent, for an undue amount of pressure of income tax upon income arising from precarious sources, as compared with income arising from realised landed and personal

595
property. But the noble Earl went on to make the assertion—and a bold one it was—that the introduction of this measure was imperatively demanded by a sense of justice, looking to the favour which had been shown in the taxation of the country to the landed interest, and to realised property, in comparison with personal property. The noble Earl said that the exemption of real property and settled personal property, from succession duty was a grievance and an evil so crying and oppressive that the only wonder was that it had been tolerated so long, and that in a short period it would have been found intolerable. The noble Earl also said that Mr. Pitt had endeavoured to impose a succession duty, but had failed; and that from that time to the present no Minister had been found who had ventured to introduce to Parliament a proposition dealing with this subject. At length, however, Parliament had found a worthy successor of Mr. Pitt, a phœnix Chancellor of the Exchequer, in whom Mr. Pitt rose from his ashes with redoubled lustre, who had ventured to attempt what Mr. Pitt had failed in effecting, and which every Minister from Mr. Pitt's time to the present had shrunk from attempting. Now, he (the Earl of Derby), left it to the House and to the country to judge whether, there being such manifest advantages to be derived from such a tax, if such a measure had been founded on justice and capable of practical execution, some other Minister besides Mr. Pitt would not have ventured to attempt to avail himself of such a resource, and whether such an attempt as the right hon. Gentleman had made did not rather indicate rashness than any marvellous skill in making such a new proposal to the House. But let their Lordships see how the Bill would operate upon land and upon realised property. He begged noble Lords to bear in mind that be was not talking of the distinction now introduced as between land and other property, but of two distinctions which must be borne in mind, both of which this Bill proposed to deal with—the first, the distinction between real and personal property, real property including not only laud but many other things; and that further distinction which it was, for the first time, sought to abrogate and abolish—the distinction between property devised and property in settlement. The noble Earl said, in pointing out the distinction between real and personal property, that real property was exempted from the operation of the
596
legacy duty, while personal property was subject to it. But were there no charges to which real property was subject in this country, from which personal property was entirely exempted? And if the noble Earl was bent on equalising the burdens upon real and personal property, would he assent to subject personal property to an equivalent, or to anything like an equivalent, to the burdens to which real property was subjected under the existing law, and which, he could assure their Lordships, far more than counterbalanced the advantage, such as it was, of being exempt from legacy duty? Take only the poor-rates and the county rates. The total amount of real property, as shown by the poor-rates, was 67,000,000 l. a year, or thereabouts; the charge upon that property for poor-rates and county rates being about 6,000,000 l. Amounted to something like 1s. 10 d. in the pound per annum. That was the amount which was borne by real property in this country, and from which personal property was altogether exempt. Now, he did not say that there might not be very good reasons for exempting personal property from those taxes, by reason of the difficulties of collection, and, perhaps, the practicability of localising that species of property so as to render it liable to the impost. The total amount of property rated to the income tax was 230,000,000 l. a year, from which, if you deducted the 67,000,000 l. which paid to the poor-rates, it left a sum of 163,000,000 l. of personal property which did not contribute one single shilling to that charge for the poor, which he thought their Lordships would admit to be a charge which ought justly to fall upon all property alike, but which did practically fall upon less than one-third of the whole property of the country, that one-third of the property being thereby subjected to a tax of not less than 1s. 10 d. in the pound annually, from which the other two-thirds of the property of the country were exempt. Now, a tax of only one half this amount upon personal property—a tax by way of commutation for poor-rates of only one half the amount of that which fell now upon real property-would produce at 11 d. in the pound no less than 7,500,000 l.; and so, if personal property paid its due share of taxation—if it paid, not its due share indeed, but only one half of the amount to which real property was subjected in respect to these charges, it would furnish us with a sum of 7,500,000 l. a year—a sum amply sufficient, and more than sufficient, to enable us to dispense al-

597
together with the succession duty, to do away with the legacy duty, to do away with the probate duty, and place a very considerable surplus in the national exchequer. Now he was not proposing the imposition of such a tax; but when they came to argue this question as a matter of justice, and as a proper balance of taxation between class and class, then he thought he was entitled to show their Lordships what was the operation of the taxes to which he had alluded, and to show how that single charge upon real property infinitely counterbalanced the exemptions which it was declared to enjoy. Say what you will, it was quite certain that a legacy duty or a succession duty was in point of fact only a property tax in another form. It was a property tax, and a property tax of the most obnoxious and objectionable character, far more objectionable than would be an annual levy to the same amount upon property, which, as he had shown, already stood alone in paying ls. 10 d. in the pound for the relief of the poor. It was said that personal property paid under the legacy duty Is in the pound; but if strict justice were to be insisted upon, those who made not the slightest objection to the exclusive payment by real property of 1s. 10 d. in the pound annually, might be fairly called upon to show why they should not have to make a similar contribution to the public burdens; and if they were exempted from the payment of 1s. 10 d. in the pound borne by real property, why were they to complain of the exemption of property so exclusively burdened from the comparatively light charges, under the law as it at present stood The noble Earl had told their Lordships what he (the Earl of Derby) fully admitted—that the legacy duty was in itself a most obnoxious impost. Be it so; but what was the noble Earl going to do? Was he going to remove the impost which he considered so obnoxious? Not in the least. He was going to leave all the pressure and hardship of the legacy duty as it stood; but the noble Earl thought those upon whom it bore might be reconciled to this obnoxious tax if they could only see the same amount of oppression and vexation thrown upon other property and another class. Now, that was not a very amiable view of human nature. It might be very true that that was the way in which men were sometimes disposed to act towards their neighbours; but he thought he had shown that in this case those neighbours were
598
already burdened by special taxes and special enactments, and were subjected to much greater pressure than the persons who declared them to be peculiarly exempt from national burdens. He repeated that legacy duty was a most objectionable tax; it was an objectionable mode of levying a tax upon property: but it was peculiarly objectionable when applied to landed property. In the case of personalty the legatee was enabled to devote at once flu portion of the gross amount of his legacy to the payment of the tax due to the State; he was subjected to no inconvenience in doing so, and the remainder was clear gain to him. But apply the tax to land which had passed by devise. The land was not capable of being so subdivided, and the man to whom twenty or thirty acre of land came in the shape of a devise was not in the same position as the man who received the price of twenty or thirty acres of land. The successor to landed estate could not cut off an acre or an acre and half and sell it for the purpose of paying the tax; but he was compelled to incur s debt in the first instance, which frequently became one of the most onerous character; and which he might not have the means of paying for some time; and when, there-fore, Government stepped in and called upon him to raise a heavy sum of money upon his succession, it was to such a man great and serious hardship. And as to the principle involved—what had their Lordships been hearing for the last four or five years? What had been continually dinner n to their ears by noble Lords opposite but that, of all taxes, of all abominations, of all impediments to improvement, of all grievances as connected with land, the payment of a fine on copyhold property was the most oppressive, the most grievous: he most subversive of all possibility of improvement—it was a system which could not endure the light for a single moment and Parliament bad, therefore, been asked to pass compulsory enfranchisement Bills for the relief of the copyholder; and what was the Government going to do by the Bill now before their Lordships? They were going to make all the land in the country copyhold. That which they which not tolerate, that which they declared was so grievous a burden, which offered such serious impediments in the way of improvement, and which they decided was an out rage upon the feelings of natural grief a the moment of death, when it existed it the few cases of copyholders—that which

599
they insisted on getting rid of in these private cases—they were now about to adopt with regard to all the land in the country. They were placing every fee-simple estate in the country at the power of the Crown just as if it were copyhold estate; they were reviving a system of taxation of landed property which did exist in ages far remote, but which had been found then to be so intolerable, so inconsistent with all the principles of the English system of land tenure, that since the time of Charles II. down to the present day there had been no attempt to reimpose it.
He had endeavoured to show thus far, not that the Government were relieving personal property from any vexatious impost, but that they were subjecting landed and real property to a similar or even a much greater amount of vexation, and to a process wholly repugnant to the principles for which they had been contending for the last few years with regard to the holding of land, He came now to another conclusion, which was for the first time lost sight of in the present Bill, and which was niece important still—namely, the distinction between devised and settled property. He could not, apart from the peculiar circumstances affecting land, draw any broad distinction between the case of land devised and settled property devised. But what was the case with regard to the law in respect to settlement? The whole of the Bill, as far as related to the law of settlement, was a retrospective enactment of the grossest character, imposing by ex post facto legislation a tax, not upon that which a person had to inherit, but upon that which by law, by deed, by every solemnity which could be attached to it, was at this moment, and had been for perhaps twenty years, the property of the individual whom they were now about for the first time to tax. Observe, the Bill was to touch all the settlements of property, real and personal, throughout the whole country, upon which the fortunes and the position of every family in England depended, for the miserable purpose of raising a sum, as the noble Earl stated, at first of 400,000 l. a year, and ultimately of 2,000,000 l., for the miserable purpose of getting rid of the soap duty and diminishing the tea duties. These were good enough things in their way he admitted:—but this was the financial triumph of the present Administration! The financial triumph of the present Administration was a measure which upset every family arrange-
600
ment, every deed and every settlement, throughout the length and breadth of the land. As far as the justice of the case was concerned, settled personalty stood precisely upon the same footing as settled realty; and the injustice of the Bill was equally applicable to both—they were, by ex post facto legislation, upsetting all the foundations of property settled throughout this country. He protested against being supposed, by not asking their Lordships to divide against the second reading of this Bill, to assent to the Bill—he protested against being supposed to assent in the slightest degree to the principle of the measure. What was the second clause of the Bill? It enacted that—
"Every past or future disposition of property, by reason whereof any person has or shall become beneficially entitled to any property, or the income thereof; upon the death of any person dying after the time appointed for the commencement of this Act, either immediately, or after any interval, either certainly or contingently, and either originally or by way of substitutive limitation, and every devolution by law of any beneficial interest in property, or the income thereof; upon the death of any person dying after the time appointed for the commencement of this Act, to any other person, in possession or expectancy, shall be deemed to have conferred or to confer on the person entitled by reason of any such disposition or devolution a succession."
That was to say, that every person who, by any deed passed twenty years ago, had become absolutely entitled in reversion to the property which had been made the subject of family settlement, which might have been given as security for money borrowed, or might have been disposed of by law in the open market, with the full certainty that the law gave him an indefeasible right to that property—every such person came under the operation of this law, and the moment he entered into the possession of his own the Government stepped in and deprived him, not of property which he then acquired for the first time, but of that which was his before the death of his predecessor. Well, then, look at the third clause, which enacted that—
"Where any persons shall, at or after the time appointed for the commencement of this Act, have any property vested in them jointly by any title not conferring on them a succession, any beneficial interest in such property accruing to any of them by survivorship shall be deemed to be a succession."
He would put a case, and far from an impossible one, which might arise under this Bill. He would take the case of three elderly maiden ladies, who upon the death of their father had agreed to put together

601
such means as they had, and to reside together for the remainder of their lives. Suppose them each to have a life annuity, and that, combining together, they were enabled by the joint proceeds of those annuities to live in tolerable comfort. Suppose those three ladies also, for the purpose of having some common home in which to pass the remainder of their existence, had purchased a house or cottage which was held in fee-simple among the three ladies, with benefit of survivorship. This was not at all an improbable case. What happened? The first of the sisters died, her annuity dropped, and the two remaining sisters lost, of course, the benefit of one-third of their former income. Their difficulties were therefore considerably increased; but they had the benefit of survivorship, and, at the moment when they had lost the advantage of their sister's income to maintain the joint establishment, in stepped the Government, represented by the taxgatherer, who claimed from them a tax upon the benefit of survivorship, in the right of their house and garden. The second sister died, and the last was left, perhaps, at the age of seventy or eighty, the sole representative of the family, living in the house which her sisters inhabited for many years. Again occurred the benefit of survivorship, and when she had only her own single annuity to depend upon, in came the taxgatherer again, and, inasmuch as this cottage and garden were in fee-simple, this wretched creature, now seventy or eighty years of age, was taxed at the highest amount under the law. If he rightly understood the operation of the Bill, she would be taxed at the rate of 24½ years' purchase of her cottage and garden; and, if that were so, the poor creature would have nothing to do but to part with her house and premises, which were endeared to her by old associations, and in which she had Loped to die, in order to satisfy the claims of the taxgatherer under an Act of Parliament which she never dreamt of, or could dream of, at the moment she purchased the property. He had in this taken a case upon a very small scale. He would now take one upon a different scale. Turn to the 34th clause of this enactment. That clause provided—he hardly thought that those of their Lordships who had not read the Bill would believe that such could be its provisions—it provided that—
"In estimating the value of a succession, no allowance shall be made in respect of any in-cumbrance thereon created or incurred by the
602
successor, not made in execution of a prior special power of appointment."
Now, take the case—he would not mention my names, but their Lordships would all now that there were cases similar to that me was about to mention—of a once princely fortune of 50,000 l. a year, the owner in possession being a tenant for life, and being deeply and inextricably embarrassed. Take the case of a son, the successor to that property, who, coming forward to the relief of his father, had sacrificed all his prospect; For life, and consented that the estate; with his reversion, should be mortgaged for 40,000 l. or more a year out of the 50,000 l. Suppose that that son condemned himself with his eyes open to the reduction of his fortune, so that there was left nm barely sufficient to keep up the estate; and when he had cut down his income by that act of filial duty from 50,000 l. to 10,000 l. a year, the law stepped in and aid that the incumbrance upon the reversion was contracted with his own consent, and that upon 50,000 l., and not upon 7,000 l. a year, should he pay the tax the instant he entered upon the succession thus reduced by his own generous act. Was not this a monstrous case? Mind, no notice and been given to the son in such a case On the contrary, believing that he might rest upon the security of the law, and upon he inviolability of property, he would have undo unparalleled sacrifices; the result of which was, that their taxation—their iniquitous taxation—as he must call it, reduced the son to be almost a beggar, in consequence of the generous assistance extended by him to his father! Was there my justice or equity in this, and was it tolerable that such a law should pass—an ex post facto law, having an operation of that kind? But then they were told, "Oh, but he should not have sold his reversion." Now, he thought they had better have told him that before he did it. Well, but suppose that, with the natural reluctance of a man to part with his ancestral possessions, he had not sold the reversion of his property. In that case the individual would on doubt escape the injustice to which he alluded, but they made him an instrument if fraud upon other persons. By the 15th clause, if the reversion of the property were sold, the person in whom the property was rested, upon the death of the life tenant, bund himself placed in the position in which he successor would have been, and they axed him as if he had come into possession in his own right by the death of the

603
predecessor. There was a gross injustice in this. The successor, it was true, escaped, but escaped by fraud; and under this ex post facto legislation the person in whom the property was vested, by alienation or otherwise, found himself liable to a heavy charge which he had not dreamt of, although he had given a full and fair price at the outset for the value of his reversion. Again, suppose a man raised money upon a reversion, or the security of a reversion. The money being spent, the lender would come for his security, and would find that that security had diminished by the operation of this law; so that what had been in the first instance perfectly sufficient to cover the amount he had lent, might be made insufficient, and, consequently, he was deprived of what he had a fair right to expect. Was there any justice or equity in such a course of proceeding? He would not weary the House by multiplying cases to show the retrospective operation of the Bill, but he was convinced it would inflict injustice and hardship on all classes of the community. There was one point in which settled personalty did materially differ from settled realty, and that was in the infinite number of frauds to which, in regard to personalty, they would be subjected. They knew the property and to whom it went in the case of settled realty, and there could be no difficulty in levying the tax, or evasion with respect to it; but he did not see how it would be possible with settled personalty to get at the person who succeeded to it, or to whom it had devolved, or, in point of fact, to get at the property at all. There would be no means of tracing it. A man might have been living for all his life at the apparent rate of 1,000 l. a year, and yet when he died his executors might be at a loss to know where the greater part of his income had been derived from. There might be property of which the executors knew nothing, or of which his family knew nothing; he might have hail a life interest in railways, in canals, or in banks, but his will would show nothing of it, and his bankbook would show nothing of it. The consequence would he, that there would be, with regard to settled personalty, constant and perpetual frauds and evasions, which would render the collection of the tax a matter of considerable difficulty. The framers of the Bill had evidently perceived that, and he begged their Lordships' attention to the mode in which they proposed to meet the difficulty. That mode was, by a system so inquisitorial and so objectionable
604
in every respect, that he was satisfied of this—let the noble Earl 'opposite say what he pleased about the imposition of this tax being the means of getting rid of the income tax, and boast as he pleased about the absence of petitions against it—he (the Earl of Derby) was certain that such would be the operation of this Bill, that at the end of seven years the noble Earl who talked of the absence of petitions now, would find that the machinery of the tax was so odious that there would be a very general petition as to the merits of the two taxes, praying that the income tax should be continued, and this intolerable and oppressive tax removed. By the 42nd clause the duty was made a first charge upon the property; and certainly, in looking through the Bill, it appeared as if the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be very hard run for ready money, for the Bill proposed to give bin power to raise money in a mode which had always hitherto been discouraged as much as possible in private life, and which was always accounted one of the most uneconomical and most discreditable modes of raising money—namely, by post obits. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was authorised by this Bill, on the part of the public, to raise money by post obits—to anticipate the money to be paid upon reversions, and to allow the persons so paying in advance an allowance calculated upon the time, during which the payment would otherwise be deferred upon an approved rate of interest. That was the new plan of raising money—anticipating the revenue for five, six, seven, eight, or ten years, according to the most extravagant and expensive mode of calculation. He could not help thinking that this clause indicated no great confidence on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the duration of the tax; it seemed as if he meant to get all he could, and take the chance of the law being repealed, and of not having to pay back the duty which he might have received in advance if such were the case. He was about to refer to the machinery by which it was proposed to secure the collection of the duty. He would beg to call the attention of such of their Lordships as were now acting as trustees to the persons enumerated in the Bill as being liable for the payment of the duty. Every guardian, committee, tutor, curator, or husband, was made liable for the payment of the duty on any succession, but to the extent only of funds disposed of by them. The noble Earl himself must

605
have felt strongly the gross injustice of this measure, if he thought that a trustee should be thankful for not being charged with the payment of duty on property that never came into his hands—
EARL GRANVILLE: The same proceeding that now took place under the legacy duty would take place to the full extent under the succeession duty.
The EARL of DERBYsaid, he did not think the noble Earl was attending to what he said. There was a broad distinction between the case of a trustee who was concerned in the payment of duty on property passed by will, and property under settlement. In one case there would be no difficulty in ascertaining the liabilities, and in the other case he might not be able to ascertain them. Next, it was proposed that all the persons who were made accountable should give notice to the Commissioners or other officers of their liability. The 45th clause provided that—
"The persons made accountable for the payment of duty in respect of any succession, or some of them, shall, in the case of personal property, at the time of the first payment, delivery, retainer, satisfaction, or other discharge of the same or any part thereof to or for the successor or any person in his right, and in the case of real property, when any duty in respect thereof shall first become payable, give notice to the Commissioners or to their officers of their liability to such duty, and shall at the same time deliver to the Commissioners or to their officers a full and true account of the property, for the duty whereon they shall respectively be accountable, and of the value thereof, and of the deductions claimed by them, together with the names of the successor and predecessor, and their relation to each other, and all such other particulars as shall be necessary or proper for enabling the Commissioners fully and correctly to ascertain the duties due."
That was pretty well. The executors were made the instrument for giving information to the Government taxing officers. They were bound to give notice to the Commissioners, to deliver to the Commissioners a full and true account of the property and the value thereof, and all the particulars necessary to enable the Commissioners to ascertain exactly the duty payable; but, if the Commissioners were dissatisfied with the information so given, they were authorised to cause another account to be taken by persons appointed by themselves, with power to examine into all such papers and documents as might be necessary to make a new assessment; and if the trustee did not appeal against that decision, he was to be saddled not only with the additional amount of duty, but also with the expenses of the inquiry and examination insti-
606
tuted by the Commissioners at their discretion. His only alternative was to appeal, which appeal, in cases where the amount was above 50 l., was to lie to the Court of Exchequer, which had power to distribute the expenses as it might think fit. Here was a trustee, having no interest, made personally accountable and liable to furnish all these documents and give all this information; and in the next place he was compelled to accept the estimate of the Commissioners themselves, or to incur the expense of an appeal to the Court of Exchequer. If the person who was liable to the payment of duty should fail to pay it within one month, for every month he was in default he was liable to pay, by way of penalty, a sum of 10 l. on the whole amount. He would not go through a variety of clauses by which provisions were made for every possible case; for a case, for example, where payment of the duty was made in the first instance, notwithstanding contingent incumbrances, and where it would be necessary to call on the Commissioners to obtain a remission of a portion of that duty. No doubt such machinery as this—grievous and inquisitorial as it was—was necessary to the collection of the duty; but he contended that it very seriously deteriorated from the expediency and the good policy of the imposition of such a tax, and was a serious diminution from that immense credit which the noble Earl had taken to himself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the triumph of their financial operations. But he had not quite done with the vexations and annoyances of this Bill. The noble Earl had told them that the duty was to be levied as upon the value of an annuity, estimated according to the life of the person coming into possession. Perhaps the noble Earl would explain to him at what rate or on what condition a person seised in fee-simple was to be taxed for an annuity—for while he told them on the one hand that a person should be taxed by way of annuity on the probable duration of his own life, he found in a clause of the Bill that there was an annuity to be charged for a period of ninety-five years, or in perpetuity, which he apprehended was a case of fee-simple; and consequently on a person coming into possession of a fee-simple, the duty would be charged at the rate of twenty-four and a half years' purchase of the property—that person inheriting from a remote ancestor. He would take another case. They would naturally suppose that when a son succeeded his

607
father he would have only to pay a duty of 1 per cent in all cases. Not at all. If that property should have descended from a remote ancestor, and his father have been only tenant for life, and the son succeeded to the father in consequence of an original settlement, he was to be charged with the full amount of 10 per cent, though he should succeed his father in property of which he had been long in possession. He knew of several such cases. He would take the case of a man who had the misfortune of being a natural son. He had long ago the property settled upon him; he had a son, or perhaps a daughter, or it might be a case in which the property had been settled on a natural daughter and her heir male. She had taken this property, and the heir male had the right in reversion to this property long before the passing of this Act; but, inasmuch as she had no legal claim, when she died, and her son came into possession of the property, he had all his feelings wounded and embittered, in addition to the pecuniary injury done to him by the tax, by being told that in consequence of the misfortune of his mother's birth, which it was possible he then learnt for the first time, he succeeded to the daughter of nobody, and consequently he was taxed to the amount of 10 per cent, as if he had received his estate from a perfect stranger. He would ask their Lordships next to consider by what process it was proposed to ascertain the value of an estate to be charged in the first instance with the payment of this tax? The 49th clause provided that—
"Every person who, under the provisions of this Act, may deliver any account or estimate of the property comprised in any succession shall, if required by the Commissioners, produce before them such books and documents in the custody or control of such person, so far as the same relate to such account or estimate, as may be capable of affording any necessary information for the purpose of ascertaining such property and the duty payable thereon."
Thus the Commissioners had the power, under this clause, to compel them to produce, not only all their rentals, and leases, and covenants with tenants, and to lay bare all the circumstances of their estate, and all their embarrassments, but the whole amount of their morgtages and their family settlements, and make these Commissioners acquainted with all the circumstances of their family—and even, he believed, of their title deeds. He was told that it would not be absolutely necessary
608
for the Commissioners so to call upon them; but it was clear that if the Commissioners should be of opinion that their documents were necessary, they might call upon them for their title deeds, just as well as for any other document. Certainly, so far as he saw, there was nothing in the clause to prevent them. When by this disclosure of their family affairs and settlements, and all that had been secret, even to the members of their family, had been effected—then, in estimating the value of land used for agricultural purposes, houses, buildings, &c., when the property was not of fluctuating character, an allowance was to be made for all necessary outgoings; but who was to judge of what should be necessary outgoings? As far as this clause went, the Commissioners might hereafter, according to their sovereign will and pleasure, tell every man what he should lay out on his estate, and the amount of expenditure he should be entitled to deduct from the duty payable to him. Then, again, he would beg their attention to the provision with regard to mines. How was it proposed that the yearly value of mines, and property of a fluctuating character, should be ascertained? The 26th clause provided—
"The yearly value of any manor, opened mine, or other real property of a a fluctuating yearly income, shall either be calculated upon the average profits or income derived therefrom, after deducting all necessary outgoings, during such a number of preceding years as shall be agreed upon for this purpose between the Commissioner and the successor, before the first payment of duty on the succession shall have become due."
Now, he defied any man living to tell the principal value of a mine, a mine in course of working. There might be mines worth a million, only they could not raise it in the course of the next 100 years. There might be mines worth one million, that were not drawing one-hundredth part of the annual value, and might not possibly pay the cost of working them for a number of years. When the principal value was ascertained, 3 per cent per annum was to be charged on the amount of such principal value. Though they were realising nothing, still they were to be taxed 3 per cent on the value of their mine. One more case, and he would have done with the injustices and hardships of the Bill. Take the case of timber. With regard to timber, a calculation in the first instance was to be made of the net amount that might be received by the sale of the timber in an average number of years; and if that calculation

609
was accepted, then the duty was to be fixed; otherwise, he would have forthwith to announce the fact to the taxgatherer—to show him the accounts of his woodcutters, and the charges for carting, and so on—to go through all this process for the purpose of telling the taxgatherer that the sum of 4s. had become due to Her Majesty. Certainly the penalty for non-compliance with those regulations was not very formidable, and he had no doubt that many of their Lordships would prefer violating the law to going through all this process. The duty payable for cutting 10 l. worth of timber was 4s., and the penalty for failing to give the necassary information was 10 per cent, so that they might violate the law systematically and perseveringly at the rate of about ½d. per month. This tax upon the casual cutting of timber was a gross injustice, as well as a permanent, constant, and wearying system of vexation. If either of the noble Earls acquainted with Cumberland had been present, they would have been able to tell their Lordships of the disastrous effects of the storms of 1849, by which timber was blown down which they would probably have given many thousand pounds to preserve. If such were to happen again, and if they presumed to make the least use of those fallings, instead of leaving them to rot on the ground, they would have to go to the taxgatherer and acquaint him of what they had done—to tell him that they had suffered a damage which they would probably have given much to avoid, and, consequently, that it was their duty to pay very considerable sum to Her Majesty. He confessed it was with some regret that he had heard the noble Earl, in introducing this Bill, make use of the claptrap argument that it was unfair that the rich man of 10,000 l. a year should be exempted, while the poor man should pay who only came into the possession of 100 l. That, he thought, was not a sound argument nor one which ought to be put forward in that House. He could tell noble Lords that they were much mistaken if they thought that it was upon the rich that the burden of this tax would fall. It was upon that numerous class of men who were just able to keep themselves above water, that the tax, with all its vexations, its annoyances, and its expenses, in the shape perpetual litigation, would chiefly fall. He had been much surprised to hear, the other day, on the authority of Mr. M'Culloch, that the average amount of rentals from
610
landed property in this country was not above 170 l. He would leave it, then, to their Lordships to consider—taking into account the many large landed properties of the country—what an enormous number of rentals there must be of from 50 l. to 100 l., or even below that. All these holders would be subject to the annoyances and vexations of this Bill. Such persons as these must almost necessarily be thrown into the hands of lawyers, and there could be no doubt that the lawyers must reap an abundant harvest from the proposed new system.
He had now stated to their Lordships his objections to the Bill. They were not objections only to details—they were objections to the very principle of the measure. He had endeavoured to show their Lordships, first, that on the ground of justice there was no reason to impose an additional and most obnoxious tax on the owners of real or settled property. He had endeavoured to show that with respect to property, and settled property more especially, there would be an amount of fraud and evasion created by the Bill, which would either deprive them of a greater portion of the pecuniary result of this measure, or would cover the country from one end to the other with an interminable litigation; that with respect to settled property they were for the first time introducing an abrogation of the distinction which had always been drawn between it and devised property, and that, in doing so, they were subjecting, by a retrospective operation, all owners of such property to an amount of grievous oppression and injustice not to be compensated by any amount of pecuniary advantage to the revenue. He had shown that the owner of property must be subjected, not once for all, as in the case of the legacy duty, but from the commencement of his possession to the close of his life, to a constant succession of inquisitorial proceedings—to an exposure of his family settlements, of the secret disposition of his property, and of all his secret embarrassments, and that from time to time he never would be free from the most odious of all positions—that of a public accountant for a debt which never could be discharged. He had shown them that the Bill would not press exclusively, or even principally, on the large landowners, or on the wealthier classes—unjust as he thought that would be; but that it would press more heavily and seriously on the humbler classes, who were at present ignorant of its operation. They had not, indeed, as the noble

611
Earl remarked, loaded the table with petitions against this measure, which they had been led to believed was for the purpose of taxing the great owners of property; but he did not hesitate to say, five years would not pass before their Lordships would have no reason to complain of any want of petitions and appeals to them to provide a remedy for the grievances to which this Bill would give rise. Now this Bill, which was the crowning triumph of the Government of the noble Earl opposite—this measure, which was the basis whereon the fame of his administration in finance must rest—and which was the main principle of that Budget which had placed Mr. Gladstone on a pinnacle of eminence far higher than that on which Mr. Pitt's character, as a Finance Minister, rested—was not a measure to meet any present exigency of the State, or introduced as a temporary measure which might be tolerated for a short period, but was laid down emphatically in the preamble as being the permanent system under which the financial affairs of this country were to be administered. Now, he told the noble Earl, that as a permanent measure under which the finances of the country were to be administered, this country would not bear it—nay, more, that this country ought not to bear it; and he was satisfied that so far from this Bill being permanent, even if the noble Earl succeeded in passing it in its present shape, no very lengthened period would elapse before it would be repealed by the unanimous demand of all classes in this country who were connected with property, except the attorneys and solicitors, who would derive a very rich harvest from the litigation which would arise under it.
And now one word as to the course he would take. The noble Earl had said he could understand the course of objecting to the principle of the Bill, and rejecting it on the second reading; but that he could not see how they could assent to the second reading and to the principle of the measure, and then ask the House to deal with the details in such a way as to defeat the object in view. Now, in the first place, he protested on the part of himself and of the noble friends with whom he had the honour to act, against being held in the slightest degree to assent to the principle of the Bill, and, though they should abstain from taking the sense of the House on the second reading, and content themselves with saying "Not content," they should take that course, not in the absence of a strong sense of the
612
evils and unparalleled injustice of the Bill, but from a desire not unnecessarily to embarrass the financial affairs of Her Majesty's Government. But at the same time he must say, that if their Lordships were to carry their submission so far, and if they were humbly to bow the head to every injustice that the House of Commons pleased to inflict; if they were to tell them they were exceedingly thankful for inflicting this grievous injury because it was no worse; and if they allowed the rights of the people to be infringed, and serious injustice done to the community at large because the privileges of their Lordships' House prohibited their seeking to limit the evil and to mitigate the injustice—better, he said, would it be for their Lordships to abandon their functions altogether, mid not to have any Taxation Bills at all sent up for their consideration. And he trusted that the House of Commons would not push their privileges to the extent he had indicated. He trusted their Lordships would not, notwithstanding the advice which had been given to them, pass that Bill as it stood; and though he would not ask them to reject the Bill at this stage, he certainly would not abstain from submitting, on Monday next, such Amendments as, in his judgment, would tend to mitigate the grosser injustices of the Bill. The first Amendment he should submit would arise on the second clause of the Bill, with respect to which he would propose the omission of the words "past or," so as to make the Bill altogether prospective in its operation. It would save all those settlements and rights of property that had been created under a different state of the law, and without any expectation on the part of the persons who were interested that either House of Parliament would, by any affect their rights. He should probably propose other Amendments also. He should submit these Amendments with no desire that the Bill should not have the fullest and fairest consideration; nay, in the present state of circumstances, with no desire that a Bill founded on the principle of the Bill before them should not pass for the present; but amongst his Amendments there was one, by which he should ask for the judgment of their Lordships, whether they were prepared to adopt this measure, not only as a means of meeting the present temper of the people of England, but as a permanent system on which the finances of this country shall be established.
The DUKE of ARGYLLsaid, that any

613
noble Lord who should rise to follow the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) would at all times require the indulgence of the House, but that he himself always felt that he stood especially in need of it. He did not, however, despair, humble as were his powers, of persuading the House that the noble Earl had materially misrepresented the Bill now before their Lordships, and that it was not characterised by the mischief and injustice which he had attributed to it. The first part of the noble Earl's speech consisted of a passage of irony directed against his noble Friend at the head of the Government, because he had ventured to pass a high, and, as he (the Duke of Argyll) considered, a just eulogium on the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he (the Duke of Argyll) did not think that the irony of the noble Earl was at all deserved. They were accustomed to refer to Hansard for the purpose sometimes of showing that opinions once held by certain persons had been abandoned, and for other purposes of the day; but he believed the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in introducing his financial scheme during this Session of Parliament, was one of those speeches that would be referred to at future times for the guidance of that and the other House of Parliament in the settlement of great principles of finance, and the public policy of this country. The first point in detail to which the noble referred was with regard to the Budget of the Government, and he expressed his surprise that the surplus was so extremely small; but he (the Duke of Argyll) could only say that Her Majesty's Government owed no thanks to the friends of the noble Earl opposite that the surplus was not smaller—for during the Session that section of the friends of the noble Earl with whom he was more immediately connected voted against every proposal for a new tax, and in favour of every proposal for removing an old one. The next point to which the noble Earl referred, was to the incidence of local taxation upon real property as compared with personal property, and he combated the argument of his noble Friend at the head of the Government, that it was unjust that real property should be exempt from the legacy duty. That was an old subject, and had been frequently debated in their Lordships House. He did not know that the landed interest would be materially benefited if it were possible to extend to personal pro-
614
perty the incidents of local taxation. Of course, the personal property of farmers and their stock in trade would be subject to local burdens; and he did not think it vas possible that the noble Earl himself would propose as a means of relief to the landed interest, that personal property should be liable to the charges which now ordinarily fell upon land. If the noble Earl did propose it, and if such a system were adopted, he believed those incidents would tell most seriously against the landed interest, and the occupants of land. The noble Earl went on to say that the measure of the Government placed in effect all the real property in the country in the position of copyholds subject to fines, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer as receiver. It was a plausible analogy, but here was a great fallacy in it, for the principal evil of fines was their arbitrary and uncertain rate; whereas in the ease of the succession duty the rate of tax would be Fixed, and payable only at certain and known times. The next point to which the noble Earl adverted was to what he considered the enormity of extending the principle of the legacy duty to settled as well as to devised property. There had been much discussion on the point; he (the Duke of Argyll) confessed that the distinction which noble Lords opposite seemed to draw between persons in possession of property under wills, and persons in possession of property under settlements, seemed to him, altogether fanciful and arbitrary. He could not see any difference in abstract principle, except, as had been said by his noble Friend on the woolsack, that one was possessed of his property by a will of a short date, and the other by a will of a long date. And when the noble Earl said he thought the principle of a legacy duty was a bad one, he (the Duke of Argyll) must observe that he did not agree with him. He did not think they could often recur to abstract principle in defence of any tax; but if there was one occasion on which he thought they ought fairly to declare that it was the duty of individuals to contribute to the necessities of the State, he thought that all persons were especially called on to contribute when they were receiving benefits and advantages solely by the force and authority of the public law; and if there ever was a time in a man's life when this was the case, it was when, by virtue of the will of his predecessor, he became the possessor of property. So much for the general principle of the tax,

615
And so far as the distinction between property taken by will and that taken by deed went, he thought the obligation to contribute to the necessities of the State was greater in the latter than in the former case. A settlement often carried a property to a fixed and final destination against the likings and dislikings of intermediate possessors, and he thought that a person who came into its possession under such a law, which could only be maintained in a highly artificial and settled state of society, was certainly liable above all others, in abstract principle, to be called upon to contribute to the necessities of the State. He would not follow the noble Earl into all the remarks he had made on the clauses of the Bill, as they were merely on matters of detail which would be discussed hereafter; but he would refer to one point on which the noble Earl had dwelt with great emphasis—the injustice and hardship which, he said, this Bill would impose on persons coming into estates for the future, and who had burdened their reversionary interests. It was not possible to deny that under this, as under any other law, cases of great individual hardship might occur; but could they alter the provisions of this Bill without giving a bonus to extravagance? How would they distinguish between persons who had burdened their reversionary interest from commendable motives, and those who had done so in order to spend their inheritance in extravagance, and to anticipate the period of their possession? The noble Earl then referred to the hardship of calling upon persons who had purchased a reversionary interest to pay this tax, when they had laid out their money not knowing that they would have to pay this charge. That remark was equally applicable to the income tax, and, indeed, to all new taxes. The noble Earl had himself been a Member of a Government which had imposed the payment of the income tax upon persons who had laid out a sum of money upon the purchase of terminable annuities, at a time when they were not liable to that tax. There was not the slightest difference between the two cases; and, in fact, the objection was one which must to some extent apply to the imposition of every new tax. The next point to which the noble Earl objected, was the alleged monstrous power given to Commissioners to call for the production of documents to prove the mode in which a person coming into possession of property, had derived it. This objection
616
really seemed to him the greatest bugbear which had been raised for the purpose of opposing this measure. Why, their Lordships had just passed a Bill for the registration of all deeds whatever; and in Scotland all the title deeds and entails of landed property were accessible to every one who chose to pay a shilling for inspecting them at the Registration-office; and when a return of probate duty was required, any of the documents which noble Lords opposite were afraid should see the light, might be called for by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. The noble Earl then asked whether persons succeeding to property in fee-simple were to be charged upon their life interest? He (the Duke of Argyll) believed they were. In reply to another question, he might state, that a person coining into possession of settled property would pay duty as if he derived it immediately from the settlor. Cases might be put, in which the tax would operate very unjustly; but he (the Duke of Argyll) believed that in most instances the provision would be a great advantage to the owners of landed estates. Take the case of several brothers successively taking an estate. They would, under this provision, be charged only 1 per cent, as if they took immediately from their father, the settler, instead of 3 per cent as if they took from each other. The noble Earl then objected to the clause which provided for an "allowance being made for all necessary outlays;" but he had not considered that these words were introduced as being the most favourable that could be devised to the owners of real property; they might be somewhat vague, but it was found quite impossible to define what were the necessary outlays on land. With regard to timber the noble Earl seemed to think it would be a great hardship if the duty was made payable on timber blown down in a storm; but he (the Duke of Argyll) did not see that any alteration could with justice be made in the clauses relating to the taxation of this article; he thought it was impossible to distinguish the case of timber from that of any other produce of land, as far as the principle of taxation was concerned. Almost the last point to which the noble Earl had adverted, was what he must call the claptrap argument about the injustice of exempting the rich man from the legacy tax, and imposing it on the owner of small property. Said the noble Earl, "the operation of this Bill will not tell against great estates, while it will press most severely upon small landed pro-

617
parties." Now, unfortunately for the force of that argument, a great part of the small landed properties of the country, not under settlement, were brought under the existing legacy duty. He would refer their Lordships on this point to the evidence of Mr. Baxter, who was examined before the Committee of their Lordships' House, which inquired into the burdens upon real property. That gentleman was asked how the legacy duty operated on property in the county of York. Much of the property in that county was copyhold and customary freehold, which was not intended to be subject to the legacy duty; but by the construction of the Act, Mr. Baxter stated that the parties found themselves bound to pay the duty in every case where the land was devised to be sold, for the purpose of the produce being divided among the children, or others, of the testator. A very large proportion of the smaller properties in that county were so devised, and were consequently converted into personalty, and rendered liable to the tax. It was perfectly apparent, therefore, that small landed properties were liable to the existing; legacy duties, while large lauded properties were exempt. Was it fair or reasonable that this difference should exist—that, while small proprietors were subject to the impost, great landed proprietors should be entirely exempt from paying that duty on succeeding to their estates? The noble Earl referred to this measure for the extension of the income tax as being the keystone of the Budget of the Government, and said that it was, in fact, their whole Budget, the rest being but of slight importance—
The EARL of DERBYsaid, that what he had stated was, that the whole Budget depended on this tax. Had it not been for the funds to be derived from this tax, the Government would not have been able to make the remissions they proposed.
The DUKE of ARGYLLproceeded: The noble Earl had also instituted a comparison between the Budget of the present Government, and that brought forward by the Government of the noble Earl. Now he (the Duke of Argyll) was quite willing to compare the present Budget with that of the late Government, and he did not think that the former would suffer in the comparison. When a new tax was proposed, they ought to consider it in reference to the necessity out of which it arose. Within four months two great financial statements had been presented to Parliament, both being similar in this respect, that each proposed large
618
remissions of existing taxes, coupled with the imposition of new taxes. Both also were alike in proposing the remission of the tea duties, and the extension of the area of taxation to the income tax. The remissions peculiar to the Budget of the late Government were almost confined to those of the duties on malt and hops, amounting to 2,650,000 l. of revenue. Now, he thought, when the country was called on to pay a new tax of any kind, it was entitled to ask what were the necessities that rendered its imposition necessary. Now, in order to remit the duties on malt and hops, it was proposed to impose a house tax; and yet he believed that if these taxes, so to be remitted, were considered with reference to the consumer, there were no taxes upon consumption, the removal of which were less called for. He had no doubt, indeed, that the proposition of the late Government to remit these taxes, was made not so much in the interest of the consumer as the producer; but he believed that the benefit derived by the landed interest from the removal of these taxes would have been very slight, if, indeed, they had derived any benefit whatever, coupled as this remission was with the admission of the principle of the graduation of the income tax. Now, not only was the succession duty on real property different from the house tax proposed by the late Government, in not being a new tax, but only a continuation of the existing legacy duty; but it was also different, inasmuch as it was proposed, not so much for the purpose of remitting indirect taxation, which must render the continuance of the income tax absolutely necessary, as for the purpose of enabling Parliament to make provision for the termination of that very income tax. The noble Earl seemed to think that much reliance could not be placed upon the extinction of the income tax in 1860. He saw a smile on the lips of the noble Earl. Nevertheless, he (the Duke of Argyll) would repeat that the object of this succession tax was to enable Parliament to dispense with the income and property tax altogether in the year 1860. He did not think that statement afforded any grounds for the noble Earl's sarcasms; at any rate his Government had not made any proposition which would, even under any circumstances, have enabled Parliament to effect this object if it pleased. By this extension of the legacy duty he (the Duke of Argyll) thought it very probable that in 1860 the

619
income tax might be abolished. Of course they could not know what would take place at that period. The present Parliament could not bind any future Parliament to abandon the tax; but at any rate the pre sent Government did what the late Government did not—they did all that a Government could do in providing a resource which would enable Parliament to terminate this tax in 1860, unless subsequent measure interfered with that state of things. I was the necessity of providing for the ultimate extinction of the income tax which had rendered it necessary for the Government to propose some new tax. The question, then, was what that tax should be; and, looking to all the resources on which they could rely, he would ask on what other source of taxation could the Government have re he d than that which was embraced in the Bill before the House? They could not by possibility propose an increase in the Customs duties. They found an existing tax which affected all personal property no under settlement. They found, on research that attempts had been made, under almost every Government for years past, to extend that tax to real and to settled personal property. Motions had been annually brought forward for that purpose; and when they looked at the arguments by which that proposal had always been resisted by each succeeding Chancellor of the Exchequer—all of them endeavouring to show that under the existing law legacy duties were realised to a very great extent virtually from real property—it was felt that the argument was too weak to be maintained, and that there really existed no sound reason why one description of property should be subjected to the duty, and another description be exempt from it. And then, when they regarded the declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the noble Earl's own Government, that the legacy duties constituted a system of injustice that could no possibly remain unredressed, and saw that it was impossible to do away with the existing duty, and to provide a popular substitute—under these circumstances, seeing that it was absolutely necessary some new impost should be devised to enable Parliament to deal with the property tax it seemed to the Government that there was no alternative so consistent, not merely with the necessity of our position, but with abstract right and justice, as that of extending the legacy duty to all property. These were the circumstances which justified the Government in proposing this tax; circum-
620
stances and grounds so satisfactory to the country that there had not been a single petition (except the one presented to-night from some few solicitors) presented against the tax in either House of Parliament. He would, in conclusion, remark that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by proposing this tax, had not only done so, as a provision by means of which Parliament might at a future period terminate the income tax, but that the latter tax should, during its continuance on a descending scale, continue to be connected with the great purpose of the remission of indirect taxes on great articles of consumption, for which it had been originally imposed, and with reference to which its imposition had been attended with such signal success. He was not me of those who entertained the objection, upon an abstract principle, to an income tax being used except as a war tax. He believed that it might be resorted to most advantageously under other circumstances, and at other times, than those connected with war; and he thought it never could have been associated more happily than it had been with the gigantic scheme which was commenced by the late Sir Robert Peel in 1842, and with which scheme the tax had been connected down to the present moment. He would remind the House; that the amount of Customs and Excise; taxes remitted since that scheme had been in operation, was between 11,000,000 l. and 12,000,000 l.; and yet, if they looked at those two great branches of revenue, they would see that they produced nearly the smile amount as they yielded when Sir Robert Peel introduced his new system of finance in 1842. All this had been accomplished by means of the income tax; and now, such was their position, that if they pleased they might reserve that tax "or the future service of the country. The experience of the past thus gave us the right to entertain a confident hope that the income tax would finally cease and determine in 1860; and in order to attain this most desirable consummation, which he did not think the noble Earl opposite was justified in considering as utterly impossible, he hoped the House would not refuse their assent to this Bill.
The EARL of MALMESBURY: My Lords, I am quite sure you will excuse me if I do not now enter upon a comparison of the Budget of my right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire and that of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Comparisons, they say, are at

621
all times odious; and I am sure I shall the more deserve the indulgence of your Lordships if I adhere strictly to the question before the House. I rise, with some reluctance, to speak on this subject, as upon it I detained your Lordships for some time on a former occasion. My Lords, I cannot but regret that your Lordships did not give me a Committee to investigate this question. I do not regret that I asked for it, for since the period when I addressed your Lordships the House of Commons has so completely altered the Bill which I then held in my hand, that the first twelve clauses are wholly and entirely changed. It appears to me, my Lords, that we should not have lost anything if we had passed the last six weeks or two months in endeavouring to ascertain the incidence of such a tax, and in determining where the injustice, if any, lay. Among the many boasts of this age—and it is an age of boasting—whether in the public press, or in the speeches at public meetings—there is the boast that this country is increasing in power and intelligence. But I must say that of all these boasts none is so loud and so unreasoning as the boast continually made that we have arrived at perfection in the mode of conducting our financial arrangements. It was strange, indeed, that such perfection should be said to have been attained in the middle of the 19th century, if this Bill is to be regarded as the consummation of the system; for the measure now before your Lordships is identical in its principle, and almost identical in its working, with a law which was brought into this country at the time of the Norman Conquest, and which continued in operation from the time of the First William, till the year 1664, when the Revolution swept away this tax, as it did many other oppressive laws of the time. In the counties of England there were persons called "escheators," whom the King employed, at the death of certain tenants called tenants in capite, to ascertain the value of their lands, from which to extract a fine which he believed was equal to one year's value of the land. This principle, which is precisely the same as that embodied in the present Bill, was abolished in 1664 by the growing intelligence and desire of liberty then prevailing in this country; and now, 200 years afterwards, in the middle of the 19th century, it is left for the Government of the noble Earl (the Earl of Aberdeen) to endeavour to renew as a general law what was even at that time only in
622
partial existence. If your Lordships will bear with me for a few moments, I think I shall be able to prove to your Lordships that this tax is in its nature the most absurd, and, if I may be allowed the term without offence, cowardly and most unjust ever proposed—nothing but the sternest necessity can justify it. Since 1796, when there might have been an excuse for it in the existence or imminency of war, this tax on legacies has been continued by various Governments, not only during the long war, but also during the long peace that succeeded the war, rather from the reluctance to change anything against which there was no cry, than from its own merits. But I beg you, my Lords, to consider well the policy and principle of such a tax, and its obvious tendency. Of its principle there can be, I think, but one opinion. I am speaking not so much against this particular measure as against any tax on successions of any sort or kind; and certainly my first feeling was one of astonishment that a tax which was founded on so evil a principle should have been adopted and applied to the whole community by a statesman bearing the character of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, whatever we may say as to his want of financial experience (which he himself would scarcely assert was very great), has always assumed a high standard of moral principle, which, indeed, he is continually exhibiting both by profession and practice; and who, if his works are to be accepted as illustrations of his mind; he has made it one of his objects to enhance and to elevate the moral standard of public opinion in this country on all subjects which are canvassed by public opinion. Yet the right hon. Gentleman has founded his financial policy upon speculation on some of the worst and vilest feelings of human nature. He has speculated upon the selfishness of humanity, by proposing to press, not upon the present possessors of property, but on those who may hereafter possess it, and who may, perhaps, not now be in existence. That was the principle on which he brought forward his scheme for conversion of stock. He attempted to frighten those who held money in the funds, by holding up to them the prospect of conversion of the 3 per cents as almost certain; whereas the highest financial authorities would have told the right hon. Gentleman that such a thing was all but an impossibility; but his offers were all intended to work on that egotistic feeling in our na-

623
ture which prompts us to sacrifice others to save ourselves. So as to the succession tax. It is a tax not likely to press upon those at present possessed of property, or on men like your Lordships and the Members of the other House of Parliament, for they, for the most part, have probably already acquired all the property they are likely to inherit; but you are called upon to vote a tax which others will have to pay, and which will press upon the future possessors of your property. The tendency of the tax is therefore most immoral, founded as it is upon the idea of saddling posterity with those demands which we ought to be prepared to meet ourselves My Lords, the tax may be characterised as cowardly, because those who are now determined upon extending it, with those who originally imposed it in 1797, are perfectly aware that it is only actually imposed upon one man at a time; it is not, like most taxes, levied on the whole community at once, when all feel its pressure at the same time, but it seizes on each man separately one at a time, and after fleecing him seize another, to deal with him in the same manner; so that you never have the whole or any great portion of the community exposed to its pressure and disposed to resist it; nor can you ever bring their combined force to bear on the Minister of the day. Let us look, my Lords, at some of the absurd and unreasonable consequents out of a tax on succession. My own ideas of a tax is, that it ought to be so imposed as to bring the largest possible amount into the Exchequer—that it should be imposed as equally as possible—and that from the very first moment of its operation it should afford indications of the prosperity of the country by a gradual but continual increase in its returns. But a succession tax is nothing of the kind; it will operate most unequally, and I am afraid that its first effect will be to depreciate the value of landed property very much indeed; that it will render a sale very difficult, and will there by defeat its object of bringing large returns into the Exchequer. It might be said that this was only a matter of opinion, and therefore I will say no more on the point. Indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems only to care about getting money out of the country, and cares no how, only the more he gets the better he will be pleased. It might indeed be said of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he speculates upon mortality, and compels every man worth 20 l. to ex-
624
hibit the spirit of a patriot and die for his country; at any rate he takes care that the country shall benefit by his death. Thus, the right hon. Gentleman will have a lively interest in the increase of mortality, especially among the upper classes of the community, and a sickly season will prove a harvest for the Exchequer. On the same principle it might be said that their Lordships, and especially the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury) were acting most unpatriotically in labouring, by boards of health and sanitary measures, to length en human life, and diminish the rate of mortality, the result of which, of course, must be to deprive the Exchequer of considerable returns, and diminish the amount of its revenues. My Lords, under this system if you are really friends to your country, you ought to die once in every four year—you ought to obstruct all sanitary measures, and if you were "heart and soul in the matter," you would struggle against the prolongation of human life by any measures of legislation. My Lords, a Chancellor of the Exchequer has never probably, been very popular in this country; still upon the whole, he has hitherto been tolerably well received in good society. But now what will be his position? Why, my, Lords, he will be a kind of vulture soaring, over society—waiting for the rich harvest which death will pour into his treasury. He trill be heir to everybody's property—he will be a general heir having an interest in every man's decease. It will be worse than it was in days of feudal tyranny—every one will hold under the Crown an the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and ever, heir will pay a fine. My Lords, the social position of the right hon. Gentleman will be most embarrassing and most disagreeable to himself and others. I have in these remarks, my Lords, spoken with some lightness; but the subject is serious, and I beg of your Lordships to consider what is the principle on which the tax is founded. It is to be levied on a calculation of the value of the property to the party who succeeds to it, and this is to be estimated according to his age, and on this he will have to pay a poundage according to the degree of his consanguinity to his predecessor. Now that might be oppressive but to a certain extent it would be consistent, if human life always ceased at the same period, and existed under the same circumstances—if each man lived exactly a century, if every man man married at twenty-five, and had a child nine months

625
after marriage, and the whole affair went on like clock-work. But that is not so, and your calculation is not practical but theoretical. The Government say, that because one man comes into his property at the age of twenty-one years, and his property is worth twenty years' purchase, all others of the same age shall pay at the same rate. It may be so, or it may not as to him; but another man at the same age might be in a galloping consumption, with but one lung left; yet, on this calculation, he must enjoy the property twenty years before he will have acquired the equivalent to the amount of tax which he will be called upon to pay on succeeding to it, and when in reality his life is not worth three years' purchase. This is not the mode followed by insurance offices. The Government tables profess to have been drawn up on the data of actuaries; but insurance offices are not satisfied with such calculations. There every man is thoroughly examined by the medical attendant of the office, the stethoscope is applied to his chest for the purpose of sounding his lungs, inquiries are made as to his habits of life, and conclusions are drawn from all these matters as to the probable duration of his age. If there be an infirmity in his health, the rate of insurance is increased, and if it be serious, he is probably rejected altogether. Nothing of this kind is to be done under this Bill; for the duty is to be charged alike on all lives, no matter what the state of health of the person succeeding to the property, and differing in amount only in proportion to the degree of consanguinity. How, then, can it be just to charge all who succeed to property at a certain age at the same rate? I am arguing against the abstract justice of the whole system. How can it be just to measure the value of human lives in such a manner that the life of the elder son of a Peer may be taken as of no greater value than that of a military office who come into possession of the property in the midst of a war, or that of a manufacturer engaged in some process notoriously unfavourable to life? I cannot conceive a more flagrant injustice than to make a mere theoretical and arithmetical calculation to determine the value of life of all persons without consideration of age or health. My Lords, it has been said that this succession tax is a species of compensation for the promised cessation of the income tax, which it is predicted will expire in seven years. I only hope the
626
prophecy will become true; but as to which tax is the most unjust, I think there can be little question. For my own part, I had rather pay the income tax for the rest of my life than support a succession tax to be levied upon my posterity for ever. For what is the difference? The income tax is levied on the property a man possesses, and is in the bonâ fide enjoyment—enjoyed by those who are liberal in spending, and by those who are avaricious in hoarding; whereas the succession duty is a tax on what has scarcely been acquired, and which, perhaps, may never be enjoyed. The tax is calculated upon the value of the property for twenty years to come; but he may not have it for two years. My Lords, to talk of such a tax as compensation for an income tax levied year by year on what a man actually has received, is an insult to common sense, and in my opinion downright nonsense. Another argument, my Lords, that has been adduced in favour of the succession duty is, that personal property has long been subjected to the legacy duty, and that it is most unfair that real property should not be taxed in the same manner. But is it your Lordships' opinion that the imposition of a second injustice will remove or palliate the first? Would it not be more statesmanlike to do away with what you allow to be an evil, rather than to extend it and render it universal? Do you say you could not do away with it? I believe that you could. It is of no avail to allege that the late Government did not do so. We were prevented by events which had taken place, and because when we came into office we were bound to diminish taxation in a certain direction—it was a point of honour with us to do so. We attempted to do so. We failed; but it was not our fault. We were obliged—we believed ourselves obliged—to propose a reduction of the malt duty, and to relieve a portion of the community whom we believed to have been the principal sufferers from recent legislation. We could not therefore, afford to repeal the legacy duty. My right hon Friend the Member for Bucks (Mr. Disraeli) alluded to the subject; and as he has been much misrepresented upon it, I may say that when he spoke of it as an unjust tax, he did no mean merely that it was relatively unjust, because personalty paid it, and realty chit not; but he meant that it was in its own nature unjust, and that on account of its inherent injustice he had considered whether it could not be abolished. I think I

627
am justified in making these observations on this subject, because it has been alluded to by noble Lords opposite in a manner which renders this explanation necessary. My Lords, I repeat what I have already said. I am opposing the principle of any succession tax. But there is a feature in the proposed plan open to especial observation—I mean the graduated scale of duty on different degrees of consanguinity, which is not the least objectionable and absurd part of the system. I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that he had endeavoured to secure that an estate should be taxed as heavily and as frequently as posssible; but he considered, no doubt, how he could most easily pass the measure and diminish the number of its opponents. I certainly cannot see why brothers should be charged more than eldest sons—why, while a brother is to be charged at the rate of three per cent, a son is to be charged one per cent. Why should that be? It is likely that a brother should succeed brother more quickly than a son would succeed to a father. There is rarely any very great difference in the ages of brothers; and one is likely to succeed another not many years after he has come into possession, yet the brother is to be charged at a higher rate than the son, who, probably, will succeed the father many years after the father has come to the property. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive why one heir is to be taxed more heavily than another, all being equally heirs in the eye of the law, and equally entitled to the property. But if any difference is to be made, surely those who succeed most rapidly should be taxed at the lowest rate. As to natural children, again, the measure is very harsh. I admit the bar sinister which heralds place within escutcheons; but in this age of liberality it is unjust by legislation to add a mark by which mankind may point them out as the victims of crimes of others, not their own; and this system is calculated to increase and revive the unfortunate circumstances of their birth, which ought rather to be concealed. It cannot but be observed, my Lords, that those who will pay at the rate of ten per cent will be few in number, although it is estimated that the aggregate amount they will pay will be greater than that contributed by those who are taxed at a lower rate—it is evident that it is because they are few in number they are to be heavily taxed—it is because they are weak they
628
are to be wronged—and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who durst not lay four per cent on a large body, upon them can safely perpetrate his injustice. My Lords, my noble Friend the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) has gone so fully into the different clauses of the Bill, that I shall not enter into them. I would, however, offer an observation on something which fell from the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville), the Lord President of the Council, on a former occasion, something more in the nature of an admonition than an argument—when he warned your Lordships that opposition to this measure would render you odious or unpopular, because you would thereby endeavour to continue exempted from the payment of the succession duty. My Lords, I must remind your Lordships that there is a very large amount of property in the country entirely exempted from the tax—the property of the Church. My Lords, I rejoice it is so, for I am not of those who, because one half of the community are ill used, would ill use the other half. But what, my Lords, becomes of the argument of the noble Earl, who is afraid your Lordships might become unpopular if you were to oppose the tax? What is the opinion of the noble Earl as to the exemption of the Church? Does he think the Church will become unpopular? I should be sorry to suppose the noble Earl less anxious as to the popularity of the Church than of the aristocracy. If the Church will not become unpopular by reason of not paying the tax, why should your Lordships, by reason of opposing it? My Lords, my noble Friend near me (the Earl of Derby), has given notice of his intention of moving in Committee several Amendments on the clauses of the Bill:—if the noble Earl shall not propose an Amendment in the Bill, with regard to the disclosures of title deeds, I shall feel obliged to do so. Those of your Lordships who have estates in the country, and who live there, are doubtless well aware of the power which the country attorneys hold over the small landed proprietors; and I will ask them if, in their opinion, it will be safe for the owners of small landed property to trust the deeds of that property in the custody of these attorneys, who will rush, immediately upon a person's coming into a succession, to explain the meaning of this not very intelligible Act, and conduct the business in what they will no doubt call the best manner possible? I will not enter into the subject of the danger of litigation being brought

629
on by the title deeds of property being exposed to the observation of strangers or of designing persons; but it is a well-known fact that estates have been lost, or costly litigation of many years' duration have been in numerous instances the result of title deeds to property being committed to the charge of persons unworthy of the trust, who have used their knowledge for their own ends, or lent themselves to the ends of others. For these reasons, my Lords, I feel so strongly the justice of protecting muniments of title from the disclosure enforced under this Act, that, I shall certainly ask your Lordships' opinion upon it. I shall also, my Lords, feel it my duty to propose Amendments on the question of timber being included in the operation of this tax. I hope that the Government will before going into Committee on this measure, consider how the case really stands as regards timber. Persons succeeding to estates on which timber grew, unless they like to enter into an arrangement (which I must say I consider would be a species of gambling), will be obliged to pay for the timber as they cut it an ad valorem duty, settled according to the degree of consanguinity to their predecessors. A man who inherits from a stranger will pay, when he cuts his timber, 10 per cent on its value; but your Lordships will remember that he at the same time is subject to the income tax; so that, in point of fact, he will pay 13 per cent on the value of all the timber he cuts. Now, I will ask your Lordships to consider the matter from a different point of view. The duty upon foreign timber is less than, by this measure, it will be upon home timber. Upon timber from the Baltic the highest duty is not above 9 per cent; Canada timber pays a nominal duty of 1 per cent, while staves and such things are admitted duty free. Thus then by the present measure, timber small and large—down to under-wood, will in some cases pay 13 per cent, often far more—in some cases ten times as much as the foreign or colonial timber. The result, in short, will be, that Her Majesty's Government, the strenuous advocates of free trade, will place a duty on a home article, in some cases, five times as heavy as upon the same article produced abroad. I will but repeat my request to the Government to consider this question before Monday, with a view of seeing if some alteration will not be made in the clause referring to timber. I will not trespass any longer on your Lordships' time,
630
for I hardly dare to trust myself to say what I think of the character and nature of the measure. It is a Bill which I can only characterise as a Bill of pains and penalties; it is one which will keep a ledger between the holder of landed property and the Government continually open, and it will never close but that death will open it again.
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he would, in the few observations which he felt called upon to offer to their Lordships, adhere to the merits of the Bill a little more strictly, perhaps, than the noble Earl who had just sat down. He had certainly expected that the noble Earl would have addressed himself very particularly to the scheme of taxation proposed by the present Government; but the noble Earl had not only compared the Budget of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the Budget of the late Government, but he had gone a great deal further, for he had compared it with that of William the Conqueror. He confessed he had thought that the noble Earl who followed his noble Friend who moved the second reading of the measure, had employed epithets sufficiently strong with regard to the Bill, and, indeed, he had considered that epithets were exhausted; but he must do the noble Earl who had just sat down the justice of saying, that he had employed epithets as strong, and in quite a new style, when he spoke of the Bill as being "cowardly and absurd, as well as unjust." The noble Earl had made some remarks with regard to the unjust operation of this Act in the case of persons in a weak state of health, if the value of their succession should be computed according to the invariable rules laid down in this Bill, whereas, he said, in insurance offices very different rules were acted upon; but it was quite clear that in legislation you could only act upon general rules, and could not enter into individual cases—to make exceptions for the case of bad lives was clearly impossible: on the other hand, any one acquainted practically with the principles of life assurance would see that it would be impossible to make exceptions with regard to the question of consanguinity. It was, he was quite willing to admit, not possible to arrive at perfection; but the measure had been prepared with due regard to the probabilities of succession, because instead of paying a percentage on the fee-simple, it was to be paid only on the value of the life interest; and as regarded the principle of consanguinity,

631
the principle was to proportion the amount of the tax to be paid to the expectancy of the persons succeeding. In the case of natural children, to whom reference had been made, the question was certainly a very difficult one, but not, he considered, relevant in the slightest degree to the proposition before their Lordships. If any change in the condition of such children as regarded inheritance were to be made, it would involve a question of great importance, as affecting public morality; but it ought to be brought on in a regular way, and not by a sidewind, as its introduction into the present subject would be. The question before their Lordships was, whether they would allow it to go forth to the people of this country that they had rejected a measure which had been received with satisfaction by the country—["Oh!"]—with satisfaction he would repeat—for the fact of there having been, as stated by his noble Friend who moved the second reading, no petition against the measure—with the exception of the five solicitors whose petition the noble Earl had presented that evening, and who were probably the "five respectable solicitors" whom the noble Earl said he had consulted when he made his first speech on this subject—was a pretty plain proof that the country did net feel in the slightest degree the injustice of this tax. This measure was also important, because upon its adoption depended, in an indirect manner, the means of affording those remissions to the people at large which were proposed to be given by the Budget. With regard to the exemption of the property of the Church, the people of this country were perfectly able to discern a distinction between members, of the aristocracy succeeding to landed estates for their own advantage, and the case Church, the revenues of which must be regarded as a salary for duties performed. The noble Earl who had just sat down had given notice of his intention, in the event of the noble Earl who sat near him (the Earl of Derby) not doing so, of moving an Amendment with regard to the production of documents and title deeds before the Commissioners. Now, he could only assure the noble and learned Friend on the woolsack, that, in practice, the production of papers could be required whenever a request was made for the repayment of probate duty. He was unable to understand the absurdity and jealously which existed
632
on the question of exhibiting the title deeds of property, after they had so recently passed a Bill for the registration of title deeds, and when it was considered that in Scotland and Ireland the titles to estates were all registered and were accessible to the public. He would also remind their Lordships, that in England the greatest number of mortgages on land were raised from persons to whom the borrowers had to submit their title deeds often without any guarantee that an improper use would not be made of them; and yet it was never found that any evil resulted from the practice. If there existed so much indifference as to the exposure of title deeds in the one case, he was unable to understand the extreme sensitiveness manifested in the other. He would also point out to their Lordships that unless some such power were given to the Commissioners under this Act, in the event of a false representation being made to them as to the value of the property succeeded to, they would be entirely without a remedy; and in all cases where successors or persons acting for them, and accredited as their agents, should be required to produce such documents, the Commissioners would only look to the title itself, and not to its origin; they would only examine the title to the property, without, in the smallest possible way, caring how the predecessor acquired that title; and in the case of a person succeeding to property from his father, if he stated that there were charges on the property, for which he claimed exemption, and the Commissioners, entertaining some doubt as to that statement, required the production of his title deeds and documents, as a general rule—he spoke subject to correction—the practice would be adopted of allowing the person to seal up under of a succession to the property of the an affidavit all parts of his deeds and documents which did not bear any reference to the particular question at issue. He did think that if any expression of contempt were allowable, the term "bugbear," as applied to the compulsory production of documents by the noble Duke near him, (the Duke of Argyll) was justifiable; and he did hope that if the noble Earl proposed any Amendment to do away with the compulsory production of such documents, their Lordships would reject that Amendment. He did not approve the principle of discussing the Bill at its present stage, clause by clause; but as that course had been adopted, he was compelled, in reply, to refer to particular clauses. With regard

633
to the question of imposing the tax upon timber, on which the noble Earl opposite had also given notice of his intention to move an Amendment, he would put it to their Lordships if the value of the timber upon an estate was not one of the first considerations, generally speaking, which entered into the mind of the purchaser. Timber was as clearly property as anything possibly could be, and he could not see the slightest reason why it should be exempted from a tax which professed to be levied upon all descriptions of property. The clause, as amended, dealt with that particular description of property in the most favourable possible way, inasmuch as the duty was charged solely upon the net amount of money received in hand for the sale of the timber. In addition, it was extremely easy to avoid all the annoyance to which the noble Earl had made allusion, by agreeing at once to a computation of the value of the property. He did not think it necessary to enter further into details at present, as the measure would soon go into Committee, where the various clauses would have to be considered; but as the noble Earl opposite had given notice of his intention to move Amendments in Committee, he hoped that he would, with his usual courtesy, lay upon the table of the House the terms of those Amendments, so that the Government, or noble Lords who were not yet quite decided as to the course which they meant to adopt, might not be taken by surprise.
LORD ST. LEONARDSwas understood to say that he should defer entering into the subject of this Bill until it got into Committee; but he wished to ask a question. The noble Earl who commenced that discussion said that brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law were to be exonerated from this tax?
The LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that his noble Friend who moved the second reading of this Bill stated that by the present Act sons-in-law and daughters-in-law would stand in the same predicament as sons or daughters by blood. His noble Friend might have gone higher—a brother-in-law would stand in the same position as a brother, and a sister-in-law as a sister. He should be sorry to differ from his noble and learned Friend on a point of law, but it was certainly his entire conviction, that, according to the law as it at present stood, a legacy to a son or daughter-in-law paid a duty of 10 per cent.
The EARL of HARROWBYthought the
634
Chancellor of the Exchequer had fallen into considerable inconsistency in proposing this tax; because the right hon. Gentleman had himself first shown that they could not establish a balance between the burdens upon real property and personal property, but that if they took the whole scheme of our national taxation into account, it would be found that their relative burdens were fairly adjusted; and, having done this, the right hon. Gentleman, strange to say, immediately proceeded to lay down an equality between real and personal property in respect of the legacy duty, as if they ought both to be taxed in the same way. The ought hon. Gentleman overlooked the essential difference between the two species of property. The property which now paid legacy duty was capital, whereas landed property was not capital, but income; and yet it was now proposed to treat land as capital, and expose it to all the entanglements and embarrassments of extending his tax, thereby bringing the unhappy landowner into constant collision with the government. All classes of property were not treated alike under the other parts of our system of taxation. Personal property, for instance, was not subject to the poor-law, because of the great inconvenience and the inequalities and injustices there would be in assessing it to the re he f of the poor. Well, the same argument applied to this Bill. Land was already taxed more than its fair share; the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself had shown that paid more towards the income tax than ought to do—it was liable to the stamp duty—and in every transaction it was embarrassed by the claims of the revenue. It was all very well to say that serious inequalities and injustices were inseparable from this succession tax; but that was a reason why they should not impose it. One of the great vices of this tax was, that it would entail legal and other expense greater even than the amount of the duty itself; it would render a man a Crown debtor for five years, and make him the slave of his landlord for the same period. And again, the difficulties which the Bill cast upon land would press most severely upon the smaller class of proprietors, and it would greatly tend, generally to check improvements. All these social evils were overlooked by this Bill, which would not only inflict a tax, but also sterility and inextricable entanglements upon the land. Again, the injustice of the Bill was further seen in the fact that one estate

635
would have to pay the tax over and over again in the same period as another estate I only paid once. He thought the very absence of opposition, so far from justifying a boast, marked the dangerous character of this measure. They could not suppose that those who were expectant heirs to estates could meet together to agitate against the imposition of this duty, and, therefore, it was a tax against which they could have no great class organising to remonstrate.
The EARL of DERBY, in consequence of the appeal made to him by the noble Earl, begged to say that it would be impossible for him to lay on the table the Amendments which he might think it advisable to make during the progress of the Bill. The Bill had been only printed in the course of yesterday morning, and there had been very little time to consider more than the main principle of the measure. He could not, therefore, say that he would lay on the table the Amendments he might consider necessary during the progress of the measure. Undoubtedly an Amendment he should propose in the second clause would be one to make the Bill prospective altogether, so as to save existing settlements; and he should also propose an Amendment, the object of which would be to limit the operation of the Bill to five years.
On Question, Resolved in the Affirmative.
Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.
House adjourned to Monday next.