Sitting of 27 July 1855

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Turnpike Acts Continuance (No. 2); Militia Ballots; Sale of Beer, &c.
3° Office of Speaker.

TURKISH LOAN BILL.
[Progress, 27th July.] Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clause 1.
MR. GLADSTONE: I do not intend to raise any question on the principle of the Bill at the present moment, nor to offer a remark upon the singular example it affords of a measure which, on its merits, has met with the unanimous disapproval of the House—which has been disapproved of by every part of the House except the Treasury bench—and which, though so disapproved of has been supposed, through its having passed its second reading in silence, to be a measure which, notwithstanding its badness and the impossibility of justifying its form, it is better to accept than risk the inconvenience which the majority of the House believe would be consequent on its rejection. I think that is a fair statement on the part of hon. Members, who, like myself, are opposed to this measure, but who do not think it their duty to reject it. I was in hopes that the Government would have taken steps to mitigate the evils inseparable from this measure—to mitigate them, for it is impossible to remove them—for I do maintain that, giving pecuniary aid to Turkey by means of a guarantee is full of danger and pregnant with mischief to the whole tone of the objects and policy of the war, and is certain, when the war is concluded, to throw Turkey, for whom

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you are fighting, into the arms of the country which is now her and your enemy. I feel, however, that the evils of this measure would have been susceptible of mitigation if the Government had taken power, not of course, to compel by force an alteration of the terms of the Convention, but a power to modify its terms so as to have removed the entangled ralations to which it will give rise between this country and France, and to have separated the pecuniary liabilities of the two countries. By this means you would have got rid of the formidable prospective dangers which I tell you will arise in the relations between France and England in consequence of this Convention. The Government, however, have not thought fit to pay any attention to the opinion of a minority which was almost a majority, and which would have been so on Friday last had it not been for the energetic measures which were adopted by the Government. They have not thought they were bound to pay any regard to the sentiments of those Gentlemen who declared themselves in favour of the Bill, but who were unanimous in disapproving its propositions. Though the Government had in their power to act upon the remonstrances of these Gentlemen, they have not done so; and this will be remembered when the superficial current of public feeling has turned, and will be taken an account of. I am anxious not to offer any opposition to this Bill which might look like a factious one, or to obstruct the measure; and I shall content myself now by stating my strong conviction that it was the duty of the Government to consider the manner in which it could have mitigated the evils of the present measure—and that they might have done—and to have paid respectful attention to the unanimous disapproval of the principle involved in it, which had been expressed by the House. On the present occasion I want to know the meaning of this Bill, with reference to which I find myself in considerable difficulty. In the first place, I apprehend, as far as I am able to learn, that the Convention on which it is founded is an instrument which is entirely new in the history of international transactions; and, in the second place, it appears to me that the general provision of the Convention for a conjoint guarantee is not in harmony with its subsequent provisions. I will state hereafter why I hold this opinion; and I now want to know, in the first place, whether this Convention has
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been submitted to the law officers of the Crown, whether they approve of its language and are ready to give their opinions as to its legal meaning and operation? If it has not been submitted to the law officers of the Crown, then that is a grave error; but if it has been so submitted, then I must press my right as a Member of this House to have the answers of those Gentlemen with respect to the meaning and operation of this measure. By this Convention Her Majesty undertakes to recommend Parliament to enable Her to guarantee, conjointly, with the Emperor of the French, a loan of 5.000.000 l. sterling. I set aside the verbal question as to whether it was intended to guarantee the loan of 5,000,000 l. sterling or the interest of such a loan as one of little importance; but, as far as I can understand it, you intend to go into the market, and guarantee, on the faith of Turkey, a perpetual annuity of 4 per cent, subject to the operation of a sinking fund; it is not your intention to raise a loan of 5,000,000 l. but to sell that annuity. By this clause you are authorised to guarantee conjointly with the Emperor of the French, but it is rather singular that on looking at the French version of the Convention you find that its words are not followed—the French Convention has the words "conjointement et solidairement." I should like to know whether these two words are equivalent to our word "conjointly." I will presume for the present that it is so, and that is my belief. What is the meaning of guaranteeing conjointly with the Emperor of the French? I should suppose that we mean to impose what we call a joint and several liability, and that I believe is the meaning put upon it by Her Majesty's Government. We know the meaning of that phrase, and its exact application by the proceedings of our courts. When two parties enter into a joint and several liability, in such a contract there is nothing of liability which applies to the one which does not apply to the other. If this be so, then I come to my proposition, that the subsequent clauses of the Convention are not in harmony with the first; for the first clause contemplates a liability equally divided and incident on the two Governments in the same modes and degrees, while by the subsequent clauses there is contracted a liability of a totally different nature. In the second clause there is nothing that varies from the first; but by the 3rd and 4th articles of the Convention I find

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that the interest of the loan is to be remitted to England by the Sultan of Turkey, and the proceeds of the loan are to he paid into the Bank of England. I want to know whether we are going to create a legal right on the part of subscribers to the loan to receive their interest at the Bank of England? If they are entitled to receive the interest, they must be entitled to do so at some given time and place, and I want to know what that place is? I see the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Tite) in his place, and, as he came into the House in connection with the question of administrative reform, I call his particular attention to this; and he will find that, instead of making, as we ought, a snail's progress in administrative reform, we are making a crab-like movement, and are not only throwing away the people's money, but are doing so in a way which will be attended with the greatest political disadvantages. Does this Convention give the right to receive the interest at the Bank of England; and, if so, who is bound to satisfy that right? Failing the Sultan in the first instance, then who is bound to pay? In asking this, I disclaim all intention of casting any imputation on the good faith of Turkey; but there are many circumstances which may render her unable to pay, and then the whole of the liability will be thrown back on us. Is it, then, the case that under this Act the British Government will be bound to pay the whole of the interest out of the Consolidated Fund in the event of there being no remittance from abroad? I believe this is so, and I do not complain of it, for up to this point the Bill is in conformity with the terms of the Convention. But is there any similar liability on the part of France? Is there created any right for the creditors to go to France at all? If the creditors are not entitled to go on the French guarantee, where is the joint and several liability? It is the very essence of such a liability that it should attach to both parties alike. But, if you are making an arrangement by which the creditors of Turkey can come on you, and no corresponding power is given to them to come on the French Government, then you are contradicting the first article of the Convention, and the guarantee is not made jointly with the Emperor of the French. The words of the instrument are that the creditors should apply to the Bank of England, and it is au abuse of language to call this a conjoint guarantee. This being
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so, the real state of the matter is, we are guaranteeing a loan for which Turkey is liable in the first instance, England in the second, and France in the third; so that, by this arrangement, the English Government stands in file of three, with Turkey in her front and France in her rear. Two sets of rights prow out of this position—rights against Turkey in the first instance, on the supposition of her not being able to pay, or on being hindered from so doing; and rights against France, to arise in case of our having been called upon to make good the default of Turkey, and on our not having been recompensed by France. I want to know the definition of the rights thus to be created. Are we to hold rights in common with France, or are we to be entitled to exercise them separately from France? You bring in an instrument, the phraseology and provisions of which contradict its fundamental provisions, and you are bound to tell us the view which the legal advisers of the Crown take of the rights to be created under the instrument. Supposing, after peace is concluded, Turkey fail to pay, and that one of the two Governments thinks that she is able to pay, while the other thinks she is not, is Government A, who thinks that she is able to pay, entitled to go against Turkey, although Government B may think that she is not able to pay? Are we to understand that England and France are to have a clear and independent right of taking the measures which they may think fit for the enforcement of the guarantee? If we stand as we do between Turkey and France for the payment of the interest, it follows that we also stand between Turkey and France in the matter of reimbursement, and France's rights of recovery are placed in a most awkward position, for France would either have, no power of recovering, or her right would be liable to perpetual dispute. We must know from the law officers of the Crown whether France and England are united as to the views of their rights; it is useless for the Solicitor and Attorney General and the Queen's Advocate to tell us what we are entitled to do against France under given suppositions, unless they at the same time tell us that these matters have been duly considered by the two Governments, and that they have agreed upon them. Even the conjoint guarantee contemplated by the Convention would be liable to the greatest difficulties. Suppose that this country was desirous of obtaining Egypt as a security

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for its guarantee, and France was equally desirous of obtaining that province for its security, how would their respective claims have to be settled? I do not say that such a desire exists either on the part of this Government or on that of France, though there is a strong feeling that such is the case both in America and on the Continent. I remember some time ago that an American gentleman of high position, in the presence of my noble Friend, was making a defence for his country against the charge brought against it of an unscrupulous desire with regard to the acquisition of territory, and he summed up his defence by saying, "Brother Jonathan takes after Brother John;" and this is the feeling which is prevalent both in America and on the Continent. If, however, you provide in a treaty to have the revenue of a given province as a security for your guarantee, no one can have a right to charge with ambitious designs the Government which occupies that province. If such a charge were brought, of course we should point to our Convention, and say, what is the use of impounding the revenues of Egypt, unless such an arrangement was to be in the nature of a mortgage, and to have the powers incident thereto? If, as I believe, it is contemplated by this Convention to occupy Smyrna, Syria, or Egypt, I want to know how the respective rights of the parties are to be settled? Are we to have the right of occupying Egypt without consulting France, or is France to have the right to do so, without consulting us? Has there been any communication between the two Governments on this subject? If there has not, then I regard such neglect as most culpable and full of danger, and I will liberate my mind and conscience from having anything to do with this question. I will merely raise these points, and it is your business to provide against them; but if you do not choose to do so you decide on the course you will adopt by exercising your own supreme and authoritative judgment with which I have no right to interfere. I trust that the Government will answer the questions that I have put—it will not do to meet them with general words, however magniloquent they may be—or to say that this is a question which must not be obstructed by small quibbles—or that it affects the confederacy of Europe, the balance of power, or the integrity of Turkey. The efforts which I make may be fruitless, or I may be wrong in what I have
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stated; and, if I am, I am sure, judging from my experience, that there is no man more capable of exposing the errors into which I may have fallen than the Solicitor General, for what mortal man can do he can and will do in this respect. But my questions must not be met by mere political declamation, for I assert that if you are going to create positions which are entirely new, and new relations, it is your duty to give us clear definitions of those rights, and the remedies you propose by which we are to obtain those rights, should we be placed in position to demand them.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he really was not prepared for the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. He certainly understood that there was to be no discussion upon this stage of the Bill. He did not, however, mean to say that he had any right to complain of the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman. But from what had passed the other night between the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he (Viscount Palmerston) expected that the right hon. Gentleman would not have raised these objections in Committee on the Bill. The Government had appointed other business for discussion that night, and a great many Gentlemen had come down to the House under that impression. He would, therefore, under such circumstances, ask the Chairman to Report progress.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was sorry there should be any misapprehension upon this subject. He would greatly regret being the occasion of it. He was not then contending against the policy of the Bill; but the construction of the measure. He certainly intended to have addressed the Speaker, and he came down to the House for that purpose. He, however, found Mr. Fitzroy in the chair at five minutes after twelve o'clock. If it were more convenient to have this explanation given upon a future stage of the Bill, he would offer no obstruction to such an arrangement.
MR. TITEsaid, that he had been so pointedly alluded to by the hon. Gentleman that he felt bound to say a few words. He did not see what the present question had to do with administrative reform, or what the right hon. Gentleman meant unless, inferentially, to blame him for the vote he had given to the Government on a previous night. In explanation of his vote, he might say that he was not only desirous

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of placing "the right man in the right place," but also of doing the right thing at the right time; and he felt that they were doing so by granting assistance to Turkey at the present moment, and he had, therefore, voted for the Government.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERwas ready to follow his right hon. Friend. He had all the papers before him, and could answer all the points raised, but as he understood he would best consult the convenience of the House by doing so he proposed to fix the Committee for six o'clock, to be taken after the other orders.
MR. MILNER GIBSONasked whether there would be any objection to place on the table the correspondence which had taken place between the Government and the Governments of Turkey and France, with respect to this Convention?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the only Convention there was, was that which had been already laid on the table—that between the Governments of France and England and the Government of Turkey.
MR. MILNER GIBSONmeant the correspondence—the original request of the Sultan for a loan, and the subsequent correspondence on the subject.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Of course the correspondence between Turkey and this country could be produced, but not the correspondence between Turkey and France. He would communicate with his noble Friend the Foreign Secretary, and learn if the former could be produced.
MR. J. L. RICARDOwished to know if there was any correspondence with respect to the distribution of the money in Turkey. He understood that there was a supplementary Convention.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he would consider about that also.
House resumed.
Committee report progress; to sit again this day.

LIMITED LIABILITY BILL.
[Progress, 26th July.] Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clause 1 (Mode of obtaining limited liability by future Companies.)
MR. WILKINSONproposed to omit the words, other than an Insurance Company."
MR. BOUVERIEopposed the Amendment, and said that banks were excepted, because our whole legislation with respect
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to banks was of an exceptional character, and, with respect to Insurance Companies, they were at present able to protect themselves and to limit their liability.
MR. HENLEYthought that the right hon. Getleman had not at all touched the principle which he had been asked to explain. As to a Bank of Issue, no such bank could now be set up at all, and therefore the observation as to that was quite inapplicable. But the right hon. Gentleman had not at all attempted to go into the question why a bank should have more liability than a coppersmith or any other tradesman. As to Insurance Companies, it was said that they evaded the law by an agreement; but he wanted to know why they should be driven to a special contract to evade the law? If they were to have free-trade, there ought to be no exceptions and no restrictions. If the principle was good in itself, why should it not be good for a bank?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONobserved, that there was a distinction between banks and the Joint-stock Companies contemplated by this Bill. A Joint-stock Company was an association of individuals who collected together their capital to be employed in some profitable undertaking. The functions of a bank were altogether different. A bank was a being in whose custody we deposited our money for safe keeping, and its duty partook of the nature of a trust. The fundamental function of a bank, therefore, was the safe custody of other people's money; but the fundamental function of these associations was the active employment of their own money. This constituted a distinction in the very nature of the two things. It was quite clear that when persons deposited their money in a bank for safe keeping, they were entitled to a greater amount of security from the persons constituting that bank than a mere creditor was against his debtor in matters of ordinary trade. In other countries where limited liability was adopted as a general principle, banks were excepted; and, therefore, it was thought right to except them as well as Insurance Companies from the operation of this measure.
MR. HENLEYdid not see why banks, because they were used for deposit, should be excluded from the Act. If a foreign merchant sent over 100,000 l. worth of sugar or coffee for sale to a merchant here, that also was matter of deposit.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: That was agency.
MR. HENLEY: Yes; but he supposed that there might be Joint-stock agencies as well as Joint-stock Banks, and such agencies might be carried on under this Bill.
MR. CARDWELLcomplained that a new principle had been introduced by the noble Lord, different from that which was affirmed the preceding day. Yesterday they were told that they had nothing to do but to trust to the principle of caveat creditor; but now they had heard that the creditor who deposited his money in a bank required especial protection; and the same exception was also to be extended to Assurance Companies. So far as he comprehended the argument, it was this, that a bank was to be exempted from this Bill because the business of a bank was of a different kind from that of a trader, and because it was merely a depository of money, which money was always ready to be returned on demand. But how did this apply to Assurance Companies? No doubt there were specialties in the business of banking and also other specialties in the business of assurance, but to all trades and to all branches of commerce the great principles of credit equally applied. The principle of this Bill, then, it appeared, was to be that there must be safeguards, and that people must not rely merely on the principle of caveat creditor. That was a most important admission to obtain on the very threshold of the debate. But still he did not see how this applied to Assurance Companies. If it were true that they were already within the principle of limited liability, why refuse to bring them within the purview of the Bill? He should certainly vote in favour of the Amendment.
MR. COWANthought it extremely unwise at the end of a Session that a measure of this description should be persevered in, and which, if passed, was not likely to command the confidence of the country. He hoped the Government would withdraw this and the Partnership Amendment Bill, to which he had a still greater objection.
MR. BRAMLEY-MOOREsaid, that under this Bill for limited liability, a man might be a bankrupt in one street, and a wealthy merchant prince round the corner in another concern, and that this was irreconcilable with sound morality. It was equally important to protect the public as well as shareholders in Companies, and he would call the especial attention of the right hon.
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Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade, not to permit Assurance Companies to be brought under the operation of this Bill. No Life Assurance Company could tell whether or not they were solvent, in a less period of time than ten or twelve years; consequently, it was a delusion for a Company to go on dividing profits or paying dividends during the first year of its existence. A Company with a small capital might make large dividends for the first few years—in fact, receive back their capital two or three times over, and then when demands were made upon them they would find shelter and protection under the law of limited liability. Take the case of a man who insured his life to make provision for his family at his death, he paid the premium for ten or fifteen, or twenty years, as the case might be. The Company had had a prosperous time, and during this time had divided large sums in bonuses and dividends—the lives now began to fall in—claims were heavy—the capital was swept away—the assured were left without redress, and the shareholders remained with the dividends and bonuses in their pockets! This had happened over and over again where limited liability existed.
Limited liability existed throughout the United States of America. The following was the result of one year's experience, taken from an American publication of repute—Palmer's Almanack:
In 1841, there were 33,739 bankrupts; 1049,603 creditors; 440,934,615 dollars in debt: the property surrendered amounted to 43,697,307 dollars—but when this came to be realized, it did not produce an average dividend of 1 per cent. The dividends realized in the different States, were as follows:—State of Maine, ½ a cent in 100 dollars; Michigan and Ohio, ¼cent in 100 dollars; New Jersey, 4 cents in 100 dollars; Tenesse, 4½ cents in ditto; 1 cent in Maryland; Mississippi, 6 cents in 1,000 dollars; Kentucky, 8 dollars in 1,000 dollars; Illinois, 1 dollar in 1,500. In Pennsylvania—East Virginia—South Alabama, and Washington, there were no dividends at all.
VISCOUNT GODERICH: What year was that?
MR. BRAMLEY-MOORE: The year 1841.
MR. WILKINSON: Were these limited liability partnerships?
MR. BRAMLEY-MOORE: The return contained partnerships of all kinds.

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Limited liability for losses with unlimited profits was dishonest, and calculated to provoke and encourage over-trading—and the professed object of this Bill was to check and prevent over-trading. The credit of England, where limited liability does not exist, stood higher in every part of the globe than any other nation; and this was the secret and simple reason why London was made the grand focus and centre for exchange operations from every part of the world. The Americans, who were so acute where dollars were concerned, were compelled to have credits in London, wherewith to pay for their tea in China, and sugar and coffee in Brazil. Take the case of a London Joint-stock Bank, which had been dividing 25 per cent per annum in dividends and bonuses. In four years the shareholders got their entire capital paid back. Suppose, then, at the end of this time the bank failed, was it right, just, and honest, for the shareholders to be allowed to keep these dividends and the creditors to be left in the lurch? Sound policy, and sound morality declared against the measure.
MR. BOUVERIEsaid, he did not understand the force of the statement of the hon. Gentleman, because it happened that he knew a country where the principle of limited liability was not acted upon, but where losses to the extent of not less than 50,000,000 l. sterling had been sustained in the course of one year by insolvency and bankruptcy, and that country he begged to tell the hon. Gentleman was England. He did not believe that the proposed change in the law would make any difference in the amount of insolvencies or bankruptcies. Whether limited or unlimited liability were the law, there would always be a number of persons incapable of managing their affairs. It should, however, be remembered that, to a certain extent, a burden would be attached to Companies acting under this Bill. They would be required to pay up a certain amount of their capital, and that would operate very onerously in many cases. It was said that the Bill would give rise to a great deal of fraud. He did not doubt it, nor did he expect that any law would be able to prevent fraud. Those who were disposed to cheat would always find loopholes enabling them to impose on those who were ready to be gulled. He did not think that any ground had been stated for excluding Insurance Companies from the operation of the Bill.
MR. LOWEsupported the Amendment. No answer had been given to the question why Insurance Offices should not come within the operation of this Act. The principle of the Act was, that the people were the best judges of what was good for themselves; and if Assurance Offices choose to come and pay up 20 per cent of their capital, why should they be precluded from doing so, and partaking of the benefits of the Bill? He objected to any exceptions from the general law.
MR. HENLEYsaid, the exclusion of Insurance Companies from the Bill showed the distrust of the Government in the operation of their own principle.
MR. M'CANNsaid, it had been laid down by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), on a former occasion, that a man was the best judge of the disposal of his own money. If that were so, he did not see why Parliament should interfere against hells and gambling houses.
MR. GLYNsaid, that Insurance Companies had transactions in reference to contingent remainders, which extended over a very lengthened period, and were for the benefit of persons not even alive at the time; and he would ask, ought not such parties to have some special securites thrown around them to protect them from loss? It was a question whether there ought not to be liability to the greatest extent, instead of limited liability, in Insurance Companies. He thought that Insurance Companies should not be included in the act.
MR. LLOYD DAVIES: The question was whether, if they omitted Insurance Companies, those Companies could not still go on on their present system. He thought they should be allowed to come under the Act if they thought proper to do so.
MR. ARCHIBALD HASTIEsaid that the people of America, where the law of limited liability existed, were anxious to get rid of it. In Massachusetts it was the law that no bank should be established without first raising one-half of its capital; and the practice was for the parties to borrow the money and exhibit it to the inspector, who reported accordingly. Immediately afterwards the money was returned to the lender, and the bank was started without any money at all.
MR. SPOONERsaid, that all Insurance Companies enjoyed by their deed limited liability; and he wished to know whether, if they were brought under this Act, they

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would still have the option of continuing under the conditions of their deed?
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, that Insurance Companies did not obtain limited liability by their deed. It must be clearly understood that the principle of limited liability was not new to the English law. Liability only arose from the circumstance that every partner was considered to be the general agent of his partners; and if it were possible to limit that general agency in such a manner as to make every person with whom they dealt aware of it, there would be no general liability. Insurance Companies had the opportunity of doing that, for all their contracts being in writing, they had the option of introducing a provision expressly engaging for limited liability. The opportunity of continuing that practice would still remain to them, even if they came under the provisions of this Act. The provisions of this Act would not in the smallest degree supersede the general principles of the law.
MR. MONTAGU CHAMBERSre-marked that the special clause in policies spoken of by the Solicitor-General had come into use in this way. A great Company started in Liverpool and in the City, called, he thought, the Sea Insurance Company, in which there were many shareholders who were in business. Some time after it was discovered that the Company was insolvent to the extent of 200,000 l. or 300,000 l. Unlimited liability attached to the shareholders, and many of them were suddenly astonished by finding themselves ruined because they could not pay the large amount of the Company's liabilities. As the law now stood liability was clearly limited by a special clause to the number of shares subscribed for; and the consequence of striking out the words might be to defeat the object of the Committee which investigated the subject.
Amendment by leave withdrawn.
VISCOUNT GODERICH VISCOUNT GODERICH moved, in Clause 1, line 10, to leave out "having a capital stock of the nominal amount of not less than 50,000 l., divided into shares of a nominal value of not less than 25 l. each. The Bill as it stood was inconsistent with the argument that it was for the benefit of the many. It actually tended to create a new monopoly. The objection to the present law was that it supported monopoly; yet by this Bill they were going to give a monopoly in favour of Companies
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having a capital of 20,000 l. He thought the limit must have been fixed in order to conciliate the opponents of the measure and with the vague idea of preventing fraud. No security was provided that the whole sum should have been paid up. The nominal capital of the Company must be 20,000 l., but all that need be actually paid was 4,000 l.The Companies which would be excluded from the benefit of this Bill would, in his opinion, be safer than those who would participate in it. If the Government would not agree to his Amendment he trusted they would consent to that of his hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth, for fixing the nominal amount at 10,000 l.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsupported the Amendment, and considered that this proposed limitation of capital to the amount of 20,000 l., as a minimum, was the greatest defect in the Bill. He saw no reason why parties having a capital of 2,000 l., or even 1,000 l., might not carry on business highly beneficially both to themselves and the country.
MR.W. EWARTremarked that one great argument which had been urged in favour of the Bill was, that it would afford facilities to small capitalists for the employment of their money, but "small" and "large" were relative terms. To some, 20,000 l. would be a great undertaking, and so would 10,000 l., or even 5,000 l. The principle of limited liability ought not to be confined to undertakings of great magnitude. Give to all classes the amplest knowledge of commercial affairs, and then leave them to themselves. All other modes of protection were false and vicious. He therefore agreed with the proposal of the noble Lord, which was strictly within the limits of the principle of the Bill.
MR. WILKINSONsaid, the effect of the limitation in the Bill would be to deprive the labouring classes of that power of investing their small savings which they ought to enjoy, and which would encourage among them habits of economy, foresight, and frugality.
MR. ARCHIBALD HASTIEsaid, the House having decided that the Bill should go into Committee, he felt it his duty to make it as efficient as possible. The limit proposed by the Government was quite inconsistent with free trade, and in its present shape the Bill would be a delusion upon the labouring classes.
MR. BOUVERIEobjected to the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord,

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because there were a class of undertakings which it was not desirable to invest with the dignity and character of corporations. His noble Friend had lost sight of the Partnership Amendment Bill altogether, and it was the intention of the Government to meet the cases he contemplated by that Bill. The House, however, should provide that this Bill should not be made the instrument for sanctioning mere gambling bubbles. He was willing to admit that 20,000 l., was rather too high, and he was therefore disposed to accept the Amendment placed on the notice paper by the hon. Member for Lambeth, for fixing the amount at 10,000 l. With respect to the amount of the shares, he was not disposed to reduce the amount to 10 l., but he was willing to consent to fix the amount at 20 l.
MR. MITCHELLsaid, the opponents of the Bill were on the previous day called by the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) monopolists. Why should the House establish monoplists having a capital of 10,000 l? The course taken by the Government was inconsistent with their professed opinions.
MR. HENLEYthought the argument of the right hon. Gentleman was fatal to any particular limit, nor did lie see why any limit should be imposed. They were about to enter upon a new system by which persons of small means were to be enabled to do good for themselves; why then stop half way and baulk your own object? It would be much better to leave the parties to take care of themselves, to look at the nature of the undertaking, and to consider the means they possessed to employ upon it, than to have any limit at all.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALwas of opinion that the Amendment would be inoperative, because it was impossible to establish the principle of limited liability without a registration of the shareholders, which would show the amount of their shares and of their liabilities. The very object of the Bill was to define each man's liability, and this must necessarily state the aggregate amount of the capital to be invested. If, therefore, the Amendment were to be adopted, it would run counter to the whole principle of the Bill. He would entreat his noble Friend not to press his Amendment.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that, without doubt, there must be some specification of the shares; but nothing was easier than to deal with them. But the Committee had a
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great principle before them for consideration. He had always understood that the object of those who were friendly to the Bill was to establish a new system and wed together labour and capital, in order; that persons of small income might have the power of combining their capital for the purpose of carrying on useful branches of trade. The Solicitor General, however, said that the Bill was only contemplated for undertakings of great magnitude. On the contrary, the object of the Bill was to enable small capitalists to aggregate themselves for all useful purposes—and there were many useful porposes which did not require a capital of 10,000 l. The argument used by the supporters of the Bill was, that it radically destroyed monopoly; but he contended, if this Bill were passed, limiting the amount of capital to be invested to not less than 10,000 l., that, so far from cutting up monopoly, they would be creating monopolies which were at present unknown to the law. This Act would throw into the hands of any person who could command 10,000 l. a monopoly which he could not at present enjoy, and would inflict the greatest injustice on all those who were not able to command that amount of capital. That, however, was not the only injustice which the Bill would perpetrate. The persons who would furnish the capital of 10,000 l. would be those to whom the loss of such a sum would be a small matter, provided it brought them into competition with the humbler capitalists, and had the effect of beating them out of the field. He would, therefore, warn the small traders to be very circumspect in accepting such a Bill as this; the effect of which, he believed, would be to enable the large capitalists to monopolise the whole of those trades in which the money of the humbler classes might otherwise be invested. With regard to those great capitalists who had seats in Parliament, he begged here to remark that he was ashamed to hear the sneers which had been cast upon those men, as if they came down to this House only to promote their own interest. It was with pain that he had heard reference made, in the course of these debates, to Lord Overstone, whose high character it was impossible for any man to impeach. But those great capitalists, against whom these sneers were directed, were having a mighty rod prepared for them by which they would scourge the small trader if this limitation of capital should be maintained. The power of that limitation would enable

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them to inundate the small capitalists, who would be utterly unable to contend with the competition which would be brought against them. But if there were no limitation, and the law was made equal to everybody, whatsoever might be the amount of their property, then the people might have the advantage—though of course never equal to that which wealth would command—of a legislative enactment like the present. At all events there would be one uniform law, and the Legislature would not be responsible for any advantages which one class of the community might enjoy over another.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that nothing was so admirable as the zeal of a new convert, and he was sure his noble Friend who proposed the Amendment must be nearly in a state of ecstasy at having received the support of one of the most zealous advocates of unlimited liability. But with all deference, he thought there were reasons, without at all involving the general principles upon which the Government had recommended this Bill, why they might reject the particular proposal which had been made by his noble Friend. He had already contended that this Bill was founded on the principle of free trade, and he still maintained that doctrine; but it was also founded upon another principle. It was proposed to give to those associations which it was intended to create by this Bill that character which the law now gave to Joint-stock Companies. They would be invested with a corporate character, and have the privilege of suing and of being sued. They would have a corporate seal, and would not be simply an aggregation of individuals, but would possess legal privileges, and be distinguished by legal
conditions. If, then, there were to be given to a number of individuals this corporate character and those legal privileges, there should at least be some monetary evidence of their existence; and he thought that a capital of 10,000 l., while it would be quite sufficient to show that it was a real and bonâ fide body, was not too much to require in order to entitle it to be recognised as a Joint-stock Company. But to confer such privileges and conditions on a set of persons whose shares were merely nominal, and whose capital might not exceed 20 l., would really be bringing ridicule upon all corporate bodies. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire, had stated an instance on which he had founded an argument. He said it was once wished
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to establish a gas company in a village, but which would not require so large a capital as 10,000 l., and therefore this Bill would preclude any such Company from being formed. He (Viscount Palmerston) did not admit the force of that argument, because it should be recollected that, although it was a condition of the Bill that the capital should be 10,000 l., yet the shareholders would not be compelled to pay up more than 10 s. on each share of 20 l., making only 1,800 l. in the whole. He therefore thought that a capital of 10,000 l. was not too large. He would mention a case in which the want of this principle of limitation had been severely felt, and had been producing very extensive injury in the north of Ireland. There was a district where there was a great extent of coal and iron. Some persons took a lease of that district; their capital was not sufficient to enable them advantageously to work the district. If they had been able to do so the counties of Roscommon, Leitrim, and Sligo would have derived immense benefit from it. Well, they could not get the money required. They tried to obtain a charter of limited liability, but they invariably failed. They were told to go to Glasgow and raise money; but the Glasgow men said, "No, you cannot give us sufficient security, and, unless you do so, we will not lend the money." They did not like to go tied hand and foot into the power of the Glasgow or Liverpool speculators, and consequently this had retarded the development of the prosperity of Ireland. This Bill would set them free, and they would be able to obtain from the small farmers and others such an aggregate of capital as would enable them to work with advantage. With regard to poor people, when his hon. Friend had brought in his Partnership Bill, that would meet their case, and would enable the smallest contributions to be given to one person who would represent the concern, so that the two Bills would meet every purpose. He certainly thought it would not be advisable to adopt the proposal of the noble Lord, though he was prepared, as had been stated by his noble Friend, to reduce the amount of capital from 20,000 l. to 10,000 l.
MR. LOWEwas anxious to call to the attention of the Committee that that which the noble Lord and the Solicitor General termed an absurdity already existed, and that a Company with 1s. 6d. shares and 20 l. capital could be registered under the Joint-stock Company's Act and become a

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corporation. As this was so, he saw no reason why they should seek to narrow the limits of the present Bill, or seek to interfere and do that which they did not do with regard to corporations. As to the amount of capital, he maintained that, instead of a small capital being the badge of fraud, a large capital was so. He thought also, that experience showed that the shares had better be small, as the Joint-stock Companies ought to be ready-money concerns; and, when the shares were small it was more likely that they would be paid up at once and the concern carried on on bonâ fide principles. For these reasons he felt bound to support the Amendment of the noble Lord.
LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that they had had, on very high authority, a definition of respectability, which consisted, it was said, in keeping a gig, and the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) had given them a definition of "reality," which was l0.000 l. He (Lord J. Manners) ventured to assert that neither of these definitions was based upon principle. He thought that if the present Bill was based upon principle, there ought to be no limitation either of the amount of capital or shares, and he should, therefore, support the Amendment of the noble Lord.
VISCOUNT GODERICHsaid he should press his Amendment to a division. His proposition had received the support, not of one class, as the noble Lord at the head of the Government implied, but of the whole Committee.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALhad found it impossible to provide machinery for carrying out the Bill without fixing the capital at a considerable amount.
MR. HENLEYthought the objection of the hon. and learned Gentleman was unfair to the noble Lord. The noble Lord had raised a great question of principle, and if his Amendment were adopted it would be easy to provide suitable machinery.
MR. COWAN MR. COWAN moved that the Chairman report progress.
MR. MONTAGU CHAMBERSsaid, if the Bill passed in its present form it would be a fiction and a delusion, and he should vote for the Amendment.
MR. SPOONERdisclaimed the imputation of the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), that he was a convert. He was no convert, but was as much opposed to the Bill as ever. On the ground of consistency, however, he felt bound to support the Amendment.
The Committee were about to divide, when
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that he would not trouble the Committee to do so; and the first part of Lord Goderich's Amendment was agreed to.
MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that although he had agreed to the omission of the words "down to and including 20,000 l.," yet he would not agree to the omission of the words "with respect to the nominal amount of the shares being 25 l.," though he was prepared to reduce that sum to 20 l.
VISCOUNT GODERICHsaid, that he would take the sense of the Committee upon this question, and moved the omission of the words, "divided into shares of a nominal value of not less than 25 l.
MR. CARDWELLsaid that, if the Amendment of the noble Lord were carried, there would be no definition as to the value of the shares inserted in the Bill. He thought that the conclusion was most salutary which had been come to, that the amount of capital should be left to the discretion of the Companies; but he thought that, in order to prevent fraud, it would be requisite to limit the amount of the shares, though he thought 25 l. was much higher than was necessary for such a purpose. He felt, under these circumstances, compelled to vote against the Amendment of the noble Lord.
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
The Committee divided:— Ayes 88; Noes 34: Majority 54.
House resumed.
Committee report progress.

ORDNANCE INVENTIONS— QUESTION.
MR. W. EWARTinquired of the Clerk of the Ordnance whether satisfactory progress continued to be made in mechanical and other inventions laid before the Select Committee of the Board of Ordnance, with a view to shortening the duration of the war.
MR. MONSELLreplied that 974 projects of inventions in all had been laid before the Committee during the last twelve months, of which 696 had been rejected, and there still remained for trial 123. The Select Committee was divided into five sub-Committees, on which many men of scientific eminence were engaged.

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These were working very hard to carry out some inventions which had been considered and approved of; and of the remainder, some were in the hands of contractors, and he trusted might be successful, and lead to results having a favourable influence on the prospects of the war.

MILITARY ORDER OF MERIT— QUESTION.
LORD ELCHObegged to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, if the intention of instituting a new Order of Merit for distinguished services in the field, which was publicly announced by the Duke of Newcastle in the month of December, had been abandoned, and if not, what was the cause of the delay, and when it was probable that it would be instituted and ready for distribution?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, it was the intention of Government, as soon as possible, to issue the regulations of the New Order. The only cause of the delay that had taken place had been, that when they came to make detailed arrangements as to the practical test to he applied to the claims of private soldiers, and other matters of this kind, there had been found more difficulties in making satisfactory arrangements than had been anticipated; but he hoped that very soon those difficulties would be overcome.

IRISH GUARDS—QUESTION.
MR. VINCENT SCULLYasked the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the gallant conduct of Irish soldiers in the Crimea, Her Majesty's Government will recommend that a Royal Regiment of Queen's Irish Guards shall be embodied, with privileges similar to those enjoyed by the English and Scotch regiments of Grenadier, Coldstream, and Fusilier Guards?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I can inform my hon. and learned Friend, that the matter to which his question relates, has been considered by Her Majesty's Government. Undoubtedly, we should be very desirous of making any arrangement which would be gratifying to the Irish, to whose services upon all occasions, more especially military—but that I need hardly say, because there never has been any difference of opinion on that point whenever and wherever they have been employed—but to whose services both by sea and land the Crown and country owes so much. But with respect to the particular
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method my hon. and learned Friend has pointed out, this is to be considered, that the Guards are a privileged body, and those privileges more or less place them in a position with respect to the rest of the army which gives rise to observation. We think that the privileged corps already bear as large a proportion to the rest of the army as is expedient, and we do not think that it would be advisable to increase the establishment of that body, but every endeavour will be made to induce Irishmen to enlist into the existing regiments of Guards. Those regiments should be considered as belonging to the United Kingdom generally, and not to England, Scotland, or Ireland in particular. They consist of men enlisted indiscriminately from all parts of the United Kingdom, and all the individuals belonging to them should be considered as having an equal share in the glories that may attend the services of those distinguished corps.

WIDOWS OF NAVAL OFFICERS— QUESTION.
SIR GEORGE TYLERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, what steps the Admiralty has taken to extend to the widows of officers of the Royal Navy the boon which Her Majesty has lately conferred upon the widows of officers of the army, by extending the pension warrant, so as to create a special scale of pensions for the widows of officers who may die from illness contracted in the field. Also, whether it is true that the widow of the late Admiral Boxer has only been granted the ordinary pension for an admiral's widow, namely, 120 l. a year?
SIR CHARLES WOODwas most ready to admit that no distinction ought to be made between the two branches of the service. The army warrant was not yet finally arranged, and therefore he could not say exactly what its terms might he; but the Board had every wish to give the highest pensions in their power to the widows of officers dying on service. With regard to the case of the widow of Admiral Boxer, it was true that, under the regulations, she would have only the ordinary pension of an admiral's widow; but there were other sources from which that pension could be increased, and he was happy to state that Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to take her claims into consideration, and acknowledge them in a manner which would certainly be satisfactory to the country.

THE ORDNANCE SURVEY OF SCOTLAND EXPLANATION OF LORD ELCHO.
LORD ELCHOsaid, that though he was unwilling in any way to interrupt the course of public business, he wished to refer shortly to a matter of a private nature, which arose out of a speech made the other night by the noble Lord the Member for Totness (Lord Seymour). He was not in the House the other night when the noble Lord made a speech on the Ordnance survey of Scotland, but when he returned to the House, he was told by an hon. Member that he ought to have been present, as the speech of the noble Lord was at least not complimentary to him. Although he spoke on that occasion, he could not reply to the noble Lord's speech, as he was not aware what he had said; but he trusted the House would indulge him on this occasion, as it was a matter which affected his personal character. What the noble Lord the Member for Totness (Lord Seymour) was reported to have said on that occasion was this:—
"Nothing could be more absurd, or, indeed, more laughable, than the ground on which Lord Elcho had justified the twenty-five-inch scale. The noble Lord was, as they all knew, a large landed proprietor; and he had remarked with admirable naivete, that he was of opinion with Lord Tweeddale, that it would be a matter of great convenience to the landed proprietors of Scotland if the survey was constructed on the scale of twenty-five inches to the mile. Of course it would. Not a doubt of it; but if it was to be done for the convenience of landlords, it was manifestly fair that the landlords should pay for it. A survey on so large a scale could only be of local service, and those only who had a local interest in the work should endure the cost. Why should the country be saddled with the expense of a scheme of survey larger than the country needed, and larger than that house approved of, and simply because this gigantic undertaking would be of service to landed proprietors?"
Now, it might have been possible that something absurd or laughable in what he had said or written might have occasioned this opinion in the noble Lord, for they all knew he was a man of a hilarious disposition and a cheerful countenance—and he might have been excited thereby; but he denied that, in anything which he had said or written, could he find any such ground or motive. The point of the noble Lord's speech was this, that he (Lord Elcho), being a large landed proprietor, had endeavoured to obtain a scale beneficial to himself as a landlord, at the expense of the rest of the community. That was a statement which he considered as reflecting on his character, and there-
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fore he wished to show that the grounds on which he advocated that scale was not the grounds attributed to him by the noble Lord, but on the public interest alone. His first connection with this subject was in 1851, when he was Chairman of the Committee appointed to consider the subject; but his position did not exempt him from observation by the noble Lord, for, although he advocated the six-inch scale, yet the Committee were unanimously of opinion that, whatever advantages it possessed, they were not such as to justify the expense it would occasion to the community. He considered the question was one of great national importance, and that Parliament, before they pronounced a definite opinion upon it, ought carefully to peruse the Report.
LORD SEYMOURobserved, that the noble Lord was not present when he made the speech of which he complained, and he had not read through the whole of the remarks he made on the occasion, nor replied to the only point he (Lord Seymour) had advanced in reference to the noble Lord. He had never imputed to the noble Lord selfish considerations or a desire to benefit his own property at the expense of the country. That was out of the question. What be bad intended to convey was, that the noble Lord, being a landed proprietor, felt with the general body of landed proprietors, and that the feeling if acted upon was disadvantageous to the tax-payers of the country generally. He was glad the noble Lord had brought this subject before the House, because there was one point connected with it to which he wished to refer. The right hon. Member for the University of Oxford, speaking on the subject on the 2nd of March, 1854, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that this was a great question, in which not hundreds of thousands only, but millions of the public money were involved; and that the question as to the scale ought therefore to be decided, not by the Treasury, but by the House. But had the House decided the question? It had never had the opportunity of doing so; and what he contended was, that that opportunity ought to be afforded. This statement was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 2nd of March, and so far from the question having been submitted to the House, the Treasury Minute was issued in July, ordering that Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire should be drawn upon the enlarged scale, and that until a final decision was come

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to, the system applied to those two counties should be applied to the other counties. Was that waiting for the decision of the House? On the contrary, it was begging the whole question, and involving the country in the large expenditure to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. He was not the only person deceived in the matter, the noble Lord at the head of the Government was deceived also. He thought that Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire were to be the only counties surveyed. It was upon this ground that he had thought he felt justified in bringing the subject forward. But there was another point which the noble Lord, as a Lord of the Treasury, ought to have answered. There had been a twenty-five-inch scale survey in England, but who paid for it? The landlords of England themselves, by a tax upon the land. It was not paid for out of the public taxes. But was this all? He was accused of attacking the landlords. What said the President of the Royal Geographical Society in his inaugural address? He said, "I reassert that patriotism, in this instance, has merged in the desire to obtain local advantages." It was his (Lord Seymour's) opinion also that local advantages had been allowed to prevail over the general interests of the country, and that those local interests had had more influence at the Treasury than the interests of the public.
MR. BLACKBURNsaid, the survey for Scotland had been postponed for upwards of sixty years, and that that country ought to have a scale at least as good as that which had been given to Ireland. He trusted the survey would be continued on the present scale until Parliament had finally decided what scale should be adopted, when it could be reduced to that scale.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that the only map which it was intended to publish was on the one inch scale, and he could assure the hon. Gentleman that there should be no unnecessary delay in its publication.

TURKISH LOAN BILL.
Order for Committee read.
MR. WALPOLE: Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer commences his reply to the observations of the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone), I wish to put a question to him. I perceive that in the original Convention the word "séparément " occurs in three articles, but in the translation of the Convention laid upon the table the word "separately"
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is omitted in all the articles. Now, I apprehend that the legal effect of the Convention would be very different, according to the omission or insertion of that word. The Bill is framed upon the supposition that the translation is correct, and is not framed according to the original Convention. The recital of the Bill states that—
"Whereas a Convention has been signed between Her Majesty, His Majesty the Emperor of the Frenhch, and His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, in which it was agreed as follows:"
And then follows the English translation of the Convention, omitting the word "separately" throughout, adopting the English translation, and not copying the original. The enacting part of the Bill, which purports to give effect to the Convention, makes it lawful for Her Majesty to guarantee, in conjunction with the Emperor of the French, the interest on the loan to be raised by the Sultan upon the terms and conditions set forth in the Convention. Now, the conditions of the Convention differ from the terms and conditions recited in the Bill which we are asked to pass, and which adopts the English mistranslation, or omission. I wish to ask whether Her Majesty's Government would be willing to amend the Bill in Committee by inserting the word "separately" throughout the Convention which it recites, and by following up that Amendment so as to make the enacting part of the Bill correspond with the Convention?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The understanding of Her Majesty's Government is, that the guarantee of England, as well as the guarantee of France, applies to the entire loan. I apprehend that the nature of the obligation contracted must be perfectly clear to any one who reads the Convention. The right hon. Gentleman raises a subordinate question as to the proper mode of translating the word "solidairement." My right hon. Friend says that word ought to have been translated "severally" or "separately." I apprehend that, on the contrary, that word does not mean separately or severally, but conjointly, and that there is no word in the English language which could render literally the French word "solidairement." In the original draught, prepared in the Foreign Office, the words "conjointement et solidairement " were, after inquiry, translated "conjointly and unitedly." It was remarked that the word "unitedly" was not exceedingly good English, and that it

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did not add to the force of the word "conjointly," and, therefore, it was thought that the word "conjointly" was the proper translation of the French phrase. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole), who is a lawyer as well as a scholar, must know that the French word "solidairement" is synonymous with the phrase of the Roman law "in solido," and I maintain that the translation in the papers laid upon the table is the most faithful translation that could have been adopted. If it is thought that the enacting portion of the Bill might be rendered more clear by the insertion of other words, I am quite ready during the discussion of the clauses, to consider what would be the effect of such an alteration; but it must be observed that all the Government seek to accomplish is to enable Her Majesty to carry into effect the stipulations of the Convention, and I think no one who reads the treaty can entertain any reasonable doubt as to the effect of those stipulations. The guarantee is undoubtedly separate with regard to each contracting Power. There is an entire and separate guarantee on the part of England; there is an entire and separate guarantee on the part of France; so that supposing Turkey not to pay the interest on the loan, it would be an obligation upon England and France separately to provide for the payment of that interest. If England were to fail in the payment of the interest it would be the duty of France to pay the whole; if France were to fail in the payment it would be the duty of England to pay the whole. The obligation of each Power is entire as applied to the whole guarantee. [Mr. WALPOLE made a remark.] The French Government inserted the word "solidairement" in the treaty, and I have no doubt it expresses their idea more strongly than any term we could use. I may observe that the treaty concluded between England, France, and Turkey is in the French language, and with regard to our obligations with France and Turkey we are, therefore, bound by that treaty, notwithstanding any errors that may have occurred in the English version. The English copy of the treaty, is, in fact, a perfectly unauthentic copy, which we make for our own use. I will now endeavour, to the best of my ability, to reply to the remarks which were made at the morning sitting by the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford. He observed that the terms of the treaty into which Her Majesty's Government have entered with
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the Governments of France and Turkey have been unanimously condemned by this House; that no Member of the House has approved the terms of that treaty; that the principle of a guarantee was incurably bad, and that nothing could redeem it from the condemnation which it deserved. The right hon. Gentleman said that, on a previous night, he had called upon Her Majesty's Government, in consequence of defects in the arrangements into which they had entered, and which he had pointed out, to reconsider the terms of the treaty, and to enter into fresh negotiations. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no!] At any rate he called upon them to reconsider the terms of the treaty, and to endeavour to amend the arrangements into which they had already entered. The right hon. Gentleman further said that we had treated his advice with little respect, and that we had evinced no disposition to modify the arrangements which we had already made out of consideration to the universal opinion of the Members who had spoken. With regard to the question of reconsidering our arrangements—which, I think, notwithstanding the dissent of my right hon. Friend, must be regarded as identical with a fresh negotiation—it is clear that we could have no power to alter the terms of a Convention already concluded with France and Turkey. We could only modify those terms by entering into fresh negotiations, and obtaining the assent of France and Turkey to a modification of the terms embodied in a treaty the ratifications of which have been exchanged. Let the Committee consider the position in which we should have been placed if we had requested the French Government to reconsider the terms of the Convention. I find that the Moniteur of Friday the 20th of July, contains the promulgation of the law giving the French guarantee to the Turkish loan of 5,000,000 l. The promulgation is signed by the President and Secretaries of the Chamber, and the article declares that the Minister of Finance is authorised, in the name of the French Government, and on the conditions set forth in the Convention of the 27th of June, to guarantee the loan. The French Chamber has actually adopted that law, which has been promulgated by the Emperor of the French; the promulgation has been made public in the official journal—the Moniteur—and the session of the Legislative Chamber has now, I believe, concluded. In what manner, then, could

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we have approached the French Government? What arguments could we have used to induce them to reconsider a Convention so solemnly entered into, and to which, with the full knowledge of the circumstances, we had ourselves so recently assented? I think the Committee will see that the course recommended by the right hon. Member for Oxford University offers obstacles which may fairly be deemed insurmountable. Then, as to the principle of the guarantee. The right hon. Gentleman says that the principle of a guarantee is incurably bad, and that, whatever we do, we ought not to guarantee the Turkish loan. I wish to call the attention of the Committee to the alternatives we had to consider if we had adopted the recommendation of the right hon. Gentleman, and had entered into a fresh negotiation with the view of modifying the arrangements we had made. In the first place, suppose we had resorted to the expedient of a loan. Is it likely that the French Government would have consented, in addition to the loan which they had advertised, to call for an addition of 2,500,000 l. in order to lend that money to the Turkish Government? Are we ourselves in a position, now, after the engagements we made on contracting the loan in the spring, to go into the market to borrow 2,500,000 l., in order to advance it to Turkey? My right hon. Friend points to the example of the Sardinian loan, the treaty for which was signed when he was in office, and says it is a model which ought to have been followed by us upon this occasion. But let me call the attention of the House to the principle of that arrangement. This country agreed to advance 2,000,000 l. to assist Sardinia in the prosecution of the war. Did France bear any part in that engagement? Not at all:—the whole of the burden of that loan was undertaken by the Government of this country, and it cannot be said that, as far as the entirety of the obligation was concerned, we divided it with our ally. But my right hon. Friend objects to our undertaking a joint guarantee. At all events, we have the good faith of a country upon whose good faith we may reasonably rely, in bearing with us half the responsibility of that loan; and the terms of the loan are not so high as we were compelled to pay when we had to raise money ourselves. But then it is said by my right hon. Friend, that it would have been preferable not to guarantee the loan
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with France, but to raise the money and give it absolutely to Turkey, and that then we might have avoided any subsequent diplomatic altercations. On that subject I differ altogether from my right hon. Friend. A guarantee is disadvantageous when it ends in becoming a loss. If you are never called upon to fulfil your guarantee, it cannot be burdensome. What would have been the effect of a gift to the empire of Austria of the two loans of 1795 and 1797? Two loans were raised in those years amounting to 7,500,000 l. at 3 per cent. Those loans were raised by the Emperor, and guaranteed by England—both the interest and the sinking fund. The fund which was known as the Imperial Annuities was abolished, and the whole were incorporated with the funded debt of Great Britain, in 1824, by the 5 Geo. IV., chap. 9, and a sum of 2,500,000 l. was at that time repaid by Austria. The loss to Great Britain, who guaranteed the loan, was about 4,000,000 l. [Mr. GLADSTONE: And interest.] Yes, and interest. But Mr. Pitt by that loan secured the services of Austria as an ally during the war, and that was one of the means by which Mr. Pitt brought the great pecuniary power of Great Britain to bear against France during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. No doubt, a loss accrued to this country by those loans; but it was not an entire loss of the money advanced, some portion, 2,500,000 l. being repaid, and the utmost that can be said of that, which was, no doubt, very ruinous in a financial point of view, is, that what was a guarantee originally became afterwards, in fact, a gift and a subsidy. If that sum had been duly paid, it was impossible to say that any disadvantage would have accrued to England. At all events, this country recovered 2,500,000 l., and it is possible, moreover, that some benefit accrued to England from having assisted Austria in her need by her large funds. My right hon. Friend came at last to the question of separate liability, upon which he dwelt at some length. He says that instead of a joint liability we ought to have a separate liability, and that, if we engaged to enable Turkey to raise a loan of 5,000,000 l., the obligation of England should have been limited to 2,500,000 l., and that of France to the other 2,500,000 l.; and he thinks that some arrangement might have been made by which the loan might have been raised at the same rate of interest, without any difference of credit

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making itself manifest. [Mr. GLADSTONE expressed dissent.] I understood my right hon. Friend to say that, if the example of the Greek loan of 1833 had been followed, the evils of the present loan would have been avoided. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, too, also laid some stress upon the Greek loan. Now, I will briefly call the attention of the House to the history of the Greek loan, and I think I shall satisfy them, whatever the defects of the arrangement under consideration, that, at all events, in raising that loan, the interests of Greece were not very sedulously attended to. It was agreed, in the Convention between Great Britain, France, and Russia, and Bavaria, concluded at London, May 7, 1832, that a loan should be contracted by the Government of Greece, under the guarantee of Great Britain, France, and Russia; that the principal of the loan should not exceed 60,000,000 francs; that it should be raised by three instalments of 20,000,000 f. each; that each of the three Governments should be responsible for one-third of the annual amount of the interest and sinking fund, the payment of which should be secured upon the first revenues of the Greek State; and that the several instalments should be raised according to the necessities of the Greek Government. The financial arrangements were exclusively made by the Greek Government, and the guaranteeing Governments did not interfere in raising the loan. The two Commissioners, one a Greek, the other a Bavarian, met at Paris, and contracted with Messrs. Rothschild and Co. in January, 1833, for the whole 60,000,000 f. at one and the same time, and at one and the same price—namely, 94 for a 5 per cent bond. By this means the credit of England, France, and Russia were weighed out at the same rate. 40,000,000 f., being two out of the three instalments, were raised at once at that price, and the remaining instalment was also issued at the same rate of 94. In the beginning of 1833 the English 4 per cent stock was at 102, 103; the French 5 per cents at 101, and the Russian 5 per cents at 101. This loan must, therefore, have been very advantageous to the contractors. In August, 1836, about which time England guaranteed the remaining third of her third, the price of 3½ per cents in London was 100; French 5 per cents 108, and Russian 5 per cents 112. Now, it is material to observe the value in the open market of the three sets of Greek bonds guaranteed by the three Powers. The
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price of the English guarantee is from 108 to 112, the French guarantee 99, and the Russian about 88. Those who managed this loan for the Greek Government, guaranteed by the credit of the three Powers, contrived it so that, in the contract which threw all the credits together, that joint credit was lower than the credit of any of the three guaranteeing Governments, and the Greek Government lost the advantage of the comparatively high price of the English and French funds. And that is the arrangement which my right hon. Friend holds up as a model for imitation. For myself, I can hardly conceive a financial arrangement more ruinous to the State it proposes to assist, or less calculated to obtain the benefit of the guarantee afforded by those Governments. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole) misunderstanding some remarks I made, said that we asked the House to indicate the policy and explain the terms which it was expedient for the Government to require. I asked the House for no such assistance. What I stated was that we had submitted our plan to the House, and that we were prepared to abide by it; but that, if the House thought fit to reject the terms we had made, it was incumbent on them, before they proceeded to the extreme course of rejecting a Resolution framed in accordance with the Convention, distinctly to point out to us what course they thought preferable. The course we adopted was the simple one of doing what we were asked to do. We were applied to by the Turkish Government, in the first instance, to guarantee the 2,000,000 l. which remained of the loan, in addition to the 3,000,000 l. previously contracted for by Mr. Horsley Palmer and Baron Rothschild. The Committee is probably aware that two years ago a loan of 5,000,000 l. was projected by the Turkish Government, of which 3,000,000 l. were raised by contractors in England, and that about 210,000 l. out of 280,000 l. a year, the amount of the tribute of Egypt, was assigned as security for the payment of the interest of that 3,000,000 l, leaving 70,000 l. a year for the remaining 2,000,000 l., which were not raised. The first application of the Turkish Government to the Governments of England and France was to guarantee those 2,000,000 l. upon the security of the remainder of the Egyptian tribute. To that request Her Majesty's Government acceded, and it was proposed in the first I instance that the guarantee of England

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for one of these 2,000,000 l. should be a separate guarantee, and that the guarantee of France for the other 1,000,000 l. should, in like manner, be separate. This proposition was communicated to the Government of France, who objected to such an arrangement for reasons which they assigned, and who said it was desirable that there should be no separate guarantee; but they would agree to an arrangement founded on the understanding that the guarantee should be joint. That arrangement Her Majesty's Government were prepared to carry into effect. Soon afterwards a communication was made to Lord Stratford by the Turkish Minister at Constantinople to the effect that the demands of the war upon the Turkish finances, as well as on those of England and France, were so large that it was not probable that the remnant of the loan would be sufficient to defray the growing expenses which were being incurred, and that it would be necessary for the Turkish Government to apply to us to guarantee a loan of 5,000,000 l. The request of the Turkish Government was taken into consideration, and the Governments of France and England agree to guarantee fen increased loan of 5,000,000 l. on the same terms as those upon which they were to have guaranteed the smaller loan. That is the manner in which this arrangement has been entered into. We did what we were asked to do. We made the arrangement which the Turkish Government requested us to make, and the Turkish Government voluntarily tendered to us—the Governments of France and England—the security of the remnant of the Egyptain tribute, which had not been assigned as security for the former loan of 3,000,000 l., together with the customs of Syria and Smyrna. They did so of their own free will and mere motion, without any influence having been exercised over them, or any suggestions or applications having been made to them on the part of the French and English Governments; and, therefore, there is no foundation for the suspicion of sinister motives in obtaining those securities which my right hon. Friend this morning seemed to impute to the English Government. My right hon. Friend asks what power is there of dividing the liabilities of England and France; how are we to apportion our liabilities in the event of our joint guarantee being called into active operation? I will state the arrangement which
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has been made; I believe that arrangement to be satisfactory and complete, and, although I may fail in obtaining his assent to it, I am not afraid of submitting it to the consideration of the House. It is clear that, although a guarantee may be a joint one, yet that the money, whenever it becomes due, must be payable somewhere. It has been undertaken on the part of the English Government that the loan shall be negotiated in London; and the Government have come to an understanding with the Bank of England that, if necessary, they shall allow the money to be received into the Bank, so that the bondholders will look to the Bank of England to receive their interest. In the event of the guarantee being called into activity by the failure of the Turkish Government to resist the necessary funds, it will undoubtedly be the duty of the guaranteeing Government of England to make good the deficiency in the first instance; but they have entered into a separate agreement, by a separate instrument, with the French Government, that in such an event the half of all moneys paid on their behalf shall be repaid them by the French Government. The French Government have signified their readiness to enter into a specific undertaking to that effect. It is quite true that the place of payment is the Bank of England, but it is equally true that the place of payment does not determine the extent of the guarantee—it does not diminish the liability of France nor increase that of England. Supposing that Turkey fails to pay the interest of the debt, and that England also fails to pay it, no doubt would arise as to the obligation of France to make it good, and to take means for paying it to the bondholders at the Bank of England. The question of the place of payment does not in any degree affect the question of the separate and entire liability of each of the guaranteeing Powers. This remark will also apply to the question with respect to the translation of some words which I answered this evening. My right hon. Friend asks, what is to be our power of distraint? He wishes to know, in the event of Turkey failing to pay the bondholders, and of France and England being called upon to fulfil their engagements, what remedy we have against Turkey—whether we can seize the revenues of Egypt and distrain upon the customs of Syria and Smyrna? My right hon. Friend, who is so well

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versed in the law of nations as well as in all other questions relating to the theory and practice of politics, can hardly be serious in asking such a question with regard to an international compact. He knows very well that between nations there is no tribunal which issues writs of distress, or gives any power to seize the revenues of particular provinces. When you make a Convention such as this with a foreign Power, you can only look to the general good faith and to the readiness of that Power to fulfil its engagements; you cannot take by treaty the power of entering and distraining the tribute of Egypt, and the revenue of the customs of Syria and Smyrna. You can only call on the Trurkish Government to fulfil its obligations, and, if they omit or refuse to fulfil them, there is, unhappily, only one ultimaratio to which independent nations can have recourse, and that, I grant, is of very imperfect value for the purpose of enforcing a guarantee. Mr. Pitt did not go to war with Austria to compel her to fulfil her pecuniary obligations to this country. It is clear that it is not in the nature of things that the clauses of an act should give to the English Government; any legal remedy against the Turkish Government in the event of their obligations not being fulfilled. In dealing with the semi-independent and partially dependent j provinces of India, when we effect loans, or make subsidiary treaties, or pay military forces, we often do act in a somewhat irregular manner, in a manner which the European law of nations would scarcely justify; we do seize provinces as security for the payment of debts; but I am not aware that our practice in India, where, we act as a sort of lord paramount, with a recognised influence, extending over the whole peninsula, could ever be pursued in our international relations with European countries. I have now, to the best, of my power, explained the grounds upon which this Convention has been recommended to the House. I do not dispute that an arrangement of this sort, which has become necessary during the progress I of a great European war, may be open to many objections, but it is necessary in the course of a war to incur many obligations which in a state of peace every man would willingly avoid. It is a true observation that war is a hard taskmaster, which compels every nation to submit to measures to which voluntarily it would not submit. But beyond that necessity
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to which every Government must bend in circumstances such as those in which we are placed, I see no reason for thinking that better terms than those now under the consideration of the Committee could have been obtained by Her Majesty's Government, or that a reconsideration, such as my right hon. Friend suggests, would enable us to amend the conditions into which we have entered.
MR. GLADSTONE: My right hon. Friend has covered a very wide field in the course of his remarks, and it is no action of mine if we are now involved in a discussion of a very large and general nature upon the features of this Bill. The object of my remarks this morning was not to raise at large the principle of this Bill, or to enter into any comparison between the policy of the measure and that of former measures of the sort. My argument was confined entirely to the terms, tenour, and construction of the treaty, and the effect of those terms upon the position of the relative parties to it. My right hon. Friend has entered at great length into a discussion of the Sardinian and Greek loans, and into a history of the proceedings which led to the present treaty; he has gone into a number of details which would not have been out of place when he first introduced this Bill; but when he comes to my argument as to the terms of the Convention, he passes that over in a few words, which show that he is entirely in the dark as to its purport. If I have not made myself more clear to the rest of the House than, as it seems, I have to my right hon. Friend, I must certainly express my regret that I should have so far wasted its time, for he appears to think that certain light, trivial, and even jocose topics are the only ones which arise out of those observations. He speaks of the Greek guarantee as having been an arrangement utterly wasteful of the public money, because that loan was raised upon terms much worse than the credit of any one of the three Powers who raised it. That is a very small question, and, indeed, I must complain that my right hon. Friend seems altogether to have taken a very small view of this subject, and seems to think that the only question worth considering was how we could have saved a few pounds in raising the loan. To my mind, the financial questions are utterly trivial and unimportant as compared with the political questions involved in this matter, and I have not the slightest ob-

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jection, therefore, to make my right. hon. Friend a present of the whole of his argument relating to the Greek Loan, with this single observation, that I do not think that arrangement could have been so wasteful a one, seeing that it was raised at 94, while the Russian Five per Cents, were at 89.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Both the French and the Russian Five per Cents, were at 101.
MR. GLADSTONE: Well, I do not pretend to be completely informed as to the financial history of that operation, and I willingly concede to my right hon. Friend the whole force of his argument on that point. He has spoken, however, of joint guarantees in a manner which shows that he looks upon them as matters of so simple and every-day a character that it really matters very little whether they are entered into or not; and as I, on the contrary, am filled with alarm at this arrangement, and as I trust that as it is the first so it will be the last of the sort to which this House will, under any circumstances and on any consideration, give its assent, I must take the liberty of pressing on my right hon. Friend the real danger of these guarantees, as to which he seems at present altogether in the dark. My right hon. Friend says that all we have to apprehend from an arrangement of this sort is that, if the worst comes to the worst, it becomes a payment instead of a guarantee. But that shows that he is entirely at the threshold of this subject. It is not the worst of a guarantee that if Turkey does not pay we shall have to pay for her—I had almost said that that is the best of it. The worst of this guarantee is, that all the guaranteeing Powers acquire a political hold upon Turkey, and if it were possible to put so dangerous a proposition into one form more dangerous than another, my right hon Friend has succeeded in discovering exactly which is the most dangerous, because he infinitely aggravates its perils by consenting to accept the assignment of special securities for repayment. My right hon. Friend, taking advantage of my ignorance of the legal part of this question, and quoting my language about "distraining upon Turkey," which of course I used merely for the purpose of illustration, is kind enough then to tell us that it is not in the clauses of an Act of Parliament to give one nation rights over another. Certainly, however we may be in the dark in these mat-
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ters, I am persuaded that we are not quite so ignorant as to need that explanation to us. But, Sir, I throw aside the question of financial liability. As a financial measure this is a bad one, because it is delusive; it induces the people to sanction a guarantee under the idea that it costs them nothing. It is dangerous just as funding is dangerous, because by funding you enable the people to spend 20,000,000 l. at a present expense of some 600,000 l. or 700,000 l. I can compare it to nothing but the argument which is used to the young spendthrift to induce him to spend his money on all sorts of useless articles—" I don't want you to pay, only give me your bill." Now, I am going to put one or two questions to my right hon. Friend which I put to him this morning, but to which he has given me no answer. In the first place, I wish to ask him—and if he does not answer me now I shall repeat the question again till I do get an answer—has the language of this Convention been approved by the law officers of the Crown? and, next, are the law officers of the Crown prepared to tell us what the legal construction of the Convention is; and does the French Government agree in the legal construction which they put upon it? These are questions which my right hon. Friend has entirely passed over, but to which I shall certainly expect an answer from Her Majesty's Government. My right hon. Friend said twice over that it I was really impossible for any one to read I the Convention without seeing at once what 'its meaning was, and what were the liabilities which it created. Here are the unfortunate consequences of a superior understanding, for that which is so clear to my right hon. Friend after a simple perusal is to me so obscure and so dark that I have not been able to understand it after the utmost application—nay, as it appears, with all the pains I have taken, I have not been able even to shape my questions on the subject in such a form as to make them intelligible to my right hon. Friend. What I want to know is this—having concluded your Convention in terms which constitute what you call a joint and several liability, how do you mean to apply the principle you have just laid down? I said this morning that I understood the essential characteristic of a joint and several liability to be this—that it is a liability which attaches precisely in the same degree and in the same manner to all the parties it affects. Am I right or am I wrong in

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that doctrine? for up to this time my right hon. Friend has not condescended to tell me. Until he does, or until I am set right by some one of the legal Members whom I see present, I assume that that is the nature of a joint and several liability; and I want to know, then, does the liability created under this Convention attach equally to all the parties concerned in it? I do not mean as between England and France merely; that is quite a different matter. I quite understand that, when the question comes into discussion between them, Her Majesty's Government will be entitled to ask France to take half of the liability; but France and England are not the only parties concerned. I must consider the relation between the guaranteeing Governments and the creditors who lend the money; and I want to know, is the position of the French Government the same as that of the English Government with regard to their liability to the Creditors? In the Convention you indicate the particular place where the interest is to be paid, and in your Act of Parliament you create a power, which is also an obligation capable of being enforced against; the Lords of the Treasury, by which they are to issue from the Exchequer the whole sum required to cover the interest of this loan. A complete obligation has, then, been created, I believe, partly by the Convention and partly by the Act of Parliament, in virtue of which the British Government is compellable to pay the whole interest of this loan. Has the French Government undertaken a similar liability? Is the French Government liable to the creditor, and can the creditor proceed against that Government under this Convention until he has been to the Bank of England and been refused? He cannot. Therefore, he is bound first to go against the British Government. He must first go to the Bank of England, and you, by your Act of Parliament, have created the obligation that the Bank of England shall pay him. You have authorised the Lords of the Treasury to issue the money that may become payable under the guarantee; but that authority is likewise, I apprehend, a full warrant to the persons entitled to the money to prosecute the Lords of the Treasury and compel them to issue it. There can be no question as to that. Then, I say, the position of the creditor is this;—he can go against the British Government, and can go against the British Government only. And here I do not found my-
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self simply upon the fact that the money is payable at the Bank of England. If France has passed a legislative Act, which would have placed her Government in the same position as the British Government, I could have quite understood that the mere locality at which the money is payable might not affect the question. But France has passed no such Act at all; she has not rendered her Government liable to the creditor in the first instance. Nay, more, the matter does not simply stand in this negative state. My right hon. Friend tells us that the English Government have a kind of sub-engagement or collateral contract with the French Government, by which France is to remit to us half-yearly one moiety of the interest; but the liability of the British, Government to the creditor is entire in the first instance. If, therefore, there is no remittance from abroad when the day of payment arrives, is it not the duty of the Commissioners of the Treasury to cause to be issued to the Bank of England funds sufficient to discharge the whole interest? It is; and that being so, I want to know whether there is any corresponding obligation resting on the French Government.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The obligation of the French Government is undertaken by the law which I read to the House a short time ago.
MR. GLADSTONE: That law has not been laid upon the table of this House, as I certainly think it ought to have been. Nevertheless I have heard the terms of it, and they are these,—that the Emperor is enabled by this law to guarantee conjointly—that is, according to the condition of the Convention—but the Convention contains nothing that makes the French Government liable for the issue of the money. Its terms point out no executory machinery for the enforcement of his rights by the creditor. Your Act of Parliament, however, offers such facilities in the case of England, although there is no corresponding provision in regard to France. Therefore there is a complete machinery affecting England, and compelling the people of this country to bear the whole of this guarantee; while in the case of France there is no such stipulation, although there is, indeed, an agreement between France and you (which is a totally different matter) binding her to send the money to the Bank of England. You must distinguish the mutual relations between the two Govern-

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ments from the relations between the two Governments and the creditor; for I am now examing the latter. I don't deny that the two Governments are made to stand, in the face of one another, on a footing of equality. What I say is, that the relations with the creditor are entirely different in the case of the two Governments. By the Convention and the Act of Parliament the English Government is made liable to the creditor; whereas the French Government is only placed under an obligation, constituted under an agreement, that we have not yet seen, to remit half the money to the British Government, I wish therefore to know from her Majesty's Government, whether they are prepared to say that the relative position of the two parties corresponds with the legal idea of a joint and several guarantee? Is the position of the British Government, in respect to its responsibility to the creditor, the same as that of the French Government? If this be not so, if the British Government lies under certain obligations to the creditor by the joint effect of the Convention and the Act of Parliament, to which there is nothing analogous on the part of the French Government, then I want to know whether the rights of the parties are identical, or whether they are different? Because, if there are two parties to this guarantee, and they stand in different attitudes, it is quite plain that the difference in their liability, whatever it may be, must be represented by a corresponding difference in their rights. If, as I believe, you are constituting a primary liability against the British Government, backed, it may be, by a collateral guarantee entered into by France towards England, then the British Government stands between France and the creditor; and, that being the case, I repeat that I wish to know—and I beg that my right hon. Friend will give me a distinct answer to this question—whether the rights of England and France, in respect to recovery from Turkey, whatever those rights may be, are identical in their nature? My questions therefore are, first, whether the liabilities of the two Governments to the creditor are identical? And secondly, whether their rights of recovery are identical? I do not think my right hon. Friend justified in treating jocosely matters relating to the rights of recovery constituted under a convention creating a joint and several guarantee. I have another question to ask him, and it is this,—have you any examples on record of trans-
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actions of this kind? What cases of treaty are there to be found in history where nations have given guarantees of a joint and several description like the present? If you have such instances, so far they will be in the nature of precedents, and they will afford ground for the presumption that there may possibly be principles of international law which are applicable to the rights of the parties But observe, that you are now forming a partnership between England and France, a partnership, first, as to expenditure, and secondly, as, to reimbursement. I want to regulate the relations of the parties to that partnership? My right hon. Friend has not attempted to answer any of these questions. If I understood him correctly, he said that there was no right on the part of the Powers guaranteeing the loan on behalf of Turkey to occupy her territory in the event of her failing to make her payments. I would like to know what my right hon. Friend means by that doctrine? You have assigned to the British Government a portion of the revenues of Egypt and part of the customs duties of Syria and Smyrna as security. How, for instance, will your power over the customs of Smyrna affect the rights of the Turkish Government? Will the Turkish Government have the right to abolish or revise the customs' duties at Smyrna, or will it not? That is a point which I should like to hear explained by my right hon. Friend. Does he mean to assert that, if Turkey does not fulfil her engagement, the guaranteeing Powers are to have no right of occupation? He states, indeed, that there is only one ultima ratio between Governments, namely, force. So there is only one ultima ratio between our courts of law and the defaulter, namely, the turnkey or the sheriff's officer. But the question is, do these special assignments of revenue mean anything or nothing? Do they confer on you any rights whatever? If they do not, why then have you inserted them? If they do give you rights, what are those rights excepting those of occupation? If you tell us that these assignments mean nothing, and that no rights of occupation as against Turkey are conveyed by this Convention, again I ask, is France agreed with you in that view of the instrument? For I apprehend the source of all the evils of this unusual proceeding is, that you are creating a state of things wholly novel and unprecedented, and originating strange

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rights and relations which have not heretofore existed, which are not governed by any known and established principles, and with respect to which you have exercised no forethought in making some provision for the adjustment of questions that may hereafter arise. It is the duty of the executive Government to take precaution against the occurrence of such cases; and if some provision of this kind has not been made—and, certainly, up to the present hour we have not heard of any—it is incumbent on this House to point out such dangers as come into our view. And now, one word more before I sit down. My right hon. Friend says, "Look at the position in which we should have stood if we had gone to France and asked for a reconsideration of this Convention. In France, he states, the whole arrangement has been completely sanctioned, it has been authorised by the Emperor, and referred to the Legislative Chamber, which has given to it its assent; that assent has been published to the world, and was promulgated long before we were asked to give any vote on the question. Now, I wonder that my right hon. Friend could recite that chain of procedure without a twinge of conscience. In what position has he placed the Government by this state of the case? What is the Legislative Chamber of France? I don't mean to stand upon any mere individual opinion. But I say it is not a responsible body; and so conscious is the French Government of this, and so determined is it to keep this fact in full view, that you will observe, if you look into the Convention, the totally different language which, with a most marked and skilful application, is used in the two cases. The Queen of England undertakes "to recommend to Her Parliament to enable Her to guarantee;" and the Emperor of the French, on the other hand, "engages, subject to the ratification of the Legislative Body of France," to guarantee. This is a very remarkable circumstance, and, if you revert for a moment to the precedent of the Greek loan, you will find that exactly the same language is adopted in that case also. The King of England there undertakes to recommend the guarantee to his Parliament, and the Emperor of the French engages to guarantee, subject to the ratification of the Legislative Body; and the intention is to mark the ratifying function of the French Chamber as secondary to the functions of the English Parliament. This is not a case in which you are
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constituting equal liability, for you have constituted by your arrangement a scheme of liability, Under which it is not denied that the English people are the parties liable and responsible in the first instance, that the French Government is the future resource. Under these circumstances, was it right, was it becoming, was it decent, did it show a proper regard for the office of the House, or a proper respect for the independent judgment of the House, that the parties who had a secondary share of the liability in the matter should seal up the whole of this transaction, and that Her Majesty's Government should come down here and tell us, "We are compelled, by form of law, to ask your assent, but you may spare yourselves the trouble of exercising your judgment, because prerogative prevented us from consulting you in the first instance, and policy precludes your exercising a free judgment now?" Sir, in my opinion it is a matter of absolute necessity that, under whatever pressure of circumstances, this matter should be thoroughly worked out and understood; it is absolutely essential to the welfare of the country that such transactions should not be repeated. If the House is to keep its position in the country and the constitution it must make it intelligibly understood that its discretion in such matters is to be respected, and that a more careful and judicious use is to be made of the prerogatives of the Crown in regard to the construction of Conventions. I was going to allude to something that has occurred elsewhere, and to certain comments which have been made on the conduct of the House by a colleague of the Government who has been addressing his constituents; but, as I hope to see that colleague in his place in a few days, I think it will be more convenient to wait till he has taken his seat, and then to call upon him to vindicate the language which he is represented as having used. Following the example of my right hon. Friend, I have been led into a general discussion; but what I want to know is the legal construction which is to be put upon this Convention, what rights and liabilities are created under it, whether the Government have considered those rights and liabilities of the guarantee, and what view they take in regard to its character?
THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that he did not think there was the slightest difficulty with regard to the meaning of the Convention. He would no go into the

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financial part of the question, but he would simply say, that however the right hon. Gentleman might consider a guarantee more dangerous than a loan, and a loan more dangerous than a gift, yet in private and social life it was well known that many persons would give a guarantee in preference to making a loan, and make a loan in preference to making a gift. It should be remembered that in matters of this kind it was not always possible to choose the form of their arrangement. It was said that we were sure to get into diplomatic difficulties in this matter, because the guarantee gave a power over this country into the hands of the country for which she was bound. But did not a loan produce the same effect? He meant to deal legally only with the argument of his right hon. Friend, and he must say that he did not know that his definition of a joint and several guarantee was in all respects correct. A joint and several guarantee as against creditors, meant that each of the joint and several obligants was liable for the whole obligation, and that the creditors had a right of recovery against each and all of them. But his right hon. Friend said that there was a variance in the terms of the treaty with regard to the rights of the two parties; but although you might vary their rights as between each other by contract, yet the joint and several liability did not the less apply. In this case there was superadded to the joint and several liability an agreement that the Queen of England and the Emperor of France should fix a place for the payment of the interest on the loan, in order to save Turkey the expense attendant on its payment, and the place fixed was London. If that place had been fixed at Vienna, or at Brussels, there would have been an end of his right hon. Friend's argument, founded on the place fixed being the Bank of England.
MR. GLADSTONE: I distinctly said, that that had nothing to do With my argument.
THE LORD ADVOCATE: However that might be, the fact was, that if a creditor was act paid he might go against France as well as against England; and if he was a French creditor, which he might well be, he was entitled to go against the French Government, and was not compelled to come over here in order to seek his remedy from the English Government; for the liability was the same as against both It might be more convenient for the creditor who did not get his money at the
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Bank of England to proceed against the English Government, but the liability of both Governments was the same.
MR. MILNER GIBSONcomplained of the disadvantage under which the House laboured in discussing this question, in consequence of the Government not having placed before it the whole of the correspondence which had passed between England and Turkey and England and France in reference to this Convention. That inconvenience had been made manifest that evening, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to some communication that had been made by the Sultan of Turkey to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and a supplementary agreement between the Governments of England and France had also been referred to. The value of such references could not be ascertained until the documents were before them, and he did not think the withholding of them was consistent with the statement of the Government that they really wished Parliament to understand clearly the nature of the obligations which the various Powers were about to undertake. If there had been any difficulty with the French Government, and any delay in consequence, the discretion of Ministers being fettered, whose fault was it? What right had the Government to assume the consent of Parliament to a matter which referred to the taxation of the people? He contended that it was a principle beyond dispute that no Minister of the Crown could enter into a treaty with any foreign Power which entailed the expenditure of the public money except subject to the consent of Parliament; and that was a more valuable principle to stand by than even the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire, to which he preferred the independence and privileges of the British Parliament. No such engagement ought to have been completed and promulgated to the world without its having first obtained the assent of the British Parliament, for the Executive of this country had no constitutional right to place the Parliament of England under restrictions, and, above all, to deprive it of its discretion in matters affecting the taxation of the people. There was no constitutional writer who had not laid it down as most irregular and improper for a Minister to prejudice the opinions of Parliament in the matter of levying the people's money. To that privilege he would adhere; and he asserted that, if there had been any difficulty in raising the money,

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the fault rested, not with the House of Commons, but with the Ministers of the Crown, who assumed that they had the consent of Parliament without being certain of the fact. The Government now said that they were about to guarantee a loan to Turkey "on the terms and conditions set forth in the said Convention." What were those terms and conditions? So far as his experience went, when one country received assistance from another, in the shape of a gift, a loan, or a guarantee, it was customary for the country receiving the assistance to undertake to perform a definite obligation in return for the aid rendered. Now, he asked what the Government of Turkey had undertaken in consideration of the guarantee which England was about to give? "Carrying on the war with vigour." But what did that mean? It was an indefinite phrase, after all, and what one called "vigour" another called "apathy and neglect." He certainly could not help regarding the Convention as of a very one-sided character; and he confessed that he was at a loss to understand to what purpose the money raised was to be applied. Returns were to be afforded, showing how much of the 5,000,000 l. had been issued; but there were to be no returns of the purposes to which it had been so applied, so that the House would have no security for the due application of the funds. He contended that Turkey should have undertaken some certain and definite course of conduct in return for this advance of money. The arguments of his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford had not been answered. There was no machinery for the creditor to recover against any other Government except that of England; he believed that the creditor would go to the Bank of England, and that he would never go beyond that spot; in fact, that this was an English loan, that it was to be negotiated in London, and that the interest was to be paid at the Bank of England. He could not admit, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had fulfilled his promise that he would not raise another loan in England in the present year; because it was obvious that there was no difference between this and any other loan. His right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford had alluded to one of the colleagues of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and he (Mr. M. Gibson) could not help referring to the language of the right hon. Baronet the Mem-
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ber for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth), in addressing the electors that day. He would take leave to call the attention of the noble Lord at the head of the Government to the language which the right hon. Baronet had employed, and to ask him whether, if he disapproved of that language, he would remind the right hon. Baronet that he had used expressions which were not becoming even a Member of Parliament, still less a Minister of the Crown? The right hon. Baronet was reported to have said, that if—
"This war should end in a recreant and dishonourable peace, that peace will never be the work of my noble Friend (Lord Palmerston) or of Lord Palmerston's Government; but it will be the act of those factions who clandestinely combined the other night to break our engagement with France on the subject of the Turkish loan—I mean the Peace party, the Peelites, the more unscrupulous portion of the Opposition, and some few unreflecting Liberals who formed an ambuscade last Friday night to surprise the Government on the question of the Turkish loan."
Speaking of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that "more unscrupulous portion of the Opposition," the right hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark said—
"I therefore denounce the conduct of those men and their want of patriotism, as deserving of the severest censure and condemnation from all persons and all parties, who hare the interest and honour of their country at heart."
He (Mr. M. Gibson) considered that that was not becoming language for a Member of the Cabinet to hold, and he asked the noble Viscount at the head of the Government whether he encouraged such a tone, and whether he considered that a Member of Parliament, expressing his opinion in that House and delivering his honest judgment, was to be charged, if he differed from the views of the Government, with dishonourable feelings and want of patriotism? He (Mr. M. Gibson) contended that the right hon. Baronet was not justified in making these foolish appeals to public faction, especially when he altogether misrepresented the facts of the case. The House of Commons was the sole arbiter in all questions of raising public money. That power had never been delegated to the Crown or the Crown's Ministers, and every man who valued the privilege of Parliament or the independence of the country ought to stand by the right of the House of Commons to exercise a free judgment in this particular. He hoped, therefore, that the noble Lord would administer to the right hon. Baronet the

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rebuke which he deserved, and that he would point out to him that that was not the mode by which the Government were likely to acquire the confidence of the country. One word with regard to the security of the Smyrna customs' duties. He should have thought that of all securities which a free-trade Government would have thought of accepting in giving a guarantee, the last would have been upon import duties. Were those import duties upon British productions alone? He believed that this was only one of a series of loans. If he were in favour of the war, he could not conceive a worse mode of applying money to carry it on with vigour than lending it to Turkey without any security whatever as to its application, and if he were called upon to devise a plan by which the war might be carried on in mere name, but without effect, he should certainly recommend lending money to the Sultan. In his opinion, instead of tending to carry on the war with vigour, this assistance to Turkey would only lead to the necessity for further applications for money; for if the means of Turkey were not flourishing now, they would certainly be deteriorated in the prosecution of the war. The noble Lord the Member for London had stated some time ago in his place in Parliament that a war with Russia about Turkey would add 300,000,000 l. to the debt of England; and this loan of 5,000,000 l. was only one of the little additions which the debt would receive. He believed that they would be deceiving themselves unless they dealt with this matter as part of a system of advances and subsidies, which would not end until it was stopped by the displeasure and dissatisfaction of the English people. So long as the people cheerfully found the money, so long, no doubt, the Ministers would be willing to carry on the war; but when the disappointment of success was accompanied by the pressure of taxation, diminished trade, increased crime, and universal distress, then the people would lay the whole responsibility of the war on the Government, and the Ministers who should be found carrying it on in those bad times would be driven from office amidst universal execration.
MR. WILKINSONsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had put before the House every possible alternative to which this guarantee might lead; and although he might agree with him that the arrangement of the terms might have
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been better, still, as the question was not so much as to the arrangement of the terms as to the policy of the arrangement itself, he believed that the course pursued by Government would meet with the approbation of the country. The right hon. Gentleman put forward the alternative of Turkey's not meeting her engagement, and Prance not fulfilling her part of the contract. He had, in fact, exhausted every alternative but one—namely, that England might not fulfil hers. He apprehended no difficulty as to the raising of the loan. Even if the 5,000,000 l. turned out to be a pure gift to Turkey it was not to be considered a loss, for it might be that Turkey had need of money whilst we had need of men. He was not surprised that the advocates of peace should adopt their present policy in reference to this measure, because the most effectual way of putting an end to the war would be the stopping of the supplies. With regard to the language of the right hon. Baronet (Sir W. Molesworth), he did not believe the noble Lord at the head of the Government would disavow it, for he thought the castigation given to the Gentlemen who opposed this measure was deserved.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, that whatever the hon. Gentleman might think of the part he had taken in the discussion of this question, his object certainly was not in the least to stop the vigorous prosecution of the war. What he objected to was the way in which the Convention proposed to take securities for the repayment of the loan, which might lead to unpleasant complications. That was simply and solely the ground of his opposition to the present measure, and he desired he might not be included among those who wished to stop the war. No such thought ever entered his head, and he repeated what he had before said—that everything the Government might require for the proper and vigorous prosecution of the war he would freely give. Still, as there was a Convention in the present case, he should like the Solicitor General to satisfy the House that they were passing the present Bill in the way they ought. He had already called the attention of the Committee to the omission of the words "separately" or "severally" in the first article of the Convention, as inserted in the Bill. He had since looked into the dictionary of the Academic, and it was quite clear that the meaning of the words conjointement et solidairement was jointly and separately. The

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first article of the Convention, as it now stood in the Bill, ran as follows—
"Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland undertake to recommend to Her Parliament to enable her to guarantee, conjointly with His Majesty the Emperor of the French; and His Majesty the Emperor of the French engages, subject to the ratification of the Legislative Body of France, to guarantee, conjointly with Her Britannic Majesty, the interest of a loan of 5,000,000 l. sterling, to be raised by His Imperial Majesty the Sultan."
He now asked whether the Government would render the Bill strictly conformable with the original Convention, by inserting words to make the obligation "several," as well as "joint?"
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, his right hon. and learned Friend was quite correct in his translation of the French words conjointement et solidairement. Every one conversant with the French law knew that as between debtor and creditor the equivalent term in English jurisprudence for those words was "jointly and severally." It applied both to the creditor and debtor—as applied to the creditor it gave him the power of bringing an action for the whole amount, and as applied to the debtor it made him liable for the whole amount. The corresponding word in our law was "severally," so that, unquestionably, the French term "conjointement et solidairement" should be rendered "jointly and severally." This matter had not been brought under his notice until to-day, and immediately on seeing it he wrote on the copy of the Bill an Amendment which would make the English translation correspond exactly with the French original. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) seemed to be frightened and disturbed by mere phantoms. He seemed to think that the Government of England was placed in a more disadvantageous position than that of France. He did not think that was so, because the contract between the debtor and the creditor would be the bond. It was true the Sultan was bound to remit the money to this country for the payment of the loan, and that this country was to be made the place of payment, in case the Sultan did not remit the money; but the creditor would have the right of coming upon the Governments of France and England, and both must have the means of answering to the full extent of the obligation. For that purpose, the Government
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were authorised to issue such sums of money as were requisite to fulfil the guarantee—not, be it well observed, to pay the debt. The terms were framed with the greatest caution in reference to the guarantee, and they were so framed that they could not be regarded as an additional and special contract between the creditor and the Government of Great Britain. That seemed to be the alarm of the right hon. Gentleman, but there was no foundation for it. But, even if there had been an engagement that the creditor could come in the first instance on the Government of Great Britain, that would not vitiate the engagement altogether, for then they would have a right to receive a moiety from Prance. As to the appropriation of the Customs of Smyrna, that might be regarded in the light of a simple mortgage. If the Sultan sent the money to pay the interest they would have nothing to do with the Customs of Smyrna; if he did not send the money they would have a right to have an account of these Customs rendered, to have them appropriated and received by receivers appointed on the conjoint representations of the two guaranteeing Powers. He believed the whole extent of the obligation was as he had stated it. He trusted the House would pass the Bill, though, no doubt, they had a perfect right to reject it, seeing that the treaty was subject to the approval of Parliament.
MR. J. L. RICARDOthought that the creditor would well understand the security on which he gave his money; but he must say that he thought no explanation was given as to the relative positions of France and England with regard to the guarantee. The present debate showed that there was a great field for diplomacy in the guarantee as it stood, and all the difficulty would have been avoided if a separate guarantee had been substituted for a joint one. He admitted that the money would be raised on easier terms by the joint guarantee, because the credit of England was the highest, and was that which ruled the market. This was shown by the actual price of the Greek Loan, which was a separate guarantee. The price of the Greek stock guaranteed by England was 107; that guaranteed by France was 98; and that by Russia was 87; which made an average price of 97. He thought that England would bear the whole burden of this arrangement, and

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not the country whose credit was lower, and who, conjointly with England, guaranteed the loan. He did not wish to go into the whole question again, but if anything had been said upon the whole question, it was owing to what had been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the reply which he had concocted between the twelve o'clock and the evening sitting. He had alluded to papers of which they had no knowledge, and to a separate arrangement with France as to the payment of her portion of the interest money, and that paper, especially, he thought that they ought to see. He had alluded, also, to the original demand of the Turkish Government for 2,000,000 l. only. He could not, he thought, be included in the category of those referred to by the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr.Wilkinson), who opposed the loan in order to throw an obstacle in the way of carrying on the war, for he had done nothing of the kind. He Lad acted on the broad ground that he was opposed to subsidies altogether, unless he saw some immediate and absolute necessity for granting them. There was a house in this city which had offered to lend the money to Turkey herself, and it was not that Turkey might have the money to carry on the war, but that she might have it at a better price at the expense of the tax-payers of England, that this arrangement had been entered into. If it were, as the noble Lord at the head of the Government had said, that Turkey would fall to pieces if she had not this loan, he would vote for it, much as he opposed the system; but when the object was only that Turkey should borrow it cheaper, they had no right to put the tax-payers of England under any responsibility. It was not until Turkey was unable to carry on the war that they had a right to call on the people of England for assistance. The press had been continually telling them that if there had been only two more on their side they would have overthrown the French alliance; but if the French alliance were not stronger than that, it would not require any vote of that sort to dissolve it. They had been told, again, within twenty-four hours, by a Cabinet Minister (Sir W. Molesworth), the Convention was made, and that they had no right to vote as they had done in this matter. The Solicitor General had said that they had a right to discuss the matter; but the Secretary for the Colonies said that they had no right to discuss it.
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He has said, "If in the opinion of the Opposition we had done wrong in making that engagement with Turkey and France, they should have endeavoured to dismiss us with contumely and censure from office, or to impeach us, but they should have ratified our engagement, and should not have endeavoured to make the country appear to foreign nations to be a State with which no engagements can be safely concluded, and on the word of whose agents no reliance can be placed." That came to this—that if the noble Lord chose tomorrow to lend 20,000,000 l. to Turkey or to France, the House of Commons might impeach the Ministers, but they must begin with voting the 20,000,000 l. That was a doctrine to which he would not subscribe. The only power that House possessed arose from having hold of the purse-strings, and he was not inclined to let go that hold. He did not want to obstruct in any way this measure, and he had been led into these few observations by those who had preceded him. There were, however, one or two matters on which he should be glad of some explanation. He found that there was to be a sinking-fund of 1 per cent on the whole capital of 5,000,000 l., and he wanted to know, first of all, whether we were to guarantee that sinking-fund? And, if so, how it was to be expended? Who was to have the application of that sinking-fund? Was it to be applied to the purchase of stock in the market at any price it might happen to be at, or was it to be applied by lot by drawing certain numbers, as was the case in some instances?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that on this question, as well as on the question adverted to by the Solicitor General, it was necessary for the Committee to observe the difference between the positions of the Turkish Government and the guaranteeing Governments. We did not guarantee the sinking-fund, and therefore that was an arrangement between the bondholder and the Turkish Government at the time the loan was contracted.
MR. J. L. RICARDOalso inquired whether there was any power for the reduction of the interest of 4 per cent, for the probability was that the stock would bear some proportion to the English funds, which would be considerably above par at 4 per cent?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
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was not aware that there was any power under the Convention of diminishing the interest; the Convention had arranged for 4 per cent upon 5,000,000 l. sterling.
MR. HENLEYsaid, that the Sultan stipulated to remit the money for the interest to the Bank of England, and on failure of that the Minister of the day was to issue the money from the Consolidated Fund. There was also a stipulation that the sinking fund was to be paid into the Bank of England, and he thought it would be inconvenient that there was no stipulation as to how that sinking fund was to be appropriated. There should be some authority on the part of the Government to deal with that sinking fund, but it appeared to him that they had no such authority at all.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERdid not see how it was possible for the House to legislate as to a sinking fund which was to be provided by the Turkish Government and paid into the Bank of England, for it was a matter with which that House had no concern. Our obligation ended with guarantee of the interest. If we guaranteed the sinking fund, he quite admitted that we ought to legislate as to the sinking fund. If the Turkish Government failed to pay the interest, he presumed they would not provide the sinking fund; but this country would not have to provide any charge in that respect.
MR. HENLEYthought that if the sinking fund were of any value at all, the joint Governments of England and France ought to have the power to apply it to the reduction of the debt, for otherwise the stipulations with Turkey were only that she should pay the sinking fund into the Bank of England; and there was nothing to prevent her from drawing it out for other purposes, or from letting it lie there.
MR GLADSTONEsaid, that on consideration, he decidedly agreed with the right hon. Gentleman opposite. His first feeling was one of satisfaction that there was no guarantee of the sinking fund which appeared to him an extension of what he regarded as an inexpedient and mischievous principle; but when he looked further he found that guaranteeing the sinking fund was really a contraction of the mischief. They were going to guarantee interest at 4 per cent on 5,000,000 l., and that 5,000,000 l., which would cost them more than the price for which average English credit would obtain money in the market, might be paid off at a given
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rate through the sinking fund. Taking the average of times this country could borrow at less than 4 per cent; and therefore it would be advantageous if we could relieve ourselves from an engagement on which we should be bound to pay 4 per cent. It appeared to him, as a matter of money, to be plainly for the interest of the two guaranteeing powers that the sinking fund also should be guaranteed.
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYunderstood that there was to be an arrangement with Turkey upon the matter.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he believed that there would be no difficulty in the arrangement as to the terms on which the sinking fund was to be appropriated by the Turkish Government; but it was a matter, in the first instance, between the Turkish Government and the bondholders.
MR. GLADSTONEwished to repeat the point which presented itself to his mind. The better way to make it clear would be to premise a total default by Turkey to pay; and under that supposed state of things the question was, which was most for the interest and advantage of the guaranteeing Powers, that they should go on paying 4 per cent for ever, or have the means of extinguishing the debt by a sinking fund. It was quite plain that it would be for our interest to have the control of the sinking fund.
MR. JOHN MACGREGORsaid, it struck him that there had been a great deal of misrepresentation throughout the whole of the debate. In the first place, the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. L, Ricardo) had spoken of the whole of the interest on the loan having to be paid by the tax-payers of England on account of Turkey's failing to pay the interest, and yet he had admitted that a house in the City of London was ready to have lent 2,000,000 l. to Turkey at a high rate of interest. That statement ought to remove the apprehensions which had been created in the minds of the people of this country by the opponents of this guarantee, for it was a proof Turkey was not in that insolvent state in which some hon. Members represented her to be. He believed that Turkey derived from her import duties a revenue more than sufficient to pay the interest on the loan. He thought that the House had better leave Turkey to deal with the question of the sinking fund; and he regretted that any opposition had been raised to the guarantee, as the union

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of England and France in this guarantee would lead to results a thousand times more valuable to England than the frivolous objections which had been made to the guarantee.
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I think the Committee will consider that what has occurred to-night has justified us in not proceeding in this matter with that precipitation which the noble Lord in his impassioned harangue conveniently wished us to adopt. In consequence of what has taken place to-night, my right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole) has succeeded in introducing into the Bill an expression which gives it quite a new character. He has succeeded in giving to the Convention an interpretation which it did not bear at six o'clock in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government—an opinion not carelessly given, but an opinion which we have been told to-night by a Cabinet Minister, was only accepted after deliberation, and of course the deliberation of Cabinet Ministers is a Cabinet Council. There appears to have been a Cabinet Council respecting the interpretation of a most important French epithet, and it seems that the Cabinet had decided upon an interpretation of that epithet which is quite contrary to the sense which it bears. What then are we to think of the interpreters of the Foreign Office? At six o'clock, the word "solidairement" meant united responsibility; but after discussion it appeared in a contrary light, and, instead of meaning united responsibility, it meant separate and several responsibility. I cannot help thinking that this circumstance alone justifies us in the course which we have taken; but, if we required further justification, I would appeal to the speech of the Solicitor General—one of the principal law officers of the Crown. He gave a complete and unqualified adhesion to the interpretation placed upon the epithet by my right hon. Friend, which gives an entirely different character both to the Act of Parliament and to the Convention. Surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not mean to repudiate the interpretation of the Solicitor General. Certainly the Solicitor General said—and I thought it was a strange admission for a Crown officer to make—that he had not read the Convention till this morning. I should have thought that it would be more convenient, and upon the whole, more advantageous to the Government, if the noble Lord would condescend to consult the Crown officers respecting
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the meaning of treaties before he recommends this House to sanction them by Acts of Parliament. However, we have now the unqualified admission of the Solicitor General, that the epithet solidairement expresses a meaning exactly contrary to that promulgated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I think that the view of the Committee is with the Solicitor General and my right hon. Friend in the interpretation which they have given. If the Solicitor General had only risen to express that opinion, I should have felt called upon to give my unqualified assent to it; but I confess that the security which we are to obtain by this Convention has filled me with alarm. I have all along felt that the arrangement might entail perilous consequences to the country; but there was one which was not included in the catalogue of dangers which were touched upon the other night. The right hon. Gentleman (the Solicitor General) has now given us a description of our security under the treaty, by which I find that we have strictly a mortgage upon Turkey. Who, then, is to be the receiver if the mortgage is not paid? I cannot conceive consequences more pregnant with danger to the country than those which may result from the arrangements which, viewing them according to the interpretation of one of the law officers of the Crown, have been made by the Government. I do not rise now to vindicate the vote which I gave on Friday night. I look back to that vote with entire satisfaction. I have listened to many Gentlemen who have thought it necessary to vindicate their votes, and I do not wish to interfere between them and their consciences or their constituents. For my own part, I am convinced that the vote which I gave was a vote dictated by sound policy and constitutional feeling, and that it will ultimately be recognised as a wise and prudent vote. I am perfectly ready to take the consequences of that vote, and I will not for a moment condescend to vindicate it. I have certainly heard with surprise the extraordinary doctrines which are held by Gentlemen representing numerous and popular constituencies, and I can only excuse the opinions which they express upon the charitable supposition, that they speak without previous reflection, and commit themselves to doctrines which, after a time, on due consideration, they will not venture to assert. Now, either the House of Parliament has the privilege, or it has not the privilege, of sanc-

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tioning the arrangements made by ministers when Her Majesty, under their advice, enters into Conventions upon which financial arrangements are concluded. If we are to be told that, though Her Majesty cannot enter into treaties by which She is bound to advance large sums of money without the sanction of the House, still it is most impolitic to hesitate to sanction such an arrangement, then I say that it would be much better if we were to come to some understanding upon the subject and were to rid ourselves of so nugatory a privilege as that which we possess. But I am not disposed to agree to that doctrine. I hold that it is a privilege not to be lightly treated, but a real and substantial privilege, which is to be asserted and exercised in an exigency without hesitation, but with a due sense of the responsibility which is to be encountered. Let us for a moment conceive what might be the consequences of our treating such a proposition as that which was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday night as a mere matter of course, or as if it were the mere adjournment of the House. Why, you might raise all the money necessary for carrying on the war without the interference of Parliament in any respect whatever. If you are to raise 5,000,000 l. in this way, you might raise 10,000,000 l.; if 10,000,000 l., then 20,000,000 l. or 60,000,000 l. There could be no reason why, by a series of conventions, you should not raise a sufficient sum of money to carry on a war which might not meet with the sympathy of the people or the approbation of Parliament. You might raise 20,000,000 l. for Turkey, and place it in the hands of a Royal Commissioner, to pay your army in the East—there would not be the slightest check to prevent such a proceeding; and therefore I am sure that hon. Gentlemen must feel that nothing can be more absurd than those commonplace remarks which the hon. Member for Lambeth has made on this and other occasions with regard to the conduct of those who have impugned the policy of the proceedings taken by the noble Lord, characterising their opinions as too wild for the House of Commons for a moment to adopt or approve, or as being prompted only by base, disloyal, and unpatriotic motives. In agreeing to a convention we approve the policy of the Ministers, and therefore conventions of this kind ought not to be agreed to without scrupulous examination and severe criti-
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cism. If your policy is a sound policy it should bear that criticism, and the Government would be strengthened in consequence of the discussion. If the contrary he the case, no majority can prop up a policy founded upon principles which are fallacious, when we deal with a question of peace or war; and I am surprised any one should contend that the House of Commons ought to pass measures of this kind without due deliberation and ample and complete discussion. I agree with those who disapprove the manner in which this Convention is to be carried into effect, and I must say that I have heard no satisfactory answer to those objections which have been made to it on that ground. When I find that the Government are not even now really aware of the nature of the engagements into which they have entered, as has been proved to-night by their answers to the objections of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole), I am the more confirmed in my opinion. I consider that the manner in which they are carrying their policy into effect is unsatisfactory. But I am told, "Our policy may be unwise—the manner in which it is proposed to carry that policy into effect may be inexpedient—but it is most hazardous for the House to attempt to change the course pursued by the Government, because by so doing you imperil your alliance with France." I may observe that before I had any idea that this Convention would be placed upon the table I took the liberty, with reference to other subjects, of warning the House not to encourage these stereotyped declarations of the Government that our alliance with France was endangered by the free expression of opinion in this House. If the free expression of our opinions endangers our alliance with France, that alliance is not the substantial thing which I venture to esteem it. Sir, it is by the expression of opinion in this country that that alliance will be supported. If the alliance will not bear discussion—if we are to be perpetually speaking in a whisper when the name and the interests of our great ally are mentioned—you may be sure a very short time will elapse before that alliance will indeed be endangered—for, unless our alliance with France springs from strong sympathy of feeling and identity of interest between the two countries, little reliance can be placed upon it:—unless the sentiments of the great majority of the two countries are in favour of that alliance, it can be maintained by no diplomatic arrangements and

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by no ministerial management. It is my conviction that the alliance does arise from that homogeneity of interest and feeling which has for many years prevailed, even unconsciously at first, among the population of these two great nations; I believe that the alliance which has been formed between them is a sound, substantial, and lasting alliance; and I am satisfied the best means of cherishing and maintaining it will be by speaking upon all subjects on which our interests are supposed to interfere, or, at least, to be concerned, with the utmost frankness as well as with the utmost friendship. But is it a fact that the Sovereign of this country having, by the advice of her Ministers, in the exercise of the undoubted prerogative of the Crown, entered into a Convention with France, and the Parliament of England hesitating to sanction the guarantee proposed by that Convention, the alliance between the two countries is necessarily endangered? A right hon. Gentleman has alluded, with great propriety, to the case of the commercial treaty of Utrecht—in my opinion one of the best treaties that was ever negotiated and ratified, and which was yet rejected by the House of Commons; but its rejection did not prevent the peace. I will call the attention of the House to a more recent case. In 1852, when, with my right hon. Friends near me, I was placed in the responsible position of a Minister of the Crown, we found on our accession to office a treaty which had been negotiated and concluded with the Emperor of the French by our predecessors, but which had not received the assent of Parliament. That treaty related to a subject of great interest to the Emperor of the French—the extradition of criminals between the two countries. It was of high importance at that moment that the treaty should be carried into practice; it was necessary that we should appeal to Parliament to ratify it; we acknowledged that the treaty was negotiated by our predecessors, and we claimed no credit on the ground of its conclusion. The noble Lord who was Secretary of State in the Government of Lord Derby (the Earl of Malmesbury) introduced the subject in the House of Lords. The question was one of infinite difficulty, and, if not of vital, was at least of vast importance to the interests and to the peace of Europe. We had the honour on that occasion of receiving in the House of Lords the opposition of our predecessors in office
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who had themselves negotiated the treaty. This was but one example of the remarkable candour with which the Administration of Lord Derby was invariably treated by Parliament. I must, however, entirely acquit from this charge the noble Lord opposite (Viscount Palmerston), who uniformly, during our attempt to administer affairs, behaved in a generous and candid manner. So strong was the opposition offered in the House of Lords by the statesmen who had negotiated the treaty that the noble Lord who was peculiarly responsible for the conduct of that important measure consulted me and my right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole) who was then Secretary of State for the Home Department, as to the course he should pursue, and as to the possibility of carrying the measure through Parliament. I expressed my opinion that such was the prejudice existing at that moment against the Government that it was utterly impossible to carry through Parliament the Bill that would sanction and guarantee that treaty. I said, "The best thing you can do is to explain to the French Government your exact position, and to throw yourselves upon the good sense and the high spirit of the individual who, fortunately for Europe, governs the destinies of France." If we had been compelled to appeal to a commonplace Sovereign his feelings might hare been outraged, and the consequences might have been serious; but, fortunately, we had to appeal to a Prince of great capacity, and one who had long lived in this country, and His Majesty acted in a manner becoming a person of his high position and talents. Although it was scarcely possible that any circumstance could have occurred more obstructive to his policy and more injurious to his position than that the treaty should not be adopted, His Majesty did justice to the spirit of the English constitution, and the French alliance was not disturbed. He did not turn round and say, "There is an end of the cordial feeling between England and France." On the contrary, he said, "I respect the efforts you have made, and the feelings which have induced your Government to speak to me with such frankness. I deplore, as a most lamentable and injurious event for England, for France, and for Europe, that this treaty has not been carried. I lament that we have been obliged to yield to the false imputations that have been raised against us; but the alliance between England and France is too pre-

1501
cious a thing to be subjected to such political accidents." Although we were obliged to give up our efforts to carry into effect that treaty, I flatter myself that the good understanding between England and France, while we were responsible for the conduct of affairs, was at least undiminished. That is, I think, an answer to those who say that if the Parliament of England ventures, in the exercise of its constitutional rights, to express an opinion upon a Covention negotiated by a Minister we are endangering the alliance between the two countries, and destroying that cordial understanding which, I trust, may always exist. There is no person who would less respect the English Parliament than the Emperor of the French if we were to register our silent votes at the dictation of a Minister upon a subject like that now under our consideration. Whether we look to the policy of this Convention, the manner in which it is carried into effect, or the risks we run if we attempt to modify it, I see no grounds for accepting the opinion of the noble Lord, or for concluding that if we would have prevented this arrangement we should have diminished the degree of vigour with which the war is carried on. Well, Sir, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Lambeth assumed that as a matter of fact. That, too, was the principle that animated the absent Secretary of State at the hustings at Southwark. But it is not fair to criticise that jubilant ebullition of a man so suddenly exalted to an unexpected position. We ought to sympathise with him, and rather to congratulate and compliment him. That right hon. Gentleman is the editor of the works of one of the great English philosophers—and finding himself a metropolitan Member and a Secretary of State—and the first metropolitan Member who ever was a Secretary of State—I can fancy him breaking out into a panegyric of despotic power, wishing to put down Parliament, and the free expression of opinion among his old colleagues. But this will pass off when the right hon. Gentleman becomes more tranquil, when he slumbers again upon the Treasury bench. I must say, I think the attempt which has been made to raise a prejudice against the right hon. Gentleman is very unhandsome. We ought to show our respect to one of the rank and file who has gained a high position, and to pass over these things lightly when we see a demagogue or a democrat in this political carnival attack-
1502
ing the freedom of Parliament. That right hon. Gentleman never went to the hustings that he did not personally attack me. That I do not care about. All I hope is that the next time he appears there it will be to offer a vindication for a defunct Ministry, and prepare his constituents for the programme of a progressive Opposition. If a proper constitutional opposition were offered to thin Bill during the rest of its stages the sittings of Parliament, instead of concluding in August or September, would be perpetual. But I do not think this a question upon which we ought to have a protracted discussion. It is necessary to vindicate the privilege of Parliament, and to express an opinion upon the financial and diplomatic arrangements entered into by the Government; but I admit that the happiest opportunity for exercising this privilege is not the discussion of a Convention with a cherished ally. I look upon our vote the other night as a protest against the system which the Government are commencing. If the Session had not been so far advanced my course would have been, after the vote of the other night, to ask the House next day, or the first opportunity, to address the Crown, and express an opinion that the manner in which Her Majesty's Ministers are apparently carrying on the war is not one which it is the policy of this country to pursue. But, having no opportunity to take that course at the end of the Session, when our numbers are diminished, the noble Lord comes down and makes a demand of very great importance, which, if accepted as an unchallenged precedent, might lead to an increase of debt to the amount of many millions, and to a mode of carrying on the war almost irrespective of Parliament. The course that was taken the other night was a wise and right course. It has been a significant one, and has made an impression upon the House and the country. The noble Lord at the head of the Government will be made aware that he cannot, in a light and thoughtless spirit, pursue that course upon which he has embarked. If he does, no commonplace declamations about interfering with the vigorous prosecution of the war, none of those platitudes with which we have been favoured during these debates from several thoughtless quarters, will influence me. I shall oppose, in every way, the adoption of the system of subsidies, as I must call it, whether apparent or disguised, as one of our principal methods

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of carrying on the war. I do not think that the war is being vigorously pursued, and I think that this money will be lavishly spent without producing any effect. I am not satisfied with either the principles or progress of the war. What we want is a change—an entire change in the conception and management of your campaign. You may come forward and demand greater sacrifices from the people of this country, but if they are excited by the patriotic eloquence of the noble Lord, or the precipitate remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Southwark, the people of England will find that they are not obtaining the object of their endeavours, or securing the independence of Turkey.
MR LABOUCHEREsaid, that although the right hon. Gentleman had at the commencement of his speech said that he would not condescend to vindicate or justify the vote which he gave on Friday night, he could not help thinking that the House would not have heard the lengthy address with which he had favoured it had he not been anxious to remove the objections which had been urged against it by some in whose good opinion he was desirous to stand well. The greater part of his speech had, however, been occupied in combating objections which no reasonable man would urge. He talked as though hon. Gentlemen sitting on the ministerial side of the House had questioned the right, nay the bounden duty of the House, to scrutinise and examine any Convention into which the Crown might enter with another Power. The right hon. Gentleman would hear from him (Mr. Labouchere) no such unworthy and unconstitutional doctrine. It was one of the most solemn duties of the House, if need were, to oppose the Crown in acts which involved the imposition of burdens upon the people; and in so doing, so far from being disloyal, they were giving the truest support to the Crown, while they took care that their constitutional right was not invaded. But in exercising this right the House was surely bound to exercise it with judgment and caution, and with a due regard to consequences. He might be wrong, but he confessed he was appalled at the hazard which Gentlemen who voted against the Resolution last Friday evening were prepared to run for the sake of avoiding contingent and possible dangers—especially was he surprised at the conduct of those who had been all along urging upon the Government the vigorous prosecution of the war. The op-
1504
position came from various quarters and included many Members of great ability, and having great weight with the House; and he was surprised that, situated as we were with regard to France, these gentlemen, overlooking the important and necessary consequences of the course they recommended, should have united to ask the House, not to scrutinise and examine this Bill, but to strangle it at once, and to say to the Crown, "we will not permit you to fulfil your engagement;" to France, "we will not join you in carrying out those measures which the Governments of the two countries thought most likely to effect the object for the attainment of which we are now allied," and to Turkey, "we will not furnish you with the assistance which we know you require." He hoped the danger was past. He would say nothing about the necessary effect of such an adverse vote upon the stability of the Government; at the same time he could not forget that the House had more than once unequivocally declared that, under present circumstances a change in the Administration would not be for the public advantage; yet had the Resolution proposed last Friday night been negatived, it was impossible that the present Government should have retained office. He would not attempt to disguise his desire that the present Government should continue in power; but were the Treasury benches occupied by the Gentlemen opposite, and were those Gentlemen carrying on the war, vigorously and efficiently, he should be most unwilling to give any vote which would disturb them. The success of the Opposition to that Resolution would, however, have been attended with most serious consequences. What would have been the effect at Paris, at Constantinople, at St. Petersburg? Would not the impression produced upon Europe have been that the people and the Parliament of this country were heartily tired of the war, and were unwilling to support the Government; and that, therefore, the Government had nothing to do but to accept any peace, however humiliating might be its terms? He longed for peace as much as any man could do; and he would support no Government which he did not believe would make peace on fair and honourable terms. So long, however, as he believed that the Government was seeking for a safe and honourable peace, through the energetic pursuit of hostilities, he should feel it his duty to give to it the best support that he was able. Of this

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he was certain, that if the House wished to express disapproval of the acts of the Government there could be no less proper mode of doing so than, without the greatest possible reasons, refusing its consent to a convention of this kind. Weighing, therefore, the objections which had been urged to the proposition of the Government with the dangers which would have arisen from the rejection of this Bill, every impartial man must rejoice that the House had followed the advice of those who recommended its adoption.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he did not imagine, when his right hon. Friend rose, that he was about to favour the Committee with a constitutional lecture, but thought that he intended to supply a deficiency in the discussions which had taken place upon the Bill. He alluded to the circumstance that no independent Member had spoken who had a word to say in favour of the terms of the proposition of the Government. He agreed with his right hon. Friend in desiring the stability of the Government, but he was not prepared to purchase that stability by voting for subsidies which he believed to be in themselves mischievous and certain to be followed by mischievous consequences. If the House admitted upon this occasion the argument of the effect the rejection of this Bill would produce in France, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople, were they to be precluded from expressing an opinion hereafter, when the question might be one of 20,000,000 l. or of 50,000,000 l., upon the same ground—namely, the fear of shaking the French alliance? But the Solicitor General had stated that express reference was made in the Convention to the necessity of the sanction of the House of Commons to the arrangement which had been entered into, and therefore the faith of the Crown could not be taken to be pledged. His right hon. Friend said it would be unworthy of the House to abstain from expressing an opinion upon the effect of a financial proposition. He would read to the Committee some precedents with regard to the manner in which that principle ought to be acted upon. A hundred years ago some very remarkable discussions took place upon this very question of subsidies, and what were the opinions expressed by the Mr. Fox of that day and by Lord Chatham? Lord Chatham said—
"We have suffered ourselves to be deceived by names and sounds—the balance of power, the
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liberty of Europe, a common cause, and many more such expressions—without any other meaning than to exhaust our wealth, consume the profits of our trade, and load our posterity with intolerable burdens. None but a nation that had lost all signs of virility would submit to be so treated."
Lord Stanhope, in his History, thus summed up the transaction, and, changing Germany into Turkey, the passage would apply exactly to the present occasion—
"It seemed hard that the ultimate object in question—the security of the Germanic Empire and of the German princes themselves—could only be obtained by payments and promises to those very German princes. Hard as it seemed, however, no more than fifty-four Members of Parliament were found to vote against it."
There was nothing left for those who were of opinion that this loan was a burden laid upon the people of this country for the purpose of furnishing Turkey with a subsidy, not upon the most provident or advantageous terms, but to take the course which they had taken. He denied that there had been any attempt at surprise, or any concert in the matter; they had expressed an honest, independent opinion on the question, and the result had shown that there was a very strong fooling in the House as to the prudence and propriety of the course which the Government had taken. He contended that they had been exercising an undoubted Parliamentary right in endeavouring to delay the Resolution, in order to give the Government—when they saw that the form of the Convention was objectionable to representatives of the people—an opportunity of communicating with the French Government for the purpose of ascertaining whether some more provident and suitable arrangement might not be made.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) that those Gentlemen who take exception to what is supposed to have been said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Colonies (Sir W. Molesworth) at his election to-day might as well have deferred their remarks until my right hon. Friend was here to answer for himself, especially as there is no man more capable than he is of defending himself in his place against anything which is laid to his charge. I would, however, venture to suggest to the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson), who seems to take so much objection to what he calls violence of expression in speeches out of this House at hustings, that, after

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having delivered his lecture to my right hon. Friend, it would be well if he were to address some remarks aside to his Colleague the hon. Member for Manchester, and to the hon. Member for the West Riding, who in their speeches out of this House stand quite as much in need of such an admonition as does my right hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire accuses the Government of having endeavoured to hurry on this Bill, so as to prevent it from being fairly and fully discussed. No such thing did we do; on the contrary, it was those who voted against us who wanted to prevent discussion, inasmuch as they had endeavoured to strangle the Bill at its first stage, whereas the Government has urged upon the House to go on in order that it might fairly discuss the arrangements, and that my right hon. Friends might have an opportunity of stating the objections that they felt to them. That charge cannot, certainly, with justice, be laid at our door. Nor has anybody on this side of the House maintained that doctrine, which has been repudiated with such constitutional energy by various hon. Gentlemen—that Parliament has not a right to criticise and to reject any proposal of this kind. On the contrary, as was pointed out by the Solicitor General, the very terms of the treaty imply that the approbation of Parliament is necessary, and it would be manifestly impossible for the Crown to enter into any such engagement as this without the subsequent consent of Parliament. All that can be engaged by the Crown is, that it will recommend to Parliament to sanction and to give effect to the treaty into which it has conditionally entered. The charge which we make against those who voted against the Resolution on a former occasion is that they abused and misapplied their constitutional right—not that they had no right to consider the question, but that they exercised their right with a forgetful ness of the great interests of the country committed to their charge. This is measure peculiarly essential to the vigorous prosecution of the war. Does any man imagine that the war can be carried on with vigour and advantage if the Turkish army is not in the field? and how can that be if the Turkish Government is not furnished with the means of maintaining it in a state of efficiency? The object of this Bill is to supply the Turkish Government with those means; and, therefore, I
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maintain that it is essential to the vigorous prosecution of the war. It is the height of inconsistency in those who very lately concurred in a Resolution to pledge the House to support the Crown in a vigorous prosecution of the war now to turn round and endeavour to deprive the Government the means of carrying out that Resolution. On a former occasion we contended that the arguments urged against this Bill were only fine-drawn distinctions, and were not founded on any broad and intelligible principle, and I must say that up to the present instant I am really unable to understand what are the main objections o this Bill, and especially those of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford. I cannot understand whether my right hon. Friend objects to the Bill because the guarantee is a joint and not a separate guarantee, or whether it is that it is a guarantee and not a loan, or whether it is that it is a loan, and not a gift or a subsidy. In short, I am utterly at a loss to discover from my right hon. Friend's arguments what is his real and substantial ground of opposition to the Bill. If his objection is that it is a joint and not a separate guarantee, my answer is that which I gave the other evening—that, though Her Majesty's Government would have preferred a separate guarantee, yet the French Government laid so much stress mode of arrangement which upon the has been adopted that we thought it due to that Government to yield to their wishes in a matter on which we did not lay so much stress as they did. The great objection of my right hon. Friend seems to be based on political grounds. He says that great difficulties and embarrassments will arise out of this joint guarantee, inasmuch as it will give to the guaranteeing Powers some sort of means of seizing on territory in payment of debt. Now, Sir, if any disposition of that sort existed, or were likely to exist, I should venture to suggest that a separate guarantee would give greater means of carrying it into effect. Where the guarantee is separate and where each party guarantees a specific amount of the loan independently of the other, each party has a right to say—"you are paid your portion of the interest or not as may happen; we are not paid ours; we foreclose therefore, and we take possession of a portion of territory in order to indemnify ourselves from loss." On the other hand, where the gua-

1509
rantee is joint and several, if one of the parties show any disposition to act in the way I have described, it would be in the power of the other party to say, "You have no right to do it—I take upon myself the whole responsibility of the debt, and I guarantee that no loss shall fall upon you." Then, my right hon. Friend says he has a great objection to the assignment of particular branches of the revenue as a security for the loan; but if he will inform himself from persons who were colleagues of Lord Aberdeen in the Government of 1835, I rather think he will find that a treaty was drawn up at that time by which the Greek Government was to give exactly the same security to the three Powers for the payment of the interest on the Greek loan. If I am not mistaken, the three Powers were to have security on the customs of certain ports in Greece, which is the kind of security to which the right hon. Gentleman objects; it was agreed to by the English Government, but difficulties arose in other quarters which prevented it from being carried out. With regard to the manner of the guarantee, it appears to me that less difficulty is likely to arise from the treaty as it is than if the guarantee had been such as my right hon. Friend proposes. The practical question which the House has to consider is simply this—that a treaty having been concluded on that principle at the particular desire of France, whether this House should reject that treaty and throw it in the face of the French Government, on the very ground of objection to the arrangement that had been made in deference to their wishes? It is said that it would not affect the French alliance; that we are upon such excellent terms, and that the alliance is founded on such a firm basis that it cannot be shaken by an affront of this kind. But would it be right, on account of the intimate friendship which exists, to take a liberty that would be very insulting to the French Government? Such a course as that suggested could not be taken without negotiation, which would render a new Convention necessary, would delay the assistance which Turkey requires until a remote period, and would entirely defeat the purposes for which that assistance is necessary. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) cited a case where the Government of Lord Derby had been obliged to abandon a treaty in consequence of the enunciation of opinion in Parliament.
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But the right hon. Gentleman somewhat mistakes the circumstances of that case. The treaty to which he alluded was the extradition treaty, by which the two Governments were to surrender persons charged with certain offences who had fled from justice in their own country and had taken refuge in others. That was not a new treaty, because one already existed between England and France, for that purpose; but it was found difficult of execution as far as Frenchmen flying to England were concerned, because the law was difficult to be complied with by persons coming from Franco to claim the fugitives. A long negotiation was entered into with a view of making changes in that treaty, but the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in saying that that treaty was concluded at the time that Lord Derby came into office. Negotiations had gone on, but the scheme proposed by France was one to which I had great objections on constitutional grounds. [Mr. DISRAELI: It was concluded by Lord Granville:] My impression was that the final arrangement of the treaty took place after Lord Derby's Government came into office. I may be mistaken. All I know is that up to the time I came into office, I objected to the arrangement which the French Government proposed. That treaty, however, is not a case in point; it is not like a treaty for the essential and vigorous prosecution of a war in which the two countries are engaged, and the revocation of which would leave penniless that very ally for which you are unndertaking the war. The only result of the rejection of the treaty to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded was that England and France remained in the same position under the treaty which already existed. Without renewing the discussion which has taken place with regard to the conduct of parties in the late division, I will simply say that I cannot at all look on that division in the light manner in which some hon. Gentlemen are disposed to represent it. I must own I think that it would have been a very serious thing indeed if that division had turned the other way, and the treaty had been contumeliously rejected by the House and flung back in the face of the Government of France. I do not say that it would have broken up the alliance, but I think that it would have created great coolness and alienation in the relations of the two countries, which would have been productive of much evil in

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regard to their connection, while its effects upon Turkey would have been fatal, at least for the moment. The right hon. Gentleman opposite says he would conduct the war more vigorously and effectively than it appears to be conducted at present. I do not know whether that will greatly recommend him to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford—though they do not sit upon the same benches they meet in the same lobby—but all I can say is, that we are doing our best, upon a full consideration of all the circumstances, and, acting in concert with our allies, to accomplish the object which we have in view. It is misrepresentation to say that we are levying taxes on the people to send our millions to Turkey. We do no such thing, for if Turkey fulfils her engagements no burden will be entailed on the people of this country. I think that if the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) was still in office he would take a more lenient view of the policy of the measure which we are now discussing, the object of which is to furnish our ally with the means which are absolutely indispensable for the maintenance of that army which is co-operating with ours, and without which co-operation we could not have the success which we expect and ought to have. It was, therefore, with great pleasure that I heard the right hon. Gentleman opposite state that, though he was bound to protest against what, in his opinion, was not a good arrangement, it was not his intention to propose any further obstacle to the progress of the Bill.
MR. GLADSTONEobserved, that the Committee had given him an ample opportunity of expressing his feelings on this question, and he did not propose to abuse their patience by reopening the discussion. The noble Lord, however, had observed that, perhaps, if he had still continued Chancellor of the Exchequer, he should have been disposed to take a more lenient and favourable view of this matter. He appealed confidently to his colleagues whether the doctrines he held upon guarantees had undergone any change? and, with respect to the present measure, while he was not content with the arrangement, he submitted cheerfully to the opinion expressed by the House, although it must be remarked that not a single Member had given his approval to the terms of this arrangement upon the merits, or to the mode in which it had been brought forward by Her Majesty's
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Government. He urged that a treaty of this nature always involved corresponding obligations, and he was at a loss to see what Turkey undertook to do in return for the advance which we were about to make to her.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that until the ratification should be sent to Constantinople nothing could be done in pursuance of the Convention; but that instructions had been sent to Lord Stratford with a view to the mode in which the money should be applied.
MR. MILNER GIBSONsuggested that some guarantee should be afforded that the money now to be advanced should be applied to the purpose for which it was intended, and was understood to instance a case in which this had been done.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, with respect to the case referred to that the grand difference was this, that it was Turkish money in the one case and English money in the other.
MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, that as to this being Turkish money that was a mere phrase. The money was to be paid into the Bank of England, and the Turkish Government would not have the power of touching one shilling of it there. He wanted to know how much of the loan might be transmitted by the Government to Turkey?
MR. WILKINSONsaid, that Turkey was about to raise a loan, and this country had nothing to do with it until it should be called on to pay the interest.
LORD LOVAINEthought the hon. Member was mistaken. The money was indeed to be raised in the name of Turkey, hut this country took the guardianship of it, and issued it from time to time to Turkey.
MR. MALINSconsidered the words proposed to be introduced most objectionable. Turkey desired to borrow, and England and France were to guarantee. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to suggest that England and France were going to rob Turkey? The transaction was so simple that it required all the ingenuity of the right hon. Gentleman to mystify it.
MR. GLADSTONEdeplored the unhappy condition of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who had been sitting in the House all the evening and wasting his precious time. The hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to impute to the right hon. Member for Manchester a de-

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sire to introduce into the Convention the very thing which was already in it—namely, a control over the transmission of the money. This, at any rate, was not a case where the French alliance was in danger; but as, with the views he entertained of the measure, he considered the adoption or rejection of the proposed Amendment a matter of insignificance he recommended his right hon. Friend not to press it to a division, though, if it went to the vote, he should support it as a slight acknowledgment of the functions of Parliament to exercise a control over the Executive Government in matters o money.
MR. MALINSadhered to his assertion that the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Manchester suggested that the Executive Government were not to be trusted with the transmission of money paid into the Bank of England for the use of Turkey. Having listened to several remarkable speeches from the right hon. Member for Oxford University, he was surprised that that right hon. Member should charge him with having wasted his time.
MR. T. BARING: The money was money for Turkey; but it was also money to be used by Turkey under the special control of Commissioners to be appointed for that purpose. And if that were the case, what was the difficulty in having a return? We had control over the money until it was expended in Turkey, and it was only fair that this House should require some return as to how the money was to be spent.
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 (Accounts to be laid before Parliament.)
MR. MILNER GIBSONthen proposed his Amendment in a form requiring an account to be laid before Parliament of the sums transmitted to the Sublime Porte on account of the capital of the Loan.
Question put, "That these words be there inserted."
The Committee divided:— Ayes 36; Noes 124: Majority 88.
Clause agreed to.
The preamble of the Bill, including the Convention, into which the words "and severally" were introduced, was also agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported as amended.
The House adjourned at half after One o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Religious Opinions Further Relief; Public Houses (Ireland); Island of Tobago Loan; Joint Stock Banks (Scotland); Turnpike Acts Continuance (Ireland).
2a Slave Trade (Sherbro).
3a Stage Carriage Duties, &c.; Convention with United States; Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Continuance; Militia Officers' Qualifications; Treasurers of Counties (Ireland); Crown Suits.

PRESENTATION TO BENEFICES—CASE OF THE REV. C. C. LAYARD—PETITION.
EARL FORTESCUE,in presenting a petition from the Rev. C. Clement Layard, complaining of the refusal of the Lord Bishop of Exeter to institute him to the perpetual curacy of Escot, in the county of Devon, said the task which had been
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entrusted to him was not one of his own seeking, but as the grievance arose in the county with which he was connected, and the complaint was directed against the exercise of the power vested in a Member of their Lordships' House, he thought he ought not to hesitate to bring it fairly before them. Before doing so, however, having been anxious to consult the convenience of the right rev. Prelate, he had communicated with him on the subject, and he was informed, in reply, that the state of the right rev. Prelate's health would render his attendance in the House extremely inconvenient, and that he did not consider his presence essential to the proper discussion of the petition. Under those circumstances, the right rev. Prelate had requested him to state to the House his opinion that the question could be discussed there only when it should be brought upon an appeal from a court below. The right rev. Prelate then went on to observe, that he had the satisfaction of knowing that if he had done an act of injustice to the Rev. Mr. Layard, he might seek redress in an ecclesiastical or temporal court, as he might be advised. Now that remedy had been tried in the year 1848, by the Rev. Mr. Gorham, who was similarly refused by the Bishop of Exeter. Upon being refused, the Rev. Mr. Gorham carried his case into the Court of Arches, where he was cast at an expense of 1,225 l. He afterwards removed it, by appeal, to the Judical Committee of the Privy Council, where he established his claim at the end of two years from the time of his presentation, at an expense of above 1,600 l. making, with the addition of about 700 l. for incidental expences not included in the Bill of costs, a total of 3,604 l. He would put it to their Lordships, therefore, whether those courts afforded a mode of appeal suited to the circumstances of a poor clergyman, who would in general forfeit any preferment rather than incur such heavy liabilities. Indeed, he must say, that the Bishop of Exeter himself was not insensible to that view of the subject; for, in a subsequent letter, which he also desired that he (Earl Fortescue) should read, the right rev. Prelate said he quite concurred in that portion of the petition which referred to the large amount of costs incidental to the course of practice in these courts, and that he should be happy if any means could be devised by which they could be lessened. Mr. Layard stated that in May he was nominated

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by Sir J. Kennaway, a most devout and conscientious Member of the Church, to the perpetual curacy of Escot; that he was examined by the Bishop of Exeter, both orally and in writing upon certain points touching baptismal regeneration, and that he was finally rejected by the bishop. He further stated that he had been in orders for eleven years, that he had officiated in the diocesaes of Peterborough and of Lichfield, and had received most favourable testimonials from the bishops of those diocesses, and that he had been selected to fill the office of lecturer by the Elder Brethren of the Trinity-house at a time when the Duke of Wellington was Master of that corporation. When Mr. Layard was undergoing his examination he was offered the temporary charge of a parish by the Bishop of Peterborough; and while he was vicar of Mayfield he had been presented by his parishioners with a piece of plate as a token of their esteem and gratitude. He stated his willingness to make the usual declaration of assent to the Articles in the Book of Common Prayer, and to take the usual oaths of canonical obedience, and he stated that his case was by no means a singular one, but that many similar and almost identical instances of the rejection of ministers approved by other bishops had occurred of late in the diocess of Exeter, of which two or three were in the present year. The petitioner humbly submitted for the consideration of their Lordships "that clergymen, on simply renewing, ex animo, their declaration of conformity and their oath of canonical obedience as required by law, might be in all cases reasonably and safely admitted by the bishop to any benefice or cure of souls when they have already been engaged in the cure of souls in his diocess, without having incurred his censure, or when, having served in another diocess, they bring with them a bene exeat from the bishop thereof." Mr. Layard therefore prayed their Lordships to pass some such measure as above suggested, or to take other steps to prevent the recurrence of the grievance arising from a bishop thus ignoring the judicial decision of Her Majesty's Privy Council, and depriving both clergyman and patron of their respective legal rights in regard to the presentation to benefices. In the absence of the Bishop of Exeter, and of every other Member of the right rev. Bench, he (Earl Fortescue) would not venture to express any opinion upon the particular
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points at issue, but he would venture to say that a man commended and approved of by two bishops ought not to be deprived of his preferment at the arbitrary will of a third. It could not tend to the benefit of the Church, or the country, or to the respect which ought to be entertained for the episcopal Bench, that such differences should take place in the bosom of the Church, and among the heads of the establishment. His Lordship maintained that any clergyman presented to a living should be instituted on making the declaration of conformity and taking the oaths of canonical obedience, and not be liable to have his conscience harassed, his rights denied, and his professional prospects blasted by inquisitorial questions on disputed points of doctrine and faith. He concluded by moving that the petition be printed with the Votes.
LORD MONTEAGLEobjected to the Motion that the petition should be printed with the Votes, on the ground that such was not the custom of their Lordships' House. On some very rare occasions, petitions had been ordered to be printed in the Journals, but never with the Votes.
After some discussion, in which it was stated that the Standing Orders were altogether silent on the subject;
Petition read, and ordered to lie on the table.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS FURTHER RELIEF BILL.
LORD BROUGHAM:* My Lords, according to the notice, I would call the attention of my noble and learned Friend (Lord Chancellor) and of your Lordships, to the Statute Law Commission, of which he is the head, and I have the honour of being a Member; but it is chiefly in order to obtain its aid in examining the details of the important Bill which I am about to lay before you, and the subject of which weft deserves your deliberate consideration—the great subject of Religious Liberty. I will not now, any more than on our recent discussions, and for the reasons I then gave, consent to use the phrase toleration, except only as denoting the contrary of intolerance, which, unhappily, has too often had a real existence. I object altogether to speaking of that, the existence of which I deny, the favour, or boon, or privilege of toleration; as if those who conscientiously differ with us in religious belief or observance were to thank us for allowing them, suffering them, bear

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ing with them—any more than we have to thank them for bearing with us while we hold our opinions and exercise our worship. To hold opinions and to worship God according to his conscience is the absolute, imprescriptible right of every man; as much at the least in this most important matter as it is in trifling things his right to do what he pleases, so he breaks no law and invades no right—as much his right as to leave his dwelling and walk upon the side of the street which he prefers; and if you tell him you suffer him to do so, that you tolerate him in doing so, he may well answer that he owes you no thanks for letting him do what you have not the shadow of a right to prevent; and he may say, "In return for your letting me walk on the left-hand side of the way, I will tolerate you in walking on the right hand." At the bottom of all this, there lurks the notion that they who pretend to tolerate are entitled, if they please, to prohibit; that they might withhold the leave they grant; in other words, that they might require conformity to their opinions on pain of temporal penalty; so that really this pretence of toleration is at the very foundation of the code of persecution. Of that code, happily, the improved principles and temper of recent times has abrogated the most important enactments. Yet it is too certain that considerable remains of it continue to disfigure the Statute-book, to the disgrace of our jurisprudence. Some of those penal laws are in practice obsolete; but even these should not be suffered to remain. When my noble and learned Friend not now present (Lord Lyndhurst), by his wise and just measure of 1846, swept away somewhere about thirty of those old penal laws, no one opposed on the ground that such Statutes as that of Hen. III., requiring Jews to wear a badge, were not very likely to be enforced in these days. The wisdom of the Legislature decreed that they and other such obsolete enactments should no longer deface our legal system. Indeed many penalties believed to be obsolete, are, as I lately showed your Lordships, liable to be quickened into noxious life by the malice, or the avarice, or the zeal of individuals. Of this it is needless to give more examples than were cited both in 1846 and lately in the debate on this subject. But the real state of the law in matters affecting the sacred rights of conscience, is I believe very little known, and I will give a few instances which abundantly prove how
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needful is such a revision of the Statute-book as I recommend.
Much of the evil has arisen from careless legislation, though a good part also from design, through mistaken zeal and erroneous views of the State's religious duty. Of mistakes a fruitful source has been the careless making of inconsistent enactments, the leaving it uncertain whether a law is repealed or not; the partial instead of total abrogation of a provision; the substituting a new remedy or mode of proceeding for a former one, without abolishing the old. To give instances of what results from these modes of making laws would be as endless as it is easy. I may mention the uncertainty in which we are left whether certain penal Acts still exist or not. Persons have ever been puzzled to find that such Statute as the famous Act of the Six Articles, the 31 Hen. VIII. is entirely repealed—that which got the name of the Bloody Bill, from the Protestants, as well it might, for one provision condemned all to be burnt who denied the real presence. The King had so far joined the Reformation as to pillage the Catholic Church; but being minded to retain his title of Defender of the Faith, he chose to abide by the fundamental doctrine of that faith, and consigned to the flames all who differed with him. The Act was repealed by the 1 Edw. 6, c. 12; but some half-dozen Statutes have since been made repealing different parts of that repealing Act, and it has been said that no one can now confidently believe in the whole of the Six Articles being abrogated. However, on this I entertain no doubt; the 3rd section of the Act of Edward plainly repeals, and has, as regards that repeal, not been, repealed. But let us look at the history of the old writ de excommunicate capiendo. The Statute of Elizabeth for the due execution of that writ was not repealed by Sir William Scott when he desired to substitute a new mode of procedure, by the writ de contumace; and his Act 53 Geo. III. 127, saves the process of excommunication for spiritual offences, just as the Statute of 29 Car. 2, c. 9, abolishing the writ de heritico comburendo, saves the ecclesiastical jurisdiction as to all punishment short of death. Accordingly there remains on our Statute-book the enumeration of all the heads of proceeding for excommunication, notwithstanding Lord Stowell's Act; the 13th section of the Act of Elizabeth is un-repealed, and it enumerates the offences cognisable for excommunication as schism,

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incontinence, and others, among the rest usury, which, nevertheless, has now by a late Act been declared no offence at all by the civil law. Probably this might prevent it from being any longer treated as a ground of excommunication. Yet there is no doubt whatever that we have the two laws standing together, one of which permits the taking any rate of interest, and the other declares whosoever takes more than a certain rate, worthy of excommunication.
But if instances are desired of evil actually suffered from the continuance of intolerant laws, I fear we may resort to provisions which the law has wilfully made, contrary to every principle of justice, and wholly subversive of religious liberty, subjecting men to penalties and disabilities on account of the nature of their belief and their mode of worship. In the spirit of intolerance and persecution some of these laws had their origin; laws suited to the darker age in which they were framed. Others were framed rather against the political than the religious tenets of the professor, but being conceived in terms of great generality, pressed upon parties which were not within the contemplation of the Legislature; as the enactments levelled at Roman Catholics, and which hit Protestant Dissenters who never were in the lawgiver's contemplation, and the provision meant to give certain declarations on secular objects a peculiar solemnity, without the least regard to the religious belief of those who were required to declare, and which thus by mere accident operated against a whole body of persons whom the authors of the law never though of, and never dreamt would be affected by it. The continuance of all these enactments on our Statute-book, long after the circumstances have ceased to exist which alone could justify their ever having beer made for however short a time, is one of the greatest scandals to which our system, whether legal or political, is exposed.
I ask your Lordships' attention to one or two examples of what I am describing, If a natural born subject of the Crown happens to have a son born abroad, by the Statutes of Anne and George II., that son has all the rights of a British subject; but his grandson, the son of that son so naturalised by the Statute, has not the same rights. An Act was passed early in the reign of George III.—13 Geo. III., 3. 127—which professed to place the grandchildren on the same footing with the children. But, unfortunately, by reference
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to other Acts, this naturalisation in the grandchild's case was confined to Protestants, and was withheld from both Roman Catholics and Jews; for no one can claim the benefit of the Act without taking the Sacrament in some church or chapel of the Protestant worship. There is no little obscurity in the statutory provisions on these subjects, an obscurity little creditable to our principles: and whoever examines the evidence taken some years ago before the House of Commons Committee on the Alien and Naturalisation Law, will find that able and learned person, and sound lawyer, my late friend, Mr. Charles Williams Wynne, describing the difficulties in which he felt himself placed in administering the concerns of wards and others for whom he was trustee, by the confusion and obscurity in the law. The result, however, of whatever examination you give to the subject, is as I have stated it; and the opinion lately taken of the very highest legal authority on subjects of this description, declares that there exists no doubt on the matter, and that neither Jew nor Catholic can be naturalised, under the Acts, without abandoning their own religion.
Now, I pray your Lordships to mark what is the consequence of leaving such laws on our Statute-book. The late Duke of Gloucester was born at Rome; the present Duke of Devonshire at Paris; both were naturalised by the Statutes of Anne and George II.; and if either had a son also born abroad, the Act Geo. III. applied, and naturalisation was effected, because in their case there was no difficulty in taking the Sacramental Test. But how would it be if the Duke of Norfolk had been born abroad and his son also? The Duke would be naturalised; his heir apparent could not be, unless he did what all who know that able and excellent individual must be aware he would not do, declare himself a Protestant by taking the Sacrament in one of our churches; and thus he would forfeit the right to inherit the princely domains, which form the apanage of this great title.
Others of our laws press upon Protestant Dissenters. When I moved the Bill, the other day, for correcting an error in the Registration Act of 1852, I stated how much these most respectable sectaries felt aggrieved by the continued requirement of Registration, as a condition of relieving their chapels from the penalties demanded by the Conventicle Act of

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Charles II. and the subsequent Statute of 1812, somewhat mitigating that barbarous law, which it only in name repealed, for it put other penalties in its place.
The Dissenters all complain, and, in my opinion, justly complain of registry being required before they can be relieved from these penalties—before their meetinghouses can be deemed legal, and the congregations escape the consequences of the intolerant laws first made nearly two centuries ago. That this exigency of the law may and often does produce practical evils to those bodies is certain. If the requisites are not complied with the consequences attach. Thus the licence to celebrate marriages in their chapels depends upon their being duly registered, that is, registered according to the formalities prescribed. Opinions have been taken on the validity of marriages celebrated in chapels which had licences but after an informal registration; and the greatest anxiety has been felt on this important matter from the conflict of those opinions. On one point, however, there can be no conflict; an unregistered chapel licensed as such within the Act making the marriages there valid has not valid licences; and we saw that between six and seven thousand chapels had been opened since 1852, in many of which marriages had been celebrated, to make which valid we had to pass the Act a few days ago.
The exemption from rates of such meeting-houses all depend upon due registration.—But I pray you to look back upon what injustice the Registration Law worked some years ago, when those disgraceful riots took place at Birmingham, from the fanatical zeal of a mob, countenanced if not instigated by persons in a respectable station, whose ecclesiastical bigotry and intolerance was exacerbated by the prejudices of a political party—when the meeting-house of Dr. Priestly was destroyed, and the house with the library and the manuscripts of that illustrious philosopher, and the apparatus with which he had made the discoveries that have given him an imperishable renown. For his private losses he obtained compensation by his action against the hundred; but for the injuries to the chapel no action could be maintained, because the registration had not taken place. Indeed, as it was an Unitarian meeting-house, it was not within the Statute of William III., the Act of 1813 having, for the first time, extended the protection of such buildings.
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However, even after that latter Act had passed, a defective registration would have deprived the proprietors of their recourse against the hundred, and would have enabled the rioters to escape the penalty of the law. By the Riot Act—1 Geo. 1. s. 2, c. 5—the demolition of a chapel is a capital offence, but only of a chapel duly registered. To destroy any other, any one for instance of the thousands unduly registered since 1852, though a crime of just as deep a dye as makes the offence punishable with death if committed against a registered meeting-house, is only a trespass, or, at most, under the recent Acts, punishable as a misdemeanor by a small fine.
It is now proposed that all these remains of the intolerant laws, made in other times in circumstances which no longer exist to justify or even to extenuate such enactments, should be swept from our Statute-book, and that no fetter upon complete religious liberty should any longer be continued. I speak as much for the Church, of which I am entirely and willingly a member, as for the sects with whom I altogether differ in opinion. The Church can well rest upon her own great merits, and is only weakened as well as dishonoured by those intolerant laws which short sighted partisans vainly regard as her pillars. She will be strengthened as well as exalted by their removal. We may hold the Dissenters to be in error, as they may regard our faith to be erroneous. Each party may conscientiously oppose the other in argument and freely discuss their points of difference, whether in doctrine or in discipline. None are to be regarded as unimportant which any men conscientiously believe to he material. A celebrated father of the primitive Church has, I believe, been parodied by a modern prelate in his famous dictum—"In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas." The modern substitute for St. Augustine is not less intolerant and, to my mind, much more absurd—"In essentials liberty, in unimportant things unity, in all charity." In only the last point of the proposition can I agree. We have no right to regard anything as trifling, either in doctrine or discipline, which our fellow Christians hold to be momentous—whether it be matter of religious dogma, or of ecclesiastical observance—as that the priest shall turn his face to the altar or avert it, shall read in one part of

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the church or another, with or without lights, or have a stone placed in one portion or another. We may ourselves entirely disregard all this, because not agreeing with our views, but I deny the right to treat it as insignificant and call it mummery, if any body of worshipers sincerely believe it to be important. Above all, we have no right to visit this conscientious difference of opinion upon those who hold it, with any penalty or disability whatever of a temporal nature; and you may depend upon it that they who have little or no religion will be the most ready to maltreat men upon the ground of differences being insignificant. If the observances are inconsistent with the ecclesiastical discipline of the sects or of the Church, it is for the spiritual authorities to take cognizance of them. The State is bound for the sake of Religious as well as of Civil liberty, to withdraw from the controversy, and leave it to be conducted by the spiritual power.
The Bill which I now present to your Lordships is framed upon this, the true principle set forth in the preamble, that it is contrary to the interests of religion and inconsistent with civil liberty that any person should be subject to any pains, penalties, or disabilities whatever on account of his religious opinions, or his mode of worship. It repeals all the Acts or parts of Acts passed inconsistent with this great principle; and of about 120 such our Statute-book will thus be got rid. I trust your Lordships will now give the Bill a first reading, and that my noble and learned Friend will see the propriety of referring it to the examination of the commission of which he is the head. The labours of my very able and learned Friend (Mr. Field), of the Chancery Bar, as well as his brother, the eminent solicitor, have enabled me to lay it before your Lordships. Of their merits it is difficult for me to speak too highly; and they represent the Protestant Dissenting body, I have further had the invaluable assistance of Mr. Anstey, who belongs to the Romish Church, and of whom I will only say that a more learned, indefatigable, and useful fellow-labourer it is impossible that any one can have in such works. His Lordship then presented a Bill to repeal all Pains, Penalties, and Disabilities on account of Religious opinions; and moved that it be now read 1a.
THE LORD CHANCELLORthought no one could entertain any objection to the
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suggestion that the Bill, after being read a first time, should be referred to the Statute Law Commission. Undoubtedly it did not, at the first blush, appear very germane to the business of a Commission, whose duty was to consolidate laws, that they should take into hand the framing of an Act to repeal, and not consolidate, a great many of the existing laws; but he thought it extremely important, with a view to the consolidation of what was desirable to be retained, also to get rid of that which was superfluous.
Bill read 1a.
House adjourned to Monday next.