Sitting of 15 May 1855

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Formation, &c. of Parishes; Coal Mines Inspection; Justices of Peace Qualification; Hardware, &c. Manufactures; Mortmain.
2° Alterations in Pleadings.
3° Spirit, &c. Duties (Excise); Sewers (House Drainage).

RAMSGATE, &c., HARBOURS.
MR. MACKINNON: Sir, on the present occasion I feel myself bound in duty to come forward and move for a Committee, or obtain a promise that some steps will be taken to diminish or do away with the charge of tolls on ships, both British and foreign, passing the Channel on one side or the other of the Goodwin Sands. I do so in consequence of the directions of the Committee on Ramsgate Harbour, of which I was Chairman.
As briefly as I can, I will state to the House the facts of the case. About a century ago, the harbour of Ramsgate was concluded, in the 32nd year of George III., an Act was passed by the Legislature naming trustees for Ramsgate and authorising them to levy a duty or toll of from 2d. to 3½d. per ton on every vessel, British or foreign, that passed up or down the Channel, these tolls to be levied on

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British ships when they were cleared from port, and on foreign vessels whenever they entered an English harbour. This ought to continue so long as the harbour of Ramsgate wanted repair, which the trustees took care should always be the case. Not only is this toll most impolitic towards foreigners by making them avoid our harbours and seek refuge in the ports of France or Belgium, but it is most generally felt by the shipping interest, who, according to the Report laid before the Board of Trade, dated July, 1853, are taxed by the passing tolls to the amount of 500,000 l., which large sum is paid by that interest without any remuneration or advantage whatever; now, in the Trinity House duties they have the advantage of lights, buoys, and beacons for their shipping. It appears that in 1822 a Committee of this House considered the question, and reported that 1,500,000 l. had been expended on Ramsgate Harbour up to that period, and since 1822, it now appears that nearly 500,000 l. more have been laid out, making up the enormous sum of 2,000,000 l. on that harbour, which evidence before my Committee stated might have been done for less than half that sum—not to exceed 700,000 l.! What an immense waste of money drawn out of the shipping interest! Now, it appears that the receipts of the trustees of Ramsgate Harbour amount, from tolls levied on ships to about 25,000 l. yearly, that their income from their capital in the funds, houses, and land near the harbour amounts to about 6,000 l., making, together, 31,000 l. a year; now, it appears from the report of General Williams, of the engineers, that the sum of 7,000 l. a year is amply sufficient for all the purposes of keeping up and repairing Ramsgate Harbour. On these grounds, therefore, it was recommended by the Committee of which I was chairman, that the whole amount received from passing tolls should be done away, that the trustees should have the power to levy 6d. per ton on ships entering the harbour for refuge, which toll would make up, with the 6,000 l. a year, the income of the trustees, a sum of upwards of 7,000 l. a year, so that the tolls could be abolished on passing vessels without any deficiency of means in the trustees to repair the harbour of Ramsgate. On these grounds it is, Sir, that I call on Her Majesty's Government to take such measures as may be necessary for bringing about this beneficial result. Before I sit down, let me say that in no
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manner whatever do I mean to cast the slightest imputation on the trustees; they are all men of high integrity and honour, well-known and respected; their offence is not one of commission but of omission; they all reside in London, go to Ramsgate once a year to eat a good dinner, and then return to town, all the business of the harbour is left in the power of engineers and superintendents, who seem to act as they please without supervision or control, and are constantly pulling down and building up, purchasing enormous masses of stone not required, and expending vast sums of money to little or no purpose. Under this view of the case, convinced as I am that a public benefit will accrue, I now make my Motion, unless the Board of Trade assure me they will remedy this crying evil, which cannot long continue in these days.
Promise made by Board of Trade.
Motion withdrawn.
Motion made, and Question proposed—
"That a Select Committee be appointed to ascertain the condition, revenue, and expenditure of the Harbours of Ramsgate and the Cinque Ports."
MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that the hon. Gentleman had confined his observations solely to Ramsgate Harbour, and had left the Cinque Ports altogether out of view. He was sorry he could not assent to the Motion of the hon. Member for a Select Committee. The object of any Select Committee must be to inquire into facts, whereas with regard to Ramsgate, inquiry was altogether exhausted. There had been already four several inquiries into the state of that harbour, and his opinion was that they should now be prepared to deal with it. The harbour was maintained mainly by a toll levied upon the shipping passing up and down the Channel. These tolls produced a very large revenue, but in 1850 a reduction of them was made to the amount of 4,600 l. a year, and in 1852 they were further reduced to the amount of 5,000 l. per annum. The tolls now levied were 63 per cent less than the rate which the trustees of Ramsgate Harbour were allowed to levy. The trustees, therefore, deserved credit for the endeavours they had made to lighten the burden on the shipping passing Ramsgate harbour. This Motion respecting Ramsgate harbour practically involved the question as to the propriety of passing tolls, and they could only be justified on the principle that the bulk of the passing shipping on which the tolls were levied derived some benefit from

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the harbour or the lights. To a certain extent, he thought it had been clearly made out that ships passing Ramsgate did derive benefit up to a certain amount of tonnage. A very large number of ships took refuge in the harbour from the Downs, and upon those ships no more than the passing tolls were levied. The Downs, which constituted the greatest anchorage in this kingdom, were thus relieved of the presence of many ships with which they would be otherwise encumbered, and he thought it would not be desirable to take away from the harbour all sources of further existence. If the tolls were taken away the harbour must be maintained from other sources. In short, Ramsgate harbour must have a revenue, and that was just the difficulty. At present the harbour was not in an efficient state. Works absolutely necessary were in the course of construction, and others were required, and thus a considerable extraordinary expenditure was occasioned. When they had put the harbour in an efficient state, there would arise the question of how it was to be maintained. By dint of other sources of revenue, by the aid of the property the trust already possessed, and by the continuance of the passing tolls for a limited period, the necessary funds might be provided, and at the same time relief be given to ships from the pressure of the tolls; but the best way would be to alter the management of the harbour, which was now in the hands of independent trustees—gentlemen of high character—mostly men of business in London, but who, from their other avocations, were unable to give all that attention to the concern which it required. He was prepared, therefore, to propose, and hoped in the course of the present year to be able to lay on the table of the House, a Bill to provide for taking away from the present trustees the management and direction of the harbour, and vesting it in another authority under the control of the Board of Trade. When that was done, the Board of Trade would be able to ascertain how far the extraordinary expenditure of the harbour was likely to go, what the ordinary expenditure would be when the extraordinary had ceased, and then, he thought, they would be able to deal with the question of the passing toll in a satisfactory way.
SIR GEORGE PECHELLsaid, he was sorry that the hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade had taken the part of defending the enormous and
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atrocious exaction of passing tolls. The only principle on which passing tolls could be justified was, that something was offered for the money in the way of a harbour of refuge; but neither Ramsgate nor Dovor offered a secure protection to shipping at all times. Dovor was only a mousetrap; it was a dangerous place for a loaded vessel to attempt to enter, and, when in, no one knew when it might come out again. When the navigation laws were repealed, it was understood that such local charges as these Were to be abolished as speedily as possible, and he hoped no time would be lost in granting this relief to the shipping interest. The hon. Gentleman had not given any good reason for refusing this inquiry, and he should therefore support the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Rye.
MR. JAMES MACGREGORsaid, he should support the Motion. The steps proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade were not of sufficient scope to meet the question, which embraced not only Ramsgate, but the whole of the Cinque Ports. A reform in the administration of Dovor harbour was quite as much needed as in the administration of that of Ramsgate, for a large expenditure had been going on there for many years without the harbour being, comparatively speaking, much improved. The harbour of Sandwich had also a grievance, for it had been greatly injured by the works now going on at Dovor. He could not help thinking that a Report of a Committee on all the Cinque Ports would be of great use, and he should therefore support the Motion.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he thought it would be a great disappointment to the House to be told that they were still at the stage when inquiry was necessary in the matter of passing tolls. In the case of Ramsgate, that statement was too ridiculous, for inquiry had been exhausted. First, there was the Committee of 1850, then the inquiry by Mr. Walker, and afterwards other inquiries by Captain Vetch, Sir John Rennie, and lastly by Sir William Cubitt, who was sent down by himself in conjunction with the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle, when First Lord of the Admiralty, and who reported that at the end of the present year it would be perfectly safe to abandon the passing toll altogether. In accordance with that Report, he had prepared a Bill for the abolition of this passing toll at Ramsgate,

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but which was not introduced in deference to the recommendation of the Commissioners who had been appointed to inquire into the burdens upon shipping all round the kingdom, and who thought that all legislation ought to be deferred until they had presented their Reports, when a general and comprehensive measure could be laid before Parliament. Their Reports, both for England and Ireland, had now been presented, and the time was come, therefore, he thought, for legislation; and he trusted that his hon. Friend (Mr. Bouverie) would very speedily bring in a measure, not with regard merely to Ramsgate and the Cinque Ports, but having reference to the broad and general question of all these burdens. The question involved not only burdens on shipping, but also some of the most important questions of treaty with foreign countries. He should certainly unite with the hon. Gentleman the Vice-President of the Board of Trade in opposing the present partial, meagre, and unnecessary inquiry. Somebody had said that the Ramsgate harbour money was wasted, and wasted in hospitalities and in eating and drinking. But the trustees of that harbour were independent gentlemen who received nothing for the labour they performed, and when it was proposed to abolish the trust, the chairman and members of that trust waited upon him, and said that they had no object in the world except one, and that was that their trust should be taken from them and placed upon some satisfactory footing, and that there should be done for Ramsgate harbour that which would most contribute to the uses for which it was instituted.
MR. HUDSONsaid, he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the way in which he had dealt with this question, and he regretted he had not remained in office to carry out his liberal principles and measures. He heard with regret the statement of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) that it was intended to continue passing tolls. He had hoped that the principle of passing tolls had passed away. He must contend that ships which passed Ramsgate harbour without receiving any benefit ought not to be compelled to pay any toll. He could tell the hon. Gentleman that his measure would be opposed by the shipping interest, and he had no doubt the hon. Gentleman, if he did not abandon his view on the subject, would sustain defeat on the obnoxious principle of passing tolls. He agreed that no inquiry
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was needed with respect to Ramsgate harbour. The trustees had not exceeded their taxing powers—but the system of legislation had changed, and the necessity for passing tolls was now neither obvious nor expedient.
MR. MACKINNONsaid, he would not protract the discussion any longer, as he had obtained his wishes—namely, an assurance from the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouveric) that he would bring forward a measure to do away eventually with these passing tolls. He would withdraw his Motion, relying as he did on the promise—the positive promise—of his hon. Friend.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

HARDWARE, &c., MANUFACTURES BILL.
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he had to move for a Committee of the whole House to consider the laws for securing the property of manufacturers of iron, steel, cutlery, edge tools, hardware, gold, silver and and silver plated, Britannia metal, German silver, copper and brass articles, and other metals, mother of pearl shell, tortoiseshell, bone, horn, ivory, leather, and wood, and also for securing the wages of the workmen engaged in such manufactures. His object was to introduce a Bill to extend the provisions of the 6 & 7 Vict., chap. 40, to the hardware and other manufactures of Sheffield, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. The exclusion of those three towns from the operation of that Act had been productive of considerable inconvenience, which it was the desire of their inhabitants to have remedied.
MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that the provisions of the 6 & 7 Vict.—at present applying to the woollen, linen, worsted, cotton, flax, and silk manufactures of this country—appeared to be of a very beneficial character. They had reference to workmen who embezzled tools and other materials entrusted to them by their employers, and they also provided a very simple and summary process by which the workmen could recover their wages. Primâ facie, therefore, there was no objection to the extension of this Act to the iron and metal manufactures of Sheffield and other towns; but it was desirable that the Bill which the hon. Gentleman proposed to bring in should be circulated in the places to which it would refer, in order to afford them an opportunity of expressing their opinions upon it.
Motion agreed to; House in Committee.
Resolved—
"That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill the better to secure the property of Manufacturers of iron, steel, cutlery, edge tools, hardware, gold, silver and silver plated, Britannia metal, German silver, copper and brass articles, and other metals, mother of pearl, shell, tortoise shell, bone, horn, ivory, leather, and wood, and also for securing the Wages of the Workmen engaged in such manufactures, by extending the provisions of the Act of the sixth and seventh years of Her present Majesty, chapter forty, commonly called 'The Woollen, &c. Manufactures Act,' to the said hardware and other manufactures."
The House resumed.
Resolution reported.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. HADFIELD, Mr. ROEBUCK, Mr. MUNTZ, and Mr. SCHOLEFIELD.
Bill read 1°.

SCREW PROPELLERS.
CAPTAIN SCOBELLsaid, he rose pursuant to notice to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the circumstances under which compensation was granted to the patentees of the screw propeller, as used in Her Majesty's ships and vessels. He considered that this question concerned one of the most important inventions—saving the electric telegraph—that had been invented for many years. He would deal with the question in a manner as little personal as possible. He would attack nobody, for he was only demanding justice on behalf of an individual who had been unjustly treated by four consecutive Boards of Admiralty. A noble and learned Lord (Lord Lyndhurst) had already taken up this question in another place, and he was not a person to have done so unless he had been convinced that a great grievance existed. The question related to the screw propeller, used in the Royal Navy. So important did this invention seem to the Admiralty of the day that two votes of 10,000 l. each were taken, one in 1851 and the other in 1854, to reward the patentee, not of the best screw, or of the earliest screw, but for the screw that should be adopted in the Royal Navy. These were the terms of the grant, and before he resumed his seat he should show to the House that the grant had not only not reached the person for whom it was intended by the House when the grant was made, but that they had been excluded from the dispensation of the Vote. That was his statement, but he only asked that the circumstances should be inquired into, and to this he considered there could be
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no objection. He would candidly tell the House that he had ascertained that the Government would not grant this inquiry, and he, therefore, appealed to the House to do so. Did the parties who had received this money ask for an inquiry? One of them, though he had since recanted, had asked an hon. Member to second this Motion. And the House also had before them the petition of Mr. Lowe, asking for an inquiry and impeaching the utility of Mr. Smith's screw. He mentioned this in order to show that the five parties who received the money voted by Parliament had quarrelled among themselves. He would now lay before the House evidence to show that the screw used in Her Majesty's ships was not that of either of the parties to whom the 20,000 l. were given. The person who really got the money was Mr. Henry Currie, a banker in the City, then a Member of the House, and sitting on that (the ministerial) side of the House, who had previously applied to Sir Robert Peel and to Lord John Hay without success. Mr. Currie had stated his own case in a letter to the Solicitor to the Admiralty, dated the 30th of May, 1854. His statement was to the effect that he had become the director of a company to which Mr. Smith had conveyed his patent; that the company, having expended their money in experiments and trials at law, had consented to an amalgamation with other companies which were the proprietors of four different patents; that in 1851 he was instructed to put himself in communication with the Government, and the merits of the five patents were again investigated; that the result was an agreement by the then First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir F. Baring) to pay him the 20,000 l. upon his personal security to relieve the Government from all further claim; and that the distribution of the money was left entirely to him, but was made according to the award of the eminent patent agent, Mr. Carpmael. Mr. Currie concluded by saying that, in his opinion, the screw used in the navy was Smith's, and Smith's alone. He (Captain Scobell) contended that, according to the documents in his possession and the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the invention was Captain Carpenter's, and Captain Carpenter's alone. Captain Carpenter was a captain in the navy who had not endeavoured to make a profit of his invention by private trade, but who desired that the screw he had constructed should be

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adopted in Her Majesty's navy; and the question was, whether Captain Carpenter's screw had not been adopted in the Duke of Wellington, the Agamemnon, and other vessels which had sailed or were to sail for the Baltic and the Black Sea? Mr. Lowe, one of the five persons who had obtained a share of the money granted by Her Majesty's Government, had applied to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council four or five years ago for a renewal of his patent, but the application was refused, on the ground that the invention did not possess sufficient merit. About the years 1838 or 1839, before Mr. Smith's screw was known, Captain Carpenter made communications to the Admiralty, stating that he had perfected a screw, which he believed to be very useful to the ships of Her Majesty's navy, and in 1840 he took out a patent for the invention. Some experiments having been made by Captain Carpenter on the Thames, in the presence of Sir Edward Parry, Surveyor General of the steam department of the navy, and others, on the part of the Government, Captain Carpenter was appointed to the command of the Geyser, a ship of war, and was ordered to the Mediterranean, having been permitted to fit his screw to the pinnace of that vessel. The pinnace to which the screw was adapted was tried in the Mediterranean in the presence of Admiral Sir William Parker, and her sailing qualities excited great admiration and surprise. Captain Carpenter did not return to England until 1845, when he found that many persons had been endeavouring to establish claims to his invention; and he was informed, in reply to an application to the Admiralty, that a certain sum of money had been granted to the inventors of the screw used in the navy. Captain Carpenter had, however, unsuccessfully urged his claim to this reward. Last year Captain Carpenter applied to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for a renewal of his patent, and officers employed by the Government declared that his screw was that which was in use in Her Majesty's navy. The Attorney General appeared before the Judicial Committee to watch the proceedings, and he did not object to the renewal of the patent, but desired that the Government might have the use of Carpenter's screw. The Judicial Committee, however, refused to assent to such an arrangement, and at this moment the Admiralty were wrongfully using
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the screw, though it was impossible for Captain Carpenter to bring an action, for this wrong, against the Government. Mr. John Ellis, one of the witnesses examined, stated that the screw of the Agamemnon, which he manufactured himself, was Captain Carpenter's screw. The screw invented by Captain Carpenter combined the maximum of power with the minimum of resistance, and Sir Edward Parry, who, as he had previously stated, was Surveyor General of the steam department of the navy, in 1838, and who had been ordered to witness the experiments with Captain Carpenter's screw, testified that those experiments, as far as they went, were satisfactory. The next witness examined before the Judicial Committee was Mr. Robert Galloway, the surveyor of steam vessels to the Board of Trade. He gave evidence distinctly to the effect that the screw used in the navy was a screw formed on the model of that of the Agamemnon, and that he had never seen one of Smith's screws used, either in the Royal Navy, or in the mercantile marine. Here was additional evidence that the screw used in the navy was that of Captain Carpenter. Then Mr. Thomas Lloyd, the chief Admiralty engineer, gave evidence that there was no vessel in the Royal Navy fitted with the screw before 1843, and that there was no vessel fitted with one entire turn of the screw, which was the description of screw made by Mr. Smith. The evidence of Captain Carpenter described the various applications made by him to the Admiralty, and the replies he received, showing that there was no chance of his obtaining redress from the Board. Then came the judgment of the Judicial Committee, which was given on the 30th of May last, and in which he found it distinctly stated, that "The Government did not contest the validity of the patterns or the utility of the invention;" adding, "that it has been proved at the bar that this very invention is at this day, and has for some time, been in use in the Royal Navy." Now, after evidence like this, he would appeal to the sense of justice of the Lords of the Admiralty, and ask whether they were not prepared to remedy the error which had been committed? The Judicial Committee then showed that Captain Carpenter had been no party to the arbitration. But now, 20,000 l. having been paid, the question was what could be done? Before this sum of 20,000 l. was given by the Government

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a bond of indemnity was entered into. Therefore, the money was recoverable; and one of the persons who ought to have the whole or part of it had been unjustly deprived of compensation. It might be asked, why did not Captain Carpenter bring an action against those parties giving the indemnity; but the answer was, that he could not, as the bond was given to the Admiralty, and none but the Admiralty could act upon it. He had shown that a sum of 20,000 l. had been voted by that House, and that it had gone into the hands of five screw companies, who amalgamated together, under the advice of a director in one of them, who was of course an interested party. He now called on the House to show that when an individual, however humble and however disregarded for many years, appealed for justice to the last resort within those walls, that justice would not be denied him.
MR. KERSHAWseconded the Motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed—
"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the circumstances under which the sum of 20,000 l., voted by the House of Commons as a reward or compensation to the Patentees of the Screw Propeller, as used in Her Majesty's ships and vessels, has been applied, and as to what persons have preferred claims, either to the Admiralty, or other Public Departments, to share in the Public Grant in respect to their Patent rights, and to report thereon."
SIR FRANCIS BARINGsaid, that, as he was the party practically responsible for this transaction, in so far as he had committed the Admiralty to what had taken place, he trusted he might be allowed to make some explanation on the subject. The hon. and gallant Member having altered the Motion of which he originally had given notice, and which contained charges against the Admiralty of having misappropriated public money, nevertheless repeated those charges in his speech. He was anxious, therefore, to explain the facts of the case, because, if the House thought that they had the real history of the case before them from the statement of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, they were greatly mistaken. Now, what were the real facts of the case? When he (Sir F. Baring) was at the Admiralty, considerable difficulty was felt in respect to the claims of different parties with reference to the screw propeller. According to the opinion of the Admiralty and its officers, the screw propeller used in Her Majesty's service was not the specific
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screw of any one patentee; but the Admiralty, having in regard to the screw so employed, infringed several patents, thought that the patentees were entitled to consideration. Application was made to the Admiralty for compensation. Now, the Admiralty did not refuse to consider these claims, but the answer given was that, inasmuch as various claimants were at law one with another, the Admiralty did not know who was the proper party to pay. For some time the question remained in that state, most inconveniently for the Admiralty, until at last it came across the mind of some of these claimants whose patents had been infringed, that it would be a much more sensible plan, if, instead of spending their money in lawsuits, they combined together and applied together to the Admiralty for compensation. That was the history of this amalgamation, of which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had spoken, and it appeared to be only a sensible proceeding on the part of persons having contested rights. In consequence of this arrangement Mr. Henry Currie called on him, and, as the hon. and gallant Member had said that that Gentleman was a Member of Parliament sitting on that side (the meaning of which statement was very well understood), he begged to remind the hon. and gallant Member that, though that Gentleman was a Member of Parliament, he sat on the other side of the House. Mr. Currie called upon him as the agent of these parties claiming compensation, and he wished to point this fact out, because it had been endeavoured to be represented that the Admiralty employed Mr. Currie. That gentleman had a document signed by all the parties he represented, authorising him to settle their claims and receive their money. He would now state what the law with respect to patent right was in this case. If the Admiralty made a screw in the Government yards, and used it in the Queen's ships, the patentees had no legal means to obtain money from the Admiralty. If, again, the Admiralty employed a contractor to make a screw, and used it in the Queen's service, there was no legal remedy for the patentees as against the Admiralty, but they might go against the manufacturer. Therefore, the contractor so employed either added to the charge for his work another charge to cover the payment for the patent right, or arranged that the Admiralty should pay for the latter. When Mr.

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Currie called on him, his first object was to ascertain whether that gentleman represented the proper parties to be paid. On consulting the officers of the Government departments he was informed by them that, so far as their professional opinion was concerned, these were the proper persons to be paid. The then Attorney General, the present Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who had attended before the Privy Council on behalf of the Government, while several of the cases were being heard, and who was fully acquainted with all the details of the transaction, also gave it as his distinct opinion, in a private conversation which he had had with him, that he could safely and properly pay the parties with whom he was dealing; and, further than that, having communicated with various engineers and contractors who were exactly in the same boat with the Admiralty in regard to these parties having, in executing work for the Admiralty, equally infringed on their patents, he was informed that they had all either actually paid, or made arrangements to pay, these companies who asked compensation from the Admiralty. Having fortified himself with these various opinions he went still further, and required Mr. Currie to give a guarantee to secure the Admiralty from any further claim; and if, after all this, he had still refused to pay the claim, he thought he would have been justly liable to considerable blame. He would not even have had the excuse that the money was claimed by an officer of the Royal navy, for at the time when he made his agreement with Mr. Currie, he had not heard that Captain Carpenter had made any claim against the Admiralty for money compensation for infringement of his patent right. In this he was supported by Sir Baldwin Walker and Mr. Lloyd, who were equally unaware of any money claim having been made by Captain Carpenter at that time. He hoped, therefore, that the hon. and gallant Member for Bath would not now think that he had acted inconsiderately in making this agreement with Mr. Currie. The bargain was a payment for the past and a purchase for the future; it was not a reward for an invention, but a payment for invasion of patent right, which had been made by others, and which he thought the Admiralty ought to make also. The 20,000 l. was very well spent, and altogether the bargain he made was a very good one, for Captain
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Carpenter, in estimating the value of his patent right, had not only claimed the 20,000 l., but had sent in a Bill to the Admiralty of somewhere about 44.000 l. more, making altogether a claim of 64,000 l., besides some little postscripts which he was anxious to put in. He certainly could not understand Captain Carpenter's logic in this. The vote of 20,000 l. was granted by Parliament as a final payment for all rights past and future, and how, then, could the gallant captain claim this 20,000 l., which he would have to receive as a final payment for all claims past and future, and yet send in an additional bill for 44,000 l.? The hon. and gallant Member (Captain Scobell) seemed to speak as if Mr. Currie had been employed by the Admiralty to distribute the money among the claimants, but, on the contrary, Mr. Currie came to the Admiralty as the agent of the claimants; the money was paid to him as their agent; and it would, indeed, have been very unwise for the Admiralty to make itself at all responsible for the conduct of that agent in distributing the money. In fact, it was distributed by an arbitrator chosen by the different claimants themselves. He had been accused of having misappropriated the public money. Now, the last Vote distinctly referred to the sum of 10,000 l. which was paid before, and paid under a particular agreement with other parties. This part of the case had never been concealed, and he had twice explained the whole transaction to the House. The Government would, therefore, have misappropriated the money if they had given a single sixpence of it to Captain Carpenter. Subsequently to the agreement above stated being made, Captain Carpenter put in a claim which the Admiralty referred to Mr. Lloyd and Sir Baldwin Walker, who afterwards reported that Captain Carpenter's screw was not the one used in Her Majesty's service. It had been said that Captain Carpenter had obtained a decision in his favour, but it must be remembered that the trial was not one affecting the rights of parties, and all that was decided in that case was, that Captain Carpenter had a patent right which ought to be renewed, and which was renewed for a certain period. That opinion, therefore, was not worth anything in a court of law—it was a mere extra-judicial opinion of Lord Justice Knight Bruce, and could be of no weight in settling Captain Carpenter's claim. The patent right was not contested.

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He (Sir F. Baring) certainly wished to say nothing uncivil, but the Admiralty considered the patent to be perfectly worthless, and were quite willing that Captain Carpenter should have it secured to him for 100 years if he pleased, so far as they were concerned. When, therefore, the opinion of the Privy Council was so much relied upon, let it be recollected that when the matter was bonâ fide fought in a court of law, Lord Cranworth declared that the screw used for the navy was mainly the result of the experiments and exertions made, as well as of the expense incurred by the Admiralty. It was a remarkable fact that the screw of the Agamemnon happened not to be the same that was generally used by the Admiralty. It having been found necessary that a portion of it should be cut away, in its altered state it in some degree resembled Captain Carpenter's screw, and from this circumstance perhaps the Agamemnon's screw had been represented as the model of the screw used in the navy generally. The question before the House, therefore, was not one adapted for a Committee by any means—it was a strictly legal question; and when it was said that Captain Carpenter's case was a hard one, it should be remembered that that gentleman had still his remedy against the contractors who manufactured for the Admiralty. A legal trial had been resorted to by the private parties since the amalgamation of the different screw companies, and the decision then given was in favour of those parties. In the case of seven distinct ships, bills had been filed by them in Chancery, and injunctions were granted in each instance. A court of law having, therefore, decided over and over again against Captain Carpenter, why should that gentleman, because he chanced to be an officer in Her Majesty's service, be allowed to take what was fairly the property of other people? The opinion of a Committee of that House, under these circumstances, would be of no more value in this matter than the paper on which it was written, because the contractors would consider themselves bound by the decisions of a court of law, which decisions recognised the right of other parties. He had trespassed thus far on the attention of the House, because it had been represented elsewhere that a great job had been perpetrated in this case; but, as regarded his own conduct, and that of the Admiralty, it was a matter
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of perfect indifference to him whether the Committee now moved for were granted or refused.
MR. KEATINGsaid, he wished to state the grounds on which he should vote in favour of the present Motion. He had not understood that the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Scobell) had imputed to the right hon. Baronet who had last addressed the House, or to any one connected with the Admiralty, anything like a charge of wilful misappropriation of the public money. Had such an imputation been made, he (Mr. Keating) could not assent to the Motion; but the case, as he understood it, was this—that there was used in Her Majesty's ships a screw propeller of a certain form, and that Parliament had voted a sum of money to recompense those who were interested in the patent or patents which might be infringed by the use of the screw propeller in Her Majesty's service. The Admiralty took this Vote of Parliament, and placed themselves in the situation of trustees of 20.000 l. of public money, to be distributed as the public intended it should be; and the hon. and gallant Member, by his Motion, asked the House, on the materials he had laid before it, to appoint a Committee to inquire whether the money had been distributed in the way the public intended; or whether, by inadvertency or mistake, the Admiraly had by an arrangement they had entered into deprived one or more parties entitled to a share of any participation in that money. The right hon. Baronet had stated the case of the Admiralty, and said that they received the 20,000 l., took all means of ascertaining the parties entitled to it, and that among those parties it had been distributed. He was sure the right hon. Baronet had intended it so to be distributed; hut his intention had not been carried out. The mode in which the distribution of the money was made did not appear to have been so businesslike as the right hon. Baronet supposed. It was said that the Attorney General was consulted; he investigated the claims of the parties who received the money, and pronounced them to be the only parties entitled to it. Neither the Attorney General's opinion, however, nor the case upon which it was given, was before the House; but, assuming that this was the correct version of the opinion of the Attorney General, although it might justify the Admiralty

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to themselves in paying over the money as they did, yet, as the Attorney General was not infallible, this did not, he conceived, preclude the House from inquiring whether the money had been distributed according to the intention of the public. The right hon. Baronet repudiated the idea of Mr. Currie having been appointed by the Admiralty to distribute this money. He said, the money was paid to Mr. Currie as the representative of the five companies entitled to it. Mr. Currie, however, appeared to be of a different opinion, as in the bond of indemnity it was stated that the money was received by him, not to be paid to certain individuals named, but to any persons who were entitled to it by means of a patent right to the screw in use in Her Majesty's navy, and that he was the person to decide who were so entitled was clear from his being called upon to give the identity. On these terms Mr. Currie appeared to have received the money, and, such being the terms, he (Mr. Keating) considered that the selection of Mr. Currie to regulate its distribution was most unfortunate. He did not wish to impute to Mr. Currie, or any one concerned in the matter, the slightest wish to do anything wrong, but as, from the recital in the bond, it appeared that Mr. Currie was one of the parties claiming to be entitled to a portion of the money, he thought it unfortunate that that gentleman was selected to distribute money in the distribution of which he was an interested party. It was said that Captain Carpenter might sue other parties, although he could not sue the Admiralty. But the real question for consideration was, whether the money was distributed in the way in which it was intended to be distributed. In the proceedings before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, presided over by Lord Justice Knight Bruce for the purpose of extending the patent, that learned Judge seemed to think the Admiralty must be considered as not having contested the validity of the patent, and as admitting that the invention was in use in the navy. With respect to the suggestion that Captain Carpenter might proceed at law, if he were to do so he could not recover any portion of the 20,000 l., but would take upon himself a very considerable burden, and find the utmost difficulty in succeeding after such a lapse of time. But had all the persons who had received the money established a right at law? He
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(Mr. Keating) believed not one had done so. Mr. Lowe, indeed, had tried a court of law, and was assisted by the first legal advice, the hon. and learned Member for Stamford being leading counsel in the case. [Sir F. THESIGER: Against him.] The result of the elaborate and extensive proceedings taken by him was a compromise; and if Captain Carpenter proceeded in the same manner he would probably have to go through the same kind of process. What Captain Carpenter now asked was, the means of inquiring whether he had not a right to participate in the money voted by Parliament, and beliving that a fair ground for inquiry had been made out, he (Mr. Keating) should support the Motion.
ADMIRAL WALCOTTsaid, he understood the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir F. Baring) to say that no claim was sent in to the Admiralty by Captain Carpenter before the money was handed over to Mr. Currie. He had the authority of Captain Carpenter for saying that he did, previous to that time, lay before the Admiralty a memorial, setting forth that he was the inventor of the screw, and making a claim for compensation. He should vote for an inquiry, because he thought Captain Carpenter's claim could be tested in no other way; and it must be remembered that the testimony of that distinguished officer Admiral Sir Ceorge Cockburn, was in his favour. In his opinion, it was a misdirection of the money which had been voted by the House, to place it in the hands of a gentleman who was an interested party, with authority to appropriate it, and he therefore thought a case for inquiry had been made out.
SIR FRANCIS BARINGsaid, he must explain that his statement was that, when he entered into the agreement with Mr. Currie he was not aware of Captain Carpenter's money claim, nor were Sir Baldwin Walker and Mr. Lloyd; and he believed the records of the Admiralty did not contain any formal application.
SIR FREDERIC THESIGERsaid he regretted to state that he entertained a very different opinion to that expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Reading (Mr. Keating) who had given the weight of his authority in support of the Motion. The hon. and learned gentleman, however, had formed his opinion upon an imperfect view of the circumstances of the case,—probably upon the partial representations contained in the book published by Captain

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Carpenter. He (Sir F. Thesiger) was most anxious to avoid saying anything that might derogate from the fair and just claims of Captain Carpenter, whom he believed to be a gentleman of great scientific attainments, but it was impossible to do justice to this question without considering Captain Carpenter's merits with respect to the important invention to which the Motion referred. He (Sir F. Thesiger) was bound to say he had come to the conclusion that Captain Carpenter was not entitled to claim any merit whatever in respect to any share in the invention of the screw propeller. Those who had paid any attention to the history of this important invention were aware that it had exercised the ingenuity of many able persons, that it had been the subject of no less than forty-four patents, that the honour of the original invention had been very warmly contested, and that enormous expenses had been incurred in deciding the rights of the different competitors. He believed it would be admitted, whatever merit might be due to the various parties who had turned their attention to the subject, that, so far as the practical application of this important instrument was concerned, the merit belonged to Mr. Francis Petty Smith, who, in 1836, four years before the date of Captain Carpenter's patent, took out a patent for a screw propeller, which was then a propeller making the entire turn of the screw, but which afterwards, when it was used on board the Archimedes, was converted into two half-turns. This was, in fact, the origin of the present two-bladed propeller, which is merely a modification of Mr. Smith's original invention. In 1839 and 1840, Mr. Smith fitted his propeller to the Archimedes; he placed the propeller in the dead wood, just before the rudder; and the attention of the Admiralty having been called to the invention, they directed Captain Chappell and other nautical and scientific gentlemen to test the comparative advantages of the screw and the paddle. In 1840, prior to the time when Captain Carpenter took out his patent, Captain Chappell had made a very interesting report of the result of the experiments in the Archimedes, which was published. It had been stated that Mr. Smith had derived no personal benefit from this important invention, but it was to that gentleman that the country was mainly indebted for the advantages which had been derived from the introduction of the screw
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in place of the paddle. Mr. Smith, having no means of his own by which he could carry out his patent, Mr. Currie and other gentlemen came forward to assist him, and a company was formed for the purpose of working the patent. The right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) had done frank justice to Mr. Currie in the allusions he had made to the character and conduct of that gentleman; and those who knew Mr. Currie would be satisfied that he would not condescend, for any personal advantage of his own, to avail himself of any means of advancing his interests to the prejudice of others. In 1838, long before Captain Carpenter obtained his patent, Mr. Lowe had taken out a patent for a propeller, and, although the specification of that patent was vague and indefinite, the drawings attached to the specification described or represented a two-bladed propeller. The discovery was, perhaps, not entirely due to Mr. Smith, who practically first applied it, nor to Mr. Lowe; but the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council expressed their opinion that the discovery was attributable to the expenditure of money supplied by the Admiralty for investigating this subject by a sort of process of exhaustion. He believed that if hon. gentlemen inquired into the matter they would be disposed to consider that Captain Carpenter's invention did not relate to a portion of a screw at all, but to the use of flat blades. In 1840, when Captain Carpenter took out his patent, four of the parties who claimed the merit of the invention, and who subsequently combined their interests, were in the field. The fifth had brought the validity of his patent to the test of an action at law, and had established his right. Now, during a period of ten years—from 1840 to 1850—these different persons were litigating their rights, and bringing the validity of their patents to the test of an action at law; but during the whole of this period Captain Carpenter, who said that the screw which was in use was his invention, was never heard of, and never brought forward his claim in any tangible shape, while the engineers who were contesting the matter never once urged Carpenter's patent as an objection to the originalty of other patents or as an answer to the claims put forward by the parties to whom they were opposed. Then came the question as to the Admiralty. The Admiralty very properly said they could listen to no application to pay

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for the use of the propeller till the parties had settled their several actions at law. The patentees had been tearing themselves to pieces, but did they now combine together to exclude all other persons who should not associate with them from any benefits which they might be able to obtain? On the contrary, they adopted the fairest course that could be taken under the circumstances. Their object was peace and self-protection, and therefore they referred the matter to an engineer of very great ability. This engineer, taking the forty-four patents into consideration, gradually brought them down to five, which appeared to him to have that claim to original merit which entitled them to join together, and to derive any advantage that might arise. This was the state of things when a scire facias was obtained by the engineers for repealing Mr. Lowe's patent. The Attorney-General, now the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was counsel on one side, and he (Sir F. Thesiger) on the other. It was evident to both of them that no advantage was to be gained by a contest of this description, and the engineers, on their advice, entered into an arrangement by which they agreed to pay in all money received, or to be received, for propellers paid or contracted for, the account to be furnished and settled by the 1st of May. The persons who entered into this arrangement were the most eminent engineers in the trade, and they entered into it perfectly well knowing that Captain Carpenter's claim was utterly unfounded. The period had now arrived when the patent rights could be made available with the Admiralty, and accordingly Mr. Henry Currie went as the agent of these parties to the Admiralty, not to ask a reward for the merit of the invention, but to ask the Admiralty to pay those who were now admitted to be the persons entitled to claim for the past use of the screw propellers, and to purchase it for themselves for the future. The right hon. Baronet then at the head of the Admiralty (Sir F. Baring) referred the question to the person who was usually resorted to by the Board on these occasions, and on his report, and seeing that the parties had been confirmed in the establishment of their rights, the right hon. Baronet paid the money that was justly due from the Government. That money was paid to Mr. Currie; and when it was insinuated, as had been done in
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another place, that Mr. Currie had distributed this money among his friends, he begged to call the attention of the House to what Mr. Currie really did do. An arrangement had been made beforehand by all the parties that Mr. Carpmael, an eminent patent agent, should be selected to ascertain the proportions which the different persons interested were to receive of the sums obtained either from the engineers or the Admiralty. If that gentleman had conceived that Captain Carpenter had the slightest claim, he would, of course, have interposed and told the parties so. Under his award Mr. Currie acted, and from the beginning to the end had transacted the business in the most disinterested way, with the anxious desire that the interests of all parties should be ascertained and protected. During all this time the screw propeller, which Captain Carpenter says was his own invention, was used in hundreds—he had almost said thousands—of vessels. It was an invention of the greatest public benefit, and one to which any person entitled to the merit of the discovery would have been most anxious to make good his claim. Nevertheless, from 1840, when the patent was taken out, down to 1853, Captain Carpenter never asserted his right at all, or challenged the use of what he stated to be his invention, and even allowed other persons to go into the field against the engineers, who sought to obtain the free use of the screw. But in 1854, however, Captain Carpenter applied to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for an extension of his patent. Now, it was important that the nature of that proceeding should be understood. No patent, it was well known, was valid, unless it possessed the merit of novelty. If an action were brought on a patent, it was an answer to show that some person had discovered the patented invention before the patentee; but when a person went to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for the extension of a patent, the question of novelty was never entertained. In one case, a patent had been extended, although its novelty was in question by proceedings in Chancery, and the patent was afterwards declared to be invalid for want of novelty. Therefore, the extension did not at all affect Captain Carpenter's rights. He had never established the validity of his patent by any trial at law. According to his own petition, however, he went before Vice

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Chancellor Stuart, asking for an injunction against the Peninsular and Oriental Company. That was not granted, but the Vice Chancellor told Captain Carpenter that he might proceed by action at law. To the other patentees injunctions had been granted, which were only granted in cases where the patent had been established by an action at law, and this, therefore, proved that those patents had been so established. Therefore, if it were asked, why did not these parties appear before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and oppose Captain Carpenter's application, the answer was obvious. Considerable expense was incurred in opposition before the Judicial Committee, and Captain Carpenter never having challenged his right to the patent would not have that right established or rendered more valid by the extension of a patent. Therefore the parties were content to leave Captain Carpenter to pursue any course he pleased before the Judicial Committee. The words in which the judgment of the Judicial Committee was pronounced had been made good use of by the supporters of the present Motion, but they amounted only to this, that on the evidence before them the screw propeller used in the Agamemnon was the screw propeller in the specification of Captain Carpenter; but as to whether it was a novelty, or as to whether it was not borrowed from other inventions, nothing was said. Consequently, the rights of Captain Carpenter, whatever they were, remained exactly as before. This brought him to the consideration of the practical question of what they were now called on to do by the present Motion. But Captain Carpenter never had brought his action, because he knew perfectly well that the question of the novelty of his invention would necessarily be raised in answer to it, and he had no hesitation in declaring, moreover, that if Captain Carpenter had brought any such action, he would most unquestionably have failed in it. Captain Carpenter, however, had declined to submit himself to the ordeal of a Court of Law; he preferred to come to this House, through the hon. and gallant Member for Bath, to ask for a Select Committee, the only foundation for which could be that he had a valid title to a portion of this compensation. The question was, then, was the House prepared to take this course under the very peculiar circumstances of the case? Were they prepared to substitute,
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what he must call, the very imperfect inquiry of a Select Committee for a solemn trial at law? If the House did decide thus to supersede the functions of a Court of Law, it would be setting a very inconvenient and a very perilous example; and he confidently hoped, therefore, that they would reject the Motion.
SIR GEORGE PECHELLsaid, the elaborate character of the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks showed the necessity for an inquiry. With regard to the disposal of the 20,000 l. by a former Board of Admiralty, no one could suppose that the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Baring) was not actuated by the most proper motives. If the Admiralty had acted in 1839 and 1840 in the same manner that it had done since, the question of invention would not now be in such a confused state. He sincerely regretted that a brother officer should be placed in the position of Captain Carpenter; but it could not be doubted that the country was especially indebted to Mr. Francis Petty Smith, whose merits had been admitted almost universally. He did not expect any advantage to be gained by the scire facias proceedings recommended by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir F. Thesiger). An inquiry by a Committee of that House appeared to him far preferable. He hoped justice would be done to Captain Carpenter; but whether it was to be done out of the 20,000 l. must be left to the lawyers.
MR. J. G. PHILLIMOREsaid, the question that had to be considered was not whether Captain Carpenter was the original inventor of the screw propeller, but whether, supposing he were so, he had had an opportunity of substantiating his claims. Now, Mr. Currie never pretended that he had investigated Captain Carpenter's claims. That an inquiry was necessary was obvious from the fact that there had been an error in the distribution of the 20,000 l., Lord Cranworth having stated that the patent of Mr. Lowe—one of the parties who received a portion of the money—was not one that had conferred on the public the real benefit of the screw propeller. Again, of all the people in the world to decide upon Captain Carpenter's claim, Mr. Currie was the person most unfit. This observation implied no disrespect to Mr. Currie, whose disqualification arose from the circumstance, that he was the representative of the rival claimants and had a direct interest in the matter

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in dispute. Captain Carpenter might not have tried his claim by an action in a court of law; but then the whole of the five other parties who participated in the 20.000 l. did not bring actions before they received their share of the money. Captain Carpenter had already spent 3,000 l. on his patent, and he might well have shrunk from incurring the enormous cost attendant upon litigation, but a Select Committee would afford him that opportunity of establishing his right to which he (Mr. J. G. Phillimore) thought he was equitably entitled.
SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he was astonished to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last repeat, after the explanations that had already been given to the contrary, the assertion that Mr. Currie was the person who acted as the judge upon the competing claims to the invention of the screw propeller. The claims of the parties were submitted for investigation to one of the most eminent engineers in this country, and were after-wards examined by the Surveyor of the Navy, when it was ultimately decided by the Admiralty that five individuals—some of whom had established their right in a court of law—were entitled to receive compensation for the use of their patent rights. All the eminent engineers in London had agreed to be bound by that decision; and, although the Privy Council might have declared that Mr. Lowe was not the original inventor of the screw, yet it also decided that his patent right had been more or less infringed. A more honourable man than Mr. Henry Currie did not exist, but that gentleman never adjudged the question who were the parties entitled to compensation, or what amounts they should respectively receive. The sums were apportioned by Mr. Carpmael, the patent agent. The House could not admit the plea which had been urged to the effect that Captain Carpenter belonged to a profession by no means remarkable for its wealth. The real question was, was he an inventor or not? And a Committee of that House was surely not a competent tribunal to decide the preliminary question whether or not he had a patent right. He had no claim against the public, the Admiralty, or private individuals, unless he had a valid patent right; and, if his right had been infringed, a court of law and not a Select Committee of that House could afford him his remedy. He thought, therefore,
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it would be a mere waste of time to go into a question of this kind, as the Report of the Committee would be of no value, and Captain Carpenter could not make any claim until he had taken the preliminary steps of establishing the validity of his patent in a court of law.
MR. RICEsaid, he wished to offer his testimony to the value of Mr. Smith's invention. A great deal had been stated as to this money not having been bestowed according to the intention of the public. He did not believe that the public had any intention in the matter, but that the Admiralty had proposed that this sum should be given as a recompense to those who were interested in the invention, and that this money was distributed in the best mode it could be. He thought it would be a very inconvenient precedent if they carried this matter before a Select Committee, and he should therefore vote against the Motion.
MR. MONTAGU CHAMBERSsaid, he thought Captain Carpenter had perfect right to the patent of the screw-propeller, and the House had a right to see that a proper distribution was made of the money voted for the purpose of remunerating those who possessed patent rights. He could not avoid, however, expressing his surprise that Mr. Currie, the party selected for the distribution of 20,000 l., should represent a company having a claim to the largest proportion of that money. It was said that Mr. Currie was not placed in the situation of an arbitrator or distributor. This was strange, as Mr. Currie in a letter described himself as the distributor, and in the bond it appeared that he received the money on behalf of himself and others. He must also protest against the course taken by the hon. and learned Member for Stamford (Sir F. Thesiger), of making statements of his own knowledge of certain circumstances connected with this case. He thought that nothing could be more inconvenient or unjust than that a party concerned in the Courts below—deriving from his position certain information, imbibing certain opinions—should state to the House circumstances which the House knew nothing of. The question was, could they and ought they to deal with the case? He maintained that that House was the only tribunal to which Captain Carpenter could apply for a share of the money voted by Parliament. With reference to the expense of contesting a

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patent, he would venture to say, that, though Captain Carpenter had already expended 3,000 l., if he went into a court of law his expenses there would hardly be less than that amount. All that Captain Carpenter asked was, that the House should ascertain whether his claim to a portion of the public money voted by Parliament was well established. Then, with respect to the bond, that might be put in suit by the Lords of the Admiralty, and, in order to enable the Lords of the Admiralty to judge if they ought to place the bond in suit, they ought to refer it to a Select Committee, who would report whether Captain Carpenter's claim was well founded or not. The expenses of this inquiry would fall on the country, and thus expense would be properly incurred in order to do justice to Captain Carpenter. With regard to claimants, there were five, exclusive of Captain Carpenter, whose claim was not heard at all. The decision was made in the absence of Captain Carpenter, and when the claims of the five persons were decided upon, Mr. Carpmael, the patent agent, was called in to name the proportion which the five claims were each to take of the 20,000 l. voted by Parliament. At the conference between the Attorney General and his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stamford the case of Captain Carpenter was decided behind his back, and it was, therefore, right and proper for Captain Carpenter to appeal to the House of Commons to have his claim heard and adjudicated. He should vote for the Committee, on the ground that the House of Commons was the only tribunal that could hear the case.
MR. DRUMMONDsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken, seemed to regret that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stamford (Sir F. Thesiger), had been concerned in a cause which had enabled him to become acquainted with all the details of the question now before the House, and he also quarrelled with his (Mr. Drummond's) hon. and learned Friend for having made a most proper arrangement with the counsel opposed to him, by which a lawsuit was terminated that had wasted the money of both their clients, and substantial justice was done to all parties. Mr. Currie was not interested in the matter one way or the other, but had simply undertaken to distribute the money voted by that House among those who had established a claim
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to it in a court of law. Why did not Captain Carpenter go into a court of law? If he had done so, the case would not have been decided behind his back. A Select Committee was the worst tribunal for the decision of scientific cases of this kind, and persons upon whom no suspicion could rest had already examined into and refused the claim brought forward by Captain Carpenter.
CAPTAIN SCOBELL, in reply, said, that the distribution of the money had been placed entirely under the control of Mr. Currie, and that Captain Carpenter's claim had never been examined previous to the distribution. Captain Carpenter had been designedly shut out, because the parties interested did not wish his claim to be referred to Mr. Carpmael. The House of Commons, as the holders of the public purse, had voted a sum of money to the inventors of the screw propeller, and he thought, therefore, that they ought to assent to the appointment of a Committee before which Mr. Smith, Captain Carpenter, or any other claimants of the reward might obtain a hearing.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 69; Majority 20.

FORMATION OF PARISHES, &c. BILL.
THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, that in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make better provision for the formation and endowment of separate and distinct parishes, he wished to point out that the measure was rendered necessary by an Act which was passed last Session to continue the existence of the Church Building Commissioners until July, 1856. The object of the Bill was, in the first place, to carry out the powers now vested in the Church Building Commissioners by means of the Act commonly known as Sir Robert Peel's Act, which empowered the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to constitute districts which had no churches at the time of such constitution. When churches were built in such districts they became new parishes, and were regulated by the general law of the land with respect to parishes. The number of these districts constituted under the Act was about 250. There were about eighteen Church Building Acts, and an attempt had been made about twenty years ago to consolidate them. Some of the districts were consolidated chapelries, others district parishes. There was a great

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variety in the districts, and it was necessary to suit the various cases by having separate constitutions for each district. There were, as he had just stated, 250 parishes under Sir Robert Peel's Act, and a strong contrast was afforded by its simplicity as compared with the complex and unworkable character of the Church Building Acts. The Legislature had, in the exercise of a wise discretion, limited the term of the Church Building Commission to two years, and the present Bill proposed to repeal the existing code of Church Building Acts, and so to enlarge Sir Robert Peel's Act as to enable the Ecclesiastical Commissioners hereafter to carry out the general subdivision of parishes that might be necessary. The districts constituted under these Acts had a semi-parochial character, but they were not independent, being still connected with the mother parish. He proposed, on the application of the incumbent or the churchwardens, to enable the Commissioners to give these districts an absolute and independent parochial character. One part of the Bill had reference to the principle of endowments. One means of providing endowments was from the funds of the Church, and under a proper administration that would be a large source of endowments. Another, and a fruitful and successful mode of providing endowments, was that of placing the patronage in the hands of the person endowing the Church. That principle he proposed to extend. At present the patronage was usually vested after the first presentation in the incumbent of the mother parish, for want of a better person to exercise it. The incumbent had no particular right to this patronage, and he proposed, whenever a person was willing adequately to endow a district Church, that the patronage should be vested in him. He proposed to extend this principle to livings under 200 l. which might be in the patronage of the Lord Chancellor, or of any corporation, aggregate or sole—of course with the proper consent in each case. He trusted that the measure, if the House should agree to it, would prove useful and beneficial, and would promote the usefulness of the Church and aid the cause of religion in this country.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he would not object to the introduction of the Bill. The subject was one well deserving of consideration; but of course he should reserve to himself liberty to deal
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with the measure afterwards according to the manner in which it might appear to him to be calculated to operate.
Leave given.
Bill ordered to be brought in by the Marquess of BLANDFORD and Viscount EBRINGTON.
Bill read 1°.

MORTMAIN BILL.
MR. ATHERTONsaid, that in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the laws relating to mortmain, he did not propose to interfere with the Law of Mortmain strictly so called, but merely to dispense with the restrictions with respect to the conveyance of land for charitable uses on full consideration, with the exception of that restriction which required the enrolment of the deed in Chancery within six months after its execution. With respect to deeds which had been already granted, but not on full consideration, he proposed to retain the restriction that they must be executed twelve months before the granter's death. He proposed that the other requirements of the Statute of George II. should be dispensed with, provided the deed was enrolled within six months of its execution. At present such a deed was void if it contained certain reservations; but he proposed that it should not be invalid in such cases provided the reservations were not such as tended to an undue alienation of land. He proposed also to extend the principle of Mr. Peto's Act, 13th & 14th Vic. c. 27, to land disposed for charitable uses, so that the deed of first conveyance might operate as a transfer to the persons appointed to succeed the original trustees.
Leave given.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. ATHERTON, Mr. GEORGE BUTT, and Mr. MALINS.
Bill read 1°.

SPIRITS, &c. DUTIES (EXCISE), BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
Bill read 3°.
On Motion that the Bill do pass,
ADMIRAL JONES ADMIRAL JONES moved, that the following proviso be added to clause A:—
"Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to alter or repeal the provisions of an Act passed in the 11th & 12th years of the reign of Her Majesty, intituled 'An Act to amend the Laws relating to the Warehousing of British Spirits.'"
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he must oppose the Motion. If spirits were delivered for consumption in Ireland, the whole of the duty would be payable in that country; but if removed from one bonded warehouse in Ireland to another in England, then the whole of the duty might be paid in England. He believed that the Bill as it stood was consistent with the object which the proviso of the hon. and gallant Member sought to accomplish.
MR. GROGANsaid, that the only question was whether the words in clause A were in accordance with that object. He did not think they were.
Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
The House divided:—Ayes 28; Noes 56: Majority 28.
Bill passed.
The House adjourned at Eleven o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC Bills.—1a Infants' Marriage;
Customs Duties.
2a Intestacy (Scotland); Union of Contiguous Benefices in Cities and Towns Bill.
3a Affirmations (Scotland).

WAR WITH RUSSIA—DIVISION ON THE RESOLUTIONS—PROXIES.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYwished to call their Lordships' attention to an occurrence which took place in the House last night, and which was of material
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importance to their proceedings. He was sure that no one was more anxious than his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Bessborough) that the proceedings in that House should be carried on in a manner befitting the House of Lords. His noble Friend would recollect that after the division of last night had taken place, proxies were called, but by that time a large number of Peers, who usually sat on that (the Opposition) side of the House, had left without being aware that such was the intention of the Government. Now, the custom had always been—and he (the Earl of Malmesbury) considered himself some authority upon the subject, because he had had the management of divisions in the House for some years—for the party who had the majority of proxies, and were, therefore, the most likely to call them, to inform the other side that such would be the case. This had always been done in courtesy to the other side of the House, and for the sake of regularity in their proceedings. The noble Lord who managed the division on the side of the minority was always informed by the noble Lord who managed the division on the side of the majority whether proxies would be called or not; and there could be no objection to such a course being generally adopted. It appeared, however, that yesterday, probably by accident, this custom was omitted by his noble Friend who managed the division on behalf of the majority, and his noble Friend, who managed for the minority was not, therefore, made aware that proxies would be called. The consequence was, that the division being a large one, and it taking five or ten minutes to clear the bar of noble Lords who were voting outside the House, those who first passed through the wicket quitted the House before the division was concluded; and it was then felt that it would be of no use to call proxies, inasmuch as they would not give a fair idea of the division on that side of the House, so far as proxies were concerned. Under these circumstances, he would strongly recommend to the Government that in future another custom should be followed, and that the doors should be kept closed until the division was concluded. There was, he believed, an order of the House to that effect; and if it had been enforced last night, the confusion that then took place and the omission of that (the Opposition) side of the House to call proxies would not have occurred.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGHdenied

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that since he had managed the divisions on the Ministerial side of the House it had been the custom for the noble Lord who managed for the majority to give notice to the noble Lord who managed for the minority that it was his intention to call for proxies. On the contrary, the notice usually proceeded from the other side. What took place on the previous day was this. He entered as many proxies as he had, and his noble Friend who managed on the other side did the same; and it was clearly understood during the whole evening that proxies would be called. After the division, he and his noble Friend walked up the House together, and when he had got just below the gangway he called out as loud as possible "Proxies," believing that all Peers present heard what he said. He then went up near to the throne, in order to prevent Peers on that side of the House who had proxies from leaving the House. To his surprise, he saw a number of Peers on the opposite side leaving the House; but of course it was no business of his to prevent them. He then went to the table, but his noble Friend on the other side did not appear for a considerable time. He could assure the House that he had not the slightest wish to act unfairly; but no one could blame him for endeavouring to secure as large a majority as possible for his own side.
THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, there was not the slightest intention to throw any blame on the noble Earl opposite. The fact was, that in accordance with the practice of modern days—and he thought it a very useful practice—proxies were now seldom called for; and as they had become the practice rather than the rule, he thought it was very desirable that previous notice should be given when proxies were intended to be called for, rather than when not. At any rate, there should be a clear understanding between the two sides of the House on the subject, in order to prevent any future mistakes. He thought it very desirable to adopt the suggestion of his noble Friend, that the doors of the House should be closed while a division was going on.
EARL GRANVILLEalso thought the suggestion of the noble Earl on this point well worth adopting. He was glad that any intention to impute blame to his noble Friend had been disclaimed. The noble Earl had said that the practice of calling proxies had now become very rare; and he could not help remarking that he could
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hardly conceive circumstances in which it was more natural for the Government to call for proxies than in order to show, not only to the country, but to the whole world, that they had the support of a decisive majority of independent Peers on a question of great importance, and the effect of a defeat upon which must have been (as the noble Earl opposite had intimated on the previous evening), to substitute another Government in their place. He thought, when he saw noble Lords opposite leaving, that they were of opinion that a majority of forty-four for the Government was sufficient for one evening, and they did not wish to swell that number by handing in proxies. However, the reason of what had taken place had now been satisfactorily explained, and it appeared that there had been a misapprehension with regard to proxies which he trusted would not happen again.
THE EARL OF DERBY: After the observations of the noble Earl, perhaps he will give notice whether he intends to call for proxies on Monday evening.
EARL GRANVILLE: If the noble Earl divides the House, we shall unquestionably.
THE EARL OF DERBY: That I certainly shall; but I expect to have the pleasure on that occasion of dividing with my noble Friends opposite.
LORD REDESDALEwished to call the attention of their Lordships to the presence last night, contrary to their Lordships' orders, of a large number of ladies in portions of the House not set apart for their reception, which was attended, he must say, with a very prejudicial effect to the general appearance of the House. The habit of surrounding a house of debate with that which was, no doubt, most beautiful, but which here was out of place, made their Lordships' House look more like a casino than anything else, and was not advantageous to the discussions carried on there. He trusted that this would not he repeated, for he knew with respect to one noble Lord, who would have spoken last night, that he expressed an unwillingness to do so, on account of having to address their Lordships surrounded by an audience of that kind. In future he hoped the admission of ladies would be confined to that part of the House to which they were properly admitted by the orders of the House.
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he remembered once seeing a French farce, in which an English Milord was the principal character,

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and he was represented as objecting very much to the presence of ladies at dinner, because he said they were displeasing to his eyes. Now, he never knew before this evening the original of that English Milord. He must also add, that he believed all their Lordships had not the advantage which his noble Friend seemed to possess, by frequenting the casinos, of enjoying those views of the female sex which his noble Friend wished to deprive that House of. He, however, accepted with great pleasure his noble Friend's satisfactory explanation why some of the speeches delivered on the other side of the House last night, were, in the opinion of the supporters of Ministers, much less effective than they usually were.

THE MAYNOOTH COMMISSION— EVIDENCE—EXPLANATION.
THE EARL OF HARROWBYwished to be allowed to read a letter received by him from Dr. Twiss, and dated yesterday, in explanation of the alleged tampering with the evidence taken before the Maynooth Commission—
"19, Park Lane, May 14, 1855.
"My dear Lord—I was absent from London on Friday, but I have had an interview with Mr. Henry West since my return. I am anxious that our secretaries should be relieved from the imputation of having been parties to any tampering with the evidence. The rule which we laid down, as you will remember, was, that the witnesses should have liberty to make formal alterations in the first transcript of their evidence, for the purpose of expressing their views more clearly or with greater precision, but not to introduce any substantial changes, and that if they desired to add explanations of importance, they should annex them as notes to their original evidence. I have every reason to believe that this rule was carefully observed. The cases of Dr. Flanagan and Professor O'Hanlon were peculiar. The former gentleman was the first witness called before us, and his examination was avowedly conversational; and in the course of it he was given to understand, when he expressed distrust of his memory, that he might refer to the books and documents in his possession as secretary to the trustees, and supply with the requisite accuracy, and in whatever form he pleased the necessary information. Professor O'Hanlon, the second witness, was not furnished with any written notice of his evidence to correct, but only with a printed proof; and not finding enough space in the proof to make his corrections, he wrote his evidence over again, copying the questions accurately, and embodying in his answers the corrections which he wished to introduce. The special attention of the Commissioners was called to this case by the secretaries, and it was not until a careful comparison of the two versions of evidence had been made by the Commissioners themselves, that the corrected version was allowed to be set up in type. The other professors received written notes of their evidence,
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and corrected them before they were set up in type. Some misapprehension, however, may have arisen from the party, whoever he may be, who has betrayed the trust of his employer in the printing office, in Dublin, having misunderstood the reasons why certain portions were struck out after being set up in type. It may be as well, therefore, to explain, that after the evidence had been received in its complete state, such portions of it as contained repetitions of unimportant details were purposely struck out if there was no conflict of evidence, lest the appendix should have become so great in bulk as to deter the reader from its perusal, and thereby frustrate the object of its publication. With regard to the occurrence of two territorial titles in the catalogue of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, I have no doubt that it is to be attributed to an unexpected variation in Battersby's Directory, our only available source of information which escaped detection from us, and the responsibility of which oversight the Commissioners must accept; but it is only just to our Roman Catholic colleagues that it should be known that the Commissioners unanimously decided to prevent, if possible, the use of any territorial title, and I had hoped that our work would have been irreproachable in this respect. As it is, I am happy to think that so few blots have been discovered in it. As to the circumstance of one of our colleagues having submitted, on his own responsibility, some portions of the evidence to Dr. Cullen, as one of the visitors of the college, with a view to satisfy himself upon some conflicting statements as to doctrine, I was not made aware of it, any more than your Lordship, until after the Report had been settled and the Commissioners had concluded their sittings; so that, whether the statement against Dr. Cullen be correct or not, that he misused the confidence reposed in him in referring the matter to his superiors at Rome, the charge against our colleague as to the evidence 'having been cooked at Rome to make things pleasant' cannot be substantiated. It may have been an act of indiscretion on his part to disclose any portion of the printed evidence prematurely, but I think it just towards him to declare that it had not the slightest influence whatever upon the proceedings of the Commission, either in the evidence or in the Report.—I am, my dear Lord, yours very faithfully,
"TRAVERS TWISS.
"The Right Hon. the Earl of Harrowby, &c."

INTESTACY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
On Motion that this Bill be now read the Second Time,
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, he hoped that a few observations would be sufficient to induce their Lordships to assent to the second reading of this Bill, the object of which was to assimilate the law of Scotland, as regarded succession to personal property in case of intestacy to the law of England. By the law of England, if a man died leaving several children, and another child had before married and died leaving children, those grandchildren were entitled to the share of the grandfather's personal property which the father would

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have had if he had survived; but the law of Scotland worked a great injustic in such a case; for if a father died in the lifetime of the grandfather leaving children, they were not entitled to any portion of their grandfather's property, but it was all divided amongst the survivors of his sons and daughters. It was now proposed that that which was the law of England should in future be the law of Scotland also. Some years ago a Bill to remedy this injustice had passed their Lordships' House, but was lost in the Commons, but the present Bill had received the sanction of the House of Commons. There was one point of difference between the two laws wherein he thought that of Scotland had the advantage. In England, if a man died intestate, leaving a large landed estate and personalty, the eldest son was entitled to the whole landed estate, and might also draw his share of the personalty; but in such a case in Scotland the heir had no claim on the personalty, unless he agreed to contribute the real estate, and let all the children share it alike. He begged to move the second reading of the Bill.
Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Friday next.

TRADE WITH RUSSIA.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE,in pursuance of notice, rose to move to resolve, That it is the opinion of this House that, in order to bring the war with Russia to a speedy termination, it is necessary to restrict the trade with that country by more efficient measures than any which have hitherto been adopted or announced by Her Majesty's Government. In bringing forward this Resolution, he felt considerable pain, because he found himself, for the first time in his life, at issue with those with whom he had politically acted for a quarter of a century. But, believing most conscientiously that this was a question either of speedy peace or of a bloody and protracted war, he should consider himself a traitor to his country if he did not use all his privileges as a Peer of Parliament to coerce his noble Friends into a course which he felt to be essential to the interests of this great nation. About a fortnight ago he had entered at considerable length into this same subject, and he was induced to adopt the present course of taking the sense of the House upon this question in consequence of the very unsatisfactory answer which he had received
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from the organ of the Government in that House, the President of the Board of Trade. It was not without having given his very best attention to the subject that he had entered upon the course which he was now pursuing. He had endeavoured to understand upon what grounds Her Majesty's Ministers justified the course which they had taken, and, with that view, he had looked to the opinions of the former President of the Board of Trade. It had been contended in another place that the blockade was ineffective. To prove that it was not so, however, returns of two different years were prepared from the tables of the Board of Trade; but, immediately that they were produced, the Gentleman who had originated the subject in another place pointed out the error of comparing all the imports of one year with half the imports of another year; and, as that was at once exposed, he (the Earl of Albemarle) confessed that he was somewhat astonished to find that his noble Friend the President of the Board of Trade served up a réchauffée of the fallacies of his right hon. predecessor. We had been assured that this was to be an effective blockade. If Her Majesty's Ministers could prove this to be the case, his occupation was gone; but, what he contended was, that let the Government make what arrangements they pleased, short of closing the land trade with the enemy, let there be the most effective sea blockade that could be instituted, it was all a mockery and a sham so long as the overland transit trade of Russian produce was allowed to go through the Prussian dominions. It appeared to him that it would be almost better to take the money which had been extracted from the pockets of the people and throw it into the sea, than to continue the farce of a sea blockade and a free transit of goods by land. He had received, just before entering the House, a letter from a gentleman connected with the Russian trade, and upon whose information he could place the firmest reliance, who thus stated his views of the blockade and its effect—
"The Russian Government has now so organised the means of interior communication to the rivers Niemen and the Vistula, and to the Prussian frontiers generally, that the whole of the produce of Russia is now directed to Prussia in lieu of to the ports of the Gulfs of Finland and of Riga. So perfect, indeed, are these means of transport that even those stocks of produce which had been hitherto retained in blockaded distant ports are now being transported. In a word,

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henceforth our supplies of Russian produce will be limited to the extent of the production in Russia, the blockade being neutralised in toto."
At the breaking out of the war, to trade with the enemy was a violation of the common law; it was a violation of the statute law; it was a direct contravention of the celebrated statute, the 25th Edward III., which made it treasonable "to give aid and comfort to the King's enemies in this realm or elsewhere;" further, it was a violation of the maritime law, which was part and parcel of the law of nations, and entailed upon the subjects of either belligerent Power the liability to confiscation of their property. Such was the original law, and, though he was not disposed always to revere the wisdom of our ancestors, yet he thought that this enactment of Edward III. a wholesome one, and he maintained that war ought to be conducted upon war and not upon peace principles. Three weeks afterwards came that unhappy Order in Council by which in violation of all the principles on which a war ought to be conducted, the subjects of Her Majesty were permitted freely to trade with the enemy, subject only to certain small limitations which were of no material consequence, inasmuch as the blockade had been almost thoroughly delusive up to the present time. He contended that but for that Order in Council the transit trade of which he complained never would have taken place. Two-thirds of the products were intended for British ports; all, or nearly all the money with which the trade was carried on was British capital, and the small remnant of trade and capital which remained would certainly not have paid the expenses of land transit which the Russian Government incurred in order to further the important object of thereby sustaining the national credit of their country. No Englishman would have disobeyed the law if it had remained as it was before. He had a right to assume this, for although war was declared upon the 28th of March, and it was not till three weeks afterwards that the Order in Council was promulgated, yet not one British merchant had been found to make a single purchase in Russia during the whole of that period. He gave Her Majesty's Government the fullest credit for good intentions; but he did say that a lax policy and the absence of ordinary forethought and energy on the part of the Government at that crisis, had done more mischief than the most active partisanship.
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He concluded that Her Majesty's Government had given "aid and comfort to the Queen's enemies" as effectually as that equivocal ally of ours had done, whose wavering vacillation and fraudulent neutrality had been so ably alluded to by a learned and venerable Peer whom he did not then see in his place (Lord Lyndhurst). He asserted that if Prussia had now a transit trade through her dominions, it was Her Majesty's Ministers who had created that transit trade. Upon them rested the responsibility. If Prussia had supplied the enemy with arms and munitions of war, he said that Her Majesty's Government had supplied the enemy with the sinews of war. They had supplied him with those sinews in the shape of 10,000,000 l. to be paid for exports from his country. We want the articles," was, he believed, the shopkeeper reason which was given for this course of policy—at least he could draw no other inference from the speeches of either the late or the present President of the Board of Trade. He had already gone so much into this subject upon a previous occasion, but it was one of such vital importance that he felt constrained to trouble their Lordships with some further details with reference to it; but he must make a few observations upon our ability to bear the sacrifices which would be imposed upon us by acceding to the proposition which he had placed upon the paper. Take the first article of Russian produce—tallow; and he thought that their Lordships hardly could be aware of what a very insignificant portion of tallow Russia contributed to this nation. England itself produced four times as much; and that fact, coupled with the manufacture of all those new substances with the nomenclature of which he had fatigued their Lordships the other evening, was sufficient to prove that all the fears upon that subject were utterly chimerical. Russia contributed only one-tenth to the stock of tallow in this country; but that one-tenth, insignificant as it was to us, was of vital importance to the enemy. He would mention here the subject of imperfect returns. It would be in their Lordships' recollection that he had observed, that there were whole returns made for one year, and half returns for the other. The week after his noble Friend the President of the Board of Trade made the comparison between the returns for the two years, a circular was put into his (the Earl of Albemarle's) hand, not prepared for Parliament, but for the trade itself. He spoke on the

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27th of April, and that circular, which was dated the 7th of May, stated, that there had arrived that week 11,333 casks of tallow from Russia, and, with respect to hemp, that there was now a supply in England unprecedented in any former years. These facts showed the inefficacy of the blockade more eloquently than any figures he could give them, for it included Hungarian, Italian, and East Indian hemp. To show how easily substitutes for Russian products could be procured, he might mention that Mr. Noble, a broker of great experience in East India fabrics, had informed him, that in addition to this there is scarcely a week but that a sample of something fresh of this nature arrives, and that within the last fortnight he had received from Mexico a most beautiful specimen of hemp. He (the Earl of Albemarle) was also told that the superintendent of the Botanical Gardens at Kew had stated, that a number of new plants, which had recently been presented to him, all resolved themselves into hemp, and that there existed in the India House a museum of the fibrous articles, the produce of plants indigenous to India, which would serve for the purposes of hemp. With respect to this particular article, he recommended to their Lordships' perusal a work written by a friend of his, who sat in the other House—Mr. Gregson—upon Indian fabrics. He mentioned this to show from how many different sources we might obtain a supply of this article, besides the large stock already brought into this country from Hungary and Italy. Among other fibrous products of that country there was an article termed jute, and, when Mr. Noble first introduced it from the East Indies, he was greatly ridiculed by those who doubted whether its importation would ever yield a profit; but the consequence of its introduction had been that it now took its place regularly in the market, and in the latest return of imports he found it put down at 27,000 tons. Last night he had received from Mr. Capper, a gentleman who was the promoter of a Bill which lately came before the House of Commons, and who had given much of his attention to the manufacture of jute into a fabric, a letter containing two specimens of the jute in its original state, and in the condition to which it was reduced by a process of manufacture, [His Lordship produced the specimens referred to, which were handed round.] Mr. Capper had tried to get a patent from the Indian Government; but
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it seemed that they were very slow to execute the power which was vested in them, for they had taken just a year before they had given an answer to the application. He was assured by those who were conversant with the products of India, that the supply of hemp to be obtained from that country might be practically looked upon as inexhaustible, since nothing was better understood there than the cultivation of hemp, but unfortunately it was at present only esteemed for its seed, which produced the intoxicating spirit termed "bang," and they were told by some author on India that the fibre was principally used for strappadoing refractory wives and strangling superfluous children. The best proof of the abundance of hemp in this country at present was the fact that its price was 30 or 40 per cent lower than it was last year. With respect to flax, he would now say nothing of that produced in England, but mention that he had obtained the official returns of flax grown in Ireland in 1853 and 1854, signed by the Registrar General, and he would refer to them to show what was the effect of an anticipation of a state of war, and the discouragement its production had received when the Order in Council appeared three weeks after the declaration of war. The Registrar General stated, that in 1853 the increase of the acreage in Ireland sown with flax, as compared with the preceding year, amounted to 37,415 acres; whereas in the following year, after the Order in Council appeared, there was an actual decrease in the breadth of ground sown of 23,607 acres; and a gentleman, to whom he had alluded the other day, Sir J. M'Neill, who had the previous year sown 600 acres, had, he was told, reduced that quantity to thirty. There was another document to which he would refer, and which he thought would have great weight with Her Majesty's Government, because it came from a quarter instrumental to the publication of the Order in Council—the flax spinners of Dundee. But his correspondent, to his credit be it spoken, was not one of the deputation, which, it should be recollected, was rather troublesome to Her Majesty's Ministers. Mr. Oliver Miller, of the firm of Miller and Brown, one of the largest and wealthiest firms of flax spinners in Dundee, alluding to the subject of the substitutes for flax, stated—
"This last year, or rather a month or two earlier, our wits wore set to work to find out substitutes for flax, and samples of fibre poured in

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from all quarters; they were eagerly examined by all concerned. Experiments were made upon them, and some of them declared suitable for our staple trade. What followed? The overland trade through Russia was kept open, Archangel cleared of goods, and a fair average year's importation of Russian fibres obtained. The samples of fibres were thrown aside, and remain to this day unthought of."
That was another example of the mischief of interfering with international law. He had merely referred to a few of the documents with which he had been furnished; but, if their Lordships were not satisfied with what he had read, he could occupy them an hour longer upon this prolific subject. [A laugh.] That laugh convinced him that their Lordships were satisfied that the fear that no substitute could be found for the hemp, flax, and tallow, imported from Russia was a mere chimera. But, even if a real difficulty in obtaining supplies of Russian produce from other quarters existed, he was sure their Lordships would not allow a few casks of tallow or a few extra tons of hemp or flax to be put in competition with the blood of our countrymen, and the sufferings entailed on millions of our fellow creatures by the war into which Europe had been plunged through the cruel and unfeeling policy of a tyrant. He had heard it said, and repeated, that it was nonsense for us to lose this trade—that Russia could do without its export trade to England, and did not care for it. Was there any authority for that statement? Was not the experience of history all the other way? He had stated, the other night, that the effect of stopping this trade would be that the rouble would fall in value, financial embarrassment would ensue, the Russian nobles would become discontented, and that the ultimate result would be a desire to put an end to a contest which was attended by inconveniences so great. He need scarcely remind their Lordships of an occurrence so familiar as that which, fifty-three years ago, happened to the ruler of Russia, in consequence of the stoppage of rents arising from the stoppage of the Russian export trade, nor, be it remembered with the continent of Europe, for that Russia enjoyed, but the trade with this country. A few years later, up to the first half of the year 1807, the Emperor Alexander was our ally; but after the bloody battle of Friedland he put his name to the memorable Treaty of Tilsit, by which he declared his adherence to the continental system of Napoleon—that system which
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made him dispense with the trade of England. The nobles were not blind to the debtor and creditor account of that Treaty of Tilsit. They knew perfectly well that the Emperor might gain a slice of Finland and a slice of Prussian Poland; but they, as under the reign of Paul, would be deprived of half their rents by the loss of he export trade. What did they do? When M. Savary (the French Ambassador) appeared at St. Petersburg they sent him to Coventry—they would not let him a house suitable to his dignity, and they never admitted him as a guest into their own private residences. Distress and ruin went on in the Russian kingdom, and, in 1809, the decline of the rouble was so great that, all powerful as Napoleon was then, Russia was inclined to break the treaty. Prince Hardenberg, the Prussian Minister in Russia, in his "Memoires d'un Homme d'Etat," writing upon the effect of the continental system on Russia, used these words—
"Le systeme continental ruinait en Russie et les particuliers et l'état; la baisse du papier monnaie se faisait setir à tous, et principalement au gouvernement comme le plus grand des consommateurs."
An argument often urged, which he would anticipate, was, that if we did not use the Russian exports somebody else would; but the truth was, other countries would not because they did not want them. That is, they did not want them in the politico-economic sense of the word; there was no effective demand for them. Before a new trade could be established, either Russia would have ceased to be a nation, or she would be at peace with us. Finding that, even with the help of the whole Continent, Russia could not make up the loss of the English trade, on the 10th of December, 1810, the Emperor Alexander issued an ukase which discouraged the merchandise of his friends, the French, and encouraged in every possible way the merchandise of his enemies, the English. The consequence was, that 200 English vessels, under the flag of Teneriffe, went into the Russian ports of Riga, Revel, and St. Petersburg, discharged their cargoes, and received in return Russian products; and, in 1811, a few words from the Annual Register would show the effect that had been produced by this relaxation. The Annual Register of 1811 says—
"The trade with Great Britain had been highly advantageous to the Russians, and many of the nobility derived a great share of their incomes from the sale of products of which this island

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was the principal market. The state of hostility between the two countries was therefore generally unpopular."
Their Lordships knew perfectly well what happened. In 1812 Napoleon threatened to march into Russia with 650,000 men. But the Emperor preferred, as the lesser evil of the two, the invasion of his country to losing his excellent customers the English. He hoped that fact would he appreciated by the Government now. The half blockade now maintained was just sufficient to prevent the honest and honourable merchant from engaging in the trade, but not so effectual as to prevent adventurers from running the risk. He would give an instance, of which he did not think his Friends on the Treasury bench were quite aware. Before the late Conferences at Vienna, and at a time when peace was expected, a number of speculators entered into contracts with Prussian houses for Russian produce, to be paid for at the termination of the war, and pending the Conferences such negotiations were very common. Upon these transactions the speculator paid in advance never less than one-half, sometimes two-thirds, and not unfrequently the whole of the first purchase money. The price of crown flax in England was 52 l. per ton; in Archangel it was 27 l. per ton; it was brought to England for 7l. more, which included freightage, insurance, and other incidental expenses, and that made its cost 34 l. per ton. There was 18 l. over, or, in other words, 50 per cent interest for the speculation if it succeeded. If it did not succeed; then there was 18 l. for land transport through the Russian dominions, the whole of which would then find its way into Russian pockets. Neither the country nor the Government could form any conception of the extent to which these speculations prevailed. He had nothing to say for the morality of the speculators. Perhaps they might be troubled with a few twinges of conscience when they remembered that, while they were enriching themselves, they were enriching also the hitter enemies of their country; but he was afraid the still small voice would be hushed altogether by the prospective 50 per cent, and confused notion that the Government stood in the position of particeps criminis by conniving at the existence of this illicit traffic. With respect to the speculations that had been entered into with regard to the effect that had been produced in the value of the rouble, he
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thought that any reason but the right had been assigned. He admired the ingenuity more than the ingenuousness of these arguments. They reminded him of a worthy alderman after a City feast, who attributed his horrible dyspepsia, not to the enormous quantity of turtle he had eaten, but to his having imprudently taken a wineglass of cold water. In a despotic country like Russia the Government was the merchant, and had always sought to maintain the credit of the country, and to keep up the rouble at the proper figure consistent with that credit. The rouble at the breaking out of the war was at 38 d., or at par; but when war was proclaimed the merchants conceived that the war would be carried on as all previous wars had been, namely, that the trade would be stopped, the rouble fell from 38 d. to 32 d. The Russian Government did all they could to prevent the evil by prohibiting the exportation of bullion, and so far they did right for themselves; but this would have been of no avail, if the Queen's Government had not come in to the rescue, and lent their aid and comfort to the Queen's enemies in their hour of distress. The Order in Council of the 15th of April appeared, trade was reopened by the British merchants, and the rouble came up to the value it had before possessed, or very nearly so—it rose to 35½d. or 37 d. The accession of Viscount Palmerston to the Premiership led to the anticipation that vigorous measures would be adopted. The very name of Palmerston spread dismay in St. Petersburg, and frightened the Russians out of their wits. The alarm was not allayed when, on the 9th of February, 1855, the Court Circular contained the announcement that an Order in Council, using the ominous words of the 25 Edward III. in prohibiting intercourse with the Queen's enemies. The information was telegraphed to St. Petersburg, and caused a panic; the exchange fell, and universal gloom pervaded the commercial circles of the Russian capital. But of our noble Premier, the bark was worse than his bite. It was soon discovered that this Order in Council was only directed against some contract for machinery, the rouble returned to a price which bore about the same proportion to our public credit at 89—the present price of our own funds. He could not help thinking that Ministers had never been sufficiently impressed with the important weaponwhich was to be found in the influence of the Russian exports upon

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the Russian finance. The rise and fall of the rouble troubled the Russian Government more than Sebastopol. They expected a drain of bullion, but they were reassured by our Order in Council, from which they learnt that, while with one hand we were ready to put a match to a cannon, we were also ready to sow gold broadcast among them with the other. It was with this impression that the Russian Government turned their attention to see if they could not injure us. They found that the export trade in flax, hemp, tallow, and bristles were just sufficient to keep the exchangeable value of the rouble up to the credit point, and that was enough. But there was another export—that of corn; and an ukase appeared by which the Emperor, with the view of distressing us, prohibited the exportation of grain. By the mercy of Providence a plenteous harvest saved us from the calamity which this prohibition might have brought upon us; but who, looking at the inclement weather which up to the very moment he was addressing their Lordships had not yet changed, could think without apprehension of the possible consequences of that attempt of the Emperor of Russia to inflict the maximum injury upon us, and the minimum injury upon his own subjects? Their Lordships would do well to remember the old schoolboy maxim, Fas est et ab hoste doceri. Let us adopt the Russian policy, and inflict the maximum injury upon the enemy and the minimum injury upon ourselves. Now a few more words to those he (the Earl of Albemarle) had addressed to the House on a former occasion on the subject of certificates of origin. He believed they would be effective, and several correspondents had favoured him with plans for rendering them still more so; but admitting that they would not answer the purpose of shutting out Russian produce—admitting that he made his noble Friend the President of the Council a present of them—admitting that they were not worth a sixpence, he thought we could do without them. The trade with Russia was in the hands of so few merchants, and they were men of such capital and standing, that he felt confident if the Government would rescind the Order in Council he would be content even with a certificate of origin drawn up by the Emperor of Russia himself. He had returns which showed how insignificant were the contributions of the Hanse Towns, the Prussian dominions, and Holland—the only
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countries which produced them—in the different articles which were supplied from Russia. He was prepared to make a liberal allowance in these certificates of origin for what each of these countries used, and he would not advance the certificate of origin beyond that quantity. He was, indeed, prepared to give up the certificate of origin for argument sake. His remedy was this. Reverse the orders in Council and prohibit the importation of goods of Russian origin or of goods partly composed of Russian-grown produce, and throw all the onus of proof upon the importer here in England, and you will immediately stop the whole of the trade between this country and Russia direct or indirect. Let neutral flags make neutral cargoes, but let the importer of goods bearing a Russian aspect be told, that he must prove his case, and that he must show to the satisfaction of the Custom-house authorities that the goods imported were the growth of a neutral State. Any broker in England practically acquainted with the subject would be readily enabled to discriminate between Russian and Prussian goods; and his own firm conviction was, that if the plan he had shadowed forth were adopted it would operate effectually in crippling the trade of Russia. Indeed, he believed the effect would be instantaneously felt, and that the greatest advantages would accrue to this country in the war in which it was engaged. There was now only one other point which he was desirous of impressing upon their Lordships, and he did so with the hope that the observations he might make would go beyond that House. There was an impression abroad—and he was not certain that it had not been confirmed by the statement of a Minister of the Crown—that there were two parties in Russia—the peace party and the war party. The war party was said to consist of the Muscovite noblemen, and the peace party of the Germans of the conquered provinces. Now, he believed the contrary to be the fact—he believed the fact to be that the Muscovite noble was the real friend of peace, as he naturally would be, inasmuch as the whole burden of the war was thrown upon him, but that the case was different with the German party, who, having little or nothing to lose, had no interest in peace, though they had a great interest in war. They felt that the moment the war was over their occupation would be gone, and they were therefore

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the real enemies of this country in the present war. Having been the originators of the war, they were now doing their utmost to prosecute it, and they would prevent a peace from being concluded as long as they had the power to do so. At the head of this German clique stood Count Nesselrode, and leagued with him were the Luders, Osten-Sackens, and Danneubergs, and others whose name was legion. They were the men who were the real enemies of peace and civilization, and he hoped that the knowledge that they were detected would find its way somehow or other into Russia. That there Was such a thing as fanaticism in Russia could not be doubted for a moment, but the way to deal with it would be to place the country in a state of isolation, and thereby cripple its finances, show the population that the enemy of the Czar, the noble and the serf, was the German foreigner; and if the Russian people were shown that the cry of the Church being in danger proceeded from a foreigner and a heretic, who cared for nothing but the plunder which he would gain from the continuance of the war, that was the way to cure their fanaticism and there would soon be a loud call for putting an end to the war. Sixty millions of people could not live upon fanaticism alone, and the Czar of Russia would be driven to take his choice between anarchy and peace.
Moved, to Resolve—
"That it is the opinion of this House that in order to bring the War with Russia to a speedy termination, it is necessary to restrict the Trade with that Country by more efficient measures than any which have been hitherto adopted or announced by Her Majesty's Government."
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, he most entirely concurred with his noble Friend as to the importance of the object which he had in view; he concurred in the great importance of doing all in their power to restrict and, if possible, to destroy the trade of Russia; but, as far as he could understand it, he did not agree with his noble Friend in the means by which he proposed to effect that object. The noble Earl had spoken as though the trade with Russia had been in no way interfered with by the efforts which had been made to blockade the ports of that country during the past year. He (Lord Stanley of Alderley) was not about to enter into details, because he had already done so upon a former occasion, but, in order to show their Lordships the way in which the blockade of the enemy's ports had been
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carried out, he must be permitted to remark that at the breaking out of the war the greatest part of the produce of Russia lying in her ports ready for exportation was, in point of fact, the property of English and French, rather than of Russian subjects. He admitted that the blockade of the ports of the Black Sea had been not only imperfect, but might almost be said to have barely existed; but, as he had mentioned before, the reason was that, though strict orders were issued to effect a blockade, in consequence of erroneous views the English and French Admirals conceived that the blockade was to be instituted by blockading the Bosphorous alone; the legality of a blockade of this nature was declared by the Government to be untenable. The matter having been referred to the Governments of England and France, orders were issued for a more effective blockade of the ports of the Black Sea, and the reason why it was not so effective as it might otherwise have been was, that by the time the orders arrived, the season was so far advanced that the whole of the fleets of the two nations were entirely occupied in assisting and superintending the embarkation of the troops from Varna to the Crimea. But, notwithstanding the imperfect blockade of the Baltic and the Black Sea, the trade of Russia had been reduced between 50 and 60 per cent, even giving her the benefit of the excess of exportation from Prussia, though there was no reason why it should be considered that that excess of exportation had consisted entirely of Russian produce. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Hardwicke) had declared that the measures adopted by the Government had not affected the commerce of Russia, but had only transferred it to Prussia, and that no injury had been inflicted in this way upon the Russian nation. A statement which he held in his hand, however, would show the effect which the blockade of last year had had, and would prove that the result must live in the memory of the population of Russia. The communication to which he referred was dated Berlin, May 5:—
"The inhabitants of the islands along the Russian coast of the Baltic are described as having made all preparations for quitting their exposed dwelling-places, and retiring to some distance in the interior of the continent. Oesel and Dagoe, which are the largest, have the most to lose, more particularly the capital of the former, Arensburg, which still boasts a considerable market for timber, which in former days was still more flourishing than at present. The island of Nargen, off

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Revel, is already desolated and deserted. The forest that formerly furnished the inhabitants with firewood for the winter was burnt last autumn, in consequence of taking fire accidentally, about the time our countrymen quitted the island. The Emperor has commanded that henceforth a highway toll shall be levied on all vehicles travelling on the road from Engelhardshoff, by way of Riga and Mittau, to the Courland frontier; the amount levied is for the benefit of the Courland and Lifland nobility and the town of Riga. This impost is described as varying from 4 to 1½ silver copecs for every ten wersts (about six English miles). It was reckoned that this would fall very heavily on the commercial interests of the place, the whole trade being carried on by land, and just now very brisk."
So that the Emperor of Russia, who, they were told, was to be at once coerced by a diminution in the trade with this country, which was described as being so important to him that if the small quantity which now came through Prussia were put a stop to, he would fall down at our feet—the Emperor of Russia had so little regard for that trade that he did not hesitate to put an additional tax upon every vehicle passing along the road by which the produce of Russia was to be conveyed to Prussia. A great part of the exports of Russia consisted of corn, and it was to be supposed, that a diminution in the amount would have a most injurious effect on the revenue of the Russian nobles; nevertheless, the Emperor of Russia had put a prohibition on the export of corn, and seemed to feel, therefore, that the reduction in the revenue of the Russian nobles, which would follow that prohibition, was not likely to be extremely injurious. The noble Lord had referred to a certain order in Council, which he said ought to be rescinded; but what was that order? It was one issued because everybody felt that it was impossible to insist upon all the rights to which the British Government laid claim. We were engaged in war in concert with an ally who entertained different views about the right of search and about the laws regarding neutrals. The British Government, therefore, waived—though they did not abandon—the right to which they laid claim—namely, that by which all goods of an enemy found on board a neutral ship were confiscated. Considering the position of Russia, he did not know that there was any great generosity in doing this, because Russia presented an immense inland territory with comparatively a small seabord, and we might blockade every port she possessed, so that not a single craft could show its nose out of harbour
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without being taken by the cruisers of both nations. Another Order in Council, which seemed to have raised the ire of the noble Earl, was one the effect of which was said to be to allow English subjects to trade with the foreigner. Now, the Order in Council of the 15th of April, 1854, to which he supposed the noble Lord referred, no doubt did permit all vessels under a neutral or friendly flag to import all goods and merchandise whatever, to whomsoever they might belong, and allowed British subjects freely to trade with all places, wherever situated, which were not in a state of blockade. The only effect of these Orders in Council, however, was, that the English Government waived their rights with respect to enemy's property on board neutral ships, and made it legal for them to bring enemy's property and dispose of it without being liable to confiscation. Suppose, however, these Orders in Council were rescinded, what would his noble Friend propose to do? The noble Lord would then call upon the Government to insist upon searching every vessel which came out of a Prussian harbour, and to arrest and seize all property found on board those vessels which the owner could not disprove was Russian produce. But merely rescinding your Orders in Council was not sufficient to do this. By the Customs' laws of this country all manufactured articles—and a very slight process was necessary to give them this character— were considered the produce of the country from which they were exported, and he was afraid that the mode of meeting the difficulty by a certificate of origin would be entirely illusory. His noble Friend had stated that the returns quoted by him (Lord Stanley) on a former occasion were "cooked" and were entirely fallacious. Now, he was at a loss to understand in what respect those documents were wanting in correctness; but his noble Friend a few days ago had moved for returns which he now held in his hand, showing the importations of hemp, flax, and tallow, the three principal articles of Russian produce, received through the Prussian ports in the first four months of the last three years. With regard to hemp, the increase was certainly very large, In the first four months of 1853 the importation from Prussia was 227 cwt.; in 1854, 323 cwt.; and in 1855, 42,745 cwt. But, on comparing the whole amount exported from Prussia during the last year, and allowing it to be placed to the account of Russia, he found that, so far from the

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imports of the first four months of this year representing one-third of the amount usually imported in a year, it did not represent one-fourth, or even one-sixth; so that there was every reason to think that the quantity of this article imported from Russia was diminishing and not increasing. The next article was flax, the importation of which he found by this return was only 12,423 cwt. during the first four months of the present year, while in the corresponding period of 1854 it was 58,518 cwt.; and in 1853, 47,617 cwt.; so that, so far as the export of that article through Prussia was concerned, instead of increasing, the trade had been reduced by nearly one-fourth. With regard to tallow, the importation from Prussia during the first four months of 1855 was 144,035 cwt., and in the corresponding period of 1854, 3,694 cwt.—certainly a considerable increase. As regarded flax, the actual decrease in the export from Russia, taking into account all export through Prussia, amounted to no less than a decrease of about 52 per cent. He felt bound to apologise to their Lordships for having so long trespassed on their time, but he could assure them and the country, that Her Majesty's Government felt as strongly as the noble Earl who had brought forward these Resolutions could feel, the great importance of crippling the trade of Russia and of keeping up a blockade with all the energy and strictness that could be shown by the naval forces of this country. He was satisfied that the commanders of the maritime forces of the country would establish a strict and effective blockade of Russian ports and that the seaboard export trade of Russia would be annihilated. With regard to that portion, of the trade of Russia which oozed out through Prussia, he saw so much difficulty—on account of the difficulty of distinguishing that which was Russian produce from that which was Prussian—in devising any scheme which should put an end to it, that he feared to attempt it would be to inflict the maximum of injury upon ourselves for the minimum of injury inflicted on Russia. For these reasons he did not think that it would be prudent to adopt any other step beyond that of establishing and enforcing an effective blockade.
LORD RAVENSWORTHsaid, the noble Lord had admitted the importance of the discussion and he fully concurred with him in that admission, and, therefore, could not withhold his thanks from the
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noble Earl who had brought it forward for having given their Lordships an opportunity of considering a matter which had so important a bearing on the question of peace and war, and upon the trade and commerce of this country. The real point involved in the Resolution of the noble Earl, it appeared to him, was how effectually to cripple the trade of Russia, and the question to be decided to-night was, whether all had been done that it was possible to do to effect that object. The noble Lord who had just addressed the House had been somewhat guilty of inconsistency in admitting the importance of this subject, but at the same time leading their Lordships to suppose that the value of the trade of Russia so carried on through neutral ports was not so great to the Power with which we were at war as those who took a different view of the subject were disposed to believe. He could not, he confessed, understand how far the noble Lord meant to assert that it was of comparatively trifling importance that we should continue to permit Russia to export the greater part of her produce through Prussia; but he thought he might assume that it was of importance to Russia as affording an outlet for her produce, which in a large measure provided her with resources for carrying on hostilities against us. In the present and previous discussions which had taken place on this subject he considered that two points had been established. The first was, the utter and entire absence of any efficient blockade of the ports of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff. The second was, the evasion of the blockade of the Baltic by means of the land traffic through neutral ports. Those two points were established; and he might therefore assume that Her Majesty's Government were not indifferent to their importance. With regard to the second point, an able political article had appeared in one of the newspapers, which, after pointing out the advantage to Prussia from Russian produce being exported through her ports, went on to show that as long as she possessed that advantage it was scarcely possible for her to depart from a position of neutrality. It was, therefore, in his opinion, a matter of serious importance that they should consider whether means could not be devised for reaching the Russian trade so carried on indirectly through the neutral ports of Prussia. The value of that traffic could scarcely be diminished in the eyes of their Lordships by

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the figures which the noble Lord had cited, and, so far from being of little importance, all the best authorities concurred in the estimate that last year it had amounted to 10,000,000 l. sterling. The noble Lord had urged that the Government had taken all the means in their power to repress it by a strict blockade. That might be so; but there were two opinions held on the subject of blockade, which it would be well to consider. The more rigid political economists and freetraders, including Mr. Ricardo, who had published an able pamphlet on the subject, urged that the whole question of blockade in these days of free trade and national intercourse, ought to be considered as utterly useless and obsolete, and they urged that it would be wiser to put aside all notions of blockade, and permit the same intercourse, as far as regarded commerce, as existed in time of peace. It might be deemed obtuse and old-fashioned to make the assertion; but he could not help thinking that the principle of free commercial intercourse with a country with which we were at war was as absurd and untenable as for a country to attempt to carry on a great war with a peace establishment. But the Government had taken the medium course between these two extreme opinions; and he must say, with all respect for Her Majesty's Government, that that appeared to him to be by no means the safest course, but one which, on the contary, had led to great inconvenience to our commerce and disappointment to our merchants, while it had tended to the advantage of the enemy and the profit of the neutral trader. What the Government were now urged to do was, to take a step further in their own direction, and, instead of being content with the means they had hitherto adopted for destroying the enemy's trade, to take other measures which would render that blockade what it was not, really efficient. One argument had been used by those who consider the whole question of blockade useless, which he must admit was logically used. They said that unless you had a complete blockade you could only deprive your own merchants of the advantages they before enjoyed from the enemy's trade, while you left it free to neutral ships to carry on that trade without impediment and to the advantage of the enemy, so that in such a case it might be urged that the expense and trouble of a blockade were all thrown away. The noble Lord the President of the Board of
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Trade, in answering the noble Earl, asserted that there had been a reduction of the exports of Russian produce, and read some returns which supported, although he (Lord Ravensworth) must say in a very small degree, the assertion of the noble Earl. The President of the Board of Trade argued that a diminution of Russian produce had taken place. Perhaps it had; but was that any reason why it should not be still further reduced? [Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: I spoke of the trade through Prussia.] The Russian trade flowed through Prussia; but he contended that so far from there having been any diminution, there had been an enormous increase by the overland carriage of produce from Russia to neutral ports. The noble Lord had referred, as a proof of diminished exports, to the prohibition placed by the Emperor of Russia on the exportation of corn from Russia; but the fact was, the Emperor wanted that corn kept in the country to feed the immense armies he had raised. But to show the importance of this indirect trade to Prussia, he would read a return as to the manner in which that Power had availed herself of the Order in Council of August, 1854, which permitted Russian produce to be imported into this country in neutral bottoms. In the year 1853 the exports of tallow from Prussia were 54,000 cwt.; in 1854 they were 253,205 cwt. Her exports of hemp in 1853 were 3447 cwt., and in 1854 they were 366,220 cwt. Her export of flax in 1853 were 242,383 cwt., and in 1854, 667,879 cwt. Her exports of flax and linseed in 1853 were 57,848 quarters, and in 1854, 116,227 quarters. He thought these figures sufficiently proved the value of that export trade to Prussia, and so long as that trade was carried on through Prussian ports, so long would the war be popular and profitable to Prussia; and so long would that country resist any attempt by diplomacy, or any other means we could use, to bring her into that great European alliance on which we must depend for diminishing and controlling that colossal Power with which we were at war. Having shown the extent and value of the trade through neutral ports, he would now direct the attention of their Lordships to the mode by which that trade might be restricted. He simply should propose that Her Majesty should be advised to impose a duty of from 20 to 25 per cent ad valorem on all cargoes of Russian produce imported into this country in ships of whatever nation from all ports in the Baltic and Black

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Sea. He could see no sort of objection to such a proposition. We were at war with a great Power, and with that Power a great trade was carried on. It was our interest at once to choke that trade in their own ports, if possible, and if we could not blockade their ports effectually, we could impose a duty on cargoes coming from these ports, while, if not equivalent to a prohibition, would throw an additional burden on Russia, tend greatly to restrict her commerce, and swell our own resources. He could see no practical difficulty in the way of such a course. It would act as a vigorous home-thrust at the resources of the enemy, and at the same time prove a great encouragement to British enterprise; because it had been clearly proved by all the authorities who had spoken on the subject that almost all the articles now procured from Russia could be got from other parts of the world, and especially from our own Colonies. He believed that India alone, if its resources were properly developed, and if encouragement were given to the growth of its fibrous plants, would supply an ample quantity for all the demands of this country. In the paper which he held in his hand, The Calcutta Review, there was a list of thirty-one fibrous plants, all of which were found in great abundance among the productions of India, and, with very little cultivation, would yield any quantity of fibre which our manufacturers might need. The Writer added, that among the many important questions which were now pressing upon the attention of the country none was more important than the means of providing an effective and ample substitute for Russian flax and hemp; for if there was any advantage obtained by war, it was in the development of trade in new quarters consequent upon the restrictions imposed on the trade of the belligerent Power. He thought the suggestion he had made to the Government was worthy of consideration, because, if restricting and discriminating duties levied in our ports would lead to a diminished supply of the articles in question, it would give encouragement to the trade of India and of our Colonies. It might be urged that it would be an artificial encouragement, and inconsistent with the principles of free trade; but the paramount object was to put a stop to the war. That was the point to which all our efforts and all our energies should be directed, and, as to any future inconvenience which might arise from any
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undue encouragement to other parts of the world, great corresponding benefits would accrue. Any increase of commerce with India would have the effect of increasing the internal communications of those productive regions, and that would be an advantage which would not cease with the present emergency. It would be the means of stimulating the undeveloped resources of those mighty countries in a manner which no immediate calculations could adequately represent. Even supposing some inconvenience arose from the measure, that inconvenience would be slight and trifling compared with the object they had in view. But was inconvenience to commerce the only inconvenience of war? Was there no inconvenience in raising by taxation an annual sum of 81,000,000 l.? Was there no inconvenience in adding by one stroke of the pen 16,000,000 l. to the already accumulated debt of the country? Was there no inconvenience in approximating to a 10 per cent income tax? All these inconveniences would have to be endured so long as this unhappy war should continue; and was the hypothetical inconvenience of one small branch of the community to be set against them? Having had some means of ascertaining the feelings of the commercial interest, it was his firm belief that any vigorous step for the purpose of concluding the war would, whatever temporary inconvenience it might inflict, meet with their general assent and approbation. Let them look at the character of the enemy with whom we were engaged, and the sacrifices he had already made, to gain his ends. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Lansdowne) had stated on authority, which he had termed unquestionable, that not less than 240,000 of the enemy's troops had already perished in these campaigns; and yet, so far as he could judge from the papers which had been laid on the table, it was evident that the Russian Ministers had gone to the Conference at Vienna without any intention from the beginning of bringing them to an amicable termination. With an enemy of that description they should be prepared to meet him on all points. This war was not a mere territorial war, but also a commercial war, and throughout the whole of his dominions the effect of the restriction he (Lord Ravensworth) had proposed would be felt. He desired that England should make her power known and acknowledged throughout the whole Russian empire. It should

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not merely be said that she had to dread the power of our arms by sea and land, but that she should know also the value of our commerce; and the Russian agriculturist, as well as the Russian soldier, should know the power of this great country, so that the same apostrophe might be addressed by the Russian cultivator which was addressed by the Roman poet to the Goddess Fortune—
"To pauper ambit sollicitâ prece
Ruris colonus; te dominam æquoris
Quicumque Bithynâ lacessit
Carpathium pelagus carinâ."
LORD WODEHOUSEdid not say that arguments of considerable plausibility and weight could not be urged against the policy adopted by the Government, but he maintained that, when that policy was fairly considered and more narrowly examined, it would be found to be both wise and effectual. It appeared to him that it had altogether been forgotten by his noble Friend that one of the objects which Her Majesty's Government bad in view in promulgating the Orders in Council was, that we might be in strict agreement with our ally the French in the conduct of the war. Considered as a matter of national law, there could be no doubt that, being a belligerent Power, we possessed the right of searching neutral vessels for enemies' goods, but the question was whether, when we were engaged in operations in alliance with a country whose maritime laws were not the same as our own, and considering that the strict exercise of the right might involve us in difficulties and disputes with neutral Powers, it was not wise to waive that right to a certain extent. The noble Lord who spoke last complained that the blockade had not been I effectually carried out in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff. He (Lord Wodehouse) must venture to doubt that statement, for from the 1st of February, when the blockade of those seas was announced in The Gazette, Her Majesty's Government lost not a moment in enforcing the blockade, and he would express his belief that before long there would not be a single Russian port which was not effectively blockaded. Another plan to which allusion had been made, not so much in that House as out of doors and in another place, as a means of stopping the trade with Russia, was the establishment of the system of certificates of origin. It was, however, obvious to all who had considered the
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subject, that the evasion of those certificates, cither by converting the raw material into manufactured articles, by procuring false certificates, or in a hundred other modes, was attended with so little difficulty that such a system must prove ineffective; take the article of tallow, for instance, the large importation of which was certainly remarkable, and which it was their great object to stop; yet tallow was the very article which it was most easy to convert either into stearine or some other manufactured article, so as to render certificates of origin perfectly useless. Neither was the plan of imposing a restrictive duty of 20 or 25 per cent on all produce imported from ports in the Baltic or Black Sea a sound one; for the importation might easily be made to various neutral ports in other States—to Amsterdam, for instance, and thence to England, so as to evade the duty, and the effect would be that we should be inflicting the maximum injury upon this country without inconveniencing Russia. With regard to the returns alluded to, no direct inference could be drawn from them, because one set referred to the whole year, while the other related to only four months, and the increase in the Russian exports for four months before April could easily be explained, for the noble Lord had overlooked the fact, that, whereas the ordinary course of Russian trade was by sea, and the ports wore not usually open before that month, in the present condition of the trade of Russia the conveyance was all overland, and the most favourable time for transit was the winter; so that there would naturally be an increase in the imports of Russian produce from neutral ports at the beginning of the year. The question was not one of free trade or protection—considerations which could not be allowed to enter into a war, but simply as to the means of inflicting the greatest injury upon the enemy. Upon the whole, he considered the policy pursued by the Government had been a wise one, and that it had been attended with beneficial results.
LORD BERNERShad, on the 6th of March, when he brought forward a Motion with respect to the exportation of munitions of war, been informed by the noble Earl the President of the Council, that the Prussian Government had given an assurance to Her Majesty's Government that they would take steps to put a stop to the transit of warlike materials; he wished to

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know whether the Government now entertained any expectation that those assurances would be fulfilled.
LORD COLCHESTERobserved that the real question was, by what means the trade of Russia could be most injured. The noble Lord opposite considered that the object had been best attained by issuing the Order in Council, while the noble Mover of the Resolution and his noble Friend behind him (Lord Ravensworth) thought that that in itself was insufficient and had failed to effect the purpose intended. It was clear that the Orders in Council had not had the effect of stopping the Russian trade. It was well known that there were two great principles always adopted in warfare—one that a belligerent might follow an enemy's property wherever he could find it, and the other that free ships made free goods. It appeared to him that the blockade of the Baltic, although vigorously maintained, had failed in its object, and that the effect of a continued blockade there would be of no use while Russian produce could be conveyed over land. He, therefore, upheld that it would have been consistent with the law of nations if the old principle of warfare had been continued, and to have extended the Orders in Council so that no Russian goods could have been exported from any neutral port in the Baltic. He thought that out of the recommendations made by the noble Earl (the Earl of Albemarle) and the noble Lord (Lord Ravensworth), measures might be taken to effect more completely the object they had in view—the destruction of the Russian trade.
EARL GRANVILLE: In answer to the question put to me by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Berners), I am informed by my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary, that he has no official knowledge yet of the practical result of those measures which the Prussian Government have engaged to take relative to contraband of war. With regard to the plan of the two noble Lords, they have been so conclusively answered by my two noble Friends near me, that I will not injure the effect of their speeches by dwelling on the subject. With regard to searching all vessels that trade with the Baltic, to see whether they have enemy's goods in them, I think it would not be advisable at any time; but I will ask noble Lords to consider whether in a war like this, undertaken with disinterested objects, and one in which we wish to have the sympathies
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of the world, we should be likely to secure that sympathy and moral support if we were to give instructions to our cruisers to search Dutch, Belgian, Swedish, Danish, Spanish vessels, and vessels belonging to the United States, in order to find out whether they had Russian property on board. Even if it were wise to do anything so offensive and so likely to lead the rest of the world to sympathise with Russia instead of against her, I believe you would fail in your object, because, although there was some confusion in the noble Lord's speech (Lord Ravens-worth) with regard to the distinction between Russian produce and Russian property, yet there is the greatest distinction between them. You may seize a cargo of Russian tallow, but you would probably find that it had been paid for by a Pomeranian Jew or a Greek, who, I believe, usually advance money upon these articles; and, although you may find that Russian property in any vessel, yet, by your international laws, you are utterly incapacitated from taking them. With regard to the question of blockade, which was brought under the notice of the House by a noble and learned Lord not now in his place, I sent him an enclosure from Admiral Dundas; and his answer was—that, as far as he was concerned, if he had been aware of the facts thus conveyed to him, he should not have made the remarks which he addressed to your Lordships. It would, however, probably be much more satisfactory to your Lordships if, instead of discussing the past, I were to show the state of things which at present exists. I will, therefore, read an official document which will show the orders given to our admirals in the White Sea, the Baltic, and the Black Sea—
"With respect to the blockade in the White Sea, on the 1st of May, 1855, the coming-off squadron was directed, in his orders, to establish a third blockade of the ports of Archangel and Oregon, and not to fail to communicate the earliest information of any blockade which shall have been de facto established. No notice of this blockade has yet been received. In the Baltic, Rear Admiral Dundas, in his orders of the 7th of April, 1855, was directed to establish a strict blockade of the Gulf of Finland (on arrival in the Baltic), as well as of the Russian ports in the Baltic and in the Gulf of Bothnia. The Gulf of Finland, from Hango Head to the Dagerort and all the Russian ports from the Dagerort to the Filsand light, were placed in a strict blockade by a competent force on the 28th of April. With reference to the blockade in the Black Sea on the 4th of January, 1855, Admiral Sir E. Lyons was

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directed to take care to give requisite notifications after blockades have been instituted, and to be careful that the blockades are instituted by the 1st of February next. On the 10th of January, his attention was called to the above, and to the necessity of blockades being established de facto by the 1st of February. On the 14th of January, he was informed that, by the letter of the 22nd, their Lordships entirely approved of his establishing an effective blockade. On the 1st of February, 1855, the allied naval forces in the Black Sea put in execution the blockade of the river Dniester, the ports of Akerman, Ovidiopol, and Odessa; the ports Ochahoff Point, Kimbonrow, including the ports of Nicolaeff and Cherson, the rivers Boug and Dnieper, also the ports between Kimbonrow and Cape Tarhan, including the ports in the Gulf of Perekop, the port of Sebastopol, the ports comprised between Cape Aia and the Straits of Kertch, including those of Yalta, Aloutcha, Soudah, Kaffa, and Theodosia, the port of Kertch, the Straits of Kertch, the entrance to, and all the ports in, the Sea of Azoff, including especially the ports of Berdianski, Taganrog, and Arabat, the river Don, and the ports of Anapa and Soujak. The ports of Eupatoria, Strelitza, Kamiesch, Kazatch, and Balaklava, are and will remain open, free from blockade, until further orders."
I hope your Lordships will pardon me for having given this explanation.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid he thought an efficient blockade of the White Sea was a most important point for consideration, but, if it were intended to establish an effective blockade, the vessels which were to be employed for that object ought to have been despatched from this country at least a month earlier than they had been. There was open water in a part of the White Sea all the year round, and the blockading force might have been ready to act, and to prevent all commerce from taking place in it the moment the navigation became open. He also felt bound to say that the force sent out to establish the blockade of the White Sea appeared to him utterly incompetent and insufficient for the service to which it was appointed, and he wished to call the serious attention of noble Lords upon the Treasury bench to this subject. He did not know whether the French intended to send out any auxiliary force, but he was convinced that our present force was entirely insufficient. It consisted of the Leander, an old frigate of 44 guns; a very good steamer of 200 tons and 8 guns—the Phœnix, he believed; and two other vessels carrying a few guns. In approaching the ports of the White Sea so small a force would be exposed to considerable danger, because it was perfectly well known, from the observations of our fleet last year, that, though there
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was no large naval force in the White Sea, there were two or three large vessels—steamers drawing little water, and efficient boats in those seas—and there were about forty gunboats, each carrying a very heavy gun. If, therefore, any mischance happened to the blockading fleet, if a sailing vessel got becalmed or a steamer run aground, considerable risk would be run. The uncertainty that prevailed last year with respect to the course that was to be pursued was very detrimental to British interests, and no less than 670 vessels were allowed to sail from Archangel before the blockade was instituted. No uncertainty as to the course to be taken ought to prevail at present, and he could only regret that the White Sea fleet had not sailed at an earlier day. With regard to the Resolutions now before their Lordships, the noble Baron who spoke upon the other side of the House (Lord Ravensworth) seemed to consider the matter under debate as a question of the best mode of crippling the trade of Russia. From the various opinions expressed upon the subject, he thought there would be very little chance of coming to any definite conclusion upon that point:—but that was not the real question for consideration now; and, though it might be useful to discuss that subject, the real question they were called on to decide to-night was, whether or not they could feel any confidence that the Government were determined to do their best under all the circumstances of the case. He rejoiced that it was not intended to revive the practice of searching neutral vessels, and he was glad to hear the opinion of the noble Earl (Earl Granville) that it was inexpedient to adopt that principle in the present war. [Earl GRANVILLE observed that he had not given any opinion on the subject.] He had understood the noble Earl to say that it was not expedient in the present war to assert the right of searching neutral vessels and he had also understood him to refer to the Orders in Council, which announced that the belligerent right of searching neutral vessels was suspended, though not entirely resigned. For his own part, he was inclined to go a little further, because he did not believe that any maritime Power would hereafter venture to assert a right of searching neutral vessels, unless she was prepared to go to war with every civilised nation in the world engaged in commerce. No doubt it was of great importance to injure the trade of Russia as much as possible; but it appeared

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that last year the trade of Russia was carried on nearly to as great an extent as before the war commenced. At this moment, he believed, there was nearly as much Russian produce in this city as the average quantity in former years—there were 40,000 casks of Russian tallow in London, which was about the average annual importation; and with regard to linseed, a greater quantity had been imported last year than in any previous year. Prussia was of course the great gainer, and undoubtedly it was to her interest, so far as the Russian trade was concerned, to maintain her present position. Large sums of money had been expended both by the Russian and Prussian Governments in order to afford facilities for the transit of goods by the overland route; but it was a grave question for their Lordships to decide whether the country should or should not go to war with Prussia in order to enforce a more strict blockade. The trade of Russia consisted of two kinds—that of raw produce and of manufactured goods. The latter trade was carried on overland with Asia, and with it we had not in the slightest degree interfered; the former was with Europe, carried on by Sea, and through Prussia, and this had not yet been affected to any appreciable extent. He was sure the noble Lord opposite would not attempt to enforce the old maritime law, and to run counter to the maxim, that free ships make free goods. In point of fact, though we had abstractedly maintained this doctrine, within the last two centuries, it had been more frequently suspended and laid aside than it had been enforced, and it had been laid aside by treaty with every maritime country in Europe during the last century. It would be a most dangerous doctrine for this country to endeavour to reassert; and the noble Earl opposite, if he was in power at this moment, would never attempt to enforce that doctrine. Although he thought this discussion might be of service, as showing how ready this country was to take all proper means of carrying on the war, yet it was not prudent for them to lay down a doctrine that no noble Lord had yet shown any practicable mode of carrying out. They had been told by the Government that there was to be an efficient blockade of the Russian ports, and, though this would not entirely cripple the enemy's trade, he took it as an assurance that the Government were determined to injure that trade by every sound and legitimate means in their power. If, therefore,
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his hon. friend pressed his Motion to a division, he should feel bound to vote against it.
EARL GREY: Though I think the speech of the noble Earl who proposed this Resolution has received a complete answer, and that my noble Friends, the President of the Board of Trade and the President of the Council, have shown, as completely as it is possible to do, that the various plans proposed for further restricting the trade of Russia would fail to accomplish their purpose, still the importance of this subject seems to me so great, so serious an evil would arise if this House should give any countenance whatever to the dangerous and mistaken policy of attempting to put any further restriction upon the trade of the world for the purpose of injuring the enemy, that I must ask your Lordships' permission to say a few words, in order to point out some of the bad consequences of such a policy which do not appear to me yet to have been sufficiently dwelt upon. Two different plans have been proposed for further restricting the trade of Russia. First of all, there are, it is said, restrictions which we may adopt at home. This course is suggested by the noble Lord opposite, who proposed to impose a heavy differential duty upon all produce, whether Russian, or belonging to other countries, coming from certain parts of the continent. [Lord RAVENSWORTH: On certain enumerated articles.] Just so; and I am informed that our reciprocity treaties now in force would not necessarily prevent the adoption of that course. My noble Friend the Under Secretary of State (Lord Wodehouse) has, however, forcibly pointed out, that all you would do by this would he to drive the producers to send these enumerated articles to a neighbouring port. They would have no occasion to send them to the United States, but they might send them to Rotterdam, to Ostend, or some such port; or they might get New South Wales' tallow, mix Russian tallow with it, and so bring it in in defiance of the prohibition. Thus all you would do would be to make a very trifling addition indeed to the inconvenience which the importer of these articles would have to undergo. Assume for a moment, however, that you succeed in your proposal, and make these articles so much dearer to your own consumers. What would be the effect of this? What is it that has carried us so far through the present war with less suffering than is usually entailed by war? What is it that

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makes our revenue steadily increase, and renders the people of this country able to submit to the enormous burdens which you have found it necessary to impose upon them. What has enabled us to do all this is simply that this war has interfered less than most wars with the general commerce and industry of the country, and that, in spite of the existence of this unhappy struggle, though they are subjected to a certain degree of pressure, trade and commerce continue to flourish. But what would be the effect of increasing the price of these articles—articles of raw produce, remember, which are of the first necessity in carrying on some of the most important branches of your domestic industry? The great brandies of trade and manufacture for which these articles are indispensable will be immediately carried on in foreign countries, in advantageous competition with yourselves. You will drive abroad skill and capital from this country, and you will raise up trades in foreign countries to compete with your own. For let me observe to your Lordships that the circumstances of the present time are totally different to those of the last war. In the last war all Europe was devastated from one end to the other; there was no country in which men could take refuge to engage in industrial pursuits with a feeling of security; and besides this, manufacturing industry had at that time scarcely taken root in any of the nations of the Continent. But what is the case now? Look at Belgium—look at Switzerland, and many other countries which are exhibiting day after day an increasing power of manufacturing industry;—they are already treading on our heels in some branches of industry, and remember that every restriction yon adopt which tends to make raw materials dearer here than in these countries, tends also to enable them still more successfully to compete with our manufacturer. Is it, then, wise—is it safe, at a moment when your own people are burdened with all the sacrifices they have been called upon to make, to give to other nations this advantage in the race of commercial and manufacturing competition, by driving these important branches of trade into their hands? It would, my Lords, be easy to point out many more difficulties which would arise if you enter upon this policy of endeavouring to check the trade of Russia by restrictions imposed at home. The effect of placing that kind of differential duty upon goods coming from particular
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parts of the world is to raise up in this country protected interests, and we know what the consequences of this would be—you create in many persons a great interest in maintaining that state of things, and thus raise up great difficulties in returning to the former system of duties at the termination of the war. I say, then, that you cannot accomplish your object by means of duties imposed at home without doing infinitely more mischief to yourselves than to your enemy. But, then we are told that we ought to revert to the old policy of attacking an enemy's property in neutral ships. [The Earl of ALBEMARLE: No, no; I avoided that subject altogether.] Well, but I heard a good deal from the noble Earl of the repeal of an order in Council, which only says that during this war you shall not take an enemy's property in neutral ships; and, if I mistake not, the great burden of his song was—giving up certificates of origin, which he said were not worth sixpence, in which I perfectly agree with him, for I think they are worth much less than sixpence—giving up these, the noble Earl insisted that this order in Council must be revoked. Now, after what I have stated is the purport of that order, it is perfectly clear that if you are to make any further restrictions, your first step will be to attack the enemy's property in neutral ships, and that you must revert to the old principle of maritime law. Now, are you prepared to take that step? I believe it is one which you can never revert to again, and, in point of fact, if you look back to the history of the last two centuries, you will be unable to find an instance in which any country has submitted to this law, except when it was too weak to resist it. When we consider the vexation and oppression to which of necessity such a law would give rise, is it possible to conceive that any Power would willingly submit to its being carried into effect? Let me, for the sake of illustration, take the case of a ship sailing under the flag of the United States with tallow on board. That ship is boarded by one of your cruisers; it is asserted that the property belongs to an American subject resident in Memel or some other town, and papers are produced to establish that such is the case. Do you suppose that the United States would submit to your entering into the question and deciding it in your courts as to whether the sale of the tallow to one of their citizens had been a colourable sale or a bonâfide

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transaction? It appears to me, my Lords, that the mere statement of the case is enough to prove the impossibility of reverting to such a law. Are you then prepared to enter upon a course of policy which, as my noble Friend the President of the Council has justly remarked, will infallibly embroil you with every neutral State, and which will deprive you of that sympathy which, at the present juncture, is of so much importance? Upon this subject, my Lords, history teaches us some useful lessons, and, I must say, that I was surprised to hear the noble Earl, who has brought this subject under the notice of your Lordships, advert to the case of the great Revolutionary War with France, and the commercial policy pursued during that memorable struggle, as an example of wisdom which it would be expedient at present to follow. I will not enter into details, but the broad results of that system of commercial policy I think every man is acquainted with. With regard to ourselves, the enforcement of our belligerent rights, as they are called, involved us in a calamitous war with the United States, and raised against us feelings of hostility over the greater portion of the world, and it also gave rise to a feeling, which even yet is not entirely dispelled, that England is disposed to make use of her great naval power in a manner tyrannical to other nations. Why, even at home, the grievance of the celebrated Orders in Council was such that they were eventually broken down and repealed, in spite of the opposition of a very powerful Government. How did the adoption of such a course of policy succeed in the case of the first Napoleon? The whole continent of Europe was practically under his domination, and his orders were received from one end to the other. Napoleon issued the Milan and Berlin Decrees against commerce, and I think that all the most intelligent observers of the events of those days concur in thinking that it was mainly to the attempt to make war upon this country by compelling all Europe to submit to a most galling system of commercial restriction that the fall of that great man was owing. The effect of the restriction which he imposed was felt an intolerable oppression and annoyance in every household in everyday life, and it was the operation of that system which created that intense feeling in Germany and in Russia which was eventually the main cause of the fall of Napoleon.
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Mr. Ricardo, in one of his able works, has stated that the population of Russia, in the war against France, were actuated, in the support they gave to their own Government, by the feeling of animosity engendered by the commercial restrictions imposed by Napoleon. These are examples which history affords us; and let me ask your Lordships, will you, with these examples before your eyes, commit the folly of reverting to a policy which we see has been so disastrous in its results; or will you blame a Government for not acting upon such insane policy? I have observed, with more regret than I can describe, that this Motion of the noble Earl behind me appears to be adopted by the powerful party opposite, and I must say, that in adopting it they incur, I think, great responsibility. I think that they incur a grave responsibility in giving any support to those Resolutions, while they give so little explanation of the reasons by which they have been led to take that course. They have, in adopting this course, given your Lordships new reason to rejoice that the division of last night was such as not to bring into the councils of Her Majesty noble Lords who are prepared to adopt a course of policy so short-sighted and pernicious as I have described. If this Resolution is to be supported by noble Lords opposite, it would make me regard their accession to office not merely with regret, but with dismay. It is by such measures of ill-advised and unreasoning hostility in pursuing an enemy, without considering what would be the effect on the rest of the world, that a great empire might be brought to destruction, and I can only repeat that, if noble Lords opposite support such a policy, I can only view with increased satisfaction the vote at which your Lordships arrived last night.
THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, it was not my intention to have troubled your Lordships with a single word upon this subject, nor should I have felt myself called upon to do so, or, indeed, justified in doing it, if it were not for the very extraordinary speeches which I have this evening heard delivered by a noble Marquess (the Marquess of Clanricarde) and by the noble Earl who has just sat down. The noble Earl has infused into the discussion a little more of that party acrimony and political animosity than has been apparent in the course of this debate, for up to the time when the noble Earl rose to

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address your Lordships the discussion was singularly free from those elements. At the same time I am at a loss to know by what perverse ingenuity the noble Earl has persuaded himself that, by assenting to this Resolution, the party with which I have the honour of being connected—a party which appears to be a special object of animosity to the noble Earl—does in any way pledge itself to doctrines which he considers so dangerous, and the dangers and evil consequences of which he has depicted with all the colours of his vivid imagination. I know not, my Lords, by what parity of reasoning the noble Earl has persuaded himself from anything that has occurred in the course of this discussion, that by supporting the present Resolution we have been advocating the principle of exposing this country to the risk incurred by Napoleon from the discontent and dissatisfaction of the nations of the world, who felt their commerce and their industry destroyed and stifled by the oppressive character of the Berlin and Milan decrees. I know no parity between the two cases; I know no risk which the country would run by this Resolution being adopted to its utmost extent; I know no consequence which could arise which would be productive of danger to the country; but, on the contrary, I believe that every man in this country, with the exception of the noble Earl, has come to the conclusion that while the people of this country would willingly submit to the greatest sacrifices, the greatest privations, and the greatest losses, provided those losses and those privations, carried on and inflicted on the enemy by a Government of energy and determination, tended to bring this war to a speedy and honourable conclusion. But, my Lords, with regard to the Resolution itself, which the noble Earl says the Conservative party incur so great a responsibility in supporting, it appears to me to be very nearly approaching to what is called a truism. The Resolution simply declares,—
"That it is the opinion of this House that, in order to bring the war with Russia to a speedy termination, it is necessary to restrict the trade with that country by more efficient measures than any which have hitherto been adopted or announced by Her Majesty's Government."
Well, therefore, the noble Earl talks of the Berlin Decrees, the adoption of the old maritime system, the danger of a conflict with the United States, and God knows what. Why, there is not a syllable
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about any of these things in the Resolution. But what is the Resolution? I have already stated its terms, and I am ready to admit to the noble Earl—if he will accept any admission from me—that, more especially considering the circumstances of our alliance with France, which has been adverted to in the course of the discussion by some of Her Majesty's Ministers, I should be the last man to advise that we should place ourselves upon a footing with regard to belligerent rights which would be at variance with the course adopted by France. I am far from contending that in the present circumstances of the world it would be advisable or safe for the purposes of this war to adopt or to enforce the old maritime law of this country, which might expose us to serious risks of increasing the number of our enemies, and might place in opposition to us the neutral Powers of the world; but there is nothing of that kind in the Resolution of the noble Earl. I have been much struck by the variety and by the direct contradiction of the arguments which have been used by the various noble Lords who have opposed the Resolution. The noble Marquess, indeed, (the Marquess of Clanricarde), made a speech, from the greater part of which I thought that he was about to assent to the Motion of the noble Earl, for the whole point of his argument was that the blockade had hitherto been very imperfectly conducted—that the trade of Russia had in fact not been crippled as it ought to have been; that it was the duty of this country to cripple the trade with Russia to the utmost possible extent; that even now the blockade of the White Sea was insufficient in point of amount and too late in point of time; that we had done nothing to check the trade with Russia, and that it was going on with undiminished activity through Prussia. If, up to this time, however, the measures which have been taken have been inadequate—if the trade through Prussia is unchecked—and if it is admitted by the noble Marquess that it is an object of primary importance to cripple the trade with Russia—the natural conclusion is that he would agree with the noble Earl that it is an object to bring the war to a termination "by more efficient measures than any which have hitherto been adopted or announced by Her Majesty's Government." The noble Marquess concluded, however, by saying—
"It is quite true that nothing has been done; it is quite true that more effective measures ought

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to be taken; but, inasmuch as I have so great confidence in the Government that, in spite of all I have seen, I hope that more efficient measures will be taken, I will not join the noble Earl in expressing an opinion that more efficient measures ought to be taken."
But the noble Marquess is entirely at variance with the noble Lord the President of the Board of Trade, who states that most efficient measures have been taken. He says—
"You do not know how much the trade of Russia has been crippled. You will see very shortly that the trade is stopped. You may fancy that produce is coming in, and that the markets of London are glutted with it; but, in point of fact, we have taken such steps that trade in Russia is at an end; and the people of Russia are suffering the greatest distress from the stoppage of their trade."
That is a discrepancy between the noble Baron and the noble Marquess which I leave them to settle between themselves. Then comes the noble Earl who spoke last, and what does he say? He agrees with the noble Mover of the Resolution that the trade of Russia, through Prussia, is going on in the most flourishing manner, and with the greatest advantage to the latter Power; and he says that, in the first place, we cannot check it; and that, in the second, we ought not if we could; but he adds that it ought not to be checked. He says that to stop the trade through Prussia you must either resort to the principle of the old Berlin decrees and check and paralyse the whole commerce of the world—you must have recourse to a violation of the rights of neutrals and of the old maritime code, or you must interfere by means of the imposition of duties. Now, I will discard the first alternative at once; and I ask, what does the noble Lord say with regard to the imposition of financial restrictions? He admits, at first, that those financial restrictions are means which we have entirely within our own power—that there are no treaties of reciprocity which throw any difficulties in the way of the principle contended for by my noble Friend behind me of the imposition of differential duties upon articles of Russian produce imported from the Baltic or from the Black Sea. But he says, "How do you mean to carry into effect those financial restrictions?" He treats with great contempt certificates of origin and all regulations of that kind. I do not mean to say that those cretificates of origin may not be evaded and falsified, and rendered comparatively ineffective; but I say that every obstacle which you place in the way of the trade of the enemy
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does so much the more towards obtaining your object of putting a pressure upon your enemy. But what does the noble Earl say to the proposition, or rather the suggestion, of my noble Friend of imposing differential duties upon produce of particular descriptions coming from those two quarters. He says—
"You will only drive them to take their produce a little further by land, and they will in future take it through Prussia, from Prussia to the ports of Holland and Belgium, and from those places they may import it into this country."
True, they may; but does the noble Earl, who has calculated so closely the disadvantages and consequences of raising the price of the raw material, think that that further land passage and further transhipment and more extended voyage would not have a most material effect in checking the import of that produce, and of so increasing its cost as to place it at immense disadvantage in competing with produce of the same kind, which the noble Earl (the Earl of Albemarle) has shown could be supplied from other countries even more extensively than from Russia. No doubt, if of tallow, of hemp, and of flax Russia had the exclusive monopoly, instead of supplying only one-tenth, we should be inflicting a grievous injury upon ourselves by excluding all importation; but when the Russian produce, consisting of one-tenth, is brought into competition with the other nine-tenths, and you increase the difficulties and expense of transit of the one-tenth, you put a most decided check upon Russia, and you encourage the cultivation and importation of the other nine-tenths. But the noble Lord the President of the Board of Trade lays the greatest possible stress upon the application of that very principle. He says that it is by the more extended transit and lengthened passage that you practically do what he desires to do—and what ever one desires to do—always excepting the noble Earl (Earl Grey)—namely, cripple the trade with Russia as an effectual means of carrying on the war in which we are engaged. The President of the Board of Trade lays great stress upon that principle; but the noble Earl says—
"If you do that, what will be the consequence? You will raise the price of those articles to the people of this country; you will expose them to undue competition with foreign manufacturers, and will create a great amount of dissatisfaction among the population."
But if that argument is good for anything, it is good for everything—it is as good

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against blockades as against all restrictions of any kind soever. The principle is, that you must not raise by financial restrictions the price of Russian produce in this country—that you must not check Russian trade, but that you must foster and encourage the commerce with that country in spite of the war. Then, away with your blockades at once; do not let us go to the expense of blockading—or let us hear no more the argument in this House that you cannot prevent Russian trade, and that you ought not if you could. The speech and arguments of the noble Earl are absolutely destructive of the whole policy of the Government, in attempting to impose restrictions on the commerce of the enemy, destructive alike of the system of blockade and of the system of restriction, however you may attempt to check, thwart, or control the trade of Russia. Those are the doctrines of the noble Earl; those are not the doctrines of the House of Commons, or of the House of Lords; they are not, I will venture to say, the doctrines of the people of England; and to attempt, upon such doctrines and such principles, to conduct a great war with a powerful nation is of all conceivable absurdities the most absurd. One word, before I sit down, upon another point. What says the noble Marquess against the prohibition imposed by financial duties upon the transit trade of Russia? He says that it is a measure of all but direct hostility against Prussia, and that it would be next door to provoking Prussia to go to war. At the present moment the feelings and the sympathies of the people of Prussia are strongly in accordance with the Western Powers in spite of the opposition of their Government; but there is one principle, one question, which may exercise with the people of Prussia an influence adverse to the Western Powers and favourable to the continuance of the present state of things, that is the pecuniary interest derived by Prussia from the profitable trade which is driven in Russian produce arising out of the facilities offered her by the present state of the law respecting neutrals, and which may tend to destroy any sympathy that she might otherwise feel. Deprive her of that advantage, impose commercial restrictions that will take away that artificial stimulus, and destroy the profit she derives from the existing state of things, and so far, in my judgment, from that being a motive on the part of Prussia to a hostile feeling against you, you may depend
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upon it that the result upon her, because upon the interests of the people of Prussia, will be, that they will feel that it is much safer to be on friendly terms with England; and feeling the screw which will be placed upon her by the ambiguous position she holds, and will continue to hold under the supposition of the noble Earl, she will be more likely to unite herself cordially with the Western Powers, than she will by continuing in her present position, by which she is obtaining great pecuniary advantages. I will not say in what particular mode, effect ought to be given to the Resolution of the noble Earl, but I do say my noble Friend behind me has suggested a course, safe, practicable, and I believe, effectual—one which is not open to the arguments and objections which have been raised by the noble Earl opposite, but is in accordance with the principles maintained by Her Majesty's Government and by the noble Marquess, and one which I believe would have a powerful effect without interfering with the commerce of the world, and without, except in a trifling degree, deranging the commerce of this country; for the noble Earl has shown that of all articles now of Russian produce we can probably obtain from elsewhere an abundant supply, and that we have abundant stocks in hand at the present moment. I say my noble Friend behind me has shown the mode in which this Resolution may be carried into effect, without being open to the objection of the noble Earl, and in accordance with the principles of Her Majesty's Government; and feeling that the facts which he alleges are almost undisputed, and that the present measures have not been effective, I cannot conceive upon what principle I can refuse to give my assent to a Resolution, the object of which is to carry on the war with vigour, and which states that to effect that object, it is necessary to restrict the trade with that country by more efficient measures than any which have hitherto been adopted or announced by Her Majesty's Government.
EARL GREY, in explanation, said, he had to apologise to the noble Earl who had just sat down, for imputing to him the extremely restrictive principles in favour of which some noble Lord had spoken, and with whose observations he understood the noble Earl to have agreed.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLobserved, that the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) had stated that the argument in favour of

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further restrictions on their trade was an argument which, if true at all, told against the whole conduct of the war and the operations of the blockade; but everything depended upon, whether those restrictions resulted from the blockade or from differential duties, for inasmuch as the disadvantages arising from a blockade were disadvantages common to all nations, the disadvantages arising from differential duties were disadvantages under which the people of one country alone were placed. He could not imagine how it was that an argument, the fallacy of which was so apparent, could have been received with such a cheer.
EARL FITZWILLIAMobserved that, though he neither felt the apprehensions expressed by the noble Earl on his left (Earl Grey), nor agreed with the strictures of the noble Earl on the other side (the Earl of Derby), he thought the conduct of Her Majesty's late or present Ministers—who were almost identical—had been such as to impose upon him the necessity of voting in favour of the Resolution of his noble Friend, and he did so the more willingly because he believed it would stimulate the Government to throw off their inertness and prosecute the war by more energetic measures.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLEin reply, said, not a single argument he had used had been answered. True it was, that observations had been attributed to him against which the arguments had been levelled—the giants had been first raised and afterwards killed, but nothing had been urged against the Motion, which remained unshaken.
On Question—
Their Lordships then divided:—Content 31; Not-Content 47: Majority 16.

List of the CONTENT.

DUKE.

Sandwich

Montrose

Fitzwilliam

MARQUESSES.

VISCOUNTS.

Bath

Bangor

Downshire

Gough

EARLS.

BARONS.

Mayo

Colchester

Stradbroke

Southampton

Derby

Bateman

Malmesbury

Willoughby de Broke

Ellenborough

Ravensworth

Orkney

Berners

Mornington

Kenyon

Bradford

Rayleigh

Hardwicke

Abinger

Eglinton

Colville of Culross

Lucan

Tenterden

Albemarle

Kilmaine

632

List of the NOT CONTENT.

Lord Chancellor

Torrington

DUKES.

BISHOPS.

Argyll

Chester

Newcastle

Hereford

MARQUESS.

Manchester

Clanricarde

Ripon

EARLS.

St. Asaph

Aberdeen

BARONS.

Abingdon

Ashburton

Bessborough

Broughton

Carnarvon

Byron

Clarendon

Camoys

Elgin

Dufferin

Granville

Foley

Grey

Kinnaird

Harrowby

Lurgan

Ilchester

Leigh

Kingston

Mostyn

Minto

Petre

Portsmouth

Rivers

Somers

Saye and Sele

Yarborough

Stanley of Alderley

Zetland

Suffield

VISCOUNTS.

Vivian

Canning

Wodehouse

Falkland

Wrottesley

Sydney

Resolved in the negative.
House adjourned to Friday next.